Title: Don't Pay The Ferryman
Author: Bluehaven4220
Summary: Everything was unbearably still and quiet the night the barricades arose. That is, until the young lady named Elise came and spoke with him.
A/N: Hello everyone! This is my first Les Miserables story. I have battled 18 months of writer's block and frustration, and this was the fandom that finally inspired both my fan fiction and original writing once again. I am very excited to share this with you, and I encourage you to feel free to leave a review, the door is always open.
ooOoo
There's a game life plays, makes you think you're everything they ever said you were . Like to take some time, clear away everything I planned. Was it life I betrayed for the shape that I'm in? It's not hard to fail, it's not easy to win. Did I drink too much? Could I disappear? And there's nothing that's left but wasted years
Wasted Years- Cold
ooOoo
It was, and still is, a truth not often acknowledged that there are millions of stories waiting to be told, no matter where one might be, and this was one of them.
The single, almost impenetrable barrier to these stories being shared is the willingness of the people who experienced them to come forward and talk to a writer. A writer or a storyteller could be absolutely anyone; they do not have to be a professional. There are very few things that anyone could call professional. For example, a chair does not suddenly decide it is going to start talking and call itself a professional chair. There's no such thing. A chair is a chair. What that chair is used for greatly depends on what the people who own it want it to be used for. For all anyone knows, the chair could have a mind and a personality all its own. Take the chair that once sat in a young woman's dining room, for example.
This chair was really nothing extraordinary. It was, as mentioned, a dining room chair. This chair, if it could speak would tell you that it was nothing more than a chair, but with some very unique differences. This chair was actually part of a rubbish pile; said rubbish pile was then turned into a barricade, which was being used to start a revolution. There were young men sitting on the barricade, waiting for the dawn.
It was uneasily, almost unbearably quiet that night. It was raining; everyone had locked their doors against the oncoming hail of gunpowder and smoke that could envelope them at any moment.
A young woman listened at the window, shutters closed of course, but there was something carrying through the stillness of the night.
Singing.
Cracking open the shutter just enough to peak, she saw the small group sitting on the pile of furniture and rubbish that made up the barricade. She had heard them shout for anything anyone could spare, and she had obliged. She'd enlisted her Maman's help in pushing her bed to the window, and threw it down. She'd caught their leader's eye for only a second, gave him a small stare.
Their leader, so far as she could tell, was a curly-haired blonde man who sat on the end of the bed she'd pushed out the window to help them. She had slept on the floor for about an hour, and then had been sitting against the wall since.
Well, if she couldn't sleep…
Sneaking down the stairs would have proven too loud; the wood stairs always creaked something awful, so instead she set to climbing out the window before slipping ever so slightly.
Someone caught hold of her waist, and swung her to set her on her feet. Stumbling over the pile, she came face to face with the curly-haired man again. He sat stoically, almost as though he were looking right past her.
"Forgive me Monsieur," she whispered, lifting her skirt just enough to allow her room to move. She stood precariously in front of him as he sat on the end of the bed that had once been hers. "Would you mind if I sat with you?"
"Not at all," he answered so quietly she had to strain to hear him. His eyes were focused on something so far removed from her that he could not possibly have heard anything she had wanted to say.
They sat together in silence for what seemed hours. He said almost nothing, choosing instead to rest his wrist atop the barrel of his gun.
She chewed the inside of her cheek, only suddenly feeling the chill of the rain soaking through her meager clothing.
She shivered, running her hands up her arms to warm herself.
It was only then that he turned his head and seemed to notice that she was still there.
Saying nothing, he stripped off his coat and placed it around her shoulders.
"But Monsieur," she protested.
He put a finger to her lips, startling her at the sudden contact. "I will not keep my coat while a lady freezes."
She almost snorted in surprise; certainly not a ladylike thing to do. "Perhaps chivalry is not dead quite yet."
He set his jaw.
"Monsieur…"
"Enjolras."
"Pardon me?"
"Monsieur is a title. A reminder of the inequalities that separate the masses. When this is over, we will have no need for words like Madam and Monsieur. We will all be citizens of a free Republic."
"So I should just call you 'Citizen Enjolras?'" she asked. "That is quite a mouthful. May I simply call you Enjolras?"
"That is exactly what I said in the first place, though not in so many words." The young man called Enjolras answered her.
She nodded, putting her hand on his thigh, squeezing gently.
There was a creaking noise as he shifted closer to her. He lifted her hand off his thigh, kissed her knuckles.
"Mademoiselle," he addressed her as she realized she had not told him her name.
"Elise."
"Elise," he corrected himself, still holding her hand. "Why have you come to the barricade?"
"I could not sleep," she reasoned. "There is a charge in the air tonight, and the barricade is right outside my window, as is my bed."
His eyes widened. "You threw your bed out the window for the sake of our barricade?"
"Indeed I did. We are sitting on it now," she smiled.
She was sure he almost laughed.
"But why for us?"
"Because I believe in a free Republic, same as you all do."
"You could die tomorrow, as could we all."
"Yes, I am well aware of this," she nodded, noticing that the grip he had on her hand had tightened ever so slightly. "But how can fighting for what you believe in be a bad thing?"
She would be surprised to know, he mused, that no one had ever asked him that question. He'd been prepared for such questions, and had formulated answers to them in his head, but to actually use them? For once, he was lost for words, thinking his answer to be absolutely improbable and quite possibly a little bit stupid.
"Do you even know what you're fighting for?" she asked. "You see the masses and how they are suffering, and say that you want to help them, but even if Lamarque agreed that poverty and inequality was not right, he did not live the life we do. Neither do you. How can you claim to speak for us if you have never lived one day in our lives?"
She saw his jaw tighten. It was not enough that she had come to sit on their barricade, but to question why they fought…
It was far too late at night to seriously think about why. They were there to change the future, but she was right. He had been wealthy all his life, he had been able to go to university and get his education, and all the while they were young children who ran around in the street because their parents could not afford to feed them.
"Mademoiselle," she heard another voice and the unmistakable sound of someone climbing across the pile of chairs and discarded furniture to tap her shoulder. "Mademoiselle, welcome to you. Would you care of a bit of wine?"
Her stomach growled as the offer of wine made her realize she had not eaten for well over a day and a half. If nothing else, with how cold and hungry she was, it would warm her slightly and fill her belly.
Smiling at the young man, she accepted the bottle and drank deeply.
"I thank you, Mon-"
"My name is Joly, Mademoiselle."
The name made her stop. Now there was a name she had heard before.
Dear Lord…
"Joly? Are you of any relation to the doctor?"
"My father," he answered. "I am a student of medicine myself. How would you know him?"
"He came to my home," she pointed to the still-open window directly across from where they sat. "He was there only mere months ago," she bit her lip before taking another drink from the bottle. "My son was desperately ill. I sold almost everything I had to pay for your father to come and see if he could help my boy. In the end he could not."
She noticed both Enjolras and Joly starting at her as she recounted the tale.
"He gave me some medicine for him, if only to keep him comfortable. My son died in my arms only days later," she hung her head. "He is buried in an unmarked pauper's grave. I did not have enough money to give him a funeral."
A stray tear went down her cheek. Handing the wine bottle to Enjolras, she took Joly's face in her hands. "If by chance, Monsieur Joly, you ever see your father again, from a grieving mother, give him this."
She kissed Joly full on the mouth.
"I shall, Madame," he answered, addressing her above her station, giving her the respect she did not feel she deserved. He took the wine bottle from Enjolras and made his way across the barricade.
Once he had gone, the silence that passed between herself and Enjolras was perhaps the loudest she had ever heard.
"His name," was all he said.
"My son's name was Antonin," she answered, catching a tear with her finger. "He was four years old the day he died."
"And your husband?"
"I have no husband," she answered simply. She would not tell him much more.
"Was Antonin the result of violence?"
"Indeed he was, Monsieur," she nodded, rather grateful that he had not tried to ask the question delicately. "I never told my son that, and promised I never would. All he knew was that his Papa had died. Which was not a lie."
He nodded. "I am sorry for you in that regard, Elise."
"Thank you, Monsieur."
This time he did not bother to correct her.
Taking a deep breath, she steadied herself and moved closer to Enjolras.
"Monsieur, if I may be so bold…"
He stared at her. She took his hands in hers, kissed his knuckles as he had done to her.
"They will not go away," she whispered. "The ghosts. They stay with us for the rest of our lives. How my son came to be and died is probably of very little consequence to you. Indeed, I do not know why I told you about him when I do not know you apart from your name. But I know that I do not wish for you to be alone on what may be the last night of your life."
He squeezed her hand, silently allowing her to continue.
"I am not going back into my house," she insisted. "My Maman is safe there without me getting in the way. I would like to sit on this barricade with you and the rest of your friends, and after that perhaps we might find common cause to fight."
He said nothing, allowing her to plant a kiss on his lips before they each turned back to their own thoughts.
A little while later, she realized she was still wearing his red jacket. She wasn't as cold anymore; the wine had certainly helped.
"Enjolras," she gripped the lapel of the jacket. "Enjolras, I'd like to thank you."
He raised an eyebrow.
"There are not many people who would listen to a young woman's story as you did and not pass judgment on the sins of the past."
"The past is precisely that: the past," Enjolras answered. "We sit here tonight because we want to change the future. How can we judge others when we are not without sin ourselves?"
Her eyes steeled, her shoulders stiffened, and the grip she had on her strength was growing weaker by the second.
"I do not wish to preach to you about sin, just as I am sure that is not your intention, Monsieur. I heard enough about what a sinner I was while I was pregnant. Apparently, in the eyes of God, all unwed mothers are whores who must be hidden from view and shunned, when their only crime was unsuccessfully fighting back against a man who did not understand what the word "No" meant," she fought to keep her anger under control. "The only crime of the people who live in the streets is the fact that they were born poor. No one asks for such a thing. No one wants to be poor. No one wants to have to steal in order to live. As far as we are concerned, we live to the next day only to come to the understanding that it is only one day nearer to dying. Is this barricade really going to change all that? Even it is did do something, to change the city of Paris, and indeed the whole of France would take years! Are you willing to sit here and wait for that?"
"I do not intend to sit here and wait. I intend to do something about it. This is only the first step."
"Well far be it for me to get in the way," she threw up her hands in mock surrender. "Pardon me, Monsieur. I believe I shall go and see if there is any wine left."
And so she left him on what had once been her bed alone.