Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a safe and happy transition into 2007. Here is Chapter 11 for everyone, and thank you for your reviews, even though for some reason the e-mail alerts aren't working right or something, but I read them when I checked the stats for the story. I hope you all like this chapter, just like several times before I'm not so sure about it. Thanks again and let me know what you think!

Note: Dialouge in bold is spoken in Elvish.

Disclaimer: I own nothing associated with Lord of the Rings.

Chapter 11

Carita raised her hands to her face and cried. She should not have told him. She was wrong in telling him her dark past and she lowered her hands as she let her tears fall. Taking a deep breath she stood from the bench and wiped at her face. She slowly made her way to her talan, all the while keeping her eyes trained on the forest floor. As she walked, she berated herself in her mind as she walked.

"I should never have told him anything," she told herself firmly. "He will never speak to me again. He will never even look at me again." She stopped walking and looked up when she once again felt her chest tighten and a deep pain settle there. Carita raised a hand to her heart and shook her head when she realized that there was more to her relationship with Legolas than she had thought.

"Lady Carita," came a deep voice from her left and she lowered her hand and straightened her posture before she turned and looked to the owner of the voice. Haldir stood there and when she looked at him he bowed his head. "Are you well?" he asked when he raised his head and closed the great distance between them to stand a few feet from her.

"Aye," she said softly. "I am fine." Haldir nodded and Carita looked down and away from him. "I am just retiring to my room for some much needed rest," she said when she turned her eyes back to him and he held out his arm.

"Let me escort you to your talan," he said and Carita shook her head.

"No, I have much to think about and I prefer to think alone. I hope I have not upset you," she said and Haldir smiled and lowered his arm as he shook his head.

"No, my lady you have not upset me. I shall leave you in peace," Haldir said and bowed his head before he continued down the path she had just come from. Carita sighed quietly and turned her eyes ahead once more and instead of continuing onto her talan, she followed another path and came upon the banks of the great river. She settled herself on one of the large tree roots and watched the moonlit rippling water move about carefree and untroubled. She wished then that her life was like the water, but her life had never been easy and part of her knew that it was only going to become more difficult in the passing days.

As the dawn slowly broke the horizon in the distance, Carita stood from her seat and walked towards the waters edge. She had no slippers to remove as she enjoyed walking barefoot, and slowly she waded into the water.

The dawn light was filtering in through the windows, and Legolas had paced the floors of his small talan so much he thought he may very well wear the wooden planks down to nothing. He sighed as he sank onto his bed and put his head in his hands. He did not know what to think, his heart and mind were torn in two different places. One part of him wanted to demand that Carita travel no further with them and that she be sent back, because he now doubted whether or not she could be trusted. And the other part of him wanted to go back to her and comfort her. He wanted to help bear her grief for the loss of Gandalf, and remove the pain he had inflicted upon her when he had left her.

He had heard her soft cries as he had walked away, and he had stopped for a time and listened as she cried. It had taken a great deal of strength for him to continue walking away. A curt knock on his door brought him from his thoughts and he lowered his hands as he stood and walked to the door. He opened it and was surprised to see Pippin standing there with a frown on his face.

"Um, Legolas, have you seen Lady Carita?" Pippin asked.

"I suppose she would be in her talan," Legolas said dryly.

"She is not there, and no one has seen her since she left our camp with you," Pippin said and Legolas frowned.

"She will not be hard to find," Legolas said as he stepped around the hobbit and quickly walked down the stairs with Pippin following.

"I'm sorry to bother you," Pippin said as they stepped onto the forest floor, "but Merry and I wanted to walk with her. I was going to ask Aragorn, but I figured you'd be the best to ask."

"Then why bother me?" Legolas found himself asking. Pippin raised an eyebrow as the pair came to a stop, however, Legolas turned and walked down the path towards the clearing he had left her in the night before.

"Are you angry with her?" Pippin questioned. "Has she done something wrong?" Legolas sighed quietly and glanced at the hobbit.

"It is not my place to share that information," Legolas said. They were nearly to the clearing when he stopped suddenly and looked to the right with a frown. "Continue down this path there will be a clearing to the left. That is where I last saw her. I will look this way." Before Pippin could say anything, Legolas moved quickly down the nearly invisible pathway that led to the river and as he left Pippin's sight he broke into a quick run. For some reason he felt a panic and with labored breaths he stopped at the waters edge when a flicker of cream and black in the water caught his attention.

Without thinking, he rushed into the water and pulled Carita out of the rippling current and onto the shore. She gasped and pushed her hair from her face as they went crashing to the ground with him on top of her. Carita coughed and opened her eyes as she looked up at him. He looked down at her with a frown and his hair and face dripping water down onto her.

"Are you mad? What were you doing, trying to drown in the depths of the river?" he demanded. Carita glared at him and pushed him off of her before she stood from the ground, her dress soaked and stained with mud thanks to Legolas throwing her onto the ground.

"I was not trying to drown," she said heatedly as rang out her hair and looked at Legolas as he slowly stood from the ground. "I just went under when you so unceremoniously pulled me from the water! What were you doing?"

"Looking for you if you must know," Legolas said heatedly. "What were you doing under the water?" Carita laughed as she watched him ring out his own hair.

"I was swimming," she said as if it was the most obvious things in the world. "Why else would I be in the water?"

"In your gown?" he asked as he looked down at her dress and then back at her glaring face.

"Yes, in my gown. The water looked inviting and I didn't want to go and change."

"You are mad!" he exclaimed.

"You are one to talk," she hissed. "Last night you couldn't stand to be within my sight and now you come diving into the water to supposedly save me." Legolas closed the distance between them so the pair was nearly nose to nose, he stood a few inches taller.

"Last night you gave me all too good a reason to lose all my trust in you," Legolas sneered and his words stung and she looked away from his face as he looked down at her heatedly.

"Last night I chose to tell you of my past, a past that I both regret and that I am ashamed of. There are very few that remain in this land that know of it," she said as she looked at him her anger returning both at the fact that he chose to disregard her so quickly and the fact that he had ruined the gown she was given to wear.

"You were there when he made the rings of power, you were there when he sent his orcs and other monsters out to destroy all the good in this world. You were at his side, and you did nothing," Legolas said and Carita felt something break at the hate that shined in his eyes.

"You have no idea how hard it was for me to actually tell you, and you do not know everything. You do not know what I went through, and what I was forced to do." Her body was trembling with anger, but tears were in her eyes. "Next time you get the urge to save me, don't," she finished in a whisper and turned from him. She broke out into a run and disappeared through the trees. Legolas stood still and sighed before he turned around and ran his hands through his hair.

"She is right you know," came a soft voice from behind him and Legolas turned around surprised to see Lady Galadriel standing before him. "It was not her choice to be at Sauron's side when he came to power."

"What do you mean?" Legolas asked quietly and Galadriel gave him a small smile as she walked closer.

"She too was ruled by a ring of power," Galadriel said. "Sauron the Deceiver created on especially for her. Whenever he gave a command, so long as she wore it, she was forced to do as he said, no matter what her true desires were." Legolas' frowned only deepened.

"Why did she not take it off?" Legolas asked.

"The first command he ever gave her was that she would never remove the ring," Galadriel said calmly. "You are wrong to judge her so harshly, Legolas, she was young and naïve, and blinded by a love that only she felt. Sauron did not love her, he never loved her. He only used her and used her he did.

"When she freed herself from his power she did all she could to help destroy him. She barely survived her flight from Modor, and when she was well enough she told the leaders of men and elves all she knew and all she learned while she was held. Sauron sent his hunters, his Nazgul after her. They hunted only her and were nearly successful twice in eliminating her, until Elrond, Celeborn, and I hid her."

"She said that she was more of a hindrance than an aid," Legolas whispered remembering Carita's words from the night before.

"She helped more than she knew. She trusted you enough to share the darkest secret of her past," Galadriel told him pointedly. "She trusts you still, though . . . it seems that any trust you held for her is gone."

"It is not gone, simply misplaced," Legolas said as he found the slight guilt he felt earlier that morning multiplied tenfold and his anger was gone and replaced by guilt and shame.

"Let us hope that you find it before it is too late," Galadriel told him quietly before she turned and left him alone at the rivers edge. Legolas took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He had been wrong to doubt her, he had been wrong to say what he had said to her and he had disrespected her by doing just that. He opened his eyes and once again set out down the invisible path.

"Did you find her?" a voice asked and Legolas stopped to see Pippin standing there. Legolas nodded.

"Aye, I did, but perhaps later would be a better time for a walk," Legolas said. "She wishes to be alone for a time." Pippin nodded and Legolas took off once again but this time towards Carita's talan leaving Pippin to walk back to camp on his own.

Carita rushed into her talan and quickly ripped the dress from body and dressed once again in a fresh tunic, leggings, her vest and boots. She brushed out her wet hair and looked at her reflection in the looking glass. She looked tired, worn, and surprisingly ill, but she knew it was only because her grief had been multiplied. She closed her eyes and turned away from the mirror. Carita sighed quietly and opened her eyes before she moved over to the window and pulled her hair over her shoulder. She made quickly work of a braid and leaned against the window frame.

Carita no longer knew which grief pained her more the fact that Gandalf had passed and was gone or the fact that Legolas' hatred for her was so obvious.

"Oh, Gandalf, your words would be much appreciated now," she said softly into the air. "Even though you time in life has been shorter than mine, you have always been so much wiser." The door to her talan opened and she turned around quickly to see Legolas entering the room.

"I must speak with you," he said softly and she turned away from him.

"You have said plenty already," she said crossly as she looked out the window once again.

"I am sorry," he said, but Carita did not turn. He sighed and walked over to her and put his hands on her shoulders. He turned her around and Carita met his gaze. "I am sorry, whether or not you believe me I am. You have shown nothing and done nothing to deserve the treatment I have given you or my anger."

"I was in part, my past is dark and you had every right to be angry with me," she said. "But I did not expect to see the hate so clear in your eyes."

"I do not hate you, Carita," Legolas whispered. "The emotions of the last few days have been emotions that I am not familiar with, and I am doing my best to cope with them. Your tale yesterday was something I did not expect and at the river . . ." he trailed off and Carita shook her head.

"Can we forget this night and morning ever happened?" she asked softly. "Can we put these events in our past forever and never think of them again?" Legolas nodded and raised a hand to her face and placed his palm against her cheek.

"Aye, we can do just that," he said and Carita smiled. She could feel her strength return just by his mere touch and the sight of the smile that graced his face. She sighed and wrapped her arms around him and embraced him tightly. Legolas stiffened, but Carita held on and soon he wrapped his arms around her with a soft sigh of his own. Both did not realize that that moment would send their path together around an unexpected bend.