AN: wow, sorry for the late update again. I have done so many drafts of this but everytime I went to post it I was unhappy with it and decided to rewrite it. But today I realised I needed to put SOMETHING up, so here you go! I hope it's ok, there's a lot of dialogue but yeah. I couldn't really help it!

Eponine would be lying to herself if she said she wasn't the slightest bit nervous about what she had put herself in for; but she was a Thenardier, and lying was in her blood. She inhaled deeply before gathering her page of notes and taking Enjolras' arm, which he had offered to her as they left the apartment.

As they walked to the market, a certain little gamin came bounding over to them, grinning from ear to ear, "'Ponine! Monsieur Enjolras!" he greeted them, taking his sisters hand as he invited himself to join their stroll.

"What're you doing? The meetin's not for ages!" he asked, eyeing the papers under the arms of the couple. As Enjolras and Eponine looked at each other, silently discussing whether or not to keep their competition to themselves, Gavroche decided to snatch the paper from under Eponine's arms. He couldn't read but he was a nosy little boy, and wanted to have a look nevertheless.

"Oi!" Eponine cried, making to grab the paper back. It wasn't that she was worried that he would read it and laugh at her ideas – she knew he was less educated than her and the letters she had scrawled in her unprofessional handwriting probably looked like meaningless shapes and lines to him – she was more concerned that her partner would catch a glimpse and mock her, or in a very unlikely case, steal her ideas. Once she had successfully pulled the page from his dirty grip, she swatted him over the head with it. "What have I told you about stealing from me, huh?" she scolded with a soft chuckle, tucking the paper securely under her arm once more.

"Well, I wouldn't have done it if you just told me what you were doing," he defended himself, giving his sister a shove, knocking her into Enjolras who let out a huff of embarrassment as he stumbled ever so slightly, being caught off guard.

The blonde adjusted his jacket before turning to look down at the cheeky urchin, "If you insist on knowing everything, little Gavroche, then me and Eponine are having a... contest."

Gavroche spluttered and looked to Eponine with a disbelieving grin, which only seemed to widen when she affirmed Enjolras' statement with a nod. After some persistent pestering, the little boy finally found out just what the pair were competing for. His face reflected that of a child who had received everything they could ever dream for at Christmas.

"Are the guys coming to watch?" he asked, referring to the Les Amis.

"No, they don't need to be involved in this, they'll just be a distraction and the results wouldn't be fair," Enjolras told him. He didn't want his friends to know about this game he was about to play – they'd tease him relentlessly and he didn't want that at all. They needed to focus on the revolution at hand.

"Hey wait! Where are you going?!" he shouted as Gavroche suddenly let go of Eponine's hand and started running down the street.

"Oh nowhere in particular, Monsieur Enjolras, don't you worry!" the ten year old called over his shoulder, his signature grin completely contradicting his words.

"He's gone to get everyone."

"Yes, thank you 'Ponine. I gathered that your brother would do something as such, he's related to you afterall."

Eponine let out a loud laugh which echoed through the air like a bell and warmed Enjolras' heart, and he dropped her arm and moved to wrap his arm around her - still tiny - waist instead, and pressed a soft kiss to her temple.

"You know, it's not too late to call this thing off?" he whispered into her ear, a smirk once again twitching his lips.

Eponine turned her head to look him straight in his hypnotisingly blue eyes, "like hell," she whispered with a grin. "I'll rally so many people, that you'll be coming to me for tips!" she kissed the tip of his nose before turning her attention back to the street ahead.

"we'll see" Enjolras muttered, mostly to himself as he looked down at the fiery brunette in his arm with soft eyes and a gentle smile of adoration.

The market was a lot busier than the pair had expected, and Eponine was filled with a heightened sense of anxiety. Normally she would thrive under these conditions as it gave her the means to be anonymous, but now she was going to have to get up and show herself to everyone. It filled her with a sense of anxiety which was so unlike anything she had ever experienced. She didn't know if this was how Enjolras felt before every speech he ever did, or if it was due to the fact that she was still just a street rat in a clean, pretty dress, friends with bourgeois students. Either way, she felt sick.

Enjolras looked to Eponine to make a comment on the number of people, but stopped when he noticed that her face had paled slightly. He cupped her cheek with his hand and gently turned her head to look at him, "you don't have to do this, 'Ponine," he told her sincerely, rubbing his thumb across her skin, making her blush a shade of pink which he found endearing.

"No, I can do this!" she declared with a determined grin, and she moved his hand away from her face and kissed it lightly before pulling away and moving to stand on a barrel and start her speech before she lost her nerve.

She started speaking, loud an clear, "Citizens of St Michel, it is time for change..." she trailed off when she noted that everyone simply looked at her with a disapproving glare before carrying on with their daily business. She wasn't sure if it had anything to do with the fact that she was a female – Enjolras never seemed to have this trouble, and she had watched him address many a crowd. She had been downtrodden all her life, and she wasn't going to let herself be ignored anymore. If the Les Amis could listen to her thoughts and ideas, then the market people could do so as well.

"HEY!" she shouted at the crowd. A large number of people stopped to look at her and she smiled inwardly, well, that got their attention she thought smugly. She started her speech again, much louder and much more confident this time. She spoke her thoughts with a fierce passion to rival that of Enjolras' and she emphasised her points with gestures of her hands and arms. She didn't just want them to hear her, she wanted them to listen. And when someone tried shouting over the top of her, she simply screwed up her page of notes – she wasn't using them anyway, she found that the words just seemed to flow from her lips without having to give it much thought – and hurled it at them, successfully hitting them on the back of the head. A few members of the crowd laughed and cheered, already animated from Eponine's powerful speaking, and so the offending individual turned a deep shade of red out of embarrassment and was then silent once more.

She had the crowd captivated, they hung onto her every word and cheered when she spoke of being oppressed. She spoke uncensored tales of how life was for people on the streets, and how things needed to change for the the men as well, not just the women, and not just the children. Enjolras watched all this from the sidelines, openly beaming as his heart swelled with pride for the young woman. He no longer cared about winning this stupid competition, because he had already lost to her. He had lost his resistance to love.

Out of nowhere a hand clapped Enjolras on his shoulder, jerking him from his inner musings. He turned to see who has assaulted him, and was greeted by a worried looking Joly.

"Enjolras, are you feeling quite alright? You haven't blinked or even moved since we got here and I really think you should come with me so I can examine you. I was reading earlier and I really think you may have Cholera and -"

"Joly! Leave the man alone, he's suffering from an incurable disease," Courfeyrac interrupted the young hypochondriac. He spoke in an overly sombre tone, though he was grinning from ear to ear, a smile which almost mirrored that of Gavroche, who was clinging onto his back.

Joly paled and looked as though he wanted to be sick, he took a good three steps away from their leader, spluttering incoherently and frantically rubbing his hands on his trousers, as if to wipe away any contagious germs.

Courfeyrac nodded sadly at him and declared dramatically, "Oh Joly, our dear friend is suffering from an awfully strong case of... LOVE!"

Enjolras glared at his "friend" as Courfeyrac threw his head back and laughed loudly, along with the rest of the Amis and Gavroche. Even Joly was shakily chuckling along, though he still eyed the blonde with uncertainty.

"We're only messin' with you, Enj!" Grantaire slurred slightly. He had brought a bottle of alcohol with him, apparently.

Enjolras just stared at the Amis and then gave Gavroche a pointed glare. The gamin refused to falter under the disapproving look and simply shrugged, claiming that it would've been unfair to let everyone miss out on such an event.

He was going to make a comment when he realised that the crowd around him was once again talking far too loudly to actually be listening to Eponine – in fact, he couldn't hear her strong, impassioned voice at all anymore! - and when he turned to the spot where she had been speaking, he saw it was empty. He felt as though he had just swallowed a heavy lump of lead, and it was now resting in the pit of his stomach, and he scanned the crowd with his sharp blue eyes, desperate to catch a glimpse of her long dark hair which always managed to fall out of the ribbons she tried to tie it back with.

"Where's Eponine gone? Have you seen her?" He asked the group, his tone coming out a lot harsher than he anticipated. He practically growled when all shook their heads in slight confusion.

Gavroche hopped down from Courfeyrac's back, and tugged on Enjolras' sleeve, "You don't think she'd go running off do ya, Enjolras?" he whispered, formalities forgotten as he felt fear bubble inside his stomach. Gavroche was still haunted by nightmares of the night where he had nearly lost his sister, and he couldn't help but panic that she was going to get herself in trouble by wandering off on her own.

"I don't know, Gavroche," Enjolras replied, marching through the crowd. He asked random people if they had seen what way she had gone, but some pointed one way while others pointed another and some just claimed that they had no idea at all. He knew that some were lying. People don't just vanish from thin air.

He tried to think of why anyone would lie, and all he could really think of was that something or someone may have scared them into not saying anything. The thought chilled his blood as his mind snapped straight to a certain group of people, who were well known and well feared throughout Paris.

Enjolras looked to Gavroche, to ask if he could show him some places where she may have gone, but he stopped when he saw him staring at the ground. His body was trembling and his eyes were wide as saucers. Following his gaze, he found a wooden chip on the floor with a symbol roughly engraved into it. He didn't understand.

"Gavroche what is this?" he asked, picking up the splintering wood and examining the symbol, hoping the meaning behind it would leap out at him like a word on the page of a book.

The little boy looked up at the blonde revolutionary with fear in his eyes, and Courfeyrac, who had followed them into the crowd along with the rest of the Amis, placed his hands on his shoulders to stop him shaking. He met Enjolras' worried eyes when Gavroche uttered a single sentence:

"This is the symbol of the Patron Minette."

dun dun duuuuuuun! I hope this was ok, I'm sorry if it wasn't! leave me a review and tell me what you thought... please? :)

Thank you!