Margaux Labelle is a kind young woman, still plump from carrying three babies – Jacques, Bastien, and Guillaume. Her husband works in a factory and every so often she takes to the streets to sell handmade ribbons and paper roses; they get by.
The rebel students return from Lamarque's funeral procession, bringing with them guns, passion, and imminent death. She helps build their barricade by shoving a wardrobe out of the window, but partakes in none of their Republican nonsense – she has children to care for. They wouldn't last long without their mother. Shutters closed and door locked, she clutches her little ones close and rocks them back and forth, whispering words of comfort: "It's only the thunder," she says, despite the fact that the pitter-patter on the roof had stopped two hours previous. "There's no need to be afraid." She's not quite sure for whom she says so – her children or herself.
The sun's rays shine through the cracks in the walls and Margaux slips out of the apartment, rousing her neighbours in the process. The women of the tenement gather their buckets and rags and set to clean the street of bodies and blood. The silence that envelopes the city is louder than the gunshots ever were – it's a silence that demands to be listened to; a deathly silence impossible to ignore.
Some of the boys – for they were only boys, only children, with a quarter of a century under their belts – are huddled together, and if she ignores the red flowers abloom in their white shirts, Margaux can pretend they are merely asleep, dreaming of a shiny new future for France. She spots a gamin in the rubble, and has to close her eyes and say a prayer, for he has blonde hair like Jacques and a missing front tooth like Guillaume.
Three of the stronger mothers begin to move the bodies – impossibly heavy in death – from the view of the windows; the youths of Paris will be awaking soon and do not need to see the remnants of the battle (massacre). Margaux continues scrubbing the pavement, but the blood will not completely disappear. She supposes it never will – she'll never be able to forget it, at least. Soon the only student remaining is their once fearless leader, hanging from the café by his boot, red flag still clutched in his defiant fist.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spots a figure emerge from the shadows of the alley. It's a grisette, no older than eighteen, walking carefully; cautious of every stone she sets her bare foot upon. Her chest does not rise and her eyes are wide in fear. The girl, with curly red hair down to her waist and a dirty black dress, notices the blonde man in the red jacket and collapses on the ground, screaming and sobbing for the entire world to hear. Margaux embraces the child, holding her close and stroking her head. The girl's gaze never once leaves the marble Apollo, valiant even in death.
A/N: it's painful being in love with a dead French revolutionary
Disclaimer: things belong to whom they belong to, save for Margaux and the grisette – they are mine
Note: the ending of this is quite subtle and could be taken any way
Note #2: I do hope you caught my nod to red and black (I feel as if any lady remotely connected to Enjolras in any way would have to remind him of his revolution, whether it be her low social status or personality/appearance/etc)
Translations: a gamin is a street rat, a grisette is a working class girl, and ma petite roux means my little red in French