A/N: On the night of 5th June 1832, Enjolras is joined by another who is set about considering the principles of the revolution.

As I am not Male, French or living in C19th Paris, how can I possibly own Les Miserables? I am simply trying to convey my love for Victor Hugo's novel into something cohesive- please don't sue me!

18. Falling (Les Miserables)

'Someday you will fall from something higher and I won't be able to help you'

There are times where he wishes that he had heeded Combeferre's advice.

There have been times; many times in fact in the run up to the revolution, this glorious moment when everything they had worked for, everything they had wished for; had seemed impossible and he had felt as if he were falling.

Felt as if the world as he knew it was crumbling, cracking, the weight of his own expectation suddenly too much to bear.

The minutes after Gavroche had brought the news of General Lamarque's death had been such a moment. The silence, the perfect stillness shrouding the upper room of the Musain as all eyes turned to him, all attention snapped at once towards his orders had found him stumbling; searching for words, desperately trying to remember why these men; these fiercely passionate followers who had taken the very core of his revolution to their hearts and transformed it into its' shining ideal that would sweep away his country's pain were here at all.

And as soon as he stumbled, a hand had been there to hold him. A hand, a touch; the slight rise of eyebrows over wire-framed spectacles; an imperceptible nod that had prompted him back into the familiar rhythms of speech.

'This is not '30 Enjolras, my friend. We have grown up since then, I hope. We have each other now.'

The knowledge that Combeferre would be there, would always be there had been what had stirred him on he realises. The knowledge that his ideas were not concrete, that his views; despite how impressive they sounded in his own head, could be challenged, could be corrected and expanded had been what had brought him this far.

The knowledge that the tall, thin, dark haired medical student with the broken nose and eyes which could twinkle from laugh to scandalised frown in a mere moment, would be with him no matter what happened, no matter how their attempts at bringing their beloved, broken city back came to pass.

And suddenly he can hear himself again, his words distant, floating as if from a dream, another life; words that were pulling him forward, pulling him onward as he watches a blood red sun slowly ascend over the soft, grey sky.

He can only wonder what that sun will have seen when it sinks back towards the horizon.

'Citizens, no matter what happens today; we will be making a revolution.'

He only wishes that he could find that confidence, that courage now.

Find it and use it; because he needed it, his friends, the men who had joined them on their quest for freedom, needed it as much as they needed ammunition if they had even the slightest chance of being able to stand against the National Guard.

'Enjolras?'

He barely feels the weight of the hand to his shoulder but leans into the pressure all the same, a rush of grateful love for his oldest and closest friend flooding through every part of his body.

'Are you alright Mon Ami?'

The skin under the guide's eyes is smudged blue with exhausted concern, dust and grime smattering his high, fine features. Out of the corner of his eye, Enjolras can just make out the thin, white relic of a bayonet scar jagging down from Combeferre's left eyelid, the subtle tightening of his mouth as he waits for his reply.

'Quite', he manages after a moment's pause, unable to say anything else and yet knowing that it will not be enough to satisfy his oldest friend.

A slight rise in the guide's eyebrows, the dark eyes widening slightly behind his spectacles is enough to confirm his suspicions.

He knows his friend well enough to not question the unspoken anxieties he sees there and yet wishes he could bring himself to say something, anything that will soothe them as they stand shoulder to shoulder watching a world rising from its' sleep.

A world that in just few hours, they will, God willing, have liberated from the hands of those who have tried for so long to suffocate it into submission.

A world where all; man or woman, bourgeois' or gamin would be free, free to live their life as it was intended to be lived.

The very thought of that world makes his heart swell with hope.

Hope that one day, regardless of their efforts; the world that they have been fighting for, the world that his lieutenants have poured their hearts and souls and very lives into will become a reality.

As if sensing his excitement, he feels the guide's hand slowly reaches for his own and for a moment they stand in silence; each praying that they will not see the other fall.

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