The Barricade Girl (A Les Miserables FanFiction)

Chapter One

I poked my head around the doorframe of my older brother's bedroom in the house owned by my Grandfather. Since the death of our parents, my brother Marius and I had moved in with him and my Aunt. Marius, not noticing that I've been watching, reaches for his jacket that lies across the bottom of his bed and spins around to face the door.

"Juliette!" He looks startled upon seeing me. "How long have you been standing there?" He smirks as he puts on his jacket and looks in his mirror to fix his necktie. With a year and a half age difference, we've always got on well and have always been close. However, there are times when he treats me like his little kid sister, and I have to remind him that I'm only a year younger than he is.

"Oh, not long..." I sigh as I sit myself on the bottom of his bed. "What are you dressed all fancy for?" I ask jokingly.

"I'm just meeting some friends..." He mumbles as he fixes his collar. I know him better than he thinks I do, and I know that he's hiding something.

"The same friends that you've been meeting with every night for the last three weeks?" I raise an eyebrow. "Oh Marius! I get bored here without you...There's just Grandfather and Auntie, and the maids...but they don't want me around..." I sigh. "And it's such a big house...I get lonely..." I pout. "Stay home today? Please?"

"...I can't..." He answers hesitantly. "I really have to go today..."

"But go where?" I moan. "Can I come?" My eyes widen and I suddenly perk up at the idea of getting out of this house and exploring the city with my brother, seeing it through his eyes and seeing how he's been spending his day.

"...No...not today..." He answers, completely distracted and obviously not paying attention to a word I'm saying at all as he rushes out of his room. He just can't wait to get out of this house.

"Well...at least tell me where you're going!" I shout as I run after him. He carries on down the hallway and doesn't look back, and I stop running after him, fed up of my years of trying to keep up with my brother while having to hold my dress-skirts and petticoats so that I don't fall over them. "Marius! Please!" I shout again, but he doesn't react. "Marius?" My voice becomes weaker, sounding more like a plea. But he disappears around the corner and out of sight, leaving me standing in the hallway outside his bedroom door, alone...again.

That night, I lie in my bed, unable to sleep. It's past midnight, and Marius still hasn't come back. Grandfather was concerned, and asked me all sorts of questions. But I didn't know any of the answers, seeing as Marius, who used to tell me everything, hardly ever tells me anything. If I ever meet these friends of his, I'd like to have a strong word or two for stealing my brother from me - nowadays, we're more like acquaintances rather than the best friends that we once were. As I lie in bed pondering all these things, imagining what his friends are like and what I might say to them should I ever meet them, I hear shouting coming from downstairs. I crawl out of my bed and put on my dressing gown and slippers. I quietly try to open my bedroom door, but it still lets out a quiet creak. I tiptoe down the hallway towards the staircase, and position myself on the stairs so that I can hear everything.

"I forbid you from going to those meetings from now on!" I hear my Grandfather bellow, fuming with anger.

"You can't stop me, Grandfather..." Marius states.

"You are MY Grandson and you shall do as I say!" Grandfather shouts back.

"I'm sorry, Grandfather, but I'm going to continue going whether you like it or not!"

"While you are still living under my roof, you will do no such thing!" I've never heard him quite so angry - Marius must have really done it this time.

"...Well then...I'll just have to leave...I'll pack my bags in the morning..." Marius responds after a moment of thought, seriously and authoritatively. Marius exits Grandfather's study, walking away from him.

"Don't you walk away from me, Marius! I'm not finished yet!" But Marius pays no heed, and sees me sat on the stairs.

"You are a disgrace to me, a disgrace to the family name, a disgrace to your sister Juliette, and a disgrace to your parents!" Grandfather roars from inside his study. Marius stomps up the stairs and goes right by me.

"Marius...are you..." I get up and follow him, but he walks straight to his room. "...okay?" I finish just as his door slams shut behind him. "...You're not a disgrace to me..." I whisper softly outside his door, and then I head back to my own bedroom.

I barely sleep at all during the night, too busy thinking about Marius and my Grandfather, and whether Marius really meant what he said about leaving home. He can't leave home! He can't leave me here. We're the only true, real family that each other has. We need each other...I need my brother. Instead of sleeping, I spend my night praying for my brother - praying that God will protect him, protect his actions, and protect his mind. "Please Lord..." I pray, "Don't let him do anything stupid..." When the light from the sunrise starts to stream through my window, I get up and get dressed as quickly as I can, and rush down the hallway to my brother's room. I don't even knock the door - I'm in that much of a hurry. I open the door to see my brother packing the suitcase that is laid open on his bed.

"Marius..." I gasp quietly. "What are you doing?"

"Packing...I'm leaving..." He states matter-of-factly.

"But you can't leave -" I whisper.

"Oh not you too!" He moans. "I'm old enough to know my own mind, and I know that I have to do this! There's no question about it! It's too important!"

"...More important than family?" Tears start to form in my eyes, but I choke them back, trying to hold it in.

"Of course not..." He smiles, coming towards me and squeezing my shoulder. "But I have to do this. We can still see each other. I can come and see you, and when I find a place to live, you can come and see me?" I shrug, but nod, supposing that that's better than not seeing him at all. He gives my shoulder one more squeeze and then walks back over to his suitcase, throwing some books in and then zipping it up.

"At least take me with you?" I say, softly. He lifts his now closed suitcase off his bed and drapes his coat over his other arm and walks towards his bedroom door.

"I wish I could, Jules...but it's too dangerous for you..."

"Dangerous? Why? Where are you -" I start to get a little worried. It's all so confusing. What is it that my brother is involved in that is so dangerous?

"I have to go...Goodbye, Juliette..." He kisses my cheek before leaving the room and walking down the hallway towards the stairs. "Keep me in your prayers!" He calls back, lightheartedly, as if the thought of goodbye and being apart doesn't bother him at all.

"But, Marius! Where are you going?!" I shout after him.

"I love you, Jules!" He calls back and then disappears down the stairs.

"Marius!" I scream after him, sinking to the floor in worry and despair, but he doesn't come back...