Javert is advised it will be some time yet before Gavroche wakes. Likely days, for that small, battered body is at the end of its strength.

"If," Javert again insists. Savage enough in it for the doctor to raise a placating hand, as if Javert were a mad beast to be tamed.

But he has heard how the boy's heart faltered twice in the course of the long surgery. Indeed the doctor had fair glowed with pride as he told the tale. Most others would have given up, turned aside, but not he...he had been valiant, nay, heroic in his efforts to drag home a soul in flight. Efforts he had trust would be rewarded, for he knew Javert to be a harsh man but just.

No miracle, only that curious combination of terror and greed that made warriors of the meek and braggarts of the humble.

No miracle, and perchance its very opposite.

An inmate strangled by his cellmate. A troublesome man, and if the guards came too late to be of much good there was no proof of it. Javert had not witnessed the altercation, only its aftermath. A week the man slept, and when he woke...

A husk, like the shell of a cicada upon a branch, clinging still despite the void within.

Not Gavroche. Never Gavroche. If it came to it, Javert would send the lad on himself.

"If," he says, a whisper. It is nothing so crude as a superstition.

It is a promise.


Javert seeks out Esme, the stout nurse on whom he has come to depend. She looks askew at him and shakes her head.

"No." Her tone is chiding. Disappointed, and Javert finds his shoulders hunch, as if he were a schoolboy scolded after a scuffle in the street. "You're done in, Monsieur, and any fool can see it. Sit with your boy."

Javert does not correct her. Only waits at attention, and for all her formidable and surprising strength Esme soon crumbles. With an uncouth curse she throws up her hands.

Then does Javert a great mercy and puts him to use.

And if he is careful to keep Gavroche's bed always within sight, Esme is kind enough to make no mention.

Word comes while Javert holds a cup to the lips of a man whose cheek has been slit wide. The wound is cruel, caused by nothing so sharp as a blade, and the soldier cannot help but slobber red.

An officer throws wide the hospital doors and staggers inside. A playful breeze chases at his heels, carrying with it the faint fragrance of gunpowder and honey.

The man's face is waxen, the once well-groomed mustache twisted into a snarl by nervous fingers, but Javert recognizes the soldier he stumbled upon near the alley. The one who had been quick to raise his gun, and quicker still to call for a coach after seeing the burden Javert carried.

"Listen!"

The shout is weak, the man's voice but a tired rasp. Still it is enough to bring a waiting silence, save for those who suffer too deeply to hold back their cries.

"It is done."

The last barricade has fallen.

One would think such news would be met with a cheer. The majority of the men lying ruined in the beds still wear the tattered remains of their uniforms. This is their victory, reparation for the blood they have shed, the friends they have lost.

Instead a long, low sigh sweeps the room.

A tidal rush of soft regret, and when its echo fades the prayers begin. They overlap and mingle, until from many voices comes one plea.

Bring them home, Lord.

And so in death, the rebellion has triumphed. They will not be dismissed. Will not be forgotten, not when their very enemies mourn their passing.

It is in the air, a tension like the coming of a storm. In the tears of the nurses, the sorrow of the soldiers tasked with cutting down their fellows.

Today has come the rain.

But later...

The lightning.

The prayer dwindles. Fades, and Javert bows his head.

"Amen." He speaks in chorus with his humbled nation, and thinks Enjolras would laugh to see it. "Amen, and Godspeed.'