Finale: Saint-Martin-de-Boscherville, 1861

"There's one other thing, Erik." I turn to look at Mademoiselle Perrault. She holds out three pieces of paper, yellowed with age. "I've been keeping these for nearly thirty years, just in case… You should have them. All of them."

"Thank you." I take them gingerly from her. Two of them bear my name, the third my mother's. The handwriting on the last one is shaky, similar to my own, the letter already broken open. I unfold it, reading the faded ink.

Madame,

I hope you never ever have to read this letter. But if you are reading this, it means I'm gone and Erik is with you again.

You were a fool to give him up, Madame. There's not a better child in the whole world. He's sweet, and clever, and wonderful. And I am a fool for leaving him, but there is something calling me away. I want to come back for him. I intend to come back for him, if only to make sure he never has to face any of the horrors this world will show him without someone who loves him by his side. I think he is more my son than he will ever be yours.

God, I hope you never read this.

Love your son as I did, Madame. He deserves love.

Éponine Thénardier Enjolras

"Éponine," I repeat her name. Something flashes inside me, memories of someone's arms holding me tightly, of soot and dust, of a sad pair of brown eyes. "Thirty years…"

"Your mother opened that letter just after you left. But she never read yours."

I sit on the sofa, and open the second letter that has Éponine's wavering penmanship on the front, a tarnished silver ring with a gleaming onyx stone falling into my palm as I do so. I raise it to my eyes for a moment, examining it before returning my attention the the letter.

Dear Erik,

Oh, my sweet boy, I hope the only time you ever see this letter is when I get you back and burn it. But I have to be prepared for the chance that I won't be able to do that. So, in case you ever forget me, let me remind you now.

My name is Éponine. I found you abandoned under a bridge. I and Enjolras. We took you in, and we loved you.

You called me Neen, and then you called me Mama. When I married Enjolras, you called him Papa. He has a sister named Marianne, who lives in Rennes, and you called her Rianne.

We lived at Number 147 on the Rue Liberté. You loved exploring every nook and cranny, and were covered in dirt half the time. You jumped on beds and drew on the walls, and you loved making music.

You were the best part of my life, Erik. And I'm horribly selfish for doing this, but I'm chasing after love I know I can never have. That's always what we want most - what we can't have. If I die, I'm sorry, Erik. I really am sorry. But never doubt that I love you, and I want to come back to you.

I'm so sorry, my sweet boy. I hope I'll see you again soon. We love you. I love you.

Your Mama,

Éponine

I say nothing, but open the final letter, this one penned in the strong, confident scrawl of someone with wealth and education.

Forgive me, my son. I have failed you. At this moment, your mother lies dead before me, and it is possible I may follow her before this war is won. An irony, given I started this fight so that no one would have to suffer as you and she did. What I do from here on out, I do in the name of the Republic, in the name of Patria, and in the name of the family this world has denied us.

My beloved comrades, my Friends of the ABC, often called me the reason of the revolution. Perhaps they were right, and yet, I think the true reason of the revolution is love. Love for my country, and love for my family. Rest assured, I will do everything in my power to return to you, but if I do not, it was because I was fighting for a better world for you. I never meant for your mother to die. I never meant to fail you.

I still believe in France, Erik. I believe in liberty, equality and brotherhood. And if I die, I do so fighting so that you may live in a world where you can be free. That is my final gift to you.

Your father,

Sébastien Richard Victor-Marie Enjolras V

The letter slides out of my hands. Memories come rushing back to me. A man with shaggy blond hair carrying me around, and laughing. A woman tussling my hair, and tucking me in at night while kissing my forehead, a dark haired girl adjusting charcoal in my hand.

I'd had a family. A family who loved me. I snatch up the ring once again and slide it on my finger before standing and going to the door.

"Where are you going?" Marie asks.

"Rennes. And then Paris."

"Why? Erik! Wait!" But I am already out the door, and on my way.

I do not stop riding until I reach Rennes. The sun is setting as I locate the house marked as that of the Enjolras family. I hesitate a moment before knocking on the door.

"If you're selling something, I'm not interested!" a woman's voice barks.

"Rianne, please open the door. It's Erik," I say. The door opens violently, revealing a petite woman, her face slightly worn, but still fresh, her dark hair braided loosely down her back.

"I'm seeing a ghost," she whispers. "I must be seeing a ghost."

"I can assure you, I'm real. May I come in?"

"Of course! Come in, quickly!" She steps aside and shepherds me inside. The walls are covered with paintings, portraits, and scribbles on the walls. "I can't believe this…. You're alive. Bastien and Éponine's little boy, alive. Please, sit down, make yourself at home, this should've been your home, after all…" she laughs nervously. "I'm rambling, aren't I?"

"Perhaps a touch."

"Well, that's only to be expected, given how long it's been. Now, go on, sit down, I want to know everything, where have you been all this time?" She sits on one of the worn red sofas, and gestures for me to sit across from her. "Well?"

"It is… a very long story."

"I've got nothing but time." She picks up a worn leather bound book and opens it, pulling a stick of charcoal from inside. I hesitate for a moment, but then the whole story comes pouring out of me. Marianne proves herself a remarkably skilled listener, her fingers dancing over the paper, occasionally, biting her lip or shaking her head. but her eyes never leave me. When I finish, she sets aside the book, and I see the moments I described skillfully recreated. "I'm so very sorry," she whispers. "I should've looked harder for you when I went to Paris, I should've found you and made sure none of this ever happened. I failed my brother, and I failed you."

"You had no way of knowing. You were, what, seventeen, and you still went hunting for me? That took quite a bit of courage."

She shrugs. "I still ran off to England when I gave up."

"And apparently came back."

"Well, I finally figured out a way to give my grandfather a decent heart attack."

"Do tell," I lean forward. "I'm curious, and I have nothing but time. You went to England, and then what?"

"Fooled around for a while. Slept in slums, sold my artwork on the streets, had a string of lovers. I didn't come home until I'd had the babies."

"Babies?" I repeat. Marianne plucks up a framed sketch and passes it to me. It depicts a boy with thick black curls and and a Roman profile, and a girl with straight blonde hair.

"Little Bastien and Minerva."

"And the father?"

She shrugs. "Haven't seen them in, ooh, twenty eight years or so. I don't think they even knows I was expecting."

"You have illegitimate children by two different men."

"I'm sure you can imagine the scene my grandfather made when I came home with little Bastien in my arms and three months gone with Minerva. He looked as though he were about to explode, and he was dead a week later."

"You had two children just to give your grandfather grief."

"No, Erik, I had two children because I was lonely. Because I was hurting. Because I was tired of the world telling me what I had to do. Because I wanted to play the game on no one's rules but my own. Did my children suffer for it? Perhaps a little, at first, but I taught them not to give a damn what anyone thinks, just like their uncle did."

"Was he really so headstrong?"

"He started a rebellion, what do you think?" We both laugh a little at that, and she brushes away a tear. "I miss him so much…."

"If it's not too much trouble, Rianne…" It is difficult to think of her as anything other than Rianne. "May I see where they are buried?"

"Oh… oh, of course. The cemetery's not too far actually. Come on, we'll take the back way, so no one sees us." She grabs a dark cloak from a nearby closet, and leads me out of the house, pausing to take a lantern from the door. We walk through the streets as the sun shines its last rays.

"So, your children, where are they now?"

"Oh, well, Sébastien's off in America, fighting with the Northerners in the war."

"After losing your brother, you let him fight?"

"When I said I raised them to not give a damn what anyone thinks, that included myself," she explains. "He's not gotten himself killed yet, and the most I can do is hope he stays so. I write to him almost every day."

"And your daughter?"

"Oh, Minerva's with him," she says happily. "Tagged along and then eloped with the second son of a factory owner from Boston. They're expecting a baby."

Part of me begins to wonder if Marianne Enjolras is entirely sane. Is it possible for anyone to care so little what the world thinks of them? I watch her a little more closely, and realize that she walks as if there is something weighing her down… she has no choice but to not care what the world thinks of her. If she did, it would have destroyed her.

"This is it." She pulls a hairpin from her braid and starts picking the lock on a wrought iron gate. "Cemetery hours, bah. Must I mourn only when people decide it's convenient?" I decide I like this woman, regardless of her sanity. She pushes the gate open and leads me to a set of white marble tombstones that sit before a crypt bearing her family name.

"They were not given a place inside?" I ask.

"After Bastien walked out on Grandpere?" Marianne shakes her head. "No. My parents didn't get that honor either. Sometimes, I've wanted to torch the entire damn sepulcher and say good riddance to the old Enjolras family. But I've never done it. A little too superstitious, if you catch my meaning."

"I see…" I take a step closer to the graves, reading the inscriptions in the flickering light of Marianne's lantern. I see the name of Sébastien Richard Victor-Marie Enjolras V, who lived from 1806 to 1832. Beneath the standard letters are the words Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, and For Patria carved in a far less experienced hand. "Your handiwork?" I look at her expectantly.

"He would have wanted it." Marianne says. I move to the other white stone. There is simply the name Éponine Enjolras, and the year 1832. "Her birth record was never found." Marianne explains.

"Were there any who survived the attacks?"

"Just Marius Pontmercy. He was a friend of one of the ABC's members, Courfeyrac…" she trails off. I don't remember Courfeyrac at all.

"Would he… would he know me?"

"No. Bastien and Éponine were very private about you. But his wife, Cosette, would."

"Cosette." The memory of Christmas cakes becomes prominent in my mind, and a blonde woman with green eyes. For a moment, I'm tempted to ask after this woman, but I decide against it. "Might I have a moment alone? To say farewell?"

"You're not staying here, are you?" she asks shrewdly.

"I had other plans even before coming here."

"I see." She sighs. "Well, you will always be welcome in my home, Erik. I'll give you your time then. You don't need to return the lantern." She steps away, leaving me alone with the graves. I touch Éponine's first, then that of Enjolras.

"I should hate you," I whisper. "I should hate both of you for abandoning me. But I remember… I remember the love you showed me. More than the rest of this world has ever shown me in my lifetime. I can't claim myself as your son. The things I have done have prevented me that honor, I think. But if there were once people like you in this world who could love me, surely there must still be others. I will not forget you. I will find that world you wanted, if only for myself. Thank you. Thank you for a brief flicker of light in an ocean of darkness. Farewell." I wrap my cloak around my body, and turn from the graves, leaving the lost piece of my past to the night, and setting my eyes toward a future I intend to make.

1881

I'm dying…. I can feel myself dying. The utter futility of it all. The regret. Every moment of my life… I should have taken Marianne's offer when she gave me the chance. Damn my insufferable arrogance and pride. I was young then. Young and cocky.

Christine has been a good girl. She did as I asked, and now, she's gone off with her vicomte. The boy will make her happy. If he doesn't, I shall have no choice but to come back as a true ghost, and haunt him.

I am finally learning about what it is to die. There is no bright light at the end of a tunnel, but there are visions. Two faces that have only drifted at the edge of my mind for years. A lanky man with shaggy blond hair, serious features, and sharp blue eyes, standing beside a dangerously thin brunette girl who has a round face and sorrowful chocolate eyes.

"My sweet boy," she whispers, holding out a hand. "Oh, Erik, you're home."

"Mother…" the name slips easily out of me, and I fall into her embrace. I'm too tall for her, yet she holds me as though I were still an infant. She feels warm and soft, and smells of rainwater. "Mama…"

"Can you forgive us?" Enjolras asks, placing a hand on my shoulder.

"I forgave you long ago. I think the question is whether or not you can forgive me." I say to him, stepping away to allow him into the embrace.

"If I can forgive this pigheaded idiot, and he me," Éponine hits him on the shoulder, "I think we can both forgive you. If we'd been better parents, you never would have had to face such suffering on your own. You did only what you thought you had to. But that's behind you now. All your grief is. We're here. We're with you. You're home, Erik. You're finally home." Even as she says it, I know she's right, and I slip away from this life into the arms of my true parents, the ones who loved me purely. Three lost people coming together for the first time in nearly fifty years. And it is more glorious than any music I have ever heard.