This Night

Chapter II

New Day at Midnight

Author's Note: This chapter owns it birth solely to Black Lab's song "This Night". I strongly suggest listening to it, whilst reading this. Heck, put it on repeat. It is the quintessential Frollo song.

They came to him, night after night. dressed in red robes. Red, the colour of blood. The colour of anger. The colour of the flames of Hell he could feel licking at his terrified bones. They stood before him, silent as the very graves they were mustered from. Surrounding his bed. Closing in on him. With lifeless eyes they stood and stared at him. Some pointed their bony fingers at him, silently pointing out the man who was responsible for the state of their rotting flesh.

That was usually when the real nightmare would start. He watched, voice lost to him in his terror, as they removed their hoods and one by one, dead and decaying faces of those he had condemned morphed slowly into her face. Shredding his sheets in sheer blind panic he watched as the Esmeralda corpses one by one re-enacted the way he had them tortured, maimed or killed. Mouths opened in agony as flesh was torn from bones, or fire licked at their blackening bodies. All the while their silent, green dead eyes staring at him.

Again.

Struggling to awaken and escape his night terrors, Minister Claude Frollo woke up with a blood curdling scream. The sheets threatened to suffocate him, sodden with his sweat, clinging to his naked skin.

Again, the stink of his own fear in the hot stifling air of his bedroom. He sat up gingerly, clammy fingers raking through sticky strands of hair. He rubbed his face, fingers gliding over his scratchy whiskers.
Finally, admitting defeat, he disentangled himself from his sticky sheets and got up. He made his way over to his windows, back aching in silent protest. Opening the windows as far as they allowed, he let the tepid breeze wash over his naked body. Still it did nothing for him but cool the sweat on his body, making him shiver, despite the muggy heat of night.

This heat would just not let up. For weeks now, as Frollo struggled to regain his tattered sanity, the country had been in the grips of what would go down in the history books as the worst drought in centuries. During the daytime, the sun would beat down relentlessly, shriveling crops, evaporating rivers and springs and exposing the brittle, tired bones of the earth beneath. Paris and its surrounding countryside looked like an old man, withering and dying in the sun. Skin stretched taut over protruding bones. The very life sucked out of him.

Frollo had spent the past weeks poring over ancient law books and scrolls of old cases he had presided over and as he read, and learned, his analytical mind and the cold facts that stared him in the face slowly lined up to agree with all that Esmeralda had poured into him that fateful evening. The truth, once uncovered, could not be covered up again. Especially as it sat there, plain as day, staring him in the face in all its inky black and white glory.

He was a fucking madman.

And the worst thing was, he had allowed himself to turn into his father.

He had tried regaining some of his mental equilibrium by going to church. Certain that breathing in the peaceful, forgiving air of The Notre Dame would go a long way in calming the turmoil within, he decided to take confession.

Seated in a worn armchair that was older than he was, he poured out his soul and uncertainties to his oldest friend and confessor, the Archdeacon of Notre Dame. The good man had listened with a keen ear, and after offering Frollo some of his finest brandy ( Frollo noticed that his friend's hands had trembled as he poured the spirits, and he wondered whether it was because of the terrors of his tale, or that the other man had recognized the moment as a very significant one. The moment of truth. The Archdeacon feared for Frollo's soul too.

Still, as the old man had sat down again and had looked at him, he saw the truth in those sad eyes.

Frollo was the monster he had once sought out to fight. It was all true.

His life was one big lie.

He turned to his mentor then. Old High Judge Isoard de Chénerilles .The old man was plagued with arthritis and mostly bedridden, but for his erstwhile favourite pupil he had somehow managed to summon the energy to pour over books and look for precedents concerning gypsy prosecution. The results were alarming, to say the least. The whole judicial system in the country was rotten to the core, but the City of Paris was by far the worst.

Most of it was his fault.

He couldn't stand the look in his mentor's rheumy eyes then. Disappointment mixed with incredulity mixed with a sad sort of resignation.

But the conclusion was the same. A very sad one.

The truth ate at him during the day, gnawing a wide hole in what was left of his sanity. Burying himself in his work didn't help. Riding his horse until the horse nearly collapsed, flanks heaving, didn't help. Drinking until he saw spots dancing before his eyes and he staggered to his bed, didn't fucking help. He felt as if he was drowning, while the world looked on merrily.

At night, at the very the moment he closed his eyes in utter exhaustion, he was visited by the spectres in red robes.

And the cycle began anew.

Slowly, his grip on reality slipped. He stopped eating. His concerned servants tried cajoling him into eating, bringing him his favourite foods. He saw the dejection in their slumped shoulders as they came to collect the foodtrays, plates once again untouched, food long having gone cold. The only ones who fed well in his chambers were the flies that swarmed over his untouched food.

He couldn't find it himself to care.

After a while, he stopped shaving as well. This turned the servants concern into full blown panic. Master Frollo was always a meticulously groomed man and to see him slide down like that was disconcerting to witness. The palace was in an uproar, and for once, nobody had the right answer.

Of course, it took very little time before the titters of the concerned servants reached Esmeralda's unbelieving ears.

So, Frollo existed for a while, stuck in a Hell of his own making. Sleep eluded him mostly and when it did, his dreams were filled with...them. His trembling worsened, brought on by lack of sleep. He needed sleep. He needed peace. He needed absolution. He needed...her.

And thus it was, exactly twenty-one days after Esmeralda had opened his eyes as to who he really was, that Judge Claude Frollo, finally snapped.

She knew he was there at her door moments before she heard the tentative rap of knuckles on the old wood. Her feet swung out the bed, landing on flagstones before her mind caught up with her. She had just fallen into an uneasy slumber, courtesy of the heat that wouldn't let up. This evening was even worse than other nights. She had the foresight to have her bed moved to the open windows a few days ago, to make the most of the slightly cooler night breeze. The fluttering curtains caressed her bare legs on these long, stifling nights. For the past few days, the promise of a fat thunderstorm had lingered over the city, casting the evenings in dark, unusual shadows. The heavens above tonight were pregnant with the promise of rain. Every now and then, flashes lit up the night sky.

All in all, fitting weather for what was about to unfold, she thought as she made her way to the door, hand reaching for the handle.

A curious dichotomy of a man was stood in the hallway, gazing at her with clouded, uncertain eyes. He stooped slightly, his very countenance and stance betraying his inner turmoil.

"There are things," he whispered softly, " I have done..." He trembled and steadied himself on the wall. He looked awful . His silver hair was dishevelled and he sported rough dark whiskers on his thin face. The fine lines on his face had deepened and his skin looked sallow, almost greenish. But the worst were his eyes.

A broken, hurt boy-man looked back at her through silver confused eyes. He looked so scared, so utterly lost, that Esmeralda had to stifle a sympathetic gasp. As it was, a strangled noise did make its way past her throat and Frollo flinched harshly, fully expecting to have the door slammed in his face. She saw him tense his muscles, preparing to bolt.

Before he could misinterpret further, she closed her fingers around his bony wrist, tugging him towards him. Frollo moaned at her touch, a sound halfway between pain and bliss and Esmeralda was shocked to find tears welling up in her eyes.

He shuffled into the room, his pale feet as bare as hers, and continued: " There's a beast, and I've let it run.."

Was he rambling? No, the eyes staring back at her were haunting, but lucid.

"Fro-...Cl- Claude?"

He took note of the bed near the open windows and made his way over there, gingerly sitting down at the foot end.

"I-I know I'm not forgiven," he croaked in reply, "but I need a place to sleep. I can't...can't sleep. I need...I need to sleep!" He looked up at her beseechingly. "Help me sleep, please!"

What was she to do?

This...man... in her bed. This trembling fractured soul, hurting, reaching out for help. Once so proud, now come undone by the simple power of truth. He was dying inside, and she saw how afraid he was underneath. In that moment, her heart broke for him, partially in sympathetic pain, partly in some darker unnamed emotion that she dared not name. He had unraveled under her hands and she wanted to put him back together again, more than anything at that moment.

What else could she do?

Before she knew it, she reached out for him, placing her hands on his shoulders and with a soft shove pushed him back wards on her bed. He landed on his back with a surprised oof. He blinked at her owlishly, hands coming up to touch hers, which were still placed on his shoulders.

Giving his questioning hands a brief squeeze, she reached for the fastenings on his chemise, making quick work of them. With a shrug of his shoulders, he rolled out of his shirt, sighing deeply and raggedly, almost melting boneless into her mattress and pillows.

Oh, he had lost weight which he could ill afford to lose. As she revealed his pale, perspiring skin, she could see his heaving ribs sticking out. Esmeralda's throat clenched at what she saw.

Frollo rolled on his side, drawing his knees up to his chest. Despite the stifling heat, he was shivering.

"Will you lie with me, please?" came his muffled voice from her pillows. "Just lie beside me, please ?"

It was extremely unnerving to hear this powerful man begging like he did.

If there was once satisfaction in seeing him reduced to the state he was in, it was by now long gone, only to be replaced by a strong desire to make it all better for him. So, Esmeralda acquiesced, dropping her dressing gown on the ground, where it drifted and landed on top of Frollo's wrinkled shirt.

Dressed only in her thin night shift and trying to disturb him as little as possible, she crawled over him, landing on his other side, closest to the open windows. There she lay down, turning her head to look at him once more. Their eyes met. His eyes crinkled at her in greeting, and she blinked back at him stupidly, words stuck in her throat. Frollo gave her a sad smile and lifted his hand to touch one of her curls.

"You were right," he whispered across the pillow. "You were right and I was blind. " Something akin to a sob rose from his throat and the turned his face away from her, burying his face in the pillow.

If Esmeralda's heart had cracked before, this was the moment when it truly broke and she reached out for him almost desperately, hands first landing on his naked shoulders, and when he didn't respond at all to that, closer, fully encircling him, one hand on his back and one, finally, in his hair, where her fingers rested at the base of his skull, committing the feel of texture and silkiness of his hair to her memory. She played with the soft shorn hairs at the base of his neck , at last satisfying her long standing curiosity. They were soft and tickled her fingers. Soft and feathery and so at odds with the man himself.

Frollo released a low keening sound at her ministrations, a hard shiver running through his entire body. He lifted his head and locked gazes with her again, his eyes suspiciously red.

"I'm afraid," he confessed to her, and something wild flashed in his eyes. "I'm so afraid, Esmeralda..." He hiccuped and moved a little closer to her, his body seeking hers out, despite the heat.
"I am so afraid of going to Hell," he moaned in agony, " but it's where I deserve to be!"

Frollo blinked hard. Twice. Despite his efforts, a hot, wet tear rolled from the corner of his eye where it was quickly absorbed by the pillow, leaving a little damp stain.

"What do I do, Esmeralda?" His voice cracked and he sounded like a very scared young boy. "What do I do?" He repeated.

"Help me, Esmeralda!" He croaked finally, burying his face in her shoulder and hair.

She gathered him as close as he could stand and ran her fingers once more through his damp hair. There he rested, sighing raggedly once more. She just rocked him softly, completely at a loss for words.

Slowly his tense body relaxed in her arms. His ragged breathing grew deeper and steadier until he fell limp in her embrace. Asleep.

Esmeralda on her part struggled for a long time with the hot lump of coal stuck in the back of her throat. Losing the battle finally, she gave into her own pain and silently wept for her broken beast of a man. Then she too stilled, drawn into the forgiving arms of Morpheus.

The only witness to the miracle that laid there beneath, in that bed, were the clouds above. At that moment, they decided to hold back a little longer. They knew they could wait. First they would allow the two people below their moment of release.

And so the dark green clouds rolled on, calmly gaining momentum and power. Patiently they awaited their cue.