Anne screamed, entire body tensing with pain as her ladies and the physician moved about her; blurs in the twilight. She felt such intense hatred for all of them, a hatred she had never even imagined herself capable of feeling, of the kind which she did not even feel for Marie de Medici, as another terrible pain swept through her and she screamed once more, her body shaking with the exertion that followed the pain.

"Your Majesty," she heard a male voice call out to her; the physician, as no other men were to be allowed into the room during the birthing. "Your Majesty, you must breathe."

She wished to tell him what exactly he could do with such advice, but forced down her anger and took a deep, shuddering breath as her body trembled.

"That's it, Your Majesty," the physician's voice was beaming. "Again."

She pretended, at the beginning of the labor, not to notice the midwives' fear, the physician's worry, that her child was not being carried to full term, but instead was to be born that very day, a month and a half too early. Pretended, even as she sat in the bed and pushed out this child, that she too was not terrified over what might come out. Pretended that she was not worried when sixteen hours had passed since her water had broke, and still the child had not deigned to show its face to the world.

The physician was only called into the birthing chamber if the labor was concerning, and that had worried Anne at first, too, but she could not bring herself to be worried about it now - indeed, the only thing she could think about was the child within her, stubbornly refusing to come out, and, strangely enough, the blood staining her beautiful satin sheets beneath her.

If it would be a healthy child, or another stillborn, another beloved child ripped from her arms before she had even had the chance to hold it, buried in the ground. Another decade of Louis' disappointment and indifference toward her, that she had failed him in her one great duty as his wife.

She could not live through another dead baby. She would rather die in childbirth than witness that, Anne resolved, and this time, she pushed as hard as she could, with no regard to her own pain, even as contractions and the sensation of her body ripping from the inside out wrung through her, and Anne let her head fall back against her shoulders, ignoring the sweet feel of cold cloths against her forehead.

All that mattered was that the child was born, and born alive. She could worry about her own comfort once that deed was done, though she was so tired, so weak...

She let out another scream as her body was racked with contractions, close in number and too painful, and then, from far away, she could hear the physician calling, "I can see the head, Your Majesty. Another good push, Your Majesty."

Anne screamed, the sound wrenching itself past her throat and into the hot, cloying wet air around them, clutching the sheets of her bed - ruined, now - and pushing with all that she had left of her strength, praying that this would be the last time she was forced to do so today.

And then, to her utter relief, the sound of a babe's cry.

Anne screamed out again, and felt the child leave her fully, along with another gust of blood, before arms were wrapping her up in warm towels and blankets, and wiping her forehead and giving her water.

She swallowed, spitting out the blood from where she had bit down hard on her lower lip, and then glanced up at the flurry of activity around her, for she had not yet seen her child.

"Is...Is the child all right?" she asked, but the people around her, other than seeing to her immediate needs, seemed to have no notice of her whatsoever, and she could see nothing beyond a blur of white and motion.

"Drink this, Your Majesty," a midwife was saying, and something was shoved against her lips, which tasted bitter and cold, but Anne drank it all the same.

"What is it?" she asked quietly into the noise that followed, as several ladies leaned her back against her pillows and bade her relax herself. "Is the child all right?"

She got no answer then, either, and felt something like desperation welling up inside of her. There was still time, if she had lost her child. Still time to go out with dignity, but precious little of it left.

"What is it?" She was begging now, but she didn't care.

"A boy, Your Majesty. Your Majesty has given birth to a healthy son." And then the physician was there, holding the child out to her, wrapped in swaddling cloths and sleeping soundly despite the flurry of noise and activity around him, and, for the first time in her life, Anne knew what it was to be in love, truly and completely, at first sight.

"What is happening in there?" the King demanded, pacing the length of the Queen's outer chambers, his eyes wide and features nearly manic.

No one could provide him with an answer, and so no one, out of the many courtiers and others waiting with him, dared to speak.

Athos had been called to guard the King tonight, for with the birth of a new heir there was always the fear that someone would attempt to harm the king, and thus gain control of the child. At the time, it had not been known that the Queen's labor would last long into the night and into the next morning, but Athos had accepted the mission from Treville anyway, even knowing that Aramis would never forgive him for it.

He had seen the fevered worry in the man's eyes, the longing, when Treville had ordered Athos to the palace right in front of him, had held out an arm to hold him back when Aramis had moved to volunteer himself, knowing full well that, if he did not, Aramis would find an excuse worthy of his taking Athos' place in guarding the King.

He had seen Aramis' wounded expression as he rode away, to take his assignment, and known that it would take Aramis some time to forgive him for this.

But he had done it anyway, and now he stood beside the King, waiting almost as nervously as he for news of the Queen's condition, and that of her child. He knew that Aramis would want to know everything that happened, even if he claimed he did not, and France would want to, as well.

He had taken the assignment because he knew that, were Aramis in the room now instead of himself, listening silently to the painful wails that seeped through the walls of the Queen's bedchamber, hour after hour of them, never ceasing, until the Queen's voice was raw with pain and frustration, Aramis would not be able to disguise his fear for the lives of the Queen and her son, would not be able to disguise that it was a fear born of something more than loyalty to the monarchy.

Athos doubted that, after listening to what he was now hearing, the receiving room tense as a crossbow, he would be able to think rationally about such things, would even remember to do so.

Even now, Louis was frantic with worry for his wife and their unborn child, and any courtier might have noticed a similar expression on Aramis' visage, when their own were so carefully blank.

And he had taken the assignment, in part, because he did not want Aramis forming anymore bonds to the Queen and the child struggling to come out of her than she already had. He knew that it was a cruel, almost heartless, thought, on the hour of the child's birth, but it was also a kindness, and the only kindness he could think to give, in the moment.

Aramis loved passionately and violently, and things like monarchies and husbands never stood in the way of that love. But Athos would damn well try, if he thought he had a chance of protecting his friend from what would come of any deeper of a connection than the Queen and his friend already shared.

The hours dragged on.

And, finally, a woman stepped out the door.

"What is happening?" Louis demanded, rushing toward her.

She fumbled into a curtsey, bursting out, "Your Majesty, Her Majesty the Queen is suffering a difficult labor. The child...the child has breached, which means that the delivery, when it happens, will be very hard on her. We will have to turn the baby, but it may come to a decision between the Queen's life and the child's." Louis choked out a sob at those words, and the woman's face twisted in sympathy. "If it comes to that, we must already have your decision."

Louis nodded, his eyes filing with tears. "The child's, of course," he murmured, glancing down at the floor. "It's what she would want."

The woman curtseyed, and hurried back into the delivery room.

You coward, Athos thought his first real ambivalent thought toward the man he had sworn to protect, though he was careful to give the King an encouraging nod when the distraught man glanced his way.

Aramis was drunk.

It did not happen often, surprising as that seemed amongst their brotherhood; Aramis was always the last of them to fall drunk, always the one to drag the others home. Athos was the drunk one, and Porthos would fall drunk occasionally, but Aramis preferred to keep his wits about him at all times, for, he claimed, the ladies' pleasure.

And besides, he would usually point out, someone needed to drag their sorry arses back to the garrison, at the end of the night.

Tonight, though, it was not even fully evening, and Aramis was drunker than D'Artagnan had ever witnessed Athos being, brooding into his cups and not looking up once, not even for the flirtatious bar maids' attentions. It was...disturbing, to say the least, to see his friend in such a state, and yet, neither Athos nor Porthos seemed very disturbed by it.

When he mentioned it, softly, to Porthos, the big man merely shrugged, turning back to his poker game and telling D'Artagnan that it was likely that he'd had another lady break his heart. It happened often enough, and it was hardly a cause for concern. He'd be over it in the morning.

But D'Artagnan had witnessed the many times that Aramis and one of his paramours had fallen out, and he didn't think he had ever witnessed it quite this bad, before. He didn't think he had ever seen Aramis fall this hard.

She must have been very beautiful, indeed.

"'Ello, musketeer," one of the barmaids sidled up to D'Artagnan, smirking at him as she laid a hand on his shoulder. "Don't suppose you'd like to go somewhere more...private?" she asked, eyes glancing down his body.

D'Artagnan of even a month ago might have flushed at how forward she was and incurred the amusement of Porthos or Aramis.

D'Artagnan of today thought of Constance, of her refusal of him in lieu of her husband, and took the lady's hand, kissing her fingers. She gigged and pulled him to his feet, out of the large room and toward the back stairs of the inn, toward the bedrooms.

"What's your name?" she asked him, with a leering smile, and he answered quietly, "D'Artagnan."

She smiled back at him. "I'm Amaria. If you want me to have that name, of course."

This time, he did blush, for he very much wanted her to have another name. "That-that's fine," he stuttered out, and she smiled and nodded at him, reached for his trousers.

D'Artagnan pulled back suddenly, and found himself staring at Constance's face. He swallowed thickly, pushed away from this woman with a small apology, citing that he'd had rather too much to drink.

She gave him a knowing look, but didn't protest as he walked back to where Porthos and Aramis were still sitting, Porthos with a beautiful young woman in his lap now.

"Didn't agree with ya?" he asked D'Artagnan with a knowing look. The others knew by now what had transpired between him and Constance, though it was an unspoken agreement between them by now not to speak of it.

D'Artagnan shook his head. "I think I'm gonna head back to the garrison," he told Porthos quietly, before jerking his head in Aramis' direction. "You got him or should I?" In Porthos' lap, the barmaid frowned, batting her eyelashes at Porthos, who visibly wilted. D'Artagnan started in Aramis' direction.

Porthos put a hand on his arm. "Leave it," he ordered, voice gruff, and D'Artagnan stared at him, surprised at the tone.

"He's going to get himself killed, walking home alone like that," he hissed at the other man. "Someone should go with him."

Porthos shrugged. "He's not going home. And he'll be fine."

D'Artagnan blinked at him, about to ask how Porthos could know that, when Aramis suddenly collapsed in front of the far wall, leaning his head against it, and drawing his knees up to his chest.

Porthos did look worried then; D'Artagnan saw him shoot Aramis an odd look from where he was dealing cards, but he didn't get up from his card game.

"What's wrong with him?" D'Artagnan asked.

Porthos gave D'Artagnan a long, searching look, and it struck D'Artagnan then that Athos was not so very drunk as he appeared, nor so very drunk as he usually was, this late in the evening.

"I said leave it, D'Artagnan."

D'Artagnan shook his head, chair screeching as he stood to his feet and came over to where Aramis was sitting, kneeling on the floor beside him.

"I think it's time for you to go home, friend," D'Artagnan said softly, and Aramis blinked blearily at him.

"Home," he repeated the word D'Artagnan had said, his tone lightly mocking. Then, "Yes, yes, I think it is."

Her son was beautiful, from the moment he left her womb to enter the world.

Perfect.

She smiled down at him as the nurses held him out to her, taking him from their arms and holding him against her breasts, even if he would never drink her milk, and smiling down at him with a joy she had never felt in her life, save for those few moments when Aramis had helped her make this child.

He had Aramis' chocolate brown eyes. Her wispy blonde hair, though she knew that both of those things could change easily enough, so early on.

She didn't want them to. She didn't want anything about this moment to change, ever.

She had seen the worry in the midwife's and physician's eyes, as she delivered her child. Had known that there was some danger to what was happening, even if they would not tell her what it was.

"Your Majesty?" one of the midwives murmured, and Anne glanced up, unable to contain the happy smile on her face.

"Hmm?" but her attention was soon pulled back to her child once more, as if she could not quite bring herself to look away. Even his cries for his mother's milk merely assured her that he lived, he breathed, he was real, he was hers.

"The King must see the child now. It is tradition," one of the midwives informed her, as if she did not already know, "And then a wetnurse must see to the child's needs. You must rest."

Anne's heart skipped a beat. "A moment more," she pleaded, and was glad enough when the woman merely nodded and stepped back, when she was granted these few scant more moments with her beautiful son.

"You are going to be a king one day, little Louis," she whispered as she bent down to kiss her son's wispy curls, just loud enough for him to hear. Their little secret. "But you will always be my little boy." And then, lifting her head, "Send for the King."

The midwives exchanged glances. "Your Majesty, that is not how-"

"The King wishes to see his son," Anne told the woman. "Send him in. The damage is all gone now; there is nothing left that cannot be looked upon," she murmured, even as her sheets were changed where she lay.

The midwife sighed. "As you wish, Your Majesty."

She knew that they were merely indulging her strange demands because she had just given birth, but Anne couldn't bring herself to care as her gaze fell down to the babe in her arms once more.

When she looked up again, Louis was standing in the doorway of her chambers, staring in shocked awe at the naked bundle in her arms.

"Your son, sire," Anne whispered, in a stronger voice than she thought herself capable of at that moment, and tilting the child in her arms, that Louis might have a better look at him.

"My son," Louis breathed, staring down at the tiny babe in Anne's arms as if he barely believed her words. "I have a son!" He turned back to his courtiers, and then looked down at the child again. "I have a son."

Anne smiled, feeling tears stinging at her eyes. "Yes, my love. A son."

The moment Athos returned to the garrison, exhausted in a way he did not normally find himself after far more taxing assignments than the one he had just returned from, he was nearly accosted by Aramis, blinking in the harsh sunlight of the early morning, face pale and eyes bloodshot.

For a moment, Athos found himself regretting that he could not at least have told Porthos of what had happened in that convent, for the sake of Aramis' sanity when he had been called away to the King the night before. Someone had clearly needed to watch out for him.

"Athos?" Aramis asked, following him into the barracks and Athos' simple room, closing the door behind them both.

Athos sighed and hung up his musketeer's jacket and sword, before turning around to find Aramis standing directly in front of him, so close he almost tripped over the man.

He wondered how much Aramis had drank the night before; he smelled like a pigsty.

"It's a boy," Athos said quietly, relenting at the look of concern on his friend's face. "The Queen has given birth to a healthy boy. The Prince."

Aramis faltered, and then reached for the rosary in his shirt, kissing it and whispering 'Gracias a Dios,' under his breath, and Athos could see tears in the other man's eyes.

He turned away for a moment, allowing Aramis the time to regain his composure, before saying, with an apology in his voice, "The King has ordered us to travel to Spain, to free a prisoner there of some importance."

Aramis grimaced. "Athos, I..."

"The trip should not take all four of us," Athos offered softly, gently. "The Captain will need someone to train all of these green recruits, after all."

He did not expect to find himself with an armful of happy musketeer, in the next moment, for, though they were brothers and very dear to one another, they were not exactly so physically affectionate, especially not with Athos, who was a pillar of rock rather than a man, according to Aramis. Athos awkwardly wrapped his arms around Aramis in turn, squeezing his shoulder.

"It's going to be all right, Aramis," he promised his friend, though he did not know by what right he made such a promise, or how in God's name he planned to keep it. "It's going to be all right."

The words felt like a vow.

Anne had to remind herself that, had the Cardinal still been living, the governess chosen for her son would have been someone far worse, but that didn't stop her from resenting this mousy woman who thought that she could walk into Anne's chambers and take away her son without a word to his mother. A woman whom Anne had been given no choice in, and who had been chosen not because of any particular skill in caring for children but because her father was a lord whose current load of grain was of interest to Paris, and therefore the King.

The girl - Marguerite - stepped into the room, staring straight at the babe's crib set up in the lavish nursery fit for a dauphin, not even noticing that Anne was sitting at a table behind her, scratching out a few polite letters to courtiers who had recently visited the palace and watching her child like one of her husband's hunting falcons might watch its prey.

Or perhaps that was how she was watching Marguerite, who did not even glance around to see if anyone had somehow entered the room and therefore endangered the Dauphin before reaching out to pick him up like he was a sack of potatoes, rather than a baby.

Little Louis instantly awoke from the quiet nap Anne had just managed to put him down for, bursting into great, shaking sobs.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded, standing from her desk and crossing her arms.

Marguerite looked up, blinking in surprise, and Anne winced at the almost careless way that she was holding the Dauphin now, as though she had forgotten all about the child in her arms, who's life was far more precious than her own.

"I..."

"Answer me. Now."

"The King wanted the wet nurse to see to his-"

Anne stalked forward, reaching out to pull Marguerite's hand up higher under her son's neck and giving it a warning squeeze. "You will ask me before taking my son anywhere on your own, and you will kindly remember that you hold the Dauphin of France in your arms."

Marguerite gulped. "Yes, Your Majesty."

Anne scrutinized her. "Have you ever had experience as a governess before?"

Marguerite swallowed hard. "Yes, Your Majesty. Though they weren't..."

"Babes?" Anne inferred, and, at Marguerite's nod, sighed. "Babies are far different from older children, governess. You are holding a life in your hands, fragile and helpless. I pray that you remember that in the future, or I will find a way to ensure that you do."

Marguerite swallowed. "I won't dare harm the Dauphin, Your Majesty. I swear it."

Anne lifted a brow, and then sighed, acknowledging that the last few days had made her incredibly irritable. Her breasts were aching from where they were bound, her need to feed her child stifled by some common woman, because in France, such things were below queens, and the realization of how little control she truly had over her own son's upbringing was only further impounded by Marguerite's arrival.

She supposed that it was not truly the girl's fault that she had no experience with childrearing, or that she had been chosen for this position.

Anne quietly adjusted Marguerite's grip on the child, and smiled gently down at her little boy as he began to calm, imagining that it was from her own touch rather than the changed grip.

"You have to support his head," she told the governess. "And he isn't glass, to break at your touch, but don't squeeze him like that, either."

Marguerite swallowed. "Apologies, Your Majesty."

Anne graced her with a smile, leaning forward. "I was nervous the first time I held a baby, too," she admitted.

Marguerite looked surprised at that, as though she couldn't quite imagine the Queen being nervous about anything. If only she knew. "Really?" she asked, eyes rather wide.

Anne nodded. "Of course. Soon, it'll be easy for you."

Marguerite smiled. "I hope so, Your Majesty. I've found myself to be ever so nervous, these first few days."

The words did little in the way of assuaging Anne's own worries, but she merely nodded and left her child alone with his new governess, a pit of dread in her stomach that she could not quite pinpoint.

"He doesn't look very much like me at all, does he?" the King asked suddenly, peering down at their little son with the same infectious smile he had whenever he had the baby removed from the nurseries to look at for a few moments at a time.

Anne smiled. "I am sure he will grow into his father's good looks when he is older, Your Majesty," she reassured her husband, who smiled at her before his attention became once more riveted by their son.

Sometimes, she wondered if perhaps her husband the King suspected.

He was not usually a subtle man; he wore his emotions clearly on his whenever they came and went, and his temper was even quicker, and so she thought that she was probably safe.

And yet.

And yet, sometimes, as he was holding her son, he would remark how unlike his father the child looked, and Anne would swallow hard and simply say that he would grow into such looks, surely.

As she wiped a mop of dark hair out of her son's eyes, she had no doubt of that fact.

Her son would one day look very much like his father.

And Anne did not know hot to prepare for that eventuality, what she would have to do to convince the King otherwise.

"There's been a report of the musketeers' return with that agent of the Cardinal's, Your Majesty," one of the heralds announced, and Louis was suddenly handing little Louis over to Marguerite and striding from the room, Anne following after him with a heavy heart, a little relieved by that news.

The news of Rochefort's arrival at French Court was welcome indeed, and Anne was almost beside herself with the news that her old friend would be returning to France from his captivity.

She found her old friend much changed from the man she had known so well, however. There was a harshness about him that she did not remember from before, though she supposed that this could be due to the horrible treatments he had endured under the hands of the Spanish. The feast held in his honor upon the night of his return was a subdued one, not because the people of France were not known for their obnoxious parties, but because Rochefort himself remained quiet and almost politely disagreeable throughout it, his presence over the room almost as strong as the Cardinal's had once been, though it did not affect Louis, or their son, in Louis' lap, who prattled on regardless.

When Rochefort was given command of the Red Guard, Anne despaired of ever being able to speak with him alone again, as she had been angling for from the moment she learned of his return to France.

And then, when she was alone in the nurseries with little Louis, he finally sought her out.

She heard the knock upon the door, too heavy to be a woman's and therefore likely Aramis', who had taken advantage of every opportunity to visit his son since the moment of the child's birth, much to her frustration amusement, and turned around with a large smile, only to blink in surprise when she saw the real visitor.

"Your Majesty," he dipped his head into a bow. "I did not mean to disturb you."

She shook her head, putting thoughts of Aramis from her mind. "Not at all, Comte. I have wished to speak with you since your return."

He stepped further into the room, at those words, peering at the child in her arms for all of a moment before returning his attentions to her. "I regret that I have caused Your Majesty undue angst, then."

"You are welcome home, Rochefort. You have suffered cruelly," Anne whispered, a repetition of her words the previous day, and she hoped that today they would sink in, and he could hear the emotion behind her voice, making him smile gently, somehow feeling the need to reassure her, despite the fact that he had been the one imprisoned.

"The thought of Your Majesty's grace and beauty sustained me through my long hours of confinement." He repeated the words he had spoken to her immediately upon his return, and she smiled.

"My lady," he spoke, and Anne stiffened.

Stiffened at the tone in his voice, once she had heard many times as a child, when he was still her teacher, and lectured her for some wrongdoing. And she knew that another lecture would be quick in the coming, were she not the queen. Then again, she was unsure that this would stop him.

"Rochefort," she turned around then, putting on her fakest smile, she maneuvored in front of the crib in a way that would, hopefully, not appear suspicious. It was not that she did not trust the man, only that she could not bear the thought of anyone with a sword coming near her child.

Anyone but Aramis, that was. It seemed she could trust that musketeer with anything. "What are you doing here?"

Rochefort took a step forward, and then paused. "I came to see you, and the young Dauphin." He leaned forward, peering down into the crib. "And to apologize."

Anne glanced down at her beautiful son, hardly able to tear her eyes away from the child these days. Then the Comte's words sunk in.

"Apologize?" she lifted her head. "Whatever do you have to apologize for, Rochefort? You have served us faithfully as Captain of the Red Guard since your return, and have suffered so greatly in return for all of your services." Her eyebrows suddenly tightened in concern. "You are not...leaving, are you?"

Rochefort smiled, and there was something about that smile that worried her, something she could not identify in his features. Something...not quite right. "Of course not, Your Majesty, and it warms my heart to hear that you find my help so infallible. No, I came to apologize for failing you many years ago, and in a far greater manner."

And then he was on his knees before her, head bowed as if he went to his execution, and Anne let out a little gasp at the display.

"Comte, are you quite well?" she asked, taking a nervous step forward and reaching out her hand.

The Comte took it, kissing her fingers lightly before lifting his head and looking into her eyes. "Your Majesty, I have wounded you deeply by failing to remain in Court here by your side, where I belonged. I can see now the disarray my actions have caused, by not being here to guide you, as I vowed, and to be a confidante when you had none. I will accept whatever punishment you deem worthy of such a terrible offense."

Anne blinked in shock. "I...Rochefort, no punishment is necessary. You were in the service of my brother, and he sent you to the service of the Cardinal. We all do our duties."

Rochefort breathed a sigh of relief, standing once more. "You are most gracious, Majesty," he whispered, voice hoarse. "And I will not fail you again."

And then he was gone, leaving Anne to wonder what had just happened.

Behind her, the babe let out a little gurgling sound that might have been near to a chuckle, and she spun to him, letting out a little laugh herself.

"I wonder what that was about?" she asked the child, picking him up and pulling him comfortingly into her arms. The babe didn't answer, only started sucking on her finger, and she let out a breath of laughter.