There was only on place Javert really wanted to be. Paris police station house number four once felt so large and protecting. Now his home since fourteen seemed so much smaller then in his memories, so much less inviting. Javert stood on the edge of the road his eyes set fast on the pilling font door.

He wanted so much to be inside once more, to listen to the inspector banters, to follow the detective around and assist him with the cases, and to play jokes on his fellow constables along side Henry Higgins. Javert shock himself out of his meloncaly, he did not know what he would find in the present station four but he did know that it wouldn't be any of that. That was all fragments of memories, peaces of a time long lost,never to be regained.

But maybe, he wanted to believe, that can be preserved. Maybe as long as he didn't go in he could keep pretending. Keep pretending that nothing had changed. That nothing would be different when he did go in. Just mabye. There was only one place Javert wanted to be, and only one time he wanted to be there. The time before the devil entered his life.

The argument of fantasy having won over the whisper of logic, for the second time that day Javert turned his back on the forsaken imposter of his once was home and started to walk away. Before he could step of the curb he felt a hand gently placed on his shoulder.

"My goodness, Javert?" He heard a familiar female voice whisper "Is it really you?"

Javert slowly turned around to face the women how held him. "Hello doctor, Ogden."

Julia Ogden sadness gave way to a warm smile. "I hardly regained you, your all grown up."

Javert gazed acwardly over the doctors shoulder.

"It has been nearly seven years," he reminded her.

"yes of course it has." Julia said sadly looked down at the ground. She didn't want to make Javert uncomfortable. She wanted to get to know him again, she wanted to be close to him like when he was a boy. "How long have you been back in Paris? Have you been to see William yet?"

"I just got back last night, I was going..." Javert looked back at station four.

Julia followed his gaze, then looked back with surprise. William doesn't work there any more, not since Inspector Brackenreid retired. I thought he would have surly told you that."

"No he did, I probably just didn't remember." Then Javert added mentally "Or didn't want to believe."

Julia suddenly looked at Javert sympathetically. "I can hardly blame you Javert. William told me what happened. It's all so horrible."

"It's not the first time I've been threatened be a criminal." Javert brushed off light lightly.

"I know" Julia sighed "but even still I would prefer that you didn't have to endure such a thing, and I know William feels the same, even more so."

"The detective always told me that it was just part of the job." Javert stated as simply as if he had said two plus two equal four.

Julia chuckled a little, "What you really want to say Sargent is, that if William really wanted to keep you safe he wouldn't have shahid you into the police force."

Julia's laughter grow more playful at Javert's surprise. He looked back at the doctor with his lips slightly parted in near horror. Then for the first time, to Julia's knowledge, since there conversation started he smiled. The truth would have broken her heart. The truth being that this small smile was his first authentic smile in years.

" shahid me?" He asked amused.

"Come on Javert, you know I've always encouraged you to talk candidly with me. Why should you stop just because you've gotten a big promotion?"

"I see," Javert said, "although if I recall, that was not to only less-then-professional habit of mine you encouraged."

Javert quickly grow sober again. "Besides, I would never say that about the men who gave me my life,no matter how dismal it may seem to others. Detective Murdoch knew what he was doing with me."

Javert turned away from the doctor and began slowly walking along the wooden sidewalk. Julia watched him for a moment. She knew that he wanted her to walk with him but she felt as though time directly around her suddenly stood still. Where she should have been seeing a thirty year old Sargent, she saw a twenty three year old constable. Or was he fifteen?

"You're not just another one of his experiments,Javert." She called to him it started out that way, but you became so much more."

Javert slowly turned around to face Julia once more. He looked at her as though considering her words. And as though he wanted to believe them but unable to make himself.

"Where are you staying?"

Javert looked up the street, "The officers bunkhouse near station seven."

"Why don't you come stay with William and I?"

Javert shock his head, "Thank you doctor, but I'm fine."

Julia looked back with some concern. "Are you sure? Because its no trouble. We have a guest bedroom already for someone that know one ever uses."

"Its a generous offer but I've always been more comfortable sleeping in a police house."

"Of course." Julia surrendered "but I must insist that you have dinner with us when ever your duties permit."

Javert excepted the compromise with pride. "Certainly. I wouldn't have it any other way."

The man who hardly ever smiled, smiled for the second time in one day.

"How about tomorrow evening?"

"That would be perfect." He started then quickly explained "My new duties don't start until the day after."

"Oh really?" She looked him up and down almost disbelieving.

"problem?" He asked

"If your off duty Sargent, why are you in uniform?"

"To make up for all the times I broke uniform protocol as a youngster." He offered then when she clearly had not bought it continued. "The truth is in prison one quickly learns to stay in uniform even while off duty."

"Do the inmates often mistake uninformed guards for fellow convicts?" Julie asked

"No, not necessarily," he confessed, " But we don't want to give them that excuse. If a con catches a guard out of uniform they think they can do as they please with him,and then say that they thought he was just another convict, and receive a less sever punishment."

"A perfect plan to get at a guard one loathes." Julia summarized delightedly.

"Precisely," Javert responded. " That is one of the few prison highest I thankful I have never been party to."

"One of the few?" Julia asked intrigued. "I heard you had some interesting adventures while you where away, but I can't wait to here them from yourself expesaily now."

"Then I suppose I will make a more pleasant dinner guest then I thought I would," Javert cleverly bought. The truth was he didn't want to talk about the past seven years. He wanted to forget about them, to pretend that they never happened.

He wanted to pretended that things would go back to the way they use to be. All he would have to do would be to walk into the station house. The inspector would be leaning back in his office chair with his fly swatter in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other. As he entered Sargent Hogens would watch him with his eagle eyes. Higgins would snoop around the corner trying to antis him into another silly scheme. And of course detective Murdoch would just be coming out of his office, calling Javert over to show him his latest gizmo.

Javert didn't go inside the station house because he wanted to preserve the past,his perfect fantasy. As long as he didn't go in he could keep pretending that inside time had stood still for seven years. It was that fantasy that had gotten him through the past seven years. But now that a small peace of his past, his fantasy, Julia Ogden had shown up and he could see the mark time had left on her. His fantasy came crashing down, baring his past with it.

With his past buried so deeply not even he could dig it back up, Javert realized that this was his life now, he just needed to build something over the ruins.

"I look forward to it." The doctors delight out did even his fondness of memories. She was expecting terrific and terrible prison stories. How could Javert let down this women who had been such an important part of his youth, even at his own expense? "I have to go run some errands right now though, wouldn't you accompany me?"

Javert gave her a polite nod. "I'm afraid I have to decline. I have a meeting across town in less then an hour."

Julia smiled back at him, "All right then, see you tomorrow evening."

"Good day, doctor." Javert said as the doctor begin to walk off. Then he seemed to think of something. "Doctor Ogden!" He called back to her.

"Please call me Julia." She turned around

"what?" Javert asked horror struck.

"Well since you have discarded your last name, and I must now call you by your first, it seems only far you do the same."

javert opened his mouth as if to argue but quickly samitted.

"Ok, Julia" the named seemed wrong to him almost as though he was talking to someone other then the female coroner he had known half of his life. "I just thought that perhaps you don't tell detective Murdoch that I'm back in Paris. That way we can surprise him tomorrow when I come for dinner."

Julia's delight grew even more powerful. "That a wonderful idea!"

With that Javert gave a finale nod and turned to walk away. He figured Julia would go along with the idea, she had always been a stickler for surprises, much like he himself had once been. He was mostly grateful that she clearly remembered that about him as well, otherwise she might have uncovered his alter motive.

"No" He thought to himself "I'm not just another one of the detectives experiments, I'm the detectives one experiment that when wrong."