A/N: Wow, of all the things she's written, here is the second ff that Rana's ever finished! This is a SHORT oneshot about how Faramir felt during the time that he was not in the Houses of Healing. I hope everyone likes it, and the quote at the end is from the Return of the King: The Steward and the King (best chapter). The title's weird, but I have difficulty naming things. Sorry.

To Understand

It was harder than I ever thought it could be to leave her and begin my duties as the steward. I know I have to work, but my focus falters any time I try. When I see the smiling face of a child, who laughs merely because she knows the war was over, Eowyn's mourning face blocks the image from my brain. No, the war is not yet over. The war for Eowyn yet rages. Yet, as I was kept from making a final stand in the War of the Ring, I am helpless to do anything for Eowyn. Before, the warden and my injuries were the cause of my non-participation. Now duty, duty, that dreadful thing that Eowyn detests and will do anything to destroy, duty is my fetter.

I blame my duty, but I know it is a lie. Nay, in part it is true, but the entirety of the truth is that I love Eowyn. I cannot bear to see her again. I know her feelings for the King. I name him "King," for I know also that she has no feelings for Aragorn. She did, at one time, but now she simply desires to be who she is and accepted, saluted, for that. She understands not that to be a queen, one must always live a lie. Politics are lies. People use politics for lies. Just as I use politics to prevent me from having to face Eowyn and either tell her the truth, or tell her a different lie.

Mithrandir told me when I last saw him that my father loved me, and that he would remember it ere the end. I wonder sometimes if he ever did. My heart says aye, but it also pleads that case. I have no certainty about the issue. I do not even understand completely what happened when my father tried to kill me. Was it love that drove him? Or was it hate and disgust?

Eowyn. What drives the actions she makes? Is it possible that she truly does love me? If it is, does she know it, and will she admit it to herself? I know that if she did feel something for me, and she recognized it, she would have told me, Eowyn is a very straightforward person, but does she recognize it? Does she have it?

She is straightforward, so unlike me. I love riddles, poems, deep ponderings on questions to which there are no answers. I love the sorts of things that could drive Eowyn mad. What is it that I see in her? She is so different from me, is she not?

No, she isn't. She knows what I have gone through. She understands, though she may not be willing to admit it, everything I think. I could learn to love what she loves, and I think, I think, she could learn to love what I love. She and I are akin in more ways than can be explained. It is difficult to explain the bonds two humans share. They are so delicate, so intricate. One might think that the strings running between two people would snap under the weight of being explained. She and I both know that. That is why neither of us has gathered the courage to examine our relationship very closely. We are afraid that everything that we have come to appreciate from the other will dissolve and we will be left alone.

I must know though. I must examine her and discover what her feelings for me are. I shall. I will go to her.

And I did. I went to her, and we walked. It was just like it used to be. But duty called again, and I had to leave her. She seemed paler than I had remembered. She was paler, but more beautiful than I remembered. I long to hear this bird sing in the wild. She is the most amazing person I have ever imagined.

But I learned nothing, throughout the entire time we spent together, of her feelings. I know not if I lost my courage and did not examine her closely enough, or if there is nothing to examine. But I did learn one thing. Nay, I already knew this. I rediscovered something. I have given my heart to her, and I cannot reclaim it. Not now, not ever. And there was something else I learned: if I discovered that she would never love me, and she would marry another instead; if I could take my heart back from her and give it to whomever I pleased, I would still give it back to her. No matter the pain it would cause me, she is the only woman I can ever love.

Whatever her feelings for me, I do know that she is still under the delusion that she is in love with Aragorn, or, perhaps not a delusion. Perhaps I am under a delusion that she does not. Aye, I certainly harbor that delusion, but whether or not it is true is yet to be seen.

Weeks have passed, and I have not seen Eowyn once except from afar. I miss her, and I believe I shall break down soon. I don't know which is the best course of self-ruin: to let myself waste away while I dream of Eowyn loving me, or to declare my feelings to her and have her reject me. It seems that those are my options. But yet I feel sure that she could love me. I believe that she does not love Aragorn because of who he is, thus she only has to open her heart to see whom she does love for who he is. Perhaps that man will still be the king. But I believe that I have a possible place in that question. She could choose me.

I know not how to act upon my feelings. I half hope that they will fade over time, but I know they will not. Even if Eowyn were the happiest person on the planet, I would yet love her.

More time has gone by, and the warden has come to visit me. The first question I ask is "how be Eowyn?" I hold my breath, but he does not reply. My hopes are shattered. Something has happened to my be-loved. My soul is crying out for her. I feel as though the floor has been pulled out from under me, like when a naughty little child pulls the rug away while his nurse walks on it. Which, indeed it has. I have collapsed into a chair without realizing it, and without caring. A thudding starts up in my brain, and it won't stop. A racket who's only use is to prevent me from focusing.

"She is ill, milord, an illness has taken her body as it had ere you walked with her in the gardens of the Houses. I believe that your presence shall revive her."

My brain begins to work again. I understand. She loves me. I know it now. I see her face in my mind's eye and I know that she loves me. I reach her, and I see her in reality, an amazing contrast to the simple image my mind could conjure up, and I know, I know with all my heart, something that is beyond her comprehension. It is beyond her comprehension now, but not for long, soon she shall know. I love her, and I always have, and I always will. Beyond that, she loves me, and she always has, and she always will.

And he took her in his arms and kissed her under the sunlit sky…