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[Here is a very squinty look as Combeferre looks out, er... tries to look out at the network, anyway.]

It having been a long several weeks, this may not be the best of times to ask some medically related questions, but I have been getting my headaches...migraines, you call them, in the future, with more frequency since my spectacles were, ah, destroyed in the corridors a while ago by what I think was meant to be a ghost of my...

[What exactly IS Marius to him, right now? Combeferre had never liked the man so much as he had been completely baffled by him, a bafflement that had lead to his giving Marius a cooler reception than he probably deserved, and he had wanted to like the man for a while, even here. That was, up until Eponine, and, while he will not say that Marius should have returned Eponine's love (particularly as that would leave him minus a girlfriend), he does believe that the younger man still ought to be worked harder to be kind to her, and he certainly was annoyed enough with ghost Marius to attack him, anyway. And then, he'd been just plain angry, and, well, it is a complicated situation, he supposes.]

Well, a ghost from my past, I think it suffices to say, and that has really nothing to do with my question. I've been having problems without my spectacles of any rate, and I have been wondering about...is there some way to create a new pair here, or to do the laser procedure I've found mentioned in some of the medical books I have been looking over, lately?

There IS still the method of waiting and seeing if a jump is kind to me, but if it cannot happen, I would be curious if there is anything else that might help me as well.

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I have never slept well. But you, my sweet, make it much better.

You love me so much. [She's in awe of it]

I do, indeed. You have been...

[It's hard to find the exact words now, to describe it, even at this point in time.]

You saved me from myself. And showed me there is still good here, and it is to be found in you. It makes many things better.

Hush. There was nothing you needed saving from.

It was you who saved me.

Even before Enjolras had vanished, I had lost, well, a good deal many things I think I have found again. Most senses of joy and happiness, and my ability to manage anything in this world. It was very like the winter before a brighter spring.

I think that you are spring to me, if that makes sense at all. New life, new happiness. You did more saving than you know.

I would have likened myself to autumn.

But I will be your spring.

In a way, that works as well. Perhaps you are my every season, since I've missed them here. In you, there is a hint of everything that I have missed from home. Maybe you have returned them to me instead, yes?

A season! No, you silly man, I am a girl. I do not bring rain or snow. I certainly do not bring the sun. But if I remind you of those things? I shall let that be.

And who says that you cannot be both of those things, hmm? It is a bit poetic for me, I suppose. And Jehan would likely laugh at my attempts, but you...

[here, he is pausing, and then kissing Eponine.]

You are a world, of possibility and life, and love, and I am fortunate to have and learn all of these things of you. Will that do?

A girl is not a world, my sweet. [But his words have her smiling. Warmth had crept over him since he arrived in her life, her toes never able to sit still in their shoes. Her cheeks seemed to ache from smiling at him.]

Perhaps we, the two of us, together make a world. And in that we will explore together.

I would like that, our own world.

[He's smiling too, sliding an arm around her to draw her close against him.

Somewhere where it might be simply us for a little while. For time to just be.

[She snuggles against him]

Yes, that would be nice.

Wouldn't it though?

[He's carding a hand through her hair, paying particular attention to the ends, which he's curling around a finger a bit.]

A place where only we need know our wildest dreams, and where even the maddest things can seem quite real. Our bit of fancy, when we need to escape the real. It is all rather wonderful.

[Her hair is easy to run through now, in far better shape than it had been before.]

Yes, just the two of us. No one shall be allowed in without our permission. Our own private home, where we can have everything we have ever imagined.

Yes. It would be lovely to have one of those again. We can argue about the paint and curtain colors, and cook far away from microwaves. It would be great!

I have never had a house. Not a proper one, no. My home was an inn, then the streets and apartments and stables. I would like to argue about such silly things like paint and curtains.

[she kisses his neck softly] I believe I love you, Michel.

I have lived in them, before school, and then, Paris, but never one that I had. My uncle and his wife were good to us, when Mama and I came to stay with them, and my cousins were...it was good for me to grow up among them, but there was always...

I suppose, I understood that it, that we were different somehow, if that makes sense? They would have never asked for us to leave, but there was always the idea they might. It makes for an awkward situation sometime, being the slightly poorer relation, even though I've no room to speak of being poor, and never suffered for it.

Something that we choose...that yes, we might do anything with, and that it will be a home with you.

[He's smiling, shifting a bit to rest his forehead against hers.]

And I love you. Very much.

[She 'hmms'] Tell me of your life. All of it. You know so much of mine and yet have no idea where to begin when it comes to my beloved. I have been removed from many residences, and it is not a thing to be envied. Perhaps it was awkward, but far better for all than life on the street. As you recognize- for that I thank you.

[A home with her. She could only hope.]

As you have said, my silly Michel.

There is not so much that I can tell you, but I will try, if you like. [He tangles a hand in her hair again, twisting it around a finger a little, as he nods at that.]

It was far better than many people had, yes. But where to begin? My parents were in Marseilles, and my father worked in manufacturing. He designed a few improvements to things in the factories, to make them safer, along with faster, and oversaw conditions in the one he worked for too. He took me with him, once, when I was very small.

There was a worker that day, who became injured. When they would not pay for her doctor, and she could not be alone, we brought her home ourselves. Papa said that it was only right, and that was true, I think. I do not remember much else about it, only that I knew that it was good to care for someone, and to help them. She became my nurse for a while, and even came with Mama and I when Papa...when we left the city, later.

[Even now, it's a bit difficult to remember his father's death, mostly because of how young he'd been, and how hard it was to understand, just then, how his life had changed so much. Combeferre's first brush with actual death, actual sudden death, has not been something he has cared to think of closely, so perhaps it is better to move on.]

Even though we had Mamie, it was still difficult in the city for Mama, and when Oncle said that we should come to him and his family. I think it helped her a great deal, having family to be near, and he did have quite a library, and a great deal of land for us to run around on, and to skin our knees and such. I DID follow my cousins into quite a deal of adventures. After all, [And there is a wink], I did learn how to care for any injuries so no one's parents would find out we had been going where we were told never to go, and doing things that we were told never to do.

[Eponine will probably recall a certain, rather jagged set of intersecting scars on Combeferre's knee, a souvenir of a childhood that probably should not, in all scientific reason, have been survived. He's laughing a little though, at the thought of it.]

Sometimes it even worked. But, no, things stayed much the same as that, until I was ready for school.

[Which, in and of itself was quite an experience, but...that hardly matters just now, does it?]

Then, after, it only seemed natural that I should be a doctor, although there was a time I studied for the Polytechnique exams, but I have never been very good at taking so many orders as all that, for so many silly reasons as they seemed to have for it.

Just as well I think [The strands of hair that he's been playing with are probably wildly curled by now, but he is moving on to another one, idly starting a little braid. ]. I do not think I'd suit the uniform. Too short.

[She sighs contentedly, leaning against him to hear his story, letting the images play out in her mind. How lovely, his life sounded. Even if his father had died, it was the sort of thing she envied. A loving family. Room to play. Sure, she had had that in Montfermiel. But that had all been snatched away by the man in the yellow jacket, Cosette's papa.]

I wish for that life, [she says wistfully]

[Combeferre's childhood was very happy, yes. Being loved, being able to be sent to school, and to have a family who could both support him, and make certain he had a sponsor when he entered into the medical school, and that he could afford to go. He'd always planned on paying back some of the loans of his family, promised himself he would, even but then the Necker had called him, and, even when his internship had ended, he had not wanted to take money that the hospital could use, and, well, one way after another, he'd been helped to his place. ]

You might have a bit of it, should we get the chance to leave here. We could certainly give Gavroche a chance at it before it becomes entirely too late, anyway. Anything is possible in the future. We live, despite the fact we should not be, and have gone through so many things we could not have imagined.

I think it only reasonable to think that simple things, simpler than battling ghosts, or surviving plagues, could be ours someday too.

Should I? If we leave here and find a place suitable to live? I would like that very much. And more so, so would Gavroche. He has never known a loving family. We will be that to him. All of us from the barricade, I wouldn't imagine.

Oh keep playing with my hair! I love it so. You may play with it all you like!

Someday, I think. There is, after all, a destination for our journey. I am not sure where we will be taken, but all of us, our family, yes, will be together. I can hope we will find a home for all of us, and somewhere to live in happiness.

Your hair is beautiful, do you know? Nearly as beautiful as the rest of you.

We will find it. We will have it. That, I have hope for.

[She blushes]

You remember it when I first arrived? Scraggly and knotted.

Then that is all we need for happiness, the promise that we might be happier still.

I do, yes! And you were so very thin!

[She still is, and Combeferre personally thinks Eponine needs to eat a bit more to become entirely healthy, but for the moment, well...He's smiling to look at her.]

You are so beautiful now. I think you always must have been but it was never able to shine through, before.

I feel beautiful. When you look at me like that.

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