Author's Note:

Dear reader,

This is my first attempt at a Les Miserables fanfiction, so please excuse the inaccuracies, maybe the out of character behaviour of the two boys. I did my best to keep them in character (especially Enjolras), and I hope that I did succeed. Also, English is not my mother tongue, so if I have made any mistakes, please let me know and I will correct them as soon as possible.

I also hope that you will enjoy this story.

Yours faithfully,

The Author

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I am not M. Hugo so the only thing that I own is the plot.


A Study into the Nature of Innocence

15th of December 1830

Night had descended upon Paris covering the usually boisterous city with a a surreal veil of silence. Undeterred by the biting cold, creatures of the night were lurking in the filthy streets of the city, trying desperately to make a living in one way or another. In small alleys, the painted faces of prostitutes were showing often toothless smiles in hope of attracting the eye of one or two customers. Their dirty, flimsy dresses did nothing to either cover their modesty or protect them against the harsh winter wind. Pickpockets were loitering in the shadows of buildings, quietly stalking the few gents that had braved the streets during the night. Men, women and children with no homes lay motionless in the corners of buildings. Perhaps they were dead. Perhaps they were dying. Nobody bothered to check.

Seemingly unaware of the inconspicuous activities that plagued the streets of the Latin Quarter, two men were walking down Rue du Jardinet, their dark coats providing suitable protection against the biting cold.

The first was tall and thin, with handsome, chiselled features and a head of blond curls that were raised by the wind to form a make-shift hallo. The little moonlight which engulfed the night seemed to reflect upon his pale skin giving it the strange appearance of marble. Next to him, trying to keep up with his companion's long, purposeful and rather stiff strides, stood a slightly shorter fellow. Unlike his friend's other-worldly, striking appearance, the second man had completely unremarkable features. His frame was lean but not quite as graceful as his companion's, his skin was fair but not quite as pale, his hair fell in brown-chocolate waves which were ruffled by the wind giving him quite a wild appearance. His brown eyes were obscured by a pair of round spectacles propped on a straight, thin nose.

When in each other's company, some people feel the need to talk about anything and everything. However, the two men strode down the street in silence, each of them lost in his own thoughts, feeling quite content to be undisturbed by idle chatting.

A sharp scream pierced silence of the night and the two men paused for a second. They did not utter a single word and, instead, met each other's gaze for a moment. They seemed to be two of those fortunate souls whose deep bond afforded them to understand one another at a glance. With a slight nod from the taller man, the two quickened their pace to find the source of the scream.


Their search took them in a back alley where they could faintly see a moving shape. The brown-haired man approached the curiously moving creature only to distinguish the figure as that of a young woman sprawled on the ground, her hands fisting what seemed like a very old, moth eaten shawl.

Life had not been kind to the girl. Her blondish hair was lank and dirty, her skin was a mass of red, ravaged by rashes and frostbite, her entire frame was very thin, a clear sign of malnourishment. As he quickly assessed the situation, the man understood why she had been screaming. The girl was with child and it appeared that the child had decided to make its entrance into this despairing world.

"Monsieur, please help me! Please! Please!" the girl croaked, tears and pain evident in her rough voice.

"What is your name, Mademoiselle?" the man asked gently, taking off his coat and putting it over the shoulders of the miserable creature. She looked at him in awe for a second and did not reply, a mixture of distrust and surprise contorting her unfortunate features.

"Anne…" she answered softly, after making sure that the kind gentleman was indeed talking to her.

"Well, mademoiselle Anne, is there somewhere we can take you? Somewhere where they can help you with your… predicament?"

"Nah… I was one of Madame Beaumarchais' girls but she turned me out a couple of months ago after I've started showing…" she answered simply and the man was slightly taken aback at how matter-of-factly this creature treated her misfortune.

Then it dawned on him that for her, a prostitute, it was a fact of life. It wasn't so very unusual for those creatures of the night to be abandoned to fate after they had served their purpose and had fallen with child.

"I see…" he replied, not knowing what else to say and turned back to his companion.

His friend, as straight-laced as ever, was leaning against one of the walls of the buildings surrounding the alley. His blue eyes were fixed upon a spot in the adjoining street and he seemed unaware of what had trespassed between his friend and the girl. He looked as if he was lost in a make-shift world of his own, completely oblivious of the omniscient miserable reality that surrounded him. The man sighed and touched his blond companions' shoulder to attract his attention.

"Enjolras, it appears she is with child and that labour has begun" the man said towards his companion, his voice slightly more nervous than before. His friend merely nodded in understanding. "We need to take her somewhere warm…" he added, hoping that the urgency in his voice would clue Enjolras into how time-sensitive and important the task was.

"Then we should take her to a hospital" Enjolras declared calmly.

"My friend, what hospital? I'm afraid that even the closest hospital is much too far away and, even if it weren't, there is no guarantee that they have a place for her there! She would end up delivering in the street!" he answered despondently, his shoulders sagging slightly.

"Can you help her deliver, Combeferre?" he inquired in an unperturbed tone, as if he was a lawyer trying to get all the facts of a case.

"I…we had some classes … but…I'm not… I've never… "the one called Combeferre stammered after a moment of silence, suddenly faced with the reality of the momentous task he was asked to undertake.

"Etienne, can you help her deliver?" Enjolras reiterated calmly, placing a hand upon his friends' shoulder.

"Yes… I think I can... It's certainly more suitable than the alternative" It seemed that the use of his given name and his friend's calm had given the man confidence and his voice became much steadier.

"Good! Then it's decided. My apartment is closer than yours so we shall take her there, and you will help her through this" he replied as if it was the most natural thing in the world and walked towards the shrivelling creature in the corner.

Combeferre's mind, twisting and turning like a small motor, could find at least fifty pertinent arguments against that seemingly benign plan. What would Enjolras' neighbours say when they heard the screams of childbirth coming from his apartment? What would it do to his friends' reputation? And what about himself? Did he really have the skills to help the young woman?

With a shake of his head, he dismissed his objections. Frankly, it was the best that they could do for her, and not embarking on that particular course of action would mean condemning the poor girl and her child to death in the cold Parisian night.


Anne looked up from where she was sitting and could see that the other gentleman was coming towards her. When the kind man had spoken to her, she didn't really take a good look at his friend. But, as he was walking towards her, she could not help but be struck by his appearance. With his pale white skin and blond hair, he looked like one of God's angels coming down upon the earth to perform his divine justice. As he approached, she recoiled slightly for she suddenly became very aware of all her inadequacies, of her dirtiness and of her unworthiness to be in such a beautiful persons' presence.

"Mademoiselle, my friend and I are going to take you to my apartment and help you through this ordeal. Do you consent?" Enjolras asked, looking at the girl and taking in her condition. He suddenly felt repulsed. Not by the girl herself, but by the society that allowed such cruelties to happen.

Anne didn't reply immediately for she could hardly find her words. The angel had spoken. The angel had spoken to her. Had she not been able to still feel the biting cold through the tears in her dress, she would have believed herself to be dead. Her mind seemed to be unable to register what the man had asked of her. After all, why would such a gentleman even bother to look at a street rat? Knowing instinctively that he expected an answer, she nodded, not exactly knowing or understanding what she was agreeing to. Seeing her nod, the man bent over and scooped her into his arms, and she could feel every muscle in her body stiffen. His touch seemed to burn her, as if exorcising the myriad of sins that were embedded into her very skin.

The wretched creature now secured into his arms and completely unaware of what his presence was stirring within the girl, Enjolras turned towards Combeferre and motioned him to continue their short walk towards his apartment.


Enjolras' lodgings were not the grand affair that one would expect from the only son of a rich bourgeois family. Quite the contrary. It was a small, clean dwelling which consisted of a living room, a bedroom, a tiny kitchen and a wash-room, only furnished with the bare necessities and an inordinate amount of books. When the strange trio entered a fire was already lit, probably courtesy of Enjolras' kind landlady, and the sparsely furnished apartment was drenched in both warmth and an inviting light. The owner of the place was quick to place his already whimpering charge in his own bed and turned to face his friend with an inquisitive look.

"What do you need?" he asked Combeferre, who, in all truthfulness, looked slightly lost.

"Um… warm water… and some linen… and a pair of scissors, or something to cut the umbilical cord with… and some thread… " the medical student answered, desperately trying to remember whether it was anything else that he might require.

Now that the girl was in Enjolras' house their ordeal seemed not only far more real, but also far more insane. He had absolutely no practical experience with childbirth. Children were not supposed to be delivered by young men in their early twenties. Children were not supposed to be delivered by men. Unless they were doctors, that is and, at that particular moment, Combeferre was acutely aware of the long way he still had to go until he deserved the esteemed title of "doctor".

"Maybe we should send for a midwife, Julien…" he whispered in a slightly trembling voice, his brown eyes seeking his friend's blue ones.

"Do you know where to find one?" Julien Enjolras asked in a slightly dry tone.

"We could try at the Necker… but at this late hour and with this weather… No... I don't" he shook his head.

"Etienne, women have been doing this for centuries…I am certain we can manage" Enjolras tried, as best as he could, to offer reassurance.

Truth be told, he was as lost as his friend was. The education of a gentleman was more than lacking as far as the intricacies of the birthing process were concerned. To the young man's knowledge, it was just something that happened. Of course, he had a vague idea of how it anatomically happened but nothing more than that. It wasn't something that was spoken freely about and it wasn't something that had ever interested him, to be frank.

With a slightly strained smile, he made his way to heat some water leaving Combeferre and their charge alone in the room.


"Right… Mademoiselle Anne, if you don't mind, I need to check how soon the child will be coming…" the medical student asked with a slight stutter, his cheeks reddening considerably.

Once again, the wretched girl nodded without being aware of what she was consenting to. All she knew was that a couple of minutes beforehand she had been in the streets, cold biting at her skin, pain engulfing every inch of her body and having neither the hope nor the wish to deliver the miserable creature that demanded to be released into the world. At present, she was in a warm, clean place, on a bed softer than the one she had had at Madame Beaumarchais, with gentlemen who seemed to be kind.

The poor girl's mind was a simple one. She had no notion of modesty and she had no notion of what was proper or not. All that she knew was that the two gentlemen were responsible with her sudden increase in comfort and, like the obedient human being that she was, she was willing to agree to whatever they demanded of her.


Enjolras stopped dead in his tracks when, after heating the water the medical student had required, he saw said medical student lifting the girl's poor excuse of a dress and taking a look at her private regions. He immediately felt his face heat up with embarrassment for both his friend and the woman in his bed. Of course, he rationally knew that Combeferre needed to be in the proximity of that particular part of female anatomy in order to do his job, but he, chaste soul that he was, could not help but avert his eyes from the entire process.

"I brought the water…" he said softly to attract Combeferre's attention and his friend suddenly emerged from what he was doing, looking very much like a school child scolded by his headmaster.

"Right… thank you, Enjolras… Mademoiselle Anne, it seems you are quite close to delivering. How's the pain? I mean… how often do you feel pain? A few minutes...or.. seconds?" he tried to sound as professional as he could, but didn't really manage as his voice still had quite a panicked quality to it.

"A few minutes, Monsieur…" she answered in a slightly strained voice. She didn't want to upset the two gentlemen by screaming, so instead she grabbed a fistful of the crisp, white linen on the bed.

Hearing the woman speak for the first time since their encounter, Enjolras turned his attention towards her and, for what it seemed like the first time that night, truly looked at her. She was a small scrawny thing with a headful of limp, dirty, blond hair. Her eyes were large and brown. Her skin was blemished with red patches either from the cold or from whatever diseases she might have acquired either from living on the streets or from her profession. Her teeth were surprisingly intact, although crooked and yellow. She also looked very, very young.

How had she come to that abject state?

She was not unlike hundreds of people he passed on the streets daily. She was one of the abased, one of those he fought to liberate from their terrible existence by creating the French Republic. Yet, as strange as it might sound, while he fought for them and was willing to give his life for their cause, Enjolras had very little opportunity to interact with this demeaned group of people. Of course, there was the occasional gamin that he used for information and, of course, he gave speeches to these people, urging them to rebel. But that was where his contact with these people ended.

He knew nothing of their lives, of the sad circumstances that led to their wretched existences, or of their hopes and dreams for the future.

From their café, the Amis spent countless hours talking about the abominable conditions these people lived in. They debated, they offered opinions, and they talked about a world of equality that would lift the wretched from their misery. And yet, he, their leader, often placed on a pedestal by his friends who went as far as to jokingly equate him to a god, realized, while looking at the girl, that he had never actually bothered to talk to one of the abased. Planting the seeds of equality into their minds? Yes. Incite them to rebellion? Yes. But talking to them? No. Never.

Enjolras suddenly felt his cheeks heat up again, and he was quite certain that his shame had nothing to do with the fact that Combeferre was once again examining the girl's private parts.

"Mademoiselle, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you?" Enjolras asked while dragging the only chair in the room next to the unfortunates' bed and sitting gracefully on it.

"Thirteen… or maybe fourteen…I don't really know… When I first went to her, Madame used to say to the gents coming that I was a delightful eleven year old… and that's been about three years ago…" she answered simply, looking at the blond man with a slightly bewildered expression. Why would such a gentleman wish to know her age of all things?

For his part, Enjolras could feel his heart, that organ most of his friends could swear it was made of marble, almost physically stop. How could a child of eleven years of age be forced to sell her body? What kind of demented individual would agree to have any sort of relations with a child? And what kind of society were they truly living in if it allowed a child to be sold like nothing more than a piece of meat?

Of course, he had known that the life of those sad creatures at the lower levels of society was terrible. But at that very moment, when he had an unfortunate child in his bed, ironically giving birth to a child of her own, he understood that there was precious little that he knew about what "terrible" truly meant.

His blue, unforgiving eyes blazed with anger and he swore, with a renewed fire, to bring into being the egalitarian society of the Republic.

"Monsieur, the pain is now coming more quickly… " the rough, meek voice of the girl addressed his friend who was busying himself with some trivialities next to the bed.

"Do you feel the urge to… um… push?" Combeferre asked a bit unsure of how to phrase it, to neither offend the girl or his friend's sensibilities.

"Not yet… but it hurts really bad…" she answered in a strained voice, her thin hands trying to once again grab the thin linen on the bed and finding that it did little to distract her from the pain.

Not offering any word by way of explanation, Enjolras calmly took one of the girl's blemished hands in his own perfectly white one and allowed her to squeeze it as hard as she needed.


Etienne Combeferre was stunned.

He had known from the first moment he heard his friend talk to the girl that something had subtly changed within him, but he had never expected such a display of support from his usually reserved companion.

Coming from the same city in the South, the two men had forged a close bond when they had first met in Paris. He had come understand Enjolras' moods and feelings at a glance, for although their other friends could swear that he only had two predispositions: indifferent and passionate about the revolution, Combeferre knew better. He could tell when Julien was amused by the slight flicker in his eyes, he could tell when he was disappointed by the way in which a shadow seemed to cross his features for less than a second, he could tell when he was in particularly conflicted mood, by the way in which his forehead seemed to crease a little.

The moment that Julien, who often shied away from physical contact, offered comfort to the girl, was the moment that he truly comprehended what was happening within his friends' mind.

Unlike himself, who, as it was expected of a medical student, came into contact with people from all walks of life during his internships in various Parisian hospitals, Enjolras was very sheltered in that respect. Being by nature a guarded individual, he did not enjoy social situations of any kind. His contact with the world outside the university and the café was limited to the public speeches he held. Enjolras knew about the wretchedness of the world without having ever encountered it. He knew about the plight of the poor from books and articles. He fought for the unfortunate not out of compassion but because logic dictated that being equal was more just.

All that had changed the moment the poor, the wretched, the unfortunate took the form of a young girl and were placed into his friends' very bed. The abased were no longer a mass of faceless individuals, numbers on blank pieces of paper. They were Anne.

"Monsieur, I think the baby wants to come out… " Combeferre's contemplations were suddenly stopped dead in their tracks by the voice of the girl, who was harshly squeezing at his friends' hand, turning the pale skin red.

"Right…" he turned towards the girl and once again spread her legs apart, immune, in his panic, to the shame such an action would normally make him feel "Whenever you feel the pain coming, please push as hard as you can…"


Neither man could accurately describe what happened in the following several minutes. Everything seemed to be a dazzling flurry of activity, while the girl, forgoing her kind resolution of not screaming for fear of upsetting the two men, yelled at the top of her lungs.

Combeferre was mainly focused on getting the child out, who, despite the malnourished state of the mother, seemed, by some sort divine miracle, to be fully formed and of appropriate size. He tried to remain as calm as possible even when blood started to gush out of the poor woman as she desperately tried to rid herself of the child that was growing in her womb.

For his part, Enjolras watched the entire process with a certain degree of curiosity, being quite unnerved by the screams the girl, Anne, was producing. When he saw blood, he was at first dismissive. Back in July he had fought at the barricades and had seen enough violence to make him accustomed to it. Yet, when he saw the amount of blood that was coming out of her he could not help but feel slightly anxious. Even to his utterly untrained eye, such a high amount of blood seemed abnormal.

When Anne slightly arched her back and gave a final, forceful push accompanied by an equal mighty scream, Enjolras instinctively gripped her hand tighter. For a moment the room was eerily silent and time seemed to have stopped.

Wild-eyed and hands trembling slightly, Combeferre emerged from his place at the foot of the bed, with a small infant in his arms, still attached to his mother by the umbilical cord. He slapped the infant on the back and the room was once again drenched in screams, now the screams of a child.

Stunned, Enjolras turned to face the woman who had given birth to the child only to find that the hand which had so forcefully gripped his, was limp. For the second time that night, his heart seemed to stop.

"Etienne… I think something is wrong…" Enjolras said in a slightly trembling voice.

The fact that his friend had not only used his given name but also that his normally controlled voice was shaking, made the medical student immediately turn his attention from the child he was holding to his friend. With expert movements, he cut the connection between mother and child and tied it as best as he could with the thread before covering it with a piece of linen which seemed to be torn from one of Enjolras' own shirts.

"Julien…" He gently motioned for his friend to take the wailing child so that he could attend to the mother.


Enjolras was prepared for many was prepared to lead a revolution. He was prepared to die for Patria. He was even prepared to lead his whole life as a pro-bono lawyer. Yet, he was utterly unprepared to hold a child.

When Combeferre unceremoniously gave him the infant to hold, for the first time in many months, he felt fear grip at his soul. Not for himself, obviously, but for the wailing child who was in his arms. That poor child who at that very moment was so innocent, so unaware of what was happening around him and the kind of world he had been born into.

Or maybe he was aware. Maybe his screams were a form of protest at being born into such a wretched place. Maybe he instinctively knew that his life would be one of misery and trials beyond belief.

Feeling a rush of protectiveness, which was normally only directed towards his friends, Enjolras wanted to make the child stop crying. He wanted to maintain his innocence a little bit longer. Unconsciously, he started to rock the babe, his blue, piercing gaze fixed on the little scrunched face. Soon enough, the crying stopped, the baby was lulled to sleep, and the room once again became early quiet. He turned his eyes towards his friend who was now sitting on the chair he had vacated, his head in his palms.

"Etienne?!" he inquired softly as to not wake the babe in his arms but received no reply. Combeferre turned his head and, behind the lenses of the round spectacles, he could see that the man's eyes were brimming with tears. He suddenly understood.

Unconsciously, Enjolras tightened his grip around the little one in his arms, and for a moment was irrationally grateful that the child was not awake to see his mother dead, already turning an unpleasant shade of blue, and the large stain of blood which was so gruesomely contrasting with the crisp white linens.

He shifted his eyes from the grotesque picture of death to the new life he was carrying. He took in the little hands and fingers, the small feet and toes, the round head and soft cheeks. How could such a perfect little being be born out of such misery?

Feeling the inexplicable urge to protect the child from being tainted by the picture of death, he wordlessly carried him into the other room.


As he sat on one of two large armchairs in his living room, Enjolras felt immensely grateful that his landlady had had the foresight to lit up the fire in both rooms, not only in his bedroom. It would not do for the infant to be cold. To make certain that it did not happen, he took one of the small blankets that he sometimes used during winter while studying at his desk and inexpertly wrapped it around the child. The baby opened his murky blue eyes, but did not wail. Instead he seemed to be quite content to be warm and held against the man's chest.

Enjolras looked into the eyes of the baby and he could feel his heart constrict painfully. If the child's future was bleak when his mother was alive, now, not having anyone in the world to care for him, it was absolutely terrible. It was certain death.

"He is sleeping" Enjolras said softly after a couple of minutes, hearing his friend come in.

"He probably likes listening to your heartbeat…" Combeferre answered tiredly, taking the one other armchair in the room while watching his friend closely.

In the flickering light of the fire, Enjolras' features seemed to have lost some of their marble-like quality. Instead they seemed softer, somewhat more human. His head was bent down, his blond curls falling on his forehead, his blue eyes looking at the child he was carrying. His eyes, often so very intense and passionate, seemed to carry a different light. They seemed a bit gentler as if he didn't dare to direct his passion towards the innocent soul he was holding. For a moment, Combeferre drank in this picture, trying to etch its details into his memory forever.

He realized, not without a certain amount of dread, that considering their activities, this particular instance would probably the one and only moment he would see his friend hold an infant. Such a pity, for it seemed to suit him.

"We should at least name him…" Combeferre said softly and his friend nodded, without turning his attention from the child.

"Francois" Enjolras whispered, his white hand gently caressing the face of the child.

"Frenchman?" Combeferre tacitly approved, considering Enjolras' devotion to his country that would be the most telling name he could give to a baby boy.

"Free man" Enjolras amended softly, his hand still caressing the baby's head, and Combeferre had to turn his eyes from the scene for he felt them brim with tears yet again.


A/N: So…what do you think? At this moment this is technically a one-shot, but I do have a couple of ideas about how to continue it… So, would anyone be interested to read more?

Please leave your comments and suggestions through your reviews. I would love to know what you think of this.

Note: Francois means both "Frenchman" and "free man"