Over the next couple of days, Aramis woke briefly several times. They were always hopeful that he would be back to himself when he did, but each time, he looked confused and then passed out again.
And then, he went a whole day without waking up at all, which scared them even more.
But the day following, all three of his brothers happened to be with him when his eyes opened again.
Athos, usually the one to speak for his brothers, leaned over Aramis, saying softly, "Aramis? Can you hear me, mon ami?"
Aramis' eyes moved slowly from one of their faces to the next silently.
Then, he frowned, saying in a raspy voice, something similar to what he had said before.
"W..why are you h..here?"
"Why would you say that, brother," Athos asked him.
"I d..don't w..want you wh..where I am," he said,j his voice breaking with the pain of the emotion he was obviously feeling.
Athos persisted, after sharing a glance with Porthos and d'Artagnan.
"Where are you, Aramis?"
He stared at Athos. "You are here. You know."
""No, I do not know where you believe we are, Aramis," he said as gently as possible.
"I..we..," he stopped, pain registering on his face. "I am d..dead. H..he said I would b..be. B..but y..you sh..shouldn't be h..here. N..not here," his voice, the stuttering increasing, was barely audible, overcome with the emotional pain he was going through.
All three of his brothers were sharing his pain.
And then, all three of them mouthed the name of his nemesis, Villefort, their faces furious. Somehow the man had introduced this idea into his captive's head while he had been having him fed with the drugs.
Athos tried talking to him again.
"Aramis, we are not dead. Neither are you, mon ami. Someone, an enemy, told you that you were, because he wanted to hurt you. Please, lojj
ok at us. We are alive, and we love you."
He did as Athos suggested, looking intently at each one of them.
Porthos spoke now, saying, "Can a dead man do this, Aramis?" taking his brother's hand in his own, feeling Aramis' hand quiver as he did so. The marksman's eyes flew up to Porthos' face, studying it.
"I..I'm not d..dead? he said, his voice filled with hope.
"No, you are not, Aramis. Can a dead man feel human touch like you do with Porthos now? Or with myself?" as he slowly and gently took Aramis' other hand. D'Artagnan laid a hand on Aramis' shoulder.
As they watched, tears started to fall down their brother's cheeks. He looked up at them again, as if he could never see them enough.
It was a highly emotional moment.
But after a few minutes, though, the marksman's eyelids began drifting closed, even as he looked as if he wanted to be with them. It seemed almost as if it were beyond him to keep them open. Within moments, he was asleep again.
Athos stood silently for a moment, gazing pensively down at Aramis.
"I believe the aftermath of the drugs may be the reason he is unable to stay awake longer. They are pulling him into almost a forced sleep. From what we know, those drugs were used to keep him out of commission. But we do not know exactly what they were yet."
Porthos, looking upset, said, "How do we stop that?"
"At this point, we just wait it out. Once the drugs are out of his system, he should be fine."
Arsmis continued to awaken for brief periods for another couple of days, but, they thought, at least he wasn't confused, and he knew who they were.
He finally was able to stay awake on the third day.
They insisted that he needed to eat something, concerned at the look length of time without any food. He nodded, and d'Artagnan raced out the door to obtain a tray of food from Serge.
Aramis finished the broth and a bit of the bread, but was already tiring again. It was such an improvement from the days since they had found him, though, that they were happy with it.
The day following, he was much more himself, even though he was weak and tired. He insisted that he wanted to get up and sit by the window.
They didn't know if he was really up to it, but the fact that he wanted to do it, even insisting, made them give in.
He stayed awake for half the day, watching the men spatr out in the courtyard, and enjoying the bits of nature present around it, birds singing, a breeze blowing, and from the stable area the sound of a horse whinnying.
They could see when he began tiring, and despite his half-hearted protests, Porthos escorted him back to his bed. Despite his protests, he was asleep several minutes later.
The next day, Athos decided that they might try asking him about Villefort's kidnapping.
"Aramis, we need to ask you about what happened to you. Is that all right with you?"
Aramis, knowing they needed to know as much about Villefort's activities, nodded.
Do you remember what happened when Villefort kidnapped you?"
Aramis was silent for several moments.
Then, "I had been asleep. I don't know what woke me up, but when I started to lift my head off the pillow, something hit me. Hard. That is all I remember of being taken. I'm sorry it isn't more."
"Whatever he did after that, we have no way of knowing. But he had a body of the same size as yours brought to your room, and somehow started a fire in your room. Aramis ...," he couldn't go on for a moment.
Aramis, shocked to his core at what had happened, said softly, "Athos?"
"We…we believed you dead. It tore us apart with grief. There was a ...funeral. We could barely make it through it. The whole garrison attended. We grieved for weeks, mon never really stopped, not until we found you." Athos paused, not able to continue for a few minutes.
Aramis had known nothing, couldn't have known anything of what had been happening before they found him. He was utterly shocked that his brothers had to go through such an ordeal.
"I was kept in a dark room, tied on the floor. I was kept drugged most of the time. I would barely awaken, and two hooded men would come in. One of them had a folded cloth and a brown bottle. He would...hold it over my nose and mouth... until I passed out. It happened so many times. I would struggle, but…I ...thought I was going to...die," his head hanging down as he spoke.
"Aramis," Athos said quietly, "we needed a miracle to find you." Looking over Porthos' shoulder and catching Alain's eyes, he continued. "And we received one. This is Alain."