Enjolras found himself in a state between annoyed…and exceedingly annoyed.
The first hour had been decently silent; he read his book, she fiddled with her hair. When they entered into the second hour of their journey, however, he could almost see the words foaming from her lips. By the third hour, she was in full non-stop ranting mode, blurting out random stories at forty miles per hour. For the first time, he'd begun to see some use in Grantaire. Too bad the man was headed for another country and wasn't around to divert the ranting away from him. He supposed people only realized what they had when they lost it.
"...but then he lost it again...I mean, who loses his cow twice in a row? But that's my uncle for you, I guess...well he's not really my uncle, most of the time I like to pretend he is – I mean, I can't really say...he's more like a...a colleague of my father's. See they met back in '15 when my father was in Waterloo – not the Battle of Waterloo, dear God! My father isn't a soldier – but I guess he could be one if he really wanted I mean he's got the stealth and the brains and he can – "
"Do you ever stop talking?" Enjolras asked sharply, looking up from his paperwork.
Éponine stopped in her rant. "Oh, pardon me..." she reddened slightly. "I have a severe hatred for silence. I thought you would too, since you like to speak a lot at your meetings. I hear you sometimes, practicing in your room."
It was now Enjolras' turn to blush slightly and he quickly busied himself adjusting his coat and fixing his cravat. "Well, contrary to you," he replied matter-of-factly, "I speak about things that actually matter."
Éponine raised her brow. "So you don't care if my uncle loses his cow again."
"N – I mean, be logical, Éponine," reasoned Enjolras. "How does your uncle losing his cow have any impact on the greater society?"
"Hey, a cow can provide lots of milk, city boy," she retorted.
"Manners, mamselle le fille de fleur," Enjolras reminded.
"I'll call you whatever I want, mop-head," she shot back. "After all, you care nothing for the little things in life."
"I – " She felt a smirk tug at the corner of her lips as she watched him struggle to find the right comeback. "It's not that I don't care, it's just...there's little time to care for such petty details while something much bigger is going on."
Éponine frowned. "Something?"
"Can you not feel it, Éponine? That stirring amongst the people, waiting restlessly for that day when we finally find our voice." Something of passion lit up his eyes as he spoke. "Why, Éponine, how could you not know? This is the reason you are here!"
Your reason, thought Eponine, mine was for easy pickings. "Well, someone didn't care much for the 'petty details' enough to fill me in."
Enjolras ignored her snide remark. "You'll be the voice of the people, Éponine, our voice. You know the impoverished best, you have first-hand experience of the suffering of the people! You can tell the ugly truth most sincerely!"
Éponine's heart skipped a beat. What Enjolras needed was a pure-hearted, genuine gamine who truly did sell flowers to earn forty sous to feed her starving family, not a selfish daughter of a con who threw mud on the ground and then asked for money to pay for her father's drinking habits. Not her.
"Why not choose Marius then?" she asked. "He's quite penniless, last I heard."
"Related to one of the richest men in Paris," Enjolras scoffed. "Besides, the man is easily distracted."
"And how do you know I'm not?" asked Éponine.
"I don't. But I'm sure you can prove to me otherwise."
His words hung over her like thunderclouds waiting to release their storm. Like a lion breathing down her neck.
Like a challenge. I'm sure you can prove to me otherwise.
Or a reassurance. I'm sure.
Had he that much faith in her? Enjolras had rarely said anything encouraging to her so far these past few months. If anything, Enjolras only demoralized her efforts to become a proper lady.
Challenge it was then.
"So...why are we going to Lyon?"
"Do pay attention, Éponine, I've told you quite a few times that we need to buy some silk for your dress for the Embassy Ball." And to find a gag for her ever-moving mouth, he added in his thoughts.
"Why not just order some from China?"
"It's cheaper if we went to the heart of trade," he stated brusquely.
"Oh." Éponine could not help but feel a little insulted at the fact. "Am I not worth your money?"
Enjolras was surprised at her sudden shift in demeanor. "What?"
"Nothing. I suppose I'm just one of your 'little things' you don't care enough about to invest in."
"I'm trying to be conservative here, Éponine," Enjolras said sharply.
"So you are." Her tone was cold.
"Woman, use your brain, won't you?" Her pettiness had really gotten on his nerves. "For a gamine, I thought you'd be more understanding of the concept of saving!"
Éponine lifted her eyes off the window, turning to stare at Enjolras with eyes full of hurt and disappointment. "That is what you still see me as?" she asked, her voice soft, like the calm before a storm, "a gamine?"
Minutes passed as Enjolras' words failed to form, his tongue laid stiff and his lips slightly parted. Éponine shook her head sadly.
Demoralization. His words would always be no more than demoralization.
It was now one of those times where Enjolras wished he'd had something of Marius' luck with girls, where he had a now sulking girl sitting across him in a carriage where he could feel the despair radiating off her. She might as well have been stone, with her arms resting on her laps and her eye unmoving from the window. So this was what his silent treatments felt like.
He should be happy, he told himself for the fourth time in the past hour, she was silent at last. But in his heart, what should've been satisfaction was only guilt.
"Let me make it up to you."
Éponine gave no response, her gaze still fixated on the window.
"I'll buy you something."
Still no movement.
"Anything."
He sighed upon seeing no results from his attempts, and turned away.
But unbeknownst to him, had he kept his eyes fixed on her for a few more seconds, he might've noticed the slight quirk in the lips.
Enjolras didn't catch on until the crepes.
First it was a day dress she'd spotted while they were walking through the bohemian part of Lyon. It was azure blue with black frills lining the low v collar and the short balloon sleeves that clung around her upper arm, exposing her shoulders and collarbone. Black buttons dotted the tight fitting corset, and more frills lined the silk skirt and red underskirt.
"With my luggage on its merry way to another country, I'm practically wearing my entire wardrobe," she told him. Enjolras was never an expert on women's fashion, but he didn't need to be one to think that Éponine was quite pretty in the dress. Not that he would ever tell her that.
Then it was a hat, a small, navy blue top hat that sat smartly on her French twist.
"It's hot, the sun will burn my skin. I must not be burnt if I want to be a fair lady!" After getting her hands on it, she could not stop playing with it and doing hat tricks like flipping it onto her hair with gusto larger than the size of France. Enjolras was ready to shoot the thing off her head by the turn of the hour.
By the time she'd demanded a crepe, her excuses had run Enjolras dry of guilt. Trust the girl to exploit it!
"You could've at least taken effort to make a better excuse," he said at last, as she bit into the crepe. "Rather than blaming it on your convenient hunger pangs that arrived two mere hours after breakfast."
Éponine smiled up innocently. "I did not eat much."
"You ate – devoured – three slices of bread and cheese and ham plus a whole soufflé for breakfast!"
"Soufflés are good, Enjolras, I got Madame le cuisinier to teach me how to make them, and someday, I will make one for you!"
"Oh no."
Enjolras had vowed to make the crepes his last make-up-for-insulting-Éponine purchase.
That was before he realized he was hopeless at keeping vows concerning women.
All it took was a diamond ring catching Éponine's eye, and the insufferable jeweler beckoning her to try it on. He told himself over and over again he was not going to spend another sou on her, but looking at the laughter in her eyes when the jeweler told her it looked pretty on her, and the wistful look on her face, he found himself breaking that vow.
He'd drawn out another few hundred for it.
"First impressions."
Enjolras suppressed a growl of frustration. Oh, how he hated Éponine's need for idle chatter. It was more annoying than Grantaire's need for wine every hour; at least the man moaned by himself. Éponine's addiction of talk was something that required two people to partake, and he had become the unfortunate victim once again as they sat in a quaint little cafe they'd chosen as their lunch place.
"No." He fixed his gaze on the red wine swirling around in the glass.
"C'mon," she said, leaning forward across the café table. "I'd like to know what you thought of me. Was I pretty?"
Enjolras was slightly taken aback by the question. "W-what? You can't just ask me that!"
"Why not?" Her expression was too innocent to be genuine.
"No." Enjolras was adamant.
"You say i'm not pretty?"
"What? No!" Enjolras hurriedly exclaimed in fear of angering the girl again. "You were...well...I just..." He stopped himself, feeling his face grow hot from both anger and embarrassment as the girl began to laugh. Curse her for causing him to make a fool of himself!
"Of course, the high and mighty Enjolras only pays attention to bigger things," she said, but this time there was no venom in the statement.
In spite of himself Enjolras thought back to that day at the opera house. To that moment when Grantaire crashed into the filth-ridden girl who wore a brilliant radiance despite the gloom. To that moment when they bickered, and she took on his insults head-on without missing a heartbeat. To that moment when he decided she'd be his voice, his fuel and passion to strive for his cause.
He took a moment to observe the Éponine across him. With all the meetings and the lessons and the work, he'd rarely taken time to look back. He'd found it redundant, useless to see the past, for his eyes had so long been set on the future. And now, when he finally did, he couldn't recognize Éponine anymore. He couldn't believe that the Eponine he'd met just over two months ago, that filthy flower girl of skin and bones and rags and revolting language, was the same Éponine sitting across him, a proper french lady adorned in pearls and a beautiful dress and a proper accent. He couldn't believe how far she'd — they'd — come.
"Fine, if you want to hear it," he finally mumbled. "You were not horrendous looking."
"I'll take that as a compliment, monsieur," Éponine said delightfully. "I think you were rather pig-headed yourself."
"I beg your pardon!" exclaimed Enjolras, eyebrows jumping up his forehead. "Is that what your first impression of me was?"
Éponine smiled playfully. "Oh, egoistic is just one of the many adjectives."
Enjolras sat back and crossed his arms. "So, let's hear it then," he found himself saying, momentarily forgetting his previous yearning for a quick end to the conversation. "What other adjectives would you use to describe me?"
Éponine seemed to ponder a moment. "Well, how about, overdressed? You had the kind of vibe that says 'Look at me, I'm stressed!' Really there were so many words to choose from I didn't even know where to start! You looked miserable."
"I find ballets redundant," Enjolras explained shortly.
"I hear they lift spirits though!" commented Éponine. "And by the look of it, you need about a hundred ballets to lift that deadweight spirit of yours."
"My spirit can only be lifted by the people's cry of freedom," Enjolras said firmly. He nodded towards her. "And so, in a way, you're the key to lifting my spirits."
"What a burden," Éponine murmured jokingly.
"Treat this as no joke, Éponine," he said with a grim frown. "You'll play a large part in garnering the people's support, and in doing so, you'll give the people of France a better chance at freedom."
That seemed to silence her. Perhaps, at last, the full weight of her duty to the country was settling upon her shoulders — at least, he hoped.
The silence was in the beginning stages of becoming an awkward pause when Enjolras remembered something he had been meaning to ask Éponine. "What were you going to say, Éponine? That night, when you came back from your...field trip, for lack of better term."
Éponine bit her lip. "It…it matters nothing now."
Enjolras couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed. Why would she say nothing of that which had shaken her so much?
He placed his hand upon hers, and she jumped slightly at the unexpected contact. "Éponine," he said softly. "I know that I've displayed some signs of...of doubt, perhaps, and of prejudice, towards you. I just want you to know you have come a long way since the opera house, and that I've now come to trust you, Éponine; I trust you to stand on that dais in the Embassy Ball next week and sing that song of freedom that the people one day shall chorus! And I also hope that you could lay your trust upon me as I do upon you."
For a moment her eyes darted nervously from his hand to his face, as if searching for some catch in his surprisingly good temper. Then she slipped her hands from his and rested them upon her lap.
"I trust you, Enjolras, I do," she said finally. She would not meet his eyes.
Enjolras sighed as he withdrew his hand. Let her be, he thought as he picked up his napkin and dabbed his mouth. He could not waste anymore of his time trying to weed out her unspoken secrets. He stood, left a few francs on the table, before extending his hand. "Come, let us find you something to wear so that men shall tremble at the sight of your beauty."
At this she took his hand and smiled, and suddenly Enjolras flashed back to the previous morning. How quickly she could switch personalities, and turn her frown upside down in a matter of seconds.
For the millionth time that day, he could feel himself avoiding it, his mind telling him to focus. But this time — without Grantaire to distract him from what was right in front of him — this final time, it was impossible to ignore.
Éponine Jondrette was no doubt beginning to look more like a mystery than a solution.
A/N: I am so sorry. I got hooked onto Doctor Who and watched ten years worth of episodes in three months followed by a fanfiction writing spree — that never got anywhere. Oh well, seeing the rate at which I'm updating, I suppose I should wish y'all an early Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
