A Tiny, Still Mostly Empty House in Lexington Park, MD, Saturday Morning

Cosette trusted her father absolutely, and had from the moment she met him in the woods outside Montfermeil that Christmas Eve years ago, even though if pressed she would not be able to say for sure what the date had been, only that it had been dark and cold and lonely. Then he came along to take her away from all that, so she forgave his eccentricities readily -- and there were many, from his fondness for going away for two or three days at a time to the way he went about his business so quietly as to seem almost furtive. ( So when he came home from one of those little jaunts in an anxious mood and told her to pack up all her things as quickly as possible, Cosette had not hesitated to do just as he said. )

[OOC: Liiiiiiittle bit on the late side but establishy. Also not that wordy because go figure, the spot where Cosette is coming from in canon is a point in time where Victor Hugo was literally like "Aaaaaaand then stuff happened."]