A/N: I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has commented. I really sincerely appreciate every kind word you have said about my story, and I hope you know how much it means to me! The reason I keep writing is not just for myself now, but because of those who enjoy this. I hope I didn't disappoint this chapter, the interaction between these two is about to finally (and permanently) take off! :-)

CHAPTER EIGHT | TWO HALVES

Enjolras' apartment was silent on its own, but the distant echo of Chants de Noel trickled in through the less-than-soundproof walls. Beside, above, and beneath his apartment, Christmas Eve parties boomed with people walking, laughing, talking, and being generally merry.

Truth be told, it was a little much for someone who hadn't so much as their cat for company – and Petit, as Enjolras had so cleverly named him, was off somewhere hiding from all of the unusual noise.

He was trying to read but wasn't getting very far due to his current circumstances.

It was Christmas Eve and at least he had the next day off – everyone did. The expendables did, anyway, and since Enjolras had not yet established himself at work as well as he had hoped, he fell into that category. But this was still just his beginning; writing a story here and a story there was worth it to him, and for the first time in a long time, he felt like his life was moving in a positive direction.

That is, if he could forget about Les Amis long enough.

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With heartbeats thumping out of her chest, Éponine was certain she would be heard coming a block down the road. Her throat felt swollen with a choked-back breath, which she reached up to grip with one shaky hand. Two brown eyes darted beneath her messy hair, scouring the streets for any sign of movement on the still, predictably quiet road. There was none: the nighttime in this part of town was dead.

Her footsteps were quiet and well-chosen as she started for the back door. Lights were on inside the house, but they were always left on to deter anyone from trying to loot them while they were away. She was lucky, choosing to drop by at the right time to avoid any sort of confrontation with them. It was nearly eleven o'clock, and it was likely that they were out and about in Paris, doing what they did best in the busy, crowded darkness: thieving. The slip of a hand in an unsuspecting woman's purse could feed them for a week, and the later at night they did their business, the easier it was to go undetected.

She pulled a bobby pin from her hair and began work picking the locked back door. It didn't take her long because she'd picked the locks in their house so many times she could sense what movements would bring about the familiar click. After a minute, the lock was released and she almost smiled before quietly entering the dank, messy house.

The first thing she did was check the refrigerator, in search of something to soothe her aching belly. There was a tub of cheap margarine that was halfway gone, the ends of two loaves of bread, and a rotten tomato near the back. These were all found amongst a handful of crumbs that scattered the shelves.

She grabbed the bread and butter and made two sandwiches, applying the spread with haste before wolfing them down. When she was finished, she was still hungry, but she was satisfied enough to forget about food and grab a few things.

A pair of pants – dirty, but useable; three shirts – remarkably clean; a pair of mismatched socks; her trusted penny loafers; the necklace her father gave her as a child that she had never pawned. She threw it all in a brown paper bag and rolled the top down, her forehead creasing in confusion as she paused to think.

It hit her all at once like a swing to the face, which made her nearly stumble backward. She was dizzy but she didn't feel sick – she just felt afraid.

You can't leave forever, you know. Her innermost fears were brought to light as she breathed slowly in and out, clamping her eyes shut tight. And, even if it's only temporary, where will you go?

But she already knew where she was going.

Before she had packed, before she had left work that night to return home, before she fell asleep in the alleyway on her own the night before... God willing, Éponine knew exactly where she was going.

As she headed out through the back door once again, her hand found the crumpled business card in her pocket.

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The pot of coffee on Enjolras' countertop had just finished brewing when the phone began to ring, and at once he was torn: should he answer it, or should he grab a well-awaited cup of caffeine? The temptation was strong, but he knew deep down that as much as he hated the phone, he paid the bills for a reason.

He set his book down on the table – Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut – and started across the room toward the small table on which the phone sat. It was beige and clunky, and the sound of its incessant ringing was like fingernails on a chalkboard. Without a second thought, he lifted the phone to his ear, careful to watch the chord that attached it to the base, and stared sightlessly out the dark, frosted windowpane.

"Bonsoir," he answered.

There was a brief silence that took him off-guard, but he steadied himself when he heard a cough on the other line. At least someone was there, rather than the misdial-and-hangup he usually got.

"How formal," came the voice on the other end. It was distinctly feminine, with some sort of brandished undertone that only came through years of smoking cigarettes or screaming at the top of one's lungs. It was sarcastic, lacking any sense of real humor or light-heartedness and somehow felt hardened. Guarded.

Enjolras thought at once that his voice must sound much the same.

"Who is this?" he snapped, averting his eyes from the window and focusing them on the panels of hardwood floor across the room.

Whoever it was, they cleared their throat and waited a moment before responding. "It's – oh, Christ. It's me, girl from the factory. One you gave your card to, said to call you if-"

"Éponine," he said, cutting her off abruptly.

Suddenly, he stopped. How did I remember her name? This both confused and startled him all at once.

The smirk in her voice, strange as it was, was distinctly audible. "Yeah, it's me." Pause. "And you're Enjolras, that biloute* who said he'd take me up on a second interview if I ever called."

"That was a little insulting," he straightened.

"Well, Monsieur, it might do you some good to be insulted every once in a while."

He rolled his eyes, although she couldn't see it, and thought of how odd this all seemed. "I thought you had ripped it up."

"Ripped what up?"

It was his turn to smirk. "The card."

"Oh, that. I did rip it up," she laughed, "no mistake about that. I had to show you how mad I was."

"Mad at me," he mused aloud, trying very hard to remember the stairwell and the look on her face as she flung the two halves of the business card to the floor. "You certainly were."

Éponine scoffed. "And I had every right to be." Briefly, she paused. "So? Are you going to come get me or not?"

At once, the man was at a loss for words. He opened his mouth, lifted his eyes as though she were standing right there in front of him, but couldn't speak. Not even to the empty air.

When she didn't immediately receive an answer, which had simply come about from how unprepared he was at her starkness, Éponine began to second-guess herself and her decision to call him entirely. Who was she to him but a filthy factory worker who couldn't control herself the first go around? She didn't deserve a second shot – even if that had been her motivation for calling him, which it wasn't.

But Enjolras didn't need to know that. Not yet, anyway.

"I mean," she started again, speaking very quickly, "if you're busy tonight I understand – Christmas and all... But I can't do it any other time, so if you really want an interview you better come now. I'm in the phone booth on Allée Isabelle."

By laying all of her cards out on the table at once, she had a 50/50 chance of getting an out, and that was better than no chance. Yes, 50/50 was better than sleeping on the streets another night.

Anything was – anything except going home.

Suddenly, his voice broke through the phone, loud and certain and steadfast. She should have been expecting it, but for whatever reason, she didn't. Éponine couldn't help jumping when she heard his stark reply echo through the receiver, and fighting to catch her breath after the phone clicked off.

"I'll be there."

That was all, and their conversation was over. It was obvious to Éponine that he was a man of few words and that his manners came off less-well than he probably hoped over the phone, but he was very much like her in that way.

She slowly lifted the receiver, glancing up out of the glass telephone booth with wide brown eyes as it clanged down onto the base in finality. The moon was up, rising over Clamart like a midnight sun. Its beams cast shadows on her face, and as she watched it, she almost smiled to herself.

Éponine was, without a doubt, a woman of the night, but a little light every once in a while didn't hurt.

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The longing that had suddenly taken over Enjolras was indescribable and hard for him to place. It hadn't come from any one specific thing really, but more a cumulation of so many different things slowly built and built and built, stacking ever-higher until now.

Maybe he was so anxious because he was doing this finally: getting the interview he so longed for, the one that held truth and nothing of false happiness, as others had made him believe. The real story was finally going to be his, and what he did with it afterward was a deal-breaker in how he would shape his future at Le Figaro. If he could really figure out what was going on in that factory, it could mean big things for him.

But, on the other hand, this sudden longing was coming from another place entirely.

Side street by side street, he tried remembering the way he had driven to Clamart, and then from the factory to the street Éponine resided on. It took him a few tries, racking his brain for the right turns to take and cursing loudly when he realized he was driving in circles. Eventually he got on the right track, but only after twenty extra minutes of being lost in the grimiest parts of the city.

He pulled onto Allée Isabelle with his knuckles white on the wheel. Winter's snowy onslaught was upon him, and it blurred his vision – even through his set of thick-rimmed, tortoise-shell eyeglasses. It didn't blur it enough to deter him from the lighted phone booth at the end of the street.

At first she was just a dark shape, but as he drew nearer, she began to focus beneath the yellow light in the booth. She looked worse than he remembered; thinner, dirtier, and emptier than the image his mind had painted of her before. Perhaps he had simply embellished this girl in his head.

He swerved to the street corner and parked the car, watching as the little door of the phone booth was pulled open. She strode over to the car with slumped shoulders and her head hung, appearing a bit defeated.

"You could have given me a heads-up before dialing me at this hour," Enjolras muttered as she slammed her door shut, still frustrated from getting lost so many times. "I don't like being disturbed so late at night. I can't imagine anyone would."

"Yeah, well."

Glancing at her from the corner of his eye, he noted that the girl was already slumped far down in the chair with her chin to her chest and her legs spread wide beneath the dashboard. It didn't look comfortable.

Enjolras cleared his throat. "It's too late for an interview anyplace in town, and too noisy." As he thought of the carolers, he nearly grunted in disgust. Sure, at first they seemed quite chipper and festive, especially during this time of year, but it seemed like they were constantly out and about, singing the same damned songs just to get under his skin. If Enjolras had to hear another poorly-chorused rendition of L'Arbre de Noël even once more in his life, it would be too soon.

"Would convening at your home be at all possible?" he offered, thinking it only logical as it was located just down the road.

"No!"

He squinted, tilting his head slightly as he examined her; something about the way she suddenly jerked upright and froze made him think twice. As much as he wanted to pry, to ask what's wrong with your house, he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Éponine tried to recover from her outburst, shooting him a sideways glace. "I mean," she started again, "I was thinking we might just go to your place. I'm sure it's more comfortable than here."

It was then that Enjolras noticed the bag at her feet; peeking out the top was the striped, collared shirt that he had seen her frequently wearing. All at once, the pieces clicked together in his mind. She packed, his thoughts supplied. She was planning on staying with you.

Something about the way the words echoed in his head made him feel more confused than disturbed, which was how he probably should have felt. He didn't know what her intentions were, especially by calling him at this late an hour, and to top it off she had been planning on staying the night. She does appear that kind of girl, he thought. But, on the other hand, why is her body language so guarded? So skittish? Finally, Enjolras concluded that her intentions, although still somewhat clouded in his judgement, seemed to have come from a good place.

He should have taken her back home when he saw the bags and not thought twice about it. He should have retreated to his apartment, spent the night alone, finished Vonnegut's novel, and gone to sleep.

But something about the look she gave him, as the two sat side-by-side in his 1960 Peugot with their warm breath rising in the cool night air, made him change his mind. His gaze found hers, and in an instant, they were locked on each other. Dancing inside her eyes was a faint flickering, like some sort of desperate candle wick submerged in hot, liquid wax that struggled to keep its flame aglow. Nestled deep inside their dark brown endlessness was a cry for help. Fleeting as it was, he caught it.

Something struck him right then, something inside him. Not in his mind, not in his gut – but in his heart.

"You really want to try for the interview?" he finally asked her.

Éponine inhaled sharply, lifting her chin. "More than anything."

And whether she actually wanted this man to know the truth about the factory, or if she simply wanted to flee from the dark and deserted place she called home, it didn't seem to matter.

Enjolras silently shifted the car into drive and started off toward Paris.

Translation: biloute - used in the north of France to talk about someone with a little dick, usually not meant to be seriously insulting as Enjolras took it. ;-)