Chapter 11:

Combeferre sat next to Lucie, with Courfeyrac on his other side, clutching his hand. "What did you mean on the phone, Lucie?" he asked her.

"Hmm?" she asked jerking her head up out of whatever trance she was in.

"You said over the phone that his name isn't Montparnasse," Ferre said, "What did you mean?"

"He lied to me and everyone else about his name…it's really Babet. A friend of his is named Montparnasse…he gave that as his name when he transferred to my high school sophomore year because he got in a lot of trouble at his old school," Lucie explained.

"And he never told you?" Courfeyrac asked.

Lucie shook her head and sighed, "Apparently I would've blown his cover with my big mouth. Can we please change the subject? Because I really don't want to talk about what happened."

"Of course, Lucie," Ferre responded.

There was silence again. Musichetta went to find the chapel to pray, and was followed by her boyfriends. Feuilly and Bahorel were whispering amongst themselves. Enjolras was the only one who hadn't said anything. Lucie glanced over at him; he looked pale, almost like he would break down into tears at any minute. Lucie stared at the floor in front of her for what felt like hours.

This is my fault. This is my fault. The words kept repeating themselves in Lucie's head. She felt tears rising in her eyes. She took a few deep breaths. She couldn't take it anymore and got up and walked out of the room. She stood outside the door and closed her eyes.

It was Jehan who followed her out after a few minutes.

"Lucie," he said, "do you want to talk about it?"

"I didn't know his name, Jehan," she said barely above a whisper.

"I know," he replied.

"You don't understand, Jehan…I—I lost my virginity to him and I didn't even know his name," she cried.

Jehan nodded, "I know how hard this must be for you, Lucie, but he can't hurt you anymore."

"He had a knife to my throat," she said, "when Grantaire came into the room…he had a knife to my throat, and he used it to stab R."

Jehan met Lucie's eyes, "I know what you're thinking, Lu, but—."

"It's my fault," Lucie said, "that's what I'm thinking. Don't try to tell me it wasn't."

"But, Lu…It wasn't…it wasn't your fault that he decided to do that to you and then Taire."

"As much as I try to tell myself that, I can't seem to believe it."

Jehan put his hand on Lucie's shoulder, "Then you're going to have to try a little harder. I'm going to get flowers for R, would you like to join me?"

Lucie nodded, "Yeah, he likes flowers…well he likes painting them anyway."

Jehan smiled, "Who doesn't like flowers?"

"Flower-haters, probably," Lucie joked.

They walked down to the gift shop to pick out flowers, and then went back up to the waiting room, both with far too many flowers in their arms ("Nonsense, you can never have too many flowers, Lucie,"-Jehan).

"Do you think you guys have enough flowers?" Bahorel asked as they walked into the room.

"No," Jehan said, "but this was all they had."

Lucie put the flowers onto the table and reclaimed her seat next to Combeferre.

Combeferre nudged her, "You ok?" he mouthed.

Lucie nodded, "Yeah," she mouthed back.

They sat there in silence until Grantaire's doctor appeared in the doorway.

"Are you all here for," He looked down at his clipboard, "Grantaire?"

"Yes," a few of them said simultaneously.

"How is he?" Combeferre asked.

"Well, he's alive" the doctor took a deep breath, "but he's not doing well. You see, he lost a lot of blood, and as far as blood types go his is a little rare, well not really, but we don't have any readily available, and we're low on O positive as well. We had a patient this morning that needed a lot of his type…we were supposed to get more tomorrow, but I don't know if he can wait that long."

"Take mine," Lucie said, quietly.

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you," the doctor said.

"Take mine," she said louder, "take my blood."

"How do you know you have the same type?" the doctor asked.

"I'm O positive; that means I can donate to anyone right?"

"Well, yes but unless more than one of you is O positive it won't work. He needs more blood than one person can donate."

"What blood type is he?" Enjolras asked. It was the first thing he'd said for the entire time they'd been there.

"He's B positive," the doctor replied.

"Take mine, too, then. I'm B positive," Enjolras said.

The doctor nodded, "Very well, the two of you can follow me."

Lucie and Enjolras followed the doctor.

"Thank you, Enjolras," Lucie whispered.

"Don't thank me, any decent person would do the same thing for their friend," Enjolras replied.

"Grantaire thinks you don't care about him, you know?" Lucie said, "He feels like you hate him sometimes…like you think he doesn't believe in anything, that he's useless."

"Of course I don't hate him or think he's useless. I do think he doesn't believe in anything, though," Enj said, "But he should know I care for him. He's my friend…I—I hope he really doesn't think that I hate him…" he almost blushed.

"He does believe in a lot of things, well…at least one thing," Lucie said.

"Oh yeah, and what's that?" Enjolras asked.

"He believes in you, Enjolras."

"He believes in me?" Enj asked, "Grantaire?"

"Yes, he really does…" Lucie said. She knew that Grantaire was just as hopelessly in love with Enjolras as she was, but she didn't mind, she wouldn't even mind if Enj loved him back. She just wanted them happy.

"Oh…" Enj sighed, "I—I didn't know." He almost started to cry.

"Enj…it's ok," Lucie said, "You'll be able to tell him you're sorry."

"You don't know that, what if this doesn't work?"

"You're right…I don't know…but we have to hope for the best or else we have nothing."

"I couldn't live with myself if—if he died thinking that I hated him, if he didn't know that I—," Enj stammered

"I know, but he won't so you don't have to worry about it," Lucie said placing a hand on Enj's shoulder.

Enjolras nodded, blinking away the few tears that had formed in his eyes.

After they'd gotten their blood drawn the doctor let them go back into the waiting room, "Grantaire is lucky to have friends like you two…you probably saved his life. Once he has this he'll be fine."

Enjolras and Lucie both sighed with relief almost simultaneously.

Once they were finally able to see Grantaire, Lucie was the first in the room, followed by Enjolras.

"Grantaire," she almost cried, "I'm so sorry, this is all my fault—,"

"Lucie, this is not your fault, and I won't listen to any arguments against that," Grantaire replied.

"Hey, R," Enjolras said, "can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure, Apollo," Grantaire said.

"I'll leave you two alone," Lucie smiled and walked out of the room.

They talked for a few minutes. There were apologies, and maybe even tears. The others went in after that. Bahorel high-fived him for being a badass, and made R show him the cut on his side. Jehan brought in all the flowers, assisted by Lucie. Musichetta Joly and Bossuet baked him cookies and brought them back for him. Courfeyrac asked what it felt like to be stabbed, and received a glare from Combeferre, who made Grantaire promise to let him help with the cleaning once he got back to school.

Once visiting hours were over, they said goodbye, and the doctor told them that Grantaire could go back to campus tomorrow. They drove back and got something to eat at the dining hall. Afterwards, Combeferre and Courfeyrac went to watch a movie with Marius in their room. Lucie decided to go back to her dorm and go to sleep.

Enjolras walked Lucie back to her dorm, just in case Babet was waiting.

"Do you want me to come in and keep you company until Ferre gets back?" He asked when they arrived at her door.

"No, I'm alright, I'm just going to go to sleep…it's been a long day," Lucie replied.

"Alright then, goodnight, I'll see you tomorrow," he smiled.

"Hey, is everything OK with you and R now?" she asked.

"Yeah," he grinned, "we talked about a few things…I explained that I didn't hate him or think he was useless. We're good now."

"That's great," Lucie said, "See you tomorrow."

Lucie unlocked her door and walked into her room. She glanced down at the floor and saw an envelope with her name on it. She picked it up and opened it.

'Jean Prouvaire

Enjolras

Marius

Combeferre

Musichetta

Next time it'll be one of them. Make the right choice.

-Babet'

Lucie read the letter again and again. Her hands were shaking. She went to bed telling her self that she would think about a solution, but in truth she'd already made her decision. She couldn't let Babet hurt another one of her friends…she had to just play along next time, and the time after that, and forever.