a/n: Disclaimer: I do not own The Musketeers, just going to borrow them and their adventures for a bit. No copyright infringement is intended; just some good old gender-bending!

Note: So... here it is everybody, the epic finale! I say that, because I do not intend to take this to Season 2. I'm sorry if this causes disappointment, but things will just become too twisted and complicated. So in this chapter, though it follows the episode's main plot line—I intend to twist the end, so I hope you can look forward to that. Enjoy!

Episode Tag: Season 1, Episode 10: Musketeers Don't Die Easily. & scene taken from Episode 1: Friends and Enemies.

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

Charl(i)es' Angels!
Pursuit 10: Musketeers Don't Die Easily —

"Still need that lesson in manners?" she asked him. She flicked his pistol in instruction and he slowly backed up on the landing until his back pressed against his room door. She approached him enticingly and devoured his lips hungrily, pushing him back through the door and into the room.

His hands on her hips, he turned them and they fell onto the bed with tongues twisted. His teeth pulled on the chocker around her neck as he kissed the milky flesh, but she grabbed the front of his doublet, pulling the laces open. He pulled back to assist.

"What of your companion? Won't he notice your absence?"

"Trust me." She whispered. "He won't notice a thing." And she rolled them, so it was her straddling his hips. "Turn your mind to better things." And she reached between them and grasped him through his breaches, nipping his bottom lip as he groaned.

.

She watched him as she laid on her, the blanket pulled up to their waists. The candlelight was gentle and cast the plains of his handsome face, his olive skin a beautiful shade. His fingertips traced distractedly on her wrist where her hand lay on his chest.

"What is it? What troubles you so?"

"I'd rather not talk about it." He took her finger and kissed the pad before he turned his head on the pillow and looked at her. "I just want to watch you and forget for a few hours." His gaze flickered down to the only thing she was left wearing, the lace chocker around her neck.

He reached across and his index finger traced down the side of her supple neck. He could feel her gulp as he brushed it back to reveal the thin scars he knew he had glimpsed earlier. The rough pad of his fingertip brushed against the sensitive flesh. "What happened?"

She took his hand. "The woman that I loved tried to kill me." She moved his hand to rest back on his chest.

"Say the word, and I would kill her for you."

"I might hold you to that one day." And she leaned forward and kissed him to distraction. One day...

.

The dawn came and he awoke alone in bed, with naught but a bloody dagger stabbed into the second pillow to mark the remembered night and encounter. And with it, the desire to find the woman who put it there, again.

Athos was dishevelled, and drunk. But lately, that seemed to be more the norm. Ever since she confessed to the others about her ex-lover Anne, or the recently renamed Milady de Winter, the fractured control over her past guilt and tragedies were growing harder and harder to snuff out with drink. Despite that she knew they held no judgement in regards towards her, it left her feeling no less exposed. And so, she tried anyways.

She drank to excess, just like that night back at her family home in Pinon, that she believed the dark-haired woman another hallucination. It was only as she followed behind her, oblivious that she realized it was flesh and blood that she was tracking.

She finished the last dregs of wine from the third bottle of her consumption that night and threw it aside from grasp. The bottle shattered to ground and she pulled the pistol from her belt. She cocked the weapon and Milady tensed the instant before the cold barrel pressed against the nape of her neck. Athos grabbed the knife Milady attempted to pull and threw it away, headless of the people in the square that were starting to notice. She grabbed the woman around the throat and under her chin, pressed to her back.

"Ready to pay for your crimes... Milady?" Athos hissed into her ear, her breath sour of wine.

Despite the late hour, Aramis and d'Artagnan lingered in the yard, sitting at their table. She sat on the with her back against the table, her pistol in her lap and her tool cleaning kit next to her thigh on the bench. He watched her as over and over again, she cleaned her weapons as he slowly deconstructed the apple in his hand with a pairing knife.

"How many times have you cleaned those pistols tonight?" he wondered.

"Respect your weapons, and it will respect you." She told him in the tone of voice that he had come to recognize when she imparted wisdom onto him. He groaned internally, knowing it was just best to let her get on with it. "Another thing you need to learn if you want to be a good Musketeer."

"I'm already a Musketeer." He complained.

"Ah. Just because you have the uniform, doesn't mean there still aren't things to learn, skills to obtain."

"Alright, just so I know, this whole..." he circled the knife in a gesture before eating an apple slice, "'d'Artagnan the Apprentice Musketeer' thing, how long does that last?"

"Well," she grinned. "As long as it's funny."

"Well, it's not." He returned. And then with knowing false hope, "So, are we done?"

"No," she chuckled. "It still is."

He scoffed and pouted at he ate his next apple slice and her grin widened as she started to reload her pistol without even looking at it—that was how well she knew her weapon.

"You know, when you eat like that," she cooed at him teasingly, "It makes you look adorable?"

His cheeks turned ruddy at her words and her grin threatened to split her face. "You're not allowed to say things like that!" he protested.

"Why does it make you so uncomfortable, hmm?" she elbowed his thigh. Finished with her pistol, she set it on the bench and turned to the Gascon fully. She turned smouldering eyes to him playfully. "Afraid you'll finally submit?"

His embarrassment turned to nervousness. It was something that she had said to him before when they were in Ninon de Larroque's salon, but what he was to 'submit' to was still the unanswered question.

"What does that mean?" he asked her, almost desperately. The only response he got was the twitch at the corner of her mouth. Aramis was a beautiful woman, just as Athos and Porthos, and though they could make his heart thump, he thought of them as his sisters and friends. His heart beat for another, even though it ached, it pined for C—

He bumped her shoulder with his knee, jolting her. "Ah, Charlie..." she sighed and turned it 'off'. Even now, she knew it did not affect him as it did others—even the Queen—because despite whatever had happened to make her do it, d'Artagnan still loved Constance.

Treville came out of his office and leaned on the porch railing for some fresh air from the paperwork that never seemed to end.

"Athos and Porthos have been gone a while," d'Artagnan said, changing the subject pointedly and she allowed it. "Do you think they—"

Porthos ran into the garrison, breathless and frantic. "Athos... she's taken a woman hostage. She'd threatening' to kill 'er!"

"What?" Aramis and d'Artagnan leapt to their feet and followed Porthos to the town square.

"Get out of the way!" Porthos barked towards some people in their path as she charged through and halted in front of Athos holding Milady hostage. "Athos, let 'er go."

"She is a liar and a murderer." Athos declared instead. "And she is the Cardinal's spy. And my mistress." They looked at her in shock.

Milady's eyes locked onto d'Artagnan. "Help me, d'Artagnan. She's gone mad!" This was all too unreal. An imitation unto itself.

"You know her?" Athos demanded. d'Artagnan didn't answer, but he looked uncomfortable and worried.

Aramis' brows flickered in realization and she looked at him. "She was your mysterious benefactor, is it? Are you lovers, too?"

"Once," he stammered. "Before I knew you!"

"You slept with 'er?" Porthos spat.

"You'd don't understand—" he pleaded, but the tall woman shoved him angrily and in disgust. He looked at her in shock. "I—"

"You kept the truth from me!" Athos accused him, the pistol digging into Milady's flesh in her anger.

"No. Athos, I swear, I didn't know." He pleaded with his best friend. "I didn't know..."

"Well, now you must choose, d'Artagnan." Athos hissed, "If you help her, you are not fit to call yourself a Musketeer."

"Athos..." the hurt in his voice was clear. He paused, looked almost pained, and then said finally: "I can't let you just murder her. No matter what she has done."

"d'Artagnan, help me." Milady urged through strained voice, her own hand gripping Athos' arm at her neck, desperately, clinging to the only friendly connection present. It was like she was having an out-of-body experience—the same feeling she had at her hanging—and somehow she'd made it out of that impossible situation alive. Tonight was going to be the same.

Athos turned the gun from Milady and directed it at d'Artagnan. Though there was heat in the air, this was a unexpected gesture. Porthos grabbed d'Artagnan to prevent his charge.

Aramis stepped partly in front of him, her hand out. "Hey! Let's talk about this, Athos! Put her down!"

"Stop this at once!" Treville demanded, finally arriving behind the three in the square. "That's an order!"

d'Artagnan saw Athos' focus shift to Treville and took advantage. He broke from Porthos' grasp and rushed Athos, grabbing the gun. Everything moved as if fast and slow.

"Charlie, no!" Aramis screamed, but the crack of the fired gun split the quiet of the night air.

d'Artagnan stumbled back in confusion, his eyes flooded with pain. He fell back into Treville, who lowered him ground.

"You fool!" Athos shouted, releasing Milady.

"What did you do?" Porthos shook Athos.

"Wha?" d'Artagnan mumbled, laying in Treville's arms and looked up at a hazy Aramis crowding him.

"Stay awake, stay awake, stay awake." Aramis hissed harshly at him, the blood flooding his side, but his eyes flickered and slowly closed as he passed out, but she made no conscious move to treat the wound.

"Athos." Treville addressed, his voice hard. His grip on the Gascon firm and resolve in his blue-grey gaze. "This is your choice. A slight towards you."

Athos paused, breathing heavily as she pushed Porthos aside and stared down at d'Artagnan. "Leave him!" she spat.

Slowly, the others rose and left d'Artagnan bleeding on the ground. Milady watched them in complete shock. His getting shot had halted her retreat.

"You just mean to leave him to die?" she called after them.

Aramis paused and turned back. "He's no Inseparable of ours—his fait is as deserved as yours."

And she was left to stand there dumbly as they left the square and d'Artagnan slowly bled out helplessly at her feet. She had thought that at least Captain Treville might have seen sense, but it seemed he was just as mad as they!

After a further moment of contemplation as she weighed her options, she finally knelt at the Gascon's side and tore the hem from her dress. She pressed the bunched material against the wound in his side. He moaned at the contact by stayed unconscious.

"Well, help me, Goddamn you!" Milady screamed at the men that still lingered at the edge of the square. After a moment's indecision, two men approached.

The next morning, in the presence of his court, the King sat astride a blockade and posed regally for the royal portraitist as Charlotte Mellendorf pleaded on her father's behalf. Count Mellendorf had been languishing in the Bastille for the past three months.

"You may be rest assured, dear Charlotte." Louis told her. "We will discover the truth." Charlotte gave a shaky bow and left. He looked down upon the Cardinal and Captain Treville. "We believe that there is more to this terrible business than meets the eye?"

"We have no conclusive evidence of Count Mellendorf's involvement." Treville agreed, his face and posture a mask for what had transpired in the town square the night before.

"Yes," Richelieu inserted, stepping forward, "Apart from his signed confession."

"Signed under duress." Treville added.

"Well, what of the letter in his name promising the mercenary Gallagher safe passage to Germany?" he returned, looking aside at the man.

"Unsigned." Was the retort. "It could have easily be a forgery."

The hostility between the men was muted in the presence of the King, but clear. Louis looked at them. "Do we need to have another tournament, gentlemen?" he inquired. "Treville, you've just recently healed from your shoulder."

"Conflict with Prussia and Sweden is a high price to pay if there is any doubt." Queen Anne cool-headedly diverted a heated moment and steered them back onto topic.

"Your Majesty must send a strong message to those who would meddle in France's affairs." The Cardinal declared, turning from Treville and back to the King. "Mellendorf is guilty! He should be executed without delay."

"We will take no further rash action until addition enquiries have been made." Louis decided, taking a calm composure from his wife.

"Your Majesty is making a mistake!" Richelieu let his frustration and desperation on the matter move his tongue wrongly and a moment later, the price was paid.

"The King does not make mistakes, Cardinal!" Louis shouted at him sharply. "You forget yourself!"

A low murmur went through the small court, and the Queen fought to keep the pleased smile from her lips at the Cardinal's jilted expression. She shared a subtle nod with Treville.

The three women and man arrived back at the garrison, but did not linger in the yard for the curious and questioning stares to linger from the other men at the odd irruption of Porthos and their return absent their fourth Inseparable.

Porthos' hand hovered from her body, ready to catch their drunken sister as they climbed the stair to the balcony, should she stumble. But they made it to Treville's office without incident. As soon as the door closed, Athos spun upon Aramis.

"Will he survive?" her voice broke.

"With that wound... from what I was able to see..." the Spaniard removed her hat and ran her fingers through her hair. Fingers she wished were covered in her brother's blood, for only then would she know he was safe. "If she gets him treatment—he should be fine."

"Oh, God!" Athos moaned, fist to mouth. "He could die and we won't know a thing until it is too late."

"d'Artagnan is a strong lad." Treville inserted firmly, even as he leaned back against his desk for some form of assurance in this unsteady moment. "He knew the consequences of such a plot."

But Athos shook her head, bile rising in her throat. "Not this! He was to be shot in the arm—have I killed our brother?!" her knees gave out in despair and she collapsed to the floor. Her usually composed and aloof self a thing of distant past at the moment, lost in the drunken misery they saw before them. It made the uncertain situation dually nerve-wracking.

Aramis slapped the woman harshly to everyone's shock and clarity; the snap of assaulted flesh almost sounding like a shot itself through Athos' heavy breathing. Athos looked up at her with a stinging cheek and blue eyes a bit less clouded.

"You have not killed him and will claim no such thing." Aramis stated firmly and took a deep breath. "Everything shall go according to plan—so we must keep to appearances. If Milady believes something amiss, she will kill Charlie."

"I'm going to be sick!" Athos blurted.

Porthos moved fast, and shoved the empty basin from Treville's bedside table under the Lieutenant's nose and the woman was sick three bottles of consumed wine. By the time she was finished, pale and covered in a layer of sweat, exhausted, the room smelt of the unpleasant expulsion.

"Get her back to her room at the garrison," Treville sighed. "And stay close."

Aramis and Porthos nodded and collected their sister, leaving Treville alone to sit heavily behind his desk and wonder how much of a fool's errand they were playing at. He prayed he didn't lose any of his favoured Musketeers. If d'Artagnan died, his original Inseparable's would be destroyed and their reaction to such news would crack the earth.

The Cardinal stalked towards Milady in the church's portico from prying eyes. "What do they know?" he demanded.

"Nothing for certain." She told him, folding her fan.

"I am not prepared to reply upon that ignorance!" he shouted.

"No one has identified me—"

"d'Artagnan has seen you, has he not?"

"d'Artagnan will be of no problem," she replied confidently. "I have him well under my thumb."

His grey gaze flickered across her. "For your sake, I hope you are right. For lately, that has proved a false confidence."

Her lips tightened. "Nor is it proved either of us had any connection with Gallagher."

"Athos confronted me on the matter after the King and Queen reunited three months ago," he said. "She would not have confronted me, had they nothing to show for it!"

"Perhaps they do have nothing, and made a calculated risk in confronting you, to see what you might shake loose in an act of panic." She suggested evenly.

"I do not panic!" he snapped. Her only response was to flick open her fan and start fan herself. He narrowed his eyes upon her. "How is Athos? Do you think I don't know about your little public adventure last night?" he sneered, "How is your charming mistress?"

"Drunk, if you must know." She replied tightly. "I was lucky to escape with my life. I might not have if it weren't for d'Artagnan."

"Well, don't get attacked to either." He said cruelly. "Your head will be on the block before mine."

"How very gallant of you." She retorted sarcastically. "You should have more faith. I've been working tirelessly to further your aims."

"Effort is of no use to me, only results!" he barked and shoved her back against the wall. "I want Athos and her friends silenced for good—including your little Gascon pet."

"As much as I would love to see them all dead—isn't that going a little overboard?"

"The dead don't accuse First Minister's of Treason!" he released her and stepped back.

"Musketeers don't die easily." She pointed out, fanning herself casually even though a heat flushed her through racing heart.

"A pleasant sentiment that may be—" he said sarcastically. "Can you do it?"

"If that's what you truly want."

"See that it is done—properly this time." He told her lividly. "This is your last chance. I suggest you take it." He turned with a flap of his black and red robes, leaving her.

She glared after the man, breathing harshly through her nose. She would show him and Athos—she was not a woman to wrong!

d'Artagnan's heart thumped hard in his chest as he opened his eyes, his side on fire, to find himself in a unfamiliar room. He heard the crack of the pistol shot again, and jolted upright in bed, a sharp pain twisting in his side. He groaned, pressing a hand to his injured ribs. He glanced down on himself, finding him shirtless and his torso wrapped, the bandage bled through.

He threw the blanket aside and stood on bare feet, and went to the foot of the bed where a clean shirtsleeves hung on the bedpost. He quickly slipped it overhead, feeling the pull in his side—and then the barrel of a small pistol pressed against the beck of his head.

"I could blow your brains out now and never think of you again." Milady whispered, having returned from the Cardinal.

d'Artagnan paused, so it had worked. "I'm guessing you didn't bring me here just to shoot me."

It would be so simple to pull the trigger right now. She'd be down one Musketeer and with three left to go. But her thoughts from Louvre to the inn were of a markedly more complex intention that could make this go all the more efficiently. Her original intention still stood—she would turn him. "Well, the question is... can I trust you?"

"I saved your life." He reminded her.

"Hmm." After a moment, she took the pistol away and carefully uncocked the flint. She slowly circled to his front. "The shot grazed your ribs." She touched his injury briefly and he grimaced. "A few inches to the right, and Athos would have killed you." She almost sounded disappointed.

"It was an accident."

"Was it?"

"Yes." He insisted.

"You saw the look on her face when she found out about us. That was no accident. She hated you. They all did. Your so-called sisters. They left you to bleed to death in the square." She turned from him and to the oval table by the wall and set her gun there. His doublet and weapons belt hung on the back of one of the chairs. He only gave it a passing glance. "If it wasn't for me, you'd be dead and forgotten in the morgue."

She watched the corner of his lips tighten, could see the emotions filter through his expressive brown eyes and smiled to herself.

"Why didn't you tell me you were her lover?" he questioned at last, watching her. "You had to of known we were friends."

"It never came up." She paused, her finger giving the table edge a single tap as she thought. "The Cardinal is my patron and protector. He could be yours, as well."

"I hate the Cardinal." He turned from her.

"That's childish talk." She chided and he sat on the far edge of the bed. "Cut your losses now, d'Artagnan." She went around to face him again. "There is no future for you in the Musketeers. I told you of this before, did I not?"

d'Artagnan looked up at her. "I don't believe that." He whispered in denial.

Milady took either side of his face and leaned in, kissing him. After a moment, he pulled back slightly, breathless. She straightened and looked down at him. "Believe that, then."

"The last time I was in your bed," he reminded her, "You murdered a man and blamed me for it."

Amusement flickered in her eyes at this. "I promise I haven't murdered anyone... today or yet."

He exhaled, his eyes rimed with pain and searching. "Tell me what really happened between you and Athos." He said finally.

Constance had heard the murmurs while in Market, of the confrontation between the famous Musketeer Inseparables. Of the Gascon left on the street to bleed. Her body just reacted and she was running to the garrison, frantic.

She had done as her husband bid in threat, and crushed the love of her life's heart so severely that he could hardly stand to look at her. She had humiliated him, told him he was nothing. But not once did she stop loving him, stop yearning for him.

Though Paris big, it was a conscious choice not to run into someone. And she had consciously forced herself not to automatically search for him in the passing crowds. She couldn't be so cruel as to show herself, to parade in front of him. If she saw him, she knew she would break. And that was something she could not allow, she could not let her husband, with the Cardinal's influence, have his life.

But she also had her maid, Mia, keep a ear out for news, any news concerning the garrison. Because even if she couldn't see him for herself, she had to know that he was all right—all right and alive.

She ran through the garrison tunnel and into the yard, searching frantically for the three women who were walls around him. The other Musketeers looked at her, but they were others that she sought. And then she saw Aramis and Porthos leave from the quarters entrance in the tunnel. The two Musketeers quickly shared a frantic look before they turned to face the formidable woman.

"Where is he?" she demanded, rushing towards the halted pair. "Where is d'Artagnan?"

Porthos shook her head. "'E's not 'ere."

"Tell me he isn't dead." Constance pleaded.

"There's been no news since last night." Aramis admitted.

"What do you mean, 'no news'? Why wouldn't he be here?" her questions were met with silence. She narrowed her eyes. "Why would he fight with Athos?"

"It was over a woman." Porthos finally said, albeit a bit awkwardly.

She stilled and then her eyes widened. "Milady de Winter?" their quick-shared glance was all the answer she needed. Her heart ached. "This is my fault," she confessed. "I drove him into her arms when—when I..." her lips compressed tightly on the words and she fought back the sob that wanted to bubble up her throat.

"Constance," Aramis murmured gently and stepped forward, putting a comforting and guiding hand on her shoulder. "Why don't you go home?" she suggested. "If we hear anything, we'll let you know. I promise."

Looking no less comforted, Constance slowly left in reluctant and marred acceptance. They watched her leave.

"She'd upset." Porthos noted.

"Of course she is." Aramis said. "She loves him."

"She said she didn't." She countered. "She broke 'is heart."

"And you believe that?" the Spaniard scoffed and shook her head. "We never did get around to that conversation I promised in Ninon's salon, did we?"

Porthos glared at and ignored that last part. "Whether we believe it or not, d'Artagnan does."

She sighed sadly. "You only have to look at them to see that they love each other."

"Sadly, life's more complicated than that." Porthos was reminded what happened between her and Alic; while Aramis remembered her brief time with the Queen, something that was doomed from conception.

"Too true, my sister." Aramis squeezed her shoulder. "Too true."

Milady sat next to him on the edge of the bed after a moment. She knew she might of had to speak of it, but even after five-years, it was as if done yesterday.

"I was born poor," she started. "I was a thief and a pickpocket." Her green eyes glistened. "But everything changed after I met Athos. I lied about my past to protect our happiness. But her brother, Thomas..." d'Artagnan looked away at this, afraid that his expression might betray him upon her following words. "He always held lust towards me. He found out about Olivia and me. He found out about my past and threatened to tell her—said if I favoured him, he wouldn't tell his sister." Her voice was shaky. "I had no choice. I killed him. But I did it for love." She shook her head. "Athos was blind to the truth. Because she discovered what Thomas had found out about me... that I was once a thief—she decided that I must also be a murderer. And this—this is what she did." She hissed and reached up, snapping her chocker from around her neck, baring the scars from her hanging. d'Artagnan looked at her. "To preserve her honour and status," she spat. She inhaled sharply. "You once said that you would kill the woman who did this to me..."

"You want me to kill Athos?" he gasped in surprise.

"You don't know her as I do." Milady shook her head desperately. "She will never forgive you. In her eyes, us sleeping together—before there was even a connection between you two—is a unforgivable act in her eyes."

"I will not murder my best friend." He declined.

The pounding at her door halted anything to be said. After a pause, Milady rose and retrieved her small pistol from the table. d'Artagnan let out a shaky breath and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. Even though he knew what to expect, it was still something harsh to hear of his friend. If he did not trust Athos absolute, he might have believed Milady and her story.

She opened the door to reveal a grim Treville dressed in his light blue Musketeer uniform cloak thrown over his left shoulder. "Madame," he said stiffly. "I've come to see d'Artagnan. This won't take long." Milady stepped aside and allowed him entry.

d'Artagnan looked over at the Captain warily. "What do you want, Captain?" The last memory of the previous night that he had, was the shot fired, the searing pain and shock in his sight, stumbling back into Treville's arms, and Aramis' worried face hovering about him. And then nothing.

While it was good to lay eyes on the lad and see for himself and able to report to the others that he seemed to be in fit health—he had a role to play here and damned if he wasn't going to flatten it. Treville took a deep breath. "Athos has made it clear she can never serve at your side again. I cannot allow such dissent within the ranks." He paused. "I'm sorry, but your future lies elsewhere."

"What?" he straightened.

"Resign your commission quickly, and I'll see no dishonour is attached to your name."

"Dishonour? What dishonour?!" he demanded, jumping to his feet. "It was Athos who was dishonourable! No! I don't deserve this. What have I done so wrong to justify this?"

This whole act was a play-by-play upon his worst nightmare, acted live in front of his eyes. If he wasn't a Musketeer, if he lost Athos, Aramis, and Porthos—he would have nothing—he would be nothing. Constance was broken from his heart, forever out of his reach. If all these women were taken out of his life... he would not survive.

"I have not come to judge you." Treville spoke calmly. "I simply have to make a choice. And Athos is the finest soldier in the regiment—I choose her. There's nothing more to be said. I'll await your decision." And he turned his back to a stunned d'Artagnan and left.

Milady said nothing, but watched him closely. His fists clenched at his sides and he gritted his teeth, burning with anger. "You were right about them. I should have listened." He inhaled sharply and rose his chin with decision made. "Be in town square at midday—you'll get what you want. Athos will die at my hand!"

"Charlie." Aramis' hand was a firm anchor on his shoulder as the two of them followed Porthos from the garrison and to the square where Athos had Milady at gunpoint. "You alright?"

"Y-Yeah." d'Artagnan nodded. "I just wasn't expecting this to happen so soon."

"You're alright. We have you, remember? This is just a play-act. You want to abort, just say the word."

"No, no." He shook his head. "This is my idea. Milady needs to be stopped, and the Cardinal put in his proper place. I have this." Most of what was about to be said, was already seared into his brain from the actual event.

"Get out of the way!" Porthos hollered, shoving people out of the way and cleared their path into the square.

Aramis and d'Artagnan broke apart, but not before the Spaniard gave his should one last squeeze of final encouragement that would have to last until they all saw each other again.

d'Artagnan had been surprised to find that while he was unconscious through the night, Milady had his doublet cleaned and stitched, along with him. It felt odd, even though he knew it all part of an act.

When he left the apartment, he paused in the street, looking left and right. In truth, he had no idea where he was. He had been too enveloped with the passion of the last scene. But he was pulled to the left, and so he went that way.

He found the venders under the main portico and knew he was on the right track. His heart seized as he spotted the red-haired woman in the crowd. But a moment later, the woman revealed to him in passing was not the woman he desired above all else and yearned deeply for. He gave himself a shake and silently berated himself. It was distraction like that that could wreck this entire operation.

Arm held against his ribs, he headed for the garrison and the friendly faces he would secretly encounter that offered him encouragement.

It was inevitable that the rumour of the rift between the Inseparables flooded through Paris like a sickness. That had been their hope. It would help inflate the lie to appear as the truth. But it put him on edge anyways when he entered the garrison yard through the tunnel and the other Musketeers stopped their business, stared openly and murmured amongst themselves.

Porthos nudged Aramis as she saw the Gascon first and climbed to her feet from the table in the yard at d'Artagnan's slow approach. "Well, well, well." Porthos tore a piece of roll off with her teeth and chewed. "Where 'ave you been?"

"In bed—injured." He returned, hard. "What of you?"

"You weren't alone, I think." Aramis stood as well, mug in hand. "How is Madame de la Chapelle? Or is it Milady de Winter?" She tsked, "Ah, I lose track." Subtly, her sharp eyes tracked his every shift, every breath, eager to get her hands on him and his injury, to finally see for herself after such a long night and morning thinking of the worst outcome.

"I only know of Milady," he said. "And she was well last time I saw her, no thanks to her loving girlfriend."

Athos approached him from behind. "I see you've risen from the grave."

He turned to face her, his lips a sneer. "You've failed to kill me, if that's what you're referring to."

Hard brown met ice blue eyes as they glared at each other. Treville came from his office and to the balcony railing, coming to inspect upon the sudden lack of clashing steel of practising Musketeers and raised voices.

"What are you doing here?" Treville growled. "I thought our talk was clear."

d'Artagnan turned his glare towards the Captain. "I'm still a Musketeer, despite what Athos may wish."

"We'll settle this in private." And he turned back into his office.

d'Artagnan turned and shoved passed Aramis and Porthos, hiding the grimace of pain in the twist of his lips, and started up the stairs. The three women came after him like three hounds after his heels.

Milady wasn't idle while d'Artagnan left to confront the Inseparables. She wasn't stupid. She knew no plan was one-hundred percent, and so it was always smart to have a back-up to the back-up. Just a little insurance. If she had learned anything, it was to how unpredictable the Musketeers were.

She'd always vowed to herself that once she had left him and this place, she would never return. But things hadn't worked out like when she intended on her arrival in Pinon in time for the mourning of the Comte de la Fère. Thomas had been her original target, if she were to gain his favour, she would become Comtesse de la Fère, but as soon as she had lain her eyes on Olivia, it was her heart that ruled her actions from then on. And it had lead to her downfall.

She paused outside the Crescent, closing her eyes briefly in pause, before she pushed open the door and stepped down into his frequented tavern.

"Tell Sarazin Milady de Winter is here." She issued upon the large man who approached her. The man silently turned and headed towards the back of the tavern to find a man that she despised in the corner booth, a young girl clung drunkenly to his side.

"So, you've finally decided to come crawling back, have you?" Sarazin chuckled, leaning back as he watched her.

"Do I look as if I'm on my knees?"

"Kill her." He ordered the large man looming behind her.

Athos crossed her arms almost defensively as they stood in Treville's office. "So, you're not dead." It wasn't the first time the woman had said these words to him in greeting, and hopefully, it wouldn't be the last, either.

"And you're not drunk." He returned, but he could see she was paying for her consumption from last night, but his payment was far greater.

There was a moment of silence, and they all laughed in relief at seeing each other again and the converged on each other in the middle of Treville's office in a Inseparable embrace.

It was such a burden off his chest to hold his Angel's close in that brief moment, but it was broken at the unintended hiss of pain escaping his lips at the unintended jolt to his side.

"Careful." He joked, "I'm a wounded man, remember?" but they jumped away from him as if he were a rabid animal.

"Yes." Aramis said in a tense voice. "You are."

His eyes flickered in worry, his hand to his side as he took a step back from her and cleared his throat. "I'm fine. Milady sent for a surgeon. As you can see, I'm fine and fit."

"And as you well know—I'll see for myself."

"I said—"

"d'Artagnan." The strained tone in Athos' voice made him paused and he looked at her. She shook her head and for the first time since he had met her, she looked uncertain. "I am sorry. I did not int—"

"Fine," he turned to Aramis. "I'll let you a free pass this time." He gave Athos a nod that spoke volumes as he was made to sit on the edge of Treville's bed after stripping of his doublet and shirtsleeves.

Aramis tsked already at the sight of his soiled and bled-through bandages, and pulled her kit from where she had stowed it under Treville's bed for just this purpose.

"I'm not sure how I should feel about that." He remarked.

"Try complacent." She unwrapped the bandage.

"Always."

"That's my Charlie." She poured some alcohol onto a cloth and cleaned the blood from the wound and made an unhappy sound in the back of her throat.

"Is it bad?" Athos took a step forward.

"It could have been worse." Aramis allowed as she gentle probbed the wound.

d'Artagnan grimaced. "What happened? I thought you were supposed to shoot me in the arm, Athos."

"A shot in the side is so much more authentic." She said loftily.

He snorted and then winced at the twinge in struck him with. "So you're not claiming you aimed their deliberately?"

"Accuracy after three bottles of wine isn't easy." Each woman thought it better that the Gascon not be made privy of the moments after the shooting.

"Speak for yourself." Porthos muttered, defending her classic move of drunken-melon-head-shooting for entertainment.

Aramis sighed. "This doctor's stitches are mediocre, but they get the job done. I would have liked to have done it myself... it will leave a generous scar. How's the pain?"

"I can manage." He answered.

She gave a small growl, but there wasn't much she could do for him now. She was just happy that he appeared in fit health after such a frightening and suspenseful night. She wrapped a fresh bandage around the wound. It had been close, too close for her own comfort, but she thought it best to keep that part to herself concerning all parties.

"So, three bottles?" he inquired, returning his shirtsleeves and doublet to their proper place. "Couldn't you have faked it?"

"Ann—Milady knows me too well." Athos explained. "She would have seen through it otherwise."

"Then, I guess it's a good thing how well you can handle your drink."

"d'Artagnan," Treville drew their attention back to the mission on-hand. If they spent too long in the office, it might seem suspicious. "Does Milady believe we have abandoned you?"

"She's very convincing," he admitted and Athos quickly hid the pain from her eyes. "But I trust you over her—always. But I think so, there's just a tiny detail I need to convince her."

"What's that?" Athos asked.

"Nothing too difficult, I'm sure." He paused. "I just need to kill you." He smiled.

"Small, huh?"

He stood. "Worried? With the tricks we've been pulling out of our asses lately?"

Porthos laughed. "If this whole Musketeer thing doesn't work out, we should form our own little play group!"

"Ah, all the adoring fans! The women and the men!" Aramis nodded. "It's not something I would be against."

Milady sat across from Sarazin, his man dead behind her on the floor. He didn't seem upset by it, in fact, when she'd shot the man, he'd laughed. He sent his girl Celine for more wine and she stumbled drunkenly away.

"Was I ever like that?"

"You? Oh, no, no." He shook his head. "You were a different class. Oh, you broke my heart when you left me, you know."

"Well, it's difficult when you have no heart to break." She said. "I need insurance, Sarazin, in case my plans don't work out. Will you help me kill these Musketeers or not?"

"You know, I made you into the greatest thief this city has ever seen." He tapped the table as he leaned forward. "I invested a lot of time and a lot of money into you. And you ran way from me and you hid behind the Cardinal's skirts. And now you owe me, remember?"

"I can pay."

"Really? I wonder."

"100 livres."

"Oh, please." He scoffed.

"200?"

"No, I think not. When the job is done, you will come back and you will work for me."

This time, it was her turn to scoff. "Oh, not a chance. I've outgrown you."

"Oh, well, you may have slightly nicer clothes, but underneath them, there still that... that whiff of the cheap little thief that I once knew. And anyways, you wouldn't be here unless you were desperate." Celine returned with the bottle of wine. She dolled it out, before sitting back next to Sarazin and taking a long dreg from the bottle. "So, you just say the word. And all my resources are yours." Her silence was all the answer he needed. "Fabulous. So, how exactly do you want these Musketeers to die?"

She smiled. As soon as Athos and her friends were dead, she would slit Sarazin's throat ear from ear and finally, all anchors to her past would be gone and she'd be free for the first time in her life.

There was just one more piece to her plan—a certain red-head.

It was in the square, at noon, just as d'Artagnan had promised. He thought back to what Porthos had said about them forming a performance group, and couldn't help but wonder the truth in it for what they were about to pull off. Athos, Aramis, and Porthos were having a drink outside the portico, surrounding a barrel-made-table. Milady stuck to the shadows behind one of the pillars, and unnoticed in the crowd, was Celine.

"Athos." He called.

They three abandoned their drinks and stepped away.

"What do you want?" Athos sneered.

"An apology for the way you treated me."

"Or what?" she challenged.

"Or..." d'Artagnan approached, taking the glove from his left hand finger by finger. "We'll settle this like... gentlemen." She laughed, until he slapped her harshly across the face with his glove.

Anger lit Athos' blue eyes and she went for him, but Aramis grabbed her, and Porthos held d'Artagnan off from any aggressive move.

"I know what you did to her, Athos. I know your true character. You disgust me!" he shoved Porthos back. "You'll hear from my seconds!"

"What seconds?" Athos said harshly. "You have no one left at your side. You're all alone, d'Artagnan. You have no one."

"This must be done properly." Aramis hissed, still holding the woman. "According to the rules!"

d'Artagnan turned and started to leave.

"Damn the rules." Athos swore, shoved Aramis from her and pulled her pistol. She forced her hand to steady, her shot would hit its intended target this time.

"d'Artagnan!" Porthos screamed a warning, but Athos already pulled the trigger.

The ball hit into the stall post that d'Artagnan had just passed and he dropped into a crouch with his hands over his head. A woman screamed and people scattered at yet another fight between the Musketeers erupted, the same from last night no less. Before anyone could react, d'Artagnan spun around on his heels, his pistol drawn—and he fired.

Athos grunted and stumbled back a step, much as d'Artagnan had done the night before, and then collapsed to the ground unmoving. Aramis and Porthos ran to the woman who played dead, surrounding her, blocking her from immediate sight. d'Artagnan started to back away.

Porthos quickly retrieved the bladder from her boot and squeezed the blood onto Athos' torso, smearing it with gloved hands. "She'd dead!" she cried out.

"Murderer!" Aramis leapt to her feet, her pistol drawn. "Come back, you coward!" But he'd shoved himself into the crowd, blocking himself with innocent bodies and Aramis was forced to hold her fire.

Milady was shaking, overwhelmed by something as she looked across into the crowd and gave Celine the signal.

Constance was in the Market, trying to distract herself from her worry of d'Artagnan, but was doing a poor job of it, oblivious of what had just happened in the square, and the shadowy intentions marked to her.

"Madame Bonacieux!" Celine cried, running to her. "Madame Bonacieux! Come quickly. d'Artagnan just shot Athos. He's calling for you. He needs help."

"Where is he?" she gasped.

"Follow me. Quickly!" Celine turned and fled, and without a moments hesitation, Constance ran after her. As soon as she heard d'Artagnan's name, the decision had been made, it was no matter that she had never seen this girl before.

Unlike last time, there was no worry for injury. Athos' gun had a ball, but d'Artagnan's gun had been loaded with just the powder. The rest had all been acting. Now, it was Aramis and Porthos who had to convince the world of Athos' killing. But just the act of shooting his friend made him sick, what Athos must have felt after actually shooting him, watching his bleed and pass out—her will was strong if she played through it. And now it was his turn.

"I thought I would feel something more than this." Milady murmured, her back to him as she stared out the window of her apartment at the inn. "This emptiness. It's odd. I loved her once." She looked over her shoulder to the pacing man. "Are you sure you killed her?"

d'Artagnan gave a bitter laugh. "Am I sure?" he scoffed and faced her. "It's pointless for regrets now. Is that what you're feeling?"

"This is all I've dreamed of for years." She said. "I thought you were like Athos. But I was wrong." She slowly started towards him. "She had greatness in her. She would not be frightened."

"Frightened? I'm not frightened. No," he shook his head. "It is not I."

She narrowed her green eyes. "What did you say?"

He stepped to her. "How many times—how many chances did you have to kill her yourself? Yet every time, you let it slip through your fingers."

"You don't get to speak to me of loosed chances!" she spat in fury. "You have no idea the hell Athos had strung me through, all I have slogged through in this pit to get to this moment. She is finally from this world!"

"I killed Athos! Me!" he thumped his chest. "I put a bullet in her chest. Aramis and Porthos will never forgive this. They'll want revenge. My life is in ruins, I have nothing left."

"You have me." And she grabbed his doublet and crushed their lips together. He could feel her tongue, like the sting of poison against his own. She pulled back, her brows furrowed. "There's someone else, isn't there?"

"I just killed a woman." He defended. "It tends to dampen the mood, don't you think?"

"Not in my experience." She released him. "You yet love the draper's wife." It wasn't a question.

"Constance means nothing to me." His voice was hard and tight.

"Mm." She continued to watch him.

"I killed Athos for you. You owe me." He pointed out, his arms crossed over his chest, pulling at the surgeon's stitches. "There's only one man who can help me stay alive now."

"I see." She murmured and looked at him with calculating green eyes. Maybe there was still yet some more use she could get out of him. She didn't see the harm in bringing him to the Cardinal. "Perhaps you're not Athos, but with the Cardinal's help, I can still make something of you." She turned from him.

"Your confidence and concern is warming." He said sarcastically.

"If that's what you want, then perhaps you should have stayed with the draper's wife." She purred over her shoulder. "But then, she was at least smart enough to see the same thing, wasn't she?" She left through the door with a smirk. "He'll be expecting us by now."

d'Artagnan gritted his teeth at the still painful truth of it. Even as his heart ached for the woman, she did not want him. He loved her still, and didn't believe he could love another like her. He wanted to kill Milady then, and it took a minute for reason to override the passion. His side throbbed as he breathed heavily, and followed after the deadly woman.

But this time, it was her caught in their web—not the other way around... or so they believed.

Constance followed Celine into a cellar down a short set of steps. "What's going on? Where is he?" she looked around to see no sign of d'Artagnan. Her uneasy feeling was too slow in coming, to realize just how unstable this situation was.

"Unfortunately..." Sarazin stepped from the dark shadows, his voice hoarse. "d'Artagnan is unable to attend. He did, however, send me to look after you." He smiled.

"Who're you?" she questioned suspiciously, only to whip around at the lock clicking into place and Celine putting a key around her neck.

d'Artagnan stood center of the Cardinal's vast office, Milady off to his right, and the two Red Guards an ever presence at his back.

"Musketeers slaughtering each other is the public square?" Richelieu appeared shocked, but inside he was filled with glee. It was like he wish list was taking care of itself. "Something must be done."

"Aramis and Porthos will be looking for me." d'Artagnan interrupted through gritted teeth. "I need your protection."

"Protection?" he laughed. "A Musketeer is asking me for protection?"

"That won't be a problem soon enough." He growled.

"Ah, how disappointed you must be, d'Artagnan." He put salt in open-wounds, "Three months and your commission is already at an end. How sad..."

"And I'm coming to you now." He pleaded.

"The penalty for duelling is death." The Cardinal reminded. He gestured to his two Red Guards. "You'll be hanged at dawn." He turned and headed behind his desk. "Two dead Musketeers for the price of one, an excellent bargain."

d'Artagnan moved fast. He gripped his main gauche from its holster at the small of his back and grabbed Milady, much as Athos had done the previous night, putting the blade at her throat. The Red Guards drew their swords at his back.

"Touch me and she dies!" he screamed.

Richelieu waved his hand in unconcern as he sat in his chair. "Do try not to get blood everywhere."

"He's testing you, d'Artagnan." Milady said tightly.

"Shut up." He hissed, shifting them forward. Her jasmine perfume tickled at the back of his throat.

"I can assure, I'm not." He said. "There was a time where you might have been useful to me, but that time has passed. What service can you possible offer me now?"

"I killed Athos! Something both you and Milady have failed again and again to do."

"Mm." His lips tightened. "Is that all? You've already done the deed—you're finished now."

"Not quite." And the shark grin that d'Artagnan flashed him made the Cardinal pause. "You know Treville has a letter signed by the assassin, Gallagher? He gave it to us before he died, something about not wanting to be burdened by sins in his death. You know how it is." He shrugged. "It's implicated you in the attempt to murder the Queen. I can get it for you."

Richelieu made a tight gesture and his Red Guards back off. After a moment, d'Artagnan took the blade away Milady's neck and pushed her away. She glared at him, adjusting the askewed chocker around her neck.

He shrugged in response, putting his dagger away. "Dog eat dog."

She smiled at him. He had no idea the game he was playing. He was a child, playing at a man.

Constance found her ankles and wrists bound in rope and pushed to the floor in front of the pillar in the center of the cellar. She glared at her captor as he sat on a small box in front of her. His little girl toy in his lap with a bottle of wine to her lips like a baby nursing—Constance could swear she was no more than seventeen!

She didn't know who these people were, but they clearly knew enough of her to lure her without issue into seclusion. And so she attempted to get more information from the man. "If it's ransom your after, my husband isn't a wealthy man."

"Hmm. I'm afraid you're involved in a much bigger game, Constance." He murmured, and Celine briefly removed the bottle from her own lips and put it to his. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "And Celine here... will tend to your every need."

"I'm not frightened of you."

"You're uncommonly braze for a woman, aren't you?" he grinned as he eyed her.

"Untie these ropes and I'll show you what a woman can do." She spat.

Sarazin scoffed and pushed Celine from his lap before he stood and went to kneel in front of her. "You know something?" he touched her cheek and she flicked the touch away with her bound wrists. "Oh." He seemed to like that. "You know something?" he repeated and grabbed her chin harshly with bruising force and pulled her face close. His breath was hot and sour. "I am going to thoroughly enjoy killing you in a few hours." He chuckled. "Let's see who's brave, then, eh?" he stood and headed for the door.

"What do you want from me?" she screamed at him.

"Oh!" he laughed as he left. "You'll see—in time."

Constance silently watched as Celine leaned against the box he had vacate and gulped more wine. The woman fought back the tears of confusion and fear. Not fear for herself, but for d'Artagnan, because she was sure he was twisted deeply into whatever this man's dark plot was. She had to get out of here and find him before it was too late. But for now, all she could do was wait.

"Why hasn't Treville produced it already?" the Cardinal questioned.

"He's waiting to condemn you at Mellendorf's trial—in front of the King." He explained. "That way, no-one can suppress the evidence."

Richelieu turned a hard grey stare on Milady. "Tell me you weren't foolish enough to mention my name to Gallagher." Her eyes flickered away from his awkwardly. He suppressed a growl and turned back to the Gascon. "How would you obtain this?"

d'Artagnan shot a glance at Milady before he stepped closer to the Cardinal's desk, leaning forwards. "Use me as bait. Tell Aramis and Porthos you'll have me over in exchange for the letter."

"Why should I do that when their intention is to destroy me?" he steepled his fingers.

"No no no." He waved his hand. "This is personal now. I killed their friend. Their code of honour demands my death. Believe me. I know how they think." He stepped back.

"What about Treville?" he questioned. "He would never allow it."

"Treville would never need to know. Aramis knows where the letter is kept."

Richelieu's gaze flickered to Milady. "Is he right about them?"

"They loved Athos. They would to anything to avenge her death."

He turned his gaze back onto the Gascon. "And what do you want in return?"

"The same thing you offered me before," he replied. "Your guarantee of my safety and commission in the Red Guards." It was an unsaid truth that Aramis and Porthos would ever be seen after this secret meeting. Hell, d'Artagnan might even pull the trigger himself. Why not? He'd already murdered Athos—he had to fight the laughter that bubbled in his chest at the completely absurd line-of-thought.

After a moment, the Cardinal gestured his Guard forward and conversed with the man. "Send a message to the Musketeer, Aramis. Tell her if she wants d'Artagnan, to bring Gallagher's letter to the Old Seminary at the Place mon Pere at noon." The Red Guard nodded and left to give word of the message.

d'Artagnan nodded to the Cardinal, his left thumb hooked into his belt, looking confident and satisfied, all the while, his arm was gave a subtle pressure against his injured side. It was finally about to be the star-attraction of their play-act.

Constance's opportunity came when, after consuming the entire bottle of wine, Celine was now slumped against the box, lulling. Until finally, blessedly, the girl passed out. Constance desperately watched her grip around the bottle neck in her lap slowly grow lax and could have cheered as it rolled from her lap, and a short distance from her and to Constance, before it went in a half-circle and halted.

Constance watched the girl a moment longer to make she truly did sleep, before she shifted onto her knees and reached for the bottle with bound hands. She carefully wrapped the bottle with a towel that had been her only comfort on the hard cement, and held her breath as she gave the bottle a firm whack against the side of the pillar. She carefully watched Celine at the loud pop, but the girl only murmured and shifted.

Constance dumped the contents onto the floor and shifted through the broken glass for a big enough piece for her to hold. Glass held carefully, she started to saw the rope that bound her legs.

d'Artagnan let out another frustrated sigh, shooting another glance over at Athos at the front of the Queen's escort from the convent back to Paris. They were able to freshen their horses by replacing out the worn with Gallagher's men's' mounts. As well as using a couple to carry their supplies and the claimed weapons from the dead. The rest of the horses were left to the nuns, to either keep or sell at their choosing.

For the one break that the escort took on the road, d'Artagnan dismounted and headed straight for Athos, but at the last moment veered off to assist Porthos with the horses. He had chickened out, in other words. They'd made it to Paris, unmolested and the Queen was reunited with the King.

The Musketeers headed back to the garrison and Treville bid them into his office. He sat behind his desk, and the Inseparables took up various positions around the room. Athos by the back wall, by the door to the armoury. Porthos stood in front of his documents cabinet. Aramis leaned against the partition at the foot of the Captain's bunk. And d'Artagnan stood to her left.

"Athos?" Treville leaned carefully back in his chair, careful of his still healing collarbone. "You know this assassin?" he got the ball rolling. The others all turned to look at her, d'Artagnan albeit nervously.

Athos was quiet for a long driving moment. "Her name is... Anne. We loved each other, we were happy..." her eyes flickered to d'Artagnan. "Until she killed my brother." d'Artagnan's breath caught in his throat. This could not be happening. "Thomas found out that she wasn't who or what she claimed to be—found out about us. She killed him to keep him quiet and claimed he forced himself onto her. And... I ordered her to the noose. I couldn't watch, I left before it was over. I thought her dead for the longest time—but she'd seduced her executioner and he cut her free." She didn't think it relevant to mention about Milady's attempt back at the chateau and was thankful when d'Artagnan didn't say anything. She just wanted to say what needed to be revealed and hopefully not speak on it again. "For the last six-years, she's been plotting and working for the Cardinal. Working to destroy the Musketeers."

"The same woman who was at Ninon's trial," Aramis realized. "Madame de la Chapelle."

Athos nodded. "All Anne said in court were lies so the Cardinal could take Ninon's money and property—he got that in the end, but on the price that she lived."

d'Artagnan made a strained sound in the back of his throat. Aramis looked over at him in concern, fingers lightly touching his right shoulder. "You okay, Charlie?"

He jolted at the touch. "Unh..."

"d'Artagnan?" Athos questioned.

"I..." He gulped and straightened. No matter what happened now, he had to tell the woman. She deserved to know the truth and he deserved whatever she gave him. "I know this assassin, as well."

Athos visibly tensed.

"You do?" Porthos asked.

d'Artagnan nodded with compressed lips. "She's called Milady de Winter now. We've met on several occasions—more, she's tracked me down. She was the one who killed those two Red Guards when he were trying to get the plan for the gunpowder out of Vadim. She was my patron for the competition. The first time we met, was my first night in Paris. She was at the same inn with another man." Athos' fists clenched slowly and tightly, she could see clearly where this was going. She knew Anne too well, not to. "We—we slept together. She murdered the man she had been with beforehand and planted the weapon on me when before she disappeared in the morning."

"You slept with 'er?" Porthos repeated, incredulous. d'Artagnan cringed and Athos flinched—like it needed to be said again. She grimaced herself as Aramis sent her a look.

d'Artagnan took a step forward, pleadingly. "Athos, I—"

"You fool!" she screamed. "What were you thinking?"

What he was expecting, with the fury glowing in the woman's blue eyes, was to be struck. But she seemed to change her course at the last moment and shoved him instead.

Athos turned her back to the room, her chest heaving as she breathed heavily.

He tumbled backwards, twisting around to try and catch himself, but he wasn't fast enough. The edge of Treville's desk squarely caught him on his injured left arm. Tearing as he dropped to the floor in a, albeit in a crumple. The forced of his propulsion nearly throwing the desk back onto the Captain, who leapt to his feet and back. He made a deep and high strangled sound as he clamped his jaw shut to keep from crying out.

"Charlie!" Aramis knelt next to him. "Charlie," she helped the Gascon sit and had to physically pry his hand from around his arm. She found it slick with blood. She cursed. "The damn thing's torn—the whole damn thing! Porthos, get my kit!" Aramis barked, and with a nod, the tall woman rushed to do just that. "Come on," she moved him over to the edge of Treville's bunk. "Athos, what the hell?" she growled.

"No, no." d'Artagnan shook his head as Aramis helped him with his doublet and shirtsleeves. "I deserved that," he voice shook lightly. Treville handed Aramis a clean handkerchief from his desk, and the Gascon gritted his teeth as she pressed it against the bleeding graze, now torn and ragged. "I—"

"Here!" Porthos ran in with Aramis' kit, breathless and set in on the floor at the woman's feet.

"Thanks. Hold that." She instructed him and he replaced her hand over the cloth with his own. She opened it and instantly set to work. Cleaning the wound, stopping the bleeding and started to put a few precarious stitches in the torn flesh.

d'Artagnan continued to plead with the woman's turned back, even as he flinch. "I didn't know, Athos. I swear that I didn't!"

"I know," Athos said, but too softly for him to hear.

It hadn't been anger that made her react as she did. At least, not anger towards d'Artagnan. What she felt for him, was a complete fear. How many times had he met with Anne? How many times did his life hang in the balance. If Anne—Milady—had decided to take revenge on her that way, none of them would even have known until it was too late and their world forever torn apart.

She could not lose another brother, she had hardly survived Thomas. And she knew she would not be able to survive d'Artagnan.

"Please!" his voice broke. "To betray my sister like this... how can I call myself a Musketeer?"

Athos' eyes widened at this and she spun around. "Say no such things!" her voice was gruff with vehemence and his own tear-clouded eyes widened. "I am not angry with you, but myself."

"You've done nothing wrong." He swore.

Aramis tied the bandage off.

"But, I have." She sighed and looked at each of them. "I was ashamed of my past, guilty. I fell for a pretty face and it got my brother killed."

"You can't blame yourself for a mistake anyone could 'ave made." Porthos told her.

"A mistake that caused my brother's life!" she shouted and ran a hand roughly through her hair, taking a deep breath to calm herself. "It will be something that I will never be able to change, but I'll be damned if I'm going to lose another brother!"

It was so silent, that every soft breath could be heard, every creak of soft leather, ever material shift.

As soon as Constance cut the rope free from her ankles, she stood and loomed over Celine. She needed that key if she was to get out of here. Her wrists could wait. She reached forward and hooked the key out from between the girl's cleavage and started to lift it from around her head. Her plan was foiled as the key-string caught in the girl's hair.

Celine woke and grabbed for it sloppily. Constance pulled away, ripping the key from the girl's hair and turning towards the door. Celine grabbed her skirts, halting her, and Constance turned. With a cry, the red-haired woman struck the girl in the face, and kicked her in the chest, throwing her back—and into the bed of broken glass.

Celine screamed a horrible sound. "My face!"

Constance flinched but ran up the short stairs and unlocked the door. She was free, she was—Milady and Sarazin stood in her path. She wasn't expecting or prepared for the punch that Milady gave her, sending her tumbling down the stairs, senseless.

"Dear God." She sneered at Sarazin. "Do I have to do everything myself?"

Aramis removed her hat as she and Porthos stepped into the tavern that was less frequented by the Musketeers, so Athos would be less recognizable. Though a stranger wouldn't recognize her—a shapeless cloak covering any feminine curve she possessed, and a large-brimmed, unfamiliar hat borrowed from one of the men pulled low, shadowed her face, her hair tucked up out of view.

The pair claimed the table immediately at the woman's back, and a wench came with their drinks.

"How was my funeral?" the dead woman asked.

Porthos cleared her throat. "The Captain had some very nice things to say 'bout you."

Aramis smiled. "Porthos even shed a few tears."

"Oi! It was a very emotional time." The tall woman protested. "I just lost a friend. It's healthy to shed a few tears now an' again!"

"I'm touched, Porthos. I'm sorry to have missed it." Athos murmured. "But you do realize I'm not dead,"

Aramis chuckled and Porthos glowered as she buried herself for a moment in her cup. "Shut up! Stop laughin' at me."

"Was the funeral really necessary?" Athos asked.

Aramis shrugged. "You never know. It was better to keep up the appearance of you death in case Milady decided to drop in for a look."

"Like a vulture." Porthos muttered.

"Any news from d'Artagnan?" Athos took drink from her own cup.

"Not since he killed you." The markswoman answered. "That was a rather convincing dive, by the way."

"Thanks. I try."

"Where is she?" Bonacieux appeared unexpectedly, nearly startling the three Musketeers. "Is he hiding her somewhere? I know what you Musketeers are like."

"What are you talking about, Monsieur." Aramis asked, finding her voice. Bonacieux was the last person any of them wanted to run into. Athos was tense like a drawstring.

"Madame Bonacieux left my house yesterday afternoon. I know she's eloped with that wretch, d'Artagnan. Well, I'll challenge him. I have no choice."

"Calm down." Porthos stood. "Right. Tell us exactly what 'appened."

"I already have. She disappeared and hasn't returned."

"Well, she'd not with d'Artagnan," Aramis remarked. "I can assure you that at least."

"A respectable woman doesn't just disappear in broad daylight." he looked between them when no answer was coming. "For goodness sake!" he turned on his heel and left as abruptly as he had come in a huff.

Celine pushed to her feet, sobbing as she stumbled towards the returned Sarazin. Her face was speckled with cuts from the smaller shards, but there was a long and deep gash on her cheekbone. He saw the state of her and grabbed her chin, inspecting the girl's face harshly.

"Oh, dear. Well, that's going to leave a permanent mark, isn't it? You do realize you're never going to be beautiful again, don't you? Well, I suppose someone might want you. As long as they don't look too close." He released her chin and grabbed the back of her neck, thrusting her towards the door. "Now leave."

"Please, Sarazin. I love you!" she cried.

"Well, love doesn't pay the bills, does it?" he said harshly. "Get out!"

Sobbing, she ran.

"You're heartless." Milady commented.

"What use is a courtesan with a scar on her face?" He pointed at Constance, "And you! I like her! You cost me!"

Constance panted. "Whatever have I done to you to deserve this?"

"My, self-important, aren't we?" Milady leaned against the crates the other woman was slumped against. She knelt in front of the woman. "You're just a prop, dear."

"Pro—then wh—d'Artagnan!" she realized and pushed herself up straighter. "Why? Because he refused your advances?"

"He thought me the fool, and he'll pay the price."

"You are the fool!" Constance spat. "If you think d'Artagnan will fall for—" She flinched as Milady backhanded her.

"He loves you. I've seen it in his eyes. I've felt it in his lips when I kissed him. You broke his heart, you think you saved him? Well, you didn't. He's going to try to save you—and it's going to kill him."

"My friends will be looking for me—you won't get away with this!"

"Your friends are tearing themselves apart." She laughed. "Athos is dead, murdered by your beloved d'Artagnan. Aramis and Porthos are out for his blood—so maybe he won't even know that you've been taken. And you'll just disappear like smoke."

"I knew you were evil." Constance shouted. "From the first moment I saw you—I knew."

Milady stood and loomed over the woman. "Yet, you're the one that drove him right into my arms." She sighed. "You have such spirit. I understand what d'Artagnan sees in you—what a shame it must end like this."

Porthos looked at the other two women in worry as she sat back down. "If Constance 'as been missin' all night, she might be in danger."

Athos finally faced them for the first time since they arrived, shifting her chair around. "d'Artagnan cannot know about this. Not now. It will only distract him."

Aramis shook her head. "You know he loves her."

"All the more reason to keep it from him." Her words sounded cold and unfeeling, but Aramis and Porthos knew it was quite the opposite. "One lapse in concentration might cost him his life."

"What about her?" the Spaniard wondered softly. If Constance was killed, d'Artagnan would be a broken man, unfixable.

"Aramis?" a man entered the tavern and the markswoman stood. The man simply handed her a sealed note and left.

Brows furrowed, Aramis opened it and read. "The Cardinal's got d'Artagnan. He will hand him over in exchange for Gallagher's letter." She handed the note to Porthos and looked to Athos. "Show time. This'll be our make it or break it moment." She set her hat firmly on her head.

"Let's try not t' break it." Porthos agreed, standing.

"Don't get each other killed." Athos advised and wished them luck before the pair headed off. She sighed as she watched them leave. She hated being stuck on the sidelines, unable to be present and assist her sisters and brother if something were to go amiss.

But it wouldn't, she swore, because they knew what they were doing. This had to play out, this had to work.

Aramis and Porthos rode to Louvre, dismounting and entering the old seminary, but not before they'd made a detour to talk with Treville, and not before he made a visit to Her Majesty. It was easy to find their way, the Red Guard's lined like bread crumbs right to the Cardinal and d'Artagnan.

"You murderer!" Porthos bellowed upon seeing the Gascon.

"It was a duel!" d'Artagnan shouted back, and the Red Guards on either side of him behind the Cardinal in the hall, held him fast. "Fair game—she fired first."

The two women shoved some Guards out of their way and faced the Cardinal. "You shot him in cold blood!" Aramis pointed accusatory over Richelieu's shoulder.

"Entertaining as this is," Richelieu drawled. "Perhaps we should get to business. Just give me the letter, then you can do what you want with d'Artagnan."

"What!" d'Artagnan growled. "You promised me protection! Retribution!" He was ignored.

Aramis reached inside her frock and took out the Gallagher letter, holding it up in her fingertips. Richelieu reached for it, but Porthos snatched it up faster.

"You'd murder the Queen, just to see one of your favourites on th' throne? Hmm? Haven't got enough power already?"

"This was never about power." He reached for it again.

But Aramis snatched it back. "Of course it was. You simply want your own puppet at the King's Right Hand."

"You understand nothing." He reached again for the note, tiredly like he knew exactly what was going to happen.

Porthos reclaimed it. "Why don't you explain it to us, then?"

The Cardinal reached for it again, but Aramis stole the note one last time and said to the woman even as she looked at the man, "He can't speak because he's too ashamed."

Richelieu scoffed at them and turned his back. He didn't have to listen to this, he could just have them killed. But Porthos' chuckle had him turning back in announcement instead.

"The Queen is barren." He snapped through gritted teeth. "If the King dies without an heir, France will be plunged back into civil war. Is one woman's life worth sacrificing to avoid such a catastrophe? I think it is. I ordered her death because I alone will face the truth that no one can stomach. Give me the letter."

"You heartless bastard." Aramis called him, finally letting him take the letter.

d'Artagnan got a first-row seat as the Cardinal opened the note and realized his downfall. He grinned at the rage on the man's face—and the fear. The Gascon new that if Richelieu tried to take them out, though the Musketeers were out-numbered, he could easily take care of the two Red Guards on either side of him.

"How very cunning," he crumpled the blank piece of paper and threw it to the floor. "You tricked me."

"Into making a full confession," Aramis' voice was pleased. "Yes."

Richelieu straightened and gave a smile of his own as he turned to the two women. "And what use is your confession? The word of lowly Musketeers against the First Minister of France?" he laughed. "Who do you think the King will believe? If you even make it out of this hall..."

"The King might not believe them, Cardinal," Queen Anne's voice rang clear through the hall as her and Captain Treville made their entry. They all bowed as she walked towards them, but Richelieu, realizing the real trouble he was in, got down on his knees and prostrated himself to her. She stopped, Aramis and Porthos at either of her shoulders, Treville behind Porthos' and d'Artagnan moving behind Aramis'. "But he most certainly will believe mine."

"Hail, Holy Queen. Mother of Mercy." He raised his head. "What I did, I did solely for the interests of France."

She look down at him. "It is only because I believe you are sincere in your devotion to the country that I've decided to spare your life. France needs you and the King loves you. Your treachery would break his heart." She took a step closer, her voice low. "If you ever fail in your duty again, I will not be so lenient. My influence with the King is stronger than you can possibly imagine. You have been warned, Cardinal. " And she turned and left, as regally and as tall as she had come. She had been in clue of the entire situation since the ride home from the assassination attempt at the convent.

After a moment, Richelieu stood to face a row of Musketeers. He wasn't stupid, though the Queen had let him be, he still had them to deal with. His eyes landed on d'Artagnan and a wariness hit him.

"Athos was your friend." He reminded the others. "Are you so ready to forgive him for murder?"

"It is sad," Porthos shared a look with Aramis. "But we can always find new friends." She shrugged.

"And to be honest, she was a little moody." Aramis agreed. "You've met her, right?"

"Mmm." All the others hummed in agreement and turned to stare eerily at the Cardinal.

"Of course," the Cardinal sighed. "She'd not really dead, is she? I never thought I would meet liars to rival myself—and naturally they're all Musketeers." He sneered. And gave a single clap. "I commend you for commitment in seeing this through. Allowing yourself to get shot? You had me convinced. I really should have tried harder to get you onto the Red Guards."

"Thanks," d'Artagnan said sarcastically. "But I'll take getting shot over that any day."

"Too bad." He said. "But perhaps one day..." he promised.

"There's just one more thing before we let you go, Cardinal..." he stepped forward. "We want Milady."

"She too has to account for her crimes." Treville spoke for the first time.

Richelieu shrugged. "She's yours. She has failed me too many times lately to be of use anymore." He did tell her it was her head on the chopping block before it was his. If she hadn't failed in killing the Musketeers like she was supposed to, things would have turned out differently.

"What's wrong with you two?" d'Artagnan asked as they dismounted in the garrison yard and Jacques the stable boy took their mounts. "I thought you'd be more happy that I was back in your arms. Or do I just think you love me more than you really do?" he joked. Almost three days he had been absent their company.

"We love you just fine, Charlie." That hadn't been exactly the reaction he was expecting.

"What's up guys?" he started for the table and food. He hadn't eaten all day.

"Athos said not to say anythin'," Porthos started and d'Artagnan groaned.

"That can't be good." He said. "So how bad are we talking?" he took some cold cuts and bread, taking a bite. He turned, his mouth full when they didn't say anything. "Well?"

In truth, the pair had been dreading this moment, and had argued all morning for who would tell him about Constance. And just now had done a lightening around of stone/parchment/shears.

"While we were waiting this morning," Aramis said slowly, "Bonacieux cornered us and ranted about your stealing Constance from him."

"What? I haven't seen Constance in months..."

Aramis' gaze flickered to Porthos' briefly. "He said that Constance had left for Market yesterday, but she never came home that night and has been missing."

"Missing..." he repeated, his knuckles turned white as his grip continued to tighten on the bread. "Why wasn't I told of this earlier?" he demanded.

"There wasn't a chance," Porthos said gently. "We'd just been told right before we got your letter for the meetin' with the Cardinal, there was no other chance."

"You could have found me by letter!" he shouted and started to pace in front of the pair, his food forgotten just like his appetite.

Aramis watched him worriedly. "Perhaps we're worrying about nothing."

"Constance would not just disappear." He protested with a shake of his head. "Something's happened to her." He was sure of it, he knew it in his gut.

"She might be home already, safe and sound."

"And what if she isn't?" he stepped forward intensely.

"Look," Porthos dropped a hand on his tense shoulder. "I'm sure she's fine. Alright? She came to the garrison when she 'eard you were injured. And you could see she was upset."

That made him pause. "She... she did?"

Aramis' hand found his other shoulder. "You only have to look at her face to see she adores you. And the same is for you."

d'Artangna opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Treville returned from the Cardinal. "Milady is on her way. She's taken the bait."

Aramis squeezed his shoulder. "We'll deal with Milady, and then we'll find Constance."

The two men and women mounted up and left the garrison. Soon, in hardly half-an-hour, this whole nightmare was going to be over. They would have Milady in custody and Athos risen from the dead.

"Milady and the Cardinal need to be stopped," d'Artagnan stood firmly, bare-chested and looked to Athos. "So what are we going to do about it?"

"Stop it." She said.

"Damn right!" Porthos agreed. "But 'ow?"

Aramis wiped the blood from her hands and stood next to him. "The Cardinal has been fighting from the shadows for years," she shook her head. "We'll never be able to expose him and Milady while they're still in the shade."

"What if we were too?" d'Artagnan voiced slowly and gave a shark-grin as it came to him. "Why not play them at their own game?"

Slowly, the candles lit behind their eyes, but Athos went straight out with a flat, "No."

"What? You haven't even heard the plan yet."

"Oh, you have a plan, do you?" she crossed her arms over her chest and quirked a brow. "What rotten fruit is about to drop on our heads?"

"Don't you know me, Athos?" he scoffed cockily. "When have my plans never come to fruition?"

Her expression was deadpanned. "Should I remind you of—"

"That was not my fault!"

"Oh!" Porthos held up her finger. "What 'bout when you—"

"That skunk was an unforeseen variable—and I paid for that. You burned my clothes, remember?"

"My turn." Aramis grinned. "The first day we met—"

"We agreed to never mention that!"

The three women chuckled. "Everyone in the 'ole garrison already 'as 'eard some version of it."

"That's because you keep mentioning it." He grumbled.

Aramis patted his uninjured shoulder. "A good story never gets old—and that's one of the best."

"You guys need to get some new material!" he complained as he pulled his shirtsleeves over his head.

Treville smiled. "You only stop when it's not funny anymore," Treville said, leaning on the edge of his desk. "So you're out of luck on that, son. Perhaps if you don't mistake coin for a coin."

He looked at the Captain open-mouthed as the others laughed. "That was a reasonable mistake!"

The four Musketeers rode down the road, lined with trees. It was the very same where they had set up the fake duel to get d'Artagnan arrested and close to the criminal Vadim. That had been another act.

They reined in and Milady turned towards them, her jaw tightening.

"The Cardinal was unavoidably detained." Treville informed her.

"So, he had finally betrayed me? I suppose it was bound to happen." She exhaled tightly. "Well done, d'Artagnan. But it changes nothing. I have still won—Athos is dead." They all smiled at this, not such a reaction as she was expecting, as d'Artagnan and Treville dismounted. She could feel the woman's presence at her back as surely as if she was pressed against it. She gave a quiet moan and slowly turned. "I should have guessed." She said. "Back from the dead, I should have guessed."

"It seems we are both prone to resurrection." Athos agreed.

"It's amazin' what you can do with a bit of play-actin'." Porthos said. "And a pig's bladder full o' blood."

Athos stopped in front of the woman. "Did your revenge taste as sweat as you imagined it would?"

"For a moment." She whispered and stepped closer. "And then something strange happened—the world seem diminished without you." Her steps carried her passed the woman, but soon halted away as Athos turned and with her pistol drawn, cocked it. "Mmm." She chuckled to herself. It was exactly a situation like this that drove her to take Constance. She turned. "Shoot me and you will never see Constance Bonacieux alive again."

d'Artagnan charged for her, but Athos outstretched arm nearly close-lined him, knocking the breath from his chest and injured side, halted him. He gripped the woman's arm tightly. "Where is she?" he demanded. "If you hurt her—I'll kill you."

"Oh, young love. So touching." She cooed. "How sickening." She looked at Athos and ignored him. "I warned you there would be a final reckoning between us, Athos." Now she looked at Treville. "Treville! I'll be waiting in the Rue Saint-Jacques in one hours time. Send them, no one else."

With a low growl comprised of suppressed fury, d'Artagnan returned to the others and stood by his horse as Athos gave him a firm push back, his anger making the animal snort nervously.

Athos lowered her pistol and Milady approached, now with confidence that she would leave with her life intact.

"This is your doing, not mine." She leaned forward and whispered in her ear, "When Constance dies, it'll be her blood he will see on your hands."

And this time, when she turned to walk away, no one stopped her. Athos returned to them, hooking her pistol back onto her belt.

"Argh!" d'Artagnan gave a cry of frustration. "I told you she would never have just disappeared. This whole time, Constance has been at Milady's mercy! Who knows the things she's done?"

"It will be an ambush." Athos sighed. "She has no intention of letting any of us live."

"Let her try!" d'Artagnan shouted. "If I find out she's harmed Constance in any way, I'll kill her myself!" He mounted his horse and steered it around before kicking his heels into the animal's ribs. It shot off down the road at the force from the Gascon's heels.

Athos mounted and they quickly followed after the young man.

Aramis looked over at her. "You were right in not telling him about Constance before—but we were also wrong."

"All for one, and one for all!" the four Inseparables chanted from within the garrison armoury, their hands clasped tightly, loaded up to the gills.

d'Artagnan looked at each of them in turn. "Thank you for doing this." He whispered.

"Just like our motto, d'Artagnan." Porthos said gruffly. "You are us an' we are you."

"Still," he said around the lump in his throat. "I don't know where I would be without you guys." —his Angels.

"We are going to get her back, d'Artagnan." Athos said firmly. "There will be no die-trying."

"Besides," Aramis gave a cheeky grin. "After shooting you, it's the least we can do."

d'Artagnan gave a small laugh. "If your talking about even's made, shouldn't I just shoot you all in return?"

"Hey, now." Aramis back-peddled. "Technically it was Athos who shot you."

"Thanks," Athos deadpanned. "That goes right along with our motto."

"Sorry," she looked a bit sheepish. "I was thinking of our old one: every woman for herself."

"Either way," Porthos said. "Let's get these bastards!"

"There's nothing more I agree with, sisters!" d'Artagnan pumped their hands. He was going to get Constance back and Milady was going to pay for the day she thought she could break them.

She should have learned by now—Musketeers don't die easily.

The innocent run from the street and hide for cover in their homes as Sarazin's men flood the street, claiming perches on balconies and windows, and on roofs and in the street. At the end of Rue Saint-Jacques, on the right-side of the dead-end street was a tunnel walk. Sarazin shoved Constance along it.

"Soon," Milady said, walking behind them. "They will come for you and this will finally be over. They will be dead, and so will you. And I will be free."

Constance jerked to a halt and faced the woman. "Musketeers don't die easily." She spat the woman's own words spoken to the Cardinal at the beginning of this whole mess, back at her. "If I were you, I'd run—Because this is going to be where your life ends."

Sarazin grabbed her arm and dragged her from the tunnel and a quarter down the street, leaving Milady behind. "Now, you move, you die." He said roughly and back away to cover in front of the tunnel under a hayloft.

The street was eerily quiet as Constance stood there, waiting. She swore she could hear each of the men's heartbeat, along with her own. It flooded her ears, like the pounding of drums. Her breath sound harsh in her own ears. It wasn't until a moment later that she realized the drumming was the clop of hooves as a pair of horses stopped in the entry on the other side of the street, harnessed to a driverless, tarped wagon.

She could feel the tension in the air as everyone held with baited breath. And then the wagon started forward again several yards before stopping again. Leaving in its wake, Porthos on the laying on the ground, having dropped from underneath the wagon carriage. She raised her two pistols and quickly killed a man in a lower doorway and another on the balcony.

The tarp was flung aside and d'Artagnan and Athos popped up from the wagon bed, and Aramis from the front bench.

"Constance, get down!" d'Artagnan screamed and his voice was music to her ears, even as the gunshots exploded around her. Aramis shot a man in a window before d'Artagnan took a man in a lower window and Aramis another from behind on a low roof before she rolled off the bench, and to cover at the side with the Gascon and Athos, Porthos at the back of the cart.

A man rushed them from behind as Sarazin ordered his men to kill the Musketeers and grabbed Constance, backing up. Porthos cut the rushing man down with a musket, and he flew backwards. Aramis dispatched expertly placed bullet from her harquebus, between the small gap between two barrels down the street and into a man's skull. She discarded the gun back into the wagon and retrieved two pistols.

Athos cradled two hand bombs in her gloved hand, and lit the short fuses into life. She lobbed them down the street as they fizzled, the metal casings thunking and rolling on the ground. The Musketeers ducked for cover as they exploded halfway down the street, sending dirk, brick and a few men flying. The smoke clogged the street blind and Aramis thwacked the closest horse's rump with a musket and the wagon charged down the street, swallowed by the smoke.

The Inseparables gathered and slowly made their way down the street. They picked off man after man. Shot from windows, first floor and second. From balconies, and lofts. On the street and off of roofs. Bodies collapsed where they stood, or dropped from above, hanging out windows.

Pistols spent, Porthos tossed them aside and grabbed the barrel of a musket hanging from a first floor window, and yanked—pulling the unexpecting man from his perch. She claimed his musket, cracking his skill with its butt, before she used its ball to fell a man climbing up a balcony. He dropped down and broke through the canopy.

All guns spent, the Inseparables pulled their swords. They weren't the only ones, the bandits all rushed from their perches, their own swords drawn.

d'Artagnan cut a quick path to his only goal—Sarazin—while the men were still equalizing themselves, and the crowd grew thick around the three women. Sarazin had his arm wrapped around Constance's throat, her body held out in front of his. d'Artagnan raised his pistol, having left the one on his belt loaded and untouched for this purpose exactly. He fired, clipping the man on the shoulder—he took all of Aramis' shooting lessons to heart.

"Constance, run!" he yelled, and the woman twisted from the man's grasp and headed away from the fighting and back towards the tunnel, her only hope of escape.

Sarazin frantically pulled his sword and d'Artagnan parried his strike with a roar, kicking the man back into the loft post. He slashed and Sarazin ducked, his sword clipping into the wood. Sarazin threw a handful of hay at him, blinding him.

Constance made it into the tunnel, only to be forced to halt as Milady stood waiting with a pistol. "Where do you think you're going?"

Porthos used the musket like a club, sweeping aside the men when it got too crowded, before she tossed it and got down and dirty with her hands. d'Artagnan was forced to turn from Sarazin for a moment to take care of some wanderers who split off from the main body. His back turned, Sarazin charged him. The Gascon turned just in time to block the strike.

Aramis got in close to her man and pulled his pistol from him. She pointed it at him and he froze in wide-eyes fear. She grinned—and shot another attempting to charge her, before turning back and running the man through with the sword in her other hand.

Athos flipped a man from her back over her shoulder, thumping him to the ground, a boot planted on his throat, pulling his arm taut, even as she defended an attack from another. Their swords clashed, before she stabbed him and then turned her sword to the man literally under her boot.

The crowd of men was steadily thinning, there were only three of them, but still, the bandits were at the mercy of the Musketeer women. Two daggers flew through the air, each from different parties, to burry into the same man. Aramis and Athos shared a grin.

d'Artagnan exchanged hard strokes with Sarazin. Before the man pulled a small pistol. d'Artagnan dropped back and slashed the gun away with his sword, it fired harmlessly. Sarazin thrust at him on the ground, but d'Artagnan parried and spun on his knee, slashing at the man—disembowelling him. He dropped to his knees and then forward on his face with an exhale—dead.

"Alright?" Athos question as the three women met him. He nodded. "Constance?"

"She ran into the tunnel."

Smoke still lingered in the air as the four Inseparables walked into the mouth of the tunnel, their sight briefly obscured—only to reveal Milady standing in the middle of the tunnel before the bend, an arm around Constance's neck and her small flintlock to her temple.

"One more step and she dies." Milady declared and they halted instantly.

"Stop this now." Athos slowly stepped from the group, her hands raised placating. "You've hurt enough people today."

Milady directed the pistol toward her. "You dare talk to me about hurt?" she spat.

Remembering what d'Artagnan had taught her, Constance struck Milady's gun arm and the pistol fired into the ceiling of the tunnel, dust raining down. She broke from Milady and ran past Athos and into d'Artagnan's arms.

"I'm sorry!" she cried. "What I said, I didn't mean any of it. None of it! Not of it was true!"

d'Artagnan held her tight and crushed their lips together, desperately and passionately. Porthos cleared her throat uncomfortably and after a moment, both blushing, the pair parted. But d'Artagnan looked rather pleased with himself as he kept his arm wrapped around the woman's waist.

Celine laughed as she walked down the street laid with Sarazin's dead men. Her cheek burned and felt tight, streaked with blood. They laid on the street, hanging halfway out windows—first story and second. She sneered and spat on his body when she discovered it. She was going to make them pay.

She crouched next to him and picked up his pistol, reloading it from his belt before she relieved him of his dagger as well. Milady de Winter; she thought she was so much better, but she was just a street whore, too. Madame Bonacieux; she thought she was so special to have a husband and a lover and a home.

Discarded... Ugly... —they were the ugly ones. Milady and Sarazin—their souls dark and twisted. Cruel.

Celine stood and headed for the tunnel towards the voices. She would show them how much of nothing they were, not her!

"Enough. It's over." Athos froze Milady with her raised pistol. Funny thing was, it wasn't even loaded. But the woman didn't need to know that. "Kneel." Milady was shaking, but after a moment, the woman dropped to the ground on her knees. "Do you have anything thing to say for yourself?"

"Go ahead, finish what you started!" she seethed.

"You don't have to do this." Aramis reasoned.

"Leave this to th' proper authorities, Athos." Porthos agreed.

They knew what agony the kneeling woman had caused their friend, but they knew that finally killing her would not be the sort of peace that the woman sought and deserved.

But Athos shook her head. "I made her what she is. Her murders are on my head." She hooked her empty pistol back onto her belt and drew her sword.

"It is you who should be on your knees." Milady spat. "Now kill me. And do a better job of it than last time." She panted. "This time you have to watch, this time you can't run away!"

Athos breathed heavily as she lined up her blade with Milady's neck. The tip shook as she stared at the chocker and what she knew must lay beneath. The scars from the hanging on her order, for the murder of her little brother. Grief made her heart ache. For the loss of Thomas, for the loss of what she had with Anne.

And suddenly, she dropped her arm, panting. Before she sheathed it and took a step away from the woman. "You're right,"

Milady gasped where she knelt, looking at the other woman in confusion. "Why can you never commit? You know there can be no peace for either of us, until we are both dead. Why c—"

"Then die and I shall have peace!" Celine screamed. They turned to the girl in surprise. The pistol shook in her hand, but steadied the instant she pulled the trigger. The bang was concussive inside the tunnel.

Milady grunted as red spilled from her chest and soaked into her dress, and she slumped to the side. "No!" Athos screamed, gathering the dying woman into her arms.

"You!" Celine screeched, the dagger raised as she leapt towards d'Artagnan and Constance. But she halted in front on them, blood leaking from the corner of her mouth as Porthos skewered her from behind with her sword.

"Who's she?" Porthos asked as she pulled her sword free and the girl dropped to the ground, dead.

"She was with Milady," Constance said, looking down sadly at the girl, his arms wrapped tightly around her. "She'd the one that lured me away."

"Anne!" Athos cried, and repeatedly brushed the woman hair from her face. "Anne."

"Olivia," there was hardly a breath to the woman's voice, and Athos leaned closer to hear. "I-I'm dying... I always w-wanted you to h-hold me in your arms one last t-time. What I s-said before... that still holds true... my l-lo..." Her body shook in the woman's arms as her lungs gave this horrible rattle and her last breath left her.

Athos was left staring into the blank green-eyes of the woman who had haunted her for the last six-years.

"Your Eminence?" a Royal Messenger stepped into the Cardinal's office. "The King demanded your attendance on a matter of the highest importance."

Dread filled the First Minister.

"Will Athos be alright?" Constance asked gently as d'Artagnan walked with her from Rue Saint-Jacques. The King had called the Musketeers' attendance, but Treville allowed d'Artagnan leave to escort Constance home again.

He claimed her hand and she looked at them nervously. "It time," he said softly. "Hopefully, mine, Aramis', and Porthos' company will balm the pain—they really helped me after..." his brows flickered to their joined hands.

"d'Artagnan," she pulled them to a halt. "I need to—"

"It doesn't matter." He whispered and released her hand to take either side of her face and claim her lips with his own.

She moaned softly, and wrapped her arms his neck, standing on her toes. His tongue was like a soft caress against her own.

"Madame Bonacieux," Mia came running down the street, breathless. Constance quickly pulled from d'Artagnan and looked at her maid. "Come quickly!"

She shook off the ill-feeling the repeated words caused, as just the other day, it was a trick to gain her life as leverage. But she knew Mia. "What's happened?"

"It's the Master—he's tried to kill himself. You must come quickly!"

"I have—" Constance looked from Mia to d'Artagnan.

"Constance..." he knew that look well enough. He took her hand. "You don't have to go."

She shook her head. "I can't have this on my conscious, d'Artagnan." She cupped his cheek and then her hand slipped from his fingers as she ran down the street and disappeared around the corner.

He could hear his heart breaking and his lips parted—a exhaled left his lips in lieu of a wrenched scream. He's made so many mistakes in his life... Insisting that they stop at that inn hours before he and his father reached Paris. Sleeping with Milady, or Anne, or whoever she truly was. Accepting her patronage.

But he wasn't going to let Constance be another one of those Mistakes. He loved her, she was his heart. He didn't want to be without her anymore—and he knew she felt the same. Was he selfish if he knew that he made Constance happy? That they were meant to be together? Couldn't Bonacieux see that she didn't love him? He would fight the man if he had to.

Mind set, he straightened and headed to the Bonacieux house to get his happily-ever-after.

Richelieu entered the more grand throne room, his eyes scanning the gathered crowd as he walked towards the Royals. He saw Treville and his three women, wondered where d'Artagnan was. He also saw the Mellendorfs as well, and knew it was the end.

He bowed to the King.

"I never expected this, Cardinal." Louis said, and Richelieu swallowed but kept his expression controlled as he glanced at the smiling Queen. "Not after so long. When My Queen told me..." He took the woman's hand and grinned. "That she is with child!"

The Cardinal's eyes widened in shock and disbelief.

Athos shot Aramis a look and muttered quietly so the other wouldn't hear to the markswoman, "Lucky. Had you been a man, I might have feared you the father." The Spaniard purposefully didn't look at her and instead, ended up catching the Queen's eye.

"Pregnant." The Cardinal stammered.

"Indeed." Louis chuckled. "Isn't it wonderful?" he started to clap and everyone else pleasantly joined in.

Porthos seemed to clap extra enthusiastically, this news was especially pleasing and happy after the last few days.

"May I offer my most hearty congratulations to Your Majesty?" Richelieu bowed.

"I'm certain your share our delight." Anne murmured.

"No one could be happier than I."

"In honour of this marvellous news," Louis announced. "The Queen has asked to grant Count Mellendorf a full amnesty for his crime. In fact, she was quite adamant on the matter. What do you say, Cardinal?"

"The Queen's mercy is a lesson to us all." He replied in a monotone. "Provided the Count himself has no complaints to make?" he looked at said-man pointedly.

"I am content simply to return home with my beloved daughter Charlotte." Mellendorf said quickly. "I hope never to hear another word on this matter again."

"My own sentiments entirely." The Cardinal muttered and glance back to see Treville smirking at him.

"The queen would like to rest in private." Louis said and the pair rose. "We will celebrate later." And the parted. The crowd bowed and dispersed as well.

Athos carefully watched Aramis.

She thought that the Spaniard, seeing the Queen with the King's child would smother any ardent feelings and desire for the woman, but though her eyes held a dash of jealousy, they glowered with love and desire still.

It was something to be thought on later, but now, she had one last visit to make with Milady before she could move ahead.

Aramis bowed to the Queen, one-on-one in the empty hall. One of her Ladies had called on the Musketeer as they had been leaving.

"I'm convinced this baby will be born strong and healthy." Anne told her. "It will be a boy. I'm certain of it."

"I pray he will have his mother's great wisdom and judgement." Aramis murmured.

"Thank you, Aramis." She whispered. "I believe this would not have happened had we not come together that night in the convent. You helped me free myself of a burden that I believe prevented from such a thing as this from happening. You have done so much for me, Aramis. My thank you can never be enough."

Aramis slowly stepped approached her. "I will watch over your son." She vowed. "And guard him with all my strength and heart." They gazed at each other. "I will lay down my life for him, if necessary." She whispered. "He will have no more devoted servant."

"It is only what I would expect from a King's Musketeer." She smiled softly. "God go will you, Aramis." She murmured and Aramis took her hand and pressed her lips to the woman's knuckles for a long moment.

The Cardinal made witness and smiled. "What a happy occasion this is, Your Majesty." Aramis rose and turned sideways towards him. "A child after so long. Remarkable. One might almost call it a miracle."

"Oh, it is, Cardinal." Anne replied. "Finally, after so many years, the waters of Bourbon-les-eaux take." She gave him a tight smile before she left, and the pair bowed at her parting.

The Cardinal and Musketeer gave each other hard stares for a long moment, before they, too, turned from each other in the same moment.

Aramis was happy and delighted for the Queen. Anne deserved this, to have this happiness growing inside of her. To bring it into this world like she never got the chance to before. And Aramis swore she was going to protect that boy and the Queen with her life.

Constance gasped lightly from the doorway of the kitchen at the sight of her assaulted husband. "What have you done to yourself?" His face was covered in cuts, and his left arm was in a sling.

"I can't do it, Constance." The man sobbed pitifully from where he sat. "Without you, I am nothing."

"What did you do?" she repeated and knelt by his side. She inspected the damage with keen eyes—it looked at if he might have thrown himself out a window.

"Please don't leave me." He begged.

"Bonacieux," Constance stood. "Why have you truly done this? Not because you love me, because surely, this is not love. This is possession. You want to own me, for no others to have me. I am not an animal!" she told him. "I am a human being and deserve to be happy!"

"With him?" Bonacieux suddenly shouted, his entire demeanour changing as he leapt to his feet. "He cannot provide for you like I can. He does not love you like I!"

"You're right." She agreed. And for a moment, that quieted him, until she continued, "He love's me how I am. He doesn't try and suppress me and control me."

"I am your husband."

"No longer." She shook her head, her entire body shaking. She turned and made to leave when he grabbed her wrist with his right hand and jerked her back.

"Where do you think you're going?" he demanded. "You think I'm just going to let you go? To him?! Have you forgotten I have the Cardinal's ear now? I can make him disappear." He squeezed her wrist until she grimaced and could feel the bones grind together.

"Do you think I'm afraid of the Cardinal?" d'Artagnan scoffed, standing in the doorway. "Do you know how many schemes and plots of his I have negated? Release her."

"Get out of my house! You're not welcome!" Bonacieux shouted.

"Release her." He repeated, his voice edged. "I won't say again." And he raised his pistol.

Bonacieux's eyes widened. "Are you mad?!"

"You just threatened to have me killed." What the man didn't need to know, was that he had yet to reload the weapon.

It wasn't needed though, as Constance narrowed her eyes and stomped on the man's foot. He cursed and released her. d'Artagnan watched with a grin as she wasn't quite finished yet. She kneed him in the groin—with enough forced that made d'Artagnan at least want to feel sympathy, even if he did not—and groaning to the floor. She dusted her hands.

"Ooh. Have you been sneaking lessons with Porthos behind my back?" he mused, hooking his pistol back onto his belt. She gave a heavy exhale and turned to him. "Okay?" he asked.

"I..." she swallowed and took a breath, her voice a tad shaky. "I need to get my things."

He nodded and stepped aside to let her passed. He squeezed her trembling hand as she went by in comfort and encouragement.

"This isn't over." Bonacieux croaked, pushing up shakily from his prostrate position, his face pale.

"Yes, it is." d'Artagnan said and left the kitchen to help Constance pack her things.

So that was why, he thought. Constance hadn't broken things off with him because she didn't love him, or he had no prospect; but because Bonacieux found out about the affair and threatened to have him killed in some alley one night.

But none of that would be a problem now. The Cardinal wasn't a threat to them anymore, not with what the Musketeers and the Queen had hanging over his head like a guillotine waiting to drop. And Bonacieux was a weak and pitiful man himself, a coward.

Athos stared down at Milady on a slab in the morgue, the candle at her head casting the plains of her face into long shadows and flickering light. Making her eyes look black, hollow and pitless.

She reached forward and removed the chocker from around the woman's supple neck, revealing the scars of their twisted past. Her fingertips traced lightly over the raised flesh, in a unknown mirror of what d'Artagnan had done when they first laid to bed.

Anne had been in her life for so long, a dark shadow like spilt ink. Staining and spoiling all those clear and innocent around. Athos was scarred and stained pitch forever, fearing no removal. But with Anne gone, dead of this world—Athos slowly started to see blank parchment ahead. Clean and unsoiled, with the headings of Aramis-Porthos-d'Artagnan. She could finally live the live meant to her in the Musketeers without a haunting past and the live phantoms of tragedy dogging her every step.

And as she took the locket off from around her neck and off her breast, and gazed at the painted forget-me-not inside, letting the chain gather in her palm—she took the first unhindered deep breath in six-years.

She clipped the chain around the dead woman's neck, and laid the locket on her bloodied breast, right next to the hold in her chest. And so she took another breath and another. Each less burdened and more freeing than the last.

She pulled the sheet over Milady's head, covering her face from view. She bent and blew the candle out, casting the body into shadows. And when she turned and left the morgue to head back to the garrison to her sisters and brother, she knew Milady's reach was forever gone—the Hands of Hell had her now.

"Oh, my God. d'Artagnan! What just happened?" Constance gasped, jerking the Gascon to a halt in a few streets away. What she had just done—what they had just done, hit her. "I just left my husband, my home. What am I going to do?

"Constance," he hushed and set her bag down. He took her trembling hands in his. "It's going to be alright. You can stay at the garrison until we find something."

"We?" she asked, and he smiled. "How do you know it's going to be all right?

He cupped her cheek and she leaned into the touch. "Because... I do."

She scoffed at that. "You always say that."

"And it always works out."

"Show off." She huffed in laughter. But it did seem to reassure her, steady her to have him there. She wasn't sure she would have been able to do it otherwise and that was something that scared her even more than actually doing it.

He leaned forward and gave her a soft kiss in response. "Come on." He said and holding her hand, picked up her bag and led her to the garrison. It would work out, he told himself, and he knew it to be true.

"Uh-oh." Aramis murmured, breaking the subdued silence between the three women at the table in the yard as they waited for their fourth to return. Athos was slowly coming to terms with the loss of both her love and her nightmare. Aramis feeling a scary anticipation starting to grow inside of her at Anne pregnancy. And Porthos was left to wonder on the weird atmosphere twisting around them.

Aramis was the first to see d'Artagnan enter the garrison, and with him Constance and a bag. Porthos looked up from where she sat next to the Spaniard, and Athos twisted on the bench where her back had been to the yard.

"You steal someone's wife while we weren't lookin', pup?" Porthos wondered in amusement and pleasure as they pair approached. "We've been lettin' you 'ang out with Aramis too long!"

"Hey!" Aramis smacked her on the shoulder. "That's an outrageous accusation."

"It's not an accusation if it's true." Athos pointed out.

"Oh, right. Still..."

Porthos snorted.

Athos looked back at d'Artagnan and Constance. "What has happened?"

Constance raised her chin. "I've left Bonacieux. He knew I was seeing d'Artagnan and threatened to have him killed by the Cardinal's influence—"

All three women reacted instantly—on their feet, hands on their swords.

"Where is he?" Athos said deathly.

"Whoa!" d'Artagnan exclaimed, holding up his hands. "Easy." He smirked, "Constance took care of him."

"She did?" Aramis raised a brow.

Constance nodded. "He faked a suicide attempt to keep me from leaving. He started to get physical when I still intended on going."

"Are you alright?" Aramis instantly asked, taking a step forward. The woman nodded.

"You should have seen her!" d'Artagnan crowed in delight, grinning. "Didn't even need my help. Ah. Porthos—you would have been proud! Remember that first move you taught me?"

"She was good?" Porthos chuckled and grinned.

He nodded. "Perfection."

"Stop that!" Constance smacked him lightly on the chest, her cheeks turning pink.

"So, where will you be staying?" Aramis asked.

d'Artagnan suddenly looked abashed. "Well—" he scratched his cheek. "We were kind of hoping that she could stay at the garrison... just until we can find somewhere."

"You think Treville will go for that?" Porthos wondered aside to Aramis.

"Maybe," Aramis shrugged.

Athos watched the couple quietly, and after a moment of thought, came to a decision. "Madame, you can stay at my apartment."

"What?" d'Artagnan wasn't the only one shocked. "Athos—"

Constance shook her head. "I can't inconvenience you like that, Athos. But, thank you. We'll figure something out."

Athos shook her head as well. "After what's happened today... I thought it would be better if I stayed at the garrison for a bit," she hesitated for a moment and shot a glance over at Porthos and Aramis, "Surrounded by my sisters."

"Aw!" Aramis was suddenly and dramatically touched. "I never knew you cared!"

"Shhh!" Porthos hissed. "No sudden movements, or you'll scare 'er away." She warned with a grin, and the Spaniard snickered.

Athos sent them both a withering glower before he she turned back to the couple. "Take it, d'Artagnan."

d'Artagnan gazed at his best-friend and gave a firm nod. "Thank you, Athos. Constance?"

The redhead nodded, her expression soft. "Thank you for being so kind."

Athos just nodded and cleared her throat self-consciously.

Constance took the bag from his hand and he started to lead her back out of the garrison with a hand on the small of her back, before he made another decision of his own and told her to go on he'd be a minute.

He turned back towards the crowded three women, slowly walking backwards, his friends, sister, family, and—

There was a pleased and mischievous smirk on his face. "Treville never told me to tell you guys this, but the first time we sat at that table..." he paused. "I declared you three my Angels!"

There was silence as they looked across at him.

"Angels?" Aramis repeated.

"Uh-huh. Just thought you should know—seeing as we're being so honest with each other. See you later!" and he rushed off to Constance, in case they decided to do what Treville had always suggested they might—and consume him. He might just need to red-haired woman's fighting skills.

"What are you three standing around for?" Treville wondered with a note of concern as he came down the stairs. They slowly turned towards him and their expression made him pause, as did their next words.

"You knew about this, sir?" Athos asked.

"Knew about what, exactly?" he asked slowly, wondering if he could get out of this before the trap closed in on him.

"Charlie's proclaimed us his Angels." Aramis said.

"Um..." he'd all but ordered the Gascon not to say a word, and now he seemed to be paying the price. When he saw d'Artagnan next— "I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it(?)"

"The only one who's ever called me an angel was my Ma." Porthos murmured.

"And people say I'm like demon—or God—but never an angel." Aramis thought.

Athos looked at her and pointed, "They say that to you in bed, don't they?"

Aramis shrugged, "I've still never been called an angel—it's a nice change." Porthos rubbed her shoulder in sympathy.

Treville stared at them in disbelief. It took all his years of experience as a soldier not to do it open-mouthed. "Am I to understand you are not angry about this?" Porthos and Aramis shook their heads and they all looked to Athos. "Athos? Your opinion on this matter?"

Athos was quiet for a stretched moment as they all waited with baited breath for her reaction, her face a solid mask, revealing nothing. "No one must know of this." She stated, turned on her heel, and left the garrison.

They looked after her.

Aramis chuckled. "She's okay with it."

Treville wasn't entirely sure he got that impression, but he let the matter go.

"Oh, yeah! Did you see 'er blushin'?" Porthos grinned.

"But she was right," Aramis said to Treville. "Don't say anything to anyone—least of all Charlie."

"Yeah," Porthos cracked her knuckles affectionately. "We've got plan for 'im."

"As long as it doesn't end up on my office, or the Chatelet." Treville said plainly and with relief. And headed back up to his office as the two women started to scheme and decide what they had in mind for the Gascon. Anything they did would be far more effective than anything he could have done as a Captain and decided to let the young man's loud mouth slide—for now.

Epilogue:

The three Inseparables sat around the dark, candle lit table in their favoured bar, drinking, and waiting for their fourth member and friend. The last few days had been long, and it was just nice to sit, relax, drink—and be together. At least for two-thirds of the current party.

"Milady is forever from stalking our shadows and Richelieu put in proper order—what are the Musketeers to do with their days now?"

"Live in peace and 'armony!" Porthos invoked.

"Here to hoping that never lasts." Aramis raised her glass.

"Do I need to draw my pistol?" Athos said and the Spaniard's eyes widened.

"You wouldn't."

Athos said nothing, just gave her a steady look.

Porthos looked between the two of them in confusion. "I'm missin' somethin'. I know I am."

"The last time Aramis asked for excitement over the peace, she pleaded for me to shoot her the next time she made the same mistake."

"What?" Porthos exclaimed. "That's not fair. I want to shoot somebody."

"Perhaps we both should," Athos said slowly, taking a sip from her cup. "Make sure the lesson sticks."

"You can't be serious!" Aramis cried.

"In a minute," Athos agreed. "Let's just finish this round—then we'll step outside."

"And 'ere I thought the night was goin' to end on a low note." Porthos grinned at the accusing pout. "What? It only fair."

"I knew I would find you all in a dismal place like this!" d'Artagnan claimed the empty seat between Porthos and Athos. Aramis leaned forward and filled the empty cup left for him with wine. "What are we talking about?"

"Shootin' Aramis."

"What? Really?" he smiled in excitement and rubbed his hands together. "I wondered when I was going to get to shoot you three."

"Not three," Athos corrected. "Just Aramis."

He furrowed his brows. "Why just Aramis?"

"My questioned exactly!" Aramis nodded.

"You attempt to curse our peacetime."

"Oh, that is definitely a shoot-worthy offence." d'Artagnan nodded solemnly.

Aramis held up her hands in supplication—"I think we're all just getting a little overboard."—and kicked.

"Ow!" d'Artagnan cursed. "Did someone just kick me?"

Aramis grimaced and tried again, and got a returning grunt from Porthos.

"What was that for?" the tall woman exclaimed, sending a glare at Aramis. Aramis kept pointedly looking and jerking her head at the confused Gascon. "Ah!" it dawned on her and she turned to looked at d'Artagnan.

"What?"

"We still need to discuss this Angel fantasy of yours." She growled lowly.

"Hey, now." He chuckled nervously, looking between the three women. "Can't we talk on this?"

"Sure," Porthos gave him a shark-grin, and wrapped an arm around the young man's shoulders, pulling him tight, though mindful enough of his wound. "Let's talk."

"It-it's nothing perverted!" he protested. And Athos raised a brow. He paused and heat flooded his cheeks. He wanted to sink through the floor, but Porthos' hold prevented him.

"Well?" she encouraged.

"Um… I meant in the sense of warriors." He looked between them nervously, before three smiles met him. He laughed and smiled back. "Treville said if I ever told you—you would eat me alive. I guess he was wrong!"

"Oh, he's right." Athos intoned, sitting back and taking a drink.

"W-What? But I thought—"

She shook her head. "Not for that—but for keeping us worried during your absence."

"A bullet wound can heal, Athos." d'Artagnan whispered, concern edging his voice. "But I know what the loss of a loved one can do."

"I did not—"

"You did. Whatever Milady may have turned out to be in the end… she was still the woman that you had loved, she was still a part of your life."

Athos took a deep breath as the others watched her carefully. "Anne—Milady—was my past… you three, are my future."

"Now I will raise a cup to that." Aramis said and three other cups met hers in the middle. "Whatever may happen, we will always have each other."

"And love." d'Artagnan said, thinking of Constance and of his sisters.

"Loyalty." Porthos intoned.

"Honour." Athos nodded after a moment.

"For honour!" they cheered and they drank and they laughed, because they had each other, no matter the end of the day.

"All for one, and one for all!"

(the end)

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

So... Review? :) What did you think of my ending? Constance leaving Bonacieux to be with d'Artagnan. I killed off Milady using Celine (who had just vanished like told in the episode) because I wanted to give Athos a closer, a help her move on without the assassin's weight. Queen Anne is obviously pregnant with the King's baby, seeing as Aramis is a woman in this, but their time together helped Anne move through a blockade of sorts that was built up after her first miscarriage. And something that will never change, them sticking together. And I want to hit a thanks over to Issai for all the great reviews, and thanks everyone for reading! :)

Coin (French) = corner.

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