Life's Great Happiness (A Les Miserables FanFiction)

The Start Of The Story As We Know It

~Three Months later~

It did not take Marguerite long to fit in with Les Amis de l'ABC, they were odd, strange and as was she. It wasn't that Marguerite wasn't 'like other girls' because she was, the streets were riddled with prostitutes harbouring trust issues, many were orphans like she but there was a something within Marguerite that drew people towards her, a want to know more, an allure that kept them hooked. She was a cold girl but her laughter brightened dark days, Jean Prouvaire wrote poems about her, her short ragged hair and her pretty face, her blue eyes that seemed welcoming and calculating, happy and pain filled. Marguerite had scoffed at the words, never been one for beauty she didn't understand the poetry Jean loved but she felt her cold heart warm as the realisation that Jean must have thought about her a bit to write something about her, not many thought of her in ways that didn't involve her naked. She was grateful, happy, she felt safe in the walls of the Café Musain.

Marguerite wasn't a drinker, she was a sickly child from starvation and dehydration, she barely ate she only threw it up again but she did sit by Grantaire's side from time to time, a bottle in her palm, she rubbed the glass and thought of things she didn't say as Grantaire drank wine and laughed until his eyes focused on Enjolras then his face shone with something Marguerite couldn't place, Grantaire then placed his wine down and stared at Enjolras, his dark eyes wide and searching, staring only at Enjolras like there was nothing else in the world worth to see.

It wasn't love, Marguerite thought as she always saw love being the connection between to people who felt the same thing, and Enjolras seemed as interested in Grantaire as Grantaire seemed in the revolution the fearless leader was planning. Enjolras seemed as interested in her as he did in wine which is to say very little or not at all.

'Has he broken your heart?' Montparnasse had asked mock concern etched onto his pretty face like scratches on a glass. 'Has he? Well now he's stolen your role, now flower I thought you were supposed to break the heart of every man in Paris.'

Marguerite had glared at her friend, slapped his arm in a warning gesture that meant she wouldn't be afraid to fight him and she'd do it even if he fought back, there wasn't much in this world this young girl could control but she could control her personality and her womanhood. She saw it as her mission as a woman to show men they could not use force to get their way. This mission, this vow of sorts was why Marguerite often left customers with bruises and scars and broken limps.

'No.' She'd told Montparnasse, 'I ain't in love, lust and want…Now those are things I'm in but you were right, Enjolras is like a young girl, won't give…I'll settle for looking at him.'

In truth Marguerite had not tired with Enjolras, she hadn't used her famous charm on the boy and she didn't look at him, no she gazed, she marvelled, she was in awe. In awe of his brilliance, his courage, his stance, his looks, those eyes, she felt her heart pound when his eyes skimmed over her. Marguerite didn't want to be in awe of this young man, from her experience men didn't need any more of an ego boost, they were controlling, dominate and they believed themselves to be better than her ('Why not get a real job?' They'd laugh at her when they were finished. 'You are asking to be stepped on; you've gotten yourself into this!' They laughed and mocked yet they were the ones who needed her service. No one would hire a girl like her anyway, they'd shove her on the street, call her a whore, tell her she was useless, they'd force her to fall into this life and they'd be the ones to laugh and mock her for choosing this life as if it was her free choice) but Enjolras seemed different. He was one of the people who were not like anyone else; he was different in every way. Beautiful and smart, strong, he believed.

But she wasn't about to tell Montparnasse that.

Speaking of Montparnasse, she and the bandit were still close, closer maybe. Marguerite often talked of the ABC, she often retold jokes she had heard from Bahorel, she told of Jean and his words, of Grantaire and his drunkenness and of Enjolras. She did not know the feeling that was swimming in the pit of Montparnasse stomach, jealously filled his slender frame as Marguerite's eyes lit up like they'd never done with just him.