All right, yes, this ridiculously soon and short after my first posting. Looking back, I should have made this and chapter 1 all into one chapter. But then I thought if all the chapters are shorter, I can write them sooner and post more often. So you'll be reading the same amount, but thinking it's more. Huh? To quote Joey from Friends (tapping my head thoughtfully) , "Not just a hat-rack, my friends."
I hope it's not too sappy, but hey, they are still love birds. I'm also trying to set up the scene - I usually take a few pages or chapters in my other stories to show you where everyone is and what they're thinking.
Disclaimer : Don't own, make money, or have any special connections.
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Eowyn stared out at the fields that were quickly turning from yellowish green to a lush, deep green that rippled with the light wind under a blue sky specked with white clouds. She could rest for today. All the patients were napping for the afternoon, well into their healing thanks to good food, peaceful sleep, and her special healing medications. She was needed here, administering new health to the sick. But still –
"Ah," a male spoke from her side, "what thoughts can my love be thinking to draw such a frown on her otherwise very pretty face?"
Eowyn smiled in spite of herself. "I can think good thoughts, but look serious at the same time."
Faramir drew near, watching her face carefully. "Yes, of course, but I have seen that frown many times in the last months. You are not happy."
"No, no!" she protested, turning towards him. He was so handsome with those gentle blue eyes and that soft mane of golden red hair – so terribly, wonderfully handsome. "I will always be happy with you. Never question that. Never, ever. I am yours now and forever."
"But?" he prodded.
She could not hide anything from him. "It is just different than I thought it would be," she looked back at the fields. From their stone castle, high on one of the hills, they could see for miles past the river.
"Different?" he would not let the problem go.
"After the war, and after meeting you, I was sure I would be happy healing and living very quietly."
"But you are not?" Faramir wished she would look at him. "You are dissatisfied here? You long for the excitement of the battle? You are going to leave here to join the army, to put on your armor, and reclaim your right to ride in the ranks?"
She laughed, that beautiful musical laugh of hers which made his heart beat a little faster with love for her. "No, that battle was enough. I guess I'm suffering from the quiet that comes after a storm. I know you dislike the storm, but a part of me longs for the lightning and thunder and wild rain to continue forever. It is passion and anger and beauty and love and hatred all in one raging storm, and I watch it and feel at peace because it is bigger and greater than I will every be."
Faramir looked at her and then muttered, "Strider was a fool."
"What?" she glanced up. She rarely talked about Aragorn, and Faramir hardly ever brought him up.
"He was a fool," Faramir said emphatically. "He could have had you, and who does he settle for? A simpering, weeping woman who lies upon a sofa, moaning for weeks on end."
"Faramir!" Eowyn scolded. "That is no proper way to talk about Queen Arwen. I'm sure the war was very hard for her, and she had to chose between her people and her love, and that –"
"Is in no way the same as picking up a sword and riding into battle," her husband decided. "In my eyes, you will always be the one who won the battle, killing the King of the Ring-Wraiths. While our dear queen was still crying and even I was lying on a stack of wood about to be burnt, you were in the middle of the war, ready to die for your people. I don't know how you did it – such a fair beautiful woman –"
"I protest!" she whirled to glare at him, pursing her lips to keep from smiling. "I have an abundance of strength and fight in me."
"For a woman," he agreed.
She let her eyes flash. "Are you daring to suggest that women are not as strong as men?"
"I am only thinking that I have carried you to bed many a time, snuggled in my arms, your hands around my neck, and you have never offered to do the same for me."
"You big oaf," she retorted affectionately. "I shall refuse to be carried next time, no matter how much I enjoy kisses in your arms."
He began smile, but then schooled his features. "Ah, no, my love, you shan't distract me from my earlier question. Are you unhappy?"
She smirked mischievously. "Let's say that I am. What would you do to make me happy?"
"I don't know," he watched her warily. "Is this something like a new dress or something like all my riches?"
"You have no riches," Eowyn sassed.
"Exactly," Faramir agreed sadly. "They are all your riches, spoils from the war and gifts from the royalty of Middle Earth. And presents from those you've healed. Your brother was kind enough to let me govern a small bit of land here, but it does not reap a hundredth of your riches. Yet I like to think it's mine, and until now, you've indulged me."
"It has nothing to do with riches or earnings," she told him, noting for the thousandth time how attractive he looked when he pretended to be worried about money or power. "I have invited two friends for the summer."
"From the way you are edging about this," he commented, "I am left to assume that your friends are either two-toed trolls or other people whom I will not like."
"It's Merry and Pippin," she said frankly.
Faramir blinked. "The two halflings, companions to the other two with the Ring?"
"Yes."
Suddenly, Faramir looked very worried. "Is Merry ill? I know he was hurt in the battle – has he worsened? The Ring nearly killed Frodo. Are the halflings coming here to heal? I will sent a troop to bring them here directly so you may heal them immediately without wasting a single day."
"No, not that. They are perfectly fine, but I would like to have some company for the summer."
"Are you lonely?"
"A little," she confessed.
Faramir blinked before stepping closer to his wife. "You should have told me. I have been spending far too much time riding to oversee the planting. When you are not healing, you spend your days listening to and settling disputes between the people. I will stay at home more, and you can tell all the people whining to you to take a jump in the river."
She laughed again. "No, I love you and I love the people here, but I miss my brother and everyone back in Rohan. I was very close to the hobbits, and I would like to see them again, that is all. And of course, there is –" she gestured to herself.
"What?" Faramir was confused.
"I thought I would be with child by now," she blinked quickly, refusing to tear up.
"Oh, dearest," Faramir reached for her, wrapping two strong arms around her and pulling her up a little to stand on her tiptoes and lean against his chest. "You should not worry about that."
"We've been married ten months," she whispered into his shoulder. "And we've bedded together for fourteen months –"
"Sshhhh!" he hissed, glancing around furtively. "No one's supposed to know about that."
She giggled quietly, still clinging to him.
Assured that no one had heard something to suggest that their engagement was anything other than chaste, Faramir continued to comfort her. He kept one hand around her back, holding her tight and ran his hand over her long blond hair. Already, he wanted to swoop her up in both arms and carry her to bed. If only he could carry away her troubles as easily.
"All right," she sniffed and pulled back, returning to the strong noblewoman he knew, the warrior, the fighter, the woman who could stare death in the face and not step back. "Enough of my crying. Look at me – I am turning into Arwen as we speak. So, yes to Merry and Pippin?"
Faramir laughed this time, his mouth turning up at the corners just the way she liked it. "Do you not amuse me! Yes, may I have company?' As if this were not your home, designed for you to be the healer. I simply came along to be with you, relieved of my previous duties as son of the steward or anything important. And here you are asking when I know perfectly well that you have not only invited them, but they have already agreed to come, and you suddenly wanted to act like the dutiful wife. I suppose if I said no, you would carry on until I said yes."
"You know me too well," she admitted.
"Are you afraid that two halflings will cause such an uproar?" he questioned. "They are so small, the size of children."
"But you only saw them for short bits," Eowyn reminded him. "And mainly Frodo and Sam. You have not seen the full forces of Merry and Pippin, not yet."
"Pippin served my father," Faramir remembered, a frown creasing his forehead.
"Aye, but feelings were running high, everyone was scared, and Pippin was so worried that he did not have time to get into mischief. You know he did try to steal from Gandalf one night, nearly got himself and the rest of us killed."
Faramir stared at her. "A halfling tried to steal from Gandalf? Our Gandalf? It's a wonder the halfling is still in one piece."
"I promise you," Eowyn assured him, "you let them come, and neither of us will be bored or lonely this summer."
He nodded, still uncertain. "Well, I see no reason why they shouldn't come. We haven't had company for a while. I am certain you will treat them right, so well in fact that I will not see you at all this summer, and you shall find me a very sad man come autumn."
She laughed, the bloom back in her cheeks. "Never, my lord."
Of course, she could tell him about the other visitors that were coming, but that would ruin the surprise. No need for her husband to know everything – she would have to keep him in the dark until they arrived.
"Now," Eowyn drew herself up, straightening the folds of her dark blue dress, "I must see to a late afternoon hearing. Some poor widow has lost her last hen, and I shall have to find the guilty party that stole it."
"Meaning you probably will give her another flock of hens at your own expense."
"You know me very, very well," she nodded.
"Til supper then," he smiled at her and leaned in for a kiss.
She kissed him, her hand rising to caress the side of his face while their lips met. And as always, she was wistful when he had to pull away.
He had taken three steps away from her when he turned back. "These halflings – not to sound cruel, but you aren't thinking of letting them act as your children for the summer?"
"Faramir," Eowyn objected, trying not to look the least bit guilty.
"They may look like children, but they are not," he said, cautioning her.
"I will treat them like any friend of mine, and yours," she added.
He did not quite believe her, but nodded skeptically. "Very well, but if I find you dressing them in baby bibs and bonnets, you and I will have another talk."
That reminder of her barrenness coming from anyone else would have hurt her. But the way Faramir looked, trying to seem stern and commanding but coming off as huffy – it was too endearing.
She ran forward and kissed him again. "I promise, no babying of hobbits. Though I can only suppose at what mischief they will find here. If they get into trouble, you must be the one to admonish them."
"Me?" he looked shocked. "Why me?"
"Because you are head of the household, yes, you are," she insisted when he looked doubtful, "and I will be the one dragged off in their silly games, and we must have one adult about with a level head. Promise me?"
"I promise," he chuckled. "If they find trouble, bad trouble, I'll tip them both over my knee, and send you off to your healing so you can't intervene whilst I punish them. How does that sound?"
She giggled at the idea of Faramir ever doing such a preposterous thing as spanking hobbits. "Quite good. Now, off to the fields with you, and make sure the workers plant that crop of carrots in between the radishes and potatoes, or the rabbits will eat them all."
"So terribly bossy," Faramir muttered as he walked away.
She heard him. "Oh, and dearest?"
"Yes?" he turned back.
"I will be the one carrying you to bed tonight if you like," she raised an eyebrow suggestively.
He reflected as he swung onto his horse that he had the best wife in the entire world with beautiful, passionate, quick-witted Eowyn. She may not have become queen of Gondor, but she was queen of his heart, empress of his world, everything teeming with life and love because of her.
