A look. A look was all it took for him to be stolen from her.

Eponine Thenardier—long, tangle-y brown hair plastered to the back of her neck and forehead from sweat—did her best to delete the image haunting her from her brain. She wanted to become numb. To stop feeling the stupid emotions this dumb world brought about.

Everything seemed ridiculous. The child she passed on the street, crying and pulling on his mummy's skirt, hoping for some attention. Ridiculous. The rouged whores in their big skirts and tight corsets. Ridiculous. The cultured, high society men with their top hats and un-scuffed shoes who were browsing after them. Ridiculous. How did they even have shoes that weren't scuffed? Eponine looked down morosely at her own worn boots. It must be nice to live a life that didn't require doing things that scuffed your shoes.

She sniffed. Whatever. Let Marius look at prissy little Cosette like that all he wants. As she came upon the destination she had been hurrying to, she told herself that she had pushed it from her mind. Her heart, still pumping at two hundred miles per hour, called her bluff.

She pushed the door open, barely wincing when the bandage around her left hand made contact with the doorknob. It was an injury she had received a few weeks ago.

"Ay! Don't look now, Marius, but it's the answer to your prayers," A young man with a messy brown mane and a bottle in each hand smiled goofily. "Now you can stop weeping like a woman!"

Marius Pontmercy, so love stricken he looked ill, looked quickly towards the door. He acknowledged Eponine warmly.

"'Ponine! S'great to see you…" He breathed heavily when he spoke, and when he shook her hand his was cold and clammy. "Did you find her?"

Her stomach clenched and she drew out shaking his hand for as long as possible, partly because she liked the feel of his touch, partly to put off giving him information about Cosette.

"She's at fifty-five Rue Plumet. She lives there with her father…" Eponine dropped his hand, eyes falling to her scuffed boots.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Marius, my boy, is this lovely lady not the object of your desires?" The man with the bottles stumbled over and mussed Marius' hair roughly.

"Eponine? Oh—" Marius began., shaking his head

"I'm just his friend," Eponine interjected, putting a bitter emphasis on "just." Her eyes dropped when she realized that he was referring to her as said "lovely lady."

"Well, you're more than that!" Eponine's heart rose. "You're my very best friend, and one of the greatest people I know, helping me find the girl who haunts me now." Her heart sank back to its usual residence at the bottom of her stomach.

"So…she's single?" The drunk man asked.

"Grantaire, I should think any respectable woman would desire someone who is more than a walking bottle of absinthe. You, friend, don't fit that description," A man scribbling at a table in the corner called without raising his eyes from the papers in front of him. "Put that second bottle down, the first one is enough to make me want to lock you up somewhere."

"Well this one is for you, Enjolras." Grantaire stumbled towards Enjolras, holding out one of the bottles. Enjolras looked at him and sighed deeply, very irritated. "Oh, okay Monsieur sober grumpy man…"

"How much has he drank?" Eponine whispered to Marius.

"Oddly enough, more than usual. He usually does not hit this degree of insufferably drunk. Tonight must be a special occasion." Marius said.

Enjolras, who had gathered together the papers he was scribbling on in one neat stack, stood and made his way to the center of the café. Grantaire stood in his way.

"You just need to loosen up. Why don't you take that Eponine over thither for a ride around the neighborhood?" Grantaire slurred, staring into the young man's face mischievously.

Eponine scowled at the man she knew quite well from stories, but had never been formally introduced to, as he had often been passed out in a drunken stupor when she saw him. She opened her mouth to make a retort, but what happened next caused her to snap it shut in surprise.

Enjolras walked on, pushing his hand into Grantaire's shoulder lightly, but with enough force to cause the inebriated Grantaire to stumble backwards into a table.

The resounding crash startled everyone to attention. "Eponine, here to join the ranks of the Friends of the A B C?" Enjolras smiled at the girl, raising his eyebrows in invitation, and openly ignoring Grantaire.

"Oh, no, Monsieur Enjolras, I am simply here for a visit," she smiled back, relieved for his presence. He always made her feel at ease, even when Marius upset her deeply. He had that effect on people, Enjolras did.

Enjolras had met Eponine Thenardier more than a few months back. Courfeyrac had just introduced a boy named Marius who he knew from class into the A B C Society, which was then in its infancy. Marius attended the very same university as Enjolras and all the other students who were part of the society, but aside from having spotted him occasionally passing in the halls, or studying at the library, he knew nothing of young Monsieur Pontmercy.

After one of the meetings held in their usual spot at the café, Enjolras exited through the door and nearly tripped over a young woman sitting on the stoop in front of the door, throwing pebbles into the street. They went through the usual introductions and Enjolras asked Eponine just what was she doing, sitting out here as though she were waiting for something?

When she blushed and explained she was waiting for Marius, it was very clear that the girl was quite taken with the young man.

"You're welcome inside during our meetings. We are always looking for help, or even perhaps a listening ear, willing to give us a new perspective of things," he had told her. From then on, she had attended the meetings.

Some days, she'd get so caught up in listening to him talk of revolution, that Eponine would let Marius leave and she'd stay after the meetings to listen to Enjolras talk of "Patria" or "motherland." It flattered him that she wanted to hear what he had to say, and he enjoyed her enthusiasm and learning verve. He wasn't used to such a willing set of ears, as his other friends usually grew bored of his voice very quickly.

One day during their talks, she surprised him.

"I wish Marius were as passionate about me as you are about Patria…" she had never spoken to anyone about her undying obsession with Marius, but she had begun to count Enjolras as a friend.

He stopped short. He wasn't quite sure what to say. "Do…do you love him?"

"Oh, Enjolras, don't tell me you're as thick as that stupid Pontmercy boy! I care for him beyond any level of doubt. He holds the key to my heart, and he refuses to release it!"

"'Ponine, you speak like a tortured poet, and we both know that isn't a good color on you." He teased, smiling reassuringly. His deep brown eyes, the color of rich cocoa beans, were set on hers. "Perhaps you should tell him of your affections." Enjolras could see the hurt that rest within her round, intelligent blue eyes. This bright young girl does not deserve to feel the pain I see in her eyes.

She inhaled sharply, shoulders tense, frown causing a crease between her eyebrows. She almost appeared to be inwardly punishing herself for something. Enjolras, perceptive as he was, guessed correctly that she felt she had revealed too much. "Don't feel that you can't talk with me of these things. I may chatter on about Patria often, but I can listen just as well as I can speak," he reached out and squeezed her hand in a friendly gesture, which she withdrew from immediately.

She switched subjects, keeping her eyes on the table, not in the mood for conversation anymore. "So this whole revolution. I don't know how I feel towards it. Sure, it'd be great if it actually worked. I just don't know if you could pull it off. What do I know, though? I probably don't even fully understand it. I love listening to you speak of it, though," She had begun to ramble, wanting to pull the topic as far away from Marius as she could. She chose the option that pulled it the farthest from him. "I'm going to go, Monsieur Enjolras, but I hope to see you soon."

"Eponine," he called as she started out the door. "You understand more than you let yourself believe. You're too hard on yourself. You are very smart. Oh, and talk to Marius. One day, all the numerous opportunities you will have had will be gone. If the way the world is going right now teaches us nothing else, it teaches us that we must jump at every chance we get for a better life. Au revoir."

Since that conversation took place—once Eponine's embarrassment faded—the two had become friendly, Enjolras even being Eponine's confidante on rare occasion.