It's A Wonderful Life, Javert

Disclaimer: I do not own Les Misérables.

Note: Kink!meme prompt about Javert getting the 'It's a Wonderful Life' treatment.

Javert stared down into the rushing waters of the Seine, wondering if it would be cold. 'The icy waters of the river Seine' seemed appropriate but it was June so his rational mind said that that was unlikely to be the case. His rational mind had not been good for much this evening (Or was it morning yet? Who could tell?) but at least he still knew that.

Everything that had to be done had been done. That boy had been saved, the barricades had fallen, Valjean had finally been revealed to be as harmless as he had been claiming for years, and his suggestions on how to improve the police had been dutifully delivered.

He could not quiet the whirring of his mind and he despaired of ever being able to. He knew that some, if they suspected his death was self-inflicted, would blame the stress of the night and just how many hours he had been awake. Well, it was the stress of the night but not the way that they would think. It was the stress of Valjean and the sudden crippling suspicion that his faithful and single-minded pursuit of justice was not as righteous as he had hoped.

He knew that it truly did not matter if he jumped now or waited a year to get all the sleep he could want and spend every waking moment trying to puzzle it out. There was no answer.

If he wanted to continue to serve the law than Valjean must be returned to Toulon. If he wanted to let a good man live free in his autumn years he must cease to hold the law above all things.

If he went back to arrest Valjean now then would it just be sacrificing the man upon the pyre of Javert's own peace of mind? That was not right. That was not just. The law said that he must condemn this man. Thirty-seven years ago now this man had broken a window pane and stolen a loaf of bread. He had served his sentence but then seventeen years ago he had broken his parole. He was to be on parole forever for he was a dangerous man, the kind of man who could disappear without a trace even accompanied by a small and inconvenient child and singlehandedly lift a cart that was crushing a man. He was the kind of man who could scale a wall and escape a slaughter through a sewer carrying what any sane man would have declared a corpse. He was a dangerous man who apparently delighted in travelling around France doing good deeds.

But if it was not just to obey the law in this instance, if he dared think that perhaps there was something or someone to place above the law, then what did that make him? Too arrogant for words? And where did that leave him? He had never had a family worth speaking of and he was too old and too tired to find one now. He had no friends to turn to and no hunt to sustain him. Would he even be able to chase down an escaped fugitive anymore without at least wondering if they could be trying to redeem themselves the way that Valjean had? He had lived a long life and his career was what he had to show for it, his duty. That had never bothered him before. It would not bother him now except…

If he gave up the law as the greatest good then what did he have left?

He found he had no answer.

The worst part was that it was painfully clear that it had not occurred to Valjean for a second that Javert would not be arresting him. Damn the man. He had been so horrified at the thought of remaining in Toulon for one second more that he had been driven to escape four times when all logic dictated that he should stay and broken parole and even faked his own death in order to be forever free of the stench of Toulon. And then he had just blithely spared Javert's life and gave him his address and went along quietly, only asking for the chance to save a life and utter a last farewell. Damn the man. He could play at being a saint all he wanted, his conscience was clear and then he would force this impossible dilemma upon Javert! Damn the man.

Damn the man.

What could he do? He could not go. He could not stay.

There was only one way out and if it would damn him then it could not prove any more onerous than this continued existence.

Dimly, he registered a presence coming up behind him. He could not possibly jump in front of a witness. He resolved to wait for them to leave. Not many people were out given the hour and the fighting in the streets. He would be alone before long.

The Seine would not be going anywhere.

The man did not address him, for which he was thankful for.

The man calmly climbed over the parapet and jumped into the Seine, for which he was decidedly not.

Javert moved automatically. Was this man a criminal running away? On this night of all nights it seemed fairly probable. Or was it a civilian driven by danger or despair to the river's embrace?

He did not know. He knew that when someone jumped into water to save another, they had a fair chance of being accidentally drowned by the panicking victim but that would suit his purposes just fine.

No more time for hesitation and he plunged into the river.

He felt a little cold but not as icy as he had fancied. It was definitely filthy and he had not thought of that. He fought the instinctive urge to climb up upon the bank and instead swam over to the predictably flailing man. He was nearly smacked in the face for his trouble but at least the man did not fight when Javert began to drag him back to the shore. He didn't deign to help, either, instead going limp like so much death weight.

Useless.

Once Javert had gotten the man to dry land, he went about shaking himself off, trying to will the grime away but to no avail. How had Valjean been so equanimous when he had been covered in sewer sludge which must be far worse and he had certainly smelled fouler?

Would he be reminded of Valjean now whenever he faced excessive filth? This man was starting to take over his life, absent though he usually was.

He consoled himself that he did not intend to have much of a life and would undoubtedly already be dead by now if not for this man.

He could not pretend that he found the idea of being dead in that filth particularly appealing, especially as he now knew firsthand what that river was truly like.

But no matter. He was sure there would be other ways.

The man turned to him, grinning broadly for a man who was either on the run or had just attempted suicide. "I saved you!"

Javert had taken this man to get cleaned up and was wondering just when his duty to the man he had saved ended. Valjean saved a life and then promptly forgot about it and why was he thinking of him again? Wasn't it enough that he had driven him to suicide?

"I'm Clarence," Clarence introduced. A thoroughly ridiculous name for a thoroughly ridiculous person. Once he had washed the muck off of him, Javert could see that this was an older man, entirely ordinary and nondescript. He was the kind of man that Javert would not have paid the slightest bit of attention to if he wasn't clearly mad.

"I'm so glad that I arrived in time to save you," Clarence said again, looking quite relieved.

"You are the one who jumped into the river," Javert pointed out.

"Ah, but that's because I strongly suspected that you would jump in to save me and forget about killing yourself," Clarence said matter-of-factly.

Javert had forgotten nothing. "You believe I was going to jump into the Seine so your solution was to impel me to jump in after you?"

Clarence looked a little smug. "It worked."

"I was not intending to end my life." Javert did not normally lie. He hadn't even denied that street urchin's accusations that he was a police spy. But it seemed that everything had fallen apart, hadn't it?

"Joseph said that you were," Clarence said as if that settled it.

Javert let it go. "I trust that you will be alright now."

As he made to leave, Clarence called after him. "I will be fine but you won't."

Javert briefly wondered if that was a threat and then decided that it was not. "Do not presume to know me."

"I know why you were going to kill yourself," Clarence insisted.

"How very nice for you," Javert said, impassive as ever.

Clarence pouted. "Aren't you even going to guess?"

"No."

Clarence sighed as if Javert were being needlessly difficult. "Your whole life has been devoted to upholding the law. You were born in the gutter and never dreamed that you could be accepted. You chose to work for the law and have had no pity for criminals because if you could escape from the gutter then you could not see why they could not without some sort of moral flaw in them. But always, beneath it all, was the fear that you were just one false step away from falling right back down where you started. And now Jean Valjean, in his insistence in changing and escaping the gutter, has thrown your life into turmoil. You're questioning everything you've ever believed in and as you've never stopped to question yourself before you have no firm foundation to sustain you."

Every word Clarence spoke was like a blow. How had he known so much? Had this man been following him through the years? Or were his failings just obvious for all to see? He felt sick.

"And I think…" Clarence hesitated. "Oh, I hope that it is not true but I cannot help but feel that it is nonetheless."

"By all means," Javert said, gesturing with his hands. He would not let his weakness show.

"I fear that you wish that you had never been born."

Javert frowned. Had he been feeling that? He wasn't sure. Perhaps this Clarence should not go around giving people ideas. He couldn't say that he wanted to have never existed because that was a rather terrifying thought. To just cease to be…It was too much. He'd rather be damned eternally than face not ever facing anything ever again. But what difference would it really make to anybody else?

They'd never know the difference. He was just one more pitiful prison brat, gypsy boy, Toulon guard, then police inspector. Without him someone new would naturally fill the gaps. Perhaps they'd be less of a fool than he and not be destroyed by Valjean's very existence. He certainly respected the law too much to think that anyone promoted to his level could be worse.

"And what difference would it make if I had not?" Javert asked. "I confess that I myself do not fancy the thought but the world would go right on turning, perhaps brighter without my shadow."

Clarence looked aghast at having been, more or less, proven right. "You cannot believe that!"

"What does it matter if I believe it or not?" Javert asked rhetorically. "I cannot possibly arrange matters so that I do not exist."

"That does not matter," Clarence insisted. "Think of the despair that a soul must feel to believe that the world would not just be the same without them, though that is patently untrue as well, but actively better for not having borne their presence!"

"I am thinking," Javert said wryly.

Clarence nodded as if he had just decided something. "Well, that settles it then. I'm going to show you what the world would be like if you were never born."

Javert stared at him. "I would almost like to see you try."

"Once I would not have been able to do this," Clarence said excitedly. "But then, a hundred and thirteen years in the future, I got my wings! I'm sorry if I get a little over-enthused. It has not been so long as to diminish my great joy at my full angel powers for helping people."

"You got your wings in the future?" Javert asked incredulously. That seemed a little more pressing than the fact that he apparently thought himself an angel. Oh, if only this man were drunk…

"Angels are not constrained by your petty bourgeois notions of time!" Clarence cried out.

Javert raised an eyebrow and Clarence flushed.

"I'm sorry," Clarence apologized again. "I was watching the revolutionaries earlier. There was one that looks like…well, quite a lot of angels I know."

Javert thought that he knew who Clarence was talking about. "And yet no one interceded to save them. I suppose I can take that as an affirmation that we were right in crushing them." Not that he had any particular doubts on that front but dead children was always unfortunate and it was nice to have one certainty in his life that he could cling to.

"It wasn't our place," Clarence said simply. "But one day their time will come."

Truthfully, it did not matter a whit what body governed France. How could it when he had served through the Revolution, the Directory, the Empire, the Restoration, and now the reign of Louis-Philippe? As long as it was conducted in a lawful and orderly manner (which he doubted) then a Republic could rise up tomorrow for all he cared.

Javert said nothing.

"Oh, but I was supposed to be showing you how the world would look without your presence!" Clarence suddenly remembered. "Let's see…With George I showed him his present in a world in which he had never existed but he was a pillar of the community and the whole town would literally have gone down the drain if it had not been for him. Though you are very important, Paris would survive without you and some of these changes would not be reflected now when you are in your fifties, having all played out years ago. Why don't we start in 1802?"

Javert was young then, only twenty-two. He had recently become a prison guard. He had rather thought that any 'great change' he might make would have occurred after he left the walls of Toulon behind. After all, what was he then but another nameless faceless guard watching over those nameless faceless numbers? At least as an inspector he had had some discretion and perhaps he solved a crime here or there that his colleagues would not have been able to.

"What could there possibly be in 1802?" he wondered aloud.

Clarence waved his hands probably more dramatically than necessary and all of a sudden things…changed. They were no longer standing in a room but outside floating above a grassy field. Well, it didn't feel like he was floating. He could still feel solid ground beneath his feet but he also saw that the grass was several feel below him and, though he did not feel like he was moving, the scenery was slowly moving past them.

"What devilry is this?" Javert demanded.

Clarence looked affronted. "No devilry. I am an angel."

Javert narrowed his eyes. "So this is a 'holy miracle', then?"

"It is my use of angel powers to try and prove to you that your life mattered," Clarence attempted to explain.

Javert considered his options. He was going crazy, drugged, or this Clarence certainly had some unearthly powers.

He doubted he could have been drugged as he had not consumed anything since long before meeting Clarence. He knew what people said about gypsies but he knew better than to believe in magic. As for losing his sanity…well, he had been this close to ending it all earlier because he still could not reconcile his dual duties. Why not?

"Why are we here?" he asked curtly.

Clarence gestured to his left and for the first time Javert noticed a desperate-looking man running. More than a man, this was a convict. More than a convict, this was Jean Valjean.

"1802," Clarence repeated. "Do you remember?"

Javert frowned. This wasn't right. "We knew he was gone almost immediately. The timing was off and he was missing at roll-call. We found him hidden under the keel of a half-constructed vessel. He certainly didn't get to an open field, not like with his first escape where he was gone for thirty-six hours."

"You seem to know an awful lot about this given that this was thirty years ago," Clarence observed.

Javert sighed. "There have been periods of my life where I suspected that I knew where Valjean was or was actively hunting him and so it helped to go over his record. And when we tried to restrain him, to bring him back to the prison…Well, that's not the sort of thing that one easily forgets. It took half a dozen men to retake him."

"But how did you find him in the first place?" Clarence pressed.

Javert frowned. "I don't remember. What does it matter? It was only prudent to check any place that might be big enough to conceal a man, particularly one Valjean's size as he was never small. Someone checked and Valjean was found."

"You checked," Clarence said pointedly.

Javert shrugged. "Did I? It was the obvious thing to do."

"No one else thought to look, only you," Clarence persisted.

"No one else had to because I was the first one to check and once Valjean was found there was little point in continuing to search for him," Javert said coolly.

"And yet, in this world without you, Valjean is running free in 1802," Clarence said simply. "They do not catch up to him."

Javert quickly did the mental calculations. "That would give him a six year prison sentence. That's hardly more than his original term. He would still be a fugitive but this is no different than being a fugitive for breaking parole as far as practical purposes go. And his family would have been long gone from his hometown anyway."

"Yes," Clarence said, looking impossibly sad.

"And this is supposed to convince me that I'm needed then?" Javert demanded. "Saint Valjean gets thirteen more years to single-handedly save every orphan and kitten that crosses his path?"

"Oh, if only," Clarence said, shaking his head. "Without Valjean being on parole for at least a few days, he never would have met the Bishop."

"The bishop?" Javert asked absently.

This was worse than he had thought. On any other day, the thought that he had apparently single-handedly prevented Valjean's second escape thus keeping him in prison for the remainder of his lawful sentence (he may not have had anything to do with his lack of success the third or fourth time but Valjean would not have needed to make those attempts if he had merely succeeded here and now). Now, however, now that he was finally forced to admit that Valjean had either changed or that he was a good person all along who had not deserved what had happened to him – and he was not sure which was more horrifying – he couldn't help but feel sick.

If people were capable of change then that was a slap in the face, if not worse, of everything that he had ever believed and his refusal to give offenders a chance meant that he played a part, however slight, in their lack of change. If they were not, if Valjean was just naturally good (but how could that be so after Toulon? He had known the man in Toulon! That man was an animal. Or had he only seen what he wanted to see? He hadn't had disciplinary problems outside of his frequent escapes and strange roof-climbing habit)…Well then what was he for having persecuted him at every turn?

It was enough to drive a man to the Seine and he glared at Clarence who had the nerve to look confused.

He was suddenly reminded, painfully, of everything good he had ever heard of Montreuil under Madeleine and everything bad he had heard since Valjean's flight and second imprisonment. Madeline. Madeleine was proof of change or a natural goodness, wasn't he? And yet, despite the nonstop good done since breaking parole, he had thrown him back into chains. He, Javert, had been the one to mis-identify Champmathieu, to tell Valjean of the mix-up, and to have provided the crucial information needed to re-apprehend him in the first place. Good God! Why hadn't Valjean's apparently motive-less act of self-sacrifice in saving that vile little apple-thief given him a moment's pause?

He did not want to think what Valjean could accomplish with thirteen extra years to play the world's savior and no Javert to track him down.

It was not like his life had revolved around Valjean until the moment when he had been cut free and driven to the depths of despair by the man's incomprehensible act of mercy. He did other things, solved other crimes. And yet, somehow, no one else seemed to have half the luck that he did understanding and capturing Valjean and his own track record was hardly shining in that regard.

Once Valjean made his escape from Toulon successfully, he was going to be able to stay hidden. That was just a fact. If he could do it after nineteen years then he could do it after six. He might not be able to read yet but nothing about that screamed 'convict' and they were very careful not to provide the prisoners with any instructional materials on breaking the law in any way.

He realized that Clarence was speaking.

"And so without you, things would have turned out far worse," Clarence concluded, looking very pleased with himself.

"Could you repeat that?" Javert requested.

Clarence stared at him, devastated. "You weren't listening?"

"I'm apparently at the point of wishing I was never born. You really think that I would not be distracted by my own problems at some point?" Javert asked contemptuously.

Clarence just sighed. "Which part do you need me to repeat?"

"I asked you about the bishop and if you answered then I was not listening," Javert replied.

"The Bishop," Clarence corrected automatically, reverently.

Javert frowned. "I fail to understand what your change of inflection has to do with anything nor why it could possibly matter now."

"Bishop Myriel was just one of the good ones," Clarence said fondly.

"And because of me, Valjean never met him," Javert said slowly. "Yes, I can see how two saints not meeting and getting to revel in their mutual goodness would be a great loss. It is not, however, enough to convince me that the world is better off for my having been in it."

"You don't understand," Clarence said dramatically.

"You have not been explaining," Javert countered.

"Without you, Valjean never would have met the Bishop!" Clarence exclaimed again, as I f this third time he was mentioning it would suddenly make sense.

"And this is a problem because…?" Javert prompted.

Clarence gave a long-suffering sigh. "Haven't you ever wondered why it was that Valjean decided to turn his life around and become a wonderful person?"

"No."

Clarence looked incredibly put-out and like he suspected that Javert was being deliberately unhelpful but it was nothing less than the truth.

Javert had never entertained any ideas about Valjean being a changed man until that night, the night that the barricades fell, and since then the mere fact that he had been one had been enough to preoccupy him. He supposed this meant that it was possible for people to change after all instead of Valjean being some sort of virtuous aberration. He had rather been hoping that it was the latter, actually, because then even if Valjean had not deserved his fate then that man would be the only thing that he had been wrong about. No such luck.

"You are terribly uncurious!" Clarence complained.

But, despite these words, despite his own inclinations, he was suddenly finding himself extremely curious.

What had it been? What could possibly cause a man like 24601 to turn into a man that would willingly save the greatest threat his freedom had ever known when he was supposed to be killing him and to casually surrender that hard-won freedom for the sake of a boy who would not last the night?

The bishop, the bishop…His old suspicions about Valjean's robbery came back to him. Had Valjean really stolen that silver? But how could that have made him a better person? The power of holy silver? Javert had rather thought that stealing something like that would condemn you further but then he was wrong about everything these days, wasn't he?

"Why was it important for Valjean to have met the Bishop of Digne?" Javert asked grudgingly.

"I'm sure that, with your years serving the law, you understand the sort of treatment that convicts face while on parole," Clarence began neutrally.

Oh yes. He had never seen any of it himself but he had seen man after man turn recidivist and curse the parole system for their own decision to return to a life of crime and thus a lifetime in Toulon.

It wasn't my fault! I tried! I begged for honest work! Nobody would give it to me because of my yellow passport. When I could actually get work, it didn't pay enough to survive. Nobody would give me food or shelter no matter what I was willing to pay! I never had a chance. I tried.

Over and over and over again. It was always the same story and Javert had always believed that it was an oft-cited excuse to cover their own moral failures. Was it at all surprising that a convict would break the law? He didn't think so and neither did anybody else. And did not the honest citizens of France have the right to refuse to service a criminal? It would not be right to force the innocent to expose themselves to the danger these vile men represented.

For the first time, he considered that this practical protection employed by honest men on behalf of their families and neighbors was not fair to the convicts themselves and would make it unreasonably difficult to become honest men, especially if through all of their efforts their yellow passport would mean that their transformation was never believed.

Valjean's transformation had never been believed by him even though he had seen the good that Madeleine had wrought in Montreuil.

But difficult or not, not every paroled man ended up back in prison or they would stop paroling convicts. This might be unfairly difficult but it was possible and so it excused nothing.

Taking his silence as an affirmation, Clarence continued with, "Valjean's experience was no different. After nineteen years and four escapes, he was desperate to stay out of prison. And for all that he had grown hard and cold in prison, he had not been a bad man to begin with. If you are going to steal something, I cannot think of a worthier motive than to say starving children."

Motivation had never mattered to Javert but he could concede that a bread thief and routine escapist was not so low as a killer.

"He had grown to idealize the freedom of the world outside of Toulon despite his less-than-ideal experiences before prison and had truly believed in a new life," Clarence told him. "Then he spent four days on parole."

Javert thought that he understood where this was going. "He was disappointed."

That was perhaps the most annoying thing about the entire situation. He had broken parole after only four days. If he had been intending to immediately break parole then he would not have played along for four days and it was not so long a time that he had lulled anyone into a false sense of security. It had also not been long enough, in his view, for Valjean to have had had enough of parole and been unable to take another second of it. But perhaps…

Clarence nodded gravely. "He was turned out of everywhere he went. Children threw rocks at him. When he found work, which was not often, he was cheated. He was even driven from the kennels of Digne by a dog! Watching him the night he arrived in town just broke my heart."

"He found lodging with the bishop," Javert recalled.

Clarence nodded. "And thank God that he did! He was just so stunned that he confessed right off to being a convict and he was invited to not only stay but to stay for free with dinner and his first bed in nineteen years that he thought that the Bishop must have misheard and confessed again!" A pause. "I cried."

Of course he did.

Javert felt a little uncomfortable at this recounting, though he wasn't sure if it was because the tale was being told in such an overtly sympathetic light or because he knew Valjean better than he had ever known any other convict. He wondered what that said about him. He glanced back at the still-running Valjean down below him. He didn't look half as broken as he had by the time they parted ways in Toulon and there was a kind of fearful hope on his face.

"The Bishop was all that was good and light and meant for Valjean to stay, though, heedless of his past. He even offered him advice for once he reached Pontarlier – his parole destination – and carefully avoided any mention of Valjean's time in the galleys."

"He was in the galleys for nineteen years!" Javert objected. "That was very nearly half of his life. What else could they possibly have had to talk about?"

"They managed," Clarence said serenely. ""And the Bishop showed greater trust yet in placing Valjean in the room next to him to sleep."

"And Valjean was just so overwhelmed by the bishop's goodness and kindness that it inspired him to devote his life to emulating him," Javert guessed, rolling his eyes.

Clarence smiled ruefully. "If only it had been that easy! But nineteen years in the galleys takes its toll on a man and that is even without the near-constant abuse since he left Toulon."

Javert was puzzled. "What happened? The silver?"

Clarence nodded. "Valjean woke up in the middle of the night. I cried again when I realized that he couldn't sleep because the perfectly ordinary bed was just too comfortable for him. He did not steal it at first but after maybe an hour of being trapped in his thoughts he took the bishop's silver. The cupboard was locked but the key was always left in that lock. It was not difficult."

Despite his current confusion about Valjean, Javert could not help saying, "He should have been re-arrested after that."

"He was," Clarence confirmed. "A man the whole town knew was a thief fleeing in the night? Of course he was brought back. Everyone expected that the Bishop would reclaim the silver, denounce the thief, and Valjean would be returned to prison five days after leaving it."

"That's how it should be," Javert said stiffly but he could not help but think of all the good that he could personally attribute to Valjean and how none of that would have happened if the law had been satisfied then.

"Bishop Myriel did not agree. He respected the law but he respected God's law more. God's law is love and God's law is mercy. He saw a man that had been so broken and abused by society that he might have never been put back together as an honest man again. All men were honest once, no matter how far they fall. But if he did not try and keep trying until there was nothing left to try then he would have just been the latest in a long line of men who had failed Valjean. What's more, he was an emissary of God. Being sent back to Toulon would have sealed Valjean's fate but showing him love and mercy might yet give him a chance."

Javert heard the words but did not, could not understand them. "That was foolish."

"It was," Clarence agreed easily. "And it was perhaps the only thing that would have worked."

"A failed theft and an undeserving deliverance and his life was changed forever?" It didn't make any sense. The more he heard of Valjean's transformation the less he understood it.

"Deliverance and mercy are so often 'undeserved'," Clarence said quietly. "That is what is so very incredible about it. It was not the Bishop denying the crime that did it, I don't believe, but what that meant."

"It meant that Valjean would not return to prison."

"That is only part of it," Clarence told him. "It meant that here was a man who was able to ignore all of society's condemnations and see a convict such as himself as simply another human being worthy of love and compassion. That was not something that Valjean had had in nineteen years. And, even had his memory of days gone by not been dulled by a lifetime in Toulon, he had not had much love or compassion prior to his incarceration. His sister loved him but she loved her children more and he was the only way she could afford to feed them once her husband had died and the rest of the world just saw a poor man beneath their notice."

All of this was making Javert very uncomfortable. He could not say that he had ever met such a person as the bishop.

"And in many ways," Clarence went on thoughtfully, "a thief has it worse than a murderer."

Javert frowned at him. That could not possibly be true. "Everyone agrees that murder is worse than thievery and hate and fear murderers far more."

"Ah, but that is just it!" Clarence exclaimed. "They fear the murderers. They do not want to be murdered themselves and so they're much less likely to provoke a murderer than a man who steals. And it does not matter how many times they stole or what the circumstance was. 'Once a thief, forever a thief.'"

Javert had said such things in the past. He didn't even know if he could say that that was not still the case? Valjean had stolen Javert's life from the revolutionaries when he was supposed to have ended it, stolen that boy from the jaws of justice, stolen his own life after being sentenced to a lifetime in Toulon…But perhaps those were not the same as stealing something tangible.

"So what will happen to Valjean without his bishop?" Javert wondered quietly. "He has only been in Toulon one year more than he was originally supposed to be."

"It's too late," Clarence said sadly. "His sister's family is still scattered and beyond him. He may not have a yellow passport but now he has none at all."

"He became mayor without any passport at all," Javert said pointedly.

"He can't always be so lucky as to have the captain of the gendarmes owe him the lives of his children and therefore not ask for those papers," Clarence said pointedly.

"What happened?" Javert asked again.

The fleeing convict in the field faded away and suddenly they were on a street at night. A man crept carefully out of one of the doors, his bag bulged down with no-doubt stolen goods. Javert recognized him as the criminal element before his eyes adjusted enough for him to recognize the man.

"Valjean?"

It was everything he had been expecting since he had first learned that Valjean had broken parole and it was the strangest thing he had yet seen.

"What is he doing?" Javert demanded.

"He has no papers. He is a fugitive. What else can he do?" Clarence asked rhetorically.

And even when he was lawfully on parole, it had only taken four days for Valjean to steal from a veritable saint.

Clarence waved his hand and they were at another building watching Valjean take more pilfered goods. And then another and another and another and another. Javert was not sure how long this sickening montage lasted. It was who he wholeheartedly believed Valjean to be until a few short hours ago and there was something so wrong about it. He had always disliked watching crime occurring but it had never felt as appalling as this. This was not Valjean, not the Valjean that he had let go earlier that night. This man was nothing and he could be so much more.

Finally they arrived at a group of police inspectors lying in wait and managing to catch the thief when he came out. Valjean snarled like a dog when they placed him in chains again. It was a familiar sight and not a welcome one. Soon he would disappear into the depths of Toulon once more, a number until death. Assuming he did not manage to escape again and wreak more havoc, of course. A part of him wished that that had been the Valjean he had seen at the barricade that night but it was not a large part. Society needed to be protected more than his sanity did.

"Thank God!" Javert breathed.

"Terribly unfeeling," Clarence remonstrated. "This is because you were not there."

"I can no more control Valjean than I can the sun," Javert said curtly, not bothering to correct the misapprehension. "And what is the law for if not to stop a serial thief? I might be able to comprehend an argument about one loaf of bread but this is a pattern of wrong behavior and even the most tender-hearted could not argue this one. Oh, they may try to place blame elsewhere, on society perhaps, but it must still be punished. Even Madeleine, who was so understanding that it killed you, admitted that cases such as these needed a stern hand."

"Valjean is so hard on himself," Clarence replied wistfully.

The scene shifted. A brief trial with Valjean looking sullen and glaring at everyone, not even paying attention as was condemned for escape and for a truly dizzying number of robberies. Apparently Jean-the-Jack had built himself up quite a reputation even before he had been caught.

Then there was Valjean laboring away once more in the galleys, a green cap atop his head. It should be red. This was unnatural, for all that this version of Valjean thoroughly deserved it. And that hatred upon his face…it was as if his years in freedom had only served to bring the worst of him to the surface and to crush whatever goodness that the Valjean that Javert had known (or who had known Javert, to put it more precisely) had so carefully cultivated.

"There is a certain freedom in such a complete lack of freedom," Clarence said quietly. "Before, for all his almost mindless attempts to free himself, Valjean had always in some part of his mind remembered that he did not want to be in Toulon forever and so held himself back from anything that might jeopardize his chances of leaving the chains behind one day."

Javert snorted. "Anything but the escapes."

"Had one of those succeeded, as it did here, then his freedom would be immediate and there would be no need to wait. He felt it was worth the risk," Clarence explained.

"He was wrong."

"Clearly," Clarence acknowledged. "But those escapes weren't completely conscious decisions."

Javert frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Sometimes when you've suffered so much that you cannot stand anymore then you try to rise up and flee, no matter how hopeless or what the consequences of your failure are," Clarence answered.

Javert had never felt anything like that. Oh, there had been suffering in his life, great suffering. He had been born in Toulon after all, born to a life that routinely broke grown men. And yet had he stupidly tried to flee? No, no he had been patient and he had worked hard and he had been rewarded.

But there was that very night on the bridge. His worldview was shattered and every passing second was agony. Perhaps if he had not crossed paths with Valjean again that night, perhaps if Valjean had not left his address…but he had and it had driven him to the Seine. What was that if not a mindless attempt to escape his own suffering?

"Do you see now?" Clarence asked eagerly. "Think of the man who went to the barricades solely to save his daughter's dear love even though she conspired to keep him a secret from her and he fears to lose the only person that has loved him since he went to Toulon. And this means he's abandoned his plan to leave the country for his own protection from the law. Think of the man who was willing to give up everything because you had only done your duty and he could not bring himself to end him. Think of what your absence meant for him."

Javert could see how, technically, his not being there to stop Valjean from escaping so that when he finally did get out of prison legitimately thirteen years later he was able to meet the bishop and have a thoroughly improbable and completely undeserved rescue. He did not, however, see how his failure to prevent Valjean's escape because he was busy not existing meant that anything that followed from that was his responsibility.

Maybe if he had not foiled the escape because he was missing from his post or had failed in his duty then he could be held accountable but he wasn't ever even born here! What about the other guards who had failed to do something that was so obvious to him? How about Valjean himself for turning to a life of crime when Javert knew for a fact that he had it in him to become a millionaire philanthropist mayor!

"It is truly unfortunate but he made his choices and I do not see where it is my fault," Javert said bluntly.

Clarence sighed. "You are so cold-hearted, Inspector."

He wasn't very good at reading people, was he? It wasn't that it did not bother him to see Valjean brought so low when he knew that he could be better, it was the fact he honestly did not see how he could be blamed for the actions of others in a world where he did not even exist.

"Let's try this," Clarence decided but he was sounding decidedly less optimistic than before. It was not surprising. Javert rather doubted he had made such a dramatic impact on anyone's life as he had on Valjean's.

Suddenly it was winter and they were on the familiar streets of Montreuil. It was a familiar scene, more or less, replayed constantly in his head whenever he had cause to think of Valjean and the humiliation that he had heaped upon him by snatching a criminal prostitute out of the stern grasp of the law. He probably thought he was saving her for all that she had died anyway (something he also did not blame himself for because whoever heard of someone dying from being yelled at? She wasn't even an old woman).

There were some notable differences. He was not there, for one, and neither was Madeleine because if he weren't already back in Toulon then he was hard at work earning his place there. There were far more prostitutes about and the area just had a far more dilapidated feel to it than he remembered. Even that drunken idiot who had thrown snow at Fantine or some such nonsense and ran away from the prospect of having to fill out an actual police report looked shabbier and, if he remembered correctly, this was an elector and a member of Champmathieu's jury.

Yet again he had to face the fact that Valjean was a walking miracle worker and everyone's lives were greatly improved by his mere presence. Everyone's life but Javert's but that was to be expected given Valjean's refusal to be a proper convict in or out of prison at either end of the moral spectrum and Javert's devotion to law and order.

From what he had heard, the town had collapsed in on itself quickly after it had turned its back on Valjean. He wondered if they ever regretted what they did or if they even bothered to make the connection at all. He wondered if, perhaps, they could be so petty and spiteful as to blame the man that they betrayed and rejected for their own self-inflicted misery.

It would not surprise him if they were.

But Fantine was still there and she was still on her knees, crying and begging for her daughter. It was almost impossible to understand her through her tears. In another life, she would have nothing to worry about. In another life, Valjean would have taken her as his own and given her a far better life than Fantine ever could have even if she had been able to keep the child with her and had not fallen.

Now, Javert knew nothing at all about the life that Valjean had provided for Cosette aside from the fact that it was in Paris and they probably did not get out much but he knew it would be better than whatever Fantine might once have been able to supply.

To see her brought so low and so angry but at the same time so incognizant of her own suffering, all her thoughts for her child even as she might be sentenced to prison…It made him think of something from years ago. It made him think of another woman who…

No. He shook his head firmly to clear it. It made him think of nothing.

The drunken instigator stumbled away and Fantine was once again taken into custody. Though Javert had no particular interest in seeing her sentenced to six months (for that was the only appropriate sentence and with no Valjean to save her, she would need to do it), the scene around him continued to move.

She was babbling the entire time she was taken into the station about her poor dying daughter. She couldn't be that badly off if she lived long enough for Valjean to inexplicably dither about rescuing her for months on end, get arrested, go to trial, go back to Toulon, and finally eventually fake his death and come to rescue her. And what did it matter if Fantine went to jail? She stopped being able to pay after that month anyway. But perhaps Valjean had sent money, too? That sounded like something that he would do.

To Javert's slight surprise, the officer occupying Javert's post dismissed the others. As they left, they gave him knowing grins. What was so amusing about a prostitute being imprisoned for six months? Were things really that dull without Valjean around? It seemed like crime would be up but perhaps these men lacked his dedication to the job. Most men did, he found.

"So," the inspector said, outright smirking now. "You say that you can't go to jail because you've got some kid you've got to pay for, huh?"

Fantine started, unable to believe that someone was actually listening. "Yes," she said, looking as if he were an answer to a prayer. "Yes, my Cosette-"

"I might have known. There is always some man," the inspector interrupted, shaking his head ruefully. "Now, I'd love to be able to help you, I really would but you did break the law and in front of so many witnesses, too!"

Fantine's looked down. "I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't have done it, I know that I was wrong. I just…is it right for him to be able to say all those things to me and then to put snow down my dress? This is the only dress I have and I need it for work."

"Of course not," the inspector said soothingly.

Javert felt the faintest flicker of alarm despite the man's seemingly empathetic demeanor. "Why did he send those men away?"

"Wait and see," Clarence said, looking physically pained. "I won't make you watch but you must see."

"But you must understand that I cannot just let you go! Think of what kind of message that would send to the town," the inspector continued, his sympathetic tone belied by the gleam in his eyes.

"I will do anything, Monsieur," Fantine begged. It would have moved a heart of stone but Javert's heart was and always had been wood. Still, he found this…distasteful. "Only my Cosette-"

"That, Madame, is precisely what I am counting on."

Fantine looked confused but Javert no longer was. Fantine was the prostitute but Javert had evidently seen more of the world. Perhaps that naivety was why she had fallen and he had risen as far as he had.

"If I can just tell them that I've taken care of it, that you were suitably punished for what you did…" the inspector, who truly did not deserve that title, said coaxingly.

He put a hand on her head and she did not pull away.

"That's enough," Javert said sharply.

Clarence nodded his agreement. "It's more than enough."

The scene changed and it was still winter. Or maybe winter again, depending on the year.

"What happened?" Javert asked.

Clarence opened his mouth to answer and a thought struck Javert.

"And I do not mean 'what happened with Fantine and that man', that much is obvious. What happened when it was through?" Javert asked. "Did he keep her word? What became of her? She was sick, wasn't she?"

"What was it to him?" Clarence asked rhetorically. "He kept his word and turned her lose. But she was already so badly off and now she had a reputation as being violent and attacking clients…Well, it did not go well."

He gestured to a pile of trash just piled up out of the way, in a corner by the docks. Javert peered closely and saw a leg sticking out of it. There were no shoes or stockings on the foot.

"She stayed where she was, trying to earn whatever she could for her little daughter, even as she died," Clarence said mournfully. "Her illness discouraged customers but not completely. As she died, her last words, spoken to an uncaring world, were of her hatred for it and her love for Cosette. She wasn't left where she was because she was in the way so when her corpse was robbed and her last few francs saved for Cosette were stolen – as well as her clothing – she was shoved off out of the way to rot. Maybe if the smell becomes unbearable they will move her."

"An ignoble end," Javert noted.

Clarence looked at him hopefully.

Javert crossed his arms across his chest. "If I had it my way, she would have been safely locked up. I cannot possibly be blamed for the incompetence and corruption of other members of the force." But they did so make it difficult to win the cooperation of the populace. Fortunately, he had made a name for himself and so no longer had to deal with the kind of response other inspectors got.

Clarence sighed. "Cosette, then."

The scene switched to a young girl, dirty girl dressed in rags who was being cruelly beaten by a red-headed giant. Javert would have sworn that it was a man except that it was wearing a dress. A sickly-looking man was sitting nearby, playing with two small girls. The three of them were ignoring the scene entirely.

The girl did not cry out as much as he would have expected. She must have been used to such treatment. He had not been capable of that at her age. It reminded him, vaguely, of the convicts of Toulon once they had had a few good beatings to knock whatever sensitivity they might have once had out of them. But they were hardened criminals (and whatever Valjean was and he just not lump him in with them regardless of what would have happened with the bishop's intervention) and this was but a child.

Finally, the creature seemed satisfied.

"Éponine," she called sweetly. It was a sickening sound.

One of the girls looked up. "Yes, mother?"

"Come hold the door open for me," the woman – really, that was a woman? – requested. He had seen her before. What was her name…

Éponine nodded and hurried over to the door, looking pleased to be able to help her mother with something.

The woman then proceeded to literally kick the trembling but immobile child across the room and out the door.

Nobody in the inn seemed to have any sort of problem with this almost comically grotesque behavior.

Cosette (for who else could it be?) landed out in the snow with a soft thump.

"You are not to come back, you useless sack of shit," the woman spat harshly. "And when I come back you had better not still be there or I will throw a bucket of boiling water on you. Do you understand me?"

It took a moment but the child bravely answered."Y-yes, mistress."

"You're just as useless as your mother. And those bruises make you look incredibly ugly. Take one last look, Éponine, at what an ugly child she is so that you may remember how beautiful you and your sister are. I would say that she could become a whore like her mother but who would want an ugly piece of shit like that?" the woman asked disgustedly before turning around and marching back into the inn without a glance behind her.

Éponine closed the door behind her and then Cosette was alone in the cold.

Javert could not say that he thought her worse off for her abandonment.

"Have you ever seen something so appalling?" Clarence asked, horrified and appalled.

"I have," Javert said simply.

Clarence looked curiously at him but Javert chose not to elaborate.

"Was she gone in enough time?" Javert wondered.

"Only just," Clarence said quietly. The scene changed again.

They were out in the woods again. Cosette wasn't moving.

"Is she…?" Javert inquired.

"Not quite," Clarence said softly. "But almost."

The scene moved so that they were closer to Cosette and Javert could make out the faint traces of life in her body but it was life that was fading fast.

The pair of them were quiet as the light, such as there was, faded from her eyes.

"You cannot possibly say that this was me," Javert said quietly. "The child's father abandoned her, her mother left her with these people, the Thénardiers abused her, Valjean was not in a position to be rescuing anybody. One foiled escape attempt cannot hold me accountable for this."

Wordlessly, Clarence allowed the scene to change again.

This time they were at the Gorbeau House, that place where he had finally realized that Valjean was alive after his 'drowning', and the place, too, where that idiot boy had alerted him to that man being held hostage.

The scene altered a little so that they were in the room where the crime had taken place.

There was a dead body on the floor and enough blood around the corpse to show that he had not died pleasantly, if such a thing was even possible.

A gang of very familiar-looking criminals that he had once arrested at this very spot were standing around the corpse arguing.

"Now what are we supposed to do?" Thénardier demanded. "You shouldn't have hit him so hard."

"He wouldn't shut up wailing about that daughter of his," another one of them said defensively.

"And now we're going to have to kill her, too," Thénardier complained. "All I ask for is a little basic competence!"

"He has instructions to kill her if we don't contact him within two hours," a third man pointed out. "Just in case something happened."

Then, a little belatedly, the police stormed in and arrested everybody. The gun which had so fortuitously misfired when aimed at Javert (or perhaps not so fortuitously as then he could have died peacefully being right about Valjean) killed one of the policemen.

"I don't understand how this is my doing," Javert spoke finally. "Why are we here?"

"When Marius failed to give the signal, you chose to move in early enough to save the kidnapped man. The person Marius spoke to without you did not though he, too, was eventually forced to come in," Clarence explained.

"I always wondered why it was that he ran, what it was that he was hiding from," Javert said quietly, trying to get a better look at the murdered man. "I thought that he might be a convict. Was I right?"

"You were, yes, but this man has no such secrets," Clarence said cryptically.

Javert frowned, trying to figure out how his lack of existence could possibly change the identity of the man held captive.

"Originally, the life you saved was Valjean's," Clarence helpfully supplied.

Javert closed his eyes in annoyance and groaned in frustration. Of course it was.

He had a brief thought. If he had saved Valjean there then technically Valjean saving him at the barricade was just returning the favor, wasn't it? He had owed Javert and then he had not. He always knew that Valjean had a peculiar sense of honor for all that his morals were incredibly skewed.

But no, he was grasping at straws. That would not explain the address or the boy or even the fact that Valjean had chosen to identify himself when he was so covered in filth that Javert never would have known him.

Naturally, that was when the idiot boy showed up.

"I can't believe this!" the boy cried, bursting into the other room.

"That's Marius, the man that Valjean saved for his daughter," Clarence helpfully explained.

Javert thought of his two missing pistols. "Ah."

"Now you show up," the inspector said, annoyed. "What happened to you signaling me to let me know that you had seen enough to have these people arrested? Did you lose your nerve?"

Marius drew himself up to his full height. "Of course not! I was here the whole time! I saw everything!"

"Then why didn't you alert somebody? Why did you wait until this man was dead?" the inspector demanded. "It clearly took him quite some time to die. Even if you saw nothing that made you think 'provable criminal activity' beforehand, once they started trying to kill this man you really should have done something!"

"And I would have!" Marius insisted. He colored. "It's just that, well…"

The inspector sighed. "Well at least we can get your testimony to help lock them away."

But Marius shook his head. "Oh, I can't testify."

"Why am I not surprised?" Javert muttered under his breath. "This man is clearly not reliable and my replacement would be better off doing what I did and not even trying to make use of this man."

"But you just said that you saw everything," the inspector protested.

Marius nodded gravely. "Oh, I did and if I could bring myself to testify then what a story I could tell!"

"Are you…afraid of retribution then?" the inspector asked, trying to understand.

"Nothing so cowardly!" Marius cried, glaring at the other man.

The inspector closed his eyes briefly. "Then what is it?"

"It's just that this man is actually a Monsieur Thénardier and my father, who I never met, left me a letter saying that this man saved his life at Waterloo and so therefore I must do a good turn for him. And it doesn't seem like a very good turn to get him arrested," Marius said practically.

The inspector looked as if he'd never heard anything so stupid before in his life, a look that Javert was sure was mirrored on his own face. "He will be arrested with or without your cooperation!"

"Ah, but you never would have known about this crime at all if it weren't for me," Marius corrected. "I've done enough damage. Do not ask me to add to it."

"Are you seriously telling me that you literally just watched a man get murdered because you didn't want to seem ungrateful to a vile murdering criminal?" the inspector asked incredulously.

"It was awful," Marius said seriously. "And I would thank you not to call my father's savior a 'vile murdering criminal.' I find it offensive."

"Is there anything we can arrest this idiot for?" the inspector asked hopefully.

One of his men looked up. "I don't think so. He was pretty clearly not involved. Almost not involved enough to make it a crime but not quite."

"Yes…go somewhere else and think about your life and your choices, would you?" the inspector requested, deeply disturbed.

"That man is an idiot," Javert said, appalled.

"He is young," Clarence defended him. "He had not expected to be faced with stopping a crime or doing harm to his father's savior."

"Being young does not preclude him from being an idiot nor does it make it more endearing or palatable," Javert said bluntly. "And only an idiot would think that 'gratitude' means that you must let a crime continue or even that that is a valid option! This is the man that Valjean would have for his daughter?"

"Well…he's not exactly happy about it either," Clarence admitted. "But she loves him and that's all that matters to Valjean."

"I would say 'at least he's not a complete fool' but the fact he realizes that Marius is an idiot and lets his daughter's tender feelings convince him to shackle her with him for life says otherwise. I can't wait to see what other havoc he wreaks," Javert said sarcastically. "At least this time Valjean is too busy in Toulon and Cosette never grew up to love him so he won't miraculously escape the barricades."

There was an awkward silence.

"Well," Clarence said delicately, "while I disapprove of your desire to see a man die for annoying you-"

"It is more of a desire to see a traitor to the crown not escape justice," Javert interrupted.

"He was never much of a revolutionary. He only attended their meetings long enough for him to realize that nobody else was particularly fond of Napoleon," Clarence explained. "After that, he slowly become a republican at heart, but he resisted it because his father fought at Waterloo, but he never went back to their society. If it weren't for the fact that he fell in love with Cosette and Valjean was planning on moving to England so he would never see her again, he never would have been at the barricades in the first place."

Javert frowned. "I seem to recall…They said something about him being the savior of the barricades. Without him, would the barricades have fallen faster?"

Clarence nodded. "Much faster."

Javert perked up. Finally, here was something that could be pointed to as proof that things would be better without him! He was sure that there were plenty of other things but, given his mission, Clarence had unsurprisingly chosen to focus on Valjean, Fantine, and their child. And the fact that those foolish little schoolboys would all be killed was no different because that had happened the first time. If their deaths had come a few hours earlier, well, that really made no difference, did it?

"Of course, since the barricades fell earlier…" Clarence trailed off and the scene changed.

The National Guard had overrun the barricade and were arresting some very furious revolutionaries.

A drunk man stumbled out of the café in time to insist that he was a revolutionary, too, and ought to be arrested with their blonde leader.

"I don't understand," Javert said, confused. "My not being there saves all of these lives and you think that is a bad thing?"

"I can understand why you might think it is a bad thing," Clarence corrected him. "Especially given that the leader, Enjolras, was the only one to get a death sentence since he would not stop advocating for revolution at his trial and that was commuted. These boys were all exiled to Belgium and lived comfortable lives trying to start another revolution. Then they came back in 1848 when there was another revolution and the second republic. Of course, that only lasted three years before Napoleon III took the reins and…well, the government of France was notoriously unstable during this period."

Javert could not say that he was not annoyed that these traitors had gotten off so lightly and even had another revolution (nor was he surprised at all the public unrest since that had been near-constant in recent years) but he didn't think that the satisfaction of them dying was worth existing for.

"Of course, the death toll was a bit higher on the National Guard's side," Clarence informed him.

"What?" Javert asked, frowning. How could that be if the barricades had fallen earlier? "I don't understand."

"Without you, no one else was daring enough to volunteer to go behind enemy lines and be a spy," Clarence explained. "There were still the criminal informants who were tasked with murdering innocents to convince the citizens of Paris that the students were bad men who should not be supported but they were all quickly taken down the moment they killed their first innocent. Some of them even got the message and didn't try."

Javert thought he recalled something about everyone being far too dramatic when their leader, Enjolras, had executed a man for killing an innocent. He had never approved of using criminals in police work (though Vidocq, by virtue of being Vidocq, was a bit of an exception) and he certainly did not think that the police should be arranging for the murder of innocents to make the revolutionaries look bad.

They were better than that. He was better than that.

"A man that they had initially had guard you was, without you, able to go out and spy on the National Guard. He was very successful and gave them much information about the troop plans and movements. The rebellion lasted far shorter than it would have without you but it was much bloodier on the side of the National Guard. I will not deny that some revolutionaries also fell but they did not die to a man as they would have with you," Clarence concluded. He looked hopefully at Javert.

While Javert did not particularly like Clarence and certainly had no wish to please him, he couldn't say that he was completely unaffected by this.

It was not his fault that the other guards were incompetent and had not caught Valjean nor was it his fault that after only six years Valjean had refused to be as close to an honest man as a wanted fugitive could be (and he had proven that he could get very, very close). It didn't seem to make a difference whether Fantine had died in a hospital or on the street since her fate was sealed either way and he could not be blamed for the corruption of other officers. Cosette had been murdered, or close to it, by those that were supposed to be caring for her and their bad character and her mother's bad judgment were not on his conscience. The police's failure to save that innocent man rested solely on Marius' shoulders for concocting the most ridiculous moral problem he had ever heard of and failing to do his duty to stop those criminals. The probable death of that girl was the result of those same criminals and her father's inability to put her welfare about his own. The barricade boys cheating justice as they had was unfortunate and annoying but in accordance with the law.

None of that was enough to move him.

But the thought of the blood of the good, honest, hard-working men of the National Guard being spilled needlessly when they were just trying to return order to the streets of Paris…How could he accept that? He wasn't that selfish.

"Very well," Javert said quietly. "I renounce my wish to have never been born."

Clarence's face lit up at another apparent success before he turned to actually look at Javert and frowned. "You do not seem very pleased to have been taught that your life has meaning after all."

"I still intend to jump into the Seine," Javert said calmly.

Clarence's eyes bulged out and he now looked quite alarmed. "But you just said-"

"I will not deny that my presence was vaguely necessary to indirectly allow certain ends to be obtained," Javert replied. "But my reasons for jumping are still valid and I do not see who I would be harming by dying tonight as I was supposed to."

"Were you not paying attention to the widespread corruption the other police officers were guilty of?" Clarence demanded.

"Do not imagine that I needed your visions to know of that," Javert scoffed. "But not everyone is like that and the presence or absence of one more competent and incorruptible officer is not enough to change anything substantially. That man who was as frustrated with Marius as I was after the kidnapping-murder seemed to be reasonably competent if a little late in deciding to go in without a signal. Not everyone can have my sense of timing."

"But…you have so much to live for!" Clarence objected, looking quite suddenly out of his element now that his party trick hadn't worked.

"I have my duty," Javert said curtly. "And I cannot even fulfill that correctly as I do not know what to do about Valjean."

"Maybe if you took a little more time-"

"The facts will remain the same," Javert cut him off.

Clarence tried again. "Perhaps if you spent some more time with him-"

"If I spent time with him without arresting him then I would have made my decision and I am not certain that it is the right one," Javert interrupted again.

"Well what about…" Clarence trailed off, thinking hard. At last a light entered his eyes again and he snapped his fingers. "Marius!"

"Marius?" Javert repeated, confused. "What does Marius have to do with me needing to live?"

"You hate him, right?" Clarence asked rhetorically.

Javert shook his head. "Hate is a strong word. As far as I know, he has not committed any other crime than being at the barricade and, as Valjean mentioned, by the time he is well enough to arrest he will probably be part of a blanket pardon on behalf of a king eager to put all of this unpleasantness behind him. I just believe that he is an idiot."

"Would you like to see everything work out for him at the cost of the purpose of your sacrifice?" Clarence asked him.

Javert frowned. "I…do not follow."

"If you are going to kill yourself then by your own admission it is because it is the only way you can think of to not have to arrest Valjean when he saved you and proved himself a good man," Clarence pointed out. "What if Marius destroys Valjean?"

"How could that idiot boy bring about the downfall of the father of the woman he loves?" Javert asked skeptically.

Clarence hesitated. "Normally we do not show the future as it impedes on free will but in this case, your being alive will probably change the future so I would just be showing an alternate universe like I did with the one where you had never been born. And if you choose to die anyway then no one will ever be the wiser."

Javert was starting to have some serious doubts that this 'angel' was ever going to just go away and let him jump but said nothing. No need to get into an argument over it at this point in time.

"I will show you," Clarence said decidedly and then the world changed.

He saw Valjean looking far older than he had the last time he had seen him and looking so pale as to resemble a ghost. Marius looked just the same and not too much time could have passed as Marius said something about how it was the day after his wedding to Cosette. Perhaps that explained the pained look. Javert would probably look worse if he had a daughter wedded to that idiot. Strangely, the pained look only increased as Marius asked him to come live with them.

Surely even the presence of Marius would not make him no longer wish to stay with Cosette given the rather extreme lengths he went to to save Marius from his own actions?

And then Javert quite suddenly understood why Valjean was looking so upset: he was about to confess to being a convict.

And, what's more, he was doing it in the worst way possible! Javert, not being a convict himself, did not know a great deal about confessing to these matters but he thought he had done a passable job confessing to Valjean that he had mistaken him for the man he actually was (although that memory was cringe-inducing in retrospect) but he was pretty sure that Valjean was deliberately portraying himself in the worst light.

To begin with, he went right out and announced that he was on the run and had served nineteen years for one theft and been sentenced to life for another. He barely mentioned the loaf of bread he had actually stolen and made it sound like he had actually been sentenced to nineteen years for the first theft which would have been for a far more serious crime than one that earned him five years plus those repeated escapes.

And then he was so mysterious about how the money that had obviously come from his mostly-legitimate factory (legitimate in all but the fact that Valjean had been a convict when he started it) had come into his possession which would make anyone not aware of the truth think that he had stolen it, especially with the confession of past thievery.

He also completely failed to mention the years of doing good he had spent as Monsieur Madeleine, something that would surely touch someone who had probably actually just watched Valjean nearly be murdered by Thénardier because he was confused about the concept of gratitude.

And then there was the matter of Cosette.

It was one thing to feel like he owed Fantine because her own actions made her miserable (though it was absurd) and to take the child in but it was quite another to save Marius. Clearly he loved her more than life itself and she was all he had (all she had had most likely until she met Marius) so why was he acting like they were barely acquainted?

It seemed to calm the obviously panicking Marius (maybe he wouldn't be panicking quite so much if Valjean weren't trying to scare him. Though, from what he'd seen, he was probably always going to have been panicking at least a little) but it was the flimsiest like Javert had heard in awhile and he hadn't even seen the two of them together since the night Valjean took her with him fleeing from the Gorbeau House. He had certainly never spoken to either of them about it and Javert rather hoped that if Marius and Cosette were at the point of marriage they had discussed her father at one point! And they must have if they wanted him to move in. Did Marius just ignore reality as he saw fit?

Valjean certainly wasn't mentioning anything about him being the only reason Marius was alive right now. Either Valjean for some reason hadn't felt the need to mention something incredibly relevant or Marius was the most ungrateful person in the universe. Even Javert had been more affected by Valjean saving his life than that! Although given Valjean's strange need to hide his good deeds (did he really think that anybody didn't know he was secretly leaving all the poor people of Montreuil money?) and Marius' strange definition of gratitude, it was really a toss-up.

And then came the part where Javert could not just silently watch any longer.

"Now that you know, do you think, sir, you, who are the master, that I ought not to see Cosette any more?" Valjean stammered, barely able to force the words out.

"I think that that would be better," Marius said coldly.

Javert felt a strange desire to punch him and he firmly told himself it was because the man was an idiot.

"I shall never see her more," murmured Jean Valjean. Javert had never seen him look so desolate, not even when Javert had refused to give him those three days to find Cosette or back when they were in Toulon together.

He moved towards the door but suddenly stopped. He turned back towards Marius and begged him to reconsider, begged the man who owed him his every happiness and even his life to permit him to see his own daughter! He offered to meet her as rarely as Marius liked and under any condition that Marius saw fit to impose. He even pointed out that there would be talk if the man everyone thought of as Cosette's father or uncle but at least guardian never came to visit. It was beneath him

Perhaps uncharitably, Javert thought that the appeal to what people would say was what convinced him to let Valjean come to see Cosette every night.

"What is the matter with him?" Javert demanded. "Marius may have married his daughter but she is still his daughter! She's not a piece of property or an animal that Marius can decide to not let him see! He may decide, perhaps, not to allow Valjean into his house but this whole thing! And to tell Cosette nothing of this? He means to secretly break her heart instead of openly? And that this Marius would know Valjean as a good man and then balk at the word 'convict!' It is unthinkable!"

Clarence gave him a pointed look.

"Do not even! I believe, above all else, in law and order! This boy seems barely aware that there is a law. He has less respect for the law than Valjean does!" Javert complained. "And how gracious he is, allowing Valjean what anyone else wouldn't think to need to grant him! Why would Valjean confess at all, especially in such a way? He says his conscience…well his conscience never caused him to actually obey the law, just to apparently acknowledge to an idiot that he is breaking it. It seems that if this boy were actually the revolutionary he pretended to be we would not be having this problem!"

"We, Inspector?" Clarence asked innocently.

Javert merely glared at him.

"Let's see what comes of their bargain, shall we?" Clarence asked and the scene changed again.

They were in a room that was not only not particularly clean but also devoid of any cheer or maintenance.

A woman that he could only assume was Cosette, looking radiant but confused, was trying to figure out why they were meeting in such a place. Valjean brushed her questions off, insisted that he call her 'Madame' and she call him 'Monsieur Jean' and left when she persisted in questioning him.

He saw Cosette lying in bed with Marius, clearly upset, while he stroked her hair.

"I just don't understand it," she was saying. "Have I upset him in some way? I thought that he was happy about the marriage. If he's feeling like he's losing me then why is he trying to make our separation wider?"

"You always said that your father did strange things, this is nothing new," Marius said before kissing her on the neck.

"I know but it's like he's rejecting me," Cosette persisted. "It's one thing to go away for days at a time, to insist on eating black bread, to not even live in the main house with me but this. 'You don't need a father anymore'? That's just…It's absurd!"

"Maybe you should respect his wishes," Marius said in between kisses.

Still, Cosette tried to focus. "But I don't understand!"

"You don't have to. You said that he left when you questioned him before. If you keep questioning him and don't just obey then he'll probably keep leaving," Marius pointed out, placing his hand on her thigh.

"But…I…" Cosette managed before her passion overcame her and the scene changed.

There were various other scenes he saw of Cosette slowly allowing Valjean to distance himself from her. One day she called him 'Papa' and he looked so blissful before reminding her to call him 'Monsieur Jean.' For the first time, Javert heard her do so – and so casually, too – and then he could have sworn he saw tears.

The conversations began to last longer and center more around that idiot lawyer which annoyed Javert greatly since he had to listen to them. And he honestly couldn't understand how Valjean could find so many good things to say about the man that was ruining his happiness, even if it was probably just so he could stay with Cosette for longer. If Javert had been tasked to say nice things about Marius so as to in some way prevent or solve a crime, he was not sure that he would be able to get anywhere near as far as Valjean was capable of getting in one night.

He saw Marius take Cosette on a trip.

As they were eating dinner, she stopped suddenly and said, "Oh, I did not have time to tell him that I would not be home tonight to receive him! I hope I won't worry him."

"He'll be fine," Marius said dismissively. "He understand that you are a married woman now with new responsibilities and I'm sure he has his own life where he's not waiting around for you every night."

But then he saw Valjean sitting, sad and alone, in that same dank and depressing room. It had been cleaned but it looked as miserable as ever, especially with Cosette's joy to illuminate it. Eventually, his shoulders hunched, he left.

He saw Valjean frown at seeing the chairs placed right by the door one day and move them back. He saw a sudden understanding come into Valjean's eyes as he saw the fire not lit on another day and he told his confused daughter that it was another whim of his.

"I cannot believe him!" Javert hissed. "He said that Valjean could come every night and then he has the nerve to try and push him out of her life further because he's annoyed that Valjean is making him keep his word!"

"He never asked Valjean to leave," Clarence said neutrally. "And Valjean did say Marius could set any condition."

"And they're both going through such effort to make sure that that girl knows nothing…I do not know much of her but she really ought to refuse to speak to both of them for this," Javert said darkly. "But that might just be playing into Marius' hand about Valjean."

He watched as Valjean attempted to make the trip to see Cosette only to turn back at her doorstep. He watched Cosette spend a blissful evening with her husband. Valjean's stopped a few feet from her door the next night. The morning after Cosette noticed Valjean had not been with her for one night and sent her servant to inquire.

He watched as Valjean himself told the idiot girl who apparently did not have a brain that he was not home even though she must have seen him before and the girl dutifully repeated it to Cosette. He watched as Valjean made his nightly trek to Cosette's house and stopped a little shorter every day. He watched as Cosette, distracted as she was by her husband's machinations and her own newlywed bliss, began to worry.

"You've said yourself that he often goes away on trips and we're well aware of his peculiarities," Marius said persuasively.

"Yes, I know all of that," she said, frowning. "But it still does not seem right that he would go away for so long without telling me where he was going or why or how long he would be gone. He left without saying goodbye and I cannot remember when he was last here even."

"He is a grown man and you are a grown woman and so he does not need to explain himself the way he might have when you still needed him," Marius said persuasively.

Cosette looked troubled at this. "I…"

"And there is nothing to be done until he comes back," Marius continued.

"I should at least send Nicolette over with a note for the portress to have him come see me when he gets back," Cosette said firmly.

Marius could not manage to talk her down from that but as Valjean was purposely avoiding her it would do no good.

He watched as Valjean continued his nightly mission and the neighbors began to talk, thinking that he must be mad. He watched as one night Valjean made it no further than his stoop. The next night he did not leave the apartment. After that, he did not leave his bed. He saw the portress growing concerned and summoning a doctor, something Valjean insisted was unnecessary but was willing to humor her on.

He watched Thénardier slink into Marius' study and watching that scene play out was almost as rage-inducing as watching Valjean's sorry attempt at a confession. Honestly, if he had really wanted Marius to let him continue to see Cosette then why in the world would he say it like that?

It turned out that Marius was under the delusion that Valjean had viciously murdered he himself. Marius would not have minded back when he thought Valjean was doing it for 'Patria' but doing it out of a sense of vengeance was too much. He had been around long enough to know that motive didn't matter but Marius' idiocy was a constant, at least. He believed that there was a saintly ex-convict named Madeleine who had broken parole and then pulled his life together. He had made millions of francs, most of which he used to improve the lives of everyone around him, and had gone to prison to spare someone else who it was believed to have been him. Then he had drowned saving a sailor. All of that sounded familiar but somehow Marius had gotten it into his head that this must have been some other saintly ex-convict who broke parole and whom Valjean had stolen Cosette's dowry from. Why he thought Valjean would bother stealing the money if he was just going to give it away was as beyond Javert as logic was evidently beyond Marius.

For some reason, Thénardier felt the need to prove Valjean innocent of both of these crimes and getting Marius all excited and remorseful (once he knew Valjean was Madeleine and Javert had killed himself, he was happy to think of Valjean as a saint again) before trying to crush that newfound joy. Why Thénardier had bothered with the newspaper clippings was beyond him but perhaps he enjoyed getting people's hopes up. He then proceeded to tell Marius how Valjean had saved his life at the barricade and made him realize just what a terrible person he had been these past few weeks.

Of course, Thénardier thought he was proving Valjean was a murderer when he recounted the rescue but Marius – stunningly – saw through Thénardiers version of events. Thénardier even thought to bring a scrap of fabric cut from the 'corpse' which perfectly fit the coat Marius just happened to have lying around for comparison but would not have convinced anybody else about anything else since it was just a scrap of fabric and could have come from anywhere.

Then Marius, eager to go make amends, threw money at Thénardier and ran off to find Cosette.

"What unspeakable evil is that man going to do with all of that money?" Javert asked. Men like Thénardier, at least, he could be assured would never change.

"He and his daughter are going to be particularly cruel slave traders in America," Clarence said reluctantly.

Javert was not even slightly surprised to find Marius accidentally enabling such a thing. He just seemed to be very bad at life and yet mysteriously immune to the natural consequences of his actions.

Cosette was very confused by his rambling explanation of letters and rescues but she was pleased to go see her father (or, as she referred to him, 'Monsieur Jean' and Javert was a little mollified to hear Marius correcting her and saying that he was her father) as she had been missing him quite a bit and had wanted to see him.

Unfortunately, when they arrived he was on his deathbed. He was so happy to just see Cosette that he actually called her that, even if he did beg Marius' pardon for that. He was overwhelmed by their presence and their forgiveness (though Cosette knew nothing of what he thought she needed to forgive him for) but quite uninterested in hearing Marius praise him and tell Cosette of how he had saved him at the barricade. They tried to get him to come live with them but he stubbornly insisted on dying. And he forbade them from giving him anything more than the simple peasant's grave he would have had had he not gone to Toulon.

The scene faded as Marius and Cosette clung to each other and wept (though Javert thought Marius was being a little ridiculous in crying since, his savior or not, he had never appeared to value Valjean all that much and had largely contributed to his death).

They were suddenly back in that same room that they had started in.

"Well?" Clarence asked, looking almost afraid of the answer. Javert knew why. It was likely that this was the lack trick that the 'angel' had up its sleeve. "Are you convinced."

At last, Javert nodded. He knew what he had to do. "I'm convinced."

Clarence smiled and then, right before Javert's eyes, faded away.

And Javert went to Rue de l'Homme Arme, No. 7.

It was morning before Javert arrived and he was glad of it. He needed to see Cosette, as well, to be able to put a stop to any of this stupidity before it began and he did not think that he would get two chances at this. He could go once to tell Valjean that he was not going to be arresting him but he could not think of any reason to come again (was he supposed to start seeing Valjean socially?) and if it was still night then there was a good chance that Cosette would not be up.

He knocked on Valjean's door firmly and it swung open quickly. Valjean had cleaned himself up but he did not look like he had gotten any sleep since returning home. He was probably waiting for Javert all night. He wondered, briefly, just how long Valjean would have waited for him. Until he read of his death in the paper?

"I've been expecting you," Valjean said lowly.

Javert ignored him and pushed his way into the house.

"Javert-" Valjean sounded marginally more alarmed now, probably because Cosette was sitting at the table eating breakfast. Had he really expected him not to encounter Cosette?

He now knew just what lengths Valjean would go to to prevent any sort of unhappiness from reaching Cosette (and after what he saw the Thénardiers do to her he might understand that a little better) and how desperate he was for her not to learn of his criminal history but what did he expect? That he could just disappear in the middle of the night never to be seen again and Cosette wouldn't care? That Javert would quietly arrest Valjean in his doorway and Cosette wouldn't hear any of it?

For a man who had successfully evaded the law for most of the last seventeen years, Valjean could be so terribly impractical sometimes.

"Oh, hello," Cosette said, looking surprised. "Who are you?"

"My name is Inspector Javert and I am with the Paris police," Javert introduced. Out of the corner of his eye he saw dismay and distress warring on Valjean's face but Cosette's eyes were trained on him.

Cosette bit her lip. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Inspector. My name is Cosette Fauchelevent. Are you here on official business?"

Javert shook his head. "Oh, no."

Valjean jerked at that and did not even attempt to curb the expression of bewilderment and disbelief on his face. He was so incredibly lucky that Cosette did not chance to glance his way. Just how had he managed to hide himself away for so long if he was really going to be this obvious? Or perhaps it was only because he had already resolved to go back to Toulon.

"Then why are you here?" Cosette wondered. "Do you know my father?" At this she did glance his way and Valjean just barely managed to put on a suitably neutral expression. Javert wondered vaguely if Valjean had been making all manner of suspicious faces at him over the years whenever his back was turned.

"I just came to inquire after your father after last night," Javert explained.

Valjean moved forward. "Javert-"

"My father?" Cosette interrupted, seemingly unaware that she was doing so. "Why…what happened? Last night, what are you talking about?"

Valjean once again attempted to intercede. "Cosette, I hardly think-"

Javert was not about to let this infuriating man sacrifice himself at the feet of Marius fucking Pontmercy. This would probably be a great deal more difficult if he weren't so annoyed at the future he had seen.

"Last night, I encountered your father carrying an unconsciously and wounded boy through the sewers of Paris," Javert explained. "He requested assistance in getting the boy home and so I had the fiacre I had waiting for me bring him to his home."

Valjean had closed his eyes at this, looking almost pained. Javert did not feel any sympathy for him since this was entirely for his own good.

"A-A boy?" Cosette asked, sounding faint. One hand was covering her mouth and the other was over her heart. "P-Papa?"

Valjean did not look at her.

"I believe that they people at the Rue des Filles-du Calvaire, No. 6 said his name was Marius," Javert said helpfully, though honestly he was not sure whether or not they had said his name.

"Marius?" Cosette stood up abruptly and went to her father, gazing at him in wonder. "Papa, is this true? You went out last night, to the barricades, and saved Marius?"

"I…could not bear to be the one to break your heart, my child," Valjean said finally, allowing himself to meet her gaze.

"It is one thing to stay in Paris or to let me be with him – how you even found out about him I have no idea! – but what you did…You could have been killed!" she exclaimed, touching his face as if to assure herself that he was still standing right in front of her.

"I could do nothing else," Valjean said simply.

The story of his life.

Javert, feeling suddenly like he was intruding, slipped out the door.

Valjean came to see him the next day at the police station.

Javert stared at him for a long moment, wondering if he was seeing things.

Valjean could not have possibly walked into a police station of his own free will. Was he still trying to get arrested? Javert was most probably the only one in the room to have even heard of Valjean let alone be able to recognize him on sight but it was still a foolish risk for a fugitive to take.

"I can't believe that you're actually here," Javert said blankly.

Valjean smiled wryly. "It is a little…odd. I haven't been in a police station since Montreuil and it was uncomfortable enough at the time but I could not see a way to avoid it. But I did not know where you lived and I did not think that you would appreciate me showing up at your house regardless."

"I do not appreciate you showing up here," Javert sniffed.

Valjean shrugged. "Perhaps not but you could not have done what you did and expected me not to need to speak with you."

"And just what," Javert said slowly, "is it that I did?"

"You told Cosette what happened the night of the barricade," Valjean replied immediately. "I would have had her not know."

Javert frowned. "And why not?"

"She would just worry," Valjean said, looking away.

"She would have worried if she knew you were gone when you were still in danger," Javert corrected. "There is little point in worrying when she learned of it after the fact. And don't you think she deserves to know that you love her enough to take a risk like that?"

Now Valjean frowned. "I do not understand. The things you say…And you did not arrest me! What is going on, Javert?"

Javert refrained from asking if Valjean actually wanted him to arrest him as he was sure he would be annoyed by the reply, whatever it was. "I have decided, after much reflection and headache, that it is technically possible for men to change but it is highly improbable and I will need a great deal to be convinced," Javert announced. "After all this time, you have finally convinced me."

Valjean was staring at him as if he had grown a second head.

"I have furthermore decided that, since you have been dead these past nine years, the law has no more business with you," Javert continued. "If you choose not to tell Cosette anything of your past then that is your choice but you cannot possibly expect other people to magically know your wishes to apparently not tell her anything about you at all."

"I…" Valjean trailed off, looking like he didn't know what to say. "Thank you."

"I have done nothing worthy of thanks," Javert said dismissively. It was true. All he had done was accepted the inevitable on the Valjean front and destroyed Valjean's infuriating plans to make himself a martyr. He honestly did not think he would ever be able to think of Valjean telling Cosette on his deathbed how amazing and wonderful her husband was when he had caused all of that senseless grief without feeling ill and he would be damned if he let it actually come to pass. It really wasn't about Valjean at all.

"I did not want her to know but since she does know she will tell Marius," Valjean said slowly. "I could not explain to her why not to. When he knows, they will not let me gracefully disappear from their happiness."

"Did you want to?" Javert asked pointedly.

Looking miserable, Valjean shook his head. "No. More than anything, no. But I felt that it was the right thing to do. I thought that if I told Marius then he would agree and let it be so. But now that he knows of the barricade he never will. It is…I do not feel entirely comfortable with this but you seem to have taken it entirely out of my hands. Or at least ensured that they will."

"Perhaps it is for the best if that is the kind of personal decision you would make," Javert said bluntly.

Valjean started. "You know my past-"

"Valjean," Javert said, not unkindly. "It was thirty-seven years ago. Perhaps you should consider getting over it."

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