Chapter 37

A/N Sorry For long delay in updates, I tried for four days in a row to post this ch, and FF NET wouldn't let me. I gave up, and am trying again now. Fingers crossed. And , btw, Merry Christmas everyone! Enjoy!

FINALLY got this problem fixed. Hope you all remember where you're up to!

Carolyn

"Thirsty?" Garad heard Boromir ask.

He realized he was, and the realization brought him the rest of the way awake.

"Here." A strong arm slid beneath his neck, boosting him slowly, steadying him as Boromir's free hand held a cup to Garad's chapped lips.

He swallowed, blinked gluey eyelids, and Boromir's face slowly swam into focus.

"My turn to watch over the chicks," Boromir told him with a wry smile.

"…Where's…?"

"Your usual keepers? Faramir is with Damrod, preparing the barges for our ambush. Elena is with Liel, preparing for Her Grace to return to Osgiliath with our escort."

"She's leaving…?"

"Liel is. She will be needed in the City. Elena will stay here, until you and Beregond are well enough to travel home by boat."

Garad took another swallow then moved his head away from the cup. He felt vastly relieved that Elena was staying with him, yet at the same time he would have given half the years allotted to his life to be able to rise and go join his Captain and Sergeant in preparing to carry the war to their enemy.

"Had enough?"

Garad nodded, and Boromir eased his head back onto the pillow.

"Glad you could make the party, Sunshine," he ground out, giving Boromir his best attempt at a grin.

"You should try to drink some more. You lost a lot of blood before Liel could get you stitched and squared away, and you were long fevered."

"How did you get Her Grace here so fast?" Garad asked, waving off the water

"She got herself here." Boromir shrugged, putting the cup back on the table. Turning back to the bed, he looked down at Garad's leg.

It was hard to miss, wrapped in splints and what seemed a mile of neat white bandaging, the entire package propped on pillows and still held by the tackle of traction. Garad wiggled the bare toes sticking out of it at Boromir, managing not to wince at the pain.

"How's it feel?" Boromir asked, raising an eyebrow to let him know he wasn't buying what Garad was trying sell.

"Bloody uncomfortable!"

"Tough. I told you to keep your boots dry."

"I did!" Garad protested, his voice more sharp than he'd intended. "Fucking spring ambushed me!"

Boromir smiled a little and shook his head.

"Thank you for that warning, by the way," Garad told him. "I'd taken pains to keep them dry, so when I stepped into the middle of a fucking puddle lurking where it shouldn't have been, I stopped and took a good look around. It saved my life."

"Pains?" Boromir asked, making as if to pinch Garad's toes.

Garad shrugged. "I took my boots off before we crossed the river. So did Bear…."

He turned his head toward where Beregond lay. He hadn't moved since the last time Garad had checked on him. "Has he woken yet?"

Boromir shook his head. "Not yet. But he holds his own. Liel told me she has hope."

"Those Orcfucking bastards…" Garad swore, this time keeping his tears in check, though he kept his face averted from Boromir. "It's all a game to them, and I played it very badly…."

"Don't."

A strong hand gripped his forearm forcibly enough to make him wince. He turned his head and met Boromir's hard, level gaze.

"Beregond and Faramir and Damrod and the people you sought to protect are alive, because of how well you played that game. No second guessing, not for you, or for me. We did what we had to," the Captain-General of Gondor told him with absolute finality.

His gaze locked with those piercing green eyes and all the ugly memory they shielded, Garad knew the advice for hard-won truth. He nodded. Boromir eased his hold, but did not let go.

There was a long moment's companionable silence before Boromir smiled again

"Elena says she's going to kick your butt for getting yourself all smashed up," Boromir informed him cheerfully.

Garad huffed out a laugh. "She told me I was her great Idiot."

Boromir snorted. "True love!" he warned.

"I should be so lucky," Garad sighed.

Boromir just laughed, letting go of his arm. "Banish doubt from your heart, Lieutenant. I will return your Captain and your Sergeant to you soon enough. In the meantime, they will need you to see to the rest of your Square."

"Yes, Oh My Captain-General!" Garad saluted, following it with a flip of his two fingers in the time honoured Ranger signal that roughly translated as "go fuck yourself."

Boromir laughed as he always did when given such respectful disrespect by his brother's Men. "Next time, don't burn so much of ourtar. Didn't anyone tell you we need that stuff?"

"It was mentioned once or twice," Garad said dryly.

"By the way, the Orcspawn you roasted is dead. He sang a pretty tune for Theodred and Eomer while he was dying, in exchange for something to ease his pain."

"Theodred," Garad repeated. "Leave it to you to drag Rohan into this."

Boromir shrugged. "Not my fault. They followed me home."

"You do collect the damnedest strays," Garad agreed, yawning despite his best effort not to.

"Speaking of which…."

"Uh oh."

"His name's Ciran. He'll be keeping an eye on you two while I'm gone."

"How old is he?"

"Old enough to help save your Captain's life; his mother has just presented him with his third sister. I think he's feeling somewhat… besieged. Play your cards right, and the lad could be your spare legs."

"You really are an old grandmother, you know that?" Garad told him fondly.

"His father is a brewer of exceptional ability, or so I'm told," Boromir grinned.

"I take it back. You're a cunning bastard."

Boromir's grin became a laugh, before fading all together. "The pirates valued his skill enough they wouldn't kill him. He used that advantage to protect his people, but at some cost to himself."

"And the son is like the father," Garad guessed.

"We might not have Faramir whole, if not for the son," Boromir said quietly. "I owe these people much."

"I will make sure Beregond knows," Garad promised. "It will help him to know Ciran."

"Mm," Boromir answered, and then sighed heavily.

"What?"

Boromir shook his head, then smiled a little, amused at himself. "It's my cousin Lothiriel's birthday next week. Taking her father away to help me is not the surprise I had hoped to give her."

"She's what, eight now?"

Boromir nodded. "Old enough to look forward to the celebration, and too young not to feel the disappointment of a missing father."

"Far better that disappointment, than the loss of those she loves to the renewed fleets of Umbar! I'd say it's was a better present than most.

Boromir's smile returned, the one that was always for his brother. "Ah, but that is Faramir's gift."

"That's it," Garad said, hitting his mattress with a fist despite the pain it caused his leg. "Get your ass over here, help me sit up, and tell me what the little fucker did!"

"No one's told you?" Boromir asked, surprised. Nonetheless, he did as Garad had asked him, lifting him carefully and bracing him with the wedge cushion stored at the foot of the bed for the purpose of the small dignity of being able to feed himself.

"Faramir claims he doesn't remember, Damrod just shakes his head, Theodred only laughs, and I know better than to ask the Women."

Boromir grunted, stalling his answer by fussing with Garad's blankets and the pillow under his head. "You know he has Beren's own luck. You remember the plain you were on?"

Garad nodded, stretching his neck and back out gently, trying not to jar anything from his waist down.

"The grass hid a ravine that tumbled some thirty or forty feet into the river below. I don't know what led him to it, but Faramir found it. The raiders were on horseback, half a hundred at least."

Boromir sighed, falling silent and putting his hands on the edge of Garad's bed. It shifted the mattress fractionally, but Garad didn't care, keeping the minor discomfort it caused him from his expression. He wanted to give Boromir time to find words to bracket the difficult emotions he could read in his friend's eyes.

"I remember hearing the villagers say they were on the wrong side of the river," Garad finally said, when he could stand the silence no longer.

"My fault," Boromir said sheepishly. "I don't know what it is, but I seem to take it into my head to sound this damned thing at the strangest times."

His hands left the bed, the left going to the massive Horn of Vorondil, the right raking through his hair. "Theodred tells me the one or two who survived said they'd changed their normal course because they'd heard horns in the night. Those Southrons are superstitious pricks, thank the Valar."

Garad gave him a 'go on' gesture, and tried to look more encouraging than impatient.

"It put them at the correct angle for Faramir to be able to trick them over the edge of the ravine," Boromir said.

Garad's stomach dropped into his knees. "How?"

"There was a ledge under the lip of the ravine that went well back into the bank. He got their attention in the usual way, killing as many as he could until he had to jump down to the ledge. It was a good plan, though only Faramir or a spider had a chance of getting onto it…."

"But?"

"The edge of the ravine couldn't hold the weight of the charge. It collapsed, and so did half the hill, right on top of him. That's why he can't remember what he did; he took one hell of a hit to the head. Lucky bastard."

The last was said softly, almost to himself, and it made Garad frown. "Where were you?'

"Behind the pirates; on the rise before the slope down to the river. A bird's-eye view."

"Shit," Garad muttered. "Is that how Theodred's nose got broken?'

"Faramir jumped!" Boromir snapped indignantly. "As plain as day, he jumped! It's not my fault if the Men of Rohan are short-sighted fuckwits!"

"To you it was plain," Garad told him. "To Faramir it would be plain. To the rest of us…. We'd be more concerned about making sure we didn't lose you both."

"So it has been pointed out," Boromir snapped again.

"Scared you, did he?"

Both hands combed through Boromir's hair this time. "Damn near pissed myself," he admitted quietly.

"Now you know how it feels, Oh My Captain-General! You've given us enough grey hairs; it's time the boot was up your arse for a change."

Boromir's countering protest died at the sound of a tentative throat clearing itself near the open door to the ward. Carefully raising his head, Garad saw a flaxen-haired lad in a much mended tunic standing just outside the room, a babe of perhaps two years in his arms.

"Ciran!" Boromir called, his relief evident. "There you are!"