Bone duely thrown. Sorry, no smut until next time.
-----
The three had left, reluctantly and later than expected for the next stage of their journey, planning to be back in three or four days.
Kate was leaning on the fence, watching the horses grazing in the field. He propped himself on the rail next to her. "Are you ok?"
She looked at him, then her eyes drifted past him to the stables, and shrugged. "Don't know. Half of me wants to go and kick lumps out of something, and the other half..." her face was bleak "I'm just sick of it. How many years does it take until it stops coming back to haunt me?"
His gaze slipped past her and he shrugged. "I wouldn't know."
She shook her head. "What a pair eh?"
He bumped his foot off the fence post. "You don't think he'll be back then?"
"No, not in that mood anyway. The provost will make sure of that. The reports aren't a pleasant read, and believe me, he'll make him read it all. I was lucky though - he's a good man. Plenty of others would have seen me hang - irrespective of the law and the circumstances."
Athos flinched and she cursed. "I'm sorry - I didn't mean... you had good enough cause from what I heard."
He didn't look at her, kicked at a stone and looked across the field. "Did I?"
She sighed "You can only do what you judge is right at the time. Then you learn to live with it." There was no response and she pulled him round to face her "Come with me." She dragged him behind her, marching purposefully towards the stable. "Jacques! Can we have two horses please." She turned back to him, looking him over. "Wait here."
He watched as she ran back in the house through the kitchen, then turned and went into the stable to help prepare the horses.
Jacques looked up curiously "Going after them then?"
His shrugged response drew a wry smile. "Well, looks like she's dragging you off somewhere."
...
The trail was only wide enough for one horse and they rode in silence - his horse following hers, winding through the woods. His mind was racing - the initial shock was wearing off, leaving anger and frustration mounting in its wake. Honour, duty, everything he clung to dictated that he should avenge her somehow - and yet he could see nothing that he could do. She had killed her assailant, she had seen off his armed son using nothing more than a relentless verbal assault, and he was left floundering in her wake. The fact that the others had made it clear that his lack of intervention had been utterly incomprehensible to them had added to his growing anger. Aramis had even taken him aside before they left, murmuring that it wasn’t Kate's fault, and that he should make sure that she knew his anger wasn’t directed at her. As if he would think it was her fault, or that she would think he did. He shook his head – Kate was one of the most level-headed people he knew and was hardly likely to need that level of reassurance. He frowned in irritation, and watched her swaying slightly in the saddle has her horse walked up the track ahead of him.
Kate sat quietly on her horse, letting it pick its own way along the path. She was concentrating on trying to quell her increasing unease. He had barely looked at her since she had flung the details of the rape at Albert's son - her anger in the heat of the moment, combined with the security of being at home had overridden her usual reluctance to even think about it, let alone talk about it. She hadn't even considered her unwitting audience, or how he would react. The other three had responded with obvious anger at what she'd been through and an understated concern for her. Athos... she had no idea. His reactions were locked down tight and she couldn't read anything other than picking up a sense of a slow burning anger. A quiet, rational voice in her head was pointing out that he already knew the fact of what had happened, that he wasn't going to suddenly blame her for it just because he'd heard more details than he wanted; while another vicious voice mocked her as 'used goods', asking who in their right mind would possibly still want her when the extent of her shame had been detailed so publically in front of him. She sighed and rubbed her face. Did everyone walk round with conflicting voices yammering away in their heads, or was it just her?
They emerged into a clearing, blinking in the heat and sunlight. Kate jumped down and pulled the saddle bags off before turning her horse loose to graze. He slowly followed suit, looking around at the scene – the grassy bank leading down to a pool fed by a waterfall. Kate had lifted a stone to reveal a small pit where she placed the food and drink out of the sun. She threw her cloak down as a blanket and sat down to pull off her boots, then squinted up at him silhouetted against the sky. He walked to the water's edge, still saying nothing, leaning against a tree as he took off his hat and ran his hands through his hair. "Talk to me?"
He turned to look at her, opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again, lost for words.
She cursed the sun in her eyes, unable to see his face. "I'm sorry. I've had five years to deal with it, and it's a fact of life here. I didn't... I shouldn't have... I was just so angry with him - I didn't mean to land it on you like that." He shook his head and looked away as she dropped her head into her hands feeling slightly sick. This was not going well.
He stood, leaning against the tree and closed his eyes - the list of her injuries running through his head like an obscene litany. He thought of the times he'd been in the Paris morgues - the damaged bodies whose injuries told the story of their death. It could have been her - a sudden image flashed through his head of her lying still and white beneath one of the sheets, body marked with a myriad of welts, bruises and cuts all bearing witness to the assault. A wave of nausea washed over him as that image jostled in his head with memories of her in his arms, smiling up at him. "I could..." he shook his head, fists clenched at his side "I want to kill him, and I can't even do that."
"Would that make it better, if you could? Look at me." She stood up and moved to his side as he continued to glare at his feet, at the water - anywhere but at her. "Look at me." She moved directly in front of him as he raised his eyes reluctantly to hers - a mixture of anger and frustration on his face. He saw the concern and unease on her face, and looked away, suddenly disgusted with himself that his inability to set aside his anger was starting to upset her as well.
Kate saw the look of disgust flash across his face and stepped back, feeling as though she'd been punched in the stomach - her worst fears realised and unleashed to rampage through her mind. The movement as she stepped back and turned away spurred him to action - his hand grasped her arm and she wrenched it away, stumbling towards the horses, legs turned to jelly.
He started after her, alarmed. "Kate...?"
She pulled free of him again and reached, unthinking, for a knife. "Keep away from me."
He saw the pain and disbelief in her eyes "Kate what...?" He was bewildered by the suddenness of her reaction - what had happened to trigger this? He looked at her, knife in her hand, on the edge of tears and stepped towards her. "What happened? What did I do?"
She backed away, hands shaking, anger battling with despair. "You look at me like that? As if I'm something disgusting that you scraped off you boot, and you dare to ask me what's wrong?!"
He stepped towards her. "No. No Kate, I didn't, I wouldn't..." his mind was racing, trying to remember what he'd been thinking - remembered the flash of disgust and self-loathing, and looked at her in horror. She had thought that was directed at her?
Her face crumpled, her voice almost a plea "Go away..." He advanced further, the tip of her knife pressing against his chest until she dropped it to her side, sinking to the ground as her head reeled at the extent to which her belief in him had been misplaced.
He knelt down, concern obliterating his earlier anger and confusion, talking to her urgently. "Kate - no, it's not you. It was him - what he did to you - and I can't change it or make it better. It wasn't you." She was curled into a ball now - knees drawn up, arms wrapped round them and face buried in them. He wasn't sure she was even listening to him. "Kate - look at me... Kate!" he shook his head "I swear I'm going to dump you in that pond if you don't look at me." He waited, praying for her eyes to flick to his, for her lips to twitch in amusement at the idea - to relax against him and agree they were both being ridiculous. But she stayed huddled on the ground, oblivious, radiating distress and utterly beyond his reach.