A/N: I just wanted to thank everyone for the continued support and kind reviews! This chapter is a bit longer than usual because I didn't want Christmas to be any longer than one chapter. Also, I know it might seem as if the plot is starting to slow down but I promise some more action is going to start soon!
Chapter Fourteen
The whole household has been so busy with wedding planning and Enjolras's physical therapy, but Cosette is over the moon when she realizes that Christmas is a week and a half away. Christmas is her favorite holiday; it has been ever seen Papa adopted her. They made their own traditions that they've continued every year, and she is thrilled to share them with their new family members.
Of course, Cosette has noticed that everyone is acting a little strange recently. Despite continuing to make immense progress, Enjolras has grown to be melancholy and withdrawn again. He is able to walk all the way down the hallway and back now, but he is not nearly as excited about the progress as he was before. Some days he doesn't even want to push himself like he usually does; he asks to stop as soon as his leg begins to hurt. And Cosette can't tell if it's because he hasn't heard back from his parents yet or if it's just the time of year – Christmases without his friends will surely be a painful adjustment.
Marius is not as withdrawn as Enjolras is and he is his usual cheery self when he's around Cosette, but she's noticed that he's been spending more time alone in his room. Sometimes she'll pass the closed door and swear she hears crying. She's asked him about it naturally, but he just brushes it off and changes the subject. Still, Cosette tries to make it known that he does not have to be strong and hide his emotions for her sake. Papa has been hiding in his room a lot lately, too. And when he's not, he's oddly tactile towards Cosette. He's always been one to touch her hand comfortingly or give her an encouraging pat, but now it's as if he is trying to make sure she is still solid. He touches her hands, bops her nose, caresses her hair, kisses her forehead. Like he thinks she is a ghost and he has to be sure she is still there. Cosette doesn't know what to make of it.
And lastly, she's noticed that Marius's grandfather has taken to looking at her with this strange, pitying expression. She can't bring herself to ask him about it because she is sure he will only lie, just as Marius does when asked about his behavior, but it's always there. It makes her wonder if there is something he knows that she doesn't, something that she should be worried about, but she can't think of what it might be.
But, despite all of the odd behavior, Cosette is determined to make this a great Christmas. She's already sent out for a Christmas tree, which is now sitting in the parlor, waiting to be decorated. This afternoon she plans on going to the house in Rue Plumet to retrieve the ornaments she and Papa put up every year. If she is lucky, Cosette will be able to convince Marius and Enjolras to join in the decorating. She wants this to be a happy experience for everyone.
Cosette is layering in a coat, hat, and gloves when Papa appears, also dressed to go out in the cold December air. He's got a scarf in his hand, which he wraps around Cosette's exposed neck. She gives him a smile and a curious expression.
"What are you doing?" she asks kindly. Papa returns her smile.
"I thought I might come with you. I could help carry the decorations," replies Papa. Cosette's smile grows wider. He's spent most of the last two days shut up in his room; it will be wonderful to spend time together again, just the two of them as it used to be.
"I'd like that very much, Papa," she says. He offers her his arms, which she gladly takes, and they set off for Rue Plumet. They walk because it's only thirty minutes away, but the trip seems much longer in the cold. Even with her layers, Cosette is shivering ten minutes into the journey. She isn't going to complain because it was her idea to walk, but Papa notices and takes off his own coat to wrap around her shoulders.
"Oh, Papa, you don't have to do that! You'll freeze," she protests.
"Don't you worry about it, ma petite. I don't get cold very easily," replies Papa vaguely. Cosette sighs, but does not argue. She just hopes that he doesn't take ill so close to Christmas.
As soon as they reach their house, which hardly even feels like theirs anymore, Cosette insists that Toussaint lights a fire for Papa to warm up by. While they are busy with that, Cosette goes up to the attic where all the Christmas decorations are kept. It's strange, she thinks as she reaches for the first box, how she has not lived in this house for six months and yet she still knows where everything is.
When she returns downstairs with two of the three boxes, Papa is wrapping up the silver candlesticks he's had ever since she's been with him. He looks up at the sound of approaching footsteps and gives a small smile.
"With everything going on, I forgot I'd left these here. I thought they'd be nice to have for Christmas," he explains. Cosette did not notice before that he'd left them behind, but it is quite peculiar. Papa takes those candlesticks everywhere. He won't say where he got them or why they are so important to him, but she knows they are his dearest possessions. It's just another part of his past she unfortunately knows nothing about.
Papa finishes packing the candlesticks, retrieves the last box from the attic, and then they head back to the Gillenormand mansion. Papa carries all three boxes while Cosette holds on to the candlesticks. She thought the boxes were quite heavy, but of course they are nothing for Papa. Her father is stronger than any man she has ever met.
Marius is waiting for them in the parlor when they return. He greets them with a smile and a kiss on the cheek for Cosette after they've set all their packages down.
"I've come to help decorate. Grandfather wanted to as well, but he's having dinner with an associate in the next town so he had to miss it. He sends his love and apologies, though," says Marius.
"We'll miss him," replies Cosette. She glances up at the ceiling. "And Enjolras…?"
Marius doesn't answer. Cosette feels Papa's hand on her shoulder and she turns around to look at him.
"Cosette, dear, he can't come down the stairs yet," he says. She knows that, but she had hope regardless that maybe Christmastime would change that. She wants Enjolras to be down here with them, hanging ornaments and garland, even if all he can do it sit and watch.
"Well, when is he at least going to try the stairs?" asks Cosette. It sounds rude and impatient; she didn't mean for it to come out that way. She wants him to improve and recover for his own sake.
"Next week maybe, now that he's able to withstand longer distances," replies Papa patiently. "We just have to give him time."
Give him time. That's all anyone ever says in regards to Enjolras, but Cosette is starting to worry that that is not going to be enough. She knows that eight bullets to the chest and one in the thigh are quite a lot and that Enjolras is lucky to even be alive let alone walking, but it has been six months and his mental state is still not entirely stable. Sometimes he is happy and determined and almost normal, and sometimes he slips back to where he was right after he regained consciousness.
It's not that Cosette expects him to be completely normal or happy all the time – she doesn't. But it worries her when he gets into a state of depression. She doesn't know how to help; none of them do, except for Papa who can occasionally lift his spirits with a private talk.
But she pushes all of this out of her mind as Papa hands her the first ornament to go on the tree. It is their tradition to let her hang the first one. She takes the silver bulb from him and finds a nice spot for it. There will be time to worry about Enjolras later. For now, Cosette is going to enjoy the holidays and spending this time with her beloved father and the love of her life.
Enjolras is stuck again and he doesn't know why.
He doesn't want to be sucked back into the black hole. It's been so long since he's felt this down. He thought the bad feelings were gone for good after he had that eye-opening dream, but now they are back. He knows why, too. The depression is back because it's Christmastime. By all means, Enjolras should be happy that he is alive to see another Christmas and that he has people to celebrate with. But instead all he can think of are the past eight Christmases, spent with Les Amis, from the very first one with only Combeferre and Courfeyrac to the one just last year with even Marius amongst their growing numbers.
They are his family. They are the ones he should be spending Christmas with. And it hurts every time he thinks of how happy they always were on Christmas, cozied up in their backroom at the Musain with the best Christmas dinner they could afford and plenty of eggnog to go around thanks to Grantaire.
Cosette keeps speaking of sharing her Christmas traditions with Marius and him. Enjolras knows she means well, but sometimes he just wants to yell that he is grieving the loss of his own traditions, he doesn't care about hers. Of course, he won't actually do that because there is something sinful about upsetting Cosette, but the feelings are there nonetheless.
Right now, Enjolras can hear Cosette, Marius, and Fauchelevent laughing in the parlor. They must be decorating; he remembers Cosette saying she was going to bring back some ornaments from the house in Rue Plumet. There is a pang of guilt that he is not down there with them, but it goes away rather quickly. They'll have him on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, after all. Why should they really need him to decorate?
I'd probably only get in the way, he thinks bitterly with a glance at his cane. Technically the walking is going well, but Enjolras has never been a very patient person. He wants to see results instantly, and he has to try to accept that that just isn't going to happen when he is recovering from being shot nine times. He has to be happy that he can walk the length of the hallway, despite the pain that comes with it if he pushes too hard, instead of being permanently paralyzed and bedridden.
He's trying. Trying to overcome the physical and emotional barriers that are holding him back. But it's not easy.
Still, by the time Christmas comes around a week later, Enjolras has managed to at least feign happiness when it is most important. He does not join the rest of the household for Christmas Eve as he promised he would, though. It was a last minute decision. Today has been a bad day as far as his emotional well-being and when Fauchelevent came in to help him down the stairs, Enjolras simply couldn't. He couldn't talk himself into getting out of bed, braving the stairs that he has only tried once with disastrous results – after two steps he sank to the floor and had to be carried like a child back to his bed – and plastering a smile on his face so that he did not ruin everyone else's evening.
So Enjolras now sits alone in his room, a tray of untouched food in front of him, and listens to the merry sounds of laughter and conversation wafting up from the dining room. He feels guilty again, though, and the feeling does not go away as easily as it did before. He can only imagine how disappointed Cosette must have been when her father came downstairs without him. All he ever does is disappoint people, or at least that is how he feels right now.
Cosette. Marius. All of his friends. The people of Paris. He's managed to disappoint all of them and it's just caught up to him, just made him realize what a failure he truly is. Even Grantaire, who revered every breath Enjolras took, would be disappointed if he could see his Apollo now. Withdrawn. Depressed. Broken.
No.
Enjolras can't be like this anymore. He can't spend another day wallowing in his grief, disappointing all the people around him. He has to do something, anything to prove he has not lost all purpose in life.
He reaches for his cane. It is a small action, but he is going downstairs to join his new family for Christmas Eve. If he can manage to redeem himself tonight, to not let them down, then maybe there is hope for him after all.
Getting to the stairs is easy. For weeks, Enjolras has practiced that trip and he gets there with hardly any pain. It's a rather short distance from his room to the end of the hall, after all. But getting down the stairs is another question entirely. He looks down the spiraling steps and how they never seem to end. It irritates him that something as simple as walking down the stairs is going to be a challenge, but he grits his teeth, lowers his cane to the first step, and gingerly moves his feet.
God, it hurts. First there is the shooting pain in his bad leg. Enjolras tries to shift his weight to his good leg and the cane, but putting some weight on the bad leg is unavoidable with stairs. The wounds in his chest scream out, too, because steps twist his body at a strange angle and aggravate those numerous injuries. Enjolras curses under his breath, but manages to hold back any outbursts. He takes another step just as the discomfort starts to ebb, and there is another firework explosion of pain in his body. This time, a small moan escapes him, but Enjolras just forces another step without even waiting for the pain to subside.
Surprising even to him, he makes it halfway down the stairs before it gets to be too much. Gripping his cane as tightly as he can, Enjolras lowers himself to a seated position on the steps. Even this is agonizing for his leg, but he has no other choice because he's started to feel like he's going to pass out. He won't if he can help it, but he can't keep going and he knows it. Enjolras wonders if he should call out, alert the others that he is curled up on the stairs and can't move, but he's too embarrassed to have them find him like this. He has never been this incapable, not even the time he broke his ankle in a riot. For two days, he walked around like nothing was wrong until Combeferre and Joly forcibly set and bandaged it for him. He didn't even stop then; he limped everywhere he had to go, despite everyone's pleas that he stay in bed for a few days while it healed.
The memory hurts, combines with the physical pain shooting throughout his body, and Enjolras cannot suppress the dry sob that comes out of his mouth. It's louder than he wanted it to be; he hears the scraping of chairs from the dining room. A minute later, he hears a high-pitched "Oh, Enjolras!" and he opens his eyes, which he hadn't even realized were closed. The exclamation came from Cosette, who is now racing up the steps towards him. Fauchelevent is right behind her; Marius and M. Gillenormand watch from the landing. He feels his face goes red as he realizes how stupid he must look, one hand clutching his cane, the other wrapped around the stair railing, only half dressed in tan pants and a white shirt. What was he thinking?
"I'm sorry," mumbles Enjolras as Cosette gently takes his hand. "I just felt bad for missing dinner and wanted to come join you."
"It's alright. Don't apologize," coos Cosette soothingly. She strokes his mess of loose golden curls. Fauchelevent bends down so that his face is level to Enjolras's. Enjolras finds that, even in this state, he appreciates the man's attention to equality.
"Shall we get you back to bed?" suggests Fauchelevent. Enjolras shakes his head.
"No, I didn't get this far to go back to my room. Can you help me the rest of the way down? I'll sleep in the parlor, that'll be far easier than trying to get me back downstairs tomorrow morning," he replies, pleased at how normal his voice sounds even drenched in pain. Fauchelevent looks wary, but he and Cosette each take one of Enjolras's arms and help them up. This time, Fauchelevent bears most of Enjolras's weight, so it is slightly easier to get Enjolras the rest of the way down the stairs. Enjolras avoids looking at Marius when they reach the bottom; Marius hasn't seen him this vulnerable since before he regained consciousness and he is incredibly humiliated by that. Marius, who always followed Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac around like a little puppy dog, is standing on his own two feet with no obstacles to overcome while Enjolras is being practically dragged across the floor to the parlor and feels as if he might crumple at any moment. If it was any other member of Les Amis, Enjolras could stand the humiliation. But it's Marius.
When they get him to the parlor, Enjolras collapses on the velvet sofa. It's not the most comfortable place in the world to sleep, but it's better than trying to conquer the stairs again the next morning. Now that he is here, all of his plans to join the family for dinner have flown out of his mind. He wants nothing more than to sleep off the excruciating pain stabbing at his body.
"I need a dose of laudanum," he says quietly. Cosette immediately flies from the room to go retrieve it. Enjolras closes his eyes and takes some deep breaths to try to will away the pain. He's painfully aware that Marius is standing just a few feet away, watching him with wide eyes.
Enjolras hears someone kneel beside him and opens his eyes. It's Fauchelevent.
"I know you might not feel like it now, but taking on the stairs on your own was quite an accomplishment," he whispers so that only Enjolras can hear. "And I know it meant the world to Cosette that you wanted to be with us on Christmas."
More guilt washes over Enjolras. He doesn't want to be with them. He wants to be in the back room of the Musain, drinking eggnog with Grantaire for the one time of year they didn't argue and listening to Courfeyrac and Bahorel sing off-key carols. The only reason he is down here is because he felt guilty, and now he feels guilty for that, too.
But thankfully Cosette returns at that moment with the laudanum. Enjolras accepts the bitter liquid and is more relieved than he should be when he feels his body being forced into sleep.
Marius wakes early on Christmas morning. It is unintentional, but the winter sun is pouring through the window and directly onto his bed so he figures he is meant to get up now despite not knowing how early it might be. A quick look at the clock in his room tells him it's half past seven. Not too bad. He makes the bed after getting out of it and then dresses for the day: navy blue pants with a matching vest, a white undershirt, brown jacket, his nice dress shoes, and a green and blue checkered cravat.
Once he's dressed, Marius decides to go wake Enjolras. He should be properly dressed on Christmas, and that is a task that could take quite a while especially if Enjolras is still hurting from last night. Marius stops in Enjolras's room on the way downstairs to pick up a nice outfit for him and then goes down to the parlor.
Enjolras is still asleep, sprawled out across the sofa on his back. His blond curls are spread on the decorative pillow his head rests on and Marius sees the look of discontent on his sleeping face. He must be having a nightmare. At least he isn't screaming as he so often does when the nightmares come; that would be an unfortunate start to what Marius hopes will be a decent Christmas.
Marius gently shakes Enjolras's shoulder in an attempt to pull him out of the nightmare without hurting his chest wounds. He feels Enjolras jump a little and then his blue eyes fly open. The smallest sigh of relief escapes him; Marius wonders what he was dreaming about.
"Marius…good morning," slurs Enjolras as he struggles to sit up. He winces a little, his hand automatically going to his chest.
"Joyeux Noel," replies Marius with a smile. Enjolras doesn't say it back, but he at least manages to return the smile. "I brought you some clothes. I thought we could get you dressed before everyone else comes down."
Something falls in Enjolras's face and Marius thinks he may have made the wrong decision in offering to help him dress, but Enjolras accepts the help regardless. If Enjolras is in pain, he doesn't let it show, and they have him dressed in black pants, a white shirt, black cravat, and red jacket in no time at all.
"I expect it'll be a rather quiet Christmas," says Marius awkwardly when they've finished as they wait for the rest of the household to rise.
"That's fine," replies Enjolras with seemingly little interest. Marius remembers how rowdy the two Christmases he spent with Les Amis were and wonders if it really is fine. He pushes forward anyway, bringing up an idea that he's been sitting on for a while. It seems like a decent time to mention it since they are alone.
"I know this isn't a very cheery thing to bring up, but I was considering going to the Musain next week," he says. He can feel Enjolras tense beside him. "I, uh…I need some closure. I thought you could come with me if you like."
Enjolras doesn't respond right away. He looks uncertain and deep in thought. This is why it's taken Marius so long to ask despite having decided to take the trip about a week ago – he is perfectly aware that Enjolras does not want to go with him. They had completely different experiences at the barricade and Marius will never truly understand what happened that left Enjolras hanging out the Musain window. That is what Enjolras thinks, anyway, and quite frankly it's true. However, Marius and Enjolras both know that Enjolras will not be allowed to leave the house on his own for quite some time and so Marius is his only option if he wants closure, too.
"I would like that," he finally replies. It's a lie and Marius knows it, but does not acknowledge that fact. They fall back into silence, neither one looking at the other.
"Joyeux Noel, boys!" Marius looks up at the sound of Cosette's voice to see her practically skipping into the parlor. She looks lovely in a red satin dress and her dark blond hair tied up in matching red ribbons. But the loveliest feature about her is the radiant smile on her face. It brings a glow to her angelic face and lights up the whole parlor. Not for the first time, Marius wonders what he did to deserve such a beautiful woman.
"Papa and your grandfather are dressing now," she informs them, taking a seat on the sofa beside Marius after giving them both gentle hugs. He pecks her cheek lovingly. This Christmas might be a little bittersweet, but he considers himself blessed to be able to spend it with Cosette.
The rest of the day flows seamlessly. They all eat breakfast together when Fauchelevent and Grandfather come down, the first time Enjolras has joined them for a meal, and then exchange presents in the parlor while a yule log crackles merrily in the fireplace. Marius receives a shiny new pocket watch since he lost his at the barricade and a handsome purple cravat. What is even better is that it seems as if Enjolras is genuinely enjoying himself as they eat, chat, and unwrap. The smile he gives when he opens the set of leather-bound political books they collectively bought him seems real enough. He could just be a very good actor, of course, but Marius likes to think he is truly having a good day.
After the sun sets and the parlor is only lit by moonlight and Fauchelevent's silver candlesticks, everyone rises to prepare for bed. Fauchelevent and Marius help Enjolras up the stairs to his room, followed closely by Cosette. His face is screwed up in pain by the time he is back in his bed, but Enjolras does not shed one tear. He must be holding it together to let Christmas end on a high note. And as Marius goes to leave for his own room while Cosette makes sure Enjolras is set to go to sleep, he hears him whisper "Joyeux Noel, Cosette. Thank you for a nice day."
He sounds like he means it, too.