Chapter Text
Javert smells flowers.
It would not seem so strange except that Javert, to the best of his recollection, should not be smelling anything. Death does that to you.
And yet, with every breath (breath! He can hardly believe it), a new scent assaults his nose. Roses, hyacinths, peonies, sage, rosemary, other, more exotic scents that he cannot identify...they all mix with a heady, animal smell of nature at its most primal. But no human smells, no unwashed bodies or rotting teeth or human waste haphazardly discarded. No illness or infection, the unmistakable stench of gangrene or halitosis or loose bowels that might result from any number of diseases or unhealthy living. His stomach churns just imagining those smells that he lived with his entire life. He had learned how to block them out in life, but here, where the air is so pure and untainted, the mere idea of human scents revolts him.
He takes one deep, steadying breath and opens his eyes. This must surely be Hell, he decides, for there was no way God's Heaven could be this untidy. He appears to be in some sort of garden, but he only assumes this because there is a cottage in the distance. The landscape is so overrun with snarled and unkempt plants that Javert feels he must have been somehow transported to the New World. No civilized person could live like this.
He is lying on his back amidst the foliage, yet when he sits up the dirt does not cling to his clothes. He wears a simple, billowy shirt, soft linen breeches, and a pair of flexible leather boots. No extra ornaments adorn his clothes. There are no scars or marks of his previous life, no residual pain from his sudden exit therefrom. He can practically feel the youth in his veins; a hand on his cheek confirms that there are barely any whiskers there. He suspects that the ones that are there are a dark shade of blond, not the scratchy grey he had at the end of his life. A dandelion is growing directly next to his left hand. Without thinking, Javert plucks it from the earth, careful to pull all the roots out with it so it can't come back. A feeling of deep contentment settles in his chest and he knows - knows - what he is meant to do here.
He stands erect, brushing imaginary dirt from his backside. No time like the present to start. He clears away a more or less flat area in one corner of the garden and drops the dandelion's remains there. Surveying the land, he realises it would be futile to make any detailed plan of attack; the sheer amount of work to be done is nearly overwhelming, so he starts in that one corner and works steadily for a couple hours, weeding, clearing, unearthing, and replanting. At one point he spots a small shed nearby and finds inside a wide variety of gardening tools: shears, spades, shovels, even little packets of seeds neatly labelled for when he is ready to cultivate his own favourite plants. There are small pots as well, so he fills a couple of them with dirt and starts some of the more fragile ones that will need extra care before they are ready to be planted in the ground to fend for themselves. He wonders briefly about weather patterns and seasons, but a niggling thought tells him he won't have any problems with those.
Delighted with the discoveries within the shed, he decides to explore the cottage and the extents of the land. The cottage looks small, the bare minimum for one, maybe two people to get by. Inside, however, is a whole different story. There are three large rooms: a sitting room/kitchen complete with a large hearth and oven, a bedroom perfectly situated and neat, and - the piéce de résistence, in Javert’s opinion - a plain room lined floor to ceiling with shelves, more than half of which are stuffed full of books. There is an overstuffed chair and a soft-looking sofa facing each other over a low table in the center of the room and two large, decorative windows to let natural light in, but other than that there is no decoration. The books are all uniformly bound in soft leather. A cursory glance at the covers reveals that they are mostly about gardening and growing plants from all over the world. A few teach herbal remedies for various ailments, although Javert cannot fathom why he would need those.
The kitchen is also a wonder of convenience. There is a pantry stocked with preserved fruits, vegetables, herbs, roots, nuts, and seeds. Next to it is a larder with several slabs of meat along with some milk, cheese, and other perishables. The dining table is covered with a neat cloth and surrounded by four chairs, which both annoys and amuses Javert. The sitting area contains a few pieces of simple furniture, but this is obviously a section of the house that does not expect a lot of use.
Back outside, Javert heads for the hedge that appears to border the entire property. He picks a direction and starts walking; it turns out to be a large property, every inch of which is in disrepair. Javert hears the scufflings of small animals burrowing in the detritus and remembers there was a book or two on hunting and the art of snares. There is a pond chock full of fish, reptiles, and water plants. A bit further on, the hedge stops at the edge of a deep, luscious woodland. Javert skirts around it for the time being, and on the other side of the wood the hedge picks back up and continues around until Javert returns to where he started. Along the whole perimeter there is only one small gate, half concealed by the surrounding foliage. A person would have to be really looking for it in order to see it.
Content with his findings, Javert stands proudly in the doorway of the cottage, looking out at his surroundings. It is a good place, or at least it will be once he whips it into shape. For now, though, the sun is setting so he heads inside to prepare a sparse meal and read until he nods off on the soft sofa.
--
The days take on a routine: Javert rises with the sun, fixes himself some tea, and then starts to work on the garden. The first two days he spends creating a plan of attack, dividing the area into sections to work on, bit by bit. At midday he breaks for a quick meal from the larder, then goes back to work. When the sun begins to set, or he starts to feel hungry, he retires for the night. He is usually more lenient with himself in the evenings, putting together a hefty meal and heating water for a bath. There is a claw-footed bathtub that he sets up in the sitting area portion of the house. Within the first couple of times he uses it, he discovers that the hot water does not cool down until he wishes it to, so the next day he starts a new routine of drawing the bath during his midday meal, when he still has energy to spare, and leaving it to sit until he is ready for it in the evening. There is nothing quite as blissful as sinking into the hot water at the end of the day, and sometimes he even allows himself the guilty pleasure of reading or eating in the tub.
After he has towelled off, he takes his customary seat in the book room, sometimes bringing warm milk or chamomile tea with him, and reads until he feels tired, at which point he goes to bed. He washes clothes and dishes as needed, and anything he wants for that he cannot produce himself, he will usually find in a cupboard or drawer, even if he has never seen it there before. He begins setting snares and crafting himself a longbow for hunting, although he has not used a bow ever in his life. He teaches himself from books and from trial and error. He clears a large enough patch of the garden that he can begin growing his own vegetables and a few potatoes. On rainy days (a blessing and a curse) he takes shelter in his book room or does some of the few household chores he tends to forget about.
He relearns himself, his mind, his habits, his body. Especially his body. Things do not work here like they do on Earth; no matter how hard he works, he never sweats, and he can accidentally stab himself with a knife or spade and will barely feel it, let alone bleed. The dead have no use for blood, he understands. He still occasionally has carnal urges, though he restrains himself from acting out the impulses. The idea of handling himself in life had filled him with revulsion - to do so here in the Lord’s Heaven does not even bear thinking about. And yet, even though his genitals are still functional, he never has need of an outhouse, in spite of the large amounts of food he eats.
It is such a peaceful, simple existence that Javert falls into a sense of complacency. No one can find him here, he thinks. No one can hound him or haunt him, no one demands anything of him but his steady determination and work ethic. For the first time since he came squalling from his mother’s womb, he is at peace.
Until, that is, the day he is struggling with a particularly adamant squash plant. He has to be extra careful of the roots, since he does not want to destroy the plant, but rather wishes to relocate it to an area with more organic matter. He has just managed to extract the last of the roots when a large shadow falls across him and he looks up into the grinning face of none other than Jean Valjean.