The Decade
Disclaimer: What do I own? Nothing!
Dear Enjolras,
Have you ever wondered why Cosette and Marius took so long to get married? Why they waited 10 years? They seem like the type to get hitched right after high school or even college. Right away, you know?
But they didn't. What made this year so special?
What made them wait a decade after The Split?
I wonder if it's us, me and you; but that would be silly and selfish of myself to think that.
I asked Cosette once, why she and Marius were waiting and she'd simply laughed and told me to let the grown-ups do what they wanted to do.
I'm curious, Enjolras; I'm not good at being patient and I don't like not knowing things (as you probably know; I am a nosey busybody) but she refuses to relent.
I suppose I'm getting unnecessarily suspicious.
But still!
Eponine closes her eyes, reverting to that childish ideal that if she can't see him, then he can't see her. Just for a moment, just for a split second, she allows herself this momentary reprieve where she can gather her emotions, control them and then she snaps her eyelids open and fixes him with a disapproving stare, "Montparnasse." She greets him coldly, not allowing him to see the fear that his very presence builds inside of her. She's strong. She's not that weak girl she used to be, "How did you manage to get out of jail?" She eyes him, he looks haggard but he does not have that mean look in his eyes that he used to.
The man just laughs, a seemingly evil cackle that has Eponine fighting the urge to flinch away from him, "Good behavior. Can you believe that?"
"Well it's not that hard to believe. You can be nice if you want to," She says this softly, trying to coax Montparnasse into that sweet boy she knows he harbors deep inside of him.
He rolls his eyes, "More like it's because I was put in for petty thefts. I didn't have much jail time left anyway."
Eponine almost tells him that he never had it in him to be a hard-core criminal, she almost tells him that he had too sweet of a nature for that, but then she remembers all of those nights he came home drunk and raped her, she remembers all the beatings she took and she knows that if she spoke those words she would be lying.
"Why are you here, 'Parnasse?" She asks, suddenly tired.
He looks at her and hesitates, her use of his nickname throwing him off just like she'd hoped it would, "I came to apologize to you, 'Ponine. I've done you wrong, multiple times and I'm sorry for it."
"Bull." She doesn't even bat an eye at his performance, "What do you really want?"
"Why 'Ponine," He raises a hand to his heart, "I'm hurt."
"Cut the crap, 'Parnasse." This time when she speaks to him, she allows her weariness to seep into her words. It's as if confronting him, here at Musain when she'd already had such a terrible day, has aged her ten years. All of a sudden she just wants to sleep.
No, that's not it, she just wants him to go away.
"Fine." He says, although he does look a bit hurt at her words. Perhaps in his own way, he had once loved her.
Maybe he still did.
The thought makes Eponine a bit uncomfortable. She's loved and lost, sure, multiple times but the thought of someone like him loving someone like her...
It just makes her feel small and worthless and like the princess of the street rats.
It puts her in her place. She knows that a man like Montparnasse is the ideal that most girls on the street look for. Someone who can protect them, give them shelter. It was what she'd once looked for.
"I came for you, 'Ponine. You don' belong here. You belong back on the streets with me. Come on, you know it. I know it. These rich bourgeoisie hacks you hang 'round'll just discard you! They'll forget 'bout you 'cause you ain't good enough! Just like you were forgotten 'bout before? Don't you remember? They'll just cut you off when they don't need you no more! They'll leave you, hurt you! Again! Come with me. Don't you want to be free? Free to do whatever you want?" Montparnasse speaks with conviction, his voice rough and his eyes bright and for a moment she allows herself to be eighteen and hurt.
It had been her fault, though. It had been her fault Gabe had gotten hurt. Her friends had reacted to that.
Not the fact that she was poor, right?
What if he gets hurt again because of you, a traitorous part of her whispers, what if going with Montparnasse is the best option?
"We could rule together, 'Ponine. With your father gone, the streets could be ours!" He looks like an avenging angel, the power in his voice and the light shining behind him add to that effect.
They could. It would be easy. That traitorous bit of her continues to tell her that Gabe isn't here. He's been avoiding her. Montparnasse is here. He's offering her his world.
For a moment she envisions herself in that world.
A world where she rules the streets, where people feel her. Where she's always safe and comfortable.
But she wouldn't be safe and comfortable. Montparnasse wouldn't be like this when he'd get drunk. She wouldn't be happy.
She doesn't want to hurt people, to instill that fear that was once in herself in others.
She's happy now, she realizes. She's safe now. She isn't that girl anymore. She worked hard so she get away from the streets, not back to them. She isn't at the mercy of the streets any longer and she's happy.
She is free.
"No," She tells him, "No. I don't want to go with you. I am free, I'm free here. I choose to be here. I-I don't want to go back."
Just like that, Montparnasse's face hardens. Although he remains handsome (he has always been handsome) that image of being an angel dissipates and he is made of stone-hard and cruel and mean.
"Fine. Don't come asking me for help later. Don't say I didn't warn you."
With that, he's gone as suddenly as he appeared and Eponine hates the weakness within her that he brought with him.
Dear Enjolras,
Is being weak the same thing as being a coward?
Am I weak?
Am I coward?
It's the summer before her senior year that her father finally decides to drag them back to the inn.
She doesn't kid herself with thinking that she was smart enough to elude her father and his spies while caring for her younger siblings.
Perhaps this had once been true, when Grantaire lived with them and they switched territories often, but with just the three of them, and only one side of the streets safe for Thenardier children, she cannot hide her tracks from the likes of him.
She's only surprised that it took him this long to find them.
Her father drags her out of their ramshackle home by her hair and whispers that if she fights him they'll all get it. So she does not fight. She lets him drag her back, knowing that right now she is helpless, but she is also not a little kid anymore.
Although they'll be living in the inn, her siblings wouldn't be beat, she'll be sure of that. She'll make sure they'll still have a safe place to sleep and they'll have food (that her parents will not find out about).
She'll be a good sister, she'll take care of them, she'll do her best.
They'll be okay.
Dear Enjolras,
I haven't written to you in a whole day.
One. Whole. Day.
That's the longest I've ever gone without writing to you and when I did this, I felt strange, empty. Like I was missing a part of myself. I'll be honest, I was doing it on purpose, to get over you.
I want to stop relying on you. I want to be my own person and I probably would have kept this silence between us but then I realized that not writing to you should be something I don't have to think about.
It should be like one day I realize that I haven't written to you because I feel like that would mean I'm truly over you. That I don't miss you anymore.
It would be healthy, I think, because this is unhealthy. This is me pining over someone who is as good as dead and I need to move on but I can't even though I should.
I feel like maybe I should be in therapy, don't you agree? Maybe a therapist can help accelerate things.
I'm just tired Enjolras.
I'm so, so, tired.
I'm tired of the past and these letters, they connect me to it.
They connect me to you and things left unsaid, things better left forgotten.
All I want to forget, Enjolras.
Why won't you let me have that? Why won't you let me have this one thing that I really want?
Why can't you let me have the freedom to be rid of you?
Enjolras spots Eponine the moment he walks into Musain. It's not hard to do, there aren't many people there and she sits alone, clutching a cup of what is most likely tea as she stares into space.
Her teeth are worrying her lip and she looks like she's either going to freak out and accidently break the cup or punch some poor sucker in the face.
Enjolras seriously hopes he isn't that poor sucker.
"Eponine," He greets, taking the chair across from her, not ordering anything and simply sitting with his hands folded on the table. The greeting is all he offers, waiting for her to collect herself and speak. If he's honest with himself, it's also because he feels guilty about leaving her here for so long, for ignoring her, because he really does care but he's crap about emotions.
"Gabe." She says after a moment and offers him a small smile, "You've been avoiding me."
She doesn't sound or look mad, but he can tell that she's not the happiest with him at the moment, she looks tired (the bags under her eyes can't be hidden, she doesn't try to, either) and then there's something else. Something hidden under the surface that she can barely keep contained, he wonders what it is.
"I guess I have," He admits, no point in hiding it now. He's admitted it to himself, why not admit it to her too? She already knows, anyway.
"We need to talk." She puts her tea down and folds her hands just like he did, but instead of resting them on the table, she lifts them so that her elbows support her weight on the table and her chin rests on the top of her hands.
He sighs, how many times have they repeated this one phrase? "I know, I'm sorry."
"Who will you choose, Gabe?" She's not looking at him when she asks the question, she's staring out the window, and a lock of her hair falls across her face. Eponine doesn't make a move to brush it aside but his hands twitch with the urge to do it for her.
"I don't know."
"You need to find out. She's not going to wait forever."
With that, Eponine grabs her stuff and walks out; her tea cooling in her cup and her physical self gone within seconds.
Enjolras opens his mouth to ask her if she would wait forever, but she's gone by the time he's ready to form words again. He blinks, not expecting that. He'd expected a long conversation, the way this had been dragging out. But then, the fact that it had been dragging out was his fault anyway, not hers.
Perhaps this was all she had wanted, a direct look at his face when he answered such an important question.
For some reason, he feels as if he has messed it up, big time.
Enjolras closes his eyes for a moment and then reaches across the table and finishes off her tea.
Peppermint.
Of course it was.
A smile pulls at the corner of his lips.
Dear Gabe,
I'd wait for you for forever. All you have to do is ask.
Pathetic isn't it?
Oh well, I suppose it can't be helped.
(I mean that, by the way.)
Eponine climbs into her car before she lets out the breath she's been holding. She just needs a moment; just one moment where she doesn't have to think or be Eponine or focus on anything.
She just needs a second to catch her breath or she'll fall into a dark abyss that will take her forever to escape from.
Just like it took her forever to escape from him, Montparnasse.
No! Her mind screams, just breathe for now; don't think, just breathe.
Somehow she manages to get her car keys into the right place and within a moment she's opening the door to her apartment with no recollection of how she'd gotten there. She doesn't dwell on it; doesn't think about it like all the other things she's currently not thinking about. Like all the other things she's not focusing on.
Like all the things that will bombard her soon.
She steps into the shower and relishes in the hot water for a moment; it's burning her body and the pain distracts her for a moment but then day pushes back into her mind and she can't force it back out, she can't remain in control.
The shower spray hides her tears.
Montparnasse's return has awakened a lot of feelings inside of her that she'd kept bottled up and hidden inside a deep dark place that she thought she would never have to visit again, but apparently not; just seeing him made her knees go weak.
Even though she's not that helpless girl anymore, she still fears that she will revert back into that position where she needed to survive and the only way to survive was to live in constant fear of that monster.
Perhaps she could have handled it another day; another time when she wasn't so stressed about Amelie and Gabe and Sebastian.
Things had been much simpler when she pined from afar, when she hadn't known a thing about how Gabe's life had turned out.
Sure she was stepping out of the way (she didn't want to be the other woman, she would never do that to anyone) and letting Gabe and Amelie decide where things were going, but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt that she was giving up her love for this other woman when all of the instincts in her body told her to grab onto Gabriel Enjolras and never let him go.
Dear Enjolras,
Sometimes the best way to deal with things is to face the pain; other times, you have to ride through it and just believe it will take you to the right place, in the end.
It takes her a long time to get out of that shower (her safe haven). The water turns cold before she even thinks about getting out; but when she does, she feels better about her life, about what she's capable of.
She's strong now, she can handle Montparnasse, she doesn't even know why she'd worried about him in the first place, all he wants to do is scare her because that's what he thrives off of, that's what he enjoys, frightening her.
Hurting her.
Raping her.
But he won't, not this time.
As for Gabe. Well, he wasn't hers anymore. He was never officially hers in the first place. She'd said her goodbyes to him a long time ago so now shouldn't be any different. In fact, if anything, it should be easier.
Seeing him now, at this time in her life, this is what she'd needed, this closure from him so she could move on.
So she could get on with her life without wondering what could have been.
In her towel, she walks to her bedroom, pulls out a sheet of paper and writes a letter, handwritten, the way they do in romance movies.
She pours herself into the ink, allowing her slanted cursive to fill the page as she says goodbye but this time is different because she doesn't feel compelled to.
She does this because she wants to.
Dearest Gabe,
I think this is the last letter I will ever write to you.
I believe it will be and I sincerely hope it is.
Thank you for being my friend over the years. These letters have really helped me, but I've found you again.
I've finally gotten that closure and I've found myself as well.
I don't think I need to keep writing to you. I think I'm better now.
I think I'm okay now.
I think that whatever broke inside of me is fixed.
So thank you, thank you for putting up with my anger and my weird stories and my depression and any weird things I may have said (written).
Thank you for being here even though you weren't.
How sad is this? I'm saying goodbye to you and my letters but you never even knew these things existed. You still don't know. You probably never will.
This is ridiculous isn't it?
Oh well!
Love (always),
Eponine Jondrette
P.S. I think you will be very happy with your new family. Sebastian is adorable and Amelie has her heart in the right place. They both really love you and I know that you really love them too. You three are good together.
Courfeyrac stares at all the people in his living room at this current moment, some of these faces he hadn't seen in a long time, some of these faces didn't even look the same anymore and he sits there, drinking it all in and being nostalgic.
Really too much time had passed; they had let too much time pass.
For a moment he wonders what could have been, had they maintained contact but then he lets the thought slip away.
When did he become such a person who focused on the past? That is Combeferre's job.
'Ferre, as if he sensed Courf slipping, slapped him on the back and then called out to everyone, "Hey guys! I'm not sure if you remember this handsome devil," He speaks calmly, pointing to himself and winking (and earning himself a few pity chuckles), "because I'm not sure if I remember all of you," Here he cuts himself off to point at Jehan who had a beard that Courfeyrac isn't so sure is real, "but since your here it means that at some point I knew you. So. Welcome and let the planning begin!"
There were a few shouts and some applause, Courfeyrac, himself, just rolls his eyes.
Let the game begin.
Hi guys, I'm so sorry I can't believe I haven't updated in forever. I'd promise that it wouldn't happen again but let's be honest; I'm so lame that it probably will. On the bright side, I'm not going to give up on this no matter how long it takes and it's almost over anyway.
I finished like half this chapter over winter break but then underestimated how much work I'd have in the last week so this chapter got pushed back and then I forgot about it and then an anon guilted me into updating today even though I have like two interviews tomorrow for an RA position and I should really be sleeping.
Also, I've gone through all the old chapters and fixed grammar/spelling/plot holes so yeah I haven't been totally unproductive!
Remember to fave/follow/review (even though I probably don't deserve it) and thanks to all who did!