I cannot stop writing this! The É/E ship is taking over my life! Anyway, another thing I thought I might mention is that I changed the dates a little, so instead of '66, it is now set in '67. This change is crucial in the direction of this story even though it's just one year, haha. Please comment if you enjoyed it! I know it's long, but it needed to be, trust me. :-)

CHAPTER TWO | THE GIRL AT THE MILL

He was going to be late.

The bathroom was filled with a hazy steam which had emitted from the scalding hot water spurting from the shower head. Enjolras pulled back the curtain before tugging a towel around his waist. Leaning over the sink, he wiped at the foggy mirror with his forearm.

He quickly brushed his teeth, ran a comb through his hair, and left the bathroom to finish getting ready. His flat was dark, save for the few lighted lamps around the living room. The darkness of a day just about to begin leaked in through the windows on the western side of the apartment.

Enjolras grabbed his things out of the drawer without caution or reason – a beige turtleneck, a crimson tweed jacket, a pair of gray trousers, and finally his eyeglasses that were perched upon the bedside table – and threw them on haphazardly. It was nearly seven o'clock.

"Au revoir, Petit," Enjolras called to the small gray cat as he headed out the door. He didn't expect a response from the lazy fur ball, so he shut the door tightly behind him and locked it promptly.

Down on the street outside of the apartments where he stayed, Enjolras unlocked his car and slid inside the 1960 Peugeot. He peeled quickly out onto the street that was already bustling from early morning traffic – not that he was surprised in the slightest. Just one of the "perks" of living in Paris, he thought sardonically. There was much beeping and horn honking and fast stopping and chaos in the roads, but he had prepared for it. This morning, not even the God-awful drivers of France could dampen his mood. A tight-lipped smile had even planted itself on his face.

Clamart was easy enough to find, from Enjolras' previous knowledge of the country. It was close enough to Paris, and besides, he had gathered some directions upon sitting down with a map the previous night. The steel mill, on the other hand, took him some time to locate. It was new, and Dupont had not given him any indication of where it was at (not that he had ever asked for fear of sounding foolish to his boss). Eventually he gave up trying to logically find it and instead followed the long trail of gray smoke plowing through the sky. Like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the smog had led Enjolras straight to his destination: Les Aciers de l'Aimè, the steel mill run by Thibaut Aimè.

A parking lot with an attendant at the glass encasement near the entrance caught his eye. Enjolras headed toward it, paid his fee for daily parking, and entered the premises with haste.

He grabbed his leather shoulder bag, opening it once more just to be sure he had his notepad, pens, and tape recorder for the interviews he would be conducting. It was all there. He stepped from the car, shivering at the dreadful cold, and started toward the factory's entrance.

"Identification?" the man in police attire said at the front door.

"Of course," Enjolras replied, anxious yet certain, pulling out a press pass from a zippered encasement on the side of the bag. He handed it to the man who barely glanced at it before handing it back without thought. This factory was off-limits to any average man, but the officer in charge of security certainly didn't take his orders too seriously.

The guard nodded sharply once at him and let him pass. With a deep breath, Enjolras entered the large factory.

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"...And so I knew I had to do something to help these poor families," Louis Aimè concluded, his eyes transfixed on the recorder held in Enjolras' hand. "Not just for the sake of building upon the enterprise of steel, but by reusing old steel to create something new. Something meaningful. And it is the same way with these families – we are saving lives by simply offering new jobs. Creating something good from something that could have been discarded or written off."

"Fantastic," the boy murmured. This interview could not have gone better if I had written it myself.

"It truly is," the man finished, his eyes meeting those of Enjolras. "And so we must continue to thrive, so that this country may continue to thrive." He paused, then smiled. "That is all."

Enjolras smiled, loosely fumbling with the recording device in his hands before finding the record button, pressing it, and stopping the interview. He slid it into his pocket and reached out for a handshake with Aimè.

"Thank you for your time, Monsieur," he thanked sincerely. "This is going to be a great issue today – and I shall bring you back a copy of it tomorrow for your own records."

The man, robust in nature and gentle in demeanor, took a seat at his desk and folded his hands on the hardwood tabletop. "Why, thank you, my boy! How good of you." Pausing only briefly, he looked to the door and then back to Enjolras. "And, off-the-record, I'm really very glad Le Figaro thought it well to look into this place. Les Aciers is doing more for these people than you know."

"I can only hope to know," the boy said, swinging his bag over his shoulder before standing from his seat across from Aimè. "Would it be alright if I interviewed a few of the workers?"

"Of course!" Aimè replied. "I shall have one of my assistants take you to the assembly stations and find you a voice." Calling down the hallway, his voice rose. "Beliveau!"

Suddenly, a man dressed in a business suit with a long black tie appeared at the door, slipping in through the cracked-open doorway. "You called, Monsieur?"

"Yes, Beliveau," Aimè quipped shortly, "please escort Monsieur Enjolras to an assembly room, and see to it he has an audience with a few of the workers."

"Oui," Beliveau nodded, heading back out the door with a pointed look at Enjolras.

Before following him, the boy turned back once to Aimè. "Many thanks," he said once more, earning a smile and a nod from the man seated at the mahogany desk.

The door closed behind him, and with anticipation weighing heavy in each step, Enjolras made his way from the top floor of the mill to the ground level in which the workers were located. He could see them all swarmed around conveyor belts and heavy, metal machinery. In many rows, white sparks flew up into the air, clinging to the long-sleeve shirts and eye goggles each manipulator wore.

Beliveau took Enjolras across a high-up platform that wound around the three-floor-high area in which the workers were allotted to perform their tasks. From the platforms where they walked, nothing appeared individualized; like an army of ants, they knew their jobs and their colonies swarmed to complete them as quickly as possible. However, as they walked down a set of iron stairs, they made their way closer and closer to the ground level. Faces emerged from fuzziness, shimmering white sparks seemed bigger than they had from such a height, and hands and arms and bodies refocused. This was not a singular collective being, but in fact, individuals working together as one.

Beliveau explained to him what each of the sectors of the factory allowed the workers to perform. On the eastern side of the plant was where iron ore was reduced in a blast furnace, turning it to molten iron. On the southern, western, and northern fronts, steelmakers removed impurities from the iron, such as excess carbon and sulfur. Then, alloying elements were added, such as nickel and chromium, to produce the exact steel required. Finally, smack-dab in the center of it all, workers turned steel into slabs and sheets through casting, hot rolling, and cold rolling the newly formed steel.

It was a breathtaking scene, with so much action taking place at once. The liquid iron and the sheeted steel contrasted with the workers and their taxed expressions, making Enjolras step back for a moment and look at it all as parts of a whole, rather than the big picture.

Before he could open his mouth to say anything, Beliveau stopped him. "Follow me," he said, "and be careful not to touch anything."

Although it was just a simple warning, it sounded a bit more like a threat.

"Many workers here live in poverty," Beliveau told Enjolras in a hushed tone. He had to lean close to the man with slicked-back hair to hear what he said. "Almost all verge on animalistic from going through so many things in their lives, so if they snap at you, it isn't you. It's them – they're instinctual that way, I suppose." Enjolras glanced around, looking from man to man to (he couldn't believe it) woman, his eyes catching their own fierce ones, and felt a shiver crawl up his spine. Perhaps these people were from the poorer parts of France, but could they actually be so barbaric?

Beliveau stopped near one of the many blasters (which Enjolras seemed hesitant to approach) and called to a man. "Reynaud," he called loudly, his voice barely managing to rise above the sound of scorching iron. A man wearing a metal mask and heavy gloves turned around, startled and jumpy. He stepped toward Beliveau with his own sense of hesitancy and lifted the mask.

With graying facial hair and heavy eyebrows, this man had lived a tiring life. His eyes seemed as though they were about to shut and his face held a splotchy complexion. He didn't seem focused at all, so when he looked to Enjolras, a pang of guilt hit his stomach. Begging, his mind supplied the word. The man looks as though he's begging for something – but for what?

"Enjolras, this is Jérôme Reynaud," Beliveau stated. "Jérôme, this man is here conducting interviews for Le Figaro, and would you be interested in an interview?"

The man smiled a little, which both surprised Enjolras and offered him some shred of relief. "Sure," Reynaud replied. His throat seemed raspy and dry and cracked. Beliveau took this as his time to exit the work room, leaving Enjolras to do his own bidding for a while before coming to retrieve him in a few hours. This was understandable, as everyone has work that needs to be done, which he knew and did not blame the man for...even if he was rather lost at where to go next.

"Follow me," Enjolras told him finally, leading him up the stairs from whence he came until they arrived at the door to another staircase. "I can interview you here, if you like. It's much quieter than out there."

"Sure is," the man sighed, and as he did so, the tape recorder which had been jammed into Enjolras' pocket was extricated and held firmly. He pressed record.

The man went on a bit nervously, fiddling with his hands, "I'm probably not the best one for you to talk to about – what was it again?"

"The steel mill," Enjolras confirmed, "but let's back up. Where were you before you found work?"

Reynaud was a little jumpy. His answers came quick at first, short one or two word answers, until he began to forget about the tape recorder and simply focused on his own words. He talked of the places he worked as a young man, earning well-enough money to hold an entire family, but then he was let go and it became hard to find jobs. Over the years, he survived off of odd jobs around the city and working janitorial duties. However, he was soon let go again, resuming his job search seemingly endlessly. This was until the steel mill opened in Clamart, where he earned a little more than the janitor job and could finally be at peace that he was working in a stable environment – a job where he would not have to pray there would be enough money to quell his boys' aching stomachs.

"What is the work like?" Enjolras prompted.

Silence followed. The man didn't quite know what to say, and Enjolras noted something flashing in his eyes. It was so quick, however, that he couldn't place it and so wrote it off as a trick of the fluorescent lights in the stairwell.

"It is just work," the man said. "It helps pay the bills, so I'm thankful."

Reynaud seemed to be retreating back into himself, back into the place he had come from before the interview began. He was nervous and skittish and his hands started fumbling again. It was then that Enjolras knew the interview was over.

He clicked the record button once more with a thoughtful sigh. "Thank you for your interview," he said, offering his hand to shake.

It seemed as though Reynaud did not know what to make of the hand; his eyes were fixed on it, not moving unless to glance at one of his own. That was when Enjolras saw it – the scar across his knuckles that had before gone unnoticed. It was thick and peach, some parts of it still slightly red. It looks fresh, Enjolras thought.

His hand fell to his side as he shook his head, clearing his thoughts. He thanked the man once again, who nodded once quickly, and led him back down the stairs toward the blasters. Reynaud went back to work without a second glance back at the boy, who pushed his thick-rimmed tortoise shell eyeglasses back up the bridge of his nose as if to see everything more clearly. And, still, he was left in somewhat of a fog. Something very confusing had happened in that stairwell, and although he couldn't seem to place what it was, he was left with a sour taste in his mouth, nonetheless.

Round two, he thought contritely. His eyes scanned the overwhelming crowd around him before he thought it better to simply wander; if anyone caught his eye, he would stop them for an interview. That was his best idea at this point, because of his complete and utter inexperience with this aspect of the newspaper – the "going out and doing things" aspect, as it were, rather than the "sit around faxing things to business partners" sort.

Enjolras' eyes darted across the plant, careful not to touch or bump into anything or anyone as he maneuvered through rows of men and women working with the hot metal.

"Watch it," an older man spat. He had a balding head and two vicious boils on his neck. "Some of us are trying to work here, bourgeois."

"As am I, Monsieur," he assured, brushing past him. When he caught a look at the man's severe expression, he muttered a half-hearted apology in response. He continued along the line, often getting sidetracked by the processes in which those around him practiced.

It was not until he heard a voice coming just above the rubble and ruckus of the mill that he was snapped out of his distractedness.

Darting once more, Enjolras searched desperately for the voice. It was not soft, although a song so soft would be even more uncommon in such a place. Instead, the voice trilled with a raspiness and rawness that nearly melded with the melted iron.

"Tant que l'amour inondera mes matins / Tant que mon corps frémira sous tes mains / Peu m'importent les problèmes / Mon amour puisque tu m'aimes." (As long as love will flood my mornings / As long as my body will quiver beneath your hands / The problems matter so little to me / My love, because you love me.)

Before he had time to think, the tape recorder was in his hand, recording the song as he heard it with the sounds of the mill coursing through the words. Where is it coming from? he wondered.

Enjolras' gaze settled on a girl with dark brown hair, lean and rigid in bone structure, and with sunken eyes that were brooding and drooped heavily. Her shirt, a youthful striped one with a once-white collar, was covered in dirt and frayed at its edges. Her fingernails had black surrounding them, the same black that was caked into her dirty brown hair. The girl couldn't have been more than eighteen years old, and yet she somehow looked fifty.

"'Ponine," one of the men across from her said huskily. Immediately, she stopped singing and looked up to see what he had said it for. His eyes flashed to Enjolras, and so hers too flickered to the boy. Her lips zipped shut tightly before going back to work. Her hands clutched on to glass bottles full of some sort of clear liquid, which she poured inside a holder of molten iron.

She doesn't look old enough to work at a place such as this, Enjolras thought, somewhat annoyed. Who allowed her to come here for work?

Perhaps it was because she felt his prying eyes, but just as he passed her by she hissed something under her breath at him, causing those around her to smile mockingly at him.

He stopped, certain he had heard it. "Excuse me, Mademoiselle?"

She didn't look up at him, but rather continued on with her work as her tongue quickly felt along her front teeth. "I said nothing."

"But you did say something," he flung back, pushing his bag higher up on his shoulder and out of the way as he stepped forward.

"Only to Pourlevaire," the girl replied sweetly, then turned back around to look at him. "But I could say it to you, as well, if you do so please to hear it."

Enjolras folded his arms across his chest, looking the girl up and down once more. Her everyday clothes were covered by no more than a smock, something he realized that everyone wore; their underclothes were nothing more than old ragged things they threw on to dirty at work. The only thing that remained uniform was the smock.

She grinned quickly, showing a row of teeth that he could tell had once been opalescent, but now appeared faded and slightly yellowed. "Told him you had a look as though you were 'bout to piss yourself frightened." The men standing around her cackled delightfully, their eyes narrowing on Enjolras. He pushed his glassed higher up his nose, trying to ignore the rotten smell of their breath and croaking laughter.

"You don't look old enough to be saying such things," Enjolras countered pitifully, trying to ignore her question.

"I am, so. I'm twenty-two."

He fought the destructive urge to scoff. If she wanted to be a liar, she could be a terrible one as long as she liked. Her age was of no importance to him; there was business that needed attending to, and he didn't have time to waste on picking fights with factory workers, especially girls. Instead, he took this opportunity to walk off with his head held high – no punches to be thrown, only graciousness as he allowed her to win this time.

And he would have gotten away from her, too – he would have forgotten about her and written the grisette off as an ill-mannered mill rat, never to appear in his life or mind again – if she hadn't called back out to him.

"Ever been to a place like this before?" She started again. Her voice seemed strong for one so young and small as she, as well as coarse and accusing. "Ever seen people like us before in your life?"

Yes, he fought the urge to say. I used to know you better than you can imagine. But the words did not come, so instead he turned around to face her once again, silent, waiting for her to go on.

Which she did. "Poor Monsieur has never met girls that play with fire, huh? Well I know my way around well enough not to get burned." That was when her face changed a little; from playful to frustrated, to defensive, to spiteful. "I can take care of myself. I'm old enough to know what to do with myself, and what I will say and won't say. You don't know me, so don't pretend to! You lot are all the same – if you don't want to get your hands dirty, don't step outside Paris!" Her anger was palpable as she pressed both palms to his chest and shoved him backward.

"HEY!" the sound of an onlooking guard called out to the pair, narrowing in on the girl. He clutched a club in his hand. "Girl! Back to work – you know your place!" He quickly approached her and her eyes widened; in one swift motion, a gloved hand grabbed her arm and dragged her back to her post. She seemed to fight him for a moment, but then realized where she was and made the fight easier. He didn't have to swing.

From over the officer's shoulder and through the thick glass covering Enjolras' eyes, the girl's deep brown ones pierced him.

Something inside of Enjolras stirred.

"We will take care of her," the security officer told him upon his return, noting the girl returning to her work. "I apologize on behalf of the foreman; many of our workers come from the deepest pits of the gutter."

He nodded, muttering yet another half-hearted reply of some sort to the man. With one last look over his shoulder, the guard began to head back to his post. Enjolras watched him as he left, then let his eyes slip back over the girl whose name he had not caught.

Before the officer had stationed himself back in his place, the young journalist made his way back to the filthy mill worker with the dirty fingernails. Those dangerous eyes wouldn't turn up at him, and yet he could feel her sending daggers in his direction.

Enjolras was firm with her as he stepped forward. Perhaps if he told her... "Mademoiselle, you know not what you say."

"I thought the lady was quite clear," the tall man across from her said. "And if she wasn't clear enough, then let me make it easier: Get. Out." His words were nails: short and sharp and hammered in deliberately.

A moment of silence hung between them before a defeated sigh passed through him. Enjolras obliged, finally, against the sinking feeling of unpreparedness of too-few interviews. However, he also knew when to act appropriately; he had a head on his shoulders, and he also knew a thing or two about respect. It was time to bow out.

Enjolras' ride back to his flat was passed in silence. He opened the front door at the peak of noon and was greeted by a faithful mew. The gray cat nuzzled against his leg, weaving around his ankles as he slipped his shoes off, then bent down to pet it.

Thunk.

The sound startled both Enjolras and the cat, which jumped and ran from the room immediately. Out of his pocket had fallen the tape recorder he had used for his interviews, the recording button still pressed. He had forgotten to turn it off.

Picking it up, he made his way to the couch and plopped down on it, staring at the device intriguingly. He clicked the button once again, stopping the reeling tapes from winding aimlessly, then began the process of rewinding. Tiny blips of sound zipped through the tape as it sped backward, through the loudness of the factory until finally there was quiet.

He pressed play.

"It is just work," came the voice of Reynaud. "It helps pay the bills, so I'm thankful." Enjolras smiled, remembering the kind but nervous man whom he had interviewed earlier that morning.

As soon as his words came to an end, the tape was full of loud jumble. The girl's voice, which had sounded just above the machinery at the steel mill, was nonexistent in the tape. His stomach sank, knowing the audio quality was to blame.

A few minutes later, there were angry shouts. Her voice. Enjolras sat on the couch, stoic even in his own home. He closed his eyes, leaned his head back, and pressed stop.

Enough.