ALERT: NEWEST CHAPTER HAS FLUFF!!! If angst isn't your thing, feel free to skip to chapter 3.

The sun was rising. A world of soft light and warmth and promise lay outside the window. The gentle rays were spreading up the face of the city, brushing across the buildings and coaxing the flowers in the gardens to open with their gold fingers. The bronze shaft that fell through the window lay like a forlorn pool on the stone floor, like a candle in the darkness that cannot light the farther reaches and is swallowed up by the night. For though it brought light, it could not bring warmth. Not here, in this cold place. It was a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature, or the glow of the morning. A bird trilled outside, and its promise drifted inside: laughter and hope. Just beyond the window.

So close…

The tears rose in her eyes again, blurred her vision. She rose, numbly, from the warm folds of blankets and her steps took her across the cold stone to the light. She stared at it as it reached for her feet, washed over them, the skin awakening at the touch of heat. Her long, deathly white fingers entangled in the thick crimson curtains and in an instant she had pulled them shut, locking herself in shadowy grays. She clung to the soft fabric a moment. The simple movement had been too much. Had meant nothing, meant everything.

She wandered, lost. Her fingers brushed over the objects on the shelves, things that seemed to belong to a life so far from this place, one she could not even call her own anymore. It was empty. This room, it was so empty. Everything in it had a memory she could only remember with pain. And the pain ripped into her heart, poured out of her eyes It was never enough. It seemed that every time the tears came, unleashed like a pent-up torrential rain, they flooded into the deep places of what was beginning to mend, to numb itself, and reopened the wound, leaving it bare to the onslaught.

Her hands trailed down the sides of a carved dresser, fingers tracing the designs without quite knowing it. They found the silver knobs, cold beneath their grasp, and she gave a weak tug, all the strength she could muster, and the drawer slid from its place. The bundles of fabric lay there, folded in neat order, mocking silently the chaos her life had become. She brushed her fingertips along their surfaces, something comforting lighting in her mind. She pulled one out, slowly, an eternity of silent movements made by arms that seemed weighed down by al the world.

The shirt unfolded in her hands, slipping from its orderly state to lay spread open. She fingered the soft, dark gray velvet, drawing along the silver embroidery displaying the symbols of his house. She drew the tunic close, burying her face in it. The familiar scent filled her senses, and she felt the fierce sting of tears gathering in her eyes. The emptiness found her again, gaping wide beneath her unsteady feet and sending her tumbling down into it. She stumbled the five paces it took to make it to her bed and collapsed onto it, curling onto her side and nestling into the soft shirt, nose pressed close to inhale the memories that surrounded her. The past flowed over her as she lay there, the smell triggering the pain all over again.

She held in her hands some part of him, almost alive. As if he was still there. Almost. The tears poured over her cheeks, soaked the fabric pressed against her skin. She trembled as the anguish built, and sobs began to pour out of her ragged lungs as her shoulders shook. She could feel the memories, near tangible in the pain that clouded the line between dream and reality. His arms around her, his deep laugh, the soft caress of his lips, his smile when he looked at her, the way he made her feel she was glorious as the stars, the way he could practically read her mind after their long years together, and how at times they were still such a mystery to each other. The completely simple, utterly complicated way he had become a part of her during their lives, entwining with hers so deeply that she could not survive without him.

Meleth...

My love, come back to me. I need you. The desperation flooded up in her, wild and insatiable. Her dry lips cracked apart and she crammed the velvet into her mouth, catching it between her teeth and releasing the scream that had long been pent up inside, a raw ache that ate away at her heart, smothered by the thick cloth. I was not meant to live without you.

The world around her was unreal, a twisting, blurred nightmare that whipped by, cold and emotionless as the stone walls, drained of life and love. She closed her eyes and let the memories churn to the surface, dulling the pain as she slipped into the dream that was the past, remembering the warmth and joy, the seasons that they had known together. She could nearly feel his embrace, the warmth of his body pressed against hers, and the pain burned like wildfire, devouring everything. How could he be gone?

Don't cry...

His voice. It was almost real, almost there—breath brushing past her ear, a hand on her face, a thumb wiping the trails of tears from her pallid cheeks. Almost. She pressed her face into the tunic, into the bed, filled with his scent, with the familiar smell of him. The comfort of it was a knife, twisting in her gut and choking the breath from her. Taunting memories of a love that could never be whole, never be mended. A gaping emptiness.

Once I scorned…

Such a bitter price—she had not understood, until that moment. She had known it would come, but it was always in the distance, obscure and unreal. Death and an end to life. But until she held her breath listening for him to draw his last, watched those eyes dim in death, had watched the love dull and founder in a sea of nothingness. She had been a child, playing in an innocent dream until that moment.

She had watched herself die in his eyes.

Once I pitied…

The men of Numenor… at last she had understood, in those poignant, agonizing final moments, their desperation and futility. As she drank deeply of the bitter gall, tasted the bile that rose in her throat at the burning, acrid bite of grief, she pitied them. At the last, she understood what drove them to fight, to seek a path that would allow them to remain with those they loved, and not stray into the dark land from which none ever returned.

Death was not so bitter to receive any longer. A sob tore from her lungs, rubbing the back of her swollen throat raw. Drawing her knees closer to her chest, she sunk her nails into the pillow she still clutched with shaking hands. She didn't want to stop crying. Her heart ached, her tears soaked the cotton, but it felt better then the emptiness.

And, for once, the knowledge that she was a mortal was a strange comfort, a cold solace that soothed the burning sense of loss.

Now… I wish for nothing more.

sigh I love their story. So sad and so beautiful.

Hey, I got over two hundred hits on my last one-shot, and not a single review. That's just pathetic, guys. Somebody talk to me, it's sad not to hear anything back.