A/N- So, I just spent half an hour doing preliminary research on the history of marriage ceremonies and marriage law in France. Turns out that civil ceremonies were the norm even back then. The religious ceremony was optional (and usually the source for all the pomp and circumstance of it all). I'm very glad, because it makes this the direction this is taking much, much easier on me. I'd have rolled with it either way, but I'm glad it's working in my favor! Still haven't turned up much on the actual practices and regulations, but I'm sure I'll dredge up something eventually!

Chapter 4
November 20th, 1830

The next evening, Enjolras found himself glancing more often than was perhaps normal at the door. The consensus that had been reached regarding himself and Pontmercy's little friend had weighed on his mind throughout the day, and he found himself anxious to avoid the discussion he knew would come the next time she stepped through the doors of the Cafe Musain. Up until the night before, Éponine had been, for the most part, a fixture of the surroundings. He pitied her and tried to ignore the pain on her face when Marius said something careless. Now, though, he was actually facing the thought of marrying the girl, and he wondered if she would seem any different with that prospect in his mind. He had often observed that one's perception of a thing depended heavily on the context within one's own mind. These particular circumstances did not make him eager to test this.

Well, maybe God would give him a reprieve and she wouldn't come to the cafe on this particular night. She didn't come every night, after all. Who knew? Maybe she would stay away for a whole week, or even longer...

But just as he was thinking these pleasant thoughts, the door opened and a familiar head of tangled hair poked inside. Éponine's eyes found Marius, and she immediately lit up with a smile and scuttled over to him.

Dear God, Enjolras thought. This is the creature they want me to unite myself with?

Éponine really could not have been more than sixteen. He had seen marriages involving much wider age gaps before, but to his eyes she seemed hardly more than a child... a child made ancient by her desperate conditions. He supposed Marius was right in one respect- she did have good features. She had been badly used by life, and no one in their right minds would call her pretty, but there was a hint of potential in those high cheekbones, the delicate jaw, the intelligent curve of her brow. However, her skin was tanned from too much time in the sun, and her eyes were bloodshot from exposure. Her hair was a ratty mess of indeterminate color (though he thought it might be dark or possibly red underneath the layers of grime) and her clothes... well, her modesty was preserved (barely), but that was all that could be said of her apparel. She bore, as usual, an expression that spoke vaguely of snide cynicism.

As soon as Marius saw her, he tossed a reflexive glance at Enjolras, who simply nodded. He was secretly grateful that Marius seemed willing to take on the responsibility of approaching Éponine. If it had been leading an attack on the Tuileries, he would gladly have taken charge, but having such an incredibly unorthodox conversation with her was beyond his capabilities at present. He could only watch helplessly as Marius turned back to the girl, took her arm (to her obvious delight) and led her to a secluded corner.

The conversation the majority of les Amis had been involved in carried on uninterrupted, but Enjolras noted that his was not the only pair of eyes that continued to dart over to the corner with some regularity. He kept most of his attention focused on a middle-aged workingman who was rather ineloquently expounding on the potential consequences of Lafayette's reemergence as a political figure, but he also watched the pair in the corner with interest, trying to guess what was being said.

Marius spoke for several long minutes, and Éponine listened with a growing expression of confusion. At one point, she backed wildly away from Marius as he tried to lay a hand on her wrist, eyes wide. She spoke, apparently asking some question, and her expression was a mixture of shock and painful hope. Marius gave his inaudible reply with a warm smile on his face, and Enjolras watched as the hope disappeared immediately, leaving her dark eyes blank. She nodded and gave a very brief reply. Marius's grin widened, oblivious to the fact that whatever he had said had obviously hurt her, and he clapped her jovially on the shoulder. He said a few things more, in response to which she only nodded, then left her sitting on her own to rejoin the main group.

Marius approached Enjolras. "I explained things to her," he said in an undertone that only the blond would be able to hear over the din of conversation. "She seemed receptive enough to the idea, but she wants to speak with you privately after the meeting tonight."

"Very well," Enjolras replied. Rather than waste his energy fretting, he turned away from Marius and devoted his attention whole-heartedly to the ongoing discussion.

Enjolras had very quickly become absorbed in the meeting and he very nearly forgot about Éponine by the time the group was beginning to disperse. If it hadn't been for Marius tugging on his coat sleeve and reminding him as he was about to walk out the door in company with Combeferre, he likely would not have remembered at all.

He sighed. His head was spinning with ideas and he wanted nothing more than to go home to his flat and think for a bit, perhaps put a few of his worthier thoughts down on paper. This was unfortunately rather important, though, so he waved the curious Combeferre on out the door and turned back to the nearly empty room.

The girl stood by the fire, and the orange glow cast her face into sharp relief, highlighting her emaciated appearance. As he crossed the floor, passing by the last stragglers on their way out as he went, she studied him intensely. Few of the young women he had ever encountered were bold enough to meet his eyes directly; it was more common to see a brief moment of eye contact followed by a downturned look and a demure smile. Enjolras found himself a little unnerved by her direct stare.

He reached her and for several seconds they looked intently at each other. Then Eponine smiled a bitter smile and said, "Well then," with the attitude of one who knows exactly what she wants to say, but isn't quite certain she should say it.

"Well then," he echoed, feeling as uncertain as she sounded.

She continued to study him intently, before saying abruptly, "Some days I see you on the boulevard. Sometimes I have thought about speaking to you, but you wouldn't recognize me out there, so I never have."

"I have a very good memory for faces," he responded, not quite sure what to make of her statement.

"Well then, you're better than most. I have to be honest, I'm a little unnerved by you," she said. Then she smirked, straightening her spine to look him dead in the eye. "But you see, I'm Éponine Thenardier and I'm not afraid of anything, so that ought not happen. You're very intimidating, but I won't be afraid of you."

Her bluntness unnerved him as much as he apparently did to her. She seemed very frank, and he could make nothing out of where she was going with this. When she continued, it seemed that she had jumped to an entirely different track of thought in her mind, and had no inclination to make him understand what the point of her previous statement had been.

"Marius told me about your... predicament," she said, and he was pretty sure her lip curled up in a sneer, quickly erased, on the final word. "He explained to me how I could help."

"And?"

"And I'd like to know: how much of this idea was yours?"

"Very little, to be perfectly frank," he replied.

She nodded. "I thought so," she said, sounding utterly unsurprised. "I am the last girl on earth a man like you would even consider. Which, ironically, given what Marius said, would seem to make me perfect for the job."

She had an odd way of speaking of it. He couldn't put his finger on what it was; perhaps it was just that she seemed to accept something so bizarre without question? What could life do to a person to make them view their own fate in this way?

"So it would seem," he agreed dryly.

"But I'm curious," she continued, "Do you even know what you're getting into with me?"

"As I have hardly spoken to you, I would think the answer to that would be obvious."

She smirked, but her eyes were faraway behind it. She sat down, and he followed suit. "I'm not like the young ladies of class you probably know," she said bluntly. "I was raised right, my maman taught me how to be proper, more or less, but I'm not quiet and I'm not mild and I'm not... innocent."

Her meaning was plain: she was no virgin. To be perfectly honest, he had imagined as much. Girls like her did what they had to in order to survive. His utter lack of surprise must have been plain, because she said, "Ah, but you're clever, aren't you? I suppose you've guessed that, then. I'm surprised you're not more bothered by it. Isn't a woman's virtue supposed to be some sort of valuable treasure?"

He shrugged. "A man may spend his bachelorhood however he wishes. It is perhaps wrong of us to expect a different standard from women." It was something Jehan had said once during a bout of philosophizing, and while it had struck him strangely at the time, he had come to think there might be some truth to it. "Moreover, as this arrangement would really be more of a marriage of convenience for us both, I do not see how it matters much."

Éponine laughed darkly. "You really are an unusual boy, aren't you?"

"I do not think so," he responded, a bit irritated. "I am just caught in a very difficult predicament and this idea, mad as it is, may be my only way of escaping."

"So Marius said."

Enjolras ran a hand through his hair. "I cannot believe I am going to say this, but it might even work," he continued. "Pontmercy seems to have hit on a solution. A precarious one, and to be perfectly honest it is not ideal, but..." He trailed off with a shrug.

Éponine's keen eyes suddenly held a very different look. "It was Marius's idea, then?"

"Not entirely, but he was the one to bring you into it," Enjolras said, watching her carefully. He knew she cared for Marius, and wondered how she would react to this piece of information. When she spoke, her expression was very guarded.

"Why me?"

"I think because he wanted to help you somehow," Enjolras replied.

Her eyes left his for the first time since they had begun speaking as she stared down at her bare feet for a moment. With her eyes directed elsewhere, he realized just how very unnerved he had been by her unequivocal gaze. For a few moments she was silent, presumably processing what he had said. He wondered what she was thinking about, for her face revealed nothing. At last, she looked up at him once more and he found her eyes looking as firmly into his own as before, and the discomfort that came with that returned.

"Alright," she said, in a voice dripping with bitterness. "I'll do it. I'll be the fox-hole you can bolt down to escape being snared."

He nodded. "Thank you," he said.

"Well, it's just like Marius said. It helps me, too," she responded with a shrug. "How do we go about this?"

"I'm really not sure." He thought for a moment, but honestly, he had no idea how to handle any of this. "Tell me, do you know where the Corinth bistro is?"

She nodded. "On the Rue de Chanvrerie, yes."

"Go there tomorrow at eight o'clock. I will meet you there with my friend Combeferre- you have met Combeferre, yes?"

"The polite one with the glasses."

"Yes, that's François," he said, resisting the temptation to grin at her description. "We will meet you at the Corinth and discuss how we proceed from here."

She nodded. "Alright."

Enjolras rose and touched her briefly on the shoulder. "I will see you tomorrow, Éponine."

He turned and walked toward the door, but before he could leave, she cried out, "Wait!" He looked back at her. She was on her feet, looking at him with a strange expression on her face. "I do not even know your Christian name."

The thought had not even occurred to him. "My name is Antoine," he told her.

She smiled. "Antoine... it suits you. Well, Antoine, it seems we are engaged in a manner of speaking."

"I suppose we are," he replied, and at last he left the room.

He did not relish the thought, but despite Éponine's bedraggled appearance, her strange manner, and the fact that he did not really want to be married at all, it was still better than the bride that would await him in Lyon. At least he would keep his freedom. And having conversed with her, he supposed she wasn't actually all that unpleasant to talk to. It was an unfortunate circumstance, but it might just turn out bearably after all.