Author's Note: This chapter contains strong sexual themes (but no outright sex), including rape imagery. Readers sensitive to this material may wish to avoid this chapter.

Thanks to all who have read and reviewed so far -- you've kept me from abandoning this fic on many occassions.

Dedicated to LesMisLoony, to whom I've been promising this chapter for awhile.

Purpose

Chapter 5 ­­– Montparnasse Suspicious

He had been following her all day, and to his annoyance, he had grown more intrigued, rather than less, as the day wore on.

He was trailing her as a courtesy to Thenardier, although why he was doing yet another favor for his own apprentice was as much a mystery to him as the girl's actions were. Honestly, it's enough to make you question who works for whom, he thought with a wry smile.

And yet, here he was. When Thenardier had come to him in a near-panicked state two days ago, Montparnasse had not been alarmed. Since he had become acquainted with the rotund little rouge, he had learned that panic was something of a natural state for him. Still, when he heard what the older man had to say, the young dandy had pricked his ears up at once.

"She's whorin', I know she is!" Thenardier had blustered.

"Who is?"

"Eponine! Who do you bleedin' think?"

Montparnasse had looked up from the flower he had been arranging in his lapel, carefully hiding his excited surprise behind a façade of boredom. "Why do you say that? And, more to the point, why do you care?"

"Stupid bint's been comin' and goin' all hours of the night, is how I know it," Thenardier said. "And I care because I ain't seen a bleedin' sou from her! Greedy bitch is keepin' it hidden, and I ain't even been able to beat it out of her!"

So Montparnasse had agreed to tail the little wench, although privately he thought the girl far too stupid to hide anything from anybody. Now, after nearly an entire day spent following her, he had to admit that perhaps he had been wrong about that, indeed.

Not that he thought Thenardier's assessment of the situation was correct – far from it. Women who are selling themselves only have cause to act suspiciously at night. This silly bitch had been doing peculiar things all day.

First there was the cloak. Eponine had been careful to wear her old shawl in front of her family and those who knew her, as she did not want any questions raised about how she could afford such a thing (nor did she want to fight to keep it from her father, who would have undoubtedly wanted to sell it). However, since she had not known she was being observed this morning, she had removed the cloak from its hiding place in the Gorbeau's basement and, when she felt she was a safe distance from the tenement, put it on. Montparnasse, who had a taste for fine clothes, knew that the cloak was not an expensive one, but still, it was far too nice to have been found in a dumpbin.

Frowning, he had followed her to the Rue Notre Dame, where he had observed her entering a small, shabby house. Here, Montparnasse got his second shock of the day, as the girl did not knock and wait to be allowed in; instead, she removed a key from the pocket of her cloak and let herself in. As with the cloak, the house was not all that respectable, but it was still far too respectable for the likes of Eponine Thenardier.

Maybe she's taken a lover? he thought skeptically, as he approached the door and found it locked. For the life of him, he couldn't understand why anyone but he would want the little baggage (and to be honest, his desire was mostly born from the frustration that she did not want him), but he supposed stranger things had happened. He tried the door, found it locked, and began circling the place, looking for an uncovered window through which he could peer without being seen.

He was unsuccessful in gaining a view into the house, but in the side alley, he did find a window that was partially open. The window's heavy drape kept him from seeing what was going on, but the sounds from inside the house came to him quite clearly in the still autumn air.

At first, he thought his original hypothesis, that she was with a lover, was correct. Certainly, on first hearing, the grunts and heavy breathing that reached his ear suggested vigorous sexual activity. Content that he had discovered the girl's secret, he had turned to leave – only to be rooted to the spot by a highly incongruous noise, that of clashing metal.

His curiosity was so great that, for a moment, he nearly tore down the window's covering and lunged into the house. After all, he was far from a virgin, and he had done things with women (whores, mostly) that would have made a typical bourgeoisie drop dead from outraged shock, but even he, with all his experience, could not even begin to imagine how this odd heavy noise could have anything to do with lovemaking of even the roughest sort.

He had forced himself to wait. It was long hours until the girl emerged – it was nearly two o'clock by the time she stepped back into the street. A sheen of sweat covered her face and exposed sternum, yet she did not look tired, or even more unkempt than usual. A small, hard smile played on her lips, a smile that did not fit with her usual dreamily befuddled nature. It was all Montparnasse could do not to run to her, knock her down in the street and demand an explanation at once.

Now, three hours later, Montparnasse was still no closer to discovering what in the hell she was up to. Her activities made no sense. What was he to make, for example, of the hour and a half she had spent crawling on her hands and knees in a woodlot near the Seine, gathering up small fallen branches and then storing them in her cloak? Or the way she had taken these and hidden them in the angle of a bridge, like an animal preparing to make a nest?

Now it was dark, and Montparnasse was preparing to give up this mission as a bad job. He was intrigued, yes, but intrigue did not keep him in nice clothes. It was time to devote the rest of the evening towards a more lucrative proposition than tailing this skinny-haunched wench.

He turned to go, and then reconsidered. After all, he ought to get something out of this day, shouldn't he? Since he hadn't any good information to bring back to Thenardier, he knew he would collect nothing in the way of payment from the father; why, then, not attempt to collect from the daughter instead?

He turned back towards the direction she had been going and quickly closed the space between them. When he caught her elbow, she gasped with shock and whirled so fast he nearly lost his grip. Moving rapidly, he renewed his grasp on her scant upper arm, pulled her into the alley they had been passing, and pushed her up against the rough stone wall. Holding her in place by the throat, he planted his mouth on hers and gave her a hard, pitiless kiss. She made protesting noises that could not get past her stopped mouth, and he felt the first stirring reactions in his groin as she struggled against him.

He pulled back, replacing his lips with his free hand in order to stop the scream for which she was clearly hitching in breath. He let go of her throat and began fumbling with the fastenings on his pants, enjoying the look of fright and anger he saw in her blazing, mad eyes.

"You won't push me away tonight, slut," he taunted, panting. "No, you're going to…"

He trailed off as he noticed she was no longer looking at him, but, rather, over his shoulder with a wide-eyed expression of alarm. Puzzled, he turned to see what the devil she was looking at.

When he awoke several hours later, he had no idea that time had passed. He had no recollection of having been thrown across the alley, nor of being knocked unconscious, nor of the yellow-eyed beast that had been at his back when he had turned. His last memory was of holding the bitch to the wall, preparing to have his way with her.

Groggily, he rolled over and examined the damage. One bump on the head, not too serious; one damaged dress shirt, which pained him considerably more than the head, and for which the bitch would pay dearly. Scrambling to his feet, Montparnasse looked around for her, eager to dole out punishment.

However, there was no sign of the girl. Just an empty alley, save for some broken wooden crates, one slightly-battered dandy, and one large conical pile of dust.

Black fury rose inside him, and he struck the stone wall hard enough to start his fist to bleeding. I'll learn your secret, you miserable bitch, he thought, nursing his hurt hand. I'll learn it, and then I'll beat you within in an inch of your life for keeping things from me.

This thought calmed him a little. He exited the alley and he turned towards the pub where Gueulemer would be waiting for him. On the way, he met and murdered an old man, which helped a little more. By the time he arrived at the café, the rage was gone – only the cool resolve of his mental promise to Eponine remained.