Libraries always were her havens.
When she was just a kid, she liked playing hide and seek with her little sister Azelma in the stacks, giggling quietly around huge tomes and breathing in that distinctive smell (that was when Azelma still loved her, when she still thought of Eponine as her cool big sister, her hero).
When she was a teenager, she'd often hide in some forgotten corner to sleep, because there was no way 'Parnasse or Georges would ever set foot in a library (literacy – oh, the terror).
Now, she's found what she likes to think of as her spot near the rare books section, an always-empty, honey-colored table with cushioned chairs. It has a big window overlooking a small pocket of grass and a tall weeping willow somebody brought in years ago, and on sunny days she curled in her own patch of serenity, papers spread around her. Nobody ever comes to this part of the library, and so she's come to think of it as her own territory, come to depend on the silence.
So when there's a golden flash of motion in the corner of her eye as she shifts to pile her hair into a sloppy bun, she pauses.
"I can see you, you know, Professor," she calls out.
Enjolras steps out, balancing several books in his arms and looking somewhat sheepish. "Good day, Eponine."
"Be honest now," she says, amused. "Are you spying on me to make sure I'm working on your paper?"
Enjolras splutters, taken aback. "Of course not! I was just grabbing a few extra books! I would never – you're a very dedicated student, Eponine –"
Eponine laughs.
"Right, you were joking," he mumbles, sliding the books to one arm to rub at the back of his neck in embarrassment. She decides she likes seeing him blush and start, smiling in almost boyish shyness. After all, it's not like she gets to see him flustered often. "It's more crowded than usual in here … would you – would you mind terribly if I, um –"
"Sit down, sit down," she gestures, sweeping her array of notebooks and papers over, sending highlighters rolling along the plane of the table.
He immediately strides over, murmuring, "they're doing some sort of renovations near my office and it's never quiet over there, please let me know if I'm bothering you" and that sort of thing. She waves a hand in the air dismissively.
They soon settle into a comfortable silence. She recalls, after a few moments, how they used to do this often, in the old dingy room above the bar, quietly doing homework as Grantaire and Jehan made up weird drinking songs, her patiently teaching a very confused Marius calculus while Enjolras typed furiously on his sleek Macbook. So working together – okay, not really together together, just at the same table, she insists – is nothing new.
And that is how she rationalizes the fact that he starts showing up day after day, not saying anything other than a mumbled comment on how the construction next to his office isn't done yet. It's not inappropriate or anything, she thinks; after all, it's actually rather convenient, because she finds herself sliding over papers for him to peruse, listening eagerly as he circles and underlines things in his signature red pen, brows furrowed in concentration. He never seems annoyed or bothered by her questions, but focuses on whatever she asks him to with single-minded devotion, gently casting his work aside. She'd forgotten how he always did that, blue eyes narrowing at whatever was in front of him like it was the most important thing in the world at that exact moment.
"What are you working on today?" he starts asking as he slides into what is now "his" chair.
"The Congress of Vienna," or "Machiavellian ethics," she'd say simply with a long-suffering sigh, and sometimes he'd give her a look likethat's easy, you've done that before or a little "tch" of sympathy. Long habit (or perhaps it's been ingrained into her by Courfeyrac and Grantaire's oh God don't ever ask Enjolras what he's working on unless you want a lecture on women's equality or something) prevents her from ever turning the tables and asking him what he's thundering so furiously at his keyboard for, but the clicking noises beside her are comforting, if she's being honest. Actually, if she was even more honest, she'd say that lately, it seems as if once they leave the classroom, he forgets that he's supposed to be her superior, as if they're just kids doing homework again. But that's not surprising in itself – two people with shared memories only a few years apart in age naturally gravitating towards each other, right? It's just a very comfortable professor-student relationship, Eponine reassures herself.
One night they get into such a long debate over her paper that they actually get kicked out because it's already dinnertime.
"Oh, come on," Eponine says in response, glancing out of the window to her left. The sun was setting. "God forbid you have the last word yet again."
"I'm pretty sure that's not in the Ten Commandments," Enjolras points out with a wryness Eponine hasn't seen in years.
"Oh, dear God in heaven! Professor Enjolras has made a joke! The world is ending, save yourselves!" She faux-gasps, pantomiming a swoon.
"Come on, we can go to my office," he ignores her pointedly, striding along down the concrete sidewalks crisscrossing the quad.
"I thought you said it was noisy due to construction," she points out in the dim hallway in the darkened history building as he fumbles at the lock.
He drops his keys onto the purplish carpet and makes a frantic dive for them. "Oh, uh, they finished a few days ago, but it's still a bit dusty and all –" In the darkness, it's impossible to tell if he's blushing or not. She smiles but decides not to pursue it further.
They squint at the brightness as he flicks the lights on, apologizing profusely for the mess.
"It's alright, you should see my apartment," she reassures without much thought, and he freezes in the middle of straightening teetering piles of books and sweeping ink-smudged crumpled balls of paper into the wastebasket.
"I should think that would be against the rules of professor-student interactions," Enjolras says in clipped tones.
"I didn't mean it like that," she snorts, eyebrows arching. What she really wants to say is, When did you care for the rules, monsieur? But she can definitely see that blush now, and really, she doesn't think he'd take it very well. History and politics, they're a breeze to him; he charges through them with all the bravado of a lion, but flirting? Absolutely clueless. It was more than a little endearing, she thinks, but banishes the thought when he makes an odd comment on the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The next day she comes by to turn in a paper comparing imperialism and colonization (he'd gotten so fed up the other day at how no one was paying attention to his lecture and assigned ten pages in a fit of pique – she'd balked and given him an annoyed lecture heavily based on Cesare Beccaria's On Crimes and Punishments later on, but had agreed that yes, the class needed some sort of discipline).
She ends up staying to discuss the general stupidity of the policy of appeasement during World War II ("You only think it's ridiculous because you know the eventual outcome, Eponine," Enjolras had pointed out, even though he'd agreed).
At five, she stretches to check the clock, laughing to herself. "We never were sticklers for the rules, were we?" He just shakes his head in reply.
And that is how they slowly drift from their spot to the library to the coziness of his office, and how gradually the worn-out couch that looks like he stole it from one of the dorms starts to smell like her perfume, and why one day she bursts through the door like a hurricane is at her back.
"What's going on now?" he asks, not even looking up from his desk, his voice weary and infinitely patient.
She dumps her messenger bag on the couch, sinking to the floor in front of it. "I have to write a paper on the political ideas behind various art movements."
His raised eyebrow and the thoroughly unimpressed look he gives her asks, And?
"I suck at art," she pouts, childishly. "That's why I'm a political science major."
"Do you want help?" He queries, even though by now he knows the answer.
She nods, because even now it hurts her pride to say it aloud, and he sighs like a martyr as he slowly gets up from his leather-backed swivel chair. Enjolras towers over her as she flops on her stomach carelessly like a seal, spreading out art books and printouts around her.
"Look at all of this. How am I supposed to relate something like The Ecstasy of St. Theresa to the absolutism of Louis XIV? What do fucking nun orgasms fit into anything at all? If Professor Dubois makes this worth 150 points, I shit you not, I'm gonna murder someone…" she grouses, pounding a fist on the carpet for emphasis.
"Language," he intones, chiding.
"Sorry," she says, not a trace of apology in her voice, peering up at him. "This is hurting my neck, sit down."
She can't help but giggle as he gingerly sits himself down on the ground beside her like a grandmother with arthritis.
"It's not wise to laugh when you're requesting help from me," Enjolras sniffs with well-bred dignity.
"Who said I was wise?" Her lips curl in amusement, and he just snorts.
He starts grabbing printouts, and even if he says he's not that great at art, Eponine appreciates how he squints in concentration, as if racking his brains for anything he could offer her, sometimes just giving the historical background on the era a piece was made in. She nods and she scribbles things on printouts and in her notebooks, circling a detail here or there as she listens to the pleasant, serious rumble of his voice.
"Thanks," she murmurs under her breath, stretching across pages lazily to mark up Liberty Leading the People by Delacroix.
He sits up and rubs the back of his neck, shrugging. "I never really focused on art. That was always more of Grantaire or Feuilly's area." Suddenly his eyes dim a little, and she flounders in the silence, unsure of what to do.
She never really knew the boys all that well – they were simply there, just a loud and boisterous group of self-proclaimed revolutionaries. The bald guy, Bossuet, was always spilling things on himself or breaking things, and Grantaire she knew to be the man who often snuck her a drink or two before another one, the one with the glasses – Combeferre, that's it – caught him. It wasn't that they had been unkind to her; in fact, they had been kinder than she deserved, but they had always seemed too close-knit for her to try to worm her way in, and a little unreal in their fervor, like fairy tales. Like stars, too far away to understand her particular darkness.
In her awkwardness she shuffles amongst her scattered art pieces and finds one particular statue. "Oh, look, it's you," she jokes, lifting it into the light.
He squints confusedly at the glossy photograph. "I know I told you art wasn't really my best subject, but I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be David."
"No, it really does remind me of you," she insists, barely managing to not give him a paper cut as she shifts to place the paper next to his temple. "See, same set jaw, same determined brows, same stubborn mouth, you even have the same hair." She's always liked Bernini's David anyway, liked how it was if he was frozen perpetually in motion, carved eyes intense in their ferocity. "Tell me, how'd you manage to escape the Louvre?"
"I'm almost positive it's not at the Louvre," he protests, but now he's smiling broadly.
" ' "Almost positive" is not proof of actually knowing,' " she volleys his own statement from a few days ago back at him, and Enjolras just laughs.
When the chuckles die down she turns back to her work, satisfied and tapping a pen on her chin as she composes her thoughts. She can feel the prickle of his gaze on her, so she turns.
"What, is there ink on my nose or something –" she starts to ask, but he's staring at her like she imagines Vasco Nunez de Balboa must have looked out on the endless azure of the Pacific Ocean, discovery and hesitant amazement in his eyes.
It's like a flash of lightning, startling in its appearance but gone in a heartbeat.
"What? No, you're good," Enjolras reassures in a murmur, quieter than usual, shuffling the photographs absorbedly.
She leaves soon afterwards to start her first shift at a job her roommate told her about, shoving photographs and art books into her bag pell-mell. His gaze is almost indulgently amused, and for some reason on her it feels like drowning.
The next day to her relief he's the same old, serious Enjolras as he scribbles notes down on The Two Treatises of Government, even though he's probably read it a thousand times already ("A good book is one that you read over and over and over again and still find something new within its pages," he intones when she points this out, appropriately fortune cookie-like), the afternoon sunlight slanting through the blinds into panels across the carpet.
Yet, even as she doodles in the margins of her notebook and he glances over to her, exasperated and affectionate, there is something different, something in the air that's not quite the same.
Lightning, she suddenly recalls, has this one quality: it leaves white-hot crackling streaks in the air, even after it's long gone.
