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& i'll send it up to see

CHARACTERS: Eponine, Laura and Selina, also you.
LOCATION: All around the place.
WARNINGS: tbd
SUMMARY: catch-all for July!
NOTES: Write your own starter, plurk me or PM me for one, whatever floats your boat! This is super bare-bones to begin with as I assume more will come later.

For the first part of the month, before the jump, Eponine can be found laid up in the med bay, a result of her being, well, herself. Later on, she'll be focusing on trying not to manifest bottles of wine at every opportunity. It takes a lot of work to not be drinking all the time. Not to mention, there's a lot of trying to sort her relationship with Combeferre out. Happy anniversary?

Laura, for her part, can be mostly found in comms working. When she's not there, she's taken to jogging again to keep her health up. Additionally, she's planning a dinner for all of her lovely Colonials. It's about time they had some sort of celebration, don't you think?

As for Selina? She's getting into trouble, figuring out all she can about the Gotham that most people here seem to be familiar with, and oh, right, at target practice. Thanks for the gun, Dean. You are extremely missed.

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For her part, the memories that Eponine had received had not helped the situation at all. she'd been bombarded by memories of blood and bodies. She watched anatomy lessons with corpses and felt the floor rise up to meet her. She'd seen the last few moments of Michel's life at the barricade. She'd seen her own body, placed in the Corinth with the others. She'd seen her brother's body laid out on that table.

And she'd witnessed the earlier revolution. Seen Michel cradling his lover in his arms, watched as he killed him. She'd seen her own death at his hands, more worryingly, a trick of the hallways that had haunted him. And now, Michel knew all of her life. She'd told him some of the horrors, about Clacquesous's knife, her father, men of all walks of life. But now he knew. He'd seen and he knew what sort of woman she was, and how she was treated. How she viewed herself to be worthy of being treated.

The result was damaging, a scared girl of eighteen who's entire life had been built by these men who routinely tore it down. Seeing all of this, she knew Michel was one of the many. He'd do the same. And he would kill her. She could see it now, in the way his eyes had darkened during their trysts. The way he held her, hurt her as they had fucked in the hallway. She still had wounds healing from his teeth and nails. All of this had proven her beliefs, and why she had stilled in his arms as they'd fucked. That he noticed and stopped made no difference to a girl who had just suffered another bullet.

She nodded tensely, looking at the books cautiously, setting the flowers down in her lap. "You have brought me a book on moths." Her typical boyfriend, she knew. Would he have pinned her to the wall, as a moth, when he killed her?

Eponine moved the flowers to the bedside table. "And you bring me nice options." Ironic. Carefully, Eponine brought her legs up to her chin, wrapping her arms around them under the blankets.

"What have you told Gavroche."

Combeferre's memories contained a lot of dead, it was true. Some of them he'd outright killed, others, on their side,who he'd helped along the way. Usually, with gut wounds, the best thing to do had been to simply overdose them on whatever he had at hand for pain, though frequently it hadn't been enough and he'd needed to play triage between those who were likely to live and those who weren't. Alexandre had been one of those, but he had hardly been the first, so far as the revolutions were concerned.

In the hospital, he hadn't quite taken that step, where he would be seen, but he had often wanted to do it, and been torn between aiding someone who would die in pain, or following the instructions to do what could be done,which often wasn't enough. He'd followed the orders,but he'd hated doing it. That had probably been all too clear for Eponine as things had gone along.

By contrast, Combeferre had seen another jail, been vulnerable again, as he had been with Javert all those months ago, but then the horrors had continued. A father who would gladly sell his daughters, the men themselves who Eponine had been forced to accompany...Montparnasse who...he had been especially afraid of Montparnasse. He'd been there with the knife too, felt as though he were the trash on the street and nothing more, understood a bit more about how and why the poor had not responded to their cause a second time, when it had not seemed to make sense. He saw it now, and he had hated it.

With Eponine, there must be time before he did much of anything else, but he was willing to wait it out again, and see what would come. Knowing helped, though he'd be careful in his approaches from now on.

"Ah, not for the moths, this time." He pointed out, "One of my books from Paris. There are colors in some of the pictures, and there are other insects as well. Not quite the most interesting thing to look at alone, but..." He flipped to a picture featuring a bee perched on a purple flower, bright colors a bit faded for their age, but otherwise, still there the same as always. "Some of them are beautiful."

He had, yes. Some books that need not end unhappily or mention much of death in them at all. And a Madame Austen, now that she had been properly translated, among the options.

"Gavroche knows that you are ill, though not quite how. I did not know what you'd wish for him to hear."

"From Paris." The name came out on a sigh as she carefully hunched over the book to better see the pictures. "They're... They truly are beautiful." She traced the outline of the bee and flower with a fingertip carefully, as though she could absorb the beauty simply by touching it. "Thank you, Michel."

And there was more to read even still. She did adore reading, having learned to read and as often as she could, used it as a way to escape the reality she lived in, in Paris. Just as she did when Gavroche had gotten her tickets to the theater.

Sobering, she nods, keeping her eyes on the drawing of the bee, "Thank you. I do... Not know how much I wish for him to hear, either. He must be thirteen now." And to think of how much she'd been through by the time she was his age... "He is not as innocent as I wish to believe. But he is still so young..." Slowly, Eponine raised her head to look at Michel. "Should anything happen, Michel... To me... You must make me a promise. You must promise me that you will look after him. Be as a father to him."

"You are welcome, ma bichette." He answered her. "I wish that there was more of them to show you, a subject other than bugs, but..." He shook his head. "Alas, there are not many other books that managed to come through on the Jumps." He smiled, leaning a bit closer to her as he could, trying to bridge the distance, without being too close to frighten her.

Books had that way of taking you out of many terrible things. Perhaps that was why the medical students had passed around trashy novels, particularly the interns at Necker, where terrible, torrid stories of love affairs, vampires and the like had been popular. It was worth asking.

"I CAN bring stories that may make you laugh as well. There is the most terrible book here, written for younger people. A sort of romantic story involving a unicorn who falls in love with his best human friend." He wrinkled his nose a little. "It is convoluted and strange, but it IS quite amusing."

Sure it was. Combeferre, you have a strange sense of humor. He'd also taken to reading a few other books for young teenagers here, mostly of the sort that were...not very good.

"Today I've brought only stories that I've thought were very good, so they ought to be all right..."

And then the conversation started shifting and Combeferre looked quite serious, his thoughts going from strange books to Gavroche, who, he would admit, he had not spent enough time with lately, or, to be honest, since his arrival here. It was something that Combeferre did mean to fix, and kept neglecting.

"Thirteen. That can be a hard age. Most boys that age could use a father, or at least a brother to speak to about things, to guide them. I would be proud to stand as such for Gavroche."

"I wish there were," she found herself saying wistfully, as she paged through the book on moths. The words were far too complex for her to understand- though she could read, her level was not at Combeferre's- but she as grateful to have it all the same.

"Oh! I should like to read that one, as well. There is not much else to do here, but to read." Read, sleep, look at your life, look at your choices.

Eponine nodded, remembering her life at thirteen. She had fallen for Clacquesous, despite his mockery of her. But she had loved how he had teased her, made her feel like a princess, when he wished, only to tear her down another moment. She'd let herself be seduced by him, to try to bring something more to their relationship. But he'd hurt her so deeply after that. Brought another girl around, prettier than her, and let Eponine know. Found a way to make her see. He told her she'd learned an important lesson about men.

Even now, she still knew it to be true.

She kept her eyes down, pretending to read one of the paragraphs in the book, but the word metamorphosis had her a little flummoxed. "Thank you. He and I have grown closer." Understandably. Eponine had taken Gavroche under her wing as more of a son sometimes, than brother, feeding him, making sure he was alright. When sickness had struck the ship, each time she found her brother first and foremost, brought him into her bed to hold him just so that she would be near him. He'd never had anyone that would do that for him. He would be a shame to lose it.

"I would hate for him to be alone again, when I die." When. Not if. Their deaths were inevitable, both in their past, and their future here.

"Perhaps someone here has found some and would be willing to lend them." Combeferre suggested. "That was talk once, of creating a system to loan out our own paper books. It did not get far but it may be worth checking. I am told they do better work today."

He smiles as she mentions that. That book is something written to appeal to..well, to people in Eponine's age bracket. It might be better as entertainment than something she has to slog through.

"I will see what I can find. And perhaps some others as well. There are whole series of books about so many things. I'll have a look around if you would like?"

He was glad to her that of Eponine and Gavroche, despite everything else that had gone badly here. She had taken on his wellbeing as her own sort of project and it must be so difficult at times, to be so young herself and looking out for him. She would be a good mother, he thought, based on that already.

Not that he was going to say it, and possibly scare her here and now.

He must do the same for Gavroche as she'd done. It was a basis to start from anyway. "I doubt that I can be as good as you for him, but I shall try. Although, I doubt very much that he will be so young when that occurs. We've a good many years ahead of us, I'd think."

Someday, yes, they likely would die. If they returned home, that much was a certainty. And here...wherever they were going, something could eventually show up to do them harm. Death was a part of life that Combeferre had long ago understood, keeping it within his hands and trying to balance it. It would come for them again, and they'd not escaped forever, but...

"Barring something awful, I suspect we have a great many years to see Gavroche grow up and to find some happiness along the way. I'd like to try for that. We'll not leave him alone, I promise you."

Eponine for her part, nods. "I would like that. Thank you." He too care of her. But so had so many others. Before they got her walls down and drove a knife into her, twisting the blade when they could. She was an easy target. Ugly and stupid, with a wild imagination that was desperate for any sort of attention.

She shakes her head, just barely, letting the limp dirty locks of hair fall around her face. "You were better for him than I was, in Paris." All of those that fell at the barricade were better fathers to Gavroche than his own, than Eponine was a sister.

No, to call Eponine a good mother would have been a disaster. She'd found herself in such positions before, with no one to make an honest woman of her. The solution was obvious and painful, but she'd saved a life before it was born. She would not be a mother. Her body would not be able to stand it, nor was she up to the task mentally. What sort of mother would run off and drink three times her body weight?

What sort of mother longed to die?

She closes her dark eyes. "Thank you, again. He is such brightness, I will not see him dull as I have."

It was true that Combeferre did his best to care for her. He tried with so many others too. Of course, his care had sometimes ended...quite the way Eponine described, though not by choice, by any means. It was probably somehow fitting, he supposed, that he had died while trying to care for someone who was wounded. It seemed the sort of thing that happened to Combeferre.

"We tried to be. Bahorel was the best, I think." he smiled at that. "Gavroche is quite the boy. And yes, incredibly bright, even here. That sort of a spirit does not fade easily. I am glad for it."

As far as that went then, it was something Combeferre would not say. He hardly wished to upset Eponine, just to say that she seemed to be doing a fine job of caring for Gavroche. It was something important even if she could not be a mother in the other sense. Still, a good sister was also an important step and one that worked as well as that.

"I will do my best to keep that from happening, of course I will."

"I recall seeing them together," she confesses, sliding back against the pillows. "He deserves a better father than the one he was given." Bernard Thénardier. A crook from the beginning, only getting worse with age. She remembered his face in the lamplight as he scampered off down Rue Plumet, the last time she'd ever seen him. He'd been locked up for so long, and that had been that.

She hadn't missed him. She proclaimed, when Montparnasse and Clacquesous made issue of it, that she was loyal to her father. But the truth of the matter was, she was only so out of obligation, and that had gotten her so far. She should have abandoned him ages ago, when she first thought it odd that she would be asked to sit on men's laps, before he sent her to their landlord with the very first letter.

It was good, she supposed, that she had inherited her mother's looks. Though, there was no mistaking her for her father's daughter.

And to think, the last time she'd seen him, she'd said she wasn't afraid of anything... Even now she could replay that moment over and over again, still hear the way he called her my girl in that awful way that dripped with grime, his hands pawing at her shoulders.

"My girl- 'Ponine, come where are you?" Eponine's eyes flew open and she turned to look at Michel, to ask if he had heard it, too. If he had heard her father's voice here, of all places. Before she could get the words out, she saw him, plain as day. He stood looking out of place in the sterile environment, his back hunched about his shoulders, despite his tall stature. With dirty fingerless gloves, he reached out for her. "There you are- and oh-" his entire demeanor changed as he spotted Combeferre, straightening up and trading his scowl in for a smile. "M'sieur- you've found her! And kept her safe, my sweetest Eponine!"

"Certainly he does," Combeferre agreed. "Someone to help him, and not..." Well. "He is lucky to have a sister who cares so much, but whatever I might do to fill the rest of the gap, I shall." He would try, at least. There was quite a bit that he could pass on to him, even if he thought Gavroche might not necessarily be completely interested.

He did not see how he could be missed, not with everything that he had learned. Loyalty was one thing, and so was fear and obligation, but the rest of it was...no. He'd not blame anyone at all for wanting to forget the man, to make him part of the past no one spoke of.

Eponine had always seemed so unafraid, and maybe that was actually the way of courage, doing the things you feared, and standing up to them. And then...there it was, and he was part of it and not quite... What?

"Monsueir?" He asked, stepping forward so he might protect Eponine. "Of course I have. I would always keep her safe. She deserves at least so much."

"Does she?" Thénardier raised an eyebrow at Michel carefully, before turning to Eponine, eyebrows raised even higher still. The question was not addressed to Michel at all.

"No, father," Eponine managed to say, pulling her blankets up to shield her.

"I see, then, m'sieur- I'm afraid I did not catch your name. My name is Jondrette, and I," here he gave a little bow, taking his cap off. "Am the father of this beautiful young rose." He rose to his feet and moved to Eponine, stroking a long finger against her cheek and playing absent-mindedly with a lock of stringy hair. Eponine turned her face away from her father as much as she could.

"You must know, my dear daughter, sweet 'Ponine, there are many others wishing to court her. Some of them even doctors and lawyers." The words were sickly sweet, falsities and lies hidden behind saccharine sweetness. He said what he thought people wanted to hear, in hopes of hearing what he wanted. And what he wanted to hear was this man offering reasons as to why he should be with his daughter.

Reasons, preferably, of the monetary sorts.

Edited 2015-07-20 03:05 (UTC)

Combeferre had been about to answer that, when he realized what that WAS about and he frowned, hating to see, well, to have it confirmed, what he knew Eponine thought of herself, and to see again where it had come from. And he had been so small before this man, so powerless to stop being sent out with men into the streets, or sent off to ensure that the rent was paid another month, and oh god.

The most horrifying thing, he'd personally thought, as himself, outside of Eponine's memories, was watching the man change from loving father, albeit one who was certainly cheap, and conniving, and all the rest, though Eponine had not known it then, to watch him go from someone he was sure Eponine must have felt safe with, especially when he'd found Madame to be more frightening from a child's perspective.

As an adult, and himself, he could see the ways she had been pulled into the life she'd lead, the Thenardiess. Still a terrible person who had harmed Eponine and Gavroche and their other siblings, but one who had come into it by means she'd probably not been able to control because she was a woman and the world had made her cold and cruel and terrifying. The terror stuck out though, having witnessed her with the Lark, and knowing it may turn on him...on her, Eponine, at any time the woman was displeased. The father had felt like a source of more security and then had changed in such a way...

It was disgusting and disgraceful and most of all made him ill now, but Combeferre made himself smile at the man before him.

"Doctors and Lawyers. Fine company indeed. I am to finish my physician's and surgical degrees in a few month's time." He used the truth from Paris still. "I've been at the Necker, on internship, monsieur. I believe they mean to keep me on when that has ended." In other words, he could compete with them in order to care for Eponine properly, or even, if it was needed, to pay for that privilege, as much as treating her like property disgusted him.

"A few months! Cherie, you have done so well for yourself, haven't you?" Thénardier barely held back a sneer as he continued to stroke Eponine's cheek. Visibly, she cringed, refusing to look at either man as they stood discussing her.

She'd loved this man once. Deep down, she still did. He'd comforted her and played with her as a child, making her feel like a princess. He'd coddled her, let her help him and paraded her around proudly in front of patrons of their inn. But warm touches had turned cold as their bank account closed. But even then, she'd been so young, she loved her father all the same. She remembered him carrying her up the stairs to their first new apartment in Paris, her legs wrapped around his waist, arms around his neck as he introduced her to the one-room apartment. He'd set her down, beamed, and promised her the best in the world.

"And I promised you the best in the world, didn't I, my girl?" He asked, as though reading her mind. Placing his hand down on her shoulder, he focused his attention on Combeferre.

"Well then, dear Doctor I suppose this does make you quite the match for my dear." But. "But I simply can't my pride and joy waltz off with a man. I'm sure you understand. She is so sweet to me, and it would disappoint her many other suitors. A few have already asked for her hand. And I only wish to see the best for my girl. Tell me, m'sieur doctor, have you fucked her?" His tone became less jovial and took on a more sinister edge.

"Father- do not," Eponine breathed, reaching out for him, but he slapped her hand away. "He loves me and I love him. Do not do this. Not to him."

Thenardier turned back to his daughter, leaning in close to her ear. "Shut up, girl. You'll make me a wealthy man yet, for all the good your cunt has done." He moved away just barely, smiling as though he hadn't said anything awful to her at all. "I'm afraid you would not be the first. She's a whore, this one. Not worth a penny, she's so worn out."

Whatever his plan was, Eponine seemed to know. Tear her down yet build her up in the eyes of Michel. Make him believe he was playing hero to her, and by doing so, paying her father for the privilege of keeping her. Keeping the true nature of his intended away from those who would care. Pay for the silence. And pay for him to keep his hands away from her. That was all Bernard Thenardier cared about: money.

"Perhaps you would be interested in my other daughter. She's fairer than this one by far."

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& i'll send it up to see

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