27 / 1 /16 ~ In which Eleanor wakes up hungry.

Disclaimer: "The Lord of the Rings" is the property of J. R. R. Tolkien. I only claim ownership over Eleanor Dace, Rávamë (aka "Tink"), and the subsequent plot of their story.

A/N: Not to be crass or indelicate, but holy sh*t guys, I only posted the prologue and first chapter of CM and you've already given me 47 reviews (and 400 on LM!) When I first started LM I was pleasantly surprised when I got 3 in the same week! You're all conspiring to kill me with joy, aren't you? XD

Anyway, before we get going I might as well address a few of the bigger questions/comments that have been floating around (feel free to skip ahead if you're impatient to get started):

thesonicsmiley: Yep, Rávamë — primal spirit of creation, the embodiment of wild beasts and the instinct to survive — is a huge fan of 10. I'm not sure if Ellie is more amused, baffled or horrified by that face. XD Funnily enough I hadn't realised Sarah Bolger and Natalie Dormer were both in the Tudors until about half way through LM. Though Sarah Bolger appears much younger in the Tudors than Ellie does in LM, but now whenever I watch Mary and Anne going at each I can't help but but see Ellie and Tink too (especially when Anne loses her temper — that is exactly how I pictured Tink when she gets angry!)

DarlingMegPie: I did actually know that! :D Though I chose the name Eleanor/Élanor for very different reasons (probably won't come up clearly until Book 3 though) it is kind of a nice concept to me that Ellie shares her name with my favourite hobbit's daughter.

gUest: Your'e actually the third person to suggest Tink shifts her shape into Legolas next time! XD I think I'm going to have to try that when I get the chance. XD

36sakuya76: Ah, the darling ex, Mark. Lets face it, I think regardless of the ending, by the time this ride is coming to a close Ellie will have been through so much crap that she just has no patience left for him (or any man that thinks treating someone that way is ok.) I suppose we'll have to see, but if it does come to that, I will have an absolute ball writing the scene. I smell a verbal smackdown coming. XD

Tauriel I'm afraid to say (as much as I love her) will probably not be appearing in the next two books. According to the lore I'm following, she is still currently in exile from Mirkwood following the events of the BoFA, so not even Legolas is really sure where she is now. But who knows, if the story continues beyond the end of RotK, perhaps she might make an appearance. ;p

Gimli is by far my favourite dwarf from any of Tolkien's books or films, and I think his and Legolas's friendship is potentially one of the best bromances ever. So in answer to your question: Nope, I'm not going to make him silly, and I have every intention of attempting to do him justice. Having said that I am not above some comic relief where and when appropriate. ;)

As for your question regarding Boromir potentially seeing some of Eleanor's memories in the same way she saw his… I can't answer that. XD I'm so sorry, it's a fantastically interesting question and I'm so happy you asked it, but I really can't answer it without huge spoilers for later chapters.

lizziecats: I do in fact have a plan for where Ellie and Legolas are going in their weird relationship now, though it's a very loose one with a lot of room to grow or develop. When I first started LM, I deliberately planned it with no romance at all, since I wanted the story to be mostly about Ellie and Tink's mystery, and her developing relationships with the other Fellowship members on the journey. However, now that the E+L pairing has really started to fall into place on it's own I feel like I have to give it some direction while trying to keep it's progression natural. I'm still a firm believer that the best romances come from unexpected friendships, so expect more banter between them and not a whole lot of fluff just yet (for now.) ;) We'll see where it goes, and I hope you enjoy it.

K.Y.1234: Firstly — I generally try to post at least one chapter every 2-3 weeks, more than that if I can, but it honestly depends on how busy I am and what part of the story I'm writing. It's a little difficult because I'm working full time at the moment while trying to move to a different area. Secondly — I have no intention of abandoning this fic. I'm enjoying working on it too much, and I'd never forgive myself if I didn't give you guys the answers to the mystery you deserve. There may be delays in updates, and there may be chapter revisions, but if I really don't think I'll ever get sick of it enough to stop entirely.

Lastly — plot twists and cliffhangers are what I do hun. More will come soon, some small, some huge, but I'll leave you to find out what they are for yourself. ;)

Once again, many thanks to: Imamc, thesonicsmiley, tyrantOFathens, Fire Fly Freiya, Whimsical Acumen, Shiningheart of ThunderClan, DarlingMegPie, zazanga, katnor, WickedGreene13, Jofrench22, Ryanwe, ConstantlyMuchinOnApples, Nevermore186, minimouskawitz, 36sakuya76, Yui's Sweet Dream, animagirl, Willowjulien, Sharn-sharn, lizziecats, ninjagirl2211, K.Y.1234, and guests for leaving such wonderful feedback. Honestly I'm often struck by just how deeply you guys read into the details of this story and really chew them over. Some of the best reviews I've ever received on this site have been from you all sharing your theories and thoughts on Ellie, Tink and their weird and wonderful tale.

Thank you so much for that, I don't think I'll ever be able to say it enough to express how much it means to me. Now, allow me to treat you to a look at how the world outside Ellie head has been handling her sudden catatonia! Hope you enjoy!

Part I : Chapter 2

- Hunger Pangs -

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me." ― C.S. Lewis

I woke from the dream to the sound of laboured breaths, heavy footfalls on hard ground, and the feeling of my cheek thumping gently against something solid but warm.

That, and my stomach was apparently trying to claw its way out through my mouth. It twisted and writhed, needles of pain pulsing up through my torso to my head from my belly, and it was only when I was conscious enough to string a thought together that I realised why:

I was starving.

A soft groan escaped up my throat before I could think, and the footsteps and movement halted almost instantly. I tried to move, to figure out where I was and whose back my face was pressed against, but all my senses were dulled, and my arms and legs felt like lead. Low evening sunlight was all but blinding me, and my neck ached every time I tried to move my head.

"Eleanor?" someone familiar said my name.

"H-hungry…" I rasped out after a moment of trying, my voice a croaky imitation of its normal sound. My throat felt like someone had taken a cheese grater to it.

More voices, two of them this time, more footfalls, and then suddenly I was being set down with my back leaning against the cool stone of a wind-smoothed boulder. The shade of the rock momentarily got the dimming sun out of my sticky eyes, and for a moment all I could see was dried grass, rocks and miles of deep blue, pale indigo and bright orange in the evening sky.

Someone familiar, though still faintly blurry, came into my view. He was tall, rugged, with dark hair, grey eyes, and the imposing posture of one who spent most of his time roaming the wilderness and liked it that way. He was crouched in front of me, his weapon-roughened hand gently gripping my shoulder, keeping me propped upright against the stone so I didn't tip over.

But far more important that any of that; he was holding half a loaf of lambas bread about three inches from my nose.

The smell of the food hit me like a punch to the gut, and I all but ripped the loaf from Aragorn's hand, biting into it with no elegance or dignity at all. My stomach moaned in euphoric relief, and the next thing I knew the measly little piece of elvish bread was gone in less than three bites. I'd barely stopped chewing before I was frantically reaching for the other half, my insides howling for more immediately, but Aragorn took a gentle, yet firm, hold of my wrist.

"Slow down. You'll choke yourself," his gravely voice commanded quietly, handing me a skin of water instead. I took it a little more carefully in hands that I now realised were shaking badly with fatigue, and drained half of it in a few long gulps before I could force myself to stop and breathe again. By the time I'd wolfed down my third loaf, the writhing in my belly hadn't ceased, but it had dulled just enough for me to remember how to think straight.

I ate my fourth one much slower, forcing myself to take smaller bites, knowing that if I didn't, I'd just end up throwing it all back up again.

"H-how… how long…" I managed to get out between bites, chews, and gulps for air.

"A day and a half," Aragorn answered, understanding what I was asking without me needing to even finish.

A day and a half? I'd been completely dead to the world for an entire day and a half? A cold shiver ran through my spine at the thought. Just how close had I come to draining myself entire during that antacuilë? I didn't want to think about it.

"… Where a-are we?"

"The western bank of the Onodlo river. We passed into Rohan this morning."

I looked around slowly, my neck muscles creaking. It was late evening from what I could tell, the sky was darkening but the sun still lingered just over the horizon enough to give us light and a pretty spectacular sunset. I hadn't noticed immediately thanks to my hunger declaring civil war on my self control, but we were the only two there in the small sheltered area surrounded by wind-smoothed stones and sun-dried grass.

"The others? Where—?"

"They have not gone far," Aragorn interrupted me a third time, saving me the agony of trying to speak through my mouthful of bread — bless him. He nudged the water skin towards me again in encouragement, and I obediently washed the dry feeling down with another controlled swig. "We have only stopped long enough to rest and sate your hunger. They've gone to hunt whatever game there is available nearby. Gimli in particular was adamant that we not give you reason to resort to cannibalism from starvation when you finally awoke."

I choked on a slightly hysterical giggle.

"Tempting. My insides feel like sandpaper," I croaked, a hand settling on my twisting belly while the other struggled to push me more upright. I looked at him in question, taking the water skin for another sip. "How did you know about the hunger? Was my stomach rumbling while I was out?"

Aragorn hesitated, looking away from me thoughtfully into the evening gloom for a moment, then shook his head.

"No," he said slowly. "But Boromir had a similar reaction when he awoke, although he actually did end up choking himself."

I almost spat out my mouthful of water.

Almost being the key word. Naturally — being me — I ended up inhaling half it, and a generous amount went straight up and out my nose. I started coughing violently and Aragorn had to give me a few firm slaps on the back to get me breathing again.

"H-he's alive?" I choked finally, trying to sit up and making a wobbly mess of it. "His wounds healed? What happened? Is he alright? Where—?"

"Calm down, stop trying to move," Aragorn ordered bluntly, taking the water skin from me and all but pinning me in place with one hand. "He is well now, physically at least, if still weak. However…" He trailed off, his eyes drifting from mine again. His expression was a bizarre mix of relief, confusion and real worry I'd never seen on him.

"What?" I pressed. When he didn't answer immediately I impatiently pushed his hand off my arm and sat up. "What is it, Aragorn?"

He regarded me thoughtfully for a moment, and I knew he was choosing his words with care. That worried me more than anything else.

"Eleanor, you should know, he has not spoken since."

I just stared at him, uncomprehending.

"What?"

"Boromir has barely uttered a word since he awoke, shortly after you collapsed," he told me with forced neutrality, his expression deliberately blank as he laid out the bare facts for me. "He was too weak to move for the first few hours, and you were still completely unresponsive. He could barely stand, and none of us could wake you. We had to remain for half a day before he had the strength to walk, let alone run, and we were able to make chase."

I just sat there, silently absorbing it all.

'He's alive… he's alive… half a day… too weak to walk… he's alive…' I repeated it all over and over in my head, dazed past the point of clear thought. I couldn't quite believe it was true, and I knew deep down wouldn't really be able to until I saw him myself.

"Where? Where is he?" I said finally, pushing myself up off my perch and making to clamber determinedly onto my still wobbly legs. "He lost so much blood, he shouldn't be straining himself after that trauma. I need to check he's not—"

Aragorn planted one very solid hand on my shoulder, and pushed me gently but firmly downward. My legs gave out and I plopped back down to the ground on my butt with a dull thump.

"He is with Gimli, and you have greater issues to worry over right now," he told me plainly, taking another lambas loaf out of a small nearby pack and unwrapping it from its leaf coverings. He broke it in half and handed a piece to me, and I forced myself to take it calmly, mumbling a quiet "thank you". Aragorn grunted, and added: "You should probably consider thanking Legolas as well. He ran for five hours today with you slung over his back."

I blinked.

"He did?"

Aragorn nodded, and I took a carefully slow bite of the elvish bread, my head still doing wheelies around everything he'd just told me.

"I'll do that…" I mumbled eventually, still numb, nibbling on my piece of bread. Even eating slowly, the bread vanished all too quickly, but before I could say anything Aragorn had already pushed yet another piece into my hand.

I could feel him eyeing me, and my stomach writhed with a sensation that had nothing to do with hunger; a mix of dread and shame at what I knew he must be thinking.

"Eleanor, you—," he began, but I cut him off.

"I know," I interrupted him this time, not able to look directly at him, so I stared down at my hands instead. "I was thoughtless and reckless for doing what I did. I not only could have easily got both myself and Boromir killed for naught, but I've also put Merry and Pippin's lives in danger by delaying our progress," I made myself meet his sharp grey eyes firmly. "I know, and I'm sorry. But he was dying Aragorn, right in front of me. I couldn't just sit there waiting and do nothing, I couldn't…"

His gaze softened very slightly, and the tiniest twitch pulled at the corner of his mouth — a negligibly minute expression on anyone else, but on him it meant the world.

"I was actually going to say you have lambas crumbs stuck to your nose."

I felt my face go pink. "…Oh."

We'll, that was suave of me.

I brushed the crumbs off awkwardly and Aragorn sighed heavily, his shoulders sagging — as if, for just a moment, he didn't have the energy left to hide exactly how tired he really was.

"Though you are correct, what you did was reckless beyond any kind of sense, and could have very easily killed you both. In fact, I'm stunned you are still able to draw breath after what you did, let alone speak," h looked at me hard, and although his words were reprimanding, there was none of the cold stone in his eyes that had been there when we'd talked on Caradhras. "But despite that, I cannot begrudge you the decision to save a life in your charge, foolish as it might have been to go about it the way you did. Holding that against you would be hypocritical, since I am unsure I would have done any different in your place."

A rather anaemic little smile crept onto my face before I could stop it.

"And I'm too thick-skulled at the moment to be susceptible to a lecture on self-responsibility, so you're saving it for later?"

He didn't acknowledge the quip with words, but the half smile did grow into the nearest to a real one I'd seen in weeks. He handed me the other half of the lambas loaf, and clapped a warm hand to my back just soft enough so he wouldn't knock me over.

"Keep eating, you'll need as much of your strength as possible. We are not far behind the Uruks, but we cannot risk lingering here too long and losing them. We need to reach Merry and Pippin before they reach Isengard."

I nodded, breaking the half loaf into smaller pieces so I wouldn't eat it too fast.

"That's where they're taking them, to Saruman?" I asked. I stopped suddenly as a thought occurred to me, looking up in wide-eyed realisation the moment the name was out of my mouth. "He thinks they have it. He thinks they have the Ring."

Aragorn just gave me a grim nod. I swallowed around the dry sensation creeping in my throat.

"Frodo and Sam, they—?"

"Crossed the lake towards Emyn Muil before the Uruk-hai could reach them," he interrupted me once again, though this time I didn't mind at all. "They are well beyond their reach now, and ours."

Relief for them washed over me, which in hindsight was bizarre considering they were now a hell of a lot closer to Mordor than we were — but hey, at least that was one outcome I actually had been expecting.

"Eleanor," Aragorn asked abruptly, and there was a peculiar touch of hesitation in his tone. I looked up to find him watching me closely, with a carefully guarded expression.

"Y-yeah?"

"The antacuilë, to heal someone that swiftly, I know only a little of the method but…" he said, seeming to struggle with how to phrase what he trying to say. I tried hard to keep my facial expression blank, but I'm sure the sinking feeling I felt must have at least shown in my eyes, because his eyes flicked to mine for an unsettling long second. Then he closed them, rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly, waving a hand in dismissal. "Never mind, it is of little consequence now. You are alive, he is alive, that is all that matters."

He didn't sound entirely convinced by his own words, making little effort to hide it, and I couldn't help but feel a pang of relief that whatever he'd been about to say hadn't made it out as a question. One I knew I wouldn't be able to lie to.

I looked down at my hands and the shredded remains of my sleeves, and my eyebrows pinched in confusion. Now that I was more alert I felt bizarrely unburdened, and it took me a painfully long moment to work out why.

"My knife, my gear!" I squeaked in abrupt panic, feebly patting myself down — you know, just in case some genius had decided to stash them in my undergarments or something.

Aragorn actually snorted. He twisted on the spot, reaching into one of the nearby bundles which seemed to have replaced out heavier travelling packs. He unfurled a roll of fabric and, sure enough, my sheathed knife, medical satchel — both primary and smaller back up — my little pouch of medicinal flowers from Lady Galadriel, and my throwing knife pouch were all present and accounted for.

I reached out and took my hunting knife in fingers that were still a little weak, running my thumb over the carved wooden handle. It had gained a few more dents and nicks over the past few months, but each of the names I'd etched into the polished wood three years ago were legible clear as the day I'd carved them. I clutched it to my chest in relief, biting my cheek to keep my face straight. I never would have admitted it, but I really think I would have started tearing up then if I really had lost it.

"You really need to take better care of this. It would do you no good dropped and forgotten under the pile of leaves where I found it," Aragorn told me in what might have been a serious voice if I didn't know when he was trying to mask his amusement. I nodded in defeat, still holding my longest standing reminder of home to my chest.

"Next time I get jumped by an Uruk-hai warrior in the middle of nowhere, I'll be sure to remember that," I said, feeling my throat tighten a bit as I looked up to see him smiling minutely. "Thank you."

He returned it, looking as if he was about to add something more when, without warning, an all too familiar elf silently rounded the corner of stones into the little clearing.

The second Legolas saw us both he stopped dead in his tracks, staring with a vaguely shellshocked expression at me sitting upright, awake, and at least mostly alert. I stared back, my mouth still slightly open. I wanted to say something, but I was suddenly and inexplicably at a loss at how to react to the sight of him there in the evening gloom. He looked more physically tired than I remembered seeing him before at Amon Hen. The shadows under his eyes were a bit deeper, his shoulders and posture wound tighter than before, and for the first time ever his immaculate blond hair was looking a bit windswept. Were he not within five feet of Aragorn — who by comparison looked as if he'd fallen out of a tree — I would have almost been tempted to say he looked scruffy.

He also had his bow in one hand, and in the other he carried two hares and three small partridges, strung together in a hunter's snare.

My stomach made an impossibly loud growling noise, and my face flooded with colour.

I saw a wide smile stretch Aragorn's face out of my peripherals, and I knew he was working to hold back laughter. I frowned at him, but to my surprise, he just gave me a pointedly knowing little smirk, pushed another half-loaf of elvish bread into my hand, and stood up.

"Thank you, mellon nín*, I will deal with those," he said, planting a hand on Legolas' shoulder than seemed to jar him out of his and my shared daze. "Take some rest. Make sure she doesn't choke herself, or chew through her own arm."

I found myself scowling through the colour still in my cheeks.

"That'll depend entirely on how fast you can cook over a campfire," I said tartly, though my voice was still a bit croaky. Something like a half-smile twitched at Legolas' lip, and he handed the game to Aragorn who ignored me entirely, going instead to go get a fire going a just little way off.

For a long moment Legolas and I just looked at each other, the both of us apparently entirely at a loss on what best to say.

'Hi there, glad to see you're not dead?' Tink suggested somewhat awkwardly. Well, that made three of us.

Legolas shook himself out of the paralysis first, setting his bow carefully against the stone before taking a seat on the grass beside me.

"It is almost comforting to know that, even half starved, that barbed tongue of yours doesn't lose its bite," he smiled somewhat hesitantly, as if he was trying to keep a limited amount of emotion from leaking into his expression. Still, it was a warm smile, a familiar one, and I felt it reflect on my own face.

"I don't think there's a force in the world that could truly put a stop to me being a smart-ass," I said back.

His smile grew at that, and he snorted through a suppressed chuckle. His grey-blue eyes flicked from mine to the half lambas loaf still in my hand. I was still hungry, but my mouth had abruptly gone a bit too dry, and I didn't dare try and take a bite now for fear of choking myself again.

"How are you feeling?" he asked earnestly, touching a painfully gentle hand to my shoulder in question. I shrugged, leaning into it very slightly.

"Better than I look, probably."

"You look well enough, all things considered."

I laughed quietly at that, leaning my aching head back against the cool stone. "Liar."

He chuckled again, softer and lower this time, lifting his hand to brush some of the more rebellious strands of my messy hair back from my face. I felt his gaze travel down to my throat and his smile faded. Warm fingers brushed against the side of my neck, and I almost shivered as they lingered on the tender band of finger-shaped bruises that I could feel encircling my throat like a collar.

The ones the Uruk-hai chief had left after nearly killing me, before I'd killed it instead.

"T-they probably look worse than they feel, too," I said a bit nervously, unable to quite meet his eyes. I was suddenly very aware of the pleasant tingling feeling his touch had left on my neck.

"They look deep," he said in all seriousness, drawing his fingers back somewhat reluctantly. "And will probably take a long while to heal on their own."

I rolled my shoulder in another little shrug, waving my half loaf of bread and trying to appear less flustered than I felt.

"I haven't really got much energy left to spare on healing superficial bruises now, at least not until I've got a lot more food into me."

Legolas' already concerned expression dissolved into something that made the faint shadows under his eyes deepen.

"I still cannot quite believe that you—. We all thought for certain we would find you both dead after hearing…"

After hearing the Horn of Gondor, followed by my screams as the Uruk-hai tried very hard to literally beat the life out of me. I knew Legolas had incredibly good hearing. I'd known he would be abel to hear me from the other side of the wood.

I suddenly had the absurd urge to reach over and take his hand, hug him, reassure him I was really there, that I was ok — anything to get that awful, pained look off his face.

But I didn't. I could also see dozens of questions swirling behind his eyes, trying to escape, and the last thing I wanted was for him to ask any of them. Not now. I was terrified one of them would be about how I'd survived that antacuilë when, by all rights, it should have killed me. Or how the Uruk-hai's face had ended up burned to cinders from the inside out. Or how the body had been left in a perfect circle of completely deadened forest.

I looked down at my hands, one of which still clutched my sheathed knife like it was a child's comfort blanket. Part of me wanted so badly to tell him the truth, about everything, about who I'd discovered was sharing my head, and what those words scratched into the wooden hilt of my knife really meant. Yet the other half, the weaker half, knew that if I did, then that look he'd given me only moment ago — the one I realised I'd begun to grow far too fond of — would vanish, and maybe never come back.

I would have to tell him eventually, all of them, I knew — but not now, not today.

"Aragorn filled me in on the past day and a half," I said a bit quickly, jumping on the first thing I could think of. "Thank you for carrying me."

His smile was a bit crooked as it reappeared, but it was there.

"You're heavier than you look," he said with the faintest trace of a chuckle.

I tried to give him a playful punch, but the blow was so pathetic I think he barely felt it. "Rude!"

His smile grew and the sight warmed me more than I expected it to. I definitely had grown fonder of his smile than his scowl over the past few months.

He gestured down to the bread still in my hand and my wobbly legs folded inelegantly beneath me.

"Aragorn wants us to set off again within the next half hour. Can you walk?"

I nodded, waving the half eaten bread in the direction of my feet. "Yes, I'm alright now, I think. I should be able to keep up once I've had a bit more to eat." Legolas gave me a highly exaggerated, sceptical look, arching one dark gold eyebrow. I gave him a playful, but still pathetically weak, shove in the chest that barely ruffled his clothes. "Seriously, don't look at me like that. If I start feeling weak again I won't keep quiet. I'll say something, I promise."

"I'll hold you to that," he told me seriously, but that warm smile had returned to his face again, and it made me happy to see it.

I returned it easily, then winced as the half-healed split in my lower lip stung in protest. I hadn't really stopped to think about the fact that the last time I'd been conscious I'd just come out of a death-match with an Uruk-hai warrior on the lower end of the seven-foot bellcurve. I was still covered in bruises, I ached everywhere, and now that the pain in my stomach had lessened, the ribs all down my left side felt like a troll had used them as a xylophone.

'God, I must look like a horror movie.' I thought, embarrassed, but also a little grateful that I didn't have a mirror to find out for sure.

A small bead of blood welled from the cut, and before I could react, Legolas had suddenly reached up and reflexively wiped it away, the pad of his thumb tracing lightly over my lower lip.

The touch sent a tiny sting through the cut on my mouth, but one that did absolutely nothing to mask the tinging warmth that suddenly flooded through my entire face and down my neck. The both of us froze, staring transfixed at each other in sudden shock at realising what he'd just done, and what we must have looked like.

But he didn't pull away.

He just looked at me, his grey-blue eyes suddenly holding a look that I couldn't read, but made my pulse race. His hand lingered lightly on my face, cradling my jaw, his thumb hovering so close I could feel the warmth of his fingers on my lips…

Then without warning he suddenly jerked his hand away and drew back entirely, leaving my face uncomfortably hot, eyes blinking rapidly, and my heart hammering behind my breastbone. I didn't have time to wonder what the hell had just happened before the heavy stomp of dwarf boots rounded the edge of the outcrop, and huge red beard came into view.

"The baggage awakes!" Gimli's gravelly voice boomed through my ears and ricocheted round the inside of my skull like I'd suck my head inside a bell. My temples throbbed, and I saw said dwarf approach us through my wince of pain. He was beaming at me. "Glad to see you conscious again, lass. Was beginning to think the elf was going to have to carry you all way across the Mark." He slapped huge hand down rather hard on Legolas' shoulder, and I saw the elf make a conscious effort not to cave under the pressure. His face had gone deliberately blank, though his eyes still lingered on me.

I looked at Gimli instead, hoping my face wasn't quite as red as it felt.

"Well, we couldn't have that," I chuckled a little too forcefully, but my smile at him was genuine. "I'm glad you're alright too."

A look of pure relief bordering on elation shone from the dwarf's dark eyes, though he did his best to hide it with a gruff grunt.

"Don't ever scare us like that again. You hear, girl?" he said sternly, then turned a bit green and cleared his throat. "And don't ever ask me to staunch a wound like that again, either. Ever."

I laughed, and it felt ridiculously good despite my aching ribs and stomach.

"Shame, you made an excellent nurse," I grinned weakly at him.

Gimli tried to look annoyed, but it was somewhat spoiled by the rumbling chuckle that bubbled up his throat. He glanced down at Legolas who had his neutral mask firmly back in place again, and was looking very deliberately away over the grass. Gimli gave a faintly smug little chuckle, and then planted a rather heavy pat on my still bruised shoulder as he passed.

"Ow," I grunted, almost falling over sideways, but I was still smiling.

The smile vanished the moment I saw the second person who'd come round the corner when I wasn't looking.

Boromir stood just ten feet away.

He looked as if he hadn't slept well in days. His eyes were quite red and sore looking, both his hair and his expression a bit haggard, and clothes and leathers — though now clean of blood — still bore some of the remnants of the fight at Amon Hen. Regardless of all that, however, he was there, upright and standing, and clutching two full water skins that he'd clearly just been to refill in the nearby river.

He was alive. He was really alive.

I hadn't thought Aragorn was lying when he'd told me he'd survived, but it wasn't the same as seeing the living proof standing only feet from me, and apparently no more worse for wear than I was.

Our gazes met, and despite my exhaustion, I felt my entire face light up in a beaming smile.

"Boromir," I all but cried in near overwhelming relief, my throat tightening at the sight of him.

The second his bright blue eyes fixed on mine, all the colour drained from his face.

I felt the joy slip from my face into confusion as I tried and failed to read the look that had suddenly appeared on his face, and Legolas turned to look, too.

"Boromir?"

One second he had looked alert, if tired and lost in thought — the next he was looking straight at me as if he was looking into the face of a ghost.

He didn't say a word, he didn't even open his mouth. His jaw tightened, his pupils shrank, and I saw his hands clench and unclench tightly around the neck of the water skin in his hand — an unconscious gesture that I couldn't help but notice instantly, the bruises on my throat suddenly aching. Then he turned and paced quickly away without a sound, making a b-line straight towards were Aragorn had got the hares and birds roasting over the fire, avoiding getting any closer to us. To me.

I just stared after him with my mouth open.

Legolas said something that I think was meant to be vaguely reassuring — that he was still weak, still recovering from the shock of being healed so quickly, and was still guilt-ridden from what had happened to Merry and Pippin — but I wasn't really listening anymore.

I knew I wasn't exactly in the best state of mind myself, but I'd been more than prepared for some confusion and disorientation from Boromir. He had been through a massive physical and mental trauma after all, we both had, and despite not really understanding why the sudden lack of speech, I'd been prepared for the silence thanks to Aragorn.

"He has not spoken since. He has barely uttered a word." That's what he'd had said. But…

That look Boromir had just given me, it hadn't been confusion, or guilt, or even anger.

It was fear.

He had looked at me, and though he'd tried to hide it, he'd been afraid.

I just sat there in the dried grass, stunned, bruised, tired, staring after the friend I'd almost died to save, and wondering with renewed fear all my own:

'God… what on earth did I do to him?'

Translations:

* mellon nin — "my friend" (Sindarin)

A/N: So, you've finally got a teeny glimpse of not only where the L+E ship is headed, but also a little taste of the repercussions of Boromir surviving the antacuilë! As they say: There ain't no free lunch, and there will be a lot more on that to come later. In the mean time, I hope you guys enjoyed. Do let me know your thoughts, and thanks again for all your support. You guys truly does make my world so much sunnier. :)

Until next time, much love,

~Rella x