Chapter Fourteen - His Smile
Smiles1998: Yeah, I guess I did make it kind of obvious :)
HermsP: Thank you, I like the pairing too, hehe
FurtherIllumination: Right? I WILL GO DOWN WITH THIS SHIP. Thank you for the kind words! 3
DramaRose13: They all have so much depth GAH and yeah, I always wondered how Musichetta would react to their deaths. The answer I consistently came up with was that she'd be completely devastated, since she had not one but two men in her life that both meant just so much to her. To suddenly have neither would be destroying.
Disclaimer: All character and novel rights belong to Victor Hugo. Song lyrics belong to the creators of Les Misérables, the musical. I own nothing except for my own imagination.
"Han!" He looked up at his name as she entered the house, face stretching in a brilliant grin. He smiled just to see it.
"You'll never guess what I did."
Jehan's smile widened as he leaned back in his chair, putting down his quill. "What did you do? Don't tell me you've gone and told the shop owner you're pregnant just to get a discount again."
"No, even better!" Azelma was positively bursting. "I sent a letter."
"Alright. So what?"
"To France."
Jehan felt faint. "To France?"
"The one and only Enjolras!" Zelma bounced on the balls of her feet.
"Sweet Jesus." He put his head in his hands.
"Aren't you happy?" demanded Azelma, crossing her eyes as her green eyes flamed dangerously. "You've been asking to tell them since we left Paris!"
He looked back up, eyes shining with tears. "I am. I just can't believe we're going to see them again."
At this, she enveloped him in a giant hug, pulling tight against her. "We'll see them. Enjolras, Éponine, Grantaire... even Marius and Cosette!"
Jehan's head shot up. "Marius is alive, too?"
"Yes! And Cosette's now the Baroness Pontmercy!" Azelma kissed him in her excitement.
He didn't know whether he could take any more good news. "Sweet Jesus," he repeated.
They gazed at each other in contentment before Jehan noticed something peculiar. "Wait a minute. How did you find out Enjolras' address? And why do you know all this information about our friends?"
She suddenly looked sheepish. "I may or may not have been in contact with Cosette for the last three months."
"Sweet Jesus."
Cosette was still smiling benignly at her and Éponine was still trying to breathe. "Godmother?" she asked again.
"Yes, Ép, I've said it twice already!" Cosette giggled at her friend, watching her clutch at her throat.
"But... why?"
"Because you're my only female friend," she said, "And because I think you'd be perfect!"
"What about Musichetta? She's our friend."
Cosette pursed her lips. "Fine. You're my best female friend."
"I'm the worst choice you could have picked!" Éponine threw her hands up in exasperation.
"Let's not have an aneurysm here," Grantaire muttered under his breath as he, Enjolras, and Marius watched the two with amused eyes.
"What are you talking about? You'd be a brilliant godmother to Fantine!" Cosette beamed, hand resting on her very pregnant belly.
"Cosette, I bullied you for seven years, was brought up by two very dangerous criminals, and lived most of my life as a thief and gang member, and then as a wanted revolutionary who nearly died four times because of sheer stupidity!"
Éponine gave a start when she felt Enjolras wrap an arm around her waist but relaxed into his body almost immediately. "You're also brave, tenacious, smart, and brought up two younger siblings in the slums of Saint Michel before even turning twenty because you cared about them," he said, his fingers tracing patterns on her hip.
She gritted her teeth and stopped herself from shivering at the sensation. "I hate you," she ground out, and Enjolras just smirked, a habit he'd picked up from being around Éponine for too long. "I'm a horrible influence on you."
"You like it," he whispered in her ear, and this time she couldn't help but shudder, which only made his smirk grow.
"Alright, alright," Éponine said, pushing Enjolras off her. "I'll be the goddamned godmother."
"I love you so much!" Cosette launched herself at the smaller woman, the weight of her swollen belly sending them both to the floor.
"Stop fucking laughing!" Éponine shouted from underneath the mass of blonde hair as Grantaire dissolved into girlish giggles and Marius looked torn between joining him and running to help his wife up.
"R?" Éponine opened the door to his room a crack and found him in the corner, empty bottles fanning out around him in a semicircle. "Oh, God. What happened?"
Grantaire turned slowly, alcohol leaking from his slightly open mouth like drool. "Hey, Éponine. Heyy. Heeeeyyyy, Poooonnniiineee."
"Jesus, R," Éponine frowned as she nudged him with her toe. "This is a lot, even for you."
"I gotta good reason," he slurred as he tried to sit up and ended back up on the floor.
"Let's hear it, then," Éponine sighed as she began kicking all the bottles away from him into another corner to clear up some space on the floor.
"Well, firs' of all I'm still sad. Like, so fucking sad, righ'? And angry. I'm angry still. It's been so long and these 'motions jus' don' go 'way." He frowned and drank some more, except he miscalculated and ended up pouring the rest of his bottle down his shirt. "Aw, shit."
Éponine gazed down at the man and her lower lip trembled as a pang of guilt went through her system. They hadn't noticed he was still taking this so heavily. "We're all still sad, and angry, R," she said gently, kneeling down beside him. "But this is the wrong way to deal with it."
"Don't fucking tell me how to deal with it," Grantaire hissed, sounding so shockingly sober that Éponine had to check to make sure he was still drunk. "I've dealt wi' things like this since I knew 'ow to drink," he said, furrowing his brow as he tried to stack bottles into a pyramid. "I've known 'bout things since I knew 'ow to see. But now they're real, righ'? They're real."
"You've always seen things clearer than we have," Éponine admitted, brushing hair out of his face. "We were broken eventually, but we moved on. You can't dwell, R. It destroys you."
"You were the one who yelled at me at the barricade when I said they were justified to 'ave Jehan," Grantaire mumbled. "What 'appened to you?"
"I grew up," Éponine told him. "You have to, too."
"I was grown up when I crawled outta my mother's fucking vagina," Grantaire growled. "I'm older than alla you."
Éponine had to subtly wipe away a tear at the image of the man slumped before her. The best hidden cracks were often the deepest.
"Apollo!"
Enjolras rolled over on their shared bed, eyes still sticky with sleep. "What?"
Éponine stopped at the doorway to their bedroom, waving a piece of paper in her hand. "There's a letter for us, but it's from London. Do we know anybody from London?"
Enjolras opened one eye. "No."
Éponine scowled at him, hands on her hips. "Why are you still in bed? You're always the one that wakes up six in the morning. It's eleven."
"Maybe because you kept me up until at least four."
She smirked and wiggled her eyebrows. "Don't tell me you didn't like it."
Enjolras was fully awake now, opening staring at her with teasing eyes. "Oh, believe me, I did."
Éponine snorted in laughter and sat on the bed beside him. "Well, you don't get any more until tonight, because Grantaire is coming in an hour or so and we have to get dressed."
"And we've got to read that letter," Enjolras said, sitting up and wrapping his arms around her bare arms. She leaned into his touch and broke open the seal.
They froze as the words of a familiar song were revealed. It was an original copy of their song, the one that had been sung at the barricade.
On the back was a messily scrawled sentence:
Don't freak out too much, but we are alive and well and we want to see you.
It was signed with the initials A.T. and J.P.
"That's Azelma's writing."
"Where did you say this came from?" Enjolras said, very quietly.
"London."
They looked at each other, hope brimming in their eyes.
"Jehan," Enjolras said.
"Azelma," Éponine said at the same time.
"So what was it like learning English?" Éponine smirked, knowing her sister's horrible language skills.
"Quite easy, actually. For the longest time 'Han did it for me." Azelma returned the smirk perfectly. Enjolras noticed not for the first time how different the two siblings looked, though they often did things the exact same way.
"Jehan's still a pushover, then?" Grantaire snickered, and said pushover cuffed him upside the head.
"He can't help it. He loves her," Éponine said, quoting a conversation from so long ago.
They gave each other the smile used by those in on an inside joke.
"I don't get it," Marius voiced loudly.
"That's nothing new," Enjolras quipped, and everybody laughed at the look on Marius' face.
"He's regretting coming to England," Cosette said in her high, tinkling tones.
"That's not true," Marius said, looking around at them all. "When was the last time we've all been together, at one place?"
"Well, never," Musichetta pointed out. "Cosette's never met the other Amis, and Azelma's never met you. And I've never met Cosette, until now."
"You know what I mean," Marius said, rolling his eyes.
"It was almost four years ago," Enjolras said, a grim darkness in his eyes that only appeared when he was thinking of his rebellion.
Éponine moved her hand so that it covered his. "Apollo," she murmured, and he entwined their fingers, his face relaxing.
"The revolution," Jehan said quietly.
Musichetta had tears in her eyes, thinking of Joly and Bossuet. Her life had never been the same without the two men, and she'd never moved on, vowing to stay true to them forever.
"It was a failure," Grantaire said, always the pessimist.
"Bullshit," Azelma said swiftly. Everybody's eyes shot to hers. "It wasn't a failure, it was fucking brilliant."
Éponine's mouth twitched at her sister's dirty mouth. It seemed old habits really did die hard.
"She's right," Cosette sided with Azelma. To everyone's surprise, they'd become fast friends. "You inspired thousands of people. You fought for France when nobody else were strong enough to. You went through hell and back, but you came out brighter than you were going in."
"Eloquent," Grantaire commented, but he used sarcasm so much it was no longer possible to differentiate when he was being sarcastic.
"Fuck, Cosette, you should be a therapist or something," Éponine said with a grin, thinking of the conversation they'd had when first becoming friends.
"I'm still amazed we're here together," Marius said finally.
"Good thing we got married, then, and invited everybody," Jehan said, holding up he and Azelma's clasped hands and displaying the rings on them. "Well, everybody that wouldn't rat us out to the police."
"I'd never thought I'd get married before my sister," Azelma grinned.
"Which she should," Musichetta said with a pointed glare at Enjolras.
"Marriage," Éponine said, defending him, "is not our thing."
At this, the four men gave each other concerned looks.
"Too bad you think so," Grantaire said casually, ignoring Enjolras' warning glance. "Because he was planning on asking tonight."
"Grantaire!"
Éponine stared at him with round eyes. "Enjolras? Is it true?"
He fidgeted, not looking her in the eye. "A little."
"Well, might as well do it now," Azelma said. "Thanks, R. Now we can all see it."
"My pleasure," returned Grantaire, delightedly watching Enjolras' expression of total panic.
"Come on, Enjolras!" Marius urged, grinning widely.
He shot them all a deadly glower before turning to Éponine. "Alright then." He cleared his throat awkwardly. 'Éponine Thenardier-"
"No, I want it on one knee," Éponine interrupted, grinning devilishly as her friends fell apart in hysterics.
Enjolras gave Éponine an exasperated look, but complied and bent on one knee. He took a deep breath and plowed on. "This is really hard," he said, a half-smile on his face. "I'm not good with words. Not around you."
Éponine beamed at him, feeling love swell in her chest.
"And I wrote a speech - don't laugh - but I've realised that nothing we've done together was scripted or planned, so it's really not fitting at all. I don't know what to say, Ponine, you take my breath away just by being there. But I do know this: I didn't know the meaning of love until I met you. With Marius droning on and on about Cosette - no offense, Cosette - it honestly just put me off on the idea of love. And then you came along, and I realised I'd been wrong about love the entire time. You're almost always right - fine, you're always right - and you were right about love, too. It's not dying for somebody, it's living for somebody. I want to live with you forever, Ponine."
She was now gazing speechlessly down at him, radiating joy and love for the man on his knee for her. I love you. I love you. I love you.
"This is so good," Jehan whispered to Azelma, practically weeping, and received a "shut up!" and a smack on the back of his head.
Enjolras dug in his pocket, his face the colour of his jacket (he still had it, after all this time), and drew out a small box. "So, Éponine Thenardier, I just gave the most important and utterly embarrassing speech of my life. Still, will you marry me?"
"I lied when I said marriage wasn't our thing," Éponine said with a smile so enormous it threatened to split her face in half. "Because it definitely is now."
Enjolras watched her slide on the ring with hopeful eyes. "Is that a yes?"
"What do you think, you fuckwit? Kiss her already!" Azelma threw a strawberry at Enjolras, who caught it deftly and ate it with a half-smile. His smile, Éponine thought, feeling like she was floating.
"Gladly." Enjolras gave the woman before him a smirk that would do even Azelma proud, and put his hand on the back of Éponine's neck, drawing her to him.
"I love you," she breathed, snaking her fingers through his curls.
"I know," he said, and closed the distance between them.
AN: Technically the last chapter, but technically not, because there's an epilogue.
Also, Aaron Tveit or Unauthorized Autobiography of Samantha Brown fans, did you catch the reference?
