I'll Sleep in Your Embrace, At Last

by Yukaido

This is the second story in my Javert/Valjean series, following "In the Debt of a Thief", my first ValjeanXJavert tale. Based heavier on the book, this is what could have happened had Valjean offered Javert to step inside while he said his last farewells to Cosette. Does not have chronological tie to "In the Debt of a Thief" and can be read as a stand alone.

A few nights ago, after I had been talking to my friend, Achilles Maiden, on the computer about the new Les Miserables story she is working on, two ideas for alternate versions of my story In the Debt of a Thief, came to me. I decided to quickly jot them down so I would remember them in the morning, when I could start the first one when I got tired of paying attention in school. Well, after laying down for an hour and a half and only sleeping for maybe three ten minute increments, I decided to give up on sleep and start the first alternate ending, which I decided to name after the a line in the song Eponine and Marius sing in the musical, A Little Fall of Rain. This story is more based on the book than my first story, because when I wrote the original, I was only maybe halfway through the book and had only heard an overview of what happend from my mom and my friend Jennifer. So whereas my first story began near the sewers, which relates to the musical, the beginning of this story, I'll Sleep in Your Embrace, At Last begins directly where the book followed Valjean and Javert after Marius had been transported to his grandfather's after the fall of the barricade. To all the people who may have read my last story, I apologize if it too heavily followed the musical and not the book in the beginning, but I assure you that I did follow the book this time through. I actually had the book open in front of me while I wrote this to look up the exact street names and not misspell anything. This story can stand alone without the first, but it would help for you to read my first one so you can understand where the idea of this storyline came from. I hope you like it, because I know I am extremely proud of how this story, compared to others I've written, turned out.

- Yukaido

------

The carriage ride to Number 7, the Rue de l' Homme Arme, was a silent one. An absolute stillness seemed to enshroud the two passengers, each deeply encompassed in their own thoughts. The hunted was quietly resigning himself to his fate, while the hunter, on the outside seeming as calm and placid as always, in reality was wrestling on the inside with conflicting thoughts, truly in a struggle that could very well steal from him his sanity. Valjean glanced up at the hunter across from him, perplexed at his stillness. Valjean had come to know the hunter well enough across the near twenty years they had played the roles of predator and prey to understand that no matter how collected his posture may seem on the outside now, there was a war waging inside Javert that he would never willingly admit.

Valjean had been stunned when Javert had actually given in to his pleas a mere hour before to abstain from arresting him until a wounded Marius, whom he had saved from the barricade by plunging into the abyss of the sewers with the unconscious boy on his back, could be transported to his grandfather's mansion at Number 6, Rue des Filles du Calvaire. Javert, never known to be a man to bend even the smallest law, had without a single threat to his name, assisted a convict. He even called upon his fiacre and driver to transport the three, an unconscious man, an ex-convict, and an officer of the law, to the place of Monsieur Gillenormand. Only now did Valjean realize that if he had not run into Javert while trying to elude the National Guard, he wouldn't have had the slightest inkling of an idea of where to go to seek medical attention for Marius. Paris is no small city, and Valjean would surely have died of exhaustion searching for the Rue des Filles, leaving Marius to bleed to death in the streets.

Now that Valjean had seen that Marius was to receive proper care at his grandfather's estate, the fiacre was heading back to his home, where Javert, again with astonishing acceptance, had granted Valjean one last wish before he was to be re-taken into custody: to say his farewells to Cosette. Marius, although in serious condition, would undoubtedly recover, and so Cosette was certain to be taken care of and given a new, happy life with a loving husband. Though he hated himself for hating to admit it, he knew his daughter was being left in good hands; Madame Pontmercy, as she would soon be addressed, no longer required him in her life to watch over her.

The fiacre slowly came to a halt in front of the building marked with a No. 7, and Valjean, with Javert behind, stepped out of the vehicle and onto the sidewalk which lay next to the small flight of stairs leading up to the door of the humble little house. Javert silently paid the driver and then waved the fiacre away with his hand, moving aside as the horse and carriage quickly started up again, retaking the road whist it had come from and disappearing around the corner of the street. Valjean was half expecting for Javert to stride up the steps and tear open the door to the house himself, making it his job to alert the rest of the household of Valjean's and another, unexpected, visitors return. Instead, Javert side-stepped across the sidewalk, accepting a spot to the side of the railing leading up the stairs. The depth of the stare he gave Valjean unnerved him with its intensity.

"I will wait for you here." he said solemnly. Valjean, allowing for a brief nod of acknowledgement, ascended the few steps to the door of No. 7, and raised a fist to knock to be let in. And then he paused. Something about the way Javert now carried himself sat ill with his conscious. Valjean knew there was something wrong, even though he'd be damned if he could figure out what it was. Either way, something inside Javert had changed, and this change frightened him. The inspector was most definitely not in the right state of mind.

So there was only one thing to be done. He knew, no doubt, that Madame Toussaint, as age was catching up with her blessed heart, would succumb to terrified hysterics upon seeing the Inspector, but right now Valjean's only concern was what extremities Javert's clearly unstable mind would lead him to do if he let him stand outside alone now. He could only pray that Javert's pride wouldn't turn him away.

And as simply as that, Valjean extended his offer.

"It's rather cold out tonight, Inspector," he said, "Would you like to step inside?"

Javert, who had since averted his gaze to the abandoned street, looked up at Valjean in a mixture of surprise and disbelief. A half a minute passed in such a way, with Javert staring in disbelieving silence at Valjean, the latter starting to feel uneasy under the renewed intensity of Javert's piercing gaze. Valjean had to fight down the urge to shift uncomfortably in the face of those unmoving grey eyes.

"You've already won, you fool," Inspector Javert's thoughts seemed to both plead with and condemn the man who stood before him, "I no longer have the will to turn you in. I can no more ignore your condemnation from the law now than my own conscious, which tells me that your sentence was one of an innocent, good man. Why can't you just be satisfied with your victory, and forget about me? Why do you continue to needlessly include me in your life?"

Javert despised himself for this indecision that now haunted his every thought. He knew he should turn and walk away, with no words of explanation, should expel his presence from Jean's life himself. If he stayed, his conscious would never be clear: after that night's events, he would never be able to choose between his duty to the law and his duty to what he believed in. Valjean had finally proved himself in the inspector's eyes as a pure man; the river seemed a fitting way to remove himself from this confliction now. So why was it that he longed so much to accept Valjean's simple offer?

To the last of his days, Javert never knew what made him turn towards, not away, from No. 7, Rue de l' Homme Arme. What compelled him to take a step back into the light and not further into the darkness that had been slowly eating away his soul. But, as both Valjean and Javert realized, many years later, that small accepted gesture was what ultimately saved them both.

Javert gave an infinitely small sigh, the slightest fall of his shoulders imperceptible by any passerby had they chanced to walk by in that instant. But of course, after years of having to learn Javert's every movement, the secret to his continual escapes from capture, Valjean wouldn't have missed any gesture, however slight, that the inspector made.

"Yes. That would be…acceptable."

Valjean smiled to himself, and then turned once again to rap the door as Javert slowly ascended the steps to stand behind him.

Immediately, the pair were admitted in by Toussaint, and as Valjean had expected, some indirect versions of what was truly going on, the likes of which he had used to calm the ill Fantine eager to see her child so many long years ago, had to be employed before Toussaint could pull herself together enough to fetch Cosette from her room.

"Oh, Papa!" Cosette cried in joy upon seeing her father was finally safe at home once again. She quickly ran across the room to him, closing the short distance between them and falling into his waiting arms. With a nod, Valjean dismissed Toussaint, and she quickly bustled from the room, shutting the door softly behind her as Valjean ran a hand soothingly through his daughters hair.

"Where have you been all this time?" Cosette asked softly from the safety of her fathers embrace, as tears of relief trickled down her cheeks, "You disappeared without saying a word, and then there was the news of the barricade--oh, I was so terrified you had been killed!"

"Hush, my child," he said kindly, "I am safe."

But suddenly, all the feelings of safeness and security that Cosette felt in her fathers arms left her in one instant, and she gazed in horror upon the form of Inspector Javert, who up until that moment had been leaning silently against the wall in a dark corner of the room. He now took a step forward, into the light of the fire that was burning softly in the hearth, and his overwhelming presence made Cosette's hands begin to shake.

"Papa? What's going on? What is Monsieur l' Inspector doing here?" she whispered, clutching to the front of her father's shirt with trembling hands, "Papa, I'm scared. What's going on?"

"Ssshh, Cosette. Everything is fine," Valjean whispered in her ear, taking one of her delicate hands and leading her to a chair by the fire, "I let Inspector Javert in. Do not worry, my child. I will explain everything."

And so he did. Valjean went back to the beginning, to when he first stole that loaf of bread on that fateful night forty long years ago. How he had been caught and sentenced to five years in prison, but after four failed escape attempts, his sentence had stretched to last nineteen long years. He spoke of the Bishop of Digne, who had given him a place to stay the night he was released, and how with his cruel hatred of the world he had stolen the Bishop's silver. He told her of the Bishop's kindness, how instead of condemning him for thievery, he had instead lied to his captors, saying the silver was a gift and how with the very silver candlesticks that now rested on the mantel, the Bishop had bought his soul for God and made Valjean promise him he would use the Bishop's silver to become an honest man.

Valjean told Cosette of the time he became mayor of Montreuil-sur-mer, and how he had met her mother, Fantine. He told her of the harsh life Fantine had led so that her child may be well taken care of. He explained to Cosette of his original plans to make the Thenardiers bring her to her dying mother, but how Javert, who had both been a guard at the prison he served in at Toulon and his chief Inspector at his time in Montreuil-sur-mer, had informed him of the detaining of a supposed parole breaking convict, prisoner 24601, and how he had made all haste to Paris to denounce the charges. There, he revealed his true identity so that the innocent man may have been set at liberty. Valjean spoke to her of how her mother died, and of how he swore to her after she had passed on that her daughter would be cared for. He finally revealed to her the truths of their constant flights, of their run from the Gorbeau House, why they had really come to be at the Petite Picpus, of his ordeal in the graveyard and of his being held hostage years later by the very same Thenardier who had kept her as a servant in the days of her early childhood.

Finally, Valjean explained to her his sudden disappearance, how he had gone to the barricade in the hopes to save the life of her Marius, how he had carried him through the sewers of Paris until he had again run into Thenardier, who had opened the lock of the grate without realizing who he was, and how when he had finally reemerged into the world above the dark depths of the underground, he had been discovered by Javert at long last. And so Valjean's long story came full round. At last, he told Cosette his real name.

"Do not worry, Cosette. Marius is deeply wounded, but the doctor said within a few months, he will make a full recovery," Valjean consoled her, "But now you see, my child, that I am not your real father. Without you mother, Cosette, I would never have been blessed to have you in my life. I can never repay Fantine for what she gave to me that day so long ago….for even if you are not my daughter by blood, I will always love you as my daughter here in my heart. I'm sorry for deceiving you all these years, but I never wanted you to know of my past. I was afraid, and still am, that the knowledge that I am an ex-convict will disgust you and that you will leave from my life holding bitterness and contempt to my name. Still, know that all the years I've raised you, my dearest Cosette, you have been the center of adoration in my life, and that I never wished anything ill upon you. I only hope I've done as much as I could have to make your life happy."

Cosette, who had listened silently from her chair to everything he said, now rose, and taking Valjean's hands in her own, planted a soft kiss on his cheek as she always had in affection for the man. She smiled.

"And a better father has never been." she ended. Tears gathered in Valjean's eyes, and he once again tucked Cosette into his arms, holding her for one final, sad time. The moment went by agonizingly fast. Not willing to let Cosette go and knowing that he must, Valjean gently pushed her away, taking a step backwards away from her. Already, he felt a part of his heart tearing in two. But to his surprise, he found that knowing he was returning to prison, this time for good, was not as bad as he originally thought it would. For now, at least, he knew the person who held the other half of his heart, would never be too far away.

"But now, my child, a part of me suffers, for I must now leave you again," Valjean said sadly, holding back more tears, "And this time, I cannot return."

At first, Cosette gazed upon him in confusion and worry, but soon she gazed at him in terror.

"No--no, you can't!" she agonized, stepping forward once more to clutch at her father's sleeve, "Papa, you just can't! You can't leave me now!"

"I'm sorry, Cosette," he smiled sadly, "But I cannot continue to run from the law forever."

He placed a weary hand on hers, sliding his thumb across it one last time.

"You have a wonderful husband to be, and a new, loving family to take care of you now," he said, gazing at her tear stricken face, "You will be okay."

"But they aren't you, Papa!" Cosette begged. Valjean let one lonely tear slide down his face.

"I'm sorry." he whispered.

"No! No, please no! Monsieur l' Inspector, please have mercy on him!" Cosette sobbed, now directing her gaze to Javert, who had remained quite still and silent during this entire time. She still desperately clung to her father's coat sleeve. "Please, don't take my father away from me now!!"

Javert, so practiced in suppressing his memories, was taken fully aback as her pleading triggered a memory of Fantine, the woman who Valjean, under the guise of mayor, had been able to save from being taken to jail by overruling Javert's authority. Fantine had begged with him too to have mercy on her. How much Cosette resembled her mother now.

But before Javert had a chance to say anything, Valjean stopped Cosette with a solemn shake of his head. She fell silent, now shaking from head to toe and too overwhelmed to resist as Valjean's hands gently removed her shaking fingers from his sleeve. He returned her arms to her sides, and lightly kissed her forehead, stepping away from her still trembling figure.

"Goodbye, Cosette." he breathed. Valjean then turned around to look up at Javert determinedly.

"I am ready." he said. But Javert did not move a muscle, standing his ground as he looked Valjean squarely in the face, pressing down on him with his hard, cold gaze once more. Valjean, this time, did not avert his eyes.

"No, Valjean," Javert finally spoke, "You are free."

Time seemed to halt as soon as those words left Javert's mouth. He had made his decision of duty at last. Valjean went stiff, still not breaking eye contact, though his eyes grew wide in shock from those three words. A minute dragged by in complete silence, the room seeming to hum with the intensity of what had just occurred. At last, Valjean found his voice, which until then he hadn't realized he had lost.

"What?" he asked, his voice barely audible even in the silence. Javert's eyes narrowed.

"You heard me, Valjean. Do not make me repeat myself a second time."

Javert was finally the one to break the gaze, spinning around so he could no longer see the old, gentle eyes of the man he had just renounced to chase any longer. With slow, steady strides, he made his way over to the mantelpiece to examine the silver candlesticks of which Valjean had spoken of in his tale.

"Are you really this illiterate, Valjean?" Javert scoffed sardonically, gazing at the reflecting lights of the fire's embers upon the polished metal, "You are free. No more running away, no more hiding under false identities, no more living in fear of the law. You can go on with the rest of your happy life here with your daughter. You have no more need to expend useless thoughts on me."

This having been said, Javert briskly walked over to the front door, placing a hand on the handle and fully readying himself to pull it open and disappear from this abode for good. But again, Valjean's voice called him back, halting him in his tracks.

"I--I don't understand." Valjean murmured, still in the exact same spot he had been standing in for the last few minutes, the same shocked and overwhelmed expression on his face. Javert sighed, then turned around once more to face Valjean.

"It is not a matter of understanding, Valjean, it is a matter of acceptance," Javert stated, "My conscious will no longer permit me to follow through with my duties to the police force regarding your sentence. That is all there is to it."

And then, something happened that Javert never thought he would ever witness. Valjean's knees gave out beneath him, and he sank to the floor with his head bowed and his hands clasped before him as if in prayer, Cosette falling to her knees beside him and holding his shoulders, crying tears of joy. Valjean was weeping.

"God bless you." he uttered, succumbed to the sheer power of the emotions that now coursed through him. At this, Javert allowed himself a small smile, the first one he had smiled in many years past.

"We shall see."

And with that, Javert pulled open the door and left. He slowly descended the steps, all the while gazing at the abandoned street of the Rue de l' Homme Arme. What had just happened? Had he really just denounced the chase for Jean Valjean which he had pursued and dedicated over half of his life to? Javert shook his head in disbelief. Had the thoughts that now crossed his mind even have presented themselves to him mere hours before, undoubtedly, he knew, he would have disposed of himself sooner that live with the doubt they brought with them. But even now, as doubt of what he would do next filled Javert, he found his earlier notion of throwing himself into the Seine utterly pointless and ridiculous. Yes, he had no idea what would happen to him now, and yes, he had no idea where life's course would lead him next. But something had changed. Now, he thought, he felt as if he could bare his continued existence for the time being.

Javert, with one last glance back at No. 7, Rue de l' Homme Arme, donned his top hat and turned to walk away, when suddenly that one voice that could make his heart tremble called out to him once more.

"Javert? Where will you go now?"

Valjean, it seemed, was in the better control of his emotions again. And again, Javert allowed himself a small smirk. His back still turned, Javert responded.

"As I've said, useless thoughts."

A pause, and then the honest truth.

"I'm not sure."

Javert's answer seemed to brighten Valjean's mood immediately. Upon realizing the Inspector had left, an intense grief, which Valjean could neither explain nor describe, had overcome him, and he had swiftly gotten to his feet and dashed to the door with the feeble hope that Javert was still there. To his immense relief, Javert had only just been getting ready to depart, and upon laying eyes on the Inspector, an indescribable warmth that had always been accompanied with Javert in the older man's mind spread through him. He had been lucky when Javert had accepted his first offer. He could only pray he would be lucky the second time around.

"In that case, why don't you stay here the night? It really wouldn't be a problem to set out an extra mattress for you in the living room. After all, it's the least I can do after…"

He trailed off.

"Please, Lord," Valjean silently prayed, "Please let him accept. Oh, if only he could understand the depth of the feelings I've always held for him!"

Like before, Javert hesitated for a few moments, wrestling with an inner conflict that was completely unknown to Valjean. Then, he turned to meet the older man's gaze with that same determined glint in his eye that Valjean had held either. He sighed, but this time, not in annoyance.

"Yes. I would very much like that."

------

"Peace, Cosette, peace. We shall pay a visit to Marius directly in the morning." Valjean chuckled, patting her hand soothingly as she sank down onto her bed.

"Oh, but Papa, how am I to lay still and sleep knowing that Marius is hurt!" Cosette fretted, again becoming anxious, "What if he isn't recovering? What if he-"

Valjean placed a finger on her lips to silence her, and smiled down kindly at her worried face.

"Rest, my child. Marius will get better, I am certain of it," he soothed her, "But for now, we can only be patient and wait as the doctor tends to his wounds. Besides, what would Marius think of me if he awakes to see his angel exhausted and under slept at his bedside?"

This assurance finally seemed to quell Cosette, and she willingly lowered her head onto her pillow, gazing at her fathers face as he delicately tucked the covers around her and under her chin. He bent down to place a kiss on her forehead, and Cosette smiled.

"Goodnight, Papa." she said. Valjean walked over to the bureau at the foot of her bed where a small candle stood burning, its flickering light the only thing illuminating the dark room now that the moon was high in the sky.

"Goodnight, Cosette," he bade her, "Sleep well. I will rouse you in the morning."

And with that, he blew out the candle and left the room. The evening was at last drawing to an end. Already having changed out of the filthy clothes he had been wearing when he had first gone to the barricade, now coated in sewer muck, sweat, and dried blood, Valjean came back into the living room to see Javert seated at the foot of the mattress that had been laid out for him, looking as if he were deep in thought. He smiled at the brooding expression Javert wore, still unaware that Valjean had re-entered the room. Always contemplating something, Valjean thought fondly. After a half a minute or so, where the Inspector remained oblivious to the world outside his thoughts, Valjean spoke.

"Well, I shall be retiring now. Be sure to call if you need anything." he said. Normally, he would have Toussaint be ready if assistance was needed at this late hour, but now that it was Javert who might require something, he would gladly see personally to anything the man needed.

Instead of lifting his eyes to acknowledge he heard him, Javert simply nodded. In turn, Valjean gave a nod of his own, and with one last, shy smile, he turned and left Javert to his thoughts. The creaking of the steps behind him as he ascended to his room on the second floor signified his departure. Only then did Javert raise his eyes.

"Sleep well, Jean." he whispered softly.

By now, Javert had had enough time to discern what was happening to him. While Valjean had taken leave of him for a few minutes to change and to bid his daughter goodnight, Javert had been lost in thought with the many questions regarding his peculiar actions that night. The unexplainable emotions that had overtaken him. Any other day, in any other situation, with any other criminal who had broken the law, no matter how miniscule, he wouldn't have even hesitated for the shortest fraction of a second in seeing justice be done. So why had he sparred this man? Why Valjean, of all people, the one man he had been obsessed with re-capturing and setting to justice most of his life, had he given his mercy upon? What had Valjean done to trigger this in the emotionless, unbreakable Inspector Javert? And so, in asking himself this, Javert discovered another thing about himself: that one man had the ability to prove wrong all the people he had ever met or encountered that said he had a heart of stone.

Why had he not left the Rue de l' Homme Arme so many hours ago? How was it that just hearing Valjean's voice had been able to pull him from the dark abysses of his thoughts of suicide? Why had he accepted the second offer, one that was meant to be only for familiarity, the offer for him to stay the night? Well, he supposed he had known Valjean, if only as a convict, for close to thirty years, but surely they were nothing remotely similar to friends, even after that long time period. How these irrepressible emotions that now fought his control after being caged up for so long bemused him so! What had happened to his heart of stone? What was causing this sudden and drastic change in him? So many new emotions: doubt, confusion, fear, happiness,….joy. But most of all, the most strange and foreign feeling of all to Javert…but no, that couldn't possibly be--!

But there could be no other explanation. He remembered, even when he ignored the gossip and complaints surrounding him from fellow officers regarding his life long chase after Jean Valjean, questioning himself in the back of his mind whenever he was at last alone in his home, what his motives were for continuing the chase after this one man. What kept him from just giving up with this ridiculous, unwarranted obsession? Only now, he thought he was beginning to see. For he couldn't stand to see Valjean in any form of pain. Just his voice could bring about so many feelings inside him. He wished for the man nothing but happiness and an escape from the sorrows he had experienced in his life. And his heart swelled when he saw the man's smile. So it must be. He was certain now.

Slowly, Javert rose to his feet, once more walking over to the dying embers of the fire, whereupon the mantel the two silver candlesticks stood. In them, he could see reflected back to him a lifetime of pain and hardship, a lifetime of trial and error, a lifetime of penitence. An honest man. Yes. There was no other way he could see Valjean now.

Coming to some unconscious decision, Javert slowly walked over to the staircase that was in the adjoining hallway of the room, taking time to keep his steps small and steady so the wooden boards beneath his feet wouldn't creek. With no real recollection of what had motivated him to do this, Javert found himself gazing inside the still, quiet room of Jean Valjean. The only sound that could be heard inside was the soft, even breathing of the sleeping man. Undoubtedly, Valjean had forgotten that the door behind him had been left open as he entered the room in an exhausted trance, and Javert now watched the sleeping man with a captivation resembling that of the fascination of a young child.

He watched as the covers resting on Valjean's chest rose up and then fell again slowly with each breath he took. He gazed at the older man's face, lingering on how the hard lines that had been engraved on Valjean's face after years of living in constant fear and apprehension seemed to smooth in his slumber. How peaceful the kind, yet hardened man now looked. Though Javert never knew it, that night Valjean's serenity had been made complete not because he no longer had to regard Javert in fear, but that now he could possibly gaze upon Javert with something more. At last, Javert's eyes rested upon the man's hair, now white from age, tracing it down to his beard, which curled against the side of the man's face and chin, and finally drifted to his mouth…

At that, Javert cut off his thoughts, going stiff as the realization of what had just passed through his mind sunk in. What were these confounded emotions doing to him?! It was a sin! Besides, the two of them were not even friends! Still…Javert's eyes once again rested on the man's lips, which were turned up slightly at the corners in a small, peaceful smile. Did this mean, perhaps, that Javert was searching for something deeper?

Slowly, unsurely, Javert stepped out of the pale moonlight that was bathing the hallway, immediately becoming enshrouded in darkness as he took a few steps into Valjean's room. Still careful not to make a sound, Javert made his way further into the room, until he found himself standing before Valjean's bed, only inches away from its slumbering occupant. If only he were to reach out his hand…

But Javert quickly stopped that train of thought before it got any further. But the thought that had crossed his mind just moments before soon replaced it. No. He couldn't. It was wrong. But…he gazed at Valjean's face once more in longing, and a new sense of certainty came to him. Surely, one short kiss couldn't do that much harm?

Timidly, Javert bent down upon his knees on the floor beside Valjean's face, and, trembling in fear before the prospect of what he intended to do, slowly leaned his head forward until his and Valjean's noses almost touched. Again, Javert froze, hesitating if this decision was the right to make, but with one more glance towards Valjean, he stared forward resolutely. And just like that, Javert had closed the gap between their lips with a soft, fleeting kiss.

Javert stood abruptly, but still silently, and quickly crossed the room to stand in the doorway leading back into the hallway, his face burning with the stunned embarrassment of what he had just done. Of course, he knew that nobody but perhaps God had witnessed him kiss Valjean, and that his thoughts were the only things that could give him away now. And for those, he was eternally grateful that they were silent to everyone but himself. Still, the knowledge seethed through him at what had just occurred and it made a shiver go down his spine. Again lost in his thoughts and having his back facing the inside of the room, Javert didn't notice Valjean sit up in his bed, awakened by the soft touch of Javert's lips.

"Javert?"

The inspector froze in a combination of shock and horror. He quickly whipped his head around to see Valjean gazing at him, but not in detest nor disgust. Instead, he was wearing that same shy smile he had given to Javert just before he had gone to sleep, his eyes half open sleepily, but pure tenderness glistening in them. And then, Valjean reached his arms out to him.

Javert, this time with no fear, returned once more to Valjean's side and crawled onto the bed next to Valjean as he was drawn into the other man's loving embrace. Javert sighed in content as he curled up against Valjean's chest, feelings of happiness and rightness blossoming in him as Valjean held him close. So this was what it was like to love another. Valjean also sighed, but his with relief and joy, as Javert and him settled further into the bed, still holding Javert close as they lay side by side. He could gaze upon Javert with love after all.

And so it was Valjean and Javert spent every night from that night forward in such a way. Even after Cosette wed Marius, and her and Toussaint moved to their new home on the Rue des Filles du Calvaire, Valjean and Javert remained in the little house of No. 7, Rue de l' Homme Arme, by day living with each others company, by night being held in each others arms. Until the end of their days, Valjean and Javert never spent another moment without the other. But on that one night, where Valjean and Javert finally found themselves again, Javert could remember just one thought filling his mind as he drifted off to sleep in the safety of Valjean's arms: "I can finally fall asleep in your embrace, at long last."

Once again, I have some people I would like to mention and some stories I would like to credit for helping me complete this second story in my trilogy. Of course, first and foremost, I must again extend my thanks to my friend Achilles Maiden, who not only provided me with the information to get me obsessed with this book/musical and with conversation about it when nobody else I know cares about what I'm talking about (T.T), but also inspired me to write another Les Mis fanfiction after I read the progress she has made on her new one so far. The detail especially impressed me, with all the Les Mis fanfictions she's written, but especially her new one, and I decided to take the time to look up the specific places in the book that correlated to my storyline as to enhance my story more. Thank you!! And now, for the other two stories that have most definitely impacted how I've written this story, and undoubtedly the next one that is to come... As Lucifer Fell by Sue and A Christmas Tale, its authorized sequel by Sandi. These stories aren't posted here on fanfiction, but can be found on by typing in the title names on Google. These two stories are some of the most elaborately detailed and most powerfully emotional ValjeanXJavert stories I have ever read. These two stories are a bit lengthy, especially As Lucifer Fell, but well worthwhile to read. I even spent till midnight on a school day, ignoring the fact that I was exhausted and would suffer of lack of sleep in Chemistry the next day, to read it. They aren't just your ordinary romance, the plots twist and turn upon themselves, but always match together in the end, and the true emotion put behind them is amazing. Thank you so much for your dedicated work, and I thoroughly enjoyed your stories, and still continue to (reading them over, and over, and over...hehehe.). So again, thank you to all three of the aforementioned authors, and to them and all the other authors who continue to write ValjeanXJavert (there are so few supporters compared to other pairings, especially with EnjolrasXGrantaire T.T), keep up the good work!!

Oh! One more thing, and then I'll finally leave you poor readers alone (sorry!) Please don't forget to review and tell me what you thought, and also stay tuned for the final story I shall be writing in this series, I Swear to You, I Will Be There. Okay, now I'm done!

Au ' revoire!

End