Author's Note: Barricade Day drabble for PaperRevolution.
They had sent away as many men with families as they could. The rest could remain with a clear conscience. Someone with no other beings to think of, as Combeferre had said, had no reason to shirk martyrdom. Such a person had every right to fight and die. Feuilly understood this better than most. That was the one thought he could form amid the screams and the blasts, the thumps of the falling corpses, the slippery ground and the red-drizzled air. He shot, ducked and kicked and, between the stabs of pain and the ooze of blood, felt nothing and thought only this: that none who loved him would live to mourn him.
He had thought this was a comfort until he saw Joly at bay, surrounded by three guardsmen. The panic overtook him. He charged, knocking a bayonet out of an enemy's hand before it could pierce Joly's neck. The two other guardsmen fell neatly, one after the other, and Feuilly looked to see Bossuet, pistol in hand.
There was a moment that felt long and luxurious, but was only the length of one deep and ragged breath, when the three of them stared at each other, and Joly managed a smile.
Bossuet opened his mouth to say something. A crimson spray came out instead, as a guardsman surged up behind him, and Feuilly thought: this is the end, and I will not have to mourn him for long, and it was no comfort at all.