One year.

One year since that tragedy that left him alive. One year since his friends practically died side-by-side, their bodies ridden with bullets. One year since he saw many eyes fade and close, never to open again.

He still suffers from the memories of the ordeal, it still haunts his dreams. He still sees the blood and the smoke, still hears the sounds of cannons fired and triggers pulled. He still hears his friends' anguished cries, abruptly ending in a shower of bullets. He still feels the pain, still feels their loss with a heavy heart. He can still see the eight marks from that day, forever scarring his skin.

He should have died, too, that he knows. He was their leader, their chief, their commander. He should have perished with them, as a captain goes down with his ship, his eyes closing as theirs did, no longer seeing the day's light. The terrifying ordeal, ending the lives of them all…

Except for him.

He doesn't deserve to be alive. With every breath he takes, every beat his heart makes, is just one more his friends will never be able to have, many young lives that ended too early.

Many times he has crossed the bridges over the Seine. Many times he has gone to the edge, contemplating descending into its depths that would result in nothingness, end his pain, end his suffering, but each time, he cannot bring himself to do it. He calls himself a coward, calls himself weak. He's a poor fool, he thinks. He's alone, all of his companions gone.

For the fear of his life, his parents hired a maid of sorts to keep watch on him. They have seen him at his worst, watched him throughout this depression. He's all they have in regards to the family's future, and watching him creates hurt, loss of hope, and despair. He's distant, constantly staring into space, his mind not all there. He rarely eats, and many a time have they made him sit at the table to make sure starvation is not what does him in.

The injuries he acquired on the barricade are gone, nothing but memories and scars left.

However, there are many scratches upon his skin, some old, some new. Often he has taken a knife to his wrists, sometimes stopped and dealt with by the maid, others from not being able to cut deep enough into his skin. He has put a loaded, ready-to-fire, gun to his head, to his chest, but each time he is stopped. He cannot pull the trigger. In these instances, he again calls himself a coward, and sometimes wonders why it was so easy for him to pull the trigger only a year ago.

No one ever leaves him alone, not for too long, so as to avoid him from his suicide attempts from being successful. He rarely talks, and when he does, his voice is often cold and harsh. His parents have attempted in getting him to talk, but each time, he stands up and leaves, tells them to leave him alone. In response, they tell him to get over it, to move on with his life.

He can't, though—it's forever imprinted in his memory.

Their faces, he still sees them, dead and alive. They're in his nightmares, keeping him awake every night. He still sees them during the day, even the most subtle reminder resulting in the plaguing of his mind. A book, a top hat, a fan, a bottle (empty or full) only brings those thoughts back to his darkened mind. He struggles to pick up a quill without bringing the young poet to mind.

He still sees the many lifeless forms, blood oozing from where bullets and bayonets struck them down, forming scarlet pools at his feet. He still hears the anguished cries, can still smell the fumes of gun smoke mixed with blood. He cannot get the images to leave him alone.

Every time he hears a loud noise—a door slamming or thunder booming—he jumps in fright, the sound returning him to the shadowy depths of his mind. He cannot stand it, such volume resembling the sound of gunshots to his ears. Too many were already heard in this young man's life. Any more was extraneous.

The sound of glass shattering is what breaks his focus of looking into space, resulting in him turning his head to see the maid bending over to pick up the pieces of what was once a tea cup.

"I apologize for causing you such a fright, monsieur." she says quietly, brushing a lock of dark brown hair from her face, her expression worried as if he might harm her in some way, which he could do had he the heart.

"You may clean it up, but afterwards I would prefer for you to leave." He eyes the broken ceramics with interest, its many jagged pieces not just a reminder of how his heart felt following the fall of the barricade. The sharp edges, though, like a knife, an object he could so easily end his suffering with had he not been such a coward. "I would like to live out what remains of my days in solitude, without anyone's contact."

"I wish I could do that for you, monsieur, but your parents requested that I fetch you from your quarters. I assume that there are guests that will soon be arriving and they want you downstairs immediately." she tells him, her tone basically informing him that he does not have a say in the matter. "So up, up! Out of your chair."

"I am not involving myself in whatever matter they feel subjecting me to." he replies, turning his head back towards the dusty, barely-able-to-see-through window.

"You know as well as I do that they won't hear of it." she counters as she throws the shattered remainders of the teacup into the waste bin. "No matter what reason you give them."

"June sixth is more than enough."

"You intend on celebrating a day you nearly died?"

"I am dead. I am just a living corpse, doomed to spend the rest of this poor, worthless, life alone while my friends spent the rest of eternity lying in graves and turning into dust. I am warm and my heart is still beating, while they are cold and their hearts are silent. I have my flesh, though permanently scarred, intact, while theirs is rotting away and being devoured like carrion." he laments, his voice cold and his blue, steel-like eyes chilling. "Yes, I am alive, as I am still breathing, but everything else, everything inside, is dead. I am nothing but a walking corpse in this world of the living that I am suffocating in."

"Monsieur, do not speak in such a morbid manner!" she scolds him as she begins to look through his closet, the wire of the hangers resembling nails to a chalkboard as she slides the metal across the bar. "You of most people should know better."

"Mademoiselle, I told you not to bother yourself with such tasks." he snaps, rising from his chair and approaching the closet, her only being a few feet beside him. "I am capable of handling such things myself."

"Capable you are, but your parents gave me detailed instructions and I am to abide by them whether you like it or not." She turns to glare at him, her brown eyes blazing, and his of blue match. However, she is not going to let this stubborn man win and she will not back down. "Now, unless you are going to continue this nonsense, silence yourself and I'll be right there."

"I am no child. I can dress myself without your assistance."

She huffs and then returns her attention to the closet, side-eyeing him every now and again. "Oh, these look well enough!" She pulls out a charcoal waistcoat and a vermillion coat. He shrinks back slightly, not enough for her to take notice. The clothing resembles much of the one day he would rather forget. He doesn't think she notices what she has done, what such colors and shades mean to him. "Red and black. The two look rather vibrant together, do they not?"

"I suppose…" he stutters. For the past year, the only color he has been seen in is black, but that red hue hurts more than he thinks she realizes, if she even took notice at all. Many times, when he was permitted to wander the dark Parisian streets solo, some have stopped him to tell him how sorry they are, most of them well-aware of the sacrifices made in the June of 1832. Complete strangers believe he is a young widower whose wife perished in childbirth, taking their child with her, but that is as far from the truth as one could be.

She shoves the clothes in his direction, throwing in a fresh white shirt and a pair of black trousers as she pushes him behind the screen and steps to the opposite side as to avoid such things from becoming improper…or any more than it already was.

It was about five minutes before he appeared, donning the clothes she had gotten for him. He was following orders half-heartedly, if with any heart at all. He hates this, being pushed to do this, especially on the anniversary of his friends' deaths. She doesn't understand how much he has lost—no one does, not even his parents. They don't know of the pain he's feeling or of the burden he carries on his shoulders. Through his eyes, he has no one now, with his friends lying in graves cold…and it's his fault, every single loss. He curses himself for living, for surviving that wretched place. If anything, he should be the one laying in a grave, the captain going down with his ship, the chief going down with his barricade.

"Don't you look much better now?" she says with a smile as she takes a black cravat and ties it neatly around his neck. "Quite dashing, I'd say!"

"I hope by now you realize that I am not going down there, not on my own accord, not if National Guardsmen put their rifles and carbines to my head!" he half-shouts as he sits down on the edge of his bed, staring down onto the floor, running his hands through his mess of curls. He stares at the floor, pondering the harshness of his words before heaving an exasperated sigh. "I sincerely regret what I have put you through, mademoiselle."

"I've seen worse. My father's behavior has been poor since the Battle of Waterloo." Her voice is comforting as she sits down beside him. "You're still grieving, monsieur, and from what I understand, you have every right to. It's unfortunate that your own parents don't see that."

"It is something one can get used to when one has dealt with it for many years." His voice comes out cold at the confession. In truth, his parents had always cared for him, done what they could for him. They had never shown any form of hatred towards him, even with his Republican beliefs. They just never seemed to understand. "Even in the most difficult times of life, when one seeks to be consoled at their young age from their creators, only to be shoved aside…"

"I was never saying anything good of it, was I?" she asks with a small laugh that cuts off abruptly by the cold look in his azure eyes. "However, that may have been a better thing for me, if you can understand what I went through. At least you had the attention of your parents.

"Not in the most desirable manner, though it was good for a time."

"Pardon?"

"My life, my childhood, it wasn't always so bad. There was a time when I was well-cared for, but that was before my father's inn had to close down. I was always to myself, doing what was necessary to survive, but the likes of you don't know of such things."

"I beg your pardon, but who are you to make such accusations? Are you not aware of the lives sacrificed for people such as you? Do you know how many children will go fatherless because your kind did not come to help us in our darkest hours?" he abruptly stands and glares at her. "Are you aware of the nightmares the survivors suffer, horrid dreams full of men's dying screams, with their blood all around them? Do you know of the regret the leaders feel for leading those men to their deaths when they did not die with them, knowing they very well should have?"

"Monsieur—"

"I should have gone down with them! I do not deserve to be breathing this air while they lie in their graves, no air entering their now-cold corpses. I am not deserving of this beating heart. I am a murderer, for I am at fault with their deaths. Their blood is on my hands! I am covered in it!" He falls into the chair with a loud thud and his voice quiets as he stutters, "My savior should have let me drown."

"You grieve, monsieur, for the fate of your friends. You place fault where it isn't necessary." she says in a cautious and careful tone. "But by no means does that give you the right to wish death upon yourself."

"Oh, but does it?" he counters, his voice raised slightly and his tone aggressive as he glares into the brown eyes of the young woman kneeling beside the chair. "It is right for air to enter my lungs, for my heart to be beating, still warm, while my friends lie cold and lifeless with bullets forever pierced in their chests? Pray tell, the right in that?"

"Your life was spared for a reason, and that is something you have no control of." With caution, she slowly reaches for the hand he has placed on the arm of the chair. She is surprised slightly when he does not flinch or tense at her touch and takes her hand in his. She looks up to see that his blue eyes have softened a bit, a trace of a warm smile on his face, though she can still sense his feelings of grief.

She slowly stands up and offers him her hand to take. He, however, has turned his head towards the window, looking upon the sunny yet cloudy day the outside world has to offer. It's quite bright outside, though the color of the clouds reveal that rain will fall at some point during the day.

The gamine of the barricade had died in weather similar to this, he could recall, near dusk the year before. The first attack upon the barricade had resulted in a bullet to her chest. Within the gun smoke and pouring rain, she perished, her dirty and worn clothes drenched in rain and her blood.

Just another life sacrificed for nothing.

She was not one of the higher classes, but a streetrat, a gamine. She was not as fortunate as he was, struggling to survive day in and day out, searching for food and shelter, taking whatever she could find, while he had nothing to fret over, almost able to take everything for granted.

She was just another soul that was lost that remained on his conscience.

It only moments later until the maid leads him out of the room, and accompanies him downstairs. His parents inform them that it would be, perhaps, best for him to return to the Parisian streets briefly, but not without her following close behind, lest he tried to once more make a disaster of himself.

At this, he excuses himself to his quarters for a short moment, and returns with nothing different than before. Or so it seems.

The carriage ride is not a long one, nothing exceeding an hour, before he and she reach the Parisian streets he once roamed frequently. It appears as if nothing has changed. The street markers are the same; the buildings still have their ancient yet majestic appearance while Napoleon's elephant is falling apart.

They travel down Saint-Michel on foot, unlike the rest of the ride. At first, the maid questions his purpose, but when her eyes fall upon the Café Musain, she knows why, and she cannot help but feel a bit nervous. Could he be contemplating ending his life where he believed it should have a year ago?

Without hesitation, she follows him into the ruined building, making sure she is not too far behind to stop him in case he tries to be foolish.

They stand across from one another on the second floor of the old café, the only thing between them a dusty, aged table. She expects that if he would to do anything, right then would be the time to do it. He reaches into the inside of his coat and she leans forward to grab his arm, just enough to try and prevent him from doing anything rash.

"You do not want to do this, monsieur." she pleads with worry, believing that if he was carrying a pistol on his person, he would be capable of pulling the trigger before she had an opportunity to stop him. "What will your parents think?"

"Their opinions are of no concern of mine."

"They want their son alive, I am sure of that!"

In those short seconds though, he manages to free himself from her grip. She expects a loud bang shortly afterwards and covers her ears, but it never comes. Instead, she turns to see many various objects laid out across the table: a small book, a quill, a fan, a handkerchief, a clover, a tricolor cockade, a playing card, a domino, a key, and an old, folded-up piece of parchment.

"What's all this?" she asks, a part of her wondering how he even managed to keep all of that conceal on the inside of coat.

"A memorial of sorts." he answers, rearranging a few of the objects, as if putting them in a certain order, and one-by-one, she half-hears him list out the objects and names of people that she never knew.

The quill, Jean Prouvaire.

The fan, Feuilly.

The card, Bahorel.

The domino, Grantaire.

The handkerchief, Joly.

The clover, Bossuet.

The book, Combeferre.

The key, Courfeyrac.

The cockade, Gavroche.

The parchment, Marius Pontmercy.

With each one, she hears him say a few words about each individual, the last two catching her attention more-so than the others. She knew of Gavroche, the little gamin boy that once frequented the streets of Paris. She had heard he died trying to collect a few bullets for the students who needed them desperately. Marius had been a friend of hers, but no one seemed to know what became of him.

"And last, but not the least, the gamine." she catches him say as he reaches into the inside of the coat and pulls out an old and dusty brown cap, then gingerly sets it down beside the tricolor cockade.

"I never knew who she was." he admits to her with a half-smile. "But she was as brave as any one of us were, perhaps the bravest of us all, sacrificing her life to prevent the death of another."

"For Marius..." she murmurs, a part of her hoping he heard her, the other wishing he hadn't.

His eyes flash up at her, as if her knowledge of that detail surprised him. She can practically imagine the wheels turning in his head.

"It was Marius that was meant to be spared." she clarifies, and takes the brown cap into her hands. "I risked my life for his. This is mine."

She is not surprised by the puzzled expression on his face, as it appears he tried to put the pieces together. She watches his eyes flicker from her face to the cap, as if trying to place her.

He should have known all along, the occasional argot he heard her mutter now and again that was meant solely for her ears alone, the manner she behaved daily. The brown eyes, her entire face should have been familiar to him.

A thousand questions race to his mind, varying from her survival of the barricade to how she had ended up employed by his parents. He remembers her being cover in so much in her own blood, it must have been a miracle that she survived.

He misses watching her pull all her long brunette hair back and placing the cap upon her head, but when he finally looks up, that is enough to convince him.