Haunted
They were waiting for him when he got back. He could tell as soon as he entered, when he was overcome with a strong sense of wrong. They were waiting, and he had finally arrived.
Grantaire couldn't see them, but he knew they were there. The air of his room felt stuffy, and it was hard to breathe. That might just have been his fear, for he had been dreading this moment ever since the barricades.
The barricades... When Grantaire closed his eyes, all he could see was the Corinthe in ruins, blood and bodies everywhere, but most of all, Enjolras. Enjolras standing and calmly speaking to the twelve men about to kill him; Enjolras glancing about the room; Enjolras locking eyes with him; the men firing; Enjolras falling, dead, to the ground...
He shuddered just thinking about it. He had awoken precisely at that moment. He should have done something about it; he should have stood and sacrificed himself; he should have made a diversion, giving Enjolras time to escape. But he hadn't. All Grantaire had done was sit there, as if still asleep, and let it happen.
Soon the National Guardsmen began to clean up the mess, and they quickly found him. Grantaire had been captured and imprisoned for days in a smelly jail, but he was eventually cleared as a bystander.
He had never believed in Enjolras' and the other Amis' cause, but he had believed in Enjolras. He felt like a traitor by not speaking out against the revolutionaries' murders, but he was saving his own life by keeping quiet.
As soon as he was released from prison, Grantaire had run to the nearest wine shop and drunk away his problems. For three days he managed to avoid his present, but then his money ran out and he was forced to wander the streets of Paris.
There was fear inside him, the fear of being called out by some passer-by as "one of the barricade men". He wasn't, he wasn't, he wasn't—but at the same time he also feared retribution from the ghosts of his former friends.
He had avoided the Musain, he had avoided his old rooms, he had avoided all of Les Amis' old haunts for fear of meeting ghosts. But now, a week after the the death at the barricades, Grantaire had no where else to go but home.
He had counted the bodies as the National Guardsmen had hurried him away from the Corinthe and the barricade. So many lay dead, so many of his friends... Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Bossuet, Jehan, Enjolras, Bahorel, Feuilly, the street urchin Gavroche... It pained him to recall those still and bloody bodies, with glassy, unseeing eyes and limp hands. The drink helped him push it out of his mind, but he only grew sadder when he emerged from his drunken stupor.
Grantaire had made his way to his lodgings slowly and reluctantly. He greeted the portress glumly, and shoved her aside to arrive at his rooms.
He turned the doorknob slowly and faced his mess. As he entered the room, he immediately felt a chill race down his back, and he felt that someone else was in the room. Oh, and not just any someone, but them. The wrongness made it all clear: it was his guilt.
Les Amis were waiting for him.
Grantaire began to shake. The door behind him closed softly and gently, but the snap of the hinges made him jump nonetheless.
"F-friends?" he stammered weakly, feeling the air around him rapidly drop in temperature.
In front of him, seven pale and insubstantial figures appeared. They still wore the battered and dirty clothes they had died in. Their expressions were blank, as if they didn't quite know what was going on. Neither did Grantaire, but he was certain his expression showed all the fear he felt.
"Grantaire..."
The seven figures, presumably ghosts, were his dead friends. The one who spoke was Combeferre, the guide. Grantaire dropped to the floor, petrified and moved almost to tears.
As he did so, the ghosts moved in on him. Their expressions slowly changed, each uniquely reflecting their personalities.
Combeferre's face became studious and thoughtful, his eyes turned up and away from Grantaire, dried blood caking his cheeks and staining his fine shirt. Jehan smiled dreamily, but the bullet holes in his chest and head made it seem demonic. Feuilly's grin stretched from bullet wound to bullet wound. Courfeyrac's smile was rather arrogant as it had been in life, marred only by the miscellaneous punctures and other wounds surrounding it. Bahorel was bold as usual, with a large tear in both his shirt and his flesh ruining his robust image. Bossuet's expression was simultaneously melancholy and jolly, enhanced by his status as dead.
Enjolras alone wore a solemn expression. His eyes showed disappointment, disbelief, disgust... Grantaire moaned slightly, his eyes flitting from ghost to ghost as if somehow that would make them go away.
"How long...?" he began, his voice choked with fear.
"We've been waiting for days, Grantaire," Courfeyrac said softly. "Here, at the barricade, in the Musain, anywhere you might go that would remind you of us."
"Oh, oh, forgive me," Grantaire cried out, beginning to weep. "I'm sorry, sorry, sorry..."
"Why should we forgive you, you ingrate?" Enjolras demanded harshly. Grantaire looked down, his face in his hands, not daring to meet his idol's eyes. "We gave our lives for our cause, and you sat there and let it happen. You talked your way out of a trial. You cast us aside as if we were nothing. So we waited."
"Enjolras," Jehan protested mildly. "Not so harsh."
Hope blooming within him, Grantaire looked up: maybe Enjolras hated him, but perhaps the others did not and could save him from Apollo's wrath...?
But their kindly and cheerful expressions were fading, and with them Grantaire's feeble hope. His head hurt, his feet hurt, and his pride hurt, but most of all Grantaire's heart hurt. He had been the skeptic, but he had been their friend...
Oh, this was all his fault, anyway. Whatever these ghosts were to do with him, he deserved it. Grantaire hardly knew what to think, what to do, what to say. Bahorel scowled at him and shouted, "While we were murdered, you slept, drunk!"
"While we fought, you dozed!" Combeferre exclaimed.
"You woke as I was killed," Enjolras said, his voice grown much softer but much angrier. "I saw you, and you saw me. You could have done something, but all you did was sit there."
"A dream," Grantaire said aloud, trying not to listen to them. "That's all this is, a dream, a nightmare, a hallucination... I'm drunk, I had too much to drink..."
Bossuet let out a short bark of laughter. "You always have too much to drink."
"Laigle...Bossuet... please... Feuilly... Jehan?" he pleaded. Then he realized something. "Mon Dieu, where is Joly? Where is Joly? All of you are here, but not Joly."
There was a pause. Bossuet answered him, "I do not know... Joly is not with us. He never was. The last I saw him was before the final attack, staring into a mirror at his tongue. You know how he was about his tongue."
"Joly is alive?" Grantaire said, a wild hope coming back to him once more. "You're not all dead after all? Joly! Joly!"
Forgetting his fear of the ghosts, Grantaire scrambled to his feet and fumbled with the doorknob. Forgetting why he had come to his rooms in the first place, he raced out of them, leaving the ghosts of Les Amis behind him.
He ran down the stairs and through the streets of Paris toward Joly's lodgings. "Joly, Joly!" he cried out as he ran. He must have looked like a madman to the passers-by. He remembered where the hypochondriac lived, having many times gone out too late with him and Bossuet (and occasionally Courfeyrac and his friend Marius) and crashing at the other man's house for one night.
Grantaire did not know to what purpose he ran to Joly's lodgings. He could not give or receive comfort from him, but somehow he knew there was no where else to run to.
It was night, an hour or so after the sun had set. The streets of Paris were dark, with only a few windows lit here and there, though the taverns he passed—all familiar to him—were still loud and awake.
Up ahead, Grantaire sighted Joly's lodging-house. He ran feverishly up to the door of the house and knocked on it desperately. He was greeted by a very offended porter, who he immediately pushed aside in his race to get to Joly.
"Please, please," he muttered under his breath as he arrived at the door. The window was dark, but there was still hope. As the porter began to complain and come up the stairs after him, Grantaire knocked.
"Joly?" he asked, his voice choked with fear. "Joly, please be alive!"
There was no answer. He knocked again, much harder.
Just as he was about to give up hope and allow himself to be accosted by the grumpy porter, the door opened.
Joly was confused and irritated, his hair all a mess, wearing his nightclothes. His eyes were bleary and sad, but they registered only shock when they saw Grantaire.
"Grantaire?" the young man said in surprise. "You... you're alive?"
"Joly!" Grantaire sobbed. "Please, Joly, please let me in for a little while..."
"All right, come in," Joly said, confused. As Grantaire stumbled inside of Joly's rooms, he heard the other man soothing the porter. At last, the door shut. Joly lit the room, then sat down across from Grantaire.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
In answer, Grantaire burst into tears. The events of the evening, in addition to the fact he was still a little bit drunk, had become too much for him to bear.
"Grantaire? Are you ill?" Joly asked in concern. "Or... drunk? What's going on?"
"Ghosts..." Grantaire sobbed.
"Ghosts?" Joly said, surprised. "Oh... yes. The barricades..." The hypochondriac's face grew melancholy, and he bowed his head. "I am surprised you are alive, my friend."
Friend. That word struck something in Grantaire. Somehow he managed to get himself under control. He took a few deep breaths, stopped crying, and began to tell Joly his story.
"I...when they shot Enjolras, I woke up, right before, and I saw him die," he said softly. "And I should have said something or done something but I just sat there and watched it happen, I let it happen, I let him die, and it's my fault, I should have jumped in the way or something... and then the Guard arrested me and put me in jail but since I was asleep for so long and not really with your cause they let me go. And then I went out and got drunk and I put it all out of mind but then I didn't have any money and I couldn't buy any more drink and my head hurt. I had to go back to my lodgings. But I couldn't, because they'd be waiting for me."
"Who?" Joly asked, a little taken aback by the sudden rush of words.
"Les Amis!" He said the Friends, as they had been known, but he meant his friends. "Their ghosts and I was so afraid and I would have to live up to what I had done and they would be so mad but I had to do it! So I went and I opened my door and there they were and I was so afraid and they were mad, Enjolras especially, and I was scared and I felt awful; no, I feel awful."
Grantaire broke off again to take a breath. He was fighting back tears again, but was determined not to break down.
"What led you here?" was Joly's only question. "I had been lying low, waiting until the Guard stopped looking for any barricade survivors to return to...normal life. Well. As normal as possible."
"Bossuet... Bossuet's ghost said he didn't know what had happened to you. You weren't with the ghosts... I thought, I thought maybe you were still alive. But how? How did you survive?"
Joly sighed, looking down. "I ran away. I am ashamed, it is true, but... when they came with the guns, I saw a way out, and I took it."
Grantaire waited for him to elaborate, but Joly looked so uncomfortable and guilty that he didn't press further.
"Well, Grantaire, you are welcome to stay here for a few nights," Joly said at last, breaking the awkward silence. "You can sleep in Bossuet's old bed..." A pained look of grief crossed his face briefly, but it vanished soon after. "Excuse me, Grantaire. I am overtired. I'll see you tomorrow morning."
The next morning, Grantaire woke with a ferocious headache. He was used to this, however, as a side effect of his drinking habits, and didn't complain to Joly, as the hypochondriac would only fuss.
There was little conversation between the two men, but they had no where to go and nothing to do. Joly feared being captured by the police; Grantaire feared meeting the ghosts again. There was no escape from the hours of fear and stifling boredom.
Joly whiled away the day reading books of medicine. To Grantaire's dismay, his lodgings contained no drink to speak of. "Drinking is bad for your health," the other man explained to him.
"I don't care," was Grantaire's surly response. But he felt depressed and didn't feel like arguing.
The next night he dreamed fitfully that he and Enjolras had switched places at the barricade. He cried out for help as the National Guard shot at him, but Enjolras only stared at him with no feeling as he died.
"I do the same for you as you did to me," the glorious Apollo said coldly. Grantaire's chest hurt, his heart hurt, his arms hurt, the bullets were piercing his skin, his flesh, his bone... He looked up and saw the faces of those shooting at him: they were the faces of his friends.
Grantaire woke with a start, and, eyes feverish, stumbled out of the bed that used to belong to Bossuet. It was still dark, perhaps two of the morning. He groaned and fell upon the floor, wracking sobs shaking his body.
"I do not deserve to live," he whispered. With a morbid resolve, in the bitter depths of despair and guilt, he got shakily to his feet and wandered into Joly's kitchen area. He grasped the first knife he saw (it was small and skinny, and very sharp) and prepared to drive it into his chest.
Shakily, he brought it down to his pale skin. His shirt was dirty and wrinkled. He pushed back the folds of the fabric. He wasn't quite sure where his heart was located, but he would probably bleed to death anyway if the wound was large enough. Joly would know where his heart was.
"Joly," he croaked. "Joly!" he said, much louder. Then he cursed as he realized that Joly would try to stop him. No, he must do this now. The tip of the knife poked his skin, drawing little beads of blood. He took a deep breath and gathered his strength...
"Grantaire?" Joly's voice was sleepy. "What is—" The he gasped as he beheld the sight before him. "Stop! Grantaire, stop!" He rushed over to him, but Grantaire would not be stopped so easily. He pushed the knife in a little further, and oh, it hurt, it hurt—
Then, abruptly, the knife was grabbed out of his hands and chest. It hurt coming out, but would have hurt more if it was in all the way. Grantaire coughed and clutched his burning chest. "Blood," he whispered. Indeed, his shirt was now stained with blood, and the stain was only growing bigger.
Joly, cursing under his breath, grabbed some bandages from a shelf and pressed them to Grantaire's wound. "Grantaire, why?" he asked, sounding genuinely distraught.
"Guilt... hate... I don't deserve life," the drunk moaned. "Leave me to die..."
"No," Joly said fiercely. "You're guilty, you're in the wrong, yes; but you can fix it. You can change. Become a better person. Maybe you shouldn't go out and lead the next revolution, but don't give up hope. Don't kill yourself. If you turn your life around and do something good, Enjolras will forgive you... You won't be haunted forever..."
"Uhhhgnghh," he groaned, only half registering Joly's words.
"Sleep, my friend," the hypochondriac whispered sadly. "Take this." A small pill was pressed to Grantaire's lips, and he swallowed the lump. Soon the world went black.
When Grantaire woke up, daylight shone through a crack in the window screen. His chest still hurt, but the ache was less noticeable. He was lying on the floor. Joly sat in a chair beside him, a book open in his lap, but the hypochondriac was snoring lightly, asleep sitting up.
He felt tired and sad, but, oddly, not in despair like the night before. He couldn't go back to sleep, so he thought about what Joly had said. Maybe he was right... He didn't deserve to live right now, but he could change. He could... help people. Quit drinking. He wouldn't fight, but maybe he could still change things. If nothing else, he could give to people in need.
He got to his feet slowly. He shuffled around through Joly's papers, looking for something to write on. At last he found a blank page in a book and tore it out. He wrote the following note on it:
Joly.
I am leaving. Thank you for caring for me. I hope to change like you said.
Good-bye. Good luck.
Grantaire.
He placed the note in Joly's open book and stumbled out the door.
Ten years later, Grantaire went back to the Corinthe. It was still dirty and bloodstained, abandoned ever since the barricades. All the other places the ghosts could have haunted him were busy and changed since '32, and Grantaire's only hope of meeting them again was here.
He sat down in a chair and felt a chilly burst of air sweep over him. Grantaire closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them again.
The seven figures had waited for him.
"I am sorry," was the first thing to come out of Grantaire's mouth. He had been preparing for this moment for ten years. He knew what he would say, and he hoped he knew what Enjolras and the others would say. "I am sorry for deserting you. I was never invested in your cause, but I betrayed you all the same, for I was your friend. You were my friends as well and I loved you. I have done much to make your France a better place since you died. The guilt of your deaths has weighed upon my mind for many long years. Please forgive me. My friends, the friends of the people—the friends of my people—I have done all I can. I ask now for forgiveness."
Grantaire bowed his head and waited for the worst.
"Grantaire."
Enjolras spoke the words. It was the first time in ten years he had said the name, and the first time in all he said it with love.
"We forgive you."
The other Friends murmured their agreement.
"We are sorry for haunting you. It was in our anger that we did so. We regret this now. You are our friend."
"Thank you," Grantaire whispered, relief filling him. He had changed much, it was true, but this was the change he wanted the most.
Now, no longer haunted, he could move on. He breathed the air in, and the ghosts disappeared.
Grantaire stood and walked out of the Corinthe, out of the past, and into his future—a future with the people and everything his friends had believed in.