Evening My Lovelies :)

Sorry this is a little later than usual today... I have no excuse other than I'm easily distracted and YouTube takes full advantage of that.

Hopefully the fact that this is a slightly longer chapter will make up for it being a little later :)

We're leaving the whumpage behind for a little bit now so our boys can focus on healing so be ready for some cute musky moments to come in later chapters :D

Notes On Reviews:

fariedragon: Thanks for the review - I'm glad you think so :) I have no plans as of yet to kill off any of our main boys so worry not. Enjoy the new chapter! x

Deana: Thanks for the review - I'm sure Aramis would have no complaints with that arrangement *smirks* I think Treville would be more than willing to let the boys have a fair amount of time off once they're well enough to register the fact that they have time off lol. Enjoy the new chapter! x

watlocked: Thanks for the review - I knew it lol :D I have a plan for Ortiz's eventual demise... though the more hatred that comes in for him the more I'm beginning to doubt whether that idea does enough justice wise so I might change it up a bit to ensure he meets a painful end. Enjoy the new chapter! x

Debbie (Guest): Thanks for the review - Oh I'm tempted to have him do so but it would kinda put a stop to an idea I have coming up in several chapters time when they're back in Paris and I quite like the idea so I'm afraid you're stuck with him for now. Yeah none of our boys got off easy and being unable to help when one of their own is in pain is killing them. Enjoy the new chapter! x

Katie (Guest): Thanks for the review - Glad you're loving it :) I do so enjoy throwing in curveballs like the seizure :D Though you should be able to breathe a bit easier today as nothing too dramatic is planned. Enjoy the new chapter! x

pain in the mikta: Thanks for the review - I'm loving how your reviews are slowly becoming just sound effects lol :D I'm not surprised the hate-o-meter went haywire... though it might be wise to check out the angst-o-meter today :D Enjoy the new chapter! x

A reader (Guest): Thanks for the review - Oh I never tire of hearing such lovely words from people such as yourself my friend (god that sounded so posh in my head lol) Got another Athos moment today, hope you like it :) The fingernail bits make me cringe too but it sounded so evil at the time that I had to include it and now it just makes me cringe whenever I write it... which means it's doing its job i suppose. Enjoy the new chapter! x

ploiuiu: Thanks for the review - Glad you liked it :) Worry not all your questions will soon be answered (though not really in this chapter but the next couple I promise :) )Enjoy the new chapter! x

Tina (Guest): Thanks for the review - Thanks for the advice :) Worry not I am moving on to the healing part now, I'll admit I did get a bit wrapped up in the whole whumpage part of it but we're getting to the cute healing/comfort moments now so should sort itself out :) Enjoy the new chapter! x

Helensg: Thanks for the review - Yeah things are about to get a bit better for our boys though they have a long road to recovery. Enjoy the new chapter! x

Tidia: Thanks for the review - Yeah, where's a doctor when you need one. He's improving slightly though but he's still in quite a bad way. Enjoy the new chapter! x

Issai: Thanks for the review - Athos's timing definitely sucks thats for sure :D Furious Treville was quite fun to write, though it is slightly odd writing several chapters from his viewpoint as our boys are all out of it. I've given a brief/slight explanation as to why Porthos is still unconscious today but he'll be awake soon dont worry. Enjoy the new chapter! x

Lilac Lavender: Thanks for the review - D'Art's fever is going to be causing him trouble for some time I'm afraid, as are the rest of his injuries (i'm a mean mean person) Not being able to help when it's usually him treating them is definitely killing Aramis :( Though I do like his bit in today's chapter :) Athos's timing was the worst but I like the idea that he's so in sync with his brothers that he reacted to their pain. Hehe You remember correctly, it wont be too bad as I have no plans to kill off D'Art (as of yet) but it'll be causing some concern... I don't know I could always through in some sort of injury to his feet just so he has a full set lol. Hope this chapter was worth the wait, sorry it was updated slightly later than usual. Enjoy the new chapter! x

As always I can't thank you all enough for all the support you've given by following/favouriting/reviewing/reading this story. Love you all!

Enjoy!

xxx

Chapter Twenty-Three: Path To Healing I

The next couple of hours or so went by in a blur for the men treating the injured.

Athos's injuries, despite their extensiveness, we probably the easiest for them to tend. With meticulous care they set to work cleaning the swordsman's body of the dirt and grime he had accumulated over the duration of his capture.

Treville was quite pleased that the man remained blissfully unaware this was happening as he had known the stubborn, proud man for long enough to know that he would not take kindly to others seeing him in such a weak state. Despite the occasional outward appearance Athos cherished his position as lieutenant and as such Treville knew that to have gotten to the stage where he required the care of someone other than his closest brothers would greatly embarrass the man.

Once his skin was clean the men set to work applying a salve over the numerous burns that littered across Athos's skin. Treville didn't know whether or not to laugh at the fact that the only reason he had insisted on them bringing an ample supply of burn salve was because he had been forced to listen to the swordsman's explanation as to how both Aramis and Porthos had ended up with some impressive, but thankfully minor, burns after a routine mission the quartet had been tasked with completing several months ago.

A smile flickered across the Captain's face as he remembered the chiding yet amused tone Athos had used when explaining that the pair had somehow managed to injure themselves on the campfire whilst explaining to D'Artagnan one of their many amusing tavern anecdotes. To this day Treville still had no idea how they had managed to do that but after years with the men that could act worse then children at times he honestly wasn't all that surprised.

Once the burns had been covered with a healthy amount of burn cream Treville decided to leave them uncovered, at least until Athos was awake enough to give his consent to wrapping them. He knew his luck would run out and the man was bound to wake up as they were in the middle of wrapping his chest and it would be far easier to simply wait until they woke him up to eat to do anything.

Instead they made quick work of stitching up the few remaining 'minor' wounds that Ortiz hadn't crudely cauterized before placing a cold compress on Athos's forehead in hopes of combatting the slowly growing fever the man seemed to have developed.

Whilst Treville and one of the other musketeers' worked on Athos, Etienne focused his attention onto Aramis.

He had been assessing the medic's wounds, trying to decide where best to start when the whole ordeal with D'Artagnan had distracted them. Now that things were somewhat calmer he quickly realized he would need see to the broken leg before doing anything else.

"Thierry!" Etienne called, looking over at the man who was tending to Porthos.

"Aye?" came a reply, though the man had yet to tear his eyes away from whatever he was doing to Porthos.

"Need a hand with this bone, he's probably going to fight me when I try to get it back in" Etienne explained grimly.

Without another word Thierry came to Etienne's side, grimacing when he saw the state of the medic's leg. He had seen it briefly in the cell when they rescued him but then it had been covered in blood that managed to obscure the damage actually done.

Now that the leg had been cleaned there were clear impressions of the chain links in the deep bruising that had already formed around the break. The break itself was a nasty one, with the bone jutting out of the skin. Cursing under his breath Thierry understood why Etienne had requested help.

"Want me to hold him or push that?" he asked, his eyes never leaving the slightly pained expression the medic wore even whilst sleeping.

"Him" Etienne nodded as he prepared himself for what he was about to do, "You've got more strength than me to keep him still when he starts fighting me"

Thierry nodded and got into position, grimly nodding at his brother when he was ready.

Without waiting another moment Etienne began work getting the bone back inside Aramis's leg… and like they had predicted the second he touched the bone Aramis instantly reacted to the pain and began fighting Thierry's hold, cursing and crying as the pain escalated

"¡Hijo de puta!" (Son of a bitch!) Swore Aramis, glaring almost pathetically at Etienne as he tried to get the man to stop touching his leg

Blinking amusedly as the fact that the typically eloquent Spaniard was now cursing like a sailor, Thierry worked to keep the man still so as to not injure himself further.

After a few minutes the pain overtook the medic's desire to curse the man causing him pain and so he switched tactics.

"Por favor ... Deja ... Por favor," (Please… Stop… Please) begged Aramis weakly, tears streaming down his face as he thrashed weakly in Thierry's hold.

"Easy Aramis" soothed Thierry; risking loosening his hold on man so he could run a hand gently through the sharpshooter's hair. "He's almost done"

"Por favor…" slurred Aramis feebly before the pain became too much and he passed out.

"Aramis?" Thierry asked worriedly, his concern had spiked when the man had collapsed in his arms

"He's out" mumbled Etienne, his focus on bandaging the splint to the medic's leg.

Observing that his friend had the situation now under control Thierry removed himself from Aramis and moved back to where he had been tending to Porthos.

Having finished with Aramis's broken leg Etienne took a moment to center himself before moving onto the mess that was his back.

As gently as he could Etienne set to work cleaning the shredded skin, doing his best to ignore the pained whimpers coming from the medic as he worked.

Thankfully, if it could indeed be called that, because the wounds were so recent they were completely clear of infection, meaning that he could set to work stitching up the worst of the lashes quickly.

Etienne thanked God when he realized that only a few of them were deep enough to cause concern, the rest were simple enough to stitch and cover with a poultice. A couple of the lashes were deeper then the rest and Etienne knew that they were going to cause his comrade pain as they were cutting deep into the flesh of his shoulders and lower back.

He took extra care when stitching these and applied an even greater amount of the pain numbing poultice to them before finally acknowledging that he had done all he could and moving on to wrap the wounds in bandages.

Porthos was slightly worrying Thierry, not that he would bring it up to the others until he had proof or more reason to be concerned.

What first caught his eye was the way the larger man's wrist flopped helplessly and at an odd angle. The deep puncture wounds that marred the skin told Thierry just how the limb had been injured and he found himself fighting against the urge to go and pummel Ortiz into oblivion… Not only had that vile man set a dog on the youngest of their regiment but he had also had the audacity to set the dog on one of their most respected as well.

Thierry knew that Porthos must have been defending one of his brothers, most likely D'Artagnan given the boy's extensive injuries, when he obtained his injuries… Porthos was the most skilled hand-to-hand fighter the regiment had, the only way that such a skilled fighter got such wounds when fighting an animal such as a dog was if he was distracted by one of his brothers being in danger.

Knowing that the wound could easily get infected Thierry decided his first job was to clean the bite wound… His concern for the unconscious man rose when the man failed to respond to the burning liquid cleansing his wound or the tweezers that picked at the tender flesh to remove any foreign matter that could cause infection.

After he returned from helping Etienne with Aramis he set to work splinting the broken bone and wrapping it as tightly as he could… Though he was grateful that the man had remained unconscious for the stitching of the puncture wounds as he had heard rumors of how the man reacted when it came to stitching wounds.

The worst injury now taken care of Thierry moved on to tending to the numerous gashes and cuts that littered the man's skin, both from his fight with the dog and from his time annoying both guards and Ortiz.

Luckily most of them weren't overly deep and appeared clean. Unfortunately however Thierry did note an older wound on the man's shoulder which had been neglected medic treatment and as such was now sporting quite the infection - no doubt playing a part in keeping the man unconscious.

Thierry cleaned and stitched it the best he could and made a mental note to get either Aramis, should he be in a condition to do so, or a trained physician to check it over before too long.

The wounds on his chest were deep but not life threatening, though the deep bruising around his ribs told Thierry that several of them were most likely broken, this was quickly confirmed. Knowing he could do little for them aside from binding them he moved quickly to secure the bandage around the unconscious musketeer's chest.

Whilst all this was going on Galen and Leroy worked frantically on D'Artagnan, the boy had so many injuries, several of which were in various stages of infection, that it was becoming difficult to keep track.

Galen had expressed his suspicions that during his seizure, D'Artagnan had managed to crack his skull slightly.

This news was highly alarming and both men knew they would need to wake the boy up soon to check over his mental health and to ensure there was no permanent damage done by the bash.

The only problem with this is that they would have to continue to work whilst the young man was awake and they very much disliked the idea of D'Artagnan feeling any more pain while they tried to make him better. As such they were fiercely determined to treat as many of the more serious wounds before they needed to wake him up.

The bite on his leg was one of such wounds. Despite Aramis's best attempts the wound had become horribly infected and the pair had to cut open the stitches to drain out all of the puss that had built up under the skin. The process was extremely painful for all involved as the musketeers had to endure D'Artagnan's heartbreaking screams of agony as they pressed on the highly tender wounds.

The men did take some comfort in the fact that D'Artagnan's brain was still well enough to register pain… it alleviated some of their growing concerns for the damage the seizure had caused.

Taking care of the leg took up most of the time the men had allotted for themselves before the wound need to wake up D'Artagnan. Grimacing at the amount of work left to do they quickly moved to the broken hand, determined to at least clean out the infected nail beds before attempting to wake the boy

"Should we wait till after we've set the bones?" Leroy asked, his eyes full of sympathy for what their youngest brother had endured.

"We can't" Galen replied sadly shaking his head, "We've waited long enough, any longer and we're increasing the chances of him not waking up."

As if on cue it was at that point that Farrin reminded the group that there was broth waiting for the four men whenever they were ready for it.

"Captain!" called Leroy, knowing that besides Athos or another one of the inseparables that Treville would probably be the best one for D'Artagnan to see when he awoke.

"We need to wake him" Leroy explained when Treville moved to kneel beside him, sending the pair questioning looks. "We're going to try to get him to eat something as well but figured it would probably be best for you to be here seeing as the others are still resting."

"Should we wake them too?" Treville asked, eyeing the still sleeping trio

"We should" nodded Galen, "Though it might be best to wait until after we've finished with D'Artagnan… Give them some good news when they wake" shrugging he added, "We'll need to try to keep D'Artagnan awake for a little bit anyway so he might as well go first then they wont bombard us for information."

Nodding his acceptance of the plan the three men then set to work trying to wake up the wounded Gascon.

It took several attempts and many agonizing minutes, during which Galen's guilt at not be able to prevent the Gascon from hitting his head during the seizure grew. But eventually they were rewarded by a quiet and pained call of Athos's name.

Smiling fondly at the love the young man before him held for his mentor and brothers Treville stroked the boy's hair softly, "He's still resting at the moment D'Artagnan but we'll be waking him soon"

"…Th'y're … ok?" D'Artagnan weakly asked, his eyes still screwed shut as he tried to think past the pain in his head as well as the seemingly endless pain in his body.

"A little worse for wear and will most likely be off duty for quite a while but they live" confirmed Treville, though he frowned slightly as an ashamed look passed across D'Artagnan's face

"D'Artagnan" Galen interrupted, having gotten up to get a cup of broth for the now awake, yet barely lucid, boy. "We got some food for you, think you can try eating it?"

The way D'Artagnan's face screwed up told the musketeers' what he thought of that idea, yet it was what he said next that had them worried.

"…Alre'dy … ate" he mumbled weakly, exhaustion and pain trying to pull him back under.

Sharing a worried look with the two stand in medics Treville turned to face his young soldier with a concerned tone in his voice, "That was several days ago now D'Artagnan"

D'Artagnan's eyes flickered opened briefly at that and Treville could see the confusion within them, lying just behind the pain he was sure would be there for several long weeks to come. "… oh"

"Come" Treville said decisively, "Let's get you sitting up so you can have something to eat and then we'll wake the rest of them… They need to see you awake so you're going to have to keep those eyes open for a bit longer" he added as he watched the boy struggle to stay conscious, though the mention of seeing his brothers seemed to be adequate motivation

"…H'rts" whimpered D'Artagnan feebly as the three men moved him into a sitting, or more like slumped position.

"I know" soothed Treville, almost uncharacteristically tender to the young injured Gascon.

"Here" Galen said, a small sad smile on his face as he watched the boy shift in pain, "try some broth"

The small sound of protest that came from D'Artagnan was acknowledged but largely ignored by the three men as they knew how much D'Artagnan's weakened body desperately needed the food if he was to survive.

Leaving D'Artagnan to Galen and Leroy, Treville made his way to the rest of the inseparables, knowing that despite the pairs best efforts that D'Artagnan would likely not be conscious for much longer.

"Athos" called Treville gently as he lightly tapped the swordsman's face. He knew that if D'Artagnan only had the chance to see one of his brothers before unconsciousness claimed him once again that he would want it to be Athos.

"…Captain?" came a mumbled response, followed quickly by a loud hiss of pain as his slowly wakening brain registered the pain that was spreading throughout his body.

"He's awake"

Those two words were all Treville needed to say for Athos's brain to spur into action and thankfully years of experience knowing the man had allowed Treville to correctly predict the man's next movements and intercept them before he hurt himself further.

"Easy Athos" Treville said firmly whilst helping his lieutenant from his attempt to sit up before nodding over to where D'Artagnan was being prodded to drink a bit more of the broth he was slowly working his way through.

"D'Artagnan" Athos whispered, his voice full of pain and disbelief

"…'Thos?" came an almost instant reply, which was quickly followed by a hiss of pain as a spike of pain shot through the Gascon's skull.

"D'ARTAGNAN!" Athos exclaimed, panic rushing through him at the sound of his brother in pain. Though he quickly calmed and quieted when Treville whispered 'head injury' into his ear. The fact the boy had a headache wasn't surprising to the swordsman given the number of blows to the head he had received during these last few weeks.

"D'Artagnan" he tried again, this time much quieter as he watched on helplessly as D'Artagnan slumped against Leroy's chest, whimpering quietly.

"…H'rts 'Thos" whined the Gascon, opening his eyes just enough to look pleadingly at his mentor for help, the look nearly shattered the swordsman's heart and had him fighting Treville's grip on his arm to try to stand and move to his brother's side.

"Just breathe D'Artagnan," he ordered softy, having given up on trying to get out of Treville's grip. He was weakened by his injuries and by a fever and so lacked the necessary strength needed to pry himself out of his Captain's grasp.

Silence reigned for several moments throughout the camp, the only sounds coming from the snores of their still sleeping brothers as well as the pained, harsh breaths coming from D'Artagnan as he tried to manage the pain.

"…'m'sorry 'Thos" he whispered brokenly several moments later, breaking the silence.

Completely confused by his protégé's apparent need to apologize, Athos was about to ask what for when D'Artagnan elaborated, making sure to keep his eyes from looking at both his mentor and his Captain as he spoke

"…My fa'lt" he explained, his voice weary and thick with unshed tears, "…D'dn't mean … for this… 'm'sorry"