There's a small timeslapse that transfers to the final battle here.

Point of view is still Grantaire


I hadn't received that drunken stupor of a death I had hoped for. Instead I awoke to the screams and shots of those around us. No, I hadn't wanted to awake to this, I had wanted to skip the emotional pain and go straight to hell. But instead of cowering in my chair, I forced myself to rise. How many were dead? How many were still alive to await their fates in mere minutes? Was Enjolras still alive? That's the thought that was really pounding through my head. No, not pounding, screaming, blinding my every second with such pain. I had to find him, I had to see.

I want to say that I left my chair and went through the battlefield blindly, went through the rooms of our beloved cafe without noticing the world around me. But the horrors that lay around me were too brutal and too filled with red to ignore. Red, the color of fallen men. Red, seeping around me in such heaps of friends. Had they even had a chance to defend themselves? To fight for the freedom they were so confident in? Had they had time to beg? Despite how my feet sprang against the wet pavement, and how my breath rattled with the speed I was forcing myself to sprint at, it was as though I was seeing the entire scene in slow motion. The colors of red that had always represented freedom and France were now splattered in every direction. This was the stench of red, the dripping ooze of the blood of angry men. The blood of school boys. The blood of friends.

Silence. Silence is what greeted me as I entered the cafe. And this lack of noise was far more worrying and deafening then any amount of gunshot. If there were no more bullets whizzing through the air, then there must be nothing else to shoot at. It must mean that he was dead. I don't really know how I kept myself moving, kept myself sprinting onwards, through the trenches of blood and bodies, but I managed to force myself to the stairs that rose into the room that we had all spent countless hours in. But as I began to climb the steps, my hand groping the banister, I forced myself to slow. This was the last place I could look for Enjolras; this was my last hope of finding him alive. I reached the landing at this agonizing pace and allowed my eyes to wander around the—

Everything in my body froze. I was locked beneath the gaze of an angel. The gaze of my angel. Behind the crowd of soldiers that had invaded our place of laughter and song stood Enjolras. For a moment, I allowed myself to ignore the others in our room and focus solely on his face. He seemed to shine above everything else, even with his hair so tussled and his face splattered with blood. His eyes were what frightened me—not the soldiers or the blood. I had always loved how Enjolras's eyes always gleamed so vibrantly with unconstrained energy, undisturbed hope and rebellion. That wasn't the case now, his gaze was so completely defeated, his eyebrows so furrowed. This wasn't right, this wasn't how a hero's death should be. Because this was his death, I realized as I allowed myself to note the soldiers; this was his end. He was alive, but only just.

There was only one thought I was aware of as I forced myself through the mass of armed men, I can't live without you. Maybe I could have gone away unharmed, still alive, but I didn't want to. Whether he returned my love or not, I couldn't live in a world that he didn't take place in.

I was walking in slow motion, forcing myself to slow down, because as soon as I stood beside him it was over, we were done. As I forced one foot after the other, our eyes met. Those hopeless pupils of pain and misery lit up slightly, his eyebrows lifting. With his softened features, he communicated everything I needed, far better than words could ever have done. He understood, he finally believed that the words of love I had uttered before were the truth. He finally loved me. Now I could die, nothing else mattered but the fact that we would die together. I finally reached him, and as I did his sweaty fingers intertwined with mine. Sweaty, but not shaking, because once again he was managing to face the world with such utter bravery. The glimmer that his eyes so often possessed flourished within his iris. The bravery Enjolras always had, spread through our fingertips and ignited inside me as well. In one final moment, Enjolras's other hand rose to lift his red flag to the ceiling, his face gleaming with defiance. The happiness and love that extended inside me was so large that it almost blocked out the sound and pain of the gun blasts.

The tremendous feeling of agony vanished in less than a second, so that the only thing that I could feel was Enjolras's hand in mine. As our bodies fell to the ground and out the window, Enjolras and I turned to face each other. And he was smiling. Despite how we had both died, he was smiling. His other hand reached out and pulled me into his embrace. I half expected him to say something 'I'm sorry,' or 'I love you,' but really, no words were necessary. For such an infinite moment, the two of us stood there, clutching each other. When we finally pulled apart, it was only for the flicker of a second, before I nestled my forehead against his, my arms still wound around his shoulders. Ducking my chin into my neck, I moved my lips to meet his, softly kissing him. Still not uttering a word, my fingers locked in his grasp, the two of us walked into the light.