A/N I am a despicable human being, I know. I haven't updated for ever! I am ashamed, truly. This unplanned hiatus is mostly due to a lot of college work, and then my Muse for this story took a nap, and a severe attack of the plot bunnies which resulted in several hilarious fictions that I wrote with my sister. Check them out if you dare! *hint hint*

Just want to say a MASSIVE thank you to Paytonrhyan for her lovely and inspiring review. It helped to kick me out of the rut I'd been stuck in and helped to boost my confidence that people are actually enjoying this story.

Anyhow, buckle up people, from here on we're in for a bumpy ride!

Disclaimer: Not Victor Hugo and Enjolras likes red. (Yeah, I know, who would have guessed?)

Chapter Sixteen

Enjolras scowled fiercely at the sheet of paper in front of him, the crossed out words and rewritten sentences seeming to silently mock him, ridiculing his efforts of being cohesive. Giving up once more, he crumpled the page in his hand and cast it disdainfully to the floor where it nestled among several of its equally poor predecessors. Muttering the opening lines of the letter to himself, he reached out to pull a fresh sheet to the clear space in the centre of the desk, knowing the familiar movement by instinct now. Starting afresh, the furrow in his brow gradually eased as the words fell eagerly from the nib of his pen, the black lines swooping and soaring across the page, their message of freedom and hope giving them life. It felt as if the waning passion that he had been in thrall of for the past several months had returned in an ink-stained tidal wave of zeal. Petitions, letters, pamphlets, speeches; they all surged out of him.

Heartened at the excellent progress that was being made, he paused to reread the letter he was composing to the leader of another political group similar to the Amis. Almost immediately he flung down his pen with a low growl of frustration, followed by an irritated grunt as the ink splashed up, staining the front of his patterned blue waistcoat.

"Julien?" Aimee's request for his attention undoubtedly came from the kitchen, her voice muffled by the walls and empty spaces between them. Obviously thinking that he had not heard her, the gentle scuff of her feet over the bare boards of the rooms, muffled briefly as she crossed the rug, indicated she was coming to him. Sure enough, not a minute later her head appeared around the corner of his partially closed door, her dark hair for once pinned up. "Do you need anything specific at the market?" she asked after a quick smile of greeting. "Courfeyrac is taking me out to the library, but I could take a quick detour to go shopping if you like?"

"Thank you," he answered tersely, "but there is nothing of which I am in need."

She now pushed open the door and leant easily against its frame, a small frown marking her face as she saw the fresh ink stain. "That will be difficult to get out," she commented inanely, then immediately catching sight of the discarded drafts lapping at his ankles in soft whispers of failure. Her face softened. "Writer's block?"

"Not exactly." Allowing himself a short break he slumped back into the uncomfortable unpadded confines of his chair, black dotted fingers creeping up to massage his aching temples. "I know what it is that I'm trying to say. The problem is that I just can't seem to find the correct way of wording it. The message gives the impression of being either too militant or too pacifistic; I sound power crazed or unsure of myself."

Absorbing the sentiments he had just expressed her eyes focused more sharply on his rumpled appearance. The frown reappeared as she asked, "Did you sleep at all last night?"

Not completely focussing, he only shook his head, words and sentences buzzing around his brain incessantly. Maybe if he moved the second and third paragraphs around and reworked the bridge between them…

His head snapped up somewhat guiltily when he realized Aimee had been speaking to him again. She merely smiled fondly and rolled her eyes at his inattentiveness. "I was saying," she restarted, "that Courfeyrac will take me straight to the café, so I won't see you again until this afternoon." She gave a little mock salute as she pushed herself away from her reclined position. "Farewell until then, Fearless Leader!"

Her humour was so catching he could not help but smile back, even though at this present moment he felt he was not at all deserving of the title. Small noises beyond his door alerted him to Aimee's imminent departure; a short time afterwards he heard the door close and the sound of her boots clicking down the stairs. There was the murmur of voices for a moment down below, then the sound of the street door opening and closing.

Ignoring the constant hum of words in his head for a moment, he stood and stretched, joints popping in painful relief after being hunched over in the same position for too long. He then allowed himself to simply just stand, listening to himself breath, hearing the blood pound quietly in his ears, feeling as if the very building around him paused to take a calming breath. Attempting to convince himself that it was to clear his head, he allowed his feet to lead him unerringly to the living room window, affording him a clear view of the street below. He reached his vantage point just in time to see Aimee loop her arm through that of a cheerful and dapper looking Courfeyrac, her face lit up in a smile and the sound of her laughter drifting up like a joyful symphony to his ears. Grudgingly he had to admit that the two of them matched; both beautiful, both laughing, both merry. They looked like the perfect couple.

The thought churned in his stomach unpleasantly as he watched them stroll away down the street, drawing many glances, most envious, and he felt again the strange prickling sensation he had felt a few nights previously.

They had all been at the Musain, celebrating the addition of another rifle to their armoury. Courfeyrac had been the one to smuggle it in, saying he had 'liberated' it from his father's collection when removing all of his belongings from his parent's home. When Combeferre had frowned disapprovingly at the idea that the weapon was stolen, Courfeyrac had defended himself by insisting that it had been the gun he always used, so was actually his. Aimee had laughed at his antics, before dragging him to his feet to dance, the two of them fitting together perfectly. It was then that he had felt it; a sudden, strong urge to get to his feet, cross the room and cut into the dance, proving to everyone there how much Aimee meant to him. He hadn't of course.

It was only now when he was alone, watching her walk away with another man – Courfeyrac may be his close friend, but he was still a man – that he could objectively study the emotion. It was as the laughing couple turned the corner of the street and disappeared from view that he finally reached a conclusion.

He was jealous.

Displeased with this discovery he groaned deeply, resting his head against the cool glass of the window. He was jealous of the affection Aimee showed Courfeyrac, felt betrayed she had become more reserved around him now that her friend was back. He missed the feeling of contentment he had felt in the weeks they had been alone. For those few blessed days, he had felt the weight of his burden ease somewhat. It did not disappear, that was impossible, the Cause was as much a part of him as his physical limbs were, but he had felt much less alone in his responsibility. Now, once again, he was alone, left with his whispering demons and an unwritten letter that was meant to inspire men enough to give up their lives if the need arose.

He groaned again and thudded his head against the window gently.

"Are you feeling quite well, monsieur?"

Startled, he twisted quickly to behold the figure of Margo, still dressed in her travelling attire, a concerned expression on her kindly face.

He swiftly plastered on a reassuring smile. "Yes, I'm fine, thank you." Internally he floundered for a suitable topic of conversation, finally settling with the most obvious. "How was your family?"

The smile returned to him was bright and genuine. "All are well," she reassured him, as if he had been worried. "Ah, the grandchildren are changing so much, and so quickly!" She paused. "Your holidays went well I assume? Aimee is looking better than before I went away."

Enjolras got the distinct feeling that there was more meaning behind the enquiry than was immediately apparent. "Our holidays were uninteresting, but overall satisfactory." He gave another unconvincing smile. "Chess is apparently very good for Aimee's health."

Margo studied his face for a long moment, as if searching for some other, more satisfying answer. Apparently finding none, she smiled once more. "I will leave you in peace now. I'm sure you have lots to be doing." She turned to leave, but Enjolras suddenly remembered that he and Aimee had pilfered quite a lot of her supplies in the worst of the weather.

"We took some of the food from your apartment when we got snowed in," he informed her, stepping forwards, "and the log supply is drastically lower than it was." Realizing he may have sounded demanding, he quickly added, "I will be happy to replace the food and I can split some fresh logs for you later today, if you would like."

"Oh, there's no need to worry about the food," Margo calmed him, "I met Aimee on the stairs on her way out and asked her to pick me up a few bits and pieces at the market, just the basics, you know. As for the logs, I'll most certainly take you up on that offer, if you wouldn't mind. I'm not as strong as I once was and it won't hurt you to build up your strength." She ran a critical eye over his physique as she turned to leave the room. "You boys these days, no muscle on you at all; you're all pale and scrawny, you all spend far too long at your books."

The door clicked shut behind her grumbling, and Enjolras couldn't help but smile. He had missed his landlady, he honestly had, with all of her motherly fussing and good natured grumbling. The need to complete his letter came to the forefront of his mind and he spared one last, pointless glance down the now empty street before returning to his room and his desk with a renewed vigour. Now, what if he changed that opening argument just slightly…

The library, a large, grey building that was at once elegant and austere, stood tall and proud on a street not far from Courfeyrac's university; its never-ending solidity standing as if in testament of the constancy of knowledge, the need of understanding. The sense of ageless dignity – careful footsteps in hallowed hallways, muted whispers in rooms filled with dusty tomes – hung heavily, intimidatingly, over Aimee as she trotted up the wide stone stairs, her arm still hooked through Courfeyrac's, towards the entrance.

Upon entering the building, she only had a brief impression of marble floors, scrolling stonework, and heavy, dark portraits, before Courfeyrac, who surprisingly seemed to know the building well, whisked her off up a curving flight of stairs to a room preceded by two sets of heavy, wooden doors that stood open to allow the silent passage of scholars and lawyers and other such people who had a need of the resources held within. Her friend gently put her aside as he had a brief discourse with the on duty librarian as to where they could find the newspapers, then asked if it would be possible for them to have the room to themselves for as long as they needed. A generous smile, a few glib words, as well as the quiet clink of coins, and they were given complete privacy and all of the time they desired.

The room they were led to was small and dingy, filled with shelves and shelves of newspapers sorted by year and publication. As she visually perused the mountains of faded wood pulp, patterned with its' dark ink, eyes moving up, up, it struck her for the first time how close she could to finding out the truth, her truth, or at least a part of it.

Her spiralling musings were brought to a timely halt as Courfeyrac gave her hand a reassuring squeeze before looking around the room deliberately, an aura of purpose emanating from him. "Now," he muttered to himself, taking off his overcoat and jacket and tugging at the knot of his cravat to loosen it for comfort, "what date are we looking for? I believe we found you in October…on the 15th if I'm correct." He glanced at her for confirmation, which he received in the form of a small nod. "Why don't we start about two or three days before that?"

Hauling a great stack of newspapers onto the mahogany table in the centre of the room, he gave her a warning look as she reached eagerly for the first one. "You have to be prepared for the fact that we may not find anything," he cautioned. "Although you remember the incident, that doesn't mean it was a recent memory. What you are recalling could have happened weeks, months, possibly even years before your attack. For all we know it could have happened outside of Paris and you subsequently fled here."

It was when Courfeyrac spoke like this that Aimee saw the avid young lawyer in training and not the flirtatious dandy. "I know," she reassured him, "but I've been over it a hundred times in my head, every scenario playing out again and again. I've even been trying to hold on to what happens in the nightmares." She gave a shudder. "It's not pleasant and it hasn't provided me with much, but I am fairly positive it happened in Paris and not too long before Enjolras found me."

Somewhat appeased, Courfeyrac picked up the first paper grimly. "We'd better get started then."

It was well into the afternoon when they finally stumbled upon something. Aimee's eyes ached from the dust and the strain of reading the tiny newsprint; a crick was forming in her neck. Despite her discomfort, she valiantly continued, turning the page of the paper she was reading to scan the headlines and text as quickly as she could, but thoroughly so as not to miss anything vital. Reaching the final page she placed the broadsheet aside with a sense of hollow defeat. Lifting her head to stretch her neck, the tendons protesting as they pulled taut, she noticed that Courfeyrac had quite suddenly gone very still. Only his eyes moved, moving frantically from side to side as he devoured the text before him.

"Come and look at this." He spoke without raising his eyes. "I think…I may have found something."

Slowly, Aimee stood, her legs inexplicably shaky, and rounded the table to where he sat. Peering over his shoulder, she caught sight of the headline first.

HAVE YOU SEEN THESE PEOPLE?

Beneath were two sketches, one of a middle-aged man and one of a young woman. A strange sensation overtook her as she minutely studied the sketch of the woman. Yes…maybe…perhaps it did look a little like her. She shifted her attention to the other sketch, willing herself to feel some form of recognition, but there was none. An inevitable rush of disappointment choked her momentarily before she put it aside firmly and moved on to reading the text.

Police are inquiring as to the whereabouts of these two persons in relation to being victims of robbery and possibly kidnapping. The man, who is of unknown origins, a Monsieur Lyon, and his daughter were discovered to be missing from their rented house yesterday. The landlord was the one to make the discovery on his routine check of the property when he spotted a broken window and went to investigate. He described the interior as 'ransacked, completely and utterly destroyed. Such wanton destruction of the premises cannot bode well for the welfare of Monsieur Lyon and his daughter if they have fallen into these rouges' hands'. The police found that the back entrance had been expertly 'picked' or opened by a tool made for criminal housebreakers. Residents are advised to ensure all doors and windows are securely locked, although there have been no signs of any other properties, some of which are uninhabited at present, being broken into. The police have put a guard around the area, but there is very little hope of catching the villains, and therefore very little hope that Monsieur Lyon and his daughter will be found.

The words swam before Aimee's eyes; there was unexpectedly not enough air present in the room. Her chest rose and fell shallowly and she felt herself begin to hyperventilate in an effort to drawn a full breath. Courfeyrac's fingers closing carefully around her upper arm was the only tie that remained for her as she was pulled farther and farther into the dark reaches of her mind that were at most times so elusive to her. The carved wooden arms of the chair appeared under her trembling hands and unintelligible soothing words were being spoken to her, but she was aware of none of this.

Five men, all dressed in black, standing in the doorway of the parlour. The man at the front has a knife at her father's throat and his arm is twisted up behind him. She is told to stand and move to the back of the room and if she makes a sound her father will die. She complies, of course she does, and watches helplessly as the men begin to ransack the room, her only comfort being that her father is shoved towards her and away from the knife. Her back is pressed against the bookshelves, the edges of the shelves digging into her spine painfully and her hands are clasped behind her. Her fingers encounter the cool solidness of the cast iron bookends they had brought from home – oh how she misses home! – and she wraps her fingers around it, taking a deep breath as she prepares for what she is about to do. With a sharp snap of her arm, muscles and tendons tightening together in terrified harmony, she throws the bookend with all of her might at the nearest man, hoping to catch him in the side of the head, but her aim is off and the bookend instead crashes through window pane, the sound of shattering glass deafening in the quiet night. The men freeze and duck for cover and in this momentary respite she and her father bolt for the door. Before her hand even touches the handle she is grasped by the throat and slammed forcefully against the wall. The grip on her throat is like iron, cutting off her air supply, and that voice, the voice that has haunted her dreams for weeks now, whispers softly, icily, in her ear. "I like a girl with a bit of fire; it takes longer to break them." A hand runs expertly over her stomach and hip and she lashes out, to no avail. "You can't escape me," the devil croons, "not now, not ever. Wherever you go, I will find you…" Her lack of air significant now and her vision blurs before fading into nothing.

The words rang eerily in her ears as she returned to her present surroundings, air finally reaching her lungs in welcome gulps, even the slightly musty air of the library room tasting sweet, the familiar swell of her body as it took in the offering slowly banishing the feeling of immovable hands tightening around her throat. Blinking rapidly to clear her blurred sight, she discovered Courfeyrac to be crouched in front of her, eyes wide in helpless fear, his thumbs rubbing soothing circles on the back her hands.

"Are you all right?" he asked pointlessly, mostly for something to say in the thick silence of the room.

Still unsure of her voice she settled for nodding shakily. As she looked around, the room now seemed entirely too small, the bookcases looming above her, the room suffocating. "Can we leave?" she begged. "Now?"

Courfeyrac nodded and quickly replaced his coat and hat before leading her out of the building, leaving a coin for the librarian in apology for the mess they left behind.

Once outside, with the familiar chatter and clatter of the city surrounding her, Aimee felt significantly better.

"Did you remember anything new?" Courfeyrac asked from beside her, curiosity and concern battling for precedence.

"There was a robbery, I think, at our house," Aimee began, slowly sorting through the landslide of new memories she had received. "They told us to stand in the corner and be quiet while they searched through the room, but I threw a bookend at one of them to try and distract them. I missed, it went through the window instead, but it still gave Papa and me a chance to get out…" she choked briefly upon saying 'papa' but carried on. "It didn't work. We didn't even get to the door..." Aimee stopped, her hand rising subconsciously to her throat, unable to verbalize the rest, unable to tell Courfeyrac about the hard, merciless hand cutting off her air and whispered, haunting words.

Courfeyrac stopped and, flouting propriety, gave her a warm hug, both of them overlooking the scandalized looks they received from various passers-by. After a moment, Courfeyrac pulled away. "This moment is in dire need of gingerbread," he announced, "and we are in luck, for there is an especially good German vendor who has a stall on the edge of the market." He offered her his arm in mock formality. "Shall we, Mademoiselle Lyon." He grinned at being able to give her a surname at last.

With a wide grin, she took it. "It would be a pleasure, Monsieur de Courfeyrac," she teased, laughing when he scowled at her use of his hated particle.

"I'm buying you gingerbread and this is how you repay me." He sniffed haughtily and proceeded to ignore her for a whole two and a half minutes

A short omnibus journey later and Aimee was inhaling in the delectable scent of dark German gingerbread. The queue for the treat stretched quite some way and she was aware that she still needed to shop for Margo, so she tapped Courfeyrac on the shoulder. "I need to buy some replacement food items for Margo. Can you come and find me when you've got the gingerbread?"

Courfeyrac shook his head firmly, stepping out of his place in the line. "I'm not letting you go on your own, not after the upset you've just had. We can get the gingerbread afterwards."

With her arm linked through his, she wove them through the crowd, glad of the feel of her friend next to her. Placing the newly bought loaves of bread into her basket, she gave the baker a grateful smile as she replaced the change in her coin purse. As she dropped the coins in, her fingers encountered a strange object that definitely hadn't been there earlier in the day. She frowned, feeling it. It felt like a delicate chain of some kind, like the ones used on jewellery…

An abstract unnamed feeling tugged deep within her, a forgotten memory demanding to be rediscovered. Dragging a confused Courfeyrac with her, she hurried them through the market until she found a quiet corner. Setting down her basket, her fingers fumbled deliriously with the obstinate ties on her purse.

"What are you doing, chèri?" Courfeyrac peered over her shoulder, sounding somewhat bemused.

A long thin chain of silver appeared first, its finely wrought links glinting as the ornament rippled smoothly across her palm. A slight resistance was met at the narrow opening of her purse and she tugged experimentally to free the secret treasure. A small locket appeared, also of silver, and engraved with delicate curlicue designs. For moment she simply stood, staring at the trinket sitting in her hand, a curious familiarity beginning to grow.

"I think there's something written on the other side," Courfeyrac advised in an awed whisper.

With shaking fingers, Aimee turned the locket over to examine it. She felt no surprise when she saw the words; she already knew what they said. Her eyes traced the suddenly familiar words, followed by one feather-light fingertip.

June 6th, 1831

To mon petite amour on your 18th birthday. Never lose who you are, for you are beautiful, inside and out.

Love from Maman and Papa.

A clear droplet fell from her eye to land on her parents' declaration and convulsively her fingers tightened around this link to her past, tenuous though it may be. She may have lost who she was, but she was damn well going to get it back.

A/N Am I forgiven now?