**Chapter 29**

***Deirdre's POV***

Blood rushed through my veins at a speed that felt strange, it had been so long since it rushed at this pace through my injured shoulder. Pain seared through my left side as my blade connected with Saffy's. A gasp escaped my lips and immediately Saffy backed away. My lip tucked between my teeth, the faintest hints of blood spilling from my lips as I attempted to halt the pain. I let my arms fall to my sides, barely maintaining the slight grasp I had on my swords.

"Are you alright?" Legolas' worried voice came from just to my right. "I knew that this was too soon for you to be using your shoulder."

After one more deep breath, tasting the copper of my blood in my mouth, I turned toward Legolas. His worried expression did not falter even slightly at the smile that was on my lips, though it probably looked a hint too strained to be believed.

"I'm fine. I just need to get used to the impact." I reassured him, brushing my lips against his cheek in a quick kiss.

"Why do you need to? You don't have to fight when the time comes." He tried to insist.

This had been a conversation that we had shared many times. He never understood why I was so insistent upon wanting to fight in the upcoming battle, and I kept trying to convince him why. That I couldn't sit aside in the safety of Edoras when others were giving their lives for my freedom. If I had learned anything from my time in Middle Earth, it had been about having to take a stand for what you wanted to protect. And as much as he didn't understand, Legolas was one of the people that I wanted to protect the most.

"Legolas, we have had this conversation how many times?" I asked him rhetorically.

He paused for a moment, thinking, before he opened his mouth to tell me the number that he thought. However, I cut him off.

"Can't we just agree to disagree?" I questioned, in a voice barely above a whisper.

"How will I be able to fight when I will be worried that your arm is going to give out? I won't have a chance at focusing." He repeated the argument that he most stood behind. As he spoke he swept some of my hair that had fallen in my face behind my ear.

"Have a little faith in me." I told him with a grin, before moving away from him. "Saffy, are you good to continue?"

After she nodded her head, we resumed our practice. Pain rippled through my shoulder with every movement that I made, but I chewed on the inside of my lips to keep from making a sound. Every day that we continued to practice, my shoulder had managed to last longer in the fighting than the previous day. Undoubtedly, it wasn't the best thing for healing tissue, however given the circumstances it would have to do.

We fought for what seemed like hours, but it probably wasn't anywhere close to that. In the end, both Saffy and I had sweat coating our bodies and soaking into our hair. Between pants, we laughed at one another's appearance.

"Alright, I'm going to go bathe." Saffy informed me, as she sheathed her blades and began walking away from me back toward her room.

I followed her lead and sheathed my blades for the day. However unlike Saffy I had no intention of halting my training for the day. I walked back to my room with Legolas holding my hand.

"Do you want me to draw your bath?" he questioned as we walked into the room.

"I'm going to wait a while to bathe, so don't worry about it." I replied to him, moving over to my corner of weapons.

He came over behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, pressing me up against him. The sensation of his breath on my neck was quickly added to by the feel of his lips. Open-mouthed kisses trailed down my flesh, distracting me as Legolas unfastened my belt which held my swords.

"You taste like sweat, melethnin." He informed me, interspersing his kisses throughout the sentence.

There was only one good thing about the amount of arguing we had been doing, and that was the angry sex and the make-up sex. So due to our constant quarrelling both of our libidos were being satisfied. One of his hands slipped under my tunic to rest on the flesh of my stomach. I could feel that he was beginning to tug my tunic off of me, but I wasn't going to let him. No matter how much I wanted to.

"Not right now, darling." I breathed out, while gently bringing his actions to a halt.

"Why not, my beautiful love?" he questioned me, lips barely moving from my flesh.

I turned about in his arms to look at him, he pulled back with a confused look on his face. A wave of guilt washed over me, I had this amazing man who wanted me and I was going to go practice archery. I pressed a soft kiss to his lips, before pulling away and completely out of his arms.

"I still need to work with my bow, love. My shoulder should be up to it by now." I told him, grabbing my bow and quiver and strapping them across my chest.

"You shouldn't push yourself so hard, you are still healing." He argued with me, eyes shifting to the shoulder that the arrow had been embedded in.

"I need to know my limitations, otherwise I will end up entirely spent during the battle." I retorted, voice hardening over the words that we had already spoken.

"Why must you insist on possibly injuring yourself when you don't have to fight?" he growled out, moving closer to me until I was backed against the wall.

"Because I do need to fight, Legolas. We have been over this so many times already." I sighed exasperated that once more we had gotten into this argument.

"Yes, and you never tell me what is so important that you can't stay here and remain safe while the battle goes on."

"What would you say if I asked you to stay here during a battle, while I go out and fight?" I questioned, turning it back onto him.

"I would say that there is no reason for me to stay behind, as you are the injured one and I am not."

"Legolas, it doesn't matter that I'm injured or not. You wouldn't stay behind while I left you even if you were injured." I returned, pushing off the wall slightly so I didn't feel in such a defenseless position.

"Because I should be the one taking care of you, the one protecting you." He insisted, pressing me back against the wall once more, his arms forming a cage to hold me against the wall.

"I can take care of myself, I don't need you protecting me all the time." I responded.

"Well obviously you can't, otherwise you wouldn't have been shot in the shoulder and taken to Isenguard. Because no one knew if you were alright, or if you had betrayed us." He growled out.

The words stung a little, that he had thought I would betray them. He had used this argument before, but each time he did it stung. However, instead of letting the hurt sink in, I turned it into anger.

"And even in Isenguard I took care of myself, without anyone else's help. And how was it at all my fault that I got shot?" I hissed at him.

"You got shot because I wasn't there to protect you." He shouted at me, the noise ringing in my ears.

"But I survived, I don't need you protecting me all the time. Why can't you see that?" I yelled back.

"Because I want to be the one protecting you, don't you understand that I love you." He roared, closing the space between us.

Our bodies were now pressed together, faces only inches apart and the urge to kiss him was stronger than ever.

"I understand that. And I love you too." I told him, before closing those last few inches and kissing him.

Our mouths moved together, fierce and harsh from all the anger that was still in the air. But instead of the feeling to argue, we turned all that energy into passion. Finally, we both pulled away breathless from the furious kiss.

"Don't you see? That's why I need to fight, because I want to protect you too." I told him quietly, before pressing my lips to his softly.

"I know, melethnin." He whispered to me as he pulled away slightly to look me in the eyes.

His beautiful blue eyes finally shown with understanding, maybe we could work this out entirely later. But as that thought appeared in my head, he moved back in and our lips collided once more. The kiss continued and deepened for a few minutes before we both pulled back. Breathing heavily, I moved out of his arms and picked up the bow that I had dropped in our time kissing.

"I'm going to go practice. I'll be back before dinner." I told him, brushing my lips against his soft cheek before heading out of the room.

I walked out of the hall that we were staying in and found an archery field where I could practice. The rest of the afternoon was passed firing arrows into a target and occasionally collecting them. My shoulder continually ached, the new tissue threatening to rip under the pressure that I was dealing to it.

After bathing before dinner, and sitting through the meal with my friends and most of the members of the fellowship, lacking Aragorn. I felt bad that the poor ranger wasn't eating because he was sitting on the edge of the town, watching for the signal from Gondor. With a quick kiss to Legolas, I rose from the table with a tray of food and ale in my hands.

Aragorn was sitting with a pipe in his mouth, staring out into the mountain range and looking thoroughly engrossed by it all. Personally, I couldn't possibly imagine how he had managed to sit here all day long without falling asleep. But then again, I was the kind of person who had to be doing at least three things at once. I took a seat next to him, offering the food to him. Wordlessly, he took the tray and immediately took a spoonful of soup into his mouth.

I watched the horizon where he had been staring at all day, and for the past few days as he had ignored me about waiting a little longer for the signal. I could hear Aragorn eating the food to my side. When he had finished the food, he picked his pipe back up and placed it back in his mouth.

"Thank you." He said, looking briefly away from the horizon to me.

"You're welcome." I replied, thinking for a moment before speaking. "I couldn't imagine sitting out here every day just waiting."

"Someone needs to keep an eye out for the signal, and Theoden isn't too likely to put any of his guards to do so."

"True, he isn't even sure that he wants to help Gondor yet." I responded with a small smile. "But don't worry. When we ride to war we won't be going alone."

"Are you and Legolas still fighting over your going into battle?" he questioned, for someone who had spent the past several days sitting in the same spot watching for a fire in the distance he sure knew enough.

"I think we finally resolved the issues, though I'm not entirely sure." I informed him.

We both lapsed into silence for a little while longer, watching the sunset out on the horizon. At least, I was watching the sunset. It became obvious that Aragorn was still watching for the signal when he suddenly stood up to take off running toward the Golden Hall. However, in his excitement that something was finally happening, his days of sitting here was paying off, he forgot that I was sitting right next to him. So, when he stood up to dash, he tripped over me sprawling us both out on the steps. And let me tell you, having a rather large man fall on top of you when you are sitting on steps is not a happy feeling. The pain that I had felt earlier in my shoulder was nothing comparatively.

"Sorry," he muttered before standing up and rushing off in a full sprint to the Hall to inform Theoden of the change.

I sat up and stretched out my back, which undoubtedly would be bruised in the morning, and then got up from the steps and picked up the tray that I had brought out to Aragorn. I walked slowly back to the Golden Hall to return the tray.

As soon as I walked into the Hall, there was a flurry of motion. Guards were rushing every which way and Theoden was walking through one of the doors with his nephew at his side. I saw Eowyn was rushing out another door and Aragorn was panting in the center of the room with a smile on his face.

"See, I told you that we wouldn't ride to war alone." I commented with a smirk.

He came over to me and gave me a hug, I barely stifled the wince of agony as he touched the areas that were injured in the fall, he pulled away and held me at arms distance with a massive grin on his face.

"I can't wait to tell the others." He told me excitedly.

I smiled back at him, before he rushed off to go talk to our companions and ready for the journey to the encampment. I was sure that we wouldn't ride until morning, so I walked back to my room to find Legolas lying on the bed resting. Walking as stealthily as I could, I approached his sleeping form. When I was right by his side, I tackled him in the bed. He reacted instantly, rolling us over so that he had me pinned to the bed beneath him.

"The beacons are lit!" I informed him with a smile.

Without responding he kissed me fiercely. My hands reached up to tangle in his long hair, entirely grateful that it was the length that it was. My last focused thought was that I wouldn't trade this for anything. And then he pulled away for a moment, looking down at me with dilated pupils.

"Amin mela lle." I love you. He told me before crashing our lips back together.

'And I love you, my love.' I thought, wishing that I could tell him with words but not wanting to break apart from the kiss.

***End Chapter 29***

Got the chapter up finally! :D I have to say, this was the hardest chapter for me to write because I didn't know what belonged in it. But I know what is going to happen from here on out, so hopefully I will be able to write it and get back to updating soon. Thanks for sticking with the story so far, even though I haven't really updated in far too long. Oh and tomorrow is my birthday, so if you would be kind enough to review that would be fantastic. -Serrah