Notes: Thank you for the reviews for the last chapter from frustratedstudent and Phoenixflames12 who reviewed the past two chapters! I'm glad you all liked it and here is the next chapter:)

BARRICADE

CHAPTER IX

Éponine waits nervously at the Palais Garnier. She's been going to the opera house every day at three-thirty for two months now, waiting for Enjolras to figure out the clues she left him and meet her. So far, he hasn't shown. Maybe he didn't find any of the clues, maybe she made them too vague. Maybe he couldn't figure any of them out. But no, that is an insult to Enjolras's intelligence, she thinks to herself. He might have lived most, if not all, of his life in sheltered comfort, but as far as most bourgeois go, he's smart enough. After all, he is studying sociology at the École Normale Supérieure, as well as political science. Surely he can figure out her simple clues. Right?

Even after reassuring herself, Éponine still has doubts. He hasn't come for two months. Then she has an awful idea—what if he went looking for her right after she disappeared from his life? She hadn't left the clues until February—there was a gap of about three weeks there where she had no interaction with Enjolras or Les Amis—if he had gone to the bookshop then he would've found nothing. What if he gave up after that?

Or worse—what if he doesn't even care that she is gone from his life? Perhaps when she disappeared he just forgot completely about her and returned to his revolution and his Patria. After all, they'd only been friends for a week. And Enjolras did seem to be a very single-minded person, thinking only of a better France.

But that is what makes him and Les Amis so much better than the rest of the student rioters, isn't it, she thinks to herself. The other rioters want nothing beyond larger classrooms, cheaper textbooks, dormitory co-education. They blindly believe in China's Communism as the path to get what they want (despite Mao Zedong hardly telling the rest of the world a thing about China.)

But Enjolras and Les Amis, though they want these things too, view them only as a stepping stone on the way to a new France. On the way to reviving their motherland and remaking her into the glorious days of old. As Enjolras once put it, the days when a Frenchman was the bravest of all. When the people held the power.

Éponine doesn't know whether to be roused to inspiration or to burst into tears at the idealism of her friends. They truly believe they can change things—they are the outliers of this revolution. The other rioters want trivialities—fleeting changes that will affect only them, and only for four years of their lives. Les Amis want a new world, a new dawn for France.

Maybe she ought to cry, because as an outsider, she sees clearly. As an outsider, she can tell that they are alone in this dream, this beautiful, naïve dream.

And just like that, she has her thesis film. She will make a film about the student revolution, highlighting the beauty of Les Amis and their belief in their dream. It will be a study in French nouvelle vague, because a) that is her professor's favorite film style, b) it fits well for a documentary style, and c) it's cheap to make.

But to make this film Éponine needs Enjolras. She purses her lips. It's time to stop all this, the game of clues and wondering if today will be the day he finally shows up. If she's going to use this idea for her thesis film she'll have to go find Enjolras herself.

He's going to be in one of two places at four in the afternoon: the Café Musain, planning for their revolution, or in the Sorbonne studying. She decides to go to the Musain first, and starts walking away from the grand Palais Garnier, making her way down the Avenue de l'Opéra.

Enjolras sees her walking towards him, unaware that he is there. "Éponine!" he shouts, laughing. "Éponine!"

The scene that follows is like something from one of Éponine's movies. She would shoot it in color, just for the contrast—two figures in red meeting against the gray backdrop of a rainy day; the opera house standing tall in the background.

Éponine smiles. "Enjolras," she says quietly. The first thing he notices is how her smile has returned to its previous frozen state, forcing her lips into a curve while her eyes stay empty. "How are you?" The next thing he notices is her voice. It too, has frozen.

He takes hold of her hands. "Éponine, what's wrong?" he asks worriedly.

Silently, Éponine curses, dragging her hands away. She had been trying to act normal, act like her life was still okay and Enjolras was just an old friend she was talking to. But Éponine hides from the people she loves, and she hides now from Enjolras. She doesn't want him to know how dark these past few months have been, ever since she moved in with Montparnasse—she doesn't want him to know how she's come to the opera house every day waiting for him.

"Nothing," she smiles brightly. It reaches her eyes with a forced quality. "I am perfectly fine."

Enjolras accepts the answer for now, and asks if she would like to go get some coffee. She agrees, expecting to be led to the Café Musain, but instead he takes her to the Café de la Paix, at the intersection of the Boulevard des Capucines and the Place de l'Opéra. It's much fancier than the Musain—and much more expensive, too, she doesn't doubt. Maybe two months ago she would've been able to afford it, when she didn't have to worry about paying rent to Monsieur Whitman, and he gave her a few francs every now and then if she did extra work. But now that she's living with Montparnasse, he makes her pay half the rent, and she has no job. Thank God for her scholarship, or else she would have no way to go to the University either.

"Enjolras…there?"

He nods. "Their coffee is much better than the Musain's."

Éponine doesn't doubt that—the Café Musain is much better at serving alcohol than coffee—but the Café de la Paix is a place of dreams. It's part of the world-famous Place de l'Opéra, for God's sake! Paris's rich and famous—the type of people who go see operas—go there and sit out on the patio in their designer clothes and generally look beautiful. The Café de la Paix is part of the movie in Éponine's mind—a moment immortalized in film as perfection, a montage of shots of the exterior of the café. The exterior, never the interior. Éponine has slept on the streets—she doesn't belong with the canned oxygen of the rich.

But Enjolras is taking her by the hand and taking her inside. "I'm paying," he says, and they take a table for two out on the patio.

After they sit and order, Éponine says uncomfortably, "Enjolras, I really don't belong here."

He rolls his eyes. "Why? Just because you're not as rich as the rest of these pompous bourgeoisie?" Éponine shrugs. "See, this is what we're trying to change, 'Ponine. Class barriers—they're useless! They just block the path for people who might actually be able to do something." He leans closer to her, to emphasize his point. "No one deserves to make you feel like you can't go and have a cup of coffee someplace just because you weren't born in a mansion."

Éponine smiles, a true smile this time, and Enjolras discovers he really likes it when he's the reason her smile reaches her eyes. "Thank you, Enjolras," she says.

"No problem." Their coffee comes, and they drink in companionable silence for a few moments. Then simultaneously, both put their coffee cups down on the table. Enjolras stares at Éponine, and she meets his gaze apprehensively. She knows that now he is going to ask all the questions she had hoped to avoid. When he does, his voice is choked. "Éponine…why did you go?"

"I had no—choice." Her voice breaks slightly. "I…I am related to some bad people, okay? And they…enjoy hurting the people I love."

The first thing Enjolras latches onto is the people I love. Does Éponine love him? But of course not, he thinks. She was just using the term love generally, the way most people throw it around. Next there is confusion. "What do you mean? You can't be related to bad people, Éponine, no—" He's convinced she's just being melodramatic, deluding herself, and he takes her hands comfortingly.

She glares menacingly at him. "My father is the leader of the Patron-Minette," she snaps, and draws away from him. She can tell she's shocked him now, as he stares at her. Everyone has heard of the Patron-Minette, the gang that terrifies the streets. "Yes. Exactly. Try and tell me that's not bad."

He is silent, unsure.

Now Éponine's temper is acting up; sure, Enjolras is the passionate, easily angered student protester but Éponine can match him in anger word for word. "Yes. You see, you don't have a response. All of you, you and your friends, you talk about removing social classes and you say that you want to help the poor, but you don't know what it's like." She practically spits at him, "You're just as bourgeois as all the rest of them. Only worse, because you're deluding yourself into believing you can change things."

Still Enjolras doesn't say anything, only stares at her mutely in what could be construed as catatonic shock, and Éponine worries that perhaps she went too far. After all, she did just tell him that he was bourgeois, when he had spent most of his life trying to shake that title off. She wonders if perhaps she should apologize-

She does so in a rush. "Shit, Enjolras, I'm so sorry-I really didn't mean that, please-don't look at me like that! I-you're not deluding yourself, I swear, I...I believe in you-"

He shakes his head slowly. "No, no-I don't think you do." His words are so heavy and broken that Éponine wants to cry over what she has done.

He gets up and, for the first time in all their acquaintance, he is the one who walks away from her.

Notes: Well...I hope you liked this chapter, it was the longest one yet:) One thing, a few people followed or favorited this story last chapter, but didn't review—I would really appreciate if you reviewed, even just a few words. It lets me know that people are reading and it's my motivation to keep writing:) Again, thank you to those who did review, and please review this chapter!