Deleted Scene/Extra 4: Survivor The night of the barricade's fall. While Lynette drags Enjolras to safety, Javert and Valjean face off in the sewers, and the Thernadier's make their living off the dead, officers are busy scouring the ruins of Les Amis proud structure for information and survivors. But there were no survivors… were there?
Never had a June night been so cold. None had expected this sudden drop in temperature when the day before had been so blazingly hot… but perhaps it was the bodies littering the ground that made it so. Perhaps the soulless shells at the foot of the barricade had sucked all the heat straight from the air in their search for the warmth of the Promised Land's light.
But their peace hadn't lasted long before the very men who had destroyed them came crawling closer, scouring their remains and the remains of their base like rats do molding foods that are left to be forgotten about. They turned out the corpses' pockets, stripped them of their weapons, and then tossed them aside as if they hadn't once too been human beings… too focused on the completion of their goal to remember to respect the dead.
Most of these uniformed men were not bad men. Many of them had simply joined the army as eager young boys, then found their hearts hardened by its mechanical, merciless works. No, they were not bad men… they were thoughtless cogs in a machine that did bad things.
But there were also the men who had been cruel from the beginning. Captain Valois was one of those men. As he sauntered through the vestiges of the day's destruction, his eyes were as sharp as the swords of a cavalry; he looked as if he were seeking to kill each man he saw all over again. But he couldn't, because they were already dead; and the thought gave him some satisfaction—
Cough. Cough, cough.
He turned his hawkish gaze on the source of the song. There, sticking out from behind a crate, was a pair of legs. A man's legs. A coughing man's legs.
He ran over and kicked the crate aside, calling out for one of his men to come with their arms. "We've got a survivor!" was the cry that escaped his lips. But once he got a good look at the man, he realized that the term 'survivor' applied very loosely to this student.
His eyes were shut in his unconsciousness, but he had the sort of ruggedly handsome face that made you believe that had they been open, they would have shone a brilliant blue or green with just a hint of mischief. He wore a green shirt and a worn purple vest, though they were stained with blood from unseen chest wounds and from when he'd coughed before. 'Perhaps his lung has been punctured,' Captain Valois thought wryly, 'Shame… that's such a painful way to go.'
"Yes sir?" his soldier inquired as he approached.
"Shoot this man. Save him the pain and us the risk." the Captain replied evenly. The officer looked down at the purple-vested man and saw the faint rise and fall of his chest, and he couldn't help but press his lips into a grim line. He'd never had to look into the face of the men he killed before… they'd always just been nameless figures in a far off line. But nevertheless, he cocked his gun. For this man was a rebel, and he was sworn under oath to carry out any deed given to him by the leader of his company.
For he was one of the cogs.
Captain Valois watched the officer raise the gun to his eye and had to fight back a huff of impatience as he saw his hands shaking. He should be proud he'd been given the task of finishing off these worthless revolutionaries once and for all! But he refrained from saying so, knowing it would make the boy even more nervous.
He was aiming now… just a few more seconds before—
"Sir! I have an important report to be recapitulated to you immediately," one of the others of his platoon shouted abruptly. Captain Valois exchanged glances with the young man with the gun before him, staring at him for a good long moment before sighing and motioning for him to stand at ease. "He'll be dead by the time we return to him anyway." he elucidated irritably. The other man nodded, seeming somewhat relieved. 'What a shameful quality for a soldier.' he thought.
"Say what you must, officer." he said after a moment, gesturing the new arrival forward.
"Thank you, Sir. I am here to inform you that it is believed most of the bodies are accounted for, but we are displeased to report that the two most important are missing."
"Oh? How can you be sure?"
"Well, we can't. We have not the exact number of recruits they started out with because those plans and documents appear to have been burned towards the end of the battle, not to mention a large portion of them left before the final battle had even begun," the messenger began, "but there is one thing eyewitnesses are sure of… and that's that neither of the leaders' bodies have been found."
Captain Valois's eyebrows shot up in spite of himself. "What? This has been confirmed?"
"Yes Sir. Our men spoke very adamantly of the one they saw leading them all from atop the barricade… said he looked like an archangel—flawlessly perfect even in the heat of the battle—with eyes like the devil himself. And then they say there was a woman, too… the most beautiful creature they'd ever laid eyes on with a shot as accurate as any of our snipers. 'Heaven's Terrible Doomsday Duo', they've been calling them. And no one of that description has been found thus of far… and I doubt any of those men could have forgotten them enough to have been mistaken."
Captain Valois was quiet for a few long moments. But then he looked sternly up at the envoy, trying to hide his distress with austerity. "And have we any identifications for this so-called 'Doomsday Duo'?"
"Afraid not, Sir. As I said, they burned everything. They may have been schoolboys, but they were smarter than they looked."
"Well… that's not good. We're ambling blind, then." the Captain murmured, falling once again into his state of deep, silent thought. But this time, as his eyes wandered aimlessly in his pondering, they fell upon the broken body of the man in the wine-stained vest. And all at once, he could taste the capture of the cowardly leaders who had seemingly fled the scene.
"Get this man to the nearest infirmary and have the best doctors affordable on him. Then stay with him until I can join you and give further instruction." he barked, pointing at the rebel just as he heaved and coughed up more blood.
"Sir?" the younger officer asked in bewilderment.
"Just do it, soldier. Quickly! We don't have long before he—"
"Sir, he's one of them!"
"Exactly! He's one of them, which means he knew them. Which means if we can save him now, get him all patched up, and then lock him up for a few months; we may be able to weasel some information out of him." Captain Valois explained swiftly. His men simply stood, frozen in shock, with their gazes locked on the unconscious insurgent for a moment. The Captain growled in impatience, knowing the men grew weaker and weaker with each passing second. "Move out! Let's make this survivor wish he'd never survived."
A/N: Howdy all my beautiful followers, and hello to all who are just stumbling upon my humble page! I wanted to apologize for being so absent on here lately, and so I decided—as atonement— it was time to release one of my big plot twists I've been planning for a while now.
I'm in a bit of a rut with Lynette and Enjy right now, but I promise to release a new chapter as soon as I get my muse back. In the meantime, while they're off visiting parents and planning for their wedding, one of their dear fellow rebels has survived the horrors of the barricade… but will he ever find his way back to his friends, now that he's been taken captive? Or will his being found lead to the imprisonment of his two fearless leaders? Dun dun DUNNNNNNN … I guess you'll just have to wait and see! I hope you like and don't completely hate me for this! :) R&R if you have any predictions, things you'd like to see, rants you'd like to give! Love you all, can't wait to talk to you again! ~DonJuana
