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Éponine flitted in and out of the crowd, listening to the murmur's of discontent around her.

"Look up at those bourgeois, starin' at us like we're dirt on the street. It's sickening."

"Showin' us no mercy. Those rich bastards."

"Watchin' children live off crumbs. Heartless creatures."

These were the usual comments that Éponine heard daily in her wanderings except todays were filled with more malice than usual. It made her sick to see children dying of starvation in the streets and women dying of disease because they had no other choice but to sell themselves. She tried to help as best she could by taking her old clothes to the children and giving away the few francs she would pilfer from home.

Éponine sighed and walked away from the disgruntled group, knowing that even the little amount of help she gave wasn't enough. She was only nineteen after all, and had to sneak away from home and dress as a gueuse just to be allowed an ounce of freedom. And even when she snuck out she had to stay alert at all times so that her father wouldn't see her since he was the chief of police.

Éponine knew that her father meant well and was just trying to protect her in his own way. Ever since she had been born her father treated her like a porcelain doll that could break at any moment. She knew that it was because he felt guilty for not being there when she was born, the night her mother died. He had been assigned to capture a man who had broken his parole, Jean Valjean, and therefore didn't know he had a daughter or that his wife had died until a month after. Her nanny used to tell her about the night he returned when Éponine would get angry at him for not allowing her to go outside by herself or have any freedom.

She would tell Éponine how her father, the strong arm of the law, fell down to his knees as a broken man and sobbed when he learned the news. How her father couldn't even look at his daughter for a month and spent days outside at his wife's grave begging for forgiveness. It took him a week after the day he found out before he could function normally, and even then he had changed. From what nanny told her, her father used to be a kind-hearted, loving, and merciful man. After that day he was Javert, the police officer who relentlessly pursued every man who broke the law without mercy. He turned into a cold man driven by his need to uphold the law. He felt that if he never let another criminal escape then maybe he could forgive himself for being gone on a goose chase when he lost his precious wife.

Her nanny also told her about the first time her father ever looked at her, held her. He held her like she was the most precious thing in the world and when he looked upon her you could see small slivers of the man he used to be. It was the first time he had cried after that night, and he held Éponine to his chest and mentioned how much she reminded him of her mother and because of that he decided to name her after her.

Éponine wasn't sure how she felt about being named after a woman she never met. Her father never spoke of his deceased wife; the only stories she heard where from her nanny growing up and they were filled with how kind and generous she was. That she hated seeing how the poor were treated in Paris and would do what she could to help. She would take food and clothes to the street urchins and try to show them a mother's love, and would give out what she could to the other people on the street. Éponine guessed that's where she got her compassion for the people of France and it made her feel close to her mother knowing that they shared this trait. Her nanny didn't tell her this until she had come of age three years ago, and that's when the deception began.

Growing up Éponine always thought it was unfair that some people were born with nothing and some people were born with everything. She remembered asking her father one day when she was ten years old why that was. Her father had just come home from running after Valjean, only to have him escape again. He told her that he escaped this time with a young girl, about two years younger than she was, and that Valjean saved her from a terrible family. He told her the conditions that the young girl was living in, and how the family treated her like a servant and beat her regularly. Her father never tried to hide the unpleasantness of the world, but he wasn't usually so blunt about it. When she asked why the girl had to go through all of that her father told her that some people were just bad people and that's why he had to do his job so well, so that people like that were punished.

Éponine, being a confused ten year old, asked his why he was going after Valjean. If he saved that young girl from a terrible fate, didn't that make him a good person? And with that, why did some people, like the people on the streets have nothing, were they bad people too? She remembered her father stiffening and coldly reply, "Once a thief, always a thief Éponine. They are criminals and they can never be redeemed. Valjean stole and then broke parole when he was freed from person. That alone condemns a man for life, an act that can never be redeemed. And the people in the streets are just as bad. They steal every day and do even worse things in the eyes of the law. They are all criminals, Éponine and undeserving of aide."

Éponine knew better than to say anything against him after that but it stayed with her until this day. She just couldn't understand why her father was so cruel so people that had no other choice but to steal to feed their families, and that the children cast out from their families had no knowledge of any other way of life. She didn't raise the issue again until she was sixteen years old.

It was her birthday, and while it was also the anniversary of her mother's death, her father always tried to make it a happy day. He would spend the day with her and take her around Paris. She looked forward to these moments with her father, and on the way back home they were approached by some street urchins. They looked dirty, hungry, and desperate. They begged for some money for food and her father coldly rebuffed them, calling them foul and that he should arrest them then and there. Éponine was shocked at her father's behavior when she felt a tug on her dress. She looked down to see a young boy around eight years old and her heart broke for him. He had blond hair, but it was so caked with dirt that you could hardly tell its true color and his clothes were in shreds. But that wasn't what Éponine noticed the most, what struck her was the look in his eyes. He was so determined and proud, but she could see that he was a lonely little boy without a family to love him.

Éponine leaned down and asked him his name and where he lived. She remembered how proud he stood when he said, "My name's Gavroche, and me and the others live over in the elephant in Saint Michele! I found it one day, and it's all ours!" She chuckled at his childish ways and was reaching into her purse to give them money for food when her father sharply pulled her away from them. "Éponine, we don't give out money to those creatures. They are like animals, if you give them a little they will continue to come back and ask for more."

That was the first time that she ever said a word against her father. "But papa, they are children! How can anyone consciously let them starve and suffer like that? It isn't right, and something should be done to change the way people are treated in France, does the king not care for his people?!"

"Éponine! Hush child, what you say is treason! Don't ever let anyone hear you speak of that again, for if they hear you I could not even protect you."

Her father's rebuke made her angry. It was the same thing he said years ago and she didn't think it anymore true now than she did then. After that their celebration had dampened and her father ordered her to her room to think about her treason words and he walked out to her mother's grave like he did every year. When Éponine walked into her room, she was determined to do what she could to help that young boy. She told her nanny, who by then had become her maid and governess, what her father said and that she had a plan. She put on the plainest dress she owned, and had her nanny grab some bread and non-perishables from the kitchen and that was the first time she snuck out. She knew that her father wouldn't come and see her for the rest of the afternoon so she wouldn't get caught.

She arrived at the elephant much later than she anticipated because she got lost among the streets of Paris and called out to Gavroche. She remembered with delight the way he popped his head out of the top and the smile he had on his face upon seeing her. He scrambled down the elephant and she gave him the food along with some old clothes she had found. At first he was confused at her generosity, but she explained to him that it wasn't fair for him to be alone on the streets with no one to care for him and that she had made it her duty to do so as long as Gavroche taught her the streets of Paris so that she wouldn't get caught by her father. That day Gavroche became like a younger brother to her and her first friend. He taught her everything he knew about the slums of Paris and how to get around without anyone knowing you were there and which areas to avoid. He also, amusingly, taught her the ways of how to properly pickpocket which she reprimanded him for after. It took a while but Éponine's dress began to look like she had lived on the streets most her life and through that she was able to get others around her to trust her. She never revealed her last name and made Gavroche promise not to either.

Éponine was broken out of her memories by the same little boy she was just remembering.

"'Ponine! Come quick! Enjolras and Marius are stirrin up a crowd in St. Michele!" He grabbed her arm and pulled her in direction of St. Michele.

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