My first Les Miserables fanfiction. Based off Philip Quast's rendition of "He Fades Away", a song about the Wittenoom Tragedy. If you listen to it, I warn you to have tissues about.

"Stefan"

A weak rasp, barely audible. The man who had until now stood silhouetted by the window turned to look back into the room. With slow steps he crossed it and sat down on the sole chair by the iron bed. A hand shifted on the counterpane and he took it in both of his own, clasping the thin bones in warmth. For anyone else it would have been automatic to look up to the face of the owner of the hand, but it was a long moment before he did so.

From the top of the covers to the top of his neck the young man was wraith thin, yet his face was strangely puffy. Stefan sighed slightly and was echoed with choking harshness.

"Every.. night.. think... dream"

He nodded, understanding "yet when the dawn comes it is still here". Without even thinking he wrung out the cloth than lay in a bowl on the bedside table and wiped the thin sheen of sweat from the boy's face.

A boy, that's all he was. Gavroche had been six when they'd first found each other, when he'd been on a patrol trip out near Wittenoom. A little scrap of humanity, more kitten than person. He'd been born in that town, his father killed in a mine accident, his mother simply disappearing.

Everyone at Headquarters had near fallen over with shock when he'd returned with the waif in tow. He, Inspector Javert, who they called Stone-Heart.. oh yes, he'd known about that. Some joked that the boy was a remnant of a once wild life the inspector had led. And that had led to his first suspension, for punching the insulting officer on the jaw and knocking him out. No-one said anything bad after that.

Then, ten years later, he'd come home to find no Gavroche, just a note on the side

Dear Stefan

Need to make my own way for a while. There's a job going in Wittenoom mill, and I've taken it up.

Don't look for me, I can take care of myself

G

He'd sat and cried that evening. Even then there had already been horror tales of Wittenoom and the dreaded Dust. Now his little boy was going there, unaware, carefree. He could only pray that he came home safe and well.

That prayer hadn't been answered. At first all had seemed fine when the young man, twenty one now, walked back through his door. A bit thin and a slight cough, but he'd been worked hard and it was winter. Nothing that good food and rest wouldn't fix.

But the coughing hadn't stopped, nor had the weight loss. By the time Gavroche finally overslept one morning and he found the bloodstains on the pillow next to his moth it was too late. The disease, that ineradicable dust had taken hold. The fun loving boy all too rapidly morphed into a wheezing bag of bones,. God, he wasn't even thirty.

Just over a decade ago this figure before him had still loved being swung into the air, still caught him out with goodnight kisses he'd never expected to receive. Now he was almost unable to move, dependant on him, a seventy something man, for food and help. It was sickening... It was wrong. Gavroche should be married, with children and a life, not laying here like this.

Damn you, CSR Damn you to hell

The boy coughed again and Stefan saw him bring up blood, adding a deeper mark to the crimson patch on the pillow. Slowly he stood up, blinking rapidly. The figure in the bed was no longer Gavroche, except for a brief flicker in the eyes which still belonged to the cheeky boy who'd traded insults and jests all the way back from Wittenoom. The rest was gone, sapped from him like water from a sponge.

He stared out the window, not seeing anything. Oh the lawyers had promised compensation, yes. They'd promised money. Money in the place of a human life. How could cold metal coins and paper slips replace Gavroche? It wouldn't even be able to pay for treatment, for there was no cure.

No cure, the words rang a knoll in his heart and he felt it crack. His hand clenched on the window frame, trying to ground him. But reality was too harsh; there was no point being brave now.

Finally, he let the hot tears fall down his cheeks.

I know pitiful little about asbestosis so I'm guessing slightly at the speed of onset, assuming that a child exposed to the dust would develop it more easily if they were exposed again when an adult.

If you are interested; Javert looks the 10th Anniversary, and Gavroche is a mid twenties version of himself from the same.

Reviews?