Author: Mirrordance

Title: Love, War

Summary: The War brought them together, but the peace will tear them apart. How much is a man willing to pay to keep a friendship, and how much is a friend willing to lose for revenge? Slash.

TIMELINE: the story happens about a year or two after Return of the King— the exact year is immaterial really, just as long as certain future events operate as a given: one, peace is yet to be attained with the Eastern tribes of Middle-Earth. Two, Ithilien is already restored and Legolas lords over the elven colony there, just as Gimli is lord of the Glittering Caves. Three, Eomer is already engaged, as is Eowyn and Faramir. Four, that Elrond and Galadriel have already sailed away to Valinor. The fic is generally faithful to the book and the movie with respect to the major events, although some factors about it may be considered as an AU; the irrepressible Haldir, for instance, is very much alive in this piece.

PART ONE: Those Lost

Interlude 3

The Fellowship of the Ring: First Times

Parth Galen

February 26, 3019

The footfalls of the dwarf behind him were heavier than they usually were. Gimli Son of Gloin had taken some hurt in the melee that had thrown their Company scattered all across the cursed banks. But as long as he still managed to stay upright on his own power, and as long as there was still danger abound that urgently pressed on his attentions, Legolas let him be as he they ran about the woods in a frantic pace, seeking the call of the horn of Gondor.

They broke into a clearing and stumbled to a halt that had jolted their feet as surely as the sight grabbed at their hearts. Boromir had taken to the ground with arrows protruding from his bleeding chest. The Ranger knelt before him, and was making him promises that one only made to the dead, to those whose mission was unfulfilled, whose steps could no longer grace the rest of a long and trying journey.

Legolas could not tear his eyes from the tragic sight. He seemed particularly arrested by the Ranger's muddy, bloody, dirtied hands, weathered and busy hands. Helpless, defeated hands that matched the frustrated burning of his silver eyes. The tears lodged there glistened with the streaks of the sun that broke through the ceiling of leaves. All was quiet, now. Too quiet, too still. Like the stillness of the body that laid beneath the Ranger. And a body was all that it was, now. Boromir's left. It did not have his spirit and his fire, it was an empty host.

His body… Legolas thought fleetingly, how… final.

It was unlike the fall of Gandalf, whose body was eaten up in shadow and mystery by the depths of Moria. It was unlike the death of elven friends whom he knew he'd meet in another life. The death of an adan friend was to him the end of all his knowing; here in death their paths diverged. He did not know what befell men. He could not know.

Boromir, he thought, Have I seen the last of you?

Gimli limped past him and pressed a hand to Aragorn's shoulder. Legolas stayed his ground, more unsure. He's never known grown men for tears before. He's always known they had their own hurts, all folk did. But he's never known a man well enough to truly care that he was unhappy. The considerably palpable pain of Aragorn was one that stabbed at him, it was a pain he did not know what to do with.

He busied his hands, that was what he decided to do. He turned his saddened face from the sight of the dead man and gathered his scattered arrows and even the cursed arrows of the yrchs. The road ahead of them was long yet. One cannot dwell too long on these pains, one shouldn't.

He pulled out arrow after arrow deliberately viciously and gathered them in his hands. This he pulled from an uruk's head. This from its face. That from over its black, black heart. He gathered a smelly armful, stained his hands and his clothes. The task was engulfing his senses.

And then he realized that he's gathered all the usable arrows from the orcs he felled at the clearing. If he wanted to gather more, he'd have to venture out further away from Aragorn, Gimli and the body of Boromir. Which of course he wanted to do, except they were in a hurry and it would have been impractical if he drifted from them and still had to be searched for.

Gathering his nerve, he walked toward man and dwarf. He realized then, too, that all the usable arrows in the clearing were indeed in his arms, save for the few that have been pulled from Boromir's body.

The shafts were sturdy and firm, gripped in the hands of the Ranger. They were bloodied red and bright and burning, and Aragorn was handing them to him.

"I do not wish for those," Legolas said quietly, searching Aragorn's silver eyes, wondering what it was that was being asked of him.

"If these could save our lives," said Aragorn, "And the lives of those he died to protect… they will find more honor in your use, than in keeping them for the stain of his noble blood."

Numbly, Legolas reached for the arrow shafts. The blood there still ran, and it was warm. It was bright and it was glowing, and it was strange to hold the things that were the cause for a King's tears, the things that have stolen the breaths of a brave warrior.

"We must find the others," Legolas said, wanting his mind to be turned elsewhere.

"We cannot leave him here this way," Gimli said, "Like litter, sharing the grave of this uruk filth."

"He is no longer there," Legolas said edgily, "And our other friends still have need of us."

The two stubborn warriors turned to the man for a swing vote, but he was already busy bearing Boromir into his arms. Legolas set his jaws in defeat and annoyance. And then he said something that mystified himself as well.

Did I wish to hurt, he would later wonder, What did I want from them? What did I expect to achieve?

The elf dropped the gathered shafts to the ground and said in consternation, "Give me an arm or a leg, I will help you. Let us just get this over with quickly."

"Don't waste your time," Aragorn glared at him hotly, and pushed past him toward the banks of the river, not wanting his disinclined help.

Legolas bit his tongue and said his own prayers. Just in case the gods still listened to him at all, which they haven't been doing for a long while. And then as soon as the boat moved with the current and bore the dead man's body away, he readied the next one and pushed it toward the water.

"Hurry," the elf said urgently, his busy hands were readying the boat, his eyes scanning for any supplies of importance that may have been forgotten, "Frodo and Sam have reached the Eastern shore."

It did not take him long to realize that he was working alone, and was even more alone with his urgency. He wondered if perhaps Aragorn was still mad at him, but then the thought was fleeting and he doubted very much that the man carried so petty a grudge in times so harsh. He looked up at the Ranger expectantly.

The dwarf, who was sitting on the ground with his wounded side clutched tightly and his eyes weary, was looking up at Aragorn with expectation as well.

"You mean not to follow them," Legolas deduced, reading the man's stern face, and how his actions betrayed no need for desperate running, but rather a letting-go. It was not only for Boromir that the road to Mordor ended, it seemed.

"Then it's all been in vain," the dwarf said, wincing, "The Fellowship has failed."

Aragorn fell to a knee before the dwarf, and clutched at his shoulders reassuringly. "Not if we hold true to each other." He glanced up at Legolas. "We will not abandon Merry and Pippin to torment and death. Not while we have strength left."

The dwarf's tired eyes burned, though his shoulders remained slumped with his pain and exhaustion. Valiantly, however, he pushed himself to his feet, only to sway and be settled back down by the Ranger.

"Which unfortunately, you do not have much of at the moment, Master Dwarf," Aragorn chided him gently.

"You must go ahead," Gimli grunted, embarrassed and hurting, "I can fend for myself. The little hobbits…"

"They are made of sterner stuff than you think," Aragorn guaranteed him, "Now be still. We will hunt orc when the time comes. But you need tending." Just as an aside, to keep the dwarf's pride from being too pricked, he added, "And I'm afraid so do I."

Which, Legolas decided, wasn't too far from the truth. The three of them looked bloodied and miserable, it was hard to tell where the blood of their foes ended and theirs began.

"We will camp here for now," Aragorn decided as he rummaged about their scattered supplies in seeking his healing effects, "Three hunters on foot can and will catch up to a block of orcs. They will not harm the hobbits, not along the considerable length of their road. They were captured with such purpose after all. And we also have the advantage of knowing where they are headed."

Legolas set his jaws but accepted the fair assessment. The dwarf was in grievous hurt, more than the stubborn Gimli cared to admit outright. And he was none too sprightly himself; the pause had given him the time to take stock of his own, weary body. There was still much to do, and he needed all the respite and recovery that he could get. As a seasoned warrior, he knew full well that if one was hurt, the less able was one to defend the self, and the more hurt one could get, if he managed to survive at all. The possibilities were exponential, and thus he understood that even the slightest of hurts had to be tended, if the time permitted the luxury.

"I will scout around," said the elf to Aragorn, "Ensure we are relatively safe here. That is, if you have no need of me."

"The Ring is not with us," said Aragorn distractedly, as he began to peel off the uncharacteristically docile dwarf's armor, "Nor are any hobbits. I do not expect anyone will be hunting after us. But that is very prudent. I do not need your help here."

Legolas nodded, and briskly and purposefully walked away from the river banks. He wanted the time to think too, the time to gather more arrows, and to get away from the dwarf who kept tossing him uneasy glances, probably humiliated by his present vulnerability. It would have been very easy to bait the dwarf with a tease over his injuries, but elves generally do not find much amusement in the small fish- they went after more sporting prizes. And so it would be better to bump heads with the dwarf when he was in a more defensible position. Besides, perhaps he felt barbs would be out of place, given what had just happened to them. Boromir was dead. The Fellowship had broken. And maybe too, he was more than a little bit worried about the dwarf. Maybe.

The sun had already cast a dull orange glow in late afternoon by the time he returned. Aragorn was still busy with the dwarf, who had fallen asleep. Because they both seemed alright, the elf gathered all of his spoils- arrow shafts he had gathered- and walked further down the river banks and away from his companions to wash them off.

Legolas was normally less discriminate. He often found no time for any activities other than gathering the arrow shafts and thereafter stuffing them into his quiver. But now he had time for more than that, and he sat on the ground and decided to wash the blood from the shafts before storing them. The blood tended to smell in the stuffed quiver, which he had to bear on his back. He hated having to bring the stench along with him, to have to smell the blood every time he turned his head.

He picked up a shaft absently, ran it through with water, ran his hands along its length to rid it of the dried blood. And then he set it on the ground to dry and picked up another. It wasn't terribly exciting, but it was relaxing. Pick it up, wet it, drop it. And then the next. And then the next, and then the next. Up until the very last one.

This one shaft had a different feel to it. The blood was redder, and warmer, and thinner. He stared at it more closely, and realized it was an arrow shaft that had been taken from Boromir. There was more than a few, he remembered, but it sure seemed like this was the first one he noticed. He glanced at the clean pile. Save for his more finely crafted elven shafts, all the other shafts looked the same. He had no clue at all which of them had been in Boromir's body, and which he'd found lying around. He looked at them more closely. There really was no way of telling, and it seemed strange and irreverent.

He frowned, and then put this last shaft into the water. He tried to do with it as he had done with the others, but he couldn't seem to tear his attention away from the redness that stained his hand and the shallow water as he washed the stick.

His thumb rubbed at the shaft, willing for some of the dried blood to run with the river. And then he hesitated with dropping the shaft to the ground to dry along with the others. If he dropped it there, he thought fleetingly, he'd never be able to tell which was which, and he felt a kind of sadness about it, not being able to tell which arrow shaft had crossed into Boromir's heart, where even the hands of those who loved him could not reach.

We cannot dwell on these pains for too long, he decided, There is much that has to be done before we can afford the luxury of tears and suffering.

He stared at the arrow determinedly and set his jaws, before setting it to the ground with the rest of the shafts. And then he shuffled the sticks and made sure he had no idea where that particular arrow went.

He ran his hands through his face, and wanted to kick himself for forgetting that the action ultimately meant he had streaked his face with water-diluted blood as well. He sighed heavily, and dunked his hands into the water and washed his face. He shook a little, wanting quite suddenly and desperately to be clean.

The water was cold. It ran warm with the blood but then it turned cold when the blood ran with the current, away from him. The cold was comforting. It was clean, and he thought it will make him clean too.

He'd heard of these cultures when he was younger, of renewal and re-birth in the water. Start clean, start anew, wash away the stain of sins. Of course his beliefs were different, but he appreciated the metaphor now more than ever.

His hands and face were by now cleared of the blood. He wanted the rest of him to be just as spotless, so he rid himself of his leather straps, his swords – which he'd have to clean them later as well, he thought- his outermost tunic, his boots. He untangled the remnants of his unkempt braids, and he pushed himself toward the water. He was partway through to the middle of the river, when he noticed at last that he was being watched.

"Your scouting took awhile," Aragorn told him from the banks, where he was crouched, "I suppose the fact that you'd risk being caught en dishabille out here in the open means we must be relatively safe."

"I saw no reason to disturb you," Legolas said, walking closer toward him and wondering how long he had been watching. He stayed in the water up to his waist.

"Do not venture out further," Aragorn warned him, as the Ranger settled on the ground and lit his pipe, "The current is strong. We lingered here to set free one dead warrior with the flow of the river down to the falls, not two."

"I am a strong swimmer," Legolas offered lamely, blinking at the man and again, wondering how long it was he'd been watching, if he had seen the hesitation over the cursed arrow shafts. "I'm sorry about earlier," Legolas said quickly, surprising even himself, "It was insensitive of me."

"Sadness comes in infinite forms," Aragorn said to him, averting his silver glance and letting his eyes settle upon the clean pile of arrow shafts. Legolas guessed that Aragorn had seen him. "I apologize for being brash with your way."

"We were not dear friends," Legolas added, "But I believe he was a good man, and the loss of any of them deserves mourning. And certainly more respect, from me."

Aragorn nodded at him grimly. His eyes were calmer now, but no less unhappy. "Is it cold?" he asked of the water instead.

"I do not recommend it for an adan," replied Legolas, "How is Master Gimli doing?"

"He'll sleep for awhile," answered Aragorn, "But I meant what I said, earlier. We can catch up to Merry and Pippin. We have to tend to our own fragmented party's wounded first, however, if we want to succeed in reclaiming them."

Legolas waded ashore, and sat beside Aragorn as he waited for the wind to dry him. "I can go ahead. I run fast, I am not weary, I can leave you traceable tracks... I am of no use to either of you here anyway."

"And what then when you get there ahead of us?" Aragorn pointed out, "A small army against a solitary elf, who holds them no purpose that will give them a reason to keep you alive, sounds like a death wish to me."

Legolas shrugged, and busied himself with his discarded tunics and dipping them in the water to clean. The winds were picking up, and the underclothes that he was wearing were dry enough to be swaying with them and pressing against his skin. The Ranger beside him was beginning to remove his outer clothes as well, quite bent on cleaning them too. It was then that Legolas saw his miscellaneous wounds.

The elf nodded at them randomly. "Those need tending to."

Aragorn glanced down at his bloodied, cut body. Arms, hands, neck, face… "I suppose," he chuckled, "But I don't seem to know where to start."

Legolas pulled his clothes and leather straps from the water and hung them on the obliging branches of a nearby tree. He looked around him and retrieved Aragorn's healer's sack and wordlessly decided which of the wounds merited his attention. Aragorn made for a decent patient, seemed accustomed to pain and did not stiffen or even complain over the elf's ministrations, mostly remaining quiet as the elf worked.

"I wonder what the others are doing," Aragorn murmured.

"I wonder…" Legolas said absently, softly, his voice but a breath on the man's skin for the elf was now working on his back, "I wonder where Boromir is."

They fell silent for a long while. The elf did not expect an answer, and the adan had none to give. When Legolas finished with the Ranger, he stepped away and let him continue his clothes washing as he turned to his own knives. He glanced at the near distance, where Gimli lay sleeping on a mat next to a fire Aragorn had set.

"He's not stirred at all," the elf commented as he wiped at his sword with a rag he had borrowed from the Ranger, "Are his hurts grievous?"

"Some," replied Aragorn, smiling slightly, "Mostly he is weary from travel and banter with you. And I gave him something… something soothing to drink."

"You drugged the Dwarf," Legolas said flatly, though his eyes were beginning to dance.

"I did," replied the adan not just shamelessly, but rather… rather proudly too.

"I wish I'd thought of that."

There was actually a host of other things he'd not thought of.

For instance, that same evening, the elf had volunteered to take the first watch of the night, and promised and lied when he said he'd wake the adan for his turn. The man needed the rest more, Legolas decided. He was quite comfortable with his plan, up until the dwarf began to stir from his dreams and Legolas suddenly remembered that, with Aragorn asleep, it was up to him to give the dwarf some of his not-quite professional and not-so comforting bedside manner.

The elf scooted over next to the dwarf silently, and leaned to press his face toward Gimli's view as the dwarf blinked himself awake. He jerked upright in surprise, hitting the elf's nose with his forehead. Legolas bit back a surprised cry, and put a hand over Gimli's mouth to muffle his just complaints and less-necessary cursing.

"Shh," the elf breathed upon his ear, as he pulled his hand away from the dwarf's mouth when he felt Gimli calming.

"Are you trying to kill me?" the dwarf muttered at him, "put something on my face as I sleep!"

"Lower your voice," Legolas told him soothingly, though he sure wanted to do something else as he rubbed at his sore face. "Aragorn sleeps."

Gimli glanced guiltily at the peaceful man some steps away from them. Aragorn's back was turned to them as he curled up in rest. The dwarf looked back at Legolas disapprovingly as he rubbed at his hurting side. The jolt had apparently reawakened his pains along with his bearings.

"Do you need anything?" Legolas asked him attentively. The dwarf stared at him for a long, measuring moment.

"If I asked for a drink," Gimli said, "Would you put something in it, master elf?"

"Your suspicion toward me is undeserved," Legolas chuckled, nodded toward Aragorn's back, "I'd be more wary of the things the healer offers. It was he who put you to sleep." The elf smiled at him, patting his shoulder reassuringly before rising to his feet and taking his own waterrskin for the dwarf to drink from. As an afterthought, he grabbed a piece of lembas as well. The dwarf hadn't eaten dinner after all.

"Thank you," Gimli grumbled as he feasted on what were actually some meager offerings, save they came from a once-sworn enemy who was now looking at him earnestly.

"How are your wounds?" Legolas asked.

Gimli cocked an eyebrow at him. "Better. I can certainly outfight you when we resume our hunt."

"Oh can you," Legolas said, rubbing his chin in thought as he settled on the ground next to the dwarf, "That better not be a wager."

"All bets are off," the dwarf said as he stuffed his mouth, "I wouldn't bet against me either."

"You've got yourself a challenger," Legolas told him boldly.

"You will lose," Gimli said to him, "I'd hate to see you lose, after you've been so kind to me this night."

Legolas just smiled at him, with a keen glint to his eye. "You don't know what you're getting into, master dwarf. I like these kinds of wagers, and I've never lost before."

"As the adage goes," said the dwarf, "There will be a first time for everything."

An elf serving a dwarf his dinner, for one. An elf enjoying a dwarf's company, for another. Legolas did not mind the two, but he certainly wouldn't allow himself to lose to a dwarf.

After awhile, the elf managed to convince the dwarf to sleep, as he resumed his watch of the night. He leaned against the bark of a tree, and hummed softly to himself as he toyed with his new bow. When that got old, he looked toward Gimli, and then his eyes drifted to Aragorn's back as it rose and fell with his breathing.

The sight was comforting, rhythmic. The dwarf made for a more interesting sleeper, with his busy face and occasional jerking, but Aragorn asleep was as calming as Aragorn awake.

How could one man emanate such dependability, Legolas wondered. He remembered meeting Aragorn and trusting him, as a fellow adopted child of Imladris. And then along the course of the Quest, he was generous, patient, fearless. He was easy to speak with, easy to respect, even quite easy to love. His silver eyes saw much and saw all too well, and though he was determined to succeed, he had gentleness as well. A King he was indeed, amongst men. A King, amongst wherever he was he managed to find himself.

And so the riddle is answered, Legolas thought, The Evenstar could love you, because most anyone could. The difference, he figured, I suppose, is that you love only her in true and absolute return. No one else.

The man stirred, shifted his weight such that his face was now turned toward the elf. And then his silver eyes opened slowly, as a nocturnal flower seeking the moon, settling at once and almost knowingly upon the gaze of his quiet watcher.

To be continued…