Last chapter of the night!

I'm on-call for emergencies for the next 72 hours. Dear Lord. Wish me luck!

Chapter 53

Rinon sat at his bedside, then stood and paced, lost his breath, nearly fainted, and then sat again. He felt useless. The war had drawn to an end and Alfheimr filled with the remains of its survivors. They were a private nation again. Their ships were returning to Svartalfheim should they be required again. They remained quiet and closed in the safety of the mountain side, far from Heimdall's prying eyes. The people dispersed back to their homes and tried to pick back up what persisted in their lives. Few knew of Barton's repose in the Untamed Caves. It was not their way to spread the rumor abroad, especially given the reports they returned from the other warrior guilds. Fehreh had been found, though Rinon had yet to see her return to Alfheimr. He felt her absences tremendously. Faraday still mourned his brother, Reylano's wounds had yet to fully close, and Rinon himself was far from his own fully functioning self. To see her ei-koh in such a state would worry her endlessly. He considered it might be for the best she not return to him just yet.

The Avengers hadn't forgotten their great ally, but two months since Clint's death they had begun to move on. Rinon couldn't blame them for it. Unless he was assured that Clint might still survive this death he lingered for, he refused to let his survival of the crevice fall be spread beyond Alfheimr's borders. Reylano, though he'd been shocked at first, understood his trepidation. Before when Barton suffered a stroke, a thousand warriors came to Clint's side in his darkest hour, but those people had already grieved his loss. To enter him now back into their lives was an unfair trick.

Rinon placed his good hand on Clint's arm and concentrated in his mind. He willed the visions to come. Occasionally contact with a person triggered them. The images failed him. No strange future appeared before his eyes, no change in the events he knew, nothing. It was as if Barton didn't even exist. His entire future was empty and distant. He didn't heal, never moved, he wouldn't have even breathed if the Skydale Elves weren't position around him, whispering to the air. The elven leader was disheartened to say the least. He asked himself continually whether he did the right thing losing his team's lives to recover little more than a damaged corpse. He considered finally letting Barton go.

A sick, slow breath disturbed the steady rhythm in the air. Rinon's gaze fell toward the crouched elves ringing around the head of the bed. They seemed just as surprised at the sound as he was. He looked down at the form in the bed and placed a hand along the inside of Clint's left arm, one of the only places his body had available that boasted no wounds.

"Was that him?" Rinon asked.

"I'm not sure," one replied.

Rinon waited to see if Clint may make another sound, but nothing came. The air forced into his lungs, inspired by the elves singing to the archer. After watching him for an untold time, very suddenly Clint blinked. Rinon shot to his feet. He swept a hand to his men, forcing them to stay still. One hand braced on the side of the bed and he came a little closer.

"Stop a moment," Rinon said.

Some paused, others couldn't. They doubted their leader in concern and weakness. If they stopped, Clint would no longer breathe. Rinon pressed them to accept his request. He had to see if he was right, if Clint was at last making some kind of turn for the better. Their hesitation, though, was warranted. Clint's life and death struggle tore at those elves around him. They wanted nothing more in life but to help in any way they could. After some convincing the room at last fell quiet.

Their breaths held in worried anticipation, everyone listened and watched what might happen. Rinon consider touching Clint's face but thought better of it. Still the deep purple bruises and the marks of beast's claws raked their painful lines across him. He wanted Clint to rise, to do something, but he still didn't want to cause him undue pain. When at last it seemed he could wait no more, Rinon nodded to the elves. If Clint didn't breathe soon, what remained alive in him might very well fade away.

But Clint did breathe. A sick, shallow breath dragged through his dry lips. The first act he'd done to show some form of life beyond his stuttering heartbeat.

Reylano appeared in the doorway and seeing the excitement he pushed through the standing Skydale Elves. "Kinme, you should not be up! You must rest or else you will never return home!" He stood at Rinon's side and looked down at the archer with him. Sure enough, Barton breathed again. Reylano grabbed Rinon's arm and staggered in shock.

"He breathes! Kinme, he breathes!" Reylano exclaimed, dropping to his knees.

"Hueli vui." Healer, quick! Rinon instructed, sending some of the Skydale Elves away. He continued to hold Clint's arm with his hands. He wanted, oh how desperately he craved, for some image to come to him. Still, though, his gift hid away. He knew nothing of what may happen in Clint's future. He could only wait.

"He breathes. If he breathes, he must live. There must be no doubt of it, now," Reylano asked more than he stated. His eyes upturned to his leader for confirmation.

Clint's eyes darted once toward the wall away from them. There they fixed for a few moments and slid shut. His body tensed, relaxed, and the spirit seemed to fall right out of him. That tense nothingness they had observed for so long dropped away. He rested, for once in the entire time he'd been with them. Still Clint breathed in short, raspy breaths. He had finally turned a corner.

"I am not sure," Rinon admitted to Reylano's hanging words.

"He is going to improve. I feel that myself," Reylano pressed, ever optimistic.

"Perhaps so, yes."

"What should we do?"

Rinon knew what he meant. If Clint showed some sign of improvement, Rinon intended to take the long journey into Midgard to find his family and friends. He didn't care if every being in the universe tried to come to Alfheimr to see Barton, the world would be open to all of them. To allow such a thing, though, Rinon stipulated that Clint must show improvement. He must live. It would be cruel of him to promise Clint's life again to the worlds who had so long ago mourned him only to have the archer take a turn for the worst.

Rinon meant to express something about taking caution. He wanted more, to be better assured of a survival so many thought impossible. He wanted to say these thoughts aloud but could not. As suddenly as Clint began to breathe on his own, he began to feel again. The archer bucked. Rinon closed in, Reylano got to his feet, and all at once the room exploded in movement and screams. Barton was fighting his way to consciousness, where all the inflictions of his devastating sacrifice came roaring back at him.

The broken legs, their bones reset beneath unhealing skin, but ready nonetheless to bring him strife. The crater in his side still bled into his bandages. Shards of broken ribs erupted from the wrapped flesh. His nearly torn off arm was strapped across his chest to keep it immobile. Scrapes, scratches, dozens more smaller bites all coalesced to the overwhelming agony which Clint roused awake to find. His body screamed.

A fleet of healers displaced the others gathered around. Robes, drapes, bandages and supplies flew out in every direction under their skillful hands. They took up position flanking either side of Clint and Reylano got his leader to stand. Some set to easing Clint's mind into relaxation again, though controlled more than the coma he endured before. Rinon wished that he might wait in the archer's room and return to his side, however at that moment Fehreh appeared.

She assessed the room in an instant. The screaming archer. The frantic bodies. Reylano's arm was in a sling. Rinon's arm too was in a sling. Neither man wore a shirt, and both leaned heavily upon each other in order to remain upright at all. In an instant she could determine one key factor lost in this chaos: a female's care. Her utter concern over Rinon's welfare placed aside temporarily, she addressed the room at large like the queen she had become again. Her hand rose into the air, fingers snapped, and all attention went to her.

"Skydale, I see he breathes, you may be dismissed. We will keep you informed. Faraday is next door, please bring him here. Heho, your talent is to ease pain, see to it at once." She caught the arm of one of the Skydale elves as he moved by her and redirected him to Rinon and Reylano. "Do me a favor and remove those two. Bring them to their room and I will be along. Reu, see that Rellya is rebandaged and properly set. Someone—Fahifine, I elect you—see that he is properly given nutrition. He seems overtly gaunt." Fehreh watched as her orders were carried out. No one questioned her authority any more than they would Rinon himself. When Faraday entered the room again, she indicated the direction Rinon had been taken and they both retreated there.

"He has awoken? Will he live? Is anything known?" Faraday asked the minute the door closed on Clint's quieting screams.

"Nothing is yet certain." Fehreh told him. She moved away from him, her eyes fixed on those of her lover. She could have sworn from the pain in her soul that Rinon had been lost that day so many months ago. Despite knowing of his survival, she could hardly bring herself to believe it. Alone but for their two confidants, she strode forward and took him in her arms. Rinon gasped into her hair, holding her with the one arm he could spare. Reylano stood beside Faraday to give them more room.

"I feared the worst. I believed the worst. I never thought I may see you again, Rinon." She drew back, clasping her hands against the sides of his face. "My Rinon."

"Aruh'yel ven," My perfect one, Rinon whispered to her. "Take care, though, I fear I cannot stand your happiness much more." He meant the injuries. In surprise, she moved back a little. He attempted to remain standing but her embrace had left him breathless. Faraday shot forward to help guide him into his cot again.

"You have been doing too much," Fehreh said, unsurprised. "You will take years to heal at this rate. This is not the old wars, Rinon. Your leadership is necessary. You must be in health. Everyone might have used your intellect in those last days of this war's end, had I only known I might have come sooner."

Rinon caught her hand as she stuffed, tucked, and fluffed him into his bed. Sensing he wanted her attention, she stopped and sank onto the mattress beside him. She drew his hand into her lap and clasped it between hers.

"We were not assured of my recovery," he told her.

Shocked, Fehreh looked at Reylano. He swallowed and nodded slightly as he approached and sank into his familiar chair by Rinon's bedside. Fehreh knew him to be Rinon's greatest ally beside Linnor, his departed soul be blessed, but she thought that same alliance extended to herself. If Rinon had been near death, why hadn't he fetched her sooner?

"The decision was not my own," Reylano explained. Faraday came near also and dropped into a cross-legged position on the floor. "I was not allowed to leave. I had hoped to come to you directly."

"Your injuries?" Fehreh asked.

"Were extensive."

"And no one else bothered to come for me? Is every elf in this cave determined to keep their ei-kohs at an arm's length? And has no one even informed Natasha of her husband's survival?" For that she turned back to Rinon. Reylano would have done the same thing, gauging just what he was allowed to share and what he may wait for Rinon to decide. The king gave a careful nod and allowed Reylano to speak for him.

"That decision was his," Reylano confessed. "Have they not buried him? Mourned him? What you have just seen is the first indication of his recovery since arrival. He did not heal, eat, move, mend, nothing that signified a form of life beyond a breathing corpse. For the first time it has seemed to change."

Fehreh's expression altered from her disappointment to concern. "You have kept him alive all this time without such signs?"

"A decision I struggled with daily," Rinon spoke. His compatriots nodded their assent.

"None of us may leave. Not for some time." Reylano started again. He sat back a little and raised the edge of his bandages to display the deep wounds dragged through his flesh and bone. Fehreh inhaled at the very sight of them. An elf did not heal like a man. They were granted long lives, strength, agility and more but they were fragile in another way. Like marble statues, their bodies might take months to recover from terrible injuries. When Rinon first returned from fighting the Frost Giants, a thousand years ago, he'd been run through with a spear. It took a full year to finally heal, and one hundred years for the scar to disappear. Their lives were spent avoiding conflict and training to prevent their own harm. When he stepped in front of that bladed pike for Odin's own sake, the Asgardian king never forgot the sacrifice.

"Rinon, he may not admit, is worse." Faraday told her. "He took a rake of claws from back to front. Until a few days ago they did not know whether or not he may die. We bribed someone to go for you, but the portal was destroyed."

Fehreh nodded in understanding. She was well aware of that, it had been her order which saw to its demolition.

"You had mourned me, the way she has mourned him. If word reached you, somehow, that I had lived, and you returned to find my body, what pain would that divide in you?" Rinon asked. He lifted their intertwined hands and placed them on the nape of his neck. His eyes closed feeling her skin press against his. He knew the answer without waiting for her reply. They simply needed time and more patience than he could possibly muster on his own.

:(:):(:):

Clint lay on his back with the covers pulled away from his body and folded on the floor. Heho's hands slowly worked over the muscles in his calves, trying to stimulate life against the atrophy. Yeyil was at Barton's waist, tenderly replacing the long strips of synthetic flesh and bone-building poultices. He couldn't breathe very deeply, or stay awake for very long, but being able to do either showed the smallest bit of improvement from where he was only two weeks ago. He groaned as Yeyil removed another necrotic piece of dying skin and set it to the side. The elves tried to make it painless for him, but even they could only do so much. Rinon placed a supportive hand on Barton's good shoulder.

"Rest," he said. He didn't expect an answer. Clint wasn't capable of that just yet. It was impossible to know whether he could even see them given the extent of the damage to his face and eyes. They thought an explosion may have gone off very close to him, most likely from an arrow. "Wake when we are done."

"He fairs slightly better. Not cleared by any means. He is more restored," Yeyil announced. He dipped his hand into the bowl of bandages, removed a thin strip, and critiqued what mending had already occurred along Clint's lung. A hair-thin piece of membrane now separated the chest from the rest of the air around it. Yeyil laid the bandages over the newly growing tissue. They were lucky to have found something that served as a seal for Clint's massive chest wound. Eventually they hoped his diaphragm may again separate his intestines from his lungs and heart, but that was yet a long way off. The peculiar sort of window into his body made it remarkably easy to watch the state of his progress.

"Is his body attempting to live?" Rinon asked.

"Such is impossible to know. I fear this process is taking much too long in him." Yeyil waited to finish his task before he explained the rational. He placed the final drape and moved on to Clint's shoulder. It too smelled of disease despite their best efforts. The talons of a subterranean beast had proved to be infectious for man and elf alike. He removed the bandages and left the wound to soak in the healing air of the Untamed Caves. It might prove helpful in itself beyond the application of poultices.

"He might take as long as he likes. All of our realm would be ash had he not defended us against the destruction of Thanos," Faraday said.

"What do you know of mortal men who visit other realms in our system?" Yeyil asked.

"Most cannot fathom their existence. It is largely forbidden, even by elves," Faraday stated. He stretched his arms above his head, enjoying the motion of his arm released from its sling at last. Rinon felt a pang of jealousy there. He might not escape his own for another few months, if ever.

"That is right," Yeyil said. "The reason why, is rooted in something no one can quite explain. Man forgets. He will forget his home, the men and women he loves, and adapts to the surroundings he finds as if nothing else existed before. This is a trait of the Nine Realms only. He has been with us a very long time. Much longer than ever before."

"Do you fear when he wakes he will not remember his own home?" Faraday asked, concerned. What did they do this for if not to save him for those people who loved him most?

"It is a very likely possibility. We must try and protect him from that. Speak to him daily of what those he loves. That exposure, feeling close to them, will prevent it. Now that he is in a position to hear us, it is critical he not forget. I only hope we are not too late to prevent it."

Rinon squeezed Clint's bicep a little, drawing the archer's gaze to him. "Do you understand this?" he whispered. "You must remember your home and those that you love. You would never wish to lose those memories forever."

For the first time, Clint's mouth moved as if to form words. Excitedly Yeyil leaned over, encouraging him to speak. Then his face paled. Perhaps he misheard? Perhaps Clint was still not in his right mind? He begged for Barton to find the strength in him to repeat himself again and after a moment, Clint went slack. He'd simply spent too much of the little power that he had.

"What did he say?" Faraday and Heho both asked.

"This complicates things," Yeyil said, dropping down into a chair.

"My friend?" Rinon asked more forcefully than the others.

Yeyil folded his hands in his lap and sat very straight. "It seems . . . that is to say, Rellya complains that he cannot hear."

:(:):(:):

Today Rinon's strength fled from him like the mouse might flee a hawk's grasp. He felt the depths of it settling into his healing wounds, slowing his movements. He worried about illness, even in this sterile place. Relapse, the healers feared, might be the death of him yet. He couldn't bring himself beyond the confines of his own bed without assistance, and no one would agree to help him invite his own death merely to be at Barton's side. The archer might be able to read the sign language Rinon had been taught, but he could also read lips. There was no use in risking the king's life.

Reylano improved enough to remove his own arm sling, though the bandages remained in place. Faraday at last was given leave to return to his clan and grieve the death of his brother properly. He was the last of his kin, without an ei-koh of his own and no family within sight. The loss of Linnor bit into him mightily. Faraday gone, Reylano alone remained with Fehreh to watch over Rinon's health. There were hundreds more of the elven race who may wish to stay close, though Rinon thanked and dismissed them all. His struggles he wished not to share.

With Fehreh gone to find him food, and Reylano fallen asleep, Rinon made the decision to stand. A foolish decision he realized afterwards. He'd been confined to his bed for the past five days. He longed to know whether Barton fared better or worse than he, but no one allowed such news to reach him. They feared he might do something rash. Well, they were right. He placed his hand along the wall to guide his movements and entered the adjoining quarters. Clint was lying, unchanged, in his own bed. His eyes were open, studying the trickling water running down one of the cavern walls. Sensing a presence, the lapis shards glanced between his feet to see Rinon. He was conscious at least.

"You were ill," Clint spoke in a hoarse tone. Over time his voice slowly returned to him.

~"I am ill,"~ Rinon signed. Tony Stark had not slackened on his instructions. For the few months they spent together, while Clint combed the universe for Peter Quill, he learned very well. He leaned for a while in the doorway, gauging whether he could reach Clint's side or not without falling over. After a time of rest, he attempted the few steps forward.

"I was worried."

~"You should be. I am."~

The corners of his eyes were still burned and outlined in black gunpowder. As he attempted to smile, the powder wounds creased. He could see, a miracle in itself, though his deafness had yet to improve. "I'm feeling well."

~"Something I am glad to find."~ Rinon sank against the wall, slid down it with his back, and sat on the floor. The chair was just far enough from him to not dare the challenge of reaching it.

"Do you want to talk about them?" Clint asked. He tried to adjust himself on the bed, turning slightly onto his side so he might see Rinon's face though he had no strength at all to do so alone. Their states were remarkably similar.

~"Them who?"~ Rinon asked, playing coy. He tried his very best to remind Clint of the home he had, others too did the same.

"Those people you like. The ones you say I know."

Rinon went taught. ~"That I say you know?"~

"The ones from . . . from Midgard."

It couldn't be. Not after all they had attempted! All they had tried! Clint couldn't be forgetting them now that he was showing signs that he might yet live! Rinon pushed himself to standing. He wanted to call out for help. Perhaps one of the others might be able to talk to Barton, bring the old archer back out of him. The one who woke up with the scream. The one whose dreams were filled in whispers of Natasha's name. The one who first came to consciousness and asked about Tony Stark. Had they really lost him like they feared? Unthinkingly, Rinon leaned forward and pressed his hand against that open place on Clint's bicep. He opened his mouth to summon someone, knowing that Reylano would come running in an instant.

He never had a chance to speak. Very suddenly the entire world fell away. A chill started in his belly and expanded out, leaving dots of goose bumps along his skin. His entire body went slack. He took two long, deep breaths, his body caught up as if in the gust of a great wind carried him, and quickly collapsed.

A glass wall, mirrored on one side and clear on the other led to the halls of the Untamed Caves beyond. Fehreh had been passing back through the antechamber when she saw Rinon drop. She dragged the door open and screamed his name. Clint sifted in his bed, gasping with the tear in his wounds. From the next room Reylano appeared at once. He settled on the floor beside Fehreh who wanted desperately to pull Rinon into her arms. Reylano took her himself, though, and forced her away.

"Nie! Overu'li sull. Wuleni'yie'ki!" No! He dreams. (We) cannot wake him, Reylano warned.

"He is dying!" Fehreh cried. She tried to pull out of the guardian's arms, but he held her tightly despite his wounds.

"Feyh bvel. Bvel." Wait, Fehreh. Wait.

"He has never done this! I know of him and his ways, this is not right!"

"They have gotten worse. Please, trust me, do not touch him."

"He touched me," Clint said to them. His heart beat faster, he tried to inhale and keep up with it, but the move was useless. He rolled onto his back again and though he fought against unconsciousness, it found him nonetheless. The strain was simply too much for him to resist.

Fehreh and Reylano stayed on the floor, crouched by Rinon's stiff form. His irises disappeared to the top of his sockets. His arm remained outstretched as if he still held Barton. He did not breathe and did not move for a long time. They had seen fall into visions before. They came and left in moments, sometimes, very rarely longer. He experienced them in his dreams and occasionally woke, shaking and terrified from their meanings. This was the first time they had ever seen him so affected. Slowly, as if rising from torpor, he began to come around again. Reylano released Fehreh and together they collapsed around him. Fehreh pulled her husband into her arms and stroked away the strands of long hair tousled over his face.

Reylano considered what he might say. He had never in his past asked Rinon what his visions were. Fehreh may have once, but she, too, had ceased to do so. Before either could decide, Rinon supplied the information himself.

"I must go." He said to them breathlessly. "I must away to Midgard. Something I have never anticipated is occurring. Or has occurred." He tried to stand, but Reylano prevented it.

"What is it, kinme?" he asked.

"A child. Rellya has a child. I'm not sure. I don't quite understand." Rinon was desperate to sit up, so together they helped him. With his healing arm placed over his waist, he tried to better explain himself. "I saw a girl, she was young, in the arms of her mother. I could only see her from behind, until, I reached my hand toward her. It did not feel like a vision. It was peculiar and strange. She turned and looked into my face. It was his ei-koh. She held the girl, I knew it was hers and by the child's eyes I knew it must also be his."

"Was he in the vision?" Fehreh asked. Did this mean Clint must live? That he might return to his home and have this family he always wanted?

"It is not possible," Reylano stopped both of them. "She cannot have children. I know it for certain. It always divided them."

"Someone has touched her in a way to make it possible. I believe I saw a Mal-ahk. Before, guiding me in the caverns. I spoke not of it for the very idea shook me," Rinon spoke very fast in his excitement.

"It may be she was healed," Fehreh supplied.

"Or will be. I do not know. Is this something that has happened? Has he left her with child and she now raises that daughter alone? Or is this something to come? Does this mean he will yet live? If she has had the child, then it is possible I may see some future in her. One that may contain her father."

"You must go to Midgard."

Rinon reached out for Clint's bed and pulled himself to his feet. The others attempted to stop him, but without success. He had a determination in him that was impossible to overcome. Fehreh hadn't seen him with such singular focus since the days before their union.

"I have delayed this long enough. My health is forgotten. I am going to Midgard secretly. For, if I am wrong, I wish for Asgard to remain unaware of his presence here for at least a short time longer."

Reylano protested at once, "Kinme, without the portals and the ships left to Svartalfheim, journeying with what we have to Midgard will be arduous at best. Whatever we might find there can wait until you are—"

Rinon shook his head vehemently. "Every day he is more distanced from the man he was. I cannot risk him losing himself entirely. We leave now."

WHAT A TWIST!

WAY back in "Vibranium Hawkeye" I first introduced the forgetfulness of the Nine Realms. Tony always hated it, feared that one day Clint might leave and never return, never remember to return. What will happen?! Will Clint come back?Stay tuned!