A/N: Here we go again. Thanks to all who read and reviewed. I hope you like this one...

Leave me a note...? I'd be grateful :-)

Chapter 35: Falling down

"Half-truth is the worse kind of lie"

"I'm not… even sure this is a good idea." Combeferre's voice sounded slightly subdued and his gaze that measured up the grand mansion that was the Dufrancs' town residence was uncharacteristically uncertain. Courfeyrac heaved an internal, soundless, but none the less heartfelt sigh.

He was almost inclined to agree, but not exactly to the idea of visiting Hélène's parents itself, but rather to the fact that in addition to Marius, Combeferre had joined him on this errand.

It was undisputed that of all out of their number, the three of them were those who had the closest dealings with the de Cambouts, and it was likewise undisputed that Combeferre's loyalty to Hélène was near absolute.

However, it was equally undisputable, as far as Courfeyrac was concerned, that Combeferre would have done better to take an example on Éponine, who, after they had briefly met for breakfast and a planning of the day's activities, had curled up on Courfeyrac's couch to catch up on a few direly needed hours of sleep.

Combeferre had not exactly insisted on coming with them, but Courfeyrac had figured that this would be the second best thing for him to do – after getting sleep, which was apparently out of the question. Better at least than staying at home worrying – which he would probably do if left to his own devices.

Combeferre was the only one of them who had already been in the Dufranc mansion, but it was easy enough to find. Courfeyrac gave the bell string a confident tug, and a few moments later, the door was opened by a woman in a plain blue dress. She was pale and seemed slightly disheveled but made up for it with the attempt of a welcoming smile.

"Good morning Messieurs", she said, attempting at friendliness and casualness until her gaze fell onto Combeferre and something in her demeanor wavered for a moment.

"Oh", she said, blinking rapidly once, twice, and then continued. "You are… friends of Mademoiselle, I assume?" She sounded slightly careful and kept her gaze on Combeferre, who, his hat in his hand, nodded slightly and cleared his throat.

"Y.. yes, Mademoiselle", he said with only the slightest hitch in his voice. "We are. We were wondering if…", but the maid did not let him finish, for she stepped aside quickly, opening the door a little wider.

"Yes, of course", she answered, sounding eager, and Courfeyrac wondered if she even knew what Combeferre had wanted to ask. They had come here with the vague thought of offering help and he was slightly surprised at the open welcome he received.

Yet, of course he did not know what had transpired when Combeferre had brought Hélène to this place two days ago. For while his friend did not exactly have easy manners, he did as a habit exhibit equal friendliness towards all people of different standings. This had been well received at the oddest of times.

"You will want to see Monsieur, I guess", the maid twittered and turned on her heel, moving towards a door on the left of the entrance hall – that certainly did not lack in grandeur either, as Courfeyrac remarked absent-mindedly – and into a study, where he saw two men sitting at a large table, deep enough in discussion, that they did not look up upon their entrance.

Only when the maid addressed them, introducing the visitors and stating that they "stepped by because of Mademoiselle", Aristide Dufranc got up and his visitor turned around.

Courfeyrac managed to suppress the reflex of diving for the next hiding place.

Pierre LaManche was a man of slender stature, in his fifties; but time had been gentle on him. The lines on his face were deep but strong, and he had retained a certain lithe elegance that was unusual in a man of his age.

He had lost the majority of his hair, though, and kept the rest closely cut around his scalp, but it did not suit him badly and on the whole he cut a fairly imposing figure.

As he recognized the three men present, he raised a thin, grey brow and returned their greetings with sober countenance. Courfeyrac, however, feared to detect a hint of amusement in his grey eyes.

"Well, messieurs", LaManche said, by way of greeting. "It's been a while."

It indeed had been, although for various reasons. All of them had, at some point in time, attended LaManche's lessons at the Université de France. But Marius had finally moved past the course and continued to study, Combeferre had lost deeper interest in the studies of the law and turned to Polytechnique for the wish to deal with god-made and not man-made laws; and Courfeyrac had, if he was honest with himself, probably simply lacked diligence.

LaManche's chosen field was the criminal law and had been at the university since the last days of Bonaparte. He had – apparently effortlessly – kept up with the shifts and turns in the legal system since then and retained his post throughout the regimes. His lectures were known to be dry, not exactly lively discussion rounds, and his exams fiendish. However, he had been known to be – on the whole – rather just in his evaluations, which could not be said of all of the professors at the university.

Still, Courfeyrac felt an uncomfortably ambiguous mixture of worry, uneasiness and something that suspiciously reminded him of the feeling of having a bad conscience at the sight of the professor.

"Monsieur", Marius greeted – being the one, whose history with LaManche was the least problematic. It was indeed a rare thing for him to find countenance and manner before Combeferre did; but then again, the philosopher was not quite himself at the moment. "It has, indeed. I am glad we find you well."

"As well as can be expected", LaManche responded and Aristide Dufranc stepped from behind his chair and towards the students.

"Welcome Messieurs, to this war council of sorts." He had dark circles under his eyes as well but seemed otherwise calm and relatively composed. He even managed a small smile. "Monsieur Combeferre, it is good to see you again. And Messieurs Courfeyrac and Pontmercy – I am glad to finally make the acquaintance of men that I have heard a lot about but never had the pleasure of meeting."

Courfeyrac, having regained his footing, responded in kind and with thanks, and Dufranc offered to move to the corner where a chaiselongue and a few armchairs were standing, seen as his desk did not provide the size to allow them all comfortable seating.

The maid brought in coffee while they were taking seats, and soon they were gathered around the small couch table discussing the situation.

"Have you spoken to her yet?" The question was out when Combeferre was barely seated and Dufranc in fact had not sat down yet. A frown on his face he nodded.

"I am afraid no, Monsieur. I have not even been present for the arrest. It was Monsieur Rodrigues who told me about it. We will come to that in a moment."

"Do you know where she is now?" Combeferre pressed on. His fingers were worrying with the armrest of the sofa and Courfeyrac felt the inexplicable need to shove him into the side.

"I have been told that she was brought to Saint Lazare", Dufranc responded, the frown deepening on his face.

"She's been in La Force yesterday evening", Combeferre disagreed and LaManche snorted.

"La Force? That is no woman's prison", he grumbled and Combeferre's head whipped around to him. Courfeyrac had rarely seen his friend angry, but now, the agitated look in his grey eyes did not bode well.

"And yet she was there", he insisted. "I have…", he began, but Courfeyrac interrupted him. Enjolras told him that Éponine had seen Hélène in La Force, and the tone of his friend had made it clear that further questioning was futile. Courfeyrac, knowing about Gavroche and what Éponine was to him, had drawn his own conclusions. None the less it was clear that this was information to be well kept.

"We're fairly certain", Courfeyrac replied smoothly, not daring a warning glance to Combeferre, but hoping he would pick up on it none the less. "The account of some gamins." Which, technically, was not fully untrue at least. "It's of course possible that she is in Saint Lazare by now."

"We should investigate this", LaManche said. "While none of the places are very pleasurable, an unusual placement of her in La Force may give us a moral, if not factual advantage in the upcoming trial."

Marius frowned.

"How so?"

"Very simple, Monsieur Pontmercy. Unusual occurrences usually are brought about by unusual circumstances. We have all remarked that La Force is not the correct place for the imprisonment of a woman accused of murder. The fact that she was there hints towards something unusual. It allows at least a few selected questions that may play to our advantage."

"So, you will take upon yourself the defense of her?" Marius continued and LaManche nodded.

"Yes."

Courfeyrac frowned.

LaManche was a professor at the university, but Courfeyrac had never been particularly interested in what the man was doing beyond the lectures he was giving. He was humorless, so much was certain, and Courfeyrac too clearly remembered a multitude of incidents during which he had probably raised the severe displeasure of the professor. He was, however, not known to hold a grudge. He had given Enjolras the access letter to La Force despite the agitated speech he had given during the lesson of the declaration of the rights of men; where the teaching had actually resulted in a heated and angry debate between the student and the teacher that had digressed from the actual subject in an actually admirable way.

He must have hesitated for a moment too long, because when Marius continued to ask whether a date for the trial had already been communicated, Courfeyrac caught a slightly ironic gaze from LaManche before he turned back to Marius, shaking his head.

"There is the danger that we will not be notified at all; or only at very short notice", Monsieur Dufranc said soberly. "It has happened before; there is no formal obligation or process to follow, as you well know, and I assume we can be sure that interest will be high to get my daughter tried with as little noise and support as possible."

His gaze wandered from one to the other, and Courfeyrac recognized the underlying tension in his eyes, well hidden but still present.

"I assume", he continued, "that between us we will be able to thoroughly spoil that game."

When they came to get her, she was seriously concerned that she would faint or embarrass herself in any other possible way, but gritting her teeth she managed composure.

She would not allow them to have that, at least. Her dignity was still hers.

The hard, narrow bed in the middle of the sleeping room that she had been brought in after the first interrogation had given no rest to her; and another questioning in the early hours of morning had not improved her well-being.

She had not slept at all and felt her body rebelling at the abuse, morning sickness multiplied by exhaustion and a growing, terrifying feeling of dread.

Ever since having been a child, Hélène had prided in her bravado. She had made a point of being fearless, of taking challenges as they presented themselves to her, but this morning, with the summer sun cruelly laughing at her follies through the blind windows of the room, Hélène found herself utterly without ways to turn.

She had known that she was playing a dangerous game – she gave voice to unpopular thoughts, and that did not put her in high favor with those of power, but this had been a scheme she had entered willingly. Hélène and Alexandre had been experts in this setting. She knew all about the ambiguousness of words, in the skillful shifts and turns of phrase that made her utterly slippery and hard to grasp. They had been raided, they had been questioned, but Hélène and Alexandre had been a bastion that had stood against the storm. They were untouchable.

The blow had come from an angle she had not expected.

The thought of Alexandre alone brought tears to her eyes. There were no words to say how much she missed him in these hours.

And yet, bereft of her freedom, utterly surprised, out of ways to turn, Hélène still had her pride. And she refused to give that up.

And hence she curled her fingers into fists and discreetly took deep breaths while the room swayed and turned about her. Her rebellious stomach protested, and she gritted her teeth, fighting for outward calm while the two Sisters of Marie-Joseph that had come to get her took her arms and dragged her along. She brought her feet under her and caught up with the sisters' handling of her. In the grip, she raised herself to full height – still being smaller than both of them – and attempted at an intimidating look as she hissed

"I can walk!"

She was given a quick glance and the grip on her arms relaxed slightly, allowing her to progress through the corridors with a little more dignity, a little more self-control. It was the smallest of victories, but at this point, Hélène would take what she was able to get.

She was led into one of the small chambers that were obviously used for those, who came to visit the convicts.

"You have visitors", one of the sisters said as she was brought into a room. The sisters left again; and as she saw who had come, Hélène would have almost backed out; and begged to be brought back to her bed.

He looked terrible.

The bags under his eyes were pronounced – probably he had gotten as much or as little sleep as herself – and he was pale, deathly pale. He sat in the chair they had pointed him to, vibrating with tension and stillness, and the only thing that seemed to be alive on him were his eyes. Their grey was dulled to a darker hue, but in their expression Hélène saw, just for a moment, thousand flashes of words that neither of them had ever said. For a moment there was a powerful impulse of letting herself fall, of giving in for just a moment, of allowing to relax, to breathe once more.

The last two days had been a never ending nightmare, overwhelming in its surrealism and pain.

But she was Hélène de Cambout.

She did not back down in the face of adversary. And she was a master of whatever it was that beckoned her to Jean Combeferre.

She acknowledged his presence with a nod, not trusting her voice for the moment as she turned to his two companions – Marius Pontmercy and Remy Courfeyrac – giving them a similar greeting as all three got up to acknowledge her presence.

Hélène wished back silence. She knew them too well to be nothing but stone.

Yet, there was no possibility to flee. And she finished what she started.

Thus she sat down and the others followed.

The fact that all three of them were here, had to account for something.

"How are you?"

Of course it was still him who would ask this question, although there might have been a time that he would have known better. Voicing it would certainly not brighten her up, but courtesy, ingrained too deep to completely ignore, prompted her to answer, albeit not in a manner that one might consider fully adequate.

"Alive", she lied.

He sighed, passing both hands over his face and through his hair. A habit of his, in times of worry, in times of panic or strain. A gesture that reminded her of late night discussions with Michel standing in the door of the editor's room, frowning at his pocket watch knowing that time was running and a printer press could only do so many pages per hour.

It seemed to come from a different world, right now.

"Is…", he began, slightly shaking his head. His focus went back to her as he looked at her intently, his restless hands folding before him, "Madame, can we do something for you?"

Hélène narrowed her eyes. The air in the small room was thick enough to cut, and something rolled in her stomach, vicious and painful. She had no time for idle weakness.

"Why are you here?" she asked, rough, forcing her voice to sound matter-of-factly, as composed as she could manage. She felt her back slightly relax as pressure relieved, until she saw the expression in his eyes.

"We have spoken to your father, Madame", Courfeyrac finally prompted in. Leaned back into his chair, he gave such a splendid picture of relaxed nonchalance that Hélène immediately thought of Alexandre and had to take a deep breath. She focused on the dark curls, the brown eyes. He had been the shadow to Alexandre's light, she remembered and held on to that thought. Birds of a feather, as he had heard say. A natural catastrophe as Combeferre once had prompted with a smile as the two had taken turns at teasing Enfantin.

Her gaze threatened to stray, but she kept it on Courfeyrac, who took a slightly more alert stance and propped up his hands.

"He has asked Professeur LaManche to aid in your defense", he explained, and Hélène felt slight relief, though no surprise. Her father could be relied upon. "And LaManche in turn suggested that we pay you a visit to ask you a few questions."

Hélène shot a slightly annoyed glance at Combeferre. He knew the whole story. She had told him, and she was sure that he had learned the rest from the odd street girl that had pulled her out of her predicament in Rue d'Olivel. Why hadn't he told them?

But it would not do to scorn help, as much as it seemed futile and a waste of time at the moment.

As much as she longed for calm, she could not fully quench the sarcasm.

"Of course", she retorted drily.

"Have you been treated well?"

That was Combeferre again, eyes alight in concern and she only gave him a quick glance.

"I'm in prison, Monsieur", she gave back pointedly. "I have been treated as is to be expected."

He took a sharp breath, and Marius Pontmercy now took up the thread of questions.

"Madame", he began, "we would need to know what has happened since the arrest. If only to know who is behind this. We all know you are being accused of something that is not true."

"Indeed", Courfeyrac nodded. "However, the course of the events seems to make clear that there is nothing normal to this arrest. Madame, we all know why you are really here, but it would be good to know who is involved in this scheme to be able to build up a convincing defense."

That, Hélène had to admit, did carry a certain amount of truth.

"Of course", she answered with a slight sigh. "I have been taken from Le Globe by a police inspector by the name of Laurent Grenet", she began, remembering the sober, serious man who had appeared out of nowhere in the editor's room, five policemen at his side as if he was arresting a dangerous criminal, not a female journalist.

However, then she remembered, how those that worked at Le Globe had risen as one, with protestations, and – in the case of one of the printers – even with threats of violence, to defend her until she had felt the need to stop it and leave willingly.

A small smile stole onto her face at the memory.

"There was a bit of a hassle", she said, slight fondness coloring her voice, before she continued more soberly again. "I was brought to La Force and before Eugene Druvelle – the commander of the prison – who carried out the first interrogation." Hélène made a face at the memory of a slippery, crafty man, and an interrogation that felt very much like walking over thin ice, each wrong step able to crack the ground she was standing on. "I suspect that the reason for me being brought to La Force was that he wanted to interrogate me personally."

"That makes sense", Marius Pontmercy nodded. Hélène realized he had started to take notes into a small booklet he had produced from his jacket. "While Saint Lazare of course is also guarded by the National Guard, the surveillance is taken mostly by the nuns here. So it seems only natural he wanted to interrogate you right away – before you had the time to build up a story or a defense."

Hélène nodded.

"That may well be true, Monsieur Pontmercy", she replied. "At least his interrogation was… fairly thorough."

"What does that mean?" Combeferre interrupted, and she could feel tension vibrating in his voice, suppressed as well as he could. She heard it none the less.

"It means it was long", she answered, still looking at Marius. "And repetitive. It is a fairly common method of judging the truth to a story to ask the same things over and over, in various contexts and suits. But that is something I have to tell none of you."

At least Combeferre knew what it meant to write, to sort out a story or a truth of the various tales and ramblings that were floating through the city.

"True enough", Courfeyrac answered with a nod. "What did you tell him?"

Hélène tried to banish the images of the night before, the fear, tiredness and sickness, and her hand went to her temple with the effort.

"The truth, Monsieur", she replied tiredly. "What else."

"How much of it?" intercepted Combeferre, who, out of their number, knew best how many shades of truth there were to a story and Hélène shook her head slightly. She knew exactly that he was asking about the girl Éponine that had rescued her under such shady circumstances.

"I am not in the habit", she reminded him, "of changing my tale once I have settled for it. I told them what I have told the police in the morning. Nothing more, nothing less."

"That is good", Marius nodded. "And then you have been brought here?"

"I do think that this was not the intention", Hélène answered, remembering the hectic events that had followed the interrogation. "But something happened, although I am not fully sure what. There was some sort of uproar in the prison, maybe even a prison break. Whatever it was, it demanded the Commander's attention and they brought me to this place in a hurry."

"Maybe they thought whoever it was came for you."

"Possible", Hélène answered and saw out of the corner of her eye that Combeferre was running a hand through his hair again, frowning. He was putting together pieces that she had no idea of. She knew the expression, but pushed the notion away. "In any case, this morning I have had the dubious pleasure of repeating my tale again – to Grenet this time, who has appeared in the wee hours of the morning. The interrogation was similar to the one in the night, but Grenet is less diligent and sophisticated in his questions, so it was slightly easier."

"I know that this must seem bothersome, but would you mind repeating the story to us?" Marius asked, his fingers twirling the pen. "I know that we have heard most of it already, but I would appreciate the account that you have given our opponents, so that we know what information they have been given."

Hélène could not help heaving another sigh, but she saw the sense of the argument and complied, recounting the tale largely in truth. As she had done with the police, she omitted Éponine's part in this completely, stating only that she had managed to grab Alexandre's cane and smack it over the attacker's head and then race out of the house.

She again gave the reason of fear and disorientation for her flight – the tale became easier with every time she told it, and she had spent the part of the night that she had lain awake with reciting and rehearsing it again and again until it had become an intrinsic part of her, never to be again fully removed.

Marius frowned as he looked up.

"What about Éponine?"

Hélène felt confused at the comment. Of course she had omitted the girl's part in the story, but she had assumed that her friends knew this to be a lie.

"Well, I would have done her a poor service", she gave back slightly impatiently, and Marius looked up from his notebook, a frown on his face.

"Why so?" he asked, and for a moment Hélène doubted his sanity, but then she understood. For whatever reason, Marius Pontmercy had been told another side of the story, not the one she had given the police, but not the true one either. She did not know the reason for this, but it seemed odd that, while he seemed to be closest to the girl among all his friends, he had not been told the whole truth.

Then again, she was not sure how much Éponine had let on herself.

"Well", she began. "The whole incident…", but she was cut short by Combeferre, who stepped in, interrupting her almost uncharacteristically rudely.

"It is probably no use dragging her deeper into this", he said. "I do not think we should expose her thus to the police. This can only end badly."

Marius frowned.

"I am not sure that this is so clever. She could be a witness", he wondered, and Hélène felt anger at Combeferre for cutting her words short. It was unlike him, but now the damage was done and she could not deflect Marius' intent so easily any more now.

Yet, she did not see the sense of hiding what had happened from him. She could not imagine that he would turn Éponine in, and if he was to help LaManche, he would possibly learn the truth all too soon anyway.

At the end of the day, she was a servant of truth, of sorts.

"Some people were in the process of breaking into our house", she said, and her words were overlaid with Combeferre's slightly despairing "Madame…".

"I presume she was one of them."

Marius narrowed his eyes.

"What?" he said, slightly shocked. "I can't imagine that."

Courfeyrac sighed.

"Marius, that's certainly not the time or place for this discussion." Hélène was not directly addressed, but none the less she felt the disapproval that Courfeyrac was radiating. It was obvious that it was also directed at her. However, the baron's son was not so easily distracted.

"Eponine robbing someone?" he shook his head. "Are you serious?"

"Marius, I'm certain it's not…", but Combeferre could not bring the convincing lie over his lips, and at the confusion, mingled with anger in Marius' eyes Hélène understood that she did commit an error, underestimating the shifts and undercurrents in the conversation.

Probably she could not have known. But she could have listened to warnings.

In fact, Combeferre had given her one. Damn the man for trying to be subtle.

"That's no discussion for here", Courfeyrac reiterated firmly and briskly got to his feet. "Madame, I thank you for your honesty." The disapproval was still strong in his voice as he said this, and on some level Hélène understood. On another however, she almost felt inclined to inform him that it would have been kind to tell her that she was walking into a den of another person's secrets. Courfeyrac, however, did not give her the chance for an answer and continued in a slightly softer tone. "We will give your tale to LaManche, and I am sure he will be able to work this out. I encourage you – as soon as you hear anything of a trial; even a rumor; try to send us a message as soon as possible. I do not think they would dare, but it did happen in the past that the trial has been set on such short notice that there was no possibility for the defense to appear. This will not happen to you however. You can be sure of this. We will be certain to pick up the undercurrents."

His dark eyes were sincere again, and Hélène nodded in thanks, even managed a few words to go with this. Courfeyrac gave her a final small bow and turned to Marius, who had in the meantime pestered a dismayed Combeferre with questions and distracted him effortlessly, stepping towards the door already.

Combeferre, however, did not refrain for giving her a personal goodbye.

He stood in front of her, a head taller, tired and worn and tenser than she had ever seen him. He did not step close, well more than arm's length, and looked down at her.

"Tell me you will be alright in here", he pleaded, grey eyes in turmoil. The words felt like a fist into her core. "Tell me what I can do."

He had come to help and she had repaid them badly, but to see them was to think of Alexandre, and the thought was too painful to even think his name too often. Too see him was to be lured into a comfort of companionship and ease that she could not afford, for he would go again, and then she would be on her own. There was no room for weakness or idle fancy in this story.

"You can leave", she replied therefore, not coldly but with determination. "I do not think this makes things better..."

The pain in his eyes was exquisite. But there was no strength left in her to reach out. And so he nodded and turned, and Hélène looked after them as they left, tears unshed, wondering when she had become such a beast to hurt so much those, that were dearest to her.

Doom found him when he did not expect it.

He had, of course, expected it in an abstract sense of the word, yet dismissed its relevance; for indeed the consequences were never relevant to the actual question.

The moment was absolute. And it had been exquisite, as little, and as short as it had been.

Doom found him as he was walking to the "Maison des hirondelles" to have breakfast – the Maison was an expensive place, but what was the use of saving money when one suspected one was doomed to die? – in the form of a shape waiting behind an abandoned corner.

He did not need to ask.

In this world, every good thing came at a price.

The Friend was here to collect his.