Author's note: Voila! Chapter 6! I know this comes after a rather long wait—sorry about that, I had silly essays and such to write. Anyway, thanks to all my kind reviewers—I hope you like this next installment.

When Raoul saw Javert walking down the street towards his house, he smiled. Though they had different political views, over the eight years that had passed since their first conversation, they had softened towards each other. Now the year was 1823, but little had changed. Nicole was still in prison, and she was still beautiful to everyone but Javert. She saw Javert off and on, but never as often as she would've liked. And now it was December.

Javert reached Raoul's door. He paused a moment before knocking on the door. He had recently turned 43, and had begun to feel as if he were slowly crawling towards old age—it wasn't a happy thought. But he shook off these thoughts—it was no way to look at the future. And besides: he had discovered that Valjean had been caught again a few months ago, so there was naught to worry about. Javert raised his hand to knock on the door, but Raoul opened it first. Raoul's face shocked Javert—he had always seen Raoul as a strong general who was undefeatable, but the man who stood before him looked old and frail, and very sick.

Forgetting the official reason he came, Javert exclaimed, "Monsieur Pontmercy! Are you not well?"

"Ah, Javert, come in," said Raoul, gesturing him inside and leading him into his sitting room. "I am dying. My son, Marius, had never come to see me. I have only caught glimpses of him while in church, and I need to truly see him before I die. I've called him to me, but I don't know if he'll come in time—he has never written me real letters. He does not care for me. Ah, Javert, you're lucky you don't have children. They'll break your heart more than anyone else could."

Javert was silent. This wasn't where he wanted this conversation to go, but he supposed that dying people talk about what they want to, not letting others interrupt them. But to Raoul, he said, "Indeed, Monsieur. But might I suggest that his reluctance to see you has something to do with you keeping your title as Baron?"

Raoul shook his head. "No, you don't understand," he said. "Marius lives with my father—he's the one who is keeping Marius from me. Do you have any idea of how it feels to be kept away from someone you car about?"

"Yes, I do."

The next day Javert received two blows to his day, both from the newspaper. First, he read a note in the obituaries that Raoul Pontmercy had died. He paused for a moment when he read that. In a different situation, Javert thought they could have been friends. But, given the real situation, he simply shook his head and kept reading.

There, in a small paragraph near the bottom of the page, he found he second shock. In this paragraph, an event was described wherein a convict had died saving a soldier. They wrote that the convict's number was 24601, and he was named Jean Valjean. Javert stared at the paper for a moment in disbelief, than smiled. Well, that's the end of that, he thought confidently. Finally, justice had been served.

He closed the paper and stood up to go to the prefecture. Lately he and the officers had been on a rotating schedule, so everyone had to do guard duty once in a while. Today it was Javert's turn. When he got there, he made his usual rounds around the cells. To his surprise, Nicole didn't say anything to him as she passed by, so he looked into her cell. She appeared to be asleep. Satisfied, he continued on his way.

Nicole, in fact, was not asleep. But when she has heard Javert's recognizable footstep coming down the hall, she had lain down and feigned sleep. Lately it had been hard to face him—a year ago she had tried to touch his shoulder to get his attention, but he had backed away, surprised and horrified. The look of disgust Javert had had on his face hurt Nicole immediately. She had forgotten that, as kind as he may be to her in comparison to others, she was still simply a prisoner in his eyes. So after that she had talked less and less to him. But in a way, she felt more hurt than before. When she wouldn't speak to him, it didn't appear to bother him, and he would never volunteer anything to say. So Nicole decided to give up trying to talk to him.

The next time Javert passed her cell, though, she stopped him, saying, "Inspector! I haven't seen you in a while."

"Yes, well, this isn't the only duty I have," he said.

He began to walk away, but Nicole couldn't help but stop him with her babble. "Well, you've missed a good deal of fun," she said. "There have been a few exciting times here. Some people were trying to escape, but they were quite bad at it. It was highly exciting."

"Yes, I'm sure you know the ins and outs of the fine art of escaping," said Javert. "I'm surprised you didn't help them. You've done it before." He was referring to a time a few years ago when Nicole had been linked to the escape of several prisoners. However, nothing had been firmly proven, so she was not apprehended. It had made Javert furious.

"Well, even if that is the case, I'm still here, aren't I? That surely must count for something. Haven't you wondered why I'm still here? I'm sure you know that I have had a thousand chances to leave, but I haven't taken any of them. Have you thought about that?"

"I'm sure I have not, and I don't particularly want to."

"Haven't you ever wondered anything about me?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Oh, like why I'm still here when you know I could've escaped. After all, I'm just a convict, unable to do good deeds. Why am I still here?"

"I must say that your reasons don't concern me, so long as you stay here. Now, this conversation is getting quite inane, so I'm leaving."

And he did so. As Nicole watched him walk away with his steady pace, she wished with all her heart that se could tell him the thing that would make his heart melt towards her.

But she had left that part of her far behind her. She had left it when she dyed her hair, ran off with the Gypsies and changed her named. She had long ago decided that, even if it would change Javert, she would not reveal to him her birth name of Rose.

He wouldn't believe her at first, but then she would tell him about the time she had so foolishly mocked him about his job, or lack thereof. Then his eyes would light up in recognition and delight…but no. She wouldn't do that. She would remain Nicole and, perhaps, woo him nonetheless.

Caught up in her reverie, she didn't notice that Javert had stopped at her cell once more.

"Tell me something," he said, and she looked up in surprise. "Is Panchaud your true blood brother, or do you use the term 'brother' simply to imply that he is your 'brother in crime'?"

"Well, of those two choices, the latter would be more accurate, as I'm not related to him," she said. "However, I resent you calling him my brother in crime. I…used to call him that because he would protect me. But now," she shrugged, "I don't know, I haven't seen him in a long time.

Javert came close to rolling his eyes, but instead gripped two of the bars to her cell with his hands. "Don't play innocent with me. I know about the whole Benoit ordeal."

She furrowed her brow in confusion. "The whole Benoit ordeal? What do you mean?"

"My God, don't pretend you don't know! I know that Benoit is Panchaud. I figured it out a while ago, but…I still haven't convinced Chabouillet of it yet."

Nicole stood up, walked to Javert, and put her hands over his, which were still gripping the bars. "Believe me, this is the first time I've heard of this," she said emphatically.

He looked at her with disbelief, than pulled his hands off the bars. "I don't know why you perpetually try and convince me of your ignorance. I've long ago ridden myself of any thought like that which may have come into my head." He snorted. "I have to leave now anyway." And without further ado, he turned heel and left. Shortly she heard the hallway door close behind him.

Suddenly she realized that she was still standing in the same position Javert had left her in: next to the bars, with her hand loosely holding the bars. She lowered them, then slowly turned around and began to walk back to her bed, when she heard laughing from behind her. She whipped around, and saw that it came from the woman sitting in the cell across from her.

Nicole had never heard the woman talk: she had been there when Nicole had originally gone to jail, and quite possibly would be there after she was gone: this woman was one of the forgotten people of the Madelonnettes. And now this anonymous person was laughing at her.

Finally the woman spoke: "I don't know why you keep trying, dearie," she said. "That Javert will never set you free because of any love he may have for you. Even if you did get him to fall in love, he still wouldn't unlock that door for you."

"How do you know?" said Nicole defensively. And how did you know that was my plan? she wondered inwardly.

"Because I was here when he first came here. He was a handsome young man then, believe me." She stopped and sighed. "But his personality was essentially the same as it is now. Dearie, you can't change a man who's been the same all his life."

"But I know a little secret about him."

"And you intend to blackmail him with it?" She laughed. "Oh, I'm sure that will work. He'll fall in love with you and set you free for sure after that."

"I'm not trying to get him to free me. Now, I'm simply trying to get him to look at me as a human being, as opposed to just one of the masses of criminals."

"All the same, good luck, dearie. You'll need it."

Ming you, at the moment in this story, it's December. That means that New Years is coming soon. Exciting stuff to come!