Another accidental video - re-entry with a new canon point

[makeflowersgrow]

[Dirty fingers brush over the NV screen when it switches on, leaving bloody streaks across the screen. The whole video is vibrating; as the fingers move, a view of the Newcomer apartments from the baseball diamond is clearly visible. Whoever is holding the NV is clearly a newcomer and clearly in some kind of trouble.

After a minute, there's a shallow gasp and a moan; the voice is high pitched, obviously a girl's. The NV falls, and goes black; it's camera down in the dirt. But it lasts only a minute. The owner of the voice goes to pick up her NV, gasping in agony as her hand curls around the device. It's obvious why; there's a hole shot clean through her palm and out of the back of her hand.]

Marius? Marius, where are you?

[The voice has a heavy French accent when she speaks, and just for a minute, Eponine's face comes into view. It's dirty and tear stained. Her hair is a mess, greasy and tangled but that is the least of Eponine's concerns. She's forced herself into a sitting position, and one hand she presses to her chest, - a chest which is bleeding profusely. She gasps again, and sinks down onto the ground and out of sight of her NV.Without anything to support her weight, she can't keep herself upright any more. She knows she's dying, and tears wet her cheeks. She feels sick and dizzy and the world - wherever she is, fades in and out. She needs to see him before she dies. Her breathing is getting more and more shallow. She has to ask his forgiveness.]

Mariussss...

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[makeflowersgrow]

His voice makes Eponine look up, and fear swiftly settles in her eyes.

"Monsieur..."
But he doesn't look scary. He doesn't sound it. But even still... Eponine knows that Raphael is an angel.

"Is it time? ..." There's a slight pause as her voice breaks and a lump forms in her throat. "Am - Is it... will it hurt?"

[servingmichael]

"Shhh. There is no need to be afraid." There's a weight to it, however slight. Angelic confidence, perhaps, that have just a little push to them. "You are only sleeping. Not dying."

He was debating healing some of her injuries, though he hadn't decided yet. Instead he looks around, studying the dream. "Your garden is lovely."

[makeflowersgrow]

"No? Not dying?" Eponine bites her bottom lip, tugging it just a little. "Then why are you here, Monsieur?"

She believes Raph straight away, of course. But she still has questions. "Do you really like it? It is my favourite place... even if I know it is in my head. Sometimes I see it, and sleeping on the street does not seem so bad when I smell the flowers and feel the grass tickling my feet. It is lovely. But how is it you can see it? Why do I dream of you? And it feels so real too..."

[servingmichael]

"No, not dying." Raphael drifts - he's at ease, something solid and steady about how he moves for all it is motion. "I came to visit."

As he walks, the grass isn't bent underfoot - nor hers. It's a perfect place. "I do. Most of my brothers and I are rather fond of gardens." Joshua would love this one, he thinks. "And I am here because I did not wish to wake you."

[makeflowersgrow]

"That is all I want in life... well, no. That is a lie." Eponine laughs. In the stillness of the garden, it sounds out of place, but it doesn't matter here.

"I would like a garden though. A nice one like this, so I could see the flowers and the grass. It makes me stop being bad."

She laughs again. "You came to visit me? In the hospital?"

[servingmichael]

"A garden such as this would take a good of work, though it is possible here." Shoulders up and back, hands lightly behind his back - he was strolling near her. "My brother made a small park indoors where I let the dog run at night."

He tilted his head, birdlike. "How does it?"

"Hospitals are a place I feel at home. But yes, I did."

[makeflowersgrow]

" Over night and indoors? Monsieur, that sounds impossible... But lovely. That is what I would have too, a dog. And it would let me hug it and stroke it and lie down next to it when I'm cold. And it would never run from me. He is my friend. What is your dog like? Does he have a name?"

She holds her position, though her natural instinct is to run. Instead, she fiddles with her posy of violets, twisting their stalks this way and that.

"I do not know how it works. Why it makes me good. I just... It makes me feel better. It is like what I see in my head is not just an hallucination. It's real. It makes me forget I am a gat and a gamine and dirty and a thief and worse. Almost I forget I am the devil. I feel like an angel. It makes the bad go away."

She shrugs and laughs again, clearly embarrassed.

"I did not get shot because I was bad to Madame Ella, you know?"

[servingmichael]

"It is peaceful." He lets her talk, stopping a conversational distance away. "His name is Fraiser. He's a Great Dane, about a year old now. Grey with darker markings. Very large, and like most large dogs, thinks he's small. He belonged to my brothers, and I have him now." The only of Michael's animals which remained - Raphael was protective.

"You are hardly the devil." He drifts closer - Raphael's vessel isn't the tallest of his brothers, but he's still over six foot tall, and Donnie worked a physical job. "The Bible gets much wrong, but there are correct parts. Angels appeared more often to shepherds and fisherman, rather than land owners and the wealthy. Jesus took followers from the poor, the fatherless children, fishermen, tax collectors - traitors and thieves really, and prostitutes." His tone was gentle, even if it was lecturing. "God forgives."

She might need to be taught that, he thought. "I know. It's quite a collection of injuries you have."

[makeflowersgrow]

"Your dog sounds lovely. Fraiser!" She chuckles. "I can see him in my mind, trying to sit on your knee and licking your face, Monsieur. Me, I would like a dog with more hair. He would be warmer at nights then. And he would perhaps scare Montparnasse and Babet and my Papa away. But not my sister or Gavroche... I have never seen your dog in Port. Is he not there?"

Eponine steps back a little as Raphael comes closer. She's still scared of him, even though he is being nice. He is as big as Babet, easily, and he looks a lot stronger. He could hurt Eponine a lot, had he the mind to, and she is all to aware of that.

But his words strike Eponine and she, almost without realising, sidles closer to listen.
"God? Papa said he was for the rich. Not for us. I hardly believe in him you know. But... thieves and whores too?"

That definitely strikes a cord, and somewhere deep inside, a little grain seems to be awakened; hope. Would it flower? It had been strangled by Paris and by the Port, but perhaps her life is changing.

She laughs though, trying to shake herself from her thoughts and longings for ...God... no. Hope. A better life.

"They do not hurt too much, you know. But I should be dead. I did it to me... if Monsieur Hitsugaya had not found me and took me to the hospital, I would be dead now."

[servingmichael]

"Once he's grown he'll weigh more than you do, and be about this tall." He held his hand up, about a hundred centimeters off the ground. "No, he's here. My brothers were given him last spring. I just don't bring him into the busier parts of the city often."

Raphael doesn't mind her sliding closer, staying at ease. "People say many things about God and what he wants. But I'm one of the few who have ever met Him." Or knowingly so. And he knew first hand Chuck had no problem with whores. "Heaven is full of the poor, the flawed."

"One of the people from home I know best worked on cars, in a garage. Some times he drank too much, some times he swore. Still, I protected him and his family." In exchange for his service as a vessel, but he didn't need to explain that.

"They do not hurt much because you are asleep and heavily medicated. Otherwise, it would be painful." Injuries and illness he knew better than anything else. "Many here should be dead. It's common here."

[makeflowersgrow]

"They will not hurt so bad... sometimes, if you do not think on it, it stops hurting. So I do with my Papa and the gang when they hit me. At the barricade, I WANTED to die, you know? I sent Marius to the barricades and I followed him. I thought, if we both died, we could be together." She smiles, though she's sad. "But when it came to it, I couldn't watch him die. It is droll, is it not?"

She feels a bit better for even confessing that though. Even still, she moves closer to Raphael. Eponine bites on her lip, chewing nervously. She feels so self conscious, and she hugs her arms across her stomach, squashing the violets.
"Would God want me? You know how I am such a bad girl. But as the man you protected, sometimes it is needed. In France, you are rich, you are bad or you die. I do as my Papa tells me to keep a roof on my head and a bit of bread in my stomach."

She's silent for a moment, just reflecting on her ideas of God. "I am not allowed in the church, you know? They chase me away, even if I borrow Papa's shoes. I wish you would bring Fraiser to me. I would like to see your dog, Monsieur."

[servingmichael]

"The people we love, we don't want to watch them die. Or see them suffer. That's part of love." He knew that well. Raphael was lost without Michael, and with no Heaven to run, didn't know what to do with himself.

"This isn't France, Eponine - the rules, they are different here." HE was learning that himself, though slowly. "Heaven would take you. Repentance - it's not a myth." He wasn't sure how to answer what God wanted. What God wanted was what he wanted, because he gave the orders. It was strange, still, to have him here.

"God isn't a building, or a church. Being devout - it's a way to Heaven, but not the only way." He motioned forward, gently touching her shoulder, beginning to walk. "I can show you what he looks like. And when you are well, if you'd like to see that, I can arrange it."