**UPDATED 1/3/15**

one

The first thing Enjolras experienced was a headache. A massive headache leaving him in cringing pain. The second thing Enjolras experienced was too much light. He couldn't open his eyes in fear of going blind from the vibrant white. The third thing Enjolras experienced was the sound of too much ruckus around him. If he could plug his ears, he would. The fourth thing Enjolras experienced was the realization of what had happened before he blacked out.

In a panicked moment, he forgot the pain consuming his body, and he shot up, eyes opened wide, only to yelp out in pain and press his hands against his forehead. Then, when more pain surged through his leg and his chest, he gripped at both areas in hopes that the pressure of his hands would make it all better, eliminate the pain. It only made it worse.

At the sound of a croaky, piercing cry, a nurse had quickly rushed to the location of Enjolras' bed, situated in the corner of the room full of other soldiers. Enjolras tried to look up at her, as if hoping the fear and frustration in his eyes would get her to stay back, but the nurse didn't notice and, thus, didn't realize she should have stopped her approach. As she grew closer, the young man panicked and tried to push himself away from her, only causing his damaged body to topple to the ground and for the medical equipment attached to him to sound in a flurry. Tears sprung from Enjolras' eyes as he felt pain everywhere, felt the pressure of a thousand needles and a thousand hits covering his body. The Nurse gasped loudly at his sudden tumble and yelled for assistance in bringing him back to his cot.

Enjolras' eyes were tightly closed as tears stung forced their way past his lids. The nurse knelt down beside him and gently set her experienced hand on his shoulder, causing him to flinch and cry out once more.

"Soldier, please try to remain calm." The nurse soothed as two more nurses came over. Enjolras' eyes opened for a split second, his pained look momentarily subsiding as anger flashed in his blue orbs.

"Calm!? You want me to remain fuckin' calm!?" he yelled out hoarsely before whimpering and lying heavily upon the ground, his eyes forced shut by the aching throughout him.

"Please, we need to help you." The nurse's eyes were worried—a patient hadn't been this manic in a long time, "If you can remain calm, we can get you back in your bed and get you medicine."

"And what will your medicine do?" Enjolras hissed between his teeth as his brow crinkled. Sure, maybe the physical pain he felt would subside for a while, but it was the mental pain that was hurting the most.

"Please…" the nurse merely muttered as the other two slowly helped support him—one at his shoulders, one at his middle, and one at his legs. As they lifted him as gently as possible onto his bed, Enjolras let out a string of screams, wanting to through every curse word he knew at them and then some. But the pain consuming him was too much for him to focus.

A doctor approached rapidly with a drug in hand, looking at the crying man in worry, "What happened to him?"

The male nurse looked up quickly, "He fell from his bed in panic."

The doctor muttered under his breath as he and the nurses got Enjolras reconnected to the equipment. He then prepared a needle with the anaesthetics, focusing to ignore the cries of the injured man lying in front of him.

"Sir, we'll help you, I promise." The doctor said as a nurse reconnected Enjolras' catheter for the doctor to inject the medicine. Enjolras struggled some, still crying and fighting the pain, but after a few minutes he slowly started to drift off. The doctor shared a look with the nurses, "Someone get some heavy pain killers, this man will need it after what just happened."

two

Enjolras awoke again hours later, his panic subdued because of the anesthetic still in his system, though it was slowly fading as he came to consciousness. His brain was thick with a fog, his memory temporarily gone. He wanted to panic once more, but his body and mind felt heavy, too heavy to respond to anything. And this gave him time to think, gave him time to remember why he was here and what happened previously (but that was only after he spent a good minute or so actually trying to remember who he was). This made him calm some, made him remember what happened last time he panicked.

Enjolras tried to force his eyes open, but his lids were heavy, as was the rest of his body. He could feel everything, every part of him, he just couldn't move. It was as if he was weighed down by a a hundred bricks.

So, he laid there, the young soldier eager to get the answers to all his questions. And in this time spent lying in a hard cot, he recalled what got him here—the blast. The ambush and the explosion that blitzed his team. His friends. His family. And these thoughts forced him into sadness, regret, fear—where were the others? In his earlier moments of panic, he didn't have the time to scan the room for his peers.

Eventually, Enjolras could open his eyes, slowly, carefully. And he could only see an off-white ceiling. If it wasn't for the haze still present in his vision, he would have felt bombarded by the light, but at least now he could look around. He focused on moving his head, to glance around the crowded room—there had to be at least twelve or thirteen cots filling this long, open room. But he couldn't see the faces of any other soldiers around him. Enjolras saw casts, breaks, injuries, but no faces. He worried some, but a reassuring voice in the back of his head told him that out of all of the men around him, most had to be his companions. Who else could they be?

After a few minutes, Enjolras sat up slowly. His aches from earlier were far less noticeable, no longer dictating his actions, but his face still contorted in pain as he moved. Again, he tried to get a look at the other soldiers from this new angle. The man lying nearest him had his face exposed—Enjolras didn't recognize him. He tried to look beyond this man to the next, or towards the foot of his bed to glance at the man ahead of him, but their faces were also unfamiliar, even if it took him a few minutes to get a good enough look at each of them. He then began panicking again, eyes widening and breath thickening. Where were they? Where were the men he's grown with? Where were the men who supported him and followed him? As Enjolras looked around, the nurse from earlier caught his eyes. When she saw that he was awake, she made her way to him, slower this time, more cautious in hopes that he wouldn't hurt himself again. Enjolras watched her carefully, no longer fearing her, but feeling overwhelmed by the need to question her.

"How are you feeling, sir?" She asked as she stood near the foot of the bed. Enjolras looked her up and down carefully before looking her in the eye.

"Where are my men?" he asked quickly, throat still dry, ignoring the woman's question. Her expression was unreadable as she stepped a bit closer to check the readings on the machine attached to him, "Where are they?"

She looked him in the eye contemplatively before casting her gaze downward, "Let me finish this check first." Enjolras glared as his fist hit the hard cot.

"Please, I need to know where they are!" he yelled out, causing her to step back in fear of an outburst similar to the earlier one. Enjolras sucked in a thick breath before looking away, "I'm sorry, I won't yell again." The nurse went back to her work, taking a couple of minutes.

"Sergeant Anton Enjolras…" she said simply while looking at him, "I'm going to get a doctor over here to check on you." Before he could speak, the woman was on her way out of the room and he sighed as he leaned back. Sergeant… God, he had nearly forgotten his recent promotion. But the reminder of his promotion reminded him of his friends, and his worry grew again. He needed to know what happened to them.

As the doctor approached, Enjolras stared at him carefully. Before the other man could speak, Enjolras opened his mouth, "What happened to my men?"

The doctor had been warned by the nurse that this patient's mind was set only on his friends, and the doctor prepared himself the best he could to answer, "Give me their names and I'll check." So, Enjolras listed them off—Corporal Combeferre; Private First Class Courfeyrac and Pontmercy; Privates Prouvaire and Grantaire; and Private First Class Medical Officer Joly. The doctor wrote each name, only recognizing Joly because the two had worked together briefly when Joly first joined. But none of the others stuck out to him. He gave Enjolras a reassuring look.

"I'll check for them once we're done here." The doctor repeated the nurse's actions, checking Enjolras' vitals and medical notes carefully, "You suffered some bad injuries in the attack—you're lucky. Both your legs were broken in multiple than one location, a few ribs were broken, you suffered one hell of a coma, and a large collection of shrapnel got lodged in your chest." Enjolras looked at his body again, now knowing what each bandage and cast was for-though he wasn't too keen on knowing just how battered he was-before looking back at the doctor, "It'll take you nearly two months to fully recover—after the first five weeks we can send you back to the States. These injuries will definitely keep you out of duty for some time." Enjolras nodded simply, trying to recall exactly what caused these injuries—he knew he and his fire-team were unexpectedly attacked, but the details were missing.

After a few more minutes, the doctor disappeared to get to work with the other patients. Enjolras slumped on the cot, letting out a large sigh. He just wanted to know where his friends were.

three

When news reached Cosette, she was in shock. When reading the words, such simple, emotionless words—"We regret to inform you that Private First Class Marcus Pontmercy was killed in combat"—she couldn't understand them. It took her minutes to finally read the sentence properly and allow the information to sink in. And once it finally did, she couldn't stop herself from falling to her knees and weeping harshly, not the typical, controlled cries she's had in the past. The last time she cried like this—grossly, carelessly, painfully—was during the death of her father. She's already lost so much; her mother disappeared from her life too soon, her papa died when Cosette thought her sadness was over.

And now Marcus. Her other half, her safe haven, her home. Gone. She was a complete mess of emotions, emotions she couldn't control and wouldn't try to do so. It's not like it mattered anyway—after all, what could stop her now?

Cosette spent nearly an hour there, a small slump on the ground letting the news of her husband's death sink in. Yet, even as she understood, even as she knew what she read was true. She couldn't accept it. It felt… surreal. She knew he was no longer with her, but she could never completely allow this truth to consume her. She only remembered a few months ago, saying goodbye to him along with all the other boys as they left for service. Even in that instant, the thought of Marcus dying never crossed her mind; she was sad to see him go, but these boys—no, these men—were smiling brightly, excited to be going out and serving their country. She couldn't allow her sadness to shine through as she saw the look on his face.

And now that will be her last memory of him. She occasionally got letters from him, whenever he got the chance to send one, but those weren't even the same. The letters weren't him. Now, Cosette could never have him again.

I hope everyone enjoyed this. Reviews would be really helpful so I can keep track with this-I want to know what I'm doing right, what I'm doing wrong, anything that needs to be changed, etc.

**UPDATE 1/3/15**

I'd also like to make a couple comments on some of the choices I've made for this story. First, I haven't included all of the Amis; though I would have loved to and when I originally wrote this story it included each of them, I found it difficult to work with. So, sadly there's no Feuilly, Bossuet, or Bahorel in my story. As a writer I had a hard time trying to write so many characters, and for the story itself it just seemed to make more sense to not have so many characters to work with.

Another note, I've changed the names of some characters. All the Amis are keeping their last names, but with this being a modern setting I thought it best to have some modern first names in the mix. I haven't changed Cosette or Eponine's because they're two of my main characters and I just couldn't bring myself to change their names.

If anyone has any questions, don't ever hesitate to review or PM.

With that, thank you all for reading!