A/N: Greetings! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, and that they have plenty of leftovers to eat (that's always my favorite part). I won't usually update this quickly (in fact, it never really happens), but I have the first few chapters written already and I only need to look over them again.
Plenty of d'Artagnan whump and angst here, and more to come. Not really sure why I like torturing this poor guy, but it makes for fun to write, so...
All reviews are welcome, as always. I want to thank EnigmaTM, pallysd'Artagnan, and Uia for leaving reviews, as well as cindy123, pallysd'Artagnan, Bookbrook, PearlSword and Achchi for following the story. I have never gotten that much of a response on a first chapter before and seriously, it's amazing. You guys are awesome! I sincerely hope everyone enjoys the next chapter :)
Disclaimer: Never was, never will be mine. No money has exchanged hands. No names had to be changed to protect the innocent.
"Perhaps we should have given them more time," Aramis mused to himself with Porthos nodding in obvious agreement beside him. Athos didn't give any indication that he had heard and continued moving through the forest towards the cliff.
They were riding at an easy walk for the horses, not rushing or slowing down. The peace of the forest was broken only by the horses' breaths and the occasional call of the birds to each other. Athos closed his eyes for a moment, breathing the scent of the pines and the earthy forest floor below him. This was one of the few things that could quiet the unease in his soul, he had found. There were precious few moments like this in Paris, and even less as a King's musketeer.
"We did say we'd catch up to them eventually," Porthos said, trying to catch Athos' attention, hoping to stop for a few hours longer.
"We said we would join them on the cliffside a few hours after they arrived," the older musketeer stated evenly, not turning around.
"It has been two hours and almost another half since they should have been there. I'd say that was ample time. Besides, it will rain soon," he continued drily, not wanting to imply anything.
Aramis grinned. "I don't know if that's enough time for—"
"What's that?" Porthos said, dismounting from his horse and walking towards an object on the ground that had caught his eye.
Athos wheeled his horse around to face his friend, all jokes replaced by a solemn look.
Aramis jumped off his own horse to join Porthos on the ground, looking at the small object he held carefully in his large hand.
It was the small necklace belonging to Constance. The delicate metal workings of the edges were bent horribly out of shape and the chain was broken. With something akin to panic, he realized that it was stained red.
"D'Artagnan," Athos said suddenly, spurring his horse to a gallop. Aramis and Porthos immediately followed, thundering through the forest towards the cliff side.
Athos burst out of the forest's edge and moved into the clearer, open plane of the cliff. He spotted his friend's crumped body lying near the edge and jumped off his horse.
"D'Artagnan!" he exclaimed, skidding to a halt by his brother's side, not heeding the tumble of pebbles he sent over the edge. He dropped to his knees and turned d'Artagnan onto his back. Athos saw the blood staining the front of his tunic, and frantically pulled the shirt aside to ascertain the damage. The wound was ugly; a long, deep sword slash that stretched from the front of his ribcage to his hip. It was still sluggishly bleeding, and Athos turned pale.
"Aramis!" he bellowed, prompting the medic to run over, followed quickly by Porthos.
"Oh, my God," Porthos breathed, eyes sweeping over his friend's pale face and weak breathing.
Aramis was checking his head, noting the dried blood on his face. He winced when he saw the gash and felt around for any other injuries. He felt another lump on the other side of his head and probed at it carefully.
"D'Artagnan," Athos commanded, shaking his friend by the shoulder. "D'Artagnan, wake up." The Gascon remained unresponsive.
Aramis was already back at his saddle, pulling the various items they would need out of it. Porthos helped him carry it and was taking Athos' water canteen from his horse.
"I need to stitch his side. He's lost too much blood as it is," Aramis said, worry creeping through the forced calm he kept in his voice.
Athos wordlessly moved aside, making room for the medic to work.
Aramis pulled a needle from his pouch, and set to threading it. Athos pulled d'Artagnan's shirt open further to give the healer better access to the wound.
Aramis poured wine over the needle, took a quick swallow for himself, then handed the flask to Porthos.
He began stitching the wound. The bleeding looked like it had all but stopped by this point, but d'Artagnan's coloring and raspy breath indicated to the anxious medic that it wasn't necessarily a good thing. Athos' eyes didn't leave his friend's face, watching every intake of breath and feeling the heartbeat underneath his fingertips. It was weak and thready, but still present.
Aramis went on stitching the skin together, tying knots off as he went. D'Artagnan didn't once stir. Finally, the handsome musketeer tied off the last stitch—fifty four in all—and rocked back on his heels to look at his patient.
D'Artagnan's face was a grayish color, and his breath came in weak rasps. Aramis frowned, and Athos looked at him, brow furrowed in deep concern.
"His head needs to be stitched as well," Porthos said, breaking the silence and watching the Gascon closely.
Aramis busied himself with preparing the thread and needle for another round.
Athos watched his young friend, a frown creasing his forehead. To find d'Artagnan in this state was worrisome enough, but to not know where Constance was… The unconscious man was lying so close to the cliff's edge, and Constance was nowhere to be seen.
Athos immediately shut down that train of thought, although the idea remained in his mind, gaping horribly through the edges in his awareness. He forcefully snapped his attention back to the musketeer and silently vowed to help his friend find the men responsible for this depravity.
Suddenly, something seemed wrong to Athos. Watching his friend's gray face, he waited for the next breath to come. With something akin to panic, he realized it didn't. D'Artagnan lay still and quiet.
"D'Artagnan!" he yelled, shaking the man roughly to no avail. "He's not breathing!" he said to the medic in a panic. Aramis felt his stomach curl in dread.
"D'Artagnan, breathe!" Porthos shouted, joining Athos by his side.
Aramis reached out and slapped d'Artagnan—hard—across the face.
His eyes flew open as he took a shuddering gasp of breath. His back arched up off the ground in pain and his eyes stared at nothing as he lay panting.
"D'Artagnan, can you hear me?" Athos said, peering down at his friend's face.
The young man's eyes were blank and glassy. He panted harshly trying to catch his breath.
"D'Artagnan? Are you with us?" Aramis asked, worried about the damage the head injury had probably done.
"Hmm?" The Gascon managed to slur, eyes rolling painfully in his aching skull. He closed his eyes and willed the ground to stop spinning underneath him.
"Open your eyes," Athos commanded.
It took a good thirty seconds for d'Artagnan's eyelids to comply with the order, but they finally slid open to reveal a blurry world which slowly came into focus.
"Thank God," Aramis murmured, taking a moment to kiss the golden cross he wore around his neck before grabbing the flask of wine.
D'Artagnan tried to move and instantly felt a sear of fiery pain along his side and all through his head.
"Don't move," Porthos told him in a low voice. "'mis will have you patched up in a few minutes. He stitched your side already," he added helpfully, when the young soldier raised a shaking hand gingerly to his damaged torso.
D'Artagnan's head slowly cleared.
"What happened?" he slurred, trying to focus on Athos, who was watching him with a look between relief and concern.
"We were hoping you could tell us," he replied. "We came to meet with you and Constance here—"
That was as far as the seasoned musketeer could go before d'Artagnan sprang up. The movement was so sudden that he managed to dodge the startled arms of his friends.
He got to his feet and moved quickly, already swaying dangerously to one side and staggering. Amid the shocked stares of his friends, d'Artagnan lurched towards the cliff's edge and didn't slow in the slightest.
Athos had a split second to react and guessed his friend's intentions. With a speed borne of sheer terror, he bolted after the Gascon and wrapped his arms fiercely around him, hugging him to his chest.
He could feel d'Artagnan's rapid heartbeat through his thin shirt and tried to wrestle him away from the precipice.
D'Artagnan struggled with everything he had, heedless of the pain in his side that was screaming in agony with every scrape against the rough fabric of Athos' doublet and the pounding of his head.
"D'Artagnan, stop!" Athos yelled, close to his ear, trying to make him listen. "Don't be a fool!"
"You don't understand, Athos!" d'Artagnan yelled back, tears now threatening to fall in his eyes. "She fell! I have to go after her!"
"You can't help her now," Athos told him, voice loud but gentle as possible under the circumstances. Every instinct was screaming at him to get his friend away from the abyss. "You'll be killed too," he said, sorrow pulling the sides of his mouth down in deep lines of familiar grief.
"I don't care!" the grief-stricken young man cried and launched himself one last time at the cliff.
Athos dug his heels in, and managed to half drag the Gascon away, still hugging him close. "I do," he said quietly into d'Artagnan's ear.
The young man gave a heart-wrenching sob and stared over Athos' shoulder at the overhang. Tears were flowing freely down his face, and his shoulders shook violently with paroxysms of sorrow.
"She was everything, Athos," he sobbed aloud, burying himself in his friend's grip. "She was everything."
Athos' jaw clenched painfully and he had to blink back tears of his own summoned by the devastation in his friend's voice.
Athos shifted his grip, and Porthos came to d'Artagnan's right, with Aramis joining them on the left. Together, they carefully maneuvered the man to a sitting position a safe distance away.
All the fight went out of d'Artagnan. He allowed himself to be placed carefully on the ground, and didn't move when Aramis, struggling to compose himself, poured wine over the wound.
Porthos pressed his lips together in a trembling white line, overcome with emotion. He kept a hand on the wounded man's shoulder, not liking the far away gaze or the minute trembling of his thin frame.
D'Artagnan made no noise of protest or movement from the cleaning that Aramis gave to his wounds.
He didn't flinch when the needle curved deftly through his skin, repairing the external damage.
He didn't move when he wine was poured over the stinging, raw wound.
He didn't stir when bandages were wrapped carefully around his newly-stitched midsection.
He didn't speak when Athos moved in front of him, a strong hand gripping his shoulder.
The physical pain was taxing, trying to take his attention away from the internal anguish he could feel at the edges of his consciousness. His side was raw and fiery, making his breathing ragged and his heart pounded so hard his vision pulsed with black spots every time it beat. His head sang with pain.
D'Artagnan realized abstractedly that he felt strange, that it was too easy to let go of these sensations. He found that the physical misery could be ignored just by simply withdrawing, simply shifting away.
His focus turned inwards, and what he found took his breath away once again. The pain he was feeling physically was nothing compared to the agony in his mind. He tried to find the words to express the gaping void of loss and torment in his hollow chest.
Constance was dead. He couldn't make himself care about anything else, couldn't make himself answer the increasingly worried calls of Athos, couldn't stop the solitary tear running down his otherwise blank face.
Memories flashed before his eyes, like the flickering of a candle's flame.
Her beautiful face contorted with fear and meeting her lover's eyes in a mute, pleading farewell.
Her expression of delight when he surprised her with the necklace that had soon become her most treasured possession.
She hadn't even been able to scream. He hadn't been able to do anything except stare as his love plunged to her doom with one hand outstretched, as if he could reach out and save her.
Her quick look of love that was just underneath the surface of every expression, every gesture she made.
The soft rustle of her crinoline skirts against the wooden floor, and the curve of her smile as she looked at him from the other side of the table.
In the end, it hadn't mattered how many promises they made or how many vows he had taken, promising to protect her.
When she fell, she was alone.
Was it the pain in his mind that he had felt when Constance had gone over the edge, or was he screaming aloud? It was too loud inside his head with the pain repeating over and over in a trapped loop, and he couldn't hear anything anyway. He closed his eyes and screamed, succumbing to the anguish.
The screams, each more terrible than the last, set Athos' teeth on edge and made a chill run up his spine.
"Athos, talk to him!" Porthos exclaimed amid d'Artagnan's cries.
"D'Artagnan, stop!" Athos yelled, hoping to snap his friend out of it.
"It's too late; he can't hear you!" Aramis shouted over the noise.
"Just knock him out, for God's sake!" Porthos shouted, the desperation and fear showing in his eyes.
Athos cocked back a fist and landed it squarely on the Gascon's jaw, catching him when he slumped backwards. The cries ceased immediately, and the ensuing silence was somehow worse than the screams had been.
"Oh, hell," Porthos said miserably, trying to control the outpouring of emotion he felt.
Aramis took a deep breath, trying to collect his scattered thoughts and reorganize his feelings.
Athos stood up and staggered a few step away, looking out over the ocean towards the horizon. Aramis stayed by the prone figure of their friend.
"Constance?" Porthos asked unhappily, knowing in his heart what was true. Aramis looked down at the broken necklace dangling from his pocket, then to the cliff's edge.
Athos had his eyes closed to the dying sun set. A tear fell from his downcast face into the swirling, restless waves below.
After an interminable period of time had passed, they pulled themselves together. D'Artagnan needed rest, and to be properly looked after. Porthos didn't remember much of the ride back to Paris, just knew that it was quiet and raining. D'Artagnan rode double with Athos, remaining unconscious the entire way. Aramis rode next to his large friend, immersed in his own sorrowful thoughts.
When they arrived, Porthos picked the drenched d'Artagnan up bridal-style and carried him up the steps to Athos' apartments. Athos went to tell Treville what had happened, while Aramis fetched medical supplies and laid them out carefully in case of emergency later.
Athos joined them shortly afterwards. A few words were exchanged without meaning, and silence reigned over the room again. The musketeers settled themselves in the room, seeming restless despite their lack of motion. They were all wearied from the day's events, and they each gazed at d'Artagnan occasionally, who slept on.
Eventually, they all dropped silently off to sleep. Athos fell into a light, restless slumber leaning against the wall with his legs stretched out in front of him.
Hours passed. Shortly after the church bells had struck half an hour after three in the morning, d'Artagnan awoke. He sat up and crept noiselessly around his sleeping companions. He went to the balcony and looked up at the sky. His head ached, but he pushed away the feeling, until it mattered as much as sleep did to him in that moment. A single thought circled in his mind. It was faint at first, but grew in clarity and resolve as the night went on.
He waited patiently for the vow to solidify itself in his mind, knowing he was helpless to resist, the way a pebble was against a landslide. The slow passage of time was marked by the turns of the cold stars that unblinkingly kept watch on the sleeping streets of Paris.