A/N: I'm sorry it's been nearly three months since the last update, but I truly hate this. it's terrible
Marius didn't go back to find Cosette and Éponine after his encounter with Joly. He was afraid to see Éponine, afraid to break her the news that Enjolras was still alive, with no clue in the slightest of who she was. He wasn't sure how she'd react, and that's what scared him the most, the unknown. She could either take it well or take it terribly, but he wasn't sure how anyone could find out that someone didn't remember them and take it well. Nevertheless, he decided that he wouldn't tell her until he'd seen Enjolras himself, and could make his own verdict on how to break it to her then.
He trudged back to his grandfather's house, almost feeling a little faint at the encounter he'd had today. It almost felt weird to be thinking once again about two friends that were alive, two friends he was sure had perished at the hands of the National Guard. Rain began to spatter on the pavement beneath his feet, and he pulled his jacket closer around him, a distant look in his eyes. He wasn't so bothered about the rain, or the cold wind that was sweeping through the streets of Paris. He wasn't sure what he was bothered about, actually, but his mind was distracted, and Marius felt like he was dead, or like he should be.
Amidst the joy he felt that two more of his friends were alive, there was still a large, dull ache that was the hole in his life, yet to be filled again. The hole that was torn wide open in that fateful day in June, like a linen cloth being torn apart for bandages. It seemed as though God had been treating him as a linen cloth that day, tearing his friends, and so a part of him, away easily, bit by bit.
"I do hope Marius is alright," Cosette pondered as they entered the Fauchelevent household once again. "I feel awful that we didn't go and find him."
Éponine removed the bonnet from her head, waving her hand dismissively. "Nonsense. Time by yourself is needed in those moments. Trust me, I know from experience. It doesn't help, being talked at when you're in that kind of state, the fresh air and time alone would have done him the world of good." Cosette nodded, hoping that Éponine was right. She honestly couldn't bear the thought of Marius, alone and scared and unknowing of what was going on. If he'd seen a dead person in a crowd full of people, who knows what tricks his brain would be playing on him when he was alone?
But Cosette didn't allow herself to think more on the subject, or frighten herself further. She decided to adhere to Éponine's evaluation of the situation, and say no more.
"Are you hungry, Éponine?" She asked, but Éponine shook her head.
"I'm rather tired, Cosette. I don't really feel like myself. Would you mind if I just slipped into my room and slept for a while?" She replied, giving a weak smile.
"That's fine. I'll have Madame save you some supper, for when you wake up. Sweet dreams, Éponine." Cosette was worried but didn't press further on the matter. She found that forcing Éponine to talk about things never worked, and that she'd always shy away from the subject. Like her father had always told her: you can take a horse to water, Cosette, but you cannot make him drink.
Éponine sat on the edge of her new bed, in a nightgown that she had been told was a 'mix of linen warp and wool, so she wouldn't become too hot in her sleep in these coming summer nights'. She stared around the room, at the fineries she wore, the dresses in the wardrobe, the clean white sheets she slept on, the mattress that comfortably supported her weight and body shape.
She was still extremely unused to all of this. Éponine felt disgusting for passing up the chance to have something to eat earlier, knowing full well and having experienced it for most of her life, that there were men, women and children out on the streets begging for morsels of simple bread every single minute of every day.
She missed her little brother. She could remember nothing about Gavroche now, save those cold, dead eyes that sat in his head the last time she saw him. The large dried bloodstain on his little waistcoat from the bullet that killed him, his long, dirty blonde hair in damp straggles about his head as he lay side by side next to the men he fought with.
Éponine absent-mindedly brushed her fingers over the bandage on her shoulder as she remembered the fight she'd had with that one Guard. She'd killed him. She'd killed a man on that barricade, something she thought she'd never do. Of course, she occasionally thought about poisoning her father one day, but there was no real malice behind it. And more often than not, she'd wanted to push Marius off a bridge for not realising her feelings for him, once upon a time. But again, these were not real thoughts of murder, just harmless little annoyances.
And she'd almost laughed when she'd done it, too. The smirk on her face as he fell down the barricade, his gun tumbling out of his hand and clattering to the floor with him below. It was like she was glad when she knew she had killed him, when she realised that she had won that battle.
Of course, at the time, she actually was glad. The Guard had made a motion to kill Marius, and she had intercepted and stopped him. As a result, Marius was alive and well, and all down to her.
But now, she had nightmares, of blood that didn't wash off of her hands, and deceased Guardsmen that would come for her in the night and take her to where she truly belonged, to the land of the dead.
Joly rushed through the halls of the convent, nodding awkwardly to each nun he passed giving him a confused look. He knocked hurriedly on Enjolras' door, and when he was given permission to enter, he shut the door quickly behind him with a slight bang.
"Christ man, are you well?" Enjolras asked, wincing as he sat up in his bed. "You weren't followed here, were you?" Joly shook his head, trying to get his breath back.
"Enjolras," He panted, moving closer to the bed. "Marius Pontmercy is still alive!"
Enjolras' eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open. "Alive? Are you sure?" He asked, finding trouble in stringing words together.
"I'm very, very sure." Joly confirmed, smiling at his confused friend. "He's alive, also recovering from a gunshot wound. I've told him to come and visit, I said you'd enjoy a fresh face to talk to."
A tear rolled down the blonde haired man's cheek, and he shook his head. "I could never be bored of you, Joly. After all you've done for me, it would be disrespectful. You have always been such a good friend. But this, this is truly a miracle." A new found happiness began to blossom in his heart, an emotion he had not felt for a very long time. Someone else had survived the horrors of the barricade. Enjolras began to feel hope once more.
"And there was another," Joly continued, and Enjolras' face lit up.
"Who?" He asked, and Joly sat down in the chair at his bedside.
"The girl, Éponine. The one you can't remember." Enjolras smiled, and leaned back against the headboard of his bed.
"Good. She's alive. She fought at my barricade, and she's alive. I couldn't be happier." Joly smiled and relaxed into his chair.
There was a knock at the door, and Joly once again stood up and opened it. Enjolras strained his neck to listen.
"Monsieur Vipond, there is a Monsieur Pontmercy asking for you." Enjolras sat forward, slowly but with as much eagerness as he could muster without pain, and anticipated seeing Marius' face for the first time in what seemed like forever.
Joly held up a finger to Enjolras, and left with the nun to pick Marius up from the front door and lead him to the room. He returned quickly with a grin on his face and Marius behind him, who stared at Enjolras in disbelief. Enjolras stared back in equal incredulity, but Marius leapt forward before either of the three men could say a word. Enjolras winced slightly at the pain in his chest but kept a tight clutch of Marius as they embraced, at a slightly awkward position due to Enjolras being bed-bound and currently unable to get up, but still, neither of the two let go.
"I'm so sorry." Enjolras whispered, but Marius shook his head and pulled away, staring the man in the eyes.
"For what?" He asked, yet knowing full well what Enjolras meant.
"For everything," Enjolras replied, but Marius didn't allow him to continue.
"You're sorry for having an idea about the country we live in, sorry for wanting a change in this unjust world we inhabit? Sorry that you found a group of friends who also believed in this idea, and wanted to independently fight for it? They died, Enjolras, and yes, you might have been leading our cause, but it doesn't make it your fault that they're dead. We all need leaders, we all need someone to guide us when we go wrong, but it is ultimately the choices we make on our own that decide where our path is going to carry on, and where it is going to end."
Joly sighed and sat back on his chair. "This is what I've been trying to tell him. Hopefully a second opinion will convince him that I've not gone mad."
The men spoke, they cried, they laughed, and they remembered. Stories about each other and their fallen friends tumbled from their mouths uncontrollably. There was hardly a silence between every word spoken, as each rushed to tell the others more things that they had just realised, or just remembered, or what they thought of a certain thing. It was nice to be talking to friends once more.
But Marius was unnerved by the fact that Enjolras was left with a blank space in his head, that should have been filled with memories of Éponine. The idea that he couldn't remember her at all; well, Marius felt heartbroken for her in the least. Especially as he would be the one to tell her that the man was still alive, recovering from eight bullets and a clear head injury that resulted in all trace of her being wiped from his brain.
"So, Joly was telling me that you don't remember Éponine at all?" Marius continued to Enjolras as Joly left the room to fetch a chair for Marius.
Enjolras sighed and shook his head. "I don't. And I feel awful about it too. I try and try to remember but…" He squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds before opening them again to look at Marius, blinking a few times as he did so. "...I just can't remember her. It's like there's a solid brick wall in my head, and she stands behind it. Did she have… brown hair?"
Marius beamed. "Yes! Her hair was brown. Good, you're remembering!"
Enjolras raised an eyebrow at Marius. "Why does it matter? Oh, it just frustrates me an awful lot. But I'm a persistent man."
"A stubborn man, you mean." Marius quipped, earning a glare in return from Enjolras.
For days afterwards, Éponine found trouble in getting herself out of bed. She had no motivation for it, nor did she have the energy to bathe herself, and she often forgot that she had to eat. Most of the time, she couldn't keep her food down anyway, she constantly felt sick. A depression had been settling itself in, and it was beginning to worry everyone.
Cosette made her way into Éponine's room one evening, accompanied by Madame Lapointe who carried a tray with a simple chicken broth atop. They had learned it was the only food so far that Éponine could keep down, and though the girl was sick of it, it was essential for her to eat and regain some of the energy she had lost.
Éponine made no noise, only took a few mouthfuls of the soup and then turned to the wall, her back facing the two ladies in her room.
Cosette and Madame Lapointe sat themselves down by the crackling fire, the orange flames causing their shadows to dance around the cream coloured walls. The fire was the only source of light in the room, since Éponine preferred not to use the lamps. She usually liked it that way, because she liked to sit by the fire and read one of the books she'd pick up from the shelf in her room. She hadn't gotten through them all yet, and they took her mind off of her loneliness, her lonesome for her sister and brother, and most of all, her lonesome for Enjolras.
But she hadn't done that for a while, and now, her loneliness swamped her and suffocated her and made her chest feel heavier and hurt more than when she had gotten shot. His blonde curls and his strong jaw and his warm arms were all she could think about. His eloquence and his way with words and the fact that he only had eyes for her, despite all of the eyes for him. The way he believed in her, encouraged her to read and write more than anyone had ever done in her life, the way her skin burned hot at his touch, the way he would look into her brown eyes with his blue ones until she blushed and looked away.
Thoughts of Enjolras haunted her every night. Not one day went by without him crossing her mind at least once. Be it his name, his face, his caresses, his voice, his looks, or all of them, they wouldn't leave her alone. But Éponine was glad of it, for she anticipated that a day could come where she would realise that she had forgotten most of it.
A knock at the door had brought her back to reality, and she turned her head in the direction of the noise. Cosette stood to open it, and there were hushed whispers before she stood outside the room and closed the door behind her, two pairs of footsteps walking away from the room.
"I'll take it you've finished with the soup, then?" Madame Lapointe asked, and Éponine nodded, giving a quiet thank you as the elder woman left the room. Suddenly, she was on her own, and everything felt normal again. Or, as close to normal as she could get, which for her right now was probably the furthest from the clinical definition.
After a few minutes, and what seemed like a few hours to Éponine, Cosette knocked and re-entered the room with Éponine's permission, Marius in tow.
"Éponine…" Marius breathed, his heart sinking at the sight of his best friend laying in bed, emotionally flat and lacking the usual spring in her step. She had always been the one he would prop himself up on, so to speak, when meetings would get too stressful with Les Amis, or when he would be having trouble with his grandfather. And most of all, she was there to listen to his endless pining over Cosette, even when no one else was.
And now, he was the bearer of bad news to worsen her state, not even able to repay her and try to cheer her up like she used to with him.
"Marius." She smiled, her face trying to brighten up, trying to hide the depression she felt in her soul. "How are you?" Polite conversation was all she had in her head right now.
"I'm… getting on. How about you? How are you doing, 'Ponine?"
Éponine glanced at Cosette, who flashed her a look of sympathy. "Not so well." She answered, truthfully. "But I'll live."
Marius took a deep breath and nodded, pulling a chair up next to her bed to sit on. Cosette moved around the chair to sit on the end of the bed, and Éponine looked around at them, wide eyed.
"What is it?" She found herself asking in a small voice, so small she hardly heard it herself. She wasn't even sure she wanted to know why they were so serious.
"Éponine, I have some news…" Marius began, and Cosette grabbed her hand. Éponine looked at them both, her eyes searching their faces for answers. "But, it might throw you off, or upset you, and I don't want it to but after everything you told us, you have a right to know."
There was a silence, and Éponine was fully ready to launch herself at him and pry his words out of his mouth herself. Why were they not speaking? What was it she needed to know?
"Enjolras…" Marius took another deep breath, and Éponine's eyebrows furrowed at the mention of his name.
"W-what about him?" She stammered, unsure of where their conversation was going. Cosette gripped her hand tighter, and it was all becoming too much.
"He's still… alive." Marius whispered. Éponine sucked in air like she'd just been punched in the gut, and her face drained of colour. She stared through Marius, unsure of her emotions right now. Enjolras was alive, had been alive this whole time, and she had no idea.
"Éponine." Marius shook her arm, and she refocused her eyes back onto him. "There's more." Her blank face in reply urged him to go on.
"He is recovering from the injuries he received at the barricade, eight bullet wounds to the chest and a head trauma." Éponine let her hand fly to her mouth.
"Eight?" Her eyes were wide and a tear slipped from her eye. Her Marble Man had withstood eight bullets and survived. Marius nodded.
"But you see, the head trauma has provoked… the loss of a few memories." Éponine waited in silence, once again unsure of how this conversation was planning on playing out. "In short… you are one of the memories he has lost."
After Marius had left, Enjolras told Joly that he was not hungry when he'd asked if Enjolras wanted supper, and instead just wanted to sleep. But he couldn't sleep, all he could do was just lie there and think. He sat with his back to the headboard, staring at nothing, reliving each second of their revolution in his head.
He remembered staring down 8 barrels, staring at death, and then he was on the floor with a searing pain in his chest and a ringing in his ear. The guardsmen had left and he was on his own. Surrounded by the dead bodies of his friends, but he'd never felt more alone in his life. There was an ache in his head and stabbing at his chest, and his breathing was shallow and his heartbeat was weak, and so he blacked out.
He seemed to be doing the same here too, on top of his bed.
Then, he remembered a faint touch, a brush under his eye. "You look tired," whispered a raspy female voice, and his eyes snapped open, searching the room frantically.
"Who's there?" He asked, but there was no reply, and Enjolras was left by himself hoping that his tired, injured brain was playing tricks on him, and that he hadn't gone mad.
A/N: I'm not sure when you'll get the next update, or if you even will, because in terms of my self esteem for this story, it's really, really low. sorry. i feel like shit