A/N: I have in all honesty no idea what this is; it just popped into my head today and demanded quite literally to be written!

The Guide and the Gamine, Eponine and Combeferre. The revolution's forgotten love story amongst other things including revolutionary quotes, poetry and Combeferre's poem from the end of Book IV Chapter V.

Disclaimer: As I am not Male, French or living in C19th Paris- how can I possibly own Les Miserables? I am simply trying to convey my love for Combeferre/Eponine into something cohesive- please don't sue me!

The Guide and the Gamine

The revolution's forgotten love story

Paris in the aftermath of the 1848 revolution

It's been 16 years. The dust has settled on the tables, coating the sideboards, echoing out the eerie, ringing smash of bottles thrown in a desperate attempt to hold the carbines and bayonets of the National Guardsmen at bay. So too has the dust settled on the tattered, crinkled maps of Paris, of the Rue St Denis, St Michel of an angelic leader's beloved Patria scrawled in black, screaming letters across parchment thin and yellow with age. A steady, trickling stain seeps through the wood; black, viscous liquid mingling with the shockingly scarlet stains of those foolhardy, dreaming martyrs who fought, dreamt, hoped for a better world. Red on black. Liberty on death. Not revolution, but civilisation as one was reported to have said; one with wire-framed spectacles and wide, dark, short sighted yet intelligent eyes ablaze with the never quenching thirst for knowledge, for truth, for ideas, for hope and life itself.

But look! There hidden away; the leather cover water stained and ink splattered and so well thumbed that the leather cover itself is almost threadbare lies a book. It is a journal, a diary, a notebook of sorts; the dust that has been its' protector from prying eyes for so long suddenly disturbed by eager, curious fingers as dexterous digits wipe away the binding of time and look on it with fresh eyes in an almost reverent, otherworldly silence.

The cover is dark, pull-up leather, so that the colour seems to shift and migrate as the book quivers between suddenly nerveless digits; desperate to be opened, to reveal its' secrets that for 16 years too long have remained concealed. The paper; crinkled, flattened wood pulp that is yellow with age crackles ominously between fingers quivering with anticipation as eager eyes light up on the soft, fluid handwriting that adorns the title page; the letters seeming to swirl into each other so that each individual stroke can be carefully picked out; a candle guttering in a darkening student flat, the sparks of the fire, the whistling roar of the wind throwing itself against the high, slashed window.

Journal for year 1832

Property of M. Henri J. Combeferre.

Third year student at Necker Infirmary, Paris.

Enraptured eyes travel further down the crinkled, antique page that is bursting with so much conserved hope, so much life in just three simple sentences that the mind wonders why it does not ignite. The journal trembles in suddenly cold hands as the eyes travel down to find; not a passive-aggressive warning as they have when flicking through their children's diaries for a sense of sport but two shortened quotations from Jean -Jacques Rousseau, one neatly placed after the other; which makes the thirst for knowledge, the hunger for understanding feel even stronger; clawing at a fragile physche, threatening to drown a helpless onlooker in a sudden, tidal wave of unspoken questions.

Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.

All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man's estate, is the gift of education.

The pages flick on; eyes scanning past lists of books and papers, of medical equipment, of carbines, gunpowder, shot and muskets; weapons, hopes dreams that were to be dashed on one sultry day in early June. Fine, intricate, minutely detailed diagrams of moths flutter through the flattened wood pulp; the worst splattered with ink; the best dated and titled with full Latin credentials; neatly signed off and dotted with philosophical or literary quotes; but the ink has faded in some parts so badly that it is hard to make out which is which. Questions begin to bubble up within a throat laid bare with breathless excitement as the candle stub flickers, guttering dangerously at a sudden draft of icy, early evening air which is ignored because this book, this time capsule, this insight into such a bright, hopeful life snapped far too short too soon; is too good to look away from.

Who is this man? This boy, this enigma of knowledge, of ideas, of hope, of life, of liberty itself?

A scrawled out address hidden deep within a corner of a detailed analysis of the muscular layout of the right hand; the writing so crammed and so small; it is barely legible; the final subject ablaze with the lines and bends of bones carefully picked out in alternating red and black ink; painstakingly drawn diagrams of the fluttering of fingers, the shape of muscles all mixed up with a scrawled note crammed in the margin in another's hand on the correct weight and firmness for cauterising thread along with a name scrawled out in letters so small that they are perfectly illegible. Tell Joly...

Eponine Thenardier

Gorbeau Tenement

Rue St Michel

Paris

Eponine. An unknown memory stirs suddenly, rising its' sleep filled head slowly, only to be shook back. A mane of inky ebony falling from from a tattered, blood soaked cap; as wide, dark eyes flicker, flutter for a final time- a dark, oval face awash with rain and smuts of smoke. A scarlet bead of blood dribbling from lips the colour of drained peonies; wide, dark eyes whose light and life has been snuffed out as easily as a hand cupping itself over a candle as he staggers back to a café full of ghosts; his mind full of the bitter irony that she is carried bridal style within his arms and yet he does not have the privilege, no; not the privilege; the honour of looking on her vibrant face once more.

The handwriting is blotched here; through haste or by tears it is unclear.

'6th June '32.

'If I should die, think only this of me….'

'My love is like a red, red rose …

'Bright star, would I were as steadfast as thou art'- John Keats - Bright star (in memory of Prouvaire)

'I love her. Loved her. I was so lucky to love her even though our lives are as fragile as those of the butterflies and last but three summer days in which we are blessed by life and kissed by fire.'

The beginning of a rough sketch done in faded artists' pencil of a young, once beautiful girl standing facing the artist; her face a mirage of lights and darks; her eyes wide, deep, luxurious almost as she seems to gaze through the page towards the pencil of her creator. She has a snub nose and a small mouth; the faintest trace of a scar above her left eyebrow; her hair falling in a graceful ebony waterfall down her back. She seems to dance off the page, the pencil now a dancing master, now a conductor, as the steps are performed to quicker, almost defiant rhythm; a complicated weave of strokes getting faster and faster; rapidly skidding across the page.

The writing becomes more rapid here; a seemingly endless scrawl of ebony ink that is smudged with water stains and faded rusted brown with age so that the eye must squint in order to gain a clear understanding.

Cher Maman,

The barricade is holding, but for how long we cannot yet tell as the rain has soaked through what little powder we have left and precious little remains in store. I write in haste for Enjolras and Courfeyrac believe that we could be laid under siege by first light. Dear Mother- I cannot tell you how I will smile when this fight for freedom is over; when we are at last able to set our beloved country and her people free from the oppressive hand of tyranny that has kept her in an iron fist for far too long; when I am able to return to you and the little ones with bread and wine in my arms and a song in my heart; safe in the knowledge that you and the children will be provided for. Will you send my love to my sisters?

We sent those men with families away whilst we still could, whilst it was still safe to do so. They are needed elsewhere and their courage will not be forgotten; nor their sacrifice sullied if we do succeed in this insurrection.

A child died today Mother, a child of the revolution. She could not have been more than eighteen; a scrap of a gamine girl with wide, dark, almost haunted eyes that had seen far too much horror than I can do justice to on paper and a mane of rain soaked hair that hung from a tattered, bloody cap like inky rats' tails. She took a bullet for one of the insurgents; or so I have been told.

Children should not be the objects of such inhuman killing Mother! She had so much more to live for and…

The writing fades away here into a sudden, blotted scrawl of crusted ebony ink. In its' place lies a moth wing; a faded dull thing at first sight; but on closer inspection; the frost fragile wing tips become a sudden rainbow of colours; chocolate browns, vivid chestnuts, blinding whites, onyx coloured blacks; crinkled within a backdrop of faded yellow paper.

A quote is scrawled in haste; the nib spluttering across the page; this time from Robespierre and below one in smaller, less legible handwriting.

'The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.'

être libre

The mouth suddenly becomes dry. The hands begin to tremble as from somewhere a voice is heard, echoing through a passage; a voice, no two voices; one a rich, deep baritone, the other a slightly raspy soprano; the tune unrecognizable yet the words that filter through into the silent room that was once packed with bright minds and passionate, eager souls all straining for the same desire, the same evanescent dream of progress seems to fall gracefully into the room, caressing the broken furniture, pulling it into a silent, watchful embrace as it silently mourns the loss of the bright, hopeful innocents who had set out in a blaze of passion to change the world.

'If Caesar had offered me

Glory and war

For which I must abandon

My mother's love

I would say to great Caesar:

'Take back your sceptre and your chariot,

I love my mother more, alas,

I love my mother more'

Fin

A/N: Please feel free to read and review! Comments, suggestions, questions etc are like chocolate to my brain!

Much love x