6

The room that Éponine was showed into next was not nearly as nice as the bedroom, or even the room she had bathed in. There was only a table and some chairs, and the walls were a stark white and there was no decoration at all.

The chair she was sat in was also uncomfortable, she thought, shifting around in her seat. She stared up at the ceiling, and huffed a small sigh. Now she was out of the reverie she had fallen into whilst lying in bed, she had no desire to return to those dark thoughts any time soon.

But in a room as plain as this, she had no other choice but to carry on thinking a little bit more. She thought about Marius, lying in that bed. When he was better, would he think of her, she wondered. Think of her like how she was thinking of him? Would he at least be grateful for the sacrifice she had made?

She hoped so, because she was here with a mangled hand and too many thoughts buzzing around her brain.

All of a sudden, the door to the room opened and Gavroche bounded in. "Are you going to talk to me now?" he said, voice somewhat accusatory.

"What?" she said.

"I came in before," he said. "And you wouldn't talk to me."

Éponine frowned. "Did you? I don't remember you coming in at all."

Her brother sneered, but before he could say anything, Éléonore came in. "Someone's looking for a place for you now," she said. "I hope neither of you mind, but I took the liberty of saying you wanted an apartment together…"

Gavroche's brow knitted together in confusion. "Huh?"

"Éponine wants to leave," Éléonore said, placing a hand on Gavroche's shoulder. "People don't stay here forever, little Gavroche. And she's your sister, so I assumed…"

"That's fine," Éponine said. She didn't mind. She did love Gavroche, after all, and he loved her too in his own little way. They'd never really lived together, either, but she'd rather he was with her than anywhere else.

"Where are you going?" Gavroche whirled around to face her.

Éponine shrugged. "Wherever they send me," she said.

"It'll be an apartment of some kind," Éléonore said.

Gavroche's face screwed up in distaste. "I don't want to go," he said.

"I'm sorry, Gavroche, but this is no permanent accommodation here," Éléonore said, her voice a little sympathetic. "Not even the Guardians live here full-time. I have an apartment myself…"

Éponine studied her brother closely. She knew that Éléonore was missing the point because she knew her brother. She knew where the problem lay.

Gavroche couldn't remember a time when he wasn't free, as free as he could possibly be. Gavroche was a child of the streets. He went where he wanted to, when he wanted to, because he wanted to. Gavroche wasn't used to walls or barriers or orders. Hell, he wasn't even used to the comfort of a real bed.

It wasn't an issue of leaving this building, she knew. It was the issue of, for the first time in his life, the potential of him having a permanent home.

Éponine was about to tell him it didn't matter, when there was a knock at the half-open door.

Courfeyrac poked his head around. He smiled broadly. "Hello," he said. "Sorry if I'm disturbing anything. But Mathilde told me you were here and you were the best person to speak to…"

"Yes, monsieur," Éléonore said. "It's fine. What's the problem?"

"Please, you don't need to call me monsieur," Courfeyrac said, stepping into the room fully. "And there's no problem. We – me and my friends – were wondering about where to go from here…"

Éponine sighed and leaned back in her seat.

"Ah." Éléonore smiled. "Éponine was wondering the same thing and we are trying to find accommodation for her right now. If you like, I can go and add you onto the search?"

Courfeyrac's grin got even bigger, if that were possible. "That would be brilliant," he said.

"I know there's a lot of you," Éléonore said, more to himself than to anyone else in the room. "I won't be a moment. Gavroche, if you could please think about it whilst I'm gone?" She ruffled the young boy's hair and swept out of the room.

"Think about what?" Courfeyrac enquired. His voice was entirely too cheerful for Éponine's liking.

"They want me to move into a house," Gavroche said, the disdain that coloured his tone confirming Éponine's suspicions of what the real issue at hand was.

"A house?" Courfeyrac echoed. "What's so bad about that?" He glanced at Éponine.

"We're not used to comforts such as a roof over our heads," Éponine provided in a quiet voice.

Realisation dawned on Courfeyrac's face. For once, his ever-present smile slipped somewhat as he crouched down so that he was on Gavroche's level. "So you don't want to live in a house?" he said.

Gavroche eyed the man warily, his eyes narrowing. He didn't answer.

"Gavroche," Courfeyrac said. "I understand why you don't want to live in a house."

"It's not a house," Éponine found herself piping up. "It's an apartment."

Courfeyrac shot her a look but didn't acknowledge her words with a vocal response. Instead, he said to Gavroche, "It's a good thing, though. Like you were saying before – how you could be happy here, and have the life you never had before…"

Éponine resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

"A part of that life could be this house – apartment – shelter," Courfeyrac said. "Does the idea not appeal to you at all?"

"It should do," Éponine said. "God knows, it appeals to me. I'm surprised you're being like this, Gavroche. After all you spouted to me about how this place is wonderful and how you can have a better life, do you really want to go back to sleeping on the streets?"

"No one can hurt me here," Gavroche said, his chin jutting out.

Éponine knew there were other ways to hurt someone without causing them physical harm, but she decided not to comment on that.

"Maybe not," Courfeyrac said, slowly, "You can always take advantage of the fact you can have a roof over your head, though. Just in case there's a slim chance you could be hurt." He glanced towards Éponine once more. "And you'll be with your sister. Your family."

Gavroche folded his skinny arms over his chest. "She's no fun when she's being grumpy," he muttered.

At this, Courfeyrac snorted. "I couldn't agree more," he said, then lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "But maybe if you agree to live with her, she might cheer up a bit."

Éponine ignored their jibes and returned to staring at the ceiling. A few minutes passed before she realised that Courfeyrac was speaking to her.

"Huh?" she said, only catching the end of a sentence.

Courfeyrac repeated: "The rest of us are in a room elsewhere. Would you care to join us? There's more comfortable chairs."

Éponine shrugged. "Might as well," she muttered. The thought of soft cushions was preferable to the hard wood she was currently sat on.

XXX

The sofa she eventually ended up sat on was indeed much more preferable to the wooden chair, but the chatter of the students was not better than the silence she could have been enjoying in that other room.

She was conflicted; on one hand, there was only a small group of students here, so the noise was by far not as bad as it could have been. On the other hand, this 'small group of students' happened to be the core of Les Amis de l'ABC. Éponine had personally found them to be the most annoying, but maybe that was because she simply spent more time around them due to the fact they were closer friends with Marius.

Whatever the reason, they were beginning to grate on her nerves. They all sounded far too happy for her liking.

Except for one, she observed. Enjolras, who was sat closest to the fire and was staring into the flames. He was not speaking, and he was not acknowledging that anyone was nearby. He was just staring. Éponine wondered whether she had looked like this not so long ago, and decided that she probably had.

She thought his silence was peculiar. To be fair, he was certainly not one of the rowdier members of the group; he was not a jester, he was not a big drinker – in fact, she wasn't sure she'd ever seen him have 'fun' in the traditional sense of the word. But he was always the centre of attention. Being the leader of Les Amis de l'ABC made that a very definite thing. He was always giving his speeches on equality and freedom; he knew how to command a room that was for sure. So to see him sat there, so quiet, his body stiff and closed off…It was somewhat unnerving.

More unnerving to Éponine, however, was the fact she'd completely missed the bullet hole in Enjolras' temple. She'd already become used to the wounds everyone bore here. And she personally didn't think that boded well for the future.