So for anyone who's reading this for intricate plot details and dramatic action scenes, all I can say is oops. This is nothing but 7k+ words of Boromir and Bee making heart eyes at each other and upping the slow burn tension. We're going all out in this chapter and I'm not sorry. We will return to our regularly scheduled plot shortly XD
Chapter 32: Get in, Loser, We're Going to Gondor
Ethel stood sleeping with the other horses as I went to gather my belongings from her saddlebags. She blinked at the light from my torch and tossed her head groggily.
"Bye, girl," I whispered, trying to press a farewell kiss to her velvety nose—she tossed her head again and I got a mouthful of mane instead. "Hey, it's not my fault a car is more comfortable than a horse! It's nothing personal."
She continued to eye me balefully as I worked. Her ears twitched in annoyance as voices rose from the rest of the camp—someone was having a heated debate. After a moment the voices fell silent, then all at once a clattering of hooves sounded from near the fire and a white shape shot away into the night.
I packed up my things in a hurry, desperate to see what was happening, but I didn't have to wait long.
"Bee!" Merry's tiny silhouette appeared in my torchlight. Tear tracks glistened on his face, and he looked up at me desperately.
"Merry! What's wrong?"
He wiped at his face with a shaking fist. "It's Pippin. He left."
"What?"
"With Gandalf." Merry's voice shook. "They're going to Minas Tirith."
I nearly dropped my torch in surprise. "Going to—but why?"
"I don't know," he said bitterly. "Gandalf gave nothing but vague hints, as usual, only swept Pippin onto that enormous horse and rode away. I imagine it's something to do with that seeing-stone."
"Well, if he had to get to Minas Tirith so badly, he should have told me. I could have driven him and Pippin in the car!"
A wry laugh interrupted me. "I do not mean to doubt the power of that wagon of yours," Legolas said, approaching in the dark with Gimli at his side, "but I rather suspect one of the mearas can outpace it easily."
"Oh. Maybe you're right." I wasn't sure what a mearas was, exactly, but it did sound more impressive than a Hummer.
"I hope you know what you're doing, taking that machine such a long distance," Legolas added, frowning toward the Hummer in the dark. "A horse would be more trustworthy by far, I should think."
"Don't listen to him, lass," Gimli snorted, shuddering. "Better to walk than take a horse." He pulled me into a hug, thumping me painfully on the back. "But here I'd sworn not to let you out of our sight again!"
"I'm sorry," I said miserably, hugging Legolas and Merry in turn. "Stay safe, alright?"
"Will you take me with you?" Merry blurted, folding his arms. "Please."
"After you were advised to stay with the Rohirrim," Legolas said dryly, "by Gandalf and Aragorn both?"
Merry flushed, then gritted his teeth and looked away. "I just don't want the Fellowship to split up again." His voice was small. "Not any more than it already has been."
"I know." My fingers twisted on the clasp of my saddlebags.
"You'll be close to Mordor," Merry went on. "If you see Frodo or Sam, if you hear any news about them—but then you won't be able to let us know, will you," he corrected himself miserably. "Well. I'll tell Strider you said goodbye. And Lady Eowyn too. I know you've gotten close to her."
I squeezed his small hand in the dark. "Thanks, Merry."
"And you best look after Boromir, eh?" Gimli told me, patting my back again. "That man's a damned fool, as you well know."
I raised an eyebrow at him. "Why do I get the feeling you told him the same thing about me?"
Gimli snorted, and Legolas raised his hands placatingly. "You're no fool, Beatrice," the elf said earnestly. "About most things, at least."
I raised my eyebrows higher, but they didn't say more. "Goodbye, then," I said at last. "I hope…" But when and where could I hope to see them again?
"I hope so too," Gimli said gruffly, and they left me to take my bags to the car.
Boromir was already there, packing a collection of cans and boxes of modern food from Saruman's storerooms into the trunk of the car. I joined him, stacking my bags and violin case alongside the clunky gas canisters I'd meticulously filled for our journey.
"Are you ready to leave?" I asked him, trying to stifle a yawn—neither of us had gone back to sleep after the incident with the palantír.
"I am," he said gravely. "But are you certain you wish to make the journey? I shall not begrudge you a change of heart, if you decide against it." I shot him a deadpan glare, and he laughed. "Very well, then."
"Well, it's nearly dawn," I said, gesturing to the faint tinges of violet staining the eastern sky. "Let's go."
The Hummer's engine rumbled violently as I turned the key in the ignition, but before I could put the car into drive a heavy knock sounded on my window.
I jumped and rolled the window down, making Eomer jump back in alarm on the other side.
"So. You truly intend to travel to Minas Tirith by such means?" Eomer asked, looking over my head at Boromir, who nodded.
"You need not fear for me. I am in good hands."
"Hmm." Eomer nodded skeptically. "In any case, tell your father we will bring what forces we can to Minas Tirith at all speed."
Boromir inclined his head earnestly. "My people thank you for it."
"May you return to your home with all haste, Boromir of Gondor. And may you bear him there safely, Beatrice, daughter of Karen and Ted. Go with the goodwill of the Riddermark."
That was nearly friendly, as far as Eomer went, so I smiled cheerily and waved goodbye as I put the car into drive and set off along the uneven ground. The handful of soldiers already awake at the camp stared wide-eyed at us, though Legolas, Gimli, and Merry stood among them, waving heartily. My heart tightened in my chest as they dwindled in the distance—then all at once they were swallowed up by a rolling green hill, and they were gone.
I increased our speed, the tires rolling smoothly over the grass.
After a while, Boromir cleared his throat. "Daughter of Karen and Ted—do you know, I had not known your parents' names."
"Oh—I guess not." We'd talked about our homes and families in Lothlorien, but I guess it hadn't come up before. Boromir's brows furrowed, and I supposed he was thinking along the same lines I was: for all we'd been through together, we still didn't know each other very well.
He smiled wryly. "You will forgive me for saying this, but as both names are foreign to me, I know not which belongs to your mother and which to your father."
"Oh!" I laughed. "My mom's name is Karen, and my dad was Ted—short for Theodore."
"Theodore," he mused. "That is a good name. My father, as I have said, is Denethor, son of Ecthelion. And my mother was Finduilas of Dol Amroth."
"And Dol Amroth is on the coast of Gondor?" I asked, thinking back to the maps I'd studied with Amarien in Rivendell.
"Very good," Boromir said proudly, and I beamed. He opened his mouth to speak again, then yawned violently.
"You can sleep, you know, if you want."
"Sleep?" He balked, looking offended at the suggestion. "And leave you to conduct the journey alone? It would unconscionable, Beatrice."
I rolled my eyes. "Come on, I'm just driving. And I'm sure I'll be able to find the East-West Road easily enough." Boromir had pointed it out on our map: it was a simple shot southeast to the road, which would take us straight to Minas Tirith—much simpler directions than the road trips I was used to taking.
But he folded his arms—awkwardly, since he'd bound his right arm back in its sling—and set his jaw, unmoving.
"Oh, fine," I grumbled. Of course he'd be too stubborn to relax. But he looked so uncomfortable—maybe because he'd had to put his sword and shield in the backseat out of easy reach.
We drove on in silence for a while—slower than I'd hoped to go, as the hills were steeper than I'd expected. I kept wincing as the Hummer jostled and bumped its way over the rough terrain, too used to driving on paved roads, but Boromir didn't seem bothered. He only stared, rather somberly, at the wall of mountains rising on our right, slicing the horizon in two.
"What do you think of the car?" I asked, hoping to shake him out of his thoughts. "Not bad, is it?"
"Indeed not. Ah—which of these switches might open my window?"
I pointed out the correct one and he pressed it tentatively, letting out a surprised laugh as the glass rolled down.
With the eagerness of a golden retriever, he leaned his head out the window, the bitter wind whipping at his hair.
When he finally withdrew his head and closed the window, his face was flushed pink from the wind, his eyes bright with laughter. "It is colder than I imagined—and windier, traveling at such speeds!"
Laughing despite myself, I turned on the heat. "Here you go then—this'll warm you up a bit."
"Incredible!" He held his palms out over the air vents as though warming his hands over a campfire. "Ah, never have I traveled so! Even the great kings of old did not travel in such luxury as this."
I smiled, glad to see him so at ease. After a while he continued to explore the buttons on the dash, and I turned my attention back to the rocky hills.
"Oh!"
At Boromir's exclamation, I whipped around frantically, only to see him struggling with the glove compartment, which had sprung open and was now overflowing with junk.
"Forgive me, Beatrice—I fear I have broken something."
"No," I said, trying not to laugh at the concern on his face. "You've just opened the glove compartment. Is there anything interesting in there? I don't think I looked through it back in Isengard."
He shifted through the mess. "All these items are strange to me. I am not certain what you would deem 'interesting.'"
I slowed to a halt and put the car in park. "Let's see." I leaned over and tossed handfuls of trash and sun-faded maps into the backseat. "Oh my God—look, look!"
"That resembles nothing more than an odd bit of rope."
"Not rope, a phone charger!" I said, scrabbling for my violin case in the backseat, where I'd stashed my phone. "Look, it's even the right kind for my phone! Oh, I never thought I'd get to turn on my phone again—"
Boromir watched in helpless confusion as I plugged my phone in and stuck the charger into a port under the glove compartment, crossing my fingers as tight as I could. After a long moment, lights flickered to life behind the cracked screen.
"Yes!"
"Did you not say that was a communication device?" he asked. "If it is functioning again, does this mean you can make contact with your homeland?"
"No, no, I'm not that lucky. It has to be in range of a cell tower," I said distractedly, flipping through my apps. The phone felt clumsy and foreign in my hands after so long without it, the screen too bright, the colors unnatural. "But I can access my music and photos, at least."
"What are photos?"
I skimmed through for some examples to show him.
"See? Here's a picture of my old cat, Bilbo, and here's a concert hall in Fort Worth I performed in last year, and some bluebonnets in my mom's front yard, and—let's see…" I wanted to find a photo of myself, to recall how I had fit into these photos, which looked so alien to me now. But I frowned, startled to see how few pictures I had of myself—my friends had always made me take our group photos. "There, look!" I finally found one with me in it. "That's a photo of me and my friend at a live music night a few years back."
Boromir took the phone with some trepidation. "How is this possible?" he breathed. "It looks so lifelike! And you…" he peered closer. "Oh—forgive me," he said hastily, pressing the phone back into my hands. To my surprise, a flush was creeping up his neck.
"What's wrong?"
"You—" He exhaled shakily and looked away. "Valar, Beatrice, it is your dress."
I looked at the photo again. I was sitting on a high barstool next to a bored-looking Caroline, wearing a white lace dress, my cowboy boots, and an awkward, beaming smile. "What's wrong with it?"
"You mean to say that it is common for women in your homeland to wear such clothing, in public?"
"Oh!" I choked. The dress in question was sleeveless and rested rather high above my knees—and because my legs were crossed on a barstool, a long expanse of my upper thigh was visible. "Um, yeah, it's really common," I admitted, my face heating up. "I didn't think—I got so swept up in accessing my photos, I forgot how different things are here…"
"Ah. Well, then. Do not dwell on it," he muttered, in a tone that suggested he was very much dwelling on it.
"Um—hey, why don't I take a photo of you?" I suggested, desperate to change the subject.
"I'm not certain." He raised an eyebrow at me, a sudden glint in his eye. "Must I be in a similar state of undress?" With a cry of indignation, I swatted at his arm, and he fended off my attack, laughing. "Peace, peace, Beatrice! Forgive my jest."
My face still burning, I snapped a picture of him. "Here, what do you think?"
"What—you have created a portrait already, and so easily?" He took my phone and examined the screen, fascinated anew. "This device is incredible—never has my likeness been captured so! Were the portrait-masters of the Citadel given ten years, they could not make its equal."
I peered at the screen too. I had photographed Boromir unawares, his head thrown back in laughter, his eyes crinkled and warm.
At least I would have this to remember him by, if I ever made it back home. Vividly, I pictured myself back in my shabby apartment, curled up in my bed alone, studying this photo and tracing my fingertip over the screen, where a lock of dark hair fell over Boromir's laughing eyes.
"Beatrice? Is something wrong?"
"Of course not," I lied, looking away. "Let's get going. We've got a lot of ground to cover."
I put the car in drive, and we took off over the hills again, the snaking line of the East-West Road curling over the hills in the distance at last.
The next few hours were spent scrolling through my phone's music as I drove, the Hummer's tires eating away at the flat, packed earth of the East-West Road and leaving a broad trail of dust billowing out behind us.
My friends back home used to laugh at my music collection—my tastes ranged from Top 40 billboard hits to the collection of Czech polka CDs I'd found at a garage sale in Fort Worth. "Next thing you know, she'll be jamming out to Gregorian chants or some shit," Caroline had snorted to Nathan once, and I'd forced myself to laugh along with them, making a mental note to hide my album of Gregorian chants somewhere they'd never see it.
Boromir didn't insult my music, but as we cycled on shuffle through classical orchestra, hard rock, folk, country, and rap, his eyebrows rose higher and higher until I worried they'd spring off his head.
"How can you not like Rhapsody in Blue?" I cried, pressing my forehead against the steering wheel. "Don't your ears work?"
He snorted, eyebrows raised at my phone as it continued to run through Gershwin's wild piano chords and glissandos. "I mean your homeland no insult, but these sounds are…jarring. I know not what to make of them."
"God, first the Backstreet Boys, then my Estonian folk metal albums, and now this?" I elbowed him, laughing. "What am I going to do with you, Boromir?"
"Whatever you will. I shall not complain."
But, for the sake of his sanity, I put my phone on mute, taking the chance to explain the concept of electronic instruments, then autotune and pitch correction. He didn't complain, even as the road flowed by and the morning bled into afternoon, and I felt suddenly that I wouldn't mind if we never reached Minas Tirith.
"I believe I understand at last your fascination with music," Boromir said at last. "Will you not translate any of your songs' lyrics for me? I would know what words inspired such—unusual sounds."
"Oh, sure, let's see." My phone was still playing on mute, and I turned the volume back up.
She hit the floor (she hit the floor), next thing you know, shawty got low, low, low, low, low, low, low, low—
"You know what, I'm not sure you'd get much out of it," I said quickly.
"Are you certain?"
Them baggy sweatpants and the reeboks with the straps (with the straps), turned around and gave that big booty a smack—
"Yeah." I lowered the volume again, clearing my throat. "That's enough of that."
We drove on, passing rolling hills and sparse groves of trees. I wondered if we would overtake Gandalf and Pippin on the road, but I supposed they were taking a more direct route, cutting across the wilderness.
As the road crept on, a group of wild-looking men on horses galloped by, coming to a sudden halt and staring with wide eyes as we passed.
"What do you think?" I asked as they disappeared into the distance. "Were they friendly?"
Boromir frowned. "I suspect so. From their dress they were Rohirrim. But who can say what stories they shall tell of the great metal carriage careening horseless down the road, eh?"
I laughed, dragging a hand down my face. "God, what are they going to think of all this in Minas Tirith?"
Boromir must have heard the worry in my voice, because he shook his head. "Come now, Beatrice. My people will think as highly of you as I do."
"Even with all this…otherworldly stuff?" I asked.
He hesitated, then nodded. "My father will admire your sorcery, I am certain. And he is not an easy man to impress."
"Really?" It had been a compliment, but it left me uneasy. "Well, that's…good."
"I only meant that he finds fault with nearly every woman in Gondor," Boromir said. "Except, I suppose, for the few court ladies he deems worthy of my hand. I am certain, however, that he will think very well of you—"
"Hold on, your dad's trying to set you up?" I exclaimed, stifling a surprised laugh. "Oh, you poor thing."
He sighed wearily and nodded, looking uncomfortable, but my imagination had gone into overdrive. What would Boromir be like on a blind date? Awkward, stilted, far too solemn? I shook my head fondly. Or instead…I recalled the way he'd untied my stays the night before, the way he'd kissed my forehead, his beard rough and warm against my skin, before smiling down at me as though he never wanted to look at anyone else. Was that how he behaved to these court ladies in Gondor, with their fancy titles and elegant dresses and whatever else the women of Minas Tirith had? My hands tightened on the steering wheel, and I scowled.
"It is less frequent now, with all his focus bent on the Enemy," Boromir was saying, leaning his head back and pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "But yes, on occasion, my father still herds me in the direction of an elegant, well-spoken lady of some particular fortune or connection."
"You don't look very happy about it."
He shrugged uneasily. "There have been, on occasion, women with whom I felt I might suit, but it has been long since I have courted anyone. What sort of a husband would I make? My country, my people, shall always have the greatest claim on my heart. And to be always riding away to battle, leaving a wife behind to worry for me…she would deserve far better than I could give her."
"Don't be ridiculous," I said. "Any woman would be lucky to have you." I hadn't meant for the words to come out so heatedly, and the silence that followed stretched on so long that I was seized by a wild desire to leap out of the moving car.
"That is—kind of you," he replied at last, and silence descended on the car again. He cleared his throat. "What of yourself, then?"
My foot slipped on the accelerator. "Me?" I mean, of course I would be, but what does he expect me to say to that?
"Yes, what has kept you from marrying?" he clarified, clearly unaware of my sudden panic. I let out a shaky breath. Get your head on straight, Bee, you complete idiot— "Forgive me if I have overstepped; I am merely curious. After all, from what you have told me, there is no great war in your Texas preventing you from being courted, nor can you be short of male acquaintances in your work or music halls."
"Oh," I said faintly. "I don't know, I guess. I did date a bit in college, but I didn't meet a lot of guys I was really eager to spend more time with. I met a few people I liked on dating apps, but they usually wound up ghosting me. It turns out men aren't really into women who talk about music theory on a first date."
He scoffed. "Then they were fools."
"Oh, don't pretend you understood more than half of what I just said!"
"I gleaned enough from context: these men refused to pay you court upon learning more of you and your interests," he supplied. "They were fools indeed, Beatrice."
No one had ever said anything like that to me, and once again I was struck by the desire to duck and roll out the car door. "Thank you," I managed, an uncomfortable thought bubbling up in my mind:
Lucky wouldn't begin to cover it.
We lapsed into an awkward, though not uncomfortable, silence as the world wheeled on beneath us. As the sun sank hazy and gray on the horizon and I flipped on the car's headlights, the sparse trees around us thickened into a forest: the Firien Wood, according to Boromir. We drove over a mercifully shallow stream under its boughs, the Hummer's enormous tires making quick work of the sluggish water and expanse of mud, and though the road was overgrown with tree roots and encroaching undergrowth, we didn't have to slow our pace by too much.
It was fully dark by the time we emerged from the forest back under the clear night sky, and I pulled over for a quick, cold, rather pathetic dinner of soup and vegetables, straight from their cans. We paused a few extra minutes to stretch our legs, and I examined the car for any signs of wear and tear: tire pressure, fine; gas tank, over half-empty.
And so we drove on.
And on.
And on.
"I insist that you stop for the night," Boromir said for the third time, crossing his arms.
"It's fine," I insisted. "I used to drive at night all the time, and I'm not even tired."
"No?" He shot me a meaningful look, and I froze in the middle of a violent yawn.
"I thought you wanted to get to Minas Tirith as fast as possible!"
"Not at the expense of your health! You have already conveyed us far closer to the White City than I'd thought possible in so short a time." I increased our speed stubbornly, and Boromir scowled. "There is a farmhouse not far from here that might provide us with shelter," he offered.
"Really?" I looked out the window at the barren hills. "I didn't think people lived out here."
"Few do, for these are not safe times to live in the wilderness," he said grimly. "Many have been killed in raids or driven into larger cities in recent years. As it happens, the house I have in mind is abandoned."
I balked. "Wait, you want to stop in some old abandoned building?"
"In happier times, its owners offered food and shelter to travelers on the road," he explained, "though it has been years since they sought refuge behind the walls of Minas Tirith. The home still stands, whole and untouched. I sheltered there myself on my journey to Imladris."
Grudgingly, I agreed. "This place better not be haunted, Boromir."
We reached our destination less than two hours later, a forlorn-looking wood cabin close to the road. I almost drove past it in the near-total darkness, small and unassuming as it was. I parked the Hummer over the remains of its barren garden, between the house and a little stone well, and we got out and stretched our legs.
The thin wooden door was hanging open. Boromir insisted on going in first to check for interlopers, so I passed him my phone, flashlight on. "It is empty," he called, motioning for me to follow.
The white beam of my phone's light passed over the corners of the one-room cabin. "It's awfully small for a halfway house, isn't it?"
"Its owners were of frugal means," he explained. "Oftentimes their guests slept on bedrolls or cots near the fire."
There were certainly no cots or bedrolls now. The cabin held little more than an ash-clogged fireplace, a broken-legged table, and a wooden bedframe with a sagging straw mattress. The place had been picked clean of anything small enough to be carried away, although I wasn't sure if it had been raided by thieves or merely left that way by its former owners.
"Are you sure you don't want to keep driving?" I asked. Boromir raised an eyebrow. "Even sleeping in the car might be better than this. That mattress is in terrible shape, and there's only the one."
"I am sick to death of that carriage," he said vehemently. "And the bed is yours, of course. I shall place my bedroll near the fireplace."
"What? No way are you doing that, your shoulder's still hurt. I only agreed to stop in the first place so you could be more comfortable!"
"As though I would let a woman sleep on the floor while I rest in comfort." He folded his arms bullheadedly, the gesture made far less intimidating by the limited mobility of his right arm.
"So you admit the bed is the only comfortable option!" I jabbed a finger at him. "I'm not taking the bed, and that's that."
"Then we shall both sleep on the floor."
"I guess we will!"
I stomped out to the car and grabbed my bedroll, unrolling it on the dirt floor and glaring at Boromir. He rolled his eyes and went to the car to get his own bedroll.
"Oh, for Pete's sake," I said at last, watching him wince as he bent to flatten his bedroll beside mine, "we could at least put both our sleeping bags on the bed."
He froze, looking startled. "What?"
"The mattress is big enough, isn't it? Let's just put our sleeping bags on that. It'd be the same as sleeping side by side on the ground, except, you know, not horribly uncomfortable."
"Beatrice," he interrupted faintly, dragging a hand down his face. "Such a thing would hardly be proper—"
"How much more improper is it than sleeping next to each other on the ground?"
A good deal more improper, his expression seemed to say, but after another moment of looking at the cold, dusty floor, he faltered and waved a hand in the direction of the bed. "I—I suppose it is not so different, if you put it that way."
"Good," I said, with more confidence than I felt.
So we settled in for the night. We divided our tasks easily, almost wordlessly; we'd traveled together long enough to know one another's strengths. Boromir brought our weaponry and bags in from the car—he was strong enough to manage it easily, even with one good arm. Meanwhile I gathered dry grass outside by the light of my phone's flashlight to make a fire, thinking back to Sam's instructions all those months ago in the wilderness. He would have been disappointed in how long it took me, but I finally managed a weak, smoking flame in the dusty fireplace.
Boromir sighed wearily as he stood in front of the fire, massaging his shoulder gingerly with his left hand.
"Are you alright?" I asked. God, maybe I should have carried in our supplies myself—though I knew Boromir wouldn't have been content to sit by and do nothing.
"Yes, I am perfectly well." He waved me off without meeting my eyes. "Only—ah—a bit stiff. I am unused to spending so long sitting down."
I eyed his injured arm suspiciously. "Don't you need to change the bandages on your shoulder?"
"I will have my injuries tended to as soon as we reach Minas Tirith; I can manage for one more day, I assure you," he insisted. I opened my mouth to protest, and he scowled. "It would not be—"
"So help me God, if you say it wouldn't be proper for me to help you—"
"You have done too much for me already," he said uncomfortably. "And I have faced far worse injuries alone."
"Well, you don't have to anymore. Not as long as I'm here."
He was silent for a long moment, his expression suddenly so intense that I blinked and looked away. "Always your words disarm me," he said at last. "Very well, I will accept your aid." A mischievous look was in his eyes when I glanced back at him, and he added, "Had you chosen to enter your family business, you would have made a formidable lawyer." I laughed.
Boromir drew some clean bandages and a little vial of ointment from his bag, passing them to me. Then he undid the row of buttons below his collar, determinedly not meeting my eyes, before grasping the hem of his tunic and pulling it gingerly over his head. He did the same with his coat of mail and undershirt, his muscles bunching sinuously with each movement, at last revealing a broad, scarred torso.
My face went hot. Suddenly I wasn't sure where to look—my eyes darted feverishly to his bare chest, then away, then back again. He let out a small hiss of pain as the sleeve of his undershirt caught on his injured arm, and I shoved my eyeballs back into my head and reached over to help him tug the garment away.
"Thank you," he said, and I jumped as our eyes met, his shirt warm in my hands from his body heat.
"What can I do to help?" My voice came out rather breathless, but mercifully, Boromir ignored it.
He walked me through changing his bandages as matter-of-factly as possible—he must have sensed my nervousness, or maybe he didn't want me to think he was taking advantage. Ever the gentleman. A wave of fondness for him bloomed in my chest, stronger than ever, as I went to the old well outside and withdrew a bucketful of water to dab at the wound. His skin was still red and torn just below the collarbone, but I forced down my squeamishness as best I could.
Once I'd dressed the wound with an astringent-smelling mash of Strider-approved leaves and ointment, I wrapped the new bandage over Boromir's shoulder, under his arm, and back up around his front. As I worked, my fingers brushed against the hard planes of his pectoral muscles, which were smattered with soft, dark hair. I tried not to let my hands linger on his skin more than was necessary, but I wasn't sure I was succeeding. I was just so close to him—I was nearly sitting in his lap—and as I reached around his shoulder to wrap the bandages, it was easy to imagine I was embracing him.
Boromir's breath caught—I could feel his chest shudder with it. "Does this hurt?" I asked.
"No," he muttered. "No. Your hands are gentle."
"I—oh. Good." I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn't dare look up as I finished securing the bandage, my heartbeat loud in my ears. It was with some difficulty that I moved away from him.
"There now. The healers of Minas Tirith could not have done a better job, I should think." Boromir reached up and tried to massage his shoulder again, twisting the joint back and forth in its socket experimentally. His range of movement was startlingly narrow; he'd barely moved at all before he winced again and sucked in a sharp breath.
"It still hurts, doesn't it?"
He lowered his arm guiltily. "Worry not. It is a stiffness in my shoulder that pains me, more than the wound itself."
I frowned. I wasn't sure he was telling the truth, but if I was going to help, I may as well do it properly; his muscles would only get more stiff after another day of sitting in the car tomorrow. "Here, then. Let me." I climbed onto the bed and moved to sit behind him, the old bed frame complaining loudly.
"What are you—" His voice caught as I placed my hands on his shoulders. Realizing my intention, he craned his neck to stare at me, eyes wide with what might have been panic. "Beatrice! It is only a slight discomfort, it will pass—"
"A slight discomfort? Boromir, you could barely get your arm out of your shirt a minute ago. If you were in my world, you'd probably be getting physical therapy after an injury like yours. This isn't any different, really."
Before my nerves could get the best of me, I began to massage his shoulders, starting at the corded juncture of his neck. He tensed even more and let out a stammer of protest, neck arching back—but at last he hung his head, relenting, and bit by bit his shoulders began to relax.
His hair hung soft over my fingers, and I swept the locks away, resisting the urge to stroke his hair again. I moved my thumbs in small, pressing circles on either side of his spine and slowly made my way down his neck to the knotted muscles at his back, dragging the heels of my palms against his skin as I went. Boromir's skin radiated heat like a furnace, and the muscles underneath were taut as violin strings. I stared down at him, entranced. The dim light of the fire threw flickering shadows over his back and shoulders, exaggerating the lines and ripples of muscles under my hands.
He let out a low hiss as I moved closer to the bandages wrapped around his injured shoulder. "Do you want me to stop?" I asked quickly.
His answer was immediate, his voice hoarse: "No."
I swallowed, nodded, and focused my attention on his right side. I kneaded his muscles as gently as I could, aware that his right arm had been nearly immobile for days now. The difference was obvious, the knots of muscle tense and unnaturally hot to the touch. My fingers ghosting over the new bandages wrapped around his shoulder, I pressed more firmly into the skin just below his shoulder blade—and at that he groaned, a low, primal sound that was both so contented and so deeply, thoroughly masculine that my hands froze on his skin.
I took several shallow breaths before continuing, hoping he couldn't feel the deep shudder running through my body. Almost imperceptibly, he canted backwards, leaning into my touch, and I bowed my head, feeling suddenly as though I were drowning. The air in the little house seemed to be full of static, heady and close and unbearably warm.
Desperately, I tried to gather myself. "Do you—" I cleared my throat, trying and failing to sound composed. "Do you have any of that medicine for your bruises?" My voice seemed too loud, though I barely spoke above a whisper. "That stuff the doctor was using in Edoras?"
Boromir nodded, swaying slightly, and he passed me a small bottle without speaking. I opened it with numb fingers—the ointment inside smelled like lavender and pine and something flowery I couldn't name. My heartbeat loud in my ears, I climbed off the bed and moved to kneel on the ground beside him. There, I gingerly smeared the medicine onto his ribs where he'd been shot. If it were possible, his skin was even hotter here, hard ridges of abdominal muscle tensing beneath my fingers.
His chest rose and fell unevenly as I worked the ointment into the muscles at his ribcage and the softer skin at his stomach, my fingertips brushing over the deep bruises as gently as I could. An old scar ran along his side, following the curve of his ribs. Someone had stabbed him—or tried to stab him, probably years ago. His bruises didn't extend near it, but before I could stop myself I trailed my thumb along the scar, the skin raised and white, the imprint of old chainmail leaving the injury rough and uneven. I repeated the motion, almost reverently.
Another low sigh slipped unbidden from Boromir's lips, and my eyes snapped up to his face, just above mine. He had closed his eyes for a moment, but when they opened, his pupils were blown wide, his gaze freezing me in place. He stared down at me, his lips slightly parted, his fingertips digging into the mattress at his sides. For a long moment, neither of us moved, our hushed breaths mingling with the crackling of the fire.
Then Boromir stood so abruptly that I nearly toppled backward. "Thank you, Beatrice," he said softly, then swept out of the cabin without a backward glance.
I followed him to the window on numb legs. Boromir was pacing back and forth in the darkness, chest heaving. After a moment he tore a restless hand through his hair, stormed to the well and splashed a wave of cold water onto his face from the bucket I'd drawn.
Hastily, I stepped away as he returned to the cabin, his face and neck dripping wet. He shrugged his undershirt on again in a rush, biting back a grimace at the movement.
I busied myself with braiding my hair, determined not to look at him and trying desperately to cool the heat still rising in my blood. Boromir tended to the fire with the same tense, restless energy.
God, why had I done all that? I felt like I'd crossed a line, somehow—not just crossed a line, but vaulted over it. I should have just helped him with his bandages and been done.
Should I apologize? I tried to imagine saying the words, but the very thought was too mortifying to consider.
"We should rest while we can," Boromir said at last, clearing his throat. "We have many more miles to travel tomorrow."
"Right. Good call." I nodded, my throat dry, and we both slipped into our bedrolls side by side, the fire crackling sleepily in its grate across the room. For a long moment we lay in silence, staring up at the cobwebbed wooden beams of the ceiling. I couldn't move, could barely breathe—I was intensely aware of just how much space Boromir's body took up on the bed.
Abruptly he hissed a breath through his teeth and rolled onto his side away from me, then onto his back again, clearly trying to find the least painful sleeping position with his bandaged shoulder and broken ribs. The bed creaked loudly with each movement, and when he abruptly rolled over to face me, I gave an involuntary start.
"Forgive me," he whispered, his voice already thick with sleep. "Did not mean to disturb you."
"You're fine," I whispered back—and without meaning to I rolled onto my side too, so we lay face to face. "As long as you're comfortable."
He smiled softly. "I have not been this comfortable in many years."
I blinked in surprise, but Boromir's eyes were already slipping shut, exhaustion overtaking him at last.
It was so quiet.
We'd slept side by side dozens of times now, during all the Fellowship's adventures, but this felt different in a way I couldn't quite describe. There was no reason for it: I knew what his snores sounded like, how much he tossed and turned in his sleep, even the way his hair rumpled in the back in the mornings—though I wasn't sure when I had begun to notice those things. Why, then, did this suddenly feel so strange, so intimate?
I fell asleep trying to puzzle it out.
I woke up in the middle of the night with my face nestled against Boromir's chest. My eyes flew open and I tensed, realizing that I'd somehow inched my sleeping bag toward him and was now plastered to his body like a leech. Both of us were curled toward one another, our knees and hips pressing awkwardly against each other from inside our bedrolls.
Mortified, I tried to wriggle back, but found that Boromir's right arm had snaked out of his bedroll and was draped over my ribs like an iron bar. In response to my movement, he pulled me even closer, crushing my nose against him as his jaw settled, warm and heavy, on top of my head. He'd nudged his bedroll down to extract his injured arm, and the vee of his undershirt hung open, which meant my face was all too suddenly pressed against the warm, bare skin of his chest, just below his collarbone.
"Boromir," I hissed against his skin, intending to wake him up, to prompt him to move away, but his name came out as little more than a sigh. I swallowed and tried again, though with even less conviction. "Boromir…"
He murmured something in reply, something that nearly sounded like sorceress, though his voice was so thick with sleep I couldn't be sure. He reached further with his injured shoulder to better wrap his arm around me, pectoral muscles flexing against my face, and I wondered, with a sudden, piercing longing, what it might be like to sleep this way every night, pressed warm and secure against Boromir's chest. We would be curled under the same blanket rather than tucked inside separate bedrolls, and there wouldn't be a swath of bandages on his shoulder, and I wouldn't be wearing my full riding dress…
My hands clenched uselessly in my sleeping bag, and I tried to force the thoughts away. But long-suppressed feelings were bubbling up in my chest, finally threatening to overflow, and I couldn't stop myself. I liked Boromir—liked him so much that I was quite sure like wasn't the right word at all, though I was too afraid to let a stronger word even flit through my head.
Was it ridiculous to think he might return my feelings? Sometimes he looked at me or spoke to me with such intensity—but then maybe that was just how people acted around each other after they'd been in so many life-or-death situations together. I had never known anyone like Boromir, and so I had no context for his behavior whatsoever. It was certainly nothing like the handful of frat guys who'd clumsily hit on me in college or the smattering of attention I got at bars after a gig.
I closed my eyes against his chest miserably. Well, and what did it matter? I wasn't from here, I couldn't stay. I should be hoping he didn't have feelings for me. That photo I'd taken would be all I had of him, in the end. And if that was the case, it would be better if I kept him at arm's length.
Arm's length might be difficult for the present, I admitted to myself as Boromir shifted in his sleep, murmuring inaudibly into my hair, his body heat seeping into my skin. Starting tomorrow, then, I thought weakly. Tomorrow. For now, I would allow it. Just for now, I would let myself relish in his closeness, in his body heat, in the smell of medicine and leather and horses and him.
Something hopeless and helpless swelling in my chest, I grasped at his undershirt and pulled him as close as our sleeping bags would allow. Slowly I drifted back to sleep, lulled by the slow rising and falling of Boromir's chest and the steady beating of his heart.
