"The bath is ready, Mademoiselle." Toussaint opened the door of Cosette's bedchamber and then shut the door behind her. She gave Cosette a rather odd look as she added, "The water is still very, very hot. I shall help you undress while it cools just enough, or it shall burn your skin."

"Yes, all right." Cosette felt terribly distracted where she sat staring into her mirror. She'd already pulled out her own braids, and her damp hair was hanging down in loose, messy tendrils. She looked a bit of a mess, but her mind was even more disheveled. Her consciousness right now swirled with thoughts of Inspector Javert, of his imposing height and presence, of his deep and stern voice. She thought of his spicy aroma and the taste of him, the feel of his hands on her. She thought of him telling her of his valour in battle at Austerlitz, of the way he'd pulled her out of the storm and bought her a hot chocolate and how he'd looked as he'd stared at her in the candlelight there in the Galerie Vivienne.

She tried to think of her poor, dead Marius Pontmercy, who had been shot and killed for politics that had died with him. She found that he felt like a very distant memory, a person she had known for too brief a while and whose willingness to commit to a futile cause and an almost inevitable death was a bit infuriating. And then her mind was dragged back to the policeman in her house again, to the man who had been her father's nemesis for so long. She should not want him like this, she knew. He was an old man. Her father surely would not approve.

And she had plans for tonight for which she would surely need to attend Confession.

"Mademoiselle Cosette."

She whirled around at the sound of Toussaint's voice. Toussaint pursed her lips and looked a bit irritated.

"Let us get that dress off of you, hm? I must clean the muddy water from near the hem. Here."

She sounded impatient. Cosette worked as hard as she could to be flexible and quick as she wormed her way out of the black bombazine dress that Toussaint unfastened, which was still sticky from the rain outside. Toussaint helped Cosette out of her petticoats, her corset waist and the heavy corset itself, her lace-trimmed chemise and her drawers and silk stockings. All of the clothing, along with her short boots, were taken away, and Cosette stood naked and a bit cold with her damp blonde hair clumped around her until Toussaint came back from the wardrobe with a pale pink cotton wrapper. Cosette silently pulled the wrapper on and tied up the front, sliding on the matching slippers Toussaint had brought, and she followed Toussaint out of the bedchamber and down the corridor to the bathing chamber.

Inside, Toussaint had lit several candelabras, for the sun had gone down. The porcelain claw foot tub was filled with water that was still steaming a bit, and as Cosette sank into it, she hissed at the temperature. She shut her eyes and let the heat sink in, and as Toussaint used the large tin cup nearby to begin wetting her hair, Cosette kept her eyes squeezed shut and just listened as Toussaint asked her,

"You are being quite careful, yes, Mademoiselle?"

Cosette hesitated. Toussaint set down the cup, and Cosette watched as Toussaint reached for a pale yellow bar of soap and a clean rag, which she passed wordlessly to Cosette with an expectant expression on her dark and aging face. Cosette took the soap and started to scrub at her arms and chest. She gulped hard and stared at the bath water as the soap made it go milky. She finally murmured,

"I actually am being quite careful, Toussaint, yes. But it is not as you say."

"No?" Toussaint sounded sharply defensive, and Cosette glared at her a little as she rubbed the soap underwater at her legs and the part between them. She shook her head a bit and then used the soap to later up her hands and to wash her cheeks and neck. She splashed her skin clean and sniffed. She sighed to Toussaint,

"You insisted that all men want only one thing from women, and I do not think that is the case with Inspector Javert. He is very much a gentleman. He is… protective, almost. He is careful. Gentle."

Toussaint scowled and scoffed a bit disbelievingly. "The Inspector does not strike me as a particularly gentle man."

"You do not know him as I do," Cosette insisted. "Will you comb oil through my hair when I get out?"

Toussaint gave Cosette a knowing little look but nodded. Back in her bedchamber, Cosette sat at her boudoir and let Toussaint comb her long, damp blonde hair through with lightly perfumed olive oil, and then she asked Toussaint to pull it back into a single thick braid down her back. She put her pale pink cotton wrapper back one with one petticoat beneath, declining Toussaint's offer for stockings.

"I'll go finish up dinner quickly, Mademoiselle," Toussaint announced, and Cosette just nodded numbly. She stared at herself in the mirror then, wondering for some odd reason whether or not Inspector Javert thought she was pretty. She was much, much younger than he was. Was she too young for him? Perhaps he thought she was nothing but a silly little girl. Too silly and immature for him. He'd won the Légion d'honneur at the Battle of Austerlitz as a grown man fighting for Napoleon ten years before she'd even been born. How stupid and ridiculous she was for thinking she would want an empty-headed and inexperienced little creature like herself. And she was so very ignorant about matters of the flesh. She scowled into the mirror, her stomach twisting strangely.

When, around a half hour later, she made her way down towards the dining room, she was surprised to see her father and Inspector Javert already there, conversing quietly. How often she found the two of them engaged in thoughtful conversation, she considered to herself. Perhaps they had much to discuss after many years of enmity. She hesitated before entering the dining room; neither of them had seen her. She ought not eavesdrop, she thought, but she could not help herself. She pressed herself against the inside of the corridor just outside the room and listened.

"It is, perhaps, one of my deepest regrets," she heard Inspector Javert say somewhat morosely. "In retrospect, I, erm… I am certain I have made many… mistakes … in my career. But thinking on it now, I regret her mother quite a lot."

"As do I," said Cosette's father gently, and Cosette's eyes burned suddenly. Her father continued, "Fantine was my own responsibility. She was employed at my factory, in my town. And the fact that she was dismissed under my watch is something for which I shall never truly forgive myself. She would have never wound up in the state she was in were it not for my neglect."

"Well. Think of it this way, Valjean," Javert mused. "Cosette was at that inn, and Fantine was sending those horrid people money whilst working at your factory, and Cosette was being beaten and worked like a child slave. She would not have been rescued if Fantine had not been dismissed, if you and I had not… you know, if things had not turned out poorly for her. Her sacrifice was, perhaps, Cosette's salvation."

"I have thought often of that," Cosette's father murmured. "Fantine is rather like a martyr to me in that way, in my mind. I am shattered by guilt over it all, and, yet, so grateful to her maternal devotion. And I… rather selfishly, I am very glad for these last years with Cosette, as her father."

Cosette found herself blinking through hot tears then, swiping roughly at them with her fingertips, and she was about to barge into the dining room when she heard Javert say in a voice she could hardly hear,

"Fantine was consumed with worry over her, and now so are you. I, erm… you needn't be, Valjean. I would…"

He trailed off then, and Cosette froze. Her mouth fell open in shock. She could not breathe suddenly. Was Inspector Javert suggesting…? Was he…?

Quite impulsively, unable to stay hiding and eavesdropping any longer, Cosette came barreling around the corner and burst into the dining room, dipping into a little curtsy and hoping her face was not red from the tears that had erupted as she'd been listening.

"Papa. Inspector Javert."

Javert rose to his feet at once, and her father heaved himself up much more slowly on aching joints. Both men bowed their heads respectfully. Cosette looked them both up and down; they'd come to dinner dressed respectfully in clean waistcoats and jackets, and she felt very underdressed in her pink cotton wrapper with no corset and her damp hair in a simple braid. Perhaps they would think her childish and disrespectful. But she just huffed and said apologetically,

"Toussaint made me take a bath after our adventure in the storm earlier. I apologise for my appearance."

"You are lovely as always, my dear. Please, sit." Her father beckoned across the table from him.

Cosette was surprised then when Javert pulled out her chair for her. She nodded her thanks and sat beside him, and her father eyed them both as he sat back down on the opposite side of the table. Toussaint came in and brought out plates that had already been done up for each of them; that was her way. She did not bother with large serving platters for such a small party. She set down a plate before each of them with some roast chicken along with boiled carrots and a buttered portion of baguette. Then she walked round and poured from a decanter and filled up each of their glasses with a red Bordeaux wine. Once she'd done that, Cosette and her father bowed their heads and murmured Grace, and Javert was respectfully silent, though he did not join in the prayer.

They all began to eat quietly and with some sense of purpose, but Cosette tingled where she sat. She'd been in Javert's room earlier asking him what came between kissing and lovemaking, flirting with him and asking him if she could come into his room whilst everyone else was sleeping. He'd actually agreed to that. And just now she'd overheard a very strange conversation between him and her father. She flicked her eyes to where he sat and was surprised to see in the light of the candelabras on the table that his injured cheek was visibly flushed quite red. She gulped down the bite of food in her mouth and reached for her wine.

"Cosette, my child," her father began, and Cosette paused with her wine glass near her lips. She stared across the table, wide-eyed, and her father studied her for a moment. His pale eyes seemed quite sorrowful, but he curled up his lips into a mournful little smile and mused, "How you have grown. It does astonish me so. I remember well when you were a small girl who liked to play with dolls. It seems like just yesterday."

"Papa!" Cosette exclaimed rather angrily, setting down her glass and scowling. "You embarrass me."

"Do not be embarrassed by your youth, Mademoiselle," insisted Inspector Javert, and when she turned to him, he gave her a bit of a warm expression and shook his head. "Wear it as a badge of pride whilst you can. Some of us must tell tales of medals won in ancient wars, you see; that is a painful reminder of age."

Cosette tipped her head and found herself dragging her finger over the rim of her wine glass. She rolled her eyes just a little and teased Javert, "I hardly think it could be embarrassing at any age, Inspector, to recount heroics so remarkable as to have been awarded the Légion d'honneur."

He smirked a bit, poking at his chicken. "Well. When one pauses to contemplate that those 'heroics' took place twenty-seven years ago, Mademoiselle, the creak in one's joints suddenly feels very real, and the grey in one's hair suddenly feels very pronounced. So. Do not let your father's fond recollection of your childhood humiliate you. That is all I meant to say."

"Quite so," her father nodded, flashing an amused little look between Javert and Cosette. He sipped his own wine and then shrugged. "My dear Cosette… your Papa is so old he can vividly remember an entire life under King Louis before he had his head removed."

"I also have more than enough memory of the Ancien Régime and the utter madness that ensued under the Revolution, I'm afraid." Javert shook his head. He cocked up his eyebrow at Cosette's father and warned him, "Now we really are aging ourselves, Valjean; poor Cosette did not enter this world until Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo."

"Such things the two of you have seen and done that I could never understand," Cosette murmured, feeling stupid and ignorant suddenly. She speared a carrot and shoved it into her mouth. Javert stared at her, looking like he thought he'd offended her greatly and seeming like he was about to apologise. But then Cosette shrugged and clarified, "To have lived under the old France, where the kings reigned from Versailles… and then, the Revolution, the guillotines, the Reign of Terror, I can't imagine. You, Inspector, you fought for Napoleon at Austerlitz!"

He hesitated a moment and then shrugged. "I, erm. I actually first fought at Marengo in 1800. I spent seven years in the wars before returning to Toulon."

Cosette just gazed at him for a long moment, nodding numbly. Then she glanced to her father and acknowledged,

"And you, Papa. Labouring for so very long… suffering, enduring such hardships. And then… running a factory, being a mayor. Such lives the two of you have led, and I am just a stupid little girl."

Her father and Javert exchanged concerned glances, and then her father cleared his throat and told her,

"You have countless years before you yet, Cosette, to explore this world and live your life."

Cosette frowned deeply at him. "Explore this world? But, Papa, you and I have hardly ever ventured anywhere; we always…"

She trailed off then, because suddenly she realised that for years her father had been trying to evade capture by Inspector Javert himself. Suddenly the atmosphere at the table became very tense and uncomfortable. Cosette let out a shaking little sigh and picked up her baguette. She bit off a piece of it and chewed, swallowing the bite of buttered bread and washing it down with some wine. Her father and Inspector Javert ate silently for a little while, until everyone seemed relatively satisfied and full. Then at last, Cosette decided to try and alleviate some of the strain that had come over the room once she'd begun speaking about her father and her spending years hiding from Inspector Javert. She dabbed at her lips with her napkin and said lightly,

"Someday, I should like to visit London. I have always wanted to go to London."

Her father's lips twitched a little, and he nodded. "Someday you shall go," he said confidently. "When you find a good man to marry, I am sure you will sail to England and see London, my dear girl."

Cosette gnawed on her lip. Her cheeks flushed warm, and she decided not to say anything as Toussaint came into the room to clear everyone's plates. Cosette stayed silent as Toussaint brought in small bowls with sliced peaches that had been sprinkled with a bit of sugar and garnished with mint. Cosette used her spoon to dole a small bit of peach into her mouth, but when juice dribbled down over her lip, she rushed to swipe at it with her thumb and made a little noise. She laughed a little and gulped, admitting,

"Oh, these peaches are delicious, aren't they?"

"Yes, they're very sweet," her father said a little distractedly, and when Cosette smiled at Inspector Javert, he was looking her up and down with an odd expression. He blinked rapidly and seemed almost confused. Then, suddenly, a bit unexpectedly, he blurted,

"I have also always wanted to visit London."

"Oh." Cosette licked her lips and tasted the peach juice there. She grinned broadly at him and tipped her head a little. "I have longed to see Westminster Abbey; I have read all about it."

Javert just nodded, looking like he did not know what to say. He finally turned his attention to the bowl of peaches on the table that had been served to him, though all he did was drag his spoon about a little. Cosette watched him for a moment and finally just huffed out a breath, feeling like she would burst. Her heart had begun to race, and she finally whispered to her father,

"I think I shall go to bed, if you don't mind excusing me, Papa."

She had never in her life seen such an odd look on her father's features as she did then. He seemed almost angry, and a little sad, but then he spent a moment glancing between Javert and Cosette and his face shifted into a strange sort of staid peace. He nodded very slowly and brought himself to stand. Inspector Javert did the same, and as Cosette curtsied to them, they both bowed their heads.

"Goodnight, Mademoiselle," Javert mumbled, sounding almost drunk, almost lost. She tried to acknowledge him verbally but found that she could not, so she just nodded. She glanced across the table and whispered,

"Papa."

"My dearest child," he said softly back, as though those words meant something very serious just now. Cosette sighed and turned to go at once, rushing off to her bedchamber and determining that she was going to spend the next hour with her face burrowed in a pillow.

She did not dare venture to Inspector Javert's bedchamber until one o'clock in the morning. That was for several reasons. First of all, she did not hear her father's bedchamber door close until eleven, and for all she knew, he could have stayed up reading for some time after that. That was not his way; typically her father said goodnight, closed his door, did his nightly ablutions and said his prayers and then was quickly asleep. But Cosette needed to be careful tonight, she thought.

Also, there was the matter of her anxiety. She lay on her back with her hair still in a braid, just staring at the ceiling, trembling a bit. Inspector Javert had told her that, yes, there were things that could come between kissing and lovemaking, but he had refused to tell her specifically what those things were. He had said they needed to be experienced in person. And still Cosette felt so very naive and innocent, so uninformed. Inspector Javert had spoken at dinner about decades of life lived before she'd even been born. Surely during those years fighting for Napoleon, he'd been with many women. He was not a religious man, as far as she could tell. He did not seem loose as far as morals were concerned, but if Toussaint was right that men sought out physicality with women so animalistically, then surely Javert had spent loads of time with many women in the entire life he'd already lived. And Cosette did not even know what she was meant to do with him.

She was just a bloody little fool, she thought frustratedly.

But she did want him, badly. She didn't even really know what she wanted, only that she wanted his hands on her again, that she wanted more kisses, that she wanted something else, something more. So she finally dragged herself from her bed at one o'clock, and she pulled one of her silk dressing gowns, palest blue with a geometric pattern on it, and she tied the belt around her narrow waist. She opened her door and carefully shut it, deciding not to bring a light with her for fear that the flickering shadows would alert someone. She shut her door as silently as she could and padded with bare feet down the corridor, her heart thrumming and picking up speed. Her lungs burned a little, though she was moving with slow, cat-like movements. She finally reached the door to the guest bedroom where Inspector Javert was staying and, with a glance around to ensure the house was completely still and quiet, she reached for the doorknob.

She turned it and started to push the door open, but when she did, it creaked just a little. Cosette froze, gasping slightly, but then she decided to act decisively. She pushed the door the rest of the way and hurried inside, closing the door quickly but quietly behind her and staring at it for the briefest moment before she heard a low, deep murmur from behind her.

"Cosette."

She blinked a few times and then turned around to see that Inspector Javert was not in bed, but was standing near the window, beside his wash table. He was clad in his own nightshirt and a long dressing gown of simple grey wool flannel, his hair pulled back as it always was. The room was dark except for one candle beside his bed and another lit on the washstand. In the dim glow, she could see that his face, still a bit swollen from his glassing injury, was still and calm, but that his eyes betrayed him with an odd eagerness. He nodded a little and took a few steps towards her, and Cosette felt herself tense up.

What was he going to do to her? Toussaint had rather terrified her with all the talk of large, thick, solid manhoods behind thrust into a woman's body. But Inspector Javert had said there were other things that happened between kissing and… that . What other things?

"What other things?" she wondered aloud in a whisper, and his lips quirked up into a little smirk that he did not seem able to control. He reached up for her face and began to drag his knuckles from her chin up her jaw towards her ear, making a shiver work its way from the bottom of her spine to her neck. Cosette gasped and clutched on instinct at the lapels of his dressing-gown. His crooked smile grew a bit, and his hand started to work its way down over her collarbone, around her bosom, which was not bound by a corset just now. Cosette sucked in air hard at the feeling of him toying a bit with her left breast. It felt strange and wonderful, the way he was compressing the small mound there, the way his thumb worked circles around the area where her nipple was and the way it perked up in response to his touch. She heard her own voice crackle out helplessly, and her fingers cinched at his chest. His own breath hitched a little, and then he cleared his throat and suggested quietly,

"We could lie down."

Cosette glanced at the bed and suddenly felt terrified. Surely they ought not to lie down on the bed. Surely that was where the actual lovemaking happened. She stared up at him, wide-eyed and searching for guidance, and he moved his hand from her chest down to her waist as he murmured to her,

"I only mean to touch you. I promise, Cosette, I know perfectly well how not to… how to preserve your virtue and how not to put a child on you."

He seemed slightly embarrassed at that, but he squared his jaw tightly and huffed out a breath, looking her up and down, and Cosette felt her lips part. He wanted to lie in bed and touch her. Well. That sounded nice. She slowly untied her pale blue silk dressing gown, feeling like she ought to for some reason, though Inspector Javert put his fingers over hers as she was about to slide it off, and he whispered to her,

"You need not take your clothes off, Mademoiselle."

She felt her cheeks go hot, and she swallowed hard as her eyes seared and she admitted in a cracked little voice, "I have precisely no idea what I am doing."

He quirked up his lips a little and nodded. He glided the silk dressing gown from her shoulders until it pooled on the ground, and she was a little surprised when he bent down and placed a kiss on the top of her head and said quietly there,

"The nightgown will do just fine."

"All right," Cosette nodded, shivering a little where she stood. She stared up at him then, feeling a little frightened. But he laced his fingers through hers, and when he did, she felt that his hand was so large, and his skin was so rough-hewn from work, that she was comforted by his presence in an unexpected way. She let out a small noise and nodded at him, and he guided her to his blue toile bed. He peeled back the blankets and encouraged her beneath them, and as Cosette slid up and under the quilts, she shut her eyes and mumbled a little prayer begging forgiveness.

She was a harlot, wasn't she? To be in this man's bed like this, so soon after Marius was dead, unmarried, too young. She was awful, to be doing this. But she felt like she was burning alive for him, like she could not help but want him, and suddenly an odd swell came over her as she settled down onto his down pillows. She lay there for a moment, her eyes still shut, and she realised something. She could not care, very abruptly, what anyone in the Firmament thought of her just now. Judgment would come, perhaps, but she could make her Atonement at some later point. Or perhaps not; perhaps this was not as sinful as she imagined. Who could really say? And as for Marius… he simply was not here. He had chosen the barricade over Cosette, knowing very well that he was almost certain to die there. Inspector Javert was here.

The bed depressed beside Cosette, and she knew it was because Javert had climbed in beside her. For some reason, she did not feel frightened anymore. She felt a thrill, a shock of excitement, rippling through her veins in a rushing torrent. She finally opened her eyes and turned her face to see that Javert had pulled off his own woolen dressing gown before climbing under the blankets. In the dim candlelight, his face appeared a bit older than usual, for the flickering light brought the lines and wrinkles he bore into clear view. And his left side, the side that was still stitched up and a bit swollen from where he'd been hit with the wine bottle, was obviously wounded. But Cosette found she did not mind any of that. She reached out and rather impulsively brushed her fingertips along his temple, sweeping her hand back into his hair and watching his eyelids flutter a little as she hummed,

"I confess I find you to be very handsome indeed, Inspector."

"Call me Javert just now, will you?" he asked, and when his eyes met hers, she just nodded. Her throat felt a little dry, and then she was overcome with a sense of hunger when she felt his hand beneath the blankets, carefully touching at her waist and then dragging his fingers up along her ribcage. She gasped a little, and when Javert brought her face toward his, she moved entirely on instinct. Truly, she had absolutely no clue what she was doing; she moved as her body instructed her to do.

She rolled a bit, and he rolled with her, until he was on his back and she found herself hiking up her nightgown a little and putting a knee on either side of his hips. She straddled his waist and moaned a bit wantonly, watching his eyes go wide in shock, when she felt a large, hard lump beneath her. She froze, shaking her head wildly as she stared down at him and asked helplessly,

"Have I… am I not meant to…?"

"Erm… this is perfectly fine." Javert smirked a bit at her and shifted where he lay, but when he did that, the lump between them ground rather insistently between Cosette's legs. She cried out again, and Javert shushed her with a harsh frown. He reached up to touch at her lips and shook his head. "You will wake your father."

"I'm sorry." Cosette leaned down and touched her lips to his, and she heard him suck in air hard. Her hands migrated, again very much on instinct, to stroke at the grey hair he still had pulled back tightly into a queue. She pet his smooth, silky hair, relishing the way he took such good care of it, always brushing it just so, and she murmured against his mouth, "Heaven help me; I have never seen such handsomeness in a man before."

"You flatter me, and I suspect you are mocking me," he laughed with a little scoff, but Cosette struggled to argue then, because his rough, calloused hands had started to caress her legs. He was rubbing from her knees all the way up her thighs to her hips and back down again, and she choked out a shaking breath onto his lips before she kissed him hard for a moment. Her fingers convulsed against his hair, and finally her face collapsed into the crook of his neck. She started to kiss him there, thinking he might like it, and she realised quickly she was right. Again, she moved on instinct, her lips and tongue doing what simply felt right. She lapped at his rough flesh, feeling the hair of his mutton chops brushing her cheek as she did. Something compelled her to drag the lobe of his ear between her lips and suckle it, and when he let out a sharp hiss and a slight groan, she dared to nip a bit at his neck.

"Cosette," he mumbled, sounding just a bit unhinged. His fingers sank into her skin then, digging almost painfully into her flesh near her backside, and she pushed herself down onto his hips, craving the feel of the lump there between her legs. He started to encourage her to rock, to move in a rhythmic, swaying sort of pattern. Down and forward, up and back. Cosette tried to keep kissing his neck, but she was dizzy and weak suddenly, and all she could do was leave her mouth open against his skin and mumble his name every once in a while, gasping for him in between desperate, shallow pants. He kept bucking his hips up against her as he moved her body smoothly, and he drove his head back against his pillows.

Then, after a few moments, Cosette felt something very odd, something that was the most unexpected and most wonderful sensation she'd ever experienced. As she moved atop Javert, she felt something pressing at the most sensitive point between her legs, the little button of flesh that she'd only dared to explore once or twice, and never for longer than a few seconds, because she'd always been frightened by how delicate and tender the place was. But his thumb and two of his fingers were dragging along that place, which had become wet and slick as Cosette's body had worked itself into a sort of feverish frenzy of want. She found herself grasping desperately at his hair and realising she was pulling locks of it loose from its neat queue, bundling it in her fingers. She pressed her lips hard against the skin beneath Javert's neck and hummed in desperation as his hand pulsed between her legs, his thumb drawing perfect circles with just enough pressure.

Cosette was dizzy and her ears were ringing a little, and a strange, pinching sort of tightness began to take hold in her lower abdomen. She felt like she was running, running, running. Her lungs burned as she tried to breathe normally, and her heart raced so quickly she feared it would just give out altogether. Her skin felt like it was on fire, its surface prickling. She was embarrassingly wet between her legs; she felt fluids drizzling against Javert's fingers and thumb where he was caressing her sensitive folds as she drove herself determinedly down onto the lump in the drawers he wore beneath his nightshirt.

"Inspector," she huffed helplessly into his ear, and then, correcting herself as the room spun, she amended in a hoarse whisper, "Javert. Javert. I am going to… something is…"

He responded by using his free hand to pull her face over a little and to encourage her to put his mouth onto his. For some reason, the moment Cosette's mouth met Javert's, something tore within her. She felt like she was a violin string that had been tuned too tightly and had snapped. Her tongue went still in Javert's mouth, and she collapsed limply as she felt a heady rush and a sudden, almost overwhelming wave of unimaginable pleasure and satisfaction roil over and through her. Between her thighs, she felt a quaking, clenching sensation around Javert's fingers, a sporadic movement that felt better than anything ever had in her entire life. It went on for only a half minute or so, the entire blissful intensity, but it was so profound and unexpected that by the time it passed, Cosette felt exhausted and was still a bit in shock. She carefully pulled back from Javert, propping herself up a little to gaze down at him with swollen, wet lips and half-lidded eyes, and she tried to speak. But before she could, he mumbled in a rush,

"Off. Off for just now. Quickly, Cosette."

She slid off his body and landed with an ungraceful sort of oof beside him, still beneath the blankets, settling on her back. She stared at him in surprise, wondering why he'd forced her off of him so quickly, but then he just gave her a very significant look, and she watched his hand slip under the blankets and move around a bit. His head tipped back against the pillows, his grey hair now quite dishevelled from how Cosette had been grabbing at it earlier. She leaned toward him and kissed at his forehead, sensing that he was nearing his own completion on his own. She was not sure how she knew such a thing; it simply seemed to be what was happening. He was protecting her, she thought, by making her get off of him. Was not a man's… production… the stuff that put a child on a woman? If he found completion too near her, with her atop him, perhaps there would be risk. He was a gentle and kind man, she thought, and suddenly she wanted badly to kiss him. So she did.

Her lips were on his then, not aggressively or even very passionately. She hovered near him and bent down, her blonde braid heavy over one shoulder as she brushed her lips against Javert's. He choked out a few low little noises then, guttural sounds that seemed to come from the bottom of his chest. He bucked his hips under the blankets a few times and then reached up with his free hand, his left hand, and stroked at Cosette's cheek a few times in a way that made her shiver.

After a long moment, his shaking breath slowed, and then she pulled back a bit and gazed at him, unsure of what to say. He seemed just as uncertain, studying her as if he were trying to figure out if she were cross with him or if she had regrets. She just curled up her lips a little where she'd arranged herself, toying with a stray grey lock and musing.

"I often muss your hair badly. I apologise."

He raised his eyebrows and smirked a little. "I am not going to complain about that."

Cosette brushed her thumb very carefully around his large, sculped jaw, which went tight beneath her touch. He shifted where he lay and licked his lips, narrowing his eyes at her a little as he considered quietly,

"I do not mean to be too forward, Cosette, when I tell you that you are unfathomably pretty."

She grinned then, her cheeks flushing hot as she absorbed the compliment. She shook her head a little and assured him, "That is not too forward. Not from you."

For a long moment then, she found herself just staring at him and thinking that she had enjoyed what he had done to her very much. He finally sighed heavily and mused,

"I shall need to clean myself up, but, erm… that is not for you to see, I'm afraid."

"Oh. Yes. Of course. I'm sorry. I shall go at once." Cosette's face felt uncomfortably warm, and she made a move to climb out of the bed. But Javert caught her wrist and pulled her toward him, drawing her face toward his and giving her a few quick kisses before letting her sit back up. He shook his head, sniffed lightly, and assured her,

"It can wait a few more moments."

Cosette gave him a crooked little smile at that. She danced her fingertips over the left side of his face and noted,

"It really is healing quite well."

" Exceptionally well, I think, given what happened," Javert agreed. But then he pursed his lips and seemed a bit bitter as he noted, "My Commissaire said I looked like I'd been stung by a hundred bees, and thus I am condemned to paperwork for the time being. It would not do for a police officer to be patrolling in uniform while this obviously injured."

"Hmph." Cosette flashed him a grumpy little pout. "I should think you just as capable of rounding up ruffians with a very slightly swollen cheekbone as without one. And, anyway, it just makes you look like you are seeking vengeance."

He choked out a little laugh at that and nodded. "Hmm. I rather like that narrative. Perhaps I could take it to my Commissaire to try and convince him to put me back to work sooner."

"It is worth a try." Cosette smiled warmly at him. Suddenly, though, she felt her mirth melt away a little. She had never been good at lying by omission; the Sisters had trained that out of her. So she fingered the blue toile blankets and murmured to Javert, "I heard you speaking about my mother with Papa. Before dinner."

Javert said nothing at all. He just stared at her, his own slightly amused expression going a bit serious. He just nodded and waited for Cosette to continue. She nervously asked him,

"You knew my mother?"

Javert shut his eyes and nodded again. Cosette decided not to press that particular matter. The past was the past. Her father and Javert had forgiven one another, she thought. She did not wish to hear of her mother's suffering in the days before she died. But her eyes burned as she noted,

"You said to my father… you told him that my mother was consumed with worry over me, and that now Papa is, too. Why is my Papa so worried about me?"

Javert opened his eyes and gnawed his lip pensively, shrugging a bit. "Because he is old, and because you are very young. He had thought… perhaps Marius Pontmercy, you know… the boy would have provided for you, would have cared for you, but…"

Cosette scowled. "Is Papa very ill? He is not going to die, surely!"

Javert gave her a bit of a withering look, pinching his lips into a straight line. "Cosette. Your father is much older than even I am, and he served nineteen years of the hardest labour imaginable, during which he suffered multiple bouts of disease and injury. His body is weary, and is, I am quite certain, his soul. No, I do not think he is on death's doorstep, but… any of us could die tomorrow. He does not wish to leave you alone This world is quite unforgiving for a young woman left without a husband or father. It really is as simple as that."

Javert huffed then and heaved himself out of the bed, surprising Cosette. He'd said that cleaning himself was not something for her to witness, but he seemed to need to take care of it right now. So she discreetly put her head down on the pillows and turned away, and she covered herself up with the blue toile blankets. She shut her eyes and tried to ignore the sounds of him pouring water into the wash basin and using a sponge or rag and soap to clean himself. She wasn't certain what any of it looked like - his manhood or whatever came out of it that was the concerning fluid. She found herself curious and almost peeked, but he had said not to, so she obeyed. Finally she heard him say quietly to her,

"Cosette, if I have overstepped in any way, then I -"

"I am the one who invited myself here, Inspector," she reminded him, her eyes still shut against the pillow. He did not respond to that. After a few moments, she gasped softly, because she felt the blankets being pulled back and felt her body being lifted off the bed. She yelped a little, surprised, and her eyes sprang open in shock. She stared up to see that Javert had hoisted her up and was cradling her, carrying her around the bed in his arms. She grinned broadly up at him and tossed her arms up around his neck, giggling softly,

"Well, I feel properly like a damsel in distress now."

"Do you?" He smirked at her, tipping his head. He shrugged a little. "I have, in my capacity as a police officer, hauled one or two people to safety, but those rescues never ended with a kiss."

"Did they not?" Cosette asked a bit breathlessly, and Javert shook his head. Cosette's lips parted, and she cradled the good side of his face and encouraged him to bring himself down to her until his lips touched hers. When they did, she moaned gently up against him, and he inhaled sharply through his nostrils. He did not seem affected at all by holding Cosette in his arms; it was as though she weighed nothing as he stood there cradling her. For some reason, the thought of that drove her a bit mad, and she whispered up against his lips,

"I could stay here all night."

"You absolutely can not," he replied, but he smiled wryly as he pulled back. He set her down carefully and bent down to pick up her pale blue silk dressing gown, helping her back into it. Cosette tied up the front of it, and then Javert just looked her up and down a few times, for so long that Cosette wondered what was wrong. She looked at her body self-consciously and demanded,

"What's the matter?"

"I am merely branding the image you, here, like this, indelibly into my consciousness, if you have no objection," Javert informed her, and Cosette's mouth fell open in response. She just nodded and finally whispered,

"I really should go."

Javert took her to the door and stood there with her for a moment, finally bending very far down, until Cosette knew he must be straining his back, so that he could touch his lips to hers.

"Goodnight," he nodded, and she tucked some of his hair behind his ear as she whispered back,

"Goodnight."

Then she opened the door and padded quickly out, before she could make up an excuse to stay.