Disclaimer: Marius named this chapter not me. I claim no responsibility for his actions. Also, another warning for violence in this chapter. Nothing too graphic, I think, so everyone should be hunky-dory.


CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN: The Exciting Part


The bag is nearly full, and she can feel her father's impatience radiating off him in spades. She wonders, briefly, is Cosette will be allowed to return to her home to retrieve the few comforts she has, and by doing so buy more time. But Eponine is sure she won't have another opportunity like this one, and one failed attempt will ruin everything. She has to keep a calm demeanour and not lose her head.

Gazing around the room, Eponine mourns the lack of possible weapons for her escape. There isn't even a single ugly vase for her to smash. Grumbling under her breath, Eponine thinks of her cupboard upstairs stashed with potions. "Can I go upstairs and get the rest of my things?" she asks carefully, turning to face her father. The darkening bruise on her cheek throbs in time with her breathing as she waits for his answer.

Although her father's eyes narrow, he nods. He walks over and releases the rope from the ceiling. Eponine takes a step forward to reach for it, but he knocks her hand away.

"You don't think I'm stupid?" Eponine shakes her head immediately, panic jumping into her throat, but her father continues, " I'm going up there first, to make sure there aren't any surprises."

She exhales and nods, allows him to heave himself up the rope, which in itself takes quite a while. Her father is nowhere near as fit as she is, and even less so than Marius, who could at least climb up without slipping numerous times.

Her room is as she remembered it; tidy, but with wrinkled sheets and dusty shelves. Eponine wanders over to the cabinet right away, pretending to browse the shelf next to it. She has to think this next part through carefully; Cosette is still down below with the rest of the Patron Minette. It's organized enough that she should be able to grab what she wants to and simply throw it, but it's still a risk she's not sure she should take. The wrong bottle could prove disastrous.

"Cosette's not even your daughter," Eponine says as casually as she can, trying to make conversation to distract him. "You won't need her if they all think I'm Princess Rapunzel. Having her around will only draw suspicion to the fact that she's -"

"One more word and I'll wreck her pretty face. Then we'll see if any one wants to have her around anymore. One more minute to gather your things, Eponine. I'm only doing this out of the kindness of my heart." Eponine has to bite back a retort about how that was impossible since he couldn't have a heart at all if he was doing this to his own daughter.

Eponine tosses a couple of books into the bag and then, after a second of hesitation, swings around to whip the cabinet open. Her eyes scan the first two bottles she sees, and her hand snatches the safest one up just as her father lets out an angry shout. Eponine faces him with a look of grim determination and throws it at his feet.

The bottle explodes in a mist of red that surrounds her father, making Eponine back almost all the way into the shelf in order to ensure her avoidance of it. When it finally fades away, Thenardier is covered in large, red hives on every single exposed surface, and probably many more unexposed ones. his unintelligible scream of rage is ear-piercing as he tries to blindly reach for her. In his rage he knocks over a chair, sweeping a nearby desktop clean as he screams at her. Eponine scrambles to get away, to move towards the trapdoor he is currently in front of, but she can't seem to find a path that won't put her in his reach.

Her father makes a swipe at her, which she dodges, and she is just about to rush back to her cabinet for something else - because this was getting ridiculous and she was running out of time - when the sound of all hell breaking loose down below reached her ears. Fearful for Cosette, who seems ironically both fragile and resilient when the mood strikes her, Eponine steels herself and grabs two more bottles from the cabinet and hoping for the best as she leans out the window. Cosette is breaking free of her bonds and rushing towards her bag, the reasons for which Eponine is not sure. She can see Montparnasse giving her a funny look from where he is, as though to ask if he ought to do anything at all, but Eponine shakes her head and merely launches a bottle through the air towards her father's men, two of which are trying to recapture Cosette.

The glass explodes, and suddenly some of the grass is on fire.


Cosette has a frying pan. No one is exactly sure where she produced it from since she'd been a prisoner, but Enjolras agrees silently with the results of the makeshift weapon. She has a very good arm that lands solid hits of great impact, sending full-grown men towards the ground. Looking up, she spots them with a rather frenzied expression. Not one of fear, rather one of exhilaration. "You're here! Where's Marius?" she beams a little. Someone at her feet groans, and she promptly squashes their finger with a stomp of her tiny foot. "I'm glad you're here. I was getting a little worried that you wouldn't find us."

Grantaire opens his mouth to reply when he notices part of the field is on fire.

Grantaire is beginning to think they've bitten of more than they can chew with these sisters when he hears Eponine's voice from the top of the tower and Enjolras dashes off without apparent concern for the extreme flames that are spreading everywhere.

There's shouting as he and Cosette yell for Enjolras to be careful and then Grantaire has to duck a tall, wiry man's right hook, followed by sidestepping Cosette's frying pan. "Bloody hell!" Grantaire curses, falling flat onto his back as Cosette kicks her opponent square in the shins, sending him toppling over.

With a satisfied smile, she offers Grantaire a hand up. Grantaire tries not to watch as the man, clutching his shins, accidently rolls a little too close to the fire before promptly reversing his direction. "You alright?" she asks.

Grantaire's brain is slow to reply. "I think so. I am also fairly sure that I am sober now."

"Good. Now: where is Marius?" Cosette questions, tilting her head to the side.

"He's with Combeferre, at your tower. We split up." Grantaire finds answering Cosette's question is easier than trying to come up with something to say, just as allowing Cosette to wipe out all the attackers with a kitchen utensil is much easier than trying to do it himself.

"Then he should be here soon," Cosette says seriously, lifting her pan as someone rushes them, promptly slamming his head into the flat side and knocking himself out.

"Right," Grantaire says nervously, "let's hope he does."


Enjolras' foot hits each step with a dull, echoing thud. He has many grievances with his current situation, one of them being that the tower is ridiculously tall and another one being that by the time he's run up to the top she could have climbed back down already using her hair. He has no idea what to expect when he sees Eponine again, but he'll gladly settle for seeing her alive and in one piece. When he shuts his eyes he can still see her torn expression as the guards dragged him away, and won't be able to push that image out of his mind until he knows for sure she's alright.

He reaches what appears to be the top of the staircase, and after pushing on the wooden door he is able to glance cautiously around the frame, only to find the room empty. There is, however, noise coming from above him, from Eponine's bedroom. The floor boards seem shaky beneath his feet as he makes his way across the room, his vision blurry as he grabs the rope hanging before him and starts to haul himself up.

Enjolras doesn't dare breathe a word to announce his arrival. Perhaps it's because of the way his throat seems to have closed up, or perhaps it's because he's worried that if he does call her name he won't get a response. His heart thuds in his chest, her name creeping along his skin and threatening to spill out, but he bites his lip, keeping it inside. His arm goes up, up, up, his fingers grasping the ground above him, and in one pure burst of energy he shifts his entire body up and half-over the opening, to whatever awaits him on the other side.


Marius and Combeferre arrive to find unconscious bodies on the grass - which is burnt-looking and wafting dark smoke into the air - and Grantaire sitting crosslegged on what appears to be the only large patch of surviving greenery as Cosette applies some sort of poultice to a nasty cut on his arm. Next to them is a medium-sized frying pan.

"Cosette!" Seemingly unfazed by the remnants of chaos, Marius staggers forward with a wide, stretched smile and open arms for his love.

Dropping the poultice into Grantaire's lap, Cosette pulls herself up, hiking her skirts so she can run run run towards him and fling her own arms around him in return as Marius picks her off the ground and swirls her through the air. For a moment there are no sounds save Cosette's happy muffled noises. Then they pull apart slightly, and Marius exchanges a warm smile with Grantaire as well.

"Thank you for keeping Cosette safe," Marius says, in a slightly awkward formal tone. "You are a great friend."

"No problem." Grantaire waves a dismissive hand. "Cosette kept me safe, rather. She did all the fighting."

Cosette giggles as Marius' eyes wander the scene, seeing them in a new light.

As Combeferre watches, he thinks that this is part of the cause they've been fighting for: freedom, love, and brotherhood.


AN: Cut this a little shorter than I expected. Some parts ran away with me and this didn't end where it was supposed to end. Um, next part should come sooner, I think. Still hoping for maybe two more chapters. I have the whole final tower scene written out already, it's just the leading-up-to that I need to accomplish. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!