The sun touched his eyes and he stirred, groaning as he rolled over. Hushaby….hushaby… .The song echoed deep in his mind. He had heard it before, long ago. The woman's voice set his heart aching….it had been so long since he had heard her. He remembered her face. The long dark hair, the eyes, so like his own. Her tenderness had come out only once in a while. Sheep bells are tinkling. There was a warm hand on his forehead, brushing his hair back from his face, and then the hand withdrew. Long lie the shadows…. [1]

He opened his eyes and bolted up, a cry of loss escaping him, twisted into a grunt as every inch of his body screamed in pain. The lullaby faded from his mind as he looked around without comprehension. A river. He sat next to a river, washed up like the flotsam that surrounded him. His cloths were soaked, his bare feet still dangled in the water. Where were his boots? Cold. He was so cold in the morning sun. Where was he?

Suddenly he was retching. Water came pouring out of his mouth and left him on his hands and knees, panting.

"Is someone there?" A voice called out. He looked up to see a man striding towards him. A man in some sort of uniform. Some part of his brain thought, bizarrely, those are my pants. The man called to his partner, out of sight,"Get the wagon! The sewer dumped another one…." He faded off as he looked at the wet, bedraggled man on the ground before him. "Mon dieu!" he cried. "It's the Inspector!"

The officers who found him had taken him to the hospital. Rumor had it that he been killed by the rebels at the barricade. The people on the street reported seeing him taken away, and shot. Others reported seeing him at the barricade after it fell, so he couldn't have been shot by the rebels. And then there was that confusing note he had apparently left at the precinct office.

Monsieur Gisquet had come to see him in the hospital, but Javert had nothing to tell him. He remembered going to the barricade in plain cloths. He remembered being recognized by that infuriating little brat. After that – there were just bits and pieces. Something to do with the sewers. Valjean. Always Jean Valjean. And then that song. Whenever he was not paying attention to something else, that melody haunted him.

After a few days, when it became clear that nothing was broken and he was not going to develop pneumonia, the doctors sent him home with an assurance his memory would return. He had three days to stew before he was permitted to return to his duty. He lasted just one day, pent up in his tiny apartment, "resting", before he could not stand it. He put on working man's cloths and went out.

He let his feet take him where they would. He found himself in a neighborhood he usually avoided. He rarely thought of his mother's people and he had little tolerance for the way they lived, but today…he walked the street until he heard music. Standing in the street, leaning against a lamp pole he listened to the husky contralto voice and suddenly he was somewhere else.

He was laying on a bed in the tiny room he and his mother shared, the flickering of the poor tallow light illuminating the room. She was singing softly as she brushed her long hair. He lay in his bed, watching her. She was in a good mood – she must have made some money recently. She turned to him, and smiled. "Look at you, my son. All grown up. "

Startled, he opened his eyes to the dirty street, the music at a pause. There were tears pouring down his face. Hastily he wiped them away. What was wrong with him? He fled, escaping the gypsy ghetto as fast as he could.

Walking. Walking again. He walked past panhandlers, beggars, thieves with barely a glance. He knew the scum of Paris by name, but today they held no interest. He found himself on some bourgeois street. Why was he here? He walked along, looking at the street numbers. 47…..51….55. He stopped, studying the house. Its gated garden, the graceful entry. All was quiet. Not knowing why, he sat on the marble bench that was a part of the house's wall, and waited.

Perhaps an hour passed, and he was getting restless and hungry, when a carriage pulled up. He looked up to see the familiar profile of Jean Valjean sitting beside a young woman. Javert instantly started to rise, to reach out and grab the bridle of the horse. He did not question whatever instinct had brought him here, but here was Jean Valjean, at last. Halfway to his feet, he stopped and slowly lowered himself back to the bench.

The carriage stopped. Jean Valjean emerged and handed his daughter out. He paid the carriage man and the carriage left. As Valjean was opening the gate, he noticed the man in workman's cloths sitting on his bench. Cocking his head in curiosity, he stepped forward. "Monsieur," he asked kindly, "what brings you here?"

Completely at a loss, Javert looked up at Valjean. He should be arresting him. On duty or not, he should be bringing the old thief back to justice. It was his right. But all he could do was look at Valjean, naked confusion on his face, and say, "Valjean – it is I."

Jean Valjean stiffened. "Javert! I did not recognize you. I have been wondering when you would return. I've been expecting you, these last few days."

With a weary sigh, he turned to Cosette and gathered her hands in his. Raising them to his lips he kissed them. "It is here we must part," he said to her.

"Papa!" she cried. "I do not understand!"

"Yes. Yes, you do," he said. "All those years on the run. All those names. We were on the run from him." Valjean nodded towards Javert. "It is over now. Our time is over." He closed his eyes, turning his face away from Cosette. "You…you do not need me any more. Monsieur Pontmarcy is your future, not this weary old man."

"But Papa!"

"Cosette, I am sorry." He looked at her again and reached up to brush his fingers tenderly across her cheek. "My daughter…there is a letter for you. In my desk. It will explain it all." Jean Valjean turned to Javert. "We can go now."

Javert looked at him and slowly shook his head. "No." he said.

"Inspector? I do not understand."

Javert stood and growled harshly, "Go. Go with your daughter. Go!"

Baffled, Jean Valjean opened the gate, standing with his hand on the lock. Needing no urging, Cosette fled for the house. Jean Valjean turned to say something to Javert, but he was gone. In the distance of the quiet street, Jean Valjean heard the soft pounding of running feet. Wearily, Valjean went into the house, to a long overdue conversation with his daughter.

The next day, Javert never got out of bed.

It was a week after the riots and the city was returning to normal. The barricades had been cleared away. The markets were back in the streets. The dead had been buried. The people of Paris were returning to their lives, including Inspector Javert.

He pulled on his uniform with a mixture of resignation and relief. It was a new uniform, the old one having been ruined in the river. It was stiff in places that he was used to being soft. He had half convinced himself that the confusing memories of the gypsy ghetto and the encounter with Jean Valjean had been no more than a fever dream. Now, at last, he could put aside the maunderings of the last few days and get back to work.

Head held high, he strolled to the precinct office. Officers stared at him and whispered. That he had been found, battered and wet on the bank of the Seine, was widely known. Speculation was rampant about how he got there. Javert ignored them. A week behind, he had much work to do. Informants to check in with, investigations to continue. His desk was covered in papers. Out on the street, he began to feel like himself again. The strangeness of the last week faded under the relentless demands of Javert's work. A week passed, and then another. People stopped talking when it became clear that Javert's terrible competence remained.

Javert was on patrol. He was supervising some junior officers when there was a disturbance. A scream from a woman, a man's voice raised in anger. Javert came around the corner to see one of his officers holding a prostitute. She was crying and straining against his hold. "Please…please, M'sieur! He attacked me!" she cried out to the officer holding her. The man scoffed and straightened his coat.

"Nonsense," the man said. "I was walking when she tried to pick my pocket. I just defended myself."

"No!" she screamed. Blood was dripping down her temple. "Please, M'sieur! I did nothing wrong!" She tried to twist, to look at the officer who held her. Officer Tierry, Javert remembered "Please, M'sieur!" Officer Tierry ignored her as he fastened the irons around her wrists.

The other junior officer took the man aside to take his statement. Javert watched. His officers were behaving exactly correctly, but something was wrong. He looked at the man, at the woman. The man was…smug. The woman was terrified. There was something wrong with this scene. Then he had it. He knew that man. Pierre. Pierre…LaMont. That was it. This was not the first time Monsieur LaMont had been in this position. He stepped forward. "Excuse me, Officer Thierry." The officer looked up. "May I?"

"Of course, Inspector." Keeping his hand on the woman, he none the less stepped back as Javert came forward.

Javert looked over the woman. Her dress was torn – she was nearly exposing herself. She was thin, dirty. Javert closed his eyes for a moment and tried not to see that woman from Montreuil-sur-Mer, tried not to see his own mother one night when she had come home bruised and bleeding. His mother had tried to hide it….STOP IT! He had not thought of that once in over forty years. It was an act of will to force himself back into the present.

With his fingers, he lifted her chin so she looked into his eyes. Then he turned and looked at the other policeman again. "Officer Tierry – release her. "

Officer Tierry looked at Javert, baffled. "But Inspector? This good man says she stole from him."

Javert leveled his eyes on the junior officer, "Have you found any evidence to that effect, about her person?"

"Uh….no sir."

"Then release her."

Javert reached into his pocket and pulled out a small notebook, in which he wrote an address and a name. Tearing the paper out, he held it out to the woman. When she reached to snatch it from his hand, he pulled it back, fixing her with a steely look. He raised an eyebrow. She looked down and with a sigh handed him the man's purse. He took it.

"Madame, your name?"

"Iva, sir. Iva Martin."

Javert handed the note to the woman. "Do you know who I am?"

"Inspector Javert."

"Yes. Go to this address. Tell them I sent you. They may have work for you." He met her eyes as she took the paper. "Iva….I will be checking up on you. Do you understand?"

"Yes. Yes, Inspector. Merci inspector!" The woman gathered her dress around her and ran. Javert looked after her, part of him longing to follow, but his duty was here.

"And Officer Tierry?" Javert turned his gaze at the younger officer as the woman fled.

The younger officer cringed, "Yes sir?"

"The search you did on Madame Martin was utterly unacceptable."

"Yes sir."

Javert took several decisive steps over to where the man was talking with the other officer. "Excuse me." he said to the other officer.

Javert twisted the man around and put his own irons on him with the fluid grace of decades of practice. "You, Monsieur LaMont, are under arrest." He pulled open the man's coat and tucked the purse in an inner pocket.

The man twisted. "What?" He screamed, "It was she who stole from me. This is an outrage!"

"From what I could see," said Javert dryly, "She was the one bleeding. And, she was not the first one."

"I pay my taxes! I will have you fired!"

Javert smiled grimly. "Just you try, sir. Just you try." Javert tugged on the man's arm. "Come on." They two junior officers followed along behind, trying to make sense of what they had just seen.

A week passed, and another. His fellow officers began to talk again behind his back. His reputation on the street began to change. Instead of being the officer whose arrival was feared, he became the officer whose arrival was hoped for. Inspector Javert, it was said, had changed. Inspector Javert, it was said, listened.

When he was off duty, his often found himself standing outside 55 Rue Plummet, looking in, watching the shadows against the curtains as Valjean and his daughter ate their dinner and settled in for the night. One night, maybe two months after he had been found on the river bank, he stood there in the shadows, watching. The door opened and Jean Valjean came out.

Javert stood there a moment studying the man whose life had entangled with his over so many decades. Then Javert slipped into the night, leaving his old quarry standing in the garden, alone.

Another day on the Paris streets. Javert left an appointment in the court house, clearing up an old matter. Later today, he had a squad to command, sweeping the streets before the puffed up politicians made a show of themselves. He had never liked this part of his job, but now he liked it even less. Upholding the law, that was one thing. Defending the corruption…he stopped that blasphemy before it went any further. He had his duty.

Back at his desk, he wrapped himself in that duty. Finishing a stack of papers, cataloging reports he had received from his spies. Satisfied with his morning's work, he prepared for the afternoon.

He rounded up his squad and they went out to walk the parade route. As they walked, they shooed the homeless, the beggars, the drunkards, the streetwalkers off the boulevard. Most of them left when they saw the half dozen policemen brandishing night sticks and walking down the street, but a few needed ... additional persuasion. When Officer Thierry clubbed an old man who had not reacted quickly enough, Javert felt his stomach twist in revulsion. The soft squelch the stick had made as it hit the old man's stomach was audible from across the street. He stormed over to that officer and grabbed him. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

The Officer Thierry looked at him, without comprehension. "The man would not move," he said, as if that was all the explanation that was needed.

Javert looked at the old beggar bent over and gasping in the street. A small, wide eyed waif hovered, terrified, behind a tree, not ten feet away. The beggar's ward? He did not wait to find out. "Officer Thierry, you will report back to the precinct."

The young officer looked at him, utterly baffled. "Why, Inspector? "

Javert looked at the young man. "Can't you see the beggar is blind? How could he have reacted?"

Officer Thierry said, "But, sir. I have seen you do no less. This is how you trained us."

There it was. Javert jerked back as if the club had struck him. The world came crashing in on him. He remembered now. The barricade. Jean Valjean setting him free. Jean Valjean again with the boy. The implosion of his world. A moral criminal? An immoral lawful man? The bridge. The river… And the melody. His mother's singing filled his ears. "Are you happy, my son?" she had asked. "I have my duty", he had replied." She smiled sadly as she reached out and pushed his hair back from his eyes. "That is not enough," she had told him. "You are a good man, my son, but you must go back. Without love, you can not be admitted to the divine."

Reeling, Javert looked at the young officer without seeing him. He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them. "So you are right, Officer Thierry. So you are right." He shook his head. "But I was wrong, then. That was excessive force. Consider this a warning." Javert turned from the baffled young officer and continued to walk up the boulevard, people scattering before him.

He had plenty of years of service. His pension was due. When his patrol was done, he went back to the precinct. With a silent goodbye as he looked around the office, he walked into his Monsieur Gisquet's office and resigned.

That night, standing outside 55 Rue Plummet, Javert stood his ground. He watched the shadows against the curtain. He fiddled with a small pebble, and then, with an glint in his eye that on another man you might have called playful, he tossed the pebble at the window where Valjean's shadow could be seen.

Standing in a pool of lamplight, he watched as Jean Valjean came out. The old man looked fragile. "Is anyone there?" he called. His voice cracked. Some of the old power was gone.

Javert stepped forward. "Hello, Jean Valjean," he said.

Jean Valjean looked at him. Resignation washed over him. "Javert." He stated. Then, straightening, he said more formally, "Inspector Javert? Is it time? I am ready, sir. My daughter is to be married tomorrow. "

Javert walked up to Jean Valjean, strolling through the garden. He reached out and took Valjean's wrists in his hands. Javert's hands were cool against the warmth of Valjean's wrists. He could feel the tension in the older man build, the tremendous muscles tense, and then collapse. Jean Valjean let go. It was over. His quarry was caught. Holding Valjean's wrists he looked the man in the eyes. Unafraid, Valjean met his gaze. Javert's hands slid from Valjean's wrists to his fingers. "We live in a different world, Jean Valjean. We have both changed." He released Valjean's hands and reached into his coat pocket. He took out an envelop which he held out to the old man.

Valjean opened it, but there was not enough light for him to read. He looked at Javert, without comprehension. "Inspector?" he asked.

Javert shook his head and smiled slightly. "Not any more, my old friend." Puzzled, Valjean looked at him. "May I come inside?" Javert asked. "I want to be there when you read that."

Baffled, Valjean held the door open for Javert and followed him into the light. Valjean looked down at the paper he held and tears came to his eyes. Writ of Pardon, it said across the top. "Is it true, Monsieur? Is it truly done?"

Javert stepped forward. Hesitantly, he raised his finger to Valjean's cheek to wipe a tear away. "Yes, my friend. It is done."

[1] The words are from a Romany lullaby I found here: . /ndp/del/article/21253800. Hardly the best of research.