It wasn't the first time Éponine had visited the old man Mabeuf's garden, but it would be the last.
It was the first time she made herself evident. The old man, bless him, was half blind and had always been rather oblivious. She'd watch from the gate as he struggled with his pail of water, painstakingly giving each shoot and flower the attention of a child. She would watch with her tongue in the gaps of her teeth, with bated breath, every moment watching him spent in worry that he would topple over.
He was quiet, and his house was safely tucked away… safety. Something she couldn't remember having. But that was alright; it was just the way it was.
That night was different.
She entered the garden and, wordlessly, had taken the bucket from him and began to water in his place. Her thing arms wobbled and the sallow skin of her cheeks paled in protest, but she did it. She was more able-bodied than he was, even being so hungry.
She didn't want to be remembered. Not by her father, or Montparnasse, or even Zelma. She'd wanted to be remembered before; she'd wanted to be recognized. But things had changed. Things had changed so quickly over the past year.
She knew where she was going—where she would fling herself tomorrow, or maybe the next day, or maybe the day after that. Either up or down. Heaven of Hell. But Éponine didn't really believe in Hell, did she?
She knelt, taking in a breath in front of a plot of some sort of flower she didn't recognize. They looked thirsty. She reached out and touched one.
"You can have that if you want," the old man said, coming out of his awestruck gaze.
Éponine felt a smile twitch onto her mouth and she stood up, turning to look at him. "I'm already taking someone with me."
She left without asking for money or even a thank-you. She didn't even bring a flower. She'd done it because it was her last chance to help anyone. To be remembered not by name, but by action; this old man would never know she had died. He didn't need to.
But he was the sort of person she wanted to die being.
He would never know that she and Marius had died together.
Is that what he would have done? Would he have let the only light in his life go to Death? No. He wouldn't even let her go to death, and he did not know her name.
He was the sort of person she wanted to die being.
