Combeferre opens the door; behind him he carries several chairs, hopefully enough for the rest of the group. They stand around her and stare at the tiny girl. There are cords and tubes flowing from her body into machines which are beeping at a steady pace. Even those who aren't medical students recognise it as a good sign.
They all knew she was troubled. They recognised the scabs on her arms, her hollow sunken cheeks and her rough, brittle hair. They all knew she was an addict but they never bothered to help. They would tiptoe around the subject, look down whenever one of her 'friends' would deliver her another 'package'. When she was out of money she would complain and they would lend her some. She never paid it back though they never expected her to. They all knew where the money was going, they were as much to blame for her current situation as she was, or at least that is what she will tell herself and allow them to believe.
They stand around her bed forming some kind of vigil. If she were awake right now she would sneer at them with disgust in her eyes. This is what she needed to do to gain attention from them. All Cosette had to do was attend a meeting to have the Amis fawning over her. Meanwhile Eponine needed to overdose on heroin to even gain half of that attention, it was how her life had always worked.
The group stands in silence as an unspoken question hangs over the group "where is he?" where was their leader. They knew that he and Eponine had had a falling out over the summer but this was too cruel, even for him.
Grantaire has barely had a drink and the stress of the day has made him even for desperate to feel the familiar burn in the back of his throat.
Jehan cannot help but find the beauty in her breakdown. Her body glistens with sweat – it shines. To him it symbolises her soul as it straddles the fine line between this life and the next.
It was Marius who found her – he still has not mentioned exactly what he saw to them, but it's not like they have asked. He found her in her room; her body was convulsing, her eyes rolled back and the syringe on her bedside table filled in the remaining holes in the scene. He felt so selfish. When he arrived at her apartment and pushed the door open he had absolutely no intention of asking her how she was. Rather he was eager to tell her about his trip to the Swiss Alps with Cosette. Perhaps if he had just stopped and for once asked if she was okay she would have told him that she was struggling. Perhaps they could have prevented this. After he calls for an ambulance he calls Cosette and the rest of the boys. He leaves Eponine in the ambulance and travels to the hospital with Cosette. Part of him – that selfish part prays that she does not wake up in the ambulance; he does not want her to wake up alone.
All the boys were at the hospital within half an hour, all but one. They could not help but wonder if this was all some game to him. To inflict more pain on the suffering girl, to teach her a lesson. Many of them knew firsthand how terrible he was capable of being. He was a cold, cruel man but to Eponine he had shown warmth, more than he had ever shown the rest. The pair tried to keep their relationship secret but failed. At first the group was unsure what caused the break up, seeing as they knew so little about their relationship but now as they watched her lying in bed they began to understand. If there was one thing Enjolras had no time for it was people who were not willing to help themselves.
I still love her. I don't really care.
He arrives at the hospital almost an hour after the rest. They see him walk in through a window and glare, until they notice the small child walking beside him. Of course, they had all forgotten about Gavroche. The tiny boy who was twelve but did not look a day over nine.
He brings the body to the door and wordlessly opens it. The child gets on the bed and lies next to his sister. He wraps his arms around her shivering body and cries. Cosette sits next to him and puts her hand on his shoulder in an attempt to make him feel better.
"That's cruel Enjolras" Combeferre comments quietly.
"Perhaps he'll turn out different."
The pair step outside "You know making him hate his sister isn't the way to get the 'drugs are bad' message across to the boy."
Enjolras glares at his friend "I worked three weeks pro bono to get her custody of that boy, but now I think he would be better off in foster care. Save your lectures for someone else."
This isn't the first time he's spent a Friday night in the hospital, most definitely not. The staff cast sad smiles at him as they walk past and he nods in response. They know him and they know her. Eponine is a regular here, the rest of the group just don't know that.
He remembers the night before his parents came to town. They next morning they were going to brunch but when he arrived home after work he finds the girl barely breathing in the bathtub surrounded by a pool of vomit. Yes, that was all his parents needed to hear, that his girlfriend was a drug addict. He cancelled the brunch and could hear in their voices the disappointment in their voices.
He remembers waiting for her to regain consciousness; it was when he decided that they could not continue like this. He had tried to help her, tried to encourage her to a better life but she would not listen and he wasn't going to waste his time on a lost cause. When she woke up he delivered the news and left. It's been months and he still hasn't spoken to her.
He sits in a spare chair opposite her bed and pulls out a book just like he always did and the rest of the group look at him as if he has gone insane. They are terrified about her wellbeing but for him, just six months ago this was a routine Friday night with Eponine. He was making his way through his collection of Dickens novels, now he was up to his favourite; A Tale of Two Cities.
Time progresses and the day turns to night, slowly the group begins to leave. Their lives must continue on even if hers is hanging in the balance. Bossuet and Feuilly are the first to leave, they both worked nightshifts at a local bar. They were soon followed by the rest of the boys until it is just Enjolras, Marius, Cosette and Gavroche who has now fallen asleep on Eponine's bed.
"Enjolras?" for the first time in hours he takes his eyes off the book and looks up at Cosette "We're going to take Gavroche home okay? We'll see you in the morning."
It's better to feel pain, than nothing at all. The opposite of love is indifference.
Now that he has finally been left alone with the girl he looks down at her figure.
She is hopeless.
She is pathetic.
She is everything he hates in this world and everything that he loves.
He knows that trying to fix her is fighting a losing battle which he knows he will never win. He knows she will never recover and that if she survives this overdose she is just delaying death. He knows she will never change but still he wait for her, with the slightest hope that she might just surprise him.
Because as much as he hates the truth and as much as he will never admit it to himself he still hasn't moved on. He doesn't think he ever will. As long as she is alive he will wait for her, he will wait for her to heal, he will wait for her to love again, he will wait for her to wake up. There is no going back now. He is far too caught up in everything that is her. He likes to tell himself that there are more important things to worry about, the poor, the starving but his mind always goes back to her. Sometimes, mostly on Friday nights he calls her home phone just to see if she answers. When she does he hangs up, she's alive, that's all he needs to know.
He watches her lifeless body as nurse come in routinely to "top up her fluid" or "just check that everything is going according to plan" but he doesn't reply. He wishes he doesn't care either.
Everything was always so black and white for him, but now he can't figure out how or why he loves her but hates her at the same time. If it was someone else who was this addicted to drugs he would disregard them as a lost cause but he doesn't want to lose her. Sometime he thinks that death would be good for the girl, perhaps she could escape this life which has caused her so much pain and start over new in the next but the truth is if she dies he will die with her.
And so he sits there, he waits all night and into the morning. He loves her, he hates her, she is pathetic, she is a lost cause but he still waits.
For her he will always wait no matter how hard he tries to leave.
So keep you head up my love.
AN: Not very happy with this but oh well, I hope you enjoyed it. Lyrics are from the incredibly song Stubborn Love by the Lumineers. Reviews and comments are always appreciated.