Chapter 1

"Tommy… Come on, wake up…!"

The boy moaned rolling in his bed, annoyed.

Beatrice looked around to check that no one else had woken up. Leonardo's snoring in the back of the room was echoing even in the girl's dorm. She twitched her nose, bitter, then she went back shaking her friend.

"Tommaso!" she hissed in a slightly louder voice. She couldn't stay there much longer, if the leaders caught her… Plus, it was freezing: in her warm sleeping bag she didn't regret she had brought only her shirtsleeves pyjama, but as soon as she'd got up from bed, she immediately realised her mistake. She had pulled her striped socks up to her knees and on her tiptoes she went out from the big bedroom full of bunk beds: nobody noticed her.

On the other side of the large hall where the dorms leaded to, there was the leaders and the cooks' bedrooms: the lights were off and she couldn't hear any more their loud laughing from downstairs. All clear! But now her plan was failing because of that lazybones!

Beatrice looked around again, then she strongly stuck her hand into his wrist. Tommaso winced, he opened his eyes wide and he saw her, with her long brown hair up in a messy ponytail and her scowl wrinkling her lips.

"Be-" he was about to exclaim, before she firmly shut his mouth.

"Shut up, do you want everyone to wake up?!" she whispered, annoyed. They waited a few seconds in silence. Leonardo kept snoring like a tractor and both of them wondered how everyone could sleep with that noise. Giovanni mumbled in his sleep.

"Come on, let's go!" she pushed him. Tommaso didn't seem to feel like going out of his sleeping bag: he hesitated for a while, but when he saw her persistent gaze, he didn't dare to reply.

When his feet touched the floor, he had a chill all through his back and the temptation of going back to bed was great, but then Beatrice held his hand and all of his doubts vanished.

She knew how to be bossy but then, once she touched him, he melted. She turned and a wave of shampoo's smell pervaded his nose. He followed her without replying, as he was under the control of her spell.

When they went out in the hall, he felt more confident in speaking without being reproached again.

"Where are we going? I'm..." he wanted to say he was tired, a lot, but he avoided to make her mad.

"I found something!" Beatrice cut out, going towards the stairs. Tommaso stopped before the first step and as she was dragging him, she had to do the same.

"We can't go upstairs! If they catch us..."

"Oh, come on! Why do you always have to be such a coward? They won't catch us! Come on, move!"

Beatrice turned her back to him. She knew he would have followed he, he would have never stayed there, or went back leaving her alone. In fact, a few seconds after, she heard his steps behind her and she turned to him with a smirk.

She always got him to do whatever she wanted. Sometimes she had wondered about the decency of this, but she came to the conclusion that she always rewarded him in some way, so he didn't have to complain!

They walked through the dark refectory, lightened just by the weak reflection of a street lamp, then Beatrice went close to the kitchen's doors.

"You can wait here, if you're scared." she said confidently, while he'd stopped again, terrified.

"You know this is so forbidden, why are you doing this?" he asked. He was pale. The cooks could be so cruel with the ones who didn't respect the rules. Once they had him wash all the dishes by himself! It was always because of one of Bea's stupid ideas: she convinced him to steal some extra cake to share…

Beatrice didn't answer and she disappeared behind the kitchen's double doors. Tommaso winced and popped out his eyes. She was actually doing it! He looked around. What could he do? He didn't want to go in there, they would have put themselves in trouble and it was just the first day at the camp, they would have ruined their whole vacation because of that thing!

"Bea!" he whispered. He thought he heard a noise upstairs. What if someone arrived? His eyes jumped from one side of the room to another, looking for a hiding place, but he knew he couldn't leave her alone!

When he decided to go in, Beatrice suddenly opened the door, almost smashing it on his nose. He was too short for his twelve years and she couldn't see him from the door's window, too high for her too.

"Look at this!" she exclaimed, showing him a bag full of chocolate and candies.

"Oh..." he said, entranced. He loved sweets and Bea knew it. She had done that more for him than for herself. "Oh!" he exclaimed then, in a pretty different tone. "We'll be in trouble, the cooks hate even when we just talk about their food!" he scolded her, trying to enhance his image. But he only managed to make her laugh. She was a little taller than him and she always looked down at him.

"Come on, take just a few, they won't even notice!" she replied giggling and she started searching the bag, picking up three, four, five of her favourite candies. Tommaso sighed. Then he put his hand in the sweets, pretending not to be excited, while he was already salivating.

The light that suddenly turned on caught them with their hands in the cookie jar, literally.

"Mmmhh… It's the tastiest cake I've ever had!"
Leonardo enjoyed his slice of cake enhancing every move and expression, while Tommaso looked at him out of rage from his corner on the bench: the empty mess kit in front of him reminded him why he shouldn't never listened to Beatrice's ideas.

"Don't listen to him." she said out loud, so that Leo could hear. "It's not that tasty. I saw Mysa* smoothing her nails over the dough." she added. It was a bald-faced lie and Tommaso knew because she'd raised her eyebrows in that way… Like she always did when she lied. Under the table she reached out for his hand, but he avoided her, still mad.

"Hey, it wasn't my fault!" she whispered, while with the corner of her eye she could see Leonardo hesitating on his slice of cake. "You made too much noise!" she blamed.

But Tommaso didn't want to hear. Mysa's cake was his favourite, and now because of Bea he couldn't have it and that was the only day he could have eaten it! The next year then, they wouldn't be Cubs any more and Mysa wouldn't be with there any more, so it was his last chance to have that cake and Bea had spoilt everything for some chocolate that they could have eaten at any time… Tears filled his eyes.

He looked at Akela hoping to inspire him pity. He had always been the kindest with them, but he didn't catch his glance. And then, since when they had entered in the A.C. **, he'd started considering them older and more responsible and Tommaso knew that they were now disappointed about their behaving: he read it in Bagheera's eyes.

Beatrice looked at him astonished. Was he really upset for something stupid like that?

"Tommy" she called him, again trying to reach is hand, but once again he moved his hand away sharply.

"Leave me alone!" he burst. "It's all your fault, I didn't want to come, okay?" he wasn't looking at her, but he knew he got that, because Bea wouldn't speak any more until everyone stood up to do their chores.

"Bea, Tommy, you go tidy up the bedrooms!" Bagheera ordered. So the punishment wasn't over! Just the two of them to tidy up the rooms, it was a real persecution! Bea was about to reply, but Tommaso stood up saying nothing and keeping his head low he walked towards the rooms. She followed him, running to keep up.

"Wait for me!"

He sped up and Bea was forced to keep running to reach him, calling him again. "Tommy, come on… Wait for me!"

But he didn't want to hear. She managed to stop him just in front of the boys' room because she grabbed his shoulders firmly and stepped in front of him.

"I'm sorry, okay?" she spell out. "I just wanted to so something nice for you. I didn't think they would have caught us. Here..." she twisted her hands, while he was looking at her upset and not a little softened by her words. "Take this." she said hesitating, taking off her neckerchief full of pins. It was the most precious thing she owned and her moves were very insecure.

"But… You can't!" said Tommaso, forgetting about everything else.

"I don't deserve it!" she exclaimed, dramatic as always. "Until you won't forgive me, I won't deserve to be a Cub, and so… I won't need this."

Beatrice swallowed and Tommaso knew that she was doing that only to show him how regretful she was. He took off his neckerchief as well, hesitating. He had more pins on it than Bea's, because he had attended more camps than her.

He handed it to her, to put it around her neck. Beatrice looked at him surprised. She knew that in that neckerchief there were all his memories, the camps he had attended, dummies and pins that people had given to him in the years… Some of them he'd lost, others were pretty old, others she had pinned herself on it. She smiled. She was glad she didn't have to give up the Cubs.

She raised her neckerchief too towards Tommaso and with a tacit agreement they swapped them.

In that exact moment the craziest thing happened, even more incredible than that time when the leaders forgot them at the station.

In that exact moment their lives changed forever.


Constance had been awake for a while, but she hadn't moved a muscle yet, afraid to wake him up. She was laying down with her eyes wide open, thinking. She thought so long that at some point she worried she could have waken him up with the sound of her thoughts.

When she felt him embracing her waist, she finally moved and her face relaxed in a sweetened expression. D'Artagnan kissed her naked shoulder and sensually caressed her pregnant bely, until she turned to him.

"Someone woke up in a good mood..." she smiled, kissing him on his lips.

He looked at her with that face, the face that always melted her with desire, the one that said "I'll get you now and I'll never let you go", but that was actually waiting for her approval.

For how much he desired it, that time the approval didn't come. Constance was smiling at him in a strange way. She smiled, but her eyes were almost crying, while she was taking his face in her hands and kissing him again on the corner of his mouth.

"What's wrong?" he asked, concerned, immersing his hand in her copper hair. After the first euphoric days for his return, Constance clouded, even if she was trying to not showing it. And he knew that it wasn't about some change of mood due to her pregnancy: he knew the answer to that question already.

She shook her head, staring at his eyes and sniffed. Her eyes filled with tears.

"Don't go." she murmured in a low voice. It wasn't like her, she'd never been a woman like that, but the idea of being alone again, with the baby about to be born, had sunk her in a deep, dark tunnel from where she couldn't see a way out if not staying with D'Artagnan forever and not having to be apart again.

But she knew it was impossible.

"Constance… Look at me." he couldn't do a promise like that and he knew, but what else could he say? "I'll come back." he assured, looking into her eyes determined. "I'll come back before he'll be born." if the first was a risky hypothesis, this was a utopia, and even Constance realised it because she smiled as if D'Artagnan had just said a joke to make her feel better.

"I'm sorry. I know that I shouldn't have asked." she said, calmer, shaking her head again disappointed. What was wrong with her? Of course he would came back.

Their love was something beyond the war. He promised her he would have been back for her birthday and he did: then again, to see her pregnancy belly and there it was.

Even though Constance had a bad feeling, she knew that he would have kept this last promise too. She wanted to deceive herself that everything would have been all right. She won't have waited for the baby's birth, but she hoped that in a year they could have been together, this time forever. The war in Spain was turning in their advantage. Soon they would have been a family.

D'Artagnan made that face again, and then he slipped under the sheet. He kissed her belly many times, making her wincing and giggling because of the tickling and the pleasure.

"D'Artagnan!" Porthos' voice interrupted her sharply and his insisting knocking on the door made him wanting to do the same thing on his friend's teeth. Why did he have to be so loud?

"Oh, no..." Constance whispered at his side. "Don't tell me that..."

In the moment he came back, she'd told him she didn't want to know how many days they could have spent together, before he had to leave again. She didn't want to know, she would have been full of anxiety, counting the days. In that way she enjoyed his husband for five amazing days, but the moment she feared had arrived. She had hoped to keep him at her side a little longer.

"Constance..." he murmured, plunging his face in her hair and deeply breathing her perfume. "Oh, I wish I..."

"Go." she ordered, trying to maintain a firm voice, while the tears were itching her eyes again. "Go, now." she repeated, but her tone was trembling now.

She knew that if he had stopped to say goodbye, she wouldn't have the courage to let him go and she didn't want D'Artagnan to see the pitiful scene of her trying to hold him like a desperate.

He hesitated for the longest seconds, in her arms, her hair and the sheet. He was breathing slowly and deeply, like he was getting ready to do a three meters jump, and meanwhile he was looking into her eyes, determined to impress in his mind every moment, every curl, every wink of her eyes, every shade of her perfume.

At the nth time that Porthos had knocked on the door, he suddenly stood up, he quickly got dressed and he went away without saying a word, his heart full of emotions. He walked past his friend and went down the stairs, then he dried a tear in secret, pretending to fix his shirt's neck.

Constance stared into space for an endless time. Her breathing started to accelerate uncontrolled, until it turned into sobs, which later exploded in a frustrating scream.

Porthos heard it, he looked towards D'Artagnan's room and with resigned air he pushed his hat on his forehead.

Constance had been screaming for at least half an hour. She couldn't keep inside all of her mental and physical pain, it was ripping her apart. And D'Artagnan didn't appeare at that door to held his baby into his arms, she felt she could have died in that moment.

The Queen had put at her service her best doctors and she was waiting out of the door herself. Constance had declined her offer to hold her hand, and she would have said sorry about that later, but she couldn't risk to break Gisela two fingers. And she would have been too ashamed of all that screaming and crying she couldn't keep in.

"D'Artagnan… D'Artagnan..." she murmured when the contractions would leave her free to breath. But despite her mantra, D'Artagnan hadn't arrived. The doctor announced that it was time to start pushing, but she didn't want to. She would have kept the baby inside until she saw him coming back. He promised that, he would have come into that door to hold his baby!

"No!" she screamed with another contraction. "He… Where is he?!" she asked, in vain.

"Push, now!" the doctor ordered with authority. Constance sobbed, she grabbed the sheet and she squeezed her hands until it was hurting. She knew she had to do it, or she would have hurt the baby. So, she did it, but just to not have to tell her husband that their baby died because of her.

He was born. Midnight had just passed. She held him, but she didn't feel nothing of the feelings that Anna described her and that she could feel just watching her playing with her child. She held life in her arms but she felt dead inside.

Notes:

* Leaders and even cooks have a name from "The jungle book". Akela and Bagheera are usually the leaders (in this fanfiction, they are), the other names you will see belong to the cooks.
** A.C..: Akela's Committee. It's formed by the older Cubs, they organise games for the younger Cubs and help the leaders.

A huge thank you to my friend Kat for the cover! I love you and your art works!