Returns with Confusion

[sweariwontdie]

Early Friday evening, Armand kisses Chris on the cheek and nuzzles baby Etienne and promises to come right back. He's thought of something he wants to get from the flat in Paris and meaning to try the plothole--it works for Marius and Cosette--as an easy means of travel he doesn't want to worry Chris. He only plans to be gone a few hours.

. . .The

Comments

[christopherwren]

Chris grinned and kissed Armand's cheek, holding baby Etienne in her arms. "Hello, love. Where did you run off to?"

[sweariwontdie]

Armand recoils, surprised. He stumbles back a step or two. He's not horrified or insulted, simply shocked. Such familiarity from a beautiful woman!

"Love? I'm sorry. Should I know you--" He glances down at the baby. "Madame?"

[christopherwren]

"Er, yes, darling, I think you should. I'm your -- wife?" She took a halfstep back, blinking.

[sweariwontdie]

"Wife?" Armand squeaks and then blushes. Where did he get a wife? And one who wasn't Jeanne. Oh dear. And English. Oh my.

He looks to Chris's left hand and then his own, where he sees a pair of identical rings even though he doesn't recognize them. "How long?" he finally manages to ask, getting just a little bit frightened now.

[christopherwren]

"Over a year. Long enough to have a child, love." She smiled sadly and offered her free hand, "Chris -- well St. Just, now. But Chris Wren."

[sweariwontdie]

Armand takes her offered hand, looking down at it while he worries his bottom lip. "I don't remember," he says eventually. "None of that." He finally looks up, and offers a hopeful smile. "You're very pretty." He's avoiding looking at the baby right now, adorable though Etienne is.

[christopherwren]

Chris bit her own lip, "Don't bite, dear. Though I can't really talk." She blushed at the comment, even though she was used to hearing it from her husband, it was like hearing it from a stranger, now. "And you're the most handsome man I know."

[sweariwontdie]

He blushes, too, gripping the hand tightly. "Merci..." And he looks down again, studying the wedding rings. Finally he can't ignore the child. "Ours?" he asks timidly.

[christopherwren]

Etienne reached out a hand for his Papa and Chris felt her heart melt, "He's ours. A week old, and his name is Etienne."

[sweariwontdie]

Tears sting Armand's eyes but he tries not to show them. "Maybe we should sit down." He wants to sit down before he falls himself. And he couldn't unless the pretty lady--his wife? sat too.

He couldn't take his eyes from the baby, so tiny. So perfect. That little hand reaching for him. How could he forget his son?

[christopherwren]

"Oh -- oh yes of course, I'm so sorry!" Chris sat quickly, a little flustered. "How rude of me."

[sweariwontdie]

"Non...no, tis not you who is rude. I am."

He frantically searches her face for some hint of memory or feeling and finds none. Only the ring on his finger and... this woman with a beautiful boy child in her arms. Then he sits beside her. "Clearly, something has gone wrong. Badly wrong."

[christopherwren]

"I really don't know what to think. This happens in this place, though. People change -- or are changed." She gave a nervous laugh, "I used to be a man, if you can believe that."

[sweariwontdie]

Armand is glad he's sitting. "A man?" He was married to a man?

[christopherwren]

"Er -- yes. I'm sorry, I probably should have waited to spring that one on you."

[sweariwontdie]

"And I knew this when we were married?" There is a part of him insisting that men cannot marry.