A/N: Well, this has been a while coming. I'm sorry, but I did warn that it might. School's starting again, but on top of the workload and sleep problems I was already expecting, my best friend lost someone close to her. I've been a bit of a shoulder to cry on for her, and I knew the person too, not as well as her, but enough to hurt. Anyway, she asked me to write a story for her, which I've been working on very hard. I won't post it until this one's done or I've finished the other, because I don't want two stories at the same time unless they're complete. I hope you do understand that it's very important to her and I want to work hard on it, though I'd never abandon this one.

My selfish (yep, I'm calling you selfish and I'm not afraid to say it) other friend told me to do something stupid. She gave me a challenge to put Sue like characters into a serious story. So I wrote the chapter, and as I was re reading it this morning I decided it was far too nauseating for even the author. So I wrote two: this one (which completely ignores the challenge) and one I emailed to her. Nothing whatsoever happened, they were just in the background being stupid and annoying, to be featured in about seven paragraphs, then immediately discarded. So nothing happening – everyone blame Shannon for me ALMOST making you sick.

Once again, thanks heaps to all the wonderful reviews and to Peregrin Ionad who bata-ed this story, and whose birthday it was last update, but I was too stupid to change the author notes to say it, because I found out after I wrote it. So everyone say happy birthday!

And, finally, on with the story.

X X X X

"Put me down!"

"No."

"I'm the prince of Mirkwood, and I order you to put me down!"

"I'm heir to Isildur, and I say no."

"Mirkwood's closer than Gondor."

"Well, I'm also chief of the Dunedain, who live just about anywhere. Anywhere includes here."

Legolas added a fist pounding on the ranger's chest to his struggles. Aragorn ignored him and walked on, as he had been doing for around half an hour now. Where in Arda was the town? He couldn't remember how long it had taken them to travel here on horseback; the incidents that had happened inside the forest had driven that from his mind. He hoped it wasn't much longer. Elladan and Elrohir would laugh their heads off if they heard him, a ranger, whining about being forced to walk for only half an hour. But carrying Legolas was another matter. The elf was making it his mission to turn Aragorn into a walking mass of bruises by the end of the day.

Legolas changed his tactic suddenly and smashed his fist onto the wound on Aragorn's arm. The man yelped involuntarily and felt his arm go numb. He dropped Legolas, hard, upon the ground and clutched his upper arm.

Legolas landed with a grunt of pain and reflexively curled in on himself. He opened his eyes and saw Aragorn grimacing in pain, still holding his arm.

"Estel, I'm sorry!" he said.

Aragorn glared at him, but his gaze softened as Legolas tried and failed to push himself up. He leaned down and pulled the elf to his feet, pulling his arm over his own shoulders. "Will you cooperate now?" he asked.

Legolas said nothing, which Aragorn knew meant assent. They started walking again, heading slowly toward the village where all their problems had begun.

X X X X

It was night. The velvety black sky stretched on forever up above, interrupted by only the stars. The moon was not shining this night, and it was hard to see anything down on the ground.

But small shadows still danced in places, and it was on the largest one that Rancular was focusing.

It was about the height of a reasonably tall man, and twice as broad. It lurched occasionally in any direction. Rancular wondered if this was one of the liars that had been devouring the elves, come at last to the town. Quietly, he left his window, collected his sword and opened his front door.

He slipped discreetly between buildings, just another shadow amongst many. Two horses standing in a field seemed the only ones to notice his passing, and neither made a sound.

He made his way past the outermost house, though still keeping within a good distance of it, should things go ill. He drew his sword, and the scraping metal must have alerted the homeowner above, for a candle appeared in the window. Rancular ignored it. He kept his attention focused on the thing approaching slowly.

Suddenly, the candlelight caught on the thing approaching, and Rancular gasped as he realized what it was. It was those two travellers, who had been stupid enough to go into the forest days ago. They had, against all odds, returned.

But not in good shape. One or both of them was badly hurt, making them lurch occasionally they walked. They were leaning on each other, and because of the almost non-existent light, he couldn't tell which.

The candlelight disappeared and Rancular sheathed his sword. He trusted those two, and even if he didn't, they were in no shape to be putting up much of a fight. He began walking out to meet them.

"Who is it?" Aragorn called reasonably loudly as he spotted a dim figure walking towards them. He hoped desperately that they were friendly; he was exhausted and in no shape to defend himself for an extended period of time.

When no answer came from the shadow, Aragorn squeezed the arm draped over his neck to get Legolas' attention. "Can you see him?" he muttered in the elf's ear.

Legolas' head lifted slowly as he focused on the shadow before he shook it and let it drop down again. Aragorn's heart screamed in empathy for his friend. If he was exhausted, he couldn't imagine what Legolas might be feeling. He had no idea how long they had been travelling, but he had not stopped once to check his wound. He cursed himself now – what if it had reopened or had become infected? – But he had simply not thought of it, so focused was he upon his goal.

"Who is it?" he asked again, a note of trepidation creeping into his voice.

"It is I," said a voice.

Aragorn puzzled over the answer for a second before connecting the voice to a face. "Rancular?"

"It is I," he said again.

Aragorn grew irritated. "Why didn't you answer me before?" he hissed as the other man reached them.

"My hearing is not what it once was," he said. "Too much time spent listening to trees moan."

Aragorn looked up sharply. "What?"

Rancular ignored him. "This one's been through the mill, hasn't he?" he said, looking at Legolas. "We have healers here… I think… we did ten years ago, at any rate, can't remember if they moved out or died or… Not terribly good ones, mind…"

Aragorn couldn't help but wonder whether Rancular was acting like a senile old man for his benefit or whether he was actually (instead of 'just') crazy. He kept his gaze on the rambling man, alert for any evidence to either argument, as he followed him back into the town.

X X X X

Rancular had been right about one thing concerning the town's healers: they were not very good. Aragorn walked into the room, half-dragging Legolas with him, and the two girls, who couldn't have been older than fourteen or fifteen, immediately began to try and help. He remembered Rancular saying that he'd met the healers ten years ago and tried picturing the two chubby-faced girls fighting over a cloth doll. Maybe the man truly had gone insane.

"Serra!" said one. "Get water. I'll see what's wrong with them."

See what's wrong with them, Aragorn thought grumpily. It was obvious what was wrong with them. He had always been rather sceptical of anyone attempting to treat his best friend, particularly when he was this badly injured.

The girl who had been sent to get water – Serra, wasn't it? – looked up from her task of pouring water into a bowl in the corner. "Oh," she said softly. "Is that BLOOD?"

Aragorn looked at his injured arm and saw no more blood than had been there previously. He was relieved for a moment, until he helped Legolas into one of the three beds occupying the room and saw what Serra had really been looking at.

The wound had reopened; the front of the elf's tunic was drenched in blood.

The other girl, still hovering over the pair, gave a small squeak. "How on earth did that happen?"

Aragorn ignored her; he was already pulling off the bandage he had wrapped around Legolas' abdomen earlier. "Where's that water?"

Serra came over slowly. It seemed like she was afraid of blood; she was pale and her breathing was just a little too fast. She stood next to the other girl, who held her hand. "We don't have any experience treating major wounds," she said apologetically, "let alone elves. We usually only treat sick children, or care for men who have spent a little too long in the tavern."

Aragorn sighed. Legolas had finally lost the battle with blood loss and had succumbed to unconsciousness. Aragorn had to take care of all his medical needs, but he was close to exhaustion himself.

He sighed in resignation and got to work.

A/N: I'm almost fainting from exhaustion now myself (that's what it's like having insomnia and anaemia badly together) so I'll make this quick. About half hasn't been beta-ed because I didn't have the heart to send it off twice. So sorry for any mistakes.

Tired. Bed now. Please review!