They have just pulled their triggers when Grantaire rises and claims he is part of the republic, so their aim is off. Enjolras feels something inside him being ripped apart. Then they shoot Grantaire. And then his knees touch the ground and the floor is above him and the world goes away.
He awakes to the smell of gunpowder and the taste of iron. He tries to open his mouth when he realises he can't breathe. He thinks of Combeferre and he tries to glance to heaven, but his eyelids are sealed by pain.
Hands grip him and tear his shirt away. Darkness calls his name. He can't feel his body.
His father has saved him. He tries to move in the pillows to get a look at the man at the window, but his body doesn't obey him. His orders are lost. He feels the uneasy sense of captivity creeping up at him. His eyes are locked on the closed door, gunshots are vibrating in his mind. His fingers dig into the blanket.
The days are restless. Minutes last hours and he is developing a fever (the touch of death clings to his fingers).
The nights are endless. His breath comes ragged and heavy and all he can hear is the ticking of the clock (and the cries around him).
He commands himself to stop remembering. To stop reflecting. He disappears.
"You were gone a long time," says his father and their blue, immovable stares meet across the room. "I will leave again," he says.
He stays.
His knee has been crushed. He can't move his left arm without red pain shooting through his shoulder.
He withers. Light hurts and darkness suffocates him. He has to lean heavily on the cane.
More than once does he lose consciousness on the staircase. He tells himself that the broken steps before his eyes don't belong to the Corinth. He bites his lip till it bleeds and commands himself to forget.
Voices are asking him questions but when he responds only the servants and maids look up. He becomes mute. His fingers struggle to hold a quill, dark spots begin to explode before his eyes when he tries to read. He fights to get through a walk in their garden.
One day, his father presents him with his wife. She is young and beautiful and her eyes light up when he enters the room and darken when he turns away.
In their wedding night, he fulfils his duty. He puts the cane aside. His mind becomes blank and he doesn't touch her, their bodies don't move together, he is cold and silent and returns to his own room afterwards. He can hear her crying all night. In the morning, he buys her a manor next to the ocean.
When she announces that she is expected a child, she doesn't look at him. He has seen the mayor's son coming and going. He doesn't ask. He bows his head and leaves the room, only supported by the cane. His breath is shallow. He is twenty-eight years old.
His father provides for them while he goes through memoranda and constitutions at night. He hears a voice call: "Love live death! Let us all remain here!" and he lets himself turn into marble.
In spring 1835, he goes to Paris again. Hat pulled down into his eyes, he slowly makes his way through le Jardin du Luxembourg alone. His breath is becoming more and more torn. Pangs of pain shoot up his leg. He walks on, images of a fallen flag and corpses at his feet like smoke. The pain becomes white.
Marius Pontmercy only notices because his wife draws his attention to the figure. When he turns around and jumps to his feet, a sound of bewilderment escapes his lips. Rays of sunlight break through the clouds.
The white shape in a black coat has fallen to the knees on the pathway beside him. Marius cries his name, all reasoning behind him, hope and fear and panic flooding through him, directing his every move.
Deep, broken breaths escape his mouth. His hat has fallen to earth and golden waves shiver in the cool April wind. His body is shaking uncontrollably before he becomes still and his eyes open.
Tears cascading down his cheeks, Marius finds himself unable to touch the figure – the angel – whose delicate lips open once more to smile a long forgotten smile. A voice which has not been heard for months whispers "Oh, but I have waited for so long."
His eyes, framed by those long lashes, filled with the belief of a time when death was but a shadow and life had not yet consumed this slender frame, find Marius' and travel to heaven. "Ah, light-" he cries, and he is back on the barricade, young and pure and invincible.
"Light," Enjolras says and he falls, rays of sun caught in the strands of his hair and in the eternity of his eyes.