Chapter Eight

A/N: Thank you to guest, Christine Eponine, Reena Catheryn and LesMisFan for reviewing the last chapter.

Once again, time stopped for Éponine. She could not believe that, after all the progress she had made with Marius, the lark had arrived and ruined it all. And to have the audacity to approach her, the girl whose life she had destroyed, while she was still in her sick bed, the brunette could not have been more conflicted with her emotions than she was at that moment.

She had hardly been brought from her thoughts when the girl approached her bedside, Marius holding onto her arm with a kind of affection that he had never shown to his friend. Immediately, she sat down in the chair that the dark haired man had vacated to greet her, with a smile on her face so sickening that the brunette thought she may be sick at the sight of it. This was not Cosette as she wanted to see her. This was the Cosette that was the girl of her best friend's dreams.

"Éponine." she greeted, in a tone that was just as sweet as it had been when she had sung, but to the woman to which she spoke, it sounded like nothing but poison. "It is such a relief to see that you are alive and well. I know that my Marius was so worried about you."

The words hit Éponine like the bullet all those days ago, in a mixture of both positive and negative. She now knew that Marius had worried for her, that he had felt guilty for the loss of his friend, in which he had had a slight part. Even after he had believed her dead, the young man had not forgotten about her, and he had thought of her, when he was alongside his beloved Cosette.

However, that was the other part of the words, the part that had made the girl want to cry. It had been said in a frivolous way, most likely, but the meaning behind it had been clear enough.

My Marius.

It was true. Whether or not he had thought of her during the time that she had been away, it had been the lark by his side, holding his hand and helping him through the days. It had not been her, and never would be, who wore his ring, bore his children, lay by his side as he slept. Marius belonged to Cosette, not to her.

'You are being foolish, Éponine.' she scolded herself inside her mind. 'After all, you have known for a long time that Marius belonged to her. Why regret what could not be?'

The young woman was brought back to reality once again as the student cleared his throat pointedly, to remind her that it was good practice and manners to respond to such a statement with thanks. Although the blonde was the last person that Éponine would ever wish to give thanks to, she did so, for the sake of him, and for the sake of saving her own image. After all, in the wake of the barricade, that was all that she had left.

"Well, it seems like everything is back as it should be, doesn't it, 'Ponine?" Marius questioned, though it seemed to be more of a prompt for her to say something of a similar sort. For just a second, the young woman considered not doing so, leaving the silence to speak more volumes than any words would have done, but as soon as she saw the look of pleading on the face of her old friend, she found that she could not do so. Instead, she responded with a lie.

"Yes." she sighed, trying her upmost to disguise the fact that she was not being truthful by averting her gaze slightly, directing her falsified smile only to the pale cloth of her bedding. She did this, of course, for the sake of Marius, not for the sake of the lark. "We're all right back where we started."

'Of course we are right back at the starting point.' the young woman thought to herself, summoning all the strength she had not to break down and cry right then. It did not matter that the young woman had seen her do so before, even that the blonde had done as well, back when they were still children and her father had backhanded her for asking why the girl could not have a doll as well. 'He is stood there with his hand in that of his dear Cosette, his eyes filled with love for her. They will probably be getting married once he is out of mourning for the events of the barricade, and I will be left all on my own once more. Nothing has changed at all, because I was right. His world has gone on turning, and it is filled with a happiness that I will never know.'

"We should leave you to rest, Éponine." Marius suggested, at which point Cosette rose from her chair with an agreeable nod, one that did not fool the young woman lain in the bed, who knew that the bourgeois girl could not waitto leave the hospital. "After all, the nurse said that if you sleep a great deal tonight, you could be allowed to leave tomorrow afternoon, to go home."

As she watched the pair exit the room, the brunette finally allowed the tears to fall from her eyes, curling into a ball on her side, as if to protect herself from the harsh world she would return to. She would not be going home, as the young man had said, as she no longer had a home. She could not return to her father, and would never do so, which left her with nowhere else to go. She could go to Marius, but he may be with Cosette, and she would rather sleep on the streets again than accept charity from the lark.

After half an hour at least, Éponine felt herself begin to drift off into sleep, the dark clutches of slumber taking over the bright daylight that still streamed through the window. But before she did so, she found comfort in an old tune that she had once sung to herself, one terrible night in the pouring rain.

I love him, but everyday I'm learning,
All my life, I've only been pretending,
Without me, his world has gone on turning,
A world that's full of happiness, that now I'll never know.

I love him,
I love him,
I love him,
But only on my own.

A/N: Please review!