Redeeming Oneself

"So," Eponine dragged out, fidgeting with her dress and sneaking glances at Enjolras, who stood next to her.

"So, I'll see you at eight?" he asked her, taking her hand.

"After all," Eponine started.

"Now that we met one another. It's clear we deserve each other," they sang together.

"You're perfect," Enjolras said, bopping her nose.

"No! No! No!" Mrs. Caballero complained at their acting. "Eponine, you look like you'd rather be anywhere else. Enjolras, you look like some sort of lonely kid that has finally gotten a girlfriend and is trying too hard. Galinda is supposed to be this bubbly girl that is absolutely crushing on Fiyero. Fiyero is supposed to be a popular flirt, NOT A DESPERATE BOY!" She rubbed her face, resting her elbows on her desk.

"Can I please switch roles?" Eponine pleaded. "I'm not anything like Galinda. She's all preppy and spoiled and happy and- and everything I'm not, except for happy. I'm not depressed."

"Eponine, that's the point of this exercise. You are supposed to step out of your comfort zone and be someone you are not! That is what the best actors can do! They don't just stick to what's relatable to them, but they can also portray something that is totally different. They make something come ALIVE!"

Eponine groaned. This was the longest morning of the year yet. They had sung this one scene over ten times because of little mistakes. "Be happy!" "Be flirty!" "Over the top! Tone it down!"

"Let's- Let's just skip this, okay. Everyone, get a partner. One of you will sit down with no emotion. The other will try to bother you as much as they can. The point of this exercise is to see how far you can go without reaching your breaking point. Don't let emotions overtake you. If the person sitting breaks, then you switch roles," Mrs. Caballero commanded.

"Ep?" Musichetta asked, tugging her arm.

"I'm coming. What about Cosette?" Eponine asked and was answered by Musichetta turning her head for her at the kissing couple. "Oh, right."

Musichetta grabbed her hand, taking her to a corner of the stage. They sat down on the cold floor, the curtains surrounding them reducing the noise of the class talking and screaming. Eponine twirled her thumbs, thinking about the one scene she had performed with Enjolras several times.

"Listen, I love you like a sister, but stop playing with him," Musichetta bluntly said.

"I'm not playing with him," Eponine countered, looking her in the eye. "I'm testing him."

Musichetta ran her hands through her bright hair. "Eponine, you ARE playing with him. Believe me, if you keep doing this, he'll give up on you. You're like a cat owner that uses that bright red light to lure the cat in, then moves it right when it thinks it has it."

"'Chetta, I just don't want to get hurt again. That's why I'm testing him, and not playing with him. There's a difference."

"Okay, first of all, your only boyfriend was Montparnasse a long time ago apparently, and that wasn't even an actual boyfriend. Second of all, you also claimed there was a difference when Enjolras held your hand."

"There is a difference. He didn't hold my hand!"

"Oh, honey, he did hold your hand. You may not have interlaced fingers or anything, but he held your hand."

"Okay, no. I was blocking a picture on his homework he needed to see, so he took my hand off the page, pressed it against the table and held it down."

"Ha! You admitted that he held it!"

"I held what?" Enjolras asked from behind them.

Eponine gasped, hoping that he didn't hear their conversation. "Nothing. What do you need Enjolras?" Eponine asked him.

Musichetta stood up. "I'll let you two be." She walked out, giving Eponine a warning using her eyebrows.

"Enjolras?" Eponine asked.

"So, I heard that you were struggling a bit with school, so I was wondering," he asked before he was interrupted by Eponine.

"Woah! Who told you I was struggling? I'm not struggling! I'm doing perfectly fine!"

"If a D is perfectly fine then, sure. The problem is, it isn't. I've decided that I will help you improve your scores," he stated more than asked. He wasn't looking at her, afraid that he would lose courage if he looked into those deep chocolate brown eyes. Those deep, large eyes full of so much emotion and experience. The eyes that were surrounded by long lashes that he wanted to ghost his fingers over to feel the tickle. The eyes that-

"Are you okay?" she asked him, grasping his shoulders. His shoulders felt like they were on fire. He didn't even realize that through his whole mental thought, he had stepped closer, held her waist, and stared into her eyes.

He immediately let go of her, and she him. She missed the warmth of his hands on her waist, though she would never admit it out loud. She got a chance to examine his eyes as he stared at her. One moment they seemed gray, and the next they were the brightest blue she'd ever seen. Besides the color, there was something deeply hidden in them that only those who could read emotion well could see. Regret and emptiness had suddenly shown. It was as if all these years, his heart had become such a stone that he didn't feel anything, and he was sad about it. He wanted to open up and meet people, make people smile, and most importantly feel happy. He didn't want to lose anything, and Eponine felt the guilt wash over her.

Had she been so cruel that she made this man heartless? Had her leaving brought him so much sadness and lose so much hope that he closed himself from the world? She was felt so compelled to bring her hand up to his smooth cheek and run her thumb over it, but she was already scared of the close proximity they were in. She was falling in love, but she didn't want to. Falling in love seemed to give you limits, you weren't free to do whatever you want. You couldn't forget about the boy, and you became attached.

She weighed her options. If she got tutored by him, he had a chance to redeem himself and become her best friend again. Her grades would obviously increase, but if he didn't tutor her, she was immune to falling in love. She could focus on her work better, or at least she thought. Of course the former option had more advantages, and so, after clearing her head and nodding, she looked at him.

"I think you would help me a lot," she admitted weakly. It was hard to admit she needed help. "It would be a great pleasure to be tutored by you."

"So that's a yes?" he asked hopefully, looking up with the ghost of a smile.

"Yup," she laughed. He looked so cute right now, not that he didn't always look cute.

He walked towards the stage, but turned back to her before he was completely out of her sight. "I'll see you at the library right after school. The beanbags in the corner."

"All right, Chief," she agreed, then shouted, reaching her arms out. almost thinking that she could catch him. "Oh, wait! Could we start tomorrow? I have a second job I started today, and I'll ask them to shift my schedule."

"Yeah, sure, 'Ponine," he approved. He nodded in her direction and left.

Musichetta flipped out from the curtains, and smirked at her. "This is going to be, like, a weekly date between you two. This will be either great and will end up with you two dating, or killing each other."

"I hope it's neither. I just want my old best friend back."

"Ehem, that's me. He's your second best friend, if anything."

She turned to the redhead, "And if he replaces you?"

Musichetta laughed, "Honey, that's never going to happen."

"Oh. My. God," Eponine muttered at lunch. She was between Enjolras and Combeferre at the table, and she was eating a Nutella sandwich.

"What's wrong Eponine?" Combeferre asked immediately, concerned. His glasses only made his already wide eyes bigger.

"They have those chocolate acorns," she pointed out, she immediately started tapping his chest like an excited puppy. "The- the ones where they have a Hershey kiss on the bottom and use a Nilla cookie on top. And the stem is a piece of a pretzel. Those are my favorite treats!" She leaned back in her chair and rolled her eyes back in pleasure.

She snapped up, scaring everyone at the table. "How much are they?"

"$3.50 for a full pouch," Feuilly told her.

She shifted through her back pocket, and grabbed the first piece of paper she found. She took it out, her face full of excitement, and then it fell into a look of disappointment.

"50 cents short," Enjolras pointed out, leaning over her shoulder.

"I see that dimwit. Dammit," she muttered.

"I have a pouch here if you want," Enjolras offered, nudging a bag of the chocolates to her.

"They belong to you, Enjolras. You're already helping me with school. I'll be fine," Eponine whispered to him.

"I couldn't care less. Besides, I'm done with lunch."

"You're not. You still have a whole bunch of fries."

"I was going to throw the chocolates away so I could eat the fri-"

"DON'T THROW THE CHOCOLATE!"

"But no one's gonna eat it."

Eponine glared at him. "You sly little man…"

"What do you mean?" he asked, acting innocent.

"You planned this. You got extra fries so that you could say you would throw the chocolate away, and you know how I hate when people waste food, especially chocolate, and so I would be forced to eat it!"

"That's ridiculous," he lied. Eponine grabbed the bag, and ate one, then another, and then another.

"For the sake of not wasting food, I'm going to finish this for you," Eponine huffed.

"Okay," Enjolras agreed victorious. He smiled as his plan went through. Everything was going back to normal quickly. His smile fell. That was never a good sign.

A/N: Hey! Sorry it took a while! School started, and I'm already really busy, I'm sorry. And I procrastinate, so that's not good either. Nothing big really happened this chapter, but I decided to give details about how Enjolras is doing a lot to gain back Eponine, even if he didn't know how big of an impact it created. So, I'll post again about next weekend! Hopefully… Have a great school year everyone!

-Franky