Autumn was beginning to stir the air in the Mark, when the funeral party returned from Gondor with Théoden's body, ready for burial. Éowyn watched from the steps of the Golden Hall as the cortège approached across the plain. At one and the same time she felt pain at the thought of laying her kinsman to his long rest, and immense happiness at the thought of seeing Faramir. Before he left for Gondor, Éomer had told her of his intention that the two of them be betrothed.

Their reunion was joyful; that evening they sat next to one another at the high table, and though nothing had yet been announced, their feelings must have been clear to everyone who had eyes. Not to mention the fact that since Faramir's choice of place for their first kiss, their love for one another was perhaps best described as an "open secret." A man with a taste for flamboyant first kisses in public, a little voice whispered. What a kiss it had been, Éowyn thought. Then that strange little voice came again (or rather, one of the voices, for they were many, and came with different tones and timbres) and said Not three day old haddock, nor merely romantic, but… And all at once, she recalled the latest in those heated dreams to which she seemed more and more prone – dreams which now had a face and name attached to the lithe, dark haired body that was hers as she was his.

She felt herself blush, and saw Faramir shoot a knowing glance her way. How easily he seemed to read her face. Another odd fragment of thought came her way, this time delivered as it were in the voice of a teacher or tutor, and oddly, in Westron rather than the language of the Mark. There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face. To which her own mind replied, Oh but there is. There is.

The evening was a sombre one, but still there was pleasure to be had in good company. Éowyn watched with amusement as his brother reacquainted himself with Lothíriel, princess of Dol Amroth. He'd mentioned, when he got back from the war, that the Prince's house was where he had been billeted while he waited in Minas Tirith for the host to ride out east towards the Black Gate. Torn with worry about his sister, and terrified (to put it frankly) of the prospect to come, he claimed not to have noticed the princess, who was one of the very few women remaining in the city, working in the Houses of Healing.

He had certainly noticed her now, Éowyn thought. In fact, he had noticed her on his return from Cormallen. Many dinners and court dances were held in those long summer evenings, and many an eligible young noblewoman of Gondor had thrown her cap at Éowyn's brother, but (so far as she could tell) he had eyes only for Lothíriel, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that the princess seemed to treat him simply as one of her brothers' friends.

However, this evening, he seemed perhaps to be getting somewhere at last. The princess had taken his hand for several dances, and now sat beside him, smiling at him as they conversed. Though, to Éowyn's annoyance, a cynical voice in her head – that teacherly voice she'd heard in Westron earlier – said It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds.She gave an inward laugh and dismissed this voice as a mere annoyance (after all, she appeared to have inadvertently betrothed herself to a prince – one whose estate lay, after all, in the "Garden of Gondor").

And in any case, the sight gladdened Éowyn's heart. At least for one night, her brother seemed to have shed the weight of kingship and the sadness and guardedness that dogged him, and had become once more the gentle giant she half-remembered from their teens. As she looked at Éomer's face as he danced with Lothíriel she heard another voice – a warm voice, almost fatherly – say words which should have been cynical but were delivered with an unmistakable note of fond good humour: Then they reach thirty and they settle down with whoever's next to them on the sofa at the time.

Then Faramir had taken her hand and whisked her onto the dance floor, whirling her round to a rapid jig, his hands on her waist. And those hands had stayed there, warm and comforting and intoxicating, for the next, slower dance, as she buried her face against his chest, and he rested his cheek against her hair.

~o~O~o~

Early the next morning, Éowyn woke up. She felt very strange. Part of this was down to the continuing utter confusion of feeling, simultaneously, a fierce joy at being with Faramir once more, and at the same time immense sadness at the thought of laying her uncle to rest. Part of it was that somehow, the very intensity of her emotions had unlocked things she had buried deep within her – in particular, those long, chill nights with the door barred, fingers groping beneath the pillow to check for the hilt of her dagger every time she heard a noise. Then of course there was the worrying number of voices in her head… she was beginning to worry that she might be losing her grip on reality. She had seen this happen to men who'd come back from the battlefield.

But underneath it all was a nagging feeling of the world on a tilt, of things not quite as they seemed, of the key to a puzzle just out of reach. And a sense of impending… not exactly doom, but realisation of some sort. But one which, if, in and of itself, not doom, at least one which would upend the world she knew, turn it on its axis, present her with a choice of some kind. A profound and far-reaching choice.

And not knowing was perhaps the hardest bit of this.

She took refuge in grooming Windfola.

As she rubbed him down with a wisp of hay, then took a brush to his coat, she heard footsteps approaching. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Faramir duck through the doorway. He smiled at her and instantly her heart lifted.

"Have you missed me?" he asked.

The bare-faced cheek of the man! Was he not meant to start by saying how desperately he had missed her. "Perhaps."

"If 'perhaps' is the best you can muster, maybe I should make more of an effort to remind you of why you agreed to marry me," he said, and put his arms around her, drawing her in for a kiss. She tangled her fingers in his hair, letting herself float on a wave of desire, putting her all into the kiss. Eventually, breathless, he broke the kiss and nuzzled the side of her neck, then whispered, "Yes, I have missed you too, and yes, it was remiss of me not to say so immediately."

She chuckled. "Just as well, for we are to be betrothed tomorrow."

"Aye, your brother did tell me… so it will not come as a complete surprise."

She stuck her tongue out at him. Then a thought occurred to her. "And did he tell you of the customs of the Mark regarding betrothals?" She found herself blushing again, but was amused to see an answering flush rise in Faramir's cheeks.

"Your brother did not, but Éothain did. So, we are to be troth-plighted, then bedded?"

Éowyn found herself turning back to Windfola, and brushing him with long strokes, to cover her embarrassment. "It's an old tradition – it stems from a time when it was customary to try out marriage for a year and a day to see if the couple suited one another, and if… if they could produce a child. Then after a year and day, or when a child was on the way, the marriage would be made permanent."

Faramir, sensing perhaps that this was a moment for talk rather than embraces, hopped up onto a stack of hay bales and made himself comfortable.

"You are not worried about tomorrow night, are you? I suppose someone has told you what to expect."

Éowyn definitely couldn't look at Faramir at this point. "Not worried at all. Very much looking forward to it, in fact." Oh Béma, had she said that aloud? "Women of the Mark are not shy about such things – I have been told to expect much pleasure." At last she managed a glance over her shoulder, and was immediately speechless. The look on Faramir's face… She thought she had seen desire on his face before, when he kissed her, but she had been wrong. This was what desire looked like.

As if to take the heat out of the situation, he gave a laugh. "My lady, I hope I can live up to your expectations. I fear I may be a little out of practice, for I have led something of a lonely life for quite some time now."

Éowyn quirked an eyebrow at this, and Faramir became serious. He paused for a moment, apparently deep in thought, then spoke.

"I am not entirely sure whether to tell you this, lest you think I am mad, but for, oh, the best part of eighteen months, I have waited for you. I… sometimes I have dreams. The dream I told you of – the great wave of Numenor. And the dream of the sword that was broken that..." For a moment a look of profound sadness washed across his face. "The dream that sent my brother to his death.

"But amongst them I have had happier dreams, dreams of a woman, brave and beautiful and true. A woman with hair of gold that flowed round our shoulders as we embraced. I don't know why I feel it so strongly, but I am certain those dreams were dreams of you."

Éowyn could not frame any words. Faramir looked at her intently, mistaking the reasons for her silence. "You do think I have run mad," he said, a sad note in his voice.

"No, no, far from it. For you see, I dreamt of you too. Of a dark-haired man who was brave, and true, and beautiful, and mine. Who stood by my side rather than trying to cage me. Who fought in honour beside me." She looked at him. "And who made me laugh."

"Made you laugh? Now there's an odd thing to yearn for in a lover."

"After the struggles we have endured for the last year and a half? I think it may be the first thing I'd yearn for in a lover," said Éowyn, smiling at him.

"You dreamt of me?" he said again, his voice filled with wonder.

"For a long time I didn't know it was you. I got rather confused at one point as to which dark-haired man of Gondor I wanted," she admitted, somewhat shamefacedly, then added hastily, "Though thinking about the laughter helped me to realise what I want. You are the only man I have met who can make me feel so joyously happy. And after you kissed me it became very apparent which dark-haired man of Gondor I wanted." This time, she turned to face him and looked him in the eye.

"So dreams where you stood by my side, and fought beside me…" he said, thoughtfully. And returned the look.

"And other dreams. Many other dreams. Not all of them chaste."

"Not chaste?" He smiled at her, a knowing, challenging smile, a smile she felt she had seen before… but where? She could not recall him looking at her like this before, and yet she was sure he had. In any case, a challenge was a challenge, and needed to be answered. She tilted her chin defiantly.

"Not in the slightest bit chaste. And they were very detailed dreams." As she spoke, the images her dreams had conjured flooded over her and she felt her body respond. Desire rose up inside her, and as it did, she could see a matching desire written on his face – oh yes, she could read his thoughts in his face every bit as well as he could read hers. "Very detailed. Very vivid. Very… wondrously… pleasurable." She stared straight at him, gauntlet thrown down, waiting for a response.

He cracked first. Just for an instant, his eyes flickered to the ladder up to the hay loft.

"Is that an invitation?" Éowyn asked. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she was hit by yet another wave of deja vu, but before she could wonder about it, Faramir answered with one word.

"Yes."

In an instant the race was on. Éowyn reached the ladder a hair's breadth ahead of him, and scrambled up it as fast as she could, Faramir hard on her heels. He crawled through the hatch and she dropped the trap door, pulling a sack of grain over it to hold it shut. Then she gave a cry of surprised delight as Faramir put his hands round her waist, lifted her up seemingly effortlessly, and tumbled her into the hay. They kissed, desperately seeking each other's lips, fingers attacking laces and buckles, hands embarking on a voyage of discovery to the glorious, hidden expanses of skin beneath clothing, arms wrapping round one another, limbs twining in a golden chaos of movement, heat and desire.

Afterwards, as they lay in exhausted contentment, Faramir's head cradled on Éowyn's breast, Éowyn glanced down at him, almost tentatively, questioningly, then saw a spark of shared recognition. Taking a deep breath, aware that this might change everything… or nothing, she took the risk of a flying leap into the unknown. And spoke. In Westron, in a dialect that had been untouched for nigh on two years, but came back to her in an instant.

"Bloody hell. How could I have forgotten that?"

"The very question I was asking myself. When did you remember?"

Éowyn nuzzled his hair with her lips, then whispered in his ear, letting him know the precise instant. She was rewarded with a deep, sensuous chuckle.

"For me, it was a few moments earlier – the moment when I remembered how perfectly these..." His hands roved across her silken skin and found what they sought… "Fitted within my grasp."

~o~O~o~

As they walked, hand in hand, back up the hill towards Meduseld, they encountered Éomer. Éowyn felt Faramir give a start (a guilty one, she guessed), and struggled to keep her own face straight. Éomer, blunt as ever, spoke.

"Sister, dearest, you appear to have straw in your hair." He reached out and detached the offending stalks. "For that matter, so have you, my Lord Steward, but I'm afraid I shall not tidy your hair for you. I'm sure my sister can attend to that." He looked intently at their faces, and his eyes narrowed with suspicion, and Faramir swallowed hard, and thought Tulkas' rod, I'm for it now. But he was wrong.

"When did you both remember?" Éomer asked.

To say both of them were stunned would have been an understatement. They both spoke at once.

"You know?" said Éowyn.

"You knew? Since when?" Faramir asked.

"When I started to train Firefoot. He reminded me so much of Maldon."

Éowyn dissolved into helpless laughter, and had to cling to Faramir for support.

"Truly, it was written in the stars that you were destined to become king of the Mark," said Faramir, joining in Éowyn's laughter.

Éomer rolled his eyes. Then said, slyly, "Not often I work things out ahead of you, Faramir. But in any case, the real question is what you want to do about it, now you do know," said Éomer.

Faramir eyed him with puzzlement and suspicion. "What do you mean? Surely things are as they are."

"Hmm," replied his soon-to-be brother-in-law. "Gloves off, I think. Wyn, you hate it here."

Éowyn stopped laughing very abruptly. "I… No… Well, it's not easy… But."

"A cage," Faramir said, thoughtfully. "That's what you told me you feared more than death." He became silent for several moments. Éomer, forced by circumstances to become a wiser man than he had been eighteen months earlier, held his peace. "Is what I offer you in Ithilien going to become your cage? A nicer cage, a cage whose warder loves you more than life itself, but nonetheless still a cage?"

"We can build Ithilien to be how we want it, Faramir," Éowyn said, holding his hand. Faramir noticed though, that already there was a shift in the patterns of her speech, back to the way it had been when they first met. "You'll let me be your equal. We'll rule there together." "

I think we should think about it, slowly and carefully," said Faramir. "Not that I suppose it makes much difference. I'm not sure how we could get back to your world."

Éomer shot Faramir a look. "Did you never give any thought to how Morwen put Wyn and me there? I mean, she couldn't have done it herself." Faramir had the feeling that for a second time in as many minutes, Éomer had been way ahead of him.

"Well, it's not as though I've had much time to think about it, having only just remembered. Mithrandir, I suppose."

"Hmm. Well, I have given it some thought. A lot, in fact. And yes, Mithrandir was my first thought. But actually, I don't think so. I worked it out from some of Granny's old letters eventually. She wrote to some odd people. Obviously, family home in Gondor. But being Numenorean through and through… Elves as well. The Lady of the Wood."

Faramir and Éowyn boggled at this.

"I was mad as hell when I found out. In fact, it almost led to a Dwarf taking my head off first time we met – just because I said something about the nets she cast that few escape, and accused her of sorcery. Though in the end, it turns out she's okay. For an Elf that is. I mean Elves are pretty weird, when you think about it."

Faramir grinned at this summing up. Both of them were rapidly reverting to the speech patterns of their childhood.

"And," added Éomer, "She's also currently here, in the Golden Hall. I'm not saying you have to decide now. But think about it."

"But..." said Faramir, slightly helplessly. "Duty… Gondor..."

"Dude, Aragorn and Arwen are quite capable of holding the ship steady on their own."

"What about you?" asked Éowyn.

"Well, unlike you, I don't have a choice. The Mark needs a king. And I'm it. Also, being a bloke, I fit in just fine here."

Éowyn bridled with indignation.

"Hey, I didn't make the rules. Though I might change some of them, now I can. Anyway, back to the main question. I'm not saying make up your minds right now. Just think about it."

~o~O~o~

AN: I've stolen a bit of dialogue, and the idea that Faramir might well be surplus to requirements, from Borys's wonderful "Kiss Me."