i think we’ve all had a laugh about the idea of valjean bringing home the wrong barricade boy to cosette….but consider…..the following…………..
The man was awake. After a week of feverish mumblings, bloody coughing fits, and uncontrollable nightmares, the man was lucid. And he was angry.
“Where am I?” He demanded a second time, backed up in a corner so he could see the large room and all of its occupants.
Cosette took a deep breath, but she was unable to keep out the edge in her voice. “Again, you are in the house of Gillenormand–”
“Gillenormand. You don’t know him, but you knew his grandson, M…” Cosette’s breath caught in her throat. How could it be that this young man was here, was alive, when it could have so easily been a different student in his place? Cosette did not wish death on anyone, but she did wish life upon the boy she’d fallen in love with. “Marius Pontmercy.”
That gave the man pause. He stood in the corner on shaky legs and sweat tarnished clothes. His blue eyes flashed dangerously around as if everyone, Cosette, the doctor, the maids, everyone that was staring at him, was an enemy. “Pontmercy?”
The doctor was standing behind Cosette, a couple of yards away from the man. “Son, you really should be lying down. Your wounds are–”
“Is Pontmercy here? Are any of them?” The man was looking at Cosette as if she held the key to his understanding, to things suddenly not seeming so impossible anymore.
Cosette felt tears burning her throat. “No. I’m sorry.”
The man’s back hit the wall softly. His legs were no longer sufficient to support him. He voiced the truth that would poison the air around them both for years to come. “They’re all dead.”
Tears caused the mans voice to tighten. “But I’m not.”
Cosette spoke softly, “No. You were saved.”
The man’s face broke into a distressed expression. “Why?”
“Because…” Cosette couldn’t hold her tears back anymore, “Because only one of you could be saved and you were chosen.”
“I don’t know! Just thank God you have your life!” As she spoke, her voice high and broken, the man slid down to the floor, his chest heaving with sorrow. “Thank God that you were saved from sharing the fate of your friends! They are dead but you were given a second chance!” Cosette fell to her knees, her dark skirts gathering around her like Death’s storm clouds.
The man grasped at his blond curls, suddenly feeling the burn of every bullet wound in his chest like he was receiving them again. “I don’t want to be without them.”
Cosette looked up at him, at Enjolras, and felt their unlikely connection. The one that only those who have lost, and been forced to carry on, can feel. “But here we are.”
yousharknotpass
stormborns
origamiaround
