A/N- My apologies if the "discussion" in this chapter seems a little awkward or stilted. I can write Enjolras's "voice" and I can write philosophical debates, but for some reason I can't seem to do it at the same time. I hope you'll enjoy it anyway- I did my best.

6. Political Differences

It was the second of December when Gavroche was finally permitted to return to the back room at the Musain, and he arrived promptly at a quarter to seven, a wide grin gracing his little face. He fled for the back room as if he were racing to be the first one there, delight pouring off him. Eponine found herself anxiously glancing toward the hall every few minutes. God only knew what sorts of things they were pouring into his head back there...

"Oi! Thenardier! Keep your mind on your job if you'd like to keep it!" Roxanne barked in her ear. "Prettyboy over in the corner's been trying to wave you over for nearly five minutes! Bring him his wine or what-have-you and for heaven's sake, focus!"

Eponine glanced to where she pointed and was startled to see Montparnasse smirking at her from his seat in the dimmest corner at the back of the cafe. She grinned back at him, muttered an apology at Roxanne, and hurried to fill up a tumbler with whiskey, able to guess Montparnasse's first request before she had even spoken to him.

"Eponine, you look lovelier every time I see you," he told her when she approached.

She slid the glass across the table to him. "You flatterer," she replied, sarcasm oozing from his voice.

Montparnasse wrapped his hand around the glass and threw back a generous swig of the whiskey. "Would I lie to you, 'Ponine?"

"Yes."

"Ah, you know me too well."

"And yet you remain an utter mystery," Eponine teased. "You've a new coat, I see. How did you come by that?"

"Honestly, for once. Did a favor for a young bourgeois, and he was kind enough to give me a little something for my time. It's quite the tale." He looked at her with an appraising sort of look, the meaning of which Eponine tried and failed to discern. "Perhaps if you have a moment you'd care to sit with me and hear it."

Eponine glanced over her shoulder. Roxanne was nowhere in sight, none of the handful of patrons seemed particularly in need of tending to, and so she deemed it safe. She slid into the seat opposite him. "Do tell me more about it," she said.

"Well you see, the gentleman in question- a certain young M. Morel- styles himself a poet. I suppose he can afford to, being wealthy." Montparnasse's face plainly expressed, by way of sour expression, how very much he desired to be able to boast the same. "In any event, it seems there was some pretty grisette who had caught his attention, but the poor fellow, being cursed with the visage of a toad and a complexion to match, employed me as a sort of go-between. For the past three weeks I've spent my days running about delivering his poems and promising the girl all sorts of ridiculous things if only she would agree to meet him."

"How interesting. And I suppose the story ends with her falling wildly in love with you instead?" Eponine suggested, grinning.

Montparnasse chuckled. "Ah, if it were anything like that, they would be obliged to write a grand tragedy about it for the stage. But no, as it happens, that is not how it happened. It did, however, end up with my being slapped for my troubles. The poor bumbling Morel felt so badly about it that he ended up paying me rather a lot more than we had agreed upon. Hence my new coat. And isn't it lovely?"

Eponine smiled. "You always did like to be fashionable, 'Parnasse. You ought to be careful; your vanity will land you in trouble."

"Ha! Haven't we always laughed at trouble, you and I?"

"I suppose we have," she reflected.

Montparnasse was only four years her senior, and they had spent a great deal of time together as children. He had been a gamin, taking his name from his most frequent place of residence, but by way of an odd affair with a game of dice gone badly awry and one police mix-up, he had found himself in Montfermeil at around the age of eleven. Eponine had immediately befriended him, for though she loved her sister dearly, she longed for other friends and the Lark wasn't much fun (and besides, she had decided quite early in life that boys made better and more imaginative playmates than most of the girls she had known). They had been quite close for some years, even after he started running "errands" for her father- perhaps especially after that. Together they had gotten up to as much mischief as it was possible for two children to manage, and his ability to get into it and her ability to get out had combined well together.

Since the fire at the inn, they had seen very little of each other, only a handful of meetings from before Adilene had come to take them away, until he had walked into the Musain at the beginning of November. Distance had much to do with that, of course, as Montreuil-sur-mer was too far away for visiting when you were living on the streets for the most part. Speaking to him now, she recalled how much she had missed him those first few months.

"It's good to see you, Montparnasse," she said suddenly.

He looked at her dubiously and laughed his raspy laugh in surprise. "Where has that come from?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Nowhere. It's just... we've hardly seen a thing of each other since we were children."

"That's true."

"You ought to come by our flat sometime. We could all have supper," Eponine invited.

"Well..." he equivocated.

"Oh, you must! Azelma would be delighted to see you, and Gavroche, too, though I don't know that he'll remember you all that well."

"Ah, little Gavroche is with you after all?" he inquired.

Eponine's smile dropped at that, and without realizing it, she shot another look at the hallway. "Yes," she said, "And God alone knows how I will manage him. He just gets more unruly with age, it seems!"

Montparnasse smirked. "Ah, a true student of the Montparnasse school of model behavior, then?"

"Oh, perhaps I would do better to rescind my offer!" she cried in mock-horror. "I can't have him exposed to you; you'll corrupt him even further! It's bad enough he's gadding around with all these-"

"Thenardier! What the devil did I tell you?"

Eponine cringed reflexively and turned to face a livid Roxanne. "Sorry, sorry!" she sputtered, leaping to her feet. "I didn't mean to... I just... he's an old friend, Roxanne, I-"

"I don't want your excuses!" Roxanne spat. "Louison's still trying to work out which end of the dishtowel is up so you're the only reliable worker I have at the moment- if I can even call you that, from the looks of things! Things may be slow 'round here tonight, but that's no excuse to be slacking around."

"Please, Madame," Montparnasse intervened. "I asked her to stay a moment and speak with me." His hazel eyes peered up at Roxanne through sultry long lashes, giving her a look that Eponine was sure would have struck a lesser woman dumb. When he'd been a boy, Montparnasse had had eyes that could get him anything he wanted, and it seemed the talent had only intensified with time. Even the steel Roxanne wasn't entirely impervious to his charm.

"Yes, well," she said in a slightly flustered tone, "Be sure that it doesn't happen again, Monsieur. I don't like people distracting my help!"

Eponine shot Montparnasse a grateful look.

Some hours later, the evening was winding down, and the majority of the cafe's customers had walked (or stumbled) out. Roxanne waved Eponine over. "Why don't you go home a little early?" she suggested. "I'd like Louison to help me close things down tonight; she needs to learn this sort of thing if she's actually going to make herself useful."

Eponine felt tired and cranky, and she was grateful for the excuse to clear out. "Alright," she replied. "See you tomorrow, Roxanne."

She walked to the back room, intent on retrieving Gavroche. When she entered, only a handful of the Amis remained, most having left some time earlier. Only two remained (well, three if you counted the snoring mass that was Grantaire, intoxicated to the point of unconsciousness on a table in the corner): Enjolras and a dark-haired, bespectacled young man Eponine didn't recall seeing before. Gavroche was sitting between the pair, seemingly in his element.

"Come on, Gavroche," she called from the doorway.

He looked up at her quickly. "Eponine!" he cried cheerily, though he had that certain look in his eyes that told her he was trying to delay the inevitable. "Have you met Monsieur Combeferre yet? No, I don't suppose you have. Combeferre, old boy, meet my sister, Eponine!"

"Delighted to make your acquaintance," the man with the glasses said.

"And you as well," she said, politely but distractedly. "Come, Gavroche, we need to be getting home."

"Do I have to?" he whined.

"Yes, you have to."

The young boy crossed his arms stubbornly. "But the meeting isn't over! Thanks to you, I haven't been here in weeks and I want to stay!"

At this, Enjolras straightened up and turned to look at her. His ice blue eyes really deserved the description as he fixed her with a frigid look. "Oh, so it's your fault Gavroche hasn't been here?" he demanded.

"Yes," Eponine said steadily, meeting his eyes. "I have kept him away."

"You ought not have done so," Enjolras replied, rising to his feet. "Your brother is a bright boy. Undereducated, but he brings an interesting perspective to our discussions despite his youth and disadvantage. Furthermore, I find it fundamentally immoral to deprive anyone of the chance to learn, and that is exactly what he has been doing here." The newcomer called Combeferre nodded approvingly behind him.

Eponine squared back her shoulders and raised her chin defiantly. "I thank you for your concern, Monsieur, but will do for my family as I see fit."

Enjolras narrowed his eyes. "May I ask you something, Mademoiselle? Why, from the moment I met you, have you been so openly hostile toward our noble cause?"

"To be perfectly frank, Monsieur Enjolras, I don't trust you because I don't understand your reasoning!" she said hotly. "Why do you need to throw everything into a tumult all over again? It's not been six months since that ruckus in July! Haven't you just had a revolution? Why do you need another one?"

"As long as tyranny sits on the throne of France, there will always be a need for revolution. Until men are free and justice is equal for all, it is the sacred duty of anyone who understands these things to work tirelessly toward this goal, in the name of Human Progress!"

Eponine glowered at him. "And what about the people who get trampled in the march toward your 'progress'? What about people killed in street riots? What about people who are barely struggling to get by as it is, let alone trying to make a living in the middle of all this political nonsense? Not everyone has the luxury of being able to afford having ideals, Monsieur!"

"Liberty is the right and responsibility of all men, Mlle. Thenardier!"

"Well then, not being a man, by your definition I think I'll exempt myself from that."

Enjolras let out a low growl of exasperation. "It would be better if you would take my point, rather than picking a fight with my diction, Mademoiselle!"

At this point, Combeferre stood up and laid a hand on Enjolras's shoulder. "Let it go, Antoine," he said quietly. Enjolras made a face, but nodded.

"Perhaps, Gavroche," he said in a very calm voice, "It would be better if you went with your sister now. You won't miss much, we're nearly done here. I'll just finish bringing François up to date on what we've been doing since he's been away."

Had Eponine been less irritated and more observant at that moment, she would have taken note of the determined attempt to be gentle to her brother, even though he was plainly annoyed with her. As it was, she just beckoned to Gavroche who, with a pronounced pout, came to her side and followed her out of the back room.

"What was that all about?" Combeferre asked a few moments later. "I haven't seen you that worked up since... well, when was the last time you spoke to your father?"

"Six months ago," Enjolras replied distractedly.

Combeferre made a sympathetic face. "Not my point, but I'm sorry to hear that. What has you so wound up tonight?"

He shrugged. "Nothing in particular. That girl is just..." He let out a sigh. "I confess I've spoken very little to her, but my opinion, if you want it, is that she is the most stubborn, under-informed, over-opinionated, shrewish young woman I've ever had the misfortune to meet. I do not understand how she and her brother can possibly share blood!"

"I don't know," Combeferre said thoughtfully. "You were in the right, I would say, but she wasn't entirely in the wrong. These things are not absolute, you know."

Enjolras glowered at the tabletop. "Which, of course, only serves to make her willful blindness all the more frustrating, because if only she would open her eyes and think about it for a moment, I think she would understand!"

"Why do you care so much, anyway?" the elder boy enquired. "There are many who do not support or understand our cause, Antoine. Why should one more dishwasher who dismisses us as madmen bother you so?"

For several moments, Enjolras was quiet. "I think it is because I like her brother a great deal. You know that. Gavroche is an intelligent, spirited boy, and he understands! But... he's nine years old. I don't want to drag him into our cause without the support of his family. It seems cruel."

Combeferre nodded. "Understandable. Still, you may have been a bit harsh with her. What can a girl like that possibly know of these things? Be patient, Antoine. She may yet learn to listen."

"I doubt it," Enjolras muttered.

A/N- Anyway, I was browsing random works of art the other day, and I stumbled across a painting that might as well be Eponine as I picture her in my head, particularly for this story. There's a link on my profile, next to the note halfway down my page regarding this story, if you want to see it. You should definitely check it out after you review.

That was a pointed hint, by the way... at this juncture, I'd like to shout out to wintmint4, the only person to review last chapter.
*passive-aggressive FAIL*