A/N: This is for the 2011 movie. This takes place the night that they make it back from their mission.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Three Musketeers. If I did… well, the movie would be a whole lot mushier, let's leave it at that.
Athos couldn't remember the last time that he had been so tired. He couldn't wrap his mind around everything that had occurred over the last month. He had penetrated Buckingham's walls, retrieved the diamonds, flown an airship, escaped Rochefort himself, and prevented an all-out war. On top of it all, he had gained a new companion.
Athos smiled slightly at the thought of the boy. He had never met anyone like him. Brave, foolish, cocky, and daring. Athos feared that another person had etched themselves upon his heart.
Speaking of which…
Athos flung his scabbard onto his bed, closing his bedroom door behind him. He walked over to the edge of the small rug that covered the wood floor. He knew what lie beneath it, and he hesitated before throwing the rug backwards a bit by its lower right corner.
Three names were carved into the wood with Athos' sharp handwriting: Aramis, Porthos, and lastly, cut a little deeper into the wood as if he had done so with an angry hand, Milady. All of the names of the people whom Athos had reluctantly allowed to write their names onto his heart. These were the people that he cared the most for. The people who he would die for without giving it a second thought. Yes, even the infamous Milady held this place in Athos' life. He had carved these names into the floor with hopes that maybe by doing so, their mark on his heart wouldn't be so deep. If anything, it made the marks deeper, it had a certain finality about it. Like Athos had accepted his fate of secretly caring for all these people, perhaps deeper than they could ever know.
He stared at the names for a moment. He'd been through so much with all of them. He just wished that he still held a place the last one's heart as well.
The sound of the young boy's weary voice calling 'goodnight' to the members of the house came muffled through Athos' door. He called quietly back to the boy and heard his door close.
Looking back to the floor, Athos pulled a dagger out from his belt. He gripped it hard, taking deep breaths, really contemplating the name that he was about to put next to his past lover's. Did he hold the same place in Athos' life as the others did? Did Athos really care for him enough to carve his name into his floor, onto his heart? Athos nodded to himself. If anything, he cared even more deeply for the boy than the others.
He spent the rest of the night trying to get the name deep enough into the floor. It was a rather long name, but when Athos was done, he was able look fondly at the short, yet prominent list of names. Aramis, Porthos, Milady, and perhaps the most important of all, D'Artagnan.
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