Without uttering a single word, Aragorn lunged his whole body toward his husband, meeting Legolas' waiting lips with a searing kiss. How long had it been since they'd done this? Too long, he decided, considering how much passion they still evoked in each other in other aspects of life. It was simply ridiculous that they had expended so much energy on protecting each other when they could have been kissing like this. Not that they hadn't kissed for awhile – in the few weeks their lips would brush together as a means for one to comfort the other; and their mouths would join so that they could physically connect again after a time of crisis; and, of course, there were those obligatory pecks in passing. None of those, however, possessed this level of needfulness, this hunger, this heat. Aragorn felt as if a fire within him that had almost been smothered was suddenly breathing again, raging high until it scorched the sky.

The Man wasted no time thrusting his tongue into Legolas' mouth and thoroughly enjoyed the ecstasy he experienced as they dueled, battling for dominance. Legolas tried to win by making Aragorn lose his senses through the combined forces of massaging his husband's tongue with his own while sliding his hands underneath his shirt, caressing the skin of Aragorn's back before moving them to his chest and exploring that expanse at a deliberate pace. Aragorn was well aware of this particular tactic – and what a potent force that the elf's fiery and competitive nature was, especially when he applied the same stamina to their sex life that he showed in the heat of battle – and fought valiantly to keep his wits about him.

'After all,' he reasoned, 'didn't we just decide that our relationship should be about mutual support and attending to each other's needs while also accepting the help that's offered?' As far as he was concerned, there was no better place and time to enact that new policy than right now.

Aragorn wrapped his arms around Legolas, pulling him forward to totally press their bodies together. That was his intention, at any rate; before he could feel the tantalizing warmth of Legolas' body against him he encountered a large, hard mass that was hindering his efforts. It was the elf's protruding belly and Aragorn was paying the price for not calculating it into his plans. "Omph," he grunted breathlessly, forced to break off their kiss to concentrate on an even more basic task. "My love, I'm having difficulty breathing…"

Legolas broke away immediately, though Aragorn's embrace kept him from going too far. "I'm sorry," he apologized, a little embarrassed though he knew that he couldn't control how much his stomach was bulging those days. "It just felt so good to be able to feel your body against mine again and I couldn't get close enough."

"I know – believe me, I know," Aragorn groaned, both wantonly, because he needed to be with his husband so badly that it was threatening to drive him insane, and with frustration, because that near-insanity was robbing him of the presence of mind he needed in order to solve this dilemma. "There's no reason to apologize either; I was trying to get closer too." He brought his hand to Legolas' stomach and rubbed his palm over it fondly. "As I recall, I also had a role in the creation of this. Funny, I don't remember us having a problem like this the last time we made love."

"Well, my stomach wasn't as large back then as it is now," Legolas reminded him. "I've been heeding the healers' advice about eating and resting, Ada and Gimli stand over me until I eat everything on my plate, and Sam is very generous with his portions. It's no wonder that I've grown so much in the last month."

"A month," repeated Aragorn in a sort of awed disbelief. By the Valar, it had been a little more than an entire month since the last time they made love. No wonder he was having problems thinking clearly. "That's just…wrong. I mean, for the first few months after our wedding we couldn't even wait through a whole day to join our bodies. Then we had to scale it back to just every night; then to three to five days a week; and now we've abstained for over a month."

"It's sad, but we're not the first married couple that this has happened to," Legolas told him, trying to be reasonable since getting angry or sad about it wouldn't help matters any. "It seems that we need to try harder in this area as well."

Aragorn was only slightly consoled. "Still – one month," he continued to mull over. "That has to be some sort of record for us."

"Not one that I intended to set, not am I incredibly thrilled about," commented Legolas wryly, though obviously trying to disguise his own gloomy feelings about the matter. "But that's why we're out on this talan on this beautiful night - to setrightthe mistakes of our recent past. All will be well again if we try."

The tone of his voice made Aragorn snap out of his musings. If he wanted to let Legolas know that he didn't need to be protected from all unhappy things he would first have to show his husband that he could, and would, act like an adult. Under these circumstances, that meant stop obsessing over the past and take action to ensure that they keep it from continuing. He stroked Legolas' neck before dragging his fingertips up the points of his ears and teasing them. "I must beg your forgiveness, mela," he whispered gently. Legolas only shivered and let out several shallow pleasure-tinted pants in reply. "This is a time of renewal, not for us to lament the past. I let my marveling at how controlled we've been this last month get the better of me."

"I'll grant my forgiveness," gasped Legolas. His head was lolling as he tried to lean into both of Aragorn's busy hands. "But only if you keep doing that. Ai Elbereth, I think that your touch could undo me on every part of my skin!"

"Pregnancy is making your skin extra-sensitive," murmured Aragorn as he brought his mouth down on Legolas' collarbone. "You told me that on the night that we announced your pregnancy, remember?"

"I remember every single detail about that night," replied Legolas with a seductive smile. "Everything about you made me want you more. By Eru, Aragorn! That never stopped – do you know how many days and nights I've spent aching for your touch?"

"I've been such a fool to let myself get distracted from attending to your every need of that kind," said Aragorn simply, "but no more. You should know that I intend on making up for that one month without sex this very night. In fact, I'm starting right now."

Legolas gasped as Aragorn moved his head suddenly to take the tip of the nearest ear into his mouth. Elbereth, he wasn't going to last long at this rate! The suckling and flickering of the tongue against that particularly sensitive part of his body was making him feel like all of his bones were melting away. "We m-made some rather – ambitious plans that night," he recalled, trying to catch his breath enough to speak coherently.

"Oh yes," sighed Aragorn. He shifted his head down slightly without detaching his mouth so that he could whisper breathily in Legolas' ear: "Sex all over the citadel. Sex in the weapons room; sex in the throne room..."

"Sex in the throne room," keened Legolas in such a tone that Aragorn was surprised to find that he hadn't climaxed right then and there. "I have a wonderful little fantasy for that room that I've become very attached too. Just thinking about is enough to take me over the edge."

"Really?" Aragorn was ridiculously jealous that a daydream possessed the type of power that only he was supposed to have over his husband. Still, his interest was piqued – the elf had always had an uninhibited imagination when it came to their sex life. Considering his state of mind back then, whatever he'd come up with in terms of his fantasies was without a doubt worth exploring. "Do you have a mind to share it with me?"

"That was the plan," Legolas smirked as they both felt the shift of dominance fall his way. He paused to let Aragorn pull his tunic from his body and was rewarded with the deliciously cool wind caressing his flesh. "You were the king –"

"Sounds familiar so far – a bit like reality, as a matter of fact."

The Man was rewarded for that remark with an equally teasing swat. "A mighty king who ruled over all the lands of Middle-earth," elaborated Legolas. "Your word was law and your wealth immeasurable. Your crown was so exquisite that anything you wore with it, even if it was your finest robe, looked shabby in comparison. Only your body was awe-inspiring enough to compete with that grand crown, so you chose to wear absolutely nothing on the days that you held court."

"I like this so far – it bolsters my ego quite nicely," commented Aragorn as his fingers found their way to the elf's exposed chest. Rolling his nipples, he went on in a deceptively casual tone: "But I wouldn't want to be in that throne room all alone. Did this fantasy include a husband, perhaps a gorgeous and equally naked elf prince?"

"I'm afraid not," replied Legolas with an exaggerated tsk. He arched into the touch while simultaneously fumbling to remove Aragorn's shirt. "There was an elf peasant, though. Poor thing; he had so little money that he couldn't afford any garments. While seeking a way to improve his lot in life, he heard about a king of Men who possessed a beauty that was different but no less potent than that of his elven kin. Hope and curiosity drove him to journey many long days and when he finally beheld him in that majestic crown he immediately knelt before the throne to, um, make his case to the king."

"And I bet that the king was merciful, insisting that the unfortunate elf sleep in his own gigantic but lonely bed." Aragorn ran his thumb across Legolas' lower lip, licking his own at the same pace. "What king could resist any 'plea' made by those talented lips?"

Legolas smiled slyly. "He was even kind enough to let the elf peasant sit on the throne," he declared earnestly. "Of course, court was still in session and the king had to sit beneath him – it would have been improper to let anyone else's hind end to touch the royal throne. Thankfully they found a way to make that potentially awkward situation quite – intensely – pleasurable – a-ha!"

That triumphant cry signaled the elf's success in undoing the button that was holding up Aragorn's pants. Aragorn exhaled, relieved to be released from his confines, only to inhale sharply as Legolas slid his hands inside. "Legolas," he moaned, the name coming from somewhere deep inside. "You are trying to make me lose control. I feel that I must warn you that you won't succeed – in fact," he added with a lustful twinkle in his eyes, "I challenge you to stop at nothing in your efforts, for it will make my resistance all the more impressive. Do your worst, my love."

"You know that I can't back down from a challenge," purred Legolas. He continued his ministrations and gloated like the cat that trapped an especially elusive prey when Aragorn let loose a guttural groan. "And can you believe that I haven't even begun inflicting my 'worst' on you yet?"

Aragorn tried to think up a witty comeback but found that his mind was barely clear enough to remember his own name, and even that took several seconds of concentrated thought. It was just as well; at that moment Legolas' mouth crashed against his and his tongue became entangled in more important matters. "Silly Man," scolded Legolas when they broke apart for air, "it really has been a long time if you don't remember that I always have going on in the back of my mind."

"Sou-sounds…promising," Aragorn managed to gasp out.

Gentle fingers traced the outline of his face, making Aragorn shiver. "I love you, mela, the elf murmured. "I'm going to show you how much. Just close your eyes and concentrate on how good everything feels."

Aragorn brought his hands up as if to stroke the slender hands by his face, they grabbed one of Legolas' wrists quickly enough to make him pause. Taking advantage of the lull in events, the Man wrapped his free arm around his waist. "What were we just discussing?" he asked in a mock disciplinary voice.

"Aragorn?" Legolas wasn't put off by the way his husband seized back dominance. If anything he was intrigued, wondering where he was planning on taking them.

"We are not parent and child but equals," Aragorn reminded him. Sliding the hand at the elf's waist down a little, he managed to hook a few of his fingers into his legging and started to pull them down. "None of this you-doing-all-the-work. As much as I would be in favor of it at any other time, tonight is about taking care of each other. It would be my pleasure if we practiced doing that right now."

"That is what marriage is all about," agreed Legolas brightly. After waiting as patiently as he could while Aragorn freed his body from the leggings, he reached down and returned the favor by helping the Man shed his pants. At last – at last! – they were both naked; Legolas made no hesitation in diving forward, shifting so that he could sit on his husband's lap.

Unfortunately, an old obstacle still remained and that tasked turned out to be more daunting than he'd anticipated. "Oof," he exhaled as his stomach pressed against Aragorn far sooner than he would have liked it too. He thought he'd maneuvered properly so that it wouldn't be a problem!

"Sorry," he added sheepishly, thinking fiercely about the different ways that they could go about this. Nothing seemed to be feasible if his last move hadn't worked! At a loss for anything else to do, he laughed somewhat insanely. The build-up to this moment and then having to contend with this persistent hurdle was starting to noticeably affect his oftentimes erratic emotions and he was struggling to keep them all it check.

Aragorn, being his doting husband and not an ignorant fool, could see right through his façade. "Legolas," he said cautiously in the same tone that one might use when trying to convince a desperate person from sacrificing his life needlessly. "It's all right, my love."

"We haven't made love in a month," responded Legolas, though Aragorn remembered it well enough without being reminded. His voice was wavering under the stress of his frustrations and the only way he could stop himself fromcompletely losing controlwas to keep laughing. "In that time we've dealt with internal and external threats that put an enormous strain on our marriage. Ai Elbereth, we even went for days on end without talking! Others have lost what made their marriage a relationship during situations that weren't half as difficult as ours. Now after all of that we've come to a point where we've gone through the gut-wrenching process of getting all of that out in the open. We want to – we deserve to – celebrate our breakthrough by making love after over a month of abstaining and now we can't" – he let out a guffaw that almost made him choke –"we physically can't get close enough to do that."

"No," soothed Aragorn, running his hand over the hair on the back of the elf's head and resting their foreheads together. "It's not physically impossible; we just need to find a more creative way to join."

"Extraordinarily creative," sputtered Legolas in between snorts of laughter.

"Legolas, you're really starting to worry me!" exclaimed Aragorn as he stared at his hysterical spouse. "Please, it will be all right; just relax and calm down."

"Fine!" proclaimed Legolas in a tone that made Aragorn almost wish for the hysterical fits to continue. "How's this for calm and sober: I need to see your face as we make love, but there's no way that can happen. I can't get close enough to you when I attempt to sit on your lap like this and you can't lie down and have me on top because I'd just end up crushing you."

Valar, they'd spent so much time apart that Aragorn had actually forgotten the extent of the sometimes swift onset and always unpredictable nature of the pregnant elf's mood swings. "That's not true," Aragorn told him, treading very carefully. "Why would you think that?"

"Look at me!" Legolas burst out and then hung his head a little. "I love our son; I love how I can feel him growing inside of me and can sense how he's feeling. I wouldn't trade this for all the forests in Middle-earth but there are times when I don't feel very…alluring. I guess that now is one of those times."

"So you believe that because we're having less-than-perfect ease right now that you're not sexually attractive ?" Aragorn smiled warmly when he nodded affirmatively. "Legolas, please trust me when I tell you that simply isn't possible. You are beautiful, naked, lustful only for me, and, yes, you are carrying our child; but that only makes you all the more irresistible. It adds something even more magical to our lovemaking because it's precisely by doing this that our miracle came into being. Do you feel this?" he added, guiding his husband's hand to his arousal and hissing as Legolas grasped it. "You – only you – do this to me. I need you so much right now; would I feel like that if you weren't as tempting as you always were?"

"I suppose not," said Legolas with a small smile. Aragorn's encouragement might have restored his confidence but they still had to address the problem concerning the technicalities. "But how –"

Aragorn cut him off with a deep kiss. "You forget that I have two older brothers," he said blithely. "I learned a great many – interesting – things about sex under their tutelage. The important lession to remember right now is that positioning can be the most important part of our night."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

A lazy, satisfied smile broke across Legolas' face as Aragorn's panting started to give way to normal breathing again. "The last time we made love like that," he recalled while he enjoyed the lingering tingling sensation that always clung to his bones afterwards, "was on our wedding night. I really think that we should try it more often."

"Agreed – wholeheartedly," Aragorn told him, biting his lower lip as he went through all that they had done that night. "Since we're on the subject, we should also start incorporating what we did two couplings ago into our normal sex life as well."

"Are you sure? I thought that you were going to break a leg doing that!"

"Some things are worth breaking a limb for."

"Fine, and not because you made my eyes roll into the back of my head several times during that round; but because it makes you happy." Legolas sighed, wiggling one of his feet in the air for no particular reason other than he was too happy to stay still. "By Eru, I love you for so many reasons: because you were strong and reassuring when I needed you to, because you let me be strong and reassuring for you without getting defensive about it, and because there is no one who could make me feel the way that you do. Remind me to thank the twins for their excellent education the next time we see them."

"Which will hopefully be soon," responded Aragorn gruffly. "I sent out that messenger over a week ago, when you were poisoned."

"He wouldn't have been able to make it all the way to Rivendell by now."

"I know," Aragorn conceded, "but I was hoping that they'd be on their way back here and he'd meet up with them on the road. I thought that they'd make it a point to come back before your final month of pregnancy."

Legolas clenched his fists nervously. "I'm sure that they'll be here soon," he said, not wanting to entertain the possibility that they wouldn't be. Just thinking about having the healers of Minas Tirith, who had even less knowledge of male pregnancies than Elladan and Elrohir, being in charge of the delivery made him feel like breaking out in a cold sweat

He wanted to change the subject before he started to panic, but only one other topic came to mind. "You said that you wanted to make time to see me once a day."

"Yes I did," noted Aragorn, breezily going along with the abrupt topic change.

"And that those times would most likely include our son," Legolas continued. What he was about to say might not be entirely appropriate but he'd learned from experience not to let things that were bothering him fester. "Does that me that you expect me to only raise him to the exclusion of everything else?"

"Of course not," the Man assured him. "I know you; nothing short of the ending of the world could keep you away from the gardens for long."A pleasant warm feeling came over him as he imagined meeting his husband and child in one of those beautiful places after spending a tedious day trapped indoors. "I fully expect that our son to learn more than I ever could about caring for nature before he even begins his schooling."

"But nothing else besides that?" Legolas persisted. Aragorn raised his eyebrows. "I'm the prince of Mirkwood, and that position involved more than just tending to trees and plants. I'm well-versed in political matters and I care about Gondor and its people just as much as I care about its nature. Going to those advisor meetings before the poisoning was unexpectedly fulfilling; I'd like to be more involved with that part of Gondorian life, if that's possible."

Aragorn thought about it for a moment. It did seem unfair that Legolas be asked to squander that talent just because he happened to be the one of them who could bear children. "Well, there's currently an empty seat on the advisors' council…"

"But do you think that the advisorswould accept me taking it? It's been unheard of as of yet for the ruler's spouse, and a foreigner at that, to officially advise on the politics of the realm."

"And they would have protested if this had happened right after we got married," Aragorn told him. "They didn't know you then, but they do now and hold you in great respect. In fact, I've been told that at least one of them prefers working with you over working with me. Yes, I think that this could work out quite nicely."

"Excellent," Legolas grinned. The idea of being wholly separated for that aspect of life never appealed to him and now that probably wouldn't happen. It seemed like good things happened when people voiced what was bothering them. "But we should refrain from pressing this until after Lady Nienor's trial; I don't want it being said that I used undue authority to sway your decision about her punishment."

A fine suggestion; Aragorn only wished that he could excuse himself just as easily. The trial was coming far too quickly. How did he know that he could face the woman who tried to destroy his life in the name of 'reclaiming' him and judge her fairly? Was such a thing even possible? "We won't have to wait for too long then," he said aloud.

He took a deep breath and exhaled, cleansing her from his mind for now. That night on their talan was for him and Legolas alone; no one else – certainly not her – had a place there.

To be continued…

A/N: Timeline trivia - the last time that Aragorn and Legolas made love before this chapter is not the last that a love scene took place in this story. For reasons only understood by my crazy muses I thought that a month was excessive enough and that last timeactually in the story was(I believe - it's been a hard day and I can't think properly at the moment) almost two months back.