Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction. I do not own any of the character, places, names, or anything associated with the works of J.R.R Tolkien or the Lord of the Rings (books or movie, whatever). My characters are Anita, Leila, and Arlandria and that is all.

Something to Remind You- Staind

Chapter 68: Something to Remind You

Pain was the only thing Anita was aware of for the next few days. Excruciating, all consuming pain. Every time the agony became too great it would rip her from the drug induced sleeps that were her only mild form of reprieve, and even then sleep was hollow succor when the pain would bleed into her dreams and rob her of any real rest. The elleth was only vaguely aware of her father's presence at her side through the ordeal and their brief interactions in the few sweet moments when the full bodied suffering would subside but before sleep could drag her down again.

Time was such a far away concept. Anita was not sure how many cycles of sleeping and waking had passed before the pain was manageable enough that she could stay awake and lucid long enough to have a conversation of any real meaning. She knew that Minas Tirith was safe, if only temporarily. She knew that Rohan had come to their aid and helped to push back the forces of Mordor. She knew that many of Gondor's forces had survived the siege. And she knew she hated not knowing anything more than that. Ani began resisting when her father would offer her the tea intended to help her manage the pain and put her to sleep. She would purse her lips and grind her teeth, determined to fight through without the need for medication, shaking her head firmly when presented with the cup. It was to no avail. Her nails cut half moons into her palms and she bit straight through her bottom lip for her efforts, but eventually she would succumb and accept the sedative.

Eventually when Anita would awake to the pain, she was able to add small amounts of time to the length of time she was awake. Five minutes. Ten Minutes. By the time she had achieved one straight half hour of lucid wakefulness Ani had learned it had been a whole week since the army of the Dark Lord broke against the walls of the city. Her father had briefly recounted to her the major events of his journey leading up to his arrival in the White City, and then filled her in on the events occurring while she was sedated. The city and the inhabitants had been saved but much had been lost, Anita learned that the First Level of the city lay in ruin and the Second Level wasn't in much better shape. Many good soldiers had died in combat, and even many among the survivors were not in much better shape than the elleth was.

Elladan had helped her sit up in the bed in a series of small movements that required great care so as not to risk disturbing the wounds that had only recently been set. The House of Healing was meant to accommodate a great many in need of medical assistance, but the sheer amount of casualties the siege has yielded had clearly overwhelmed the limited space. Cots, mats, and even pallets of straw were lined up along every wall and in neat rows throughout the great room, it wasn't a stretch to imagine that every room in the House looked very similar. Ani had been fortunate enough to be in an actual bed that was pressed up against the wall, offering a modicum of privacy, and she wasn't certain that her fortune wasn't tied in some way to who her father and grandfather were.

Anita had been drinking greedily from a pitcher of water as she assessed her surroundings, taking in the state of the soldiers she had stood with to defend Minas Tirith. "How many are dead?" She asked in a hoarse whisper.

"We cannot know until all the bodies have been collected from the fields and from the rubble." Elladan's voice was calm and even. He had answered this question before during one of the first times his daughter had woken up due to the pain, but he had sedated her so heavily he was not surprised that she had no memory of the interaction.

"The refugees from the lower levels, were they all accounted for in the Citadel?" That was a new question, and Elladan was left without an answer, honestly once he had located his child the rest of the cities welfare had become background noise to him.

"I do not know," he stated outright, " But I will gather what information I can if it will ease your mind."

Anita took another long drink from the pitcher, "What about Gandalf?And Pippin?" She asked between gulps, her voice echoing inside the pewter.

A question the older elf was happy to be able to answer, "Both survived unscathed."

"Any word on Faramir ?" Anita thought better on the scope of her question and added, "Or Denethor?"

Her father's voice changed to a very somber tone, the seriousness of what he was about to say overflowing and being carried by his gaze. "The Steward of Gondor did not survive the siege."

Ani set the pitcher down suddenly and gave her father her full rapt attention, "How can that be? He wasn't even in the battle." She knew because she WAS there helping to guide the men in his absence.

"It would seem his madness finally overtook him." Yes he too had heard from Gandalf of the Steward's final days and what he had attempted to do in a fit, which was why he was purposefully withholding the detail of finding the charred and broken corpse bearing the Steward's insignia on a lower level of the city.

The girl was surprised by the sadness that overtook her at the news of Denethor's passing. She hadn't liked the man, she recalled even wanting to kill him herself, but she would be the first to admit that he had not been well. The weight of all that was happening in the world, to his own people, to his own sons had been too much and had broken the man... the girl was not so naive to think that no one else could have ended up the same way as Denethor under the same circumstances. "And Faramir?"

Elladan pursed his lips slightly, " I am sorry to say the young man has not woken, and we have done all we can for those who have tasted the edge of a Morgul Blade with the limited resources here in Minas Tirith. None have woken. You are the only person who faced a wraith to have regained consciousness."

Ani nodded in response to the information her father provided and turned her eyes to the damage she had sustained. The elf noticed she was no longer in the same clothing she had been wearing during the battle, which were no doubt too filthy and damaged from the last stand off with the the Wraith to be salvaged. Instead she was in a simple white shift dress which had ridden up above her knees with all the fidgeting she had done during her restless sleep. While the elleth was able to move the fingers on her right hand independently, the arm was still slung up and it hurt like hell: honestly though, she wasn't able to determine if it was the stab wound in the shoulder or the dislocation that was causing the worst of it. Her breathing was still restricted from her broken ribs being bound, fortunately that particular injury pinched more than outright hurt, and the piercing wound she had sustained in the same area wasn't causing more pain than the break. Ani could see the angry red of the wound on her right leg peeking out from under the perfect white hem of the shift. Setting down the now empty pitcher, the elleth clumsily reached across with her left hand and lifted the garment up just slightly enough to see the extent of the disfiguration. She knew the cut ran from her hip to her knee, she could feel the tightness where the stitches were pulling at her flesh even in the area still hidden by the clothing, the skin was angry and inflamed around the stitching job that held her together. Anita ran her fingers down the short length of exposed bumpy skin and thread-like material. The sutures had obviously been done in haste, and it wasn't pretty by any means, but considering the battered state she had been in, the girl had to give her father kudos for a job well done.

"Do not fuss with it, you will pull the stitches." Elladan commented, batting her hand away from the gash marring her leg.

Ani puffed out a breath of frustration, " How long will I be like this?"

This question did not come as a shock since this would be no less than the fourth time the older Elf would answer this inquiry specifically, though the Elven lord WAS shocked that questions of her own wellbeing only ever came after Ani asked about the city. Elladan would not allow himself to become frustrated by repeatedly answering to it though, he reminded himself how lucky she was to have woken up and had any recollection of who she was considering how near death she had been... fact was he was lucky she had woken up at all. With the practice Elladan had gotten his answer down to a concise time table for when the topic was inevitably broached, " Your arm will remain in the sling for 2 weeks, and your stitches will come soon after, but you will not have full strength back in your arm for the remainder of the month at least. The bruises on your ribs will heal quickly, the break will take a few weeks but we should be able to remove the bindings within the month given you do not strain yourself. The stab was shallow and did not require stitching. Your leg...will take time... but there is hope you can walk again."

Anita blanched and Elladan knew immediately that he had chosen his words poorly. "Hope I canwalk again? You mean there is a chance I won't?"

Her father confidently shook his head, " I misspoke. You WILL walk again, the question however does remain as to when you will walk again independent of an aid, and if you will regain full use of your leg."

The elleth slumped forward heavily in defeat, at least as far as her bound ribs would allow, the weight of the news that she might not walk properly again hit her like a freight train. She was an elf, that fact alone, the very nature of what she was had been what kept her alive in so many situations up until now...only to have it fail her and leave her permanently mutilated. Ani used her left hand to cover her face, attempting to mask the rising despair she felt from her father.

The older elf wasn't fooled. Elladan rested a reassuring hand on his child's shoulder , "Aragorn and I are fine healers, but Elrond will be far better suited to address this severe a wound when we return home." It was at the mention of 'home' that Anita let out an audible groan and pulled away from her father's attempt to comfort her.

Rivendell.

She hadn't even thought about her home. A shudder rippled through her bandaged body as she thought about having to return to her city without Glorfindel, and instead carry the news of the beloved warriors death...after he had left to collect her. Whether Ani could learn to reconcile within herself what happened to her friend, it would have very little bearing on how the people in the Valley of Imladris would view her; the spoiled , selfish terror that had nearly ruined the House of Elrond, and whose life certainly would never be comparable in worth to Glorfindel's.

"Oh Anita, please do not despair so." Unaware of the girl's internal struggle, Elladan assumed that Ani's escalating emotional state was still tied to the news of her leg, " We will do whatever we must to ensure that you heal fully."

Anita didn't pull her hand away from her face as she started to shake it back and forth, pathetically trying to convey that it wasn't the news that had her so dysregulated, but she didn't trust her voice yet. So she just sat shaking her head as her father looked on with concern. It was only when he noticed her quivering chin that the older elf realized that Ani was trying to hold back tears.

"Dad," Her voice was strained from the effort of trying not to cry, " Glo's dead." Anita couldn't even bring herself to look up at her father's face to see his reaction to the news, she was paralyzed with the fear of the judgment that would be passed on her for her part in his demise.

Elladan gave pause and cleared his throat before speaking, " I know." This answer caused the elleth to finally look at him. " At Dol Baran we found Aragorn and his company, it was there that Legolas informed me of his passing." Anita swallowed thickly and turned her head upward to stare at the ceiling and as she did so one large tear escaped her eye and slipped down her cheek. " I was sorry to hear of it. When we return to Rivendell there shall be a celebration, and we shall all honor him with our memories."

"I shouldn't have let him come with me,I should have found a way to send him home." Anita's voice was full of defeat, ", I just... I didn't ..I didn't know how bad it was going to be. And I just can't help but to blame myself."

It pained Elladan to his his child in such despair , it was the last thing he ever wanted to do was cause her any additional undue stress, especially given her current fragile state, both physically and mentally. But Valar help him if the desire to know what had led up to this point didn't inspire a struggle within him. With a sharp sigh the older elf made his choice. "Anita why did you not return with Glorfindel from Lothlorien ? Why did you not return on your own after he had perished at Helm's Deep, surely you had your fill of war when the battle was done?"

The elleth's eye was trained on a random crevice , anything to avoid having to look her father in the eye. He wasn't wrong, she had definitely had her fill of war when the battle had ended, she had her fill of death even before that. But there had been something so much bigger compelling her to fight...she had no hope to explain it to her father as she barely understood it herself. She had to tell him something though.

" I saw him," Anita finally state after a long moment of silence. She turned her eyes back father. " I saw Sauron. He spoke to me."

This got the elf's attention. Elladan sat up straighter , his gaze becoming intense. "Sauron? When? How?"

Ani shuddered to think about that encounter, and she doubted she would ever be able to erase the look in Sauron's eyes from her mind when she rejected his offer. "In the Palantir."

Her father balked when she mentioned the Seeing Stone. "Why in the name of the Valar would you ever..."

"It was an accident," Ani interrupted gently, " And one I hope to never repeat in my lifetime." Elladan settled back into his seat waiting for his child to continue. "It felt so real though, it was like being in the room with him, he was so..." The girl stumbled looking for the right word to encapsulate everything she had felt in that moment she was face to face with the Dark Lord himself.

"...Terrifying?" The elf supplied when her sentence trailed off.

" Awesome." Anita stated after giving it some thought, the word choice had her father raising his brows in disbelief. "I mean yes he was terrifying but he was so much more than that. I had read about him, I had heard the stories but to see it is something else entirely. He was so powerful, so manipulative, so very in control of that situation; I have never felt so utterly helpless as I did in that moment. That was why when he threatened my mother, when he threatened to burn Tucson to ash I never questioned him. I have never been so sure of anything in my life as I was sure he would follow through on that promise."

Her father sat in stunned silence as he processed the story the young elleth had just told, and he began to realize just how much he had underestimated her. Indeed when Gandalf had told him the tale of how Anita had taken up leadership of the soldiers of Gondor he had struggled to believe, when the evidence of her having killed a Ringwraith was placed before him he was in denial, but Elladan was starting to wrestle with the concept that the child he had come here to rescue was no child in need of rescuing at all. "You nearly died fighting a war that should never have fallen to you."

"But that's just is isn't it? Dad I came here for a series of really selfish reasons, for Legolas, for Glorfindel, my mom, and Tucson...all for me. But I had a choice. The people of Rohan,Lothlorien, Gondor they didn't, this is their reality. Every day. They fight, they sacrifice, they die because it's the only choice. My problems were so piddly in comparison, I had no right to hide behind a wall and let them keeping fighting just because I had the choice to hide like the outcome doesn't effect me." Elladan was filled with a terrible guilt as his daughter spoke, because he had been more than willing to ignore the plight of the humans , even as he rode to Gondor he had been focused only on himself and his family. It was only at the bidding of Aragorn that he had used his limited knowledge of healing on the other wounded soldiers. The Elven lord shook his head in disbelief, his child had only been gone a few short months but had aged years. He was left feeling equal parts proud and worried for his child.

"Get some rest," He stated as he stood, " I have others to attend to, but I will return later with dinner and , Valar willing, some news for you about the refugees from the lower levels. I will have your uncle Elrohir check in on you."

"Uncle Elrohir is here too?"

Elladan nodded in affirmation. "This may surprise you child but your uncle and I were adventurers once ourselves, and Elrohir was not about to let me go off again without him."

It took the girl a second to absorb the information that her stoic and often stuffy uncle was once an adventure seeker, but then again she had known him only a fraction of his very long life. " I am feeling far better than I have in days, I wouldn't mind having a few visitors to keep me company and help me pass the time. You said Aragorn was here right, does that mean Legolas is here too?"

He turned away to make it look like he was getting ready to leave, but Ani had caught her father's almost imperceptible flinch that would have gone unnoticed by any human. Her stomach dropped. "Dad?"

The heavy silence was starting to pile up and the elf quickly had to weigh out how much he wanted to tell the elleth in front of him who still looked terribly fragile from her wounds. Ani could clearly see her father trying to keep his body language from betraying anything to her as he still remained facing away, and she couldn't help the panic that began to swirl in her chest as every worst case scenario started to flip through her brain like a picture book. When he turned back every hint of emotion was wiped from his face." The siege is over, but the war is not, Sauron is still a threat. Aragorn and Legolas remain focused on defeating the enemy."

It was a carefully calculated answer, a little too careful for Ani's comfort. "So they are regrouping then , where do we think Sauron will strike at next?" Elladan pursed his lips tightly and did not answer his child, busying himself with tidying up the small table that was next to her bed. "Oh come on Dad, it's not like you have to worry about me running off to join them this time," She continued to prod, gesturing to her severely wounded leg to punctuate her point. Still the elf did not respond. He was trying not to lie to her, she realized. So much of their family history has been tarnished with lies and planned deceits that Elladan found himself stuck between wanting to lie to protect her and not perpetuating the toxic cycle. The truth must have been worse than she thought. Reaching out, she rested her hand on her father's forearm, "Dad?"

With a a defeated sigh her father finally caved, "They are marching what is left of the army to the Black Gate."

Anita recoiled from the news and her father sharply ,causing pain to radiate from her broken ribs and shoot up her side. "What the hell for?!" She gasped through clenched teeth.

He had already said too much. Elladan chewed on the inside of his cheek as he considered not saying more. The look on Anita's face said she wasn't going to let him off that easily. " They are trying to draw out Sauron's forces to give Frodo the opportunity to enter Mordor unhindered and destroy the Ring."

"But out in the open with a few thousand men against all of Mordor? It's suicide." Ani chest constricted as the panic seized her heart, her breathing started to come in short harsh gasps which only exacerbated the pain in her side.

Elladan knelt next to the bed and gripped her uninjured hand in his, " Anita please try to relax."

"Relax?" She wheezed through uneven breaths. "Why would he do this? Its such a stupid idea! Why would he go?"

Elladan knew exactly who "he" was in her panicked rambling. Legolas. And for not the first time this week, the elf was forced to watch his child suffer and was able to do little to aide her. "Anita," He said in a calm steady voice, " Legolas thought as we all did, that you were under some dark magic and that you would not awaken until Sauron was defeated. He left to try and save you." This did nothing to avail her pain, and it did even less to soften the blow that came from the understanding that even after all she had fought for, she was still going to suffer another loss.

With a jerk she pulled her hand free from her father's, jarring her body and multiplying the pain from her wounds exponentially. Ani reached for the cup that had been left on the table near her, the cup with the awful concoction meant to help her sleep. She would drink all of it if it meant escaping having to hear the news of Legolas' demise. Her father was faster though and gently rested his hand over the top of the cup, cutting off her access to the brew before she could lift it to her lips.

" I was to go back to sleep," Ani stated in a eerily calm voice before a sob bubbled up from her chest. She hadn't allowed herself to truly cry for Glorfindel, she hadn't cried for the souls lost at Helms Deep , she hadn't cried for Faramir, crying required time and that has been a luxury up until this moment. All the tears she hadn't shed for the losses she experienced suddenly burst forth in an uncontrollable torrent.

Elladan carefully pulled the cup from her hands and gently set it back on the side table. He would be damned if his child survived a war only to be taken by grief. Wrapping his arms around Anita and pulling her head against his shoulder to muffle her wailing, he knew there was very little he could do to help her except to provide comfort, and he determined to do so until she no longer had tears to shed.

It was hours before tears stopped coming.