A/N: I dont know what I say. Except I havent forgotten this. I have developed some sympathies for GRR Martin, though (not that I'm comparing myself to his genious, but.. well, you know. The situation somehow was something similar, on small scale). If you're taking on a story with ten threads and loads of characters - once you stop, it's fiendishly difficult to start again. I built a whole lexicon with threads and plots and characters, and because life happened in between, I did it three times. But now I have it and I am daring to go back. I'm three chapters in, and just around somewhere in the second chapter, it started to feel like my Paris again, my amis, my Eponine, my Helene and all that.

So I'm giving it my best shot, and I hope the long hiatus doesn't show too much.

If someone is still reading this. If not. Well... I know too well it's not gonna leave me alone in any case.

Anyhow, there will be three chapters at once. I cannot promise quick progress, but I can promise I'm back at the writers board and enjoying it.

Chapter 74: The power of truth

Understanding is a three-edged sword: Your side, their side and the truth

Silence had fallen dead and leaden as the once imposing figure of Ultime Fauchelevent, looking nothing like himself now, had vanished around a corner, leaving Cosette, Marius and Adelaide to stand dumbfolded in the midst of the garden.

Cosette was too raw, shocked and surprised to even cry. She had no idea how to place what had just happened, and even less what it meant in the greater scheme of things, but one thing had been painfully obvious from the gestures her father had made. For some reason that was understandable only to him alone, he had passed over the guardianship of her into the hands of Marius.

Just like that.

As if being a family for a lifetime – and one as secluded as theirs had been – was something that could be washed away in the spur of a moment, in the blink of an eye.

But maybe, she realized, it could.

The hurt was deep and painful, but next to it there was also something else, a spark of what had led her to this point in the first place – a hidden, steely strength that ultimately made it unable for her to let go. And it was that part that noticed, that even in parting, her father had thought her more of an object to protect and less of a grown up person – someone, or even something that did need a guardian at all times, be it him, or now, Marius. Instead of giving her the answers she deserved, her father had fled the situation again, refusing to see what she had become, and refusing to see what, in some way, he owed her.

She was almost grateful for that revelation, for it softened the hurt. And it confirmed to her, that however bad the situation was, the path she had started to go was one that needed to be walked if she wanted to stay true to herself.

She found that she still wanted to know what on earth was going on.

Unsurprisingly, though, it was Adelaide who found her voice first.

"Well...", she said, letting the word hang in mid-air, as she watched to where Fauchelevent had vanished. "That was extraordinary."

Cosette, despite herself, let out a snort that to her surprise turned out somewhat shaky. She hadn't realized tears were running down her face and she lifted a hand to touch and wipe them away.

"You can say that", she said thickly and carefully looked from Adelaide to Marius, who seemed somewhat stricken and baffled, but when he felt her gaze upon him he shifted his focus to her.

For a moment she just looked at him, trying to find in his eyes the levity and adoration they had held before. But Marius Pontmercy was frowning, with an expression very difficult to place.

"What... just happened?" he asked and Cosette, for lack of a better idea shrugged.

"Honestly", she said, almost desperately, "I have no idea."

"That makes three of us, I guess", Adelaide answered. "Suggestion. Let's sit down here and you tell us what you know. Maybe, between us, we can make sense of this all."

A few moments later found them sitting on a small bench in the garden. Marius had taken up one end of the bench, while Adelaide resided on the other, taking Cosette in the middle, with just enough space in between to avoid any touch between either of them.

And Cosette found she had no idea where to start. Silence hung heavily between them once more, and once more it was Adelaide who took it upon herself to break it.

"So", she began with a sigh that almost sounded resigned. "I take it that was your father."

Cosette nodded, then, all of a sudden, hesitated. "I... I think it was." And then, with the brutality of a sudden revelation, all the things he had said to her fell on her shoulders, his frantic, rambling words, forming a painful certainty. "I thought it was."

"But it turns out, it isn't." Adelaide, as it became clear very quickly, had a very blunt way at times of stating the obvious facts, not unkind, but certainly with no patience or willingness to soften the blow. "Is that what your fight was about?"

"No", Cosette answered quickly, yet she felt forced to reconsider once more and shook her head. "Yes", she changed her mind before finally settling for "Maybe."

That actually brought forth a snort from Adelaide and an uncomfortable squirm from Marius who shook his head at her words.

"That...", he carefully said, "... sounds like a difficult issue."

His voice carried a strange tone, and Cosette turned to him to look into his eyes. The expression in them was almost as unfathomable as before, but for some reason she had the feeling he was making an effort – what sort of effort, that was less than clear. And yet, somewhere underneath all that uncertainty, Cosette still felt there was the kind young man, whose presence had lightened her days so much until everything had started falling apart. Perhaps, in return for whatever effort he was making, she should make the effort of not forgetting who he had been to her.

For the moment, she settled for a shrug.

"Why don't you start at the beginning?" Adelaide suggested from the sidelines. "Lets look at what happened and bring out the fundamental issues later. Maybe it will become more clear as we go along."

That was so reasonable a proposal that it immediately appealed to Cosette and she rallied her spirits and recounted the journey that had taken her from her sheltered but carefree existence over various fruitless discussions and pleas with her father to their ultimate confrontation just a few moments ago.

It felt wonderful to pour out all her doubts, musings and sorrows, to just let them go and voice them to be able to separate ghost from reality. She wondered why she had not done it before. But then, of course, she remembered why. There had been no one she could have told this to. She had had a vague inclination of telling Marius, but he had been so caught up in his own troubles that it seemed fruitless, and other than that she had to admit that her life had been surprisingly devoid of friends.

And because somehow she felt that this was important as well, she added that revelation.

When she had ended, both her companions stayed silent for a while, and again Adelaide beat Marius in first voicing her conclusions from her tale. It was obvious, that even in her dry, matter-of-fact tone, she did make an effort to be gentle.

"I think we can safely assume that the man you have considered to be your father has not carried that role from the beginning", she concluded, only to quickly add, "which doesn't make him any less father to you."

Marius frowned.

"How can he be a father if he isn't really?" he objected, somewhat annoyed. "He either is her father or he isn't. And I agree. He probably isn't."

Adelaide snorted in a short burst of laughter.

"My pardon, Monsieur, but that is very telling of your upbringing and the life you have been living. Who is the father, I ask you. The one who gave the spark or the one who sat at the child's bed, groomed it and nurtured it? This is not the world where the blood matters as it does to nobility."

The young Baron's son frowned, apparently not quite convinced, but Cosette nodded.

"No matter what, he's father to me", she concluded with a conviction that felt relieving. A certainty, at least.

"What about your mother?" Marius threw in, as if he had suddenly remember it. "Do you remember her?"

Cosette frowned, looking at her hands folded in her lap.

"I'm not sure. Sometimes I think I do remember, but there are so many things that I'm not sure about in my memory. I remember a song, and someone sad. And.. a feeling. But that is all."

"What did your father tell you of her?" Adelaide continued.

"Very little... like everything that happened before we came to Picpus. He told me that she died, a long time ago, when I was very little. And she was kind. A good person."

"Then she is obviously not connected to these other memories of you. The place where you hid under the tables."

"An inn?" supplied Marius, and Cosette, for a moment, blinked in surprise, as she remembered. Remembered the smell of broth, beer and cheap wine. The laugh of rough voices. Different faces every night.

"Yes...", she answered, in surprise. "I think that was an inn."

For a moment, all seemed to listen to the revelation, each left to their own thoughts, and Cosette tried to grasp the illusive memories that seemed to linger just outside her field of view.

"Well", she said, trying to piece together what she knew and had learned. "I guess he knew my mother then. And... for some reason decided to take care of me like a father would." She sighed softly. "And he did. He really did."

She let that hang for a moment and then went back to the starting point of the whole story.

"I always knew he had his secrets. There were things he never thought about and honestly I never cared. Only...", she briefly looked to Marius, "only when that man tried to kill you and it became clear my father knew something..."

"He did?" Marius blurted out, surprise clearly written on his face. "Are you serious?"

Cosette nodded slowly.

"Very much so... but he didn't want to tell me. No matter how I asked, no matter how I begged. He wouldn't say a word. And somehow, everything fell apart." She shrugged, lacking a better description for what had happened to her during these last strange, confusing days.

Marius stared at her for a moment and then opened his coat, slipping is hand in to look for something in his inner pocket.

"Hang on..", he said, excitement coloring red spots on his cheeks as he got hold of what he was looking for and produced two sheets of parchment filled with narrow, regular writing. And Cosette felt an icy hand grip her heart.

He held the pages out to her, and she almost dreaded taking them. Maybe, the old her would have made a simple jest and dismissed the matter, trying to preserve her good spirits and not delve too deeply into dark places, but she was long beyound such childish measures.

So she took the pages, knowing already the answer to Marius' question before he even had to ask it.

"Yes", she said, softly, without having read a single word. "That is his handwriting, for sure."

This is the account of a man who shall not be named...

And as she started to read the accounts in familiar scripts and unfamiliar words, she recognized the turn of phrase, the way of setting words, even if the tale was unfamiliar, a glimpse into a world that she had tried to enter by force and now found by coincidence.

She felt tears slowly filling her eyes as she read, not for the tale the letter contained, but for the letter itself.

"Oh Papa..."

"It isn't working, is it?"

The words were spoken in soft tones only, and for a moment Eponine contemplated pretending to be asleep, eyes closed, curled up on the couch in Enjolras' apartment that seemed to become a regular haunt of hers faster than she would have ever imagined.

Leaving the apartment in the Rue des Brodeurs to join Combeferre in Enjolras' apartment, she had expected that she would fall asleep the moment her head hit the cushions, but as it turned out, it was not so. Apparently, together with many other things, the last days had robbed her of the ability to fall asleep wherever she stood. And Rue Pascal was probably the worst place to try and excorcise her demons.

Of course, there had been some sense in what Enjolras had said. She needed time to think, and she needed rest, but for some reason, repose was as elusive as peace. And the one of her necessities was severely interfering with the other.

Unable to stop herself from thinking, she had turned over and over the dilemma she found herself in, like an animal trapped, rattling at the bars of the cage in the hope that something would give.

It didn't .

However she turned it, ultimately, there could be no middle ground between what Montparnasse was asking, and what Enjolras was implicitly assuming in his natural way of accepting no other outcome than what he was expecting.

And Eponine was caught in the middle.

The thought to leave behind her safe haven of childhood and youth – her knowledge of the streets, but also Montparnasse, who had been with her every step of it, in his own, obscure way always on her side – was a scary one. As unhappy and trapped as she had felt, now that she stood at the crossroads, she realized that there was also comfort in well known paths.

It would be easy. She knew, felt, that there was some measure of trust between her and Enjolras, and for all his perceptiveness she knew she lied well enough to lead him astray if she really put her mind to it.

But the thought of the inevitable realization of betrayal in his eyes was almost as unbearable as the image of the blood of Montparnasse's knifework smearing his coat, his hands, his curls...

Eponine felt bitter bile rise and swallowed hard, opening her eyes to replace the image with anything reality might be willing to supply and found Combeferre still looking at her from where he was seated at the table; brows raised in mild curiosity surprisingly devoid of mockery.

Ah yes, she remembered. He had asked something.

With some difficulty she retraced her breaths to where she finally remembered his words and felt a slight irritation at having been found out so easily.

"What?" she asked, satisfied with the mixture of annoyance and roughness in her voice.

Combeferre sighed.

"Sleeping", he supplied with a short wave of his hand in direction of both her and the couch. "Reposing. However you will have it."

"It was working just fine before you spoke", Eponine gave back, unwilling to yield despite the fact that the lie was blatantly obvious, and for a moment, the student looked sad before he sighed and turned back to the table before him.

"In that case I apologize", he answered, surprisingly supporting what he must know had been an evasion to start with. "But it seems the damage is done and all that I can do to make amends is offer you some of the tea I have made, in case you feel like it."

An invitation, roundabout enough that she could decline if she wished it so, but the mental image of Enjolras finding an end at the hand of Montparnasse was still strong enough and Eponine realized that there was no way she would be going to sleep any time soon.

Best to give up on the futile exercise then and find herself something to do. Tea seemed to be a good start. She uncurled herself from the couch and stepped up to the table that was on its best way to be littered with a multitude of papers. Combeferre was sifting through the collection, obviously searching for a specific note that turned out to be a date which he introduced into the flowing text he was currently producing.

He looked up at her, a minuscule smile on his face as he waved in the direction of a cup standing on her side of the table.

"Help yourself", he offered, and Eponine followed, taking a sip of the bitter beverage which had already started to cool.

For a moment, they sat in companionable silence, Combeferre working, and Eponine drinking tea, trying in vain to decipher what Combeferre was writing. His script seemed almost unintelligible, and she was looking at it from the wrong side on top of things.

Yet before she could muster the interest or courage to ask, Combeferre put down his pen and raised his head to look at her. He said nothing, just looked at her with a slight frown until it was her who lost patience, and the burden to carry on the conversation fell to her.

"What", she asked, not without annoyance. He hesitated for a moment, taking a deep breath, and then, with a measured, studied movement he folded his hands before him.

"I think neither of us is fully concentrated on what brought us to this apartment in the first place. You do not rest, and I am nowhere near satisfied with the piece I am currently producing." He smiled a wan smile. "It seems both of us have things on our minds that demand more attention than we would have them."

"Tough life", Eponine retorted curtly, but if she had intended to scare off Combeferre by her gruff response, she had to admit it deflected him no more than it would have Enjolras. They were too clever, all of them, and too well informed.

He blinked for a moment, then sighed. Looking from his papers to Eponine`s face, once, twice, he seemed to come to some internal conclusion and moved on.

"All the more, in my case at least, since my dilemma involves you."

That got her attention at least, and Eponine frowned. She wondered whether she would have to ask, but Combeferre did not seem inclined to leave her hanging with that statement and continued.

"And since we both find ourselves in this situation, perhaps you would grant me the courtesy to listen to what is weighing on my mind. It seems...", he hesitated for a moment, looking for a good expression, "unwise on my part not to use the opportunity to share this with you."

Eponine felt herself intrigued despite herself, and at the moment, anything that distracted her from thoughts of Enjolras and Montparnasse seemed fair game. "Well then be my guest", she said, reluctantly inviting him to speak.

Combeferre leaned back, reaching for his own cup of tea. His fingers turned the porcellain in his hand carefully.

"You are aware, I am sure, that Madame de Cambout is currently imprisoned and facing trial for the accusation of murder of her husband."

Eponine nodded although she was sure that Combeferre did not need her confirmation. This could be nothing but a preamble to what he was getting at, and a distinctive unease settled under her breastbone. She feared he knew what she was aiming for.

The accusation against Madame de Cambout was ridiculous of course, she knew that better than anyone living except the assassin himself, but being who she was she expected nothing less from law enforcement. Of course, all things considered, Combeferre maybe was more surprised than she. For all their talk about revolution, they had probably not found themselves on the wrong side of that particular bias too often. They were still a bunch of rich, well educated kids.

Still it did not make what had happened to Madame de Cambout any more right. And, granted, for Combeferre, probably very, very personal.

"That's rough", she offered by way of invitation.

"It is", he answered. "You and I know that the accusation is completely false, but I am afraid that the situation is not as easy as that."

Eponine snorted derisively.

"It's the cognes. They use the word of the law to warp whatever truth works for them."

Combeferre's smile was somehow bitter.

"So it seems. And Madame the Cambout has been an inconvenient sort of person."

"I get that", Eponine answered. "But isn't her father some powerful guy?" she asked, and clarified: "I saw the mansion."

"He is", Combeferre admitted. "A member of the assemble nationale, no less. But the longer we are finding ourselves in this tangle, the clearer it becomes that our enemies are very resourceful indeed." He sighed, rubbing his forehead absent-mindedly with one hand. "In all honesty, Mademoiselle, I am not sure that even the word and influence of Aristide Dufranc will be able to turn that particular tide – although he will obviously try."

Eponine pondered that for a moment. Being who she was, she was used to sitations in which the likes of her became the playthings of anyone higher up the foodchain. Such was the way of the world, but she had never really considered that it might be the same as well on other levels of society.

But, come to think of it, it should have been obvious. People were people, after all.

"So", she offered, "what will you do?"

"That is the question", Combeferre answered. "Obviously, we have gotten legal advice and Pontmercy, Courfeyrac and Lamarin are working together with one of their former professors to form a good defense. They have kept me from the thicket of it...", he gave a wan smile that had a self-deprecating air to it and left it at that, "but my confidence, if you will forgive me for saying so, is limited. Unfortunately the facts look difficult."

Eponine took another sip of tea and gathered the facts.

"I guess no one's talking about the break-in, are they?"

"Well." Combeferre's smile was wan. "As far as I know all of those that broke into the Dufranc mansion are unaccounted for. The burglars seem to have vanished from La Force in the middle of the night. And the actual murderer..."

"Was seen only by Madame and me. And the burglars. And the policemen who saw arrested the lot ..", Eponine put two and two together. "And if they wanna do her in, it would be really stupid to try and find any of them, would it? Let alone for one of the cognes to speak the truth."

For a moment Combeferre seemed surprised, but then, he simpy nodded.

"Quite so", he admitted. "So you understand the dilemma."

"They can't really prove anything", Eponine summarized. "But she was the only one that was clearly there. And she ran. So it's easy to say that this is the simplest answer." The obvious conclusion came to her as she spoke, and she knew he knew as well, so there was no use keeping it in. "Unless I talk."

Combeferre nodded.

"Unless you talk. Which, of course, would open up all sorts of interesting questions no one is really willing to answer."

Like why she was at the house of Alexandre de Cambout. Or why she ran. Or – if anyone on the opposing site had half a brain and the willingness to snoop around – why she had visited the burglars in La Force. Questions Eponine was not keen on answering to anyone, let alone a judge and a set of hostile law enforcers.

Her thoughts were apparently showing on face and Combeferre nodded.

"Just that", he said, turning towards the papers and sighed. "I would not even ask you to do that if I had a clever idea how to extract you from this fix again – but honestly, I do not."

"Yeah", Eponine answered, feeling herself that the answer was lame. "That's a sticky situation." She pondered the dilemma for a moment.

"I saved her once, that has to do", she answered, honestly. "I won't put myself on the line for that. But maybe we can come up with something clever."

Combeferre raised both brows, intrigued.

"Such as?"

She shrugged.

"The obvious thing would be to try and find the dwarf."

Combeferre raised his brows, then placed his pen next to the writings for good, leaning back in the chair and pushed a hand through his hair.

"You make it sound as if we hadn't tried that before. With all the descriptions and leaflets we haven't gotten very far, have we?"

"Oh, but things are different since yesterday", Eponine countered. "It was him that I saw in Picpus. And we know that he was connected to Frater Antoine. We know it's a group. We know it's..."

And just like this, she trailed off. A part of her knew that she would have never gone so far, had she not been so bloody tired and worn, tangled in her own web and the crazy, ludicrous speed of the latest days. So tired, that she had not checked her words as she might have, so tired, she did not recognize the slippery slope. Because her mind had already made the natural connection as she spoke, from one dilemma to the next, step by step by step until she ended in a place that she did not want to go to.

And thus, she stopped.

Because once more, she stood between two poles. And once more, at the heart of the problem, there was him. Montparnasse.

"We know it's...?"

Eponine pressed her lips together and stared at the papers in front of her. She saw the name of Lamarque on some of them, dates, turns of phrases, but they did not really register with her. She wondered, how final a decision it would be if she just got up and leave. Combeferre was probably one of the group that would not immediately scold her for it, be confused – yes – question her – oh without doubt – but really hold that against her? Probably not.

But running would not solve this particular problem.

And Combeferre was not Enjolras. Maybe there was an opportunity in that.

She unclenched her fingers and took a deep breath, a huff of an almost desperate laugh finding her way into the air.

"Monsieur...", she asked, slowly raising her gaze as she came to a conclusion. "How good exactly a keeper of secrets are you?"

Combeferre raised his brows and shifted his stance, an attentiveness that still aimed for some distance, leaning back, but tense, an arm reposing on the table.

"Mademoiselle Eponine, that would depend on the secret, I am afraid."

"It`s not conditional", she snapped. "You're right. I'm in trouble. And it's not fully unrelated to the whole damn problem. Madame's. Yours. Ours. Whatever." She waved her hand, giving up that particular route of explaining herself. "But it's not easy. I..."

She wondered how she could explain without getting to the heart of the matter. And wondered how she could explain without mentioning why Enjolras' opinion mattered so much. Especially, given that she did not really have an answer for this herself.

"You will not look at me the same way, if you know", she finally said. "None of you will." That was the best she could settle for.

Combeferre sighed, pushed a hand through his hair and leaned forward.

"Listen. I can promise you three things. First, I will hear you out until the end. Second, I will keep your secret, if it is not endangering my friends. And third", he continued, quickly, gauging from her reaction that that bit was a grey area indeed, "I will try to help you find a solution, before I force your hand."

He looked at her earnestly. "That's the best I can offer."

Eponine nodded.

"That's fair, I guess", she admitted and took a sip of tea, rallying her thoughts. "So. What I mean is – we know more about the assassins than we knew a few days ago. We know it`s a group, and possibly close-knit. Maybe, if we're lucky, we find one, we find them all."

Combeferre nodded, leaning back, and she found the strength to continue.

"We... I also know", she moved on, "that one of them is someone that is.. was..", she shook her head, and finally settled for the truth, "... is dear to me. And what's worse, I'm indebted to him."