Work Text:
On Saturday morning, Jean Valjean awoke, as he always did, at the crack of dawn.
He lay in bed for a few moments, staring at the ceiling, processing the events of the night before. He supposed it could have gone worse; the truth had come out about Cosette’s past with the Thénardiers, but he had been able to move the conversation away from his relationship with Javert, and thus, away from his past.
He remembered his vague promise to Cosette about making her breakfast, and rolled out of bed. She probably wouldn’t be up for a while.
Valjean went downstairs to take an inventory of the food he would need for breakfast, and discovered they were out of pancake mix. He glanced at the clock on the stove. It was barely 8 AM. He had several hours before Cosette would wake up naturally.
He slid on his shoes and left the house, walking to a supermarket close by for pancake mix and whipped cream: Cosette’s favourite. On the way back he stopped at Starbucks, buying them each a coffee.
When he got home, he set to getting breakfast ready, while the coffee still cooled. When he ventured it may be cool enough to drink, he made his way upstairs.
As he had done the night before, Jean Valjean rapped on his daughter’s door. “Cosette,” he called, though with more warmth than there had been last night. “Cosette, wake up, breakfast is almost ready.”
He smiled as he heard her audibly groan. “I’ll be down in a minute,” she promised.
Valjean walked back downstairs and returned to the stove, where he began to pour the pancake mix.
True to her word, Cosette was downstairs soon. She eyed the coffee on the counter.
“Caramel macchiato?” Valjean asked, turning to her. Cosette’s hair was a disaster, and her eyes were barely open.
“Thank you,” she smiled, then grabbed the coffee and sat down at the kitchen table.
Valjean busied himself with the pancakes while Cosette sat at the table. He knew it would be a few minutes before she was even coherent, so he let her have the time.
As he was plating the last few pancakes, she spoke up.
“Was all that true, about Éponine’s parents?” she asked quietly.
Valjean set a plate down in front of her before sitting down himself. “Yes,” he replied, gravely.
Cosette looked down at her pancakes sadly. “She’s a really sweet girl,” Cosette’s voice was barely audible. “To think she lived with criminals her whole life, I mean,” she faltered.
“They were never good people, but when they were taking care of you, they weren’t criminals,” Valjean responded. His stomach was sinking.
Cosette grabbed the can of whipped cream and sprayed some on her pancakes.
“Still, though,” she argued, looking up at Valjean. “Could you imagine? I always knew I was unhappy before I lived with you, but even if they were criminals, I would have been too young to understand. Éponine lived with them while understanding that they were criminals. Wouldn’t that be terrifying? Sleeping in the same house, putting your trust in people like that? I mean, I don’t know what they did, I think last night you may have said ‘thieves’ but if Éponine was emancipated, surely it was bad enough that,”
“Enough, Cosette,” Valjean ordered, a little too loudly. He looked down at his hands and noticed they were shaking, clutched tightly around the silverware.
Cosette regarded him, apprehensive about his outburst.
When he trusted himself to speak, he explained simply, “This is not a conversation for the breakfast table.”
“I’m sorry Papa,” Cosette replied quietly. She returned to her pancakes.
Valjean sighed. “Finish your breakfast,” he said, “and then we’ll go to the park, like we planned.”
Cosette gave him a weak smile, and turned back to her breakfast.
Valjean had lost his appetite.
***
Valjean and Cosette sat on a bench at the park, eyeing the families with young children taking advantage of one of the first nice weekends of the spring.
“Was I like that when I was younger?” Cosette asked, nodding toward the children running about the playground.
“Not at all,” Valjean replied, mock-grave. “You were much more difficult to control.” He turned to her and smiled.
“Did you enjoy taking me here? When we met?”
Valjean gazed upward in remembrance. How had twelve years passed so quickly?
“Of course I did,” he said quietly. “It was a while before you had fun here, though. But before I knew it, you loved coming here more than anything else. You were wild, the way you ran around here. I could never keep up.”
Cosette beamed.
“I wish you would tell me how you came to care for me,” she told him. She had returned her gaze to the children.
“It is a story for another day,” Valjean replied.
Cosette looked like she might give a pout, but a smile won over her face at the last second, for which Valjean was thankful. “Then why don’t you tell me about you and Monsieur Javert?”
Valjean winced.
“Come on, Papa,” she said. “I don’t know anything about him! How long have you been together? Why did you never tell me about him?”
“About two years,” Valjean offered simply.
“Do you love him?”
Valjean faltered. “I do,” he said deliberately after some time. “Though not as much as I love you, Cosette.”
“We should invite him for dinner tonight,” Cosette suggested. “Now that there aren’t any more secrets between us! I would like to get to know him.”
“I’m not sure Javert has time to,” Valjean tried.
“Come on, Papa!” Cosette interjected. “You have kept me in the dark about so many things for so long. At least let me meet him over dinner, and not at one in the morning without a proper shirt on.”
Valjean flushed a deep, deep red, then pulled out his cell phone.
“Fine.”
***
“How did she take it?”
Javert and Valjean were standing in Valjean’s kitchen, Javert sipping a beer while Valjean cooked. Cosette had retired to her bedroom, claiming she was working on a paper due the following week.
“Take what?” Valjean inquired.
“Everything,” Javert said, taking another sip. “If you told her about us, surely you had to explain about,”
Valjean cut him off. “I didn’t tell her about us.”
Javert raised his eyebrows at him. “She has the right to know,” he said quietly.
“I’m protecting her,” Valjean retorted.
“From what?” Javert seemed almost angry. “You owe her the truth. She’s not a child anymore, Jean, and she’ll still trust you. She’ll still love you.”
Valjean just shook his head. “I think she had a nightmare last night, about the Thénardiers,” he said. “She asked me about them, if Éponine had really lived with criminals throughout her childhood. She was so scared, Javert. How could I,” Valjean faltered. “I couldn’t possibly tell her. I’m no better than,”
Javert silenced him with a look. “Don’t compare yourself to them,” he warned. “You’re an honest man, Jean.”
“What happened to ‘people don’t change?’” Valjean protested.
“I changed.”
Valjean turned back to the stove, fussing over the chicken currently sizzling in the pan.
"This might be good, actually," Javert said, after a spell. Valjean glanced at him. "If I'm here, I mean. Might stop you from going and saying something stupid like 'I'm a bad person.'"
"I'm not going to tell her," Valjean insisted.
"You need to," Javert contested. "She has the right to know, Jean. You owe her the truth. You need to trust her."
Valjean just sighed.
***
Dinner was served. Valjean had made a simple dinner of chicken and mashed potatoes, but Cosette and Javert both seemed happy with it.
Cosette took a bite, then set down her fork. She turned to Javert.
"So how did you two meet?"
"Not now, Cosette," Valjean warned at the same time as Javert said, "I arrested him."
Cosette laughed, looking between the two. Valjean's face must have been a giveaway; he had closed his eyes, bracing himself. He heard her laughter die down.
"Wait, what?" He heard her ask. "What does he mean, he arrested you, Papa?"
"Cosette," Valjean tried. He couldn't find the words.
"Cosette, your father," Javert started, and Valjean saw him shoot him a glare, "was involved in a robbery that turned violent. I arrested him, and he served five years in prison.”
Valjean had rested his head in his hands and could not lift his head.
"I'm not going to do this by myself, you know," Javert said to Valjean pointedly.
Valjean took a deep breath and then looked up at Cosette sadly. He tried to read the expression in her face. He failed.
"I was about thirty," he started. "I knew a man, knew a group of men, who did that sort of thing. Robbed houses. They had planned to rob another one, but in order to do that, they needed someone strong enough to carry whatever it was they stole without slowing down. That's where I came in. The first and only time. They offered me," Valjean hesitated and sighed deeply. "I couldn't find work, Cosette. I lived with my sister and her children, and we were barely making ends meet. We weren't making ends meet. I was desperate, and,"
"It turned violent?" Cosette interrupted quietly.
Valjean hung his head.
"Your father didn't hurt anybody if that’s what you’re thinking, Cosette,” Javert explained. “He ran, actually. But we caught him.”
“What happened after?” Cosette asked hesitantly.
“I was released five years later, and I could once again not find work. Everyone knew about what had happened, knew I had spent time in prison. Nobody would hire me.” Valjean looked pleadingly at Cosette. “I still knew a few people from when I had,” he faltered again. “I got a fake ID, and established myself under a new name. I broke parole. I got a job at a factory. Things were going well for a long time, until Javert recognized me at the scene of a car accident. So once again, I left, and once again I forged a new identity.”
Javert scoffed. “It was not just a car accident, Jean.”
“Papa?” Cosette asked.
Javert rolled his eyes and turned to Cosette. “A pedestrian was struck and nearly crushed under the weight of a van,” Javert said. “We showed up, but the man would be dead soon unless we could get the van off of him in time. It was unstable, so it would have been dangerous to have people try to move it off of him. Your father happened to be walking by, however. He saw me, and,” he paused. “You had seen me, right?”
“Yes,” Valjean said quietly.
“And knew that if he lifted the van, I might recognize him. Sure he had aged in ten years, but that had been a memorable case, and who else had strength like that?”
“So the man -- he died?” Cosette asked quietly.
“Oh no,” Javert said. “He did it anyway.”
“Papa,” Cosette nearly shrieked. “You saved his life?”
“Yes,” Valjean said warily.
“He’s a good man, Cosette,” Javert offered.
“What happened next?”
Valjean glanced at her, and saw she was very nearly smiling. He closed his eyes in a silent prayer before continuing. “A new life, a new identity,” he explained. “And you. It was going well again, until I, once again, had the misfortune of running into Monsieur Javert."
Javert laughed.
"A bar fight turned violent one day, about two years ago. Me and my partner showed up, but they were drunk and fought with us. One of them had a gun, and," it was Javert's turn to falter. "Your dad saw. He pulled one of the guys off me, even though he knew I might recognize him. He probably saved my life."
"So that's when you two," Cosette asked.
"Not quite," Valjean corrected. "I ran into Javert later that night,"
"Jean," Javert interjected.
Valjean turned to him, and saw the pleading look on Javert's face.
"We had a long conversation," Valjean said simply. "He realized that people could change, that I'd changed. And I realized I might care for him, the only man who knows who I really am. What I really am."
Cosette sat there in shocked silence.
"Why did you hide this all from me?" she said after some time.
Valjean regarded her sadly. "I wanted to protect you."
"From what?"
"I'm a criminal," Valjean tried.
"You're a hero," Cosette corrected. "You saved two lives! Please don't tell me you hid this from me for all this time because you don't think saving two lives excuses being desperate enough to participate in a robbery."
"Smart kid," Javert said. "She's right, Jean. You're being ridiculous."
"Jean," Cosette repeated. "Is that your name? Your real name?"
Valjean nodded slowly.
"Jean Valjean," Javert said.
There was silence around the table for a moment, none of them looking at each other or speaking.
It was Cosette who finally broke the silence.
"I love you, Papa."
Valjean looked at her. She was positively beaming at him.
He fought back a tear. He barely managed.
“Our dinner is getting cold,” Cosette said, and they returned to their meal.
***
Sometime later, Javert and Cosette sat at the table while Valjean washed the dishes from dinner, adamant about neither of them helping.
“You know,” Cosette said playfully, “It would have been good to know my dad’s an ex-con still technically on the run from the law during all those ‘my dad is cooler than your dad’ fights in primary school.”
Valjean winced, but he heard Javert break into laughter. Soon, Cosette joined him.
Perhaps Javert had been right; he was a fool not to tell Cosette sooner. It did feel like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, not having that secret between them anymore. He wondered if he should tell Cosette of her mother, in time.
For right now, Jean Valjean was happy. There were now two souls who knew of his past, and both of them loved him regardless. Here, with Cosette and Javert, Valjean felt truly blessed.