AVENIR

Chapter 19: Conflict Among Amis

A/N: This might seem like a filler but it's actually so much more than that...it's the first time Avenir argues with Enjolras!  Let me know what you think of the plot, honest opinions only.  Am I taking it too slow?  Do you want me to jump straight ahead to the barricades, or are you enjoying these little anecdotes leading up to the barricades?

Trigger warning: sad Jehan stuff, read at your own comfort level please.

~Vive La France~

I woke up the next morning to my brother bustling around the apartment.  "Jehan?!  It's 7 AM, what are you doing up so early?"

"Sister, it's Monday, and my first university class is at 8 AM.  I need to get going, it's a ten-minute carriage ride away." He pecked me carelessly on the cheek.

Oh God...it was still April...they were still in school.

"Jean, please, I'll be lonely!  What am I supposed to do all day?"

"Go meet up with Enjolras, his classes end at 1 PM on Mondays.  You'll be fine."

"NO.  Jehan, I'm coming with you.  I don't want you to get hurt, I'm going to spend the day with you!  I'm so scared...I can't lose you..."

Jehan immediately stopped hurrying about and sad down next to me on the edge of the bed.  "Is this really what's been circulating around in your busy thoughts all night long?"

I looked down. 

"Sis, let me make something incredibly clear to you.  You can't put the rest of your life here on hold because of me!  You have to keep on living as if we hadn't found out the news about my fate.  How did you get here? You wished to save Enjolras.  So please, focus on that, and don't worry about me."

"I wish I had -"

Jehan slapped his hand over my mouth.  "Rephrase.  Your.  Language," he said.

Close call.

I held back tears.  "Maybe I should have wished to save you.  Instead of Enjolras.  It's what I would have rathered -"

"And some part of you knew, Avenir, that doing that would not have worked.  That would have been a futile wish, sister.  My fate was determined the second I saved your life in Marseilles.  You wouldn't have been able to save me.  Some wishes don't come true."

"WHY DID YOU DO IT?" I screamed.  WHY DID YOU STEP OUT INTO THE LIGHT?"  

"Because I knew they would take you and imprison you, and it would only be a matter of time until they forced my whereabouts out of you.  We would have been tortured, psychologically and physically."

"Why, after everything you taught me?  Why did you step out?  Nothing changed, I still got captured," I said, still uncomprehending.

"Because we would have both died that day, if not physically, then internally...mentally.  You understand?  I saw you had a chance.  I prayed you would find me in the past."

"I was THIRTEEN.  They took me to their camp..."

"Enough, Avenir."

"There is something you are not telling me... a LOT of things you aren't telling me.  You mean to tell me they would have killed us?  Then why didn't they kill me, right after they finished you off?  Why not me as well?"

"I SAID, ENOUGH!"

I had never recalled fighting with my brother before.  I was mortified.  Here was my brother, destined by fate to die - and I was fighting with him over minute details.