Author's Note: fair warning, this is about 4,600 words. I had no way to break it up without breaking the continuity. It was a hard chapter to write, especially to show Javert having a soft side. I reaaaaally hope I did him justice, though! Let me know if you like it, thanks for reading! :)

Javert opened his eyes in a warm, stone room. He took a moment to assess what was going on- his uniform was off. He was on the ground. There was something touching his head.

Valjean.

Valjean was in the hospital. They had fought. Valjean jumped into the river. Had he resurfaced? Javert could not remember. He remembered he was on his way to the jail to make a full report of what had happened, but what was this? He began to rise when a shooting pain traveled from his torso to head and he fell back with a grunt. He heard a soft gasp and the object was removed from his head. Javert turned his head as much as he could and saw her. Lilybet. Her hand had been sitting on his head and she had been asleep. She turned red as she looked down at him.

"I assume you're wondering what you're doing here" she admitted, her face noticeably red. When Javert had been unconscious, she knew what to do and even prided herself on her actions. She now realized that she should have thought of something for when he awoke. Being found with her hand sitting on his head was not something that she would have planned out. He stared at her upside down, his neck craned backwards. Still unable to gather his thoughts, he nodded at her.

"Well, see," Elisabet thought about how to go about telling the story, "I was walking around, you know, to prove that I could walk around alone at night. I was passing from the hospital to the church when I saw you, you were limping and bleeding and you fainted, so I ended up half carrying you to the church. This is a room I found out about by the garden. Nobody will find us here. I cleaned up your wounds and then fell asleep and then you woke up-"

"-I can gather what happened from there." He commented. At least he was getting his strength back. "The officers, the arrest, what happened to-"

"I know about the mayor." She sat down next to him so as not to make him crane his neck. "I know you were right."

"How?"

"Gossip around the town. I heard you went to arrest him and your officers were to follow up. They probably have-"

"-I must go. I must go to the jail, to the hospital, to see, to find out, to report-" he tried rising again. This time when the pain pushed him back, Elisabet threw her arms under him to keep him from falling.

"You can't go anywhere, you're too weak. At least give it a few hours of rest." She got up and opened the door, peering into the darkness. "It's the dead of night, there's no possible way for you to do anything anyway. Just stay here until the sun comes up, please."

"Where will you go?"

She stared at him incredulously. "I'm staying with you, of course." The matter-of-fact way she stared at him gave some small part of Javert a sort of comfort.

He winced as he tried to adjust himself, before finally sighing, "Fine." Elisabet smiled and went for fresh water and leaves. When she came back and shuffled about her business, Javert stared at her intently, curiously. Why was she going through this trouble? What would she gain from it? She could have easily left him in the hospital- of course, Javert did not want to be seen being dragged into a hospital by a girl when he was supposed to be arresting a convict, nor did he care for the attention he would garner there. He was a man who preferred to deal with things in secrecy, but how could she know that? Why did she carry him to this little room and take care of him? How many hours had passed? He shut his eyes tight as his head started spinning; he raised a hand to clutch his forehead and rub his eyes and a groan escaped his lips as his muscles creaked stiffly.

Elisabet heard the groan and immediately came to Javert's side. She took his hand in both of her own and moved it down to his side as she shushed him softly. He opened his eyes to look at the three hands. His large, hard hand that had seen so much was being cradled by the soft, inexperienced hands of this girl. The gentle, thin hands with three light scratches had saved him. They carried him and soothed his wounds, they rested in his hair as he slept… so young and ignorant of so much, but in a way she understood. She understood him. They were wrapped in a child's innocence, yet her warm, gentle hands came through where his had failed.

"Are you alright?" her voice snapped him out of his thoughts. He had been clutching her hand rather hard, he saw. He immediately released it, looking up at her with his normal, impassive face.

"I am fine. I was just… I was tired, I forgot what I was thinking." She gently placed his hand on the ground and put her own on his forehead.

"You don't have a fever, that's good. It's just the cut on your shoulder and head and some bruises on your side, other than that there isn't really anything major. What happened? What made this happen?"

"I was doing my duty. This time I was bested by the convict with his monstrous strength but mark me, next time he will not escape Javert-"

"-What happened?"

"I do not see why you have to know."

"We have at least three hours, Javert. We have to talk about something; otherwise it'll be an awfully boring recovery for you. I told you, you can trust me. If I get bored with you I can just leave."

Javert resigned himself with a 'hmph' and began telling her of what Valjean had confessed at the trial, of the prostitute at the docks and how Valjean sat at her deathbed, of how the two of them fought- Javert with his rapier and Valjean with a large plank of wood, of how he had outmatched him in strength and jumped into the river. As he told the story, Elisabet busied herself with soaking various leaves and putting them on Javert's cuts and bruises. They seemed to cool the pain, and he winced when she went to clean off the cut on his head.

"What did you say he did again?"

"He broke his parole."

"Before that."

"He broke into a home."

"Why?"

"To steal."

"Steal what?"

"Bread."

"Was he poor?"

"I assume so, they all end up thieves and criminals-"

"-Are you serious?!" she pressed down hard on his cut as she was cleaning it and Javert let a gasp escape his lips. "Sorry." She continued on. "You made me think he was a bad man, I knew he wasn't, I knew he could never be a real criminal!"

"He spent nineteen years in Toulon for it- he is a convict and a runaway."

"He was probably starving!"

"That is none of my concern. He broke a window pane and stole from an innocent citizen. Why did he have to break into a home? If he was only concerned with stealing bread, then he would have gone to a shop. Who knows what else he could have done before the authorities took him? If he is as good of a man as you believe, then why did he hide behind a guise?"

"Because of men like you." She answered, walking into a corner of the room. Elisabet stood, facing the cross in the little alcove. Why did she think he could show sensitivity? Of course Madeleine was not a bad man. She saw it in his eyes. They were warm, brown eyes that had seemed to have seen so much, yet still brimmed with hope. He hid in secret because he was afraid being found. He stole bread because he was poor and starving. She went with the simple solution and decided that she thought Javert was stupid.

A soft groan made her turn around and see him wincing as he tried to adjust the green on his shoulder. "Don't touch that." She promptly slapped his hand away and fixed the bandage. "I know what I'm doing, if you touch it you'll make it wrong."

"If he is a good man, then why did he break his parole?"

Elisabet suddenly became very interested in the leaf, and she did not reply. Javert saw the frustrated look on her face that somehow, he did not think had to do solely with his touching the leaf. She held her tounge, she had no logical response for him, yet she was angry at him for hunting Valjean. This was not her business, this was not her concern. The fact that she would not understand saddened Javert- she was such a strange girl, she had goodness within her, care and comfort, but she lacked judgment of character. Those who broke the law once, stole a loaf of bread, would not be opposed to breaking the law again. What law would they break next? Would they murder? Rape? Revolt? No, Javert would never let that happen. He stomped the evil not when it was in bloom, but when the very seed was planted. Harsh punishment for the first broken rule ensured that there would be fear of breaking the second. He glanced at her again. She tried to oppose him at every turn, no doubt she would have stood in the way of his arresting Valjean if she could have. She blamed him for her being thrown in jail twice.

Yet here she was, taking care of him as he lay injured, spending the night in a barren, stone room to make sure he was alright.

"I will not change just because of this."

She looked up, confused. "Because of what?"

"This. You, here. Do not think that just because you are assisting me that I will hesitate to arrest any wretch on the street. I do not let anyone get away with defying the law. Not even you."

"I know that."

Javert hesitated. This was not what he was expecting. "Then… then why-"

"-Because you needed me. You think I only care about the poor, that I want to protect anyone breaking your precious laws. Well, I don't. I care about you, too. I care about anyone I think is worth caring about. I couldn't just leave you."

"I did not need help."

"Because collapsing on the street is a much better option."

"I would have taken care of myself."

"Fine, I'll just be leaving then."

"Wait." Javert may have been proud, but he knew that now that he was here, her help was, to some degree, necessary. Lilybet had gone through a great deal to be here with him, and he knew it. He looked down at his injuries and tried to think of something to say. "Thank you." Was all that came out.

Out of nowhere, her blue gray eyes shined in surprise and happiness. She gave him a small smile. "Don't, I owed you. You saved me twice."

The two little words elated Elisabet. It was humanity, it was gratitude. She knew Javert was prideful; she expected him to keep protesting her help, but his thanks acted as a gateway of sorts. It was an acknowledgement of her work, of her caring. He wanted her to care. Javert looked thoughtful for a moment, and then his face filled with concern.

"Will your father not be angry with your being here?"

"He's away again."

"Ah." Javert looked down again and stayed silent. Elisabet knew that look in his eyes. He felt bad for her. So her father had left her alone again, what right did he have to look down at her for that? She didn't need his sympathy.

"I don't want your pity." She said, suddenly angry. "I don't need you feeling sorry for me just because my father leaves me a lot. He doesn't care about me, why should I care about him going away? You don't get it; please do not try to sympathize."

"My father was a thief and a murderer." Javert did not meet her eyes when he said this, but Elisabet saw the shame in his face. She saw the years of disgrace and anger he had hid all his life. She sank low again and sat down next to him. He looked at her, a thin mask of indifference hiding his vulnerability. "If you were so against my pity, Mademoiselle, what makes you think I want yours?"

"Right." She looked away, unable to think of a response. Had he ever told that to anybody? Somehow she did not think so. The fact that he shared it with her meant something to her. Again, she felt stupid. He really did have a hard life, harder than she, thankfully, could know. He understood. And he trusted her. She had no idea why he did. She had no idea why she reached over and put her hand on his. Javert did not make any motion in response, nor did he pull away. And so they sat that way for a long while, a silent exchange of comfort and kinship passing between them.

"I had a mother and brother once." Elisabet said, suddenly. She did not know what made her start, but her memories were weaving themselves together in her brain, painful memories that had been kept in hiding for years. "When I was little I lived with my father and mother and brother in a small village. I was six and he was four, we went to the beach near our village. It was the first time our parents let us swim on our own. Remi thought it would be a good idea to swim away and make me catch him, and we ended up where we couldn't stand. It looked very far from the shore. We started splashing and then he went underwater… he tried to get back up and he was splashing around so much, I thought he was playing so I laughed and kept splashing him. I kept splashing him. My father noticed something was wrong and he ran into the water and got him out, he pushed me out of the way and started yelling at me. He put Remi on the sand and I saw that he wasn't moving. He looked like he was asleep. My mother asked me why I didn't try to help him. She asked why I didn't get them sooner. Father started beating on Remi's chest but he still wasn't breathing. He didn't breath anymore after that. Mother died a year after. They said it was sickness but I know it was me. Because I killed Remi I killed a part of her, too. She couldn't live anymore because of her. "

Elisabet thought she was going to vomit. She was no longer with Javert in the stone room. She was there, watching, helpless as her father tried to expunge the water out of her brother's lifeless body. The vomit turned out to be choked sobs and tears. "I let him die, I let him die," she kept repeating it to herself, "I splashed him, I got more water into him, I made him die. I made my mother die. It was all my fault."

Javert watched her cry, unsure of what to do. He listened to her whole story, watching her relive the accident in her memories. Tears poured down her face as she exposed her innermost guilt. Why was she telling him this? His life was not without sin as well, he could understand… but why him? Why now? She began to calm down; he still stared, helplessly. She rubbed her eyes and looked at him as though she just noticed him lying there.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"No. I am… I am sorry for… your loss. It is not my place but… I do not believe it is your fault."

Suddenly, she grew embarrassed as she realized that she just spilled her heart to Javert. "No, I shouldn't have told you, it was a mistake."

"I understand how you feel." Javert closed his eyes and took a deep breath as his own memories stirred. 'You can trust me', she had said. She had just revealed her soul to him. For once in his life, Javert pushed his instincts of secrecy aside. "When… when I was a boy, I lived in the jails. My mother was a gypsy and my father was a convict. I grew up fearing my father and his fellow prisoners, every step they took I took one backwards. One night my mother and I found a stale loaf of leftover bread on the ground, and she went to go get it. A man appeared out of the shadows. He was very thin, almost skeletal. My mother had picked up the bread already and he told her to hand it over. She said no and that it was for her son. He pulled out a knife and she fell on the ground. I did not understand what had happened so I ran to retrieve the food. He pulled the knife on me and almost took my finger off with the bread. I thought that the blood on my mother was the blood coming from my finger. I could not protect her. I wasn't even strong enough to carry her away. I don't know what ever happened to her body."

Whereas Elisabet's memory forced her to tears in her eyes, Javert's face went blank and distant. His eyes looked but saw nothing of the present, only the blood on his hand and his mother's body. She took the hand that hers rested on and turned it over. She stared at the large scar on the base of his middle finger, as if someone had almost succeeded in cutting it off years ago. Suddenly, he made sense to her. Thieves and murderers were one and the same. All prisoners bent on harming others. Valjean had stolen bread, and this had stirred Javert's childhood traumas. It made his scar come alive and the blood on his hands return. Valjean was one and the same as the convict who killed his mother to him. He could not protect her, so now he was hellbent on protecting everyone else around him. He saw what resulted from people not following the law, and so he dedicated his life to living by it. He saw the law as his salvation. He took his hand away from her and cradled it in his other.

"Why did you tell me that?" she asked softly.

"I don't know." Javert looked up at her with a newfound understanding in his eyes.

Elisabet seemed to read his mind. "I'll never tell anyone."

"Nor will I yours."

"I don't care. Sometimes I want everyone to know. Sometimes I want to climb on a rooftop and shout that I murdered my brother-"

"-You did not."

"I did."

"No. You blame yourself and I understand, but you did not kill him. Believe me. Tragic accidents are no one's fault, and it is especially not your fault if your mother died of a sickness. If you live forever blaming yourself, you can never truly live in happiness."

"Do you? Do you live in happiness? Do you not feel any guilt?"

"Of course I feel guilt. I feel guilt every day of my life that I was not able to stop him then. But I have learned to live my life in goodness, I have given my soul to the Lord. I had two choices: live to harm society like my father, or protect it. By punishing all that break the law I keep them away from innocent people. Their lives are safer."

"And you don't want to let anybody get close to you because it will become harder to protect them."

Javert did not answer. He merely closed his eyes and lay back. He was not sure why he had told her that, only that he felt as if a weight had been taken off of him. Knowing that there was someone, anyone, who understood how he felt, was a relief. Of course, he knew this would not be happening if he was not in his current state, nor would he let it happen again. However, he could not seem to think like himself. He could not seem to think like Inspector Javert, the ruthless police man. He felt like the scared little boy of thirty years ago. He could not allow himself to get close to Lilybet, what if a time came when he was unable to protect her from something? What if she fell to danger? Javert lived enough with his mother's death blackening his soul, he could not tell what adding her death onto it would do to him. Worse, what if a time came when he would have to choose between helping her and doing his duty? The prospect terrified him because, for the first time in his life, he would come to an impasse. He could not go on living knowing that he failed to obey the law, nor could he live with letting someone he cared about come to harm.

"Are you alright?" her worried voice woke him out of his trance. He stared up into her red, wet eyes. They were tired, sad, concerned… and above all, he could see care. He could see that she genuinely cared about him and that she wanted to tell him about her life. She trusted him.

As he stared into those young eyes, he prayed to God with all his might that he would never have to come to that choice. And for the second time ever, Elisabet hugged him. It was an awkward hug, as he could not get up or move much. She laid her head on his chest and closed her eyes. Javert looked down at the brown locks and awkwardly placed one hand on her back. It was not an act of affection, but rather an act of helplessness and hope, that somehow he could comfort her and make her guilt go away, and that she in return could help him trust her and be at peace with himself. It was a hug of solace and friendship. He did not know how much of her wishes he could grant, or if he could do any of them for her at all. All he knew was that like it or not, he now had a friend. His loneliness was compromised, his fortress invaded.

"You know I cannot change." He told her. He would never be like her; he knew that once a law breaker always a law breaker and he would never rest until he found them all. Until he found Valjean. He knew too much of the world to feign ignorance and idealism, he had too much of a responsibility to the well being of society.

She released him, wiping her eyes for excess tears. "I just want you to be happy." She gave him a small smile through her pain and sadness. The phrase meant more than Javert could or was willing to say.

"Thank you for telling me about your life. I know it must have been hard." She said.

"I do not know what came over me."

"Friendship!" she exclaimed, her voice still thick.

"I told you-"

"I saved you, so you owe it to me to be my friend."

"I saved you twice. If I choose it, you could owe it to me to leave me alone."

"But I wouldn't."

"I assumed that."

The glitter in her eye slowly returned. Elisabet did not feel miserable like she thought she would- on the contrary, she felt a sense of release. That had been bottled up for so long, and it felt right to tell it to Javert. He was her confidante, and he returned the sentiment and opened up to her as well. He did care about her. They shared a moment that could never be reproduced. They understood each other, and forgave the other their sins, even if they did not forgive themselves. They really knew each other.

"Did Martin escort you home properly?" Javert kicked himself for asking the question. All mental filters seemed to have fallen away after their secretive moment, and as soon as the question popped into Javert's mind he asked it.

"Oh yes, I quite enjoy his company. He's really nice, he asked me to see him on Sunday, but I have no idea what to do."

Elisabet felt Javert stiffen. "Well it is not my place to tell you what to do with your personal life."

"Just give me an opinion!"

"I have none."

"You never do." She sighed. "We need to work on getting you a personality."

"What?"

"I didn't say anything. I think I'll go. He's handsome, he's nice… why not? I have nothing to lose."

"I am not properly prepared to handle these feminine qualms."

"You're a qualm yourself."

"Rudeness is unnecessary."

"Don't be so sensitive."

They continued squabbling for a bit, and then went on to speak of other things, such as Javert's work and the policemen under him, Elisabet's classes, her plans to walk self-sufficiently, what she wanted to do and see in life… There were no lulls in their conversation until Elisabet got up to check how it was outside. Time had flown by; already the first light of the sun began appearing in the sky.

"Can you get up?" Elisabet asked, kneeling by Javert. He struggled at first, but slowly, stiffly, he rose. Though his muscles were sore, his cuts no longer bled and he could move somewhat freely. He stood, looking down at her, his body bruised but not broken.

"You… I just… I wanted to say… thank you." He said finally, gathering his uniform.

"It's never a problem." She answered, smiling up at him. "Where will you go now?"

"I must go home first to change… then to my office."

"Do you need help?"

"No, it is but a short walk."

"Alright then, I'll walk with you until I have to turn towards my house, at least. Thank you."

"For what?"

"Telling me what you told me. For trusting me and for listening."

Javert had no response, and instead held the door open so that she might pass. He stepped outside and felt reality slap him in the face with the cold wind. He was the Inspector of the police. He had a duty to do. He had to find out if Valjean was alive or dead. Just because he told her about his past does not mean he was weaker. Nobody else would ever have to know. As far as they were concerned, if she could keep everything quiet like she said then nothing would be compromised. They walked side by side in silence for a few minutes, quietly allowing the closeness to form between them.

When they finally got to the crossroads where they had to part, Elisabet and Javert turned to face each other.

"Good day, Inspector." She curtseyed to him with an air of politeness that took him by surprise. When the mocking grin took over her features, however, Javert could not help but give a small smile himself. Lilybet may have helped him and shared deep feelings with him through the night, but she was still, through thick and thin, a cheeky little nuisance.

"Good day, Mademoiselle." He returned, bowing and turning on his way, his head immediately filling with thoughts of paperwork, patrols, and what he would have to do to ensure that Valjean could not enter the city without his knowledge.

Elisabet reached her door and swore out loud when she realized that it would have been the perfect opportunity to learn what his first name was.