A/N: Finally saved it from my dying mobile phone! Enjoy, read and review. :)
Chapter Sixteen: Back where you began
Marius' shoulder seared as he fell back from the barricade.
He fell a few feet down, landing hard on the cobblestones and hitting his head. Something hot and wet was on his head and shoulder.
The place he lay was the same as where he lay last night.
The place that she'd died in the rain at. But it was dusty and dry here now. There was no rain.
Ironic how I should die where she died. Marius wondered. Maybe I'll see my love again.
Then everything went black.
Valjean watched him fall. A choice awaited. Save Marius, or they both die fighting? How would Cosette cope without Valjean's guidance? How would Eponine cope without him...and without Marius' love?
The girls had eachother, but they both needed their 'papa' and Eponine needed Marius.
Valjean put Marius' unconscious body over his shoulder, murmured a prayer for the souls of the other students, then searched for a way to escape.
The students were outnumbered, but fought on, despite the enemy flooding over the barricade in a river of men. Enjolras' face was lined with a furious determination, as he killed the man who was fighting him, grabbed the flag and ran for Café Musain.
He was almost the last one standing. He hadn't been able to see Marius amongst the national guard, but then he hadn't been able to see anyone.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs. His heart raced, but he stood his ground when more than ten of the soldiers stood there, grim-faced.
More footsteps stumbled up the steps. Grantaire stumbled in, wide-eyed and holding a bottle of alcohol. He studied the room and processed the situation, before standing beside Enjolras.
"Vive la France!" Grantaire's final words were spoken with a sober clarity, despite his drunkenness.
Their guns were aimed. Enjolras stared down the barrels of their guns without any fear. There was a sound of shattering glass as the bottle slipped out of Grantaire's hand. He whimpered slightly from drink-inflicted fear.
Enjolras raised the red flag with pride as all of the guns were fired.
Valjean was desperate as he searched. What if Javert's there? Are they coming?
He came across a dirty dead end. He couldn't turn back, or he'd be caught. Not just him- Marius too.
He began to feel trapped as he tried every door possible.
But then, a dripping sound alerted him of the only way out.
The sewers.
He had to save Marius. It was his only choice.
Cosette watched Éponine's sleeping eyelids flutter as she stirred. She reached to catch her sister as she rolled over on the sofa. Eponine woke up with a cry as a sharp pain shot through her hand and chest.
"It's alright, 'Ponine." Cosette reassured her sister.
Eponine blinked, as the memories from the barricade came back. She gripped Cosette's arm. Marie-Anne had silently moved closer to observe.
"The barricade-how's Marius?" Eponine garbled.
Cosette shook her head tearfully.
"I'm sorry, Eponine, we don't know. But all the barricades were overrun." Marie-Anne replied.
Eponine turned away from them, too numb to feel anything.
Marie-Anne decided she should try and find Marius. She returned to Café Musain, where a selection of women were silently mourning the dead who they had never even known. The dead who were to young to be staring at the ceiling with unseeing glassy eyes, laid in rows on the floor of the place where they used to stand with pride. Marius wasn't there, but that didn't put any joy in her heart, because everyone else was.
She was quiet and didn't meet any of the other women's eyes as she knelt to help clean the blood from the cobblestones.
Did you see them, going off to fight?" A woman who might have been either old or young spoke.
"Children of the barricade who didn't last the night." The elderly woman next to her stated.
Did you see them, lying where they died? Someone used to cradle them and kiss them when they cried." Bitterness entered the voice of a woman in her thirties.
"Did you see them lying side by side?" Marie-Anne stopped watching the faces of these women as they spoke.
"Who will wake them?"
"No one ever will." Marie-Anne whispered in response.
No one ever told them that a summer day can kill."
They were schoolboys, never held a gun...fighting for a new world, that would rise up like the sun."
"Where's that new world now the fighting's done?"
"Nothing changes." Marie-Anne's input was louder.
"Nothing ever will." The lady next to her said with a ferocity that made her flinch.
"Every year another brat, another mouth to fill."
"Same old story. What's the use of tears?" The woman next to Marie-Anne reached to her cheek gently to brush a tear she hadn't noticed away.
"What's the use of praying if there's nobody who hears?" There was so much bitterness from these women that it was almost overwhelming.
They picked up their blood filled buckets and carried them away to pour away, singing as they went.
"Turning, turning, turning, turning, turning through the years. Minutes into hours and the hours into years. Nothing changes. Nothing ever can. Round about the roundabout and back where you began."
"Round and round and back where you began..." Marie-Anne echoed the words as she stood over the bodies again, finding the face of Azelma, Éponine's sister.