Despite his body crying out for rest, however, Javert forced himself to return to the police station that morning – only to discover, to his horror, that the letter he'd written in his moment of insanity had already been found and delivered. Gisquet called him into his office almost immediately upon his arrival, and Javert obeyed; the men under his command observed him walking down the hall with the air of one going to the gallows. More than one bemused glance was shared.

However, after confirming to Gisquet that he had indeed been the one to write the letter, the conversation took a turn Javert did not expect.

"I take full responsibility for my words, Monsieur le Préfet," he told the man, "and shall submit to any punishment you deem fitting." His hands found themselves clasped behind his back once more, and he attempted to force his spine into its usual ramrod straightness, though his entire being seemed unreasonably heavy today. He braced himself for his imminent dismissal. It was just, he knew, and furthermore perfectly reasonable. It was not his place to criticise his superiors' decisions, nor should he have been arrogant enough to think he could offer advice.

"I will be frank, Javert," Gisquet replied gravely, "it is not the content of this letter that concerns me, so much as the timing of it."

"Sir?" Javert met his superior's gaze in confusion. "I… I do not take your meaning."

Had he been able to see himself through Gisquet's eyes, he might have understood the man's concerns better. Javert, who had never once hesitated, never once shown doubt or remorse, now carried such a sombre, uncertain air all of a sudden, that the Préfet could not help but be perturbed at the sight. Moreover, Javert had arrived late for his shift, for what, Gisquet thought privately, must have been the first time in his life. That, if nothing else, clearly signalled that something was wrong.

"Good God, man!" he exclaimed. "You would not be the first to be overwhelmed at the sight of so much bloodshed. You would not even be the first officer in this station to express such feelings. Am I right in thinking it was what you witnessed at the barricade that brought this on?"

Gisquet was at once completely wrong, and totally correct. It had indeed been what he'd witnessed at the barricade that had caused Javert to write the letter – but it was not bloodshed that had done it, but mercy. And yet, how to express that in a way the Préfét might understand? He hardly understood it himself. There was a long silence as Javert searched for the right words, and found himself unequal to the task. He could not explain it. He could explain even less his strange certainty that, should he decide to arrest him after all, Valjean would be waiting and come willingly.

"In a manner of speaking, yes," he said at last.

"And just how long have you been sitting on these qualms?" Gisquet asked, picking up the letter and waving it in the air.

"I – I do not know." That, at least, was the whole and uncomplicated truth. Javert was not a man prone to self-reflection; it had all burst out of him like a last, desperate gasp. He'd never truly thought about any of it before.

"At any rate, I happen to agree with a number of your points," Gisquet sighed, and Javert was unable to contain the choked-off sound of surprise that rose in his throat. He… agreed? It was unfathomable. He'd so thoroughly exceeded the bounds of his position as a Police Inspector – someone duty-bound to serve the law, not pass judgment on it himself – that Gisquet should be railing against him, not condoning his actions.

"But this is a conversation that will keep for a few days," the Préfét continued, fixing him with a piercing stare. "Go home, Javert. Until tomorrow, at least. You are swaying where you stand."

And that, as they say, was that. His tone brooked no objection. For a few moments Javert could do nothing but stare incredulously. Then he bowed low, folding at the waist, and left Gisquet's office.

He sighed in frustration as he exited the police station. First Valjean, a dangerous criminal, had elected to set him free instead of taking his revenge. And now his superior had responded to criticism of the entire social and judicial organisation – criticism the likes of which Javert had never offered before – not with the anger that would be due his station, but with agreement and… concern. For him.

He had never experienced the like.

In his agitated state of mind, he did not realise that he had never wanted or needed anyone's concern before, and would certainly have rejected it if offered. Such thoughts were beyond him at present.

He returned to his apartment, collapsed onto his bed fully clothed, and slept for almost eighteen hours. When he awoke once more, the moon was high in the sky. His mind was whirling as though he'd never gone to sleep in the first place, and he could feel the pull of a phantom rope around his neck.

.

.

A day later, Javert found himself before Vajean's door once more. It was almost sundown; the late afternoon sun turned the window panes gold, and the sky was tinged pink. He'd gone to the station that morning only to find that Gisquet had confined him to his desk; despite his immense hatred of paperwork, he'd acquiesced without complaint. It was, he supposed, a fitting sort of punishment, being condemned to stay at his desk and write. Gisquet was, however unknowingly, acting in the public's best interests. Better still if he had dismissed Javert, but until he could figure out the enigma that was Jean Valjean, he could not be trusted to enforce the law.

It was this thought – the thought that he deserved all this and more – that had hounded him all through the day, and so he returned more determined than ever to do his duty.

This time, Valjean opened the door almost instantly; he looked faintly surprised.

"I am here to arrest you," Javert declared, before he could speak. He hated how much it sounded like he was trying to convince himself of that fact.

"Oh – of course." Something shuttered in Valjean's expression, and he drew in on himself; for a moment all was silent but for the distant sounds of city life.

A thought occurred to Javert then.

"You claimed the bishop told the gendarmes the silver was a gift," he said; Valjean nodded slowly. "Were this so, you would have no reason to decide to break parole – no reason to flee." Had he caught Valjean in a lie? That he hadn't immediately spotted it yesterday – well, no matter; it was plain to him now. That information would, of course, be important to include in his report, when he arrested Valjean. Without a full account of just how he'd come to vanish for nearly a decade, it would be incomplete.

"It was not… so much a decision as—" Valjean broke off, his expression now tinged with something almost sheepish. "Well, at any rate, it is something of a long story. Might I offer you some tea while I explain, at least?"

Javert blinked, taken completely aback, and shot Valjean a disbelieving look.

"I am hardly likely to run now," Valjean said wryly, shrugging one broad shoulder. That, at least, was true, Javert had to admit. He couldn't pretend to understand it, but Valjean had failed to take advantage of any of the opportunities to escape Javert had so carelessly given him. Not yesterday, and not… not the night he'd left him after taking the damn schoolboy's corpse to Rue des Filles du Calvaire.

Grudgingly, he nodded, and allowed Valjean to show him into the same parlour they'd sat in two days ago.

"I'm afraid my housekeeper is – out, at the moment," Valjean said, stumbling slightly over the words. "So I shall have to brew it myself, if you'll excuse me a moment."

Javert was half tempted to follow him down the hall into the kitchen; the idea of simply trusting Valjean to go away and return still sat wrong with him. But again he reminded himself that Valjean had stayed willingly thus far – and so he settled into the same bergère he'd sat in a few days ago to wait. So, Valjean did have a housekeeper, he thought to himself; no doubt that was who he'd been worried about waking the other morning. Javert wondered if Valjean had sent her away on purpose, expecting his return; it seemed far-fetched, but then, he'd always been canny. He'd known that even in Montreuil-sur-Mer.

"In mercy's name, Javert – give me three days, then I'll return."

Javert drew in a sharp breath as the memory stirred without warning. He had not thought of that night in years, except to curse the fact Valjean had slipped through his fingers yet again. For the first time, he wondered: if he had allowed Valjean to leave then – if he had done the unthinkable, and trusted him to keep his word – would he have returned?

If he had, Valjean would have been sent to the bagne for life, and Javert would have had his brains blown out at the barricade. That, at least, would have been more fitting. Neater.

It was useless to speculate, at any rate. Likely it had only been the words of a convict grasping at anything that might let him escape. There'd been nothing stopping him from turning himself in these past ten years, after all.

The sound of a door opening jarred Javert from his reverie, and he shifted in the bergère to see Valjean entering with a tray. On it was a small teapot, two delicate china teacups on saucers, and a small pot of sugar. Valjean poured the tea, then placed one of the teacups on the end table and handed him the other. Javert took it with a grimace; it was so delicate it felt like the handle might snap off in his fingers if he gripped it too firmly. The cups alone looked to cost more than Javert earned in a month; when Valjean lifted the lid to stir a small spoonful into his tea, he saw the sugar was white and fine.

"Now, if I recall our last conversation—"

"You were to explain your decision to break parole," Javert cut him off. The last thing he was interested in was pleasantries.

The corner of Valjean's lip quirked, though Javert had difficulty reading the emotion behind it. "Indeed. Though it was more a matter of happenstance than any planning on my part. Perhaps it is better simply to explain the events, and then you can judge for yourself." He raised the teacup to his lips, and glanced at Javert over the top of it. "I promise you the tea's not poisoned."

Javert blinked. "It hardly could be; you poured both cups from the same pot. You would have had to poison my teacup, if anything."

Valjean coughed in a way that sounded to him suspiciously like he was smothering a laugh. "Then I promise you the cup isn't poisoned, either."

Still, Javert hesitated a moment before drinking – not out of real worry Valjean had poisoned his cup, but simply because taking tea with the man he'd spent nigh-on two decades chasing felt… wrong. But then, nothing had felt right since that night at the barricades. He took a sip.

The tea was good. Dark, surprisingly strong, and with just a hint of sweetness to it, even without sugar.

"After the bishop gave me the candlesticks," Valjean began slowly, "I fled from Digne like a man being hunted – I darted down trails without knowing where I was going; I doubled back without meaning to goodness knows how many times. I hardly knew what I did. When I left the gates of Digne, it was dawn; by dusk I was hardly more than an hour's walk from them," Valjean snorted.

"Of course, nobody was chasing me. Monseigneur Myriel was a man of God, beloved by the town; the gendarmes took him at his word. But even so, I felt as though I was running from something. Perhaps I was – from his words, or from his kindness. I had never known such mercy; I think I was afraid of what it meant for me."

"And yet, the same day you were accused of stealing forty sous from a Savoyard boy," Javert countered. Hardly the actions of a man overwhelmed by an act of kindness, as he claimed to have been.

Valjean made a small sound in his throat, and his brows drew together in an unhappy line. "I did," he acknowledged, shoulders curving in on themselves. He stared down into his teacup as though he might disappear into it, if he could.

"The sun had almost set when I finally stopped running. I was sitting by a thicket when the Savoyard came along – Petit Gervais, his name was. I remember it even now. I confess I – I'm not sure how it happened. I remember him talking to me, but my head was so full I could not understand what he was saying. I told him to clear off, but he refused; I shook my stick at him to scare him away.

"He took off running, and only then, when I lifted my foot—" Valjean broke off with a shudder. "Only then did I see the forty-sous coin beneath it. I didn't even know what I was seeing, at first. He must have dropped it, and I put my foot on it without thinking. I do not recall," he sighed.

Javert directed a flat look at him. "You stole his forty-sous piece… by accident." He'd heard a lot of excuses from a lot of criminals over the years, but this! This was the best of the lot.

"It sounds rather unbelievable, I know. But I promise you it was so." Valjean met his gaze directly, and Javert saw not a shred of duplicity in his eyes. It was the truth. Damn him, he was telling the truth.

Still, a crime was a crime, no matter how unwittingly it had been committed. Ignorance was no excuse.

"When I realised what it was I had done, I attempted to return the forty-sous piece, but of course that was impossible! Petit Gervais was long gone by then. Desperate to make things right, I stopped a passing abbé and begged him to have me arrested, but my appearance frightened him off.

"Whatever you may think of me, I must have thought of myself at that moment. I finally saw myself as others must see me – what a wretched man, what a fearful brute!" The teacup wobbled in Valjean's grip, and he set it aside. His hands were trembling. "To have committed such a crime against a young boy, and after the bishop had shown me mercy! I had failed utterly at the only thing he asked of me in exchange for my freedom – to become an honest man. It seemed to me then that there were only two paths I could take; either I must become the worst of men, or strive to be the best of them. It was the only way I could redeem myself."

Javert flinched, and tea splashed over his fingers; to hear such a close echo of his own thoughts from Valjean's mouth was beyond unnerving. But Valjean's gaze was distant, and he appeared not to have noticed Javert's reaction. He took another sip of tea, trying to calm the sudden thudding of his heart.

"And your… disappearance?"

Valjean closed his eyes for a long moment; when he reopened them, he appeared composed.

"That came after. I headed north from Digne; I knew if I could sell the silverware, I could use the money to become an honest man – but how to sell it in the first place? Even though I had money, most honest folk refused to deal with me, as I have said. I attempted to sell the cutlery first – in Valence, I believe it was – but few would buy what they rightfully believed to be stolen, and those that were willing would not offer near what the silver was worth. And so, not knowing quite what to do… I finally came to Montreuil-sur-Mer."

Javert sat up straighter in his chair. Valjean had been in Montreuil-sur-Mer for some time before his posting there – enough time to acquire a factory, fund two schools and a hospital, and gain the respect of the entire town – but the gap between what he hadn't seen for himself and what he had was narrowing. It felt, absurdly, almost like the feeling of gaining on a fleeing man, even though they were already sitting facing each other.

"The very same day I arrived, a great fire broke out in the town hall."

Javert blinked. "I'd heard of that – it was some years before I arrived."

"Indeed; towards the end of 1815. It would have been just a few weeks after I left Digne, to be precise. I hurried to the town square, intending to help the men carrying water to dampen the nearby buildings, and was met with the sight of the captain of the gendarmerie being restrained by one of his men. He was trying to run into the burning building; his children were inside, you see.

"It felt like a sign from God – an opportunity, perhaps, to make up for my bit of thievery, or to die trying. In truth, I think I expected to perish in that inferno, but instead I found the children, and they were alive, though the house was in flames around them."

"And you led them out?"

"I had to carry them out, I'm afraid; they'd inhaled so much smoke they could not walk."

Javert did some quick mental calculations; when he'd arrived in Montreuil-sur-Mer, the captain's eldest had been almost fully grown. In 1815, they would have been… twelve and nine years old, or thereabouts. His eyebrows inched towards his hairline. Once again he was reminded of how abominably strong Valjean was: a normal man would certainly have struggled to carry both children.

"When I emerged, the captain shook my hand and asked my name; I searched for my passport to show the man – only to find it had burned to nothing in the blaze. I had no papers to show."

"Surely not!" Javert exclaimed.

"I'm afraid so."

"Still," he mused, sitting back in the bergère, "you could have informed the captain of your status, papers or no."

"I could have, but…" one hand crept up to the back of Valjean's neck, towards the spot where Javert knew the bagnards' chains were bolted. "The captain of the gendarmerie was so overcome that he did not think to ask – nobody asked – and so this, too, felt like a sign from God. Perhaps the smoke had simply gone to my head. At any rate, I did not have the strength to tell him."

"And so you gave them a false name."

"I told them I was named Madeleine, yes." Valjean bowed his head.

For a moment silence reigned; suddenly, Javert realised just how late it was. The sky outside the window was the lavender-purple of dusk, and the last dregs of tea in his cup had gone completely cold. Valjean seemed to realise it too, at the same moment, for the slope of his shoulders grew taut, and he hunched further in upon himself.

"Ah – well, that was the why of it, anyhow. Now that you have your answer, I expect you shall…" he trailed off; one hand twitched towards the edge of his sleeve. Javert stood, and Valjean drew back in his seat minutely, raising his head only enough to look at Javert through the curls of his fringe.

"Indeed, I—" the air felt thick quite suddenly, and Javert's breaths came short and shallow. "I should…" One hand trailed to the pocket of his greatcoat, traced the outline of the handcuffs inside it. Valjean was immobile, eyes fixed on Javert's hands; still he made no move to flee. The silence between them was absolute. The moment stretched like a cord about to fray.

Javert bowed jerkily, and spun on his heel, striding from the room before Valjean could do more than utter a wordless exclamation of surprise.

He pulled the front door with enough force to slam it shut behind him, and then he strode off down the street, walking so quickly he almost bowled over a pair of women as he rounded the corner.

"Oh!" The younger of the two stepped hastily aside, eyes wide.

"Excusez-moi, Mesdames," he muttered out of pure reflex, inclining his head.

.

.

Sleep eluded Javert that night. His entire life, he'd been able to sleep nearly anywhere, at any time – a necessary ability for a member of the police and doubly so for a spy used to long stakeouts – but now he tossed and turned, unable to find a comfortable position. On the single table in his apartment, he could see the dull glint of his handcuffs reflecting the moonlight. When he finally slipped into slumber, he dreamed of the barricade.

Hands on his upper arms, restraining him. The point of a rifle digging into his back.

"The people will decide your fate, Monsieur l'Inspecteur."

A figure at the doorway of the café; white hair and hazel eyes.

He woke at sunrise with Valjean's name on his lips.

.

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Update: due to FFN's unacceptable new ads, I will no longer be updating on this account. If you'd like to follow this fic (which is still being updated, just not here), you can find me as Sylla on archiveofourown.