11

Éponine and Gavroche bade Éléonore goodbye and climbed the many stairs to their apartment. Éponine unlocked the door with the key she still grasped in one fist, and once inside, Gavroche leaped onto the sofa.

Éponine shut the door behind them and leaned against it. "Gavroche," she said slowly. "Please, don't do that again."

Gavroche stretched his skinny body out across the sofa cushions in a way that reminded Éponine of a cat waking from slumber. "Why not?" he challenged, his eyes sparkling.

"Because you made me worry," Éponine snapped. "Gavroche, you're my little brother. I worried about you when we were alive, wondering where you were one night and who you could be with the next. I wasn't in a position, then, to actually act on that worry. Now I am and I don't want you wandering the streets like that anymore."

"It's safer here than Paris," Gavroche said.

"I don't care!" Éponine shouted. "I don't care, Gavroche. It's besides the point. You knew Paris, you knew it like the back of your hand and so did I. But this place – it is completely unfamiliar and it is like a maze. You could so easily have got lost and not been able to get home and we might not have been able to find you at all, Gavroche. So please, I ask you again, do not wander off like that without telling me."

Gavroche rolled onto his stomach. "I refuse to stay inside all day," he said.

"That's not what I'm asking, not at all," Éponine said. "I couldn't do that myself and I'd never ask you to do the same. I'm just asking for some consideration – bear me in mind before you run off like that. You're not living alone anymore, Gavroche. We're here together."

This time, her brother stayed silent. She sighed and crossed the room, kneeling down next to the sofa. She reached out one hand, intending to smooth it over her hair, but the gesture felt completely foreign so instead she dug her fingers into the cushion of the sofa.

"How about," she said slowly, "We come to some kind of…arrangement."

He turned his head to look at her, his lips set into a thin line.

"Like what?" he asked, his voice slightly muffled by the cushion beneath his head.

"You can go for your walks during the day," she said. "But you don't go too far from here. If you want to go further, I can come with you, or we can find someone to come with you. But during the night, we both come back here and stay here. How does that sound?"

Minutes ticked by as Gavroche considered this offer. Eventually, he said, "I think I could deal with that."

Éponine smiled.

XXX

Another day passed. Gavroche did not get the time to wander, because Éponine insisted he help her furnish their apartment. By the time the day was out, they had two beds – both of them large and incredibly soft – as well as a table, some chairs, and decorative pieces that Éponine had wanted such as curtains for the window. She also created a mirror for their wall. Éponine conjured a dressing table and stool for her room, and they both made a wardrobe for themselves. They had discussed creating a kitchen area, but didn't see the point if they wouldn't be doing any cooking.

Then, to surprise Gavroche, Éponine created some things to keep him occupied during the nights. This included a chess set (she didn't know how to play chess and she knew Gavroche wouldn't either, but she assumed one of the students would know), a deck of cards, and some marbles, as well as a chalkboard and chalk for him so she could start to teach him how to write.

As mentioned, the chess set was useless as neither of them knew how to play chess properly; she had been fascinated by a particularly fancy set she saw in a house her father and his gang had robbed, and she had replicated that one to the best of her ability. They'd got some fun out of the cards, but the marbles had so far only resulted in a violent missile game which led to Éponine barricading herself in her room.

She hadn't broached the subject of teaching him to write yet, so the chalkboard remained in her room, tucked under her bed.

XXX

On the third day, a couple of the students visited – Courfeyrac and Prouvaire. They wanted to know if there was anything they could do to help.

Courfeyrac showed Gavroche and Éponine how to play chess, whilst Prouvaire spent his time creating a perfect bouquet of flowers and a vase to put on the table. Éponine was glad for the change of faces, and felt a little sad when they left.

Chess had been much more fun with Courfeyrac. The siblings tried to play a game once the pair of students had left, but when Gavroche began to lose he began to throw the chess pieces. This time, Éponine had refused to back down and she was eventually triumphant as Gavroche took refuge in his own bedroom.

XXX

But the next day, Gavroche's wanderings began, and Éponine was left alone.

She tidied at first, hunting down all the lost marbles and packing them away in their little box, and setting out the chess set on one of the shelves in the alcove. She plumped up all the cushions on the sofa, made her bed and Gavroche's, rearranged Prouvaire's gift of flowers. She wondered, as she ran her fingers over the soft petals, if these would die. Could things die in the afterlife?

She conjured herself a broom to sweep the wooden floors, even though they didn't need it. And then she had a go at conjuring food, choosing an apple. It tasted a bit sweet and there wasn't a core, but it satisfied her enough.

But then she was bored, lying on the sofa with her legs in odd positions, her fingers laced over her stomach.

She considered her ideas to teach Gavroche to write, and wondered if it would be best to teach him to read first. This led her to consider attempting to conjure a book of some kind. She thought about books she had heard of. Her mother liked to read, and although she preferred to read romances she did occasionally branch out. One of the last books Éponine could remember her mother reading was Frankenstein, ou le Prométhée moderne. She didn't know anything about the text itself, but it was the only thing that sprung to mind.

So to try and cure herself of her boredom, she decided to conjure that book. She could remember its cover well enough, so, based off that, she closed her eyes and envisioned the book.

It wasn't long before the slim book bound in black leather appeared in her palms. She opened it to the first page, expectant, but found it to be blank. Her heart sinking, a quick flick through the rest of it showed that all of the pages were pure white. She cursed. She must have needed to remember the text word for word!

In a temper, she flung the book onto the floor and enjoyed the dull thud that was created by it slapping into the wooden floorboards.

She felt like the book was staring at her. After a couple of minutes, she crawled off the sofa and sat, cross-legged on the floor. She opened the book, running her fingers over the smooth pages. Maybe it wasn't entirely useless, she mused, and found herself conjuring up a pencil.

She used to draw when she was a little girl. They had been quite good drawings, too, for a child, much more detailed than your average little girl's scribbles. She'd had no time to carry on pursuing this hobby when they lost the inn, but she found it quite easy to start sketching something onto the blank pages in the book.

She drew Gavroche's face from memory. It wasn't as good as she'd wanted it to be, but there was a near enough likeness that you could tell it was him.

But then her next decision was to start doodling, and to start writing. She let her mind go completely free, not really keeping a check on what she was putting down on paper. It didn't matter, she thought to herself; this book could become a little diary. She'd always found the idea of keeping a diary romantic.

She was scribbling down a picture of Marius, smiling handsomely, when she began to hear the voices.

She looked up from her notebook, wondering if Gavroche had returned from his wanderings, possibly with a student in tow. Or maybe it was Éléonore, coming to see how she was. Or could it be a neighbour?

Slowly, Éponine got to her feet and crossed the room to the window. She opened it and peered out onto the little landing outside her flat. There was no one there. She backed away from the window, confused. She could still hear the voices, and they were getting louder.

"My dearest Cosette, I feel like I have known you all my life."

The voice was all-too familiar for Éponine's ears. She would know Marius' voice anywhere.

"I am the same. I think it is why I love you, and it's why I'm certain we're meant to be together." The feminine response made Éponine grip the pencil in her hand so hard that it snapped.

Her eyes flickered around the room, wondering where this voice could have been coming from.

"Must our wedding day be so far away?" The words wedding day felt like a punch to Éponine's gut. Then her eyes fell on the mirror and it all became clear. She must have inadvertently created a Portal.

She could see Marius and Cosette, walking together through some gardens. Éponine padded closer to the mirror, and they grew closer to her. She could not deny, staring at them now, that they made a truly beautiful couple. The thought dashed through her head and she hated her mind for thinking it. And there was such love, glowing on their faces and sparkling in their eyes…

Éponine felt tears burning behind her own eyes. In the mirror, Cosette reached up to caress Marius' face. Marius smiled down at, smiling like in that picture she'd just drawn of him. Then the image before her rippled and faded away, until her own reflection was staring back. Her own ugly, gaunt, miserable reflection.

She whirled away from the mirror, too many feelings crowding all at once into her chest. She stared down into the book, and saw her affectionately drawn sketch of Marius, smiling broadly. He smiled at Cosette like that. Oh, and he'd smiled at Éponine like that too, once…In Éponine's favourite dreams.

In a temper, Éponine stooped down and snatched the book up off the floor. She stomped across the room to the window, which still stood open, and flung the book out onto the street.

She watched it fall away, and then a couple of moments later, a great shout of "Ow!" drifted through the window.

Éponine jerked forward, sticking her head out of the window to stare down onto the streets. Her stomach fell when she saw Enjolras stood there, rubbing his head and glaring up at her. The book lay, open and slightly torn, on the ground at his feet, Marius' face still smiling.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews for the last chapter, I really appreciate it :)