SPAS- Ah, I understand you. ;) I was only teasing. And here's this tragic chapter for you... I only saved two people so please don't kill me.
Italia- I am as well as one can be when killing off her favorite literary characters. Glad you are still here, although I was only teasing :)
Punchy- *cough* AWESOME GIFTS *cough*. Gently applied candle wax? Awkward nipples? My kind of story!
"Courfeyrac, what is wrong?"
All night, the dandy had been acting off to his mistress. She watched him carefully. He had news, but so did she. And she was to let him speak first, for hers was something that would have bigger impact.
"Éponine, I need to talk to you." He said slowly. She visibly winced. From the moment they met, they'd been on familiar terms with the other. Not even when they were angry did they turn formal, but Courfeyrac was speaking to her as 'vous' in opposition to 'tu'.
"Non." She said, for she knew what he was about to say. And it would ruin what it was that she had to tell him.
"Éponine, we should not see each other anymore." He said the words as if they physically hurt him, and she jerked back. Tears sprang to her eyes; she angrily wiped them away.
"Why?" She managed to choke out. It was just a few weeks ago when they had said 'Je t'aime', and now Éponine's reality seemed more like a nightmare than a dream.
"It is for the best." He said as stiffly as he could manage. In her barely-concealed hysteria, Éponine couldn't see that he was even more hurt than she was.
"Non," She breathed, disagreeing. "You have damned me, Monsieur, and I fear there is no escape."
Éponine was remembering little Cosette whose mother had dropped her off. The poor woman, even without her child, faced scrutiny everywhere she went. Once her bastard was discovered, she was doomed.
Courfeyrac looked away. She took the hint and slowly went to the door, half expecting him to call her back. He didn't do that, but he managed to tell her three words that seemed insignificant at the time.
"Lemarque is dead."
It was June first, 1832.
Éponine watched from the hedges as Marius came to the house on rue Plumet. He looked around wildly, realizing how his love had vanished as if she hadn't ever been there at all. He banged desperately on the doors and the windows, lost without Cosette to guide him.
She thought it highly strange that it was the two of them left alone in their love. Without Cosette at his side, Marius was sure to go to the barricades that she heard Enjolras speaking of. Éponine found herself unable to be with any of her friends from the café, for all of them reminded her of what she and Courfeyrac lost. Even Ceara she couldn't be around due to jealousy for what her friend had found with the leader.
Musichetta was the one by her side for the days between the first and the fifth. For Musichetta was even sadder than Éponine. Both her lovers were off at the barricades to fight, and although she was not left on her own, Éponine had the feeling that she soon would be.
She didn't know if Courfeyrac was at the barricade or not. She told herself that she didn't care.
Watching Marius mourn the woman who hadn't quite left him, Éponine felt moved to not take revenge on the boy who used to be her unrequited love. "Monsieur Marius," She called, stepping out from the hedges. He turned around, surprised only for his face to deflate.
"Oh, it is you, Éponine." He said without tone.
"No need to act so disappointed," She teased half-heartedly. "I've something for you, if you can give something to me."
"Well, alright, what is it?" His lack of interest was almost comical, for Éponine knew how he would react once he knew what it was that she had for him.
"A letter from your darling Cosette, of course." She handed him the neatly folded parchment, which he leapt to snatch from her hands.
"Oh, Éponine, thank you!" He cried, kissing the letter. "What can I give you?"
She smiled sadly. "May I ask for two things, Monsieur? You never did pay me for taking you to meet your love in the first place."
"How much do you want?" He asked, hurriedly. "I've only twenty francs on my person, but I'd willingly give you more…"
"It is information that I want," She said, "And money that I need."
"Oh." Marius seemed to know what information she wanted, for understanding dawned on his face. "You wish to ask after Courfeyrac."
"Oui." She said in the affirmative, sitting sadly on the bench where Marius and Cosette had spent many evenings in each other's company.
"Well, he is doing as well as expected." Marius said as he handed her the twenty francs.
"Sleeping with whatever moves, you mean?" Éponine asked bitterly. When she said that, Marius seemed appalled and nothing less than shocked.
"Of course not! He has been drinking himself nearly to death every night, and as soon as the hangover is gone he drinks some more! How else does a man act when a woman has broken his heart?" Marius seemed confused and suddenly Éponine knew why Courfeyrac hurt her.
"But, Monsieur Marius, he left me." She said, slowly. Then she looked down at her hard stomach and sighed. "He left us."
Courfeyrac watched dumbly as Enjolras and Combeferre did their best to send away men who had families to support. Marius came and stood beside him.
"So you decided to join with us after all, mon ami." Courfeyrac said, conversationally. Marius nodded, a grim smile on his lips.
"I support what you did, by the way. With Éponine." Marius said. Courfeyrac made a nonsensical noise into the bottle that was pressed to his lips. "Knowing her fearlessness-"
"You know nothing of her." Courfeyrac shot back, a little more meanly than was required.
"She would have tried to join you at the barricades." Marius finished. His friend sighed.
"Yes, indeed. It is true. I don't think I could bear seeing her die before I do. I'd rather wait for her in the afterlife, however long it takes her to come there." Courfeyrac said.
"Why did you not stay with her? You could have stayed alive and saved two broken hearts." Marius felt slightly baffled at his friend's decision.
"I have a duty to my country." Courfeyrac took another swig from his bottle. Seeing this motion out of the corner of his eye, Enjolras frowned in their direction. "My duty to love comes second, same with Enjolras. If love came first, he would be out looking for Ceara."
"Who?" Marius asked. Courfeyrac shot him a lopsided grin.
"Your replacement. An Irish lass who stole our leader's heart, although he won't admit it out loud." Courfeyrac chuckled. "She disappeared a few days ago. She took it upon herself to do what I did to Éponine. She is distancing herself so that our deaths won't hurt as much."
"But this Ceara is better off, non? I mean she only has to fend for herself." Marius said. Courfeyrac's eyebrows turned in at this, although he said nothing. In their silence, Marius noticed Enjolras and Combeferre's lack of success in convincing some to leave, so he spoke up. "Enjolras and Combeferre are right. No unnecessary sacrifice. I join them, and you must hurry… There are some among you who have families, mothers, sisters, wives. You must leave the ranks."
Attention was now turned to the barricade's savior. There were some shuffling feet, and Enjolras tiredly said to Courfeyrac, "Put the bottle down."
The irony was great. Grantaire was sat as a sniper in the top floor of the Corinth and sober. And Courfeyrac, the efficient center, was the one with a bottle in his hand.
Enjolras's weary statement earned a few chuckles from the scattered nine of Les Amis de l'ABC. Or, seven since Jehan and Bahorel had both met their end.
"Courfeyrac, you should go." Marius said, a sudden sternness in his voice. "I told Éponine to rest with Mesdemoiselles Musichetta and Eglantine at Joly and Bossuet's flat. Go to her."
"But I must fight, I have made this commitment." Courfeyrac argued. Enjolras stepped to the two of them. Upon first glance he appeared cool and collected. However, in the midst of a broken heart, both Courfeyrac and Marius could see that Enjolras's heart was in a similar state.
"You have made an equal commitment to that bottle you hold. Go, you are useless here in your inebriated state." Enjolras ordered. Courfeyrac remained defiant.
"Please." Combeferre's quiet plea was what convinced him. Courfeyrac stepped towards the pile of uniforms, ready to don one and escape. Spurned by the dandy's decision, some other men began to speak among themselves, convincing their friends to leave as well.
Alas, once the crowd fell silent, five men stood at the ready to leave. There were only four uniforms.
"I shall stay, then. The fates have decreed it." Said Courfeyrac, stepping away.
Marius, the clueless boy that he was, spoke up in desperation. "But what of your child?"
The barricade fell silent as all looked to Courfeyrac, who had paled. The bottle fell from his hands and crashed into shattered pieces of glass on the ground.
"She is pregnant?" He asked, although he knew the answer thanks to Marius. "What have I done?"
"You chose your motherland once," Feuilly answered. "She appreciates it. But do not make the same mistake twice."
"But there are only four uniforms," Courfeyrac seemed in despair, "And I cannot take a disguise from one of these honest men."
"I shall stay." Said an older man. "My son can support my wife and daughters. He is a big boy."
Touched by the man's sacrifice, Courfeyrac could only shake his head. A boy, barely older than Éponine stepped back. "My sisters would fare better in an orphanage than with me."
"Non, citizen," Courfeyrac insisted. "You must leave, please-"
"I can stay." A boy only two years older than young Gavroche said. He is a character we have met, one who did not know that the general leading him was his sister's lover. "I have no one."
"Boy, you are not even fifteen years of age." Courfeyrac placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Please, you can leave and live your life and love."
"I shall stay, my bride knows that France comes first."
"Non, mes garçons ." A rumbling voice said. A fifth uniform fell to the pile as if from heaven. "You all shall go."
Jean Valjean had just entered the barricade.
Gavroche came to the flat in the dark hours of morning. None of the three women had been able to sleep, all thinking of their respective others who were at the barricades. Éponine walked the length of the main room many times. Eglantine could not complain; she was too overtaken by silent sobs. She was usually so cheerful, but her heart had physically hurt several hours prior, and she was certain that it was a sign that Bahorel had died.
Musichetta busied herself by organizing her many piles of sheet music by different categories. Her delicate hands were cut in many places from the papers' rough edges.
When the knock came on the door, all three rushed the entryway, startling little Gavroche into backing into the hallway. "Jesus," he said, "You'd think there was a hoarde of elephants here instead of ladies!"
"Gavroche," Breathed Éponine, "what are you doing here?"
"Among other things, I came to yell at my sister for not telling me that I'm gonna be an uncle." Gavroche smiled and put a hand on his sister's stomach. Musichetta and Eglantine looked to Éponine in shock, and she nodded mutely.
"Does Courfeyrac know?" She asked. Gavroche answered in the affirmative.
"He's a pathetic sight, you know. He's drinking himself into a stupor over you. If that's love then I don't wanna be in it." He shuddered and Éponine managed a dull laugh. "Anyway, I brought two things and news from the barricade."
He handed a letter to Musichetta, her name written in Joly's immaculate handwriting. He gave Grantaire's drawing to Éponine before whispering in her ear. "He's coming for you. Enjolras and Marius made him."
Then the twelve year old moved to the blond woman, who stood silently. Her tears subsided to silent resignation. She knew what he was to tell her. Gavroche motioned for Eglantine to bend at his level, which she did. He took her gloved hand in his and said in a voice too old for someone so young, "Bahorel and Prouvaire are dead."
Eglantine nodded quietly. She looked at a sympathetic Musichetta and Éponine with dull eyes. "I am going to my home now. I have nothing to wait for."
She left gracefully and ladylike, but once she was in the hallway the three in the room could hear her heart-wrenching sobs.
"Gavroche, stay here with us, please." Éponine begged, holding her brother's shoulders. "Whatever will my child do without her uncle's wise guidance?"
"That is a good point." He mused. Then he turned to the one who knew the flat the most. "Do you have any food?"
Musichetta looked up from Joly's letter and nodded, indicating in the general direction of the kitchen.
"Okay, then. I'll stay."
The morgue was crowded with dead bodies and mourners. Éponine felt Marius's twenty francs jingling in her bodice, and she held her stomach gently. She could hear people murmuring about the sadness of the loss on both sides.
"So many good, young soldiers." Said one woman.
"I hear there was a girl no older than a child with the revolutionaries. The battlefield is no place for a woman!" Said a kindly old man as he held the cold hand of his son-in-law, an honest workman.
Éponine perused the bodies of the rebels, but she found no sign of her beloved. However, she saw a man who bore Courfeyrac's bone structure. He was bending over a body wearing a National Guardsman's uniform.
No. It couldn't be.
She pushed through the crowd and made it to where Madame and Monsieur de Courfeyrac were looking at their son. She said nothing to the mourning parents, simply covering her face with both her hands.
Courfeyrac was beautiful in death. His pale face was peaceful and they put his eyelids over his blank green eyes so that he appeared to be merely sleeping. The sight elicited a muffled cry from Éponine, drawing the couple's attention to the young woman.
She had borrowed a gown that used to belong to one of Courfeyrac's old mistresses (she left it in the flat, in pointless hope that she and Courfeyrac would last). It fit her quite wonderfully, for the previous owner had been petite. Although the skirt came a little short on Éponine's ankles, it otherwise looked very decent. At Musichetta's garret, she'd washed her face and hair. She looked less like a cretin and more like a grisette.
Madame de Courfeyrac saw her teary eyes and stood and embraced her in that kind way that mothers can. After putting her arms around Éponine, she felt the familiar hardness in the girl's stomach. The woman, instead of being scandalized, expected no less from her late son and instead acted as if Éponine were her daughter.
Éponine may have lost the father to her child, but she was not alone. Not until cholera struck the town in northern France where the de Courfeyracs lived.
Until then, she would survive.
Well, there's the answer to the Madame Montparnasse thing...
Next chapter you find out what happens to the whole Enjolras/Ceara development. No drawing, unfortunately, but there is another document that will outline the chapter.
DUBHGHLAS made an appearance at the barricades! Is it bad that I fangirled over my own OC's presence?
One more chapter and then an epilogue :( I will miss this story! And the reviewers, our strange odd family *insert a broken heart icon here*