Notes: Enjoy! Sorry for the delay.

It took Ella a moment to register that she had been asked to be Éomer's queen. It took another moment before she began to laugh, because being his queen was outside of the realm of imagination and because the other option was being a Swan and she knew she was already meant to be a swan forever. She knew now that she would not leave Dol Amroth again. It seemed inevitable that her life would end there. She did not think she could be a good wife to a prince who would require nothing of her but gentleness and a couple children. She would die of boredom before she could bear a child.

"You can't." She told him, still laughing, "That's not up to us."

"What do you mean?"

" You can't just make me your Queen. You can ask me to marry you, sure. But I can't just be your queen. It's not how things work. Your council would probably have to approve me. And you'd have to want to marry me, you can't just appoint me to the position."

"I know that!" Éomer was still laughing and she wanted nothing more than to make him turn serious since she felt at once lost and teased. Was he asking her to marry him? It sounded like it, but then again, it did not. It sounded like he was joking, perhaps about appointing treasurers versus Queens and putting her to work in Meduseld but she could not follow where the joking ended.

"You're making fun of me!"

"I'm not, I just thought you might want something to do while you visited your brother in my halls."

"You mean, while my brother and I visit you in your hall?"

And all at once his face turned serious and Ella's frown grew deeper and she understood. He was going to take her brother from her and he hadn't had the decency to tell her. She wasn't surprised, exactly... Amrothos was a good man, a good soldier and loyal beyond what most would consider reason. She didn't blame Éomer for asking him to return to Rohan in some position which would likely be more elevated than any other a third son could have. She didn't even blame Amrothos for agreeing. Her brother was as eager as she was to escape the boredom of a life that seemed like it would be unchanged for the rest of their years. She couldn't blaming him for leaving her, though she did find herself bothered that it had been so easy for him to agree. Or she imagined it had been easy, since neither man had found it important enough to let her know earlier.

"You're taking him..."

"I'm not taking him. I'm making him a Marshal."

"But you didn't think about me at all!" The moment she said it, she wanted to take it back. Not the thought itself, but the way she had said it. It sounded childish and self absorbed, and if she had to be both those things in this moment then she at least wanted to pretend she was above that. "I mean-"

"It's not my responsibility to think about you, Ella. It's my role to take the people I trust and give them the power to do good things with that trust. Your brother has saved my life and I his, and I trust him. He's doing nothing, squandering his intellect and mourning for a wife he will never hold. He'll be lifeless long before he dies."

"He has me. I'm not nothing. I'm his sister and we were going to manage it all together. Now you've left me alone to deal with everything."

"Everything? What is everything, Ella? Your father has ruled without you for years, he doesn't need you to carry a great weight on your shoulders. Your brother, when he inherits, will not need you to work yourself to the bone for him, he'll have his own family and his own advisers. You're trying to make everyone need you because you're terrified of ending up forgotten and useless and it just makes you miserable."

"So I'm useless then?"

Éomer wanted to laugh, and then shake her, and then kiss her and then yell. Leave it to Ella to turn everything into a dramatic argument and leave it to him to let her bait him into it. She wanted him to release Amrothos from his service and she thought she might be able to guilt him into it, but it was not for Amrothos that they were fighting. She was fighting for the right to decide and he was fighting for the truth of it all, which was that Amrothos was in his service and Ella could either accept it, or whine but it would not change the matter at all. He could only imagine that she had not expected to lose her brother so soon and that she had not expected Éomer to take him when he knew how close the two were.

"I didn't say that."

"But you think I'm not needed."

"I... did not mean that."

"What did you mean?"

"I mean that... I need you. You are... important. You are someone who could be useful at any moment but-"

"but life will go on regardless of the choices I make. I'm... not vital to anyone or anywhere."

"You're vital to me."

She froze. Her frustration did not dissipate but waited and hovered in the air between them, caught between the words he had spoke and the ones that she had not managed yet. Éomer took the opportunity to keep her from speaking and he felt like he was running down a hill. He had not thought nearly enough about what he was saying, but he was saying it and he didn't let himself doubt what he had already spoke. "I'd like you to come to Rohan was me. I think you should marry me. I- I'll ask your father for your hand, if you'll give it to me, and then you won't be alone. You'll be with me. I'll be with you."

"That's ridiculous." She felt her eyes start to tear up and she couldn't understand why, or why her heart was speeding up when he was... when he was asking her for her hand. Why was he doing that? "I'm a terrible choice. I'm- I'm... you don't love me. You'll find someone who you'll wish you had married and you'll resent me for being convenient at the time and-"

"Ella, I searched the woods and roads for you for weeks. Not days. Weeks. I should have been with my sister. I should have been at home, with my people. I should have done a thousand things and instead I searched for you because you needed to be with us. You needed to be where I could see you. I needed you to be safe and that means something."

"What does it mean?"

"It means that I care about you a great deal, I should think."

"Do you, then? Really?"

He looked at her with a face that meant, tell me you care about me too, a face that could not understand why he had grown to adore a woman who was so perceptive in so many ways and so very blind in the moments that mattered. He was waiting for her to come to her senses, which Ella realized quickly but recovered from slowly, her many thoughts at war with the simplicity of the man who had offered her his heart.

"I'll marry you, of course." She said finally.

"Please, don't do me any favours." He was half joking and half not, his face hardening as his pride got the better of him.

"Don't do that. Give me a second, I'm not proposed to very often, and certainly this is the first time a suitor has asked for my hand while close enough to hold it. It's not a situation I've any experience

with."

Éomer did not presume to know everything about the woman he was asking to marry him. He had thought that perhaps things might turn simple once he admitted that he loved her, but it was not turning out that way and he thought, perhaps he ought to have waited to tell her that her brother had bound himself to his service, and perhaps he should have waited until a few more days after the birth of his nephew and allowed Ella to settle once more into castle life. He had not expected to ask her to marry him. He had not thought it through, but now that she was was in front of him, it fit in such a way that he was not sure how it had not occurred to him as a cohesive thought before.

"Ella."

"Yes?" Her brow was wrinkled and she was looking at the clasp he wore on his right shoulder but not at his eyes. She carried the face she wore when a thing that should have been logical was not logical and she did not understand how the sums had amounted to this total. In short, she was uncertain and open in her uncertainty.

"I care very much about you."

"I care very much about you as well, Éomer."

"And if you need to think before accepting marriage to me, then I will wait."

But how long would he wait? Perhaps because he had softened, Ella felt her body tense up. Once already they had chosen not to be anything at all to each other and it had been easy for him to leave her to her own world and he had not even offered to stay longer than necessary to explain. He had not fought to make sense of whatever they had felt and lost and now felt again. She had to admit, it was different now, caring for him. Now, she knew him to be harsh and proud and kind. She knew him to do all he could for those he loved. She knew that he would hurt her at some point, and that he was bound too to be hurt by her and that she liked him more for being vulnerable to her. She did not think she could love him if she could not affect him, and the words did not form to admit it, but she could not imagine another word for the pressure on her heart.

"No..."

"No?"

"No. I don't need to think. I'd be a good wife, you know. I'd manage your accounts and I'd-"

"I know you would-"

"And I'll be a good queen-"

"I know you will-"

"And I'll-"

"Ella!"

"Yes?"

"I'd like to try this again."

"Try what again?" And she wondered if all it took to end his proposal was some errant words and if, in fact, he had not changed so very much.

"Ella."

"Yes?"

"I think you're brilliant. I think you're infuriating, kind, bright and brave and often ridiculous in the most incredible ways. I would like to ask you to be my wife and my queen. I'd like you to be those things not because of what you are capable of, but because of who you are and what you mean to me, and I want that to be clear. Do you accept?"

All at once, she stood in front of him with tears in her eyes, defenceless simply because he had stripped away those lovely doubts that had kept her safe and brave. She took in his words with a shuddering breath and then she nodded.

"Yes. Yes. Of course I'll marry you."

"Yes?"

"Yes."

Suddenly he turned from a warrior into a boy and his hands were around her waist as he lifted her and twirled her around. She had known that one could be happy enough to cry and laugh at once but had never know it so fiercely as this moment within herself. When he set her down, she lifted on to her toes and wrapped her arms around him and her laughter was turned quiet by the kisses he gave her, over and over as if he had not realized she was real until this moment. Suddenly, by virtue of his proposal and her acceptance, it was as if she had turned into flesh and blood in front of him, someone who he could hold and kiss. She did not think she could manage a world, now that their binding made it acceptable, where she could not reach for him and have him be hers.

By touch.

By word.

By deed.