"He was a boisterous, pallid, nimble, wide-awake, jeering lad, with a vivacious but sickly air. He went and came, sang, played at hopscotch, scraped the gutters, stole a little, but, like cats and sparrows, gaily laughed when he was called a rogue, and got angry when called a thief. He had no shelter, no bread, no fire, no love; but he was merry because he was free." ~Victor Hugo
Anyone watching the street urchin Gavroche would think that he was a fiery little rebel who was passionate about the cause, maybe even as much as Enjolras. But the truth of the matter was, Gavroche didn't care a bit for France or freedom; France had been nothing but cruel to him, and, as far as he was concerned, he was already free.
The little gamin was used to fending for himself, used to being shown no love or even interest, used to caring for the smaller, feebler urchins with a fierce protectiveness that expected nothing in return.
And then he ran into the ABC.
He remembered the night clearly. He'd been hiding outside of the Cafe Musain, waiting for the loud rumble of conversation emerging from the Cafe to end so that he could sneak in and snitch the remains of food left behind. He caught snatches of conversation: Revolution, France, freedom, General Lamarque...none of the words or what they implied were of the least interest to him.
His stomach growled noisily, and he impatiently told it to shush. Sometimes the men were in there for hours discussing who knew what, and Gavroche didn't have time for that. He had two little ones to feed today, and he himself was starving.
He was nodding off, partly from hunger and partly from exhaustion, when he felt something touch him. He bolted upright, mumbling, "It weren't me, I didn't do nothin'."
The man hovering over him laughed, but not meanly. "Are you hungry, little fellow?"
Gavroche shrugged, hesitant to answer a stranger or show weakness.
"Courfeyrac, what are you doing?" someone shouted from inside. Gavroche thought it was the tall, regal blonde, the leader.
Gavroche stumbled as he stood, the hunger catching up with him. Courfeyrac slung an arm around Gavroche's shoulders and helped him inside. Ignoring Grantaire's half-intoxicated complaints ("Wasting my good wine on that miserable urchin!), Courfeyrac quickly restored Gavroche with wine and bread.
Gavroche stared defiantly at all the strange men as he took another swig of wine, something he'd only tasted once before in his life, and they looked back with amusement at the funny little figure.
Maybe something about the little gamin's misplaced fierceness reminded Enjolras of his own childhood, for he walked over to Gavroche and extended his hand seriously. "Enjolras."
Gavroche looked at the hand, and then finally decided to take it in his own grubby paw. "Gavroche."
It would have been comical if not for the look on Enjolras's face; it was impossible to laugh at Enjolras, and something about the boy was endearing and terribly sad at the same time.
From that moment on, Gavroche was a true member of the ABC. As they discovered his usefulness, they trusted him more and more. He became their spy, and they listened to his advice; he wasn't a child any longer, but an equal.
He and Courfeyrac were inseparable, and the two were almost always seen together. Courfeyrac and the rest of the barricade boys made sure Gavroche had food to eat, clothes on his back, and a place to sleep.
For the first time, someone else was taking care of the abandoned child, and he absorbed the love and attention like a sponge.
Courfeyrac had said, "Gavroche, as soon as you hear news of Lamarque's death, you tell us. I know we can count on you." His words were accompanied by a friendly, intense look and a hand on Gavroche's thin but strong shoulders.
So there Gavroche was, huddling unseen in the way he was so good at next to Lamarque's house as the rain poured down and his heart swelled with pride because he was, for the first time in his life, important. And more than that, he was loved.
"General Lamarque is dead!" Gavroche shouted with all eyes on him, and the room erupted.
Gavroche watched his friends eagerly planning the barricade and attack plans, not really listening to their words, but just soaking it in. The claps on the back, the cheers, the rolling emotion that he was a part of, that he had caused. And Gavroche, not fully realizing that his friends were ecstatically planning nothing but their own deaths and two days of pointless, dusty disaster, was happy.
The barricade was built, the battle technically begun, but all was still fun and games for the gamin and the rest of them. He'd just gotten Javert captured, and the boys' praise made him carry his head high.
He demanded a gun. After all, he was one of them.
Enjolras smiled at hearing Gavroche's loud command from across the barricade, given with such force and obviously expecting immediate obedience. Enjolras grabbed Javert's gun and walked over to Gavroche.
"Shoot straight," he told the child, holding out the gun as he would to any of his men.
Gavroche accepted the gun and put it in his belt, looking Enjolras straight in the eye all the while, feeling all the importance of the moment. "Don't worry, Enjolras. I will."
Enjolras tousled the boy's hair in an uncharacteristic moment of affection and went back to manning the barricade, his heart strangely touched at the sight of Gavroche continually feeling for his gun to make sure it was still there.
The air was filled with smoke and shouts; the very clouds were thick with panic, and the streets were wet with blood. Gavroche had grown up while watching his sister die, and he realized that the barricade now meant not a hope of freedom, but certain death.
Stony-faced Enjolras tried to keep his voice calm as he announced the low, almost-nonexistent supply of ammunition; and Gavroche knew that all the bravery in the world does you no good when facing an enemy who has a gun. Gavroche's keen child's eyes perceived the cracks spreading through Enjolras, and that terrified him more than anything; Enjolras, who did not fear his own death. Enjolras, who only feared failure, who feared most of all leading his friends into failure.
Suddenly, Gavroche saw what he could do, a way to save the noble Enjolras and the kind Courfeyrac and even the drunkard Grantaire who complained legitimately about Gavroche sneaking his wine, but who never failed to make the boy feel loved.
Gavroche laughed at the simplistic craziness of his plan. He grabbed a basket from the wine shop, snuck out from behind the barricade, and began emptying the cartridge boxes of the dead National Guards with ease.
It became a game, the small boy verses the guns of the enemy. Gavroche was in his element, weaving around this way and that. The bullets simply couldn't keep up with him, and Gavroche figured the soldiers weren't quite shooting to kill, anyway. After all, the bullets were doing the dead men no good.
Gavroche heard the hushed calls of his friends urging him to return behind the temporary safety of the barricade, but he ignored them. He heard the scuffle as Courfeyrac started to run after him and the other men pulled him back behind the barricade. I'm doing this for you, Gavroche thought, to repay you for your kindness.
Emotion threatened to well up in his throat, so he began to sing a rude song to quell the rising tears. Insulting Voltaire and Rousseau gave him such pleasure that he almost forgot the danger he was in, and it seemed like a game. For it really was a game: the fearful game of hide and seek with death.
Then the shooting began in earnest, and Gavroche discovered that soldiers truly will kill a child when they forget their humanity, when it's been pushed out of them by an unjust world where brother shoots brother in the name of justice. Gavroche barely dodged a couple of well-aimed bullets, and in his terror, he let out a laugh and began another chorus of his song.
But he never finished it. A treacherous bullet struck him, and he sank to the earth, still smiling and trying to continue his song. He heard the shouts of his friends as he was slipping unconscious. Courfeyrac, he thought. Enjolras. Combeferre. He could hear them and the rest of the barricade boys calling to him frenziedly, and he smiled. The smile was frozen on his face. This grand little soul had taken its flight.
Gavroche did not die for freedom or for France, for he had no need of them. No, Gavroche died for his friends, in order to give them a better chance at living, in order to give them both the reason and the means to continue fighting.