Disclaimer: I am not Victor Hugo. Duh.
A/N Okay, massive apologies to all of my lovely readers. I am sorry this has taken so long, but I hit a metaphorical creative brick wall and I also had the realization that if I didn't sit down and do some work, I was not going to be able to finish my last two assignments for the college year. Shout out to my mum who read through the dialogue with me and helped me make it AWESOME!
In answer to the Guest who asked about Marius and Eponine shipping, I'm afraid not. All will hopefully be explained in the next chapter.
So, anyway, it's here, hope you enjoy it and feel free to yell at me at the end when you find out some of my devious ideas. *scurries off to build a barricade to hide behind*
Chapter Thirteen
The snow, that had started as a picturesque dusting, soon turned to a full on blizzard. The huge drifts of snow, coupled with the truly terrible weather, caused many people to remain indoors to whether the storm, Enjolras and Aimee included. The pickled and preserved food that was in Margo's apartment was definitely appreciated by them both, and Enjolras was glad for his landlady's insistence of keeping a supply of dry and ready cut logs in the basement of the house.
As the slow, secluded days passed, the tentative connection that had sprung to life between the two of them flourished and thrived, as fresh and delicate as a plant stretching out of the dark solitary soil to the bright warmth of new beginnings. With so much forced interaction between them they were compelled to become comfortable with each other's presence, and it was soon a common occurrence for the two of them to curl up on the sofa and talk by the light of the glowing embers of the fire.
For the first time in forever Enjolras found himself completely comfortable in the company of a woman. Where he had once been terribly tongue-tied or disinclined to be courteous, he now discussed with Aimee any topic that came to mind. Sometimes she would just listen as he revealed unknown mysteries to her, regularly dashing up to find an appropriate book to back up his points, and sometimes they would argued heatedly, the rapid rattle of their words at odds with good-natured gleam in their eyes. They began to learn the complex pattern of the each other's moods, tentatively testing out the emotional waters that they found themselves thrown into. Aimee was delighted to discover that Enjolras was actually in possession of a sense of humour and a lightning fast wit that made word play and puns a common occurrence in the lively apartment. Neither could remember experiencing a happier time; Enjolras because of his cold and strict upbringing and Aimee because of her lack of memory.
It was this new-found sensitivity in regards to Enjolras' moods that alerted Aimee to the fact that, as New Year approached and the restrictive snow melted away, a disheartening matter began to monopolize Enjolras' thoughts. He gradually became reserved once more; spending hours brooding over his books and his face settling back into that all too familiar frown. Any attempts that she made to draw him out of himself were met with cool words and a guarded expression. The stiff, formal barrier he had hidden behind previously was reforming; a fact that Aimee did not feel comfortable with in the slightest.
Trying to understand the reason for his distance was an activity that took up a large amount of her time now that Enjolras had returned to his anti-social self and so New Year's Eve found her curled up on the sofa in front of the fire, a book lying untouched in her lap. Enjolras sat at the kitchen table with a myriad of papers and books laid out before him, just in her line of sight, his shoulders bowed as if the weight of the world rested upon him. Not wishing to be caught staring, she peeked at him out of the corner of her eye, feeling a little lost as to how she should act around him. The heavy sigh she let out caused his head to raise slightly, the melancholy sound attracting his notice. However, as soon as he assured himself of her wellbeing, he returned to his educational struggle without speaking a word.
Not for the first time Aimee longed for Combeferre's guidance or Courfeyrac's easy humour, feeling that she and Enjolras had fallen into a slough of silence that neither of them was able to escape. Absently, she tapped her bandaged fingers against the cover of her book, the small sparks of pain that radiated from the almost healed cuts focusing her mind. While she often wished for the presence of the Amis to break the cycle that Enjolras had trapped himself in, it was easy to admit that she enjoyed being alone in Enjolras' company. She enjoyed how she could converse with him on practically any subject and how he would always either be in possession of knowledge regarding that topic or have a book that would inform them. As well as that, she enjoyed how he treated her as his equal, encouraging her to counter his arguments and to speak from her heart with passion. One of her favourite pastimes was making him laugh, oh, how she loved the sound of his laugh, loved the cheeky half smirk that appeared when they bantered, the way his blue eyes sparkled….
Wait. She blinked in surprise. At what point had 'enjoyed' become 'loved' in her mind? Still feeling puzzled, she remained sat in the silence, listening to the sounds of revelry floating up from the street below. She stretched languidly, noticing how Enjolras once again turned his head upon sensing her movement. Unrestrained laughter rang out from down below them and Aimee had a flash of inspiration.
"We need to get out of this apartment." She made her tone matter of fact, hoping he wouldn't, for once, argue with her.
"Why?"
Well, so much for that hope. She closed the book and put it aside. "Because we have been in here for days," she reminded him gently, "and it is New Year's Eve, in Paris, and everyone else is outside having a party."
His answer was as brisk and emotionless as his pen scratching across the page. "I have no desire to go out into the cold and the wet to be jostled by drunks and mindless partygoers. I have much to prepare for when the Amis return and I would like to continue in peace." His stressing of the final word indicated he was, in some small measure, reprimanding her.
That final slight ended her patience. She was sick and tired of his sudden distance and icy withdrawal. "For once, Julien, please stop working!" she beseeched, rising from her seat to move towards the kitchen, "Stop fretting and worrying and doing your level best to work yourself into an early grave! The world is not going to end tonight because you abandoned you work for the evening to celebrate the end of the old year and the beginning of the new!"
"Celebrate the ending of the year!" His voice was sudden and thunderous; involuntarily she took a step back in instinctive fear. "Tell me," he challenged, rising as well, "why I should celebrate another year wasted, another year of inaction, another year of nothing?!" His mouth twisted into an ugly grimace of anger. "Why I should celebrate my own weaknesses as a leader, why I should celebrate the ineffectiveness of my words and actions? Why I should celebrate the lives I could not save, why I should celebrate the fact that my friends no longer care for the cause, why I should celebrate the fact that I am useless as a leader, good for nothing but pretty words and ill thought through plans that would have led to the deaths of every one of us…" He trailed off, his voice cracking as he realized what he had just admitted. The scorching wrath faded from his eyes as he collapsed back into the kitchen chair, resting his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. "I would have killed them all," he hissed. "They would all have died because I was so blinded by my own foolish ambitions of being some sort of hero!" He spat the final word as if were tainted.
Aimee was silent, shocked and not a little scared by the explosion. She had seen many facets of Enjolras, from relaxed and mirthful to stern and disdainful, but never had she seen him truly angry. For a heartbeat he had been the Apollo that Grantaire teasingly compared him to, an incandescent and vengeful angel, who burned with a fire so hot it could consume and destroy as well as comfort and warm. But then…he was also so very human. Sitting before her, he had never looked so young, so vulnerable. The distance and the coldness now all made sense and her heart ached for him.
"You saved my life," she said softly as she took a hesitant step towards him. "That must count for something."
Not receiving an answer, she walked closer. "You are not a bad leader, Julien, truly. The Amis believe in you, believe in the Cause; I can see it in their faces every time you speak." She crouched down in front of him, amazed at how their roles had reversed in just a few days.
He moved his hands just enough to see her face. His normally vibrant eyes were despondent, an emotion that Aimee never wanted to see there again; it just looked wrong. "What good are words?" he asked, hopelessly, "I have been preaching my ideals to the people of Paris for nearly six years now, but have achieved practically nothing; a handful of small protests that didn't even make the papers. The closest we came to really starting anything was in '32 and we all would have ended up dead. I was, I am their leader, and I should have planned better. Now, I should be doing more, reminding our group what we stand for, who we are, and all I can manage to do is have a mild breakdown. I ask you, what kind of a leader does that make me?"
She reached out and pulled his hands away from his face. "A human one, Julien, for at the end of the day you are nothing but a man. As far as I can see, you have become very adept at putting up your marble front, but only because you worry that if everyone saw the real you, the version of you that I have seen over the past few days, that they wouldn't believe in you as a leader." From the expression on his face, Aimee knew she had somehow managed to put into words everything he had been bottling up and refusing to recognize. "They would still believe in you, possibly believe in you even more, if they saw you were human like the rest of them. You are a good leader, and an even better friend. Shall I tell you why?" She did not give him time to answer. "Because you realized that the plans in '32 were flawed and acted accordingly. The plans were never used, Julien, they never went wrong, and everyone is still alive because you acted as a leader should. You took the whole situation into consideration, put aside your own desires, and ensured the safety of your friends. In that action, you were not only the revolutionary leader, but also the man who cared deeply for his friends. What could be more inspirational than that?"
His next words were whispered and made her want to cry. "I lose a little more of them every day. Every day their fervour dulls just a minute bit more. Every day they concentrate just a little bit less. And now, Feuilly is getting married, we're all nearing the end of university and everyone is looking forward to their own future. What if they don't care anymore? What if it ends up just being me, spouting radical political nonsense that no one wishes to hear?"
"You cannot blame them for wanting to live, Julien," she reminded him, "we all want to live, to look to the future. But you will never walk this path alone, I promise you that. It would take death to force the Amis to leave you. Myself included." The last part was said somewhat shyly and he looked at her curiously.
"You saved my life, twice." Both of their thoughts jumped back to that terrible night, to the gleam of crimson on steel. "I would do anything for you." She flashed him a smile and sprung to her feet, "You cannot, however, change the state of society tonight; no matter how hard you work. So, come on, let's go out into the streets and celebrate the resilience of the human spirit. I know Patria can be a harsh mistress, but she has her moments of gaiety too." Seeing that he was still hesitating, she added gently, "You have to live, Enjolras, or you will forget what it is you're fighting for…what we're all fighting for."
That seemed to sway him, for he rose and began to gather the necessary items of clothing for them both. "Thank you," he said quietly, the sincerity in his voice obvious.
She took the offered scarf, coat and gloves and asked the question that that been nipping at the back of her mind during their conversation. "Why did you never say anything to Combeferre or Courfeyrac or tell them how you were feeling? They are your closest friends after all."
"As you just said, I have become so good at not showing my emotions, that I didn't really know where to start. That, and I was worried that if I said anything they would lose faith in my ability," he smiled slightly, "as you also said. How is it that, in such a short time, you know me better than I know myself?"
Aimee paused, genuinely pondering the question. How was it that she could see through the marble to the man beneath? Why was she able to read him so easily? "I don't know," she said honestly, "maybe because I haven't known you very long." Seeing his sceptical look she elaborated. "Because I don't know you as the 'leader' or the 'student', I don't have any expectations of how you should act. I just know you as 'Enjolras'. Does that make any sense at all?"
He laughed and her heart leapt as his playful smirk reappeared. "Not in the slightest! Now," he gallantly offered her his arm, "shall we go?"
The city was alive as a cacophony of noise and colour. Street parties seemed to radiate out from every corner and people were singing and laughing everywhere.
Initially, Aimee had felt utterly overwhelmed by the sheer number of people – she had after all spent over a week indoors – but with the comforting bulk and warmth of Enjolras pressed against her arm, she soon relaxed and began to genuinely enjoy herself. There were some moments that were awkward, for instance when a very drunken young man refused to take no for an answer when he asked Aimee to dance with him. This resulted in Enjolras partially losing his temper and a broken nose for the luckless lad, but that was about it.
Despite Aimee pleading and cajoling, Enjolras refused to dance at all, but made up for it by buying them both a cup of mulled wine. He also bought them each a hot crepe, which they both instantly gave away to some of the numerous gamin children weaving through the crowd.
"It's nearly midnight." He glanced down at her and she was pleased to see that his eyes were bright with enjoyment, the dark doubts of earlier for now held at bay by the lights and joyful atmosphere. "I hear there's going to be fireworks."
He took her arm and guided her gently through the mass of people. She noticed how he very thoughtfully kept her close in the thickest parts of the crowd and constantly kept checking to see if she was alright. He only came to a stop as the people around them started the count down from sixty, hundreds of voices chanting together.
"Forty, thirty-nine, thirty-eight, thirty-seven…"
"My first new year!" Aimee had to almost shout for him to hear her. "A new beginning!"
"Twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven…"
She stood on tip-toe to be closer to his ear, not noticing the involuntary shiver that ran through him at her closeness. "My resolution is two-fold. One, discover more about my past and my old family."
His face changed as he registered her words, wondering why she had chosen this particular moment to bring up the subject of her leaving the group. Leaving him.
"Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, twelve…"
"Second, to build myself a future with my new family."
"Ten, nine, eight, seven…"
Maybe it was the wine from earlier, but Aimee was feeling delightfully lightheaded. The crowd kept them crushed together and as she looked up, she saw something is Enjolras' eyes that she had never seen before. They were so close she could feel the heat of his body through the layers he wore. Did she just imagine it or did his eyes flicker down to her lips? His head moved closer to hers and her hands tightened on his shoulders in expectation.
"Three, two, one… HAPPY NEW YEAR!"
Fireworks exploded above them, drawing both of their gazes upwards. When they looked back down, the moment had passed, and Aimee felt a strange pang of disappointment. She dropped back onto her flat feet and looked around as the crowd began to break up. Suddenly, a familiar figure caught her attention. "Feuilly!"
Enjolras quickly stepped away as he followed her gaze and saw their friend staggering down the side of the street. He was very obviously drunk and Aimee had a sinking sensation in her stomach.
When he caught sight of them he tried to change direction and get away, but his inebriation got the better of him and he fell against a wall. Aimee hurried over to him and gave him a quick once over. He didn't look too bad, but something wasn't right.
"Feuilly, why are you in Paris? I thought you were away at your beau's home…" she trailed off as he gave a harsh bark of laughter.
"It turns out that Annette was courting me without her father's permission. I was only in the house about five minutes before her father came charging downstairs and ordered me out. 'Street rat' he called me, a 'socially ambitious street rat'." His tone was bitter and slurred from the alcohol in which he had tried to drown his pain. "I mean, it wasn't as if they were aristocracy or anything; he's only a tailor," he protested as if desperate to defend himself, "a high class tailor, but still a tailor." His shoulders slumped and he all but collapsed to the floor. "I loved her, Aimee, I really did." To Enjolras' horror, his friend began to cry, his shoulders shaking at the force of his sobs. "I still do!"
Aimee sat down beside him, ignoring the dirty snow that soaked her skirts, and pulled him into a fierce embrace. Her gaze met Enjolras' and, suddenly, the New Year didn't seem so happy any more.
A/N Yeah, so… Don't hurt me too much. Please? I don't know how people celebrated New Year in 1835 and I'm sorry if I've missed out some French traditions, I was having too much fun writing an almost kiss! ;)
Tell me what you think, I'm super proud of the conversation between the two of them and really enjoyed getting into Enjolras' head. Tell me what you think, it is very much appreciated.
Until next time, mes amis!
Libz