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Clang.
Swoosh.
Clang.
As Athos’ sword collides with Aramis’, their blades sliding against each other with an ear-splitting screech, something is missing. There is an absence, a lack of weight that Athos becomes aware of but cannot immediately place. When he pushes Aramis back, cross-stepping to resume his stance for a new attack, he realizes what it is: Nothing bounces back against his breastbone; nothing dangles familiarly around his neck as he moves; nothing tangles in the folds of his shirt. His hand shoots to his chest, patting.
“Hey! Watch it!”
Distracted, Athos hasn’t brought his rapier up quickly enough, and Aramis barely manages to take the force out of his blow. The blade glances off Athos’ pauldron, leaving a new groove in the thick leather.
“Athos, Christ!” Aramis lets his sword sink and stares at his friend. Athos, simply having absorbed the blow, stands glued to the spot, one hand rooting around in the opening of his shirt.
“Athos, what the bloody-” Then he sees the wide-eyed look of shock on his brother’s face.
“Athos? What’s wrong?” He takes a step, drops his sword, grabs his friend by the shoulders. “Did I hit you? Are you injured?” Instinctively, his palms begin to glide over Athos’ torso.
“No, I’m-” Athos’ hand sweeps his away. “I’m fine. It’s just…” He sounds absent and bewildered. More groping around in his shirt. Hectically, he sheathes his rapier and uses both hands to slip his heavy jacket off and shake it, clearly looking for something. Then he moves on to frantically pat his waist and inspect his weapons belt.
“What’s going on, Athos?” The marksman is looking at him with his brows furrowed.
His hands halting, Athos’ shoulders sag and he looks up at Aramis, crestfallen.
“I’ve lost it.”
“You’ve lost it.” Aramis cants his head. Something strange is going on with Athos. “What have you lost? That necklace you always wear? Is that it?”
Since the taciturn swordsman joined the regiment a year ago, Aramis has never seen him without the silver chain around his neck and, judging by how often he’s seen Athos cradling the plain piece of jewellery, it must hold special meaning for him. He assumes whatever the locket holds must have to do with the woman who causes Athos to drink himself into oblivion on a regular basis, but since he never talks about it, it’s all guesswork. So much with Athos still is.
His eyes nervously searching the ground around them, Athos doesn’t seem to have heard him. “It can’t be gone,” he mumbles, swivelling and pacing. “I had it this morning. It’s got to be…”
Suddenly, Athos looks up, aware of what he’s doing. To his embarrassment, he is standing in the middle of the garrison training grounds, surrounded by other sparring musketeers, some of which are staring since their best swordsman has apparently just lost a fight and - it must seem that way - his mind along with it.
Pulling his hand out of his shirt, he carefully wipes the anxious expression from his face and replaces it with a neutral one.
“Never mind,” he tells Aramis, voice composed and forestalling any further discussion. “It’s not important.” He flashes hostile glances at the on-looking musketeers, spurring them back into action.
The marksman raises his eyebrows. “Nothing? I almost just chopped your head off because you weren’t paying attention. What’s going on with you?”
Instead of an answer, Athos pulls his rapier and swishes it through the air. “Do you want to keep asking questions or do you want to fight?
Not that Aramis is left with any time to reply. He wants to ask more questions, wants to know what is going on with his friend, but Athos, his usual mask of cool focus back in place, advances and thrusts. Unthinking, on muscle memory, Aramis parries. A step from Athos, a swipe, and their blades clash again. From out of nowhere, Athos’ main gauche has appeared in his left hand, and then Aramis is caught up in a whirlwind of steel on steel, elbows jabbing and boots dancing in the grit of the garrison grounds, trying to keep up with Athos.
XXX
It’s not in his apartment either.
Dusk is turning the sparse room which Athos inhabits into a collage of shadows and pools of candlelight as he searches with increasing desperation. The cot he sleeps on is on its side, the bedding on the floor. Clothes spill from a large wooden chest as he digs through it. Ink has spilled across the parchment scattered on his desk. The one thing he’s been careful with is his small shelf stacked with books, but he’s leafed through them all.
Nothing.
Automatically, his hand moves to his chest, his fingers splaying across the spot where, for an eternity, her mark has hung around his neck. It’s an odd feeling, and he doesn’t know what to do with it: emptiness; freedom; loss. Loneliness.
Part of him thinks about stopping, about giving up the search. At some point, he has to let go and move on. Has to leave that cloud of memory and darkness and longing. She’s had him in her claws long enough. Her shadow, caught on a silver chain, has weighed him down for so long. On bad days, he can barely stand straight, can barely lift his head, worn down by shame and guilt and the fear, the hope that he’s dreamed all this. That she isn’t dead. That she’s alive. That the steps he hears at night, the faint scent of forget-me-nots, the sensation of her nearness on his skin is real.
And that’s why he has to find the locket. He doesn’t deserve to let go of that chain - he hasn’t been pardoned. And, protected in the silver halves of the locket, conserved in the delicate, pressed little flower, is her breath and her blood and that feline green gaze that always, always went straight through his defenses.
A knock startles him out of his thoughts. Quickly, as if caught doing something illegitimate, he rises to his feet from where he’s been kneeling on the ground, searching the floor.
“Who is it?”, he shouts.
“It’s me, Athos!” Aramis’ melodious, warm voice.
Athos looks around, at the mess he’s made of his apartment. There’s no way he can let the marksman see his room like this. It’ll entail questions he isn’t willing to answer.
“Athos? Can I come in?”
As expected, worry tinges Aramis’ voice. The man not only has the eyesight of a hawk, but also the instincts of a true healer, sensing pain in others with the same accuracy he uses to spot a target. Over the last year, In spite of Athos’ efforts at pushing him and Porthos away, the two musketeers have become his friends. He trusts them. But this… this is not a part of his past he’s ready to share with them.
Schooling his body into an air of calmness, he crosses the room and opens the door, just wide enough to stick his head through.
“What do you want, Aramis?”
Leaning casually against the doorframe, the marksman blinks innocently at him. “Good day to you too, Athos,” he says with mild sarcasm.
Athos grunts. “I’m busy, Aramis,” he lies. “What is it?”
Un-leaning, the marksman raises his hand, letting a familiar necklace dangle from his fingers.
“I thought you might want this back. Had a feeling you’ve been missing it.” A soft smirk.
Athos snatches the necklace from him, and Aramis takes a step back at the vehemence of his friend. Behind the cantankerous lieutenant, he catches a glance of a room in complete disarray, and it’s one more sign that something is wrong. While Athos isn’t extremely neat - particularly not during his drunken stints - he takes naturally to the efficient orderliness of a soldier. Chaos doesn’t sit well with him, and to see his lodgings in such a state is a sign of alarm.
“Where did you find this?” Holding the locket in a tight fist, Athos looks at him with an expression that is half relief, half hostility.
“I didn’t,” Aramis answers. “Porthos found it. On the training grounds. He says you sparred with him this morning before sword practice. He recognized it when he almost stepped on it. Must’ve slipped from your neck.”
Carefully keeping his face neutral, Aramis watches Athos swing his gaze to the locket, his fingers turning it in his palm now. Something flickers in Athos’ pale eyes, like the pain of an old scar that hurts with the arrival of rain. A hurt that reignites frequently and that he’s learned to conceal.
“Yes,” the swordsman says with a voice that, too, has a sudden haunted ring to it. “Porthos showed me a few of his wrestling moves. That’s when it…”
With a swift move, Athos pulls the necklace over his head and tucks the locket inside his shirt.
“Give Porthos my thanks when you see him,” he says, businesslike again. “Was there anything else?” He pulls the door further closed, making it clear that this visit is over.
Aramis sighs. He has the sinking feeling that, later tonight, he will find Athos in his usual spot in the tavern, clutching a bottle of wine and staring blearily at mirages that only he can see. Everything in Aramis aches to find out what ails his friend, to learn the secret that Athos has literally chained around his neck; to see the picture inside that locket - a woman’s, he’s sure. After all this time, it pains the marksman that Athos, in battle, trusts him and Porthos with his life, a true brother-in-arms, but that he doesn’t trust them with this.
But he knows better than to push. God knows, it’s taken them long enough to thaw the frosty armour around Athos enough to catch glimpses of the remarkable swordsman’s soul, so well hidden underneath a hard surface that repels any intrusion. If there’s anything that Aramis has learned in his service as the regiment’s field medic, it is that some wounds need a lot of time to heal, and stirring at them doesn’t help the process.
So, if time is what Athos needs, Aramis will give it to him.
“No,” he says, holding Athos’ newly steeled gaze. “There’s nothing else. See you at The Wren later on?”
With a none-committal noise, Athos closes the door in his face and Aramis leaves, sighing. Straightening his hat, he walks down the steps into the street, heading to the garrison to fetch Porthos. Tonight, they will both be at the tavern, playing cards, carousing, drinking and pretending not to notice Athos getting drunk in his corner until it’s time to carry him home.
XXX
Stepping over his strewn belongings, Athos sits down heavily on his bed. His hand fishes for the silver chain, unearthing its pendant from the depths of his shirt. In a motion that he’s executed hundreds of times, he flips the ornate locket open and stares at the delicate blue flower pressed inside. With the chain back around his neck, he feels whole again, broken and complete, the crack down his middle back in place, well-disguised by the muslin of his shirt. Both anchor and ballast, the familiar weight feels like a body part re-attached, gout-ridden but necessary to maintain his balance.
It’s been a long time since the forget-me-not encased in the locket bloomed on a meadow, Anne and him rolling in the grass, laughing, kissing. It’s been a long time, but, staring at the dead little flower, Athos thinks he can still catch its scent.