***This is the FINAL chapter, thank you all so much for sticking by me! Your reviews have inspired me to finish this, and this was for all of you! I love you all!!! And one more time, LOTR is not mine, Adele is however, and the song lyrics I used in here are not either. Thank you once again! I hope you enjoy it!***



Four years Adele had been fighting back her feelings. Four years had she suffered the pain of watching Legolas leave with all that was not her. Time had been wasted, pining away over the loss of which was not hers to begin with.

"-that I would love you too," he had said.

But she did not believe him.

Adele turned quickly and ran. She ran as fast and as far away from him as her legs could manage. She collapsed out of breath, tears stinging her eyes as she recognized the mirrored surface before her. She sadly surveyed all she was, all she felt.

Courage, the word held no meaning for her anymore. To her, courage meant rushing headlong into a dangerous situation without knowing the possible outcomes.

Courage was stupidity.

Friendship, merely a facade. A mask used to hurt others in order to hide inner pain.

Friendship was abuse.

Knowledge, had lost it's potential. Now it was how many lessons and morals you could recall forth in the span of 60 seconds.

Knowledge was a mindset

Hope, only a wish. Desperation for those hanging on the bottom rung.

Hope was futile

Love, a beautiful dream. A lonely desire for others as sorrowful as herself.

Love was wistful

Light, a faded hope. The end of the tunnel was dim to her eyes.

Light was paling.

Kindness was trivial. A barrier to her nasty inner thoughts.

Kindness was hiding.

Sincerity, a need for fake security.

Sincerity was believing in weak hopes.

Reliability was linked to sincerity, though not in the way she wanted.

Reliability was wanting.

Legolas watched her figure disappear through the darkness, not attempting to follow. A heart full of words he had left unspoken. He told his soul to have a silent moment. He thought she knew. She thought he took her for granted, that's the last thing he would do. Why couldn't he understand her, he thought she knew that his world revolved around her. As she ran away, she couldn't see his pain. Legolas was the only one guilty, for he thought she knew. He couldn't bring his heart to let her go that easily, Adele was but a moment in his lifetime, and fear gripped him that that was all she may ever be.

Adele needed him to forget her, because she was not his despite the fact he possessed every part of her, and she of him.

Angry for what she could not share with the world, Adele stretched her lanky form and unfolded herself from his recluse. Her dark braids flew behind her, she knew she had strode away from their chaste gaiety...And his lost, topaz eyes.

She was skipping rocks across a small pond when his soft, light footfalls reached her burning ears.

She sighed, her sadness breathing through the sound.

"You shouldn't have come."

Adele didn't turn around; she kept her eyes pinned to somewhere, anywhere but his secretly cherished face.

He pushed his lengthy blonde hair behind his ear, agitated. The gesture's familiarity comforted him, and some of his inner anger smoothed away.

Agony he could not let out swiftly replaced it.

Now she dared not turn around for fear of her seeing the agony etched within his sapphire eyes and along the firm line of his mouth. He clenched his jaw as her voice rang through the nighttime breeze, the gentle sound sent shards of painful remembrance through his soul.

Did she speak like that to him? Jealousy tore at his shredded soul, and he clung, once again to anger in order to stifle his hurt.

"You knew I would."

His usually gentle voice was harsh and grievous, as he bit out a reply.

"I hoped you wouldn't," She merely sighed ever-gently, and stepped closer.

"No you didn't."

Legolas heaved despairingly, a ragged half moan as he blinked back tears. Edging away, he stepped closer to the stream, bending down and dipping his fingers in the cool element.

"No...I didn't...I need this...You."

He cast up his arms, flicking glimmering droplets of water over his body.

"But I'll never really have you! Because, Legolas…I…I know you've been betrothed…and I've seen the way you gaze into her eyes. I'll never be able to hold you in my arms and declare to the world how much you mean to me, or kiss you with ever bit of emotion I have! Legolas, you don't belong to me!

She skimmed the liquid with her slender hands.

Her hazel eyes were tearful and somber.

"Nobody has ever had me like you."

His statement infuriated her, and she threw himself up and glared down at the elf below her.

"No? I wonder sometimes Legs, do you talk to her the way you talk to me? Does her voice melt everybody's heart like it does mine? Does she fill with this inner light when you watch her?" As she painfully voiced her nightmare, she gestured wildly with her hands, as if by gesticulating would clarify her pain to him.

"Do you hold her like you do to me? Like you want to hold her while the world crashes down around you? Do-do you name the colors of her eyes as you paint the doorway to her soul? Do you make her cry because just by touching him, you've put her above the rest, and make her feel like nobody else could get as high as they are at that m-moment?"

Legolas watched the anguished young elf in front of him, her torture mirrored within his soul.

"Adele...Oh Adele...Never. We both know that! It's not just you who's in pain! I have to hide my love because of her, when I know that were just making it worse for the three of us!"

She broke down into great, wracking sobs, and Legolas was immobilized for a moment.

"I'm sorry Adele."

He cradled her to his broad chest, stroking her silky hair as she cried.

"Why is it us, Adele? Maybe we're not supposed to be this agonized, or this happy..."

Adele drew back, desperate fear climbing through her eyes. "What are you saying Legolas?"

He smiled gently at her, stroking her hair again in an effort to comfort them both. 'These are the moments we remember the rest of our life Adele,' He thought absently 'these precious, beautiful seconds that are so few, and so cherished.'

His large hands continued their path down her shoulders, down her back, relaxing her body with the movements. Ever so gently, he turned her tearful face to his and pressed his mouth to her sweet lips. She responded with gentle fervor, entangling her fingers within his gold hair, even as he cradled her face, like it was a glass rose.

Their embrace continued, as they sat down on the velvety grass beside the water.

She looked at him through a sheen of tears, despair causing his heart to ache as if he was dying.

"I love you Legolas, so much...I won't let you go. I'll find a way back to you…I promise…"

He silenced her with a tender kiss, his own crystal tears trickling down her porcelain skin.

She would not come back to him, he would not be there to come back to.

He kissed her fiercely, wildly, as his bright, desperate eyes searched her treasured visage, memorizing every feature, every inch of perfection.

"I love you, dear God I love you...I love you, I love you. God...Be with me always Adele..."

She cried just as hard, unable to read the emotions coursing through the only man she had ever loved, Legolas Greenleaf's eyes. Her heart was bleeding from the thought his heart would belong to another.

"I will Legolas! We can! Please! Just don't do whatever you're planning! I can't live without you!"

He crushed her to him, burying his face in her neck, breathing in her smell, memorizing every contour and plane of her body and soul.

"I love you, I love you...Adele...You'll live..."

She was the most beautiful thing Legolas had ever experienced, and he couldn't stop the tears, even when he fled her grasp

And then he was gone, through the mist, and she broke into anguished hysterical sobbing, clawing at the ground.

"Legolas! Legolas! No! Legolas! I love you! I love you! No! No..."

She clawed her way to her feet, and took off through the forest. She had to find him before it was too late.

When she did find him nearly an hour later, he was lying peacefully against a tree, looking for all the world like a handsome, faultless elf.

His arrows were immaculate; his hair was mussed from their earlier caresses. But tears still were wet against her shaking fingers...Blood still warm to her skin.

The shiny silver blade clutched within his limp grasp had her screaming and hysterical as she tried to wake him up, tried to kiss the sweet breath back into his beloved body.

"NO! NONONONONONONONO!"

She yanked on his shirt, unable to move the weight of his body, so she curled onto his lap shivering from shock.

Screaming and crying, she denied the truth even as her shaking fingers frantically grabbed the blade.

"You never understood Legolas! I loved you so much! Without you...I'm already dead..."

Weeping gently, she leaned forward and kissed his lips, just like he had done an hour before.

Memories flooded through her mind and she brushed his blonde hair from his restful face.

"I love you..."

The second cry that night, rang through the forest.



A wandering elf sent from the palace to seek out the run-away prince found them, Adele collapsed upon Legolas' form, curled peacefully within his oblivious embrace. Tears filled his own icy gaze.

"I-I didn't know..."

The elf said nothing, as he found a neatly scribed slip of paper upon the ground before the tragically beautiful figures, and brought it to his eyes.

He wiped away tears, as he sadly read Legolas' tidy print.

Dear Adele,

Don't despair, I loved you more then anything. I'll be watching over you, from heaven or hell, I don't care which, as long as your safe. Remember how much I loved you, and forgive me. I couldn't handle not having you in my arms anymore. My betrothed…she doesn't need to know about us, unless you want her to. I hope I gave you more than pain Adele; I didn't want to hurt you. You gave me so much...The life and love I dreamed of, the courage to face my feelings, the friendship to get over them, the knowledge to handle them, the hope to sustain them, the kindness to show them, the sincerity to believe them and the light to guide them. And the love, I can't get over that. The most beautiful thing I've ever experienced. No one will ever replace you…Everything and anything beautiful in my life stemmed from you. I hope I gave you a little of that back, because all I ever wanted, from the moment I saw you cross over the palace entrance, to the last glimpse I had of you're tear streaked face, was to make you happy.

The fact that I may have failed is enough to destroy me. Do you remember the song we wrote together? I do.

Fly, fly little wing

Fly beyond imagining

The softest cloud, the whitest dove

Upon the wind of heaven's love

Past the planets and the stars

We left this lonely world of ours

Escaped the sorrow and the pain

And fly again

Fly, fly precious one

My endless journey has begun

Take your gentle happiness

Far too beautiful for this

Cross over to the other shore

There is peace forevermore

But hold this mem'ry bittersweet

Until we meet

Fly, fly do not fear

Don't waste a breath, don't shed a tear

Your heart is pure, your soul is free

Be on your way, don't search for me

Above the universe you'll climb

On beyond the hands of time

The moon will rise, the sun will set

But I won't forget

Fly, fly little wing

Fly where only angels sing

Fly away, the time is right

Go now, find the light.

Remember the way I love you. Even if you forget me, and the agony we went through to finally confess our emotions. Remember me, and the way I loved you

I'm so sorry,

Love forever,

Legolas

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