A/N: I'M ALIVE! I have officially survived my first two weeks at University! Oh my poor, wonderfully dedicated readers who have steadfastly stuck by this and all my over works; how can I ever repay you? Words cannot express how deeply sorry I am for not updating this sooner but this chapter has been impossibly hard to write and what with Freshers' Week and then lectures starting; I have had a distinct lack of time to even think about this story- let alone write it!
So, as a present to all you wonderful people who I love so dearly (especially Sarahbob and Rainwillmaketheflowersgrow!) here is some pure Muschietta for your consideration :)
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 wonderful characters' into something cohesive- please don't sue me!
Much love and enjoy x
Phantom Faces At The Window
A clear, pink flecked dawn is just beginning to slowly creep its way up into a sky still smudged by nights inky carpet as the fiacre rumbles its way towards the wrought iron gates that bar the red brick house with its' large bay windows and forest green doors from the prying eyes of intruders. The crunch of the wheels on the gravel combined with the snorting stamp of the lone horse that is straining for a freedom that will never be granted willingly startles a pair of nesting turtle dove; who take flight from their perch in a flurry of dusky pink and grey from atop the gate post; their soft melody mingling with the faint, echoing clamour that can be heard from within. A pale, heart shaped face with wide, amber coloured eyes; eyes that are liquid pools of unshed, unspoken emotion that is desperately trying to burst through each finely worked strand of honey coloured brilliance gazes without really seeing at the scene as a stray finger reaches almost unconsciously up to grip the icy security of the tarnished locket that still lies against the pit of her larynx. The finger shivers slightly as it traces the faded insignia etched forever on the metal casing as an unwanted sob rises and dies in her throat as the visions of the boys; the brothers whom she had loved and lost swim in a sudden disjointed puddle of memories before her eyes before she can stop them; before she can understand why; four months on, they still manage to do this to her.
Joly stumbling into the cramped hallway of their shared apartment; his thin, darkly handsome face flushed pink with cold as he unwound the red scarf that encloaked his neck; blowing on numb fingers in a desperate attempt to warm them as she took his coat; relishing in the flickering warmth still radiating from the fabric as he enfolded her into his arms and kissed her nose. 'Mon Amour,' he whispered as he kissed her full on the lips; a long, languid kiss that smelt of snow and flour, of medicine, of a warmth and love that since that heart breaking June morning when she awoke to find the large bed that the three of them shared in a chaotic tangle of limbs and blankets jarringly empty and the apartment an echoing hall of shadows and knew that what she had feared and prayed would never happen; had been played by Fate; she has never reclaimed entirely.
Joly reading one of his medical journals sitting curled up on the window seat by the guttering light of a candle stub perched perilously on the windowsill; the flame flickering pitifully against the cold, slashed glass; every so often casting anxious glances at the snow blanketed street below as Bossuet sat at the cluttered kitchen table surrounded by a chaotic melee of nuts and bolts and crumpled paper instructions; worn thin from countless fingers caressing the flattened wood pulp as he tried to build his model ship. Bossuet with his loud, gravelly laugh as he had batted away Joly's concerned touches and fretful gazes when he had burnt himself trying to make toast by a roaring fire as they had snuggled on the sofa; their bodies cocooned in a mess of blankets and rugs as they gazed into the flickering, dying embers of the fire; watching the sparks leap and laugh into the darkness of oblivion; casting black shadows against the chimney piece as she draped her arm around Joly's shoulder and felt the steady, throbbing iambs of Joly's heart pressed up against her other side as he pulled his beloved water stained, dog eared, first edition of Pasteur and settled down to read as they silently relished in the warmth and comfort of their friendship.
An unwanted, choking sob rises through her throat; straining against her lips as she swallows convulsively; her fingers closing around the icy metal as they lightly trace the faded insignia of the eagle rampant; wishing that this wasn't so. Wishing that they were here with her; her boys, her lovers who had been like brothers to her; pulling her up from the depths of Paris's dark underworld and showing her a light and companionship that she had never experienced before; pulling her forcefully into this wonderful, dysfunctional family of eager minds and fire branded souls; all set out to release Enjolras' beloved Patria from the tyrannical hands of the Bourgeois and watch her fly with fire stained, blood splattered wings into the bright, white land of peaceful freedom. But they are not. They are dead; blank faced corpses separated by a jolting five day carriage journey over bad roads and a stretch of choppy, indigo water; their sweet, scarlet sacrifice to the beloved Revolution, to the new world free from the tyranny of the Bourgeois remembered only by the dusty cobblestones of Rue St Denis that had soaked up their sickeningly scarlet blood without complaint.
'Chérie M.
'Nous vous aimons avec nos deux cœurs,
Ne nous oubliez pas,
Votre Aigles,
B et J.'
The words seem to echo eerily her head; distant reminders of a life now shrouded in a dark oblivion of painful memories as she draws out the crumpled newspaper cutting that had been thrust into her hand in a moment of wild abandon by a soul just as lost as her. A traveller with blood on his hands and a flickering, dying fire in his soul and somehow; she doesn't know how, she had felt compelled to trust him. Had felt almost duty bound by some great, inexplicable force to trust and follow this dark eyed, haunted stranger as blindly as a lost sheep following its shepherd as she had taken the newspaper cutting from his shivering grip and tried to understand what she was reading. Because how could they be alive? How? Why had Fate deemed it fit to spare their lives when so many other tiny, insignificant threads had been snapped cruelly short by her cruel sheers and left to lie as marionettes adorning a broken relic of a failed dream? When her very reasons for existing had been snatched away from her by the thrust of a bayonet and a spurt of sickeningly scarlet blood? Oh my boys… Oh my poor, poor boys… What wouldn't I give to see you whole and pure again?
Another sudden, unwanted sob rises through her throat which she quickly stifles by dragging out a handkerchief from the depths of her cloak; desperately trying to banish the sudden tirade of images fighting to make themselves known to her exhausted brain. And yet…. She glances back down at the faded print once more; allowing the words to leap up at her, claw at her psyche, silently relishing in the fact that they threaten to drag her under into their dark abyss as she scans the page; searching, desperately trying to find some meaning in these words that still refuse to make any sort of sense. 'Grievously injured… Leader… Insurgents… 10,000 franc reward for capture and return… Paris… Dead or Alive… Any information… Parisian Prefect of Police… Inspector Javert…
The paper crumples suddenly within her hand; the faded words that still refuse to make any sort of sense spieling in long, black threads of ink before her exhausted eyes as she gazes without really seeing out of the fiacre window; taking in the wrought iron gates, the gravel yard, the vaguely familiar boy sitting on the doorstep surrounded by a chipped, red wheelbarrow full to the brim with what she thinks is horse brasses; his actions being watched by the lazy, amber eyes of a sunbathing tortoiseshell cat and a bucket full of soapsuds as her hand unconsciously reaches for the doorknob; her trembling fingers relishing in the icy weight of metal rising through the shaking skin. From deep within the darkest crevices of her mind she hears the faint echoes of a song throbbing through her brain; a high, sweet alto voice dancing through a stuffily oppressive June dawn; spiralling through the bloody tendrils that had splashed themselves across the sky as the laughing body danced and sang across the barricade. She doesn't know why or how she knows the lyrics as they filter through her brain, but they come despite her futile efforts; the syllables as soft and as reassuring as dreams in their remembrance of a time and a place which she knows that she will never truly forget; however hard she tries.
'Joie est mon caractère… C'est la faute à Voltaire… Misère est mon trousseau … C'est la faute à Rousseau….'
The faded image of a small boy with a mop of dark blonde hair and bright, blue-grey eyes alive with the passionate flame of life dressed in a navy jacket that was two sizes too big for him, crumpled white shirt and dark trousers with a tattered cockade pinned to the lapel of his jacket dancing through the grapeshot; utterly oblivious to the desperate, pleading shouts of his friends watching in silent, wide eyed horror from the safety behind barricade or silent, deadly carpet of used cartridges lying abandoned by his feet as he continued on his errand swims before her eyes as she sees the dark green door open and a face pop itself around the chipped wood. A face with a mop of ebony curls and a smiling mouth alive with laughter; a face with wide, hazel eyes the colour of a dying sunset… A face that speaks of candlelight evenings spent basking in the warmth and comfort of togetherness as Enjolras; gloriously golden Enjolras had enthralled them all with his dreams to free his beloved Patria from the tyrannical hands of the Bourgeois; dreams that spoke of a distant, blissful, utterly evanescent time in which all were equal; all could walk in the bright, white land of peaceful Freedom together. A sudden, flickering, guttering memory flares into life within the dark crevices of her brain and she clings to it with all her fragile soul; a tantalizing silver thread of memory that she thought in all the pain and heartbreak of losing the men she had thought of as brothers; she had forgotten.
A dark, candlelit room that stank of the heady atmosphere of fraternal companionship, sweat and sweat. Flickering candlelight throwing huge shadows over walls awash with maps of France, of Paris, of Rue St Michel… The comforting weight of Joly's arm beneath her fingers as he led her into his laughing, smiling band of revolutionary dreamers; his wide, dark eyes alive with laughter as he threw a joke over to Grantaire who was clutching a half empty bottle of Absinthe in one hand and toasting the ' great and glorious Revolution' in a ringing, drink slurred voice that dripped sarcasm as his emerald eyes bore into the glacial baths of icy intensity that were silently glaring at him from across the table as Enjolras leant over a tattered map of Paris with Combeferre and Feuilly at his side; dark eyes alive with an almost feverish anticipation as they hung on his every word; silently drinking up their beloved, fiery leader in all his glory; his mouth a thin, tight line as he listened intently to Gavroche's report of the latest dissenting voices whispering through the local gamin population on the slums of Saint Michel.
The faint scratching scribble of a pen nib on a scrap of fraying parchment as Jehan raised his head; wide, honeyed coloured eyes widening in surprise and then sparkling with happiness as he threw down his pen and clapped his hands in welcome; drawing up a spare barstool that Bahorel had been using as a footrest and roughly shoving the softly snoring fighter awake with a disgruntled grunt and throwing the poet a sleepy, half heated punch on the shoulder for even daring to try and wake him up.
Bossuet... Where was Bossuet? Her beloved eagle with the wide, sparkling eyes; his mouth always breaking into a laughing smile despite the fact that Fate had somehow deemed it fit for Lady Luck to always turn her hand against his; stumbling in from the cold, harsh twilight; his hat lost, his face pink with cold as he crossed the room in two firm strides, just missing the leg of a coffee table and enveloping her into a warm embrace. 'Oh ma petite colombe', he had whispered; a lone finger reaching up to twirl itself around a stray tendril of hair that had fought its way out of her pins as he kissed her gently on the nose and smiled his thanks to Joly who had beamed back in response and bent down to whisper something in her ear. An unknown whisper now lost in the dark oblivion of eternity that had made her laugh….
Her heart twists painfully in her chest as she remembers that Bossuet's nickname for her had been 'petite colombe' or 'little dove'; a term that once he had started using had been adopted by all the Amis and a sudden, desperate, excruciatingly painful urge floods through her being; an urge, a longing to go back to that unknown winter night; to find the boys whom she had begun to think of as brothers and tell them; each of them, all of them, how much they meant to her. To cocoon them all in the soft, warm blanket of fraternal friendship and hold them close, never for a moment thinking about letting them go as she feels sudden, unbidden tears of salty sadness prick painfully in the back of her eyelids and she lets them fall. She doesn't have the strength to even think about brushing them away but allows their briny pain to slice her cheeks; seeing tear as a tribute, an atonement to the boys, the family she had loved so dearly and had been lost to her so suddenly; as if their gloriously, fiery lives that had been so full of bright, hopeful potential had meant nothing, had been meant for nothing except to be played piece by painful piece on the constantly changing board that held the Game of Life.
Why? Why was life so bitterly unfair? Without warning, she remembers the song of the women as they knelt on the blood soaked cobbles of Rue St Denis; their sleeves rolled up, their buckets waiting with gallons of soapy water; scrubbing frantically at the crusted stains left by the foolhardy martyrs who had dared to dream of bringing their beloved country into a new, brighter future. She remembers too the silent echoes of the barricade ringing in her ears as she knelt there; desperately trying not to look at the scarlet splatters adorning the stones as she relished in the fluid mechanical quality of her movements, relished in the weight of the brush, of the burning pain in her palms as she scrubbed furiously; desperately trying to remember, trying not to forget as the elegy rose like a skylark through the cool, grey dawn. 'Did you see them going off to fight? Children of the barricade that didn't last the night! They were schoolboys, never held a gun! Fighting for a new world that would rise up like the sun! Where's that new world now the fighting's done?'
Where were those women now? Had they too lost loved ones on the barricades that had risen like great mounds of freedom pointing to the bright, white, hopeful land of tomorrow? Did they sit as she sat every night in the hard backed chair by her tiny garret window after her shift had ended and watch the city slowly unravel itself under an invisibility cloak of inky blue velvet studded with silver stars and wait for a painfully familiar knock? For the sound of footsteps on the stairs? For a wonderfully familiar voice to echo from the hallway and allow herself to breathe again in the knowledge that they were home safely?
She doesn't know. She had fled Paris so suddenly after the barricade fell; after the news that her two best beloved boys had been felled with as much care as a farmer sheathing a field of wheat at harvest time had been brought to her by a freckled, gangly lad with wide, blue eyes and a snub nose who claimed to know Gavroche and her whole world, all the walls that she had so carefully built up around her fragile conscious had been shattered so completely; fleeing like a wanted criminal in the dead of night from the painful blockade of memories that still threaten to overwhelm her that she hadn't given the women of Paris, of St Michel and St Denis a second thought.
Without warning she feels the newspaper cutting crumple in her hands; the thin, flattened wood pulp tearing in a serrated slice as she allows the pieces to fall in a fluttering waterfall of ink and paper to the floor and crushes them with the heel of her shoe. She doesn't need them now; she knows that much as she rubs her exhausted, tear stained eyes with the heels of her hands and draws the ragged corners of her tattered, brightly coloured shawl tighter around her shivering shoulders as her fingers flutter over the cold, comforting security of the locket still lying against her larynx.
She can feel her fingers trembling slightly as they dance over the faded insignia; remembering with a fresh pang of grief the warm dexterity of Joly's fingers as he had closed the clasp against her skin; the delicious heat of his lips against the back of her neck as they had brushed the lightly freckled skin; his dark eyes wide with passionate adoration in the guttering candlelight of the sitting room cum study. She remembers the heat of his dark eyed gaze on the back of her neck as he allowed his lips to kiss the top of her spine; his long, artistic fingers puzzling over the bumps and ridges of the jagged vertebrae as she had leant into him; her whole being buzzing with a sudden, electrifying agony of desire. 'I love you', he had whispered into her hair; allowing one finger to curl itself around a stray tendril of hair as his lips caressed the taught tendons of her neck as she raised her face to his; drinking in the dark eyed adoration sparkling within each finely woven strand of autumnal brilliance. Adoration that had been marred by a minuscule and yet poignantly tangible pang of unease as he had pulled her closer against him and she had laid her head on his chest; relishing in the steady, throbbing iambs of his heart straining through the thin linen on his shirt. 'I love you so much Ma Petite Ange. Please don't ever forget that.' And she had smiled into his chest; reaching up a hand to caress his cheek as she had silently drunk up the snow soaked warmth radiating from every pore of lightly freckled skin; wishing that this moment of perfect, candlelit bliss could last forever. Wishing that she could remain here; safe and whole; protected by the soft securities of his embrace, that he would never leave her and that they would remain united with Bossuet and the rest of the wonderfully dysfunctional family that was Les Amis de l'ABC in this wonderfully chaotic family of friendship that somehow, they had managed to create.
She could almost laugh at the irony of her innocence as she finds herself on her feet with no recollection of having truly moved. What a fool she was! What a pretty little fool to really believe that the blissful idyll she had created could actually become a reality! She would laugh; if she could find the strength to; laugh away the clawing, nagging feelings of guilt and grief that continue to claw at her, threaten to drag her under; despite her futile efforts to stay afloat. Her hands scrabble for the cold security of the door knob once more and she forces her weight against it; one hand still clenched tightly around the locket as she hears the hinges groan in audible protest as they finally creak open onto the soft, hushed light of early morning. For a moment that feels like a lifetime, but in reality is simply the length of one ragged, tearstained breath she stands there on the fiacre steps; her body frozen in time as she gazes at the wrought iron gates that bar her path; at the chipped, wooden door beyond where the cat now lies alone; luxuriously basking in its' own silent accomplishment of having got rid of the boys' idle prattle; at the discarded wheelbarrow, at the open window which she hadn't noticed in the stuffy confines of the fiacre where now she can hear the faint, floating melody of an unknown song filtering through the cool, morning air.
The weight of the locket feels oddly alien in her palm; the icy, metallic symmetry pressing painfully into her skin as she rises it to her lips and allows herself to brush a sweeping, whispered kiss across the insignia; hoping against hope that she is doing the right thing. That she will be able; finally; to find the blissful sense of closure that her weeping, shattered heart so desperately desires and that has been impossible to find.
Closing her eyes for a fraction of a second, she rummages in her purse for a fiacre fare; relishing in the cold, comforting roundness of the few English pennies that rise to her trembling fingertips and tries to steady herself; hoping that she will be able to pacify the inner turmoil; those silently raging monsters of guilt and grief that still continue to claw at her fragile psyche and that she will be able to find the answers that now, four months on; she so desperately craves.
A/N: Please feel free to read and review! Comments, questions, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain! Much love and enjoy x
Note on text
'Joie est mon caractère… C'est la faute à Voltaire… Misère est mon trousseau … C'est la faute à Rousseau….' = 'I have a cheerful character... It's Voltaire's faut... Misery is my bridal gown... It's Rousseau's fault'