Hey everyone, remember that time two years ago when I said I was writing a prequel to "A Saturday Night?" Well, I did this silly thing called "going to graduate school" and, turns out, that tends to majorly occupy all of your free time. Who knew, right? Anyway, I really did completely write 6 of the 8 chapters I had planned for this story before being kidnapped by academia, and I'm on my spring break right now with a surprisingly light workload, so I thought, "What the hell! Why not finish that damn story." I plan to post one chapter a day for you all as an apology. Enjoy your much overdue present, my friends!

Chapter 1: In Which Marius Embarrasses Himself Several Times and Doesn't Quite Understand Why Eponine Prefers His Help

A Tuesday in late September

She was an angel. Of that, Marius was sure. He had seen her walk by the day before while he was sitting on his favorite bench on campus, enjoying his morning coffee.

And she had positively ruined his life. Of that he was also sure.

Marius had been completely hopeless in every class afterwards. He had also manged to nearly step out in front a bus (Bahorel had thankfully saved him), slip into the pond by the art building (Feuilly and Grantaire had laughed so hard they nearly threw-up), and talk about the mysterious girl he had seen so much that Enjolras had kicked him out of their study group "until he could behave like a sane person again."

Crashing into that bicyclist on the way out of the library hadn't helped much either.

So here he was again, sitting on the bench, hoping to catch another glimpse of the girl who was now haunting his thoughts. At least his head was clearer this morning. The last vestiges of yesterday's shock had worn off the night before as Marius crafted a plan to find the girl again. True, his plan had basically come down to "wait on the bench and hope she walks by," but there was not really much more Marius could do to find her. And he was determined to make the most of said plan. So it was rather unsurprising that Marius, in his focused state of people-watching, failed to notice his friend Eponine approaching the bench until she was already taking a seat next to him.

"Hey, 'Ponine," Marius said as he flashed a quick smile in her direction before returning his gaze to the passing students.

"Hey," she responded, leaning back into the bench. "I heard from Grantaire that you fell into the pond yesterday? Also that you're now unhealthily obsessed with a girl you saw for about five seconds. Should I be concerned about his excessive drinking causing him to hallucinate? 'Cause I throw a mean intervention party."

"Unfortunately, Grantaire is entirely correct on both of those statements." Marius sighed as he absentmindedly ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm waiting here on the off-chance I'll see her again."

"Ah. I see."

Something in Eponine's tone caused Marius to look over towards her, but by the time he was facing her she had placed a smile on her face. In his opinion, it was a rather false one, but he had learned long ago that any attempt to call her out on such smiles would get him nowhere. "Are you okay, Eponine?" he tentatively asked her.

"Well, I am a little bit worried about your mental health now, but I did have a problem I needed your help with when I came to find you," Eponine laughed.

Marius knew she was changing the subject on purpose, but he allowed her to do so as his gaze drifted back to the passing traffic. Eponine would tell him only what she wished to, and nothing more. "What do you need?" he asked, as his eyes once again started scanning faces.

There was a beat of tense silence before she responded. "I have a project for my Sociology class. My final project for the semester, actually. I wanted to do it on the socio-economic inequalities of the legal system, and since you're a law student, I was hoping you would read-over the legal parts of my research as I go along and read my final paper when I finish it," Eponine asked in a rush. Marius was unsure if it were nerves that had made her speak so quickly, or if she were honestly that excited about her project topic.

"Of course I'll help you, 'Ponine. Well, I'll do my best. Although..." Suddenly, Marius whipped his head around to face Eponine, a wild grin on his face. "I just had a brilliant idea. Courfeyrac owes me a favor. I bet I could get him to convince Enjolras to help you. This kind of topic would be right up his alley, actually."

Eponine's face fell into a pout, and Marius couldn't help but laugh. "Come now, it won't be that bad. He doesn't bite."

"No, it's just I...well, I'd prefer to work with you," Eponine whined. It always amazed Marius the way Eponine could jump from being forward and commanding to petulant and childlike. She simply bent the world to her whims.

"Don't worry, he intimidates almost everybody. You'll be fine, and he'll be much more helpful to you than I will. Your final paper will probably destroy your professor's ability to objectively judge anything any other student hands in ever again."

"But what if he doesn't want to help me?" Eponine asked.

"Don't worry," Marius responded, the crazy grin still wide across his face, "Courfeyrac can get anybody to do anything."

Eponine simply stared at Marius for a few seconds before finally throwing her hands up into the air and saying, "Alright, fine. You win. I will work with your scary-intense friend."

Marius laughed once more. He was about to return to his seemingly doomed quest when he noticed the strange look on Eponine's face as she stared out behind him. Marius turned back around to see what had caught Eponine's attention, and his heart leapt into his throat.

The girl was back again, walking down the sidewalk. Marius simply stared at her, awestruck. He saw her notice him staring at her and both of their cheeks flushed with embarrassment right before she passed out of his sight.

Marius whipped around to look at Eponine. "Do you know her, 'Ponine?" he practically pleaded.

"No, I... thought she was someone else for a second, that's all," Eponine responded, not meeting his eyes.