To those reviewers that found Eponine's contemplation of pushing Enjolras into a puddle - this won't be the only time that thought will cross her mind. This is Enjolras we are talking about, she is bound to feel the need to shove him into crevices to shut him up from time to time.

And I'm updating quickly because I feel a bit horrible for leaving chapter 1 unattended to for weeks. So this should be my apology.

(A few reviews and a little more followers - I'll take what I can get. But I would like to get more feedback!)

Disclaimer: I own nothing and probably never will. Till I become a trillionaire and buy the rights.

Chapter 4

Fire

It would be a falsehood to say that Eponine Louis did not take pride in being able to do such things that no proper Mademoiselle would. Although she is certainly not one from birth, she is now, under the pretense of being the daughter of such a character as legalist as her papa. Lest she forgets, however, she immediately slips into the character of one when she slips into her room at night.

How she came to be the bourgeois mademoiselle she is today is an evasive subject, although she wined, she ate and bathed like one - Eponine did not fully felt as if she is one. To her, it had been an escape from the weary days of her youth, when things went wrong and the grit of poverty threatened to crush her under its unmerciful grasp. Eponine, however, avoided all emotional pretenses around Javert - although she called him papa (for the monsieur and mademoiselles of her society would surely gasp if she dressed him by his name) the relationship the both of them had was only of mutual respect, care and share of living quarters.

To Eponine, however, she imagined that their combined shadowed lives were more of an armor that evade the threatening cracks of their true, miserable identities.

Thus, with a surprise, she awoke to the sound of scattering footsteps and a tremendous heat that threatened to strangle the air from her throat. A second passed and Eponine had thought the life she had lead up to today was a dream that she had in the throes of her hunger-crazed mind, but within these very seconds that she prepared herself for the onslaught of shaking that came with the fits of starvation, hands grasp her shoulders and she is sent tumbling and tripping over her long sleeping gown.

"Eponine, awake, Eponine!" The mist of smoke seemed to flee into an opaque fog at the rumble of words that shook Eponine to present, although the smell of soot did not remove itself from her aching nostrils, she did not struggle with the knowledge of who held her at the very second.

"Papa?!"

He did not reply, for he had passed her on to a pair of arms, and with a weary mind she recognized the woman to be the governess of the Louis maison.

"Liossaun? Liossaun what is the matter?" Eponine's desperate hacks had proved to hurt her throat and she felt as if the insides of her mouth had shriveled and dried. The sleep still robbed her of proper understanding of the situation, but slowly the feeling of adrenaline rushed to her veins and Eponine, now struggling to shake the smell of burning, shot up from the arms of the governess and flew towards her boudoir.

"Mademoiselle! Eponine!"

Eponine tore through the hallway that she was dragged from not minutes ago, but as she sped and threw her suite's door open, the hunched figure of her papa, breathing deeply greeted her instead of the raging fire her imagination has fed her. What shocked her, most importantly, was not the state of her blackened cheminée, but the state of the dress she had meandered around many hours ago in the presence of the ABC.

The rest of her room was engulfed in smoke, though the cheminée was blackened and the state of the furniture near it, chiseled to resemble a horrible black. No gasp left the lips of Eponine however, instead she had composed herself immediately and ran towards the hunched figure of Javert, seemingly weary and exhausted from his mission of putting out the fire.

"Papa?"

"Your dress, it had caught fire." The voice he beheld matched her own, it felt as if the both of them had gone without water for so very long. Eponine did not like to admit it, but the tenor of his voice fraught with the husk of smoke reminded her of many men from an inn many a days ago. Liossaun's gasp shook both daughter and father out of their thoughts and immediately, the woman went into a flurry.

"Monsieur, Mademoiselle, should I call upon a physician? Oh what a mess, oh what grief!" Eponine was to retort that it was far too early in the night for this, when she realized that the sun outside was on its early dusk. Had she slept only for a good few hours?

"Liossaun, fetch M. Glimer from Lavien. Hurry on."

As Liossaun fussed and her footsteps echoed away, Eponine allowed herself to panic. Where had she placed the pages of Monsieur Enjolras' notebook? Had she removed it from her dress? The ends of her dress had been charred, though the upper half seemed salvageable, it did not escape her notice that the probability of the many pages she had looted could have been burned in the site.

But what of her papa seeing them if it had not been burned?

This caused nausea to spring up from her empty stomach. She felt green to this idea, more so than the realization that she could have been easily charred into flakes of nothing if her papa had not removed her from her boudoir.

"Have you caught fever, Eponine? Are you well?" The stern voice of her father shook her from the daze that took on from her brown eyes, although the soot had marred the face of Javert, the clear worry shone on his features. It was not as if she was startled by this - her adopted papa showed concern in manners that were different - but it sent a lump to her throat that she had a hard time swallowing.

"I am quite fine Papa, let us get you to the salon, you have strained yourself far too much this morn."

After Eponine had washed the soot from her face and exchanged her night gown to something more decent, she walked on to the parlor, a basin in hand with warm water she had boiled in a daze. The worry of finding charred pages from the skirts of her dress plagued her. The fear and the nausea had not calmed down as the minutes passed, she wished and hoped upon God that the papers have been saved - and if so - her father had not caught on to it.

It was also the fear of her papa finding and reading them that threatened to constrict the normally unaffected Eponine.

When she had ambled on towards the salon, with her brunette locks in a loose braid, it startled her to see Monsieur Joly crouched beside her papa with his countenance strained in concentration. Eponine felt as if she were in a dream and the fear seemed to grow in her at the sight of her papa and he, Monsieur Joly, in the same room.

Joly's eyes flashed in recognition and in his shock, his crouched figure jostled. For a second he looked as if he were to fall over, but caught himself on time. He looked agape at her for a few seconds that Eponine felt as if he spoke, he would instantly spill of the wanderings Eponine did at night.

So, naturally, she spoke first.

"Monsieur Glimer?" Eponine said in confusion. As far as she knew the physician had been a graying man, without children. Her papa had only ever had his or her health checked by the same man, so it was without a doubt, a shock, to see Joly in place of the monseigneur. She highly doubted that Joly was related to he, for they did not resemble each other at all.

"Oh but gracious, this is Monsieur Joly. Monsieur Glimer is not in Paris and his wife had insisted his best student checked upon your father. Monsieur Joly, this is Mademoiselle Louis." Her governess spoke in such quick retorts that she risked the look of amusement sent to the maid of the house, Polast.

Polast sent a cheeky smile in her direction in turn.

"Bonjour Monsieur Joly." Eponine curtsied, a ghost of a smile on her lips when Joly bowed shakily in turn. He looked at her with inquisitive, wary eyes, the same look he gave her when Courfeyrac had announced she had taken the many pages off of Enjolras' notebook.

It dawned on her that the knowledge of her being the fille of Javert was surely not a good thing, especially for the Le Amis.

Eponine's eyes widened and she fought with the urge to pull unto the hand of the ami and into the gardens to speak of the circumstances. The dread of the mystery of where the notebook pages had gone to came flooding back to Eponine. Not only that, the fear brought on nausea once more that she ambled clumsily unto the salon's remaining sofa and tumbled down without a moment's notice.

Javert's voice echoed throughout the silent salon.

"Monsieur, if you may will you check the health of ma fille? She, I fear, has gone through worse of the ordeal. Polast, you are to call upon Ernest. I shall be arriving to the station earlier than planned, inform him of this." Her papa had already walked out of the salon and she heard his footsteps echoing as it clambered up to the second story. Her governess, however, remained standing by the parlor, offering as a watch of some type to the young mademoiselle and the young monsieur.

Eponine knew opportunity when she saw it and without hesitation, she made a grab for the very thing.

"Liossaun, please prepare me a bath." Eponine knew it annoyed the woman to no end when she addressed her in such a way, as if she was more of a maid than a governess, but she knew it was just the right recipe to have her turn up her large nose and stomp away without questions.

Now that they are alone and the fear of having prying ears were gone, she immediately took the hand of Joly and dragged him to the far side of the salon, where she knew that any straining ears of the home will struggle to hear their conversation.

"Eponine?! Javert?! 'ma fille?!'" Joly's perplexed face and tone traveled to her ears. Her hands took a life of its own and she found herself waving them frantically, as if to tell him that all is not what it seemed.

Her throat still ached and she could not speak without resembling that of the gritty vocals of a drunkard, but in hushed tones she began to ramble.

"Joly I am afraid that what you think is not true at all. I fear, however, that the papers I have taken from Enjolras have been churned in the fire or had fallen off someplace. I have had no time to check for Polast insisted I change for the given time when we were awaiting for you - or it be more appropriate that we not waited for you but M. Glimer, but this is beyond the point!"

Joly's dazed look seemed to melt the more Eponine spoke. And to her irritation, the reply of Joly was one she did not find satisfactory.

"Enjolras is right, Mademoiselle you do tend to speak so very much."

Eponine, in her frustration, took it upon herself to mar the hand of the amis by pinching it in annoyance. Joly jumped at this, snaking his hand away from the sting that the young mademoiselle had given him.

"Are you quite done being absurd? Joly you must listen to me, I do not intend to speak of the abaisse with papa - I rest assure you that if I were to do join your organization, all for the sake of observance for instance, I will not reveal of my happenings lest papa punish me greatly."

Joly's brow popped up at her reasoning and she urged herself to not give him another pinch.

"...or in fear of having you all arrested. Your plans of over throwing the state is safe in here." Eponine made a motion to tap at the side of her head.

"Eponine!" Both Joly and Eponine jumped at the voice of the woman.

"Must you frighten me so Polast!" Eponine yelped in turn, clutching at her skirts as if she were holding back the urge to throw a punch at the reaction to her fright. Old habits, die hard.

Polast did not reply, but instead looked upon both Monsieur Joly and her with her inquisitive, bright green eyes. It was quiet for a few seconds before she spoke.

"I ope' ya d' not intend to galivate with these p'pers around the house mademoiselle. I do not think your papa - " Polast held the pages that were the key to alleviate the fear that had Eponine in a tumult of emotions this morning, and in her relief she immediately pounced on the portly woman, taking the papers to her chest with bright eyes.

"Oh Polast I owe you my life!" Polast's smiled in turn, but her shifty eyes went to the monseiur behind her.

"I so ope' that you ar' more careful."

Polast made to turn and leave the salon, but before she completely left she turned once more.

"Your papa 'ill be leaving soon and e' cannot escort you to the church. Your governess will."

Eponine's relieved smile fell quickly.

"But Polast, what about you? Oh Polas - "

"Mademoiselle, I 'ave a room to clean and a cheminée to att'nd to!"

"Polast!"

"Non mademoiselle!"

Polast immediately turned out of the salon, lest Eponine follow after her with her desperate pleas.

"Is the governess that horriblé?" Joly mused beside hers, picking at the stray lint from his brown coat.

"Oh Joly, you do not know half of it."

Man, I really love Joly. He's one of my favorite amis, next to Courfeyrac, Enjolras and the rest, of course. Besides, how perfect is Hugh Skinner as Joly? He's a dreamy fella, too.

Leave loooooots of reviews, please! Next chapter...church and more Enjolras and the amis.

And other stuff.

Also I'm going to probably geekily make an art out of this story in my own tumblr, ha, so if you want to visit my blog, do so here: ( violentporcupines . tumblr . com)