"Elrond? What in the world is this doing in a box in your wardrobe? I was looking for one of my embroidery sets, and I found it at the very bottom in the corner."

At the sound of surprise in his wife's voice, Elrond turned – and then stared in consternation.

It had been bound to happen sooner or later, he realized as he stared at the object in Celebrían's hand. The ennin it had spent hidden away in a small wooden box buried in a drawer or in the back of a closet had not in the least diminished the sheen of the mithril, nor had they lessened in the least the guilt and shame the mere sight of that solitary hairpin could evoke in his heart. It was the one thing he'd never told Celebrían about the ennin he'd spent alone in Imladris without her, the one thing he was too ashamed to speak of. And now...

"Elrond?" Celebrían asked, now more concerned than curious, probably at his continuing hesitation to answer her question. "Whose hairpin is this? Where did it come from? It is not mine..."

"No," he responded finally, "it is not yours. A very long time ago, it belonged to the mother of a man I fostered in Imladris. It was one of a pair, given to her on her wedding day by her father."

Celebrían's empty hand reached out very slowly to take careful hold of one of his. "Why do you have it?" she asked quietly, as if she realized that the topic was a delicate one.

Elrond freed his hand and took up the hairpin between his fingers and gazed at it, selectively unlocking a memory of Gilraen wearing that pair of hairpins to hold up her braids. "She must have forgotten it when she was packing to leave Imladris," he answered in soft tones. "She left in rather a hurry." An unbidden memory of her face, smiling in the Imladris sunlight, tugged at his heartstrings. "She never failed to put her hair up in the manner of the Dúnedainith, despite her many years living with us, even though we all told her it wasn't necessary."

His wife's other hand caught his empty one and pulled on it until he was seated on the loveseat in his study next to her. "You have never spoken of her," she stated, still quiet and careful. "In all the tales of what happened in Imladris after I left, you have never once mentioned her."

"No, I have not. We... the reason she left Imladris so abruptly is not something I am proud of, and it nearly cost me the friendships of both Erestor and Glorfindel."

Her fingers, still intertwined with his, tightened slightly. "What was her name?" was the gentle question that followed a short silence in which he knew she was pondering the weight of something that would have cost him his closest companions. How was she to know that the mere mention of her name was enough to...

"Gilraen," he replied in not quite a whisper. "Gilraen, daughter of Dírhael, wife of Arathorn and mother to Est... Ara... Elessar."

"Estel, you mean? The Dúnadan you raised as your foster-son? The man whom Arwen wed? She was his mother?"

Elrond nodded mutely, overwhelmed in misery as he always was when Gilraen was ever brought to his mind.

Celebrían's forefinger stroked the edge of the pin as he held it. "How long did she stay in Imladris?"

"Over sixty years." His mind stuttered once more at the magnitude of the injury he'd caused on that dark day so long ago. "She became Lady of Imladris for us for a time, and she was a good one."

"And to you? What was she to you" The question was soft and filled with sympathy that he knew he didn't deserve.

Elrond closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Maybe it was time to let go of this secret between them at long last. She knew him well enough – knew his temper and the havoc it could wreak – and loved him despite it. There was no reason to deny her the knowledge she clearly was seeking. Nothing she could say in recrimination could be worse than the things he'd told himself time and time again over the ennin. He let the breath go in a long and drawn-out sigh.

"We became gwaidh-vellyn, mostly because we chose to share the joys and burden of raising her son together, but also because she did become our chatelaine and I depended on her as I once depended on you. She was so young when she first came to us, barely old enough to be wife and widow and mother; and she became a beautiful and wise woman in her time with us. Everyone in Imladris was fond of her, and even Glorfindel ended up as another gwaidh-vellon with her."

"I have never heard either Erestor or Glorfindel speak of her, nor the Els either," Celebrían commented.

"Of course not. Her memory brings us all pain, 'Brían, because of what I did."

"You?"

All of the starch drained from his posture, and Elrond slumped forward until his face was in his hands. "I went mad, 'Brí. For a day or so, I lost all sense of right and wrong, and I lashed out at anyone who got within distance. I chased Arwen back to Lothlórien with my angry words, and she did not speak to me again until long after I had summoned her home again to protect her from the Enemy's advances. Estel – my son," his voice cracked with emotion, "I ordered from my home, burdened with near-impossible tests to prove his worthiness for Arwen's hand in marriage. While I think we were eventually reconciled when he passed all those impossible tests and claimed Arwen from me as promised, I do not think he ever fully forgave me my anger – nor do I blame him. How can I, since I have yet to forgive myself. And Gilraen..."

"Why did you do this?"

Elrond was struck nearly dumb by the lack of accusation in her tone. But the dam had broken, and there was no way now not to tell her the full depth of his depravity. "I had warned Estel once that Arwen was beyond him, but neither he nor she in the end listened to me. Very unexpectedly, Arwen came home with Estel, glowing with happiness – but no longer an Elf. She had accepted the Gift of Ilúvatar already when she accepted Estel's proposal, without my having any chance to try to convince her otherwise. I was... beyond rage, beyond reasoning. All I could think of was that now she would never sail with me – with her brothers and me – and be a family again with you here. And, in my madness, I saw Estel's action in proposing to her as betraying the trust I had put in him. And Gilraen..."

Celebrían's arm was deposited gently across his shoulders. "Tell me about Gilraen, Elrond. Why does her memory hurt you so?"

There was no question in Elrond's mind that he needed to face Celebrían when he made this final, and most damning confession. With eyes swimming with tears that he had vigilantly held back for ennin, he looked her in the eye. "Because what I said to her, in the little time it took me to destroy sixty years of friendship and trust, was beyond forgiveness, obscene and cruel. And she took it all in without raising her voice once as she tried to reason with me, and then she walked away when I could not or would not hear her. Two days later, she rode back to the Angle and the horribly primitive life the Dúnedain had scraped together there, never to return and never to speak or write to me again." He put his hands out in front of him, glaring at them. "I destroyed something beautiful and precious without thought, without mercy, all because..." He caught back a sob that wouldn't be completely contained.

"Elrond..." Amazingly, Celebrían's voice was soft, gentle and forgiving, her arm across his shoulder warm and supportive. "It is all right."

"No, it is not all right," he countered with a growl, shrugging hard in a vain attempt to dislodge that gentle comfort he didn't deserve. "She had lived two-thirds of her life with us, with me, and I drove her back to an existence where she had to walk to carry water, to chop wood for a fire to keep her warm, where she had to labor long and hard just to survive. And all because I could not stand the thought of losing another one that I loved." He buried his face in his hands again. "I swear to you, I was so far beyond rage that I can barely remember what I said to her – but even that little makes me sick to my stomach."

Celebrían's arm across his shoulder remained warm and constant, and while he appreciated her support, it was still an irritant he shrugged against yet again – and failed yet again. "You should censure me, as Erestor and Glorfindel did," he grumbled defensively.

"I don't know why, when you are doing an excellent job of tearing yourself to pieces all by yourself," she shot back dryly, even as she allowed her arm to remain about him. "Clearly you have realized your error."

"I watched her ride away, after giving me a sweet and gentle farewell blessing that broke my heart in the face of all I had said to her," he related in a grinding whisper. "The sight of her on her horse was like a bucket of ice water in the face. And finding your old circlet left in the middle of her bed, rejecting me, her position in the household, and everything we had ever had between us, was a dagger in the heart." His voice turned bitter. "You can believe I realized my mistake, and quickly too. But by then, it was too late. She was gone, and would never speak to me again." He sighed. "Glorfindel saw her briefly not long after, but he would tell me little about it. It was years before we regained our easy friendship again. Erestor didn't speak to me at all except at extreme need for a year, and I still do not think he has ever fully forgiven me. Everyone in Imladris found some small way to let me know over the years of their displeasure."

"Then why, after all that, do you keep this hairpin?" she demanded, plucking the bit of mithril from between his fingers. "Have you not had enough grief that..."

"Do you not see?" he returned, snatching the hairpin right back from her and shook it at her. "I keep this to remind myself that no matter what, it takes only one moment of anger and madness to destroy a friendship and bring about an eternity of shame. It reminds me never again to lose my temper to such a degree..."

"Meleth..." Celebrían's arm over his shoulder tightened, and she leaned her forehead into his upper arm. "I am sorry I brought this out. I should never..."

Elrond shook his head. "I am not sorry," he countered in resignation. "It was time for me to be again reminded of this, and you needed to know what kind of monster your husband has deep in his faer, just waiting the right circumstances..."

"Stop that!"

"How can I?" He stared at her, totally bewildered. "Erestor and Glorfindel both did a very good job of letting me know just how monstrous what I had done..."

Celebrían glared at him. "And this was how long ago?"

"Oh..." He swiped at the tears, the need to think for a bit calming him a little. "Three ennin ago, maybe four..."

"And do they still censure you? Do they now speak to you as friends, or only as their lord?"

"Friends... I suppose..." He frowned at her. "What are you getting at?"

"I am saying, Peredhel, that three ennin is long enough for you to torture yourself so."

He shook his head at her. "I can never make it right with Gilraen, 'Brí. She has gone past the circles of the world, and I will never be able to tell her..."

"Did you write her? Did you try to mend things between you?"

"Of course I did!" Three heart-felt and agonized letters had he struggled to write and then made certain found their recipient.

"Then she knows that you regret everything, doesn't she?" she continued, her voice even but firm.

That made him pause. "I suppose..." He then shook his head vehemently. "But I could never tell her face to face..."

"She knows, Elrond. She knows you regretted your actions. Whether she ever forgave you or not is immaterial now. What you have to do now is forgive yourself."

"I cannot."

"You must," she insisted, a gentle hand turning his face so he would look at her. "This is eating you alive from the inside out."

"Only when I let it," he countered, "which is why I speak of her so rarely. I know I do not deserve forgiveness for my words and actions, and this little hairpin remains in my possession to pop up unexpectedly, as it did today, and prevent me from ever forgetting why I must never forget or forgive."

"We all deserve forgiveness at one point or another, Elrond," Celebrían pronounced in a regal tone that sounded all too much like her mother. "And despite the fact that Gilraen never wrote back, you have no idea whether or not she did in fact forgive you. If she were as wise as you claim, how can you doubt that she did, in the end?"

In the pit of his stomach grew a germ of warmth. "I shall never know," he said dully, unwilling to entertain even the smallest hope.

Celebrían didn't back down. "You knew her well, this Gilraen?"

"Yes..." Now he was confused. "Why?"

"Then you do know whether or not she would have eventually forgiven you, do you not?"

Her question brought him up short. Could Gilraen have forgiven him, perhaps close to the end, and been too ill to write back? Did he dare allow himself to hope it to be the case? "I do not know," he answered finally, his honesty stark.

"I cannot imagine Glorfindel having anything to do with anyone who did not have a germ of mercy in their faer. Nor can I imagine you allowing anyone without that same germ to become close enough to you to do this kind of harm."

"'Brí, it was I who did the har..."

She shook her head at him. "You did your share, to be sure, but you would not have cared for her so much if she were cold and heartless. You say you were reconciled with Estel and Glorfindel, and I know Erestor does not seem to hold any reservations in his relationship with you. Can you still doubt that this Gilraen would not have similarly eventually reconciled, had the circumstances permitted?"

That was the thing, wasn't it? "I honestly do not know."

"Think about it," she urged him, and then dropped a very soft kiss onto his temple while delicately plucking the hairpin once more from his grasp. "In the meanwhile, I shall put this away somewhere where..."

"Do not get rid of it," he said sharply.

"I will put it where it will be a long time before it reappears," Celebrían promised, "but it will be here in Barvedui... somewhere. I swear it."

Elrond nodded, his face bleak. He rose and silently paced to the window and stared out of it.

oOoOo

"Glorfindel..."

"Lady..." There was fondness and amusement in the face of Elrond's old Battle-Master. "You wished to see me?"

"Yes." Celebrían wiped her palms, which were moist with nervousness, on her gown. "I need you to do a favor for me."

The glint of humor in those ice-blue eyes only sparkled more strongly. "Do you indeed? What would you want of me?"

"I need you to speak to Elrond of Gilraen, to tell him what you know of her final years."

All humor and joy bleached from his face in an instant. "What?" he asked, his voice dull and flat.

Celebrían moved closer to him and put a pleading hand on his forearm. "Please, Glorfindel. I find out now that my husband has a deep and festering wound to his faer, and perhaps you can help him..."

"Elrond and I do not discuss Gilraen, Celebrían, for a very good reason," he stated sharply. "It is an old disagreement, and not one that..."

"I need you to tell him if she ever forgave him for what he had done." She nodded as those cold eyes widened in surprise. "He needs to know."

"What he needs to know is..." Glorfindel began, his voice so hard and cold that the hackles rose on the back of her neck.

"Trust me, he feels the regret you seem to demand of him," she stated fervently, "probably more deeply than you think. Did you know that the mere sight of this is enough to drive him into a deep despair?" She held up the hairpin and was surprised at the gasp that came from the Golden Warrior.

"Where did you get that?" he demanded, snatching it from her grasp.

"Elrond has kept it as his own personal torture tool," she told him bluntly. "Everytime it surfaces, he tears himself apart at the seams with regret and self-loathing, because that is what he believes he deserves. It is not healthy, Glorfindel."

Glorfindel's gaze hadn't softened. "What he did was..."

"Horrible, I know..."

"Did he tell you what he said?" he demanded.

"No," she admitted, "but he said that what he could remember turns his stomach. He blames himself..."

"Rightly so..."

"How much longer must he pay for his moment of madness, then?" Celebrían demanded, suddenly furious with him. "Must he carve his heart out and bleed for you regularly until Ambar Meth itself before you will count the debt paid?"

That seemed to take Glorfindel aback. "He still feels so strongly about this? Regret I can and do expect, considering what he did and said, but..."

"Yes. I am telling you that he is in there, right now, and the sight of this wretched hairpin has destroyed him utterly. I have no idea how long it will take him to regain his composure, so yes, he feels this extremely strongly. Are you telling me you do not feel as strongly?" she demanded. "It seems to me hearing of his suffering on this matter just now pleased you immensely, and I had never before considered you capable of such... cruelty. So tell me honestly: how many more ennin do you think will be needed before you will consider his penance complete?"

The utter coldness had left his gaze. "I do not wish him ill, Celebrían. He is my friend..."

"Then act the part and help him. I did not know the burden this little pin represented when I brought it to him," she recounted, retrieving the hairpin from his grasp. "And now that I do, I believe the time has come to at least let the wound heal and a scar to form. He should not forget, clearly, but he should not bleed every time her name is mentioned either."

Glorfindel gazed long into her eyes, and she could see his mind was racing. Finally: "I will speak to him."

A ton of worry fell from her shoulders. "Thank you," she managed.

"Where is he?"

"In his study."

oOoOo

Glorfindel's eyes were immediately drawn to the Lord of Barvedui as he stood with his back to the study door, staring out the window into the garden. Elrond's posture was slumped, weary, in a manner he hadn't seen since before Elrond had left Imladris for the last time. The sight was enough to punctuate the worry that he'd seen in Celebrían's gaze, and enough to move him forward into the room.

"Elrond."

"Yes?" Elrond hadn't turned away from the window, but his shoulders had hunched ever so slightly, as if in expectation of a blow.

"Celebrían asked me to speak to you."

"I thought as much. I assure you, it is not necessary for you to say a word. Best that this topic remain..."

"She is right. You need to hear what I have to say."

Finally Elrond turned, and Glorfindel was aghast at the pain and sorrow in the man's face. "No, my friend. Best we leave this alone."

"She wrote to me, you know, just before she died," Glorfindel stated without preamble. When Elrond's eyes rounded in surprise and dismay, he continued, "She was keeping a promise. I made her vow that if she needed me, she send for me. She wrote to tell me that I need not come; she was dying and would not live to see my arrival. She was glad to be leaving, to be gone before everything fell apart."

"What..." Elrond choked, unable to say more.

"She used everything she learned here to try to help her people there, you know. All the healing knowledge that she ever gleaned from you or Estel, she put into practice. Her people cared for her, and cared for her well all the way to the end." Glorfindel scratched at a cheek mindlessly. "She said that she was remembering her days in Imladris, singing all the day songs and confusing those who cared for her, and especially singing the hymns at night, when she was alone. She sang for Estel, and Arwen, and me, and the Els, and Erestor..."

Elrond was nodding. "She would..."

"And you."

Elrond's mouth fell open.

"That you would have the strength to bear what was to come."

That mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, then snapped closed. Elrond continued to stare at him until, finally, his ability to speak returned – and even then, only the faintest whisper. "She actually said that?"

"In so many words," he replied. "She even told me I should tell you, if I wanted."

"Then maybe..."

"Celebrían was right; you needed to hear that. I should have told you long ago. It was a cruel and needless omission, and I apologize for the harm not knowing has done you."

He turned on his heel and bolted out the door. That little hairpin – how many times had he pulled it from Gilraen's head so that her braids would spill into his hands to be undone? Even now, he could remember the feel of her tresses running through his fingers after a spell in the hot springs. Amazing how such a tiny thing as a hairpin could have such a massive impact even this many years later.

He had been beyond furious when he realized the extent to which Elrond had destroyed Gilraen's ability to remain in Imladris, desperate to convince her to come home during his one, brief visit, and absolutely bereft when she quietly refused to budge and bid him what ended up being a very final farewell. It was agony, in the years afterwards, to spend evening after evening knowing her in a far colder and less safe clime rather than walking the gardens of Imladris with him. He knew that Erestor had grieved long and deeply as if he had lost a beloved daughter, so much so that the two of them had never been able to talk privately about her in the many years since then. Perhaps that, too, needed remedy.

But never in his wildest imaginations had he considered it possible that Elrond not only had come to appreciate fully the depth of his mistake, but that behind the calm exterior he had always put forth he had literally and viciously torn himself apart internally for ennin as a result. He'd always wanted Elrond to pay for his offenses, but never to this extent!

oOoOo

"Well?" Celebrían was standing in front of him, barring his way, clearly waiting to hear what happened.

He sighed deeply. "I told him what he needed to hear. You are right; he is wounded far too deeply by the unresolved nature of things, and it is long past time he healed. I hope what I had to say will be enough to help, for speaking of her at all is still most painful. Now, if you will excuse me..."

With that, he gave her a courtly salute and bow, and aimed his steps toward the very same garden that Elrond had been staring at blindly only moments before. Perhaps there he could work on forgiving himself for what his silence had done to one he considered one of the best friends he had in the world. When and if he managed that, he knew all too well that he would then once more mourn the passing of the one Mortal in his life that had meant something very special to him and so many others in Imladris, and feel even more keenly the absence of his Elven wife from his life now. Would Lírinyellë ever leave Lórien, he wondered for the latest in a countless number of times.

At least Elrond had Celebrían. And for a fleeting moment, Glorfindel felt a wash of intense jealousy at the man's good fortune.

It was not the first time, and he was certain it would not be the last time he felt it.

oOoOo

Celebrían entered the study as silently as she could, not certain what she would discover within. Elrond was still standing, turned to the window and staring outside at the garden, one hand placed against the glass. His mien was still anything but calm and serene, but he was less... vanquished... than he had been when she'd left him earlier. Whatever Glorfindel had told him had helped, and she breathed a sigh of gratitude and relief.

Elrond was a complex man, with whom the world had dealt most harshly. Her own desperate need for the comfort she could only get in Valinor had been a form of abandonment to him, as keenly felt and damaging as his mother's suicide leap from the cliffs of Sirion, his father's obsession with sailing, Maglor's dropping him and Elros in Círdan's lap, and Elros ultimately choosing the life of the Second-born. Arwen's following in her uncle's footsteps could only have been agony, enough to drive much lesser men mad for longer than just a day or so.

Surely Gilraen had known this eventually. To have engendered such deep and powerful emotions in three wise powerful Elven Lords, she must have been a very special individual indeed – she must have known. There was no way such a person could have not known.

A slight tip of the head told her that he had sensed her re-entry, and so she walked over to him, surrounded his upper arm with her hands and laid her head on his shoulder without saying a word.

He didn't need banalities, he didn't need words of comfort. He just needed to know, in a manner that couldn't lie or be misunderstood, that he still had her support and love. He had just confessed something to her that, in his eyes, had damned him utterly; she had to show him that her eyes saw differently.

A gentle brush of lips across a forehead told her that he had heard her.

Together, they looked out the window at the riot of color that was the internal garden of Barvedui. Celebrían had no idea how long it would take him to regain his composure and serene equanimity, but she was determined that she would be there every moment along the way so that he knew he was no longer alone. No longer abandoned by all. His last secret was out now, and she was determined that he know that his days of soul-killing grief and self-torture were over at last.

And the little hairpin that caused this all, which was currently thrust deep into the pocket of her skirt, would find itself in a new home somewhere Elrond was least likely to trip over it while searching for anything else, so that the chance of him finding it unexpectedly would be virtually non-existent. Never again would this mote of mithril give him cause to tear himself apart.

Not if she could help it.