BIGTIME SPOILERS for episode 2x09!
Okay, so I'm in mourning even though I've known that he was doomed for a few episodes now. I mean, if a recurring character not only has the audacity to fall in love with one of the main heroes OTP love interests, but then dares to be gracious, understanding and unselfish when she turns him down in favour of said hero... Well, the guy might as well get his affairs in order and paint a large target on his back. Just ask Santiago Cabrera. At least, the good doctor probably won't get a resurrection as an evil zombie scenario inflicted on him. Not on the show anyway...
And as always, I appreciate any feedback anyone cares to offer, including criticism.
There, kneeling before the scaffold, she has one moment of shame that she regrets. Only one.
Only one moment during this whole disaster when the courage which D'Artagnan has so often praised her for, the courage which both of them have told her they admire her for, truly fails her.
She has wept in fear, her limbs shaking. She has lost the strength to stand at some points. But in only this one moment has she actually failed in her duty to a friend.
It is when she tries to look away and Rochefort (Rochefort, of all people!) turns her head back. Forces her to stare into the eyes of the innocent condemned man kneeling at the block.
Perhaps the only truly innocent one amongst us.
For he alone amongst them has never killed or betrayed anyone. All he has ever done was offer his friendship, his skills and his kindness to them all.
And to her he offered more. He not only offered his love unselfishly; he did not allow her rejection of his marriage proposal to taint that love. All he had done at that moment, when a lesser man might let jealousy turn his love to bitterness, was simply to reavow his admiration for her and express his gratitude for her friendship.
If this is where her friendship has brought him, she thinks she should probably curse his gratitude and admiration for her. But she finds she really cannot.
He is truly an innocent, but he is not without sense or courage. He has always known that many of the things she has asked him to do were not without risk, but still he did them willingly.
She remembers Marguerite saying that he would have done anything she asked because he was in love with her and, although the royal governess was clearly lying about everything else, she almost certainly spoke the truth about that.
He has never been her lover, but he has always been her friend.
Now, at the end, she will not cheapen that friendship in any way.
For a moment, to her shame, she did try to look away from the horrible fate that such loyalty, friendship and kindness have brought this good man to.
But now, even though Rochefort still holds her head, she believes it is with her own will she that meets her friend's eyes.
She hopes that he can see some semblance of her own affection, her apology, her devout wish that there was anything she could to save him, through the heart-hammering fear that she knows is blazoned across her face.
And he holds her gaze. Still frightened and confused, the executioner's assistant holding him in place for the killing blow to fall, but still steadfast.
Loyal and true until the end.
"I have done nothing wrong."
The sword swings its fatal arc and he dies with that hideous truth on his lips.
She is the only one listening who cares.