"Ramon! Ramon, where are you?" Jacqueline yelled throughout the garrison.
"What's wrong Jacqueline?" Siroc poked his head out of his laboratory.
"I can't find Ramon. Wait, what are you doing in the laboratory? Did you clean your room like I asked you to?"
Siroc rolled his eyes. "Yes mother," he muttered sarcastically.
"Then, would you please help me look for Ramon? I can't find him anywhere," Jacqueline ignored the snide comment, more focused on the missing toddler.
"I finished the dishes Jacques. Can I go now?" D'Artagnan stood in the doorway of Ramon's room as Jacqueline kneeled on the floor, searching under the furniture for the missing child.
"May I, and no, you may not. I need you to help us find Ramon," she stated as she ripped open Ramon's closet.
"I haven't seen him in the garrison at all. He might have gotten out. He wasn't in the room when I woke up," Siroc reported back. Jacqueline practically hit herself. Why hadn't she gone looking for him when he wasn't in bed with her that morning. Then she remembered why, D'Artagnan.
Jacqueline blushed slightly at the memory of the way D'Artagnan had "innocently" laid his hand on her chest sometime during the night. She had been too busy telling him off for touching her than to notice that Ramon was gone.
"Split up. We'll meet back here in one hour. Ask around, see if anyone has seen Ramon at all!" Jacqueline ordered the boys out of the garrison. As they spread out, she took a deep breath. Ramon's fate was in her hands now. If she didn't find him, who knew what would happen to the little boy.
"Ramon! Ramon!" Jacqueline yelled out down the streets.
Ramon was scared. "Mama," D'Artagnan and Siroc weren't around. The busy streets of Paris were confusing and hostile to the toddler. "Mama! Mama, where you?" Ramon yelled down the streets.
"Oh, are you lost little boy?" A young woman bent down to Ramon's level. Her loose, long brown hair hung down, framing her smiling face and bright blue eyes. Ramon felt he could trust this young woman's honest features. "What's your name?" The teenager asked him.
"Wamon." He answered.
"Ramon?" She clarified. "My name's Baptista. Who are you looking for?"
"Mama."
"Well, I'll help you find her." Baptista put out her arms, silently asking Ramon if he wanted to be carried. He walked up to her and snuggled into her warm embrace.
"Well, aren't you friendly?" Baptista chuckled at Ramon's fearless manner. "Let's go find your mother." She set out with Ramon resting comfortably on her hip.
Jacqueline was scared, more scared than she'd ever been in her life. Ramon's life was in her hands, and she had failed him. Then, she heard a faint voice, and turned in that direction.
"Mama!" Ramon yelled again, sitting restlessly on the hip of an unknown, yet familiar looking woman.
"Ramon!" Jacqueline yelled back, not caring that dozens of people could have connected her to the cry for a child's mother, not a musketeer. Yet, as people are prone to do, they ignored the yells that did not affect them.
The young woman set Ramon down, and he ran full speed toward Jacqueline. "Oh Ramon, I was so worried. Don't you ever, ever run off again, do you hear me?" Jacqueline scooped him up into her arms and held him tight. She then looked around to thank the woman who had found him.
But Baptista had silently left them, smiling at their joyful reunion. She figured that this musketeer, like her brother, was a lady's man, and thought that endearing himself to children, even to the point of allowing them to call him mama, was a clever way of finding more women.
Jacqueline sighed. She had wanted to thank her, and also she if she could remember where she had seen that face. It was so familiar, she was sure she had met the girl before.
"Ramon, let's go back." Jacqueline gave up, and clutched Ramon's tiny hand tightly in her own.
That night, as Jacqueline was tucking Ramon in to bed, he startled her with a simple statement.
"I yove you mama." He gave her a big grin and a kiss to go with the sweet saying.
"I love you too Ramon." She smiled back at her surrogate son. Jacqueline marveled at how much she had really enjoyed the last few days. Sure they had been hard, but she grew to love Ramon, Siroc and even D'Artagnan, as children of course. They really had become almost like sons for her. They were part of her joy in life now, her children.