Aragorn Wolf Estel, stood in the doorway of the bedroom currently occupied by the little one that he had found and brought home with him. The girl had been carefully stripped of her dirty dress and then washed and bathed from head to foot. After which both he and Merry had taken some time to check and tend to her her wounds.

After which she had been put to bed and was now resting rather comfortably in the large queen sized bed with the soft cotton sheets and the embroidered floral quilt that had been given to him one year for Christmas by an elderly employee of his.

After which he and Merry had exited the bedroom so that she could sleep without the possibility of them accidentally waking her.

Merry was currently downstairs calling the others as well as checking any local police stations for any missing children's reports. However Aragorn knew that he wasn't going to find anything as far as the police were concerned.

Given the shape that the girl had been found in as well as her location it was safe to say that either her family didn't care what happened to her or they were the ones that had hurt her and dumped her in the building and left her to slowly die. Either from infection or something else.

He couldn't exactly say.

A majority of her injuries were no where near life threatening, however the wound that he had found on the back of her head when he had come home and was removing her from his car was another matter entirely.

Merry had looked at it and had managed to awaken the girl at least twice while tending to her injuries and then told him that it was possible that she may have a concussion or something and would need to be watched carefully for the next few days.

If at any time he couldn't awaken her- she would need to be taken to the nearest hospital.

Pushing away from the door frame, Aragorn turned and quietly walked back towards the stairs where he found Merry in a little bit of a snit before he hung up the phone. "Any luck?" Aragorn asked curiously as he walked down the steps as his friend turned to look at him.

"No. There's been no reported kidnappings, no amber alerts, no missing children or runaway's reported to the local authorities."

"Then it's safe to assume that it was her family or at least someone within it that hurt her."

"Even so- one would think that someone would have noticed her gone especially given how late it is. It's unnatural for a child to stay out till almost two in the morning." Merry said as he gnashed his teeth in frustration.

Aragorn could understand how he felt.

He didn't particularly like people who harmed children either. Nor did he care much for unfit parents.

And after the days of middle earth- the different kinds of abuse that a child tended to suffer from was...well beyond imagining. Back in their time, children mostly had to deal with beatings, maybe a little starvation or a maiming. Which back then was basically the equivalent of a decent grounding.

But since then parents had gotten creative with their various punishments.

Now, children rarely did anything to warrant such treatment. It was like their very existence seemed to offend on some basic level that provoked attack. It was sheer foolishness to be given a gift like the little one sleeping upstairs and to destroy it because of something so ridiculously petty.

"I understand how you feel, but...we need to find her family," He said evenly, though his beast was growling in warning not to do so. "And if they are responsible for her current state, we need to turn them in to the proper authorities."

Merry made a noncommittal sound under his breath as he ran his fingers through his curly hair as he muttered, "I know. I know."

"Did you manage to contact Legolas and the others?"

"Yeah. Legolas is dealing with something at the office-" Merry said as he slowly turned his head to look at Aragorn. "He said something about a headless body in the boardroom. I wonder what that was about, hn." Aragorn had the decency to look away from him as a slight blush worked it's way up his neck to his ears as he tried to recall if he had killed anyone before leaving.

He didn't remember killing anyone. So maybe...

"Aragorn." Merry said in a growling tone, earning a slight look from him.

"What? I didn't kill anyone," This time, hung unsaid between himself and Merry as the halfling continued to stare him down until he snapped, "Merry if you don't stop looking at me like that I'm going to bite you. And I don't mean a little nip either, I mean full on fangs, tearing into your arm. Now did you manage to get ahold of Frodo and Sam? Gimli and Peregrin?"

"Yeah. Not going to lie to you, bright and early tomorrow everyone will be coming over to see the little one so that we can have a meeting about what to do."

"Hn."

"You know that everyone will try and keep her with us."

"I haven't the time to raise a child, Merry. Besides, do you really think I would be the best person to do so? I eat people on nights when the moon is full. That is hardly the kind of father figure that any child- let alone that one- needs!" Aragorn said, trying to talk some sense into his companion.

But Merry just gave him this weird disappointed look before snapping back at him, "And the Aragorn I once knew would not let an abused child like the one you found leave his sight without knowing that she had a proper home, family and care first! What the hell happened to him, huh? I'd really like to speak to him right now."

Aragorn flinched ever so slightly as he looked down at his longtime friend. His neon blue eyes reflecting his hurt, even if his expression didn't. Despite all of the hundreds upon hundreds of years that he had lived as he was now- he was still technically the same man he had been back in the days of the fellowship.

He was a lot older, perhaps a bit more cynical and jaded. But what could he do? Turning into a different breed or 'person' had changed a lot about him. Like the transition from simply eating animals and vegetables to eating people- that had been disgustingly easy for him to do.

"That's a low blow Merry. I'm not trying to be a bastard about this, I want the girl to have a nice home and family just as much as you do- but we cannot keep her. Doing so would only expose us to the world for what we are. And there is also a chance that I may slip up during the full moon. Do you really want that on your conscience? For me to shift and accidentally bite and change her, injure her or even kill her?"

"Look, all I'm saying is that she needs us and unlike you I'm not willing to turn my back on her for that."

"Merry- I can understand why you wish us to keep her. But may I again stress the fact, that I eat people!"

Merry blew him a raspberry before saying, "Bullshit. You've only eaten a handful of people in the past two thousand and eighty years. And a majority of them weren't even truly eaten. You just killed them, maimed their corpses really badly and then dragged them into Sam's yard and buried them in his late wife's prized winning rose garden. Besides, you've only really resorted to actually eating a person that you've killed three times in the last two hundred and eighteen years."

"It still isn't an ideal life to introduce a child to."

"Then let one of us take her. Legolas has been wanting to experience the ups and downs of father hood. And Sam misses having a little one running around. Frodo would like having someone too. Hell even myself and Peregrin-"

"I'm not handing an innocent human child over to Peregrin for even a day. Don't get me wrong- I love the guy like my own flesh and blood, but that shit just isn't happening. He's good with Gimli's flock of hellions, but that's only because they are far more sturdy than the average human. He can toss them around, wound them by dropping them on their heads all he wishes and it won't do much harm. Can you honestly say the same for the child upstairs?"

Merry glared at him for a second, displeased by the fact that he was right. So instead he decided to change the topic for the time being and simply asked him if he was hungry. Aragorn perked up immediately and scrubbed his face with his hands as he whined, "Oh my god- I'm so hungry. If not for the fact that we were nowhere near any cattle farms right now I'd be feasting on a herd or two."

Merry scrunched up his nose a little bit and chuckled before saying as he led his king into his kitchen, "Ew. Too much information. Come on then, I'll fix something for you to eat before you go off to thin some herds."