Trigger warning/Content warning: Depression, mental illness, suicide.
I own nothing.
Denethor, son of Ecthelion, was not the sort of person anyone sane left alone with their children. Given his… erm… history, and his present tendency to completely overlook the age of said children when in earshot of them, his sons and daughter-in-law especially didn't want him left alone with them. But it really couldn't be helped—Faramir and Éowyn didn't usually work the same hours, but today Éowyn had been called in early, and Boromir couldn't get off work to cover for them—and they weren't exactly alone, though Denethor wouldn't really have called Gandalf "present", from the cloud of pipe-smoke around his head as usual.
To be perfectly honest, it wasn't often that Denethor was allowed to be alone with his grandchildren. The closest he'd ever gotten was holding them when they were born, when Faramir was seeing to his wife and the new grandfather stood quite forgotten. From his place at the kitchen table, as far as he could be from Gandalf at the window, he looked them over, brow furrowed. Elboron, seven, was doing his homework at the coffee table, quite unaware that he was being watched. Little Finduilas, second of her name, was five years old and not yet at school, and often amused herself with picture books and jigsaw puzzles, or books of riddles Gandalf would bring her, claiming that he'd found them in the deepest dragon hoards of the north—himself, Denethor had on at least two occasions caught Gandalf peeling the dime store price-stickers off of their backs. Little Finduilas was also unaware that she was being watched; it was a jigsaw puzzle today that occupied her, some five hundred piece monstrosity that would no doubt lose half its pieces to the couch cushions and the vacuum cleaner.
Before she'd left for work, Éowyn had paused in the doorway long enough to threaten her father-in-law with bare-handed death if she came back and found a hair on either of her children's heads out of place. Given what she'd done to the idiot from Angmar who'd once tried to rob the flat they all lived in, Denethor believed her to be capable of it, and took her seriously, not that he was going to do anything to start with. Boromir had called the flat to reiterate her threat; ever since The Incident, he'd been even more protective of his brother than he was before, and that protective nature extended to his sister-in-law and his niece and nephew. Frankly, Denethor was surprised that Éomer hadn't added his voice to the chorus, given that his daughter-in-law's brother neither liked nor trusted him. Faramir had called from work, only to say that he had called Gandalf and that Gandalf would be over in a minute.
Denethor would have liked it a lot better if they hadn't called over Gandalf. Gandalf, the only person in the apartment complex where they lived who was older and frailer than he was, was no friend of Denethor's. They'd known each other long, since Denethor was a young man. Gandalf was known far and wide for his fireworks and his stories. Gandalf had made fast friends of both of Denethor's sons, Faramir especially, and it had always irked Denethor to no end how much easier it was for Gandalf to hold the boys' ears than it was for him. Their eyes met unexpectedly; Gandalf smiled slightly and Denethor glared frostily back. Gandalf looked like he would have loved to laugh, and Denethor bit his tongue until he tasted blood to keep from snapping a retort to a taunt that hadn't even been said. He knew quite well how everyone around him would respond to that.
No, absolutely no one trusted Denethor around his grandchildren. Not Éowyn, not Boromir, not Faramir, not Gandalf. If he actually thought that anyone of them would listen, Denethor would have assured them that it was perfectly safe to let him care for Elboron and little Finduilas, if only for a few hours, but given that he was quite sure that no one would listen, he didn't bother. Why waste words on an audience completely deaf to your arguments? Why waste words on those who will never forget the past?
If I am completely honest with myself—and I suspect that I am, I suppose they have reason to fear what I would do, left to my own devices.
It had started after his wife died. To be certain, Denethor hadn't been what anyone would call a bastion of good cheer even before he knew Finduilas, but most agreed that he'd brightened considerably after meeting her. She'd died when their children were just small boys, Faramir too young to carry clear memories of her into adulthood (though doubtless Boromir and Gandalf filled in any blanks he brought to their attention), and Denethor was left to raise their boys and carry his grief like a leaden cloak.
One would have thought that as time went on, his grief would have lessened, but it never did. After a while, it was no longer about Finduilas, the pain of losing her or the anger that she had died so young. Perhaps it was the loss of what she had represented. Perhaps it was having his eyes opened to just how the world worked, how it took to death those who deserved life, and took those who deserved life were robbed of it all too soon. How unfair is death, how callous, how unseeing. Or maybe it was none of that, and Denethor was simply stricken with the malaise of years, of life pressing down on his shoulders. Not then and not now would Denethor claim that what happened was on account of Finduilas's early death. Not for anything, not for even being able to rewrite the past would he try to lay the blame at her door.
He grew grim, and silent, and difficult to know or speak to. He stopped talking to family, and after a while, what friends he'd had stopped talking to him. Morbidly preoccupied with death and destruction was Denethor, son of Ecthelion; most agreed that he was positively unbearable to be around, if not angry and bitter than abjectly melancholy. He could go from one extreme to the other in an instant, and cheer out of him was rarely found indeed, rarer as the years wore on and his black moods grew worse and more profound.
His relationship with his sons had not been what would be termed "positive", even before The Incident. Denethor had leaned heavily on Boromir, and Faramir he barely saw at all. He loved them both but could not relate to them as his children, could barely stand to look at them on the worst days, and they, through no fault of their own, were thoroughly alienated by his behavior, especially as they came into adolescence and saw more clearly how abnormal it was. Denethor wanted nothing less than to be left alone by them, but at the same time could not help but drive them away. Many times did Boromir and Faramir go to live with their aunt and uncle and cousins by the sea when Denethor simply could not take care of them, for days or even weeks at a time.
Years might have improved upon others, but not on Denethor. To him, the years that went on seemed like the mockery of all that was good in the world. He could find joy in nothing, could see light in nothing.
Then, came The Incident.
It was a calm day, early in spring; it was still cold at night and on some mornings frost could still be found on the ground. Boromir was off at college, several hours away from the house where they lived, and in the fall Faramir would be joining him. The prospect of being left alone in this house with nothing but himself and his misery and his memories was not one that Denethor relished.
Faramir had a bad case of the flu, and to be quite honest, no one was quite sure how he had ended up the way that he had. The best anyone, Faramir included, could determine was that his fever had been so bad that he'd misread the dosage of the medicine the doctor had given him.
Denethor had heard a loud thud from upstairs, and found his teenaged son lying motionless on the bathroom floor. Nothing he did could rouse him. His skin was white as snow, his lips tinged blue. He couldn't feel a pulse. He'd thought Faramir was dead.
The fire trucks had been at the house within minutes. The house could not be saved, but the two inside could. Denethor and Faramir both spent several weeks in the hospital, for burns, smoke inhalation, and in Faramir's case an accidental overdose. Boromir came rushing home, blowing off final exams and failing the semester as a result, but too busy worrying over his brother and father's bedsides to care.
Soon enough, the police realized that the house hadn't just set itself on fire. Denethor and Boromir got into a thunderous shouting match in the middle of the burn ward; Boromir refused to speak to him at all after that. Denethor himself was diagnosed with dysthymia and schizoid personality disorder; it was these diagnoses that meant that he was sentenced to a psychiatric hospital rather than prison when he plead guilty to one count of arson and one count of attempted murder.
The sheer monotony of life in the psychiatric ward was stifling, and before long, Denethor grew to hate the walls of his room as much as he'd hated the mockery of the world outside. But then, something had changed.
Maybe it was the counseling, the host of medications he was on, a combination of the two or neither, but it was as though the scales fell from Denethor's eyes. It was as though he had been wandering through a dark hall, bereft of all light, and then suddenly flung open the windows to reveal the light of morning. He looked back on what he had done, what he had almost done, and recoiled in horror when he remembered how close he had come to killing his son. A year passed, a year in which Denethor came to know himself better, and look upon the world around him and upon himself with renewed bitterness.
Faramir came to visit the summer after Denethor burned the house down and nearly took them with it. Denethor had had no warning for the visit and could only stare, gaping and choked by words he hadn't known he'd wanted to say sticking in his throat, as the younger of his two sons sat down at the cafeteria table opposite him.
In the year that had passed since he had last laid eyes on his son or, indeed, on anyone from the outside world, Faramir had grown a great deal—hit that last growth spurt, I see. He looked both older and somehow younger. There was a strange weight to his sea gray eyes, and his face was nearly as pale as it had been that day when Denethor had found him unconscious on the bathroom floor.
They, two men who were in face and personality rather alike, began to talk quietly. They said you were doing much better, so I thought I'd… Oh, okay. My first year went well. We're living with Aunt and Uncle and the cousins; no, we couldn't get the insurance, the company won't pay in case of arson. Faramir's voice grew sharp and this was the closest they came to discussing The Incident during that visit. I'm going south with friends next month, so I won't be able to contact you. Ah, no. Boromir hasn't said if he'll come.
The words exchanged were not those of a father and son who had parted a year ago, on bad terms. They were not fraught with emotion. They were the words of two strangers who were meeting for the first time after decades of absence, two men who might have been close once but could no longer summon the feeling they'd once shared. Distant, stilted, awkward. There were no words for the things Denethor wished to say to him, and for the words he could find, no strength in his mouth with which to say them. I'm sorry. I don't know what else to tell you, except that I am sorry.
Faramir never asked why he did what he had. He did not know, and did not seem to wish to know. His visits were sporadic, and he was the only one who visited. Through Faramir and only Faramir did Denethor glean any knowledge of what was going on with his family outside the hospital.
Over the years, more came to Denethor. Boromir graduated university and went into the police force. Faramir graduated a few years after him, top of his class—Denethor had nodded; this was only to be expected, Faramir had always done so well at school—and entered law school. They bought flats in the same complex on the same floor, still close as brothers and preferring to stay close at hand.
One day, Faramir's last visit before Denethor's sentence was up, he came to the hospital with a gold wedding band on his hand.
I've gotten married. Here's the photo. Denethor saw his son, smiling as he had not known Faramir could smile, as he had not seen him smile since before The Incident, and frankly, rarely even then. He stood arm in arm with a tall, golden-haired woman who smiled much the same way Faramir did—like someone who had reawakened joy long-sleeping. Boromir stood off to the side, grinning hugely (How much older he is) and looking a tad as though he'd gotten into the wine before the reception had begun. There were two Halflings there—Merry and Pippin, Father—and Gandalf, and others that Denethor did not recognize, an Elf, a Dwarf, another Halfling who stood off to the side looking sheepish, and several sons and daughters of Men. It was indeed a large wedding party. Imrahil was there—in fact, the entire extended family was there (Heaven above, they've managed to spawn even more children in my absence than I'd thought possible). To his great surprise, Denethor saw his niece, Imrahil's daughter Lothíriel, also in marital white, standing with a tall man who looked very much like kin to Faramir's bride.
He's Éowyn's brother, Father, Éomer. We had a double-wedding; it seemed appropriate. Boromir knew her before I did; he was a friend of her cousin when he was still alive, and friend to Éowyn and Éomer as well.
How we met?
…Perhaps another time.
At Denethor's request, he was allowed to keep the photo.
Finally, Denethor's sentence was up and he could be legally kept at the hospital no longer. However, the state had an ultimatum: They did not feel it wise for Denethor to live on his own, after he had proven himself so incapable of handling such a change.
The first option was that he go live in a nursing home—Denethor was, after all, the state said, of an age to go, and not exactly in robust health, physically or mentally. No. No! That was completely unacceptable! Denethor wearied many an ear with his raging that he was not some doddering, senile old man who needed to be fed through a tube! He could look after himself, thank you very much, and had no desire to spend the rest of his days removed from one medical prison only to find himself in another.
The second option, then, was that he go live with one of his kin.
Imrahil wouldn't take him; he said that he did not think that would be wise, and honestly, Denethor agreed with him. They had not gotten on well since before Finduilas died, and over the years, as Imrahil grew more and more accustomed to playing father to the boys when their own father could not, Imrahil's dislike of him only grew.
Boromir would not take him either. He claimed that his flat was too small, only able to accommodate one. He did not, would not, could not forgive his father for what he had almost done to Faramir, and why should he? Denethor reasoned bitterly. Faramir Boromir loved dearly; why should he forgive those who had caused his brother harm? His eldest's anger stung him deeply, but Denethor could not perceive why he should not have it against him.
That neither Imrahil nor Boromir would take him surprised Denethor not at all. But what stunned him into silence was that Faramir did.
Denethor did not know, even now, if Faramir ever forgave him for what he had done to him all those years ago. Of all those who did not forgive him, Faramir had least reason to be willing to do so, for while to Imrahil, Boromir and others, the harm Denethor had done had been inflicted only upon someone they had loved, it was Faramir who was the injured party, not them. But that was neither here nor there, for Denethor had not been able to decipher his son's heart, that day when the announcement had knocked all the air out of his lungs, and he could not read Faramir's heart now. That door was shut to him.
So Denethor went to live with his son and daughter-in-law.
He had been greeted to amused-but-wary Gandalf, glaring Boromir and frosty, quite-pregnant Éowyn. Neither Boromir nor Éowyn were at all happy with this living arrangement, and Denethor suspected that Faramir must have argued long and hard with his wife to get her to concede to having her father-in-law live with them, but for Faramir's sake, whom they both loved dearly and who gave away nothing of his own heart on this day, they made no trouble. Denethor was put up in one of the spare bedrooms of Faramir and Éowyn's large flat—apparently lawyers and EMTs (for that was Éowyn's profession) made good money, at least when their salaries were combined—and there he came to live. Over the next few years, Denethor amused himself as best he could, learning as much as he could about his family.
Éowyn was an EMT, and had been for several years by the time they met. Judging from the trophies on the wall, she was also a one-time MMA champion—which, Denethor recognized in retrospect, showed quite thoroughly in the way she had utterly thrashed Angmar when he'd tried to rob the flat, even if she was retired. Boromir had grown frankly overprotective of both his brother and his sister-in-law, and paid frequent visits down the hall to make sure everything was alright. Faramir put up with this with good grace. Éowyn did as well, though obviously she hardly needed Boromir's protection; luckily for Boromir, she thought it sweet, and was well-used to such behavior from her own brother. Éomer was also by often; he regarded his sister's father-in-law with anything but liking.
Does everyone around me think that I will turn back to being a raving lunatic the moment they turn their backs on me?
The answer, it seemed, was yes.
Boromir's flat was a pit, and Denethor made no secret of his opinion of the state of housekeeping. Faramir had settled down into respectable married life and fatherhood, but Boromir was still very much living the bachelor life, well into his forties. You don't live here; it's no concern of yours how clean or dirty my flat is! All the same, Denethor could not resist pointing out that Faramir never let either Elboron or little Finduilas into their uncle's flat, and that the entire place smelled as though a great many things were lying dead and decaying somewhere beneath the mounds of old newspapers. At which point Boromir proceeded to forbid him from ever coming into his flat again, if he disliked being there so much.
Eventually, how Faramir and Éowyn met, which had been a matter of great curiosity to Denethor ever since he'd learned that they were wed, became something of an obsession. Neither Faramir nor Éowyn would ever tell him; nor would Boromir. As it happened, Denethor was finally forced to glean the information from Gandalf, which necessitated spending much more time in the Wizard's company than he would have liked, but certain evils must be endured in the pursuit of knowledge.
Faramir and Éowyn met in a group therapy session of all places—Denethor would have laughed aloud had he not immediately realized the implications of what Gandalf told him. Both had been grappling with depression for years, but while Faramir had gone to therapy willingly, in Éowyn's case it had only been the pleading of her brother after a failed—though happily, it seemed—suicide attempt that had convinced her to attend. Neither Faramir nor Éowyn had thought much of the sessions, but they had apparently enjoyed each other's company well enough, and sought it outside of the sessions even when they stopped going to said sessions.
You know that I know Faramir, and I have known Éowyn since childhood as well. I tell you that when they first came together, it was as though some great Shadow passed from their faces and relinquished its grip on their hearts. It is a kind of magic, I think, deep and profound, love is.
Can you remember that?
Yes, yes he could. If love was some sort of magic that lightened the hearts of Men, then Denethor could remember with painful clarity how once it had touched him, for such a short time.
The flat in which they all lived was often crowded. At minimum, there were five people living there. Boromir and Gandalf were over often enough that the number may as well have been seven. Merry and Pippin—Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took were their proper names—treated like small siblings by his sons and daughter-in-law, and irritating but beloved grandchildren by Gandalf, brought the number up to nine. Then there was Éomer and Lothíriel and their small children, and Heaven forbid that Imrahil bring his monstrously large and constantly-growing brood of children and grandchildren by… Denethor longed for peace and quiet, but rarely did he find it. The furthest he ever went from the flat was to the local library to borrow books to read, and even then he usually went in Faramir's company.
No one who knew what had happened ever relaxed around him. Gandalf was abnormally guarded around him. Boromir, Éowyn, and Éomer showed open dislike. Merry and Pippin regarded him shyly and with no small degree of fear, when they came to visit with Faramir and Éowyn or play with the children. Faramir… Out of Faramir, Denethor could discern nothing. They have never really spoken of what was. Denethor desired nothing more than to finally speak with him, and yet could never find the words. For the enormity of what he had done, there were no words that would ever be sufficient to beg forgiveness with.
Even Elboron, though young he was, avoided his grandfather if at all possible. In truth, Denethor did not exactly make it easy for his grandchildren to love him—he drove Faramir and Éowyn half-mad at his inability to censor his still quite-morbid thoughts around the children, and going ever on and on about death and destruction had quite thoroughly soured Elboron on him. More than that, Denethor suspected that someone, he wasn't sure who, but someone, had told Elboron tales of his days before the hospital. Sometimes, he would catch Elboron looking at him as though he expected him to catch on fire at any moment, and take the flat down with him.
There was no one who did not tread carefully about him, or look upon him with open dislike. Well, then again…
"Grandpapa?"
Little Finduilas, second of her name, had absolutely no compunction about clambering up onto her elderly grandfather's lap like his legs were a climbing frame, and today, Denethor decided it would be better to simply put her climbing to an end and pull her up there himself, and save his legs the soreness they'd surely have later if he did not. She looked up into his face and smiled. "Grandpapa, I want a story!"
Though she had her mother's sun-gold hair, little Finduilas otherwise strongly resembled her grandmother. Pale, heart-shaped face, sea gray eyes, same sweet, innocent smile. Where Elboron avoided his grandfather, little Finduilas had taken to him like a fish takes to water. Perhaps it was because he did not speak down to her as other adults did. Perhaps it was because Denethor indulged his granddaughter's mile-wide morbid streak—only fair, considering she'd gotten it from him. Little Finduilas loved gruesome stories of death and destruction; the sinking of Beleriand and later of Númenor and what had led to both were among her favorites. Her parents both said it would give her nightmares, but Denethor and his granddaughter both knew that she was made of sterner stuff than that.
And if Denethor was especially fond of his granddaughter, he knew exactly why. In truth, little Finduilas's resemblance to her namesake had a great deal to do with it, but there was more to it than that. Little Finduilas was the only one who did not look upon him, and then turn away in fear.
"Alright, my little one." That was a term the first Finduilas had often and Denethor sometimes used on their youngest son, and somehow, it seemed appropriate that the youngest in the family should be called that once again. He smiled down at her. "What shall it be today?"
The story of how Grandpapa had once nearly burned Daddy to death would not be told today. While little Finduilas might be made of sterner stuff than her parents gave her credit for, Denethor suspected that such a tale really would give her nightmares. One day she would told. One day she would have to be, but not today.
When that day came, Denethor hoped that his little granddaughter would be able to forgive him, even if no one else could.
Okay, in truth, this story came to me from the conception of the first line, and it was originally going to be a lot more humorous than it ended up being, when I realized that, you know, this really isn't funny. So what humor there is survived in the form of Denethor's narrative snark. He does seem the sort.
Here we have a sort-of quasi-Modern Day AU whose continuity makes no sense even to me. There are still Elves and Dwarves and Hobbits and Wizards, but no Sauron, no One Ring, no palantíri, and it's set in modern-day-could-be-anywhere. And if nothing else I don't want anyone taking away the message that the mentally ill all behave as Denethor does. That is absolutely not what I intended. But the fact stands that in this universe where there is no Sauron, no Mordor, no One Ring, and no palantír, Denethor, who isn't Steward of anything in this either, still got into the state of mind where he was willing to kill himself and take his youngest kid with him. Even in the books he came across to me as mentally ill, and dysthymia (chronic depression, characterized as a depressive state lasting longer than two years), and schizoid personality disorder (a personality disorder whose symptoms include being "aloof, cold and indifferent", having extreme difficulty forming social relationships, "feeling "lost" without the people they are normally around" and being unable to form accurate images of how others see them) fit the symptoms.
So Denethor still tried to kill his kid, lived to regret it (as I'm sure he would have in the books as well, had he lived) and must deal with the fallout of what he did. I don't think Boromir, who wouldn't have died in this AU setting either, would ever have forgiven him for doing that, and I doubt Éowyn would have been too impressed with him either. After all, illness or no illness, Denethor did try to kill someone they both love dearly, and being ill does not absolve him of responsibility on that score.
Thank you for reading.