ways_infirmary | Infirmary thread for Valjean

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.))

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"Yes, that's right."

She doesn't want a bed in the infirmary. She's not ill; she doesn't want to sleep here, out in a public place, if she doesn't have to. Ought she to?

"I don't think I need a bed here, monsieur, though I thank you very much for the kind offer. Only -- if he wakes and I'm not here, please, could you send for me right away? You, or the nurse looking after him?"

Joly has nearly finished his note, so of course it's only now that Cosette remembers, "Oh, but -- monsieur, thank you, but my mother -- she only reads a little..."

Cosette has been helping her a little, and Fantine has been working on her own, but still.

Joly considers. "Can she read her own name? --Or one of the rats might take you to her, if you'd rather go yourself." Some people don't like hanging out in the hospital, for some wacky reason. "Of course we'll send for you if he wakes; we'll send immediately."

"Oh, yes!"

Cosette is immediately staunch -- not because an inability to read is anything so uncommon in her day, nor anything to be ashamed of. But it says something about her mother's likely origins. A daughter of the bourgeois would know her letters, even if she didn't have much education. She doesn't want either of the men here to think the slightest ill of her mother. Not at all, not ever, and most of all not today.

"But... But yes, perhaps it would be best if I went to her? Then I could answer any questions she might have, too."

She says this with an uncertain glance at Marius -- does he think so? Will he be all right with this? (Will he consider a rat sufficient chaperone? She should be delighted to have her husband meet her mother, and soon she will be, but right now all she wants is privacy with one or the other of them, to weep and be held and to let go for a little while, and if she has to introduce one loved one to the other, and explain matters, she won't be able to relax in the least.)

Marius is taking in very little of this, given everything else on his mind. Cosette's mother, he gets that far and stops. Her mother! Well, very well, then! Cosette and Joly seem perfectly able to sort through the problem of sending word, and his thoughts start to drift away, until Cosette looks to him.

"Yes, of course," Marius says. He stands to offer her his arm. "I shall take you to her." ...Not that he knows where she is.

...Her room, Cosette hopes! Well, she'll ask a rat if she sees one.

She can hardly tell him to stay here and let her go on alone. So she rises, and takes his arm.

(It's hard to not just rest her head against his shoulder, no matter how upset she is at what he did. She may yet, in the privacy of the corridor, if no one's around.)

"I know I've thanked you so many times you must be sick of it," she says to Joly earnestly, "but I must say it again. Thank you for your help -- thank you, monsieur. You've been a true friend to all of us, and truly kind."

Her, her room-- really, Marius is going to follow wherever Cosette leads him.

"Thank you," Marius echoes with no less earnestness. "We-- we shall speak more very soon, I am sure."

Joly smiles at both of them. "I'm so glad I can. Someday, Madame, perhaps, you'll let me tell you about the friend your father has been to all of us, and you'll know something of how glad." He reaches out to press Marius' shoulder one more time. "--and your husband, too. We'll all talk soon." That's a promise, if Marius wants one.

And then they're gone,hopefully to find Fantine, and Joly is free to focus on his single patient again-- and make a few quick calls to his dearest friends, letting them know one more dear visitor is in Milliways.

Marius nods in acceptance and gratitude, and then leads Cosette out.

"You will have to show me the way, I'm afraid," he says bashfully once they've gotten a bit farther from the infirmary door.

"Yes -- yes, her rooms are just down this way. My poor husband. I still haven't explained anything really, have I?"

For an instant, there's a sharp, bitter thought: there, you can see how it feels. She squelches the thought before it's fully formed, with a reflexive surge of shame.

Instead, she rests her head against his shoulder as they walk. Even after everything, the comfort in that is nearly overwhelming.

"I don't know how to explain half of it, because I've never understood it myself. But I promise you I'll tell you everything in a little while. Everything I know about Milliways. Is that all right? Can you manage all this strangeness until then?"

Please say you can, Marius. She feels terrible for asking him to meet dead friends and all the bizarreness of Milliways without the slightest clarification, but she also can't bear the thought of pulling together an explanation now, and facing all the questions he has a perfect right to ask, after everything today has already held.

"Yes, of course," says Marius, who is inclined to think a bit of confusion is the absolute least that he deserves. "Where shall I find you?"

"Oh, yes."

Here in her pocket is the key to her Milliways room. She didn't keep a key to her father's house with her -- it never occurred to her that she might need it unexpectedly -- but Milliways shows up at the strangest times, after all. She passes it over to Marius, and tells him the room number, which is stamped on the key too.

"You see how these doors all have the numbers. That is mine, so of course it's yours as well. I'll go there as soon as I'm done speaking with Mother."

"Yes, I see," Marius says, taking the key. And then again, "Yes. I shall-- shall go there now."

He wants to offer to wait-- surely she shouldn't wander these halls by herself? But it's plain she doesn't want that, and she indisputably knows the customs of this place far better than he does.

He reaches for her hand and, as there is no one in sight, kisses it.

Cosette's eyes close for a moment, and her lips press together in a smile that's halfway to tears once again. It makes no sense that that small, private gesture of tenderness should undo her so -- and yet there it is.

She lifts their joined hands to press his hand to her pale cheek. "My Marius. I do love you."

After a moment, she smiles at him again, a little more composedly. "I'll see you in just a little while."

And her mother's room is just there. She'll just let herself in; she has a key. If Fantine isn't there, she'll... well, she'll figure the next step out from there. (But she might spend a few minutes letting her self-control fall in private, first.)

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Infirmary thread for Valjean

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