Pack Mentality pt 2.2

[rainjoyswriting]

Okay, so this bit definitely is too long.



Perhaps this is what it was like the first time. They weren't there, of course, for that, Aramis was alone for that, had already taken himself off to a monastery to be alone but for the baby inside him, and apparently with his nausea like Athos has never known. Perhaps this is just how it takes him. They say men's pregnancies are hard.

Aramis himself tells them different, in about as distressing a manner as Athos could imagine, Porthos looks like Aramis screaming at them that he hated and blamed them both could never have been worse than the morning Aramis sits on the floor of their bedroom and weeps it out. He's already emptied his stomach into the chamber pot, couldn't make it downstairs - usually, so deeply concerned with how disgusting he finds it, he takes himself somewhere discreet to be ill - because he's just so fucking dizzy he can't stand up. And it's not the first morning of it, not even the first week of it, weeks and weeks of something so wretched and revolting to him and no reprieve and when the tears come Athos is stunned immovable and Porthos looks like he wants to throw up and Aramis covers his face with his hands and is very clearly struggling not to escalate into outright hysteria now that he's started.

Athos knows they have to do something. They can't leave him crying on the floor. Christ, he's carrying their baby, they owe him more than standing and staring at him like he's there for entertainment purposes.

Athos picks his way over very warily, crouches in front of Aramis with a knee to the floorboards and puts his hands on his shoulders. "It's alright," he offers, not knowing if that's anything like the right thing to say. "Aramis, it's alright."

Hands over his face, Aramis only weeps and shakes his head, and through his hands he's hard to understand as he moans that it shouldn't, it shouldn't be like this. Athos looks up at Porthos, and glares.

Porthos does take the hint, and crouches at his side, tentatively begins to rub Aramis' back. "It's horrible," he says, mouth going a bit like he wants to cry as well. "We get it, Aramis, it's horrible, I'm sorry, it's really horrible."

Athos reaches for the bedside table, where Aramis minds that there is always at least one handkerchief; beside their bed they are perpetually in need of them, though not usually for this. "Here," Athos says, dabbing at what of Aramis' face he can see through his hands. "It's alright."

Aramis responds by squirming his face deeper into his hands, and closer to his chest where Athos can't get at it. His shoulders are wracking properly now, no longer just tears, he's sobbing. Which brings on the nausea again, and then he has to wrench forward and dry heave into the chamber pot once more, and at least then they can get hold of him properly, Porthos hugging him in from behind once he's done, gently trapping his arms as he sits him back between his own legs, Athos finally able to wipe his eyes and mouth and get a cup of water from the bucket on the windowsill for him.

"Alright," Athos says, almost hypnotised by the word himself he's said it so many times by now, wetting the handkerchief when Aramis has sipped as much water as he can bear, and cleaning his face with it. "It's alright."

Aramis swallows, and his eyes screw closed. "It is not," he whispers. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry -"

"Hey," Porthos says, sounding so helpless, and Athos brushes Aramis' hair back from his clammy forehead.

"You have nothing to apologise for." It's awful in his chest, the feeling like he hasn't the words, like he can't express how terrible he feels to see Aramis put through this. Eventually all he can get out, thickened by his throat, is, "My poor Aramis."

It's enough to startle Aramis to a blink - well, Athos never is as affectionate as he ought to be, knows it and feels in that second both a dismal excuse for a husband to be able to startle him with a single fond sentence and with a needy glow inside like he has finally helped him - and then Aramis stares at him exhausted, and swallows, and says, "I am sorry. It's a disgusting thing to do in front of you both. And then - I'm so sorry." He tugs an arm free from Porthos, lifts a hand to scrape the heel of it over both eyes again. "I don't know what . . . I don't know why I did that. I'm sorry."

"C'n stop it now," Porthos says, rubbing at his chest with his palm. "Stop sayin' sorry, love. Haven't done anythin' wrong."

"There is no need for you to endure that and give yourself the added burden of sparing us from it." Athos says, putting aside the cup and soiled handkerchief, cupping Aramis' face in his hands to hold his eyes - he almost never sees him so disinclined to make eye contact, usually it's like every moment is a staring contest with him. But now Athos needs to read his face, as he runs his thumbs over Aramis' cheeks to keep his attention and asks, very softly, scared to spook him back to tears, "What did you mean, 'it shouldn't be like this'? You said it like . . ."

Aramis' eyes, slippery with tears, do slide off his again, to the floorboards by his right knee. "It wasn't like this when I had him," he says, very quietly. "And we've spoken to the midwife and she's not worried, but - but I - I'm sorry." He closes his eyes. "I worry. I'm sorry. I've never felt so ill in my life, I can hardly cross the room some mornings, I barely dare to eat before the evening and then it just starts again and I'm so tired -"

Porthos keeps on rubbing his chest as if Lupin's belly, and whispers by his ear, low and repetitive, "We got you. We got you. We got you." until Aramis' head lulls lower, sagging as if the fight's gone out of him. Athos leans down to kiss the crown of his head, and says, "We can send for the midwife again. Or a phys-"

"No."

No. Athos knows that tone of voice and doesn't doubt it: Aramis will kill the next man who tries to perform medicine between his legs, all three of them understand that. "The midwife. To be certain."

"She said it was normal. She said some of them are like this, I'm just to drink if I can't eat, she recommended broth but the smell makes me retch all over again. I just - I'm sorry. I should never have started - I don't know what came over me. I shouldn't have cried and I shouldn't have told you and worried you with it when it's nothing, I'm being a baby, it's just the morning sickness."

"That was not just anything, that looked wretched to endure every day." Athos says, flatly because it's true. "You are not being weak, that is - painful and dehumanising and God, Aramis, if we could go through it for you, you know that we would."

Aramis laughs, helpless between them both, and Porthos kisses the back of his neck, breathes there, "Bein' so brave. Bein' so good, aren't you?"

"Stop babying me." Aramis mumbles, and clearly likes it very much now it's being offered.

"Poor Aramis," Porthos croons, and Aramis keeps his eyes closed and he's smiling but it's tight, and he clearly doesn't dare to outright laugh. "Bein' serious," Porthos says to his neck, and nuzzles his nose up and down the line of muscle there. "You don't deserve it. I'm sorry, Aramis." His thumb strokes at the side of his chest, and he says, quiet as if thinking the words through more deeply, "Poor Aramis."

Aramis already looks calmer, for being petted and pitied a little, though he also still looks ill, skin pale and damp to the touch. Athos touches the backs of his fingers to his brow to check for fever, and while Aramis is warm he doesn't think it's a worrying heat. "You mustn't worry," Athos says softly. "I know what it must feel like. But you mustn't worry yourself, Aramis, they say . . ."

"I know what they say." Aramis says, a little closed off again, he smiles but Athos sees the wall of stone in his eyes. "The midwife has said it too. The strain of worry on the child. I know. 'Think happy thoughts'. I'm managing. I never meant to make you two manage as well, though, and I can only apologise."

"For what?" Porthos growls.

"Well, can any of us do anything about it? Does it help you to know the state I'm in? Of course it doesn't. And I did just do something unforgivably unsexy in front of you both." His fingers pick at Porthos' trousers, the seam at the side of the knee, and he mumbles there, "Forgive me."

Athos slides his hands around Aramis' to stop his nervy picking and pulling, and holds his eye when Aramis looks up at him, a dark, stark look. Athos says, very low and heart beginning to beat unevenly inside himself, "There is nothing to be forgiven."

Aramis looks away, taking a quick breath in through his nose, and they both understand him determined not to speak about the roadside, the frost, the blood, their child. Porthos rubs his chest with both hands and says, "Easy now." helping him to his feet by way of sitting him on the edge of the bed, all of them nervous of Aramis' nausea being set off again. Between them they get him a little cleaned off and dressed though he makes them promise they won't force him to eat, not at breakfast, not until he feels like he can. They promise it because what else are they to do, force-feed him and watch him retch?

He is carrying their child. He is carrying their child and the risk is no less than it's ever been and even if they'll never leave him to suffer alone again, he is alone, even bracketed by the two of them at the breakfast table and only smiling naturally for the children. He's alone because he is the one carrying their child, he is the one whose body is trying to ascertain if it's able to bear it again, they are on the outside while Aramis and the unknown child inside him, it's those two riding into battle alone but for each other and blindfolded. Aramis has no idea how much danger he's in, beyond 'a lot'. He knows how much nausea he remembers from Jean-Armand's successful pregnancy. This is clearly not the same.

And Athos is a weak, spineless, contemptible coward, he really is, because he thinks of it and he can't bear it, everything he knows Aramis would have to go through in much more wracking and brutal intimacy and he can't face it again. Another child who isn't. Another empty cradle, another tiny unsanctified grave in his head. He can't. Another child without even a name beyond his own guilt, he can't. He can't bear it again, he can't, he can't, and he's only ever faced it before the once.

He would do anything for his husband. He wishes Aramis understood that the right way, wishes Aramis understood it because he's sure Aramis doesn't in the slightest, between Athos' difficulty in expressing it and Aramis' difficulty in believing that he warrants it. Porthos may find expressing it easier but it doesn't mean Athos doesn't mean it, he would do anything for him, would suffer anything so he didn't have to, and now here they are on the edge of an ocean, Aramis floating away alone in the boat while Athos is useless on the shore, Aramis alone but for the baby inside him - and Athos alone, but for Porthos at his side, perfectly aware that he could have put Aramis in that boat just as easily as Athos. Yes, it takes more than one to make a baby - three, in their case - but only one of them carries the burden the way Aramis does, and Athos who can't bear it for him and can't in his inadequacy help him with it wonders if it would do any good, any at all, to tell Porthos that Aramis has more than one lost little child he asks the Lord to keep in every one of his prayers, more than one reason to grieve and fear his own body's lack of mercy, more than one reason to need his strength and support now. Porthos would find it easier to comfort him. Porthos might make him feel better, feel stronger.

He can't. It requires too much confession, the confession of who else was involved in the almost-life of that other lost baby, it's been years but the words are still only safe when never breathed out loud. And of all the things Athos can't force Aramis to go through right now, dredging that up again during this has got to be one of the first, and one of the worst.

Weapons buckled on, hats collected by the door while the children are everywhere like squirrels let loose indoors before Jean-Armand clings himself into a happy hug around Aramis' waist - Aramis strokes his hand over his hair, looking down at his head, face still drawn queasy but his smile twitches true on the boy - and d'Artagnan is talking to a sulking, near-tears Maria on the stairs, trying to convince her to stay at home, the fight they have to have every day. "No." Maria says, and kicks at nothing in particular, little fists shaking with the injustice of it.

"No idea where she gets it from," Porthos says.

"I can't imagine," Athos says, and d'Artagnan, holding his daughter up by the back of her pinafore while she scrabbles to kick at him just out of reach, says, "I am the only adult in this house."

"Are you," Constance says coolly, and holds up a cloth tied into a bundle. "I put you some lunch together. For when you get hungry."

Her eyes are on Aramis, she misses nothing, she means for when you can eat. Aramis just smiles for her, meaninglessly bland but at least grateful for the thought, and ruffles at Jean-Armand's short hair. "Come on, little wolf. To the vaulted halls of academia with you."

Geneviève, who possibly is the only true adult in the house, is standing in the open doorway, holding her slate and her book, waiting very patiently to be walked to school by a group of men much less reliable than she herself is.

Children safely escorted to school they head on to the garrison, and Athos does notice that Aramis' face still looks pinched with sickness. They've noticed he's been ill for some time, of course, it's one of the earliest indications possible given Aramis' unpredictable body that something inside has changed, but he's been so careful about doing it out of their sight, and so careful to hide how bad it was and how badly it affected him. Now walking through the streets with all of Paris waking and moving around them, Athos, who is his legal husband and can do this in a way that Porthos can't even when he wants to, lays his arm around his side, his hand low on his back, and Aramis looks at him startled. Athos is rarely physically affectionate in public but he means to comfort, he means for Aramis to believe the way he means this, and he knows that Aramis will appreciate the slight pressure to his back of Athos' warm hand.

"We're here," Athos says, walking on. "We're in this together."

Aramis is silent, but his back relaxes to Athos' hand. Aramis often affectionately strokes and pets at Athos in the garrison, heart full of mischief for the fact that he can and if soldiers look away in a fluster, all the better. Athos isn't given to returning it, merely ignores it. But that gentle hand on his back, the subtly proprietary gesture - anyone watching can read from it their relationship - that pleases Aramis. He likes surprisingly much to know himself married; Athos wonders often if a great deal of the madness they've watched Aramis perform in his life might have been averted before it ever began if someone just gave him what he apparently wanted and wed the lunatic years ago.

Really Athos doesn't know who he thinks he's fooling with it. He likes marriage too much as well, now he has someone he can trust in it.

Aramis they leave in the captain's care for the day - he must be running out of light chores for the man to keep him out of mischief - and head off for the day's duty, chasing up a deserter to the Red Guard the Guard themselves have found impossible to locate. He's not so much of a problem, once they've intimidated their way through some of the seedier bars, and it's early afternoon when they've handed the man over to his own unit's captain - with a little eyes-narrowed intimidation there too, informing men they don't trust not to be sadistic that a soldier got himself drunk and lost and should be disciplined only for that, not more - and they can head back to the garrison to report and receive further orders for the day.

They almost walk into Arnauld hurrying out of the garrison, startling on sight of them and grabbing his hat to keep it on as he runs to Athos. "Your husband -" he says, and stops.

Athos says, "Aramis?" puzzled in that moment why a soldier Arnauld has fought and drunk alongside is suddenly Athos' husband first, but then his blood thumps dead, and he can see the baulking sway in Porthos' stance.

Porthos will do it; all Athos can do is get there first for propriety's sake, grabbing Arnauld's jacket and there's no acting involved in how he gets out with no strength in his breath, "Where is he, what happened -"

"He fainted in the infirmary, Treville had him cleaning -"

In the end d'Artagnan is through the door first, their fastest sprinter, Porthos pounding in on his heels, Athos - slowed down by having to shove poor Arnauld out of the way for his crime of delivering the message - through the door last, heart thudding cold blood at the insides of his ears, expecting -

- expecting almost to run in to frost on the floor, the roadside, the blood -

(In the depths of bad nights, he still hears the keening of Aramis' prayers.)

Actually Aramis is sitting on the edge of a bed, gripping the mattress quite tight, pale but his gaze hits them strong and straight and immediate. Treville stands up from where he'd been crouched at his side speaking up to him, an empty cup in one hand, and looks over the three of them. He ignores Porthos already stumbling forwards trying not to shout and Athos as unable to move as stone and nods instead at d'Artagnan, and says gently, "Close the door."

It's hot in the infirmary, almost the warmest place in the garrison, it shares a wall with the kitchens for their fires' heat for a reason. Athos feels the flush of the warmth under his neck cloth, prickling his skin under his clothes, as Porthos fumbles out, "-is he - Aramis is it - the baby, Aramis is it the baby do you need-"

Aramis' eyes flit shamefaced to the floor, and as d'Artagnan closes the door with a firm click at their backs, he says, "No. It's just me. I'm sorry, you've been worried for nothing, I told them-"

"Worry over you," Athos says, voice coming dry up his throat with his fear, "is not worry over 'nothing'. What happened, sir?"

Treville doesn't question that a sensible account of what transpired must come from him and not from the man at the centre of it. "The same as you'd expect of any soldier, dehydrated and pushing on. It was only a swoon, what did Arnauld tell you? He wasn't supposed to make it sound like . . ."

"Aramis," Athos says, helpless with it, he can't believe he could be so cavalier as to know himself ill and not . . .

"Don't start." Aramis lifts a hand, rubs at his forehead but it shields his eyes as well, which may be the true reason for it. "Please," he says, voice soft and sandpapery, and Athos knows he has a headache, the queasiness, the heat of the room can't have helped, they haven't made sure he's eaten and drunk, God damn it they didn't even get a cup of water into him before they left him this morning and he finds the act of vomiting so vile, of course he'll leave his stomach empty rather than risk a drop to come up, of course he will.

Athos walks to him, and takes the hand not covering his eyes, and doesn't know what to say. He can feel d'Artagnan's uneasy curiosity - why Athos isn't already berating Aramis for his stupidity must be a mystery to d'Artagnan, though Treville says nothing, just discreetly moves aside for Porthos to sit on the bed beside Aramis and put a comforting arm around his shoulders. D'Artagnan stays where he is in the doorway, says, "Is someone going to say it?"

"Not yet," Porthos says quietly, because Aramis still looks too miserably ill to bear it.

Athos draws his strength up, and closes both of his hands around Aramis', and looks at Treville. "The sickness has been bad, as I'm sure he's already confessed. We will be more careful. All of us."

Aramis' behaviour is perpetually the responsibility of all four of them. Treville puts the empty cup onto the chest beside the bed and is silent, professionally ignoring the meaning of all three of them together like that, and then says, "It may make sense for us to discuss a timetable for Aramis' confinement."

"Captain," Aramis says into his hand, but doesn't seem to have any argument beyond his own despair.

"It's not so simple as just locking him in the house," Athos says. "This will pass. The sickness will pass. And then the -" His teeth hurt a little saying this - "King will want to see him before he is confined, and captain, it can't be now."

Aramis drops his hand from his face and stares somewhere through Athos' left thigh, stony-faced with the thought of that, of having to stand in front of the court to be ogled at like a calf with two heads while already feeling like this. And he's hardly showing, not under all his layers, unless you strip him and know to look - know it's not stoutness brought on by too much wine, Aramis dresses to hide it specifically out of self-consciousness that anyone might think that - there's very little to see. They all know the King will want something much more entertaining on display than this.

Aramis draws his breath in shivery through his nose, and looks up at Treville. "A few more weeks," he says. "Please, captain. I'll behave, I will. I'll be careful, I won't . . . do you think I want to go through this again?" He sweeps a hand to a point on the floor beside the bed and he's grinning, if weakly. "I wasn't so deep in a 'swoon' I didn't hear Bernier's shriek when he found me, I really can't go around fainting all over the place and causing musketeers to scream like they've just seen a rat, what will people think of us?"

"You're alright," Porthos says quietly, too urgently, fingers pulling soothing at the hair at the nape of Aramis' neck. Aramis nods, wearily, looks straight to his eyes the way he does and smiles and it shows everything, the tiredness, the brittleness, the gladness of his presence, the regret, the embarrassment, that tiredness, it's stronger than he is.

Treville ignores how inappropriate Porthos and Aramis are being in front of Aramis' husband - they all know he must have some sense of what the three of them are even if he never says a word about it, and probably makes efforts not to consciously think of it - and says, "I have to think of the regiment. What it means to them to have to watch you like this."

Aramis starts shaping a question and then stops it, understanding flickering in the dark of his eyes, and he doesn't look away from Treville but his mouth does flatten. Every soldier here knows Aramis, and knows his 'condition' - that womb inside him marking him out as somewhere awkwardly between man and woman - but they also know that he can shoot better than any man in France, he fights just as dirty as Porthos when his back's to the wall, and there's no better man to stand beside on a battlefield not only because he fights like the devil but because he knows what to do, if you take a bullet or sword blow, to keep the limbs on you and the life in you. They know Aramis. He's been in the regiment longer than almost any other still-serving man, he takes time for the new recruits, he remembers the names of wives and children, he always has a joke, he takes care of people.

And he is pregnant, and there are already men uncomfortable with him for even the potentials of his body, and the fact of his pregnancy now has driven them to avoid him entirely and the regiment really can't withstand more men turning on him, driven to it either by awkwardness or outrage. The undeniable physical presence of what separates Aramis from most other men becomes impossible to ignore if he's not only pregnant but queasy and staggering and fainting with it. It weakens him, in their eyes. It makes him not that lethal soldier you'd like to have at your elbow when the vanguard charges, it makes him someone who has no business in the garrison, someone who ought to be at home with the sewing, someone subtly contemptible. Skew the way Aramis' pregnancy is viewed just a little and it goes from something he can be indulged in to something that makes him despicable; it takes very little to shift Aramis from a pregnant soldier to a woman, and Athos knows that there is nothing to raise the self-righteousness of some men more than a woman carrying a sword like she's any right to it, like she's one of them.

Never mind that it takes an enormous amount to make Aramis falter, never mind that they've all seen him fight on with a bullet in him and a sword in each hand, never mind that they already know how lethally strong he is. Now that Aramis' illness can be equated with something feminine - with something the men who watch and judge it will never experience - it isn't something serious. Aramis isn't so seriously ill that he's struggling to manage the days, Aramis is just being weak. Athos knows how men think. He also knows that the first man to verbalise it is dead the moment he does, even if Athos doesn't get to him he knows that Porthos will. Aramis believes in forgiveness and rising above it all, but Athos believes in his blade and Porthos in his fists. Aramis can bear it with good humour, it's not his lover he has to see being looked at like that.

Athos holds his hand and knows the tightrope Aramis walks with such grace that they forget the drop below him, sometimes. A subtle shift in perspective and Aramis' entire life could be snapped out of existence, replaced by the kitchen and cradle and nothing else because he's had the right to anything else removed from him. Aramis knows it, and lives with it, and in the face of other people knowing it and despising him for it he responds with wicked humour and no dents in his pride at all. He knows his own worth, he counts the men who crowd his bed to pay homage to his worth, he doesn't need anyone else to confirm it for him. He doesn't care if they sneer as he passes or look at him like that, though Athos once nearly ran a man through for one of those looks and never has regretted it. But Aramis' position is delicate, and this pregnancy is difficult, and there are men who won't see Aramis bearing difficulty and coping well. What they'll see is weakness and Aramis' submission to the gross reality of what his body is, and there may be no way after that for them to see anything else in him at all. Much can be recovered from, but disgust . . .

Athos knows all of this to be true because he's already seen it begin ("Your husband -" ). They can't allow Aramis to be reduced in men's minds. The first time that they do see him at his full height again, they'll feel untrusting, and self-righteous, and never forgive him for it.

Athos holds his hand like granite, and says, "We will be more careful, but there is no need to hide him away yet. There will be no repeat of this." Aramis looks up at him, looks so tired and a little confused, trying to work out why Athos would want to indulge him like this - to support him like this, God, Athos needs to spend less time frustrated with him and more time compassionate for him, Aramis does more than Athos deserves in return. "And this will pass. It doesn't last for long. Better that he's seen to recover than seen having to retreat, sir."

Aramis waves an arm vaguely at the infirmary around them. "You wanted me to restock and improve the stores," he says. "I thought I'd look through some books, do some research. It'll keep me occupied and quiet for a time, and then at least if I faint it'll be quietly onto a desk."

"If it happens again you're going home and not coming back until the child is suckling."

"It won't happen again."

It's not really a promise Aramis can make but Athos is holding his hand and Porthos is glaring at Treville and Aramis himself looks as relaxed as a sailing swan, no indication of the crazed paddling beneath the waterline. And Treville sighs, that low, roughened way he does when dealing with the four of them, and turns away for the door. "When he's steady come to me to report. He stays in here until the end of the shift to be sure."

"Yes, sir."

D'Artagnan holds the door open for Treville and gives the three of them one of his confused looks - mostly his confused expression is simply angry - and closes the door behind Treville with a click, before he turns to face them and folds his arms. "So this is what we're doing."

Athos shrugs, sitting beside Aramis on the bed. At his other side Porthos leans for the cup Treville left, and he refills it from a ewer on the chest by the bed, eyes on what he's doing while Aramis watches him, and Athos watches the two of them. "He can't back out now. They'll think he's weak." Athos holds Aramis' hand tight. "It's not true, but it'll be impossible to change their minds once it's believed. He has to be seen to manage or he might be forced from the regiment just to keep the peace."

Porthos puts the cup into Aramis' hand, and Aramis offers a twitch of his smile for a thank you. "They turn on him," Porthos says, very low, hand resting deceptively gentle again on Aramis' back, "an' they're the ones leavin' the regiment, in a fucking wooden box."

"Porthos," Aramis says quietly.

"No." Porthos says. "I know this bullshit, fuck I'm lettin' it start on him." His fist, the one not tending to Aramis, tightens so hard Athos hears the leather of his glove creak, and Porthos mutters, "Always gotta be twice as good t'get half as much respect, fuck that."

Athos says nothing. D'Artagnan rubs his face with a hand, gestures again at them like he can't understand how this situation isn't fitting the same patterns they've lived for years and says, "Isn't anyone going to yell at him?"

Aramis just looks down at the cup of water in his hand, and Porthos breathes his wrath out on a slow simmer, and rubs his back. It falls to Athos to say, quiet to Aramis' right boot, "What exactly are we to yell at him that he doesn't already know, and much better than we do?"

Aramis whispers, "I'll be careful."

Porthos is really trying to rein in the rage, unfolding his rigidity to lean to kiss Aramis on the side of his brow, eyes closed and visibly trying not to crush that hand into Aramis' back. Athos flits his glance to the window, double-checking their privacy. "We all will." Porthos says very soft, anger dissolved now for Aramis' sake, and Athos presses Aramis' hand, and he doesn't know how much stress they're all expected to bear. Aramis' delicate position within the regiment; the King and his heartless idiocy; the fact that the birth could still kill Aramis in slow, dragged-out agony in their bed and leave the two of them and their son bereft forever; the nature of the pregnancy, so much harsher than Aramis knew from his surviving son; what they've all lost and they all must fear, especially given the punishing nature of it this time around . . .

And it's not only the one lost child for Aramis to remember and fear, is it? D'Artagnan goes to fetch some stew from the canteen and between them they manage to coax Aramis into eating a little, though he has to stop them eventually, says that honestly please please all he wants is water. They take the bowl away and Athos wonders what pressure Aramis is trying to keep his back from quaking under, what fear he carries. Athos remembers the roadside (and the blood and the frost and the way he begged) but Aramis also remembers not even being present, hearing second, third, fourth hand like it was nothing, just news, hearing it and his entire world already under so much strain breaking.

He fled, the first time he found himself pregnant. Only from this distance, only with his own cold stock of the worst knowledge added to, can Athos finally understand it. That fear, the fear of putting them through that: of course he fled. What the hell else could he do, to save them from a wound that he already knew could never heal?

Athos doesn't know if Porthos knows and cannot, will not, break Aramis' confidence by telling him without speaking to Aramis first. That the baby was lost with the Queen is an entirely different problem but that it was lost at all is the main issue, that and how it might be wearing on Aramis already stressed and ill and struggling with it all. But Porthos knowing would help. Athos is so awkward in his feelings, finds them clumsy and embarrassing, doesn't like to put them ungainly down in front of Aramis to be dealt with on top of everything else Aramis is dealing with. But Porthos would help him, it would come so easily and naturally to him and it would mean so much to Aramis from Porthos, his sympathy always does. Porthos would help him. Athos just has to convince Aramis to speak of it. He needn't name the woman. Porthos doesn't need to know the thing they never can so much as whisper out loud, the repercussions could be the end of everything, there's the boy to keep safe. Aramis' past indiscretion and the risk it is to his family will remain locked away, will never touch the air again. But Porthos needs to know enough. Athos is struggling to bear the memory of the once, twice . . .

He honestly doesn't know why Aramis believes in God the way he does. No, he does accept Aramis' belief; what he doesn't understand is why Aramis doesn't hate Him.

Treville takes their report, then dismisses Athos to mind his husband while he gives fresh duties to Porthos and d'Artagnan. Athos half-hesitates in his office, so unused to not being trusted with further - but he's been trusted with Aramis, and that matters more. He turns and leaves the room, on the balcony casts a dark glance over the men at work below (he knows two enemies to them on sight, musketeers who for reasons of piety or bigotry won't forgive Aramis his body and his lack of shame regarding it, but now he looks at other faces and wonders who the poison is already beginning to taint, now that a comrade who would never think to hesitate in offering it to them is in need of their loyalty) before descending to the courtyard, and the infirmary again.

Aramis is winding bandages, sitting in the chair by the desk. He looks entirely unsurprised to see Athos there, he's not stupid, he knows he has to be minded and knows who propriety dictates must mind him; he simply says ominously, "Idle hands," and makes Athos hold his hands out for Aramis to wind the bandages around, the way the culprit is forced to help Constance when they've upset her wool.

Athos will say nothing of the worst of it to Aramis here. He's not an idiot. Even Aramis isn't stupid enough to speak of that here.

Instead he says, "At what age do you think we should start the boy on Latin?"

"Lord forbid he enjoy his childhood at all," Aramis says to the bandages. "He can barely read French yet."

"I was thinking we would take a tutor with Greek, as well. For the girl."

Aramis looks up at him, then back to his work; he knows he means Geneviève. "She is remarkably quick. And our wolf -" He tilts his head, smile crooked, rueful but still proud. "He perhaps hasn't the patience of a scholar in the making."

"I can't think where he gets it from."

"Hush. I managed my lessons, when I was a boy. You know my father wanted me to have Latin."

"Your Latin is horrible."

"Kick me while I'm down some more, love, please. Try insulting my manners as well, that usually wounds."

"Where do you think she gets her intelligence from? She's a year behind Jean-Armand and more advanced already."

"In reading," Aramis says, sounding actually wounded by that comparison, eyes so betrayed on Athos. "And she gets her intelligence from Constance, as you well know."

Athos considers whether d'Artagnan would be offended by the attribution and realises he probably wouldn't, d'Artagnan thinks his wife the most marvellous creature in creation, even after all these years of marriage. "The boy is bright, and will settle down to his studies." he says to placate, and Aramis gives him a look still hurt, and then tucks that roll of bandages away in their box, sealed with a pin, and begins on the next. "She reminds me of Ninon," Athos admits, smile creasing a little.

"She was magnificent," Aramis says, hurt forgotten in the memory of an admired woman, smile honest on the bandages he's winding around Athos' hands. "Perhaps she'd come back and tutor them for us."

"You'd really return her to Paris under the Cardinal's nose."

"His nose has never stopped us before, prominent as it may be."

Athos is silent, watching Aramis work the bandages close around his hands, then says, lower, "Can we talk, tonight? In private?"

Aramis glances to him, curious dark eyes, then attends to his bandages again. "I'm not going to enjoy this, am I?"

"Please, Aramis."

He rolls the bandages, and they've rode and fought together for years, they do understand when the other is being serious. "In the cellar. Before supper."

"You'll eat at supper."

"I'm already beginning to feel hungry. It usually does wear off, just, later in the day than we'd all prefer."

"Then you should eat." Athos says, dumping the bandages into Aramis' lap and standing to walk to the kitchens for another attempt at lunch. Aramis looks like he doesn't believe what Athos just did to all his work, then says after Athos' back as if too baffled by his actions even to summon any true anger, "You utter brute."

The afternoon is quiet, slow. They share between them the bundle of bread and apples Constance sent them off with this morning - Aramis is still eating a little at a time, too queasy to risk more, but at least he is eating - and Athos minds to help Aramis with the heavier tasks in shaking the infirmary to rights, but only slowly. They need to draw out the garrison-bound tasks available to Aramis so Treville has no excuse for sending him into an extremely early confinement. He did swear he'd be careful and Athos believes him in it, but while Aramis promised to take an early confinement, this is enough length of time to kill him with boredom, if he didn't get someone else killed in his boredom first. Even the monastery must have offered him better amusement than being housebound for the next few months could. They're obliged to keep Aramis respectable, which means that when he's not working he's to be a meek and obedient husband, they're the only options available to him. Aramis can manage 'meek' for bare (amused) moments at a time, months on end . . .

Treville sends them home early, so they can collect the children from the schoolroom. Jean-Armand nearly drops his slate from his head on leaving and seeing Aramis there, as if it's always such a delightful surprise to him; Geneviève, always more responsible, has to catch his forgotten slate. Aramis is crouched so Jean-Armand can throw his hug tight around his shoulders and Aramis can kiss both his cheeks, before sending him to give his bow to his father (which Jean-Armand does with such twinkle-eyed mischief on his face, God every day makes him more and more like Aramis and God Athos doesn't know how he'll cope with two of him as the boy grows) which Athos returns with a dry smile he's trying not to allow too wide, so Aramis can greet Geneviève with a bow and take both slates from her, as ladies shouldn't have to carry. Athos just sighs, and looks at the dog heaving her big body up from the shade of the schoolroom wall, walking to Jean-Armand tail wagging, tongue lolling down to pant, settled now.

Afternoon at home, the children racing circles through the parlour-hall-kitchen circuit excessively delighted to see each other again, Maria shrieking loud, Lupin following Jean-Armand at a lope so the children pass her on every two thirds of a loop. Aramis sits serene in their chaos, beatific with them underfoot and caterwauling, perfectly happy minding them here while Constance gets some more work done elsewhere with a client, safe in the knowledge that there are musketeers babysitting for her. Little Charles is asleep over Aramis' belly, pudgy cheek mushed to his chest, Aramis keeping him tucked safe in an arm. He looks so right, holding a baby, something about how happy it makes him, how settled. He speaks with them so naturally, playmate and parent all in one, and Athos watches him and is aware of what's happening in his own chest and spends his time dissecting that feeling in his distrust of it. He watches Aramis holding a sleeping baby safe and sound and running his hand through his son's hair, eyes on his while Jean-Armand talks to him, and Athos knows of the secret little present in Aramis' belly, the child that might be his (that is his), and he feels a warmth he almost wishes he didn't. He didn't the last time. He ought to know enough to know better, now.

Aramis has one baby in his arms and one in his belly, and that one might be Athos'. Well, that one is Athos', that is the pact between the three of them, their children are their children. But this one might be one Athos is directly responsible for putting into Aramis' belly, and that . . . that is something he's trying to ascertain his proper response to. Because the options of what happens next, really, are threefold, and only one of them has a happy ending, only one of them deserves that warming he feels in his own belly, watching Aramis move in his element, happier with children even than he is with his pistols. Three things might happen next. Only one of them is something Athos could ever feel glad for being responsible for.

Option one is very simple, which is that the child he's carrying kills Aramis and likely the baby at the same time, because his body does not work entirely as women's do and it's dangerous enough for women. And while Athos and Porthos consider each other friends and brothers and worthy of loyalty unquestioned and entire, and while they share Aramis, they are not strictly lovers themselves. Without Aramis, presumably without the baby in Aramis' belly as well though perhaps even with that child, they would not be parents raising a child together; they would be two grieving men both raising their lost lover's child together. The thing that brought them both into one bed is Aramis. If he were gone, the bond between them would change, irreparably. They would have their own grief to manage, their own guilt. The household would hold, Athos knows that, Aramis' son already holds them here, they wouldn't leave this house. There would be immeasurably less love here though, and even if they managed not to blame each other and not to break through it all, they would never again live as Aramis' two husbands. They would both be Aramis' widower, and widowers are alone. That's the point.

Athos puts aside his thoughts of option one. Aramis is the most alive human being he's ever known, warm and vibrant and lively as light off water, he can't think of losing him. Athos is older than Aramis. He refuses to live to bury his husband. He has the right to that.

Option two, in its own way, is worse. Option two is that Aramis lives, but the child does not.

Aramis promised Athos he would speak to him tonight, in the cellar. So Athos puts aside option two, he cannot bear the thought of option two - he doesn't know how it's easier to think of Aramis and the child's deaths together rather than just the child's, except that Aramis is a soldier and stoical about his own death, and Athos knows his feelings about the loss of a baby. He allows himself instead the sick jump of his stomach at considering option three:

Aramis lives. The baby lives. Jean-Armand has a brother or sister. They have another child.

Maria falls face-flat with a skidding bang, and lifts her head, stunned that such a thing has happened, before her face creases scarlet and she begins to howl. Aramis clucks himself to his feet, putting Charles into Athos' lap before he can begin to protest - when he sees Aramis picking the girl up he immediately settles Charles closer, silent baby being preferable to screeching toddler - and swings Maria to his side, her legs automatically wrapping around his stomach, Aramis crooning to her in Spanish Athos can't really follow. Mostly it sounds like he's telling her how pretty she is, and to be calm, calm, calm. Athos is fairly certain that only mischief can come from only Aramis and the children speaking Spanish. He keeps meaning to learn, but Aramis always distracts him from it, because Aramis' occupation in life is to breed mischief and he enjoys his secret language shared with the children against the grown-ups far too much.

Maria is carried through to the kitchen for an apple to cheer her up - Jean-Armand tags afterwards in the hope of an apple as well, and Geneviève, pragmatic about the business of childhood, follows - and Athos calls after him, "You spoil all of them."

Aramis calls something back through in Spanish, and Lupin's slow-wagging tail is the last Athos sees of the procession disappearing into the kitchen. He looks down at Charles, who blows a spit-bubble at him, and sighs heavy as metal, wondering why humanity invests its wonder where it does.

When Porthos and d'Artagnan return Aramis informs them that they're on kitchen and babysitting duty - Constance is still out with a client, adjusting a dress - and Porthos doesn't argue because Jean-Armand comes running up to hug him around the waist, and d'Artagnan's argument is cut off by a baby being dumped into his arms.

"What are you doing?" d'Artagnan says suspiciously, as Aramis bends to tug open the cellar hatch before Athos can hurry to do it for him.

"Fetching something from the cellar, I believe." Aramis says, clumping downstairs.

"Fetching what from the cellar?"

"Something arduous, I've no doubt." Aramis says gloomily, and Athos rolls his eyes, and follows him.

Aramis lights one of the candles on the table still down there - in the summer it really is the only cool place in the house, the children nap down here, all of them hide down here as much as they can - and when there's a little golden glow, Athos closes the door behind himself. Aramis sits with a sigh in the rocking chair, thumps his boots up onto the table, and folds his hands on his stomach in an echo of the position he took up for weeks on end all those years ago, waiting for Jean-Armand to ready himself for facing the world. "Oh, I'm sorry," Aramis says, looking tired. "Did you want me standing to attention? I don't really know what kind of 'talk' this is going to be."

Athos sits next to him with a sigh of his own - he doesn't feel young, sometimes - and says, "This morning, Aramis."

Aramis rolls his eyes away. "I felt ill, I was overwrought. You shouldn't read too much into it."

"You were upset." Athos watches his eyes, Aramis is not good at hiding anything behind those, expressive as ink on paper and almost exactly as dark. He says, more quietly, "We all have reason to be upset."

Aramis looks at the wall, face blank as water, and folds his arms. Athos wets his lips.

"I know you have more reason than any of us. I know that. And I would do anything to make this easier for you, to put your mind at ease, I would do anything, Aramis, but I can't. All I can do is - talk to you. I don't think we really talk enough."

Aramis finally cocks an eyebrow to him. "You want to talk."

". . . I know you have reason to be . . . more than upset." Athos fails in his vow to watch Aramis' eyes at that moment, when instinctively he looks at his own clasped hands. "To be scared. We all do. But I know . . . you have more than one reason . . ."

There's a long silence. When Athos looks up, Aramis is looking at him, breathing slow in the light of that single candle. Aramis says, voice a little low, "That is not something we talk about."

"I don't want it burdening your mind, and I - I think Porthos needs to know, Aramis. Not the details, Christ not the details -" Aramis is rolling his eyes, arms folded jagged, that even now they won't even say out loud the name of the woman who is the most significant detail in the whole awful mess of it - "but he needs to know what it does to you. He can't help you if he doesn't know what you're going through, and he doesn't know that there are two lost children burdening you and I swear to you Aramis neither of them, neither of them were lost through anything you did-"

Aramis puts a hand over his eyes, and sucks his breath in sharp. "Three," he says. "Three lost children." His voice sounds like it's full of metal shavings and dirt. "And he does know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Athos -"

Athos' mouth hangs for a moment on not even knowing which fork to pursue first, and finally it comes out of him in a croak, a dying crow; "Three?"

Aramis' body gives an odd buckling motion like he's about to collapse but as Athos jars upright in his chair Aramis lifts his head, sucking his breath in sharp, and looks at him with over-quick eyes and an over-tight jaw. "When I was young. With a woman. We were supposed to be married, it - obviously it did not work out that way. So three, three children, Athos. And I didn't tell Porthos the details, I only told him - because I knew how fucking deranged I was acting around the baby, when Jean-Armand was a baby, you knew I'd - you knew about the Qu- the -"

"I know."

"- but he didn't and I didn't know how to explain how crazy I kept being, I used to wake up in a panic if he didn't cry, and I - if I was telling him one I might as well tell him both, I just thought - I never meant to not tell you, you know we, the three of us, we - we tend not to, until - until it's always almost too late." His head hangs then as if he's exhausted, his shoulders hunch in. "I'm sorry. It's all a fucking mess because it always is when it's me, I know, I know that, I'm sorry."

"It's alright," Athos says. "It makes sense that you would have had to tell him." His mouth twitches, not quite a smile. "You were deranged when he was a baby. You've always been deranged. He did need to know."

Aramis rubs his forehead with the knuckles of one hand and Athos can't see one of his eyes like this, but he can see the way he's holding his mouth, and nothing about it is good. "I had all these - noble aims. To protect you both. To make it easier on you. After we already lost . . . I meant to be so fucking together," he gets it out through his teeth, "that you wouldn't need to worry and be afraid and now-"

"Aramis," Athos says, and grabs his arm to stop the painful way he seems to be kneading that old thin scar on his forehead. "Can we please, the three of us, stop trying to save each other from things and face them together, because you cannot, you cannot be forced through a pregnancy made harder because you're never allowed to acknowledge fear because of us -"

Aramis pulls at his grip on his wrist, not as if he's trying to get loose, just as both arms fling in a furious kind of shrug. "I didn't mean for this to happen, I meant to do it right this time -"

"You haven't done anything wr-"

"Three lost children, Athos, three children who never even got to be born, and the common denominator in all their deaths is me." His breath chokes in. "And I have - I have been trying so hard to - to not be afraid and to not make you afraid and I am terrified, I'm so scared I feel sick every moment of the fucking day -"

"Come here," Athos whispers, no idea to stop this now he's started it, awkwardly sit-crouching on the arm of Aramis' seat to try to get an arm around him.

"- because I want this baby Athos I want this baby I want it more than anything and I know I know I know-"

"Ssh. Come here." Athos manages to tug Aramis' head to his side, fingers slipping into his hair, gathering him closer with an arm around his shoulder. "It's alright. It's alright."

Aramis shakes his head against his side and doesn't say anything, probably out of fear that if he does he'll start openly crying. All Athos can do is hold him, too numb yet to process anything, understanding the horror of the pressure Aramis has put himself under: three lost children, three, his own certainty of where the blame lies, and now a pregnancy he knows the two of them fear and so he's breaking himself to try to protect them from it -

He stares at the pale gold of the candle flame, and understanding hurts so much more than ignorance. He runs his fingers through Aramis' hair. He says, still feeling nothing but quiet on the inside, "I know why you left Paris."

Aramis chokes his breath in, gasps out in something that is not a laugh, "You know everything else."

All those years ago, when Aramis fled, and they never even knew about the child until they surprised him heavily pregnant in borrowed monk's robes. All those years ago and only now Athos understands. It wasn't that he thought they would reject him, because he knew they wouldn't. It wasn't the complication of not knowing who the father was, because complication only keeps Aramis amused. It wasn't even protecting them from the simple difficulty of the situation, confusedly noble as that intention might have been. It was two children lost already, and Aramis would do anything, anything, to protect them from what he had been forced to endure.

Aramis breathes against him, still too heavily, and swallows. "I knew we were both likely to die." he says, voice still thick. "And I couldn't face watching the two of you watch your child kill me, while my body killed it."

Athos closes his eyes. In his own oblique way Aramis is very practical, it's his unpredictable priorities which make it seem like he isn't. Of course he ran without a word to them to hide himself away, to give birth and in all likelihood to die without ever seeing them again. He knew that they would hate him for it but the alternative was staying in Paris and making them watch it happen, and the loneliness and the fear and the boredom while waiting for his own personal hell to commence, Aramis didn't care about any of it as long as he didn't put the two of them through the same.

Athos holds him, and stares hard at the candle so he has something to blame for how much his eyes hurt. He says and it comes out low and rasped, "We don't deserve you."

"Oh - hang you, Athos de la Fère, I thought you were the clever one." Aramis drags himself up out of Athos' arms to glare at him. "Don't deserve me. Everything I've put you through -"

"What have you put us through, Aramis, what? The child you gave us? The home we have? We have a family, what do you think that means to - me, to Porthos? All you've done is given us things -"

"I lost your-"

"No," Athos says, but it's clear Aramis can't finish the sentence anyway, has a hand over his mouth and God he's started to shake; Athos holds his arms so he can't get away, tugs him a little to make him face him. "No." he says, more firmly. "No. We all lost that child."

"That is what I-"

"No, because that loss is not your doing. It is not."

Aramis puts his hands over his eyes, and is silent for a moment as if it hurts too much to speak. Then he says, voice very rough, "I'm scared I'm not supposed to have children."

"No, Aramis, Aramis, you have the boy -"

"He's like a miracle. I don't deserve him, I don't understand why I have him."

"Because he is meant to be with you. He's as blessed to have you as you are to have him. Aramis, none of it has been your fault. Children die." Aramis looks at him as if wounded that Athos could put voice to such an awful fact. "Children die. That is the world we live in, that's just something that happens. It is not your fault, you are not to be blamed, you deserve compassion. Three children," he whispers, and brushes Aramis' unruly hair back from his face with both hands, lowers his own head and closes his eyes. "I can't even face the one."

Aramis is silent, for a long time, while Athos just breathes because talking hurts too much, his throat's constricted to a thin metal pipe. He feels one of his palms on Aramis' face get wet, and Aramis lifts a hand, gently, to move Athos', before he wipes both cheeks and takes a shuddering breath in.

"There are things I know rationally," Aramis says, and swallows hard, settling his neck straight again, "things I can make sound very rational to myself, but I can't make myself feel them the same way, because my feelings are very certain of something else. In a twisted way it reminds me of faith. I can't comprehend the mystery, but the feeling is so sure."

Athos looks at him, and feels so tired. It's probably a stupid time to notice it; Aramis looks so catastrophically beautiful in the candlelight, hardly human with it, head tucked in a little, eyes so dark and vulnerable in the single candle's muted glow. Athos says, "Do you actually believe that the Lord and all your saints would hurt your children just to punish you?"

Aramis rubs his nose, and says, "If you want to get technical, Job is always a problem."

"I'm not asking what you understand. I'm asking what you feel." Athos watches the way Aramis' eyes watch his. "That's not something your God would do, Aramis."

Aramis just looks at him for some time, too much hurt behind his eyes, and eventually says, "I want this child, Athos." His arm tightens across his own stomach, and his voice comes roughened and low. "And I'm scared."

"We're all scared." Athos leans down, and lays a kiss pressed close through his hair. "We're going to be scared together."

"I meant to be braver than this. I meant to protect you."

"Lone wolves are inefficient." Athos draws his fingers through Aramis' hair. "We need to talk to Porthos. About this, about the way it's been worrying you."

Aramis shuffles his body forwards, elbows on his knees and forehead propped off his fists, and says rough to the floor, "I can't go through this conversation twice."

"Then I will talk to Porthos, after dinner, and you will go lie down. Afterwards we'll cuddle."

Aramis laughs, a single shocked bark, and lifts his head to look surprised and delighted at Athos. "Will we."

"I imagine we'll have to," Athos strokes his fingers through his hair again, and allows himself to begin to smile. "You'll like that part."

Aramis puts a hand on his, and says to him, exhausted and very sincere, "I really, really will."

Athos kisses him. Aramis' fingers slip to the inside of his wrist, touching over his pulse. And Athos hopes, between them, that whatever happens, facing it together will make it something they can face.

He says, "If it makes you feel better, even in the middle of all of that I couldn't avoid noticing how obnoxiously attractive you are."

Aramis strokes the back of his hand with a thumb, and says in a contemplative way, "I should care more about what it says about me, but it actually does."

Continued