Sorry about the delay. I've been working with this bit for awhile, trying to mesh out the details. Hopefully the fact that it's a long chapter makes up for it!

Thanks to L'Ael-Inire and PhantomInspector for their reviews!

Javert took a deep breath. A quick overview of the scene determined that the shot had come from the escaped rebel, who himself was now on his knees with the taller of the two young officers bearing down on him. The fateful weapon was a few feet from them with the hammer pulled back, ready to strike. The other officer was shouting at the top of his lungs words Javert could not fully hear, and thus ignored. No, what was far more interesting was the way the pinned man now stared at his victim- a mixture of fear and shock covering his begrimed face.

Once he had been pushed off his feet, his knees ground in the dust, his gaze locked on the dead man before him. He seemed to not fully understand what had transpired. Rather, he looked at the body as a child does a strange object in the road, with an air of curiosity and awe, and with no sense of recognition.

A similar expression was painted of the faces of the curious town-folk who, having been awakened by the shot, had now come to gather around the scene of the crime- as people so often do when confronted with an aberration in their quiet towns. However, unlike the murderer's, their eyes also held that flickering of horror one has when he recognizes a familiar face turned ashen from death's cold hand. A few of the women in the crowd, upon seeing the body, crossed themselves and began mouthing little prayers. A gaggle of small children, the boy from earlier among them, had freed themselves from the arms of their mothers and now stood tangled in their fathers' robes. They too saw the body, but their large, innocent eyes failed to take in the seriousness of the situation. To them, as with some great philosophers, the gendarme was merely fast asleep. Such is the wisdom of children.

Meanwhile, understanding had begun to creep upon the rebel as he knelt there. He looked around, his neck straining to see the extent of the crowd about him. His eyes widened with horror upon seeing that young children were witnesses to this act. He tried to rise, only to be pressed into the earth once again by the young officer. Realizing any attempt to stand would be futile, he gazed frantically at the villagers as if to say "this corpse is not mine, I had no part in this."

From where he was standing, Javert could read perfectly the man's silent plea of innocence. However, his mind was not as occupied with the man's guilt as with the impression the scene had made on himself. The man's bewildered expression reminded our inspector of another man for whom the unexpected and horrific had occurred- except rather than granting death, this man's topsy-turvy state had been caused through granting life. The scene from the bridge flashed across his thoughts. How, in just such a moment as this man was experiencing now, he had resolved to take his own life—or rather to let the Seine take it for him. That he did not have the strength of will to perform such a task himself roughly brushed the back of his mind, but such a thought was doomed to stay there, far from coherency. Instead, his attention moved to the lifeless body of the elderly officer. Already his skin was beginning to take on a pale waxen color and his joints were freezing into their last positions. The man's blue eyes were now pale lifeless orbs, staring fixedly at the sky. For a moment- just a moment—the inspector imagined Valjean as the man kneeling in the road and himself as the lifeless body. Would the same horrified expressions have prevailed when the police found his corpse? Or would there have been a sigh of relief, even of gratitude, that such a man had finally met his end?

These thoughts would continue to plague Javert for years. For now, though, he pushed them violently aside and began to work out what the best thing to do with the rebel was. The man had to die, that was certain. He had been condemned to death before as an agitator and now doubly so as a killer. Either way, he was doomed.

Yet, as he looked at the man bent over in the road, a feeling he had never felt before in all his years with the police worked its way into his soul—that of pity. Granted, the feeling was not a strong one. Had the capacity for pity in a small mouse been the size of an oak tree, the pity in Javert's soul would have been an acorn hanging off its topmost bough. Yet still, the seed was there, and its presence frightened the man to no end. Not only was the feeling a relatively foreign one, the situation was totally inappropriate for its genesis. The man was a murderer and an enemy of the state! To pity him was just as abominable as setting him free—that is to the eyes of our former inspector. To many others, pity and action were two entirely separate beings, much to the chagrin of many a poor beggar and maimed soul. But to this man of iron, to think it was to do it and the action he was thinking of was simply intolerable.

Luckily, the decision was not his to make. He was no more than a criminal to their eyes—only slightly better than the man himself. His lip curled up in a small sneer at the idea. Had anyone been by to see it, they would have said that he resembled a caged fiend—with the way his lip curled and how he was staring out the window with an intent, almost vengeful gaze. They would not have noticed the relaxation in his shoulders, nor that his hands were limp at his sides. He was unable to do anything, and, in this one situation, he was glad of it. His reasoning, he told himself, was compromised and in such a state he would have discharged himself from duty if someone had not done it for him. Everything was as it should be.

By this time, it was determined that the man would not be putting up any more resistance and had been hauled roughly to his feet. Hanging limply between the two men, the rebel was dragged inside, handcuffed (for the officers had been in such a haste that they had forgotten to get any), and placed in a chair in Lebete's office. Seeming not to realize that Javert was present (he had at this point moved away from the window and back to the chair he had previously been inhabiting), they began questioning the man—a process that both fascinated and appalled our inspector. It was fascinating because he had nearly forgotten how much of a thrill it was to interrogate a suspect. His years with the police had somewhat hardened him to these aspects, enough that they no longer seemed quite as interesting as when he had first started. Now, as he watched the prisoner talk, or refuse to talk as the case may be, he realized just how fascinating such a process was. The need to make the prisoner both comfortable enough to talk and nervous enough to not hold back information, the control it took to keep emotion from entering into the equation especially when dealing with a murderer like this man, and the ever present issue of asking the right questions in the right format. There was a formula, of course, but such things were never quite right, especially when dealing with the lower classes. One could not phrase things as "what was your motive" but rather as "why did you do it" if he wished to be understood. Add to this the state of frenzy or despair that the prisoner doubtlessly was in at this point, and it can be understood why the process was so interesting.

It was appalling because neither of the two young officers quite knew how to go about it.

They were both fairly new to their jobs-Javert had been able to tell that as soon as he saw them. He hadn't realized quite how new they were—or rather what an effect their friend's murder had had on them. They were employing the basic methods, but their blood was so riled up at having seen this man shoot one of their comrades that a large portion of the interrogation was spent merely threatening the man with everything from jail time to disemboulment. Naturally, this was not the way to get information out of him. The man simply sunk down further in his chair, gazing up at the two policemen with wide, fearful eyes and refusing to open his mouth for even so much as a second.

Finally, Javert had had enough. Clearing his throat, he looked from one officer to the other and said: "Excuse me, gentlemen, but might I try?"

At the sound of Javert's voice, the two officers looked up in alarm. As was mentioned before, they were not aware of his presence. "Might I try?" he proposed again, somewhat slower. Realizing that they were getting nowhere, and that the man before them had some experience in such matters, the two young officers graciously gave the floor to the inspector.

"Good afternoon, Monsieur…?"

"Crevier," the man replied, somewhat surprised at this change of tone.

"Right. Crevier. Now, could you possibly tell me what caused you to shoot one of our officers?"

"I didn't mean to…!"

"Of course not, of course not, my apologies. Let me rephrase that: what were you doing with a pistol concealed under your coat?"

"I was trying to escape."

"From what?"

"The police, monsieur. They said I was a rebel."

"And are you not?"

"No, sir."

"I'm afraid I don't quite comprehend," he said, crossing one leg over the other. "You mean to tell me that you are not a rebel, but that you were arrested for being one. That the police made a mistake."

"Yes, sir."

"I see…" A pause followed, during which the cuffed man found himself shifting uncomfortably in his seat like a schoolboy. "How?"

"How what, sir?" he said, pausing in mid shift.

"How did the police make this mistake? Surely you must know." He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned in a little bit closer. "Some sort of mistaken impression, I gather. What was it… mistaking a radish for a revolver, perhaps?"

The man turned his face away from Javert. "You're mocking me…" he muttered under his breath.

The inspector tilted his head to one side, a crooked half-smile on his lips. "How can you tell?"

"They always mock me…" He growled, gesturing with his head to the crowd of people slowly making their way back to their houses for what little remained of the night.

"I may not be," Javert replied after a brief pause. The bound man's hands clenched and unclenched, unsure how to react to this. "I may be asking a serious question."

Crevier looked up at him, his blue eyes searching, then back at his shoes. "Serious questions don't involve radishes."

At this, Javert got up and stood over him, his nose just inches from the other man's ear. "And serious answers don't involve lies. Now tell me the truth, what was it that got you arrested?"

"Monsieur, we already…" one of the officers began to say, only to be cut off by a brisk wave of Javert's hand. The inspector leaned in a bit closer- his dark eyes shimmering in the candlelight with an almost maniacal gleam. His right hand moved to the place where he usually kept his pistol, only to find it missing. However, the general movement (and the fact that Crevier was unaware of the gun's absence) was enough for the prisoner to understand where the inspector's mind was going and to believe him capable of carrying out such devastating action.

Javert gave a menacing grin. "Well, monsieur?"

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