"Are you not hungry, Cosette?"

She sighed, poking her fork at her food and shaking her head just a little. It was not at all that Toussaint's cooking was a failure. Indeed, Toussaint was a very fine cook, and tonight's meal of roast lamb and potatoes, good cheese, and olives ought to have made Cosette's stomach grumble and her mouth water. Instead, she found herself staring blankly at her plate and rather rudely ignoring her poor father. She finally flicked her eyes up at gazed at him across the table through the dim glow of the candlelight. He drummed his fingers on the lace tablecloth, giving her a concerned and curious look, and he asked her,

"You are thinking of Marius?"

Cosette sank her teeth into her lip and shrugged. She was, partly, thinking of Marius. She had been thinking quite a lot about Marius all day. He had cropped up in her thoughts, again and again. But part of what she'd been thinking was how very cross she was with Marius for going to the barricade at all. Everyone who had fought there had died. Their cause had been futile, it seemed. What had they all died for? Paris had completely ignored everything Marius and his friends had clamoured for in the days and weeks before their rebellion, and now they were all dead and things were as they'd been before. Cosette sighed and admitted to her father,

"I wonder, a little, if I was a fool to love him, Papa."

Her father gave her a sad but warm sort of smile, his eyes crinkling as he did. He reached up to stroke at his pale beard and said softly, "I think, my darling, that there is a bit of a fool inside every single person who feels love. And, yet, is love not the most precious and important thing to feel?"

Cosette nodded. She forced a tiny little smile, knowing it did not reach her eyes, and forced herself to take a bite of potato and then a bit of lamb. As she chewed a green olive, she stared through the candlelight and listened as her father mused,

"The city has calmed substantially, it seems."

"Has it?" Cosette shrugged. She and her father hardly went anywhere, so she would really have no way of knowing. She frowned, chewing around the pit of another olive before setting the pit down and asking, "Did Inspector Javert tell you that? He's here injured; I didn't think -"

"No." Cosette's father shook his head, giving her an odd look. He licked his bottom lip carefully and then said, "I ran an errand around midday… to the cobbler. My best boots were badly damaged, you see, when I went… you know, on that fateful night. The boots were damaged beyond repair. But they were the best boots for the job that night, so I wore them. In any case. I thought I ought to procure new ones. Things seem almost back to normal at this point."

"Back to normal," Cosette repeated. She thrust the tines of her fork a bit furiously into a potato and felt her eyes sting. She brought the potato to her mouth, chewed and swallowed it without any feminine grace whatsoever, and then set down her fork and drank entirely too much wine in three large sips. She scowled across the table at her father, who looked aghast at her little outburst, and she huffed, "Marius and all of his friends are dead. For what? They have all died for ideas that they believed in very, very much, and they shall never come back, and now Paris and all of France are back to normal."

A look of sorrowful realisation came over her father's face. He set down his own fork and then slowly sipped from his wine glass. He seemed contemplative for a moment, and then he considered,

"Marius' grandfather responded to you not an hour before we came to dinner, did he not?"

Cosette pursed her lips. "He did."

Her father's thick eyebrows, nearly white, went up. "And? You had written to M. Gillenormand to say that you refused to accept Marius' inheritance for yourself as you were not his widow, and that you wished for it to be bequeathed to the poor people of the Latin Quarter. M. Gillenormand responded to you. What did he say?"

Cosette hesitated for just a moment before answering, because suddenly her eyes watered and her throat developed a thick knot. "Marius' grandfather said, Papa, that the money would be donated as I had asked. And it does my heart glad to think of it, to think of Marius knowing what a hundred thousand francs would do for the people of this city, to buy them food and clothing in his name."

"Yes." Her father gave her a warm look then. He raised up his glass of wine, and the crystal sparkled just a bit in the gleam of the candlelight. Then he said, very meaningfully indeed, "To the memory of Marius Pontmercy, and the blessings that will come unto those who benefit from the gift of his inheritance."

Cosette wanted to cry hard then, at the way her father was reassuring her that Marius had not died in vain. Somehow, her Papa had always been so very reassuring. He was gifted with such things, Cosette thought. But she managed to dam back her tears and to straighten her back, and to hold up her glass of wine to meet her father's toast and say quietly in response to him,

"To the blessing of the memory of Marius Pontmercy upon the people of Paris. Amen."

They both drank slowly then, and Cosette realised most of her wine was gone. She set down her glass, feeling very grateful then for the way her darling Papa had put her grieving mind at ease. So many times he'd done this, she thought to herself. So often, in the years that he'd held her close in his protection, Cosette had distinct memories of her Papa saying precisely the right things at precisely the right moments. She managed now to eat a few more bites of lamb and potato and to nibble two more olives before she noted quietly,

"Inspector Javert has not joined us for dinner."

"No. He is resting." Her father sounded cautious, as though he was waiting to see what Cosette's response would be, and when she flicked her eyes up to him, he tipped his head a little and seemed to study her for a moment. He appeared thoughtful before he set down his own cutlery and said in a quiet murmur,

"It is very important to me that you understand, Cosette, that I have long forgiven the Inspector any animosity that dwelled between the two of us for years in the past. We were neither of us perfect. I was only trying to survive, and he was only trying to do his duty. I think, perhaps, we both failed to see the honour in one another for too long as a result of our antagonism."

Cosette said nothing for a moment. Her hands clenched tightly together on top of the lace tablecloth. That was rude of her, she thought distantly. Bad manners. But she couldn't help herself just now. She gnawed at her own delicate lip and felt her face flush oddly hot. Could her father see the ruddiness that took her over when she thought about Inspector Javert, about the way she remembered having touched her lips to his this morning?

She felt like a harlot, like a jezebel. She had prayed after leaving Javert's room. She'd prayed an entire Rosary for herself, begging for forgiveness or guidance. This old man, this policeman, this guest in their home, this old antagonist of her father's, was driving her mad with confusing want when she ought to be sick with grief over Marius and thinking of absolutely nothing else.

"Cosette?"

She snapped to attention and stared at her father, realising her breath had devolved into desperate and ragged gasps between clenched teeth as her eyes burned. Her father gave her an odd sort of look, and then a different expression Cosette could not properly read came over his face. He seemed… uncomfortable? But then… resigned, almost, as though he were making peace with some unseen information being whispered in his ear. He shifted his weight in his chair and suddenly said in a strained, quiet voice,

"When I last stepped in to check on his status before coming to dinner, Cosette, Inspector Javert was experiencing dramatically increased pain in his face from the glassing incident last night. His stitches are healing up, you see, and they are healing well, which is good. But that's painful. And the area is quite swollen and badly bruised. I glanced at it, and, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the bottle had managed to splinter a bit of the bone around his eye. He is in quite a lot of pain and his recovery will take some time. He will recover, but he needs to rest in peace."

"Oh." Cosette felt a queasy worry take her over. She glanced around the dining room and asked a bit fretfully, "Will he not become hungry, surely?"

Her father drummed his fingers on the lace tablecloth and sighed. "He took a bit of laudanum for the pain. You should know, Cosette, that a man like Inspector Javert is… well, for him to turn to laudanum means the pain is significant indeed. He is as strong as a wolf, Inspector Javert. But you know, laudanum does affect a man and make him drowsy and weak. I was going to have Toussaint take him some of the lamb and potato with some wine on a tray and help him eat it, but perhaps you could… perhaps you would be willing…"

"Of course." Cosette was breathless, her head bobbing vigorously. She practically flew out of her seat then, almost sending plates and cutlery flying as her chair scraped backward. She dipped into a reverential little curtsey to her father. "I shall have Toussaint make up a tray of food for him at once."

Her father stared at her with weary but warm eyes and nodded. "What a kind heart you have, Cosette. My wonderful daughter. Goodnight."

Cosette turned up her lips. "Goodnight, Papa."

Cosette stood outside Javert's door and wondered if she ought to knock. After all, people could be awake after having taken laudanum; it didn't automatically render one unconscious. He might be up and using the chamber pot. What if she just barged in on such a thing as that? She flushed hot at the notion of embarrassing him so. But she also didn't want to startle him if he was getting much-needed sleep. So she chose to reach under the glossy polished rosewood tray in her hands, topped with steaming food, to slowly turn the doorknob. She pushed the door open and edged her way inside carefully, and then moved until her back shut the door and she heard it click behind her.

Cosette eyed Javert's sleeping form in the blue toile bed as she moved to slide the brass candle holder, adorned with Greek motifs, along the surface of his bedside table to make room. She carefully set down the tray of food and then contemplated whether she ought to pull up a chair beside the bed. But then she decided that she'd quite liked the way she'd sat beside him earlier today, so she dared to pull herself up onto the edge of his mattress, and as she gazed down at him, wincing a bit as she took in the chiseled and handsome side of his face and the terribly wounded side, she watched him stir.

The shift on the mattress from her sitting had registered in his mind, even through the laudanum, it seemed. She flinched a bit as his fingers grappled blindly in sleep, brushing over her black skirts, and her breath picked up speed along with her heart. She remembered kissing him earlier, remembered hearing him describe serious kisses and thinking to herself that she had never wanted anything more in her entire life.

"Inspector Javert," Cosette said, softly and carefully, and he just twisted a tiny bit where he lay, as though she were annoying his slumber a little. His thick greying brows furrowed. Cosette gulped. Very much on instinct, she leaned down and put her lips beside his ear, and something told her to kiss his good cheek, his uninjured cheek, before she whispered, "Inspector Javert, it's me. It's Cosette. I've got food for you. Will you wake for me?"

There was a long emptiness then in which she got no response at all, and then suddenly he shocked her by reaching up slowly and touching his fingertips to the back of her neck whilst she still had her lips beside his ear. Cosette gasped, and a sudden shock hit her like a bolt of lightning. She could have screamed, suddenly, having his hand on her like that. Well, no. It wasn't his entire hand. It was just his fingertips, his rough and calloused fingertips drifting around the exposed back of her neck, and suddenly she could not catch her breath. She felt another hand then, touching carefully at her waist, and then she was on fire. She'd never been on fire before, but now she was. She was ablaze. That was the only way to describe it. Someone had put kindling on her and lit her like a fire to warm someone in winter, and she was aflame. Her breath was rickety and shallow and warm against the skin of his cheek. Still she did not move from where she had bent down to whisper in his ear. His hands kept stroking her, slowly, carefully, at the back of her neck and at her waist, until finally he murmured hoarsely,

"Cosette."

She jolted a bit at that. Mademoiselle, he'd called her up to this point. Had he so casually used her given name like this? She did not think so. Did she mind? She did not think so. She pulled back just enough to stare down at him, and he was as bleary-eyed as a man who had consumed three bottles of wine on his own. Was it only the laudanum making him behave this way, Cosette wondered? Would he have touched her like that or said her name the way he'd done if he hadn't taken opium to dull his pain? She swallowed hard and sat up straight, and she cleared her throat as she said yet again,

"I have brought you dinner, Monsieur l'Inspecteur. My Papa thought you must be hungry. He was going to send Toussaint to feed you, but I offered to do it. Here, let us sit you up a bit so you can eat before you sleep some more."

Javert just stared for a long moment at her. She knew why. She had asked to kiss him this morning. She had just bent down and murmured into his ear. Now she was panicking. What good was there in pretending? But she cleared her throat stiffly and helped Javert move on limbs weakened a bit from the opium as he propped himself up against his pillows and leaned back against the headboard. She made a move for the tray she'd brought and then reached for the fork, but Javert gently, took the fork from her fingers and said quietly,

"I did not take so much laudanum as that. I can… feed myself, I assure you."

Cosette watched as he speared a bite of meat and potato and brought it carefully to his mouth. She'd already cut it up into small pieces in the kitchen for him to ease this process, but it still seemed difficult, because the swelling on his left side from having been glassed seemed to make it awkward for him to open his mouth fully and to chew. He winced a little bit then gave Cosette an approving little smile and assured her,

"It's good. Thank you."

She shrugged and reminded him self-consciously, "I had nothing to do with cooking it, I assure you."

Javert quietly took a few more bites of his food and then made a quiet nose of discomfort, setting his fork down on his plate and reaching up with trembling fingers to touch lightly at his face. Cosette lurched forward at once, nearly sending his glass of wine flying. Was he hurt? Had he made his face worse by eating. She studied his stitches to ensure they hadn't broken open. They were not festering, it seemed, but they were swollen at shiny and looked quite painful. His whole eye socked seemed like it was throbbing in agony. All down around his jaw, purple bruising had flamed up. Javert pulled back as Cosette shamelessly examined him, and then he guaranteed her,

"It'll all heal up just fine, Mademoiselle. Nothing but a bottle to the face from a pathetic pimp that got away from me. He'll have his due."

"A pimp," Cosette repeated, unfamiliar with the word. She met Javert's gaze, and a very strange expression crossed his eyes. He gulped heavily and then forced another bite of lamb and potato roughly into his mouth, almost appearing as though he'd said something to her he wished he had not. Cosette scowled. What was he regretting having said? She pinched her lips and demanded, almost indignantly,

"What is a pimp, Inspector?"

Javert sighed and swigged from his glass of wine. He seemed bleary all of a sudden, like the laundanum was hitting him again. He set down his wine on the tray on his lap and then glared almost cruelly at Cosette for saying through his teeth,

"If I begin to educate you on matters such as these, Cosette, I think your father and I will begin to have very serious problems with one another again."

Her mouth fell open in shock. She shrugged and then finally whispered to him, "I won't tell Papa anything."

Javert scoffed and licked his bottom lip, tipping his head. "Ah. Yes. You and I of all people, keeping these sorts of secrets from Jean Valjean. It is an odd sort of poetry, isn't it?"

Cosette shook her head, for she still did not understand. Javert drank the rest of his wine in two big gulps and then tried to move the rosewood tray, but the laudanum had rendered his muscles weak, so Cosette hurried to take it off of him and put it back on the bedside table beside the candlestick. She adjusted herself back on the toile bedding, sitting to face him, and she smoothed her black skirts as she gave him an expectant look as she whispered again,

"What is a pimp, Inspector Javert?"

He pulled himself up, struggling with the effort a little, and sniffed lightly before saying in a low voice, "A pimp is the man who controls and manages whores."

Cosette clapped her hand to her mouth at once. She felt her eyes go wide. Whores. She'd heard that word before, at Mass, from priests. She'd heard in from nuns. She hadn't known the details before of what exactly whores did with men, not until Toussaint had told her about manhoods moving about and finding completion, but all of it was beginning to make more sense now. Whores sold their bodies. Whores gave themselves to men outside of marriage. Sinners and snakes, jezebels and vipers, she'd heard them called. Whores were awful women. And if whores were awful women, then surely the pimps, the men who controlled them and managed them, who set them up with the men who bought their services, were just as bad or worse. To conduct such business as a trade… that, too, must be a most egregious sin.

"That is who attacked you?" Cosette felt anger boil up inside of her for some strange reason, and she watched Javert's face shift into an unreadable expression. "You were struck right on your face with a glass bottle by a man who deals in that wretched trade of the flesh?"

"I was not seeking to upset you," Javert whispered hoarsely then, and he shocked her by reaching out to touch her elbow. Cosette realised she'd been trembling a little, and she was not certain exactly why that was. She took a deep breath and looked down to where his fingers brushed against her sleeve. He started to pull his hand back, but Cosette reached down and grasped his fingers, setting his hand down on her lap and covering it with her own. She met his eyes then, and his lips parted as his eyelids drooped a little. He was drowsy, she could tell, from the laudanum, but he was fighting through it right now. She smirked just a bit at that and murmured,

"I am disturbing your rest. I ought to let you sleep. I shall go, if you've finished eating."

Javert's hand flinched beneath hers. "I wish that you would stay for just… a little while longer."

"Oh." Cosette nodded quickly. "Yes. Of course."

She slid closer to him on the bed then, quite on instinct, and something compelled her to bring her left hand up to his face and pull away the few long stray strands of his hair that had fallen in front of his eyes. She tucked them behind his ear, almost affectionately, unsure of what had drawn her to touch him in such a way. When she did, he stared at her for a moment, and his eyes blazed in a way that was almost alarming. It ought to have frightened her, she thought, what she saw in his eyes then. She saw obvious hunger, and heat, but all that happened was that a sudden cascade of sensations was unleashed within her own body that she'd never experienced before.

Beneath her gown, pressing against the cotton and whalebone of her chemise and corset, her nipples had abruptly gone firm and were almost painful. Her breasts felt full all of a sudden, and she had the sudden urge to be caressed on her chest, to be touched. All along her arms, beneath the material of her black gown, her skin prickled, alert and aware. Even her scalp had come alive under her braids. The worst bit, though, was between Cosette's legs. Warm, throbbing heat and a sudden flush had taken over there, along with a persistent sensation of craving that she had never once felt.

She shifted where she sat and gasped aloud a little, shocked by it all and knowing her face must have gone quite red in the dim glow of the candlelight. She watched Javert carefully lick his bottom lip, and as he softly cleared his throat, his gaze flicked away from her as though he were ashamed of something. His hips moved oddly beneath the blue toile blankets, like he were trying to reposition himself and could not get comfortable. Cosette felt just a bit frantic then. All she had done was tuck his blasted hair behind his ear! Well, that and kiss him this morning. Still. She felt like a stupid little fool for him. But then, out of nowhere, she heard him mutter,

"Do you know, your voice is rather like a songbird's when you speak."

Cosette just gaped at him then. Her eyes boiled over all of a sudden, and she was not quite certain why. She just shrugged. She wanted to tell him that she thought he was irredeemably handsome, with his huge broad shoulders and his towering height, with his square face and his sharp facial features, his imposing expression and his hair tied back the way he wore it. She studied him for a moment and finally blurted out,

"I want to kiss you again, but I do not want to hurt your face."

He looked like he was stifling an amused sort of smile, and he finally he suggested, "How about… I kiss you, and that way, I can be certain not to hurt the little cut on my cheek?"

Cosette felt a bit breathless as she grinned and nodded her permission. Javert adjusted his posture then, and it was obvious he was dizzy from the sedation from the laudanum as he swooned leaning forward. He caught himself, taking a moment to shut his eyes and chomp his lip before continuing. Then he reached up and cupped Cosette's jaw in his rough palm, and she gasped. His hand was so large, she thought. His skin was a bit chapped, but for some reason she didn't mind the feel one bit against her soft skin. He just held her face for a moment, and then he bent down.

Cosette was surprised when the first contact he made with her was a touch of his lips to her forehead, just as she had done with him earlier this morning after she'd helped him to bed from the dining room. But then she flicked her eyes up and met his, and he huffed a breath and growled just a little, and suddenly his mouth had crashed down onto hers in a way that made her yelp softly.

She was drowning.

She wasn't sure exactly what was happening, but she knew she was drowning.

One of Javert's large hands was bracing her firmly by the small of her back, which was very well done, or else she would have collapsed from the utter shock of what was happening to her. His other hand was caressing her face, his fingers gliding from her neck up her jaw and then sliding over her braided blonde hair. As for Cosette's thin little fingers, all they could do was grasp desperately at the nightshirt Javert wore.

His mouth started out easily enough with kisses that felt familiar to Cosette. Not serious kisses. Just presses, lips against lips, mouth against mouth. Once, twice, three times. Delightful, delicious. Exactly what she had thought kisses were, and what she had once believed was the extent of kissing. But then he encouraged her, very gently, to tip her head to the side a bit and ease her lips open for him, to grant him entry, and Cosette squealed helplessly, her fingers convulsing on his nightshirt as his own hand tightened at the small of her back. His tongue slowly crept between her lips and made her immediately so dizzy that she almost fainted there on his bed, in his arms. Somehow, she managed to stay conscious, but she heard her voice let out a crackling little helpless noise.

Cosette felt Javert's teeth very gently pull at her bottom lip and then release it, and before she could react, his tongue was pushing at hers just a little again. She found herself edging as close to him as she physically could on the bed, her mind whirling wildly with ideas. Toussaint had told her mad things, and her body was on fire. She was in a bed. He was a man. She was a woman. But they would burn in hellfire for such things. Cosette whined a little, feeling deeply frustrated, and she yanked at Javert's nightshirt. He pulled back a little and asked in a breathless whisper,

"What is the matter?"

"It's only…" Cosette gave him a fretful look and finally yanked at a fistful of the toile bedding in irritation. She seethed through clenched teeth and admitted in a hiss, "Oh, it's… you'll think me a selfish little harlot. It's only… serious kisses are very, very nice, but I find myself feeling a bit gluttonous now in a way I have never felt, so I am vexed."

Javert coughed out a quiet little laugh and dragged his fingers over his long hair. He shook his head and gave Cosette a bit of a scolding look, raising an eyebrow and smirking at her. She felt indignant and embarrassed at that, but as he reached around the back of his head and finally surrendered to the fact that his hair had become badly disheveled and untied his queue, sending his straight grey hair tumbling around his shoulders in a way that made Cosette shiver, he assured her,

"I suppose it is probably very normal for a young woman to feel such things when she is first introduced to sensations such as these."

Cosette straightened her posture until her back was perfectly straight, and she folded her hands in her lap. She watched as Javert settled back against the pillows with a long, weary sort of sight, wincing again as he reached up to touch at his face. The swelling and stitches glistened in the candlelight. Cosette realised she'd probably caused him pain by having him kiss her so vigorously; he'd probably just not complained. Still, she was irritated and embarrassed enough to mumble in a caustic accusation,

"You are not afflicted with the same mortifying level of thrill as I am, Monsieur l'Inspecteur, because to kiss a young girl like me is nothing at all, and so I -"

"On the contrary. I assure you I am right this moment suffering from a most egregious level of activation." Javert seemed to be chewing the inside of his cheek, but he gave Cosette a serious look. She shrugged and insisted,

"It does not seem so."

"No?" Javert carefully reached for Cosette's right hand and brought it slowly to the toile blankets that were covering his lower body. He touched her palm to the place directly above his lap, right between his legs. Cosette gasped then. Even through the blankets, she could feel a hard lump there, a thick and rigid mass. She gulped and shut her eyes. She remembered what Toussaint had said about men's parts, how they were on the outside, whilst women's parts were on the inside. They are like rods that grow long and thick when they want a woman. That was what Toussaint had said. Was that what was beneath the blankets right now? Javert's manhood, long and thick because he wanted her? Cosette choked out a desperate little noise and then found herself whispering,

"If I do not go, I shall wind up damning myself."

Javert took her wrist and very gently brought her knuckles to his lips, kissing them before he said in a voice still groggy from laudanum,

"Thank you for dinner."

Cosette just nodded wordlessly, finally finding his eyes. He was still holding her hand, dragging his thumb around her knuckles, and at last he whispered,

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Monsieur," Cosette whispered. She bent down and put her lips to his. She intended on just giving him one fleeting little kiss, but found herself unable to tear her lips away at once. So instead she lingered there, her breath mingling with his as his thumb comforted her knuckles. After a moment, drawn to it like a moth to flame for some reason, her left hand went up to the long hair he'd pulled loose, and she nestled her fingers there. She heard him suck in air hard when she did that, and she kissed him again lightly one more time.

"Goodnight, Inspector," she murmured onto his lips again, and he waited a long moment before replying,

"Goodnight, Cosette."