Such Ingratitude

Javert had been dead for nine months or so and he had to say that it was not what he had expected.

He had never thought himself to be a man of great imagination but he was Catholic and so assumed that he would end up somewhere instead of merely ceasing to exist. It was true that he did still exist but wasn't heaven or hell or wherever supposed to be elsewhere? Instead, Javert found himself present when they had discovered his body.

Since he had meant to die and saw his own dead body, clearly he was dead. That meant that he was a ghost. He did not know if that should mean that people would be able to see him or only certain people or only at certain times. He never had cared to speculate on these things. He accepted his new status easily enough. What would be the point in not doing it?

He did find it a little odd that everybody could see him. They did not seem to realize that he was, in fact, dead despite the fact that he had tried to mention it quite often at the beginning. His superiors had taken his note and the body and thought that it meant that he had killed himself all the way up until they saw him for the first time and decided that, with the way the river had worked his body over, someone else must have died instead. They were not sure where this unnamed person got his police uniform but since Javert was standing right in front of them then clearly it must not be him.

Javert did find it difficult to argue with their logic.

They were very against him quitting as well. Despite the fact that all of Javert's initial reasons for leaving the police were still valid and now the fact that he was dead and could no longer even touch anything only added to it, Javert had only protested for a few days. Well, he could no longer touch anything except for the floor. He was very grateful that he was not sinking through that and just floating all the way to the other side of the world and then right off of it even if he did not particularly understand it. Since he could no longer even sleep he had to have some way of occupying his time as long as he was still going to be on Earth and he had always been good at being a member of the police.

Still, he was no longer capable of doing paperwork or arresting suspects or even opening up doors (not that he actually needed doors opened for him but he could hardly just walk through a door while someone was watching) and he really thought that that would have been a hindrance on his police work.

His superiors assigned him a junior partner to worry about all of those things while still somehow failing to notice the fact that Javert was not so much refusing to do as was literally not capable of complying with the demands of his position.

There were times when Javert wasn't convinced that his superiors didn't realize his predicament and choosing not to mention it for the sake of keeping such an experienced inspector around. They certainly weren't questioning him about the fact he could no longer draw a salary.

There was still the Valjean issue that had led him to the Seine in the first place but he would not be able to go off and just arrest him as a ghost and prove his story once he brought him in (the scars and brand he must surely have would tell their tale even if Valjean denied it) so he would need to convince them to go to a respectable neighborhood and arrest a respectable man who was supposed to be dead these last eight years. No one was going to manhandle a respectable-looking gentleman (and how Valjean could look respectable! He had looked respectable even while dressed as the beggar who could just not stop giving alms to save his own life) and try and prove he had the marks of a convict.

No, if Valjean had not gone to Arras and confessed then he would have never had problems with the law again. But he had and that was something else to consider.

In the end, it was easier to just put Valjean out of his mind entirely.

What he had learned from that damnable saintly convict made him pay more attention to the criminals he did still have to deal with but, fortunately, the cases he dealt with were usually still quite straightforward. They weren't always and he resented that but he was getting better at handling those, he thought.

Since he no longer had a home (he had no need of one anymore and could hardly pay rent), when he was not on duty he often took to walking around. No matter how long he walked, he never tired or ached and the miserable weather did not bother him at all.

One day, just before nightfall, he was walking along the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine when he saw the strangest thing. An old man, clearly a gentleman though in mourning by the state of his clothes and his manner, was standing on the corner and staring off into the distance. He stood unmoving for a few minutes before shaking his head slowly and turning around.

Javert didn't even know whether he should be surprised or not when he saw that this man was Valjean. On the one hand, he had certainly never expected to just run into Valjean on the streets after all that time he had spent hunting him and he had made sure to stay away from the address he had taken Valjean back to right before ending his own life.

On the other, when had he ever run into Valjean except for the last places he would have looked? First in the person of his superior, then hidden in Paris when he should be dead, and then at that barricade!

Javert tensed but it was too late to leave without making it clear that he was running away and he would be damned if he fled in the face of Jean Valjean.

But Valjean just walked right past him, as if he couldn't see him. His head was hanging down but not enough that he shouldn't have been able to see the man right in front of him. He walked directly past Javert, it was not as though he were in the background somewhere.

Maybe he should do nothing. It was really none of his business if Valjean were upset or why. He hadn't had him arrested when he could have all those months ago. Wasn't that enough? He didn't owe Valjean anything and if the man were choosing to be miserable when he had everything then that was his own affair and he was a damn fool besides.

But on the other hand…everyone had been able to see Javert up until this point. There had been a few sticky situations where someone had tried to shoot or stab him and it had not worked and that only increased his reputation as a man not to be crossed. Everyone had been able to see him.

Was Valjean the one man who couldn't? He had to know.

He wasn't about to start shouting the name of a convict in the middle of the street so he began to walk swiftly after Valjean.

"Valjean," he said quietly when he was right behind him.

There was no reaction. The man just continued to slowly trudge along. But was there no reaction because Valjean could not hear him or because he had sense enough after all this time on the run not to make it obvious who he was by responding to his true name?

"Madeleine." There was still nothing. "Whatever name you are going by these days. Fauchelevent. I need to talk to you."

Finally, Valjean stopped and slowly turned around. His face was wet and his eyes were dull.

"Inspector Javert," Valjean greeted him without any apparent surprise. "I had heard that you were dead."

"I am dead," Javert replied, more because it was true than because he expected anyone to believe him.

Valjean blinked. "You do not look dead."

"I'm a ghost," Javert clarified.

Valjean looked almost interested for a moment before his shoulders slumped. "I see. Are you here to arrest me?"

"I can't arrest you," Javert said, perturbed at the fact it did not seem to matter to Valjean if he were arrested or not. "I can't…here, I'll show you." He reached for Valjean and he tensed but did not move away. Javert's hand went straight through him.

Valjean moved back warily. "So you are dead."

Somehow, whatever it was that stopped everyone else from noticing wasn't appearing to stop Valjean from noticing. Though his only interest in this man just a moment ago had been in whether or not he could see him, Javert found that he was so relieved to finally have someone after all this time who would acknowledge his death that he did not want to let him out of his sight so easily. It was a truly maddening thing, knowing that you could not possibly be alive anymore but knowing that no one else would accept that.

"If you are not going to arrest me then I must take my leave of you," Valjean said, promptly turning away and making his way back down the street.

Javert was so stunned by the abrupt dismissal and clear disinterest in a genuine ghost (what kind of life did Valjean lead where such things were commonplace?) that he could only watch him go.

The next day, Javert was standing on that same corner where he had spotted Valjean at the same time waiting for him to show up. He did not, as it happened, know for a fact that he would be coming since it could just as easily be an errand that he did not run every day or just a one-time event but it was either that or actually going to Valjean's house.

He spotted Valjean walking almost too slowly to be believed and seeming to slow down by the step, wearing the same kind of black clothing that he had worn the day before. He stopped a good deal from where Javert was standing and again appeared not to see him. He looked longingly in front of him, a single tear slipped down his face, he shook his head, and then turned around.

All of this was so very curious.

His feet no longer made a sound so he did not have to worry about being quiet (he might not have even had to worry about being quiet were he still alive with all of the attention Valjean appeared to be paying to his surroundings) as he followed Valjean back to wherever he went. He was led to the Rue de l'Homme Arme just where he had last left Valjean.

The next day, Valjean did the same thing except that he did not make it even as far as he had the previous day. The next day was the same story. Finally, after a week of this, Javert just could not take it anymore. He was an inspector by nature and it was his job to puzzle out things that did not make sense. He had never been much for trying to solve the great mysteries of the world (he had frankly rejected the clear invitation to suss out the true nature of justice and mercy and even now he refused to revisit the matter) but surely there was nothing all that difficult about exactly what Valjean thought he was doing. Chances were, all he would have to do was ask him. Even if Valjean would not tell him the truth, the manner in which he lied or avoided the question would be telling enough.

Javert decided not to wait until just before dark to visit Valjean because he was always clearly so upset then. Maybe he was just as upset at other times but in that case it did not matter when he came and if it was only at nights that he was so distraught then he had a chance to avoid a scene by arriving earlier.

Javert was perfectly capable of just walking through the walls of the building to get to his target, of course, but even after all this time it all seemed so unnatural that he instead chose to wait until the portress looked out the window and saw him and let him up to see Valjean. She seemed a little confused as to why he hadn't just knocked instead of waiting for her to eventually realize he was there but so relieved to have a visitor for 'poor Monsieur Fauchelevent' that she did not press the point.

"Monsieur Fauchelevent," the portress said, knocking twice on Valjean's door. "You have a visitor."

There was a long pause before Valjean quietly said, "Send them in."

Javert looked pointedly at the door and then at the portress and she opened the door for him.

Valjean was sitting in a chair by the window and quickly turned to look at him, a half-hopeful and half-terrified look on his face. When he saw that it was only Javert, his features smoothed out into a politely disinterested expression.

"Inspector Javert."

"You are not happy," Javert accused. He was just as surprised at the words that came out of his mouth as Valjean seemed to be.

"I'm sorry," Valjean said slowly though if he were apologizing for his own unhappiness or asking for clarification was uncertain.

"You are not happy. You weren't happy when we spoke a few days ago, you haven't been happy the other times I saw you, and even now – when you're not actually crying – you aren't happy," Javert complained.

Valjean stiffened. "I do not see what business that is of yours, Javert. Am I only allowed to remain at liberty if I am miserable?"

"No, of course not," Javert said irritably, shaking his head. "It is only…"

"Only what?"

"It just seems terribly ungrateful of you," Javert said, aware as he did so that that did sound rather odd.

Valjean's face scrunched up. "Ungrateful?"

Javert thought of asking Valjean to stop repeating everything he said but he would of his own accord if Javert would be clearer and stop trailing off. "I gave up a lot to keep you out of prison and you should know how much time and effort I had invested in the past to returning you there. And then you just take that and squander it?"

"How am I squandering it?" Valjean demanded. "I am alive and I am not out committing any other crime save the crime of living free when the law demands that I not."

"You aren't happy."

Valjean began to tremble. "What difference does that make? I do not owe you anything, Javert."

Javert folded his arms across his chest. "Don't you?"

Valjean narrowed his eyes and actually stood up and walked around his chair to move closer to Javert. "I do not believe that I do. Any debt that I may have owed you was cleared when I saved your life and gave you everything you would need to arrest me. If you will not take me up on that, whatever your reason, then that is your choice but giving me back my life does not mean that you have any say in how I live it."

"I died for you," Javert snapped.

Valjean drew back. "What do you mean? I had heard you jumped off a bridge. What does that have to do with me?"

"I had to arrest you. You were a recidivist convict who escaped from Toulon and faked his own death. You robbed a small child and a bishop and led a gang of highway robbers as well as defrauding an entire town for eight years."

"I never had anything to do with that gang and I do not know why anyone said that I did," Valjean protested. "Although, as a convict, people have always been eager to attribute all manner of crimes to me."

"That's hardly the point," Javert said. "I had to arrest you. It was my duty. It still is though I have found a way out of my dilemma for now in that I cannot arrest you without your confession."

"Is that what you want?" Valjean asked. "Because I meant what I said all those months ago-"

Javert glared at him. "If I wanted you to go and unresolve my dilemma and give me back moral uncertainty then I would say so."

"What moral uncertainty is there?" Valjean asked him. "You said yourself that your duty is to arrest me."

"Yes and you were supposed to just be another convict," Javert snapped. "And we both know how well that worked out."

Valjean drew himself up. "I will make no apology for trying to redeem myself and to live according to the principles of mercy and love."

"I'm not asking for an apology for you being a good person! Where would the sense be in that?"

"Then I do not understand," Valjean admitted.

"You were supposed to stay a convict. You broke the law and haven't stopped breaking the law since about a week after you were released from Toulon," Javert said. "Your case should be simple. It is not. You were, I am forced to concede now, a good person in Montreuil and you sacrificed yourself so someone else would not suffer in your place. You spared me even though you knew what I would do to you and you risked your own life to do it for do not imagine that if someone came across us or came looking for the body they would not misunderstand and have you executed for a spy as well. You even told me how to find you to properly arrest you!"

Valjean said nothing but it was clear that he still did not get it.

"Once a criminal forever a criminal because the law says it is so. Why does the law say it is so? Because those who break the law are bad people who will continue to be bad people and to do bad things. Once they have shown their true colors they must be punished and watched so that good people are protected from them. You are a criminal many times over. You have shown that, despite this, you are a good person. How can I possibly reconcile this?"

"It does not sound that complicated to me," Valjean said tentatively. "Many people who commit crimes are bad people though I cannot say that all of them are. Some are just desperate and you may say that there are plenty of desperate people who do not commit crimes and you are right but I cannot believe that just committing a crime that does not kill or seriously hurt another makes you a bad person forever. I cannot speak of what happens at prisons for those with less harsh sentences but I know that Toulon, at least, makes everyone who steps foot in there baser than they should be. So yes, it is safe to assume that anyone who is released from Toulon is a bad person. But does that mean that they should remain so?"

"Bad people usually remain bad in my experience," Javert said dryly.

"But they do not have to. Maybe they do not have any reason to change and change is certainly difficult but it can be done. When I was granted a mercy I was completely undeserving of and a chance to change my life, I took it. It has been difficult, these eighteen years, but I have done it. I wanted to be a good person and I have done the best that I know how. I stopped doing bad things and, though it took a few years, I stopped thinking bad things as well." Here Valjean looked down. "Except for…but I overcame even that. A criminal is a criminal forever in that they have committed a crime forever but they can change. It is not easy and I do not believe that many would have the luck and the strength to be able to succeed in it if they even wanted to but it is possible."

Javert shook his head. "You make it sound so simple. The fact that people can change, not the changing itself."

"Well," Valjean said tolerantly, "I have had nearly two decades to accept that change is possible. If you would have asked me back in 1815 I am sure that I would have been much less confident."

"I will have to think on what you said," Javert said, his head swimming. "Perhaps it will be that you will provide me with my answer though I would not count on it. As much sense as your words seem to make, there is no law saying that only bad people go to prison or that someone who breaks the law may get away with it because they are good. Our society cannot function with there being no consequences for breaking the law because if that were the case then who would follow the law? Maybe it is possible for someone to be both a criminal and a good man but that does not mean that they should be allowed to get away with their crimes."

"My biggest crime was that I took myself away from the prying eyes of the police," Valjean pointed out. "I have not lied to you about who I am or what I have done, not since Arras. I told you where to find me and the false name that I used, the only name that my daughter knew. Would you think I would confess to being Valjean and agree to follow you back to Toulon only to lie about having committed a crime when one more crime will not change my fate? The bishop gifted me with his silver so it matters not whether I thought to steal it. That child…that was unfortunate. I tried to give it back. I tried to make up for it. But will you really stand here and tell me that one forty-sous piece is worth the rest of my life?"

Javert shook his head irritably. "Next you will be going on about that window and the bread. I do not make the law, Valjean. I only enforce it."

"You are not enforcing it with me," Valjean pointed out.

Javert narrowed his eyes at him. "I already told you that I cannot."

"What if I will not let it rest at that?" Valjean challenged. "What if I were to force you to make up your own mind?"

"I would not risk it," Javert warned. "I have been known to act rashly and do things that I have regretted when I was angry before. For all that I was convinced you were Valjean in Montreuil I never should have sent that letter to Paris and I never would have had I not been so incensed about the matter of Fantine. I might regret having you arrested again for the rest of my…well, death, I suppose but that would not save you if you pushed me too far."

Valjean said nothing.

"Do you know why I died, Valjean?"

Valjean shook his head. "The papers said that you must have been mad. I thought as much when you just let me go after all that time hunting me. At the very least I thought that you could not handle what happened at the barricade and being sent back out on duty so soon after being held prison and nearly losing your life."

"I died because of you," Javert said flatly.

Valjean shook his head in denial. "You have said that but I do not see how that is possible. I did nothing to you and I did not threaten you. All I did was offer to give you what you wanted from me."

"I could not. I could not arrest you and I could not let you go. It was intolerable. When you cannot stay and you cannot go. I have been in a position like that before when I betrayed my duties. You refused to have me dismissed but, if you had not gone and proven me correct in my suspicions, I would not have stayed long. If I had to, I would have resigned my post honorably. Well, this dilemma was a little more serious. It was not just a matter of having betrayed my duty and so needing to resign. I had a duty to arrest you and a duty not to. I could not do both. I would always have the duty to arrest you so long as I did not and once I did I would still always have the duty to repay you which I could not after you were sent back to Toulon. It could not be endured. I jumped."

Valjean was watching him with naked horror in his eyes. "Javert…I do not…I cannot…"

"I don't need you to say anything," Javert said bluntly. "But you understand why I take issue with the fact that you are not happy. If I were content to have you this miserable I would have sent you back to Toulon."

Valjean looked away. "I am…truly sorry that it means this much to you but you cannot demand my happiness, Javert. It is not so simple."

"What is the problem?" Javert asked stubbornly. "Why do you always walk and cry and turn back? What of that daughter you mentioned?"

Valjean looked away. "I do not wish to discuss it."

"And I have no wish to leave without knowing. As a ghost, I do not need to eat or sleep or really do anything that would call me away from you. Even if you hold out for long enough that I must return to my duties I can always return. I think you need to decide if it is worth it to hold off on telling me knowing that I will not rest until you do tell me," Javert said.

"Once I have told you, you will not rest until you have convinced me that I am being ridiculous and I should go out and be happy to make you feel better!" Valjean protested.

Javert did not bother trying to deny that. "Would it be such a terrible thing, Valjean, to be made to be happy? If I can convince you to be happy, would that not benefit you?"

Valjean's shoulders slumped and he looked terribly tempted. "It would, yes, and I want that more than anything else in the world but I know that the form that my happiness would take would be wrong."

Javert did not understand that. Surely the form his happiness would take would not be to commit more crimes! "Do you…wish to marry your daughter?" he asked awkwardly. She would have to be seventeen at the very oldest assuming Valjean impregnated some poor woman right after leaving Toulon. If they even got married it would not have been legal. She was probably even younger than that given that he did not appear to have any children in Montreuil but he would not put it past Valjean to not realize he had had a child from one night and then years later discover her and take her in.

Valjean looked, if possible, more horrified than he had at the revelation that he had been the cause of Javert's suicide. "Of course not!"

"Then how could your happiness possibly be wrong?" Javert asked.

"My daughter…" Valjean trailed off, sighing deeply. It looked like he would be telling the story now, then, instead of waiting until he could not bear Javert's persistence any longer. Whether he was talking to avoid Javert not leaving him alone until he did or because he wanted to make it clear that he had no such deigns on his daughter Javert was not certain but he supposed that it did not matter. "She was not always my child."

Javert frowned. "Well of course not. You must have lived many years before she was born."

Valjean shook his head. "That is not what I mean. What I mean is…she is Fantine's daughter as well as mine."

Javert's eyebrows shot up. He had certainly not expected this. "You were the man who ruined her life by taking advantage of her easy virtue and leaving her with a child before moving on? I wonder that you did not recognize her. But I imagine she looked a great deal different when I arrested her than when you knew her and, if she could not see that you were Valjean, you might not have known she was there at all until her arrest."

"No!" Valjean exclaimed.

"No what?"

"I am not…I did not know of Fantine's existence, let alone her plight, before that night you speak of. I was not the man who abandoned her," Valjean said, his eyes burning. "I was not Cosette's father while Fantine was still alive and, truthfully, I do not know when I decided to be. Perhaps I never did. Perhaps it was little Cosette, with her innocence and trust and lack of anything else to call me, who made that decision."

"Now I'm afraid I have even less of an idea as to what the problem is. You do not believe you should be happy because you cared for an orphan child? In my experience that is not an immoral thing to do," Javert said. It was not really a necessary thing or something that people really did but it was not morally wrong as long as their motives were not unseemly.

"She is married now," Valjean said, looking far more tragic than that announcement really merited.

"Is her husband a bad man?" Javert ventured.

Valjean shook his head. "No! He is the very best of men and they love each other dearly. He is quite handsome."

Javert was not sure what that had to do with anything but it was not a point against him.

"You are aware that fathers are still allowed to be in their daughters' lives once they are married, right?" Javert asked. Since this was presumably Valjean's first time being a father and he likely did not marry then he might not know that. Javert had never had a father or a wife or children and he knew that but he had also not spent nineteen years in prison and then eight refusing to talk to anybody he did not have to as well as whatever he had been doing since then.

Valjean smiled sadly. "I know that. And I tried, I really did. But at the end of the day she is not my natural daughter so I do not have a natural place in her life. She is married and she no longer has a need for me in her life though I do readily acknowledge that she still wants me there. But I am a convict and so have no place with her."

Javert was pretty sure that the next sentence out of his mouth would be the strangest thing that he had ever said. "Valjean, what does your being a convict have to do with anything?"

Sure enough, Valjean started staring at him as if he had grown two heads. It was far more of a reaction than he had had to learning that Javert was not even among the living anymore.

"Javert," he said slowly. "I am a convict. That will never, ever change. I do not belong with those innocent children. I cannot risk that I will be discovered and disgrace them."

"I have explained how no one but me knows that you're even alive and there is nothing that would cause anyone to even investigate whether you are a dead man, right?" Javert asked rhetorically. "Even if someone were to see you and think you look just like a convict last seen in 1824 then they would think nothing of it but what a strange coincidence since you are supposed to be dead. You will be fine."

"I cannot possibly taint them with my presence."

"You are being melodramatic," Javert accused. "Good people do not taint others with their presence."

"Marius deserved to know exactly who he proposed to take into his house. I told him and he quite agrees with me that I should have no place in Cosette's life. I may wish it were otherwise but it is not and I must respect his wishes," Valjean said resignedly.

"Marius would be Cosette's husband, then? He would overlook the fact that you saved Cosette from whatever horrible situation her mother said she was in and, unless I miss my guess, his own life at the barricade that night because you were a convict?" Javert asked. Even he, as used to as he was thinking Valjean a bad man, had not been able to be so unaffected by Valjean saving his life. "I do not think that your high opinion of him is warranted if he will be that unfeeling."

Valjean shook his head. "Oh, no. I could not tell him about Cosette. I do not believe that he would reject her but it would just cause pain and where is the sense in that? And he does not know about me."

"I will concede that that was probably a good idea for her sake but why on earth would you not admit to the man that you saved his life?" Javert demanded.

"It would confuse the issue," Valjean said.

Javert saw right through that. "You mean that he would not throw you out of Cosette's life for being a convict if he also knew that he owed you his life."

"Well, yes," Valjean admitted. "And it really was the best thing for everybody."

"The best thing for everybody is for you to make yourself miserable, Cosette to lose a father, and Marius be allowed to mistreat his father-in-law and be denied the opportunity to repay his savior?" Javert couldn't believe it. "Valjean how do you…everything?"

"You do not have to agree with my decision," Valjean said calmly, his shoulders set. "I am surprised, after all this time, that you do not but it is no matter. It is for the best and I will not force my presence on them."

"You said yourself that your daughter still wants you and Marius would want you, too, if he knew," Javert protested.

"People do not always know what is best for them," Valjean said with not a trace of irony.

Javert tried to broach the subject numerous times over the next week but Valjean refused to say anything more on the subject and Javert was getting rather irritated at Valjean's self-sacrificing stupidity as it was. He had died for Valjean and he was not going to just let that go to waste no matter what Valjean wanted. Oh, Valjean might claim that even just being allowed to be miserable and eventually die in freedom instead of Toulon was not a waste but Javert rather felt that it was.

And if he had to watch Valjean make the slowest aborted pilgrimage to his daughter's new house and return in tears one more time then he was going to have to find a way to hit something.

So instead he returned to the home of Marius Pontmercy.

He gave his name and waited to be admitted. He was very quickly greeted in person by a white-faced Marius Pontmercy. It was not entirely proper to be greeted in person instead of led to a sitting room but Javert supposed that (in addition to his death being in the papers) since Marius had been at the barricade he might have thought that Javert had died there. Or perhaps he was worried that Javert was going to arrest Valjean and bring a scandal down upon his head.

Marius' jaw worked but no words came out.

"Perhaps we might be seated," Javert suggested helpfully.

Marius started. "Right, of course. Follow me."

Marius indicated that he take a seat across from Marius' own but Javert ignored him. He was not capable of sitting anymore and did not want to have to crouch directly above the seat and try to make it look like he was resting on it instead of being too far above it or sinking through it.

He knew that Valjean would not be glad that he was here but he did not care. This was a pointless sacrifice and it would render his own sacrifice pointless and that was not something that he would be able to tolerate.

Marius stared at him for another few minutes before seeming to remember himself and clearing his throat. "Inspector. Inspector Javert. Forgive me but…I thought you were dead."

"Did you?" Javert asked, wondering if he meant at the barricade or later having drowned.

Marius grimaced. "At the barricade. You may not have known that I was there but I have been officially pardoned so I can say that now. I learned that you had been caught as a police spy and Enjolras said you were to be killed by Va-by somebody right before the barricades fell. I remembered how you had helped me once and so I tried to save you but I didn't get there in time."

Though Javert usually – if futilely – corrected people who saw him and thought him still alive, in this instance it would not suit his purposes at all.

"Monsieur Fauchelevent," he said instead. "Yes, you were meant to think I was dead, all of you were. If you had arrived before the trigger was pulled then I daresay it would have complicated things so perhaps it was for the best that you were not."

Marius blinked a few times. "I don't understand."

"Monsieur Fauchelevent and I have known each other for a good many years," Javert explained. "We haven't always liked each other but there has been respect there." Not always and certainly not when Javert had known him as Valjean but it had been there at other times. "I do not know exactly why he was at the barricades in the first place, though I can guess, but when he saw me there he put himself in danger to save my life."

"Put…put himself in danger?" Marius asked blankly. "How do you mean?"

"Well, I was being executed as an admitted spy," Javert said reasonably. "Execution is really the only thing to do with spies. Everyone knows that. Now, if he had been caught saving my life, what would people have thought?"

Understanding dawned in Marius' eyes. "If anybody had came across you two or asked to see the body…"

"Exactly," Javert said, nodding. "But he said that he was not going to just sit back and let me die, not if there was anything he could do about it. He knew that I could ruin his life. He had every reason to believe that I would arrest him if he let me go. But he didn't just sit back and let me face my fate with no interference from him; he actively went out and saved me from certain death. It was…unexpected."

"Really?" Marius looked stunned. He quickly coughed. "I mean, arrest? For being at the barricade? Yes, I think we all had to fear being arrested that night though that was hardly the worst fate we could have faced. It was good of him, certainly, uncommonly good."

"I didn't mean the barricade," Javert said. "I'm talking about the fact that he broke his ban."

Marius tensed.

"I know that you know that he is Jean Valjean."

Marius looked torn. "Well, perhaps. But Cosette doesn't and that's the most important thing. Whatever you have to do…I do not know why you have held off on arresting him all this time. Did you not know where he was? He was here not that long ago. He may have been arrested since then for all I know. Surely whatever fate you have in store for him need not be told to Cosette. She is an innocent, you see, and still thinks that he is her father."

"You do not approve of the fact that once, long before you were born, he committed a crime and was released from prison in 1815?" Javert asked.

Marius shook his head. "It's not about that, exactly. He said something about stealing a loaf of bread and that does not sound like a very serious crime to me. I was guilty of treason before I was pardoned, after all! But I thought that he had killed you out of revenge and that would make it murder and I cannot accept a murderer in my life and there can be no question of having one in Cosette's life. If she knew what he did – or what I thought that he had done – then I'm sure that she would refuse to see him herself but it would break her heart and he and I do not want her to know."

"But, as you said, he is no murderer," Javert pointed out.

Marius sighed deeply. "And I do wish that that were it but it is not. It is a weight off my mind knowing that Valjean is not a murderer but, ultimately, it changes nothing."

"You know that he is not a murderer and you say that the fact that he is a convict at all is not a problem," Javert said, trying to hide his impatience. "What could possibly be the matter now?"

"Well he," Marius paused and looked around the room before lowering his voice, "stole all that money from that saint Monsieur Madeleine out in Montreuil."

For a moment, Javert did not know how to respond to that. He did not think that he had ever heard something more ridiculous in his life and he had once had to deal with Valjean offering to come back in three days to be arrested if he could just do this one thing first."No. Just…no."

"I assure you that it is true," Marius said unhappily. "I wondered where a convict could possibly have gotten 600,000 francs to give as a dowry to Cosette and his vague explanation did not quite add up when I stopped to think about it. No one asks questions when this much money is involved but with Valjean having been a thief I was forced to consider the source of the money. It was chance that led me to Madeleine."

"You are to be commended for connecting the fortune to Madeleine, yes, but I'm afraid you are missing out on a crucial piece of information," Javert said as neutrally as he was able to.

"Am I?" Marius asked, looking apprehensive.

"The money was not obtained completely legally since Valjean had broken his ban at the time but he did not steal the money from anyone and certainly not from himself," Javert revealed.

Marius frowned. "But I never suggested-"

"Jean Valjean was Monsieur Madeleine," Javert interrupted. "It caused quite the scandal at the time but this was back in 1824 so I suppose you were too young to have heard about it."

Hope was dawning on Marius' face but it was hesitant. "You mean that Jean Valjean is a good man after all?"

"As strange as it seems, yes he is," Javert confirmed. It almost didn't make him feel like choking this time.

"But wait," Marius said, holding up a hand. "Obviously you are alive so he cannot have killed you but how do I know that the rest is true?"

Javert glared at him. "Are you really accusing me, an inspector of the police, of lying to protect a convict?"

Marius shrank back. "Well, no, but-"

"Or do you think me a fool? Mad? I was in Montreuil when Valjean was Madeleine and I was the only one to suspect him for years on end! I was the one who denounced him to Paris and was told that they had caught another man who was really Valjean. I was the one to believe this and apologize to Valjean for suspecting him and giving Valjean the information he needed to go to Arras himself and denounce himself to save that stranger. I told myself I would never fail to recognize Jean Valjean again. Yes, I am positive that all of that money is his, earned as legally as someone on the run can legally do anything."

"But then…this changes everything! Oh, what a fool I've been!" Marius burst out, standing abruptly.

"Perhaps now would be a good time to mention, just for the sake of thoroughness, that I witnessed Valjean bringing your body home to this very house. I helped, after a fashion, by lending him a carriage I had waiting but he was the one who brought you through the sewers from the barricade. It is a miracle that you are still alive," Javert said casually.

The look on Marius' face was beyond words. Forgetting etiquette, he hurried from the room.

"Cosette! Cosette! Come quick! Get your coat! Basque, a carriage! Cosette!"

Javert briefly considered going back to see Valjean but he decided that ultimately it was unnecessary.

Marius knew the truth now and Cosette had apparently never wanted the separation at all. They would go and see Valjean and if they couldn't convince him then there wasn't anything more that Javert could do.

He really had thought that would be the end of it but a few days later, he was just leaving the station-house when he saw Valjean standing outside and looking terribly uncomfortable.

He immediately went over to him.

"What are you doing here?" he hissed. "I thought we agreed that you weren't going to come here and test to see if I would have you arrested if you made that possible for me."

Valjean shook his head. "This isn't about that, believe me. I would never do something so foolish and I would have come inside if that were the case."

"You shouldn't be out here at all! What if somebody sees?" Javert demanded.

Valjean raised his eyebrow. "I was worried about that, yes, but weren't you the one who said I was worrying for nothing?"

"You were," Javert said, "but that does not mean that it is a good idea to come here of all places! Now what do you want?"

Valjean smiled at him. "I wanted to thank you."

"Thank me?" Javert repeated uncertainly. "For what?"

"I was wrong," Valjean said, not looking at all upset about this. "Marius and Cosette did accept me and they want me to live with them and I could not bring myself to say no. I'm living with them now and I-I'm happy, Javert. I'm happy and I can't believe that I ever thought that my life was over and I had no place in the world. It was so easy, in the end, to just tell the truth but I couldn't have done it. Without you I shudder to think of what would have happened."

Javert shifted uncomfortably. "I cannot abide by stupidity and ingratitude is worse."

"It seems I am forever being called an ingrate," Valjean said amusedly. "I did not ask before, Javert, but why are you still here? Do you know? I cannot imagine that everyone who dies lingers in the world as you do or the secret would be out."

Javert shrugged. "I do not know. I was not told anything. Perhaps it is the manner of my death, I do not know. Perhaps I have unfinished business. Perhaps it will just wear off one day. If I continue to linger, I suppose I will have time to figure it out."

Valjean nodded. "You must let me help you, for as long as I can. I owe you that much, at least."

Javert scowled. "I do not want you to feel indebted to me."

"I want to help you. Debts do not have to come into it."

Javert considered. He doubted that Valjean would know anything that could help and his ideas would probably all center around praying a lot or being a good person but who else even knew that he was dead? It might be a relief to be able to finally talk about it.

"Very well."

"Thank you," Valjean said as though Javert were the one offering his help. "I should mention that, since Marius is under the belief that you are still alive and being properly grateful is so important to him, he has expressed an interest in you coming to dinner."

"When?"

"Soon," Valjean replied. "I do not know if you will enjoy it but I think that it would be good for you if you tried."

"I wouldn't be able to eat," Javert warned, wondering vaguely why he was even seriously thinking about this.

"We could work it out."

Maybe that was why, that one word. We.

Javert had never had much in his life beyond his work, not since he was old enough to have employment in the first place. He had mistakenly believed that work was all that he had but he had not realized that that was not true until he had lost everything but work.

Valjean was likely right. He would not enjoy standing in Marius Pontmercy's house and having to speak with him and Cosette and that grandfather but maybe, just maybe, it would be good for him.

It would be a novel experience, if nothing else.

"Well, I suppose someone has to be on hand to make sure you don't forget that you're allowed to be happy. You're required to be happy," Javert said awkwardly.

Valjean just smiled again. "I was just thinking that same thing and I believe that you, Javert, are just the man for the job."