OOM: The Unheard And Unsaid

[rudderless]

It's dark here.

Darker than she can remember, even in the blackest of winter.

In the distance there's the scent of cordite, the glow of a torch.

But not here.

She is still as a Bastille Day statue, contemplating him.

Comments

[street_sparrow]

He stares back at her, in the dark. He's never seen such a lack of animation in her.

"Eponine."

[rudderless]

"Gav?"

She gives him a crooked grin. "What's new?"

There may be a spot of blood visible upon her waist now, a dividing trickle-down of a line.

[street_sparrow]

His eyes drop to the blood, once, then flick back to her face. He won't look at that, he'll just know it's there.

"Everything. What's new with you?"

[rudderless]

Now her look turns hazy, almost feverish in its dreamlike state.

"He saw me," she says. "It was like a beautiful story for just a minute."

[street_sparrow]

"I know." It's quiet. "I was there, but I think you two only saw each other."

[rudderless]

"That's how it goes when you're in love - when you think you're in love." Another mysterious look.

[street_sparrow]

"Think?" He looks at her. "You don't think so any more?"

[rudderless]

"Oh, I knew he never loved me." There's a bitterness within her voice and it comes right to the surface, tainting her pretty features with a scowl. "He treated me as he would a stray puppy or a sweet child. But I would have given him everything, still. I would've given it all."

[street_sparrow]

"And you did. Oh, 'Ponine, you did."

[rudderless]

"I'm happy I did," she declares. "Or I would be - if things never changed the way they are now. Think she'd have done what I did?"

[street_sparrow]

"Cosette?" He shrugs. "Maybe, if the circumstances were right. But not the same way."

[rudderless]

It's not really the answer she wanted to hear; someone still needs to feel a bit special after all. "Never mine to keep, anyway," she mutters.

[street_sparrow]

He steps forward to take her hand.

"Not the way you wanted."

[rudderless]

"Or the way I planned," she admitted. "Ain't that a twist?"

[street_sparrow]

"Could've happened. If he hadn't seen her, if he'd never gone back to his rich folks..."

[rudderless]

She shrugs her shoulders. "I know he never cared nothing about me, Gav. Don't need to tell you he didn't want me that way."

It's always been clear to her. Even more so now, with so many rich, bright things possible.

[street_sparrow]

"He didn't", Gavroche says quietly, meeting her eyes. "But he did care."

[rudderless]

"It's nice to think of it like that." Maybe new omnipresence has made her melancholy.

"You've got a new chance now, y'know."

[street_sparrow]

"I know. The kind you grab with both hands, 'cause you only get it once."

[rudderless]

She leans against the wall, raises an eyebrow. "Then be sure to grab me. Y'never know when I may..."

She goes translucent before his eyes.


"Disappear."

[street_sparrow]

"Eponine!" He scrambles for her hand, but his own passes straight through it.

[rudderless]

But she's fading away.

"Only one more time, Gav. Don't fail me."

And she's gone.