Chapter Eleven

A/N: Thank you to MissFiyerabaMeponineSherlock, Alex-samsprout and Guest for reviewing the last chapter.

The sun was setting on the city of Paris when the two dark figures finally ceased their walking into its streets. It had been an extremely long day, and neither had had a moment's rest since they had set off together, as both of them had known what the consequences of even a second's delay could be. However, now, their limbs were screaming out in protest and their feet were heavy as stones at the bottom of a river, and so the two finally gave in to temptation and seated themselves on the cobbled tiles of the pavement.

For all that had happened in the few days gone by, the city seemed to have not changed in the least. For all the deaths that had occurred on the barricades that had been raised around the city, the light still glinted in the same way across the polished tiles of the buildings in the suburbs of the bourgeoisie. The slums had been decimated, but in the realm of the upper classes, the sun rose and set as it had always done, as it always would. Here, the rebellions had changed nothing at all.

Suddenly, Éponine felt a wet trail form across her cheek, and realised that she had begun to cry. It was so sudden, this show of weakness, and in front of one of the members of her father's gang as well, but in all the strange happenings within the past fortnight, she had not truly had the chance to come to terms with the fact that so many of those she had known would be dead. Enjolras, Coufeyrac, Grantaire, Joly, and so many of the others that would not have abandoned the cause, even when the guns of the Guards were aimed at their hearts. And then there was dear 'Vroche. The young woman had not received any sign that her brother was alive, that he had escaped the terrible events of the barricade, and all she could do was hope that the sinking feeling in her heart was misplaced.

Éponine suddenly realised she had begun to cry more visibly, but by the time she had wiped the tears away, it was too late. 'Parnasse had already noticed, he had been staring at her for a while now, and the expression of sympathy on his face was almost painful for the girl to see. She didn't want sympathy, particularly not from a man so vicious as to have been a member of the Patron-Minette.

"Are you thinking about Marius?" he asked, and there was a slight note of bitterness in his tone as he spoke. The young brunette could not put her finger on the reason for this, but she overlooked it for now.

"No." she told him, plainly enough, although her voice was little more than a whisper. She did not want to tell him the real reason for her tears, but she was well aware that Montparnasse was a persistant man. He would not drop the subject unless she told him, and she knew this. So, she bit the bullet, so to speak, and decided not to withhold the truth. "I was thinking of the barricade. All the rebels, all my friends, they're all dead. Me and Marius, we're the only ones left. Maybe Gavroche, as well, but he should've found me by now if he's not dead."

She paused in her speech once again, tears slipping down her cheeks. The more she stopped and thought of the subject, the more unlikely it seemed that the little boy could have survived that night. After all, if men like Enjolras, who had planned the attacks down to the second, could have been felled by the Guards, then what chance would a child have had of surviving the onslaught?

"You left so soon after the attack. Maybe you just missed him." the criminal pointed out, though there was a waver in his tone that made her think that he did not believe his words any more than she did. He had known Gavroche a little, after all, and he had liked the boy, although the feeling had not been mutual, if the child's past grumblings had been anything to go by.

"Maybe." she responded. She did not even attempt to disguise the fact that she did not believe him in the least, and she knew that he would not have believed him if she had done.

Suddenly, Montparnasse stood, reaching down to pull her to her feet. Éponine stumbled slightly, only able to briefly regain her balance before it was thrown once again, as he swiftly took off in the opposite direction to the place where they had once lived, dragging her along behind him.

One street blurred into another, with the speed at which they were travelling, but eventually, the man slowed his pace, coming to a halt in front of a building that was more than familiar to the brunette. It took a moment for the pieces of the puzzle to come together, but once they had done, she raised a hand to her mouth, suddenly aware of the location they had come to.

When she had first awoken, after she had nearly died on the barricades, she had been utterly fixated on finding Marius. She had taken no more time to examine the surroundings than she had done the lines of the dead students, and so it was a shock to find the Musain, the place she and her friends had loved for so long, a complete wreck. The doors and shutters had been ripped off, the glass of the windows smashed in, and the structure of the walls was dented where showers of bullets and cannon balls had been fired.

"Come on." came a voice from behind her, and the young woman felt a hand on her back, pushing her to move forwards. It did not take much longer for her to realise what 'Parnasse's plan had been, but she convinced herself that she could not hesitate any longer; it would do no good. She needed to see the truth for herself.

Éponine had barely crossed the threshold of the Musain before she collapsed to her knees, her feeble body wracked by sobs as she clutched at the body of her younger brother, pale and still, his shirt stained with scarlet and ripped where the bullet had torn through his flesh. He was gone. Her own dear 'Vroche, taken from her by the National Guards, just as the rest of the rebels had been.

She would not allow this to pass, she vowed to herself. If it was the last thing she did, she would seek vengeance on the National Guards. After all, she had nothing left to lose.

A/N: Please review!