Author's note: This story is based on the "Transportation" drabble in My Roots are Grown. Thank you to the reviewers who gave constructive criticism on the drabble there; it made me more conscientious of punctuation. This is another of many one-shots that was overflowing and drowning my WIP folder; it has thus been dug out, edited, and posted here. :)

This story takes place while Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas travel in Rohan, as they seek out Merry and Pippin-or what is left of them-after their encounter with Eomer. Arguably A/U, but I think not.

Disclaimer: Do not own.

You Forget Yourself

It had been mere hours since Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas had come upon Éomer son of Éomund and the Riders of the Mark, and Legolas and Gimli had filled much of the time since jesting with one another, to keep their minds from Merry and Pippin.

Aragorn tried not to listen, but, even over hoofbeats and the whipping of the wind, so close was his own horse to Arod that it had proven difficult.

Aragorn heard Gimli speak.

"Legolas, why must we ride without a saddle?"

Legolas' query—quiet and teasing—came next; he feigned confusion.

"Why should a horse wear a saddle?"

And Gimli's answer was even as stone, as logical as Aragorn expected.

"For us to ride on, of course."

Aragorn heard Legolas burst into merry laughter, and it bubbled over into his words as he exclaimed: "Well, of course, Gimli! Of course!"

There was silence between them, and then, for a while, just the steady thrum of hooves and snippets of song stolen by the breeze.

Later, when they dismounted to stretch their legs and eat, Legolas helped Gimli off their horse, and finished his answer.

"One cannot ride two to a saddle; we would not fit."

Legolas laid himself on the ground some distance from his friends and drew his feet close to himself, so his knees pointed toward the sky like triangular peaks. He propped his right ankle lightly on his left knee, and his leg fell from it in the shape of a pennant. He crossed his arms tightly over his chest, hands clutching his elbows.

Gimli dropped his pack to the ground and turned to Aragorn with eyebrows raised.

"He is right," Aragorn said, shrugging.

Gimli sighed.

"He worries for the hobbits, Gimli. In a minute, he will come back to us."

Gimli pulled his cloak around his shoulders and took a bite of waybread.

True to Aragorn's word, Legolas returned to Gimli a few moments later, boundless energy renewed. He was chattering, offering to catch a hare, tell a tale, rub down the horses, scout ahead—anything Aragorn might possibly ask of him.

"Gimli."

The steady beat of hooves.

"Gimli?"

Aragorn glanced over his shoulder to see Legolas loosen his hold on the horse's mane to look behind at his companion.

"Gimli!"

A moment's silence, then, "Yes?"

"Do you sleep, Gimli? Pay attention, please. If you fall, I fall, and I do not fancy falling!"

As their leader, Aragorn should have perhaps turned Hasufel around earlier; perhaps paid better attention to the weariness in Gimli's movements, the desperation in Legolas' eyes and the new crease in his brow. Legolas had recently become giddy in his restlessness, and Gimli despaired more often of the folly of their chase. Aragorn should have stood up to the elf's relentlessly burning heart; he should have insisted they rest more and ride less.

But he had not, and that error was indicative, too, of his own stress and utter exhaustion.

"I will not fall, Legolas," Aragorn heard Gimli assure. "Dwarves are not horsemen but neither are we—"

Hasufel navigated a dip in the earth, but Arod—his elven rider turned from the path, the dwarf a heavier weight on its rear—stumbled. The horse regained his footing, but not soon enough to prevent Gimli from slipping to the side. With his arms still tight around Legolas' waist, they both toppled to the ground.

Legolas wrenched from Gimli's grip and twisted, throwing himself as he fell to avoid landing on the dwarf, and his shoulder took the brunt of the impact as he somersaulted into a crouch. Gimli lay several feet from where Legolas squatted— dazed and surprised—and the dwarf's hands were pressed against his own eyes.

Bereft of his riders, Arod stood quite still beside them.

As Aragorn hurried to his companions, Gimli sat up abruptly; Aragorn thought the dwarf looked angry, and a little embarrassed. He was reassured as Gimli stood and brushed off his trousers and directed Aragorn distractedly to the elf with a wave of his hand.

"I am fine; only my pack has suffered," Gimli muttered, watching Legolas warily.

The hairs on the back of Gimli's neck bristled as Aragorn crossed to where Legolas still crouched in the grass. The elf's head was tilted to the side and his eyes fluttered shut as he vaguely rubbed his shoulder.

Aragorn stopped in front of Legolas and spoke harshly, for he knew that however hard the elf had landed, he was too hardy to have suffered anything serious—healing was not, therefore, Aragorn's priority.

"You forget yourself, Legolas!" Aragorn admonished, and he felt concern and anger push at one another within him, fighting for dominance with no clear winner.

Aragorn stared down at the elf, who blinked and turned grey eyes—calm and challenging—toward Aragorn as he spoke.

"I do not forget myself."

Something swelled in Aragorn's chest.

There were fleeting occasions when he did not get along with Legolas, and moments like these—in which the elf, usually ignorantly or naïvely, contradicted him—were particularly difficult.

Have we not lost enough already? Aragorn thought. First Gandalf, then Boromir, then two hobbits to Isengard and two to Mordor. Will I eventually lose Gimli the Dwarf because of Legolas the Elf's unwillingness to ride a tacked horse? Will I lose Legolas to his own tenacious spirit?

Aragorn was overwhelmed for a single moment by memories of grief and despair, but then anger suddenly won, and he moved quickly, and almost surprised himself.

Aragorn took a fistful of Legolas' overshirt in his hand and yanked—the elf was pulled forward out of his crouch and forced to his feet with a gasp he tried hard to swallow. They stood chest-to-chest and eye-to-eye, and Aragorn shook Legolas once by the hand he had twisted in the elf's shirt.

"If I believe that you truly do not forget yourself, then I must insist that you are forgetting your companions," Aragorn hissed, and Legolas could feel Aragorn's breath on his cheek, the man's fingers regaining their grip at his collar. "Pay better attention to yourself as elf-kind among mortals, Legolas."

Aragorn felt Gimli's hand pull at his forearm, and Legolas' body tensed under the man's hand, quivering, before he jerked out of Aragorn's grip. The elf did not speak, but instead took a step toward Gimli to tug gently at the pack on the dwarf's back, until it was obediently released. Legolas held the pack to his chest and strode some distance from his companions, settling on the ground; he took a needle to the pack's ripped strap and pointedly ignoring Aragorn as he worked.

Gimli sighed.

"Perhaps you should be more patient," Gimli said.

"You could have died, Gimli."

"So might have he."

Aragorn shook his head.

"Unlikely," Aragorn said. "Besides, what Legolas understands of death… He understands unpredictable death, as well as any warrior might, but he does not truly understand the effects of hard travel on a dwarf or man's body."

Gimli laughed. "Why should he? He is in elf! And one who has not gone far from his home, at that."

Aragorn frowned, and said, "You are quick to forgive."

"I do not see there to be anything that truly needs forgiven," Gimli said, shrugging. "He is just different from me."

"There is not time here to be patient with Legolas' differences, Gimli; if we are patient with Legolas," Aragorn said, confusion now crinkling his brow, "he will not learn mortal lessons until long after you and I are passed from this world. Which at this rate may be soon, true, but still not soon enough for Legolas to actually understand. He is sometimes ignorant to your needs."

"He is the opposite of that!" Gimli protested gruffly. "Do not try to change him. And you too forget yourself, Aragorn! This attitude is unusual and it does not suit you—are you weary? You—speaking so when we are both fine, and Legolas is here and can hear you clearly. Or is that not so, Legolas?"

Directly addressed, Legolas looked up from the pack as he tied a knot and tightened it with his teeth. He dipped his head down to bite off the thread closer to the strap and then spat it from his lips with a puff of air—the thread drifted to the ground and caught in the yellow grass. Legolas tucked the needle into the pack's strap so that its tip was stored securely flat, and then he finally spoke.

"It is so," Legolas said, and he tilted his head to the side, looking unwaveringly at Gimli. "I should be pleased though, too, when we are done for a while with dear Arod. It is true that I should have been more thoughtful of you, Gimli."

Legolas extended the pack toward Gimli with a bowed head. Gimli crossed the ground between them and took it from Legolas, clapping the elf on the shoulder as he did so.

In that moment, Aragorn saw Legolas' nostrils flare, and the muscles in his jaw were tight as he looked up at the dwarf to smile. The momentary flash of discomfort was not something that someone who was not a healer would notice, but Aragorn was a healer, so notice he did.

"Legolas, you are hurt," Aragorn said abruptly.

All anger at his friend's perceived faults were quickly forgotten.

Aragorn's role, he felt, was to hold his companions together. In protecting their lives and healing their hurts, he allowed them to most effectively guard the Ringbearer in their uniquely-suited ways. But their Fellowship was broken, and his companions now two, and they were the last thing he seemed to have any control over on this crumbling journey. But, Aragorn reminded himself, Elf and Dwarf had both survived the tumble. Only Legolas' naivete suffered and his pride was thus bruised (so he had likely learned something), and Gimli had already forgiven the elf's misstep.

So it was now, Aragorn supposed, his turn as a healer and a leader (even a leader of only two) to make all the rest well again, and to let go, and to forgive. Besides, it took too much valuable energy to maintain such a useless annoyance, and Aragorn would not have them further sundered because—after two long months on the road—he had managed to forget that Wood-elves were sheltered, and could be hasty.

Aragorn sighed and met Legolas' eyes.

The elf shrugged and glanced off to the side; his eyes caught and followed a slow-moving thunderhead on the very distant horizon.

"Perhaps I am hurt a little," Legolas conceded honestly, and Aragorn felt himself grin in his success at undoing the elf. "But it is my own doing," Legolas continued. "I will be fine."

Gimli laughed and shouldered his repaired pack, sitting down beside his friend, but Aragorn said nothing as he knelt at Legolas' side. He laid the elf's bows on the ground beside them, unbuckled his quiver, undid the laces and buttons of Legolas' overshirt and tunic and then pushed them down to expose the shoulder that had taken the brunt of the fall.

"Well," Gimli said, "You are forgiven, Legolas, and you will make it up to us by taking first watch."

"Fair enough," Legolas said, eyes smiling at Gimli, even as he pulled away from Aragorn's probing touch.

"Gimli," Aragorn said, "Undo the clasps at his wrist, if he cannot do it himself, and pull his hand through. I want the whole arm visible."

Gimli did as he was told, and Legolas continued to vaguely watch the thunderhead skirt the horizon, jerking slightly in surprise when Aragorn dug his thumb into the space below his clavicle, where it attached at the top of his arm.

Aragorn frowned and hmmed and pressed.

And though Aragorn did not say a word to Legolas as he prodded, by his healing hands were his own harsh words forgiven.

Gimli looked from man to elf and back once more, and chuckled.

Legolas seemed to have fallen asleep sitting up, still vaguely grimacing even as his eyes unfocused, and Aragorn continued his work as if Legolas were fully conscious and cooperative.

Gimli squeezed Aragorn's shoulder, and pulled a strip of dried meat from his repaired pack before leaning back, flat in the grass beside his friends, to wait.

Aragorn's assessment could take a while, Gimli mused, and there would eventually be a lecture, for which he would need all his strength, for Aragorn would have his arguments, and Legolas would have multitude reasons.

Those two—Gimli smiled at the thought, and swallowed the dried meat roughly—they might very well be the death of him, bareback horse or no! He certainly found himself in more danger with Aragorn and Legolas than he had ever managed on his own, and Gimli was not entirely sure that he did not like that… Honestly, if any of the three of them made it out of the War alive, Gimli would consider them lucky indeed.

Gimli was drawn from his reverie when Legolas hissed, and he looked over to see the intelligent sparkle returning to the elf's eyes as he woke. Legolas rocked slightly in his seat and then slapped Aragorn's hands away from his shoulder.

Aragorn looked for a moment like he might growl, but he instead pursed his lips and flared his nostrils; he nodded to Gimli.

Gimli sat up and took Legolas' bare arm in his hands; he whispered in his friend's ear reminders of the things he had learned Legolas loved—thunderstorms, the feel of freshly ground baking flour, finding feathers for arrows, early morning sunshine, cold dew on barefeet—and then he began a story of the hobbits they were trying so hard to find, and Aragorn probed the elf's shoulder one last time.

"Go ahead, Aragorn," Legolas interrupted, his voice laced with light derision, but then there was a laugh, soft and true. "I have had far worse done to this arm before! I am old."

Aragorn raised his eyebrows and huffed, shifting his hold on Legolas' shoulder. Gimli rolled his eyes at Aragorn's sudden reluctance to hurt the elf, when he had grabbed him by the collar and shaken him like a tree that jealously guarded its fruit only minutes before.

"All right," Aragorn said, and he put a firm hand on the elf's chest to guide him to his back.

Aragorn flattened Legolas' arms into the grass and then took the hand of his injured shoulder into his own. Aragorn manipulated the arm from the elbow so their hands were pointed straight at the sky, and then he began to lower Legolas' arm—almost like a crank, Gimli thought, degree by halting degree—away from his body and toward the ground.

And Gimli could not help but laugh as Aragorn frowned mightily while he pulled gently on Legolas' arm, and neither could he find the way Legolas glared at Aragorn unamusing, even when there was a muffled pop! and the elf's face momentarily blanched before his glowering resumed.

It was perhaps not the best time to smile, but neither of his companions seemed to notice.

Gimli kept up his tale of Merry and Pippin even after Aragorn had finished, for while Legolas was stoic, he was chewing the inside of his bottom lip, and Aragorn was not quite done with his tending. Gimli knew from experience that pain was pain—no matter how many times one had experienced it or how well it was borne—and Legolas was far better off distracted with a tale.

Yes, Gimli thought, and he smiled. Legolas, Aragorn, Merry, Pippin, Frodo, Sam—any one of them could very well be the death of me.

And as Aragorn pulled out two swaths of cloth and bound them over the elf's shoulder and across his chest to keep his arm held tight against his belly—for just a few hours, Legolas, the man pleaded, you will be useless to us, and the hobbits, if I allow your arm to dangle from your chest, just because you are foolishly cross—Gimli found that, the thought of that—of doing whatever his companions needed of him, no matter the consequence; of dying for his friends; or in their defense…

That?

He did not mind the thought much at all.

Thank you for reading this one-shot! I appreciate positive and constructive criticism. Please drop a review before you go!