Disclaimer: I don't own the Musketeers and general zombie concerns.

Note: Thank you so much for the fantastic reviews on the last chapter, I'm so happy that the Milady-Athos encounter didn't disappoint. I just hope no one tries to come through the computer screen and punch me for what I'm about to do...

Is there something more insane than insanity? because this is it!

the M~U~S~K~E~T~E~E~R~S - S~R~E~E~T~E~K~S~U~M eht

Life is Death is Dead
Chapter 9: —

He wanted to run, but the ashes underfoot cemented his feet in place. He wanted to flee, but it was as if the boned-hands of the dead beneath his feet rose up from the dark ash and grasped his ankles. Oh, how he wanted to scream, but the black pits of the physician's eyes stole his voice.

Lemay's arms outstretched as he drew closer, and it wasn't until a soft rasp left his open mouth that d'Artagnan's feet were released. But his knees were liquid, and he fell back on the ground, his sword caught up underneath him. Lemay appeared like a curious animal. His eyes wide and unblinking, his mouth agape, arms outstretched. He approached, his head cocking this way and that, his eyes locked on d'Artagnan.

The boy whimpered as the zombie dropped down to his level and crowded over top of him. Lemay was different, he wasn't like the other hybrid-zombies who had ignored him. Lemay was seeing him. The zombie seemed to scent his way of up the Gascon, sniffing him out. d'Artagnan's breath stuttered to a halt in his throat as he came face-to-face with the physician. His face was mostly cast in shadow due to their positions, but d'Artagnan could see the crescent of his dark irises.

A high pitched sound left the back of d'Artagnan's throat as Lemay thunked their foreheads together, their noses smushed. The scream inside his head was slowly building as he stared into the unblinking eyes of the monster. He smelt like non-existence. d'Artagnan's hot and heavy breaths reflected back against his lips and Lemay rasped at him, his teeth clicking.

d'Artagnan jaw worked for a moment until he was finally able to get out: "P-p... please...!" he cried out. He squeezed his eyes shut, he just wanted this nightmare to end! Where were the others? Why hadn't they noticed him gone yet!

He grimaced as Lemay ground their foreheads together, pushing his head roughly. He forced his eyes open, his body still locked in fear. Lemay seemed to stop his ministrations now that the boy's attention was on him again.

Why? he sobbed.

Lemay grunted, his jaw clicking as his mouth worked. They sounded odd, rough and guttural, almost like—

What—

d'Artagnan's breath stopped, but he felt hot air brush his face anyway. His eyes widened. It couldn't be true! He was delusional, he was—

It didn't matter that it was Lemay that had informed the Inseparables of his presence and the Cardinal's goings-on. In the time up until that point, the man had happily tortured and experimented with him and others. d'Artagnan wanted him to die, not to live. He'd felt relief when they had come to the conclusion in Aramis' room that the physician was dead after reading Milady's letter. He was free.

Slowly, all the monsters in his life were disappearing and he was becoming freer...

But Lemay kept plaguing him, badgering him, bullying him. The pressure was too much, the fear in his belly too tight. He couldn't do it, couldn't take it.

He opened his mouth and screamed,
lunging forward—

"You could 'ave just said by the one without its 'ead—might 'ave been a bit more 'elpful." Porthos commented dryly to the blue-eyed Musketeer as he and Aramis returned with the relit torch in hand.

The corner of Athos' lips twitched in response as he looked over his shoulder at them.

Aramis instantly straightened as he noted the absence. "Where's d'Artagnan?"

"He's—" Athos turned to look back over Milady's shoulder—but he wasn't. "d'Artagnan?" he called and received no answer.

"Where is he, Athos?" the Spaniard growled roughly.

"He was just there a minute ago!" he cursed at himself. "d'Artagnan!"

Only his voice echoed back through the empty street.

Milady chuckled. "Is your herd of little sheep dwindling? Perhaps there's a wolf in the field."

"Who did you signal?" Athos demanded.

"Tell us!" Aramis shouted when the woman didn't immediately answer.

"Now you are the desperate men."

Porthos made a very dangerous sound in the back of his throat as he stepped forward. Milady's eyes bulged as his free hand wrapped around her delicate throat, his large palm enveloping the thin shaft. She instantly scrambled at his wrist, but to no avail.

"Who did you signal?" He repeated the question. He squeezed. "Who?"

She choked. The others man no move to stop the big man. Desperate indeed.

"The wolf!" she rasped. "His nightmare."

"Explain!" Athos barked.

"Lemay—"

"Lemay?" Aramis stepped forward in confusion and concern. "He's still alive?"

Milady shook her as much as she was able in the large man's monstrous hand. "No. He's turned—"

The scream was like a tormented howl that stabbed through the three men's' hearts, and instantly moved them forward. Milady was wide-eyed and reluctant to follow, and Porthos had half a mind to just leave her behind, but then everything up until that point would have been pointless—so he dragged her along, practically throwing the struggling woman over his shoulder. In retrospect, he should have knocked her out, but finding d'Artagnan was the priority right now.

Athos took the torch, and became the light of the head as they rushed down the street towards the terror. He and Aramis had their swords free and Porthos gripped his drawn pistol, the other wrapped around Milady's waist.

The three men skidded to a halt as they came to the three-way court and saw the two figures upon the ground. The warm glow enveloped the pair, stretching out their shadows behind them across the dark ash. The bigger of the two was sprawled out onto his side facing them, his bloodied face clear in the torch flame—Lemay—unmoving. Beside him, his back facing them, was d'Artagnan. He was slumped forward on his folded knees, his head hanging.

"d'Artagnan?" Athos whispered, taking a step forward with a torch. "Are you alright? d'Artagnan!"

The boy inhaled with a crackling breath and they tensed. It sounded like the groan of a zombie. Slowly, his head raised and he slowly turned his head towards them. His eyes flared inhumanly in the torchlight for a moment, and Porthos actually let Milady slip from his grasp at the torment the image brought him. But it was gone a instant later, just the trick of the light. d'Artagnan's eyes still dark and brown and crisp, but there was a listlessness to them that Porthos remembered seeing back in the cell. He had mind enough to stomp his foot into Milady skirts and prevent the peeved woman's escape if she so wished. Milady was in middle curse herself at such treatment when the sight of the focus, d'Artagnan, finally landed on in her sights as she righted herself.

"d'Artagnan!" Aramis cried out in alarm, jolting from his frozen state, and shoved passed Athos. He skidded to his knees beside the boy, his handsome face lined with concern. d'Artagnan made no reaction as Aramis all but ignored Lemay, and put a crooked finger in the boy's chin and brushing the other hand over his uneven dark locks, inspecting him. There didn't seem to be any wounds, outward at least, but as he tilted the Gascon's chin up into the light of Athos' torch, his heart plummeted—covering the boy's chin and lips was dark blood.

"Is he alright?" Athos demanded impatiently in worry.

Aramis shook his head. "He appears uninjured, but..." he reached into his pocket and pulled out his handkerchief.

"But what?" Porthos insisted when he didn't continue and started to wipe the blood from the teen's chin.

Aramis instead looked into the blank eyes that stared at him without emotion or recognition. "Oh, d'Artagnan!" he gasped and pulled the boy close in embrace. d'Artagnan put up no resistance and allowed himself to held against the warmth after the cold... cold...

"Aramis!" Athos shouted.

Aramis turned to look at him and the look in the Spaniard's gaze made the blue-eyed Musketeer swallow the swell of despair. "It appears that he... bit Lemay." He said emphatically and at the physician's name, he felt a shiver tremor through the boy's frame against him. None of them seemed to connect the dots of the moment together just yet.

Milady made a sound of mild disgust at that, but Porthos silenced her with a hard glare, as Athos looked between the zombie and Gascon with a calculating and concerned look.

"d'Artagnan?" Aramis murmured against the boy's hair. "Are you with us? d'Artagnan?" he rubbed d'Artagnan's back in soothing circles. "You're safe now." His words reminiscent of back in Athos' apartment before Gaudet burst in.

d'Artagnan pressed his forehead against Aramis' chest, similar to what Lemay had done to him, feeling the beating heart. If he could just push hard enough, he could disappear inside of Aramis and be safe forever like the Spaniard promised him. But it was just a fantasy; that would not be his fait, his was something more darker and harder than that. He couldn't fall apart, not now. This wasn't just about him anymore—the Cardinal was trying to muster a zombie-army created of his own Gascon blood, and accomplish what? That was the answer they needed, that was the answer that she would provide them.

With a mighty shuddering breath, d'Artagnan pulled himself together and pushed back from Aramis' warm embrace.

"d'Artagnan?" Aramis whispered, hands a steady pressure on his shoulders, grounding as the man's touch always seemed to be.

d'Artagnan took one more deep breath for allowance before he spoke, "I'm alright." And his voice steady.

Aramis gave a nod in allowance and helped the boy stand.

"What happened?" Athos asked softly after a moment, as the boy's gaze was stuck to the dead zombie.

It was a moment before d'Artagnan answered, and he shifted away from the body. A coward, he put Aramis between them, blocking it from view, but he knew it was there just the same.

"I didn't realize how far I had wandered..." he said quietly. "And then he just came out of the darkness. He wasn't like the others. He—he came straight at me... he looked right at me."

"You're not making any sense, d'Artagnan." Athos interrupted him gently.

"The other zombies didn't attack me, they didn't even see me. They just wanted you and Porthos."

"I didn't notice that." Porthos muttered.

"That doesn't make sense," Aramis agreed.

"You said so yourself, Athos." d'Artagnan gestured, "These aren't normal zombies. They-they're hybrids... They have my blood—isn't that right, Milady?" he turned his gaze to her and so did everyone else's.

Milady gave a small shift uncomfortably under their combined gazes of malice, before she straightened, stuck out her chin, and her deep red lips quirked in a smirk. "Told you, you were special."

"It's poison!" he spat at her. "You injected them with my blood and turned them into monsters."

"Not quite," she disagreed companionably, "but your blood was a big part of their transformation. You are sp—" (ecial beyond even your own recognition).

"Shut up!" he shouted. She did, for now, but her waiting smirk was the most prominent thing about her. He turned his head away from her, anger burning in his brown gaze.

"Go on," Aramis encouraged.

"He was acting different than the others. They ignored me completely, like I wasn't there, like I was one of them." He shivered at the returned and shared fact. "He came straight for him. I was on the ground and he just came over top me... and pressed his forehead against mine. His mouth was moving, but not like he wanted to take a bite out of me, but like he was trying to say something." He paused in the silence and looked around the others at their contorted stares. "I'm telling you—!" he sighed in frustration and ploughed ahead, "I know how it sounds—but he was on top of me and kept making these weird sounds and was grinding my head into the ground—instead of trying to eat me. And suddenly, I just snapped and I bit him. I didn't know what else to do, I—"

"Bit," Athos repeated, hard. "But not kill."

d'Artagnan nodded and the realization that had been staring them in the face from their feet up, hit them like a tone of bricks. Lemay lay there, unmoving. Regularly, a bite wound that d'Artagnan had given him, would make any zombie just get back up and keep on trying until something was put through to its brain. But then again, nothing was regular about d'Artagnan and that could definitely be said about his bite.

Athos didn't think that the kid just went around biting zombies during his free hour. But as was established, these zombies were different because they were infused with his blood. So, had d'Artagnan's bite...? —but it wasn't as if they had anything to compare it with, unless one counted the Red Guard that the boy had killed in the cell. But that Guard was human when he died, when Lemay definitely was not.

Torch still in hand, holding it aloft, Athos knelt down beside the physician. He reached out and pulled the zombie's shoulder, laying him flat. He made no noise of life or move of awareness. He leaned forward and in the firelight, examined him closely. It took him a moment to find d'Artagnan's bite among Lemay's already trashed and tortured flesh—done unto him none other than Milady herself, Athos was sure. The bite's location was not a deadly one. He shot to his feet as he saw the physician's chest rise and fall.

"What is it?" d'Artagnan demanded.

"He's... breathing."

"That can't be possible," Aramis shook his head in denial. "He was changed, a zombie—dead."

d'Artagnan shifted around Aramis and looked down at the man. "He's alive?" he whispered. After everything, the man still haunted him.

"'E was turned by the bite, not 'cause he died, right?" Porthos slowly hypothesized. "Isn't that different?"

d'Artagnan dropped to his knees at Lemay's head and withdrew the main gauche from his belt that had done Gaudet in as well.

"d'Artagnan, what are you doing?" Athos exclaimed, "You can't kill him!"

"Why not? What does it matter?" he asked, his gaze not leaving the unconscious man under his blade. "By the end of this, he'll just get hung anyway. Why can't I do it, get something out of it?"

Athos' tone was reasonable and calm, though there was nothing of those two about their situation. "We don't do that, dispense justice—"

"Justice?" he scoffed. "You may not, but I'm not a Musketeer, am I?" he turned back to the physician. "He's just getting what he would have if I had been able to draw my sword. He was a monster in human form, he deserves to die. It doesn't matter that he fed you information. It doesn't matter that he got you to save me from his own hands—"

"d'Artagnan," Athos murmured quietly. "I understand that you want revenge, trust me, I do. But this is not the way, this—"

"So I'm just supposed to do nothing?" he shouted at the older man, anger heating his eyes. "Like you did nothing? And what was the result of that?!" Horror hit him instantly as Athos paled and the boy fully realized exactly what he said. "Athos, I didn't—"

But Athos shook his head softly. "I know."

For some reason, that seemed worse than if the man had exploded at him. Suddenly all of it just drained from him, all the fight. He screamed through clenched teeth, breathing heavily, before he slumped back in defeat, tears in his eyes, the dagger dropped from his shaking hands.

Aramis silently seethed. That undeniable fury was back again, that hatred that had boiled up at the mention of Lemay's name, and the thought of him, at the sight of him. It was like an other-worldly thing that possessed him, a darkness that plucked at his soul. It was overpowering.

Athos crouched beside the boy, and put a hand on his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. d'Artagnan attempted to draw every ounce of strength he could from the gesture. The man who had attempted to break him, turn him into a monster, still breathed. It was a difficult thought, one that weighted on his like a storm cloud.

The sword sung from its sheath, its blade flashing in the falling silver moonlight as the night wore on and the dawn start filter forward over Paris and into the Court's streets.

The group was frozen in surprise and complete silence as they stared at the sword stuck firmly in Lemay's unsuspecting eye socket—even the perpetrator himself seemed shocked. Lemay's chest stop rising and falling, he was gone forever, finally put into his permanent death—as it should have been.

"What did you do?" Athos jumped to his feet and confronted the marksman.

"What needed to be done," Aramis answered stonily. "What had to be done." He pulled his sword free, it making a slopping sound on the release. "d'Artagnan was right. Lemay was a monster in every sense of the word, he was an abomination."

"You don't know that!" Athos protested. "You killed him before we could find out!"

Aramis sheathed his sword and confronted the man in return. "He was a zombie. There is no returning from something like that, not even for God is such a thing possible."

"God had nothing to do with this!"

"Oi!" Porthos stepped forward, intervening before things became physical—completely forgetting about the green-eyed assassin.

Milady took the opportunity afforded to her and made a break for it back down the street. Half of what she had seen, she was still trying to process. The dagger flashed through the air like a dart and stabbed through the folds of her waving skirt, pinning the material to the ground where the knife stuck. Her step faltered.

"Where do you think you're going?" came the death question, the Spaniard lowering his hand. "I'm not in the mood for anymore of your games."

Milady tugged at her dress and the material tore free from its pinion, but further escape was denied her as Porthos stalked forward and grabbed her, and the dagger, dragging her back.

d'Artagnan stared at the body of Lemay for a moment longer—the red, black gushing hole where his eye used to be. He was dead. Done and truly dead. And that dark cloud that he was sure was going to follow him, lightened. Not all of his problems were solved now that Gaudet was dead and Lemay was dead, innate fear that had been with him since that storm with his father was so thick and toxic. But Aramis had kept his promise.

He stood and stepped forward, sheathing the dagger back into his belt as he stepped forward to the others, standing between Aramis and Athos, a part of the interrogation of Milady de Winter, a temporary wall between the two men.

"You're a surely starting to become more of a hindrance than a use to us, Anne." Athos told her coldly. "I suggest you think of something tangible to tell us in order to extend your life—it seems to be fleeting."

A concealed shiver went through her at her husband's words. She was a survivor. She did what needed to be done in order to live, no matter how dirty or deploring—if it served her purpose or was in her best interest—

Well then…

[tbc]

the M~U~S~K~E~T~E~E~R~S - S~R~E~E~T~E~K~S~U~M eht

You're probably all hating on me right now (or not) for going through all that work to 'bring' Lemay back, and then just stab him in the face (by Aramis no less), but it was my plan to kill Lemay the entire time anyways (sorry). Let's just call this just-desserts, eh? Whether he was truly bad or not, or just dragged into the evil-situation, he gave into his scientific mind and went all evil scientist and experimented on people. So I reiterate, he had it coming.

I would also like to point out, that d'Artagnan's bite does not return normal zombies to their human state, they are rotting corpses after all. And we'll never truly know if the same could be said for the hybrid-zombies that were changed with his blood because Lemay never got to tell them his story. But as Porthos said, being turned by being bitten is different than turning after dying, right? All the hybrid-zombies were transfused with d'Artagnan's blood and then bitten (as opposed to being transfused and then killed [which let's say, resulted in their permanent death as being human and being bitten and killed (by d'Artagnan) like that Red Guard]).

This whole zombie thing is more complex than I originally anticipated. Does this make any sense to anyone else? LOL

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