Evening My Lovelies!

Okay so publishing at 3 am boxing day morning kinda ruins my self imposed tradition of giving you lovely people a new story on Christmas day but considering I haven't gone to bed yet I'm classing it as still being Christmas lol :D

I've decided to set the upload schedule as being every Monday and Thursday in the hopes that it won't mean leaving you all with a week or more between updates should writer's block get to me.

I have some delicious whumpage ideas for this story but if there's anything in particular people want to see, please let me know and I'll see what I can do :)

Many preemptive thanks and much love for following/favouriting/reading

Love you all!

Enjoy!

xxx

Chapter One: It's Not Over

Staring at the letter in his hand Treville felt his anger beginning to rise, he had almost lost one of his most promising musketeers to this author's schemes and an innocent woman had lost her life, leaving the two men who loved her the most to struggle with the grief her death left behind.

"I thought this was dealt with," stated Louis as he looked at Treville, a rare flash of sympathy crossing his face as he tried to temper his own anger at the situation in consideration for his long-time friend's situation.

"Obviously Rochefort was not the leader of the plot like we thought," sighed Treville as he fought the urge to punch something, his burning anger barely restrained. "There's no way he could have orchestrated this in the time between your judgement and his exile. There wouldn't have been a need for him to prepare to do so before his deeds came to light and he couldn't have returned to the city to plant the letter."

"We don't know how far the ship made it in its journey," reminded the King, a curious look on his face.

Treville shook his head, "We would have heard if the ship appeared anywhere close to our borders so he would have had to wait until they were further out before making his move and I don't see him having the time to get back and put all this in motion, not when every guard, musketeer and lawman know to arrest him on sight should he be seen in anywhere in the country, let alone the city."

Hearing the logic in the Captain's words King Louis sank back into his chair. "What do we do now then?"

Sighing Treville ran a hand over his face, suddenly feeling infinitely more exhausted then he had when he walked into the room not even an hour ago. "Given his focus on my regiment I'll put my men on high alert, no solo missions until this matter is settled but until our 'concerned friend' makes his move there isn't a whole lot we can do."

Nodding Louis rose from his chair. "I'll have the palace guards informed as well."

Hours later saw Treville back at the garrison, his eyes narrowed into a glare as he stared at the letter the King had allowed him to keep. He hadn't wasted a moment in after retuning to inform his men about the situation and the new rules they would be enforcing until the issue was solved, needless to say, that after all the regiment had been through lately the news didn't go down well amongst his men, Issac and Favier taking it the worst with the former quickly moving to very publicly and violently vent his anger on a nearby training dummy.

While concerning the outburst was expected and not what was currently causing the sinking feeling swirling in Treville's gut. That was down to the men he had out of the garrison who knew not the dangers now facing their regiment once again.

His concern was largely for the inseparables as they had been the target of the author's anger before and thus likely would be again but he also had a couple of other men who had been sent out on solo missions several days ago and the thought that any of them could become a target made him sick with dread.

Glancing back at the note he felt a surge of anger rush through him as he took in the single line taunt, crumpling the paper in his hand as he rose from his chair.

You didn't think this was all over, did you?

Yours,

A Concerned Friend