Chapter Text
Javert walked the streets with a single thought in his head: he has been wrong all his life. He worked for the law, he was the law. He had always thought he defended justice above everything, but now he learned that justice and law weren’t the same thing. He was wrong about a lot of things, he had lived a lie. Everything he had believed in was false. What would become of him now?
But he didn’t believe that, right?
Javert didn’t know what he believed in anymore.
It had been hours since he left Jean Valjean in his house. He had had the opportunity he had been waiting for all his life, he could have imprisoned Valjean, it was in his hands, but he had let his prisoner free. He had helped him save an insurgent, he carried him to the house of the boy’s grandfather. He had tried to convince himself that that boy was already dead, that he wasn’t helping a traitor, but deep down, he knew what he was really doing. The insurgent was alive and no matter how hard he told himself he wasn't, he knew that wasn't true. He helped save a criminal.
He had broken all his principles.
He knew what he had to do, he knew it. But first, there was something else that had to be done. He had to renounce.
He kept waking through the dark of the night, now surprisingly quiet after the days before. As he got closer to the commissary, something got him out of his thoughts: he heard screams, inhuman screams of pain. It was far past midnight, there wasn’t a soul on the streets. It caught his attention, what could that be?
It became obvious they came from inside the building of the commissary when he himself got inside of it. Someone was being tortured, and in the silence of the night, the echos of the screams became louder than ever. The poor creature they were torturing must have known some information they needed, and they were failing on making it speak.
Javert took off his hat and coat, leaving them on the rack and making his way slowly to chief inspector prefect of police Henry Gisquet’s office.
“Who is it?” Javert asked, as he saw the prefect behind the desk. He guessed it had to be someone from the barricades, given the very recent events, but he asked anyway.
“One of the leaders of the insurrection” Gisquet said, without looking up from the papers on the table “he won’t say a word”
“May I?” He didn’t know what impulsed him to ask that, he wouldn’t participate of the torture, he only wanted to have a look at it. Maybe he wanted to convince himself he didn’t want to be part of those horrible things ever again. Just to make sure he was making the right decision.
The prefect nodded, knowing the prisoners always spoke when Javert was there, that man had always been great at his job.
Javert’s feet guided him to the room where the interrogations happened, he was used enough to go there. But the moment he got to the room, he froze.
This had to be a joke that God or whoever was up there was playing on him -he thought-, how on Earth was this coincidence possible. When at the barricades he told the boy he would see him later, he meant in Hell, not in the police commissary.
The person emitting those terrible screams of intense suffering was the insurgent called Enjolras, pale, laying shirtless on a table with his arms and legs tied with belts to it. But the belts were no longer necessary, he had been pinned to the table with other methods.
There was a clove traversing each of his hands, immobilized, the same with his legs, and one of his shoulders. The gendarmes were on their way to nail a clove on the other one, slowly, giving gentle blows with the hammer, to make his suffering last longer. Enjolras was shaking violently, failing to hide the agonizing pain. By involuntarily moving, he was only hurting himself further. Even like that, it was obvious he was trying not to show his pain, but he was being unsuccessful.
There were fresh knife wounds on his chest and stomach, Javert knew how to recognize them, he had used that method before. It would have been hard to tell for any other person, the boy was completely covered in blood.
There were no questions anymore, there were no answers. This was no longer a torture to get information out of the insurgent, this was a revenge.
“Are you stupid?” Javert bursted. “How do you want to make him speak if he’s dead? You need him alive, he’s bleeding out”
The gendarmes stopped what they were doing, and as if the ending of the torture had caused him to finally relax, Enjolras passed out. But even unconscious it was obvious that he was in agony.
“Gisquet!” Javert called. The prefect made his appearance in the room, frowning at the sight.
“Get him off that table, and tend to his injuries, it’s not a decent hour to summon a doctor,” he ordered the gendarmes. “He will make a public example with his death, he can’t just die here”
Javert looked at his superior more worried than he wished. He knew that young man, he also knew he had committed grave crimes, but he couldn't be sure of the things he knew anymore.
“Is he going to be executed?” He asked once the gendarmes left.
“It’s very probable, if not, he will spend the rest of his life in the galleys,” he explained and, analyzing the look on his colleague's face, once so unbreakable, he asked: “what’s the matter?”
“Umh? Nothing, nothing” he assured, distant. “It’s been a long day for everyone”
“Yes, about that, do you think you could make tonight’s guard?” Gisquet asked, already putting his hat on. “It’s already almost morning anyway, you can get tomorrow off on reward if that’s alright”
Javert nodded slightly.
He took his place behind the desk. Gisquet left the moment the gendarmes finished tending the prisoner’s injuries as well as they could. After a while, the gendarmes left too.
Javert had been left alone.
He started then writing what he had to write, what he had come there for in the first place: his letter of resignation. From now on, he wouldn’t be a police inspector anymore, he wouldn’t work for the system he had thought was perfect for so long.
But what was he if not a police inspector? He didn’t have a life outside his job. He was nothing now.
He had a plan. He had the responsibility of guarding the commissary, but as he no longer worked there, he could simply leave and alone as he was, no one would notice. Anyway, the only prisoner they had there was in no condition to even move a muscle.
He knew which was the next step he would take. But first, the resignation.
His pulse was firm, not giving at the magnitude of the situation.
He was nearly done, just a couple of lines more and his sign and he would no longer be a police inspector. The life he had always known would no longer be, he would be a nobody. What was he, if not his uniform?
He shouldn’t be writing this. He shouldn’t be there. He shouldn’t be breathing. He should be dead. But Valjean had taken that away from him.
Once a thief, forever a thief.
How could this man be good? How? He was an ex convict.
And yet, Valjean had allowed him to live. He had been at his mercy and he had chosen to let him live. And not to buy his own freedom, he had made that clear when he had willed to be taken back to prison after bringing that insurgent home.
He had forgiven his life because he was a good person. It was the last thing Javert wanted to believe, but there was no other possible explanation. He had been wrong all his life, how was he going to live with that? He couldn’t.
The sound of a gasp of pain took him out of his thoughts.
Another contradiction. In the past day, an ex-convict had saved his life and the leader of a barricade had cared to make him comfortable in what he thought were his last hours.
This was surely a joke God was playing on him.
He sighed, pensive, contemplating the situation. Valjean had let him live at the barricades and he had left after Valjean got to his house. The favor was paid. There was nothing more he had to do.
Another gasp of pain.
Even if the insurgents were going to kill him once the barricade was taken, Enjolras had brought him a glass of water when he had ask for it, and he had moved him to the table after he pointed out it hadn’t been nice of the boy to let him spend the night on the post. He didn’t have to, and still he had made jure Javer was comfortable. Enjolras had killed people, he had committed several crimes. How could the boy have done something good for him when he was a criminal? Like Valjean, a contradiction.
Javert had to go there and make sure he was comfortable, the debt would be paid that way.
He sighed deeply as he got up from his chair, and made his way to the room where the insurgent was being kept in.
The sigh was chilling. The young man he had seen at the barricades was no longer there. That was Enjolras, for sure, but he was unrecognizable. The boy was lying on the corner, shaking and only half conscious. Completely covered in blood and looking dreadful. His skin was incredibly pale, his lips near blue and the bandages the gendarmes had improvised before leaving weren’t enough to stop the bleeding.
There was nothing he could do to make him feel comfortable, there was no way he would feel comfortable like this. What this man needed was medical attention, and quickly.
Javert hadn’t been tortured while the insurgents kept him as a prisoner, they hadn’t even tried.
We are judges, not assassins
He knew people who had in their hands more blood then this boy had, and they hadn’t gone through that. Some of them were free, some of them were sent to the guillotine, but none of them had been tortured.
He heard that conversation the leader had had, they had spoken just in front of him, it had been impossible not to hear it. About trading his life for the life of an insurgent who had been made prisoner by the National Guard. Javert had precious information about them, if they traded his life for the one of that other man they were risking their own safety, and still, they had wanted to.
The soldiers had done nothing to try to save Javert, but these young men had been willing to leave everything to save the life of their friend. But it had been too late, the insurgent had been murdered before his friends had time to dialogate. They didn’t want to hear.
His head was starting to hurt badly.
He didn’t want to hear his own thoughts.
But maybe, just maybe…
No.
No.
No.
He didn’t know what impulsed his actions, he didn’t know why he was doing that, but he left his resignation letter on the desk and the next thing he knew was that he was kneeling on the floor next to Enjolras, trying to avoid his injuries as he picked him up. The young man gasped in pain again, but he was way too weak to even process what was happening.
Almost no one dared to go outside, and as dark as it was with the streetlights still broken from the revolt, it was easy to pass unnoticed. Even if it was a man in uniform and an insurgent covered in blood who, by the time they made it outside, had passed out again.
He couldn’t take him to the hospital, there was no way to explain his injuries without being suspicious. But he needed medical attention urgently.
Damn it.
He couldn’t believe what he was about to do.
A terrible sound came out of his throat, he was laughing.
He had the direction and, after all he had witnessed in the past day, he was sure he would find help there.
Rue de l' Homme Armé, number 7.
He knew where they had to go.
If someone had told him a day ago what he would be doing now, he would have laughed. But there he was, helping another insurgent, and not only that, he was carrying him to the house of Jean Valjean.
As the distance to the house grew shorter his anxiety was growing bigger and bigger. He was questioning his decisions, he questioned if he would regret this, but he kept walking as quick as he could with a twenty something year old man in his arms.
Javert was about that age when he entered the police. That age when you think you are old enough to know things about life, but in reality you are still just a child. But do we ever stop being just children, anyway?
After a long time walking in that dark moonless night, he finally reached the street he was searching for. He sighed, he was really doing this.
He wasn’t even sure if the man in his arms was still breathing, it had been a long time since he fell unconscious again and with all the blood he lost Javert didn’t think Enjolras would survive, but the intention was what counted.
Javert was finally in front of the door of the number 7. There was no light on inside the house, but there weren’t any lights in any of the other houses either, so that didn’t mean the house was empty. The people inside it were all probably sleeping.
He carefully left Enjolras on the floor and took his time before knocking at the door and he waited patiently for someone to open it. Minutes passed, there was no sign of life inside the house.
He knocked again. He could leave Enjolras there and run away before anyone opened, Valjean would know what to do and he would have nothing to do with it.
Too late, the door opened and the person behind it was Jean Valjean himself, looking him dead in the eye. He probably thought Javert was there to take him to prison, a far cry from reality. There was no fear in the other man’s eyes.
Javert broke eye contact with him, distraught, and he gestured towards the young man bleeding on the floor before starting his way back up the street. There was something he had to do, one last thing.
The confusion and worry in Valjean’s face was obvious.
“Javert!” he called.
But there was no answer, the old man kept walking up the street as if he hadn’t heard his name being called, with sure steps, knowing exactly where he was going even if his brain was unable to think clearly at that moment. He didn’t know if he was doing the right thing, but it seemed like he didn’t know anything anyway.