Eponine was breathing heavily on the way back to Café Musain, but they were breaths of relief. The world could have been crashing down around her for all she cared – she had actually managed to NOT make an idiot out of herself while spurting out sentences that somewhat resembled an apology. (Well, not much of an idiot.)

The bells on the door jingled as she strolled in triumphantly. Cosette appeared from behind a pile of boxes; the new shipment must have been delivered. "Well?" she asked, trying to lift the thick tape across the top of the boxes.

Eponine fought to keep her smug smile to a minimum. "Everything's fine," she replied jauntily.

"So you talked to him, then?"

"Mm-hm."

"And everything's…"

"Fine," Eponine finished her sentence, taking a box from the pile and using a pen to jab a hole through the tape. "Maybe better than fine."

Cosette looked over at her with a poker face. "Don't think I can't take at least some of the credit for that."

Eponine turned to her, making a fake-indignant face. "And what, pray tell, did YOU do?"

"I shoved you out that door, that's what!" Cosette laughed, finally getting the box open to reveal that month's issue of Better Homes & Gardens.

Eponine threw a balled-up piece of tape at her as she struggled to get her box open. "I could have just run into a bar, had a drink, come back, and LIED, you know! But I marched MYSELF down there and tracked him down with only my wits and help from strangers!" she said loudly, as if it were a proclamation. A woman in the Mystery/Horror section turned to look at them curiously, and Eponine waved back sarcastically, still in her state of giddy confidence.

Cosette slapped the brunette's hand down. "Don't scare away customers!" she hissed, but she was grinning too. Lifting the box, she pointed to the magazine rack. "I'm going to go put these up. Try not to burn the place down?"

"Don't worry, I forgot my matches," Eponine said, mimicking Cosette's tone. Pulling the box she had half-opened and another unopened one behind the register, she sat on the stool and worked the first box open. Inside were copies of Catching Fire and Twilight. She rolled her eyes at the latter. She would defend Gale Hawthorne until her dying breath, but had barely gotten through New Moon before she realized that it was boring her to tears.

Looking around the store, she observed that nobody seemed to be ready for checkout, so she went into the YA section and started putting the books away. She filled the space in between The Hunger Games and Mockingjay's black and blue covers with the fiery orange second book, and then scanned the alphabetical rows for Meyer, Stephanie.

"Hey!"

Eponine dropped the box in her hands with a shriek, and people all around her turned to stare. She looked behind her and saw a recoiling Cosette, cell phone in hand. "Sorryyyyy…" she whispered as everybody went back to their business. "Are the books okay?"

"It's Twilight," Eponine responded in a monotone voice, as if that constituted as the answer, "and what?"

Cosette held up a Facebook post from the restaurant they had been at last night. "Half off at the bar toniiiiight," she lilted, a smile playing on the corners of her mouth.

Eponine picked up the books she had dropped. "And?"

"And we should celebrate!"

"Celebrate what?"

Cosette swept her hair out of her eyes and started ticking off on her fingers. "Well, there's life, the store is doing well, classes for us are starting up again soon so we won't have much time, Gavroche is in one piece, I'm in one piece, you're in one piece, and I just realized that my birthday is in ex-act-ly two weeks."

"But you said it yourself, that's in two weeks," Eponine pointed out. She looked at the calendar up in the corner; it was September 3rd. Cosette's birthday was September 17th.

"But THAT, dearest Eponine Thenardier, is the future, and this is happening NOW," Cosette argued.

The brunette shushed her. Her father was very well-known here for attempted break-ins, and she didn't want it to get around that she was "the daughter of the wolf", which was what the newscasters had dubbed him. "We were just there last night!" she countered in a whisper.

"Ah-ah-ah, in the restaurant half. This is the bar half. Besides, I haven't been in the bar half since…" she fell silent, and her enthusiasm seemed to deflate. "Since Marius called me as enforcement to pry Grantaire out of there."

Eponine paused. She had remembered Cosette telling her. It was about two months before the protest, and Marius, Courfeyrac, and Grantaire had gone to the bar. Marius had called Cosette, saying that they had walked over, and no way in heaven and earth were they letting Grantaire walk back. So in swept the blonde girlfriend with a car, and the three of them had to guide the stumbling, incoherent mess into the backseat.

It had seemed so hysterical the first time Cosette had relayed it, but now it seemed to suck the light out of the room.

Cosette seemed to rouse herself from the fog, and started to help Eponine with the dropped books. "So we're going. Agreed? Agreed. I'll get the next box."

Once all of the customers had gone at closing time and everything had been safely locked up, Cosette grabbed her jacket and threw Eponine's in her direction. "And now, we drink mediocre wine for half price," the Eponine joked, catching it.

"There's not going to be any left if we don't leave now," Cosette pointed out, walking out the back door, Eponine quickly following behind.

The place was crowded, as expected, when they walked in, so instead of fighting for a chair, Eponine opted to lean against the wall in the corner. While Cosette went to place their orders, Eponine got a good look around. There were a lot of people her age, probably from the university she had stepped into earlier. Most of the girls had on flouncy little dresses and were clinging to the arms of tipsy guys. She couldn't help but laugh at their idiocy as the boys repeatedly shrugged off their grasps, only to find the masses of manicured fingernails clenching down again.

Soon enough, she caught Cosette's blonde waves bobbing above the crowd as she weaved her way in and out of people to reach Eponine and hand one of two piña coladas, taking a sip out of the second one. "I don't see anybody, do you?" she asked above the noise.

Eponine had to yell back to her. "No, not from here."

She scanned the place again and realized a group of people leaving at the end of the long row of stools and pointed it out to Cosette. She nodded, and they both went over to the stools and claimed them before anybody else realized that they were open.

Cosette immediately struck up a conversation with the bartender. Having known her for a years, Eponine knew that guys often seemed to purposely seek her out in a crowd like she had some magnetic aura. It didn't necessarily bother her – in fact, the only time it did was the first ABC meeting. Everybody had wanted to confirm that "Marius's girlfriend" was, in fact, real and not a figment of his imagination. While everybody flocked to her and questioned if she was insane or blind, and if she wasn't then why was she dating Marius? Only Eponine and Grantaire had hung back, the latter seemingly uninterested. And maybe she was looking for any attention, or maybe not, but she grabbed the wine out of his hands and took a long drink from the bottle. He watched her do so, and nodded in approval when she held it back out to him. For the rest of the meetings to come, they had somehow mutually but silently agreed that they were now friends.

There are some experiences that you can't share without becoming friends, and Eponine concluded that downing two glasses worth of wine that's not yours in one shot was one of them.

However now, there was no bottle to steal from; only Cosette's lonely drink, forgotten near her elbow as she laughed at something the bartender had said.

"Okay, NOW you're following me," a voice said behind Eponine.

She defensively swiveled on her chair, but relaxed when she saw that it was the boy from the campus that had directed her to Enjolras. "What, you don't think I have better people to follow?" she said coyly. Cosette's off flirting or whatever, I might as well follow suit, she thought.

"No I don't," he continued, "because so far, I only know of you following Enjolras, and that's not many options. Speaking of which, you find him alright?"

"Oh, yeah, he was in the room you mentioned," she said gratefully. "Thanks…" she gestured to show that she didn't know his name.

"Charles Mabeuf," he filled in. Then he turned to look over her shoulder. "Ah, and speak of the devil."

"What?" she asked, turning to look in his direction and crashing straight into a taller, blonde guy who upon closer inspection, proved to be Enjolras.

"Oh, hi," she stuttered, wiping a little spilled drink off of her arm. He nodded to her and took his place beside Charles, back to his usual aloof, stone-cold personality, as she could see.

Charles, however, was animated as always. Or possibly a little drunk. He gestured at his friend with the glass and said, "Had to FORCE HIM out of the dorm tonight, you know." Cosette reappeared at Eponine's side as they watched him stumble on. "The man wanted to stay in and finish his paper due in two weeks!"

Enjolras tensed visibly. "Charles, quiet."

Maybe she was used to the members of the ABC obeying every order their leader gave, but Eponine was surprised when Charles advanced with the story anyways. "It's on the French Rev, and he keeps scrapping his work because nothing is ever good enough." He then turned towards the topic of conversation. "Why can't you just settle for a B?"

"Why can't you just stop pestering me," Enjolras came back, but it was in no way a question.

"French Rev?" Cosette piped up. She indicated Eponine with her glass. "Eponine, didn't you get an A on that test during the final semester?"

She looked down into her drink, hesitant about where her friend was going with that information. "Um, maybe. Why?"

Cosette turned back to face Enjolras. "Let Eponine help you!" she volunteered, at which Eponine looked up in shock. "Well, you got an A, right?"

"Y-yes, but…"

"So Enjolras can come to the store like, every three days for the next two weeks or so, and you guys can work on it!" Cosette finished, looking quite proud of herself.

Charles jumped directly on board. "Anything to pry him out of his room," he agreed.

Well, the ball was already rolling now, so Eponine relented and looked up at Enjolras. "If you want to, I guess."

He looked from Charles to Cosette and back to Eponine before sighing and shrugging. "I'll come tomorrow."

"Yes!" Charles shouted, drawing a little attention from their bar stool neighbors. Enjolras reached over and set his friend's glass down on the counter after wrenching it from his hand.

"Well, in that case, we'd better actually get some sleep. Come on, Eponine, Bye Enjolras, and nice meeting you…" Cosette trailed off.

"Charles Mabeuf," he filled in.

"Right." They gave half-waves as they deposited their glasses on the counter and went out the door, where Eponine finally exhaled fully.

"What the hell was that?" she exclaimed, but Cosette just innocently glanced at her. "If he wanted my help, couldn't he have asked?"

Her friend shrugged. "He didn't know you got an A. Plus, he's not that talkative, so he may not have asked."

"It's still not really our business!"

"Oh please," Cosette laughed nonchalantly, searching her bag for her keys. "What's the worst thing that could happen? Oh, and do you want a ride home?"

"I'll walk, thanks," she spat, slightly exasperated, and began to storm away.

"You might thank me one day!" Cosette yelled back to her.

Infuriated and having no idea why, Eponine turned around and yelled back, "Well, one day is NOT today!"

Sorry that this is a filler chapter…Please R/R!