"S-Stars...?"

He felt, vaguely, the hands that turned him over, followed by a weight on his chest. His hands shook violently but he tried his hardest to move it so that he could rest it on her head, his quivering fingers tangling in her hair.

Eponine?

Another fit shook his entire body then, and he couldn't repress the wail that escaped him as he attempted to curl into himself once more, the action instead causing him to wrap his arms around her and pull her closer to him as he shifted again to lay on his side. He shivered as he clung to her, unconsciously, his mind too far away now for him to be mindful of his actions.

And then he saw it: A hazy vision through the tears he did not realize were streaming down his face. Bright and blazing and immaculate. The stars.

And a wild garden and the mist and the moonlight, and a girl in white with golden streaks in her dark hair and the universe in her eyes.

Despite the pain and the shortening of his breath and the numbing of his senses, the tiniest hint of a smile formed on his face as his eyes fixed on a certain spot in the distance, and he whispered in a voice filled with love,

"Cosette..."