A/N:  This is a one shot I thought of when listening to Linkin Park's "Easier to Run."

Disclaimer:  I do not own the lyrics to the song, "Easier to Run" nor do I own anything related to Lord of the Rings.

Aragorn stumbled on wearily, tears still blurring his vision.  He could not stand the pain.  How could he do this to his family?  To those who had taken him in out of kindness, loved him, raised him?  Could he truly ask this of Elrond?  His father?

It's easier to run Replacing this pain with something numb

It's so much easier to go

Than face all this pain here all alone

He replayed the last conversation he'd had with the Elven-lord.

"She is too far above you…" Elrond said sternly.

"She can make her own choices!  I love her!  I-I think she feel the same!  You cannot change that!" Aragorn replied.

"Hear me now, Aragorn, son of Arathorn, I will not allow you to bring my daughter to death!  She is one of the Eldar!  I will not allow you to come between us and cut short her immortal life!" Elrond nearly shouted.  Aragorn met the angry, hurt Elven gaze defiantly.

"It is not your choice to make, my lord," Aragorn spat the last two words and strode from the room.  Something was taken in that moment, something broken.  Never before had Aragorn called Elrond by his title.  Always it had been 'ada' or 'father.'  The angry, hurt youth did not look back or see the tear slide down the ageless cheek of Elrond Peredhil.

Something has been taken

From deep inside of me

A secret I've kept locked away

No one can ever see

Wounds so deep they never show

They never go away

Like moving pictures in my head

For years and years they've played

Aragorn had only paused to take some traveling gear from his room and swept past the worried twins, unable to meet their concerned gazes.  All the self-doubt he had felt as he grew up in the House of Elrond came surging into his throat.  He had always known that Elrond would reject him one day…That, one day, the charade would shatter and all that Aragorn feared would be revealed.  That Elrond would reject him, no longer consider him a part of his family…After all of the nightmares, the terrifying daydreams all soothed and swept aside as impossible, they were finally truth.  Aragorn slipped out of the fair city of Imladris and headed out into the Wilds, pausing only once to look back in sad farewell to the life he had known and now lost forever.

If I could change I would

Take back the pain I would

Retrace every wrong move that I made I would

If I could

Stand up and take the blame I would

If I could take all the shame to the grave I

Would

Tears began streaming down the young man's cheeks.  If only he had never set eyes upon that fair creature!  Arwen!  Oh, curse his traitorous heart for betraying his family like this!  If only he were an Elf!  Then, then things would not be this way…

Sometimes I remember

The darkness of my past

Bringing back these memories

I wish I didn't have

Sometimes I think of letting go

And never looking back

And never moving forward so

There would never be a past

Tears coursed even more heavily down his cheeks as he remembered many a night as a young child, asking Elrond if he could ever do something to make the Elf-lord not love him.  So simple it had seemed when the ancient being had replied that Aragorn was his son and there was nothing that could take away his love for the young human…No one ever thought of this…If only he could have stayed five years old…Safe in the Elven-lord's arms, a child, loved, where he could not do anything to make Elrond love him less.

Just washing it aside

All of the helplessness inside

Pretending I don't feel misplaced

Is so much simpler than change

The tears coursing down the young man's cheeks now seemed to be a river, sweeping away all feeling, all the pain…He felt so confused.  He loved Arwen and knew she had feelings for him…But those same feelings had changed everything with his foster-family. The only family he'd ever known…It had shifted his place, like an earthquake that shakes mountains and causes them to fall, misplacing them to the valley, these feelings had caused a chasm to open beneath Aragorn, misplacing him like the mountain.  He had tried to pretend…But he could not do it…It was not fair to Arwen…But this change was so difficult…Especially since Arwen had left. Left him to go back to her grandmother's realm, trying to deny what she felt or at least make sense of it.  It made this all the worse…So Aragorn ran, determined to run until he did not feel, did not remember, until he was gone…Until he was…

It's easier to run

Replacing this pain with something numb

It's so much easier to go

Than face all this pain here all alone.

Alone.

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