Lionheart

Summary: Athos has a problem with those who choose to play the hero. Especially when it's his own life that's at stake. Prequel to 'True Faith.' Non-slash.

A/N: This is the prequel to 'True Faith' and the specific incident that I've referred to a few times in that story surrounding The Siege of La Rochelle and our boys' involvement with it. As stated in my profile do NOT feel obligated to leave a review for this repost. Just read and enjoy.

Warnings: This fic is rated M for blood, violence, character angst, a near-death experience, etc. The life and sacrifices of any soldier isn't pretty and deserves recognition and respect, which was part of the reason why I wanted to write this. So often we gloss over the hardships and trauma our men and women have to go through just to serve our own countries. So please just be mindful when reading. There may be surprises along the way that might be shocking and trigger inducing for some people so just remember what the story is about. My aim is only to tell a good story, and a truthful one.

Disclaimer: The Three Musketeers and its characters rightfully belong to Alexandre Dumas. I'm just a serial borrower.

Chapter One – Shields of Old

Daybreak was not long in coming, but on this day the sun would not rise. Not for any of them. Clouds blocked what would have normally been a heavenly view. If D'Artagnan closed his eyes he could still see the light of dawn coming through the trees like rays of hope breaking through their month's long gloom of toil. If he concentrated harder he could just make out the first sparklings of light on the frigid saltwater of the ocean and the little waves no taller than his calves lapping at the icy shores. Days ago a gentle wind came as more of a caress than what was now a howling gust of yet another coming snowstorm.

The little comforts of then made their loss now seem like a wanting dream.

D'Artagnan opened his eyes in the fading darkness and shivered, pulling Athos' cloak tighter around his small body. Preserving warmth was an endless battle for every soldier. Nothing new. Nothing to complain about. Nothing he should mind, and nothing he had planned on anyway. Not doing so didn't change the fact that in this wind, in the dead of winter, comrades were dying quicker from exposure and sickness than by a sword. It all seemed so bitter, no matter how he tried to look at it. So there wasn't any use in it. The winters had never been this bad back home, he thought, as he desperately tried to keep the numbness in his feet from spreading.

Even to his fellow comrades on guard duty with him he kept silent and pretended the cold didn't bother him in the slightest. If he had his choice, and if anyone on duty with him at this hour had their choice, all would have chosen this to the alternative. It was true that the harsh winter gave them respite from the fighting, but D'Artagnan couldn't help but consider at what cost. Were they to have this one mercy so they could die from the cold instead? From hunger? From sickness and disuse? It was laughable because both sides in this conflict had the same strategy. Wait the other out. And the funny part about it was that it was working on both ends.

Sometimes the Protestants would get lucky when a shipment from England would sneak in past the wall they had built to keep the city isolated. They had wanted to draw the men out, force them into surrendering and facing the consequences of their actions like real men. But nature was in the favor of their enemies, turning the Cardinal's mortar and stone fortress to crumbling bits. And even when the water was too frozen to move the ships, somehow their adversaries still found a way through their defenses. Since those few humiliations for the king's army, things had grown more desperate for all. With the sea better barricaded now by a proper naval blockade and the roads deemed impassable due to snowdrifts, it was only a matter of time before one side would have to yield.

D'Artagnan just hoped it wasn't them. Sure the conditions were horrible, but to him defeat burned much worse than any degree of frostbite or physical discomfort ever could. His friends might have disagreed with him, being that their furloughs were long overdue because of the snow, but part of him didn't want to care. This wasn't his first real assignment outside of Paris, but it was his first actual tour of duty.

With an army.

Acting as a larger unit.

Being a real soldier.

It was invigorating, terrifying, and miserable work. It was nothing like how his father had painted things for him when he was a child, but through all the trouble there was a bigger part of him that still loved it-even if the rest of his body raged against his heart's wants. D'Artagnan pulled the hood of the cloak tighter around his face to ward off the stinging chill. Maybe that was half the battle, he thought to himself, surpassing physical needs and wants for the sake of others. Well…it wasn't as if that was anything new to him. But that wasn't what made D'Artagnan uncomfortable. It wasn't the cold, nor the slight pangs of hunger, and it wasn't even the smell from being so closely quartered with the other men. It was something much closer to home.

He turned to give a quick glance at the camp below him. From the wall of the refurbished old roman fort they were using as accommodations he could see a few men milling about, trying to wake up before Treville came around to drag the stragglers out himself for morning drills. It wouldn't be long now, and it wasn't a surprise to see so few awake. It was a Sunday after all. Sometimes the captain was lenient, sometimes he wasn't. Judging from the weather they might be permitted a lie in, but D'Artagnan wasn't about to hold his breath for it.

He spotted Porthos below and did a double take. Porthos? Up before the sun? Something just didn't seem right about that. But then again they had been running low on firewood. Maybe the cold kept him up. It certainly wouldn't have been the first time, and judging from the miserable look on his face D'Artagnan was probably right in his assumption. He couldn't blame the man one bit, but that didn't mean he couldn't have some fun in teasing him about his early rise later on.

D'Artagnan's smile faltered and he tore his eyes away to focus on his task. Some mornings he still woke up in disbelief that this was the life he was living, a mere few months after leaving home. Was it fate that he met his friends that day? He liked to believe so. But if that were the case then why did he feel so…lost, still? Or maybe not lost, but…misplaced? Home was still Gascony. Home was still with his parents. This wasn't home. Paris didn't feel like home. And his friends…

D'Artagnan hadn't known Athos, Porthos, and Aramis too long, but he was a little embarrassed to admit that he didn't want anyone else by his side in this, or in anything else-dare he even admit it aloud. It went beyond logic, because the logical part of his mind was telling him that a few months time was barely enough to form such opinions and attachments. And here he had considered them more important than nearly anyone he'd met in his entire life after the first few weeks! If it seemed a bit absurd to him, then to them it would seem so much more. D'Artagnan wasn't sure why, but that conclusion made the air biting at his face all the more wretched. He shook his head and blew into his aching hands to warm them.

Aramis was patient with him, taught him things in passing, and noticed the smallest of indications in such a quick, silent, and calculating manner that it made D'Artagnan envious of that kind of skill. Porthos was never one for melancholy, anger yes, but his hunger for life and its pleasures was so infectious that he often grounded D'Artagnan when he hadn't even meant to. And Athos…D'Artagnan just wished there was something he could do to make the man understand how much he respected and looked up to him. Athos hadn't made things easy on him, that was certain, but D'Artagnan was anything but stubborn, especially when he saw something in the man that reminded him so much of his father that it plagued him in his dreams.

He wasn't homesick.

He wasn't.

Well…perhaps just a little.

But to admit that meant admitting that he didn't want to be here. And he did…didn't he? Yes. He wanted to be here, even if it was just to shadow these men and learn what little he could on his own. He wanted someone like his father beside him now, when he was on the brink of venturing into that dark abyss of reality, when nothing but dead men and their faces would fill his dreams at night, when waking would at times mean a split-second between life or death. D'Artagnan was not enough of a fool to believe that he could deal with these things on his own. Observing Athos, Porthos, and Aramis taught him that, if anything, they depended on each other in ways that went beyond simple friendship.

Was he wrong to want that kind of comfort and support too?

Did that mean admitting his own weaknesses and immaturity?

Did it mean he just wasn't ready for this kind of life?

Every single fiber of his being screamed no, but there was a very small part of him inside that whispered yes.

D'Artagnan glanced back to catch a glimpse of Porthos again, but found him gone. The Three Inseparables. Men that were his friends. Men he was only starting to know and wanted to know infinitely more about. It seemed impossible, yet here he stood in their company, and after everything so far he wasn't disappointed in the least. Dare he consider them more? He wanted to. Oh, how he wanted to…and maybe, even consider himself more too. One of them perhaps.

But the familiarity of that very thing he craved looked to be long in coming. True friendship was something you built over a matter of years and hardship. Both were something he didn't have yet with these men he had heard so many stories of back home. Maybe someday he would be lucky enough to be able to call them true friends. Maybe they could look beyond his youth one day and count him among them as the man he so desperately wanted to be. And maybe, just maybe, he could prove to himself that he did deserve to belong here with them.

Vincent, a young man only a year older than D'Artagnan, walked over to him with quiet footsteps on the new wooden scaffold they built for watch duty. The boards creaked slightly under their combined weight, but it was barely audible above the wind. "What do you think we're in for," he asked, shivering. "Another two feet?"

"I hope not," D'Artagnan replied, straining his eyes over the top of the stone barrier. "I've never seen so much snow in my life and I'm already sick of it."

Vincent chuckled. "Something tells me I'd be sick of those warm summers in the south you told me of. Must be the weather in our blood making us so miserable. You're not much acquainted with the cold and I grew up in it and I still don't like it, either way we're doomed to our fates."

D'Artagnan turned to him and frowned. "And what would those be?"

Vincent gave him a good-hearted shove. "Turning stiffer than death. Real snowmen. That might put a smile on the captain's face, us too frozen to disobey orders."

D'Artagnan couldn't help but laugh at the images his mind was producing, as if latching on to some kind of comfort-however absurd-could make the cold ease.

"Why don't you go in for a few minutes and melt that snow off you," Vincent offered. "I'll keep watch."

"I'm alright," he defended, tugging his hood closer around his face.

Vincent sighed. "Go, you stubborn Gascon. Monsieur de Treville will be around soon and I'm not going to be the one who has to explain your frostbitten hide to him because you were too stupid to go in for a few minutes."

"Sounds like I'm doing you a favor," D'Artagnan teased, going retrieve his musket before his reprieve. "I'm not sure how I should feel about that."

Vincent called his name softly and D'Artagnan turned back. He never heard what words Vincent had on his lips and he hadn't heard the gun shot either. All he heard was the thud of his body hitting the wooden floor. Blood particles still coated the air from where he had been standing. It didn't register to him what happened at first, not until he tore his eyes away from Vincent to see Jacques who was on guard farther down jumping into action, running to the stairs, trying to sound the alarm. But he soon joined Vincent's fate when his body jerked to the side and he tumbled down the stone stairs into a bloody heap at the bottom.

Both unmoving.

Still.

Dead.

Not dead.

…dead.

"D'Artagnan," Porthos yelled from below.

He whipped his head in the direction of the loud commanding voice, telling him to "Get down!" and was too much in shock to even realize he was still standing.

There was no time to note the fierce and worried expression on Porthos' face, or for D'Artagnan to berate himself for his own stupidity. As he complied, another bullet whizzed by where his head was only seconds prior. To everyone else it must have seemed like thunder was exploding all around them, but to D'Artagnan they sounded like nothing more than pebbles hitting windows over the blood rushing in his ears. He crawled over to where Vincent lay, staying as low as possible, and when he reached the young man he turned him over. He needed to make sure it was true. And for some unknown reason, it was only real when he was face to face with his bloodied comrade whose head wasn't entirely there anymore.

What had Vincent wanted to say to him?

Who would tell his parents of his death?

Who would mourn him-

Another shot burst through a weak set of stones and mortar next to him, bringing with it a cloud of ash and dust. He flinched away from the offending particles and tried to protect his eyes with his hand as he once more pressed his body flat on the stained wooden planks. More bullets either wedged into the stone façade or somehow made their way through, some miraculously missing him even when he was as low as he possibly could be. He hated being pinned down like this. Helpless until the barrage would stop with his musket set down several feet away.

As much as he didn't want to die, he also didn't want to die like this, a coward's death without a weapon or sword in his hand at the very least. Half protecting his head and half venting his emotions, he squeezed and gripped at his hair for the patience he needed to stay still until it was over. Every part of his body was burning with the need to run, but the better part of his brain kept them frozen, even when another bullet ripped through the thick material of his cloak, centimeters from the skin on the lower point of his back. He kept a cry of frustration firmly lodged in his throat, refusing to set it loose.

The only safe way off the scaffold was the stone stairs on the other end, past Vincent's body, past Jacques, but with the unfortunate state that corner of the fort was in any man would be a dead one the moment he chanced a step up or down. The cover was simply gone due to the cold and the current barrage of musket-balls. He looked to his side and his eyes went wide when he realized his only saving grace, the stone wall beside him, was also crumbling under the onslaught. If he didn't move within the next few seconds he would be an open target.

He numbly shot to his only other escape left, and not without serious hesitation: the thirty-foot drop from the edge of the scaffold. His insides churned at the thought of walking away from a fall like that without injury. Heights had never bothered him before, much, but maybe it was the grief that was confusing his raging survival instincts. Was he about to trade one manner of death for another?

"Through the rails," Aramis called, hands cupped around his mouth. "Use the supports-Now!"

D'Artagnan looked down from the edge of the scaffold and saw them, but worried how much weight they would hold-

"Move, you idiot," Athos shouted, furious but clearer than Aramis.

"Jump!" Porthos cried, with waiting arms.

Maybe it was by the grace of his friends. Maybe it was by God himself, but something snapped his abnormally slow brain out of the paralyzing shock that had immobilized him. Determination pushed through and filled every extremity with energy, with a life or death hunger for action. As the wall protecting him finally crumbled he hooked his feet and hands around the poles and swung his body over the edge. The wood creaked ominously, but he paused to take a breath and let his momentum settle before dislodging his feet and hooking them around one of the crossbeams underneath the flooring.

Slowly and if a little shaky, he made his way down the supports until there was nothing left to do but let go. He trusted Porthos. He trusted Aramis. And he certainly trusted Athos. So when he had to, he let himself fall into all the chaos of the rousing camp, knowing they would be there to catch him. His landing was a bit rougher than he thought it would be, but Porthos didn't drop him-as it was the large man was hesitant to let him go. D'Artagnan had to wiggle and struggle loose to regain the dignity of standing on his own two feet. It was true that he wasn't feeling particularly strong at the moment from all that had just happened, but he would be damned before he let it show-weak knees or not.

Men didn't tremble.

Soldiers didn't weep.

Men and soldiers had no time for it.

A/N: Chapter breaks will be a bit different this time, shorter for easier reads which means more chapters, but not a lot of new material to add to the original length. But who knows, something could come to me before posting the last chapter. There will be a filler-sequel to Lionheart that chronologically comes before True Faith. Not sure of the title just yet. But I think Ajax deserves some more screen time.