Eponine walked out of Montparnasse's room and closed the door behind her calmly before running into the street and into the nearest alley that she could find. A broken board lay on the ground, slightly splintered and warped, discolored from the rain. She picked it up and ran is contoured grain under her hands trying to suppress the darkness that she felt growing inside her until she couldn't any longer. She gripped it at its base and smashed it against the brick wall again and again until it was nothing but a splintered nub in her fists. She heard a disconcerted sound and movement coming from inside the brick building and dropped the wood where she stood and ran off into the road once more.

She headed for Place de la Bastille and hoped that she would find Gavroche at the elephant. She had told him to go there, make it his new home. But it had been nearly a week since he came and found her that night that everything had changed. She had promised him that she would come and find him as soon as she could, it had just been longer than she had planned. She prayed that he would be there waiting for her, that Montparnasse did not have a score to settle with anyone else she cared about.

She slowly picked up her pace as her thoughts ate away at her; as the Parisian streets slowly began to widen she heard a familiar voice calling to her.

"Eponine," Courfeyrac called. Eponine walked faster still, she had things to do and she wasn't going to let anyone slow her down. And she didn't want to see Courfeyrac right now.

"Eponine." She heard again, the voice closer this time, "Eponine I know you can hear me." Courfeyrac called again.

Eponine took a deep breath before turning around to see Courfeyrac jogging up to her with another young man trailing not too far behind him.

"Eponine, it's been a while since I've seen you." Eponine just shrugged. "Eponine this is my friend Enjolras."

The young man nodded at Eponine as she replied, "Nice to meet you Monsieur," while looking at the ground.

"Eponine, is everything all right?" Courfeyrac asked, looking concerned.

"It is fine Monsieur." Eponine replied.

"Since when do you call be Monsieur?" Eponine just shrugged again and continued to look at the ground, "Gavroche told me that you had been hurt, I wanted to help but he wouldn't tell me where you were."

"I'm fine, I assure you but I really must be going."

"Of course, it was nice to see you." Eponine nodded to him and started to walk away when she heard Courfeyrac speak again, "I'm sorry about Tyce, I miss him too."

"What?" Eponine asked as she turned around to face Courfeyrac and his friend again.

"I heard about Tyce, I miss him too."

"I don't need your pity." Eponine responded.

"Pity? I didn't mean anything by that…I just he meant a lot to me, and I know you two were close…"

"You know nothing." Eponine interrupted him with a strength that she didn't know she was capable of, fueled by the anger and disgust of the events of the past week.

"What?" Courfeyrac asked confused.

"You think you know of our lives, you think you knew Tyce, you knew we were close, but you don't know why."

"Then tell me." Courfeyrac responded patiently.

"You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

"No, because you wouldn't…you couldn't. You can't understand what it is like to fear when you know love, to understand what it is like to never feel safe, to have to change…to do things, just so you can live and eat. We are forced to do things no one should have to do, to give up parts of ourselves. You think you can just come around and be our friend, to understand our lives. You can't understand. Your life is easy you are given food, education, a future and dignity. Me and Tyce had to fight for such things, and others we could never dream of having. You told me once that you liked Tyce's games…the boys loved his stories. But that is because we have to come up with games and stories, because we are nothing Monsieur and those bits of fun give our soul something…so don't tell me you understand, because you don't."

The minute Eponine finished speaking she looked up at Courfeyrac as a tear rolled down his face. Enjolras stood behind him, stepped back with a look of terror, confusion and inspiration mixed in a seemingly impossible combination.

"You're not nothing." Was all the Courfeyrac could say.

"I must be off to see Gavroche." Eponine said as she turned around, instantly regretting the words that she had spued at Courfeyrac.

When she arrived at the elephant at Place de la Bastille she saw a blue scrap of fabric peeking out of a hole near the base of one of the elephant's legs and peaked her head in before hearing a muffled voice, "What are you looking for?" Eponine ducked out of the elephant, nearly hitting her head, and turned around to see Gavroche facing her, standing in a defensive pose.

"Eponine!" she heard her brother call.

"Hi Gavroche." She responded as Gavroche ran up to hug her.

"I thought you were dead."

"I'm sorry Gavroche…"

"No, you said you would come and find me, and then you didn't."

"But I did."

"And for four days you let me think that you were dead, that whoever had gotten Tyce had found you."

Eponine closed her eyes and forced the thought of Montparnasse out her mind before replying, "but he didn't and he won't, and he don't find you either. You don't know who it was do you Gavroche?"

"No but if I find out I'll…"

"You'll do nothing, and you won't look for him Gavroche, no good can come of that."

"But what if he comes looking for me, or one of the boys, don't we need to protect ourselves?"

"Do you know why he came after Tyce?" Eponine asked Gavroche.

"No, all Tyce said was that he had done something to upset a very bad and angry man and he had to take care of it, make sure it was all over."

"It is all over Gavroche, you just need to leave it be, now are you going to show me your new home?"

"Oh yeah!" Gavroche said, and through the excitement Eponine could see glimses of her old brother peeking through, the innocent boy who didn't worry about men coming for him or his sister, or for protecting boys who couldn't look out for themselves.

"Well you found the entrance" Gavroche said as he walked back to the hole in the elephant's leg. "You just need to come in here and climb up."

"Climb up?" Eponine asked.

"Come on you'll see." Gavroche disappeared into the leg and as Eponine followed him she saw a make shift ladder leading to an opening overhead. She looked at the notches suspiciously before Gavroche called down again, "it's safe I promise." Eponine climbed up into a large opening that Eponine assumed was the elephant's body. The cavern was dim, small patches of light slashed on the walls and floor from holes in the body. Amongst the wooden frame there were blankets scattered in small clumps that looked almost like nests.

"How many people live here with you Gavroche?"

"Four, five including me, I ran into some of the little ones after…well you know, and they haven't seemed to leave me since."

"So you're the new leader?"

"Yeah I guess so, but come on you haven't seen the best part yet" Eponine looked up at Gavroche as he pulled himself through a small hole in the ceiling of the body and as Eponine followed in she saw that there was another cavern.

"How big is this thing?" she asked.

"Bigger than I thought, but real elephants aren't this big, I asked Courfeyrac and he showed me a picture of one, come on we are almost there."

"Courfeyrac comes here?" Eponine asked as she followed Gavroche through another hole and onto a slated wood floor at the base of a ladder which she could see Gavroche already ascending.

"Sometimes" Gavroche called down to her, "I saw him by Chiot de Combat after I saw you and I told him were I was moving, he visits sometimes, is it important?" he asked.

"No not really." Eponine responded and she reached the top of the ladder and yet another platform. She stood up and stretched, blinded from the light which now poured down upon her. The plaster of the elephant, or rather the column bisecting the elephant only came to her knees, as she looked around she could see what seemed like all of Paris stretching out before her. "Wow" was all she could say.

"You can also get out through the head, but that takes more maneuvering, so I thought I would show you this."

"No, Gavroche this is…a great place for you."

"My Paris," was all the Gavroche said in a satisfied tone.

"Yes, your Paris." Eponine smiled down at her brother.

"Eponine?"

"Yes Gavroche?"

"What do you dream of?"

Eponine just laughed, "what?"

"What do you dream of?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Tyce said it was always important to remember what you dreamed of, whenever things got bad. He told us to think of what kind of life we wanted for ourselves."

"And what is your dream?" she asked Gavroche.

"To be King of Paris of course." Gavroche replied, waving his arms about the Paris that stretched out in front of them.

"Naturally." Eponine responded.

"So what is yours?" Gavroche asked again as he climbed down the ladder and back into the belly of the beast.

"I don't know." Was all that Eponine said.

"But in your life you don't want anything?"

"I've got you isn't that enough?"

"And you don't want anything else?" Gavroche teased her.

"I suppose." Eponine responded, her words drifting off, "it would be nice to have something, someone…different."

"Different?" Gavroche asked.

"Safe, and kind, who knew nothing of this life, my life; I would be able to start things new, you would be there too of course, we could live in one of those big houses and you could go to school."

"Someone like Courfeyrac?" Gavroche asked.

"No" Eponine responded quickly, "Courfeyrac is like a brother."

"But I'm your brother."

"I said like…but yes I suppose someone like Courfeyrac, but someone who doesn't know of the things that have happened so that things could be new again, be different." Eponine repeated again smiling, Gavroche seemed troubled by this.

"But Tyce says…said that the things that happen to us make us who we are and that we shouldn't forget them."

"Tyce was smart, but there are some things..." Eponine trailed off and Gavroche looked at her. "To the King of Paris," Eponine said after a moment as she raised an imaginary glass.

"To new things," Gavroche replied with a grin.