A/N A peace offering after last week's horrible ending- I hope you can forgive me! Betaed, as ever, by the wonderful Ink Stained Quill.

For your consideration: Nothing in this chapter, or this fic, is intended to make a concrete moral judgement on the whole Elrond and Elros parenting debacle. One, because that situation is so messed up that it's probably impossible, and two, because for me, that's not what's interesting about fiction. Therefore, remember that attitudes and opinions expressed here don't necessarily reflect those of the author. They don't even necessarily reflect the true and considered opinions of the character expressing them, when said character is not in the middle of a teenage angst crisis in a situation which is prodding at some old unhealed emotional wounds. You'll know which lines I'm referring to when you read them.

TL;DR: No character bashing is intended, so please don't shout at me (but do tell me respectfully if it comes across in a problematic way).

Chapter 9: Certainties

One more step. One more step. One more step.

Maglor repeated it obsessively as he strode away from the glimpse of contentment he'd experienced and back towards his familiar solitary existence. He'd known this moment would come from the minute he entered Newt's trunk, but he hadn't anticipated quite how hard it would be to walk away from the home and family he had been so warmly welcomed into. He hadn't prepared for Newt looking on the brink of tears, to start off with. This was for the creature-keeper's own good though, and for the good of all his beings; he might be a rescuer, but if he knew the true nature of the Kinslayer he had sheltered, even he would have to admit that some kinds of monster were past saving.

Something tickled on his arm. Without breaking his stride, he lifted the back of a hand to brush it off, but the tickle moved. Frowning, he looked down and groaned when he realised what had happened. Newt's creatures, for some reason known only to themselves, appeared to be conspiring to prevent him leaving. He turned around.

"Newt!" he called, and look of relief and joy on Newt's face surely couldn't just have been because he thought Maglor had changed his mind, could it?

"Pickett," he explained, making his way back over to Newt and lifting his hand to display the tiny miniature Ent clinging to his wrist with surprising ferocity for something so small.

"Ah, sorry," Newt said when he realised, and yet another charge was added to Maglor's already impressive burden of guilt when Newt's expression changed to one of crushed disappointment. What did he have to do to stop exploiting and hurting this man? The sooner he could leave, the better.

Pickett disagreed. It was quite the performance, with a lot of coaxing from Newt, and eventually three woodlice as a bribe, before the bowtruckle was pried from Maglor's wrist and deposited back in his pocket. Maglor was gathering his already strained resolve to finally leave and set the world back to rights when Newt gently caught his wrist, just as he had that first day when he still thought himself Maglor's prisoner but was already worrying about his burns.

"You don't have to go."

Maglor froze.

It didn't matter that he was still getting the hang of contractions and the 'have to' form, he knew exactly what Newt had said, because four ages ago and in another language, he'd heard those words before. The tone, the expression, the context of parting; he recognised it all, and as he stared in shock at Newt's anxious features, suddenly the eyes boring into his were not light green but instead a piercing grey…

"You don't have to go."

Elrond's fingers encircled his wrist as he began to turn away and the words ensnared him almost tightly enough to hold him back from the siren call of the Oath. He wished they could have done.

"I don't have a choice, Elrond. I'm sorry."

"Then take us with you!" Elros demanded, kicking a helmet across the floor as he joined the argument. "You're our family far more than some old shipbuilding cousin we barely know."

"Please, Elros, give Círdan a chance. He will make a good guardian. We should have done this from the very start. He'll be able to look after you far better than we ever did."

"Are you saying that you regret taking us in?"

"No, of course not, you've brought so much joy into our lives, both of you. All I'm saying is that we certainly didn't deserve that and you deserved much better."

"Well, that's orc-shit."

"Language, Elros."

"Well apparently you aren't our guardian anymore so you don't get to tell me 'language.' When are you going to understand that we don't want Círdan? We want you and Maedhros."

"I've no idea why."

"No, you don't get to do this. You cannot do what you did for us and then just walk away. You put up with months of resentment and escape attempts with the forbearance the world doesn't think you have. You respected us enough to tell us honestly what you did and then waited for us to reach out when we were ready to give you another chance. You taught us the sword and when not to use it because you wanted us to learn from your mistakes, you braided our hair and held us when we cried and treated us like your own. You seriously think you're allowed to do all that and then just expect us not to love you?"

"It was…unfair of us. We should never have put you in that position."

"Well, you did, so now you deal with it. You deal with the fact that we love and respect you now and we want you to stay."

"You deserve better than a pair of battle-weary Kinslayers. You shouldn't have to see what happens when the Oath takes over."

"Like we've not seen battle before! We're not innocent children. We never were."

"And whose fault is that?"

"Not just yours."

"We as good as killed your mother!"

"OUR MOTHER CHOSE TO JUMP!"

The shout echoed, leaving a terrible silence behind it. Elros took a few heaving breaths, and his voice cracked as he continued, quietly but fervently.

"You can't leave us too."

They faced off, both glassy-eyed with frustrated tears. Elrond, pale-faced, watched with a terrible resignation growing in his expression.

"I'm sorry, Elros, Elrond. I'm so, so sorry. You never asked for any of this."

"Yeah, well, we're part of it now. And we want to see it through to the end. Right, Elrond?"

He turned to catch his brother's expression, his face falling as he did so.

"Elrond?"

Elrond's fingers had remained wrapped around Maglor's wrist for the entire conversation, tethering him for a few more minutes to the boys he wished he wasn't leaving behind. Gently, but with a sickening finality, Elrond released his grip.

"You're going to go," he murmured. It wasn't a question. And somehow that terrible, insightful statement pierced Maglor's soul far deeper than any of Elros' angry diatribes had. "You're going to go, and we can't do anything to stop you. The Oath has a greater hold on you than we do."

Maglor wished with every fibre of his being that he could deny it. But he wouldn't lie to them, so he averted his gaze. Elrond had always been highly perceptive, able to pinpoint the truths that others studiously avoided.

"You said you cared about us!" Elros was outraged. "Isn't that enough?"

Yes, he wanted to shout, yes, this is how the story goes, the two noble orphans melt the Kinslayers' hearts, redeem them and reverse their path to ruin. The constrictive coils of the Oath, and his loyalty to his brother, tightened around his throat and choked the words before he could voice them.

"I don't want to hurt you," he whispered at last.

"Then don't bloody go!" Elros snapped.

"If there were any other way…I can't. One day you'll look back and understand. Just, whatever happens next, don't let it stop you, you hear me? You can learn a lot from Círdan, take advantage of that and go and live your lives untarnished by our mistakes. I know you'll be magnificent, both of you. And…I'm sorry."

He walked away with Elros' exclamations of rage following him, and perhaps still more painful, Elrond's devastated silence.

"You don't have to go."

Elrond's words resonated down the centuries until they echoed around Newt's, and the sheer onslaught of emotion on hearing them again crashed into Maglor so overwhelmingly that he felt like he was drowning in it.

The last time he heard those words, he'd ignored their pull and left. What followed had stripped him of every last thing that was his to hold onto. He'd lost his adopted sons in sending them away to be tutored by Círdan, lost his older brother when Maedhros jumped into the flames, lost his last chance at redemption by stealing from the Valar, lost the purpose that had consumed him for most of his adult life when the Silmaril burned out of his hands.

The last time he heard those words, walking away had been utterly excruciating. He knew full well the damage he was doing to those twins, just the next in a procession of parental figures who, despite their love for the boys or perhaps because of it, were compelled to choose the Silmarils over them. Nothing less than the vice-like, inexorable grip of the Oath, combined with an inability to let Maedhros attempt an audacious theft from the Valar alone, could have forced him out of that door.

The last time he heard those words, no matter what he told himself about doing what was best for the boys, he knew that he was causing far more harm than good by letting the Oath make his choices for him, too wearied to fight it any longer.

Knowing all this and hearing that same plea from Newt's lips, Maglor was finally forced to accept something he'd been steadfastly refusing to acknowledge: that Newt truly would be hurt if he left. He had generously opened his world and his life to Maglor, had made it clear that he considered Maglor a friend and would worry over his fate. That impossible man would take a refusal of his offered sanctuary as a personal rejection. That was why Newt's obvious disappointment at his leaving was so difficult to bear- because it reminded him of Elrond, that thoughtful young ellon who, like Newt, would surely have turned his sadness inward and blamed himself because he failed to make Maglor stay.

The situation remained unchanged. Staying with Newt was still the opposite of the life he'd committed himself to after the last Silmaril vanished, it was still exploitation of someone who couldn't know just how deep Maglor's monstrosity ran.

But hearing those words now, the shadows of his almost-sons hovering behind Newt with that terrible desperation in their eyes, Maglor knew one thing for certain.

No matter what he'd decided all those years ago, however much he wanted to, he could not walk away from that plea again.

"You don't have to go."

Newt didn't really know what made him say it. He wasn't even sure if Maglor would understand. It was impulsive, a last-ditch protest against whatever horrible fatalistic reasoning was making him turn away from the home which he so clearly yearned to accept.

The words had a far more dramatic effect than Newt could have anticipated. What scant colour there was drained from Maglor's face and he stared at Newt's fingers on his wrist as though he'd seen a ghost. Newt quickly released him, inwardly berating himself for triggering a traumatic memory and not just allowing Maglor the freedom he was insisting on. When Maglor looked up, he still looked haunted, staring over Newt's right shoulder so intensely that Newt glanced over to check if there was someone behind him. There was no-one there. Finally, Maglor's eyes fixed on Newt again, and though he tried his best, he couldn't manage the eye contact for more than a second; there was so much conflict in that troubled gaze that Newt didn't know where he would even start to try to help.

The awkward silence shattered. Maglor produced a soul-rending cry of pure distress, his knees folding under him and his hands twisting into painful fists clutching at his hair. You've really done it now, Scamander, Newt scolded himself as he tried to do some damage control.

"Oh! Oh dear, I'm so sorry, I really didn't mean to make you feel trapped. You can go if you want, of course, I won't stop you."

None of it was filtering through, and Newt's words were barely even audible over the explosive, angry sobs which were convulsing their way through Maglor's huddled form. Newt changed tack.

"Alright, easy, it will all be alright," he murmured soothingly, kneeling himself and tentatively reaching out to rest a hand on Maglor's shoulder. He didn't know if he'd set this off by touching Maglor's wrist earlier, so he was a little wary, concerned about making things worse, but when he saw the Elda instinctively lean into the touch like a plant long starved of sunlight, he had no qualms about pulling his friend into a very long-overdue hug. Maglor collapsed against him, shaking like a leaf, and allowed Newt to gently guide his hands to clutch Newt's shoulders rather than his own hair.

"You're alright there, I've got you" Newt encouraged him, barely believing what was happening as the stoic, otherworldly person he thought he knew gave way to this tormented being sobbing as though his world was falling apart around him. "Just hold onto me and let it out, that's it, shh, there's nothing to worry about. We'll handle this together, you'll see."

How they would do that Newt was unsure, but he knew that he would do everything in his power to right this, especially if his words had helped cause this distress in the first place. He continued to spout gentle reassurances that Maglor probably wasn't concentrating on deciphering, until his sobs gradually abated to a quiet weeping more akin to the only other time Newt had seen him cry, when he had grieved for his fallen kin. He kept murmuring softly, feeling Maglor tremble as he ran a hand up and down the braid running down his back, surprised at first that he was being allowed to do it. When he thought about it though, it made sense: Maglor normally flinched away from the initial overtures of comfort, but once he had accepted it he could no longer deny his need to be cared for in that way, and drunk it in as though parched for the slightest touch. At long last, once his tears had abated and Newt's shoulder was thoroughly soaked, he pulled away, looking studiously at the sand, unmistakeably embarrassed. Newt couldn't let that kind of attitude pass, so he nudged Maglor's face upwards with a finger under his chin and looked straight at him despite the discomfort it caused him.

"It's alright," he told him firmly, and raised his eyebrows expectantly until Maglor gave a reluctant nod. "Nothing to be ashamed of. Now, what was that about?"

Maglor frowned for a few moments while he marshalled his still-limited vocabulary to explain what was wrong.

"I cannot stay. I cannot go. Stay, go, I hurt you," he summarised succinctly, the simplicity of his English making the statement all the more brutal in its implications. Newt was momentarily overwhelmed by the fact that apparently that entire meltdown was not about Maglor but his fear of hurting the magizoologist himself. Surely that should be proof that he meant no harm, but such things were often only visible from the outside of a situation.

Don't clam up, Newt told himself under his breath, rubbing his thumb against his sweaty palms, keep it together. This conversation was on a knife's edge, he could feel it; what Newt said next would either scare Maglor back into hiding or help him find a new life and a way to move on from whatever traumatic events coloured his past.

"Alright," he began, nodding to show he was taking Maglor's concerns seriously. "If you stay, how will you hurt me?" he asked.

Another few moments as Maglor's brow furrowed in concentration.

"I hurt," he said, then started making expansive motions with his hands.

Dreading being right, Newt decoded that, mirroring the motion and asking, "you hurt everyone?" Maglor nodded emphatically.

Rebuilding someone's self-esteem very rarely fell under a magizoologist's job description, let alone someone who was trying to communicate in an unfamiliar language and was the sole survivor of their species. Newt, nevertheless, was all that Maglor had, so he had to deliver somehow. Thinking quickly, he came up with a plan; he'd always been better at communicating via actions than words anyway. He smiled at Maglor and opened his case, unleashing a silver blur which sped out towards the Elda and materialised into a demiguise clinging possessively around his neck. Newt then opened his palm next to his waistcoat pocket, and for once without any unnecessary drama, Pickett eagerly clambered out and accepted the ride on Newt's hand over to an increasingly bewildered Maglor and latched onto his upper arm. Newt had only initially intended to include those two in his demonstration, but as the case was opened for Dougal, of course Helga came out to investigate too. She gambolled around in the sand for a while, seemingly oblivious to the tense emotional drama playing out around her, drawing the eyes of the assembled magizoologist, Elda, demiguise, and bowtruckle. Then she made her way over to Maglor, paused in front of him, inspected him for a few moments, then extracted a necklace from her pouch and placed it before him in offering.

Newt gaped.

Helga had rejected treasures before for various reasons: the Protean pocket watch frightened her, tarnished coins didn't meet her exacting standards, any objects owned by Dark wizards were too tainted for her magical senses. But Newt had never seen Helga, no, any niffler at all, give up a beloved shiny like that necklace motivated by what could only be described as pure altruism. He didn't know what had passed between Maglor and the niffler the day before, he had dismissed it, but could it be that Maglor had attempted to convince Helga to change her ways and she'd listened?

Newt realised his mouth was hanging open, so he shut it. Maglor murmured something in his language to Helga, his eyes once again a little teary, and she jumped into his lap and nestled there as if in affirmation. Newt felt as nonplussed as Maglor looked, but he attempted to continue with the plan as he'd conceived it before Helga stole the show.

"Dougal, Pickett, Helga," he began, naming the creatures who were clustered around Maglor in a kind of eclectic support squad as a way of grounding them both. He took a deep breath.

"You don't hurt Dougal. You don't hurt Pickett. You don't hurt Helga. Look at them."

Maglor did, blinking as if he were seeing them all for the first time: Dougal slung like a baby around his neck, Pickett crawling on his shoulder, Helga curled up in his lap.

"So you do not hurt everyone. And you certainly don't hurt me."

Maglor was watching him cautiously. No outright argument, that was a good development. He continued.

"You can stay, if you want to. You will not hurt us. I know. I'm sure. So please, if that's what you're worried about, it will be alright, I know it will, please just try?"

Maglor's voice was hoarse for the first time Newt could remember hearing it as he replied, "You want I stay?"

"Yes," Newt answered emphatically. Perhaps it was problematic that Maglor seemed more concerned about Newt's desires than his own, but if it meant he would stay in the case and recover a little more then Newt would take what he could get. Maglor nodded, his eyes closing and brow wrinkling as he thought it through. Then he opened his eyes, their gaze displaying more vulnerability than Newt had ever seen in them before. He seemed almost as surprised as Newt was as he voiced the words.

"I…stay."

"Thank you," Newt beamed, absolutely thrilled and slightly astounded that apparently, he'd been in a highly charged emotional situation and hadn't messed it up too badly. He understood that somehow Helga's intervention had saved the day for them, though he wasn't quite sure exactly what had occurred. One thing he knew for certain, though.

Helga's nest was going to be extra sparkly tonight.