Chapter 10 - Epilogue

Éponine was wrong though. It did last. Enjorlas never let her go. Yes they fought. They were both too stubborn and fiery to not clash at times. It was over the silliest things most of the time and would end in Éponine kissing him. Despite all the arguments they had Enjolras would never yell at her, knowing she would sink into herself and her memories. She would be annoyed at him constantly trying to protect her – she'd took care of herself long enough. She didn't need him protecting her.

Gavroche they got away from the Patron Minette and he lived with them. Enjolras had somehow found himself taking a fatherly role with the boy. Hovering in the door way as Éponine tried to kiss her younger brother goodnight and he squirmed away from her.

The siblings were actually healthier now – Éponine's skin glowed and the bags under her eyes were long gone. Sadly with this good heath came more energy and both siblings had had too much of that to begin with. Éponine was quick minded and sharp tongue. She exhausted him easily and that was before they tried to entertain Gavroche.

It didn't mean they weren't sad though. Gavroche, though Éponine and Enjolras were unaware, would wake up shaking some nights and other times he cried himself to sleep over everything that happened, over the beatings which he was really only beginning to learn wasn't normal, and over Azelma. Enjolras knew Éponine cried over Azelma, held her shaking body once she was through trying to push him away. Éponine didn't like to cry in front of people. She didn't want to show them weakness. She'd been crying a lot recently with Azelma's death but she tried to hold even those tears back, terrified that if she stopped trying the damn would break and all the horrors that she'd seen and experience in her life would break through.

Combeferre had moved out of Enjolras' and in with Marius and Courfeyrac leaving Gavroche his old room. Éponine usually stayed in Enjolras despite how inappropriate it was. She'd start off with Gavroche but then – she said it was because the kid kicked and tossed in bed too much when really it was because she missed the feeling of safety Enjolras exuded not to mention she had nightmares that only he could keep away, the same nightmares that had haunted her when she was unconscious (not that Éponine would ever admit to nightmares; she had been in a living one, she shouldn't be scared of dream ones) – she would end up crawling into his bed with an hour or two, wrapping her still thin arms around his waist and burrowing her head in his chest. Sometimes he wouldn't even be aware that she was there until he woke in the morning to find her cuddled up against him.

Other times, he would be up writing a paper and she would curl herself up on his bed and watch him. It had been distracting to begin with but Enjolras learnt to cope with her dark eyes watching his every movement. She'd stay awake, bring him coffee if he seemed to be lagging, until he had finished and continue to wait until he was comfy in bed before she got into her customary position.

He never would have put Éponine down to being a cuddling person (not that he had really given it much thought until she had lived with him). She had always upheld that hard front that made him think she would keep her back to and be a good distance from anyone else if she had to share a bed with them even if it was romantic.

Enjolras hadn't asked it Combeferre to move. Of course he hadn't but he'd moved anyway joking that he didn't want to be a third wheel. There was more space at Marius' and Courf's anyway. Really Combeferre knew that Éponine and Gavroche needed Enjolras although he'd never say that to any of the three involved especially since the Thenardier's were too stubborn to admit it.

One rule Enjolras had put in place if Éponine was going to stay with him was that she would not go back to work. It had been a fight – one he had eventually won by dragging her home one night (or more early morning) – to get her to stop. She hated it, we know that, but she felt she had to earn her keep, she didn't want her and Gavroche to be a burden.

Besides that not much really changed. Enjolras still went to university, they both went to the café in the evenings and Éponine would mess about with the Les Amis whilst Enjolras tried to plan the revolution.

Éponine and Enjolras loved each other until they died on the barricade of his revolution – only three months after Éponine's near death. Éponine left first pushing Marius out of the way of a gun he hadn't see – the first death. Enjolras was the last. Standing tall and proud, red flag clutched in his hand, with Grantaire beside he took the shot without a flinch. The force of the shot sent him stumbling backwards and to trip over the window frame leaving him hanging out of it the red flag spreading ironically like blood over the tilled roof. Like a white flag showing a surrender this one seemed to show defeat.

It wasn't everything Enjolras had wanted from his revolution. He had, of course, wanted to win, to overthrow the king, to save Paris. That flame hadn't die when he loved Éponine. She inspired him, made him want to fight even harder. She helped him, telling him his barricade locations were "stupid and suicidal", telling him how to really speak to her people, to not use such "fancy, meaningless bourgeois nonsense". She encouraged him. She believed in him. Perhaps not in that he would win, that they would all survive, Éponine was too astute, cynical and smart to believe that but she believed that he would make a different. That he would start the spark – he was the sun after all. The sun in the darkness of her life. So no, Enjolras flame for revolution and what he believed was right did not flicker, it simply grew in intensity.

The only time it flickered for a moment was the moment he turned to see Éponine clutching her chest and when he realised Gavroche was the other side of the barricade. Clutching the boy's body in his arms when they brought him back, Enjolras dreaded facing Éponine. The boy she, the boy they had both, fought so hard to protect he had let die. He had practically killed. He killed Éponine and then Gavroche. He had lost them. Lost them.

He was almost grateful when the shot of the gun went off signalling the end of his life. For though he had to face Éponine – he wondered how she would react: would she hate him for failing Gavroche? Would she be disappointed? Would she rant and rave and scream at him if he saw her again? – he was grateful to be going back to her.

She did none of those things though. She threw herself into his arms when he joined her in the afterlife and then it didn't matter that the revolution failed. She was in his arms again and the world they had once belonged to was no longer their concern – they could do nothing for it. They'd tried and lost, it was someone else's turn to leave from their mistakes.

They were together and nothing could hurt them now.

So I wanted to write a kind of ending to it all but I'm not sure how well it all turned out really…let me know what you think ( I think I want to know :/ ) x