merryeccentricities (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
merryeccentricities) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ways_infirmary2016-01-08 01:46 pm
merryeccentricities) wrote in ways_infirmary2016-01-08 01:46 pm
Infirmary thread for Valjean
Since his conversation with Javert, Joly's half-expected to see Monsieur Fauchelevent come into the Infirmary.
Maybe he hadn't expected everyone else who showed up along with M. Fauchelevent, but that's all right, it's a big infirmary.
((OOC: Infirmary thread for Valjean and his family.))
Maybe he hadn't expected everyone else who showed up along with M. Fauchelevent, but that's all right, it's a big infirmary.
((OOC: Infirmary thread for Valjean and his family.))
no subject
Joly smiles at them as if they've just arrived, and no one's been having private conversations in front of him any ever. "Thank you both for bringing him. I'm so glad to have a chance to do him--and you--any good at all."
He waves at a couple of chairs near to the desk. There's a tray with real cups and a couple of thermoses on it. "Won't you--? I'm sure you both have questions."
About their father, and about people who should be dead and aren't.
no subject
Her nose is stuffed up, her eyes red, her face splotchy, her eyelashes clumped wetly. Handkerchiefs only do so much. But she carries herself as composedly as she can. She'll sit in the chair it's pulled out for her, and she'll look to Marius to begin with his questions first, unless he looks to her helplessly instead.
no subject
"What--" He glances back at Valjean, asleep. "What may be done for him? Have you hope of his recovery?"
no subject
That's an easy one. "I don't think either of you need to have any fear of that. He's become very weak, as you've seen, and he's is sick--but all of it can be treated here. That tube in his arm--" Joly nods to it "--it's a way of giving him back the strength of the food and drink he's missed. I'm going to give him something to help keep him stronger against any other illness that might threaten while he's weak; there's a few other things, I'll give you as much detail as you like, and I want to go over it with him too. But what he mostly needs right now is rest and comfort and healthy surroundings."
Which Milliways has, of course. So much more than Paris that Joly won't currently try to explain it. "I couldn't promise to have him on his feet in a year in Paris, but here he should be able to walk around even without aid in a week or two. I'd really prefer he stayed at least a month, to get his strength back enough to be really proof against any fevers or contagion he might encounter when he returns. But tomorrow he should be ready to move into a room of his own here, and then ,well, we'll see how he does; but there's no reason at all he shouldn't recover, with rest and care." That there's no apparent reason he should have become sick at all doesn't worry Joly, who knows very well that illnesses happen when they happen.
Still-- "Of course, he does seem distraught about something. If there's anything I should know about--if he's had a shock, or some obvious recent exposure -- please tell me. But in any case, your being here should help a good deal. I do hope you'll both stay while he recovers; it would be a great help."
He smiles almost apologetically at Marius. "I know it must be startling to be here for the first time--but oh, i do hope you'll stay a while. Everyone will be so glad to see you, you know."
no subject
"I am very glad to hear it, very glad indeed. We-- we shall stay, of course--" He looks questioningly to Cosette, though he doubts very much she'll disagree.
no subject
And then to Marius, with a sort of uncertain apology, "This place, Milliways -- it's a very peculiar place. I don't know how to explain it at all. But it's good, it's full of so many good people and miraculous things. And one of them -- oh, it's strange! -- is that however long we're here, we'll return without a moment having passed. So you see we won't be missed. Grandfather and Aunt Gillenormand won't worry about us at all."
no subject
Joly nods. "Exactly right. Why you could take the time to learn another five languages here, you know, and if you left coffee on the table at home it would still be hot when you returned. Think of it as a sort of--retreat, that may be easiest. A holiday from the world and time both. It is a hotel, after all. A wonderful hotel; quite the healthiest and cleanest place, with everything you could need."
He smiles. "And speaking of that--" He pours them both a cup of hot coffee with milk from one of the thermoses; or in this case more like milk with coffee. "You both need something in your systems, you've had quite a day." Even and especially if they're both too worried about M. Fauchelevent to know it.
Joly adds a small dose of brandy to Marius' coffee--what anyone of his day would consider purely medicinal. Still, it is brandy, so he asks Cosette first before adding it to hers. "--Madame? Will you have a little to settle your nerves?"
no subject
She's a grown woman now, a married woman of 17, and it's her job now to care for her father.
"Yes," she says, feeling the cup warm her hands even through its thin saucer. "Just a little drop -- thank you, monsieur."
no subject
"As for a shock," he says tentatively after a moment or two. "There is much I-- I think I cannot say, but-- certain matters he had thought to keep secret have been-- revealed. I believe it startled him very much to realize it."
no subject
Joly adds a polite, medical dose of brandy to Cosette's coffee with a murmured politeness, and turns to listen to Marius. At Marius' comment, he frowns a little. What secrets could such a man have? "He's not in any sort of trouble --? I mean, he hasn't drawn attention for-- the barricade, what he did there, or --anything of that? Javert seemed quite determined to shield him from all that."
no subject
"No," he says. "I believe none know of that."
no subject
To be a convict -- he's her dear beloved father, whatever her parentage, and his love and goodness outweigh anything. But she won't tell anyone else. She wouldn't even if she didn't know how it would grieve and horrify him. What would this kind Dr. Joly think of the man he's been treating, if he knew? She won't risk the consequences, for any and all of them.
"It doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't! He's a good man, a saint, there's no harm to anyone in his secrets. Only he holds them so very close. And -- and I can't tell you, M. Joly, why he's made himself so very ill. I don't know. We would have given him anything he needed, my husband and I, if we'd known. He's always had his secrets and his whims. I don't know what he was thinking."
This is... more true than not, anyway. But what she does know, she won't say.
no subject
no subject
She means it to be light, teasing, as if everything were normal, as if she could push away some of the awfulness of today; it comes out uncertain instead.
no subject
Joly reaches out to press Marius' shoulder again, and keeps the contact, for what little stability or comfort it might offer against whatever terrible news has his friend so troubled. When Cosette says she doesn't understand, he nods in agreement with her. "I don't know what news has come to you; but here, whatever sort of trouble has found you, you've no need to hide it, you're with friends."
He meets Cosette's eyes. "And we'll do whatever we can for you, all of you, here. You're quite right about your father, Madame, I know. I've seen it; he is a hero, a wonderful man. " She seems strangely worried that he believe it; well, he does.
no subject
He turns towards Cosette. He cannot explain everything in detail with Joly here, but he can get close enough. After all, it doesn't matter of Joly knows of his stupid ideas-- they aren't true, not at all.
"I knew of your father's past. He told me after we were married and swore me to secrecy. And I-- I took it all amiss." He ducks his head, ashamed, but forces himself to look up to meet her gaze again. "I thought-- I thought he had killed the spy, the inspector, Javert. I thought he had stolen the money that was your dowry-- it was for this reason I refused to spend it. It was for this reason I-- I made it plain through certain-- certain signs that perhaps he should not continue to see you."
He can't go on, can't look at her any longer. He clasps his hands together in his lap to try and stop their shaking and stares at them.
no subject
The coffee cup in her hands feels unreal: solid, warm, somewhere very far away.
"But--"
It's just blankly bewildered.
"But how could you think that? Of him? Why did you -- why did neither of you say? I could have told you he would never do such a thing."
no subject
Joly, still with one hand on Marius' shoulder, is no more enlightened than he was a moment ago.One fact stands out with an especial lack of clarity. "But-- Javert is alive. He has been --not as I am, truly alive, free to return to Paris. He and your father have associated here very often. Why would Monsieur Fauchelevent tell you otherwise?"
Some secret between them? Does it have to do with the spying?
no subject
To Cosette, he says, "I swore not to tell."
It comes out faintly, weakly, and he knows it is no excuse at all. "He had hidden his past, I did not think you would know any more of it than I. I-- I hoped to protect you from the knowledge of it. If he had truly done the wicked things I thought of him. But he did not!" He must be absolutely clear on this point. "The man is a saint, a wonder-- he saved my life, and I have done this to him!" He looks to Cosette again. "To you. He-- he may have died, and you never have seen him, and the fault would have been all mine."
no subject
She wants to scream, or burst into tears, or run out into her own safe garden, or make angry demands, and she can't do any of them here in front of M. Joly. She sets her coffee cup down on the desk with hands that are just beginning to tremble, and presses her clasped hands to her mouth, and bows her head so her ringlets fall forward and hide her face a little.
"He protected me from it," she whispers, staring at the strange tiled floor. "And you protected me too, and so I knew nothing whatsoever. I told him over and over again that he was welcome, so many times. But he only smiled. He only called me Madame. I knew nothing at all."
She won't cry again. She won't, she won't.
no subject
no subject
..Marius doesn't seem to be about to comfort his own wife, and Joly can't very well sit there while a visitor to his Infirmary is in distress alone.
He quietly collects a few tissues and hands them to Cosette, lightly touching her shoulder with his free hand. "Whatever's passed--it's past--" he almost calls her Madame, but that might be the wrong thing to say right now "and you'll soon have your father awake and well again to ask whatever you like. "
He looks to Marius for any guidance on what to say next--yes? no? -- and receiving none, suggests " if there's anyone here either of you would like to have with you, any friends you or your father have here, who you'd like me to call, I can do that for you."
If he weren't the doctor in attendance, he'd feel horribly intrusive even doing this much--but he is that , and they're here for help, so he feels no compunction in offering anything he can of it.
no subject
She ought to be bright and cheerful for him. She ought to be bright and cheerful for everyone, for all of them. But she can't manage it right now, after everything today has brought her.
She wants to run out of the room, and she wants to fling herself down on her father's bed, and she wants Marius to hold her close, all at once. She swallows, and presses her clasped hands hard to her mouth for a moment more, trying to steady herself.
"I know," she says, to both of them. She unclenches her fingers with a small and deliberate effort, so she can reach out to her husband, with a hand that only trembles a little. Then she can look up at Joly, pale and as composed as she can be right now, and find more words.
"My -- my mother is here. She should know. I can, I can send her a note, or find her -- I don't want to be in the way, monsieur, I know you have important work to do here, but my father shouldn't wake up alone. I don't want him to be alone."
And afraid, she doesn't add, because it's still too horribly strange a thought. Her father is never afraid; he's a rock of strength and certainty. All of that is clearly untrue now, but it feels like some kind of betrayal to say so out loud.
no subject
"What may I do? I shall send a message to her-- how may that be done?"
no subject
"Don't worry, I can do that. We send a note with the rats--er, they're the servants here. You'll see. And of course, we won't leave your father here alone." This is in answer to Cosette's commendable determination to stay with her father. "I'll be here all night, and then there's the next shift; and I'm happy to make up a bed for you, if you like, and we can order in something to eat, even. There is nothing more important to do here right now than seeing your father and yourselves well." That is completely true.
And Poor Mme. Pontmercy is obviously so worried about taking care of everyone else, and of course she is, but... "If you have any questions at all I might answer, or there's anything I can do to make your father or yourselves more comfortable here, please let me know. Remember it's my job to make sure you're all well, here." He smiles a little as he says the last, but really, it is Joly's job, not Marius' , not his wife's. If Marius were here alone, he would go farther, say don't be ridiculous, we get to worry about you here and not the other way around, tease him for trying to be too brave in the circumstances. But Marius isn't alone, and Joly isn't nearly familiar enough with Mme. Pontmercy to know how best to address her beyond friendly politeness.
So for now he heads back to the desk to write a note. "I'll just send for your mother, Mme. Pontmercy-- it's Madame Fantine here, isn't it?"
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)