Disclaimer: The Musketeers are not mine. I'm just borrowing the concepts and characters for a little while.

Spoilers: Takes place between episodes 3.08 Prisoners of War and 3.09 The Prize.

.

Warning: This story might not be for fans of Sylvie or Athos/Sylvie.

.

ooooooo

"To hell with the law!"

~~~~~~~ Athos, 3.08 Prisoners of War

ooooooo

When Athos returned to the garrison, he half expected to see Sylvie come down into the courtyard to meet him, but she had not appeared. It was possible that Sylvie could instead be waiting for him in his office, where she had been staying while she recovered from her injuries.

He was aware that the majority of the cadets and other Musketeers did not know what to think of her presence at the garrison. Some of the men outright didn't like her, though they dared not say anything against her when he was within hearing distance. Despite their attempts at being discreet, Athos knew that many of the garrison didn't understand why Sylvie was still there now that she had mostly recovered.

Athos was also well aware that, when Tréville had been captain, that the man had never brought a woman to stay in his quarters. The Captain had always been extremely discreet and had gone elsewhere for any assignations. The fact that d'Artagnan was married meant that Constance's presence was tolerated. More than tolerated, in fact. It wasn't long after he had returned to Paris that he'd seen how highly esteemed Constance was to the Musketeer cadets. They obeyed her almost better than him.

When he found that his office was unoccupied, he felt disappointed at first. On second thought, he realized that it actually might be for the best that Sylvie was not there to act as a distraction when he already had so much going on around him. Lately, she was acting as too much of a disruption to his life. Both his friendships and his duty as Captain of the Musketeers were suffering as a result. He couldn't help but briefly wonder if the woman's presence had been part of the reason that Grimaud continued to elude capture and execution.

When he should be concentrating on figuring out how to find and defeat that bastard Grimaud, he found that his thoughts occasionally drifted towards Sylvie. When he should be catching up on his paperwork or overseeing cadet training at the garrison, he oft times would leave things undone in favor of meeting up with the woman. When he should be helping his friends, he was not there for them as much as of late.

If he was honest with himself, he would acknowledge that Sylvie was the root of much of the chaos in his life. Without her as a distraction, his life would be so much easier. He wouldn't be failing as a friend when they were still struggling with adjusting to being off the battlefield and relearning how to be four instead of three again. He wouldn't be leaving much of the day-to-day running of the garrison to Constance and the others. He wouldn't be failing in the duty that Tréville had entrusted to him as Captain of the Musketeers.

Sylvie was a distraction, but he found he could not help himself nor stay away from her, and he hoped that it would not cost the lives of anyone he cared about.

ooooooo

The end.

ooooooo

A/N: This story began life as a couple of paragraphs I had to cut from something else I've been working on and grew to what you've just read.

Many thanks to Celticgal1041 for the proofread; remaining errors are my fault.

Thanks for reading!