Chapter 26 - Down My Bit of Town

Three-quarters of the bottle was gone.

Grace looked up from the slosh of murky brown liquid with swaying vision, hiccuping as Grantaire reloaded his pistol.

He lazily fired off another round at the row of bottles he had stacked down the other end of the sewage tunnel. A blue carafe exploded in a spray of glass.

Grace let out a puff of air and took another swig from the brandy they'd been sharing. Even drunk, Grantaire was still a better shot than Grace would ever be.

Grantaire began absent-mindedly loading up another round whilst Grace stared at the wall.

She was miserable. Unable to show her face in the cafe and slowly being eaten up with shame. It had been three days since Eponine had 'caught' her and Marius, and try as she might, Grace couldn't find her friend to corner her into a conversation. She knew Eponine was deliberately avoiding her. Purposefully staying out of her way to let her wallow in her misery.

So, she had turned to Grantaire and his endless supply of booze. It numbed the roaring pain she felt inside. Filled the hole of hopelessness inside her with a warm, smothering sensation. And she knew she deserved to be punished.

Grace replayed that moment in her mind over and over again: Marius in his wet clothes, the shivering fingers, her hands on his shirt, Eponine's horrified face. She tried, again and again, to will it away. To try and think it out of existence. But she couldn't. Eponine's destroyed expression haunted her whenever she closed her eyes.

If Eponine ever decided to see her again, how could she make her see the truth? Would she even accept it? If Grace was in her shoes, she'd suspect her to be a liar. Perhaps trying to gaslight her into believing that what she'd seen was innocent.

But it was innocent.

It was the truth.

But still, the only person in the world she wanted to hear it had closed their ears to her.

Grantaire's pistol went off with a bang.

Grace flinched and looked over to him. Her head span.

She had tried her hand at firing the flintlocks, but she was even worse with them than she was with the rifle. Grace had hoped that firing a gun at something might have helped quell the frustration and pain inside her, but after too many missed shots, she had given up and decided to help Grantaire add to his firing-range by draining the nearest bottle of brandy he had on him.

"How do you do it?" She asked in a slur.

"Do what?" Grantaire asked, plucking the bottle from her hands and taking a swig himself.

"How do you carry on knowing that someone you love hates you?"

It had been a bit of an educated guess, but from the way Grantaire's gaze widened in surprise, she knew her words had found their mark. Grantaire finished his drink with a smack of his lips. He eyed up Grace carefully, the corner of his mouth pulling upwards. Grace too stared intensely into his face.

"You're good, Degas." He said with a joviality that didn't reach his eyes. "Very good."

But the smile dropped from his mouth, his eyes guttering out like the last dying embers of a fire. Still, he chuckled grimly, taking a seat beside Grace with a heavy drop.

"My father knew about my… tastes." He said quietly. "I think that's why he taught me to shoot. Toughen me up. Make me more…masculine. But it didn't work. That's why he disowned me. The estate will most likely go to my little brother, Gustave, now."

Grace remained still and quiet, waiting for Grantaire to say more.

"On the day he threw me out, he said that I was black with sin….That he was mortified that his son was a sodomite. With the way he cursed and cussed me, you would have thought that I was the Marquis de Sade himself!"

Grace closed her mouth, pressing her lips together in a hard line.

"And that's when you met Enjolras?" She asked.

Grantaire nodded stoically before he answered. "He was the sun. Burning me so brightly that even when he's gone, I still feel him."

He inclined his head towards her, catching the look of aching empathy Grace was giving him. He smiled his clown's grin at her again, taking the brandy from her for another strengthening swig. He shook his head with a grim chuckle.

"You must all think me such a fool. I know he does. A drunken embarrassment. But-"

"But you love him. And even if it burns you to be around him every day, being without the sun is just darkness."

Grantaire's expression filled with sadness. True, genuine sorrow that she'd never seen in his face before. He let the performance drop, all of the bravado and brashness he presented to the world gone in a blink.

"For a while, I hoped." He said shakily. "He wasn't a womaniser or a rake like some of the others are. He didn't seem to look twice at the women Courfeyrac and Bahorel brought back to the cafe. Was I a fool to hope, Degas?"

He stared at Grace with such misery in his eyes that it made her throat constrict with emotion. She swallowed down the lump in her throat, tears in her eyes.

"No, Grantaire." She said softly, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder and rubbing at his back.

"Perhaps it is punishment for my sin. To torment me with something so beautiful as he. Pulling me in closer to his scorching beauty by tantalising me into thinking that he might also be like me…only to find out that his tastes are… Well…"

"Nonexistent."

Grantaire snorted. "Yes. Quite."

"I met one or two people like Enjolras back home in Oxford." Grace said, her shoulders sagging. "They just weren't interested in sex or romance or anything like that at all. Didn't even cross their radar."

"Their what?" Grantaire asked with a frown.

Grace tutted at herself. "Nevermind." She said hurriedly. "What I mean is… I don't think he's ever needed it. Or wanted it. He's not broken or faulty or missing a part of himself, that's just…him! When you and me crave and long and burn for that closeness with another person, Enjolras just…doesn't. I don't think he'd wish himself different either. All the room he has in his heart is for his revolution…and nothing else."

"Certainly not me." Grantaire said glumly. He took the bottle of brandy from her again and looked deeply into the swirling brown liquid. "It's hilarious really. He hates me because I drink, but I drink because he hates me."

"He doesn't hate you. He just…"

"He just loathes every moment in my presence."

"That's not true! What about before, when he brought me to you to learn how to shoot?"

"Mmm…" Grantaire grumbled, nodding his head. "I must admit, that was a welcome reprieve from the normal burning contempt and disappointment."

Grace sighed, nodding her head grimly at the dirty bricks under her feet. It was hard to argue.

"I must also admit…." Grantaire continued, a small hint of playfulness now in his voice. "...it's also nice to have someone else on the receiving end of Enjolras's disappointment.."

He elbowed Grace hard in the ribs and she exclaimed in outrage.

Grantaire laughed, and Grace eventually laughed too.

"I guess misery loves company." She said sardonically, snatching the bottle back off him.

"Now why do you think you deserve to keep company with a sewer-traversing little sodomite like me?"

"Oh come off it." Grace grumbled. "You lot all gossip like washerwomen. You must have heard about what happened between me and… Marius."

"Mm, yes. I must admit, I didn't clock you as a sodomite yourself, Degas." Grantaire said with a curt bob of his head.

"Because I'm not!"

"Degas, even I went through a period of denial. It's only natural. But the proof is in the pudding, as they say, and I couldn't deny it any longer after me and my father's stablehand-"

"I'm not, because I'm a woman, you clot!"

Grace took a long swig of brandy whilst she waited for the surprise to die down in Grantaire's eyes. She might have mustered up the energy to feel shocked that she'd allowed the truth to slip out, but she was bored of the charade. Just wanted it out.

Grantaire scoffed and chuckled to himself. "A castrati… What a load of cock and bull nonsense. I can't believe we all swallowed that!"

"Quite frankly, I was surprised you all swallowed it too." Grace said, raising her eyebrow at him.

"Does Enjolras know?"

"Yes, it was his idea. He said it would be too scandalous for me to lodge with him and…do what you guys do… as a woman."

"Hmm, he's probably right on that front." Grantaire admitted. "Do any of the others know?"

"No. Just you and…and Eponine."

Grace's voice snagged on her name. Like she was a rock that she'd stumbled over. She'd distracted herself just enough to forget for a moment, but it all came screaming back to her at once and she found her gaze going misty.

"Ahh… so that's why I've not seen her face around the cafe recently." Grantaire said, putting the pieces together. "Well, if you aren't a sodomite, you're certainly an opportunistic little succubus, Degas. Oh, Lord. Is Degas even your name?"

"Nothing happened between me and Marius!" Grace exclaimed. "For Christ sake, I've been trying to find Eponine all week to explain that to her!"

"Goodness! Such an impassioned defence!" Grantaire said, mockingly placing a hand on his breast.

"Yeah well, you'd be passionately defending your story too if you'd been accused of… hurting your best friend like that."

Grace blinked back tears as Grantaire chewed thoughtfully on his lip.

"The Eponine girl, she loves Marius?"

Grace nodded, her throat too thick for words.

"Then for God's sake, go and find her, Degas! Or whatever your blasted name is…"

"My name is Grace." She said shortly. "Not Nancy-fucking-Drew. Eponine could be anywhere in this city, and if she doesn't want me to find her, then I damn well won't!"

"Have you tried?"

Grace opened her mouth indignantly to reply, but she stopped herself. She hadn't. She'd moped around with Grantaire in this sewer, feeling sorry for herself and getting wasted.

Just like her sad little life in Oxford before she'd come here. She'd wallowed and rotted in her flat for weeks after David had left. Sitting on her sofa, wishing that someone would come along to pull her out of her slump. But the only person who could change her life was her.

And it was the same now.

She stood up with a sudden jump.

Her head span and her legs wobbled perilously, but she remained upright. However, the bottle slipped out of her lap and smashed on the sewer floor with a sharp crack.

"Degas! That was a good vintage!" Grantaire exclaimed as Grace ran for the nearest grate.

She stopped suddenly, looking back over her shoulder at him.

"So, I'm still 'Degas' then?" She asked carefully.

"You'll be 'Degas' until I'm told otherwise." Grantaire replied, winking roguishly at her.

Grace gave him a warm smile, and then ran down the sewage pipe. She could hear him sighing heavily at her back as the wet pat of her feet echoed around the bricks.

It took her a good few tries to haul herself out of the sewers. Drink had made her clumsy and heavy-limbed. But emerge she did, huffing and sprawled over the pavement whilst she caught her breath. She could smell the horse shit on the ground beside her as she stared up at the spinning sky. Eventually, she had to pull herself upright to get away from the stench. That too was a nauseating task.

She wished she hadn't drunk so much with Grantaire, wished she was a little more sober, as she went charging off into the streets of Montmartre. The night air was cold, but the brandy kept her from the chill. Red faced and with a belly full of warmth, she began her search for Eponine.

Grace looked down all of the alleys and back-passages she and her had walked down together. The tiny little nooks that someone else might entirely look past if they didn't know they were there. The abandoned hovels and holes that offered just a little bit of shelter from the harshness of the outside.

"Eponine!" She shouted into the gloomy streets.

But no one responded to her.

"Eponine!"

Some of the houses closed their shutters in her face and spat curses at her for waking their children up with her shouting. Grace offered them a slurred apology before continuing on.

She turned into a small, windy alleyway, dark with shadows and the overhanging tops of the houses on either side of her. But her dragging feet halted, her blood running cold, as she spotted the figure poised at the other end of the alleyway.

"I told you I'd find you one day, in a dark alley, down my bit of town." The figure grumbled.

The warmth in Grace's belly turned to ice. Every hair on her arms rose to attention.

She realised her mistake too late. Stumbling around Montmartre alone, and in the dark, shouting at the top of her lungs. She might as well of donned a big, fluorescent t-shirt with the words 'Rob Me' on it…

And as the figure at the end of the alleyway stepped closer to her, she felt the sharp, knife-like sting of terror stab into her.

She turned around, stumbling straight into the chest of a goliath at her back.

She looked up at the fleshy wall in front of her, just about able to make out the bald-headed brute she'd seen at the foot of the Elephant that night the Opera had burned. The cherry-lipped youth and the juggler emerged from behind him too, smiling like grimacing devils in the dark.

She turned back around, panting with fear. The figure who had spoken to her before had drawn closer now, boxing her in, and she could just about make out Thenardier's gruesome face, leering at her.

"You scared, prickless?" He asked cruelly.

Grace went still. Terror making her mouth as dry as a dead man's skull.

Thenardier laughed, low and guttural, as he saw the fear play across her face. He rubbed his hands together in enjoyment.

"You deserve every bit of what's comin' to ya". He said, cracking his knuckles.

Grace decided to strike first. If she was going to fall, then she'd rather go down fighting. She hurled a fist straight at Thenardier's nose. A satisfying crunch rippled through her knuckles. Thenardier cried out, clutching at his face.

Grace turned around, trying for another punch into the bald-headed Goliath's stomach, but he caught her fist, smothering it wholly in his ham-sized palm.

She whimpered, trying to wrench her hand free of the goliath's grasp. His face was a mask of brutish calm when she glanced up with a small, frightened mewl.

The next thing Grace felt was an explosion of pain in her cheek.

Her vision crackled with light. The world careened off axis. And she was on the floor before she'd even registered that she'd fallen.

Then came the kicks. To her ribs, her head, her legs. A slow, rolling agony. It was almost like drowning. So many and so quickly, she couldn't draw breath in between each one. She couldn't even scream, even though her body roared in pain.

It was brutal and unyielding. The most acute punishment she'd ever felt in her life. Even when she curled herself into a ball, they still attacked her back, her arms, still trying to pummel her head.

Her ears were ringing when it finally stopped. She felt something hot on her face, coming out of her nose, as one of Thenardier's men turned her onto her back. She barely had time to draw breath before she felt them rummaging around in her pockets. Taking everything she had on her.

Grace coughed pitifully, trying to speak, when she felt one of their greasy fingers slip to her inside pocket.

They ripped the sewn-in compartment away from the lining of her coat, jerking her body upwards with the force of it. She landed with another groan of pain when her back hit the floor again.

Her satchel. Her old life. Her items from the future. Her phone…

"No… please…" she said hoarsely.

She reached a weak hand up to stop them, but Thenardier thumped one of his boots down on top of her palm. She yelped in pain as he tore the last strands of it free from her coat, but Thenardier and his men didn't even stop to look at what was inside it, before they went running off down the alleyway.

"No..! Please..!" Grace repeated, more desperately than before.

Somehow, she sat up. Every inch of her barking in pain as she pulled herself to her feet. The hot sensation she'd felt on her face was blood, and she saw it now staining the front of her boy's shirt. It took her a while to find her balance. To remain upright rather than collapsing back onto the floor in a sprawl of agony. But it was pure panic that forced her on.

They have my phone…. My phone..!

The thought coursed through her mind, over and over again, like a distress signal. An alarm on high alert.

With a hand braced on the wall of the alleyway, she stumbled after them. Her eyes, watery with tears, her heart hammering with dread.

Her stumbling footsteps became a limping jog. She couldn't let them escape. She couldn't let them take the only link she had to her home. The only way she could see all of her old memories of the life she'd left behind. The only way she could see her Mum's face again…

They'd taken it. Taken it all.

There was blood on the ground. Spots of it that she could see dotted on the cobbles. It wasn't hers, she knew, and it took her a second to realise whose it was.

Hopefully she'd broken Thenardier's nose in that first swinging punch she'd managed to land. And even though they'd given it back to her a thousand fold, it still gave her satisfaction to know she'd made him bleed. She would have smiled, if the movement hadn't made her face ache.

She followed the spots of blood, head bent low, stumbling through the dark and desolate streets. Nothing but sheer fear and dread spurring her onwards.

They have my phone. They have my phone. They have my phone.

Grace kept her eyes on the ground, like a sniffing bloodhound. The worst of the pain began to mellow out and she felt herself getting faster. A thought quickly passed through her mind that she was grateful that at least none of them had stabbed her or kicked her hard enough to break anything, but it was quickly replaced by that all-consuming panic:

They have my phone. They have my phone. They have my phone.

Eventually there was nothing in her head, other than the search for the next spot of blood on the floor, then finding the next, and the next, and the next…

It was like tracking a wounded animal through the forest. But the forest was the filthy streets of Montmartre. Sometimes, she couldn't find the blood amongst the rubbish and waste in the streets, but she'd stagger on, until she found a little crimson blob elsewhere. Her surroundings didn't exist. Nothing existed outside of the cobbles and the road and the spots of blood, and the ever-repeating thought of dread in her head:

They have my phone. They have my phone. They have my phone.

"Grace?! Lord above..!"

She almost head-butted the voice who had called to her.

Grace glanced up from the ground, head still spinning from the booze, and saw that she'd come all the way to the Pont au Double.

She gave The Inspector a half-mad look, blinking back at him with surprise.

His face turned from shock to pure, black, cold rage before her.

Javert extended a hand out towards her bloody face, stopping himself just short of actually touching her.

"Who did this to you?" He asked, his voice low, steady and furious.

All Grace could do was pant, adrenaline and panic still coursing through her body. She glanced down at the blood on her shirt, as if seeing it for the first time. Her gaze drifted back up to The Inspector's face again, finding nothing but that murderously calm look still in his eyes.

That's when the sobs came. Sharp, scalding ones that slipped out of her like a kettle finally at boiling point. Then deeper, as if her soul could bleed an ocean through her eyes. All of the pain and despair, she finally allowed herself to feel it.

And in the next moment, she felt the arms of The Inspector wrap around her.

He held her close as she wept into his strong chest. It sent shockwaves of agony through his body as he felt each one of her shuddering, shaking cries against him. But he held her tight. Stroking her hair gently and shushing her as if she were a frightened child. He felt her hands slip around him too. Curling themselves around his waist and holding onto him as desperately as he was holding on to her.

She breathed him in deeply as she wept. Each drag of his gunpowder and sage scent doing something to quell the tempest of despair she felt inside her. But it took her a long time to even want to stop crying. And even when she tried, her body still continued to sob for what felt like an age.

But all that time, he didn't stop comforting her. Didn't slacken his hold on her or try to pull away. He stroked her hair and whispered comforting things to her all the while her shoulders shook with weeping. And when she eventually did stop crying, drawing herself away from his chest and looking up into his eyes, he still kept a steadying hand on her shoulders.

For a moment, Grace remembered that she was meant to be angry with him. But it was hard to dredge up that feeling, not when his arms and his smell and his October-sky eyes on her face made her feel safe again.

She began crying again. Her chin sinking to the floor and her head shaking softly.

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…." She said, over and over again.

"Grace…"

"I didn't know. I swear to God. I didn't know they were going to do that at the Opera."

"No, Grace, I am the one who should be sorry." He said firmly. Javert stared into her tear-stained face, his gaze fiercely adamant. "You didn't deserve what I said to you. None of it. In all my years of service, after all the horrors I have seen, there was nothing more terrifying to me than a woman who might genuinely have desired me too. I was such a fool. Please…please forgive me. I know I do not deserve it, but-"

Perhaps it was the booze in her belly, the fire in her body, the pain in her soul, but before he could finish his pleas, she had smothered his mouth with hers.

He could taste blood and brandy on her lips, but his core thundered with desire. He hadn't expected her mouth, and it took him a few moments to realise that she had kissed him. Was kissing him. Eyes wide open and heart hammering with astonishment.

Her tongue was clumsy, but desperate and hot. Pawing at him with a feverish need that made his blood thrum. His surprise withered away into red hot passion and he melted fully into her. Eyelids fluttering closed to better immerse himself in her.

The kiss turned into something heavier and more sinful than it had been on top of the Opera House. But it also somehow felt like healing too. Like a mending came from her mouth. All those weeks of silence and simmering anger disappearing in an instant. Forgiveness and a relinquishing of pride granted with each meeting of their lips.

Their breath became pants and moulded together. Her fingers glided over his neck, over his coarse facial hair, resting in the dip of his collarbone. He couldn't fathom how he had lived so long starved of touch like this. Her touch. Every small brush of her fingers against his skin sent his knees wobbling. Her other hand held on to his white linen shirt for dear life, the material scrunched up in her solid fist. As if she was the one who rocked on her feet. As if he was her lifeline, her rock in the storm.

He too couldn't stop his hands from dipping to her body. Drawn to places that had before remained untouched. The plane of her chest, turned up high and open towards him, a pale expanse of wonderful skin that he had to touch. The small of her back, curved and arched like the slope of a cello, as he pressed his palms to her. He had to feel her warmth against him. Had craved it like a madman ever since he had stolen himself a taste of it that night on the Opera roof. And he wanted every part of her.

Each time she moaned beneath him, the sound sent ripples of desire coursing through him. His traitorous hands seemed to deny his orders of restraint, with each deep, vibrating noise she made sending his fingers inching closer to her most sensitive places.

He seized her behind, the supple and tender flesh drawing a growl of pure desire from his throat. It rumbled through Grace with the intensity of an earthquake and she had to stop herself from pouncing on him completely in response.

But his searching hands found a tender spot, no doubt one of the places where she'd been kicked by Thenardier's gang, and she let out a small yelp of pain.

He pulled away from her, unable to trust himself a moment longer.

Grace relinquished his mouth with a frown on her face. Her body ached for his touch. Her breasts heavy, her core roiling, her sex throbbing. She could tell he'd been aroused too; The press of his body against hers had betrayed his hardness.

Javert swallowed hard, forcing his aching arms to stick at his sides as he composed himself. She was hurt, bleeding, crying. And here he was taking advantage of her. In the middle of the open street, no less.

His face turned cold and furious again, despite the pants that still had his chest rising and falling rapidly.

"Tell me who hurt you." He demanded again. Firmer this time, as if he were forcing himself to become The Inspector again and not whoever he had lost himself to whilst he was kissing her.

Grace took a second to swallow down her arousal. Her voice was croaky and thick when she finally replied to him. "He's… he's called Thenardier."

"Thenardier…" Javert breathed, teeth clenched in rage.

"He has a gang. They…They cornered me in an alleyway… And they took it…"

"Took what?"

"My… my…"

My phone she yearned to say, her bottom lip quivering. But she bit off the words before she could betray herself, looking down at her boots so The Inspector wouldn't see the tears in her eyes again.

"My belongings." she said finally. "They won't mean anything to them, but to me…To me they meant the world."

Her voice broke on those last words, the tears slipping out of her eyes once more and soon she found Javert's arms wrapped gently around her again.

"Don't cry. Please don't cry." he said, pain in his voice.

"It was the last bit of home I had…" she wailed into his chest.

"I'll find them. I'll get it back."

Grace scoffed, drawing away from him and trying to wipe at the crusted blood on her nose.

"Good luck." she said sardonically. "They'll probably chuck it in the Seine when they figure out they can't use it, or it can't be sold."

"I'll find them before that happens."

She scoffed again, shaking her head.

"I will. I promise you." He said sternly.

Grace looked deep into his eyes. She narrowed her gaze at him. "You know Thénardier?"

It wasn't really a question, but she asked it all the same.

"I know…of him." Javert lied quickly.

He wasn't quite sure how he'd explain his connection to that vagabond. Especially as he'd been using Thénardier to spy on Grace these last few weeks.

"I make it my business to know the movements of my district's most notorious criminals." He added quickly.

Grace looked satisfied by that answer, and he let out a small, imperceptible, breath of relief.

"What exactly am I looking for?" He asked.

Grace tensed up a little. How to explain her phone to a man who had no concept of what a phone was…

"It's… uhh. It's like a little glass brick. About this big…" She held her hands out in front of him in a small rectangle. "Black. A symbol of an apple with a bite taken out of it on the back."

He raised a quizzical brow at her. Javert had never heard of an item of that description. Then again, Grace had said that it would mean nothing to the braggarts who had stolen it. Perhaps it was just a sentimental bit of rubbish that she, for whatever reason, cherished.

Grace dabbed at the blood on her nose again and anger made his stomach churn once more. Her eye was swelling now. An angry purple welt blooming right across her cheekbone. He'd seen enough beatings and bashings in his time to know that she'd wake up sore and stiff with pain tomorrow. The thought of anyone having laid a hand on Grace made a red mist begin to form at the corners of his vision. It would take all his restraint not to kill Thénardier for what he'd done to her. To break every single one of the fingers that had dared touch her…

"How many of them were there?" He asked, teeth gritted.

"Four." Grace said with a sigh.

"Four?!" Javert growled.

The sound of it made Grace's skin tingle. It was so like that growl of pleasure he'd made when he'd touched her body… She glanced up at him shyly, a playful smile pulling at her lips.

It took a second for him to realise why she had turned all pink and sheepish. Especially when his blood boiled with rage, knowing Thénardier had set three of his goonies on her at once. But once he did, his own face grew hot with embarrassment.

He took a measured and steady pace closer to her. Grace felt the air between them grow heavy and spiced with warmth. Filling each one of her senses. Until there was nothing but him again.

"Whatever you did to rile up Thénardier…" he said softly.

"It's a long story." Grace said curtly. "That girl that you saw with me, on the night you caught me with the bedframe…"

"Oh I recall. The one who went scampering off into the darkness?"

Grace nodded. "That's Eponine. Thenardier's daughter."

"Well I would warn you, if the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, then-"

"Eponine is nothing like him." Grace cut in sharply. His voice had sounded too much like a scalding from a parent. "Eponine is good and kind and clever and strong. And she's my friend. Well, was my friend…"

She paused, her throat closing up as she remembered the friendship she'd most likely lost.

"Was?"

"That's another long story." Grace sighed. "But…I hurt her. And I didn't mean to. She thinks I did. But I didn't and I hate myself for hurting her. And I was trying to find her when Thénardier's men found me and -"

"Well, you're in luck." Javert said suddenly.

"What?" Grace blinked at him.

"Because she's been hiding behind that lamppost there for the past minute or so…"

Javert pointed over her shoulder and Grace spun around with a gasp.

On the far end of the bridge, standing behind the last lamppost on the bridge, was a figure. A figure that bore Eponine's shadowed and dark features beneath the flatcap drawn low down her face.

Knowing she'd been spotted, Eponine emerged from behind the lamppost and stood in the centre of the empty bridge. Her face was unreadable as she placed her hands inside her pockets, waiting patiently for Grace to come to her.

Grace made a move towards her, but she felt a hand upon hers, stopping her. Javert turned her back to him, a look of longing in his eyes.

"Will I see you again?" He asked her quickly, heatedly, his face perilously close to hers.

Grace nodded. "Yes." She breathed.

"When?" He asked, more a demand than a question.

"The day after tomorrow?"

Javert nodded and smirked at her. "Can't wait for Sunday to come around again, Mademoiselle?" He asked playfully.

Grace bristled with outrage. But when all of her witty retorts and comebacks rose up to come fizzing out of her, she instead found nothing but the urge to kiss him again.

And she did.

Mouths meeting with the violence and beauty of two spinning galaxies colliding into one another.

Eponine coughed impatiently at her back, and Grace wrenched her lips off him with a start.

She took a reluctant step away from Javert, eyes wanting to remain on him until the last second. He watched her go, feeling the growing distance between them with a tightening vice of anxiety in his chest. Still, he schooled his face into lethal calm, turning his gaze onto the small, dark haired girl waiting for Grace down the bridge.

He nodded once to her, as if saying 'Look after her'.

And she nodded back to him, as if to say 'I will'.

With that, The Inspector turned and mounted his horse. He galloped off into the streets, hooves thundering in the empty silence around Notre Dame.

Grace stood sheepishly before Eponine and didn't say a word until those good beats had been swallowed up by the night.

"How much did you-"

"I got here just as you started necking each other." Eponine cut in quickly.

Grace turned scarlet as she looked down, mortified, at her feet.

"I heard about… what my father and the others had done to you." Eponine added when the awkward silence had stretched on for a few beats too long.

"But, how did you-"

"Nothing happens in my city without me knowing about it."

Grace smiled, sensing something of the old familiarity between them, that closeness that she'd thought lost forever, in her words.

"Couldn't have gotten there quicker to stop it, though..." Grace grumbled, shooting Eponine a cheeky smile.

"I did try… But quite frankly, if you chose to go out in the streets, hollerin' at the top of your lungs, in the middle of the night, you deserved it."

Grace scoffed with outrage, but Eponine returned her cheeky smile and she let out a long breath.

"So… the policeman." Eponine said, nodding her head in the direction Javert had left.

"Yeah…" Grace replied, unsure of what to say next. Where to even begin…

"It was him you were talking about, up on the Elephant."

"Yes."

"Not Marius."

"Not Marius." Grace repeated forcefully.

Eponine loosed a long breath too, looking out thoughtfully over the river by their side.

"You know…I don't think I'd have believed you, if I'd not just seen it with my own eyes." she added, barely audible above the flowing sounds of the Seine.

"I know. I know…" Grace said wearily.

She'd wished so desperately to speak to Eponine these last few days, but now she was here, words failed her. In all her planned-out explanations and conversations, she'd never factored in Eponine actually seeing the evidence that proved her innocence. Quite literally catching her in the act with Javert…

"Jesus Christ, Grace." Eponine breathed, shuffling uncomfortably from foot to foot. "He's the Prèfecture!"

"I know."

"We run from him in the streets when we hear he's coming!"

"I know."

"And he must be, what? Twenty years your senior?!"

"I know."

Eponine closed her mouth. Her jaw set firm. She was quiet for a long while, chewing her bottom lip whilst Grace waited patiently for her to continue.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Eponine asked eventually. She looked up at Grace with a sorrow in her eyes that almost had Grace crying again.

"I…I didn't know how to. I didn't know how to explain it. I still don't." she said, her words a rushed garble. "You hate the police. Everyone does in Montmartre. And I thought you'd think less of me if I told you it was… it was him."

"If we could choose who to give our heart to, or have the power to take it back, believe me, I would have snatched mine back from Marius years ago."

Grace stared at her friend with sadness in her eyes. Despite her confusion, there was a softness there in Eponine's face. Something deep in Eponine's gaze that told her that she might not understand, but she got it.

"You look dreadful." Eponine said bluntly, looking Grace up and down.

"Oh, cheers buddy." Grace replied, poking at her cheekbone.

"Come on, you'll need leeches on that eye if you don't want it to completely close up with swelling by tomorrow."

"Leeches?!" Grace shrieked.

"To drain the blood out of it!"

"Oh, God, no thank you…" Grace said, even as Eponine began pulling her away from the bridge. "Can't I just put a steak or a block of ice on it instead?"

"Look, all I'll tell you is that the butcher's shop has a guard dog, and the doctor's shop doesn't. Which one do you feel like breaking in to?"

Grace chuckled and winced as the smile made her swollen eye sting.

"And I don't know where the bloody hell you think you're gonna get ice from at this time of year." Eponine continued.

"Alright, alright…" Grace replied impatiently. "But you're holding my hand whilst they're on my face."

"Well, you'll have to tell me if they suck as good as The Inspector does…"

Grace gasped, pushing Eponine hard in her arm as they both laughed.