Archive of Our Own ^beta

It is Grantaire who tells her, although all of their friends must know by now.

Cosette is half asleep on the couch, curled on her side while the credits to While You Were Sleeping roll on the TV, when she hears him say, “Marius is back in town.”

“That’s not a very nice joke,” Cosette says, suddenly wide awake.

Grantaire looks up at her from the floor, lips pulling in a grimace. “It’s not a joke,” he says. “He’s back. I saw him today.”

Cosette takes a deep breath. “Oh.” Her voice is faint, hollow.

“Oh,” Grantaire agrees.

They are both quiet for a long moment. Grantaire clicks off the TV. For a little while, the only sounds in the apartment are the hum of the refrigerator and the low rumble of Enjolras talking on the phone in the other room.

“How long has he been back?” Cosette asks, some indeterminable amount of time later.

Grantaire scratches the back of his neck, sheepish. “I only saw him today,” he says. It is a half-answer at best. Looking away, he adds, “Enjolras ran into him last week.”

Last week. Marius has been in Paris since last week, at the very least. Marius has been walking the same streets as her, breathing the same brisk winter air. She could have turned a corner and walked right into him. She could have bumped into him in the doorway of the Café Musain. She could have —

“How long, Grantaire?”

It isn’t fair to be angry with Grantaire. After all, he is the only one of their friends with the guts to even tell her this. Certainly the others know. Certainly Courfeyrac knows, and if Courfeyrac knows, everyone does.

Grantaire sighs. “Nine days.”

Nine days. For nine days, Cosette has been walking the streets of Paris, blissfully unaware that she once again shares the city with Marius Pontmercy.

“Thank you for telling me,” she says carefully. She pushes off the couch and stretches, then begins to gather up her things. Still on the floor, Grantaire frowns.

“Don’t go,” he says. “Cos —”

She silences him with a shake of the head. “I’m not mad at you,” she tells him. It is not entirely true, but she wants it to be true, and that has to count for something. “I’m just — I need some air. Thank you, really, R. For dinner, and for — yeah.”

Despite her best efforts, Grantaire catches her at the door, where she is struggling to lace up her boots. She is dimly aware of Enjolras appearing in the hallway, watching quietly. Enjolras — he saw Marius last week. He and Cosette got coffee three days ago, and he said nothing. They ate dinner side-by-side on the couch tonight, and he said nothing. Being angry with Grantaire might be unfair, but Enjolras — him, she can be a little miffed at.

Grantaire rests a hand on Cosette’s shoulder, not holding her in place, just stopping her for a moment. “Are you okay?” he asks, shifting slightly where he stands.

Cosette nods at him, forcing a smile. “I’m good.” To prove her point, she pulls Grantaire toward her for a quick hug, kissing both of his cheeks with her usual cheerful levity. “I’ll see you soon. Goodnight.”

He is still frowning at her, but at least he lets her go. “Goodnight, Cosette. Let me know when you get home?”

Outside, the evening is bitterly cold. Cosette tugs her jacket tight as she walks, replaying the words on a loop in her head. Marius is back in town. Marius is back in town. Every time she turns a corner, she halfway expects to see him, materializing on the sidewalk like a figure in a dream. She can’t decide if she is disappointed or relieved when he doesn’t appear.

It’s been — God, it’s been five years now. Five entire years since that night in the garden. Five years since the airport. Five years since she walked away from him and staunchly refused to look back.

Five years since she has seen Marius Pontmercy.

Well, that isn’t entirely truthful. She has seen Marius a thousand times since then. In her dreams, in her memories. She has scrolled through his Instagram feed a hundred times. She has found him on every crowded train, in every lecture hall. She has invented Marius everywhere she has gone.

And now —

Now, he is back.

Cosette curses herself for leaving Enjolras and Grantaire’s apartment so soon. She should have stayed, she should have asked questions. Because God, does she have questions. Why is he back? Why now? How long does he plan to stay? Where is he even staying? Does he know that she’s back, too?

Certainly, he must know that she is back. Someone must have mentioned it to him by now. If someone has mentioned it to her, someone has to have told Marius.

She checks her phone. A text from Grantaire, but nothing else new. Refusing to overthink it, she calls Grantaire and presses the cold phone to her ear. It only rings once before he picks up.

“Hey,” he says, still sounding vaguely guilty. “Everything okay?”

“Just peachy.” Cosette jumps right in. “Why is he back?”

There is a sound of motion on Grantaire’s end of the call. “He got a job,” he says, “at some swanky private school. He’s gonna be teaching German.”

“So he’s back for good, then?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Enjolras’ voice murmurs something near the phone, and Grantaire adds, “At least for a semester.”

A semester. Cosette hums. “Where is he staying?”

“He’s at his grandfather’s for now,” Grantaire tells her. “He’s looking for his own place, though.”

Cosette nods to herself. “Right.” She turns onto her street, her steps coming quicker. “Well. Thank you. I’ll —”

“He asked about you,” Grantaire says suddenly. The words come out in a rush, like he has to force them out all at once. “When I saw him. He asked how you were doing.”

She comes to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk. Her breath plumes white in front of her face, but she pays it very little mind. He asked about you. Marius asked about her. Five years later —

“Thank you, Grantaire,” she says softly, and she ends the call.

Perhaps it would have been better if nobody had said anything, after all.

Now that Cosette knows he is here, she cannot stop looking for him. On the metro, at the market, out her apartment window late into the night. Years ago, she used to wait for him in the garden, in the dark. She used to take a special thrill in the romance of it all, their clandestine rendezvous amongst the budding flowers. She had felt like the ingénue in every romance novel she ever loved, walled off and waiting for Prince Charming to find her.

And find her, he did. Marius came every night for months, starry-eyed and smiling so sweetly. He climbed over the garden wall, sometimes slipping when the stones were slick with rain, and he sat with her in the darkest, most remote corner of the garden. In the cold, in the damp, in the snow. It was the only time that they had together, and they had refused to squander a moment of it.

Cosette has left the garden, but still she waits for him.

She should go to him. Really, she should go to him. She should be the one to break first, it’s only fair. After all, she is the one who — who —

But she is too proud. And, if she is being completely honest with herself, too afraid. It has been so long that she has no idea who Marius is now, what he would say if she were to apologize. Once, she knew him. She knew him, knew everything about him, knew his heart as if she had shaped it with her own two hands.

But time changes people. Surely it has changed her; she is no longer the wide-eyed innocent girl in the garden. No longer the naïve thing that she was, back when they first met. She has grown, shifted, alchemized. Whoever she was then, she is someone different now. And certainly, certainly the same can be said for Marius.

Whoever he is now — whoever she is now — they are still not strangers. Estranged, but never strangers. To love someone is to know them forever, even if you never speak again. What a special tragedy. What a beautiful doom.

In the end, it happens so randomly that it is almost comical. She is walking down the block toward the Musain, tugging off her gloves and shoving them into her jacket pockets, when suddenly —

“Cosette.”

For a moment, she is sure that she has imagined it. She stops, takes a deep breath, blinks her eyes shut. Tells herself that she must be imagining it. She is always imagining it.

Slowly, she turns around.

She is not imagining it.

She knows she is not imagining it, because the Marius standing before her is not the same Marius that she left behind at the airport. This is not the Marius who scraped his gangly knees and elbows on the wall night after night, this is not the Marius who draped his jacket over her shoulders when she shivered. This Marius —

Is taller than she remembers, and more serious. This Marius has shorter hair and shinier shoes. This Marius has a pink scar near the hinge of his jaw, and has swapped out his wireframes for contact lenses, it would seem.

This Marius won’t quite meet Cosette’s eye.

He holds something out toward her, something dark and soft. One of her gloves. Wordlessly, she reaches out to take it from him.

He still does not look at her. “You dropped it,” he says. His voice is lower than she remembers, and more solid.

She nods. She can think of nothing to say, now that she is faced with the fact of him. The fact of Marius. When Grantaire said he was back, she imagined — surely, she could think of something to say to him. She has had over a week to think about it. She — she’s considered all sorts of things, staring at the ceiling long into the night. I’m sorry, she has imagined herself saying, I’m so sorry. Or, I’ve missed you. Or, Do you still hate me?

But now that the moment has finally come, her treacherous words have once again abandoned her.

Marius clears his throat. They have been standing here quietly for too long, now. His eyes rest squarely on the sidewalk, and nowhere else. “I suppose you’re on your way to the meeting, then?”

Cosette nods again. “Yeah,” she says, choking a little on the single syllable. She coughs, tries again. “Yeah, are you coming?”

“Mhm.” Marius gestures down the block slightly, the tips of his ears going pink. “I’ll walk with you.”

His voice goes up at the end, almost questioning, so Cosette forces a smile in answer and turns once again toward the Musain.

“Welcome back,” she says, after a beat of awkward silence. “To the city, I mean.”

Marius walks half a step behind her, just outside of her peripheral vision. “Thanks,” he says. “I missed it.”

There is a tiny hitch in his voice, just before it, as if he swapped it with another word at the last second. As if he almost said you, instead.

But, no. No, that is a dangerous train of thought. Don’t go there, Cosette.

“How is your father?” Marius asks.

Cosette steps to the side to avoid walking into a woman going the other way, and her elbow brushes the fabric of Marius’ jacket. She doesn’t jerk away from the contact, but it is a close thing. “He’s good,” she says, the pitch of her voice a tick higher than usual. She swallows, hard. “How is your grandfather?”

“He’s good. Happy to have me home again.” As they approach the Musain, Marius jogs a few steps ahead of Cosette, just far enough to open the door for her. They wear matching blushes as she nods her thanks and hurries inside.

Inside the café, it’s warm enough that Cosette has to shuck her jacket immediately. Her gloves fall from her pocket again, but this time she crouches to pick them up before Marius can try. When she straightens, he is standing a few feet away, watching her carefully.

A thousand sentences bubble up inside of her, and she swallows them all down. She knows, she knows that if she opens her mouth, she is only going to say the wrong thing. She doesn’t even know what the wrong thing is, but if she allows herself to speak, she will find it. It’s a special skill of hers, saying the wrong thing. Saying I love you when she should say I’m leaving. Saying I’m leaving when she should say I love you. Saying Goodbye when she should say Wait for me?

“Do you still take your coffee black?” Marius asks.

Cosette nods, blinking. She hates herself for making him carry the weight of this conversation, after what she did. Hates herself even more for being thankful for it. She used to be able to tell him — anything. They talked all night. Stars above, grass below. They would speak of mothers they couldn’t remember, childhoods they couldn’t forget, dreams they were reaching for with outstretched hands. There was nothing too deep or too shallow to share with Marius back then. Favorite ice cream flavors, worst fears, comfort films. They never ran out of things to talk about, never found themselves pressed up against the wall of boredom or discomfort.

Now, Cosette cannot even prop up a single sentence between the two of them.

She doesn’t realize that he’s buying her coffee until it’s too late to stop him. Five years after she turned her back on him in the airport, after that conversation in the garden — Marius is buying Cosette a coffee. She means to stop him, but the words still won’t come, and then it’s too late; the coffee is made, the money is in the till, the cup is held out to her in familiar, steady hands.

“Thank you,” she says, taking the cup from him. She feels, absurdly, like she’s about to cry. “You didn’t have to —”

“Don’t worry about it,” Marius says with a brief shake of his head. The corner of his mouth quirks even as he continues avoiding her gaze. “So, are you still at the newspaper?”

Cosette opens her mouth, closes it, then tries again. “Yeah,” she says, “yeah, how did you —?”

He shrugs, taking a sip of his own drink. “Courfeyrac kept me updated on everyone.”

Courfeyrac certainly did not keep him updated on everyone. Everyone has stayed in contact with Marius over the years, except for Cosette. Combeferre and Marius exchanged handwritten letters in the mail; Joly and Bossuet had video calls with Marius at least twice a month; Grantaire and Éponine visited him in Berlin on more than one occasion. Even Enjolras kept in contact with Marius, if only perfunctorily. No, there is no reason at all for Courfeyrac to keep him updated on everyone. There is only one person, after all, who has not been keeping Marius updated on her own life.

Cosette cannot say this, of course. She’ll be lucky if she can say anything at all. “Right,” she tries, and then again, louder, “right.” She takes a drink of her too-hot coffee. “Yes, I’m still at the paper. It’s not my dream job, of course, but it’s the first step on the way to my dream job, so.”

Marius nods. “I always thought —”

But whatever Marius always thought, she will never know. At that moment, the café door bursts open, and their little pocket outside of time is shattered.

“Look what the fuckin’ cat dragged in,” Bahorel roars, manhandling Marius into something like a hug. “Bring it in, beanpole.”

Jehan is close behind, but instead of joining the awkward jumble of limbs that is a Marius-and-Bahorel hug, they link arms with Cosette. “Cos,” they say, already dragging her away and toward the stairs, “I found the cutest skirt at the thrift store, but it’s a bit too loose around the waist. Could you show me how to take it in?”

Cosette looks over her shoulder, just once. Combeferre and Feuilly have joined the group by the door, where Bahorel still holds Marius captive. It is quite clear to Cosette that their friends have separated the two of them on purpose.

Before she can look away, Marius glances up, and their eyes meet for the first time today. For the first time in five years. She expects a cold shock, a thrill up her spine, but —

But no such sensation comes. Instead, Marius’ deep brown eyes bring a feeling of warmth to Cosette, something solid and comforting. Meeting his gaze after all this time feels like being wrapped in a soft blanket on a cold day.

And then Bahorel is grabbing Marius by the shoulders and shaking him, and Jehan is guiding Cosette gently but firmly up the stairs, and the fragile moment snaps like a twig.

“Are you okay?” Jehan asks, when they’ve reached the second floor. Their voice is soft, their eyes round with sympathy.

Cosette smiles, and the expression is only a little strained. “I’m okay.” She gives herself a little shake and lets out a long breath. “Now, tell me about this skirt.”

After that, it becomes startlingly obvious that their friends are doing everything in their power to keep Cosette and Marius apart. Before the meeting begins, Bossuet clumsily drops into the usually-empty seat beside Cosette, despite the fact that this places him at the opposite end of the table from Joly. Courfeyrac and Feuilly corral Marius into Bossuet’s vacated seat between Joly and Combeferre, and every time he shifts in his seat like he’s about to stand, Combeferre rests a hand on his shoulder to stay him.

On Cosette’s other side, Grantaire forgoes his usual routine of arguing with everything out of Enjolras’ mouth. Instead, he spends the evening making jokes under his breath, clearly for Cosette’s sole benefit. Once, Marius glances down the table like he might be looking for Cosette, and Grantaire literally pinches her beneath the table to draw her attention away.

“That was unnecessary,” she tells him, after the meeting has ended. Marius has been dragged away by Éponine without ceremony, most of their friends filing out behind them so as to maintain the human barrier between him and Cosette. Only Grantaire, Enjolras, and Combeferre remain behind with her.

Grantaire chews on the inside of his cheek. “We don’t want things to be, you know. Awkward.”

Cosette snorts. “It’s a thousand times more awkward to have you all playing Cosette Keep-Away than it is for Marius and I to actually talk to each other.”

“Cosette,” Enjolras begins.

She turns toward him with narrowed eyes. “Don’t Cosette me. I’m not very happy with you, Enjolras.”

He crosses his arms over his chest. “Me? Why aren’t you happy with me?”

“You knew he was back,” she says, “and you said nothing! For a week! What if I had run into him before anyone warned me?”

At this, Enjolras has the decency to look mildly chastised. “I’m sorry,” he says, after a second. “I didn’t…”

“When you left,” Combeferre interrupts, his words slow and deliberate, “we picked up the pieces. Nobody blames you for going. But he was wrecked, Cos. He stayed at mine and Courf’s for a month, at least. And we were there for you, too, as best as we could be. We didn’t take sides. We still aren’t taking sides. We’re just trying to be careful. We don’t want either of you reopening old wounds.”

Cosette — drops back into her seat. She presses cold hands to her warm face, taking a deep breath. He was wrecked, Cos. Her throat hurts. She wants… She doesn’t even know what she wants. Forgiveness? Absolution? Good luck with that.

“I’m sorry,” she says, hands falling into her lap. It is unclear to whom she is apologizing. Her friends? Herself? Marius? All of the above, maybe.

Combeferre hums. “Don’t be sorry,” he says, not unkindly. “If it makes you feel better, we’ll do the same thing if Enjolras and Grantaire ever break up.”

Enjolras scoffs, looking offended, but Grantaire laughs. “Yeah, or if Courf and Ferre break up,” he says. “Or Joly, Boss, and Chetta. That’s the thing about dating within your friend group: it gets messy.” He shrugs one shoulder, kicking a boot up on the edge of the table. It’s there for approximately half a second before Enjolras is pushing it down again. “We’ve all accepted that. It’s fine. We’re just trying to, you know.” He makes a vague hand gesture. “Contain the mess.”

She nods. “Right.” It doesn’t make her feel any better, truthfully, but she does appreciate the sentiment. “You guys can’t play interference forever, though.”

Combeferre tilts his head in acknowledgment. “No,” he agrees, “but we won’t have to. You’re both mature adults. I don’t think it should take either of you very long to settle back into normalcy.”

It sounds like a vote of confidence, but it feels like a warning. Cosette chews on her bottom lip for a moment, then nods again. “We’ll be fine,” she says, more for her own benefit than that of her friends. “Totally fine.”

Totally, completely fine.

To this end, Cosette makes an executive decision: their friends will not have to play Cosette Keep-Away, because she will simply play the game herself. She will remove herself from the equation. She will avoid Marius at all costs.

Of course, the moment that she decides this, the dam breaks. Suddenly, Marius is everywhere.

Not in the way that Marius used to be everywhere. Cosette’s first year in Boston, she couldn’t turn her head without seeing him — but that wasn’t real. He was only there because she wanted him to be there.

Now, Marius is here because she doesn’t want him to be.

At the market, walking down the street, getting on the train. Marius is here, and he is real. Vividly, devastatingly so. He is solid, and serious, and so Marius that she could cry from it.

She hides from him in the greeting card aisle at the store, and doesn’t emerge to continue her shopping until she’s sure that he’s gone. On the street, she ducks her head and passes him as quickly as possible, hoping against hope that he is too distracted to notice her. When she sees him at the metro station, she slips behind a pillar and ends up missing her train entirely. It feels silly, and it probably is, but she just can’t seem to get Combeferre’s voice out of her head. He was wrecked, Cos. We don’t want either of you reopening old wounds.

For thirteen days, she lives like this, dodging and weaving around Marius. It’s exhausting, but it’s fine. She’s fine. She always is, after all. Carefree, cheery Cosette. Nothing gets her down. She builds beautiful, meticulous castles in the sand, walls that keep in some things and keep out the rest.

But here is the thing about sandcastles: it takes only one decent wave to bring them down.

For thirteen days, she builds her walls and smooths them out. She molds towers and parapets with bare hands, she brushes away the stray grains of sand. She makes something beautiful and useless. She sits on the shore and pretends that she can live like this forever, like the water will not eventually wash her away.

And then, on the fourteenth day, the tide rises and the waves roll in.

Cosette has grown accustomed to expecting Marius around every corner. She knows, upon leaving her apartment, that he is only one wrong move away; that even with the city sprawling in every direction, Marius is seemingly attached to Cosette by an invisible string. She knows this, and while she has not exactly found peace with it, she at least accepts it for what it is. Marius is like a horror movie serial killer: seemingly unburdened by the laws of reality, he could be anywhere.

Still, there are places where she can reasonably expect not to see him. Her own apartment, for instance, or her papa’s house. The office building where she works. Grantaire’s apartment, if only because he will never invite her around if there is a chance of Marius appearing there.

And then, there is the community center.

Cosette has been volunteering at the community center since she first returned to the city. Every Tuesday and Thursday, she goes straight from work to the center, where she spends her evenings helping schoolchildren with their homework.

It is honestly — and maybe pathetically, she will admit — the highlight of her week. She enjoys the formulaic work, and even more, she enjoys spending time with the children. She likes children, and most of them like her in return.

The community center is sacred to Cosette. She is the only member of the ABC to volunteer there, and there is something liberating in this. She is free to be a different version of herself there, separate from the people who know her best.

Until, on the fourteenth day, when someone taps her on the shoulder and says, “Excuse me?”

It is a cosmic joke, to stand inside the refuge of the community center and to still hear Marius’ lovely voice. A gigantic cosmic joke, with Cosette at its bright, horrible center.

At least she has the advantage, this time. Her back is turned; Marius does not know it is her, not today. This means that she can take a moment, she can breathe deeply and plaster a smile across her face. She can pretend that this is completely okay.

She turns, her smile only widening when she sets her eyes on him. She wonders faintly if the expression looks as plastic as it feels. “Marius!” she exclaims, as if pleasantly surprised. “What are you doing here?”

Marius blinks at her. This time, he is the one caught off guard, and Cosette must be a terrible person, because she feels a subtle but sick pleasure at this. It’s unfair, she knows.

Unfair, but not untrue.

“I didn’t,” Marius falters. He gives a short shake of his head, then seems to get a hold of himself once again. “I’ve signed up to volunteer here.” He gestures behind himself. “I was told that you’d show me around.”

Of course. “Of course,” Cosette says, still smiling. “Just give me one second.” Turning her back on him, she leans down to give a few more instructions to the little boy she had been working with before Marius arrived. “Okay, do problem sets five through nine, and when I come back, we’ll go over them together, alright?”

With that, she flashes her counterfeit smile at Marius again. “Let’s go.”

The community center is a multi-story building that has seen better days. Derelict might be a fitting description, but Cosette the optimist prefers to say that it is in need of some TLC. She shows Marius to the kitchen and pantry, the bathrooms, the makeshift computer lab. There is an outdoor courtyard where games may be played, and a room for arts and crafts.

They chat as Cosette shows Marius around, and she keeps her voice light, the way it would sound if she were speaking to anyone else. She has given this tour a dozen times, helped so many of the center’s volunteers learn the ropes. Usually, she loves this part. She loves making friends, and helping people, and getting to know strangers.

But this is no stranger. This is Marius.

At the end of the tour, he says to her, “I didn’t know you volunteered here.”

She feels her face turning pink. Of course he didn’t know; he never would have come, if he did. Cosette nods. “Oh, yes. I’ve been here for over a year now. Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

Marius’ eyes grow wider. “Those are the days I’ve signed up for, too.”

There is a beat of quiet, and then —

“I can change the days,” he says.

Cosette shakes her head, the motion nearly frantic. “You don’t have to do that,” she tells him. “I’m — We’re both adults, right?”

He watches her for a moment. “Well, yes.” He shifts his weight, shoves his hands into his pockets. “I just, well. I got the impression that you didn’t want to have to speak to me.”

Cosette blinks. “What?”

“I mean,” he says, “just last week, you missed your train because you were afraid to get in the same car as me.”

If possible, Cosette’s face flushes an even deeper shade. “Oh,” she says, in a very small voice. “You saw that?”

The corner of Marius’ mouth twitches, like he can’t decide between a smile and a frown. “You mean, I saw you duck behind a column at the mere sight of me? Yes, I’m afraid so.”

Cosette prays for God to kill her where she stands. God remains unmoved. “That,” she says, “was not my finest moment.”

“No,” says Marius, shaking his head. “Anyway, if you don’t want to have to spend time with me, I understand. I can change my days. I don’t mind.”

It would be easier, probably, if Cosette said yes. Let Marius choose new days, let the community center remain safe and sacred, let them remain apart forever. It’s the easy choice. It’s the safe choice. She knows this.

But when Cosette goes to answer, it is not her own voice she hears in her head but Combeferre’s. You’re both mature adults, he says. I don’t think it should take either of you very long to settle back into normalcy.

“I don’t mind,” Cosette says. It is not a lie if she wants it to be true. “Really.”

Marius watches her for one second, two seconds, three. Then he nods. “Alright,” he says. Then, like he can’t stop himself, “You hid from me at the store, too.”

Cosette cringes. “I did,” she admits. “More than once.”

Now, he allows himself a small smile. “It doesn’t have to be weird. We can —”

“Cosette!” A little boy appears at her side, holding out a piece of paper. “I finished my worksheet. You said we’d look at it together?”

Cosette smiles down at the boy. “Of course, Alex.” To Marius, she says, “We can talk later.”

He nods; she barely catches the movement as she walks away. When she looks over her shoulder again a few seconds later, he has already been surrounded by a gaggle of children, intrigued by the newest addition to their afternoon routine.

It is dark outside when Cosette finally signs out and tugs on her jacket, head still swimming with math problems. She knows that she is smart, and she was pretty decent at math in school, but things seem to have grown exponentially more complicated since she was that age. Christ, she’s glad to be an adult.

“Hey,” says a voice behind her. She turns, one hand instinctively reaching for the pepper spray in her pocket, but —

But it is only Marius, hurrying down the steps after her. “Sorry,” he says, taking in her defensive posture.

She shakes her head. “No, it’s fine.” She relaxes slightly, shoulders dropping. “Is everything okay?”

He gives her a funny look. “Everything’s great,” he says. “I was just wondering…”

This, at least, is quintessential Marius: walking into sentences without knowing quite where he means for them to go, trailing off, taking a moment to regroup. She waits patiently, knowing that he will arrive at his point soon enough.

“You said we could talk later,” he says, after a moment. “It’s later.”

She blinks. We can talk later had been a placeholder statement, a bridge between their awkward conversation and her walking away. She hadn’t meant — but of course Marius wouldn’t know that. Cosette is not somebody who typically says things that she doesn’t mean. She made a promise; Marius has simply come to collect.

“It is later,” she agrees, taking her gloves from her jacket pocket. “Do you want to get something to eat?”

There is a diner just down the street from the community center; they walk along quietly, hurrying a bit in the cold. When they get there, Cosette walks ahead of Marius and opens the door for him, giving a gallant little bow as she does. She is unsure of where the bravado comes from, or the humor, but it is there. Marius laughs as he steps inside.

Tucked into a squeaky vinyl booth, Cosette decides to cut to the chase. She can only talk around this for so long. “I’m sorry,” she says, before they have even ordered their drinks.

Marius looks up at her sharply, his mouth pulled into a frown. “What?”

Cosette blinks, a bit startled. “I’m sorry?” This time, her voice goes up at the end, pitching higher than usual.

“Why?”

She would suspect him of fucking with her, if Marius didn’t look so earnest. Granted, he always looks earnest, but — but that’s because he is. It would be frustrating, probably, if it wasn’t so endearing.

“Because,” she says slowly, before realizing that she has no idea what she means to say. She knows why she is sorry — because she left him, she broke his heart, she ruined everything — but she doesn’t know how to say it.

Marius only shakes his head. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” His voice is soft, forgiving, and it makes Cosette want to scream. It makes her want to cry.

“But I do,” she insists. Faced with the possibility of Marius’ forgiveness, she is suddenly frightened enough to put words to her sins. “I hurt you. I really, really hurt you. I’m sorry, Marius.”

He is still frowning. “I don’t want you to apologize,” he says. “That’s not why I — you have nothing to be sorry for, Cosette, truly.”

A waiter arrives, and they order their drinks. As soon as he is gone, Cosette says, “I wouldn’t blame you if you still hated me.”

Marius’ expression goes from confused to positively aghast. “Hate you?” he repeats, incredulous. “Why in the world would I hate you?”

Because I left, Cosette thinks savagely. Because I walked away without looking back.

“Because I hurt you,” she says again.

His brows knit together, like Cosette is a particularly stubborn mathematical equation. “I don’t hate you,” he says, enunciating each word carefully. “I didn’t hate you then, and I definitely don’t hate you now. I could never hate you.”

Cosette swallows. “Oh,” she says again. She hates how weak her voice sounds, even to herself. She clears her throat before trying again. “That’s good, then.”

When he looks back up at her, the intensity of Marius’ gaze nearly makes her flinch away. “Do you hate me?”

It is Cosette’s turn to scoff. “What could I possibly hate you for, Marius?”

He shrugs. “I hurt you, too, I’m sure.”

She blinks, and then blinks again. “I have never hated you,” she tells him.

Marius looks far too pleased at this admission. “You see how ridiculous a question that is, then.”

Their drinks come, and they order their food. Cosette taps her fingers along the table’s edge for a while, studiously avoiding Marius’ gaze, until —

“I missed you,” Marius says. The words come out quickly, like he’s trying to get them all out before he loses his courage. “Not just as my girlfriend. I mean — I missed being your friend, you know? I missed telling you things. I missed… knowing you.”

Cosette ducks her head. She’s going to cry. She’s going to cry and Marius is going to comfort her, and she’s never going to be able to show her face ever again. She’ll change her volunteering days at the community center. She’ll stop going to ABC meetings, she’ll move across the planet so her friends can never find her. She’ll cut her hair and change her name and get a job as a lighthouse keeper.

She won’t cry in front of Marius. She can’t.

Their food comes, rescuing Cosette from the burden of responding. She takes the moment to pull herself back together, to blink back her tears, to swallow the lump in her throat.

Marius speaks again once the waiter has retreated. “I’d like to be your friend, again,” he says. “If you’ll have me, I mean.”

Cosette smooths a napkin over her lap. “I would like that,” she tells him. She wants it to be true; therefore, it is not a lie. “I would like that a lot.”

They eat their meal in relative quiet, chatting about the community center between bites. Marius doesn’t attempt to bring the conversation back to an emotional place, and Cosette is grateful; she is still only one wrong word away from bursting into tears, even now.

Marius tries to pay for their meal, but Cosette insists on splitting the check. This, at least, is familiar territory: when they were dating, Cosette had rebelled sternly against Marius’ attempts at chivalry, at least so far as money was concerned. Now, as they squabble over the bill, Marius only smiles fondly and holds his hands up in surrender.

It is even darker outside now, and colder as well. Cosette bundles into her scarf and gloves and even her hat, which she only breaks out under the most dire of circumstances. Marius watches her with laughter in his eyes.

“It’s funny,” he says, falling into step with her as she sets off in the direction of her apartment, “how much the people change, but the city stays the same.”

Despite herself, Cosette smiles. “The city doesn’t stay the same,” she says. “It changes faster than any of us. In the time it takes for your hair to grow an inch, a dozen businesses will have shuttered their doors, and a dozen more will have cut their ribbons. Signs go up and down, street names are changed, neighbors move in and out. The only real constant in the whole city is how much it’s always changing.”

Marius makes a thoughtful noise. “I suppose you’re right,” he says, easily enough. “I guess it’s easier to just look at the broad picture. The skyline looks the same no matter how many new buildings go up. The tourists are still obnoxious, everyone is still smoking and drinking coffee and hurrying down the sidewalk like they’re running late, even though they have nowhere to be.” They cross the street, and when he speaks again, his voice is a tick quieter. “Did you miss it?”

“Like a limb,” Cosette says, without hesitation. Boston had been — Boston. Beautiful and winsome. Cold and dreary. Hopelessly American. She had met so many lovely people, and made so many lovely memories, but in the end — “Nothing is Paris.”

“Nothing is Paris,” Marius agrees. “Berlin was great, but the whole time I was there, all I wanted was to come home.”

They’ve walked three blocks before Cosette realizes what Marius is doing. “You don’t have to walk me home,” she tells him, pausing under a stoplight. “I’ll be okay.”

Marius shrugs one shoulder. “I don’t mind,” he says.

“I can take care of myself.”

“Oh, I know.” The light changes, and Marius sets off into the crosswalk. “That doesn’t mean I can’t walk you home.”

She has to jog a few steps to catch up to him. “It’s way out of your way,” she says. “It’s too cold for that.”

“Really,” says Marius, “I don’t mind.” They reach the opposite sidewalk, and he hesitates. “Unless you don’t want me to walk with you.”

Cosette gives a quick shake of her head. “That’s not it. I just — you don’t have to go out of your way for me.”

Marius smiles, then. A true smile, small but no less beautiful for it. “That’s what friends do for each other, Cosette.”

And, well. It’s not like Cosette can argue with that.

On the bright side, Cosette misses significantly less trains when she isn’t terrified of seeing Marius everywhere.

On the less bright side, Cosette still sees Marius everywhere, and now she has to stop and say hello.

She runs into him at the store twice in one week: in the produce aisle once, and by the crackers and cookies the second time. They exchange pleasantries and then continue on their separate ways, only to meet again at the register. Cosette barely manages to restrain herself from leaving her shopping cart and just walking out of the story empty-handed.

They don’t ride the same train very often, but when they do, Cosette makes a point of finding a spot near Marius. It isn’t that she wants to sit with him — or stand with him, when the train is particularly full — but even less does she want him to notice the distance that she is still keeping.

Least of all does she want to have another conversation about it.

Instead, she subjects herself to all sorts of different conversations with him. On the train they talk of books and movies, the weather, Marius’ increasingly ugly holiday sweaters. Nothing that could reasonably bring tears to Cosette’s eyes — and yet, when she returns home after bumping into Marius in public, she always has to fight the urge to have a good, solid cry.

ABC meetings are the easiest places to see Marius, because she very rarely has to speak to him there. Their friends are still acting as human shields, throwing themselves on the grenade that is Marius and Cosette, and Cosette finds that she is grateful in an ugly sort of way. When Grantaire steps between the two of them after a meeting one evening, Cosette could kiss him with relief.

“Enjolras probably wouldn’t like that,” Grantaire tells her, “but I appreciate the sentiment.”

The community center, however.

It isn’t that Marius’ presence at the community center is an invasion. In fact, it’s the exact opposite: it feels too right. Cosette is too happy to see him there, too happy to laugh with him about things with no stakes involved. It is too comfortable to be there with him, even after five years. Especially after five years.

“You should show this history book to Enjolras,” Marius says as they pore over a textbook together. The kid they’ve been helping with homework has gone to the restroom, leaving Cosette and Marius alone at the little table in the corner of the room.

Cosette laughs. “He’ll burn the whole school down,” she says, “and I refuse to be responsible for him getting arrested again.”

Marius laughs, too, and Cosette feels it like barbed wire wrapped around her lungs. It — it’s been so long since she made him laugh, she realizes. Really laugh, genuinely, just for her. She would catch the sound in her hands if she could, cradle it safely between her palms for the rest of time.

But, no. Cosette has resigned her right to Marius’ laughter. She has resigned her right to Marius’ anything.

The funny thing is that it wasn’t even Cosette’s idea.

When she was sorting through her wardrobe and daydreaming about Boston, the idea of breaking up with Marius never even crossed her mind. She loved Marius, and he loved her. What were a few years and a few thousand kilometers compared to that? They could do long-distance. It wouldn’t be easy, but the best things rarely are.

And then Sister Simplice had called Cosette into her office one day after class, and everything had changed.

“The things you have accomplished in your time with us are truly remarkable,” Sister Simplice had said. A fully-fledged compliment from her was a rarity, and Cosette had preened slightly beneath her attention. “I cannot overstate just how proud we are of you.”

Cosette had smiled and nodded graciously. “Thank you, Sister.”

“Boston will be a wonderful place for you. You will learn much, and meet many new people.” Sister Simplice had clasped her hands atop the desk then, and continued, “But that isn’t what I called you in here to talk about.”

Cosette’s eyebrows had raised, but she hadn’t said anything, just listened.

“Your boyfriend is a kind young man.” How Sister Simplice knew anything about Marius, let alone that he existed, remains a mystery to this day. “But he will only hold you back.”

The words had taken a few moments to sink in. “What?” Cosette had said, shaking her head slightly. “I don’t — what do you mean, Sister?”

Sister Simplice had frowned slightly. “I mean, you are leaving. He is not. The attachment between the two of you will only serve to distract you from your studies. Young love is not worth risking your entire future.”

Cosette had felt — nauseous. When she spoke, it was in a tremulous voice. “You think I should break up with him?”

“I know you think you love him,” Sister Simplice had said, quite gravely. “Perhaps you really do. But do you know how many young women have thrown their lives away for love, only to lose that as well?”

By that point, Cosette was blinking back tears. “Right.”

“I don’t mean to upset you.” Sister Simplice perfunctorily offered her a box of tissues. “Only to make you understand what is on the line here.”

Cosette had left the office crying, and she had continued to cry as she walked home. Do you know how many young women have thrown their lives away for love, only to lose that as well?

Well, she didn’t have an exact figure, but Cosette could certainly name one woman who did just that: her mother. Her own mother had forfeited everything for the chance at love, just to be cast aside in the end.

Marius was no Félix Tholomyès. Marius was Marius, kind and earnest and devoted. He was brilliant but self-conscious, brave but anxious. Marius loved her. He loved her, and he would never do anything to hurt her.

But —

Young love is not worth risking your entire future.

She knew she was getting biased advice. Of course Sister Simplice would want Cosette to renounce Marius and all Earthly distractions; she had only been trying to lure Cosette to the cloister since the moment Cosette had enrolled at the Catholic school as a child. Once, she had suggested to Cosette that she might replace Sister Simplice as the head of the school one day.

Cosette didn’t want that, not really. It was flattering, but — but she knew what she wanted. She wanted to write.

The problem was that there was nobody else to whom she could go for advice. No other adults, at least. Her mother was dead; her father didn’t even know that she had a boyfriend. The other nuns were all in Sister Simplice’s pocket, and Marius’ aunt would suggest anything if she thought it might take Cosette out of the picture.

As for her friends, who were her options? Enjolras, who considered everything secondary to the cause, romance and school alike? Grantaire, who was drowning in alcohol and self-loathing, who started fights because it was the only way he knew to get Enjolras’ eyes on him? Combeferre would guide her toward education; Courfeyrac would steer her right into Marius’ arms. No, her friends would provide only the most contradictory advice, in the end.

Anyway, it would be unfair to ask them. They were Marius’ friends, too. Scratch that: they were Marius’ friends, period. Cosette only knew them through Marius, had only lucked into their friendship through his love. She could not ask them if they thought she should break up with him.

She knew Sister Simplice’s was a biased point of view, but it was the only point of view which she had to consider. Unlatching the front gate, Cosette wiped her tears from her face. She swallowed her fears and her phantoms, forcing her lips into a fake smile.

For better or worse, Cosette had made her decision.

Young love is not worth risking your entire future.

Marius doesn’t know about this, of course. Nobody does. Well, okay, Grantaire knows. But Grantaire knows everything about Cosette, so that hardly counts, and he’s sworn to secrecy. Nobody else knows, and in an ideal universe, they never will.

It isn’t fair to blame Sister Simplice, anyway. She may have provided the target, but Cosette was the one that pulled the trigger. Cosette made her choice. She is a big girl, she can live with the consequences of her actions.

It isn’t so bad, really. It can’t be bad: it’s Marius. She runs into him again at the grocery store, this time in the freezer aisle.

Actually, Marius runs into her this time.

“Am I interrupting something?” he asks from somewhere behind her, humor coloring his voice.

Cosette has been staring determinedly at the top shelf for at least five minutes. There is a package up there that she wants, just out of her reach, and she is too proud to ask for help. She is just devising a makeshift grappling hook in her head — consisting mainly of the wired earbuds in her bag and a few well-placed bobby pins — when he startles her out of her thoughts.

She scowls at him over her shoulder. “No. Am I in your way?”

Marius shakes his head. He looks between her and the top shelf, then back at her. “Do you need help?”

“No,” she says again, too fast. Heat rises to her cheeks. “Maybe.”

He does not make her ask, and he does not tease, for which she is particularly grateful. He simply steps around her, close enough to send a shiver down her spine, and opens the freezer. In the space of a second, he has reached the package she wants and handed it off to her with a flourish.

“Thank you,” she says, unable to maintain her annoyed expression; she smiles, a small thing. “Groceries should not live that high up. It feels like cruel and unusual punishment toward those of us who didn’t drink ent water as children.”

She only says it to make Marius laugh, and her whole body goes warm when she succeeds. His face lights up as he laughs, eyes crinkling, white teeth on display. God, how she’s missed that smile.

“Anything else I can help you with?” he asks, when his laughter has died away. “Heavy objects that need lifting? Wars to die in? Any other manly duties that I can fulfill?”

Cosette pulls a face. “I’m good,” she tells him, “but thanks for the assist.”

“Marius is back in town,” Cosette hears herself saying to her papa, one day.

She doesn’t know what possesses her to tell him this. Her father never — he has never been Marius’ biggest fan, all things considered. She doesn’t know how Valjean found out about Marius, or why he disliked him so completely, but she knows that it is true. Her devoted, loving father, the man who believes in second and third and thousandth chances —

He despises Marius Pontmercy.

So, she shouldn’t say it. There are a million other things to talk about, after all: the upcoming holidays, the soup kitchen where they volunteer together every other weekend, the dog that her father recently took in off the street. They can talk about the weather. Movies. Laundry. Anything, anything at all except:

“Marius Pontmercy,” says Valjean. His voice isn’t half as distasteful as it could be, but there is still a certain coldness to it that surprises her. “I didn’t even know he left.”

Cosette nods, scraping the edge of her thumbnail along her coffee cup. “Yes,” she says, already rather wishing that she hadn’t brought it up. “He went to Berlin for a few years.”

Her papa fiddles with his ballpoint pen. He has the newspaper open before him on the table, the crossword puzzle half finished. “Good place for him.”

She should leave it there. She should change the subject, talk about the children at the community center or the article she is working on now, but instead she says, “Why do you hate him?”

When Valjean looks up at her, his eyes are wide with surprise. “I don’t hate him,” he says. It sounds every bit the lie that Cosette knows it to be. He sighs, then, and rubs at his temples. “I don’t mean to hate him. He’s a fine young man, I’m sure. I just never thought he was good enough for you.”

“He’s wonderful,” Cosette says. All sorts of sentences are slipping from her today that she means to keep locked away. “I think you would like him, if you ever bothered to get to know him.”

Her papa smiles a little, a strained expression. “Probably so,” he admits. “I just wonder, all those boys you run around with, why was Marius the one you chose? Why not, say, Enjolras?”

Cosette has to laugh at that. “Well, first of all, I’m not quite his type,” she says. “Second of all, since my best friend has been madly in love with him forever, that would be very unfortunate, I think.”

“Combeferre, then,” says Valjean good-naturedly. “Or Courfeyrac. Or what about Feuilly? I always liked him.”

Certainly Cosette’s life would be easier if she could fall for someone else instead. If she could love wise, steady Combeferre; charming, happy-go-lucky Courfeyrac; quiet, diligent Feuilly. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be one of her friends: she could choose someone whose roots haven’t yet tangled with hers, someone outside their messy little constellation. Certainly, that would simplify things a bit.

“You don’t get to choose who you love,” she says, looking down at her cup. “If you did, it wouldn’t really be love, would it?”

Valjean is quiet for a long moment. “That’s very wise,” he says eventually. “Are you seeing him again?”

There is no discernible judgment in his voice, but Cosette still flushes. “No,” she says shortly. “No, definitely not.”

“I like your sweater,” Marius says on Tuesday.

Cosette flashes him a smile. “Of course you like it,” she says, shimmying her shoulders a little. “It’s the most hideous holiday sweater I’ve been able to find this year.”

It is decidedly horrible, all clashing colors and bright, bright lights. “Any article of clothing that comes with a battery pack should be outlawed,” she tells him, even as she presses the button to make the sweater light up again.

Marius laughs. “I believe that is what Enjolras would call a violation of our human rights,” he says. “Besides, you make such a lovely Christmas tree.”

Her face heats. “Why, thank you,” she says, rather than brushing off the compliment. Let the waves drag her under; fighting only prolongs the pain. “You should see the elf outfit I’m putting together.”

“I look forward to it.” Marius is blushing, too, cheeks delightfully pink even in the community center’s harsh fluorescent lighting.

They go their separate ways after that, Marius to supervise a basketball game outside, Cosette to help a few kids with their homework. This is one of the great things about the community center: often, they are too busy for Cosette to even consider Marius. She can spend hours poring over textbooks and worksheets, explaining equations and metaphors, without even remembering that he is there.

Until, of course —

“Oh,” says Cosette. “Hello, Henry.”

Henry is one of the youngest children who spends their afternoon at the community center, barely old enough to have started school. He is a sweetheart, usually, but like all children, he can also be a bit of a troublemaker. Like now, for instance: as Cosette kneels on the floor to pick up some toys that have been left out, Henry comes up behind her and wraps his arms tight around her neck.

Cosette swallows. “Could you let go of me, please? You’re hurting me.”

He isn’t, really, but his little arms are pressing against her throat in a way that is distinctly uncomfortable. But Henry just laughs, clinging closer to her.

She reaches up and tries gently to move his arms. “Henry, I asked you to let go. It’s important to listen when people ask you not to touch them.”

Henry’s grip on her is vicelike, much stronger than a child so young has any right to be. Cosette doesn’t think she will be able to pry him off without hurting him, and that isn’t — she doesn’t want to do that. She breathes out, deflating a bit.

“Henry,” she says, in the stern voice she reserves for only the most serious moments. “You have to let go of me now.”

He only laughs again. He has an adorable laugh, clear and cheerful, and usually Cosette cannot help but laugh along with him.

Now, though, she is not laughing. “Henry,” she tries, one last time.

“Henry,” says another voice, oddly close. “Come here.”

The pressure on Cosette’s throat disappears so suddenly that her vision goes a bit spotty; she hadn’t even realized she was struggling to breathe until all the air rushes back into her lungs.

When she turns, Marius is there. Marius is right there, so close she could cry, gently unwrapping Henry’s arms from around her and lifting the boy away. One of Marius’ forearms brushes against the side of Cosette’s neck, and she shivers.

“Thank you,” Cosette says faintly. She gasps in a breath, and then another. Henry is still giggling, held safe in the refuge of Marius’ arms. “He wouldn’t — thank you.”

Marius only rolls one shoulder, half of a shrug. “It’s no problem,” he says. Softly, he sets Henry down on his feet, then crouches down to the boy’s level. “Henry,” says Marius, quite firmly, “when people ask us not to touch them, it’s important that we listen. You need to apologize to Cosette.”

Henry turns toward Cosette, blinking. Her irritation with him has already disappeared — it is so difficult to stay angry at a child — but still, she waits for his apology. When he speaks, it is in a small voice. “I’m sorry.”

Cosette smiles gently. “I accept your apology, Henry,” she says. “Now, why don’t you go get your backpack? It’s almost pick-up time.”

He hurries away toward the cubbies. Marius stands, watching him go, then offers a hand to Cosette.

She almost ignores it, but — but that would be rude. Anyway, what is the harm in taking his hand? She accepts it, and he pulls her to her feet, just fast enough to make her head spin.

Unbalanced, Cosette takes half a step forward. She is far too close to Marius now, and she knows it, but she can’t quite bring herself to step out of his space. He is so warm, and so solid, and so Marius.

“Thank you,” she says again.

“It’s no problem.” Marius looks down at her, smiling. He lifts one hand, hesitant, and brushes a bit of hair out of her face.

It’s as if Cosette has been struck by lightning; she turns, facing away, and steps back. The loss of his warmth is disorienting, but not quite as much as his touch. “Thank you,” she says, for approximately the thousandth time. “I have to — thank you.”

She walks away before he can say another word.

“Drink with me,” Grantaire says, the moment that Cosette sits down beside him at the bar.

He doesn’t have to tell her twice; she orders something fruity from the bartender and then drops her head onto Grantaire’s shoulder without ceremony. “I’m dying,” she tells him.

“No offense, but I can kinda tell,” he says. He pats at her hair while he talks. “You look… not great.”

Cosette groans. “He’s everywhere. It’s killing me.” She perks up when she hears a glass clinking against the bar, and pulls the drink toward herself greedily. “It would be better if he hated me, I think.”

Grantaire makes a disagreeable noise. “Trust me when I say this: no, it really fucking wouldn’t.” He swirls his own drink around in its glass, something dark that he’s clearly been nursing for a while. Even now, seeing Grantaire drink in moderation is an oddity. “Tolerance is easier than hatred, I promise. Hatred is much too close to love, it all ends up feeling the same.”

“That sounds healthy,” Cosette says. She takes a long drink of her pink concoction; as expected, she can’t even taste the alcohol in it. Dangerous. “Is that why you spent so long pulling Enjolras’ pigtails?”

He snorts. “You know it.” At the mention of Enjolras, Grantaire looks over his shoulder, casting a lingering glance to the corner of the bar where Enjolras is currently proselytizing to a gaggle of young people who are very clearly more interested in his person than his politics. “And, well. It worked, didn’t it?”

Cosette’s glass is drained in record time. “Enjolras didn’t fall in love with you because you annoyed him into it,” she says, a little waspish.

“No?” Grantaire turns to her again, eyes alight with amusement. “Why, then?”

“Because…” Cosette trails off as the bartender slides another glass toward her. It’s going to be one of those nights, she can already tell: she is going to get absolutely plastered, and probably cry a little, and end up shepherded into an Uber by Enjolras or Combeferre or whoever amongst their friends has elected to remain nominally sober tonight. Cosette leans into the impending chaos with relish. “Because of the law of complementary colors. That which we lack attracts us.”

Grantaire laughs at this, although she hadn’t meant to be funny. “The law of complementary colors. I like that.”

She gives a little half-bow. “It’s yours for the taking.”

They don’t talk very much after that. Grantaire switches to water and devotes himself to sticking to Enjolras’ side like velcro, much to the dismay of his acolytes; Cosette devotes herself to her little pink cocktails.

At some point, a young man comes to sit beside her. He’s handsome in a polished way, clean-shaven and well-dressed. He reminds her so much of her old classmates from Boston that she turns away slightly on her stool, rolling her eyes.

“Let me buy you a drink,” he says, leaning in close so as to be heard over the din of the bar.

Cosette glances over at him, bleary-eyed. “Thanks,” she says, “but no thanks.” Pointedly, she turns away again.

The young man only leans in closer. He smells of aftershave and whiskey, warm and masculine and oh so close. “Come on, it’s one drink.”

She presses her eyes shut. She could, she knows. To hell with the drink; she could climb into a car with him and go wherever, give herself over for one night. She’s done it before. She can do it again. It would be so easy.

But, no. “I’m not interested,” she says. She speaks slowly, enunciating the words with great care. “Please leave me alone.”

She is in luck; the young man simply shrugs and walks away without another word. He’s only gone for a moment, however, before his seat is occupied once again.

“Really,” says Cosette, not even bothering to glance at the newcomer, “I’m not worth the trouble.”

“Now, that’s just not true,” says Marius Pontmercy.

Cosette rubs a cold hand across her face. “Hello,” she says, still not looking over at him. “Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

“It’s fine,” Marius says easily. “Was that guy bothering you?”

She shakes her head. “No, he just wanted to buy me a drink. I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”

This is most of the reason that she even agreed to come out tonight: Grantaire said Marius wouldn’t be there. Had she known he would be here, she would have simply bought herself a screw-top bottle of wine and sulked in the comfort and privacy of her own apartment.

But here they are. Marius is dressed as if he’s just come from a formal event: suit and tie, artfully deconstructed by restless hands. His shirt collar is unbuttoned, his tie undone. He is rumpled and endearing, and just close enough to make Cosette want to cry.

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Marius says. “My grandfather had a dinner party tonight. My attendance was expected. But I always forget how old people like to end all their events early.”

Cosette nods. Her glass is empty, but she doesn’t motion for the bartender to bring her another. The room is already spinning; she has surpassed her limit, and then some. “Right.”

Marius watches her for a moment, then frowns. “Sorry,” he says, for some unknown reason. “I won’t bother you any longer. I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“You’re not bothering me,” Cosette says. She hardly realizes she’s saying the words, even as they continue to leave her mouth. “I just don’t know what to say. I’m very drunk.”

He breathes a laugh. “I can tell.” He signals for the bartender, and a moment later, two bottles of water appear before them. To Cosette, he says, “What are we celebrating, then?”

“Being alive,” Cosette tells him. She struggles with the cap of her water bottle for a few seconds, then gives up and puts it back on the bar. Marius cracks the lid and slides it a bit closer to her.

“A worthy achievement,” he says. He waits until Cosette has taken a few sips of water before continuing, “Should I order you an Uber?”

She shakes her head, but she’s unsure what to say. She should go home; she does not want Marius’ help. There is no way of saying this without sounding mean, and even if there was, her drunken brain would not be able to conjure it.

Luckily, the universe has decided to throw her a bone; Grantaire and Enjolras suddenly appear on either side of her, zipping up their jackets. “We’ve got her,” Grantaire says, touching her elbow lightly. “We’re just leaving, anyway.”

Marius studies the three of them for a moment before nodding. “Alright,” he says. “Be safe getting home, you guys.”

Leaving is a group effort: Grantaire has to help Cosette button up her jacket; Enjolras has to help her remain upright as they go.

“You really put ‘em away,” Enjolras says as they wait for their ride.

Cosette can only nod. She still clutches her water bottle in her hands. It occurs to her that she never thanked Marius for it. She should —

“No,” Grantaire says, very nearly gentle. She hadn’t even realized she had been speaking aloud, but she must have been, because he tells her, “Just this once, he’ll forgive you.”

Just this once. Cosette’s eyes swim with tears. “Stay with me?” she asks. A car pulls up in front of them, headlights glimmering.

Grantaire pushes a wayward lock of hair behind Cosette’s ear. “Of course,” he says. “All night, and then some.”

The house on the Rue Plumet has changed little in the last five years. The gate still creaks when it opens, and shrubbery still hides the house itself from prying eyes. It is still a place removed from time, from the city, from the world at large. It is still Cosette’s home, in some ways.

Her papa is not there when she lets herself inside, but that’s alright. She isn’t actually here for him today; today, she has a specific aim. She walks through the house, dimly-lit and quiet, steadfastly ignoring the way that her throat leaps into her chest as she remembers her years spent here. How safe she felt then, and how lonely. How loved she was, and how lost. How all these contradictions tumbled around inside of her like, like — like shoes in a clothes dryer.

Down the hall, through the kitchen, out another door. The garden is a wilderness of brown and grey, dead leaves crunching beneath her shoes. In the spring, these plants will grow and blossom once again, but right now, they wither and decay.

The path through the garden is unmarked, but Cosette could find it with her eyes shut. She moves on muscle memory alone, her body taking her to the right, straight, right again, a little left. Through the gaps left by the bare tree branches, she can see fragments of the house when she looks back, a snatch of roof here, a glimpse of a shutter there. Her corner of the garden is well-hidden and quiet, an earthly refuge carved out for herself and herself only.

Well, that’s not exactly true. She shared this corner, years ago. She showed Marius just how to climb over the wall without falling, precisely where to place his hands and feet to make it up and down relatively unscathed. She showed him the flowers back here, when they were in bloom; she identified the constellations that lived in the patch of sky over the garden, changing with every season. She gave away every bit of this garden to Marius, and she never regretted it, not once.

The dead leaves are piled high back here, now. It makes sense: she can’t imagine that anyone has spent any time out here, not since she left. Her father liked the garden well enough, but his time was primarily spent in the more tame parts nearer to the house. The wild outer reaches always belonged to Cosette, and when she left, there was little reason to maintain them.

Once upon a time, she would have sat on the ground. Now, she leans against the wall, the stone cold as ice against her back. Her breath comes in white clouds, still visible in the quickly-dying daylight, but she closes her eyes against it all.

It is so quiet here. When she and Marius sat back here, they had to whisper, barely breathing the words between them. And if it had snowed — if it had snowed, they couldn’t talk at all. The sound would carry too far.

It will snow soon, Cosette knows. The clouds give themselves away: blinding white, even as the sun makes its rapid descent westward. And even if she couldn't see it, she could smell it, the promise of a winter storm thick in the air. Tonight or tomorrow, maybe.

She leaves. She isn’t sure what she hoped to find in the garden, but she knows that she is not leaving empty handed.

She could go back through the house — but, no. She runs her hands along the wall for a moment, seeking the handholds she knows must still be there. Ah, yes, there they are, just a bit over her head. Her boots find the footholds easily, even after all these years, and she hoists herself up.

Once she is in the air, the climb is easy. The brain may forget, but the body remembers, and it is only a few seconds before she is slinging her legs over the top of the wall and descending the other side. She has made this climb so many times, over the years. Not recently, but that doesn’t matter: sneaking out is like riding a bike. Once you know the right way to do it, it takes deliberate effort or extreme carelessness to fuck it up. Cosette hops down and lands lightly, knees bent, before straightening up with pride. Even in the bitter cold, she has to smile to herself, rubbing her red hands together in accomplishment.

And then, a sound.

It is a small sound — nothing more than an amused hum — but it is enough to make Cosette whip around, her hands automatically clenching into fists. Marius Pontmercy raises his eyebrows at her and takes half a step back.

“I swear, I’m not following you,” he says, making a valiant effort not to smile.

Slowly, she lowers her hands. “I’d like to believe you,” she tells him, “but you are standing outside of my childhood home like a creep, so…”

He does smile, now. He has an altogether too-charming smile, made all the more charismatic through its bashfulness. His cheeks are pink in the winter air. “I was walking by,” he says, gesturing vaguely about himself. “And then I saw you coming over the side of the wall.”

“So, you stopped to watch me,” says Cosette. “Like a creep.”

Marius nods, his face turning even pinker. “Yes.”

She means to look stern; the corners of her mouth betray her by twitching up. “Well, at least you’re honest.” She crosses her arms over chest, shifting against the cold. “I’ll see you later.”

She hasn’t even taken a step in the opposite direction before Marius is speaking again. “It’s supposed to snow tonight,” he says. “A lot. So if you — if you need anything at the store, you should probably get it now.”

Cosette turns to look at him. “Right. And…?”

If nothing else, it is fun to watch his face shift from pink to red. “And you might need something off of a high shelf.”

A laugh is surprised out of her. She hesitates, just long enough to make his eyebrows furrow. Then, she says, “I very well might.”

It is as much of an invitation as she is willing to extend, but it is more than enough for Marius, apparently; he springs forward, following her along the sidewalk. “Why were you climbing over the wall, anyway?” he asks as they cross the street.

Cosette flushes, thanking her lucky stars that there is a cold wind to blame for it. She very carefully remains a step ahead of Marius, despite his longer legs, as she replies. “Old time’s sake, I suppose.”

Behind her, he hums. “I seem to recall scaling that wall more than you did.”

“And I seem to recall teaching you how to do it in the first place,” she says. “So, I believe I still have a claim on it.”

“I miss it,” Marius says suddenly. “The anticipation, the thrill. I miss being seventeen and just — just knowing that you were on the other side, waiting for me.”

If Cosette falters, it is only for a fraction of a second. She still cannot see Marius, and she is still grateful for that. “I miss it, too,” she says, quietly enough that she can entertain the idea that he doesn’t hear her.

He hears her. Of course he hears her. “Would you do it again?” he asks. “If you woke up tomorrow and you were seventeen, and we had just met, and you knew everything. Would you still show me how to climb the wall?”

“Yes.” She does not have to think about it. Patently refuses to think about it, in fact, afraid to discover just how badly she wants it. She turns, then, blonde hair flying over one shoulder, and she fixes Marius with a look. “But there’s no going back.”

Marius shakes his head. “No,” he says, voice low. “No, there isn’t.”

The snow is beautiful for approximately five seconds. After that, it is simply cold.

“I see you still hate the cold,” Marius says. He leans against the outer wall of the Café Musain, hands in his pockets, watching Cosette approach with a crooked little smile.

She scowls at him as she hurries down the block. Bundled up in a sweater and a jacket and thick tights beneath her jeans, gloves and scarf and hat and two pairs of socks — she is somehow still cold. “It’s more like the cold hates me.” She pauses on the café’s threshold, arching an eyebrow at him. “Why are you out here?”

Marius shrugs one shoulder. “Needed some air.” At Cosette’s disbelieving look, he laughs. “Some of us enjoy the cold, you know.”

“Some of you have something very wrong with you.” She pulls the door open and steps inside, letting the warm air wash over her. Marius is close on her heels.

Shedding her outer layers is a process; Cosette begins with her gloves. Without missing a beat, Marius steps in close and unwinds her scarf gently, talking all the while. “I’m surprised you came out tonight, honestly. When I saw the snow this morning, I didn’t think you could be convinced to leave your bed, let alone your apartment.”

Cosette blinks a few times. It’s hard to focus on his words when he is so close. It’s hard to focus on anything — she can feel his breath on her temple, the warmth of his hands brushing her neck. His hands shouldn’t be so warm after standing around outside. Everything about Marius is prefaced by shouldn’t be, it seems. He shouldn’t be warm, shouldn’t be smiling, shouldn’t be so easy to love.

And yet, he always is.

The time to respond to whatever he said has come and gone. All Cosette can do is stare up at him as he drapes her scarf over his arm, plucks the knit hat off her head. Those warm hands reach for the buttons of her coat, but then he seems to think better of it; finally, regrettably, he takes a step back. His mouth opens, and she can imagine exactly what he’s going to say — sorry — but no words come out.

“Thank you,” she says, several beats too late.

Marius smiles his beatific smile. Cosette wants to reach up, wants to trace the line of his jaw, wants to touch that much-loved face.

But, no.

Still, she is incapable of moving away from him until she hears Grantaire’s voice nearby. “Sylvia…”

Cosette steps back, and then back again, hoping to put a normal amount of distance between them before Grantaire comes down the stairs and sees them standing so close. Judging by the look on Grantaire’s face, she isn’t quick enough, but he seems to have bigger problems right now. Namely: Enjolras.

“For the thousandth time,” Enjolras is saying to Grantaire, “I am not doing Love Is Strange with you.” He, at least, didn’t seem to catch the closeness between Cosette and Marius, but his eyebrows jump when he realizes they’ve been left alone together. “Cos. Marius.”

Cosette takes her scarf from Marius’ outstretched hands. “Hey, guys.” To Grantaire, she says, “I’ll do Love Is Strange with you.”

Grantaire’s face lights up. “Sylvia!”

“Yes, Mickey?”

They do Love Is Strange as Cosette follows Grantaire back up the stairs. She leaves Marius at the bottom, chatting with Enjolras about something or other, her hat still held in one of his warm hands.

It was supposed to end in the garden.

This was what Cosette decided, after her conversation with Sister Simplice: she and Marius would have one last feverish summer together. There was no point in breaking things off with him early, after all. Why shouldn’t they have a few more months of happiness? Why couldn’t they love one another a little longer?

And so, he kept climbing over the wall, and Cosette kept letting him in. She told no one of her plan, least of all Marius. This was a burden she would carry alone.

They watched the constellations shift as the summer dragged on. They sat together, sweat-tacky, and dreamt aloud of distant futures and unreachable pasts. In the daytime, Cosette often met Marius for coffee or gelato, or they took refuge from the heat in darkened movie theaters. They sat together at ABC meetings, ankles twined beneath the table; more than once, Cosette herself snuck over the garden wall to join Marius on moonlit strolls through a nearby park.

And all the while, Cosette planned her goodbye.

It would be sweet, but simple. She would not make a production of it. She would not cry. She would not allow herself to be convinced to change her mind. She would say her piece, and then she would go inside.

She waited until the night before she was supposed to leave to tell him.

“Marius,” she said, taking courage in the weight of his arm around her shoulder.

He hummed. “Cosette?”

The sky was growing lighter with every passing second. Their time was up. “I’m leaving,” she said. Her voice came out scratchier than she anticipated.

Beside her, Marius made a soft sound. “I know.”

“I’m leaving,” she said again, more emphatic. “And I can’t take you with me.”

Marius shifted, and his arm left her shoulder. She missed it immediately. “I know that,” he said, turning to get a better look at her. Their corner of the garden was dark, but they were close enough that Cosette could make out the line of his nose, the glimmer of his eyes. “You don’t have to keep saying it.”

“Marius,” she said again. Now that it was time to say it, she found that she couldn’t quite grasp the words. All her life, she had prided herself on writing, on how easily the sentences flowed from her. But now, this: nothing. What a failure of a wordsmith she was.

“Cosette.”

She cast about for something to say, anything. For a third time, she said, “I’m leaving.”

The words exploded out of Marius with a desperation she had never quite heard from him before. “I know that, Cosette! Believe me, I know. There hasn’t been a minute this summer that it hasn’t been on my mind. What do you want me to say? Do you want me to ask you to stay? Should I beg you not to go? Because I’m sorry, but I can’t. I can’t do that to you. I love you too much to —” He cut himself off quite suddenly with a broken laugh. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Don’t be sorry, Cosette wanted to say.

Instead, she said, “We can’t do this anymore.”

Marius sucked in a breath. In the darkness, the line of his mouth changed. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Cosette took a deep breath, “we can’t — it’s over, Marius.”

One of his hands came up as if to caress her face, but he seemed to think better of it; the hand dropped back into his lap. “Don’t say that.”

Her eyes were burning with the promise of tears. I will not cry, she thought, but it made no difference: the tears came anyway. “It will never be like this again.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this. It just has to be you.”

Her resolve was quickly giving way. Cosette pushed up off the ground, brushing the grass from her legs. Her clothes were damp with dew. “You are going to love someone who deserves you one day,” she said. If her voice cracked, that was nobody’s concern but her own.

Marius, too, stood. “I love you now.”

She turned away from him, then. The sun was coming up and if she got a good look at Marius’ face, she knew she would break. She had to leave, leave while she was strong enough. “I have to go. My flight is at two. I need to get some sleep if I can.”

With that, she walked away.

Walking away, walking away, Cosette is always walking away. In the garden, at the airport, down the street from the Musain. Cosette takes another step, and then another, wondering why it feels so much colder than it did just a little while ago.

“Cosette!”

She walks faster. She doesn’t — she can’t —

“Wait up! I have your hat!”

That pulls her up short, at least. She stops in the middle of the sidewalk, eyes fluttering shut. Her hat. That’s why it seems colder, suddenly. She forgot her hat.

Marius catches up with her in a matter of seconds. His boots crunch in the snow, now grey and slushy, as he approaches. “Hey,” he says, coming around in front of her. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Cosette says. She wants it to be true, so —

So nothing. A lie is a lie is a lie, no matter what you want it to be.

Marius shifts slightly. Her hat is clutched in his hands, but he makes no move to offer it to her yet. “Are you sure? You really booked it out of there.”

Yes, she did. Cosette looks over her shoulder, glaring at the Musain’s light down the street. Just beneath it, she can make out the distinct shape of Enjolras on the sidewalk, his gilded hair, the red slash of his scarf. It’s hard to tell from a distance, but he appears to be watching the two of them.

“Really,” says Cosette. In her pocket, her phone buzzes. She decidedly ignores it. “Can I have my hat, please?”

“Oh,” says Marius, “right.” He holds the knit hat out. Their hands brush when Cosette snatches it away.

She yanks the hat over her hair and steps around Marius. “Thank you,” she says shortly. “I’ll see you later.” Again, a thousand times, she walks away.

Again, a thousand times, he follows. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m pretty sure I said that I’m alright.” She pauses at an intersection just long enough to let a car go by, then darts across the street. Still, Marius follows her. “Go back to the meeting, Marius.”

He makes a noise. “Meeting’s over. Enjolras called it off when you left. Really, Cos. What’s wrong?”

“I just…” She grasps about for an excuse, something less than the truth but more than a lie. “I needed some air.”

“Some air,” he repeats, disbelieving. “It’s freezing out here.”

As if to prove his point, his breath clouds in front of his face. Cosette crosses her arms over her chest and continues on, undeterred. “Hence, my rapid relocation. Go back, tell the guys you can keep going. I don’t mind.”

Marius makes an unhappy sound. “I mind. You don’t have to tell me what’s wrong, that’s fine, but at least let me make sure you get home okay.”

“Look.” She stops on the sidewalk again and turns to look at Marius, properly look at him. His brows are furrowed and his mouth is cherry red. She intends to say something cruel, something that will send him in the opposite direction with his tail tucked between his legs, but — but she can’t. She sighs, and the truth slips out of her. “It really is not that deep, okay? I’m just getting a migraine, and I need to get home before it knocks me on my ass.”

There is a brief pause as Marius reads her face, finds the truth on it. He slumps. “Why didn’t you just say so? Nobody would have minded.”

“I know,” says Cosette. “But then everyone would have made a thing of it, and someone would have insisted on driving me home, and I just — I can take care of myself, Marius.”

He nods. “You can,” he agrees easily.

She assumes that this is the end of the conversation. She will go her way, and he will go back to the Musain, where he will tell Enjolras that it’s fine, Cosette’s just got a migraine, let’s carry on. This is what would happen in a perfect universe, at least.

But, as Cosette is constantly learning, the universe is not perfect. She continues down the street, and Marius continues with her.

She could tell him to go. Seriously, genuinely tell him, I don’t want you to walk me home. If she put her foot down, he would listen. He would not insist. She knows this.

She turns the corner, and she doesn’t say a word when Marius turns with her.

They make it to her building quickly. Outside, Marius pauses on the steps, hands shoved into his pockets. “Well,” he says.

Cosette takes a moment to look at him. Pink ears, chapped red lips, snow stuck in the tread of his boots. She sighs, and she makes a decision. “Come in for a second,” she tells him. “To warm up.”

For a second, she thinks he’s going to say no. For a second, she thinks that she wants him to say no.

Then —

“Alright,” he says, and Cosette knows that this is the right answer.

The lobby is warm and bright, but Cosette does not pause on her way upstairs. They take the elevator, and Cosette pretends not to feel nauseous at the small compartment’s abrupt lurching. When the bell dings to signal their floor, she launches herself into the hallway.

Down the hall, unlock the door, turn the lights on. Her apartment is tiny, but cozy. She hardly pauses to kick her boots off before she’s sliding into the kitchen in sock feet, gloved hands reaching for the cabinet where she keeps her medicine.

The front door closes behind Marius, but Cosette hardly notices. She shuffles through her medicine cabinet until finally, blissfully, she comes across her migraine medicine. Snatches it up, shakes, and —

And swears, several decibels too loud.

“Is everything alright?” Marius calls from the other room.

Cosette presses the heel of one hand to her forehead. “Yep,” she calls back. She sounds unconvincing even to herself. “Just peachy.”

When Marius appears in the kitchen entryway, his eyes are round with worry. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” Cosette quickly puts the empty bottle back in the cabinet and plasters a smile across her face. “Thank you for walking me home, your chivalry is appreciated. A cup of tea before you go?”

She should know better than to lie to Marius by now, truly. He steps up beside her and reaches past her to open the cabinet. They are close enough for his warmth to settle beneath her skin.

He finds the empty bottle easily. “You’re out,” he says needlessly, upon shaking it and being met with silence.

Cosette sighs. “Yes,” she says, “I’m out.” There’s that fake smile again, much too bright. “It’s fine. I’ll just get in bed and turn the lights off, I’ll be grand.”

Marius makes a doubtful face. “You can’t lie to me, Cosette.”

“I can do whatever I set my mind to,” she snaps. Then, “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m just.” She makes a vague gesture at her head. “Frazzled. Really, though, let me make you a cup of tea.”

But Marius is already leaving the kitchen, already buttoning his jacket back up. Cosette follows him back to the door, and watches as he steps back into his boots. Her face flushes with guilt. “Really, Marius, I’m sorry, please let me —”

He glances over at her, shaking his head. “No, it’s okay,” he says. He finishes tying his laces and flashes her a counterfeit smile of his own.

“Marius —”

“I’ll see you soon,” he says, before slipping out the door.

She almost chases after him. Almost. But — what would she even say? Please come back, let me make you tea, forgive me.

No. She will not chase him. She will not ask for forgiveness from him, not again.

She sighs and gets to work undoing her myriad of winter layers. Hat, gloves, jacket, sweater, second pair of socks. When these are all set aside, she retreats to her bedroom, where she changes into her pajamas. Her head throbs against the light, so she shuts it off. The throbbing continues.

Fucking fuck. She brushes her teeth, but skips the rest of her nighttime routine. Even just braiding her hair is suddenly too much effort. She is just about to drop into bed when there’s a knock at the door.

For a moment, she thinks she’s imagined it. She pauses, one knee propped on the edge of the bed, listening.

The knock comes again.

Fucking fuck. She drags herself to the living room and peers through the peephole.

Huh.

She blinks, rubs her temple, looks again.

The image before her remains unchanged.

Marius Pontmercy stands outside her door.

Cosette unlocks the door and steps to the side, ushering him inside. “Are you alright?” she asks, eyes roving over him. There is fresh snow in his hair, and on the shoulders of his jacket. “Is it snowing again?”

“Yes,” he says, “and yes.” He is breathless, pink-faced and shivering. He pulls something from his jacket, a small box, and gives it a shake. A familiar rattling sound resounds from the package. “Here you go.”

She blinks at him. “What is that?”

Impatient, Marius tears the box open and dumps the bottle of migraine medicine into his palm. He opens it quickly and shakes out two pills. “Migraine medicine.” He holds the pills out to her.

Still blinking, Cosette takes the medicine and swallows it dry.

“Thank you,” she says after a moment. Belatedly, she takes the bottle from him. “You — did you just run to the store?”

Marius nods. The snow in his hair is melting, leaving the curls glittery in the low light of the living room.

Cosette — has a lump in her throat that has nothing to do with the dry-swallowed pills. “You didn’t have to do that,” she tells him.

“I know I didn’t,” he says, shameless. “I chose to do it.” A pause, then he adds, “I don’t like to see you in pain.”

She looks away, then. She has to look away, or else she will cry, and Marius definitely won’t enjoy that. “Oh,” she says, to fill the silence.

“Oh,” Marius repeats. He shifts on the welcome mat, and it occurs to Cosette that they haven’t even shut the door behind him.

“Come in,” she says. “Let me make you some tea, really.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees his lips quirk in a crooked smile. “No,” he says, but his voice is gentle. “I’ve gotta get home. Thank you, though.”

“Thank you,” she shoots back. “Really, Marius.”

He rakes a hand through his damp hair. “Really, Cosette. It’s fine.” He rubs his hands together, taking a step back. “I’ll see you soon.”

Later, Cosette will curse herself for what she does next. Later, she will attempt to take the moment apart, analyze it from all sides, figure out just why she did it. Later, she will cradle her head in her hands and hate herself, every version of her that has fucked with Marius’ heart.

Right now, she pulls Marius into a fierce hug.

It should be unfamiliar after five years, probably. Marius’ arms should be a cage, or a too-tight sweater; their bodies should be disparate and unyielding.

Instead, it is the most familiar thing. Cosette’s head fits into the crook of his neck just like she remembers; his arms wrapped around her are as safe a harbor as ever. Their ribs are interlocking pieces, a puzzle finally solved.

I love you, Cosette thinks ferociously.

They remain like that for far too long, carved into one another’s bodies. It is a small eternity before Marius finally, gently steps back.

“I’ll see you soon,” he says again.

The door shuts with a click.

“What you need,” says Grantaire, “is a rebound.”

Cosette rolls her eyes at him. “I think you’re about five years too late on that one.”

She’s been with other people since Marius. Casually, and almost seriously. Even just since being back in Paris, she’s been on a few dates here and there. It isn’t that there hasn’t been anyone else.

It’s just that —

“It’s Marius,” she says.

Grantaire nods solemnly. He has no room to talk, and he knows it. How many nights did he spend on the phone with Cosette, pouring out his broken heart? Two years of pining after Enjolras, dramatically and incessantly, and Cosette never complained once. If anyone understands, it is Grantaire.

He tops off her glass of wine and sighs. “First love, worst love,” he says morosely.

Cosette has to laugh a little at that. “That would be more convincing if you and Enjolras weren’t slit-your-own-throat happy together,” she says, “but I appreciate the sentiment.”

She sips at her wine. It’s cheap and too-sweet, staining their lips and teeth pink. Cosette’s legs are draped over Grantaire’s lap, her head thrown back on the arm of the couch. Grantaire swirls his wineglass absently. When a bead of wine escapes over the rim, he rubs it away, then licks the pad of his thumb clean.

They’re about halfway through the bottle when Enjolras gets home. He takes one look at the pair of them, flushed and languishing on the couch, before he sighs. “I see we’re despairing this evening.”

Grantaire nods, but Cosette shakes her head wildly. “We,” she says, “as in me and Grantaire. Not you. You’re not invited.”

Enjolras frowns. “I apologized.”

“Oh, it’s not that,” says Cosette with a flippant wave. “It’s just that you don’t know what it’s like, loving someone you can’t have.”

“Try me.”

Cosette and Grantaire both sit up straighter, watching him. Enjolras takes off his jacket, his shoes, his tie. He moves with a quiet solemnity, caught in his own gravity. Unbuttoning the top buttons of his shirt, he comes to the couch and nudges them apart until he can sit between the two of them.

“I loved Grantaire before I said anything,” Enjolras says. This apparently surprises Grantaire; he doesn’t even have the wherewithal to fight back when Enjolras plucks the wine glass from his hand and promptly drains it. “A long enough time for it to be silly, really.”

Cosette blinks. Her tipsy brain is — not following. “I don’t understand.”

Enjolras smiles, and the grooves between his teeth are pink to match Grantaire and Cosette’s. “Neither did I. I knew what I wanted, but I didn’t know how to get it. In retrospect, it seems simple, but at the time it was anything but. I had never — I didn’t even think it was a possibility for me. It took me a while to even realize it was love, in a different way from how I loved the others. And then, once I did realize, I was afraid.”

Grantaire seems to have recovered from his initial shock. His glass stolen and empty, he drinks directly from the wine bottle now. It is a familiar image, after all these years, and also an unfamiliar one. “You? Afraid?” he says to Enjolras, voice thick with disbelief. “Please. You’ve never been afraid of anything in your life, Apollo.”

“That isn’t true,” says Enjolras steadily, “and you know it.”

“What was there to be afraid of, though?” Cosette asks. “I mean, you had to know that Grantaire wasn’t going to reject you.”

Enjolras laughs, just a bit. “No, I wasn’t afraid of rejection. I was afraid of being wrong.” He tilts his head, considering. “I was afraid of hurting him.”

Cosette takes another sip of wine. She doesn’t know what to say to this, to Enjolras’ unflinching honesty, to the shocking fact of his humanity. If Enjolras can be afraid, if Enjolras can hide from his own feelings, what hope is there for the rest of them?

“Do you still love Marius?”

The question is a knife slipped between Cosette’s ribs. “Of course,” she says, without hesitation. It has never been otherwise. She loved Marius before she knew him; she loved him long after leaving him. Loving Marius is the only constant in her life; she wouldn’t know what to do with herself if she ever stopped.

She isn’t prepared for the look with which Enjolras fixes her: he always looks intense, by virtue of his blue, blue eyes, but this look in particular seems to pierce her very soul. “What are you afraid of?”

What is she afraid of? Everything. Literally every single thing. She is afraid of the choices she made in the past, afraid of the choices she might make in the future, afraid of the way she sits here in the present without any idea of what to do. Afraid of doing the wrong thing, and afraid of doing the right thing, too. Afraid of love, afraid of a lack of it. Afraid of losing Marius again. Afraid of being able to keep him.

“I’m afraid,” she settles on, “of making the wrong choice again.”

“Take it from someone who wasted a long time being afraid of making the wrong choice,” Enjolras tells her. “The only wrong choice you can make in the end is not making any choice at all.”

Like all advice, it’s much easier said than done.

The last time that Cosette made a choice like this — it destroyed them both. He was wrecked, Cos. And certainly, she hadn’t been much better off. After she was moved into her dorm in Boston, after her father had hugged her goodbye, after she had been left all alone in that new place with those new people and that new life —

Oh, she had fallen apart.

She had made a decision, and the fallout had been tremendous. Not just for her. Not even just for her and Marius. Grantaire had spent hours on the phone with Cosette night after night, letting her cry. Courfeyrac and Combeferre had Marius in their apartment for weeks, apparently. When Cosette made a choice, the consequences fell to everyone.

And anyway —

Anyway, what Cosette wants is only half of the equation. What about what Marius wants? Surely, surely he can’t want this. Can’t want to try again at the thing that broke his heart. There is no way that he can trust Cosette with this, not again.

Yet, Marius is still here, there, and everywhere.

He walks Cosette home after meetings, and brings her coffee at the community center. They go to the library together one afternoon, and he finds a book for her on a high shelf. “This is why you keep me around,” he teases, handing off the paperback. “If they ever start lowering these shelves, I’m screwed.”

She laughs, library-quiet. “Don’t worry, I’ll find another use for you yet.”

One weekend, he calls her up out of the blue and begins their conversation with, “Your article is brilliant.”

Cosette blinks. Weak winter sunlight stains her apartment a dismal shade of grey. “What article?”

“In today’s paper, about the myth of ‘rising crime.’ It made me think of that article you wrote in Boston, about how true crime profits mainly off of fear-mongering. You know, I —”

“Wait,” Cosette interrupts him, “wait, wait, I’m sorry, just. You.” She swallows. “You read my articles? When I was away?”

There is a brief pause. “Well, of course,” Marius says, a beat too late. “Enjolras sent them to me.”

Enjolras. Oh, when Cosette gets her hands on him —

“I didn’t know that,” she says, her voice paper-thin. “He never said.”

Another pause. “I sort of… asked him not to,” says Marius. “Sorry, I know it sounds super creepy.”

“I don’t think so.” Cosette does not feel creeped out; she feels like she’s going to cry. “It’s nice. It’s… really nice.”

“Yeah?”

Again, Cosette swallows. Her throat aches. “Yeah.”

They chat for a while about the article. Marius references several other pieces that Cosette authored for the student publication in Boston, as well as one of her first pieces for the newspaper here in Paris. It is strikingly, lethally clear that he has been following her work since the moment she turned her back on him.

“I don’t deserve him,” she tells Grantaire later that day, and she means it.

Without even looking, Grantaire offers her a box of tissues. “A wise woman once told me that thinking in terms of what we ‘deserve’ is an inherent act of self-sabotage.”

She makes a disagreeable sound as she wipes the tears from her eyes. “Oh, now you’re taking my advice?”

“You give good advice.” He slides a bookmark into his book, shuts it, and finally looks up at her. “I wish you’d take it for yourself, sometimes, instead of letting other people tell you what to do with yourself.”

A bit of a low blow, but not an undeserved hit. She laughs wetly. “You don’t think I should have listened to Sister Simplice.”

Grantaire makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “I don’t know,” he tells her. “But this is what I mean. It doesn’t matter what I think you should have done, Cos. It doesn’t matter what I think you should do now. Stop asking us all what to do. You know what you want. Just fucking get it.”

“Fuck you,” says Cosette, but it comes out too affectionately to carry any real weight.

He grins at her. “That’s my girl.”

Like one of those romantic comedies that Cosette loved to cry over, Marius ran through the airport for her.

She was flying to Boston alone; her father would be meeting her the next day. She felt both impossibly adult and frighteningly young, waiting alone in the stiff-backed lobby chairs, tapping one foot nervously. There was a paperback open in her lap, but she hadn’t yet turned a page. In her pocket, her phone buzzed intermittently, but she resolved not to look at it, for fear that it would be a message from someone she loved and she would lose all her nerve in one fell swoop.

It was so loud. This was the main sensory impression the airport left on her: it was too loud. A steady stream of announcements poured from the intercom system. People sat in clusters or bustled around in pairs, chatting amiably in so many different languages that Cosette’s head spun. Music played somewhere, and dishes clinked at the bar and the coffee stand, and babies were crying, and —

— And someone was shouting her name, off in the distance. “Cosette!”

At first, she thought she was imagining it. It was little more than an echo, a memory surfacing without her consent. She closed her eyes and ignored it. A cancelled flight was announced over the speakers.

The voice came again, closer now. “Cosette!”

She opened her eyes and looked around. Nothing. Maybe someone was calling out to another Cosette. It wasn’t a common name, exactly, but surely she wasn’t the only Cosette in the world. Yes, that was it. There was another Cosette here, and someone was looking for her.

And then, the third time. “Cosette! Euphrasie!”

Cosette stood up.

Suddenly, there he was, not far away at all. Marius Pontmercy, running through the airport, calling her name. Cosette. Euphrasie. His hair was wild and he wore last night’s clothes, like he had run here straight from the garden.

A group of people parted to let him through. He was in front of Cosette a moment later, his chest heaving, the skin beneath his eyes dark. Before she could stop herself, Cosette reached up and stroked his beloved face. “Did you sleep at all last night?” she asked him.

He smiled. He really was pale, beneath the sheen of sweat on his brow, but his cheeks dimpled as always. “No,” he said.

Her chest hurt. She had spent most of the night curled on her side in bed, crying. Certainly, she had run out of tears.

Except there she was again, her vision blurring, Marius’ heart in her hands.

“Have you come to tell me not to go?” she asked, her voice wobbling.

Again, he said, “No.” He shook his head, just a bit, not enough to dislodge the hand cradling his face. “I just came to say that I believe in you.”

I believe in you. Not I love you, not I’ll miss you. Trust Marius Pontmercy to cut through everything predictable and to land on that, on the very thing that Cosette needed from him. The one thing he could say that wouldn’t steal her last bit of courage.

I love you, she thought helplessly.

“Thank you,” she said. Her voice cracked right down the middle.

He leaned in, then, and brushed his lips across her cheek. It was less of a kiss and more of a promise, although a promise of what, she was unsure.

Cosette’s hand left his cheek and she threw her arms around him. She knew she shouldn’t, but — but she couldn’t let him go, not without holding him one last time. She was only human. She crushed his body against hers, drowning in her desperation.

He held her the way that only Marius could, like he was made for this and this alone. His pulse was a steady drumbeat beneath her cheek, more familiar than her own. A hundred times, she had fallen asleep with her head on his chest, his heartbeat her own personal lullabye. It hadn’t occurred to her that there would be a last time for that, too.

“You can do this,” he whispered against her temple.

Slowly, reluctantly, she released him. There were tears racing down her face, but she didn’t bother to wipe them away. As if on cue, an announcement came over the intercom that her flight was boarding.

“Goodbye, Marius,” she said. She smiled, turned, and picked up her suitcase. Behind her, she could feel Marius’ eyes on her still. Marius’ eyes on her, always.

As much as she wanted to, she did not turn back. She would not turn back.

A clean break. She owed Marius that, at least.

Now, Cosette stands outside the Café Musain, and she waits.

Behind her, the door opens and closes several times, warmth and light spilling out only to be shut away after a few seconds. She listens to the retreating voices of her friends, their ebullient chatter. Bossuet attempts to tell a joke, but laughs too hard to make it to the punchline; Jehan singsongs dirty limericks to a snickering Éponine. Feuilly and Combeferre pause to ask Cosette if she needs a ride home, but she waves them off good-naturedly.

She continues to wait.

Marius is one of the last to leave, tonight; only Grantaire and Enjolras have not passed Cosette on the sidewalk by the time he finally steps out into the night. Sometime in the last half hour, it has begun to snow.

“Oh,” Marius says, voice soft.

For the first time, Cosette turns around.

Marius raises his eyebrows at her. “It’s freezing,” he says. A white cloud unspools before him, proving his point quite helpfully. “Were you waiting for me?”

“Yes,” says Cosette.

“It’s snowing.” He steps forward and brushes a few snowflakes off her shoulder. “You hate the cold.”

She smiles at him. At least, she thinks it’s a smile; her face has gone sort of numb. “The cold hates me. Let me walk you home?”

Marius laughs. He turns determinedly in the direction of her apartment.

“So,” he says, after a few minutes of walking in companionable silence, “what did you want to talk to me about?”

There is no denying that Cosette wanted to talk to him. She waited in the snow, after all. She kicks a chunk of ice out of her path, shivering a little despite her plethora of winter layers. “I wish I had something poetic to say. You’d think, as a writer — but saying it isn’t the same as writing it. I should have written you a letter. Some Persuasion type thing. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Jane Austen knew what she was about. Sorry, am I rambling?” She has to pause for breath, has to attempt to rein herself in a bit.

Beside her, Marius hums. “A bit,” he says, “but I don’t mind.”

Cosette feels her face heating. She could walk in circles around this for hours, she knows. She could talk herself hoarse and never reach the point. It would be so, so easy.

But Cosette Fauchelevent does not do the easy thing. She does the brave thing. She is more of a lark than a dove.

“I’m in love with you,” she says, quite matter-of-factly. “Still in love with you, not in love with you again. It’s not an important distinction, really, but it’s one that I’d like to make clear.” She sighs. “See, this is why I should have gone into fiction. My love confessions sound so clinical. It’s like I’m reporting the news. Oh, well. Tell me if I’m out of line, I mean it. One word, and I’ll never bring this up again. I just — I needed to tell you, even just once.”

They walk in silence for a very long moment.

Cosette adds, a bit hastily, “I’m sorry.”

She takes about a half-dozen more steps before she realizes that Marius is no longer with her. When she turns around, he is stopped down the block, blinking at her in the streetlight.

“Marius?” she ventures.

There is snow gathering in his hair, on the collar of his jacket. He is so very still.

“Do you mean that?” he asks, after a small eternity. His voice is so low that Cosette can barely hear him.

She walks back to him slowly, her steps crunching in the fresh snow. “Of course I mean it.” Another step closer, and another. “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”

Marius takes a rattling breath. “Say it again?”

“I love you.”

He crosses the remaining space between them in two long strides and takes her face in his hands.

Cosette’s heartbeat is strangely calm in her chest, as steady a thing as ever. She thinks of a thousand things to say, and says none of them. The words that end up leaving her mouth are, “How are your hands so warm?”

He laughs, and that is even warmer, a sound like summertime. “I love you,” he says, “still. Not an important distinction, but one that I’d like to make clear.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“Never,” says Marius dutifully. The pad of his thumb ghosts over her bottom lip. “I love you.”

When he kisses her, Cosette forgets about the cold. She forgets the wind and the snow, and the darkness, and the golden refuge of her apartment only a few blocks away. She forgets the airport and the garden, their friends’ careful games of Cosette Keep-Away, the awkward tour of the community center. She forgets it all.

When Marius kisses her, Cosette slides her hands into his snow-dusted hair, and she kisses him back.

There are conversations to have, explanations to give, wounds to heal. They have to talk about this, have to decide what this is. Cosette has to call Grantaire and tell him, you were right. There is so much to do, so much to say.

They ignore it all. In the middle of the sidewalk, either five years late or right on time, Cosette kisses Marius again.