I have always thought that after a war as devastating as the war of the ring, that some of the participants must suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is based partly in my experiences working with those who suffer from mental illness, so if this is a trigger for you, avoid this story. PTSD, angst and hurt/comfort. Legolas/Gimli. Rated for dark themes of self harm and suicide.
After the War
After the excitement of Aragorn's wedding and coronation, and Faramir and Eowyn's wedding and installation in Minas Tirith, after the rest of them had travelled back to Rivendell and the hobbits had set off for the Shire and home, after Gandalf had returned to whatever mysterious business now occupied him – only Legolas and Gimli were left of the original Fellowship of the Ring. They decided to finally fulfil their whimsical promise, made when neither thought they would survive the war. They decided to spend a year travelling the deep places of Middle Earth – the depths of the heartwood of Fangorn, oldest of forests, and the deepest caves of the dwarves they could find. They decided to visit the mountains and the sea, and spend a last precious time reliving the cameraderie of their journeys.
Over the first few months they fell into a routine of packing, travelling, and setting up camp. Legolas would care for the horses while Gimli set up their shelter and lit a fire. Gimli would fetch water and Legolas would cook. Then they would sit staring into the fire and talking into the deepest part of the night. As the fire died to embers and the darkness hid their faces from one another, they talked of friends who were gone and wonders of ages past which would never come again. And if the firelight sometimes reflected off cheeks wet with tears, well, firelight is tricky and neither of them would ever fault the other for deep feelings. So the bonds of friendship grew ever deeper and stronger between them, and they felt that their hearts were healing from the ravages of war and death and loss and destruction.
Or so it seemed until they visited the sea. For Gimli it was just one more pretty scene, and as the sun set below the watery horizon he heaved a sigh for its vanishing beauty and turned to setting up camp. He had to buffet Legolas twice in the ribs before the elf would leave off staring into the darkness and tend to their dinner, and even then the food was surprisingly indifferent.
They next turned their faces towards the mountains, but Gimli noticed that Legolas grew quieter and quieter. His contributions to the evening reminiscences grew shorter, less frequent and mostly melancholy. He never spoke now of his plans and dreams for returning to the forest, of the skills he would teach, of the lessons he would recite for those who needed to learn. At first, Gimli tried to fill the space himself, talking of what he would do when he finally returned to his father's house and where he would mine and of improvements in the lives of dwarves that he would bring in the form of innovations which had seen in the cities of men.
But the talk around the fire grew less until one night, directly after they finished eating, Legolas murmured something about being tired and ready to sleep. Gimli sat alone that night staring into the fire. But this time he was not thinking about friends from the past, or plans for the future. He was worrying about the friend who was lying four feet from him, but whose soul seemed further away every day.
The pattern of their travels subtly altered. Now when Gimli arose Legolas was already awake, most of their gear was packed and the elf was politely anxious to move on. They travelled further and faster than they had previously, and Gimli wasn't sure if they were rushing towards something or running away from something.
Such pressed travel could not continue indefinitely without mishap. Sure enough, one evening as they struggled through the foothills of a small mountain range in the failing light, one of the horses stumbled and fell. Fortunately nothing was broken, but Legolas was out of temper having fallen with the horse into a small stream. He was soaked to the skin, though his pack was waterproof so nothing was permanently ruined, and Gimli soon had a larger fire than usual blazing away to warm both the elf and the horse. Legolas had spent extra time rubbing down the mare and checking both horses for injuries, so by the time he returned to the fire the evening stew was already merrily bubbling over the flames.
Dinner was a plainer and even more silent meal than usual. Gimli debated with himself whether he should take issue with Legolas over this accident and confront the elf about why they were pushing themselves and their animals so hard. But he decided to let well enough alone – clearly the elf was fighting with some inner demons of his own and Gimli didn't want to add any pressure. He banked the fire and turned to his own bedroll.
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In the middle of the night, Gimli started awake. His hunter's instincts told him that something was wrong in their camp, but it wasn't an intruder. He kept his eyes closed but breathed silently, listening for the sound which had awoken him. He could hear the horses snuffling quietly in their sleep over to his left. The remains of the fire were hissing and spitting a little beyond his feet. The silent lump of the sleeping Legolas was to his right, and the woods were silent as far as he could hear. He cautiously slitted his eyes open, careful not to glance in the direction of the dying fire, lest it spoil his night vision.
The night was silent now, and Gimli would have put the disturbance down to his own nerves, except that he wasn't the nervous sort. If it had woken him, then it was a real sound and if he lay in wait long enough he might hear it again. He was just resigning himself to a long wait, when he heard a faint sound, definitely from his right. It sounded like a sigh, or perhaps a sob?
Moving slowly and quietly as a stalking hunter, he raised himself and looked over towards the elf's bedroll. Even that slight movement caused the sound to cease abruptly, but not before Gimli had spotted the slight convulsive movement which coincided with the sound. Abruptly, all the pieces fell into place. It hardly seemed possible, and Gimli had never heard of such a thing, but all the signs seemed to point to the elf weeping his heart out in the middle of the night.
Gimli was surprised, as he had always thought that elves were such a calm people, some even thought them cold. Their usual expression of grief was to sing or make poetry. Some of their funeral dirges certainly made other species cry uncontrollably, but elves themselves didn't usually do anything as undignified as crying.
His reflections didn't stop Gimli from crawling out of his bedroll and making his way over to the elf's side. Once there, he realized that he had been right. Deep, wracking sobs were shuddering through the elf's body, and he was shivering as well. Gimli wondered if he could have caught cold by falling in the stream? It didn't seem usual for an elf to fall prey to such a common illness, but nothing about this midnight encounter seemed usual at all.
Gimli stretched out his hand and gently grasped Legolas' shoulder, "Can I help?" he asked softly. Legolas was moaning now and muttering under his breath. He was either still dreaming, or delirious. Gimli felt for Legolas' forehead, and it seemed about the same temperature as his hand. He couldn't remember if that was a bad sign for an elf or not. Usually their body temperature was a few degrees higher than that of a dwarf, so did this mean Legolas had taken a chill? His face was pale and his chiseled high cheekbones stood out in sharp relief in the fire light. His hands were definitely too cold and dry, more like the hands of a stone statue than a living being.
The elf's eyes were open, but he clearly wasn't looking at anything on this Middle-Earth. The murmuring got a fraction louder, and Gimli suddenly realized what it was that Legolas was saying. It was a litany of those who had died. Gimli felt a chill in his own body, and wondered how long the list would be. Legolas was thousands of years old, so he would surely know thousands of mortals who had died, even before the war of the Ring! Gimli took both of Legolas' hands in his and tried gently chafing them to see if he could wake the elf from this melancholy daze.
"Haldir, Seneschal who walked the trees, died in battle. Theoden, King of the Mark, fell before a Beast of the Nazgul. Mithrandir, bearer of Narya the Ring of Fire, fell into darkness in Moria. Frodo, Ringbearer, gone to the Grey Havens…" Gimli felt a sickening lurch in the pit of his stomach. Was this more than delirium? Could Legolas be seeing the future?
The litany of death and loss went on, "Samwise Gamgee, Ringbearer, gone to the Grey Havens. Peregrine Took and Meriadoc Brandybuck, faithful companions to the Ringbearer, taken by orcs. Boromir, Captain of Gondor, betrayed to his death by the Ring and slain by orc arrows. Gimli son of Gloin, faithful dwarf of the Fellowship, killed in the mines of Moria. Legolas, Prince of Mirkwood, lost in the dark on the way to the Grey Havens…"
"Now hold on just a moment!" cried Gimli, "I'm not dead yet – and neither are you! Legolas! Wake up from this morbid dream! Mithrandir has returned! Merry and Pippin were saved from the orcs and live again in the Shire, with Sam and Frodo! It may yet be that we all seek the Grey Havens, this is certainly possible, but for now we are here and we live!" He shook Legolas hard, gripping his shoulder and digging in his powerful fingers, desperate now to awaken the elf from this frightening fugue state. He was just about to slap him across the face, when Legolas blinked and looked up.
"Gimli? You are here?" He seemed dazed, blinking in the dull glow of the embers as if the dimmest firelight was glaring to his eyes. "Am I not dead, or on my way to the Grey Havens? Why am I so cold?" He pulled the blanket closer around his shaking shoulders. "I think you are wrong. I think we are both dead, though it is good to meet a friend even in death." A deep shudder racked his body, and he continued to shiver. "Death," he muttered again, "So much death and grief and pain and loss. Immortal beings should not see so much death – we should retreat to the forest and look only on the undying faces of our own kind. The burden of death is too much for us!" The last words rose to a shrill cry that was almost hysterical.
Gimli was at a loss. He had a first aid kit in his pack, but mental illness or soul sickness or whatever oppression the elf was suffering was well beyond his skill as a healer. He wished for Aragorn, for Elrond, for any elf who would know what to do! He retreated for a moment to stoke up the fire and gather his wits.
When the fire was blazing up merrily, he heated some water over it and made some tea. Surely hot tea would help? He snorted at himself. "Trying your grandmother's home remedies again?" But he was sobered by the thought that this was the best treatment he could think of, not having anything else to offer. The hot tea in hand, he slowly approached the elf again. The cup was only half full, lest it spill in the elf's abstracted state. Legolas was at least sitting upright now, though he was rocking slowly back and forth and still whispering his chilling list of the dead and his even more disturbing inventory of deaths still to come.
"Legolas, drink some tea. It is warming – and the dead don't drink tea, you know." He silently willed the elf to ground himself in the real things of this earth; food and drink being a vital part of living and no part at all of the dead.
The elf absently accepted the mug and wrapped his hands around it. He held it a moment while Gimli watched and waited, and then almost automatically took a sip. His hand jerked back as his lips registered the heat, and Gimli feared he had made it too hot, maybe even had inadvertently scalded his friend. But Legolas was wearing a feral smile, "Heat? Is it real? I feel heat in my mouth, on my lips, over my hand! Do I live after all? More, I must have more!" Before Gimli realized what he was about to do Legolas put his left hand completely into the mug, closing his eyes and smiling blissfully at the scalding heat.
Gimli leapt up and snatched the mug away from him. "What in the Gods' name are you doing? Do you want to burn yourself?" In his haste and distress, Gimli threw the mug into the fire, where the mug blackened and burned and the liquid hissed instantly into steam in the roaring flames.
Finally, he got a reaction from the previously apathetic elf. Legolas' eyes narrowed and his lips twisted. "How do you know what I want? What I need? How dare you try to keep me in the dark?" He started to scrabble around frantically inside the pack at the foot of his bedroll. "I need to feel that I am alive, to know that I can feel something in this cold, black emptiness that is eating me up from the inside." Not finding the object of his search, he threw the pack away from him in frustration. "Where is my white knife? Arrows are not sharp enough…"
Gimli was sickly certain he knew where this train of thought was going. "Legolas, you don't want your knife, not really. It is very sharp and you are not thinking clearly. You might hurt yourself."
"Ha!" Legolas laughed wildly, and the sound was even more fearsome than the previous despair-filled whispering. "But if I hurt, if I bleed, if I am burned – then I will know that I am alive!" He looked around triumphantly, and his gaze snagged on the flames of their campfire. "Yessss," he hissed, "fire, burning and heat is the essence of life! But how to apply it to myself? Do I have any…" he groped again for his pack, but this time he it was beyond his reach. He distractedly ran his hands through his hair and down over his pockets. "No rings," he was muttering, "can't bear rings, but… ah!" His searching fingers found a chain with a heavy mithril pendant with the sigil of his house in one of his pockets, and he triumphantly withdrew it and started crawling determinedly towards the fire. In his mostly unintelligible mutters Gimli thought he heard the word "branding iron" and he realized with horror what Legolas was contemplating.
Unable to bear the thought of Legolas' perfect white body being marred by scars, and unable to think of any other quick and decisive action to take – he flung himself on top of the crawling elf and sat on him. Dwarves are short but stocky and Gimli was heavier than he looked. Especially in Legolas' semi-delirious state there was no way the slender elf was going to be able to buck him off. He didn't think so anyway.
After a few moments of struggling and flailing against his jailer, Legolas gave up and collapsed limply. Gimli was relieved, but only for a moment. He realized that Legolas was crying again. Not the painful wracking sobs of earlier in this long night these were hopeless, empty tears of despair and pain that can see no end to its suffering. Those tears tore at Gimli's heart.
He lifted himself enough that Legolas could turn over, then reached under the prone body and heaved him over onto his back. Still sitting on the elf's chest, he leaned down and cupped the pale face in his hands. "Dear one, let me help you," he whispered, kissing away the tears that leaked from under the closed eyelids. "Tell me what you need. Tell me how to help you." Hopelessly aware of repeating himself, Gimli stared at the closed, now motionless face, willing it to open up and share the grief that was shredding his friend from the inside.
After many minutes he decided that Legolas was not going to be forthcoming, but neither did he trust him if left to his own devices. Elves could be very patient, as befits those with lifespans over thousands of years. If necessary, Legolas could lie here for days or even weeks, waiting for Gimli to go away in order to let him complete his suicide or whatever other horrible act he was contemplating.
Deciding that he might as well be comfortable while he waited, Gimli leaned over and dragged his blanket over them both. Then he laid his head down on Legolas' chest, embracing him with arms and legs around his torso, and allowed himself to drift off into sleep listening to the reassuring sound of Legolas' heartbeat under his cheek.