"Two on Jondrette!"
"Are you mad? Three on Grantaire!"
"Sticking with the underdog does have a certain poetic license to it."
"Bossuet, put your money on Grantaire – I want to be sure to win."
Éponine grins as the bets pour in, happy to entertain, and happier still when the cheers are directed at her.
Enjolras had even come by, and though he sighed at the spectacle, the wry smile gave him away. He'd let them be after gaining their promises to be productive after, and after repeating the request to bring more paper when she came by later.
His hand has been healed for two days now, and so the hours spent as transcriber are less frequent, but he continues to teach. Sometimes, simple phrases; sometimes, the pretense of helping with speeches when his mind works to fast for his hand – and she knows it is a pretense because if he cannot keep up with his own thoughts, how could she?
She has no hope of matching his rapid pace of speaking, let alone spelling everything right, but she doesn't mind.
No one else has ever cared so much, and she is continually impressed by the efforts.
But now is not the time for such thoughts.
No, now she is circling Grantaire, with sunlight streaming around them. Up top, sparring is much more pleasant. More competitive, certainly, but she likes being able to see smaller movements she might have missed in lower light, and she grows accustomed to the gatherings they draw in such moments as now.
It begins the same as always. Each matches the other in simple steps and footing. (She knows he is humoring her, but it serves to make him look more impressive later on, and gives her more time to adjust.)
Éponine is the first to falter. Her strike has too much force behind it, too much surety that it will hit true, when he deflects it easily.
She steps back too quickly, too far, and another swipe near her midsection sends her tumbling to the ground, the wind knocked out of her.
When she recovers, there is silence.
No, it can't be over yet – and wouldn't they be cheering? They're waiting, then.
She reaches up to tug her cap more firmly over her head, determination welling up – and dissipating when her fingers touch empty air.
Then does she chance to look up.
She is met with the sight of faces in varying degrees of surprise, from stillness to outright shock.
Her head jerks side to side – and there it is across the deck, knocked clean off.
Her hair falls in dark tangles around her, her face revealed more fully as it has been in a month.
She sees Grantaire send a glance over his shoulder, his expression hard to gauge, and that is when she strikes.
Éponine twists her leg to knock against his, and as she stumbles, she pushes herself up. Her hand is still curled around the hilt, and this, she thrusts into his stomach. Back and farther back she drives him, until she is too close for him to fully block her next strike.
He falls, in much the same position as she was in only moments ago, only he does not have the forethought to hide his dazed expression.
"That's the second time I've knocked you flat," she says as she stands above him, voice made of false lightness. "If I were you, I'd start to rethink your strategy." Her voice is starting to waver, and she throws down her sword. It clatters to the deck, and she walks – she does not run, does not flee, does not let them see her panic – away and down the stairs, and into her room.
She closes the door as quiet as can be, and presses her back up against it. Slowly, slowly, she slides down, her head bowing as if with the weight of it all.
That's it. She's screwed it all up.
What does she do? How does she reconcile this? (Who would have ever thought it would take one second to send her to ruins?)
Cut it off. There was the solution. Cut it off and bind her chest tighter and make her voice as scratchy and deep as she could get it.
But she does not want to.
Oh, Éponine knew she wasn't pretty anymore. Not for years, not since before robberies and begging and oceans of distrust, but she could at least pretend.
She would bury her face in her hair and pretend she was being coquettish, a lady in waiting, pretend that – before Marius, that the drunken hands fisting in her hair to pull her in closes did so because they loved her, even as she fled from them; after, because they thought she was beautiful.
She does not want to lose this last remnant, but it doesn't matter much now, does it? Survival comes first. She would cut it – but with what? She has no knife. She'd thrown the sword down to the deck when she fled.
Éponine cannot help herself, and a nervous giggle burbles from her throat at the absurdity of it – cutting her hair with a sword? She's getting ahead of herself, going into overkill.
It builds until she is laughing hysterically, and then the laughs that rack her body soon turn into sobs.
She is found out, and it has all been for naught.
Except… no one comes.
No one comes to beat the door down, to demand an explanation for her trickery, to throw her at once into the brig and denounce her.
And they have docked already, haven't they?
Her thoughts come dimly, slowed by fear and the pounding of her heart, and she curses herself. Yes, they were to land today, and this, she supposes, is why she has been granted this time.
Too busy with readying the ship for landing, a task which she should have – she was supposed to –
To help, she thinks. They won't want my help now.
What does this mean for her?
Her answer is something she already knows.
She was not planning on it being so soon, so close to arrival but – she hasn't got much choice, has she?
She cracks the door open a fraction and peers out.
It's dark. Quiet. In all the excitement, perhaps they forgot to assign someone else to watch? It's unlikely, and yet – and yet –
Out the door she goes, running on quick and quiet feet. It takes only a moment to check whether the deck is empty. She can hear faint footsteps, and she assumes this is Enjolras, planning late into the night. Back down she goes, running past Joly's room, then Bossuet's, Jehan's, and Feuilly's, to the cells placed between the hallways.
If she had time, she would take what she could of the Cyclamen's cargo, enough to ensure them safe passage back, but she cannot risk it now.
"Cosette," she whispers into the darkness, fingers already seeking out the bar across the door. "Cosette, we have to go. Come on, quietly."
The voice that answers is tinges with sleep, but the questing hand meets hers and holds tight in resolution. "Come on," she says again, and they are flying.
Back they go, slower now, and silent. They pass the rooms in reverse, and when they get to hers, she notices –
Despite her quick retreat, they left two trays out for her. Lunch and dinner, she supposes, and she fights against the frown that
The hatch barely creaks as they lift it and emerge, barely makes a sound as they lower it again and make for the edge that is tethered, and she is so close, so close to freedom, to her Paris, to Marius –
"Hold," comes a voice from behind, along with a distinctive click.
– but it could never be that easy.
Her breath stills, and she forces herself to turn, though she recognizes the voice. Her hand tightens at her side. No.
And there he is, terrible as an angel in his wrath. He looks tired, but stern, and in his hands, he holds a pistol. When did he get one of those? She wonders idly. Did he have that back – on the merchant ship? Perhaps she hadn't needed to worry so much, then.
Combeferre is close behind him, unarmed but looking no less fierce. She curses herself again. Of course he wouldn't be planning alone, not for something of this magnitude, she should have been so much more careful.
No, no, no repeats along with her rapid pulse, growing all the more as she watches his eyebrows knot together in consternation.
"You?" he breathes, eyes sliding from Éponine to Cosette and back.
No, no, no, no.
She sees him waver for a moment, his voice not so stony anymore. "You would – betray us?
The words are as knives to her.
"No." The answer comes not from Éponine, but behind her, and she startles.
Cosette steps closer and puts her arms around Éponine, clean and pretty hands resting on grubby arms.
"She is Marius' dearest friend," she declares, "and she has only ever been loyal and true."
Éponine is suddenly immensely grateful for the existence, the loyalty, the friendship of this little lark, and as she brings up her hands to cover Cosette's, she feel as if the girl is her anchoring point in this storm – especially as Enjolras narrows his eyes and her heart gives a painful twinge.
He steps closer, and she wants to explain, to stem the look in his eyes, but he draws only near enough to rip the hat from her head and then retreats again. She watches as his expression turns all the more rigid, and winces.
No, she wants to protest, we would not have betrayed you, can't you see? Loyalty to both, to both…
But she does not understand it.
She does not understand the draw to them, the desire to be true.
And she fears this.
So Éponine casts her eyes to the floor and sets her mouth in a line, as she is led away.
Courfeyrac meets them at the bottom of the steps, awoken by the noise, she supposes, and his yawn draws her attention up. He rubs sleep-crusted eyes until he catches sight of her, at which point his gaze shifts from confusion to realization to hurt in a matter of mere seconds. She locks her gaze on the floorboards and does not look up, not even when they are led back into the cell, the door closed tight behind them.
Across the ship, the silence is not much better.
He does not shout. He does not rage.
He paces.
Across the length of the room wit harms folded behind his back, he looks like a man possessed. Several times he opens his mouth as if to speak, to voice the questions that press at his mind, but each time he only continues walking.
Finally, he stops, running a hand through his curls.
"Send the letter ahead," he says quietly, the first words he's spoken in many minutes. "Two instead of one will take care of it."
Combeferre knows better than to argue when Enjolras is like this – and besides this, his friend may be as lost as he, right now.
"Well," she says breathlessly, a laugh and a sob lying close beyond the edge of her words, "that didn't really work out as planned did it?"
The cell is not so terrible, really, but when she was used to this, used to capture and confinement, Éponine knew there was someone on the outside who knew. Here, there is nothing, no one to save her, and she feels trapped.
She has brought this on herself, she knows, but she is so used to silence that she no longer knows when it will act against her – and it is this thought that echoes until she feels as though she must speak, or suffocate.
"I loved him," she blurts, a confession born of desperation.
Confusion laces Cosette's voice. "Who? One of the Am-?"
"Marius." And that's it, she thinks in the silence, one more tie severed.
And then a hand rests on her knee, settling as gently as a bird – Cosette, ever the lark, moves in closer.
"Do you still?" comes the quiet voice. She groans in response, sinking lower. "Does he know?"
"It's Marius," she says, and it comes out on the edge of a sigh.
"So, no." Éponine presses a hand tight over her mouth to hold back a laugh at this boldness. The moment of mirth does not last long.
"I think if, I am to lose him –" she draws in a shaky breath, but she cannot dispel the image of quiet strength. "Then you are – you are who I least mind–" She can't go on.
"Oh, Éponine…" Without seeing her face, it is difficult for Éponine to read the emotions lingering on the lady's face. "Thank you."
"For – what?" She swipes the heel of her palm across her face, dragging it from cheekbone to eyelid, until the only moisture left on her face is from tears yet to fall.
A hand finds her free one, fingers interlacing and squeezing. "For telling."
A shaky laugh escapes her, and her head rolls to the side, hitting Cosette's shoulder and resting there. Delicate fingers come up to comb through her ratty hair, an attempt to sooth. "Shhh…" murmurs the lady. "We'll make it out of this yet."
Éponine hiccups, the closest to a sob she'll let herself get. "Yeah," she says, "yeah."
If it were only her at risk here, she would be happy to die, now. Never can she remember breathing so easily. For one moment, Éponine Thénardier is laid bare to the world, and her newly-freed truths have left her strung up above the world; whether she is to fall or be left floating would be determined in the morning.
And she will endure this mixture of weightlessness and heaviness of heart, of bliss and misery, until then.
A/N: This is not the end! This is, I think, not even the beginning of the end! But a girl who fancies herself in love has several hurdles to jump before she is ready to love another, and this is the beginning of Éponine's trials.
Admittedly, I will have quite a bit more to map out now that this is written, but… well, who doesn't want to write themselves an epic?
I really, really hope this conveyed everything I wanted it to convey, and that it didn't go by to quickly. I've been ridiculously nervous about this chapter, and feedback would be greatly appreciated.