Disclaimer: I don't own the characters (even the reincarnations) I just own the ideas.

Author's Note: Welcome, I figured I'd start this off with a kind of explanation. As mentioned in the summary this is not just a Modern Day AU but instead more of a Reincarnation Modern Day AU and as such that means there will be differences and tweaks that I believe would change as a result of the new century and how things are different as I think that in the natural progression of reincarnation things wouldn't be entirely the same.

One of the biggest changes is the names. As I will be mentioning the characters from 1832 it was infeasible to let them keep their names so I worked very very hard to try to find modern day equivalents. So I will be using these names for them and it is my dearest hope you will be able to use the context clues and the names themselves to figure out who is who. If you have any questions though please feel free to review or message me and ask me to spell out who is who other than Clare being Cosette and Felix being Joly.

And as I am writing this as part of my Summer of the Miserable Challenge it is my goal to finish this fic and finish reading the entire brick this summer. But as this is the most ambitious and challenging fics I've ever undertaken just bear with me. I may write a chapter and have to go back and edit it extensively after further research so just hang in there, the updates may be slow but I will get it done. Hope you can follow along and enjoy despite the slightly unconventional ship.

Joly's Journal

April 5th, 1832

Symptoms:

Stomach: intense writhing and irritation- suspected inflammation

Tongue: slightly paler than normal- no swelling though

Today in Anatomy we learned about inflamed organs. Throughout the lecture I felt a pervading sense of heat and irritation in my stomach and was nearly convinced it had become inflamed. I spent the entire lecture in a state of fear before I remembered I had forgotten to eat breakfast this morning and was simply hungry. Perhaps this current disaster has been averted after all. All the same, I will be keeping an eye on the situation as it were. Though actually keeping an eye on the situation is impossible as the Professor explained that such an affliction is unlikely to manifest itself visibly, nonetheless I will be on the lookout for further symptoms.

After class Combeferre said that Enjolras is planning something in the next few weeks so we'll be having a special meeting for that today. Courfeyrac says he plans to introduce his friend Monsieur Marius to the rest of us. Bossuet says he knows him but he's a bit of a booby. Courfeyrac also mentioned that, as he's been ejected from his home, he'll be staying with him. I do hope he wasn't living on the streets before then- or if he did I hope he has bathed since then.

I also hope that the stomach pains will die down once I eat something and that I made the correct diagnosis and that it isn't inflamed or spreading a new disease through my other organs.

Clare chuckled to herself as she replaced the worn ribbon to mark where she left off. She'd had no idea when she'd found the old journal that it'd be anything more than an old record book. What she'd found instead was a wonderful surprise: The date on the front flap was dated 1832. The name, however, had been smudged and worn away so only the last name of Joly had been preserved. From what Clare could tell Joly had been a medical student here in Paris. He was also extremely amusing in his descriptions of his friends as well as the various maladies he believed himself to be afflicted with. Still smirking at Joly's latest medical mishap she slipped the journal into the case she purchased for it and then into her purse. She had a journey into town today and- as it was such an extraordinary find- she was loathe to leave it anywhere.

In hindsight, she probably would have purchased it anyway, as she had a thing for old journals, but it was the dates that stood out to her. Here was an actual account from the months before the scrubbed period of France's history. Something had happened that summer that caused government officials to burn all public record and ransack all the local newspapers from that time period.

She'd been a sophomore when she found her first rumor in an old French History book. A strange blank section on a timeline at the library with a note scrawled in the margin that simply read: June Rebellion

The little note had sparked something in her curiosity, a little question mark that needed to be answered. So she first began to dig and ask around to learn more about this supposed insurrection. There were others among the library staff and history majors in the school that knew about it but so much was speculation and guesswork that there wasn't much to work with. And now here Clare was a year later, making this unanswered question her final research project for her advanced French History course.

Overtime she'd painstakingly managed to narrow down the geography of where it was believed the undefined incidents occurred. And today she'd be going there today to see what there was to find. She didn't think she'd uncover much that more learned minds hadn't been able to deduce so far, but it was worth a shot. Besides, it wasn't a part of Paris she visited often and she figured she'd make a day out of it.

In the end her errand turned out to be a bit of a bust. Everything had been completely remodeled in the intervening centuries. The roads had been widened to accommodate modern technologies and to discourage rebellions and new businesses were put in everywhere she turned. There was now a lovely McDonalds at the heart of it all. All in all, the whole trip was terribly disappointing.

Clare, feeling stymied, decided in order to make up for the failed outing, she'd treat herself to an expensive coffee at a nearby café. It was half past 2 when Clare walked in and was pleased to find the place mostly empty. After ordering, she pulled out Joly's journal to begin reading.

She'd been sitting there a moment or two when a dark haired girl deposited a steaming coffee mug beside her with a sardonic warning, "Remember, steam means hot. Enjoy."

And then she was off again. Clare smirked at the common sense and found her eyes searching for the barista after she'd walked away. She was of small stature but very striking nonetheless, every moment managing to be simultaneously unapologetic and captivating. Clare's eyes followed the girl as she steamed milk, delivered drinks to the other customers scattered throughout the cafe, and whacked her coworker upside the head. She was a gruff young woman but she had a beautiful smile and something about her struck Clare as being familiar, she just couldn't figure out where it was from.

Clare didn't realize she'd been staring at her until the other girl met her gaze, "Can I help you?"

"Sorry," Clare shook her head, and looked away quickly; but the gaze had hit something of a memory even further that Clare redoubled her efforts to place.

That was when a mass of steam erupted from one of the machines causing the girl's coworker- a young man with curly black tousled hair and slight scruff to exclaim, "Evy! Help! I'm being attacked! Call off your beast!"

The thus named Evy went back behind the counter and as she dissipated the steam and chided the young man, "I told you not to call me that!"

Meanwhile the light clicked in Clare's head, "Evelyn."

The girl looked up through the fading steam, with a quizzical brow, "Pardon?"

"Evelyn Thibault from St. Michel primary school?"

Evelyn stared at her for a good minute before she had a similar epiphany, "I'll be damned. You're Clare Favreau." There was another noise and Evelyn held up a finger, "Hang on."

She then proceeded to bang the offending machine before rounded on the retreating coworker in the beanie.

"Hey! Dumbass! You don't need to fill the pitcher all the way with the milk! How many times do I have to tell you that? I swear, Tristan, if you carry on the way you do you're gonna break the damn thing." Clare watched in amusement as the barista shoved the beanie down to nearly cover Tristan's eyes as she passed him to get out from behind the counter. "And I'm taking my ten!"

Evelyn grabbed a muffin on a plate from the bakery display as she passed before sitting down backwards on a straight backed chair across from Clare as she began again as her fingers started to pick apart the muffin with her fingers. "What's that old saying? 'Of all the understaffed, half-decent cafes in Paris, you walk into mine right?"

She had an easy grin as she said it that made Clare feel like they were in on a private joke.

Clare chuckled naturally back, "Something like that."

Evelyn pulled off a decent sized chunk of the blueberry pastry and held it poised at her lips as she asked, "So tell me, what happened to Mademoiselle Sunshine after your parents moved you to the countryside?"

Clare immediately burst into a nostalgic chuckle, "Wow, I haven't heard that nickname probably since the day we moved. Gosh that takes me back." Evelyn smiled appreciatively at bringing back old memories, "Um let's see, after I moved in 3rd grade we lived in Lyon until I graduated secondary school. It was really quiet and not much happened, I basically just spent a lot of time reading really old books and taking care of my mom. Then I moved back here for college. What about you, what have I missed from the exciting world of Evelyn?"

Evelyn took in Clare's information with no comments at what she chose to skim over, before starting herself. "Well my parents got worse than just forgetting to give me lunch money and I basically got a job and moved out as soon as I could. I barely made it through high school living on my own the last year or so but I did it and now I'm using that high school diploma as a nice paper weight while I bust my ass working 30 hours a week here while I take a couple night classes when my schedule permits."

Evelyn spoke casually and honestly, she wasn't the type to flinch away from things that were uncomfortable. Clare smirked at the thought that the girl's spirit certainly hadn't changed, her vocabulary was just a touch more vulgar since grade school.

Clare took the break in conversation as a chance to sip some of her coffee while Evelyn studied her with dark curious eyes. "So your university is probably on the other side of Paris, what brings you into my neck of the woods?"

Clare put the hot cup down gingerly, "Research for my third year final paper. The event that's the focus of my project was supposed to have happened around here and I was hoping to gain some additional information about it but it was a bust unfortunately."

"Are you talking about the June Rebellion?" Ev asked nonchalantly as she primed another muffin chunk to toss in her mouth.

Clare nearly spit out her drink. "You know about it?"

She proceeded to toss and catch the blueberry easily, "Are you kidding? That's nearly all our friend Alexandre and his group talk about."

Clare's eyes widened, it was like she was an immigrant from a distant foreign country that just discovered a pocket of people who spoke her language. She had to learn more. "Who's Alexandre?"

"Oh he's just the kind of ringleader of this kind of political activist group that Tristan introduced me to." She continued to speak so casually that she had no idea that Clare had never met someone not in academia who had heard of the Rebellion before.

"What group is this?" Clare asked trying not to let her excitement bleed through.

Evelyn scrunched her eyes, "Hang on I got this, wait, hey Tristan! What do you guys call yourselves again?"

The beanie-clad head of her ruffled coworker popped up above a coffee bean grinder, with a sigh, "Les Fils des Amis de l'ABC."

"Right! Thanks!" Ev called back, meeting Clare's gaze again, "so very traditional and French. The Sons of the Friends of the ABC. They're good for a laugh and typically fun blokes but they're all crazy about the June Rebellion. I swear the way Alexandre waxes on about those students and how they were on the right track I'd say he's about to burst into poetry but that's more Jasper's thing."

She smiled as if remembering something before cocking her head and looking at Clare as the blonde tried to decide which question to ask next, "You'd probably like them, especially if you're researching the June Rebellion. Oh!" her eyes lit up with a wicked smile, "You actually know one of them."

Now it was Clare's turn to cock her head but this time in confusion, "who?"

"Do you remember Dominic?" Evelyn was full on grinning like the Cheshire Cat now.

Clare scrunched her eyebrows in answer.

Evelyn tried another tack, "You remember the little kid who used to pick you flowers and asked you to be his girlfriend in 1st grade?"

A light bulb went off in Clare's head, "Oh gosh I'd nearly forgotten about Dom." She hesitated, "Is he still-?"

"A huge doof?" Evelyn finished with a grin. "Yeah he is. But he means well. He moved in one of the other guys, Cyril, a few months ago. It appears as though he's graduated past the point of trailing after seven year old girls with bouquets of poison ivy by accident."

Clare laughed fondly at the memory, "I remember that! He had no idea what was wrong with the flowers or why he was itching until they sent him to the Nurse."

Evelyn waved a muffin bit in her direction, "And he wouldn't go until you took the flowers and you did it anyway even though you knew what he had picked and ended up in the nurse's ward with him."

Clare blushed in a way Evelyn couldn't help but categorize as very lady-like as she explained, "I just felt bad about it. He was just trying to be sweet and it's not his fault he didn't know what poison ivy was. Not taking the flowers would've made the whole thing for nothing."

"I bet your mom threw a fit when you came home covered in rashes." Evelyn said.

"My mom was surprisingly calm about the whole thing. She actually laughed when I told her what happened. It was my dad who threw the fit. He wanted to call the school and have a word with Dominic's parents about endangering other kids. My mom managed to calm him down though. She was always good at that." Clare smiled fondly at the memory.

Evelyn assumed a sympathetic face that she didn't pull out very often, "I heard about your mom a few years ago. I'm sorry." An easy moment of silence passed between them before she continued, "How's you dad holding up?"

"He's doing okay," Clare answered with practiced composure, "It was really hard at first with me still being a kid and all but he pulled through. It took him awhile to adjust to the idea of me coming back here for college. He's always been very protective it's just kind of multiplied after Maman died. But he's getting older and realizes that I need to be my own person. Or I managed to convince him of that anyway. It's fine though. I go back and see him when I can. I just felt it was important that I go to school here and figure out how to be on my own."

Clare was surprised at her own admission; these weren't things she typically talked about. It's not that she didn't trust her friends it just felt like something private like her life before and her relationship with her family wasn't something her current acquaintances would care about very much. But Evelyn was different; she was a familiar face that knew Clare back when she was Mademoiselle Sunshine accepting bouquets of poison ivy. And she missed that without even realizing it. Evelyn was comfortable and inviting and Clare discovered she really liked talking to her. And Evelyn just listened without judgment or prying which was extremely refreshing.

When Clare was done Evelyn just nodded as she chewed her food, "I totally get that. Before I left home I was completely different. I think I needed to get away from my parents to find out who I was when I was standing on my own two feet out of my parents' shadow. And it's nice. It's funny though, I never imagined I'd be running around with a group of modern day revolutionaries." She laughed at the thought, "speaking of which, Ris and I get off in a little over an hour and we were gonna meet up with them after. And I think you'd really like them, so would you be interested in tagging along?"

Clare took another sip of her now cooling coffee as she thought about her schedule. It was a Sunday and she had already done her homework. Her plans for the rest of the day had basically consisted of trying some more of her obscure research techniques online to dig up more information and reading Joly's journal. But catching up with Evelyn and meeting more people who actually knew about the June Rebellion suddenly sounded a thousand times more appealing.

"You know what?" Clare began, her mind made up. "I would love to."

"Awesome," Ev beamed as she finished off her muffin. "I've got to get back to work but do you just wanna meet back here around 4?"

Clare looked at her watch and saw it was nearly 3:00 and thought about how long it would take to get back to her apartment and then back again before she said, "I actually think I'm just gonna stay here."

"You sure?" Evelyn asked as she stood up. "It's kind of a slow day so it's gonna be boring."

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine." Clare assured the dark haired girl as she tapped the journal in front of her with a fond smile.

"To each their own," Evelyn replied with a shrug.

With that Clare resumed her reading while Evelyn went back to swat Tristan away from a drink he was about to knock over with his elbow. And twenty minutes later when a new cup of coffee was placed on Clare's table with a wink from Tristan, she thought to herself that she was glad that her geography scouting had been such a bust, as this unassuming little coffee shop was proving far more rewarding.

Author's Note: Glory be, praise be to Jesus. I have been working on this chapter for so long I never thought I would finish with all of the research I had to stop and keep doing in order to get everything just right. I'm still working out kinks in the timeline so those dates are not set in stone and likely to fluctuate as I write more but I wanted to get this chapter out there to see what sort of interest there is for it and to get the ball rolling.

Also please bear in mind that I am a girl born and raised in Texas who has never left the country who is trying to write a story set in France. Please excuse errors, and if you know better, don't be afraid to call me out on my mistake. I'm just doing the best I can with a search engine.

Again I hope the previous incarnations of the characters are all clear. I think Evelyn is fairly obvious as well as Dominic and Alexandre but I hope you caught who Tristan is. I did try. Okay, well this is a work in progress for sure and my baby this summer so I'm trying to focus on it but reviews help like you wouldn't believe.

So please review or message me with feedback! And then hopefully I'll be back soon with more of the barricade boys. Review please!