3

Eponine sat huddled with her back resting against the barricade. She had her chin resting on her knees, and her arms wrapped loosely around her legs, her fingers playing with the laces on her boots.

Their conversations faded into the background and before she knew it, there was silence. It took a few minutes for her to realise just how quiet it was around her.

She looked up. Sure enough, she was alone; none of the students were there to be seen. She shook her head, and turned her head so her cheek rested against her knees. She let her eyes close.

All of a sudden, she heard muttering. Her eyes shot open. Years of sleeping in dangerous places had taught her to be wary of even the slightest noise. She could not see anyone, and yet, the muttering persisted.

Slowly, she got to her feet. She gazed up at the barricade, wondering if the murmuring noises she could hear came from beyond it; but she had not heard them before now. She listened carefully, pinpointing what direction the noise came from. Then she padded towards it.

It got louder, until she could make out actual words.

"He will live – but his wounds will take a long time to heal properly…You will just have to be patient…"

"I cannot thank you enough…"

Eponine slowly walked along the barricade until she reached where the voices grew the loudest. She looked straight ahead. She gasped, more in amazement than anything else, when she found the source of the noise. The window of one of the carriages that made up part of the barricade was – well, it looked to her like a looking-glass, only she could not see herself but a different scene. An old man she recognised, and a younger one she did not, stood over a bed and then inside the bed was…

She gasped again, and reached out to touch the man lying in the bed. "Marius," she whispered, as her fingertips came into contact with the cool, smooth surface of the window.

Marius looked pale and sweaty, and he was thrashing in his bed, tangled up in the sheets. She said his name again, this time a bit louder, and placed her entire palm against the window.

"He is very lucky, monsieur. No one else from the barricades survived – they're all dead. Horrible business. Do you know, I heard there was a child found amongst the dead? Just a boy…And a woman, too! What business did they have in a place like that?"

Eponine's hand dropped from the window like she had been burned.

No one else from the barricade survived.

They're all dead.

He is very lucky.

She touched her face with her hand, as she adjusted to the meaning of these words. And when she took her hand away again, the window of the carriage was just that – a window – and she could kind of make out her own grimy reflection staring back at her.

XXX

After another few minutes or so, she gave up on her contemplation of the scene she had witnessed and resolved to search this strange land herself. Worrying over the man's words could be done later, when she had settled down somewhere for the night.

But for now, she would explore and see what she could not find. She pushed away any feelings of hurt that the men from the barricade had just left her there. After all, she did not need them; she had spent the majority of her life fending for herself, so this situation was no different.

Eponine quickly realised that these streets were very different to the ones she knew in Paris. The roads were impossibly narrow, more like alleyways than anything else, and the buildings were ridiculously tall, with more windows and doors than she could count and stairs leading everywhere. There were lots of people about, but that's all they were doing – just being about. There was very little movement. It was as if these people had absolutely nothing to do with their time.

They all watched Eponine as she wandered. Some of these people unnerved her more than others. Some were friendly, most were indifferent, but some were skulking in the shadows and reminded her too much of her family.

Eventually, she turned down one more street and found it opened out onto a square. There were a lot of people on this square, and her heart fell when she recognised the uniform of the National Guard. To her horror, they all had bloody uniforms and had gaping wounds and carried weapons in their hands and she had a horrible feeling they had died helping to capture the barricade.

She turned around, hoping that they hadn't seen her. But they had.

"Hey, you!" one of them shouted.

Eponine felt her body stiffen. She looked over her shoulder. One of the men, a little younger than the rest, was coming towards her.

"I recognise you," he said. "You're one of the scum from the barricade!"

Her eyes narrowed, but she didn't speak. Instead, she tried to run; but his hand wrapped around her wrist and yanked her backwards into his body. "Of course, you looked like a boy," he said, "But I recognise that coat and that face – you stopped me from shooting that bastard who was going to blow up the barricade –"

Eponine spat in his face and used his surprise to wrench her arm out of his grip. "Good," she said, spinning on her heel and trying to dash away again.

But this time, it was not the soldier who stopped her, but the man she had run into. Hands reached out to stop her from stumbling, and she looked into the familiar face of Combeferre. "Mademoiselle?" he said, looking surprised – and then a bit stunned when he looked over her head.

"Let me past," Eponine hissed, but he didn't let go of her. Instead, he shoved her behind him.

He was not alone; she saw Courfeyrac, Prouvaire, and a man named Bahorel, crowding the narrow street.

"We do not want any trouble," Combeferre said to the men in a smooth voice. Eponine glanced past him towards the soldiers; her stomach sank when she realised the majority of them were carrying weapons.

"We're just doing our duty, monsieur," the one who had manhandled Eponine said. "This girl was on the barricades."

Combeferre shook his head. "Look around you," he said. "I don't think your duty matters much here. If you had noticed, we're not in Paris anymore. And this girl is none of your concern; she's going to come with us."

Courfeyrac, who was stood beside Eponine, was staring at the huddle of soldiers with narrowed eyes. "You're all from the barricade?" he said, stopping one of the soldiers from speaking. "Yes, I recognise a few of you," he said, and Eponine saw the flash of anger in his eyes. "Some of you are the cowards that shot little Gavroche!"

One of the soldiers laughed. "That cocky little shit deserved it," he barked.

Eponine shoved Combeferre out of the way; since he had not been expecting it, he moved quite easily. "That was my brother," she said, hating how shrill her voice sounded.

"That makes a lot of sense," the soldier who had grabbed her sneered. "You know, his death was a lot more satisfying than yours. It took three shots –"

She had flung herself at him before she really knew what was going on, the pent up frustration from the past few days catching up on her. What she did not see, however, was the dagger gripped in one of his fists.

She felt the impact of the blade on the lower part of her abdomen, felt it slicing through her shirt and through the flesh and muscles. The man shoved her away, taking the knife with her. Surprise hummed through her body.

It was not surprise for the fact he'd just stabbed her, however. It was surprise for the fact it did not hurt. She touched the part where she had been stabbed; it felt like she'd been poked, very hard. There was a hole in her shirt where the knife had penetrated, and the wound underneath that hole was not bleeding.

To her amazement, the hole in her flesh began to knit together rapidly. She stared at the man who had stabbed her. He was staring at the dagger in his hands in confusion, probably because it was clean and bloodless.

Eponine let out a breath she had not realised she had been holding.

Before anything else could happen, a little figure skipped into the square. It was Gavroche, although she almost didn't recognise him; his hair was clean, cropped short, and he was wearing different clothes, clean ones. The dirt was gone from his face and his nails had obviously been scrubbed. It was like looking at what could have been, if Gavroche had not been a street urchin.

But she knew it was him because of the gleeful look on his face and it was confirmed when he opened his mouth. "See," he said. "Everyone's equal when their dead. Those weapons won't do you no good round here!"

Eponine reached out and grabbed him by the collar, yanking him backwards. "Shut up, Gavroche," she hissed, pulling him out of the square. He wriggled, trying to force her to let go of him. She elbowed her way past Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Prouvaire and Bahorel and dragged Gavroche down the street.

"Let go of me!" he whined.

"Where have you been?" she said, dropping her hands onto his shoulders and holding him there so he could not move out of her line of vision. "I worried about you, Gavroche. You can't just go running off by yourself!"

"Says you," he scoffed. "You ran off and look where that got you – with those men –"

"That's different," she said.

"I don't see how," Gavroche said. "Because it's you, I suppose? If you hadn't noticed, 'Ponine, there's nothing anyone can do to hurt each other here. Look!"

He dug his nails into the uninjured hand resting on his shoulder, and gouged. The flesh underneath his nails tore, but no blood bloomed, and it didn't hurt; she could feel the pressure, but it was not painful.

"Just – don't run off like that again," Eponine said. "This place is weird, and it's unfamiliar, and I don't like it. I don't like the idea of you being on your own."

"I wasn't on my own." Gavroche gestured down at himself, at his clean clothes. "I found somewhere." His eyes glittered mischievously.

"Gavroche!" Courfeyrac came hurrying down the street. He hugged the little boy tightly. "Are you okay?"

"Courf, I'm fine," Gavroche said, looking somewhat embarrassed. "I was just telling 'Ponine –"

Courfeyrac released Gavroche and glanced at her. His friends were walking towards them now, and they were all staring at her. She took a step backwards, disliking their scrutiny.

"What?" she snapped.

"We're very sorry, mademoiselle," Prouvaire said. "We were all so – I'm not sure excited is the word – whatever it was – it just slipped our minds to ask you to come with us. We've all split up, you see, to try and find out what's going on…"

"It's quite simple," Eponine muttered. "We're dead. We all died."

Silence met her words.

"We were hoping…" Combeferre trailed off. "How is it that you know, mademoiselle?"

"It doesn't take a genius to work it out," she said. "And – I saw something. Heard something, more like. The barricade fell, we all died. Apart from Marius, actually. He's receiving treatment somewhere posh, from what I saw." She shrugged.

"She's right," Gavroche said, sounding a little gleeful. "And I found somewhere that can help us!"

They all looked down at the little boy. "Did you, little Gavroche?" Courfeyrac said, giving him a small smile.

"Yes. I was wandering about and this woman came and got me and she took me back to this house and there were lots of people there, some of them like us, just arrived, you know? And this group gives them clothes and I got a bath and they talked to me about what it is," he explained, all in a rush. "C'mon, I know my way back there!"

Before any of them could stop him, he was off, running away from them once more.