"You?" Gimli stuttered,staring at Arwen, "and her? How? Why?"

Legolas sighed, "Before the fellowship was formed, Lord Elrond was looking for a suitable husband for his daughter: she had caught more than a couple of men's eyes and he was greatly concerned for her. As I have known her for my whole life – Lord Elrond thought that I was the one for her."

Sam came into the room with a bowl of water, followed by Merry and Pippin who carried some cloths and bandages. They helped the Prince lose his tunic and set to work in making him feel better.

Meanwhile, Gimli was still trying to understand all of this, "Arwen loved Aragorn, even if you wanted to marry her, which I'm guessing you didn't – you can't force someone to marry against their will – it's against the elven laws isn't it?"

Arwen answered this one, "I was willing," everyone froze, dumbstruck by this, but she carried on all the same, "Thranduil had spoken with me, saying that many of his people were dying on patrol because they aren't enough soldiers out there and that if I married Legolas, Mirkwood and Rivendell could form an alliance and help stop the evil overtaking their lands... So I agreed to marry Legolas, even though I loved Aragorn."

Pippin gently dabbed at the bruise on Legolas' forehead, "What about you Legolas? Did you love Arwen?"

"No," he began, "Like Arwen, I too was spoken to about this. Lord Elrond had told me to meet him in his office – alone. He said he had a horrifying vision of what would happen if I didn't marry Arwen. He told me that if I didn't do this – Arwen would die. I didn't know why she would die, all I knew was what I could do save her so I did what I thought was necessary."

Arwen's eyes were filled with unshed tears – it was shocking to know how cruel people could be to save someone they loved. Legolas closed his eyes, "I didn't know of Aragorn's love for Arwen then so when he found out, I nearly lost a good friend."

Gimli tried not to frown, "Well that's unreasonable – if Aragorn had chosen to keep his love a secret, why should he be mad at you for taking something you didn't know was his?"

"He wasn't mad at me – he – he tried to kill himself," Arwen gasped and Legolas quickly regretted his words: he hadn't told her that yet. He motioned for her to come and sit with him, "that's how I learned of his love for you..."

Legolas slowly walked to his friends room, he had just agreed to marry Arwen. How was he going to get used to this new lifestyle? Was he going to live in Rivendell now or is Arwen going to move to Mirkwood? Oh , and how will he be able to kiss her – she was almost his sister, a mother to him as her was growing up. Aragorn would help him, he always had answers to this sort of thing.

When he got to the door, he found it was locked m- but he was certain he could hear someone inside the room... someone crying.

He peered through the keyhole and saw his best friend crying at his desk as he played with the bottle in his hands. There was only one potion he knew that was buttercup yellow and that was a potion that slowed the heart – a potion that was fatal if you took an overdose.

When he saw Aragorn pouring the whole bottle into a cup, he started trying to burst the door open, "Aragorn, open the door! Don't do this!"he cried as the door fell open. Aragorn put some of the potion in his mouth but couldn't seem to swallow it in front of his friend. Legolas took advantage of this and took the cup from him. Holding the cup under his friend's chin he sobbed, "Spit it out Estel. Please spit it out please – I'll do anything, anything. Please!"

The broken man spat out the poison and the two brothers fell to the floor, crying in each others arms...

"He told me he was too heartbroken to go on. He thought Arwen had just left him without telling him why – he didn't know of the burden that my father had placed on her shoulders. I understood then that Arwen would die because she loved him so much that she would give up her immortality for him. When I saw this, I refused to marry Arwen and convinced Arwen that the darkness in Mirkwood would only cut down the numbers of their people too."

At first there was only silence. The fellowship had been together for so long and yet there was so much that they didn't know about each other. They could partially understand Aragorn's behaviour: the King knew that Arwen loved him and not Legolas so he was going to put up a fight this time. After nearly losing her once, he would be more than determined not to lose her again.

Arwen was still sat by Legolas' side, "Who did this to you my friend?"

"Hérion and his friends, they love you Arwen and they haven't got used to the fact that in order to make you happy, they'll have to lose you. They knew killing Aragorn would only kill you so they wanted me to try and marry you because apparently, I am the second closest man to you."

Her people did this to him – her friends. There was that feeling again – people were so cruel when protecting the ones they love... and Aragorn was doing the same thing.

The Queen stood up, determined to set things right.

"Where are you going?" Legolas asked.

"To talk to my husband."

...

A group of the White city guards were sat by the White tree shocked still after seeing their furious and upset King storm past them not even noticing that they were there. He had been a good King to them, not only getting the city built back to it's normal self but he was very social to his workers unlike their previous ruler Denethor.

They knew that he wasn't easily upset – he was a strong man, but a nice man that didn't deserve to be so badly treated . Whoever did this to him was going to pay dearly for what they did.

The group started working through some suggestions of what was wrong with their beloved King when they were interrupted by Hérion, "I know what's wrong with your King," they all listened carefully, "it turns out that Legolas Greenleaf is quite a smooth talker and has managed to bag the Queen Arwen herself. What your King needs is a nice new human woman to cheer him up so if you know anyone, just send them on up to his room ok?"the elf hid his smile as the almost skipped away.

What he didn't know was that the men weren't going to find their King a new woman. Humans don't just sleep around with anyone – they did have life long lasting relationships too like the elves. They were going to get the King his Queen back – which meant cutting Legolas out of the picture.