Authour's note: Well, after looking around the site a bit…it appears people do these things…sooo…here's a note. That's exciting. Anywhoo, if you are reading, please drop a review to replenish my motivational skillage! And, don't be too thrown off by this chapter, I guess. There'll only be one or two after this, which is kind of sad, now that I like this story.
And…my AP test on European history is this Friday, but all I can think about is Les Mis. **sigh** Oh well-written historical angst musicals. If only *ALL* European history was like this…
Valjean
Javert was running, faster than he'd ever run when chasing a convict, faster than he'd ever thought in any situation that required his wits. With the extra speed added by the drink and the lack of his greatcoat, he felt light and quick on his feet, the rain spattering against his forehead invigorating and infuriating. It was as if the universe mocked him, this turn-of-the-ways. It was as if the universe was spitting the Law back in his face. But, for once, he did not care.
He knew Valjean was chasing him: contemptuously, he barked a one-syllable laugh of scorn. The man was older than he and, though strong, his years of hideaway had sunken him into comfort. But Javert did not doubt the feeling Valjean must have had: the feeling of laying low, like a rat, the feeling that you were being watched in open places and you were trapped in enclosed ones. That was what Javert felt now---the feeling of the moon's unwavering stare, watching Javert run away from his old adversary. The knowledge that he had given up.
Couldn't even kill myself, Javert grumbled to himself. What kind of a man am I.
The rain had loosed his hair from its ponytail, and it was out and scraggling wildly in dark curls around his face, untamed and unsobered such as he was. He slicked it back with the rain, but it was no use. The momentary distraction pulled him from his heady exhilaration, and he realized he was starting to stumble. Catching himself just at the right time, he righted himself on the wide pale stones of a bridge, looking over into the swirling, angry depths of the river below. Breathing hard, he stared at a familiar reflection in the black expanses of a familiar night, and he braced himself better and let out an untamed, frenzied laugh at the irony. It was the bridge over the Seine. Damn that river! Could he go nowhere else? He sought to move again, but it was as if his legs were held in place by beggars and thieves, and his chest was constricted as if bound. Slowly, he sank against one of the bridge's wide walls, clutching his arms around himself as if trying to hold himself together and laughing, panic-stricken and alone.
It didn't take too long for Valjean to find him. He was leaning against a wall in the shadows and giggling a little, hair dampened and in his face. He'd tried pretending to be a rock, but that obviously didn't work. Valjean started slowly towards him, but Javert, with senses quickened by hate, held up a hand.
"Don't try, Valjean," he muttered against the wind, looking up and giving Valjean a look of stoic bitterness. "What are you going to do? Convince me that life is worth living and that the sun and the birds and the rainbows all want me to skip along home now? Follow me into the river and save my life to earn saint-points? Offer me…offer me…" Javert realized he was exhausted, and more than a little incapable of speech. As well, it was freezing cold on the bridge, the wind whipping his hair in his face and around his neck, giving it the feeling of solid frozen knives. "Offer me…" Javert's mouth was too cold to form words. He wiped the frozen blood from around it with a tattered shirtsleeve.
"Offer you what?" came the blank response. "This?" And before Javert could defend himself, Valjean's fist collided brutally with the tender spot where Thenardier had hit him earlier. Javert's face went white, and he rose a shaking hand to his ribs, but he grinned wryly with half his mouth, cracking the blood on his lips.
"That's more like it…" he sighed sardonically. Valjean squatted by him, raising the Inspector's lolling head from its spot on his chest. Then Valjean slapped him.
"Ow!" Javert hissed, flailing out his arm pathetically in an attempt to get Valjean away. "The first one I could have taken like a man, but that was downright low."
"The first one was for the nineteen years," Valjean said amiably, shifting Javert away from the cold, sodden rock wall. Javert stiffened when Valjean moved him, expecting another blow, but Valjean only meant to tug a blanket behind his back. Javert made half an effort to stop the kindness, and his twisting did stop Valjean, who rocked back on his heels, eyebrows raised. "The second one was for you being wholly too self-sacrificing. You've developed a guilty conscience complex, I'm afraid."
"I've developed a guilty conscience?" Javert laughed one incredulous note. "I'm not the one who goes running all over the city with a Good-God-what-have-I-done detector, even if it's not your fault."
"Even so," Valjean murmured, white hair that Javert had caused that day in the courtroom longer, but neatly tamed and slicked back, even in the wind. His eyes were worried and gentle, which made Javert sick. "You've still been through quite a lot."
Javert laughed bitterly, choking it off when Valjean's inquisitive hand reached up to touch the bruise on his face.
"What are you doing? Stop touching me!" he snapped, fending off Valjean's hand. Valjean looked hurt, but went to tend to the fallen blanket. What is it with this man? Javert wondered with half his sane mind, curling up closer to the wall. He would make a good cat lady later in life with all his goddamn tenderness.
"Please don't," he muttered into his crossed arms. He wasn't sure what he was referring to.
"Javert." The voice was stern, but kind. "You're sitting in a puddle of cold water, being thunderstormed on, shivering, in only a shirt and breeches. What kind of a police officer wants to be seen like that?"
A pause.
"Won't look much better with some knitted grandma blanket around my shoulders like I'm expecting or something," Javert's sulky reply came. Even to him, he realized how pathetic he sounded. His shivering was getting so violent it was racking his whole body and interfering with his already problematic speech. Valjean frowned, then went to pick the freezing man up. Javert stiffened again, and struggled to get up.
"No! Absolutely not! I can fight my own battles, Monsieur." Valjean listened and left him well enough alone, still watching as Javert tried to pull himself up on the cobblestones. A hint of a smile touched his lips. Javert sighed, giving up, and held out a hand, not meeting Valjean's eyes.
"Please help me up, 24601," he muttered. Valjean complied, managing to drape a blanket over him and put the hat he had left at the inn, trying to restore Javert's failing dignity. It didn't work. Javert's face was as white as milk as he hobbled along, determined not to look at Valjean.
"So is this what I am supposed to be learning?" he muttered darkly, half to himself and half to Valjean. "What it was like to be on the run? What it is like to be humbled? I do not understand…logically I have learned nothing. Valjean…" Javert stumbled and Valjean reached for his blanket-bag, pulling out a cane. Javert looked at it and accepted it without changing his expression. "Magic bag, have we?" was his only sarcastic comment.
They passed that way in silence until Javert reclaimed what he was thinking about. He looked sideways at Valjean, top hat restored and with cane, looking almost, in the darkness, like a shade of his former self.
"Valjean…" he hesitated. "You should know that I will not be arresting you." He laughed, silently. Valjean had already accepted that fact. But the mood in which Javert said it had worried him. "You may have found that out when you came all the way out here just to make sure I didn't freeze my little fingers off."
"Monsieur Javert, you know you are welcome to stay with us," he reminded him gently. Javert turned away, already aware that he was welcome nowhere and his time was running out. But his sides hurt, and his heart ached, and he was tired, so tired.
"Perhaps…for the night," he said grudgingly, reaching the garden gate. He barely remembered as Valjean unlocked it, and he toppled with as much dignity as he could preserve onto the cold stone bench in the garden and heard no more.
