She starts to notice how her hands shake as she layers nail polish on her fingernails. She sticks her tongue out of her mouth as she concentrates on covering only the nail in dark blue. Combeferre brushes past her, trailing a hand over her shoulders, and her shaking fingers stumble and the dark blue stains her skin. She curses under her breath as she wipes away the mark, and Combeferre laughs, pressing a kiss to her lips. She smiles into the kiss, laughing at herself, forgetting how her hands are shaking.
She storms into the apartment, startling Enjolras. Muttering under her breath, she stomps toward the liquor cabinet, wrenching it open, and rifling through its contents. He can hear the bottles clink together as she searches for whatever it is she's looking for. When she evidently finds what she's looking for, she comes over to him, and falls into his lap clutching an almost empty bottle. She takes a swig, almost draining the entire thing, and buries her head in his neck. She murmurs something about almost being out of gin, and he chuckles as his hand comes up to stroke her hair.
She ends up finishing the bottle and telling him about the asshole customer who had asked her out, and then told her that she was going to hell when she told him she had two boyfriends who would kick his ass. She tells him about how she dropped a mug of hot coffee and burned her hand. He reaches for the offended appendage, and places a kiss on the bright red mark on the top. He notices how shaky her hands are while he holds them, and how she tenses, trying to get them to stop. He makes a mental note to have Combeferre determine whether or not they should get an expert opinion.
It turns out, she has Parkinson's, and there really isn't anything to be done. They have options, of course, but she doesn't want anyone screwing around with her brain, so she opts for taking various medications to keep the symptoms under control. They are worried, because she's been smiling ever since they got the news. She smiles every time she gets asked if she's okay. She smiles as Cosette and Musichetta envelope her in a hug. She smiles at R when he drunkenly tells her he's going to stop drinking for her. She laughs and her face almost splits in half when Joly presses a dozen pamphlets into her hands, babbling about things her doctor probably already told her. She's still smiling when they get home, and she doesn't fucking stop for the next three months. She stops being Eponine, the girl they fell in love with, and became this distant, happy stranger.
She slumps into the apartment on day, and the smile is still on her face, but they can both tell it's been one of the bad days, but she's still smiling, because she thinks she needs to be strong all the time for them, and she doesn't, so Enjolras tells her that, yelling at her until his voice cracks, and her smile falters for a second before falling back into place. Enjolras is really angry now, and he screams at her. "You don't have to be brave all the fucking time, Eponine. Combeferre and I don't need you to be happy all the time. We need you to be Eponine. You don't always have to fucking smile. You can fucking frown every now and then."
Eponine looks positively murderous as she steps forward. Combeferre is pretty sure she's about to hit Enjolras, so he grabs her and pulls her to him, holding her close. She tenses, shocked for a second, and then relaxes into his chest, and he can feel his shirt getting wet as she releases four months of worry, of sadness. They stay like that for a long time, until her sobs turn into hiccups, and Combeferre leads her to bed, and he and Enjolras lie down on either side of her, even though she hates being in the middle, but tonight they both want to be close to her.
She still smiles a little too much when they go out in public, but she knows she doesn't have to put on a brave face around them. She is able to freak out and be sad with them, and sometimes that's just what she needs. On one memorable occasion, Enjolras gives a speech with a black eye because Combeferre wasn't home, and he stuck his foot in his mouth on a particularly bad day.
A year passes since she was diagnosed, and they're still happy, and she's still fighting. She smiles on her birthday this year, and she blows out the 26 candles with ease, and they're all genuinely happy, and that night, they almost forget that she's sick, and when they wake up the next morning to Eponine shaking, it's a harsh call back to reality.
When she dies, it's not from the disease. She was crossing the street when a car ran a red light and hit her. Enjolras and Combeferre didn't really know how to cope. They had been preparing for this since they got the diagnosis, but they had always thought that they would know when she was going to die. They thought there would be hospitals and last words, whispered I love yous, and a chance for closure. Instead, there is blood and a mangled body that doesn't quite look like her on a table in the basement of the hospital. Enjolras punches the wall and has to get an X-ray and a cast while Combeferre stares at her (not her, don't think about it as her, pretend this is just another patient) and puts everything in order with the coroner. He doesn't cry until later that night, when he's in the shower, and her shampoo is there, and everything smells like her, but she's not there, because she's dead. He and Enjolras lie on the far sides of the mattress, because without Eponine there, they don't feel like being pressed up together tonight.
Somehow, they get through the funeral. Not much needs to be done, since Eponine made all of her plans when they found out about the Parkinson's. She's cremated, and they plant a small tree where her ashes are buried, and Jehan leaves flowers in front of it, and Grantaire is trying and failing to hide his flask, and everyone is crying, except Enjolras and Combeferre. They've done their crying, and they sure as hell aren't going to break down in front of their friends. When they get home later, they sleep so close together there is no room between them at all. They wake up tangled even more closely together, and Enjolras pushes his hair out of Combeferre's face, and whispers how much he misses her. Combeferre swallows past the lump that has suddenly appeared in his throat and nods. He presses his lips to Enjolras' and then leans his head against the other man's chest as Enjolras rubs circles into his back as they both cry, even though they didn't think they could.
They somehow make it through the rest of the year. Some days are better than others, and every once in a while, one of them will hear her laugh, or smell her shampoo, and they'll turn around, expecting her to be there, and all they see is an empty space. Combeferre begins crying one day when he finds a note from her stuck to a notebook in his desk, a relic from their first days together. His eyes trace the loopy cursive, and he ends up curled up in bed, wearing one of the many shirts she had commandeered from him. When Enjolras comes home and finds him there, he pulls his boyfriend onto his lap, and holds him while he cries. Combeferre feels some tears dripping into his hair, and they cry themselves to sleep that night. The next morning, Combeferre's eyes feel swollen and dry, but he's sure that things are getting a little bit better.
Author's note: I'm really sorry guys. I didn't mean for it to be this angsty. It just kind of happened. I'll write fluff again soon, I promise (as we can tell, if I promise something, I make good on that promise). I'm really sorry. The title is once again stolen from a Panic! at the Disco song.