Notes: Hi guys! Thank you so much for the wonderful reviews last chapter—they were lovely and made me smile idiotically a lot:) Thanks to: frustratedstudent, HermsP, a whisper away, and Phoenixflames12 for reviewing! This next chapter was really hard for me to write, but it's probably one of my favorite chapters in this story, so I hope you'll review!

BARRICADE

CHAPTER XI

It's mid-March, and the students are getting tense. Conditions at the University are worse than ever—the ugly Nanterre campus is overcrowded, and the sociology students are stirring everyone up. The administration is still ignoring all of their demands, and an occupation is planned for March 22nd—in six days, to protest the arrest of six students for protesting against the unofficial war on Vietnam. Normally Enjolras would be among the leaders of the occupation, helping with the plans, but as Les Amis have realized, he is increasingly distracted as the days go past.

He's late to the meetings at the Musain, and when he arrives he mostly just sips his coffee (he doesn't drink) and stares into space, and the other day he didn't even show up to the Café Musain at all. The second time he doesn't come, Les Amis eyeball each other, and collectively decide that something must be done. The first one to speak is Courfeyrac. "Something's wrong," he says.

Bossuet, that famously unlucky man, rolls his eyes. "Do you really think so," he replies in his usual non-questioning-question tone of sarcasm.

"I've never seen Enjolras like this," says Combeferre, and all of Les Amis suddenly grow serious, because it's true. As long as any of them have known him, Enjolras has been singularly devoted to one thing and one thing only—Patria. His only love has ever been France, and liberty, and justice, and freedom, and a million other seemingly stereotypical things, but for Enjolras none of that is stereotypical. He thinks of revolution and justice as not abstract concepts but very concrete, real things—and with these beliefs has come an abjectly fervent mechanism for dreaming. Enjolras has never been anything other than stubborn, bullishly pursuing his cause of a new dawn for France with a single-mindedness that is unmatched by any of the other student revolutionaries (it is widely acknowledged that Enjolras could probably give Daniel Cohn-Bendit, nicknamed Dany le Rouge, the fiery-haired and temperamental sociology student, a run for his money. And Dany le Rouge once called Francoise Missoffe, the minister of youth and sports, a Nazi, causing widespread rage in the administration.)

So for Enjolras to suddenly to lose devotion in his dream is, well, to say the least, worrying. Combeferre, ever the philosopher, begins to wonder aloud: "What could make a man abandon the ideals he has held for so long? It seems that if the belief is simply a passing fancy then the mere passage of time can carry it away. But sometimes a belief becomes a spark. When you take someone else's idea and it becomes your own idea—becomes a spark, then that is not so easily lost. That is our Enjolras. He is flame incarnate—Patria consumes him and he would not so easily allow that to be extinguished."

"Yes, yes," Feuilly impatiently flicks the fan he is making for some rich comtesse in Combeferre's direction. "Thank you for obscuring the aspects of Enjolras's character that were formerly so clear to all of us with your flowery language."

Jehan looks up from where he had been drawing in his journal. He hasn't been listening to a word they've been saying, and now he adds his own contribution to the conversation: "I like flowers."

Groans follow Jehan's statement, and a minor argument breaks out between Jehan and Feuilly, which escalates into a full-out brawl when Grantaire (who is completely drunk despite it being only two o'clock) punches Joly in the nose. Alliances within Les Amis form, and soon enough beer bottles are flying and Courfeyrac is knocked out, through no fault but his own. (He seems to have a gift for rendering himself unconscious.)

At this exact moment, Enjolras chooses to walk through that door and is greeted with a scene of extreme chaos—shouts filling the room, as Feuilly (who has somehow gotten into a which-country-is-better debate with Bahorel) stands atop a table and shouts, "Mazurek Dąbrowskiego! Poland is not yet lost!" and frantically waves a makeshift Polish flag around (really just one of their red flags splattered with white paint across the top half.)

When he nearly smacks Enjolras in the face with his Polish flag, Enjolras catches hold of the fabric, and yanks the flag from Feuilly's hands. "That's quite enough!" he yells in his loudest, most impassioned voice usually reserved for making speeches at rallies when he doesn't have a bullhorn. Les Amis freeze in their places (making for some rather comical positions, such as Joly wielding a thermometer at Grantaire.) "What the hell has gotten into all of you?!"

By way of explanation, Grantaire holds up his nearly empty beer bottle. Enjolras storms up to Grantaire and dashes the bottle to the ground, where it shatters into pieces of glass and beer. Les Amis cower in the face of their angry leader, but none more than Grantaire (who, since he is usually the brunt of Enjolras's rage, has gotten quite good at cowering.)

"I leave you all alone for a few days to…attend to business…and this is what happens? Have you all forgotten that we are occupying the Nanterre in a matter of mere days?!" No one wants to answer, for fear of saying the wrong thing and causing the transfiguration of Enjolras from a golden-haired young man to a terrible raging beast once more.

Eventually Courfeyrac steps forward. "We…we thought you had forgotten. We thought you had abandoned the left-side."

Now it is Enjolras's turn to be utterly perplexed. "Why would I ever abandon this? It's what I've worked towards for years, and the time is at last upon us—why would I leave now?"

"You seemed…distracted," answers Combeferre, adjusting his glasses nervously. "The past few meetings, you've barely said anything—you were always just staring off into space. And then you didn't even come to one meeting—and then you didn't come to that rally at the Sorbonne last weekend—"

"What?" asks Enjolras in shock. "There was a rally last weekend? Why didn't you tell me?"

"We did!" exclaims Joly. "You weren't listening!"

It takes a while for Enjolras to answer. "I'm sorry. You're right, I have been distracted. But like I said, I've gotten all that business attended to, and—"

Enjolras's apology has lightened the mood of the room considerably, as Jehan grins cheekily and asks, "What kind of business? A woman, perhaps?"

Grantaire bursts into drunk hiccupping laughter at that, and his chuckles last considerably longer than is necessarily appropriate. "I'm sorry, but did you say…Enjolras and a woman?" He goes off into a fresh bout of laughter. After a few more moments he slowly ceases his laughs and sits back contendedly. "Oh, Jehan, who knew you were such a joker," he says.

Enjolras turns a glare on Jehan. "Excuse me? I'm glad to see that the idea of me being with a female amuses you so much."

Jehan shrugs. "Well, Enjolras? Was it a girl that distracted you from your Patria? Maybe that girl from a few months ago—what was her name?"

The door to the upstairs back room of the Café Musain flies open, and Éponine stands in the entrance. "Hello, my name is Éponine and I need a job here." Her words come out in a rush, as if she had said them as quickly as possible to avoid chickening out. Les Amis stare at each other, silent for once.

"You have sublime timing, Éponine," hisses Enjolras out of the corner of his mouth.

She smiles and curtsies. "Thank you."

Notes: I hope you guys liked this chapter! It was one of my favorites, so I would love it if you would please review:)