ADIEU » LES MISÉRABLES | ✓

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

For the first time that morning, Enjolras allowed himself to look down.

The rebels had taken the funeral procession by storm. He and the Les Amis had climbed onto the coffin carriage, and the crowd, seized by a fervid passion, was singing with everything they had. The red flag that Feuilly waved streaked across the sky like a stream of blood.

It was all beyond his wildest imagination. Courfeyrac had estimated hundreds of people to have joined their cause, but Enjolras had only realized the sheer enormity of the number until it was blatantly displayed in front of his eyes. He glanced at his friends, and their expressions were overflowing with a sort of crazed ecstasy. It was as if they were on top of the world.

And yet Enjolras searched. His eyes roved over the people, trying to pick out a head of dark curls, or a flash of blue eyes. He caught small fragments of her likeness, fleeting and intangible, suspended over the different faces in the crowd of thousands. At one point, he was certain he'd found her - but the sun was in his eyes, and when he looked again, she was gone.

___

She had never been there.

Claudine sat on the floor of her apartment, her face in her hands. She could hear the time trickling by, every single second pulsing painfully against her ears. When she closed her eyes she could see Enjolras, his likeness burned into the blackness of her mind.

His mouth slanted into a subtle, careful smile. She knew now that it was something he reserved for her and her alone - but it just made everything harder to bear.

"It's not too late. You can join us, still. The Rue de la Chanvrerie - we'll be there."

"I can't," she told him, softly. "That's your destiny, not mine."

Saying those words out loud felt terribly wrong - almost like a betrayal.

She wasn't afraid of dying, not in the slightest. But if she chose to plunge her life straight into the revolution, it would be unfair to her father. If he had survived the fire, he would be waiting for her. If she died, he would spend his whole life waiting - and that was cruel. She couldn't do that to him.

In the midst of all the flurry of the revolution and her feelings for Enjolras, it'd been frighteningly easy to forget just how much her father meant to her. For seventeen years, he had been a father and mother and friend all at once. Her love for him was real and tangible and immediate. Though it had certainly been dulled by other things, it could never be quelled - not by the revolution, not by the valiant promise of a better world, not even by Enjolras.

She would always choose her father - even if it meant running away.

___

Gavroche critically examined the procession from atop his elephant. Upon deciding that the men were having considerably more fun than he was, he leapt down from the monument to join them.

He was received warmly, with a friendly punch from Bahorel and a hug from Courfeyrac. Even the great Enjolras himself graciously inclined his head and spared him a curt, distracted nod. No one questioned his presence or told him to leave.

He was determined, now more than ever, that he would stay with them till the very end. But he kept this to himself, for he was unsure of how to express this to the others. Instead, he asked about Claudine. There was no sign of the girl or her beautiful black horse.

There was a silence. The boys glanced sideways at Enjolras, who had snapped into his serious, deadly fanatical demeanor, and had shut himself off from everything but the revolution.