Upon the realization of loss

[averygoodshot]

There is little that will keep Aramis away from his son. Even trips to exotic beach locales only serve as temporary diversions from what he considers his family. He has not gone back to Paris to appease the Queen, he has been diligent and loyal and good (love, he tells himself, is a powerful force).

Then comes the day when he knocks on the right door and no one answers. When he's told that Anne, Queen of France, no longer resides in the Nexus at all. How, he wonders, his heart clattering in his chest, can he keep the Queen safe now? How can he protect his son?

After a thorough and emotional search, resulting in nothing, not even a door back to Paris, Aramis does the only thing he can think to do. He drinks (and yes, he does let the others know of his findings, or lack thereof) and he wallows. This is how he finds himself in the tavern, a wine bottle and goblet in front of him, and his head in his hands.

Comments

[at_your_side]

In retrospect, Constance would have to admit that she should have begun her search for Aramis nowhere other than the tavern.

The sight of him there as he sat at his table, his hair more than a touch wild as if he had been running his hands through it (as she had seen him do so many times before when he was distracted or attempting to reel in his emotions) and his head in his hands, made her heart ache. The news she carried with her as she stepped into the tavern, sparing a tight, far from comfortable smile at the friend she had made in the waitress when the other woman passed her with a tray full of drinks, before she continued on.

How she wished there had been some other solution than what had been decided. That what she needed to tell the man would do anything to set him at ease when she could already guess that he might have discovered the disappearance of the Queen and dauphin. Of his son.

She spoke when she neared him, pausing beside the nearest seat to him although she did not move to sit down. "Aramis."

[averygoodshot]

Lifting his head to see the face which matches the voice he knows, Aramis does his very best to muster a smile which resides nowhere near his eyes. "Constance." He gestures to the seat across from himself. "You are looking well."

It's expected that he says that, is it not? That he be the epitome of chivalry, even if Constance has long been able to see through his words.

[at_your_side]

Sympathy had undone her too many times to count and still she could not help but be softened by it when he lifted his face from his hands and he looked back at her. She could offer little comfort with all that was uncertain in that moment, on that day, for the forseeable future. No matter how her heart ached at the thought of it, the uncertainty and the worry that gnawed at her were too real to dismiss and her affection and respect for the man before her equally so to flinch away from what needed to be said.

"You are not," she told him, her voice gentle where her words were not. "You know then, that the Queen's left?"

[averygoodshot]

Aramis nods, pouring himself a healthy draught of wine. "She didn't -"

He looks up at her with angst clearly showing. "... did you know, Constance? Did she tell you?"

[at_your_side]

The Nexus had offered much by way of freedoms and mysteries and wonders, but as she took a seat across from him and watched the emotion overtake his expression, Constance knew with a resigned certainty that it could not be a place they could escape in forever. She nodded, reaching across to lay a hand gently over one of his as she hoped he would understand in part in the Queen's disappearance. "She asked me not to say until she had gone," there in her words last there unspoken fact that the Queen could have ordered her to do so if she had wished, buy sure had asked as one friend to another. "Much as she wished otherwise, as I do, her duty to France must come before any personal desire."

She understood too well being torn by duty and want, but too remembered the Queen's imploring her to seize her happiness where she herself could never be free to have what she desired. "I will follow her, Aramis, and will do all I can to keep her safe."

Of all she could not do, she knew she would defend her friend, her Queen, with her life if necessary.

[averygoodshot]

"Let me go too," he whispers, voice low and tight, covering her hand on his arm with his. "Take me through the door you go into, Constance. I will go." And he will keep her safe. He will kill Rochefort and be done with it once and for all.

"Do not deny me this," he asks, voice still low, but the imploring nature clear. "Constance, please."

[at_your_side]

Emotion threatened to choke her where it rose in her throat. She had known he would likely ask such a thing of her, just as she knew that it had been the majority of the reason the Queen had asked her to relay the news rather than risk having to argue with or order Aramis to give up the fight and remind them both for thousandth time of all that held them apart from truly being together.

Constance felt unbearably cruel as she shook her head. Necessary as it was, he had been too good a friend to her for her not to understand what she was refusing him, even as it had to be done. She could not guess what might happen if a second Aramis walked into her moment in time as she had left it, and it was that uncertainty along with words Athos had told her of being unable to change the future for all his knowledge that she did not flinch from holding his gaze. "Aramis, I cannot." She could not bring herself to resent the position she hhadas agreed to place herself in for both her friends' sake, for the sake of the dauphin as well as them all, but she still wished it was unnecessary.

"You are there already," she reminded him, "I saw you with the others not an hour before I came here. I will send for you the moment I return, Aramis, I swear it." Her voice held all the conviction that burned in her breast as a part of her begged him to understand and not to hate her for what she had to do. The thought of losing the respect he held for her, that was so important to her, was an agony she could not bear. "I will send someone to fetch you all, and I will remain by her side every moment until I am sure she is safe."

[temperamentalsteel]

"Aramis?" D'Artagnan comes over to sit with him, plainly concerned as to the source of his friend's misery. All of them are prone to melancholy, certainly, but he's always thought Aramis the least prone of them. It's a worrying sight even as he holds up a hand to order a glass of wine.

"Aramis what's come over you?"

[averygoodshot]

"Ah, d'Artagnan." Aramis musters a small smile at the sight of his friend. He answers, truthfully, though, "the Queen has gone."

[temperamentalsteel]

"Back to France? She will return though, won't she?" He's never seen Aramis mourn someone living as though they were dead. Though the logical answer should smooth away any troubles, it does nothing to mitigate the grief on his friend's face.

[averygoodshot]

"It seems not," Aramis says, taking a deep breath and studying his wine goblet. "She has given up her rooms here."

She was never really here, it seemed, and now she is completely gone.

[temperamentalsteel]

But why? How? Why would Her Majesty do such a thing when all of them had come to recognize the Nexus as a haven? D'Artagnan sat up straight and looked to Aramis, a hand on his shoulder.

"We can go back to Pars. Follow her to keep her safe."

[averygoodshot]

"Do you know of a doorway?" Because yes, Aramis will go, quickly and easily back to Paris, to do all he could. "To get to Rochefort."

[praiseandglory]

When Porthos arrives to the tavern after a game of cards, it's not difficult to gauge his friend's mood. It's a little surprising, but hardly difficult. He clasps his hand on his shoulder to announce himself, and doesn't say anything as he takes a seat across from Aramis. He signals for a waiter to bring him a goblet, too (it doesn't occur to him that Aramis might not share), and once that is done, fills it and asks, "What are we drinking to?"

[averygoodshot]

Aramis will share; he even pushes the bottle in Porthos's direction and holds up his own, wryly. "To the Queen's exit from this infernal place with nary a word to me."

There's little bitterness to his tone - that isn't Aramis's way - but his hurt radiates out from his words.

He cannot keep the Queen safe if she isn't here. And what of his son?!

[praiseandglory]

"She probably didn't mean to," Porthos remarks, and takes a drink. "You know this place directs us where it likes. What of the babe?"

[averygoodshot]

This place. Aramis sighs, taking a drink, too, and settling back in his seat. "The Dauphin is gone as well."

And if Rochefort is still a threat, then this can only bode badly. How is he to stand it?

[praiseandglory]

"We're there, Aramis," Porthos reminds him. It's the thought he clings to to be able to enjoy his time here, instead of spending it in endless frustration. "We're there, to protect them, for all that we are here."

[averygoodshot]

But that makes no sense. Yes, it's been explained to him, but Aramis can make no claims to understanding such strangeness.

"It seems, my friend," he says quietly, "that I am destined to love what I cannot have." Truly.

[armedagainstlove]

In the midst of his cups, Athos is perhaps not the most cognizant of men, but it would take no more than a blind and deaf man to see that Aramis is upset. He hardly ever drinks in the fashion that Athos does, which leaves Athos to wonder what can have caused such dismay. He settles down beside the man and presses his hat to the table, not saying a single word because he's never really had to. His companions have always been good enough to speak up for him, eventually.

He does, of course, partake in the wine. Merely because it's there, of course.

[averygoodshot]

What is Aramis's is Athos's, whether it be secrets or wine. Aramis looks over to Athos, then back to his own goblet. "Athos."

[armedagainstlove]

Athos says nothing at all, merely pouring himself a touch more of the wine as he regards Aramis' behaviour. He has to wonder whether this is another mood that will have him making poor choices and for all their sakes, vows to stay with him. "What's happened?" he finally asks.

[averygoodshot]

"The Queen has gone back to her duty in France, taking the Dauphin with her," Aramis tells Athos quietly. "It seems," he tells his friend, "that I am destined to be kept from those I love."

[armedagainstlove]

Athos knows that Aramis has his share of dramatic behaviour, but this is an accurate statement of the situation he is in. "She is not dead, neither is her son," Athos feels compelled to remind Aramis. "Even if they are out of your reach, in this fashion." They are still alive and Aramis, too. It is not the worst of all situations.

[averygoodshot]

No, not the worst, but Aramis cannot be accused of being reasonable when it comes to matters of the heart.

"Perhaps it is," he says, filling both their glasses before pulling his close again, looking into its depths, "that I thought here - in this somewhat magical place - that we had a chance to be something ... different."