I updated early because. . . BECAUSE I COULDN'T POSSIBLY WAIT ANY LONGER HAHAHAHA.
Reviewers you are all just magnificent, divine, sublime people I just love you all. You are what keeps this story going.
There were two people kneeling before the priest somberly, their faces grim and their voices only being produced in hushed tones. If he had not been reciting the ancient Latin words of a Catholic wedding ceremony he would have highly doubted he was conducting a marriage for these two deeply serious beings. And it was not just these two people who seemed oddly oppressive, but the entire cathedral, the entire city for that matter, seemed to be enshrouded in a deep cloud of gloom. Perhaps it was because nearly a year ago to that day dozens of young men had willingly sacrificed themselves for their country, their hopeful plans never having fully coming to fruition after their deaths.
Even the small group of people occupying only the very front pews, for there were so few of them, seemed to be showing every emotion but happiness. A young girl, presumably the brides younger sister, seemed to be watching the ceremony mistily, her eyes glassy and her mind somewhere far away. The pretty dress she wore was too big and hung off of her shoulders, wrists, and hips, emphasizing her already unattractive thinness and making her look like the little sickly birds that migrated too early at the end of winter and ended up freezing to death. An aging woman's eyes brimmed with salty tears that slipped down her face silently, and her husband, an ugly and scarred old man with gray hair scattered with white patches here and there seemed bored and impatient, his drumming fingers against the empty seat beside him catching the holy man's eye even from where he stood at the altar. Sitting a small distance away from the others was a young man with hair the color of corn silk, his posture as meticulously perfect as the red haired man in front of him. This boy, who was dressed in the same navy uniform as the man kneeling at the altar, seemed to be watching every aspect of the ceremony intensely, his livid blue eyes as sharp and clear as the finest Austrian crystal.
In addition there were three servants, a tired woman with a weary smile and a premature streak of gray spreading through her long brown hair, a pale man with curly hair and an impassive expression, his eyes staring disdainfully behind the thick panes of his spectacles, and an elderly woman who looked as bored as the man who was drumming his fingers against the seat of the pew he sat on.
The people assembled in this place were few and odd, but they were nothing compared to the bride and groom. Instead of a veil, the woman's head was crowned with white roses, their stems twisted and concealed in her hair so that only their blooms were visible. The pale face that watched him carefully was pale and gaunt, her dark hair colliding against her ivory skin to make both colors stand out sharply vivid, and her dress was of a simple and modest cut, nothing at all what he would have thought a woman of obvious nobility would wear to her wedding.
The priest's lips paused for a brief moment and he raised two fingers to the red haired man's forehead, blessing him with the cool holy water on the tips of his fingers. Though the groom seemed to be of a wealthy class, it was highly apparent to the man conducting the holy unity that the bride was marrying a man far below her rank. The man's icy green eyes stared unblinkingly at him while more of the service's words fell from his lips, and he began to feel slightly unnerved about his unchanging expression.
All the time he was reciting his vows, Javert could not steal his eyes away from Eponine's. Like her sister, it seemed she was in some far away place, far, far from where she really was standing before him, dressed in white with delicate roses in her long hair and her cheeks a fair shade of pink. She was pretty, charming, beautiful even, but her eyes said nothing as they bore into his own. She was awake, but she was dreaming, he could tell by the familiar soft parting of her lips that she was thinking of someone entirely different than him, and Javert could only guess it was the same curly haired baron whom she had wasted countless hours thinking of. He was aggravated for a moment, banishing the immense desire to scowl at her and shake her shoulder to draw her back to reality. Instead, when he stopped speaking and the room waited for her own words, he took her hand in his and gave it a slight pinch, something the room did not ignore.
From where he sat, Liviet frowned, and, when she did not respond to him, Javert whispered under his breath, "Eponine!"
"Oh, yes!" She said aloud, jumping slightly. "I'm sorry!" She whispered back to him before beginning her own vows.
Eponine was distracted that morning, but not by the reason that Javert suspected. For the last month, periodically, she had discovered red roses placed on her windowsill, their thorns intact and their petals slightly bruised. She knew immediately exactly who they were from, though she did not know how or why Montparnasse was able to send her these gifts. After a lot of deep thought she had concluded that Patron-Minette was trying to communicate with her for some purpose, and she had quickly become frightened at the prospect of being dragged back to her old life. Javert thought her unwilling to marry him quickly, but she was actually eager to finally wed him. It meant that she would no longer have to sleep alone at night, worrying about some sexually obsessed boy breaking into her room and watching her while she slept.
She had gotten into a habit of waking before Sophie came into her room each morning and, if even a single crimson flower lay against her window pane, she would quickly get up and burn it by holding the bloom over a lit candle until it was alive with dancing and flickering flame, returning to bed only after her job was completed and pretending she had never risen in the night. The only problem she had with this method was the sickening aroma of roses that perfumed her room each time she incinerated one of Montparnasse's gifts. What unnerved her most of all, however, was, each time she stayed awake a number of nights to catch the boy whose hands were soaked in blood entering her room, there was no sign of him. She would collapse into bed when the first signs of dawn made orange and pink streaks in the gray abyss above her, expecting him not to come, and, dozing for a few measly moments, she would later rise again to find another red rose beside her window, or, on one disturbing occasion, one placed gently on the little table beside her bed.
Eponine finished her last word with a miniscule sigh and, seeing an almost pleased look in Javert's eyes, her eyes lit up with a new kind of attentiveness. Dutifully sliding a ring over her finger, he looked at her, proud but stoic, and, when he leaned close to her face to kiss her in front of the entire audience assembled, her face flushed a bit more. Neither of them looked fairly happy as their lips touched, however. Eponine was still slightly agitated by the combination of a lack of sleep and worry about her Father's associates, and Javert merely refused to show any form of affection in front of someone other than his wife.
The priest remarked to himself about how, by the serious and grim expression on each person's face as they slowly stood from where they knelt, it seemed more likely that they were attending a funeral instead of a wedding.
Bells rang when Eponine, Javert, and their party stepped out of the church, but the pealing in the air only sounded sharp and harsh, their tolls scraping peoples' ears like dull and rusty knives. Eponine winced at the sound as people walking in the streets looked up to see the newly unified husband and wife. More than one person was surprised to see Inspector Javert, who always seemed so cold, loveless, and imposing, with a woman dressed in white at his side. Peasants and nobles alike stared at the pair and, when a second look confirmed that it was indeed the heartless officer of Paris with one arm intertwined into a fairly pretty woman's, they grimaced, pitying whatever dim creature had permitted herself to be married to such a terrible man.
"Hello again, Miseour." Azelma said to Liviet, quietly, and he gave her a curt nod in return.
The young officer had not been surprised to find that the girl who had pulled him back from the bridge above the River Seine was the younger sister of his beloved. In fact, he had mentally kicked himself for not having realized their evident and obvious resemblance when he had first looked at her. And now that the girl with flossy blond hair persisted in first walking at his side, taking the seat closest to him inside the chapel, and now speaking to him so directly, he tried his best to ignore her, trying not to remember that embarrassing night of his life just one week before when, in a spurt and combination of both madness and despair, he had tried to end his own life. Azelma, refusing to take any of his ignorance, soon corrupted his plans, chattering away to him quietly about frivolous things, folding the skirts of the dress her sister had leant her for this wedding. Grudgingly, Liviet endured her speech with complete and impassive silence, watching wistfully as Javert and Eponine stepped down the front steps of the church.
The day was long, stressful, arduous, and Eponine's shoulder ached dully from where her Father had broken it once when she was thirteen, the thick and heavy fabric of her dress weighing her arms down painfully. It was late in the day, and the sky was already beginning to dim, the street lamp lighter quickly making his way down the street to illuminate the walkways around them. Pausing at the foot of the stairs, Javert wrapped his hand around her waist, pulling he closely as each attendant of the wedding wished their congratulations. Emile, Sophie, and Laura would not be returning home with them that night, instead paying a visit to Emile's parents' home for the week to allow Javert and his bride to accustom to life as husband and wife. Javert's parents would be returning to their home in Arres that evening, as well, and Azelma and Liviet would both be left to their own devices. There wouldn't be a person in the house tonight besides she and him, and, with a knot of agitation twisting through her stomach, she knew her day would be far from over by the time she returned home.
Shifting nervously as her sister walked up to her, Eponine pulled Azelma away for a private conversation while Javert was busy speaking with his parents.
"Be careful at home, won't you?" Eponine murmured, placing her hands on her sisters thin and frail shoulders. "Promise me that if you ever need anything you won't hesitate to come to me or Javert?"
Azelma nodded, though she was not really listening, her eyes wandering to where Officer Liviet stood some distance away with his arms crossed over his chest. She made a face, some expression mixed with curiosity, distrust, and vague observity as her careful eyes scanned over his lithe and muscled body. She had been taught well enough to avoid the gendarmes of any city, and the feeling would not be dispelled from her, even after her own sister married Inspector Javert. In conclusion, she refused to look at either officers without sincere distaste.
"Take this." Eponine said, placing a handful of franc notes into Azelma's hand. "And for God's sake keep it where no one will find it."
"Thank you." The younger sister murmured, pressing the notes into her bodice, still watching Liviet intently. "Eponine?" She murmured after a moment, cupping her sisters hand in her own and changing her line of attention to Javert.
"Hmm?"
"You're happy right? With the Inspector? It's not like he made you marry him, or anything like that?"
Eponine smiled and tucked a long, straying piece of yellow hair behind her sister's ear, watching her deep and unsheltered blue eyes as the reflections of the lamplight flickered in their depths like sapphire flame. Realizing that Azelma was no longer the little girl she had put a hand in raising in the slums, she felt a pang of sorrow. The blond haired girl had seen her own share of horrors and had probably experienced her own as well, and Eponine felt a happy sorrow trickle through her body like warm tears. In silence, she nodded solemnly to her sister's question.
"Give me a few months and I'll be happy." She said, following Azelma's gaze and looking at Javert, fondness slowly manifesting itself in her eyes. "He'll make me happy soon. I know he will, he has to. He adores me, and I. . . I think I may adore him. I hope that one day I'll wake up as much in love with him as I was with Marius." She said, almost bitterly, rolling her shoulders backwards like she used to do in the old days when they had often concocted heists together in order to earn a well needed meal.
"You don't love him anymore, then? Marius?" Azelma asked, her thin, skeptical eyebrows raising with surprise. For years their poor neighbor had been the only thing her older sister had spoken about, had thought about, had dreamed about. It was strange to see that she had escaped from the hold the young student had had over her, and even stranger still that she spoke of him with a fraction of coldness in her voice. She could not help but wonder what had finally swayed her mind to view her former love so disdainfully.
"No." Eponine whispered, darkly. "He belongs to the Lark. How could I love someone when he belongs to someone else?" Closing her eyes slowly, she sighed and intertwined her sister's slim fingers in her own, concentrating on the steady and iambic human pulse she felt against her own cold palm. "I love him, but only in the way I love you, sweet girl."
Azelma nodded, though she really did not understand, having never been in love herself, and both sisters watched as Liviet stepped up to Javert, a face of uttermost dreariness on his face, his entire manner oppressive and filled with melancholy. Neither girl wondered why the young man was acting so despairingly.
"I love her, you know." The weary man told his superior, folding his arms behind his back and blinking tiredly. Javert nodded, having suspected Liviet of his feelings since he had witnessed the awkward exchange between him and Eponine, and his back stiffened slightly as the younger man slapped him over the arm in a brotherly fashion. "Take care of her, won't you? She makes me miserable but I love her all the same. She is my everything."
"As she is mine." Javert muttered, nodding mechanically. "You have my word that no harm will ever find her. Not while I'm around."
"One man is not always enough, you know," He replied matter of factly. "Not with all the demons prowling everywhere these days. I'll be watching her, too, and the moment you slip up I'll be there to protect her. You can have my word on that for certain." He paused, mulling over his combination of jealousy and admiration for the man in front of him. "I'm glad you're there to watch her, though. No other man would be as suited to care for someone so wonderful. Hell, I don't think any other man would even be close to deserving her as much as you do. Especially not me."
Javert nodded again and, for the second time, Lestan clapped him over the arm before turning abruptly and slipping down the street past Eponine and Azelma.
"Lestan, wait a moment!" The older sister called to him. If any other person had shouted his name to him he wouldn't have payed the slightest attention to them, but, with a small, exhausted smile claiming his handsome face, he turned, addressing her with a kind and gracely air. "You're going home, aren't you?" She asked him, and he bowed his head slightly in affirmation. "Won't you see 'Zelma home, then? I wouldn't want to bother you but I don't want her walking alone at night." Not in the clothes she's dressed in now, Eponine added silently, not now that it's obvious she's a woman.
"Of course, young miss." Liviet replied, distantly.
"Are you feeling better, Miseour?"
"Quite." He said shortly.
Eponine felt a heavy arm wrap itself around her and she leaned into Javert's presence, watching silently as her sister led Officer Liviet down the empty walkway, chatting away while he remained as silent as the calmest moment after a thick and heavy storm. Everyone else had gone and there wasn't a person in the street to look disapprovingly at them.