Timeline: Iavas, Second Age 2510.
Universe: AU
Chapter Rating: K
Pairings: past Elrond/ Celebrían, past Elrond/Gil-galad implied, kind of?

Welcome to the shiny, much-changed, much-improved version! Hopefully this will be the last major overhaul. (Famous last words!)
For now, the old version is still uploaded on here. If you're interested, you can find it on my profile.

All recognisable characters belong to Tolkien Enterprises, New Line Cinema and the Saul Zaentz Company.

Mithlond

The Hall of Kings was silent. A cold breeze swept through the grey stone corridor, threatening to extinguish the torch that Círdan held. The shipwright had woken from an unsettling dream that he did not remember and something had compelled him to come here. That same something told him to keep walking, foot in front of foot on the cold stone ground. Círdan avoided coming here as much as possible, and the only reason he stayed and gave into whatever it was that was propelling him along was that he felt that he was here for a reason. There was something that he needed to see. He was barefoot, and the torch he carried did little to dispel the pre-dawn gloom. He was alone, as he ever was in life, with none but his wolfhound Tirith for company. The dog padded along next to him, footfalls as silent as the shipwright's own.

Círdan recognised the section of the Hall that he was in and tried to stop walking, unwilling to go further; but his feet had other plans and slowly took him closer to his destination. A casket a few feet ahead of the elf was glowing slightly, surrounded by a faint blue aura. He knew it well, it was one of the few glass-topped caskets in this Hall, and was where they had laid High King Gil-Galad to rest.

Círdan's heart stopped as he drew closer and he realised why he had been called to this place.

The coffin was empty.

Imladris

The sun shone brightly in the clear blue sky, warming Imladris as the last of her inhabitants woke up. Despite the bright morning, and the fact that all of the curtains were open, the bedroom of the Lord of Imladris was dark and filled with a sense of impenetrable melancholy.

Glorfindel - who had appointed himself as Elrond's Protector Against Bad Dreams and worked from the west-facing window seat - looked towards the bed where the Lord of Imladris still slept. He was rarely out of bed before noon, and never in it before midnight. When he wasn't sleeping, he was working.

Being unable to fade due to his human ancestry, the half-elf saw that throwing himself into this blisteringly intense work schedule was the only way to forget the pain of Celebrían's departure, and the disappointment in himself that he felt at his failure to restore her to perfect health. He thought that working all night and sleeping all day was the only way to stop his pain and disappointment from consuming him, as Celebrían's pain had consumed her.

But Glorfindel could see what was really happening. Elrond was just running from his problems, too afraid of being hurt yet again to slow down and let them break over him and drain away like a wave, and he would never find peace until he did.

The Elda rested his head against the window, suddenly exhausted. When Gil-galad had died at the end of the War of the Ring, the King's place in Elrond's heart had slowly but surely been filled with Celebrían's friendship, and eventually, her love. But now she was gone as well, leaving a hole twice as big as the one she had healed; and so the list of people that Elrond had lost grew ever longer. It had gone far beyond coincidence now: Glorfindel could not help but think that this was some sort of conspiracy.

The silence of the room was broken when Glorfindel's stomach rumbled and he realised how long he'd been sitting there. Glorfindel stood up, stretching his cramped muscles, and looked towards the bed once more before sighing and reluctantly leaving his Lord's chambers to go in search of lunch.

What Elrond needed now, Glorfindel mused as he walked along, was someone to lean on for emotional support - someone who knew him even better than Erestor or Glorfindel himself did. Someone less like a brother and more like a... what? A soulmate? A twin? Both of those options were out of the question, and Glorfindel was at his wit's end.

He's going to kill himself, Glorfindel thought desperately. Soon he's just going to burn out and Erestor and I will have no hope of saving him. Not that we have much of a chance now. Please help us. I don't know how; just please, someone, help us.

Valinor

Námo smiled knowingly to himself as he looked down on Imladris and heard Glorfindel's plea. Unbeknownst to the warrior, the situation had already been addressed. This was something he had wanted to do for a long time, but the time had not been right. Until now.

Námo's wife Vairë walked slowly up behind him and slipped an arm around his waist, resting her head against his shoulder. She regarded the enchanted mirror in front of him, and the two pictures it held, transcending space and time: on the right, the Lord of Imladris slept fitfully, alone in his bed in the mid-morning hours; on the left, a different dark-haired elf was peacefully asleep on a beach at sunset. Vairë smiled. It would make a good tapestry. Speaking of which...

"It is about time I had something joyful to put in my tapestries. I tire of weaving tragic scenes all the time."

Námo turned his head and kissed her temple. "From now on, you will have many joyful scenes to depict."

They turned back to the mirror and watched as both elves stirred, about to wake up and unknowingly begin a day that would change the course of their lives.

Imladris

In his dreams Elrond wandered far and wide, not bothered by hunger or weariness or pain. He was in a strange place where all the edges were blurred; there were white skies, and green grass, and black shadows that Elrond assumed were trees, but he could discern nothing else. He had no conscious idea of where he was going, but still he knew where to go, following an almost-invisible path which eventually led him to a place with no trees and no grass. The ground here was golden, the sky was blue, and he could vaguely hear the crash of waves and the calling of seagulls. There was a figure ahead, but the blurred edges made the person seem insubstantial. Whoever it was turned around, and though they did not have a face - just a swirl of blurred features - Elrond felt a jolt of recognition. He had no idea who it was, but he knew that he knew them, and that this place where they stood was special: many memories had taken place here. The other person seemed to be smiling.

Elrond tried to take a step towards his unrecognisable companion, but his legs were glued in place. He frowned, and his companion's smile dropped, along with the ground. Elrond felt himself falling, and heard a whisper in his ear, the whisper of a voice long-unheard.

I'll see you soon.

Who are you? he tried to ask, but he had no voice.

Elrond continued to fall, and with a jolt he awoke, drenched in cold sweat and breathing heavily. His mind went into overdrive as he tried to put a face to the voice, tried to place where he knew that person from, but the canvas of his brain was a giant blank. Getting his breathing under control, he passed a hand over his face and threw the covers back. He had half expected Glorfindel to be in the room, as he usually was when the half-elf woke up; but the Elda was not present and Elrond was grateful for that. Glorfindel would only ask him how he was, and Elrond could not deal with questions like that.

He grabbed some clothes for the day and headed into the bathroom to shower. The sooner he started this day, the sooner it would be over.

Mithlond, later that day

Círdan walked slowly along the beach at dusk, his thoughts preoccupied, as they had been all day, with the events of that morning. The coffin had not been damaged. The glass was untouched - and completely unbreakable, at any rate - and the clasps had not shown any signs of forced entry. Ereinion's body was simply gone.

"Who would steal his body anyway?" Círdan asked Tirith as the dog came lolloping back to him and deposited a stick at his feet. The wolfhound cocked his head and offered no answer.

"It's not as if anyone can ransom it," the shipwright continued, scratching behind Tirith's ears. "Why would anyone want to? And the only way the Hall of Kings can be accessed is by a door that needs a password. The only other people except us who know that password are Elrond, Galadriel, Celeborn and Mithrandir, and none of them are here, or have any reason to take it. Do you have any ideas?"

Tirith flicked his tail back and forth and panted.

"No? Hmm. Still a mystery then," Círdan said with a sigh. He picked up the stick and straightened up, groaning when his joints protested. He tossed the stick forward just as the breeze changed direction. Tirith had turned and was ready to go after the stick when he caught whiff of a new scent, and all of a sudden his ears pricked up and he tore off down the beach, barking loudly, the stick forgotten.

"Tirith! Come back here!" Círdan called. Tirith paid him no heed and shipwright had no other option but to hurry after his dog and wonder what in the name of Ulmo had gotten into him.

Ereinion Gil-Galad awoke to the bright light of the setting sun shining directly onto his closed eyelids. A weird cold feeling swept over him, from his feet up to his waist, and it took him a second to realise that he was lying on a beach with waves breaking over his legs.

His first thought was, How much did I drink last night?

Swiftly followed by, How did I end up on the beach?

After a moment he remembered that it had been a long time since he had had a corporeal body, and even longer since he had imbibed any kind of alcohol.

Then how-? What-?

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a dog barking, and he opened his eyes with some difficulty, squinting against the bright sunlight as he looked in the direction of the sound. He struggled to elbow himself into a sitting position, unused to the weight of a real, flesh-and-blood body, and had barely achieved it when the dog skidded to a stop next to him and started enthusiastically licking his face.

"It's not that I don't appreciate such a warm welcome, my friend," Ereinion joked between licks with a voice gravelly from disuse. He managed to push the dog away long enough to sit up properly and added, "But I think we should wait till we know each other a little better before we-"

He had been going to say 'take our relationship to that level', but broke off when his eyes adjusted to the light and he recognised the pale brown wolfhound that had been giving him an impromptu facewash.

"Tirith?" he breathed.

The wolfhound barked once in acquiescence, his tail wagging madly.

Ereinion's mouth fell open, and he looked around at his surroundings, barely believing it. But yes, this beach was familiar, and he recognised it with more than a tinge of nostalgia. Over there was the ornate jetty, and beyond that he could glimpse the masts of the ships docked in the quay. He turned to the other side and saw the magnificent towers of the Grey Havens, built all the way up the slope to the headland upon which Círdan's house proudly stood.

But wait...this could not be happening, not yet. Námo had told him that the matter of his rebirth would be discussed with the other Valar, and he would be informed of their decision when it was made. But he had not been told of any decision. In fact, he had not seen hide nor hair of any of the Valar since he had demanded that Námo send him back. Thinking he had made a mistake, Ereinion wracked his memories of the last week, thinking that perhaps he had been told, but had forgotten. He discarded that thought straightaway. He would not forget being told something as important as that.

This all seemed to have happened too fast; he had been under the impression that it took years to be reborn - surrogate parents had to be found, and then the person returned had to go through a second childhood and reach maturity to regain the memories of their first life. That is how it had happened with Glorfindel. And yet here he was, fully grown, with all of his memories, as far as he could tell. It was as if his life had picked up straight from where it had stopped. Ereinion passed a hand over his face, overwhelmed.

Tirith suddenly moved a few paces away, and Ereinion looked up, his gaze following the wolfhound to alight on the form of one very surprised shipwright.

A few notes about my headcanon:

I believe that elven pets are, for the most part, immortal like their owners. Otherwise what's the point of an elf keeping a pet? The life of a normal domesticated dog or cat would be like the blink of an eye to an elf.

There's also a very in-depth thing about Ereinion's body and why the first portion of this chapter is necessary, but I won't get into it here. It's too long and it will be explained more in the third chapter.