AN: Here, have a re-post. I was just so frustrated with this chapter that I said fuck it and wrote on a sloppy ending so I could be fucking done with it. Sorry about that. Here's better writing. Also don't necessarily expect updates for a while, I'm moving this week and it'll take goddamn ages to get everything set up again.

Chapter 40: The Importance of Being Earnest

For all that people were being told to pack light, there was no getting them to listen. Even in the palace while the large valuables were semi-hidden in the basement, small treasures were sneaked into the luggage.

One of those was a pretty little hairpin that Rohesia had been stashing away when I walked up to her. "What's that?" I asked quietly, seeing the shine.

She smiled embarrassedly as she withdrew it from her bag. It knocked the breath out of me, a little bronze comb with beautiful studs of amber. That was Nan's pin; we had buried her with it in Tharbad.

We buried you with it, I almost wanted to say to Rohesia. I marshaled my expression to smile at her pinkening face, hoping she hadn't seen how that pretty little bauble devastated me. "A gift?" I asked in a teasing tone.

She nodded, eyes going a bit dreamy as she tilted it to catch the sunlight at various angles. "The gate keeper's son," she whispered.

I let out a squeal and hugged her to my side. Instead of crying like I wanted to, I giggled girlishly, happy when she joined me.

At that point Boromir walked in. "Did I miss something?" he asked, blinking owlishly.

Rohesia and I fell into renewed giggles and turned back to packing Rohesia's bag.

As soon as the door closed behind Boromir, I kept Rohesia from tucking the pin away. "That's something a lady keeps on her," I told her and closed her hand around it, my smile falling, "You'll need it later."

At first Rohesia's expression was curious and worried, but then her eyes widened. "You have the gift of foresight," she said breathlessly.

I made the motion of measuring about an inch between my fingers. "Only flashes," I said truthfully. No, this was something else entirely.

"Will you tell me what you saw?" Rohesia requested hopefully.

Oh dear, what could I tell her? What would keep her part of the timeline intact? It took a long moment for me to figure out what to say. "You've got the longest journey of us all ahead," I said eventually, "When the time comes, pray for help from whoever will give it, and you will get it. Keep a tight hold on that pin, you'll need it."

Unable to face her any longer, I fled the room.

Only once I was several corridors away did I lean on a wall and thunk my head back against a pillar. It wouldn't be long now until Rohesia was stuck in a place she'd never heard of, millions of years in the future and on the other side of a bigger planet than she ever imagined- and she'd be alone. During the Nazi occupation of France. Whoever was going to listen to her prayers was an absolute jackass.

"Cass?" Mackey's voice attracted my attention and I tilted my head to look at her.

Arms piled high with rolled tapestries, she barely noticed her burden as she marched down the corridor toward me. Her pretty face was set in a deeper frown than was constant these days. "Are you alright?" she asked quietly.

For a moment, I closed my eyes to sigh. "No, but… How do you not tell her who she's going to be to us?" I had to ask.

Understanding dawned. "The mere idea was so awkward that- how would someone tell her? She'd think we were bonkers, no matter how polite she'd be about it," Mackey answered with a helpless shrug, "You have to admit, it seems… ridiculous."

"Impossible," I breathed.

"Mhm." Mackey leaned in a bit to whisper, "It's going to be soon, isn't it?"

I nodded. "Something so terrifying that she'd take anything over dying that way," I confirmed what we already knew.

We each let out a heavy breath. I took a few of the tapestries from Mackey's arms. "Here, I may as well do something useful while I'm having my emotional breakdown," I joked half-heartedly.

"And avoiding your husband," Mackey pointed out ruthlessly.

I groaned at the oncoming inquisition. "Can I just chalk it up to the super secret mission?" I asked, despite knowing better.

Mackey scoffed. "You told me and Andy about the ISIS base in the mountains, you can tell us this," she said, "It's clearly causing both of you pain. He's moping about like a basset hound."

At that point we cut off conversation for a minute while we descended the uneven stairs to the basement and turned the tapestries in for storage. Only once we were back on the main floor did Mackey question, voice hard, "He didn't hurt you, did he?"

Not in the way she meant, I thought, scrambling for words that I still hadn't managed to say. "This is going to take some explaining," I precluded.

"I'm gonna fucking kill him," Mackey stated bluntly and made a U-turn toward her quarters.

Panicked, I grabbed her arm and turned her around. "No, no, it's not like that-" I cut myself off and blurted out, "You remember the seventh Harry Potter book, right?"

Mackey squinted at me and nodded. "Epilogue? What epilogue?" she sneered, then asked, "What does that have to do with you avoiding your husband? He's not a transphobe nutjob, is he?"

Not that I knew; it hadn't come up. I pushed that thought aside as I pulled my sister into a small unused room. Perhaps a bit paranoid, I closed the shutters and door.

She stood still, frowning at my flurry of caution.

Only once I was sure the area was as secure as I could make it did I rejoin Mackey to not quite whisper, "Sauron made a horcrux."

A gasp ripped from Mackey and she stared down at me with bulging green eyes. "What?" she squawked.

I nodded emphatically. "It acted a lot like the locket horcrux with changing people's moods and lying to them, even if they're not touching it, and it… got into Boromir's mind so far that-" I cut myself off, the blood leaving my face as I remembered what I saw. My throat was suddenly dry as I tried to swallow; phantom pain squeezed my neck and I automatically rubbed it.

Mackey also went pale at the implication. "He tried to kill you," she stated.

It took all my will to force the words out. "The horcrux took him so completely that, yeah, he tried to kill me," I said. It felt like getting punched. Tears welled up in my eyes against my will.

My big sister opened her arms and just like when I was five, I fell into them. The warmth and her floral perfume soothed me even as my chest hurt with the sobs that wanted to come out. "It convinced him that I was a threat," I croaked, "It hurts that he could ever believe that."

I couldn't help but start crying all over Mackey's shoulder, holding onto her like she was the last steady thing in the universe. It felt like I was back in surgery with how my chest hurt- it made breathing even harder as I barely managed to get out, "He was possessed, and it is but it isn't his fault at the same time and I don't know what to do!" The last word was a howl into the green velvet she wore.

As always Mackey rubbed my back and made soothing little noises while I let it out. "That's a real tough pickle," she agreed sympathetically.

I don't know how long I sobbed all over her, but by the end she was visibly covered in tears, snot, and a bit of slobber. Not that she seemed to mind from how she smiled grimly and wiped my cheeks with her fingertips. "Talk to him," she advised, "From what I've seen, he's a good person and probably is also struggling. And if he isn't, then I can still kill him."

It made me chuckle, a watery sound that ended with me sniffling. "What does it say that that's reassuring?" I asked, embarrassed.

"Nothing good," Mackey answered with a little laugh of her own, "But it'll be fine, I'm sure."

"And if it isn't?" I asked, dreading the possibility.

She made a noise of thought and shrugged. "Then you can get divorced and go home without his sorry ass," she replied simply.

That sounded like a plan to me. For the rest of the day I continued to avoid Boromir, busying myself with menial physical tasks, and trying to work through my feelings about the whole thing. Mackey was right in that when Boromir wasn't possessed, he was a good person; surely he'd understand why I'm struggling.

At the same time, it made big mauve alarms go off in my brain to possibly reveal weakness. Logic said that Boromir wouldn't use that against me, but fear isn't always logical. Especially a life-long fear like this.

Only in the evening after a tense, gloomy dinner did I decide that I needed to finally talk to Boromir. While we had the privacy for it.

He had no warning, just me saying those dreaded words when we finally got into our borrowed room: "We need to talk."

It must have had the same connotations as back home, because Boromir stiffened. "Yes, we do," he agreed heavily. As always he left his sword, shield, and dagger on a side table; he made a motion to place his horn with it, but his hands stopped jerkily at his belt where it should be.

"What happened to your horn?" I asked, remembering with a little smile how he had so stupidly blown it when we were trying to sneak away.

His smile was much more grim. "It broke at Parth Galen," he answered wistfully, "When you were sleeping I threw it in the river to lighten my load for running." He shook his head, sighed, and sat heavily down on the bed.

Automatically I sat down on the other side. "Sorry about breaking it," I apologized with a cringe, "I know it was important to you."

Again, a sigh. His shoulder slumped and he got up to circle the bed slowly. "Merry's and Pippin's lives are more important than any heirloom, no matter how valuable," he said with a weary smile in the half-darkness, "You did the best you could."

He was right, but I would swim in guilt until I saw our hobbit friends again.

"It is I that needs to apologize," Boromir said heavily, "I did something unspeakable- and while I was under the influence of the Ring, it was me who did it- and while you said that I can make amends, I need to beg for forgiveness first." His voice choked up on the word 'beg' and I wondered if he had ever in his life begged for anything.

It absolutely boggled me when Boromir knelt on the stone floor in front of where I sat. His head was bowed, but he peeked up through his hair at me. "I have already vowed to myself to be a better man- to never doubt your loyalty or to ever be violent against you again- to trust that you will fight for my city as I would- but those are only words," he stated, voice almost as devastated as at Parth Galen, "Merry and Pippin are safe and I will fight Sauron to my last breath- but those are things I would have done even if I hadn't-" He wrestled with his words before he choked out, "Tried to kill you."

The admission made my throat close up. For days I had been trying not to think about how it was Boromir's own hands that had nearly strangled the life out of me. The mere memory of it wanted to make me ill.

"We had agreed to stay together, but if you changed your mind, I completely understand," Boromir continued, eyes soft and vulnerable, hand reaching for mine before he caught himself, "It is your choice as to what happens in the future. If you want, we can separate and I will never bother you again. And if you somehow choose to stay with me, then know that I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you."

I had to smile at how Jane Austen this all was. But the reaction he and Aragorn had outside of Fangorn bothered me. "Don't you mean my life?" I asked quietly, "Are you willing to stay with me, knowing that you'll outlive me by decades? That I'm only human, without a single drop of Numenorean or elvish blood in me?"

"If you're willing, then yes," Boromir replied firmly. Bravely, he set his hand on the side of the bed near mine.

It took an absurd amount of courage to set my hand on his. My heart thudded in my ears; it would be the smart thing to call a halt to this, to figure this out and what we were going to do. But deep down, I knew that this was it for me; Boromir or no one. "If anything like this ever happens again, I'm heading for Tharbad," I warned him.

He nodded hastily.

Logically I knew that it would turn out alright, that we would be happy if I just gave this another chance now that the goddamned ring was out of the picture. Then I remembered all the times Cressie's boyfriend had promised things would change but kept hitting her, the fist fights Electra would have with her boyfriend, the many times that Andy had been cheated on by her many boyfriends. My family had a habit of thinking things would be better afterward and then get into the same old shit again.

My mouth went dry. "Get up here," I told Boromir and half-hauled him up onto the bed beside me. Only once I could lean my head on his tense shoulder did I sigh. "Remember the last time we were here in Edoras?" I asked nostalgically.

"It was wonderful," Boromir replied and leaned his head on mine.

We couldn't have had a better honeymoon if we tried. Not in Middle Earth, at any rate; Angkor Wat or Machu Picchu might have been competition. "I thought about leaving you then, but I didn't," I mused, "And I don't think I will now. I reserve the right to head for home if you go mad again, but until that time, I think I'd like to stay together."

All the tension seemed to fall out of Boromir's body; now we were leaning, half holding each other up. "You forgive too easily," he murmured.

"Only when it's about me," I replied idly, playing with the curled point of his gauntlet, "Somebody tries killing my sisters or family, I'm impaling them."

There was a long moment of silence. "You don't value your life enough," Boromir concluded.

He wasn't wrong, so I only shrugged.

Eventually I spoke again. "The road tomorrow will be long. We'll be vulnerable," I said with a grimace, "Godiva broke her leg a few weeks ago, so she'll be on my horse." It was why her house had been cold and locked when we came in; her husband had been at work and she couldn't get firewood into the grate while on her crutch.

Boromir nodded. "Then you'll ride mine," he said.

Automatically I went to argue, but I changed my mind. After our long run, almost the last thing I wanted was to walk for days on end. Again. "If you get tired, we can always switch," I told him.

"We'll see," he replied. His head left the top of mine. "Are you feeling alright now? When we were running, you were having trouble," he asked, eyes piercing in the near-darkness.

I adjusted to face him better. "How obvious was it?" I asked, heat gathering on my cheeks.

How strange it was to see a real, fond smile on Boromir's face after so long. He wound an arm around my waist and pulled me closer to his side. "It is no dishonor to show effort in such a momentous task," he told me, "And it was momentous."

It had certainly felt as such. My legs gave a shadow of a throb in memory. "My family will never believe it," I snickered, "Sprinting, I'm good at. But I'm the last person any of them would think of doing the kind of running we just finished." I paused before I just had to add, "That makes me rather proud of it."

"It is something for us all to be proud of," Boromir agreed, "At the time it seemed natural that you stayed with us and kept running, despite your difficulties. Yet now that we have sat down, I marvel." His eyes gleamed as they met mine.

A flush crept up my cheeks at the praise. "Me too. Let's hope we don't have to do that again." I chuckled darkly at just how many potatoes those rascals would owe me if they made me run after them like that again. More than they could ever steal from Farmer Maggot, for sure.

There was a moment of silence where we held each other, not quite at peace but trying.

"King Theoden orders that we leave before noon tomorrow," Boromir said suddenly, "It makes Aragorn and me anxious; we have so few soldiers and so many refugees, and the move brings us closer to Isengard."

Sympathetically I nodded. "All the choices he has are terrible," I murmured, "This is the only one he can see that delays the mass slaughter." There were reasons I never wanted a command of my own and these kinds of no-win situations were some of them.

"And unless Eomer returns quickly, it will only be a delay," Boromir said darkly.

I rubbed his side with the arm I had around his waist. There was nothing either of us could do to make this better, beyond fighting until our last breath. "If you're religious, it's time for some praying," I said and scoffed.

How ridiculous was it that even knowing for a fact that there are higher powers, I couldn't honestly pray? The knowledge of an absent and uncaring god was just too deeply ingrained in me. But I couldn't help letting out a tiny little request that I knew was useless even as I thought it: we need help.

But it was more than that. A deep, terrible yearning overtook me for my old team. So much of my life had been spent thinking I'd die alongside York, Murphy, and Martin, that it felt wrong to march knowingly to my death without them.

I shook my head and sighed. Impossible, I reminded myself. "If we're going to be useful, we'd better sleep," I suggested, unraveling myself from Boromir.

In quiet, facing away from each other, we got into nightclothes before rolling into bed facing each other. "I hope the caravan is in Eriador," I murmured, remembering the last time we were here, "They don't need to be caught up in this."

A humorless chuckle. "If they're as stubborn and unlucky as you, they're probably on their way here," he predicted.

I gently swatted his arm. "Good Lord, stop that! Whoever's up there might hear you!" I joked.

We had a giggle, a bit hysterically. If we were going to die within the week, we may as well laugh instead of cry.

"Yes, we should sleep," Boromir whispered.

We adjusted and admittedly I had a heart attack when he fitted himself against my back, arm thrown over my ribs. It's okay, I reminded myself. I was safe, I told myself.

I'm not sure when I fell asleep.

"Aragorn!" I was so relieved that he had survived, I didn't care that he was unpleasantly damp all over and hugged him tightly around the middle. Barely I could see over his shoulder where four men stood uncomfortably with a huge stone gatehouse at their backs, wearing desert camo.

I woke up with a jerk like I was jolted with electricity. For several minutes I laid frozen, trying to catch my breath from the intensity of the emotion that rocked me.

On the other side of the bed, Boromir made a sleepy questioning noise.

To reassure him I gave his shoulder a quick, soothing rub. I couldn't speak.

That seemed to be enough for Boromir to roll back over and fall back asleep.

I wished I could join him, but my heart was racing too hard. The need to get up overtook me and I only shoved socks, then shoes onto my feet before fleeing the room.

It was the middle of the night, so the hallways were dark; I didn't mind, just followed my memory to a nearby terrace where I could get some fresh air. The entire town was dark, only lit silvery blue by the waxing moon. Slowly I got my heart under control as I took in the peaceful sight.

One of those dreams again, I thought uncomfortably. Knowing that they were precognitive and not just weird coincidences was awful in ways I hadn't expected. The paranoia that assailed me was incredible as I pored over my future experience for clues as to how it would happen.

"Are you alright?" Legolas's voice made me jump, spinning around to see his perfect face set in a very slight frown of concern.

Was I alright? I didn't think any of us were alright. Nervously I chuckled and tucked my hair behind my ear. "Weird dream. Why do you ask?" I questioned and scooted over for him, despite that there was already plenty of room.

He took the invitation and leaned on the banister with me. For a long moment he gazed outward, seeing things I could only imagine. "You looked… stricken by some awful thought," he answered softly, still staring into the distance.

Well, he wasn't wrong, in the original sense of the term 'awful'. I let out a deep breath and let my shoulder slump. How can I explain what went through my head that night? So far Legolas had been a reasonable, insightful man who didn't often overreact; he'd be a good person to start telling the complete and absolute truth to. Not more of this 'coming west' bullshit, no matter that it was partially true.

"What if I were to tell you that even though I did come from the east, it's much more complicated than that?" I asked, scared enough that I felt nausea rising in my chest.

Unexpectedly, Legolas chuckled. "We all knew it was more than what you said," he said, mischief in his eyes as they met mine, "We simply did not think we would need to ask until we were faced with battle from the east." His smile died as he added, "As we will if we survive the coming battle."

That was almost a more terrifying thought than dying in Helm's Deep. If Legolas freaks out about the truth, how are the twins and I supposed to explain it to a suspicious King Theoden later? I licked my suddenly dry lips.

"Have you ever considered the future? Beyond this war, long after the rest of us are dead?" I asked, trying to figure out where to start with this ridiculous story.

Why did Legolas look like I had slapped him? For a long moment he was still and didn't seem to breathe. Finally he took a quick, sharp breath and closed his eyes as if against some pain, leaning hard on the railing. "So many times have I been faced with a life without Aragorn, but the thought never ceases to be agonizing," he murmured, "For decades, we have been through everything together. For one of us to go where the other cannot follow…" He shook his head.

Since Rivendell I'd known that they were friends, and on the long journey so far I'd seen that they were very close. But I was quickly coming to the conclusion that they were what we called 'platonic life partners' and Arwen must be one hell of an understanding woman. "Sorry, I didn't realize that question would be so difficult on you," I said in the understatement of the week.

He smiled grimly. "Unless Illuvitar saves us at Helm's Deep, it will not be a difficulty much longer," he said, optimistic in the darkest way possible, "I wish to live, as we all do. However death is not the worst thing to be faced with."

I scoffed out a laugh. "I'm not sure about us being saved, but help is coming," I said, adjusting how I was leaning, "A few guys are coming west." I couldn't help my cheshire grin as I added, "Three of my friends and one of theirs. You'll finally get to see what a pistol looks like." My explanation of a mini crossbow without the wings or string to fire only the arrowhead, and that hadn't done it for him at all.

"When did you receive this message? King Theoden should be informed," Legolas said, easing out of the dark mood that had hovered over us.

"I dreamed it," I answered, somewhat nervously but covering it up with a matter of fact tone, "Not like dreams of showing up to battle without my pants kind of dreams, but the kind of dream that tells me things." Chances were that Legolas understood it better than I did, but nerves still made my stomach roil.

He gave an understanding nod and a gentle, "Ah."

It would almost have been a let down if that were the weirdest part. "There'll only be four of them, dressed identically in tan, and confused as hell. No idea where they are, what they're doing there, or what they're supposed to do there," I continued, then gathered to blurt out, "They- we- aren't just from the east. We're from the future."

A few heartbeats passed as Legolas thought this through. "Thus, your questioning my thoughts about the future," he mused, "Many things make more sense now. Your stories of strange mechanisms and cultures. But how could you not know of Sauron and this war, if you are from ahead?" The thought of such things being forgotten seemed to disturb him.

"Because I'm from so far ahead that the world has changed," I replied awkwardly, realizing that I was more prepared for him freaking out than accepting it calmly, "Hundreds of millions of years, so long that the whole world has lived and died and evolved to live again over and over. Though," I snorted out a laugh, "This era really resembles a period only hundreds of years back from mine."

"How extraordinary," Legolas murmured. Then he gave me a little Cheshire smile and added, "No wonder your speech is so strange."

Affectionately I swatted him on the arm.

More seriously, he continued, "Even four men are a boon to not be turned away in the coming days, be they from Tharbad or Rohan or the future. It only takes one person in the right place to spell the difference between victory and defeat. Yet I fear that everything we have will not be enough." He was more deeply troubled than I had thought.

I hated that there was nothing I could say to allay that. The same kind of thoughts were running through my mind in the background. But I was so horribly used to the certainty of death that it only made my pulse beat a little harder, didn't summon the nausea that terror always brought.

"Me too. But if we're gonna go, then we're going down swinging," I replied with certainty.

It brought a hint of a real smile to his face. "Yes we will," he agreed.