Éomer laid Éowyn's body on the shingle beach. Kneeling, he bend to listen for a pulse and see if he could feel any breath. He drew back, preparing to pound on her chest. Breathe, dammit, breath. For fuck's sake, breathe. But even as the tide of desperation surged in him, he saw her eyelids flicker for a moment, then open. She coughed, and rolled onto her side. Propping herself up on her elbow, she retched onto the stones, leaving strings of watery bile trailing from her lips. She wiped them away with her hand, then flopped onto her back once more, chest heaving.

Behind him, Éomer heard a splashing, then the crunch of footsteps on the shingle, and turned to see Faramir, water cascading from his clothes, trudging up the beach. The Gondorian took in the sight of Éowyn lying on the shingle, motionless, and broke into a run. As he reached them, he fell to his knees beside her.

"Does my lady live?"

Éowyn tried to sit up, and took another coughing fit.

"I'll be fine."

Faramir took her hand. Éomer looked around him. In place of the lowering grey clouds and steady rain, they were now surrounded by a thick mist. But what little of the river he could make out behind him suggested a far larger body of water than the one into which they'd fallen, and the shingle beach they were now on was like nothing they had passed on the walk up stream.

"We need to get away from the bank, find somewhere we can build a fire and try to dry off a bit." Faramir's voice interrupted his survey.

"We should all have at least some spare clothes in dry bags in our packs," Éomer replied.

Faramir nodded, and then said "First, I should get my weapons out. This ducking was no accident. I taste the scent of magic on the air. I would wager we are back in my world."

He undid the sackcloth bundle tied to the side of his rucksack, and started to organise the various items. His sword he belted round his hips, one dagger went into the belt on the other side from his sword, a second he stashed inside his tunic, and a third, small one, he tucked down his boot. He looked at the quiver for a moment, before strapping it to the side of the rucksack. Then he slung his bow over his shoulder.

"Christ, man, you're a one-man walking armoury," said Éomer. He'd helped Éowyn into a sitting position and was rubbing her back gently.

"I do my best," said Faramir, dryly. Éomer found himself looking at the dark haired man almost as if for the first time. He'd grown fond of their "nutter", but had mostly seen him as a figure of fun. Suddenly, that changed. He now saw the man entirely differently, took him seriously. Memories of the fencing match came back to him, comments about not wanting to die on your enemy's sword.

The man was a soldier, a real soldier. A dangerous one. Very, very dangerous indeed. Suddenly Éomer was reminded of the special forces troops he'd occasionally encountered – everything about them, stance, bearing, attitude, a sense of utter ruthlessness if that was what the situation needed. This man had it.

"Let's get under cover and get a fire started. We don't need to go far." To Éomer's surprise, Faramir drew his sword.

"Best to be ready," he said, with a slightly dark look on his face. "Can you help Éowyn?"

Faramir led the way into the woods, then stopped in a small clearing. Éomer followed, an arm round his sister. She, needless to say, started to protest.

"I'm not an invalid."

"Yes, but you do need to get into as much dry clothing as you can find." Faramir took his pack off, and fished out a dry bag. "Here – the Christmas jumper!"

"You should wear that."

"I'm used to being wet. I'll wring my clothes out in a moment, once I've got a fire started."

Éomer dug out the dry clothes they had between them – a jumper each, a pair of waterproof trousers each. It was going to be a cold night. He added a plastic bivvy bag and silvery survival blanket to the heap, then spread his rucksack out for Éowyn to sit on, and passed her some Kendal mint cake.

"I hate this stuff," she said, wrinkling her nose.

"Yeah, but it's almost pure sugar. Here, let me have a look at your head." Éomer held a Maglite between his teeth and probed Éowyn's hair. "Where's your first aid kit?"

"Right hand pocket of my sack."

Éomer opened the medical kit and wiped the cut with antiseptic wipes, before snipping away some of her hair and applying a butterfly suture. Éowyn grimaced, but made no noise. This done, he wrung out their wet clothes and hung them over a low branch. Faramir returned with the sackcloth filled with a mixture of dry grass, pine needles, twigs and larger branches. He crouched down and produced a tinder box, striking sparks onto the kindling, blowing on it until the fire caught, then feeding it with gradually larger twigs and branches. Once he was satisfied that it was burning healthily, he stood up and stripped to his braies, wringing his wet clothes out. Éomer was struck by how many scar there were criss-crossing his body.

"You should take your jumper back," said Éowyn.

"No, you keep it. I don't want you to get cold."

"I'm tougher than I look. Besides which, the sensible thing to do would be for all of us to snuggle up under the survival blanket and bivvy bag, and I don't want to do that if you're still wet."

Reluctantly, Faramir conceded the point, and his wet clothing joined the rest, hanging from the branches. Éomer found a spare pair of thermals in his rucksack and gave them to Faramir for his legs, then the three of them settled in a row, sitting on the empty rucksack for a bit of extra insulation. They pulled the thermal blanket and bivvy bag round their shoulders.

"Silver… Bright orange… Not very subtle." Faramir's distaste for the coverings showed in his voice.

"We were walking in the Welsh mountains. The whole idea is to be visible if you need rescued."

Faramir laughed, then shook his head cynically. "It may not be the best choice in our present circumstances. Have we any food?"

"Some Christmas cake, a squashed banana, a bag of nuts and half a Kendal mint cake," Éomer said.

"Which is horrible," Éowyn added.

"In that case, while it is still light..." said Faramir, and picked up his bow, then walked into the trees. He returned about three quarters of an hour later with a couple of rabbits and a pheasant. He tossed a sheathed knife and one of the rabbits to Éomer.

"What do you expect me to do with this?" Éomer asked.

Faramir shook his head. "Don't they teach you anything useful in your army? Just watch what I do and copy it." With a practised air, he paunched the rabbit then skinned and decapitated it, and trimmed off its feet, before skewering it on a stick and carefully balancing it over some hot embers. Then he plucked and gutted the pheasant. Meanwhile Éomer tried to repeat the trick with his rabbit, but before long had to admit defeat. Faramir finished the job.

Éowyn watched and laughed. "You have much to learn, young padawan," she said to her brother.

"Do you want to do it?"

"No, head wound, couldn't possibly," Éowyn replied.

"She's feeling better," Éomer said to Faramir, who broke into a broad grin, but wisely didn't respond. Instead he banked up the fire with more branches.

The rabbit and fowl were a bit stringy, rather smoky and burned in places, but they filled a hole. The men took the taste away with bits of Kendal mint cake (Éowyn said she wasn't that desperate). By agreement they decided to save the nuts and Christmas cake for breakfast. By this time, it was starting to get dark. To Éomer's surprise, Faramir handed him his sword.

"You take the first watch while you're still reasonably alert; I'll take the second. If you have to wake me, be careful how you do it." Carefully, he laid his bow and quiver within easy grabbing distance, tucked his knife near his head and settled down next to Éowyn, pulling the covers (such as they were) over the two of them. Éomer got up and felt his waterproof – sort of dryish, and better than just a single jumper, now that a bit of a breeze was getting up. He sat down on a boulder with his back to the fire, the better to protect his night vision, and stared out into the gloom.

~o~O~o~

Éowyn woke up the next morning to find herself back-to-back with her brother. Feeling rather disappointed (though at least he was warm), and extremely stiff, she carefully eased the kinks out of her neck, then turned her head round. Faramir sat on a fallen tree nearby, checking through his arrows one at a time, and using some of the feathers from last night's pheasant to repair any fletches in need of attention. Éowyn sat up. She still had a bit of a headache from the bang on her head, but on the whole felt a lot better than she had the night before. Her movement woke Éomer.

They ate the cake, and decided to save the nuts till later in the morning. Faramir left briefly to go down to the river. When he returned, he reported on what he had discovered.

"The mist has lifted. It's as I thought – the river is Anduin, the great river. We are just at the northern end of the stretch where the bank faces the island of Cair Andros. On the Anorien side."

Éomer and Éowyn looked at him with puzzled expressions, so he took a twig and sketched a map in the muddy ground.

"This is where we are. This island is Cair Andros. Here, just downstream of the island, there's a crossing and a garrison. Then the river takes a southward turn. The land over here to the east is the land my troop defends. Downstream is the city of Osgiliath, largely abandoned due to frequent raids by the enemy, but still an important crossing. Though, contrary to what my father believes, I'm not sure how much longer we can hold it. And here, to the west across the plain from Osgiliath, lies Minas Tirith, my home."

He moved the stick back to the position where they were. "Upstream, Anduin flows from the north-west at this point. This group of streams flowing across the wetlands to our north and west is the confluence of the Entwash and the Mering Stream, and it marks the boundary between the northern border of my land and yours."

"Ours?" Éowyn said.

"Do you not remember the inscription in the book saying that you were the grandchildren of Morwen and Thengel, queen and king of Rohan? You are Rohirric..." He stopped mid sentence and turned towards the wood. "Shh – I heard something."

Éowyn and Éomer fell silent. Then they too heard something – the unmistakable sound of a twig breaking beneath someone's foot. Faramir sprang to his feet, sword drawn.

"Halt, who goes there?" he called.

"Peace, my lord Faramir," said a deep, old-sounding voice. There was a movement in the undergrowth, and an elderly, gnarled hand moved aside a hazel branch. Out stepped an old man, clad in a grey cloak, a pointed hat upon his head. He was, Éowyn noted, tall and straight, despite his age, and she couldn't help thinking that the staff which he held was more an affectation than a need. He had a long, white beard, and above it, dark, intelligent eyes twinkled in a wrinkled face.

"Mithrandir," Faramir said, in tones of relief, and sheathed his sword.

"Ah, so you have completed the task I set for you."

"I fear not, friend, for we were pitched back into this world before we could reach our destination, the stone chapel in which I hoped to find some artefact of power." Faramir could not keep the disappointment out of his voice.

Mithrandir threw back his head and laughed heartily. "Faramir, Faramir. You have brought Morwen's daughter's children back, and great deeds await them. You have completed your task."

Faramir's eyes opened wide in surprise, and Éowyn couldn't help joining in the laughter.

"Wait a minute… You mean us to stay here?" Éomer asked in a shocked tone.

Abruptly, Éowyn stopped laughing. The implications began to hit her.

"I have to be back with my regiment in three days time. So does Wyn..."

Éowyn gulped. "You want us to do something here? What? How long will it take?"

Mithrandir looked at them. "The mirror of Galadriel is not so specific. I know not what you will be called upon to do, only that your deeds may play a part in swinging the course of history in our favour. You are not here simply for a short while to do something specific. This is your home, from which you were taken as children, and to which you have now returned."

Éowyn turned chalk white. "But Theo, Jane, the kids… They'll think we're dead."

~o~O~o~

Gradually, the wizard managed to explain to Éowyn and Éomer what was at stake. The future of this world, of the many people in it, hinged on the role they were to play.

Éowyn and Éomer burst into a barrage of questions, but Gandalf held out a hand to silence them. He then added a crucial (and unwelcome) piece of information: he greatly regretted it, but for all their sakes, for their own protection, he would have to cast a spell of forgetting upon the three of them. Faramir would return to Ithilien, with naught but the memory that he had been called upon to accomplish something of importance, which was now brought to fruition. Éomer and Éowyn would follow Mithrandir out of the wood onto the plain, where a trusted lord of the Rohirrim, Éothain, waited with horses (the wizard was relieved to discover the siblings could ride, and wield swords).

It would take them around two weeks to get back to Edoras, the king's city. The story would be that they had been hidden in Anorien for their own safety. During the journey, Mithrandir, with Éothain's help, would try to instil the basics of the tongue of the Mark into the siblings.

Mithrandir had not foreseen all things, however. The wizard was somewhat surprised when Faramir moved over to Éowyn and took her hands in his.

"But I don't want to forget this. I can't forget this." He turned to Mithrandir. "Is there no other way?"

Mithrandir shook his head.

Faramir looked at him defiantly, then said "Let your magic do its worst. I'll not forget this, not till the ending of the world." Then he drew Éowyn into his arms.

Faramir kissed Éowyn, a deep, passionate kiss, as if wanting to sear the memory of her lips into his consciousness so firmly it would be beyond the art of any wizard to remove it. Sadly, he loosened his grip on her and took a step back.

Then he surprised her by clasping her arm, forearm to forearm in a warrior's salute. He smiled at her.

"The next sword fight you get into, take your time – I know you can strike fast, but you need to strike fast without any risk that their slower counter will deal you a mortal blow, even as they themselves fall. And for the Valar's sake, remember to guard your legs." Then his face became sad, but in his eyes a spark of hope danced.

"Éowyn of Rohan, I will meet you again. And woo you again. And if you find it in your heart to love me a second time, I will wed you, if that be your choice."

Then, with a final salute to brother and sister, he turned and walked, straight and true, into the misty woods towards the river.