Where All Maps End

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"A writer, I think. Or an artist. I want to paint the world in beautiful colours."

"You already do."

They were joined at the hip, her father used to say. If one took a fancy notion to jump through fire the other would follow. One of these days neither of them will come back, and then what? Growing up they had shared everything, their books, their packed lunches; their dreams and fears. They would run to the bottom of the garden in the winter, in the hopes of spotting a Blackthorn tree fairy ("They only come out when the snow arrives," Éponine explained, her cheeks flushed red as they raced to the gate); but during these visits they would catch nothing but a cold, as flakes of white began to fall from the steely grey sky ("They're fast little buggers," Enjolras sniffed, reaching for a tissue. "You have to be quick.") The springtime would arrive in a rush of clear blue skies and opal blossom, and sometimes it seemed that the summers went on forever. At that time the future was nothing but a spectral figure in the distance, just out of reach and quivering with endless possiblities. When school started, they would sit on the grass at break times, fingertips touching as they mapped a plan onto the lines of their hands. In college they'd stay up late and talk of the things they'd achieve, lying side by side in the park and gazing up at the vast expanse of stars above them. One day we'll travel the globe. You'll get lucky in a Vegas casino and I'll have my palm read in Gibraltar. We'll go to the beach and I'll teach you about the sand dunes. He wondered if he loved her; she wondered what love was.

"What do you want to be, then?"

"I don't know. I guess I want to help people if I can."

"There's more than one way to do that, though."

"I know. I'll try fire-fighting first, and if that doesn't work, I'll be a doctor."

"And if that doesn't work?"

"I'll think of something. It'll be fine."

"How can you be sure?"

"We have forever."

All things run their course, and the universe holds no exceptions for anyone. Final year of college came, bringing with it a static tension in the air and an end to late night conversations about the future, whatever that was. For it seemed that time was stood still on the brink of a wave, and the future was now, and it was deadlines and it was coffee stains on a cluttered tabletop. She sits in the cafe of the Student Union, ink-stained fingers working furiously as she maps out a first draft of the umpteenth essay this semester. In the background, Enjolras' voice booms over the tables, lecturing Feuilly about some political jargon she's only half-heartedly listened to on the news. The other students pull faces, and Grantaire sends a paper aeroplane flying into the back of Enjolras' head.

"I tell you, the education system in this country needs to be completely reformed. It's disgraceful that we – ow!" he rubs the back of his head, turning angrily to Grantaire. "What was that for?"

"Cut the big talk and let's have a drink."

Éponine stifles a snigger but not in time to avoid earning a glare from Enjolras. Approaching her table he takes a seat by her side and turns resolutely to the other students. "It's not funny, Grantaire. Things need to change, and we're running out of time to do it. It's our responsibility- ow, STOP IT!" he swipes the paper plane away and rubs his ear, turning back to Éponine. "See what I have to put up with?" he mutters to her, but she only laughs lightly, and kisses him on the cheek.

"Oh come on, it was only a joke..." He leans instinctively into her touch, breathes in the familiar scent of her acacia perfume. "You need to stop taking things so seriously."

He straightens, and his face sobers. "The rest of you need to start taking things seriously. This is the real world now and it's up to us to-"

"Who needs the real world?" Courfeyrac laughs cheerily from the corner of the room. "It's overrated."

"It's important. The future of this country depends-"

A final paper aeroplane hits his jaw and Enjolras scowls. "You all need to stop acting like kids."

"We are kids." Grantaire pulls a face, but before Enjolras can react, Éponine has thrown down her pen and is looping her arms around his neck. "Come on, let's just forget about it for tonight, huh? Let's have fun like we used to," she pleads.

"No." Pulling away from her, he scrapes his chair back from the table and stands, curtly declaring, "I can't. I've work to be doing, and so do the rest of you."

"Oh, Enj," she groans, watching his retreating back as he stomps from the room.

"What do you think of the sea?"

"What?"

"We should take a trip to the seaside."

"Why?"

"Don't you remember? You said you'd teach me about the sand dunes."

"Maybe another time, Ep."

In the summer of their final year he announces that he's leaving to study a political course in Boston. She isn't all that surprised, really. For the last two years Enjolras has increasingly engrossed himself in study and debates, staying up late into the night writing political papers and forgetting their plans for dinner. She doesn't even remember the last conversation they had that hadn't involved some political nonsense. Usually he would do all the talking (ranting, she called it), and Éponine would drift off into a reverie. Still, there were times when she'd find him face down on a table at the library, bags under his eyes, surrounded by papers and drooling. She puts up with his rants because she knows that on those days, he would take her offered hand in defeat and follow her home, stumbling slightly, before falling onto the sofa where he would slip his arm around her waist and snore lightly on her shoulder. She puts up with his frequent absences because she knows he'd always come back sooner or later. And now, here he was, declaring an imminent departure, a far cry from late nights at the library where she could easily trail him home by force.

"I don't want to go."

He glances up at her over the top of his newspaper. They are in the kitchen of his childhood home, the door thrown wide to the warm breeze, the afternoon sun streaming through the open windows and making patches of dappled light upon the floor.

"What?"

"I don't want to go to Boston." She hoists herself up to sit on the counter and clicks the kettle on. "I have a life here, I have friends, I can't just go gallivanting off -"

"I didn't say you were coming with me."

The kettle emits a slow, shrill whine and she blinks at him.

"I, - oh." Her voice is small, and she bites her lip. "Okay. Um, when - when will you be back?"

"Next Autumn. It's a year's course."

"Oh. Well that's okay, I mean it's - it's...I still haven't figured out what to do myself yet so in the meantime you might as well go after what you want...it's alright really, it's only a year so it won't seem like-"

"Éponine," he sighs in exasperation, grabbing her hand to stop her babbling. "Don't be angry. It's not that I don't want you with me. But I'm not suggesting you go gallivanting anywhere. I don't expect you to come with me. I would never ask it." He means well, but the words send sharp pangs through her chest and she pulls her hand away sullenly.

"Then go, as I said. Whatever Enj, it's not like we're joined at the hip-"

"There's no need to react like that," he retorts hotly, unsure if the steam filling the kitchen is a product of the kettle or his own ears.

"-we're not stupid kids anymore, we've got our own responsibilities-"

Here she goes again, he thinks in irritation.

" – got our whole lives ahead of us-"

"Of course."

"-I mean it's time we started doing our own thing-"

"Well, - I agree."

"So go to Boston if you wish, but I choose to stay here."

"I...right."

"It'll be fine."

"Fine."

An uneasy silence fills the kitchen once more, and Enjolras turns his back to her and goes to the window, watching a pair of sparrows flitting to and from a nest under the eaves of the house. Éponine studies him keenly, and with a sigh she leans her head back against the kitchen cupboards. "It figures you'd go running off to Boston out of the blue. You always did have grand ideas. I just thought we'd be in it together, like they always said. Like we always said."

He turns, startled to see her dark eyes rimmed with tears. Her beauty is so radiant in this room full of light and shade that for a moment his breath hitches, for a moment he feels there is something else he had meant to say, words forgotten long ago. But the feeling fades as suddenly as it arose, and tentatively he inches closer to her. He hadn't known Éponine to cry since she was a child, and her favourite doll had been dropped in the mud and destroyed. (He'd tried to comfort her, and she'd hit him on the head with his action figure.) You haven't really known her since she was a child, a voice inside him whispers accusingly. The kettle whistles a loud, mournful lament and he sighs, reaching out to touch her arm. "I'm sorry, Ep," he says softly. "But we were kids. Do you think that kind of love lasts forever?"

"Adventure is out there!"

"Isn't that a line from-?"

"You and me, we're gonna see the world, but you have to promise, okay?"

"Promise what?"

"To not back out and leave."

"I promise."

He reaches forward and grabs her wrist.

"Here, give me your hand, I'll write it down so you don't forget."

He returns as the leaves are turning red and gold, the world beginning to harden under the promise of an impending winter; the air is fragile and crisply scented with the falling petals of a decaying summer. There are children playing in the street outside, voices raised in a familiar refrain, "Ring-a-ring o' rosies, a pocket full of posies, A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down..." The sound is sad and sweet; reminding him of hazy summers gone by, lost golden afternoons that he no longer knows. The children laugh loudly and give chase, disappearing around the corner, their fading voices echoing in the empty street. He thinks of the friends he had at college; they had been out of touch since graduation, but he guesses the blame lies partly with himself. He wonders where they are now, and yearns for the sound of their innocent banter. What happened to us, where did the time go?

She has become restless in the last year, older somehow, and frown lines have begun to appear on her forehead. Aside from the coffee shop where she works through the week, Éponine has taken to treading nature, exploring stony paths lined with honeysuckle and wild primroses in the hope of finding inspiration for her writing, but to little avail. The sea, she thinks to herself, I need to find the sea. I need to see the sand dunes, and maybe someone will explain. When he appears on her doorstep she nearly knocks him down with the force of her hug, and for a while it is just like old times as they laugh and reminisce, the years behind them seeming to disappear like smoke drifting into the air. But it's not long before he notices the change in her, watching from the corner of his eye when she thinks he's not looking. A cool, fresh breeze travels inland from the coast, and her eyes glaze over with something he does not quite understand. There's a quiet wistfulness, a distance in her gaze which slides off the very edges of the world, and that he's pretty sure have had nothing to do with his return, nor the excitement of the White Christmas weather reporters have promised. It's unnerving, and he feels a slight twist of fear in his gut. Come back, little 'Ponine. I've missed the sound of your voice. You seem so far away lately. He hopes weakly that this is just a passing phase, that in the New Year she'll be back to her usual spirited self once more. And still, he finds himself turning away, for something in his heart tells him she's already out of his reach.

(We all fall down).

In the spring she rings him and announces her plans to leave the city. "I need inspiration." Her voice is polite, unfamiliar. Yes, something is missing, he thinks wryly. Something is gone that we once knew. His eyes steadily follow the hands of the ticking clock above the counter, round and round, as she relates her plans to leave the following weekend. They exchange some half-hearted 'Good Lucks' and faint promises to keep in touch, when he suddenly remembers, "Oh wait – when will you be back?" but the line has already gone dead, and he quietly hangs up the receiver.

"It's not exactly goodbye."

The empty kitchen echoes his voice back to him, and it scares him a little how indifferent the sound is.

Oh, I release you, my old friend;

I think we've finally reached the end.

And so, he stays in the city, mingling with the grey suited workers on the daily commute and watching the leaves change once more with the season. On occasion he bumps into Combeferre, who is now working as a clerk in the office block next door. He asks about Jehan's poetry, and they briefly joke about whether Grantaire has learnt to hold his drink yet, but the truth is they've long since run out of things to say to one another. Time has a fickle way of estranging hearts, and so the old friends fall to remote greetings and hurried conversation in passing. Hello, how are you, isn't the weather nice? What happened to that friend of yours, the girl with the ink-stained hands? The days go by quietly, each one fading idly into the next, and Enjolras no longer counts the snowfalls since he saw her last.

Éponine flees to the coast, searching for clarity in the fresh winds, for inspiration in the crashing of the waves against the cliffs. There are no sand dunes here, but sharp grey shingle that glistens in the pale sunlight and crunches under her footstep. The sea breeze brushes strands of hair across her face as she throws down her hat and sits on the shells, pulling out a pen and notebook with a frown. The gulls call overhead and she looks skyward, brown eyes to clear blue. "Ah." She smiles softly and picks up her pen, and maps a plan onto the palm of her hand with Indian ink, while the waves beat a sonnet into the rocks.

"Before us lies eternity; our souls are love, and a continual farewell..."

The End.