Work Text:
1. When Jean Valjean takes Cosette from the Inn that night, he also rescues Eponine, for reasons unknown even to himself. With two small girls to raise and protect instead of just one, he decides it would be better for them to leave Paris. Using some of his fortune they immediately depart across the sea, heading for England and away from Javert.
2. Fortune and the luck of the bold shine down on the Thenardier family, bringing them untold riches, enough that they do not seek opportunities elsewhere. Eponine grows up to take over the family business after her parent’s death.
3. When they first meet, Marius sees beneath the layers of grit and grime and recognises that Eponine could be a beautiful girl with a little care, attention and soap. So he makes it his mission in life to turn her into who she should have been, falling for the witty and spirited girl in the process. Marius doesn’t fall out with his grandfather or get caught in the revolution as he has a wife and baby-on-the-way to look after.
4. As Eponine climbs the barricade, the National Guardsman aiming for her, hesitates minutely, throwing the bullet off target, sending it searing a burning trail across her side rather than into her body. The students of Les Amis patch her up and although her spirit is willing to rejoin the fight, her malnourished and emancipated body just can’t cope. Marius is elected to take her to safety to his flat and, as ordered by Enjolras, stays with her while the battle rages on outside.
5. Eponine couldn’t believe that she was with child, Montparnasse’s child to be exact, now she would never be free of his or her parent’s clutches.