The first time they met.

It was an early spring evening and Enjorlas was out walking the alleyways of Paris. He had just paused to admire the spiderweb sunset beyond the buildings when a peasant boy ran by, knocking into him as he passed. The boy turned around for an instant, scrawny in his over-sized, patched coat and paperboy hat. He had a young face, nearly feminine, with big brown eyes and dirt smeared across tanned skin.

"Je suis desolee, Monsieur," the kid apologized, barely a brief acknowledgment of the encounter before he turned and rushed away.

Enjorlas never realized it was her. Eponine never remembered him.

The first time they remembered meeting.

Marius sat at the bar, absorbed in writing in his journal. Love poetry, Enjorlas thought, exasperated. For days now, Marius had had no room in his mind for anything other than this young woman he had fallen for, and Enjorlas was tired of his moping about. How could he not realize that there was so much more out there, so much more to be worried about than his meaningless little romance?

" 'Scuse me, sir, but I'm looking for Monsieur Marius."

Enjorlas turned around, surprised to see a girl standing beside him, dirty and ragged and thin. This was not Marius' love, was it? She was a peasant.

"He's over there," he said, pointing out his friend.

She nodded, dark, brittle curls tumbling over her shoulders. "Merci."

"Are you his lady? L'amour?" he asked dismissively.

"Moi? No, monsieur." She blinked at her feet, a bit of color flushing to her cheeks.

"In that case, perhaps you can convince him to get his head out of the clouds. I'm afraid I haven't had any luck."

"I'll try." She hurried over to Marius, carefully not looking any of the other students in the eye. Enjorlas turned away.

The first time he saw her cry.

It was after an ABC meeting and most of the boys had already returned home. Those that were left sat at the bar; Enjorlas alone was at a writing desk, working furiously on pamphlets. He was completely absorbed in his writings when someone tapped his shoulder.

He turned around to see the girl from the other day behind him. There was a small cut on her forehead, pasted over with dried blood, and a purple shadow spreading across her cheek that he realized was a bruise. "Monsieur—" she started, but her throat was thick with tears and she couldn't finish her sentence.

"Are you looking for Marius?" he asked, as gently as he could. She nodded hard. "I'm sorry, he's already left."

She closed her eyes, but a few tears still escaped down her face. She turned to go but he reached out, catching her wrist. "What is your name?"

"Ep... Eponine."

"Eponine," he said thoughtfully. Marius's friend from the slums. "You live in Saint Michel, non? He has mentioned you."

At this she looked back up, despite the tears glimmering in the candlelight upon her cheeks. "I should go. I'm sorry to 'ave bothered you."

"Can I help you with anything?" he asked, concerned. "Do you need money, food, a place to sleep?"

"I should go," she repeated.

"Can I at least give a message to Marius?"

Her breath caught in her throat and she shook her head. "Thank you," she murmured, shaking off his hand. She vanished through the door. He was left feeling as though he should have done something, but completely clueless as to what.

When he first saw her at the barricades.

Enjorlas knew she had come to fight long before Marius did. He didn't know it was her at first, of course—she was in disguise as a boy, and all he noticed was a scamp of a peasant hanging around. But then a larger boy shoved into the peasant, knocking the smaller boy's cap off, and those dark curls tumbled over her shoulders as she scrambled for her hat.

"Looking for this, Mademoiselle Eponine?" Enjorlas asked, his voice low and dangerous, holding it just out of her reach.

She looked up with him, and instead of being frightened or ashamed as he had expected, she looked determined and... angry?

"Give that back," she ordered. "You 'ave no right."

"And you should not be here," he said, tugging her into a small storeroom before the other soldiers noticed a girl and started trouble. "This is no place for women."

She snatched the hat back and deftly twisted her hair up under it, glaring. "I could say that this is more a place for peasants than for bored noble boys. It's our fight, Monsieur." For the first time, her voice was mocking as she addressed him with the title. It unsettled him.

"But you're not here because it's your fight, are you? C'est Marius."

"That's no business of yours," she replied, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. "What, are you going to 'ave me thrown out?"

He struggled with himself, looking into her defiant face. Her dark eyes met his. "No," he said at last. "But take more care to keep that hat on, will you, Eponine?"

She nodded, relieved. "Thank you, Monsieur. I know you do not understand why I need to be 'ere—but believe me when I say this is where I 'ave to be."

"Go," he sighed. He held the door open for her and she vanished into the crowd.

When he came across her that evening.

It was after the first day of battle: the king's soldiers had retreated for the evening, and the barricade boys were settling down in the various rooms or behind the enormous pile of furniture to get a few hours of sleep before the fighting began again. Enjorlas had walked among his soldiers, touching them lightly on the shoulders or speaking a few words of encouragement where needed, but he was exhausted.

He found Eponine in the same small storage room he had spoken to her in earlier that day, curled in the floor and staring at the wall, a piece of paper crumpled loosely in her fist.

"Eponine?" he asked, crouching down beside her. "Are you alright?"

Her shirt must have belonged to her father—it was enormous, stained and torn, and he could see the top edge of the cloth she had used to bind her chest as the sleeve slipped off her shoulder. She was shivering with the cold but made no move to readjust it as she sat up and studied his face. Her eyes gleamed brightly in what little light there was, but there was a deadness to them. "Are you alright?" he repeated.

She shoved the piece of paper into her pocket then raised thin fingers, gently touching his jawbone. He shivered. When she spoke, her voice was oddly high. "You are intelligent, passionate, kind," she murmured. "You are much like him. Perhaps I could 'ave loved you, once."

"You are talking madly," he said. "You have had a long day. Sleep now, 'Ponine."

To his surprise, she let out a harsh laugh at the pet name. "His Cosette is going away. But should he survive this battle, he will pursue her to the ends of the earth, I am sure. And me? I'd follow him, just to help him be with her. Because when he smiles, holds me, thanks me, calls me 'Ponine, hunger and thirst and pain and loneliness all go away. None of it matters. Il est tout." He is everything.

"You poor girl," Enjorlas whispered. "You poor, poor girl." His gaze lingered on the remnants of a darkened circle surrounding her left eye, but before he had time to wonder who had done it to her, she was leaning forwards and kissing him.

He had been kissed before, by chaste, giggling noble girls, when he was younger at school. But never before had he been the recipient of such a raw, furious hunger. She tasted of sweat and dirt and he could feel the bones of her arm pressing into him where she clasped her limbs around his neck. When she released him he was practically gasping for air, stunned. "Eponine—"

"You 'ave a girl, Monsieur Enjorlas?" she asked. He managed to shake his head. He hadn't realized she knew his name. "Then feel no guilt. It is dark and cold and we are going to die tomorrow. You are lonely too, I can see it in your eyes."

He blinked at her, speechless.

"I 'ave done things before," she said quietly. For once, she looked away. "For money, when we couldn't feed ourselves. I wanted to tell Marius, but he would want to help me and he is not very rich. And I couldn't bear the look in his eyes."

"Eponine—" he began again.

"I don't want money from you, Monsieur, or pity neither. But Marius is dreaming of Cosette, and I don't want to be alone tonight. Will you stay?"

He spoke her name for a third time, in a very different tone. Again, she kissed him.

The last time he spoke to her.

It was still night, but the guard was calling. Outside, there was chaos. Enjorlas leapt to his feet, barely hesitating to glance down at her. His place was with his soldiers; it always had been and always would be.

"Go ahead," Eponine told him, tucking her hair up under her cap and lacing her boots. "I'll see you on the barricade."

"Be safe," he told her, and without thinking twice, vanished out the door.

The last time he saw her.

He heard the gunshot, but he didn't realize it was her at first. He thought the hush that fell over the soldiers was strange; he thought Marius' shouting was strange, but it wasn't until he had pushed through the crowd to see what the matter was that he made the connection. Her cap had fallen but she made no effort to retrieve it—there was no point now in disguising her gender. He didn't know if she even realized her hair was out; she was clinging to Marius with a fervor.

The blood was soaking through her shirt, staining both of their hands, leaking onto the knees of his pants and the ground he crouched on as he cradled her. Her eyes burned bright, even as she shuddered with pain. It was a fatal wound. She had come only to die. It was not until Marius began to sing, softly, ever so softly, that Enjorlas noticed the tears, warm on his own cheeks.

Later, when the two ABC boys had carried her limp body away into a separate room, Enjorlas went in, just briefly, to say goodbye.

She looked so small, lying on the ground in her oversized, bloodied clothes. He found himself strangely furious that they had closed her eyes—he had wanted to look into them, one last time.

"You died in his arms, 'Ponine," he whispered. "You died hearing him sing for you. What more could you have asked for?"

She could have asked for him to love her, to hold her while she was still alive. And then Enjorlas was angry at Marius, too, angry at him for his blindness, for never noticing how beautiful she was. But he took several deep breaths, channeling his fury towards the king. He had no anger to spare for anything else.

We fight for the county, he told himself. But now, perhaps, he would fight for something else, as well. "Bon nuit, Mademoiselle," he murmured, bending down to kiss her cheek. "Sleep well."

I took some liberty with the timing, adding an extra day to the battle, but tried to keep it as realistic as I could... Enjorlas/Eponine isn't really my pairing, but I had fun writing it anyways. Hope you enjoyed; please review!