Enjolras

It's a clear, fine night at the end of the universe. The afternoon was warm and sunny; it's night now, well after midnight, and the sky outside the window is bright with strange stars. By the Milliways calendar, capricious creature though it is, today was June 5. It's June 6 now, technically, in the dark hours between midnight and sunrise.

On this date, in 1832, Paris was an eventful place. A morning funeral, an uprising -- by afternoon, barricades -- by the evening of the 6th, violently and brutally suppressed.

Enjolras and Combeferre are still awake. They're not discussing the date, or past events. Indeed, they've discussed such things very little today. They have, instead, been reading. Every so often one or the other will read a passage aloud, or comment upon it, and then a conversation will unfold: a discussion of the future, or a friendly argument about its proper shape or interpretation. When silence falls, it's to resume reading, not to brood in silence.

If every so often one or the other of them seems to be reading more slowly than usual, and looking through the pages of his book -- or if a heavy silence falls in the middle of an argument, and is not immediately filled -- well, doubtless it's only distraction.

When Enjolras and Bahorel return from a sparring session to room 89, it's with the idea of the loan of a book, and drinks, and doubtless conversation. It turns out, however, that Joly and Combeferre are already in the room.

This is fine, of course; it's no trouble whatsoever. And the rooms are as much Combeferre's as Enjolras's. It's only that Combeferre and Joly are elbows-deep in some kind of experimentation which distracts a certain amount of attention.

There are weird devices that beep and blink with multicolored lights. There are wires and whirring noises. There's a green liquid that's steaming somewhat ominously, although Joly catches Enjolras's glance and assures them both in a bright voice that it's perfectly safe. (Bahorel looks faintly disappointed to hear it.) There's Combeferre's pterosaur specimen, decanted from its jar and hooked up to one of the weird devices, which is producing a warbling wail like a drunken songbird.

It's not worth asking about the experiment just yet, let alone inquiring what world and time those mechanisms might have come from. Enjolras leaves Bahorel to ask anyway, and poke at things, and generally make a nuisance of himself. He himself goes to wash up.

A few minutes later, in shirtsleeves with a freshly washed face and hands, he returns to the main room. He's just in time to see a fountain of brightly colored steam shoot for the ceiling. The little devices are shrieking and warbling, and Joly makes a startled sound -- Enjolras has covered the distance to the table, he's reaching to pull them away, whoever's nearest, out of danger -- but just as his hand closes on Combeferre's sleeve, either his vision wobbles or the air itself does, and they're somewhere else.

Quiet falls like a weight. The table with its devices and bubbling liquid and pickled pterosaur is still there, but the devices have gone silent. Joly is here, Bahorel, Combeferre; his arm is solid under Enjolras's hand.

But under their feet is lush greenery. Strange plants surround them, and a blue sky overhead. The air is warm and swampy and full of unfamiliar odors. There are buzzing noises, and a clattering of strange insects, and somewhere far off a bleat deeper than any sheep or goat. No walls. No buildings; no civilization; no humans in sight, except their little cluster. Nothing familiar at all.

For a heartbeat, they're all wide-eyed.

Then Bahorel is shouting with laughter, and Joly exclaiming and Combeferre starting to sputter questions.

Suddenly there's a loud buzz, and a large dark shape falls from the sky in a rapid, erratic path. Enjolras pushes forward on instinct, putting himself in front of Combeferre, sees Bahorel doing the same--

And they're back in his familiar room at Milliways, just as they were, except that there's a beetle the size of a small dog on the table, tucking its wings away.

(It's only later that any of them will realize just how many days passed in the course of those few moments. This is why you shouldn't play with pterosaur corpses and time-manipulation devices you don't fully understand, kids!)

[Just before: bringing unwelcome news to Valjean.]

It's very warm indoors, after the chill and quiet of the lake and the tension of that conversation. The café hubbub is like a heavy weight in the air. Enjolras stops by Bar to retrieve his note to Valjean. It's irrelevant now.

Then he goes upstairs to room 89.

Combeferre is in the bathroom doing something probably experimental with the still's piping, to judge by the clank of metal and the way the copper boiler is currently gurgling. Good. Enjolras would have gone in search of him or Courfeyrac or Feuilly before long, otherwise. But he doesn't need to disturb his friend immediately. His presence nearby is comfort.

He hangs up overcoat, hat, coat. Removes his gloves, props his walking stick against a table. There's a fire lit; this room is warm too, but it's cozy now rather than oppressive.

He drops into a chair with a weariness he didn't let himself acknowledge around Valjean. The old man's pain and fear and weariness mattered far more, then. Now Enjolras rests his elbows on his knees and, just for a few moments, his forehead on folded hands, and breathes out.

It's done, at least.

"Please keep an eye on your watch," Combeferre requested. "I'd like to try using the watches to communicate with you from the Labyrinth. I want to test it and see if it works."

Enjolras dutifully kept an ear out for the watch's speaking chime, and checked it occasionally as well, just in case he had failed to hear it. He received one message, fairly promptly, saying that Combeferre believed they were approaching the Labyrinth. Then, what seemed to be hours, at least insofar as one can tell at Milliways. (Despite his occasional absent-minded checking, Joly's watches are useless for timetelling purposes.) Then another message: this one brief, reassuringly calm and cheerful, and apparently from inside the Labyrinth, but with sound that came and went like a candle flickering in wind.

For the rest of the night, nothing more.

Time at Milliways is strange. Enjolras knows that. Time in the forest is even stranger; he knows that too. If there's no particular evidence they're safe, neither is there particular evidence they're in danger.

All the same. He doesn't sleep well; he wakes at every noise that might possibly be a chime. In the early morning, he goes to find Feuilly.

Feuilly is answers the door with a book in one hand and his hair standing on end, looking as if he's been awake for some time, which is either an indication that Milliways time is being peculiar again or merely an indication that it's an interesting book. When the situation at hand has been discussed in as much detail as possible, they spend a little while longer discussing the Soviet Union, with watches open on the table beside them.

The watches don't chime.

Their course of action is clear. The conversation lulls; Enjolras picks up his watch, moves the hands to 12, speaks into it to everyone who's listening. He waits for an answer from the Labyrinth too, and hears only from Bahorel, in his room down the hall and eager for the advenutre of a rescue mission.

Grantaire doesn't answer, but apparently he's listened to the little voice-message that's left behind, because when the others gather by Bar, he's there too. He blinks at them with his usual faint bleariness, but follows along readily as they start across the lawn, making for the trees. It's good to see. Grantaire cares about his friends, that's always been plain to see, but it's good to see him acting usefully on their behalf as well.

Bahorel has a large pack. Enjolras hasn't inquired into its contents.

Grantaire has a bottle. Enjolras hasn't inquired into its contents either, although in this case it's easy to guess.

He's never ventured through the Labyrinth's doors, but he does know more or less where it is. Bahorel likewise, it seems. It's some ways along, where the forest meets the mountains.

Enjolras has, over his months here, gotten more or less accustomed to conversations with Bar. With Combeferre looking on in fascination, however, he's newly reminded of the depth of peculiarity inherent in a discussion in which one half of the dialogue comes in the form of notes in orange crayon (and legible but extremely strange and rather childish handwriting, to 19th century eyes) written on small paper napkins.

Nonetheless, the conversation is reasonably productive. Their request -- primarily Combeferre's request, though Enjolras raised the question with Bar -- was for either more shelving to be installed in their current room, or for a larger room intended for two and with enough storage space for the collection of oddities and equipment Combeferre is likely to keep amassing.

"And no cherubs," Combeferre added. "If you please."

Bar indicated, via orange notes, that shelving would be possible, but that a larger room was equally possible and likely more useful, and that she suggested examining the options to see if they would suit. It's fair enough, Enjolras has to admit. If none of them seem workable -- for example if every large room involves blue and cherubs or Bahorel's rocks-and-red-velvet... thing -- then they can always return to request shelves and any other modifications Combeferre would prefer.

So Combeferre and Enjolras are now making their way through the upstairs hallway comparing room numbers with those inscribed on a ring of keys.

Enjolras asked the bar for enough dinner for two or three, something that would keep for a while if required to, and received a basket. He hasn't investigated its contents. Instead, he just thanked Bar and went upstairs to put it in his room, and then to see whether Combeferre had gotten lost in the library or the infirmary.

As it turns out, minimal searching is required: Combeferre is in the room already.

He brings Dr. Tam's notes upstairs. He has felt like this before; he knows this lightning crackle under the skin. This feeling of too many thoughts for one mind to contain, of racing to keep up with himself, of possibilities and horizons and horrors all roiling together in a swelling cloud, bigger than one body's flesh can hold. And yet he is flesh -- now dead. There is never enough time to channel everything he wants into action. He feels detached from himself. These bones and muscles, these hands, this body that walks down a hallway and turns a key in a latch and closes a door behind itself; it will do these things, his mind is tied to these hands and eyes and tongue, but all that is Enjolras is immersed in the storm of thought.

There's a lump in his throat.

He sets the folder carefully on top of his desk.

The next step is obvious. He needs to tell Bossuet of this. They both need to understand it as completely as possible, every detail. So many lives can be saved.

He rests a hand on the desk for a long moment, looking down at the innocently closed folder with its few simply written pages inside.

Then he straightens, and picks up the folder once more, and goes to knock on Courfeyrac's door.

Bossuet is here. Grantaire deserves to be told.

For several reasons, Grantaire deserves to be told. If possible, before they encounter each other.

Accordingly, once he's seen Bossuet to his new room, Enjolras sets out in search of Grantaire. His lodgings first; if he isn't there, then the library, or the lawn after that.

[Shortly before.]

There is a table of the sort that appears in libraries everywhere: dark wood, of heavy construction, somewhat abused by pen marks and scuffs; matching chairs; a small lamp, electric, with a gold chain and a shade of green glass. A few others of its kind are placed around it, all empty. Beyond, bookshelves, lamps, shadows.

Enjolras sits straight-backed, and very still. A book lies open before him. On the visible page is a detailed account, in merciless blocks of type, of the events of 1915. He will read on -- he must read on -- but not in this moment.

His eyes are dry and burning, though his face bears the mark of earlier tears. His gaze is fixed upon a bookshelf, unseeing. In his head, in his heart, a tempest.

Room 89 is precisely as Enjolras left it. There is no layer of dust. The water still streams forth from the taps, hot and cold. His second pair of boots sit in the corner, scuffs still at heel and toe. The newspaper he last requested from Bar -- March 12, 1833 -- lies on the desk. (A pointless habit, perhaps, this reading of the news he cannot affect, at the swiftest pace Bar will dole it out to him. He maintains it. Worse than a pointless habit would be to give it up in favor of nothing.) The walls are as sparse as ever, and as clean: the makeshift flag he died with hangs as the only decoration, bullet-pierced, liberally stained with dried blood. There is no stove, but somehow the room is warm. His bed is unmade.

The paper is yellowed. His pen is clogged with dry ink. A warm woolen overcoat and muffler have insinuated themselves onto a hook behind his door. The window shows a snowy landscape.

A few hours. Four months. The blink of an eye.

What is time, after all, to the dead?

Enjolras sinks onto his bed. He rests his elbows on his knees, and closes his eyes. His hands dangle limp. They are useless here. He is useless here. There is no use to put himself to.

"Combeferre," he whispers to the empty, silent room.

Combeferre. Courfeyrac. Feuilly. Joly, Lesgles -- Bahorel -- Prouvaire --

Only silence answers him.

If he wished to delude himself, he could pretend that one of them is in the other room. That they will answer him, any moment; that any moment a warm hand might fall upon his shoulder, an arm slip round his back or tuck itself through his, an affectionate voice speak to him.

He is not that far gone. He will not wallow in pretense.

"My friends." Hot tears prickle now at his eyes. He is alone, he is tired, the world makes less and less sense here. He doesn't fight the tears. "I wish I could hear your voices."

Only silence answers.