AN: I'm back! I haven't updated anything in about a year and here I am with two updates in under a week! My obsession with the amaingness that is Les Mis has well and truly returned with a passion and it makes me incredibly happy.
A little bit more Éponine/Cosette interaction in this one because... well, they're only little. I've never known an eight year old to hold a grudge! Enjoy!
The carriage travelled in peace for an hour or more but, as they reached the entrance to a larger town, it slowed to a stop as officials passed each vehicle seeking entry asking for papers.
A feeling of dread that felt like a stone made Valjean's stomach drop as he hurriedly moved to wake up the two sleeping girls across from him.
"Cosette, Éponine," he muttered. Éponine woke first, jolting awake; she never had been a heavy sleeper and the sudden sound of his voice startled her from her sleep.
"What's wrong?" she asked worriedly. Valjean didn't reply, simply shaking Cosette's shoulder until she woke.
"We must go," he told them both, "Quickly." He threw the door open and the two girls hurried out. He tried to get Cosette to leave her doll behind but she stubbornly refused, clutching it's arm for all she was worth until he relented.
Valjean moved to follow them out, leaving the small number of belongings he had brought with him; as an afterthought, he picked up the bag of clothes Éponine had brought with her, not wanting the girl's efforts to go to waste. He dropped the small bag into the large pockets of his coat before closing the door softly so as not to draw attention.
He took each girl by the hand, pulling them along with him as he ran away from what would inevitably end in his arrest at the city gates. After a while, Cosette began to tire and Valjean lifted her into his arms. He offered to pick Éponine up as well, but she declined with a small grin.
"I'm fine, monsieur," she replied, "And we'll be faster if we both run." Valjean couldn't argue with that and allowed her to lead the way, marvelling at how she was able to effortlessly wind her way around the buildings that surrounded them as they cut down alley after alley.
Typically, Javert didn't catch up with them until they found themselves at a dead-end. Valjean looked around anxiously, his eyes settling on a pile of rope behind a bin. He quickly arranged it so that he could climb up onto the wall blocking their way.
"I'm going to climb up," he told the two girls, "And then I shall lift you up to join me."
"There won't be time," Éponine said quietly, "You climb and take Cosette with you. I'll distract the man." Valjean opened his mouth to protest but Éponine pushed him in the direction of the rope, "There's no time, monsieur, just go!"
His options dwindling by the second, Valjean shifted Cosette onto his back, instructing her to hold on tight, before pulling himself onto the wall, pulling the rope up after him just as Javert rounded the corner into the alleyway and Éponine burst into tears.
"Oh, monsieur, monsieur!" she sobbed, "There was a man! He had a girl with him and he tried to take me away! I only came out to dispose of the last of my family's dinner as a favour to my mother! Oh, please, monsieur, he ran when he heard you coming! Please catch him, he went that way!" She pointed at the path that led past the alleyway and Javert quickly ran in that direction without so much as a second glance at Éponine.
Éponine wiped her tears away and looked up at where Valjean was looking down at her in surprise. She grinned at him cheekily, before lifting up her arms, silently asking him to send the rope back down.
When all three were safely over the other side of the wall, Valjean still carrying Cosette, he turned to Éponine.
"Thank you, Éponine," he said sincerely, "That was quite the performance." Éponine smiled up at him.
"I may only be little, but I know plenty, monsieur," she assured him, "And not just how to start crying whenever I want something." Valjean smiled as he ushered her along, eventually finding themselves in a garden where a man was digging in the dark.
The man froze when he heard them coming, holding up his shovel defensively, "Who's there?!" he called threateningly.
"Please, monsieur," Valjean said quickly, "We mean you no harm." The man peered forwards through the darkness.
"Monsieur la Maire?!" he said. Valjean looked confused so he elaborated, "I'm Fauchelevent. I was trapped under my cart and... you saved my life."
"Good monsieur," Valjean said desperately, "We need a place of safety, these little girls and I. We need to disappear. Can you help us?" Fauchelevent nodded after considering a moment.
"Come with me," he said, leaving his shovel sticking out of the ground and leading them in the direction of the building that surrounded the garden.
"Monsieur, do you know this man?" Éponine asked Valjean quietly.
"I do, little one," he spoke quietly, "He will help us, I am sure."
"Who was that other man, Papa?" Cosette asked quietly, speaking for the first time since they had first climbed into the carriage, "The man chasing us?"
"He is no one important," Valjean said, so confidently that not even Éponine could find room to question him, "And once we have settled, I doubt he will cause us any trouble again."
Éponine and Cosette met eyes for a moment, silently asking the other whether or not they believed him.
In the end, they came to an equally silent conclusion: whether the man was lying or not, he had taken them away from a bad place. And for that reason, they figured he deserved the benefit of the doubt.
Fauchelevent ended up finding them accommodation in an old house on the edge of what Valjean and the two girls learned to be a convent. It was a small, modest house, reserved for what had once been servants' quarters, before the old building had been commissioned as a religious house.
He ensured that they were settled before going off to find them something to eat, also adding a promise to talk to the head of the nunnery in the morning to try and get Cosette and Éponine enrolled in the convent school.
"Young ladies shouldn't be left to aimlessly while away their days," he said as reasoning, "I'm sure they'll be happy to take them on." He then left the little family alone.
Valjean shrugged off his coat despite the cold, moving to start a fire in the fireplace. There was a pile of firewood to one side that had miraculously survived however long it had been sat there. Hanging from a nail dug into the stone were two pieces of flint on a string, which he used to promptly set some of the smaller bits of wood alight. He carefully nursed the fire until it was big enough to throw some heat into the room, Cosette and Éponine watching him all the while.
He turned around once he was sure the fire would stay lit, facing the girls with a small smile.
"There is no need to be so serious, mes petites," he said gently, "We will be alright."
"I'm sure we will, monsieur, but..." Éponine trailed off, "What are we going to do next?"
"We shall stay here as long as they will have us," Valjean said after a moment, "And afterwards, we shall move somewhere else. Maybe to Paris. I have enough money tucked away to keep us warm and fed. You have nothing to worry about." Éponine seemed satisfied with this answer, shrugging her shawl off and settling herself comfortably on the floor by the fire.
"Cosette," Valjean said gently, approaching the still-standing girl, "Come. Get warm. I don't want you to catch your death." Cosette took the hand he held out to her and slowly edged her way towards the fire until she could sit close enough to properly feel its heat. Even then, however, she sat as far away from Éponine as she could, not noticing the other girl's expression drop as she stared into the flames.
Éponine looked up at Valjean with sad eyes before a despaired expression appeared on her face, "My bag!" she said dejectedly, "I left it in the carriage!"
Valjean smiled suddenly, moving to where he'd hung his coat by the door and digging Éponine's bag from his pocket, "We couldn't have that, couldn't we?" he asked rhetorically. He passed the bag to her and she took it gratefully.
"Thank you, monsieur," she said sincerely, settling it in her lap and opening it. She dug around in it for a moment before pulling out a small box. She looked across to where Cosette was still staring into the fire, her doll sat in her own lap as she fiddled absentmindedly with her hair.
Éponine slid the box across the wooden floor to her, catching her attention. Cosette looked at her in confusion, "What is it?" she asked cautiously. Valjean also looked slightly baffled.
"When your mother dropped you off when we were little, this was in one of the bags that my parents took from her," Éponine explained, "This fell out when they were carrying it all up the stairs. Neither of them realised so I picked it up and... and kept it. I've never taken it out, I just... I thought it was pretty. They sold all of the other stuff except for a few dresses that they kept for Azelma and me. I didn't want something so beautiful to go to someone who didn't deserve it."
Cosette opened the box and gasped quietly. Inside was a silver locket, intricately patterned and it looked newer than anything Cosette had owned before her new doll. She carefully lifted it from the box and opened it, finding a lock of brown hair inside almost an identical shade to her own.
"I think it's your mother's," Éponine said, "I thought... since she's in heaven now with my grand-pére and my little brother, Sebastien... you would want it to remind you of her."
Valjean found himself almost moved to tears as Cosette cradled the locket in her hands. He seemed to remember, a memory from nowhere that he was half convinced he had made up, that when he had first seen Fantine all that time ago at the factory, she had worn a similar locket, which would imply that Éponine's assumption was true.
"That's very thoughtful of Éponine, isn't it, Cosette?" he prompted of the younger girl, who looked up at Éponine in a new light.
"Th... Thank you, Éponine," she said quietly.
"I know it doesn't make up for everything I did," Éponine told her, "But... I am sorry, Cosette."
Cosette shook her head, a smile forming on her face, "Oh, but you're wrong," she said, "This does make up for it. It makes up for everything." She threw herself at her new sister, hugging her tightly. Éponine froze for a moment before tentatively hugging her back.
Valjean watched his daughters, amazed at both how easy it was for children to forgive one another but also at how Éponine's actions had been far beyond her years. It would appear that, though he'd expected Cosette's suffering to have made her seem older than she looked, it had instead made her seem younger. In contrast, Éponine's privileged upbringing should, in any other circumstances, have made her more naïve, and yet she was so much mature than he'd assumed she would be.
Watching the two girls slowly begin to warm up, both physically and to each other, Valjean pondered how he had never expected to have a family again after so many years. Now that he had one, it was constantly denying his expectations in ways he could never have imagined.
And, he decided, that was exactly how he liked it.
Et voila! I apologise for any typos (I spotted one right before I wrote this and quickly changed it but my student mind is stubbornly refusing to go to the effort of reading it through all over again!).
I've already started the third chapter (I was originally going to have just two chapters of little Éponine and Cosette but I've got a lot more to write than I thought I would!) so hopefully I'll be able to update again at the weekend if sixth-form is kind!
Thank you ever so much for reading and if you'd like to chuck me a review then it'd be much appreciated and I shall be forever grateful! Thank you to everyone who's left one so far, as well as those who followed/favourited - it means an awful lot!
Until next time, dear readers, TTFN!