Notes: For my father, who said it read like Joyce and Faulkner.

It was cold that night, I remember. I was coming home form Corinth. The meeting of Les Amis de l'ABC had just adjourned, at about ten o'clock. I saw her standing beside a lamppost, shivering in the January chill. She was dressed only in rags and her face was a mass of bruises; she was trembling uncontrollably. I suddenly felt very ashamed of my good wool suit: here was one of the people I was trying to free. There was no one else in the street that late, so I went over to her.

"Mademoiselle, do you have a place to go tonight?"

"Yes, but I'm afraid to go there," she sobbed.

"Who did this to you?" I put my coat around her; she hugged it close around her shivering shoulders.

"My father's friends."

"Have they done this before?"

"Never so badly: they were drunk, I think."

"Will you, I mean, would you like--" Pull yourself together, Enjolras. "I have an extra bed. In the other room," I finished lamely. This was a small lie; I had a bed and I had a couch. Tonight, I'd take the couch.

"Two rooms! You do have it well, monsieur."

I was concentrating on not shivering. "My name is Enjolras."

"Ah, nobody has a name like that. I'm Éponine. Éponine ThÉnardier."

"I'm Jeanne, then."

"I'd shake your hand, monsieur, but your coat is so warm I don't want to come out of it."

"Keep it. I'm fine."

She looked at me. "Then why are you shivering?"

I squared my shoulders. "I am not cold."

"You can tell yourself that all you like, but I know what a person looks like when they're cold."

In an attempt to change the subject, I said, "Are you hungry?"

"Have I ever stopped being so!"

We had been walking toward my home for some time. "There might be a cafÉ open somewhere. If I can't find one, we'll go back to Corinth. Grantaire's still there, but--" I cringed inwardly at what the drunkard would saw if he saw me come in with Éponine.

"It's all right. I'm not very hungry now."

I looked down at her. "You can tell yourself that all you want, but I know what a person looks like when they're hungry."

She gave a hoarse little laugh. "Are you a lawyer, monsieur?"

"I will be one someday, if I live to see it. I study at the Sorbonne."

"I could have gone to the university. I'm a smart girl, everyone says so. But you know, Monsieur Enjolras, I always wanted to be a singer and see my name in the program at l'Opera."

"I don't go to the Opera much."

"My brother knows all the actors. They let us stand in the wings sometimes. Do you know my brother, monsieur? His name's Gavroche."

"I have indeed met Gavroche. A very useful person." I noticed her teeth were chattering. "Let's find somewhere warm."

We ducked into a small cafÉ that was still open this late and sat down. A tired looking waitress came over and asked me what Monsieur would like to order. She pointedly ignored Éponine.

"Just coffee, and whatever Mademoiselle would like." I took out my wallet and begun to toy with it in full view. This was a trick that often worked in establishments where the more threadbare of my friends were not welcome.

"This-- person is with you, monsieur?" She was eyeing my pocketbook greedily.

"The lady is indeed with me. Now, please, ask her what she would like and then go and get it." The waitress hurriedly did so and scurried back to the kitchen.

Éponine stared at me over her food, a look of amazement on her face. "No one has ever stood up for me like that, before."

"Then you've been around the wrong sort of people, Éponine."

"I like the way you say my name."

"It's a very beautiful name." I stirred moodily at my coffee.

"My mother had been reading romance novels, that's all."

"Ah, I see."

"Monsieur, you don't have to pretend to be interested in me. I don't know why you're being so kind, but I thank you." She paused. "Who are you, monsieur?"

The question startled me and I was momentarily speechless. "I am a student. You know my name. What else--"

She interrupted me, "No, Jeanne. Who are you?" She emphasized the last word in a manner that said she was looking for another answer.

So I said simply, "I am a man who is tired of living up to the expectations of his friends. I am a man who wants the world to be free, but would be more than happy to let someone else free it. I am a man who will be dead within the year."

"Then why don't you stop, monsieur? Why don't you go away from it all?"

That answer was easy. I had asked myself the same question many times before. "Because of Grantaire."

"Ah, I know M. Grantaire, he goes walking with M. Marius sometimes. A rather nice fellow, but always smelling of brandy."

"The man's a cynical, drunken fool."

"And you're an idealistic, sober one. They're equal faults. You should think from his point of view sometimes. He believes in nothing, you believe in something unattainable. Is there so much difference?"

What she said made me think back to something Grantaire had once told me. At the time I had paid little attention to it, he being in his usual drunken half-stupor. "He said once that he believed in-- in me."

"I believe that's what they call ironic. It means that you both believe in things so unreachable that they keep you going day by day, things that you would die for. Am I right, monsieur?"

I buried my face in my hands. "Yes," I managed to get out hollowly.

Éponine reached over and touched my shoulder. "It's all right. So do I."

I looked up. It had just dawned on me what she meant. "Forget Marius."

"I believe I just have."

Éponine taught me so much in the few precious months we had together. She melted the ice that Grantaire had tried so unsuccessfully to crack. We were married in a small chapel outside Paris and she came to live with me permanently. As I suspected neither her parents nor mine would approve of the match, we kept it secret. The monthly allowances from my father were used to buy dresses instead of schoolbooks. She was my life.

Tragedy struck in early June. General Lamarque had died and the time for revolution was at hand. Éponine said she would follow me to the barricades. I forbade it, of course. She cried as I dashed out the door to Corinth.

I was in the back room planning our defense with Combeferre when Marius entered. He was carrying a body.

"Enjolras, she's asking for you." He laid his burden on the table gently and I recognized Éponine, in my clothes.

"Leave us." I replaced the pain in my voice with authority and it worked. They left, asking no questions.

I bent over the table, cradling her head and trying unsuccessfully not to cry. "Éponine, my darling, why did you come?" I was sobbing openly now, my tears mingling with the blood that trickled from the hole in her chest.

"If you die, I die with you. I am, after all, Madame Enjolras. I stand beside my husband." She coughed and the blood spurted.

"You can't, I won't let you, my Patria. Éponine!"

She sighed, with difficulty. "You saved me that night, M. Enjolras. Thank you. Now I must go. I believe I shall see you in a moment?" She died with that question on her lips and I knew she was right. We would all die here; Éponine and I would not be separated very long.

I straightened, dashing the tears from my eyes as Grantaire entered the room. The last person I wanted to see.

"Who is she?" he asked. "Combeferre doesn't know and Marius isn't talking."

I glared at him, tears of rage threatening to replace those of sorrow. "She was my wife," I bit out.

He looked shocked and then his face crumpled. "I never knew you had it in you, Apollo." He bowed his head and walked over to look at her, making the sign of the cross, something I had never seen him do before. He looked up at me, finally, tears glistening in his eyes. "You will be with her before the night is over, Apollo. Don't fall yet, we still need you."

I pulled myself together. "Thank you, Grantaire." I laid my hand on his shoulder, making my peace silently with the man I had hated, even as he kept me together all those years. Grantaire nodded, understanding.

I went back over to the table, gently picking up Éponine's body. Grantaire opened the door for me as I carried her into Corinth's main room. Everyone turned as we entered.

"This woman was one of us. She was the first to fall for what we believe in. From now on, we fight in her name. And we will die in it," I added in a whisper.

They all died that night. I watched them fall, wishing each time that their bullet had been mine. Though I stood in plain sight atop the barricade, no bullet aimed at me found its mark. I do not know why. Perhaps God was protecting me-- or torturing me.

When I could not save Combeferre, the last of them, I retreated into Corinth. Grantaire sat surrounded by empty bottles, but his eyes were still bright. "I have been waiting for you, Apollo. Are they all fallen?" I nodded. "Then we are the last. Come, stand beside me."

He rose and came toward me, but instead I took his place at the table, pulling some scraps of paper toward me. "No, there is still time. I do not want the world to forget her. Or us." I began to write, scribbling faster that I ever had during the last few minutes of an exam. This time it was for Éponine.

And I have finished. I pray someone finds it in this crack in the wall. I pray she will not be forgotten. I hear them coming now. Grantaire has pulled me up beside him and we stand proudly, knowing the end is near. Welcoming it. I am weary of this world and I long to see Éponine again.

"Take aim."

"Vive la Republique! I belong to it!" Grantaire's cry echoes through the room. Mine is softer.

"I'm coming, my darling...."

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