He knows her as 'the Shadow' just like everyone else at the ABC café. They've all seen her, following Marius around, doing anything she can for him to notice her. In all honesty, Enjolras was annoyed with her constant presence at first but now she just seems to fit into the furniture there. She doesn't talk to anyone but Marius, and so they don't tend to notice whether she is here or there.

His revolution is getting closer, Enjolras can feel it burning through the people of Paris, burning through him. The years he had spent yearning, studying, persuading are all coming together and creating the promise of a new world. A new world he can almost taste in the air, so close. He knows there is still the biggest challenge yet to come, but he will face it. He will bring the new world.

He sees uncertainty in the faces of his men. He sees how Grantaire is taking more wine, Joly clings to his medical textbooks and Combeferre writes constant letters. He knows they will fight, when it comes to it. He knows how his words will ignite a passion in them, a passion to save his beloved mistress Patria. Enjolras will be able to persuade them to his cause.

Marius becomes another problem. He waltzes in late one day, after swearing he has found an angel and that they are destined to be in love. The men laugh along with his plight, but he sees torment in his friends eyes and knows that Marius will be hard to persuade.

General Lemarque is declared dead later that evening and it is decided that this is the sign that has been waited for. The only man to speak out for the people has died, and so they will rally the cause and fight their way. He is ready. He feels ready. This is the moment he ahas been waiting for and Enjolras will have no time for doubting.

She appears later that same eve. Sneaks in and is straight over to Marius before anyone really sees, not that they would pay attention. Their planning session became a drinking one, and now Enjolras is sure that he is the only one who can think straight. He sits with his notebook and scribbles trying not to look curiously in her direction. For the first time, he thinks of her as a separate person and not just an annoyance that is attached to his friend. He notices little things, her dirty rags, her hair in knots, her bruised arms, and sees his failure. He swore an oath to the people of Paris, but he sees now that he has forgotten to see them individually. Marius has fallen for a rich bourgeois girl, and can't notice the girl who needs help standing in front of him. He sees her pull Marius out the room and off into the night.

Hours pass. Enjolras occupies himself with making notes in his book, not noticing the way his friends have been disappearing. They are off to bed or to find a woman for the night, possibly the way he would be if Patria let go of her hold on his heart. The clock chimes through the empty café and he finally looks up. Everyone had left but a small huddle on one of the chairs. He didn't see her come back in after she had left with Marius.

"M'sorry Monsieur. It was warm, an' I was just getting out the storm. Didn't have nowhere else to go, see, and you all was still in here, so I thought I'd wait until the last one last." Her voice is small, and she looks scared that he will be angry at her.

"It's fine Mademoiselle." He flicks through his book, seeing the strategies he had been fervently scribbling out.

"You don't 'ave to call me that Monsieur. I ain't no Madamoiselle. Eponine, if you please, or 'Ponine. Whichever suits."

He looks up at her. For the first time, he sees her away from Maruis and sees her for who she is. She is skinny, too skinny, and she looks like she needs a long bath but behind that, there is a kind of sad beauty hidden in her. She reminds him of his Patria. He sees problems, but there a is strength and sorrow in her that holds him captivated. In the back of his mind, he knows he can't afford to think anything like this. He has a battle to fight in a mater of days, but he can't seem to look away. It is obvious that she has been crying, but this has never been his speciality, so he says nothing.

"Eponine. Then you shall call me Enjolras. I shan't take no for an answer, we will have no double standards here."

She looks at him, and walks over to sit opposite him at the table. "Then I can ask you a question, right? Monsieur Marius told me what was happening, but I didn't really get it. I ain't had the chance to read an' study an' that. I didn't want to ask him 'cause I didn't want him to think I were stupid, 'cause I ain't. I just wanna 'ave a conversation with him an' know what it's about. So, what are you planning? What is all this?"

He stares at her. She wants to learn about their revolution to impress his friend. He launched into it, stopping only for her to ask questions when he got to something she didn't know. His mind span with the thrill of someone asking, someone caring, about all the thing he held most dear. It was for the wrong reason that she wanted to know, but he didn't care.

When he finished and asked if she understood, the clock had turned an hour and she merely nodded. Enjolras wanted to know what she thought, but he held back. He had said rather a lot, delivered a speech that he would had happily had given his men to receive a nod from a street girl.

"Thanks Mon- Enjolras." She corrected herself.

"Why did you want to know for Marius? He's your friend, why couldn't you have asked him?" Enjolras had never been one for tact, but he had to know.

"I didn't want him to think I were thick. I thought that maybe if I knew more about this then he'd see that I could be good too." She sighed, tears pooled in her eyes. "It won't work, will it? That Cosette ain't gonna know nothing about this, but 'e still told me to find her for him. I did, an' I took him there, just to hear declarations about how much he loved her. 'E's known her one day M'sieur an' now he's in love with her."

Enjolras sighed and ran a hand back through his hair. They had all seen her love for Marius, how she would do anything he asked, no matter what the cost. What they hadn't realised was how his blindness was affecting this poor girl. He wished for his friends to return, knowing they would be better with matters of the heart than he was ever going to be. His heart belonged to Patria, he had never had to think of another's feelings.

"It don't matter M'sieur. Not like 'e were ever gonna fall for me, were it? I were just living in some little fantasy. If he's happy, then I'll help him keep that." She stood up from the table and looked down at him sadly. "I've got to go Monsieur, I 'ave to get back to life now."

As she walked out the door, Enjolras almost reached to stop her leaving. Pulling himself together, he shouted to her "Eponine! Return tomorrow. I can teach you more."

She didn't reply, but he thought he saw the ghost of a smile through the window as she ran off into the night. Who knew what kind of life she had out there in the world? He sighed. Enjolras wasn't a person to care about anything other than his fight, so why had he asked her to return? And why now, could he not get her hopeless expression out of his mind.

Note: Yeah, cool. Idk. You should like review and stuff.