In their room, Aramis lit a new candle from the single one they'd left burning in its holder on the table, found d'Artagnan deeply asleep still, breathing steady and without apparent stress. Satisfied, he went back to the table to mix a second batch of herbs, then nestled the wide-mouthed mug among the glowing coals in the fireplace so it would heat up and stay warm if needed in the night and took himself off to bed too.
He was as tired as he'd claimed and dropped off quickly, an unusual gift, for he often wrestled long and hard with Morpheus before sleep eventually claimed him. He did not even wake to Porthos and Athos entering the room, boots in hand, just in case.
It was rare for Aramis to be the first to bed, and when he was, they had learned to come in quietly, for if he had fallen asleep and woke on their return, he rarely found sleep again that night. They all had their foibles and had - without ever discussing it - found ways to compensate in a manner that allowed each of them to retain a measure of dignity even in the worst of times.
They had not acquired their nickname by chance, they were inseparable because they had quickly discovered they were better together. Each complimented the others in a dozen small ways, making the whole stronger and more capable than any of them could be individually. Together they were virtually unstoppable, instead of rather than despite their individual faults.
Porthos built up the fire again, shifting logs and adding kindling with no more than a pop here and there as the flames licked at particularly porous knots full of sap. Since they were sleeping indoors, and in a real bed, he stripped to his smalls and crossed the width of the cool room quickly to slide into bed beside Aramis.
Sharing had been ingrained in the pair from working together prior to Athos joining the garrison. Beds had often been scarce on missions, so sharing had become a habit rather than one or the other sleeping on the floor. Unless the bed was so small as to require entangled limbs. Aramis drew the line at that, since Porthos slept like the dead from the moment his head hit the pillow to the moment his internal clock woke him in the morning. Moving him was a physical impossibility.
Athos did not share well. He was not a heavy sleeper either and would - if required - share with Porthos, but he refused to sleep in the same bed as Aramis, since the younger man tossed and turned a great deal.
So Athos ended up on the ugly couch, since he was definitely not sharing with the puppy, as Porthos had christened their youthful tag-along, even if the kid slept as unmoving and silent as a boulder. In awhile he would move since he didn't mind sleeping on the floor, but for now, slumber would not be wooed and so long as he did not try to squeeze his whole body inside the sloped arms, the sofa was tolerable.
The capricious wind had carried bits and pieces of the afternoon's conversations up to him, a word here, a tone there. The youth's wistfulness had lifted the heavy bars warding the vault of his memories, wrenching open doors Athos had kept carefully closed for going on five years. Perhaps the stress of facing a firing squad intent on ending one's life had sapped his strength, but he could not seem to force them shut again. Memories daylight had made transparent came tumbling out now like puppies at play, romping heedlessly through the well-ordered rooms of his mind, leaving muddy footprints behind.
An artist's easel stood sentry in one of those tidy internal rooms, the brush, wielded by an exquisite unseen hand, painting idyllic scenes on wide canvases. A meadow full of blossoms shoulder-high on little boys, the summer sun enhancing the fragrance of the flowers and warming young bones grown cold over the long winter in the too big house with only governesses and tutors for company. A merry rill that, in his mind even on the canvas, trickled with the most delightful melody a childish ear could ever wish to hear, where the stones were set just right for skipping across the water with unfettered joy. A forest of trees surely planted with small children in mind, limbs spread wide to cloudless autumn skies, with views from their tip top branches that Athos had been sure as a child, went all the way to Belgium. And on yet another canvas, snow fell in silent drifts, coating trees with magical twinkling brilliance and hills with deep covers of cold white flakes so falling off a makeshift sled was like falling into the feather mattresses on their beds.
Flowers bloomed, faded, and bloomed again, in the jewel box gardens surrounding the house. And then there came to life on the canvas, a picture of his mother from the last time they had been together, the sunshine-hued gown pooling around her feet rivaling the golden yellow of the patch of daffodils behind the bench. Thomas, at ten, snuggled in beside her, Athos' mature fourteen lounging at her feet, though in his memory, they had both been raptly involved in her story of life at court.
Athos was careful to keep his sigh silent as he lifted an arm to drape over his eyes, closing him inside the darkness of his mind. The invisible artist was not done. Life had not been all drudgery, even after he had inherited the title just a few days after that memory had been made. The loss of their parents had had less of an impact on carefree Thomas, whose experience with their parents had been limited to begin with and whose life had not been disrupted by the sudden change in circumstances for the new comte.
Thomas had been irrepressible. Full of life and determined to live every moment of it to the fullest. Their scrapes and adventures had been legendary, though Olivier - as Athos had been called in his youth - had been more of a scapegoat than a companion. Being the title bearer, the fallout had not rained down so much when he took the blame, as it had been wont to do on Thomas for his misdeeds
There had been mad dash horse races, curricle challenges, wrestling matches to test their youthful strength, lazy days fishing or wandering the estate on horseback and on foot. And time to reflect, alone in the evenings in the massive library.
But then the artist's hand faltered. The brush strokes became broader, details blurred, the edges lost their crispness and the pictures became dark, though in his memories, uninhibited joy had reigned in those first months of his marriage.
Crushing despair brought Athos to his feet. He'd spent five years trying to escape those memories, he would not let them drag him back to the bottom of a bottle. Finding his boots where he'd left them by the door, he tiptoed out again and headed for the stables. He needed to clear his mind, not muddle it further with alcohol.
d'Artagnan might be the catalyst for opening the memory vault, but it was not the youngster's fault and blaming him was neither fair nor sporting.
Collecting his horse, he walked it from the barn, grabbed a hank of mane and swung up to ride bareback at a cautious pace down the long, rutted track that led back to the road. But the moment they turned onto it, he bent over the black's neck, giving the horse leave to stretch out in a league-eating stride that he halted only when weariness began to loosen his tightly clasped knees and the fingers clenched in the coarse mane. They stood for a long time, horse and rider blowing equally hard, before Athos turned them back toward their temporary abode, straightening upon the wide, bare back to return at a more sedate canter.
He rubbed the horse down, replenished the hay and passed out nose rubs and pats to the three still snuffling drowsily in their stalls before heading inside the inn.
Perhaps the trip down memory lane educed the memory of his valet, whose dour face appeared in Athos' mind's eye as he sat to remove his boots at the bottom of the stairs.
He had inherited the man servant as though the valet came with the title, passed on as part of the entailment from father to son. Thomas had urged him repeatedly to pension off the old retainer and find a younger man as replacement, but Athos had never been particularly comfortable with the intimacy of a valet, and a new one would have meant a further intrusion into his privacy. His father's valet, at least, had been someone he'd known.
He no longer wore boots he could not remove himself.
Athos shook off the clinging memories and headed up the stairs, cracking open the door of their room to slide through. He set his boots down quietly, clicked the door closed with barely a snick and leaned back against it to let his vision adjust to the much lower light. The wick of the candle on the table guttered, hissing a soft death rattle, in its own puddle of wax. Across the room the fire had burnt down to little more than a glow of coals.
Aramis, a fiend for fresh air, had cracked the window open between the beds. Athos went to close it since either the room had chilled considerably while he'd been gone, or the ride had chilled him.
He did not hear so much as sense the distress in the bed with the single occupant. Athos froze, half twisted as he turned from closing the window. Between heartbeats he realized it had not been entirely his own despair that had driven him from the room, the wrenching desolation hovering like a miasma over d'Artagnan had affected him as well. Of its own accord, his stockinged foot slid toward Aramis, then stopped.
Both he and Porthos had apprenticed as Aramis' aides, he was skilled enough to deal with small emergencies and he'd seen the mug in the coals. Still Athos hesitated. He was not particularly keen on the fact that the youth had already wormed his way into their trio, no matter how indebted he himself might be to the young man.
But if he woke Aramis, no one would sleep the rest of the night. He was more than tempted to do so anyway, but in the end, Athos moved silently across the room, collected the mug and returned to d'Artagnan. He had to peel back several layers of blankets before his questing hand encountered overheated skin. No doubt the concoction in the mug would deal with that, but beneath his hand, the hot shoulder heaved with silent weeping.
The youth startled at his touch, caught for an instant between dreams and reality. "Father?"
The hoarse whisper, so full of shining hope as d'Artagnan tentatively trod the bridge to wakefulness, winged its way like an arrow straight through Athos' well-defended borders. Some undetected icy bit not even Athos had realized he still harbored melted under the onslaught of that single utterance. And in that moment, despite his best efforts, he lost the battle. He would never be a father and he was too young to be father to this youth, but, he grudgingly acknowledged, if only to himself, there was something imminently likable about the youth.
Perchance being around Aramis had coaxed his empathy back to life, perhaps it was the not-too-distant memory of Aramis' response to his own tortured nightmares, but Athos set the mug down carefully at his feet and sat on the side of the bed. He did not speak, for that would wake both d'Artagnan and Aramis. He bent forward, sliding one hand beneath a hot, damp cheek, wiping away the unconscious tears with a tender thumb. The other he cupped around the back of d'Artagnan's neck, fingers slipping into the sweat-soaked hair to knead gently.
"Father," d'Artagnan murmured again, nestling into the cradling palm with an absolute trust that could not be feigned.
Athos felt the distended tendons at neck and shoulder relax instantly, then tense again as reality regained a foothold. Athos deepened his breathing and let his hands convey all the warmth and tenderness he imagined a father might feel for his child, gentling the glide of his fingers to a slow, steady rhythm.
d'Artagnan's labored breathing slowed as well, the tears drying on his cheeks as peaceful repose was restored. On a deep sigh, as though on some level his subconscious whispered truth, he rolled to his back, flinging an arm above his head.
Athos released him gently, though his hands felt strangely empty when he did. He did not rise immediately, but sat listening to the subtle sounds of grief only another sufferer could discern. He knew its muffling effect, the pall it cast over mind and body, the life force it sucked out of its victims.
He had been grieving for five long years; it was time to put off his mourning and live again. Perhaps d'Artagnan had been placed in his path for a purpose, though Athos did not adhere to Aramis' belief that God's hand could be seen in the day to day business of life.
Still, now that he had relaxed enough to at least lower the walls around his heart, he heard the resonant hum of a like-minded soul, though one as yet little tarnished by the vagaries of life.
Athos rose quietly and drew the covers back over d'Artagnan, then stood another moment in the darkness, contemplating. He had turned brusquely away from Porthos' suggestion that he had any kind of mentoring skills, but hadn't he spent the last three years mentoring the younger sons of the nobility - not necessarily to greatness, but at least to competence.
Aramis had been right too; d'Artagnan, even hurt, had made him sweat when they'd crossed swords. The youth had fire and zeal, passion, and even skill, aplenty; what he needed was tempering.
Life's forge had seen to it that Athos had had plenty of tempering.
Aramis would say a fourth squared them off and made them stronger, a table instead of a tripod. Porthos would just say - it's a good fit - and, as usual, they would both be right.
Athos felt his way around the end of the bed, tossed the coat he shrugged out of to land with a light whuffle over the back of the sofa, snitched one of d'Artagnan's blankets and laid himself down on top of the covers. After all, staying in close proximity would allow Aramis to sleep and they'd all be better off in the morning, as a sleep-deprived Aramis tended to be captious. If he woke himself occasionally and soothed their youthful companion back to sleep again, no one was the wiser.
As the sun came questing through the windows seeking to wake the slumbering, Porthos, always first to respond to morning's caress, peered muzzily around the room counting heads as was his habit when out on assignment.
One in the bed next to him, one in the bed on the other side of the window and one still asleep in front of the fireplace.
All was right with the world.