Chapter 32 - Through Darkness, Through Eternity
Everywhere she turned, it seemed like Grace was dodging some sort of falling debris being thrown out of a window or hiding from the National Guard as they patrolled the streets.
One moment, she had to press herself against a wall when a wooden chair smashed on the pavement not two feet from where she'd stood. The next, she was hiding herself in a darkened alcove as a cavalry unit rode past, looking for troublemakers to arrest.
That strange noise she'd heard in the distance, on the Rue Plumet, had been the beginnings of the revolution. That groaning, smashing moan of the barricades being born. The citizens of Paris hurled whatever they could afford to lose out into the streets. The bannisters, old wardrobes, doors, empty barrels, mattresses, crates, wagon wheels, settees, cradles… The streets she walked down were clogged with timber and debris. They left them all out on the street, for Enjolras and the others, as if they were strange votive offerings left for a God of Revolution. Someone would eventually come for it, scooping it up into their arms and throwing it onto a wagon to take it away to the Rue de la Chanvrerie.
Once or twice, she met a familiar face. Courfeyrac spotted her just as he had finished heaving a wooden window frame up onto a cart he'd stolen. She passed Bahorel and Feuilly carrying an empty coffin through the streets. None of them stopped for long enough to pay her much mind. Their eyes were alight with purpose and devotion. Too occupied by the monster they were constructing on the Rue de la Chanvrerie to offer her much more than a quick nod of camaraderie.
Another cavalry battalion appeared at the end of her street. Grace's blood went cold, seeing the rifles and weapons they bore at their sides. Their faces were grim and firm-set. 'Shoot now and decide if they were actually a problem later' expressions on their faces.
Another man who was sorting through the smashed timber of a coffee table further down the street, dropped the wood and ran.
"Over there!" One of the cavalry officers cried, pointing a finger down the street. Straight at the running man. Straight at Grace.
Grace turned and ran too.
The horses' hoofbeats turned into a growing thunder.
Grace tried to force her fear-heavy legs to sprint. She tried not to glance across at the coffee-table man as he appeared, running, beside her.
And she tried not to stop when a crack of a sound tore through the air.
She instinctively covered her head as a terrified cry slipped out of her mouth.
But when she cast a quick glance over to where the coffee-table man had been running beside her, he was gone.
Grace knew she could not turn around to find out, but she hoped that the coffee-table man had died quickly.
She abruptly turned down another alleyway, keen to get out of the charge-path of the cavalry behind her.
"It's too small for the horses! Go around!" The officer barked.
Grace's feet stumbled and slid over the cobblestones as she pushed herself down the smaller alleyway. But even when she fell to her feet, grazing her knees on the harsh ground, she didn't give herself a second to stop. She picked herself up, turning on to a wider boulevard, and ran in the opposite direction to where she heard the not too distant thunder of their hooves. They'd find her again, and soon, if she didn't find somewhere to hide.
"Degas!" She heard a voice call to her.
Grace let her burning legs halt. She glanced around to find Marius and Eponine standing in the doorway of an abandoned hovel.
"Come on! Quickly!" Eponine said, emphatically waving her in to the hovel.
Grace rushed across the street, casting a nervous glance towards the calvarymen rapidly getting closer and closer to her. She threw herself into the arms of Eponine and Marius slammed the door of the hovel behind her.
They waited in almost complete darkness. All of them utterly silent. The door of the hovel was rotted and eaten away by wormwood at its base, and through the small crack of light that bled through from the outside world, Grace could see the horses hooves pass them by. She held her breath. Dared not breathe out until the cavalry men had rode past.
When the hoofbeats faded into the distance, she finally released the tense grip she'd kept on Eponine's arm and leaned back against the wall.
"Bloody hell, that was close. Are you alright?" Eponine asked her.
She nodded silently. Grace could barely make out her face in the darkness. Marius neither. She struggled to slow her rapid breaths, even now the danger had passed, and she was glad that neither of them could see just how truly frightened she was.
"We lost you after the storming of the cortège." Marius added. "Enjolras commanded the carriage all the way up to the Place de la Bastille, to the monument of the Grand Armeè, on to the Tuileries Gardens, he almost got to the bank! There were thousands following him by then! I thought they might storm the Council Chambers… Until the National Guard came back for another go at trying to disperse us!"
"Oh God, don't…" Grace said nauseously. She wasn't sure if she could stomach any more violence just yet.
"It was incredible, Degas! Men from all over Paris were crying 'Viva La republique!' and firing upon the troops! If they didn't have a gun, they used sabres, cutlasses, broken chairs…The braggarts had to retreat! And they've been roaming the city,
in their little bands, ever since. They know the power of the revolution now! Enjolras was right! When we called to them, the people answered!"
"Is everyone still alive?" Grace asked weakly. "Is Enjolras-"
"He's at the Rue de la Chanvrerie." Eponine interjected quickly. "Overseeing the construction of the barricade."
The distant crack of gunfire sounded off from beyond the dark hovel, and all three of them flinched.
"Of course…the National Guard might get lucky occasionally, and find one or two unlucky souls out on the street by themselves…" Marius added ominously.
Grace felt a surge of bile in her throat. She bent over and retched onto the floor.
"Courage, Degas!" Marius said soothingly, rubbing her back. "I know finding the stomach for war takes time, but you won't be much good in the fight if you're too busy making all our boots wet!"
"Was…was there a man with Enjolras?" Grace asked, her body trembling.
"There were a great many men-"
"With a blue-grey overcoat and a green waistcoat?"
"I…I don't recall."
Grace snapped her eyes to the dark outline of Eponine. "Did you see him?" She asked hurriedly. "You must have seen him! You notice everyone."
She felt Eponine's gaze lingering in her, despite not being able to make out much in the darkness of the hovel.
"I… I think so." She said hesitantly. "But there were so many others who-"
"Where did you last see him?"
"Enjolras has been sending us all out into the streets to fetch timber." Marius added when Eponine had been silent for a moment. "Most of us in pairs. Some of us on our own."
Grace groaned and rubbed her salty face with her hands. For whatever reason, Javert had been in disguise, and that meant that to the National Guard, he looked like any other troublemaker that they were "lucky" enough to catch alone.
"I have to get back out there." She said flatly, casting her eyes to the rotted hovel door. "I have to find him."
"Then let us come with you." said Marius.
"No! No…" Grace blurted out.
Javert clearly didn't want to be recognised. And if Marius didn't clock his face instantly, then Eponine definitely would. Her response to Grace and Javert had been lukewarm at best, and she might have kept her mouth shut as long as Javert kept his distance from the boys, but an Inspector, in disguise, amongst them, she might give him up…
"I went to the Rue Plumet." Grace added quickly, keen to steer the conversation off her and the man she was looking for.
Her diversion worked. Marius lurched forwards in the gloom and seized her by the shoulders.
"Did you see my Cosette?! Is she alright?"
"She's alright. But…" Grace paused, sifting through that strange and revealing conversation she'd had with Jean Valjean. "But her father told me that they'll be leaving Paris tomorrow. Leaving France."
She watched as Marius's silhouette crumpled before her. Shoulders sagged. Head bobbed low.
"No. This can't be true…" he whispered. "The Lord would not be so cruel as to take her from me when I've only just found her."
"I'm sorry, Marius." Grace said hollowly.
"Does her father know? Were we discovered?"
"No. I don't think so.
"Oh God….I must write to her!" Marius exclaimed. "If this is the last chance I have to-"
"Good luck getting a letter to her." Grace said sardonically. It looks like I was lucky in slipping out of the central city when I did, in the immediate chaos after the funeral. But now…"
"Ponine, could you do it?" Marius asked quickly. "You know these streets like no other. Surely you could slip past the National Guard."
Eponine made no sound, nor no movement in the seconds that followed. Poor, clueless Marius didn't realise just how deeply he was twisting the knife into her. Grace thought about intervening. Surely this was too much for her to bear. Having lead Marius to Cosette was painful enough, but being the literal messenger between them? Ferrying their love-notes to one another?
"I don't think-"
"I'll do it." Eponine said swiftly. Heavily.
"Oh, Ponine!" Marius exclaimed, rushing forwards through the dark to envelop her in an embrace.
"Eponine!" Grace exclaimed.
"It's alright, Degas." She said weakly.
"No, it's not! You can't do this to yourself"
"My life is mine to do with what I please." Eponine said firmly. It was almost a snap, and Grace jumped back from her as if she'd been a street dog nipping at her.
"Will you accompany me to my chambers then, Ponine?" Marius asked, moving towards the door.
She merely nodded in response, moving her feet in a sort of trance until she stood beside Marius.
"Then we leave you to yourself, Degas." Marius added, nodding his head respectfully to Grace. "Oh Lord, what am I even going to say? How can I even articulate this dreadful feeling inside?!"
"You can't. So don't waste precious time on it." Eponine said, much to Grace's surprise. "Tell her that you love her. And that your heart will go with her wherever she flees. Tell her that in the dark days to come, you'll think of her when you want to be reminded of something beautiful and good."
Grace bit her lip, fighting back the tears that had welled in her eyes. She was glad of the darkness again. Glad that Marius couldn't see the look of pity she gave Eponine then.
They heard more gunfire in the distance. All of their faces turned towards the rotten door. To the lawless city beyond.
"Perhaps you can ask her to pray for us too." Eponine added glumly. She reached for the handle and bright, white daylight suddenly flooded into the hovel. "It sounds like we'll need them."
With that, she slipped out onto the streets, Marius trailing close behind.
Grace was left standing alone in the dark hovel, watching as her two friends slipped off into the chaos-ridden streets. They disappeared around a corner, and Grace finally allowed herself to cry.
She lent for a long time against the doorframe of the hovel. Flinching every time she heard the pop of guns. Whimpering every time she thought she heard the approach of horse hooves. The world was somehow upside down and inside out. And she didn't know how to right it. Or even if it ever would be right again.
The courtroom was packed.
People from all over the district had come to poke their sticks at the cornered bear that was Jean Valjean. He was a big name. People recognised it from the posters that had been put up in every major town and city from Calais to Nice. A notorious criminal who had been on the run for nearly ten years, no less!
And Javert sat in the stalls like a man in a daydream.
The hum of the crowd washed over him. Their excited chatter just a distant noise ticking away at the back of his mind. Lowly washer women and curious young debutants chatted side by side, waiting to catch a glimpse of this bogey-man. Mothers had brought their children for a day's outing. Several important men of the district hovered at the back of the room, keen to not be so conspicuous.
They had patiently sat through one case already. A woman, accused of infanticide. Even the judge wanted it over quickly, rushing through the testimonies and character witnesses. He gave the poor, sobbing woman penal servitude for life. And almost no one in the watching crowd so much as batted an eyelid as she was dragged off, screaming for mercy.
It was hot. Too hot for a tiny, wood-panelled room like this. With so many bodies crammed into such a small space, Javert felt like a sardine being cooked in its own tin.
The gaoler had disappeared for quite some time now, to fetch the next unfortunate soul for the witness box. Jean Valjean. He was next on the day's itinerary. And the crowd were just beginning to grow impatient.
"Inspector, might I trouble you for a seat?"
Javert looked up at the voice who had spoken to him, and a steadfast, staunch face peered down at him. Her head was mostly covered by a long, black veil. The leatheriness of her old skin stood in sharp contrast to the white of her hood.
"Of…Of course, Sister Simplice."
He stood abruptly to his feet, and the Mother Superior of the Montreuil-sur-Mer hospital settled herself down in the spot where he had once been.
"Thank you, Inspector. A lifetime on the knees is rewarding in some ways, and not in others."
Javert did not reply, instead he looked about the courthouse impatiently, willing for the trial to hurry up and start.
"I am surprised to see you here, Inspector." Sister Simplice said to him. "Surely this is beyond your scope of duty."
Javert's already bad mood blackened, and the fact that the Sister was trying to engage him in small-talk made him feel even more irritated.
"And surely this is beyond the scope of yours, Sister." he shot back. "Are you not required at your hospital?"
The Sister pursed her lips and straightened her back at him. "Sisters Perpetue and Serene are more than capable of caring for the patients in my absence."
Javert heard the back door of the courthouse open and close behind him. He was just about to rise from his seat to tell the Court Official not to let any more people into the room, when his eyes found the face of Monsieur Madeline hovering at the rear. His eyes narrowed with confusion. He watched as Madeline looked awkwardly around him, searching for a free seat or a space in which to stand.
What's he doing here? He thought to himself.
"Oh that reminds me…" Sister Sulpice said when she too saw Madeline enter the courthouse. "Poor Fantine has been asking for her child ever since Monsieur Le Maire brought her to us. He told her he would oblige her. I think I must tell him to hurry. I don't think poor Fantine can carry on fighting much longer."
"The whore with consumption?" Javert asked.
Sister Simplice bristled and gave him a reproachful look. Javert withered slightly under her stare and sunk his head down towards the floor.
"God be willing, hopefully her suffering will be over soon."
Javert raised an eyebrow at her and looked across the room. There was something strained and tortured in the way Madeline was fiddling with the cuffs of his jacket. The Court Official led him to a box reserved for other public men of office, and he took a seat amongst them with downcast eyes.
"All rise for Judge Turpenne!" cried the Bailiff.
A hush fell over the crowd and with a scrape of feet and a general shushing noise, the court stood.
The Judge, who was a dithering old fellow, shuffled to his seat and Javert, stood some twenty paces from him, could smell the strong whiskey and tobacco smoke on him. In the silence, he watched the man reposition himself on his stool, grumbling under his breath about his 'infernal piles'.
"Court be seated." he mumbled thickly.
The waiting crowd sat back down upon the creaking benches.
"Bring in the accused."
The Bailiff nodded and disappeared through a nearby wooden door. Javert had to remind himself to breathe as he waited for the man to re-emerge. But breathing in the hot and stifling air around him was unpleasant. So too was the strange feeling he had in his gut.
The Bailiff came back, dragging a tall and stout man behind him.
Javert looked away sharply. He couldn't bear to see the man's face. Shame would have him crumbling away into nothingness if he saw his eyes, his nose, his cheeks, all the features of his face that he'd somehow seen in Madeline…
"Jean Valjean, you stand before this court accused of breaking your parole-"
"I've never heard of him!" the man exclaimed.
The bailiff gave him a whack with his truncheon. The man cried out, clutching at the spot on his arm where he'd been struck.
"You will speak only when invited to, Prisoner!"
The man whimpered.
"You stand before this court, accused of breaking the terms of your parole, stealing nine apples from the orchard of Monsieur Popradoux, and the theft of forty silver sous from the boy known as Petit Gervais." the Judge continued.
The Prisoner rubbed pitifully at his arm and shook his head.
"How do you plead?"
"My name is not Jean Valjean, sir!" he exclaimed. "My name is Champmathieu. I come from Paris. I'm a cartwright! I worked for a man called Baloup. My daughter too. She used to do the washing and the ironing for his family. Her poor hands would be red raw right up to the elbows most days. Neither of us had much luck. She's dead now, sir. But you could ask Monsieur Baloup! Ask him!"
Someone else in the courtroom started laughing. Others soon joined in. it was cruel, mocking laughter, aimed solely at this frightened and babbling man in the docks. Soon, the whole courtroom was roaring. Everyone, Javert noticed, apart from Monsieur Madeline.
"You know damn well that this Monsieur Baloup doesn't exist! No man of that name and profession resides in Paris anymore." the Judge stated.
"No. No that can't…Please..!" the man wept.
"Bring in the witnesses."
The bailiff signalled to another Courtroom Attendant, and in were waved three wretched individuals.
Women and little children gasped aloud as the red-clad, chained men were ushered over to the stand. Javert could smell the sea and the sweat traipse in after them as they were moved to face the court. He swept his eyes over them, mentally sounding off each one of them in his mind.
"Please state your names for the court." the Judge commanded.
The first to speak was a huge, olive skinned man with a face as dark as thunder. "Michael Piccard."
Prisoner number 29244. Javert thought to himself.
The one in the middle was pockmarked and thin of face. "Julien Saint-Claire."
Prisoner number 66492.
And the last was a red-bearded, trunk-chested hulk of a brute. "Simione Sitowski."
Prisoner number 50467.
"Gentlemen, you have been summoned here to identify the man before you." The Judge said, extending a bony finger out towards the defendant. "Is this man Jean Valjean?"
"That's him alright." The big, olive skinned man said. "I spent two years shackled up next to him, I'd know him anywhere."
"We worked together in the Kamar Quarry." Red-beard stated with a nod.
"He was a terrible poker player. Always lost the game on Sunday morning." The pockmarked one remarked last.
"So, this man, right here, he is the man you knew?" The Judge asked.
Their hard, unreadable eyes were like shining coals in their filthy faces. Jaws set firm and shoulders squared.
"Yes." The olive one said on behalf of them all. "He is Jean Valjean."
"Liars!" A voice cried from across the courtroom.
The crowd erupted into gasps of pure shock and outrage.
Sister Simplice surged to her feet, blocking his view of who had spoken, and others surged upwards.
"Order! Order in the Court, I say!" the Judge hollered above the noise.
"These men are liars, Your Honour!" the voice cried out again. His voice ringing clear and calm amongst the cacophony of alarm and indignation around him.
"Sit down!" the Bailiff roared. "Sit down now or be removed for contempt of court!"
Reluctantly, the crowd sank back down to their pews, but Javert kept to his feet. Craning his neck over their heads. A cold sweat breaking out along his brow.
Standing with his head held tall and his fists balled tightly at his sides, he looked like a kingly chess piece, in amongst a sea of pawns. His face was grave, but the torturous look in his eyes had suddenly disappeared.
The breath caught in Javert's throat.
"Monsieur Madeline, do you wish to-"
"I don't know what these men gave you, in exchange for your lies." he said forcefully, fixing the prisoners in his sights. "But whatever they bribed you with, you should be ashamed of yourselves."
"Do you know something that you wish to share with the court, Monsieur?" the Judge asked.
"I do." he grumbled soberly. "I know these men to be bearing false witness because… I am Jean Valjean."
His gasp was imperceptible amongst the roar of noise that erupted from the courthouse again.
Froid's snide little laugh at the back of his mind vanished in the blink of an eye.
That crushing sensation of disappointment eased off his heart.
He could see clearly again. Think again. His ears could hear again.
It was like he had suddenly withdrawn his head from a bowl of water.
The world was the right shade of colour once more.
"Monsieur le Maire, you can't be well-"
"Michael, on your right arm you bear a tattoo of the day Emperor Napoleon returned from exile. Show them!"
The olive-skinned prisoner gave a look of burning hatred to Madeline. But the jostling people in the crowd were all pushing and shoving to see. Waiting to see if the man spoke the truth. With a great sigh, he reached for his sleeve and rolled it up.
There, marked upon the skin of his arm, were the letters and numbers promised. '20 Mars 1815'.
Another sigh of outrage sang through the crowd.
"And you, Julien, you burnt your left shoulder badly during one of the fires on the hulks."
The pockmarked man made no move to reveal himself. But eventually, the Bailiff surged for him and tore the filthy red tunic away from his shoulder. A white and spidery scar was spread out over the man's skin.
The people of the courtroom were in uproar.
"And you, Simione, when things got dire for you at the pool table, you used to bet the gold of your two back teeth!"
"I lost one to a man from Rouen." Simione replied, delving a finger into his mouth and digging around. Eventually he produced one nugget for the waiting crowd and held it up to the air. "But the other one I still have."
"So, you mean to tell me that this man…" the Judge said, pointing his gavel at the poor soul in the defendant's box. "...is not Jean Valjean?"
"Your Honor, this man bears no more guilt than you."
The pitiful man in the box wept with relief. He buried his head in his hands and cried for joy.
"Then Bailiff, you may release him at once!"
The Bailiff did as he was bid, rushing toward the man with keys jangling. He released him from his shackles and they fell to the floor of the courthouse with a dull thud. The man's cries of relief soared high into the roof of the tiny room.
"You didn't believe me!" he sobbed. "No one believed me! You all would have sent me to the gallows for a crime that was not mine! I should complain to… to… to whoever's in charge of you all!"
"Calm yourself. You will be compensated for your troubles." the Judge said with a wave of his hand. "Bailiff, please arrest this…"
But the Judge's words ground to a halt. Javert looked in the direction where he had pointed his gavel, and found nothing but empty space.
"Jean Valjean…" Javert breathed. "Where is he?! JEAN VALJEAN!"
The voice that came out of his mouth was one of pure, untethered rage. He surged forwards, through the crowd as if he were an unshackled panther. They shrank back from him, from the manic look in his eyes, afraid that he might turn that rage upon them.
"He left, Sir." a man at the back of the courtroom said, pointing towards the open doors.
"Well…" the Judge sighed with an apologetic shrug of his shoulders. "He could have fled anywhere now."
"He can run right into the pits of Hell, and that still won't be far enough away from me!"
And with that, he bent his head low and went charging from the courthouse. A bloodhound on the trail of his kill. Crazed by the fresh scent of blood. But this sheep had had the audacity to dress up as a fellow wolf. To make him think he was insane for seeing what he'd seen beneath the disguise. To try and mask his scent with good manners and glib humour.
But his eyes were open now. And he'd never ever let the sheep convince him to put his teeth away ever again.
Grace had searched the streets for Javert until the sun began to set in the sky. Then, a new sort of nightmare began.
In the daylight, she'd been able to see the National Guard coming and tuck herself into a small alleyway or an empty house. But in the darkness, they patrolled on foot. Only their burning torches and the thud of their boots on the pavement alerted her to their presence. And they'd gotten smart in the last few hours. Smart enough to realise that they'd catch more people out on the streets if they stayed quiet enough to sneak up on them.
And then suddenly, the hunter became the hunted.
It became less about finding Javert, in the winding and clogged streets of Paris, and more about fleeing with terror from the band of soldiers she'd suddenly heard on the next road over.
The sweat was thick on her brow. Her breaths, deep and ragged. She couldn't will her feet to move fast enough as she ran through the maze of Montmartre.
She was Theseus, trapped in the seemingly endless Labyrinth, and they were the Minotaur, huffing and sniffing at the skin on the back of her neck. Snaking and winding her way around street-corners and down alleyways, only to hear the thud of army boots just around the bend again, the minute she thought she was safe.
She almost ran straight into them on the Rue de Uffizi. Only at the last possible moment did she hear their muttered voices, skidding to such a sudden stop, her feet falling out from under her, that she landed upon her backside. Without even stopping for breath, she picked herself up and went running back down the street from which she'd come, so close that she could hear the soldiers in the unit exchanging words to one another.
"Did you hear that?"
"Check down that way!"
Grace ran as if the horns of the bull-monster were pressed against her spine.
She had to bite down hard on her hand to stop herself from crying aloud. But on she ran, tucking herself around the nearest corner that she could find.
But she came to a skidding halt again when she saw the flash of even more blue coats at the end of this street too. She'd run from the arms of one bull straight into the path of another.
And suddenly, she felt herself being yanked backwards by her shirt.
Grace breathed out the first choked moments of a scream, but a hand clamped itself around her mouth.
An arm wrapped around her body. Her eyes bulging wide with terror.
She was swept back into a squeezingly tight passageway, no more than maybe two and a half feet wide. With a firm jolt, her back was pressed against the wall, that hand still clamped tight around her mouth.
"Shh!"
Grace looked through the dusky light, heart hammering ferociously against her ribcage.
Javert stared back at her, a finger from his spare hand pressed up against his lips.
Grace nodded at him, and he slowly removed the hand he had clamped over her mouth.
"I heard something! Down this way, come on!" a voice from the National Guard Commanded.
Javert pressed his body close to Grace and lowered his head. She buried her face in his chest, scrunching her eyes tight as she heard the approach of their boots. Both of them stood as still and as silent as they could, listening to the soldiers march past them.
When silence returned, and the soldiers marched on by without discovering them, Javert slowly eased his body off of Grace.
She looked up, into his face, eyes stinging with tears. He stared back at her, his hand gently easing up to touch her cheek.
Her eyes welled and her lip quivered when she felt the warmth of his palm against her face.
"It's alright." he whispered soothingly. "I'm here."
Grace sobbed, surging forwards until her lips collided with his.
It was a kiss of fear and relief. A desperate, pressing sort of longing as if to confirm the solidness and the realness of each other.
He could taste the salt of her tears on her mouth. Feel her body trembling beneath his. But she was hot and insistent in her kisses. She needed him. Needed his scent and his body and his wholeness.
He was her safety, his mouth her home.
He too breathed her in deep. Like he needed her in his lungs. Needed to taste her over and over again, her essence growing richer and richer on his tongue.
Eventually they had to part, panting and breathless after losing themselves so deeply in each other.
Grace's face was still streaked with tears. Her body still shaking feebly in his hands. Javert pressed her close against his chest, stroking her hair in quiet affection until she had stopped crying.
"Don't leave me again." Grace whispered to his heart. "Please. I was so scared. I was so frightened…"
"I won't. I'm sorry" He replied firmly. "Did you not reach your safe place?"
"I did, but they turned me away."
"Turned you aw-?!"
Javert stopped himself, swallowing down his anger. If he ever found out who had turned their back on Grace, he'd make them pay for every minute she'd been out in these streets, running for her life. But that didn't matter now. She was safe. Alive. In his arms. And that was enough.
"Before today, I'd never seen anybody die." She said emotionlessly. "Isn't that weird. Back home, death is something private and hidden. But…they just shot them. Shot them! Now, I can't get their faces out of my head. And they just…shot them."
Javert didn't know what to say. How to comfort her. He remembered the first time he had seen someone die out in Egypt. What would he have wanted someone to tell him? Nothing, was the short answer. Because there wasn't anything that would make it better. You just grew terribly, awfully accustomed to it.
And he didn't want Grace to grow accustomed to it. He wanted to spare her that awful numbness. He wanted to save her from all of this. But the worst thing was that he could already see that vacant horror in her eyes. He could already hear the deadness in her voice…
"Please." he said hoarsely, a hand caressing her face. "I have never begged you for anything. But I beg of you this: Leave this place. Go home, Grace."
She shook her head as tears welled in her eyes. "I can't."
"It has become dangerous here." he pressed. "This city is too dangerous for you now."
"I know."
"So please. Please, Grace…"
"I can't." she sobbed, leaning her head on his chest.
"Why? Because of those wide-eyed boys in the cafe?" he asked shortly. "They will all die with the idea of revolution on their lips, and you'd follow them into the grave?!"
"You aren't listening to me!" Grace cried, thumping his breast. "I can't go home. It's not my choice, it's never been my choice!"
Javert went quiet, watching her cry softly with a look of puzzlement in his eyes.
"What do you mean?"
Grace buried her head back into his shirt, all of the pent-up emotion and frustration she'd felt since she'd been transported into this world spilling out of her all at once. She inhaled his scent deep, trying desperately to feel an ounce of that safety his smell gave her.
"I have been trying to go home for months now." she wept. "But I'm stranded here. I'm stuck here!"
"Grace, tell me plainly. What do you mean?"
Javert held her shoulders firmly. He stared into her waterlogged eyes with deep concern. He sensed her great secret, poised on the edge of her tongue. That huge something about who she was, what she was, seemed to be dancing on the edges of her.
"If I told you…" she whispered. "...you wouldn't understand."
"You have told me a great many things that I do not understand, but I know them regardless."
"Oh really?" She scoffed. "Like what?"
"Like… like how a seemingly harmless pot of mould can save a man's life." he said, a little unsurely.
Grace shook her head at the floor and took a step away from him.
"Like how music can stir the soul and un-harden the heart of even the most unbelieving of men!" he continued, his voice rising with emotion. "Like how the Law can be at once both infallible and malleable! Like how the smallest of human intervention can change the course of multiple lives! Like…despite everything I was ever trained and raised to be… even though I was taught to spit pity and mercy and kindness and affection back in the face of those who showed it to me…even though my stone heart trembles in this new world that I have been thrust into…I love you!"
Grace snapped her eyes up from off the ground.
Silence. Thick with passion and poignancy.
Even the guns and shouting in the distance seemed to still for them.
"I love you…" Javert said again, his voice little more than a quaver. "I love you, Grace. Like the sky loves the stars; Through darkness, through eternity."
She let the tears run down her cheeks. Her heart yearned to say those things back to him, and from the searching, pleading look in his blue eyes, he wished to hear them back too.
Javert swallowed hard. The naked truth laid itself bare in the small space between them.
"And if you feel even an ounce of the weight of what I feel for you…" he said thickly. "…you'll let me take you home. To safety."
She knew before she could kiss him, before she could tell him the same, she had something else to say. Something that might shatter and destroy everything.
He took a step towards her, arms aching to hold her.
"I was born in 1997." She blurted out.
Javert's steps halted. He froze to the spot.
"What?"
"I am from England. And I did live in Oxford before I came here. But… I left in the summer of 2023. Almost two-hundred years from now."
Javert stared at her, in utter shock.
"There was…a man. A man called the Story Teller. He sent me here. Don't ask me how, but he did. And I've been stuck in the 1830's ever since. In the wrong country… in the wrong time…"
She paused, searching his flabbergasted expression for anything other than stupefaction.
"Jesus Christ, please say something Javert." She whispered.
"I… I don't…"
"You don't believe me. Why would you? You'd be mad to."
She grabbed at her hair and began pacing the pavement.
"No, I…"
He paused his sentence there. Did he believe her? She was right; truly no sane man could accept the things she had just told him. He had locked up lunatics in La Force for spewing such delusions as these. But something stopped his logical mind from stepping in and leading her away to an asylum.
1997... Oxford... Two hundred years…
The information whirled around in his mind, as restless as Grace pacing the cobblestones before him.
A prattle of gunfire sounded off close by. Grace immediately stopped in her pacing and cast her eyes out beyond their little alleyway. The Inspector too gazed warily out towards the noise. Both of them heard the shout of voices.
"Search the streets! Every back passage and gulley! There's more of them, find them!"
Javert and Grace locked eyes again, alarm ringing in their expressions.
"It's Malloirave. He's combing the streets with my men…" Javert muttered grimly. "Using the search and discovery tactics I damn well taught him."
Grace said nothing, her lip quivering as the soldier's footsteps grew closer and closer.
"Do you know somewhere we can hide?" He asked her, stepping close to Grace and closing the gap between them in an instant.
She nodded, "I think so. Gavroche showed me…"
Grace paused, eyeing him up carefully.
"You said 'we'. You're not going to hand me in? Doesn't that break some sort of protocol, Inspector? Clearly I'm a raving madwoman that needs putting away."
Javert took her hand in his and squeezed tight.
"Mademoiselle, this is not the first time I've broken protocol for you and I doubt it shall be the last."
The tiny smirk that he gave her was as beautiful as the sunrise to Grace. She almost wanted to weep with joy, but was stopped from doing so by another firm squeeze of her hand.
"Now go! Lead the way! Before we're both apprehended!"
Grace did as she was told. Leading Javert by the hand, she pulled him down dank alleyways and stinking passages. The shuffle of soldiers' boots followed them close behind but somehow she was able to duck and weave out of their way. She pressed them close to a wall as a flurry of six or so imperial soldiers passed close by. Once they had gone, she let out the breath she'd been holding in, glancing back to Javert. He nodded reassuringly at her, squeezing her hand again.
"We're there." Grace said quietly.
He frowned at her, seeing no obvious hiding spot in the rather open street around them. Then Grace pointed at the ground.
Three feet in front of them was the round iron disc of a sewer-hole.
The Inspector could not hide his disgust in the look he gave Grace, but she scoffed at him and bent to the floor.
"Make that face all you want…. This is our only option." She grunted as she pried up the disc from out of the pavement. "And you'll get used to the smell."
Javert rolled his eyes and bent down to help her. With a clatter of metal, the two of them heaved the iron cover to the side and stared down into the abyss-like darkness of the sewer below.
"Ladies first." Javert said flatly.
Grace dangled her legs into the darkness and looked up at the Inspector. With a deep breath she swung off the ledge and disappeared down into the blackness.
He heard a faint splash. And in the next moment, Grace's voice called out to him.
"It's only a six foot drop, or so. Hope you don't have weak ankles…"
Mustering his courage, Javert did as she had done. He dangled his legs over into the blackness and after a deep breath, he let himself drop down into what felt like hell itself.
His heavy boots landed with a splash in the sewers of Paris. It was dark, and the only light he could see was the beam of orange street lamp coming from the sewer-hole above.
Javert could just about make out Grace's face on the other side of the beam of light.
"Come on." She said grimly. "We'll walk down a couple of streets or two, just in case one of Malloirave's men notice the disturbed disc and peer down here."
She walked off down the sewage path, and Javert couldn't decide if it was his curiosity or devotion that made him follow on close behind.