A/N: This fic came about because I was listening to the suicide lyrics and thought: "no way to go on" - really? You couldn't think of one single way? I bet there are lots of ways.
So this is one: Javert comes up with something a little unorthodox. No violence in this part, but there's a bit in later chapters.
For three days after the barricade fell, all was in limbo. Marius lay alive and not alive; Cosette's prayers were answered and not answered. And Valjean roamed from room to room restlessly - free, but not free.
On the fourth morning all changed abruptly: Javert appeared on his doorstep.
"So this is your address," the inspector said. "Good. Come with me."
That was all he said: come with me. Calmly and without inflection. But it was enough to write disaster, and Valjean had to lean on the door frame for support. He could not take a full breath. "Wait," he pleaded, knowing it was no use to plead. "Just, let me say goodbye to Cosette first. Please."
"What?" Javert scowled at him. "No, I didn't mean it that way. I want you to come with me for an errand - I want to show you something. That's all. You'll be back here shortly."
The door frame felt firm and solid under his hands; he hung on. "Javert. You're not bringing me...?"
"To a police station? To a prison? No." Javert pursed his lips. "I am bringing you to my home. I mean you no harm." His tone was of irritation rather than reassurance. "So compose yourself, and come along."
Valjean came along. It took him most of the walk to compose himself; his heart hammered every time they passed a policeman, but by the time they reached their destination he believed himself to be calm.
They had not spoken a word to each other. Javert broke the silence only as he opened his door. "In here. I have something to show you." He guided Valjean into the room with a hand on the small of his back.
Javert's hand was clammy and unsteady - which was completely destabilizing; Valjean had never known Javert to be unsteady.
He stepped in, looked around to see a basin, a chair, a table-.
His eyes arrested on the thing atop the table, sitting all by itself, so alien and out of place he could scarcely recognize it, so memorable he could not fail to recognize it, no matter where it was.
Knotted, tarred rope. A handle. Old bloodstains.
He recoiled, and fetched up hard against a wall behind him. Not a wall: Javert.
He closed his eyes. Covered them with his hands. "Javert, why do you have a lash on your table?" he asked into the darkness, amazed at the soft steadiness of his voice.
Javert sighed. "Relax," he ordered. "Didn't I say you have nothing to fear? I only have a question."
The hand returned to his back, moving him further into the room, into a chair. He sat, still covering his face, and flinched when Javert let go of him. Flinched again at the clink of Javert taking up a pitcher of water, over by the window.
He heard the glass fill up. "What question."
"It's more than one, actually." He could hear the sounds of Javert drinking. When the drink was finished, the tightness in Javert's voice sounded more like irritation than nerves. "Come, you can't look at me?"
"Give me a moment." Finally he made himself open his eyes. Javert had taken off his coat, but otherwise all was as it had been: the table was arm's length in front of him and the hideous artifact was still on it. He didn't move his seat away. "All right: what."
"My thanks. This is difficult enough already." Javert toyed with the cup in his hand, then put it aside and stood straight. "I see you remember that tool."
"Of course I remember it." He glanced down despite himself, and tried not to remember. He had a terrible thought. "Javert - that's not one - the particular specimen, that-...?"
Javert frowned. "The-? Oh-! No," he assured. "No, it's not... one that was ever... no. I got this from another place, another time. I have no reason to think it's one you've seen before."
"Good. Thank you." He relaxed. Why it should bother him that the stains might be his own blood as opposed to some other unfortunate's was a mystery, but bother him it did.
"It's that bad." It took Valjean a moment to even understand the words as a question.
"It's-? Yes," he said simply. "It's that bad."
"Mm." Javert turned and moved across the room - pacing, Valjean realized. Hands clasped behind his back. "And they whipped you for attempting escape."
He was a beat behind again; it was only when Javert turned with arched eyebrows that he recognized he had again been questioned.
"They-, yes. Among other things."
"What did they give you, for attempting an escape. You meaning generally. Convicts."
He swallowed. "Surely you remember. The rules were yours to enforce."
"And they were yours to live. Surely you remember." Javert reached the end of the room, turned again, and started back. "What did they give you for attempting escape?"
This time it was discernibly a question. "It-, it depended. They would- they could, they could charge you with different things." Why should Javert want to make him recount this?
"If the conduct was egregious?"
"Fifty lashes," he said quietly.
"You?"
"I don't remember." That was a lie: he knew that one of the times, at least, he had had fifty and kept his senses til the end. The wet noise of forty-seven in particular had never left him.
"Mm." If Javert heard the lie, he didn't comment on it. "And what was the penalty for- aiding and abetting an escape?"
A tiny, tiny hitch in Javert's speech explained everything, suddenly, all at once. "Javert..."
He stopped and turned again. "What. Was it."
Valjean wished he could look away. "Also fifty," he said quietly.
Javert resumed his pacing - looking at the floor. "Do you now understand why I've brought you here?"
"I understand that you've taken leave of your senses," Valjean said. "We should get you some water and put you to bed."
"I have had water," Javert answered absently, before returning to his madness. "Justice will not be denied. You have done nothing wrong for a change; you were let go, I let you go, the police let you go. You owe nothing now. But I?" His voice was hard. "I owe."
"No."
Javert whipped around, chin raised. "Who are you to tell me no?"
That cold arrogant anger Valjean well remembered. He tried to soothe. "Of course, you're right, it's not my place. I cannot tell you that what you're suggesting is barbarity, not justice, that it's cruel and pointless and would endanger your life. It's not my place to tell you that - though I tell you anyway, because apparently you're having some fit where you can't remember these things for yourself. But you're right: I can't tell you no." He felt oddly calm when the time finally came to take a stand. "But I can tell you I do not condone it and I will have no part in it myself."
"Condone or not, as you please – no one ever asked whether I did! – but you will cooperate. You have no say in what happens to-." He winced visibly. "Your confederate."
Despite the gravity, even horror, of the situation, Javert's expression made him smile. "Javert, I can see that you are suffering," he soothed, in the most serious tone he could muster. "Call it justice, if you will, but recognize that your turmoil is punishment enough, and be satisfied." He looked down to the table, reached out, and actually touched the thing with his hand. "Because I will not take up this weapon and strike you. I will not."
"You will." When he still shook his head, Javert snorted at him. "Come, has Jean the Jack gone soft? You're man enough to take it, but you can't dish it out? Bullshit."
Valjean knew he was being provoked intentionally, but with his nerves already frayed, and the terrible instrument coiled on the table, and Javert prowling... he felt calm slipping away from him. "It's you I'm concerned for, you fool. You have no idea what you're asking for."
"I've seen."
Valjean held eye contact as he leaned over and spat on the floor. "That's for your seen."
Javert held up a hand. "You're right: you know, and I don't." He shook his head. "But it doesn't matter. My mind is made up, and I will have justice. If not from you then from elsewhere – and that would mean explaining what I've done. That would end badly for you."
He froze. "Javert..."
"My mind is made up."
He could cast around for other arguments, but what good would they do? He and Javert had argued many times over the years, and never once had one of them managed to convince the other. Whoever had the power to decide, simply decided.
His freedom was in Javert's hands; he had no illusions about where the power was now. He stood up. "Is there a basement here?"
TBC.
Next part is largely finished and will probably be up this weekend. Let me know what you think so far!
Also: Other than a little cursory googling, I know nothing about the specifics of their corporal punishment – equipment, sentencing, etc. If you know better and I'm way off base, go ahead and correct me.