5

"Do not worry, little Gavroche…Sometimes, this just happens…Not often, but she will suffer no permanent damage…Isn't possible…"

These were the sounds that Eponine drifted awake to. She opened her eyes. She was in a bed, she could tell that much; a very comfortable bed, with soft sheets. For a moment, she revelled in the cosiness of the bed and its layers of blankets, but then sat up.

She wasn't in the room she had bathed in. This room was more spacious, with wood-panelled walls and a dark red carpet on the floor. But there was the same roaring fire crackling away.

Gavroche was sat on a wooden chair next to the bed, his feet up onto the seat and his arms wrapped around his knees. He stared at her with big, wide eyes, and Éléonore hovered behind him.

"What happened?" Eponine said.

"You fainted," Éléonore provided. "It happens, sometimes. You're not the first to have done so when a Guardian has explained what is going on."

She edged forward and sat on the edge of the bed. "Sleep here is rather like eating," she continued. "A pleasantry, but not necessary to survive. And sometimes, when a person is overloaded with information, they just shut down. Like you did. How are you feeling?"

"I feel fine," Eponine said, slowly. "Kind of. A bit overwhelmed."

Éléonore nodded. "Understandable, giving the circumstances. You're not the first person to have fainted after being given the explanation."

Eponine took some kind of comfort in this, but it wasn't much. She was still dead, after all, dead and in some kind of afterlife. She drew the blankets on the bed around her shoulders without speaking, gnawing on her lower lip with her teeth.

Éléonore patted her on the leg. "It's really not all as bad as it seems," she said.

Gavroche nodded excitedly. "It's actually really good, 'Ponine! Think about it. We can't starve, we don't need money, no one can hurt us…"

"But we're dead," Eponine pointed out. "We're…here, and everyone else…"

The look of pure joy on Gavroche's face slipped somewhat. "Do you mean Mama and Papa?" he said, distaste turning the corners of his mouth downwards. "Because I'm glad to be here, if I'm away from them."

"No!" Eponine shook her head. "No, I don't mean them. But, what of 'Zelma?"

Gavroche snorted. "I'm sure she's fine."

At this point, Éléonore stood up. "I'll leave you two to talk," she said, smiling kindly, although there was some uncertainty behind it.

Gavroche ignored the woman completely, but Eponine watched her leave. Once the door had snapped shut, Gavroche said, "Why aren't you happy?"

Eponine couldn't help but scoff at his words, the laugh escaping before she could stop it. "Gavroche," she said, slowly, "We are dead. What part of that do you not understand? We're dead. Dead!" The word was spiralling around her head.

Her brother shook his head and scowled. "This place is better," he announced. "We can be happy here."

Eponine hated herself, because her eyes were overflowing with hot, bitter tears that she didn't want Gavroche to see. Instead of speaking (for then her voice might break) she just shook her head and looked away from him.

There were a few moments of silence. She could hear Gavroche fidgeting. Then he jumped down off his chair, feet thudding onto the floor.

"You don't understand," Eponine muttered under her breath. Her brother's footsteps paused for the shortest of moments, and then the door opened and shut. She looked around.

She was alone.

XXX

Eponine wasn't sure how much time passed, but pass it did.

She found herself just…lying there. Sometimes, she sat up. She never once got out of bed. What was the point? She didn't need to eat. She didn't need to bathe, she assumed, because she didn't need to do anything else a normal person would have to if they were alive.

So instead she just stayed in the bed and thought. She thought about the barricade. She thought about her parents. She thought about the sound of gunshots. She thought about Montparnasse. She thought about hunger. She thought about Azelma and Gavroche and their other brothers she'd never got to know. She thought about Paris. She thought about the inn. She thought about things she used to own before they lost everything. She thought about bruises and pain and beatings. And she thought about Marius, and Cosette, and the fact he was still alive whilst she was here.

Here, lying in a bed, staring at the wall and occasionally her ruined hand, thinking about her life, her cold, dark, miserable life. Whilst they lived, and breathed, and loved.

What was the point, Eponine wondered. Why was she here? Why were any of them here?

She was dead. Dead. She'd always thought that death would bring some kind of relief from the hell she was living, but this…There was no relief in this, because she was still living that hell; reliving it, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second.

And the problem lay in the fact she didn't know if she could ever escape this new hell she had entered into.

XXX

"Eponine? Come on. We need the bed."

She hadn't even heard the door open, but Éléonore was stood there, a worried expression on her face.

"Hm?" Eponine said.

"We need the bed," Éléonore repeated. "I'm sorry. But a group's just come in, and he – well, he didn't take the news too well. And we're all out of beds, I'm afraid."

Before Eponine could move, Éléonore had to jump out of the way as some men carried in another man. Eponine took a few moments to register what was going on, but once her mind had deciphered the facts she clambered out of the bed as fast as she could.

The two men doing the carrying were Combeferre and Courfeyrac. And between them they carried Joly, the medical student who had always been quite kind to Eponine, when they had spoken to each other.

"Hello, mademoiselle," Courfeyrac said, trying to sound cheerful as they hoisted Joly onto the bed she had just vacated. "We are very sorry to disturb you, but Joly here got a bit excited over the concept of no disease…"

Combeferre snorted.

Eponine backed up against the wall, as they moved away from the bed and looked at her.

"Are you okay, mademoiselle?" Combeferre asked. "We have not seen much of you since we got here…"

Eponine wasn't really sure what to say, and was grateful when Éléonore answered on her behalf. "Eponine just needed some time to herself," the young woman provided. "Eponine, if you come with me I can find you a quiet room to sit in, if you want…"

On the bed, Joly groaned and stirred. They all looked at him as his eyes fluttered open.

"I'm still here," he muttered. "It wasn't a dream. You don't sleep in dreams." There was a confused, bewildered expression on his face and Eponine sympathised completely.

She pushed off the wall and walked around the bed. She nodded at the other men and exited the room, waiting for Éléonore to join her.

A couple of minutes passed, by Eponine's reckoning, before Éléonore came out of the room.

"I don't want to stay here," Eponine said bluntly.

Éléonore nodded. "That is fine. We can't really have any of you here for much longer, if I'm being completely honest; people are dying all the time and we need all the room we can get."

Eponine wrapped her arms around herself. "I can go now," she suggested.

Éléonore raised her eyebrows. "No, no," she said, shaking her head. "We can't have you wandering about aimlessly; it completely goes against our policies as an organisation. Our job is to see you settled in to the society here, so before you can leave we have to find somewhere for you to go."

It was Eponine's turn to raise her eyebrows. "Somewhere for me to go?" she echoed.

"Yes," Éléonore said. "If you come with me now, I can find you somewhere to sit and then I can send someone off to make the arrangements. Then you can leave."

The other woman set off briskly down the corridor. Eponine was clearly expected to follow, and she did eventually. Her brain was trying to process what was happening here – they were going to help her.

Someone was helping her. Eponine couldn't quite remember the last time someone helped her; it was an alien concept.

And she wasn't quite sure it was one she was enjoying.

A/N: When I first started writing this, I hadn't come up with a complete plot (I still haven't really), but the more I muse on it the more I've realised that the story will eventually become a romance...Eventually. I'm not precisely sure on the details just yet, but it will happen. So the genre is going to change on here.

Also, I'm really grateful to anyone who has reviewed, followed or favourited this story so far! Thank you so much :)