Disclaimer: All rights belong to Alexandre Dumas and the BBC. I own nothing you can recognize.

Note: Spoilers for the entire series! Written for the Fête-de-Mosquetaires March Challenge "Be prepared", my first entry ever. I'm not one for character studies usually, but I wanted to give it a try, so I hope I understood this prompt the right way. This is not beta'd, but rest assured I spent multiple hours trying to eliminate as many mistakes as possible. It should be readable. Enjoy.

An Eternal Promise

If you want to love, prepare to get your heart broken.

Revenge. What a simple word with such a complex meaning. It was revenge that had led him to garrison in Paris. Revenge that had crossed its path with those of three musketeers. But it was not the revenge that had made him stay. He had often wondered what it had been that had held him in Paris back then. Why did not he just drop his gun and return to the farm in Gascony? Just to forget what had happened in Paris, to return to his life in the countryside.

So d'Artagnan had asked his friends this question after a long night of drinking at the tavern. He had asked them what they believed was the reason he had stayed here. The answers he had received were the ones he had expected from them.

Adventure, Porthos had said. Adventure and the urge to do good. Even if this occasionally involved drilling one's sword into someone else's flesh, or standing guard for multiple hours in the pouring rain. Oh, and the wine. The Parisian wine was so much better than the one on the countryside, and even though d'Artagnan had tried several times to argue about it with his friend, Porthos had been obstinate on this subject.

Athos had answered gruffly that it was the honour that had held d'Artagnan here. The possibility to act in the name of honour and to defend those who could not do it themselves. Certainly an important point, and one that d'Artagnan appreciated, but it had not been the honour that had brought him to Paris. He had come to Paris with dishonourable intentions, and if Aramis and Porthos had not been there that day, who knows how the meeting with Athos would have turned out. Presumably with the death of an innocent man, whether it was Athos or d'Artagnan.

And Aramis, the romantic idiot, had said it was the love that had dug its claws in d'Artagnan's heart that day and anchored his roots in Paris. At that time, he had thought Aramis was simply Aramis again and after several cups of wine up to no useful advice, but now d'Artagnan knew that his friend had meant it quite serious and honestly.

When he had come to Paris, he understood little about love. He knew familial love, and knew that it was one of the most important values in life of a man. But in romantic love he had been inexperienced, as he had never met a woman who had come through to his heart.

Find the woman you love and marry her, his friends in Gascony had said. Fall in love, they had told him. Live, build a family, find your purpose in the defense of those you love. It's so easy, they had said, it's easy to do and what you get from it is indispensable. Yes, indeed. But easier said than done. They had said it as if he could only win, as if he had to do nothing but ask nicely. Looking back, d'Artagnan thought they did not know a thing about true love. The intention was an illusion, but the commitment was the strength.

If you love, prepare to get your heart broken, his father had told him then. D'Artagnan had ignored it because he did not understand it. As far as he could remember, his parents had lived a happy life together, so what did he tell d'Artagnan about being broken by love?

But nevertheless, d'Artagnan kept it in mind. Reminded himself not to love too easily, and not to give away his heart, as it could cost him dearly. He had failed the second he had run into Constance and pulled her into his life, and he had never been ready to let her leave again.

He learned that to love was something parents could not prepare their children for. He had expected everything, from heartbreak, pain, and suffering up to joy, desire and passion. Turned out it did not matter how much he prepared for it, the love he felt for Constance still caught him as sudden as a bullet in battle. And together, they had gone through it all. They had suffered every time they were apart. They had felt pain whenever they had hurt each other's feelings, when d'Artagnan had showed off a lack of understanding for Constance's situation, or when Constance had blamed d'Artagnan for circumstances he was not guilty for.

To love was to learn to make sacrifices. He knew and valued the sacrifices Constance had to make, he had to make some of his own, once he realized that his focus shifted more and more towards the woman that always shone brighter than the darkness that aimed to consume him at times.

But what did he get? More joy than he ever could wish for. Passion. Desire. And love. A love he couldn't have imagined in his wildest dreams back when he was still a naive farmer's boy. Was it easy? Loving another person, and committing fully to the bond that connected them, only to learn that your heart gets broken over and over again? No, it wasn't easy. But was it worth it? D'Artagnan could see Constance smile, he could feel her lips on his, he had the smell of her hair in his nose. He remembered how easily her words could lift him or his brothers up, he remembered how he was able to make her laugh after a tiring day. Her laughter, so pure, so honest. So, was it worth it? Definitely.

He hadn't been prepared for love, he hadn't been prepare to lose his heart to another person. And he wouldn't have it any other way.

When you're going to war, prepare to fight.

He remembered Treville's speeches as if it had been yesterday. It's war, soldiers. The king sends us to the front, men. Take care, because it will never be the same again.

Porthos had been joking around back then. Sure, he had taken the war seriously, but he had seen it as a more difficult adventure. A mission to which he was sent and which would soon be over. He had never been so wrong.

You've been prepared for it all your life.

Certainly not for life. When, at the age of ten, he had stolen an apple from a lost merchant in the Court de Miracles, he had never assumed that he would ever have to lead France's battalions on a battlefield in the armour of a musketeer. And yet he did it with a certain pride, and he would lie if he said he was not fond of glory at first. What gives you a better chance of glory than a war?

How naive he had been, naive and driven by his desire to fight for his country and his king. Was he prepared for the battles? For sure. Porthos was an avid warrior, more than skilled in dealing with swords, pistols, daggers and even cannons. It had rarely happened that his abilities had failed him. So yes, he had been prepared for the fight.

But he had learned very quickly that no one could prepare him for the war. Neither his friends, nor Tréville , nor the king himself. Absolutely nobody. And anyone who fought for the first time in the war, and said he expected nothing less, was nothing more than a goddamned liar.

Porthos himself had also had to overcome a lot to stand by how much the war had frightened him. How much it had changed him. How bitter the war had made him, which, among other things, had made it difficult for him to revive his brotherhood with Aramis. Secretly he had been glad at the time that Aramis had not been there. Clearly he had been disappointed that his friend had not come along, that he had missed at Porthos's side after they had gone through so much together, but in the monastery Aramis had been safe. His friend had served as a soldier long enough.

After his first battle, the general had gone through the losses. He had worked through a list, calling names that burned itselves into Porthos's mind to this day. The general had already seen much of the war at the time. To the tear-stained faces of the soldiers, to their choking and retching, to their cries of pain, he had only replied that they had known what they were getting into. Porthos would have liked to strangle him then for this lie. Neither of them really knew what they were getting into. They had been prepared for fighting, and even for losses. For fire and destruction, for hunger and misery. But this war had shown them the deepest abyss of the darkest of human experiences. It was cruel, agonizing. Inhuman.

Two years later, Porthos had found himself in the place of the general, who had been wounded at the time, and he had monotonously, almost insensitively, read a list, and with each name he had read, he had added another scar to his soul.

So yes, he had been prepared for the fighting. To kill, to beat, to shoot.

But he had not been prepared for the humanity and its sacrifice. He had not expected that the medic, who had taken care of his arm the night before and had told him about his wedding last summer, would water the earth of France with his blood the next day with ten bullets in his body. After a battle that could have been avoided. After a battle that was nothing but a single massacre.

The men were also unprepared to die after two weeks of cat-and-mouse game with the enemy in the pouring rain of hypothermia. They had been executed by the enemy, and they had experienced the wrath of mother nature. In their last moments, they had called for their wives, for their children, some at peace, some in hellish agony.

But it had been for those people why he had turned away only once. And that had been the last time. He had never even thought about it again. If he could protect another father, son, brother, husband, or friend from such a fate with his sword or body, he would, that he had sworn.

He himself had not come to terms with watching his friends pay for the war. It had caught him cold every time. As he watched Athos catch a bullet or as he pulled out d'Artagnan after a battle under a dozen men after a cannonball had visibly shredded the area.

Those who had survived the war for the time had agreed that one could never have been prepared, no matter how great the effort was. Yes, they were proud, and yes, they were convinced that they had fought with dignity. They quickly renounced glory, glory was for people who did not know its low value. Glory does not save a man from a sword blow, glory does not save an innocent village from its destruction. People did this, people who were willing to sacrifice their blood and sweat, and even their lives, to those who lived and farmed on this land.

And honour? Porthos was not sure how much of it was left. How much importance he could still attach to honour. What was done on their side to a man had also been done to an enemy. Fire fought with fire.

He knew when he returned to his duty in Paris that he would honourably fight alongside his brothers. That he would fight to end this senseless killing, the misery, and the destruction.

He would not lie. It was a cruel experience, an unexpected experience. A fiery test for his soul. But if he had previously known it, he was all the more aware that friendship and solidarity were the source of all his strength. And he was proud of that. He would always be proud of what he could achieve with the help of his brothers.

If you make heartfelt decisions, prepare for the responsibility.

There was an eternal conflict in him. A two-headed monster who had taken possession of his soul, constantly throwing him from one side to the other.

His faith and his life as a musketeer had been the reason for many derisive remarks. People hadn't understood how he could thrust a sword in a man's chest in the name of the king, and shortly after get on his knees to pray. Many men saw it as two worlds, two worlds that could not exist together because they contradicted each other and were poison for the other.

That was nonsense. Aramis knew that his faith was a companion in his life. There were conflicts, several times, but he had always solved them and rarely thought anyone should care but him. But his faith always taught him to take responsibility for his actions. For fighting, for killing, or even the decision for something as simple as what woman he kissed. At least it had been simple until that day at the convent, where a simple mission had set about knotting his noose for the gallows.

No, that was nonsense too. It had been his own decision, and it had been one of those he had not regretted. For a while at least. How could he regret something that had made him so happy, and still did?

Athos had been burdened with the knowledge. They'll hang you , he had said, and then they'll hang me for letting it happen.

The words had hit Aramis deeper than he had admitted. He loved easily, yes, he knew that, and he was not ashamed of it either. The list of his liaisons was long, but none had been dishonest. He would never fool a woman. By contrast, it had been something else with the queen. Out of sheer affection, he fell into the deep abyss something that later turned out to be real love. All the women of France, and his heart chose the one he could never have.

Already after the night in the monastery he had tried to be at peace with his soul. He had always known that he could never openly admit his love for the queen. However, what weighed him almost more was the blame. The blame for Athos, because he had imposed on him the burden of knowledge. The guilt of the queen and her son because he had endangered them all.

It had hardly surprised him when he finally found himself chained in the royal dungeon. Maybe he had thought the king would bring him in there and not this treacherous snake Rochefort, but that he would sooner or later end up there, he had guessed, and he had prepared his soul for it.

But what had surprised him, and what he really did not expect, was actually to get out. He begged God to help him so that he could save the queen and the dauphin, but when his salvation unlocked his dungeon doors in the form of Milady de Winter, he did not know for a moment whether this was just imagination or reality.

In the meantime he told himself that he would no longer expect anything, or that he would always have to be prepared for the unforeseen. He had spent too much of his life preparing for the inevitable execution, quietly, in silence, barely able to protect those he cared about. This time it would be different. He would just put things right, for his brothers, for his son and for God.

He had not known then that he would not find God in a stony, secluded building. He had found him within his friends, in his adventurous lifestyle. In the touch of a brother, in the laughter of his son, in the smile of his queen. And for their safety, he had returned to his old life, his life full of danger, unexpected twists and adrenaline. A life in which he could pursue the urge to do the right thing.

There was no point in waiting for a punishment that he knew he did not deserve. There was no point in torturing himself for what felt like an eternity, which perhaps one day he should have done differently.

He had not expected God's mercy then, but still, it was granted to him. He had never been prepared to lose his heart to the only woman he could never love. He was back in the service of a king who detested him, but he would no longer live in fear of the king's judgment. He was surrounded by his friends, and he felt God's blessing with every step he took. His soul has never been so calm, and he had never felt so alive.

If you want to be a warrior, prepare to die.

It had been his father's standard answer when he was a little boy and wanted to keep up with the adventurers that had crossed his paths. He had admired them, and declared that when he grew up he would be someone like that. An adventurer, a fighter. His father had tried to talk him out of it all his life and had said a real fighter is the one who only assures his own survival whenever he has to. Athos had to live according to the image of his father, also on the grounds that he was supposed to be a good example for his brother.

The highborn do not settle for the trifles of simple warriors and battles.They stand over it and control the whole thing. At some point Athos had accepted it and was forced to take over his father's duties. It was so honorable, and a man of his noble blood would never defile his honor. He had mocked himself. At the latest after he had condemned his wife as a murderer of his own brother, he had been aware that as Comte de la Fère he would never achieve what he longed for in his life.

In Paris, Tréville had taken him in, and he was not only Athos' superior, but quickly became his mentor. He did not teach him to fight his enemies. Athos had received enough training and was experienced with sword and pistol. But Tréville had taught him something much more important and valuable: the cohesion between men he barely knew and the strength that could be derived from them. It had been a challenge for Athos, who did not find it easy to keep anyone close to him. It had not ended well last time. But he would forever thank the captain for showing him all this, and for allowing him to make some of the men his brothers.

His lessons had been hard but necessary and with the right pinch of empathy and humanity. He, too, had given a lecture to the new recruits on the day Athos had joined the regiment.

You are now in the service of France, soldiers.You have dedicated your honor and your life to the sake of the land and its king.

Athos had never been afraid to face death since that day. He had often found himself in the line of cannons, pistols, swords, or even execution squads, always with the prospect of not seeing the next morning. It had become a constant companion in his life and that of his comrades. And in the countless battles he had participated in, the duels he had fought, or the intrigues he faced, he had never been afraid. He had always been prepared to pay the highest price if needed.

So yes. As a musketeer, a soldier and a fighter, he had accepted it. His father had taunted him then, but had Athos unconsciously prepared for his later life.

But when he had watched Tréville , his mentor, and his friend, sacrificing his life for the king's defense that day, he had realized that he might have accepted his own eventual death, but that did not apply to Tréville's , or Porthos', Aramis' or d'Artagnan's. He had lost it completely out of his head, locked the thought away where it couldn't reach him. Their presence at his side had matured so naturally that he could not imagine his life without them, since it was almost unnatural if one of them wasn't there.

But when he saw Tréville lying in Aramis' arms that day, when he heard d'Artagnan's anguished plea, he realized that he had been a fool. A fool, dazzled by the strength he felt near his comrades. A fool who had lost sight of the cold, merciless grasp of reality for some time.

He was always cool, calculating, calm. Prepared for everything and with a solution. But he had not been able to do anything for Treville . He had just watched his longtime companion, friend, and mentor soak the soil of France with his blood. For the safety of the country, for the health of the king. Just like Tréville had always lived, just like he had always taught them. And then Athos realized how unprepared he had been. How he had come to terms with his fate as a warrior and soldier, but he had forgotten the lives of those who shared the same fate.

It had hit him deeply, and for a moment he found himself in the shards of his own past, the shards Tréville had so carefully eradicated over the years. The only difference was that at the time when the crimes in his old life had ended in the judgment of his wife, he had felt nothing. Everything had been numb, his senses dulled. But now Tréville's loss pierced his heart like a burning iron, but there was more to it besides the grief, the pain, and the bewilderment. Gratitude and pride. He would be forever grateful to this man for what he had done for Athos. And he knew he would live his life the way Tréville had taught him. For the love, the friendship, the honor. For the glory of doing the right thing for the right people.

That evening, Athos had been sitting alone in the tavern, and he had tried alone to handle his grief through a glass of wine. But what had happened before was much more important. Athos had seen Aramis embrace and calm d'Artagnan, while his friend's own face had been a mask of shock and disbelief. He himself had placed a reassuring hand on Porthos's shoulder , after his friend had dropped to his knees as a reaction to the news of Tréville's fate. D'Artagnan and Aramis had gathered around them, and for a moment they had held each onto other, given each other comfort, and gathered strength. And Athos was confirmed in what he actually had known for a long time: he was not alone. He had not expected to see Tréville ever die, and he certainly had not been prepared for it. But his friends, his brothers, and his new-found love were there, and they would get through.

Side by side.

The first thing he felt again were his hands digging into the wet mud. Lost, tingling fingers, looking for support they did not need. The only sounds that reached his ears were crackling fire and the loud screams of people in the distance.

D'Artagnan remembered. He recalled that he had been on a short trip out of Paris with Athos, Aramis and d'Artagnan and several other musketeers and a company of soldiers. To deliver letters, if he remembered correctly. The next thing he could remember were Porthos' warnings and the firing of Aramis' pistols. They had been ambushed, by whom, they could only guess. Maybe it was Grimaud , maybe a king, maybe a bandit. Their attackers had been mercenaries, paid cutthroats, but equal to the musketeers in numbers. They had fought, they had shouted, they had resisted. But after a dozen fights and great exhaustion, d'Artagnan's world had been plunged into darkness thanks to a single blow to the head

As he opened his eyes, he slowly absorbed his blurry surroundings. He lay on the ground, leaning halfway against a severed log. Beside him Porthos was sitting on the ground. The big musketeer was covered in dust and blood , and he was breathing heavily due to the exhaustion, but his eyes were wide open and alert. Around him, some of the other musketeers and soldiers gathered weapons or dropped to the ground with tired eyes. Others still looked around hectically, as if they were always expecting another attack. D'Artagnan himself had a booming skull and light-headedness, but otherwise he was sure he'd gotten out unscathed.

He glanced sideways and his gaze instantly met Porthos'. His friend's warm, dark eyes pierced him with a concerned look, but they both said nothing. A simple look was enough acknowledgment, and d'Artagnan knew why Porthos was still so tense. There was no trace of Aramis and Athos yet. At least he could not make them out in front of him.

This should not have happened. They had conveyed a letter of utmost importance, aware of the dangers of Grimaud and other enemies of France. Still, they had been surprised. And that just should not have happened, not after everything they went through the past years.

Still slightly dazed, d'Artagnan scrambled to his feet, groaning as he let himself fall back against the tree trunks thanks to the confusion. And then, through the smoke of the still-burning fire, d'Artagnan could make out two figures and, as so often, a stone fell from his heart. Athos had wrapped Aramis' arm around his shoulder and Aramis was limping heavily. Aramis, on the other hand, seemed to hold Athos upright with one hand on his chest. Both looked battered, done, exhausted. As soon as they arrived at Porthos and d'Artagnan they also fell to the ground, but their faces showed nothing but joy. Joy of seeing the other.

They were all injured, exhausted, and at the limits of their strength. The four of them were now in the mud, but none of them said a word. They did not need words, they agreed differently. They showed each other that they were fine.

The twitching of Athos' mouth. The hint of a smile on Aramis's face. The firm pressure of Porthos's hand on her shoulders. And then, like a subconscious duty, they put their hands over each other. All for one, one for all. An eternal promise, an unbroken oath.

It was loyalty, it was support, it was trust. The purest form of love and appreciation. That they could always rely on. No matter what dared to surprise them.

The end

I wanted to throw a quick thanks to all the authors in this fandom. You guys inspire me every day.