A/N: Another chapter for all the brilliant people who have taken the time to read, review, follow and favourite my stories! It means the world to me to think that my work is appreciated and I cannot thank any of you enough and have a wonderful 2014! x

Disclaimer: As I am not Male, French or living in C19th Paris- how can I possibly own Les Miserables? I am simply trying to convey my love for Victor Hugo's novel and Stagepageandscreen's wonderful Dystopian AU titled '(Un)natural Selection'- please don't sue me!

Chapter 10

'Citizen, my mother is the Republic' – Enjolras (Les Miserables Book IV Chapter V- Widening of the Horizon)

The evening of the 10th Annual Selection of Defiants for the Capital. The thick, indigo air feels alive, cracking, leaping, buzzing with the electric energy of expectancy and anticipation. The glaringly artificial light-flooded arena is a myriad of colour and noise, heat and sweat; voices rising and falling in a shimmering crescendo of sound that seems to be alive as it rolls and heaves; echoing itself across the bare stone pit where those proud, fool-hardy martyrs will meet their fate. Drinks are passed; champagne fizzing as it twinkles against the rim of glasses, registration tags are exchanged from rough hand to deftly manicured finger, Official's wives flutter like butterflies in a flimsy, rippling rainbow of colour and light through their boxes; their lily-white complexions oozing cosmopolitan glamour and confidence through pouting plum lipstick as they flitter along the rows; their heels click-clacking over the slatted, wooden flooring as they exchange gifts and tokens of affection; a rainbow mirage of perfumes wafting through the electric air.

Kisses swoop like fuchsia coloured birds of paradise through the crowd and yet even their flimsy wings and graceful air of sparkled, Champagne soaked mystery can barely conceal the rotten stench of greed and corruption that slowly picks away at these grand-dame's cores; silently sucking them up from the inside out as deftly embroidered handkerchiefs are plucked out of pockets and swirled in waterfalls of silk and cotton out into the humid air. It's too hot and yet the high Official's boxes are far above the crushing, choking heat that threatens to suffocate their fellow Citizens who are crammed like cattle into the lower stands.

The stink of sweat and bodies that are crushed too close together is almost choking as it rises off lithe, lean bodies swathed in iridescent rainbows of silk and cotton; shimmering swirls of moonlit brilliance dancing just out of reach off the glittering points and bends of masks which hover and shimmer off their points; as they are twirled lazily through a delicate, long fingered hand, the colours swelling, rising, falling like butterflies basking in their fleeting life of summer soaked hazes with rainbow wingtips dripping with soft, swirling August light. Shimmers of silver brilliance, pecks of golden light, rivers of indigo, forests of emerald green, pools of shocking scarlet, bursts of rich, incandesant indigo, pops of petrifying pink swirl around the official's stands as the rich, well off children, silenced into seriousness by their stuffily oppressive Sunday suits and frilly, fluffed up dresses forget their troubles for just an instant to reach up and snatch at the glittering treasures which are whipped just out of their reach with a peal of laughter and a dazzling smile. 'You'll have to wait until you're a little older Mon Petit Cherie.'

Peals of laughter billow up into the velvety indigo sky in gasps of silver vapour, caressing the sky with frost fragile fingers in a desperate attempt to continue this game, this charade that has enveloped all of them in a thick, unrelenting embrace; it's grip unwaveringly strong as it forcefully pulls their heads away from decaying rot of corruption, the piles of blood and bones that the Capital was founded on and into the blaze of colour, light and excited, babbling noise that encloakes their fabled Utopia.

For the wealthy and the powerful today is a good day to be alive. Today is a good day to be alive and be able to relish in the all powerful wealth and might of the Capital as at last, at long last the glaring, blinding spot lights lower themselves into a dusky, eerie glow and a rippling, reverent hush seems to fall across the stadium as from some unseen door deep within the pit of the arena; the High Council; a swarm of scarlet cloaked official's whose very presence oozes the cold, hard bite of power file in silent procession up onto the podium and take their places; thronged in high, gilded chairs along the back of the stage. Their faces show no sign of acknowledgment as the crowd seems to hold its breath; the ground beneath their feet, which had only moments ago; shaken from the echo of their noise; seeming to swallow up their silence and spit it back out into their faces.

A small, gilded mahogany table stands in the centre of the stage; the rich, dark wood draped with a velvet cloth of bleeding, blood red velvet; the golden tassels fringing the edges seeming to glimmer and sparkle in the darkness as they catch the dusky spotlights; lifting the light up so that it catches the impassive, haughty silence radiating off the shadow shrouded faces of the High Council of Representatives as in response to a barely noticeable motion; a lesser Official in the same swirling, billowing robes; although this time in deepest ebony black which sets off his high, fine, olive cheekbones and liquid eyes of deepest onyx which are narrowed in concentration as he shifts the weight of the immense golden hour-glass clutched between long fingered, artistic hands. A rippling intake of breath seems to catch itself through the crowd as a 10,000 pairs of eyes follow the glittering chalice as it is slowly borne to rest in the centre of the table; its' glowing, glittering light falling at the knurled, quivering fingertips of the Most Reverent Master of the Council and the Capital whose skin resembles used parchment pulled tight over thin, aged bones fingers quiver; clenching momentarily at the rich fabric of the table drapery for a fraction of a second too long as the aged eyes rise slowly to meet the liquid pools of dark, passionate anger; before nodding to a unseen, unspoken question and the hour glass is placed with silent, deferential care upon the scarlet river of gilded, blood red velvet as the feeble Master; cloaked too in weeping scarlet that was adorned with the great, gilded chain of Office dancing around his neck rises to his feet.

'Citizens', his voice quavers for a moment, the dark eyes flickering momentarily towards the shadowed corners of the arena where the shapes of Officials waiting to raise the barricades barring the Selected from their fate are just visible. But even the shadows themselves which have done so well in concealing these proud, fool-hardy, passionate martyrs from the eager, expectant eyes of the crowd; they cannot quite conceal their fate from being caught by a wandering eye. Eight large, wheeled glass contraptions seem to glimmer eerily in the dusky darkness; their transparent doors showing a three legged stool where a myriad of lines, fetters and tubes seem to coil themselves about a space no bigger than a heartbeat. Every citizen, down to the youngest child present knows with a shudder of badly supressed fear what those contraptions will do, what horrors they will have to witness in this seemingly endless night.

Knows how the lines would do their work by slowly strangling, sucking out all the fire, all the blazingly dangerous energy, all the fiery life and light out of bodies of the Selected, clamping their masks against the mouths which once housed tongues of the finest silver until there was nothing the Selected could do but allow their bodies to be surrendered to the vice like grip of the Capital.

The Old Master clears his throat again, his voice little more than a feebly wheezing thread that carries itself in a painfully disjointed rhythm through the sound system spread throughout the arena.

'Citizens… My fellow Citizens… Workers, Wardens and Officials alike… It is my great pride and pleasure to declare to you tonight the opening of the 10th Annual Selection…' He pauses here to catch his breath; a thin, wheezing cough forced through cold lungs before continuing; a faint tremor slicing through the fragile, fluttering tendons of a knurled old hand as the darkly glittering pupils lift themselves momentarily up to the highest stands; towering above the arena before sweeping over the rest of the free Citizens; a small, satisfied smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he turns towards the waiting man and gives a small, almost imperceptible nod; a silent order speaking volumes as from silent niche; a steady, throbbing drumbeat begins to rise up in a thick, pulsating beat through the suddenly reverent silence.

'Bring out the first Selected'.

Feuilly wants to punch something, the harder the better. The steady, trickling stream of pale faced, wide eyed stragglers who bundle their all too evident fear about their emaciated frames like thick, winter coats around their shivering bodies shuffle slowly forward as one by one they hand over their registration tag to be slotted into the Identification Machine and marked as present. Almost unconsciously the artisan feels his numb fingers reach up to finger the rectangular tag lying in a cold metal bed against taught bed of skin making up his larynx and for a sudden, reckless moment of passionate madness he wants nothing more than to yank the machine that binds him to the this twisted labyrinth of lies and deceit from its' cord and run; run far away from the corrupt, twisted greed of the Capital and the Regime, run away from the darkly shadowed slums where he passes pitiful, bare foot beggar, near skeletal children with smuts on their hollow faces and eyes wide and dark and pleading with the flames of hunger on his daily pre-dawn walk to the factory when the sky was little more than a smudged grey canvas filled with light and dark and flecks of indigo; children that should have been in school or at least with a roof over their heads and decent clothes on their backs but instead were forced to find their way alone in a cold and corrupted world; simply because they had arrived home long after Curfew too late one night too many; frozen fingers numb with cold and too stiff to scrabble for a pair of lost keys glinting in the dark streams of mud at their blue bruised feet.

The injustices of it all; of Enjolras' and Bertrand's arrest; the two people brave enough the feed and tend and bolster the guttering, dying fire of freedom that was all but embers locked deep within the people's hearts now about to be subjected to a fate worse than death; seems to rise up in Feuilly's throat like molten fire- white hot and burning, barely giving him to time to choke it down and gasp for air before there is a hand on his shoulder; a thick, known hand adorned with bruises, cuts and callouses as a slow, deep voice brings him back.

'Not yet Feuilly, Mon Ami. I know…' Feuilly starts towards the fighter; his whole body trembling with the weight of furiously supressed anger but Bahorel's thick, known palms are on his shoulders; grounding him to the spot, to reality before he can do anything. 'I know… I know you want to run… Trust me, we all do but...' A slight smile cracks through the broken, bloody lip; lighting up the wide, chocolate coloured irises now ablaze with the silent, deadly fires of revolution and redemption. Feuilly nods mutely, feeling sudden, inexplicable tears prick painfully in the back of his eyelids and it is all he can do to raise his hand and roughly swipe them away. He will not cry now. He will not give in to his emotions now; not now when they are so close to becoming whole again and yet have so little time. Not now when everything they fight for, everything the Revolution stands for; when two little, fiery lives; hangs in the balance, hangs in their ability to work together and finally bring the corrupt monster of the Capital to its' knees.

Swallowing down the sudden lump stuck within his throat; the artisan allows his arm to be tugged over the fighters' shoulder and feels himself being led towards the stadium entrance where Combeferre and Joly are waiting; their anxiety palpable even from this distance.

The sheer force of the crowd's noise even when muffled through the heavy iron barricade barring the tunnel hits him like a sledgehammer so that it is all he can do not to stagger backwards into the chest of the official who still grips his shoulder at the force of the impact. The noise seems to swell with each second they wait there; swelling, billowing until at unseen, unheard signal; it stops and the grip on his shoulder tightens involuntarily. In one desperate effort he tries to twist away from the thick, unwelcome fingers that are lined with scars and callouses but without warning his struggles are met by a stinging slap cutting across his wasted cheek. Silence. He can almost fear the fear radiating from the hearts of his fellow condemned as he slowly rights himself, sucking in yet another stinging remark as the heat from the worn, rough palm slowly fades away. Slowly, painfully, he raises his eyes which have become little more than shards of glacial glass to glare back at the glowering official; feeling the long forgotten ice slip into his soul as he does so; feeling the tirade of fire-branded remarks fade back into oblivion as he bites his tongue; instead allowing the precious sense of icy pride which he has tried to conserve for so long envelop his fractured soul like a cloak.

They can break his body as much as they want, but They will not break his pride.

Without warning, he feels bruised and broken fingers fumbling in his palm; their trembling weight desperate for the security of another's touch as he slowly squeezes back; flicking his gaze over to see the terrified, water blue orbs shining out of what would once have been a handsome olive face with high, fine cheekbones that are marred with a network of thin, shockingly scarlet scars that instead of diminishing the sense of almost Oriental beauty; only seem to intensify it completed with a mop of curls almost the colour of autumn leaves flecked with the fires of a dying sunset.

The fingers gripping his own seem to tremble for the second that Enjolras manages to hold his gaze; the fear leaping like molten flames through the wide, dark pupils as a single, unexpected tear slides from one battered eyelid which the boy ignores as a faint flush rises through his cheeks and he drops his gaze. 'I'm sorry,' the action seems to say and the chief's heart bleeds for the boy as he tries desperately to blink away his tears. He can't be older than sixteen, the age of Prouvaire- perhaps older, although Enjolras isn't sure.

'Your name Citizen?' He searches the once-handsome olive face with its high cheekbones and smattering of freckles for some sense of recognition; but the boy simply watches him blankly his whole body trembling with badly supressed fear; his whole being longing for that desperate, evanescent sense of comfort that will never come.

'I'm sorry… I… I shouldn't be… But I… I'm scared… I don't want…' The silent, choked out words come slowly, the child's eyes still alive with a childish sense of desperation as Enjolras shuffles towards him; sending a furious glare at the Official who makes to stop him; realising too late that his hands are still bound behind his back so that it is all he can do to press his shoulder against the younger boys' frame in a silent act of reassurance. The trembling child with the olive face adorned with scars seems to take comfort from the touch; a spark of confidence leaping for a moment through his eyes as he mutters 'Sébastien… Sébastien Lefebvre...' in a choked up undertone; glancing in sudden, silent terror at the shadow of the Official who is standing in the shadows of the passageway not more than a heartbeat away from them. 'I… I'm 17 ½ and…' he swallows nervously and Enjolras doesn't question his fear; realising with a sudden swoop of bitter understanding that any and all information spoken by the Selected could be used against them in the aftermath of the Selection.

'It'll be all right Mon Petit frère ', he finds himself mouthing against his new gag, willing himself to believe it and yet surprised at the use of the term of affection for a boy whom he has just met and most likely will never meet again; as the hard rough hands of the official silently yank him back into line; the icy, fire branded conviction filling him with a renewed sense of courage. 'For when we die tonight, we will die in a tomb flooded by the light of a new dawn surrounded by the mothers and fathers of the Republic. Our sacrifices to freedom will not be in vain, I promise.'

The boy's eyes widen in momentary surprise; an unspoken question rising and dying within the inky black pupils set deep within watery-blue baths as he nods slowly, casting a terrified glance towards the wrought iron barricade that seems to swell and billow with the roaring echo of the crowd locked safely in the stands.

The noise seems to catch him, caress him, engulf him, threaten to drown him in the roars and shouts and screams for death, the lust for blood, the desire for a spectacle of rainbow colours amid this barren land of dust and darkness. Almost instinctively he shies away from it; feeling his heart thudding a frantic, disjointed rhythm against his bruised and broken ribs, so that each breath suddenly becomes an effort as the tiny organ resolutely grounds him to a life which deep down he knows is over.

A moment of silence. A moment in which their eyes meet, Sébastien's youthfully beautiful lips; the colour of drained pink peonies parted in confusion, the weight of his bloody curls falling into his eyes as he waits;flecks of blues mingling through masks of darkness; a moment that is little more than the length of a desperate heartbeat as without warning the sudden, deathly ominous tramp of an official's footsteps tramping down the line fills the echoing passageway.

A sudden, heavy hand landing on his shoulder; dragging him back into line as he sees without really understanding what he's seeing Sébastien being half dragged, half carried towards the slowly rising barricade; his whole body looking like it is on the verge of convulsions. 'No!' His voice bursts through the gag; the word ripping across his lolling, useless tongue, ringing off the bare stone walls as he fights; the shouted, desperate syllables rough with pain and wrath as the gag slips and he shakes it off; feeling his broken body twist and jerk in a desperate attempt to evade the Official's hold.

'No! No! You can't! You bastard… You bloody, fucking bastard… He's just a child!' Without warning, his head is suddenly filled with images of Jehan- their quiet, softly spoken, passionate ball of unstoppable energy with the heart of a lion and the voice of an angel, of his own childhood spent in a never ending spin of sun drenched romps with Combeferre, learning to ride, hunt, shoot, or else cossetted in the warm, fire lit safety of the library; pouring over dog-eared, water stained, priceless and yet utterly illegal copies of Roseau, Robespierre, Desmoulins, Danton and Voltaire; the words bursting through the faded, flattened wood pulp with the flames of life, hope and liberty with a heat so great that it consumed him almost entirely; branding his heart, searing his soul with the knowledge that somehow the dying world he lived in must be reborn, must change, must be renewed until it was whole and pure and beautiful once more.

'Hold your tongue traitor', the sudden icy bite of a knife being placed against his throat does nothing to quell his fury as without warning he feels himself being bundled into a headlock; thrashing like a helpless child; his whole body screaming from the pain. Dread coils up in his stomach at the silky smooth tones of the voice whispering in his ear as thick, known, unwelcome hands cup themselves around his chin but still he continues to struggle, his yells echoing eerily off the walls as the blade slips and a blinding, jagged slice of pain erupts through his throat as the screamed out name bursts through broken, blood caked lips.

'SÉBASTIAN!'

An unseen knee to his groin makes him double up in sudden, gasping agony as the Official drags him out of line and pins him up against the wall, the knife still hovering against his throat. Desperately he tries to fight against the hands holding him; but the grip is too strong and he can't move, can't fight as the pain from his injuries seems to intensify with every passing second making it impossible to think; even though he has to think, it is duty to think, to put an end to this utterly insane madness which has held his beloved Patria in an iron fist for far too long. Patria… I'm sorry… I'm so sorry… I tried… Forgive me… Please….

Images from the past few hours seem to come alive in his minds eye; bursting through the safety behind his eyelids before he can stop them as he continues to fight; his vision blurred by tears and pain and exhaustion that he cannot seem to brush away.

The wide, dark gaze of the Healer filled with compassionate, frightened understanding as she gripped his chin between her thumb and forefinger; tilting his head back to wipe away the blood and shit encrusting his lower face… 'So young. So bloody, bloody young. They always come too young. Always the same. Too young. Too brave. Too passionate. Too bloody foolhardy for your own good, aren't you?'

He had never thought to ask her name; he realises now; but whether she would've given it with the Regime's rules on censorship he isn't sure.

The choking, silent fear radiating from every crevice of Sébastien's frame as wide, terrified, water blue eyes slowly met his; the fires of fear leaping painfully high with the dilated, inky pupils… The unrelenting, passionate courage of his friends, his brothers, his comrades at arms as they continued the fight for freedom; hearts beating the same, united rhythm that one day, one day soon they would be able to lead their beloved homeland into the cold, clear land of peaceful freedom in glorious, golden triumph…. The leering, broken grin of the Official as the cigarette hovered above his mutilated shoulder blades… Sudden, searing, blinding agony… The pure, undiluted terror radiating from Bertrand's body as shaking hands held him close; whispered words of comfort lost within his bloody, sweat soaked hair….

'Give him the gun. That should keep him quiet until he's called', the sound of another Official dropping to his knees beside the first startles him as he tries to throw himself out of the iron embrace; but to no avail. The voice is quiet, calm, steadying as he feels hands reaching for his face once more, drawing him towards them as they push his sweaty curls back from his face.

'You… You can silence me now…' His voice is slurred with pain, exhaustion and fear as he desperately flicks his gaze over to where Sébastien had almost reached the small, iron door from where the Selected and the Officials' entered and exited the arena. 'But you cannot silence our cause, cannot silence our revolution. I won't let you, we won't let you.' He wishes his voice held more conviction but the Official simply laughs as without warning he feels the cold, hard bite of a revolver being slotted against his temple; a lone finger itching to slide away the safety catch and send him spiralling back into the dark pit of senseless oblivion that he has desperately tried to avoid for so long.

Time itself seems to slow down.

Silence. The only audible sound coming from the frantic, desperate thumping of his heart as it tries to keep him grounded to a life which, in reality was over long ago.

A barking laugh.

The combined, cheering roar of 10,000 people held under the corrupt, iron fist of the Capital and the Regime echoing distantly through the suddenly silent passageway.

A sudden burst of blinding, blistering pain erupting through his temple.

A face. A dark, handsome face which he recognises from long ago with a smattering of freckles and large, compassionate liqueur coloured eyes shielded behind wire-framed spectacles, a small smile of infectious welcome crinkling at the corners of his eyelids. Combeferre? 'Ferre, I'm sorry… I'm so sorry Mon Ami… Please don't leave me…

A tattered Liberty flag drenched in the flames of freedom; rippling above a barricade at twilight.

A sudden, deafening roar ripping through his ears that seems oddly muffled, although he can't think why.

Darkness.

A/N: Phew… That was emotionally draining…

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