Until We Meet Again

Chapter 1 of 12

While this story stands alone, it may perhaps be more poignant if you've read A Mother's Heart, as it sets the groundwork for how Aramis acquired his talents as a ghost whisperer.

To my awesome beta, annejackdanny, thank you from the bottom of my heart. She's a great plot-hole detective, a blood hound for inconsistencies and incomparable when it comes to ferreting out missing/misspelled/misplaced words and sentences. Heart hugs, girlfriend.

All remaining errors and/or political plot holes are mine alone.

Warnings: If as a reader you are squicked by non-consensual sexual intimacy, I'd recommend you use your back button now. Further along in the story Aramis wakens to such a situation, though he is not squicked by it. Because of the ocean of accusations flying around my side of the pond, I almost edited it out, but in the end I left it, and you, dear reader, will have to decide if you're willing to go forward. I will put another warning at the top of the chapter as well, but please consider yourself warned.

This story is not canon compliant, though it does not stray far.


Prologue

Summer 1630 - Louvre Courtyard

Memories, he had discovered, were embedded in muscle and bone. Sometimes they conveniently sank to the bottom of the blood stream; sometimes the weight holding them down disintegrated, allowing them to rise like enveloping mists over a morning lake. He had also learned it was impossible to destroy them without involving loss of life.

Aramis was no longer present, though his body remained upright, his eyes front. Anyone noticing his appearance would have assumed his duty stance to be exactly the same as his teammates.

Expect his teammates knew the difference.

"Have you forgotten about the massacre at Savory?" Porthos said out of the side of his mouth, in response to Athos', "What's wrong with him?

"What massacre?" d'Artagnan stood in formation as well, shoulders straight, hands behind his back just as the others, only the blue cape was missing. No one remarked his presence among the Musketeers.

"Ambush, twenty men died, Aramis and one other were the only survivors."

d'Artagnan swallowed his gasp.

Aramis did not so much as twitch. His physical body still stood at attention but on some astral plane, he was five years younger, a veteran Musketeer three years in the regiment, in the middle of a clearing littered with the bodies of dead comrades and friends.


Easter 1625 - The western border of Savoy with France

Cold.

Deep, bone chilling cold.

It was the first thing that registered as consciousness burst through the fog like fireworks inside his head.

Instinct had his hands scrabbling at snow and grass, though no weapon came immediately to hand.

There was an awareness that something had happened; he knew he'd been injured, but no details came to support that knowledge, just the coppery tang of blood on his tongue, the smell of it populating his nostrils like forest detritus. He smelled dirt too, and smoke, and the distinctive scent of the white pines surrounding the camp.

But he could see nothing.

He scrambled to his feet, reaching a hand to investigate whatever kept brushing his shoulder. A cloth, tied around his throbbing head. Yes ... injured.

How?

Where?

His knees gave out ... or the world dropped out from under him. Aramis went down, but only briefly. Shoving off the ground, he tottered to his feet again, stiff-arming a tree trunk that immediately staggered into his path. As much by chance as intention he fell against it. When he opened his eyes again, the darkling clouds hiding the face of the moon had parted.

As did the fog in his mind.

Memory returned in a jumbled rush.

Training mission ... recruits ... dead ... Savoy ... dead ... swords and shouting in the night ... dead.

Bodies sprawled awkwardly where they'd fallen ... dead.

They were all dead.

Marsac ghosted into view, the unfolding scene warped as if the ribbon of time was fraying, slowing every motion. Aramis saw the Musketeer's leather pauldron hit the forest floor, watched Marsac turn and walk away. Then, as if each step stole a bit of solidity from his body, vanish among the night-dark trees.

The tree trunk shifted. Aramis found himself on his knees again, retching violently. Lightning struck him in the head and he went down, gladly, to join his dead brothers-in-arms.


Over hill and dale, through thick stands of forest and atop a high hill in a distant castle, a patient wife quizzed her frosty-blue-eyed husband.

"This looks like a saber cut and it is deep, it will require stitches."

"Just cleanse and bandage it for now. I have business to attend to."

"In the middle of the night?" the Duchess of Savoy demanded. "You are just now home. Where have you been? What has happened? With whom do you have business at this hour of the night."

Victor, the Duke of Savoy, gave his pretty, nightgown-clad wife a brief one-armed hug. He was not in the habit of keeping secrets from her, but she did not need the whole truth of this night. Accordingly, the duke sighed a bit theatrically. "Oh, Cluzet has gone missing again, so I must find him." He would not share that her brother, the king of France, had ordered his assassination. Or more likely, her brother's First Minister, Cardinal Richelieu. Not that the distinction was necessary.

"Again?" The dark head. bent over the management of bandaging, lifted with a degree of inquisitiveness the duke could not find intriguing in the moment.

"Again," he said, rolling his eyes. "He's probably roistering in some tavern somewhere ..." Damn, his wits were scattered. That had been the entirely wrong thing to say, since Cluzet was not the roistering sort. "My love, this need not concern you. Tie off the bandage and be done with it." He shifted impatiently on the stool she had set for him in her chambers and half rose.

The duchess pushed him back down, though she finished her chore quickly and stepped back so she could look into his face. "Since when does our business not concern me?" Her arms crossed over her delectable chest and her slippered foot began to tap.

The duke scratched his head, but it was empty of ideas. He had either to tell her at least half the truth, or tell her, in no uncertain terms, it was none of her business. He did not have that kind of marriage.

"Richelieu has accused Cluzet of being a Spanish spy. The fact that he has disappeared is suspicious. If I do not follow quickly, and Richelieu is the culprit, Cluzet will disappear into France where I will never find him again."

He would not tell her of the French blood already on his hands. An assassination plot could not go un-revenged, though the Musketeer camp had not even had sentinels posted. In the heat of the moment, he had not stopped to think about such things, nor would he now. Right or wrong, he could not undo what was already done.

She stepped forward between his knees, her slender fingers coming up to frame his face, then combing through his hair. The witchy mouth came down to hover over his, her breath fanning the flames of his desire. "What are you not telling me?" She kissed him, nipping at his bottom lip before soothing the tiny hurt with a glide of her tongue.

The duke set his hands about her waist and rose, bending to take quick possession of that mouth before neatly stepping around her. "I must find Cluzet." He strode to the door without a backwards glance, so he would not see her moue of displeasure.

"I'm sure I don't need to remind you the cardinal is a snake." Her quiet words followed him across the vast expanse of carpet. "Beware his fangs, my love."

"You are correct; no need to remind me."

"Have the courtesy to wake me on your return, please, so that I may know you are yet whole and hardy."

He bowed, hand on the door latch, but still did not turn back. "It will be as you wish."

The duchess waited until the echo of his angry footsteps in the long corridor died away, then blew out the candles she had lit in order to attend him. Retiring to their dark bedchamber, she propped herself against the wall behind the drapes at the corner window and waited.

The party assembled quickly, more quickly than would have been possible had her husband had to roust men from their beds, gather gear and saddle horses for a midnight ride. She could see sweat glistening on the horses as well, and knew her fear to be confirmed.

She'd seen the look in his eyes. He was a hard man, but a fair one usually, else she could not love him as she did. This night's work had put the devil in him though, and in one of those moods, there was no telling what he might have done.

As expected, the duke glanced up, unerringly marking the spot where she stood well hidden in the shadows of the room. He lifted a hand in salute, that crooked half smile proclaiming he knew she was there.

Her own hand lifted, though she knew he could see neither it nor her, but such was their marriage. He knew her like the back of his hand. She knew him better then she knew herself.

Below, he whirled his horse and galloped down the long front drive without the slightest indication he'd been hurt. She did not count, but at least two dozen more horses and riders fell in behind, torches and tails streaming in the wind of the swift passage, until they disappeared from her sight.

Christine did not waste time.

Throwing on a dressing gown, thankful for the soft slippers she wore, she was running silently through the deserted corridors, her unbound hair streaming out behind her like the horses tails just moments ago. If anyone in the house knew what had happened, it would be her own household spy. She could not go to his rooms in the attic, but he would answer a summons, if he was not already in the kitchen waiting for her.

It was risky to do this in the middle of the night, but she could not rest until she knew the extent of the fearful news rage had pushed her husband too. Beneath the calm facade, she had sensed his roiling and knew this night's work could not be benign.

"Moss! Thank God!" She swung around the corner of the servants stairs and into the kitchen, slightly out of breath. "What has happened?"

The ancient man stood at the dry sink, dark fingers gripped tightly over the edge, blind eyes turned as if to follow the leave taking. "Musketeers, mum, they gone and killed a whole regiment of Musketeers. On the French side'a the border."

"What?" She flew to him, putting an arm around his trembling shoulders and drew him over to the table. "Sit. Sit, Moss, and tell me what has happened."

"Don' know the details, mum, just heard the talk. Fresh from the killin' they were, all of 'em laughin' and jokin' as though it were some kind'a rich prank. That there Frenchie king's men; slaughtered in their sleep, mum."

"No," her whisper was a rasp of disbelief. "No," she repeated, this time more strongly, though she had seen the torchlight gliding up and down the strange red streamers on the men's brandished swords. "He would not have done anything so barbaric." The voiced thought was immediately accompanied by an unvoiced - unless he had been unduly provoked.

"We must send to Tréville at once, make him aware of the situation. And ride for the border immediately. There may be survivors, it was dark, they can't know they're all dead."

"Twenty men, mum. They counted. Twenty men."

There had been twenty-two on the training mission. Tréville always kept her apprised when there was troop movement near their borders.

"Go the stables and wake Benoît, have him saddle the swiftest horses that remain. There are two missing, we must see if we can find them before my husband does."

"You cain't go out in the middle of the night, mum, riding off like some hussy. It ain't done, you know that."

"You're right, it isn't, but it can't be helped." From the looks of it, only the patrol guards had been left behind. And Benoît, who had come to the marriage with Christine, along with a handful of other servants who answered directly to her. Gathering the voluminous skirts of her night rail, she headed back to the stairs. "Quickly Moss, time is of the essence. I am certain the duke takes the road, for he must be following a carriage; Cluzet does not ride. We will go across country."

"Your Grace," the ancient retainer wailed softly, "you be breakin' your neck!" But he shuffled across the kitchen, moving unerringly around the furniture, pulled his own coat down from the peg where it hung and went to do her grace's bidding.

TBC