Pack Mentality pt 4.6, the end

[rainjoyswriting]

. . . long.



Passing a market stall on the route back to the garrison Athos' step hesitates of its own accord, as his eye catches the skeins of ribbons in every bright colour of spring. He hesitates, and Porthos gives a rumbling laugh at his side and pats his shoulder hard; you see the world differently, with a daughter.

They choose blue, for her eyes. Walking on again Athos misses d'Artagnan's casual presence, the boy has always been good for them, and he misses Aramis like he feels the cold air between their two bodies. He knows it's still not time for Aramis to return to duty with them, besides Belle still being too small for Aramis to possibly entrust to a nurse for the day, Aramis himself still looks more drained in the face than he should. He bled so much, tore himself so badly, finally recognised even himself that the gamble of his pregnancies cannot, cannot be betted against again. He's older than he was. His body can't take much more abuse than he's already heaped upon it.

Two streets down and they'll be there, and Athos feels a warming to his smile at the thought of Aramis' body, a fear and a fondness. He still doesn't move entirely naturally, and Athos worries and tries not to at the thought of how he's damaged himself, fever is still a very real and dangerous possibility. To bring him this far from childbed and still see him sickened and killed by it would be - worse than unbearable, he couldn't keep his own sanity in the face of it. And yet, in how Aramis fixes himself to his daughter, has the strength simply because she needs it, and more than that . . .

His belly will never lie flat again. It had always been softer after Jean-Armand's birth, gently doughy in a way Aramis felt awkward of and Athos could only be amused by. Now that softness is more pronounced and probably always will be, Aramis' children remain written in his skin, and so soon after the birth it's to be expected but Athos has seen Aramis' openly sad expression looking down at his own ravaged stomach, as if anything, anything, could disturb how entirely ridiculously attractive that man is. They have made efforts to reassure him of his continuing desirability. But in the garrison they've always to be careful and quiet, God Athos misses the privacy and closeness of their own damned house, grits his teeth on the impatience of when they can return, because -

Well, because his impatience is the least of their problems, as they turn the corner onto the garrison's street and there leaning against the wall outside the gates, hat tilted down against the glare of the low winter sun and one hand casually propping himself up on the musket at his side, is their biggest problem when it comes to the matter of impatience. Aramis tilts a slight smile as they approach, knocks his hat brim back with a knuckle and says, "Welcome back. A long day?"

Porthos says, "Where's Belle?"

"The captain of the King's guard is babysitting her, as befits her. It's his turn, anyway, two of my recruits had her earlier."

Athos looks up and down the street but people pass by in the slush underfoot busy with their own errands, ignoring the three of them. And Aramis catches his eye and looks smug, because here he's been out on the street with as good as a target painted on his chest, for God knows how long on his own, and here he still is.

He says, "Alexandre came to visit. He brought her a rosary, quite a pretty one. She's not to have it until she probably won't try to swallow it."

Athos reads his face carefully, and looks up and down the street again, and then takes his arm. "Come on. It has been a long day."

"We got her something too," Porthos says, and Aramis' eye has too much of a twinkle in it, delighted with how spoiled his daughter is already set up to become. Athos takes from his belt the little bundle of ribbon, and Aramis takes it smiling. "It's a lovely sheen. It's beautiful."

"For trimming her clothes." Athos says. "Or something."

"Thank you, love." Aramis leans to kiss his cheek, and Porthos grins and looks away, happy to wait until privacy for his own 'thank you'.

Aramis retrieves his daughter from Treville's office and she grumpily reacquaints herself with Athos and Porthos again - she seems to accept that the two of them are an apparently necessary part of her life, but clearly doesn't love big soldiers with rough hands, and only settles herself back to sleep when slung up to Aramis' chest again, tied close in a scarf inside his own shirt to keep her warm. They eat in the yard with the others, easy talk and laughter in the light of the braziers, Aramis as wickedly teasing as ever with one hand held to support her little head to his throat, always, as if all of this is normal. All of this is normal, now.

Athos knows what Aramis standing out on the street means, and he also knows why Aramis had Belle kept safe inside the garrison while he chose to do it; he's testing the atmosphere. Athos and Porthos have been out there and felt how much less toxic it is, but still they're both paranoid. Aramis has never even had a chance to test the air, not with his baby to mind, but at least now she's growing bigger and stronger and he can trust her for an hour or so in the care of his captain, and can head out alone to scent the danger ahead. Athos and Porthos might feel paranoid for his safety but when it comes to the anticipation of attack Aramis has an ability occasionally bordering on the uncanny to sense it in the air like a bad smell, and they all know why Aramis is attuned to hair-trigger to hidden danger and they don't speak of that. And Aramis just went out to scent the air of Paris . . .

In his head Athos is already composing the letter to d'Artagnan, until he stops himself. Not yet. Not until they're certain. They have two children to put at risk, and they can't.

But the following day Aramis is waiting for them outside the garrison again. And the following day. And then he informs them that he took a walk to the market that afternoon. And then he asks Athos, on Sunday, to accompany him to church, if Porthos will have Belle. He tells them he's been to the house to check on it, and Ester has kept it dusted and aired. He says he's already hung the cradle in their bedroom again.

Still Belle remains cocooned in the safety of the garrison yard, where the men very quickly get used to her presence and begin vying for more of her presence, increasingly viewing her as some sort of mascot-come-good-luck-charm. Athos may be biased, but he does think it an entirely glorious thing to be looked at by her that way she looks, as if judging the very soul of you as egregiously pointless, something about her expression always makes him want to laugh and he has never in his life been given to open laughter. In the mornings Aramis sits with the morning's wet nurse hemming Belle's little white frocks with blue ribbon, calling instructions to his recruits working on their loading, priming, firing times, and Belle no longer starts in the slightest to the clash of swords or even the retort of guns. She's as steady as a very old soldier, looking imperiously, almost furiously at the man Porthos hands her to so that he and Athos can leave for duties, while the man honoured with her defence for the morning looks so delighted with his task.

She is so pretty, Athos thinks. Aramis' doing, of course. The man isn't capable of giving birth to unsightly babies. Already her hair is showing in downy curls, pale as yet, she will be an astonishing beauty as she grows, and if she's anything like Aramis she never will need someone else to inform her of the fact. Athos doesn't mind that in the slightest. The beauty of his family is a fact, and ought to be treated as such.

As for the wet nurses, at first treated with open disdain by many musketeers - women of low enough status to be nursing others' babies warrant little consideration from the more pig-headed of their regiment - they are now queens, in this courtyard. When the very first woman in her shabby dress and shawl came in and men glanced and ignored her or didn't even look at her, Aramis - for whom every woman may as well be a queen, a thought Athos has a certain weary angle on understanding - bowed to her, as courteous as if she dripped with titles and jewels, and Athos knows that Aramis' gratitude is sincere, that she can give his daughter what Aramis himself cannot. And so of course all of Aramis' recruits followed his lead and treated the poor ill-dressed woman like a lady of the highest quality, until every man there was shamed into better manners than he truly possessed. Now musketeers come respectfully to enquire if the lady might need anything, as she sits with Aramis stitching napkins for the child, and those women walk with their heads held higher, and those tiny seeds of chaos Aramis doesn't even consider himself planting make Athos smile more than any of his intended mischief.

The year turns still colder, the snow falls in long careening curves through the night, casting dizzy to earth from the smothering grey cloud overhead. And one night, after duties, Athos and Porthos walk home and there outside the garrison gates is that familiar tall figure, hat peaked in snow, snow a soft extra layer on the jewel-blue of his cloak pulled around himself, bulked at his chest because there with his arms around her for warmth, bundled down inside his very shirt to keep her to his chest, is a tired but curious little beauty, frowning at the street ahead mystified by it, by its newness.

Athos leans down as if bowing, to kiss her on top of her tiny head, and puts an arm around Aramis' back to lead him back inside, into the warmth, away from an open street that offers no fear to their daughter, to whom it's only another portion of the world as yet unexplored.

They compose the letter to d'Artagnan together - Athos writes, as Aramis is prone to getting distracted mid-sentence and looping off in unpredictable tangents, his paragraphs run for pages as his mind flits from thought to thought, and Porthos isn't confident of his spelling - at the table in their garrison room while Porthos holds the sleeping baby and Aramis is running a rosary through his fingers one-handed as he speaks. Athos finds himself eager in the throat, like a horse straining the bit, for Jean-Armand's return. The snow pats as if dazzled by their little candle flames at the window and of course they won't be travelling now, Athos writes, but when the weather turns, it looks as if the city should be safe once more. And Belle needs to meet her brother. And they are all so very missed.

"He'll be bigger," Aramis says. "He won't even recognise us."

"Hasn't been gone that long." Porthos says with easy pragmatism.

Aramis thinks on that for a moment, then says, "I carried him for longer than he's had to be away." and seems to accept that as enough sop to the separation pains, worse than labour to him. But Athos knows what he means, he knows Porthos knows it. Until Jean-Armand comes home there's a hole in their family, until he's back with them it's like a gap in a circle, something is just wrong. Athos misses d'Artagnan a great deal, and dependable, formidable Constance, and - surprised by this - even the unpredictable pleasures of their ever-growing brood. But he misses the boy with the tang of true urgency. He misses him, and feels with their daughter there yawning in Porthos' arms that they are only partial until he comes back, and blesses them with completion once more.

They test the city for a few more days. They escort Aramis and their daughter on walks through the streets - escorting Belle, mostly, Aramis walks easily again though under the weight of weapons he's carrying it's a wonder he can stagger - and some people glance, but no-one for very long. They test the city. They visit churches. Gradually it feels, once more, like their city, like death is not poised to spring and steal it all from them in every alleyway.

In their bed in their own home, in their own sheets, Aramis hushes them not to wake Belle but it's buried almost immediately in half-stifled laughter, it's so impossible for them not to be greedy for his flesh after all those months -

Two days after they receive a reply from d'Artagnan - the roads are too bad for the children, but once the weather clears they'll set off - Athos and Porthos return home in an admittedly odd mood, because of something another soldier told them which he blustered he was certain is innocent, must have an explanation, and Athos is certain it does as well. It's just that he knows his husband, and that Aramis has an askance relationship with explanation, with innocence; all the intention is there, it's just that he seems perpetually not to understand how it ought to be carried through.

Aramis is in the kitchen, amusing Belle with a little silver rattle trailing pretty blue ribbons, while Ester sweeps upstairs. Porthos leans against the doorframe, Athos sits at the table beside Aramis, and Aramis says to Belle, "It's an interrogation isn't it yes it is little one, look at their postures, we know those postures don't we yes we do -"

"Aramis," Athos says, in his most patient tone of voice.

"Yes, love?"

Still very patiently, "A man of your description was seen leaving a brothel this afternoon."

"That doesn't sound like something a respectable married man would do. Many men meet my description, it must have been someone who looked like me."

"He was carrying a baby."

"Oh," Aramis says lightly, and twinkles the rattle at Belle, who watches with a puzzled frown. "That brothel."

"What were you doing in a brothel, Aramis?"

"Talking to an old friend. What else does one do in a brothel?"

Athos has never asked Aramis, who has never volunteered the information himself, why he has such a casually easy relationship with the ladies of the night their duty occasionally pushes them to interact with. He's certain - Athos would bet his life on this with the blindfold on and muskets aimed at him - that Aramis has never in his life paid for sex, but he's not unknown to share in the company of those working women either, he seems to simply like their company, and isn't embarrassed about it in the slightest. So it isn't beyond reason that Aramis went to a brothel to have a chat with a prostitute. It's actually a reasonably good assumption to make, leaving only one question remaining.

"What were you talking about, Aramis?"

Aramis looks at him as if checking something in his expression - his own face is bordering on not looking too amused - then lifts Belle up and holds her for Porthos, who steps forward to tuck her to his chest. "Alright," Porthos says to her, and she makes a cross noise, until he starts tinkling that tiny rattle in front of her again.

Aramis, meanwhile, removes something from his pocket, unfurls it, and holds it up in front of Athos. "It's a sheath," he says. "To reduce the risk of pregnancy. You tie it on with a ribbon."

Athos looks at Aramis to make sure he's being entirely earnest. "You went to talk to a prostitute about contraception."

"It should keep the clap away as well though I hope neither of you intend to go out and find a way to pass that on to me, you made vows." Aramis says cheerfully. "The Church isn't keen but I don't think the Lord would judge, it would seem sinfully idiotic not to use one in our position."

"You want us to tie that on," Porthos says, still distracting Belle with the rattle but eyes wide on Aramis, "on our - with a ribbon."

"In a darling little bow," Aramis says. "Then you can fuck me with it."

Athos looks dubiously at the tube of what he thinks is animal gut, sewn tight-closed at one end. "And this works," he says, slowly. If anyone ought to know then a prostitute should, but . . .

"Withdraw as well." Aramis says, so casual that it's entirely firm: they are ordered, and Athos knows that they'll obey. Aramis shrugs. "I think it keeps us safe enough."

"We could just not fuck you."

"Don't make silly suggestions, dearest. Are you hungry yet? It's a long time until dinner but Ester hid some pastries we should be able to stumble upon . . ."

It snows; it stops snowing; it snows again. Their daughter resigns herself to their presence and no longer complains every time they pick her up, and grows at a rapid rate, is very soon as sturdy a baby as could be wished for, and almost the last of that fear-tight angle slumps from Aramis' shoulders. Almost the last of it.

Because Athos' family is not currently complete, and they all feel it, Porthos quiet, Aramis a little tense, Athos wistful. They devote themselves to the baby to distract themselves, and often when Athos and Porthos return from duty they find Aramis waiting in one of the house's windows, Belle drowsing at his chest, Aramis watching the street like a starving hawk, watching, watching . . .

Three pairs of eyes trained on the dark ceiling from their bed, Aramis says into the silence of the night, "Do you think you can fuck me yet?"

"No." Athos says. "Stop asking. Soon."

"It would just kill some time," Aramis says. "And you have such lovely cocks, the ribbon would become them so well."

Silence. Even Belle is keeping her peace.

Aramis says, "I'm not bleeding anymore."

"For the grand length of an entire week, no, Aramis."

"It's hardly even blood by the end anyway, it's this sort of . . . sorry. This is vulgar, you don't need to know."

Porthos shifts on the mattress. "It still hurt?"

". . . I still feel it, but I wouldn't say hurt, no."

Silence. It feels deeper than the silence they're used to in this house, entirely empty but for the three of them and their sleeping daughter in this one dark room, and the early night wet nurse downstairs by the kitchen fire.

Aramis says, "What about a hand job?"

Athos pushes himself up on an elbow, giving up on the idea of sleep. "Are you truly that much in need of a distraction."

"It should have been any day now," Aramis says sullenly. "They could have already been back. But if the weather's damaged the roads - what if the cart slipped off, and -"

"Hey, hey." Porthos says, and Athos hears him patting at Aramis. "Jus' takes time, Aramis. Long way back."

"And it's cold to be travelling, he's always forgetting to wrap his scarf up properly, he could catch -"

"He'll be back with you in no time," Athos says, "and then you'll be remembering for him again."

Silence. Athos begins to wonder if he can lay down again.

Aramis says, "Maybe it wasn't even bleeding from the birth anymore, maybe it was just my menses. There's only one way to test it."

"Hell." Athos says, and slides a hand down Aramis' body in search of his cock. "If it'll shut you up -"

He has no intention of fucking him - they'll put that off for as long as they can, uncertain of how long it truly takes Aramis' unpredictable body to heal - but he's perfectly willing to make him come if it'll just distract him for a moment -

His hand's only just got underneath Aramis' nightshirt, both of Aramis' hands on his arm and wrist to encourage and guide it, when there's a shifting from the cradle, and Belle makes a long, angry noise, prelude to a scream. Aramis' hands immediately hold Athos' arm still, and Athos holds himself poised still, and Porthos says, "Should I-"

"No." Aramis says, picking himself out from between them, stepping easily over Athos in the dark as Belle begins to rage. "Any distraction will do. And don't you just have such perfect timing, little one? Yes you do -"

She is the best distraction for all of them, hard to focus on anything for long with a particularly short-tempered baby in their midst. And she is - it's not that Jean-Armand has ever not been Athos' son, he's never thought of him as anything else. But now he's faced with his blood beating through the heart of another body, now he faces everything that he is potentially here again in the body of a girl who very much has her own mind and will be exactly what she will be however he might feel about that. It's a strange thing to face, and while he might have thought it would strain him and Porthos, set them rather fixedly on 'their own' children to forget the other - it doesn't. It feels like the deepest bonding, to know that Porthos has faced this too, has watched a boy born of his and Aramis' blood go out into the world to make his own joyful chaos, Porthos knows exactly the strangeness and the awe of it. Together, while Aramis sleeps off another long broken night of Belle's interruptions, they sit over her in the parlour, where she lays on her back and waves her little fists at the air, making small almost grunted noises of the effort of it.

"'Come on, you bastards,'" Porthos says, mouth all crooked with glee. "'I'll take all of you.'"

"I've never said that." Athos says.

"Out loud," Porthos says, offering Belle a finger to snatch onto. "She'd fight all of France, this one. If she gets your sulks -"

"I don't sulk."

"- an' Aramis' hot-headedness -"

Athos massages his forehead. "I dread to think."

"- she could take on all of France."

Athos looks down at her, as she waves Porthos' hand about by the finger and makes a long, almost growled noise at him, and he thinks that he's never seen so proud a baby in all his life, and who else could he ever blame for that . . . ?

He has a daughter. It's the strangest thing to think of, that that girl will one day curtsey and write and run and have very much a mind of her own, and be his daughter, his blood out there running free in the world. If she falls in love, as mortals seem doomed to do, if she deigns to marry some undeserving boy possibly already out there in the world, perhaps there will be more children. Perhaps the river Athos thought that he had personally stopped is going to flow on without him all the same, all the way down the generations to the final judgement, when Aramis will feel very smug and finally satisfied, with so many endlessly-great-grandchildren that he can never fit them all into his arms.

"I never thought," he says, and then doesn't really know how to finish the sentence. All he can do is stare at Belle.

"Yeah," Porthos says. "Me neither. But he knew what he was doin', all along it turns out." He shrugs, carefully, just the shoulder of the arm Belle isn't holding by the finger. "Who the hell knew that'd ever turn out true, right?"

Lots of strange things are turning out true. Athos is surprised in a quiet, awed way at the gentle space he's found inside himself where he has a child of his own blood and he's okay with that, he's glad of that. He thinks that finally he's mature enough to face it all, everything that family is, and after years, almost decades now of telling Aramis to grow the hell up it turns out that Aramis always was more mature than him, more ready for this. Porthos too has immediately become a very devoted father to a little daughter, is taking a sudden strange interest in lace and frippery and the decoration of Belle's little cot, which amuses Athos in the fondest possible way. And Aramis -

Aramis has two children to keep safe. Walking down the street with them, Belle in Athos' arms for now, tucked up warm from a visit to the garrison, they pass an inn doorway where a man spits, drunk but sober enough to know who he's talking to, "- belongs in the kitchen with the other bitches."

Aramis slams the man's forehead into the doorway, knees him in the stomach, and elbows the back of his neck as he's going down. Athos only has the time to jerk Belle instinctively closer, Porthos only has the time to freeze; in the seconds afterwards when the street is silent and Athos is actually breathing again, Aramis crouches beside the man and says, in one of his mildest tones, "I'm sorry, monsieur, I didn't catch that. Would you care to repeat it?"

Athos breathes, breathes, and keeps his hand pressing Belle close, and undersands what just happened: Aramis is done with turning the other cheek, he's done it until he's nearly snapped his neck, and he won't risk his family on other people assuming his meekness. The man on the ground just gasps and whines, and Aramis stands up, looks evenly at the street of staring onlookers, then raises his arms for Athos as Belle begins to squirm and grumble, and murmurs, "I'll take her, before she fusses."

He strokes her blankets right, ignoring the man coughing brokenly on the ground by his boot, then puts his head up and walks on as if nothing has happened. People watch him go, and he ignores them, and Athos can only hope that they read the right thing from this encounter: there is no safety in attacking this family, and Aramis may bear children and sew like a seamstress and smile and bow with such perfect manners, but in his heart that man is a wolf, and those who attack must be very, very certain that they're willing to face him.

Them. The entire pack of them, armed and defensive, for the sake of the children, and each other.

It's dusking but not yet dark when Athos lights the candles in the parlour and Aramis prowls between the two windows, humming to keep Belle quiet while his eyes track the far end of the street. Porthos is poking the fire higher against the rising chill of the evening, Athos thinks of reading aloud to amuse them, and is just thinking that he misses Geneviève's charming, childish voice doing it for them, when -

Aramis makes no exact sound, just a suck of his breath and he's out of the parlour and flinging the front door wide open onto the cold street. Porthos lurches up with a hissed curse, Athos is already bolting after him, Aramis is quicker than a spooked cat but only when you least expect it -

There's a cart, rumbling down the street, a single horse in the traces. Athos squints through the gathering gloom for the driver - a man and woman, and his smile comes deep at the sight of them, just their silhouettes so known. And Aramis grabs Athos' arm as if weak, dragging at the sleeve, presses Belle to him as she squirms angrily and all Athos can do is take her.

A call of frustration and worry from the woman on the cart, and a small shape has dropped off the back of it, and is now running right at Aramis like a cannon ball. Porthos puts a hand on Aramis' shoulder and squeezes, as a big heavy dog's anxious bark starts up, monotonous with worry from the cart. Aramis just drops to his knees in the street, and Jean-Armand hits him hard enough to knock him back onto his arse but Aramis just folds his arms around him stuffing him tight to his chest and they're both speaking in rapid Spanish, entirely incomprehensible as Athos rocks Belle to keep her angry questioning quiet, and smiles with exhausted joy to d'Artagnan, drawing the cart up outside their front door.

"Monsieur and Madame d'Artagnan. Welcome home."

Aramis holds Jean-Armand off to get a proper look at him but then drags him in close for another squeezing hug again, his tone berating and desperate and utterly relieved.

"The next time you ask us for a favour," Constance says, accepting Porthos' hand to help her down, before he offers it to d'Artagnan next, "maybe tell us the timeframe involved before we say yes."

"Down please," Maria says insistently, holding her own arms out to Porthos to be helped down from the cart. And it's as Constance turns to look at her children in the back that Athos notices the particular shape of her silhouette underneath her heavy winter cloak, and raises his eyebrows. He says, "Congratulations."

"No," d'Artagnan sings softly, and Constance cuts him a furious glare, and Athos understands that this was neither expected nor planned and nor is it yet forgiven.

"- and there were cows and sheep and I fed the chickens every morning -" Jean-Armand is saying, at least finally in French, as Aramis sits on the street brushing his hair back repeatedly and kissing his forehead and cheek clearly without thinking about it, just watching his face with his smile all melted-warm and almost dream-like to see his son again. "- and there were cats and ducks and I have a new puppy!"

There's a higher yap in the back of the cart than Lupin's deep, unending barking, and Athos thinks, Hell.

"- Geneviève got a puppy as well but Maria wanted a kitten, the puppy's better I'm going to teach it to do tricks -"

Athos hears the plaintive mews of a small cat back there as well and, as Belle begins making grumping noises in his arms, he thinks, Hell, hell, hell.

Jean-Armand's hair has grown out a little while he's been away, Aramis keeps brushing it back behind his ear for him, eyes all full of that softened, blessed light he's always aimed at the boy. "You've got bigger," Aramis tells him, thumb tucking his hair back neat. He adds, wheedling aimed upwards, "And your hair's grown, don't you look handsome."

Porthos, at Athos' side, folds his arms, mouth twitching rueful; "Maybe he could grow it long enough to tie it back," he says. "He's big enough now."

Which means he's old enough now to be taught how to make an attempted bully feel the error of his ways, and Athos knows what the real change is. It's not just that Jean-Armand has grown while he's been away. It's that Jean-Armand is now a big brother, and they have a duty to make him ready to perform the duties attendant to that role, now.

"Make your bow for your father and Porthos," Aramis says, though he doesn't seem to like to stop touching Jean-Armand for long enough for him to do it. But Jean-Armand looks at them and then steps back from Aramis to do it, offering Athos and Porthos a miniature version of one of those ornamental Aramis bows with a twinkle in the eye, and then he sees what Athos is holding, and he's upright again immediately.

"Is it the baby? Can I see?"

Aramis is trying to pick himself up from the ground; Porthos grabs his hand and heaves him up, and Athos bends a little, brushing the blankets down, offering Jean-Armand his sister's face to look at. Jean-Armand does look, mouth a little open with awe, and then he says, "She's so pretty."

Aramis preens at how well he's clearly raised his son, and runs a hand over his hair again. "Do you like her?"

"Yes." said decidedly. "Can I play with her now?"

"Not quite yet, she's still so small, little wolf. When she's a little bigger you two can play. Do you really like her?"

"Yes," Jean-Armand says, as Athos passes Aramis the baby so he can crouch with her, and Jean-Armand can lean up on his knee to see her face properly. "Yes."

And that expression on Aramis' face, Athos thinks. All of the hell and torment and terror of these last months, that moment when Aramis could feel certain he had given his son exactly what he wanted; that moment and all of it, all of it, every second, was worth it, for this.

He knows that's true. It's not just that it's there on Aramis' face like the sun. It's exactly what he feels himself.

Freed from holding the child Athos can hug d'Artagnan, and surprises the both of them by hugging Constance as well. D'Artagnan punches his arm in a friendly way, then hugs Porthos, and looks down at Belle. "All of that travelling for such a little delivery," he says.

Constance makes a long cooing noise to see Belle, as Aramis stands and puts his free arm around her and kisses her cheek, and she says, "Let me see, God she's a pretty one -"

Aramis looks down at the stomach on Constance, then puts a hand on her arm and says earnestly, "I have to show you something."

Jesus Christ, Aramis, not the sheath, Athos thinks, but d'Artagnan quirks a smile at him, with a quick glance at Constance's back to check he's not in trouble at this exact moment, and says, "So we didn't miss much, then."

"Indeed, hardly a thing." Athos says, as Aramis and Constance murmur over the child, and Jean-Armand hugs the side of Porthos' leg. "And it seems you have nothing to report."

"No, not at all." d'Artagnan says, and from the back of the cart Geneviève says, "Father, I think the cat was sick in its basket."

Jean-Armand, from his perch in Porthos' arms where he's high enough to look down on Belle, says, "Papa, can I carry her?"

"When you're a little bit bigger, little wolf." Aramis says, more calm now than Athos has seen him in months. "Now you need your supper and your own warm bed, you'll be tired."

"I'm not tired."

Constance has lifted Charles from the cart, bigger himself now and asleep like a child-puddle in her arms, all limbs dangling. "They're all tired," she says.

"I'm not tired." Maria says furiously. "And do we have to share, share the bed with the new baby as well?"

"Not yet, duck, she'll be sleeping in the room with her papas yet, she's too small."

Athos lifts Geneviève down from the cart, glaring in at the menagerie they've brought back with them, and Geneviève tells him as if she knows he's the only one who'll appreciate the fact, "There weren't any books on the farm so I wrote my own. It is twelve pages long."

Athos says, "That is a very fine length for a book." and the new puppies, fluffballs of black and white sheepdogs with the mad light of too much intelligence for a canine brain in their eyes, careen forward to grab his sleeve; one aims badly and crashes into the cart's side - which Lupin is still barking at, as standing between her and Jean-Armand - and the other then crashes into the first, which bites it in return.

D'Artagnan lifts the meowing basket out of the back of the cart, says, "So, how was the peace and quiet?"

The dog barks, the puppies playfight their little whining snarls at each other, the cat mews and mews, the children chatter underfoot, Constance and Aramis are still talking quietly and privately while Aramis jigs an increasingly petulant Belle in his arms, and Athos looks at d'Artagnan feeling just so calm as he says, "Like a grave. It's good to have you back." He can hear Porthos and Jean-Armand laughing, can sense the lack of tension in Aramis, muscles relieved from the rigidity of months. He touches d'Artagnan's arm, because he means this; "Thank you."

D'Artagnan gives an easy shrug. "What are friends for?"

In the growing dark of the street people are leaning from their doors and windows to see what all the noise is outside the de la Fère house, and Belle begins then to rage, Constance laughing in sheer shock at the lustiness of her fury. "Yes," he says. There's nothing else to say. There is nothing that matters more in life than this, here, now, and whatever it takes to care for these people. Yes.

It really isn't so very long ago that Athos had none of this, had nothing, and was not the sort of creature who could hope for more. But from friendship spun lust, and love, and depth, and family, and now -

The moon is cold overhead, pale in the gathering blue of the dusk. And finally, family returned, Athos allows his own hackles to settle once more. Together they can care for each other. Together, they have everything they need to protect back under one roof, and all the strength they need to protect it, sheltered together under that roof. He can finally be the person he most likes being again, now, with Geneviève to recognise a kindred spirit in and a pack of children to keep his sense of humour alert and d'Artagnan to trust in at their sides again and Jean-Armand back like the sun in the sky for them, that boy to be brave and good and strong for, and Belle so unknown and already so certain to respect and learn . . . Athos' large and chaotic family is already making its way back into the house, d'Artagnan leading the horse to the rear of the house to unharness and stable with the goat for the night, Aramis and Constance already heading for the kitchen where Aramis has a fresh napkin for Belle hung warm and dry over the stove, Porthos shepherding children and dogs off the street and into the hallway with a meowing basket under one arm.

In the cold, Athos' breath runs clear white, and he remembers another lifetime, and disbelieves that he truly ever was that man in that life. This is where he belongs. How could anything else be more right than this? It turns out that Aramis really did know what he was doing all along, that he was the only one of them who ever had his priorities right, he didn't need circumstance to force him to re-evaluate anything. He knew this mattered more than anything else from the start. He knew it mattered, and he made sure that they got to share in how beautiful it all is too.

Porthos says, "Come on if you're coming, we're lettin' all the fucking heat out."

Athos takes a breath. And then he steps forward, and catches a puppy mid-escape attempt, hiking it to his chest as he steps inside, and closes the door behind himself.