She didn't know what to do. All around her, there were yells and curses. Some from full-grown men, others from children and women. There were clanks as bayonettes met bared wood. Gunshots sounded in the tight space and were louder than anything should have the right to be.

Everything smelled of gunpowder and of blood. Éponine felt a tightening of nerves in her stomach—this was a terrible idea… why was she here again?

Someone tumbled to the ground beside her. She looked over and saw Grantaire dressed in strange clothes. "Grantaire!" She yelled, shocked. He didn't seem to hear her, though, and instead reached for a bottle. He popped the cork off of the wine and lay on the floor in the midst of the battle, guzzling alcohol.

Of course, Éponine thought, and stepped over him to get a better look at what was unfolding. Something in her stomach dropped when she saw Gavroche—also dressed funnily—cornered by a scary-looking man with a big gun. Nearby, something similar was happening to Courfeyrac, who seemed more concerned with Gavroche's predicament than his own.

Éponine started towards the trapped pair, only for two consecutive shots to ring out. Gavroche and Courfeyrac's captors fell to the ground. Holding a pistol with a steady hand was Marius, his hair long and tied back with a ribbon.

The fight seemed to slowly move outside of the room where they were all trapped, and suddenly Éponine found herself in front of a tavern, surrounded on all sides by piles of broken furniture almost as tall as the buildings around them. Up ahead, the stars were clearer than she had ever seen them.

More men in uniform were coming down the mountain of wood, and Éponine realized with despair that whatever side she was on—she and her friends—, it was the losing side. Nearby, a familiar face froze her for a good moment.

Enjolras was standing atop what seemed to be a dismembered coffin. His hair was long, nearly to his shoulders, and messy. His dirty top was unbuttoned half-way down his chest, and a blood-red vest hung loosely on his body. Sweat made trails in the grime that coated his face, and his blue eyes were dangerously flashing. He was… beautiful.

Marius pushed past her, holding something in his hands. Éponine's heart stopped when she saw that he was holding a barrel of gunpowder and a torch. He was nearing the dangerously flammable barricade—and Enjolras.

"Marius!" she cried. Once again, no one seemed to hear her. "What the hell are you doing?"

When he still didn't turn, she followed him. Behind her, she heard Gavroche saying the same things she did, and he was just as ignored as she was. Marius turned to look behind him for a second, and in that moment Éponine's eyes caught onto a gun pointed straight at him.

"No!" she yelled, thinking of all of her friends who were doomed to die if that torch met the barrel of gunpowder. She reached for the gun, managing to grab it just as it went off. Unfortunately, the barrel turned from Marius to Éponine. Even with her hand covering the gun, the bullet shot through her skin and buried itself in her chest.

Overwhelmed with pain, she tumbled from the furniture mountain and to the cobblestones. A hat that she didn't realize she'd been wearing fell from her head and allowed her hair to gather in her blood as she came to settle on the ground. From far away, she heard Marius's words.

"Step back or I'll blow the barricade!"

"Blow it up and take yourself with it?"

"And myself with it."

Éponine blinked blearily, looking up into a pair of concerned, blue eyes that widened in recognition—

"NO!"

The shout woke her with a start. Éponine's hands did a quick examination of her chest and her palm. Upon finding no bullet holes or blood, she sat up panting. The dream felt so real—more like a memory than a nightmare.

Another pained noise came from the room next door. Concerned, Éponine stood away from her bed and padded to where the jack-and-jill bathroom led to Enjolras's room. She crossed into his little, messy bedroom and saw a sleeping Enjolras.

He was not resting, though. He was twisted in his covers, half exposed in the moonlight that came through his window and half buried by a red blanket. What skin was exposed gleamed with sweat. A terrible expression twisted his face, and his hands were clutched into fists.

Éponine flipped the light switch on and crossed to his bed, gingerly sitting beside his stirring form so as to not hurt him.

"Enjolras," she gently tapped him. He didn't acknowledge her. "Enjolras!" she was slightly more insistent, shaking his shoulders. This time his eyes creaked open, glossy with fever and sleep. Finally, he moaned something that could pass for her name.

"Éponine?" he said a bit more clearly.

"You were having a nightmare," she told him. "You woke me up."

"Sorry," Enjolras's voice was thick with sleep, and she tried to ignore what it did to her heart. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, allowing the blankets to completely fall away from his body and reveal his rumpled undershirt. "You can go back to sleep now."

"Enjolras, you're bleeding!" Éponine cried. Sure enough, there were spots of blood dotting his shirt. He looked down and sighed.

"It's nothing, I must have just—"

"It's not nothing, you're seriously hurt!" Éponine huffed and turned on her heel. Cursing Enjolras the entire time, she rummaged in the bathroom cabinet until she came up with a few band-aids and some disinfectant. When she came back into his bedroom, Enjolras looked up at her from under long, blond eyelashes.

His hair was just as messy as it had been in her dream, and now that she came to think of it, his bedcovers were the same color as the vest he'd been wearing. "Take off your shirt," she managed to say.

Enjolras lifted an eyebrow, but did as she said, trying to hide his winces. She inhaled sharply at the bruises and cuts that littered the chest that, the week before, had been flawless. He was still in shape—amazingly so, she might add—but this time he was also a pitiful sight.

She got to work, gently mopping up the blood with a towel soaked in disinfectant and re-bandaging the worse areas. She avoided his eyes and did not speak, allowing the silence to fall over them. Once she was done with his chest, she climbed on top of his bed to get to his back, which was just as bad (if not worse).

As she cleaned the planes of his back, the question escaped Éponine, "Why didn't you tell me about the protest?"

"I didn't want you to come," his answer was short and cut, enough that Éponine's hand stopped for a moment.

"Well, thanks for making me feel wanted," she grumbled, trying to hide her genuine hurt behind sarcasm. However, almost as soon as she said it, Enjolras's hand snatched her wrist and he was twisted to look at her.

"I couldn't stand the thought of you getting hurt," his voice was husky, and his breath tickled her face. She blinked slowly. "Why did you kiss Marius?"

"Because… I—"

"You love him," Enjolras's voice was bitter and he released her to turn around again. She could see his back expand when he sighed.

"No," she answered suddenly, breathlessly. "I had to make sure that I didn't imagine…" she trailed off. Enjolras completely froze, evidentially waiting for her to finish speaking. "That I didn't imagine what I felt when…."

"When?"

"When we kissed," it escaped her in a rush of air, and it was as if a weight was lifted away from her shoulders. Suddenly realizing that, in a way, she said something she shouldn't have, Éponine tried to change the subject. "So, what was your nightmare about?"

Enjolras turned towards her and did not miss a beat, "You getting shot," his voice was just as soft as hers, but the words he said made Éponine stop and remember her own dream. What are the odds…? "What did you feel—"

She could not help herself anymore. Éponine hurriedly pressed her lips to his, catching him with his mouth ever so slightly open. When she tried to pull away, Enjolras's hand snaked to cup her face and held her to him. Briefly, he broke their innocent kiss apart to press their foreheads together. His eyes burned into hers.

"Me too," and he kissed her again. She forgot about the strangeness of their nightmares and happily lost herself in him.

Enjolras's mother found them in the morning, mostly clothed (but for Enjolras's lack of a shirt) and tangled together. She smiled to herself and turned off Enjolras's alarm, figuring that it wouldn't hurt to let them sleep and skip school one day.