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Happy Spaceversary!

CHARACTERS: Combeferre, Eponine, and YOU. Seriously. It’s a little party to celebrate Eponine but anyone is welcome!
LOCATION: Chez Combeferre and Eponine
WARNINGS: Probably schmoopy coupley stuff but nothing else so far! I’ll update as it progresses!
SUMMARY: Eponine’s been here a year! Combeferre’s prepared food with no one dying! There is cake! It’s a day of miracles!
NOTES:

It had taken a bit of maneuvering around the ship, and sneaking through kitchenette cabinets on several levels to find the ingredients he needed, but Combeferre was determined to do something nice to celebrate a very special occasion, indeed. It’s been a year since someone special walked into his life, and showed him how to be happy, once again. As of the latest Jump, he’d been reminded of it, and had been working on ideas and tracking the supplies down in slow increments so that it could be a complete surprise.

Now, though, he’s about all set. The recipe he found has been prepared, he followed all of the directions and didn't get distracted, and, since the microwave was not involved, the biggest problem he had was the mess he cleaned up before decorating his masterpiece. And afterwards, actually. The kitchen counters may still be a little sticky, in spots, even though he wiped them down quite a bit when everything was completely done.

Now, as Eponine comes back into their quarters, and if any other friends should happen to want to join them as well, he has a special surprise prepared. There’s a somewhat lopsided cake,

along with a bottle of decent wine, and a pitcher of kool aid all arranged on the clean desk in their quarters. Beside the wine, there is a lumpy little package wrapped in a spare pale blue handkerchief and tied with a ribbon Eponine can use in her hair later. Inside there is, well, not much

, but it’s something he’s made all the same, pilfering threads from various places around the ship, and it does prove the thought, at least. Lastly, there are wildflowers, picked from the Oxygen garden and arranged in an old wine bottle, for a bit of decoration.

A banner proclaiming the legend “1 Year!” is taped to the wall above the desk, and Combeferre is standing near it, smiling and setting out a mismatched assortment of cups and saucers that serve as plates in case someone else happens to drop by. For the meantime, everything is fine though, and he’s waiting, eagerly, for Eponine’s arrival, though anyone is welcome to stop by the impromptu party all the same.

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for Combeferre

She hadn't really even realized it had been a year since she'd woken up here, since she'd felt Marius' lips on her forehead, since she took the bullet for him. Time here moved differently, and she'd be wrong to say she trusted it. Jumps came and went, and with the exception of Courfeyrac, they all remained here.

Unaware that there was anything special going on, Eponine had made her way to the library, giving Combeferre plenty of time to ready the cake and the room for her party. It wasn't until she returned, half of her hair pulled up in another ribbon (she had quite the collection, as it were), that she knew anything was going on at all.

"Michel!" Eponine gasps the second she steps into their room and sees the banner. No more than a moment after, she's at his side, arms around his neck as she speaks between kisses: "Michel, what is it you have done, you strange, strange man!"

For anyone else

Eponine is convinced nothing can go wrong today, and she's nothing but smiles and cake. Smiles, cake, and wine. Proudly wearing her new bracelet, Eponine is happy to tell anyone who asks just how much she loves her boyfriend. But, please, bring your own wine. This one is hers.

Eponine and pretty ribbons did seem to go together. Combeferre constantly kept himself on the lookout for them. It felt right somehow, and it was something that he could manage even here, where things were difficult to come by. Time had moved differently indeed, but Combeferre had been counting jumps and the time in between them and come to the conclusion about how much time had passed. It was better to be able to know, he thought, even as he did not really seem to be aging. A good thing, considering his age compared to Eponine's, he'd realized once, but kept that information to himself.

For now, he grinned at Eponine, returning her kisses quite happily, with his arms around her. "You have been here a year." He explained, "Roughly at least, by counting the jumps. And what a year it has been! You deserve something of an anniversary, I think!"

"So I must have been" her laugh is all smiles as she looks up fondly at her boyfriend. Since she'd learned she'd loved him, she could not stop smiling around him, it seemed.

"But I did nothing for you and yours! How terribly unfair of me!" More kisses. Until she catches a glimpse out of something from the corner of her eye. She lets go of Michel and dashes to the table, only to gasp.

"You made me a cake! And just as I believe cannot love you more!"

"I made you a very ugly cake." He corrected, his eyes gleaming. "And you came here a month after my first year had already ended, you know. Close enough, I think, for that to be considered something special."

He did not need to repeat the reasons, he thought, but Eponine's arrival had been when he had needed a friend the most, and then, as he'd fallen in love with her, he had discovered more about her that he cared for and about, but right then, well. In a lot of ways, she had saved him. Not physically, perhaps, but in other ways besides.

"I...am simply very glad that you are here. Enough to merit some kind of celebration, I think."

"It is a cake, and that makes it beautiful." She moves to find his hand with one of hers, trying to keep the space between them as minimal as possible. The closer they were, physically, the better she felt.

"Yes. Special, then. And happy belated second year anniversary, to you." It was still so strange, to think that he'd been here longer than her, and yet, he died after her.

"You know I cannot imagine this life without you." The hand still at his cheek stroked her thumb across his cheekbone again. "I will be happy so long as I am near you. So, we shall celebrate. with your ugly cake."

An attitude Combeferre was happy to subscribe to, now she mentioned it. He took another step closer as well, bridging that gap completely.

"Ah, thank you. For everything." It was, wasn't it? Time functioned so strangely that way. There had been Enjolras and Marius for so long, and then he and Jehan and Courfeyrac, followed by Bahorel.... Combeferre had no real idea how these things worked anymore, and he supposed that the small details didn't matter so much, in the end.

"I cannot imagine it without you either. Not anymore. And good, yes. That seems the best of ideas to me."

"No, no, my love. Thank you." This time, she brings her hand up to push his hair out of his face, though she did like it all sorts of messy. it made him look more handsome. And rugged, especially if he forgot to shave for a few days.

"I have never had a ship without you. I have had life without you, and I should never want to return to it. My life without you had neither cake nor love, nor even beauty." Oh, but cake means letting go of him.

"Ah but I have never had an Eponine." he points out, smiling as he moves to nuzzle against her, quite happily pressing a kiss first to the end of her nose, and then to her lips. "You gave me reason to continue living here."

"No, I am your first and your only Eponine." She grins into the kiss, wrinkling her nose.

"You give me a reason to continue living at all."

"How strange it is." He said to that, smiling, but looking quite sincere. "That is, in fact, the very thing you've given me."

"How strange indeed." Now it was her turn to lean up and kiss the top of his nose, before leaning against his chest, her ear right at his heart. He wasn't too tall, but everything was taller than Eponine.

"Shall we have ugly cake?"

Combeferre knew the feeling and he quite liked having a girlfriend who he could pull in to cuddle against him. He tucked his head on hers for a moment, and then stepped away, smiling still as he found the cake knife. "I believe that is an excellent idea."

"Good!" Also, Eponine really liked cake.

"Perhaps you should divide it evenly, down the center." Really. Liked. Cake.

"We COULD, you know." Combeferre gave her a conspiratorial grin. Cake WAS amazing, after all.

"I think I like the way you think." He added, grabbing the knife to do just that, then pausing. Ah but Gavroche will be sorry he missed it. Three, perhaps?"

"So we could!" She laughed, bumping her nose against his neck affectionately.

"Three, then. So that he may partake as well. I should hate to deprive my poor growing brother of cake!" Gavroche, now 13, now taller than his sister. "He has become so handsome. He shall break hearts, I fear."

"There is a thought I'd not considered." Combeferre has to laugh, now she's brought it up. "But so he will. He's turning into quite the charmer I'd imagine." A good thought for someday, that Gavroche now has that chance. "I am so glad that we are all here together. Like a family." He does love things like that, after all.

"We-" Eponine stills, looking down. A family. That's what they were, she supposed. Gavroche was her brother, and she never wanted to part with Michel. The two got along famously. Yet...

"No, we are not a family," she admits quietly. That word had only brought her pain before, her free hand moving to the scar on her neck again.

"Not entirely." He agreed, because it was very true they hadn't gotten to that point, although he wished to very much.

"Being Like a family does not mean we are one yet. I would hope someday." He crosses over, noting her hand moving to that scar, which he has often been curious about, certainly.

"I do not, after all, know most things about you yet." He looks toward that scar now, a question in his eyes. "Would you tell me more of your life, should I ask it? Things about that scar, if you are willing? I should very much prefer to know you, all of you that I can. Would you share those with me, do you think?"

"Per-perhaps some day," she stuttered, turning from him just slightly, a hand across her slight waist. Unless they returned to Paris, to their deaths.

Against her better judgement, dark eyes flick up to meet his. "I would, if you were to ask. You know me so intimately, Michel. I cannot imagine you would wish to know of my life before here. But if you ask, I shall tell you anything you wish. For I love you, and I love all of you. Just promise that all I tell you, you will love all of me, too, if you can still."

"I wish to know all of you." He promised, and he meant that entirely. He met those dark eyes squarely, prepared to listen to whatever she had to say. "I know that you have been through so many things, in life, that you were in positions you should never have been. But you know and have understood my darknesses and my past. I could offer you no less."

His arm tightened around Eponine, tugging her into a hug. "I would know you further, when you are ready. Know the stories of your scars and everything that makes you, well, you. I could do little else than that."

She did not face him, even as he pulled her tight, but kept her eyes cast on to the metallic floors.

"The scar on my neck- Michel, in Paris, my father lead a gang. Patron-Minette, I do not know if you have heard of them. One of the men, I had known when I was a much smaller child, in Montfermiel. He stayed on with us for some time, before moving on. It was in Paris that my father found him again, and he began to work for him once more, though this time, his position was much more sinister than cook." She kept her hand at her neck.

"This man, when I was a child, I developed feelings for. He had started as an older brother, but when we were reunited, he was handsome, and I was old enough to know what men and women would do. I..." She'd slept with him, and he'd broken her heart in exchange, a prime reason she refused to trust men, particularly those that showed her such kindness.

"I thought perhaps if I gave him something to drink, he would grow soft towards me again."

He had heard of them, yes, at least a bit. There were certain areas of Paris he'd been advised not to go into, people he'd been advised to stay clear of, and he knew most of them by name alone, except for the beautiful man named Montparnasse who had passed by upon occasion. He nodded as she spoke there, all the same.

"I have heard of them, yes. Well, been warned." He corrected, then fell silent, listening. The scenario sounded familiar enough, even with the ages being a bit...he could not imagine how young she had been then, with her feelings for this man, and when they'd been consummated. The thought made him ache for the girl she had been, and for the suffering it must have brought her in the end if a scar was involved.

"And did he?" He asked softly, even as he feared he knew, and would not like, the answer.

She turned in his arms, no longer having the stomach for cake at all. She just wanted him to be near her. She could tell him tales of every member of Patron-Minette. How she had been due to marry Montparnasse, before all had gone South in Gorbeau House, when she had been arrested. After, without her father, they had no reason to marry, though they continued intimacy, having enjoyed it just as much as their arguments.

But this was not a story about Montparnasse.

"This man- He- he is a rare sort. He does not like to drink, but I thought, perhaps, if his ale was watered down enough..." She laughed darkly. "He knew. He grabbed me, threw me upon the ground, and he had his knife at my throat. i could scare move, Michel, the way he had me pinned." One of his hands had been holding her arms above her head, the other had held the knife, and he'd sat upon her, grinning his cold grin.

"It was the first time I can recall feeling fear from any of these men, Michel. The only time. The glint in his eyes and on his knife and I shook so that he slapped me to get me to still, so he did not slit my throat. But he cut me all the same." Slow and deliberate, all the right places so she wouldn't bleed out, but so that she would have an ugly scar to mar her, to remind her every time she saw herself. To label her as having been with him. To mark her as soiled, dirty property. His property.

Her hand traced along the line again, thick and deep, her voice barely above a whisper as she looked past Michel. "I thought Clacquesous was to have killed me that night."

For now, Combeferre knew that his job was to listen, even as much as he wanted to comfort her. He held her instead, patting her hair and rubbing circles on her back as she told the story, hating the man in it already, even before what he had done to her.

At that point, his eyes widened, and an angry sort of huff escaped through his nostrils as she spoke of being pinned, and the knife straight there, and then, oh THEN. His eyes, usually so calm, were full of fire, mostly the sort of fire seen with Enjolras, when she was finished.

"You are no one's property, and while I dare say he had no right to do it, I know that it did not matter back then." So saying, he reached over, tracing the scar. "Perhaps there is some way that you can take it back from him, make it something of your own, yet. A badge to show that you've survived? But it should never," He repeated, returning to play with her hair, "...Never, ever, have occurred. Should any of them ever end up here, I promise you he would be dead before he ever touched you. Unless you wanted a turn of your own to voice your displeasure with him, of course."

That much he could manage quite well, he reasoned.

The irony here was that neither of them knew what had befallen Clacquesous. How he had been with them on the barricade, shot down by the leader.

At his touch, she shivered, the fire in his eyes causing her to withdraw despite his careful, comforting touch. It was not a look she was used to seeing upon her beloved, and to witness it was an uncertainty. To hear him say such strong words, when she knew only of his peaceful nature (minus the chair) and his gentle touch. It was a stranger sight than she had expected in their lives.

"I did not hate him," she said cautiously. "He was an elder brother when I was a child. Then a man I fancied, a man who showed me how cruel men could be. He taught me much." Among the things he'd taught her, that she was worthless, ugly, and to only expect disappointment in her life. "I fear any one of them would have you killed. Should they arrive, you must promise me not to take action against them." Her own words took on a sterner quality as she reached for his hands, to hold them, to look into his eyes, her own tinged with fear.

Indeed, it was an irony. Had Combeferre known, he might have appreciated Enjolras's actions in that moment instead of simply understanding why his friend had done it and trying to move on, quickly, from the fact he'd seen Right exercised to an extent that it had harmed his friend to do it.

For now, though, he knew only what he did, and what he must do in matters of protecting Eponine. She had not seen him at the barricade, shooting in the beginning stages when there was no doctoring to switch to, and Combeferre was an excellent shot, who hadn't wasted his ammunition. Demons run when a good man goes to war, and there is no doubt that he would make them run again, if he needed that.

There WAS a new fierceness to it, yes, glimpsed at the moments he'd fought the ghostly form of Marius from taking Eponine away with him, but written on his face here, all the same. He did stop though, and listen to her words.

"I can see where you wouldn't." He agreed, thinking of the cousins who had become elder brothers, and had another man who'd been his mentor and then lover so that, if he stretched his imagination very far, he could see what the position might do. "Do you suppose that here and now? On this ship itself? I trust your opinion of the men you knew, but here...the outcome may come out differently still."

Just a thought though.

Eponine frowned, unsure what exactly it was he was asking, unsure of how to answer. "On the ship?" She repeated carefully, treading a fine line, over what she did not know. "I- if you wish me not to, Michel, I would not speak to him. Not speak of him, either." But Clacquesous knew Gavroche, and Gavroche knew him.

Still, Gavroche did not know how the scar came about, nor should he ever. If Eponine had her way, she'd keep him away from all sorts of pain.

"I wonder," he explained, "There are so many on this ship, who would not tolerate behavior so harmful as that. Their power, here, should anyone from your side of Paris arrive would be rather less that there." It would, also, doubtlessly extend to acts of violence he might make against them, but well, it's not a thought for now.

"I only mean to say that I will fight to keep both of you safe from harm, not to issue threats straight away. Just know that I shall do so, must it come to that."

If he got violent against anyone from Patron-Minette, he would not live to tell the tale.

"And I will fight to keep the both of you safe, as well. So I shall tell you nothing, should they arrive." She turned, leaning up to bump his nose slightly with the top of her head. "I know these men." They weren't even here. "And I know you."

True enough. He's willing to risk that death to keep her safe, though he WOULD rather prefer not to go there if it were at all possible. As Eponine spoke, he hated to admit that she was right, but she was right.

"You do, yes." He smiled at the nose bump there. "And I am glad it is a hypothetical so far. Let us both pray it stays that way, don't you think?"

"I am not one for prayer anymore," she confessed, looking up at him with bright eyes. "But I shall hope. Just as I hope nothing or no one takes us away from each other."

If Marius Pontmercy showed up, all bets were off.

Combeferre could see why not, really. He didn't believe , entirely, but there was still a possibility of something out there and he hoped that it was part of what had brought them here and why. He nodded, now, a smile crossing his face.

"Hope then. I think that hope will do just fine."

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Happy Spaceversary!

say hello to the anniversary girl!

Re: say hello to the anniversary girl!

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