-Chapter 3-

Joly made his way home. It was late and many of his friends had already gone home after their meeting at the café. Especially Enjolras' early and abrupt leaving bothered him. Joly had seen his revolutionary leader leaving the meeting directly after his speech. He had returned about 20 minutes later to collect his things and had stormed out of the café without saying a word to anyone. Marius had been too obsessed with Cosette to notice, while Grantaire was too drunk. The rest of the Les Amis de l'ABC had been discussing strategies and were also too busy to see.

Joly remembered Enjolras' face, it had been cold, lithic, nearly stone-like. His marmoreal facial features were only distracted by his lip which was cracked open and a slight stream of blood running down his chin. Joly, as a student of medicine, thought the wound to come from a fight, but Enjolras normally wasn't a person who started bar fights. He was too sincere, intelligent and agile. And he was above such small conflicts.

The rain was falling down on Joly and drenched his clothes. He passed Enjolras' flat and saw the light of a candle floating from the windows. Tomorrow he would ask him what had been going on this evening but now he wanted nothing more than to escape the rain, so he continued walking.

After some minutes he suddenly heard a loud scream. Joly turned around but found the street behind him empty. He stood still to listen and heard movements and voices from out of a dark and easily overlooked alley that crossed the street he was walking on. A shiver ran down his spine but he brought himself to draw nearer to the scene.

He saw three men. Two inspectors of the National Guard and another man. Joly couldn't identify the third man, all he knew was that he for sure wasn't another inspector and that he was from a lower social class. But those things were secondarily. Joly's eyes were caught by a fourth figure, smaller than the three men and for sure weaker because she was being pinned against the wall by the third man. It was for sure a young woman, that was all Joly could know, because the shadows of the dark alley and the men's bodies obstructed his view.

Realism kicked in and Joly knew that he couldn't help her. Not alone. Three grown men and in case of the inspectors also armed - against one single student! His chances to beat them were nearly not existing. It was one of the moments where Joly regretted that he wasn't as skilled in fighting as some of his friends were, like Enjolras and…

Suddenly Joly paused. Enjolras-that was the only chance to help the girl. His flat was only some streets away from here and he was truly one of the best close-combat fighters, which he had proved at the barricade months ago.

-Enjolras-

Enjolras had just tried to concentrate on one of his law books when he heard a loud knock on the door. He groaned being at the end of his tether. He had been pleased that none of his friends back at the café had asked him what had happened to him, or better to his mouth. But more than his cracked lip his conscience afflicted him. Shortly after his argument with Èponine he had been triumphant about winning the argument and forcing her so out of her composure. But looking at it from a distant view he had had no right to unmask her this way. He had been just what he never wanted to be: A rich boy looking down on her shooting her chances and her virtue down just because she was poor. Where had this reluctant reaction come from? Normally he was always collected and closed up, out of reach for any emotion. Was it the fact that she had insulted him and his ideals, the way that she had accused him of capitalising his audience's feelings?

Or the fact that Éponine had nearly left her life back at the barricade for a rich boy who never was hers because he was too blind to see what a strong and independent woman she was and that she had way more potential than the bourgeois Cosette? Deep inside Enjolras somehow knew that his rage was directed towards Marius and not Èponine.

Absorbed in thoughts Enjolras made his way to the door and opened it just to find a soaked and agitated Joly on his doorstep. Enjolras wanted to say something but Joly cut him off before he was even able to say a word.

"Save your questions Enjolras! I'll tell you on the way, I need your help!" Joly's dragged him out of his apartment, down the staircase and out on the dark, cold and rainy streets of the nightly Paris.

"Joly, what's going on! What happened?" Enjolras asked while he was following his friend rushing through the rain. He couldn't imagine what might have happened.

"I was on my way home! I saw three men, two from the National Guard and another man assaulting a young woman. I couldn't help her alone, you know about my lacking fighting skills and…" Yes, Enjolras knew about his lacking fighting skills. He always said that it was understandable that a student, whose profession it was to fix people, couldn't beat them up at same time. That was also why military surgeons normally didn't fight at the field but rather waited for the time when their skills would be needed, which was normally after the battle.

"Why didn't you tell me back at my flat, I would have taken my pistol with me?" Enjolras shouted through the rain but Joly didn't pay attention. He suddenly stood still and leaned against a wall pointing at a small dark alley that crossed the street few metres away. He put a finger on his mouth telling Enjolras that he should be quiet.

That was when Enjolras heard the voices.

"You won't get a word out of me! It is people like you we revolutionists fight against! I would rather die than betray them and reveal their secrets!" the angry voice of a woman echoed through the alley followed by a deep male voice "I give you one more chance little slut, tell me what you know about the revolutionists!"

Enjolras looked at Joly and Joly's wide eyes proved him that his friend had also understood what this fight was about. It was about the Les Amis de l'ABC and the revolution.

Abruptly and simultaneously Joly and Enjolras both rushed into the street only to hear the women's weak voice laughing sarcastically "Isn't it funny, that you as a grown man can't break a poor gamine! Believe me officer, the revolution is on the run and when I die today I at least know that I died for a better future! A better France!" Her words were followed by a painful scream.

Enjolras saw one inspector lying on the ground probably unconscious. The other one was kneeling over the woman's body hunkering over her making it impossible for her to escape. Enjolras was only able to see the inspector's back as he hustled him away from the woman making him scream. He tried to stand up and use his dagger against Enjolras but the student hit him with full force and the loud and disgusting cracking sound told Enjolras that he had just cracked the inspector's jaw. The inspector fell on his back, the dagger still in his hand and Enjolras kicked the blade out of his hand. He just wanted to finish his job and knock the man out when he heard Joly calling from behind.

Enjolras froze. He knew that undertone in his friend's voice. He had had the same voice telling Enjolras that Bahorel and Lesgle wouldn't recover from the injuries they had gotten at the barricade. The normally calm leader closed his eyes, took a deep breath and turned around.

"What is it Joly?" he asked, trying to blank out the cries of pain, which came from the inspector lying on the ground behind him.

Joly's face was pale and Enjolras saw him moving his lips to silent words "It's one of us! It's 'Ponine"

Enjolras heart skipped a beat looking at Joly with wide eyes. He forced himself to look at the young woman lying on the ground unconscious. Lying in a puddle of rain-water, the blood abandoning her body was slowly melding with the water giving it a red shade. Her hair was drenched from rain and blood.

She was pale and her arms were stretched away from her body. With her eyes closed she nearly looked peacefully if there wouldn't be the bruises that covered her body and her pale face. Her lip was cracked open and both of her hands were bleeding probably scraped open when she had tried to catch herself from falling during the fight. Blood was floating from the stab wound in her right shoulder.

Enjolras realised all this within a second but to him it seemed as if he had looked at Èponine for hours. He was ripped out of his trance by the wincing body behind him. Abruptly without thinking Enjolras turned around hitting the brick wall hard with his fist, screaming out loud! The rampant gesture was filled with anger, black despair and other emotions Enjolras couldn't assign. He didn't even feel his hand bleeding after the raw wall had defeated his fist's skin and made his knuckles scratch open.

"Can you help her, Joly! Tell me you can help her!" He turned around screaming to his friend who put pressure on Èponine's wound.

"There's a chance! But don't raise your hopes!" Enjolras only paid attention to Joly's first statement and kneeled down beside Èponine.

"We have to get her somewhere where you can take care of her. Go to your flat and fetch all the implements you need, I will bring her to my apartment and try to stop the bleeding so far! We'll meet there as soon as possible!" It wasn't a simple suggestion, it was an order and Enjolras knew that. He didn't know why but his sense of organisation, strategies and surviving had activated itself just like it had made him to the indisputable leader of the barricade four months ago. Joly nodded and stood up as fast as he could, leaving Enjolras with Èponine.

Enjolras lifted the fragile body up as gentle as he could and when Èponine's head leaned against his shoulder she let out a moan. It didn't sound as if she was in pain, it rather sounded as if she was sleeping and someone was interrupting her slumber. Enjolras kissed her forehead gently before carrying her to his apartment as fast as he could…

Joly arrived some minutes after Enjolras at his friend's flat. Relief flew through Enjolras' veins when he saw his friend entering his apartment. He had been scared that Èponine would fade to death being intrusted in his care. Her pulse had been steady but weak and the blood had stopped flowing that inexorably from her shoulder but Enjolras hadn't been sure if it was due to his good care or due to the lack of blood left in her body.

Joly had laughed a bitter laugh at this comment and had said "No one dies of a stab wound in the right shoulder that fast, my friend! I am more worried about her usual health state. A person that is already weak because of her conditions of living is much weaker than you and me who get three meals a day and enough sleep!"

Suddenly awareness hit him. Enjolras realised how many people suffered from a fate such as Èponine's and how many of them died after incidents like this one. He knew that it was pure luck that she had survived. She could have been one of many, gone with the wind, just lost and never seen again. No one grieving over her and not even an obituary in the journal. Just forgotten…

His thoughts were interrupted by a weak moan from the table beside him. Enjolras looked down and saw Èponine opening her eyes slightly. It was the first time Enjolras noticed how beautiful and deep her brown eyes were. She seemed to look through him as if she was far away with her thoughts.

"Merde" Joly swore, realising that she had woken up.

"What's wrong? She's awake isn't that…"

"No it's not good Enjolras! I have to suture the wound and I had hoped that she would not be conscious during this procedure" Joly rummaged around in his bag and took out a fragile needle and black string "You know your job!"

Enjolras looked at him in a questioning way not sure what his friend meant with his last comment. Joly pointed at Èponine's hand "Take her hand, she'll need something to hold on while I do my job"

Èponine's fingers were cold and limp and seemed so frail as Enjolras took her hand. She didn't react to his touch but he felt her fingers starting to shiver when Joly freed her shoulder from her dress, carefully to not reveal too much so the woman would keep her innocence. Her wound was below her right collarbone and was about five inches big. Around the wound effusions of blood had formed and Èponine's skin looked unbelievable pale in contrast to the dark red that was flowing from the stab wound. Enjolras pulled the chairs away from the table so he could step closer and see what Joly would do.

At first Èponine didn't react to the needle piercing through her skin but Enjolras saw how the feeling of the string being drawn through her skin and flesh over and over again brought silent tears to her eyes. Her grip around his hand reinforced and he didn't let go of her. He caressed her cold hand slightly causing her to turn her head a bit looking at him. Her brown eyes were glassy but this time focused on him.

Enjolras didn't know what to say. He would be wrong claiming that he never had been a man of many words, but in this moment he didn't know what to tell her. That he was proud of her, because she had been strong enough and brave enough to bear the pain? That he was worried about her? That he couldn't see her in pain?

He didn't know how long it had taken for Joly to fully suture the wound and to examine her gashes and bruises of secondary importance. Èponine had fallen asleep about half an hour ago, with her fingers still clasping Enjolras' warm hand. The first shafts of sunlight already enlightened the apartment and Enjolras looked from Èponine's quiet and peaceful slumbering face up to Joly who stood up. Joly had dark circles under his eyes and his skin seemed to be grey from the lack of sleep and the still present aftermath of the nightly shock. Enjolras knew that he himself didn't look much better.

His blond hair was still a bit wet from the rain, his lip had probably turned bruised-blue until now. His clothes, which were normally very neat were full of Èponine's blood and he was for sure pale as a ghost not forgetting the dark circles under his eyes.

Joly let a blood drained swab fall out of his hand and looked at Enjolras."I think for now it's done… She needs to rest now. We shouldn't wake her now. I'm happy that she was so silent during the procedure, she truly is brave girl"

Enjolras nodded and looked at her once again. "I'll bring her to my room. She can stay here until she's fit enough to decide whether she wants to stay here or not"

"Why shouldn't she want? It would be the best for her?" Joly asked packing his medical things back in his bag and washing the blood from his fingers.

"Let's say, Mademoiselle Thénardier and me have had some difficulties getting along" Enjolras murmured lifting Èponine up and carrying her to the door of his room. Joly smiled slightly, he assumed where Enjolras' bruised lip came from but he didn't want to beat a dead horse, not this morning.

Enjolras laid Èponine down on his bed and covered her with two blankets. A sudden sadness rose in him as he looked down on her. She hadn't deserved this. She didn't deserve any of the bad things that happened in her life, she deserved something better…

I'm not proud of this chapter. I hope you like it anyway, so please review! I thank everyone who has reviewed my last chapter and hope that I didn't disappoint you with that one! I noticed that there are so many people following this story (which I am very happy about, so thank you guys!) but I would love to have some more reviews, just so I know what you think of it personally! Those of you who write FFs know this feeling, I guess (:

I hope that I'll be able to continue soon!