Gil-Galad was absolutely aghast when I told him what people had been suspecting about us over the last few months. I had to leave him alone in my office to fetch an emergency wine, he was so shocked.

And naturally, as a good friend does, I mocked him mercilessly about this absurd situation during his last week in Rivendell- only when we were alone with Elrond and Glorfindel, of course, though that was rather frequent.

"So, when will you next be back in Imladris, Gil-Galad?" I asked him as the four of us squandered the last hour of daylight on Elrond's balcony. "Don't think I'm going to hang around forever waiting for you to get a ring on my finger!"

Gil-Galad rolled his eyes and snapped, "Oh, shut up," as Elrond and Glorfindel sniggered noisily behind their wine glasses.

He saw me still watching his face in curiosity, though, and decided to forgive me enough to answer my question.

"I could not say with certainty, but I imagine I will return within the decade or thereabouts."

"Decade?" I cried. "But- ten years- that's ages away!"

The three of them chuckled softly at that.

"The first hundred years always goes slowly," Elrond said with a smile. "Don't worry, it will speed up soon enough. When you get to our age, ten years passes like that." He snapped his fingers.

That wasn't of much comfort to me at that particular moment, my first century still being some 65 years off. I grumbled into my wine.

Still, it wasn't as though there was a lack of things to do in the lead up to Gil-Galad's next visit. I had decided that if we were ever plunged into war again (not impossible) I would absolutely not be staying at home this time. A Maia, not fighting! It was preposterous to me. Glorfindel, like the good egg that he was, offered to keep teaching me to fight, so most days we would spend a few hours practicing together after I closed the clinic in the afternoon.

Bregedúr eventually returned from Mirkwood after a long delay. She somehow managed to inform me with a straight face that her belated arrival was due to moss growing over the main road out, which had created a slipping hazard. I had to excuse myself from the room to laugh hysterically in the corridor before the conversation could resume.

Irrespective of the reason, naturally, I was happy to see her again. It had been quiet without my zealous, ebullient best buddy, and I relished the seamless reinsertion of our noisy shenanigans into the schedule.

Slipping into that casual normalcy was pleasant as could be, and time seemed to go at a fairly reasonable pace when those sorts of things were happening.

With that said, though, things were still torturously slow when it came to Elrond's romantic life. Celebrían and her parents ended up staying in Imladris for quite a number of years, and in all that time, there was not any outward hint of a romantic development between him and her.

I didn't think about it too much, because of course, what Elrond did with his affections was none of my damned business, and that was perfectly fine. However, it was excruciating to do things like sit at the table with him and Celebrían, watching the two talk perfectly calmly while the pulse in Elrond's throat was going like a storm. A human with that sort of sustained cardiac activity would have snuffed it mid-meal.

Glorfindel and I agreed that the situation was bloody dreadful, and though we didn't want to interfere too much, we did what we could to try and at least give Elrond and Celebrían more chances at time alone together. If we saw them talking, we tried to head off anyone wishing to find them. We strategically occupied seats so they were forced to sit together. We did our best and hoped that our efforts would at least statistically significantly increase the chances of things moving along.

And it wasn't as though Elrond and Celebrían gave any indication of disliking the outcome: it was very clear that both enjoyed the other's company. They'd chat for hours quite happily. I even faked being busy on a handful of Happy Hour days when I thought Celebrían looked extremely available so that Elrond would be forced to find someone else to play checkers with. But my god, the way the shyness dragged on. At times, I entertained the idea of shipping a handful of mortals into Imladris, because even if they didn't live forever, being forced to watch such an agonisingly slow romance unfold would certainly make it feel that way.

On the bright side, though, Galadriel, Celeborn, and Celebrían were a fun bunch. Galadriel was one of those trailblazing badass bitches who did as she pleased and managed to carry it off beautifully. I could have listened to her stories all day. Celeborn was a quieter sort- no slouch himself, but pleasantly bookish and decidedly content to let Galadriel steer the ship.

And Celebrían, well, she was a lovely blend of the two- studious and fiery, keen on swapping ideas and stories, and quite simply endowed with the sort of personality that left everyone wanting more. I found that I really enjoyed her company, and though my priority was to give her time with Elrond, Celebrían ended up hanging out with me and the others quite often, so she became a good friend of ours.

Celebrían was a keen gardener, and knew positively encyclopaedic amounts about flora (I was a keen learner). We liked to spend time in the communal gardens doing all sorts of landscaping, talking about life, and making up ridiculous songs in the sunshine.

As we sat in one of the garden beds digging up a few buckets full of carrots one sunny afternoon, I saw that Celebrían winced in pain a little whenever she tried wrenching a carrot out of the soil.

"Hey, are you all right?" I asked, a little worried. "Looks like something's hurting you there."

"Hmm?" she looked up. "Oh, this? It's just my fingers are a little sore, that's all."

She held up a hand and as we both glanced at it, I recognised the problem right away, having seen it quite a number of times in my career. Her normally tapered fingertips were red and swollen, and I could see a little bloodiness around the quick on some of the fingers. Celebrían had been biting her fingernails, and it looked like she'd been pretty hard on them.

"You know, Celebrían, I have quite a lot of experience in fixing sore fingers like those," I said off-handedly. "If you ever want some help with that, you're more than welcome to stop by the office and say hello."

Celebrían looked confused. "I thought you helped with matters of the mind, not the body."

"You'd be amazed how much one influences the other," I replied. "Have a think on it. The option's always there."

"What about today?" she asked. "Do you have time today?"

"I have time right now," I said with a smile, standing up and dusting the soil off my bib-and-brace overalls. I was quite proud of the overalls, by the way. I'd made them myself- a happy set of light blue ones, and I'd sewn a few stars on them. I was the only person in Imladris who had a pair and so looked absolutely ridiculous.

"How about I drop these off at the kitchens," I held up the buckets of carrots, "you go and get changed, and then we'll meet at my office, hey?"

This was met with a happy nod by Celebrían, who stood up and headed off in the other direction.

I strolled unhurriedly through the halls to the kitchens, dropped off our harvest, and then headed up to my office to slip into a robe, when I ran into Elrond just outside. He said nothing for a moment, just stood there and watched me, arms folded and biting his lip, evidently biting back quite a big laugh.

"Listen, Elrond," I said to him in a mock-snappy voice, "don't take your attitude out on me just because you're jealous of my outfit. I've already offered to make you a matching set of overalls, but I can't help you if you won't help yourself."

He snorted, and then his face reddened slightly as his eyes darted to something from behind me. I turned around and saw Celebrían walking over, dirt-free and stunning as ever.

This was awkward. Part of the thing about seeing a psychologist is that you should be able to keep it hidden from others if you so wish. Having Elrond watch Celebrían enter my office without an explicit excuse might have tipped him off to the fact that she was having a session, so I felt it incumbent on me to make something up. And so I did.

"Ah, there you are, Celebrían!" I said with a smile, walking over to her quickly and linking my arm in hers.

"You can laugh all you want, Elrond," I barked at my friend as I led Celebrían to my office, "but it's not just me who thinks they're fabulous. Celebrían here is about to be measured up for her own set of overalls!"

Before Celebrían could say a word, I threw the office door open with a flourish, marched us inside, and closed it again, leaving a speechless Elrond in our wake.

"What on earth is going on?" Celebrían asked in bewilderment as we went in and sat down.

"Nothing, relax," I said with a casual flick of my hand. "I just had to make something up for confidentiality purposes. Which brings me to my next point…"