Disclaimer: The characters belong to Alexandre Dumas, this particular version belongs to the BBC. None of it, sadly, is mine.
A/N: I haven't written anything for the longest time - pressures at work have made my imagination dry up and even when I had an idea, I found I'd run out of the inspiration and energy needed to write it down. Then came The Musketeers, and I fell in love with all four of them (admittedly, mainly Athos). Still little energy to write though, right up until I read Richefic's The Pride of Gascony, which all of a sudden seemed to jump-start my brain. So here's my offering - a little introspective piece about Athos' feelings for Milady, set at some point after episode 8, The Challenge. (I use the name Anne for Milday, as that was the name she used in the original novel when she married him. Whether that was her real name, I doubt anyone but Milady herself knows.)
He loved her. He still loved her. Despite everything, despite the lies, the betrayal, the deaths…. He still loved her. A part of him knew he would always love her, which was no small part of why he hated himself.
She was beautiful - so beautiful he had forgotten how to breathe the first time he saw her. Perhaps he should have held himself to a higher standard, held out for more than simple beauty, but the way her dark hair curled in loose ringlets, the hidden fire that sparked in her green eyes, he had been lost when he saw her. He would have loved her for just that beauty, but when he had approached her - in all the vanity and pride of a young nobleman, so sure of his own worth - he had fallen harder, if that were possible, because she had been clever and sharp and quick to tease him.
And so he had married her - ignoring the objections of his family, over-riding the concerns of the village priest. He could hear those concerns still, in the darkness of his dreams, when he had to acknowledge that his family had seen further than he ever had.
"My darling boy, you barely know her! Just take a little time before rushing into something so serious." His mother had always been wiser than him, but he'd rarely listened as a boy, still less as a young man. Headstrong, she'd called him fondly. Idiotic, when she was less amused.
"Are you sure, my lord? A marriage before the sight of God is binding for all eternity. It is not something to be hurried." Father Jacques had been a good man, if a little quick to bring hellfire and damnation into every sermon. It had been Father Jacques who had first taught him and Thomas their Latin, before more formal education had been arranged. It had been Father Jacques who had said the Requiem Mass over his mother, father and even Thomas.
"If you want her that badly, just bed her. There's no call to get married!" That had been Thomas all over - irresponsible, charming, his best friend and tormentor all at once. Everything a little brother should be.
He had ignored them all, told himself he was doing the right thing, the only honourable thing. After all, how could anything be wrong if it was done in the name of love?
And d'Artagnan wondered why he was so keen to break the boy of his habit of acting first, thinking later.
After all….
He did hate her. Hated what she had done, the lies she had told, the web of deceit she seemed to weave wherever she went, the innocents she hurt, the people she killed.
Hated himself most of all because he had made her who she was. Without him, she would have stayed a thief. If he had been a little stronger, she would have died on that tree and he would never have seen her again.
Was it wrong that a part of him was glad she had survived?
She had taken everything that mattered from him: family, love, honour. What honour could he have, knowing that it was his actions, and his alone, that caused his brother's murder?
Thomas…
Thomas had been the family favourite - good humoured, charming, the perfect gentleman. Never given to dark moods or unsociable behaviour. Willing to dance with any pretty girl he saw at the many parties his mother had insisted they all go to - unlike him, who to his mother's despair had always preferred to sit and watch. She had despaired of grandchildren. How right she had been.
Was it wrong that he wished his mother hadn't died of a fever a year before Thomas died? No parent should have to bury their child and he should be grateful she had been spared that pain, but if she had lived a little longer, he would not have had to face those horrors on his own.
It was his fault, and his alone, that Thomas was dead. Anne might have wielded the blade, but he was the one who put it in her hand.
He hated her for her actions, but he hated himself more.
But he loved her too…
It was only when he'd drunk several bottles of wine that he could admit to himself that he would always love her and he would always hate her.
That perhaps those two statements weren't so contradictory.
That love and hate were just two sides of the same coin.
Either way, Athos had long ago accepted his love and his hate had damned him for all eternity. It was just a matter of maintaining what was left of his honour while he still lived.