A/N- So, I've been rereading the Brick (again). Got to the Amis bios. Read Combeferre's. Realized once again that we have freakishly similar interests. It would be a disaster if we were ever put in the same room together. I'd lecture about plate tectonics (which would be news to him, I'm sure, and therefore all the more fascinating to him especially once I whipped out the mathematics to prove it) and he'd talk about mountain formations and glaciation and everybody else would end up just leaving us there because we'd never shut up! I love geology, so freaking much... and that's just the start of it. We could set about unraveling Hobbes' reasoning, and discussing the hypotheticals behind certain brands of mysticism... Oh yes, 'Ferre and I would get along wonderfully.

Chapter 10
Later that day

Once all the papers were finalized the group had left the mairie and, with the documents handed off to Feuilly for alteration, had gone their separate ways. Enjolras found himself left alone with Éponine. Even Combeferre had declined to share a fiacre back to the Rue Royer-Collard, claiming that he had some business to attend to before returning home. He and Éponine sat in the fiacre as it jolted through the streets, staring at each other.

Enjolras was, understandably, a little annoyed with his friends for abandoning him.

When he had been younger, he had never been very good at talking to girls, and though his eloquence had improved greatly as he had matured, the youthful habit of remaining mostly taciturn around women around his age had never left him. What on earth was he to do now that he had a girl he barely knew as a rather permanent fixture in his life?

He was reassured, however, by the fact that Éponine did not seem to be faring much better than he. Twice he saw her open her mouth as if to speak, and twice she settled back into taut silence. It was comforting to know that he was not the only one who seemed to have no idea how to handle this life-altering business they had undertaken so suddenly.

Finally, though, it seemed that she at least could bear it no longer. "So what happens now?" she asked, in that slightly hoarse voice of hers.

"Honestly? I've absolutely no idea," he replied candidly.

"Well then that makes two of us," she said. "I figured you'd have all the answers!"

"Hardly!"

She laughed, quietly for once, which he took as a sign of her nervousness. "It's nice to see that you're not all-knowing on top of everything else!"

"Is that really what you think of me?"

Éponine sat forward in her seat, giving him her full attention. "You have to understand, Antoine, that until this scheme was brought up, I only saw you from the position of being Marius's friend." Her eyes grew sad at that word: friend. "Just a gamine, really. Not a lady of class, not part of your society that meets at the cafe, not your friend, nothing to you. I've spent months looking at you as a stranger, and to strangers you're very imposing. Your friends may be comfortable enough to tease you, but from a distance you're..." She struggled briefly to find the right words before she finally settled on: "You're like a lighthouse."

Enjolras stared at her. "What?"

She chuckled again, and this time the laughter was freer and more genuine. "Oh! You should see the look on your face!" she said. Then she sobered enough to explain, "When I was a little girl my maman showed me drawings of the old lighthouses on the coast. I always thought they were so tall and strong, sort of beating back the sea almost, but they were also so far away, somehow. Even though my maman told me that little light at the top shines out to sea for miles and miles, in the drawings it always looked so high up, like no one could ever reach it from down on the ground. You're like that, I think."

Then she said, in an almost angry tone, "Whatever are you staring at me like that for?"

"You have a very strange perspective on things," he said. Something about her unusual analogy had struck him very powerfully and painfully, and he could not explain why.

"That's me," she responded with a wistful look on her face, "Never quite what people want or expect." Then her expression changed very abruptly, as if she had turned a corner within her mind, and she said cheerfully, "Well, if your friends can tease you, then I shall try not to think of you that way anymore. You're not made of marble, after all!"

Enjolras was completely unsure how to reply to this, and settled for nodding awkwardly.

The fiacre rattled to a halt in front of the building where he- now they- lived. Enjolras exited the carriage first, handed her down, paid the driver, and together they entered the building. Éponine's eyes were wide as they ascended the stairs.

"You live here?" she breathed. "It's so beautiful!"

"My father's doing," he replied. "I'd have been happier with less ostentatious lodgings, but no son of Olivier Enjolras is going to live anywhere less than the best, it would seem." He heard the bitterness in his own voice and regretted that his father's ways could frustrate him so easily and over something so relatively trivial. "Still, given what we've just done, I think we'll be grateful for the extra space it affords." He would be, at least. He enjoyed his privacy, and the apartment's four large rooms would afford him at least some of that.

He unlocked the door and pushed it open, only to discover each and every one of his friends packed into his flat.

He stared in amazement at them, and before he could say a word, Grantaire approached him, threw an arm around his shoulder and said, "My condolences on abandoning your bachelorhood, mon ami!"

"What in God's name are you all doing here?" Enjolras demanded, recovering the use of his voice quite abruptly as Grantaire's perpetual smell of whiskey washed over him. He pushed the drunkard off him. Beside him, he heard Éponine quietly chuckling. "Do you know anything about this?" he asked her in an undertone.

She put on an innocent face. "Only what Musichetta told me," she said.

He groaned. "You couldn't have thought to warn me?"

"I thought it would be funnier to wait to see your face."

"I think I hate you a little," he hissed, even as Grantaire grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into the throng. This did not alter her mischievously pleased expression in the slightest. He shook his head and turned; raising his voice to address the group, he said, "If I may ask, what made you think this was even remotely a good idea?"

Combeferre replied, "It was Grantaire's plan."

"Of course it was," Enjolras muttered.

Courfeyrac added, "Well, you wouldn't let us take you drinking last night. We had to do something!"

Enjolras sighed. "You are all perfectly aware that-"

"-That it's a sham marriage. Yes, yes, we know!" Joly exclaimed brightly. "But whether it's real or not, it's legally binding, making you officially the first of the Amis to become a married man! That is well worth celebrating!"

Enjolras covered his face with his hands and groaned.

Bahorel clapped him on the shoulder. "If it's any consolation, Enjolras, we all figured you'd be the last bachelor left standing, not the first to go."

To judge from the look Enjolras gave him, it was rather plain to the eyes that this was no consolation at all.

"Come! Have a drink, Enjolras!" Grantaire exclaimed. He thrust a glass of wine into Enjolras's hand. "And you!" he cried, wheeling to face Éponine who still hesitated near the door. "Allow me to be the first to congratulate the bride!" He kissed Éponine's gloved hand, somehow managing to perform such a commonplace action with a tremendously ironic air, and said, "My best wishes, Madame Enjolras."

Upon hearing this Enjolras felt faint, and he saw Éponine turn pale as well.

"That is me, now," he heard her say softly, a look of complete surprise on her face. He understood completely. Despite the vows they had exchanged not even two hours previously, it had not seemed real, until the drunkard had said that.

"Indeed it is!" Grantaire proclaimed loudly. "Everyone! Come and pay their respects to the new Madame Enjolras!"

"Once again, Grantaire displays all the tact and sensitivity which the hammer shows to the anvil," Marius murmured in his ear, coaxing a reluctant smile from Enjolras.

The pair of them hung back while the rest of the Amis crowded around Éponine.

"Good luck, mon ami," Marius said, a broad grin on his face as he shook Enjolras's hand. "You're going to need it."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean your wife," the younger man explained patiently. "I doubt you really have any idea what you've gotten yourself into, Antoine. She's a wild thing when she wants to be. If there's any woman in France who can stand up next to you without being completely overwhelmed, it's 'Ponine."

Enjolras looked at Marius. "Why do you call her that?" he asked, choosing to ignore the rather loaded statement the pet name had come attached to.

"What, 'Ponine?"

"Yes. It sounds like a nickname someone would give to a child, not a woman nearly grown."

Marius shrugged. "She was a child when I started calling her that. She was thirteen when we met!"

Enjolras studied the object of his wife's affections closely. He thought of the story Marius had told, about Éponine intervening in an attempt to rob him at arms, and wondered how old she had been then. "And you still see her that way, don't you?" he asked, though he thought he knew the answer. "To you, she will always be that young girl you met so many years ago, won't she?"

Marius smiled reminiscently. "I suppose you're right about that. No matter how many times she pulls me out of sticky situations, she'll always be little 'Ponine, who used to steal my books."

I thought as much, Enjolras thought wearily. He hoped that Éponine would be able to put her infatuation with Marius in the past. When he had first agreed to this plan, he had not thought it would bother him very much that she was so smitten with one of his closest friends, but it seemed he had surprised himself. This marriage was based on necessity, not affection, but despite that, it was beginning to sink in that Éponine was his wife. He did not consider himself to be a possessive man, but to his amazement, the idea of his wife sighing after someone else was a distinctly unpleasant prospect.

Grantaire's little impromptu party carried on for several hours, during which time Enjolras hardly saw Éponine, as Musichetta and Laigle had absconded with her to the much quieter kitchen. He was rather grateful for this, as he wasn't quite ready to try and have a sensible conversation with her just yet. All in all, despite the circumstances, it was actually a rather pleasant occasion. Though to be perfectly honest, he could have done without Courfeyrac and Grantaire deciding that the best way to pass the evening was a drinking contest which ended with the pair of them barely able to walk and shouting out crude songs at the top of their lungs (Grantaire in tune, Courfeyrac very much not so), a proceeding which was only brought to a halt by the concierge rapping on the door and exclaiming that if they did not keep quiet, he would call the gendarmes.

This more or less signaled the end of the evening. Joly and Laigle, both tipsy themselves, took it upon themselves to escort the exuberant Courfeyrac home while Marius, brave soul that he was, volunteered to deal with Grantaire. And so the group trickled out, one by one, until at last it was just himself and Éponine left.

He sighed, sitting down heavily in one of the wing-backed chairs that flanked the fireplace in the parlor. Éponine crossed the floor on quiet feet and took up residence in the other. Enjolras stared at the fire, deep in thought, and she seemed perfectly content to keep him company in silence.

So you can be quiet, he thought, pleased with the discovery. During the few conversations he had had with her, Éponine been perpetually chattering about something or other. It was a trait common to women, and magnified to a rather extraordinary degree in Éponine. Her fount of words seemed as endless as Grantaire's. He had feared that he would never have a moment's peace again. Now, though, she had fallen silent and alternated between watching the fire and watching him.

Some years back, he had come to the decision that he would not bother himself with women until the time was right. He had no interest in trifling with some grisette in the way many of his friends seemed to enjoy. He was too responsible for that (after all, what if he made some poor girl pregnant?). Such fleeting affairs seemed entirely unfruitful in any event. What was the point of any endeavor if it wasn't meant to be lasting? It was true in law-making, and in his eyes it was certainly true in romance as well.

In a contradictory line of thinking, however, he had no interest in forming a lasting attachment either. Being married took up a great deal of a man's time; he knew this from years of watching his father's careful handling of his mother. His time was precious and he had no interest in wasting it when there was still so much he had to do for his country.

It did not help that the sorts of women his parents had hinted it would be appropriate for him to make a match with were repulsive to him. They were beautiful and charming, it was true, but it was their other attributes that put him off so thoroughly. They submitted without question to the will of their father or guardian, and he knew it would be only too easy to subjugate any one of them in exactly the same manner. Enjolras's very ideals made such a relationship abhorrent to him. To make matters worse, none of the young daughters his parents' friends ever seemed to have anything interesting to talk about! No matter how lovely a girl's face, it could not make up for an empty head.

With Éponine, though, he was beginning to feel it might be possible to strike a balance. It would be a life built out of convenience and a few well-chosen lies, but perhaps the pair of them would get along tolerably well. She might talk endlessly about anything that struck her fancy, but she could be silent as well. She was no beautiful rose with all the right breeding, not by any man's measure, but she was practical. For all that they had been married less than a day, Enjolras found himself feeling optimistic. He and Éponine could, perhaps, be friends. If this was possible, it would make their new shared life together even pleasant. He could be more than content with that, and his father would not be able to manipulate him anymore.

Oh God, his father...

"I shall have to write to my father tomorrow," Enjolras said, mostly to himself.

"What will he do?" she asked.

He shrugged, not looking at her, still largely embroiled in his own thoughts. "It is hard to say. My father likes to be unpredictable- it was what made him such an asset as a military man. Most likely, though, he'll come to Paris to have it out with me, and possibly you as well. I apologize in advance for that."

"You must really hate him," Éponine observed.

He looked at her, startled. "No! No, of course not. I could never hate him, not really. He is my father, after all. We just don't see things the same way about a great many things."

"You're a far better person than I am, then," she said darkly.

"Do you despise your father so much, then?"

"The priests in the church always talk about forgiveness," Éponine said. "From what they say, I guess I ought to forgive him for not caring about us and for dragging us down with him, but I can't. If I were smart I'd have run ages ago. I'm really not sure why I never have."

"Maybe," Enjolras said, "It's because you're a better person than he is."

She snorted. "Doubt it."

"As I said earlier, prove otherwise," he challenged her again. For a very long moment they stared at each other, each daring the other to look away first. Enjolras was not used to having conversations like this. He kept his innermost thoughts hidden from everyone except perhaps Combeferre, while it was plain that his new wife, in contrast, wore everything she felt on her sleeve. Strangely though, he found he wasn't bothered by this trait in Éponine. Perhaps, he thought, it was because she didn't belabor the point with excessive dramatics; for her, these were just the facts of her life and the thoughts in her head and she stated them as such.

After some time, Éponine at last dropped her eyes in defeat. He sighed, and rose to his feet. "This has been a rather long day, and I have important things to attend to tomorrow. Perhaps we had best turn in for the night."

She stood up, and the practicalities of the situation assailed him very abruptly.

"How shall we arrange this?" he wondered aloud. "This isn't a... well, it's not a typical marriage and we're certainly not a- a couple the way people would think, so-"

"Antoine," she interrupted him, "You're blushing."

"No, I'm not."

"You are!"

He groaned internally at her delighted, teasing smirk. He now thought he understood precisely what Marius had been saying earlier. Given her personality, Éponine was not likely to palliate the adjustment process in the slightest. He should have expected it, he supposed.

"Very well. Since you are embarrassed, I will take pity on you and solve it all," she said, still with an air of teasing him. "No, we're not a young couple in love, and as such we won't be laying with each other. Considering that, I don't see much harm in us sharing a bed, but since you're all pink just thinking about that, I'm perfectly willing to sleep on the divan."

Her frankness shocked him a little, but that wasn't really the issue here. No matter how unconventional their arrangement was, no matter how unnerved he was by the prospect of sharing a bed with anyone, Enjolras had been raised to be a gentleman, nothing less. "No, Éponine, that would not be right," he said.

"It's perfectly fine," she insisted. "It's bound to be a fair bit more comfortable than anywhere I've slept in years."

That settled it, in his mind. He had affirmed to himself that he was going to save this girl, hadn't he? That had been the decision that had cemented itself in his mind when he had spoken to her father. He would not do this the way he would with a dog, by giving her just the scraps of a good life and allowing her to be content with that simply because it was still better than what she'd had before! He would care for Éponine properly, no matter how daunting or uncomfortable a prospect it seemed to be.

"We will share the bed," he said decisively. "We'll just... we'll take turns changing until I can purchase a dressing screen for you."

Éponine looked at him with that intent stare of hers, then said quietly, "You're far kinder to me than I deserve, Antoine."

"No one deserves the kind of life you have had," he countered firmly. "I am only doing what is right. Now, I think Musichetta and Joly brought your bags from her flat, did they not?"

She nodded. "They did." She gestured to the door leading to his bedroom. "I'll... I'll go get ready for bed, then." She left swiftly, pulling the door to behind her.

Yes, Enjolras thought, this was certainly better than the alternative, but he had a sneaking suspicion this would take a lot of getting used to.

A/N- To my anonymous reviewers, G and jennysl: I'm glad you both are enjoying this story so much!

To XxTiernan's Lady LocksleyxX who has turned off the PM feature so I can't respond: Yes, you may keep Courfeyrac. I imagine he'll appreciate that... ;}

Thank you to all three of you, and I hope you (and the rest of my readers) continue to enjoy my work!

Also, a special thank-you to elfigreen14, who beta'd this chapter when it was kicking my butt, and who has been a fantastic sounding-board for both of my E/E epics.