Disclaimer: Still not Victor Hugo.

So, it's been two years since I updated for some reasons. But I really never meant to abandon this story and I'm going to try and finish it. It might be a bit rusty after so long, but I'm going to try and get back into the swing of things. So, here goes!

Cold. So cold. And dark.

But that wasn't all - was it? There was something warm, something tugging on her heart. Pulling her back to the surface though she wanted nothing more than to just let the cold drown her, kill her. But she couldn't leave him - he risked his life for her. What would it mean if she just gave up?

She had to keep going, if not for herself, for the one who had risked everything for her.

Slowly, she opened her eyes, the blurry room coming into focus slowly.

Panic.

She was in an unfamiliar room. Where was she? There was someone in the chair next to the bed but she couldn't move her head that direction, her neck was bandaged and incredibly sore. Had Montparnasse gotten ahold of her after all? It was probably Brujon in the chair, just sitting, waiting, smiling as she slept. Ready to attack.

Her first instinct was to scream, which she did.

"Help me! Help! Anyone!"

She tried to sit up as she did so, but there was pain everywhere, as if all of her bones had been replaced with lead. Moving was almost impossible.

Immediately, the person in the chair twitched - woken from sleep, and moved towards the bed.

Marie screamed once more, trying to move away. Not again. Please not again.

But instead of the hard, calloused hand of Brujon, it was a skinny, small hand. That of a woman just like her.

What?

"Marie, please, calm down. You're okay... You're okay." Her voice was soothing and familiar.

Slowly, Marie looked up towards her face. It was the girl from the Café. Éponine.

"What... Where am- Where is Grantaire?" The question she ended up asking shocked her. She hadn't been thinking about him when she woke up, thinking she was with Brujon somewhere. But no... Somehow, she was safe. But Grantaire was nowhere to be seen. The sheets of the bed she was laying in were soaked with sweat, whether from a nightmare or her immediate panic upon waking up, se had no idea.

"He is here," Èponine answered calmly, clearly trying to keep ahold of the situation. "He is fine, there's no need to worry about him."

How was she supposed to not be worried? She trusted Èponine, of course, but she could easily be hiding something. If Grantaire were there, she doubted she would have been able to scream without him appearing.

She must have given Èponine a strange look, because she shook her head. "Marie, I promise he's alright," she began, "He's with Enj. He needed some rest."

Marie felt bad that she didn't believe her, but she had been through enough in her life to know that you couldn't just trust a person because you wanted to. So, she sat up, deciding she had to go find him herself.

With the sitting up, of course, came searing pain in her abdomen. And, everywhere, really.

"Don't try to get up, you're hurt," Èponine said gently, still seeming to be trying to calm her down. It wasn't working.

But Èponine was right, she was hurt. Even trying to swing her legs over the edge of the bed was proving difficult. She wanted to cry simply from frustration. She needed to find Grantaire and know that he was alright. She couldn't handle even the possibility that he wasn't. It would be all her fault, too.

"Where is he? Why isn't he here?" she fired, one question after the other. "He'd be here if he-"

"He's in the café, having lunch," she was cut off, much to her annoyance. Right, he's in the café.

"GRANTAIRE!" she screamed once more, knowing that he'd come if her were okay. "GRANTAIRE!" She was trying once more to get out of bed now, pushing a worried-looking Èponine out of the way.

"Don't touch me," she almost hissed when Èponine attempted to ease her back into bed, not wanting her to hurt herself getting up. Though, as she said it, she was practically using Èponine as a way to claw herself up onto her feet, attempting to make her way towards the door.

In the café downstairs, Grantaire sat with Enjolras. It was much earlier than he'd ever been in the café before. It was strange like this - just a couple other people aside from he and Enjolras sat eating their lunches. Nothing like the somewhat crazed crowd that inhabited it in the evenings. It was strange, indeed, for Grantaire to see Enjolras in such a state. He was so used to him being their fearless leader, a Marble Man. But at the moment, he was nothing more than a man as in love and as scared as he was.

"She's going to be alright," he was assured for the fourth time in the last half hour. "Joly already said, and with Èp up there-"

Grantaire just nodded, cutting him off. His eyes had already drifted to the many drinks on he wall. They were inviting him in, offering familiar numbness. All he had to do was take a sip...

But no, he couldn't. He had to just trust that things would be okay for now and try to forget the sick, monster of a man who had hurt Marie. As Enjolras had already told him, there was nothing he could do about that right now. The safest thing for all of them was to just lay low for a while.

"They're strong, you know," Enj said after a few moments of silence. "'Ponine, and Marie. They were raised to be strong," he explained. Grantaire wasn't quite sure they were raised at all. It was more as if they had raised themselves. Though, perhaps Enjolras just meant that. He was right, they were strong. Stronger than he ever could be.

"I know," he replied finally, taking a sip of his water, hoping to quiet the fire in his throat.

It was only a moment later that the two heard footsteps, soft and light, barely there. The two looked up at the same time to see Èponine making her way down the stairs, her moth in a straight line.

"She asked for you," she explained quickly. "She tried to get out of bed, she thinks I'm lying... I... Thought it'd have been best to let you finish eating," she explained. "But you need to go upstairs."

Panic rose in Grantaire's chest as he nodded, attempting to at least seem calm, though the fact that he was taking the stairs three at a time said otherwise.

He could hear it before he even entered the room - sobbing. His heart broke.

"Hey," he said immediately as he opened the door, making his way to Marie, who was crumpled on the bed. "Hey, it's alright." He was trying his best to be comforting even though he felt like he might explode any moment.

Marie didn't even move as he placed a hand on her back, rubbing slowly in circles. He never should have left the room. She was hysterical, panicked. And he could do nothing to help. All he could to was continue to rub circles on her back - something he knew would calm her down slowly. It did, almost painfully so, but it did.

It killed him to see Marie this way. And he made up his mind in that moment. The next time he saw Montparnasse or Brujon, he would kill him. It would be a favor to both himself and to Enjolras and Èponine. If the revolution killed him, so be it. But he was not going to allow scum like that to be the cause.