Disclaimer: I do not own Les Miserables.

It's five months after the June rebellion of 1832. To the world, their deaths are figures on paper and nothing more. Grantaire was right - no one remembers the fallen.

The former leader, the flame-tongued youth who raised the barricades with the might of his ideals, is simply, cruelly, lost.

His family thinks him dead. He thinks himself dead.

He is not dead.

But his words are.

Night finds him in the upper room, elbows propped on a desk barely illuminated by candelight and moonbeams slipping through cracks, furrowed brow bent over parchment. Pen in hand, ink stains blotting his palms, seriousness etched in his deeply furrowed brow, he broods over a sheet of paper. His eyes flick from left to right through a jumble of meaningless phrases, half-formed thoughts crushed at infancy, and a huge inkblot at the end. The pen has bled all over the floor, dark like blood.

There's one book on his makeshift desk. It's a book of children's tales. Not politics or law, not Roberspierre or Machiavelli or other names that once so easily rolled off his tongue. He's traded them for pirates and maids and blacksmith's sons.

Why does he even bother? These eyes should not see. These fingers should not hold a pen. But they do, so he plods on with his inkblots, for sanity's sake. Because if they take away everything, who will you be then?

An hour passes and he has made peace with one sentence.

A revolution is not a where, but a why, he realizes. They died. He lived. He will never know why, so he will always be lost. The barricades were real and over and life goes on, even for those left behind.

He is alive.

He knows this now.

It is raining when destiny orders their worlds to collide.

He wears a black vest over his brown shirt, without a trace of the bold red of before. A dark chestnut wig hides the gold over his weary brow, and rippled shadows haunt his weary eyes, but no drabness can soften that unmistakable blue.

"You…survived."

"I see you made it alive as well, Madame."

Water droplets begin to pelt her skin, gaining number and strength by the minute. She remains there, unmoving. The rain has always fascinated her as a child. How the sky could shed that many tears - sometimes gentle plops, sometimes roaring dumbeats.

She peers up at him, brow raised. Soulless orbs have replaced hawk-eyed glares. His once stiff posture has been traded for a hunched limp. Maybe it's not him, just his doppleganger. Maybe the delirium of hunger has granted her the power to see ghosts.

Random theories crisscross in her mind while all he thinks is Why can't I remember her name?

This girl, this paper thin street urchin who was Pontmercy's shadow, triggers a landslide in of memories. Of a night on couches and sewing tables, armchairs and pianos, haphazardly stacked together. Of candlelit meetings in the backroom of a cafe. Of victory chants ringing out in chorus. For a moment, the rain that drenches them seems to turn scarlet, and he blinks furiously.

Eyes meet as for the first time, a soul reaches out for someone who shares the remembrance, who can attest they were not merely the imagined thousand flashes of almost-death. Tell me, he'd beg had his voice not deserted him, tell me what and how and why.

Sunken eyes on a haggard face, lips that have forgotten how to smile - that's what Eponine sees. No way this man in shabby clothes is the voice behind the revolution caused by - was it courage or folly or madness? For all she knew, it could have been the ramblings fueled by a hungry stomach. Yes, she can forgive him for that.

"You'll catch a cold, good sir! Let's find shelter. Can't have you dying now, can we?" Her voice is hoarse, and not from the cold.

You don't understand. I'm already dead-no. He is alive. He is alive so he follows her away from the rain.

Eventually the clouds clear away to reveal the moon. She traces glowing patterns in the sky, but with every twinkle he sees the glint of sunlight on rifle nuzzles.

"Proserpine. That's who you remind me of." Those are his first words to her.

"Who?"

He tells the myth of snow and spring, of a young maiden, a grieving mother, and a crushed pomegranate. Of cold light and thawing darkness. Of vapor and mirages and flowers of death. Of a girl who grew up.

"She survived."

The unspoken question hangs heavily in the air.

Why are you alive?

I don't know.

"Monsieur, do you believe in second chances?"

He says nothing, so she goes on.

"God is merciful, Monsieur."

A torrent of questions threatens to break free, but he shoves them back with the last of his strength. He has always scoffed at the idea of God. If there were a God, why would he let the peasants suffer at the hands of cruel oppressors? Let their revolution fail? Let his friends die? Let him live?

"There is a God in Heaven, yes. I believe it to be true," says Eponine, to the fence. "Otherwise, how can you explain why we're alive?"

"We should be dead." The bitterness has fled, replaced by wonder.

"Yes," she agrees, her voice a ragged echo of his, "we should be."

But they are not. And now they must find a way to live.

His domain was of fiery speeches and blazing passion, glorious days and hearts aflame, radiant sunlight and golden summers. Hers was the realm of shadows and moonlit nights, whispered secrets at street corners, icy darkness and harsh winters. He is the day and she is the night, and the worlds of gamines and bourgeoisie never collide—except at the gates of death, where balance is upset, rules set aside, distinctions forgotten, and every hope and belief thrown to the wind in the name of survival.

A leather parcel slips from Enjolras' grasp, splashing into flooded streets. He bends over with an agonized grimace. Pain flares down in his spine, forcing him to kneel. Before can wets his knees, a hand has scooped up the stray package.

He murmurs inaudible thanks. She shrugs.

Tonight the world is drenched in rain. Tomorrow comes a new dawn awash in light.

Tomorrow will be two tickets and a carriage into the French countryside, after which they shall (not) go separate ways. He will procure fake documents and she will lay flowers beside the Elephant of Paris. When they pack supplies for the journey, he will squeeze in a circular tricolored badge and she will toss in a couple of lock picks—one should always be ready for anything, she will reason when his brow arches in rebuke-and he will nod in silence, though they know this has less to do with actual survival than preserving a part of who they once were.

The eye of the storm has passed. Now comes the gentle rain, along with a second chance at life.

And the sun and the moon no longer bleed crimson.

END