A/N

Thank you to my wonderful reviewers! The feedback you're giving me is wonderful, it reassures me that what happens in my head is actually being conveyed through my writing so please keep reviewing, or start if you haven't yet... ;) ! I've been wondering though if any of my old readers are still around, like from 6 years ago...? I hope so!

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that has appeared in any of the novels by JRR Tolkien or the movies directed by Mr P. Jackson.

Chapter Twenty-three

That night Serafina sat close by Gimli, in an attempt at taking her mind off how horrible she felt. She was even mildly successful; the dwarf thought her charade earlier quite the joke and they conversed with ease. Legolas sat with Boromir, Sam, Frodo and Gandalf, the five of them spoke sparingly, and with little hilarity. Merry and Pippin, however were seated either side of Aragorn, the three of them engrossed in their discussion. Part of her wondered at the topic of their conversation, until another part of her told her to keep her nose out of other people's business. For once she listened to her own advice, and returned her attention to the dwarf.

Nonetheless it was what followed dinner that had the thief's nerves on edge. The food was packed away, the meagre fire fuelled and eventually the ranger made his way to where Serafina sat. To her dismay as Aragorn sat down, Gimli rose, spoke a few words to the ranger, bid Serafina a good night and prepared himself for the first watch.

The whole process of undressing, cleaning, and redressing her mangled wrist passed as quickly as she could have hoped. The only words he spoke were the usual enquiries regarding pain. Serafina was still too ashamed of herself to talk, and shook her head without meeting his eyes. She had been expecting perhaps a repeat of his reprimand from earlier that day, but nothing came. His hands, which Serafina thought must give some evidence of their conversation, were steady, sure and gentle, furthermore they worked neither quicker nor slower than any other evening. The only clue that something had changed between them was the complete lack of expression on his face. He was grim and as blank as stone.

As he rubbed the ointment onto her face, Serafina risked a glance into his eyes. She was desperate to see if even the curious dark expression he wore when treating her eye was wiped from his face. Her stomach did a sick sort of tumble when their eyes met. His were indeed darkened by that same emotion, but he broke the connection between them as soon as it was made. She closed her eyes and waited. Soon he was replacing the balm with the rest of his supplies and then he rose, without speaking and left her seated alone.

Serafina breathed a deep, sad, breath. At least that was over for one day.

...

With the morning, came the snow. Serafina's heart sank a little as she realise how much more uncomfortable her day was about to get. The sun was bright behind the clouds and it bounced back at them off the pristine white layer on the ground.

She resumed her position in the middle of the company. To her relief, Gimli had decided to walk with Aragorn, and she was left to herself. She tried to keep her thoughts blank, and focus purely on putting one sodden, cold foot in front of the other but her mind would not be still. In her head she found the conversation between Aragorn and herself replayed repeatedly. Desperately the thief tried to find a way to justify her words, but there was no justification to be made. The ranger had shown her kindness after kindness, no matter her opinion of him, he had been nice. Frowning, she tried to take the conversation out of context, out of this dangerous place with these unknown people.

Serafina thought about Bree and the other thieves, and some of the poor street urchins. She tried to think how she would feel had a conversation with one of them ended in a similar way. Nothing came to her. No feelings of remorse, none of shame or regret, nothing that resembled her current mind state.

She tried a different scenario; if she had said something equally offensive to Gimli or perhaps one of the Hobbits? She painted the same look of anguish that she had seen on Aragorn's face onto Pippin's. A fresh wave of feeling assaulted her; she felt shame, regret, and guilt.

For some reason, this eased her conscience slightly. And Serafina picked up her pace and held her head a little higher; brooding was not something she enjoyed.

Unexpectedly she felt a little hand tugging on her breeches. Serafina looked down to see Pippin's small face looking up at her. Surprised, but curious, she bid the little Hobbit hello.

"Serafina," he began, "Merry and I have got somethin' we want to say to you."

Serafina laughed, "Well please say it," she said pleasantly, "but what about Merry?"

Pippin shook his head seriously, then smiled guiltily as he said, "Merry is distractin' Frodo and Sam."

"Oh?"

"Well you see Serafina, Merry and I always liked you. We liked you from The Prancin' Pony, when you were all bleedin' in the corner..." he trailed off, waiting for some form of conformation. Serafina obliged,

"Yes, I remember. Go on."

"And then at Rivendell, we didn't see a lot of you. But when you started travellin' with us again, we decided that we still liked you, even though everyone else didn't. Especially with all that about Boromir and that friend of yours..."

"Yes, Pippin..." Serafina prompted, careful to keep her voice agreeable. She did not want any form of accidental repeat of the display with the Ranger yesterday. But she could not help herself from saying, "I'm not sure if I know what this is about."

"Well," he began with a painfully confused look on his face. "When you first started travelling' with us, Merry and I, we talk to each other about you and we thought that you were alright and we wanted to be your friend, despite Boromir. So we spoke to Strider about it –"

"Strider?" Interrupted Serafina, "What did you talk to him about?"

"Well about you of course!" he said as if it was obvious. A look from Serafina expressed to him that she needed further clarification to fully understand. He obliged gallantly. "We wanted to talk to Strider about whether or not Merry and I should still want to be friends with you, seein' as you, well you know, all that with Boromir and everythin'."

Serafina could not keep the curiosity out of her voice as she asked, "What did he say?"

"Oh!" he answered, as if this were unimportant, "He said that a person could only judge another person by their actions to him, or somethin'. The point of it was though, that you were always nice and friendly to us, and so we ought to treat you the same."

"That sounds like a wise thing to say." She said, trying to hide her smile.

"Well, that's what we thought. So we wanted to stay being your friend, but it's a little bit hard with so much going on to always get to talk to you without Boromir getting angry... but then..." his voice trailed off again.

"Then what, Pippin?"

"Well, then you stole the ring from Frodo."

"Ah, yes I see. I did, didn't I?" Serafina paused and thought she would help him out here, "So you want to know if you should still be my friend after I stole the Ring of Power from your friend..."

"Well, no."

"No?"

"Well, yes we did, but not anymore."

"Well what happened?"

"We spoke to Strider last night." Pippin said happily, as if that was the perfect answer to her question. Serafina's heart sank; here she'd lost three friends in two days.

"And what did Strider say?" she asked gently.

"At first, he didn't say much, you know what he's like. He doesn't really say much." Serafina stifled a laugh in agreement. "So we, Merry and I, told him about how we liked you, and wanted to be your friends. Especially because you don't really have many –"

"Pippin!" came a voice from Serafina's other side.

"Merry, what?"

"Well you can't just say things like that."

"But it's true."

"It's also rude."

"Oh, sorry Serafina." The thief grinned down at him in reply, and Pippin continued talking, "Merry why aren't you with Frodo and Sam?"

"They were sidetracked enough with Gandalf's ramblings about somethin' borin', and so I'd thought I'd come here and seize the moment."

Serafina could only smile, as she watched Merry puff up his chest as he squinted up to her in the glare.

"So, where were you up to Pip?" Merry asked quietly.

"Oh, talkin' to Strider. Yes well we were sayin' how 'cause you stole the ring and all and we weren't sure what we should do."

"Yeah, and then we said that maybe because you didn't actually steal it, 'cause you gave it back, maybe that was different." Interjected Merry.

"And what did Strider say?" asked Serafina.

"Well, not really much at this point. Because then we started talkin' about how we didn't want to offend Frodo and Sam by being friends with you." said Merry.

"You know, because they don't really like you –"

"Pippin!"

"Well, maybe it's just that they don't trust you."

"Anyway!" said Merry exasperatedly, "The point is that Strider said, we have a right to be friends with whoever we want, regardless of Frodo and Sam or Boromir, which is what we thought in the first place. Then he said that in his opinion, you stealin' the ring was a small matter, given that you gave it back and that you weren't really after it in the first place."

"Which is what we thought too," said Pippin, "so really, he reassured us that nothin' had changed."

Serafina looked down at the two Hobbits on either side of her and smiled, then said with as much true sincerity as she could muster, "I am honoured to have friends such as you two."

Pippin smiled up at her momentarily before turning to Merry and saying, "What about the other thing?"

"What other thing Pip?" Merry asked slightly annoyed.

"You know the Boromir thing..."

"Pip-" Began Merry, but Serafina was faster.

"What Boromir thing?" she asked Pippin.

"Well," began Pippin hesitatingly, "We didn't know who to talk to about this..."

"We may as well say it now." Continued Merry, "Ever since the other night when you held up the ring in front of everyone before you threw it back to Frodo, Boromir has been actin' odd."

Serafina frowned, and wondered what to make of such little information. Perhaps one of them read it in her face, so Pippin continued.

"It's not really odd, it's just that he's always lookin' at Frodo-"

"The way he's always lookin' at Frodo's neck, more like it" corrected Merry darkly. "He's been talking less and well, we think maybe the ring is starting to get to him."

Here came the first lull in the conversation, which allowed Serafina to think. Eventually she said, "Why come to me with this information? You know my history with him."

It was Merry who answered, "We would have gone to Aragorn, but he and Boromir are well..." he paused and put on a deep voice, "Men of Gondor".

Serafina couldn't help but laugh; it was true of Aragorn and Boromir, for all their occasional disagreements, had a special friendship; a bond like brothers.

Pippin continued, "and then we thought, Gandalf, or Legolas or Gimli, but sometimes..."

"Sometimes what?" prompted the thief gently.

"Sometimes they don't take us very seriously" finished Merry with a sour look on his face.

Serafina considered this information. She had never been in a situation like this before. Here she had two people that she cared for giving her information in search of advice and help. With this realisation, an unfamiliar weight pressed onto her chest and shoulders. She looked down at them solemnly and asked;

"What would you like me to do?"

...