Author's Note: Hello my lovely readers! Up until now, I've only written one shots for this particular fandom, so this will be my first attempt at a full-length Les Mis story. :D Some of you may be familiar with my previous story "Cat and Mouse," which is based on the idea that the Champmathieu case never happened and in which Javert is forced to confront his misconceptions about Valjean much earlier in the story. There's a good deal of fluff involving Javert and young Cosette...so much so that by the end of it, I jokingly commented that maybe he could be her uncle in this AU. Well...some of you apparently really liked the idea and asked for a sequel...so here it is! In this story, I will attempt to retell the entire story of Les Mis under these new circumstances with the main focus being on Javert's effects on Cosette growing up and Cosette's effects on Javert's view of the law, justice, and God. Normally, I prefer to wait until I have everything written to start posting, but this time I'm going to try something different and just post as I go. Because of that, there may be a few more errors than usual and my updates will likely be highly irregular, but I'll do the best I can. I hope you guys enjoy it!

~CaptainHooksGirl~

Disclaimer: I do not own Les Mis.

Chapter One: Misgivings

Some men have likened God to a consuming fire. Javert would have argued that He was more like a cancer, spreading slowly and painfully through that most necessary and most abhorrent organ he'd thought petrified long ago. The heart was a useful thing only to those who could afford to have it broken—men who traded in love were rarely as successful in their investments as those who traded in gold, and quite frankly, Javert had no interest in the former. Emotion clouded judgment, and in a field where he often had to make split-second life-altering decisions, Javert had prided himself in never allowing anything to sway him from the path of justice. Until that day….

It had been a little over a week since the incident involving the shooting of the mayor, and Javert had been agonizing over his decision ever since. Had he done the right thing by letting the former convict go? He had seen the prison brand—had proof beyond the shadow of a doubt that Monsieur Madeleine was Jean Valjean—and yet he had chosen to ignore the revelation as if it did not matter, turning a blind eye to his sin rather than delivering over to the law that which it demanded. Exactly why he had done it, he could not say, for to confess what he had seen in the child's tear-filled eyes as she'd clung to him and wept frightened him more than he liked to admit. In any other situation, he would not have hesitated to return the ex-convict to Toulon, but he owed the man his life—a debt not to be taken lightly—and it had taken a child's act of mercy to make him see the folly of turning a good man over to the law. But the fact that a criminal should be considered "good" at all troubled him greatly. By the very definition of the word, a convict was someone who held no regard for the law, and therefore, no reverence for humanity or respect for authority, while the saintly Monsieur Madeleine—a man whose love for the people was surpassed only by his love for God—was himself an authoritative figure as mayor of the town—and an effective one, at that. The notion made his head spin. What did it mean that Man was capable of change? What did Valjean's conduct say about his character? More importantly, what did Javert's own actions—or rather, the lack thereof—say about him as an officer of the law? As a man? The whole affair was an insipid mess of uncharted gray area in territory the inspector's moral compass had formerly mapped out as either black or white, and he was ineffably and inexcusably lost amid the blurred lines of legality and right.

Though not much of a religious man himself, Javert had always held in high regard representatives of the Church. Theirs was a different kind of legal system than his own, but the principles were generally the same—"Thou shalt not murder" and "Thou shalt not steal," whether laws of God or laws of man, were universal rules that even the most barbaric races recognized. If the belief that the true punishment for such crimes would be eternal rather than earthly motivated more people to do what was right, well, he had no objections. But his attendance at mass once or twice a year was really more for appearances than anything else; it was a social obligation, a requirement of the job. Respectable men went to church, so he attended dutifully, if not willingly, as he would have done for any other social function. But aside from the occasional half-hearted prayer, God rarely disturbed his thoughts. Now, it seemed, He was making up for lost time.

Over the past week, Javert had done a great deal of soul-searching—something he wasn't particularly comfortable with but now found irritatingly necessary. If Valjean's God had been the cause of the change that he had noticed, it stood to reason that said God must exist. And if said God was as holy and just as the priests made Him out to be, then He—the Author of the law Javert served—would undoubtedly be the inspector's ultimate superior—above the higher ranking officers, above the Prefect, above even the King of France himself! From his rather limited knowledge of the bible, Javert knew that the church advocated for the respect of government officials…but if, for instance, the laws of God and man conflicted on a point, what, then, was he to do? He could not very well disregard his superiors but neither could he disobey the Law Himself. To some extent, he had already encountered this dilemma in the problem of Jean Valjean, but as he no longer had a warrant, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to make an arrest, and it would take a lot of explaining, indeed, if he were to drag off the town mayor—who was being hailed as hero for taking the bullet intended for Javert—in chains. No, Javert had quite literally burned his bridges with Valjean the moment he'd tossed the arrest warrant into the flames. That was one decision there was no going back on. Whether or not it had been a mistake remained to be seen. The guilt of knowing he had explicitly and intentionally gone against his orders was overwhelming to the point of making him almost physically ill…and yet he knew that even if he held the warrant in his hand, he could not make the arrest. Something—or rather, Someone—barred the way.

He dropped his head into his hands, pinching the bridge of his nose and rubbing his thumb and forefinger over his eyes to assuage the throbbing pressure building up inside his brain. He had been staring at the same stack of paperwork for hours until he'd nearly gone cross-eyed trying to make sense of it all, but try as he might, he simply could not focus on the task at hand, his mind having wandered repeatedly to another case file he'd once thought had grown cold. And then the questions became philosophical. And then the headache became nauseating.

Javert was an honest man, if nothing else, as critical and unforgiving of himself as he was of others, and given the current situation, he was of a good mind to have himself court-martialed for his failure to uphold the law. But was it truly a crime to be disobedient to the law if one were being obedient to God? The problem with recognizing God as a moral superior for Javert was not admitting that he was imperfect or fallible—for he had always owned up to his faults and accepted the punishment without complaint—rather, it was the uncertainty that now accompanied his decisions. The God he had heard the priests speak of was just, but Valjean's God was apparently merciful. How, then, was one to know whether justice or mercy took precedence in a case? How to reconcile this? Where did one draw the line when there was no clear path to follow? Furthermore, it was the idea that his life—his fate—was not his own that troubled him. It was the idea that he was not his own man; that he, who had always been self-reliant, was incapable of saving himself; that he could never be irreproachable; that the law was not enough and that nothing he said or did would EVER be enough that sent a tremor up his spine. No. He would not believe it—could not believe it. Jean Valjean was the exception, not the rule. The law had been wrong on one infinitesimal point, and one alone…. But if even the law was fallible, did that mean that there was something above the law that was, in fact, infallible? Such questions were beyond his capabilities of reason, and so, for the moment, he did what all men do when they are given a question mark in the place where an indisputable period once stood—he ignored it and hoped that if he waited long enough, he would eventually forget that it was there.

He sighed, setting the stack of papers off to the side and glancing briefly at the clock. It was almost time for his evening shift to begin, and he was thankful for an excuse to put the paperwork away. Soon, he would be back in his element, back in the familiar darkness where criminals still fled from his sight and thieves and did not wear livery or halos. Perhaps the cool night air would clear his mind.