Summary: The announcement of the Queen's pregnancy brings to mind another child loved and lost.

A/N: Thank you guests Laureleaf and Uia for your reviews! So my queue has run out and I'm in the middle of writing a multi-chapter fic, so I won't have anything to post Saturday. I'm hoping to start posting the next story next week Wednesday. (And I do have a Luciole chapter for next Monday.) So stuff is still coming up, just a little more spaced out than usual.

"What Never Was and Can Never Be"

Aramis stared straight ahead at the open road, his gaze more distant than the far horizon could reach. His horse needed no guidance from him to keep up with its stable mates, whose riders' banter bounced back and forth over him and failed to draw him in as it normally would have. His heart was too heavy, had been increasingly so since the announcement of the Queen's pregnancy a couple of weeks ago. Aramis knew in his soul that child was his. The court believed it was the King's. Only Aramis and Anne knew the truth—and Athos. The look he'd shot Aramis in the palace that day had telegraphed his suspicions. Aramis was going to be a father.

Only not.

"What's gotten into you?" Porthos's gruff question broke through his morose thoughts.

Aramis blinked and turned his head. "Nothing."

"Mm-hm." Porthos's expression was unconvinced. "Yer too quiet."

"Contemplation is good for the soul," he replied breezily. "You should try it sometime."

Porthos harrumphed. "D'Artagnan's got cause to be a little maudlin, an' Athos is Athos. What's yer excuse?"

Affairs of the heart just like their youngest, though Aramis could not admit so.

"Just because I choose to exercise silence on occasion doesn't mean I'm brooding." Even though he was.

He pulled back on his reins abruptly as he recognized the countryside they were passing through—they weren't far from where Aramis had lived as a youth.

The others drew their horses to a stop and threw him questioning glances.

"Something wrong?" d'Artagnan asked.

Aramis straightened under the sudden urge that entered his mind. "I just remembered I have something to take care of. Go on ahead and I'll catch up."

"All the way out here?" Porthos said dubiously.

"What is it?" Athos asked.

Aramis waved a dismissive hand. "Just an errand. Our mission is complete; I'm not abandoning my post." He kicked his horse into action and rode off before they could ask any more prying questions.

It felt strange traversing these paths; he'd never thought he would return after the dishonorable debacle that preceded his departure when he was sixteen. Not that he intended to make his way all the way home; no, he had one destination in mind as he rode across a field toward a lone tree growing in the middle, its branches gnarled and bowed against a blue backdrop.

Aramis dismounted and walked toward the base of the tree. It was still there—a small wooden cross erected in the shade of the weathered sentinel. He knelt down before it, eyes fixed on the marker though there was no grave, only a memorial put there to honor the life that had been lost before it had even been born.

Aramis tilted his head back and wondered what things would have been like had Isabelle not lost the baby. They would have married as arranged. Would they have lived in a cottage not far from here with that one child? Would there have been more? Would the first have been a boy or a girl? Aramis pondered what he would have done to provide for them. Worked for his father making honey brandy? Plied another trade? He honestly couldn't picture it though he truly tried to. He tried to imagine living that life, but it paled in comparison to the one he had now.

Aramis hated to admit that Isabelle had been right: he would not have been happy. His heart yearned too much for adventure. How long would it have been before he'd sow his discontent? Would he have become more and more like his father, a man saddled with a burden born more of obligation than of love? Or would he have eventually left to seek that life of adventure and danger, his family a fond but distant aspect of his life?

No, Aramis would not have deserved Isabelle and their child were they both still alive. And he did not deserve the family in the making back in Paris that could never be his anyway.

He bowed his head and prayed for his unborn child—both of them—and the women he loved and ruined by not having enough restraint over a heart that loved too eagerly.

The sound of a pistol cocking broke the stillness of the afternoon. Aramis opened his eyes and turned his head. He supposed he wasn't surprised to find Isabelle's father standing a few feet away; the family still lived in the area. Nor was he surprised the man would hold a weapon on him.

"I thought my eyes were deceiving me when I saw you ride this way," Matthieu bit out.

Aramis slowly rose to his feet. "I was just passing through."

"You dare to come back, after all this time. After…" His voice choked off in obvious grief. Isabelle had died four months ago but the pain was still fresh for a father. Aramis knew that well.

He didn't know what details had been conveyed to Isabelle's family by the nuns, but probably a tale of her faith and heroism in defending the Queen. "I'm sorry for your loss," he said sincerely.

Matthieu's eyes flashed with anger, his gaze narrowing on Aramis's uniform. "I heard musketeers were at the convent. Was it you?"

"Yes. I was there when Isabelle…" His heart constricted at the memory. "She was very brave. She died with honor."

"That's the life you chose," Matthieu spat. "Not her."

Aramis could not argue with that. "I'm sorry," he said again.

Matthieu's hand shook as he kept the pistol aimed. "Your words mean nothing. Why did you come back here?"

Aramis gestured mutely at the grave marker. "I never stopped thinking of them."

Matthieu's brow furrowed for a moment before his expression hardened. "None of those things would have happened to my daughter if not for you."

Again, Aramis couldn't dispute that. "I never meant ill toward her," he said helplessly. "I loved her."

But love was his crime, wasn't it? Then and now. And his sentence was to be denied the things he thought he wanted.

Isabelle's father had yet to lower his pistol and Aramis faltered at how to talk the grieving man down, for his pain was real and justified. Before Aramis could promise to leave and never return though, they were interrupted by the sound of a horse galloping across the field. Aramis was dismayed to see it was Athos, his own pistol in hand.

Athos pulled back on the reins as he reached them, not aiming his weapon but keeping it up at the ready. "Stand down, monsieur. We are King's Musketeers."

"It's fine," Aramis assured quickly. "We were just talking." He turned his attention back to Matthieu. "I'm sorry," he said once more. "I won't darken your lives again."

After another fraught beat, Matthieu flicked another look at Athos and finally lowered his pistol. Then he turned and walked away without another word.

Aramis's heart was just as heavy as when he'd decided to come out this way, which he now saw had been a mistake.

"What was that about?" Athos asked.

Aramis strode toward his horse. "Just a misunderstanding."

Athos looked toward the cross on the ground. "Who's buried here?"

Aramis swung up into the saddle. "No one." He kicked his horse into a trot and turned away from his past for the last time.

o.0.o

Ever since the Queen's announcement, Athos had been watching Aramis like a hawk. The marksman's stupidity knew no bounds and Athos was worried he would pursue liaisons with the Queen. So far he hadn't, and the mission taking them out of Paris had been a relief on Athos's nerves. He hadn't anticipated this growing melancholy that was taking hold of Aramis. He'd actually almost expected the man to be in overly good spirits, perhaps privately gloating over his conquest: in one night he'd managed to do what the King could not in years.

But this sordid affair wasn't turning out to be the same as the one with the Cardinal's mistress, and Athos was at a loss as to what to expect.

So when Aramis begged off for "an errand," Athos didn't know whether to be concerned or not, given they weren't in Paris or anywhere near the Queen. But again, Aramis could find trouble in an empty room, so Athos told Porthos and d'Artagnan to keep going before trailing the marksman at a distance.

Athos had not expected to see Aramis stopping at a lone tree in the middle of nowhere and kneeling to pray. It made him almost ashamed for spying and he considered turning around but then he saw a man coming up and pointing a pistol at Aramis. After a few moments when the marksman made no move to defend himself, Athos finally drew his pistol and broke from the cover of the tree line, riding fast to intercede whatever confrontation was happening.

"Stand down, monsieur," he ordered. "We are King's Musketeers."

"It's fine," Aramis interjected. "We were just talking."

Athos frowned as Aramis apologized to the older man.

"I won't darken your lives again."

The man hesitated before lowering his weapon and turning away. He and Aramis seemed to know each other, but Aramis wasn't being forthcoming with the details of what just happened. Then Athos spotted the small cross on the ground.

"Who's buried here?"

"No one."

Athos glowered at his friend's back as Aramis rode away. He turned his horse around and nudged it into a canter to catch up. "You knew it was here. You came to pay your respects."

"Leave it alone, Athos."

"Leaving you to your own devices has proven hazardous to the sanctity of marriage and State."

Aramis pulled his horse up sharply, and Athos was taken aback by the sheer vitriol in the man's eyes. "Is that why you followed me? What did you expect me to do all the way out here?"

"I was concerned—"

Aramis scoffed and nudged his horse into walking again.

"You haven't exactly been exercising good judgement lately," Athos threw out. He saw his friend flinch in the saddle. "And seeing as how you managed to anger someone 'all the way out here,' it was a good thing I did follow you."

"His anger was born of grief. His only daughter was the nun who died at the convent."

Athos blinked in surprise. "Sister Helene?" he recalled after a moment trying to dredge up the name. Her death had been regrettable, and now that he remembered, Athos thought Aramis had seemed rather affected by it at the time. "Is that where she's buried?"

"No," Aramis said, not looking at him. "There's no body there."

Athos huffed in consternation. "Then what—"

"It's a memorial for our unborn child," Aramis said stiffly. "I put it there after she lost the baby and her father sent her away. To that convent."

Athos stared at the back of Aramis's head in bewilderment. "Your…"

"I was sixteen. Her name was Isabelle then. We were going to marry, and yes, it was because I got her pregnant," Aramis added bitterly. "But I loved her. I thought she loved me. But after she lost the baby, she went to a convent and apparently asked her father not to tell me where. I searched for a while but…eventually I had to move on. I left home and became a soldier and haven't been back until today."

Athos found he hardly knew what to say in the face of this revelation. "I'm sorry," he offered, though it felt hollow.

Aramis's shoulders lost some of their tension and he hung his head. "Not a day has gone by I haven't thought of them. The family I almost had but never was."

Athos stiffened as he began to understand what had been on Aramis's mind these past few weeks.

"And now there is another that can never be mine. I know what you think of me, Athos, but it was not a crass dalliance. I was grieving and she was lonely. That night I wasn't a musketeer and she wasn't the Queen. We were just two people surrounded by death trying to comfort each other."

Athos let out a weighted breath. "I do not think you insensitive, my friend, just impulsive. And my concern has always been that you will get yourself into a situation that I won't be able to get you out of." He waited a beat before continuing. "You must stay away from the Queen, Aramis. That child, it is not yours."

"I know." The anguish in his voice pulled at Athos's heart. Aramis already knew this, and thus the distress that had been festering since the Queen's announcement. The lothario may have loved too freely, but it was always sincerely, in his own way. Of course he would love a child begotten in an act of love.

"That child will be the heir to France," Athos said. "As musketeers, we will watch over them, protect them. Your brothers will watch over them. That will have to be enough."

Aramis nodded and lifted his head. "I know," he repeated a little more steadily. He cast a side look at Athos. "And I do have a family I would not trade for anything."

Athos quirked a tiny smile in return. Aramis drove him mad at times and could infuriate him beyond belief.

But that was what younger brothers were supposed to do.

And the older ones would work to keep them in line.

And safe.

Athos did not begrudge the responsibility, for he too had found a family to fill the void left by one that'd been lost.