The more shots she took the more guilt she began to feel; watching the bodies of the people in the barricade mount up was heart breaking, she imagined the people on the other side had to be feeling the same about their own. Time seemed to be at a standstill. Between all the shooting, the cannons and the fallen, the day seemed to be passing both quickly and slowly all at the same time. The numbers behind the barricade were fast dwindling, the number of people whose names she knew was down to a handful; the more she shot the more she realized that they were never going to win this revolution, not this way.
"Enjolras, our ammo is depleting fast!" sounded the panicked voice of a young man at the back of the barricade.
"Then get us more!" Enjolras shouted back, a tone of finality in his voice.
Aside from the sound of gunfire and cannons, the barricade fell silent; to embark upon an ammo retrieval mission was surely to embark upon certain suicide; nobody wanted that mission as their own. But, sure enough, the sound of creaking wood and the groan of the general structure of the barricade indicated to someone willing to take on the task. Éponine pushed her body closer to the barricade so she could get a look at which man had opted to give up his life for a greater cause. When finally the brave soul emerged she gasped as she saw who it was. Standing outside the barricade, exposed to the tirade of reigning bullets and cannons was Gavroche; her brother.
"Gavroche!" she shouted, but the boy did not turn away. Instead he moved with care and delicacy, as though dancing, from body to body, picking up unspent ammo and stuffing it into the pocket of his ratty old blue jacket.
The French army stood in utter disbelief, staring at the child so naïve and innocent as to walk out before an entire army with nothing to use as protection. A collective sinking of guns occurred across the entire front line as each man lowered his weapon in disbelief and perhaps even, respect.
Her heart lurched as she attempted to climb the barricade to bring him back. But the splinter in her foot made her falter and stumble and she found herself in a heap at the bottom before she could even reach the top.
"Not so brave when you can see ya target huh?!" Gavroche jeered, picking up a bullet from a fallen army soldier and tossing it into the air to let the glint from the sun shimmer before the men. "Don't underestimate the li'le people, we might be few but we are strong."
"Gavroche, get back in here now!" One of the others shouted to him. But Gavroche simply turned and gave a nod to the barricade before continuing on his self-elected mission. He had cheated death once already today, who was to say he couldn't do it again?
As Éponine tried to pull herself back upright, she felt her heart leap into her throat when she saw what he was doing; Enjolras was climbing the barricade.
"Enjolras!" Grantaire shouted. "Come down, come back!" he called out.
"Gavroche!" Came the voice of another; a voice she recognised as Courfeyrac; a man who loved her brother as if he was his own. "Gavroche, get back here now!" he demanded; but neither of the boys listened.
Enjolras lowered himself over the barricade; knowing he was risking certain death in doing so; and yet he couldn't sit back and watch the youngster embark on such a dangerous mission without back up. He, alongside the rest of the barricade, watched as every man of the artillery raised their weapon to eye level again, ready to take their shot at the man who had incited the revolution; ready to render this barricade leaderless.
"There's one over there Gavroche." Enjolras commented, pointing to a bullet not five yards from his own feet. "I'll grab these few and then that'll do us." He lied. All he wanted was to get the boy to safety, if Gavroche lost his life in the name of Enjolras, he was sure his life would be unforgivably bleak and worthless; to let a child die for you was the greatest form of cowardice.
"But Enjolras, there are more out here." Gavroche rebutted.
"We'll make do." Enjolras spoke in a tone that signalled a definite end to the matter.
The small boy picked up the bullet and held out an opened hand to show his idol the 8 unspent bullets he had retrieved. "You look after them." Enjolras spoke, placing the three he had picked up himself into the breast pocket of the boy's worn jacket. "You'll be the new ammo man." He smiled. Gavroche grinned in delight at his new found importance. "Come on, get back in the barricade." He ordered. He wrapped his hand across the shoulders of the young boy, knowing full well the second Gavroche was clear he was going to become an open target. He heard the sound of the army preparing their guns and silently held his breath; for these last few seconds utter peace had descended upon the Paris streets, and just as quickly as it had begun, it was soon to be shattered as his impending death screamed in his ears. He lifted Gavroche up and boosted him over the barricade to the waiting arms of Courfeyrac, and the welcome sigh of relief from Éponine.
"Get down!" he yelled to his remaining comrades as he leapt and grabbed hold of the top of the barricade.
As he pulled his body up a hail of ammo sounded off as bullets flew at the barricade at an alarming speed. The first one hit his calf, tore right through the muscle. He felt the searing pain but still he dragged his body toward the top. The second bullet grazed his shoulder, the third embedding itself in his side. For an entire army, it seemed their aim on one man was not what it should have been; he ought to have been a pin cushion by now; that fact brought a smile to his face as he continued to claw his way back to the other side of the barricade.
He just about made it to the top, the sound of the barricade groaning underneath him as each bullet burst through the other side. As his body manoeuvred uneasily, a final reign of heavy fire sounded off, with three bullets working their way through his back and sending his body plummeting to the dusty street floor. Five other men fell as the hail of ammo splinted through the wood, but she only cared about one.
"Enjolras!" she called out, pulling her body across the ground, grateful that he had warned of the barrage of bullets about the shower them. "Enjolras, are you…?" her voice trailed off; of course he was not ok. She sat alongside him and carefully turned over his body, hiding the holes that penetrated his back and revealing his face; still defiant and strong despite what he must have been feeling. The man gave a gentle cough, his eyes scrunched in pain and yet he did not make as much as a groan. "What you did out there… it was truly nothing short of heroic." She spoke.
"No Nicolas, what you did was heroic…" his throat gurgled as he spit blood down his cheek. "I just followed your lead." He smiled. "This barricade is a better place with you in it." He confessed. Courfeyrac, Gavroche and Grantaire gathered around the body of their dying leader as the last few men fought back with the only ammunition they had left.
"There is something I need to tell you." Éponine admitted, wanting to come clean with Enjolras before he left the world.
"I already know." He spoke, struggling to raise a shaking arm; weakened, bloodied but determined. He clenched his shivering fingers to the peak of her cap and removed it, letting her long brown hair tumble around her face. A gasp escaped the unsuspecting Grantaire's lips and Courfeyrac simply bowed his head. "The girl nobody saw…" his breathing was laboured now, his words no more than a whisper. "Marius' shadow." He smiled. "You thought we didn't see you… you though we didn't care…" more blood sputtered from his mouth as he wretched and she settled his head in her lap, rubbing her thumbs tenderly across his temples. Even with blood across his teeth and seeping down his mouth, he was still managing to die in a gallant manner. "I saw you…" he admitted. "I always saw you. You were too good for him… for Marius… you deserved so much more than he could give you…" the rasps were coming thick and fast, the end was near for him. She felt her eyes welling up at his words, never had anyone spoken such kindness to her and truly meant it. But she would not allow the tears to fall; she would not allow him to see her break down. "You need to get away from here…" he spoke. "Éponine… you are worth more than the loss of life for a cause we have no chance of winning now… take him and go." He touched a finger to Gavroche who had so many tears pouring down his cheeks that they left trails in the filth and grime etched to his skin. "You deserve a better life… find one where you can… find the person who deserves your…" and before his sentence could be finished, his final breath left his body in a defiant rasp and gurgle, his chest grew heavy and every muscle inside of him relaxed, leaving him nothing but a dead weight atop her legs.
Éponine sat with him for a brief few moments, stroking the hair atop his head in a way she was sure nobody had ever done for him, even as a child. She hoped he would feel her touch and that it would bring him comfort on his journey to wherever it was he was heading. Taking a lead from his earlier words, she held in the emotion that threatened to escape her; she would grieve for him later, for the freedom he'd never know, the life he'd never win the fight for. She brought her fingers to her lips and pressed a delicate kiss to the tips; resting it lightly against his soft lips, marred with his crimson blood, she prayed he'd know how much he had touched her life with those few words he had shared with her.
The bullets were still sounding, the cannons still rolling, a glance around the rest of the barricade revealed that they, and a total of three men whose names she did not know, the only ones left.
"We have to surrender or give ourselves up." Courfeyrac spoke. "We do not stand a chance against them; there are so many of them."
"Enjolras would never give up, 'e'd die fightin' and you know it!" Gavroche protested, wiping the tears from his eyes. "We could'a won this if 'e hadn't got shot, we'd'a dun it, I just know it!"
"We never stood a chance little Gavroche, he was an optimistic man, perhaps too optimistic for his own good." He looked around at all the fallen children of the barricade, so many lives, so much blood shed into the streets; the sheer magnitude of it all did not bare thinking about. "Too many lives have been wasted here today, yours will not be another." He spoke to the boy. "Take him; take him far away from here." He spoke to Éponine. "It is not worth loosing someone so young."
"You ain't the boss of me, I can do wha' I want and I wanna stay!" he had such a determination in is voice, an anger and drive behind his eyes that he almost looked like a young Enjolras himself.
"We do not have to surrender." Éponine spoke.
Each man looked at her. "We run." She spoke.
"Like cowards?!" Grantaire spat. "Enjolras would never stand for that!"
"No," she defended. "We leave and we hide. We re-group, and re-form. We make them think they have won and then when they are not suspecting it, we come back stronger, more prepared, with better weapons, with a stronger cohort. We will win this revolution and we will do it for him." She looked down at the leader who was resting eternally on her lap.
Courfeyrac and Grantaire looked to one another; they had known Enjolras best, they knew what this revolution meant to him, and yet there was something distinctly appealing about her idea; something distinctly Enjolras about it.
"It could work." Grantaire though aloud. "We could do it?"
Courfeyrac nodded. She had a plan there. A plan that potentially could work. Unlike Enjolras who rushed into things with the raw passion and drive that he held, Éponine was showing herself to be more thoughtful, more calculated; with her they just might stand a chance.
"I'm in." Courfeyrac spoke.
"Me too." Grantaire added.
"Alright…" Gavroche sighed. "For Enjolras."
"For Enjolras." Éponine repeated. The four of them looked at one another unsure what the future held.
"I'll get the others." Courfeyrac spoke, cautiously standing.
"Grantaire, can you find all of the alcohol left in the barricade?" Éponine spoke.
"Right, we'll need that to take with us." He nodded.
"No, I have something else in mind for it." She said, easing her body from beneath Enjolras' head.
It took little convincing to get the other three men to join them, they had not wanted to die for this cause in a way they suspected nobody besides Enjolras did.
Éponine made light work of stockpiling the guns and remaining sparse ammo; they'd need to take it all with them. The sound of gunfire from behind enemy lines was drawing more and more sparse; with few shots being fired back, they knew they were close to ending this. Grantaire returned with four bottles of alcohol and offered up the dregs remaining in his own flask. He handed the bottles to Éponine and licked his lips in delight as she uncorked the first bottle. She tossed the cork aside and tipped the bottle upside down, draining the liquid onto Enjolras' blood-stained body. Grantaire gasped and snatched the other bottles from her feet as she did so.
"What are you doing?!" he spat. "You are wasting precious supplies!"
"I'm giving him the burial he will otherwise be denied. I am burning him with his barricade." She spoke.
"It's what he would want." Courfeyrac admitted in sorrowful solidarity.
Gavroche followed the plan and scurried away to find a match.
"All they will find in the ashes are the bodies of the fallen." Éponine spoke. "Nobody will be looking for us."
Grantaire sighed, but offered up the remaining bottles without fight.
"Splash one across the barricade." She ordered. "It'll help it catch, once it starts it'll burn long and it'll burn hard. They will take so long to put it out we can be miles away."
Courfeyrac saw the brokenness of his face and took the bottle from his friend, freeing him from any guilt he would be burdened with for emptying the alcohol anywhere other than his mouth.
When the last drop was drained from the bottle, the remaining Les Amis, the barricade survivors, each picked up a weapon and moved to the side of the barricade, the side Éponine had gotten in to from the alley. Gavroche handed Éponine the match and she struck it against the side of the building. Stepping forward, she leant down and picked up her hat before tossing the match onto Enjolras' body and watching as it quickly ignited into a bright mirage of flames. His body burnt the brightest of all the men close to the edge of the barricade; he was, in death, just as he was in life, the person who held the most fire in his heart. The seven of them did not wait to watch the flames spread. They knew it would happen soon enough and they knew the army would count themselves victorious. They might have won this battle but the war was only just beginning. Enjolras had given them a voice, a purpose, and they would fight to honour that voice. They would be back; that much was certain, and when they were, they would be stronger than ever; this revolution was theirs for the taking, they just had to get a plan ready.
A/N: I wanted to just take the time to say thank you to everyone that read/followed/favourited/reviewed this. It was completely different to the idea I first started out writing. What was originally going to be a full on E/É fic ended up a lot more subtle and tragic than I intended; I like to think had the characters lived in the original, they'd have found a kind of kindred spirit shared between the two of them. That was the idea I was tapping into when writing this. More than anything, I hope you enjoyed reading it.