(A/N: Again, reaaaally slow update. Sorry! I have a few big tests coming up, so I've been studying more than writing. As usual, thank you so much for reviews, favourites, and follows – I just broke 100 follows – and on we go.)

Chapter 7: Unnamed

It had been three and a half weeks, total.

Enjolras read to Éponine every day, but that was as close to speaking to each other as they got. Neither brought up the barricade, neither talked of the empty chasm both felt in their chest. Occasionally, Enjolras would look up from whichever tale they were reading, and study his companion's face through his mussed-up curls. Her eyes were void of emotion, often watching out the window; she always fiddled with the blanket Mlle Lagloire draped over her; she didn't seem to know what to do with the nightgown and housecoat she was put in every night. It was as if the fabric was too soft, too rich, too clean. She hesitated to touch it, winced when it brushed against her skin.

His heart filled with pity.

Doctor Paquet allowed Éponine to walk now, if only between her room and Enjolras's, and he himself was able to take a total of sixteen shaky steps from his bed to the bookshelf, gathering novels without the nurse's help. He hated himself for being so weak, so helpless, for having to rely on everyone else. (Once, the demon of his mind reminded him, men relied on you, and look where that got them.)

Together, Enjolras and Éponine had almost exhausted the Pontmercy home's library (Lagloire brought the books that weren't in his chambers), but there were a handful they hadn't yet touched. Mostly poetry – after reading some translations of Shakespeare's sonnets, he had discovered Éponine wasn't very fond of verse. There was, however, one tome he had found squished between two others – a novel by De Lisle de Salles, one he hadn't read, but just by glancing at the title, the familiar tale washed over him, memories of going to the opera with his family to see a work featuring the same characters flooding back.

The opera. He very nearly groaned. Enjolras still stood firm in his beliefs, and although he was much too young to know better when his parents and sisters dragged him to see The Marriage of Figaro alongside former members of the bourgeoisie, he despised that part of his past. His entire childhood, from his father spitting at beggars in the street to his mother insisting he marries a girl of "proper upbringing", as she put it, was exactly what turned him into the revolutionary he became. Something so simple as a trip to the opera reminded him of watching helplessly as his elder sisters laughed at old men grovelling for bread brought him back to his values, reminded him of who he was now.

He grabbed the clothbound book from the bookcase, hobbling back to his bed, sparing a glance at Éponine along the way. Her eyes were empty as ever, her skin paler than what was considered healthy, her gaze settled on something outside, though not focused on it, just resting on nothing in particular. He wondered if she could hear a word he said.

(The demon of his mind wondered why she was so mute, if it were him who lost every last person he cared for.)

Enjolras opened the book, his ears taking in the creaking sound of the cover being opened for the first time in years, and without another look towards the girl in the chair, he began.

Éponine never liked her name. Her mother had a love for romances and chivalrous characters with tons of nobility to spare. Her name was much too fancy for her, especially when she was living in the street.

Her name may have fit her in this house, but she herself did not fit.

Her sister, Azelma, had an equally ridiculous name – it derived from the name of the wife of some warrior who fought against Napoleon – and only Gavroche had had a semi-normal name, thanks to their father putting his foot down in terms of naming his first son.

"Éponine" always seemed like such a poetic name to her, something from the likes of mythology or whatever Latin or Greek rubbish students were constantly going on about. It didn't suit her; it seemed like the type of name one would give a girl of the bourgeoisie – one with rich, thick hair, and clean, unblemished skin, who didn't feel a twist in her chest whenever her hands brushed by some lace or whenever she saw someone with a tuft of red hair from the window. That was "Éponine", but it wasn't her.

She wasn't quite listening to Enjolras as he read, but a story shaped out in her mind as the words flowed out – a man, a Roman officer, someone named Sabinus, began a rebellion, his failure resulting in deaths and easy defeat. He faked his own death, and was known only to his wife, who remained faithful and pretended to be widowed to keep his identity safe. Eventually, however, they were discovered, and were arrested and brought to Rome. He was condemned to execution, and she pleaded with the judge, insisting he change his mind, and berated him until she was ordered to be executed by her husband's side.

It was all very touching, truly, but it hardly lifted her spirits.

Not that much could, considering the circumstances. Éponine hadn't said more to Enjolras since the night she asked him to read for her. He hadn't said anything in return, and for that, she wasn't sure if she was thankful or resentful. Perhaps she was healing in silence, as Doctor Paquet kept insisting. Perhaps she needed to speak about it, as Mlle Lagloire said.

Suddenly, silence brought her out of her thoughts. She turned her gaze from the scene outside the window, hazel eyes meeting blue, and she found that she couldn't look away. The first time he had read for her, she watched him, and he conveyed nothing on his face – no tears, no laughter, no life. She hadn't bothered to look again. But Éponine now saw absolutely everything Enjolras had ever felt, in a simple look. She saw love, fear, courage, shame, defiance, hesitation, patience, fury, in a single blue stare.

Suddenly, although she didn't realise it herself, there was just a bit of life in her own eyes.

He was holding up the cover of the book – evidently he had finished the tale – and she could read it, even from afar, even though she had told him she couldn't read a word. Éponine, the title read. Par De Lisle de Salles.

A shiver ran down her spine.

A single spark came to her lifeless eyes, and Enjolras felt a weight leave his shoulders.

Despite everything, despite their lack of reconciliation from the incident before the barricade (how trivial it seemed), despite what they had gone through as they walked the streets of Paris bleeding out, he had learned to worry about her. He insisted it was just his need to keep another name off his list of people whose deaths he was responsible for – that list included names so dear to him, so familiar that they haunted his thoughts still, syllables shaping images of people, from Courfeyrac's laugh to Grantaire's drunken rambles.

They still wouldn't go away. He wasn't sure if they ever would.

That evening, Éponine departed to her own room at six and ate her dinner once she was settled in her own bed, as she normally would. Enjolras did the same, dining on some simple chicken broth, bread, and hard cheese. He still couldn't eat much without feeling sick, and so he only had about half of his soup and most of the cheese, leaving the bread aside. He would eat it in the morning, if it was still good.

He settled into his bed as painlessly as he could, shuffling slightly and wincing minimally. With the candlelight still flickering, and his eyelids drooping, he pulled out Éponine and read as far as he could without dozing off, each word already familiar to him, even after just one reading before. He was the type of person who could read something once, twice, three times at most, and have it memorised almost flawlessly – a quality that proved useful when he was a student.

A gentle knock sounded at the door just when he was about to fall asleep, waking him back up. He replied with a tired "Come in", sounding more exasperated than much else, and was taken aback when the familiar brunette popped her head in, her own eyes tired and wanting rest.

"Théodore," she said quietly, as if she didn't dare speak louder than a whisper. Her voice was like sandpaper. "It means God's gift."

Like a gust of wind, she was gone.

He couldn't hope of catching sleep after that – another restless night of tossing and turning was in store. He shut his eyes and visions of a bloodied Marius appeared, Combeferre helping a man up before being shot in the back, Gavroche tossing the cartridges back and his song ending abruptly, Jehan banging on a door desperately and begging for help from the people inside, people who had so happily offered their furniture to construct the barricade, but wouldn't defend it once it was built.

She had remembered his Christian name. He had mentioned it to her once, so long ago – his memory strained to remember a time before the battle. It was the first night they had properly spoken, the night she had slapped him. They were on the bridge, they were speaking of... of what? He couldn't recall. It seemed so trivial now, centuries later (really only about a month).

Thoughts conflicted in his mind, each one battling over the other to take dominance – names, like Éponine and d'Arcole and Javert and Bossuet, and simple actions, like kill and weep and laugh and fight. He wondered, not for the first time, where he and his brunette companion stood in all of this chaos, the wreck left behind by their failure. If they could heal his beloved Patria, if France would ever pick herself up, if God's gift and Sabinus's faithful spouse could be those to cure the illness the nation suffered from – the killing disease of poverty and inequality.

His mind itched for the answer, but the answer never came.

It was unnamed.

Both she and Enjolras, whatever they had – there was no word for it. Friendship? Hardly. Acquaintance? Definitely not. She still insisted he was stupidly confident heading into the battle – he was the one who had caused the freckled boy's death, he was the reason her brother was gone forever, it was all him.

It was his fault, but damn it all, she couldn't resent him for long.

To Éponine, it was because of what they had gone through, how they had relied on each other so much after the barricade. It hadn't been easy. Everything turned back to that – herself and Enjolras, sleeping on the streets, wounds infecting and hearts empty. Faces of Gavroche, of Marius, of Grantaire (who she had always been fond of, despite only speaking to him once or twice) haunted her, day and night – she was certain it was the same for him.

What's more, he read to her daily, for hours on end. Whether or not she was listening, his voice was always there, something new to rely on. It was as if the words his lips formed were a new pair of crutches for a newly broken foot – she had to lean on them, but she was unsure nonetheless.

Last, very last, a detail she would never reveal, not even to herself – that look he had given her upon finishing the tale Éponine, the one that conveyed more emotion than the world had ever felt before had caught her and it refused to let go. It was so raw, so vulnerable that Éponine felt as if he were placing himself into her hands, knowing that she could break him so easily during that gut-wrenchingly open moment. Enjolras was anything but raw or vulnerable, but she saw it all, and she would swear upon those blue eyes next time she was to make a promise.

She didn't know if they were friends, companions, or just two lonely souls who had managed to find each other, like two atoms matching up and making up a bond; but she felt incredibly guilty, and most of all, afraid – afraid to know why, and afraid that she already knew.

Cosette looked as if she were dying. Her blonde hair was limp and unwashed, her black garb hanging off of unfed limbs. They weren't nearly as thin as Éponine's once were (she had gained a small amount of weight during their stay), but she was no longer the healthy woman she was only a month earlier.

He had only seen her for a moment – the doctor had kept the door cracked open as he checked up on Enjolras, and both he and Mlle Lagloire assumed he was asleep. Cosette and Marius's grandfather spoke in hushed tones, evidently believing the same, whispering small arguments. He couldn't hear everything, but Enjolras did pick up a few words – comments about "harbouring a republican and a common gutter whore" mostly from the elder's side. Cosette seemed to be defending them, insisting they stay only a week longer, just to make sure both had healed properly before being sent back out.

Enjolras couldn't suppress a shudder. As terrible as staying in the house would be, where he felt useless and only found respite in reading to a lifeless woman who could very well do so on her own, going back to the streets would be worse. Éponine was in her element in the alleys of Paris, but Enjolras was not – how was he supposed to lead a revolution, if he himself weren't able to think straight out of hunger?

It may help, actually, to experience poverty firsthand – Enjolras shook his head, banishing the thought quickly. The future of France did not rely on everyone being poor; it relied on everyone being wealthy.

With Doctor Paquet checking his blood pressure, the blonde man formed a goal, a mission, a single thought to strive towards: to heal. For both he and Éponine to heal. They would leave the house, but perhaps together they could leave Paris, and settle in a nearby town, far enough that he could assume a new identity and create a new uprising.

They would survive. After all, they had survived so much already.

Her heart hurt less.

She did not know how much less (for how does one calculate such things?), but she did know it hurt less. She still heard their voices when she was alone in her room, or even with Mlle Lagloire or Doctor Paquet, but her heart didn't scream and thrash and protest and sob at every moment.

It still did, but she was offered relief. Mostly, relief in the form of blue eyes and a smooth voice.

He rolled his Rs with such an educated air, pronounced Napoleon's name 'Buonaparte' rather than 'Bonaparte', in the style of the bourgeoisie, clearly a memento left over by his wealthy parents. He knew Latin and Greek, and she barely knew French. He could recite every one of Robespierre's works by heart, she struggled to remember her privileged childhood. He represented freedom, he was beauty, he was a future she craved and she needed – but one that hurt too much to imagine.

After all, what was a future without Marius?