In case it weren't glaringly obvious, I don't own any of the characters I mention outright, or the ones to which I make indirect reference. P.S. If any of you actually read this before I made the change, sorry about the random Shelley poem, you'll see it again, in another story, longer, much longer than this.

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I cannot begin to imagine the type of pain that would drive a man to take his own life, and my life has not been lacking in pain. It baffles me. The incessant, ever present pain, like huge weights pressed on one's chest. In such a short amount of time, my family gone and my freedom gone, and I have never truly regained either. Yet I never gave in. I will not give in. My overwhelming pity for that man drives me to distraction, and yet I cannot escape a small amount of guilt. If not for me, he might still be alive. Then I think, no, perhaps not; if not I then surely some other. This was not a man who was meant to live a long life in peace and tranquility. He was like those hotly, brightly burning stars which all too soon exhausts its source of energy.

What was his purpose? To follow me? Did I give him purpose, and then take it from him by offering myself up after the slaughter at the barricades? Why should anyone choose duty over happiness and peace? But I am not worthy of posing this question to anyone. As I told that boy, my duty toward Cosette is done; I am nothing to her. But she is my everything. But for her, I would never have felt love, would never have loved.

Such pain, such unbelievable pain, morbid and all consuming.