Chapter Three

Disclaimer: I do not own Les Misérables.

Valjean watched as Javert left the fiacre and hoped that little Cosette was in there as well. The Thénardiers had shown no sign of being willing to let the child go but Valjean had faith in Javert's unyielding pursuit of what he saw as his duty. Javert made no move to help anyone down from the fiacre but Valjean could see movement from within it so he moved to help her down instead.

A flash of surprise crossed the child's face but she did not seem alarmed, taking his hand and allowing him to help her to the ground.

Valjean's first reaction, honestly, was one of horror. It wasn't her fault, of course it wasn't, and he made sure to not show any outward sign of what he was feeling. It was just that Fantine had worked so hard and suffered so much. She had sold everything she had, from her teeth to her virtue, because she had believed that Cosette was sick and needed money. She was lying dying in the hospital at this very moment because she had denied herself everything to take care of Cosette.

He could very easily believe that this little girl was ill but he could not see that she had received any of her mother's money.

Cosette was extremely dirty and dressed in rags. Those were mere superficial problems and could and would be fixed before she went to see Fantine. That wasn't all, though. Her hands were covered with chilblains, she was too thin, and there was a fearful air about her.

Cosette was an ugly child. That did not bother Valjean, specifically, but he was disturbed by the clear cause of that ugliness which was that she was not happy and had been mistreated. It would kill Fantine to see it. He could only hope that he could mitigate the signs of suffering and that poor woman would be so caught up with joy at seeing Cosette again at all that she would be able to bear it.

He smiled kindly at Cosette and her eyes, formerly dull and uncertain, brightened a little. That was a good sign.

He turned to Javert and drew him off to the side. "How much did you need to spend?"

"I gave those people nothing," Javert said with a great air of satisfaction.

Valjean blinked. "Nothing at all?"

"When one has the law on one's side, extortion is no true threat," Javert explained nobly.

It would be nice to have the law on your side. Despite his position and newfound safety paid for with the blood and sweat of Champmathieu, Valjean had never fallen into the trap of believing that it was.

"I am very pleased with how well you have executed your duty, Javert," Valjean told him, well-aware that the other man would not just accept thanks like a normal person.

Javert nodded before reaching into his pocket and pulling out the money that Valjean had given him to secure Cosette's freedom. "I need to return this to you."

"You can return it to me later," Valjean said, not really wanting to carry that much money with him when he needed to go and take care of Cosette before bringing her to the hospital. He didn't fear robbery, by any means, and certainly not hear in Montreuil but it was inconvenient.

Javert did not lower his arm. "I would prefer to settle this now, Monsieur."

He would not easily be deterred and he had just done Valjean a huge favor, no matter that he believed he owed a debt for recognizing Valjean, and so Valjean accepted the proffered money. "Thank you, Javert."

As he had predicted, Javert merely nodded curtly and did not verbally acknowledge the words. He was still waiting.

"You may return to your post," Valjean told him.

Javert saluted and walked off. He hadn't glanced at Cosette once.

She was looking at him, anyway. "Are we really going to see my mother?" she asked, quietly. Her voice was hoarse and easily explainable to Fantine as the remnant of an illness but Valjean decided that she should drink some water anyway. She looked like she rather doubted that the answer was yes.

He nodded at her and her expression didn't change so he knelt down beside her. "We are, Cosette. We just need to clean you up first and get you something different to wear."

"Why?" Cosette asked innocently, looking down at herself.

Valjean wasn't quite sure what to say but he had to give her something. "The hospital has rules about visiting."

Cosette nodded, accepting that.

"Come with me," Valjean told her. "I will see to it that you are cleaned and properly clothed. Are you hungry? I can get you food, too."

Slowly, Cosette nodded.

Valjean took her through town. He was not happy that whispers and stares followed them everywhere but he knew what a strange sight it was, a ragged little child and their dignified mayor. He was sure that some people made the connection between the girl and Fantine's daughter, though he had not shared his intentions, and soon everyone would know. It would save him having to explain, at least, even if he doubted that many would understand even once they had all the facts.

Cosette stayed very close to him and her eyes darted everywhere apprehensively. Every now and then, when her anxiety reached a certain point, she glanced up at him and brushed against him before turning her attention back to the world around them.

She was looking at everything new she saw with at least some degree of fear. She had not shown any fear of Javert but she had been in his presence for more than a day and the only reason anyone ever had to fear Javert was if they knew that they had broken a law and not even Javert would imprison a child. It was distressing to see her so afraid of everything and yet…

She had not cast a fearful glance his way, not once. She was even drawing comfort in his presence when faced with her fear of everything else. He had only just met this child but he was…glad, he supposed, for her trust.

It was a strange feeling. He tried to remember if he had ever been trusted so implicitly before. He certainly hadn't been trusted in prison or his first few days as an honest parolee and if he had been trusted in his youth then it was one of those things that had faded away far past the point where he could retrieve it. There had been the gendarme who had not needed to see his papers but that had been a way of thanking him for the resuce of his children. It had taken him years before he had won the trust of the town and even that did not count because they trusted in their honorable mayor. He had not even been trusted to denounce himself correctly!

Perhaps the bishop had trusted him but since he looked at Valjean the exact same way before and after being dragged before him again for stealing the silver, he rather thought that that was more faith than trust.

And now this little girl, this child who he doubted had even been told he was the mayor or anything about him at all, trusted him to keep her safe from whatever it was that she was fearing. He didn't understand, couldn't imagine being so unsuspicious. Children were weak and vulnerable things, however, so perhaps they could not afford to be suspicious even when they were the easiest to take advantage of.

Cosette's time of being taken advantage of was over, he told himself. She was here with her mother and he would make sure that she was no longer a victim.

The owner of the store they went into was undeniably curious but, to his credit, held his tongue and merely helped Valjean find something appropriate for little Cosette to wear. He actually bought three outfits because he knew that Cosette had nothing else and who knew when she would have another opportunity to receive clothes? He bought her gloves to keep her hands warm and also to try and hide the chilblains from her mother. Hopefully she would not find it odd and demand to know what was being hidden from her.

Then Valjean took Cosette to his house and fed her lunch. She was fascinated by everything that she saw though his rooms were hardly well-furnished. Of course, everyone else in town had been equally fascinated at some point in time or another so perhaps that was not so surprising. She ate everything on her plate with no complaints. It was upsetting how she ate so quickly, however, almost as if she were afraid that if she did not finish her meal fast enough then someone would come and take it away from her. She was not afraid of him but the memory of being hungry remained within her.

He had seen that kind of behavior before.

After she was finished, he took her to the hospital where Sister Simplice bathed her and then dressed her in the most cheerful of the three outfits. One of the sets of clothing that Valjean had purchased was mourning colors. He hoped they would not be necessary for as long as Cosette would fit into them and he would not let Fantine see but it would not do to ignore reality in favor of what he wanted to happen.

Saving Cosette and then sending her to Fantine was a very good thing, certainly, but it would not atone for his failure to see Fantine's suffering (she who had once been one of his precious workers!) the way that saving Fantine would.

Cosette still did not look beautiful once she had been cleaned up, dressed in her new clothes, and had her hair nicely combed. It was easier to look at her without feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt. Looking at it objectively, Cosette's plight had not been his fault. Perhaps if Fantine had not been fired or he had not set up such strict moral requirement for his workers then the child might have been sent for earlier but what the Thénardiers had done was their own responsibility.

No, it was Fantine that he had destroyed and not Cosette and if he was feeling this guilty about the state of that child then he couldn't even begin to imagine how Fantine would feel since it was her unfortunate decision that had started all of this.

Valjean checked the clock right before he went in to see Fantine and found that it was only a few minutes before his usual time and yet Fantine was already waiting for him. He wasn't sure if she was well enough to still be able to keep track of time or if she was just always waiting for him and he was not brave enough to ask.

"I'm feeling much better now," Fantine said, heart-breaking as ever in her desperate determination to be good so that she would be allowed to see Cosette. "May I please see my daughter? I promise I won't get too excited."

As if she could help it when she was face-to-face with her daughter again. Valjean felt himself getting cautiously excited and not only was he barely even involved but anticipation was not a feeling he was well-familiar with.

Valjean nodded and, despite the seriousness of the situation, could not help but smile after watching the way Fantine positively glowed at the news.

"Cosette? Cosette, come to me!" she immediately called out.

Valjean turned and saw her standing uncertainly by the door. He gently took her gloved hand in his and led her to Fantine's bedside. She did not protest or pull her hand away which was another miracle.

Fantine stared at Cosette in some confusion. Valjean did not know what the child had looked like when the two had last been together but no matter how poor Fantine was, Cosette would have been much better cared for and more loved. He had also come to realize that Fantine, having not seen Cosette for so many of those crucial childhood years, continued to think of her child as the baby that she once was as opposed to the young girl that she must have intellectually known she now was.

"Mama?" Cosette asked, looking curiously down at the figure on the bed.

Fantine's expression cleared as she recognized her daughter and, to Valjean's relief, she smiled up at her and struggled to sit up a little taller. "Yes, Cosette!"

Cosette drew back automatically at the sight of her mother's too missing teeth but Valjean put an encouraging hand on her shoulder and she stepped forward again.

"I'm am so sorry that I left you for so long," Fantine said, tearing up but still smiling. "You have to believe that I never meant for our separation to be so long. Things just…did not work out."

Cosette nodded seriously. "You love me." It was almost a question but not quite.

"More than anything," Fantine promised her daughter.

Were those tears in Cosette's eyes?

Valjean felt like an intruder suddenly and so, with one last glance to make sure that Cosette would be fine in here on her own, he slipped into the hallway.

Javert had had difficulty finding time to seek out Bamatabois given his recent absences but it was important and so he made it a priority. No one had been able or willing to discuss what disturbance had almost upset the Valjean trial. Maybe it didn't matter since justice had still been served but this was a matter very dear to him, due to his knowing Valjean personally and his confusing of Madeleine with that wretched convict, so he felt almost compelled to find the answer. Bamatabois had actually been there and so he was the best person to ask because even if he did not wish to answer initially, Javert had plenty of time to try and convince him to change his mind.

Once Javert had the time, he also had to actually locate Bamatabois. Sheer chance led to him spying Bamatabois just entering the part of town where the prostitutes resided.

Javert was not approaching loudly but Bamatabois seemed to have a sense for these things and spun around, immediately spotting Javert. He smiled and went up to him.

"Javert! Good, as always, to see you keeping the streets safe," Bamatabois greeted him. "This is not what it looks like. Unless you think what it looks like is that I'm taking a short-cut home in which case it is exactly what it looks like. How very discerning of you."

Javert said nothing.

Bamatabois laughed. "Oh, you're quite right. It's obvious that that's what's going on. And I quite agree with you that it's dangerous to walk around here and I do risk exposing myself to all sorts of unpleasant sights but it is I risk I choose to take to save me some fifteen minutes on my walk."

"I need to talk to you about Arras," Javert informed him, not caring to comment on anything the man had previously said. It was obvious that either Bamatabois was telling the truth and was embarrassed by the very idea that someone might think a fine upstanding citizen like him was frequenting prostitutes or he was, in fact, frequenting prostitutes and was embarrassed by the very same thing. Javert was not paid to speculate even though he could not help but believe that one was significantly more likely than the other.

Bamatabois groaned. "Arras, Arras, will no one stop asking about Arras? It was not nearly as exciting as everyone made it out to be."

"Be that as it may, as a witness to the case I am rather invested in knowing what sort of complications almost derailed the course of justice," Javert said firmly.

Bamatabois seemed to hesitate before shrugging. "Ah, well, I'm sure you'd find out sooner or later anywhere. Monsieur le maire was in Arras as well and-"

"Monsieur Madeleine?" Javert asked, startled. "He did not say."

"Yes, well, that's hardly surprising considering what happened," Bamatabois reasoned. "Do let me finish, will you?"

Javert gestured for him to continue.

"He claimed to be Valjean," Bamatabois said simply.

Javert stared uncomprehending at a moment before the full weight of those words came crashing down on him. "He what? Why was I not made aware of this?"

Bamatabois shrugged. "It just didn't seem important."

Those words didn't make sense either and Javert doubted that any amount of time to process them would ever make them make sense. "Didn't seem important? How is it not important? Our mayor a convict…we'll be the laughingstock of Paris! Oh, what a lawless society we find ourselves in! This is appalling!"

Bamatabois blinked. "You're really going to hold up Montreuil, the town with the lowest crime rate in all of France, as the end result of a lawless society? And, furthermore, you're going to do so and expect people to see a lawless society as a bad thing?"

"The perils of a lawless society should be self-evident," Javert ground out. "But why am I wasting time, I have to go and-"

"You have to do nothing," Bamatabois interrupted.

"Ah, right, a lawless society is a good thing," Javert said sarcastically. "Forgive me, I am old and behind the times."

"Monsieur le maire is not a convict," Bamatabois told him.

"No, of course not, as a public figure the king himself holds in regard he's probably managed to get himself a pardon by now," Javert said, nodding even as he felt his brain shutting down.

"He's not Valjean," Bamatabois tried again.

"It's only sensible to change your name under these circumstances," Javert agreed.

"Javert!" Bamatabois cried out.

Javert paused in his contemplation of just how upside down the world had become for a moment. "What?"

"Jean Champmathieu Valjean was convicted and returned to jail," Bamatabois said pointedly. "This happened because our wonderful and definitely not a convict mayor was not Valjean."

"Of course not," Javert deadpanned. "Innocent people regularly confess to being notorious criminals bound for life in the galleys."

Bamatabois crossed his arms across his chest in a pale imitation of Javert's stance. "You know him better than I do, Inspector. Would Monsieur Madeleine confess to something he did not do to spare another, no matter how unworthy?"

The worst part was that he would, too.

And if the law said that Champmathieu was Valjean then that really was the end of it.

But he still had no idea what Madeleine was possibly thinking confessing such a thing (and maybe, possibly, not following through with it but he couldn't really believe that) and so there was only one thing to do and it was not a thing he was looking forward to.

He was going to have to have a conversation with his superior about his insane need to change a world that could never be changed.

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