Hi everyone, I'm back with another chapter.

Confidential to AmZ: Yes. He's doomed. Mwahahaha...

...er, maybe not. :)

It took two weeks for Javert's ankle to heal to the point where he could walk on it for any length of time, and so until then, he had little choice but to travel with the Gypsies. Tobar and his wife, Drina, were kind to Javert; the first thing Drina did, after Tobar found an extra shirt and pants for the man, was launder and mend his clothing, and Tobar offered him the privacy of the cart to sleep in. The others were not bad to him--upon seeing his bare feet, one man offered him an old pair of boots, which Javert accepted gratefully--but they still eyed him with varying amounts of suspicion, as he did all of them, even Tobar. Unless they were talking directly to him, none of the clan spoke in French, and Javert's grasp of Romani had deteriorated since early childhood to the recognition of a few simple words that he could recall after much effort: day was the word for "mother", bogacha was "bread". When they spoke about the gadjo, however, he knew immediately that they were talking about him.

He fell into the rhythm of their travels quickly: on the road for one day, stopping in a town to sell the next. They were always busy, all except for Javert, who for the first two days watched the steady hum of activity with growing irritation at his inability to work. He hated to sit idle while others around him were busy, and on the third day, he asked Tobar if there was anything that he could do, any job to help them and keep himself occupied.

Tobar looked at Javert skeptically. "Yer not a crafstman, are ye?"

Javert shook his head. "I am afraid not, but still, there must be something."

So Tobar asked the others, and one man offered Javert the job of polishing the tin mugs and kettles he produced. Javert accepted readily and put all his concentration and effort into the work. He was not adept at it, nor even as fast as either of the tinsmith's sons, but he made up for a lack of skill with a drive for perfection. After the first day, Tobar joked, "Give him enough time, and Etienne could make all our cups fit for shaving mirrors!"

And so during the days, he was busy and tried not to think too much about how he had arrived at such strange circumstances. But at night, he lay awake. There were times, right on the edge of sleep, when for a moment he felt himself falling again, and echoes of that night would run through his head. He remembered the sound of the water roiling beneath him, the glittering lamp-lit surface drawing closer and closer until he closed his eyes just before impact. And he remembered his last conscious thought before his head hit bottom and blackness swallowed him: Dieu, me pardonnent.

God, forgive me.

He had said to many prisoners over the years, those who appealed to his mercy, "The Lord may forgive, but The Law cannot." It was a formulaic response, something some mentor had taught him long ago, when he first came to la prefecture, to quell the complaints of criminals. But in Javert's mind, there was no forgiveness--only atonement. He was not a religious man, but his years as a child in a Catholic school had taught him one thing: God did not care for penitence, but penance.

He hated that, in his weakest moment, he had prayed for a boon that he believed God would never grant. But he hated more that he could not decide for which of his faults he begged forgiveness.

- - - -

The Gypsies and their charge followed the Seine north and west. By the time Javert's ankle was healed, they had reached the borders of Rouen. After they set up camp on the outskirts of town, Javert told Tobar that he would leave them the next day.

"Where will ye be off to?" Tobar asked.

"I'm not sure. I may remain in Rouen for a time."

"Ye got friends here?"

"As many as I had in Paris."

"Fair enough," Tobar replied, chuckling. He slipped a hand into his money pouch, pulled out a gold Napoleon, and pressed it into Javert's hand. Javert looked at it, puzzled.

"Yer wages," Tobar said by way of explanation. Javert continued to stare at the coin.

"I owe you as much for taking me in."

Tobar smiled and shook his head. "It's what any man would do fer another. Ought to, anyway."

Javert tried to hand it back, saying, "I have been another mouth to feed for these weeks. I earned for you far less than my bed and board."

"Keep it, please," Tobar said, looking hurt. Then, softer, "I cannot bear to send ye away too poor to buy a loaf of bread."

With a nod, Javert slipped the coin into his pocket.

"I can at least return your cane to you," Javert said. "I do not need it any longer." In truth, he hadn't needed it for most of the past two days, but he kept it with him anyway--he'd carried a nightstick at his side for so many years that he was uncomfortable without it.

Tobar's smile returned. "Ye can keep that as well. I've got others, and ye seem to have grown attached to it."

Javert looked at the cane, and, for the first time in many months, he gave a small smile.

"Thank you."

Javert offered the Tobar his hand, and they shook like old friends.

The next morning, Javert rose early, ate a breakfast of bread and boiled eggs with the Gypsies, and bundled up the extra set of clothes. Then, with a coin in his pocket and a cane at his side, he walked into Rouen.