A/N Phew! This is a whopper of a chapter – just over 5,000 words! It is also possibly the most dramatic chapter yet and I have been waiting to write the plot points contained within for over two years.

Basically, I hope you enjoy, and I am so sorry for any pain caused. Shrieking in reviews in much appreciated.

Trigger warnings for blood, strong threat, and death. You've been warned.


Chapter Forty-three

The pain curled hell-hot claws into her body, muscles and nerves burning. She could barely hear above the roar of the blood in her ears and her own panting breath, the only sounds she seemed capable of making whimpers, but when The Patron yanked her to her feet by the roots of her hair she couldn't restrain another sobbing cry.

His hand clamping around her throat to cut off the cry was almost expected. The hard slam of her body against the mirror was not and her aching ribs shrieked in protest. She twisted helplessly as her body began to feel its lack of air, feeling the broken shards of mirror move and slide out of place, one falling to smash into smaller pieces by her feet. She only prayed she wouldn't get stabbed by one – the irony would be too cruel.

The Patron was saying something, snarling an inch from her face, but her vision was darkening around the edges and all she could do was scrabble for air, pulling helplessly at the hand pinning her to the broken mirror like an insect on a board.

He seemed to notice the lack of effect his words were having for suddenly sweet, blissful air was rushing down her abused throat, her body dropping, boneless, to floor. The broken shards of the mirror fell with her, littering the floor and reflecting the scene above in bizarre, warped shapes. Her oxygen-starved body curled forwards, gasping in an attempt to force more air down her heavily swollen throat; he stood above her, a hard sneer on his face as he watched.

"I don't know why I ever thought you worth my time." He shook his head almost sorrowfully as he crouched down to her level, his eyes as cold as a serpents'. "You're never going to stop this, are you?" he mused. "This fighting? As long as you think your little friends are still living, you will still find it in you to keep fighting." He shook his head. "It's almost admirable. But…I can't allow it."

He twisted the front of her dress in his hand, yanking her closer to breathe his words across her battered face. "I just want you to know that I'm going to kill you now. By tonight, you'll just be another broken corpse in the wake of a failed revolution, finally alongside the friends you are so desperate to return to."

An instinctive prayer rushed through her mind she struggled weakly. Not like this, Heavenly Father…please not like this.

"And it will fail," he assured her, "because without leaders, men falter. The assassin I told you about? Let us say that you are already familiar with his work – I'm sure your father would be generous to admit that he is thorough…if he wasn't, well, dead."

Yes, Aimee was familiar with the man's 'work'. She didn't know his name for sure, Clas…something, but his face she would never forget. And now he had been sent after Enjolras…

"His orders were laid out from the beginning," The Patron continued, grinding the salt into the gaping wound of her heart. "If the tide seems likely to turn in the rebels favour then he was to kill the leaders and anyone else who got in his way. It doesn't matter whether you come with me or not, it never did. Your friends are going to die, and there is no way for you to stop it." His other hand reached for her throat. "We've been here before, haven't we? But this time," his grip tightened fractionally, "there is no reprieve and there is no deliverance."

Her throat already closing again, fear exhausted, she was surprised at the sense of peace that wrapped around her like a warm blanket. It was over, and she was reconciled with her fate. Her only regret was that she never got to see Enjolras again; never got to tell him just how blessed she had been to know him and what an honour it had been to love him.

The pressure began to increase, his pupils dilating in twisted pleasure as her windpipe edged closed.

'Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.' The prayer escaped her lips soundlessly. 'Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in Earth as it is in Heaven…'

'This is not My Will," murmured a soft voice inside of her heart. 'Not here, not now. Fight, Aimee! Fight now!'

'I can't' she replied, her body beginning to feel disconnected and distant.

'You can!' the voice bellowed, filled with power she could not fathom. 'For you can do all things through Me! Now fight!'

Determination filled her as she lifted a hand to wrap it around her enemy's straining wrist. Battling her eyelids open over bloodshot eyes she forced out two words through lips that were turning blue, the syllables exhaling on a wheeze.

The pressure eased a minute amount. "What… what did you just say?" he asked, uncertainty creasing between his eyebrows.

"I…said…," she rasped. "I said, 'You…lose.'"

With one blow she drove the shard of mirror through his throat, blood jettisoning as she sliced through skin and muscle, vein and artery. His hand fell away, eyes flying wide in shock and terror, instinctively jerking a hand up to stem the geyser of crimson spurting from the jagged tear just above his cravat.

Gritting her teeth she drove the shard even deeper, ignoring the pain as the glass cut into the skin of her palm, not stopping until she heard the ragged gurgle that indicated she had hit his windpipe. Then, with a final twist, she pulled the make-shift blade free, allowing the body to fall back. The Patron, a monster masquerading as a man, the thing that had haunted her dreams for months and tried to take everything and everyone she loved from her, gave one final, convulsive jerk, blood melting into the weave of the priceless rug he sprawled on, and finally went still, eyes clouding as death took him.

Unable to find the strength to feel any horror at what she had done or even throw the bloody shard away from her, Aimee felt the last of the miraculous strength leave her. Slowly, exhaustedly, she toppled sideways, not even the cold touch of the glass under her cheek rousing her from the soft dark that consumed her.


It should have felt like coming home, Enjolras thought, walking into the Musain. It was within these walls that he had first got drunk, had planned for a future when it still carried the golden sheen of innocence, and within whose sight he had the rescued the only woman he had ever loved.

But it didn't and he didn't know quite how to feel about that.

The owner, Madame Houchloupe, was gone, sent away with all of the other female staff before the fighting started. All of the furniture was gone, even the old piano from upstairs. From the scattered splinters and the few yellowed keys he had stepped on as he crossed the threshold it had been thrown from the upstairs window; yet another of his memories appropriated and broken. Despite his best attempts to repress it a melody brushed across the edge of his subconscious, some song that Aimee used to often play. Not that it mattered anymore.

The first of his friends he saw was Joly, attending to a man he recognised vaguely from one of their more recent meetings. As soon as he saw Enjolras the young doctor murmured a few words to his patient and left him with a piece of clean gauze pressed against the cut running down his cheek.

"You're bleeding," he said by way of greeting, his normally vibrant hazel eyes sombre.

"I'm sure it's nothing," Enjolras replied, trying to not see the flinch his dead tone evoked. "I'm certain there are others for you to be attending to with far more urgent needs than I."

"Not anything serious yet, thank the Father," Joly said fervently, ignoring Enjolras' protests and wiping at his face with an alcohol-soaked cloth as he pushed to sit on a half-empty powder keg.

The sharp sting made him hiss in pain and the large rusty stain on the material reminded him that he had been caught up in the midst of a major explosion. The suspicion of the explosions origins, coloured by Rene's recent brutality, rose again but he quashed it firmly. The how and why and when no longer mattered. What was done was done; there was no way for him to change anything now. Even as his friend murmured quiet, meaningless words in his ear Enjolras finally understood what Le Faucon had been telling him about where his path led, where his story ended - at the edge of a blade or at the barrel of a gun.

A cold acceptance calcified within him and he pushed Joly away gently. Something in his eyes must have shown his inner thoughts, however briefly, if the pain on the young doctor's face was any indication.

"Thank you, Christophe," he said softly, slipping onto a first name basis in an attempt to leave at least one of his friends with a good impression of him this day. In the background he could hear the lull of battle that had allowed Le Faucon and himself to slip into the barricades begin to rise again. "Be ready for what is to come." He rose to his feet, wincing at a new pain in his hip. It seemed he had not escaped quite as unscathed as he had first thought.

Courfeyrac strode through the doors at that point, down to his shirt sleeves and with powder burns on his cheek. With his dark eyes and militaristic movements – sweeping a pile of cartridges into his pouch, rinsing the barrel of his musket clean of caked powder, checking the state of his flint for wear and tear – he was nearly unrecognisable as the man Enjolras had lived and laughed beside for the last five or more years. He looked up and caught sight of Enjolras, but besides a slight tightening of his posture he gave no reaction, instead turning to Joly.

"Bossuet managed to get a splinter the size of his thumb in his leg from a ricochet. He'll be in here in a minute; Jehan is just helping him down." Without another word he snatched up a pistol and left as a shout went up outside.

"Enjolras!" Le Faucon spoke through the shattered remains of the lower window. "We need you out here, now. There's another assault."

His stomach lurched. It was time.

"Goodbye, Joly," he murmured, picking up his musket and stepping out of the safety of the Musain. Thunder grumbled furiously overhead and he wondered distractedly if it might rain. This fight would be hard enough without trying to fight in a storm.

Le Faucon appeared at his elbow, armed to teeth and appearing even fiercer than normal. He glanced upwards, cursing under his breath. "If that storm breaks we're all screwed to hell," he growled. "Wet powder won't go off in the pan and then you'll get people panicking over misfires."

"Well, we'd better drive them back before it breaks then, hadn't we?" Enjolras replied blandly, stepping up onto the barricade, moving around people crouched at various sniping holes hacked in the structure. A few shots were being traded back and forth and he tried not to flinch with each report as he found a clear platform near the very top of the barricade. Incidentally, he found himself sheltering behind the partial remains of the piano, a few strands of the wire curling out towards him that he pulled free to lie at his feet.

Just as he knelt, his movements of loading the musket made clumsy in the unfamiliar position, it seemed that the opposition were done with their sporadic shots. A bellowed order to fire went up and a volley rolled along the ranks, the bullets peppering the rebels' barricade.

The shots thudded into the solid wood of the barricade, one ricocheting up off a chunk of paving stone with an eerie ringing sound. Somewhere down to his right a man gave a choked gasp and Enjolras turned in time to see him fall backwards, blood blooming across his shirt.

"Fire at will!" Le Faucon roared. "Aim for the officers; pick off those in the front! Let's drive the bastards back." To punctuate his words he took aim over the top of a table, padded by a mattress that was spewing horsehair from a large tear across its middle, and let off a carefully measured shot. At the other end of the street a soldier reloading his musket dropped without a sound, his body falling sideways onto his companions.

A small cheer went up from some of the rebels that rubbed on Enjolras' already fraught nerves. Yet the gunfire from their side began to increase, men working in pairs – one loading, one firing – working together in the fight.

So be it then. If this was how it had to be, he would not turn back now; nothing awaited him but this.

He raised the musket, checking the priming power was in the pan before pulling back the dog-head, the oiled mechanism sliding back with barely a sound. He sighted carefully down the length of the gleaming barrel; mind crowded with memories of another time and another place when he roamed his father's estate with the gamekeeper, learning how to shoot deer and rabbits with skill and efficiency. He gently banished them, rinsing it away and allowing only his target to come into sight – a large man with a hard face who loaded his musket with an proficiency that marked him out as a threat. Enjolras didn't let himself think that the man may have a wife and children, or a sick mother waiting for him at home. He listened only to his breathing and the eerily calm beat of his blood in his ears. The path was clear; it was time he followed it.

The musket kicked back into his shoulder, the man spun away in a spray of blood, and over Paris the storm finally broke.


Grantaire landed one last hard punch onto the thug's temple, his knuckles bruised and swollen; at least one finger was broken, or in the least fractured.

With a groan he stumbled to his feet, staggering to the ornate fountain in the middle of the garden and turning the water pink as he scrubbed his hands and face clear of blood, drinking deeply from the tainted water with little care for its contents. Dying of cholera was an abstract notion at the moment; dying of dehydration was a very possible reality.

It was a fast stop though, his thoughts drawn to the upstairs window that had gone terrifyingly quiet in the minutes he had tussled with the beast of a man laid unconscious in the rose bed. As he ran past he gave the man a precautionary kick to the head with his heel, not really caring if the brute lived or died – Aimee was all that mattered right now.

He snatched up the switchblade he had knocked from his attacker's hand at some point and pushed his exhausted body into a run, rushing through the dark maze of the house as silently as possible, although strangely it seemed to be entirely empty. Of this he was massively thankful; he didn't think he would be able to take on another piece of hired muscled right now.

It was logical that the staircase led him upwards but finding the right door was more difficult. However, the locked door at the end of the hall was a helpful giveaway, even if it created another major problem for him. Rage suffused him and he pounded on the unyielding wood in a fury.

"Aimee!" he yelled, caution thrown to the wind in his desperation. "Aimee are you in there…goddamn it!" The expletive was punctuated by a vicious kick of the door.

"I'd ask what you're doing here," came an oily voice from across the hall, "but your bellowing makes it more than obvious."

Grantaire whirled, switchblade in hand, only to find one already pressed to his throat. He eyed the sleek young man before him, an odd feeling of recognition appealing to his scrambled senses. "Montparnasse?"

"It's been a while since we last ran into each other, eh, Grantaire." The assassin seemed entirely nonplussed by the whole situation and if not for the knife at his throat Grantaire wouldn't have minded bruising his knuckles some more on the dandy's face.

"I don't think me beating you half to death to warn you away from Eponine counts as 'running into each other'," he growled. "Now can you open this door or not?"

"You do realise I work for the man inside that room?" Montparnasse asked, the blade never moving. "So give me one reason why I should help you now?"

"Because that room is too quiet for your owner," Grantaire took relish in the angry flinch that Montparnasse gave at the word, "to be doing anything in there that doesn't involve an inevitable introduction with the family crypt and you know it."

Montparnasse cocked his head, as if listening for signs of life from inside, and then dropped the knife. "I never liked the son of bitch," he announced mildly, a lock-pick set appearing in his hand as he knelt.

Before the final tumbler had settled into place Grantaire was bursting into the room, lurching to a halt at the sight that met him. With difficulty and a hard swallow he pulled his eyes away from the pale, mangled body on the rug, the room charged with more than just ozone from the oncoming storm as he saw who lay in the shattered remains of a large mirror.

"Aimee!" he barked, tugging her carefully free of the carnage and propping her against the wall. "Pass me the water pitcher," he snapped to Montparnasse, trying to assess the damage done to her face through the crusted and congealed blood. Upon seeing the ring of already darkening bruises around her throat he winced, knowing the pain that came from a bruised and swollen windpipe.

"Get it yourself," Montparnasse replied, stepping neatly across the cooling corpse of his former employer and beginning to look through a large leather file of papers that lay on the beurea.

Scowling fiercely Grantaire darted up as quickly as his bruised body would allow, retrieving a cloth and a bowl of water turned cool in the enamel laver in which it stood. Aimee stirred faintly as he washed away some of the blood sticking to her face, her movements increasing as he oh so gently explored the damage done to her nose.

"Can't have a pretty face like yours ruined by having a nose like a boxer," he murmured, wincing in portending empathy before wrenching the bone and cartilage back into alignment, bringing the cloth up to quickly catch the fresh flood of blood.

As expected the pain banished the last of Aimee's unconsciousness and she awoke with a gasp, though of pain or residual fear he wasn't sure. What he didn't expect was the hand swinging towards him, the hand that was still clutching the shard of bloody glass.

The sudden movement caught Montparnasse's attention from across the room and he watched, almost bemused, as Grantaire caught the wild blow an inch from his face.

"Aimee, it's me, it's Grantaire," he said, grunting as the awkward angle put strain on a previously unnoticed ache in his wrist. "He's dead…you're safe now. You're safe."

Wide green eyes stared blankly back at him and he worried that the strain had been too much for her, that he was too late; that her mind and spirit had completely broken. This was not helped by the softly whispered, "Enjolras", that fell from her lips a moment later. He really hoped Enjolras had sorted his screwed up head out by the time these two found each other again or the truth would break her heart.

"No, Aimee," he reiterated, slowly easing the make-shift blade from her hand, wincing at the jagged slices across her palm from the tight grip, "it's Grantaire." He forced out a cocky grin. "I told you I wouldn't leave you to this."

He saw the moment it made sense to her, her eyes filling with tears as she finally allowed herself to crumple under the burden she had been carrying alone all this time. It was only natural that he should fold her into the closest embrace he could while not aggravating either of their injuries, his arms seeming to be the only thing holding her together as she shattered – he could almost physically feel the waves of grief and pain and anger roll off her. Therefore, it was no surprise to feel his own cheeks dampen a little - considering the circumstances he was not ashamed to admit it either.

"As touching as this scene is," Montparnasse broke in, "now might not be the time. The fight is coming to us, fast, and I don't intend to hang around for this one, even if I am known for my love of a good scrap."

As emotionally washed-out as she was Grantaire still felt Aimee tense at the sound of the dandy's voice and he rubbed a hand soothingly, gently, up and down her back and across her shoulders. "You know where the door is," he said gruffly. "Have a nice life."

"Oh, I intend to," Montparnasse smiled. He hefted the file of papers. "This should be enough evidence to assume my employer's identity; at least long enough for me to drain his funds and get out of this damned country. I hear America is lovely this time of year." He sauntered towards the door, giving an appreciative assessment of The Patron's gaping throat as he went. "Tell Eponine that Alzema and I said hello." The flippant demeanour slipped for a breath. "Tell her I'll look after her sister…and that it's a promise." The wolf-like grin was startling but sat comfortably on his lean face. "And tell her at least we'll always have Paris." He gave a small chuckle at his own wit and then was gone.

"He's left," Grantaire assured her, finally moving her out of her hiding place in the crook of his shoulder. Setting her back against the wall he gave an apologetic smile as he set to work on cleaning up her face. Upon seeing how much gore covered her dress and arms he concluded, with a twisted relief, that most of the blood was not, in fact, hers.

She weakly pushed his hands away. "Enjolras," she said again, the word mangled by her swollen throat. "We…need to get…to Enjolras."

"We're not going anywhere until you don't look like you've just rolled out of an abattoir and you're not going pass out again." The water was slowly getting darker and darker.

"Have…to," she croaked, this time trying to get up. "Going to…kill him."

"You don't know what he's done yet," he muttered, quiet enough that she wouldn't hear him, but helped her to her feet and over to the bed where she reluctantly sat again. "Who's going to kill him?" he asked, tilting her head gently upwards to wash away the smattering of blood on her neck and examine the rapidly forming discolouration there.

She only shook her head in frustration. "He said he sent…sent an assassin into…the rebels. Said he had been told…to kill the leaders if they looked to be…winning."

"But you don't know who it is?" he guessed, wiping away the last trickle of blood from her nose, knowing the pain would just be a general numb ache at the moment, the blood vessels so swollen no more bleeding could happen – this knowledge gleaned from a despairing Combeferre as he patched up Grantaire from another brawl.

She blinked heavily, as if all of the injuries in her body had just reminded her of its presence all at once, eyes tightening in pain. "Only by sight," she murmured. "He killed my Papa."

"I thought he," here he jerked a thumb back towards the corpse on the rug, "killed your father?"

She smiled wearily but it held no positive emotion. "Do you think a man like that does…did…his own dirty work?" she asked, anything other words cut off by an ominous rumble of thunder that made them both start.

Getting to his feet, Grantaire noticed that the room, and the day, had darkened considerably. "We need to leave," he said, rather obviously he realised, but there were more pressing matters to consider.

There was no way Aimee would be able to move at any speed in her current clothing. Not only would the blood draw unwanted attention but the garment was heavy and looked uncomfortable. Hoping to find some clothing that might fit Aimee he moved towards one of the wardrobes on the opposite wall. He found a pair of what were probably meant to be skin-tight breeches that might be suitable and a shirt and jacket to go with it and brought them over.

The undressing was done as quickly and practically as possible, and by keeping her corset in place and tying a belt securely around her waist they managed to make it work. Several pairs of thick woollen socks that were far softer than anything Grantaire had ever worn, and a pair of knee boots completed her make-shift ensemble.

"We need to hurry," Aimee said, her voice hoarse but understandable, and even though he wanted to, Grantaire couldn't argue with the determination in her face.

"Follow me," he prompted, only pausing a moment to see that she wasn't too unsteady on her feet before leading them out of the room.

Neither spared a glance or a thought for the body.

As they stepped out of the door the thunder growled again, much louder this time. But it was a closer noise that worried Grantaire more. Loud cries and the sound of breaking glass spread from down the street. The revolution was spinning out of control.

"Come on," he urged, pushing Aimee in front of him. "We don't want to be caught in the middle of this."

Initially, the gunshot was just one sound amongst many. It was only when the hot burn lanced through his leg that he realised that this one had come from much closer. Foolishly twisting to see where the shot had come from Grantaire felt his leg buckle, the limb folding like rotten wood.

"Grantaire!" Aimee yelped, dropping beside him. The action ironically saved her life as a second wild shot carried over their heads.

The shooter stepped out from his cover of The Patron's gateway. From the way Aimee froze Grantaire assumed this was another hired thug that he had somehow avoided first time around.

With both of his pistols emptied he dropped them to the ground, a cut-throat razor appearing in his hand.

"Not that easy, little bitch," he growled to Aimee.

He took another step and then stopped abruptly as a puff of blood rose from his chest. Eyes glazing, jaw going slack he crashed to the ground a second later, dead.

Holding a hand over the blood pumping from the bullet hole in his leg Grantaire looked around the find their saviour crossing the road towards them and he had never been so happy to see someone.

Apparently, neither had Aimee. Injuries be damned she leapt to her feet with a cry of 'Bahorel!' and clung to him much as she had to him. The look Bahorel shared with him over Aimee's shoulder was one of confusion, relief, and maybe the faintest gleam of tears.

"Let's get you off the street," Bahorel said thickly, reluctantly pushing Aimee away and hauling Grantaire to his feet. "And will someone please give me the short version of what the hell is going on here? Because when I shoot someone I usually like to know why."

As they hobbled away from the street and towards safer areas, between Grantaire panting in pain and Aimee speaking through her swollen throat Bahorel received his explanation.

"We need to get to Enjolras," he said decisively, a dark cloud passing over his face reminiscent of the sky above them as the storm draped itself closer over Paris. Checking the state of the alley they were currently passing through he found a suitable arrangement and helped Grantaire down into a passably clean doorway where he bent to briefly to examine the wound. He frowned when he found no exit wound, knowing the ball was still inside. If he noticed the amount of blood oozing from the wound he didn't say anything, not as if it would have helped anything if he had. "You're going to have to stay here," he said, standing once more. "There's no way you can walk on that leg, let alone run."

Ignoring the blood soaking his dark breeches darker Grantaire gave a falsely bright smile. "I'll be fine here," he promised. "I'll get a tourniquet around this and hang out until you can send someone for me. If I'm being honest, I'd prefer Combeferre over Joly simply for the lack of fussing, but I'm not picky."

"Have this," Aimee offered, handing him a pearl handled pistol he didn't know she had picked up. "There's only one shot, but you have the knife." She knelt and pressed an unexpected kiss to his forehead, the action fierce and protective and thankful all at once. "This is thank you," she said sternly, rising to her feet stiffly, "not goodbye. You understand?"

He nodded, giving her another smile because he didn't trust his voice. While she dashed a hand across her eyes, wincing as the action brushed against her still swollen nose, he gave Bahorel a look and saw the understanding there.

"See you soon," Bahorel said gruffly, walking away without another word, pulling Aimee protectively behind him. With a quick glance both way down the street they moved away, leaving Grantaire alone in body but not in spirit.

With one hand he clumsily used his belt to tie off a tourniquet but it was with a sad smile. Blood still pumped hot and unrelenting over his fingers and he rested his head back against the door gently, ignoring the rough scrape of the pistol bullet as it moved against his thigh bone. "At least it was for something," he murmured to himself, a smile just curling the edge of his mouth as the thunder gave one last bellow and the rain began to fall.


A/N I am so sorry. Until next time?

Libz xxx