filleauloup | The Streets of Fandom, Monday Evening

Well, the weather was doing strange things again and, as usual, Éponine was out in it. She was distinctly not happy about this, particularly since her work shift was over and she had someplace warm and . . . well, 'dry' wasn't exactly a concern right now, but she hadn't been able to pass up the price she was offered for a private delivery. It was far from the worst thing she'd ever had to do for money, anyhow.

At least, that was what she'd been telling herself at the beginning of the day. By evening, now that she'd been pelted with enough bits of metal that she was sure she'd have bruises despite her coat, and she'd heard her own voice coming from those bits of metal more times than she'd like (not that she remembered saying half those things) she was somewhat less convinced.

"A fine job, keeping lookout barefoot in the snow!" came from the fairly sizable cog that bounced off her shoulder and fell into her mailbag. Éponine suppressed a grimace, fished the thing out, and tossed it away unceremoniously before continuing on her way.

[OOC: Yeah, I couldn't pass up yet another opportunity to use my rain icons. Or to take advantage of the random event for my own nefarious purposes. >.> Personal-journal-ed for nefariousness; open, though, after the initial thread!

ETA: As a warning, the thread in this post contains several references to past abuse.]

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Cosette had just come from the mainland, where she'd had dinner with her father; he had, as she'd expected, wanted to know all about how her first few days had gone and how she was settling in, and although he would never admit it she could tell he was lonely without her around. She would have to teach him how to use a phone soon, which made her all the more determined to master the things as soon as possible herself.

Besides, she missed him too.

Of course, now that she was back on the island she had to deal with the curious weather, which she hadn't been able to explain at dinner. (Luckily, the weather phenomenon was limited to the island, or Jean Valjean might have found himself in a very sticky spot, should a falling piece of clockwork blurt out something inopportune.) There wasn't much about the fragments of her own voice so far that had been terribly remarkable -- a few snippets here and there of her singing, some conversations with her father, moments with her schoolmates back at the Petit Picpus convent. Cosette paid them very little mind.

Then a falling spring lodged itself in her hat and wouldn't come loose, so that she very clearly heard her own voice at eight years old, asking, "Is it true, is it true, monsieur? Is the lady for me?"

She remembered very little about the night her father had come to take her away from Montfermeil, but that particular moment stood out clearly in her mind. Staring at the doll Father held out to her, disbelieving and overjoyed, wanting more than anything to take it but terrified that if she so much as moved in its direction she would bring Madame Thénardier's wrath down upon herself.

Cosette froze in her tracks, caught by surprise, as if the memory had brought her back to that moment.

Éponine, for her part, was preoccupied with trying to pick bits of clockwork out of her mailbag and wouldn't have bothered to take notice of anyone standing around on the sidewalk if not for the brass winding key that slipped out of her fingers and landed at her feet.

She sighed, bent to scoop up the key, and in straightening to fling the thing away somewhere looked up and saw the girl. She was illuminated faintly in the light of the streetlamps, not quite clearly enough for Éponine to make out her features, but something about her seemed very familiar. Éponine slipped a little further into the shadows and kept watching.

No. No, no, no.

Cosette hadn't yet moved from the spot where she was standing, and she was unaware of anyone's presence nearby. She tried to think of those early years of her life as some sort of void, a confusing and vague nightmare full of spiders but little more than a dream, but here in the deepening darkness of the evening, hearing her own voice made that nightmare just a little more real.

Another bit of metal, this time with gear teeth, fell to the ground beside her.

"They leave me alone. But I don't have many toys. Ponine and Zelma won't let me play with their dolls."

She firmly tried to tell herself that she was being silly, but she couldn't quite muster the resolve to keep moving.

This girl was younger than the one she remembered, more of a schoolgirl than a fine young lady, but there it was: the confirmation Éponine hadn't wanted. Which, she thought bitterly, meant that it had probably been inevitable.

Because of course it was inevitable that Cosette should end up here, should get the classes and the castle to live in while Éponine only looked on from outside. Again. Well, served her right for being stupid enough to hope.

"You oughtn't to be out here," she spoke up in the darkness, confident that her harsh voice wouldn't be recognizable. "Weather like this won't be very kind to your pretty little face."

What was she doing? She had no idea whether she wanted to scare Cosette off or help her.

Bizarrely, that was exactly the jolt Cosette needed to snap out of her haze before despair got the better of her.

"I should think I'm old enough to know how to take care of myself," she said, sounding mildly offended as she squinted into the darkness past the streetlamp.

Éponine laughed harshly. "No doubt, you've done awfully well for yourself, haven't you? It isn't everyone who has your luck."

Right on cue, another piece of clockwork fell from the sky.

"We've had an education, my sister and I. We weren't always what we are now."

Scowling in the darkness, she kicked it away.

"How you talk, as if you know anything about me," Cosette exclaimed, but some of her indignation was blunted by what she'd just overheard from the falling clockwork. She hadn't made any kind of conscious connection between 'my sister and I' and the 'Ponine and Zelma' from her younger self's earlier words, just a mild and indescribable sense of unease.

Another piece of clockwork fell, and with it came the younger Cosette's voice, shrill and terrified: "Forgive me! Madame! Madame! I won't do it anymore!"

"What is it to me whether somebody picks me up tomorrow on the pavement of the Rue Plumet, beaten to death with a club by my own father?" Éponine's voice demanded from the bit of metal that fell a split second later.

Éponine moved out of the shadows into the circle of lamplight, but only partway.

"Perhaps I do," she said, watching Cosette for any sign of recognition.

There was no such sign -- it would have been a good year and a half later that she and her father would have visited the Jondrette garret, completely unaware of who they were really dealing with -- but Cosette couldn't stifle a sharp gasp of surprise. Could you blame her, when someone had appeared out of nowhere so suddenly it was as if this figure had just formed out of the shadows?

Either way, she definitely wouldn't have recognized Éponine; the vague memories she had of the Thénardier sisters were of two neat, pretty, and spoiled children, impossibly irreconcilable with the somewhat haggard-looking girl glaring at her with bloodshot eyes.

"You haven't the slightest idea about me," she insisted. The assumption of familiarity sparked her indignation, and that was good; better to be angry than to give in to the (very real) terrors of her childhood. "I don't know what you think you're playing at, but I won't have anything to do with it. Good evening."

Maybe it was time to get inside after all, before this silly metal rain upset her any further; Cosette paused just long enough to give the girl a sarcastically polite nod before turning sharply and hurrying back toward the school.

Éponine watched her go, torn between visceral satisfaction and a sense of guilt that was, in her opinion, absolutely stupid.

"She's likely to get lost," she commented to herself in a low voice, "new here and all, and running around in the dark." Maybe she ought to follow Cosette, and make sure she got back to the school all right? Maybe. After a minute or two she started along the same route Cosette had taken, intent on doing just that.

But what would be the point of that? Some kind of self-imposed penance?

It was stupid of her to even try, so after two or three blocks she broke off and doubled back toward home.

The Streets of Fandom, Monday Evening

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