AN: It's been years. I don't even have an excuse apart from hey, life. My love for Eponine and Enjolras was recently rekindled however - so here I am.
I hope you enjoy the end of this story. Notice the references of the revolution...and like they are familiar to this ;) its a little easter egg if you will.
Thank you for all the love, for the messages encouraging me to finish this story. I'm sorry that I did finish it...but years later! If you do find this story again, I hope you enjoy it!
Chapter 3:
The Rotisserie Chicken of Love
Eponine was at a loss.
At this point, she crosses the line of loss and more so – she's just utterly speechless on what to say. She is so lost she might as well drop her ass off at a nearest Lost and Found box – yes, after she kills Enjolras, she'll hide there to escape the police (and it will work – she's a Thernadier after all) then she'll change her name and move to Barbados. That sounds like a grand idea.
Cosette was understandably upset, small gasps and 'I'm so confused, why wouldn't you tell me this?' Escaping her soft voice. There were even tears threatening to pour over her eyes. She's briefly reminded of the Disney princesses Joly of all people secretly enjoys – how they cried prettily with little larks flying to their hands to tell them it's okay. In this case though, Eponine was no Disney bird, she can sing like them yes – but she can't comfort the confused Cosette because she can't even comfort herself right now.
Seriously, when the fuck did life get so confusing? She briefly wondered if she was being elaborately pranked by that one show on MTV. Except the host is the infuriating and confusing Enjolras, who she just found out also has a sense of humor that borders mischievous. She is more confused then – who exactly is the mother of Cillian's puppies? Who is Enjolras? There are so many facets to him that she did not expect.
"Enjolras is going to be…hold on, hold on. Are you telling me he's your baby daddy? Is Enjolras Jr. in there?" Courfeyrac squints at her stomach, willing something to answer his questions. She briefly wonders if he sees something – maybe the cupcakes she sneaks in at the café when she works – because he's mightily concentrated.
She really needs to put a stop to this RIGHT NOW.
"No, no it's not like that, it isn't – "
"Yes, explain. But hold on I need to save my game, then explain." Courfeyrac holds a finger to her and Eponine wonders if she can put him up for adoption. Maybe have him deported. Anything at this point. "Where do babies even come from? Sam from school told me how and where, but I wasn't sure so I wanted to confirm if it's true." Gavroche cuts them off, murmuring with a mouth full of pizza while his other hand holds on to Cillian who is so suspiciously smug she was truly thinking this is all an elaborate prank.
Can dogs pull pranks? If they were under the influence of Courfeyrac, she supposes they can.
"Gavroche! No. No. Do not start right now."
"Okay I'll ask tomorrow."
"Gavroche!"
"…Next week?"
Eponine was approaching a headache of epic proportions. She expected to come home, finish that damn revolution dissertation, maybe take a hot bath and try to remove the image of Enjolras' fleeting stares and the tomato sauce that stained the side of his lips as they both struggled to talk in that pizza booth – but no. Here she is, staring at a It's a Boy banner trying in vain not to suffer from an early demise.
Cillian barks.
"No! No don't grab the banner! Sit. Good boy." Gavroche admonishes the dog, successfully grabbing the banner that Cillian had previously in between his mouth. Cossete ignores this all as she sits on the dining table, her arms crossed and awaiting Eponine's grand explanation.
"It's Cillian." Eponine says defeatedly. Once again, literature student that she is – deduced to a limited vocabulary fit for Courfeyrac's random bouts of sleep talking.
"Cillian got you pregnant?" She did not even notice Grantaire walk in from the bathroom. Why are all these people in their apartment anyway?
"What? NO! And why the hell are you here?"
Grantaire shrugs. "I didn't want to clean the dishes at home, and Courf wanted to play videogames…one thing lead to another and here I am. Enlighten me though, how exactly did a dog-"
"Grantaire, shut the fuck up."
"Noted." He grins, winking at her as if he knows exactly what happened but wanted to torture her.
"It's Cillian. He got Enjolras dog pregnant. I'm not pregnant…and it's probably a food baby Courf, stop staring."
Courfeyrac has the audacity to shrug, not so much in relief but more of the fact he's lost interest since no, Enjolras has not suddenly transformed from the aloof, virginal but albeit great friend into a domestic father to be – with Eponine of all people.
"I just wanted to make sure. You look great though, still hot."
She throws the banner at his face.
"Wait. How did Cillian do that? Cillian why would you do that?!" Cosette looks at her dog in almost an admonishing stare, as if he is Gavroche who has done something wrong and can explain in a lengthy and avoidable manner like her little brother would do. A Thernadier trademark – answer with half truths, but enough to not be questioned. Quid pro quo if you will.
Cillian merely cocks his head to the side, looking at Eponine as if he awaits for the bail out from her. Eponine slumps on the couch and squeals in surprise when Courfeyrac's keys dig into her ass. She tosses it to him in a huff, ignoring he and Grantaire's snicker and their renewed focus on their video game. She takes a deep breath then explains to Cosette a heavily edited version of what did happen.
She leaves out the fact Enjolras had a wonderful chest that she swears she only accidentally looked at when they argued, or that he lead her through the Columbia reference sections, quietly attempting to take the heavy books from her arms as he searches for Plato, or that the pizza that they were eating was sneakily purchased by the same man who for a few minutes ago, became her pretend-baby daddy.
They didn't need to know all of that.
As the night went on, Gavroche firmly being told to not speak of baby production till at least the 7th grade, and Courfeyrac snoring at her couch for the third consecutive night of the week, it feels normal again. As if all is well and a run and Cosette's dog didn't just seem to turn her entire life upside down in a manner of weeks.
By 11, Eponine is slumped at her bed. Exhaustion in her bones and the only light present in the dark room was the one emanating from her phone. She puts it down on her side table with a huff, staring at the screen till she fell asleep.
One new message from Pizza Boy
If she fell asleep with a small smile she will never admit to it.
In the space between where she sang at gigs and when she joined Jehan at the gym, "Pizza Boy" is marked. It became a thing, she and him meeting at the pizza booth. He, always equipped with a quick did you know fact on new born puppies, said in that ridiculously composed expression of his and her with a new found shyness she didn't even possess in the brief times she mooned over Marius.
It was something that baffled her. There's no time for such thinking though, and emotions were not her forté since she walked out of the Gorbeau tenant with Azelma and Gavroche. So she chooses to ignore it, as she is now ignoring the sauce on the side of Enjolras mouth.
She is really trying not to wipe it off -
"As per my past message, I gave you a reference on the various rebellions throughout the French provences at the time. They have alliances did you know? Of all types of stature, rich or poor. It is admirable. I would valiantly support their cause, if I were alive at the time."
She finds that funny for some reason. Either that or the serious look in his brow coupled with the sauce in his mouth just really looked funny to her. Now how the hell did he make that look good she'll never know.
"There's sauce on your lips."
She's surprised to see Enjolras turn a shade of pink, quickly wiping on the wrong side of his mouth. Eponine, accustomed to doing the same thing to Gavroche - and on occasion, Courfeyrac too - instinctively reaches out to wipe it herself. It wasn't till they were finally looking at each other in the eye that she realizes what she's done.
"Oh uh- there you go. Wrong place, dork."
"Th-thanks." Enjolras flushes more and she ignores this. Must be the heat in the booth. Is it hot here? It's fall but it should be hot. Why does her face feel hot?
The silence pervades until she breaks it.
"Would you truly join a revolution?" She briefly thinks of Jehan's love lorn poetry, of tragic loves that never be, split by death or just timing not being right. God is it really hot here? Maybe she's feverish. Since when did she think of shit like this anyway.
"It makes me angry." Enjolras says in that powerful yet calm timbre of his. "There's clear cruelty in man kind, but the justice of such cruelty is so skewed. Sometimes people don't even get a semblance of justice...and for what? The stature of their lifestyle? The color of their skin? Their sex? The gender they love? It's bullshit." Eponine's previous questioning gaze turns into a small smirk. Finding it funny that this infuriating pizza boy can even curse. He does it so rarely.
"How would you know?"
"Excuse me?"
"How would you know? Of the plights. The injustice. No offense - but you don't come from my parts." Eponine did sort of mean to offend, but the slowly setting sun paints Enjolras to be more boyish, more innocent and less so unflappable. She thinks he commands a room, as if he is bigger than the entire thing itself - but now as she looks at him, he is but the size of the booth, right here with her and not like he's far away and above her. She can reach him in these moments.
"I don't need to come from poor parts to not feel enraged." He quips silently, as if he was ready to go into a tirade, passionate but oddly charming speeches he makes.
"So how would people understand you? How would they take you seriously pizza boy? If you don't really know."
They stare at each other. This feels like something familiar, like a long ago conversation that led up to nothing but time lost.
"Pizza boy?" He smiles and she ducks her head in embarrassment again. What the fuck is wrong with her? It really is hot in here. Can't they fix the thermostat or something?
"You didn't answer me."
"I've witnessed it. I am...I would say lucky enough to have never been in the situation, but I am not blind to it. I was a long time ago, but not anymore." He drolls, a far away look in his eyes that shocked Eponine of a farther depth on this mystery of a man. Still - she is not satisfied. She craves an answer.
"So you were never poor. I was. Well, I'm still poor, but not as bad as before." She shrugs, watching his expression as he sips on his water. (He never drinks soda, and of course she expects that from him. He seems unflappably perfect in all sense of the word - even with soda preferences)
"I know."
It comes as a shock to her that for the first time in weeks, Eponine's hackles rise as if she sees him snatching that damn hat from her nose again, or when he argues in an infuriating monotonous tone in that park bench, or when he cursed on the coffee she made for him. She is briefly reminded of the insecurity she felt at opening an acceptance letter from NYU. A Thernadier? In university? It's absurd. She does not belong, but damn it to hell if she will give up. She knows a lot of stuff, she does - and one thing she knows is Enjolras was an arrogant son of a b-
"I don't mean it in that way." Enjolras interrupts her rising indignant, as if he is able to read her mind, "You work hard. You sleep far less than I do - but you do so because you have to. Your thirst to succeed - it is something...I don't know. Soul deep. I know a fighter when I see one." He flushes again, even though he shrugs in that aristocratic way he does.
Eponine stares at him, speechless again. What is up with this guy? Why does he keep surprising her? And why is it so hot in here? Surely that's why she feels like she's blushing for hours now. (Jesus - it's been hours?!) She wants to get away, this was supposed to be a study session slash dog-child-support discussion, not a bare-your-soul-to-a-man-you-created-escape-blueprints-to-avoid-him-forever meeting. This wasn't going according to plan.
"I should go. It's getting late."
"I didn't mean to offend...I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can be...blunt." Eponine stares at him, a small smile in the corner of her lips despite her fighting it so damn much.
"You are. But...I like it. Sometimes. Goodbye, Enjolras. "
As she walks the blocks to her apartment, she ignores the messages from Courfeyrac and Joly, telling her that once again, they are sleeping on her couch, and that Musichetta and Cosette were up for it anyway...also, if she could pick up baby wipes. Joly needs it, apparently.
No, she swipes other notifications closed. She's way too busy changing "Pizza Boy" to "Enjolras" on his contact name.
When the notification comes, she smiles genuinely.
I forgot to tell you - some puppies never open their eyes till later on. Some walk first before they can even see. Anyway...good night Eponine.
In the following weeks, they continue to meet. They are not as personal as before, Eponine tells herself it is because she meets him only because she wants this dissertation to have the brand of perfection Enjolras can get out of her, or that they need to prepare for the puppies, but she wasn't as skilled in lying to herself as she is to conning others before. So she ignores the question marks on her head and the questioning looks the boys give her.
Most especially, she ignores Grantaire's mischievous smile and Combeferre's growing inquiring looks.
God, was her apartment even her and Musichetta and Cosettes anymore? It's like she was housing all of them at this point.
Did you get your paper back?
Eponine opens the notification as she arrives at the bar, preparing her singing shift at the Jean's new reconstructed cafe, slash, bar in the Iron District.
"Yes" she types. Before she could even send him a teasing text though, he immediately replies.
What's the verdict then?
Eponine ignores the fact their message history actually takes so long to scroll up from. Did they really talk that much?
Revolution is successful. It's an A!
Enjolras sends her a picture of his dog, now more prominently pregnant than months ago.
Aloutte congratulates you
Eponine smiles embarrassingly big at her phone. She ignores the teasing looks shot to her by her coworkers and before she can reply, he texts again.
I congratulate you too. But I knew you could do it. Even without my help.
He sends another picture. Now with he and Aloutte, Aloutte is smiling as much as a dog can and Enjolras wears that Mona Lisa smile that she tells herself isn't something only she sees.
It's not quite him that startles her and creates a twist in her stomach though. It's what she sees in the background.
A polaroid Grantaire has taken of her lies on his desk. Propped up on books that they were skimming through two nights ago.
She ignores the shake in her hands when she replies to him.
"Enjolras is weird."
Grantaire says in passing as he leans over Eponine to grab another beer from the fridge. Cosette's annual famous Christmas party is just now starting, Eponine is a bit tired from cooking and also shooing away Gavroche and Courfeyrac from eating the food before she can even have it served. She was contemplating on putting the both of them in the child - err, dog - locked area where Cillian is now trying to escape from but the thought is interrupted by Grant's declaration. She wants to comment but she's aware of Grantaire's mischievous and suggestive nature. What if she's walking into a proverbial trap?
"I mean...he's always been weird. But this is a new kind of weird. Trust me, I know him. I used to like him once upon a time." He shrugs, taking a swig of the beer with a thoughtful look at her.
Eponine doesn't know what to say to that. Grant always was so bluntly dropping random personal details to them, nonchalant and as free spirited as he is.
"It was a long time ago. Enjolras didn't feel the same, but I knew. Besides, I have someone else now." He winks, not saying more on who has captured the glint in his intelligent green eyes.
"Why are you telling me this?" Eponine feels as if she's cornered. Like she's got her hand stuck in the cookie jar, she wonders if this is what Courfeyrac and Gavroche feels when she catches them trying to eat her cookie dough. Shit. Does that mean she has to lock herself in with them behind that dog gate?!
"Because the picture I took of you is missing. Then surprise, surprise...I find it in the great Apollo's law book. Squished in there like his favorite bookmark. Combeferre saw it too. I thought he would go into an epileptic shock honestly. But nah...I saw it coming." He winks at her.
She is once again reminded of the picture he sent of her when she too saw it. She convinced her pounding heart that nope, it wasn't her. Maybe Grant placed it there as a joke, or he misplaced it. Maybe he was throwing it in the trash or showing it to his dog Aloutte so she knew who was the daddy to her puppies.
She slams the chicken into the oven a little harder than she expected. Her hands are shaking again and she's never felt this fear since Gavroche calls her his maman in the midst of a bad fever he had.
Eponine was always as honest as she can be, meaning, she's as honest growing up as the daughter of conartists can be, but one thing she never could be true was to herself. More importantly her feelings.
This was supposed to be about the dogs - not her. Or Enjolras. Not even that damn book with her picture inside it that she knows he always has on his bedside table.
"R?" Enjolras voice is suddenly in the kitchen and she burns her hand on the damn chicken rotisserie she was cooking.
"Ahhh fuck this chicken and the tomatoes surrounding it." Eponine curses, watching as Grant laughs like a banshee and Joly stick his head in from the hallway.
"Ponine, you ok?" Enjolras inquires, the same composed look in his face as he will have even if he's asking about water pipes.
"I'm fine, it's just a burn, nothing crazy." Eponine feels the telltale shivers she now gets around this damn man. What is wrong with her? Was the pizza place she frequented with him poisoned? Maybe she was cursed. Bahorel's tarot cards did this, or maybe she was dying of some weird disease. Did the bubonic plague still exist?
"It's not the plague, Jolras. I'm fine." She laughs to herself when she once again sees Joly stick her head in from the doorway, now fully intent on opening his mouth and spewing out a whole article on the plague from Web MD right from his brain. Combeferre snatches him back by the collar quickly, 'it's a joke mon ami, relax' echoes as they walk away.
She doesn't realize Grantaire has left too, she never could if Enjolras is near her. It's like he sucks up a part of her brain and she's left with approximately 5 vocabulary words she can use. She hides it well but she knows she sounds more like a 2nd grader's notebook than an honor student in her last year of her bachelors.
"Put your hand under the water, yeah just like that. Where's your oven mitt?" Enjolras busies himself looking over her shoulders for the damn thing, she was gonna say that it was right there but knowing Cillian, he's probably grabbed it when she wasn't looking before she deposited him into dog jail in the laundry room.
"I think Cillian has it." Enjolras stops to look at her right in the eye and he surprises her with a small laugh.
She shivers when he dries her hands with a towel and he doesn't let go of her hand.
"Why does that dog always seem to be the center of everything that happens with us?"
She finds herself laughing too, wondering again if this is some elaborate plan in Cillian's little border collie brain. What was Cosette training this dog for? Romantic comedy production?
"What did I just say?" Eponine says it out loud in shock, as response to her brain even thinking that.
"Hmm?" Enjolras looks at her, startled too as if he's deep in thought as well. Eponine realizes that he's still holding her hand, and they're standing way too close to each other with the the damn rotisserie chicken in between their clasped hands.
They're both quiet and for the six hundredth time, she sees Enjolras pensive look, one that resembles him younger in her eyes, the down right aristocrat aura melts and in turn a look in his eyes she finds so much comfort in. A fire that is soothed in short bursts - comforting and not scalding.
She doesn't realize they're both a few inches apart from each other's mouth till Joly pokes his head from the kitchen doorway again.
"I need a fork - uh...am I interrupting something?" They don't jump apart like those corny films Jehan, Cosette and Musichetta forces her to watch with them. They merely stand there, Eponine frozen in shock and Enjolras as collected as can be. She sees the flush in his neck though - and she feels a sense of amusement in that.
"Are you two praying over the chicken? It's like you're having a ritual over it, holding hands like that." Musichetta quips, her bestfriends trademark eyebrow probably pointed up in amusement. Enjolras cracks a smile in front of her, yet he reluctantly attempts to lets go. Eponine is shocked with herself too when she grasps on his fingers, not wanting him to drop their hands for some weird reason.
Enjolras calm and collected look simmers now. It slowly burns to her core and she thinks about the damn chicken burning her hands and it doesn't compare to this look he gives her. She sees this more and more, when the sunset is on his face in the pizza booth they have pretty much declared as their own, in the comfort of his room when they are studying together, even when he actually took Eponine to see an ultrasound of Aloutte's puppies.
People say Enjolras is a man who leads, a man that is secure and knows exactly where he is headed - he is concise, calm, aloof, demanding and yet so charming he attracts the eyes of many.
When Enjolras looks at her though, it's like a reminiscent of a memory from long ago. Like they just know each other. Like she is his constant.
"The forks at the counter to your left, Chetta." He doesn't waver from her gaze and she can't look away either.
She shivers. She feels nauseous. Light headed. Nervous. She hopes this is truly the bubonic plague because the alternative reasoning to what she's feeling is scarier than death.
She doesn't realize she's long ago replaced his name from Baby Mama, to Pizza Boy, to Enjolras and then to Gabriel on her phone till he texts her the night after he's left the party.
I'm thankful for Cillian. Merry Christmas Eponine.
She is with him on the week after their finals when Enjolras gets the call. He is as collected as ever, but in the months that Eponine and he has been attached to the hip, it feels like she knows even what his eyebrows are feeling at this point. She senses him that much.
He doesn't talk for a while when he hangs up the phone and she sees him gripping it in his hands so tightly, the veins in his arms pop out.
"Enjolras?" It's as if he hears nothing. Eponine feels dread in her stomach and she shoves aside the damn laptop with the email of her impending graduation to the side. She doesn't even flinch when it ceremoniously falls to his carpeted floor.
"Gabe?" He finally looks at her as she says his first name. There are tears in his eyes and she feels her throat constrict at this sort of grief in his eyes. She realizes this gaze is her least favorite of his.
"Remember when I told you - when I said that I used to not know of struggle...Of what unequal treatment is - and that when I finally saw the injustices...I couldn't ever go back to the bliss of not knowing?"
How could she forget?
"My half brother - he...he's gone." He whispers it so silently that if she wasn't so lost in him she would think that it was a mere trick of the wind. A false whisper in the silence of the snowing night.
Aloutte whines in the corner and she spares a glance at her, pregnant and as sweet as ever, her gaze focused on them.
"Gabe..."
"My father hid him from us. From me. I played with him when we were kids...he got sick later on and I never got to see him as much then. When I was a teenager...I found out. He lived in the slums, a far cry from the large townhouse where I grew up. He never had the chance. He couldn't afford medications, they turned him away - by the time I could do something...it was too late. It is all too late."
Enjolras is in her arms before she can blink, it's as if the knot in her stomach - damn it to hell if it isn't the plague - has disappeared. She knows him, but now she feels him.
"You're a good man Gabe." She whispers to him alone. Just like his own, their voices and his quiet cries is taken in by the winds of the night.
She is with him when he goes home to bury his brother. None of the amis even question their departure together, not even Grantaire or Courfeyrac who at any chance gives them a joke that is meant to either have Enjolras burst into a newly discovered shade of red or have Eponine fling them both from her and the girls apartment window (because at this point they just live on their couch).
When he goes home, and he is surrounded by Combeferre's reassuring words, Courfeyrac's supportive and charming jokes; when Gavroche asks him for help with his homework, and even when Grantaire offers him a hug that was long due, the grief in his eyes ease and his quiet smile reappears again.
None of this calms the growing feeling Eponine is used to in her stomach. She's actually looked up symptoms of the plague online, debated on asking Joly even if that meant he'd probably put up a PowerPoint on reasons why she didn't fucking say anything of her 'plague' symptoms sooner - hell she even contemplated going to Cosette's mother, Fantine, to ask what's her knowledge on possible witchcraft.
As the days pass it's as if she is resigned. She's not near death, or have the plague, she doesn't feel hot because the temperature in the room is too high...she's just in love-
"Ponine...is everything alright?" God damn it, she's burned her hand on the chicken she's cooked for Enjolras welcome home dinner. She's startled and probably looking at him all stupid, like she's got glued googly eyes to her face. She hears a faint snort from Grantaire and Musichetta from the other room but it doesn't register to her when Enjolras holds her hand to place it under running water. Again.
"I'd ask where the oven mittens are but Cillian -"
"Yes. He has it."
They both laugh but Eponine is feeling so out of body she seriously considers if she's slowly turning into the girl from The Exorcist. She really has done it now. Out of the many times that she has held a crying Azelma as they leave their run down home, or when Gavroche fell from a tree and broke his arm - everytime she whispered her love to them, feeling it so deep in her bones that she just knew it was the absolute truth.
But now she is looking at Enjolras. He is once again taking care of her, it's as if her brain can't register having the roles reversed. She knows it, just as much as she knows the love she feels for Gavroche, or Azelma, or their band of misfit friends - she knows this as certainly as when she called him an asshole in her politics class.
She is leaning in and Enjolras is holding her hands like he is keeping her from running from him - and this may be true, that for a while she debated on high tailing it, renouncing her daddy-role for the would be puppies of Alouette and Cillian, then moving to Barbados to live her life in solitude. But now...now she can't imagine detangling her burned fingers from his, in her small little kitchen in New York.
Her lips and his are a breath from each other when Joly bursts his head from the doorway like it's dejavu again.
"For fucks sake!" Enjolras growls. She is wide eyed from not just her revelation, but also to hearing him curse again. Even Joly is shocked, but she is not sure whether it's because he's looking at Enjolras like he's a never before seen specie in the New York zoo, or because of what he's about to declare.
"Bajorel called. Aloutte is giving birth."
They have three puppies, one of them goes to Bajorel (he declares he deserves to have this one puppy, he dog sat them so it's his given right as a new parent) and the other goes to Fantine and Jean. The other to Grantaire and his still mysterious beau. He says they are ready for a commitment ("in the shape of a puppy!") and that they will meet him soon.
While Alouette curls up on Enjolras floor on a warm spring night, she sleepily gazes up when Eponine lays down one of Alouette's puppies in her bed. She bares witness when seconds later, Enjolras wraps Eponine in his arms, and when her laugh is silenced by a kiss long awaited for. "I kind of wish the rotisserie chicken is still between us on our first kiss." Eponine whispers and Enjolras' laughter is so joyous that Alouette and her puppy falls asleep to its tune in no time.
Cillian bursts into their room in the morning, tracking snow and a whole branch that he caught in his mouth. He wanted to show it to Eponine, or anybody really who wanted to ravel in his new found toy...but he is a smart dog after all. When he takes note of Eponine curled up on Enjolras naked chest, he slows down and drops the snow covered branch on the carpet instead. He shrugs and leaves the room, now eager to find Gavroche who was supposed to be watching him.
When they both wake up to a large branch in the room, now soaked wet on the floor and his carpet - they both just know who's at fault.
"It's a boy!" Cosette reads from the pizza box. She's skeptical now and doesn't burst into suspicious tears like before. Even Courfeyrac refuses to comment. He's not sure whether this is a repeat of the last time and he's otherwise not preoccupied by Musichetta's Xbox. But when he looks up instead to find Enjolras giving a bottle of water to his now fiancée Eponine - instead of her signature margarita she loved so much - they all just knew. Enjolras laughs in response.
"It's her this time."