Across Paris, people wake in wonder.
Accustomed to dreary awakenings with morning dew their only companions, they find a moment of respite in regarding the curious occurrence.
In shoes, under hats, folded in between the curled hands of beggars – sous, centimes, decimes and even francs appear.
The most stubborn – those who would not accept the least bit of charity – find themselves unable to reject a coin or paper note, but rather that they now possess shoes a shade sturdier, a blanket a little warmer, or perhaps that their luck has increased to that they stumble over a coin where there is normally only bare street.
Monsieur Mabeuf not only finds his rhododendrons watered, but a note just outside his door, weighed down by a few coins and reading in rough handwriting: 'The gardens look very pretty this year, Monsieur.'
Azelma Thénardier dreams for a little while of sun-lit fields, and wakes to a coin pressed into her palm, lavender cloth wound loosely around her arm, and a soft kiss that is hours lost inside the tangles of her hair.
Across the city, when the brilliance of a scarlet sunrise has faded to soft blues and grays, an urchin flips a coin in the air, measuring its weight before tucking it into a pocket. "Something for you, something for me," he murmurs, and turns to call the attention of two little gamins who are splashing each other on the edge of a fountain, and a taller gamine with rags clutched to her chest.
The urchin readjusts his cap. "Come on, then, let's get something to eat."
Enjolras wakes in confusion.
It takes him a moment to remember that this is not his ship, and that he has, once again, fallen asleep with pen in hand. (His candle had the decency not to tip over and start a new fire, or to drip wax on the papers scattered across the desk.)
It's only when voices float under his door – "ir's too dry." "It's better'n most you'll find." – that he realized what has jolted him into sudden awareness.
There should not be voices in his room.
He is halfway to the door with a pistol in his hand when he realizes that he recognizes one of the voices as that of the Jondrette recently revealed as a Thénardier, and, while this is not the most reassuring revelation – he still has little evidence that any of what she says is true, no matter how earnest she seemed – the conversation seems fairly harmless.
He sets down the pistol but remains wary as he steps out.
What he sees gives him pause.
The front door is wide open, and sunlight streams in through the gap.
Éponine – for Éponine it is – seems half-out of costume upon the ruined couch, with her hair falling from her hat and her legs tucked beneath her dress. She wiggles his fingers at him. "Morning, Monsieur," she greets, and resumes munching on a pastry.
Two little boys – neither could be any older than ten – occupy a corner, with the younger curled sleepily up into the older. He notes that their gazes immediately dart to the boy who is sitting on the arm of the couch.
Enjolras spends so much time in observing each of these details that he does not immediately recognize when her attention turns away from the conversation or the pastry until it is long since devoured.
When he looks, Éponine is watching him, her chin resting on her fist and a small smile tugging up the corner of her lips.
"I assume there is a reason for this intrusion, mademoiselle?" It comes out perhaps more brusque than intended, but her smile only widens.
"If you want to reach the people, you are going to have to involve the people." She inclines her head towards the one close to her. "Gavroche helped."
Gavroche – the name is familiar. In his sleep-fogged mind it takes a moment to place it, but then he remembers – of course, the brother she has spoken of.
There is little physical resemblance between them beyond a general air of poor health that hangs about them faintly, but they carry themselves with the same self-assured sense.
"You know, of course," she continues, brushing powder-stained fingers off on her dirty dress, "your grand revolution will need to move beyond these streets. Paris isn't a bad start, though."
She is trying to goad him into something.
He shakes his head as if to himself and crosses the room, beginning to rummage through the papers scattered about here. Didn't he leave them in better condition? Perhaps not.
"What are you doing?" Her voice floats strangely from this angle.
"Looking for something." His answer is vague as he rifles through the stacks. He knows he had that speech here, now where—? Ah, there it is.
He turns back then, just in time to see the youngest dart over to whisper something into Gavroche's ear; the gamin nods and touches two fingers to his hat and, like that, they are slipping away.
He holds her gaze as the gamins disappear. She is the first to react, unbending her legs from beneath her and asking, simply, "why?"
"To speak with Joly." Actually, he cannot quite recall if this answer is sufficient for her question. His mind is already racing with plans and things to say.
"Oh."
Éponine says nothing more, but trails along beside him. Though silent as she follows out the door, once they have takes only a few steps beyond, she speaks.
"I think you'd be pleased, monsieur. We've run your errands for you, and I think some may benefit yet."
But he does not address this, instead asking, "so why does this matter to you, mademoiselle? Why run my errands, after all?"
He sees her eyeing him with a mouth pinched shut.
"Dunno," she says finally. "Maybe all your pretty words got to me."
This cannot be all, and she seems to know that he recognizes this, for she speaks again.
"You know," she says, spinning on her heel so that she now is walking backwards, "one mention of Thénardier to the police and that's the end of that. I've no reason to help them along in their search, so there's no cause to think I'd go back on you. Unless you think the bad fortune from having a woman aboard would sink your pretty ship faster than cannons?"
Éponine wears her own distrust plain across her face, looking ready to bolt at any second.
She avoids the gazes of those they pass and steps aside to walk in shadows when she can; she seems now, in no small part, to be what they are fighting for, showing the fearful tendencies she has learned, that they are trying so hard to prevent
"I think, if Bossuet has not brought her down…" Enjolras watches her face carefully to see the effect his words have, "then taking on only one certainly won't hurt."
She smiles, and it is like the sun.
A/N: According to one source I found, the price Fantine sold her hair for – 10 francs – would be equivalent to approximately $35 USD, currently.
(Wow gosh I had so much trouble with this one sorry)