A/N: I'll have to apologize to Valiya, as a first thing. I'm impatient as hell...
Apart from that, thanks to the anonymous reader that I cannot reply to by PM: That review made my day, even though I am not sure if I should feel bad for making you sleep so little...
Apart from that I nicked some passages from the prison break in the brick... I hope I got the things more or less right.
Thanks to all who review and lead endless discussions on characters, histories and the like via PM with me. I truly enjoy it :-). I appreciate comments very much, so if you feel like it, drop me a line.
Thanks also to those who follow, read and fav.
As a last shameless self-promoting: I have written a little one-shot on the background of Joly, Musichetta and Bossuet and their relationship, which can be found under my stories. I figured I could not fit this into the main plot, so I made it a separate thing. It's self-standing and the city of glass will also be self-standing but for those who are interested: It's under my stories and called "Ma tendre Musette". Have fun reading!
So now, without further ado:
Chapter 22: Brothers and sisters, lovers and friends
Understanding is a three-edged sword.
In fact, no one really liked it. Enjolras didn't – that much was clear by the frown plastered on his face. Courfeyrac's expression showed it even more acutely, and he was much more outspoken and direct about it, both towards Marius and Gavroche; and Combeferre, while he refrained from commenting, was radiating displeasure at a remarkable level, given his normally calm demeanor.
Éponine most certainly did not like it – but the expression in her eyes was a telltale sign of the fact, that for her these things were never easy, and that she was at least of two minds when it came to this.
Gavroche, finally, while agreeing to do it, had done so only for the benefit of his sister.
"Best someone watches this", he confided to Courfeyrac by way of explanation. The student gave him a somewhat doubtful gaze and a shake of his head.
"That's much appreciated, little man", he said. "But it would not be necessary, if Marius would just see…"
"He won't." For someone pretending to be a grown-up, Courfeyrac could be remarkably dense at times. There was no arguing with the baron's son, that was obvious by his pleading gaze that rested on Éponine, and there was no arguing with Éponine, when it came to a request from Marius.
Courfeyrac sighed.
"You're probably right", he concurred, folding his arms before him. "Still. It's going to leave you alone, it's going to leave her alone, and all for the woes of Marius."
Gavroche shrugged. "She'll be with our folks", he reminded his friend. "And I won't be alone, remember? I got me boys with me. Can't leave them alone anyhow. Plus, grown-ups won't come into that elephant anyway. Too small, you see?"
Courfeyrac shook his head.
"It's wood and paper, little man. Not much use against a pistol."
Gavroche thought that Courfeyrac was missing the point completely.
"It's home", he explained patiently, yet with determination. "And I'm going there."
"Via Rue Plumet, it seems", Courfeyrac conceded with a sigh, and Gavroche nodded, adding the rest of the route they were going to take this night – or rather this morning:
"and the Gorbeau house and your place, to drop off Marius. Fits just fine. I've been wanting a word with 'Ponine anyhow."
A smile found its way on Courfeyrac's features at that Gavroche did not really understand. But Courfeyrac smiling was better than him looking worried, or angry, and so he counted his blessings and took what he could get.
He was a Thénardier, after all.
"Don't worry", he said, taking a look around to spot Sylvain, who was extracting himself from the funny coat that Bahorel had given him to sleep in. The young one had held up splendidly in the meeting, doing the most fabulous description of the man he had talked to. In the end he had even said the drawing the marble worker had jutted down on paper was remarkably recognizable.
Sylvain, if on the quiet side, was a good one, Gavroche decided. But there was Courfeyrac, still waiting for the rest of his answer, and he grinned.
"If you're good, I'll bring you some bread from Madame Vescis."
Courfeyrac almost snorted in laughter.
"Well", he said with a twinkle, "I'll try to be good, then. Run along little man. Take care of the others." He ruffled Gavroche's hair, a habit, of which the gamin had a hard time deciding if he liked it or was rather annoyed by it. If anything, he was glad that the somber mood had passed like a gust of wind. That was a good thing about Courfeyrac. He never held a grudge, or lingered to long on a futile thing. "I'll see you in a little while."
Gavroche nodded and stepped over to Sylvain, who, coat in hand, was apparently considering whether he dared to return the garment to Bahorel or not. Gavroche did not fault him for it – the man was intimidating up close the first time (actually, he could still be pretty intimidating the second, third or twentieth time if he chose to, but he rarely did and Gavroche was not easily intimidated in any case) – but Sylvain had to learn none the less, and therefore Gavroche was unmerciful.
Passing over to Marius – who looked anxious to be off into the streets - he saw his sister, out of the corner of his eye, talking to Enjolras of all people. Not a pleasant conversation, from what their body language was telling, but too soft for Gavroche to accidentally overhear. No matter, he would pry the story from her later.
However, as he reached Marius and hopped onto a table for comfortable sitting until they would finally leave, he saw Enjolras withdrawing a knife that had been hidden in the lapels of his coat and handing it to her, handle first.
Éponine shook her head, as the conversation became louder.
"I won't have need for that", she rejected, raising her hands in refusal.
Enjolras' blue eyes were almost cold as they tried to convince the gamine into submission.
"I beg to differ. We have no idea who of our group the next target might be. You have more or less single handedly saved the lives of four of their targets. I think it is fair to say that this sort of action will have attracted their attention."
Éponine was still far from taking the knife. She crossed her arms before her chest and her glowering gaze was, if no match for Enjolras' glare, at least an adequate weapon of defense.
"I know my way around."
"I know", Enjolras responded. Gavroche could hear that he started to be annoyed. "This is why I am trying to give this to you instead of making a strong argument for you staying with the rest of us!"
Éponine made a small, annoyed sound deep in her throat.
"I have roamed the streets of Paris since even before you came here." Gavroche suspected that Éponine had no idea when Enjolras had come here – neither had Gavroche, by the way – but he did not call her bluff. Instead, he refused to pick up on her comment.
"Your point being?" he gave back deadpan, and Gavroche thought that he was right.
The interesting question was why he cared.
"What makes you think", Éponine continued, obviously trying another angle, "that I won't just sell it? That's a fine knife you have there." And yet, something in her posture had slightly changed; a subtle shift from utter defiance to something that was actually more of a challenge than true and pure fury. Enjolras snorted.
"Don't be ridiculous." He brought the offered knife slightly closer to her. "If it's any consolation", he continued, "it's only borrowed. I'm expecting it back."
Éponine considered that for a moment.
"All right", she finally said, taking the knife with a bit more vigor than was actually merited. "All right. If it makes you shut up on this."
Enjolras raised an eyebrow, but choose not to comment.
Interested, curious, Gavroche filed this observation for further reference.
Gavroche, Sylvain and Éponine were trailing behind a fairly eager Marius, who had all but barged out into the beginning light of another early summer day.
The air was still crisp and cool, and as fresh as Paris would get, dew having softened the gorier stenches of the city, to return when the heat picked up.
They were currently passing through the Jardin du Luxembourg that was deserted at this hour except for two students that were lazily leaning against the trunk of an acorn tree, their clothes slightly disheveled as they talked away the morning obviously in continuation of what had been a long night.
Children, Éponine thought, even though they were presumably older than her, but oblivious in their youth and carelessness. She envied and disdained them in roughly equal parts, but then, as she passed them and heard their laugh she felt reminded of the playfulness of Courfeyrac, the dash and courage of Bahorel and remembered, that there were as many shades to a bourgeois as there were to a gamine, and that if she were to follow on the words she had given the evening before she should start to be able to see beyond what met the eye.
"Courfeyrac told me you joined the crowd", Gavroche said, at length, and he could barely keep the grin of his face at this news. For a moment, Éponine marveled at how quickly this bit of information had apparently spread through the friends of Enjolras. He had been true to his word at least. And he certainly lost no time.
"Little telltale", she scolded and pulled his ear affectionately. Gavroche made a face in response and pretended to be offended.
"Ouch!" he said. "What was that for?"
"For having much too big a mouth", Éponine scolded him, but good-naturedly. She knew him well enough to judge his grin for what it was, but she really could not have him get away with having been right in the argument they had had the day before. "And why did he tell you that anyway?"
That gave Gavroche pause for a moment. His eyes trailed to Marius, who was a few steps ahead, slightly uneasy for a moment, but then he shrugged. And Éponine knew what he would say before he actually did it.
"I told him about you bein' me sister", he confirmed her suspicion. "Sorry 'bout that."
Éponine felt a slight surge of anger that she could not fully place. She was not even sure why she had not wanted his friends to know. It had been an indistinct feeling of trying to keep her distance to them, of not alerting them to facts that might bring their attention to her – as being a sister to Gavroche, who was clearly loved by them all would have done.
But Éponine had done things since then. She had given promises and taken sides. No one needed Gavroche to entangle her in the dealings in Café Musain anymore. It was much too late for this…
Still…
"Why'd you do that?"
"Why'd you join?" her brother gave back and looked at her, his clear eyes wide open and curious, only the slightest shade of mockery coloring his expression.
Beyond her anger, Éponine realized that this was a valid question, especially given the conversation they had had yesterday. It had drifted on such a callous note.
But this was her brother. Her brother who was as merry as a bird; her brother, who was free as the wind rustling through the streets of Paris. Her brother who had abandoned them as soon as he could, ran away leaving her and Azelma to fend for themselves.
Her and Azelma, who had been older than him, but loved by their mother, while Gavroche was just a cry on the sidelines, nothing to be paid attention to. Much like Cosette, when she had still been with them.
Cosette was cowered in submission and finally rescued.
Gavroche rescued himself and left Azelma and Éponine to complete the downwards spiral that her parents had started to take.
Éponine wondered if his deed had not been abandonment, but an attempt of saving his life. That was something she could respect.
The thought prompted her to an honest answer.
"Not so sure, actually", she confessed. "But I don't really have much to lose, have I?"
Unwillingly, her eyes went to Marius' back, as the young student strode to the edge of the garden, all remnants of tiredness chased away by his quest to reach Rue Plumet. His slender form was known to her like the back of her hand, the broad shoulders, the carefully trimmed hair, hands with long fingers that had never seen much work or hardship – until recently, that is, but this still had not left its mark.
She had lost him, she knew.
It had not cut the hold he had on her in the least, though.
"You're much too dark, sister mine", Gavroche said fondly and skipped over some stones in a curiously distracted gesture, and unwillingly, Éponine remembered her thoughts about Enjolras last night, when he first had extended an offer to entangle her in the dealings of the revolutionaries.
He's a boy of summer. I could use a little sun.
Or the warm glow of candlelight, excitement and companionship. The last hours in the Café Musain had been exciting and exhausting – Éponine guessed that the only reason she was still on her feet was, that there had been literally no time for her to get tired. However, while sorting out the face of their attacker together with Feuilly – which had been a very productive experience given his skill and gentle nature, as well as her good memory – and while spontaneously helping Courfeyrac organizing the stream of questions and visitors and reports, she had felt as useful as she hadn't had in a long time.
Éponine wondered if this was what summer would feel like.
"Maybe that's why", she therefore answered as they left the Jardin du Luxembourg, and Gavroche grinned broadly.
"You've done a lot more stupid for a lot more stupid reasons", he brotherly informed her and looked pointedly to Marius, who had halted at the next crossroads, looking to the Thénardier siblings and their younger comrade to catch up.
"Are you coming?"
Rue Plumet was still the idyll she remembered from having been here last time, from having cowered into a niche opposite of the house with the intricately woven gate and its overgrown beauty.
The greenish light of early day had waxed into a full morning sun hanging in a brilliantly blue sky, only a few number of clouds passing between like feathers, carefree and light.
The street was still silent in this early hour. They had encountered several maids on their way to the market in coming here, baskets under their arms as they purposefully strode along, but everyone in Rue Plumet who was bound to have business outside this morning was either not yet about or had left earlier.
Éponine appreciated this. It had been difficult enough not to attract attention when she had been on her own with Marius. Now, with Gavroche and Sylvain into the bargain, it was hardly possible.
The Fauchelevent residence seemed to still be asleep as well, windows and blinds closed, the garden silent except for the singing birds, but Marius was not so easily cowered and, standing at the entry, he peered through the iron gate and resigned himself to wait.
Éponine, who did not want to watch this, turned around to Gavroche and Sylvain. The latter had curled up right where he sat down, tiredness overtaking as he fell asleep on the streets, but Gavroche was holding up nicely, looking at his sister with weary eyes, but alert.
"So", he began, "what'd we do about that father of ours?"
Éponine frowned.
"Well, like I said. Since I've been to the prison, I know where they are. I've been admitted once, and I think I can do it again if I plan it well. It just needs an amount of thought."
"I've passed La Force yesterday", Gavroche explained, wiggling his feet as he watched Marius standing in front of the gate. "They're redoing the roof. We're lucky."
Éponine nodded. She had remarked that as well, in the morning with Enjolras. A manifold of ladders and paths led over part of the roof and down into the streets. This made the inner courtyards of the prison significantly more accessible from the outside and was a stroke of luck that made their endeavor almost feasible.
"So over the roofs it is", she concluded. "Remains the question about how we bring them out of their cells."
Gavroche chewed his lips thoughtfully.
"Rope and a tool to break the bars", he reiterated what they had already spoken about the day before. "That at least."
"It needs to be brought inside then, sometime tomorrow", Éponine mused. "Which is risky."
"We could bring it up by night", her brother considered and fiddled thoughtfully with the arms of his coat. "Then they open the bars and go out."
"But these things take time", Éponine contradicted. Marius was wrapping his fingers around the bars, trying to get a closer look, and, when failing, took to pacing alongside the gate. He had the air of a man nervous, a man torn. She had no idea how to help him.
"You'll need to talk to him again", Gavroche reminded her and brought her out of her reverie. "Find out when the watches are and that sort of thing. 'M sure they know it by now."
That was something that Éponine had no doubt of. Come what may, her father shared the same observant nature that all his children had inherited and learnt to put to good use. There was not much that escaped him, and he listed and noted the comings and goings around him without any notable effort.
He did not always put his observations to good use, though.
Éponine intended to make sure that this time, he would.
"Sure", she answered and shrugged slightly. "Can do that…", she suppressed a yawn, "…after I sleep like a log. If not…"
Running a hand through her hair she pondered alternatives for a moment.
"One could always try to bring some more stuff to them. Food. Wine. We could hide a rasp in a bottle of wine. I've seen loads of people with goods for the prisoners outside La Force."
Gavroche shook his head. He did obviously not like the idea.
"That's really dangerous, 'Ponine", he reminded her. "If that goes ill you don't see the sun for the next year."
She had to agree with her brother on that, but it did not necessarily waver her convictions of what needed to be done.
"If we run over the rooftops in a group of six that may have the same result", she reminded him. "The less people we have to bring, the better."
"For the rope, you could be fine", Gavroche took up her trail of thought. "Maybe you can hide it in some clothes. It's not heavy, doesn't clink…"
"I was not thinking of bringing a real rope", Éponine contradicted. "I thought of bringing in a couple of linen shirts, old but not the worst quality. That would not attract so much suspicion, if I bring enough for the four of them. Then they can tear it apart and knot it together."
Gavroche seemed to like the idea, judging from how his grin widened.
"Love that 'un", he said. "Although I could've nicked some of the ropes from the docks, we've done that for the 'unes we use to go down the elephant."
Éponine shook her head.
"That would be more difficult again to bring in, wouldn't it?"
Gavroche picked up a pebble and threw it across the street, watching as it toppled until it lay right between them and Marius, to join the countless others and become, once more, nothing out of the ordinary.
"Yeah", he concurred. "So you do the bringing and me'll do the climbing. Just don't tell Courfeyrac. He'll worry 'imself mad over nothin'."
Éponine gave her brother a side glance.
"Got yourself quite a family there, little brother."
"Beats ours." Gavroche was certainly not one to beat around the bush. "Which is not hard, of course."
Éponine smiled sadly. That was certainly poignantly true and actually something they could agree on.
"Why are you helping them, then?" she asked, none the less.
Gavroche shook his head and grinned.
"Not helping them. Helping you." Despite his laugh there was a certain seriousness in his voice. "I've never minded that. Helping you or 'Zelma, that is."
To some extent, Éponine had to admit that was true. Gavroche had left the Thénardiers as soon as he was even remotely able to fend for himself, but he had come back, on occasion, on what he called his visits. He had been civil to his parents then, but outright friendly to Éponine and Azelma – at least, as Éponine remembered, until she picked a fight with him and Azelma had in general stopped speaking to him for fear of displeasing their father.
He had taken it in his stride when he left again, for the streets that had become his home and kingdom.
"Gonna ask her to help", Éponine said, taking up the thread of her thoughts again. "An extra hand wouldn't hurt."
Her brother pondered this for a moment.
"She's still the same as always?"
"Azelma's Azelma", Éponine responded with a shrug. "People don't change, that way. They grow and learn, but stay the same deep down. But she'll help. I'll look out for her."
"Yeah, I know", Gavroche replied. "Always done that."
Éponine was not sure if she was scolded. Her brother was right, though. Truth was, being a child, she had been overwhelmed with the duty of taking care of both brother and sister, as the life and family she had known slowly fell apart. She had taken a leaf out of her mother's book then, turning towards her beloved sister, while Gavroche fell through the cracks.
Not something she was proud of. But something that had happened.
Thoughtfully, Éponine turned her gaze back to the young baron's son, who was still standing at the gates. There was a slight dejection to his shoulders that had not been there before, not in the brawl of the café, and not when they arrived here. But the house in Rue Plumet was still silent and barred.
"I wonder how long he'll wait", Éponine said, completely at odds with the discussion they had had before, and Gavroche followed her gaze and sighed.
"Tell you what", he proposed. "I'm gonna have a look, while he's moping. Keep him from doing something stupid, all right?" A short gaze towards Sylvain showed that the boy was still sleeping soundly, despite his uncomfortable resting place on the pavement. "And have an eye on the littl'un, will ya?"
Éponine nodded, and Gavroche pulled himself to his feet, and with quick steps wandered off to the next crossing, a house across from number 55, to find a way into the mansion without having to climb the fence.
The gamine remained seated for a moment, gathering her courage. She was tired and overwrought, having slept little the night before and not at all the last one, and the rush of events finally started to catch up with her.
The situation felt surreal. She had been here several times, first on her own, then leading Marius, and then in the end just following him for the sake of his company, but now the street looked somehow subtly different, without her being able to place the exact difference.
She was too tired to feel despaired.
Which obviously did not go for Marius. Now, he had leaned against one of the pillars framing the iron gate, leaning his head against the cool stone and looking blankly out into the streets. He was keeping his face neutral, but she could see the dejection in his eyes and posture, the disappointment of not seeing Cosette evident in his whole manner.
Éponine's heart went out to him, wishing she knew a way to help him, foolish as she was.
And again, the moth went to the flame to try and burn herself thoroughly and utterly.
"She's not responding", he said, unhappily, looking at the bellstring that would announce visitors to those inside. He had not pulled it at first – hoping that Cosette would come to the garden without him having to alert her father – but finally he had lost patience and taken to ringing. He would rather speak with Fauchelevent and probably have the opportunity to exchange a few words with his beloved than not see her at all.
What would he do if something had happened to her, courtesy of the assassin that he had led to her himself?
Thank heavens for Éponine, who stepped up to him just as his thoughts were running wild, calling him out of his blackest reverie by her mere presence. She had the capability of doing that. It had been a beautiful quality, especially in those first, dark months of independence of his.
She responded to his words with a frown, looking up at the closed blinds.
"She is bourgeois. They all are. Would they probably get up late? Just because they can?"
Marius pondered this for a moment and then shrugged.
"To be honest, I have no idea what she does during the day… I've seen her walking the gardens, I've seen her giving alms… but I wouldn't know when she normally gets up."
There was so little he knew about her, he realized with a flash. So little he knew. So little it mattered. Except of course in this moment, where he was desperately trying to reach her.
"Well…", Éponine continued, "if you don't know, how should I?" She was fingering the iron gate with the fiddling unrest that she was capable of. "Don't worry. I'm sure she'll be fine."
It sounded like the hollow reassurance that it certainly was, but Marius appreciated the effort none the less. She had agreed to accompany him, and she usually followed through with what she promised. She had been a good friend for him, for so long.
"I really appreciate that you went here with me", Marius said, knowing that he was getting deeper and deeper into her debt. It was not the worst of debts that he had ever been in, but still he would have her know that he was aware. "You must be very tired."
She flashed him a quick gaze, dark eyes unreadable, before she turned back to watching the house, her smile slightly pale.
"I am, yes", she confessed. "And the boys even more. They need to sleep, Monsieur Marius… and so do you."
"How could I be able to sleep if I am not sure if she is safe?"
Éponine shrugged, her face neutral and closed. She must have been very tired.
"Wouldn't know, Monsieur", she said, her voice soft and friendly despite her forbidding face. "You just close your eyes and start to dream…" She made it sound so easy. But then she had probably never been in love as he had.
"I'd dream of her, that much is certain", Marius gave back. The thought of sleep was indeed becoming more alluring by the minute, despite his worries, despite Cosette being unaccounted for. But he was a stronger man than that.
Until Gavroche appeared on the other side of the fence.
"They're gone."
Incredulously, Marius stared at the gamin who had mysteriously appeared in the garden, looking up with a solemn expression that he rarely displayed. And yet, he could not believe what he had heard.
"What?"
Gavroche shook his head.
"They're gone. House is deserted and empty."
Marius pushed aside any thought of how the boy might have acquired that particular piece of information. It was so very easy to forget that he was so much more than just the small friend of theirs, who never seemed to feel a care in the world.
Which, on the whole, was probably also splendidly untrue.
"What?" he could not help repeating, louder, and more incredulously. His thoughts were racing.
There had been no indication of that yesterday, so Cosette having vanished must have been a result of the events of yesterday; of the assassin arriving at the house, of him intruding into the Fauchelevent grounds.
He had gathered from watching them in the Jardin du Luxembourg that they were a very private family. They kept to themselves mostly, seemed to know few of those who strolled along the same ways they did. Maybe his intrusion alone had been enough to chase them away.
But so quickly?
After having left his grandfather's home, Marius felt himself to have become some sort of expert in the subtle art of quick escapes from previously more comfortable lodgings, and as unplanned as his had been, it had also proven quite disastrous in the beginning.
So where was she now? And was she facing the same perils and hardships of being thrown into the more predatory parts of the world? Or had this been something long in coming, triggered now or brought about more quickly?
Where was she…?
"Oi, look!" Gavroche, relatively unfazed, pointed towards the side of the gate where between branches of ivy a slip of white could be seen. Without hesitation, Marius snatched up the object, pushing aside vegetation impatiently.
It was a small letter, hardly larger than his palm, fixed and hidden well beneath the protective branches, and Marius freed it carefully, reverently, until he held in his hand the paper, a single slip, folded twice and his name, with wide, practiced, and definitely female arcs and bows.
Marius Pontmercy.
When Éponine finally reached home, she was tired enough to collapse on the spot, so tired, that she did not even take the opportunity to accompany Marius on his way to the attic apartment that he lived in. She loved being there, loved being in his company, having him all to herself, but it would not be all to herself today because of Gavroche and Sylvain. And to be honest, she was not sure if she felt up to mounting another four stories of stairs.
So she bid them goodbye at the entrance to the Thénardier flat and entered on tiptoes, as not to awake anyone inside the apartment.
She arrived at home without any newly earned money. That would not bring a warm welcome, and Éponine felt much too exhausted to take up a second discussion with her mother now.
She was in luck however, and more than that, for her caution was unwarranted. When she entered, the sour stench of cheap spirits gave her welcome, and she saw her mother on her cot by the hearth, snoring deeply, surrounded by what remained of the stocks of spirits that her father had harbored.
Éponine hesitated for a moment, watching the plump, crude figure, the puffy visage, tried to sort out her emotions and failed miserably.
She felt sorry for her mother, sitting here all alone, having waited for the return of her husband in vain. Éponine understood loneliness and despair, and more than that she understood the dread that lay in being caught instead of circumstances than acting herself.
The thought gave her pause for a moment, and with a blinding flash of intuition she realized that she was looking at the reason that she had been searching all along.
Enjolras had given her the opportunity to act. He had opened a door beyond which there might just be a possibility for her to shape her own way instead of being tossed and turned by storms and tides.
He believed that she could be master of her own destiny. He really and truly did.
The thought was so ludicrous that she immediately took a liking to it. In the moment that she watched her mother, a shadow of what she had been in her prime, Éponine remembered all those words she had heard in the vicinity of Marius' friends. All those thoughts of liberty, of the rights of man, and from this angle it made sense, in a warped sound of way.
Yes, they were trying to do something for them – they had printed the perils and woes of her class onto their banners – but it was more than that. They wanted them to be able to do something for themselves. They wanted to free them, yes. But most of all, they wanted them to be free.
The revelation was breathtaking.
And looking at her mother, Éponine realized that she did not want to end this way. More than that still – she did not have to end this way. The thought made her smile sadly, as if by her thoughts alone she had opened a chasm between her and her mother, broad and wide as the Seine and impossible to cross.
Yet still, on the whole she felt that she was able to breathe more freely.
And as she silently slipped into the tiny room she shared with Azelma, there was a tiny smile on her face.
Her sister, as always, had curled up on the far side of the cot, half burying herself into the cold wall as she was always prone to do.
Éponine had heard complaints – of others, mostly – that sharing a bed with a sibling produced quarrels about space and blankets, but that never happened with Azelma. She always seemed to try to take up as little space as humanly possible, and tiny thing that she was, she succeeded pretty well.
None the less she slept lightly, and when Éponine, tired to her bones and her still wounded shoulder aching (Combeferre had taken another look at it in the evening and proclaimed it on the mend, but it still hurt), lay down next to her, she turned carefully, hair tousled, and eyes only half open.
"Ponine?" she asked sleepily, and her voice was warm with sleep and sounded hardly like her. "I was dreaming…"
Azelma and her dreams…
After Cosette had left and things turned ill for the Thénardiers, she had almost taken up the role of the missing girl when it came to losing her head into worlds far away. Both of Éponine and Azelma had taken it ill, when they had had to sell their books, but Azelma had cried for weeks, until Éponine had started telling her stories in the evening.
They had both outgrown it in the end.
The sisters had never spoken of it, but Éponine guessed that this was Azelma's way of dealing with their decline. While Éponine had turned towards bitterness and cunning, her younger and more timid sister had retreated into herself.
She did not begrudge her that escape all too often.
"Sleep, Azelma", she counseled, straightening out a few strands from her face. "I need to sleep as well. I'm so tired…"
"Maman was angry", Azelma conveyed, already half asleep, and Éponine sighed softly.
"I know, 'Zelma." And then, as an afterthought, "Stay here when you wake, will you? I need you to do something tomorrow."
"Mmmh", her sister responded softly, and Éponine was not sure if she had registered, what she had said, but decided not to rouse her from her dreams again and surrendered to her own.