A/N: Things are going to get interesting really quickly, methinks...this is a really short chapter, but an important one!

Chapter Six

Enjolras

I collapsed onto the bed once I got upstairs, struggling to calm my still-racing heart.

I knew the danger was past, but I had never done anything so frighteningly stupid in my life. I had put on a strong face, for Éponine's sake, but holding that gun to Thénardier's head as I bought his daughter away from him had been terrifying. He was a temperamental man – 'Ponine had testified to that more than once at the ABC – and easily angered. Even though I had been the one with the gun, the tables could have turned on me in an instant. Things still could have gone horribly wrong. Now that the adrenaline rush of the moment was gone, I was able to look at what I had done with a rational mind and see the insanity of it. Even though it had worked, it was a ridiculous plan.

I must be out of my mind.

What were my true motives for buying her from her father? Did I do it just because I loved her and I wanted to save her from him, or was I trying to bind her to me in some way, and this was the only option available to me? I knew she didn't love me the way I loved her, and yet I wanted her with me anyway…was that why I did it?

Éponine opened the door and interrupted my reverie, but I immediately said what was on my mind.

"What kind of man am I, 'Ponine?"

She was obviously confused by my sudden question. "What on earth do you mean?"

I sighed heavily, aggravating my stomach again. Joly would kill me for what just happened. I ignored it to say, "I just don't know my real motives for what happened just now. I don't know if I did what I did just because I love you and I wanted to save you from him, or if I was trying to bring us together somehow. What kind of man am I?"

She sat down next to me, opening the ointment Joly had left for my eye. "You're a good man, Enjolras," she said gently, dabbing it on carefully. "You're dedicated to what you love, and you'll do anything to protect it. That takes a lot of strength."

I gave a weak smile as she tended to me. "I suppose so."

She smiled back, putting the ointment away and washing off her hands. "Do you need anything else?"

I need you, Éponine. I need you to love me, and I need you to be my wife and stay at my side forever. God help me, my darling 'Ponine…I love you more than I can say.

"No, I'll be fine."

Éponine

After I put the ointment on Enjolras' eye, I went back downstairs to rest and contemplate my new position for a while. I replayed the scene of my salvation from the man I'd had the misfortune to call "father" for nineteen years over and over in my head – I had already memorized Enjolras' stance from the stairs as he pointed the gun at my father's head, the way he had stood with his feet slightly apart, the contours of the muscled arm that held the gun perfectly steady. The way his shirt hung on his barely turned torso. The hatred in his eyes as he stared at Thénardier, and the way he had emphasized my name when Thénardier had just called me "the girl," as if I were worth nothing. Which I wasn't, to him.

A knock at the door interrupted my reverie.

"Professor!" a frighteningly familiar voice said. "Professor, let me in! I have urgent news!"

"Mon Dieu…" I whispered as I got up. I opened the door, and my suspicions were confirmed. "Gavroche? Is that really you?"

My little brother's jaw dropped when he saw me in the doorway. "'Ponine!" he cried joyfully, leaping into my arms. I squeezed his little frame to my chest as tightly as I could. No wonder I haven't been seeing you around home, you little rascal. You've been collaborating with the Amis."What are you doing here, sœur aînée?" he asked in his sweet, innocent little voice as I set him down.

"I could ask you the same thing, frère cadet," I laughed, ruffling his hair the way I used to when we were younger. "And who's the professor you mentioned?"

"That's what our little friend here calls me," Enjolras' voice answered as he came slowly down the stairs, still gingerly cradling his stomach. "I've always been the scholarly type, in case you couldn't tell. Let him in, before someone sees him here."

I nodded, shutting the door as Gavroche came in; he already seemed right at home. I guessed it wasn't the first time he'd delivered news to Enjolras at the Café. "What news, mon petit espion?" Enjolras asked in just about the most friendly tone I'd ever heard him use, carefully taking a seat at the table. I helped him to sit, and then sat next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder and watching him for a moment as Gavroche made himself comfortable on the tabletop.

"General Lamarque is dead."

Enjolras' eyes grew wide, and he stood up, taking the nine-year-old by the shoulders and staring into his eyes. "Are you sure, Gavroche?" he asked in the most serious tone I'd ever heard him use. He was right in Gavroche's face, but the boy didn't flinch.

My little brother nodded with a solemnity I had never seen in his eyes before. "I was hiding behind the house, trying to find out something, when one of the General's servants came outside with the priest. All I heard the priest say was something about the General confessing his sins and receiving absolution. Then the servant said to the guard, 'He will be with God before the night is out.'"

Eyes still wide, Enjolras crossed himself and murmured a prayer under his breath – maybe for the General's soul, maybe for the revolution to come. I'd never learned the Latin he was speaking, and in any case, it went by too quickly for me to hear. "Gavroche, 'Ponine, fetch the Amis immediately and send them straight here. We have a revolution to start."

A/N: Dun dun DUUUUUUUUNNNNN! That's it for this weekend; I'm about to go on a trip with my college band to Missouri...but after this weekend, I'll try to upload more! :)