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It felt good, for once, not to pack in a hurry. There was a level of resignation that came to Jean Valjean, though perhaps it was simple relief. It was hard to tell after so many decades of running. It wasn’t a lack of urgency that soothed Valjean, either way. If Javert wanted to come, he would come. Valjean had done everything he’d promised to do. Cosette was safe, Marius too, Fantine’s dying wish was fulfilled, and if he was made to serve his time on the chain gang now, he would take it as evidence of God’s justice. 

His new, aged attitude did nothing to stop the instinct that flinched within him when someone knocked on the door. He went to the peephole, looked through it, and took a breath or two to steady himself. Javert stood on the threshold. Rather than the usual imposing figure that he presented at the barricade and for years before, the Inspector was sopping wet head to toe. His eyes were wide with… terror? Rage? Valjean had no way of knowing unless he swung the door open, and so he did. 

“I must say, I did not expect you to return so soon,” he quipped. Javert said nothing. “How shall we do this, Javert?” Valjean prompted, “Shall I follow you to the courthouse?” 

Javert cleared his throat. He sounded, already, on the brink of tears. And yet his words came out careful and certain. “You are a good man, Valjean.”

Jean Valjean froze for a moment. Then, his confusion escaped his chest in the form of a sigh. “Would you like to come in?” 

“I jumped into the Seine, and it spat me back out,” Javert said in the tone of a man who had seen death.

Valjean reached out and guided Javert in by his shoulder. “I can make us some tea.”

Javert sat on Valjean’s couch, shedding river water. He lifted an ornate, floral teacup to his lips with shaking hands. When he seemed prepared to say something, his eyes shifted to the pile of trunks in the corner, and his eyebrows raised slightly. “You are leaving.” It wasn’t phrased as a question. 

“Yes,” Valjean said simply. The plan was to return to the church, the community that had embraced him so freely when he had nothing. He felt no need to let Javert in on this information, and the Inspector did not ask. 

“You are leaving to get away from me,” Javert murmured. 

“Among other things,” said Valjean. And myself, he thought, but did not say. 

Suddenly, Javert looked up at him, making eye contact for the first time since he’d stepped into the house. The stunned look in his eyes made its return, and Valjean could interpret it, clearly now, as terror. “I was wrong,” said Javert. Then, more forcefully, “I was wrong about you.” 

“If you have come to offer apologies, Inspector, know that they are not necessary.” Valjean kept his tone calm and soothing. “You did what you were hired to do. You followed your ideals. In many ways, you are an honorable man, and it’s a shame that we spent so much of our limited lives clashing.” 

“Clashing over bread,” said Javert, the edge of a joke. Valjean didn’t blame him for ridiculing the ridiculous. After all this time, it was amusing, more than anything else. “But you don’t seem to understand what I am saying, Valjean.” 

Valjean tried to remember if Javert had ever used his true name before this day. He remembered an instance or two of Monsieur le Maire, and of course, the old staple that 24601 became. But nothing like this. 

“Explain it to me,” he said. 

“I followed my ideals. I did what I thought God wanted me to do. And I was wrong.” Javert seemed to shrivel under the weight of his admission. “And now, I have nothing.” 

“You have your life ,” said Valjean, leaning slightly towards his nemesis, “Isn’t that enough?” 

“What do I do with it?” Javert asked, hushed and scared.

“You do what I did,” said Valjean, “You look at the world, then look at yourself. And then you start over, and do what you were meant to be doing the entire time.” 

Javert shook his head. “Alone? I feel… unanchored. I’m not sure I would know where to start.”

Silence fell between the two of them, leaving space for Valjean to think. As he eyed the trunks, stacked and waiting, a strangely clear thought came to him. He’d changed homes, positions, and identities countless times since that fateful day he tried to feed his nephew. The one thing that remained constant throughout the years was Javert, and their relationship. 

Could one survive without the other? More importantly, did Valjean even want to find out? He understood the feeling that Javert described, and clicked his tongue.

“No one was meant to be alone,” he reflected, more to himself than to Javert, “And so, I have a proposal. Come with me.” 

Javert looked at Valjean as if he’d lost his mind, which very well might have been the case. “...With you?” 

“Yes,” he said, “Come with me. We could both leave our lives behind. I’m moving to a parish just outside of Paris. The nuns know me, and have cared for me in the past. A pious man like yourself, I’m sure you’d love it there.” 

Javert narrowed his eyes. “Why would you do that for me?” 

“Have I not already explained my admiration for you?” asked Valjean. 

“I made your life hell for decades,” said Javert. 

“Look around, Inspector. My life is anything but hell.” 

“And how do I know that I should trust you?” said Javert, “How do I know that you’re not just going to turn your back on me? You have plenty of reason to.” 

Valjean very kindly did not point out the time that he had the perfect chance to shoot Javert dead and chose not to. If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead did not seem like the appropriate thing to say in the moment. Instead, he said, “I am a man of many faults, Inspector, but it has been years since the last time I broke a promise.” 

For the first time that evening, Javert cracked a genuine smile. “Yes,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Yes. I’ll go with you. So long as you stop calling me Inspector. That title doesn’t apply to me anymore.”

Valjean smiled. “I think that can be arranged.”