IN POSITION
Enjolras had picked out a spot layered heavily with stones, upon which he stood and addressed the revolutionaries with the confident authority of a true leader. His distinguished features glared with strong affection upon the friends and strangers gathered at his feet.
"Here upon these stones, we will build a barricade!" he declared. "In the heart of the city we claim as our own! Each man to his duty and don't be afraid." He watched as the people of the barricade began to disperse into individual tasks, then held up his hand as a memory stirred. "Wait! I will need a report on the strength of the foe!"
"I can find out the truth," a volunteer offered. His coat was very dirty and threadbare at the elbows. His face, partially concealed in the grimy collar of the coat, was dark with smudges of soot. "I know their ways -- served my time, fought their wars in the days of my youth." Enjolras nodded to him after a moment, and he was on his way. He did not think much about the rebel.
"Now the people will fight!" Prouvaire said, helping a woman with a large chair place it up upon a bench being used as a base. Grantaire shrugged and helped to stabilize the movement.
"And so they might. Dogs will bark, fleas will bite."
"They will do what is right," Lesgles said, as confident as Enjolras had been. And that was why he was a successful leader: He could inspire any emotion in any man, despite his own stoicism. Grantaire, Prouvaire, Lesgles, and Feuilly continued to help the poor with supplies for the barricade with Enjolras supervising and planning structures with some of the old carpenters and architects. Marius approached his side and was stalled as his eyes wandered to a familiar looking boy. He turned his head toward the urchin.
"Hey, little boy," he called, "what's this I see?" As the boy looked directly at him, he recognized the features better and sighed in wonder. It was Eponine. "God, Eponine, the things you do!"
"I know this is no place for me," she said softly, with a sad smile that was quite her own. "Still, I would rather be with you."
"Get out before the trouble starts." Marius looked about, worried, and touched her shoulder for emphasis. She put on a pouty expression and planted her feet, holding her ground despite his efforts. "Get out, 'Ponine, you might get shot!" At the show of concern, Eponine's expression turned to a sly happiness, the kind only known to women.
"I've got you worried, now, I have!" she said gleefully, and hope sparkled in her powerful black eyes. "That shows you like me quite a lot!"
Marius sighed and ran his hand through his thick, dark brown hair. Eponine was stubborn and headstrong, much as he had been in his childhood. But she was brave, as she had shown at Rue Plumet, risking her life for him...
It dawned on him.
"There is a way that you can help!" he cried, taking her by the shoulders. "You are the answer to a prayer!" Eponine watched, confused, as he took a letter from his pocket and pressed it into her hands with a smile. "Please take this letter to Cosette, and pray to God that she's still there!"
There were a few moments in which she did not move or respond. Then she pocketed the letter and sighed, touching his hair tenderly, but with a certain aloofness.
"Little you know... little you care..."
Enjolras, standing on an already half-completed barricade, watched Eponine leave Marius. His heart swelled unnaturally. Poor girl, he thought.
The walk to Rue Plumet was a long one. Unnoticed, she had earlier accompanied Marius to the barricade along with the students and sympathizers of the revolution. At his side, it had seemed such a short endeavor. Not nearly enough time to take in his smooth features, strong jaw, or intense eyes. To smell his sweet, natural scent. To bask in the ethereal glow of his spirit. Now, walking back to that detested place where she had lost everything, including her Marius, it seemed as if years would pass before she could go back to him.
The gate was just being shut as she arrived. The old man had no knowledge of her gender or identity; she approached with shoulders back and cap pulled forward over her brow.
"I have a letter, M'sieur. It's addressed to your daughter Cosette." Valjean looked at her without interest. "It's from a boy at the barricade, sir, in the Rue de Villette."
"Give that letter here, my boy," Valjean said after hearing of its origin. Eponine handed over the letter with reluctance, wary of his intentions with it.
"He said to give it to Cosette," she hesitated.
"You have my word that my daughter will know what this letter contains." Valjean took a coin out of his pocket and pressed it into her hand with more affection than Marius had pressed the letter. "Tell him she will read it tomorrow, and here's for your pains. Go careful, now, stay out of sight. There's danger in the streets tonight." He opened the letter, and Eponine retreated into the shadows, a good distance away, but close enough to hear his voice as he read the text aloud. "'Dearest Cosette, you have entered my soul, and soon you will be gone. Can it be only a day since we met and the world was reborn? If I should fall in the battle to come, let this be my goodbye." Here Eponine swallowed hard at the thought. "Now that I know you love me, as well, it is harder to die. I pray that God will bring me home to be with you. Pray for your Marius -- he prays for you!'" Not knowing the damage he had done, Valjean folded the letter once more into its original shape and locked the gates of Rue Plumet, retreating into his house. He left Eponine alone under unfriendly, darkening skies.
"And now I'm all alone again -- nowhere to turn, no one to go to," she muttered, starting off for the position of the barricade. Her heart was heavy, and the constriction of her throat burned. She was going to cry. "Without a home, without a friend, without a face to say 'hello' to..." She lifted the cap to see the sky. "But now the night is near... Now I can make believe he's here."
With a practiced gait, she dodged broken glass and sharp rocks that would pierce the thin soles of her ragged shoes. "Sometimes I walk alone at night, when everybody else is sleeping." Indeed, the candles were out in the small tenements along the road. "I think of him, and then I'm happy with the company I'm keeping. The city goes to bed," Eponine shivered as a chilled breeze shook the trees and fluttered her coat. A small smile worked its way onto her lips. "And I can live inside my head."
Stars pierced the clouds. "On my own, pretending he's beside me. All alone, I walk with him till morning." Beside her appeared the incorporeal form of the handsome Marius, walking with his arm in hers, smiling all the while and gazing lovingly at her face. She breathed in deeply and with less effort now that the image had been conjured. "Without him, I feel his arms around me, and when I've lost my way I close my eyes..." She did so. A light, non-existent kiss on her cheek made her open them again. "And he has found me!
"In the rain, the pavement shines like silver. All the lights are misty in the river." As she passed the Seine, she felt compelled by the will-o'-the-wisp glows in its rushing, ever-changing depths. "In the darkness, the trees are full of starlight, and all I see is him and me forever and forever." The world, once dark and forbidding, lit up just for her with a magic only Marius (or thoughts of him) could produce. She twirled, as if dancing with an unknown partner, and came to stop in the middle of the street.
"And I know it's only in my mind," she said, smile fading into a look of sad grit. "That I'm talking to myself, and not to him." Her gaze fell to the ground. "And although I know that he is blind, still I say there's a way for us.
"I love him, but when the night is over he is gone; the river's just a river." The lights faded, and blackness drew in around her like menacing hounds to stifle her breathing. "Without him, the world around me changes -- the trees are bare, and everywhere the streets are full of strangers!"
Eponine tilted her head to look upon God, shrouded in clouds. "I love him, but everyday I'm learning all my life I've only been pretending! Without me, his world will go on turning. A world that's full of happiness that I have never known!"
It was beginning the drizzle a cold rain. She wrapped her coat more tightly around her body and began the walk back to the barricade. "I love him," she whispered thrice. "But only on my own."
