omg, thank you so much! I invite you to join Team Hot Chocolate for Cosette, which is a tag I and some friends on tumblr came up with while reading the Brick together. And that's such a great point about Valjean bringing some color into her life. There's a bit in the book where it says she had tried to love other people but everyone rebuffed her -- "It was not the faculty of love that she lacked, alas! It was the possibility" and like you say, this shift opens her eyes up to tearing (and what a great phrase, I love it!)

Thank you again, and I'm so glad that you liked my little fic.