Title: Despair and Hope

Chapter 4: Making the Decision

Aragorn turned and faced Eowyn.

"Is what Saruman said really true, my lady?" he asked her. "Did you really hear me calling his name? Were you actually thinking of me?"

"I- yes, I was." She sounded embarrassed.

"What happened?"

"What do you mean, my lord?"

"I mean, what sort of form did you leave behind? What does your body look like without its spirit? Is it continuing to function mindlessly, or is it merely a lifeless form?"

"I do not know. In any case, it would not matter. I was in a private corner of one of the central caves. I was leaning against the wall. I had asked not to be disturbed for a while, as I needed to gather my thoughts. The last thing I remember was your voice calling 'Saruman, Saruman' and my joining you, and then finding myself here. But why are you asking?"

"Because the last thing I remember was hundreds of orcs swirling around me and attacking me."

She gasped. "Do you think you are injured?"

"If my body became lifeless when I left it, then yes, I think it is highly probable."

"Then you had better make your decision fast, so we can get back before you bleed to death or something, that is if you are injured, which I sincerely hope you're not."

He nodded. "What do you think I should do?"

Her face mirrored surprise. "I thought that should have been obvious, and that you should now only be gathering your courage to tell the White Wizard."

He gave her a quizzical look. "What do you mean? This is the most difficult decision I have made in my life!"

"I think you should humor him."

"What?!" His surprise made him incoherent. "How can you…what do you…my Lady Eowyn!"

"Don't interrupt me, Lord Aragorn, listen to me for a moment. Think reasonably. You have the strongest character I know of, you and you alone can carry on the façade that you yet have your hopes when you don't. Also, if we defeat the Dark Lord, then we will have defeated Saruman, probably killed him, and then all the evil magic he has ever done will be undone, and the good will be strengthened. In that process you will regain your hopes. Didn't you know that? It is the rule of all wizards, is it not? "

"Yes, but what if we don't defeat him?"

"That will mean you will be dead; then what use would you have for hopes anyway?"

Aragorn was quite flabbergasted. This was so completely uncharacteristic of Eowyn that it had stricken him dumb. He was also aware that she cared for him in more ways than one. How could she say such things with such a straight face?

"I can't believe this," he burst out finally. "You- you're… how can you be saying this to me? Just like that? You do love me, don't you?" He instantaneously regretted saying it. This was a subject both of them avoided very dutifully, and without exception.

"In more ways than one," she quoted his unspoken thought. She paused for a moment, them said, "it is taking more strength than you realize to be saying these things to you. But I have to. Because I think that is our only hope."

He smiled bitterly at the irony.

"Don't worry," she said softly, but with conviction. "I know we'll win through in the end. We will get our hopes back?"

"We?" he asked.

"Your hopes are as good as mine, you know."

"Eowyn, I appreciate your faith in me, but I don't know, I don't think I will get my hopes back if…if I give them up."

"Ah," she said smiling slightly. "You've trapped yourself by saying that. Don't you hear the despair in your own voice?"

He nodded, taken by surprise; he hadn't realized that before.

"You see, Aragorn? This is why I'm trying to convince you to give up your hopes in the first place. Hope is not a thing. At the moment your hoping is not active. That doesn't mean you don't have them. When the White Wizard takes away you're hopes, you'll probably feel nothing more than this. It won't mean a part of you has gone, it will just mean you will have a sense of dull sadness and dark foreboding."

"But imagine feeling like that every day, every second Eowyn. It would kill me. It would kill anyone."

"But you wouldn't feel like that every second. Tell me, even in the same grave circumstances, did your elf-friend Legolas seem constantly, completely hopeless? Was he sad all the time?"

"No," Aragorn admitted, as he remembered the ardent joy on Legolas's face when Haldir and the elves had arrived. He was finally convinced that she was right. Being without hopes for sometime wouldn't kill him.

"Alright then, I'll do it." He took a deep breath and called across the room, "I've made my decision, Saruman."

Saruman walked over and stood in front of the both of them. "Yes?" he asked in a moment's silence.

"I shall humor you."

"That's right, I knew I had gotten through to you," Saruman said smiling in triumph. "You," he shot at Eowyn. "Pray don't think of him while I do the spell, I have no use for your hopes."

Before Aragorn could ask him what use he had for his hopes, Saruman withdrew a small black box from the interiors of his robes, and set it on the floor. He began to say some strange words that Aragorn couldn't understand. Aragorn saw something bright, like a white light, the same color of lightning fly from his chest and toward the box. Surprisingly, he felt nothing shift in his feelings. As Eowyn had said, he was already in despair.

 The black box opened and hundreds of lights came out, but most were dimmer than him. They swirled around Eowyn and him. Saruman's chanting grew louder.

  Aragorn caught a glimpse of the lights flying to the tower window and out of it. Then Aragorn felt a sudden flying sensation in the pit of his stomach, and then the next second he felt the hard ground beneath him, and heard the sounds of battle. He opened his eyes, and the moment he did this, a terrible burning pain hit him in the side. He gasped in pain. Orcs were all around him, closing in on him. Suddenly Legolas appeared in front of him, driving back the orcs.

"What is wrong with you?" Legolas was screaming over his shoulder. "Fifteen minutes! Just fainted in the middle of a battlefield of orcs. And you can't even fight again now."

Aragorn tried to speak, but couldn't. His eyes watered in pain. The world began to spin.

"Gimli, help him!" the elf screamed turning around for a moment to speak to the dwarf. Aragorn felt a thump of a rough had on his shoulder.

"Come on, laddie." The dwarf huffed and puffed as he helped him to his feet. Aragorn leaned on him, unable to support himself. Gimli half dragged him toward the blasted part of the fortress's outer wall. Aragorn was still aware of Legolas fighting the orcs. He caught glimpses of the elf's golden hair, flashing in the moonlight, and the sheen of his ever-moving sword.

"Haldir, rope!" Gimli shouted. A rope was thrown down from the causeway.

"Hold on to that, laddie," Gimli said, pressing the rope into Aragorn's hand. Aragorn took a grip on the rope and felt himself being pulled up. He fought to remain conscious. After an eternity he felt a hand grasping his shoulders, and then his body went limp, and he knew no more.

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