Happy Barricade Day!

There's a quote in one of Enjolras's speeches that really foreshadows his death scene with Grantaire. I took the scene and tried to match it to the quote.

...

"Oh my brothers, this is the point of junction between those who think and of those who suffer; this barricade is made neither of paving-stones, nor of timbers, nor of iron; it is made of two mounds, a mound of ideas and a mound of sorrows. Here misery meets ideal. Here day embraces night and says to it: "I am going to die with you and you will be reborn with me." From the embrace of all desolations, faith leaps forth. Sufferings bring here their agony, and ideas their immortality. This agony and this immortality will join and constitute our death. Brothers, he who dies here dies in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a tomb flooded with the dawn."

...

Grantaire approaches the door that leads to the stairs of the Corinthe. He isn't sure what he's trying to do, whether he want to fight for the barricades or to get a better view of its fall. Maybe it's only that he doesn't want to stay inside this room when the world is falling apart downstairs. His hand hovers over the doorknob, still unready to face the carnage that he knows will be outside.

To his surprise, the door swings out just before he can push, and he stumbles right into the path of Enjolras.

"Grantaire!" Enjolras exclaims, but he does not let his shock waste anytime in pushing them both from the doorway and pulling the door shut.

"What's going on?" Grantaire asks.

"Our side is losing," Enjolras says. He doesn't sound angry at Grantaire, like he did earlier, or particularly defeated. Still, Grantaire knows that it must be bad for Enjolras to have retreated up here instead of being down there fighting. He sounds weary, more than in a sleep-deprived way, though there is still strength in his voice. "And now we are trapped here."

Grantaire spins around in a circle, quickly scanning the room for anything that could be used as a weapon.

"If we could fight our way past the guards, we could escape," he says desperately. "I know some back ways; we could make it out, maybe..." There's the tiny table he had been sleeping at, too tiny to be taken to construct the barricade. Its legs could be used as clubs, perhaps. That wouldn't be effective against bullets, but maybe with an element of surprise, it could do damage.

"Grantaire."

"Could we use the tabletop as a shield? Come, help me take off its legs. If we hurry—"

But Enjolras shakes his head. "It's no use, Grantaire."

Caught off guard, Grantaire can't help but startle. The Enjolras he is familiar with would not give up with so little fight, nor ever talk to him in this wistful, gentle way. But if Enjolras is unwilling to try, Grantaire must step up. He looks to the window, wondering if there is a way out through there.

"There are too many soldiers outside," Enjolras says.

"But-" They can find a way if they try, there's always some unexpected way out. Could they talk to the soldiers? Enjolras could convince anyone of anything, given time. Do they have anything to bribe the soldiers with? Money? There's some in his apartment, but not a lot. And what about—

"Grantaire." Enjolras touches his shoulder.

He pauses, his whirling mind slowing. Instead of searching for some other way out, he stares at Enjolras, properly taking in the man for the first time that day. Enjolras smiles with a certain sad fondness, as if he admires Grantaire's determination and effort, but knows that the situation is hopeless. It is that look, more than anything, that stops him.

So Grantaire says, "Why aren't you upset about this?"

"I am," Enjolras answers, "but I have faith that the ideals behind this won't die, even if we do. For these ideas are immortal and will continue to be thought, and the sufferings of the people will be no less agonizing. There will be both goal and motivation. I think that perhaps we pushed revolution too soon, and the people were not quite ready for this yet. Maybe it is better this way; our deaths will spark the continuation of a more gradual, natural change, where we will achieve liberty and equality without killing our fellow countrymen, our brothers."

"You have changed," Grantaire says, because now it is undeniable, and he is unable to chalk the strangeness of it to the unusual circumstances.

"Indeed. I had not fully realized how awful it is, slaughtering those who should be one of us. There is no glory in a fight against one's people, as born from necessity as it might be. Even in the July Revolution, I was not impacted this way. This barricade has caused a shift in my perspective and given birth to many ideas."

"And many sorrows as well," Grantaire says, because it is in his nature to be contrary. But he does not disagree. Even asleep for most of the time, the barricades twist and clarify, shining light in places he had not known existed in his own mind. "But I have had time for contemplation as well. And though perhaps this bloodshed should bring me despair, I find that in my odd, barricade-induced state, it is inspiring. All of your willingness to do whatever it takes. I do believe that your dreams and causes are not so far-fetched and worthless as I once thought. Maybe I only told myself that nothing could ever change because I did not want my friends to die in the changing of it, but now, it is too late for that."

"I am glad that you have proven my earlier harsh words wrong," Enjolras says. "And I offer my most sincere apologies for them. It was never true or deserved."

"I was causing trouble in a stressful time. I forgive you. But I fear that I shall soon prove your point of how I was incapable of dying untrue soon, if there is truly no way out. Where is everyone?"

"Dead, or soon to be. A few came up here with me and destroyed the staircase behind us so we could not be followed. But I alone survived the bullets."

"They are already coming up to this floor," Grantaire says, hearing the noise approach. He grabs the chair and table he had slept at, stacking them on top of each other in front of the door.

"That will not hold them long," Enjolras says. "The door swings out the other way."

Panicked, Grantaire quickly locks the flimsy latch, just as he feels someone on the other side try to pull the door open.

"That will only delay them a little longer."

"Then I will savour these precious few seconds," Grantaire says. "May I ask you one last request?"

"Anything. Though I hardly recall anything else you have asked of me that would cause you to say one last request."

"Might I die by your side?" Grantaire isn't asking for permission to die, or even his location of death. It's something deeper. It's Can I stand as your equal, here in our last moments? Because all the devoted worshipfulness that he had once idealized Enjolras with has vanished with his newfound clarity. He will never think himself as a better person than Enjolras, but he knows that they are both people, both mortal humans that change and grow and make mistakes. They are not two impossibly distant beings, but two different points along the same continuum. His question means Will you allow me to die in the name of, and for the sake of, your cause, which I have mocked for so long and even now, don't respect it in quite the way that perhaps you think I should? It means Can you accept me and believe in me with your final breath?

"Yes," Enjolras says simply, and he understands all that Grantaire means behind his question. It is a quiet agreement, almost buried under the pounding of the soldiers, yet it is the most powerful word Grantaire has ever heard.

Enjolras takes a sudden step forward, a face filled with despair and hope, and folds his arms around Grantaire, just as the door breaks open.

"We will die here together, and the future will be grand," Enjolras whispers. The unexpectedness of the embrace, considering the years of conflict between the two, and the passion in Enjolras's voice gives Grantaire a single moment of wild, impossible faith in the future.

Grantaire gives Enjolras one last look, difficult as it is, with their faces so close that their unruly hair, golden and black, like day and night, overlap and intertwine. He tries to convey everything with that look. That he doesn't believe in hope the way Enjolras does, that he never can, but that he's realized it's not something to give up on entirely. Enjolras understands, he thinks. It's in the way he gazes back, a look that shows a softer compassion that would not have been seen on him before this barricade.

Their embrace is not finished when the report sounds.

...

At that moment, somewhere nearby, a pair of twins begin to be born. They have neither the bright hair of a world engulfed in scorching sunlight, nor the dark hair of the void between stars. Instead, it is a neutral, peaceful sort of brown, like kindling for a fire, but also of sturdy earth.

Their lives are not exceptional ones, but neither are they empty. They grow and learn and fight, but more with words and ideals than guns. They differ on many things, but their core beliefs are the same. They are separate people, with separate thoughts, and separate goals, and separate fears, but in the end, they stay together and work together.

The world around them changes everyday, and the life they lead could not have been imagined a generation before. Their work impacts the world in a way that would have been impossible a century before. In this new, hopeful, imperfect era, everything seems possible.

They are reborn, in the radiance of the future.