Pack Mentality pt 3.3

[rainjoyswriting]

Super long.



Athos is actually feeling his exhaustion when he returns to the garrison, all the rage and adrenaline has run out of him, all the work and worry has spent him; he feels cold, and tired, and hungry, and drained by the day. He feels old. He very badly wants his bed and his husband's warm arms. Instead he stops by the kitchens for a slab of cheese on a piece of cold bread, and the man on guard tells him that Aramis, Porthos and the boy are in one of the spare rooms underneath Treville's office.

The shutters are closed but there's a candle still lit in there, where the bed is taken up by Aramis acting as a cradle for Jean-Armand's sleeping body, looking down at his face before he looks up to see Athos and his face strains that smile, it means too much. Lupin is laid out like a huge fur rug beside the bed. Porthos, propped in a chair underneath the window with his boots stretched out underneath the bed, says quiet and rough, "You find 'im?"

"Not yet." Athos says, sitting on the floor since he can't risk waking the boy by sitting on the bed and he's too exhausted to stand. "We think we've tracked him into the Court of Miracles, though. I hoped you might help there, tomorrow."

Porthos' face is stony, and he says in a low growl, "Yeah, I might."

Aramis looks between them both, and then at Jean-Armand, and his mouth tightens. "I know men despise me," he says. "I'm not so blinkered by my family that I don't notice that. I just never thought . . ."

"If people pour out poison," Athos says, "someone will end up poisoned." and he takes a bite, and chews it, more tired than hungry but he's clearly not sleeping yet.

"So I am a monstrosity," Aramis says. "Yes, fine, I am an abomination and a whore masquerading as a man and all the rest of it, fine. But I'm pregnant. The child has done nothing, nothing, Constance is right, I would never be hanged in this state, they'd let me to the birth and then they'd do it because the child is innocent. But they - they would have killed my baby inside me, they . . ."

"He's right," Porthos says quietly. "People've got twisted. There were a couple of blokes, when I was a kid, they came to the Court in Aramis' state an' we let 'em be, for the most part. The women pitied them, the men just avoided 'em. But men who just - liked men." Voice even lower, and he's not looking at either of them. "They got it bad, sometimes. They always got the abuse, but sometimes - there was no law there to make it clean, not if someone thought they'd be the law themselves, not if it got really bad. But they never did it to the pregnant ones. You might hate the bloke but it never was the baby's fault. Everyone knows that."

Athos swallows his mouthful. "They don't seem to know it anymore. That preacher . . . and that man the other week, the one who shot you. It's already come too far."

"How the hell did people get to thinkin' it's fine to murder a pregnant person?"

"That entire crowd," Aramis murmurs, and holds Jean-Armand, and holds his mouth steady.

Porthos glances at him and says quickly, "Not the entire crowd, you had some of the women laughin' -"

"Crowds don't act rationally." Athos says. "They might all be rational enough people but if you put enough of them in a small enough space and kick them the wrong way - put enough sane people in the wrong situation and sanity is the last thing they have left."

Aramis holds his son, and stares into space. Athos lowers his bread for a moment, reading the sheer madness of confusion and fear in his eyes, then says to distract him, "'Abide by your husband', really, Aramis."

Aramis blinks, and looks at him, and takes a second to catch up. Then he smiles, weakly but it catches and holds, and says, "Well, I do, at least thirty percent of the time. The Lord will forgive me a little creative accounting."

"You look tired."

"I feel sick with it. I just . . . we were waiting for you."

"And now I'm back. So sleep."

Aramis shakes his head, only slightly with the boy to mind. "My mind's running like . . . I don't know what to do. I can't hide in the garrison. But I can't risk . . ."

"We'll think of it in the morning. You can do nothing now but sleep."

"And you two?"

Porthos shrugs. "You two best take the bed, if someone barges in they can't catch me in there with you. I'll 'stand guard'."

Aramis looks at him for a long moment, because all of them know that his 'standing guard' is not entirely hypothetical tonight. Porthos' family means everything to him, Aramis and their child, and the child not yet born, and they know what he would do to protect them. Aramis presses Jean-Armand in closer, says low, "Thank you."

Athos finishes his food and heaves himself to stand, and loses his boots and his jacket at least. They go on the dresser where Aramis' outer layers lay, and his sword and pistol prop against the opposite side of the narrow bed to Aramis' weapons. Then he climbs carefully over Lupin and onto the bed at the other side of Jean-Armand, inch by inch nervous of jostling him, but Aramis says, "Really, Athos, you could hang him upside-down by the ankles, he sleeps like Porthos does."

"Oy," Porthos says, but doesn't sound offended. Athos lowers himself to lay, and looks at Aramis looking at the boy, stroking so very gently at his hair. Then he looks at Jean-Armand, how relaxed his face, how pretty and calm and young their child is.

Once it would have been unthinkable that he might have a child, have a family. Once he was drink and bitterness and very little else. Once he had much less to lose, and that made him capable of so much less. Tonight the only thing he feels incapable of doing for his family is sleeping; his body feels like it's been beaten by his exhaustion but he lays there eyes open and unmoving, and it's going to be a long night.

He never reaches a true sleep, dozes and wakes, dozes and wakes. He wakes for the final time some time before dawn - the dawns come sluggish into autumn - and Jean-Armand is the only one awake in the room, Porthos' head drooped over the sword he's propping himself up with, Aramis relaxed on the bed, mercifully. Jean-Armand smiles to see Athos' eyes crack open and whispers, "Hello Father. Is it morning yet?"

Athos rubs his face, grunts, mumbles through his hand, "Nearly. Don't wake them."

Jean-Armand presses his lips together in a silent promise to be good, eyes all beseechingly Aramis in their mischief and warmth, and Athos looks at him over his own hand, then lowers it with a panging sort of smile. He never knew he could have a child. Blood does not matter, under their roof family is a matter much too important to leave to the rolled dice of shared blood. In many ways he's glad Jean-Armand doesn't have his blood in him, doubtful as he is of its virtues. But Aramis' child, their child, thinks of Athos as his father, and Athos lives up to that, has never allowed himself to hesitate on living up to it. The boy needs him. It's enough.

He says, carefully casual, "Did your father tell you why we brought you here last night?"

"For a treat," Jean-Armand says very easily. "He said if I'm good I can go on his horse."

Athos' mouth twitches in one corner with wanting to laugh. "Then you had best be good."

Quiet in the room. Aramis still has his head dipped low behind Jean-Armand's, breathing steady and slow, and Porthos isn't moving beyond his breath in the corner. Athos says, quietly, "You know that you are everything, to your father. You mean everything to him. He loves you so much."

"Yes," Jean-Armand says, with the simplicity of a child who does know that, and isn't quite sure why Athos is bringing it up. Athos looks at him, his frank child's face with only curiosity in his gaze, and he's been concerned all along of what Jean-Armand might make of the promise inside Aramis' belly, but he doesn't seem troubled by it. Aramis does spoil him, but only in such a way that Jean-Armand assumes that anything that Aramis gives him is going to be something that he wants.

Athos nods. "If you are very good," he says, "I will teach you a parry after breakfast."

"I'll be very good." Jean-Armand says with rattling promptness, urgent enough to jog Aramis' head, which he raises immediately, eyes coming to focus on Athos' face first. His threatened gaze softens, seeing him, and he looks down at Jean-Armand, jigs him by the stomach, says, "And good morning to you, little master wolf. How long have you been awake?"

"For ever." Jean-Armand says, and Aramis laughs, and Porthos clinks his sword and raises his head, blinking at them all.

Athos has been teaching Jean-Armand the sword slowly, partly because he's aware that Aramis has very mixed feelings about it (he wants him to be able to defend himself; he is terrified of Jean-Armand taking after his fathers and becoming a soldier; he is made a little frantic by the thought that his child is growing up quite fast and is clearly is in no way ready for Jean-Armand reaching any sort of independence from him for a very long time yet), and partly because he's giving Jean-Armand the time to clumsily pass his lessons on to Geneviève. Until her parents ask him to do it, he really shouldn't be teaching her overtly, after all, and d'Artagnan may like to do it himself, or Constance. He worries about Geneviève. The girl is remarkably clever, remarkably pretty - Constance's rush of reddish hair, d'Artagnan's warm dark eyes - and, as Athos has observed from a distance, she's easily as natural with a stick utilised for a sword as Jean-Armand himself is. Blood, he supposes, will speak; Porthos has never been entirely comfortable with a sword, coming to one later in life, but Aramis is as graceful as a dancer with one, even if it's clearly a trained skill, not as natural as d'Artagnan or as drilled into the foundations of his marrow as Athos' sword skills are. Still, Jean-Armand was always going to be at least competent and probably fairly easy to polish with a blade. Geneviève . . .

People don't school girls enough, it's a miracle if they teach them to write. Constance could probably have taken to study the way the girl already does, if she hadn't been married young to an idiot. And Constance herself is quick and efficient with a sword, if not entirely natural with one through lack of use alone. Geneviève is going to find herself one day both a very good prospect for marriage and an entirely unsuitable one at the same time; what man is really going to admit that he wants a wife inevitably cleverer and more accomplished than he is? Does Athos really believe that many men out there are that decent a human being, to love a woman so honestly, and without concern for pride?

Jean-Armand is to Geneviève almost a little brother, despite the almost-year he has on her. Their feelings are clearly familial rather than romantic, which at six and seven is to be expected, but still, in its way it's a pity. It would make things neat. He doesn't want the girl married to someone beneath her who will try to subdue her, and Jean-Armand - he is such a little Aramis - will clearly go running after all the affection he can get if someone doesn't give him what he really needs quite quickly, which is stability of affection, without games or lies or the prospect of it being removed from him without warning. Jean-Armand knows Geneviève does better in school than him and doesn't mind it in the least, he would never resent her all of her accomplishments. Alas that parents cannot choose the paths of their children; the two of them have long lives to lead, and lots of potential missteps to make, and Athos knows from his own idiot youth that the heart will not be practical, the heart will choose by its own discordant priorities. He thinks that another union under their roof would make all the sense in the world. The children, however, he can only allow to do as they will.

"Good morning you," Aramis says, leaning across Jean-Armand to kiss Athos, before he holds an arm out for Porthos. "And you, come here . . ."

The heart will choose what it must. Athos sits up and drags his hair back in a hand, and Jean-Armand watches without any concern Porthos lean down for a kiss from Aramis as well, before Porthos ruffles his son's hair, or would if it were long enough for it. "You ready for breakfast already?"

"Yes please!"

Porthos' grin cracks wide. "How long've you been awake an' hungry?"

"All night."

"All night? Then you must have seen the dragon who came into the room," Aramis says, sitting up and tugging his shirt to a more respectable position, from the neck sagging open across his smooth bared shoulder, and Lupin lifts her drowsy head on the floor at all this upheaval, and wags her tail once.

"Dragon?" Jean-Armand says, and Aramis hands Jean-Armand to Athos to set him to his feet beside the dog, who stands to sniff at him and get rubbed behind her ears, her face flexing into a doggy smile and sigh, as the men in the room tug their clothes right and start strapping their weapons back on.

"Let's wash your face. Did you not see it?" Aramis says. "It crept in after dark, looking for lamp oil to eat, but even the candle had burned itself all up -" The candle is indeed barely a stub, Porthos must have let it burn clean down and out as he stared through the dark daring some bastard to come near his family - "and so it flew around the ceiling in a temper -"

"It did not."

"It had wings as wide as my arms."

"It did not!"

Aramis laughs. He's an absurdly natural parent, Athos frequently watches him for guidance. And his heart twists on the thought of the little life Aramis is carrying inside him now, that dangerous, endangered little life; in all the terror of losing the child they've focused on, he's given less thought in this pregnancy to how dangerous it is to Aramis himself, to what time Jean-Armand may have left to drink in his father's ever-loving presence . . .

Jean-Armand eats breakfast kicking his heels on a bench beside the other musketeers residing in the garrison itself, and those who having already spent their week's wages come here for their food instead of an inn (once, in their wilder youth, that perpetually meant Aramis and Porthos). The worst avoid them as they always do, but if even some of the friendlier men are getting awkward with Aramis by now, they never are with the boy, who is a little ball of sunshine and chatter and so entirely in his element surrounded by soldiers. He is bred of them, lives with them, listens to stories of them, acts them out in his games, is named for their captain and sits there feet dangling from the bench and his spoon half-raised over his breakfast, staring open-mouthed to a story that Étienne - he's been in the regiment even longer than Aramis, and is by now portly enough that he may have to be asked to retire soon if he won't volunteer himself - is embroidering freely. This is a treat, to him, unexpected and very exciting. And it's hard for a musketeer not to be presented with a boy born of musketeers, a boy as entirely charming as Jean-Armand is (Athos doesn't think it's bias that makes him think this, Jean-Armand takes so much after Aramis and carries his beguiling attractiveness with him as he grows, appealing, good-natured, and ridiculously easy to love), to look down into the eyes of a child who loves and embodies the love of this regiment, and not want very deeply to live up to that love.

Athos does take up a stick after breakfast - they've never yet put actual steel into their son's hand - and spar in that careful, swords-by-numbers way with him, Aramis watching like a hawk because Athos doesn't doubt that if he so much as catches Jean-Armand's hand, Aramis will fly at him. Athos doesn't mind it, he knows Aramis' reflexes. If you hurt Porthos, Aramis will kill you; if you hurt Jean-Armand, Aramis is simply not culpable for whatever he might do next.

By the time Aramis' new recruits are arriving, Jean-Armand is enjoying himself a great deal, and is going to be a nightmare to get to the schoolroom without his escaping back to the garrison for more fun if they take their eyes off him for a moment. Lupin settles in the straw outside the stables for a nap; one of the recruits, shy but smiling, comes to ask if he might challenge the garrison's new champion, and Jean-Armand is bright-eyed and flushed in the cheeks with delight at all this, while Aramis sitting on a bench and watching looks like his smile might split from pride, and Porthos stands nearby, arms folded, not hiding his expression very well.

D'Artagnan arrives, and joins the three of them, arms folded near Aramis on his bench, in watching the boy strike so - so - so off his opponent's stick. "I had to tell the children where you were," d'Artagnan says. "Maria nearly made herself sick with the tantrum that she can't come too."

"We'll bring her a treat tonight," Aramis promises, wise to the hearts of children, eyes never moving from Jean-Armand. "His footwork's good."

"He stands like you do. I've never taught him to do that and he's never watched you enough to learn it."

Aramis shrugs innocently. "I cannot help what the boy inherits."

Jean-Armand is allowed on the back of Aramis' stallion - a beast of volatile and raging temper towards everyone except Aramis himself - briefly, to stroke its mane and whisper how big a horse it is as if that is a very fine thing to be. The stallion rolls its eye back and Aramis keeps one palm on its neck, humming low in his chest, and it stands steady, willing to bear this mini-Aramis for him. Then Jean-Armand is lifted off and given a quick kiss to each cheek from Aramis, and one hand each is taken by Athos and Porthos - it's the only safe way to get him any distance without his escaping - and he's walked out to the schoolroom, Lupin loyal at their heels, while Aramis waves from the garrison entrance, one arm loosely around his stomach. Athos and Porthos can read his nerves just to stand in the gates to the garrison, on the open street. Athos doesn't think that anyone else could see it in him. Maybe d'Artagnan. Maybe Constance. For everyone else, he looks as fearless as he's ever been, because, God damn it, he has to.

Jean-Armand safely in school with so much to tell his friends, they take themselves to the Court of Miracles, where d'Artagnan's already waiting. Only Porthos goes in, the two of them are not best welcome - Athos is glad they don't have Aramis with them, he doesn't want the man who killed the Court's last King anywhere near it, not when he's pregnant - and Porthos comes back an hour later, troubled and angry.

"He's dead," he says. "The preacher. He'd been livin' there a while, weird bloke, no-one liked him much. Someone admitted to pickin' the pockets of his corpse on the side of the Seine last night, said he didn't have anythin' to do with killing him. Said he'd been stabbed through."

"Well that's convenient," d'Artagnan says, slow with sarcasm, and Athos' jaw flexes hard. It is too easy, far too neat, for the man who incited a mob to try to kill his husband to wind up dead the same day. It makes the whole thing far too clean.

They walk back towards the garrison, slow with thought and a heavy sort of despondency, not knowing the next step to take and needing it to be something. "Could it be a coincidence?" d'Artagnan says slowly. "We're reading a lot into it because we care about Aramis, but . . ."

"You're saying he just happened to get murdered that night. But clearly not for his purse, because a later pickpocket took that."

"I . . . okay. So what now?"

Athos says nothing, and just stalks on faster. Porthos sighs, an angry low rumble, and follows.

They're in sight of the garrison though still at some distance when all three of them know that something is wrong. It's the grim quickness with which the men inside move, and the lack of the sound of casual sparring, that arrhythmic clashing of metal. Almost as one the three of them start to hurry, and Athos, with a feeling of drowning dread, sees the darker patch of churned muddy road just outside the gates.

Aramis is sitting on one of the benches, head bowed, both arms folded over his stomach. He looks up to them, slumped there in his cloak as if he's tried to huddle himself small - he's too tall to make a good job of it, and currently too large in the stomach as well - and looks at them, steady but a little dark in the eye, a little distantly glazed; he says, "Étienne is dead."

They stumble to a jogging halt in front of him, Athos feels so tense his teeth hurt. D'Artagnan says, "What - he was fine this morning -"

"He was shot," Aramis says. "Just outside the gates." He looks up at them from the bench, arms coming slightly tighter across his stomach. "There was a child there, crying. A little girl. I went to see what the matter was and he followed me, he didn't want me out there alone, he's- he was a good man." His eyes slide off them, sad and shocked to the side, and somewhere else right now, some time ago, still seeing Étienne's death. "She'd been hit, she was scared, there was a bruise on her face. She said a man had told her to stand there or he'd hurt her. And then someone shot Étienne." He looks up at them again, he looks confused and stricken and angry, Athos so rarely sees Aramis genuinely angry. "They weren't aiming at me, they had their choice of the two of us and they took him and they killed him, I tried to - it was clean through his lung, there was nothing I could -"

"Alright," Porthos says, and rubs his shoulder. "Alright."

D'Artagnan's hand is on his sword hilt. "What the hell's got into people so they want to kill musketeers -"

"It's not musketeers," Athos says, because he has enough information for it to be more than paranoia now and he doesn't know how he's standing, his legs don't feel human on him. "It's Aramis."

Aramis looks at him, and his mouth twists like Athos has just said something cruel. "Don't - don't, Athos, whoever it was, they had their chance to shoot at me, they chose to shoot him, you'll really put this on me -?"

Athos looks to the gates, thinks of the crying child and how Aramis gravitates towards children, let alone those in need of care. "They set a specific snare to lure out a pregnant musketeer," he says. "And as far as they knew, they shot him. Étienne's bigger than you are." He closes his eyes, his teeth clench. "He was, he was bigger than you are. At a distance, between the two of you - half-hidden under your cloak - it would make sense if you meant to hit a pregnant man, between the two of you, to aim at him. We found that preacher from yesterday, he's been killed, before we could get to him for questioning. This isn't random. This is all aimed at you."

Aramis stares at him. Porthos says, low and pained, "Oh, fuck." Athos just keeps watching Aramis' eyes, he didn't want to make him see this, but he sees the moment when realisation moves quicker behind Aramis' gaze than it did even for Athos and he grabs at his arm. "Jean-Armand-"

"He's in school."

"Get him. Please, fuck, please-" He starts standing up and Porthos pushes him back down again by both shoulders, and Aramis grabs his arms. "Will you - please - he's not safe, he's not safe out there -"

"Aramis, they're aiming at you, not-"

Gesturing at his own stomach, "They don't care about this child, do you think they feel any mercy for him? Please, Athos, Christ, I can't -"

Porthos says, "I'm goin'." and he is, he's already striding across the courtyard while Aramis sags, breath moaning out through his teeth with a combination of relief and terror. D'Artagnan shoves Athos' arm. "Go with Porthos. I'll watch him."

Athos remembers only when he's caught up with Porthos and they're two streets away that he probably should have thanked d'Artagnan for that.

The schoolmaster is not best pleased about being interrupted for a child - a child given to causing frequent enough interruption himself - to be without warning removed from his classroom. Neither of them care. Porthos picks Jean-Armand right up from his bench and carries him out, and Jean-Armand waves over Porthos' shoulder at the girls, and Lupin picks herself up from beside the schoolroom door to follow them, unquestioning as ever. Porthos doesn't put Jean-Armand down, and Athos is too busy scanning the street to care how that might look.

A man spits on the street as they go past. He's seen it done at Aramis' feet before, which Aramis responds to with a wryly raised eyebrow; his serenity is the last response that's ever wanted from him, it infuriates people. Athos responds to it by slamming the man into a wall with a sword across his throat and snarling at his face, "Did you have a problem."

The man holds still, eyes huge, and makes a noise but it's not a word.

"That's the one, isn't it?" another man says behind Athos' back, and he looks over with his face contorted around his teeth to the sneering man looking at Porthos carrying Jean-Armand, then Athos, then Porthos again. "Is it one of you two, then? Which one is it?"

Two musketeers carrying a child, they have not made themselves discreet. "Porthos?" Jean-Armand says, no longer very certain up by Porthos' shoulder, and Porthos tucks him lower to his chest, both arms around him, and growls very low, "You don't look at him."

"Look at what we like," the man says, lip curled as he looks at them and Jean-Armand looks back so wide-eyed unsure, and Porthos put a hand around the back of his head like a shield. "No law about that. People pay good money to look at freak shows."

Athos drops the shirt of the man he's still pinning to the wall and turns to stride right at this new threat, but a growl gets there first. It's not him, it's not even Porthos, it's a lower sort of growl, shaking the hollow of the belly, hitting every ancient buried instinct screaming wolf wolf wolf run -

Lupin steps around Porthos, aimed right at that sneering man. The dog is a rug as much as a pet in the house, is more or less permanently asleep, crawled on top of by the children and a patient prop in all of their games. Now her face is teeth, her entire snout seems lifted and lengthened by the sight of all those curved white fangs long enough to meet right through an arm, her tongue so red, her eyes mad dangerous sparks in all her thick risen fur, her entire body a threat of a torn throat. She walks towards that man, one near-dancing padding step at a time, mouth twitching wider in its snarl, no understanding in her eyes but blood and that man -

"Lupin," Athos says. "Stay."

The dog - half as big as a bear - stops walking forwards, but doesn't retreat, and her jaw keeps spasming on her urge to close it on that man's face. The man himself doesn't want to back away mostly because he doesn't dare to move, doesn't dare to risk kicking in her instinct to chase.

Jean-Armand hides his eyes to Porthos' shoulder.

"Good girl." Athos says. "Come. Porthos, keep walking."

Porthos doesn't look at him, keeps looking at that man, with one hand so gentle around the back of Jean-Armand's vulnerable little skull. Then he walks on, body still turned to look at that man who Lupin is still snarling at like a rabid wolf, saliva clotting in bubbles in the corners of her mouth.

"Lupin." Athos says, in a sharper tone. "Come."

Her mouth twitches closer to closed in a sinister mockery of laughter, and finally her tongue lolls loose, and she trots quick after Porthos, panting as she goes. Athos knows she's not coming for his orders. She's coming for Jean-Armand.

In the garrison Aramis is pacing and clearly fretting up and down beside the stables, one of his recruits hovering awkwardly near him, before he spots the urgent movement of their approach and dashes for them, meeting Porthos inside the gates, cupping Jean-Armand's face in both hands and whispering some prayer, kissing his forehead.

"Is he-"

"Fine." Porthos says, and doesn't look ready to let go of him.

Athos says, "We ran into some minor trouble. Men talking on the streets." His mouth twitches with something that feels like pride, as he looks down at the dog. "Lupin made them see the error of their ways."

Aramis crouches, heavy to one knee, and holds the dog under her chin to meet his eye. "Good dog." he says, and she wags her tail once, not pleased for the praise, simply acknowledging from one guardian of the boy to another that he is, indeed, safe.

Jean-Armand says, voice a little small but Athos feels a small tightening of pride on the inside that after what's just happened to him - it could be nothing but frightening to a boy who's never known harm - he manages not to sound afraid, "Am I not going to school today?"

Athos draws his breath in slowly, how to explain this to a seven year old. Aramis strains to stand and d'Artagnan, crossing to them from Treville's office, hurries forwards to help him up. Aramis holds his arms up for Jean-Armand, and no-one could deny that beseeching look, and Porthos hands the boy over, to be hugged easily in, and kissed again, and then put down though Aramis keeps his hand in his.

"We'll have some lessons here," he says, voice gentle now. "Let's go say good afternoon to the horses, little wolf."

It gives Athos and Porthos the time to report to Treville, who says that Aramis isn't to leave the garrison - obviously - and that of course the boy should stay until they can ascertain how safe all of them are. He doesn't know what to make of their street preacher winding up dead. "You said he was unpopular," he points out to Porthos. "There are any number of reasons he could have been killed that night. Someone from the mob could have just followed him."

"Generally, if you're not a soldier, you die at the hands of someone who knows you, not a stranger." Athos says. "And everyone he knew must have been from the Court. And the Court," with a nod for forgiveness in Porthos' direction, "does not leave its corpses with their purses in their pockets to be picked. Whoever killed him did it for reasons-"

"What you have is circumstantial. You have no idea what's happened." Treville looks at them, and shakes his head. "I don't know. I don't like it any more than you do, but I can't tell you that I know there's someone out there you actually can punish for causing this. The motive seems to be religious and that could come from anywhere and anyone, lots of people could have reason for spreading this, do you expect to blame it on one perpetrator? Who exactly did you have in mind?"

Porthos grinds his teeth. Athos says, not entirely certain of it himself though he can't think who else to pursue, "Conspiracies have a way of leading back to Richelieu."

Treville raises a warning finger. "Do not rile the Cardinal without very good reason, we're - we're on a damned see-saw with the man, one twitch and it flies one way or the other and there's no way of knowing which. Unless you have very good reason for that accusation, keep it to yourself. Why do you think it is him?"

A hunch, bitter and black in his heart, because Athos' husband has given him everything and someone is trying to take that everything away from him. "He's never liked Aramis."

"He's not so petty he'd risk-"

"He's never liked the entire regiment. And this -"

"Without obvious evidence, you are not to pursue the Cardinal," Treville says, hard, "and I'm not giving you permission to try to dig up evidence on him either, neither of you are in any frame of mind to be anything like discreet enough. There doesn't need to be a conspiracy, it's already irrelevant, the poison's already spread all the way through Paris, it no longer matters if you can punish whoever might have loosed the first drop. For now all we can do is defend the regiment, every member of the regiment, every one of us and ours. We have enough to deal with. You are not beginning a feud with Richelieu on top of it all based on a general feeling of distrust, that is a direct order, I have enough trouble defending you from the trouble you've already caused with him, do not add to it. Is that entirely clear, gentlemen?"

Porthos stares mutinously through Treville's right ear rather than make eye contact; Athos says, very low and dark, "Yes, sir."

His mind is running like a trapped rat. He hates to be irrational, and is viciously interrogating his own thoughts: Is there some conspiracy or is Treville right and there's enough reason amongst those inclined to the worst kinds of religion to perpetrate this anyway? Do they need to know who to punish for Aramis' sake or are there just too many people on that list? Does he want this to be true because it is true and it's the only way to make his family safe or just to make things easier for himself, easier to face?

Aramis is occupied for the rest of the day with the boy; pen and paper (the back of one of Treville's old and now inaccurate maps) are found and Aramis writes some sums for him, and then sits with Jean-Armand beside him on the bench directing the sparring of his recruits, attention back and forth between the boy and - well, the boys. Athos, Porthos and d'Artagnan, along with every other musketeer, are prioritised to find out who shot Étienne. They return to the garrison in the evening cold and hungry and empty-handed, even that little girl seems to have vanished; outside the kitchens Jean-Armand is helping Aramis to clean his pistol, which is never actually in need of it. Aramis always swore he'd teach the boy and has never liked to actually put a gun into his hands, this must be the first time he's touched it.

Aramis looks up for them, and his smile is too tight in the eyes just with gratitude that they're back. "You must be hungry," he says. "That was a long day."

D'Artagnan sits with them with a sigh, reluctant yet to leave them. Athos says to Aramis, "Are you hungry?" and Aramis shifts his weight on the bench, says, "I shouldn't possibly be, but yes." so they ask in the kitchen for extra bread and stew, which Aramis eats one-handed, and Jean-Armand says he's so full he doesn't want any.

Jean-Armand is beginning to slump to Aramis' shoulder, eyes struggling to stay open. Aramis still has his pistol spread on his handkerchief in pieces and looks to Athos and Porthos, says, "Will you put him to bed for me?" and they're not going to refuse that. Treville has found them two rooms opposite each other, one supposedly for Porthos, and they settle Jean-Armand into the bed Aramis and Athos will have to fit themselves into again later.

Porthos stands with his palm over the boy's forehead, and Jean-Armand breathes softly in his sleep. Porthos takes a heavier breath in, and says very low, "What the fuck're we gonna do?"

Athos wants to have something to say and doesn't - he doesn't know what they can do, not now this has got beyond Aramis himself, not now their child may face contempt and danger - and all he can do is put a hand on Porthos' back. Together they watch Jean-Armand sleeping, slumped peaceful in the bed, placid as he ever is, nothing that has happened has actually panicked him. Lupin is waiting patiently at their side for the two of them to move from the side of the bed so that she can lay there. To the boy and dog, this is unusual but not troubling; Lupin follows Jean-Armand anywhere, and Jean-Armand trusts that his fathers look after him, so doesn't worry.

Porthos says quietly, "S'like a plague. Like it's infectin' people 'til the streets aren't safe."

"It will prove to us our real friends," Athos says, looking for something to reassure him with. "Étienne proved more loyal than we could have known."

"Étienne's dead." Porthos says. "So I wouldn't bet on that list bein' long."

Out in the garrison courtyard Aramis is hunched up in his cloak on the bench, and d'Artagnan is standing beside him, hands awkward in his pockets, something tense in his stance; they've talked about something. Their breath runs from them pale as Porthos and Athos step back into the cold and walk to them, and d'Artagnan just chews over whatever's bothering him staring at the entrance to the garrison, while Aramis looks up at them and smiles tightly, and says, "I'll go to the boy."

They all know they would have ordered him inside if he hadn't volunteered it, it gets cold after dark now. Athos offers him a hand to help him up, and Porthos pats his back as he passes them, and d'Artagnan turns to watch him walk away, mouth pressed tight.

D'Artagnan says low, when the door has closed behind him, "He asked me for a favour." His eyes close. "Quite a big favour."

"What?" Athos says wearily, and sits with a grunt. He's been on his feet all day, and feels it the way Aramis must by now. But Aramis making plans is a concern, Aramis knows he's not allowed to plan anything, his ideas tend far too close to the razor's edge of crazy.

D'Artagnan turns to face them properly, arms crossed around himself against the cold, and says, "He asked if I still had family in Gascony." He takes a breath. "Somewhere I could take the children until this has passed."

Porthos says, "He wants - what?"

"He wants us out of danger," d'Artagnan says. "Constance and the girls and me. And he wants -" His eyes flick between them, wary of their response - "he wants us to take Jean-Armand with us."

Porthos says, "No."

"He says he's in danger because of him, but outside of Paris no-one even knows who Jean-Armand is -"

"He's ours -"

"It's just to make him safe, Porthos. He thinks - Aramis thinks this can blow over, maybe after he's had the baby people will forget again, but until then what are you going to do? Are you going to keep both of them prisoner in here? Do you really want Jean-Armand never leaving the garrison for the next few months?"

"Athos, tell him -"

Athos stares at the ground, and has never known Aramis to be so practical. He never knew Aramis could think like this.

"It will be safe for them," he says, eyes on the hardening earth of the garrison floor. "No-one will question Jean-Armand's parents, he'll disappear into a young family, he'll be separate from us and safe like that. And the air is better in the countryside. Parents send their children away from Paris all the time."

"But he's - he'll be on his own -"

"He'll have us," d'Artagnan promises. "You know we'd look after him like he was ours, and he'll have the girls, and the dog -"

"You're agreein' to this," Porthos says, sounding only baffled, and looks from d'Artagnan to Athos. "You don't think this is mad."

"He has to be safe," Athos says. "Worrying about his safety would be enough to make Aramis ill at the best of times, he can't sit in this garrison fretting himself sick about it now. And it - it makes sense, Porthos. For him not to be here for - for all of it. The birth. I don't want him in the building while Aramis goes through that again, he's a child, it will terrify him. Everything about this makes sense."

". . . but he'll be . . . miles away, he'll be . . ."

It's the one part of this plan that Athos looks at dumb with shock. Of course Aramis would do anything to make his son safe. What Athos never knew was that Aramis could even consider robbing himself of his son to do that, Aramis who loves the boy like a tidal wave and is only half-present on any assignment that takes him away from his presence, Aramis for whom that child has been the sole centre of his universe, more than King or Church or husbands, since even before he was born and so much more afterwards - Athos always would have said that Aramis was capable of anything for Jean-Armand. Only now does he actually understand the limits of that 'anything', and that, really, truly, really, there aren't any.

"He'll be safe." Athos says, and looks up at Porthos, and his own throat hurts, his hands don't feel entirely steady to have to say this to Porthos. "He'll be safe. We can't give him that here, Porthos. What else can we do?"

Porthos' mouth twists, his fists are close to trembling, he looks ready to either punch someone or cry, and Athos feels the accusation even if it's never said out loud: Of course you can say that, he's not your son.

He thinks of how Jean-Armand when younger had a habit of simply climbing into Athos' lap while he was reading to plug his mouth with his thumb and go to sleep there. He thinks of how the boy comes to him with questions, ten thousand questions, what clouds are made of and where is Spain and why do apples have pips and can they have another dog (no), Athos is as good as a book to Jean-Armand when he wants to know something. He thinks of how the boy's eyes lit for the first time Athos showed him a map, here is France, here is Paris, we are here - his fascination with the countries, his finger trailing the coastlines, all that world out there to be seen. Athos saw the amazement in him and for the first time in a very long time, he understood the world to be worthy of amazement as well, simply because it is the way it is.

He is his son. It's not just a charade for the outside world, to keep Aramis in the regiment and unpunished for loving them both. It's not an act. He doesn't mean to take a thing from Porthos, to try to water down his love for the boy at all, but now facing a hostile city and that fragile child out there in it - the fear he feels rocks his stomach, Jean-Armand is his son, it's not about blood, it's about love. That is his child. This is his family. And he will do anything, he will meet Aramis in his capacity for caring about nothing but this, he will do anything to make them safe.

Porthos wipes his eyes off on the side of his hand and looks very hard at the entrance to the garrison, jaw twitching too much for him to talk for a long time. Eventually he clears his throat, hard, swallows and settles his mouth something like steady, and says in a very roughened voice, "Winters must be better down south."

"He'll like the animals on my cousin's farm. And there'll be other children to play with. And the air's better." Something shifts in d'Artagnan's eyes, and he looks very flatly at the stable wall. "I've never thought the air in Paris is good for children."

Athos is silent, touches d'Artagnan's arm and respectfully averts his gaze from him to Porthos; every man here knows how hard it is to keep the voice steady when forced onto particular subjects. Porthos nods, eyes still very carefully aimed away from them, and his jaw still keeps twitching oddly, and Athos touches his hand, now. Porthos says, voice still mangled and trying not to be, "What's Gascony like?"

There's still a candle burning in the room where they left Jean-Armand, and Aramis is now acting as the boy's blanket, warm along his back. He doesn't look up at them coming in. He's looking down at Jean-Armand's sleeping face, thumb stroking gently, gently at his shoulder.

They stand there, side by side, and don't know what to say. Even the dog doesn't glance up at them, it's as if, outside the circumference of Aramis and the boy on the bed, they aren't even there.

Aramis breaks the silence, says only quietly, almost contemplatively as he strokes his shoulder, "It's strange when they're born. I know that's the point of it. But they're with you like this for so long," with a gesture at his own heavy belly, "it's strange seeing them out in the world. I never get used to it. I still keep looking at the world trying to see what he must see in it, see how it looks to him, as if it's still new to him. It's so strange him being - being separate to me. I think I'm still trying to work that out. Seven years and I still just . . . I'm still trying to work out how there's any world between him and me."

Athos sits, very carefully, on the edge of the bed, low down so that Porthos can sit by their heads. He says, and it's not something he's ever said to Aramis much in his life, "You're right. He'll be safe with them, in the countryside."

"He'll grow up," Aramis murmurs, his attention clearly still on the sleeping child. "He'll grow up and go out into the world and one day he'll get married, and I'll be so happy for him and I know I'll be thinking -" His mouth cracks the strangest smile, his eyes are too bright - "how can he even be so big, to be able to marry, because in my head he's still -"

He measures with both hands the length of a child still suckling, still in the womb, and then drops his hands and his head to the pillow, and breathes long and a little sharp, blinking only carefully to keep his emotions in check. Porthos brushes Aramis' hair back from his face and whispers, "S'alright," and Aramis looks up at him, and smiles faint and struggling.

"It may blow over," he says. "After the birth. They may forget about me once I'm not so obviously big again."

"You could go with him."

"No." Immediate and without space for an argument. "I am what drew the danger in his direction to begin with. I will not."

"Aramis," Athos says, and doesn't know how to say this. "If it doesn't 'blow over'. If they don't forget . . ."

Aramis stares at the back of Jean-Armand's head, and his gaze settles, slowly, relaxes into a drowsy acceptance, this he can bear. "Then I will have two children to protect," he says, "and I have to stop myself being the thing that puts them in danger. I resign my commission and devote myself to the nursery with the meekness expected of me. And if that is not enough -"

"Aramis -"

"- then I do so away from Paris where no-one knows that I ever was so prideful as to think I could have both. I don't - I'm not saying this to force either of you into anything. I have to make them safe."

"We'd take you somewhere else." Porthos says, and strokes his hair. "Away from all these bastards, who fuckin' needs 'em. Take you somewhere safe where we could live the way we want to. Never think about Paris again."

"I don't mean to force you both into exile with me."

"What matters most is the family." Athos says. "We'd leave with you in a heartbeat, Aramis. We could go tonight if you wanted."

"I thought I was the impetuous one," Aramis says, smiling at him, strained and tired but it's real. "I can't go anywhere until this one is born. I can't risk the streets, I only need . . . they only need to be lucky the once, to do something . . . something irreparable. We make our decisions afterwards. We may be able to return to normal, and if we can't, it's easier to smuggle a man and child out than an enormous whale of a man like me."

"You're not enormous," Porthos says, and as Aramis looks up at him, "seen you hell of a lot huger than this."

"And I have seen you a great deal more mature than this," Aramis acidly returns to his big grin.

Athos rubs his forehead, looks down at Jean-Armand's child's-deep sleep and what can he say? Aramis seems to have thought of it all, miracle to find him capable of it but he's right; the risk of putting him outside the garrison is too great, even putting his head beyond the gates gets him shot at, and until the child is born he won't risk that. The only way for Jean-Armand to be safe is for him to be away from Aramis, the source of all this danger, easily disappeared into another young family out in the countryside. Aramis will wait his pregnancy through here, very literally confined, and only then can they begin to see how they'll fit back into the world, whether Aramis' 'sin' can be forgotten and he'll simply slide back into his life or whether they have to plan for a world where he can never, never return to what he once was.

The only part of it Athos thinks Aramis hasn't planned quite through is how he'll feel about it all, because to be parted from his son for months - Aramis and Jean-Armand may no longer be a physical one but everything Athos knows about parenting he's learned from watching them. He had nurses and tutors when he was young, his parents were distant figures to be obedient to. But Jean-Armand has had Aramis to sit him on his lap at the table and teach him to eat like a gentleman, Aramis to pace the room with him in his arms when he snuffled and fussed through the nights of childhood colds, Aramis to be inexhaustible of stories if he wouldn't sleep; he shaped his first letters with Aramis' hand around his. They've been inseparable, delighted by each other's presence, from the first day they made eye contact, and Athos loves his husband and knows his strength, but he doesn't know how Aramis will bear this.

He says quietly, and puts a hand on Aramis' hip because he doesn't know how to make all his understanding and emotion concrete, "I believe that you are finally an adult."

Aramis looks across at him, and raises an eyebrow, and Porthos gives a heavy sniff, and none of them are alright, none of them can face this easily, but they're facing it together. It's the only way any of them can survive anything, let alone this.

Athos props the chair in front of the door to give them time to ready for intruders if they need to, and sleeps wrapped in his cloak beside Lupin on the floor. That gives Aramis and Porthos the bed, crowded around Jean-Armand, who sleeps innocent of all of it, cocooned by his fathers, trusting without thought that life could be any different, that there is anything in the world except their love.

There's a brittle cheerfulness about Aramis the next morning, a strained tiredness in Porthos, when the boy wakes first and then wakes them because he gets bored without the girls in the room to occupy him instead. They have breakfast, and Jean-Armand after two days seems perfectly at home breakfasting amongst musketeers in the garrison, and then they take him into the stables, to stroke at the soft snout of Aramis' horse, and be asked, in light warm tones, if he would like an exciting holiday, in Gascony, where Uncle d'Artagnan is from.

Jean-Armand likes most things and responds with the exuberance they could have expected. It takes some time before he grasps that he is to go, and they are not; it's Aramis he finds the sticking point. Athos must stay and do his duty. Porthos must stay and do his duty. But Papa will be with him, won't he? As far as Jean-Armand has ever known, Aramis' duty is him.

So he doesn't want to go, he says, and clings to Aramis' shirt instead. He'll stay. He'll be good. They'll never even know he's there he'll be so good, it'll be like he has gone away he'll be so good -

Aramis picks him up, and Jean-Armand stuffs his face into his shoulder, and Aramis carries him into the corner of the stables to whisper something to him while the others pretend to look at the horse. They stand side by side, awkwardly staring at anything but Aramis and the boy, pretending that both of them are perfectly steady and alright while Athos tries to remember what he did with his handkerchief - left pocket, he thinks - in case he needs to get it into Porthos' hand in a surreptitious hurry.

"But I can't, little wolf," in Aramis' muffled murmur. "It's a long way to go and the baby's too heavy to carry all that way."

"Don't bring the baby."

"Jean-Armand . . . it'll be fun, won't it? You and the girls, and there'll be horses and all kinds of animals, you like animals."

"Don't want to."

"But someone has to escort them, you know," Aramis says so gently, stroking the boy's back, both of them clinging like limpets. "Ladies can't travel alone, there might be brigands, and little Charles is too small to protect them. So you'll escort them, won't you? And when you come back, you can tell your fathers and the baby all the exciting things you did."

Jean-Armand says something very, very muffled, mangled by Aramis' shoulder, into his shirt. And Aramis hugs him close and whispers fiercely, "Of course you are coming back, little wolf, I will miss you so fiercely I'll bring you back myself-"

"Then I won't go."

"The air will be good for you, and it won't be so cold as Paris. And I will be so big and heavy and boring, it'll all be better here when you come back and you're a big brother already. Jean-Armand, it will be nice. It'll be a nice holiday, and then when you come back there'll be a baby brother or sister for you, won't that be nice - ?"

Please, Athos thinks, staring at a horse's flank. Please, please, for your father's sake, please, Jean-Armand . . .

"I'll write to you every day," Aramis is promising. "And you must write back to practise your letters, little wolf. You will get letters addressed particularly for you, you've never had a letter just for you before. Aunt Constance will show you how to seal and address them. 'Monsieur Jean-Armand de la Fère', you can have your father's seal for them, like a proper young gentleman. And then when you get back you'll be a big brother, and very important, and I won't be such a dull heavy tired thing anymore. It's only until the spring, little wolf. You'll be back in your own bed before the first flowers have come off the trees."

Jean-Armand is silent, battling his twin urges to never be separated from his father, who is more or less his personal property to be summoned for his amusement at any hour of the day or night, and to be good, because he does (he is so like Aramis) love to be good, love to be praised for it, even if he occasionally struggles with desires contrary to that aim.

He says, face still buried in Aramis' shoulder, "Lupin can come."

Aramis kisses the crown of his head. "Lupin will not leave your side." And then he takes a breath. "If there are any pups on the farm, you may bring one home with you as well, if d'Artagnan says so."

Athos thinks, No. and Jean-Armand lifts his head, stares at Aramis, says, "Can I."

"Only if they need a home, little wolf. So you'll return in the spring with perhaps another dog and a baby brother or sister, and in exchange you'll escort the girls, for your fathers, please?"

Jean-Armand stares at him, and presses his mouth tight, and then says, "You'll write every day."

"Until you are bored of the sight of my handwriting, and safely back home to meet the baby. It'll be fun, little wolf. It's going to be an adventure."

Jean-Armand tugs in a distracted way at the catch of Aramis' cloak, and nods with his eyes on that, and Aramis kisses his cheek hard. Porthos sniffs and blinks at the ceiling a few times, settling himself, and Athos takes a slow breath in, resigning himself, because it is the best case scenario, the house filling out not just with another wailing baby but with another pissing puppy underfoot as well.

Aramis murmurs to him apologetically, as Jean-Armand dashes out beside Porthos to find a stick to practice-fight with, that Lupin is after all going to get old soon, and he will need another guardian some day. Athos says nothing. The truth is that as much as he regrets that there never will be peace and quiet under that roof, he recognises that it's still better than the alternative. So much better.

D'Artagnan brings a bag of their things to the garrison, particularly Aramis' as they can hardly walk him home to have him collect any of them himself. When they walk out on their duties, sombre because there's still Étienne to bury tomorrow, Aramis is sitting with the boy at the side of the courtyard, working through his Bible, marking the passages he wants Jean-Armand to look over while he's away, to remember if he misses his papa.

Athos says to d'Artagnan, low as they walk through the morning's mist, back on the so far fruitless task of trying to find who killed one of their own in cold blood yesterday, "Thank you. I know this is not a small favour to ask."

"This? Oh, no. Taking my entire family out of the city and across the country, that's nothing." d'Artagnan looks across at him, and crooks an amused eyebrow. "You know we'd go farther than this if you needed it."

Porthos pats d'Artagnan's arm, and clearly doesn't trust himself to speak.

They say goodbye to their son, his three parents, in the icy cold of pre-dawn the following day. Constance and Aramis are speaking low and urgent together at a little distance, hands held; the girls are sleepily propped side by side in the cart they've borrowed to ride to the south; and Jean-Armand, Athos realises with a spark of instant terror, is nowhere to be seen. He glances at Aramis, who's shrugging his cloak higher on his shoulders against the cold and watching Constance's eyes as she speaks, and knows that he can't let Aramis realise what's happened, he doesn't know how he would react . . .

He looks at Porthos, who's rubbing his tired eyes - he doesn't think any of them slept well last night, counting their last minutes of their son nearby - and nudges him, and murmurs, "Don't alert Aramis. Where's Jean-Armand?"

Porthos finds him, a few minutes later. He's hiding in the stables, scared and guilty because he knows he shouldn't be there, but he changed his mind and thought that if they had to leave without him, then he would be able to stay with his fathers. Porthos comes out carrying him, Jean-Armand's arms around his neck, trying to look brave and happy. Porthos hands him to Aramis, who hugs him in tight and kisses him hard and breathes in at his hair.

The children are set three in a row on the back of the cart, Charles currently in d'Artagnan's arm as he hugs Athos and Porthos, one-armed and patting each other's backs. Aramis and Constance are hugging as well, and he says into her hair, "I don't deserve you, Madame d'Artagnan."

"Hush and think of that one, and yourself," she says, patting his back. "Look what you being so daft has done," she adds, and wipes under her eyes with her palm, as he laughs softly, and kisses her cheek.

D'Artagnan passes Charles to her to say his farewell to Aramis. They close their eyes for the hug, and Aramis pats his back looking as deeply fond of d'Artagnan as he always has, while d'Artagnan's face is screwed up with something less settled. No-one says - they are not going to say - that he holds quite as tight as he does because every adult there knows what the birth Aramis has to face will be, and that they don't know, there is no certainty in the direction they would like, that those leaving Paris today will ever actually see him again.

There is that to face, now that Jean-Armand will be somewhere else and safe, there will be nothing to focus on in Paris except Aramis' condition as the child within him readies itself for the world. There will no longer be a distraction in the form of a small boy with a dog perpetually in tow when they don't want to think of it, and Athos can only tell himself that he will have the self-control not to think of it. Aramis needs more from them now than having to comfort them through their mourning him when he's not even dead, even if the fear of that is all Athos and Porthos are able to concentrate on.

'Olivier', Athos thinks, for propriety's sake. 'Thomas' had occurred to him but he fears it as too much of a red rag to her, and he cannot risk his children when he doesn't know where she is, he cannot put risk onto his child's neck for his own sake. Truly he doesn't want either name. He doesn't say out loud, certainly not to Aramis and not even to Porthos, that he understands the risk, and if - face it, like the man, the adult, the father you are supposed to be - if Aramis does not live, Athos would want to name the child 'René'. Jean-Armand is so entirely, eerily like Aramis that of course he will be a permanent reminder of him, and named for him the new child, whoever it took after, would be as well. Aramis never uses the name - confessed that his mother called him 'Aramis', he's only ever been René to his father - but it would be there for them if required. It would be like touching him again every time it was said, touching the memory of him and how entirely he loved his children. Athos doesn't know how to live without his husband. If he had to, he thinks that only through holding whatever remains of him could he survive, only because Aramis' children needed it of him could he survive, and that name will be more precious to him than any prayer.

Hell. It already is.

Constance climbs up beside d'Artagnan at the front of the cart, tucking Charles to herself. Aramis is settling a blanket over the laps of the three children on the back of the cart, with a kiss to each cheek of the two girls and the forehead of his boy, cupping his cheek and murmuring something to him, eye to eye, that they don't hear. Then he gives him a clean handkerchief, because parenthood has affected Aramis in not always unwelcome ways.

Porthos helps to heave Lupin's heavy body up into the cart, and then there is simply no more time for goodbyes if they're to leave before it's light; d'Artagnan looks back, looks up - Treville is watching them all from the balcony - and with a nod there, and a final look back to the three of them as Porthos puts a hand on Aramis' back, he flicks the reins to move the horses on.

The cart's wheels rumble into life after the precise sounds of the horses' hooves. Athos touches Aramis' arm, feels the tension in his muscles, though he's smiling for the boy, and waves a handkerchief for him; Jean-Armand, with a sudden expression flashing across his face that Athos knows - the look Aramis gets in his eye in the split-second before he jumps on a bomb or out of a window - before he used to jump on bombs and out of windows -

The boy scoots forwards and drops from the cart to his feet light as cat, Geneviève has to grab the blanket to keep it from falling, and bolts back towards them. Lupin barks, sharp with warning, and d'Artagnan tugs the reins, and Aramis hurries forwards to scoop Jean-Armand up as he runs at him with his arms out, saying, "Oof you're heavy." He walks him back to the slowing cart, rubbing his back as Jean-Armand hides his face to his neck.

Aramis sets him back on the cart, just inside the gates of the garrison, and holds his hands, and says something to him that no-one else hears. Jean-Armand holds his arms up until Aramis will lean into range for a kiss to the cheek; Aramis closes his eyes, and breathes steadily.

The cart rumbles into life again. Jean-Armand's grip on Aramis' arm lengthens - stretches his sleeve -

He lets go, and Aramis waves him away, head high, smile strained but it's there, and Athos walks to his side, Porthos to the other, to watch their son's hungry eyes as he leaves them, through the streets of Paris, around a corner and finally gone.

Aramis takes a deep breath in, lets it out.

Étienne's funeral is that morning, or at least the small ceremony in the garrison itself. It's a tense affair - one of their own killed in the entrance to their own garrison and they still don't know who the hell did it, though now they know why - and Athos can feel Aramis beside him swaying between fury and agony, that the bullet that did for Étienne was intended for him. Athos holds Aramis' hand, because Porthos can't, and even with his head bowed he furiously scans the faces of the other gathered musketeers, watching for anyone who lays a blaming eye in their direction. He counts four. He holds Aramis' hand tight, his jaw tighter, and Aramis' own gaze is so fixed on that coffin that if he has a thought to spare for anyone else's recriminations, he doesn't care enough to lift his eyes.

When Athos and Porthos return from their duties that night, every piece of furniture in Aramis' garrison room has been reduced to kindling, shattered as if caught in the midst of a barroom brawl. He's sitting on the skew-legged sloping bed, the remains of it, hands held loose in his lap underneath the heaviness of his stomach, raw eyes aimed at the floor, and he says to his boots, very quietly, "Please don't say anything."

They sleep in Porthos' room that night, and underneath every breath Aramis takes, Athos can hear the held-in howl behind it.