A/N Exams are over and I am now, officially, free. Thank you, thank you, thank you to those wonderful people who have stayed with me over my many hiatuses and infrequent updates. To the sudden influx of new followers and reviewers, hello and welcome!

I'm sorry I haven't been replying to your reviews but things have been a little stressed. And to my guests, especially kw68, thank you all for taking the time to review. I cannot express how inspiring and reassuring seeing those words are to me.

So, next chapter is here. I hope you enjoy it and please take the time to drop me a review. We're into the final straight and I need to know you guys are with me!

Warnings for blood and mild swearing.

I also must mention that Bernard Cornwell's 'Sharpe' book series have been invaluable as an aid in creating these battle scenes and for certain historical details of weapons. Well worth a read.


Chapter Forty-four

Enjolras had never given much thought to the concept of a heaven or a hell. His agnostic philosophy created some hope that there might be an afterlife that was better than the current world they lived in and that those who deserved judgement would receive it, but whether these were physical places or metaphysical ideas he didn't spend time contemplating.

However, he was fairly certain that if there was a hell…it wouldn't be too dissimilar to where he was right now.

The thunder that rolled across the face of the sky above them overwhelmed even the sound of gunfire, as if the forces of nature were laughing at the humans' puny attempts. The rain that finally began to pour down was a final mocking act. Cartridges fell apart in wet fingers, the powder turning to a foul grey sludge in seconds. The shooting slowed, becoming more sporadic, until finally calls went up from both sides to cease fire.

Spitting the gritty salt of gunpowder from his mouth Enjolras slumped back against the dampening wood of the barricade, shivering with more than just cold. He could hear Combeferre's voice in his head gently chiding him that he was in shock and needed to get inside out of the rain before he could add a chill to his list of hindrances. But as he scrambled down the increasingly perilous barricade he pointedly reminded himself that Combeferre was not here. Still, he did need to try and dry out his musket and a quick drink of something would be vastly appreciated. He stepped carefully past the four men they had lost in the last skirmish, the rain washing the blood from off their pale skin, and stooped to help pick up a spare keg of powder that had been left out in the rain.

It seemed nearly everyone else had made the same decision. Men milled around drinking from bottles picked up from behind the bar, some choosing to drink from the dozens of filled water canteens stacked on a table. Although he knew it wasn't wise to drink on an empty stomach Enjolras chose the former, the warming burn of whatever alcohol it was well worth the light-headedness that followed.

"Here." A hunk of bread and a slice of some cured meat were thrust at him. "You look like you're about to fall over."

He opened his mouth to say thank you but Courfeyrac had already moved on, passing out the rest of his supplies to others, indicating in no uncertain terms that his previous sentiments were still standing. To distract himself Enjolras turned his attentions to the food in his hands. It only took one bite for him to realise how ravenous he was, bolting the rest of his serving in a few mouthfuls. He chewed regretfully on the final piece, shutting off his stomach's cry for more and moving to the make-shift armoury set up in the corner.

It was there he found Rene honing his bayonet – the twenty-four inches of gleaming steel proof that at least one Baker rifle was in their weaponry - to a lethal point, regularly glancing up to peer out of the one remaining window, dark eyes hard and watchful.

"You might want to do the same," he said by way of greeting, passing over another whetstone. "I give them ten minutes to reorganise and lead an on foot assault over the barricade. Swords and bayonets only; maybe set a few snipers up in the buildings out of the rain to pin us down while they get the bulk of their force over the top."

"So what do we do?" Enjolras started the sharpening process clumsily but soon found a rhythm. "Fighting hand to hand on the barricade itself is risky – the wood is slippery and the structure could easily shift and fall with the weight being added. And we'll be trying to do this while under sniper fire."

"If revolution was easy everyone would do it," Rene countered sharply. "We can't let them get any significant number over the top or we'll be overrun. As for snipers…I just hope they can't get a decent line of fire on us."

The gunshot startled everyone but Le Faucon who gave Enjolras a significant look. "So much for that hope," he muttered, grabbing his lethal blade and barking a command, leading the men out into the rain.

But no attack appeared to be forthcoming, despite the two more shots were let off in their direction. In fact, the men were helping two figures through the side of the barricade, the occasional shot from one of the upper windows further down the street supporting Rene's fear of snipers.

Finally safe the two refugees collapsed to their knees, the larger supporting the smaller while agitatedly talking with a bedraggled figure that appeared to be Jehan. Milling around uncertainly the rebels watched as the poet started and then kneeled to fiercely embrace the smaller figure, the indecipherable murmur of his words barely reaching Enjolras' ears. Thoroughly curious now he stepped forwards, Courfeyrac doing to same thing. As he drew closer Enjolras defined the bulk of Bahorel, his hair plastered down on his scalp, nose bloodied but looking otherwise unharmed. Then the second figure lifted their head and Enjolras felt the breath freeze in his lungs. He stumbled to a halt as he analysed the dark curls, the delicate hands clutching at Jehan's coat as they helped one another to their feet.

"It can't be…" he muttered, seeing Courfeyrac step past him, pace quickening as he reached the same conclusion.

He watched the way she moved, slowly and carefully as if in pain. Even in the gloom of the rain he could see the dark swelling of her nose and the ominous bruising around her throat. His heart lurched a little at the realisation that she had been hurt so badly and his legs strained to walk to her, to wrap her up in his arms like Courfeyrac was doing, to press his nose into the crook of her shoulder and never let her go again. But then he saw the clothes she was wearing: men's clothes, luxuriant and expensive, clothes that no doubt belonged to the man he had seen her leave the theatre with and every tender thought dissipated.

This was of course the moment that she chose to catch sight of him, her whole body going motionless in shock. He made no movement as she stepped towards him, ignoring the cold, angry look that he received from Courfeyrac.

"Enjolras," she murmured, eyes seeming to drink him in, her voice a caress over the syllables of his name.

"Who sent you?" he asked harshly, choosing to ignore the confusion that appeared on her face. That woman at the theatre – Evangeline? – had been right; she really was an excellent actress.

"No one sent me," she stammered. "Enjolras, I've been locked up by the madman who sent his men after me the night we met. I've been there for the last…well I don't know how many days actually." She looked helplessly at Courfeyrac who was stood protectively behind her. "How many days has it been since closing night?"

He smiled coldly, remembering her intimately entwined with another. "Locked up, you say?" he asked. "Yes, you appeared extremely coerced when I saw you at the theatre."

More confusion and even pain; God, she was almost believable!

Despite the swelling of her broken nose her brows furrowed, just as they would when she was working out a difficult chess move or was faced with a word she didn't recognise. "You were at the theatre…?"

"Rene," he called, cutting Aimee off. "What should be done with her?"

"You don't understand!" she suddenly cried, the exclamation coming out as little more than a loud wheeze due to her swollen throat. He wondered how that had happened – some kind of disagreement with her lover perhaps? A perverse game played between the two of them that got out of hand?

"Don't understand what?" Rene asked from his elbow, appearing not to recognise the woman before him as the same one he had sent on a mission mere weeks before. "The only thing I don't understand, mademoiselle, is what you think you are doing here?"

"You have…a mole," she coughed, waving off the supportive arm Courfeyrac offered her. "An informer. He works for the man…who had me…captive. He has been…gathering intelligence for weeks to betray you all….and this mole has been…told to kill the leaders if you appear to be …succeeding."

"And you know who this mole is?" Enjolras asked, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Bahorel was being let back out through the side entrance Rene had insisted putting in as a last resort of escape.

"Only his face," she replied, gazing up at him desperately, the same way she would after a nightmare had left her shaking and terrified.

"How convenient," Rene scoffed, "that you do not know his name. Such a ploy was meant to allow you to gain full access of our position, I imagine?"

"What are you suggesting," Jehan demanded, stepping forwards to stand beside Aimee, unable to restrain himself any longer. "That Aimee is an informer? That Aimee would betray us?"

At the silence that acted as a response he stared at Enjolras in horror. "You cannot seriously be considering that Aimee, the women we nursed back to health and treated like…like family, is working against us?"

"Oh, he most certainly is," Courfeyrac hissed from Aimee's other side, not meeting her eyes when she turned to him in bewilderment. "This is not the same man who did all of that, Jehan. That man is long gone."

"Almost anyone will change allegiance for the right price," Enjolras replied, ignoring both men. It took him a moment to realise that the small choked noise that followed this statement came from Aimee.

"Tie her up in the café," Rene instructed, a lethally sharp glance from him halting the heated protests which erupted from Courfeyrac and Jehan.

Aimee herself stood silent, seeming to visibly shrink inside of her already too large clothes. The utter despair on her face raised for the first time the faintest needle prick of doubt within Enjolras. He ruthlessly silenced it – he would not make the same mistake with this woman twice.

Rene gestured one of the other revolutionaries to proceed, a solid, blank-faced man Enjolras had seen around the café for the past few weeks. Although reserved he was actively involved, interested to learn all he could and with a good heart dedicated to Cause, all of which made the effect he had on Aimee so bizarre. Her eyes doubled in size and the soft wheeze of her breath increased until it was sawing in and out of her throat like a broken-winded horse.

"That's him!" she sobbed, recoiling away from the man so quickly she fell back into the mud, continuing to scuttle backwards regardless. "He killed my Papa, he's the mole, it's him, it's him…"

No one moved but Enjolras who dropped to his knees beside her in the mud. As he grasped her shoulders her shirt was wrenched aside, revealing another bruise that looked suspiciously like the toe of a boot. Looking at the purple stain on her olive skin, skin that he had once placed reverent kisses upon, the doubt returned twofold. What had happened to her?

"You need to do as he says," he said in a low voice, tugging the sodden material back over the mark, his grip firm. "For your own good."

The panic drained from her eyes for a moment and she looked deep into his, unblinking and intense. Pinned by that stare he was uncomfortably reminded of the night of the ball, of first kisses and dancing without music. But then she looked away and the betrayal in her eyes hurt more than it should have.

"You don't believe me," she said softly, and though he was still holding onto her it felt as if, for the first time, she truly had left him.

He opened his mouth to say something more – what, he had no idea – but then there came a sharp crack and a spray of mud went up three feet to his left.

"To the barricade!" Rene roared, pushing and pulling men out of the tight huddle that had formed, unintentionally, in the line of sight of the predicted sharp-shooters. "Knives and bayonets, pistols if you can keep them dry! They're coming over the top! Enjolras, get your head out of your arse and get ready for some real fighting! And someone get this bloody woman out of my way! GO!"

More shots hit the mud around them and he looked up in time to see the first soldier reach the top of the barricade. A moment later a blade jammed into his stomach wielded by Rene who twisted it loose with a snarl, but as the Guardsman fell back another immediately rose to take his place. The rain still pounded down and he blinked it out of his eyes, frustrated. They couldn't stay here.

"Aimee," he said, shaking her a little. "I can't trust you right now, for whatever reason, and you can't be out here. Either you go willingly or someone drags you. It's that simple."


It felt like some awful nightmare, worse by far than any she had ever experienced. She had staggered through streets in the driving rain behind Bahorel, twisting and turning away from pockets of fighting, stumbling over broken furniture and equally broken bodies that ranged from beribboned urchins armed with rusted knives to official soldiers in full uniform armed to the teeth with muskets and bayonets, cartridges spilled out across the ground and being churned into the mud. They had sprinted the last stretch to the barricade, pursued by shots and bays for blood. For a minute she allowed herself to feel safe as Jehan clutched her to him, his slight frame shaking with emotion as he saw the state she was in. Courfeyrac had held her fiercely and the burn from her bruises was well worth the feeling as she dug her fingers into his coat, the familiar feel of her dear friend's arms removing the crushing weight from her shoulders, however briefly.

Then she had seen Enjolras and it was as if a dislocated joint had been slid back into place – painful but feeling so, so right when that pain eased. His face held nothing but shock and she could only imagine the terror he must have been feeling upon finding that she had disappeared. She didn't know whether to be proud or worried that his fear had pushed him to the barricades – she remembered how dangerous he could become when he despaired, all of his fire turning cold, his love hardened to nothing but fuel to feed his determination. But he was alive and standing before her and she knew the minute she touched him it would feel like all of this had been worth it because he loved her and nothing could change that fact.

Except, his love wasn't a fact anymore and her corner stone had been torn out from beneath her. His coldness was baffling and his distrust in her hurt worse than any wound inflicted by The Patron.

As he gave his ultimatum, crouched beside her in the mud, so close and yet so far, she could only wonder what had gone wrong. Even as he pulled her to her feet, racing across the open ground to the open door of the Musain, she tried to make sense of it all and it was with weary acceptance, as he pushed her inside before grabbing his bayonet and racing back out again, that she realised she couldn't. What was even worse was that she didn't care. She had nothing left to give. She was done.

Joly guided her to a corner tucked safely behind the bar and though his lips were moving she heard nothing. She didn't see the worried look the young medic gave an injured Bossuet. No reaction came from her except a slight wince or two as Joly checked her wounds. Absently she wondered if Grantaire had known that this was how Enjolras had become. If he had she almost wished he had left her there because it would have been better to die still believing in that love than to live in this broken reality. The joint was no longer just dislocated; the limb had been ripped off completely and she was slowly bleeding to death. No one could see it…and the one person who might didn't even care.

Why, Heavenly Father? she asked silently, her open eyes not seeing the wounded that were carried quickly through the doorway. Why would you save me only to give me this?

But no answer came, not this time, no voice in her soul telling her what to do. She looked at the growing number of men laying on the floor of the café, their pained cries still silent to her, saw Joly rushing from one comrade to the next, trying to stem the never ending river of crimson that seemed to twist smoke-like from one person to the next and she realised that this was what hopelessness truly felt like.

So when the man who had murdered her father, who had once tried to kill her in a dark alley only a few feet from where she now sat, and who was pledged to kill all of those she held dear in this world, crouched down in front of her, she did nothing. Fighting was no longer an option when there was nothing left to fight for.

"Hello, sweetheart," he whispered. "How's about you and me have a bit of a talk then?"


Enjolras was fighting for his life. Blood coated his sleeve up to the elbow and he could feel it running down his face, mixing with the rain to run into his mouth as he gasped to breathe. The wood was lethally slick beneath his feet but there was no time to look for safe footing when every second was spent staying alive.

He heard Le Faucon somewhere off to his left, taunting the seemingly endless wave of blue uniforms flooding up over the barricade, cresting and breaking onto the exhausted revolutionaries again and again.

A scream flew up from somewhere further along the barricade that shook him to his bones but he still kept focus, balancing with one foot on a splintered table and the other on the top of the piano to thrust his bayonet forwards in a move that would have had the fencing master of his childhood applauding.

The scrape of bone on metal as he twisted the blade free of his opponent's ribs should have turned his stomach but now he was already searching for his next threat and lining up to face it.

The minutes blurred along with his thoughts, his focus only on keeping his balance and avoiding the blades reaching for him. The odds were nearly overwhelming but somehow he kept going, reaching into reserves of strength he didn't know he possessed.

It was as he kicked an attacker over the summit of the barricade back into his fellows that he realised that he didn't want to die, not like this and he wasn't quite sure when that had changed; when he had found a reason to keep fighting.

'You know exactly what the reason is,' said a still, quiet voice deep inside him and though he wanted to dispute this, he knew it to be true. Even if it was to only understand why Aimee had done what she did.

Unable to look where he was putting his feet his leg slipped into a gap in the structure and wedged, making him cry out. A Guardsman appeared directly in front of him, as if sensing the helplessness of his prey, and lurched forward with a roar of hate. The look of shock on his face as a bullet entered his chest was almost comical. Someone had found a dry cartridge.

Twisting free he saw Jehan reloading a small pistol, his face grim to the point of blankness, all traces of the gentle poet gone. It unsettled Enjolras deeply to see him like that.

"They're falling back!" Le Faucon howled, waving his gore-covered blade in triumph, for one careless moment exposing himself to the snipers. "Keep pushing the bastards! They're running!"

Enjolras let himself participate in the breathless cheer the revolutionaries let out, checking it to be true before letting himself slip down to shelter, seating himself by the mangled piano once again. A few more pistol shots and the deeper cough of a musket carried around him and the revolutionaries took advantage of their enemies exposed backs. He breathed deeply, wiping some rain and blood from his face with his shirt. At some point it had stopped raining and he could see a glimpse of blue afternoon sky above him. With an ironic smile he realised that, only days ago, on such a perfect afternoon, he would have been taking his lunch break by the river or sitting reading in the park.

The only warning he got was a hushed whisper of "Oh God, no" from the man stood above him before all of hell erupted. In the narrow street the explosion seemed to reverberate forever and Enjolras felt it shake him down to his bones and beyond, down to his soul. The middle of the barricade folded in on itself as the cannonball drove into the structure, smashing wood and tearing the bodies of the unfortunate men stood near.

His ears were still ringing when Rene landed beside him, anger carved into the lines on his face.

"They've brought a bloody canon!" he growled. "How the hell did they get a goddamn bloody canon?"

"What do we do?" Enjolras asked and even as he asked the question he wondered what exactly they could do against a canon. He had read enough history to know how it worked: the Guardsmen would use round-shot, solid balls of metal heated to scorching temperatures by the explosion that propelled them from the barrel, to batter the barricade to splinters and force the revolutionaries to either hide back in the café or to risk a dangerous assault on the canon during the reloading process, an act that was literal suicide because the gunners would immediately switch to canister, a flimsy metal can filled with everything from scrap metal to rusted horseshoe nails to duck-shot that would explode as it left the barrel. With the narrowness of the street working to the Guardsmen's advantage the attacking revolutionaries would be massacred as the contents spread out in a fan shape that would span the whole street, hitting every man in its path. Any that were left would be near helpless against the muskets of the remaining Guardsmen. Bloody defeat was the only option.

Rene was very quiet, the gears turning at full speed in his head. "There is a possibility help may reach us from another barricade, but it is unlikely," he eventually admitted. "We could take a small contingent out of the side entrance and try to outflank them, attack them from the rear, but it would be extremely risky. If it calls for it we may have surrender this position; use the side entrance to escape into the streets and head for another barricade." He paused for a moment, head cocked and he seemed to count under his breath before flinging himself flat against the barricade just as another explosion tore the air and another ball crashed into the barricade, this one higher and tearing a jagged whole in the ridge of their defence.

"The gun is warming up; they're getting their range now," Rene muttered under his breath and went to say more but an ominous creaking distracted them both. "Damn it," he snarled, pulling Enjolras by the arm and flinging them both from the barricade as it trembled and creaked, the furniture and doors and miscellaneous items that made it up greased by the water that had run down inside and knocked out of place by the canon fire. Sections rose while others fell, the middle section folding in and leaving a hole the size of the Musain's entrance in direct line with gun down the street.

As Enjolras staggered to his feet, a pit opening in his stomach as he realised how defenceless they had suddenly become, he heard a scream of pain in a voice he recognised and bile rose in his throat.

"Oh, Father, please no," he murmured, racing forwards but knowing deep down that he would be too late to do anything.


A/N Thank for reading and please review!

Until next time, mes amis,

Libz xxx