TW: Mild abuse description

Eponine was looking for her hairbrush the next morning when a thud on the window behind her sent her to look outside. A ball of notebook paper was resting on the roof outside, and she looked up and across at the building that was built so close to her window, seeing Cosette leaning out, waiting. Her blonde hair caught the early sunlight as she looked down expectantly.

Cocking an eyebrow, Eponine opened the window and rested her elbows on the sill as she brought her head through. "If this is a wake-up call, I was already up, Blondie."

"I want you to come over."

Her forwardness took Eponine by surprise. "You just get right to it, don't you?"

Cosette's nose scrunched in confusion. "What?"

"Nothing," Eponine insisted. "Okay, when should I come over?"

"Now, if you can." She said. Then she must have sensed how weirdly she appeared to be acting, and she adjusted her position out the windowsill. "I have something to tell you about Marius, and it's a long story that I'd prefer not to yell out a window at eight thirty in the morning."

Intrigued, Eponine looked behind her at the open door to her room. Gavroche and Azelma were perpetually late sleepers, especially on Saturdays, so there was no need to tell them that she was going out. After all, the story couldn't take that long. "Okay, blondie, you've got my attention."

"Perfect. So my room number is three twenty four-"

Eponine ignored what she was saying and gripped the roof in front of her, sitting on the windowsill as she extracted her legs from inside, clumsily getting herself into a standing position on the roof.

"…Or you could come in through the window." Cosette finished.

Ignoring the sarcastic dig, Eponine easily got herself up onto the thick ledge outside Cosette's window – it was only two feet up from the roof outside of hers – and climbed through into her room, landing loudly on the floor with no grace whatsoever. Evidently, she had lost her touch from years of sneaking into her father's house past midnight to avoid his motley band of drunken criminals that so often resided in their living room.

Cosette stood back, looking at her in awe. "I'm serious, you could have come through the door."

Eponine brushed off the offer and walked over to her, palms up. "It's more fun. Now, what do you have to tell me?"

Cosette gestured at her bed, and Eponine took off her boots before sitting cross-legged against the footboard, facing Cosette. The blonde looked both excited and dismal, leaning back on a pillow and describing everything: Marius's reasons, her friends' secrecy, her own reaction. It was strangely engaging for Eponine, despite how it confirmed that Marius had come for Cosette, not her.

"Wow," she breathed when Cosette was finished, "that's fucked up."

Cosette hugged a pillow to her chest in a childlike manner. "Do you think I made the right decision?"

"Huh?"

"About Marius."

Eponine scoffed. "Why ask me about anything related to him?"

Cosette paused before moving closer to Eponine. "You liked him, didn't you?"

Fighting her natural defense system, Eponine looked at the duvet and nodded.

It had never made sense to her until he had announced to her that he was dating Cosette. For years, they were just good friends, and Eponine felt safe in his presence. He let her come to his house when her father acted up, even allowing her siblings to stay over. He had given her half his lunch when she woke up once and her father's friends had quite literally eaten everything in the house, leaving her without anything to eat. She had opened up to him, and he listened with attentiveness and made her feel safe in a way that her family had never offered.

The part of her life with Marius was the only part that was consistently happy and warm, but what did he think of her part in his?

Looking back at Cosette, she shrugged. "Whatever it was, it's gone now." She wanted it to be gone. Being emotionally dependent on anyone was not exactly on her to-do list. It was almost like meeting Cosette had given her closure; that part of her life was behind her. She could surround herself with her own happiness now.

"You're right," Cosette decided, putting the pillow back. "It's gone."

Eponine almost got offended before she saw that Cosette wasn't even looking at her; she meant her own life with Marius.

"I mean, at least you two can probably still be friends," Cosette admitted, gesturing to Eponine.

"Probably," Eponine sighed, looking around. She felt slightly awkward; now that Cosette was done with her story, she wondered if she should stay or leave. To be honest, she felt out of place in the clean, well-furnished room, and she made a mental note to never let Cosette see her own bedroom.

As if reading her mind, Cosette stood up. "I was just about to make breakfast, if you'd like to stay."

Eponine nodded without hesitation, forgetting herself as she eagerly stood up and followed Cosette to the kitchen.

"Do you drink tea? I've got green and Earl Grey," Cosette offered as she put a kettle on the stove.

"Green, thanks," Eponine answered as she watched Cosette pull out flour and sugar. "What are you making?"

"Pancakes."

"You were going to make a whole batch of pancakes just for yourself?"

Cosette blushed, looking away from Eponine. "For myself and for you."

Eponine felt her own cheeks turn pink, and she silently chastised herself as she looked in the cabinet for two mugs as Cosette measured flour. "If I didn't know you better, I'd say…" she trailed off.

"What?" Cosette asked, opening the vanilla extract.

This was a date. "Nothing, really. Never mind," Eponine decided, fiddling with the tea bags before dropping them into the mugs. It was evidently too soon in the friendship for making jokes.

Luckily, Cosette seemed to let it go as she continued with the batter. Twenty minutes and countless pancakes later, they were at the kitchen table with fruit and syrup and entirely too many pancakes for two people.

"So," Cosette remarked as she swallowed a bite, "I tell you my deep, dark past, but I know nothing about yours."

Honestly, Eponine could have brushed it off, but she set down her fork and leaned back. "Alright, then, what do you want to know?"

Cosette shrugged. "Whatever you want to tell."

Pausing, Eponine leaned forward again and took a bite, chewing and swallowing before she started. "Well, my parents used to run an inn, which kind of went under when I was around seven. They took it pretty hard, and they-" she debated whether this was something she should freely tell, then continued anyways, "-they took it out on me and my brother and sister. So, when I turned eighteen, I got a few jobs and started saving for my apartment and college tuition."

"You didn't come straight here, then," Cosette mused.

Eponine nodded. "My intent was to finish the school year, then move right before classes started at the university. I also wanted to come back for Gavroche and Azelma once I found a job here. I expected it would only take a few weeks. But I…I came home one night and my father was hitting my brother, which he'd never done. All the physical usually went to me, and the verbal to them. So, it was a few days earlier than I had planned, but I already had the apartment, so I packed everything up and took them with me. And here we are."

Cosette was silent, looking Eponine right in the eye. "You're crying," she noticed, standing up.

Eponine wiped under her right eye with the back of her hand, taking away the tears she had been vaguely aware of. Before she could form a response, Cosette walked around the side of the table and grabbed her hand, pulled her up, and hugged her all at once.

It was the kind of contact that Eponine had never been used to, but somehow, in Cosette's tight embrace, she felt even safer than when she hid at Marius's houses all those nights. With Marius, she had always felt afraid, counting the seconds until she would inevitably have to go home and face her parents.

But this was different. Eponine wasn't aware of the passage of time, only how her heartbeat felt so tangible and how she froze for a split second before returning Cosette's hug. Unsure of how long they stood like that, Eponine's breath hitched when Cosette pulled away, lightly grasping Eponine's forearms with her hands.

"You might be one of the bravest people I've met," Cosette whispered.

Eponine couldn't form a response as she became hyperaware of how close Cosette was to her, how her hands hadn't let go. In a far corner of her mind, Eponine suddenly realized how easy it would be to lean in and close the gap between them with-

Cosette let go and went to sit back down, and the world melted back down to a kitchen and a batch of pancakes.

It took Eponine a little bit to regain what was left of herself, and she gripped the table with unnecessary force as she sat back down.

"That must have been terrible," Cosette mused as she ate her final bite, then brought her plate to the sink.

"Yeah," Eponine replied, only half-aware of what was going on around her. "I should probably get back before my sister wonders where I am."

"Oh, take some pancakes!" Cosette offered, searching for a plastic container.

"That's okay, really-"

"You said so yourself," Cosette pointed out, "I can't eat a whole batch by myself."

Before Eponine could protest, Cosette held out a Tupperware container with half of the leftovers. Well, it can't do any harm, Eponine decided, accepting the container with a smile as she made sure not to brush against Cosette's hands.

They simultaneously turned and walked back to Cosette's bedroom. As Eponine got herself out onto the ledge, Cosette sat down on her bed. "See you later, then!" she called after Eponine, putting a textbook into her bag.

"Yeah, see you," Eponine called back, waiting until she was safely in her room with the window shut to fully exhale.

Holy shit.

She wasted no time walking into the kitchen and dividing the pancakes equally between Gavroche and Azelma, leaving the plates out on the table for when they woke up. There was no syrup, but they did have honey, and it would have to do. Taking out a container of strawberries, Eponine set to work slicing fruit and putting it in a bowl, trying to forget how Cosette's hands felt on her back and how perfectly their heads fit on each other's shoulders.