Disclaimer: Professor Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson directed the movie. Sean Bean (sigh!) and David Wenham were born. Praise given where praise is due.
The Pool of Tears
There were always Guards watching over the pool. The water belonged to Gondor and as such was sacred. The Valar forbid any stranger should ever bathe in the pool or eat the silver fish that swam within.
The Guards were always watchful.
Faramir undid the laces of his tunic with trembling fingers. It dropped onto the floor to join cloak, breeches, boots and undergarments. The moonlight played over his naked skin; highlighted the scars of thirty-eight years of life.
The Guards averted their eyes.
Faramir padded silently along the damp rocks until he reached a point from which he could gingerly lower himself into the pool's cool water. He suppressed a shiver.
And it's quite possible that the Guards, staunch soldiers of Gondor, averted their eyes not from their Captain's nakedness but from the tears that glistened in his eyes.
Faramir had wept once to hear his brother was dead; now it seemed he would weep again as the reality of his loss showed clear beneath the stark light of the moon.
Faramir plunged his head below the water, once, twice; determined that his eyes should not become red. After all, Denethor had told him often enough as a child that men of Gondor did not cry.
He shrugged off all thoughts of his father and surface dived.
Down.
Down.
Boromir had never cried.
Down.
Down.
The pool was deep and everything was black.
Down.
Down.
Starved of air, Faramir found himself lost in a child's pain. He was ten again, watching Boromir, sixteen, put on the uniform of the City Guard for the first time. Or else he was fourteen and left behind as Boromir had marched to war. Perhaps he was fifteen and jealous when his brother returned from war victorious and bestowed more attention on the court ladies in their diaphanous robes than on his younger brother.
Faramir suspected he had dived too deeply or else been under too long; in the blackness of the water he could see the colours of ball gowns from happier times: pale yellow, sky blue; lavender, rose. And for a moment he fancied he could see his brother, laughing so hard that it was impossible that the whole of middle earth wasn't in hysterics too.
He had loved Boromir and Boromir had left him. That was the simple truth of it.
More complex feelings were subdued in Faramir until only love and pain, the two bedfellows, were felt.
A minute passed, perhaps two, and Faramir's body gave a violent shudder and he forced himself upwards with the last of his strength. His limbs felt heavy; his chest cavity made of stone.
Up.
Up.
When Boromir had smiled the world had lit up. Faramir's world had lit up.
Up.
Up.
When they were young, though separated by just six years, they had seemed lifetimes apart in age. It had been something of a surprise for them to find that as adults they were not only brothers but friends. The best of friends, in fact.
Up.
Up.
The tears were gone as he broke the surface- they were mingled with the icy water of the forbidden pool in Ithilien: the pool of tears.
He realised the Guards were watching him now, as he gasped for air. They knew he had been down too long; he wondered if one of them had been preparing to rescue him: probably, he was a popular Captain, easy with his men, fierce in battle, careful with lives.
Faramir splashed about a bit; pretended to bathe. The Guards turned away again, satisfied that their Captain had not been trying to drown himself.
If Faramir could have any wish granted, just one, it would be for Sauron's defeat. If, however, he could have another it would be for just a minute with Boromir: a minute to say the thing that men didn't say: I love you, brother.
If only Faramir had embraced Boromir before he left for Imladris; if only he'd forgotten about the stern face of his father presiding over the formal farewell.
If only- no! 'If only' was a worthless thing to think. It brought neither comfort nor hope. The brothers had loved one another. That was enough.
That had to be enough.
Faramir climbed out of the pool, wrapped his cloak around his wet body, bid the Guards goodnight and entered the hidden cave. All his tears had been cried; now was the time to decide the fate of two halflings who had crossed his path.
Faramir did not know that much depended on his ability to succeed in the one area where his brother had failed.