A/N: Please-pretty-please review! Thanks for all the support I've been getting- and warning you in advance, this is kind of a filler chapter, so not much is going to happen. I should be all firm, like "I won't post any more chapters until you review my stuff", but I think you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, and besides, I wouldn't be able to withhold my chapters because I love posting them so much. So here is the third installment of The Chief and the Rose, with no strings attached.

January 15, 1832

"Marius, don't tell me you didn't know that girl friend of yours was a total toughie," said Courfeyrac teasingly. "And she ain't bad looking either."

"I don't even think about her that way," said Marius, blushing angrily. "Why would you even say such a thing? You know my heart belongs to the Lark."

"Well, it was hard to see at first, but she's gotten cleaned up since she started working here. Most of her bruises have healed by now, and it might be my imagination, but I think she's starting to put on a few. If things keep going like this, she'll grow up into a healthy young woman. But if you don't want her- "

"Courf, stop it," said Marius with growing irritation. "She was my neighbor, all right? Her father treated her horribly. It's not funny, the way you size her up like that like one of your- " he blushed severely- "burlesque girls."

"I don't stand a chance with her," said Courfeyrac, taking a swig of wine. "It's you she's after. And is it just me, or have you started coming to the café more regularly since she started working here?"

Marius ignored the teasing as best he could, but he stared at Courfeyrac sharply when he made that implication. "I- I always thought she had more of an eye for Enjolras," he stuttered, desperate to direct Éponine's desire anywhere away from himself.

"Don't be ridiculous," said Courfeyrac with a chuckle. "You know Enjolras is about as likely to be interested in women as you are to be interested in reinstating Louis XVI."

"That's not what I said," Marius insisted. "I said she has feelings for him. I think."

"They've known each other for two weeks," said Courfeyrac. "Their meeting was a fluke. Besides, Enjolras is way too busy with the cause and 'Ponine is too busy with her new job. Stop seeing feelings where there aren't any, Marius. That's always been your problem."

Éponine and Azelma were very much liking their new jobs at the Café Musain. The students gave generous tips to them, especially Éponine. To her simultaneous relief and disappointment, her hero status never really went away. Even Feuilly, whom she had learned made only three francs a day, stretched his earnings as far as he could to give Éponine an extra sou. Most of the men became like brothers to her, and she did not think any of them were nearly as attractive as Marius. Well, there was Enjolras, of course, but that was a different kind of attractiveness, an ethereal, feminine beauty that reminded her uncomfortably of Montparnasse. Courfeyrac was quite average-looking, but his confidence and charisma made him seem, sometimes, almost on a level with Marius. Éponine loved the fact that she could now think about men's attractiveness objectively, and gradually her fear of being bought for sex diminished until it was completely gone.

After work, Azelma teased Éponine about Marius, and Éponine teased Azelma about which of the other boys she found the most attractive. Azelma had never regarded Marius as anything other than a neighbor and a friend, and she didn't quite understand what Éponine saw in him, so Éponine had never worried about Azelma stealing her man. Truthfully, Azelma was still too young and innocent to develop romantic longing the way her big sister had, but on some level she was attracted to all of them. Feuilly and Jehan were her particular favorites, but something in her knew better than to flirt with Jehan. During these late-night boy talks, by an unspoken agreement, the name Montparnasse never came up. It was as if he had died or gone off to some faraway land from which he would never return. Sadly, this was not the case.

At first, the girls occupied their spare time by fixing up their room. They brushed away the cobwebs, dusted the floor, washed the grime clinging to the window, polished the furniture, and in less than a week the small, neglected chamber became a viable living space. Éponine wondered if their old room in the Gorbeau hovel could be made to look as comfortable as this one. Somehow she doubted it.

Despite her initial apprehensions, Madame Hucheloup found plenty for the girls to do. Once they had mastered the essential arts of bread-baking, cake-decorating, meat-roasting, salad-tossing, and wine-selecting, most of their "leisure" time was occupied with chores. She also mended their dresses and shoes to make them presentable to their customers. The girls learned to love and respect Madame Hucheloup. They found her mannerisms endearing. They always laughed when she got flustered over the tiniest thing, and waddled about the room like an overweight duck that had lost its way. Under her roof, the two sisters were closer than they had ever been. Men served as a bridge that united them, not as a rift that divided them. They had never really dared to talk about the opposite sex before, but somehow, living under the loving care of Madame Hucheloup made it all seem all right. At one point, Madame Hucheloup, overcome with emotion, embraced the two girls and said, "You two are like the daughters I never had." Éponine had the traitorous thought that this was what her mother would become like if her father died. Suddenly she missed her mother greatly, and longed to run into her arms, to console her, all alone in that horrid apartment in that ghastly hovel.

It was Azelma who had the privilege of making weekly visits to Madame Jondrette. To protect their new friends, Azelma let her mother believe that Éponine was still in jail. Every week, Éponine would write a letter to her mother, and every week, Azelma would bring back a tear-drenched reply, imploring to know when her eldest daughter would be coming home.

"We have to tell her the truth eventually," said Azelma one day.

"I know," said Éponine, looking down at her shoes.

"She won't believe that you've been in jail for six months and that the guards are still refusing to let her visit you."

"We'll tell her when the revolution is over," said Éponine.

"That could take another year," said Azelma.

"Better that than endanger our friends."

Madame Jondrette was not above asking Azelma for financial support. Since Madame Hucheloup provided everything for the Jondrette sisters, Azelma found that she could usually spare enough to pitch in for the rent. Madame Jondrette complained constantly that she was so lonely in that frigid room all by herself and that she would go crazy if she did not see Éponine's face. Judging by her letters, she already was crazy.

Without really realizing it, the Jondrette girls had been inundated with talk of revolution. They started counting down to some imaginary day in the near future when barricades would rise all over the city. Éponine knew what barricades were and what they meant. She had seen them before, in July 1830, albeit from a distance. They were part furniture and part myth, held together by some elusive force of nature catalyzed by the masculine smells of alcohol and gunsmoke and finished with an invisible mortar. An omnibus here, a shadow there, something dark and mysterious that a street gamine could never fully understand. Her father had told her that barricades were built by bourgeois students who were foolish enough to think they could change the way things worked, and that anyone who died there was ripe for the picking by "smart folks like us". Éponine didn't quite believe him and argued with him a little bit, but at the same time a nagging voice in her head told her that he was probably right.

Her first triumph over her father was when the revolution of 1830 succeeded. Even though she didn't know what it meant, that the king had been overthrown, she still rubbed it in her father's face. What did her father know, anyway? He was just an old con man who couldn't even pay off his petty debts to keep their inn. When she said that, he had slapped her hard. The bruise across her face had taken several days to heal, but it was worth it.

Now, in 1832, Éponine was unclear as to why the students were building a barricade so soon after the last one. Due to the way Marius talked, she suspected it had something to do with Bonaparte. It did not occur to her to question why the others never spoke glowingly about the Emperor the way Marius did. Enjolras, in particular, seemed to recoil in disgust whenever Marius mentioned "the fat Corsican". Éponine wanted to ask him why he always pronounced his surname "Buonaparte" and why he seemed to alienate Marius from political discussions. She was offended by his scornful attitude, both as the daughter of a professed Bonapartist hero and as the (prospective) future daughter-in-law of another one. But every day Enjolras seemed less and less approachable.

In addition to Enjolras' political agitations, Éponine had the growing feeling that her little escapade with the Patron-Minette on New Year's Eve had made Marius afraid of her, not more attracted to her. He always seemed a bit intimidated whenever he handed her a tip, as if he was wondering what other dangerous tricks she had up her sleeve.

Of course he's intimidated by me, thought Éponine bitterly. He's a baron, and baron types like their women passive and placating. Like that Ursule. He's never even talked to her, but he knows she loves him back because she's rich and he can just will her to love him. Rich boys have passive mothers and passive sisters and passive nannies, so they can't imagine women being any other way.

But Enjolras was different. Éponine did not sense it, but with the increased presence of so many young men, her affection for Marius was gradually starting to wane. Enjolras did not talk to Éponine in public any more than his friends did, but he made a point of being especially kind to her, and sometimes he took her aside after meetings to answer questions that she had about the cause. Enjolras seemed happier every week; his recruitment was growing. Éponine was happy that Enjolras was happy.

Thus passed the winter months of 1832. One day, Éponine stopped Enjolras after a meeting and asked him to explain to her what a republic was. He told her that he didn't have nearly the time to explain, but that soon he would find a spare hour or two in which to explain it to her. Eventually the weather warmed up, and it became suitable for them to take regular walks together outside. Spring had sprung.

A/N: So there it is! Isn't Enjolras just better than Marius in every way? Sorry, I know this chapter was kind of dull, but at least it was short. And I tried to liven it up with some Courfeyrac/Marius lighthearted conversation at the beginning. It's all uphill from here, I promise. The next chapter is the one I'm really proud of, it's kind of the whole reason for me writing this fic. So don't give up! Don't stop believing, hold on to that feeling...