Xirysa Says: My turn for an AU "What if?" 'fic! This was originally going to be letter R of AifA, but… Decided that I wanted to do something else instead. A "what if the roles of Oscar and André were reversed? How would that work out?" Just as a fore wording… Since I have trouble writing long chapters, most of these are probably going to end up being pretty darn short. I hope that doesn't make anyone pissed off or anything…

Contra
Chapter One: The Road Not Taken

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"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

—Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

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The conversation wasn't something she was unused to. Oscar had, after all, heard it many times before. And, like every time before, she would sit outside the room while the adults talked about her—and her future—behind cupped hands and in whispered voices.

Sighing, Oscar leaned against the wall behind her and attempted to listen to the discussion.

"Mother… was a whore…"

"The father…?"

"No one knows, but…"

"Her mother gave her… boy's name … Protect her?"

"Didn't want… same fate… for her daughter…"

It wasn't that their comments didn't hurt, because they did, but… Oscar couldn't understand why they were talking with such contempt in their voices. Really… It wasn't Mother's fault that she did what she had to do to survive, was it? So what if she didn't know who her father was? It wasn't like it meant anything, right?

Apparently it did.

After her mother's death, Oscar had been shuttled around (in the guise of a boy) from one distant relation to another. She couldn't really complain about how she had been treated. It seemed like nobody wanted her, and that was fine. Oscar didn't really deal well with people she didn't know well. As long as she got her space, she was alright. But still… She missed life with her mother.

Mother… Oscar could feel the tears pricking at her eyes and blinked them away furiously. Her mother had been a strong and proud and beautiful woman, but strength and pride did not buy one enough bread to live one.

Oscar was startled out of her thoughts when a man, whom she dully recognized as her latest caretaker, opened the door and told her that she could come in now, and would she please hurry up since he didn't have all day?

Biting back a smart remark that would probably get her into trouble later, Oscar got up and dusted off the seat of her pants before walking into the room.

The scene that greeted her was also familiar—her current foster family, the new family she'd be sent to, and… Wait a moment.

Who was the old lady with the glasses? She looked rich and seemed nice, but then again… You could never tell. Especially with nobility.

Suddenly rather shy, Oscar stood up straight and tall, like the soldiers she sometimes saw in Paris whenever the king decided to travel. It helped her feel more like a boy, and her mother said that that was important and would keep her safe. She stared straight ahead at the old woman in front of her and was slightly taken aback when the woman smiled and kneeled down until she was at eye level with Oscar.

"H-hello," Oscar said before she mentally slapped herself for stuttering like a scared little girl.

If possible, the old woman's smile got even wider. "Hello Oscar." She gave Oscar a quick look from head to toe before continuing. "My name is Marron-glacé Montblanc. I don't know if you remember me, you were very small when I last saw you."

Oscar shook her head, hoping that her swinging hair would cover the blush that was beginning to form on her cheeks. Why was this lady she had mat barely a minute ago acting so familiar with her? "I'm sorry, but I don't…"

The woman laughed. "I knew your mother from a long, long time ago, when I used to live in Paris. She was my neighbor, actually. But then your mother moved away, and I—well, I'll tell you on the way home."

At the mention of the word home, Oscar looked up at the faces around her. Everyone else was smiling, but it was evident that the old woman was the only one that was genuinely happy.

"Home?" Oscar was confused. When her mother was still alive, home was where they would sit and laugh and talk and smile together. Now that she was gone, she didn't think that she'd ever have that again. But here was a strange lady who was basically offering to take her in, who was offering her a place to call home again. It sounded too good to be true.

"Only if you want to, Oscar." The woman—Madame Montblanc—stood up, and Oscar winced when she heard the older woman's knee crack loudly. Ignoring the pain that was no doubt coursing through her leg, Madame Montblanc gave Oscar a look that said the decision rested solely upon her young shoulders.

Oscar sighed. In spite of—or perhaps because of—everything that had happened to her, she was a very precocious child. She knew that she could potentially be left on the streets if she continued to drift from family to family, and everything that her mother had done to protect her would be in vain.

Yet, she had also been warned about the superficial and conniving ways of the nobility. Her own mother had sometimes broken down crying, cursing the nobles for feasting at Versailles every night while the commoners ate week-old bread and rancid meat.

But common sense forced Oscar to look at Madame Montblanc and say "I'll come with you."

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The child looked so much like her mother, Marron could physically feel the pain in her chest when she saw how Oscar stood or smiled or tilted her head to the side just so when she didn't understand something.

She felt more than ten years younger when she saw how the girl—because she was, to her trained eye, obviously a girl—bit her lower lip when deciding whether to go with this strange lady to a place she had never dreamed of.

Perhaps it was nostalgia.

Marron, of course, understood what possessed Claire to give her child such a masculine name. Young and beautiful girls such as Oscar were sought after, and no mother would ever wish such a life for her child.

As she watched Oscar place her meager possessions inside the carriage, accepting no help from the footman, Marron could only hope that no one else destroyed all that Claire had done to give her daughter a chance to live as a free person. And hopefully, in time, a free woman.

Oh, Claire…

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And so, an hour or so later, Oscar found herself bundled up into a carriage next to Madame Montblanc. They were on the path that led to Paris from her last family's home, she realized as she looked out the window.

"Nanny?" Oscar looked up at the old woman, who had insisted that Oscar call her as such before leaving the small house on the outskirts of Paris.

The old woman smiled. "Yes, chérie?"

Oscar blinked—she wasn't used to such terms of endearment—and continued. "You said you had a grandson. What's he like?"

"André?" Nanny snorted. "Why would you want to know anything about that silly boy?"

"Just because." Oscar scratched the tip of her nose with her forefinger. "Is he nice?"

"Hmph." Nanny ran a hand through Oscar's short hair and smiled. "He's nice. Very nice. Sometimes, I think he's too nice for his own good."

A nice boy? She hadn't known very many. One family she had stayed with had four sons who had enjoyed putting frogs in her hair and sticking worms down her pants. Oscar had never met a "nice" boy before. She decided to continue interrogating Nanny about her new life.

"Are André's parents nice?"

"André's parents?"

"The general and his wife."

Nanny looked slightly uncomfortable, and Oscar wondered if she had asked something wrong. Before she could apologize, however, Nanny began to speak.

"The general and his wife aren't André's real parents, Oscar. His real parents, my daughter and her husband, died a few years ago. I asked if I could bring him to the mansion, and the master said that I could."

Oscar was very confused now. "But if André's real parents are dead, then how come—"

"How come General de Jarjayes is raising André as his own son?" Nanny smiled. "Oscar, have you heard of patronage before?" When Oscar said that she hadn't, the old woman continued. "When I brought André to the mansion, the master thought that he would never have a son. Then he saw my little André and had a brilliant idea: why not raise André as his own son, in order to continue the de Jarjayes line of military excellence?"

"So…" Oscar began slowly, "his name is André de Jarjayes?"

Nanny shook her head. "No, it's actually André Grandier. Unless André proves himself to the master in some way, the master won't let André be a true de Jarjayes. For now, the master and his wife are telling everyone that André is the son of a distant relative."

If she had been confused before, Oscar didn't understand anything now. The ways of nobles were complicated. She started when Nanny spoke again.

"That, my dear, is where you come in. Because he's the adopted son of such an important man, André doesn't have many friends—in fact, the only other child who talks to him is a boy named Victor Clement de Girodelle. But Girodelle, I think, is much too old to be around André."

"Why? How old is André?"

Absentmindedly braiding a bit of Oscar's hair, it took Nanny a little while for her to realize that she was being addressed. "Oh! I'm sorry, Oscar! André's a little over a year older than you, I believe. He's eight years old, so… You're seven, correct?"

Oscar nodded. "So we are a year apart. How old is this Girodelle boy?"

"He's thirteen years old, and I think that André's too young to have a friend that old. And so, Oscar, I have a favor to ask you."

Oscar looked out the window a final time. They had veered off the path that led to Paris, and were now following the one that led to her new home at the mansion of General de Jarjayes and his wife and this strange boy named André. "Yes, Nanny?"

The old woman took the small girls hands in her own. "Will you promise me to be a good friend to André? He's been terribly lonely ever since his parents died, and he needs a good friend to cheer him up."

The look in Nanny's eyes was so pleading that Oscar didn't dare say no. She didn't want to, either. This old woman had appeared in her miserably bleak life and had saved her from an equally miserable and bleak future.

The dirt path gave way to a cobblestone road, and Oscar could feel the carriage shake as it passed over each stone. When she looked out the window, the woods they had been traveling through gave way to lovely gardens and a white house that made her think of a palace. How anyone could live in such luxury and still be lonely was beyond her. But who was she to know? The ways of nobles were odd.

"Of course I will, Nanny."

It was the least she could do.

Xirysa Says: So? What do you think? The title was giving me a hard time, but contra means the same thing as reverse, and... Hell, half the things in this 'fic have, are, and are going to be reversed. I think it works.
André and Girodelle would have been good friends if André had been a noble, and it was common for nobles to become patrons for other, not as fortunate people. (Just look at Jeanne Valois!) I hope everything seemed in character, though. I named Oscar's mother in the story Claire (mostly because I thought it was simple and that it fit) and… Wait—Oscar's mother was a prostitute? We'll get into that in later chapters, I swear. But, she's not like DuBarry, which is good. And women were looked down upon. In every culture, no matter where you go, women are looked down upon in some way. So Claire doesn't want her daughter to suffer like she did, you know? That's all.
Oh, that poem? The Road Not Taken? Beautiful. Actually, I like a lot of stuff that Robert Frost wrote. But that's just me—I'm a sucker for good poetry. I've so much planned out for this 'fic it's ridiculous… And if anyone has any questions or anything, please feel free to contact me!