"Ah, Javert!" said the Commissaire. "Do come in."

"Monsieur le Commissaire." Javert bowed and tucked his hat beneath his arm as he walked into the Commissaire's office. He waited until the mustachioed man gestured for him to sit, and then he sank into the chair opposite his supervisor. The Commissaire asked,

"Is this about that home invasion in Saint-Germain? Everything was handled perfectly. Very well done."

"Ah. Erm… no, Monsieur. This is not about the break in or the foot chase. I… there is a matter of relatively personal import that I wished to discuss with you, if I… erm…"

"Is something the matter, Javert?" The Commissaire narrowed his eyes, and Javert sighed very heavily as he licked his lip carefully. He finally said,

"The young woman I have been hosting in protective custody? Éponine. I, erm… I wish to notify you of my intention to wed her."

The Commissaire smiled demurely and shook his head a little. "I can't say as I'm surprised, Javert," he said, and Javert was taken aback a little. His lips parted as if something wanted to speak itself forth from him, but the Commissaire continued, "A fifty-two-year-old bachelor hosts a seventeen-year-old street urchin who undoubtedly looks very pretty when she's cleaned up, who cleans his house for him, shines his boots? Of course he's going to marry her instead of turning her loose from protective custody."

Javert's cheeks went hot, and he said rather defensively, "I assure you, Monsieur, that it is far more genuine than all that."

The Commissaire raised his greying brows and shrugged. "Well. Good for you, Javert. Will you be needing leave?"

"No, Monsieur; we will marry with the clerk in the council office on a day when I am not working. I have already begun to file the proper papers."

"Well," the Commissaire said again, "Congratulations, Javert. May you be very happy with the girl. Now… off to work, if you please. I need a foot patrol in Saint-Michel."


"What was his name?" Éponine asked later that evening at the dinner table, for Javert had just told her a story about a convict who had escaped from prison in Toulon, then had lived a life up in the North masquerading as the mayor of a town.

"Jean Valjean," Javert repeated, and his face twisted as if the name was poison in his mouth. He set his knife and fork down and said seriously, "He has been the bane of my existence ever since I was in Toulon. After he fled the courthouse, he went to get the daughter of the dying woman. The little girl… he took her here, to Paris. They're here, somewhere, and someday, I'll find them."

"I grew up with a little girl who got taken by a man that came one day," Éponine mused, and Javert glared at her for a long moment. She shrugged and asked uncomfortably,

"What? It's true. She lived with us and her mother sent money. But then the money stopped coming… I remember Maman and Papa being properly cross about that. One day a man came and took her away and -"

"What was she called?" asked Javert in a low voice, and Éponine tried to remember. It was all so long ago, so far in the past. She barely remembered the inn anymore. She barely remembered that life before Paris. She could still see the blonde-haired girl plain as day in her mind. What had her name been? Cosette? Yes.

"Cosette," she said simply, and Javert's face went blank. He blinked a few times, and his throat bobbed. His skin went pale, and Éponine asked him, "Are you all right?"

"You… lived in an inn with a little girl called Cosette, and a man came to fetch her?" Javert asked softly, and Éponine nodded.

"You think the man was Jean Valjean?" she gasped, and Javert shut his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"The Universe, it seems, conspires constantly to cross his path and mine and yet never allow me the ability to capture the man," Javert complained. "What are the odds of this? And yet, I wager you know nothing more of his current location than I do."

"No; I wouldn't know where he is now. I'm sorry." Éponine embraced herself and watched as Javert pushed away his plate of beef, carrot, and potato. He rose and announced,

"I am not hungry. I am going to wash up and am going to bed. Goodnight."

"Javert." Éponine so rarely said his name, for he only had the one, and it felt rather odd to use it, but she flew to her feet now and grasped at his wrist. She pressed her palm to his chest and whispered, "You'll find him."

"Goodnight, Éponine," he said quite sorrowfully, leaving her to clean up the dishes.


"Green." Javert smiled a little as the ladies in the dressmaker's paraded Éponine out to showcase the gown they were working on for her. They still had to sew on white lace trim around the collar and sleeves and waist, and the buttons down the back weren't finished. But Éponine looked like a dream in her evergreen velvet dress. Her raven hair tumbled around her shoulders in waves, which was not at all the fashion, but Javert did not much care for fashion. He cared that Éponine was happy, and she smiled broadly at him in her new green gown. She asked him seriously,

"Does it please you?"

"That's not what matters," he insisted, but when her face shifted uneasily, he insisted, "You look lovely."

"Still a week's worth of work on it," the head seamstress announced, and they showed her back to the dressing area to get her out of the gown. After the dressmaker's, Javert took Éponine to dinner in a tavern, his favorite place where they sang songs from the South of France.

"These are the songs I heard sailors and prisoners singing as a child," he informed her as they ate their stew, and Éponine sipped her mug of wine before asking carefully,

"Were things very different before the Revolution?"

"Things were different then, and then there was the Terror, and then Napoleon, and then another King," Javert shrugged. "This country has never really known peace in my lifetime. I have clung to the law like a drowning man clinging to flotsam, perhaps, but it is all we have. All there is besides is crime and chaos."

"Crime and chaos." Éponine nodded as she looked around the tavern, and she was quiet for a very long moment before she informed Javert, "I will not be a criminal ever again. I will not allow my father to wield that influence over my life ever again. Nor men like Dubois. Men like the Tappapieds. I will be the Inspector's wife. I will clear your plates and warm your bed. In more ways than one. And I will wear green ribbons in my clean hair."

Javert felt irrationally emotional at that, and he blinked as he looked away from her. He just nodded, for he felt like if he said anything, it would sound foolish or maudlin.

It rained that night, and as Javert readied himself for bed, he listened to the constant stream of rain and shut his eyes for a moment, thinking of how soothing the sound was. But then there was a crack, a smash - thunder. A rare severe storm developed over the next half hour, and eventually Éponine appeared in Javert's doorway as he was washing up his face and arms. She stood there looking nervous and confessed,

"Thunder made the whole of Gorbeau House shake. I confess I'm a little frightened of storms. Or, at least, they make my heart race a bit. I've always felt like they'd make the building come down. Sometimes I'd go outside in a storm because it felt safer."

"I used to do the same thing," Javert laughed, and Éponine eyed him curiously. He set down his washcloth and informed her, "When I was a boy, after I left the prison where I was born, I lived in a rickety building, and the storms made it tremble. I'd go wait in an alley and get soaked. It seemed like a better idea, somehow."

"How funny," Éponine pondered, and Javert thought with a sigh that they really were more alike than they were different. He held a hand out to her and whispered,

"Come here."

She did, her nightgown billowing round her as she entered his room. A violent white flash of lightning filled the space, and then an almost immediate crack of thunder smashed through the air. Éponine squealed and let herself get wrapped up in Javert's arms, and he smirked down at her as he promised,

"I'll protect you."

"Will you?" she put her hands to his chest and told him, "Your heart's going fast, too. I can feel it."

"That's not from the thunder," Javert informed her, and Éponine's eyes darkened. She visibly swallowed, and she seemed hungry as she asked again,

"What about me taking your member in my mouth like I meant to do? Would it put a child on me?"

"No, it wouldn't," Javert said, licking his lip at the very thought of such a thing. "But why would you want to… Éponine, what are you… oh. Oh. Oh."

She had sunk to her knees and was before him, and she pushed up his nightshirt, encouraging him to hold the hem. He wore no undergarments with it, so she had free access to his cock, and she took full advantage. The moment she was at eye level with it, Javert began to go hard, and that process accelerated when he realized she was watching him harden. He gulped as her little hand reached out and wrapped around the base of his shaft, and when she stared up at him, he informed her,

"I want you. Badly. But, please… no teeth."

"Right. No teeth." She seemed to steel herself then, and she pushed him into her mouth without any further ado. Thunder banged so hard outside that the window rattled, and there were more flashes of lightning. Somehow it seemed appropriate that it should storm just now. Javert watched as Éponine slipped him between her lips, as she suckled on him. She gagged a little, but then she quickly recovered and found a rhythm, licking inside of her mouth in swirls and long strokes as she listened to Javert's moans to get cues on what he liked best. She wound up trailing her hand behind her mouth, sucking and stroking her tongue, squeezing her lips, and eventually Javert realized he was going to come any moment. He yanked her face off of him and said helplessly,

"Oh, it isn't for drinking, I don't think."

"What?" Éponine asked in confusion, but Javert couldn't answer. He gripped his cock and tipped his head back, somehow managing to catch a glimpse of what was happening as his come leaped in creamy ropes from his cock onto Éponine's neck and collarbone. She seemed amazed and shocked by what was happening, and she reached up to drag her fingers through the little puddles. Javert groaned loudly, feeling the hot flush of satisfaction boil quickly through his veins, and he whispered,

"Beautiful creature."

Eventually he recovered, and he got the washcloth he'd been using on his face and arms earlier. He wordlessly cleaned Éponine up, and she stayed silent and just stared up at him as he wiped his seed from her skin. She was breathing heavily, and finally she whispered,

"I look forward to what it will mean to be your wife."

"I could… help you," Javert offered awkwardly, assisting Éponine to her feet. She shook her head, looking dizzy, and insisted,

"I think I… erm… I don't need anything."

She'd been squirming where she'd been kneeling, he'd noticed, and one of her hands had dipped between her legs whilst she'd been pleasuring him. Had she found her own satisfaction with him in her mouth? He shut his eyes, for the thought of that was almost too much to bear. He nodded and asked her carefully,

"Would you like to stay in here during the storm, Éponine?"
"Yes, please, Inspector," she smiled, and then she grabbed at his forearms, for another wild smash of thunder followed a bright flash of lightning. The rain was falling harder than ever as they climbed into Javert's bed. He curled up behind her and wrapped an arm round her, and he found himself whispering,

"Do you know something, Éponine?"

"No," she whispered back over the sound of he rain. "What, Inspector?"

"I think you will make a very fine wife indeed," he told her, and she just squeezed at his hand. She didn't stir the next time thunder clapped, and soon enough she was asleep in his arms.