A/N: Hi guys! I'm really sorry about the long delay...it's just school, and you know - life. I hope that everyone had a good Thanksgiving, and I hope to get a new chapter up soon! I promise, just one more chapter until our lovely Eponine and Enjolras interact! As always, please review!

WARNING: There is some violence towards the end, but hopefully it's not too much.

Disclaimer: As much fun I have obsessing over fictional characters, the characters in this story belong to Victor Hugo. This is to simply take my mind off of the fact that the book doesn't fulfill my needs as a fangirl.

Liberté for the Soul

by relievedseriousness

Éponine gasped. How could it be? "How did you find me?" she finally asked, after a few seconds of stunned silence.

Montparnasse smirked, his teeth flashing in the moonlight. "Easy enough. Was a bit hard in the beginning, but I got some friendly help from a little birdie. What was her name again?" he said with a sardonic tone. "Hellie, is it? Aunt Hellie?"

Éponine clasped to the brick wall behind her in shock. "Aunt Hettie?" she gasped, barely.

"Ah, yes, that little woman. She was walking down the street, muttering your name all the while, about some injury, then about some girl named Musichetta.

"I did a little look 'round, then found where you lived all this while. Saw that disgusting thing of a apartment. But no, it won't be as dirty as you. You filthy bitch. You, trying to pretend to be a grisette? No. You will always be a gamine."

The words burned into Éponine's mind, echoing the dream she had earlier. She started shaking a little, and Montparnasse took this as a sign to continue:

"Cornered her when she was heading out for the market. Said that if she didn't let you go, then that girl, both her and the baby would go."

Éponine shuddered. "Oh you didn't know that I knew? I know everything." In the moonlight, he looked like a splitting, yet mutated image of her father, yelling at her each time she didn't bring in enough money. Shouting, breaking things, throwing glass at her - it never seemed to stop.

"That old witch, she was a coward. Thought I had to flick my knife out for some more scare, but she just shook and muttered that she would send you out. To here.

"Guess she doesn't care about you after all, don't she 'Ponine? She cares about only her blood. Not you."

Not true, Éponine managed in her mind. She, she was only trying to protect Musichetta. I hate you, Montparnasse, I hate you I hate you...

Her jumbled up thoughts were interrupted when the man grabbed her arm and started dragging her roughly toward the opening of the street. Éponine whimpered, a ghost of a question of where he was taking her.

Montparnasse laughed cruelly. "You've turned into an idiot while they've been coddling you, haven't they? To your father, of course!"

Of course, Éponine thought. Of course he would send him to get me. It was always like that. Her father with the Patron-Minette, thinking up of plots with filthy acts to fool people. It always ended up with money of some sort. And though Éponine was sometimes included - due to her disgust - Montparnasse had a playing part in all of them, always the one to indulge in the tricking, in the tracking, in the killing.

It hadn't always been like that, though. Back when Éponine was young and the Thenardiers were inching their way towards Paris, they had met Montparnasse and his family. He was an only child, his family once was bourgeois and used to the high life, but now poor - his father had combined gambling and accidental unemployment. M. Thenardier immediately attached himself to them. Montparnasse and Éponine quickly became friends - they played games, like run and catch, and running races, always leaving Azelma behind in the dust. But one day in Paris, only a month after Montparnasse's parents died, Thenardier took him with the elder Patron-Minette on "a little trip," he had said. This was when the boy was fourteen. He came back, having a wild look in his eyes, and when Éponine tried to ask him what had happened and clean up the blood from his coat, he shoved her away. Over the years, he grew rougher, stronger, and became close to her father. He always took the clothes off the bourgeois he killed, and wore them out in the street with a smug look on his face, as if grossly reminiscing his former life.

They never talked, unless it was about some scheme, and when he was fifteen, Eponine fourteen, Montparnasse suddenly drew to Eponine, and they played Nemorin together, crudely reenacting the scenes of passion with kisses and touches, and for a year and a half, Eponine thought she had loved Montparnasse, until she met Marius and she finally saw the slaps and the bruises that he never apologized for. But it had always been like this, their relationship in Paris - talking, not talking, sex, ignorance.

He continued pulling her, leaving her with bruises and scrapes from the cobblestone ground.

When Éponine started weep slightly in the prospect of the reunion with her father, Montparnasse jolted her arm, then turned about and began shaking her shoulders. "'Ponine," started softly, much more softer than Éponine had ever heard him talk in years. It was almost as if he was transformed back to when he and she were nine, ten, eleven.

"'Ponine, you know I must do this. I had no choice remember? You see, do you remember the changing game we had? When we moved to another place, we would pretend to turn into the local animals?" Éponine nodded, still stunned by this sudden change of tone.

"You see, like the animals in our game, I had to adapt. I couldn't stay a little brat forever, could I? I had to learn to change. And you have to change back too, you understand?"

Éponine stared back at him, trying to process everything as quickly as she could. It seemed that she had shook her head though, for Montparnasse's eyes turned from pools of deep green to hard olive irises within a millisecond.

"What, did you want to stay with that old hag and that pregnant whore?" Éponine's eyes widened, surprised and horrified again by his menagerie of expressions. "You couldn't stay there forever, would they even let you into the building in they knew who you truly were?" He was referencing to her bloodline and status. Éponine spit into his face with the slightest fire of retaliation.

"You ungrateful little..." he raised a hand, poised to hit her. Éponine cowered, closing her eyes, ready for the blow it to come. But it never did.

Montparnasse just shook his head, secured his hold on her arm again, and tugged at her, pulling her up but never letting go; his hand a chain Éponine fell into once more.

For the next few days, Enjolras ignored the world - Marius, Monsieur Gillenormand, the servants - everybody. He stayed in the library, trying to focus again on Robbspierre and Plato's Republic, writing essays on various political subjects, to hone his brain into hard marble again. He took his meals in the library, avoided all human contact as much as possible. What was he trying to do? Block out the entire universe? Hide himself from all of the human race so no one can remind him of her? He didn't know.

Enjolras grimaced, and concentrated once more on his book. But a little after an hour, his eyes began wandering from the pages, and the sounds of cannons and guns filled his ears. He swore he could feel the mist of rain, and a small voice calling at the back of his head. Everyday, every night, these visions came, these voices of his friends that terrifed him, that he shook. I'm a murderer, his thoughts ran, streaming. They believed in me, and hoped, and what did they get? An end to the future, the future that we shouted to the crowds, to ourselves.

Enjolras could not more about how the barricade, all the planning failed, than he did about how his companions - former, he remembered painfully - died. And he rambled silently in his mind, going over what truly hurt him. And it hit him.

They didn't die happy. He can see them covered in the muck of some soldier's blood, and soon their own, some kind of instrument of death embedded in them. He pulled these images and contrasted them with memories of them smiling, laughing and joking, and it was like his stitches were torn to the seams, and the sear of the motion dragged at his skin and emotions.

Perhaps if all went well and the fight did suceed, then - no, don't even consider that, you coward. They're dead. You led them along, and pulled in the innocent as well, all for your dreams. For Patria...

And for the first time, Enjolras hated this woman that he had loved so dearly, because though she was free, she was fought for at a costly price.

After an ardous journey across several streets, Montparnasse permitted Eponine to trudge next to him - hand still melded to her arm - as he knew that she would not dare run, for he would catch her just as quick.

Eponine looked at Montparnasse - looked at him, for the first time. His clothing - a coat, a shirt, and a pair of breeches - were distinctly bourgeois, had seen better days, and had faded stains of a rusty substance - blood. His top hat was threadbare with fabric, and was laid upon a nest of jet black curls. The man's face, however, was really what Eponine observed. His chin was surprising well-shaven, and a rigid nose led to a set of thick eyebrows, which rested above the eyes of vacillating green. Montparnasse's skin was pale and rough, and marked with several scars - unwanted souvenirs from the streets. His mouth was twisted in a grimace, and Eponine wished, that once in a while, she could see the grin that graced his face when he had won hide and seek, and later, when Eponine let him conquer her mouth. But over the years, the grin trascended into a permanent scowl, and an occaisional smirk as his pride and credit in the Patron-Minette increased with each passing crime.

Suddenly, Montparnasse stopped at a broken down building - how ironic, Eponine thought. An inn. Beyond the splintered frame of the door, she could see the inlaid shadows of three figures. One of them, seeing the arrivals, stepped out from the darkness. And Eponine quivered as she tried to put on a strong face. There's no escaping him...

Thénardier fully crept out in the starry light, and, ignoring Eponine, proceeded to sharply box Montparnasse's ear. "What took you so damn long?" he said in a scratched voice. "Police went by here three times, y'know, could've meddled our asses off, without you watching." The young man looked down, almost in reverence to the deceitful marauder, though his hand was set on his knife.

But finally, Thénardier saw his daughter, as if for the first time. "Well, looky here. Little Eponine is here at last. Good, good." he said briskly. He grabbed Eponine from Montparnasse and pulled her into the inn. The room was nearly identical to their room in the Gorbeau house, save for the fireplace and windows. Within the room were crates, creaking quietly under the weight of two others: Babet and Brujon. They seemed commanding with their posture and set jaws, but their eyes, Eponine could see, betrayed them with nervousness and restlessness.

"Now, hopefully we can get back in business. With Claquesous gone - " Thénardier's voice cracked unintentionally, and Eponine noticed for the first time the absence of the gang member. He was the reason the Patron-Minette could get away with so many felonies - his escape plans worked simply, yet they left the police abashed.

" - with Azelma getting out of jail in three days, we need everyone we have." Thénardier coughed, muttering all the while, "Damn that barricade, and those merde tête boys, playing at war..."

"Don't say anything about them." The words slipped out of Eponine's mouth before she knew it. She gasped, and as she tried to swallow the sounds down her throat, it was too late. Thénardier spun around slowly. "Ah. Eponine," he drawled. "Of course. You're right. I shouldn't say anything about them." His attention was now entirely focused on her.

Eponine stared ahead, hoping to stay as emotionless as possible. Her father came closer, beginning to circle around her. "Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed your little trip." he purred. "Tell me. How does a girl like you get so much gall?"

She remained standing stock still, wishing that she could've ran faster, or noticed the pecularity in Aunt Hettie's errand and address earlier, or...

"Not too talkitive this evening, are we? How strange...Yet on that night, where we finally found that house on Rue Plumet after a month of searchin', you stopped us from gettin' the lot? Screamed, spit at my face? Tryin' to tell us what to do?

"Who do you think you are, girl!" Thénardier grasped Eponine's neck and gripped it towards him, his words harsh and haunting at her ear. "You think, that you can be here, commanding us, and then run off to join the damn revolution? For what even? And then you get pamp'red up while we choke on scraps? You got some nerve - I promise, I'll make you know your place!"

Then he faced the men. "Come, let us give my daughter a proper greeting. We haven' seen 'er for so many months." He pushed and shoved Eponine on to the floor.

Brujon and Babet promptly began kicking her, untangling the work that Aunt Hettie and Musichetta had made on her wounds. Montparnasse, however, came forward relunctantly, as if he was moving through brick. Thénardier made note of this, and grabbed him by the collar. "Are you in this, or not?" he whispered loudly.

And Eponine knew that Montparnasse consented, when she felt another pair of legs join in the pugnacity. Each second, seemed to last an eternity, and the end began when her father, watching at a distance, ordered to finish her off.

With their final kicks Babet and Brujon left the scene, while Montparnasse stayed. Proving himself, isn't he? Eponine blinked out with every extra scrape he left on her skin. Then her head was suddenly and swiftly pulled into the air, and Eponine stared at the man's eyes before he slapped her, leaving not a mark on her face, but a scar on their faulty bond, and disassembling whatever trust that could be found.

As the Patron-Minette retreated into their makeshift parlor to plan out some exchange with money, Eponine crawled off silently and painfully near the door.

"You sure she won't run off?" Babet asked Thénardier.

"She's fine. She's smart enough to stay put," he said, laughing breathily. "She couldn't fight now, if she tried. She's too weak."

Eponine shrunk into the wall, taking her father's words in. He's right. I am too weak. Too feeble, too drained to stand up for herself, not less a barricade. And she hated herself for that. Ghostly tears worked down her cheeks, and as she cried with her hair covering her face, Eponine hugged herself. Dawn was approaching, with its ethereal gown and promising aura. At the end of the day, there's another day dawning. And with a droplet of hope pricked into her soul, Eponine fell into a dreamless trance, wondering at the life and future that was to be set ahead of her.