Day 1
The day was May 2, 1968 and the beginning of a new and glorious revolution. It was official: the Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense had been shut down. No longer was the cry of the students "The time is near." It had become "The time is here." In response to the authorities' choice to close the university, the students of Nanterre were gathering in protest at the Place de la Bastille.
It was unusually warm for May in the city, and the heat was only serving to increase the sweat beading on Enjolras' forehead as he gave another rallying speech. He rolled up the sleeves of his red and black plaid shirt without pause. His gestures were emphatic, his voice full of fire and sincerity. The showmanship with which he was delivering his address was succeeding in drawing the attention of those around. The crowd of students was steadily growing, and with the increase in numbers came an increase in his motivation. Although his major was law, Enjolras was made for the spotlight.
"Citizens! Why are we angry?" Enjolras threw his arms open wide, encouraging a response. His question was met with angry shouts that, though jumbled and unintelligible, all conveyed the same message: the people wanted change.
His next rallying cry was cut short by the loud bang of a gunshot, swiftly followed by the nasally, self-important shout of a policeman. "Disperse! Disperse at once!"
Enjolras glared at the mob in pristine navy blue uniforms and smirked, his lip curling disdainfully. He surveyed the crowd which separated him from them and felt a sudden rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins; in this moment, Enjolras felt that he was unstoppable.
"Never!" Enjolras fired back, much to the pleasure of the students at his feet. Whatever the officers were going to say next was drowned out by their wild cheers, though it was obvious that they continued to call for order. Finally, the policeman who spoke first was able to scream into his megaphone loud enough to be heard above the din.
"Disperse, or be arrested!"
It was Bahorel, one of Enjolras' closest friends, who spoke up next, though his words only served to give pause to the student leader, a heavy knot of anxiety beginning to form in the pit of his stomach. Enjolras detested violence or altercations unless necessary, and what Bahorel was provoking wasn't.
"Save your breath, abruti! No one's goin' anywhere without a proper fight."
"Get 'em, boys!"
The chaos which followed left Enjolras momentarily rooted to his spot on the makeshift stage – stunned into silence by the animosity of the officers, and the desperation with which the students fled the scene of the crime. Only a few were caught at first, though those unlucky few paid for their wrong turn and their insubordination with a swift blow from a truncheon or a healthy dose of pepper spray to the face. One of those first victims was Jehan Prouvaire, the poet of Enjolras' group of rebels. Bile rose in his throat as he stood, transfixed, watching his friend being kicked in the ribs. As he regained control of his limbs, he noticed that the cries of his friends and followers were not those of agony, but rather ones of defiance, which only served to increase the violence and set the knot in Enjolras' stomach churning.
As Enjolras turned to make his own get away, he was met with the sight of an officer, the one who had ordered the attack, heading his way. The man's face was contorted in a monstrous snarl, his lips curling upward and his teeth barred. Enjolras was uncertain of whether the thing charging at him, baton raising above his greying head, was a man or a wolf, and he felt trapped by the fury in his yellow-green eyes. His trance was broken by a sudden and frightening tug on his left hand. Enjolras whipped his head around, his muscles tensing for a fight, but what he saw when he turned around threw him.
Wide, world-weary brown eyes looked up at him from the face of a stranger – a woman whom he thought seemed familiar in the same way chimeras often do. She was grinning like the Cheshire cat, and her smile added a wild look to her already bohemian air. Enjolras felt his heart beat faster in his chest, though he told himself it was because of the melee and not because of the proximity of the girl.
Before he could ask her who she was, or yank his hand free, she was leaning her lithe frame against his arm, straining on tip toe to reach his ear. She smelled of whiskey and wildflowers. For a moment, the panic in the square fell away and Enjolras knew only her words. Her voice was hoarse and the heat of her breath tickled Enjolras' neck when she rasped, "Follow me, m'sieur."
The girl took off without a moment's delay or a response, Enjolras in tow, straight through the bushes and over a bed of tulips. She cared little for what was trampled beneath her bare feet; she noticed almost nothing of her surroundings. She was giggling like a child.
"This way!" she cried, pulling Enjolras along behind her as a toddler would a worn out teddy bear. A jumbled string of protests fell from his lips but they made no impression on the girl. His usually sharp blue eyes were clouded with confusion and his mind hazy from adrenaline, and with vague recognition Enjolras noticed that they were no longer running through the soft grass of the Bastille, but were instead bounding across rough pavement in the direction of the Cimetière du Père Lachaise. "You be my eyes from the back," she said breathlessly, "are they still on our tail?"
When the words finally registered in Enjolras' mind, he threw a nervous glance over his shoulder toward the park. His heart fell to his feet. The wolf-like officer was picking his way across the street, three of his uniformed thugs in swift pursuit.
"Yes," Enjolras answered, his head whipping back around to face where he was going before he tripped, "I counted four, though more could certainly be on their way."
"Damn," the girl murmured, biting her lip and quickening their pace from a jog to a run, "It's Javert; he'll never leave us alone. We need to get lost somewhere. You're mighty precious cargo, m'sieur."
Enjolras blinked bewilderedly before nodding in silent agreement. The girl hadn't even noticed, her eyes were searching frantically for a nook or crevice in which to hide, the rest of her focus on weaving through the sparse crowd. It did not take her long to concoct a solution, and the woman gave another sharp tug of Enjolras' hand.
"Aha!" she giggled, increasing their speed three fold. Enjolras was considerably taller than the stranger but his long legs were struggling to keep up with her quick steps. The pair flew down the Rue de la Roquette, crossing the busy Boulevard Voltaire during a fortuitous lull in traffic. Once safely on the other side, Enjolras hazarded another quick glance over his shoulder.
"The resurgence of traffic has bought us some time," he said confidently, "We're in the clear."
"Don't jinx us!" the young woman hissed, not daring to look back. "You just leave it to me, aristo."
They took off again at top speed, barreling past unsuspecting Parisians. Shouts from the police officers nipped at their heels, but thankfully the light had not yet turned and the runaways were halfway down the last leg of the Rue de la Roquette before Javert and his men were able to cross the boulevard.
"Do you have a plan, mademoiselle, or are we just running for exercise?" Enjolras called above the howls of Javert. As a student, he was more accustomed to sitting and reading than to running and his breathing was labored, his words strained. The girl laughed effortlessly at the distress in his voice.
"A plan? Why, of course!"
"Then what is it?"
"Not to get caught, m'sieur," she threw back, a dimpled smile on her flushed face. Enjolras' retort caught in his throat as Javert, his wolf's face snarling, barked out an order for the fugitives to stop.
"Lucky for us, we're only à deux pas from salvation," the woman panted, pointing at the gargantuan cemetery walls rising before them. Without hesitation and, Enjolras noted, without looking both ways, the pair ran headlong into traffic on the Boulevard de Ménilmontant. Their recklessness was met with angry blowing of horns and screeching of tires from drivers, and many frightened gasps from the few onlookers, as well as a few breathless curses from Enjolras.
Still quite a ways ahead of the four police officers, and with Javert disallowing illegally crossing the busy boulevard, the pair made it into the Cimetière du Père Lachaise before their assailants made it to the street corner. Enjolras looked behind him before rounding the corner into the cemetery at the fuming wolf-man. Javert was shouting, red-faced, at his men for their lack of diligence and their obvious intake of one too many scones and Enjolras laughed out loud. They weren't coming after them. The unexpected outburst caught the woman's attention, and she threw him a glance over her shoulder.
"What? This the first 'venture into crime of yours, m'sieur?" she asked, slowing their run to a brisk walk. No one was in that part of the cemetery and she felt no need to rush any longer; Javert and his men wouldn't be able to sniff them out in the labyrinth of tombstones and mausoleums, even if they decided to try.
"I am a student of law, mademoiselle," Enjolras replied, tugging his hand out of her thin fingers indignantly, "Though I do not consider what we have just done to be a crime. It was necessary."
The woman's face had fallen when Enjolras had pulled away, but she let out a peel of raspy laughter at his justification. She raised her hands in a sign of mock defeat and Enjolras narrowed his pale eyes.
"Excuse me, monsieur," she said with a wry smile, stressing the proper pronunciation of the last word, "Though if you are that against crime, I don't imagine we'll get along very well." Another throaty laugh followed, and a shiver ran up the blonde man's spine.
The pair found themselves in one of the most deserted corners of the cemetery and, almost as suddenly as she had started running, the young woman came to a halt beneath a gnarled tree. Enjolras nearly tripped over her tiny frame in surprise. She stared wistfully down at the lone grave nestled in the crook of the ancient roots, bunching her hands in the folds of her white cotton shirt and biting her lip in thought.
"Did you know this person?" Enjolras ventured, despite the obvious signs that the headstone was perhaps even older than she. The girl shook her head, her brunette waves following almost playfully. "Then why is it that we've stopped here? We should keep going
"Marius Pontmercy…," whispered the girl, cocking her head to the side with a crooked smile. "I like the sound of that name, don't you? It's got a… a ring to it. Yes, a beautiful ring." Turning abruptly to face Enjolras, she fixed her large brown eyes on him. "Names are important; for some people, a name is all that they've got. Mine's Éponine, what's yours?"
The man paused, taken aback by the swift change of topic and the even more sudden shift in Éponine's mood. He kept his face unreadable and folded his arms across his broad chest.
"Enjolras."
"Enjolras," the girl repeated slowly, her mouth carefully forming the syllables of the unfamiliar word. She smiled, "I like that name, too, 's got a nice sound about it."
Enjolras nodded in thanks, uncertain of what "sound" she was talking about. He cast a glance around the area in search of the nearest exit but found none but the one by which they entered. Resigning himself to stay a little longer in the company of the dead, at least until he was certain that the coast was clear, Enjolras looked back at Éponine. She flashed him an innocent smile and Enjolras found himself contemplating the impossible delicacy of her dimples.
"Is something wrong, m'sieur?" Éponine said, her smile faltering beneath Enjolras' scrutinizing gaze. She shifted from foot to foot self-consciously. Her bare toes dug into the soft grass, still damp from the morning's rain shower and, when he did not answer, Éponine hid her face behind her tangled brown waves.
"No, no," Enjolras said finally, looking anywhere but at Éponine's face and scrambling for a logical explanation, "I was merely thinking that it is imperative for me to get home soon. I have an important meeting tonight, and there are things which I need to finish preparing."
Éponine frowned, "So you have to go?" Enjolras gave a curt nod and the girl's bony shoulders sagged. The man looked down at his feet, his cheeks flushing, when the neck of her slouchy shirt slipped further down Éponine's thin arm, nearly exposing her chest. She didn't seem to notice. Éponine was lost in her thoughts, chewing at her chapped lip.
"I thank you for your assistance today, mademoiselle," he began, backing up and preparing to make another hasty retreat, "Without you, I fear that I would have been arrested."
Éponine smiled at the ground, "You really think so, monsieur Enjolras?" He nodded and her smile widened, "It feels nice to do some good, y'know."
"Perhaps you should try to do it more often, then," Enjolras suggested, earning a wicked look from the girl.
"I'll start doing good when the world starts doing it for me," she said flatly. Enjolras paused his flight and looked at her earnestly. He had noticed her bare feet beneath the torn cuffs of her bellbottom jeans almost immediately, but his observation had stopped there. The holes in her pants he had at first taken to be fashion statements proved instead to be from a bad fall. The knees were smudged with dirt, and Enjolras noticed an angry red gash on one of her scrawny knees. It matched a cut beneath her left eye, and Éponine's arms were covered in hand-shaped bruises. Enjolras felt sick to his stomach.
Éponine felt his eyes sweep over her and noticed the way his eyes widened in shock. She laughed nervously, pulling his attention from a week-old bruise on her hipbone peeking out from beneath the bottom of Éponine's shirt. The innocent smile on her face held a whole new meaning, and Enjolras felt as though he was suffocating.
"Are those –" he began. Éponine only nodded and Enjolras balled his fists by his sides.
A warm May breeze swept through the graveyard, rustling the leaves of the trees above their heads. One of Enjolras' golden curls fell in front of his eyes. Wordlessly, the pitiful girl stepped forward, bridging the gap Enjolras had worked so hard to create. Reaching out with quick and deliberate movements, Éponine gently tucked the hair back into place. She didn't move away.
"I should go," Enjolras managed. Every muscle in his body was tense, and he was uncomfortably aware of the proximity of Éponine's body. Before she had time to respond, Enjolras turned tail and walked as quickly as he could into the winding maze of mausoleums.
A/N: Hey guys, I know this isn't a new chapter of HTAWG, but Tumblr user enjolrabc asked me to write her a drabble and, well, it kinda turned into something a little longer. I really like this setting though, and c'mon! 60's Enjolras? Who could pass that up! I promise to finish a new chapter of HTAWG before the end of May though. Pinky swear.
PS, review and whatnot? Thanks!