Learning To Burn Chapter 9
There's a woman standing in front of him, turned away. She's wearing a gray dress, and there's something oh so familiar about her face when she glances back at him. She's pretty, a brunette with eyes to match.
She has a gentle smile, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes.
Slowly, she turns to face him, still smiling, but something's wrong. Her hands are clasped in front of her, a single white rose held between them.
She's crying.
He reaches out to her, worried, his mouth forming words but no sound. Is she alright? Is she hurt?
She shakes her head at him, but her smile falters.
As he looks at her, the tears turn to blood. The first crimson drop falls upon the rose, immediately withering and dying.
He cries out, tries to run to her, but she's already slipping away.
He hears a gunshot, tastes smoke in the air, sees blood on his hands.
Then he's running, not knowing where he's going, but knowing he can't stop.
He just runs and runs.
Combeferre jolts awake.
His breath is quick in his chest and for a moment he's not sure where he is. He glances around, calming slightly at the familiar sight of his desk and bookshelves across the room. Despite the curtains, a bit of light filters in his window, giving the room a stuffy glow.
He's home. Safe, but something doesn't feel right.
He's not quite sure what it is until his gaze falls on Courfeyrac's dark head of hair close to the end of his bed. The man's eyes are closed, face open and innocent, chest slowly rising and falling.
His back is propped up against the bed, but his head has fallen to the side, lying partially on it as he sleeps. It's an uncomfortable position, one he supposes his friend will regret upon waking.
A book, one Combeferre recognizes as his own, lies open in his lap, dangling at the tips of his friend's fingers and he realizes Courfeyrac must have fallen asleep reading.
Must have fallen asleep waiting for Combeferre.
The memories of the night before flood back to him. Sorrow ignites in his chest and tears blur the edges of his vision but he blinks them back.
With wisps of the nightmare still gripping him, he glances impulsively down at his fingers, but there's no blood there now. His clothes are different, too, though he only has the vaguest memories of changing last night.
He remembers Courfeyrac entering his room not long after, and Joly, too, he thinks. He's pretty sure he told them to leave, but it doesn't surprise him that Courfeyrac stayed.
Neither does it surprise him that Joly had gone to get Courfeyrac after he left the hospital. He's not sure how much the intern told his friend, but considering Courfeyrac stayed the whole night, he knew it was probably everything.
Combeferre's not sure how he feels about that at the moment.
A part of him is comforted by the fact that Courfeyrac hadn't left last night, despite asking him to. For a moment, he ponders how many times his friend has done this. The other times had occurred in a different room in a different house, but never had his friend ever left his side.
A larger part of him, however, wished that for once Courfeyrac would just leave. He knows his friend means well, but he doesn't want to face him, to have to talk, to explain. Doesn't want this moment, the calm before the storm, to be broken by Courfeyrac's awakening.
He also knows that, somewhere, there's still anger inside him at the man's words from the other night. Those had left a wound that hadn't healed yet, but for now, that wound seemed to have faded in importance.
He finds it funny that while a few days ago he'd been bothered by his quiet and empty apartment, now he wants it back. He wants to be left alone, to pretend like yesterday didn't happen, to put the sorrow and fear away somewhere he doesn't have to look at them, to lose himself in his books and the silence.
The silence that, left undisturbed, means he can continue his charade and not fall apart.
He is just so tired.
Leaning back with a sigh, he runs a hand through his unruly hair, trying to tame it somewhat. The movement shifts the bed. He winces and freezes in place, hoping that it hadn't woken Courfeyrac. Unfortunately, luck doesn't appear to be on his side that day.
He watches the brunette begin to move, slowly blinking himself into wakefulness. Disoriented by the unfamiliar room, he doesn't notice Combeferre at first. His fingers flex and catch on the edge of the book on his lap, which brings his attention downwards.
His friend winces at the movement, a hand coming up to rub at his neck. Combeferre feels a pang of sympathy for the man and the stiffness he was sure to be experiencing after sleeping like that all night.
The other hand gathers up the book, closing it without bothering to mark the page, which signals to Combeferre that it hadn't interested his friend. He leans over to put it back into its place on the shelf, and that is when he turns and notices he's being watched.
The brunette doesn't jump, but his hand quickly falls from the shelf. Slowly, he gives a cautious "Good morning."
Combeferre notices that he isn't immediately asked to spill his guts, so is hopeful perhaps there is still some chance he could convince his friend to leave without having to really talk to him.
Then he notices the look in Courfeyrac's eye, and knows there was no chance of that.
"Morning."
"Good to see your face, Combeferre. It's been a while." Courfeyrac says softly, testing the waters.
"I hope you didn't hurt yourself, sleeping on the floor like that." Combeferre tries to keep it light, easy, warning him to abandon the subject.
A warning his friend ignores.
"I'm stiff, but I'll live. I've slept in worse positions, waiting for you to get out of bed and talk to me."
"You shouldn't have stayed." Now his voice is cold, hard.
Courfeyrac doesn't flinch. "There was no way I was going to leave you after last night, Combeferre."
"How did you get in here, anyway?" He asks it in order to dodge the statement, but he is actually curious since he highly doubts the brunette had broken his door down in the night.
Courfeyrac shifts uneasily, but admits: "I have a key. You let me borrow yours once, and I had another one made in case of emergencies. At the time, I didn't think you'd mind."
Anger at the invasion flares in Combeferre's chest. "Well, I do. Besides, last night was no emergency. You had no right to use it, or even make one in the first place."
"Sounded like an emergency to me, the way Joly told it. He scared me half to death showing up so late at night like that." Courfeyrac doesn't address the fact that he made a key to his apartment without permission, but the words still make Combeferre pause and consider them.
He can only imagine what last night would have looked like to Courfeyrac.
"Joly told you what happened, then?" He says quietly.
"Most of it, yeah."
"That wasn't his place."
"Don't be like that, Combeferre. He did the right thing, so don't blame him for it. He was worried about you and didn't know what else to do." Courfeyrac says.
Combeferre softens for a moment, unable to contest the statement. He knows Joly was only trying to help, and for that he can't truly feel any anger towards the man.
Courfeyrac, however, he found he could be mad at. "Well, you've checked up on me. You can tell Joly I'm fine, so you can leave now."
There's a long moment where they stare each other down, neither saying anything, but then his friend sighs, dropping his gaze. "Look, 'Ferre, if it bothers you so much, I'll leave the key here when I leave. But we both know you're not fine, and I'm not leaving here until you've talked to me."
Courfeyrac pauses, but continues before he can interrupt, looking almost pained. "Or, if not me, then someone else. I know we're not really on the best of terms right now, so I'd understand if you didn't want to talk to me. Name anyone, and I'll get them for you."
Combeferre shakes his head. "There's no one I want to talk to right now. I just want to be left alone."
"Well, that's too bad." Courfeyrac says angrily, making him look up in shock.
"What?"
Courfeyrac's gaze is stormy. "You don't get to decide that anymore, Combeferre."
"Excuse me? This is my apartment, and I want you out of it." Combeferre replies angrily.
"Well, I'm not leaving!" Combeferre almost flinches, shocked at the power behind the words.
"Don't think I haven't noticed how you've spent the last months pushing me and everyone else away! Well, I'm sick of it." Courfeyrac is yelling now, and it's all Combeferre can do to sit there, quietly, listening. The hurt he hears in his friend's voice silences any protest he might find and washes away any trace of anger that remains.
"I'm not the only one who's noticed. The others have too, even Joly." Courfeyrac's voice softens. "Now, I know some of us haven't been there for you the way we should have been, and for that I'm sorry. I know we fought the other day and I hope you believe me when I say I never meant the words I said that night. I was only worried about you.
"To tell you the truth, it was never about Enjolras. I had noticed you acting strangely even before he came to town. Avoiding us, constantly making excuses not to go out. I didn't know what was causing you to do that, and so I blamed him.
"I still don't know what you're going through that you think you have to push us all away. But I'm here now, and I'm trying, and I'm not going anywhere. But I can't help you if you don't talk to me!
"I thought you got over this years ago, Combeferre. What more do I have to do to convince you that I'm never going to leave you?" Courfeyrac stops, defeated.
The truth of Courfeyrac's words cut him to the bone.
They hurt him worse than anything, worse than what had been said that night at the Musain. They hurt because he knows they're true and because he knows can no longer hide.
They hurt because he doesn't want to hide anymore, because he wants so badly for Courfeyrac's words to be true.
He doesn't want to run anymore.
The tears come. Blurring his vision, burning his eyes, catching in his throat.
Because, really, when had he ever been able to hide anything from Courfeyrac?
He'd never been able to do so in high school. Even when they were children, the boy had always been able to see right through him. On the day they'd met, Courfeyrac had been able to see how lonely he'd been.
And despite thinking he was doing such a good job of hiding his thoughts from his friends these past few months, Courfeyrac had noticed something was wrong. They all had.
Then he's sobbing, curling into himself and grabbing the bedsheets, looking for something to ground himself. He can't breathe and he's been trying to do everything on his own for so long that he thinks it might just tear him apart.
But then Courfeyrac is there, wrapping his arms around him; he has been there all night and all those years and somehow, somehow, knowing that keeps him together.
He's not sure how long it takes but he slowly comes back to himself. It still hurts, but he feels emptier, lighter, now.
Long minutes pass in the silence while he tries to catch his breath, but eventually he manages to calm down and tells Courfeyrac that he's ready to talk. He knows now that this isn't a conversation he can avoid forever.
The relieved expression that passes across his friend's face sends another stab of guilt through his stomach. They untangle their limbs from the blankets and quietly make their way into the kitchen.
It looks a little tidier than he remembers leaving it, which he can only assume is Courfeyrac's doing.
Courfeyrac sits down at the table across from him and waits patiently.
He takes a deep breath and begins to speak.
And Courfeyrac, as always, listens.
"I didn't mean to push you away, Courf, really." It's hard to talk at first, but once he's started, he can't stop. "It's just that I wasn't sure how to... bring it up."
"Bring what up?" Courfeyrac prods gently when he pauses, hesitant.
"Everything. School, this apartment, the hospital, everything. None of it feels right to me. I guess it all began when I started volunteering at the hospital. You know that I've wanted to be a doctor for a long time. But now, I don't think that's going to happen." Combeferre finally admits. His friend looks at him, surprised, but he feels a kind of relief at finally saying it.
It had been haunting him ever since he'd started University. For as long as he could remember, he'd known he was going to be a doctor.
It had always made the most sense to him. His parents were doctors, he was intelligent and liked the sciences. It had seemed the obvious choice to him. His parents hadn't been around often enough to pressure him into doing it, but they had been happy when he'd told them.
He'd liked his University classes – still liked them, in fact. However, they hadn't given him any hands on experience and he wanted to help out anyway, so he began volunteering at the local hospital.
That was where things had begun to go wrong. At first, he'd only done cleaning and clerical work, but eventually he was assigned to the patients who were simply waiting to die. Coma patients, or those suffering from long-term diseases.
It made sense, really, to assign him to them since many of them didn't need specialized care, but that was still the first time he'd seen someone die. It hurt, knowing there was nothing he could do for them except ease their passing. It hurt to come in one day and the patient he'd been taking care of was no longer there.
He'd chosen this profession knowing that he'd have to deal with losing patients, but to see and experience it was an entirely different matter. Still, he told himself he could do it. He comforted himself with the fact that most of his patients were elderly and he could tell himself that it was merely their time.
On the busier days, he would help out in other areas by bandaging small wounds and comforting visitors while they waited for patients, which was easier, but it began to bring him contact with more patients and worse cases.
He saw more people come and go, and although Joly and the others tried to shield him from the worst of the cases, some of the injuries he saw, even from afar, were gruesome. They turned his stomach, and made him wonder if he had really made the right decision.
Now he saw the patients who were young and healthy and still didn't make it, those taken long before their time. He saw the patients who were left alive and in pain for the rest of their lives.
That horrified him, but what bothered him the most wasn't the blood or the idea of dying that bothered him the most. It was the doctors and nurses who turned away from a patient, shaking their head or calling the time of death.
It was the memory of his father coming home after a rough day and seeing the devastation in his eyes. His mother coming home and not being able to look at him because she'd watched a parent lose their child that day.
It was the idea that one day patients would be in his care and he wouldn't be able to save them.
"I don't know if I can do it, Courfeyrac. Live the rest of my life surrounded by all that suffering. Losing patients like that, like Rosette..." His breath catches in his throat.
Rosette. His worst nightmare come to life and far too soon.
"Combeferre..."
"But how could I admit that to you? To my parents?"
Courfeyrac's face twists at the mention of them, mirroring how Combeferre feels.
"In a way, it's helped me to understand them a bit better. But I'm afraid of becoming like them, Courfeyrac... And if I continue to follow this path, my parents' path, won't I end up just like them?" He glances down, feeling tears gather again.
"I came to University here with you to get away from them, but it feels like I'm still there. Everything here is just as empty as it was there." He says, gesturing at the bare apartment around him.
"Courfeyrac, I can't even explain it to you. Seeing so many people suffering like that... women, children, anyone. You see how fragile life truly is, how easy it is for it to be taken away forever. And seeing that, every day, it's no surprise my parents have become the way they are. Why they've always kept me at arm's length. What if it's you in there one day, Courf?" The thought of it cuts him like a knife.
"So you decided to push everyone away instead? So you could become a doctor and not worry about something like that?" Courfeyrac demands.
"Not consciously, but I guess you're right." He admits, looking down in shame. The idea of losing someone under his care as a doctor was bad enough, but the thought of it being someone he knew and loved was unbearable.
"'Ferre, I think I understand, but that truly is the stupidest idea you've ever had." Courfeyrac tells him, making him look back up.
"Maybe you're right. Maybe it'll be me or Bahorel or somebody in there someday, and you won't be able to save us." He pales at the thought, but it doesn't stop the brunette.
"But you can't stop living just because you're scared! How your parents treat you is wrong, and you shouldn't use them as an example. Look at Joly, after all. He's an intern, but he has Musichetta and lots of friends."
"That's... different." Combeferre says, but even he knows it is a weak protest.
"No," Courfeyrac says, shaking his head, "It's not different. You don't have to give up your life to become a doctor."
Combeferre sighs, but he sees the truth in Courfeyrac's words. He knows he hasn't been happy these last few months, and he knows that it was due, in large part, to his own actions.
"But more than that, by pushing people away you not only hurt yourself, but those around you, too. You, of all people, should understand that. There are so many people who care about you and would be willing to help if you had just let us."
Once again, he is hit by the truth of his friend's words. This time he feels a surge of guilt. He hadn't considered how his actions were affecting the people around him.
"You're right. I am sorry for being so distant. It was partially due to thinking I should keep everyone at arm's length, but also simply because I was confused about what I wanted and didn't know how to talk to anyone about it." He says sincerely, but Courfeyrac simply shakes his head.
"I don't need an apology from you, Combeferre, and I don't need you to tell me everything all the time. But you need to stop keeping us all in the dark and keeping everything to yourself. You were confused, I understand that now. The others know it, too, I think. We weren't hurt by your actions, just concerned, mostly. We just want our friend back." Courfeyrac grins at him, and this time Combeferre smiles back.
"And so you have him."
"I'm glad to hear that. As for your dilemma, though, I'm not going to lie and say it will be easy, because even I know it won't be. You're going to lose people."
He pauses, and Combeferre knows he's thinking of the night before because he's thinking about it, too. "But you can't let that stop you. You just have to do your best and save whoever you can."
Combeferre nods, goes to speak, but the man continues. "To be honest, I'm not sure what help I can be. I'm never going to understand what that's like, but if there's anything I can do, you know that I'll do it. All you have to do is ask."
"I know that, and I thank you for it, Courfeyrac." He tells him, which earns him another smile.
"Maybe you should talk to Joly about it, or another friend you have at the hospital. They would know what it's like better than I would, and they might be able to help." Courfeyrac pauses as if considering something.
However, the indecision only lasts a moment before he powers on. "This is between us, but last night Joly was talking to me about a lot of the same things you just told me. I think he'd be able to help, and if nothing else, he'd understand."
Combeferre is shocked by the information. It doesn't seem to fit quite right with the picture of Joly he has in his head. The intern usually seemed so carefree to him. It always seemed that he'd taken to the profession like he'd been born to it.
He'd expressed frustration and stress before, but never hesitation, fear, despair. He knew his friend felt sorrow at the loss of a patient, but his patience and compassion always seemed never-ending.
He'd seen the man watch someone die, then walk out and return to the other patients, a smile already on his face and ready to do what was needed. It was a strength that Combeferre admired about him and tried to emulate. The idea that Joly was affected by the same turmoil was alien to him.
He shook the words off. It wasn't like it mattered much anymore, after all.
"Thank you, Courfeyrac, but I don't think I'll need to do that. I've decided not to become a doctor."
In a different situation, the shock on his friend's face would have been humorous.
"What are you talking about?" Courfeyrac demands after he'd finds his voice.
"It's exactly as I said. I've decided to switch my major to philosophy or politics."
"And do what?"
"I'll figure something out."
Courfeyrac is still staring at him, incredulous, shaking his head like he couldn't believe it. "But we just... I don't understand."
"It's like you said, Courf. I'm not going to give up my life or my friends just so I can become a doctor. I'm going to find another profession."
"That's not what I meant, and you know it." Courfeyrac's face turns stony. "It's about last night, isn't it? You can't throw away everything you've worked for just because you lost someone, Combeferre."
Anger flares in his chest for a moment and he goes to speak, but stops himself. He doesn't want to fight with his friend anymore. Now that he's finally made the decision, he just wants to put everything behind him and move on.
"Look, Courfeyrac," he sighs, "I don't want to fight with you about this. I won't lie and say what happened last night isn't contributing to this decision, but ultimately it's my decision to make, not yours."
"So you want me to just accept this."
"Yes, I do." Combeferre looks him straight in the eye. "You said you'd do what I asked, and now I'm asking you to drop this."
A long moment passes where Combeferre thinks Courfeyrac will continue to pursue this, but then his friend must see how tired he is because he drops his gaze, defeated.
"So we're just not going to talk about what happened last night?"
"No, we are not."
Courfeyrac looks up. "I thought you just admitted you were wrong to keep so many things to yourself."
"I'm not keeping this to myself." He says, but it's obvious his friend doesn't believe him. So he says, "Please, Courfeyrac, I'll talk about her death, but not today. Not right now. Okay?"
This time, Courfeyrac doesn't fight him. "Very well. You swear you'll come to me, or someone else, when you're ready though, right?"
He nods. "I swear it."
They lapse again into silence, neither of them knowing quite where to go from there. After a few moments, Courfeyrac breaks it, as is typical of him.
"So, what now?" He asks.
The question seems to break the lingering tension around them as well, and Combeferre laughs, the action making him feel better than he had in days. It never had been in Courfeyrac's nature to dwell long on something after it had been resolved.
His friend smiles, happy to see Combeferre laughing again.
"I don't know. What were you doing last night before Joly found you?"
At this question, Courfeyrac looks a bit sheepish. "I was trying to do math, so it wasn't much of an imposition." He admits, glancing down.
Combeferre smiles at him, a knowing look in his eye. He knows his friend is notoriously bad at math and hates it with a passion.
"Well then, do you need help with that?"
His friend's head snaps back up, a pleading, puppy-dog look on his face. "Would you mind?"
Combeferre laughs again. "Of course not. What is it you're having trouble with?"
They spend the rest of the day together, talking more than actually getting anything done. But it feels simple and easy in a way that it hadn't in a long, long time.
He feels better, lighter, now that so much is off his chest, and he is unspeakably glad to have a friend like Courfeyrac.
So that night, when Courfeyrac goes to leave, he tells him to keep the key.