Chapter Twenty Six

A/N: Thank you to OMG-fangirl, MusicalTheatreTrash and Lylex96 for reviewing the last chapter.

The buildings of Paris were shadows on the horizon by the time the couple stopped to rest, their legs shaking from the effort of their journey. The late afternoon sun made the shadows seem longer, reaching their fingers out across the path, but for once, Éponine paid them no heed. There was no danger anymore, now that her father was locked away in a cell.

They ended up sat on the roadside, their legs curled up beneath them, covered in dust and blades and grass. It would not give the most presentable impression of them when they arrived at wherever they would end up.

"Somehow, I never thought it would come to this." the young woman whispered. It was the first time they had spoken since the prison was out of sight. Marius looked up in confusion, but waited patiently through the long pause that followed. "I've always hated Paris, really. It was never a home for me, not like Montfermeil. The whole city seemed like a huge prison, the city walls my cell. I thought I'd be trapped for the rest of my life. But now I'm here, with you. It's like a dream."

"We'll never have to go back there, 'Ponine." Marius assured the girl, though it was not as simple a matter as that. The truth was, they could never go back there, for Marius would surely be hung the moment a policeman recognised his face, and she would die a conspirator beside him. It was not safe for them to be in the city any longer, or even nearby. Their journey that night was long from over.

"But where do we go now?" she asked, voicing the concern that had pulsed through both of their minds for hours. Marius had been born and raised in Paris, while Éponine had not lived anywhere else since her childhood. Montfermeil, the place in which she had so many happy memories, would not welcome her now, not after all the cons her father tried to get away with there. Besides which, it would be the first place the police would look for them.

"We'll find a village, somewhere where no one knows our names." Marius replied, trying to sound confident, though he was still unfurling the plan in his mind even as he spoke it. "We can find a way to get a message to someone- perhaps to Montparnasse- to have my money smuggled out of Paris, and we can use it to buy a house there."

"And then what?" Éponine pressed. Suddenly, the panic-stricken world seemed calm and still. "We'll live happily ever after, like a fairy story? We've tried this so many times, Marius, but something has always torn up apart. Have you ever thought that it might be… fated?"

"What do you mean?" Marius asked her. Of course, being a learned man, he was more than familiar with the concept of fate, but still Éponine's words were confusing to him.

Éponine took a deep breath before she answered. "Ever since I was a little girl, I've believed in angels. I don't know about God, if He exists or if He would care for me even if He did, but I do believe in angels, guiding our way and protecting us from harm. When my father would beat me, even when I had done nothing wrong, I started to see it as a message from the angels. A message that I should stay away from him, or else I'd be hurt. And I worry now that, all we've been through… perhaps they're trying to say the same thing about us."

"No, 'Ponine." Marius stressed, though his voice did not sound unkind. This belief was clearly important to the young woman, after all, and it had carried her through many a raging storm. "I believe the same as you, I think, I believe that forces outside of our hands act to shape the happenings here on Earth. But I don't believe that those forces, whatever they were, were trying to pull us apart. In fact, I think it was the opposite. We've had a thousand troubles come our way, we have both faced the noose in the last fortnight, and yet here we are. Together still. Do you not think that might be a sign?"

Éponine fell silent, pulling her knees out from under her and tucking them to her chest. She looked like a little girl, like the waif Marius had first met begging on the side of a busy Paris street. They had come so far since then, it was strange to think that they were still those same people at all.

Unable to bear the silence, Marius cleared his throat, raising himself onto one knee at Éponine's side. For a girl who had not been raised in the bourgeois world, that gesture alone meant little, but when he fumbled in his pocket and retrieved a small ring set with a warm amber stone, suddenly his intentions were clear.

"I've carried it round with me for days." Marius explained, twisting the ring between his fingers, watching the wonder on the young woman's face as the precious crystal flickered in the light. "But first you went to the gallows, and then I was sent to the cells, there was never a moment to give it to you. I was rather surprised it stayed with me all that time, I thought I would have lost it. But no, it stayed by my side, just like you did."

"Marius…" Éponine breathed. She did not know what the rest of her sentence would have been, had not thought so far ahead. With her heart racing so beneath her chest, it was a wonder that the girl could think at all.

Smiling, Marius took her hand in his. "Éponine, I love you. And if we are to start a new life, then I want us to start it together, the right way. So, will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?"

This time, Éponine did not have to think, throwing her arms around her beloved and whispering her answer over and over again into the material at his shoulder. "Yes, yes, yes."

When they broke apart at long last, Marius slid the ring onto his beloved's tiny finger, watching as it glowed in the fading light. The stone had a beauty that was made of fire, just as Éponine did; no diamond would ever have done justice to her spirit.

And as the excitable girl pressed her lips to his, they both smiled. Their clothes were rumpled now, wet with dew and caked in dirt, their hair tangled and their skin mottled with bruises. But never had there been a more beautiful couple to set out on their journey, hand in hand as they walked along the path with no clue of where they were going. They had nothing now but each other, and yet they could not have been more joyful.

A/N: Just an epilogue to go now. Hope you all enjoyed the long-awaited proposal, please review!