Ouch - it hadn't occurred to me that Valjean might suspect Marius of being the cause of Cosette's injuries, but indeed he does have a vested interest in believing that...

"How stupid it was to suddenly realize your fiance was a man" - but the realization rings very true. She has been thinking of him as Marius whom she loves, not as a member of the other sex - and certainly not as a potential sexual partner, which is what she has just become aware of...

Nice to see Cosette defending old Monsieur Gillenormand - in fact she's right; the old man has real-life experience of Bonaparte's reign, which is more than Marius for all his hero-worship does.
And at least *someone* in that family has to try to be grown-up sometimes, and it isn't going to be the menfolk :-D

It's an ingenious idea to have Valjean make a break for it, thus drawing off the pursuit and allowing Marius and Cosette to escape with credible ease. And I like the touch that Cosette immediately trusts her rescuer because her life so far has led her to trust everyone by default.

"She noticed him" - heaven!
And then he is wounded to the quick by her candid admission that in fact "I thought of you just the other day", while she is practical and oblivious. And 'manages' her father wonderfully.

That was intense - and scary. When Marius walks in and tells her she has been asleep, and then she sees that she is in a small room with bars on the door, I actually wondered if this was an older Cosette waking up to the reality that she has been confined as mentally unstable because of the intensity of her flashabcks to that earlier trauma...

I had to laugh out loud at the dancing radishes!
And the image that Marius's interactions with women consist of constantly apologising for Courfeyrac...

What a brilliant chapter. I loved seeing the raid on the Gorbeau House through Marius's eyes - your writing there is so intense and dramatic. And I really loved the scene between him, Cosette, and Valjean afterwards. You get the dynamic between the three of them just right, like how Valjean immediately dislikes Marius and Cosette tries to thaw the iciness between them. "a practiced tone to her assurances" is so perceptive. Wonderful work.

The "Monsieur Jean" section of this is so sad to me. Things are obviously changing between Cosette and her father, and she doesn't even understand why. I loved the sweet fluffiness of the last section, though.

This is a well-written, powerful portrait of desperation. I like the contrast between the current situation and the happier flashback, and the theme of blood running throughout. Poor Cosette.

Haha, poor Cosette is so funny in that first drabble with her "Everyone knew!" and "Everyone does it!"

Haha, this was such a funny drabble. Poor embarrassed Marius seemed equally horrified that their lovemaking isn't louder as with the idea of Valjean overhearing if it were!

Oh, that scene between Cosette and little Victoire is so stinkin' cute and fluffy, and so perfectly fitting for how a six-year-old girl thinks. Just adorable.

Yeah, "kind of a downer," but I actually really liked it for that reason. After so many chapters about Marius and Cosette being purely happy and in love, it was a nice realistic change to get one that was more melancholy. It's also a good take on Cosette examining how much her life has changed.

This is such an adorable portrait of Cosette at a younger age, and I think it's a good contrast to most of the other chapters in this story - a flashback to when Valjean was still "all she needed to be happy," and she only admired nameless Marius from a distance.

Haha, geez, Marius is such a man here. I'm actually pretty impressed with Cosette for getting over her embarrassment enough to explain to him about periods. It's sad that too many men today are still completely ignorant!