A/N: Here ya go, chapter one! Really, really hope you like it! I have the basics of this story planned out, it won't be very long (10-12 chapters at most) but I hope you like it. Started just after the barricade, can't say who's gonna creep up since I actually have no idea. Obviously Marius, Éponine and Cosette are a given, but this won't follow the storyline (much).
Enjoy! I promise other chapters will be longer, I just wanted to get this written otherwise you guys would probably have to wait until Sunday or Monday (plus the plot bunnies wouldn't leave me alone)
Marius looked around the site of the barricade.
He was the only one left.
Tears were pricking his eyes as he limped along the site, resting heavily on a crutch he had for support. Enjolras, Joly, Grantaire, Feuilly, Courfeyrac, Combeferre, Bahorel, Jehan, Lesgle...all gone.
This wasn't how it should have ended. They were fighting for a cause, fighting for the people of France, fighting for a better life, not supposed to have their lives taken, not meant to be fated to such a gruesome death.
Neither had Éponine.
Oh, how he missed her. Cosette was gone, his friends were dead, and he had nobody to turn to anymore. It had always been her who cheered him up, with her sometimes childlike antics, constant teasing, the way she grinned every time she saw him.
He remembered their first encounter. Éponine couldn't have been more than about thirteen, but even then she was a malnourished street child with untameable hair and slightly ripped clothing. It was clear she hadn't eaten properly in weeks, and there were heavy bags under her eyes.
She'd attempted to pickpocket him and was close to being successful, she she hadn'I tripped on a stone and grabbed his shoulder to steady herself. He'd whipped around immediately, causing her to lose her balance, and she ended up falling on her backside onto the cobbled pavement of the market, still sheepishly clutching his wallet.
"Erm...sorry?"
Those had been her first words to him as she quickly attempted to replace the wallet. Springing lightly to her feet, she looked him in the eyes, clearly expecting to be punished.
The first thing Marius had noticed about her was her eyes. A deep chestnut, still with a glimmer that he recognised as hope. That glimmer never left her up until the minute she died, and now he knew why. She was hoping that he'd notice her affections and return them, as well as hoping for a better life.
But of course he hadn't noticed that at the time. He was fifteen back then, and a much kinder man than any other Éponine had come across. He'd smiled slightly, which had clearly confused her.
"Monsieur? You are not going to punish me?"
He'd looked down at this tiny scrap of a girl and shook his head. She'd stared at him with what could only be described as pure bewilderment, which is when he'd registered a large bruise across her forehead reaching down to the left side of her face. There was a small ring of purple in her arm, and a scratch down the side of her left wrist. It was clear she wasn't treated too well at home, which had immediately caused him some concern.
"You're just doing what you have to do. And call me Marius."
"I'm Éponine" she'd replied in a voice he'd almost had to strain to hear, clearly not trusting him.
"So, 'Ponine, perhaps I'll see you around?"
She'd stiffened initially but then nodded, before turning and scampering off down an alleyway.
That was the first time he'd met Éponine Thénardier, and it certainly wasn't the last.
But of all the memories, past and present, right up until the identical minute she'd left this Earth, he remembered her confession more than anything. The words rang clear in his head, they wouldn't go away. And in a way, he didn't want them too. It was like keeping a piece of her with him.
"Now, for my pains, promise me-"
"What?" he'd asked.
"Promise me!"
"I promise you."
"Promise to kiss me on the forehead when I'm dead. I'll feel it."
For one moment he thought she'd died then and there, but her eyes fluttered open once more. That was when she spoke the sentence.
"And then, do you know, Monsieur Marius, I believe I was a little in love with you."
Bam. Right there. Those ten words.
"I believe I was a little in love with you."
Those words kept ringing through his head, almost taunting him for all the times he'd ignored her to be with Cosette, the times he'd sent her off with yet another letter for his 'beloved', the times he'd lain awake at night hearing her cries but being too scared to do anything, not just for her but for himself too.
And now she was gone.
And so was his "beloved".
Waves of guilt washed over him. Éponine had loved him, and he'd more or less forced her to watch and listen as he drummed on about Cosette and how beautiful she was and how lovely she was and how gorgeous she was and so many other adjectives that he'd essentially placed in the same sentence. But Éponine had never protested, never said a word. She always took his letters and brought back the replies, and she'd simply sit there and listen every time he opened his foolish mouth about her. How could he have been so blind? It must have been torture for the poor girl. But he hadn't known. All he'd cared about was his Cosette.
And now she had left him.
They both had.
Marius sighed deeply, kicking a stone as he walked along the forgotten remains of what had once been the helm of the ship, so to speak. Pieces of furniture that had broken beyond repair were kicked to the sides, bits of red scattering the pavement where the women hadn't been able to remove the stains.
He came to the place Gavroche had been shot, and his throat tightened. He'd lost two Thénardiers in a day, and yet their parents didn't even care. But Marius did.
He'd buried Gavroche the identical day he'd managed to get back to the sight, and would have done the same for Éponine.
Except her body was nowhere to be found.
He'd searched everywhere, but her corpse was not with the others. It had just vanished. A first Marius had suspected that somebody else had buried her, but who? Her parents didn't care Gavroche had died not long after her and hadn't left the barricade anyway, none of the revolutionaries had known her, the Patron-Minette hated her, Cosette wasn't around (and wasn't keen on her anyway), her sister was in a foreign country. He couldn't think of anybody else who knew who she was.
One thought dared to make itself heard in his mind, one that he didn't dare to think was true.
She was still alive.
No. She couldn't be. He'd seen the bullet hit her, he'd held her as she died, he'd watched her body being carried away without so much as a hint of life. He'd seen her die with his own eyes, it simply wasn't possible.
But as he thought this, a pair of sharp brown eyes were opening slowly in a hospital ward not twenty minutes from where he was standing.