One Way to Go On- A Les Miserables Story

A Little Fall of Rain

as much as i wish it was, this is sadly not in victor hugo's style. but i tried.

The barricade was in a state of chaos almost worse than that of Jean Valjean's mental state, bullets whizzing this way and that, allegiances disintegrating the moment they leave the barrel. Bahorel fell, shot, to the floor. He was dead. Jean Prouvaire was gone, no doubt taken prisoner. A gun pointed at Marius, trigger about to be pulled. A girl in workman's clothes grasped the front of the barrel just as it shot. Eponine, having blocked a bullet for Marius, stared in horror at her hand, which was bleeding terribly, a visible hole in her palm.

She grew dizzy and collapsed to the ground, hand falling on her chest. The darkness of hopelessness engulfed her vision, but she saw Marius- she saw him, alive, and it brought a smile to her face. The world dimmed to emptiness.

"'Ponine? 'Ponine! Wake up, please..."

Her oblivion faded back into reality, but what felt more like a dream. Strong arms held her close, a soft voice pleaded her to life, and the bullets and bloodshed had abated. Her eyes fluttered open, taking in Marius' worried face come to life with hope as he saw her breathing.

"'Ponine! You're okay! You're alive! Dear heaven!"

"I took a bullet for you," she whispered, but not much sound came out of her mouth. Her face broke into a painful smile. "You're here."

"Are you hurt?" he said, not hearing her. He tenderly lifted her wrist for a build-up of blood to fall out of her hand. He shrunk back, if only for a split second. "Dear heaven! Are you in pain?"

"No. No, how could I be?" she said, allowing the warmth of his fingers to filter through her cold hands. "You're here."

He didn't cease his worrying and instead wrapped a torn piece of cloth around her hand, to keep it from bleeding too profusely. It brought another layer of reality to Eponine, who allowed an elated, somewhat painful smile to encompass her features. Marius looked again into her face, but couldn't help notice the pool of blood resting on her chest and bleeding into the fabric of her workman's clothes.

"Oh, heaven..."

"Marius," she said, staring at him rather than the blood. She was feeling fainter by the second, and the amount of redness in her peripheral vision made her bold. "Can you promise me... promise me to kiss me when I die? I'll feel it, I know I will."

"You're not going to die, Eponine, you will live, you're going to-"

"Promise me."

He looked up from her wounds and into her eyes, sincere as a man could be.

"I promise," he said, barely breathing. She let the words envelop her in warmth and happiness the means of which she'd never known.

"And- and promise me you'll live?"

"I- I will. Please don't go, 'Ponine, please don't leave us."

"How can I? You're here. You can keep me safe."

"Oh, if only I could-"

"Then you can keep me close," she said, staring into his face. His brow softened as he returned her gaze.

"I... I will," he said, holding her uninjured hand in his. Their fingers knit together, fiercely clasping the last moments of a life that could never be.

"You'll live for me," she said, ignoring the spots biting at her vision. She repeated the words, over and over again, if only to herself, softer each time as her conciousness dissipated.

"I will. I will," Marius said, every time in reply. He held her gaze as the world fell to darkness around him.

 "You will live, you will live..." her voice faded as her hand bled and her vision faded to dark. She felt the brush of Marius' lips on her forehead, and his whispered, 'yes, I will', before everything faded again into oblivion.

She woke with a start, and realized instantly someone had lain her among the dead. She couldn't help but give a small cry at the empty stares of the members of Les Amis de l'ABC. All of them were there, still, unblinking, unbreathing. Her breath caught, she felt as though she was trespassing, felt as though she had woken up in some kind of forbidden nightmare. Realizing her own fate, she brought her hand close to her face, still wrapped in Marius' makeshift bandage. It had stopped bleeding so much. Her heart was beating, she could feel it in her chest.

She stood and silently stepped away from the row of bodies, before crouching to close their eyes. Bahorel, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Bossuet, Feuilly, Joly, Gavroche- 

She looked at him an extra moment. He was too young. He couldn't be dead, and yet there he was. The inkling of shock was etched on his cold, blank face, as though he had died mid-song, when he least expected it.

Jean Prouvaire was nowhere to be found, probably executed for treason without a trial- there wasn't much more to hope for with a prisoner from the barricades. Marius, Enjolras and Grantaire were missing too, but she hoped they were still alive-

Gunshots sounded from the building to her left. Any survivors had surely suffered Jean's fate. She let out a small cry and set her hand on the flagstones to steady herself. Was Marius dead? Surely not. And yet the sound reverberated in her ears like a shout of anguish into an empty cave. It was certain. They all had been executed. Les Amis de l'ABC were no more. The revolution was over. The singing of the people had been silenced.

She might've wept, but a numbness spread through her colder than the coldest nights. She looked at each of the solemn faces of Les Amis de l'ABC, never to breathe again, never to smile again. She got up, slipped through the breach in the barricade, and away into the streets.

As she took in the night air, she remembered Marius holding her in his arms, whispering to her his promise to live. How sweet that moment had been, a pearl of happiness in her bitter existence. He had promised her, he had given his word. If only he had been able to keep it-!

She pressed her fingers to her forehead where he had kissed her, and gently brought them to her lips. If only there had been more time, if only there had been a true rest for her. She needn't have known if he'd lived or died. Oh, how cruel the twist of fate, keeping her alive while killing her reason of living! Oh, how much better it had been to live, receiving only the love of friendship, than to live, alone amongst the corpses of a fallen revolution, a fallen revolution that had dragged her love down with it.

She glanced back whence she came, but the barricade was already far away. She had been supposed to die there, she realized. She had been supposed to die, but instead she had lived. Why? Life had been cruel to her enough already, and now it had rent her heart in the wrong way it was intended to. Oh, if only Marius hadn't bandaged her wounds!

She attempted to pry the cloth away, but it stuck, sticky with dried blood. She dropped it, beginning to feel squeamish. The blood covering her clothes didn't fix that, the stiff fabric clinging to the same folds it'd dried in.

And so she continued to wander, walking the streets in a meandering path without a true destination- at least, not to her. Providence had other plans.

So she walked, unknowingly drifting towards another soul spared their own predestined death. She continued to despair, unknowingly going to save another from it.

---

so obviously i took some *creative liberties* and she lived (she doesn't in the book, in the book the bullet goes through her heart AND her hand, because that makes sense)

she does think Marius is dead, he is not, that was Grantaire and Enjolras' execution

*cries over all les amis de l'abc*