Chapter 2

It had been five months since Eponine first stood up to her mother. She had now also begun standing up to her father. Azelma had recovered from her illness, but was scrawnier since then. The inn was nothing but a failure now. Eponine and Azelma knew it. Gavroche didn't seem to care. Their parents knew it too. The three children would be up in the night listening to the older Thenardiers arguing.

Azelma was small and frail since she'd been sick, and the poor blond was now a scrawny little girl.

Eponine looked the same as she had five months before, except there was a new fire in her eyes rather than dull depression.

"We can't possibly stay here, you fool! There's nothing for us here! The inn is a failure!" the sisters heard from their room. "Mother sounds cheerful," Eponine commented dryly just before their five year old brother Gavroche charged in, looking scared.

"They're fighting again," he whimpered as Eponine picked him up and hugged him.

"I know, everything will be fine," she murmured softly as Azelma sat on her bed.

"Don't make promises you can't keep, 'Ponine," Azelma said, making Eponine shoot her a short glare.

"'Zelma-" she began, but her father cut her off.

"Good God, woman! What do you recommend we do then? Just leave Montfermeil?" Thenardier yelled.

"Yes! Paris isn't far; we're bound to have better luck there!"

"Paris!" Azelma exclaimed. "Just think, 'Ponine, Paris!"

"Wait, 'Zelma, that isn't certain," Eponine replied, Gavroche still clinging to her.

"You actually think that we should go to Paris? Well that's not happening! Not until we have no other choice!" Thenardier roared.

"We don't have any other choice you madman!" Madame Thenardier shouted back. "There's hardly any money left!"

"We're staying until we don't have a single sous left and that's final!"

"Well, I guess we aren't going to Paris right away," Eponine said, looking at Azelma, who looked slightly disappointed.

Eponine knew that her little sister dreamed of Paris and city life. Eponine, however, was content at the inn, where she could climb trees and dream of adventure. She had once been like Azelma, but had decided that that was a life that would never be. So she began to daydream of grand adventures, slaying dragons, rescuing princesses, all of which were ideas she gotten from the stories her mother had told her when she was little. Ideas that gave her hope for a better life.

Gavroche, meanwhile, looked very tired.

"Come on, Roche," Eponine murmured. "You need to get to sleep."

"But Ponine-" he started, a yawn cutting him off.

"No 'buts', come on, to bed for you," Eponine said sternly, picking him up and carrying him off to his room.

"'Ponine, what's going to happen to us?" Gavroche asked Eponine as she sat him down on his bed.

Eponine looked at her tiny five year old brother. "I wish I could tell you for certain, Roche, but I really don't know." She carefully tucked him in as he stared up at her with wide eyes.

"But 'Ponine, you must know something."

Eponine felt her heart break as she looked down at her brother, who so desperately relied on her to know things. She forced a smile. "Don't worry, 'Roche, just sleep." She bent over and kissed him on the forehead as he closed his eyes.

"Eponine, will you sing me a lullaby?" Gavroche asked suddenly, his eyes still shut.

Eponine smiled. "Of course."

Gravroche smiled slightly.

"Dors, mon enfant, et la paix te fréquenter,

Tout au long de la nuit;

Les anges gardiens Dieu t'envoie,

Tout au long de la nuit;

Douces les heures sont assoupis rampante,

Hill et vallée du sommeil sommeil,

J'ai ma garde veillée d'amour,

Tout au long de la nuit." Eponine sang the first verse of the lullaby softly. Their mother had sung it to her as a child, though not well. It was a Welsh one, her mother had said, that some guest at their inn had taught Mme Thenardier once, and it was Eponine's favourite.

By the time she had finished the first verse, Gavroche was fast asleep, so Eponine stood and left, returning to the room that she shared with Azelma.

"I heard you singing," was all Azelma said when Eponine returned.

Eponine didn't respond at all.

"Your voice is much nicer than mother's," Azelma commented. "Amazing that she's related to us."

Eponine snorted. "I know. Amazing that we survived so long, the way she behaves."

"She wasn't that bad when Cosette was here," Azelma replied as Eponine curled up in her bed.

"Did you even notice how she treated Cosette?" Eponine replied as she stared at the gray wall in front of her, rather than turning to face her sister who lay in her own bed on the far side of the room. "If Cosette hadn't been here, we would have been treated this way long ago. Not just since she left."

Azelma didn't reply to Eponine's bitter remark. No more words were exchanged that night.

Author's Note: The lullabye that Eponine sings is All Through the Night, only in French.

English Lyrics:

Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee,
All through the night;
Guardian angels God will send thee,
All through the night;
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and vale in slumber sleeping,
I my loving vigil keeping,
All through the night.