A/N: Thank you guest Laureleaf for your review! I'm glad you enjoyed the previous chapter. ^_^

This one's for Enigma TM, who asked for a tag to 2x6 regarding that callback to Savoy with the bird on the awning.

"Flew A Raven Darkly"

Wing beats thwacked like drums, a rising crescendo of rushing feathers and trumpeting croaks. Aramis rolled onto his side, white powder crunching beneath him. A large black bird sat inches from his face, one beady eye cocked in a vulturine mien. It opened its beak and let out a shrill scream. Others responded, a cascade of tenebrous shadows detaching from frozen bodies and rising up like a wave to crash upon him…

He came awake with a ragged gasp, thrashing his arms to ward off the razor sharp beaks aiming for his face and limbs. He failed to strike anything, and the snow-covered forest he'd been in a moment before gave way to a dark room. Aramis reached for the candle on the bedside stand, fingers fumbling to light it. The resulting flame sent the shadows skittering like a shower of black feathers. His chest heaved as he scanned the room in search of those beady eyes that had seemed to bore into his soul and pronounced judgement on it. He rubbed his face. There was nothing there.

Just when he thought he'd put the memories of Savoy behind him, some inane thing triggered them again. He'd woken up on an awning under a blazing sun to a raven, of all things, pecking at his body. He was not dead, but to find himself once more the target of carrion scavengers had apparently been more than his mind could handle. It was as though Death's harbingers were determined to remind him that he was not so far beyond their reach. That they knew he'd escaped the fate slated for him back in that forest and would one day come to claim him as was his due.

Interesting that they kept failing. Surely a fall out a window like that would have done the job. Either Fate favored him, or Death mocked him.

He wasn't sure which was worse.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and winced as pain pulsed through his thigh. He leaned forward and gripped the injury where splintered window frame had gouged through flesh and muscle, squeezing tight to send more fire lancing through the limb. Because he hadn't wounded his leg in Savoy, and the pain there reminded him of where he was now, in the present.

It was almost dawn, so he got up and dressed, then went down to the yard and sat at the bench to wait for morning muster. The air wasn't particularly cold, but Aramis couldn't shake a chill that had been stitched into his very bones since Savoy. Like the thwacking wing beats and whispering feathers, it dogged him without mercy.

When morning light began to spill across the sky, Serge brought out some porridge and wordlessly set it in front of him. Aramis scraped at it with the spoon, not feeling particularly hungry.

Athos and Porthos arrived, dropping heavily into the bench seat across from him.

Porthos eyed him with unveiled concern. "You all right?"

Aramis forced a light-hearted smile. "If that trip out the window didn't kill me, this gruel might."

Porthos huffed, but the amusement didn't reach his eyes. They fell into silence which didn't break even with d'Artagnan's arrival. After breakfast, they lined up in the yard. Treville gave out the orders, allotting their group to stay at the garrison and train.

The captain shot Aramis a brief look that warned he was not to participate. Aramis tipped his head in acknowledgement and returned to his place at the table to sit and watch. Sword work was out while his leg mended, but he could have done some shooting. Except that his head ached fiercely.

He watched Athos and d'Artagnan spar for several long minutes, until the image started getting superimposed with that of other musketeers engaged in a battle for their lives. Bodies fell into white among splashes of red. A Stygian bird alighted at the top of the stairs and belted out a guttural gurgle, its eye narrowing in on Aramis.

He grabbed his wounded leg and squeezed, willing himself back to the present. But it wasn't working like it had with the remnants of his nightmare. The pain in his head and the sounds of clashing blades was too overwhelming. He dug his fingernails in. A flutter of wing beats rushed past his ears.

"Aramis!"

A hand seized his wrist in a vise-like grip, and he snapped his eyes open to find Porthos crouched beside him, looking angry and worried.

"Why the hell you doin' that?" he demanded, yanking Aramis's hand further away from his leg.

"Just rubbing the sore muscles," he said quickly.

Porthos's eyes narrowed sharply and he lowered his voice. "You were somewhere else." He hesitated. "Is this about yesterday?"

Aramis shook his head, paused. "Not exactly." He reached his free hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Perhaps I should get some more rest," he deflected, moving to stand.

Porthos kept a firm grip on his wrist for a beat longer before releasing him, that shrewd gaze still boring into him with almost the same intensity as those beady eyes…

Aramis gave himself a small shake and turned toward the barracks. "I'm fine, my friend," he assured, though the sentiment rang hollow in his own ears. He should be fine. But he wasn't.

He limped back to his room and sank onto the edge of the bed. Rest would do him good but he wasn't sure he could actually sleep. Not when the rush of feathers and Death's mercenaries waited for him on the other side of dreams.

It was only a few minutes later that his door opened and Aramis looked up, surprised and yet not surprised as his three friends entered without preamble.

"Porthos says you admitted to needing some rest," Athos remarked blandly.

"Shocking," Aramis deadpanned.

"Indeed." Athos raked him over with a critical eye that never failed to leave him feeling exposed. "Are your injuries worse than yesterday?"

"No."

Porthos growled low in his throat. "You made your leg bleed again."

Aramis looked down with a frown and reached to feel the back of his thigh, surprised to find a slight wetness in his breeches.

"You didn't realize you were clawin' it open?" Porthos demanded.

Aramis grimaced. "That…was not my intent."

"What was your intent?" Athos asked patiently.

He slouched in defeat. "I needed an anchor," he confessed.

"An anchor?" d'Artagnan repeated, quirking a dubious look at him.

"To the present," he explained. The boy had been with them for a while now, but there were some things d'Artagnan couldn't understand the way Athos and Porthos would. "My leg wasn't injured at Savoy. The pain…reminds me I'm not back there."

Porthos's eyes widened in realization and he cursed under his breath. "What brought that on?" he asked in a softer tone than he'd used previously.

"Nearly dying can bring up a lot of things," Athos answered, still studying him.

"It wasn't that, exactly." Aramis rolled his shoulder in discomfort, cringing when it pulled at bruises.

"Then what?" Porthos pressed.

He knew they wouldn't leave it, nor was it fair to ask them to. It just grated to still have this weakness clinging to him after all these years.

"When I woke up on the awning, there was a raven. Pecking at me." He looked away in embarrassment.

In the beat of silence that followed, d'Artagnan spoke up.

"I don't understand."

"When we found the site of the massacre at Savoy," Athos said in a subdued volume, "we had to chase carrion birds from the bodies."

D'Artagnan's eyes widened, while Aramis closed his against the memory. He'd chased the ravens away in the beginning, before the cold, disorientation, and exhaustion had dragged him down, and then he'd barely been able to fend them off from picking at his body as well.

"It's ridiculous," he scowled, mostly to himself. "Yesterday was nothing like Savoy. It's not even cold." He bowed forward and rubbed his head.

"That headache can't be helping matters," Athos commented after a moment.

Aramis shrugged.

"Will you let us check your wounds?"

He'd rather collapse into bed, but if he had in fact reopened the gash in his leg, then it needed to be tended first. He waved a hand in vague permission and got to his feet to remove his breeches. The bloodstain on the back of the pant leg wasn't that large, so that was a good sign.

He sat again and leaned down to roll up the leg of his braes.

Porthos knelt beside him and reached for it instead. "I got it."

Aramis only complied because he couldn't see the wound himself anyway, given its location. He winced as Porthos tugged the fabric up over the gash and undid the bandage.

"Tore one of the stitches a'right," he said. "It's weepin' a bit. Probably not worth re-sewin' though."

Athos handed him a fresh roll of bandages and Porthos set to rewrapping the leg. When he was finished, Athos then moved in close to check the back of Aramis's head.

"There's still some swelling," he reported, probing the area gently but still eliciting a hiss of pain.

"I can make that tea you showed me for headaches," d'Artagnan offered.

Aramis gave him a small smile and nod of thanks.

Porthos looked at the blankets rucked up on the bed. "Why didn't you come to me last night?"

Aramis sighed. "It was just a nightmare. I can't run to you every time I have one. At least one of us needs to have had a decent night's sleep and it sure can't be Athos."

Once again, his quip failed to draw out the expected banter.

"Yer not the only one haunted by yesterday," Porthos rejoined seriously. "I'd take you wakin' me every single night than to have lost my brother to that madman."

Aramis immediately gave him a contrite look. "I'm sorry. I know you would never turn me away." He shook his head wearily. "It's just that it's been six years. I laid twenty-one ghosts to rest after Marsac." After he'd finally learned the truth. "When will they stop coming back to haunt me?"

It was a rhetorical question, as there seemed to be no answer, but Porthos replied anyway.

"Not sure they ever do," he said sadly and threw a glance at Athos, likely thinking of Milady. Aramis wasn't the only one whom the past liked to taunt with resurrected ghosts.

"Jus', next time you need remindin' yer here an' not there, talk to one of us instead of inflictin' more harm on yerself, alright?"

Aramis inclined his head. "I promise."

D'Artagnan handed him a cup of the steeped tea, and he took a moment to simply inhale the aroma of the herbs.

"You should get back to training," he said.

"I can stay," Porthos immediately countered.

Aramis reached out to pat his arm. "I'll be fine. Besides, I know where to find you."

Porthos still looked reluctant, but Athos gave him a nod to usher him out. D'Artagnan smiled in encouragement as he left as well, leaving Aramis alone.

Not alone, though. His brothers weren't far. They never were.