35Author's Note: I apologize for taking so long to get this finished (rewrote and edited the ending more times than I can count, because there were so many ideas I could end with, but decided to go with this one). Thank you to all who read this and stuck with it, and thank you for all the encouraging reviews!
Also, to answer the question of the Guest who asked why Enjolras has to take medication, it's because he has hypertension (also known as high blood pressure). (While writing this, I spent quite a bit of time researching the subject, and at the same time, found out it runs on my father's side of the family.) It's a common condition that could lead things such strokes, heart disease, and related conditions. Though there are many forms of it, the type he has is referred to as "primary hypertension," which is known to be caused by a variety of factors such as age, weight, lifestyle, and genetics. As long as one follows their doctor's recommendations, it's a fairly manageable condition to live with, but one does have to be careful with what they eat, manage their lifestyle accordingly, try not to get too stressed, and take their medications (all of which depend on the severity of the condition itself).
Again, thank you so much for all of your support. Enjoy!
A week passes, and he has not yet spent anything longer than fifteen minutes outside of the room, away from her side. Their friends have come and gone now and again. Combeferre stopped by the apartment and brought him a few sets of clothes so he would not be wearing the same thing every day, while Joly made sure he bathed ("It's been how many days?!"). Cosette has come by, carrying drawings little Sophie has made for him and Éponine. Azelma has stopped by a few times on the way to work, offering words of comfort (seeking some of it herself), and asking him if he has heard anything new.
A couple days before, in the middle of the night, he had woken up to the sound of one of the machines practically screeching in his ears. He had looked up in the direction of one of the monitors, and saw that one of the lines had gone horrifically straight.
The next thing he knew, he was being pulled from his seat and out of the room, then watching Joly speed-walk towards him from the opposite end of the hall, a look of fear upon his face. Enjolras had turned around and looked into the room, watching many figures work hurriedly around her. Joly had stood by him the entire time, to not only prevent him from trying to rush into the room as he had done when Natalie had done the same, but perhaps to provide someone to turn to if what they feared most occurred.
Even after she is stabilized, he had remained frozen in shock, his eyes not leaving her out of his sight.
He cannot remember being lead back to the chair, only that one minute, he was watching her from the outside and the next he was back at her side. He does not recall the murmuring of the doctor and nurses opposite from him.
"Enjolras, it's…it's okay." Joly tells him with a wavering voice that slightly eases him out of the shock. "Enjolras, can you hear me?"
He responds with an exhale and a small nod of the head, only then followed by Joly's repetition of the latter phrase growing more panicked yet fainter at each passing second. The figures around him start to blur, features start to blend beyond the point of recognition.
"Enjolras, are you all right?" Joly asks quickly with alarm, placing his hands upon his shoulders as if to direct his focus. He tries to look the doctor in the eye to offer a response, but he cannot find the means to do so, before darkness surrounds him.
He tries not to think about that day, tries to put it out of his mind. He knows he nearly lost her a few times before the first time he saw her following the accident, but seeing that flat-line in front of his eyes put the concept too close for comfort.
Combeferre had suggested to him earlier that maybe he should consider going back to work, to provide a sort of distraction while they waited for any indications of when Éponine would wake up, if she ever would. He agreed with his friend that it would be a way to keep the negative thoughts from pestering him, but at the same time, in the back of his mind, there was the fearing of Éponine passing without him being there, a mistake he was not willing to make twice.
Joly had been by the room every so often the past few days while making his rounds. He would rarely enter the room, having other places to be, but Enjolras would look up from time to time to see his reflection in the window.
"She will make it through." he says to himself in a whisper, the words meant to help him think positively. "She'll survive this; you know she will."
The last time he slept in an actual bed (not including the minor health scare Joly had feared had been a result from his hypertension when he had passed out following the flat-lining incident) was the night before the accident, despite the offers of borrowing a mattress from one of the other rooms and bringing it to her room for him to sleep on. He has not slept well in the chair he has been sitting in for days, but for him to sleep at all is better than nothing.
His tired blue eyes occasionally flicker over to the machines, daring the monitors to show a flat line on their screens. He is well aware the monitors are not in control as to what actually happens, but he feels that if he indeed neglects to at least glance at them every once and awhile, it will encourage the worst.
Two weeks after the accident, things finally begin to look in her favor. The number of machines and monitors in the room gradually lessen, and he's told that it should not be long before she wakes up, that it's only a matter of time. In his mind, though, he feels it too early to get his hopes up, just in case.
Three weeks after the accident, he returns to work, going through the countless stacks of paperwork that have materialized during his absence. He spends every night that week prioritizing each one before putting it away. He lessens his visits to hospital from 24/7 to roughly three to four hours a day, and asking if there have been any changes. He gets little in response, almost equivalent to the amount of sleep he has gotten the past few weeks.
It's Azelma, along with Combeferre and Joly, who makes him pause a bit to rest, who makes sure he eats and takes his medication, who asks when he sat still for five minutes to breathe.
"You know Éponine would not want you to be tiring yourself out like this." she would remind him during his daily visit to the hospital. "Behaving like this isn't good for you, not good for anyone."
He knows she's right, but he would be too stubborn to admit it, and that would be something Éponine would call him out on. Éponine would be the one distracting him after spending hours on the work he brought home with him, making sure he had at least a few decent hours of sleep. She would be making sure he did not get all worked up, making him relax for even just a few minutes…
She can't do that now, not with the state she's in, at least.
Azelma is no Éponine, but right now, his sister-in-law is the closest thing he has to her. She isn't as stubborn or as fiery as the latter, but she is persistent and hopeful, something he attributes as likenesses to her sister. Life, after all, has never exactly been kind to the Thenardier sisters, between their parents being arrested while they were in their teens and their brother dying before their very eyes.
"Éponine, she practically raised us, Gav and me." Azelma reminds him during one of her visits. "She dropped out of her first year in college just to make sure we would not end up as a part of the system, worked three to four jobs at a time to make ends meet…She took care of us better than our own parents."
He has heard the story many times before, from Éponine, from Azelma, from Combeferre and Marius. He has been informed that the Thenardiers were not exactly the type of folk you wanted to be associated with in any shape or form. Them being thieves and then being arrested for their crimes caused their offspring to be put to shame. When Éponine became Azelma's and Gavroche's legal guardian, she was quick to make sure they had nothing to do with their parents, a task that wasn't easy. While Azelma and Gavroche were often picked on in school, Éponine was constantly under the watchful eyes of her employers, just in case the daughter of a wolf carried the same tendencies as her parents.
"So I have heard." he replies, trying to imagine what a life like that would be. He knew what it was like not to have parents in his life, but beyond that, there was little similarity. He did not have to struggle against a harsh reputation set up by his family, and try to prove society wrong. He was raised in the higher end of the middle class, while Éponine and her siblings were living between the bottom of the middle class and absolute poverty.
Almost a month after the crash, there has been little change in his wife's consciousness since the night of the crash, between the notes of the doctors and his own observations. The scratches upon her skin from shattered glass have almost healed, leaving faint lines behind. Her left arm is no longer in a sling. Whatever injuries she had otherwise, they've repaired, too.
He's just waiting for her to wake up.
Late one afternoon, he finds himself walking through a familiar forest of stones, wrapped in a black coat and a red scarf draped around his neck. There is the crunch of snow underneath his feet, and some distant dark clouds to the north, signaling more of it to come overnight. For the first time in three years, this is a trek he is making alone, and at a time way earlier in the year than normal.
He stops once again at his parents' stone, murmuring a few words of loss and hope, discussing the recent happenings in his life. He is not alone, in this large stretch of ground where lost loved ones lie beneath his feet. He believes they are somewhere near, that wherever they are, the souls of his parents hear him, and though they may not answer him in words, the thought of them listening is enough to bring him some comfort. Before moving on, he places a pair of pink carnations in front of the stone.
The next stone he stops by is Rosalie's, and he tries to think of words to say to his late daughter, only instead to feel the formation of tears in his eyes. She would have been starting kindergarten in a little over a year, and the image of a little girl with black hair and pale blue eyes with a small backpack upon her shoulders comes to mind. He cannot believe that is an image that will never be. He whispers, "Goodbye," as he fights the tears and places a single marigold in front of the stone.
He pays a brief visit to Gavroche's grave, trying to figure out what to say to him. He had barely spoken to him when he had been alive, being too focused with his own thoughts to even take notice of his sudden absence, or the sudden silence of Grantaire and Courfeyrac the same year he lost Rosalie and Natalie. He then begins to talk about his sisters, and how they have been since his last visit to the cemetery with Eponine a bit less than two months before.
As the sun begins to set over the horizon, he brings himself to Natalie's grave, and places a dark crimson rose on top of the stone.
He does not know exactly what he says there for the next half hour, much of it resembling rambling, at least to him. He knows that generally, his words fall into three categories: "I miss you," "I do not know what I should do," and "What am I supposed to do?" He does not know if he is asking her for help beyond the grave, or just a bit of simple advice, or perhaps even some sort of sign.
He then questions how he has managed the past five, six years, with such a feeling on his shoulders. His friends certainly helped him through it, but what else? The thought the time heals all wounds? To him, the statement is basically a lie. Yes, the pain lessens as time goes on, but even once they heal, the scars remain.
By the time he realizes he does not have much more to say, he is sitting on the ground, red in the face from working himself up and the bitter freezing air. His gloves are cold and wet from the few times he had dug his hands into the snow in the midst of confusion, grief, and frustration. He feels lost, full of helplessness, and perhaps the worst of it, desperate.
It takes about five minutes for him to regain the control of his emotions, taking deep, slow breaths, counting to ten here and there. After that, he rises to his feet, and takes one more look at the stone.
By the times he leaves, he can see the beginning of frost forming on the rose's dark crimson petals.
Time spent at home, alone, without Eponine, is slowly spent. What usually catches his interest on the television no longer entertains him, and he probably only spends five minutes on the couch and flickering through channels before pressing the 'Off' button on the remote. The files brought home from work that he was going to work on for a head start lay untouched.
The apartment is eerily quiet, with the exception of the faint ticking of the bathroom's wall clock. In the silence, he can hear his own breathing, hear his own heart pounding in his chest. He can hear the creaking of footsteps in the apartment above his head, and the murmurs of music from the one below.
Entering the bedroom to an empty bed is a sight that bothers him more than he thinks it should. He is so used to entering that room with her already in bed, her brown eyes scanning the pages of her latest read or glaring at him from unintentionally waking her. He misses the warmth of her against him, and now her side of the bed is empty and cold.
He wakes up the following morning in routine, grabbing his cup of coffee and the manila folders before heading off to work. There, it's many hours going through file after file before being told he can leave for the night, before he makes his daily visit to the hospital.
He has the route from the entrance of the building to her room memorized, that's it is near to the point where he can make the trek blindfolded. Very rarely does he glance through the windows of some of the other rooms as he walks by, unless he notices Joly or Combeferre, which then results in a silent greeting, before they return to their own business.
As it has been, Eponine still lays silent and still on the bed, a sight the pains him every day with every visit. He tries to think positively, that she will come back to him, and that this nightmare will finally be over. For now, though, she is currently in-between darkness and light, and all he can do is wait.
Once in a while, he swears he sees the slight twitch of her fingers, but he doesn't let his hopes get too high at such a faint sign.
However, after two hours go by, he feels a tight grip on his hand, a sign meant for comfort, and for a moment, he thinks it's Combeferre, Joly, or Azelma, that they somehow managed to sneak into the room without his notice. His eyes flicker to where one of the three might be standing, only to see there is no one there.
He then turns his head, expecting to see his wife still unconscious, only instead, brown meets blue.
"Enjolras?" he hears her voice croak, after having been silent for so long. "Luc?"
"Yes?" he responds, trying to prevent his voice from shaking or to stop the tears from forming in his eyes. He is struggling to hide the relief he feels after finally having heard her voice again for the first time in over a month. After all that's happened to both of them in past years, he is grateful to see that she came out of this alive.
"Is…is everything alright?" she asks, as her half-open eyes scan the room. "What happened?"
Though a bit hesitant, he tells her of the horrific event that occurred the month before. He tells her that he was afraid of losing her, gently saying that he almost did. He mentions that everyone has visited every now and then, how Combeferre, Joly, and her sister took extra attention in making sure he took care of himself during her unconsciousness. She tells him how she barely recalls the event, that she remembers driving, a slight amount of panic, a flash of light, then nothing at all.
"I suppose that's a good thing, though, that I do not remember feeling any pain." Eponine says, shrugging her right shoulder slightly. "However, I wish I didn't frighten you like that."
"It was an accident." Enjolras replies, placing his free hand on top of hers, which still gripped his other hand. "And that's all there is to it. No reason for any sort of apology."
"You had to go through the fear of losing someone again." she says with a trace of grief in her voice. "I hate that you had to go through that…again..."
"Eponine, forget that, please." he tells her, his hands returning to his lap. "All that matters is that you're alive, and that's all I could ask for."
For an early August day, one would expect the heat to be near unbearable. However, on this particular day, such is not the case, with rain pounding down on his windshield while traffic on the highway has come to a standstill, most likely due to an accident up ahead. That, or there was more traffic than the roads and stoplights could hold.
Of all days, at all times, it had to be during the week at the time of rush hour. At least it's not snowing, he thinks as he remembers it is only the matter of a few more months until he has to deal with the fluffy white stuff making the already dangerous roads worse.
Normally, it would be almost dark during his commute home, voluntarily staying at work a few more hours to look through the files that have made it to his desk. Today, however, proved to be quite different.
He had been half-way through one of the few files that had remained on his desk when his phone went off. Fear began to set in when he noticed the number on the screen, the same number that dares to make an appearance on the screen to deliver what is never good news.
When he had answered, he had expected the worse, told to him by a stranger whose face he would never see. Not this time, though. Instead, it was the fast-paced voice of Cosette on the other end.
He had told her to calm down and speaking slowly, her first words to him barely undistinguishable from one word to the next. It took a few tries before he was able to comprehend what she was saying. Not even ten minutes later, though, after a word with his boss, he was out the door, about to make the same drive he took roughly eight months ago.
The drive is slow, at a snail's pace, and he is doing what he can to remain calm; tapping the edges of the steering wheel with his fingertips, changing the radio stations, adjusting the volume of the speakers, taking deep breaths and counting to ten, anything to keep his anxiety down.
After what feels like forever, the speed of traffic begins to pick up, and it takes about two minutes to see the accident that caused the slowdown. Though it's unfortunate that it happened, he is grateful that none of the cars involved are familiar.
When he reaches the hospital, it does not take long for him to find a parking spot, and without wasting any more time, dashes into the building. Cosette and Jehan meet him at the door, the former briefing him with the latest information she can provide, before leading him down the hall.
"He isn't going to make it, is he?" he can hear a familiar panicked yet tired voice ask from not too far away.
"Breathe, Eponine." he hears Azelma tell her comfortingly. "He is not going to miss this, I promise you."
Not even a quarter of a minute after that passes before he reaches the room. He sees his sister-in-law dabbing a cloth on his wife's forehead, Eponine heaving a sigh of relief the instant he walks through the door. He makes the apology of not being there sooner immediately, before mentioning that the weather and traffic were terrible.
"…but I'm here now." he finishes, his wife squeezing his hand tightly. A part of him expects her to reprimand him for worrying her like that, but he is glad she doesn't, with her having to put her focus on the difficult task ahead.
"It's not going to be much longer now." Azelma informs him as she switches from dabbing her sister's forehead to handing her a small glass of water. "From what I heard, as long as things remain as they should, the little one should here a little after midnight."
He nods in reply, taking a deep breath. Eight months ago, he was still waiting for his wife to wake up, and even after she had, apparently life was not finished causing him worry yet.
Not even a day had gone by since Eponine had woken up before the pair had been told that they were expecting, the pregnancy only being about eight weeks along. Eponine had instantly replied by asking if they were serious, all while he remained frozen. Both were surprised by the news, and though he was happy about it, there was that bit of fear that crawled from the back of his mind to remind him what happened the last time he had been in the situation.
"Luc, is everything alright?" she asks him with concern once the two of them are alone. She has to repeat the question two more times before he registers that she was speaking to him, his eyes blindly staring at the wall while his mind was drowning in thoughts and memories.
"Yes…" he answers, his reply not at all reassuring. "Everything is fine."
"Are you sure about that?" she looks at him skeptically. "You have not said anything that I can believe to be true."
He exhales deeply before forming a reply. "Am I happy about it, is that what you mean? I am, believe it or not, especially after how I nearly lost you a month ago, on top of the fact that it would not be easy for you to have children. Am I scared? I would be lying if I said I wasn't."
The room becomes eerily quiet and still, the only sounds being the hectic daily activities of the hospital. Her eyes flicker in his direction, her hand grazing her still-flat stomach, something he notices out of the corner of his eyes while his gaze is directed towards the floor.
"It's because of Natalie and Rosalie, isn't it?"
He doesn't answer, not with words, and he knows his silence is enough to give her an answer.
He holds her hand through the entire ordeal, ignoring the pain in his hand as she tightly holds on. Words of encouragement and the comfort of his presence are all he can offer her for now.
While witnessing the pain Eponine is going through, his mind flashes back to what happened those years ago. He recalls Natalie, once strong and healthy, steadily growing weaker as months past, then her health's steep decline during the pregnancy that resulted in her premature death and their daughter's birth. He remembers standing by her one moment, stroking her hair before those machines began to scream, and then watching her fade behind a pane of glass.
He is well aware this time is different, that Eponine is not going to fade, not like that. She is in good health, the doctors told him so, after the ordeal in which he nearly lost her. She could handle carrying the child without there be too many risks on her health. In Natalie's case, having a child only caused the disease to progress quicker, and he has begun to reason that the eventual could not have been avoided.
To look back eight months ago, even a few years ago, he would not have been able to guess that he would be where he was today, in more ways than one. He never considered getting married after what had happened with Natalie, never considered having a family with anyone else. With Eponine, he was not expecting to become a father again, after she had told him it would not be easy for her to have children because of the incident that resulted in the loss of her brother. Then, with the accident…he thought he might have had to say goodbye.
And yet…after all this time, after all that has happened, it leads him to this.
"It's too early." Eponine reminds him. Behind her voice is pain and worry, and he understands, but keeps his fretting to a minimum. Thirty-five weeks is a bit early, yes, compared to the usual forty, but there are worse things, worse timings and situations, they could be in right now, and that is something he knows a little too well.
"It will be alright." he says soothingly to reassure her. Please, let everything be alright, he keeps to himself as his eyes glance upward, as if searching for the higher power he once believed in. It's almost all he says in head throughout it.
The hours, though seemingly long, go by in a blur. What words are spoken, and by whom, is not one-hundred percent clear. Only the tones: sincere, calming, panic, helpful, and hopeful.
Yet…at the sound of a newborn's cry, it all stops.
He glances at Eponine, who is quite tired out from the ordeal, and rightfully so, before he releases the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. His eyes look in the direction at the foot of the bed, trying to see the child, as Eponine sits up a bit to try and do the same.
Barely a few more minutes go by before Eponine is holding their child, their little girl, in her arms, and he stands close by, not leaving the side of the bed for even a moment. The newborn is fast asleep, swaddled in pale pink blanket, as Eponine keeps her close, her hand gently moving the parts of the blanket that obscure the view of the child's face.
He does not know how much time goes by in the silence and awe before Eponine breaks the trace.
"Luc?"
He does not respond immediately, his mind somewhere lost while looking at the newborn and thinking about how it would have been to see Natalie and Rosalie in the same way. The latter, he shouldn't be thinking about, that doing so is only in vain. Eponine and their little girl is what exists now, the other two only memories that would never be anything further.
"Yes?" his turns his attention to her, his eyes still occasionally glancing at their daughter.
"The past few months, I know, have not been easy for you." Eponine begins, carefully moving one of her arms as to not disturb the newborn and places her free hand on his shoulder. "And it would be wrong to think that Natalie and Rosalie never came to your mind at least once. I know they have, for more reasons than I could possibly count.
"I know you haven't forgotten them, and I won't force you to. Do not think you need to hide from me on the subject." She turns her head towards their daughter at the faint sound of a whimper. "They were a part of your past, and the past is just as important as the future and now."
He nods curtly, his gaze having drifted to the floor as the realization of being caught. "I'm sorry."
"There is nothing to be sorry about." Eponine removes her hand from his shoulder and returns to cradling their daughter. "And know that there isn't any wrong in thinking about them, okay?"
"Okay." He wraps an arm behind her shoulders, smiling a bit as the newborn lets out a tiny yawn.
There is another period of silence before either of them speak again, the couple watching their child sleep peacefully in her mother's arms.
"Natalie Rose." Eponine breaks the silence once more in a quiet voice. "Natalie Rose Enjolras. What do you think?"
"Pardon?"
"Her name, Luc. I know we were talking about seeing what name fit best when we saw her face, and though I do not believe either came up," she glances up at him. "I think it fits."
"Natalie Rose?" A part of him is surprised by the suggestion, and at the same time, he feels a sense of warmth, of memory. A way of remembrance of the past, as how parents sometimes name their children after them or those before them. Now, a similar scenario is implied, but not on the same exact terms.
"You do not have to agree with me, Luc." Eponine reminds him before their little girl starts to stir in the blanket. "I'm sure we could come up with something else."
He shakes his head, a smile forming upon his face.
"No, it's…I agree with you." He places a light kiss on his wife's forehead. "Natalie Rose it is."