armedagainstlove | (no subject)

He'd made it to the crossroads, but not in time to do anything but find a waiting glove. The carriage had long gone and with it, his wife. Athos isn't even sure if he's disappointed or broken, because he still doesn't know whether he'd been going to see her off or to join her, but he cannot imagine abandoning the Musketeers completely, but knows that he could not leave her either. With her back in his life and all her debts gone, Athos can see them as who they are.

No more lies. No more deceit. They will simply be the people they actually are and they will try. For some reason, this is something that stirs Athos' heart in a way that he hasn't felt in years. He thinks back to Las Vegas and how Faith had been intoxicating then, with her dark hair and her knowing eyes, but even then it had just been Anne that he wanted.

And now, he has her glove, but nothing else.

He makes it back to Paris and finds himself standing at the door that he knows will bring him to the Nexus.

He doesn't wait at all before going through it, though he knows that yet again, his challenge will be finding Milady, when she is constantly one step ahead of him.

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"Unless I am with child, can you imagine my sitting at home, mending your socks?" she asks, her tone wry, her eyes warm. As much as she wants to think there would be something else out there, she has to be realistic.

"I cannot see you at home mending my socks." He does not mention the 'with child', because he can see that, but he thinks that time is long past. He had wanted that, so many years ago, but now he does not imagine that as possible. "There are other uses, though. Ones that do not require the front lines. There is plenty of information that could be ferried far away from the battles."

Leaning up on an elbow, Anne shakes her hair from her face and smiles down at him, her face softer than it had been in a while. "If I can be of use, I would like to be," she tell shim. She can, after all, take care of herself.

"I do not want harm to come to you," he admits, the confession quiet and slipping out. "Even when we were at odds, I did not want any harm to come to you. It was why I could not bear to stay." He could not watch her die, had even held out hope that she had somehow not died. And then, when he had found out she was still alive, he had been happy in his own way.

They were - and are - too bound to ever be free. Death would bring no relief. Even in her darkest time, Anne had known that.

She touches his cheek gently, leaning in to kiss him again. "We will find a way," she tells him. To make a sort of relationship work in Paris. Somehow.