Bonjour. I don't own Les Miserables. Do I look like a male nineteenth century french writer to you?

xxxxxx

Valjean walked quickly past the looming stone tombs and silent grim angels. Why did they all seem to be staring at him?

Suddenly, he was reminded of a dream, long ago. All the men with the faces like earth, all watching him. At the time, they had seemed like policemen, like The Inspector in all his judicial glory. Yet now... now the eyes of the statues had that same look, and earth had hardened to stone. Granite. Marble.

He shivered, and hurried on before his imagination could start to give the angels another face, and colder, more piercing eyes.

As the path twisted its way down a slope, the graves became smaller and less grand. Cherubim with tiny wings and mischevious smiles replaced the imposing grimness of the enormous beautiful angels. Humanity returned.

Valjean couldn't help thinking of the graves as reflections of the people who had come before them. The large tombs reminded him of so many rich, cold, empty people living in rich, cold, empty houses. But the smaller graves, the older and more careworn graves with their cracks and their little bunches of dying flowers, and their sprigs of greenery growing out of the stone?

Those stones had more humanity than all the wealthy, pompous...

He stopped by a particularly cheeky looking cherub. It twinkled up at him, head cocked on one side and bow clutched protectively to itself as though it was afraid a larger angel would come and take it away. A memory stirred, a small boy from that terrible night at the barricades. A tattered little scrap of a boy, with more youth and life pressed into his eyes than had graced all the ranks of students fighting so solemnly beside him. Valjean closed his eyes, almost hearing a voice, young and robust and wickedly cheerful...

I'm nothing but a sparrow

All because of Rousseau

He sighed, and opened his eyes. The cherub looked at him, and for a moment he saw a hint of a large cloth cap drooping over its face. Then he shook his head and moved on, not wanting to hear the voice trail out into eternal darkness. Not again.

Finally the paving and statues broke up in favour of patches of green and trees. This was where Valjean felt more at home... if he could feel at home in a graveyard. This was where he would like to be burried, free without the concrete pressing over his head. Free to feel the warmth of the earth above him, and maybe to hear the birds in the trees...

He had spent far too much of his life within stone walls. He'd be damned if he'd spend death like that too.

Valjean bit back a smile. The chances were that he was damned either way.

The grave he wanted was in a corner, sheltered by a large tree. There was a stump conveniently place in front of it, and Valjean lowered himself with some care and not a little groaning. For a moment, he rested, massaging his eyes. Then he nodded.

"My apologies for being late, Inspector."

The gravestone was a simple one, just a slab of stone with 'Javert, Inspector First Class' inscribed on it. There was no first name and no birth date. Valjean had felt curiously unsurprised when he had first seen it. Javert had always seemed ... he didn't know... rather like he had had been born sporting sideburns and carrying a nightstick. If a person had walked up to Valjean in the street and asked, 'What is Javert's first name?' he would have answered, 'Inspector.'

Valjean shook his head slowly. Sad, really. They had known each other for a long time, and he had known less about the Inspector, even when they were in Montreiul, than he had known about even the most prosperous Grande Dames. And he had avoided those ladies like the plague.

Valjean dug his fingers slowly through the grass near his feet. "Who were you, my friend?" He stopped, and smiled slightly, imagining what the inspector's reaction would have been if he had ever called him 'friend' in life. He could see it, the lowering dark brows, the sudden pinching of the nostrils, the wide mouth twisting into a grimace of distaste.

"Ah." Valjean chuckled. It had always been a little fun to try to annoy Javert. Rather like a mouse playing a trick on the cat that chased it. Best of all, his conscience had never seen fit to complain. "Were we ever friends? Strange, really. That I should be the last to come here, and talk. Would you have minded, I wonder."

Hah. He could practically hear the snort. One of the lower branches of the tree rustled fretfully, dragging Valjean's attention to it for a moment. After all, there was no breeze today.

Would the Inspector have minded? Valjean rested his chin on one palm and thought about it. At least he could think out here. There were none of the... memories that hung around his house. The scent of her favorite powders, the fabric that she chose for the curtains, the chair that she used to sit in on the afternoons...

Damn.

Valjean coughed a little and hastily brushed at his eyes. "Pardon, M'sieur." Then he smiled humourlessly at himself. Why was he apologising to the dead? He truly was a few students short of a revolution.

I suppose, he thought. It's because it's so hard to remember he is dead. The inspector had seemed indestructable. Like some sort of avenging angel meeting out justice with a flaming sword. And then suddenly he wasn't there. Valjean truly felt as though any second he'd see the tall, straight figure stalk out of some shadow and march down the street. It was all a trick, Valjean. You didn't think I'd die and leave you at liberty, did you?

"God." Valjean rubbed at his eyes again. Those first few days... when he was still waiting for Javert to return... they had been hell.