wings_of_a_swan | In which there is a bit of quiet time

In which there is a bit of quiet time

Enjolras is in room number 89, which seems appropriate.

The room itself is decorated, or rather not decorated, in much the same way that Enjolras's rooms in Paris were. Though with rather fewer candles. And no stove, yet it's a perfectly comfortable temperature--is it spring or summer here? Is it always spring or summer here?

Combeferre takes in the window, the books scattered here and there, the walls bare except for the Declaration of the Rights of Man--and a flag. A red flag, with holes and stains that could only be blood.

The barricade's flag.

Combeferre blinks hard, and looks away. If he weeps now, it won't be quiet sobs and tears, but the sort of howls that would frighten the neighbors, if there are neighbors. And if they are capable of emotions like fear.

He turns to see Enjolras looking at him. He suspects Enjolras is worried. Combeferre wants to reassure him, but it's not so easy to think of how.

"There's nothing to be concerned about, my friend," Combeferre finally says, knowing it's not his best effort. "After all," he adds drily, "we're both dead. What more can happen?"

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Enjolras makes a small gesture, not negation but qualification, even as his own quieter joy shows in response.

"Books. From people, it's harder to say -- I've heard similar from some, but it's hard to say who's from our world, and who from another Earth, merely similar. Though it's heartening to know that, as well. But I asked for a book of the history of my own France, to be certain. The Bar -- it's a fantastic mechanism, I don't understand it in the least but it's been reliable -- it assured me that the provenance was correct."

There were horrors in that book. Many of them he grieves still, even from this distance of decades and death.

But to know this -- to know this, to be able to tell it to his friends, to think of what it means for France and for humanity -- it's worth any price he could ever have paid.

Combeferre is still grinning.

Oh, he knows there are likely horrors in France's future--in the world's future--that nothing valuable comes cheap or easy, and that every great triumph is bought with suffering.

But to know that the triumphs will come, that the suffering isn't in vain or unceasing, that a world of greater freedom and greater justice is not only achievable but achieved--that brings a lightness to him that was unimaginable since even before the first shot fired on the barricade, a lightness that perhaps he's never felt before.

Combeferre has always had faith, he has always had hope, he has always known that possibilities were wide open and trusted to humanity to realize them.

But he is a scientist. Faith, hope, possibility, trust--none of these things can measure up in his mind to knowledge. And now he knows. Or at least, Enjolras swears he can and will know, that the knowledge is at hand, and that's very nearly as good.

"My friend," he says, and then stops. There's no adequate response he can make to what Enjolras has told him. "I may actually sleep well now."

He takes the nightshirt, turns to shed his clothes and put it on, slips into the bed and, much-battered by horrors and wonders both, falls immediately asleep.

Enjolras lights a candle at the desk. He turns down the room's nearly heatless lamps with the little switch on the wall: dimming them, then extinguishing them entirely. He sits down to amend his messages to Joly and Bossuet and Bahorel and Grantaire, to write a second note to Courfeyrac. His movements are quiet and efficient.

But there's a glow of contentment in his face; a small and perhaps unconscious smile sometimes rises. When he folds the notes and rises, he pauses long enough to glance at Combeferre -- another dear friend here at last, limp not in death but in peaceful sleep -- before he goes to the door with the intent of slipping quietly out to find a rat messenger.

He will not have the opportunity, or in the case of one recipient, the need.

Courfeyrac had been in the library when the rat found him, which is why there are three random books haphazardly under his arm. He is out of breath and panting, wide-eyed with a grin plastered all over his face.

'He is here? It is true?'

Of course it is true. The note came from Enjolras.

None of them would joke about something like this, but it's true that Enjolras hardly jokes in general.

He meets Courfeyrac's eyes with his own rare, bright smile.

"Come in quietly. He's already asleep."

Of course Courfeyrac will want to see. And Combeferre is very likely too soundly asleep already to wake even for a friend's arrival, to judge by how instantly sleep claimed him; but, if not, he'll want to wake and see Courfeyrac bright-eyed and whole. There's no reason at all for them to whisper out in a hallway.

Courfeyrac passes into the room at once, clasping Enjolras' shoulder as he does. And yes, there he is. Combeferre. Much as he loves all his friends, he has missed Combeferre - the man is so different from him, his company is an entirely different pleasure from those who have more similar tastes to his own.

He looks at him sleeping for a moment - yes, he is really here, it is really him - and then turns to Enjolras with a grin.

'I knew he would come eventually. And now only two remain.'

And Marius. He would dearly like to see Marius.

'How is he?'

Enjolras remained in the hall only long enough to pass the notes to a rat. Each has the recipient's name on the outside, and a brief message inside: that Combeferre is here, that he's sleeping now but in a couple of hours please come by.

(Habit still keeps him cautious about committing much to written notes, especially in a place where a living Javert can be found. But there's about Combeferre's arrival that's a secret; the broad facts will be obvious to anyone who saw his arrival, anyone who meets him and already knows his friends.)

He returns, closing the door behind him with a quiet click as Courfeyrac turns to grin and comment.

"Exhausted." Well, of course. Courfeyrac will remember as well as he the barricade: the Combeferre they saw then is only a little while removed from the Combeferre asleep now.

"He hasn't been here long, so we haven't discussed a great deal. I've told him who's here, what he missed, and the good news from the library here."

The good news worthy of being mentioned in an exhausted man's first hour at Milliways is, of course, patently obvious. Just mentioning it, still, makes Enjolras's face glow slightly in the candle's warm light.

Edited 2014-12-14 21:39 (UTC)

It is news entirely worthy of being mentioned the instant a dead man arrives, and Courfeyrac's grin broadens at the look on Enjolras's face. Because yes, it is wondrous to be dead and still be able to learn these things.

'Good. Yes, very good. He should know.'

They should all know. If only everyone who died there that day could learn it; that it was not for nothing, that they will get there in the end.

He turns back to Combeferre, and is silent for a moment. Then;

'Enjolras? Do you think Jehan will be prevented from coming, because he was not with the rest of us when he died? Do you think that's how it works?'

"No. I don't."

He speaks quietly, but with assurance.

He's spent enough time turning over hypotheses, especially in the months before the others arrived. There's little enough data to support any of them, and no satisfactory answers; still, logic can be applied. (At times, it felt there was little else to do but apply logic to such questions without data.)

"Bahorel is here. Gavroche is here. Grantaire and I were not with the rest of you -- but he arrived months before I did, though we died in the same moment. Fauchelevent and the spy are both here -- and alive! -- and neither of them died with us. Other men we knew less well died alongside the rest of us, and in the same breath, and have not come."

"More and more of us who loved each other as well as brothers have come. I don't know if that's some underlying pattern, some recognition of love on the part of the universe, or if there's another pattern we haven't yet grasped. But I see no reason to believe that dying a street away, with us on his mind and him certainly on ours, would be any barrier."

'Yes. Yes of course, you're right.'

Courfeyrac is not much given to maudlin introspection, but being here, and being dead, and not knowing whether they will all be together again - it makes a man think. He's sure if they could just all be here, then things would be even more enjoyable and he would certainly not have to give his death any more thought at all.

He steps back from the bed so as not to wake Combeferre - though a book does slip from under his arm, and make a thunk - and runs a hand through his messy curls.

'Well. I will stay until he wakes. Or...no, perhaps I would disturb him. I should return these books perhaps. And fetch wine for later.'

There must certainly be a celebration.

Combeferre is running to the soldier again, his shoes slipping in gore. When the first bayonet thrusts into him, he shouts but keeps moving, and then he hears a thunk right beside him, right where Courfeyrac should be, and he doesn't want to look. He doesn't want to see Courfeyrac fallen--

--and then he hears Courfeyrac talking cheerily of wine, and he turns around and sits up with an "Eh?"

He's in a bed. Enjolras's bed, in this strange afterlife--Milliways. He is dead.

He looks around the room and sees Enjolras--dead, too, but seemingly otherwise. And facing Enjolras is Courfeyrac, unhurt and smiling.

Combeferre shoves off the blankets and stumbles out of bed.

Edited 2014-12-15 00:24 (UTC)

Enjolras is smiling again, now, bright with private joy. He can't regret this waking, no matter how exhausted Combeferre was, no matter that he was the one who advised sleep. Not with the look on Combeferre's face, and the look on Courfeyrac's.

He takes half a step back, only enough to clear the way for these two to greet each other properly.

Courfeyrac's response is predictable. He barely lets Combeferre get to his feet before he is flinging his arms around him, books clattering to the floor forgotten.

'My friend.'

His voice is thick with emotion, but he will wager the others care about as much as he does.

'It is good to see you.'

Oh, Combeferre cares immensely. Hearing that frank warmth and passion in Courfeyrac's voice again nearly makes up for the heartbreak of the past days.

Combeferre rests his head on Courfeyrac's shoulder, holding him close, before stepping back to say, "This is a gift I didn't dare hope for. The three of us--nearly all of us--together again, and well."

As well as the dead can be, anyway, but that's not troubling Combeferre right now. He's smiling as widely as when Enjolras told him that France and much of the world would indeed gain their freedom.

Edited 2014-12-16 01:17 (UTC)

Courfeyrac does not remove his hand from Combeferre's shoulder, not for a long moment.

'Yes. Yes. It is more than can have been dreamed off - it is a strange afterlife, to be sure, but very well equipped and full of happy news of the future.'

And it lets them be all together, so if there are problems then he is not about to mention them and ruin this happy moment.

'Bahorel and Bossuet have already been arrested once, and Joly is up to his ears in science experiments. He will be beside himself to see you.'

They all will, of course.

Combeferre is still smiling. He finds it hard to look at Courfeyrac's face and do otherwise.

The glow of joy remains even when Courfeyrac mentions arrest. "Who arrested them?" To be sure, Bahorel being arrested need not reflect poorly on whoever did the arresting, and for a different reason the same holds true for Bossuet. Bahorel is perfectly capable of deliberately breaking a just law purely for the fun of the ensuing arrest, and Bossuet is perfectly capable of getting caught red-handed at a crime of which he is wholly innocent. Even so--Combeferre has just seen them both killed, and protectiveness flares easily within him.

"And I to see him." He hears Joly's voice again: "Consider the cat." Good cheer and good sense (of a kind), even when faced with the worst. His absence is suddenly unbearable. "How soon can that be? I will not be going back to sleep, not for a long while."

Enjolras steps closer to press both their shoulders affectionately, and fervently.

Every friend here is dear to him. Every one of them irreplaceable. But to have these two men together before him again, to stand with them in a quiet room and see them whole and smiling, settles an old ache deep inside of him.

"Only overnight. It's a longer story, and worth telling, but they're both fine. Bahorel will make a better story of it."

There are reasons he said not a bad place and not a good place, a sufficient world. It's worth telling, and not just as an amusing story. But it needs more background about Milliways to be explained properly, and that's the important part: everyone is well. Arrest in their own would could mean something as mild as that (albeit with less comfortable beds), or a variety of far worse options.

"I sent messages telling them all you were here, and sleeping, and to come in two hours or so." He's smiling -- he's been smiling, and couldn't restrain it if he wished, right now -- but the expression shifts with a little more amusement. Two hours, ten minutes, what's the difference. "Only a few minutes ago. We could wait, or go looking, or send other notes on their heels. The last is likely the most sensible."

In Combeferre's place, he would be ready to go rushing through the halls, and pound on doors until he found his friends. But in his own place, now, looking at Combeferre with new excitement buoying him over the exhaustion that's still present, he thinks that staying in one place is probably the kinder option.

Combeferre notes what Enjolras says, and does not say, about the arrest. With Enjolras every word and every silence is deliberate and communicative. It's still not enough to make Combeferre somber--not with Enjolras and Courfeyrac standing right there, not with the three of them reunited. But it's enough to make him understand that there are even more questions to ask than he'd thought.

"Far be it from me to deny Bahorel the chance to entertain us."

Combeferre isn't feeling very sensible at the moment, and is entirely on the side of rushing through halls and pounding on doors. There's only one consideration that makes him pause. "Which would be fastest, sending them notes or going looking?" He looks from Enjolras to Courfeyrac, feeling a bit at sea in this world they know, a world in which he wouldn't even know how to start looking for his other friends.

Enjolras glances at Courfeyrac. Does he know precisely where the others are just now? Evidently not.

"It depends on whether they're in their rooms or elsewhere."

Hmm.

Well. Combeferre wants speed, and their friends -- and, Enjolras suspects, wants to be doing something, and not merely sitting and waiting. If he'd rather that than sleep, Enjolras is not going to gainsay him. Combeferre is at liberty to make his own choices.

He smiles faintly, in abrupt decision, and squeezes Combeferre's shoulder before letting go. "Let's go to Joly and Bossuet's room, then. At least one of them will likely be in. We can send the others notes from there."

(Enjolras may be one of the few people in this world capable of forgetting about the décor of that room.)

"That sounds like an excellent plan," says Combeferre, who is accustomed to the full exercise of his liberty to sleep only as much as his body aggressively insists on.

He looks again from Enjolras to Courfeyrac. There is such enormous joy in having these two men with him once more. Enjolras with all his inspiration, and Courfeyrac with all his warmth, are enough to make Combeferre feel like himself once more. Combeferre does not know how it will feel once he has reunited with all of his dear friends who have arrived in this strange place, but he knows he wants to find out as soon as possible.

Well then.

Enjolras smiles once more at them both, and then turns to retrieve the jacket he shed for candlelit note-writing.

(This might also be by way of a subtle reminder to Combeferre that he might, perhaps, wish to change back out of the nightshirt.)

Oh, yes. That.

Combeferre turns away to hastily pull his proper clothes back on.

Once finished, he turns back to his friends. "Shall we?"

Courfeyrac laughs giddily, jumps between them and flings one arm around each of their shoulders.

'We shall! Onward, dear friends. You shall not be denied the pleasures of the Blue Room any longer - we will meet under the cherubs, and you shall be as scarred by them as the rest of us.'

If this makes no sense at all to Combeferre...well, it will. Very soon.

In answer to Combeferre's confused look, Enjolras says, "The décor is very..."

Describing interior decoration is very much not his strong point. He finishes after a moment, rather helplessly, with "There are cherubs. The room is very blue."

That doubtless doesn't explain it properly, but we have now exhausted Enjolras's ability to describe a room's aesthetic impression. (If Combeferre wanted a tactical assessment of its defensibility, he could provide that in much more detail.) But Courfeyrac seems to be anticipating the surprise, and at any rate Combeferre will see it for himself shortly.

It's a little crowded to walk three abreast down a Milliways hallway, but entirely achievable. And soon, they're knocking at Joly and Bossuet's door.

Joly's at the door already-- on the other side. And up a ladder. And carrying a box of decorations in one hand and trying to hang a wreath with the other and warning kittens away when he can be bothered.

The knock makes him jump a bit.

Those on the other side of the door will hear a series of subdued crashes, a sharp "mew!" or two of protest answered by muffled apologies, and the sound of a ladder and a few boxes of ornaments being shoved quickly out of the way.

Joly doesn't bother to take the tinsel out of his hair before opening the door, with a friendly smile and the beginnings of an apology for taking so long. And then he sees who's at the door. He beams, and absolutely throws himself at Combeferre, hugging him tightly before pulling back to study his face.

"You're here! You made it! We were wondering who'd come next, of course we knew you would, have they told you about the library?" He laughs, and rubs his eyes, and moves to pull them all into the apartment. "Come in, come in!--Mind the kittens, and the ornaments, sorry, Christmas coming, you know, oh, I'm so glad you made it in time though! Have you seen the infirmary? Of course not,what am I thinking, but oh, Combeferre, you'll be amazed! It's wonderful! Do any of you want a drink or--? Ah, sit wherever you like, the furniture is...solid..." he never quite knows what to say about the decor. "Do Bossuet and Bahorel know yet?"

In which there is a bit of quiet time

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