Picture, Part 3

"What the hell is this?" Kate yelled, and fell off the bed.

"Argh," Boromir groaned, gripping his head in his hands as he sat up. Then, leaning over the edge of the bed, he peered down at her. "I feel uncommonly strange, lady." She stared up at him with wide eyes as he glanced down at his body. There were holes where the arrows had pierced him, but no arrows, nor any wounds, either. "Might you know what has happened?"

Kate got to her feet. "I have no idea whatsoever," she informed him, and saw with shock that her clothes were covered in bloodstains. Never before had she brought any sign of her travels home with her, apart from the sketches… "Last thing I knew, you were dying, and I was crying, and then I woke up, and cried some more, and you were here."

"I am dead, then," he said with finality. "The afterlife is not as I had expected it to be…" his voice trailed off as he noticed something.

Kate looked around her bedroom. It wasn't too messy, and hey! The bed was made. She'd done laundry yesterday so there were no piles of dirty clothes on the floor… just a heap of drawings on the desk, and the last the of oil paintings propped up against the wall. It was this painting that caught Boromir's attention… it was his face, filled with longing, as he gazed upon the ring dangling from his gloved hand. Sunlight glinted from the ring and in his eyes, a powerful spark uniting all three.

Slowly, never moving his gaze from the painting, Boromir stood and walked to it. He still wore one glove, and slowly stripped it off before grasping the painting's wooden frame. His other hand drew back and made a fist, and Kate had barely enough time to scramble across the bed and to his side to snatch it from him before he aimed a blow at his own face in the picture.

Shielding it behind herself, she looked up at him. He really was a large man, and dwarfed her petite frame by nearly a foot. The look on his face was frightening, of repulsion and loathing, and he reached past her again for the painting. Kate ran out into the living room and shoved it under the couch before darting to the other side of the room, hoping to trick him from discovering where she'd hidden it.

"Listen," she said placatingly. "I know you're upset…"

"Upset?" Boromir growled. "Lady, you have no concept of how upset I am." He took a step toward her, and though she felt herself begin to shake, she didn't back away. "That image of me, that disgusting image, is a reminder of my weakness. Of how I betrayed the Fellowship, how I broke it! I cannot bear to leave it whole." He took another step forward. "Let me destroy it."

"I can't," she whispered, jamming her hands in the pockets of her jeans to try and stop their trembling. Even if she hadn't needed it to fulfill her contract with the calendar publishers—which she did—the scene was poignant and deeply important to the entire tale, deeply important to understanding Boromir's motivations and actions. It was needed.

"Lady," he groaned, and slumped into a chair, his every movement jerky with exhaustion as he bent over, elbows on knees, and buried his face in his hands. "What has happened to me? I used to know exactly who I was, what I was doing. Now I know nothing."

"That sounds familiar," Kate muttered, and came to plop on the floor at his feet before grabbing his hands. "Listen, I'll be honest with you. I don't know what the hell is going on." His blue eyes latched onto her brown ones, clinging to her like a lifeline. "All I know is that I'm an artist, I was hired to create a calendar depicting the important scenes of a book, and every time I try to think about this book, I end up in the book somehow."

"Book?" he asked, his face puzzled under the dirt, blood, and tear-stains. "What are you talking about?"

Kate sighed. "In my world—where we are now—you and everyone else, everyone in your world, all of Middle-Earth, is just a story in a book."

His eyes narrowed. "Are you saying, Lady, that I do not really exist but for a man's imagination?" He smirked a little then, his skepticism almost insulting.

"Yeah, that's what I'm saying," she snapped, dropping his hands and standing. Serves her right for trying to be comforting. "You're just a character in a book."

He stood as well, and spread his arms wide. "Then how do you explain my presence in this place?" He looked around then, eyes becoming progressively wider as he took in the electronics of her TV, stereo, lamps, and digital clock.

"I cant," she replied crossly. "But I can't explain my freaky dreams, either." She wrapped her arms around herself and stared at the floor, trying desperately to figure out what was going on, until an odd squeak from Boromir grabbed her attention. "Hey! What are you doing?" she demanded, bolting over and slapping his hands away from her stereo. "Don't touch anything, dammit!"

The expression on his face made her feel terrible, like she'd kicked a wounded puppy. "Oh, god, don't," she said falteringly, and felt her anger at him dissolve. What a jerk she was—the poor bastard had just died, for chrissakes, and she was hollering at him like a fishwife. "Listen, let's start over, ok?"

He nodded, then smiled brightly, making Kate suspect his woe of a moment before hadn't been entirely genuine. "First off, let's get you a shower," she told him. Now that the intensity of his death and miraculous appearance in her apartment had worn off, it was painfully apparent that the man had some desperate need to reacquaint himself with a bar of soap.

"A what?" he asked, and Kate sighed.

"It's like a bath, but you stand up for it, and… listen, just come with me, I'll show you." She led him into the bathroom. "How hot do you like your water?"

"Not too hot?" he said, more of a question than a statement, and Kate turned the knob and pulled. He jumped back when water began to course from the showerhead. "Water at whatever temperature you wish, whenever you wish?" he asked quietly. "What magic is this?"

"No magic," Kate laughed. "Just the wonders of modern plumbing." While the water warmed up, she fetched a washcloth and some towels for him, and laid a new bar of soap on the pile of linens. "There," she said, turning back to him, "I think that's everything you'll need—"

Her words cut off sharply when she was confronted with six-foot-two of naked male. "Um. Eager for your shower, are you? Right. I'll just be… somewhere else." And she bolted out, ignoring his laughter as she slammed the door shut behind her.

Kate spent the time Boromir was in the shower by cleaning up her apartment. Amazing how much dust could settle on your horizontal surfaces when you were being sent to wacky alternate dimensions. Then she changed out of her bloodied clothing—frowning sadly at the white peasant blouse, which was unsalvageable—and settled on her bed, belly-down, to flip through the sketches she'd made of Boromir's death.

Even though tears once more filled her eyes, she groped blindly for a pencil and began drawing out how he'd looked before the moment of his death. The arrows jutted obscenely from his shoulder, his pelvis, his chest, and his face was a mask of pain and anguish, but also of peace. As if he still felt guilt for his weakness, but that he had managed to gain some measure of redemption…

She sniffed and used the heel of her other hand to wipe tears from her eyes while she sketched in a single tear-track on his cheek. It wasn't easy to recognize it, because of the stubble on his cheek, but she knew it was there, knew she had been a part of that moment, knew she had to include that tiny piece of herself in the scene.

"Why do you weep for me?"

Kate looked up to find him standing there, framed by the bathroom door, clutching a towel around his hips. His damp hair hung around his face, and she was surprised to find that it was not only lighter than she'd thought, but somewhat reddish too. She laid down the sketchpad and, resolutely ignoring his almost-naked body, dug in her dresser for sweatpants and a t-shirt. She handed them to Boromir and turned quickly away when he allowed his towel to drop to the floor.

"Why do you weep for me?" he asked again, and she dared to face him, vastly relieved to find him safely dressed. Her eyes met his for an endless moment as her thoughts whirled in her head. Why was she crying for him?

"I'm not sure," she said at last. "I've been crying over you since the first time I saw you, on Caradhras. It's just so awful, all of it. A horrible situation, a horrible thing to happen to decent people, so much misery and pain…"

"So you pity me," he finished, sitting heavily on the edge of the bed, facing away from her. "I do not like being pitied."

Kate scrambled to her knees and tugged on his shoulder to make him face her. "I don't pity you," she told him, looking hard into his eyes. "It's more sympathy than pity, and a sort of despair on your behalf, I suppose…" She frowned. "Dammit, I'm no good with words. If I were, I'd have been a writer instead of an artist." She sighed. "Look, all I'm trying to say is that I don't feel sorry for you, just bad. I wish you didn't have to go through all that crap."

"But I did," Boromir replied, and covered her hand on his shoulder with his own. It was much larger than her own hand, and very warm, and Kate realized that she now had a very large man in her home who she really didn't know hardly at all. "I did endure all of that, and it would seem there is much else I must endure also."

He sighed and released her hand, standing. "I know not what to do with myself, my lady," he told her. "I do not think we are in Middle-Earth any longer, and would know what life I can make for myself here. I would not presume to your charity for longer than I must." He shot her a glance from beneath lowered lashes. "Especially since I still do not know your name."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, feeling like an idiot. "I'm Kate, Kate Greenlee." She made an awkward motion around her. "Welcome to my home."

Boromir bowed to her, laughter in his eyes. The courtly gesture looked quite peculiar indeed, with him wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt with Tweety Bird on it as he did. "And I am Boromir, son of Denethor," he replied, then sobered.

"What is it?" Kate asked softly, putting her hand on his arm.

"My father," he replied, staring at the floor as he absently covered her hand with his own. "He will be distraught to learn of my…" He looked up at her. "Am I dead?"

She blinked. "I… don't know," Kate said at last. "I mean, obviously, no, you're not dead, you're right here with me. But on Middle-Earth… I don't know what you are." She frowned. "But I can find out."

He watched as she lay down on the bed, wiggling a little to get comfortable. "Your way of learning more is to take a nap?" he asked mildly.

"So skeptical," she admonished, eyeing him. "You look pretty wiped, why not take a nap yourself?" She motioned to the other side of the bed. "Make yourself comfy."

His brows came together in a frown. "You mean to share the bed with me?" There was a world of things unspoken in that question.

Kate rolled her eyes. "For sleeping purposes only, big guy. C'mon." She plumped up the pillow. "Doesn't that look inviting? Can't you just imagine letting your head sink into its feathery softness? Isn't it—"

"Yes, my lady, I understand," he grumbled, and lowered himself to the bed, letting his eyes fall blissfully shut for a moment before cracking one open at her. "It is my heartfelt hope that you do not snore, my lady," he said at last. "I have spent many long nights awake because of Legolas' sawing of many logs."

She stared at him, agog. "Legolas snores?" she demanded, trying to picture it. The image simply wouldn't come.

Boromir nodded smugly. "I was sure he would bring the mines down around us whilst we were in Moria," he said with no little satisfaction. She waited for him to say more, but he was already asleep. She studied him a moment. His face wasn't really handsome; it was much too craggy and rugged, too hearty and with none of the refined angles and planes that a face of classic beauty—say, Legolas'—would have.

Kate found her hand reaching for her sketchpad and pencil once more, and it was almost an hour later when she was done drawing him in repose and had touched up the other drawings she'd done that day. Satisfied at last, she placed her tools on the floor beside the bed and lay back, flinging her arm over her face as she yawned.

She was exhausted, and not just physically. Her mind felt battered, and she longed to know exactly what had happened, what had gone wrong, for this whole thing with Boromir to happen. So caught up in her thoughts was she that she didn't even notice when she fell asleep.