Night seemed to be the only time the bugs in the Midgewater Marshes calmed down. If they were going to torture the group all day, leaving them mostly alone when they slept was the least they could do. Aragorn promised them that by the end of the next day they'd be out of the marshes and onto the Lone Lands, much drier and also less bugs.

But with the Lone Lands would come something Josephine had been dreading. Weathertop and the chase through the Trollshaws. At least once that passed she'd reach Rivendell and be able to breath. But until then, sleep was once again eluding her.

She and Aragorn had formed a set of rounds for keeping watch, she would take the first and he would handle the second which always seemed to go on longer than hers. He was either still not comfortable with her or was trying to be kind. Or maybe his own anxieties kept him awake too so it was just easier to send her to bed early.

As she shuffled around under her cloak his voice rose quietly from the other side of their small camp. She knew the tune and a couple of the words, names mostly. That's what came from her spending too much time watching the movies and reading the books.

Giving up on her attempts to fall back asleep she stepped around the Hobbits and sat down next to him. "The Lay of Luthien?"

He looked down at her in surprise. "You know it?"

"Read it once, a long time ago."

"That as well is a story in your world?"

"Most of Middle-Earth's history is, at least the most important bits I guess. Read most of it at least once. Remember…a lot less than that." She chuckled. "It wasn't all finished and some of it was a pretty difficult read so I've forgotten quite a bit." A sigh followed. "Wish I'd forgotten all of it now, to be honest."

He nodded understandingly. "You fear what is to come."

And what had already happened, and what was happening, and what it meant that she was even there. "It's easy to pretend Lord Elrond will have answers and then just wave his hand and tell me how to get home but I don't remember anything like this being in the lore so what happens when he can't? If he doesn't know, what do I do, travel to Lothlorien and ask Galadriel? What happens when she doesn't know either?"

"Things may be clearer once we reach Rivendell. I do not believe your presence here is without reason." When his words didn't seem to offer much comfort he smiled softly. "What other stories are told in your world besides our own?"

Josephine let out a puff of air and rubbed her palms together thinking of all the other books and movies on her shelves. "More than all the books in Elrond's library, ten times over."

"Would you tell me one?"

Thinking for a moment, a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth, she picked one. "Alright, this one's a classic but it'll take some explaining. Are you ready?"

He held up his palm and took his pipe from his pack. Once the bowl was smoking and he'd taken a puff he nodded for her to continue.

"Okay, so imagine there are ships but they can travel between the stars which all have worlds of their own…"

The fact that Josephine now fully and physically understood the meaning of the phrase, quaking in your boots, was growing old very fast. It took everything in her to not let her anxiety take hold as they paused, looking at Weathertop. She glanced at Frodo, his expression innocently weary but unafraid beyond what they'd already been feeling from the journey.

"It's alright Miss Josephine." Merry said, coming up beside her. "I'm sure it's not as steep a path as it looks."

"I dunno Merry, looks awfully steep to me." She lied. Well, it actually did look pretty steep but it was better if he thought that's what was bothering her. If Aragorn was listening from ahead of them, she was sure he didn't believe her as easily as Merry did. He seemed to know something was eating at her beyond what they'd talked about three days before. She wondered if he'd be mad at her once it all went down and he realized she potentially could've stopped it.

But could she though? Sure she could keep the Hobbits from lighting the fire, but what if that didn't stop the Nazgul from finding them? What if that gave them time in the moment but set them up for a worse ambush later that they couldn't get out of? Not to mention whatever ramifications she could think of for Frodo not getting injured and the ones she couldn't even anticipate. What if she tried to save him now and put things in motion in a way that would doom Middle-Earth entirely?

No. Best to let it play out cause at least then she knew she was giving things the best chance to succeed, as far as her knowledge was concerned anyway.

Right?

As they trekked up the old, overgrown path towards the summit her worry over what he'd think of her after that night grew. Her only distraction from it was Pippin in front of her and Merry behind, offering a very detailed explanation of their family histories while Frodo chimed in now and then on how he fit into it all and Sam offered his own additions.

Aragorn stopped partway up, dropping his pack under an overhang. The Hobbits followed suit, pulling the supplies off of Bill so he could rest and then flopping down to rest for themselves.

"These are for you, keep them close." Aragorn said, turning from his pack and dropping four large daggers at the Hobbits' feet. "I'm going to have a look around. Stay here."

A fifth scabbard he handed to her, also a dagger but she supposed it was better than nothing. It's not like she knew how to handle a sword anyway. "I'll go with you." If she stayed then Pippin might not get ash in his tomatoes or she'd get stabbed outright by the Nazgul or something else terrible and story derailing that she'd been worried about might happen and she would have single handedly destroyed Middle-Earth's future in less than a month. Her suggestion wasn't well received by Aragorn and he watched her as she hung the scabbard from her belt looking decidedly like she was going whether he wanted her to or not.

The questions on the tip of his tongue were held back while the Hobbits watched the tension grow between them. Now even if he didn't want her to go, he'd take her just so he could ask what was going on.

"Very well. Come."

They walked in silence long enough that they'd managed to climb back down to the plains below, making for an outlook in the surrounding hills. It was only once they were climbing upwards again that he spoke.

"Something is wrong." He said finally. "We are not as safe here as I had hoped, are we?"

Well of course not, she was only vibrating in her skin and exuding enough fear that horses in Rohan could sense it. "I thought one didn't ask a Seer for counsel?"

"And you have said several times you are not actually a Seer. I am unsure if you know enough to fully grasp the importance of our task but I do, so I am asking."

"I can't tell you what's going to happen." She wanted to, she wondered if it would actually be safer to tell him at the very least what was coming along their journey to Rivendell. He was a wise man, maybe being more informed would give him the leverage to make decisions that would do them better. But again, if it didn't…

"But what else could your purpose here mean, if not to change our futures for the better?"

"Then it's a dumb fucking purpose because you don't need my help. Aragorn-'' She groaned and rubbed her hands over her face. "Look at it this way. Say I showed up eighty-five years ago, when your father was killed. Say I saved him and because of that you weren't raised in Rivendell from such a young age, didn't learn from Lord Elrond how to heal people like you do. I can think of at least four people who will probably end up dead in the future because of it and that's just off the top of my head. Not to mention you might have been raised with the knowledge of who you really were, which could have meant Sauron would've found you and killed you a long time ago. And then where would any of us be?"

Aragorn turned and began walking again and she trailed behind, falling silent and stewing in her frustration. She assumed he was angry until several minutes passed and he paused again, turning back to her.

"I understand the choice you have made, but these added uncertainties worry me greatly. The fear that has passed over you tonight worries me more, and it pressed me to ask." He looked out along the plains, now shrouded in darkness with mist creeping across the grass before turning back to meet her gaze. "I know your path is weighing heavily on you."

Josephine's heart thudded in her chest as she was taken aback by the tenderness in his eyes. She wasn't prepared for the stark reminder of another reason she'd always said he was her favorite character. Aragorn really did have a way about him…A way she needed to have absolutely nothing to do with for christ's sake! To break the tension growing in her chest she awkwardly patted his arm and chuckled. "Besides, if you'd never lived in Rivendell you might've never met Arwen in Lothlorien and your entire epic Beren and Luthien style romance wouldn't have happened."

His face scrunched into a confused frown and he looked at her like she was at least a little bit crazy. "Our…romance?"

"You think I didn't know you guys were in love?"

"Josephine…I met Lady Arwen but once and she sailed into the west long ago."

Her cheeks burned and she was glad it had gotten so dark that Aragorn might not really notice. She took several deep and measured breaths, pursing her lips and nodding several times. "She's in the west?"

"It has been several decades. Are you alright?"

"Arwen. Elrond's daughter. Vision of Luthien. Is not in Middle-Earth and you are not deeply in love with her?" What the hell did that mean? Who else was running around with different timelines? What kind of crackpot alternate Middle-Earth was she even in? Was she sent there to fix everything? Well it wasn't like she could go into the west and drag Arwen back to make her fall in love with Aragorn but now who was supposed to marry him and continue the line of the kings? Eowyn? Lothiriel? Some other unnamed woman from Gondor or wherever? The line of kings had to continue and-

She could have continued spiraling for hours and likely would have if not for the screams that echoed over the plains from near Weathertop. The Nazgul had found the Hobbits.

Aragorn froze for a moment and looked down at her. "This is what you feared."

"Can you be mad at me later?"

He nodded in agreement and pulled her by the hand, with him into a run. By the time they reached Weathertop they could hear the Hobbits yelling as they ran towards the summit.