A/N: Because the first chapter is so short and doesn't have much story content, I thought I'd also post the second chapter. This gets into the meat of the story.

Warnings for depression and possible suicidal thinking.


Finding the Will: Splitting Up

"He's bleeding pretty bad, Athos." Aramis was kneeling next to Porthos, who hadn't made so much as a moan of pain since taking a hit from a pistol handle to his head. The marksman was still in shock over how quickly the larger man had gone down. Around them were a number of dead bandits. Between the three of them, none of the twenty who attacked them survived. Their attention, however, was on Porthos, who was bleeding heavily from a head wound. There were some minor cuts and scrapes as well as some spots that they could see would soon bruise, but otherwise, he'd no visible injuries. Aramis thanked God for small mercies. He may have his doubts about God right now, but such small prayers and offerings of thanks were second nature.

"Other than the head wound, what are his injuries," Athos asked. He was kneeling on the other side of Porthos.

"There are some ribs that are loose, but they don't feel broken." Aramis carefully felt the ribs, pressing gently so as not to further injure. "Looks like three, maybe four. He's not going to be able to ride far, even if he was conscious."

"There's a village nearby," Athos said. "One of us can get him there while the other goes on."

For the moment, Aramis ignored the proposed plan. He visually examined Athos, knowing that the man wouldn't actually let him near. There seemed to be nothing serious, just some areas that would soon begin bruising.

"You know that we can't delay any further on this message." Athos didn't need to remind him. He remembered Treville's warning that it was of the utmost importance that the message arrived by Thursday. It was Wednesday now and if they rode without pause they would make it just in time. The route would be dangerous, even more so now with the increased potential of a bandit attack. It would be too dangerous to consider taking an injured man all the way there. Not that it would be safe for just a single rider either.

"I'll take the message," Aramis said. "You take Porthos to the village. I'll ride back once I drop it off and meet you there."

"And how far would you make it?"

Aramis gave him a puzzled look.

"Would you really be able to fend off any attackers with your shoulder wrenched out of place as it is?"

Was it out of place? He had to admit he hadn't really noticed. There was some pain in his left shoulder and his arm wasn't cooperating with him, but it was a simple fix.

"Put it back in place and I'll be off."

Athos gave him a look he didn't like: absolutely not.

"So how I am supposed to fare any better getting Porthos to the village," Aramis snapped.

"You'll have help there. Let's first get your shoulder set and then we'll bind his ribs and take care of the head wound." His tone brokered no argument.

They worked together to take care of Aramis' shoulder and Porthos' wounds. The arm would have to be bound later, but for now, Aramis needed full range of motion to keep Porthos steady on the horse. During their ministrations and clumsy movements to get Porthos on Aramis' horse, the larger man never woke, nor uttered a single moan. It wasn't so much that he was that much bigger than them, but that they were not in their peak physical shape. Both knew, though wouldn't ever admit, it wasn't the battle or its aftermath that was the real culprit. They were both men in their prime of life but felt well past. In their melancholy, what was once muscle had lost much of its tone and both showed the effects of skipping more than the occasional meal. They were weary, not from battle, but from life.

Aramis waited long enough in the meadow to watch Athos ride off. In their movements to help Porthos, he was sure Athos was hiding an injury. The swordsman had nearly lost his balance more than once and had to be paler than normal. But it could have been the lingering hangover, as well. The man drank more than he ate; how he was still alive was a mystery to Aramis.

Once he could no longer see the older man, Aramis prodded his horse to start moving. It was awkward and slow going. Porthos sat limply in front of him. They'd tied his feet to the saddle give him more stability and leave Aramis with less that he had to balance with his wounded shoulder. He held the reins with both hands, his arms awkwardly looped around Porthos' waist. The reins to Porthos' tied to his horse's saddle, though the horse likely would've followed anyway. This left him with less to worry about.

He arrived in the village during the mid-afternoon, perhaps a few hours after leaving the skirmish site. It wasn't that it was further than Athos said, but he'd had to move slowly to keep his awkward grip on Porthos and deal with his shoulder, which he was only reluctantly admitting to himself was painful. Finding the inn and help in getting Porthos to a room turned out to be an easy task. The small village was welcoming, especially to a couple of wounded Musketeers.

The room had two beds and a table with a couple chairs. There was a window facing the west and looking out onto a grassy meadow. It was a quiet room, for which Aramis was grateful. Whenever Porthos decided to regain consciousness, he would need the quiet to deal with his pounding head. And, Aramis had no real desire to be around noise or people. In fact, he'd given the innkeeper instructions to send wine and meals to the room. He explained that he couldn't afford to leave his friend while he was so injured. The innkeeper gave the two a look over but said nothing negative about the strange request.

With the innkeeper gone, Aramis set about unpacking and taking care of Porthos. He stripped the man of his weapons, doublet, boots, and stockings. In the process, he re-examined him. Other than the wound his head, there were no major cuts. The head wound, he cleaned and stitched, all the while steadfastly ignoring the pain in his shoulder, his shaking hands, and the nagging voice of Athos in his head to bind the arm as soon as he settled in.

"Honestly, Athos, how do you expect me to bind it if I don't have a second set of hand," he said aloud to the Athos in his head. He hoped it would shut the voice up. The consistent, dull tone was only serving to make him more annoyed with the man than he usually was. There wasn't anything he could point to that made him dislike him. The certain air of refinedness that he carried was odd because he couldn't place it, but the usual haughtiness that accompanied such refinedness was lacking completely. Though some of that could be that the man was nearly always drinking. It didn't affect his Musketeer duties, not after the one incident when he'd been so drunk he lost to Porthos in a practice duel. His sword went flying as Porthos deftly knocked it out of his hand and sent it clattering in front of Treville. That had at least curbed some of Athos' drinking.

He wrapped some bandaging around the head wound and moved onto the ribs. He undid their hurried bandaging. With the closer examination, he found he'd been correct in his diagnosis to Athos earlier. Just some cracked ribs, nothing broken. Re-wrapping the ribs wasn't easy, but he knew that it'd provide some comfort once Porthos woke and keep him from further injuring them.

With Porthos taken care of, Aramis carefully removed his own doublet. Other than the dislocated shoulder, he'd gotten a cut on his leg, which had long since stopped bleeding, so he cleaned it and wrapped a bandage around it. He then settled in for a long wait, making sure to keep a clear eye on Porthos. The man hadn't moved on his own since he was knocked unconscious hours earlier. Aramis might have been worried, but he was a trained medic and knew that this wasn't uncommon with head wounds. If the man didn't wake by tomorrow, then he'd have something to worry about.

He was glad to be done and really wanted nothing more than to lay on the other bed, but he needed to keep watch. Sitting up left him feeling as though his head weighed twice as much as it should. Standing wasn't much better as he was often off-balance and definitely lacked his usual grace, though that had been missing for a couple months now. The world still spun when he sat, but he could manage it better. Closing his eyes helped with the blurriness and tilting of his surroundings, but he could not afford to do so right now. So, he forced himself to remain awake and alert.

Time passed not by the chiming of the bells on the quarter hour as it did in Paris, but by the moving of the sun. As the afternoon passed into evening, the room grew brighter with the lowering sun. The light triggered a headache that seemed to pound in time with the waves of dizziness. A firm series of knocks at the door startled him as they crashed through the silence. He rose from his seat on high alert, the chair tilting over and clashing with the knocks to cause a spike in his headache and the sudden movement made his vision go black. He threw a hand out to steady himself against the table.

"What is it," he called out. He kept a hand on the table and was bent over, trying to regain his bearings and ease his discomfort.

"Dinner, like you asked for." It was the innkeeper. Aramis took a deep breath, steeled himself, and straightened to open the door for the man. The innkeeper placed the food and wine on the table and left. The man clearly understood that Aramis was in no mood to idle chitchat or inquiries into other matters.

When the door closed behind the innkeeper, Aramis lasted seconds before the smell of the food combined with the discomfort he already felt, forced him to make a dash to the chamber pot to vomit. There was little in his stomach to come up. He'd not eaten lunch and had picked at his breakfast. Thus, it was bile and dry heaves before long. He groaned and sank back on his knees when he was finally done. His throat was sore as were his ribs and his headache had increased exponentially, it seemed.

And still, the smell of food permeated the room. He swallowed carefully.

He rose from his spot to consider his options. As much as he wanted to toss the food outside, that might only serve to irritate the innkeeper who might find it later and Porthos might awaken later and, if not feeling too poorly, be able to eat something. The man was always hungry or at least always ready to eat, a likely byproduct of his childhood in the Court.

So, he took the wine and sat on the other bed as far from the food as he could manage. With his boots off, back against the wall, and feet resting on the bed, he was finally starting to recover. The wine was helping as well. It was slowly numbing his aches, both physical and not. While not the drinker that Athos was, Aramis now was accustomed to drinking his fair share, finding it a suitable balm for the memories that constantly plagued him.

Porthos was none too pleased. Neither was Treville, but Aramis couldn't be bothered to care.

Sometime during the night, Porthos began to rouse. Aramis had dropped off to sleep, the now empty wine bottle slipping out of his grasp. He slept lightly as had become custom lately whenever he did manage to sleep, so he woke easily to Porthos' shiftings and groans of pain. Aramis pushed himself to his feet and walked in the dark room over to Porthos.

"Porthos," he called gently. The man was likely to have a terrible headache and waking in the dark wasn't going to do much for his awareness. Porthos wasn't fully awake still, but the calling of his name did settle him some. Aramis tried again, forcing himself to not touch his friend. He didn't want to startle Porthos into any sudden action. It took a few more attempts before Porthos became anywhere near alert and coherent.

"'Mis?" His voice was weak and scratchy from unconsciousness.

"Yeah. How's your head?"

"Hurts. What happened?"

"We were attacked by bandits en route to deliver a message for the King. You were knocked unconscious."

Porthos grunted in acknowledgment, rubbing a hand lightly over his head.

"Anywhere else hurt? I couldn't find anything other than some cracked ribs and some bruises."

Porthos took a minute to assess his body, working to ignore the overwhelming pounding in his head.

"Nah, nothing major."

"Good. You should get some rest. I don't have any hot water to brew you a tea for the headache, so you're best off just trying to sleep some of it off."

"Where are we?"

"A village nearby where we were attacked. Get some rest."

It was a testament to how much Porthos was hurting that he didn't ask any further questions. For which, Aramis was grateful. While he knew the Porthos' head was aching, he himself was starting to become light-headed. It might have been the lack of food or from his own head injury from a couple months ago that refused to heal. Either way, Aramis ignored it and went back to his former position on the bed.

Aramis slept lightly, unwillingly, waking in starts from both nightmares and Porthos' movements. Once more during the night Porthos woke enough to talk coherently. Aramis helped him drink some water, waited until he was asleep again, and returned to his spot on the bed. After his last nightmare, murky snatches of snow covering in patches and blood spurting, splattering, the sharp clashing of metal against metal, he woke with the scent of frantic life or death fighting closing in him on. His stomach churning, he rushed for the chamber pot. Again, it was dry heaves as his stomach clenched painfully and his head pounded. He tried to keep the noise to a minimum so Porthos wouldn't wake, but soon he heard a light shuffling from the bed.

"'Mis?"

"Go back… to sleep." Aramis didn't want an audience. There was a reason he slept alone now, why he'd given up showering the lovely ladies of Paris with gifts to afford a cheap apartment where no one knew him and no one would bother him from hearing strange noises. His comrades thought he was back wooing the ladies. If only they knew what he faced in the dirty, run down room.

Fortunately, Porthos didn't rise. Aramis knew he was only acting on muscle memory, so to speak. It was Porthos who'd been assigned to help him during his recovery. The man was unnervingly patient. He never once asked for him to talk about anything, just sat there with a deck of cards play any number of solitaire games.

Then the doctor released him and Athos came.

Aramis remained by the chamber pot. With his head aching and the light headedness returned, he didn't have the energy to rise. Instead, he sunk back to rest his back against the wall. The floor was dirty and hard, but it might serve better than the bed to keep him awake.