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New World for the Winning

ESTIMATED LENGTH: 20 — 30 chapters

Chapter Two

…

After he said this, she stared at him. He had such a strange way of talking in this world, which she'd come to confusedly accept he was somehow a part of. His sentences were formed so casually and he used several terms and words she didn't know. Éponine shut her eyes tightly as the pain of her headache suddenly pulsated, as though her head was about to split in two. She gasped in pain softly as her hands, which had been holding the empty paper cup, suddenly went to her temples.

Somehow through the waves of sharp pain in her head, Enjolras' concerned voice found its way to her. "You all right, love?"

Éponine nodded weakly. "Yes," she lied. "I'm just a bit tired, you see. And my head aches quite terribly." A fresh wave of sharper pain caused her to emit a soft gasp. She winced and opened her eyes, looking up at him. "You must forgive my forwardness, sir, but … might you have a place where I can rest a bit? I don't need a bed, per se, this sofa will do nicely if you don't mind awfully much."

Enjolras started, then gave an abrupt nod and stood up. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, go on ahead." He pointed towards the small corridor leading away from what she had gathered to be a parlour and kitchen combined into one room. "Take the second door on the left; it's my old flatmate Stephen's room but he's moved out." Éponine glanced the way he was pointing, then thanked him and headed down the corridor. She took the second door to her left, as Enjolras had instructed. She opened the door slowly, peering inside before opening the door fully and entering the room.

What greeted her was what was clearly a bedroom. Éponine was glad to be met with something she was familiar with for once. The furniture was unusual but perfectly recognisable. Mind you, it had been a very long time since she'd had a bedroom; ever since moving to Paris she'd shared a rough canvas mattress with Azelma in a corner of their tiny, grimy one-room apartment. This room had a neatly made bed, but the bed frame seemed to be made of metal and the blankets weren't made of cotton or wool or even pelt. There was an unused desk with a chair on wheels, and against the far wall a small dresser free of clutter.

Éponine shed her muddy brown coat and draped it over the chair-back, kicked off her boots, then tugged away the blankets and crawled into the bed. She was met with instantaneous satisfaction. The bed was soft and comfortable, and the pillow she rested her head on was comfortable too, though it seemed to be stuffed with something other than feathers. A small sigh escaped her as she closed her eyes and tugged the blankets closer to her, not even caring how dirty she was and that she would be sure to soil these clean blankets. She simply shut her eyes and mind to the new world she found herself in and not a minute later, she'd fallen asleep.

…

Enjolras, meanwhile, was not quite as relaxed. Kicking aside the books and other miscellaneous items that were scattered across the floor, he took to pacing and raking his hands through his blond curls. At the moment he seemed capable of producing only one thought — or more accurately, one curse — which bounced around in his head, repeated itself on a loop in his mind: bloody hell, bloody hell, bloody hell, like a mantra. This was simply beyond him.

The day had barely begun, but the 21-year-old law student felt as though he'd been up all night: he was beyond exhausted. Which was ironic, really, because last night had been the first in a while that he'd allowed himself a proper rest. Enjolras dropped heavily onto the sofa, buried his face in his palms, and groaned loudly into them. Bloody hell.

He remembered what Éponine had said about being familiar with Marius and Grantaire. He considered giving them a ring, but decided he should talk to Éponine a little bit longer first, once she woke up. She could be drunk, or similarly, suffering the after-effects of a hangover. She could have hit her head. Or, he thought grimly, she could simply be mad. Whatever the reason, he wanted to let her rest and talk to her some more. See if he could extract the smallest kernel of sense out of this bizarre situation.

To pass the time and to clear his poor head, Enjolras tried to tidy up the rubbish heap that his flat had developed into. Shelve the stray books. Stack the papers and stuff them into one corner. Gather up articles of clothing and deposit them into the laundry hamper, though some of those items might have still been clean for all he knew. Round up dirty dishes and cups, stuff them into the dishwasher. In the state his flat was in, this took Enjolras all of an hour and a half.

By the time he was finally done, he checked in on Éponine, but the girl was still asleep. Only half-realising how invasive his behaviour was, he stood in the doorway for a little and watched her sleep. She slept in an awkward position that couldn't have been very comfortable, curled up into a tight ball on the very edge of the bed. Occasionally, her body would jerk out of its foetal position and her feet kicked furiously into the tangle of blankets; all the while Éponine made small whimpering noises, like a wounded animal. Then she would curl back into foetal position and resume slumber. He must have watched her for two or three minutes before he snapped back to reality and backed out of the room.

Here he wandered back to the sofa and again collapsed onto it, his limbs suddenly weighed down by the matter at hand, and by just how perplexing it all was. Enjolras sighed miserably. There was little left to do at the moment other than sit about and wait for Éponine to wake up. He could have read passages from one of his law textbooks, but at that moment his classes were at the very back of Enjolras' mind, all but forgotten. So he simply waited.

He sat.

He paced.

He tried to watch some telly and couldn't focus.

He paced some more.

It was then, over another hour and a half later, that Éponine emerged, now having shed her overcoat, from Stephen's old bedroom, blinking the sleep from her eyes and rubbing her hands over her face. She still seemed a bit disoriented, and Enjolras looked up and crossed the room to put a hand on her shoulder. She stiffened under his touch but looked up slowly to face him. Sloe brown eyes met piercing blue. Then Éponine shrugged him off and wandered over to the sofa, leaned against it and offered the young man a wavering smile that didn't meet her eyes. Enjolras crossed his arms over his chest and hovered near the bookshelf on the other side of the room. It was then that he noticed the blood.

Under her heavy, muddy brown overcoat, Éponine had been wearing an old-fashioned chemise with a collar, which, like everything else she wore, absolutely dwarfed her. But just above her hip was a large red bloodstain half gone dry to a crusty reddish-brown. In other places, it clung to her skin, sticky and scarlet. He stared, wide-eyed, at the blood before stammering out ever so eloquently, "Oh, my God, you're bleeding. T-that's blood."

Éponine looked down and gingerly touched at the bloodstain, pulling a face. "Yes," she said, nodding. "Yes, I know. But besides a little aching, you oughtn't fuss; I'm really perfectly all right. There's just a small scar under all that blood — that's the other thing, you see, that's so very strange, Enjolras. Another thing I can't puzzle out at all. Before I woke here, I was shot, and I was dying. And then, when I did wake, the wound that ought to have killed me hurt quite a bit, but the only trauma there was some scarring, like an old injury long since healed. And yet … my shirt is still soaked in blood. It's all very odd, isn't it?"

Enjolras could only bring himself to stare at her. "You were shot? By who? I mean … we ought to call the police, or … oh, Jesus … "

She seemed impatient with him. "I told you, sir, that I was shot at the barricades. Heavens, you really don't know, do you?" She shook her head. "A soldier shot me. A soldier sent there, by the police." Suddenly Éponine seemed overtaken with a look of despair. "Oh, Enjolras, I don't at all know what is happening or where I am or why you are part of this strange world without a clue about who I am or even your beloved cause, but you must listen to me when I tell you that you must not call the police."

He shook his head. "I don't know what the hell to do, Éponine. But … if you're okay, I mean, if you're not hurt now … "

"I'm truly not."

"Well, okay. That's weird too. But fine, if you insist I'm not gonna call the police." Enjolras looked her up and down and offered her a sympathetic smile. "But before we try to figure anything out, how would you like to wash up? I have some clothes might fit you."

…

He led her to a room he referred to as the "lav," and when Éponine stared at him in puzzlement he said, "Look, I'll show you, love," and led her down the corridor to a room at the far end. He pushed open the door and waved somewhat awkwardly into the room behind it. "Well, there you are then. The lav."

He leaned in the doorway so casually, regarded the room beyond as thought it was the most ordinary thing in the world. But Éponine could not help but allow her mouth to fall open into a small, perfectly round O as she goggled at it, and passed through the doorway with small steps for her wonderment, trying to take in the splendour of it. For just past that door was a room that, like most parts of this world she found herself in, was beyond imagination.

It was so clean, almost literally sparkling clean, and grand, too, despite its small size. The walls and floor were covered in tiles of a smooth, ivory-coloured stone, arranged in perfect alignment of one another. A small window overlooked the street, under which was a rack draped in a kind of brightly coloured rough cloth. In the far corner of the room was a tall booth-like structure made of glass, and behind the glass panels, on the wall, could be seen a collection of silvery knobs. Éponine was drawn to this in particular, and she brushed her fingers against the perfect glass panels, half-expecting them to disintegrate at her touch. But no, as she touched it the glass remained, sturdy and smooth and cool. A smile, a real smile, blessed her lips as she whipped around to face Enjolras. "Oh, but it's beautiful!" she exclaimed.

He raised his eyebrows. "It's just a lavatory," he said slowly. "But never mind that. Er … that's my towel just there, you can use it if you want; I'm not sure if I have any others … and you can use my soap and shampoo too — it's just on the little shelf in the shower there. So yeah. Knock yourself out. I'll see if I can find you some clothes and drape them over the top of the door if you like, in the meantime." Enjolras smiled teasingly. "Don't worry; I won't look at you."

Éponine pointed hesitantly at the glass structure. "Forgive me, but … is this the shower? This booth here?" When Enjolras nodded, she shook her head, not seeing how she would be able to wash herself in that little box. "But what of the water? Is there a well, or a pump?"

"You just turn the knobs." He spoke slowly, as one might to a child or a simple-minded elderly relative. "And the water … er, comes out, I guess. It's not hard to do; you'll get it." He offered her a sympathetic smile. "And don't worry, after this we'll ring Marius and Grantaire and maybe a little after that things'll begin coming back to you." He then backed hastily out of the room, and closed the door behind him, leaving it open just a crack. Éponine stared after him a moment. She didn't like the way he'd taken to looking at her — reservation behind his eyes, hesitance. As if she were — well, as if she were mad, or had gone a bit simple.

But she dwelled on that no further, for she stripped out of her clothes and left them in a heap on the pristine white floor. Then, after a bit of fiddling, she slid the shower doors aside and stepped into the booth, then shut them behind her.

Éponine quickly worked out that turning the blue knob produced cold water, which rained down from a circular panel above her head in streams; the red knob produced hot. She also discovered that with a little fiddling she could bring the water to a comfortable lukewarm temperature. It was a miracle! She stood under the running water for a long time, and she enjoyed the feeling of it so much that she almost forgot to scrub away what dirt and grime the water couldn't rinse off. The shelf Enjolras had mentioned was just at her left elbow. There was a bar of pale blue soap that smelled sweet, like lavender, which she used to scrub herself clean with, and a coloured bottle of some viscous liquidy substance she couldn't work out how to use. After rinsing the soap off her body and from her normally tangled ebony locks, she figured out how to shut off the water and stepped out of the shower, drying herself with the rough cloth.

It was a great relief to be clean. Éponine had not been clean at all for a very long time. Living as she had, alternating between the streets of Paris and a tiny, dirty flat in the slums of the city, it had been impossible to stay clean for very long. There had been a washtub in their apartment in the Gorbeau Tenement, but she'd hardly ever used it. Normally Éponine had avoided home as much as she could anyway. But for the first time she could remember since childhood, her body was totally clear of dirt and grime. Enjoying the feeling of cleanliness in solitude, Éponine suddenly felt almost as if she'd been born anew.

Putting on the unusual clothes he'd left her, true to his word, she traipsed out of the "lav," finding Enjolras sitting with slumped shoulders on the sofa. He looked up as she joined him, and offered her a dipping of the head by way of acknowledgment. His fingers were laced together, and he seemed to be deep in thought, as the Enjolras Éponine had known so often was. She was pleased to see familiar behaviour coming from this echo of him, but her curiosity and wonderment proved too much for her. "Where does the water come from?" she blurted.

Enjolras looked up, seeming bewildered. "Well," he said with hesitation and uncertainty in his voice. "The water comes from the pipes."

"Oh," she said, nodding, then cocked her head to one side like a curious puppy. "And where, pray tell, do the pipes get it, then?"

"Er," was his reply. "From … wherever it is the pipes get it. Y'know, I don't even know for certain. The Thames?"

Éponine nodded slowly again. She knew of the Thames, of course, having studied London's famous river in Geography class, back when she had attended school. It was London's own equivalent of the Seine. Enjolras' answers confused her, but she did not want to press him. And luckily for her, she had no need to, for presently the young man asked her, "So. Shall we give Marius a ring, then?"

…

The mid-June sky was a clear, piercing blue, untainted save for a few clouds sitting plump and fluffy in the sky like semicolons, hinting of more to come. But what did that matter, for it wasn't raining just now. The early summer air was warm and fresh, but the feeling of it was nothing compared to the lightness in Cosette's heart as she trotted down the steps of her secondary school early that afternoon. She'd just written her last exam of her second-last year in secondary school, and that was a rewarding feeling. Her summer had officially begun, and she didn't have to worry about a single more assignment, test, or Maths problem until September, and that was a long way away. Right now, she was free.

And waiting for her, sitting on a bench facing the school, was Marius, her boyfriend. He raised a hand in greeting when he saw her, and Cosette, thrilled, ran to him and threw her arms round his neck and kissed his cheek. "It's over," she said gleefully upon pulling away, "it's done."

"For now," Marius teased her. "You still have an entire year of secondary left. I'm glad to report I'm done with secondary school; I'm well into uni."

She shook her head and teasingly punched his shoulder. "Oh, shut up, you. Don't go ruining my good mood." Cosette dropped onto the bench next to him. "I rang Papa before the exam and told him I'd muck around with you when I was done; he said yes already." She beamed. "Do you want to come over? He's at work until late today; we'll have the rest of the afternoon to ourselves, Marius."

They agreed to go to her flat and muck about, as Cosette had suggested. Maybe start a marathon of watching her treasured Harry Potter movies for the nth time, get through as many as they could. And sit around in her room and chat for a bit. Stop for ice cream along the way. Cosette had been so busy revising for her exams that she hadn't had much time to spend with her boyfriend over the past month, and these moments were theirs. They had the entire summer ahead of them, and most of it would be spent in each other's presence.

Cosette and her father never went away in the summertime. Aside from one short nature trip to Weymouth when she'd been eleven, they'd not even left London since she'd been adopted at age seven. And that was fine by her. Her adoptive "Papa" was a well-off man that was kind and loving to boot; they had a nice flat in a nice part of town. And London was such a busy city that Cosette never found herself at a loss of what to do: browsing for small treasures in secreted second-hand bookshops; visiting the Natural History Museum despite the fact that she had gone so many times she could have passed through the exhibits blindfolded; idly wandering Hyde Park and Green Park; purchasing low-price standing room tickets for West End shows. And since she had started going out with Marius early last autumn, she now had a beloved boyfriend to share her lazy summer days with, too. Marius himself wasn't about to leave London in the summer either: he'd more or less cut off all contact with his family shortly after finishing secondary school and didn't have the funds to go on holiday. So this summer they would spend together, (and occasionally meet up with Marius' group of quirky university friends, all of with whom Cosette was reasonably well-acquainted and whom she generally liked). Their age gap mattered little. Nobody cared that Cosette was only seventeen and still in secondary school, whereas Marius was all of twenty and taking law at uni. And if anyone did care, then Marius and Cosette would pay them no mind.

Yes, the summer was young and stretched on ahead of them like an elastic, seemingly endless. Filled with images of future pleasurable moments they conjured in their minds, simplistic happiness, just like their own lives.

They stopped for ice cream and had two scoops each (lemon sorbet and strawberry for Cosette, mango and cookies-n-cream for Marius), licked their cones happily as they went along hand-in-hand. Not much later they reached the flat complex where Cosette lived, and she produced the key to her apartment. It was a spacious and attractive but not pretentious apartment in the Chelsea district. Closing the door behind her, Cosette made a beeline for her room with Marius at her tail. The seventeen-year-old girl flopped backwards onto her bed with a drawn-out contented sigh. "Life," she said simply and frankly, "is good."

Marius flashed her a teasing grin. "Especially when your boyfriend's in it," he said, and pounced on her, took to tickling her. Cosette shrieked and rolled around on the bed, begged him to let her go in gasps between her giggles. But he tickled her relentlessly, and only stopped when his mobile vibrated and rang in his pocket. She took advantage of the moment by worming out of his arms and pressing herself against the headboard.

"Go," she said, eyeing his pocket. "Answer it; I don't mind."

Reluctantly, Marius did, checking the caller ID as he removed his phone from his pocket. It was Enjolras. The fact that Enjolras was calling him was surprising: this could hardly be a social call. But Marius did as Cosette suggested and answered. "Hello?"