A/N: Hello everyone! This is my first foray into publishing Les Mis fanfiction, and I'm pretty excited about it. I found this prompt floating around Pinterest awhile back and immediately thought of Enjonine. Because we all know that Enjolras would not stand for being told what to do with his life. Thus, this little plot bunny was born...
And of course, I don't own Les Misérables. Any version of it. If I did, nobody would die and everyone would have a significantly non-miserable ending.
Feedback would absolutely make my day. Hope you all enjoy this little oneshot! xx
/ we'll find it on our own time /
"If a clock could count down to the moment you meet your soul mate, would you want to know?"
He'd always hated the infernal devices.
They were the sign of the oppressive government he was plotting against, although his friends were always quick to tell him to "kindly shut up" whenever he took to ranting about them.
It was all the fault of the whole "soul mate" business.
He personally didn't see why everyone got so freaked out over love. Couldn't they see that the wristwatches they were forced to wear from birth onward were nothing but shams, coined by some idiot in power who wanted to watch the world burn?
He couldn't take his off; he'd tried that many times as a child, only to receive a sharp scolding from his mother. ("How do you expect to find love without it?" "On my own, Mom!")
But he could cover it up.
And so he did. Ever since he was about fifteen, the sleeves of his crimson jacket had covered the luminescent numbers on the inside of his right wrist, and he intended to keep it that way. The government wouldn't win over his life.
Of course, he still remembered the last numbers he saw: 3 years, 4 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 16 hours, 28 minutes, 5 seconds. They were permanently etched in his mind.
He tried to forget those too, forget he even had the stupid thing, but to no avail.
How could he forget when he always felt the slight weight pressing on his wrist, always heard his friends jabbering about how much/little time they had left?
Marius Pontmercy was the worst of them all. He was filled with such romantic hopes and dreams about his soul mate that they just overflowed out from him… Every. Single. Day.
It was enough to make Enjolras want to strangle him, really. But he had to settle with the occasional sharp, "No one cares about your lonely soul, Pontmercy."
Not all of his friends were anticipating their Meetings, though; a couple of them, like his best friend Combeferre, had lost their wristwatches years ago, when meeting childhood friends who would later become excellent and loving wives.
He almost envied them, really.
Not for the love, but for the freedom.
When they reached high school, the others began dropping like flies. They all remained the best of friends, of course, but there was a difference in the atmosphere and they all knew it.
Enjolras suddenly found himself left out, having not the knowledge of love, and decided he didn't like the sensation one bit. But what could he do about it, except pretend he didn't care?
It was the bitterest sort of irony, really, that the one who rebelled against the system so forcefully couldn't find a way out of it as everyone else he knew had.
When she was little, she and her younger sister would sit by the fireplace at the inn and hold their wrists up to the light, trying hard to calculate when their Meetings would be.
"I'm gonna be in high school when I meet him!" she'd sigh, her mind filled with lovely dreams of a cute, athletic dark-haired boy, perhaps stopping by her locker or sitting at her lunch table.
"I'll be… um…" Her sister would squint in the dim light. "I can't read it, 'Ponine."
"You'll be twenty," the shrewd big sister would reply. She had a quick mind for numbers, often being the one who had to care for her family's finances, even at such a tender age. "College. Probably. Unless you're visiting home or something. But me? I know I'll meet mine at high school." She would stare into the fire with a rare wistfulness in her normally stormy amber eyes. "And it's gonna be perfect."
She'd adored her wristwatch then. How could she not, when every second ticked away was one second closer to meeting her love, to stepping into her bright and beautiful future?
Oh, how wrong she'd been.
A decade later and she was a good deal wiser and sadder; her future wasn't quite as bright as it had once seemed, thanks to her no-good parents.
By the time she turned eighteen, she honest to goodness couldn't care less about her wristwatch, except for the fact that her Meeting might be the ticket to her escape.
Her Meeting was her only hope at having a better life— and not just for her, but for her brother and sister too.
For the past few years, all her energies were focused on somehow busting her parents and gaining custody of her siblings so that she could give them a better life, a brighter future than hers would be at this rate.
The excitement she'd once felt upon looking at those numbers on her wrist morphed into desperation over the years. Please, hurry up, I have to get out of here, I have to take care of Gav and Zelma…
By this point?
It didn't even matter who he was, what he looked like, what his personality was like.
Because by the time she was eighteen, Eponine Thenardier (and her siblings, for that matter) only wanted one thing:
To be free.
Their wristbands don't beep and fall off upon their first meeting.
They're not even close to finishing the countdown.
She's busy pining after none other than Marius, wondering why on earth her wristwatch didn't reach the end as soon as she laid eyes on him sophomore year since sweet mercy is he attractive. In her mind, he is everything she has ever wanted in a soul mate and so much more— but his wristwatch speeds up to zero as soon as he lays eyes on the lovely and pure Cosette Fauchelevent.
Eponine knows, deep down, that she never had a chance, but the slight still stings.
He, meanwhile, is busy with his studies; he intends to be a lawyer one day, and defend the defenseless, all the while ignoring "that stupid wristwatch". He will be satisfied with his life if all he does is make his voice heard to those pretentious monarchs who came up with this mad system.
Or at least, that's what he tells himself and everyone else, even if yeah, okay, deep down Enjolras actually would rather like to care for somebody.
So when they meet, they don't suspect a thing.
They get off to a rather rocky beginning; they're assigned as partners in their senior government class, and two stubborn, independent, sarcastic people working on projects together on a day-to-day basis is a very, very bad idea.
But somehow, as the days and months slip by, they manage to become friends.
Between lectures, he whispers to her about liberty and equality, and how the wristwatches rob people of their right to choose their own path in life, and various flaws in the system. "Who made them to begin with— and what if those who assign them to us all make a mistake? What then?" She has to agree; she's had many of the same thoughts before, though she didn't dare to voice them aloud.
As they sit in the school library studying during lunch (for he doesn't get hungry during the day, and she's so used to going hungry she doesn't care at this point), she eventually shares her own opinion of the wristwatches, how hers is her only means of escape from her life. 0 years, 5 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, 16 hours, 7 seconds. Upon hearing of her siblings' plight, he makes a private resolution to aid them in any way he can.
His reasoning for this?
Eponine needs to know that she doesn't need her prince to whisk her away on a white horse.
She can fight for freedom on her own, thank you. With a little bit of legal help from an aspiring lawyer with connections, that is.
(And maybe, just maybe, she can break the system too.)
The wind howls, and multicolored leaves are scattered everywhere, but they pay the November chill no mind; they're too ecstatic to care. She's spinning around in her ratty trench coat, laughing and singing in her off-key way. He's never seen her this happy before. "I can't believe this!" she laughs, skipping ahead and jumping onto the stone wall beside the park like she hasn't done in years. "We're actually having the trial!" She clasps her hands eagerly, beaming down at him from up on the wall. Her metallic wristwatch gleams in the evening sunlight, but she ignores it. "Mom and Dad are furious, but that's because they know we'll win. Because we will win, with Mr. Fauchelevent as our lawyer and all the evidence against them. And to think— my Meeting's still a couple of months away!"
"I told you, you didn't need your 'soul mate' to have a better life." He stands at the base of the wall with his hands in his pockets and a grin of triumph on his face as he looks up at her.
She nods eagerly and plops herself down right on the wall, swinging her combat boot-clad feet back and forth. "I didn't believe you at first, y'know. Got all fired up when you made fun of me about Marius."
"Do you still care for him?"
She shrugs, looking a bit like a lost little girl. "Maybe. I don't know. With all this planning for the trial I haven't thought of him much."
He nods briskly. "Good. You're becoming more independent, Eponine."
A laugh escapes her as she slides down, ignoring his offered hand. "I've always been independent, Enjolras. It just took me about eighteen years to realize it."
They walk to the elementary school, where her little brother waits for her at the after-school program. Knowing that once they pick up Gavroche, they won't have a moment's peace, she brings up the question that's been eating away at her curiosity for months now: "Hey, what's your Watch counted down to?"
He shakes his golden head firmly. "I don't know; I haven't looked at it in several years. What— no, Eponine." He yanks his arm out of reach before she can mess with his jacket sleeve. "I'm rebelling against the system; I don't care when my Meeting is! I'll probably never have one."
She scowls, disappointed, and folds her arms. "Fine. You're so dang stubborn!" And she opens her mouth to say something else, but it's at that moment that Gavroche comes running out of the school building to hug his sister and give Enjolras a hearty fist bump.
As the three of them head over to meet Eponine's sister Azelma at the nearby café where they always end up eating (it's cheap and delicious, which suits the Thenardiers perfectly), Gavroche runs ahead, and Eponine takes the opportunity to elbow Enjolras in the side and whisper, "You're too good of a guy to not have a Meeting one day. Trust me."
And when he arrives home that night, tired but content, and goes to take a shower, he suddenly notices that the pressure on his wrist is strangely absent.
As the water pours over him, he can do nothing but stare at his arm in shock.
It's gone. His wristwatch is gone.
And that can only mean one thing…
He doesn't tell her.
He doesn't tell anyone, of course, but especially not her.
Because he knows that she still hasn't met her soul mate, and there's no way it'll be him, and he'll just have to deal with it.
So he schools his face into an expression of indifference, and becomes the cold marble statue his friends have always joked he is.
It's easier that way, really. Easier to take a step back and pretend that he doesn't have a soul mate who will never love him back.
His friends tell him that love is amazing and beautiful and worth the wait, and that he'll know what they mean one day.
Oh, he does know now. But he wishes he didn't.
He never knew that freedom from that blasted wristwatch would hurt so much.
As the date of the trial comes closer and closer, he buries himself in his studies, college preparations, and in aiding the Thenardier siblings however he can.
He skillfully avoids spending alone time with Eponine.
But she, and all his friends for that matter, has noticed the dark circles under his eyes, the wan expression on his face, and the sagging of his normally firm, confident shoulders. They're all worried.
Something's wrong, he just refuses help.
He's Enjolras, after all. He can handle himself, and he will go down fighting against what is both the best and the worst thing he's ever experienced in his entire life.
It takes a lot longer for her wristwatch to count down.
At first, she's beyond irritated when she realizes it's set to reach zero on the day of the trial.
January 10th.
"It just had to be this week!" she mutters in exasperation, throwing her hands up in the air as she paces about the Thenardier siblings' tiny apartment in a flurry of unexpected nerves.
Azelma smiles up at her from their beat-up kitchen table. "Aren't you excited, 'Ponine? I mean, you've wanted this since you were little."
"Yeah, but now? When I'm trying to gain custody of you two?" She groans. "Azelma, I don't have time to worry about soul mates! It would be my luck, too, to have my Meeting at literally the most inconvenient time of my life, when I'm finally going to be completely independent… I can see why Enjolras hates this darned thing!"
Azelma bites her lip and doesn't say anything, but thinks, There's something more to it than that. I think that, deep down, you're scared.
But she knows better to say it and risk her sister's ire— Eponine's never been in good humor when stressed— so she merely sips her tea and artfully changes the subject.
0 years, 0 months, 0 weeks, 0 days, 12 hours, 35 minutes, 24 seconds.
23, 22, 21…
She's wide awake at 12:30 a.m. the morning of the trial. (And her Meeting.)
I'm spending all day in a courtroom. So I guess that's where I'm gonna meet him? She groans and buries her head in her pillow. Joy. My soul mate and my parents in the same room. This oughta be great.
0 years, 0 months, 0 weeks, 0 days, 6 hours, 12 minutes, 4 seconds.
She and her siblings put on their best suits and dresses, purchased specifically for this occasion (because okay, maybe Cosette isn't that bad— she's too sweet and generous for Eponine to hold a grudge for the whole Marius thing). Eponine wrestles Gavroche's hair into submission, while Azelma stands behind her and skillfully pins hers up in an elegant chestnut chignon. Afterwards, they stand in a small circle, and Eponine leads them in a quick prayer before they have to leave. "Please, God… please let us win today. We need You."
0 years, 0 months, 0 weeks, 0 days, 5 hours, 23 minutes, 56 seconds.
They're all there waiting for them— Mr. Fauchelevent, Cosette, all of Les Amis (who have become their surrogate family over the years)…
And Enjolras.
He looks particularly dashing in a suit and crimson tie, she can't help but think— but the overwhelming bustle of excitement and proceedings chases away all her private thoughts, and when they are permitted to enter the courtroom, she is all business.
0 years, 0 months, 0 weeks, 0 days, 0 hours, 2 minutes, 3 seconds.
2, 1, 0, 1:59…
She doesn't notice that another minute has slipped by, and she's this close to her Meeting.
She stands before the judge, with Gavroche and Azelma on either side of her, holding their hands in solidarity and waiting with bated breath for the verdict.
"Eponine Camille Thenardier… I hereby grant you custody of your siblings, Azelma Renee and Victor Gavroche. You are now their legal guardian, and I expect that you will take this position seriously, and…"
But his words are drowned out by Les Amis's cheers, and the Thenardier siblings are hugging each other and joyful tears are falling from the eyes of the three kids who have always been too tough to let others see them cry, and their parents scowl and mutter curses but nobody pays them any mind because they're about to be imprisoned for life, and Eponine's clock continues to count down, unnoticed by her.
0 years, 0 months, 0 weeks, 0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes, 5 seconds.
Amidst the celebratory chaos, she glances up at Enjolras in the crowd.
4, 3, 2, 1…
He smiles at her, blue eyes shining.
She grins back and mouths a "thank you!".
For that moment, they're all the other sees.
A tinny beep.
Her wristwatch falls to the floor, and her eyes widen as she whips her head up to stare at Enjolras in a shock of illumination.
She decides, what's the point of hiding? He'll see it eventually. She holds up her arm, lets him see her bare wrist, and shrugs with a little blush coloring her cheeks.
He suddenly breaks into a joyful grin, and rolls up the sleeve of his suit jacket and shows her that his own wristwatch has disappeared as well.
When they eventually get a chance to meet up after a few more legal housekeeping procedures and the celebration that ensues afterward at the café, they laugh, because of course their Meeting would be so unconventional.
"But," Eponine reflects with a grin as they sit in their favorite booth together, enjoying a moment of peace, "I guess that's how love's supposed to work after all. Gradually, as people get to know each other. We did it right, I think."
And they laugh some more, because Enjolras remarks that it looks like they've broken the system after all.