Implied attraction between men. If that's going to offend you, turn back now.

The clatter of the carriage in the street and the shadow of wide skirts that fall over the path are not Javert's concern. Though he has spent many months here, this is not his home, and he is learning to give up the habits of his former profession, investigating every arrival and departure as if they were cause for suspicion. But the footsteps turn in his direction, and the shadow moves across his line of vision.

"Monsieur, may I ask you something?"

Though his hands remain half-buried in the soil, Javert stops what he is doing, glancing up at Cosette. The sun behind her blinds him until he wipes one hand off on his already-filthy trousers to shade his eyes. "How may I help you, Madame?" he asks, hoping that he has kept from his voice the instinctive desire to snap like a trapped animal.

Cosette hesitates, glancing up once at the house, but having dared the first question, she chooses to continue. It is not only the sunlight gleaming off her hair that makes her look like a stained glass angel. Since learning that Marius Pontmercy would survive and wished to marry her, the girl has glowed within as well as without, and since her wedding, she has seemed like a creature of joy. This is the first time Javert has seen her look troubled in many months.

"My father's behavior puzzles me. He says that he has known you half his life," she begins.

Javert feels his shoulders stiffen. He knows that Valjean has been deliberately vague with Cosette, not telling her precisely where or when they met, but Cosette can do sums, she will have realized that Javert might have known her mother. Sitting back, he reaches for the cup that is now nearly empty, taking a sip of cold tea. "Certainly not half," he says.

"But for many years before I was born." She takes a breath. "My father has said many things that have confounded me. He told Monsieur Gillenormand that I am rich. And he told me..." Swallowing, she looks away, and Javert takes a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow, though it is not yet fully spring. Valjean has explained that this soil must be turned if they are to plant it in a few weeks. "He told me that he is not my real father. That I am the daughter of some other Fauchelevent, and he raised me when my parents died."

"I know nothing of your paternity," Javert tells her. He is able to keep his voice calm because he is speaking no falsehoods. "I had not seen Monsieur Jean for many years, and when I found him again, he introduced you as his daughter. That is all I can tell you." This, too, is near enough to the truth for Javert to manage a smile as he reaches to turn the trowel. He has no particular skill at working the ground, particularly not compared to Valjean, whom Javert now knows toiled for many years as a gardener. But Javert's hands are still strong and he finds he likes the work. The garden follows seasonal patterns, like the stars, and there is an orderliness to the rules for cultivating each plant.

Frowning, Cosette glances to either side, then settles herself on a large uneven stone that Javert supposes will eventually be moved to make room for more plantings. Very briefly he allows himself to imagine Valjean lifting the stone and his groin tightens. "I had thought that he wished to give me time to adjust to my new home," she explains, smoothing her skirts as best she can to either side. Javert wonders how well she hides her origins and upbringing among women who have been trained all their lives to behave as countesses and baronesses. "But I think he does not wish to see me."

"Of course he wishes to see you," replies Javert automatically. "When you were first married, he visited you every day."

"And told me that he could spend less and less time with me, and had the chairs taken from the room," she rebuts him. Though he tries to keep his face impassive, Javert feels his brows lowering. He had known that things were not well between Valjean and Pontmercy, that something was troubling Valjean concerning Cosette, but Valjean had scowled when he had ventured to inquire. "He has not come for many days. I feared that he was ill and sent my maid to inquire after him. She told me that he was not at home." A flicker of disquiet crosses the blemishless face. "I thought that perhaps you had taken ill again and he was caring for you, but I can see that you are better now, thanks be to God."

Javert hopes that Cosette will attribute the color in his face to the sun. He does not know how much Cosette might have seen or heard while Javert was injured and raving; he is not certain even of what he babbled to Valjean before his skull and ribs started to heal and he began to know himself again. "I am quite well, thank you," he recites in response. "Your father is also in good health." He does not add that Valjean is at home, but in the small building at the back, not in the larger house. He had believed that Valjean was praying, though now he wonders whether Valjean has been hiding from such an encounter as this.

Relief crosses Cosette's face. "I have never known him to be ill. But his behavior seems so strange, though I confess I thought little about it until now. Marius has kept me busy and quite content." For a moment she glows again, and Javert wonders whether Valjean can't bear to see her made so happy by another, but he has never known Valjean to be jealous nor to wish to deny Cosette any delight. Had Valjean not risked his own safety to take her from the convent, and risked his own life to bring Marius from the barricade? "He will not even let me call him Father - he addresses me as Madame and insists that I too should call him Monsieur Jean. I had thought his name was Ultime."

"His true name has always been Jean." The words slip out unbidden. It is a relief to say the name to someone other than Valjean himself, though he knows at once that Valjean will be furious if he discovers that Javert has told Cosette any part of the truth. Quickly Javert adds, "I too have known him by other names." Madeleine. 24601.

"Then he has hidden himself from you as well." In some way, this seems to satisfy her. "He told me that you are a policeman."

"No longer." Javert gestures at the soil he has been neglecting. "I am retired, now." It is not a lie if he fails to explain to this girl that the police believe Javert to be dead, and that indeed he would be, had Valjean not intervened.

Still, he is not prepared when Cosette draws in a breath and asks, "Did my father do something wrong? Was he hiding from the police, or hiding me from the police? He thinks that I don't remember my childhood before he arrived, but I could never forget. If he is not my father, perhaps he took me from those awful people without permission. If that is the case, I would like to clear his name - he surely saved my life, bringing me away."

It is difficult to keep his expression blank, yet for Valjean's sake, Javert tries. It is certainly true that in taking Cosette from the Thenardiers, Valjean spared her from a life of misery at their hands. It is also true that the girl's mother's dying wish was that Valjean protect her daughter, so Valjean's escape with Cosette could not be described as an abduction. But he does not dare to explain how he could know either of these facts. "I know of no reason any policeman in Paris would be searching for either of you," he tells her.

"But you had been looking for us." He has not fooled her on that. He and Cosette do not know each other well, though for several months they both lived in the house at the Rue Plumet, while Cosette was preparing for her wedding and Javert was recovering from his injuries. He had spoken little to her and tried to stay out of her way, which had seemed fine with her, distracted as she was by her father and by Marius Pontmercy, though Javert had once or twice seen her staring curiously at Valjean as if wondering what secrets of his past beyond acquaintance with Javert he might have been keeping from her.

If he had found Cosette before the rebellion, he would not have hesitated to tell her that her father was a thief and a liar, a criminal, a man who deserved to die in prison. To avoid looking at her, Javert returns to working the soil. He has been sitting still for so long that it feels cold under his fingers now. What can he tell her now that would be true and also fair? That from the first time he saw her father, he could never stop looking at the man, then looking for the man? That he had imagined taking Jean Valjean into his custody, secure in his own righteousness, guessing at neither the depths of his own depravity nor the virtue in the convict? That now he watches Valjean sleep in the peace of the innocent, though he himself lies awake, consumed with unnatural lusts?

"I have upset you, I think." Cosette's quiet voice comes as a welcome interruption to Javert's thoughts. Glancing down, he sees that he has caught the small shovel against a rock and twisted it so hard that the handle has warped. "Monsieur, I am worried about my father. Since my uncle died, you are the only -" Javert does not miss the slight hesitation as she seeks the right word. "friend, or confidant, I have known him to have. If you know why he will not see me, I beg you to tell me."

No - there is nothing Javert can say to answer the questions she has not quite asked. "Perhaps he believes you want time alone with your new family," he says awkwardly, feeling the falsehood in the words. "Or perhaps he is still afraid to leave me alone." There may be some truth in that, though it is not like the first weeks after Javert recovered consciousness, when Valjean could not be convinced that Javert would neither flee nor injure himself if he were left alone even for a few minutes.

"Will you ask him for me?" she requests bluntly. Javert inclines his head, hoping that she will take this for agreement. There are many things he does not know how to ask Valjean or say to Valjean. Each morning he wakes with Valjean calm and irreproachable beside him, he thinks that he must confess, or plead, or blurt out all his longings, but each morning the words fail him. He stabs at the soil as if he might find answers there. "Monsieur, you must believe me, I love my father very much. I only want to see him happy." He glances at her sharply, but if there is a double meaning to her declaration, he can't read it in her downturned face.

"I will do what I can, Madame," he tells her, and then, because it seems necessary to add something more, "I would like to see him happy, too." He intends only the simplest meaning of the phrase, but she studies him, smiles and nods.

If what plagued him were simply lust, Javert has no doubt that he could master it, with the same ruthlessness that has allowed him to conquer every illicit wish he has had since he was young. Yet desire for Valjean is as complicated as every other feeling Valjean has awoken in him. The admiration he once held for the eminence of Monsieur Madeleine merges with the awe he once had of the vigor of Prisoner 24601. The gratitude he feels toward the gentle hands that treat his wounds turns to hunger for those hands to touch him elsewhere. Even as he hopes to return the tenderness that Valjean has shown him, he aches with yearning for less chaste affection.

The contradictions no longer fill Javert with violence and darkness, but he has no clear vision of the path before him. Instead he allows himself to follow Valjean's path, to sleep and eat when Valjean invites him to do so, to clean the dishes and turn the soil because he is in Valjean's debt even if Valjean insists it is not so, welcoming Javert's company to fill some small part of the space left bereft by Cosette's absence. Because it is important to Valjean, Javert tries to pray, though the understanding of God's love that was given to Valjean long ago continues to elude him. It is easy to believe in a vengeful and punitive God. But to imagine a God who could love him after he allowed the shadow to swallow him whole seems as impossible as to imagine a man who could love him after a lifetime of darkness and fear between them.

Valjean does not emerge until long after Cosette has gone, when Javert has finished turning the soil and is trying to rub the stiffness from his fingers. "Let me help," Valjean says, reaching for Javert's hand the way he has become accustomed to touching Javert everywhere, changing bandages, checking ribs for pain when pressed, apparently oblivious to the effect that he has on Javert whether he is pressed length against length to keep Javert warm or stroking a single finger over a fading bruise. "What did she say to you?"

"She's concerned about you," Javert tells him. This close, he can see every wrinkle and spot that hints at Valjean's true age, though Valjean looks much younger than his years. The lines only remind Javert of how long he has watched this man, struggling with desires he had been unable to name, or refused to name - no longer, he can't pretend he wants to seize and arrest Valjean now, he has recognized just what it is that he wants to do with Valjean at precisely the moment when he can no longer permit himself to dwell on it, now that he knows that Valjean is a good man.

Yet he can't keep his breath from catching as Valjean rubs his sore wrist, and Valjean glances at his face, inches from Valjean's own. "Am I hurting you?"

Usually at such a moment Javert must focus his attention on not letting his gaze drift to Valjean's mouth. Today he is distracted by the redness around Valjean's eyes. "I think you suffer more than I do. Have you been crying?" Valjean tries to turn from him, but it is easy for Javert to tangle their fingers together to keep him from retreating. His body responds as it always does to Valjean's proximity, but he ignores it, studying the downward curve to Valjean's mouth and the faint tremor in his hand. "The girl cares very much for you. Why are you avoiding her?"

"Of all people, you know why." Valjean shakes his head. "It is the same reason I did not dare put my own name to the marriage documents. Marius knows what I am and believes it best if I keep myself from Cosette -" His voice breaks a bit on the name.

"Pontmercy does not know what you are. How can a man of your capacities not see what a fool he is?" Valjean's eyes widen at the force of Javert's voice, and, Javert supposes, at the implied praise. "A few months ago, Pontmercy judged it wise to lay down his life at the barricade. Now he judges you for acts he knows nothing about. I should tell him the truth."

"You will say nothing to him! To either of them!" Rarely has Javert seen Valjean so angry, perhaps not since the long-ago night when Valjean declared that he would take Cosette's mother to the hospital and dismissed Javert from his sight.

Then, Javert had been divided between the respect he owed the mayor and the certainty that that same man was a convict. Now, knowing all the truth, he is constrained by neither devotion nor contempt. "Why not? You have allowed Pontmercy to know only the most shameful parts of your past. I doubt he knows that you let me live, and saved my life. He must live with the belief that his wife's father is a criminal. As for the girl, she believes you no longer wish to see her. She came here because she is hurt. If you care for them at all, you will set their minds at ease."

"Javert -" Valjean's fingers close around his own, and for a moment Javert feels the strength that could have made Valjean a murderer had he chosen that path, the most brazen of vandals, the leader of a street gang. It shames him that this makes his breath quicken just as easily as Valjean's most tender touch; he must avert his gaze in the hope that Valjean will see only the shame and not the cause of it. He has, at least, made Valjean forget his anger, for when Valjean speaks again, there is only anguish in his voice. "Marius is right. It is better if they never see me. I would only take her away from the society she deserves."

"Then why did you save me, if only to keep me in such odious company as your own?" In glancing back up, Javert can no longer resist the impulse to look at Valjean's mouth, and this time Valjean seems to notice the look. Awkwardly, the words strange on his tongue, Javert adds, "I would not see you suffer, you or the girl. Not even that idiot Pontmercy. There can be no justice if you will not tell them the truth."

"And if she refuses to see me once she knows?" Valjean's voice shakes.

"She won't refuse to see you. She came here with questions. She spoke of clearing your name. She is not blind as I once was." Now Valjean is studying him, taking in the flush darkening Javert's cheeks, the stiffness of Javert's stance. "When you brought me here, you told me that God showed the truth to us all when it was our turn."

"Have you never kept a truth from another to protect him from suffering?" Valjean's voice is still rough with grief, not accusation, yet there is something new and curious in his scrutiny, as if he has finally divined the reason that Javert quivers when Valjean touches him. Javert cannot meet his stare. "Nor, perhaps, to protect yourself?"

Drawing in a sharp breath, Javert forces his eyes to meet Valjean's. "I have never kept a truth from another to protect him from suffering." Of course this is not entirely accurate, since he so recently declined to tell Cosette all that he knows about Valjean, but she has never asked a question of him that forced him to choose between a falsehood or a betrayal.

He expects to see censure in Valjean's frown - Valjean who has spent so many years protecting Cosette, and who had tried to protect Javert, not wishing to explain while Javert recovered that the police believed he had committed suicide after a fit of mental aberration and had allowed such information to be published in the Moniteur. Instead he sees only the same curiosity and the expectation that he should continue.

"You yourself have accused me of bluntness to the point of cruelty," he points out.

"And I think you are just as hard on yourself," Valjean says softly, nodding as if something has come clear that he could not make out before.

Javert studies the soil that he has just finished exposing, knocking loose torn roots and worms that wriggled frantically in the light. "You have nothing to lose by being honest with the girl," he says, more clumsy at turning over the topic than the earth at his feet. "You keep yourself from her to prevent her from learning of your past. You allow her husband to judge you without knowing all the facts. What is left to you to lose if you tell her the truth?"

"Have you told me all of your truths, Javert?" Valjean asks bluntly, forcing the subject back to Javert, who can't keep from wincing. "You have never hesitated to remind me of who I am and where I come from, so I must believe that you are protecting your own secrets. What are you afraid of losing?"

You. He has lost this man before - when 24601 broke parole and disappeared, when Madeleine fled and vanished within the walls of Paris, when the traitor at the barricade dismissed him after refusing to kill him - yet Javert never believed it to be the end. Somehow Valjean has always returned to his presence, just as Valjean has always returned to his thoughts. But even if Valjean believes him to be cruel, Valjean has never known the perversity in Javert's mind. Only now does Valjean begin to suspect.

Javert does not speak, but his hand is still in Valjean's and he can't keep it from tightening its clasp. He might as well have said the words, for Valjean utters a grunt of satisfaction and Javert tries to brace himself for the banishment that he knows must follow, closing his eyes and stiffening his shoulders. The silent darkness surrounds him, agonizing, for so long that at last he thinks Valjean must know that such exile will kill him as surely as a knife and therefore Valjean can't allow himself to say the words. He opens his eyes to look at Valjean.

Valjean's brows have pulled together in vexation. "You've always thought that I was beyond redemption. A thief, a liar, a fraud...an outlaw."

What can Javert do but shrug? "You saved my life. Twice. I am in the debt of an outlaw."

"I didn't save you to redeem myself in your eyes. You owe me nothing..."

"I owe you everything." Javert can't tell whether it's his words or the smile he doesn't try to constrain that causes Valjean to sputter into silence. Before Valjean can recover himself and dismiss him, he reverts to the previous subject. "So do Cosette and Marius. She hasn't forgotten it, and he doesn't know. Tell them, or I shall be forced to tell them, no matter how you may threaten me."

"I am not the one making threats. This is extortion." Valjean tries to scowl, though something like a grin tugs at the corners of his mouth, and he has not released Javert's hand. "You have always claimed to be a man of justice."

"You have been a terrible influence."

"Yes, I can see that now." With his free hand, Valjean makes a helpless gesture in the air. "Would you come with me to see her?"

It is Javert's turn to be astonished. He probes at the soil with his toe, but it reveals no answers. "I am no eloquent speaker. And she scarcely knows me."

"Marius recognizes your name. He knows you a little, I think. But what's more important, Cosette trusts you, or she would not have spoken to you earlier. She has lived such a quiet life, with so few companions." The fingers pressing Javert's release them, only to slide up his arm and catch his elbow. "I will never find the courage, otherwise." Javert starts to object that he has never known Valjean to lack for courage, but Valjean interrupts him. "I could never believe that she might forgive what I am if not for you."

There are many things Javert could say, except he has already said too much, and Valjean has not yet demanded that he leave. Instead he nods shortly. It is just as well that he has no idea what Valjean intends, for he could not have prepared himself to be clasped, awkwardly yet firmly, in those arms whose strength he has spent so many years imagining. He gasps, hoping that Valjean will believe it is from the sudden tightness squeezing his chest, though his heart is pounding as his own hands clutch at Valjean's back.

The embrace is clumsy, and Valjean seems no more certain how to proceed than himself, yet it goes on much longer than gratitude or friendship would allow. Javert is not certain which of them might be offering strength to the other; Valjean's breathing is as unsteady as his own. "I would never have believed that you would allow this, either," murmurs Valjean, his breath stirring the short hairs on Javert's face.

"We have changed, both of us." Javert sways a bit as Valjean clutches him again, but they are pressed too closely for him to stumble. For most of his life, he would not have believed himself that he could ever say such a thing. Yet in the cooling air that smells of cultivated earth and the coming spring, he believes it as fervently as he believes that Cosette will welcome Valjean back into her life, and as fervently as he holds on to Valjean, whom Javert has been shown again and again will never let him fall.