A/N: Hey guys, I'm back with another chapter! It's been a little while, life has been busy! A podcast I'm writing is being adapted for audio and I'm excited! I'm currently in the recruitment process for a job I'd really like and I've been writing lots,but I'm so excited you guys are still enjoying it.
Trigger Warning: Graphic injuries and PTSD.
The part in italics is Millie having flashbacks.
If you want to be extra emotional when reading this chapter, this is what was playing in the background when I wrote it. track/1Fpsx72oxur3RVwrVEYLiY?si=b55040041359407c
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Guilt
MILLIE'S POV
The whole thing was a mess and I had a bad feeling about it from the moment we entered the camp. Whoever these people were, it looked as though they had been through literal hell and had the wounds to show for it. Everywhere I turned I saw one injury worse than the other and I couldn't help but wonder what had really happened. Since my time in Middle-Earth, I had certainly encountered some strange things and I had feared for my life more than once, but this gave me a different feeling entirely. I couldn't quite explain it, but it was like a dark cloud looming on the horizon, threatening a storm unlike anything we had ever seen before.
I didn't like it, yet I found myself dealing with something out of my control. All I could do was use my training to help some of these men and perhaps ease their suffering. Elrond was quick to examine the wounded soldiers, no doubt determining which course of action to take.
Most of the soldiers were young; most of them around my age, give or take a few years. Judging by the location and severity of their wounds, one could easily tell that they were not skilled soldiers. Standing in the middle of the encampment immediately resurfaced memories of when I, along with a couple of doctors and other nurses, traveled to one of the villages alongside the Thames outside London.
A large manor had been turned into a country house hospital and we spent nearly a whole week setting everything up ahead of the arrival of the wounded. Swapping London for the countryside had been a much needed change of scenery, but I also recall the vivid surreal feeling of the whole thing.
Much like the same feeling I had now.
My eyes wandered the outline of the encampment as I tried to figure out exactly how many wounded we were dealing with. There were a good hundred or more people, not just soldiers, and from what I could gather it seemed as though they had not been here very long. Some tents were still being set up, while some women were running back and forth between tents carrying bits of food and other necessities.
It became immediately clear to me that most of these people had never been in the presence of an elf before. Some of them moved out of Elrond's way as he gracefully walked from person to person, assessing each individual wound with the same genuine care he always showed.
"Millie!" Elrond called out, "I need your assistance."
I snapped out of my trancelike state and searched for Elrond, who had strayed a little farther into the encampment while I was still by the entrance. I don't know why, but for some reason my feet felt like they were made of iron and struggled to move forward.
Come on, Millie. I thought to myself. You've done this before.
Eventually, I unfroze myself and headed over to Elrond who was kneeling before a man lying on a wooden stretcher, almost identical to ones I had helped carry countless times before.
He was a young man. At a guess, I would say in his early twenties, maybe even younger. An arrow was stuck in his chest and another had pierced his left leg. I wasn't so much concerned about the leg injury as I was about the chest wound and one look at Elrond's face told me he knew it was serious.
"What sort of arrow is it?" I asked, "It doesn't look elvish or dwarvish."
"It is an orc arrow, no doubt dipped in poison." Elrond replied with clear disdain in his voice, "I should be able to heal the wound itself, but we must remove the arrows first."
"Should?"
I turned to Elrond, surprised to hear doubt in his voice. Everyone regarded him as one of Middle-Earth's most skilled healers and hearing his doubt was reason enough to worry.
"Orc poison is powerful." Elrond explained, "While I would be able to heal the wound itself, this young man will still feel the effects of the injury for the rest of his life."
"Well then we must act quickly." I said, "I've never removed arrows before, but I think the principle is similar to other foreign objects. We could pull it straight out, but we need to be careful. The flesh around the leg and thigh area are soft and so if we pull it straight out it could cause irreparable long-term damage."
"What do you suggest?"
I thought for a moment. This was new territory to me and the last thing I wanted was to risk making this young man's injuries worse, but we were also running out of time if poison was involved.
"If soft flesh is involved and the arrowhead is nowhere near a vital blood vessel, we might be able to push." I explained, "Although, I think we'd need to break off the shaft first and then the rest of the arrow pulled through from the rear. I'm more worried about the chest, but we would do much more damage pulling that out right away."
"So we start with the leg then."
"Yes, but we need more help to hold him down, it will be painful."
Elrond didn't hesitate. He called for Amras and another man to help hold the young man down. To be so young and go through so much physical pain was not something I wished upon anyone, but it was better than the alternative.
"What's his name?" I asked Amras, "I should have asked sooner."
"His name is Aldis." Amras replied, "He is my cousin. Will you be able to save him?"
"I will try. Aldis, you need to bite down on this, because it will hurt."
With some effort, Aldis was able to open his mouth and I gave him a piece of thick wood to bite down on. This was always my least favorite part.
"On the count of three." I commanded, "One, two, three."
The scream that came out of Aldis' mouth as we pulled out the orc arrow from his left leg was that of a man in an excruciating amount of pain. As soon as the arrow was out the blood gushed out from the wound.
"Keep pressure on the wound." I said I didn't much care who put pressure on the wound, but I needed to act swiftly.
I reached for the bandages I carried in my satchel and continued to quickly clean and dress the wound. I had done this so many times that it was almost second nature to me, but there was always a moment of worry that your job wouldn't be good enough. The easy part was over, but it would be the next part that was difficult.
"You are doing great, Aldis." I assured him, "There's only one more thing left to do and it's going to hurt again, but only briefly."
Aldis replied in a groan and I turned to Elrond who nodded. We pretty much repeated the same procedure as with the leg, but I could tell instantly that the chest wound was far worse and not only because of the blood. A thick and yellow sort of pus oozed out of the wound and I had no idea how quickly orc poison worked. That was Elrond's area of expertise, but I had to admit that even I felt a little out of my depth.
After what seemed like hours with a great deal of help from Elrond as well as Amras and a couple other volunteers, we managed to remove both arrows and I was able to dress both wounds. Elrond immediately set to work with the healing, but I needed to take a few moments and so, when I was certain I had done my part, I left Elrond to it and wandered around in the encampment.
Why had the orcs chosen to attack these people? Where were they going and where they had left from? So many questions whirled around in my mind and I couldn't help but hear a small voice in the back of my mind warning me that something was wrong. Gandalf's warning about the raven cawing hadn't helped, but I just could not shake the overwhelming feeling that something else was at work here.
"Your elf friend seems to be a skilled healer." said Amras as he walked up to me.
"Elrond is one of the most powerful healers alive." I told him, "If anyone can heal your cousin, he can."
"He is not alone in sharing the praise. It is clear to me that you are also gifted with the ability to heal. Your quick thinking might well have saved my cousin's life. I am in your debt, my lady."
"There's no need to thank me. I was only doing my job."
"I am curious. I was not aware of any humans living amongst the elves. Nor have I heard of anyone as gifted with healing as you are. From where do you hail? Are you from Gondor? I hear they have great healers there and people of many other skills."
From where did I hail? The question echoed in my mind because I honestly did not know how to answer truthfully. It was different with the others, because they knew where I was from and to them it did not matter. I wasn't sure how anyone else might react, but I had a feeling that it would be best to not tell Amras the whole truth.
I was about to answer when suddenly I became acutely aware of my surroundings. Behind me, I heard another man cry out in pain while others rushed to help him. I turned around to see what was going on, but as I looked out over the encampment, I suddenly saw flashes of the country hospital.
Wounded soldiers crying out for their mothers and blood everywhere.
"My lady?" Amras said, "Are you alright? You have gone pale."
"I'm fine, I just need to sit down for a …"
The words trailed off and before I knew it, the world around me suddenly turned blurry. The last thing I remember before everything went black was someone calling out my name.
"I need hot water! Now!"
"Someone get the alcohol!"
"We need to amputate, now!"
Blood.
Screams.
Anger.
Fear.
All around me and all at once. It was like being in the middle of the worst nightmare imaginable yet knowing you had no way to stop it.
The hospital was in chaos, but somewhere in the midst of the chaos a familiar figure seemed to run past me. I followed it and soon found myself wandering a dark corridor.
"You should have saved me, Millie."
The moment I heard the voice, I froze. I knew it so well and had heard it so many times, yet somehow it sounded different. I could feel him behind me, but I was too afraid to turn around.
"Why didn't you save me?" Charlie asked mockingly, "You claimed to love me so much."
"I tried to save you, Charlie." I replied, "I tried so hard. You did not want to be saved."
"So you let me die instead. Look at me, Millie."
I stood still, without moving.
"LOOK AT ME!"
Suddenly, Charlie stood in front of me, but it was like he was a monstrous version of himself and far from the Charlie that I knew and had loved.
And I screamed.
"Millie, tolo dan nan galad. You are safe here."
I sat up with a jolt.
At first, I thought we were back in Rivendell, but it didn't take me long before I realised I was in one of the encampment tents. A massive headache lingered around my forehead and I still felt a little disoriented. I then noticed that Elrond sat next to me and I wondered how long I had been passed out. Had the elvish voice I heard belonged to him?
Surely it must have been.
"What happened?" I asked, "How long have I been unconscious?"
"You passed out and Amras brought you here." Elrond replied, "He said you turned pale and your feet simply gave way. What is the last thing you remember?"
"I heard someone crying out and I thought for a moment that maybe it was Aldis. I turned around to see where it came from, but instead of looking at the encampment it was like I was seeing a place I had been before, back home. At the beginning of the war, me and a few other nurses and doctors were asked to help out at a country house hospital. There were busloads of soldiers returning from the trenches in Russia and from the first day it was all complete chaos. Dozens of soldiers died despite our best efforts and most of them were Aldis' age."
An exasperated sigh escaped my lips as I buried my face in my hands. I had been in Middle-Earth for a long time now and had never struggled with these kinds of flashes before. The last time I had even had a nightmare was during my first few weeks in Mirkwood. Why were they starting now? Why was Charlie there?
"There is a phrase for it in your world." Elrond told me, as if he had read my mind. "I believe Maggie calls it PTSD."
"PTSD? I have never heard of that." I said, "Perhaps it is something from her time."
"According to her it stands for posttraumatic stress disorder and is quite commonly suffered by soldiers who have returned from war. Perhaps also by those who have seen battle without having partaken in it."
PTSD.
Somehow it made sense, even though the word itself was new.
"Is there a cure for it?" I asked, although perhaps Maggie knew more about this particular thing than Elrond.
"I do not know." Elrond replied, "But I do think you have seen enough for one day. It is late and we ought to get back to Imladris. No doubt Thranduil will be anxiously waiting for you."
"We have to come back, though. Don't we? There are so many more wounded and they don't have any healers amongst them."
"We will discuss it when the sun has risen and we have all had a good night's rest. I shall find Amras and inform him of our departure."
I was far too exhausted to argue with Elrond and a few moments later we rode out from the encampment back towards Rivendell. I could sense Elrond's reluctance to return and I was curious to know why it made him anxious, but it would have to wait.
I went straight to my bedroom when we returned to Rivendell. A part of me felt a little guilty about not telling Thranduil we were back, but Elrond assured me he would let him know.
As soon as I walked in through the door and closed it behind me, a wave of exhaustion washed over me and I sank down onto the soft mattress.
Even though ghosts were not real, Charlie existed as a ghost in my mind and he was every bit as real as the world around me.
My emotions turned jagged inside me and as I curled up on my bed, hugging my knees, I sobbed into a pillow. The sound of footsteps reached my ears and soon after, a weight sunk into the mattress next to me. A gentle hand on my back alerted me to Elrond's presence. Of all people it could have been, I was glad it was Elrond because I wasn't sure I could stand the thought of Thranduil seeing me cry.
"Elves have healing powers, can you make it go away?" I asked between my tears "Because I don't understand how I'm supposed to live through this nightmare."
"Dear one," Elrond said calmly. "I have not the power to heal heartache and even though it may not seem like it now, it will get better, I promise."
"How can it get better, when every time I close my eyes, I see him?" I asked, "Yet, every time I feel like I'm ready to move on, I feel so guilty for even considering it."
The guilt sat not on my chest but in my brain. Every logical part of me knew that I was allowed to move on. A small voice in the back of my mind thought that perhaps, I was even ready. Some days, when I watched Eira play with Thranduil or watched him interact with the others, I felt at peace. Since I had become settled with my life in Middle-Earth, most days, most days were good. I even enjoyed imagining the possibility that I could see myself having something that resembled a normal life here. Yet, the anxious voices in my mind reminded me that I didn't deserve to move on. Charlie hadn't survived the war so why was I allowed to move on with my life? Why should I be allowed to find love in someone else?
"The guilt is no doubt caused by your own anxiety and the trauma you have suffered." Elrond said "But Millie, there is nothing wrong with wanting to move on and seek happiness for yourself. Happiness and indeed love. You are still young, penneth, Yes, the love you shared with Charlie was true and that love will live on through your memories. However, you are also allowed to experience that love again. It does not make you a bad person and nor does it sully the memory or what you shared."
Elrond's words made sense, even though it was tough to hear it.
"Millie, do you love Thranduil?" Elrond asked
The answer was clear in my mind without a single shadow of a doubt.
"Yes, I love him with all my heart." I replied, "And that scares me more than anything."
"It is a normal fear, but be assured by the knowledge that Thranduil loves you also." Elrond said, "Perhaps it would be wise to talk to him about your fears and tell him how you truly feel."
Elrond was right, of course. Even though I was still crying, I felt more relieved than before.
"Thank you, Elrond." I said, "You are a good friend and I'm lucky."
"It is we who are lucky to have you in our lives, Millie. Now try to get some sleep, penneth. You will feel better in the morning."
Elrond got up and as I crawled beneath the blankets, I was sure he mumbled something in Elvish again, but I didn't know what exactly because I soon drifted off into a heavy and much needed sleep.
To be continued…
Well, that was quite the chapter! Much longer than I expected, but I hope you liked it! Is there anything you want to happen in the story going forward? Drop your suggestion below! Also I'm looking for someone who might be interested in doing some Thranduil/Millie artwork! If you're up for it, let me know!
