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"Constance, you found the door too!" d'Artagnan took both of her hands in his, the clipboard forgotten. He could finish the form later. Constance was here.

Curious, he tilted his head to look at the pink stuff she held, intrigued. "I've seen it hanging off stalls, but I've no idea what it is," he admitted, hoping to fix Constance with just the right hopeful expression. "Have you gotten on any of the rides yet? The big circle there, the Ferris Wheel, is wonderful. It's like you can see for miles!"

Again, this place had opportunities that Paris would never have offered. Here, he could enjoy time for himself as well as take delight simply in her presence without fear for her reputation.

"Are you having a good time?"

"I did, I am," she told him, although the truth of that was obvious enough with the fact of her standing there with the sound of carnival music and the dancing colored lights of the midway games off on the horizon. The world felt too easy and happy not to, her mood nothing but light as she came near enough to do as she had not really been allowed to do for so long and reached for him.

Her fingers curled against the warmth of his grip as she leaned in, leant up onto the balls of her feet and pressed a kiss quick to his mouth. It was a simple, chaste thing, and yet felt like a piece of everything. All with the flavor of sugar and food coloring.

She did not linger there but, entirely pleased over the liberty, drew back with a smile. When she turned to look in search of the Ferris Wheel, craning her head up to see the circle that dominated the immediate horizon. "Oh," she breathed, before turning her smile back to him. "I would love that."

Remembering that she still held the cotton candy, her gaze dropped to it then rose again to meet his. "Would you like to try?" She pulled a puff-cloud section of it off the main mass and held it up between them.

D'Artagnan held her shoulders, tugging her up for just one more sweet kiss. Then he bent his head and took the little sugar cloud in his mouth, smiling at Constance as he looked into her eyes. "That's wonderful," he said, only half in regards to the candy.

"I was reading the rules to the game. It's like field training, but without any harm from real fire. Only paint." Gently, he wound a lock of her hair around his finger. "I imagine you'd have to get a hat, if you went in" he teased. "Unless you want to try a new color."

But there was no hurry. He withdrew his hand from her hair and settled one on her shoulder instead. "The twisting ones there are thrilling too. You go so high and so fast its like flying. Terrifying, a little, but wonderful."

The softness of his mouth are on hers, the warmth she had come to associate purely with him and the curl of his fingers at her shoulders leaving a happiness warming through her she swore she could feel down to the tips of her fingers and toes. She could not stop smiling. Could not stem the happiness of the moment and in offering up to the sugar and color, did not want to.

She peered around him at the game he spoke of, pushing playfully at his shoulder for his teasing words. "I am not getting paint in my hair, d'Artagnan." She thought of informing him how much work it took to deal with hair that fell past the small of her back, or of how much time she needed to half tame its curls. "I may just need to find a bandana like Porthos always has."

The idea of it, of an activity in echo of Musketeer training was appealing, but no more than d'Artagnan's company. There seemed to be so many options that her head near spun with it. "Which would you like to do?"

"All of it, if you like." After all, time was such an odd, flexible thing in this hotel. Why not enjoy themselves in a way they never could in Paris? Real life could wait to catch up with them after they had their adventure.

"We could play games, ride the roller coasters," he said, joyful with possibility. "Walk hand in hand together..." That one, especially, sounded wonderfully thrilling. They could have the whole day to explore and then they could go back to the paint game.

"Maybe I should put you on some of the rides first, get you dizzy. I recall you were becoming very good with a pistol. Maybe I'll need the handicap."

The evening she had spent cocktail-tasting until she had either forgotten her troubles or been distracted away from them well enough to sober up (or get more intoxicated) felt as if it had allowed her room enough to breathe. Nothing had been resolved, really, but where she had had to manage a wobbly stomach and a mild headache the next day, Constance found that she did not regret a moment of it.

She had decided that it really came down to whether she wanted to allow herself to be swallowed whole by all she could not help on the other side of her door, or enjoy the reprieve offered by the hotel. What she might say to d'Artagnan on more serious matters than cotton candy and tilt-a-whirl rides could wait. All could wait but the easiness strung between them in that place and the prospect of hours free of all responsibility.

She had, she thought, been responsible too long.

"That would be cheating," she told him, but still caught one of his hands with her own and laced their fingers together between them. "And it will not work." The smile she gave him then was bright, "Lead the way, d'Artagnan."

"I'm starting to regret having ever taught you how to shoot," d'Artagnan teased. He brought her hand to his lips, smiling against her fingertips more than he really kissed them. "Because you may just outshine all of us." Except Aramis, because the man's aim was uncanny, but for the rest of the mere mortals, she would own them all.

"You'll love it," he said, leading her to the coaster he'd ridden most recently. "It's like flying gone mad." With a finger, he pointed upwards and traced the lops the coaster made through the sky. He could already hear Constance screaming, claiming to be afraid but honestly thrilled.

"And after we'll try all those wonderful smelling foods. But after..."

Just looking up made his stomach flip again.

Constance used the tips of her fingers, newly kissed, to press against d'Artagnan's mouth as she scoffed. The expression she wore was something between flattered and an awareness that while he was a besotted fool, she was the fool who found that fact charming. The action was in echo of one so long ago, the memory twisting through her as sure as the one of his hand guiding hers on the gun during his lessons.

"Flying isn't mad enough for you?" she asked him on an incredulous note, eyebrows raised high. How she even could be surprised, she considered on reflection, with all she knew of him and the way he threw himself into the world as if every moment might be his last. As if every experience had to be taken at full tilt or not at all.

Her face lifted to follow the path of his finger, and where she knew it was mad, she could not help but want to try it. "If I fall," she swore, letting her words trail off on a threat she only half meant, too fond of scolding him to miss the chance of it when he wore that open expression of anticipation on his face.

"I think it's only meant to look frightening," d'Artagnan said, point at all the children who stood in line, as well as the ones who were cheerfully filing away. After all, none of the finished riders seemed particularly afraid; some of them were even rushing back in line for another go. How frightening could it really be?

And furthermore, were they really going to let their courage be outdone by children. He thought not. Instead, he took Constance's hand and marched into line with her. "They have all these cards with instructions around, even. I'm tempted to say that that might take the fun out of it."

He smiled, awaiting Constance's scorn for such a cavalier attitude. It was certainly an attitude more typical Aramis.

For one lightning-struck moment, she wondered how they could have possibly gotten there. How the world could be so lit up with multi-colored lights and smell of no place like Paris, a rollercoaster set before them with the promise of being flung through the air like man had any place flying. But the clarity of that moment, of a thought pulled outside of herself as if she could look at the two of them with objectivity, faded almost immediately.

She stared up at the shape in the sky a few seconds longer, her thumb stroking idly along the web between his thumb and forefinger. In all that d'Artagnan had led her into, either knowingly or unknowingly, there had been much to fear, much to worry over. And yet, as well, there had never been more excitement in her entire life as in the relatively short while they had known each other. It was not only for that pretty face and the feel of his fingers tracing her spine that she had fallen in love with him over a period of months. She had never lived so much as she had with him.

Frankly, he was ridiculous, and she showed him as much as she swatted at him with her free hand. "I'd ask if Paris or the Musketeers had been such bad influences on you, but I know enough to figure you were just born like that."

The power of the Nexus Hotel was strange and not always welcome, but on nights like tonight d'Artagnan couldn't wish for any place else. When was the last time Constance had looked so happy in Paris? When had any of them looked so unburdened? Even Athos looked lighter here, sometimes.

Had he known her thoughts, he would have suggested that they were also like a roller coaster, moving slowly and smoothly before flying down the ramp with twists and hoops, caught up in fear or excitement but, so far, nothing they hadn't been able to endure. He'd have liked that metaphor very much, especially when he looked at all the people who had stepped on nervous and left the gate smiling happily. They could ride any of it out.

"Are you suggesting I'm impulsive and prone to shooting things and asking questions later?"

On the other side of a night and a door from their conversation, Athos' words still had weight on her memory. Not simply for his urging that she confess to d'Artagnan the unspoken truth that hung between them, unknown to him, on the matter of her marriage and what future they might have together, but for his insistence that she not allow her guilt to consume her. She would not remake the mistakes Athos had spoken of. She would not give up the happiness laid out before her in clinging to the past until her bones ached with the strain of it.

"Have you forgotten that you tried to take on all three of the others, the day we met?" Constance could have painted the scene from memory, that sight that had stood in front of her when she had stepped into the garrison and found Athos, Porthos, and Aramis all with their swords at his throat. Where she did not forget the way Athos had lifted his sword at her entrance and insisted immediately that they had not been about to kill the young Gascon, neither did she forget Aramis' flippant comment immediately after.

She did not mention the fact that he had never asked her how she had known Athos, nor that the moment she had met d'Artagnan had been ended once with her knee aimed at a sensitive location in repayment for his manhandling, and then ended a second time when he had done what might have generously been described as a 'manly swoon.' Perhaps something of that sentiment showed on her face, all the same.

Though he couldn't guess the source, d'Artagnan understood the sadness in her face, however briefly it passed them. Without asking any questions, he ran fingers through her curls again, hoping to give her some comfort.

Then she asked if he remembered that day and d'Artagnan laughed, pulling her into his arms and kissing her hair. "I was holding my own perfectly well!" he lied. He could have won against them if only they hadn't ganged up on him. Thankfully, and he could easily admit it, Constance had come in and put them each in their places.

"My father raised me to believe that, even when you've got nothing left, you've got to have honor. I thought Athos had killed him in cold blood...if I'd died in the effort of avenging him, at least there would have been some honor in that." He knew it was madness, that such idealism was the kind of thing that led to dead men.

"I've...become a little more realistic. I think."

God this was getting maudlin. Luckily, the line moved briskly.

In another moment she might have been left blinking back tears for the consideration he showed for her, the contrast between him and the man who had been so long her husband never more stark than when d'Artagnan's eyes were soft on hers, when he offered something so small and so precious when she needed it. It could not be that moment, where she was too determined to clutch at whatever happiness she could get in that place and let the consequences, for once, be damned.

Her disagreement over the likely outcome of events swept away her gratitude over his not demanding to know her mind at that moment, a sentiment that had her wrinkling her nose briefly at him even where she was happy to be pulled in against him and feel his kiss. Her fingers curled against his biceps easy for it, the truth of how she had known Athos prior to that day and the man's assertion that he never would've killed the younger man for the offense others could have so easily taken at his actions forgotten as he continued speaking.

"I quite like you living," she told him, scolding him only faintly as she angled her words in an attempt to bring them back to a more playful level. "The blood on the inside, and all."

"Come," she told him, when the people before them had been swept away to be seated for the ride, one hand slipping down to recapture his fingers with hers. "I was promised flying, only more mad, and I plan on holding you to it."

He could watch it on her face in the same way clouds could speed in front of the sun and threaten to linger before speeding away again and leaving the light behind. D'Artagnan liked to think he helped provide some of that wind that blew away at the darkness. Smiling, he bent and kissed her just because he could. Because they were allowed here.

"I should hope you prefer me that way," he said smiling and leading her up the stairway to the roller coaster, separating their hands only so that they could be strapped in. "Though you may change your mind after I've put you through this."

But he thought he knew very well that she'd be happy on this ride. Anything thrilling and alive would send her into a good mood.

There was still so much to tell him. So much that needed to be said in order to loosen the band that felt as if it tightened around her ribs in those quiet, lonely moments she was not otherwise distracted. She could not feel his arms around her and not want to spill all that she held back from him in the strange world of the Nexus, but the comfort of his touch, the warm rasp of his fingertips against her skin, the press of his kiss to her hair allowed her space enough to breathe.

She would need to tell him, she of him that much. She would simply tell him later, after, once they had had their fun in that park.

Even bold and curious, her heart clenched in warning at being press back into the strange, cradling seat, the strap and bars levied into place to secure her in her seat. "d'Artagnan," she began in warning, only for the ride to start with a startling sites of clanking noises and they were dragged forward.

The memory of those flushed faced, thrilled children having echoed before them kept her from feeling as trapped as she might have, or at least as panicked as they were drawn up that first high slope. Perhaps she silently questioned d'Artagnan's parentage when they hung at the top of what seemed an impossible tracked cliff, her knuckles white with the strength of her grip on the bar holding her against the seat. Perhaps, but the right of it was lost to a scream as they plunged forward, the sound curving from terror to enthusiasm along with the ride.

As they climbed, d'Artagnan turned to look at her in his seat, grinning wide. He'd already ridden this, but the knowledge in his mind did nothing to prevent the flip of his stomach or the thrill up his spine as they went higher and higher. The park shrank beneath them and the lights glowed more ethereally. He tried to touch her hand, to tell her to look only for the bottom of the world to drop out.

The cars plunged in front of them and then d'Artagnan was thrown back against his seat, unable to move from the sheer force of speed. All he could do was throw his head back and whoop victoriously. Oh what he wouldn't give for one of these in Paris!

"Constance!" he shouted.. "Isn't this amazing!?"

It was a mad, impossible thing, and still the exaltation of the moment was more intense than she could have ever imagined when still on solid ground. The sheer speed of it felt as if it stole her breath, strands of her hair whipping around her face as they fell, twisted, then rose to fall again.

She caught sight of d'Artagnan out of the corner of her eye more than once, but was too transfixed by the track before them to tear her eyes from it long. A moment's impulse had her attempting to shut her eyes against the sight, but even that was lost almost immediately as nausea triumphed over the adrenaline and joy and she had to fight to open her eyes immediately once more.

She attempted to answer his shout but found that she laughed instead. The sound was loud and bright enough to withstand the force of the wind and the sound of the others screaming around them.

Edited 2015-05-08 07:37 (UTC)

Fear and excitement all mingled delightfully together until d'Artagnan couldn't find words, just loud whooping laughter, his hands thrown into the air just because he could. Occasionally, he grabbed Constance's hand in midair and let it go as they hit a wide loop or turn.

Seeing the approaching end of the tracks was more disappointing than d'Artagnan would have expected of himself. He wanted to share that exhilaration with Constance all over again on this or another ride, it didn't matter.

Wind-tossed and shot through with adrenaline, d'Artagnan grabbed Constance for another kiss the moment that the seats came to a stop.

"Did you like it?"

It felt as if the bottom dropped out of her stomach entirely when they had approached the first loop, her fingers scrabbling against the restraints that held her in place when she was not holding tightly to d'Artagnan's hand in hers. She could not believe that they would not simply slip out of their restraints and fall, it was more than the madness she had teased him over.

And yet the restraints held, pressing tight against her shoulders as they were thrown upside down and sped upright once more in an action that was as thrilling as it was terrifying.

She felt as if she'd been through one of those blenders in the Smoking Room, once the ride came to a stop. Her head spun faintly and her legs felt a little wobbly as she tried standing on solid ground once more. But it was not a moment she did not reach immediately to meet d'Artagnan for that kiss, breathless and hair more than a little wild.

"That was," she began, wide eyed and so exhilarated it felt as if the feeling lit her up from the inside, "Brilliant!"

"Another ride then?" d'Artagnan suggested. His own legs still adapting to solid ground, he nonetheless held out an arm to escort Constance down the catwalk and back to the pavement.

The look on Constance's fate was a reward in its own self. She looked exhilarated and windswept, but also so very, very happy. It made d'Artgnan smile all the wider just for seeing it.

Gesturing around them, he smiled. "we have a whole park to explore."

She could not imagine a time where she would not be split between mystification and joy over the strange offerings of the Nexus. No time she would forget the wonder of running water and glittering lights, doors that led to multi-colored dazzling spectacles of places. All wrapped up in the safety of a world that any enemies left in Paris could not touch.

In some ways, it was a reflection of how she felt about him. Her d'Artagnan. As maddening and frustrating as the man could be, she was filled with nothing other than love as he grinned so widely at her, leaving her to press up onto her toes and press a quick kiss to his cheek before she slid her arm into his.

"Perhaps a game or two before we try another ride?" she offered, "I saw something called a Midway before I ran into you. I think I'd quite like to try my hand at one of them."

"We can see if they're as rigged as the carnivals back in Paris?" d'Artagnan suggested, offering Constance that same puppyish smile. Stacks of milk cartons that not even Porthos could upend and shooting games that would have confounded even Aramis.

It sounded delightful.

"I suppose, in modern terms, this would be a date," d'Artagnan observed, walking Constance into the direction she'd suggested, chasing after all the wonderful bright lights and the scent of food.

As she had only visited Paris a time or two before her marriage, Constance had never seen the Carnival unmarried. After her marriage, she had never been able to do more than watch from afar, held back from following the glittering spectacle and wild colors by Bonacieux's admonitions that such things were neither respectable nor civilized. It had not mattered to him that it was a sort of pressure release for all of Paris, but seeing only the thefts and the brawls, had done all he could to keep her from watching its parades and examining the offerings of those temporary market stalls.

The thought of her freedom then buoyed, rather than weighted her. She could see the Carnival the coming year. Could play the games offered at this strange pocket of a world and not feel guilty over it.

"A date?" she asked, unfamiliar with that word applied to more than the calendar or an exotic treat. "Is that something like courting?" She considered that for a brief second before she answered, unthinking of how he might take it, but honest all the same, "I've never been courted before."

If Constance but said the word, d'Artagnan would rush to find a door to Carnival for her. Someplace wild and extravagant for both of them to enjoy themselves in ways that their Paris would never allow them.

"Yes, I think so. Though the rules of courtship for this time seem like there aren't any rules at all." People court for only a short time, enjoy one another, and then separate. He would not do that to Constance. All those months ago, he spoke the plain truth when he said he would marry her the second he could.

That Bonacieux had never courted his wife did not surprise him but the thought still curdled in his stomach. He had treated his wife with all the courtesy of a mule and spared her very few kind words.

"We could be courting here."

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