I'm curious if any readers recognize where the chapter titles of this story are taken from. One free review to the first person who guesses it - but no cheating! Thanks again to everyone who's left feedback.


Eponine could not be sure just how long she stayed in the hospital with the nuns, for her illness made the time drag, but it felt like a very long time.

The sour nun said that if she got out of bed again, they would get another blanket and swaddle her up like they did the babies, so that she couldn't move an inch, and if she swore or spoke out of turn again, they would wash her mouth out with soap. Eponine didn't want that to happen, so she laid in bed and tried to be as still and quiet as possible. Her fever made this quite easy. She was very tired and getting out of bed had made her feel even worse. Whenever she coughed, her whole body shook as if she might break apart. She dozen on and off for long periods.

Nuns came in regularly to check on her. They woke her and propped her up in bed, groggy and half-awake, to take more medicine or drink more water. They took her temperature, and if she was too hot, they changed her gown and wiped her face and body down with cold cloths. They held hot spoonfuls of broth and bits up bread up to her mouth and coaxed her - "Be a good girl, now, and eat just a little" - and even though Eponine didn't have any appetite, she ate just to make them leave her alone. It was hard to tell the nuns apart, because they all dressed alike, and Eponine didn't bother trying to learn their names, but gradually, she recognized that some of them could be very kind.

One day, that hateful doctor came to see her again. He snuck up on her while she was facing the other way, or she would've started screaming as soon as she saw him coming. He had the nuns roll her onto her side, and then he pulled her gown right up and gave her a suppository, which was almost as bad as the shot.

The hospital was such a strange place, so very different from home. During the daytime, it wasn't so bad. There was always a hum of noise from the hallway outside her room, nuns hurrying past, talking and giving orders. When she was awake, Eponine would watch the patches of sunlight move across the floor and up the walls as the hours slipped by. Her thoughts wandered, and for the first time in a long time, she remembered Cosette, the girl who used to live with them, and she made up stories in her head about what might have happened to Cosette since the old man had taken her away.

But the hospital grew quieter at night, and the silence and darkness made her big, empty room feel even bigger. Eponine had never scared easily, but it was so frightening to be there by herself. The nuns still came to check on her, but their visits felt further apart during the night. She sweated into the sheets, and tossed and turned, and dreamed strange, feverish dreams.

One night, she had a terrible, vivid dream about being chased through the woods by a bear. She was dizzy and wobbly because Papa had given too much of his beer again, and she couldn't run fast enough, and she just knew that the bear would catch her and crush her bones in his teeth. She woke up wailing and crying and found one of the nuns sitting beside her bed, patting her hand.

"There, there, child," she said gently. Eponine grabbed her cool hand with her own hot, sweaty one, and felt better. The nun leaned over her, wiped her face with a cold cloth, and brushed her disheveled hair away from her face. "You were just having a bad dream, little one. It's common with fever, I'm afraid. I can stay here with you until you fall asleep again. Would you like that?"

Eponine nodded, and the nun smiled and stayed there with her. She patted her hand and sang a soft song about a place of peaceful rest. Eponine didn't understand all the words, but the melody was sweet and the nun's voice was pretty, and the words seemed to drift around in her muddled mind as she fell asleep. "There is a joy for souls distressed, a balm for every wounded breast, 'tis found above in Heaven."


The next morning, for the first time since she'd arrived at the hospital, Eponine felt clear-headed and hungry when she woke up. She was restless, too, her legs itching to get up out of bed. The nice nun from last night returned to check on her, and she took her temperature, listened to her chest, then smiled, and said, "Praise the Lord, child, I think your fever's finally broken!"

The nun said that she would feel even better after she'd had a bath, and she turned the blankets down and scooped Eponine up in her arms. The nuns were all stronger than they looked and could lift her in and out of bed easily. Eponine felt strong enough to walk again - she was sure that her legs wouldn't shake anymore - but she said nothing and let the nun carry her. Part of her had come to like these nuns and the way they took care of her. They couldn't have been more different from her parents.

Eponine was taken back to the bathing-room, undressed, and given another bath, but this one wasn't nearly so unpleasant as the first one. The soap smelled sweet, the hot water did wonders for her sore muscles, and the nuns' gentle scrubbing felt almost like a massage. They brushed her hair for her, redressed her in a clean gown, and took her back to her room. They gave her a bowl of stew to eat in bed, but one warned her, "Don't eat too fast, now. You're not all clear yet, and we don't want it to come back up again."

Eponine was very hungry, but before she grabbed her spoon and began eating, she looked at the nuns and said, "Thank you." Her parents had never taught her to say please or thank you - they'd taught her nothing about manners at all - but she was so grateful to the nuns for making her well again that some small instinct to goodness came to her naturally.

The nuns looked each other with some surprise when she said thank you, and the nice one smiled proudly at her and said, "You're very welcome, child." The other one said, "Praise the Lord, I think this child might turn out decently yet."

The stew was hot and very good, and Eponine was so focused on eating - it was the first proper meal that she'd been able to eat since she arrived here - that she almost didn't hear what the nuns were whispering about by the door.

"But what's to be done if nobody comes to claim her?" the nice one asked in a hushed voice. "She was left on the front steps in an onion crate, remember?"

"Yes, I know," the other whispered back. "We'll keep her here for as long as we can, I suppose, and try to find her family. Oh, I do pray that we don't have another abandonment case on ours hands. I hated handing that little boy over the orphanage after nobody ever came for him."

Eponine's stomach suddenly soured, as if she might throw up. The spoon slipped from her hands, landing in the near-empty bowl with a loud plink. For a long moment, she couldn't breathe, but finally, she found her voice. She turned to the nuns and said loudly, with all the certainty that she could muster, "My papa will come get me!"

The nuns abruptly fell silent. She thought that they would be angry with her for talking out of turn, but the nice one just walked over her bed. "Your papa?" she asked gently, looking down at Eponine with such pity in her eyes. "Is your papa the one who told you not to answer our questions and liquored you up and left you alone on our front steps in the cold?"

Eponine pursed her lips. Was this a trick question? Papa had been the one to do all of those things, but until just now, it had never occurred to Eponine that those weren't things that papas should be doing to their little girls.

The nun sighed and went on, "Child, I've treated sick drunkards who didn't smell of liquor as strongly as you did when we found you. I've tended to bruised women who told me their husbands were good men who didn't really mean it."

Eponine furrowed her brow, and an uneasy feeling spread in the pit of her stomach. She didn't like this nun implying that her papa was a bad man, and she wanted to speak up and defend him, but she was unsure of what to say. "He's lots of fun when he's drunk" somehow sounded wrong. What if this nun was right? What if Papa wasn't a good man? What if he didn't come back to get her? Her eyes suddenly smarted with tears, and she bit her lip hard to keep them from spilling.

She went on, "But perhaps we wouldn't have to send you to the orphanage, if it comes to that. Some other sisters in our order run a convent school for girls near here. We might be able to get you a place there." She patted Eponine's arm gently. "I have a feeling that a little structure would do you a world of good, child."


That night, Eponine laid awake for a long time, staring at the moonlit shadows on the ceiling, worrying and wondering. A little structure, the nun had said. Structure meant discipline, which Eponine had never really known. She couldn't imagine a life of rules and routines. She didn't want a life like that. Yes, part of her had come to like these nuns and how they took care of her, but she missed the freedom of home. She missed Papa and Mama.

Eponine rolled onto her side and bit her nails until they bled. No, she would never go to any old convent school. Papa loved her, and he would come back to fetch her... wouldn't he?

She was finally drifting off to sleep when the window suddenly slid open, startling her wide awake. But before she even had time to be frightened, a scratchy, familiar voice came through the darkness. "There you are."

Eponine gasped in delight, stood right up in bed, and started to exclaim, "Papa!" but he clapped his hand over her mouth before she could make a sound.

"For fuck's sake, keep quiet," he hissed. It felt so good to Eponine's ears to hear a swear word again. "You all better?" She nodded. "You know how long I been prowlin' around this damn hospital tryin' to find you? Why ain't you in a room with other kids?"

"They said I would be a bad influence on them."

Papa grinned the biggest smile that Eponine had ever seen. "Did they, now?" he asked, chuckling and ruffling up her hair, which one of the nuns had brushed and braided for her before she went to sleep. "That's my girl, Eponine," he praised, and she smiled back at him, happy to have made him so proud of her. "Yeah, you're my daughter, all right. Come on, I'll break you outta here."

She held onto his back quite easily as he slipped back out of the window and climbed down the rain-pipe to the street. Then he set her on the ground, but after they'd walked for a few minutes, he noticed that she was barefoot, wearing only a thin hospital gown. "Eh, can't have you gettin' sick again," he grumbled, and he picked her up and carried her. Eponine's heart gladdened. She was so relieved that Papa had come to get her, so happy that he hadn't abandoned her to those nuns and their convent school. She snuggled up against him, tucking her head under his chin, and breathed in his warm, familiar scent of tobacco and alcohol.

Papa laughed his rough, familiar laugh and pinched her cheeks hard. "Well, well," he said, and his voice was teasing, but not in a mean way like after he'd drunk too much, "so my little girl missed me, did she?" Eponine nodded and wrapped both arms around his neck, and even though Papa was usually only affectionate with her when he was drunk, he kissed her lips and nuzzled her neck.

It was a long walk home, and Eponine was almost asleep against Papa's shoulder when she suddenly remembered the nuns that she'd just left behind. What would they do when they came in to check on her and found her bed empty and her gone? Wouldn't they be worried? She was so glad to be free of that hospital and to be going home with Papa, but she felt guilty for worrying them. They had made her lie still and take baths, but they had made her healthy again, too. She would've liked to tell them thank you and goodbye.

When Eponine did fall asleep in her father's arms, she was no longer quite so relieved. Her feelings were now all jumbled-up and confused, and the kind nun's words about her papa echoed inside her head, like a warning.