René d'Herblay, alias Aramis

He is weary. More weary than he can remember being in some time, and it is not the fatigue of battle, nor of sitting in the saddle or at watch for days. This is a weariness that comes from a heavy heart, and no matter how much of the truth Aramis parcels out, the well remains deep, with new hardships waiting to be remembered at any moment.

Earlier today, Aramis dropped a glass and woke up on the floor, certain he'd just come from a window.

It doesn't make what he needs to tell Athos now any easier, but the sensation of falling is almost a welcome respite from the way the truth keeps rising up to smack him. Curling his hands around the stairway banister, Aramis sighs, rubbing a forearm over his eyes before he tries Athos' door.

"Athos?" he calls, poking his head inside. "It's me."

It's startling to realize how much he used to think of her.

For more than a year now, Aramis' world has been Porthos, then Porthos and Athos, it's been d'Artagnan and Constance and the friends they've made here, it's been a wedding and the plans for a new home and the hope for a child. It hasn't been her, and when Aramis did think of the Queen, it was as Her Majesty.

Never Anna.

He doesn't love her. Aramis admires her, certainly, he finds her beautiful, but this memory that lives in his heart of her now doesn't match what he remembers. He'd never experienced an ache this sharp for her at home, but now in his dreams it haunts him, a yearning for a woman who is impossible to hold, and a child that's forever removed from him.

The first time it happens, Aramis thinks the infant he dreams of must be Isabelle's.

By the third, Aramis knows it isn't.

As he sits in the kitchen alone, Porthos shooed away for fresh air and a fresh cup of coffee before him, Aramis peers blearily past it to the brandy. He's never found drink particularly soothing, not even after Savoy, but at the moment he will accept anything to calm the turmoil within him.

These dreams he has bleed further past fantasy into memory the more he resists them. Porthos had suggested a doctor when they began, and Aramis is not certain which he prefers - madness, or the certainty that's begun to coalesce. Aramis passes a hand over his eyes, but the image of a child with blue eyes does not fade.

It's certainly not Isabelle's. The boy is Anna's.

And Aramis loves him far too much.