Chapter Text
Since well before sunrise, Valjean has been running, pushing deeper into the woods. Every rustling of branches makes him jump; the shadow of a bird flying overhead causes his feet to falter, his blood to race. This kind of freedom, he remembers now, tastes of nothing so much as fear. Even so, given the same chance, he would run again. His life consists of pushing up against walls of a cage; when a wall yields, he is compelled to push through to the other side, no matter where it might lead him.
The river is a godsend. He splashes the cool water against his sun-beaten face, drinks his fill, and for a moment almost forgets to be afraid. He lets himself pretend instead that he is just a man like any other, enjoying a well-earned reprieve from a hard day of work. Kneeling at the edge of the river, he bows his head and breathes in deep.
Somewhere at his back, a man's voice cries, “You, there!” and in a heartbeat, the fantasy is shattered.
Valjean swallows back the taste of bile; without getting to his feet, he turns, slowly, to face the newcomer.
It is one of the younger guards; Valjean recognizes him only vaguely, but the guard seems to know Valjean for what he is, despite the borrowed civilian clothes. He meets Valjean's eyes coolly.
“24601." He recites the number confidently. Tucked into his belt, in place of the usual cudgel, a pistol. "I trust you have enjoyed exploring the countryside," the guard comments, "but it's time to get you back now.”
Valjean’s hands are shaking; he curls them into fists to still them and starts to stand.
“Stay where you are!"
Valjean flinches at the commanding tone and sinks back to the ground, ducking his head in shame. Has he come so far, only to now be dragged back, again? To be greeted by the lash and an extra piling of years to his sentence? He hears the jangling of chain as the guard reaches into his rucksack and draws forth a pair of shackles.
What would this man do, Valjean wonders, glancing furtively at the woods surrounding them, if he were to make a break for it now? The gun at the guard's hip glints in the sunlight, pulling Valjean's gaze back. Would this guard really use it? He might not; and even were he to shoot, he might miss, if sufficiently surprised. But the noise of it! What if more guards are about, ready to come running? Valjean drags his teeth across his lip, frozen in indecision.
"Don't try it."
Valjean looks up again at the guard, who is watching him now with narrowed eyes and grim sort of smirk.
What other choice does he have?
“Please,” he croaks. He pushes himself to his feet again, stumbling a little.
"Hey!" The guard grips his gun. "I said stay where you are!"
“Wait," Valjean pleads, gesturing uselessly, taking a few halting steps forward. "Don't, don't shoot.”
“It is my intention to bring you in unharmed, but you must follow—” but Valjean, hardly aware of what he is doing, shakes his head and starts forward again. He won't go back. "No further!" the guard barks. He raises the gun. But there is a sudden look of—something—some apprehension, maybe, in his eyes, and this sparks in Valjean a flare of hope so wild it might in truth be called hopelessness. Like a thing compelled, like a tightly coiled spring set free, Valjean hurls himself at the guard.
The guard’s finger closes on the trigger of the gun—producing nothing more than a harmless click.
A misfire.
In the next instant, Valjean collides with the guard, tackling his would-be captor to the ground. Some part of him realizes distantly, numbly, looking down at the uniformed man beneath him with a vague and growing horror, that in attacking a guard like this, he has committed a capital offense. They will kill him for this, if they catch him.
The guard struggles to get out from under him, twisting and thrashing and clawing. There is a loud crack as he succeeds in delivering a blow to Valjean’s jaw with the butt of his pistol. Valjean grimaces, catches the guard’s wrists and forces them down to lie flat at his sides, trapping them there beneath his knees.
The gun is tossed a safe distance away, but the guard does not yield; he draws his legs up, kicking and digging his knees into Valjean’s back. He manages to press one of his heavy boots against the side of Valjean’s neck before Valjean shoves the leg away and moves so that he is stretched out flush against the guard, pinning him to the ground, limb for limb.
The guard lets out a strangled growl and bucks his hips, uselessly—Valjean would laugh if his heart were not still racing with fear—then he deflates, his expression pained, face red from exertion, or shame, and turns his head stiffly, away from Valjean's scrutiny. They remain that way for a spell, chests heaving with breaths that gradually begin to even out.
Overhead, a gentle breeze stirs some branches. Valjean permits himself to relax, just a little, stretching marginally, shifting his weight. The guard inhales then: a sharp, audible hiss. Belatedly, Valjean registers the hardness pressing up against his stomach. It is so unexpected that for a moment he does not even understand; he stares down at the guard, whose face is still turned away from him, in a haze of disbelieving confusion. The guard's eyes, when they finally meet Valjean's, burn with resentment and a furious resolve. The man opens his mouth, draws a deep breath—
Suddenly gleaning the man's intention, Valjean claps a hand over guard’s mouth and prays no one is close enough to hear the muffled cry for help. A moment later, he holds back a cry of his own as the other man bites down on the soft flesh between his thumb and forefinger. When he continues shouting into his hand, Valjean acts on the first thought that comes to him: he hauls the man roughly to the edge of the river and shoves his head underwater.
It is blessedly quiet again.
But what if someone sees?
Valjean glances wildly in all directions, one hand keeping the guard’s arms in place behind his back, the other holding his head down. If someone comes now and finds him like this! If he was not bound for the firing squad before, he surely is now. Damned, he is damned, and too far in to go back!
The guard pushes up against his hand in violent spasms. He has caught a bit of Valjean’s sleeve between two fingertips, which he clings to weakly. Valjean, whose hands have begun to shake again, silently counts out another five beats, and eases up.
The guard emerges sputtering and gasping. “Keep quiet,” Valjean mutters against his ear, “or I’ll do it again.” The guard shudders under his hand.
Valjean cannot afford to stay here a moment longer—but what to do with the guard? He is still weak and frightened; Valjean might lose him if he makes a run for it now. But then, this man will seek out the others, who surely cannot be far. Even if Valjean leaves him unconscious, they will find him in time; he will show them where their convict was last seen—he will tell them what Valjean has done. He'll be condemned.
Valjean swallows as the neatest solution slides forward in his mind: kill him. Kill him and roll his body off the bank; send it down the stream.
He has never felt there to be a killer in him before. He is not innocent, he knows, but he has maintained all these years that the sentence incurred was disproportionate to the crime, was unjust. He has been wronged, and terribly. But terribly enough to justify ending this young man’s life? And he is young. Looking at him now, this close and at his mercy, Valjean feels he is seeing him for the first time: a boy, a few years younger than Valjean had been when he was convicted. He has never thought to guess at a guard’s age before—what was a guard to him but commands and beatings and a cold bowl of beans at mealtime?
The boy’s eyes are shut. He takes deep, shaky breaths, as water drips slowly from the ends of his hair. There are droplets caught in his eyelashes.
Yet this guard, young though he may be, did not hesitate when it came to killing Valjean. That flash of something in his eyes meant nothing; he was reluctant to shoot, perhaps, but not unwilling. He'd have killed Valjean on the spot, if his gun had not misfired. It is only through chance that Valjean is still alive now.
Well, let it be the same with me, thinks Valjean. If it comes to it, I’ll kill him.
- -
They travel by river, using a log Valjean finds on the bank to keep afloat. He has shackled the guard with his own shackles and gagged him with a strip of fabric torn from his shirt. “Hold tight,” he instructs, arranging the guard’s arms over the log, “and keep your feet up.”
As the current picks up, it becomes a challenge to keep straight and clear of eddies, but seeing the swiftness with which the river carries them away, Valjean feels his chest swell with some strange and desperate emotion. By the time the stars come out and the shadows grow long around them, they have traveled miles downstream. The river is wider now, and calm. Beside him, his hostage rests his head against the log and closes his eyes; his teeth chatter. Seeing this, Valjean feels the chill himself. He guides them toward the bank.
Once ashore, Valjean confiscates the guard’s bag and finds himself in the possession of a modest sum of money, a small knife, a canteen, and a bit of soggy cheese and bread—he bites into this last ravenously. The guard looks on, expressionless. Valjean feels a twinge of guilt, followed quickly by a flare of anger. Why should he feel guilty? Why should he not eat? It has been longer for him since his last meal, and he has done all the work of pushing and steering them along in the water.
But he will not starve his hostage; it would only slow him down, after all. Grudgingly, he tears off a small hunk of the bread for the boy.
“You’ll keep quiet?” he says, bringing his hands to the gag. “No more shouting?”
The young man hesitates, then nods. Valjean removes the gag and presses the bread into his hands.
The guard takes his time with the meager portion, biting off small pieces which he pushes around in his mouth slowly before swallowing. After a while, he asks, “Am I allowed to speak?”
Valjean considers. “What would you say?”
“That this is madness.”
Valjean takes a bite of cheese. "That so?" he says with great disinterest.
“Have you any idea what they’ll do to you when they find us? When they hear how you have assaulted and kidnapped a prison guard?” He shakes his head, repeating again, under his breath, “madness.”
Valjean grunts in response and tucks what remains of the food back into the bag. “We’ll have to make this last.”
“It was only meant to serve as one man’s lunch.”
"Well," Valjean sighs. “We will find something else tomorrow.”
“And if we don’t? Are you prepared to starve us both rather than go back where you belong?”
Go back, Valjean thinks. He cannot go back—the prospect was hideous before; it is unthinkable now. For all that his life is a parade of misery, he is not yet ready to die. Valjean scrubs his hands over his face and then drops them to his sides, straightening. He cannot let himself think on that; he will be lost if he does. “We’re far from starving, boy,” he says. “Believe me. I’ve known starving.”
“So have I,” the boy says. “I’m not eager to know it again.”
Valjean’s clothes are waterlogged and heavy, clinging to him uncomfortably. He stands and peels off his shirt.
“I won't—” the guard begins, and is seized with a sudden fit of coughing. Unconcerned, Valjean twists the sodden shirt in his hand, wringing out river water. When he has recovered himself, the guard tries again. “I won’t be called ‘boy’ by you.”
“What should I call you then?” asks Valjean, slinging the damp shirt over his shoulders.
“You should call me ‘sir.'" The look Valjean gives at that suggestion must be clear for Javert lets it go immediately, saying instead, “Javert, at least.”
“Javert?” Valjean repeats it like it is a foul word. “What’s that?”
“My name,” the boy—Javert, apparently—grinds out.
“And why should I call you by it? When I am only a number—”
“Jean Valjean,” says the guard.
Valjean is too surprised to know how to respond; he stands blinking a moment, then tries to pretend as if nothing extraordinary has happened. He pulls an arm back behind his head in a stretch, feeling his muscles strain. He hears the guard add, "It is not a difficult name to remember," and nods, distantly, the sound of it, Jean Valjean, echoing in his mind like a word from a language he has not heard or spoken in years.
It seems that Javert is unable to stay quiet long. “What are you going to do?” he asks, breaking the silence. "What's your plan?" Valjean ignores him, continuing his stretches until he feels warm and loose. After a while, he leans back against a boulder and looks out at the river. In a quiet, toneless voice, he finally answers: "I am going to run until I can’t run anymore.”
Javert stares. “That is not a plan.”
Valjean shrugs.
“You’re a stupid brute, aren’t you?” says Javert. Valjean says nothing; such insults lost their sting years ago. Javert goes on: “No plan, no food, probably no idea where we are, and a hostage on your hands. You realize, you’re worth a hundred francs out here? There will be folks about looking for that bounty. What do you think this will achieve? What mad hope—?”
“I don't hope anything,” says Valjean. He tilts his face up toward the sky, where the first stars of the evening are just visible against the edge of the fading sunset. The rocky surface at his back too like the walls of the prison, and yet, there is a fresh, earthy scent here that is new and welcome; when he shuts his eyes, the hush of the river fills his ears.
When he opens his eyes again, Javert is watching him, his expression curiously intent; he looks away before Valjean can begin to decipher it. Valjean scowls, suspicious. He takes up the boy's rucksack again and, pulling out a pair of leg-irons, approaches him.
“Boots off,” he says. Javert blinks and looks down at his feet; slowly, he pulls off his boots and turns a wary look to Valjean.
“Don’t try anything foolish tonight,” Valjean says, crouching to close an iron cuff around one of the boy's bare ankles. “I will hear you, and you will regret it.” He has learned well how to intimidate. He sits back, looking his hostage over: a Toulon guard, humbled and shackled and at his mercy. It is a cold sort of comfort, and Valjean wishes he could take more pleasure in the sight. Perhaps he has lost the capacity for pleasure. Or perhaps he needs to sleep.
Unfortunately, sleep means leaving Javert unattended and there is nothing to chain Javert to out here. Valjean must use himself then. With a grimace, he cuffs his own ankle, the same one that's been dragging a chain for more than six years now. Out of the prison and still no choice but to wear chains. He is startled from his thoughts when Javert speaks up again.
“What’s stopping you?” he asks. The boy's voice is calm, quiet. Valjean looks at him in confusion. Stopping him from what? “All this trouble," says Javert. "Why not just kill me?”
For a moment, Valjean can only gape at him. "What?"
“Do you think that I may turn a blind eye to what you have done?” Javert shakes his head solemnly and says, “No. There is no bribe in the world that could make me cover up a crime.”
Valjean stares hard at the ground and breathes in slowly. The guard's words should not come as a shock, he tells himself. He did not expect a bargain. Certainly not pity. But to hear the idea pronounced impossible, so soon, with such finality...
Javert is still talking. “In time,” he is saying, “you will decide that your best chance is to get rid of me. If you’re going to do it, I—” and here he pauses, taking a deep breath himself. “I would prefer you be done with it now.”
Valjean returns his gaze to Javert. Surely he cannot really mean this; it is a bluff—but to what end? For a moment, Valjean simply stares at him; then, and he is not sure what makes him do it—a morbid curiosity, or, perhaps, something darker—he gets up on his knees and brings his hands to rest at the base of Javert’s neck, letting him feel the latent power there. He could strangle the life out of him slowly. He could snap the boy's neck.
Javert lifts his chin high. Perhaps he does mean it. Beneath Valjean’s fingertips, his pulse races; his eyes, though, are alight with a righteous defiance, confident, expectant. He expects this; he expects murder from prisoner 24601. Expects and faces unflinchingly. Valjean touches a thumb to the boy's jaw, entranced and, simultaneously, outraged. What right has this man, this jailer, to look so noble?
Valjean lets his hands fall to his sides.
“You think I’m an animal," he says, voice rough. He draws a shaky breath. “I’m not.”
He gets up and moves away gracelessly, unnerved and angry, snatching the guard’s bag and stretching out as far away from his hostage as he can get, which, as they are chained together at the ankle, is not very far at all. The ground beneath his head is damp and mossy; it is the softest bed he’s known in years.