A/N: Here it is! I've been pretty secretive about this one, so fingers crossed people like the idea. This was originally devised from a prompt sent for Imagine from caligirlsd99, so a huge thank you for the idea, and also to MissFiyerabaMeponine for some help! :) Please bear in mind I'm using the modern day English military fitness programme for this, which of course would most likely be different back then.

Also, a lot of people who read my other fics will probably have noticed that I primarily use the musical's portrayal of Éponine instead of the book's. I haven't picked it up in a while, but I have tried to put more of a balance between the two portrayals of her in this (most notably in her speech patterns, she likely sounds more of a street girl in this than in my others) so any feedback appreciated, as with any historical details. Bit of a slow opening chapter, I'm afraid, but please persevere :)

Bang. Shotgun. Blood. Falling. Running. Trenches. Bang. Shot. Fire. Boom. Dead.

Éponine awoke with a start.

She kept dreaming the same things, night after night. She fell asleep to the noise of the shotguns of the newest soldiers training, and awoke to the drill of the military bell. It was her routine, she was used to it. But it bothered her. All those innocent people, some just sixteen years old, would be marching off to their deaths at some point or another.

She would watch them during her lectures. She loved her work, but the lectures were a bit tedious. She knew it was because of the new volunteer nurses, there was a new bunch almost every day, but she wished not everybody had to attend, especially as half of the attendants knew everything covered already. It was at the point where she probably knew just as much about the military fitness building as she did about nursing.

Today, however, was the next lot of recruits. They'd begin the sixteen-week fitness programme that morning, which Éponine was eager to see. She liked watching people, making up backgrounds for them. Were they married? Engaged? A parent? Did they have siblings? A job? She was a hundred percent committed to her job, but listening to the bones of the hand for the third time that week could always be replaced with something else.

It also took her mind off of other things. Her older brother Gavroche was currently fighting at the front, he was just twenty, and she worried herself no end over his welfare. They wrote whenever possible, and he always said he was okay. But that didn't necessarily keep her reassured. He'd never say anything to worry her, no matter how desperate the situation. Sometimes that was more of a curse than a blessing.

Blinking, she snapped out of her chain of thought to watch the new arrivals lining up. Some were yawning, clearly not used to the early starts. One man on the end looked like he was going to fall over. The major general, Jean Lamarque, was a fearsome man, who didn't believe in pampering or letting things go. New recruits would be treated the same as experienced soldiers, apart from on their scheduled rest days. Overworked men were just as unhelpful as unfit ones, in his opinion.

They were being given their pep talk at that point. Her mind began to wonder to which of the young men had volunteered, and which had been called up. Volunteers were becoming less and less frequent as the battles went on, men wanting to stay with their families, trying to avoid the inevitable. She pitied them the most. Her own family didn't give a damn about her and Gavroche, but if they did, she knew she would be wanting to spend as much time with them as possible.

Whilst she'd been thinking about them, they'd already begun. The fitness programme for day one started with twenty minutes of combined walking and jogging, usually alternating two minutes of each. They weren't moving very fast, despite the jogging. Oh well. Plenty of time for speed.

"Look sharp, Thénardier!"

Éponine whipped her head back to the front. "Sorry, Matron.

"Well, whilst I think the answer is no, have you been paying attention at all during this?"

"Yes."

"Bones of the hand?"

"Carpal, metacarpal, carpometacarpal joint, hamate, radius, trapezoid, trapezium, scaphoid, capitate, pisiform, triquetal, lunate, ulna, with five phalanges, separated in to distal, middle, and proximal."

"Hmm. I'll be keeping an eye on you."

"Good to know."

"Don't backchat."

She sighed. Conforming to order was something she'd never been particularly good at. Rules, rules, rules. Bloody rules. Nevertheless, listening was probably a good idea, considering she doubted Matron would ask her a question she knew the next time. Like Lamarque, she was a fearsome woman, and she'd seen many a nurse in tears after a sharp scolding, her roommate no exception.

Before she knew it, two hours had passed, and she was sent off to do some sewing. Sewing. Honestly, she'd signed up for nursing, not to be a housemaid. True, she'd been there for a week, but surely the best way to gain experience would be to, oh, maybe actually do something to improve her skills?

Sighing, she flopped down at a bench with an army jacket. Whoever had sewn it clearly had no idea what they were doing, the hems were done wrong, the arm away almost detached and there was a serious lack of pockets. She checked the name tag. "M. Pontmercy" it said. Well, whoever this Monsieur Pontmercy was, she wasn't happy with him as she sat down to waste away two hours of her life she'd never get back.

Having finished the task to the best of her ability, she put the sewing in the appropriate basket and headed out to the nearest corridor. The schedules were pinned on the wall, and she could have jumped for joy at the sight of a free twenty minutes next to her name. Picking up a slightly brisker walk, she headed upstairs to the live-in quarters.

She'd be moving on to the front in sixteen weeks, with the new soldiers. At the moment, they were currently on the outskirts of Paris, in the middle of a woodland, in a large brick house. The owners had moved out, and given the place over to the military to use it for their own purposes. So they'd turned it in to a training ground, for both soldiers and nurses alike.

The nurses who did not live nearby (although Éponine did, she'd lied and said she lived in Calais, to avoid having to go home every night) would live there, their bedrooms in the attics. Two girls to a room, basic but comfortable. Two single beds, one by the door and one by the window (Éponine had claimed the window one), both with a small table beside it. A dresser in between, and a wardrobe on the far wall, with two candle holders on the walls and a hand-sewn rug beside a small bookshelf, on which about ten different textbooks were placed. She shared with Nancy, a small, shy girl of seventeen, who found it difficult to hold a conversation and was usually knitting something. Éponine herself was nineteen, tall but skinny, and would express her opinions no bother, more often than not landing her in trouble.

The inhabitants of the house would eat at a long bench down in what was once the staff dining room, next to the kitchen, nurses on one side and men on the other. The soldiers lived in full-time regardless of location, on the same floor as the nurses through a tightly locked door. There was a different bathroom for males and females at the end of the corridors holding their sleeping quarters.

She flew up the stairs, knowing she didn't have much time, and sprinted down to room twenty-two, hers. Running over to her bed, she slipped a hand under her pillow and took out a letter carefully hidden there. Running back down through the kitchens, hastily taking a biscuit offered by a kitchen maid, she headed out to the courtyard, sitting on an upturned crate and opening the envelope.

My Dear Sister,

Things have been rather slow here lately. Travers and Miller were shot down last week, I feel awful for their families. Travers was engaged, his fiancée pregnant, and Miller already had three children. Times are tough, but we're coping.

I'm fine, if a little cold - the nights seem to be getting more and more chilly, in my opinion anyway. I wonder when you'll have finished your training? I hope you won't find it too repetitive. I know nothing about nursing, so you'll have to tell me all about it when I next get some leave, which should be in about a month. You'll still be training then, correct? I'll make sure to stop by, stay at a pub in the nearest village and keep track of you. Send me your break times when the time grows closer, and I'll show up around then. You get Sunday afternoons off, right?

I finally got granted some new boots yesterday, the others were full of holes and no use whatsoever, so you can rest easy, no trench foot coming my way! Thank you for the socks too, I know how much you hate knitting (I'll assume Nancy helped you), but they're lovely. I wear them to bed as well as in the day to keep my feet warm!

Do let me know how you are. I still haven't heard from our dearest parents, though no surprises there. Sorry for the shortness of this letter, I'll write again soon, but I've got another patrol shift in ten minutes, which I need to be ready for.

Lots of love, and best wishes,

Gavroche

She smiled, biting her lip. She felt sorry for the men and their families, but hearing her brother was okay was always the best feeling. Folding his letter and placing in in the envelope once more, she stood up, almost colliding with somebody in front of her.

"Hey, watch it-"

"Sorry, didn't mean to-"

"Were you reading my letter?"

The man she'd bumped in to looked affronted. "Of course not. I just wondered if you had a light?"

He was quite tall, with sandy hair and brown eyes, a few freckles dotted about. He didn't look older than twenty, and was clearly new.

"I ain't a smoker."

"Right. Sorry."

"No problem. Shouldn't you be with the rest of the recruits?"

"I could say the same to you."

"Ten minutes free time."

"How coincidental, me too."

She rolled her eyes slightly, sitting back down and pocketing her letter.

"You got a friend on the front line?" the man asked, sitting next to her, but at a respectful distance. That made a change. Some of the soldiers seemed to sit practically on her, having had no female contact in a while, which made her uneasy. She simply ignored them however, trying to keep her temper.

"Brother."

"I see. I'm Marius, by the way. Marius Pontmercy."

"Oh, so it's you that ain't able to sew a shirt together then."

"I'm sorry?"

"Your shirt. I 'ad to re-sew it earlier. The hems were all wrong and a sleeve was falling off. And I'm Éponine. Éponine Thénardier."

"Nice to meet you. Sorry about the shirt. Never learned to sew."

"Learn then, that was two hours of my life I'm never gettin' back."

"It took you two hours?"

"Never said I was a seamstress."

"True."

They fell in to silence, Éponine still with a finger dancing over the letter in her pocket. "Any particular reason you're still here?" she asked.

"Nope. Just enjoying the company."

She sighed. "Got a pen?"

"Nope."

"Should've known. So how are you liking your first day?"

"It's interesting. I've got the fitness level of half a caterpillar, so challenging."

"What are you even doing? I know the alternate walking and jogging thing, but what else?"

"Tricep dips, press-ups, dorsal raises and sit ups."

"Don't sound too bad to me."

"I guess it gets tougher."

"Hmm. Well, I'm sorry to cut your company short, but I must be off now."

"See you again maybe?"

She turned around. "If you learn to sew properly. I ain't pricking my fingers again re-doing all your work, mister."

"Deal."

She headed back upstairs, replaced the letter in a small, locked box she kept under her bed, and went back downstairs to continue with her work, slightly bemused at the conversation she'd just had, and oddly looking forwards to seeing the young soldier again.