Eldarion was so lost in his guilt about inflicting yet more pain on his poor fathers that he barely felt the eyes of his three hobbit uncles boring into him. "It would have been better if I'd never existed at all," the young prince continued to lament.

"Now you just wait one minute there, young mister," said Sam, half scolding and half incredulous. "Let me see if I'm hearing you right: you're making your fathers suffer? You almost killed Mr. Legolas? You're a jinx and a curse?"

The boy gave no verbal response but he did drop his gaze to the floor. Sam shook his head, almost in shock. "Why would you say that?" the hobbit demanded. "Wherever did you get that load of nonsense?"

"You don't have to pretend that you don't know," mumbled Eldarion, staring so intently at the floor of the antechamber that one would think that it had a secret map to a treasure hoard drawn on it. "There's no way that the three of you couldn't know. You said it yourselves – you were here when I was born."

Merry stopped stroking the tuft of dark hair on the top of Gilraen's head to place his hands on his hips. "Yes, that's right," he said, walking slowly toward the boy. "But why would that mean that we would know anything about the rubbish that you were just spouting?"

"Stop it! I know you're just trying to be kind but I can't take it anymore," cried Eldarion. Tears stung his bright blue eyes but he blinked them away; after all, what right did he have to cry? "You know all about my birth and now so do I – Ada and Papa told me the whole story this morning, about how I almost killed Ada when he brought me into the world. Now I've gone and practically forced them to tell me and almost immediately afterwards Papa becomes 'mysteriously' sick. You can't tell me that's just a coincidence!"

"What else would it be, Eldarion?" Sam tried to reason with him.

"I told you: it's me!" stressed the boy in anguish. "I'm a terrible, awful son! I should be sent away somewhere where I can't hurt this family anymore."

Throughout all of this Pippin had stood deathly still, which was almost an unnatural occurrence for the lively hobbit, with his fists clenched tightly at his sides. It seemed as if he'd been struck by a strange fit that had robbed him of his speech; but at last he managed to find his voice. "Who's been filling your head with these ridiculous, twisted, untruthful notions?" he demanded in an odd tone.

Eldarion shook his head. "That doesn't matter right now –"

"I asked you to tell me who it was that planted those horrible, vicious lies in your head!" Pippin interrupted him furiously. The crown prince had never seen his jovial uncle so angry before; he'd never seen him angry at all, now that he thought about it. He suddenly remembered the stories that Pippin had killed a great troll during the battle at the Black Gates and for the first time Eldarion could see it happening. He definitely didn't like seeing Pippin that way.

Gilraen apparently didn't like the hobbit's mood swing either. The infant girl started to fuss and whimper in his arms, and was not comforted when Pippin started whispering soft, soothing words. Finally Merry was compelled to hurry back to his side and scoop her away. "It's all right, sweet girl; your Uncle Pippin's not mad at you," cooed Merry before he looked up at his cousin firmly. "You calm down, Pip. You're not accomplishing anything by getting angry, unless you count scaring a baby and making our poor nephew feel even worse."

"But he –"

"I know," Merry cut him off. "And we'll set that straight right quick. Now take a deep breath and ask him who's been going around spreading those lies – and not in that crazy tone."

Pippin obliged, closing his eyes and indulging in several cleansing breaths before opening them again to meet Eldarion's apprehensive stare. "I'm sorry that I snapped at you just now," he apologized, perhaps to get the boy to relax. His efforts failed, though, as there was absolutely nothing comforting about the tone of his voice. "It's not you that I'm mad at. Now tell me who this hateful, dishonorable liar is so that I can have a few words with him about talking about things that he doesn't know anything about."

"I –" Eldarion stopped and coughed several times to both clear his throat and stall for time. "Well, no one had to tell me. I just, well, I just had some questions for Ada and Papa; they answered them and I – and I sort of figured the rest of it out on my own."

"What!" Pippin almost shouted, completely forgetting that he was supposed to be calm and relaxed. "Of all the ridiculous – what is wrong with you? How could you possibly get that you're somehow responsible for what happened to Legolas out of that story? You were only a baby – a newborn baby, for pity's sake! Fool of a Telcontar!"

"That's not nearly as catchy as 'Fool of a Took'," remarked Merry dryly.

"If ever there wasn't a time for making a joke, this is it," said Pippin warningly, sending the other hobbit a murderous glare.

"And you know that's a fact if it's Mr. Pippin who's saying it," added Sam, giving Merry an ironic look.

Pippin was definitely less than amused. "Not you too," he snapped at Sam harshly. "There's nothing funny about this at all; the boy's clearly delusional!"

"I am not!" protested Eldarion, obviously insulted. "Maybe I'm just the first person's who's said the truth out loud, that's all."

Sam covered his mouth and shook his head, looking at the boy with a surprising amount of earnest solemnity. "Oh honey, I just don't know where to begin," he said.

"Nowhere," replied Eldarion sullenly. "There's nothing left to say."

"Obviously that isn't true," countered Sam. He thought long and hard for a moment. "I don't suppose you gave Strider and Mr. Legolas a chance to talk to you about this realization?" he asked, though it was more of a statement since he could already guess the answer.

"Well, no," hedged Eldarion, his cheeks suddenly getting hot for reasons that he couldn't quite put into words. "I was…a bit – more than a bit, really – upset and I just ran out of there. Ada was calling after me, but I…"

Merry sighed and turned his face upwards toward the ceiling while Pippin let out an outraged, wordless grunt. Sam, however, tutted his tongue and gave no other reaction. "It's always best to know the whole story before you start making such grand and ludicrous assumptions," advised the hobbit Gamgee sagely. "Now you better open your ears, Eldarion; because you need to be told the rest of the truth and your uncles here are going to be doing the telling."

Biting his lip, Eldarion looked into each one of their faces with a new sense of wariness. He wouldn't put it past any of them to come up with a nice lie if they thought that it would make him feel better, and there was a part of him that told him not to trust a word that they were about to say. That part, however, was usually the part that he listened to prior to doing something that got him punished when his fathers found out about it; the sensible part of him said that there was something so genuine about their shock and indignation that he had no reason to doubt their sincerity. The two sides warred inside him as he deliberated about what he could believe.

"All right," he finally conceded, deciding for now to take them at their word. After all, they'd never been deceitful with him before; he would just have to be extra attentive in his listening now. "Ada and Papa told me about the poisoning and the lady who attacked Ada in the garden, but we didn't get into the details about the night that I was born so much. I guess we could start there."

"What a scary night that was, too," said Pippin with a shudder. His brilliant eyes clouded over as the painful memories took hold. "We were – taking a self-guided tour of the city when we got the news that Legolas was bleeding. That's how the guard said it, too – that he was bleeding. No one knew yet that he was in labor; and we all thought…well, you can imagine what we all thought."

Merry stiffened and put a hand on Pippin's shoulder. "Anyway," Pippin continued, "after that everyone rushed off to the Houses of Healing – except me. First I had to track down King Thranduil and Gimli outside the city gates and then I had to wait there after those two went off because Elladan and Elrohir were coming and they needed to be told what was going on. Me! I was the one who found Legolas vomiting in his horse's stall; I was the one who knew that he thought that he was dying. It was me who described his symptoms to Elladan and Elrohir after Legolas fainted, allowing them to figure out that he was pregnant and not dying at all. Then when the situation got bad again and your ada needed all the support that he could get, I wasn't there! Is that fair, I ask you?"

"He's been carrying on about this for years," Merry fake-whispered to Eldarion. He groaned and gave Pippin's ankle a little kick. "Hey, Pip! I don't think that our lad here cares too much about whatever issues you had – and continue to have – on that night."

"I'm just setting the stage," groused Pippin.

"Consider it set," returned Merry smartly. "Forgive us, Eldarion; but I think we can skip ahead here without too many details. Let's just say that Elladan and Elrohir made it to the healing chamber in time and kicked everyone, including Aragorn, out for the rest of the birth. Your papa was not happy that he had to wait outside with the rest of us for so long."

"For what turned out to be one of the longest nights of all of our lives," piped up Sam, "and considering what we've been through during our lives, that's saying something. Of course, what the three of us were going through, or Faramir and Eowyn, or Gimli or even King Thranduil, was nothing compared to what Strider suffered through during the wait. The poor Man was nearly out of his mind with worrying about you and Mr. Legolas, torturing himself about whether or not he'd made the right choices in terms of your care."

"No one was telling us anything about what was going on either," Merry spoke up darkly. "All Aragorn could do was imagine what was happening."

This was probably the source of his papa's insistence (a rather strange one, according to the people of Gondor's court) that he always accompany Legolas to the birthing chamber and stay put until the baby was born. "How long did that go on?" wondered Eldarion in a small voice.

"Oh, we couldn't tell you the number of hours," said Marry with a great deal of sadness in his voice. "All we knew was that one second of not knowing if you and he were safe was one second too long; and that night was excruciatingly long."

"But I was born eventually," said Eldarion.

"Of course you were; you're standing here talking to us, aren't you?" Sam smiled a little, both at the boy's silliness and at the memory of the first time that Eldarion was introduced to them. "They cleaned you up all nice and god before bringing you out. You should have seen the look on Strider's face when that healing woman gave you to him! He looked – well, I don't have the words to describe it but it was something to behold, all right."

Despite himself, Eldarion let out a little chuckle. "I suppose I could imagine it," he said, recalling the time that he visited his ada's birthing chamber after Laurelin was born. Aragorn had looked at her like she was the most amazing thing in the world that day. Eldarion remembered with a bit of embarrassment how very jealous he'd been of all the attention she'd gotten. "I've seen Papa around three new babies, after all. Did all of you pass me around for everyone to hold like you did to Laurelin after she was born?"

"No," answered Sam softly. The joy he'd felt at remembering those few happy seconds on that stressful day faded and he grew pensive once again. "No, not at all. Your papa wouldn't let anyone else hold you or even come too close. He just sort of curled himself around you like he thought that one of us had a mind to snatch you away and run."

"That Man clung to you like you were his only lifeline," added Merry grimly. "And for a while there it looked like you were going to be the last living bit of Legolas that he had."

Eldarion blinked rapidly to keep his tears from escaping. "Because of –"

"Don't start that up again," ordered Merry. "It would be nice if you let us tell you the truth without assuming that you've already figured it out. We have no intention of lying to you, Eldarion – Legolas was pretty bad off right after you were born and no one knew how he was going to turn out. Aragorn" – his voice caught – "Aragorn was so upset that he couldn't stand the thought of sharing you – as you were the one thing that the two of them wanted more than anything and waited so long to have – with anyone else. We didn't even get a good look at you until after your ada was out of the woods."

"Your grandfather did, though," recalled Pippin. "He stayed with Aragorn when your papa took you to sit by Legolas. You know how intimidating King Thranduil is? Even he didn't get Aragorn to let go of you."

"Aragorn fussed over you the whole time that he was waiting for Legolas to wake up," Merry said. "Calling for bottles, diapers, baby toys, everything. Does that sound like the way that your papa would act toward anyone that he blamed for hurting Legolas?"

Eldarion let out a shuddering breath. "No," he admitted in a wavering voice. Hope kindled within him but he wasn't entirely convinced yet. "What – what about Ada? How did he act toward me after almost dying and everything?"

"No one could ever really describe it," spoke up Pippin. He frowned when Eldarion started to nod knowingly. "And don't go thinking that you can figure it out by remembering the way that he acted around your sisters after they were born. Now he loved Laurelin with all his heart, and I'm sure that he felt the same about these precious bundles that we have here, but with you it was – deeper, if you follow me. He loved you so much, but it was also like he knew you as a person; that you weren't his new child but someone he'd known for years. All I can think of is that you two went through a lot together and both of you proved tougher than a lot of people imagined."

"Legolas had a dream about you when he was out of it," added Sam thoughtfully. "It made him think – I don't know – that you were looking out for him just as much as he was looking out for you."

Before Eldarion could respond – that is, if he had an adequate response that could possibly convey how he was feeling – the door suddenly creaked open. All heads turned, expecting to see Aragorn and Legolas, and they instead found themselves looking at two identical elf lords. Elladan and Elrohir were even more surprised to see the guests as the guests were to see them and for a moment the room was completely silent as the two groups stared at each other as if they'd never seen anything like it before.

It was Elrohir who recovered his voice first. "Legolas," he called back to his friend, "you never told us that your chambers were infested with hobbits."

"Don't be funny now, if that's what you call what you're doing," replied Legolas, still out in the corridor. The twins moved inside and held the door open as wide as it would go. "Not that it isn't always, um, interesting, when you take the time to loosen up, mellon nin; but I'm not in the mood right –"

All speech left the elf prince when he entered the room and took in the sight of the many hobbits. "Ai, good Elbereth," he commented at last. "Welcome, everyone! This is - unexpected, but it's wonderful to have you all here." He smiled as he surveyed his guests and the smile warmed even more when his eyes fell on Eldarion. "Ion nin! You came out of your bedchamber. I'm so happy to see you…"

"Ah, Legolas?" spoke up Pippin in an uncertain tone, awkwardly raising his hand and feeling like that inexperienced hobbit who set out from Rivendell all those years ago. "Do you need any help with, well, with him?"

Legolas glanced down at the person that the hobbit was gesturing at: Aragorn, who was unconscious in his husband's arms. "No," he replied as if that should have been obvious all along. "I've carried him for quite awhile and I'm still doing fine. I doubt that you could say the same if you were in my place, Master Took."

"Is Papa all right, Ada?" asked Eldarion timidly.

"He's just fine," Legolas assured him as his eyes shone. Thank Elbereth his boy was speaking to him again! After the way they'd left things that afternoon he hadn't been sure when that was going to happen. "I think we got his fever under control."

"Then why is he so out of it?" pressed Eldarion.

Legolas rolled his eyes, though his expression remained loving. "He fell asleep in the bath," he explained with a little laugh. "I suppose that it's exhausting to be sick."

"Don't make excuses for him, Legolas," Elladan told him, certain that it was all right to play the teasing older brother role again now that Aragorn seemed to be on the road to recovery. "Estel has always been lazy like this whenever he comes down with even the slightest case of the sniffles."

"As opposed to you, who doesn't need illness as an excuse to make yourself worthless?" retorted Legolas only half-jokingly. He shook his head in exasperation and smiled once more at his son. "Your papa just nodded off while your uncles and I were tending to him. I didn't have the heart to wake him, especially when it was only slightly harder for me to carry him."

Rose Gamgee blinked in wonder, remembering how she'd felt after each time she'd given birth. While she'd always gotten back on her feet fairly quickly – she was a mother, after all, and that was just something that mothers had to do – she couldn't imagine having to lug around something so heavy so soon after delivering. "You poor dear," she said. "Everyone, give him some room and stop pestering him! Let him put down the king as soon as may be."

"I thank you for your concern," said Legolas cordially (though in truth he was getting a little annoyed), making his way across the room, "but I'm really all right. We elves – could someone get the door? – can carry heavier things than Aragorn here without straining a lot of muscles. Thank you, Sam."

He made his way into the bedchamber with Elladan and Elrohir at his heels and carefully placed Aragorn on the bed. The Man mumbled something incoherent – something about "not tonight" that made Legolas grimace a little – and then slipped into a deeper slumber. "We can handle the situation from here, Legolas," said Elrohir, gently pulling the elf away. "Why don't you step outside for a little while?"

"Excuse me?" demanded Legolas sharply, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "Are you actually telling me to leave my own bedchamber while my husband is so sick?"

"There's really nothing more that you can do here," Elladan told him. "Estel doesn't appear to be worsening, so you don't have to worry about that either. I'd say that the hobbits need your attention more than he does right now. They look tired, and the young ones especially might like something to eat and drink before they go to bed. Find them some bedchambers, see that they get whatever they need, bid your son goodnight, and then come back here. We'll examine Estel and hopefully have something to tell you upon your return."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"…And there you have it," concluded Elrohir a little while later, after Legolas came back. All of the hobbits were settled in a drifting off to sleep if they weren't asleep already but Eldarion was still awake. The young prince was with the three elves in the royal antechamber, holding his father's hand while his uncles reported their diagnosis. "He's probably been feeling a little under the weather for some time but his stress over the birth and all of that business with Lady Nienor held it at bay. Now that all of that's over with it attacked him full-force."

"You married an idiot," added Elladan tiredly, exasperated at his little brother for putting them through all of that when he could have saved them a lot of grief by mentioning that he wasn't feeling well. "But I'm sure you already knew that."

Clearly Legolas wasn't in the mood to hear his husband being insulted. His grip on the rocking chair's armrest tightened and he glared at Elladan. "He should be fine in a few days," Elrohir broke in before the two could get into a full-scale argument. "Just make sure that he gets plenty of rest, fluids, and all that good stuff. Now if you don't need anything else, my foolish twin and I will bid you a very fond good night."

Legolas let his head fall against the back of the chair after the twins departed. Eldarion, not letting go of his hand, walked around a little in order to face him better. "Can I get you some water or something?" the boy asked anxiously.

"No, thank you," sighed Legolas, giving him a small but content smile. "You've been so helpful tonight already with getting our guests situated. I'm so glad that you're feeling better about what your papa and I told you this afternoon."

"Well, I had a talk with Uncle Pippin, Uncle Merry, and Uncle Sam," replied Eldarion a bit ruefully. "They made me realize that I didn't give you a chance to finish the tale."

"You did leave before the most important part," agreed Legolas. "You see, ion nin, after you were born I went…somewhere else."

"They told me that you had a dream," said Eldarion, confused.

"It wasn't a dream," said Legolas resolutely as if he'd had this debate countless times before. "I'm certain that I was in a waiting place between life and death. I had no idea what had happened to me except that it had something to do with a child, and that it was agonizing not to know where the child was. I searched that place and all through my memories; and just before my desperation led me to wander into shadows – and to death – I saw you, Eldarion. You led me back to the world of the living, my sweet child; you saved me when no one else could have."

Eldarion rested his cheek on the top of Legolas' head. "And you saved mine, many times" he noted hoarsely. "I guess we were in it together, huh Ada?"

"We were," said Legolas tenderly, "we are, and we always will be."

"So," said Eldarion, not sure of what else to say but not wanting to leave his ada yet. "Do I have to go off to bed now? I've lazed about enough today, so I'm not all that tired. I could stay and give you a hand with the babies if you'd like."

"That is very kind of you," said Legolas in a paternally proud voice. "I accept, thank you."

OOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It had been a most unusual evening, at least as the cloaked individual had observed it. The prince consort carrying the king around like he was some maiden while they were both almost naked was a sight to behold; but the arrival of the hobbits was the more intriguing event. 'This complicates matters,' the person decided, 'but not enough to spoil my plans. It will just take a little more finessing on my part but no matter. I've waited for this for far too long to let some uninvited guests ruin it.'

Really, the only thing that could mess up the plans was that one of the hobbit children had spotted the individual. But what was that, really? He or she – 'how can anyone tell the difference? All hobbit children look the same to me, with their wooly heads and feet – might tell someone about what they'd see but anyone would just attribute it to tiredness and an overactive imagination. Oh, they'd kick themselves later when the plan was carried out successfully, but for now anyone would just dismiss and forget about it.

Well perhaps not Prince Eldarion; he was a clever enough boy to connect what the hobbit child had seen to what he'd seen earlier. Thankfully the boy appeared to be too wrapped up in his excitement at seeing the hobbits to pay much attention to that sighting, though, and his newfound need to be a dutiful son would keep him busy until the hobbit child too forgot what he'd seen. No, Prince Eldarion wouldn't be any threat to the success of the plan.

'My opportunity is coming soon,' the cloaked person thought with great satisfaction. Patience had been a hard-learned lesson but soon the need for it would be over. 'All I have to do now to set my plan in motion is get what one thing I need out of hiding and go to the Houses of Healing for the other one. The trap will soon be set and no one will figure out anything until it's too late.'

To be continued…