Chapter Three – Blackened be the Helme

Athos had just ended one man's life when he felt something strong slam into his back and knock him off his feet. At first he connected the loud crack of a pistol musket with the attacker behind him. With reflexes that could only belong to a weathered soldier, he snatched a dagger from his belt with every intention of taking his attacker with him. The other one be damned-if he was to fall this day he would take at least one of them with him. But before he could turn and drive that blade deep in his attacker's chest he realized that the pieces didn't fit together quite so smoothly.

He hadn't been struck.

He hadn't been injured.

Athos had been pushed, deliberately.

He landed on the frozen and unforgiving ground with as much force as he felt he'd been hit. He didn't dare believe his suspicions until he rolled over onto his back. Thinking it was one thing, but seeing it brought a chill colder than the worst winter he had yet known in his living years. Through wet snow-sodden hair and his own dawning haze of murderous rage, he saw D'Artagnan lying on the cold ground with his head turned toward him. For one heart-stopping moment Athos thought the boy was dead. He wasn't blinking. He wasn't moving. But he was breathing. He was trembling. And he was trying to speak. Nothing came out. Words were out of reach for numb and senseless lips.

For the both of them.

Athos didn't remember grabbing his sword, but the next thing he knew he was on his feet, across the field, and standing over the culprit with his sword embedded in his heart. The rebel tried to speak and grabbed onto Athos' sleeve, a glimmer of fight still left in his eyes, but before Athos could do anything else it faded and the man's grip slackened. Only when the rebel's arm dropped and his body went limp did the red fade from Athos' sight. He sheathed his bloody sword and ran back to the boy lying in the snow, not giving the man a second's glance or thought.

"Ath-thos," D'Artagnan gasped. "You're all r-right?"

He ignored the boy's words and avoided looking into those wide, endlessly white eyes. Instead, he tore at the young musketeer's clothes and tried to find the source of all the blood. And when he found it Athos blanched at the gruesome sight of the torn gaping wound in the boy's chest. It was something worse than a slap to the face, and it must have shown because the boy was finally trying to move, jerking and tensing his reluctant limbs. It was as if the boy couldn't understand why he could barely raise his hand or curl it into a fist.

Athos looked at him and D'Artagnan gazed back steady and calm as could be.

"W-why can't I m-move? What," D'Artagnan asked, shivering. "What's wrong?"

"You don't feel anything?"

D'Artagnan's forehead creased in confusion. "No."

"You will in a moment." Athos ripped off his cloak and inner jacket to get to the extra shirt he had on for the cold. In his haste he pulled both shirts off, tossed them aside and threw his jacket back on before he bunched the shirts together and pressed them to the wound to staunch the bleeding. He was no doctor. He was no field surgeon. But he would not allow D'Artagnan to die waiting for one.

The reaction was immediate and expected, though somewhat jarring. The young musketeer cried out and rigidly latched onto Athos' wrists, pulling and gripping in a noteworthy attempt to force him off. There they were…those familiar lines of pain surrounding closed eyes, but something inside his chest pulled at the sight of them. Athos couldn't remember ever seeing them so defined before. Either the boy excelled at hiding pain or he had a higher tolerance than Athos thought. Whether the latter was true or not, he was not going to sit here and wait for someone to realize they were missing.

"Aramis," Athos shouted in the stillness around them. "Porthos!" All sounds of battle had since faded, and the only sounds they could still hear were the howling wind and groans of dying men. He looked for any sign that he had been heard and made to shout again, but he changed that call to a curse when the boy nearly succeeded in removing his slippery hands. He started to kick out with his legs, but Athos had to effectively sit on them, or at least trap them with his own legs as he knelt and refused to let up on the pressure.

"D'Artagnan, stop," he snapped, putting a little more of his weight down just to keep his balance. "Stop!"

An agonized moan that bordered on what a hunter would call a dying scream of pain from a cornered animal was what he got in reply. Regardless, Athos continued to press down and renewed his efforts to get them help. D'Artagnan continued to thrash under him, but eventually he did cease his struggles to dislodge Athos' hands. Instead, the boy gripped his wrists for all their worth like an anchor. Athos wondered if those hands would do more than bruise, but it was a trivial matter in light of the tug of war he was playing with the tenuous life beneath him. The physical pain was welcome because it grounded Athos firmly where he needed to be, and it reminded him of what he needed to do in those crucial moments.

"You are going to be fine, boy," he said, even as their breaths continued to turn to frost before their eyes. "Would I lie to you?"

"N-no," D'Artagnan groaned, tears gathering in his barely open eyes.

"Then start looking like you believe me, damn it."

Aramis came to with a hiss and a flinch at the constant throbbing in his skull. Despite the numbness in his cheeks and lips he managed to spit out the mouthful of blood that was threatening to choke all future prospects for fresh air. He dragged himself into a sitting position and looked around with no small amount of disbelief. The overwhelming scent of blood on the air did nothing for his frayed senses, so for the next few minutes he fought a hard battle with his churning stomach. Had he really gotten hit that hard? All that lay around him were dead men, some from their company, most from the rebels. Surely not all of this had been done in such a short amount of time? He gingerly touched the side of his head and sighed at the sight of more blood. As if seeing it all around him wasn't enough, he thought. Maybe a handful of snow would do his injury some good-

"Still alive?"

Aramis spun around with a dagger already in his hand, but he stopped halfway when he recognized the voice, dropping the blade with no small sigh of relief. "You know better than to do that, Porthos," he wearily snapped, but inside he was overjoyed to hear his dear friend.

He drank in the sight above him, thanking God that he didn't have to count Porthos among the dead. After they'd been separated, Aramis thought he heard someone shouting Porthos' name, as if he had…but he hadn't. Porthos extended his uninjured arm and Aramis took it slowly. The bigger man pulled Aramis to his feet and surprised him further when he pulled him into a rough embrace. He tripped over his unresponsive feet and his head swam but Porthos thankfully held him up while the world tilted.

"You're losing your touch, priest," Porthos said with a slight tremble.

"I'd say you stole it from me," Aramis mumbled, clutching the fabric of the man's ruined cloak as if it were his only salvation in the midst of a tumultuous sea.

Porthos chuckled and generously held him until his balance returned. "How's your head," he asked, inspecting it himself.

Aramis smacked his hand away. "It's fine-What happened to your arm?"

Porthos stepped out of reach and stuck his nose in the air. "Flesh wound. Absolutely nothing to-"

They both stopped to listen.

It was faint.

And it echoed, almost all around them in the valley.

"Did you hear…?"

Porthos nodded and without wasting time he set off, calling out Athos' name in reply. Aramis followed closely as they climbed through the underbrush and used the trees to propel them up to higher ground. Finally, when they reached the top and got a better idea of where Athos was calling from, Aramis allowed his rampant thoughts to breathe. Why would Athos be calling for them? Was someone injured? Dying? Captured? Where were their men? Where was Treville? Was the fighting over? Where was D'Artagnan? And what was that underlying tone in Athos' voice the closer they got?

It got the blood flowing through his limbs again, that was certain. But the second they broke through the tree line and found both of their missing friends, he felt the blood leave him in a rush. Somehow he made it over to them without landing in a heap and had to push at Athos' hands to see the extent of the damage. "Athos, let me see-"

Where his hands had shook earlier, they now stilled under the pressure of time. Perhaps that would have made him a good surgeon in another life, but at present he was a soldier on the battlefield with a friend who had a matter of minutes before God would have to make the decision for them. Aramis shook his head at the sight of the wound and replaced Athos' hands. "No, this is beyond my skill. Porthos, find Monsieur de Treville and get a physician-his best if possible-"

"Run," Athos growled.

If anyone thought size mattered in quickness, he would surely be proven a fool with how fast Porthos took off. Aramis turned to take a better look at D'Artagnan but stopped before he got to the boy when he saw how Athos was faring. "Let me take over, Athos," Aramis whispered, taking position before the man could object. "Your hands are shaking."

And he had every intention of taking over, but D'Artagnan wasn't making that easy.

"D'Artagnan," Aramis said. "Let Athos go."

"I can't," the boy groaned.

"Yes, you can-"

"I can't!-"

Athos glared. "Just do it with me-"

"If you don't move your hands I won't be able to do any good!"

It was difficult but they managed to dislodge D'Artagnan's iron-grip so Aramis could replace Athos. The wind continued to whip at their faces and burn at the exposed skin. The coming storm was close. Right on their damned doorstep. In less than an hour's time they would be facing white out conditions again. And if Porthos didn't hurry they would all be dead. Athos didn't move far. He tried to shield Aramis and D'Artagnan mostly from the wind, which was a losing battle.

Aramis set his jaw tight against the horrible sounds his young friend was making. At times he nearly lost the battle with the water in his own eyes, but whenever he felt he was about to fail he busied them with looking for Porthos' return. It was a chest wound. Why, Lord, did it have to be a chest wound? It was practically a death sentence. And here he was keeping D'Artagnan's lifeblood from escaping for what? A few more minutes? An hour at most?

Why was Athos holding the boy's hand and telling him he would be all right? If anything Aramis should be giving him his last rites, but it was the way Athos was looking at D'Artagnan that kept him silent. He looked so sure, so certain the boy would live. Later, he would question it and chalk it up to his own shock and denial, but in the moment he went along with it until Porthos returned with aide and a wagon of all things. The field surgeon pushed Aramis aside and took a look for himself, shaking his head and looking unsympathetically grim. He was an older man with lines around his eyes and a pair of cracked glasses in his front pocket, but something told Aramis that even his poor sight didn't allow him to miss much.

"Monsieur," the physician said to Treville. "I don't-"

"Whatever can be done," Treville interrupted, his gaze level. "To save that boy's life, I trust that you will do it."

"And if there is naught I can do," the doctor whispered.

"Then you'll do it anyway," Athos snapped.

No one spoke and though Aramis and Porthos were in agreement with Athos, Treville remained passively silent. It seemed a contradiction that they had to bear witness to such a moment when even their leader seemed paralyzed by indecision, but Aramis didn't let up in holding down the blood. The more he thought about it the more they owed it to D'Artagnan to give him a fighting chance, despite the odds. If they didn't, if they let him die mercifully without ever knowing if he would have had a chance in the first place…then forgiveness for them would be nothing short of a cruel lie.

"Monsieur," Aramis pleaded, successfully grabbing the physician's attention. "Have a little mercy and do what is rightfully in your power to do-"

"Give the boy a chance," Porthos growled.

The physician looked to Treville, firm in his cynical arguments. But it was Porthos who broke that tense moment for them all. Even Athos deferred to the larger man's simple plea and seemed to deflate a little. In the end, Treville came back to himself and nodded to the physician in a way that meant the matter was decided. "Put him in the cart," the physician sighed.

"We can't move him," Aramis exclaimed. "The ride alone could kill him!"

"He's still conscious," the man replied, terse and impatient. "That's as good a sign as any. And he'll sooner freeze out here than bleed to death from that wound. You want mercy for this boy? Then you tell me which option you think best."

Aramis promptly shut his mouth and hopped into the wagon once they tried to arrange D'Artagnan into a stable but comfortable position. He didn't dare let up on the pressure of the wound. Athos followed closely but in a daze, pushing one side of the wagon with half the fervor Porthos was doing to the other. Between the group of three soldiers, plus Athos and Porthos, they got to the infirmary just before the storm hit. But Aramis couldn't help but wonder how much time they had actually bought their friend when the worst was yet to come.

Being a soldier meant accepting that you were expendable in light of the grander scheme of things.

If it meant the life of a King, the security of a nation, the brink of a war-you did what you had to. You did what you were called to do. You denied your own survival instincts and clung to that fateful pledge you made when you accepted that uniform, trusting that you were on the right side and that your death wasn't needless. Being a soldier meant being selfless. If Athos was honest with himself that was what scared him the most about D'Artagnan, that maddening and impossibly naïve selfless nature. It almost seemed an inhuman thing because selflessness wasn't something you encountered every day. He wasn't entirely sure when he stopped believing in people like D'Artagnan, but he knew the boy had made a blasted believer out of him again in only a few short months time.

He remembered when they settled D'Artagnan on one of the lumpy infirmary beds that Athos had the boy's small hand in his again. It trembled, but not as it did when they were in the field. Athos had refused to believe that this was all for nothing. He still did. He was a firm believer in logic and he had been raised to believe that every person and every thing had a purpose in life. But the belief he adopted for himself was that, beyond all things, debts were solid and final. Though D'Artagnan was of the kind that stupidly expected no such kindness in return, Athos did not come from those who didn't pay their debts. Whether the boy liked it or not, they were saving his life. So when the doctor went to work, taking a knife and ripping D'Artagnan's clothes apart, Athos looked on with an air of impassiveness. If it needed to be done, then it would be done no matter the cost.

Treville, who had been a bystander until then-quietly giving orders by the door to officers below him-stepped forward and leaned in close to speak to the boy. "D'Artagnan," he said. "If you make me take that journey home to tell your father of your passing so help me I will make you regret it in this life or the next-do you understand me?"

To his credit, D'Artagnan kept a straight face and an even straighter voice in reply. "Yes, Monsieur-"

A strangled moan swallowed the end of his speech when Aramis shifted his weight to allow the physician a quick look. When he finished and Aramis pressed down again he succeeded in not making a sound, though his hand and limbs shook under the strain. Athos tried to keep him steady but was finding it difficult. The physician ran his knife along the flame of a candle in preparation but didn't turn to them when he issued the following monotonous speech that Athos suspected he'd given to soldiers before who served under his watch.

"I will need all of you to hold him down. I could do far worse damage if he's not perfectly still. No matter what happens, no matter what he says or does, do not let him move an inch. Understood?"

Athos tightened his hold over D'Artagnan's hand and moved to hold down his shoulder. Aramis nodded and eyed the other limb he would have to hold down after he left the wound to the physician's attention. Porthos took his position at the foot of the bed and held down the boy's legs by the top of his knees. "Just make it quick," the loud man grumbled, quiet and not without a healthy dose of hesitation.

It was then that Athos noticed that Treville was still in the room, standing behind Porthos with most of his outerwear folded neatly and put aside. While the physician reluctantly briefed his captain on what tools he would need and when, Athos turned to D'Artagnan with too many things that he wanted to say. He wanted to tell the boy that this would hurt worse than anything either of them had ever felt before, combined. He wanted to curse at him for stealing that bottle of wine for him last night because of his own terrible habits, for there was none left with which to ease what was coming next. He wanted to…damn it all, he wanted to apologize for…too many things, most of which had happened within the past twenty-four hours.

But he didn't say any of those things. Instead, he calmly looked on that wretched face and squeezed both D'Artagnan's hand and shoulder with confidence. D'Artagnan turned to him, and though he was putting up a valiant effort to remain brave and collected, he would soon lose that battle and fall hard. And it was Athos' job to catch him, if he could. "Look at me," Athos said to D'Artagnan. "Nowhere else."

The pale boy drew in a shaky breath, nodded, and settled his head on his side. He looked down once at the bloody shirts beneath Aramis' hands and then looked away, locking eyes with Athos like he told him. Athos only looked up once before they started, noticing with no small amount of annoyance that Treville had placed himself between him and the physician. His captain truly did know him too well.

"Brace yourself, young man," the doctor said, putting a leather belt between the boy's teeth and taking his position next to Aramis. "And try not to scream."

Athos resisted the urge to glare at the man, but did a poor job of it.

"Alright," the man told Aramis. "Let off, slowly."

D'Artagnan sighed in relief once the pressure on his chest was gone, but the respite was short-lived. Aramis scarcely had time to hold down D'Artagnan's other arm and shoulder before the surgeon pressed a short knife into the wound in search for the bullet. And it became crystal clear in those first few seconds, even considering all the blood he lost, that the boy still had a lot of fight left in him. It would have been easy to hold him down between the three of them, but there was one thing that made the job twice as difficult than it normally would have been.

The sounds of pure agony.

At first they only came out as soft whimpers, but the deeper the surgeon went the more they sounded like the cursed man was stripping the very life-force from the boy, one resistant ounce at a time. The first sharp cry that made it past those cracked lips was jarring enough. Perhaps Athos let it show. Perhaps he didn't have to. Either way he supposed D'Artagnan thought he could do as the callous physician requested and not scream. Athos had fully been expecting him to, but he never imagined those coming screams would cut through his shields of impassivity like they were nothing.

If taking a bullet didn't make things real, trying to remove it did.

Maybe it was seconds, minutes, or hours-Athos wasn't sure-but he remembered seeing something besides blood and dirt on D'Artagnan's face. It wasn't sweat. It was a single tear, squeezed out through his tightly closed eyelids. It fell untarnished into the darkness of his hairline above his ear in an uninterrupted straight line. After that Athos lost all sense of sound.

Those screams that cut their way so viciously into his being dulled. And something else snapped. He let go of that clenched white hand and grabbed onto the boy's elbow to hold him steady. Then he let go of D'Artagnan's shoulder and grabbed onto his chin, forcing his face back to him. Behind those lids were all the tears the boy had held back so far, dangerously close to falling free and with all the things that would never pass through the boy's lips, sober or not.

They sought relief.

They begged for mercy.

And they wept for a way out, for any end there could possibly be.

Nearly all of D'Artagnan's bravado was gone and beneath that normal layer of cockiness and pride and courage was the young boy Athos had only caught rare glimpses of. The raw vulnerability shook his resolve, but only for a short moment. Seeing the leather nearly bitten clean through cemented the finality in what he needed the boy to understand. "Look at me," Athos said. I'm here for a reason, so stop trying to be brave.

D'Artagnan reached up with the hand that Athos had let go of and grasped the back of Athos' arm.

The surgeon cursed and his knife slipped against the wedged bullet, but he tried again and dug deep to pop it loose, and with that motion pulled the loudest, most penetrating scream from the boy yet. Maybe it was an angel's mercy, but two things happened at once. D'Artagnan finally fell unconscious, his voice torn to shreds, and the bullet was finally out. With the boy no longer struggling underneath them the gravity of what had happened in that room came down like a lead weight a thousand times the size of that tiny metal ball.

It fell to Athos to pull the ruined leather from their friend's mouth. He tossed it aside and risked one glance each with Porthos and Aramis. He wasn't sure who had fared better, but he knew he hadn't done as well as he hoped. Originally he thought he could make it through the surgery without moving that impassive mask. They were laughable expectations, but he had never gotten used to hearing dear friends scream themselves raw. Yes, damn it all, dear friends.

"Monsieur D'Artagnan's lucky the pistol misfired," the physician said when he was finished. "If it hadn't then he would have been dead within a matter of minutes. This bullet would have broken through the bone and done irreparable damage that no man on this earth with God's guiding hand could fix. The coming hours will tell us if he'll live, but for now there's nothing else I can do." The physician dropped the bullet into a metal dish near the bed with a loud clang.

"Thank you, Theo," Treville whispered.

All occupants of the room scarcely had a moment to breathe before a young recruit burst into the room and went straight over to Monsieur de Treville. "Monsieur," he panted. "Sergeant Reynaud and his men were found down past the hills. There was another party waiting for them, but they forced them off down back into the city. There are casualties and the rest cannot make it back on their own."

"A wagon must be sent out to them," the captain decided.

The young man shook his head. "We are trying, Monsieur, but the wind is moving the snow and burying the roads too fast to get them down there and back."

"Then find any able-bodied men that can be spared. This storm will not wait for us to get those men back. God have mercy on us," Treville sighed and donned his outerwear again before rushing out of the room.

The physicians sniffed as he threw his instruments together after running them over the candle flame again. "Will you let me see to your head, Monsieur Aramis?"

Aramis shook his head. "It's fine."

"Monsieur Porthos, your arm-"

"No," he replied, gruff in a way that would have made Athos proud.

Unperturbed, the physician made for a hasty exit as well. "Then I must see to the other men. I assume you will send for me if his condition worsens?"

"You would assume correctly," Aramis said with a hard look. "Monsieur."

Once the surly man was out of earshot Porthos muttered, "Like hell we will, merciless bastard."

"What's done is done, Porthos," Aramis sighed. The former priest shared one look with Athos and got to his feet, tugging at Porthos to follow him. "Come along. You do need that wound cleaned at the very least."

"So does yours, mother hen," Porthos half-heartedly quipped.

Aramis shoved him through the door none too gently and left Athos alone with D'Artagnan. He noticed then that he had been combing through D'Artagnan's dark damp hair with his own fingers, lingering at times by the cheekbone and other times by the ear. Was it guilt or was it his own need for comfort that spurred those open affections? It unsettled him to think that such a thing had come to him so easy, even in light of all that had transpired. Not long after that he stopped them and stood to work some of the nervous energy from his limbs by making sure the boy was warm enough. That physician had sewn the wound shut so quickly Athos thought he had done it in the blink of an eye, but it was a relief to see it properly bandaged up, and to see D'Artagnan even a little cleaner than before. He finished the job himself with a wet rag, and when there was nothing left to be done he sat on the edge of the bed and allowed himself one more touch of that young face, a gentle and warm one that the boy was sure to never remember.

"It's over now," he whispered.

And Athos truly believed that it was, because when he left the room later that day he spent the next three days brooding and avoiding D'Artagnan all together. He took extra guard shifts, he rarely returned to his quarters except to catch the few hours of sleep his mind would let him, and he took the coldest walks no other man would even dare think of taking. As the storm raged on and pounded them with wind and snow and ice, Athos found refuge in it.