Prologue: Beginnings and Ends
The banging on the door started at midnight.
"What on earth?" Marius sat up in bed, waiting to see if he heard the sound again, but all he could hear was the sound on the rain hitting the road outside. He shook his head and lay back down. His imagination was playing tricks on him.
Bang, bang, bang.
Marius sat up again. This time he was sure that the noise was real. He looked over at the clock on the mantelpiece. The moonlight flowing through the open windows illuminated it, showing it to be far too late for pleasant company. Who would be calling at this hour?
"What is it, Marius?" Cosette groaned, from beside him. He looked down at his wife, her eyes opening and closing groggily.
"I don't know, love." Marius mused. Flipping back the covers, he rose from his bed and quickly began pulling on the clothesline s that were strewn over the floor. Lighting the candle that stood on the nightstand, he made his way towards their bedroom door, looking back at Cosette just as he left. "Stay here."
Cosette nodded, now sitting up in bed looking a little more awake and far more worried. It was a mere few months since Paris had all but ripped itself apart and their peace always seemed a little too good to be true.
As Marius reached the stairs to their home, the banging started again. He frowned, but hurriedly made his way to the bottom floor and across the hall, reaching the front door quickly. He was about to open it when a thought suddenly occurred to him. He turned and made his way to his office across the hall. It took a few moments of rummaging about in doors before he found it. His pistol. With a grim expression, he made his way back to the hallway.
Setting the candle on the small table beside the door, he took a firm grip on his gun with one hand and held the candle with the other.
Bang, bang.
"Please, Monsieur!" Marius was fairly certain that he could hear a voice shouting from the other side. With a frown, he listened again, but could hear nothing.
Taking a deep breath, he opened the door quickly, in one swift motion, and saw...nothing. Nothing but the rain beating against the Parisian streets.
"Monsieur Marius." He heard a weak voice and looked down at his feet. There, in a heap on his front stoop, was the crumpled form of a young woman. She was wrapped in a soaking wet shawl that covered her, but would offer little protection from the cold. Her head was hanging low and she didn't seem to even have the energy to look up. If she had not been beating his door down moments earlier, Marius would have sworn that she was dead. But she had spoken. She had called him by name.
At once, he placed his pistol beside the candle in the hallway and knelt down beside the young woman. Her dark, wet hair covered her face. "You know me, Mademoiselle?" He asked, tentatively reaching out to touch her shoulder. Her breathing was rapid and, although she was shivering violently, he could feel that her skin was too hot, even through her clothing.
She let out a short laugh. "Forgotten your...friend already...Marius?" She forced out between breaths. Marius frowned. All of his friends were dead.
"Who are-" Marius began, but was cut off by a sudden fit of coughing erupting from the girl. She curled in on herself, clutching at her middle. Marius didn't know what to do. He simply sat there in panic, staring at this woman who called him friend. Finally, the pain seemed to pass and all she all but collapsed into him, her energy apparently spent.
Her shawl slipped from her shoulders and Marius moved to pull it back over her when he noticed her stomach. "You're pregnant." He said, stupidly, just as she keeled forwards coughing again. One of her hands clutched at the front of his shirt, whilst the other went to her rounded stomach.
"Finally, he notices." She panted when it passed. She let out a wry chuckle and Marius couldn't help but find that laugh eerily familiar. "You always did have...a habit of...missing what was right...in front of you, Monsieur."
Marius couldn't help himself anymore. He finally moved to push away the hair that clung to her face and his mouth fell open in shock. Her face was grubbier and her cheeks were more sunken, there were dark bags beneath her eyes and her clothes were rattier than they had ever been, but Marius saw her old beauty still shining through as he looked into her chocolate brown eyes and he knew who it was at once.
"Eponine." He whispered, a smile spreading across his face and joy bursting in his heart. Eponine, his dear friend Eponine, was here. She was alive. With a jubilant laugh, he pulled her in close to him for a hug and was again reminded of her temperature. "Eponine, you're sick. You need..." Marius trailed off as he realised that Eponine had fallen unconscious in his arms.
Eponine awoke unsure of where she was. There was a soft surface beneath her, with sheets covering her body. A bed. She saw a beautiful, ornate ceiling and could smell a woman's perfume in the air. There were voices nearby, but she couldn't discern what they were saying. Her mind felt like it was filled with a thick fog that made all of her thoughts slow and unclear. And she was so cold. Or was she too hot?
"She's awake." A soft female voice broke through Eponine's confusion. She turned towards it, seeing a beautiful blonde woman in a nightgown and white shawl hurrying towards her. Eponine was certain that she knew this woman, but her name wouldn't come to mind. The beautiful woman lay a cool cloth on her forehead and Eponine decided that she didn't much care who this woman was. She was an angel to her now.
"How are you, Eponine?" She asked, gently, smiling at Eponine.
"Where am I?" Eponine asked, her voice sounding slurred even to her own ears. She was somewhat aware of Marius speaking to another man in hushed tones in the corner of the room.
The blonde woman smiled kindly again. "You're in our home." She replied, still dabbing Eponine's forehead. "Marius found you outside. What were you doing in the rain?"
Suddenly it came back to Eponine. The last few months, the joy, then the rebellion and the loneliness and misery that followed. The only light had been the little life growing within her. Their little life. She also remembered years into the past. Two little girls, one blonde and one brunette, who had played together before mama had told her that her friend was not to be trusted. She was a rat, just like her mother. And Eponine had believed her, so easily. Far too easily.
"Oh, Cosette." She whimpered, ignoring the pain speaking brought. Cosette nodded her head and stood, moving to a basin by the window to wet her washcloth once more. Eponine stared after her, guilt squirming in the pit of her stomach. Cosette had never deserved her contempt. Marius had been right to love her. She was kind and beautiful and good.
Eponine opened her mouth to say something to Cosette, anything to try and make right what she had done to her, but was interrupted by a sudden coughing fit that wracked her body. She felt as though she would die, right there and then from the pain of it.
"'Ponine!" Marius shouted, coming to kneel beside her. Cosette was back, holding a white handkerchief to her mouth as Eponine choked and spluttered. When Eponine calmed, she did not miss the grim expression that Cosette shared with her husband, nor the deep stain of blood upon the handkerchief.
"If we do not act quickly, the infant will not survive." The man whom Marius had been speaking with earlier stepped forward. The way he looked at Eponine made her feel like cattle, to be judged before slaughter.
"No." Marius muttered, dark and low.
"Monsieur, see reason, we cannot simply-"
"I told you, no!" Marius practically growled, turning to throw a look of pure contempt over his shoulder. Cosette took his hand and stroked his arm soothing. At one time, the simple gesture of love would have been a knife to Eponine's heart, but not anymore.
"What does he want?" Eponine asked, barely able to get the words out in one breath. It felt as though there were somebody sitting on her chest, compressing the space and making it hard to breathe.
"You are in very ill, Eponine." Cosette began tentatively, clearly trying and failing to put on a reassuring expression. "And the good doctor here," She paused to nod respectfully towards the man Marius had verbally assaulted mere moments earlier, "he says that you are very weak. You have an infection in your lungs and have been without food for too long. He believes that...that you..."
Cosette trailed off, but Eponine was not so naive as to miss the meaning of her words.
"What do we do?" She asked, her voice croaking and breathless. She could vaguely hear a slight rattling sound with each breath she took.
"We perform a cesarean section so as to save the life of the child, then we do all we can for the mother." The doctor did not even deign to look at Eponine as he spoke. Instead, he looked at Marius and from the expression on his face, Eponine could tell that this was a conversation which had been going on for some time.
Marius opened his mouth to reply, but Eponine got there first. "Do it."
All three heads in the room turned to look at her. "'Ponine, you can't. You'll die!" Marius' expression as he spoke was one of disbelief. Using all her strength, Eponine lifted her hand to place it atop of Marius'.
"Please...my dear friend." She gasped between breaths. "Take my child...I give her to you now."
"Her?" Cosette asked and Eponine was surprised to see tears in her eyes.
"It's a girl." Eponine replied with a certainty she had never before possessed in her life. "And she must...be yours."
"She needn't be ours." Marius interjected, pushing some of the hair back from Eponine's sweat-soaked forehead. "You will live, 'Ponine. Dear God, you will live to see your child."
"Hush, now." She half-laughed, half-spluttered. "We will meet again...Monsieur Marius. Until that day...I must give my daughter...to your keeping."
Marius said nothing, but simply took Eponine's hand and nodded vigorously. Cosette, too, looked determined and ready.
"It will take a few moments to ready my equipment." The doctor spoke up at last, having remained mercifully quiet throughout the whole exchange. "Such a procedure should ordinarily be performed in a hospital, but under the conditions, I believe that there is not enough time."
Not enough time. Those words were strange to Eponine. Of course, she was ready to give up her life for her child, but to have death so close at hand, whether she chose it or not, was a strange thing. She would be ripped from the world before she even saw her child's face and yet she would be reunited with so many loved ones so soon. Azelma, Gavroche...Alexander. It was a curious feeling, the pain and the relief both at once.
"I'm so very...sorry, my love." She murmured, looking down at her stomach. "Always know this...you were made in love...you will always be loved."
Eponine wasn't sure how long she spent looking down at her stomach, caressing it lovingly, but after what felt both like hours and mere seconds all at once, the doctor declared, "It's time."
Cosette began to sob into Marius' shoulder, who for his part mostly maintained his composure, although a single tear slid down his nose. He still held Eponine's hand and she smiled up at him, trying to convey all of her gratitude for what he was doing. He nodded once, seeming to understand.
The doctor stepped towards her with a rag and a bottle of what Eponine presumed to be chloroform. Just as he was about to douse the material, Cosette's head jerked up.
"What!" She practically shouted, turning to clutch Eponine's shoulder. "Eponine, you must giver her a name."
A name? Eponine had never thought as far ahead as a name. She had always thought that there would be time. Time to plan and prepare and make a life for her daughter before she came into this world. Then, it came to her in a moment so perfect that she wasn't sure why she hadn't thought of it in the first place.
"She should be named...after her father." Eponine forced out, looking to Cosette. "Alexandra."
"Alexandra Thenardier." Cosette nodded, smiling despite her tears.
"No." Eponine tried to shake her head, but the action only causes another fit of coughing. She tried to force the words out even so. "Alexandra Enjolras"
Cosette's mouth popped open into a little 'O', but Marius simply nodded as though his suspicions were being confirmed.
"Alexandra...Alexander? So that's what Enjolras' first name was." Marius chuckled a little, the action spilling a few more tears into his cheeks. Eponine smiled as well, feeling the warmth of his hand upon hers and of Cosette's upon her shoulder. After a moment, though, her smile dropped. This was it. Her last few moments in this life.
"Make her life better than mine." She whispered, just as the doctor held the rag over her face. Inhaling the fumes, Eponine's mind became clouded once more. This time, however, it was not the disturbed sleep of fever. Instead, it was blissful and, as she closed her eyes, she drifted of into oblivion.
Alexandra Eponine Enjolras was born just as dawn broke. She had dark blonde hair and deep brown eyes and Cosette instantly knew that she loved her. Biologically, she knew that Alexandra may not have been her child, but Cosette would be damned if she didn't care for her as though she were. This child had been entrusted to her and her husband with a faith that Cosette would not betray. Speaking of her husband...
"What have you got there, Marius?" She asked, finally looking up from the child in her arms long enough to notice the small book her husband held.
"I found it as they were taking...taking Eponine away." He replied, clearing his throat a little over his last words. "I think that it's a journal."
"Really? I didn't know that Eponine could read and write." Cosette replied, genuinely surprised. Marius nodded, flipping through the pages without reading any.
"She could. She even showed me a few times." He chuckled gently at the memory. Eponine had been able to read and write, yes, but the kind of literature that she read was more likely to be an arrest warrant than an epic poem.
"We should save it for Alexandra." Cosette remarked, looking down at the baby once more. She truly was beautiful. She had only met Enjolras once, but even she could see the resemblance between father and daughter, although she had her mother's eyes. "Did you know? About Eponine and Enjolras?" She asked, unable to contain her curiosity any longer.
Marius sighed, running a hand through his hair. "We all suspected that something was going on." He answered, looking at little Alexandra. "But never this. We didn't even know that Enjolras was capable."
If Cosette had an arm free, she would have smacked his arm. Even so, she smiled a little. Perhaps Alexandra would grow up to be made of marble, like her father, she mused as she walked over to the window. Or perhaps she would be much more free with her love, like her mother. Cosette only prayed that they would not raise a young revolutionary.
"We shall see what this new world will make of you." She sighed, looking out through the window across the streets of Paris.
Voila! I intend to follow each chapter now from Alexandra's point of view, about eighteen years or so down the line, with a diary entry at the beginning of each chapter from the whole Eponine/Enjolras/revolution/tragic disaster thing! I really hope you like the idea, even if I did sort of start off with a lot of people's favourite couple kicking the bucket. You'll still get their story!
Thanks for reading, leave a review of you liked it (or just leave one of you didn't, it's good to know!)
-K