A tag to s01e09, "Knight Takes Queen"

Aramis stood in Treville's office with Athos, Porthos, and d'Artagnan. For nearly half an hour they'd been taking it in turns to detail the events of the past two days: the attack at Bourbon-les-eaux, the flight to the convent and the decision to split up, fighting off Gallagher's men until the ragtag relief force arrived. Saving the Queen. Aramis had largely stayed quiet, except when necessary, and was trying not to glance sideways at Athos, who, despite his habitual expression of disinterest, was practically vibrating with tension. Was he afraid that he or Aramis would inadvertently hint at the secret they now kept? Or was it something about the coin box that lay open on Treville's desk, displaying the little blue flower in its lid? The emblem of a dangerous woman, apparently, an ally of the Cardinal's, and Athos could hardly take his eyes off it.

Aramis was anxious to get away from Treville's shrewd gaze, away from Athos's turmoil and Porthos and d'Artagnan's curiosity; they knew something had happened at the convent. He hadn't been alone since it happened: they had ridden straight from the convent to the palace, waited there for the Queen to repair herself and the King to grant them an audience, and then returned to the garrison and followed Treville up to his office.

Finally, Treville leaned back in his chair, looking over the page of notes he'd taken as the Musketeers talked. "I think I have everything I'll need. If not, I know where to find you all. Don't worry about guard duty tonight or tomorrow, either—the lads who were out hunting with the king can take care of that." He put the paper down and looked at each of them in turn. "Fine work, all of you. I'll be putting you up for commendations for your services to France. You should be proud. I am." He nodded. "Dismissed. Get some rest."

Following Athos out of Treville's office, Aramis stopped himself from heaving an actual sigh of relief—which was just as well, because as he put his hand on the door, he heard from behind him, "Aramis. A moment, if you would."

Aramis froze. Athos turned back and gave him the briefest and most eloquent of glares, a look that said Do not get me hanged, before continuing out the door with Porthos and D'Artagnan. Schooling his own expression, Aramis turned back to Treville and saw that he had put his notes down and was cradling his left arm, still in the sling, with his right. Of course. Nothing serious.

Nothing dangerous.

Aramis closed the door and turned around, taking off his gloves as he returned to stand before Treville. "I don't imagine the fighting was kind to that shoulder."

Treville shrugged—with the good side only. "It stayed in the socket."

"That's something." Aramis tucked his gloves in his belt. "Shall we get the cuirass off?"

Treville still wore the armor he had donned to fight, having had as little time to himself in the interim as anyone else. He stood, pulled the sling over his head and off his arm, and set it on the desk. With his right hand he started to work on the buckles at his left shoulder, and Aramis came around the desk and freed the other shoulder and the right side, so he could open the breast- and back-plates like a clamshell and allow Treville to step out. Aramis saw that he had added a small piece of quilted padding under the cuirass, to keep it from sitting directly on his broken collarbone; it looked like it has been improvised from a detached gambeson sleeve. Treville added the padding to the pile on his desk and started on the buttons of his coat.

Aramis hung the cuirass from its accustomed place on the iron screen, and when he turned back, Treville was pulling the coat off his bad arm. He draped it over the back of his chair and rubbed his left hand with his right.

"Does it hurt?" Aramis asked.

Treville shook his head. "Feels like it's full of ants. I think the bandage must have shifted, in the excitement."

"Let me see?"

When Aramis pushed the neck of Treville's shirt to the side, he saw the problem right away. He bent down to slip his smallest knife from his boot, then cut the end of the bandage free from where he had sewn it to itself three days ago. "The bandage didn't move," Aramis explained, picking threads out. "Your shoulder is swollen, so it's cutting in here, and under your arm." He tried to redistribute the new slack in the bandage by running his fingers underneath its layers, with only a little success: Treville's shirt was in the way, and the bandage ran in several figure-eights around both shoulders and across his back. Aramis gave up for the moment. "I'll redo it. And I think a long, hot soak wouldn't go amiss?"

Treville frowned down at the page of notes he'd taken. "I can't write this report from the bathhouse, Aramis."

"I suppose the steam would wreak havoc on the paper," Aramis said, mock-thoughtfully. "And the ink would run."

Treville pointedly ignored the jest. "Just... help me with the bandage."

Aramis returned the knife to his boot. Should he simply do as Treville asked, and gain his solitude sooner? As soon as the thought coalesced, his conscience rejected it; he owed Treville more than that. "At least come down to the kitchen," he counter-offered. "We'll put a hot compress on it and you can get right back to your reports." He could tell Treville was wavering, so he added, "No more crawling ants?"

Treville sighed. "Fine."

Leaving his doublet and the sling, Treville followed Aramis outside, down the stairs, and around to the kitchen, where they both paused in the doorway. Instead of the usual bustle, only a banked fire was there to greet them. The kitchen was Serge's domain, the old soldier making sure the garrison was fed each midday, but Serge had picked up his blunderbuss one more time to join the desperate rescue mission to the convent. The reward for his bravery? An Irish rebel's bullet. He was alive but unable to ride, and they had elected to speed the queen back to Paris and leave Serge recovering with the nuns. In his absence, the kitchen seemed larger and darker, even with the late afternoon sun pouring in the windows.

After a moment, Aramis and Treville moved inside. Aramis went to the hearth and held a hand up to the pot, to see if it had warmed at all over the embers. Looking around, he said, "It's strange, walking into a quiet kitchen."

"The nuns will take good care of him," Treville said, leaning against one of the long tables. "He's probably trying to get out of bed already."

"He may have met his match in Mother Superior." Aramis poked the fire, and from the pile stacked neatly next to the hearth, took two logs to balance on top. "She's an extraordinary woman, I'm sure she can make even Serge behave."

"A hard-nosed nun? She'll have to be careful, he might fall in love with her," Treville said dryly. He turned his attention to pulling his shirt out of his breeches, wincing as the motion jarred his shoulder, so he didn't see Aramis freeze.

Fall in love with her... fall in love with her... Memories rose swiftly and in a jumble: holding Isabelle as the light died in her eyes; holding Isabelle all those years ago, certain that they would fall asleep and wake like this, together, forever; the Queen's hair like silk under his fingers—

Between one breath and the next, Aramis pushed the memories away, down inside him again, just as he had swallowed his grief while still bent over Isabelle's body, and again with his impatience upstairs when Treville called him back. Aramis was naturally inclined to wear his heart on his sleeve, but he had also learned to master his emotions when he had to—when he remembered to. Treville was wrestling with his shirt and had probably, hopefully, not noticed Aramis' face in the moment of his lapse.

"Here," Aramis said, helping Treville pull the shirt over his head. With it out of the way, he could properly unwind the long bandage. Now sweat-and dirt-stained after the day's riding and fighting, it was there to brace the cracked and dislocated collarbone on the left while the sling took the weight off a viciously dislocated shoulder, both courtesy of the criminal LaBarge the previous week; Treville had been reasonable about resting his injuries, only to have the choice taken from him by the threat to the queen.

Aramis set the bandage aside, feeling the last trace of the intrusive memories fade away as he focused on Treville; he took his role as unofficial garrison surgeon seriously. A thick red indentation marked where the bandage had lain and grown tight, and around it, the flesh was swollen and warm to the touch. "This is... impressive," Aramis said, running a hand lightly over the worst of the swelling. When he'd last seen Treville's injuries, his chest and shoulder were red, just starting to purple, and now every color, from nearly black in places to yellow and green in others, was splashed across his skin. The middle of the collarbone, where Aramis thought it was cracked, was one of those nearly-black splotches; the top of the shoulder, where the collarbone met and formed its joint, was another. The shape of LaBarge's boot heel was a dark crescent on his upper chest.

"If you're just going to do paperwork tonight—" he said.

"I certainly hope so."

"—let's leave the long bandage off for now and see if the swelling goes down. I'll make a fresh one for the morning, so you can have it when you go to Court."

"Good. I always have to be ready for the Cardinal to ask me to bend over backward."

Half-smiling, Aramis turned away and checked on the pot over the fire. The water was hot now, almost uncomfortable to the touch—perfect—and Aramis was just reaching down a basket of bandages and jars from a high shelf when he heard Treville's voice behind him.

"Aramis," he said, "what else happened at the convent?"

Aramis slowly put the basket on the counter and didn't turn around. "Are you asking as my captain?" Aramis' voice was very quiet, but his heart was suddenly threatening to beat out of his chest. "For your report?"

"Should I?"

Aramis shook his head, still looking down at the basket.

"I don't see any paper or ink here," Treville said. "Even my uniform is upstairs. But..." he added after a long silence, "I am asking."

Before he answered, Aramis swung the pot off the fire. He took a bottle of rose water from the basket, uncorked it, and poured in a small measure; the kitchen seemed to fill with invisible blooms. He moved slowly, but his mind was racing: Treville was not above asking Aramis a question he already knew the answer to, just to see what he said. But how would Treville know? Athos had not said anything, and Treville had not been alone with the Queen that day, even if she would have breathed a word to anyone, which she wouldn't. Of course, that was not the only thing that had happened at the convent...

God help him. Was he about to do Isabelle a disservice? Telling their story as, not exactly a lie, but a diversion?

"When Gallagher's men tunneled into the basement," Aramis began. He folded a few bandages into a pad, dipped them in the hot water, wrung them so they weren't sopping. "One of the nuns was there. She raised the alarm, but they killed her." Treville knew this part already, it had been included in their report, but Aramis had let Athos say the words before. Now, saying them was easier than he had thought it would be... Aramis lay the hot compress just where Treville's neck and shoulder met, where he could see the muscles corded with tension.

Aramis readied another compress. "The nun, I knew her. From before. We were..." How to say it? Knowing Treville would read between the lines, he settled on, "We were young together. I hadn't seen her since." His voice sounded husky—a memory, trying to crawl into his mouth—he cleared his throat, and arranged the second compress next to the first. Treville regarded him impassively, waiting for the rest.

Aramis took a moment, making a third compress to finish covering Treville's shoulder in the warm cloths. He placed it precisely, then stepped back so he could cross his arms and lean against the opposite wall. Now he knew why it hadn't been so hard to say that Isabelle was dead; that was a fact, true and immutable, and as a soldier he had reported friends' deaths before. But this... He met Treville's eyes, which held him with a softer gaze now than earlier, and said, "I knew when they opened the gate for us that we came bringing violence, maybe even death, to a place that should be peaceful. But we had protect the queen. I would take any risk for that, and I would ask it of others, too." He pushed away from the wall and ran his hands through his hair. "But Isabelle might still be at home, married, with a family, if we hadn't... If I hadn't... And she would still be alive if I hadn't come into her life again." He felt warm prickles starting in his eyes and nose.

Treville was nodding—more, it seemed, to himself than to Aramis. Then he said, "It was Gallagher."

This was not what Aramis expected to hear. "What?"

"Gallagher and his men killed her."

"I know—"

Treville held up a hand. "No, you don't. You're blaming yourself. You said you brought violence to the convent, but you brought the Queen of France to a sanctuary, and violence followed you there. Would you ever assassinate a monarch?"

The question was so sudden and so flatly ridiculous that Aramis assumed it was rhetorical, but Treville actually seemed to want an answer. "No," Aramis said finally.

"Would you ever take money to kill a woman?"

"No!"

"Gallagher and his men chose to do both. They violated the sanctity of a convent, and they killed a nun, a woman who was no threat to them. Now God will judge them — and you will leave off judging yourself for their actions." That was clearly an order, but Aramis wasn't about to assent. He bore some blame in Isabelle's death, he knew it. Not all of it. But not nothing.

Treville filled the silence with a seeming non-sequitur: "I'll write the Mother Superior tonight and send some money, then I'll have you and the others fetch Serge back when he's well enough to travel."

Aramis found he could speak again, on this topic, at least. "Are you sending four of us so we can take turns listening to him recount the battle?"

"Yes, I think it will take at least that many to properly divide that duty."

They shared, if not a smile, at least a smiling glance, knowing Serge's tendency to grow stories with each telling.

Aramis felt the cloths on Treville's shoulder and found that they had cooled. He took them off and returned them, for the moment, to the pot, then fetched over a dry cloth and a jar of bruise balm. He wondered if Treville had agreed to come down here just to have this conversation somewhere he knew Aramis would have plenty to do with his hands, ways to bleed off nervous energy, reasons not to look him in the eye. He dried Treville's shoulder, which was still radiating heat from the compresses and seemed less whipcord-tense, then opened the jar and started spreading a thin layer of salve over the rainbow of bruises. It added a familiar scent to the air, herbs and sweet beeswax, mingling with the smell of roses.

"And while you're at the convent," Treville added, in a low voice, "visit her. Talk to her. Tell her the things you didn't get to say."

"Will it help?"

"A little bit."

Aramis added that solemn tone to his small store of personal information about Treville. He recorked the jar and picked up Treville's discarded shirt, but the captain took it from him, shaking his head.

"I've been looking forward to a fresh shirt all afternoon."

"I'll come up—"

"I can manage. I'm getting used to dressing one arm at a time." Treville tilted his head, eliciting a few loud popping sounds from his neck, then cautiously—and minutely—rolled his shoulder. "Thank you," he said, opening and closing his left hand, evidently pleased at what he found. "No more ants."

"Good." Aramis started packing things back into the basket, except for what dry bandages remained. Those would come home with him, to be sewn end-to-end until they were long enough to replace the previous version; then Treville would have one to wash and one to wear as long as the injury called for it.

Treville was leaving, but Aramis looked up when he turned back in the doorway. "I know it seems that violence follows us," Treville said. "And, in some ways, it does... but that's only because we swore to protect something precious enough to warrant it." He held Aramis's gaze for a moment, to make sure his words had landed, and then was gone.

Something precious... Aramis ran a strip of linen through his fingers, letting himself remember the feel of of that long, golden hair and the thrill of her name on his tongue. Ana, he'd dared to whisper in her ear, and she had laughed and pulled him closer. But even here, alone, he would not repeat it. He would probably not repeat the things he had told Treville about Isabelle, either: twin secrets, birthed on the same day, one too sad to dwell on and one too bright and dangerous to share.

He folded the bandages and tucked them inside his tunic, and it occurred to him that, although for years he had been bragging that his needlework was "fine enough for the Queen's chemise," he had a new and intimate appreciation for what that might mean...

He smiled—that, at least, he could do safely.