Henri exhales quietly. Like his wife, he appreciates practicality. Practicality stopped him from losing faith when he watched the poor, and the innocent, and the young die of cholera, and practicality helped a man not inclined towards violence plan a revolution. It will save them both from this strange turn of events now.

“I will go to the store.” He forces himself out of bed, out of the easy, straightforward, loving life he had dreamed of in his sleep. Combeferre has spent enough time studying modern medicine to know that he will be able to find formula and bottles easily enough. When he had done his rounds in the maternity ward and had learned of such methods, he had called infant formula miraculous, and wondered aloud at the lives that could have been saved at home, only to be lectured for such a point of view. But that hardly matters now.

“Wait here,” he tells Sybil, pulling on trousers and a shirt. He had expected to spend this morning staring into the eyes of his new bride, and yet now he doesn’t quite look at her. “I will return shortly."