A/N: h-h-hi there...*winces at not having updated in over a month* Thanks to phoenixflames12 and Om for reviewing. Actually, if you're reading this, you can thank Om because she forced me to keep writing this. If I hadn't, I'm pretty sure she would actually come by my house and make me feel guilty. Thanks, Om. You rock. And I actually didn't mean to abandon this. So I'm going to try and update it once a week or so. Yay? Okay. Onto the story.

-Marseillaise

The worst part was the blindfold. It was heavy, and it obscured vision, and it made Enjolras feel completely vulnerable.

Not that he would have been any less vulnerable without it.

Thick, scratchy ropes pulled tight against his arms and legs, effectively keeping him still on the table. If he had still possessed the energy, he would have struggled.

There was suddenly a thin pain blooming from his left shoulder. At first it was bareable, but suddenly...

Enjolras' back arched, evry fiber in his body pulled taught. He screamed, the sound ripping up out of his throat and out to the cruel, cruel world.

"This is the Axillery Nerve," a calm voice explained. Enjolras could barely detect it through the pain, but he he listened all the same, trying to focus.

"It's an extremely sensitive nerve. One prod and your system is almost overloaded with pin receptors. What do you think would happen if I actually pinched it?"

Enjolras drew his last reserve of strength and squirmed uselessly. "Please," he panted, his throat raw and dry. "Please."

"This is for medicine. Posterity. I am a doctor; I must learn these things. And whom better to learn them on than a rebel dog from France?"

Tears wet the blindfold, and Enjolras gritted his teeth. His bare chest heaved, and his muscles stood taught.

Once more the man dug into the sliced open shoulder.

And then there was pain the likes of which Enjolras had never experienced. It filled up his mind, and it was the only thing that existed. The slide into blackness was welcome this time.

-:-

"M. Courfeyrac! I've got a message for ya."

Courfeyrac turned and tiredly looked at the boy before him. War had aged the young man. He was jovial, but hesitant. Nothing could give him as much pleasure as it once had, especially with their leader gone. "Yes?"

"Yer roomate- Pontmercy, I think it was- wants to talk to you," the urchin said excitedly.

Courfeyrac stiffened. Marius was a good friend, yes, but he was a monarchist. He opposed the Regime, but he didn't exactly want a people's republic. "About what?"

"I ain't yer newsboy. Ask him yourself."

Courfeyrac nodded. "Of course. Thank you, Gavroche."

"Hey, Monsieur?"

"Yes? And please, call me Courfeyrac."

The boy took a deep breath, and Courfeyrac once again saw those old, battle-scarred eyes. The kind of eyes a boy shouldn't have. "Courfeyrac...I know who you are, what you do. And when I grow up, I wanna do the same thing. But sometimes I wonder. Is this ever going to end? The Nazis might go, but who will take their place? War is all I've known, Courfeyrac. So keep fighting for the right team." And with that, he slipped out of the café.

Courfeyrac was stunned at the feeling and wisdom in the boy's words, but he couldn't dwell on it. There were- sadly- more important things than one boy's soul.

-:-

"I'm going into town," Grantaire said, looking up. "I'll be back tonight."

Leslie looked up. Surprise was writ on her face, but she only nodded. "Of- of course. Do you need anything?"

"No."

Leslie nodded and watched as Grantaire slung his pack over his shoulder and took off on the bicycle Courfeyrac had lent him.

Grantaire biked into town, just in case anybody was watching, but as soon as he arrived he doubled back, along a different road. It was sickening, the way the prison was just...there. Amongst people, amongst the very people that those inside were dying for. The irony made him smile. Grantaire had always been something of a cynic.

It was huge, soaring into the sky in towering spirals, the original stone walls of the Châteaux now including Nazi sentries.

There was no way inside. It was stone, it was guarded, and it was too big. In short, inpenetrable.

Well, maybe.

He remebered the Swedish woman he had met, months ago. Her red cross uniform had gotten her past the gates, and her wits had collected valuable information. They'd won, that time.

Grantaire tried not to look suspicious, so he did a lazy loop while observing the Châteaux's defenses. When he arrived back at Leslie's (after buying a small wooden toy for her two year old son to prove he really had been in town), it was only five PM.

-:-

"His name was Prouvaire."

Enjolras clamped his jaw and set his face.

"You killed him."

"You whipped him until he keeled over from blood loss," Enjolras snapped back in French (because he could still speak in his language, if he had nothing left).

The guard understood little French, but he got Enjolras' point. "He would still be alive- and that old woman, too- if you had told the truth."

Enjolras bowed his head, his matted curls hiding his eyes.

"How are you any different? If you captured a prisoner and the only way to make him reveal information that could save your and your comrades' lives was to torture him, what would you do?

"You are not the only person to try and resist, Apollo. Prouvaire did as well. Kept telling lies, so we cut out his tongue. He could still write. But do you know what he wrote? He wrote 'the caged bird sings because it has never experienced freedom; as I know what it is like to live there; I shall never sing again.' Foolishness!"

Enjolras wished Prouvaire's last stand hadn't been alone. That the- poet, maybe?- hadn't had to die wretchedly, on the ground, covered in blood and screaming.

He thought that the young man deserved a better death.

But he said nothing.

"What is it that you desire? Death?"

Enjolras looked up. "I would gladly die," he said through a raspy throat, "if it meant the end of you as well."

The man didn't speak enough French to understand, or maybe he was pretending not to. Either way, Enjolras didn't care.

"You're breaking, Apollo."

-:-

"That Vichy. Javert, I think his name was," Marius said in a low, hurried voice, stumbling over the words a little. "He was following you. Courfeyrac, I don't presume to know all of your motives, nor your outings, but it isn't a secret that you do have an unusual tendancy to skip class."

"What can I say, Marius? I like to add to my collection," the curly-haired man replied with an easy grin, referring to his ever-growing number of mistresses.

"You're being watched," cried Marius, "and you're maing jokes? This could be about your life!"

Courfeyrac dropped the façade and looked at Marius sadly. "I know."

"Then stop! Actually attend class! Do something productive with your life and try not to attract attention!"

If only you knew, Courfeyrac thought. "The Musain. Thursday night. Tell the bartender that you have a red sock." He stood up and tipped his hat, making to leave the park. "Good day, Marius."

A/N 2: IF YOU LIKED IT PLEASE REVIEW! THANKS!

-MARSEILLAISE