A/N Here is the next update and there are only two more for this arc. We've done some major rethinking of what is coming up next so first the semi-bad news: We've compacted the next five arcs to two. Good news – it will be a lot tighter and work a lot better than it did before and the plot holes have been worked out. Also we like to think that we're discovering new and awesome things about all the characters which will provide them with greater scope to grow. After this arc is finished there will be a brief Hiatus while we write up the script for the next arc. Please be patient! We hope to have a few oneshots updating in that time.

Everything hung thick with quiet, ever so much quiet in the room after Enjolras had left it, until Alexandre jumped back up onto the stage and took his seat back next to Perceval, saying, "He'll be furious if he ever realizes what he's been doing."

"And perhaps therein lies a very good reason why he should never learn," Perceval sighed, and leaned onto Alex. Daniel – oh Daniel –nodded along.

As for Maurice, he was trying to help Combeferre – doing his very damn best really I swear I am but oh god this is hard – to realign Bahorel's bones. Simple fracture of the ulna, comminuted fracture of the radius, and the latter was what was taking so long."He'll probably need surgery to get the pieces all together again," Combeferre said in a low voice, seeing how slow their progress was. "If not an amputation entirely." Courfeyrac turned absolutely green; Dominic – Bahorel – Rhodomant –whimpered manfully; Combeferre shook his head and drew his lips together grimly."It's getting difficult to tell now, as much as the arm's swollen. If only someone could have seen to it sooner...move it a little – that way, my friend."

Dominic's arm made a sickening click, at which he moaned and Lucien almost passed out on Jehan's shoulder. Perceval gave Alexandre one of the looks they'd developed, which in this case seemed to mean'Courfeyrac really needs a distraction, doesn't he?' because Alex returned the look and came over to where they were. "Lucien...it's getting into the morning, and Dominic'll be all right with Combeferre and Maurice," he said with a surprising amount of diplomacy. "Would you mind going down to the Sûreté for us? Just say you're from the P'tite-Salpetriere and could they please do something about their Duval, because he's causing an awful racket."

Courfeyrac pumped Feuilly's hand gratefully. "I can do that. Sure! I can do that. I'll put up the worst fuss they've ever seen. How dare their idiot agent interrupt us keepers' bridge game with that horrid noise, eh? Vidocq won't be able to say no if he wants to. Do take care of Dom, won't you? Of course you will. You'd damn well better. I'll see you fellows later."

Prouvaire tried to tell him goodbye as he bolted for the door, but yawned very loudly instead and looked very embarrassed. "Jehan,"Perceval said kindly, "shouldn't you be going home soon?"

"I suppose," Jehan muttered sheepishly. "I want to help, though!"

"Right now the most helpful thing you can do is to go get some sleep," Alexandre said firmly. "We've got it under control here, and you need to rest."

Prouvaire's attempt to argue was nipped in the bud by another prodigious yawn and he admitted that perhaps he was a little tired.

"Go sleep," Combeferre said, patting him on the shoulder."You'll feel better for it."

"All right, all – a-a-a-a – all right," he said with an enormous yawn, and blushed. "Sorry! Good night, everyone – or rather good morning."Maurice bid him good morning and looked down to see that Dominic had finally passed out from pain and exhaustion. Eugene slumped a little in relief as he saw it too.

"All right, Maurice," he said tiredly. "Almost there, I think, at least with what we can do for now."

Maurice shuddered and nodded. It was making him sick, absolutely oh so sick, to think that this damage had been done by a human being, who had once been an innocent and vulnerable child, with the capacity for good – done by a human being, for no good or necessary reason. It made him sicker to think that Dominic's injury had been intended for Perceval –or really for him. Harlequin. Those consequences weren't yours to suffer, Bahorel, but you suffered them.

"Is he all right?" Perceval asked, raising his voice from where he was now lying on the stage.

"He'll live," Eugene said, helping Maurice stabilize the arm with a splint.

"That's good," Alex murmured. "Good...good, good," Perceval said as he struggled to sit up.

Alexandre took him by the arm immediately. "You're laying down, Perceval."

Perceval pulled off his mask. "I'm sitting up, Alex."

"You're not sitting up until Combeferre and Maurice get a look at you. You're probably concussed. Lay back down."

"I'm fine. I'm –just bruised."

Daniel's smiling voice came drifting over. "You two sound like Combeferre and Enjolras." The comparison made Maurice smile, and Combeferre made an amused noise through his nose.

"Heresy, Daniel," Perceval said, then groaned from the effort of trying to hold himself up.

Alexandre rolled his eyes and pushed him down gently. "Whatever makes Perceval act sensibly."

"But I need to check on...on something," Perceval protested.

"After you get yourself looked at."

Combeferre shook his head. "I'll do it now. Maurice, my friend, would you care to finish this dressing?"

"Of course." Maurice took over binding Dominic's arm as Eugene wiped off his hands and went to tend to a protesting Perceval. Oh, Perceval. You're always getting into these things, and only barely getting out of them...

When Maurice had done wrapping and prodding and anxiously stacking blankets under the shattered limb, he looked up and, for the first time since coming in, saw Daniel. The dear man had settled himself down in a dangerous-looking alcove with a dim lamp and several raggedy coats, probably properly property of Pantalon – oh god, with such alliteration, he really had had too much coffee, hadn't he? Joly's temples were starting to throb, and so he decided that yes in all likelihood he had. He could feel the caffeine contracting his blood vessels and dehydrating him and likely putting him at risk for apoplexy. He needed to rest. There was nothing left for him to do. He could rest, couldn't he? Daniel. Yes. There was Daniel.

Daniel, perfect friend, wrapped Maurice in one of the coats at once and situated him firmly under his wing. Er – arm. "You're overworking yourself again, cher," he said, totally failing to maintain an image of disapproval.

"For a good cause," Maurice said, and laid down his head with a nervous sigh. "Daniel...it's a – a terrible thing to say, but – I'm glad that wasn't me."

"It's not terrible." Daniel hugged him tightly. "If that had been you..." He went very grim. "Maurice, I'll owe Dominic all my life."

"So will I." Maurice shuddered at the thought of that beast of a man coming for him – snapping him like a twig. He saw the entire scene again right in front of his overstrained eyes, Duval asking for Scaramouche and Harlequin and – and he had really meant to come forward. He had. But Daniel had started first, all ready to sacrifice himself – and he had tried to hold him back and go forward instead – oh god, if it had been Daniel!

Duval would be dead now, if it had been. Maurice didn't know how, exactly – his homicidal capabilities were truthfully somewhat limited – but he would be. And it struck him that, quite likely, he would be dead thanks to Daniel if it had been Maurice. No doubt Luc was going to take particular relish in turning Duval in to his superiors, now, since it had been Dominic. Combeferre corrected Enjolras –Enjolras, for his part, directed Prouvaire – Alexandre and Perceval never stopped fussing at each other...

It had been horrible, sometimes, in the last few months, not to be friends with everyone like they'd always been. It never got that bad before and Maurice hoped it'd never get that bad again. But somehow, with Scaramouche's help, they'd all pulled together now. All looking out for each other again. Yes - that's how things work around here, he thought. Looking out for each other...that's how we have the strength to get beyond the part of life that's just showing up. We need each other...and we're all so damned lucky to be alive now.

He was dimly aware of being very dizzy and faint, of shivering all over – maybe he was going into shock. Quite possibly that was it – and of very hot tears seeping onto his cheeks. Daniel murmuring something about terrible stress. Some of Perceval's blood that had smeared onto his fingers. We're lucky to all be alive. Too much coffee. The wayward pieces of Dominic's splintered radius. Masks, and pistols, and fencing-foils. The man he was – the man he wasn't– Enjolras – secrets – friendship – they ran through his head without mercy, and he was too tired, too unsettled to make himself be rational. Gradually, however, he gave into Daniel's own weary attempts to calm him, and drifted into sleep. Maurice really was overwrought, and spent the next several hours battling a nightmare in which his own ghost haunted the theater while Dominic and Daniel and Perceval were condemned to eternal torture in the P'tite-Saltpetriere for the crime of having worn masks before the King, who had Enjolras' face, and all the rest of his friends were still in prison because Scaramouche and his League had failed to break them out. It shook him almost as badly as setting Dominic's arm had, so it was a mercy that, when he awoke later that evening in his own bed, he remembered none of it.