June 1830

Les Amis de l'ABC saw her every day, seating at the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor of Le Café Musain, trying to blend with the place and failing miserably. She knew that, although she was welcomed, she didn't fit in. Nobody cared to contradict her; they all knew as well.

They all saw her, witnessing how her eyes would lit whenever she saw the subject of her affections. Marius, that freckled and handsome youth that constituted the last addition to the revolutionary group, was the only reason why she would show up at that place and hear speeches she didn't understand about topics that didn't know about.

Yes, they all saw her but nobody, not even Marius, knew her. She was just one of them, the kind of people they were trying to help, the ones their revolution, whenever it came, would directly benefit. The group had called her "Marius' shadow" as a reference the way she chased after him like some sort of loyal stray dog. Even if that meant hurting every time he babbled about his wonderful blonde angel, his Cosette, the girl that he was in love with.

Les Amis, Enjolras included, had grown accustomed to her. Sometimes they would give her some food or a few coins, nothing too meaningful for them, which she accepted shamefully.

That was until Marius arrived one day, a few minutes before the daily meeting started, his face contracted with a troubled expression.

"Have you seen Éponine?" he asked while taking a seat. Enjolras, without looking away from his book, answered.

"We haven't seen or met any Éponine or any Cosette or any other wonderful woman you've met in your life...nor we're interested in knowing about them. We've got important things to discuss so please focus," he said dryly.

"The meeting hasn't started yet and you're reading...Shakespeare," Courfeyrac commented, making everyone laugh.

"This is not Shakespeare. It's Don Quixote, my friend," Enjolras replied.

"Cervantes, if I'm not wrong, is the Spanish version of Shakespeare," Courfeyrac teased.

"You're wrong," Enjolras said with certain humor.

"Focus! Éponine's the urchin that's here every night. You know? That petite brunette that seats at the staircase? I haven't seen her in about two weeks."

Everyone stopped what they were doing to look straight at Marius.

"I knew there was someone missing," Joly mumbled.

"Marius...if you don't know, why are we supposed to know?" Combeferre reasoned.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked, visibly confused.

"He means that the urchin's life revolved around walking behind you...like a shadow," Feuilly explained. Marius scratched the back part of his neck.

"If you think she came for the meetings, let me tell you straightaway that you're completely wrong," Enjolras said, trying not to sound half as affected as he truly was. He actually found, much to his embarrassment, that the urchin was quite cute. He would eye her from the corner of his eye to find her smiling at some lost thought or maybe playing with a few strands of her hair. He knew whenever she had actually gotten something from whatever he had been saying. He knew that, even if he didn't want to accept it, he wished that those fragments of his speeches swarmed through her head for a little bit longer than Marius did. Enjolras thought she was a mixture between the irrationality of a passionate lover and the determination of a warrior, which made him both pity her and admire her in quite unequal parts.

He squeezed his eyes shut as his friends offered possible solutions for her disappearance, all of them solemn and . All of them were tragic, all of them reminded him of her bruised arms and her bare feet, of the way she would shiver whenever it rained, of the way she seemed so small. And he felt impotence.

"Gentlemen," he said while closing his book, "When our revolution is successful, Éponine's name will never be forgotten."

They all vowed their heads in response.

June 1831

Enjolras was never late. He was known for his faultless punctuality. He was, after all, the leader of Les Amis and he had to set an example. But today he was about twenty minutes late, completely unacceptable. He had stayed at the university where he was having a heated argument with one of his classmates, a supporter of Napoleon.

"Just when I thought I couldn't handle having Marius' ideas in my life," he thought as he remembered the student's arguments, all of which succumbed to Enjolras' persuasive tongue.

As he ran towards Le Café Musain, his body collided with another person, who was smaller and, naturally, fell on the floor. The street was crowded and, although he tried to help the person he had pushed, who turned out to be a girl, he wasn't able to. She stood up by herself so he could see her face perfectly. He was scared by what he saw.

The brown eyes. The brunette curls that weren't that dirty anymore. That small figure clad in a worn out dress gray, a dress that was still much better than anything he had seen her with before. They were both standing in the middle of the way, gaining insults from the passersby. The girl gave him a respectful nod and continued walking. He was left there, standing like an idiot.

As that day's meeting, which started quite late and ended quickly, came to an end, Enjolras sat on a chair in the corner. His friends left commenting that there was something wrong with him. He took a sip from a bottle of wine to try and convince himself that it was a mistake. It had been almost a year since they had seen Éponine. Her permanent absent made her a martyr in an unfair system he was meant to destroy. She had become his secret Patria, his own secret fighter that fueled his cause more than ever.

And, as he thought about that, the girl from the street appeared in front of him. She was clutching something to her chest as though it was the most precious thing on earth.

"Mademoiselle Éponine?" he asked absentmindedly, his thoughts concentrating on the psychological challenge that her presence meant.

"Monsieur Enjolras," she replied.

"What...what are you doing here? Marius is already gone..." he said, wanting to slap himself for the comment. She looked at him with a frown and then just blushed.

"I didn't come to ask for Marius, monsieur," she said as she laid in front of him the two pamphlets she clutched two her chest. One of them said: "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen" and the other one, much lighter, said: "The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen". He looked at her, his eyes wide open in astonishment. That's when he saw a different light in Éponine's eyes, a especial shine. Her dove eyes now belonged to an instructed person, someone aware of her surroundings.

"I just wanted to know, monsieur, when and why did these rights disappear for us?"

Hey,

thanks for reading so far :) I hope you like it. Any clues on where Éponine was?