Chapter Two
He goes inside again, and the light swirl bright and mad. The Amis drink and sing; Marius among them. He is arm-in-arm with Grantaire, grinning drunkenly.
Enjolras puts his chin in his hands. He feels almost dizzy with shame and something close to guilt; he should have walked away, have let someone else comfort her. This isn't his place—it should be Marius', for God's sake. The girl's his damn shadow, anyways.
To say that he'd never thought about her in a way entirely unbefitting of a gentleman would be a lie; all of the Amis knew of her exploits—the way that she ran with other gamin, her liar of a father. He had no doubts that she'd done regrettable things in her time, for money or food or both. He knew that she stole.
Someone slides against him, hard and purposeful. He feels the pressure against his side. Lighting fast, he reaches down to grab the pickpocket's hand. Thin and dirty, the fingernails short.
He pulls, hard. A dark-haired girl stumbles from the crowd. Enjolras' breath catches in his throat. Why does he feel betrayed?
"Éponine."
"Let go of me!" She snatches her hand away.
"So is this how you spend your time when you're not dogging Marius."
She practically snarls at him, eyes wild. "Leave me alone."
He follows her dark gaze and sees Gavroche, idling against the side of a building nearby. Éponine turns away from the little boy quickly; if she's noticed that Enjolras has seen him she makes not indication.
"Go to the Musain. Buy whatever you like, and tell them that Enjolras will pay the dues tomorrow."
Without missing a beat, she says, "Don't pay for me, pay for Gavroche."
Something inside of him goes cold.
"Both of you. I'll pay for both of you, of course."
She looks at him, a hard stare.
"I don't like owing people."
But they go off, anyways, and he makes his way to his classes and the next day, when he returns to the Musain, he's racked up five francs in debt. But he pays happily, knowing that he's done something—if not much—for Gavroche. And for Éponine. The next time he sees her, she stares him down for a long while, and then says,
"Thanks, Monsieur."
Her smile pulls at the corner of her mouth, tight and false. He's seen her smile at Marius in another way, and then she didn't look so much like a street-girl; she looked young and happy.
"It was nothing, Éponine," he says, even though he's got no income and few francs left in the bank. "Really. It was nothing."
Later, when the lanterns burn low behind dirty glass, and the Amis begin to filter away into the night, he follows Marius outside.
"Marius." He folds his arms. "You can't continue with this—with Éponine."
"What?" The fair-haired boy is reelingly drunk. His smile gleams white in the heady darkness.
"You can't keep..." And Enjolras nearly says leading her on, but he stops himself and finishes, "Talking about your women in front of her. It's impolite, especially for such a young girl."
"She's not young, Enjy. She's seen more than you and I have. And she's done more, too. I know that much."
As he watches Marius weave across the pavement, Enjolras thinks that there the only truthful men left are small children and drunks.
"You slay me, Enjolras!" Marius shouts over his shoulder as he crosses the street. A cart horse nickers somewhere nearby, in the still night.
And Enjolras smiles humorlessly to himself.
Et tu, Brute?
She wakes the next morning. She is cold and the flat is empty, full of gray light. Clouds press low over the city's rooftops. It will rain, she thinks.
Of course she sees Marius on the stairs. His shirt is wrinkled, and his pale eyes are underscored with dark circles.
"I see that Grantaire's wine was not good to you last night."
"Grantaire's wine is not good to me any night." He grins at her, almost sheepishly, and she cannot help but return a smile. How he wounds her. How he wounds her.
I am Éponine. She winds her woolen shawl tight around her thin frame. I am not hurt. And I am not sad.
He'd made a speech in a dingy square off the Rue de Temple, but attracted only a few listeners. Those few who did idle before his soapbox dissipated quickly, distracted by a skirmish over an apparent theft from a fishmonger's cart.
Marius dodges through the crowd easily, disappearing north towards the café before Enjolras can finish his speech.
"And this is why we must rise up—against our oppressors! Against those who attempt to stifle our cries! We cannot allow ourselves to be jailed, to be locked away like dogs! We must fight! For our country! For the country of our children, and theirs!"
He raises his fist.
"Quelle farce." A passing man, frame heavy with age and idleness, shouts. Enjolras considers, briefly, retorting; he's debated endlessly in class with men like this, men who are perfectly willing to sit by and let the world spin out of their control.
In the end, he drifts away from the square. No one is impressed with his speeches; they are too busy arguing over the prices of fish and bread, corralling squabbling children away from the market-stalls.
Maybe they do not wish to see the world change. Or to take part in it.
This thought disheartens him greatly, and he is turning north to cross the street when she appears at his side.
"Hello, Monsieur."
"Éponine."
He expects her to ask about Marius, but she does not. They walk through the square. A hunchbacked man juggles oranges; no one is tossing him francs.
Éponine turns to look at the man, her eyes hooded. She says that some of them are not so lucky. Enjolras agrees without meaning it; can she consider herself lucky?
"You're good at it," she says, suddenly. He looks at her sideways. Her dark hair falls over the side of her face, and he is inexplicably overcome with the urge to reach out and brush it from her forehead. This surprises and unnerves him. "The speeches, I mean."
"People don't listen. At least, not like they should."
"I listen."
They are both silent for a moment. A group of gamin race past, little boys with bare feet and filthy faces.
"You almost pickpocketed me in this square," Enjolras almost laughs, although it isn't funny.
Éponine's eyes meet his; he worries that she might weep or strike him—he never knows, with her—but the side of her mouth twists. "Wasn't I sweet?"
He needs to say it now, while the air between them is somewhat clear. "Éponine, I want to apologize. For last night. I acted too familiar with you—I'm sorry, I mean...for—touching you."
Her lips twist again, sideways in a tight, sad smile. "You're not the first to tell me that."
The words hit like a punch, and he doesn't know how to reply.
Fortunately, the next words out of her mouth are,
"Apology accepted, Monsieur. I've gotten worse than an arm around my shoulder outside that café." Then, seeing his horrified look, "Don't worry, Monsieur, I'm not a whore."
"Don't call me that," he says. "Please."
She lets out an incredulous laugh. "And what should I call you instead? Citizen?"
"Yes."
"Citizen Enjolras. I don't like it. It's very common."
"Befitting, then."
"I don't think so." A funny look comes across her dirty face, as if she's thinking very hard. "You're not like us, you know. You come from a wealthy family. Not from Paris—a small city, in the south, maybe, where people are simple. Your parents gave you everything you wished for—they adored you. There was a servant—a servant girl. You wore nice clothes."
He swallows with difficulty. "It's true," he says, although he feels weirdly numb. "I'm not from Paris. About that you're right."
"About that I'm right." She echoes him. Her stare is a thousand miles away, sharp and dark and knowing.
He will never know—never—that the childhood that she describes was her own.
Rain falls lightly. It beads, fine and delicate, on her eyelashes, rolls like tears down her cheeks. Enjolras forces himself to look away. Women are Marius' realm, or else Grantaire's. They know how to act around girls, how to speak, how to cajole. They are not fumbling and awkward and overly-eloquent, saying foolish things that they'll regret later.
When he's not looking, she stares at him. She thinks that he should look bitter, or angry. When talk turns political, the other Amis get riled up. When their speeches are ignored, when people throw rocks and pieces of brick at them. Enjolras doesn't look angry. He looks sad, Éponine realizes, like he's carrying a weight on his shoulders.
The rain hardens into a downpour. Enjolras peers through sheets of drifting, slanting water and sees the café still and dark and empty; doubtless the other Amis have gone home, to their other families. To people who need them.
"They've gone home," he tells Éponine, and as he speaks he realizes that she is shivering. Her clothing, poorly-made, woolen, is soaked through. Her thin plaid dress clings to a skinny frame. "Come with me," he offers, and they are already yards from his doorstep.
She looks up, scans the shabby block of apartments beside the café.
They reach the doorstep.
"If you're so inclined. The rain will only get worse."
She hesitates visibly, as if she does not trust him.
"Yeah, alright." She shoves past him, movements careless. "But I can't stay long."
It is not him who she mistrusts.
It is herself.
Dark, narrow stairs. He follows her dark hair, swinging like a damp curtain.
"It's here," he says, and unlocked the warped wooden door.
"Third floor. I'm surprised that you don't live in the attic." Her words bite with sarcasm, but she smiles.
His flat isn't much; almost spartan: a bed, a sink, a chest of drawers. She folds her arms around herself. He thinks that she looks uncomfortable, like a lost girl from one of the Greek myths, like Persephone tumbled into the underworld. Like someone who doesn't belong. Standing on unfamiliar floors.
"Here," he says. "You're shaking."
"I'm fine."
He goes to the chest of drawers, takes out a shirt and pants. "If you aren't opposed to wearing men's clothes." He adds, "They're clean," and she laughs, almost sadly.
"Citizen Enjolras." She crosses the room, takes the clothes. The rain has washed her skin clean. "You are not a man."
And he does not disagree.
"Turn around," she tells him. He obeys her without question.
When he faces the wall, she smiles to herself. Mostly, she wishes that he wouldn't have.
"Turn around," she says. Enjolras faces the wall, memorizing the worn gray paint, its scratches and grooves. He hears her undressing. He wonders how much Marius has told her of his women. Schoolboy crushes, certainly, but it can't be good for a girl to hear that. It's glaringly obvious that Éponine feels very deeply for the boy; he should at least grant her the curtesy of discretion.
"Does Mariu—" And he turns without thinking and he sees her standing barelegged in his shirt, and he wheels back around, croaking, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry,", but he's seen and the image is seared across the back of his eyelids.
She is silent for a moment. Then she says, "pas de problème."
He folds his arms.
Éponine tells him to turn around. She is dressed; he thinks that she looks like a girl wearing an older brother's borrowed clothes, a father's.
"I didn't mean to see you like that."
"C'est ne pas grave."
He thinks it is to me.
He goes to the grate and strikes a match. The flame stutters and then surges high, crackling. Éponine kneels before the little hearth, holding her hands out to the fire.
"Is that better?"
She nods silently. He sits down next to her. He is afraid of touching her.
"How are your plans coming? For your revolution, I mean."
"Our revolution," he corrects, automatically. This is stupid, of course. It is not really their revolution. They are fighting for, and against, something much bigger than themselves.
"Our revolution." She seems to let the words linger in her mouth.
"The people will join when the time is right," he says, but it suddenly feels like a lie. No, he scolds himself—no, they will join. They will take up arms. They will win back this city.
This country. Their country. Their world.
She holds her hands out over the grate; the flames are dizzyingly warm. Éponine is undeniably grateful for this, also she's hesitant to admit it. She doesn't like the idea of a bourgeoise boy bailing her out again.
And she's got little doubt that he's rich; probably comes from some old-money family, the same as Marius.
I can't hold that against him. I more than anyone should know that one does not control their fate, or their birth-right.
She says, "I can practically hear them singing in the streets."
He folds his hands over his knees and puts his chin against his hand, and stares into the shifting flames. "I have to believe that we will succeed."
"You will, I have no doubts." She does.
"This I believe." He does not.
They linger in a long and companionable silence. It occurs to him that they are becoming friendly; more friendly than he might have hoped.
And, worryingly, he finds himself turning to look sideways at her, out of the corners of his eyes, when he thinks that she will not see him.
"I'll leave when the rain lets up," she says.
Maybe, even then, she knows that she will not; the rain will not let up. Wind screams against the window, but she's got a fire in the grate and Enjolras is reading aloud one of the Amis' pamphlets, and although the subject material is far from funny she finds herself smiling.
"...and Lamarque is the only leader who can find sympathy for the unwashed crowds, for the common man. This is why you, valued citizen, should take up arms against our oppressors..."
"I like that." Éponine says, almost without meaning to. Enjolras lowers the pamphlet. The paper is thin, like the skin of onions, in the firelight.
"What do you like?"
"That you call them valued citizens. People like that. To feel valued. Wanted."
Their gazes snag and hold.
"I know," he says, slowly, but he looks trapped and maybe that isn't a bad thing. "I know."
Her damp hair curls around her face, like a parted curtain. He tells himself that she is not beautiful, she is a girl—a friend, like Gavroche, or Grantaire, or Marius.
He tells himself and it is a cheap lie. In the fading light her eyes are alive, bright and hard like stars, and he's falling into them. He's falling, the way that he falls in dreams, from rooftops and balconies and the sides of cliffs, and he can't, won't wake himself up.
"It's very late." Éponine peers through the rain-streaked window. The flames sputter low in the grate; she should leave.
She does not want to leave; least of all to return to a cold and deserted flat, to knowing that next door Marius sleeps and dreams of another, prettier girl.
"The rain hasn't let up. I would hate for you to go outside in this weather. I'm no medical man, but it can't be healthy."
"You're right." Why does her heart jump in her chest? She feels disgusted with herself—no, no, this is chivalry, this is kindness on his part, this is nothing. A kindness. A kindness. That is all.
There follows a brief interval of long, tense silence. Silence stretched like string between them.
"Stay," he says, softly. "Please."