Combeferre takes the paper with great care, as though it might be a dying star, ready to collapse in on itself and drag them both into nothingness. Even without reading it, he senses that his world is about to change forever - and Sybil’s already has. And I am not even dressed properly, he thinks in a vacant sort of way.
There is the child’s name, and there is Branson’s. And there is Sybil’s, with the terrible notation that they will never be able to unsee.
Death - or more accurately, the knowledge of it - has stalked Combeferre during his time in Darrow, and largely, he has come to accept it as a discomforting but manageable companion. He knows that in Paris, he will die imminently. Courfeyrac will die, and Grantaire, and Prouvaire, and Enjolras, and all those he loved most. And like them all, their cause will die before it had been on the earth long enough to truly live. Exactly like them all.
And nearly a hundred years later on a Yorkshire estate, his wife will also meet an untimely fate.
“Sybil,” he says, voice only a little wooden. “Sit. Please."
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There is the child’s name, and there is Branson’s. And there is Sybil’s, with the terrible notation that they will never be able to unsee.
Death - or more accurately, the knowledge of it - has stalked Combeferre during his time in Darrow, and largely, he has come to accept it as a discomforting but manageable companion. He knows that in Paris, he will die imminently. Courfeyrac will die, and Grantaire, and Prouvaire, and Enjolras, and all those he loved most. And like them all, their cause will die before it had been on the earth long enough to truly live. Exactly like them all.
And nearly a hundred years later on a Yorkshire estate, his wife will also meet an untimely fate.
“Sybil,” he says, voice only a little wooden. “Sit. Please."