~§~

Treville closed the door behind himself before moving to his desk and dropping into his chair, feeling every bit like a man twice his age. The bottle of brandy was still more than half full, but as he poured himself a glass, the Captain knew he wouldn't be able to stop there and that bottle would not suffice.

What a mess.

He had never been a terribly religious man, but given the current state of affairs, Treville had to wonder if his lack of piety had brought God's wrath upon his roof. As a basic rule, he hated to agree with the Cardinal, but what sort of Captain could he really call himself if he kept losing men like sand between his fingers?

First Savoy, then the explosion, and now this whole...

As a Captain he could not let his heart rule his decisions and had no choice but to force himself to look at the facts as they were presented to him. Aramis' erratic behavior, the bloody blade found with him and that woman's certainty that Aramis had been the one to use it...it all painted a very clear image.

The man himself seemed unwilling to proclaim his own innocence. When Aramis had finally regained his senses, after the physician had forced him to inhale some sort of vile-smelling mixture, he had inquired as to why he was imprisoned, looking more confused than worried.

The blow to the head, courtesy of the overzealous innkeeper, seemed to have robbed him of any memories of the events of the last few hours, which did nothing to help matters. The Captain had refrained from offering too many details to the injured man, not wanting to influence his memories in any way, should they ever return, but it was clear to see the doubt and fear in Aramis' eyes when he was told that a man had been killed and that he and his weapon were the only things found nearby.

It was that doubt, more than anything, that had made Treville leave the brig in a foul mood and take refuge in his office.

The brandy burned his throat as he swallowed, giving his mind something else to focus rather than the present situation. He was pouring a second glass when there was a knock on the door. "Come!"

Athos' face was composed and without judgment as he eyed the glass and bottle on the Captain's desk. Treville picked up another glass and poured him a drink. Athos had grown close to Aramis, and even though he was not one to show it, the situation had rattled him as well.

The man accepted the drink with a gracious nod, downing the whole contents in one swallow.

"What news?"

Athos set the glass on the desk, facing his commander with a steady gaze. "The man was an escaped convict," he offered. "There were irons marks around his left ankle, and when we went about looking for information on the matter, we discovered him to be one Gerard Gillion," he stopped, giving the Captain time to recognize the implications.

Treville frowned. The name sounded all too familiar... "One of the men who tried to blow up my garrison?"

Athos nodded, grimly. "He was reported missing from his cell yesterday evening," he added. "None of the Red Guards on watch seemed to know how he managed that, but one did mention that there had been a Musketeer there, visiting around the same time."

"Aramis?" Treville asked, surprised at this turn of events. What a peculiar coincidence, that the Cardinal, after months of denying him access to the prisoner, would have granted him an audience on the eve of the man's escape and ultimate assassination.

"The guard did not say," Athos supplied, his face contorting in disgust. "It would seem that, for him, all Musketeers look the same."

"And Gerard?"

Athos' hand fisted around the hilt of his sword. "The slashed throat was what killed him, of course," he reported. "Other than that and the scar Aramis gave him during their fight, there were no wounds to be found on his body."

"At all?" the Captain asked, suspicion growing in his mind. "Not even on his wrists?"

Athos gave him a pointed look. "What are you implying?"

Which, in a sense, Treville knew to be deserved. In the time the former Comte had served in his regiment, it had been easy to become reliant on the man's fastidious and meticulous reports. If it wasn't mentioned, then it never happened.

"Just now, when we took the ropes from Aramis' wrists, the skin was already red and raw," the Captain explained. "And he hadn't been hanging from them."

Athos' eyes lit with understanding. "No rope marks, which means they were placed after Gerard was already dead," he voiced. "But that still doesn't tell us who killed him. Or why."

The Captain nodded. It was, after all, the crux of the matter, even though they didn't venture to say it out loud. They were out to find who had killed Gerard, all hoping that such a road would not lead them back to Aramis.

"There was one thing though," Athos let out, a sly smile on his lips. "No blood."

"What do you mean?" Treville asked. He had seen plenty of blood painting the murdered man's clothing.

"No blood on the floor, and none on the walls," Athos clarified. "When was the last time you saw a man have his throat slashed open and not leave a ample evidence around himself?"

'Never,' Treville thought, knowing there was no need to voice it. As Captain of the Musketeers he had stood witness to countless executions, not all of them by the noose. When someone lost their head, it was a gory sight indeed. And one that left its crimson marks on everything surrounding the executed. Including the executioner. "No blood on Aramis either." Athos was right. That cellar had been entirely too clean and unless Aramis had found the time to change his clothes, he was not his murderer. "Gerard wasn't murdered there," Treville concluded.

"He was not."

~§~

Aramis pulled his knees up to his chest and curled his arms around them. The position pulled at the welts in his back, but he didn't much care about such small discomfort. He was cold, shivering through his layers of clothing, teeth chattering inside his mouth no matter how hard he clenched his jaw to prevent them from making such an eerie noise.

The Captain had been kind enough to allow him to keep his doublet and his arms free of chains, but that was as much mercy as Aramis knew he'd get in a prison cell. The floor was damp despite the straw covering it, and the stone walls held no warmth or comfort. A bucket, left in the darkest corner of his cell, smelled like it hadn't been emptied since the last occupant of the place had used it and the cot had a slash across its middle, straw spilling out like a gutted fish. It smelled of one too.

Even though he knew getting to his feet and walking would make him warmer, Aramis possessed neither the strength nor will to do so. His limbs felt like they were filled with lead, heavy and stiff as cannon balls.

He let his head drop to his bent knees, feeling a small amount of relief as his neck stretched and the pounding between his ears abated some. His mind, however, would not be at ease, not enough for him to find proper rest.

Aramis had barely felt the sting of the surgeon's needle as he stitched his head, his ears ringing with the Captain's words as he tersely told him what was going on. Aramis had almost been able to see faith and duty, battling inside Treville's eyes, as the Captain presented him with facts that painted Aramis as a cold blooded killer.

Terror like none he had felt before had taken hold of Aramis' heart at the time. What if his mind had become so lost, so beyond saving, that he had taken a life without knowing? How could the Captain place any faith in him when Aramis could hardly have faith in himself?

There were times, he was aware, when his thoughts were not his to command. Moments when his mind would wander without his consent and present him with visions and memories he would rather bury and forget. Stretches of time where he did not know where he was or what he was doing. It would all seem so real, as tangible as reality itself, down to the smell of gunpowder and blood and the feeling of cold against his skin...

For a number of months now, ever since the events of Savoy, Aramis had come to realize that he could not trust his mind as he had once before. Like a drunkard who tells all of his secrets under the sway of the wine and doesn't remember doing so when his mind clears. Or a possessed man who speaks in tongues he shouldn't be able to understand.

Once more, he tried to force his mind to recollect the events of the past day, but everything beyond the evening meal was nothing but a blur. He remembered Serge telling him that supper was to be roasted turnips, something he knew Aramis disliked fiercely, making him decide to go find his meal elsewhere. He remembered going to a nearby tavern, where the meals were light on the pocket and hearty on the stomach. Try as he might, he could not recall what he had eaten there… or even if he had reached the tavern at all.

Why couldn't he remember that meal? Or going back to his rooms? Maybe...

Unbidden, Aramis' mind went back to the hunt. He remembered the King's failed shot with his musket, he remembered Poitier falling on the snow and after that...after that his mind was a blank until the moment he had arrived back at the garrison.

From the wisps of conversation around him, and the venomous looks the others at the garrison sent his way, Aramis had been able to gather that, instead of helping Poitier, he'd almost killed the man. His heart had frozen at the discovery and he had walked in a daze for hours, a stupor that not even the Captain's punishment had been able to break. And still he couldn't remember a thing...

Aramis ran his hands through his hair, wincing when his fingers brushed against the fresh stitches. What was he supposed to do with himself when he no longer knew who he was?

How could he defend himself when he was no longer sure if he was a Musketeer or a murderer?

The sound of heavy footsteps pulled him from the swirling thoughts inside his head. He was grateful for the distraction, as his thoughts were leading him nowhere and only succeeding in making his head hurt all the more fiercely.

Porthos was carrying a torch, its flickering flames casting waves of light and darkness outside Aramis' cell. He hadn't even noticed that, outside, the sun had begun to set.

"Aramis," Porthos whispered as he stopped in front of the locked door. "How are ya, m'friend?"

Aramis would have laughed at the question, but such a reaction would probably make him look more deranged than what he already felt. "It's bigger than my quarters at the garrison," he said with a strained smile, extending his arms to show how much room he had.

Porthos didn't look like he was fooled by the display at all. "Yer head?"

Aramis unconsciously brushed his fingers across the fresh stitches. "Still attached, for now."

It was of poor taste to make jest about something like that in his current situation. Aramis regretted the words almost as soon as they left his mouth, watching as Porthos' face lost its color and the torch trembled in his hands. "I'm sorry, mon ami," he hurried to say, struggling to his feet. "My mouth, like my mind it would seem, fails to obey me sometimes."

"We'll get ya out of 'ere," Porthos offered fervently. "No innocent man should suffer these conditions!"

Aramis followed his friend's gaze to the thin window high above their heads before looking down. A candle, almost at the end of its life, was the only other source of light inside the cell. "And a guilty one?" he found himself asking, keeping his face turned as he dared not see Porthos' reaction to his words. If he were to catch any shadow of doubt in the other man's dark eyes, Aramis knew that whatever was left of his hope and sanity would flicker away, like the dying candle.

Porthos said nothing, the silence stretching until Aramis could stand no longer the thump of his own heart and the coil of his stomach. He slid back down, taking advantage of the wall to support his descent, and returned his aching head to his knees. "You should go," he whispered, shamed by the break in his voice. He was not a child; he would not shed any tears over his damned life.

A hand touched his arm, startling Aramis. He looked down to find Porthos' strong fingers grasping the leather of his doublet. The tall Musketeer had fallen to his knees outside the cell, arm stretched through the bars to reach his friend. The touch did more to dispel the cold than his own warm clothing.

"Ya didn't kill tha' man!" Porthos said, his voice strong and sure. "Plenty of Musketeers hated his guts for what he did, any f'them could've seen fit t'defend the Musketeers' honor!"

Aramis blinked at those words. Why would the Musketeers hate...When his mind supplied the answer, Aramis pulled away from Porthos' hand, getting to his feet in one fluid movement.

The attack on the garrison had happened just a few months before, only one of the assailants left alive in the aftermath of the explosion and the fight in the sick rooms. Aramis could remember the man's face in perfect detail, from the color of his eyes to the faulty patch of beard on the left side of his face.

The same face came to him now, drained of color everywhere but the ugly gash across his throat, hands hanging limp and blackened above his head.

Unable to control his body, Aramis could only hold on to the wall for support as he emptied his stomach on the floor. Porthos' concerned voice, calling out his name, eventually managed to cut through the fog of dry-heaving.

"Aramis? Shit, mate...do ya need me t' fetch a guard?"

Aramis managed to control his nausea long enough to take a shaky breath, holding out his hands to stop Porthos from calling anyone. It was bad enough that he had lost his composure so thoroughly in front of his brother. "I'm good," he croaked, his voice broken by the vile aftertaste in his mouth.

"If tha's good, I don't wanna see bad," Porthos hissed. "'m callin' that physician back! Did he even take a proper look at your head?"

"Peace, my friend," Aramis called out. "I just...remembered something."

Those words stopped Porthos faster than any plea. "From today? Ya remember wha' happen'?"

Aramis bit at his lip, unwilling to show how much Porthos' enthusiasm robbed him of faith in himself. No matter how much the other man spoke of his support and belief that Aramis was not to be blamed for that man's death, that thirst to know what had happened gave him away as having doubts. "Not much...I remembered the murdered man," Aramis confessed. "I remember waking up and seeing him."

"Alive?"

Aramis shook his head, wincing at the movement. "He was already dead."

Porthos' hand reached through the bars, patting his arm. "It'll come to ya," he said. "Will ya be alright?"

Aramis covered the supporting hand with his own, taking comfort in the warm skin. "What other choice do I have?"

~§~

"How is he?" Athos asked, as he descended the steps from Treville's office. Porthos joined him at the bottom, both moving to sit at the wooden table. The midday meal was long gone, but neither was finding food particularly appealing.

Porthos leaned his head on his hands, rubbing his head vigorously, like he wanted to scratch his brain. "Not so good," he relayed. "He can't remember wha' happened and-"

"And?" Athos prodded, his blue gaze intense as he watched the other man. Porthos, Aramis and himself had become close for nearly three months now, and even though it felt like he had known these two men his whole life, he was aware that there was still much he did not knew about either.

"He thinks he might've done it," Porthos whispered, looking around to see if anyone was paying attention to their conversation.

"And you?" Athos asked, point-blank. There was really no reason to circle the matter. The only one who could be offended by the question wasn't there. "Do you think he could have done something like that?"

Porthos studied his hands, fingers interlaced on the table top. "Aramis is a man of honor, I trust'im with my life… but ya were there, at the hunt," he started, biting his lip. "Ya saw what happen'...wha' almost happen'..."

Athos nodded. He had only reached them after Porthos had pulled Aramis away from Poitier, but he hadn't missed the empty stare in the younger man's eyes. It was like the body was there, but the spirit was absent. "We've seen it before," he reminded the taller Musketeer.

Porthos sighed. Of course he remembered. "Do ya think it's some kind of affliction?" he wondered. "Like a fit or somethin'?"

Athos pondered the matter. There had been a servant at his parents' house that had been a former soldier. The man performed his duties without flaw, but for some reason, whenever he saw a string of sausages, he would lose the contents of his stomach and would answer to no one calling out to him for more than a day. The look in his eyes was very similar to what he had seen in Aramis'. He tried to remember the name of the servant, but all that Athos could seem to recall was that he had ended up taking his own life during one of those...episodes. "I think...you should find out more about who this Gerard was and what motives were behind his actions."

"Why?"

"Because until Aramis remembers his part in the events, Gerard's motives and reasons are all that we have."

~§~

Treville stared at the crack in the wall in front of his desk, next to his cot. It had always been there, but the explosion of three months before had made it wider, the cob layer peeling and eroding like dry skin. With so many buildings in need of repair and the King's lesser disposition to finance the repairs, it had been left behind in deference to other, more important things.

Gerard, the only one left from the three attackers that had brought such destruction to his garrison, was dead, and Treville could not shake the feeling that he was missing some important fact about the whole matter.

At the time, he had been beyond furious that the Cardinal had robbed him of his chance to find out the truth from the villain's own mouth. Treville, however, had not been idle, not when Musketeers' lives had been lost.

As covertly as possible, the Captain had launched his own investigation. It hadn't taken much effort -a stroke of luck, one might call it- for him to discover why there had been a group of Red Guards standing outside the garrison at the time of the explosion.

They hadn't been there to gloat. They had been waiting for their companions, the men lighting the fuse. The Cardinal's men.

It could not be a coincidence that Gerard's death happened so soon after the Cardinal's accusations about a traitor in the midst of the Musketeers. Had those accusations been about any other man other than a Musketeer -or had in fact come from any other mouth other than the Cardinal's, with his loose interpretations of the truth- Treville would've been tempted to see the logic in a criminal disposing of the man who had supposedly been his accomplice in the garrison's attack. But the Captain knew better.

Even so, he felt with all his heart that he was still missing an important piece of the puzzle.

His eyes were fixed on the ugly crack but his mind was far away, replaying the events of that day months ago, when he had caught the three men, red-handed, in the armory, a lit fuse leading to the pile of gunpowder barrels.

At the time, it was easy to assume that their only purpose had been to blow up the garrison, but that made little sense. Such number of barrels would have been hardly enough to blow up a structure as big as the Musketeers' barracks, and even if every single building had been consumed by the blast, what was there to gain from it?

Treville thought back to that day. Three men had managed to pass unnoticed all the way to the armory, at the heart of the garrison's grounds. Three men do a job that one could have easily accomplished.

Treville hadn't been in his office much that day, he remembered, too busy on the yard, watching the tryouts for the new men and then he had returned to his desk to deal with some pending paperwork...

Treville blinked. He had arrived at his office to find it in complete disarray, papers scattered everywhere...In the light of the events that followed, he had completely forgotten about the state his desk had been in prior to the explosion.

Three men, not to light a single fuse, but to search his quarters for something. What could those men have possibly have been looking for?

It was unlike him to keep secretive documents at his desk, or anywhere in his office, for that matter. Anything of a delicate nature was swiftly dealt with to avoid it falling into the wrong hands. In his cabinets he kept only information pertinent to his men and mission files -

The Captain's blood turned to ice in his veins. It couldn't possibly be, could it?

Pushing his chair hastily away, Treville opened the cabinet where he kept all of the mission files since the beginning of the Musketeer regiment. They were organized by year, but he didn't need to look far. The particular document he was searching for had only be added some months before. The mission to Savoy.

Maps, lists of supplies, members of the troop sent on the exercise, of the dead...It was gone. It was all gone.

~§~

Uncovering the origins of a particular person was not an easy task when most people didn't even have a scrap of paper stating who they were or when they'd been born. Outside of nobility, few care about such matters. It also made it easier for any who chose to -or needed to- change their life completely, to re-invent themselves as whomever they chose to be.

Porthos had some experience in that matter. He could barely remember his mother, deprived of her company since too early an age. He had been left with no one else able to give him answers to the simple questions of a man's existence, like the day he had been born, or the name of the place his mother had been born and stolen away from, or even who his father was.

What little he knew of his mother could be surmised more like to a compilation of unfairness and harshness than the life of the brave and joyful woman that she had been. His mother, Mbali, had been a freed slave who had come to Paris in search of a new, better life. Instead, she had found herself taking refuge in the Court of Miracles with a small child in her arms, forced into a life of misery because she had had nowhere else to go.

She had been a tall, beautiful woman, Porthos remembered that much, even if pain and suffering had bent her body into that of an old lady, despite her young age. A devout woman, his mother had decided to change her name to Marie when she arrived in Paris. The commoners grave where she had been laid after the fevers took her had said nothing of who she was or what she called herself.

Of his father, he knew even less, certainly not enough to have a last name that he could claim as his own, if he would ever feel inclined to honor in such a manner a man who had abandoned him and his mother to their fate. Which he would not.

Porthos knew full well where he was from and where he had learned all of his life lessons. The streets of the Court, for those who lived there, were like ravines, treacherous and steep and deadly to those who walked in their shadows. When he had joined the infantry and his commander had asked for a name for his records, Porthos had known exactly what to answer. He was from the ravines, du Vallon.

Unlike most, Porthos had no idea about the specific day or month he had been born, even if he knew well enough the day he had become who he had been born to be. For him, that was his birthday, the day he had joined the Musketeers. And it was a day he would celebrate every year for as long as he drew a breath.

Thus, knowing how easily one could change their name and paste, Porthos was not the most optimistic about their quest.

Finding a dead man's past was not an easy task at all. The body had been left unclaimed in the cold vaults underneath the city, at the 'house of the dead', so there was no one from the man's former life to talk to. The guards at the prison had never seen anyone visit and the man himself had never mentioned a family or even a mistress.

Still, there had to be someone in the world who had known him, had some sort of relationship with him. Such was the human nature, to form relationships. But if there were any, they were having no success in finding them.

"What about the other two men?" Athos asked, following the monk in charge of preparing the bodies for the afterlife. "From the explosion at the garrison," he explained. "Did someone come to claim them?"

"What were their names again?" the monk asked, his small figure moving amongst the rows of tables with dead bodies like he was walking through beds of fresh vegetables. How he could cope with the smell was anyone's guess.

"Jacques and..." Athos said, his mind stumbling on the second name.

"Etienne," Porthos supplied.

The monk picked up a large, leather-bound book and carried it closer to a candle before opening the thick pages. "Let me see here...ah! Yes," the monk let out, his dirty finger following a particular line of elaborate handwriting. "Jacques Bennoit was given a commoner's burial, but young Etienne...his mother showed up to claim him."

"Her name?" Porthos pressed, looking over the shoulder of the monk to read himself.

"Cussac," the monk supplied, giving Porthos an annoyed look. "Juliet Cussac."

~§~

"'Tis this one!"

Aramis looked up as the voice sounded right outside his prison cell. On the other side of the bars stood four Red Guards holding torches, looking at him with matching sneers.

"What do you want?" he asked, rising to his feet, defensively. He was not in a mood to deal with their nonsense, nor did he cared for their reasons to be there. Usually, the rivalry between Musketeers and Red Guards was kept under a pretense of chivalry by the presence of an audience. In this dark place, there was no one to see.

"We have orders, from the Cardinal," one the guards said, waving a piece of rolled paper like it was a white flag. "You're to come with us."

Aramis felt cold sweat run down his back. Bleak as his situation was at the moment, at least in the brig he was under the authority of his Captain, a man who he respected and knew to be honorable. If he was taken somewhere else... "Where will you be taking me?" he asked, watching hopelessly as the nervous jailer opened the door to his cell. "Where are we going?"

The Red Guard sniggered, grabbing his arm hard enough to bruise. "You'll soon find out, Musketeer."

"I demand to speak with the Captain before going anywhere with you lot!" Aramis voiced, pulling away and retreating to the back of the cell, his arms raised in a show of surrender that belied his words. The last thing he wanted was to give the Red Guards any excuse to turn the situation into violence.

The guards simply smirked, producing a length of chain and a burlap sack to dangle in front of him. "Ah...the murderer thinks he has rights," one of them said, making it sound like the most endearing thing he had ever listened to. His eyes hardened to steel as he took a step closer. "Ya can either come with us quiet as a mouse or muzzled like a dog. Yer choice," he voiced, the heavy chains swinging in his hand as he moved forward. "Personally, I'm more of a dog person..."

Aramis ground his teeth to stop himself from answering the provocation. There were four of them against him, but the cell was small, undoubtedly bound to hinder their movements and make them less inclined to draw their swords, for the risk of striking each other rather than him.

It was a disadvantage on their part that could greatly help him. Perhaps, it would even be enough to give him time to alert the Captain to what was happening.

He attacked first, right hand swinging to the faces of the two men in front of him, knocking one across the ear and pushing the other's face to meet the hard wall. His leg followed his body's rotation to kick the guard holding the chains to his left. The fourth one, encumbered by the other two tumbling in front of him, had neither time nor space to react as Aramis moved back and flung his elbow into the stunned man's face.

The guard grabbed at his nose, howling in pain as blood spurted from between his fingers. Aramis allowed himself a quick smirk of satisfaction, before he saw the man's eyes widen in pure terror.

The Musketeer turned in a lightning-fast movement, his right arm coming up to protect his face on pure instinct. He was, however, already too late.

There was nothing but murderous intent in the guard's eyes as he swung the chains with all of his strength, not caring about anyone caught in the middle.

The length of iron hit Aramis' forearm hard enough to shatter bone, sending him to his knees, gasping in pain and clutching at his arm.

The guard behind Aramis wasn't so lucky, as the links struck him on the side of the head, pushing bone inside. His lifeless corpse fell on top of Aramis, sending the two of them tumbling in a mess of limbs to the floor.

"You'll pay for this, Musketeer!" one of the guards snarled, kicking at the fallen prisoner.

Aramis, however, registered little of that. He barely reacted when the remaining guards used the bloodied chains to secure his hands behind his back, heedless of his broken arm, and pulled the stiff burlap sack over his head. In the near suffocating constriction of the rough cloth, he saw only the dead eyes of the guard, staring back at him from the snow of his memories, foe and friend switching faces like it was some kind of perverse game.

His boots trailed across the floor as the guards dragged him away, the well-worn leather scraping against old stones until they hit the street. Fresh air caressed his skin, making Aramis shiver.

His senses returned slowly, as he registered the smell of wood and horse. He could hear voices at a distance, the blabbering noises of men outside some tavern. They were moving him out in the dead of the night, a shrouded action that made Aramis' insides churn for what it meant.

~§~

AN: Mbali, the name I completely made up for Porthos' mother, means Flower in Zulu, one of the many Bantu languages in South Africa.

AN2: As always, my gratitude goes to my two wonderful and brilliant betas Laurie_bug and Jackfan2, for making this readable. Any lingering mistakes are of my doing.

AN3: For those of you reviewing and who I'm unable to reply by PM – THANK YOU! UKGuest, Jmp and Guest, I loved your words!