One Way to Go On- A Les Miserables Story

The Piecing Together of a Story

Javert and Eponine both breathed shakily, in sync. They both were trying to piece together parts of a story, and thus kept interrupting each other. They seemed to forget they had both met each other on their ways to die, and were now completely intent on discovering how it all fit together. Had they noticed time passing? Somewhat, but not really. It was still dark, daylight was still hours away. Unlike Valjean, neither of them knew how quickly a night could end when one was lost in thought.

"He'd adopted Cosette. I chased him down an alleyway, he disappeared completely. To this day I still don't know where he went- over a wall, but which one?" Javert said, half to Eponine, half to himself.

"So- where was this?"

"It doesn't matter anymore. The next time I saw him was at the barricade."

"Why, that's not true!" Eponine said, striking her hand against the railing in a confused sort of way. "What about the time you went to the Gorbeau house? Marius told me about an Inspector Javert, at one point or another, you arrested my family."

Javert, after a moment or two of racking his memory for an incident at the Gorbeau house, remembered suddenly, a man named Marius, how he had fled, an ambush, how he had walked in on it, one of the criminals shooting a gun at him that misfired. Arresting a girl on lookout, and a husband and wife, called the Thenardiers.

"You- You're a Thenardier?" He said, somewhat taken aback. It was enough that this girl was a peasant, on top of that, an insurgent, but on top of that, from a family of criminals? It was enough to make his fingertips go numb.

"Eponine," she said in response, nodding. "Don't you worry, I've never been arrested. Not just because I've never been caught, either, but because I never do the illegal things. I never have, don't you worry."

Javert had stopped listening in the middle, remembering the ambushed man, how he looked very strong, had snow-white hair, and had disappeared during the turmoil as though he didn't want to be caught.

"That man- that man was Jean Valjean?" he said, gripping the railing a foot or two apart as though to steady himself and clutching it until his knuckles went white. "That- that wretch!"

"Not at all, Monsieur, he was a good man, a kind man, you see. He only got involved with my family with a ruse for charity thought up by my father. I'm glad to see him gone to prison, somewhere, because at least now I have no part in his hideous affairs-!"

"Let me try to remember," Javert said, releasing the railing, softening his brow, and looking to her again. His hands flushed with blood and slowly regained their normal color. "Tell me what happened before I arrived."

"There isn't much to tell," Eponine replied, shrugging. "He came with his daughter- with Cosette- and gave my father more than he had already hoped to make and his coat. My father said something to get him to come back, but he came without Cosette. They had a tussle over his identity, my father kept accusing him of stealing his daughter- we'd looked after Cosette, you see, if you could call it that. We were all very cruel and I hate to think of some of the things I'd said and done-! Either way, Valjean had come and managed to free her from my father's grasp with a large sum of money and a forged note. Either way, he kept accusing and he kept denying, and so it went on for a short while."

"And then I came in?"

"Not quite. You see, my father sent my mother to fetch Cosette with a letter they forced him to write, only he said his name was Urbain Fabre, so maybe-"

"He has many aliases. It doesn't prove anything."

"Ah. Anyhow, by the time my mother had come back with the news it was a false address, Valjean had already cut his bonds. There was a small scuffle, someone was knocked out, Marius was considering firing one of the guns you gave him, but-"

"How did you know what Marius was doing?"

"I heard this all from him. How else would I know any of this? I'd already fled because I hate to take part in these things."

"Ah. So that's how. Please, continue."

"Of course. So where was I? Yes, a scuffle, a couple of my father's accomplices were incapacitated, but in the end they got Valjean and tied him to the bed. Not before he had obtained a burning stake and stuck it in his forearm. I still don't see why he did that, it seemed rather pointless- Marius flinched on recounting it to me, and I'm not sorry to have missed it. Anyhow, they brought him back and were about to slit his throat (Marius didn't fire his pistols because his father was somehow indebted to mine, I can't remember), when he had the idea to throw a paper I'd written on through the crack he'd been watching through. You see, I'd written 'the cops are here' to show him I could write, and as you know I was supposed to be keeping watch. So when they found it, they assumed I'd thrown it through the broken window."

"And then they talked about drawing lots to escape, and I offered them my hat, and had them all arrested," Javert finished. "And amidst the turmoil of the criminals and gendarmes, Valjean escaped once more." A bitterness crept into his voice at the last words.

"So that's how it happened," Eponine said, brushing a strand of hair out of her face contentedly. "I only wonder what Cosette was doing at the time."

We will say, it was nothing of interest. She was thinking of Marius, just as he was thinking of her.

"Then the next time I saw him was at the barricade," Javert said, nodding.

"Ah, yes! That story too, if you please. Let's have a complete narrative. We'd had my half-if you can call it that, it didn't take much time to recount, our shared bit, and your introduction. Let's finish it," Eponine replied, smiling. Javert softened his brow, as he so often found himself doing. He never would've thought that he would find such good people among convicts and criminals, if only he'd been looking.

---

would marius tell eponine everything?

of course. marius tells eponine e v e r y t h i n g  concerning cosette.

and this involved her 'father', sooo

idk. no plot holes here.