A/N: I'm on a roll. Words are pouring out on their own accord. I'll be honest and say I'm really enjoying myself with this right now. Let's hope it lasts. For now I'm riding the wave.

Hey to old and new readers, who dare to take on this epic wall of text :-). I hope you like the show.

Chapter 77: Redemption

We are all the sum of our tears. Too little and the ground is not fertile, and nothing can grow there. Too much, the best of us is washed away.

„Oh. Long time no see."

Gavroche did his best study at lightheartedness, trying to smooth over the fact that his heart was hammering in his chest.

Gueulemer frowned.

„What are you doing here?"

Gavroche saw no use in lying and decided for a half truth instead.

„I was looking for Montparnasse."

Gueulemer looked towards the window behind which his associate of Patron Minette was sitting, and then turned back to Gavroche.

„I wouldn't, if I were you."

The boy did his best to appear calm and put all the indifference he could muster in a shrug. Gueulemer was not specifically clever, and Gavroche was sure that most of the days, he could outsmart them. Most of the days, however, did not necessarily include him being caught in a dead end, while he was spying on one of Gueulemer's associates, who, to make matters worse, had found himself a couple of new and obviously powerful friends.

And if push came to shove, Gueulemer was strong, and, despite his burly stature, could be deceptively quick.

„Yeah well", Gavroche said, brushing it off. „I figure he doesn't want to be disturbed here, but you don't know that in advance usually, do you?"

Gueulemer nodded slowly.

„I would be careful around him if I were you", he advised, gruffly. „This is not a good place for you."

Gavroche considered this for a moment. He was well aware of that, but the question was, why did Gueulemer think so. And he wondered if it was worth asking.

But Gueulemer had made no move yet towards him. He was not a man to play games, he would not mince words and come clean if he would actually try to attack him.

Therefore, Gavroche dared the question.

„Why?"

„There's a cognes' station over there." Gueulemer made a gesture towards the Place du Châtelet, and it was all that Gavroche could do not to slap his flat hand against his forehead. He had not thought of this, but of course, on some level he had known it was there.

And the implications of Montparnasse finding sanctuary in an apartment that was literally in the same house than a police station were interesting and disheartening.

"Ah, yeah", he admitted his oversight. "I kinda forgot about that one."

Gueulemer snorted, then shrugged lightly.

"No harm done."

Gavroche took some heart in the fact that Gueulemer had not yet turned hostile. His reactions were hard to guess at the best of days – he usually trailed along the others of Patron Minette and kept his own counsel, or at least pretended to do so – but he could turn from deceptive calm to violence in a flash and without warning. Still, he toook a chance.

"Some change in Montparnasse, eh?"

Gueulemer made a face, and something within Gavroche relaxed. Whatever brought him here, he was at least clearly not allied with his associate of Patron Minette in his current dealings. That was something, at least.

"Tryin' to stay outta that one", Gueulemer mumbled. "Reeks of trouble."

"Yeah", Gavroche agreed, heartily. "And in spades. I really don't like the looks of it." He took a step towards him and the exit of the dead end, but Gueulemer did not move and he did not attempt to slip past him. Yet. "Which is why I think it's best to get lost, honestly. As you said. Reeks of trouble."

Gueulemer cocked his head.

"Where's your sister?"

"Ponine?" Didnt hurt to be specific, although it was unlikely that Gueulemer was looking for the other one. He had never taken much notice of the younger, meeker Thenardier sister. The bandit nodded, and Gavroche answered with a shrug.

"About", he said, truly not being sure of her current location, but of course being aware that he could probably find her quickly, if the need arose. "Why?"

"That's between her and me", Gueulemer rumbled dismissively.

"What makes you say she wants to see you?"

Gueulemer shrugged, again.

"She's always one for a good business proposal. I can tell her you're looking for her."

Something within him was relieved, that the association of Montparnasse had not extended to all of his Patron-Minette comrades. That, at least, allowed for some hope, that Montparnasse's word was maybe not quite as good as he had made Eponine believe it was.

Guelemer considered his proposal, then nodded.

"I'll be in the Salpetrie", he said. "It has to be tonight."

And with this, without further ado, he turned around on his heel and left, clearing the path for Gavroche who looked after him with a frown.

He realized that this was probably the first conversation he had ever had with the man. Up until recently, Patron-Minette had always operated in numbers, and with the likes of Babet or Montparnasse around, Gueulemer seemed to never have felt the necessity to speak.

He wondered, with a sudden flash, if he knew him at all.

There was not much to look at in the room.

Which, Cosette thought, was part nuisance and equal part grace.

After the door had fallen back closed, after Adelaide had – not subtly – suggested that the two of them have a long talk to sort out whatever it was, that was hanging between them, they had both assessed their surroundings as if solutions could be found there.

It was not much.

The room was pristine, immaculately clean as far as could be managed in modest surroundings, and quite frugal.

An empty desk was standing in the corner, with a bookshelf next to it, laden with books and papers – novels, leaflets, papers, all arranged in neat order. The simple chair in front of the desk was surprisingly comfortable, Cosette realized as she had sat down on it for lack of a better thing to do.

A bed in the other corner provided a seat to Marius, whose movements had messed up a little the carefully arranged bedding. A washing stand and a chest, presumably containing clothes, completed the ensemble.

Really, there was not much to look at at all.

Which was why, after a while, Cosette took a deep breath and moved her gaze to Marius, intent on addressing the elephant in the room head on.

"Listen", she began, just at the same time as he said "Cosette, I..."

They both broke off and she feld a mild sort of amusement bubbling in her chest, but he looked so uncomfortable that it was quenched immediately. He gestured for her to continue, polite, gentlemanly, and she took a deep breath and plunged.

"It's all changed, really, isnt it", she began, feeling a slight sadness at the words. "I look back to our meetings at Rue Plumet a mere week ago, and it feels like another world entirely."

Marius nodded.

"Yes", he admitted. "It does." He moved his hands against one another uncomfortably before he continued. "It seems absurd today to worry about whether your father would accept me.. or what my friends would think."

"Both points are answered, I think", she countered. "My father has gone mad, and your friends have better things to do."

Marius frowned.

"That's a brutal way to put it", he scolded. "To all of them, I think."

"It's true", she answered, on impulse, as a wave of hurt washed over her. She had not forgotten the image of her father's back as he ran from her, from himself, from their life, as if she were just a piece of furniture to be discarded. As if none of the life they had had even mattered. And yet, she knew better. She knew, without knowing the whole story, that her father had been running all his life, and that breaking the chains of the past in search of a different future was the only way of dealing with all he had had to endure all his life, that he knew. He thought her safe with the baron's son she had so defended, and his impulse to flee had gotten the better of him.

Reading the letter he had written to Marius, she realized that there must be more layers to her father than even she imagined. He carried so many pains and secrets it was a miracle he had managed to be the man he was. No matter what, she felt she still loved him dearly. "But you are right", she answered. "It was unkind."

"I'm sorry." The words broke out of him like a flood, all of a sudden, and hotly, and without warning. "I'm so sorry. None of this is how it was supposed to be. I wanted none of this, not for you, not for us. It is all falling apart. I did not want for you to get dragged into this – by god, I would have maybe left my friends for you if that would protect you from it. You were...", his voice was raw and painful, confused and hurt. "... you were such a haven. Such a bright light. I have never – never – felt such peace as when I was with you and.. and then it's all coming crashing down around us."

His description shook her to her core, more than anything because she remembered the feeling he described. The inexplicable calm that had come over her every time she had heard him calling at the garden fence. The way his face lit up at their traded whispers. The way her heart had beaten faster in excitement at his sight.

She remembered how she had realized that this was love, deep and true, and how happy she had been to have found it. How it had been a balm to a wound she had not known she carried around. A wound that had broken up and festered as all came apart around them.

"I know", she said, suddenly, feeling tears welling up in her eyes in pain that she could not help. "I felt it too." And then, just like that, once she started, she could not stop. Once she had allowed the tears to fall, she began to cry in earnest, to cry for the innocence that was never real, for her father, that was not her father and yet all the father she knew, and for their love that had seemed such a wonder. She sobbed, first silently, and then more deeply, each heaving breath wrecking her body, tears running down her face as she tried to hide them behind her hands, sniffling and hicckuping as the magnitude of events all came crashing down on her at once.

She felt like she was six years old again, and not a soul in the world stood by her side. She cried, as a feeling dug itself to the surface that had been buried for so long, covered by her father's love and care, and now, as he was gone, she could sense it again. The loneliness, the fear, the darkness of each day passing.

She had lost so much, a home, and another and another, a life and another and another, some clear as day in her mind, others only half remembered in feelings and smells, a mother, maybe, and now all the father that she had ever had.

It was brutal, remembering what it was to be truly alone in the world.

And then, all of a sudden, he was there. Arms around her, her face pressed against a waistcoat still faintly smelling of smoke, and sweat, and him. He pulled her against him and through all her shaking, all her trembling, she could feel that he was crying as well, for reasons of his own, for reasons, she realized, she did not fully know or understand, but should, but wanted to.

She moved into him, returning the embrace with equal fervor and held on for dear life, letting both of their miseries shake through them unhindered, and slowly, slowly, she felt the worst subside. She felt him give a kiss on the top of her head, a second one to her temple, and then, realizing that she had been many things, but never a coward, she tilted up her head and met his lips, tasted the salt of both their tears in their kiss and allowed herself to be lost.

It was a heady thing at the best of times, kissing him, but now, here, today, under the gravity of all that had happened, it was a beyond description. She felt her breath first calming, then quickening again, a shudder running through him as she instinctively buried her hands into his hair and somehow knew exactly how enchanted, lost and bewitched he felt, because it was no different for her.

She had no sense of time while it lasted, and she would have continued to whatever point she was falling to rapidly, but all of a sudden he pulled back, releasing her from the kiss only to place his forehead against hers, his breath flying over her face in short, huffed measures.

"Stop", he whispered, eyes closed, remnants of tears still visible on his face. He sounded almost pained. "Cosette, Cosette, love, we need to stop. Please." He was pleading with himself as much as her, she realized, his whole body taught and tense against her.

She wanted to ask why, but some part of her knew. Some part of her knew that this frenzy would lead them to a place neither of them was yet prepared to go. And, while it was invaluable to somehow cut through all the misunderstandings and only half said words to feel again what had been between them was a blessing, nothing was really solved yet.

She owed it to herself – and to him – to not leave things hanging that way.

And so she nodded, carefully, not breaking the connection between them just yet, and followed an impulse to let her hand run along his temple tenderly, grateful for his show of strength where hers, for a moment had faltered.

"You're right", she said, voice hoarse from crying and kissing, not without regret. But it was the right thing to do. "Thank you."

He held on for another moment and then stepped back. She felt a rush of cold at the immediate connection, and while her first reaction was loss, the second was actually thankfulness, because she felt her wit returning in some measure, but, miraculously, the strange rift that had been between them did not come back. Not in full.

Marius took both of her hands in his, placing gentle kisses first on the one, then the other, before leading her to sit beside him on the bed, and she followed willingly, knowing fully well they needed to talk.

When they had settled, the silence that surrounded them was not as uncomfortable as it had been, laden, yes, but it carried more the notion of the rain after a thunderstorm, and less of the thickening in its antemath.

"I...", Marius began, after a while, softly, looking at their hands that were still entwined between them. "I have not been at my best these last days, I admit." He lifted his gaze. "I apologize."

She felt a small smile creeping on her face as he watched him, for once fully in the moment, with her and with himself, conscious of what was happening and all attentiveness.

"Neither", she admitted, and it felt easy and right, "have I. I'm sorry."

He answered her smile, cautiously, and all of a sudden she saw a flash the young man again who had met her at the fence, when the world was simply and all she needed to do was love him.

"So", she continued, softly, "why don't we just try to do better from here on?"

He huffed in something like desperation and looked down at their entwined hands again, half smiling, half wincing.

"I feel as if I truly don't deserve you", he responded. "The way I've run over you these last days...", but Cosette interrupted him, giving his hands a sharp tug to be sure of his attention before he could even think about going away.

"No, Marius, stop." She said it softly, but it got his attention. "Stop it", she repeated more gently, running her thumb over his skin. "Maybe instead of all of this..." she frowned, knowing that what she was asking of him would be difficult for her as well, but also knowing it was the right thing to do. "Maybe instead of this we explain? You explain, and I do? Instead of guesswork?"

His smile was back, broader, but had not completely lost that notion of desperation.

"That easy, huh?" he asked.

"Not easy at all", she admitted. "Neither for you, nor for me. But I think it will be the best, in the end."

He shook his head.

"When did you become so wise?", he asked, slight wonder in his voice, and she found the notion mirrored in his eyes as he looked up to her again, as if seeing her for the first time. And because the situation was so serious, and she was, after all, Cosette, she gave a slightly impish note to her smile.

"It was always there, love", she answered. "You only had to ask."

Now he was laughing, not the full belly laugh you would expect after a good joke or in a carefree moment, but a real laugh none the less, and she marvelled at how it transformed his face, his voice, even the way he held his hands.

"Probably that is my mistake", he admitted softly. "Maybe I have not even begun to appreciate you, Cosette. But maybe.. maybe it is not too late."

There was a question in that statement, veiled, careful, but there none the less, and Cosette shook her head vehemently.

"It is definitely not to late to learn who we really are." She wondered where she took the certainty from, but it was there, again, all of a sudden, that she was indeed, as she had said, born to be with him, no matter the misunderstandings they had piled up between them.

"So." She repositioned herself to a more comfortable position, her voice taking on a more neutral quality. "I poured out at least half of my story to you and Adelaide already in the garden. I think if fair is fair, it is now your turn."

Marius sighed, extracting one of his hands to nervously scratch his neck.

"I'm not even sure I can explain", he answered slightly ruefully. "I'm not sure I can fully understand it myself."

"Try, Marius. As I tried in the garden. Start, and then you will see."

He nodded, rallying his thoughts.

"My grandfather always accused me of having no sense of the real world, of having my head in the clouds. It made me angry sometimes, like so many things he did made me angry. But I think, somehow he was right."

He took a deep breath.

"Courfeyrac has hinted a little at the same thing...", a wan smile ghosted over his face, "of course he does. I thought... I thought with all I have done I would have escaped that particular failing, but it seems I have not. Not fully."

"With all that you've done?" Cosette asked carefully, trying to pry the half told story from him, in the hope that somehow it would make sense to her.

"I left my Grandfather. I couldn't stand his glorifications of the area before the revolution. I couldn't listen to his derision towards all those less fortunate, and how I claimed that anyone befallen by misfortune probably had deserved their fate one way or the other."

He shook his head.

"I lived with him for all my life, but the older I became, the less I could listen to what he was saying, because I knew he was wrong. We quarreled, many times, and every time was worse than the last."

He shrugged, obviously not happy to relive these days.

"Long story short, in the end I left him. And the money, of course, that he had always given to support me." He smiled sadly. "I was left to fend on my own, and I'll be honest, it was a rough awakening. If I was a dreamer before, I stopped being it then. And it was Courfeyrac and Enjolras, who took me by the hand and showed me the ropes."

Cosette nodded softly. He had told her that he had earned some coin for his studies by working on translations from english and german into french, and that this had earned him a living, meager as it was.

"Still. Some part of me missed the old safety. Misses it still. I can't go back, it was too wrong. So...", Marius continued, "I thought I had been cured of that notion once and for all."

The smile on his face was self-deprecating.

"I'm not quite sure what I expected when I fell in love. But..."

He shook his head.

"It seems that all that I learned was gone in an instant. I don't even have an explanation for it, Cosette. Meeting you... it's safe to say I was not prepared for that. Not my a mile."

The tone of his voice made her heart flutter, and she tightened her hold around his remaining hand for a moment.

"And somehow it felt that after all this time of struggle, things had become easy again. Things were... I don't even know. It felt as if I was given the keys to Paradise."

He swallowed hard, biting his lips at the open statement, his breath slightly unsteady. He was nervous. Of course he was. Why wouldn't he be, considering all the things he said.

"I know", she answered. "I know."

"And I can't even explain it, Cosette. How can I explain the chaos of these last days? Being attacked, being trailed, all the madness and rush of the last days. And those that are still to come." He closed his eyes. "I was trying to hold on so... so very much to the illusion of you. The one thing that felt pure. That felt safe. That felt unaffected by all those things. Everything was falling apart around me. I couldn't bear to lose you."

"Or what you thought I was", Cosette reminded him tenderly. It was clear that he was making this up as they went along, realizing the things as he said them, pure and unfiltered, and although the last part of his speech was not flattering, and, in plain words, brought back some of the old hurt, she clenched her teeth and tried to push it aside. She had asked for honesty, had asked for openness, and was determined to hear him out.

"Yes", Marius said softly. "I was trying to hold on so tightly to..." his free hand made a helpless gesture. "... to what I thought you were, that I didn't listen. I didn't look. I just... I don't know."

Cosette nodded slowly. It was an explanation, at least, and somehow it was calming to understand how the connection they had felt so strongly had dimmed over the last days, had been tinged with an awkwardness that neither of them wanted but both of them felt.

"I think I understand", she answered, and he took a deep, somewhat shaky breath and gave her a timid smile. "And I was drowning in my own confusion." She shook her head. "I do not know what finally started it, but all those half memories...", she shivered, trying not to go near the feelings that dreams had brought to the surface, "... they are confusing at best, and terrifying otherwise."

She sighed softly, looking up to meet Marius' gaze again. A slight frown was on his face, and he was watching her intently, listening, finally fully listening to what she had to say.

"We were both ill equipped to support each other."

He swallowed hard, but nodded, holding her gaze. "I'm sorry", he whispered. "Cosette, I am so sorry."

She took a deep breath, taking both her hands from his, placing them tenderly on both sides of his face. He closed his eyes for a moment at the touch, visibly swallowing again.

"We have said it before, Marius", she said softly. "Let's try to do better. We both have no idea what tomorrow will bring. Your friends are considering to set the city in flames, and I was just left by the only family I can remember. We are adrift, both of us. But we are here. And we have each other. Let us try to make something of that. Let us not lose each other again, hold tight, and see what tomorrow brings."

He nodded, and then, all of a sudden, she found herself embraced in a tight hug, buried his face against his shoulder and felt him do the same. For a moment, they just sat there, feeling the closeness drain the tight worry, the pain out of their bones for a moment. "I almost lost you", he whispered, in audibly, against her neck. "God help me, it feels as if I almost lost you."

She shook her head.

"Don't go there", she whispered. "That's not a place we want to be, remember?"

He nodded, a slight laugh running through him as he moved back again, bringing a little distance between them again.

"I may need the occasional reminder of that", he admitted ruefully and she nodded.

"I will try to remember that."

Silence settled, for the third time since they had started their conversation in this room, but this time it was a comfortable one. Through the thin walls, they heard the mumbling of conversation from next door, and Cosette turned to lean against Marius, his arms coming around her again, more softly this time. Her heart slowed and she felt somehow sore, as if the conversation that just occurred had rubbed against an already tender, hurt part of her heart, but, she realized, it was a good soreness, one, that spoke of a cautious hope of healing.

She had no idea where she would go from here. And, she suspected, this was similar for him. She would need to figure out where her father went, and what demons he was running from. She would need to find out how to continue their relationship, and, most of all, they needed to figure out what the unrest of the next days would bring.

But for now, she allowed herself a bit of respite, and the simple, yet infinite comfort of not being alone. And for now, that was enough.