Chapter Text
“Bienvenue! Tout va bien.”
The instructions, if one could interpret them as such, were clear, and Javert relaxed almost involuntarily. On the side table, the letter sat with script neat and crisp. He could not quite recognize the hand, close to but not exactly resembling his superior.
The parlor in which he found himself was not over decorated, but spoke to a tasteful host; the settee he sat on was comfortable, but firm enough to encourage conversation among guests. At this thought, Javert dimly realized that the room was empty apart from himself. It did not trouble him.
A door he had not been aware of opened. Not suddenly, for Javert found himself expecting it; he knew not why, but this triviality did not trouble him either. At the door stood a man of average build dressed in a fine suit, a white beard framing a stern, yet easy smile.
“Javert? Come in.”
Obeying without question, Javert rose as the man walked to a writing desk, gesturing to a chair that faced the opposite. As he waited for his host to sit, the man extended a hand as if to shake his own. He recoiled slightly at the offer, but took it when the man did not rescind.
“Welcome, Javert. My name is Victor,” he said, smoothing his coat before seating himself.
Javert trailed stiffly, taking a moment to look around at the study. The walls were immaculate, lined with books, and the sun spilled into the room through two large, curtained windows at their side. Something uneasy roused in his chest when he registered that his greatcoat, hat, and cane were missing. He felt suddenly naked, stripped only to shirtsleeves and a waistcoat, lacking a way to hide his chin, his eyes. Most oddly, he felt somewhat damp, though the room was not particularly hot. Yet, he felt almost chilled.
Swallowing more thickly than he should like, Javert spoke. “An honor, Monsieur.” Giving another furtive glance around the study, he turned again to Victor. “May I—that is—may I ask where I am at present?”
“Yes,” Victor said. “That is precisely why I have brought you here.”
Javert’s head began to ache as he tried to sift through the fog in his mind. He could not seem to remember the morning, could not recall how he came to be in this place. It was not the typical dull pain he encountered when thinking; it was as if he were reaching blindly through water, slowed by the resistance.
Victor clasped his hands on the desk. “Javert, you are dead,” he said plainly.
“Ah,” Javert said. He wished to produce any other sound, to speak, but his mind was blank.
“This,” Victor gestured around them, “is the next plane of existence.”
“And I am in-“ Javert caught himself, unsure. What was it he meant to say? An inkling of some sickness in his throat silenced him.
“I must clarify,” Victor said. “It is not quite what you were likely told, heaven and hell, that is. There is what we call The Good Place and, well,” he cast his eyes downward, “The Bad Place. Though I can assure you, your place is earned here in The Good Place.”
Staring at him dumbly, Javert was mute. Death was simple enough to accept; he felt he had been waiting for most of his life for the thing to be over with. At the same time, his mind tried and failed to process two very, in his own view, unlikely facts, the first of which was the existence of an afterlife.
He was never a man who lived by the laws of the church, but he had certainly taken those beliefs as given. It was all part of the hierarchy he spent his life defending. Whether he knew those beliefs as truth in his heart was another matter. The only truth he had ever required was the law, seeing justice served. What came after was irrelevant, more divine punishment not meant for his lowly contemplations. So he accepted this too, after a moment of doubt. There was, he could discern, an inevitable feeling associated with this reality, as if he had already surrendered to that higher, unknowable power. He attempted to shake away the swirling sensation in his mind.
Second was his apparent assignment between those two eternal antipodes. Something in his chest gave him pause at the notion. Heaven—surely he was not suited to that place. Again! Traitorous doubt crept into his mind. But why? He gave another attempt at searching his memory before settling on a gap more disturbing than his arrival.
“I see,” Javert finally replied, trying to keep his voice level. “If I may ask, and forgive me Monsieur for my memory fails me, how is it that I perished?”
Victor gave a knowing look and a nod. “Yes, we often erase the memories to allow for a more peaceful transition. Most frequently with upsetting or violent deaths.”
“Of course,” Javert said. His voice felt hollow. “Quite understandable.”
“In any case, you have done your duty well. More than enough to earn your keep,” Victor said with a reassuring smile.
“Of course, Monsieur,” he repeated. Like a dog endlessly barking, he thought humorlessly.
Racing, muddled thoughts still clouded at the edge of his mind, and he pushed them to its furthest corners with disdain. How or why he found himself dead was of no concern. He was in paradise, for God’s sake; there should be not one concern in all the world for him. His likely savage death at the hands of some criminal or insurgent would be forgotten for the better. The thought was not a comfort.
“Well,” Victor said, standing from his desk. “You will have more questions to be sure, but I should like to show you around the neighborhood before the welcome celebration begins.”
“Please,” Javert said, following suit. There was not a trace of expression on his face to betray the turmoil stirring restlessly at the very back of his mind. To be so overtaken by thought was quite unlike himself; the very idea troubled him, shaking his foundation imperceptibly. As he walked, his legs felt steady but his mind faltered, perturbed and wavering.
“Welcome all, to your first day in the afterlife!” Victor said with a flourish.
All actions taken on Earth, he explained, amounted to a positive, or negative, effect on how each man was placed after his death. Every cup of coffee, every conversation, every misplaced button, every single little decision was factored into a point total. Those who so luckily found themselves in The Good Place were the top of it all, the kings among men in the way they lived their lives.
Victor talked on, explaining more of the neighborhood and its other residents, but Javert could not bring himself to absorb it. He stared blankly, unable even to balk at the idea that his soulmate sat in the crowd around him.
“Bienvenue au bonheur éternel.”
The welcoming presentation should have been, to say the least, enlightening, but the clarification of this afterlife did nothing to quell the unease Javert felt in the core of his bones, the clinging static in the back of his skull. So driven to distraction was he that he ignored both the other residents around him and what should have been an alarming forewarning of the events to come.
Raising little more than small questions and humming affirmatives, he soon allowed Victor to lead him through the cobbled streets of the neighborhood. Mercifully, a coat was returned to him, shielding the indecency of his arms and his plain waistcoat. Victor told him of his design of the neighborhood, its every detail planned at his instruction, but Javert found it ever difficult to focus. Distantly, he registered passing fine restaurants, a wine shop, a tailor, as Victor explained the infinite things residents could request at each.
“Jeanette is like a machine that will grant you whatever you wish. Simply call for her.” At the mention, a woman appeared and walked beside them. Javert startled at the sight.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Javert,” Jeanette said with a smile. She disappeared as quickly as she arrived, leaving only a tone in her wake.
“While she cannot quite give you anything, ” Victor said, “she can act much like a library. Any knowledge you like.”
Javert nodded numbly. It was simply another oddity among a more distressing beast that loomed over him, shadow long and overwhelmingly dark.
The stroll continued unbidden until they reached a more secluded edge of the town where a large mansion sat, oversized and gaudy. Its walls were covered with crawling greenery, and its architecture spoke to wealth one could only describe as obscene in its brazen display. Javert had once protected many estates like this, but had never once entered. That was a life inaccessible to a spy from the gutter of all people.
“And this,” Victor said with a wave of his hand, “is your new home. Each person’s accommodations are personalized to suit his tastes and needs.”
Javert looked up, keeping any emotion packed tightly away where even he could not access its truth. “I see,” he replied.
“Your soulmate has already arrived,” Victor said with a warm smile. “Please come, and I shall make introductions.”
Soulmates, Javert thought. What a foreign idea, quite out of place in the life of a police spy. Never before in all his years had Javert considered that he might share his life with another; his stature too base, his desire nonexistent. If any other had suggested he were meant for such things he would have certainly laughed in their face. However, this was no mere man delivering this order unto him. While Victor was not God, he was a messenger of that higher power—in other words, Javert’s superior. Who was he to question? He would accept his lost memory, his placement in heaven, his assigned partner for eternity, for that was what was asked of him, and Javert was ever adept at obeying.
Victor strode steadily through the long path leading to the estate’s front door, breezing easily past the enormous, imposing foyer and the adjoining rooms until they stepped out onto a patio and through an impressive set of glass doors. On the other side was a garden unlike which Javert had ever seen. The thing was overrun and untamed, spanning a great distance and containing a wide breadth of vegetation, trees, and flowers. He knew nothing of the care of such things, but could discern the deplorable shape it was in, contrasting the immaculate mansion they had just walked through.
At its center was a small pavilion, sheltering a table and chairs. A pot of tea sat waiting as a figure sat still, turned away from the approaching guests. Javert eminently found himself swallowing a powerful urge to bolt away, but pressed on at the edge of Victor’s heels, feeling heat build uncomfortably underneath his collar. His reclaimed clothing suddenly felt constricting, a heavy burden weighing down his every step. Victor stopped, bowing slightly to the man with Javert trailing behind.
“Good afternoon again, Monsieur. Javert, allow me to acquaint you with your soulmate, Jean Valjean.”
And it was indeed Jean Valjean that turned to Javert. His stark white hair was unmistakable, but his build was nearly a shadow of what Javert remembered it to be. Valjean’s frame was thin, his face unusually gaunt, as if he had aged twenty years from when Javert had last encountered him. Frustratingly, his mind was, at now of all times, clearing at its edges, revealing more details of that last day, the remnants of his addled thoughts striking again with vengeance.
“I do believe you are already very much acquainted, but we all must grin and bear the formalities,” Victor said lightly. “Now,” he clapped his hands, “I must be going to attend to other residents, but please let me extend again my warmest of welcomes.”
And with that, the architect disappeared back into the house, leaving Javert to stand stupidly, alone.
During that time, several thoughts took the opportunity to assault Javert’s person. First and foremost, overwhelming any other truth that had come to light, was the resurfacing memory that so plagued his mind since his arrival in this confounding place. He had—without any misgiving—freed this man. This criminal, this recidivist, this scoundrel whose soul by all rights belonged to the whims of law. Yet he, irreproachable as Javert was, had done him a service by bringing him and that boy into that fiacre, leaving him unbound at his home. It was indeed the last memory he could recount, walking into the night, lowering himself to that vile gutter in uttering that falsehood—he would not, could not wait for Jean Valjean, that holy villain who spared him.
Javert swallowed dryly.
In the shade of the gazebo Valjean sat, hands clasped around a teacup. Javert dared not enter past its edge, wavering at the steps, wringing his hat in his hands. Valjean’s expression gave Javert the distinct impression of that of an animal staring down the barrel of a gun, eyes wide with unmoving terror. Javert felt the odd echo of the deferential reports made to a mayor; he thought to a pair of desperate, wide eyes carrying a body from the sewers, confronted by a malevolent spirit. It was not lost on Javert that the eyes that bore into him now looked upon a man closer to ghost than human; perhaps he was always so.
He then turned his attention to the second thought threatening to break his sanity. Soulmates. Surely it was a mistake—Victor had taken him to the incorrect residence, Valjean was not meant to be here, there had been some sort of error. No—for there were assuredly no flaws in divine law, God’s will. For of course, Javert thought. All the times the two had met, had crossed paths in the most implausible of circumstances. This was no miscalculation. His stomach turned. Was it possible to fall ill in heaven? Was it-
“Javert.”
The sound of speech was so foreign, Javert startled, initially confused as to where it had come from. Valjean’s voice was quiet, and his tone held an indescribable emotion. It was not quite phrased as a question, but was too hesitant to be a statement. Fear? Resignation? It was beyond what Javert could comprehend, for the man was beyond comprehension.
Without warning, Javert felt the burn of Valjean’s stare, which was quickly shifting from terror-filled shock to guarded bewilderment. At what, he was unsure. Could it have been his place in heaven, the revelation of his soulmate? Was Valjean even aware that Javert had died? He felt as if he were prey in an open field, frozen with indecision. Unbidden, his mouth opened.
“So you too are here,” he said.
What an inane observation. Yet they were; they were both there and they were both dead and they were bonded for eternity by some whim of the cosmos. And of course Valjean was here, terrible angel that he was.
Javert now found it possible to be ill even in paradise as he swallowed the bile building at the back of his throat. It did not escape Javert’s notice that he addressed him still with a deferential vous. Anything else would grate on his tongue, coax the sickness up from his stomach.
Slowly, Valjean opened his mouth and closed it again, as if thinking better of what he meant to say. The anxious expression had not left him, yet he could not seem to tear his open eyes away from Javert. It was Javert who broke the locked gaze between them, desperate to hide his surely wretched face in the depths of his collar.
“I suppose I shall find my rooms easily enough,” Javert said in a clipped, unfeeling tone.
Before Valjean could protest or even react, Javert was walking hurriedly into the mansion as if expecting, dreading a deadly pursuit. He knew, of course, that nothing of the sort could follow him, dead as he was. But the weight of Valjean’s stare was assuredly worse, gripping his soul far tighter than any reaper. Death, as he always knew it, should put a legal end to any chase, but those human laws had no dominion here. This was Valjean’s territory, a world where the deplorable were revered, and convicts became saints. It was in this backwards cage that Javert found himself, another kind of mortal peril closing in on his bare throat.