Eponine's initial thought when she woke up was that her head felt very heavy, and that she could not feel the rest of her body very well.
"She's waking up." A far away voice murmured, and a cold wet rag was placed on her forehead.
"Be very quiet." A woman whispered. "We don't want to agitate her."
"Of course, sister." Replied the first voice, one dynamic lower.
Blinking her eyes open slowly, she was blinded by the sudden light that grazed her pupils and she forced her eyes back shut. Eponine began to cough roughly and a strange sensation flooded her as two warm, gentle hands pressed he firmly against the back of something large and impressionable. The world at her finger tips seemed cottony, as if the entire world had gone hazily soft. She felt light, floaty, as if she was an angel lazily lounging on a bed of cloud. In the back of her mind she wondered if she was dead.
A small screech flooded her ears and the light behind her eyelids dimmed. Fluttering her eyes open, Eponine found she was laying on a cot in a small, completely blank room. Looking up, her eyes met with the same gorgeous blue eyes she had looked into right before she had fainted. There were no longer red freckles smeared across Officer Liviet's face, but he was still wearing the same navy blue uniform soiled by her blood. There were dark circles underneath his eyes. Looking around her, Eponine saw several other men gathered around her bedside, all wearing the same policeman's uniform. They stood watching her silently, faces serious and arms tucked behind their backs, waiting vigil for her as if she was a fellow officer wounded while on duty.
Looking down at her abdomen, she saw she was dressed in a thin, starkly white gown with a blanket pulled up to her waist. The red-brown glow of well used bandages shone through the soft fabric just below her ribcage on the right side of her body.
"How are you feeling?" Asked a light, feminine voice. A nun removed the cold rag from her forehead and replaced it with a fresh one, all the while standing comfortingly by her side. Her auburn hair was hidden behind her cap and her kind, brown eyes were glazed over with the virtue and innocence only capable of a virgin. She was an older woman with a slight wrinkling around her eyes. She was calm and caring but occasionally, when the health of her patients was at stake, she would become increasingly stern.
"I can't feel anything." She said, her voice coming out as a croak.
"Good." The nun whispered condescendingly."Good. Do you remember what happened?"
Eponine nodded weakly.
"Is she capable of speaking, sister?" Asked Officer Liviet. He was the only man seated and a bruise was swirling itself over his cheekbone, probably a reward from the fight he had gotten into.
"As long as you don't upset her." She said softly, gathering herself as if she was going to leave. "If you start to feel any pain, dear, get one of these kind men to fetch me."
"Sister?" Croaked Eponine, her hand twitching slightly as if it wanted to grab onto the virgin's black sleeve.
"Yes, my dear?"
The wounded girls brown eyes looked into the nuns, half filled with fear and half filled with hope. She was afraid because she feared the prospect of death. It is the greatest natural instinct in human nature. She was hopeful because she no longer wanted to live, another common instinct of the miserable. It was a conflicting storm and it raged within her like fire and water, each emotion fighting each other with all possible strength. The result was a great feeling of anxiety burrowed into Eponine's soul.
"Am I going to die?" Eponine muttered, as if hoping that the men in her room would not hear her.
The nun smiled softly and gripped the girl's hand reassuringly.
"You're in God's favor."
Gathering herself again, she left, her footsteps completely silent against the floor. Beside Eponine, just behind where the nun had been standing, there was a plain cabinet with several drawers, all closed.
"Eponine?" Officer Liviet said, smiling gently when he noticed her attention wandering around the room, taking in each man's face.
"Yes, Monsieur?" She asked, not looking at the young man who was talking to her.
"I have to offer you my gratitude."
"May I ask for what, Monsieur?" Eponine said slowly, her voice starting to lose its gravelly tone. She started coughing again and one of the men handed her a glass of water, also taking the time to give her a small smile.
Officer Liviet laced his fingers withing each other and looked at her gently, as if afraid that if he did not look at her softly enough he would cause her physical pain. Eponine's eyes narrowed in irritation. She was not some weak flower. My God, she hissed to herself, she had seen enough disturbing crime to make even the strongest man's hair curl! Who were these men to treat her like she was some lady?
"When. . . when you involved yourself in the fight you blocked a bullet from me." Officer Liviet said simply.
"It was surely unintentional, Monsieur." Eponine said, slowly closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the pillow her neck was propped up against.
"Be that it may, you still saved his life. We are all very thankful." Said another officer, one whom she did not recognize very well. It was usually Javert who patrolled her part of the city and he seemed absent from today's assembly.
The men thought she had drifted back to sleep for a moment but the girls eyes blinked open again slowly.
"How did you know my name?" She asked slowly, rolling her head to face Officer Liviet.
With a small incline of the head, he motioned to another officer. This officer stared at the young man confusedly for a moment and a sudden realization dawned on his face. Stepping out of the way, Eponine could clearly see Inspector Javert leaning against the closed window, playing idly with the chord of the venetian blinds, wrapping it around his gloved hand and lacing the string through his fingers. He looked at her as if bored, the slightest sneer permeating his pale face as it always did.
"I think the Ma'mselle and I would enjoy a private audience." He said quietly, his words sharp and precise. Eponine was grateful that he did not speak to her like the rest of these men did, like she was some stupid feminine ingrate. However, she felt an inexplicable fear about being alone with this intimidating man.
When the rest of the men hesitated at their leave, his sneer grew and Javert raked his hands down the blinds so that they made strange clapping sounds against the covered window pain. "You should all get back to duty. I've been tolerating your absences long enough." The men began to file out and the young man seated beside her bed gave her a small nod before standing. "Go home and get some sleep Liviet. You look terrible."
Officer Liviet murmured a 'Yes, sir.' before following the other officers out of the tall, wide door on the right of the room.
"Thank you for saving my subordinate." Javert said slowly, abandoning neither his post at the window nor the sneer on his face.
"You are cross with me, I see, Monsieur. But I am wondering why. Ah, well, at least the feeling is mutual, right Monsieur? Mutual feelings are always good. It is easier to be angry at someone else when they are angry with you yourself." She swallowed and her hand played with the soft white linen at her fingertips. "It is easier to love someone when they love you as well." Eponine said gravely.
"You were talking of anger. Whatever made you think of love?" He asked her quietly, slightly intrigued by this strange girl. Providence had repeatedly driven her to him, but for what reason?
"I was talking of mutual feelings, Monsieur." Eponine said slowly. "But why are you cross with me?"
"Cross. . . ." Javert said, his hand still fiddling with the blind chord. "I am not cross. Merely annoyed."
"Why are you annoyed with me, Monsieur?"
Javert's eyes narrowed slightly and he did a disturbing thing. He smiled at her. Eponine had only ever seen him smile when he was about to arrest someone and she felt a chill run down her spine. Was he going to arrest her? If so, what for?
"You are a troublesome girl." He said idly. "You find chaos easily."
"I do not find it, Monsieur, it finds me." She retorted, forgetting her place for a moment.
With a small exclamation, she clapped a hand to her side as a searing pain shot through her body. Eponine touched her wound and immediately regretted it as the pain worsened. Javert walked to her bedside slowly, observing each movement and facial expression she made while in pain, his green eyes boring into her, fascinated by her agony.
"Why are you cross with me?" He asked quietly, hands resting calmly at his side while she writhed silently.
"I am cross, Monsieur," Eponine choked out, gripping the white sheets of her bed so hard her knuckles turned white. "I am cross because I have been exiled from my only home because. . . because everyone thinks that we are currently sleeping with each other." She grunted and panted while carving out this phrase and he admired her silently for bearing with her discomfort so boldly. He would have expected any other woman to cry and scream.
The wave of pain crested and then receded and her grasp of the linen lessened. With his back turned to her, Javert began to pull out the drawers of the cabinet by her bedside, seeming to observe each drawers contents curiously. Though she could not see what he was doing, Eponine heard small metallic noises here and there.
"I see. . . ." Javert murmured after a moment, his back still turned to her. "And why does everyone think that?"
"I don't know," She whined as another ounce of pain registered itself in her body. "I don't know."
"So. . . you are, as you say, cross with me because it is my fault you have been, as you say, exiled from your only home."
"Yes," She spat. "I mean- no. I don't understand what you're saying."
"How is it my fault that people think we are sleeping with each other?" He asked her casually, as if commenting on the weather. "What have I done to imply such a vulgar thing?"
"I don't know, Monsieur, I don't know."
In reality, Eponine knew exactly what Javert had done to make the gossip prone people of the slums assume they were sharing a bed. He had been seen with her in public, not once, but twice, both of which occasions he had acted completely harmless towards her, a complete rarity as Inspector Javert was known for his distaste of the girls of the slums. They said he saw them all as nothing more than potential prostitutes, dirty, ugly girls who would only ever cause him trouble. Despite this cruel condemnation, there was a bit of truth behind Javert's feelings. Many of the girls would become prostitutes.
Eponine just did not want to tell the Inspector this, however, so she withheld this slightly embarrassing piece of knowledge. It was humiliating enough to tell him about her exile and the reason for it. At one time she was half pleased that she was in Javert's favor, and half irritated because it had caused all of the people she knew to distrust her.
"You have no place to go." He said, still messing with the cabinet.
"Yes."
"Not a single place?"
"Not. One." Eponine whispered bitterly, casting a glare to Javert's back.
"You needn't worry any longer. You will become my ward, you will live in my home and my debts will be repaid."
Her brow furrowing, it was Eponine's turn to sneer.
Another wave of pain consumed her and she gritted her teeth, refusing to let any sound save a huff of air escape her. As the harrowing consumed her, Javert turned and watched her distressed state. In one large, black gloved hand he held a syringe, in the other a small jar filled with a clear liquid, its lid missing, laying somewhere on the top of the cabinet.
"Don't be ridiculous." She said, glaring up at him with all the confidence and bravery extreme agony can give a person.
"Why not?" Javert said, dipping the tip of the syringe into the jar and drawing the liquid into its cylinder. "It's a perfectly reasonable solution. For the both of us."
It was indeed the perfect solution. There were many things Javert could not stand, one of which was being in debt. The past few weeks he had been unsettled knowing that he owed this girl something for saving his life. The girl needed a home. He would give her one. However, Javert told himself sternly, this did not mean he would enjoy having the girl in his company. She would be annoying, he told himself. She would be talkative, needy, heedless of boundaries and then of course when people saw the two living together it would reassure the citizens of Paris that they were lovers. Rumors would spread, no doubt, and he may even be slightly discredited. But he was willing to sacrifice all of this to repay his debt, especially now that his debt had become even larger. Javert did not ignore the fact that this girl had saved his subordinate now as well. He would have to do this, otherwise he would continue to spend each night laying awake in bed, fervently thinking of the girl who had stopped him from killing himself, tossing and turning in his sheets while unable to banish her filthy face from his mind.
While Javert was thinking of this, Eponine could think of only one thing. Marius filled her mind's eye. Inspector Javert was in the same social rank as Marius and his family. The young, handsome boy was poor, she knew, but he held the title of baron. His family was rich. Javert and Marius would probably frequent each other's circles, invited to the same dinners and parties and other social events. In abbreviation of her pain muddled and frantic thoughts, if Eponine lived with Inspector Javert, she would have a greater chance of seeing Marius again. She did not list pros or cons, only thinking of his one factor. It elated Eponine to think that she would have a chance to see her love again.
She thought of nothing else.
"Alright, Monsieur." Eponine whispered. Javert watched her as her eyes drifted to the ceiling, her mind lost in some far away place. "Alright."
"Alright," He repeated, raising the filled syringe to his eyes, letting a few drops of the precious liquid escape to drip onto the ground. "In the meantime, let's focus on you recovering. You are currently in the best hospital in Paris and I'll be damned if you saved my and my subordinate's lives for nothing."
Raising her arm, Javert felt for a vein and found a prominent one just beneath the surface of her skin. Sinking the needle into her flesh, she let out a soft sigh as the opiate flooded her system, making her limbs feel impossibly heavy. He watched as her eyes began to dim considerably. Slowly, he brushed a stray strand of dark hair out of her face. He made to leave, thinking that the comfort of sleep had at last overcome her, but when he tried walking away a small hand gripped his arm tightly.
She's strong, Javert remarked to himself.
"Inspector?"
"Yes?"
"Thank you." Eponine whispered, her eyes still closed and her lips slightly parted, her hand still clutching his arm.
"Of course." He whispered back.
Who knows, he thought to himself. Maybe I can make a lady out of her.
I have to apologize in advance. The next chapter... is sooooo long. Nearly 4,000 words. I'm so sorry. The muse was inspiring me and I was watching The Breakfast Club while writing it and I just... couldn't stop. I'm so, so sorry.
Thank you as always for reading this rag. It means a lot to me. TTFN, reviewers.