A/N- This chapter as originally conceived almost didn't happen. Or rather, it very nearly happened several chapters later in this fic. But ultimately I realized it simply had to be placed here or all my efforts to make this insane plot semi-realistic would have been wasted.

And yes, the 30th of November, 1830 actually was a Sunday. I check my facts! (#exceptwhenidont)

Chapter 7
November 29th, 1830

Over the next few days, Enjolras managed to put Éponine and his impending marriage from his mind. He had filed all the necessary paperwork, and he saw no purpose fretting over something he could not control. It was far better to put his mind toward things that had genuine value while he was waiting for everything to be pushed through, he reasoned. Joly assured him that his mistress and Éponine were getting along splendidly, and that was the end of Enjolras's worry on the subject. Instead, he redoubled his attention to his schoolwork and to his evening efforts in the cafe.

"They revere you, you know," Combeferre said to him quietly one evening after the usual talkative chaos of a full meeting had died down.

"Who?" Enjolras asked absentmindedly. He was focused on the heavy tome on the table in front of him.

"The men," Combeferre replied. "It's not just our friends, though God knows they look up to you as well. It's everyone. Every single man who comes to these meetings holds you in rather incredible high esteem. Young men, old men, students, working men... everyone. I never really noticed it until now. Did you see the way their eyes shone when you spoke tonight?"

Enjolras shook his head. "I was rather busy speaking," he replied.

Combeferre laughed half-heartedly. "You've always had a certain charisma, Antoine. I think it was what first drew me to you when we were young. I had brilliant ideas, and you made me feel as if I could actually bring them to fruition, even in that youthful way that children dream their unlikely dreams. This, though... this is something different."

"How do you mean? I'm the same as I ever was."

"No, you're really not," Combeferre replied. "It's as though you've been awakened. Ever since we came to Paris... was that really only three years ago? The time has passed so quickly! Well, I've noticed it more and more. You spent our childhood inspiring others. Now it seems you've inspired yourself."

Enjolras finally looked up from his book. "Is that any surprise, François? I have finally found something that is really worth doing. How can I fail to follow the call?"

"No better than anyone who hears you speak can fail to follow you," Combeferre countered. "I doubt you even understand why it is that you lead the Amis, but it is plain to me. Men see your inspiration, they see you taking flight in the service of Liberty, and even the faint-hearted are willing to follow you anywhere. You hold a great deal of power over men's hearts and minds, mon ami."

"It is not me that they are following. It is the rising star of freedom that calls them on. I am only a man. Liberty herself is their guide," Enjolras insisted.

Combeferre sighed, a little smile on his lips. "Say what you will about the Cause, I still maintain that your endless facility with words certainly helps."

It was at this moment that Marius entered the back room and approached them.

"Marius!" Enjolras said. "I thought you had left already."

"I've been thinking," Marius said. "What are we going to do about Old Thenardier?"

Enjolras gave him a blank look.

"Éponine's father?" Marius prompted.

Understanding struck. The family name had not even registered at first because Enjolras was too used to thinking of Éponine as being without family. Her surname hardly mattered.

"I assume, given that you are the one to breach the subject, that you have an idea?" Enjolras said.

Marius nodded. "Yes, actually, I think I do."

Combeferre said, "Let's hear it then.

The younger man sat down opposite them. "Éponine told me a few weeks ago that her family was still living in the old Gorbeau tenement. Nasty place, but they can usually afford the rent, so they're unlikely to leave. I think we ought to go there and have a talk with Thenardier. The fact of the matter is, he isn't likely to notice if his daughter ever comes home or not, but on the odd chance that he does, it would be better to have dealt with him before rather than later."

Enjolras nodded thoughtfully. The idea of speaking to Thenardier was repugnant, given what little Éponine had let slip about her father over the course of their acquaintance, but Marius was right. The man could cause problems. By all reports, he was a money-grubbing miscreant with an ability to wring as much cash out of a situation as possible. He would be sure to raise a commotion if he were not appeased before he had the opportunity.

Besides, there was another incentive to approach Éponine's father. Enjolras felt compelled to ask the man's permission to wed his daughter. Even if he was as much of an oaf as he was rumored to be, even if he flat-out refused, Enjolras still felt it was the right thing to do. Everything else about the arrangement between himself and Éponine was so absurd, that adhering to the few things he was still capable of keeping within normalcy was paramount for his sanity.

"And assuming he's troublesome?" Enjolras asked.

Marius grinned, a surprisingly wicked look on his usually innocent face. "I saw and overheard a great many of his doings while I was living next door. While the things I heard certainly kept me awake at night fearing for my life, they may also prove quite useful should we need to use... stronger methods to coerce him into cooperating. Moreover, I can rattle off a handy list of several of his more frequent and useful aliases... names he certainly wouldn't want whispered in the ear of the prefect of police."

Enjolras looked at his young friend with new eyes. "I'm impressed, Pontmercy," he said. "You've the mind of a general underneath those schoolboy's features, haven't you?"

"More likely the mind of a rogue," Combeferre said with a low chuckle.

November 30, 1830

After mass the next morning, Enjolras joined Marius outside Bahorel's flat, where they waited patiently for the older man to appear. Bahorel had overheard the rest of their discussion about how to handle Thenardier and it seemed his own unique blend of fraternal loyalty and inclination for altercations would not allow him to miss this encounter.

Once again, he afforded them several minutes of impatient loitering, but at last, he emerged from the building, sporting a questionable mustard-yellow waistcoat and a broad grin. "Ah, mes amis!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands together. "It is a lovely morning, is it not?"

"And it will be all the more lovely once this is dealt with," Enjolras replied.

Bahorel laughed outright, but for once chose not to respond with a witty remark, settling instead for a pugnacious little grin that remained on his face for several minutes. The trio hailed a fiacre, and within minutes they were off in the direction of Boulevard de l'Hopital.

As they pulled up outside No. 50, Marius wrinkled his nose. "Dear Lord," he murmured. "I had forgotten how perfectly horrid this place is."

Enjolras could only stare. This was where Éponine had lived? No wonder the poor girl looked as she did; in fact, it was surprising she didn't look worse! The place was a wreck. One could tell from the shape of the building that it had once been rather fine, but that had been very long ago, and little remained of whatever grandeur it had once claimed. Instead one could discern soot-stained eaves, rotting doorposts, and that indefinable air of ill-kept lodgings which hovers just below the edge of consciousness and warns away respectable people.

Marius, still with a look of disgust on his face, led the way into the run-down tenement. He called out what Enjolras presumed to be the name of the landlady, but received no reply. "Must be out," he murmured. "Well, alright then. Follow me. The Thenardiers live in one of the garrets upstairs."

They ascended. Marius indicated the door.

Enjolras knocked.

For quite some time there was silence, and he began to wonder if there was no one home. "Maybe-" he began, but at that moment, the door swung open on rusty hinges.

Revealed behind the door was a woman who could only be Éponine's mother. Enjolras stared at her with a shock of recognition. Looking at the two women, one would not immediately have seen any resemblance between them, as the woman before him was fat, toad-like, and altogether foul. Still, he picked out details of Éponine's appearance in this other woman- the little button nose, the height so unusual in a woman and, most strikingly, that shock of red hair the daughter had inherited. One thing, though, was notably different: the eyes. Éponine's eyes, he recalled, were chocolate brown and glittered with repressed intelligence. This behemoth's eyes were piggy and green and blank, windows onto a mindless mire of a soul.

If Enjolras was struck dumb with disgust, Marius at least seemed used to this sight. "Madame Thenardier," he said, in a tone that almost sounded respectful. "Is your husband in, perchance?"

"Yeah," she muttered. "He's here." She jerked her head to the side, inviting them in crudely.

The three Amis trooped over the threshold into a one-room apartment that gave Enjolras a new definition for 'squalor.' In one corner of the room sat a blank-faced girl, perhaps fourteen years of age, who had inherited her mother's green eyes and round face. She looked up at them, and her mouth dropped open in surprise. Her eyes landed and fixed on Enjolras. This must be the sister Éponine mentioned, he supposed.

Quickly, though, his attention was diverted by the little man who stood up from his rush chair by the fireplace, where he had been scribbling something on a piece of paper. "What can I do for you today, messieurs?" he asked in a voice that was a perfect match for his greasy hair. Enjolras saw immediately where Éponine had inherited her slender build and calculating dark eyes. This man looked every inch the sneaky, brilliant rat he was reputed to be.

"Clearly she has inherited what few good features her family can afford her," Bahorel muttered.

Resisting the temptation to elbow him in the side to shut him up, Enjolras said, "I am here, Monsieur Thenardier, because of your daughter, Éponine," he said.

"And who, may I ask, are you, Monsieur?" Thenardier asked. "You, I know quite well, Monsieur Marius. But who are your friends?"

"My name is Antoine Enjolras," he replied brusquely. "And I have come to ask your daughter's hand in marriage."

The girl in the corner made a sound like she was choking.

A swift look from her father silenced her. "How's that?" he asked, squinting at Enjolras. "My girl? My Éponine? A gentleman like you? Surely you jest, Monsieur!"

Enjolras shook his head. "I assure you, I am not jesting."

Thenardier stared. The cogs turning in his mind were plain for all to see. He was obviously trying to work some sort of benefit for himself out of this. Or perhaps that was Enjolras's prejudice against him coloring his perceptions. He did not think so, however.

"If you're expecting some sort of dowry on her," Thenardier said, "you are in for an unpleasant surprise, Monsieur... Enjolras, did you say? You see, my family-"

"He isn't blind, Thenardier!" Bahorel interrupted. "We can see you're poor as dirt!"

"Christophe!" Enjolras cautioned sharply, and the older man fell silent.

Thenardier had a thoroughly sour expression on his face. "Still, I suppose he is right. We have fallen on tragic times, Monsieur Enjolras. I was a respectable man, once! I owned a successful business, I was well-known in the community! I spoiled my daughters, I was a generous man! Perhaps too generous, for that was my ruin, you see! Even now, all I have goes to the care of my two precious children. They are gems, you know..."

The girl in the corner made another soft noise. It might have been suppressed laughter.

"Monsieur Enjolras, you are plainly a man of wealth and benevolence," Thenardier continued, affecting a pathetic sniffle for greater dramatic effect. "You have taken an interest in my Éponine, you say? You wish to marry her?"

Enjolras nodded rigidly.

"Then perhaps..." Thenardier hesitated, acting every inch the reluctant but desperate beggar. "Perhaps that could be arranged, if you would but extend your generosity upon the rest of her most unfortunate family?"

"Why you rotten swindling little-" Bahorel burst out, but Enjolras's hand on his arm silenced him once again.

"M. Thenardier," Enjolras said coolly, "I will marry your daughter. You will grant your permission for this. You will not interfere with her life. You will not have any contact with her unless she wishes it. You will not try to extort any money from myself or her."

Thenardier was a clever beggar and a persistent one, but even he was apparently not foolish enough to try and continue the game when he knew he had been rumbled. "And what," he said with a raspy laugh, "makes you think I would agree to that?"

It was at this moment that Marius spoke up. His pallid complexion plainly told that he was somewhat afraid of Thenardier, but his demeanor was calm and his voice steady. "Because, Monsieur Thenardier- or perhaps I should call you Monsieur Jondrette?"

"I don't-" Thenardier began, probably attempting to deny the false name.

Marius, however, spoke right over him. "Or perhaps it is Monsieur Fabantou? Or are you Mother Ballizard today?"

With each false identity falling from Marius's lips, Thenardier's color turned a further shade of nasty grey, but the young man still wasn't done.

"It would be a shame if the prefect of police were to learn about all those names, wouldn't it?" Marius said casually. "It would be an even greater shame if he were to hear about the truth behind a certain series of spectacular and mysterious heists pulled in the Marais over the course of last spring. I can't imagine what monsieur le prefet would say if he were to hear the shocking details of the escape of two notorious criminals known as Brujon and Gueulemer from La Force back in January!" Then, with a devious little smile, Marius said smugly, "Do you need to hear more? Or, more to the point, do the police need to hear more?"

"You wouldn't dare, you little rat!" Thenardier spat, lunging at Marius.

Bahorel, who stood a solid foot taller than the pitiful criminal, stepped into his path and easily restrained him. Mme. Thenardier let out a cry of outrage, but at a signal from her resigned husband, she quieted again.

"Release me, you oaf!" Thenardier grumbled at Bahorel.

At a nod from Enjolras, Bahorel did so.

Thenardier stepped back, glaring distrustfully at the student and rubbing his wrists where Bahorel had grabbed him. "Fine," he muttered. "Go ahead."

"I have your permission to marry Éponine, then?" Enjolras clarified.

The man let out a bitter laugh. "Do whatever you want. Have the little whore, what do I care? If her friends are going to cause this much trouble, I'll have nothing more to do with her! The slut was hardly any use to me anyway. Thought too much for her own good. I should warn you though, I have it on good authority that she's awful in the sack!"

The only person in the room who was more horrified than Enjolras by Thenardier's crudeness seemed to be his wife. She did not say anything in defense of her daughter, but if her expression was anything to go by, she was as outraged by the insult to her offspring as Enjolras was shocked by Thenardier's sickening disregard for his child.

Enjolras did not know how to respond to the aging thief's outburst of vitriol. He settled for saying coldly, "I bid you good day, Monsieur. I pray that we never have the misfortune to meet again."

He turned on his heel and marched out of the squalid little garret, feeling a burst of fury in his veins so overwhelming that he hardly noticed Marius and Bahorel following.

He spent his time preparing in secret for the fight that would lift up abased people like the Thenardiers. All his efforts went toward raising such people to the light. Yet part of him wanted to bury Monsieur Thenardier and his ogress of a wife in darkness, where they would never stain the beauty of the Republic. It was wrong, he knew, to feel such an overwhelming desire to suppress any man, but he couldn't help being angry. Enjolras had had his fair share of disagreements with his own father over the years, but he never dreamed that members of the same family could carry such venom against each other. Such cruelty was almost unfathomable to him. He was sickened by these people, who did no imaginable kindness to anyone around them, who neglected their children, and who as far as he could tell only served to drain society rather than uplift it.

He felt more determined than ever that the future must come, and soon, for the sake of all those like Éponine: the tragic wilted flowers of the underworld who might yet bloom if lifted out of the darkness of their wretched lives into the full light of education and equality.

If there had been any doubt in him until now that marrying Éponine was the right thing for both of them, it was gone now. Totally disregarding the benefit to himself, it was terribly important that she never have to return to this kind of life. He would do his best to shelter her from any further degradations, and she would be his reminder that his Patria still needed him, until the day all men were free to live in the light.

So absorbed was he with these churning thoughts that he was already back in the fiacre with Bahorel before he noticed that Marius was no longer with them.

"Where is Pontmercy?" he asked, baffled.

Bahorel jerked his head back toward the tenement.

Enjolras looked in the direction indicated, and saw that Marius had stopped just in the doorway. The young girl, Éponine's sister, had run out after them, and had tugged on Marius's sleeve to get him to listen to her. She said something in a low, rough voice that Enjolras could not make out. Marius nodded in response, and pulled away from the girl.

He joined the other two in the fiacre, and the driver set off back towards the Quartier Latin.

"What did she want?" Bahorel asked.

Marius smiled sadly, an expression of regret and pity on his face. "She wanted me to carry a message to Éponine for her, that she not forget her sister."

Enjolras leaned his head back against the seat of the carriage and repressed a heavy sigh.

A/N- Is it just me, or is it taking the combined efforts of basically all of the Amis to get Antoine married off...?