-Chapter 4-

Enjolras looked up from his books and documents, which were broad on the table in front of him, when he saw Marius entering his flat carrying a white box. It was already noon and he would have expected his friend to be either with his Cosette at home or with the Les Amis at the café.

"How about knocking?" Enjolras commented bleakly but Marius just ignored his statement and threw the box on the table.

"Joly already warned me that you might be in a bad mood. How is she?" Marius asked gazing at Enjolras. Enjolras closed his book with a snap.

"She hasn't woken up yet, but she rests easy. I would have thought that she might get a fever, but she didn't. Her wound is not infected but she has many effusions and small scratches and stuff like that." He answered and pointed at the box "What's that?"

"A present from Cosette. She said that Èponine would probably need new clothes now," Marius said "I just bought some".

Enjolras raised his eyebrow on the thought of Marius going shopping in a women-boutique and buying a dress. "What did the others say when Joly told them the news this morning?" he said instead of a sarcastic comment.

"Well, Combeferre and Courfeyrac were pretty shocked. They send their best wishes and hope that she'll be better soon. Grantaire was too drunk to realise the degree of damage but he said that he was proud of you for finally getting a woman into your bed even if you didn't do it the official way…" Marius tried his best to stay neutral but Enjolras saw the smile playing on the corner of his mouth.

"Don't you think this situation is way too serious to joke about?" he stated his voice suddenly rising. Enjolras was used to Grantaire's comments on his private life but he didn't need Marius parroting every word Grantaire said.

Marius looked down and cleared his voice "Well maybe you are more interested in the fact that the two inspectors disappeared. Joly and Combeferre went back to the alley this morning. We don't know what happened to them…"

"This could be a problem…" Enjolras frowned. Before they arrived at the scene Joly had told him that there were three men assaulting Èponine. Where did the third man go and what role did he play? He looked up when he heard something. He looked at Marius and both students hurried to the door which led to Enjolras' bedroom.

They found Èponine coughing hard while she was pushing the blankets away. Divining what would realistically happen next, Enjolras approached her in a heartbeat…

Èponine didn't know where she was. The last thing she remembered from the last night's events was a terrible pain in her shoulder and someone holding her hand. She remembered clinging to the hand as the pain became unbearable. It had been a man, but the only thing she could say to describe him was, that his warm hands had given her strength and comfort. She had felt safe and secure in a way she hadn't felt in a long time.

Still wearing her ragged and now also bloody dress Èponine tried to stand up ignoring the acute pain in her shoulder and in her head. She felt numb… As soon as her feet touched the cold parquet floor her legs didn't want to carry her weight anymore. She saw black spots, which constricted her sight and she felt dizzy. Her body faltered and Èponine prepared herself for meeting the ground in less than a second, but she didn't. Someone was holding her…

"Èponine, why didn't you call for us? We would have helped you?!" She heard a familiar voice. She looked up and saw Marius standing in front of her with a worried and sympathetic expression in his face. Èponine wondered: If Marius wasn't the one, who had kept her from falling and who still carried most of her weight, who was it?

She turned her head and saw a young man with wavy, blond hair and marmoreal face behind her. He held his arms around her waist so would not fall again and looked gravely at her. She would have recognised his face everywhere. Enjolras!

"Wait! Where am I? How long…" she stammered while she was trying to earn control over her legs again, only to be disappointed. She was too weak to carry her weight all alone, but at least she didn't hang helpless in Enjolras arms anymore.

"You're at my flat. Joly found you last night and brought you here because my flat is the nearest to the place where you were hurt. You haven't been out that long. It's rarely afternoon" Enjolras answered from behind her. He failed at not noticing the alarmed way she had looked at him and remembered their argument from the last night. It seemed already weeks ago, but it had been only one night that separated the present from the past.

"Èponine, you look terrible!" Marius' comment caused Enjolras to role his eyes.

"I'm sure she feels much better now, Marius" he snapped sarcastically. "Èponine, if you want to stand up one of us will prepare a bath for you. Until then you can wait in the living room" Enjolras offered. Èponine hesitated for a moment. She didn't know how to behave. On the one hand she hated Enjolras for his arrogant way and she hadn't forgotten the argument they had had and that she had actually slapped him across the face. On the other hand she had to be thankful because he had left his bed to her and cared for her. She decided that the polite and civilised way would be the best.

"I would prefer the bath rather than lying down again" she said.

"Right. Can you walk?" Enjolras still carried most of her weight, so he didn't wait for an answer "Lean on me" he said and pulled her arm around his neck so she could hold on to him. Èponine felt awkward for a moment. As she leaned on him she decided that it was way better than being carried around like a damsel in distress, so she let herself be supported while she was walking towards the living room.

"Enjolras, don't you think she should…" Marius was cut off by Enjolras.

"No Marius! I think she should decide for herself what is best for her, don't you think?" With those words he led Èponine to the couch and let her sit down. Èponine was a bit stunned, but she was happy that Enjolras didn't treat her with kid gloves. That was something she had never really liked about Marius.

After half an hour the bath was prepared and Èponine felt strong enough to walk on her own again. She thanked god for it, because nothing in the world would have been more embarrassing than being carried or helped into the bath-tube by Marius or even worse Enjolras! Before she went off to the bathroom Marius had given her a white box that contained a new dress, a nightgown, a pair of shoes and other stuff. The things had probably cost more than Èponine had ever earned and she was grateful for this act of friendship.

After closing the door behind her, Èponine started undressing herself already seeing the first bruises. She examined the stab wound at her shoulder and winced at the pain that shot through her. Her face was pale which defined the bruises and her cracked lip. At this point her thoughts wandered to Enjolras. He had been looking pale too, with circles under his eyes.

While she was having the bath she reflected on the passed incidents. She only remembered being carried into a flat, but she didn't know by whom. Than there had been pain and the warm hand holding hers and finally darkness had overcome her…

Enjolras had told her that Joly found her and brought her here, but Èponine somehow didn't believe that. There was no way Joly could have knocked out the National Guard alone. Joly wasn't a fighter and as far as she knew he didn't carry a weapon. She shook her head, something was wrong about this story. Enjolras concealed something from her, she just didn't know what and why.

Meanwhile Enjolras and Marius were arguing in the living room.

"I thought you were actually involved in her rescue? Joly told us you knocked the inspector out and carried her here…" Marius asked confused.

"That's true, but I didn't intend to tell her! Besides, it was Joly who really saved her life: He found her and stitched her up. I only helped a bit." Enjolras answered not looking Marius in the eye. He had seen Èponine's expression, when she had realised that it was actually him, who had kept her from falling, and he saw how uncomfortable she felt being at his flat. It had hurt him, even if he didn't want to admit it to himself. She would feel even worse, knowing that he had also saved her and carried her here. She wasn't that type of women that liked it to be carried around like puppy, Enjolras knew that. It was one thing he admired about her…

"Oh c'mon Enjolras, this is stupid! Joly said that he could have never helped her without you! He said that you calmed her down, while he was stitching her up and that you had been…"

"If you raise your voice even more, you can tell her directly what you know!" Now it was Enjolras turn to be angry "Believe me, I have my reasons, Marius, and they're none of your business".

Marius shook his head in disbelief "You know, I think sometimes you just enjoy playing the selfless hero too much, my friend" with that he left. Enjolras was incensed. He turned around and ran his hands through his hair. It was typical for Marius to leave when the situation just turned ticklish.

"What sort of reasons should that be?" a female voice made him jump out of his skin and in the corner of his eye he saw Èponine, now dressed in a slim-fitting, night-blue dress with long sleeves. Neither of the two men had noticed her entering the room and, when Marius left, Enjolras had been too distressed to notice her. Now Enjolras wondered how he could have missed her. Though her dark curls were still wet from the bath, she looked beautiful. He had always known that she was indeed not an unattractive woman, but he had never really looked at her. She was small and fragile. Her eyes were of a dark-brown colour and captured his gaze directly. Although her face was still bruised and her lip still cracked open, she had charismatic facial features.

Facial features, that right now looked at him with a confused and a bit irritable expression. He cleared his voice and looked her straight in the eye.

"I just figured that you might not be delighted by me being one of your saviours. Especially since you told me what you really think about me last night." Èponine bit her lip at his explanation. When she had heard Marius' and Enjolras' conversation, she had been angry and suspicious, ready to take Enjolras to task, but now she didn't know what to say. She couldn't judge him for making this decision, he had just wanted her to feel less uncomfortable and awkward.

"I guessed that you wouldn't have wanted to be seen in such a situation, especially not by someone you seem to be so disaffected with" Enjolras continued. Èponine wasn't sure if it was true hurt that signed Enjolras' face, or just his hurt pride.

"Well, you seem to know me very well" she hushed, being a bit stunned at how well he seemed to have read her though never paying much attention to her. The leader of the revolution knew each and every of his followers…

"No! If I knew you, I would have never questioned your abandonment to the revolution! I would have never questioned your intentions to fight at the barricade, the way I did last night. You were willing to get yourself killed in order to ensure the revolution's development and to safe the revolutionists' life. I had no right to judge you…" The words had been said before Enjolras had had enough time to think about them. He realised that they were the truth. He had always seen Èponine as Marius' shadow, and after letting him go a dead shell, without any motivation to live on, but the moment he saw her lying on the wet pavement, bleeding and bruised with her eyes closed and her innocent face so pale that she almost seemed like a fading ghost, he had realised that she must have had as much faith in the revolution as he had, because she would have given her life to it.

Now Èponine was sure that his lithic eyes showed signs of grief and pain. She was speechless, his words had been true and honest and she felt respect for the marble lover of liberty. If she had ever thought him selfish, this thought vanished from her mind now. There seemed to be more behind the cold man's mask than she had always expected.

"I… I think we both said things that were not appropriate this night. Maybe it would be better to let bygones be bygones and nothing more." She said approaching him not leaving much distance between them. He looked tired, with his hair even more messy than usually. Suddenly her gaze fell on his cracked lip and she felt guilt arising.

"And I'm truly sorry for losing control over my hand and temper" While saying this, Èponine felt her hand moving of its own volition, this time not to slap Enjolras but to touch his hurt lip. Shortly before her fingers touched his skin she realised what she was doing and pulled her hand back abruptly.

Enjolras saw her eyes focusing on his lip and he felt slightly uncomfortable. That was when he saw her hand wandering up as if she wanted to touch his face. Normally he would have slapped any woman's hand away, but something inside him kept him from interrupting her movement. Then she suddenly pulled her hand down and her expression changed from dreamy and absent to embarrassed. Her eyes searched for something to focus on and found his hurt hand, which he had bandaged.

"You shouldn't have put yourself in danger for me" she stated as if she was talking to herself and not to him. Enjolras didn't know what to say, for the first time in his life the words refused to form sentences in his mind. What should he tell her? That he had punched a brick wall after finding out that it was her, who had been assaulted and injured?

"Èponine, don't mention it. You should be more worried about your own health than mine. You should go and see Joly, so he can take a look at your shoulder." he finally said. Èponine looked in him again. She took his statement as a signal for her to leave and turned around.

"You're right" She said and started to walk towards the front door. She had almost reached it when she heard his voice from the other end of the room.

"I would do it again" she heard him say with solid voice. Èponine looked back at him and wasn't sure what he meant.

"What do you mean, Monsieur?" she asked shy, noticing that he was looking her straight in the eye, making it impossible for her to avoid his gaze.

"I would always put myself in danger for you again…" Enjolras didn't know where this had come from. Inside his head he punished himself for not controlling his tongue, but he saw something lightening up in Èponine's eyes, which he had not seen for a long time. He just couldn't define it…

I'm sorry that you had to wait so long for this chapter! I hope you like it and that it was worth the wait… What do you think about Enjolras' and Èponine's confrontation? Is it too cheesy? Please tell me! (: