A/N: I'll be honest. This chapter is not one that I am happy with. But I just straight up do not have the energy to try to fix it at the moment, so it will stand as a testament to my feel awful and low.
I hope you all find it better than I do!
Amélie sees her getting the shaving things (soap, check, shaving knife, check, facecloth and mirror, check check) from the store, and arches an eyebrow, a knowing twinkle in her eye. "I presume it's for your brother and cousin."
"You presume right."
And Amélie's lip twitches into a grin. "They're officers. I'm surprised it took this long for them to want shaving."
Officers. Officers are always so conscious of their appearance, about being trim and proper. Marguerite had never shaved a man before (had never even seen her father shave, though he always keeps his cheeks smooth, and when she was a girl he had a very tidy moustache, until the grey came into it and he shaved it off.) And in spite of herself, Marguerite feels a slight chuckle rise inside of her. It's just—just so typical, so normal, almost cliché that Konstin would insist on being shaved before he can return to Paris, and that Antoine would wish to be shaved too. She's never seen them as officers before, never had to, but it's such a stereotypical thing for them to desire.
The chuckle bubbles in her throat, and she almost lets it out, almost, but she clamps down the urge hard, biting her lip. If she starts chuckling now, starts laughing over anything, she will not be able to stop. And laughing will turn to weeping and then Amélie will pick her up off the floor and put her to bed, and everyone will see, will have it confirmed for them, that she is walking on a tightrope and chuckling now would be falling and if she falls she will never be able to right herself, will end up cracked into a thousand tiny pieces.
Would Edouard have wanted to be shaved? He never said, but she should have thought of it. His stubble was dark, and she can feel it beneath her fingertips. He was an officer, too. If he had been stronger, surely he would have mentioned it.
If he had been stronger.
So many things would different if he had been stronger, and the laughter caught in her throat dies away, pain lancing deep into her heart, tears prickling her eyes. Her legs are weak, as if they will collapse beneath her, and the smile drops from Amélie's face, her arms warm wrapping around her, pulling her close. And Marguerite is trembling, trembling against her as Amélie sinks with her to the floor, enfolding her tighter in an embrace.
"Oh, Marguerite." Her breath is soft against her ear. "Oh, Marguerite, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
The shaving things lie forgotten, and there is only Edouard's pale face behind Marguerite's eyes.
SOME TIME LATER
Marguerite's fingers are light on Konstin's cheek, a barely-there pressure, and the movement of the blade over his skin is smooth, as if she has done this hundreds of time.
"We washed your hair when you came in," her voice is soft, barely a breath in the stillness of the room but loud enough that he can hear it over the slight scraping of the blade. "We would have anyway, but it made it easier to see the head wound. They'll cut your hair, for you, if you want when you get to Paris." He is too tired to open his eyes, but makes a noise of agreement in the back of his throat. He doesn't mind his hair growing out a little bit. In truth, he likes the elegance of how it curls against the nape of his neck, but even with his eyes closed he can picture the face of distaste that Antoine must be making at the very suggestion of cutting it. Antoine has always liked running his fingers through it, likes to twine them with it, and smooth it, and sometimes his fingers get terribly tangled when he is feeling passionate and they have to stop to ease them out. No. Antoine cannot be at all impressed with Marguerite's mention of cutting his hair.
If Konstin is being truthful with himself, and he is always truthful with himself, he cannot remember the last time he had someone shave him. He has always done it himself, even in the trenches in lulls between strafes. And some of the men certainly thought it peculiar, and Mazet commented on it once or twice, but in general they just accepted it as something he liked. He has never been able to abide having stubbled cheeks.
Dimly, he sees a crack ofmirror and a lone golden eye shining back at him. Shells whine through the sky, but they are distant, easily tuned out. They are safe for now. Ofcourse he has time to shave.
Marguerite's hand stills the moment that Konstin whimpers, and there is a pang of pain in Antoine's heart hearing it. But there is no blood on Konstin's cheek, and Marguerite is much too careful to have accidentally nicked his skin even though she still looks so very tired (and he has pretended not to see the red that rimmed her eyes when she came back from getting the shaving things, the way she seemed paler, more trembly, and though he aches, again, to ask her if she is all right, he knows she will not give him a proper answer), and it is only then that Antoine realises he has dozed off.
"He hasn't been sleeping well," he whispers, his voice low, the inexplicable need to explain it to Marguerite, to make certain that she does not think Konstin's whimper is her fault, twisting in his gut. "He has—he has been having too many nightmares. And the morphine isn't helping him like it should." They never told her about the opium problem. She was only a girl, and it would have been unseemly to discuss such things within her hearing, and after that there was just—just never any need to talk about it.
Not until now, and perhaps she should know, perhaps she would understand, but the very thought of telling her makes Antoine's stomach roil.
She nods, and her lip is slightly down-turned but she does not press, does not ask why morphine does not help. Instead she dips the corner of the facecloth into her bowl of water, and washes off the last of the soap from Konstin's cheeks. "He's about finished anyway." Her voice is soft, and she looks as if she is about to say something more, as if she would like to say something more, but she shakes her head. "I'll shave you, and then I'll wire Maman and Christine. Knowing that the two of you are heading back to Paris will be a comfort to them."
Paris. It's still sinking into him, the fact that they are getting sent home. Paris. They are going to put them on the train, and send them to Paris. Surely that can only be a good thing.
(He tries to clamp down on the dark suspicion that they are only being sent on to Paris to free up beds for more casualties. If they are being sent on, it must mean that they are well enough now, that Konstin is strong enough. Antoine will not—he cannot let himself think that there might be any other reason.)
The thought of seeing his parents, of seeing Guillaume, is enough to make his heart flutter.
And of course, Marguerite has been promised her own leave too, and by the look of her she needs it so very badly.
"And you," he whispers, a smile twitching the corner of his mouth. "You will only be one day later than us."
She nods, and cleans the edge of the shaving knife, not looking at him. "Yes. Yes, I will."
There are not enough women, not half enough women, to go around all of the officers for the dancing, and so there is nothing unusual in the fact that he and Antoine have sought refuge in each other's arms, nothing at all that may possibly be frowned upon when there are so many other officers also waltzing with each other. The frustrating thing is that they cannot lean close to each other, cannot press themselves together though he holds Antoine's hand up and has an arm wrapped around his waist. He cannot nuzzle into his hair, cannot kiss him though his lips burn to, the longing coursing through every fibre of him and he is grateful for the semi-darkness of the ballroom, lest someone look at him and just know.
"You are a remarkably good dancer, Commandant Daaé," Antoine smirks, feigning the high voice of an aristocratic lady, and Konstin would dearly love to kiss that smirk off his face and leave him blinking in bewilderment. "May I enquire, who was your tutor?"
And Konstin cannot help the smirk that twitches at his own lips, the slight tightening of his arm around Antoine's waist. "Why, Commandant De Chagny, I do believe it was your mother." And he bats his eyelashes. "As you know very well, I have always been most attentive to my studies. Why—"
"Konstin." Antoine's smile has transformed into a grin, and he presses himself ever so slightly against Konstin, just a little closer than is really decent.
"Yes, Antoine?"
"Shut up."
And, oh, but if he could kiss him! If he could kiss him here and now and damn them all with their prying eyes. And Antoine's eyes flash, his lips parted ever so slightly, as if he is thinking the same thing.
He steps back, enough to bring them back into the bounds of decency, and the stroking of Antoine's thumb over his knuckles is a soft promise of later.
Invalided back to Paris. The words are a blessing, a benediction. Konstin is getting sent home, sent home! To where she can see him, and touch him, and talk to him, and know truly how he is, and know that he is safe. To think of him being back in Paris! It does not feel real. She is dreaming. She must be dreaming. It is almost too good to be true and if it is too good to be true then that means it is not true.
But the words are written there in the telegram for her to see. Konstin and Antoine, both getting invalided back to Paris, due to arrive by train tomorrow evening. They will likely be brought to the Grand Palais, where Anja and Émile and Sorelli are all working. Oh, but it will be good to have them so close, and the relief at knowing they are going to be here is dizzying.
Raoul grins to see her smiling when she opens thetelegram, and takes it from her, and when he reads what is written there he enfolds her in his arms and swings her, and she is laughing, laughing in a way she has not laughed in years, and Raoul is laughing too and when he sets her down he kisses her, and for the first time in these long sorry weeks, she feels as if everything might be all right after all.
Several of these men only came in last night, or early this morning, and already they are being moved on, as much out of necessity for the space as their being fit to be moved. Just because they are leaving here, it does not yet mean that they are going to survive.
But Antoine and Konstin will survive, now. They do not fall into that category of being questionable, not anymore, and will not unless some terrible catastrophe befalls them, unless some complication develops against all odds. They will live, and that thought alone permeates through the haze of Marguerite's mind, eases the ache in her heart.
(The ache lingers, cannot fully dissipate.)
She has already checked Konstin's bandages, ensured they are secure enough that they will not come undone while he is being moved, and she has given him more morphine, for the journey, though she knows by the way Antoine watched her that it may not be enough. And Konstin lies there on his stretcher on the ground, his eyes heavy-lidded and a vague lopsided grin on his face even as she checks Antoine's dressing, and finds it secure.
They will travel in the same ambulance. She has managed to ensure that much, and hopes that it will be enough to keep them together in the train.
Two orderlies come, Anatole whose blood was incompatible so long ago with Konstin's, and Hubert, a man who never smiles, his lips perpetually turned down at the edges. She has often wondered about him, wondered what it is was that left him so dour, but she thinks now, watching him as he positions himself at the head of Antoine's stretcher, Anatole at the feet, that she can almost understand.
How is it possible for anyone to be able to smile now?
Antoine catches her hand as they carry him past her, and squeezes it, a mass of questions in his eyes. "Be good," he murmurs, his gaze boring into her, and she nods, and Konstin coughs and whispers, half-slurring as two more orderlies take his stretcher and lift it, "be safe."
Antoine's hand slips from her fingers, and she nods. "I will. And I'll see you both in Paris soon enough."
"I'll hold you to that."
And then her brother is past her, almost at the ambulance door, and Konstin's stretcher is at her side, and she pats him gently on the shoulder. "Don't tax yourself," and the warning is barely out of her mouth when he is nodding, his head lolling.
"I'll behave."
And they are sliding him into the ambulance too, and closing the door behind him. The engine rattles slightly as it starts up, and though neither Antoine nor Konstin can see her, she stands and watches as the ambulance drives down the lane, around the bend, and out of sight.
The realisation hits her all at once, hollowness crushing into her again. There is nothing left for her here, nothing tethering her to this place only the memory of Edouard, and her legs ache, demand movement so she walks, walks without thinking where her feet are carrying her, without wondering if they will miss her back at the hospital, her mind too full of Antoine, of the questions in his eyes, of Konstin's lopsided smile and drooping eyes. They have each other, will take care of each other on the way to Paris and neither of them will be alone, or lost, or worrying or upset, because they will be together. They are in touching distance of each other, Antoine able to reach and take Konstin's hand and vice versa, and they can hold hands in the darkness safe from the eyes of everyone, and will not have to wonder if it is all just some terrible dream.
She is not certain that Edouard was not a dream, that she did not conjure him out of her own desperation, her own heartache. Her heart is full of him but he is an intangibility, nothing solid that she can cling to only a fistful of memories, impressions of kisses on her lips. How can she know that she did not dream him, did not invent him?
Of course she did not invent him. The very idea is nonsensical. If she had invented him then surely, surely she would not feel as if the ground is constantly about to open up beneath her feet, as if one misstep will send her falling into an abyss for all eternity. Edouard existed. He lived, he breathed, he was. And she did hold him, she did kiss him, she did touch him and just because he is gone where she cannot reach him now it does not mean that he never was.
His lips were real beneath her own. And the pulse throbbing in his wrist was real beneath her fingertips, until it ceased to be real, ceased to be.
He had a life. And maybe it was not a very long life. Maybe it could have been (should have been) so much longer, held so much more. But it was a life, and its briefness, its ending, does not make it any less valid.
Her throat tightens, and a slight breeze catches her face so that she feels the chill of it, realises that her cheeks are wet. He had a life, and it was valid, and yes she did not know him for very long at all, never saw him at his best, but this pain twisting in her heart is valid, this aching for him, to see him once more, this emptiness inside of her where he was for so short a time. It was all real. It all matters, and a sob catches her, makes her knees buckle, and she is hitting the ground, the dirt soft beneath her knees, and she does not throw her hands out to catch herself, does not try to break her fall, simply sways and tilts and she is lying on the earth beneath the trees, her arms wrapped tight around herself, the dappled shadows blurred with her tears. And she cries, cries for Edouard and cries for herself, and cries for what was and what will never be, and the tears keep coming, keep coming and coming, rolling from the edges of her eyes to land in the soil, the world hanging still as if it has ceased to turn without him.
A/N: Please do forgive me for any drop from my usual standard.
Up next: A train journey, and a glimpse into something that happened in the trenches.