"Monsieur le Commissaire, I have prepared the file on Mademoiselle Éponine Jondrette," said Javert, bowing crisply as he approached his superior officer's desk. The Commissaire took the folder Javert handed over and uncoiled its tie. He opened it as Javert tightly knitted his fingers behind his back. The Commissaire sniffed lightly and asked,

"We have information about these Tappapieds? The gang?"

"Yes, Monsieur," Javert said. "We track them, along with other street gangs. Mademoiselle Jondrette - I confess that I suspect she had another name earlier in life - she gave us four specific names of Tappapieds members. The ones who threatened to rape her. She says they would not stop until they succeeded in doing so."

"And you believe you walked in on the crime the moment before it occurred?" The Commissaire raised his pale eyes, and Javert gulped as he said dryly,

"If I had arrived two minutes later, I think Éponine Jondrette would have already been raped. Monsieur le Commissaire."

"Her father is a criminal," said the Commissaire. "She will be targeted again."

"She is seventeen, almost eighteen," Javert pointed out. "I hope for her sake that with a little rehabilitation, she might be able to escape the cycle of iniquity that her father's criminality has sucked her into."

"You are thinking of your own life, Javert." The Commissaire's eye twinkled a little, and Javert shifted on his feet. His superior officer knew no details of his youth, only that he'd come from humble origins. The Commissaire did not know that Javert had been born in a prison to two criminal parents, that he'd needed the generosity of the government to get him on his feet as a boy and begin an honest life. Yes, he was thinking of his own past as he contemplated what might be possible for Éponine. He cleared his throat and said gruffly to the Commissaire,

"I think she might be neither raped nor lost to a life of crime, Monsieur le Commissaire, and I should hope that the police force might see some good in an outcome that involves neither for her."

"Benevolence, Javert." The Commissaire closed the folder and nodded. "She has clothes and you'll be given a food allowance for her until she can be transferred to a women's facility."

"Those places are little more than prisons," Javert protested, "and are meant for fallen women and their babies. She is not -"

"You do not wish for a transfer for her, then?" the Commissaire asked boredly, and Javert shook his head and shrugged.

"She may stay on as my maid until the threat of the Tappapieds is gone from her, or until she finds some pauper in another part of the city to marry her. Make a new life for herself. She may stay under my supervision until then, Monsieur, if you allow it. She is not a difficult house guest."

"And is she a good maid?" The Commissaire seemed almost suspicious, and Javert swallowed hard as he shifted where he stood. He finally admitted,

"She will be. With training."

"Well. Train her to sweep cinders and wash windows, then, and she'll be your ward so long as you bear the burden, Javert." The Commissaire opened a locked box on his desk and counted out some notes - too many notes, Javert thought. He handed them over and said, "Her stipend, as a ward of the Government. Use it wisely."

"I shall return all unused funds, Monsieur le Commissaire," Javert promised, tucking the notes away. "I am a frugal man."

The Commissaire smirked. "You're right. She's better off with you. Dismissed."


"That dress is too large," said Inspector Javert.

Éponine looked up from the warm bacon and bread that he'd brought to the house from a tavern wrapped in paper, and her mouth fell open.

"Erm… this is the only dress they gave me, Inspector," she said quietly. She chewed another bite of bread and self-consciously pulled at the way her burgundy wool dress was falling off a shoulder. Javert huffed and shook his head.

"Well, that's foolish. You can't wear that. Can you sew?"
"Yes, Inspector. I'll take it in at once," Éponine promised. "I'm sorry."

He sighed and shook his head a little, and he pulled out some notes from his pocket. He stared at them and seemed to be doing some arithmetic in his head. He stuffed the notes away and said,

"Finish eating. We're going to get you something better to wear. If that's the best they can send over, they can fund a different outfit."

Éponine was surprised by that, but she hurried up to finish her warm bread and bacon. It tasted so, so good, so much better than the maggoty excuses for food she'd scraped by with in Saint-Michel. She drank the mulled red wine that the two of them had been sipping, and then she rushed to clear the paper away to the rubbish bin and to wash out their wine glasses in the kitchen basin. She brushed the crumbs off the table in front of Javert and straightened the chairs, yanking at her too-big dress all the while. She kept tripping on its long hem, and he finally asked her,

"Do the shoes fit?"

"The boots are… big," Éponine admitted with a little smile. "It's all right. You're not from here. Your accent… it's from the South of France. Where are you from, Inspector?"

"Toulon," he said simply, and she frowned a little as she demanded,

"Why did you come to Paris?"

He narrowed his eyes and shook his head a little. "Why does anyone come to Paris?"

"Point taken." Éponine curled up half her mouth and put on her cloak as she walked with him out the door of the little house and out into the street. He looked so stout and grand in his uniform, she thought. Not for the first time, it occurred to her that he was exceedingly handsome. Old, she thought. Very old. He must be at least fifty. But he was so handsome, and she couldn't help but think it to be true. He escorted her with extreme confidence, as though he owned the street upon which they walked. Éponine plodded behind him in her too-big shoes and her too-big dress and cloak, and when they arrived at a dressmaker's, he held the door for her, which shocked her. She scurried inside, and Javert nodded to the women who were working.

"Mesdames," he said, for they were all women in their forties or older, "I have a ward of the state in need of properly-fitting clothes. Sturdy, suitable clothing - nothing fancy, nothing that will fall apart."

"Yes, Inspector," said one woman, seeming terrified of Javert. She grabbed at Éponine and brought her back behind some curtains. Éponine was quickly divested of her ill-fitting garments, and the women hustled to get her into cotton undergarments and a set of utilitarian cotton drill stays she could do up herself. The restriction of the proper undergarments felt rather like hell after years of the freedom of wearing rags in Saint-Michel, but Éponine remembered as recently as when she'd been eleven or twelve that her parents had been able to afford stays and cotton dresses for her. Then things had gone very sour, very quickly.

The women worked quickly get three calico dresses onto Éponine, trying them on for size and shape over two petticoats. They helped her slip into some black button-up boots that fit, and one woman called to Javert,

"A bonnet or hat, Inspector?"

"Sturdy and serviceable," he called back tightly. The women giggled a little, and Éponine just stared at herself in the long, tarnished mirror as they arranged a black velvet bonnet upon her head. She had on a dark green calico dress now, with black boots and a black bonnet, and they slid simple black leather gloves onto her hands. The women tied a black wool cape around Éponine and then shooed her out from the curtains and presented her to Javert as if she were some sort of gift. He looked very surprised when he saw her dressed in real clothes like that, and she saw his throat bob just a little bit. He glanced away and mumbled,

"That will do fine. The total?"

"For the government? Four francs," said the eldest woman kindly. Javert must know she was undercutting the price severely, but he did not argue. He just handed over a few notes and murmured,

"Thank you, Mesdames. Come, Mademoiselle." He jerked his head, and when they stepped outside, he put his hat back on. He walked very deliberately back toward his house, and Éponine hurried to keep up.

"Thank you, Inspector," she said breathlessly, and he huffed,

"You needed clothes that fit."

"Still. Thank you."

"Think nothing of it," he insisted. Then he turned a little, stopping his feet, and Éponine skittered on the slippery stones. She stared up at him, suddenly wondering if Marius cared that she was a ward of the state now, and she studied the inspector's face. Marius seemed very far away all of a sudden.

"Begin a new life," Inspector Javert instructed Éponine. When she looked confused, he sank his teeth into his lip and insisted, "Your old life would have led you nowhere good, and I think you know that. You must see this as an opportunity. That is why I came to Paris, mademoiselle. Opportunity. All my life, I have been presented with poverty and challenges, and then with opportunities. And I have seized every single one that I could. I advise you to do the same. Understood?"

Éponine's eyes watered a little, but she nodded and whispered, "Understood, Inspector."

Then she followed him up the road toward the house.