She has found no real fault to the girl, and Éponine is puzzled. As Marius' bride-to-be, she should loathe the pretty thing, hate every inch of her, reject her company and wither her with biting retorts, yet even now, Cosette is running a brush through the tangles in her dark hair, as gentle and companionable as if they'd run the streets together.
More so, maybe, she thinks, recalling those she once shared 'home' with.

"Oh, Éponine," she says, her voice a sigh. "You wouldn't have so much trouble with this if you wouldn't push down your pretty hair beneath a hat." She uses her fingers to loose a particularly nasty snarl, and Éponine clenches her fingers tighter on her knees, scrunching the fabric. "I wish you would only drop this disguise."

"Can't," she answers shortly. Don't like to be cooped up, a pretty bird in chains. Would rather work to aching, blistering, and have the sky above.

("Eunuch," she'd said dryly, by way of explanation when they protested plans to have this ragamuffin boy wait on the lady.
With all the grime and dirtying her skin and the almost feral way she clung to the shadows as she walked, they took her for something foreign. Taken aback as they were, and as the lady herself gave no protest, only a small, demure smile of assent, they let it be. She could say later this particular explanation was to dispense with any need of deepening her voice, which is true, but she revels in the winces when she says it.)

Two weeks at sea and the girl can catch the broadest of meanings in the word. Éponine is secretly the smallest bit glad, though she wonders if Cosette would take such patience to catch the tones that mark when she is concise for anger or just for lack of interest in elaborating if they hadn't been keeping such close quarters.
She doesn't much like to think about it.

Cosette sets the brush aside, and Éponine looks up at the vanity for the first time since being urged into the seat.

She is a joke. Her hair is still dirty despite the brushing, and hangs thick. Her skin is mottled from patches of dry muck and uneven exposure to the sun. Clean water is not to go to the poor working boy for washing, and Cosette's efforts could not get Éponine, not to be indebted, to do much more than scrub the worst of it from her face and fingers. Her clothes are hers, mere rags bolstered with patches galore, but to see herself now reflected in the mirror against a background of strongly made furniture and lush bedding is a painful highlight.

Cosette leans forward, murmuring into her ear with a smile. "There, you see? You look lovely."
Éponine's fingers skitter on her legs and she nods mutely, unwilling to argue.

And it will not last long. Soon she must report to the deck, stand staunch in the blazing sun. For now, she lets Cosette fuss over her, trying not to wince when Cosette learns Éponine has no dress suitable for the wedding, listens to the muse over whether there will be any tailors who work in suitable colors soon enough. When Éponine thinks she can take no more talk of wedding preparations, she stands, thinking to report in early – sweating at tasks would be preferable to this heartache. But…

She realizes, hand against the wood, that she cannot hear the first mate's rough laughter, cannot hear crewmates trudging up above, cannot hear – much of anything, really. Éponine pauses at the door, nonplussed – and then there is noise.

Shouts and shots ring out. A dull burst of cannon fire and the ship rocks, the vanity tipping and shattering the smooth mirror.

Cosette moves when she hears the clattering of quick-moving feet just outside; Éponine is in motion the second she notes the cloying silence.

She gathers her hair up by scraping her fingers roughly against her scalp, twisting until it hurts and shoving the mess under the fallen cap she snatches from the floor. Preserving the disguise is farther from her mind than how difficult she must make it to catch her, blend back into the shadows and keep grasping hands at bay. She spies a displaced handkerchief – the marks remaining from where it bore the letters 'E.F.' still visible in the corner where 'E.P.' is stitched, still sending a twitch of bitterness to her core with thoughts of how that could have been hers even after the hundredth time of seeing it – and uses it to palm a large shard, taking care not to press too firmly.

Not a moment too soon, she sees, as the door is flung open when she is still crouched. She is given her chance to straighten when the man in the doorway stumbles to a stop, surprised either that the room is occupied, or that one of the occupants is a women dressed in finery, and she moves, knocking her knee into his stomach before he recovers. She raises the hand with the shard, to wound but never kill, lines she would not, will not, cannot cross and he flings up a hand to protect himself.

She sweeps his feet from under him instead of striking, and he is off balance enough for his head to crack audibly against wood paneling as the sound of cannons make her heart pound and her pulse feel too fast in her veins.

The door's hinges creak loudly, too loudly, and Cosette comes to stand closer (brave or stupid, she's not sure), to clutch at her hand. Éponine jolts, thoughts fleeing, unforgiving slick stones beneath her flying feet melting back into creaking wood lit by candles and sunlight seeping from the hatch above – sunlight. An out.

She shakes her head, and surveys. The man is now unconscious, shallow breaths moving his chest. A temporary fix. Éponine is, she remembers, the more experienced in these sort of matters than this high-born lady. She must not be nervous here.
Still, Éponine lets the glass fall from her grasp and clatter to the floor. She cannot be set at ease with it.

She laces her fingers through Cosette's and pulls Azelma from a job gone wrong tugs the lady out the door, down the hall, and up the steps. The ship shudders again as she pushes the hatch open mere inches and peers out, deeper vibrations beneath her feet. She dreads what she may see above, because if the cannons have hit true, they are taking on water, and will not last long.

An angel, she thinks at first glimpse of the figure that paces before the crew, lined up. An avenging angel, face harsh and beautiful, passionate and terrible.
"We fight against your injustice!" He is proclaiming, stopping short in his path. The one before him cannot meet the intensity of his gaze, and lowers his head, and even hidden, Éponine shrinks back.
"The chains forced upon you, the conditions you have suffered – we seek to right this. Any who would join us are welcome!" He continues, urging.
Some faces are stone, resolute; they will stay in this sinking wreck in the king's name until the sea itself swallows them up.

Others are not so loyal. She doubts the ones stepping forward are truly swayed by the empty promises, and are more interested in saving their skins.

The man in red clasps the hand of one who accepts the offer and proclaims him brother, sufferer to the cause.
'Good luck,' she thinks with a barely restrained snort. She's chased the man from Cosette's trunks before, though he feigned innocence, and she never had enough proof to raise suspicions against him.
"They're recruiting," she passes back lowly, turning back when Cosette nods in grim acceptance.

Her eyes pull away from the speaker with difficult, look beyond – and her heart sinks.

Those who whisper behind clotheslines and in alleyways have taken to calling the great ship the Barricade. In all the battles she has seen – and she has seen many – the ship has not sunk. How, exactly is unknown, though some may silently wonder if rations of gin haven't been the cause. Unwillingness to speak out about the king's men led to the term, and rumors pass that the ship can stand against any weapon.

Rumors abound, also, about the crew that populates, and she curses the painful weaknesses that bade her follow after Marius' every wish.

But she has little time to think of this, as she finds herself hauled up into the air by her collar. She is skin and bones still, though the mortification she might feel at the proof of this is lessened under her panic.
A temporary fix, she'd thought, but not so temporary as this; no longer slumped against the wall, the man who'd appeared in the doorway is dragging open the hatch and taking the both of them with him. She struggles, but it is weak. This is not her familiar Paris; she has no place to hide here, even if she could wriggle free, and she has no way to fight.

He's got Cosette, too, dragging her along by the arm. It gives Éponine a brief flash of pride among the dread to be thought of as a threat even as she is flung to the deck.

Dimly, she hears snippets of conversation – 'the baron's intended?' and 'must be her' – but she stays crouched where she lands, unmoving until a pair of boots enter her line of vision. She raises her head cautiously, and her eyes meet with those of the man who speaks with fire in his voice.

He offers her the barest smile.

"You are not one of them." He says. He gesturing to where panicked Cosette and the Captain in his borrowed airs stand. Éponine realizes with a dull jolt that she is being spoken to directly. "You have suffered under them. We would heal you, if you would let us." The Apollo, the angel, extends his hand, strength in red cloth and golden curls. "Would you stand by us?"

She hesitates, thinks of detainment in the cold and damp spaces if she refuses, thinks of meals skipped on accident to teach lessons, thinks of a return to Éponine-the-gamin – and how much worse it could be if they found her as Éponine-the-gamine instead – kept in darkness when she knows there is the bright of sunlight just out of reach. Her hand twitches at its protective stance by her throat, fingers relaxing.

And she thinks of Cosette, who is marrying the man she loves, who condemns her to misery and closes the door to the antidote, to her better life, who had to cover her mouth to hide giggles and when Éponine mocked the Captain's pompous airs and read aloud tales of valor and adventure by candlelight just loud enough for her to hear, even if she denied it, and decides.

She owes them nothing; she bears them no debt; will not be a pretty bird in your chains you call honor but she is good at deception, she can be the image of ally to both – would not Marius weep to lose his love?
And Éponine is selfish, at heart. She knows it.

She places her hand against his, calluses to smooth skin. "Yes," she answers, and stands tall.

A/N: I have never, ever written for Les Mis before and I have only a basic idea of where this is going and, suffice it to say, I am hesitant about this! However, my sister has agreed to be my beta reader, and I'm thrilled she's getting into this and the pairing, so I am nervously going ahead with it!