Can't Take it Back
Javert really thought that had come to accept Valjean for anything he was and everything he wasn't in the two years since the barricades fell.
It was ironic, really, that the barricades had come to so define his life and the lives of so many others he knew given how little they ultimately mattered. Oh, sure, perhaps the wasted lives would go on to inspire a new generation of revolutionaries but it was nothing more than talk as of yet and it had a bigger impact on Javert's own life than it had on France as a whole or even Paris.
He understood now that Valjean was a good person in a way that he had never quite been able to make sense of before. Before he had looked upon all the good Valjean had done and only been able to see an ulterior motive, some fresh crime. It really would have taken something as intense and unexpected as the night of the barricades for him to realize the truth and that didn't say anything good about Javert.
But that was two years ago and, as Valjean was forever telling him, all he could do was move forward and try to be better.
And he did. He liked his new, comfortable life with Valjean and he even saw a way that he could help Valjean as well and not just have their relationship being Valjean the savior taking pity on an unworthy Javert (though Valjean, being Valjean, would have been horrified to hear any aspect of their relationship described in such a way).
Valjean had a serious lack of common sense. It was difficult to believe given that this man had been a criminal and constantly rebelling against that fact since he was twenty-seven. If nothing else, his successful escape from the law for most of the last twenty years should indicate that he had a great deal of common sense.
And in some ways he did. He could look at a dead-end street with police slowly searching it and find a way to spirit himself and a small child away. He could disguise himself and slip into the shadows with the best of them. He could be whatever he needed to be, be it beggar or millionaire, to stay undetected.
If Valjean had wanted to, he might have been very good at staying undetected indeed.
Perhaps common sense was not what he was lacking. Perhaps it was simple self-preservation.
Valjean was watching him uneasily. He had enough self-preservation to know that he needed to be careful of Javert now but not enough to tell him that he shouldn't do things like go around giving alms like he had 600,000 francs at his disposal when he was dressed as one of those whom he felt the need to bestow charity upon! That would make it worse, even, to know that he knew exactly how to keep himself safe but just refused to do it for some reason.
Oh, there were undoubtedly cases where it was only right and proper that he choose something else over his self-preservation (Champmathieu in Arras came to mind) but other times…
Javert had thought they were beyond this. He really did. After he had foiled Valjean's attempts to be a martyr for the sake of being a martyr and forced him to see that he would be doing more harm than good by allowing Marius to hate him and withdrawing completely from Cosette's life, he had really thought they were done with this.
Evidently they were not.
"Javert, please, say something," Valjean pleaded.
"What is there to say?" he asked coldly.
"I don't know," Valjean said helplessly, shrugging. "Anything."
"Fine. There's this new case I'm working on where two thoroughly disreputable men were found standing over a third man and are both accusing the other of killing him and I have to sort it out," Javert said conversationally. "I'm sure only one of them did it but the problem is that I cannot trust a word that either of them says. For now, I've arrested them both but I'm going to have to sort out this mess sooner or later. I can't send them both to Toulon."
Valjean winced as he always did when Toulon came up. He could be so obvious sometimes.
"Javert, you know what I mean," he said quietly.
"Do I? Perhaps. But maybe I shouldn't have to guess about these things."
"Javert, I'm sorry," Valjean told him. He really looked like he meant it, too, but he wasn't, not really. Or he wasn't sorry about the right things at any rate.
"You say that, Valjean, but what you really mean is 'I'm sorry I upset you'," Javert accused.
Valjean's brow furrowed. "What else would you have me mean? I never meant to upset you and so of course I'm going to apologize for that."
Javert clenched and unclenched his fists a few times to try and calm himself. He didn't think it worked very well. "Do you have any idea what that sounds like? 'Oh, I'm not sorry that I broke your window but I sure am sorry that you're upset about it, Monsieur.'"
Valjean frowned.
Javert had said broke a window and not stolen something as he didn't want to make this argument about something else but he suddenly recalled that there had been a broken window in Valjean's history as well. He hoped Valjean was not about to make this about that and take the focus off of where it should be.
"That's hardly the same thing, Javert. I have committed no crime and hurt nobody. I am not wrong here. I just truly wish that my actions had not upset you," Valjean said calmly. "I do not take pleasure from hurting anybody, especially not those that I love."
"Then you don't understand at all!" Javert burst out. "Valjean, do you even know why I'm upset?"
"Of course I do!" Valjean said, looking almost offended.
"But you don't think that I'm right to be upset," Javert concluded.
"Everyone has the right to be upset about anything," Valjean said placatingly.
"That's a 'no' then," Javert said.
"Javert-"
"Don't 'Javert' me," Javert snapped. "This is your life, Valjean! How can you be so careless?"
"I'm never careless," Valjean insisted.
Javert snorted. "The Beggar that Gives Alms."
"And the moment I suspected that I was suspected I left," Valjean pointed out.
"And just what do you intend to do?" Javert demanded. "Just pack up and run again if someone gets suspicious of you here? How is that going to play out with Cosette? You know she can't just leave everything anymore and I know you haven't forgotten what she had to say about your mad plan to just abandon her after her wedding."
"Javert, you're exaggerating. I was hardly-" Valjean started to say.
"You were, though! And you don't even seem to care!" Javert cried out. Why couldn't he see it? "And what about me? What would I do then?"
"You wouldn't have been implicated in anything," Valjean said quietly. "Javert, you know that if anything happened I wouldn't betray you like that."
Valjean, Valjean, always with the lost causes. He always had to give so much of himself and not pay the slightest bit of attention to anything else. Give and give and give until there was nothing left? Valjean might agonize over it but in the end he always did it, even when he didn't have to. Especially when he didn't have to.
He would just so casually throw it all away. And yes, he might rationalize it that Cosette had a husband to take care of her but what did Javert have? If one day Valjean went too far and was taken back to Toulon to die too soon in chains there, where would that leave him? He would be right where he was before the barricade except worse now because he knew exactly what he had lost.
And it didn't even seem to cross Valjean's mind.
"It's not about that, 24601!"
The moment he said that, he knew that he had made a mistake. He never called Valjean that. It hadn't even crossed his mind since the night that Valjean had saved his life twice and turned his whole life upside down. He knew better.
That wasn't who Valjean was anymore and it wasn't who Javert was, either. It had taken him years to see it but they were better than that.
Valjean's eyes shuttered and his face closed off. "I need to go."
"Valjean-" Javert tried to say. All of his anger had drained away the moment he saw the look on Valjean's face. He wasn't wrong about Valjean needing to be more careful but, after this, he wasn't right either.
Valjean didn't even look at him, he just left the room.
Javert was still waiting up when Valjean came back in the early hours of the morning. He had work the next day so this was unlike him but how could he possibly just go to bed and leave this issue to stew? If he didn't face this immediately then perhaps Valjean would insist on forgiving him or ignoring the problem and not give them a chance to work this out. It was why he left, after all, so neither of them would say something (something else, in Javert's case) that they would regret later. It was important that this not be left to fester on Valjean's heart and plague him with insecurities and feelings of unworthiness once more.
Valjean was dressed as a simple workman which meant that he hadn't been off with his daughter. That wasn't surprising, though. Whenever he was unable to be anything less than serene and content, he did not seek out Cosette's company. She always made him feel better but he did not want to burden her unduly with his scars.
Was it a bad sign that he was dressed as a workman? On the one hand he was so much more than a simple workman and hadn't been one since 1795. On the other hand, he always enjoyed the illusion. Wealth and privilege had never sat easily on him and he still wished, foolishly, that he could be an honest man and not a presumed-dead fugitive.
Maybe it meant nothing. Maybe it meant a great deal. Javert couldn't make heads or tails of it and wasn't that a great start.
"Valjean," he said hesitantly, standing up to meet him.
Valjean glanced over at him. He didn't look angry. "Javert…you don't need to say anything."
Of course he didn't. Of course Valjean would just be content to quietly forgive him and move on as if nothing had ever happened. Well that might be fine for Valjean but Javert was not about to tolerate that.
"Perhaps not," he allowed, "but perhaps I do. Or maybe I just want to."
'Want' was a bit of a strong word but it was a decision that he was making, regardless of how much easier it would be to just let it go. Javert felt that they needed to talk about it for their own good regardless of what Valjean thought or whether there was anything literally forcing them to discuss this.
Valjean's gaze turned wary and he swallowed hard. "Very well. What do you wish to say?"
"I should never have called you that," Javert said immediately.
"No," Valjean agreed, "you shouldn't have."
Valjean kept looking at him as if he expected him to go on. Did he need to? He was wrong to say what he had and he had admitted it. Should he go on about why he had done it? How could he do that without crossing the line into attempting to justify it?
But if Valjean were actually willing to discuss this then he thought he should make an effort.
"I know that you are not that man anymore," Javert continued haltingly.
Valjean appeared to take pity on him and he moved closer, almost close enough to touch. "I wouldn't be here if I didn't know that."
"I have had troubles in my life, of course, but they have never been…I do not truly know what it is to be deprived of being a man to such an extent and treated as merely a numbered beast," Javert went on. "I saw enough of that world as a child and I never wanted that for myself." Who did? Certainly not Valjean. "And…I was fortunate enough that I was able to survive this long while holding true to my convictions. No one could force me to break the law but I could have easily died for that refusal."
Valjean said nothing but he looked encouraging.
"That name-no, it's not a name at all. That number, that's it. That number will never mean to me what it does to you. How could it?" Javert asked rhetorically. "I can't claim to really understand what it is to you but I know that it's nothing good. I know that it's nothing you deserve. You've never asked me not to call you that because you never had to. It was obvious; it was understood. And yet, I called you it anyway."
"I don't want to say that it was fine that you did that," Valjean said slowly. "It was not. But I do forgive you, Javert, and I trust that it won't happen again."
"Of course not!" Javert exclaimed. "If I'd been thinking, I wouldn't have called you that today."
"You were angry," Valjean said. "You were hurt. I know you wouldn't say that if you weren't."
"I was," he agreed. "I can't have you go back to Toulon, Valjean. I really can't."
Valjean's eyes, already never hard, softened further. "I know, Javert. And you should know that I have never had any intention of going back to prison after they finally let me out all the way back in 1815."
"Really?" Javert asked skeptically. "What about-?"
"Yes, even at Arras I did not intend to go to prison. You will remember that after I confessed I quickly left and then broke out of jail once you arrested me," Valjean interrupted. "Before I had only myself to think of when I wished to stay out of prison. Yes, the economy of M-sur-M was largely dependent on me but that's not quite the same thing as having someone's life be saved or even just improved by having you personally there. Cosette may be grown now but I happily concede I was wrong about her having no further need of me. Once Marius learned all of my past and that I saved him at the barricade he seemed very eager to have a father."
"He never met his own," Javert said. "It is understandable."
"Marius' aunt seems to approve of me and his grandfather enjoys speaking to me. And then, of course, there's you. I wouldn't want to leave you any more than I would want to leave anybody else." An almost amused look came across Valjean's face. "I know that, even with everyone thinking I died long ago, I need to be careful but I am and I do know a little something about avoiding the law."
He wasn't very good at escaping from the law once he was in its power but, honestly, if it hadn't been for Javert's diligent study of Monsieur Madeleine over the course of five years Jean Valjean would probably not have gone back to Toulon. It was something he refused to feel guilty about and that Valjean refused to let him feel guilty for. It was his duty and Valjean had done much, though not all, of the things he was accused of.
"You do not need to worry," Valjean said, moving closer and taking Javert's hand in his.
"How can I not worry?" Javert asked quietly. "You are not a person I would care to lose."
Valjean nodded. "That is fair. You are not a person I would care to lose either and I have so much to live for out here. I won't let them find me."
Javert sighed. "You say that, Valjean, but then you go and needlessly do things that might attract attention to you and cause trouble. It's happened before."
"In my long relationship with the law, I have never met a guard or policeman half as capable and diligent as you," Valjean said simply. "And even you admitted that it was unlikely to be me and that nobody else would have even looked."
"That doesn't mean that there's no chance that something can go wrong," Javert protested. "I'm sure it will be a cold comfort that it was a freak accident that you were caught when you're on your way back to Toulon."
"Javert…"
"You need to be careful," Javert insisted. "You can't possibly escape again at your age."
"Javert, I know that there is sense in your words," Valjean admitted. "But I can't just refuse to help people who need me."
"Why does it always have to be you?" Javert demanded. "I'm not saying don't help anybody, you'd never be happy that way, but why do you always have to help everybody, even when it puts you into danger? They don't gain as much through your efforts as you might lose and surely there is someone else who could help."
"If they could then they haven't," Valjean said reasonably. "And even if they have, that is no reason not to give where I can."
"I think you have a pretty compelling reason not to in certain cases," Javert said pointedly.
Valjean sighed. "Yes, Javert, I know the risks. But how can I put my own security over the needs of others? It is not their fault that the law has been hunting me these last two decades. I can't just do nothing. If I were to become that sort of man then I might as well go back to Toulon."
It was all very well that Valjean had decided to turn from his former hatred and criminality and become a good man but sometimes Javert wished that he were content to just be a good man and not the most saintly man in France. Valjean would blush terribly and deny it if ever Javert alluded to him being a saint and of course there was no question of him ever literally becoming one but he wasn't the only one who thought of Valjean as that from time to time.
Valjean never judged anyone. If someone else decided to walk by all the poor people Valjean rushed to help even though they had the time, energy, and money to help them then he would not look down on them at all or think that they deserved anything but the best.
If Valjean himself did that then he apparently might as well go back to Toulon.
It was maddening and half the reason he was so upset earlier.
"Well, we can't have that," Javert finally said. "Just…please try to be a little more careful. For my peace of mind if nothing else."
"I promise," Valjean said, squeezing his hand.
"Come," Javert said, starting to pull Valjean along, "it's been a long day. Let's go to bed."
Valjean smiled and followed him and Javert grudgingly admitted to himself that, for all the needless complications, sometimes Valjean being such a terribly good man had its uses after all.