Author's Note: The title is taken from The Vigil of Venus - loosely translated it means "Let him love tomorrow who has never loved; let him who has loved love tomorrow."
Returning to Paris is like returning to two different cities – the one that exists now, in front of him, and the one he left behind, both as real, as vibrant, as the other. As Athos walks the streets towards the garrison, things seem both the same and entirely changed: the wine merchant he'd once frequented with alarming regularity has passed on, the stall run by his son instead; the boarding house next door has been sold, and is now an inn (of seemingly dubious quality, judging by the clientele barely propped up outside). Even the garrison itself is changed, rebuilt after the attack, its gates large, looming and solid. Happy though he is to return at D'Artagnan's request, especially in light of his separation from Sylvie – they are better friends than they ever were lovers, and she is a wonderful mother to his son - he can't help but feel a sense of trepidation, and his breath quickens as he makes his way, more steadily than he feels, into the yard.
"You should probably know," Porthos says over dinner later that evening, some of his nerves eased in the glow of embraces from his friends. "Milady – Anne – she works for the Queen now. And with us at times." Porthos does not seem troubled by this, at which Athos frowns sharply.
"What?" he whispers, harsh and low. "Why?" He remembers her, quiet and hopeful that he would come with her to England; her words all those years ago, about wanting to change, to leave that life behind; how she'd assured him Sylvie was safe, when she was anything but. He feels conned by her once again.
Porthos shrugs in response, continuing to eat.
"Everyone's got to do somethin'."
It is weeks before he sees her, in the Louvre, where they have all - including her - been summoned by the Queen Regent, to discuss how to handle some rebels stirring up trouble on the northern coast. He knows the moment she realises he is there, though she does not turn to face him: instead, she grows rigid, from the base of her spine, creeping up to her shoulders. Her neck, thinner than he remembers, becomes impossibly straight. She looks carved from stone, and he realises that she must not have been expecting him; wonders if anyone has told her he has returned.
"Milady, do these arrangements suit?" the Queen asks, or at least makes pretence of asking – everyone in the room knows it simply to be a courtesy; this is an order, no less. Milady seems to know it as well, as she curtsies and replies flatly:
"Of course, your Majesty. I will begin immediately."
Curtsying again, more briefly, she turns to face them and makes for the door at a brisk pace. She does not look at any of them, her eyes fixed on her exit, and Athos actually draws a sharp intake of breath when he sees how much she has changed. She is still beautiful, in some ways more than ever, but there is a coldness, a frigidity to her beauty now that has never existed before. Once, she had been all fire and fury, with her cat's eyes and smirks. Now, she is thinner than he has ever seen her, her cheekbones sharp, pale and drawn. She is entirely expressionless, and her eyes, once full of anger, or humour, or trouble, seem flat, even empty. In truth, she looks to be made from marble, near lifeless in her magnificence. Try as he might, Athos cannot see any of Anne left in the woman before him; he wonders briefly if he had finally destroyed whatever small part had remained of her that day at the garrison, his hands round her throat as she had stared at him, frightened and shocked, but still asking him to stay. His eyes follow her as she leaves, but not once do hers turn to him.
There is another meeting, another mission regarding the rebels and their growing forces the following week, where he fails to keep himself, and his suspicions, in check.
"Why is she here?" he asks sharply as she steps into D'Artagnan's office, standing stiffly off to the side. Everyone else turns to face him – everyone but her. She continues to stare straight ahead.
"She is a liar, a murderer – why, in God's name, should we trust her?!" he continues, practically spitting in her direction, her lack of reaction only fuelling this rage, this confusion he feels coursing through him.
"Have you all forgotten who she is?! The things she has done?!" He clenches his shaking fists by his side. For her part, Anne continues to apparently gaze at nothing, her expression becoming emptier the longer he continues. Neither Porthos nor Aramis look at him; D'Artagnan frowns, but it is directed at Athos, who cannot understand.
"She cannot be trusted. I ask again, why is she here?!" He thrusts out his arm towards her, pointing almost violently, and, even in his haze of anger, does not miss her flinch, nor the way her hand moves towards her choker, before she catches herself, lowering it back to her side.
"That's enough," D'Artagnan says quietly, but firmly. Athos starts, and only then becomes aware of the others, who still will not look at him. Apparently he is not the only one to notice the way she winced. Even Constance has glanced away, her concern instead focused on Anne, whose expression has become almost impossibly blank, as she stares at some fixed point on the wall.
"Milady?" D'Artagnan says, standing from his desk. He approaches her steadily, placing a purse of money into her hand. "Report back when it is done."
She nods towards him and sweeps out, leaving a heavy silence in her wake.
The others file out, Porthos shaking his head slightly, leaving only Athos and D'Artagnan, who sits back at his desk, and looks to his friend with hard eyes.
"I realise you have a complicated past," he says, holding up his hand to halt Athos' interruption before it can be uttered. "But you have been gone a long time. And many things have changed. We trust her. You must also."
Athos shakes his head, and looks towards the door she has left from.
"Why would I? How can you?" his voice questioning, like a child.
D'Artagnan looks at him, his expression softened, almost sad.
"Because this is what she has. She's good at it. And it doesn't benefit anyone for her to lose this as well."
He stands again and leaves Athos alone, his shoulders slumped, his fists unclenched and hanging numbly at his sides.
Anne returns to her rooms that evening more tired than she has felt in years. She knew his return would…complicate her position here, but foolishly believed he would simply leave her alone. After all, he had made it clear the last time she saw him that she simply is not a priority anymore. As she removes her gloves, lighting candles, she glances around the room at the scant few possessions she has chosen to cling to. Touching her fingers briefly to the scar on her neck, her choker removed, she remembers the feel of his hands around her throat; the bruising pain that had accompanied it; the visceral fear she had felt at the mercy of the man she had - stupidly, naively – hoped had still loved her, especially after she'd found that damned glove among his things. She closes her eyes, remembering how he had kissed her, like a man drowning; she remembers the way that tenderness had turned so quickly to rage, to her own fear.
No more.
She cannot allow him to continually hurt her; he, who never loved her the way she loved – loves, she tries not to lie to herself anymore – him; who has always been so quick to believe the worst of her. Even if she must leave again, though she would be loathe to, thinking of the small moments of peace she has carved out for herself, the respect even D'Artagnan shows her now… But even they must be left behind, for she knows - as wholeheartedly as she knows anything – that she and Athos cannot remain here at the same time. And she knows, though it makes her twinge with hurt she believed she had outgrown, knows with the certain knowledge of one who has been cast aside once too often, that none of them will ever choose her over him. She will leave, and soon. Empty though it will be, but survival is all she can truly count on.
In the meantime, Athos watches her carefully over the coming days and weeks, trying to catch her out in a lie or betrayal that he, at first, feels sure is coming. What he sees instead is the life she has made without him, something small and contained. He sees the way she and Porthos enjoy easy silences and the odd shared memory of the Court of Miracles as they groom their horses; they both seem to agree that the practice is somewhat therapeutic, and he soon knows that that is where he can find her when she returns from a mission, particularly one that has been difficult. Even when she is clearly in pain, stiff from a long ride, or bruised from some scrap with an enemy or reluctant informant, especially as the rebels draw closer to Paris, it is the stables she visits before even her own rooms several streets away.
He witnesses a tentative truce with Constance, and the unexpected way Constance appears to trust Anne with baby Clara, who settles surprisingly quickly in her arms. It is an image that burns him, remembering their long lost hopes for a child together. For her part, Anne seems oddly… confident in handling the child, though often returns her to her mother hastily, before retreating somewhere else. It makes him feel as though there is something he has missed, some detail vital in understanding who his once-wife is now that he has overlooked, or is unaware of. He even goes as far to ask Constance one evening when Anne is away on yet another mission, but she merely stares at him, slight panic lacing her gaze before she catches herself.
"I've no idea what you mean," she says, busying herself with clearing the table. "After all, she'd be the first to admit she's not fond of children; no wonder she wants to hand Clara back." She leaves abruptly after. He does not ask again.
However, it is her interactions with D'Artagnan which leave him most puzzled. He remembers how the young man had loathed her – yet now, he is almost gentle in his manner towards her. He occasionally catches D'Artagnan looking at her with concern when Athos invariably snaps at her, or questions her morals, or criticises her methods. Apparently at the young captain's urging, Aramis pulls him aside after one such comment, to which Anne has, once again, refused to respond.
"You need to stop this," he tells Athos, more firmly than he would have dared in the past. "There's being suspicious, and then there's cruelty."
Athos' eyes flash towards him dangerously.
"Cruelty?" he whispers harshly."That woman could have been responsible for Sylvie's death, or do you not remember the injuries she sustained at the other end of that whip?"
Aramis' brows knit together in confusion.
"That wasn't Milady, Athos," he says. "That was Grimaud," he explains carefully, shaking his head and looking away. "She returned here for you, you realise? After the war. And when you left, she made the best of it, when Treville made her an offer."
Athos stares at the ground; Aramis scratches the back of his head awkwardly.
"It certainly wasn't because she enjoys work like this," he says sadly, glancing towards her as she speaks quietly with Porthos, her stance weary, resigned, as she leans against the stable wall. Aramis explains how, over the years, she had worked with them, time again proving her skill, her loyalty, until one day, she had somehow become a trusted member of their number, no matter that she keeps to herself, that none of them can truly profess to know her.
(Aramis also keeps some things to himself – that she shakes uncontrollably as he stitches up a gash on her forehead after a gang of drunken Red Guards have tried to force themselves upon her; that the one subject they have in common – Athos – they try not to mention around her, as she either abruptly changes subject, remains silent, or, if a story about les inseparables and their past antics goes on too long, simply leaves; that once, when Aramis had asked about her family, she had told him bluntly, in a broken voice, that they were either "dead, or wishing [she] was").
After, Aramis walks away, and Athos is left wondering when his home and friends had changed, fearing that it is he who has instead; fearing he has become as cold as he accuses her of being.
Eventually he finds an answer – of sorts – for her conflicting reactions to Clara. Quite by chance, he sees her entering the Cimetière des Innocents early one morning as he is returning from a mission in the outskirts of the city. She stops at a small cross only a short distance inside, placing a tiny bunch of flowers in front of it. Even from a distance, he can see her shoulders heave for several moments, her eyes hidden behind the grasp of one hand, before she gathers herself, and leaves, head down. She does not see him, testament to how affected she clearly is by her venture. Athos approaches the grave once she is out of sight, and sees a simple inscription:
Jean de Winter
Deux ans
His chest clenches with sadness, and shame. He cannot imagine losing Raoul, cannot even think on it. He closes his eyes against the scene in front of him, and feels some piece of the puzzle that Anne, Milady, is has slotted into place. He writes to Raoul and Sylvie as soon as he returns, letting them know again how much he loves his son, asking her to bring him for a visit as soon as she is able.
Afterwards, he sits in silence for a long time, remembering: he thinks about the way his knees had practically given out beneath him when he found Anne in his office that day after the war; how relieved he had been; how he wanted to just lose himself in her, but thoughts of Sylvie, of his bloody honour, had stopped him. He remembers the panic in her eyes as he had grabbed her throat, always her throat. He thinks of how she moves away from him slightly now, flinches in his presence – actually flinches, his bold, terrifying, assassin wife. It's only now he recognises the truth for what it is: she is afraid of him. That she has been afraid of him since he had her hung from that tree at la Fère, and had ridden away, seeing only a snatched glimpse of the fear in her eyes, the pool of urine at her small, bare feet, before he had turned away. He thinks of how all-consuming the grief of losing a child would be, wondering if there is anyone she talks to about what has happened to her, but doubts there is.
He slumps in his chair, burying his face in his hands, and exhales sharply, trying (and failing) to blink back the sharp sting in his eyes.
Eventually, he gets the story from Constance, about what he has witnessed in Cimetière des Innocents, anyway, and even then, it is only what she and others have pieced together from Treville's old notes, reports from England, and a slurred, overheard confession from Anne's longtime landlady, who had been rather more doused in wine than usual. Anne had returned to Paris during the war, together with her young son. The boy had apparently already fallen ill, and, despite his mother's desperate attempts, and bribes to every physician in the city, he had died. She had left again soon after. And no, Constance did not know exactly when during the war, nor who the father had been. The only thing she had ever been able to gently prise from Anne had been a sharp rebuke when she'd enquired if Jean had been a result of her time as the King's mistress.
"Don't be ridiculous," Anne had scoffed. "The man is incapable. And I took steps to ensure it would not happen. A King's illegitimate offspring is never safe." She told Constance no more, and, as she confirms to Athos, Constance has never asked again.
"I'm not going to force her to discuss something that she obviously finds painful," Constance tells him, the night still and clear around them as they talk quietly, sitting on the stairs in the garrison's courtyard, a bottle of wine passing steadily between them. "And you shouldn't either," she warns. "She deserves some peace," she says more softly as she stands and brushes down her skirt, before heading for bed.
Athos stays up, considering. He finishes the wine, but does not reach for another bottle. Time as a father has taught him more restraint than the war ever did. He allows himself to wonder, even briefly, even knowing how unlikely it is, if the child was his, born out of that one night during the horror with Rochefort. If he closes his eyes, he can feel her skin under his fingers; hear again their shared gasps and moans; see again the way she had looked beneath him, free of artifice, eyes open and longing and tentatively hopeful. But for a child to have come of that one night together, after months and months of trying when they were married? He dismisses the idea for the foolish notion that it is, and in many ways is relieved – he cannot bear the prospect of gaining and losing a child in one fell swoop.
"I'm sorry," he utters softly one evening, into the quiet of the stable. Anne's brushing stops and she is frozen.
"I'm sorry," he repeats, stepping tentatively in, "for how I've treated you. And not just the past few months."
Anne remains still, but briefly presses her face into her horse's side, before pulling back and continuing to brush.
"It's fine," she replies flatly.
Athos takes another step towards her.
"It's not," he says, looking at his feet. "It never was."
At this she finally looks round at him, eyes wide. He meets her gaze, and thinks of how young she looks in this moment. She blinks rapidly, turning back, and clears her throat.
"No matter," she says, mouth dry. "Anyway, I'll be leaving soon, so you won't need to worry anymore," she adds quickly. Plans have been made, and she cannot stay any longer. Not if she wants to cling to her sanity, anyway.
At this, Athos looks up sharply, eyebrows knitting together swiftly.
"Why… where are you going? On a mission?" he stammers, somehow knowing that isn't what she means at all; that, once again, he has driven her from her home.
She sighs.
"No. Not a mission."
She gathers up her grooming brushes, and walks out, leaving him amongst the stillness of the stable, the evening sun creeping through a crack in the wall, its beam falling just where she had been standing.
The rebels march into Paris the following week. She has finished packing her things. She vows to deal with this last mission, then she will be gone. She hasn't decided where. She is unsure if she cares.
On reflection, flinging herself willingly in front of the thrust of a sword isn't the wisest decision she has made, but there it is; the moment she sees the guard pull his arm back, aiming for Athos' left side – who hasn't noticed, already dealing with two others on his right – some kind of primitive instinct takes over, and she blocks the blow before it can make contact. Instead, she feels the tip of the sword, sharp and brutal, a few inches above her left hip. She cries out involuntarily, before ducking inside the rebel's guard, slitting his throat in fury and pain. He crumples to the floor as she staggers, arm pressed to the wound, wincing.
"Anne?" Athos asks, his voice tight with concern, but unable to turn, still battling the other guards. "Are you alright?"
She steps away slightly before answering.
"It's fine, just a scratch," she says between gritted teeth, acknowledging that she is, once again, lying to her husband. They continue to fight, Anne's movements only slowing slightly, though she nearly bites through her lip to keep from crying out.
The fighting is over, and they have, against the odds, won, with the rebels retreating, disbanding, or dead. As they celebrate, she remains apart, standing awkwardly in a doorway near the garrison gates. I don't belong here, she remembers, as she gazes on the group before her: Constance and D'Artagnan with their foreheads resting together, eyes closed, and smiling through sighs of relief; Aramis and Porthos clapping each other's shoulders, laughter booming around the yard; and Athos; Athos picking up his son, who has finally arrived for his visit, kissing him fiercely on the cheek as Sylvie looks on fondly. The boy is the image of what Jean would have grown to be. Her chest clenches in response.
I don't belong here.
Her side throbs sharply, and she presses a gloved hand to it. She knows she should ask Aramis to look at it, stitch it up, but the thought of approaching the cluster in front of her, the cloud of friendship she has no part in, is too much. She will see to it herself at home, then take her leave. Her breath hitching, she steps back into the shadows, and, with a final, painful glance towards Athos, who is laughing with D'Artagnan, a rusty sound that makes her ache, she turns away, not noticing the dampness of her eyes, nor the drops of blood she leaves in her wake as she walks unsteadily out into the streets.
He turns with Raoul in his arms, wanting to show his son the woman who saved his life today, to suggest that she does not need to leave her life here, only to find her nowhere in sight.
"Anne?" he calls out, stepping towards the doorway where he last saw her. She is not there. He frowns, and turns back to the group.
"Where is Anne?" he asks, still confused rather than concerned, though his chest is tightening. Something is not right.
Porthos shrugs in answer, but looks around, ducking his head into the stable. He shakes it as he steps back out.
"She's not there," he calls. "Not like her." He approaches Athos, who bends to put Raoul down and send him back to Sylvie. It is only then that Porthos looks down, to the small pool of dark red soaking into the cobbles, the matching spots leading out to the street.
"Shit!" he barks loudly."Aramis!"
Athos follows his gaze to the ground and pales.
"Oh my god…" he manages to utter before running out onto the streets, his brothers following, all frantically calling her name.
The only response to their calls is the late afternoon sky darkening above them.
She's tired. So very, very tired.
The streets seem uncommonly busy; she bumps into people constantly. They seem so loud, yet far away.
She imagines she can hear Athos calling her name. She knows he is not. She sees herself carrying Jean, who is a baby once again. She knows she is not, that she is imagining things.
She needs to sit down, she realises. Just a short sit down, then she can continue home.
She stumbles into a side street. She doesn't want anyone to see her like this.
It's Porthos who finds her eventually, after they have been calling her name, scouring the streets, for what seems like hours.
Dashing past a few market stalls, Porthos happens to glance down the adjacent alleyway. A flash of dark green causes him to stop abruptly, and, as he steps further down the narrow passage, he realises that it's her skirts. He quickens his pace, calling for the others as loudly as he can.
She is crumpled on a doorstep, her hands pressed to her side. Even wearing her black gloves, he can see that they and the full left side of her gown are soaked through. Her eyes are half closed, and her expression glassy and unfocused. He swears sharply under his breath as he quickly crouches down to her.
"Fuck… it's alright… it's alright. I got you," he murmurs as he gathers her up. "Aramis!" he calls again, the panic now clearly evident in his voice. She whimpers as he picks her up, whispering something under her breath.
"What's that, darlin'? What you sayin'?" he asks, straining to hear. He ducks his head closer to her mouth, and just makes out the mumble, a worrying streak of blood appearing at the side of her lips as she murmurs weakly:
"Want… my boy…. don't... tell Athos."
Porthos tightens his grip as he practically runs with her back to the garrison, Aramis at his heels, D'Artagnan having to physically restrain Athos, who is scrambling and reaching towards her, but who cannot help.
There was a moment during the war, when the four of them had become separated, their supplies out, the enemy all around. An opposing soldier had stepped out from behind a tree next to Athos, and he had stared at the man, whose pistol was already raised. As he had gazed upon the man and his gun, he had known, with awful clarity, that he was going to die. Suddenly, a loud crack echoed as the soldier was shot down, Aramis raising his arm in salute from behind his rifle twenty yards away.
Athos' hands shook long after he realised the man was dead.
Looking back in years to come, Athos will say that this moment - on the streets outside the garrison, his wife bleeding – is the most frightened he has ever been.
Seeing her, so small and bloodied in Porthos' arms, he becomes frantic. Somewhere, he can hear wailing. It is only when D'Artagnan begins to pull him away from her, so they can get her back to the garrison, so they can try to save her life, that he realises that it is he who is crying out, the pain of watching her dying enough to send him over the edge. He knows he will not survive losing her again; that she doesn't deserve this. He sobs openly, repeating her name, and manages to brush her fingers with his before Aramis firmly closes the office door in his face, he and the physician needing space to work what may have to be a miracle.
Athos waits outside the door, crying silently. He prays to a god he is not sure he believes in, prays that she will live, with him or not.
A heavy quiet seeps into his bones, tightening his chest.
No one emerges for a long time.
She is impossibly pale, and feverish. She has lost an extraordinary amount of blood, and the wound is infected. The doctor and Aramis agree there is nothing more that can be done; either she will survive, or she will not. Athos punches Aramis full force in the jaw when he tells him this. Aramis accepts it with grace, testament to his love for Athos.
Occasionally her eyes open, but she does not see – instead, she babbles half-finished thoughts, and old memories, reliving them over and over again.
She pleads with Athos for her life, for him to believe her, describing what Thomas had wanted from her – except Athos does not witness it, having been frogmarched to bed for the first rest he has had in days; Porthos does instead, tears in his eyes, as he tries, as gently as he can, to restrain her flailing arms.
She talks nonsensically to the Cardinal, long-dead, listing names, and dates, and information, that mean nothing to the rest of them.
She begs doctors to save her son. She sobs violently as she relives his death, grasping out for the boy who is gone. Athos catches her hands in his, and presses them to his face, but can offer no comfort to the woman in front of him, lost in her fever and grief.
Still, she does not wake.
The others exist in a kind of limbo as this goes on.
Porthos and Aramis play cards in the evenings, but the games lack their usual boisterousness and humour. Their eyes meet as they hear the muffled words from where Anne has been placed, and both are unsure of what worries them more: Anne's fevered dreams (and nightmares) or Athos having to witness them.
Constance takes Clara and sits with Anne when she is peaceful, speaks to her as if she is awake, updating her on what has been happening. Her voice always becomes tight as she assures Anne that she will be able to see the toddling steps her daughter now takes "when you're feeling better and up and about again."
D'Artagnan occasionally accompanies Constance, but spends most of his time reading dispatches, attempting to keep on top of information from Anne's web of informants, and training the new recruits, who comment privately that their new captain is severe in a way he has never been before.
Athos spends all his time by Anne's bed, clutching her hands, whispering endless apologies, and pleas for her not to leave him. He sleeps only when he is physically dragged from the room. Sylvie has returned to the outskirts with Raoul, with promises to return "when she's better, Athos. She will be," she assures him, as he grips his son tightly in farewell.
Her mouth is impossibly dry, the first thing she notices as she begins to stir. The sheets feel alien against her skin. Her side aches deeply, and one of her hands is clammy. It is the hand her gaze falls to as she blinks her eyes open tentatively, like a new kitten, and she sees other fingers entwined with hers. Athos. She follows the line of his arm up to his shoulder, then face, which is resting on the edge of the bed, and he is snoring softly. It's a sound she should find irritating, and has always been slightly disgusted with herself that she does not. She notes that he looks bloody awful, shadows under his closed eyes, and his hair and beard more unruly than ever. She can't help but give a small smile, safe in the knowledge he will never see it.
She untangles her hand from his as Aramis steps through the door, a wide grin brightening his handsome face as he sees she is awake.
"At last!" he says, with no small sigh of relief, and approaches to check her wound and give her a once-over. "It's been rather boring round here with out you, Milady," he teases.
"I doubt that," she replies, voice rusty.
It is this exchange which wakes Athos, who wrenches himself from sleep, and almost falls from his seat in relief when he sees her awake.
"Oh, thank God," he says, reaching for her hand again, but she moves it slightly away, not meeting his soft gaze. Athos frowns, his eyes wide; Aramis looks at them both sadly, before heading to the door.
"I'm going to fetch the doctor so he can check you over," he says. "No over-excitement while I'm gone," he says, glancing pointedly at Athos, who barely notices his friend.
The room falls silent, the dust visible in the air as the evening light bleeds through the shutters.
"I'm so glad you're alright," Athos says softly, gazing at her, but not reaching for her hand again. " I was…we were all so worried about you."
Anne glances at him and then away again.
"Well… I'm still here," she replies.
"Yes. Thank God," Athos says, smiling at her. She does not smile back, instead refusing to meet his eye.
The room is heavy with awkward pauses and things unsaid, and remains so until Aramis returns with the doctor, whereupon Athos clears his throat, mumbles "I should…um…" and backs out the door with one last look at his wife, who is determinedly not meeting his gaze. He closes the door quietly behind him.
Though the others share their own relief at Anne's return to health, she still maintains that she will be leaving. When Constance asks her why, she is as honest regarding her reasoning as she can be:
"I don't want to feel like this anymore, like I'm simply going through the motions. I want to…feel safe again."
"I don't understand," Constance replies, shaking her head.
"I'm not sure I do either," Anne responds, with a small smile to the woman who has become, despite the odds, an ally, if not a friend.
"What about Athos?" Constance asks softly. Anne sighs and looks away.
"He'll be fine without me."
It has been an unspoken request, certainly not something she has openly voiced, but Athos has kept his distance from Anne as she recovers, and then after, as she prepares to leave. He can feel his friends looking at him, wanting to ask him why he isn't trying to stop her. He doesn't know how to tell them that he wants her to be happy, and, looking back, he knows he has brought her very little happiness. In many ways, he is proud that his love for her (that which took her nearly bleeding to death for him to recognise) has finally made him a better man, at last, but that doesn't stop the pain wrenching through him.
The night before she is due to leave – for Venice, she has finally decided – Constance has arranged a dinner for Anne at the garrison, a chance for them all to say their farewells; a chance for them to try to show how much she has come to mean to them. Athos stays for the meal, then makes his excuses – he knows his presence means Anne cannot relax, can see it in the tightness of her shoulders. He squeezes her arm as he says goodbye, but cannot bring himself to meet her gaze, privately acknowledging that he is a coward to the last. He walks the streets, unable to take himself home quite yet.
When he finally reaches his door, hours later, a familiar figure is waiting outside. It is a sight that makes him stumble. She toys with her shawl, hands ever so slightly unsteady as he approaches her carefully.
"Anne?"
She looks up.
"I thought I should say goodbye properly," she replies, her voice small, but her eyes steady.
He reaches for her face with trembling fingers and cups her cheek. Her eyes fall closed at his touch.
After, as they lie curled around each other, sweat cooling on their skin, he swears he can feel her pulse beat in time with his.
When he awakens, the sun is beginning to rise, and he is alone.
At the garrison later that day, he is nudged from staring into space yet again by D'Artagnan standing in front of him. He mumbles an apology and moves to head back to his work, but his younger friend stops him, a hand on his chest.
"I don't know if you want it or not – but she left the address of where she'll be staying in Venice. If you wanted to know," D'Artagnan shrugs a little too casually, as Athos looks up to meet his gaze. D'Artagnan smiles kindly at his friend, his mentor.
"Maybe you could write. Or visit," he suggests. "Or," he looks Athos pointedly in the eye, "maybe you should just head there now." He presses a slip of paper into Athos' gloved hand and walks away. Unfurling his fingers, and unfolding the paper, Athos reads the address in Venice. Underneath, there is a drawing of a flower; a forget-me-not.
He smiles, wide and true, before heading straight to the stable for a horse.
It's time he went after his wife.