I know, I know. I thought this would be a oneshot! It got away from me. There will be cameos, Grantaire will get to drink absinthe, and Marius and Cosette will get to be sweet.

I don't own Les Miserables. I am merely paying homage to the great Victor Hugo through my meagre works.

xxx

If one had asked the elderly gentleman standing inthe sun what he was thinking of, he would have answered 'life'. This isn't an odd thing for any person to say, especially a man of advancing years with eyes that looked a little too sad. However, when one considers that the elderly gentleman was no longer among the living, one will – perhaps – understand why the author considers his preoccupation with life to be rather obsessive. Or at least, quite unhealthy.

Valjean – which was the name of the elderly gentleman – breathed deeply. At least, he was pretty sure he was breathing deeply. It felt like he was, but he had learned that so many things in the afterlife were not what the appeared. He also thought that his knee was stiff with rheumatism. And that he wanted a glass of warm milk around seven in the evening. None of this could be true. His bad knee no longer existed, and his stomach was slowly turning into the richness of the earth beneath the grass.

Javert – who took a certain wicked pleasure in 'educating' him on the intricacies of being a ghost – assured him that these sensations were 'memories'. As Valjean struggled to rise out of his chair, grunting and grumbling under his breath; Javert would lean against a handy wall, tug on his bottom lip, and lecture Valjean about 'pandering to the body's whimsies'.

So far Valjean had managed to resist pointing out that a man who absently tried to warm himself in front of every fire they came across, often going so close that the flames would flicker through him, wasn't exactly in a position to talk.

Strange, really. Ever since the moment the Inspector had paused and glanced back to invite him along, they had spent much of their time together. It seemed strangely natural, as natural as the crumbling of the gravestones and the slow trickle of mourners that surrounded the cemetery in the daytime. He – he who had spent so much of his life fleeing this man, now found himself following unrestrained. Valjean couldn't help feeling it was the end to a circle. They had never met under auspicious circumstances. Even in M-sur-M, Valjean had been haunted by the insistent probability that one day the sharp eyes would see right through him.

How many time had he picked up pen to write to Paris and ask them to re-locate this thorn in his flesh? But he could nat make such a request without reason, could not demand the re-assignment of an exemplary officer without some cause. Once, just once, after the Fauchelevant affair while in one of his black studies, Valjean had written a long letter in which he had magnified every one of the Inspector's few faults, in which he had twisted their every encounter in a desperate attempt to excuse his fantastical request.

In the morning he had broken the seal and read it over. And then he had burnt it.

Now finally there were no threats, no laws, no barriers. They did not have to play their weary parts in France's mighty stage. No more convict or policemen. They were men together – if one could call ghosts men. And Valjean found that the Inspector was a fascinating conversationalist, prone to odd tangents and sudden bursts of ridiculous hilarity. Javert taught him about being a ghost, and in turn Valjean softened the world of purgatory for the policeman. Strange how even the dead judged by a uniform.

A sensation prickled down Valjean's spine. It was like recognizing a footstep or a scent. Ghosts could recognize – well – auras? He tipped his head back slightly, not quite looking around. "Finished your rounds?" Another old habit. Javert insisted upon patrolling the streets for exactly an hour every day. It was as though he was rationing himself really.

"Eh – I'm done, yes." Valjean could sense that Javert was just behind him. "The afternoon is yours."

"Mine?" Valjean turned at last. The Inspector was seated on a rock just behind him, his hair disarrayed and damp. It was always damp, an uncomfortable reminder of what the 'whimsies of the body' must have been in death. As usual, Valjean got the awkward feeling that something was missing. He peered, and Javert raised an eyebrow.

"Has my nose grown to extraordinary proportions?"

"No, why?" Valjean said, startled.

"You are staring at me in what can only be termed as – eh – morbid fascination. I can only presume that my face has been painted bright pink by some angel with an overactive sense of humour." Javert pushed his hair back from his face and assumed an expression of comically over-done dismay. "Quick, say a prayer. Maybe it'll go away!"

"I was just wondering," Valjean said mildly. "Where your hat is. You look – wrong – without it."

Javert stared for a minutes, and then laughed sharply – a bark of a laugh as sudden as it was surprising. "My dear ex-con herakles, I am devastated that my lack of chapeau is distressing you, but there's not much I can do to remedy the matter. I left it on a bridge."

Valjean stuttered for a moment, flustered. He was under no illusions as to which bridge the hat was left on. Nor at what moment of his life the Inspector has decided to bid farewell to the rather battered black-brimmed chapeau which had become almost as much a part of him as his wolf-like smile. In consternation, Valjean cleared his throat. "Would you like to visit Cosette with me?"

"Again?" Javert shrugged. "I doubt the mam'zelle's gottan any bigger since yesterday."

Cosette was technically a madame now, but Valjean found that he was even less able to think of her as one than Javert was able to call her one. So he just shrugged, sighed, and waited for Javert to unfold his long legs and get off the ground. It had become something of a ritual, as essential to their routine as Javert's ridiculously illogical 'patrol'. Javert knew Valjean lived off the love in the Pontmercy house. Valjean knew the Inspector was sustained by the movements of his job.

As entwined as their 'lives' had become, they still had these old addictions, these passions at the core of their beings. It didn't matter that neither could understand the other's need. They made allowances. They had to.