November 1831

Paris

"Hello, there, Mademoiselle Jondrette." Courfeyrac raised his mug of hot wine and gave Éponine his characteristic warm smile. "What brings you to the Musain today?"

Éponine glanced around the half-empty café and said in a distracted tone, "I'm looking for Marius."

"Isn't she always?" Bahorel teased from beside Courfeyrac. Éponine scowled and prepared a sharp response, but Courfeyrac said in a gentle voice,

"He's in lessons, mademoiselle. He should be back very soon, I think. But why don't you stay? Have some wine and a bit of stew, eh?"

It was a tempting offer. Éponine had no coin at all on her person, and if someone were to make an offer of a hot meal and a good drink, she was loathe to turn it down. So she slithered onto the bench opposite Courfeyrac, who caught the attention of the serving wench and called out for wine and beef stew.

"Thank you," Éponine said, more to Courfeyrac than to the wench. Bahorel looked her up and down and said bluntly,

"Looks as though you could do with more than one solid meal. You're flesh atop bones, aren't you?"

Éponine frowned deeply and spooned some of the warm, savory stew into her mouth. She met Bahorel's dull eyes and clipped, "You've little room to talk. You're a peasant as much as I am."

"Ah, but I have not allowed myself to waste away," Bahorel said, smirking. Mercifully, the tense exchange was broken up when Enjolras appeared, his hands clutching rolled-up newspapers and pamphlets. He looked frazzled as he sat on the bench beside Éponine. He set down the materials in his hands, shoved his wild blond curls from his face, and huffed,

"The Canuts in Lyon are about to revolt. Plunging silk prices, you know," Enjolras said breathlessly. He appeared not to notice that Éponine was there, and he spoke to Courfeyrac and Bahorel. He leaned forward, his voice hushed as he shook his head and said, "When the government sends the military in, it'll be hell. A total bloodbath."

"But that would be good, wouldn't it? In a way," Éponine said cautiously. When Enjolras and the other two men looked at her curiously, she felt her ears go hot, and she clarified, "I mean to say, one little rebellion might lead to a bigger one, right?"

Enjolras looked amused for a moment, and then a bit interested as his pretty pale eyes studied Éponine. He opened his mouth, shut it again, and then said carefully,

"Violence is never the goal, mademoiselle. Never. We do not seek the death of any citizen. Soldier or civilian, rich or poor, merchant or government official. Death is not the goal. But, of course, you're right. It may well be the means. What happens in Lyon now may be the spark beneath tinder. And if a fire takes hold, it may well burn all the way to Paris."

Courfeyrac held up his mug of wine and said proudly, "To a fire that burns from Lyon to Paris."

Éponine smiled a bit and then drank from her wine. Beside her, Enjolras studied her again and said carefully,

"I've seen you about, mademoiselle. Often with Marius Pontmercy. I can't say you and I have ever spoken directly, nor been introduced."

"This is Éponine," Courfeyrac told Enjolras. "She lives next-door to Marius."

"Pleased to meet you at last, Monsieur Enjolras," said Éponine. "I've heard you speak a good many times."

Enjolras smirked. "And what did you think of what I had to say?"

Bahorel snorted a little laugh, and Éponine scowled at him more bitterly than ever. She sniffed a bit and said to Enjolras, "I have no real education, and so I confess to being more ignorant than most on matters of state. I do suppose there is quite a lot of wisdom in what you say. That it is lunacy for a people to be ruled by father, then son, then son again, with no regard for qualification. And I know from my own life that the Revolution did not solve any real ills. It hurts just as badly now to be poor as it ever has. There must be answers."

Enjolras smiled and nodded. "The answers lie in republicanism, Éponine. Real republicanism, where the people are the beneficiaries of their own governance. You are not ignorant; you are precisely the type of person we need to be thinking and talking about all of this."

"Éponine! Don't let him recruit you!" Marius Pontmercy had come striding into the café, his arms loaded up with books. He flashed Éponine a friendly grin and winked at her, and she felt her chest flutter like it always did when she saw him. She couldn't help it; his boyish looks and his sweet-sounding voice were too much when she knew he slept just next-door. Marius set his books down on Éponine's left and asked the serving girl for a bit of bread and some watered wine.

"Short on funds today, are we, Marius?" asked Courfeyrac, and Marius sighed heavily.

"Always," he nodded. Bahorel frowned and demanded,

"Why don't you take your grandfather's money, since he sends it?"

"There is far more nobility involved in refusing aristocratic money than there is in accepting funds one has not earned," Enjolras said firmly. Éponine stared at him for a moment, at the way his blue eyes flashed whenever he spoke of politics. Behind her, Marius teased,

"See, 'Ponine? This one's a radical. Don't let him get to you."

Éponine turned her face to Marius and said, "You can have my stew, if you'd like. Monsieur Courfeyrac was kind enough to -"

"To buy it for the skinny little girl across the table!" Bahorel cut in. He swigged his own wine and laughed, "Marius will survive on bread. Don't you worry about him."

"Thanks anyway, Éponine." Marius opened a book and began scanning his eyes over the words. The others got to talking about Lyon, and Éponine listened distantly as she spooned stew into her mouth. Her cheekbone hurt, badly, and she wondered if it was already bruising up. She got her answer when Marius murmured beside her,

"You've got a black eye again. Which one of them was it?"

Éponine gulped and stared into her stew as she said, "It was my mother. Well, it was actually an iron dipper, strictly speaking. She's rather good at whipping it across the room."

Marius sighed as he kept reading his book. "You're old enough now, 'Ponine; you've got to get away from them somehow."

"Is there space for me in the apartment next-door?" Éponine asked, only half-joking. Marius scoffed a bit and noted,

"I can only afford to buy myself bread, 'Ponine."

She wasn't a fool. She knew he did not find her pretty, or even particularly interesting. She was his neighbor, and that was all. He was engrossed in his books, and when he did speak of girls, it was the lovely bourgeois ones he saw on his walks through the city parks. Some things couldn't be undone. Marius Pontmercy may have decided to eschew his family's status and fortune, but he was never going to see a girl like Éponine as anything but a pitiful peasant.

"Éponine?"

She turned at the sound of her name to see Enjolras holding out a single sheet of paper to her.

"Can you read?" he asked without pretense, and Éponine nodded. She wasn't the fastest reader, and there were many words she did not know, but before her parents had lost their inn, a tutor had come by for a time and taught Éponine literacy and basic mathematics. Of course, those skills had been so that she might help run the inn as she grew up. But now, as she took the paper from Enjolras' hand, she was able to make sense of it.

Citizens! Friends! Brothers and Sisters! The time is fast approaching for us to act as one. The Revolution, all those years ago, called for equality and justice, but that is not the France in which we now live. All of us together must decide that those values - equality and justice - were not a dream, nor a catchphrase, but that they will be reality. Join us this Thursday next at three in the afternoon at the Place Dauphine, where we will discuss this nation's future.

Éponine frowned and asked Enjolras, "Have you been passing these around?"

Enjolras nodded. "Of course. Why?"

Éponine shrugged. "Well, it's just… your chosen location is awfully close to the Conciergerie, and it's on an island. Don't you think if the police find out about this, they'll just block the bridges onto the Île de la Cité and dispatch forces from the Conciergerie? Anyone who attends this meeting could get trapped in the square, rounded up, and arrested rather easily."

Suddenly Bahorel was guffawing where he sat. He chewed the bite of food in his mouth and told Enjolras, "She's right. She has you there."

Enjolras sighed and took the paper back from Éponine. "Getting arrested for the cause would be a worthy sacrifice."

"But how well can you really encourage rebellion from inside a prison?" Éponine asked. She felt Marius touch her shoulder, and she whirled back toward him. He shook his head and said wearily,

"Allow Enjolras these follies, 'Ponine. He is blind with optimism."

"Well, Enjolras, I think you ought to ask Mademoiselle Jondrette her opinion every now and then," said Courfeyrac. "She seems a shrewd strategist."

He wasn't mocking her, Éponine could tell. She nodded once at Courfeyrac and mumbled, "I appreciate your vote of confidence, but I am no revolutionary."

"Why not?" asked Enjolras. He tipped his head, his wide blue eyes boring into Éponine's as he pushed his blond curls from his face again. "There is no rule against women promoting our cause."

Éponine smiled and shook her head. She finished the last few spoonfuls of stew and touched gingerly at her cheekbone as she finished her wine.

"Thank goodness it's not too cold tonight," she noted. "I'll have to sleep rough. Don't want any more ironmongery flying at my face."

Enjolras exchanged a look with Courfeyrac and Bahorel then. Marius was still lost in his book. Enjolras asked carefully,

"Do you know Feuilly?"

"The fan-maker?" Éponine laughed a bit, nodding. "I've met him a few times. What of him?"

"He and I share an apartment in the rue Saint-Étienne-des-Grès. It's two bedrooms; he and I can bunk in one tonight if you're in need of a place to go."

Éponine chewed hard on her lip for a moment. She glanced down at the stew in front of her and said quietly, "Thank you, but I've received enough charity for one day, I think."

"Please." Enjolras' voice cracked a bit then, and when Éponine looked back at him, he shook his head and gestured vaguely toward her face. "No one should fall victim to… ironmongery. And, anyway, Courfeyrac is right. You have a reasonable head on your shoulders. Often, in my passion to liberate the country, I am in need of reasonable people about me."

Éponine could not help but smile at that. She took in his expression, at once warm and severe. She looked at his eyes, sparkling with a flame she'd never seen inside of anybody else. She studied his innocent-looking blond curls that seemed immune to gravity. He was endearing, in his own, almost overwhelming way. And he was offering her a place to sleep where there was no mother telling her that she didn't need food, that she was already fat. Enjolras was offering her a place to sleep where there was no father wrangling her into his criminal enterprises. Maybe there was actual glass in the window in Enjolras' apartment, Éponine thought. Maybe there weren't bugs in the ragged blankets, like there were on the rotten-straw mattress Éponine shared with Azelma. And, in any case, it was only for one night.

"All right, Monsieur Enjolras," Éponine nodded. "Though, of course, if Monsieur Feuilly objects to my presence, I shall go home at once and risk having more ironmongery thrown at my face."

Enjolras smirked. He turned his eyes to Courfeyrac and Bahorel and jerked his chin toward Éponine. He spoke to the other men as he noted, "We should keep this one around, don't you think?'

Éponine grinned but shook her head. She turned to Marius Pontmercy, wanting to see his reaction to all of this. But his handsome face was still locked on the pages of his book. He licked a finger and turned a page, and Éponine's smile disappeared. She'd been a fool for so long over Marius, she knew. Her stomach curled a little, and she tried to tell herself that he was just the boy from the apartment next door. With a shaking sigh, she turned to Enjolras and shrugged.

"So. The rue Saint-Étienne-des-Grès. Shall we go visit it?"

"Maman?"

"Oh, look who's come staggering in at her earliest convenience…" Her mother had been drinking, Éponine could tell. She'd been drinking heavily. Éponine sighed and looked around the filthy hovel they called home, remembering the way they'd once lived in a real inn.

"I was staying with a friend," Éponine murmured, but her mother spat,

"You were sleeping around, you slut. No shame in it; squeeze a baby out and you'll earn all kinds of pity. All kinds of coins."

Éponine frowned deeply and studied her mother's disheveled appearance. Had she ever been beautiful?

"Well, I'm home now," Éponine said quietly. Her mother whirled too quickly and stumbled, and she said,

"Well, go get some food for supper, then. Make yourself useful."

Éponine threw up an eyebrow. "You have money for that?"
"What, the man you were with didn't pay you?" Madame Thénardier made a very ugly sound and gurgled through her drunkenness, "If you're going to whore yourself, 'Ponine, you've got to be an actual whore, and actual whores… earn money."

"Maman!" Éponine was indignant now, and she stormed into the little room. Azelma wasn't home; Éponine wished she were, just so she'd have another ally. Her mother picked up the heavy crockery mug from which she'd been drinking, and she suddenly hurled it at Éponine. It cracked hard against Éponine's skull before she could do anything about it, and she fell to her knees, clutching her head. She felt the hot damp of blood on her fingers, and when she looked at the pieces of broken mug on the ground, she could see her own blood spattered upon it all.

"I told you to go get some food!" shrieked Éponine's mother. Éponine staggered to her feet and felt dizzy as she blinked through the pain.

"Don't worry, Maman," she said angrily. "I'm leaving."

"Éponine? What's happened?"

"Joly! Get Joly over here; he's got medical training."

"Someone get a damp, clean cloth and some water."

"Sit down, 'Ponine."

It was all a blur as Éponine stumbled to a table in the Café Musain. The boys were all tending to her like mother hens. Joly was examining the cut on her head, stating that he needed a needle and thread at once. Somehow, Feuilly had that in his satchel. Probably from fan-making, Éponine thought distantly. Where was Enjolras?

Combeferre held her hand as Joly stitched up the cut and cleaned it out. Everyone asked her what had happened; she mumbled something about her mother throwing something heavy. Then she felt exceedingly tired and shut her eyes, and she heard Enjolras' voice demand,

"What's going on here?"

"She went home," said the voice of Bahorel. "Her mother was drunk and threw a mug at her head."

"Éponine." Suddenly Enjolras was beside her, and Éponine blinked slowly as she met his eyes.

"I'm fine," she insisted, her voice dragging a bit in the air. "Joly fixed me right up. What a fine surgeon he'll make."

Enjolras frowned. "I need to take you home so you can rest."

"Home," Éponine said softly. She closed her eyes and pondered the way she could hear a Normandy accent in Enjolras' speech. He'd come from a rich family there, everyone said. He'd given up his wealth and comfort for life as a revolutionary. Éponine imagined him on the gray, wind-swept cliffs of Normandy for a moment, and then she felt herself being hauled from the bench.

Feuilly and Enjolras each had an arm, and they helped one another carry her down the stairs of the Musain. They worked together to get her through the streets, and Éponine found herself muttering,

"I need to thank Joly properly."

"Don't worry; he knows you're grateful," Feuilly insisted, and Enjolras said,

"You can thank him the next time you see him."

Back at their flat, Éponine was arranged by the boys on the worn-out divan, blankets tucked around her as a mug of bitter coffee was brought over. She sipped and stared at the fireplace and murmured thank-you after thank-you. Eventually she drifted off to sleep, the mug taken from her hands and set on the ground. She leaned against the edge of the divan, and after a few hours in that uncomfortable position, she blinked her eyes open and looked around the dark room.

He was there, sitting on the chair beside her, watching her rest. Enjolras stifled a yawn and informed her,

"Joly stopped by to check on you. He said to ensure you were breathing; your head took quite a hit."

"I'm sorry, Monsieur," Éponine murmured, but Enjolras just shook his head and instructed her,

"Get some rest, mademoiselle. And do me a favor, will you? Don't go back there anymore."

"Well, that all sounds positively ghastly." Marius Pontmercy flashed Éponine a weak little half smile after Enjolras explained the fight with her mother to him. Enjolras glanced down to Éponine then, and he told Marius confidently,

"She isn't ever going back to Gorbeau House."

"No?" Marius raised his eyebrows, and his smile widened a bit as he told Éponine, "Well, I think that's good. I've heard more clanging and screaming from your parents' apartment in the last few months than I've heard from anybody in my entire life."

Éponine frowned. "Well. I'm sorry to have been such a bother, Monsieur Marius."

"Oh, no. That isn't… that's not what I meant." Marius held up one hand, nearly dropping the stack of books in his arms as he did. Once he'd righted himself, he gave her an awkward, apologetic smile and said, "I only meant that I'm glad you have somewhere safe to go. Forgive my lack of clarity. Enjolras, I shall be at that table in the corner if you need me. Goodnight, 'Ponine."

Then Marius was off, settling into a chair beside a small round table upon which he piled his study materials. Éponine watched him for a moment, until she heard Enjolras say loudly,

"Éponine, you'd best come quickly if you want your free meal. Bahorel's only offering once."

Éponine laughed and walked to the table where some of the students already had wine and platters of mutton, potatoes, and peas. She gestured to the table and protested,

"Well, he hasn't bought me anything of my own, has he?"

"Did you have something in mind?" Bahorel teased, and Éponine pursed her lips and threw up her eyebrows.

"Champagne," she said. "Oysters. Carrots glazed with honey."

The young men all laughed, and Bahorel shrugged. "Not made of money, mademoiselle. Get yourself some lamb and wine, and you're welcome."

Éponine sat and ate, feeling for the first time in her life as though she actually belonged to a group. She flicked her eyes over to where Marius sat. The one called Joly was discussing something with Marius in a rapid-fire, smiling conversation. Grantaire, the one who always had his own bottle of wine clutched in his hand, was leaning against the wall near Marius and Joly, smiling as the others talked. Éponine turned her attention back to her food, scarfing it down quickly. As she swigged the rich red wine, she heard Combeferre say,

"Éponine, if you're so skilled at tracking police, perhaps you ought to walk a perimeter for the meeting on Thursday."

The others nodded, but Éponine lamented, "The police around there know me a bit. I wouldn't be able to stay inconspicuous."

"Well, not if you look how they're always used to seeing you," Enjolras said carefully. Éponine smirked at him and said,

"What, shall I dress as a boy?"

Enjolras' cheeks went a little red, and he shook his head. "I was thinking… more like a different dress."

Éponine scoffed and shrugged. "Well, I haven't got a different dress."

"It's not an altogether bad idea," said the bald-headed but good-natured Lesgle. He reached into his pocket and then reached across the table to set a few coins in front of Éponine. "That might get you a calico dress or two, eh?"

Éponine picked up the coins and frowned as she shook her head. "I couldn't possibly -"

"It isn't charity, Éponine," Enjolras insisted. "Think of it as a uniform. Get a simple dress. A new… erm… petticoat. Put your hair up the way bourgeois women do. Do you really think the police would look at you twice?"

"No, I suppose they wouldn't." Éponine felt her cheeks go hot. She knew the boys meant well, but what they were all saying was that if she dressed properly , she would be unrecognizable to the police. And though Éponine was usually immune to taking such insinuations personally, it did sting a bit. Just the same, she curled her fingers around the coins and looked around the table. "I'll go to a dressmaker's in the morning, then."

"Well?" Éponine resisted the urge to spin as she came walking out of Enjolras' bedroom, for she hadn't been able to reach the top five buttons on the back of her new dress. She did hold her arms out, waiting for Enjolras to react where he stood in the sitting-room.

"Oh." He rose from the settee, where he'd been reading the newspaper, and Éponine watched his throat bob a little. He nodded quickly. "Yes. You look… different from usual."

Éponine had gone straight to a nearby dressmaker's once Feuilly had left for work and the city was about its business. As it turned out, the money Lesgle had given her was enough for plain brown boots, a pair of wool stockings, pantalettes, a heavy petticoat, and a calico dress. Éponine knew very little of hairstyling, so she'd resorted to three braids that looped and crossed over the top of her head in a manner that looked, at the very least, deliberate. Now she stood before Enjolras and noted,

"The sleeves are quite silly, aren't they?"

Enjolras' blue eyes glanced at the full cotton sleeves on the green-and-yellow striped dress, but he admitted, "I know very little of women's dress sleeves, I'm afraid."

"I promise I know even less," Éponine said. She winked at him as she said, "I'd show you the back, but I couldn't button it all up myself. It fits fine, though."

"So it does." Enjolras still seemed a bit confused, as though his mind couldn't quite calibrate what was in front of him. His voice sounded distant as he shoved his hands into his pockets and asked, "It'll do well as a disguise, then, you suppose?"

She brushed her fingers over her braided hair and then over the material of the dress and said in an amused tone, "The police will never suspect I'm a spy for the insidious Friends of the ABC."

Enjolras didn't smile at that. He just nodded and mumbled, "It does look a bit as though the dress… like it was meant for somebody else."

Éponine chuckled at his awkward wording. "Well," she said, "it was made for somebody else. A lady had it made, but she apparently became rather fat before the dress was finished. So the dressmaker was selling it on heavy discount. I managed to make Lesgle's money go quite a long way."

She turned her hips a little from side to side and watched as the skirts moved. This dress was hardly an evening gown, but it had been so long since Éponine had worn anything proper that she'd nearly forgotten what it felt like.

"Éponine."

She raised her eyes at the sound of her name, for Enjolras had sounded a bit unhinged when he'd said it. Éponine stared at him, at the way his chest started to rise and fall more obviously beneath his shirt, the way his lips had parted, the way his blue eyes were sharp and wide. Suddenly Éponine felt heat and ice go through her veins at the same time. She blinked quickly and murmured,

"I'll go get my normal clothes back on, then."

She turned to walk back to Enjolras' room, where her tattered skirts and ripped bodice were waiting on his bed. Just as she swished into his room, Enjolras pulled up behind her and took her forearm in his hand. Éponine whirled around, staring up at Enjolras' handsome face and knowing that he really did find her pretty, that he hadn't been making that bit up when he'd said it. She certainly found him handsome. Now Enjolras kept his face steady, but his voice shook terribly as he said,

"Éponine, I am not a person to cherish societal convention."

She shook her head seriously. "Neither am I. I'm living in an apartment with two men."

Enjolras gnawed his lip and then said, "I do not much care what might be considered uncouth or inappropriate."

"I don't care, either," Éponine agreed. "Society's limitations are arbitrary, given the misery it inflicts on everybody."

"Bearing all that in mind," Enjolras said, taking her face in his warm palms, "If you will allow it, I want to kiss you now."

Éponine was rendered mute by shock for a moment, but then she nodded and whispered, "Yes. All right."

She shut her eyes, mostly due to nerves, as Enjolras lowered his face to hers. She felt a gentle push as his lips touched hers, and suddenly it was like everything inside of her had started on fire. Her own hands flew on instinct to Enjolras' waistcoat, clenching around the fabric and pulling him closer. Enjolras let a soft little groan vibrate against Éponine's lips, and he urged her to step to the side a bit. Suddenly she'd been turned and her back was against the wall, and Éponine's eyes flew open. Enjolras hovered over her, looking a bit tormented as he breathed quickly through his parted lips.

"I did not think…" He took a moment to compose himself and licked his bottom lip before he said, "You teased me because others claimed I had no interest in women."

"Well, that is what they said," Éponine said rather defensively. She pressed her palms against the wall, afraid she'd start touching Enjolras all over otherwise. He squared his jaw and said firmly,

"I have, for some time now, had virtually no interest in women. It's true. That's because most women I've met have been vapid, stupid, politically ignorant, empty-headed -"

"Yes, I get the picture," Éponine interrupted, her eyebrows flying up as she grinned and said, "So you despise women. Go on."

"No. It's just…" Enjolras seemed frustrated. He finally gave up and leaned down to kiss Éponine again, his hands holding her face more firmly this time. She felt his tongue bravely nudge against her lips, and against her better judgment, Éponine let him in. He tasted like the salt he used with a cloth to scrub his teeth in the morning. Éponine had watched him do it, and now she tasted it on him, and she moaned like a whore. Her hands left the wall and crept up Enjolras' front as he deepened the kiss into something that felt dangerously like a prelude to something more. Éponine's fingers tangled in his blond curls, and that made him sigh against her. When his mouth finally left hers, his eyes shut and his lips still close, he murmured,

"I was unaware that a woman like you existed, Éponine. Independent and street smart, interested in my politics and funny of your own accord. Pretty. Kind and ruthless at the same time. I like you. Quite a lot, as it happens."

Éponine gasped a little when his hands left her face and settled on her waist. Even through the dress and her stays, she could feel the warmth of his palms there, and as she glanced around his tiny bedroom, she was suddenly very afraid of what might happen.

"I came in here, Monsieur Enjolras, to take off my spy's uniform and put my normal clothes back on." Éponine said it as though somehow she might convince her body to calm down with such sterile words. It didn't work, of course; she wanted him more than ever as he nodded and stepped back and self-consciously put a fist in front of his trousers. He didn't need to pretend; Éponine had seen more than one man sporting the bulge he was trying now to hide. But she pulled herself from the wall, nodded crisply at him, and willed her voice to be strong and steady as she said, "Won't take me long to get everything sorted out. I'll be out in just a moment. If you'd like to distribute any more leaflets today, I -"

"I was thinking perhaps I might go do a bit of studying," Enjolras said, his voice shaking and his long eyelashes fluttering. His cheekbones were scarlet as he stammered, "I - I thought… I just think perhaps it might… might do me well to go to the library at the university and become a bit more solid in my knowledge of… of King Louis XV. If I mean to preach at people about the excesses of the monarchy, you know."

Éponine smiled weakly at him and nodded. "That sounds like a wise idea."

Enjolras turned and left without another word, leaving Éponine standing alone in his bedroom, wearing a silly dress and feeling more than a little confused.

"In Lyon, the canuts are being met as we speak with the full force of tyranny. Bullets fired by pawns of the king strike through the hearts of our countrymen. And for what? To protect the so-called rights - the profits - of the very few at the expense our brothers and sisters!"

A roar went up in the group that surrounded Enjolras where he stood on a crate in the middle of the Place Dauphine. Marius Pontmercy, Feuilly, Joly, Courfeyrac, and Combeferre were eagerly passing out leaflets and sketches regarding Lyon. Éponine strolled quietly along the west end of the square, flicking her eyes out toward the Pont Neuf. She shivered beneath her shawl, for today was much colder than was to be expected for the season. Still, there were at least fifty people listening to Enjolras speak, and quite a few were happily taking the materials given out by the other students.

As she walked past a shopfront, Éponine saw a middle-aged couple coming toward her on the sidewalk. The man gripped his wife's arm a bit more tightly at the sound of Enjolras shouting about Lyon, and he said gruffly,

"All of these damned republicans should be strung up or shot."

"Or have their heads lopped off?" asked his wife with a knowing little smile. "Or, no… wait. That was the republicans themselves, wasn't it?"

She laughed a little as she and her husband passed Éponine, who watched them go for a moment before turning around and making her way back toward the rue de Harlay. As she passed the gathering, Feuilly looked at her expectantly. Éponine patiently shook her head as she walked, indicating that she had not yet seen any police activity. But once she reached the rue de Harlay, she saw two young police officers walking briskly toward one another. Éponine pulled back, pretending to admire a lingering brown leaf on a twiggy tree as she listened to the policemen talk.

"How many are there?" asked one.

"At least fifty. Probably seventy-five," said the second.

"I can have three men on horseback here in fifteen minutes," the first noted breathlessly, and the second said,

"Right, then. I'll head round and help block them off by the Pont Neuf."

Éponine moved very quickly then. Her heart pounded as she stalked with unladylike speed back to the center of the square. She brought her cold hands to her mouth and whistled, making the bird call that had been agreed upon as the alarm. Enjolras and the others whirled toward the sound of her whistle, and as she got closer, Éponine approached the crate where Enjolras stood. She said in a furtive tone,

"Police on horseback will be on the rue de Harlay in a few minutes. Others are going to block off the Pont Neuf."

"Everybody scatter!" Enjolras called at once. "Friends of the ABC, you know where we will next meet. My sisters and brothers, we will convene again. We will speak again. And we will rise again. Now, go!"

The Place Dauphine suddenly erupted with motion as frightened-looking civilians who had paused to listen made their way toward the galleries along the square. The students went in every direction. Enjolras seized Éponine's hand, and the both of them kept their eyes down as they trotted toward the rue de Harlay. They walked so quickly along the Seine that Éponine was utterly breathless by the time they reached the Pont Saint-Michel, and only then did she manage to beg Enjolras,

"Slow down, please; my legs are much shorter than yours."

He obeyed and released her had, though they both kept walking with a solemn purpose across the river. Enjolras was silent until they neared the university, and then he said down to Éponine,

"You probably saved at least a dozen of us from arrest or censure today. We will be able to hold more meetings now. I am grateful."

"But that's my job, isn't it?" Éponine asked, smiling up at Enjolras. "I'm the lookout. I've been doing it for a long time, just for the wrong cause."

"Watch out!" Enjolras said, suddenly grabbing Éponine's shoulder. In looking up and talking with him, she'd inadvertently stepped out into a street and had nearly been run over by an approaching carriage. Enjolras gave her a scolding sort of look, and Éponine shrugged.

"Never was as good at looking out for my own self, I suppose."

When they got back to the little apartment on the rue Saint-Étienne-des-Grès, Éponine asked, "Where's Feuilly?"

"I imagine he'll be back soon enough," Enjolras said confidently. "His escape route was a bit longer."

Suddenly Éponine felt flush with energy. She grinned up at Enjolras as he pulled off his winter coat. "A lot of people heard you speak," she told him, "and you said some things that would be hard for any reasonable person to argue."

"I'm afraid that very often the unreasonable people are the ones with authority," Enjolras lamented. He silently took Éponine's shawl and hung both on the rack by the door. "We have the power to change that, if we can just reach enough people."

"They listen to you," Éponine said firmly. "The people. They listen to what you say."

Enjolras took a step closer to her and brushed his thumb beneath her nearly-healed eye. "Then they listen to the truth," he murmured, "for that is all I ever say."

"But the truth can exist in boring facts. It can feel irrelevant," Éponine argued up to him. "You make it sound like a story. You make it sound urgent."

"It is urgent," Enjolras said, his blue eyes flashing a little. His hand stayed on Éponine's face, moving to stroke her jaw a little. He nodded and whispered, "I'm very glad you were there today, Éponine."

"As am I," she replied, feeling the twisting and fluttering in her abdomen that had started happening more often when she was near Enjolras. It got worse when he bent toward her, pressing his lips very gently against hers.

Then suddenly he was flying away from her, staggering backward as the apartment door opened and Feuilly came barreling inside. He glanced from Enjolras to the red-cheeked Éponine and back again, and a knowing little look came over his face as he said,

"Well, I think that went as well as could be expected. Thanks to our little spy here."

The rest of the afternoon and evening were surprisingly pleasant. Feuilly and Enjolras made a run to a nearby boulangerie, bringing back baguettes and ham and cheese and a few bottles of wine. The wine flowed quite freely as the trio sat around the table, discussing the meeting and Feuilly's fan-making and even the ghastly situation Éponine had left behind in Gorbeau House.

"I didn't see any future to speak of," Éponine admitted, nibbling on a bit of Emmental cheese. She drank deeply from her wooden cup of wine and added, "I'm not sure there's much of a future for anybody in that wretched place."

"We're all going to make a future together," Enjolras said firmly. His cheeks looked a bit pink, either from the wine or something else, as he swallowed his bite of baguette and said, "We will work together, all of us as one, to establish a minimum standard of living, a minimum sense of decency that guarantees respectable shelter, food, and clothing to everyone in France."

"Why stop at France, brother?" Feuilly demanded, looking glassy-eyed from the wine. "In Poland and other nations, things are just as bad."

"To Feuilly," Enjolras said, raising his nearly-empty wine cup in a mock toast. "The man who would save the entire world."

"To the entire world," Feuilly countered, "which in all her beautiful complexity does need saving."

Éponine laughed and drank, then filled her cup and drank again. By the time the trio were getting themselves ready for sleep, their minds were swimming a bit with wine. Éponine took off her calico dress and was hanging it up in Enjolras' wardrobe when she heard his voice come through the door. She'd left it ajar as she stripped off the dress. She now stood in her chemise and petticoat, and she jolted a bit when she heard Enjolras say,

"Sleep on the bed in there, mademoiselle. You've earned it. I'll rest in the sitting-room."

Éponine rolled her eyes and moved quickly to the doorway. She flung the door open and stared up at Enjolras, who leaned on the doorjamb and looked far more drunk than Éponine had ever seen him. She smirked up at him, putting a hand on her hip, and she said,

"You're much, much bigger than me, Monsieur Enjolras. You wouldn't begin to fit on that settee. Don't worry; I'll be perfectly comfortable."

Enjolras shut his eyes, his curly hair looking truly golden in the dim light of the lamps.

"You deserve the reward of a soft bed," he said matter-of-factly, "after the exemplary service to the revolution you exhibited today."

Éponine put her hand on his chest and glanced beyond him, realizing that Feuilly had already been in his own bedroom for some time now. He was probably already sleeping, Éponine thought. Suddenly an idea, a wicked and sinful and exciting idea, came over her, and she took a fistful of Enjolras' shirt. She pulled him into his bedroom, and he shut the door at once behind him.

"Perhaps there is room on your bed for us both," Éponine suggested in a breathless whisper. Enjolras nodded, his hands running up and down Éponine's arms as he bent to kiss her. He had already stripped down to his linen shirt and cotton knee-length underwear. He seemed to have no compunction or crisis of morality at all as his fingers moved to untie Éponine's petticoat. She squealed against his mouth in surprise, but she stepped willingly out of the garment when it fell to the floor. Enjolras gave her an expectant look, and Éponine murmured,

"Just not… you know. Don't take me, you understand?"

Enjolras' mouth fell open, and he shook his head quickly. "No. I - I wouldn't… I might like to hold you is all."

Éponine smiled and nodded, reaching up and pulling at the ribbons that bound her hair into braids that crisscrossed her head. Enjolras seemed rather deeply affected as she pulled out the braids; his fingers moved through her hair like it was water, and he made a soft little sound of want. Éponine moved toward the bed, trying to look as delicate as she could as she peeled back the thick wool blankets and slithered onto the mattress. She still wore her stockings, drawers, and chemise, but she still shivered as she lay on her side against the wall.

That got much better once Enjolras joined her, pulling himself up behind her and covering them both with the blankets. His left arm threaded around Éponine and his lips gently brushed the back of her shoulder where the neck of the chemise had slipped. Éponine felt a bit dizzy then, overcome with desire in a way she had never been before. She gulped and tried to sound lighthearted as she whispered,

"What on Earth will Feuilly think if he gets up in the middle of the night and sees that the settee is empty?"

"He'll probably realize you're in here with me," Enjolras admitted. He quickly added, "Feuilly's had a girl or two of his own overnight; he wouldn't say a word against it."

Suddenly Éponine found herself frowning deeply. She looked over her shoulder to Enjolras and asked seriously, "Is that all I am, Monsieur Enjolras? A girl to keep your bed warm?"

"No." Enjolras sounded quite confident, despite the way he smelled of wine. "Though I do hope the bed keeps you warm."

Éponine shut her eyes as she rolled over to face him, She burrowed her face against his chest and smelled sweat and wine and leather. She kissed his collarbone and felt the nudge of his cock against her thigh. He didn't do anything about that; he just sighed and whispered again,

"I was very glad you were there today."

"Why do you like me?" Éponine asked suddenly, for she needed to know before she spent the whole night here with him. She looked up at him, at the way his piercing blue eyes cut through the dim of the room and studied her. Éponine continued, "Nobody's ever liked me ."

"Then they were all blind fools," Enjolras whispered. She watched his throat bob as he blinked a few times and said, "I've told you why, Éponine. I find you funny, and good-natured, and pretty, and very intelligent. I like you. Do the details matter?"

"No." Éponine let her hand snake around him then, and she rather brazenly rubbed at his back through his shirt. The firmness against her thigh grew more insistent, and Enjolras sounded entirely flustered as he whispered in a shaking voice,

"I consider myself a man of sound reason, Éponine, but if you don't stop… mmph… "

Éponine felt a bit powerful then. Here was the man who had spent hours earlier confidently espousing republican values to a crowd. Here was the man who mocked the fear of death, who was convinced he would help lead the next violent revolution in France. Here was Enjolras himself, the visionary and rebel, and Éponine had him panting helplessly.

She brought her hand from his back, letting her fingers drag slowly around to his front. She reached between them, pulling at the ties that bound the placket of his underwear shut. Enjolras reached to clutch at Éponine's head, his fingers cinching in her hair as his mouth crushed hers. She tasted wine on him as his tongue plunged between her lips, and she kissed him back even harder. She nibbled his lips and dragged her tongue over the roof of his mouth, and her brave little hand pulled out the hard length in his underwear.

Enjolras bucked his hips forward, yanking his mouth from Éponine's as he groaned quietly. Éponine shushed him, her hand exploring the way he was at once hard as stone and soft as silk. She stroked him with careful, firm pressure, circling her palm up around his tip a few times and feeling a bit of fluid leak onto her hand.

"Éponine, I'm going to… to…"

"To sleep very well tonight. Yes, I think you probably will," Éponine teased. Enjolras didn't answer. His mouth fell open and his eyes rolled back a bit. He made a choked little sound and squirmed, making the ropes beneath the mattress creak. Éponine quickened her hand on him, feeling her own quick breath sync with his as her body screamed for attention. She was panting as hard as he was soon enough, and it was all she could do to keep touching him instead of using her fingers on herself beneath the blankets. She kissed his chest again, feeling the sheen of his sweat against her lips as she did. Then he went tense, and all of a sudden there was something warm and slick pumping from his manhood and covering Éponine's hand.

She panicked a little, wondering how on Earth she was meant to clean her hand up like this. For a moment, she did nothing; she just lay there beside Enjolras, covered in what his body had spilled, and he stared breathlessly at her. Finally he yanked his shirt up and off, and he shoved it beneath the blankets. He used the shirt to scrub at himself, shuddering from the feel of fabric on his newly-sensitive member.

He cleaned off Éponine's hand as best he could, and then he pulled himself from the bed. He tucked himself back into his underwear as he made his way to his washing stand, and Éponine could hear the little slosh of a rag being dipped into water and wrung out. He brought it back, and Éponine held up her hand for him to clean. He looked her straight in the eyes as he did it, but his expression was so serious that Éponine nervously asked,

"Are you angry with me?"

"Not even a little bit," Enjolras said, shaking his head. He took the rag back to the wash stand and then finally settled behind Éponine again. This time, when he cradled her against him, she could feel the warmth of his bare chest on her back.

"Surely that woke poor Feuilly up," Éponine mused, and Enjolras sounded exhausted as he informed her,

"I wouldn't care if it had."

Éponine felt his hand cover hers, and as she stared at the wall and listened to his breath, she thought of Marius. She thought of the nights she'd spent beside Azelma, wishing she'd been next door with the handsome student. She thought of how many times she'd dreamed of being whisked away from her parents, or of at least finding something and someone better than what she had.

Now she was wrapped up by the arms of an insurgent, a schemer and an orator who'd told her she was pretty and intelligent. She liked the way Enjolras spoke. She liked the way his blond curls had whipped in the cold wind today. She liked his blue eyes when the looked right at her. She liked his rare smiles, his carefully chosen and passionate words. And she liked the feel of him now, pulled snugly behind her as if they were two puzzle pieces that had been linked just so. She liked Enjolras far more than she'd ever liked anybody else, and he liked her right back.

"If everything does come to madness, to a fight," Éponine whispered, "I would think it a privilege to die beside you, Monsieur Enjolras."

She got no answer. He was already asleep, likely sedated by what she'd done. Éponine didn't mind. She would tell him some other time.

Éponine moved her spoon around her wooden bowl of pot-au-feu. She poked at a bit of oxtail, no longer hungry after nearly a full serving of the stuff. Years of near-starvation meant she had a low tolerance when it came to quantity of food. And, anyway, she was in something of a terrible mood.

It was nearly Christmas, and so Éponine had made the effort to go back to Gorbeau House. That had been a terrible mistake. Her mother had told her that if she took so much offense to one argument that she would move away, then she should stay away. Her father had apparently tried to rope poor Azelma into his crimes in Éponine's absence, but Azelma was serving a three-month sentence in jail when she'd been too slow running. By the time Éponine left her parents' shabby little apartment, she had never been more certain that she'd been right to move out.

But Enjolras was dour and sullen at the flat he shared with Feuilly. Earlier in the month, the Canut revolt in Lyon had been suppressed with minimal violence, which apparently did very little to help the idea that France was in dire need of a radical political overhaul. Now everyone had gathered at the Café Musain to discuss Lyon, and, as they did, Éponine stared at the carrots in her bowl and listened.

"I still think it is much more preferable for problems to be solved without bloodshed," Marius was saying, and Enjolras scoffed as he replied,

"I would agree, had any problems been solved. But they haven't been, have they?"

"The king himself specifically requested that the troops not execute anyone," Combeferre was saying patiently. "Much as we despise the monarchy, we must admit that when something like this happens, it endears the king to the people."

"We need to start using examples from other lands," Feuilly insisted. "If we stay so inwardly focused on France, events like this will put a stutter in the movement. Why were the Canuts revolting? Economic tyranny. Why, in large part, did the American Revolution occur?"

"Economic tyranny," Marius agreed. Éponine glanced up to where Enjolras stood leaning heavily on the table, looking tired as he nodded.

"We need to hold another meeting soon," he said. "Keep the momentum going. I'll speak with the printer and see how quickly we can get leaflets made."

The conversation mercifully turned from politics then as the friends tried to cheer themselves up. Joly, Bahorel, and Grantaire started quietly singing over a bottle of wine in the corner. Marius and Combeferre began having a conversation about Rousseau's novel Emile . Feuilly said something about needing to work a bit more before he left. Enjolras slipped into a chair beside Éponine, and when he did, she spooned some pot-au-feu into a wooden bowl and put it before him.

"Thank you," he mumbled, shutting his eyes for a moment. Éponine wanted nothing more right now than to rub at his back, to kiss his cheek and tell him that the movement would come alive again. But she knew she couldn't do that here. For the past month, she had slept on the settee and they'd not put a finger upon one another. It felt like that night she'd spent curled up against him had been a dream.

"Éponine," said Courfeyrac gently from across the table. She looked up to see him holding out two mugs of wine. She gratefully took one, and Courfeyrac set the other before Enjolras before he sat down. Courfeyrac frowned and sat exactly what Éponine wished she could.

"Enjolras, this is a mere hiccup. Ill-timed in the year. Do you really think the people do not still want freedom?"

"I think they do," Éponine cut in firmly. She turned her eyes to Enjolras, who blinked a few times at his stew, and she added, "I think the people need to hear now, more than ever, that their government thinks nothing of them. It is so very easy for people to fall into a lull beneath oppression. So easy to start believing you're poor for a reason, or that even the most ludicrous laws exist for a reason."

"Oh, Éponine," Enjolras murmured, a little smile crossing his lips as he finally looked at her, "I ought to have you give a speech."

She laughed then, shaking her head vigorously. "Standing up on a crate in front of a crowd and shouting is my idea of Hell, I'm afraid."

"Do you believe in Hell, Éponine?" asked Courfeyrac. Éponine frowned at the strange question and shook her head.

"I don't know," she said honestly. "Why?"
"Because if there is a Hell, surely there is a Heaven," Courfeyrac reasoned. He looked almost wistful then as he admitted, "I would so very much like to believe in Heaven. It sounds wonderful, whenever anyone talks about it. I should like to think that if there was such a place, for me it would be filled with all the beautiful ladies I've neglected."

Éponine giggled and said to Courfeyrac, "And here I thought you were going off on some religious train of thought."

Courfeyrac smirked. "Who said the angels in my heaven couldn't be all the women I've charmed? Hm? Nobody. I bet you'd be there for me, Éponine, if you didn't outlast me."

Éponine laughed harder than ever. Suddenly Enjolras was looking very seriously from Courfeyrac to Éponine and back, and Courfeyrac's sly grin faded a bit. He cleared his throat quietly, and then he spoke to Éponine as his eyes train on Enjolras.

"Of course, you can probably only be in one Heaven at a time, and you'd be in whatever one contained Enjolras, I'm sure."

Éponine sighed and tried to break the bit of tension between the men. "I'll be in my very own Heaven, with many fine gowns and lots of delicious food, and the best wine that was ever made. And no men at all. None."

Even Enjolras cracked a smile at that, and Courfeyrac laughed heartily. Everyone finished up their food and started to disperse, except for the singing boys in the corner who were getting lost at the bottoms of wine bottles. When Enjolras started to leave, Éponine trotted after him, down the stairs and out into the street where a very cold drizzle had started to fall. She shivered as soon as the cold water started to coat her, yanking her shawl more tightly around her shoulders.

Enjolras peeled off his black winter coat and wordlessly handed it to Éponine. Her footsteps paused as she stared at the coat in surprise. Finally she said,

"I'm too short for it. It'll drag on the cobblestones."

"Hold it up a bit, then," Enjolras recommend. Éponine slipped on the coat and took fistfulls of it, along with her skirts, as she followed Enjolras. By the time they reached the apartment, she could no longer stay quiet.

"I hate to say this, but I think you're overreacting."

Enjolras shut the door to the corridor and scowled at Éponine, brushing water from his wild blond curls as he demanded, "What gives you that idea?"

"Well," Éponine huffed, crossing her arms over her chest, "Combeferre is very convinced that the far left will bring the matter up in the Chamber of Deputies."

"But no one will listen there," Enjolras countered sharply. "Men like Perier will shoot all conversation down; they will…"

He trailed off then, suddenly looking as though he'd realized something. Éponine gave him an encouraging nod and said,

"Don't you think that would make a rather compelling speech?" She held her arms up as though she were painting a picture in the air, and she said in an almost dreamy voice, " The people in Lyon had legitimate concerns that were stamped out under an illusion of peace. When those concerns - ignored by the king - were brought before the Chamber of Deputies, they were swept aside again. And so, my sisters and brothers, I ask you… if the Canuts in Lyon and their real, visceral worries do not matter to the tyrants, what on Earth qualifies the rest of us? "

She smirked at Enjolras then, but he wasn't smiling. His lips were shaking and his eyes were shining, almost as if he were on the verge of tears. His hands clenched into fists at his sides and then released themselves, and Éponine felt oddly concerned.

"Something wrong?" she asked, but Enjolras said nothing. He stepped toward her, peeling his heavy coat from her lean shoulders and walking back to the coat rack to hang it up. Éponine furrowed her brows, confused, and she stammered, "If I've… if I said something stupid, Enjolras, I'm truly -"

"Please let me kiss you," Enjolras said breathlessly. Éponine nodded, and then suddenly Enjolras had his right hand on her cheek and his left at the small of her back. His mouth crashed against hers and he growled like a wild animal. Éponine wasn't sure exactly what to do with her own hands, so she let them snag in his wet blond curls. He tasted like wine, like black pepper and broth and everything warm and savory. His hands were shaking on her, and when he pulled his mouth away, he murmured,

"You've been living here for some time now."

"I can leave if you want," Éponine whispered, but Enjolras shook his head firmly.

"I have… very strong feelings toward you, Éponine," he said. She couldn't breathe then, not with the way his blue eyes cut into her with their sharp gaze. Not with the way he kissed her again, more gently this time, before he mumbled, "I wish with all that I am that you might… that you… I'm not even certain what I'm asking for."

"I have feelings for you, too," Éponine said truthfully, and when Enjolras stood up straight, that seemed to be the answer he didn't know he wanted. His eyes flashed, and his breath came quick and shallow from between his lips. Éponine had a suspicion, all of a sudden, that something rather dishonorable was about to take place.

Then, very suddenly, there was the sound of a door creaking open and closing, and Feuilly's voice said brightly,

"Am I interrupting something?"

Enjolras shut his eyes, and his throat bobbed where he stood. He took a half step back from Éponine and shook his head as he turned to face Feuilly. "No. Of course not. Finished your work?"

"I'll never really be finished," Feuilly said. His eyes went to Éponine, who stood with hot cheeks and a dizzy head. She met his gaze and chewed her lip. Feuilly smiled warmly, putting his hat back on his head as he said, "You know, I had to leave the café earlier with only a half cup of wine in my belly. I think I'd like some more. And Grantaire is probably asleep on the floor; he'll need help getting home. Anyway… I shall be back later. Much letter. Goodnight!"

He left just as quickly as he'd come, and Éponine felt more confused and queasy than ever. Enjolras turned back toward her, dragging the pad of his thumb over his lip as he declared,

"If Feuilly hadn't come in, I'm not entirely certain I would have stayed a gentleman with you."

Éponine smirked. "Oh, you just try and take something from me by force, Monsieur Enjolras. I dare you."

His blue eyes flashed again, and his voice sounded dangerous as he said quietly, "You ought not challenge me to something like that."

"I thought you preferred peaceful means over violence," Éponine breathed, gasping a little when Enjolras stepped close to her again. He lowered his lips to hers, his breath warm as he whispered,

"I prefer you , Éponine. I won't take anything that you won't give me."

Éponine felt a surge of power then, the way she'd felt when she'd touched him in his bed the month before. She pulled Enjolras' hands around her back, and on instinct he started to unbutton the bodice of the simple brown calico dress the boys had made Éponine buy. Another 'costume,' they'd said, to erase the idea of the street girl when Éponine was serving as a lookout. Today, she'd worn it simply because of the cold.

It was a clumsy endeavor, but somehow between the two of them, Éponine and Enjolras got the brown cotton dress up and over Éponine's head. She snatched it from his hands and walked matter-of-factly into his room, hanging it up inside his wardrobe. She moved as quickly as she could then to untie her corded petticoat, which was stuffed into the wardrobe with the low boots and stockings that she kicked off. Then Éponine untied her cheaply-made corset and wriggled out of it, yanking it up and off. Then came her chemise and her drawers, and before she really knew what she'd done, she was naked.

Éponine stood facing the wardrobe for a moment, feeling abruptly like a whore. She could hear Enjolras' breath just behind her and knew he must be ogling her nude backside. Éponine closed her eyes and murmured to him,

"I want it, but I don't even know what it is. Not really. I've seen men shoving women up against walls. I've heard beds creaking. But I don't… I don't know…." She turned around to face him, one arm hiding her breasts and the other her sex. Enjolras was still fully clothed, which made Éponine feel profoundly silly until his voice crackled in the dim room.

"I do not think it would do either of us much good if you suddenly found yourself… with child."

Éponine's mouth fell open, and she nodded. She glanced back toward the clothes that hadn't made it into the wardrobe, and she mumbled, "I'll just put something on to sleep, then."

"Éponine." Enjolras stepped toward her and shook his head. His hand was trembling and tentative as he touched her neck, and Éponine shivered. She tipped her head back a little and let her hands fall as his fingers danced over her collarbone and gently caressed her shoulder. When he touched her breast, cupping the soft weight in his hand, Éponine moaned a little. Enjolras was kissing her then, and she was breathless and dizzy by the time he pulled away and said,

"Lie beside me like you did before. This time, I'll touch you."

All Éponine could do was nod. She was aware, distantly, of how Enjolras sat on the bed's edge to yank off his boots, the way he stripped down to his shirt and his underwear. But it all felt like a dream after that. He was guiding her beneath the blankets, cradling her against him, reaching around her body and putting his hand between her legs. His lips touched her neck and her shoulder blade as he whispered her name over and over. His fingers pulsed, gently at first and then more urgently as Éponine became more wet. She squirmed and moaned, grinding her backside against the erection she could feel he had. He was gasping too now, and two of his fingers bravely dipped a little inside Éponine's inexperienced entrance.

The circles he was drawing on her, and the way he was kissing her skin, started to feel like too much. Éponine was drowning and flying all at once. A few times, she'd tried to touch herself, but sharing a bed with her sister and being in the same room as her parents had always made it impossible to do anything real. This was real. This was Éponine hurtling toward an edge she'd never known existed. She started to roll her hips against Enjolras' hand. When she heard him groan and felt a sudden damp heat at the small of her back, she knew he'd been driven to his own madness by this. And that pushed her right over that phantom edge.

She was falling and leaping, screaming and gasping. This had never happened to her before, but she did not suppose she had ever experienced anything as blissful. Éponine's body was clamping around Enjolras' fingers, as if she were drawing him in over and over again. His name danced on her lips like a plea and a prayer. Then it was over, and she was dizzy and exhausted and exhilarated all at once.

She lay panting as Enjolras climbed carefully out of the bed and made his way to the wash stand. He silently poured some water over his hands and then untied his underwear as he faced away from Éponine. He seemed to be dabbing a sponge or rag at the place where he'd spilled himself, and Éponine felt her teeth dig into her lip at the thought of that.

"Should I put something on and go sleep on the settee?" Éponine asked, and she watched Enjolras' blond curls move as he shook his head no.

"I wish you would not," he said carefully, lacing his underwear back up and coming back to the bed. Éponine rolled to face him, letting him put his leg over her hips and kiss her forehead.

"All of this just because I pretended to give a speech?" Éponine asked rather incredulously. She could hear and feel the way his throat bobbed then as Enjolras admitted,

"A great many things. Not just the speech in the entryway. I told the truth, as I always try to do. I feel… quite a bit more fondly toward you, Éponine, than I can ever recall feeling toward anybody."

Éponine grinned, knowing that was the closest anyone on Earth would get to hearing sweet nothings from the formidable Enjolras. She didn't answer him - not with words, anyway. Instead she kissed his chest and his lips, and she pulled the blankets more tightly around them as they fell asleep.