Chapter Text
Fantine automatically pushed up her glasses as she looked up at Madame Jondrette. She couldn't shake off the strange sense of deja vu she felt as she looked upon her frightening face. Yet she could not recall where she had seen her.
“There ain’t no Euphrasie here,” Madame Jondrette said, “Git lost.”
Fantine’s heart stilled and her eyes widened as Madame Jondrette’s words dawned on her.
Not here? How?!
“Madame, you must be mistaken,” Fantine said, “I’ve been sending you letters since ‘26, and to your good friends the Thénardiers since ‘18. You must have her!”
Madame Jondrette’s grip on the door tightened and she squinted her eyes at the bespectacled woman on mention of the name Thénardier.
“I ain’t gonna repeat myself! We ain’t-” Madame Jondrette stopped herself when a man’s murmur from behind the door tore her attention away from their guest. She left the door and disappeared inside the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.
Fantine could hardly believe what she was hearing. What in God’s name was the bloody gorgon of a woman saying?
Was Cosette not here? Was she never here? Was she just being lied to for money?
Before her mind spiraled out of control, Fantine clenched her fists and swallowed before swinging open the door and stepping inside the little room the Jondrettes called their home.
“Euphrasie?!” Fantine desperately called before looking around.
There was an empty fireplace and a collection of very tacky and poorly made paintings adorning the walls. There was a table where a man - Monsieur Jondrette - sat at, hunched over a paper and whispering something to his wife. Both had paused whatever they were doing to stare at the newcomer.
There were two ragged mattresses laid on opposite ends of the room, and on one, sat two girls, equally as ragged as the bed on which they sat. Both stared at her; one with curiosity, and the other glaring daggers at her.
Both girls looked gaunt and pale. The sight of such young girls in such a condition horrified Fantine. She knew people lived like this, but the fact that her own daughter would have lived among such people drove the knife ever deeper into her skin.
Neither of these two could be Cosette, no, that was impossible.
No, and if she was…
Fantine clenched her fists even harder, digging her nails into her palms, almost drawing blood and turned to Monsieur Jondrette. She looked down at him in her fury, “Where is my daughter, monsieur?” she managed to say, her voice wavering in the boiling heat of her rage.
Her heart feared greatly, his answer. What if Cosette had died?
She had managed to keep the thought away from the front of her mind as long as she could. Truthfully, she had feared this as soon as she stepped into the area south of the Salpêtrière asylum. She could not bear to breach the thought, but now that she was here in the nest of the hyenas, speaking to the man that lied to her for all those years, how did she even know that Jondrette was even his name?
How could she know that Cosette was even alive?
For if she was truly gone…
‘What was it all for?!’ her raving heart screamed as the man she looked down at began to languidly grin.
Monsieur Thénardier leaned back in his chair and put down his pen. The look of surprise on his face was replaced with the same facade he always wore when he spoke with someone from the outside.
“So, we finally meet, M’dame Fantine.” Thénardier said with a snicker, “But is this how a lady speaks to her girl’s caretakers, who, up until now, so selflessly cared for her?”
“I asked…” Fantine approached the table, “Where. Is. Euphrasie?!” Her voice turned into a shriek as she slammed the palms of her hands onto the table, spilling Thénardier’s ink all over the page, “I came to get her knowing that the people that said they cared for her actually did! And she’s still alive and kept healthy by the people that I paid to keep her safe and healthy! So, where is she? Where is my Euphrasie?!”
“I ain’t bein’ called a liar by some two-penny like you! You still owe us greatly for all the trouble that little rascal caused for us in the inn! I still want 500 francs from you!”
Cosette remained seated and watched the scene unfold, and the yelling just blurred into an annoying cacophony to her ears as she kept an eye on the newcomer.
Azelma looked from the woman to Cosette, and back, “Pssst… C’sette…” she whispered under their father and the visitor’s verbal spar, “D’you think she could be…?”
Cosette abruptly shoved Azelma and shot her an aggressive scowl, “No, she ain’t. Shut your trap.”
“Ow… hey!” She whined.
The thought of this woman being anything to her elicited such rage within Cosette, the girl looked over at the door to wait for her chance to leave so she could just sulk alone and away from this den of idiots.
She wondered who this fool’s daughter even was. Probably some kid they took in long ago and gave away as they usually did, for money or something else. Maybe back in the inn, before she was there, or maybe even earlier - since she knew of the name Thénardier.
“Oh, you will see your money when I see the result of what I had been paying for all these years. I left her with you for 13 years, my little Euphrasie! So, where is she?!” Fantine demanded, her face red and livid with rage, “Tell me, you horrible bastard! Where is my little Cosette?!”
When Cosette heard her name, she thought she had misheard. Her eyes shot to Fantine, locking onto her as her mind registered what she just said.
“Cosette?” Azelma shook Cosette’s shoulder, but the older girl didn’t even register the contact, and despondently shook as she continued to stare at Fantine’s back. Her irises trembled and her mouth hung slightly open, and her teeth were held clenched. It was as if the miasma of her thoughts was reflected on her face.
“Did’ja hear what she said?” Azelma beamed, “She’s your-”
Cosette balled her fists and stood up abruptly, “YOU!” she pointed at Fantine, “Lady!”
Cosette’s voice tore the attention of Fantine, suddenly straightened up and turned to look over her shoulder, as the fury in her own eyes began to dull.
“You want somethin’ from me?” Cosette’s face curled into a scowl, “You asked for C’sette, and here she is!” She hit her own chest with her palm.
Fantine’s eyes rose slowly. Her breath lapsed in her throat as she gazed into the thin waif that now stood before her. This was that little angel she dreamt of for so long? ‘What had these bastards done to her?'
Fantine’s lower lip trembled and she pursed them. Yet she could not control the tears that flowed down her face.
“Euphrasie…?” She swallowed, her breath shaky.
“I don’t know that name, lady,” Cosette hissed, “What’re you even here for? To claim me? Take me as your own?!”
Cosette’s breaths came in rapidly as Fantine tentatively stepped closer.
What was wrong with this whole situation? Why was this foolish, deluded woman even here?
Was this some sort of joke from God? Just to mock her entire existence? Was he just laughing at her? What did all her struggles even mean then? What had she even lived for?
Just so this woman she’s never seen could barge in and say she was her mother?
Fantine grasped Cosette’s shoulders, “Euphrasie!” Fantine gasped, “My little Cosette! I never once stopped dreaming of you, my love! What did they do to you?!”
“GET OFF’A ME!” Cosette shoved Fantine to the ground and looked down at her hurt and bewildered face as the pace of her breaths quickened, “I don’t got a mother! I don’t got anyone! I don’t need anyone, and I don’t want anyone! I got myself, and that’s all I need, and that’s all I’ll ever need! You mean nothin’ to me! NOTHING! Y’hear?!”
“W-what?” Fantine uttered in her stupor. She adjusted her glasses, barrel concealing the agony in her eyes, “Why…?” her voice cracked.
In that moment, Cosette considered what she could say to hurt her more in that moment -to speak her mind openly so this fool of a woman that called herself her mother and used some name she’s never even heard of, could finally scamper off back into whatever comfortable street she crawled out of. So she could leave her here in the dregs where she belonged.
This was a joke. Some kind of a mockery of her entire existence; that some normal looking woman would appear all of a sudden to drag her out of her poverty by claiming her as her own.
Nonsense! She was no one’s. She belonged to nothing, she was nothing, and just like all the other idiots in this city, would return to nothing!
No words came to Cosette’s throat, so she bolted out of the room past Madame Thénardier, and out of Gorbeau entirely.
She needed to disappear. She needed to get away as quickly as possible. She needed to leave this whole illusion behind, and return everything to white. White, just as the snow that collected onto the street.
A pure white snow, one without the world’s taint, and without the scum of all the collective souls of this city.
As soon as Cosette left the room, Fantine ran towards the door, “Euphrasie! Cosette!”
Thénardier stood from his chair, “You still owe me a thousand francs! Where do you think you’re going?!”
Fantine stopped at the door and looked down at Thénardier. With a sniff, and wiping a tear from her eye, she said, “Go to hell, demon.”
She slipped out of the room and only the flurry of her footsteps could be heard.
Cosette’s desperate escape had her dash past a confused and worried Marius and Éponine.
“Was that your sister just now?” Marius asked.
“Lar- C’sette, yes…” Éponine answered, “What, something happened?” she wondered aloud to herself, “I… I should go and see-”
“Euphrasie!” Fantine called, grasping at her skirts as she ran after the younger girl, “Which way did she run?” she stopped.
Éponine looked at her, wondering what her story was, and ‘Why Cosette?’. Why was she calling her that?
“Who even are you?” Éponine ended up asking.
“That way, madame.” Marius pointed, “What happened?”
Fantine was already off on the trail after Cosette.
“‘Ponine!” Azelma hopped down the stairs and approached her older sister, “You wouldn’t believe what just happened!”
“‘Zelma, tell me! What happened to the Lark?!” Éponine grabbed her sister’s shoulders, the concern audible in her voice, “I’ve never seen her run like this, ever!”
“C’sette’s mother finally came!” Azelma said, “You just saw her! But C’sette just… I dunno, she got really mad at her and just ran.”
“She wha-...” Éponine trailed off as her brain processed whatever Azelma just told her. So the Lark really did have a mother somewhere out there the whole time?
And she was that beautiful woman that just came by to visit?
“I’m gonna go see where she’s going!” Azelma said, before running after Fantine.
Éponine remained silent as she watched her sister disappear from view into the street.
“Are you alright, mam’selle?” Marius asked.
“Y-yeah…” Éponine said, tearing her eyes from the road, “I think I need to sit down.”
She returned inside of Gorbeau, back into its dark shadows as the sun outside began to again be covered by grey.