A/N- Joyeux Noel! If you've seen the Sweeney movie, let me know what you think... I haven't seen it... surprisingly...
Fantine had acquired an old file and was using it to smooth the edges of her long nails. She was perched, with a surprising amount of familiarity, on the edge of the inspector's desk, her knees crossed beneath the new green dress she'd bought with some of the earnings from her now-popular business. Javert himself was seated just behind, thumbing through some of the papers stacked neatly in the center of the desk and giving Fantine's rear a very wide birth.
"How much longer 'till we find my daughter, d'you think?"
The question, spoken in a bright, conversational tone, gave the inspector pause. Fantine had not even looked up from her file. Choking back the obvious, pessimistic response—Thénardier had long since pledged to hide the girl away, whatever that meant, and there had been no luck finding her so far—Javert pressed his lips together in a firm line before answering. "Have you given any thought as to what will happen afterward? When you have her again?"
Fantine shrugged, still not turning to face him. "I thought I'd leave Paris. Hate it here."
The file jerked back and forth with the faintest scratching sound.
"You know," Javert began, but he stopped, licked his lips, and cleared his throat.
The file continued in its rhythmic motions.
"You know," he repeated, "I might retire from the force."
Fantine did not respond. For a moment, the only sound in the room was the file scuffing across the edges of her fingernails.
"I might retire from the force. I thought about moving to— to England, or something like that."
"England?" Fantine repeated vaguely. Javert got the sense that she hadn't heard anything else he'd said.
"Yes, you know— move there. To England." He cleared his throat again, tugging at the suddenly-stifling neck of his greatcoat. "And if you thought to take Cosette away from Paris, I could escort the two of you there. Just across the sea. Two women travelling alone, you know, on a ship—"
"Anything you say," Fantine muttered absently. She dropped the file onto the desk and popped her fingers into her mouth for a moment, drawing them back out and spreading them to admire her handiwork. At last she turned to Javert, curling her hands into little claws, displaying the freshly-sharpened nails. "Fierce, right?" she said with a smile.
Javert huffed a little. "Very."
Just as Fantine was pulling her mouth back into that toothless grin, the door to the station flew open and Marius Pontmercy stumbled in. As their eyes met the tooth-puller's face darkened, but the young man disregarded her animosity and hurried forward, and seizing both of her hands in his. "I've found her, Madame la Blonde! I have found my Cosette!"
"Where?" Fantine cried; her grudge evaporated at once.
"In the most horrible of places in all Paris! There is an old tenement, numbered fifty fifty-two, a lair of thieves and all kinds of horrid people, or so said the woman who answered the door. She was an awful thing too, with a mustache coming in just so on her lip! But I asked about a young girl, and this funny look came across her face, and just then I realised there was a tiny window box on the second floor with those big roses, the kind poor Cosette grew in the Rue Quernie, but the woman said there was no such girl there. I'd been told that was the place, though, but at that moment that terrifying old man showed up, old Thénardier, and he told me that if the girl was there, it was because she was a thief and deserved to be, and he threatened me, so I fled. But I am certain she is there, Madame la Blonde! If only there was some way to get in—!"
Fantine dropped Marius's hands and yanked him into a hug, practically leaping off the desk in her delight. She released the baron and clapped her hands, saying, "There is a way in, Monsieur Pontmercy, and only here could you have found it!"
"What?"
Fantine clapped her hands again and whirled around. "My dear inspector, certainly our young friend here would be allowed in if he were, say, police?"
The inspector, who was still irritated at having been ignored, shrugged. "He isn't, though."
"And you couldn't dress him as one and teach him what to say?"
Javert studied Fantine's radiant face for a moment, then reluctantly pushed himself to his feet and said, "I suppose Cosette is as good as rescued, Monsieur Baron. Come along." And he left the room. After shooting a grateful glance in Fantine's direction, Marius trotted along behind.
Fantine waited for a beat after they had left before launching herself into the streets. After a commission for a nearby scribe and an envelope and a coin passed to an urchin, she returned to the station to find the young baron buttoned up into a grey greatcoat that seemed to be a size too large, an impressive bicorne hat resting on his black curls, and a club clutched in his ink-stained fist.
The real inspector was back in his chair, his arms crossed across his chest and that thin smile resting proudly on his rough features. When Fantine entered, he said immediately, "Well?" After a moment she understood that it was not a question about where she had been, but a request for a complement on his work at disguising the silly young student as a third-class inspector.
"Oh, Javert, you're brilliant!" Fantine cried, and both Marius and the inspector grinned at the praise. "Well, now I suppose you can go retrieve your ladylove."
Marius went to Javert and shook his hand, then to Fantine and kissed both of hers, only tripping twice on the hem of the coat. "Thank you so much for your kindness! Without your wonderful help, I would certainly never be able to rescue my beloved! You two have been nothing but good to me!" he said earnestly. "I shall never be able to repay your kindness!"
As he was leaving the station, the waif Éponine entered. The baron, in his joy, shouted her name and pulled her into an embrace, but Éponine wriggled free and darted away, sheltering herself behind Javert's chair until the baron was gone. The inspector's posture went rigid, distaste playing across his features. "Fantine," he said carefully, "I believe someone is here to see you."
The tooth-puller laughed, and went to the stairs. "Oh no, inspector, she keeps coming back to visit you."
"Oh God," Javert grumbled, resting his forehead in his hands.
Upstairs, they heard Fantine dissolving into a fit of giggles.
