Notes: I'm so very glad you all like the last chapter! It seemed a little less in keeping with the rest of the story, so I'm just happy you were all happy with it.

Well, my friends, this is almost over now. I struggled with myself, and struggled with myself, and struggled some more, but I finally decided to not write any more. A story just tells you when it's done, and this one certainly did! I couldn't even write an epilogue--try as I might, I couldn't force more than a few words onto the page. So you will have to be content with this. Just one more chapter after this one... Review and let me know that you like it!

Sorry about posting a day late: it completely slipped my mind!

Chapter Nineteen: Withering Away

The tendril of hair brushed against Eowyn's cheek, and this time she didn't brush it away. It swayed there, gently touching her skin in a lingering tickle, distracting her mind from her other thoughts. Yet what other thoughts had been occupying her? She didn't even remember what had kept her so captivated and transfixed, save that it had drawn her eyes down to the lower levels of the city.

The wall was high, compared to the one she usually stood on, and she caught her breath as the wind blew harder, sending the wisp of hair into her eyes. She had found this wall, so abnormally high, on the far side of the garden, and the staircase leading up to it had been partially obscured by an overhanging bush. Once atop the wall, she had caught her breath as the lights of the city spread out under her and the wind whistled sharply in her ears. It didn't matter that it was much more chill and the air was frostier on top of this wall. She felt freedom for the first time in a long time.

It had been two and a half weeks since the eagle had come with the news. The city had taken on a festive, madcap joy since that day, and there seemed to be no one who could withstand the overwhelming relief. No one, that is, except Eowyn. She had felt her spirits sink even lower than the days before the eagle came. Her previous moods, when Faramir had been with her, seemed vibrant and giddy compared to the cloud that hung over her soul now. Even the time before she had ridden to war, when the walls of her home were closing in around her, seemed better than this.

At the end of the first week after the victory a herald had come, gleefully requesting, in the stead of her brother, her presence at the Field of Cormallen. She had risen as the man approached her respectfully across the garden, and she watched his fair Rohirric head bow as he held his epistle out. She read Eomer's words over and over, each time feeling a deeper thrust of pain.

Sister, you know that I pray this letter finds you in recovered health and better spirits than our last meeting. The sorrow and overwhelming unrest that filled me when I saw you lying on the battlefield came back to me as I faced the host of Mordor, and it was you that I thought of, as I fought with the men. Had the renowned Halflings not fulfilled their quest and destroyed evil once for all, I believe I should have died with your name on my lips, and your memory in my heart.

Yet that was not the turn of fate, and now we rest, rejoicing, in this place. The glory of our victory, the sweetness of the new life that awaits us, and the return of the rightful King of Gondor are all events that bring much rejoicing, yet they would please me better still if you were here beside me.

Perhaps it is your wish to abide in Gondor, in the Houses that have doubtless become familiar to you. But I assure you, sister, that when you travel here you will receive glory and renown for your deeds at the battle of the Pelennor, and you will bring great light and joy to us all. For your sake, too, come and join us in our joy. In Minas Tirith you are surrounded still by the reminders of war and death; here you will escape them for a time. Very soon we will all have to face our countries and the rebuilding efforts we must make, but now is the time for rejoicing.

Come join us, my sister. Come laugh with me, and raise a glass with the victorious host. I beg of you. Join me, sister.

Eowyn had returned to her room, trying to convince herself to go. Her brother wanted her company, and she could not deny that she wished to see him again as well. Yet there were other things—stronger emotions—that kept her from returning with the herald. Her brother loved her and wanted the best, but Eowyn knew that Eomer was blind in many ways, and her attachment to Aragorn was one of them. It tortured her to think of him, reveling in his victory and rejoicing in his new kingdom without her. She knew that, though it was possible he thought of her once in a while, she was far from most of his thoughts, and he thought of her as no more than a friend or sister. A younger sister, she had thought in disgust as she pressed her forehead against the windowpane after the confused herald had left. She knew that if she went she would be forced to rejoice with him, and watch him, and pretend that his empty, friendly glances and cheerful words did not displease her at all.

She would also be faced with thoughts that tormented her and tore her pride to shreds. She had thought quickly and clearly, on the day Faramir had left the Houses, about her fickleness and her shallow love for Aragorn. For shallow it had been, she saw that now—and yet she did not want to think about it. To think about it forced her to admit to herself that her love hadn't been true and pure, and that Aragorn had been in the right to refuse her. He had seen through her like a pane of clear glass, and she was ashamed of her folly. Even out in the wind, on days when she felt the tedium tear so greatly at her soul that she had to think of something, she felt her cheeks burn at the shame of her emotions, and her ensuing actions. She had thought herself so righteous, so heroic. She had felt that if she couldn't have Aragorn's love—which, she had been sure, was the thing she wished for above all else—she wanted nothing but a triumphant death. Now she was humiliated by the ridiculousness of her situation: she was simply a girl with an infatuation who had carried it beyond the realm of sanity.

There was someone else that kept her in the Houses, too, but she did not admit it, even in the darkest hours of the night. She heard of him often, now that she could move more freely about the Houses and heard more of the news of the city. The servants and healers would often smile that familiar, grateful smile and report that he had ordered a wall to be repaired, and had himself laid several of the bricks to show how it must be done. Or they told of how he had called the first council meeting since the battle, and had shown such great wisdom and dexterity in handling the Lords of the Chamber that the people were already calling him a better steward than his father.

Eowyn drank in these reports like she was dying of thirst and they were her water. It was not long before she sought out maids who she knew were particularly full of gossip and spoke with them, encouraging them with all her guile to tell her of the Lord Faramir's latest doing. And when she was not listening, or walking on the walls hoping to catch a glimpse of him in the crowded city streets, she would often go to her room and take out the pieces of paper which bore the alphabet he had written for her. She had found the pages still sitting on the table in the room where they had left them, and she had snatched them up like precious treasure.

She sat before her window, watching the trees bend in the wind, using the pen awkwardly in her graceful hands. The letters took on new meaning for her; they seemed whole and complete in a world of incomplete puzzles. She labored over each one, crafting them meticulously until hers were just as beautiful as Faramir's. But it wasn't enough for her—she didn't want to make the beautiful letters after much work, she wanted to make them quickly and skillfully as Faramir had. And when she had mastered that, she began to put them together into words. She knew they didn't say anything, not really, but she liked to see them all formed together, imagining what they would say if she knew what she was doing. She thought of the way Faramir had said each letter—'a' as 'ah', 'b' as 'bee', and so on, and she created sentences from memory, guessing at the way the letters formed together.

And now she stood on the wall, trying to find something in this life that was worth living for. She felt guilty and heart-weary at the fact that she could find nothing—indeed, she should have plenty of reasons. She had a brother who loved her, a country to return to and rebuild, and a future, no doubt, with some prince as a husband and children to surround her. But what might sound so perfect to any other woman made Eowyn recoil and want to bury her head in her hands and weep. Her brother loved her, yes, but his love was possessive. His intentions were good, she knew, but he was completely ignorant of how to love her; she would be locked up in the city until he had her married off to a man who would be equally protective. Her cry for help, evident through her going to war, had been heard, but it had been misinterpreted by her brother.

Eowyn knew that returning home to rebuild Rohan was her duty and her only option, yet she dreaded it with all her might. The people that she loved, and had loved ever since she a child, were noble and doubtless would try as hard as any other to put their world back together, but she could not forget that she had betrayed and broken their trust. Her uncle had left her behind to be their guiding light, their leader, and she had slipped away in the quiet of the night without appointing anyone else to lead them and protect them. How they had fared while she was at war she did not know, and the shame and trepidation she felt at the thought of returning home was one of the things that troubled her heart.

Yet most terrifying to her was the thought that Eomer would certainly marry her off, probably as soon as possible. She was beautiful, and a princess, and he would have no trouble, but Eowyn felt that she would rather die than marry any of the men Eomer was likely to chose. The pain of Aragorn's refusal, her own unrest, and her fickleness shamed her and brought her to the brink of despair. To be shackled to any man for the rest of her days—a man who would never understand her—drove fear into Eowyn's heart.

Eowyn shied away from the thought of Faramir, and how he was another reason the thought of returning home and marrying disturbed her. She stubbornly refused to think about why she spent so long each day practicing her letters, and speaking with the maids about him. She shut her mind to the fact that she lay awake in bed for long hours, picturing his gray eyes smiling at her over the table, and the way he had looked that night at the beginning, when he had found out about his father. His expression had been so vulnerable, and yet there was so much despair in his eyes. And the next morning, when he had approached her and asked her again to walk with him…

She would not let herself think about her feelings for him. When she saw Ricah and Kamir in the garden, playing and gaining some healthy weight, she stayed away from them. It was one thing, in her mind, to hear about Faramir, and it was altogether another thing to interact with children that reminded her of him so closely.

There was one thing in her life that gave her joy, and that was the hobbit Meriadoc. He, unlike either Faramir or Eowyn, had actually listened to the healers and had stayed abed as long as they wanted him to. But now, as the days grew ever warmer and more fragrant, and the city began to regain life with the arrival of women and children, Merry convinced Eowyn to walk with him as he regained his strength. They often walked the walls and heard hammers, chisels, mallets, and many more tools ringing out in the city below as the Gondorians rebuilt their city. Merry chattered cheerfully about this and that, and Eowyn listened to him with half her ear and none of her heart. Merry sensed that though Eowyn was grateful of his company, her heart was far, far away, in another part of the city—a part of the city that held a young man trying hard to clear the worst of the damage away and ready the city for the return of the King.

After that day in his father's chamber the shadow over Faramir's soul began to recede. His fears when he had first come to the Steward's House abated, and he found himself able to live with the memories of his father and brother. Faramir knew that the peace he felt was only on the very surface of the wound, but it was something, and for that he was grateful. He knew, too, that because he wanted to heal, eventually he would.

He spoke of the past with Thailan sometimes, regaling the young man with stories of his brother. They were never long tales or in-depth memories, but once in a while he would stop and the corner of his mouth would come up and he found words for a short while. Once he stopped in the middle of writing a sentence and said, "Boromir did that." Thailan stopped writing and cocked an eyebrow.

"What?" he asked. "What did he do?"

Faramir lay down his pen and rubbed his hands together, trying to put some warmth into them. "He chewed his pen all the time, just as you do. My father would get so mad at him—his tutors often had to punish him. But he never stopped." He smiled and looked down at his paper, shaking his head. "He ruined so many pens."

Thailan laughed, and he too lay his pen down. "I'm sorry Faramir…I will try not to ruin all your pens as well."

They went back to writing, after that, and like the other times their words were short and spare. But Faramir unconsciously drank in the camaraderie and easy friendship, and the ability to share his thoughts with Thailan. Thailan had taken to calling him Faramir when they were in private, and Faramir felt that for the first time in many years he had a friend who he did not have to pretend with—who he did not have to be the Captain with.

Besides that, Faramir received the same attention and love from the city as he had felt previous to the battle of the Pelennor, with the exception that now the city relied on him alone. Before there had always been Boromir or his father to take on some decisions or responsibility, but now the men and women of Minas Tirith turned their eyes upon him. He had their allegiance already, which he was grateful for, but he still worked long hours in an effort to prepare the city for Aragorn's return. And everywhere he went he saw the shadow lifting in the eyes of the people, as it had in his own.

Thailan made sure he rested, even when he didn't want to, and Faramir's wounds did not trouble him much anymore. He had begun writing with his right hand, again, and his bruises and cuts had faded. The burns, too, had healed, with the exception of the one on his back. The skin on that one was puckered and slightly discolored, and Thailan had told him a few days ago that he would bear the scar for the rest of his life. It was not a surprise to him, and the thought did not bother him as it might have bothered other men. The arrow wound on his shoulder would scar, too, and he bore many other scars on his body: a testament to the years he had sacrificed in Gondor's defense.

It was almost three weeks since Faramir had left the Houses when Thailan came and knocked on the door of his office. At Faramir's bidding he poked his curly head in and said, looking strangely solemn, "My Lord, there is someone here to see you." Faramir laid his pen down and raised an eyebrow. "Who is it?" he asked, puzzled at Thailan's behavior.

"Her name is Kitha," Thailan said softly. "She comes from the Houses of Healing, and says she has a message from the Warden."

Faramir's chair scraped against the floor as he rose; he nodded quickly. "Bring her in," he said shortly. As Thailan left to fetch her from the hallway, Faramir stepped to the window and glanced out, absently hoping to see what he knew he could not. So the Warden's fears had indeed come true—Eowyn was ailing. He bowed his head in a moment of defeat, allowing doubt to encompass his heart. What could he possibly do?

He had no more time to think as the door opened and a young woman who Faramir vaguely remembered stepped in. Thailan shut the door behind her, and she dropped into a curtsey, her sand-colored head dipping in respect. When she rose again Faramir smiled at her and gestured to a chair. "Please," he said, "Sit." He watched as she moved to the chair and sat down gracefully, her plain gray healer's dress settling about her feet.

"My Lord," she said in a soft but sure voice, "I beg your forgiveness for interrupting your work—I am sure you have very little time these days."

"It's quite alright," Faramir said, finding himself relaxed by her calm manner. "What is it that is so urgent? You have a message from the Warden?"

Kitha nodded, her dark eyes closing in the motion. "Yes, my Lord. The Lord Warden has sent me in his stead to beg a favor of you. He said you would know already something of the problem, and would be willing to help." At his silence, she leaned forward and said with a note of urgency, "It's the Lady Eowyn, my Lord. You spoke with her often in the Houses, and there was a friendship between you both, so I will feel free to be frank with you. She is withering away before our eyes, my Lord. She does not eat, she does not sleep, and she hardly talks. The city is rejoicing, and yet she fades slowly, day by day. We do not know what her ailment is, for she will not confide in us. Yet I know that even if she did confide in us, it is likely we could still do nothing."

Faramir's heart tightened at her words, and he leaned an arm against the window frame. "You say she fades," he said quietly. "Has she, then, relapsed?"

Kitha shrugged. "She suffers from no illness we know, my Lord, but her cheeks have grown pale again. I will be honest and say that the Warden fears for her." Faramir shook his head and turned to the window, and Kitha went on in a soft voice. "Her brother sent a herald almost two weeks ago, begging her to join him in rejoicing at the field of Cormallen. Yet she declined and sent the herald back with only a short letter for her brother. We do not know why she would choose to stay in this city that she obviously finds repulsive, and refuse to be honored."

At her words Faramir felt first sorrow and then an irrepressible flicker of hope. There were several reasons he knew that she might not go, and he feared to let one of them even enter his mind, but he could not help it. Yet he looked into Kitha's eyes and asked, "What would you have me do?"

"Please, my Lord, come to the Houses and talk with her. I have already stated my purpose to be honest, so I will beg your Lordship to remember the friendship you had, and the words you exchanged. The rose she gained in her cheeks came during your stay in the Houses. Perhaps you can lift her heart so that she will once more embrace life."

Faramir nodded slowly, pushing off of the wall. "I will come," he said quietly. "This afternoon."

Kitha stood and smiled at him. "Thank you, my Lord. The Warden will be so grateful. I pray you will find the right words to say." At Faramir's nod Kitha left him alone to his thoughts. Faramir stood as the door closed behind her and went back to the window, pressing his fist against his forehead until a dull throb began there. So Eowyn was despairing again. So he had agreed to see her. So he had no idea what he would say to her.

Faramir's spirit was in torments at this new turn of events. He had by no means forgotten Eowyn; on the contrary, he thought of her all the time. But for the past few weeks Eowyn had been in his head alone. He had obviously not spoken to her, and no one had spoken of her to him. Late at night he let his mind dwell on her, but during the daytime he knew that he had to move on from her; besides that, he was busy and had enough things to do that he was able to forget her. But now all the hopes that he had so ruthlessly suppressed had been awoken.

It hurt—oh it hurt. His emotions were so strong, after being held back for so long, that for a moment he doubted whether he should really go and see her. But he had to, now. He had promised, and besides, from Kitha's words it seemed that Eowyn was really despairing. Faramir didn't know exactly why she despaired so greatly, but he had a few ideas. Firstly, there were the emotions of rejection and pain at the thought of Aragorn, and that would be a legitimate reason for her to refrain from going to the Cormallen. Doubtless the thought of him in his glory scared and shamed her, and Faramir knew that though she had been struggling to rebuild her life, a part of her had also been clinging to the feelings and reveling in them. Faramir knew she didn't know how to deal with her new station, especially in this strange city, among strange people.

Now that he was gone, he thought, she had no one to distract her and so she was despairing again. But that thought, too, confused and strangled him in its tantalizing promise. He was faced with two choices—either Eowyn was far more heartless than he could imagine and had been using him to play with and distract her, or she had really felt some of the feelings he had experienced. The first option was beyond comprehension, for Faramir could see something of her heart, and he saw that it was much truer than that.

The second option made him close his eyes and press his fist even harder against his head. He had seen nothing in her eyes—no attraction, no interest, and certainly no love—only friendship. But there must have been something! Otherwise she would not change so dramatically when he left. Now that he thought of it, she must have thought him heartless and even, perhaps, gutless, in the way he left the Houses. He had tried to say farewell, it was true, but he could have delayed a few hours at the least to bid her goodbye. At the time, though, he had been eager to take up his rule and also escape the pain of seeing her beautiful, sad face that was so much in love with another man, and not at all in love with him.

"Oh Eru," he said in a strangled voice, turning away from the window and moving with the slowness that had characterized his broken body, "Why must you torment me like this? Have I not suffered enough?" Yet as soon as the words passed his lips, he was shamed because of his weakness. He should be grateful for the time he had spent with her; he should be glad of his healing, and the relief he had from his tormented past.

But at the same time, he had never felt pain like this. He had felt physical pain in excess. He had known anguish of mind and torment of shame and failure. He had felt bitter disappointment and hurt through his father, his mother's death, and the hardships of war. But he had never before felt the insecurity and helplessness of being in love with a woman who did not love him. It had always depended on him before—could he be better, could he be stronger, could he be smarter. But now he could not stop himself from loving her, and he could not make her love him.

Faramir stopped in the middle of the floor and opened his palms, looking absently at the raw red mark on his right hand where the pen he had been clutching had cut into him. Despite everything, he still had to go see her. It would open every wound he bore, and by the time he left he knew he would be bleeding on the inside, but he had to. Besides the fact that he had given his word, he knew that he could make her want to live again, no matter what it did to him. It would be worth it, if only he could make her smile again, and prepare her for life again. It had to be worth it.

Notes: Oh, poor Faramir! By the way, I'm not a physchologist, but the human mind does intrigue me! Maybe I should consider it... :-) Just kidding. I think I'll stick to this.

Last chapter:

Eowyn nodded, at once relieved and disappointed at his words. Had she wished to find something that hurt him? She didn't understand how she could be that cruel, and yet at his calm words she felt a sense of acute sadness. She had thought, for a moment, that he felt something for her, but as she lowered her head and fingered the edge of her cloak, which lay on the wall, she knew that she was alone in her relief at seeing him. For one reason or another, he did not want to be there. That much she knew, and it caused her to grow distant and cool.

"Are you not chilled?" he asked suddenly, and his gaze fell to her cloak. The rich folds were spread over the rough wall like the flash of a blue jay's tail among the dead sticks of bushes in winter. Faramir's breath caught in his throat as he saw that it was his mother's cloak, and her fingers—so delicate and white—were toying with the silver embroidery around the throat. He looked up, and their eyes met. For a moment he was breathless as she returned his gaze; she saw reflected in his eyes her confusion and wonder and hurt, and she broke the contact by looking down into the city. Her hand dropped to her side.

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