A/N: I have not yet seen season 3, but this little story came from hearing bits and pieces about the episodes (alas, I confess I am one who enjoys glancing at the end of the book before I even begin it!)…but, I don't know if that counts as spoilers? Pretty sure I am way off on my ideas anyway, but I've always enjoyed reading stories with this friendship in mind, so hope you like! And apologies to those who have seen the new season…for you, lets just call this an AU ;)
She can see the melancholy wrapped around his shoulders like a waterlogged woolen cloak. Weighing down his stance as his confidence slowly bends with the pressure. She can sense it in his eyes, the crinkles of camaraderie that came so easy between them before, now left stilted and disjointed. His skin waxed and pulling at the soft features once giving him that handsome appearance left now to dry up like a piece of used pottery.
He's on the outskirts of the group when he used to be right there in the thick of it, joking and laughing along with the rest, now left to wisp away on the silent prayers of one who feels left out, desperately seeking to be brought back in. She knows he does not speak of it, as she feels the way he carries the guilt around him, stacked up inside his pockets that are bulging at the seems. His feverish needlework doing nothing to bring it closed.
Its a lonely place to be.
She should know.
Her husband has come home to her, which has delighted her heart so much so, that it has taken her a few days to realize all is not as it was before. She doesn't feel connected to him as she once did. She loves him and the friends that she also calls her own, but she has been left watching from the outside as these three share in experiences that she can never be a part of. She sees the ease with which they talk to each other, but when she sits down to talk to him, his topics are as common as the weather. There is no sharing of souls that once expressed the inner feelings of the heart. She can no longer share the load and be one with her husband as his friends have taken up that role in his life and she knows not how to turn it back. She's horrified to say that some days jealousy has knocked on the door of her mind, asking to be let in. She has refused it for now but fears it might not always be so. She just keeps reminding herself that she is thankful for those friends that have been with him when she could not. Through horrors that she will never experience and nights of fear that were too black for hope.
So she knows how this friend feels. This melancholy man that had made a choice and is paying for it in mind, body and most importantly heart.
She understands his decision, maybe not agreeing with it, but those are not her shoes to walk in. She can only see what she sees, and the intense longing heartache that comes over his features the moment a son that he can never lay claim to is mentioned, at times takes her breath away and leaves her own eyes misting over.
On some days she thinks perhaps she would also turn away. To get away from a desire that stares you in the face, yet can never be touched or loved on in a way that is needed to quench the overwhelming feelings. It would just be too much for her.
Which is why she has taken to watching this bent head of unruly curls. In some way feeling as if helping this friend will help her husband. She knows those three have learned to live without him, but hopes that when they settle into their life back here they will pick up the friendship that has been dismantled by decisions and wars. For she fears when they realize he has been around them, without them seeing him, it will be too late to create that sturdy bond again.
She has been observing his movements with the rest of them, watching him try and then not to be one with them again. In her heart she feels the tug of loneliness at his actions which so mirror her own. As of late he has taken to leaving the garrison for a few hours each day. She does not know where he goes, only that he has been leaving around the same time in the afternoon, head bowed and steps sinking deep into the earth. She has also watched him come back the same way, eyes rimmed with a slight pink that fall even more when the others make no move to ask where he's been.
She thought it was the church he'd been traveling to on all these occasions. Though, after casually making her way to said establishments and finding no trace of him, leaves her curious nature peaked even further.
Which has led her to this decision to follow him as he walks out this day. She has no idea why she's doing this, this sneaking around like a secret mistress, making sure not to be seen as she follows him. Only that she needs to do this, to try and fix both of their silent please for help.
She winds her way through the streets, craning her neck so as not to loose sight of him. Conscious to pick up her skirts out of the puddles that happened this morning with the early rain shower. Skirts were just not made to be sneaky. If its not the noise that she feels is as loud as a group of crying children, then its the layers that constantly get wrapped around her ankles in her hurry to keep up through the winding streets of Paris. A man surprises her as he pulls out his cart of bread, blocking her path and pushing her mounting frustration to new levels. He gives a shout at her as she bodily pushes him out of the way. When finally she is past the whole commotion she has realized she's lost sight of her wayward quarry.
"Of all the…"
She scrambles down the road, peeking into side streets in the hopes to catch those unruly curls. Feeling like a mad woman and a failure as this whole stealthy mission has gone so awry.
A thought enters her mind as she swirls her head around trying to get her bearings. She doesn't know why the idea popped into her mind, but she has nothing to loose by following it. Her husband brought her there a few times so she is familiar with the way, and its close, which may be why her thoughts came upon it. Blowing out her frustration she hikes up her skirts once more and turns down a shaded street that she knows leads to her destination.
Turning down this street and that till finally her travels have brought her to the place that popped in her mind just moments before. She slows her hasty movements and smooths down the creases of her skirts. Walking into the open, leaving the shades of the street buildings, to a place that has its own shadows that are not cast by the covered glow of the sun. It makes her internally shiver.
This is the musketeer graveyard and nestled off in the far corner is the object she has been searching for. Her heart starts to beat a bit faster, for now that she's here and has briefly rejoiced at being correct in her assumptions, she has no idea what to do. Should she stay? or just go now that she has figured out where he has been going? Is it really right for her to meddle in his affairs? or should she just try to continue to be supportive to her husband and subtly express her feelings of reconciliation for this man before her and his friends?
She watches as her turmoil of thoughts are cutoff as the man, without warning, plops down onto the wet earth, cross-legged, forehead cradled within the palms of his hands. Her feet make the decision she had been wrestling with, before her head has even had the thought.
As she gets closer she can read the name of the grave he is sitting next to and her heart is suddenly in her throat. Her feet have stopped still a few paces away not ready to disturb him if he does not wish it, yet again the decision is made for her.
"You can come closer and sit if you like, Constance. But I must warn you, its quite muddy."
Constance starts, but quickly recovers. Refusing to give voice of her surprise at him not only detecting her, but identifying her. She marches up with all the grace of a milking cow, to firmly plop herself next to him, knees indeed sinking into the cold mud.
"Aramis."
"Constance," his voice a bit muffled by his hands.
"You saw me?" making the question more of a statement of fact, as she now remembers he used to be the best marksman in the garrison and was usually used as scout on missions for the King.
He huffs a laugh lifting his head, "Yes Constance, I saw you." He turns his face to her and gives a little smile, "it's hard to miss you, when you're walking on tiptoes and sticking your neck out like a goose waiting for the butcher. Not to mention ramming into poor merchants in your mad dash to follow me."
She knows he's making fun of her, but she can't seem to give it much care as it's the first, small as it is, genuine smile that she's seen from him since he came back.
"Yes, well, if you knew I was following you, why not just stop? It's really not polite to keep a lady waiting."
"You are very correct, madam. Forgive me for my lack of propriety in granting you the respect you deserve." Aramis' eyes crease into the good kind of crinkle.
Encouraged by their familiar banter, Constance plows along, "Or why not just loose me altogether? I'm clearing not meant to sneak about as you have already plainly shown me."
His smile droops a little and she's sorry that she let her tongue run away again like a rudder on a ship. He must have noticed her countenance change as he lifts up his lips again in a sweet smile.
"Perhaps, I wouldn't have minded the company." as I've had so little of it lately, went unsaid, but lingered between them nonetheless.
He smiles at her a second longer till he turns his head and rests it upon a closed fist, the other hand limply laying in his lap. She again reads the name of the simple grave. Marsac was a friend till he lost his way. Dying by the hand of a friend. She wets her lips.
"You've been coming here daily?", clearly that run away rudder is at it again.
"Yes."
"Why?" There is a few minutes of pause as she sees what will become of her question.
A soft sigh escapes his parted lips, "I don't know…"
Constance does not speak, forcing herself to breathe as she waits for his thoughts. Silently willing him to open up and talk to her, for she cannot take the silence or the deflection to safer topics that she has been experience with d'Artagnan, anymore. She needs to be needed, and confided in. With this sudden revelation, she realizes why she sought out Aramis. For this man needed to confide in someone. She has been watching him try to fit back into the inseparables mold, but its not working. She has been doing the same being available and open to have d'Artagnan come to her with his thoughts but that does not seem to be working either. Its that need and loneliness that has brought her to where she is, and she is sure that is why he did not hide from her obvious pursuits. Aramis finally opens his mouth.
"I guess…" he pauses, "I guess I feel more at peace here than I do in the garrison." He gives another huff of laughter this time tainted with the bitterness of loss. "Funny that my greatest nightmare has become my closest friend."
Constance finds nothing funny about that statement.
Before she realizes it she grabbing his chilled hand resting in his lap, and giving it a squeeze in her warm one. He turns his head a bit, still rested on his fisted grip, to look down at there joined appendages. She looks into his face and notices as a tear slowly forms in the corner of one eye. He turns his head before she can watch it fall and opens his fist to scrub it down his face to then close it again and rest his head once more upon it. Their joined hands remain.
"I apologize, but I do not believe I am very good company right now Constance."
She really doesn't know what to say to that, so she does the next best thing. Opening her other hand she leans over and lightly smacks him on the cheek.
Startled out of his stupor, he turns, eyebrows drawn into subtle inquiry, "That is by far the most delicate slap you have ever given me."
"You deserve more, you know."
"Of that I have no doubt," he gives a mock bow and a twirl of his hand, "Madam d'Artagnan."
Aramis gives her a little grin but its the slight twinkle in his eye that has confirmed her action was indeed the right one. No need to wallow around. He turns again to look out across the graves, a distant look now in his eye.
"I believed that I was where God wanted me to be. And maybe it was, for the time being, but He has shown me a purpose here and He has molded me into what I am…" He shakes his head, and places it once again on his clenched fist. "I confess that I don't always understand God's ways. 'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.'" Aramis shakes his head with a soft smile, then sobers,"And I know it is not their fault…"
"Its not yours either."
He stays quiet, but she notices he has begun to worry his bottom lip with his teeth.
"I don't think you should give up on them."
"I'm not. I'm just...tired. Time does not heal wounds, it merely makes it harder to mend." Aramis lifts his head off his fist to look up toward the open sky. Blinking rapidly he continues, "A change needs to happen I know, but I am at a loss on how to do it."
"I know, I've felt…" she drifts off not wanting to flap away on her own hurts.
It's his turn to give her hand a little squeeze. Constance turns her head to connect with warm brown eyes.
"I know, Constance. I've been watching you as well." He gives her a sad little smile and turns his head away again. And for some strange reason she is suddenly encouraged that she is being cared for in a similar way. She is not alone, and she voices her thoughts on that.
"Well, aren't we a pair, then." she heaves out a sigh.
"This is true. Although you are not to blame in this circumstance, you have been faithful. I on the other hand…seem to have many years to make up for." He clears his throat and swipes a hand down his face again. Bending his head, he lays his free hand on the small mound at his side. The grass has grown over it in patches, giving it little evidence that someone lay beneath. The wooden cross the only sign to show the world the loss that happened. She swallows down her fear and embraces the newness of shared experiences she seems to have with Aramis.
"That may be, but you are still not alone. Please don't ever feel you need to do this all on your own. I've tried and failed. I know I need help."
"You think I do as well?"
"I know it."
"So, are you proposing that we help each other and the rest will fall into place?"
"No."
Aramis is tilting his head in her direction, curls falling into his face. She swirls her tongue over her teeth, trying to form the words she means to say. She does not want to form a bond so as to deflect from her loss of closeness with d'Artagnan and she knows that Aramis longs to just be in the mix of friends again, not saying goodbye to switch gears to bond with lonely other friends, but to enjoy the closeness, the inseparable quality he once shared. With all this, its clear to her they both need a friend to help till that time comes, not to replace but to encourage and build up. To strengthen each other as a body that has damaged an appendage should.
"I want to be close to my husband again and I know you want to be close to friends that you once called brothers, but we both need someone to encourage us before we can have that again. Its not easy breaking into such a tight knit group, d'Artagnan should know, but it can be done."
He was still looking at her, brow a bit furrowed as she spoke. She knew he was thinking on her words.
"I guess," she huffed, "I am proposing that we do help each other but I don't think it will just fall into place."
"Things rarely do..."
"On their own," Constance pointed out, causing his eyes to cast downward, "It might take awhile to mend, and I suppose I'm asking you if you're willing to share the load with me. So that we may be strong together and not have these feelings of loneliness, for we will have each other to carry us through this time. I know it will never be back to the way it was, for we have all changed, but I do believe that we can be as close as we once were." She lets out a breath, "So are you willing?"
Aramis does not move at first. Then slowly he turns his eyes up to stare with a pointed certainty into her own and she suddenly feels the weight that has been locked up behind that gaze. The loss of friends, the loneliness, the guilt…all the emotions that he has not been able to express to anyone save himself and his God. She can't help but to feel elated but at the same time humbled. He has opened himself up to her and she can only do the same in kind.
"Yes, madam, I am willing."
And Constance notices that he has not only answered her but has shown her respect as well. She does not know how long they sit there, but as she blinks to bring moisture back to her dry eyes she can tell they have already started on their shared path to recovering what was lost.
"Right well," again she flutters at what to say, "probably first thing that needs to happen is no more running off to cold, dead graveyards when you have perfectly living breathing friends within the garrison."
His bark of laughter surprises her and makes her eyes widen in shock. The corner of his eyes crinkle as he looks at her, "you really have a way with words at times, Constance. Not many can say that you do not speak what is on your mind to say."
She hums a little in playful annoyance, "So is that a yes?"
His smile turns into a soft one, "Yes, Constance, I believe you are right. No more time spend among the dead...for us both."
"Well that's a relief."
Aramis still smiling, turns his head and grabs a handful of earth. Constance watches as he slowly lets it out of his clenched fist. She half wishes it would blow away on some soft breeze and with it the last vestiges of her sadness but its wet, and merely drops back in clumps onto Marsac's grave with a very unpoetic splat. Perhaps, she thinks, this is more fitting. He wipes his hand on his bent knee, then delicately places both hands upon her own.
The sun has finally parted from its grey prison to shed some light to her already lightened heart. Constance does not believe it will be an easy road for any of them, but as she grasps Aramis' hands within her own she knows she has someone to help her through. To help and confide in and to one day, be whole again, mended tight like they once were.
"We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed…" Aramis softly smiles up at her, "that passage may be taken a bit out of context, but I know my God will not leave us alone."
"And we will not leave each other alone", he nods at her statement.
"All for one…"
"I"m not a musketeer, Aramis", she huffs out, " I think…"
"Nonsense," he says it with such confidence that she almost misses the tightening of his hands over her own, "you've been married into it! So you might as well learn the motto."
He waits patiently, eyes hopeful and expectant and she has no desire to dishearten them.
"And one for all."
Bible verses used - Isaiah 55:8 - 2 Corinthians 4:8-9