Part Four

Night had fallen, and the Valjean household had become silent aside from the occasional snores emanating from the various guest bedrooms. Cosette sat on the windowsill in Marius' room. She had pulled her knees up and was resting her knees on the soft fabric of her skirts. The satin was dotted with wet spots where her tears had finally fallen when she was alone.

"You shouldn't be up so late," Marius' weak voice sounded from the bed.

Cosette looked up, startled by the sound of his voice. She dropped her legs so they barely touched the floor. "You should not be awake, either. You need your rest." she whispered.

"You've been tending to all of us and you don't?" he asked, a small smile playing on his half-lit face. The candle had long since burned down by his bedside and only the moon lit the room. It gave a near halo around his love, he noted absently. "Are you others alseep?"

"Yes, since the last time I checked." she said. She came at sat by him and brushed her fingers against his cheek. "It's good to see your eyes," she whispered.

A smile tugged at his lips and he reached a slim hand to push some of her dark curls from her face. They'd fallen from her bonnet and teased him now. "It's good to see you," he murmured.

"It's a miracle you're here." she said.

"That any of us are," he agreed. "I thought... we'd lose Enjolras, with the way he was talking." A smile brightened his features. "Not even in his own home did he speak to his father so clearly."

"He's got a good head on his shoulders. He cares about you very much." Cosette murmured. "The fight with his father is a battle he can win."

Marius nodded. "He'll be alright. In time... Did he make it much further than the main room after I collapsed?"

"He made it almost all the way back to his room, Grantaire carried him down the hall and helped him into bed, but I don't think he'll remember that."

"Good thing for Grantaire's sake," Marius laughed. "Now if we can just get him to keep his mouth shut! That'll be the day... Him carrying Apollo down the hallway. Enjolras will never live it down, I fear, once he's well."

"I think it will be a long time before he gets amusement from it." Cosette said with a small smile. "Grantaire seemed very worried for him."

"He will heal, though, won't he?"

Cosette shrugged her shoulders. "I do not know. I believe he can, if he chooses too."

"Then he will," Marius said with a smile. It reached his eyes as he watched Cosette stifle a yawn. "And you, dearest Cosette, need your rest." He took her by the hand, inched to one side of the bed and led her gently down.

"But father will kill us both!"

"You fell asleep while watching over me," Marius explained simply with a small shrug and a humourous smile on his lips.

"You, Monsieur, wish to ruin my reputation!" Cosette accused with a giggle, but she protested no further.

"And I shall marry you after this in order to set it straight," Marius promised as he kissed her gently.

She gasped softly and cupped his face in her hands. "Oh, Marius, do you mean it?"

"Of course! Do you think I wouldn't ask? I love you more than anything, Cosette. Willing to die for you and to live for you all the same. Ask me for anything, and I shall make it yours, no matter what I have to do. I love you."

She laughed, tears glittering in her eyes. "Oh, Marius, how I love you. I have nothing more to ask for than that." She kissed him fiercely, accepting everything and anything he offered her.

The early morning sun found the two lovers in a tight embrace, an angry father subdued by a passive one, and the snores subsiding. Enjolras was awake long before first light and forced himself to sit up straight as the fresh light streamed in through the window. He sat listening for a long few moments and when he heard no one else stirring he stood and left the room in silence. It amazed him how quiet he could continue being even with the hallway spinning around him. He leaned heavily on the wall outside of her room. The girl he'd nearly told Marius to leave to her death on the barricade. The girl he now had to see and deal with his own foolish irritation with. If not, he would relive the scene as he had been in the middle of the night before. He shuddered as images replayed themselves. Not dreams, not nightmares, memories. He pushed the door open slightly, happy that it did not give off even a small creek. He pushed at it again to make room to slip in.

He limped quietly to the chair the doctor or someone had left by her bedside. He sat in it and let out a soft breath of relief. Moving had never been such a struggle. Enjolras gazed at the young woman, asleep or still unconscious he was unsure, lying still in the bed before him. Her hair was loose and darkened much of the pillowcase. He wondered how it looked when it was washed, and figured he could probably use a bath himself. She had a head injury, from the looks of the gauze wrapped around her forehead, and he felt a twinge in his gut.

Guilt. He knew it. Grantaire's words had rang true enough the day before. In the filth of the sewers, he'd understood that everything that the other had said were true, and he hated himself for it. This girl was living – thank heavens at least living, that was more than he could say for those others he'd called friends! – proof of that. Foolish idealism… What had it gotten him? What would it get them? Were the people better off? No, he knew they weren't. They hadn't been there! They hadn't rallied to help! Where had they been? Asleep in their beds. Home. He shifted when he heard the girl sigh in her place and he froze as her dark eyes slipped open to take him in. Her half-gaze was more than he could take and the great Enjolras, Apollo, the statue that was shaken by nothing, found himself unable to say anything. He sat in pure horror of his own actions and what she portrayed of himself.

Eponine stared at the young man sitting at her side and searched her tired mind for a name. She came up with nothing, and she hurt too badly to worry about it, but she did worry about the way he looked (which was bad) and why he was sitting and staring back at her (which was awkward, since she couldn't remember his name, if she had ever known it). She tried to speak, and nothing came out the first time. On the second time she managed a feeble, "Water?" Eponine hid a smile as her nameless visitor scrambled as well as he could towards the nightstand and the pitcher of water.

He poured it the liquid with shaky hands and delivered it only a bit more steady. He watched her, eyes never blinking, as she managed to drink it. "Better?" he whispered.

"Yes, thank you." she replied, wincing at the sound of her raspy voice. "Where are we?"

"Marius' girl's house," Enjolras answered with a wave of his thin hand. "Cosette, I believe. Her father's house. What do you remember?"

Her eyes widened. "Marius..." she gasped. "On the...barricade..." She began coughing, no longer able to speak.

"Easy," Enjolras murmured, reaching out an unsure hand to her. "He's alright. Exhausted and wounded, but he'll be well enough, given time. And you, Mademoiselle Eponine?"

"Mademoiselle..." she laughed. "No one has called me that in a very long time." She paused to catch her breath. "I will be well." It was then she recognized those eyes. Enjolras... "You are Enjolras. Student, leader, fighter..."

"Yes... I was. Now I am just Enjolras the fool."

"Funny, I remember you saying the same about me. At least your cause was more noble than mine."

"No... it turned out not to be," Enjolras answered with a shaky laugh. "I thought... we fought for those like you. So that you could be free, but no one came and I lost sight. Mademoiselle, please, if I may ask you forgiveness. It is not something I am accustomed to doing, and therefore might stumble around it, but that is what I came here this morning for. I nearly cost you your life."

She stared at him, at his serious blue eyes that were darkened by pain and grief. No one had apologized to her for anything, ever. Everyone she had ever encountered had either tried to make her feel guilty for being alive or ignored her. The one man she had loved had denied her for someone else, someone brighter and prettier, and she had been fool enough to be willing to give her life for him. This man...this man wanted not to change the future for himself, but for everyone. "Enjolras..." his name fell from her lips without her meaning to say it out loud.

"And here I am disturbing your rest," he said suddenly, taking her the wrong way as he stood - far to hastily for his own wounds and blood loss - and moved as well as he could to the door, leaning his hand against it to steady himself. "Good morning to you, Mademoiselle."

She tried to sit up. "Wait...I have offended you...I didn't mean..."

"Not at all, it is I that I fear have offended you," Enjolras quickened to correct her mistake in hopes that she would lie back down. He didn't feel he could make it to her bed again without finding himself in a heap on the floor, his own quivering body against him.

Her hair fell forward and framed her face, her dark eyes wide in early morning light. "No. You are the only person who has ever been honest with me. I...could not be offended by that."

"I would have left you for dead there, and you do not take ill to that?" the student demanded, pulling away from the wall. At the look on her face, his eyes softened. "I'm sorry, I come here to apologize and I snap. Please, accept my apology, Mademoiselle."

"Call me Eponine. I have no need of titles. You would have left me for dead, but I would not have known it. It is no more or less than anyone else would have done for me. I was a fool. I am a fool. You were right."

"No, I was wrong," Enjolras choked out, stumbling his way to the bed and nearly collapsing by it. "I fought for those like you and I should be better than those from whom I come! Not... the same. I refuse to be the same."

She reached out a hand instinctively, not that she could have steadied him if he had fallen. "You would have left me to continue fighting, you would have left me because you do not know me. That is not the same. Those who you fight against would have left me because I was worthless, you would have left me there because I was foolish. There is a difference."

"Still..." he murmured. "I feel lost now... I've never felt lost in my life, not since..." He stopped and their eyes met briefly. "I should leave you to your rest, Ma- Eponine, and I should return to mine." I smile perked his lips. "Lest Joly comes to yell at me or Combeferre's ghost haunts me because I'm disturbing patients. If you'd like... I'll return later."

She smiled. "I would like that, very much."

He nodded and was gone in a moment's time, leaving her to watch his retreating form.

A/N: Sorry for the delay in posting!

Sparxxa: Oh, Joly's around here and there, mostly helping the doctor in what he can. Thanks for the review :)

Michelle: What was it that was confusing?

Carly: Thanks muchly!

Caligirl- HPLVR: I love Enjolras too…. I suppose b/c I'm a bit like him. He's a great character and you can do quite a bit with him and I like shaking his beliefs somewhat. I think that if a person gets a good shaking of the beliefs it helps to firm up what they do believe in. Not that being shot at and shot down doesn't shake you already, but hey, Anna and I always beat up on our favs! Lol! "AU" means "alternate universe" as in we changed a major fact of the book, ie that the les amis boys all die. It was just a warning for those that hate for anything to be changed up.

Thanks all

Takada Saiko and Anna Maxwell