A/N Okay here we go, I know we've been heavy on the angst and this is just more angst...but you're gonna like how it ends for sure.
If you're getting a little angst weary, things should be brightening up for a while after this.
Also, it's been a tough week for a lot of us, so please, be gentle with yourselves.
It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it's worth fighting for.
It was warm, for a winter's day at least. With the warmth of the sun over them, Aragorn was happy enough with the day, and Josephine seemed to be too.
Surrounded on a swath of furs by swaying grasses, he looked over the hills and breathed deep. In the distance, mere specks against the horizon, rangers protected their rest, but left them with as much privacy as could be had. Just a day out of the city, the peace of the wilds. It would do them both well.
He smiled softly as he heard her behind him, humming to herself as she lay facing the sky and picking at a plucked strand of grass.
"Lavenders blue dilly dilly…"
It was perfect. Nearly. If not for the ever present shadow waiting in the eves of their life. She was changed, so changed. And while she was still his, his dear Josephine, something in her had cracked and shaken her soul. He yearned for a quick solution, or a salve with which to heal her, but it was not so. He hated how he could hold her in his arms yet still miss her so fiercely.
She tried, oh how greatly she tried to come back to him, he could see it in every moment. But the shadow was strong, and in the dark watches of the night, sometimes he feared it would be too strong.
Time. He reminded himself. It was all either of them could place their hopes in. And so, patience he would bear for the both of them.
Her humming stopped and words ceased except his name, which she said hesitantly.
He turned to find her sitting up, hands fussing with each other in her lap. She had something to say, but whatever it was seemed to have stuck itself in her throat.
She thumbed away a tear and looked down at her knees. "I think something's wrong with me." She choked.
"Meleth-"
"No, there is." She snapped. "I shouldn't be like this."
He knelt down next to her and pressed his palm to her cold cheek. But while her eyes showed an emptiness her body was tense and she pulled away, pushing to her feet. In the freedom of the wilds, the privacy of the grasses, something was clawing its way out of her and he could do naught but watch as she paced.
"It's…It's trauma or…PTSD or something!" She groaned and pulled her hands through her hair.
He didn't know what PTSD was, but she wasn't going to give him time to ask either.
"But I have trauma from the war and it wasn't like this!" Her frustration was palpable. "Everything is WRONG. I'M wrong." She jabbed her fingers into her chest. "They sent me back but I'm still there!" She pointed north. "I can't get back from that! That stupid fucking cave in that stupid fucking mountain still has me tied up for some long dead goblin king's amusement and it won't let me go!"
Her face, wet with tears, shook in defeat. "It's like they really did kill a part of me in that cave."
"A part, you may say." He said finally, with his chest aching at the sight of her. "But not all."
"Maybe." she conceded. "But whatever's left is still there, screaming, and I can't make it stop."
She thought she'd laid herself bare to him already, in the late watches and when she cried hot tears into his tunic. But she hadn't, not really. Whatever she'd been doing wasn't working and the turmoil inside of her now proved it. "I don't know what to do."
But in her unknown, Aragorn's eyes said differently. There was a fire in them, and he surprised her when he took her by the sleeves of her tunic, as if to imbue her with his strength. "You fight." He said firmly.
Fight? As if she hadn't been all this time? But that didn't seem to be what he was thinking, his body spoke of battle.
"It's not working." She argued.
He stepped back, bringing his hand to the hilt of his sword. "Draw your sword."
She sighed. "What are you talking about?"
He pulled his out of its sheath and motioned to hers.
"Aragorn, I'm not going to fight you, this is ridiculous."
"Resting now does you little good, so we must change our approach. Draw your sword."
Was he serious? A sword fight wouldn't make a difference to any of this except to tire them both out beyond the point of any late night shenanigans, one of the few reliefs she could find anymore.
"For fucks sake, I'm having a moment here darling." But she knew well enough to know he wasn't going to just let it go, so she drew her sword hilt of the sword Thorin had gifted her was still new in her hand, having only seen Erebor's fight in its time with her.
But Aragorn wasted no time and brought her into action, holding back enough to cause no harm, but he was not going to let her off easily either. Their blades clashed and sang together in their clearing. They danced on and on, until sweat began to cool against her skin.
"Are you going to be done soon?" She panted.
Josephine could tell she was out of shape, but there was a glimmer of hope in how it felt much less like the days in Laketown. Progress, maybe. But he didn't relent. He was constant, even, and remarkably calm.
His insistence made her angry and drove her to press herself further, building frustration in her chest until she got too close and found her sword caught and her arms pressed hard against his chest.
One word and she knew he'd let her go, if she truly called it quits he would end it, but she'd placated him and now she was trapped. She didn't want to stop, to end their battle with a word, a surrender.
She tried to jerk free, twisted and pulled but still he had her. Urgency began to shake in her chest as she strained and they stared at each other, waiting for the other to blink.
But now she was angry, though it didn't seem like it was truly for him. Maybe he'd loosened his hold, or maybe that last pull had been stronger than her others, but she came free and dropped her sword at her feet as she bent over her knees. Something was wrong with her, so very wrong.
"That's enough!" She bit into him, her chest twisting into a vice, full of a pressure she couldn't name, but which screamed at her to flee.
It was a command that she had no choice but to answer, plowing through the low grass as fast as her feet would carry her. If Aragorn followed, she didn't know, and couldn't think straight enough to look. All there was, was the fear. Visceral, encompassing, driving her blindly as if a Nazgul itself was dogging her.
She ran until her knees buckled and she rested her forehead into the ground. The fear stayed, now escaping in the only way left. It poured out of her lungs, raw and pained, the cry echoing over the hills. Their rangers guards would come, and fucking let them. She couldn't possibly find the strength to bury whatever this was.
Aragorn did follow her, how could he not? He was with her, step in step, until she collapsed to the ground. The scream that tore from her folded form gutted him and he felt as if his own heart might break for her pain.
It cut into the quiet rustle of the plains, drawing on until every bit of air had left her lungs, and the inhale that followed turned into a shaking sob that engulfed her. Like an animal, just barely free from a wolf's maw. No thought, no rationalizing.
He kneeled beside her again, hesitant to touch her in fear that it would only make things worse. But that left her curled into the grass, sobbing into the earth, alone. And alone she was not. So he moved slowly, first a touch of her shoulder, then her back when she paid it no mind.
"Josephine?"
She was stuck, didn't give even a flinch at his touch, and showed no sign of it lessening.
He wrapped an arm around her chest and pulled her back into his lap, limp as death itself. Her head pressed into the crook of his elbow as it consumed her. There was no stopping this, they could only endure it.
This was not what he'd hoped for her, but perhaps what was necessary. The sun crept through the sky above them though it seemed to him that time stood still. Eventually her tears were spent too, and soon after, her hand balled up in his sleeve and pressed to her lips. Sharp breaths became longer and with that her body began to still in his arms.
Aragorn dared not move, he barely dared to breathe. The sun moved further, stepping into the afternoon. She was so still he thought she might have succumbed to sleep and after such a fit he dared say she'd earned that peace. So still, he would not move.
And he didn't, for however long it took, until he heard her speak.
"I have to go back to Erebor."
The place that had nearly taken her, but to which he too, knew she had to go.
"Then we will go, with all haste."