Author's Note: I am aware that the Second Law of Thermodynamics was not written down until 1842, so Joly likely wouldn't know a thing about it. He certainly wouldn't quote it as he does here. However, when this idea popped into my brain I decided to forget historic accuracy and just run with it. A decade off is forgivable, right?
It was science, Joly knew. Plain and simple. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Yet, as a break in the fighting finally gave him a chance to process the scene around him, he began to doubt this basic rule.
Courfeyrac lay at the base of the barricade as nobody had yet had a chance to move his grape-shot riddled body. Most of the men were using the brief respite to scour for ammunition or dress fresh wounds. The dead could wait. The main concern was for the living, though nobody knew how much longer they would be so.
Joly slowly eased himself off of his perch and down the few feet to the ground. He found that a chair leg provided a convenient hand hold and made sure to step gingerly on his likely broken left ankle. He sat next to the mangled body that had once been his friend. He sent a silent prayer of thanks to whatever deity had allowed his face to remain mostly intact before slowly closing those impish green eyes for the last time.
Feeling his mind begin to spin again, Joly briefly closed his own eyes, hoping to clear his head. He was unsuccessful and instead found himself bombarded by half formed thoughts and increasing anger at the barbaric world around him.
It simply didn't make sense. Matter was conserved. It could be neither created nor destroyed. This Joly knew and accepted, for he observed it in his everyday life. It was true under any circumstance, and that is why it was a scientific law. But, the next part made no sense, at least not any more. He was taught that energy was also never created nor destroyed, that it simply changes form. Yet, what he had seen today directly contested that.
Logically, when a person dies and is buried, the energy from their body is transferred into the soil around them. It allows plants to grow and feeds the insects that crawl through the dirt. Yet, the friend that lay beside him had been so full of life and so full of energy that surely it would take fields and fields of wildflowers to even begin to use it all.
And what about now, before the body was in the dirt? The energy was no longer within the person, or those green eyes would open and sparkle with laughter once again. It also was not feeding insects. Where was it then? Somewhere in between?
Joly quickly looked about, as if trying to get a glimpse of some ghostly energy form of Courfeyrac that may be lingering. He silently chided himself and shook his head to clear it of such thoughts. These ideas would get him nowhere. He told himself that he should go rest for a precious few minutes before the rain of bullets resumed, but he couldn't make himself move.
"Joly!" Bossuet hurried toward him. A once white cravat was wrapped around his head as a makeshift bandage. Combeferre followed close behind, intent on seeing to Joly's swollen ankle.
"You seem puzzled, Jolllly."
"Thermodynamics."
"Yes," Bossuet replied, "that puzzles me as well, considering I have no idea what it is." He gave a halfhearted smile that was supposed to be reassuring before lapsing into silence.
"The Law of Conservation of Energy," Joly murmured, supposedly to himself. Bossuet may not have understood the words, but he followed his friend's gaze to their fallen comrade and he understood the meaning. For once in his life, the Eagle was lost for words. Instead he laid a hand on the shorter man's shoulder as they stood in silence.
It was Combeferre that finally broke the silence, after it seemed to have spanned for an eternity. "I do not pretend to understand the conservation of energy in this matter," he admitted, "but I do understand mass. Mass cannot be created, nor can it be destroyed. All that we can do with mass is move it from one place to another." He gave his friends a small, pained smile before continuing. "I suppose we will have to work with that."
Bossuet still did not understand the talk of energy and mass, but the look that Combeferre gave him told him all that he needed. As the medical student lifted Courfeyrac's legs, Bossuet did the same with his shoulders. Together they moved their friend toward the café to give him what little dignity they were able. As they disappeared into the pre-dawn darkness, Joly was left alone with his thoughts for the few moments it took for the artillery to start again.