Three weeks later. It has been about a month since the fall of the barricades.
Éponine stood in the blue dress, hating her life. She didn’t want to be here at this wedding, watching Marius get married to Cosette. She wanted to cry, but Cosette had ordered her not to, or her face would puff up and be all red for the ceremony.
Not that Cosette had thought that she was crying because of Marius. She was convinced that Éponine would be crying out of sheer happiness. When Cosette had first told her that, Éponine had rolled her eyes, convinced that Cosette was joking, but the seriousness on her face had convinced her otherwise.
Enjolras stood next to her, equally annoyed in his tuxedo, sick of the whole wedding business. For the past two weeks, Cosette’s obsession with the wedding had only gotten worse – it got to the point where Marius would follow Grantaire out to Musain, just to get away from the constant questions and nagging. He wondered if Marius was beginning to regret the quick marriage. Somehow he doubted it. The boy still seemed in love with Cosette, no matter how annoying she became.
Éponine rolled her eyes and sighed. They had been standing here for what felt like hours.
“Bored?” he asked.
“Extremely,” she muttered. “How long are we supposed to stand here?”
“Until a certain song starts playing,” Enjolras said, shrugging.
“And neither of us know what song that is, do we.”
“Nope.”
Éponine couldn’t help herself from laughing. “That’s great. Cosette’s going to murder us.”
“I bet she’ll tell us when to go. Actually, if we don’t start walking when we’re supposed to, she’s probably going to push us out there.”
“Think it’s too late to run away?”
Enjolras grinned. “In that dress? You wouldn’t make it three blocks.”
“Hey, good luck in that suit of yours. At least I’ll know where I’m going.”
Enjolras shook his head. The music changed. “That sounds…yeah. I think we’re supposed to go now.”
“Might as well,” she said, peering into the aisle. The church’s pews were filled with people, most of whom she’d never met in her life. The aisle was empty. Marius was fidgeting at the altar.
Éponine hesitated, then finally convinced her feet to move. It took all of her effort to walk at a slow, measured pace, and not run down the aisle as fast as she could. They reached the altar in less than a minute. Enjolras moved to stand next to Marius, and Éponine moved to where Cosette had told her – no, ordered her, when it came to the wedding preparations the girl was a dictator – to stand, and then watched the rest of the wedding.
It passed in a quick blur. Cosette glided up the aisle like a bird; Marius’s grandfather accompanied her. Monsieur Madeline had vanished mysteriously only a week before, leaving Cosette confused, miserable, and throwing a wrench into her plans. She had spent a whole day sobbing, wondering why her father had left her with no explanation. Marius had tried to comfort her, saying that he didn’t know where her father had gone, but there had been something in his eyes, something that made her think that he knew more than he had let on.
