I want to dedicate this story to one of the extremely talented writers here, Freedom909. I would not have written this or considered writing it if not for you. You have inspired me with your writing and your kindness. So, I'm writing this for you. I really hope you like it.

When first asked about writing an Enjolras/Éponine fanfition, I was somewhat reluctant, because I usually try to keep stories and characters as close to canon and to the Brick as I can. Therefore, I usually keep Enjolras out of any romantic situations, because that is how Hugo portrayed him. However, after reading some of the excellent E/E stories by my fellow writers, I have come to like the idea more and more. So… I've come to the conclusion: what have I got to lose?

Thank you so much for reading, and please let me know what you think about it. I hope you enjoy.

CHAPTER I

Condemned for Life

"Guard, you may proceed," a voice unfeeling, cold, hard, and dark—as cold as the ice that freezes the earth in the dead of the most violent and bitter winters, as hard as the stone that is heated in a fire and repeatedly pounded with a hammer but still will not break, will not even bend, as dark as the grimmest hour of a moonless, starless, lightness, night, the hour when all is still and dead; the hour when even the ghosts, even the demons, have taken refuge under their graves in the earth, and they tremble and shutter under the presence of an evil greater still; the hour when Satan, himself, hooded and cloaked, hidden beneath a veil of darkness and a mask of deception, walks upon the earth amongst men—sounded through an equally cold, hard, and dark chamber. The man's voice was the cold breath of winter or the chilling breath of Death, and his words were knifes cutting and ripping through anything they came in contact with.

"Yes, General," a soft, fearful voice—the voice of a tyrant's servant, who listens to the man only because he is too afraid to defy him—answered, and a young guard came forward to do what he had been instructed.

For a few moments longer, this prison cell remained silent. Still. Lifeless. Nothing changed, nothing moved. Save for his heart, which began to race in his chest and pound in his ears, and his lungs, which began to inhale deeper and quicker. He could hear himself breathing. He braced himself. He closed his jaws and grinded his teeth together. His hands condensed into tight fists. His body stiffened, and every muscle became tense. He closed his eyes.

A sound like a gunshot.

The impact, the sting, of the whip.

Then, the pain.

His body lurched headlong, his neck lashed forward like the whip that had struck him, his head fell as falls the head of a man hanging on a cross, his arms, crucified above his head, bent backward, his wrists twisted almost completely in the wrong direction, his knees gave out under him, the chains around his arms cried out as to mock him and torment him, the full weight of his body was hanging by his hands, the pressure, the strain, in his joints made him fear that his arms would rip out of the sockets at his shoulders and then be torn off of his body. His face twisted and contorted in what was in fact unbearable pain, his eyes pressed shut so violently they began to water, his slammed teeth together, and he bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from screaming. He tasted blood in his mouth. He was gagging, and blood was already coming up his throat. He hardly noticed, because the agony of the blow was too great to allow him to perceive anything else. All he could feel, or think of, or perceive, or understand was pain. Pain coming at him from all directions, trapping him, enveloping him, and smothering him. The pain he could not escape.

The whip that slammed into his back again and again opened his flesh, tearing it, cutting it, ripping it, and mutilating it like the double-edged blade of a sword. His flesh, which had once been so smooth, so pure, so flawless, was now disfigured by layers upon layers of scars, of scabs, and of freshly-opened, raw, bloody wounds. The pain was overwhelming. He felt that his back was on fire, that they had set him ablaze. Flames engulfed him, eating up his flesh, eating it off of his bones, drinking his blood, licking his wounds, burning him alive. He could not escape it. It was as if he was trapped in hell, doomed, damned, condemned to suffer eternal punishment for each of his sins that he could not justify, forever. Damned forever. Damned to remain in these burning fires forever. Unable to see, unable to hear, unable to breath, unable even to scream. Unable to escape. Unable to die. Because he was already dead.

"I will ask you again," the cold, cruel, merciless, voice of the General spoke indifferently over the roar of the pain. "Who are these men that called themselves the Friends of the ABC? Rather shall I say, who is left of them?"

He continued to pant, breathing heavily and rapidly, unable to speak, unable to think, unable to comprehend what had been asked of him. He weakly opened his eyes. His vision was blurry and unclear, but he could see the dark red liquid that was splattered across and ran in thin streams down the stone wall in front of him. He could see nothing else. Only darkness. Only this stone wall. Only blood. He could feel hot blood running down his bare back, pooling over his shoulders, and dripping slowly down his chest, making its way toward his stomach, like red teardrops running down his body. He had seen so much blood already. Lots of it was his own, but the worst of it was blood spilling from other man. Every day, in life or in his mind, he still saw the dark red liquid flowing out from the bodies of other prisoner, of the soldiers, of men he did not know, of his friends. Some of them had survived. Some of them had died.

The general's cold voice broke through the pain, again. "Answer me."

He weakly flexed the trembling muscles in his thighs and ever so slightly raised his body, lifting some of the weight off of his throbbing arms. Pain shot through his body, through his open back, through the joints of his arms, through his wrists. His left arm had already been dislocated twice, and he feared that last blow might have done it for a third time. He did not know what was wrong with his right wrist, as he was hardly in his right mind enough to comprehend that he could not move it and that his entire arm was throbbing as if being beaten between a hammer and anvil.

"Answer me." While still calm, his voice was growing even more dangerous. He knew if he did not answer soon, the whip would bury itself under his flesh for another time.

He let his lips fall open, and a thin stream of blood fell out the corner of his mouth. He heard it sounding with a trickle like rain as it hit the stone ground. He let out a trembling breath through his bloodied lips. A moment later, he managed to speak, "I do not know what you are talking about."

"Do not waste my time or your breath with that. It is not worth the trouble for me nor is it worth the pain for you. So, I will ask again, who are the rebels in the group you lead called the Friends of the ABC? Which of them are still alive?"

His head hung forward and his eyes were lowered, so he could see the front of his own body. The trousers he wore had once been black, but after years of wearing under the sun, the heat, the rain, the cold, the ice, the sea, the wind, the storm, the color had faded to grey. Now, they were soaking wet, they stuck to his legs, and they were red. From the waist up, he was naked, clothed only in blood, which ran down his thin body like rivers. He could see the ugly and prominent scars, some darker than others, all over his sides, across his chest, and embedded in his belly. Bleeding gashes now covered his sides and torso, as well; for when they struck him, the whip curled around his body like a snake coiling around and constricting its prey. Even within the tangle of these scars and wounds, the scars logged in the lower left chamber of his ribcage remained prominent and clear: the deep scar from the wound and the scars left from the surgeons' blades. He could see the hideous scars left from the burn they gave him three—or was it four?—years ago. That was the worst pain that he was forced to endure since he entered the prison. The whip burned, but nothing burned like fire. The scars left by fire were prominent across his chest, beginning in the soft tissue of his right pectoral, crossing over his breast bone, over his heart, and ended at the left side of his chest. The metal red, glowing white, had been pressed against his chest; it melted the flesh and sunk into the muscle. Furious, bleeding, blistering, and boiling wounds were left behind. Now, there were scars. They rose above his flesh and stood above his skin, as mountains stand over the earth. On the day he entered the prison, they did this to him. They burned him. Branded him. All these years later, three or four he was not sure which, he could read the numbers as clearly as he could on the day they burned him, left their mark on him, signed victory over him as a man signs a document to seal the right to his property: 86592. That was his name now. He did not even have a name anymore. His name was his number. His name was Convict. His name was Traitor. His name was Rebel.

Yet, even through this pain, beyond this torture, beyond this hell that they had put him through for the last three or four years, endless eternities, of his life, he could remember a worse pain. A pain that still tortured him every day, every waking moment, even in his sleep. He had no choice but to endure this pain in torment and in agony, day after day, year after year… This was a pain that he would have to endure for the rest of his life. The pain greater than all others is the pain a man feels in his heart when he is grieving the loss of a loved one, the death of a friend, the separation of his family, when he must bare the terrible guilt that comes with the merciless knowledge that all of this had happened because of him.

"I do not know what you are talking about," he insisted again. He tried to keep his voice strong, certain, but that was extremely difficult considering the amount of pain he was in. He could hardly even breathe. He could hardly even think. "I have never heard of the Friends of the ABC. Everyone who took part in the rebellion is dead. That is all I know."

Silence followed this. He could not see the General, but he knew that the man was thinking, deciding what to do next. "Very well," he finally said. "Perhaps, fifteen lashes more will help to rouse your memory."

Fear hit his heart like a knife, as dread hit his gut like a bullet. "There is nothing to remember!" he cried out in attempt to save himself. He forced his voice to sound calmer and less desperate, less helpless, as he went on, "I know nothing of what you say."

"If that is true then you are of no use to me. If I have to beat you until you bleed to death, I will have lost nothing. The pain will only stop, traitor, once you have told me the truth, which we both know you are hiding. Guard, you may proceed."

Only seconds later, the whip hit him again. Even harder, hit the pain. The agony. His eyes slammed shut, and he gritted his teeth, and bit his lip, and clinched his firsts, and winced in torment, and counted each blow as it fell upon his back, again… and again… and again. Each time the whip hit him, blood burst out of his wounds, sprayed over his body like the spray expelled from the ocean as waves hit against rocks, and it fell down over him like rain. By the fifth blow, he could hardly restrain the cries of agony that were fighting wildly to burst forth from his mouth. By the seventh blow, he heard his own voice groaning in pain and he knew he was going to pass out. At the ninth blow, just before he lost consciousness, he wondered if this time he really would die.

"Rebel… Rebel… Rebel, open you eyes."

Pain was pulsing through his body with his heartbeat. His head was throbbing and spinning, at once. His entire body was aching. His back felt as if it was on fire. He heard this voice speaking to him, but he could not understand these words. His mind rocked violently, like a ship crashing through a reckless and stormy sea, beneath the surface of unconsciousness, slowly getting closer to breaking through it. He did not understand anything except for the pain.

At last, his eyes opened. He lay on his stomach, his face resting against the cold floor of the prison, his bare chest and scared belly pressing against the hard stone beneath him, his naked, mangled, and bloodied back exposed and vulnerable. He did not know how he had ended up on the floor. Perhaps, they unchained his wrists so he would wake up, and they could torture him some more. He did not know. All he knew was that he was in so much pain.

"Rebel," he heard a nearby voice say, and he feared it would be the general or one of the guards with a whip come to flog him and torture him again, as they so often did. When he painfully raised his head and turned his eyes, however, he saw sitting crossed-legged before him a man with a shaved head, dark eyes, black skin, and a black eye. He was dressed in faded black trousers, a green cap, and a loose red shirt that hung low on his neck and chest so anyone looking upon him could see the number scarred across his muscular body: 95159.

He knew the man. He did not know his name, though. Likewise, this man did not know his name. After so many years in prison, it seemed they had both forgotten that they ever had names, at all. They knew each other only by face and number. This man called him "Rebel," and he called this man "Algerian." That was what the guards and inspectors called them. This man was a prisoner, just like him. They slept on the same stone floor in the same cell, worked in the same galleys, were secured every morning to the same chain. They spoke to each other often, but only with darkness and coldness in their forlorn hearts and their forsaken souls. Had things been different, they might have, instead, called each other "Friend."

He tried to get up and lift himself off of the ground, but when the muscles in his body tensed, pain hit him hard. He felt as if a heavy metal club had just slammed into this back, knocking him back to the floor. Pain cut through him and he felt that they were beating him all over again.

"Do not move, Rebel," his cellmate said to him in his strong African accident so uncommon to France. His voice was deep, strong, powerful, capable of being frightening, but now it was gentle. With a weak, joyless, bitter, grin that was more like a wince of agony, he went on, "They have beaten you badly, this time. Your arm was dislocated again, but I put it back in the socket. Your right wrist, I am afraid, is broken. I wrapped it up for you with fabric, but you won't be able to work with a broke wrist."

"I do not have a choice," the man muttered in reply, grinding his teeth. "If I am not at the galleys, they will bring me back into the torturing chamber."

The man nodded gravely. "You need to rest, now, or you will never be able to work in the morning. If you are at the galleys and you drop something, they will only beat you again. Rest now. I need to finish cleaning your wounds."

Before he was a prisoner, this man was a doctor. Before he was a doctor, he was a slave in Africa. When he was still a little boy, he and his mother fled to France to escape bondage. His mother was spared by poverty's cruel grasp when a wealthy French man married her. Her son, therefore, was able to go to school in Paris. He became a medical student, and he became a doctor. He became a husband and a father. Then, he became a prisoner. He became a murderer, or, at least, in the eyes of the law. A rich white woman was sick with tuberculosis. There was no way to save her. She was going to die. The medication they gave for such a horrible disease was not enough. In attempt to save her life, the man operated on her lungs. She died shortly after the surgery. Her husband accused the doctor of murdering his wife; the doctor was arrested; he was found guilty; he was called a murder; and he was sentenced to a lifetime of hard labor in prison. If he was white, his fellow convict, the rebel, said to him after the Algerian told the young man his story, they might have let him go. That was the so-called justice of the monarchy. That was the justice of man.

In prison, the Algerian's heart was hardened, as were all prisoners' hearts, but it was not hardened so much that it became like stone. At heart, he was still a good man. Whenever the rebel was abused and tortured, the Algerian helped him. He tended to his wounds the best he could in this prison cell and with what few resources were available to him (rather unclean water, fabric of ripped up clothing, sometimes a needle and thread if he could convince a guard to let him use it); he reset his bones if they were broken; he put his limbs back in place when they were dislodged from their sockets.

The rebel gritted his teeth and pressed the side of his face against the stone beneath him as this man treated his wounds. He closed his eyes. The Algerian began by cleaning the wounds, rubbing them with water, drying them with fabric, and then pressing cloths tightly against them to stop the blood flow. The rebel winced and struggled against the pain as his cellmate tampered with his wounds. Even when someone was trying to help him, it hurt terribly. He did not speak.

The Algerian did not speak either. He worked silently for several minutes before he frowned and asked, "How many lashes?"

"I do not know," he muttered, his eyes still shut tightly. "I lost count somewhere around forty."

The convict winced at the very thought of it. When at last he finished with the young man's wounds, he was silent for a minute, lost in deep and careful thought. "Rebel…" he said softly. The wounded man opened his eyes and looked up at the convict before him. The prisoner looked at him sadly and sighed, before he asked, "Why won't you tell them? They will let you go if only you tell. And until you do, they will keep torturing you like this. Sooner or later, they will kill you."

"To die is nothing," he replied quietly but certainly. "Why should we fear death? Whatever waits for us in the next life cannot be worse than what we suffer through now."

"That is not true if you believe in hell," the prisoner replied.

"I do believe in hell," he agreed with a small nod. "But I also believe in Paradise. I believe in God, Algerian. I trust in Christ. He died for our sins so that we could escape the fate which we deserve. So, I am not afraid to die. I believe that when we die we will be reunited with our friends who have gone before us."

The Algerian listened silently and then nodded. "I believe that, too," he said with a small smile. A smile was something hardly seen in this godforsaken place, and when a smile did, on those so rare occasions, appear, it vanished quicker than the light of a candle being blown out by the wind. His smile faded, and he whispered, "But sometimes I think that, and then I wonder why I am still alive. Why am I still living? What am I still living for? I would live for my wife and my children, but I know that I will never see them again. For all I know, they might already be dead. For the last seven years, there has been no man at home to look after them. So why do I keep going? What have I got to live for? Would it not be better if I were to die? Usually, I think yes. It would be better to die. It is better to be dead than to be living in hell." He fell silent and gazed numbly across into the dark cell before he added in a whisper, "I could take my own life and escape all of this pain."

The other prisoner listened thoughtfully, silently. He hesitated. At last he only shook his head. "I do not know. Sometimes, I think dying would be an easier way. It would be a lie to say that I never thought about killing myself. At times, I think that I am only still alive, because I am trying to reach the day that I will die."

"Then, why do you keep fighting to survive? There are many times, I think you would have died after being beaten the way they beat you, and only our God and your will kept you alive. You have a strong will to survive, I see that everyday. So, why do you want to keep living?"

He was silent for a moment. His head was still resting upon the stone floor. His eyes were still open, but they looked not at anyone. Instead, they gazed, lifeless and transfixed like the eyes of a corpse, across the dark and cold jail cell. "Because…" he started to say softly. "Because I think of the time when I will get out of this place."

He shook his head, sadly, grimly. "They will never let us out, Rebel. You know that. We are convicts for life."

"They will not let us out, but outside of these prison walls, there is still the Revolution. If the Revolution prevails, justice will be restored, and they will set us free."

"What are the chances of that ever happening, Rebel? Even less are the chances of that happening when we are still alive."

"That may be, but that does not matter. We must have faith. Besides, there are other ways of getting out."

He man nodded slowly. He was silent for a moment before he said quietly, "They will let you go if you tell them what they have been questioning you about. But until you tell them everything they want you know, they will not set you free."

"Then, so be it. I will not tell them. I will not betray my friends. I will not surrender to these men no matter how much pain they force me to endure."

The convict sighed and shook his head. "You are strong, Rebel. You are brave. And if you do get free, will your friends be waiting for you?"

"Yes, I believe they will be," he answered, and a shadow of a smile appeared at the corner of his lips. For the first time in many years, he felt warmth and happiness come into his heart, and he actually almost smiled. Almost. Then, he had to go on, "Some of them, at least. Many of them are already waiting for me in the next world. Many of them died in the rebellion that brought me here."

The Algerian did not respond. He looked sadly at the wounded man before him for a long time, thinking, wondering, pitying, admiring. At last, he said quietly and sincerely, "Then, when you do meet again, they will be proud of you, Rebel. They are fortunate to have you as their friend. Most men would have betrayed them already, after what they have put you through."

He paused. It was painful to speak of such things, because it made him think of his own family that he feared he would never see again until after they all were dead. Still he went on, "And what of your family? Do you not have a wife or children who will be waiting for you, also? Is there no woman whom you love?"

This time, the rebel did not reply. His was almost a corpse as he gazed across the floor of his cell. With his eyes he saw the other prisoners curling up against the stone to go to sleep for the night. Some of them had blackened eyes and bruised faces, like the Algerian. Some had lash marks visible upon their flesh and blood on their clothes, like the rebel. Yet, not one of them was as wounded or as hurt as this man was. With his mind, however, he saw someone else. Someone far away. Someone so far out of his reach.

At last, he let out a heavy sigh, and turned his eyes back to his friend. A weak smile—weak but nonetheless a smile—appeared on his lips. He said quietly, "She will wait for me."