**Standard disclaimer still applies.

A/N: EponineG, I can't quite say that I agree with you when you say that Javert was a "nasty bloke". True, Javert was an "enemy" of Valjean, but it's like the screech owl is the natural enemy to the barn mouse. The screech owl must hunt and eat its prey to survive. Javert's life revolved around his job. It was the environment and the frame of mind he was raised with. "Honest work/Just reward/That's the way to please the Lord". If the law told him Valjean was guilty, then yes, he would find him and bring him to the justice he was taught to administer to those he was told were criminals. He was taught to see only black and white and never the grey. His life was his duty to the law and when he let Valjean go, he felt he let himself go astray…and he thought himself no better than the criminals he committed his life to catching. Am I making any sense?

Then again, I am very much influenced to be sympathetic with Javert because of the flinty and alluring voice of Philip Quast. Call me crazy. I'd marry him if he asked me just because of his fantastic singing voice. (Oh, and if he wasn't already married.) Who cares if he's 35 years (approx.) older than me? LOL

Thanks a lot EponineG and everyone else for submitting reviews! I'd really love even more! (hint! hint!) Tee hee…

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Eponine slowly opened her eyes and looked groggily around her. The sun of midmorning shone through the window and birds chirped outside, singing merry songs as they made a stop in Paris for food before they continued their way to the south. Eponine herself was nestled snugly in white sheets, warm with the sun shining on her face. She shook her head, trying to get that heavy feeling out of her head often associated with her drinking too much champagne the night before.

Eponine lied silent for a moment thinking about the night before. Marius! she nearly shrieked aloud. Marius is alive and well and he is going to see me today! Eponine lay in happy thought for minutes more until she tried to remember the end of the night. She wrinkled her brow in confusion. Why can't I remember leaving the mansion? she wondered in alarm. I don't remember even checking in on Uncle Erik!

She decided to get right out of lying around and daydreaming and threw off the blanket and was completely taken aback when she realized she was totally naked. "Where is my night gown?" she whispered in surprise.

Suddenly a lanky arm reached from the other side of the bed and pulled her closer. "Where do you think you're going?" asked Antoine sleepily as he kissed the back of her neck. Eponine' eyes widened in terror. Suddenly, ALL the events of the night came rushing back to her…little snippets of muddled memory. Antoine kissing her neck while his hand traveled up her dress, moaning into her ear as he made love on top of her, his sickening laugh, his cries of pleasure, his cruel mouth over hers, and his dangerous grey eyes looking into hers with dominance. I've been raped! she thought with horror. Raped! Raped by Antoine!

A low sob escaped her throat as she wrenched herself away from him, but his strong arms reached further and grabbed her, pulling her naked body firmly against his. "I said, where do you think you're going?" demanded Antoine, his voice completely awake.

Eponine didn't even answer him. Her mind raced through her memories as she felt that familiar stone of misery unsettle in the well of her stomach once more. There is no escaping it, she thought. No way to escape this wretched life. There will always be something or someone to kill my joy.

Her joy. She considered her joy Marius. His laughing face, his graceful walk, his eyes as blue as the endless ocean. Where was he now? Lying in bed with Cosette, she answered her own thought. And right now, she was lying in Antoine's bed. She felt like vomiting.

Two silver tears slithered down her face and she quickly wiped them away as she felt her throat swell and her face grow hot. She sensed a foreboding that seemed to swell like a restless dragon, swearing to release hell upon her for reawakening it…ready to scorch her with its fire and smite her with its tail. Swallow your useless tears, Eponine. Never shall your happiness last, it hissed inside her mind.

As if Antoine could sense her thoughts, he put his lips ever so close to her ear and whispered softly like a lover, but with deadly words. "You belong to me now, Eponine. Do you understand that? You are mine." He kissed her lobe and pushed his tongue inside her ear, making her pull away. He yanked her head back toward him and roughly grabbed her chin and turned it so they were face to face, eye to eye. "Did you not hear me you worthless bag of trash?" he growled. His stormy grey eyes looked at her with anger and triumph. "Don't you DARE defy me!" His whisper was low and menacing. He brought his lips to her ear again. "If you do, dear Eponine, I will bring down the one you love most."

Eponine stiffened. Marius!

"Now, where was I?" Antoine asked before he continued fondling her ear with his tongue. He pulled a heavy leg over her and she could feel his arousal press against her thigh. She knew his main pleasure was his dominance and was determined not to let him have his way. Antoine smothered her neck with kisses and moved down her chest toward her breasts as his hand made its way down between her legs.

She looked at him steadily with apprehension…trying to look like she was going to give in to him. Eponine waited for the right moment for enough room to give her the leverage she needed. When he finally took his eyes away from hers, she balled her right fist, pulled her arm back and punched him as hard as she could.

"You bastard! You think that you can try that with me?! Rape me once? Rape me twice?" she screamed as he jerked back, crying out curses as he held his bleeding nose. With that, Eponine pulled her knees to her chest and kicked him in the stomach with both her feet, sending him tumbling over the foot of the bed. He landed with a loud thump and a painful yelp. Quickly, she jumped off the bed and searched for anything to cover her naked body. Finding nothing, she yanked a sheet off the bed and wrapped it around her as she tried to run out of the room.

But Antoine was quick. "Come here, you wretched bitch," he muttered while he reached over and pulled onto the sheet, causing her to trip and fall on her elbows, giving her a startling shock. Before he could grab her feet, she pulled her leg back and kicked him in the face, making him cry out even harder.

"You stupid bull! I've handled worse trash than you before!" she cried, her voice taking on that rough edge she had when she lived as a Thénardier. She scrambled onto her feet as she gave him one more kick in the abdomen since he was covering his face. "Don't you ever pull a 'Parnasse on me, you idiotic jackass!" she screamed before she ran out of his bedroom.

Eponine's thoughts were in a whirl. Her chest was heaving with every frightened and tense breath she inhaled. Miraculously, there was no one about to bear witness to Eponine wearing nothing but one of Antoine's bed sheets. She wrenched her door open and slammed it shut, wondering if her life was going to end today or tomorrow. Was Antoine already storming down the hall, with his nose bleeding down his naked front and murder on his mind, or was he going to play cat and mouse and take his time?

"…Don't you DARE defy me…If you do, dear Eponine, I shall bring down the one you love most…"

Eponine panicked again. The one she loved most! Oh Lord, help me! she prayed. He's going to hurt Marius, his own friend, just to get back at me!

She stripped the sheet away and went to her washbasin to clean herself. "Bastard," she muttered as she noticed the bite marks he'd left on her thighs from last night. It felt like a chore to lift her aching leg since she had somewhat calmed down. Tears started streaming down her cheeks and flooding her vision as she tried not to remember or imagine what he'd done to her. She tried not to think about the possibility of giving birth to his baby nine months from now. She quickly washed down her body and put on a clean riding habit.

But she didn't leave her room right away. She stayed in her room and paced, thinking about everything that had happened. Marius, their dancing…Cosette, her anger…Antoine, his rape.

She sat down on her bed and buried her face in her sheets. Finally, she started bawling. Crying so hard that it hurt her already fatigued body as the realization of everything came upon her. Before, her mind was in turmoil. Now, everything was suddenly so real…and so very frightening. Antoine raped me, she thought with her eyes squeezed shut and her cries smothered into her sheets. He took advantage of my inebriation and raped me! What would Uncle Erik say if he found out? And Marius, what is going to happen to him? What if I'm pregnant? What if I have that demon's baby? What will happen to me?

Her thoughts circled and collided and circled around again and again until she fell asleep from her emotional exhaustion…