A/N: Outtake 8. Thanks to Eruaistaniel for suggesting this little ficlet! Happy Valentine's Day to everyone.

8: An Everyday Billet-Doux

The greeting cards, as they were called in the stationery shop window in the Rue Racine, cost two or three sous apiece. "It's a funny price for a painted billet-doux," Eponine remarked as she and Azelma looked over some of the greetings. They had been running a few errands during the lunch hour, when they had been invited by the shopkeeper to peruse these handmade curiosities.

"To be plain about it, I wouldn't pay a centime for some of them, especially the ones with these sad exaggerations of Cupid," the shopkeeper said in a whisper as he set aside a stack of badly embellished cards. He then picked up one showing a colourful pastoral scene and handed it to the young ladies. "This is a pretty one. I should find the artist of this and convince him to focus on making miniatures."

Azelma shrugged as she looked at the picture. "I could see why someone would pay two sous for a picture, but not for the verses inside of them," she said, frowning at the badly rhyming couplet gracing the card's interior.

"If all young men were as talented with words as your Citizen Prouvaire, then this sort of business would be superfluous," the proprietor said, giving her a teasing wink. "Anyway it is far less controversial than the usual messages."

"So short though," Azelma said. "I've never seen these sold in Paris before."

The shopkeeper shrugged. "They are beginning to be all the rage in England, so I hear."

Azelma shrugged at this tidbit of information. "Maybe I'll get one just to show on the mantelpiece. Jehan would like that very much. Maybe that colourful medieval fair scene there?' she asked, pointing to another of the selections.

"Ah you've found the second best piece," the proprietor quipped approvingly. "Is there anything you'd fancy, Citizenness?" he asked Eponine.

"The question is more if there is anything he would fancy," Eponine replied dryly. Admittedly most of this stationery was very pretty, with floral motifs, vistas of meadows and sea sides, as well as the occasional scene from a myth or two. 'What does one give to a man who doesn't usually notice roses?' she wondered. Had there been a sweeping historical tableau or even a plainly engraved witticism, she might have settled for that, but there was nothing so odd in the shop's quaint and even slightly trite selections.

The shopkeeper laughed. "I see he is rather fastidious?"

Azelma nudged her sister. "Ponine, won't you get anything? It's Saint Valentine's Day."

Eponine shook her head. "Perhaps not. It really is a lot to pay for a message."

"There are some here that I could give to you for a sou," the shopkeeper offered.

"I s'pose not. It wouldn't be fair either to you or the makers of these cards," Eponine said. 'Anyway I shouldn't spend a sou on something just to look at, not anymore,' she reminded herself even as her hand wandered unconsciously to her midsection.

The shopkeeper nodded understandingly. "I hope that some other occasion may be more forthcoming," he said before going to help Azelma with her purchase.

Eponine did not say anything more, but she could not help but think a little bit more about this curiosity even when she was at work at the Rue des Macons. 'Just because I won't buy something so pretty that does not mean I cannot try a message of my own,' she told herself as she fetched a few scraps of paper to begin drafting a letter as soon as she was finished with a series of lengthy documents. While she never considered herself as particularly eloquent, especially in comparison to her husband, she nevertheless had some confidence in her manner of prose, or at least her grammar. Yet despite all attentions to form, convention, and even occasionally rhyme, she still found herself with little more than a few paltry lines and still more crossed out passages at four o'clock, the time she usually left for home.

"Why are all these words coming out wrong?" she wondered aloud with exasperation as she tossed her pencil aside. She sighed as she looked over the rather clumsy prose; she would not dare to present this to the young man who had somehow taken a leap of faith in order to make his case very clearly to her. After a few moments she stuffed these scraps of paper into the woodstove, determined not to leave any evidence of her failed attempt at romantic correspondence.

When she met her brothers at the schoolhouse, she arrived in time to find Neville and Jacques sitting on the schoolyard fence and looking on as Gavroche and some boys were helping up a friend who had his left eye blackened and his best shirt ripped up. All the boys were covered in muck and grime. "What's all this about?" Eponine asked in consternation.

"Remi got beat up because of a girl," Neville said sagely.

"Not that way! That bully took away the note," Remi muttered.

"It's not just a note, it's a trinket!" an older boy cackled, much to the laughter of much of the group. "Yves is in love!"

"Never mind Yves," Gavroche said, slinging an arm around Remi's shoulder. "He is now qualified for the choir of parrots."

"If you get a black eye too, I'm not fixing it up," Eponine warned her brother, eliciting another round of laughter from the boys. "We'd better go home before it starts getting dark."

Neville and Jacques immediately scrambled off the fence to catch up with their siblings. "Ponine, does everyone get love letters today?" Jacques asked in a whisper as they began walking to the Rue Guisarde.

"Not if there's no one they want to write to or want to get letters from," Eponine replied.

Neville stuck his hands in his pockets. "Is Enjolras going to write you a letter?"

Eponine bit her lip at this query. In all the time she had known Enjolras, whether as a neighbor, friend, partner, lover, or spouse, she had received a number of missives from him. Not one of these messages could even be construed as remotely romantic, at least as far as language and content were concerned. The only concessions he made towards intimacy were his ending each letter with a promise to see her later, followed by signing his given name. 'It's good that he is so straightforward since there is usually no mistake to be made there, but sometimes he can try to be less prosaic,' she thought.

Gavroche rolled his eyes. "Silly mome. You know he doesn't have time to write those things."

"He should! He loves Ponine!" Jacques protested before sneezing and wiping his nose. "I know all the other big people do that. Claudine has a whole box of letters from Combeferre, and I saw Prouvaire making a song for Azelma too."

"Oh that's the way they go about things, and they are happy with that," Eponine pointed out amusedly. She bent to take a look at her brother and pressed a hand to his forehead to check for a fever. "better have some soup tonight," she said, frowning on finding his brow a little warmer than usual.

"Why aren't you and Enjolras that way?" Jacques asked as he squirmed away from her fussing over him.

"We're a little different, I s'pose," Eponine replied. 'And just because couples say sweet things, that doesn't always mean they mean anything,' she mused grimly. Her parents had been that way; there had been a time when the laughter and caresses had been genuine, but that eventually fell apart into the cold sheets and distant glares which passed for intimacy in the Gorbeau hovel. She pinched her wrist to banish away these bitter memories which were only made sharper by the chill of the February day.

After setting her things down at home and making sure her brothers changed out of their wet shoes and clothes, Eponine headed to the market at the Marche Saint-Germain to get a few extra ingredients for dinner. The revelry of Saint Valentine's Day was ebullient, in fact almost palpable in this now lively space. Aside from the usual wares in the place, there were a few newcomers selling decorated confectioneries and bouquets of flowers, and an old musician had begun to play a lively polka on his fiddle. Of course the place was also a promenade now for couples; the more sedate pairs confined themselves to talking or eating near the stalls, while more daring duos were dancing the polka or openly flirting in the light of the streetlamps.

As Eponine was rummaging through a stall's selection of beets, she heard an outraged screech from the general vicinity of a newspaper stand. "I'm going to kill that cad when I see him! How dare he publish that, that bit of paper!" one of the neighbourhood matrons sputtered, nearly crumpling a gazette in her gloved hands.

"All he wants is money, Hortense. You know what you have to do," her more sedate but nonetheless equally concerned companion said.

"He knows that I won't buy a reputation. He seeks to ruin me, that's all," the matron groaned.

"I s'pose she's been in a dreadful secret?" Eponine asked the vendor of the stall she was at.

"It's a scandal, my dear," the vendor said in a mischievous whisper. "She's been carrying on with the new commandant of the barracks!"

Eponine gave her a sceptical look. "It's terribly imprudent of him."

"That is just the beginning of it, Citizenness Enjolras. The poor colonel isn't the only man she has been carrying on with, and he's not the one who gave out that letter," the vendor cackled as she carefully tallied up how many beets Eponine had picked out. "That is what comes from keeping such love tokens; it's so improper, keeping them like reliquaries or trophies. By the way, this will all cost five sous."

"I s'pose it's a matter of sentiment," Eponine replied as she handed over the required amount.

"If she ever really loved any of the givers!" the vendor said, eyeing with distaste the woman named Hortense. She smiled more amiably at Eponine. "So when is that little one going to be born?"

"Little one?" Eponine repeated warily.

The vendor laughed softly. "I know a woman in your condition from the very sight of her. On a girl as thin as you, it's not easy to hide. I bet that it will be a son, as handsome as Citizen Enjolras is."

"Perhaps, but I shouldn't mind having a little girl either," Eponine replied glibly.

"She would be charming and dear, there is no question of it. But every man must have someone to carry on his name, and we all know that your husband has no siblings," the vendor said. She paused on seeing Eponine's eyes narrow. "It is only a matter of fact, I did not mean any offense, my dear."

"I know," Eponine replied. "And I s'pose thank you for some of it," she added a little more civilly before quitting the stall. She frowned as she looked herself over surreptitiously; if it was clear to some people now, what would happen when she would have to start letting out her clothes?

She walked quickly back to the Rue Guisarde, only to end up laughing when she entered her home. Next to the door, alongside her brothers' overcoats and hats hung a red tailcoat she only knew too well. She peered into the study and caught sight of Enjolras searching through a bookshelf. She set the basket of beets down before tiptoeing to him and quickly wrapping her arms around him from behind. "Hello Antoine," she whispered in his ear.

Enjolras started for a moment before letting out a bemused chuckle. He deftly removed one of her gloves before bringing her hand to his lips and lightly kissing her knuckles. "Hello Eponine. Where have you been?"

"Just getting some things for dinner," Eponine said as she pressed her cheek against the back of his waistcoat. She knew he couldn't see her face but she couldn't help but smile just for the simple fact that he was home and in her arms again. 'It's more than enough, so please let him always like it this way,' she pleaded silently as she squeezed his hands before letting go of him so he could turn to face her.

Enjolras removed her other glove and brushed her hair out of her face. "I told Jacques to get to bed early. He's running a fever," he said concernedly.

Eponine sighed and nodded. "That's why I thought of making beet soup. I hope you don't mind even if we don't like it as much as he does."

"It's only for one evening," Enjolras said. "I'll sit up with him later."

"You've had a long day, Antoine, and you have sessions the whole day tomorrow as well," she pointed out. She knew all too well of the preparations he always made before the Friday assemblies; oftentimes she endeavoured to help him as best as she could if only to make sure he could get a few hours of rest.

"I'll manage. You need the rest too," he said, dropping his hands to rest on her waist. "It's that, or you'll be ill in the morning again."

"It passes. It always does," Eponine said stubbornly, even if she knew he would not drop the matter all that easily. "You worry about me too much."

"It's still my turn."

"If you had your way, it will always be."

'At the rate we're going, we'll both end up sitting up with Jacques and maybe falling asleep at some hour all the same,' she realized. There was no way she could ever get him to stop fretting about her welfare, no more than he could get her to do the same with regard to him. As maddening as it was, it was still comforting all the same. She smiled as she ran her fingers over his knuckles. "I s'pose we'll have to figure out something in an hour or two after you finish with your work and I do something about dinner," she finally said.

He nodded before kissing her lips lightly. "We'll negotiate then."

"Good," she said before hurrying to the kitchen, feeling somewhat steadier than any lovely sonnet could ever make her feel.