The gesture of burning a single candle on the window's edge in full view of the street below may have seemed simple and could have been interpreted as a form of normal everyday behaviour, but to the small boy recovering from serious injury inside the apartment, it meant everything. The candle stood solely to represent Gavroche's grief for his daddy.

Grantaire and Eponine couldn't fully understand how Gavroche was handling the knowledge that Courfeyrac wouldn't be coming home to him because he simply refused tochieve anything. It was best to allow him to continue on with his selected coping mechanisms. He seemed to believe that as long as the candle was burning, Courfeyrac would know that his little boy was thinking about him. The idea seemed ridiculous to Grantaire and Eponine as they both knew that all Gavroche appeared able to do was lie silently in his bed and think about Courfeyrac but between them they simply couldn't muster the strength to tell him that the candle as a physical display of grief and memorial wasn't strictly necessary.

Since telling Gavroche the truth about Courfeyrac, the child hadn't spoken much. He looked to Grantaire and Eponine with such sadness in his eyes, they hated to think of what must have been going through his mind. Whilst his silent contemplation was somewhat aiding his physical recovery as rest and little movement was good for him, Eponine was desperate to know and to understand how her little brother was feeling emotionally. As she entered the bedroom carrying a tankard of water and a small plate of bread and cheese, she was greeted by the sight of little Gavroche laying silently in his bed, blankly watching the candle flickering gently away. In his hand, he held the old cravat. Eponine couldn't recall seeing him without the length of red fabric since Grantaire had given it to him. It was his comfort. It was his security. That little piece of daddy he still had to hold on too.

"Hello little one" she said softly sitting on the edge of the bed and setting a gentle hand on his blanket covered leg. "Would you like to try and have something to eat?"

Gavroche looked to the plate of bread and cheese then back to the candle. "No" he said quietly "I don't want anything"

It was a phrase that the young boy had used a lot over the last few days, stating that he didn't want anything. Eponine knew that it was a lie, of course he wanted something. He wanted his daddy. But that wasn't possible and Eponine was determined to get Gavroche to cooperate, to come out of that horrible little shell he had buried into where he behaved like he was all alone and where it appeared that he believed that he had nothing to go on for. He had barely eaten, only picking at the dry bread and struggling to stomach anything more than that.

"Come on Gavroche" she sighed brushing hair out of the children's eyes. "I know it hurts, I can't imagine how you are feeling but it can't be like this anymore"

"It hurts" the boy repeated "but not like the wound hurts, that stings and pulls and swells. This hurts different."

Eponine nodded, finally little cracks were appearing. Little cracks in the wall that her brother had built up around him from the moment he learnt that daddy would not be coming home. She knew that most of the time, he was silent deep in his thoughts and not allowing anything to pull him away from those thoughts. But she also knew that he cried in the night times, when he thought that no one could hear him. That must have come from the life on the streets. He had to appear strong on the outside, afraid and ready for anything that was going to come his way. On the inside, he was a lonely and frightened little boy, one who had just lost the one person who had wanted to take him and give him the life that he deserved. "Can you explain" she started "can you explain how this hurts?"

"There's a hole" he said "something inside is missing. It's not like the hole from the bullet."

"That's because you miss him" Eponine said stroking his cheek "he is what is missing"

Gavroche nodded. "It's like you're hungry, even when you're full" he said struggling to put what he felt into words. "Or when you cry, and there's nothing left to get out. It feels like being punched in the stomach again and again and again, and there's no more breath to be taken away"

Eponine wiped a tear away and kissed his forehead. "When you really love someone, a little part of your heart becomes theirs, exclusively." She said. She could liken it to how she felt when she had first seen Marius with Cosette, but she knew that it couldn't really feel the same as this felt for Gavroche. That was a life that had never been returned. It was a pain that she hadn't really needed to feel, it was just in those moments where she felt most alone. For Gavroche and Courfeyrac, it had been a two sided love without any doubt. Gavroche loved Courfeyrac as a father and everyone knew that Courfeyrac loved his little boy more than anything in the world. "when you lose that someone, it can feel like that part of your heart falls away, leaving a hole"

There was a Courfeyrac sized hole in little Gavroche.

Meanwhile, Grantaire had taken up residence in the chair by the fire watching over the flames as Eponine tended to her little brother. The door to Courfeyrac's old bedroom was closed, giving the siblings privacy. The door to Marius' old bedroom was also closed, having remained that way since Marius himself had left it on the morning of the funeral. The little apartment that had once been so filled with life now seemed cold and empty. There was a child here, a child who should have been happy and laughter, playing silly games with his father as they prepared for move away to their new life in the country. Now that was never going to happen. Grantaire had to wonder if Gavroche was ever going to be happy again, what did he have to be happy for?

As Grantaire allowed his eyes to close, his thoughts drifted away. He hadn't taken the sweet stinging taste of alcohol since the final night of the barricade. He had thought that he didn't miss it. But he did. It wasn't the flavour he missed, the fruity aromas and strong taste that stuck to his tongue. He missed its ability to take him away from his thoughts. With a strong drink in his hand, he had thought he was invincible. He had thought that some how, he would find a way. The bottle in his hand had been like an anchor, holding him down and making him think about how to find a way forward. Now, days later, he wanted the drink. He wanted to get away from these thoughts. He didn't want to think about the sadness in Gavroche's big blue eyes, he didn't want to think about Eponine's desperation to see the little boy make progress, to move on in some way or form. And he didn't want to think about the times he had laid awake at night, sitting in this exact chair staring at the ajar door to the bedroom, watching the flickering of the candle and listening to Gavroche's crying.

A knock stirred Grantaire from his thoughts and he turned in the chair to look at both of the bedroom doors. Both remained closed, and why would there come a knock from a closed bedroom door in the first place? Shaking his head he turned to the remaining door, the front door to the apartment. He rose from his seat and paced slowly to the door. It could have been the land lord searching for the rent which he was sure that they couldn't afford, or perhaps a member of the national guard searching for barricade rebels. Resigning himself to one of the two possibilities, he went to open the door, trying to think of excuses as to why they didn't have the money for the rent or as to why they may have been seen on the night the barricade fell.

Any excuses he had flying around his mind didn't match to what he found on the other side of the door. At first he thought that his mind must have been playing cruel tricks on him and that maybe the effects of going from a drunkard to no alcohol at all were starting to kick in.

There stood in the doorway, looking tired and somewhat bedraggled was Courfeyrac.

"He's gone, isn't he?" He said looking to Grantaire with pain in his eyes. He stood rather unsteadily, one hand on the door frame and the other over his heart. "The candle, Grantaire, it's for him is it not? Gavroche, my boy, he's gone isn't he?"