He closed his eyes. Just thinking about it brought it all back. He could practically smell the sewer on his clothes again...
The tree creaked softly as Valjean's mind drifted back over days and months, into the past.
xxxx
Valjean gripped at the old iron ballustrade until his knuckles went white with the strain. The street couldn't be empty. It was impossible. Javert had said he would wait, therefore Javert must be there.Had he stepped into a shadow to shelter from the cold? Was he waiting in the doorway? Was he following up the stairs...?
Valjean's eyes darted feverishly around, searching the bits and peices of Paris outside the window for a glimpse of the all too familiar figure. Beneath his fingers, the iron began to bend.
Never, no never, would Javert let something drag him away from the chase. Not a chase this old and bitter. He pressed forwards again, pushing himself against the window and nearly cracking the pane in his efforts to see what wasn't there. What wasn't there but had to be there.
Below the window the pavement lay in lightening patches of stone and shadow. Houses were holding their breaths in fear of governmental retribution, and every lantern sported a black eye. There were few nooks in the old street for even the smallest gamin to hide, let alone Javert. Unless... for just a second, Valjean's over-taxed and weary brain qualified Javert with every magical and superstitious power under the sun. Had he turned invisible? Shrunk to half his normal size? Disappeared in a puff of blue coloured snuff scented smoke?
"Papa?"
Light footsteps pattered to the top of the stairs. She sounded so sad, pauvre petite. Valjean's heart skipped a beat. After all, what news did he have for his Cosette? Her Marius-boy dying in his grandfather's house and her father waiting at the mercy of a spectre of justice?
With a fierce, sudden twist of his hands, Jean Valjean snapped the ballustrade in two. Merde. Not even Javert was cruel enough to arrest him before Cosette's own dear eyes, was he? Those bewildered innocent blue eyes... brimming with tears...
"Papa?"
She was coming down. She mustn't come down!
"Cosette. It's all right, my dear. I'll be up in a little while." Not quite his usual calm tones, but it would do for a start. At that moment, he felt a rush of all the old emotions come tumbling back into him like someone had opened a window and let in a storm. A small, unhappy piece of himself shuddered away from the raw hatred, the raging anger and bitterness boiling through the Jean-that-had-been.
But the rest of him... He was consumed once again with the urge of the tiger protecting his lamb. At that moment he knew with cold certainty that he would kill, steal, break every one of God's holy laws three times over to protect Cosette's happiness.
It frightened him more than anything had ever frightened him before.
xxxx
"If you had come... then..." Valjean shook his head slowly. "Even you, Inspector. You would have died."
A breath of invisible wind moved something in the tree, an oddly amused noise, as though God's nature was sharing a joke against him. Valjean raised one eyebrow at the gravestone.
"Ah, you laugh, is that it? But you should know what I am capable of. You over all men." The muscles in the old man's shoulders flexed and bulged. Again, he could picture Javert in his mind, smiling ever so slightly. And you know what I am capable of, too.
Was this what remembering did to him? He was conversing happily with a dead man. Why couldn't Cosette appear in a shower of rose-petals? Or bird-song? Javert, Javert, Javert. Valjean felt himself consumed with an irrational surge of pique. Always Javert!
Well... his conscience put in, fairly. You are the one sitting at his graveside...
I'll be damned if I will again, Valjean thought grimly. It's far too unhealthy. At my age...
What? His conscience suddenly sounded more ironic than usual. Senile already?
Valjean thought seriously about leaping to his feet and striding away. It wasn't fair. If he had to hallucinate, why couldn't he hallucinate something that would make him happy? However, his knees pointed out, they weren't feeling up to much leaping and striding these days. They might possibly be able to manage a slow stagger and potter, but they'd prefer a little more warning before-hand.
So. Even my own body fails me!
This thought sounded so melodramatic, even in his head, that Valjean smiled. The smile became a grin, the grin became a chuckle. "I suppose you also know that I have suddenly and bizarrely become a doddery old man." His chuckles faded a little, and he sighed, hunching his shoulders. "A doddery old man with not much longer to live, I'm afraid." He knew that, though he didn't let himself think it too loudly. The wind and the tree seemed to know it as well, because they maintained a respectfully uncomfortable silence. It was surprisingly easy to live, knowing that you would die soon. It took a lot of the suspense out of life. Valjean had lived with more than enough suspense.
Yet, it would be hard... to die alone.
"I truly thought you were coming back. You never lied, my friend. I thought I could trust you, at least." There was a definite note of accusation in his voice. It was almost amusing, considering the circumstances. "You know," he laughed once, rather sharply. "I thought that you were going to get more men. Make the big arrest in style, as it were."
A few leaves that had settled on the grave were blown off, and Valjean felt himself imagining a note of restlessness in the sudden tidiness.
He shrugged, a little apologetically. "I was tired out. Maybe I was over-reacting a little."
xxxxx
A nineteenth century writer, would have probably said that Valjean was in a state of great mental anxiety. That his mind and his soul quarelled with the minutes and his head was heavy with the strain of his warring thoughts. They would have pointed out how he paced, a sure sign that one was laboring under a great mental burden. Morover, his brow was fevered, and the few remaining silver hairs on his head were miraculously turning white! No doubt the torment was a further trial sent to test the great heart of this modest and compassionate man.
If Valjean had been asked, he would have said that he was bloody confused and left it at that.
He had waited near the little window, watching the street for so long, that Cosette had finally disobeyed his paternal injunctions to stay upstairs and had come down to see if he was all right. Once she was there, he had felt both more at ease and more miserable. He should never have asked Javert for a chance to say goodbye. It was too hard, to see her and to let her go. He didn't think, back then, that he had the strength.
She had exclaimed over the state of his clothes, had bustled him into a bath with every sign of horrified satisfaction, and had insisted upon 'fixing him up something hot'.
It was five hours later, and Valjean's stomach still hadn't settled. Much as he hated to admit to any defects in his daughter's accomplishments... she was not a cook.
Fitfully, he turned at the end of the room and paced back towards to bureau. Ah, his back hurt. And his feet hurt. He was so tired...
But he couldn't sleep. It didn't help being full of the heaviest soufle ever created on God's good earth.
Valjean winced, and picked a piece of twig-like vegetation out of his teeth. He wouldn't have been able to sleep anyway. Every instinct he had, all the urges born of caution, the urges that caused him to start at shadows, that made him uneasy taking off his shirt... every well-trained nerve was screaming at him to run.
Escape! They shouted. He's made a mistake, he's let you loose!
But you promised... his Conscience protested.
To hell with the promise. Instinct said, poking a mental finger at Valjean. It's your chance. Just think, across country and then to England... not even he would follow you there. You don't owe him anything. Not after what he's done to you!
And what about his help with the Marius-boy? What about Cosette?
Round and round and round again. Instinct warred with Conscience while Logic sat in a corner and gibbered. Why wasn't Javert back? What was he doing? Worst of all, when was he going to strike??
Ideas swirled in a maelstrom. Javert had been sidetracked by some of the insurgents. Javert was gathering troops of soldiers as security. Javert was polishing off a special pair of silver handcuffs reserved for the occasion. Javert had fallen and broken his leg while... waiting outside... and had been spirited away to hospital, still complaining that his doctors were perverting the course of justice.
Or, Valjean grimaced glumly, maybe after all Javert was actually feeling a little guilty? God knows, even Javert must find it odd to be on the brink of arresting the man who had saved his life not many hours before. Maybe, Valjean rubbed at his aching head gingerly. Maybe Javert was hoping he would run so that the policeman could feel justified in chasing him...
Righteous anger flooded Valjean. Well, if that were the case, then Javert could wait until hell itself froze over. He would be damned if he'd give the man the pleasure of assuaging his conscience. Let him live with the guilt, if he feels any, Valjean thought fiercely. I'll stay here until I rot!
As though awaiting just such a decision, his legs finally gave out, and Valjean sank to the floor in a faint.
xxxxx
"I waited, you know. Many days, I waited." Valjean's chin was settled comfortably in his hands as he stared out into the distance. "I think I'd have gone mad if it hadn't been that Cosette -" As usual, her name brought a sudden stabbing pain, and he stopped and fell silent.
There was a pause, during which a few droplets of water spilled onto the ground, watering a patch of flowers just waking up for spring. Valjean shook his head manfully, and coughed, to clear the lump from his throat.
"I think I would still be waiting if...Cosette...hadn't mentioned that policemen had been atacked after the barricades, even policemen walking together near the Prefecture." He smiled at the memory of her shock as he had grabbed for his hat and coat and whisked from the house. "I don't know what I thought I would find. I don't know what I'd have done if I'd actually found you... "
He had thought he'd found the answer to the mystery. Valjean remembered his frenetic pacing up and down the streets, in and out of hospitals, around in ever increasing circles... He had been worried, he recognised that now. At the time, all he had been thinking was that he had to know what had happened.
Strage, really. For the first time in many years, he had been the hunter chasing after Javert. How often had he prayed in the past that the Good Lord would see fit to remove Javert from his life? How often had he planned all the things he would be able to do, all the freedom he'd have?
Valjean chuckled at himself softly. "How foolish people can be, am I not right, my friend?"
The tree rustled an amused agreement. Javert, too, would have agreed. Valjean had always had the feeling that Javert had watched the world from a distance, marvelling at the stupidity of mankind, and laughing behind his hand.
It had often been irritating. Much like the man's infuriating manner of slipping into the dullest, driest, most boring official language whenever 'Madeleine' came to bother him in his office. Valjean had always ended up leaving quickly, wondering if any living being could truly be that law-bound, or if it were simply a game being carried out for the Inspector's amusement.
Considering how he had often seemed to hear a sound suspiciously like laughter following him down the street...
"And possibly, we two were the most foolish of all," Valjean said softly. "I, for not seeing what I was doing. You, for..." It seemed both churlish and cruel to utter the word 'suicide' aloud, so Valjean merely let the meaning of his silence hang in the air like a brick.
