Chapter Text
“Badeau: Parisian who admires that which is even a little extraordinary”. -National Surname Database
Time to love and time to die. He looks out to his people, those who need him. He will lead them to victory, standing side by side. That is, if they aren’t too drunk to stand. - Anonymous
CRACK. Flash. Darkness. Void. A sudden intake of breath. Consciousness. The realization dawns too slow. He curses himself for letting his guard down and opens his eyes as quickly as he can. Too slow. He’s hanging out of a window backwards, and he does his best to pull himself up, using his legs and the red flag of rebellion to heave himself upright. He can feel the heat of another body once he’s there and springs away from it, anticipating an attack. Too slow, fichu! He curses himself once more when he realizes it’s Grantaire, stretched out on the floor as if in a stupor once more. The cynical joker begins to go through the same steps he had, taking assessment of the situation, but he still looks hungover. To be fair, he’d looked like that when the soldiers had surrounded them-
The soldiers. Where were they? He’d been prepared to die for Patria, but he’d been in no hurry, and he didn’t pretend it wasn’t a small relief to realize he wasn’t in immediate danger still.
“Enjolras..?” Grantaire hoists himself onto his elbows, eyes wide and regaining faculties slowly but surely.
“Good to see you among the living, mon ami.” Enjolras winces at his own remark, though he’s not sure why. He crouches down next to his companion, laying a hand on his shoulder. “I think we’re out of the fire for now, but we should survey the damage up close, show the people that we’ve survived. If they see how we’ve done, maybe we can gain a little support. At least some supplies. I just hope Madame Huchaloup has forgiven us a little...” He laughs weakly as he sees the massive carnage rendered to the room, riddled with bullet holes, scuff-marks, torn plaster, and splinters of wood from furniture and the structure itself. Helping Grantaire to his feet, the two see that it’s like that all over the café: the ruin is insurmountable. But that was to be expected. What isn’t is who’s standing in the middle of the broken wreckage.
“Mon dieu, they’re awake!” Combeferre rushes towards the two and takes them by the opposite shoulder. “It’s good to see you, mon amis! We were wondering if you were going to join us soon, rendre grâce à Dieu you did!”
Enjolras stands agape, unsure of his situation.
“How in the grace of God did you survive?”
“What do you mean?”
“Combeferre...” Enjolras takes his friend by both shoulders, as much a way to center himself as it is a way to connect with him. “I watched you shot in front of me. I watched your blood spill to the floor and trail on the boots of a soldier as he aimed for my heart. I watched your body be stepped on by those who thought they had conquered us.” They had been wrong, but only figuratively. You cannot kill an idea, and “Freedom of the People” was no exception: as long as that idea lived, the men of the barricade would remain unconquered.
“We... I don’t know. I remember Bahorel and Gavroche standing over me and shooting down the infantrymen, then the very next moment, the others started coming into the Café and asking what happened. I have as many answers as you.” Combeferre tries to keep his expression grave, but the light of hope is shining visibly, his joy at seeing his friends clearly getting the best of him inside.
“We should keep checking for survivors. Cover the street, don’t let your guard down. They might have left a few spies, sharpshooters, or the like. Be careful, and report anything you find to me.” Enjolras waves his friends in different directions, forming teams of two and three as scouting parties. “Oh, and Joly?”
The medical student snaps around, stopping Courfeyrac dead in his tracks when his scouting partner is called.
“Oui?”
“See to it that Éponine and Gavroche are found. I want them buried properly.” The leader looks pointedly at the back of Courfeyrac’s now downcast head, then back to Joly.
“Of course. I’ll report within the hour.” The two walk into the grey-skyed afternoon leaving Enjolras alone in the café. He sits on the last table in the place, with a few chairs haphazardly gathered around it. He smiles softly. Madame Houchaloup must have brought them back in when the smaller barricade was taken down. This was her prize table, the one that Grantaire nearly had to promise to marry her for just so she’d let him use it for the barricade, and he’d decided it was too much effort. Combeferre had had to intervene and tell him that “when a lady says no, you must stop!”
A slight breeze goes past his shoulder that pulls him from his daydream. It is the breeze felt from a person passing by, not an average breeze, but yet there is nobody there. If he wasn’t trying so hard to observe only what he knew to be real, he would be able to hear the sound of muffled crying coming from about three inches above his head and three feet away. Finally catching the sound, he moves toward it, his arm outstretched, hoping to be able to pinpoint the source. A sense of warmth hung in the air, and the crying sound seems masculine now that he hears it more clearly. Enjolras takes a moment to wonder if there’s a ghost, some poor wretch who dies in the attack who can’t leave. Suddenly, he hears words in the noise: “...chairs...empty tables...friends...no more...”
A chill goes through him before the sound and feeling are gone.
A yell rings out from the street, it sounds like Courfeyrac. The sound of crying with an unfamiliar tone in it comes to his ears.
“Courfeyrac! Are you hurt?!” Enjolras is running through the street before he can help it, and he stops to see a sight that makes him feel like mountains can be moved with a feather.
Joly and Courfeyrac have fallen to their knees to be at eye level with Gavroche, joined by Éponine, smiling and crying in a large hug. Courfeyrac’s fingers are tangled in Gavroche’s hair, cradling him as if this is his own child.
Enjolras can’t help his gaping expression as he falls to his knees. His mind is frozen. How... how could this happen?
Courfreyrac’s sobs are highly audible, and it‘s not long before some of the other members of Les Amis start to find the group, all bearing a similar expression of disbelief and happiness. A few even join the small huddle on the ground, tackling the small child and his protective cushioning of adults. Slowly, they begin to peel off and the questions start.
Enjolras keeps finding himself slightly detached from the child and his eyes fall again and again on Éponine, strangely... But why? What does she mean to him? It’s true that she was basically the reason for the revolution, and he realizes he barely remembered that one day in the streets of Paris when he realized that the people of France needed to be saved from this wretched system. It was so many years ago, and he’d almost forgotten, but here he is remembering. What was it...
Éponine and Gavroche had been living with their parents in a tiny shack on the side of the cobbled street near where Enjolras’ parents had worked when he was a teenager, and it was on a quiet day in autumn that Gavroche had pickpocketed Enjolras for the first and only time.
A tiny set of fingers wiggled in his pocket, and he’d felt it only for a half-second before he snatched the wrist of the child and pinned it behind his back. Taking his coinpurse back, he asked the boy his name.
“M’ name’s Gavroche. What’s it to you, monsieur?”
“I like to know what name to tell the police.”
The boy’s eyes had widened to a point of near swallowing his face, and Enjolras has felt a little guilty at pinning him, then... A shout rang through the street, and a girl came running up to the pair of them, her skirts held inappropriately above her ankles. Her face was streaked with blue, white and red pastels to give her the appearance of a healthy, yet provocative woman. Unfortunately, it did neither to her, and left her brown skin and slightly angular face in a state of messiness. He noted to himself that she only looked a year or two younger than himself.
“‘Roche! What’d I tell you?” bending down to whisper in the boy’s ear, she hissed, “You have to pick at the ones who are slow and weak. He is neither.” Straightening up, she smiled apologetically at the golden-haired man. “I am so sorry for my brother’s behaviour, he tends to be a bit naughty. I can barely keep an eye on him, being the delicate flower that I am.”
Enjolras straightened his vest and trousers and returned her smile.
“No trouble. He seems to have learned his lesson.” He eyed Gavroche, who had decided to hide behind his sister. He could have been no older than six, and his face was a mask of fear.
“Well, you know, if he distressed you in any way...” Her eyes darted up and down the man’s figure. “I can be a bit naughty, too...” She bit her lip and cocked her hip, leaning slightly forward so as to present her chest closer to him. The display would have fooled any man who passed by, he was sure, but what he noticed was her eyes. Her eyes were devoid of emotion, deadened. She didn’t want any of this, he could see it plain as the breasts she had shoved into the top of her dirty and beaten bodice.
“I think I’ll have to decline. Look, take this.” He produced half of what his purse contained and held it out to both of them. “I don’t need all of it. Please, just... I hope you won’t have to be like this anymore.”
The girl looked shocked and shyly took the coins.
“...I... Thank you, monsieur...But, I don’t even know your name. Nor you, mine.”
“My name is Enjolras Badeau, and I will change your life someday, I promise.”
“My name is Éponine Thenardier, and you already have.” The two dark-haired siblings ran off into the street, and did not look back.
Here they are now, looking him in the eye, better people entirely. Gavroche is running up to him now, yelling with glee. Crouching down to receive him in his arms, Enjolras nearly falls over from the small body slamming into him.
“I can’t believe you came! We didn’t think we’d see you for a long time!” The little boy chirps his words, slightly muffled by the fact that his face was buried in Enjolras’ shoulder, the red coat absorbing the bright sound of his voice. Enjolras’ normally stoic face suddenly is awash with something that has not been seen in a long time. His true smile. Not the tiny, half-formed things that he threw at Combeferre or Courfeyrac when a good idea was voiced, not the frustrated, yet mirthful and tight-lipped masks that he aimed at Grantaire in many a meeting, but the true, unadulterated smile of a man who genuinely knows that sunlight has arrived to chase snow-laden skies. The face of a friend meeting a friend when neither thought they never would again. L’Amis.
The leader looked down at Gavroche and gave a tiny chuckle. Their moment was broken when Combeferre spoke up.
“What do you mean by that? And besides that, how in the name of God did you survive? We watched you bleed out right on the cobblestones!”
Éponine, who had been in a tight embrace with Courfeyrac, distanced herself a little so that his hands cradled her elbows and then looked to the ground. She closed her eyes as a bittersweet smile fell across her face, and new tears formed in her eyes. Gavroche looked back at her before answering.
“What do you mean?” He blinked slowly and looked back at his sister. “They don’t know, do they? They haven’t figured it out...”
She shook her head and sobbed a little, drawing herself into the worrying embrace of Courfeyrac.
“We didn’t survive, and neither did you.”