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Chapter Text

Éponine did not remember much of those first weeks after the barricade. There was nothing during those first days proceeding it, then, some flashes of light, of warmth, and of soft blankets. During her short moments of semi-lucidness, she believed herself against all expectations in Heaven.

It had been a long time that she had considered the option of Heaven. So long that she had still been a girl, back when her parents would still take her to mass on Sundays, when she would wear her prettiest dress and her mother would braid her dark, luscious hair and tie it with silk bows. Back when she did not even understand the meaning of God and Heaven, but she nevertheless was certain that whoever and whatever it was, it was a guarantee. It was a long time since Éponine had allowed herself to think like that – and yet, what other place could it be, that offered her such comfort and safety? And if this was Heaven, was it wrong of her to hope that the shadow that appeared by her bedside every now and then was her beloved Marius?

But then came the second week, and the blissful unconsciousness started to be intermingled with increasingly longer moments of painful reality. And reality stung, not only for the pain blossoming in her chest and right hand, but also for the realisation that the man by her bedside was not Marius – and likely would never be Marius.

The man by her side was a middle-aged well-off gentleman, judging from the style and make of his dress, who sat cloaked in the darkness the room provided, and who she would soon realise was as used to clinging to the shadows as she was herself. When he noticed her awake, sometime at the end of the second week since the barricade she would later learn, he made no show of happiness or even relief, but rather informed her – in a gruff, practical voice that she would soon come to know well – she was very foolish running around in men’s clothes and getting shot at a barricade. Upon her prying, he revealed that he had taken her from the barricade, thinking she was a boy and having planned on employing her as a errand’s boy after her recovery.

‘That was also,’ he noted, with a sniff of disdain, ‘before I noticed your hand. The wound may heal in time, but your hand will likely remain useless for the remainder of your probably short and miserable life.’

Still, she was rather deaf to his harsh words, mind only reeling with the fact that somehow she had survived the barricade. And if she had, might Marius not have as well? She carefully posed him the question, whether not there had been other survivors.

His answer came to the negative, and she felt crushed – but still not completely discouraged.

But, she therefore protested, if she had survived against all odds, might there not have been others, too?

‘Perhaps,’ he agreed, then after a short pause and with a finality that made clear that he did not wish to answer any more of her questions, ‘But any at the barricade would have long bled out before any help would have arrived.’

His answer stung for its brutish unfeelingness, and had she’d had any of her mental faculties left she may have considered it purposively so. As it was, however, overcome with fatigue and heartbreak, Éponine was soon again lost to the world.

The room was empty the next few times she came to. The chair by her bedside remained where it was, but also remained empty. In the monsieur’s stead, however, was always left a tray with bread and a cup of water, neither of which she ever left for long. First clumsily, with her left hand as the other was numb to the touch and restricted in its movements, then later with more energy and confidence, she tore into the bread and drank greedily from the water. Then, falling back into the soft pillows and closing her eyes, she soon came to expect the empty tray to have magically disappeared when next she’d open them again.

It was not until sometime during the third week that she started to feel constricted by her confinement to the room. Ever since coming to Paris, she had been used to if not actual freedom, at least freedom of movement, and the whole of the city had been her roaming ground. Now, with the third week of lying in bed and thinking only of Marius, the room’s walls seemed to close in on her. As soon as the feeling snuck up on her, she shimmied out of bed, for a moment shivering in the cold night now that her body was no longer used to thriving in it, and shuffled towards the door. There she listened for a moment and, when no sound came, cracked it open. In the moonlight that was cast through several windows, she was surprised to find the hallway her room opened up in to be wide and long, with several doors apart from her own, and woodwork and panelling so rich that she had no choice but to conclude that her benefactor, whoever he was, must indeed be quite well-off. As ever, her curiosity pulled at her to explore what lay behind each of the doors, but she first decided towards the stairs that lay at one end of the hallway, and that would surely lead her down to the main floor of the house.

As it was, tiptoeing down the staircase led her not to the main but to another upper floor, and only another set of stairs brought her out into an elegant entrance hall. Like the floor that housed her room and the one below, the walls were panelled with dark wood, the floor tiled with smooth stone that felt comfortably cool to her bare feet with the slight fever she was still running. Through an open arch, she noticed a sitting room, which although furnished with fine pieces, looked impersonal and untouched. At the end of the entrance hall, a door which she assumed must lead to a kitchen. Immediately in front of her, however, was a large, imposing door that she could only suppose must be the front door. She wondered where in Paris she was. She wondered if she could sneak out to find word about Marius. She would only be gone for a moment, but surely she would feel much better if she knew where he was, if…-

‘What are you doing?’

She nearly tripped down the last steps of the stairs, and most definitely jumped in her place in surprise. A dark presence had appeared at the head of the staircase, and she recognised its voice and overall imposingness for her nameless benefactor. At that moment, however, he did not at all appear so beneficent.

‘I was just…’

‘Did I tell you you could just nose all about my house?’

‘I wasn’t…’ As he advanced on her, she felt the hairs on her arms rise and her eyes shifted towards the front door. This was not the first time she’d been in a situation like this – her father only too often obliging in teaching her a lesson on thinking on her feet. The only question was how likely was it that the front door would be unlocked?

Unfortunately, this man was more perceptive than her father was in his drunken stupors, and at seeing her eyes shift towards the door he made a noise that sounded almost like a growl. ‘So you are running, aren’t you?’ He scoffed, ‘And do tell, where were you planning on going in your state?’

‘I would find a place,’ she bit back, trying to force some defiance into her tone if only to mask her fear, ‘I can take care of myself, I know my way around Paris.’

He remained silent for a moment, and later Éponine would tell herself that she’d seen a cold smile cross his expression even though his face had been shrouded in darkness at the time. ‘It is unfortunate then that this is not Paris, is it not, mademoiselle?’

That stunned her for a moment, and for a moment she was not sure what to do. But then he was still advancing, and although she had no reason to mistrust his word, she did not trust him, and she knew very well what men were capable of doing to girls in their power. Still, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Azelma’s muttered in her mind, quite like her sister always did when she wanted to make a point but was too afraid to draw attention to herself, still he saved you from the barricade, treated your wounds, gave you food, and allowed you to stay in his house. Éponine wanted to bite back that men had also given her a few sous for taking her into filthy alleyways, but never got the chance because just then he took another step, and his profile for the first time became visible in the pale light of the moon.

She bit down, hard, on her tongue, and only years of perfecting the art of silence kept the scream from tearing out of her throat. If she had wondered at his talent for blending with the shadows, she could now only conclude that it must rather be a learned art than a natural talent, for none with a face like his could ever pass in polite society. Even in the hungry, the poor, the diseased that frequented her social circles, Éponine would be hard-pressed to find one as ugly as he was. And ugly he was, for red, puckered scar tissue covered most of his face and throat, in some places even seeming to have molten the flesh right from his bones. She could only imagine him a burn victim of some kind, though if it was indeed fire that had touched him, she found herself thinking sinfully that it might have been better if it had swallowed him whole.

Still, although her teeth had kept her scream at bay, it had not stopped the unwounded hand from flying up to cover her mouth – and the movement had not gone unnoticed by her benefactor. At one, his face – that horrible face – contorted into rage, though his voice remained for once completely calm. ‘Out.’

Finding the door unlocked, she’d fled from the house without another word.

Throughout her initial flight, Éponine was under the irrational assumption that he was following her. That if she but stopped for a moment, he’d pull her back by her hair and lock her up forever in that room from which the walls had seemed to close in on her. And so she ran ever on, until her bare feet were bleeding and she shivered in her thin, dirtied chemise despite the high fever she was running, and until she had somehow reached the docks of this unknown town and there was no further to run. And there, plagued with pain and exhaustion and hopelessness, she found herself an empty hollow in the stone foundation of the boulevard to tuck away in.

Unexpectedly, as she drifted off into delirious oblivion, her thoughts turned to her parents, and she wondered if they had at all missed her. No, not they, she’d thought somewhat vaguely, mind swimming as it recollected memories from not too long ago and tried to piece them together in the proper order, her mother had died only a few weeks ago, when they were put in prison for another stupid scheme of her father’s. Odd, how that realisation hardly reached her. She knew that fact should do something to her – mean something to her – but all she currently felt was emptiness. Instead, she wondered about her father. Did he know that she went to the barricades? Did he care? Had he now employed Azelma for his schemes? It would be no good at all, she scoffed loudly, half-delirious, for Azelma was such a scaredy cat that she would never be a good lookout. Yes, her brother would have done much better for his schemes, but her parents had never cared for him. Even when they’d still had the inn, it had been mostly Éponine who would go into his room at night to sing him softly to sleep, or to rock him in her arms when he was crying, ever aware that any sound from him would earn him another beating from their father, or a violent shaking from their mother. She had never quite forgiven him for leaving their family when they came to Paris, but she could now understand. Yes, he had probably been right to get out when he still could.

She had seen him at the barricade – of course he was there; he was always there where adventure was to be had and grownups to be outsmarted – and she thought he had recognised her, too. She wondered if he had told her father that she’d died. He probably would have, or at least have gotten the message to him somehow. Her father did not really care, but Gavroche must know that Azelma would be utterly miserable with not knowing. Yes, he would tell her, she was sure. He would tell her Éponine was dead.

Against her expectations and even hopes, Éponine did not die that night, and she woke the following morning to the smell of rotten fish, seagulls calling from up high as they circled the docks, and the complete hopelessness of her situation. In the cool morning light of August, the dressing around her hand and chest looked dirty and in the case of her chest, was slowly seeping through blood. Her feet, though perhaps less seriously injured, did not look to be in any better a state. All in all, she realised the direness of her situation. And she still did not know where she even was.

That morning, she roamed around the small city, begging for coin or food because she was in no state to steal it, and information. The first she got, to a meagre extent, the latter, less than she wished for. The city she was in was called Le Havre, and was over three days travel by carriage from Paris. Far worse than the physical distance between herself and Marius, however, was the news that she, with much difficulty in extracting it, received about the barricade. Indeed, nobody seemed to wish to speak much of it, but what they spoke all congregated on one thing: the rebellion had been squashed down the very night of their stand. What that meant for Marius, she dared not think about. Still, whatever fate had befallen him, she knew it was entirely her fault.

The remainder of the day she drifted through the city, too blind to see and too numb to absorb any of it, her mind centred only on that one thought: it was her fault. If only she had given Marius the letter Cosette had entrusted her with, he would not have gone to the barricades. If only she had given the letter, he would not be where he was now, in hiding, in prison or… No, not dead, Marius could not be dead. If she had only given him the letter, she could have now caught the first ride to Paris, could have found him there, and convinced him that he should have been with her all along. But he would not be there, sitting in the Musain with his friends or alone at his apartment at Gorbeau House, or even lounging in the Luxembourg gardens with another one of his smart books.

She returned that night to the empty nook near the docks, to the smell of rotten fish, the emptiness and the loneliness, to the prospect of dying of hunger or infection, whichever came first. And yet another day came and the delirium was worse, and she did not move away from the nook at all that day. She fell in and out of consciousness, aided by the ever-present fever in her bones, and the next morning dawned before she realised it – and even when it did, she hardly realised it, for her mind was dazed with delirium so much that for a moment she fancied herself back in Montfermeil, where Azelma and she would sometimes play hide and seek and she would press herself into any nook or cranny small enough to hold her, and could wait for hours only to end up making a noise so that the game would advance. She whistled lowly, then again louder, and then finally called out her sister’s name. But Azelma was not looking for her, she realised after some time, and she was not feeling warm with the heat of exertion after a summer afternoon of play but with fever, and the beat in her chest did not arise from her heart but from the infected bullet wound right next to it.

Éponine realised all this and at the same time, none of it. She welcomed death and at the same time, found cold tears leaking down her enflamed cheeks at the very prospect of it. It was just like that winter four years ago, the second winter after they got to Paris, she scolded herself even in her despair, when she wanted to drown herself but was too afraid the water would be cold. It was just like when she went to the barricade, too, to die with Marius but really only to hope that he would take her away from there and away from the life she had lived. Both of those times she had been desperate for some kind of salvation, even if it came in the form of death. But she had neither drowned that winter, nor did she live or die to be with Marius. And she did not have to give in to dying of infection now.

She pulled herself up with difficulty, aching feet protesting the action even as her vision temporarily darkened from the lack of nurture. Oh how cruel the world was, for it had taken her years to get used to starvation, but only weeks to get used to a steady meal a day, even if it was only bread. But still she pressed on, driven by the same sense of self-preservation that had made her flee into the city several days ago now back to the house that had caused it. Had she been of a sane, clear mind, she might have considered the prudence of such a measure, might have considered the small odds of salvation. But she was not, and she only told herself with each dragging step that if she could just make it back, all would be well.

And in the end, she did make it back, if only barely. The moon was already high in the sky when she finally found the house, and not by anything but sheer luck. When she did, exhaustion overtook her before she managed to ring the doorbell.

Chapter Text

Her recovery the second time around was undoubtedly more troublesome, but also swifter – and for a large part, Éponine was hardly conscious of it. As it turned out, by some stroke of fortune the monsieur had found her after not too long a time, lying unconscious as she was on his doorstep. He had taken her back in, placed her back in her room, and cleaned and redressed her wounds. All this he had done without a word of regret or gratitude from her side – but of course with the ever-present scowl of a man who lived against his wishes engraved on his face.

When she finally woke up after the second day, Éponine found him much as she had the first time she’d been properly awake, seated on the chair by her bed, and she found unexpectedly that she could not face him in her embarrassment. Now that the fever had cleared from her mind, she realised the folly of her actions – and knew that he, too, must be all too keenly aware of it. She studied her hands, trying first to flex the fingers on the injured, then the fingers on the other with greater success. ‘I could still run your errands,’ she found herself offering, pressed by the uncomfortable silence to say something – anything, but not that. Still, it was not so bad an idea, not-Azelma told her in her meek voice. After all, she still needed to find some way of acquiring money and she was surely not in any state to pickpocket strangers. Besides, perhaps if she was nice enough, the monsieur might allow her to stay and she would no longer have to sleep underneath bridges or boulevards, or in dirty alleyways. ‘Yes,’ she agreed with not-Azelma, then shaking her head, addressed the following to the man by her bedside, ‘I should be quite happy to run your errands for you, if you still need someone to do so.’

He was silent for a moment, then, ‘You have but one functional hand.’

‘And usually errands only require the one, and mostly just my legs. Besides, my hand may heal in time and before that, I would much rather make myself useful… as a way of repaying my debt.’

‘There is no debt,’ he said, almost automatically, then, ‘But I already told you I was looking for an errand boy, which you yourself are clearly not, mademoiselle.’

‘Well, if I may be so bold, monsieur, you also clearly stated that it was not so clear at the start. As you have noticed, I am quite capable of taking on a guise if needed. Some trousers and a jacket, a hat to cover my hair and I should be quite ready to get you anything you need, monsieur.’

‘I highly doubt that,’ came his dry reply, and she had to concede that at the very least, another good night of sleep and a meal surely would not go amiss. ‘Besides, about that hat…’

The way he trailed off – the way a man such as him could be made to appear at discomfort – should have already alerted her. But Éponine was much too pleased with herself for her smart talking which had earned her a job to notice. And so it was not until he continued after some long minutes that his meaning became clear.

‘I cut your hair,’ he said, frankly, ‘It was in complete disarray when I found you and beyond that, full of all kinds of vermin that I’d rather not have in my house.’

The latter explanation, however, was utterly wasted on Éponine, for at those first four words, her hand – her good hand – had flown up to where her hair usually hung, then higher, then higher still, until it touched the few whisps that remained around her head. Unbiddenly, tears came to her eyes as she felt the absence of the locks that had been her one pride, her one remainder of a life before squalor and degradation.

Irrational as it was, her hair had always made her feel like that part of herself that had lived in Montfermeil was not completely lost, that she someday may still blossom back into the pretty young girl she had left behind. That when Marius finally admitted his love for her and they would get married, she would once more be beautiful. Her skin, her posture, even her voice may have been ruined, but at least she always still had her long locks. Now, the last tie to her past was severed, and she was just another street rat with no present and no future. In her grief, she did not notice the monsieur’s departure, nor did she care. 

Four days later found Éponine ready for her first errand. During her recovery, she had much time for reflection on her own situation, and on that of her strange benefactor. And as she considered his situation more, she did not at all think it strange anymore that he would have need of an errand boy and would seek to acquire one in so unconventional a way. As far as she could see, he had no other staff, apart from a lady who cleaned the house once a week but who he would always carefully ascertain to avoid meeting in person. Surely, that was also his design for her, to carry out his business in town, whatever it may be, so that he may avoid having to go amongst people himself.

Now that she was healthy enough to no longer require care, he had ordered her – in that same, dry and gruff manner that she had come to expect – to move out into the loft of the stables if she continued on as his errand boy in a satisfactory manner. He furthermore promised her one proper meal a day in exchange for her services, in addition to whatever was left of money he would send her away with on errands.

In addition, he only had three simples rules for her while she was in his employment – but rules, he dictated, that should be followed to the letter, lest she preferred to be thrown out without care of consequence. First, there was to be no stealing while she was his errand boy. If he ever found out she was stealing, from him or other persons – and he assured her that he would, an assertion which she for some reason did not doubt – she would be thrown out and he would send for the gendarmes himself. Second, the loft was hers and hers alone. He would not take any stragglers under his roof, nor resort to any charity, unwilling or otherwise. If he found out she was allowing others to stay with her, she, as she by now could predict, would be thrown out. And third, and as spoke from everything from his tone to his air as most important, she were never to breathe a word of his appearance or person to anyone. The name he had given her to use in her errands, Gerard Bertrand, she deducted must not be his real one, and it appeared that whatever his name really was or what it was tied to, he wished for it to remain unknown. He did not state the punishment if she were to break this rule, but she rightfully believed it to be worse than merely being thrown out or even being thrown into prison.

And so it was that she was sent out, with a small purse with coins, and a list of items to acquire. For the occasion, the monsieur had left her loose trousers, a workman’s shirt, and a brown cap. He had furthermore provided her with a bag to put the purchased items in.

It was surprisingly easy for Éponine to find her way back to the town center. She had always been gifted with good memory and a sense of direction, and Le Havre was much smaller than Paris. Much cleaner too, she noticed, now that she was no longer part of the filth that littered the street. Le Havre also had its share of nameless, wretched shadows that lurked in alleys – and Éponine made note to find a connection sometime, to remain aware of any goings on – and they now watched her, too, with some interest. She shrugged off the discomfort that accompanied the realisation, and made her way into the small bakery.

The smell that had lingered vaguely outside assaulted her in full force as she stepped inside, and for a moment she could do nothing but breathe in the heavenly smell as her mind carried her away on distant memories. Her and Azelma, at the local bakery in Montfermeil. It had been a Sunday, she believed, just after noon, because they were both still dressed in their church dresses. The baker’s wife had told them how pretty they looked as they had twirled around the shop. Soon after, they had each left the shop with a freshly made pastry that they had received for free.

Back in the present, Éponine opened her eyes to find that a woman looking to be somewhere in her thirties had appeared behind the counter – and was watching her suspiciously.

‘Good day, madame,’ she greeted, careful to stay in the lower registers of her voice – which was not difficult, with years of liquor having roughened her once light voice into that of a woman four times her age.

The woman nodded, ‘Who are you?’

Éponine attempted a clumsy bow, hindered by the bandage that still wrapped around her torso and the wound that lay beneath it. ‘I am Joseph, madame.’ When that did not lighten the sour look on the lady’s face, Éponine realised what it really was that she was asking. ‘I have come to place an order for my master, monsieur Bertrand.’

This seemed to appease her, for the woman beckoned her closer and even offered her an apologetic smile, ‘So what is it your master needs, boy?’

Éponine fished the list from one of her coat’s pockets, feeling a little proud when she read out loud – even though she already knew it by heart – the different types of bread monsieur Bertrand wanted on each given day of the week.

As she started to gather the order for that particular day, the woman inquired, attempting at casualness, ‘So is your master new in town? I know all of my customers by name but cannot say I have ever heard of a monsieur Bertrand before.’

‘He arrived only a few weeks ago, madame,’ Éponine nodded, ‘Why, he told me just this morning that he had walked past your shop several times before and that your bread just smelt so delicious, he could only imagine that it must taste at least so well!’

Of course, monsieur Bertrand had told her no such thing – in fact, Éponine was quite certain even after her short acquaintance with the man that he would never say such a thing. Still, the compliment had the desired effect, for the woman looked very pleased as she was wrapping the bread for that day into a piece of cloth. ‘That is very kind of him to say – and it sure is very unfortunate that I did not happen upon him as he passed, for I surely would have offered him a pastry to welcome him to our town.

‘Tell me,’ here she looked up, through her eyelashes, before quickly resuming her work, ‘What does your master look like?’

‘Oh I…’ Éponine started, uncertain as to how to answer the question in a manner that would not end up coming to bite her in the butt. But fortunately, no response was needed, for just then the other woman laughed.

‘Oh dear me, of course you would not know. I’m sure boys your age have other things to look at than their masters! Here, I added two pastries to his order for today – one for him and one for yourself. Please make sure to welcome him to town, tell him madame Moreau said so!’

Unused to such unnecessary kindness, Éponine only nodded as she placed the package carefully in her bag and handed the woman some coins from her purse in exchange. When that was done, she offered the madame a tip of the hat before exiting.

As she found a quiet place to devour her pasty – and after only the briefest hesitation, monsieur Bertrand’s – Éponine considered the transaction that had just transpired. Most importantly, it seemed her guise was passable. After years of malnutrition, however, she supposed it should not come entirely as a surprise that she could pass herself off as a boy several years her minor. Still, she was glad madame Moreau – or anyone else so far – had not linked her to the dirty, feverish and delirious girl that had been wandering the town only the previous week, though she suppose the absence of her long hair helped in that respect.

Then, there was the matter of the free pastries. Truly, she could not remember the last time she had been treated with such kindness – such generosity – by anyone other than Marius and his friends. To be given food or coin when begging was one thing, to be freely given it for no reason other than that the other wanted to be kind – and perhaps become acquainted with her potentially handsome employer – was another. Indeed, she could only remember such incidences from when her parents still had the inn, and she were still respectable. In that sense, it was really quite ironic that free things were given only to those who did not need it, while those who did were not given them exactly because they were in need – and were instead treated as nothing more than the dirt beneath one’s feet.

Finally, and as she devoured the second pastry, Éponine considered the name she had given to madame Moreau. It had not been planned, nor had she ever needed to consider a male name before – again, people were hardly interested enough in the shadows that lingered in the alleys of Paris to treat them with any respect, let alone to ask them for their names. That had been true even for Marius’ friends on the day she joined them on the barricade. But still the name had come to her, quite easily. And then she remembered, another vague memory dredging up from a different time, that Marius had told her about it. Well, not Joseph – Joséphine. And not entirely to her either, but rather to one of the other students who he associated with. Yes, they had been having a discussion about one thing or another, and he had mentioned the wife of the late emperor Napoleon. Éponine wasn’t entirely sure why that conversation had stuck with her, or why it had returned to her at such an odd moment, but supposed that Joseph was not too bad a name to be stuck with all things considered. And so she finished her – or rather monsieur Bertrand’s – pastry, quite satisfied with her first errand in the monsieur’s employment.

Chapter Text

Many errands followed after that first day, and soon, she was not just a regular face at the bakery, but also known at the butchery, grocer, tailor, and even smithy – and monsieur Bertrand, her kind, benevolent, and dastardly handsome employer, a most welcome customer.

Indeed, quite without realising it, her life soon fell into some kind of routine. Every morning, she would awake to the smell of hay and horses, the sunlight peaking in through the thatched roof just enough to chase any dreams from her mind. She would go down the ladder and splash her face with the water from the bucket that stood there. Next to it, she would find a folded note, with the items or services that the monsieur would need that day, and a refilled coin purse. She would go to the baker, the butcher, the grocer, the tailor or smithy – or all of them – and then haul the goods back to the monsieur’s mansion in the upper part of town. She would go around the back and go in through the kitchen door, where she would deposit her goods and an empty coin purse – except on Tuesdays, when she was told to leave the groceries outside. At night, monsieur Bertrand would wordlessly deposit a tray of some sustenance near the bucket, which she would wait just long enough to collect for him to make his retreat.

With time and the consistency of care and at least some nourishment, her wounds started to heal, and by the time her first month in Le Havre had passed, the monsieur took out the stitches of her hand. Her hand and fingers had remained numb to the touch, but she had regained some of the movement in her thumb and pinky finger. The other fingers, unfortunately, had remained as useless as on her first day of waking. The bullet wound in her chest, too, had seen some improvement, and while it was still not completely healed, at least now it was but a dull ache that she carried around with her on her errands.

With the return of her health, Éponine found herself considering her options. Now that she was no longer bound to the monsieur for her survival, there was nothing keeping her in Le Havre. Her first thought had been of hitching a ride back to Paris, but then the voice of not-Azelma had asked her what for. If she would return to Paris, she would be back under her father’s subordination, running errands and trying to avoid getting on his bad side. She had all that here in Le Havre, but at least here she was not at the risk of physical abuse or being jailed.

It would have been perfect, had but Azelma been there with her. And so Éponine vowed that she would save whatever money was left from her errands, and when she had saved enough, she would go back to Paris and get Azelma, and together… ha well, together they could go anywhere they pleased! They could rent an apartment together in Paris and live like grisettes. Or they could hire a cottage, right here in Le Havre or in any quaint town on the French coast. They could go across the canal to England for all she cared!

With that resolution formed, it was easier for Éponine to submit to the simple, somewhat dull life that she had found in Le Havre. She resisted the lure of petty crime for the fun of it after the monsieur found out that some of the apples she got him one day had been stolen – and had locked her out for the next few days as punishment. To this day, she was still unsure how he had known, but she had not stolen a single thing ever since. Instead, she scraped her savings together with driving hard bargains where she could – and charming the socks off of any female shop keepers where she couldn’t. It was all quite harmless, given that she passed for a boy of about twelve, and the women of Le Havre were more endeared than enamoured. Still, it meant that a dozen sometimes contained thirteen, or eleven apples came at the price of ten, and that was all that Éponine cared about anyway.

After making the decision to stick around – at least for some time – Éponine realised that it was vital that she get connected to the underground world as soon as possible.

Even though Le Havre was only a small town compared to Paris, one would be a fool to think that it did not also have its circuit of nameless, faceless shadows who saw things, heard things, and knew things. A fool – or someone who had not spent a good portion of their life as one of them, that is. As it was, Éponine was not a fool and she knew exactly where to find them.

The streets were empty when she ventured out with that exact purpose, the good, upstanding people of Le Havre all safely inside the town’s cathedral for Sunday mass. Briefly, she wondered if madame Moreau ever looked for the tall, handsome stranger that she had described to her on one of her visits to the bakery, but knew that she would not have found monsieur Bertrand in there even if she had told the woman of his real appearance.

She shook off such silly thoughts as she slunk into the seedier alleys of the city, so carefully avoided by the richer citizens of the city that they had been hard to miss for someone looking for them. There, she soon found the location that she was looking for.

Truly, the brothel wasn’t much to look at, housed in what once used to be a boarding house – and a cheap one at that – and squeezed in between two dilapidated apartment buildings. Outside the entrance, a group of four women, ranging in age from only two years or so Éponine’s elder to well into middle age, were lounging and catching the few rays of sunlight that filtered down into the alley. Their dresses were dirty and ragged, but still more than Éponine remembered herself wearing for a long time back in Paris. They were chatting amongst themselves when she approached them, and promptly fell quiet when they noticed her. A look of interest was soon replaced by one of annoyance at seeing her age, and the youngest, a blonde whose dirty hair was piled on top her head in an imitation of a bourgeois hairstyle, scowled.

‘What do you want, boy? Gawking is not free, you know!’

Éponine fought the urge to roll her eyes at her and turned to a dark-skinned woman, who was a little older than the blonde and who Éponine had easily singled out as appearing the most sensible of the lot of them. ‘Can I speak with you? In private.’

She pulled up one eyebrow and crossed her arms, ‘I don’t take on little boys, even if you have money.’

This time Éponine did roll her eyes, ‘And I don’t have need of those services. Please, can I just have a moment.’

After piercing her with a long look, the woman nodded and gestured for Éponine to follow. They left the alley, took a turn left, and suddenly Éponine found they had emerged on the boulevard. It was not an altogether awful surprise, for ever since coming to Le Havre she found that she had a fondness of the crisp and fresh sea air. It was a large change from the stifling city air of Paris that had always carried the undertones of sweat and decay, especially during the sweltering summer months. She took a moment to simply breathe it in before turning to the woman beside her, who looked on impatiently.

‘I need information.’

‘Information?’

‘Yes, on what is going on in the informal circles. Of important news. Of… of any updates from Paris.’ Seeing the way the woman was now looking at her in a manner all too piercing, Éponine shrugged, ‘Anyways, you seem like a capable woman, so I figured you have some ways of getting me the information.’

She took a moment to respond, then, ‘What is your name?’

‘Joseph.’

‘Very well, Joseph,’ she agreed, slowly, the emphasis on the fake name suggesting that she recognised it as such, ‘I might have ways to get you the information you need.

‘But it will cost you.’

‘How much?

‘Hmmmmm how about a nice bottle of cider to start out with? You get me that and I will tell you everything I know.’

Cider was hard to get by. What was more, cider was expensive. Éponine considered the offer, weighing the value of the information that she needed. ‘Fine. I’ll get you your cider.’

‘Mondays are my day off,’ the woman bowed to pat her on the cheek as one would a small child. ‘On all other days, you can find me at House Bellerose. Just ask for Vivienne.’

Following the agreement, which took all of five minutes, followed a long period of cursing herself. As she walked back to the square that held the monsieur’s house and well into the afternoon, Éponine wracked her brain for how she was going to get a hold of a bottle of cider. Even with her steady income from the errands she ran for monsieur Bertrand, there was no way she had saved enough to even be able to afford a third of a bottle.

She could of course manage to acquire the money in… alternative ways, but if she was caught by the gendarmes or by the monsieur, the money would do her little good in prison. Likewise, she knew that the monsieur had a well-stocked wine cellar which probably also contained other kinds of spirits, but the punishment upon being caught would be much greater than the reward. But when stealing the money or the cider itself was not an option, what else could she do?

Unbiddenly, memories resurfaced of the winter before last, memories which she rather kept locked away deep into the dark spaces of her mind. It had been so cold that winter, and begging was not bringing in its usual share of money, what with the people of Paris staying inside in front of their warm hearths. And so her father had suggested to her that they make money in a different way. She or Azelma, he had said, but for Éponine there was never a choice. Azelma was still young, still innocent of much of the horrors of the world. But what was one more sin, one more trauma for one like Éponine? And so she had gone out without protest and returned that night with enough money to satisfy her father, and a freshly baked pastry that she had hidden in the hem of her dress and that she had given to Azelma when her father was not looking. She still remembered the look of amazement on her sister’s face, the laugh that had escaped her at seeing the fruits of her older sister’s good fortune. To this day, she had never told Azelma how she had earned the money to buy it.

Azelma… oh how dearly she missed her sister. Annoying in her weakness at times, her sister had been dear to her above any other – above, perhaps, even Marius. Yes, although the attention of Marius had been more cherished at the time, she now realised that the steady, certain affection of her sister had been a quiet, almost unnoticed force keeping her going even in her pursuit of Marius’ affection.

What would Azelma tell her to do in this situation? She knew the answer, and scowled at the wall, as if her sister would be able to see. Still, she knew not-Azelma was right, and she sighed in resignation.

Chapter Text

That evening, she heard the tell-tale quiet footsteps of monsieur Bertrand as he entered the stable below. Instead of waiting for his retreat, however, this time Éponine sprang up from her makeshift bed of hay, and clambered down the ladder. Her feet touched the ground just as he passed back over the threshold, and she called after him.

He paused and, reluctantly, turned back around slowly. The way he stood, his figure was outlined by the sunlight, his face thankfully shrouded in shadows. He did not speak, instead choosing to gaze at her sternly and impatiently as she fumbled to find the right words. When they did not come, and she felt her employer’s annoyance grow, she blurted, ‘I need money.’

‘You need money.’

‘It’s for a gift,’ she defended. Then, realising it was hardly any better, she lowered her shoulders, dropping her head, ‘I’m hoping to receive some information about Paris, but it does not come cheap.’ She thought of the meagre pile of money that she’d stored away in the loft, and the large amount that was still lacking. She uttered the required amount in a low voice, but monsieur Bertrand’s sensitive ears seemed to catch it all the same.

After a moment, he said, ‘I thought I had made quite clear that I am no charity.’

Éponine felt her cheeks redden, somehow embarrassed at being seen as the beggar she had been for so long. Somehow him having regarded her as a thief was better, for then at least she was not an object to be pitied. Still, information about Paris was more important than her pride. ‘How about a loan?’

He scoffed, ‘And how do you expect to pay it back? Besides, what assurance do I have that you will stick around once you have the money?’ He shook his head, the movement temporarily blocking the sun that fell on her own face, and turned to leave. Mid-movement, he stilled, however, and turned his head back in her direction. For a long moment he said nothing at all. Then, ‘There might be a way you can earn it.

‘There’s a task that I need help with. If you complete it, the money is yours.’

When monsieur Bertrand had told her to come into the kitchen the next morning to discuss it, Éponine had been expecting – had been sure – that he would force himself on her. In fact, she had carefully weighed it against information about Azelma, about her father … about Marius – and had decided she would allow him.

And so when Éponine had entered the kitchen that morning and found the monsieur there already, sitting on one of the wooden chairs with a wide-brimmed hat to shield his face from the harsh morning light, she had approached him, if not happy then at least resigned. However, when she stepped directly in front of him, monsieur Bertrand moved away awkwardly, looking at her curiously and a bit uncomfortably. After a short silence in which he seemed to recollect himself, he cleared his throat.

‘The task I mentioned… well they are rather two tasks.’ He stood from his chair and paced the room for several long minutes, and for a moment Éponine was convinced he had utterly lost it and had forgotten she was even still there. Then, at long last, he started to speak, in a deep voice that spoke of old pain and never-healed wounds.

‘Having had the ill-fortune of gazing upon my visage, I have no doubt the image is yet to leave you – may even follow you in your darkest nightmares.’ She saw his mouth twist in a self-deprecating smirk under the shadow of his hat. ‘You need not attempt to deny it; I am well-acquainted with the horrors that I bear.’ A long time ago, the barest teachings of etiquette she had received may have urged Éponine to deny it, but now she could only nod to what they both knew to be true.

‘The ill fate which touched my face also touched much of the rest of my body. As it so happens, this cursed shell does not only make me look like a demon, it also burns like hellfire and tends to get inflamed easily.

‘There is a ointment, made up of herbs and other plants, that helps stave off the inflammation. However, I used the last bit before my… departure from Paris.’ He stopped in his pacing, suddenly back to the calm and collected gentleman that she had come to know as he regarded her with authority. ‘This is where I have need of your help.’

As Éponine stepped into the twilight world of the darkened apothecary, she could almost still hear monsieur Bertrand’s words ringing in her ears. This task requires the utmost discretion. I trust you can manage such? She had wanted to scoff, for her father had not employed her as his accomplice all those times for no reason, but had paused at the look on his face. It was one of seriousness, mixed with something like desperation, and so she had simply nodded, accepted the money he provided her, and put her hat on top of her chopped locks.

Now, thirty minutes later, she had arrived at one of the few shops in Le Havre she had thus far had had no reason to frequent, and she made her way through aisles of mysterious jars and strange substances towards the counter at the far back. She was not much of a believer in God or the devil, but this very place still made her hair stand on end and she shifted uncomfortably in her place as she made it to the counter. The foolish notion to cross herself came over her, but Éponine supressed it and looked around for any sign of a shop keeper.

‘Ah, monsieur Bertrand’s boy, are you not?’

She jumped, hand coming up to rest on her chest where she could feel the violent beating of her heart against her rib cage, as she whirled around to find a rather short man had appeared from… somewhere. She guessed him to be of about the same age as her employer, though decidedly far his lesser in height, build, and the fashion of his clothes. The two things he was the monsieur’s superior in, however, was in the completeness of his plain, but at least decent looking face, and the mirth that shone in his eyes as he directed her back to the counter.

When he had settled behind it and looked at her with expectant eyes, Éponine remembered her purpose, and cleared her throat uncomfortably. ‘I… yes, monsieur Bertrand asked me to pick up some ingredients.’ She pulled the list he had provided her from her jacket pocket and thrust it into the shopkeeper’s awaiting hand.

As he perused the list, his thick dark eyebrows knitted together, before he glanced up at her, ‘This is quite a list, I dare say. Your master must have quite the extensive knowledge of medicine.’

‘Oh the honey and rosemary are for the kitchen,’ she blurted, ‘The other things are indeed for medicinal purposes. Just the other day, the monsieur’s horse misstepped you see and is now limping. The other ingredients are for a homemade remedy against… coughing.’

‘The monsieur is ill then?’

‘No!’ She was panicking now, all her cool skills at lying seemingly vanished as the monsieur’s voice droned in her ears. This task requires the utmost discretion.

‘No,’ she amended more calmly, attempting even to smile, ‘The monsieur is luckily of a very healthy and stout constitution. It’s for his… son.’

‘Monsieur Bertrand has a son?’

‘Oh yes, a small boy… Marius.’ She cursed herself, though she could not be entirely surprised that that was the first name that had come to mind.

The shopkeeper – whose name she would later learn was monsieur Chastain – stopped in his rummaging through his wares for a moment to stare, then recommenced his actions though with an absentmindedness that made her doubt he would actually find any of the listed items. ‘You must forgive my surprise, my boy, but I was told monsieur Bertrand was a bachelor.’

I trust you can manage such? Éponine squared her shoulders, forcing her nerves down and a downtrodden expression on her face. ‘He is, in a way, monsieur. You see, his wife, madame Bertrand, she died last year… of consumption.’

‘Oh how terrible!’ He gasped, a hand flying to his chest as hers had previously done, ‘What a poor man, he must have been devastated!’

‘Oh yes,’ she bobbed her head sadly, as if the death of the imaginary wife of her recent employer had somehow personally grieved her, ‘We left Paris soon after, for as you can imagine the old house held too many painful memories for the monsieur.’

Monsieur Chastain finished gathering the ingredients soon after, and insisted that she take a calming herb tea on the house for the poor little sick boy. If only he knew…

When Éponine left the shop, she was if not entirely happy with the addition of a faux son and deceased wife, at least content with her performance that had left the shopkeeper none the wiser of the true purpose of the ingredients. Yes, despite the difficulty of the task, she had persevered, and she was quite proud of herself for her acting. Surely, she thought to herself on the way back home, whatever the second part of the task was could only be easier than the first.

She learned the error of that assumption already the next morning, when instead of a filled coin purse and a list of errands, she found a brief note beside the water bucket requesting her presence in the main house.

When she entered the kitchen, a persistent though not entirely unpleasant smell filled her nose, and she looked around for the source of the aroma. Before she had time to investigate the source, monsieur Bertrand entered the kitchen through the door connecting the kitchen to the main hall, giving her only a brief nod as he placed several things on the table. A tin container, a towel, and a small basin. More alarming than what he carried though was what he was wearing. Rather than his regular evening clothes, monsieur Bertrand was dressed only in pressed pants and a white linen dress shirt – and Éponine felt the rather ludicrous urge to look away. Instead, she pushed her hands into the deep pockets of her pants, taking a peek around her employer’s broad back at the items he was stalling out.

Now that the container’s lid was unscrewed, she noticed it contained a thick, balmy white salve that carried the same smell that she had noticed lingering in the kitchen. Clearly, whatever it was had been cooked up in that very place. The basin that stood nearby contained a clear liquid, though water or some kind of potion, she could not tell.

The monsieur had turned to her, observing her as she observed the items on the table, seemingly waiting for her to put together what he wanted from her. For once, his face was not hidden from view by a hat or shadows, and she gazed up in the full distortion of his countenance as an idea of what the second part of the task was dawned on her.

A strong sense of repulsion coursed through her, and she was half-tempted to turn on the spot and never come back. Clearly, this was the reaction he had been waiting for, for then he started to speak.

‘The ointment needs to be massaged into the affected skin. I have already performed the procedure for all places, apart from my upper back which I cannot reach myself. In Paris, I had an old maid of poor eyesight who would do it, but the good woman passed and as I am sure you can imagine, I can hardly ask the town physician for such a matter.’

‘I can’t…’ she said, eyes fixed on the ruined flesh of his face, her mind imagining all the ruin that lay below his clothes.

There was a slight change in his expression, though she could not say what exactly it was. Then, ‘I understand your… aversion but I ask you to do it only this once and only in the small area that I cannot treat myself.’

In her mind, she imagined the feel of the rough, ruined skin under her fingers, imagined it spreading up, into her fingers and onto her arms. She felt positively sick, ‘What if I get it, too?’

‘It’s not contagious. You have my word on that.’ His eyes hardened, ‘Do this one thing and you have your money for whatever item you have to buy; no loan, no debt.’

She closed her eyes, battling within herself as she considered the information that she so desperately sought for. Considered Marius. Éponine sighed, drawing her narrow shoulders back in resignation, ‘Very well. What do I need to do?’

The task, which consisted of dabbing clean the area of the monsieur’s shoulder blades that he could not reach and then lathering it with the ointment, was in hindsight perhaps not as awful as she had made it out to be. Indeed, compared to all the horrible things she had seen, the horrible things she had done, in the filthy back alleys of Paris, this was perhaps only a minor unpleasantry in the long list that she had already collected over the course of her short life.

Still, as much as that may rationally be the case, it had not made it any easier on Éponine as she performed the task. The act was simple enough; soak the towel with water from the basin, dab it on a part of monsieur Bertrand’s shoulders, dip her other hand into the container with ointment and massage the crème into the cleaned bit of skin. Then, she’d rinse the towel in the basin, and repeat the process on the next bit.

Simple as it was, however, it did not allow her to dissociate from the task altogether – from the sight in front of her – for there was a gentleness required that asked for attention. Indeed, if she had ever shuddered at the sight of his face, it had now deepened into a bone-deep shiver knowing that the awfulness extended far beyond the borders of his countenance.

From what she could see of his exposed upper body and his arms, much of it was affected with the same sickening scaliness of skin, the same inflamed colouration, and the same misshapenness of the flesh below. The only difference here was that, despite the malformed surface, it was clear in the early morning light that the muscles that lay below had formed normally and even extensively. Not for the first time, she had wondered at the strange origins of her employer – and the stray thought had for a moment distracted her enough to break the fragile skin beneath her hands.

She had apologised quickly, but he had merely shrugged and otherwise remained silent. As she’d picked the towel back up and continued her work, Éponine had become more and more aware of that silence though, and quite without thought or wish had found herself talking. ‘We used to have warm baths at least three times a week when I was a child. Azelma and I would usually take ours together, and when mother would leave we would pretend to be mermaids – sirens, as my mother’s Greek mythology books used to call them. She would often scold us for bathing so long, saying that our skins would prune and…-’

‘Birds.’

Éponine had faltered, looking somewhat quizzically down at the dark-haired crown of monsieur Bertrand’s head. When he didn’t elaborate, she’d asked him to explain himself. He did so in a tired voice, as if the very act exhausted him.

‘Originally, in Greek mythology, sirens were bird-women. The confusion with women who were half-human, half-fish was only made in the 9^th century.’

‘Oh,’ she’d simply said, not knowing what to do with that information or with the fact that he had even been listening to her rambling. ‘Well, yes, just mermaids then. Anyways, the inn soon started to lose money and baths became less frequent. I remember the night before we left for Paris, maman had us wash up in a tub of cold water in the middle of the kitchen. We were both shivering, and Azelma begged her to light a fire in the fire place. She didn’t – and we both got a whacking to boot.’

Things had been silent after that, and it had probably been for the best. Éponine had little desire to become any more acquainted with her employer than she already was – and in any case, she hardly thought that the way towards acquaintance was through medical treatment and sharing of the minor inconveniences of her past.

Chapter Text

Fortunately, the treatment had finished soon after, and Éponine had been sent away, several cold francs pressed firmly in her good hand. She had slept poorly the nights that followed. Despite her rational mind having made peace with the horror that was monsieur Bertrand’s skin, her unconscious mind seemingly had not, having her wake up in cold sweat and tear off her clothing in frantic fear of finding there the same affliction. The first nights after having seen his face had been the same, she remembered, before the sickening sensation dulled enough to allow her peaceful sleep.

The next morning, after finishing her errands for monsieur Bertrand and returning the goods to the house, she set out again with her hard-earned money. She had passed the wine vendor many times on her errands, situated as it was directly next to the bakery of madame Moreau, but had never ventured in because it turned out that monsieur Bertrand was not much of a drinking man. Good, she had thought early on, having experienced the effects that alcohol could have on a man first-hand.

Still, despite the monsieur’s apparent pledge of sobriety, when she’d stepped up to the counter of the darkened wine shop, she requested a bottle of cider, “for my master”. It was a small lie, all things considered, and much preferable to the look of disapproval she would no doubt get if the man behind the counter thought the cider was for a young boy like herself. Now, he only nodded, asked her if the monsieur had any preferences, and then proceeded to grab a bottle of mid-range cider from his shelves. Upon her approval, he wrapped it carefully in a heavy sort of paper. She handed him the entirety of her savings – and received a few meagre coins, not even enough to buy her a pastry, in return – and was sent out with her precious package.

She stopped a few steps onto the square, taking the time to tuck away the cider in her bag gingerly. In the few seconds that it took, a small body brushed past her – and even without feeling her coat pocket, she knew that the coin purse was gone.

For a moment Éponine glared after the gamin scurrying across the square and finally ducking into one of the smaller alleys, wondering if it was worth pursuing what the boy would soon find was a very empty purse. Then she sighed and, more out of principle than anything else, followed in the same direction.

She found the culprit not too far into the alley too, tugged between two piles of rotting crates as he looked dejectedly at the contents of the stolen purse. Seeing him there, in his patched and dirty clothes, a mop of dirty brown hair hiding his face, gave her pause. In her mind’s eye, his hair was no longer dark but a filthy blond, his brown eyes blue, and he grew a head taller. How often had she happened upon him in Paris, doing exactly this and boasting about some trick or another he was particularly proud of?

She shook her head, dispelling the traitorous softness spreading in her chest, and marched up to the boy.

When he noticed her approach, the gamin looked up, holding the purse and its meagre contents shielded from her.

‘I’ll give you one chance to return my belongings to me willingly,’ she said calmly, crossing her arms, and staring him down as she so often had her little sister and brother.

This boy, apparently, was not used to her infamous glare, for he simply puffed out his tiny chest, ‘Or what? You’ll call the gendarmes?’

Éponine scoffed. If he really thought the gendarmes were the worst she could do, he was sorely mistaken. Rather than lose her temper, however, she merely took another step forward, leaned down, and told him exactly what it was she would do.

The threat in argot had the exact effect she wanted it to, and she watched with satisfaction as the colour drained from his face when the words registered. Within seconds, the coin purse was back in her one hand, the coins being offered to the other.

She looked down at him, once again seeing blond hair and blue eyes, and sighed. Curse her softness. ‘Keep it,’ she told him gruffly, ‘But don’t let me ever find you or any of the other street rats trying to steal from me again.’

He nodded nervously and when she made to turn, quickly scurried away further into the alley. Shaking her head, and patting the precious package in her bag for good measure, Éponine continued home.

Later that day, after receiving her daily meal of some type of stew the monsieur must have made himself, Éponine splashed some water from the bucket into her face and made an effort at working her fingers through her short hair. Then, as prepared as she’d ever be without a proper bath and a brush, she pressed the cap back onto her head, grabbed the bottle of cider, and made her way back into town.

Le Havre at night was much quieter than it was by day. Small enough to still feel like a village, there was little to be experienced after dark, apart from the one local tavern and a brothel – the latter her destination for the night.

When she made it there, Éponine was surprised to see the liveliness of the place that had looked so dilapidated during the day. Then again, she knew she should not be, for any town – large or small – that had men, had a need for women to accommodate them, and this was especially true for men who were out at sea for extended periods of time.

She ducked past some of the shadier men outside the brothel, careful to keep her cap firmly on her head, and into what appeared to be a well-filled bar room. Somewhere in the crowd, a band could only just be heard over the noise, but with her height and the overall crowdedness she could not spot them. Instead, she made her way to the bar, to a man who she quickly learned sold more than drinks.

‘I’m looking for mademoiselle Vivienne,’ she called over the noise, quickly regretting her choice of coming here on an evening rather than during the day.

He looked her up and down, clearly making the same mistake that the women outside had made on her first visit there. ‘Vivienne is with a client at the moment, but some of my other ladies are available?’

‘I haven’t come for that.’

‘You a friend or family of hers or something?’

‘Or something.’

‘Well then you’ll have to wait until the evening dies down. Vivienne is one of my most desired ladies and I can’t have her sit out the evening because some boy wants her attention for free.’

Éponine scowled but nodded, before making her way to a less crowded corner where she dropped herself into an empty chair. Over the next hours, she watched as scarcely dressed ladies flocked around the men in the tavern, cooing, flirting, some even showing some of their “goods” before disappearing upstairs. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Éponine knew that a girl her age should have been scandalised – knew that a good girl would be, a girl like Cosette – but couldn’t find it in herself to as much as bat an eye. If anything, she was more at home here than she was among the good, upstanding citizens of Le Havre, who said their prayers every night and went to church on Sundays.

She ended up having to wait a whole lot longer than she’d hoped, but it wasn’t all bad she supposed. Most of the women were quite delighted by the fresh-faced boy sitting in one of the corners, and spent some time chatting to her or getting her something to drink. On her part, Éponine felt like she did not have to pretend for the first time since the barricade, even if she were still masquerading as a boy.

But, the evening wore down at long last and finally Vivienne, who she had seen flashes off every now and then, sat down in the empty chair beside hers wearily. She closed her eyes for a moment, before casting a glance at the wrapped bottle peeking out of Éponine’s coat.

Then she sighed, before pushing herself back on tired feet, ‘Let’s find somewhere more private to talk.’

Rather than going upstairs as she had expected, Éponine followed the other woman out of a door behind the bar that she had not spotted before. From the dark and narrow alley it opened up into, it was a short and silent walk towards the boulevard.

Out here, the wind was a lot stronger and chillier than it was in the safe, walled-in streets of Le Havre, the town still clinging to a summer that the sea already knew had faded. The thought made her sad somehow, even when the colder weather and chillier wind meant the docks smelled just that little bit less rotten. Instead of dwelling on it, Éponine took out the bottle of cider from her coat and pressed it resolutely into the other woman’s hand, a clear question in her eyes as she gazed up at her.

Vivienne nodded, looking at the bottle for a long second before taking the cork out and taking a big swig. Leaning against a wall, she smacked her lips. ‘So what was it you wanted to know again?’

‘News from Paris. News of… the barricades.’

‘The barricades,’ Vivienne hummed, ‘Well, I’m not sure how much you already know, but the rebellion didn’t exactly end well.’

‘I know that. I was hoping… well I was hoping maybe you had heard something about the fate of a particular barricade.’

‘Perhaps, but I would need a little more information on which barricade that would be.’

Éponine frowned, thinking back on that fateful night – and really the many nights before that she had spent in the vicinity, ‘It was near a tavern, La Corinthe. On the Rue de la Chanvrerie, near the intersection with the Rue Mondetour.’ A long silence followed, and she looked to the side to find Vivienne looking out into the ocean unseeingly. ‘Well,’ she prompted, ‘Do you know anything about it?’

The woman’s gaze jerked away from the water, seemingly just remembering her companion, before nodding. She took another swig from the bottle cider, before speaking. ‘I remember, because that barricade was one of the last to stand and the battles one of the bloodiest. There were no survivors.’

‘No survivors,’ Éponine echoed, breathlessly, then shaking her head, ‘No, that can’t be. I… How can you be certain it was this particular barricade? Surely it could…-’

‘Because one of my clients had heard the story from one of the garde nationale present that day. After the insurgents refused to stand down, they swept in and killed all present. All men… and child.’

A pit had opened in her stomach during Vivienne’s speech, and it deepened at the last word. Surely it wasn’t… It couldn’t… And yet, wasn’t it exactly where Gavroche would have been, right there where danger was to be found and adventure to be had? ‘Child?’ She asked, quietly.

‘I’m told there was a boy present, who crept out of the barricade to collect ammunition of the fallen guards. They begged him to leave but…’

She could picture it now, Gavroche crawling over the barricade, probably laughing in the face of the garde nationale while he was at it. Brave, stupid stupid Gavroche! Tears were stinging her eyes and even through her blurred vision she noticed the concerned, almost maternal look Vivienne was giving her. Hastily turning away and wiping the moisture away with the corner of her sleeve, Éponine murmured a quick excuse before making her escape.

Despite her haste in getting away, she found her feet had no haste in going back to the monsieur’s house. Instead, they did what they had always done, ramble. Indeed, she spent most of the dawning day mindlessly wandering through the town, seeing the faces of those she had lost in every passer-by.

When she at last returned to her loft, night was starting to set in again and she dropped down on her hay mattress tiredly. Even then, however, with exhaustion weighing down her eyelids and having turned her limbs to lead, sleep would not find her. Every time she closed her eyes, there was Marius, giving her that pitiful smile – but a smile all the same – as she proved to him her ability to read. There was Gavroche, a cheeky expression on his face as he knew that he had outsmarted every grownup in the room. There was even her mother, back when she still turned warm eyes on Éponine and told her stories of handsome princes on white horses.

The revolution Marius and his friends had believed in was supposed to better all society – but it was paid for in individual lives. And as usual, it was the common people like her, like her brother, who had to pay the price.

Chapter Text

Somehow in the end Éponine managed to fall asleep after all, although even then she was haunted by memories of those she had lost. Their faces flashed before her eyes, always close but just out of reach. She saw their deaths, even though she had not actually witnessed any of them, saw the light die in their eyes again and again, as she stood powerless to stop it.

She woke in the early morning, slick with sweat and promptly threw up next to the hay mattress she was lying on. When her stomach was completely emptied, she lay back, allowing her breathing to stabilize and her heartbeat to return to its normal cadence. Slowly reality returned to her, the realisation that although her loved ones were dead, they had likely not died in all the horrible ways she had imagined, and had not pleaded for her help as she stood and did nothing. It was a small comfort, but enough to quell the nausea – and make room for a pang of hunger.

She tried to remember when the last time was that she had eaten. She knew she had eaten before going to the brothel, but couldn’t quite remember if that had been yesterday evening, or the evening before. With difficulty, she scrambled to her feet, careful to sidestep the pool of sick, and clambered down the ladder. There she found the bucket of water and next to it… nothing. She looked around the stable, thinking maybe her dinner had been left in a different spot than usual, but no, it wasn’t there. She vaguely remembered having spent the previous day wandering around Le Havre, and realised that the monsieur must have withheld her dinner after she failed to run his errands that day. Despondently, she climbed back up and lay down on her mattrass, staring at the ceiling.

Over the next few hours, she drifted in and out of consciousness, never fully asleep as her stomach kept growling, but enough to drift away on memories, and losses. The truth was that she was not just haunted by her lost loved ones, she was also haunted by the self that she had lost, not at the barricade, but long before that. Before she was Joseph, before she was ‘Ponine, before she was the Jondrette girl; back when she was still Éponine.

Éponine, Éponine, Éponine. As a child, she had at a time spun around laughing, chanting the name over and over again as she had rejoiced in having such a beautiful name – and seeing no problem in her own person belonging to it.

Éponine. Now, it was a pretty name for an ugly scrap of girl like herself. Of course no one ever used it anymore, had not for a long time. To the underbelly of Paris, the poorest and filthiest and hungriest, she had simply been ‘Ponine, little miss ‘Ponine if she was lucky. To all others, she had merely been one of the many nameless shadows that haunted the darkened alleys of the capital, too pitiful and meaningless to take notice of, let alone name. To others, mostly clients – or victims – of her father’s shady dealings, she had been the Jondrette girl. After coming to Le Havre, she had lost all ties with her former self. Monsieur Bertrand had never asked her for her name, and so she had simply become Joseph, to him and the rest of the world, and perhaps even a little to herself, for she did not know anymore who else to be.

She still remembered a time when she was Éponine. Could remember a time when she was a real girl, when life was good. Could remember a time when her mother would comb her hair before bed. When her father would sit her on his lap and tell her stories of far-off kingdoms and beautiful princesses – and when it hadn’t seemed too farfetched that she was one of them. Could remember the feeling of a soft bed and a full stomach.

But her memories of a soft bed did not make the hay mattrass she now dozed away on any more forgiving, and memories of a full stomach could not fill the pit in her belly. And when she woke again to another bleak day, the memories of her past life, of Éponine, slipped like sand through her bony fingers.

Her head was a little clearer now, although that was a small favour as it also intensified the ravenous hunger that threatened to eat her from the inside out. The stench of vomit seemed to have grown stronger as well, and she moved away from her cot and the source of the stench.

She paced up and down the loft, considering her options. If she was correct, it was now Sunday, which meant no more errands today and – more importantly – no more coin. Given that she had spent nearly all of her money on the cider and had – foolishly, she thought now – given away the last coins in an act of benevolence, that left no options to buy herself something. She could of course try to steal something from the local bakery, but the thought of monsieur Bertrand withholding dinner for longer quickly stamped out that idea. Still, if she had to wait until dinner, she was sure she would go mad.

Oh how cruel life was, how foolish she to allow herself to grow used to the luxury of a steady meal a day! Already her body had grown dependent on it, had used that precious nutrition to grow some padding near her hips, some tissue on her chest bone that may be mistaken for pitifully small breasts in the right lighting. She held them for a moment, not really sure why except that it made her feel more grounded to hold some part of her that was not wasting away.

She stared out of a hole in the thatched roof, confirming that it was already nearing mid-morning, confirming that it was indeed Sunday judging by the lack of traffic, confirming that… oh Lord was she hungry. It seemed now her eyes were even fooling her, showing her what she so greatly desired, as she spotted a set table complete with a tray of pastries in the garden behind one of the neighbouring mansions.

Éponine blinked, but no it was still there, the pastries seemingly looking even more appetizing. Perhaps someone had their maid set out the table, only to hurry away for church and forget all about it. Perhaps it had only been newly set out, awaiting the house masters’ return. Whatever the reason was, surely monsieur Bertrand would not notice her taking one of the many pastries, especially if there was no one present to witness it?

She was by the ladder before she had well thought of an answer to the question, only just in time grabbing her hat and replacing it on her head before she made her way down with a renewed strength. Outside of the stables, she had to pause for a moment to reorient herself at this new angle to the right house and – more importantly – the right garden.

She was in luck, a small grove in the neighbouring garden allowing her safe passage towards the garden in question, where she pushed herself through a small hole in the hedge surrounding the garden. She emerged in a well-sized area, at least ten metres away from the back entrance of the house, and with many more metres stretching to the other side leading away from the house. Unlike the monsieur’s garden, this one was well-kept, with neatly trimmed bushes, cared for flower beds, and marble statues dotting the landscape.

Of more importance to Éponine’s untrained and uncaring eye, however, was the table that she spotted on the opposite side of the garden near the hedge. Gaze firmly trained on her goal, she had already made her way halfway towards the table when she noticed something she had not noticed before. There, in the shadow of the hedge, very inconveniently shielded from the view from her loft, was a chair next to the table. And on the chair sat a young man.

She had come to a halt now, taking coverage behind one of the classical-looking statues as she peered at the man who seemingly had not yet seen her.

There was something familiar about him, she found herself thinking as she studied his features in the twilight. That deep-set frown, those high and prominent cheekbones, the golden curls that gathered on his shoulders – even the straight nose and plump lips told her that somehow, somewhere she had seen them before. Before she had time to search her starved brain for the answer, ill luck would have her step on a twig – and cause his head to swivel in her direction.

Ducked behind the statue, Éponine’s heart pounded in her ears as she prayed that he hadn’t seen her. Even if she had somehow met this noble man before and he had not found her repulsive then, he was unlikely to respond very kindly to her entering his garden and planning to steal his food.

‘Who’s there?’

The voice was clear and commanding, a certain steeliness that jogged memories that she had no time to file through. Even so, her mind was filled with the darkness of night, rain, and clouds of gunpowder.

‘I know you are there. It is best to reveal yourself before I call for the authorities.’

Éponine bit her lip, debating heavily and finally heaving an inaudible sigh before righting herself and stepping out from behind the statue. When she did, she noticed his head had returned to its original position, gaze staring off into the distance. A part of her wanted to scoff at how typical it was that he would not even lower himself to look at someone like her, but she remained silent, thinking it would surely not improve her already precarious situation.

He said nothing at first – and Éponine considered the sensibility of just dashing forward, grabbing one of the pastries, and making a run for it. Then he turned to look at her, ‘What are you doing in my garden?’

It wasn’t so much the question, as the sudden realisation now that he was facing her for the briefest of moments that she knew who he was, that had her mouth run dry. That stern, steely blue gaze, those locks of golden hair framing his head like a halo. She knew where she had seen him before. She knew who he was. She knew he should be dead.

All she could do was stare at him – Apollo, no that was not his name yet that was what she recalled that Marius and one of the other students had jokingly called him. Apollo, with his sweeping speeches and his blazing eyes and his promises of a better tomorrow. Apollo, who had led them onto the barricades and who should for all intents and purposes be dead.

Her mind raced with questions. How was he alive? What was he doing here? If he was alive, could Gavroche and Marius be as well? A hope swelled in her chest, even when her frantic and starved brain told her she was missing something.

‘Well?’ He repeated impatiently, and though his tone was steely she noticed his eyes looked dead, almost vacant. Another question, but she tucked it away for later. ‘I suggest you respond swiftly.’

‘I was hungry,’ she said truthfully, shrugging even though he was not looking at her.

‘You were hungry.’

‘And I saw all those pastries that were set out and thought surely whoever lived in such a decadent house would not miss one.’

She noticed a furrow on his brow, but otherwise there was no response to what even she knew had been an insolent answer. If her father had been here, surely he would have slapped her for her gall – or congratulated her on it, for his temper could ever go both ways.

‘Who are you?’

She hesitated a moment. Would she tell him who she was? Would he even remember? And if he did, would he remember her only as the girl who had followed Marius to the barricades to die alongside him? ‘Joseph.’

‘What a curious name for a girl.’

‘I’m not…’ She sighed, swallowing the rest of her speech as she realised it was futile to continue the lie. In addition, she was weary of hunger and found she could not find the energy to even try. Still, she doubted revealing herself as Marius’ shadow would get her the information she wanted. ‘Fine. Call me Joséphine then.’

Exactly how she would get the information she wanted, she wasn’t sure of yet. First, she knew she needed some fuel for her brain, and a quiet moment to think. She eyed the pastries again longingly, now happy that he did not look at her and see the pathetically desperate look on her face. He, who she had only ever seen as emotionless and cold – that is, when he was not out in front of a crowd, when he would suddenly ignite and be both terrible and awe-inspiring. Seeing him like this, seated in the garden of a luxurious mansion, seemingly despondent, it was hard to imagine him the same man.

‘Well, mademoiselle Joséphine, help yourself to one,’ he said, sounding tired as he gave a rather unenthused wave of a long-fingered hand.

Éponine blinked, almost uncertain whether perhaps she had misheard, then took a step forward. When she did, he continued, sounding equally tired but also disgruntled, ‘Do stay out of sight from the back of the house though – I am fairly certain my mother pays one of the maids extra to keep an eye on me whenever she isn’t able do it herself.’

She nodded, sneaking a peak at the house and, deeming it safe, slunk over to the table. Taking another look at the monsieur’s face to assure herself he was not tricking her, she was struck once again by the eerie deadness in his eyes. It was a look she had seen before, in many of the old, diseased, and even deceased that she had come across on the streets. Still, to see that look in eyes that she had seen alight with fire not too long ago made a shiver run down her spine.

She shook away the discomfort, ‘Thanks for the pastry,’ as she inconspicuously slipped a second in her pocket without him noticing. Then, not knowing what else to do, she cleared her throat, ‘Alright, I’m just going to go now. Maybe I’ll see you around sometime… bye.’

Instead of taking her back to her loft, Éponine was surprised that her feet made their way into town, munching on her first pastry as she forced herself not to think about… well anything. Not until she had eaten and could think more clearly.

She finally came to a stop near the docks which, although still not a place of much peacefulness to her, at least provided her peace enough to sit down and eat her second pastry – and to use her newly-fuelled brain to think.

Apollo was alive. Apollo, the stern-faced, well-spoken, and charismatic leader of Marius’ little student group, was alive – and he lived next door to her. The thought was so ludicrous that it might have been amusing, were it not for the dangerous hope that it had sparked. The hope that if somehow Apollo had escaped, maybe Marius and Gavroche had too. That maybe in the chaos and confusion, they too had made it out alive.

But now that her brain was working properly again, she immediately recognised the fault in that logic, remembered the news Vivienne’s source had shared. A boy had been one of those killed – a boy who she knew in her heart could be none other than Gavroche.

The thought of Apollo living next door to her might have been amusing, were it not for the impossibility that both Marius and Gavroche would. Were it not for the fact that she wished-hoped-prayed that this young man had died and Gavroche had lived.

Next Sunday, she spotted him again from the hole in the patched stable roof. Or rather, she spotted the decked table, and given that everyone else had left for church, assumed he was again seated at it. After given her face and some other body parts a brief wash at the bucket of water, she replaced her hat and, this time with an agenda, left for the neighbouring garden.

In the week that had passed, Éponine had spent many hours thinking about how curious it was that somehow, both she and Apollo had ended up in this seaside town. Although she had long stopped believing in God, she believed in destiny, and something told her that they had met beyond the barricade for a reason. And that reason might just be to reunite her with her Marius.

When she entered the garden, she found Apollo’s form again in the shade of the hedge, face passive and posture stiff. If this were Marius, she would smile coyly and ask him why he was looking so serious, would maybe twirl her hair and bat her eyes. But he wasn’t Marius, he wasn’t even Apollo. He was something that she did not know how to act around, an enigma she did not know how to solve. Yet.

‘You are not in church.’

He looked up and in the direction that she was standing, hidden from the house behind the classical statue that she now recognized as a young woman holding a vase. There was a brief look of surprise on his face, before his handsome face resumed its bland expression. ‘I don’t believe in God.

‘You are not in church either.’

She shrugged, before realising he had already resumed staring straight ahead and that she would need a more elaborate answer. ‘I don’t think I would be allowed in, even if I wanted to go.’

‘Isn’t God for everyone?’ The question may have sounded philosophical, were it not for the cynical edge to his voice. Whoever had ever told him that, he did not seem to put much stock in them or their wisdom.

‘God is,’ she agreed, stepping forward to grab one of the chocolate pastries on the table, before sitting down near the base of the statue. ‘Church isn’t.’ She munched on the pastry in silence, watching Apollo curiously as she ate. She wasn’t sure what she was searching for – maybe something that would indicate why he had lived when so many others had not. Unsurprisingly, she was not able to come up with an answer.

‘Have you lived here for long?’

He looked tired – and a bit annoyed, ‘My family has lived in Le Havre for generations.’

‘What about you?’

‘I didn’t. I grew up here, then I spent a few years in Paris… for my education.’

Éponine rolled her eyes, glad that he could not see the exasperated expression she was wearing. ‘And pray tell, what were you educated in?’

‘I studied the law.’

She snorted involuntarily. She had never cared enough about him or any of Marius’ other friends to really pay attention when they discussed their educations. She knew Marius had studied – was studying – the law, but that was as far as her interest had reached. However, it was fitting for such a stick-in-the-mud like Apollo, and yet so utterly ironic given the rebellion against the government that he had orchestrated that she couldn’t help asking, ‘And what made you come back here? Did you study the law too hard – or too closely?’

She had not expected him to laugh. Still, she was surprised by the range of emotions that passed over his thus far expressionless face, so beautiful and yet terrible that she could not look away even if she had wanted to. For a moment, a brief second, she fancied he’d lose his temper and strike out at her – much like experience had taught her to expect from men who were insulted or threatened. But then another second passed, and the haunting display of emotions was once again hidden by the passive mask she had come to expect. ‘Mass should be finished soon. You should leave before my family returns.’

She wanted to argue, but the look on his face, coupled with the regret that wedged itself unexpectedly in her gut, made her decide otherwise. And so she silently stood up and, after a whispered “farewell”, slipped away.

Chapter Text

Throughout the evening and the night, the regret intensified, and she found herself dearly hoping that her hastily spoken words had not ruined any chances of getting the truth – whatever it may be – out of Apollo about the barricade and, importantly, Marius.

Despite the regret and the self-chastisement, Éponine could not say she was very surprised that such barbed words had sprung from her tongue. Growing up in an inn and then in the slums of Paris, she had had every opportunity to grow bold and sharp-tongued. Growing up with her parents… well let’s say that that had only meant she’d learned quicker.

If teaching her anything new, the experience had proven to her two things. One, Apollo indeed, as she had up until now suspected, did not possess a single humoristic bone in his stiff bourgeoisie body. Two, if she wanted to get the desired information out of him, she would need to do a whole lot better than she had so far.

Luckily, Éponine knew what she had to do. The difference between a good con and a great con, a voice not unlike her father’s reminded her sometime before morning, was all in the preparation. Until now, she had played things mostly by ear, relying on what little she knew of Apollo. And frankly, that was not an awful lot, given that she had never had much reason to pay attention to him before. The only reason she even really had a way of referring to him was because it was information that her dear Marius had given her. Apart from that, she had an awareness of his presence in some of her memories of Marius, but that was all it was. A presence, lurking somewhere in the background when her Marius took centre stage. Oh how she wished it was him who were here instead of this stiff, ill-humoured man! Marius would have smiled at her, joked with her, praised her for finding him even halfway across the country. Marius… wasn’t here. And to find him, wherever he was, she would need to get a lot closer to Apollo.

The next morning, she rose early after a sleepless night to run her errands for monsieur Bertrand. It wasn’t much, some bread, fresh meat, an order for some hay for the horses, and by ten she had returned to the mansion to drop off the fresh supplies. With her bag now emptied, she set out again.

The brothel was much more quiet than the last time she had been there. Of course, that was to be expected on a Monday morning, but still Éponine paused a moment in the entrance to drink in the difference. Funnily, the main room looked a lot smaller without a crowd, she thought to herself. Shrugging, she approached a group of women who were seated at one of the tables, talking and giggling amongst themselves.

They looked up at her arrival, and one of them, a woman with blond hair whom she had learned by now was called Claudette, sniffed at her. ‘Oh it is you again.’

Not knowing what to say to that, Éponine said instead, ‘I am looking for Vivienne.’

‘She’s not here, darling,’ a somewhat older woman with rust-coloured hair piled on top said.

‘I can see that. Can you tell me where I can find her?’

‘What I meant is that she’s not here,’ she clarified, cocking her head in a way that made the bun on her head move comically, ‘Did she not tell you?’

‘Tell me what?’

‘Vivienne isn’t here on Mondays.’

That sparked some recognition, and Éponine remembered the woman in question in fact telling her that very thing. She cursed under her breath. ‘Do you know where I can find her?’

A moment of silence passed, in which the ladies at the table all looked at each other before Claudette replied. ‘Well, we really aren’t supposed to tell…’

‘Vivienne has explicitly requested we do not.’

‘But maybe the boy already knows? It’s hardly private knowledge.’

As they discussed amongst themselves, Éponine grew steadily more irritated. Either they would tell her or they would not. If not, she could always just come back the next day to talk to Vivienne. But to stand by and be ignored was not something Éponine did well. She crossed her arms in front of her, voice loud as she interrupted one of the women, ‘Well, are you going to tell me or not?’

They looked at her with wide eyes, almost as if they had forgotten that she was there. In the end, it was the woman with copper hair – who she would later learn was called Pauline – who conceded. ‘Very well, but you best sit down for it is a long story.’ She waited for a moment until Éponine had dragged an empty chair to the table and had plopped down in it. Then she started her tale.

‘She used to live in a house in town – behind the cathedral, in Rue Saint-Jacques, you may have passed it some time. She lived there with her brother and his wife and daughter. Vivienne used to be a governess you know, and she moved back to Le Havre when the baby was born to help them raise her.

‘All in all, they were as happy as you can imagine any young family to be.’

As the woman continued to paint the picture of the happy family, Éponine could almost see them with her mind’s eye. The brother, tall, strong, and with an easy smile that he turned on his wife, sister, and daughter without inhibition, full of soft words and loving touches. The wife, with long dark hair and warm eyes and soft curves that were easy to the touch. Their daughter a vision in her pretty blue dress and her dark hair twisted in two braids tied with a bow. It was a vision of normalcy, of utopia – of what she dreamt to have one day with Marius. A vision – which she knew could not last.

‘Then, of course… No one knew how it had started – nobody still does to this day, although people talk of course, say someone started it on purpose – but all of a sudden, dark smoke billowed over the high roof of the cathedral and bystanders saw how the house went up in flames.

‘Fortunately-’

‘If you want to call it fortune,’ the blonde scoffed, earning her a withering look from the copper-haired woman, before she continued.

‘Fortunately for her, Vivienne had already been out running errands. When she returned, there was a crowd around the still smouldering remains of the house. Her brother had dragged the daughter out, at the cost of his own health, but he had been too late for the wife who had been still asleep.

‘Not too long after, they moved, out of town and into a cottage nearby. The brother lost his job at the docks now that his lower body was no longer functional, and Vivienne came to us to bring in enough money to maintain the household.’

‘And then?’ Éponine inquired breathlessly after a long pause, not willing – not able – to believe that this could be the end of the tale. Surely there had to be some light on the horizon, some happy ending.

‘And then… nothing. That happened several years ago. She’s still here, still goes home one day a week to bring her brother money and see her niece. And so, that’s why Vivienne is not here on Mondays.’

Éponine left soon after the conclusion of the story, filled with a strange fusion of emotions that she did not wish to think too much about and a tiredness that came from listening to so much misery.

Despite an unexpected reluctance to face the prostitute, Éponine returned the next day to the brothel after completing her errands for the monsieur. This time a woman sweeping the floors of the main room directed her upstairs, and she found Vivienne in a scarcely furnished room without windows and carrying the distinctive smell of sex that reminded Éponine too much of the filthy, darkened alleys of Paris. As she entered, the older woman was in the act of braiding back her luscious dark hair – and Éponine felt a stab of jealousy. She cleared her throat.

Vivienne gazed over her shoulder lazily, nimble fingers not stopping their work, as she said, ‘You again. Give me a minute and then we can step outside, Joseph.’

After tying the braid with a faded piece of lint, she motioned for Éponine to follow her. They descended the stairs together, watching as life was slowly stirring in the brothel, women scurrying left and right in underclothes, hair flying wild, as they looked for shoes, hair brushes, and clean dresses. In a manner, it reminded Éponine of her childhood at the inn. Back when Azelma and she would argue over silly things like whose hair lint it was, or who had broken their mother’s pearl comb. Back then, it had hardly mattered, for new lint was easily bought – and Cosette a perfect scapegoat for their childish mischief.

Cosette… it had been a long time since she had thought of her as a child – not yet the young woman who had stolen her Marius, the young woman with the pretty dresses and the fashionable hats, the young woman who was everything that Éponine should have become. But their places used to be reversed, in another life where Cosette was scrubbing the floors and was yelled at and kicked if she missed a spot. In another life where her prostitute mother had dumped her at the inn because she could not afford to care for her herself.

As children, Azelma and Éponine had often taunted the other girl about how her mother did not want her, how her mother would rather sleep with lots of men than take care of her stupid daughter, how her mother was a good-for-nothing, stupid wench for getting knocked up – all things they’d heard their parents say amongst themselves, to Cosette. Things they, in their own childish innocence, hardly understood the meaning of. Not yet at least. Funnily, somehow her own experiences only brief years later of selling her body in exchange for a few coins had always left Éponine’s judgment of Cosette’s mother unchanged. Now, glancing from the corner of her eye toward the woman beside her, Éponine felt a sudden stab of shame.

If Marius had offered, would she not have warmed his bed? Even with no promise of a courtship, would she have hesitated even a second if he had asked? And then there were the men who were not Marius, faceless, nameless, dark shapes with rough voices and scratchy beards. Had she turned them away when it put bread in her mouth, in the mouth of her sister?

‘I don’t have any new information on the barricades, if that’s what you came for.’

Éponine blinked, suddenly aware that they had come to a stop on the boulevard, that Vivienne had taken a seat on a low stone wall. Distractedly, she sat down next to her, as visions of dark nights in Paris alleys still played in front of her mind’s eye. ‘I have a different question. It’s about a boy.’ Éponine breathed in, focusing her mind back on the task at hand. Always keep your attention on the job, her father had drilled into her, whenever she had been tasked with assisting the Patron-Minette. ‘Well, more of a young man, I suppose. He lives next to me.’

‘What a curious question for a boy to ask,’ Vivienne remarked drily, ‘One might start to think you were… of a deviant nature.’

‘It’s nothing of the sort,’ Éponine bit back, ‘I merely need information on who he is.’

‘Well, describe him for me then.’

Pausing for a moment, Éponine considered how best to describe her neighbour. Beautiful like the ancient gods, cold like the marble statues that dotted his garden – hardly useful descriptors if she wanted to uncover his true identity and not another sobriquet. She bit her lip. ‘Well he has blond hair, curly. And he is quite tall… I think. His face… well,’ she swallowed, already knowing what this would sound like, ‘he is the most beautiful man you have ever seen. I think his eyes…–’

‘Émile Enjolras.’

Somewhere in the back of her mind, something clicked. Enjolras, she hummed, yes, that was what Marius had called him. 

‘No no,’ Vivienne shook her head, ‘You should leave the Enjolras family alone. Whatever you need from him, they are not to be trifled with.’

‘Why?’

The older woman now turned to face Éponine fully, a strict expression on her face that suddenly reminded her that Vivienne had been a governess once upon a time. ‘The Enjolras family is very influential. They own half the town, including the shipping business. The father ruthlessly dismissed my brother when…’ She shook her head, ‘Well, what I’m trying to say is that you would do well to keep far away from him.’

‘I’m not interested in the father – nor the son for that matter. But the son… well, he has information that I need. Do you know anything about him? Anything that may help me get closer to him?’

Vivienne looked ahead for some time, staring at one of the ships that lay docked nearby and the men that worked on deck. ‘He used to be a much-desired bachelor, being the only son and heir of the Enjolras estate. The fact that he looks sculpted from marble did not hurt either, of course.

‘Regardless of the interest paid to him, however, the younger Enjolras has never shown any interest in the ladies vying for his attention. If your interest in him is of a romantic kind, I think you are as likely to succeed in getting any response as you are in drawing compassion from his father.’

Éponine pondered the information, realising that it added little to what she had already known about him. The Marble Man, she now remembered the drunken cynic of the group had called him once, earning him a scorching glance from the man in question. Then, remembering herself, she scoffed, ‘Of course I don’t have any romantic interest in another man.

‘Thank you though… for the insights.’

She returned to the Enjolras residence later that week, armed with two fresh pastries that she got from madame Moreau and had to fight with herself all the way there not to eat already. When she emerged through the hedge, she nearly dropped the delicatesses, however, when she spotted not just the son but also a middle-aged woman. She was clad in a dress of an off-white colour, the material and stitching looking so fine that Éponine could not even imagine the cost of it. Coupled with the string of pearls around her neck, she could only assume her to be the family matriarch.

As Éponine had come to expect, Enjolras – it felt strange, intimate, wrong to think about him using his first name, so she stuck with his more familiar, safe last name – was again seated at the little table by the opposite side of the garden. The woman was standing near the other chair, not seated but hovering as if she had been meaning to. The expression on the young man’s face told Éponine the reason that she had not.

Tight-lipped and emotionless she had come to know his expression, but there was a subtle annoyance flaring behind his eyes even as he would not look at the woman – his mother –, a tightness to his jaw that told her that whatever the woman was speaking about, it displeased him to no trivial extent. When she left, Éponine considered returning home before remembering the pastries in her hand.

With a sigh, and a quick glance towards the back of the house, she slunk from the shadows and moved towards the statue of the young woman. ‘Good morning,’ she greeted, watching as his expression changed from its annoyed state to one of surprise, then back to annoyance, to finally settle into its emotionless mask. ‘It’s me again… Joséphine.’ Enjolras opened his mouth, probably to tell her to sod off or anything else of the sort, but she beat him to it, ‘I wanted to apologize. For the other day. Whatever you did in Paris is none of my business.’

‘Think nothing of it.’ From his tone, it was clear he did not. Still, with the interest of forming some bond and eventually getting information about Marius, she persisted.

‘No no, I should not have asked. I suppose my parents did not instil much of what you’d call etiquette in me.’ She shrugged, then moved towards the table to drop one of the pastries near the long-fingered hands that rested there. ‘Here, I brought you a pastry to make up for it.’

His left hand twitched, but he made no attempt to pick it up. ‘There was no harm done. You should not have wasted what little money you have on patisserie for me.’

‘I did not. When I went to pick up monsieur Bertrand’s order at the bakery, madame Moreau gave them to me for free for monsieur Bertrand and his son.’

‘I do not want it either if you had to lie to attain it.’

Éponine balled her fists at her side, having to physically fight the urge to snatch the pastry back up again and depart. Or even better, to smash it in his perfect face. ‘You do not want it if I bought it and you don’t want it if I got it for free. For one who is so concerned with social equality, you have a poor understanding of the lives of those who live without it!’

There was a twitch in his jaw, then his left hand reached out to pull the little pastry towards him. Tearing off a small piece and placing it in his mouth – all with such measured movements as to leave no doubt that he was merely humouring her – he chewed and swallowed delicately. Then, ‘What about monsieur Bertrand and his son, will the absence of the kindness of the baker not be felt?’

Grinning around a mouthful of her own pastry, Éponine quickly swallowed it down before asking, conspiringly, ‘Do you want to hear a secret?’

And so she sat down against the base of the statue, picking at her own pastry and later his as she told him of the ruse that she had created. She was surprised at how non-judgmental he managed to be, and how the conversation was even somewhat pleasant. When she at last returned home, it was with a full stomach and a feeling of contentment.

Chapter Text

'I used to live in Paris, too', she admitted, thinking back on her first visit to the garden and her rather poor attempt at getting him to talk about the barricade.

The involuntary jerk of his head indicated that he had not expected this turn of conversation - had likely not expected her to talk at all, since they had spent the better part of a quarter of an hour in silence. During that time, Éponine's mind had drifted off on memories of her formative years in the city, some good, most bad – some too dark to even want to remember.

Now that the words were out, she wasn't sure how to continue. Tell him too directly that they had met before and she may risk him clamming up – or worse, him sending her away altogether. But to continue telling him about her life...

They weren't friends. For some reason, he tolerated her presence in his garden, likely because there was nothing better for him to do. On her part, her affiliation with the bourgeois boy was merely a means to an end.

No, not boy. Man. Somehow, when she had joked before about Marius' friends, they had been boys playing at men. Now, looking at the man sitting across from her, there was no doubt that that was what he was - broken, despondent, but no doubt a man.

She wondered what it took to make a man. For girls, her mother had always told her and Azelma as children that it was their first intimate relations with a man, their first time fulfilling the duties of a woman, that made them a woman. If that were true, she herself had become a woman at the age of fourteen, somewhere in the back alleys of Paris – and several times since. Was it the same for men? Or was it something else, something darker?

Unbiddenly, memories of the barricade, of a night filled with wine, and friendship, and desperation, and gunpowder, and the stench of blood returned to her. They had been boys to her then, playing with guns and pretending to be at war. They must have killed some of the guard for the barricade to have lasted as long as they did. Was that what had caused the maturation she saw in the man in front of her?

Looking at him, for some reason there was no doubt in her mind that he was capable. He was not like Montparnasse – sociable, charming, but coldblooded underneath – and yet there was a similarity with her childhood lover that she could not deny. The Marble Man, what did he care about one life more or less lost in the grand scheme of things?

Éponine ground her teeth together. No, they were not friends. He was not Marius. He would not nod and smile at her if she told him about the pitifulness of her life. This was a man that she did not know, different even from the charismatic leader that she had at times observed in Paris, the passionate rebel fighting to better the lives of those like her. Now, she struggled to reconcile the man in front of her even with what she had seen of his past self. There was an unexpected appeal to that, to someone who she did not know and who did not know her.

'The first time I saw a man die I was twelve years old. We had arrived in Paris not a year before and I had been out all day delivering notes for my father. When I was on my way back, I unknowingly passed through one of the seedier alleys of that part of the city.

'There he was suddenly, on the ground – I almost tripped over him really – his eyes staring up wildly as he breathed labouredly. He was choking on his own blood and his hands reached for the hem of my dress and I remember feeling so scared and disgusted that I ripped my dress in the process of pulling free. Just as I was about to think of screaming, he suddenly became still, his arms fell to the ground, and his eyes turned vacant. I ran straight home after that and didn't sleep for a week.'

Éponine shuddered, reliving the memory, reliving the pure terror she had felt. It had not been her first brush with the underworld of Paris, but it had been the first time she realised the utter hopelessness, the utter misery of the life she was now thrust into. It had also been her first moment of pure terror, but not the last.

Enjolras said nothing, but there was something about his gaze that told her that maybe he, too, was reliving some memory in his past. Whatever it was, the deep lines in his face told her it was not pleasant, and they did not speak more after that.

Not all of their conversations were heavy like that, however. In the weeks that followed, they spoke of many other things, such as Le Havre, family, and his studies in Paris. Throughout their conversations, Éponine did most of the talking and would come to find Enjolras a mostly silent conversation partner. He spoke sparsely and only when prompted. When he did, his speech was brief and to the point, wasting no effort on pleasantries – at least one thing that was familiar of what she remembered of him.

Through these conversations, she learned that he and his parents and their staff were the only ones who lived in the massive house – and so that he was an only child, unsurprisingly, she found, as a character such as his could only be formed without any siblings, she thought. From what he told her, she further deducted that his choice to go to Paris to study the law had not been met with approval from his parents and indeed, that the relation between them had always been strained. That she could understand, Éponine herself not having had the best of relationships with her parents for much of her life. Sure, she could remember a time when they had been kind to her and could even imagine that they must have loved her still not too long ago, in their own way, but it was not what one might call a happy relationship.

Apart from some information about his background, however, Enjolras told her little, and would clam up completely if the conversation strayed too close to his friends in Paris, the rebellion, or the barricade. After being sent from the garden for her insolent question during that first visit, his patience with her did not again run out completely. Still, there were little signs that told her when it was time to change the topic. The hardening of his jaw as was occurring at that moment was a very clear one.

Éponine decided to drop the topic of his pastime activities in Paris, 'Did you know that sirens are not mermaids, but are actually birdlike women. The confusion with mermaids only occurred during the 9th century.'

He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut and taking a deep breath. Then, 'Do you ever just… stop talking?'

'I…' She hesitated, only mildly offended but unsure of his assessment. It was true that she had quite a mouth on her, having grown up to learn that if she did not stand up for herself there was no one else who would. Then again, she had always had more people to talk to, providing her with all the social interaction she could wish for. When she was younger, her parents would humour her, and the patrons at the inn had found her adorable enough to allow her chatter. Then in Paris, Azelma had always been there, and there were of course the other shadows of the underbelly of the capital – even her mother at time, when she were in one of her increasingly rare, good moods. And of course there had been Marius, who she had talked with from time to time. The realisation that her situations were, once again, quite changed, made the corners of her mouth drop. 'Well, unlike you I don't really have anyone else to talk to,' she shrugged, as if it did not bother her as much as it did. 'My family are all back in Paris. There's the town's people of course, but I try to minimize my contact with them in case they find out my cover, and then there's monsieur Bertrand but… Well, I should think he would put me out if I tried to have a casual conversation with him.'

'And who exactly do you imagine I talk with? As you can see,' he gestured a long hand at the empty garden, 'I am quite alone.'

'I saw your mother here once.'

'Ah yes, such a thought-provoking conversation partner indeed.'

Éponine crossed her arms, 'At least you have the opportunity to go out and talk to people without having to lie all the time!'

He pressed his lips, almost as if to keep something ugly from spilling from them. After a long while, realising that this was to be the end of their conversation that day, Éponine sighed and got up from her place against the base of the statue. Dusting off dirt and grass from her trousers, she tried her best at civility – given that she still needed him to tell her about Marius and all, 'Well, I should get going, monsieur Bertrand may have some more tasks for me to fulfil.' It was a lie, but it did spark a memory. 'Which reminds me, I might not able to visit next Sunday: the monsieur has mentioned that there is some business out of town that needs tending to. I'm not quite sure yet what that means for me, but should I not show up then you know why.'

'Well, should this business not include you, you know where to find me.'

Éponine frowned, not sure if she was taking liberties but continuing nevertheless, 'You don't have to wait outside for me to come if I can't be certain yet that I will. I'm sure I can find another way to let you know I am here.'

'I am sure,' he said, sounding unimpressed by whatever he must think her capable of. 'Yet my sitting out here every day has nothing to do with your visiting.'

'You sit here every day?' Éponine exclaimed, temporarily forgetting to speak quietly in case any of the maids were lingering in the kitchen, and temporarily forgetting that she were not speaking to another gutter rat but to a proper monsieur.

'Whenever the weather is nice enough. My mother insists the fresh air is good for me and I find it is the only way to stop her nagging.'

'Oh…' Éponine could not imagine her mother caring enough for her welfare to force her to sit outside, could not imagine her mother having cared much at all by the end of her life when years of malnutrition and alcohol had rotted her brain. What was more, she wondered once again exactly how Enjolras had escaped the barricades – and in what state. 'Well, I suppose then there's no reason for me to not stop by on any of the other days too, if there's free food.'

Enjolras groaned but said nothing, even as she disappeared through the growing hole in the hedge.

True to her word, she had returned the next day and true to his word, had found Enjolras there again. The fare that was laid out on the table that day was less lavish than what she was used to seeing on Sunday, but still served her empty stomach quite well. Yes, she had thought as she nibbled on a fresh slice of bread spread thickly with creamy butter, she could get used to such luxuries.

And so she'd also rushed through her errands the next day, working up a sweat in the unseasonably warm autumn sun. When she returned to the safety of the monsieur's estate, she quickly took off her hat and unbuttoned her coat, revealing increasingly womanly forms that she knew she would have to start taking more care of to hide. Yet, that was not a problem for now, she thought, humming to herself as she swung into the kitchen to drop off her groceries, her head and stomach already in the neighbouring garden. And came to a sudden stop at the sound of a shriek.

For a split moment, fuelled by what past experiences had taught her, she expected the other woman in the kitchen to be the lady of the house, angry at her for trespassing. Then, she remembered this was monsieur's Bertrand's house, and the chance of him having a wife was as small as the chance that Éponine could ever be the mistress of such a house. Taking a better look, she noticed that although clean, the woman's clothing was of a coarse material and looked well-worn. In her hand, she was holding a bucket and on the table was a white cloth.

Ah, it was Tuesday. This must have been why monsieur Bertrand had told her to leave the groceries outside on that particular day.

In the meantime, the woman had put down her bucket on the table, and had planted her now free hands in her sides. It may have looked intimidating, had Éponine not heard her shriek moments ago. 'Who are you?' The woman demanded, impatiently, as though she had already asked her before. Perhaps she had.

'I eh…' Éponine hesitated, realising that there was little sense in continuing her male cover now that the truth was quite literally out in the open. Besides, if this woman was indeed working for monsieur Bertrand, she must be at least somewhat discrete. 'Joséphine. I'm monsieur Bertrand's errand boy.'

'You're not a boy.'

She gave a wave of her good hand, 'Technicalities.' Then, her curiosity getting the better of her, 'Who are you?'

After another moment of doubtful consideration, the woman had introduced herself as Louise Mottet – and had then ushered Éponine out of the kitchen, saying something along the lines of her dirty boots undoing all of her hard work. Although she highly doubted that her boots could have such a big impact, Éponine had accepted it as she was reminded of the lunch that was waiting for her next door. Still, as she washed up a little at the bucket in the stable, she considered that it was nice to have another woman to talk to.

Back in Paris, she and Azelma had often looked enviously at the grisettes who lived in the city, hard-working and pretty young ladies who were free to find their own fortune and happiness in life. Huddled together on their lumpy and smelly straw mattress in the apartment at Gorbeau House, they would often, in hushed voices so as to not annoy their mother or father lest they get another beating, fantasize of their very own apartment in Paris, where they would live independently and free, away from their parents and the Patron Minette and poverty and fear. Even then, there had been a part of Éponine that had known that it was only make belief, that the chance of getting away from the life she had been forced into was as likely as Marius ever looking at her with any more than pity. And yet she had held on to that dream, too, up until the very end.

Dropping her hands from the hair she had been attempting to disentangle, she found that despite the pit in her stomach now threatening to swallow her whole, she no longer felt hungry.

Chapter Text

The schedule of monsieur Bertrand's plans for the weekend remained uncertain until the very last moment – and the nature of the "business" even until long after. Indeed, it was only because on Saturday, as monsieur Bertrand was placing down the tray with her dinner, Éponine asked whether he'd be requiring her assistance on the trip that she finally got some clarity. "If I should need some bread fetched, I am sure they have errand boys in Rouen." The answer may have stung, were she not used to much worse from her father. And she even got a few sous to tide herself over during his absence.

What was more, since the monsieur was leaving on Thursday evening and would not be returning until Monday morning, that gave her an entire three days of leisure. Of course, that leisure was restricted by her lack of funds, lack of connections, and the obligation to keep up her cover as a boy. Still, to Éponine for whom life had not been easy and without work since even before she came to Paris, such freedom was unheard of. And she intended to make the most of it.

She spent the better part of Friday morning wandering around the town, taking the time to survey the shops and their laid-out wares now that she was not in a rush to acquire the goods on her list. As she passed from shop to shop, striking up casual conversation every now and then with the shop owners, she was surprised by how much had changed over the span of mere months.

Only three months ago, Éponine had left for the barricades, for all intents and purposes ready to die by her beloved Marius' side – and she almost had. Then, she had woken in a strange house with an even stranger saviour. Somehow, in the months that had passed since then, this strange but surprisingly comfortable life had become familiar to her, this quiet town a bit like home.

It was not Montfermeil, Azelma was not here, and life was not without worries. Still, it was far better than it had been for many years, the people kinder, and for the first in a long time, Éponine was not filled with dread at the thought of tomorrow. That was something at least.

Still, such simple thoughts and her wanderings through the city could only keep an impatient, adventurous soul like Éponine engaged for so long, and before the end of the morning her feet were leading her back to the richer part of town.

When she arrived back at Monsieur Bertrand's house, she lounged for a time on her mattress, counting the holes in the patched roof and wondering absentmindedly if she should bring them to the monsieur's attention before autumn would well and truly set in.

When that line of thought also failed to engage her, Éponine determined she would go and try the neighbouring garden for something to entertain her. After all, had Enjolras not said himself that he was always there?

She mused about the curious nature of their association as she splashed some water in her face from a fresh bucket that had been left by the monsieur. Although she would hardly call herself and the bourgeois boy friends or their acquaintance friendly, she supposed they each had their own reasons for continuing it. Him because he had nothing better to do, she because he was her only link to a truth that fast seemed to become a public secret.

Yes, she mused, it was a good thing neither of them was much attached to these moments they shared. That way, when she had achieved her goal and ended their association, neither of them would be the poorer for it.

She stopped with one foot through the hedge, finding the familiar table and chair empty despite the fair weather. She looked around, thinking perhaps Enjolras may be seated somewhere else, but found no sign of him. She huffed, then shrugged, and went back to her loft, her mattress, and her study of the holes in the roof.

The next morning came and after a brief trek to the bakery for some breakfast she returned to the Enjolras garden. She found the table and chair once more empty – and left with a gnawing feeling of foreboding. Pushing it from her mind, Éponine spent the remainder of the day in town and later in the evening, hanging out at the House Bellerose with Vivienne and some of the other prostitutes.

Sunday came and she tried to quell the budding sense of dread – sternly telling herself there was nothing to dread, in a voice that almost reminded her of her mother's – as she padded towards the neighbouring garden. The sky was overcast today, promising rain later and giving a gloomy look to the statue of the lady with the vase. Éponine took one glance around the garden and was forced to conclude that Enjolras, again, was not there. She wandered closer to the back of the house, with half a mind to just barge in and demand to know what had kept him from being outside and, indirectly, her from enjoying a luxurious breakfast. She may even have done it, ignoring Azelma's timid voice that warned her that entering his house would forever change their acquaintance, were it not for the fact that just as she neared the back door, she saw a maid bustling into the kitchen. When the middle-aged woman had passed, Éponine came out from her hiding place behind a conveniently placed – but oh so thorny – rose bush and, with some chagrin, returned home.

The rain came earlier than expected and forced Éponine to stay in her loft, listening to the pitter patter of rain on the roof and watching as some of it trickled through the holes down to the coarse wooden boards that made up the floor. She wasn't sure why, but her mood was terribly foul and several times, she found herself cursing the rain, the Heavens, and whatever God was out there for her misfortunes. Surely the rain was sent solely to spite her on her day off. Surely God meant it to remind her that her life was empty, now that everyone she loved was either dead or taken from her by circumstance. Surely… Éponine sighed, trying desperately to remind herself of the hopefulness she had felt about her new existence not too long ago, but finding it eluding her.

She sat up, rubbing at her face that had gotten damp from the rain that clung to all corners of the loft, and tried to estimate the time. The day had been dreary and dark to begin with, and she had always found it difficult to gauge the time on such days, frequent though they were. Still, she guessed that it must already have passed dinner time, for the part of the sky that she could observe through one of the holes in the roof had taken on an even darker quality, as though slowly being intermingled with black ink. Perhaps she could go back to House Bellerose and see if the good people there had some broth to share, she pondered. It was not ideal, but…-

'Émile!'

Somehow, the woman's voice, shrill and near hysterics, managed to reach her over the sound of the rain, carried on the strong wind. Intrigued, Éponine found herself drifting to one side of the loft, where a conveniently placed hole in the roof gave her a clear view of the square, just in time to see the double doors to the balcony of one of the second floor rooms in one of the neighbouring residences – the Enjolras house – slam shut.

A small balcony, not easy to reach but accessible via the stump of a grape vine that grew next to the ground floor window which would allow one to climb onto the ledge of the first floor window and from there, onto the balcony on the second floor. It was ironic how instinctual it was to identify entry ways into a house, Éponine thought wryly. Her father would be proud. She didn't stop to wonder exactly when she had decided to investigate but instead, grabbed her coat and hat against the rain and ventured out.

Where the rain may have deterred a less experienced burglar, it was no match for Éponine even with her affected right hand as she expertly climbed the grape vine, then the ledge, and only minutes later dropped herself onto the balcony. Wiping her wet and dirty hands on her coat, she peered through a crack in the crème curtains that covered the inside of the doors to find the room empty but for a familiar face in the bed. The doors were unlocked in a matter of seconds.

Inside, the room was dark even for what could be expected based on the dreary weather outside. A lone candle was lit on top of an empty desk, at the far end of the room from the bed, providing only a little light in the pressing darkness. Even more pressing than the darkness was the heaviness of the air in the room, which felt almost damp and which Éponine could only associate with illness. The source of that illness she located in the narrow face that peaked out from the bed covers, which was looking wan and glistered with sweat in the dim lighting. His blue eyes, normally so piercing that she felt he may look into her soul, were unfocused, and she doubted he even knew she was there.

Quite unconsciously, she found herself approaching the bedside, footfalls silent as though a single sound would be able to snap the single thread of life that the man in bed seemed to cling to. And perhaps he was; from what she could see of his face and the expanse of pale skin on his chest that must at some point have become exposed despite the careful efforts to tuck him in, she considered that he may not survive whatever illness had seized him.

The thought was rather more distressing that she had expected – after all, what was this bourgeois boy to her – so she pushed it away and reached out her hands to tuck the blankets back over his torso. They stopped on their own accord just before touching the soft fabric, however, frozen in place as her eyes caught the sight of several familiar-looking scars that littered the expanse of smooth pale skin. Eight, she counted, eight wounds for eight bullets that had pierced him. It was a miracle he still lived. Perhaps it would have been better if he hadn't.

He stirred when she pulled the blankets up, blue eyes finding her and showing only the barest hint of surprise. There was a question there, but he did not voice it.

Growing uncomfortable under this wordless scrutiny, Éponine quickly retreated from the bed and focused her attention on the bookcase that covered half of the wall which also held the door to what she presumed was the rest of the house.

Her parents had made sure she and Azelma knew their letters of course – what good of an innkeeper's daughter would she be if she could not read the ledger. The local school had even taught her to read and write simple texts, like nursery rhymes and her prayers. The books she found on Enjolras' bookshelf were far beyond her ability, she knew even before scanning the titles. Heavy, leather-bound tomes with titles that she knew had something to do with the law, but that were as alien to her as when they would have been written in a foreign language. Nevertheless, she allowed her index finger to trail over their spines as she tried and failed to guess at their contents, the knowledge that they held forever out of reach, whilst humming to herself off-key.

Near the bottom, tucked away between heavy tomes, was a smaller volume, and she picked it up just because it looked the lightest, and the least worn, and perhaps because she wasn't sure what else to do now that she was here and she had ascertained the bourgeois boy who was not her friend was still alive.

Roméo et Juliette, she spelled out softly to herself, realising the title sounded familiar. She had heard some rich ladies talking about it, she recalled vaguely, back in Paris when she was lurking around the Luxembourg gardens, hoping she may catch Marius as he sometimes came there to read. She had been waiting for two hours and she knew her father would be upset for taking so long to run her errand. The women had come by just as she was preparing to return home and she'd caught their excited whispering of the romantic nature of the tale.

She voiced her surprise at him owning such a piece.

'It was a gift,' he explained simply, voice laboured as if those four words cost him great effort, and she noticed his eyes had drawn closed, a deep line edged between his eyebrows.

'I shall read it to you,' Éponine determined, quite without exactly knowing why. Perhaps it was because her mother used to tell romantic stories to her and Azelma as children when they were ill, and it had always made her feel better to know that despite the misery she was feeling, there was beauty and love out in the world. Perhaps it was because he looked so utterly miserable, and she was compelled to do something to ease his suffering. Perhaps... Éponine sat down on the chair that had been left by his bedside, probably by the woman who had been there before and who had slammed the balcony doors so abruptly.

Was that his mother? When she had called his name, was it in shock, anger, or fear for his life? Émile. She had known of course that Enjolras was his family name, but somehow it had felt natural to refer to him, cold and impersonal as he was, by solely that. Émile felt personal, felt friendly – felt wrong. Funny how in comparison, it had never felt odd to refer to Marius by his given name.

'I'd rather... you not.'

'Oh nonsense,' she waved her bad hand, using the good one to open the cover, 'I do know how to read, I will have you know, monsieur.' She was about to turn another page when she noticed the inscription, in slanted handwriting. She squinted her eyes to make out the text in the half-darkness. "For Apollo, for even a man whose only lover is Patria should know the language of love". There was no indication of who wrote it, but Éponine could only imagine it must have been a joke from his university friends. She wondered if he had ever even opened the book, if he knew of this last message from those who had died. She quickly flipped to the next page, and started her effortful struggle through the text.

She wasn't quite sure when he had drifted off into unconsciousness, whether it was the soothing sensation of being read to, the romantic content of the story, or mere exhaustion that took him, only that at some point soft whimpers caused her to look up and focus tired eyes on the man in the bed.

At first, she wasn't entirely certain that he was, indeed asleep. Suddenly restless where his waking hours had been lethargic, his hands clenched and unclenched where they lay on the blankets, his pale and clammy face turning this way and that as though looking for something. Below the blankets, his body shifted as well, uncoordinated yet with violent movements that seemed almost spastic.

'Bahorel', the name, barely audible between the other pitiful sounds that escaped the young man, sounded vaguely familiar to Éponine and she realised he must have been one of the members of their rebellion. When she was younger, her father had told her all about the Battle of Waterloo and that it wasn't unheard of for the survivors to be haunted by nightmares of their lost comrades. She herself dreamt of the barricades some nights, and she had not even been conscious for what must have been the most horrific parts.

The memories were shrouded in darkness and although she knew she must have been cold from the rain, all she could remember was feeling safe and warm, for the first in a very long time. She knew she had been in much pain, but could only remember feeling the warm, strong arms of Marius around her. She remembered looking up into beautiful green eyes, filled with such concern – concern for her! She remembered feeling that death was near and yet, not being afraid because how could she be? With Marius holding her, how could she feel anything but loved? She remembered that it had been the happiest moment in the entirety of her short and miserable life.

It must have been worse for Enjolras, she reckoned, who had lost so many friends in addition to a cause he had fully believed in and had, quite literally, been prepared to die for. Still, perhaps unfairly, it came as a surprise to Éponine that he cared, remembered at all.

'No... Combeferre,' he moaned and shifted again, turning his face to the other cheek as though averting his eyes from some sight.

Éponine glanced quickly to the door, considering if his feverish night terrors were loud enough to alert any of the other inhabitants of the estate, but all remained silent behind the white-painted door. With such a large house, it was entirely possible that this wing was entirely Enjolras', although she had no familiarity with the general way in which such houses were divided – except from the occasional break-in, though there she expressly tried to avoid getting familiar with the people who lived there.

She put down the book in her lap, keeping the pinkie of her bad hand hooked between the pages to mark the place where she had left off, and scooted forward to the edge of her chair. She regarded the man in front of her with a morbid, almost detached sort of curiosity. How could a man who was so composed in daily life break down so? And which then was his true self and which the oddity? Were she to pity him for his stoic mask or for his raw and bared emotions? Were she to pity him at all, he who had been the spark that had ignited it all and had cost the lives of his friends, of her brother, of Marius...

He was still moving, still moaning, under her gaze, and she found unexpectedly that she pitied him all the same, without knowing what for and if he deserved it.

She cleared her throat with difficulty, suddenly finding it hoarse and herself unwilling to disturb him even in his restless slumber. 'Marius,' she whispered to him, 'What about Marius?'

He stilled at the sound of her voice, and for a moment she earnestly believed he had regained some lucidity and may give her the answer she had spent all this time yearning for. 'Does Marius Pontmercy live?'

But there was no answer and though his movements and moans had stilled, he did not regain consciousness any more that night.

It took a while for Éponine to overcome the worst of her disappointment, then she sat back and noticed the results of Enjolras' frantic struggle against the confinement of his covers. The blankets had almost completely fallen away from his person, and his fine white nightshirt was moist and clung to his neck, his stomach, his... she finally realised why his mother insisted on his being outside, why he had not regained more of his health over the past three months when her wounds had all but healed.

His left thigh was wrapped in bandages, showing signs of bleeding underneath, and below that, nothing. An empty expanse where the remainder of his leg should have been, which captivated Éponine's gaze far longer than it should have.

When she finally managed to tear herself away from the jarring absence of flesh below his upper leg, she scrambled to cover the young man with his blankets. She picked up the book that had at some point fallen to the floor and, more for her own peace than his, took up her reading again.

'Émile?' The voice was unfamiliar yet familiar, not firm yet also not kind, and in the confusion of her sleep-muddled mind, Éponine could only link the voice, coupled with the sound of knocking on wood, to her mother. Back in Montfermeil, when Azelma and she still had their very own room, complete with a door that made the space their own.

'Émile? Are you awake? Émile, are you well?' Now she shot up, suddenly well-aware that this was not her room in Montfermeil, the woman behind the door not her mother, and the man whose bedside she had fallen asleep at not her sister. She caught his gaze, blue eyes once more sharp, piercing in a way that reminded her that he was the same man who had inspired others to take up arms against injustice, even as the rest of him was still edged with illness.

'I'm alright, mother. Just a moment,' he called out, voice sounding tired but a world away from the pained moans that had escaped him just a few hours ago. His gaze had yet to leave her and feeling that he could look straight through her, Éponine looked away quickly.

Realising that the regular exit was once again blocked from her, she tiptoed towards the window, hastily putting the book she had read to Enjolras back in its original place as she passed the bookcase. She did not look back as she slipped through the balcony doors, nor as she descended towards solid ground.

Chapter Text

Morning had only just started to break when her feet touched solid ground, the heavens touched with deep purple where they peaked out from behind the grey and threatening clouds that still lingered after the night's rain. Éponine wrapped her arms around her slight frame, pulling her coat tighter and taking a deep breath of the dewy morning air before she padded back towards monsieur Bertrand's estate.

She loved the smell of rain, of freshness, of a new start, even though in Paris her experience with rain had always been bittersweet. With the uncertainty of shelter, with the certainty of death if she got ill, Éponine had not been able to afford to go out and simply take it in. Her relation to the particular weather condition had become even more muddied at the barricade, where rain had set the stage for both the worst and best moment of her life. Now… it was just rain. She took another deep breath before ducking inside the stables.

She had only just scrubbed her face clean and resumed her position on her straw mat when the sound of hooves on stone could be heard, and she spied an inconspicuous carriage drawing up to the estate. She recognized the monsieur as he stepped out, his large stature and imposing air unmistakable even in the twilight. A large chest followed him into the main house.

She was still lounging on her mattrass when the stable doors opened and she leisurely made her way down the ladder. The monsieur was leading one of the horses back in and was checking its supply of water and food.

'Did you have a good trip, monsieur?' Éponine inquired nonchalantly, crossing her arms in a casual way and leaning against one of the supporting pillars, pretending she was not still as unnerved by the person of her employer as she was.

He looked up, surprise showing for a moment on his ruined face, then went back to settling the horse back in. 'It was fine.'

'Did you settle the business that you set out to?'

'I did. How…' he paused in his motions as well as his speech. Looking at the horse as if it may tell him the proper social custom, he then continued, awkwardly, 'Did everything fare well here?'

'Nothing much happened,' Éponine shrugged her shoulders, deciding quickly that her employer had no business – and likely, no desire – knowing about her night spent at their neighbour's bedside, the untruth slipping easily from her tongue. 'There was a lot of rain; some of it got into the loft through some holes in the roof.'

'And surely now you want it fixed, right away and free of charge? I wasn't aware I was running a hotel,' he scowled, throwing some more hay into the horse's box agitatedly and stalking out of the stables.

The day dawned drearily and with promise of more rain. Despite this, a list of errands soon appeared for her, listing a great variety of items, some familiar and some… a bit more unfamiliar. Éponine had eyed the list with surprise – bread, smoked ham, stacks of lined paper, ink, catgut strings – but after the explosive ending to their previous interaction, had not dared to ask the monsieur for their purpose.

The sky opened up just as she exited the bakery, her last stop before home. She quickly stepped back into the doorway, eyeing the sky and determining that reprieve was unlikely to come soon. With a sigh, she tucked the more vulnerable materials deeper into her bag, her coat around her, and hastened home.

Regardless of the fast pace she had set, Éponine was thoroughly soaked by the time she returned to the monsieur's estate. She dropped the bag with its contents onto the kitchen table, careful not to drip too much on the floor. Back in the stables, she hastily shrugged off her soaking coat and put it up to dry on one of the posts of the horse boxes. She wrung her now ear-length hair out over the bucket of water. How she loved rain. How she hated it.

The next day dawned equally grey, but fortunately dry. Overnight, her coat had fortunately dried enough to wear without too much discomfort, and she pulled it back on before she ventured back into the town for her errands. Today's list was shorter, filled with only some things that the monsieur had seemingly forgotten about the previous day, and she quickly returned. After dropping off her goods and finding it still dry, she decided to visit the neighbouring garden in hopes of an update on Enjolras' welfare.

After seeing him on what had appeared to her as the brink of death only a day and a half ago, she was somewhat surprised to find the young man back at his usual table. Bundled up in thick blankets, looking pale and thin and altogether poorly, but there he was. She tried not to look at the one leg that was visible under the table, now suddenly unmissable, and instead gave him a brief wave before ducking behind the statue. 'How are you doing?'

'Better.'

'You don't look it.'

His first response was a wry, almost pained lifting of the corners of his mouth – a smile she may have called it, had it appeared on a different face. 'It will take some time to recover, it always does.'

'This happens more often then?' She asked, genuinely surprised, before scurrying to the table to snatch a pastry from the plate set out there and sitting down against the base of the statue. Truly, Éponine couldn't imagine being so ill – even despite her poor general circumstances in Paris, she had enjoyed relatively good health for most of her life. The last time she could remember being very ill was when she was a child, but then most children get ill from time to time. To be so ill as an adult as to be confined to bed and to drift in and out of consciousness, and to be so regularly, seemed the worst possible thing imaginable to her.

With another grimace, the young man at the table gestured down, towards his leg – or more likely, at the one missing. There was an attempt there at nonchalance, at emotionlessness, but it could not hide the pain in his eyes and his voice as he said, 'The wound fails to heal properly, and gets inflamed from time to time.'

The jarring emptiness of the space below his thigh flashed before Éponine's eyes again, and she suppressed the urge to touch her own leg. Sure, she had lost some of the functioning of her hand, but it was still there, still where it should be. The barricade's cost had mostly come in her loved ones – and she realised that for Enjolras, it had cost him in both ways, if his agonized moans last night were anything to go by.

'In your sleep… you mentioned names.

'What happened to Bahorel and Combeferre?' She asked softly, although she already knew the answer of course. Then, even softer, 'What happened to Marius?'

Éponine studied him as his jaws clammed up at the mention of those names, watching the myriads of emotions play across his perfect but normally so impassive face, and wondered what was going through his mind as he stared off into the distance with haunted eyes. Was he thinking of those young men, his friends, as they were struck down one by one? Was he reliving the happy memories they had shared, now tainted with the knowledge of how little time they'd had left together? She wondered, did he regret leading them down that path? 'Monsieur?'

'I don't want to talk about it.'

'Please, I just want…-'

'I don't.'

'But if you would only…-'

There was a flashing in his eyes, so brief that she could barely identify the emotion in his otherwise cold and vacant eyes. 'I think it is time you leave.'

She wanted to tear her hair out at his monotone answer, yell at him that she did want to talk about – that she needed to talk about it. But by now she knew him too well to believe it would make any difference if she did. What was more, there was that treacherous feeling of sympathy again, which made the emotion in his eyes unmistakable. Realising there was little more to say now, she stood, brushed the dirt from her pants, and returned to monsieur Bertrand's estate.

The next day brought more rain, but it no longer leaked into her loft.

The weeks passed slowly, each a little darker, a little colder, and ever since her confrontation with Enjolras, a little lonelier. She had returned several days after, when his family had left for Mass and he was once more seated in the garden, bundled in a thick cloak to shield him from the chill in the air. He had not told her to leave – not in so many words – but after mere minutes it became clear to her that she had crossed a line with a man with whom that line should not be crossed. At a loss of what to do, she had left soon after.

Her next attempt at visiting was fouled by the rainy weather the following Sunday that kept the young man, wisely, indoors. With autumn's arrival and the looming promise of winter, not to mention the recent strain on their relationship, Éponine felt her options for any type of progress with Enjolras were fast dwindling and one afternoon, in a fit of anxiety, coupled with restlessness and a tad boredom, found herself climbing back up to the balcony of his room. After briefly checking for any witnesses, she made quick work of the lock and stepped inside.

The room was much as she remembered it, yet felt completely different now the air was not permeated by sickness and sweat, the furniture looking vastly different in the greyish daylight. She moved first to the desk near the window, rich dark wood like the rest of the furniture, and rifled through the drawers. Some old and faded paper sheets, unfinished letter drafts to societies in Paris, notes from what Éponine could only assume must have been university lectures – all in all, there was nothing of interest. Nothing personal, nothing linking to Enjolras himself, his friends, or Marius. She set the papers back in their original stacks and closed the desk with a huff. Next, she moved to the bookcase, the only other object in the room where she could imagine some personal information to be stashed away – that is, except perhaps the wardrobe, but she was not interested in the size or color of his undergarments.

A first, cursory inspection did not reveal any new information, nothing that she had not seen when she had scanned the book titles when she was there a few weeks ago. The thick textbooks made just as much as sense to her now as they had back then – and she quickly gave up trying to decipher their titles. Overall, she concluded, the contents of the bookcase reflected the man whom they belonged to just as well as she had determined on first glance – boring, stuffy, stiff.

For lack of anything better, she pulled the roman, Romeo et Juliet, again from between the heavy textbooks. She flipped it open, her eyes following the elegant loops of the handwritten message, her index finger tracing the letters as if their touch would reveal a hidden meaning – or at least the identity of the writer. Had it been the boy with the horn-rimmed glasses, who had always looked so serious and mature? Or had it been the boy with dark curls and an easy smile, who had taken her brother under his wing? Or, perhaps, Marius?

A humming from the corridor broke Éponine away from her musing, and she snapped the book shut. In her distraction, she had not picked up on the approaching woman until she was, quite literally, on the other side of the door, and Éponine could do nothing but dart into the closest hiding space – a heavy wooden wardrobe.

The wardrobe door closed just as the room door opened, punctuated by the increasing volume of the woman's humming. Through a narrow crack, she could see it was a maid, her grey dress simple but clean, her shiny dark hair tucked in a neat bun. Éponine watched as she busied herself with refreshing the bed clothes, all the while keeping up the sweet tune. Her voice was soft and clear, her skin unblemished, and her face youthful.

A scowl pulled at Éponine's features quite unconsciously and she had the sudden urge to step out of the closet and tell the young maid to get lost, irrational though it was. Instead, she looked down at her hands that still held the book, the one scarred and semi-useless, the other in full use but skin dry and hardened from use and exposure to the sun. She knew the rest of her wasn't much better, having endured more in her mere sixteen years than many more fortunate ones would in a lifetime. She had made her peace with it for the most part, knowing that she was lucky to at least still be alive, but there were times when her pride reared its ugly head and she was reminded of what she might have been, in another life.

By now, the maid had finished making the bed and had collected the dirty laundry in a ball. With one last look around the room, she disappeared, off perhaps to another room or another task. Deciding that she had tried her luck enough for one day, Éponine also soon after slipped out of the wardrobe and down the balcony, the book tucked away safely between the folds of her coat.

When she lay on her straw mattrass that night, sleep once more alluding her, Éponine found herself thinking of the last few months, and she was forced to conclude that her annoyance with her neighbour did not stem so much from actual anger, but more from a deep-rooted disappointment. When she had learned his identity, she had considered herself so lucky, had thought that the truth about Marius was so close. And now, several months later, she still knew nothing of what had become of him.

Was he simply dead after all? Like Bahorel, like Combeferre, like all the other silly students who had believed so fervently in a new tomorrow and had died needlessly for it. Was he several meters deep in the ground, a marble stone at his head the only reminder of what had become of him, his soul lost to her forever?

Or had he been pulled out from the carnage by an anonymous benefactor like her? Had he also healed from his wounds, a gaping hole where his heart used to be, but still continuing on? Or, and she was reminded once more of the man – still weak from injury and illness – probably sleeping next door, was he still very much in the grips of the barricade, each day still a painful memory of all that he had lost?

And if he indeed lived, where was he? With the family he had sworn off? With other students who had survived the barricade? With a lover? No, the Lark was gone – she had seen to that. Unexpectedly, a stab of something – Shame? Guilt? – punched through her chest, that particular area where her heart used to be. Ironically, where she had gone to the barricade with the idea of dying together with Marius, she now would prefer him being with Cosette, if at least it meant he was alive.

It was a bittersweet realisation and one she was not yet sure what to do with. So for now she simply tucked it away, together with her many other regrets, and turned on her other side. There, sleep finally found her.

Chapter Text

Over the next weeks, nothing changed but the steady worsening of the weather. Winter had now truly arrived, and with nothing better to do Éponine had recontinued her struggle through the book she had borrowed. It was slow at first, and with more time spelling out the words than actually taking in their meaning. Time, and much practice, however, proved to be key, and it seemed that her mind had retained some of its capacity for learning after all. Yes, in another life Éponine had been a smart girl – her father had often praised her for it – and she had been top of her class in reading and calculus when they'd still lived in Montfermeil. But years of starvation, and no practice, had left her slow and dumb, her mind easily tired from the letters that were scattered across the pages. When she reached the end of the book and found with great pride that she could finally grasp the meaning of most words and with it, some of the narrative, she started again.

She loved the story as much as she hated it. The romance, the desperation, she could understand it all too well. She understood wanting to die if she could not be loved. She understood being willing to do anything to be with the one she loved. And she hated it, hated to read her own flaws reflected back to her from the paper, hated the foolishness, the jealousy, the way that in the end – no matter how much they loved each other – they would not be together. At some point, she wasn't sure if she hated Romeo and Julliet, or Marius and Éponine. Maybe either – maybe both.

'They are so stupid!' She cried, physically having to distance the book from herself as she lay sprawled on monsieur Bertrand's sofa, the book dangling from her fingers near the carpeted floor.

'Who now?' Louise did not even pause in her dusting off of the mantle, by now used to the younger girl's random interjections.

Éponine remembered the first time she had hidden in here. It was a particularly cold morning, and even the fingers of her useless hand had felt cold despite her continuous blowing on them. She had finished her chores early and had deposited the items she had purchased in the kitchen, where the maid had been in the process of filling a bucket of water.

She had taken one glance at Éponine and had continued her work, 'It's still cold out then?'

'Terribly.' She had answered, switching to rubbing her hands together to return some feeling to them – or at least to the functional one.

'I feared it would be when I walked here this morning,' and with that, she had hauled the bucket up and disappeared through the door towards the hallway.

Not particularly eager to get back to her cold loft and somewhat intrigued by the only other person monsieur Bertrand had seen fit – had trusted – to employ, Éponine had shed her coat and hung it over one of the kitchen chairs before following her towards the sitting room.

The maid had briefly glanced her way as she'd entered, but then seemed to pay no more mind to her as she started taking off the coffee table with a wet cloth.

After brief consideration, Éponine had moved towards the sofa and plopped down. 'Have you been working here for long?'

Another glance, 'Since the summer.'

Éponine had nodded, more to herself than to the maid whose back was currently turned to her. 'You were not with him in Paris then, either.' There was no answer, so Éponine took it upon herself to continue the conversation, 'You must find it all very strange – nothing compared to other houses you work at, I'm sure.'

'I don't work at any other houses. That was one of the monsieur's few conditions when I took the job.'

She had hummed, taking in that information – considering what it meant. Surely he must be paying her quite well if she was only here on Tuesdays and could not take on any other houses. She had told the maid as much.

The older woman had stopped her work for a moment, staring down at the now spotless table, 'Monsieur Bertrand is a very generous man.'

Éponine had wanted to scoff, but was taken aback by the sincerity in the woman's tone – and sincerity it was, for if all her time with her father had taught her anything, it was how to spot a lie. If not actually liking him, the maid seemed to actually hold her employer in high regard. For some reason that she could not decipher, Éponine had found that that realisation set her at ease. 'So surely you must know everything about the gossip in this boring town!'

'I don't remember inviting you in to lounge on my couch and distract my maid.'

Éponine had shot up from the couch as if burned, the annoyance latched in those words so scorching that she might as well have been. He was standing in the doorway, arms crossed and towering, his face somewhat obstructed from view by a wide-brimmed hat he was wearing but still not completely obscured. Curious, she had thought, eyes flicking from her employer to the maid who was now also standing stiffly, though seemingly not scared. Very curious.

'I wasn't…' she had started, then fell silent, not sure what it was exactly that she wanted to deny doing. She had been lounging on his couch – and she had been, if not distracting, then at least testing his maid. Could she tell him that?

'Pardon my saying, monsieur, but the girl was not distracting me.'

She had watched as the monsieur's scorching gaze had moved from her to the figure of the reserved maid – and became a little less scorching, although it was clear he was still highly annoyed. He'd huffed, 'Fine, but if I notice only a tiny slip in your work, madame Mottet, you are both out.' He had turned, then – seemingly as an afterthought – he glared over his shoulder at Éponine, the scowl intensifying, 'And keep your voice down.'

'Joséphine?'

'Huh? Oh, the two title characters of this novel,' Éponine said, waving the book for good measure. 'It is… they are…' If she was Marius or one of his rich student friends, she would know how to express herself. If she was Enjolras, she was sure she could turn the confusing thoughts and emotions swirling around her brain into eloquent words. Instead, she groaned loudly, to express her frustration. 'They are just so stupid! They have only known each other for a few days and proclaim to love each other. And then he thinks she is dead and kills himself and when she finds out he's dead, she also kills herself – all in the name of "true love",' she practically spat the words, 'It's just stupid.'

'They wouldn't be the first to die for love.'

That remark struck closer to home than Louise could possibly imagine. For Heavens did Éponine know what it was like to want to die for love – to almost do. Oh she had been so close, death practically taking her from Marius' embrace and into its own. And then she hadn't. How terribly frustrating – how terribly fortunate. She quickly changed the subject, 'Do you believe in true love?'

There was a brief silence, 'I believe in love.'

'And you believe that two individuals can just meet one day and instantly fall in love?' The way she said it, the soft note of derision, made her wonder. Had she not believed the very same thing? Had she not, once upon a time when first meeting Marius, fashioned herself in love? Did she not still?

'I did, when I first met Luc.'

'Luc?'

'Jean-Luc, my husband.'

'You are married?'

'In nothing but name these days, but yes.'

'I'm sorry, I didn't…–'

'It is quite alright,' she wrung out the cloth above the bucket, 'But to come back to your question, we did love each other, back then. That first spring and summer was one of the happiest times in my life. We married soon after, and then of course came Henri. And then…'

She paused, long enough to draw Éponine from the story she had been weaving and back into monsieur Bertrand's neat, if somewhat lifeless, sitting room. 'And then we were no longer in love.'

'That must be difficult.'

Louise shrugged, making her seem all the sudden younger – reminding Éponine of herself. 'We respect each other, which is far more than many married couples can say.

'Besides, Luc is part of a shipping company crew, so if I'm lucky I only see him every year or so, and then only for a few weeks. Then, we just try to make the best of things… for Henri.'

It seemed quite awful to Éponine, the way the other woman – older but still young – painted her life. How lonely must it be, how wretched, to have known love and to have felt it slip away, and to be left with nothing but the ashes.

And yet, she realised how very right Louise was. If her parents had at least been able to respect each other, she was quite sure her life and the lives of her siblings might have looked very different. Gavroche would not have left them. Azelma and Éponine would not have had to beg, steal, and sell themselves for a morsel of food. Her other brothers, whose names time and young age had robbed her of, might have grown up with them. Éponine might have grown up to be a smart young woman, with healthy, glossy dark curls, clear, flawless skin, and a sweet voice.

'What about you? You seem a bit young to already be disillusioned with love.'

Éponine hesitated, habit telling her to be careful, that she should not divulge anything that could be used against her. But Le Havre was not Paris and Louise was not one of her father's goons from the Patron-Minette. 'I loved a boy once – I love him still. From the very moment I set eyes on him, I knew I wanted to marry him.

'We had just arrived in Paris, and everyone was so unkind to me. Just another street rat, another starving, shivering shadow in the filthy alleys. But not him. He spoke to me as though I were a real girl, and he would praise me when I helped him and would smile at me sometimes.

'Saying it aloud now, I realise that it must not seem like much to you. But he seemed like the best man in all the world to me.' She concluded with a nod.

Looking back on it now, she knew how silly it had been. Had she been a real girl, surely she would have needed more than small talk and a compliment to fall in love. Had she been a real girl, a proper lady – like the Lark, she thought bitterly –, she would have batted her long eyelashes and twirled her thick curls and would have boys fall in love with her, not the other way around.

Instead, she had greedily drunk up any goodness that the young student had had to offer, had stretched those little acts of kindness, bent them out of shape until they did not at all resemble the original anymore. She had fallen in love with a figment, a fantasy, much like she had accused Marius of having done with Cosette.

'He seems nice.'

And despite all that, she loved him still. 'He is.'

A restlessness came over Éponine the next few weeks that she could not explain. Was it the cold weather that practically sequestered her to her little loft or the way the entire town had seemed to go in hibernation – she wasn't sure. However, all of a sudden she found she had an urgent need to speak to Enjolras.

If she were forced to really think about it, Éponine would have to admit something changed after her talk with Louise. A shift inside herself, an insight – and for some curious reason she felt the urgent need to share it with her neighbour. Instead, she found herself more nights than not at the House Bellerose, where if the company was not great then at least it was warm and lively, and it distracted her from questions that she had no answers to.

Regardless of the cold, regardless of the day of the week, Éponine had already learned in Paris that men's urges needed an outlet. It was a simple fact of life and was a nice source of stability in a world of constant change – and one the tenants at House Bellerose counted on.

Tonight was no different from the last few evenings she had spent in the tavern room below. Men – old, young, sailors, bankers, butchers, the rich and poor, the vulgar and the gentile – filled the tables, drinking and laughing, drooling over the women in their extravagant low-cut dresses who weaved through the crowd, dropping a smile here, a touch there. Most she knew would soon disappear up the stairs, leading on men who were hardly able to stand let alone get their trousers off. The same routine, going round and round like a carousel, Éponine knew it only too well. Like the carousel that her father had stepped on, she also knew that once on, it was very difficult to get off. Montparnasse had taught her that.

Oh she had not loathed his attentions at first. Young, naïve, she had thought nothing of the attentions the young man had paid her. Even the first few kisses she had willingly given, foolish – or perhaps just inexperienced – enough to believe he'd actually cared for her. Perhaps in his own twisted way he actually had. But then he had asked for more, more than she was willing to give, more than she could even really understand at that time, and her father had turned a blind eye and had let him take whatever he wanted, only holding out his hand for a few meagre coins to fall into once it was over. Many times had followed, some followed by some form of compensation, others also without. She had tried to end things many times – thinking about how she could not be having relations with another man when her dear Marius would finally notice her – and had ended up in the same position just as many times.

A heavy body crashed into her side, nearly knocking her from her chair.

''M sorry,' the man mumbled as he scrambled back to his feet, swaying heavily as he did so, his voice slurred, 'Mus've tripped or s'mthing.' He looked around bewildered before he suddenly bowed down again and, quite unsteadily, bent back down, 'Hey you dropped this.' As he waved the brown, worn hat in her face, she watched his bloodshot eyes widen, 'I didn't realise you were a girl. Hey, how about you and me…'

'You are far too drunk, monsieur Gagnon, I daresay,' a familiar voice said in a teasing manner, and Éponine watched as Vivienne, who had seemingly materialized out of nowhere, expertly put a hand on the man's arm and turned him to face her. 'Propositioning to poor Joseph here, that will not do I'm afraid. No, I say you and I go upstairs, in case you have forgotten what a woman actually looks like.'

Monsieur Gagnon did not object to that – of course not, with the honeyed way she spoke to him. Still, despite the threat now being abated, Éponine did not miss the urgent look Vivienne sent her before she disappeared in the crowd together with the intoxicated monsieur Gagnon.

Chapter Text

Winter crawled by even slower than it had before, now that Éponine lacked the luxury of at least spending her nights in warmth and company. She still occasionally visited the brothel during the days, but all in all, found herself in great need of social contact now that not one, but two of her options had been blocked.

Fortunately, Louise still remained a steady source of human connection, and Éponine gladly spent her Tuesdays lounging about the monsieur's living room, kitchen, or other area that was in need of cleaning. The monsieur still threw her annoyed glances whenever he came upon her person in the house, but it seemed he had generally accepted her presence as long as she was quiet and didn't interrupt Louise's duties.

During these cold Tuesdays in winter, she extracted pieces of Louise's life bit by bit. Such that her father had been a clergyman in a small town in the north of France, that she now lived together with her son Henri in a small apartment in a neighbouring village and that her elderly neighbour Clarice would take care of the boy when she came to Le Havre. Using some of her father's sly conversational skills, Éponine had further unearthed that the woman apparently made the one-hour walk every morning, but that monsieur Bertrand had at some point offered his carriage. They were small, hardly consequential bits of information, but Éponine nevertheless stored them away for later use.

Even more enjoyable than her talks with Louise, Éponine found the few occasions that the woman had been forced to bring Henri along. During her childhood, Éponine had often been forced to take on the brunt of the rearing of Gavroche – feeding, bathing, and soothing him when her parents could not be bothered. Even Azelma who was closer to her in age had often leaned on her as a parental figure, looking to her for guidance and comfort. Because of this, Éponine had been quite certain that she had no desire to have any more children, having done more than her share of childrearing already. Now, however, interacting with the happy, well-fed and -bathed boy without the burden of having to care for him hanging over her head, she found herself quite enamoured with him. As Louise worked, she would play hide and seek with the boy around the ground floor or play tag with him in the overgrown garden. Rushing after the boy, she would think to herself that maybe, someday in a far-away future, she would want to have one of her own.

Of course, all that depended on her actually finding Marius. For if she would one day want children, she would want them with Marius. Many months had passed since the barricade and yet it felt like so many more still. She had grown as a person, she realised, not just healed but matured, and found it difficult to relate to the girl who had foolishly hoped to die together with her true love at the barricade. And still, despite all that, despite the growth and the realisations, the knowing that it was based on a figment that she had created, the knowledge that Marius truly had never looked at her in that way nor likely ever would – despite all that, she still loved him. And she was not yet ready to give up on him.

'Louise? I have need of your wisdom yet again.' She said, putting down the book that she had been absent-mindedly staring at for what must have been the better part of the last half hour.

'Again? I would have charged you from the start, had I known it would be so oft-requested.'

'I am glad you do not,' Éponine quipped, then continued, more seriously, 'It is concerning a boy.' As the last word passed her lips, she remembered a very similar opening she had used many months ago with Vivienne – and recalled the response. She quickly added, 'Before you get any wrong ideas, I do not fancy him. However, it is a complicated situation and I feel that I have messed up. I want to make up for it, I just don't know… quite what to do.'

'Have you tried talking about it with him?'

'He's not much of the talkative sort.'

'Then you do the talking. Tell him that you're sorry, that… You are sorry, right?'

Éponine bit her lip, finding that she was… and wasn't. 'I'm not sorry for what I did – nor why I did it. But I guess I'm sorry that I hurt him in the process.'

'Well then tell him that. And then move on to more pleasant things to talk about; a shared interest, something he likes, anything that helps you move past past grievances.'

She let out a loud huff, 'I will let you know when I find anything he likes or is interested in.' Aside from revolution and anarchy that is – if he was even still interested in that. The truth was, the shell of a man that she saw now seemed to be unable to care about anything. Still, Louise's point was well-taken and she supposed that since she was the one to cause the rift, she should be the one to fix it – no matter how uncomfortable.

'Who is this mysterious boy anyway?'

Éponine hummed, trying to find a way to describe her neighbour without revealing his identity – lest monsieur Bertrand somehow caught wind of it and disapproved, as he was wont to do with anything she did –, and tapped her chin. 'Do you know how people sometimes say that having a close neighbour is better than having a distant friend?'

'Sure, the pastor in the church in my village says something of that ilk at least every other week.'

'Well, he is neither.'

What exactly Enjolras was to her, she wasn't sure either. Nor did it matter much, Éponine supposed. He was… something to her, and that something was enough to try and patch things up. And thus, armed with the book she had not-quite-borrowed from him, she found herself making the trek to the neighbouring estate later that week. Considering the weather, she had decided that her best chance at accosting him was in his bedroom, and so she climbed up to his bedroom after dark. Her original plan had been to leave immediately after finishing her meagre dinner but reluctance and, if she was honest, fear had kept her from following through. Now, she wondered – nearly hoped – if she was too late and he was already asleep.

The climb to his window was over soon, even with her half-useless hand impeding her ascent. When she pulled herself over the railing of his balcony, Éponine took a moment to steady herself and calm her erratic breathing. Mentally, she prepared herself for what could be a very firm scolding followed by a quick exit. But no… this was Enjolras. Even before the barricade and before he became this husk of a man barely capable of emotion, she knew he would not scream at her or slap her. He had been – once, still was perhaps – a decent man.

Éponine took a deep breath, finding that it somehow did not make it easier. Montparnasse would have slapped her around, her father would have done that and some more and in a strange way, at least it was easy. She knew what to expect, knew also that if she just accepted the punishment that all would be over. If only things were as easy with Enjolras… If at least she knew that after being slapped around, or cussed out, or whatever he saw fitting as punishment, he would forgive her and all things would be well again between them.

She took another deep breath, realising that she could keep taking deep breaths forever but it would not make the upcoming experience any easier. Perhaps her father had been right when he had called for her to stop being such a hussy.

As she opened the double balcony doors, she came to a sudden, halting stop.

Enjolras was standing mere inches from her, his face pale and caved in, exposed skin glistering with sweat in the light of the waxing moon. He was dressed in a white bed shirt, the fabric drenched and clinging to his flesh, highlighting his thinness. His hand floated in mid-air, wavering ever so slightly. 'What are you…' He started, his voice wavering in tandem with his hand.

'Monsieur, I…' Éponine trailed off, as he staggered around her into the chilly evening air. 'Monsieur, please. You should really go inside, before you catch a cold.'

He let out a sound that she interpreted as a derisive snort, 'Nothin' I haven't… Don't see how it could get any… worse,' he murmured, incoherently and nearly inaudibly.

As she considered what to do, Éponine caught the swaying of his thinly clad frame, unsteadily balancing on his one leg. She slipped an arm below his shoulders and immediately felt some of his weight collapse on her. 'Come now, monsieur, let's get you back inside and to bed.'

As she turned, she heard him murmur, likely more to himself than to her, 'How… pathetic. Too weak to even… end things properly.'

Éponine ignored the chill that ran through her, opting instead to focus on more immediate matters, feeling his weight on her increasing with every passing second. She steered him back into the room, leaving the balcony doors ajar for the moment as she bit her lip in strain. It was a good thing he was so thin, or else she would have never managed to hold him. Still, the journey towards the bed seemed endless and by the time they reached it, her skin was slicked with a mixture of his sweat and her own. She was uncomfortably aware of the high fever that warmed his skin and of the hard angles of his tall frame. When at last he collapsed on the bed, Éponine did her best to wrestle the bed clothes over him, all the while catching her own breath from exertion.

'I just… want it to end,' He slurred, from exhaustion, delirium or both.

Once again Éponine considered what to do. She felt pity for him, seeing him like this, and felt the inexplicable need to try and help, even if there was realistically nothing she could do for him. At the same time, she felt an anger boiling within her – a white-hot feeling of injustice that he dared to want to end his life when others had never had a choice to live. Others who had followed him willingly to the barricades, and their deaths. Gavroche, his own friends, so many had had the choice made for them. And yet…

She lowered herself on the chair next to his bed with a soft sigh, disposing her coat over its arm as she realised that rationally she could not blame him, not really. Had she herself not also gone to the barricade, knowing, wishing it would be her death? Had she herself not thought about throwing herself in the Seine so many times before that?

But in the end she hadn't. Whether by some inborn sense of self-preservation or sheer cowardice, she had survived.

'I had a brother once,' she started, not sure why she was telling him – if she was even really telling him, or just reminding herself. 'He died only a few months ago – but really I lost him a long time ago.

'He was a small little thing, despite what he wanted you to believe; just on the cusp of boyhood, all spindly limbs and an adorable little face. And…

'I feel like I should be able to say more about him, what he was like, what he enjoyed, who he wanted to be when he would grow up. But the truth is that I didn't know him, not anymore, not for a long time. There was a time when I would hold him at night, sing him lullabies, love him like his mother and father should have. After…' Her voice broke and she gazed through swimming eyes at the man in front of her, noticing his even breathing and closed eyelids, and forced herself to continue. 'After Paris, I felt like I should live for him, somehow, make something of the life that he would never have.

'But I can't,' she spoke, the confession feeling heavy and awful, as if admitting it out loud only made it real. 'His life was taken from him, cut short before it could even begin. He cannot grow up, find love, grow old. And what's more, I don't know what he would have done, what he wanted. He was my brother once, but he stopped being so a long time ago.

'I can't live for him and yet I feel like I should, like I should somehow do better. But I don't know how.'

She near-sobbed those last words, but once they passed her lips, the words hung in the air for a long time, her only company as the young man in the bed remained motionless. She had not really grieved Gavroche before, had not allowed herself to truly feel the loss. But she did now. Wasted potential, all the lives lost, all those that had survived but had been torn apart. Enjolras and her both, trying to survive in a world that was different from everything they had known.

Suddenly, overwhelmed by the feeling of loss – of her brother, but also something else, something bigger still – that penetrated the room, Éponine stood from her chair, grabbed her coat, and left through the still open balcony doors. It was only when she woke up next morning on the straw mattrass in her loft that she remembered the book that was still tucked away in the pocket of her coat.