19 / 11 / 17 ~ And in which Eleanor faces consequences.

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: So, I apparently made my Beta reader cry with this chapter. And I've got to admit, I cried a bit writing it too. You've been warned.

As always, hats off to: Call Me Bessie, RhysThornberry, MagicalSocks, viserystargaryen, sgidens, Ely-chan, lacomtessa, REMdream, wickedgrl123, tkhiroshi, TheRadientFire, it'slaterthanyouthink, VanyaNoldo22, yasminafeir1, ChilliLemons, Hana-Lizzie-Chan, pineapple-pancakes, luna153, DefenestratedCountess, Imamc, Angrypancakegoddess, DreamingTraveler, Arwan, CricketCat, ksecc1, silverwolfwarrior13, ColorfulBreese, N7SpaceHamster, and guests for all the love in reviews. Following the last chapter we've also reached the 500 review mark on CM! Which means that combined with LM's review count the Ravame's Bane series has a collective review count of over 1000! Whaaaaat?! Now I feel especially bad about what I'm about to do to you all in this chapter.

Hope you enjoy… or something. Hugs. x

Part I : Chapter 12

- … And The Road Ahead -

"Forget them, Wendy. Forget them all. Come with me where you'll never have to worry about grown up things again." — Peter Pan (2003 film)

I crashed back into reality at the exact same moment Aragorn did.

Sharp gasps exploded from each of us as the link I'd formed between our minds snapped like a violin string put under too much tension. The mental recoil flung our hands apart, and I, being the lighter, was sent flying straight back into Legolas. He caught my shoulders just in in time for me to see Aragorn go crashing backward into a wide-eyed Boromir, who just about managed to stop the both of them sprawling onto the floor.

My head was still spinning, the room pitching, the scent of wild daisies and poppies heavy in my nose, and the burn of homesickness still raw in my chest. I didn't know what my own face looked like, but if it was anything like Aragorn's opposite me, I must have looked like I was one wrong move away from throwing up my lunch.

He was gazing only at me, eyes slightly bleary as if struggling to focus, but he wore the same expression he had in the moments before Tink and the garden had vanished.

Understanding. Comprehension.

He'd seen her. Talked to her. He knew everything now.

And he believed me.

There were actual tears in my eyes now, threatening to spill over with the vision of home still fresh in my mind. I quickly wiped them away with my sleeve before they could fall.

"Aragorn?" Legolas' voice came from over my right shoulder. His warm grip on my upper arm was still steadying me, but more hesitant than before. Something about it didn't sound quite right.

"She spoke true. Every word," Aragorn rasped, still looking only at me. His voice was steady, though he was still reeling from the shock of the broken mental link. "It is all real. She is real."

"She isn't dangerous," I said quickly, gasping around my words too. Then I realised exactly how ridiculous that sounded, after everything I'd just told and showed them. "Ok, she is dangerous, but she isn't malicious."

Aragorn shook his head, blinking away the last of the dazedness.

"No, not malicious, but not anything like harmless either," he agreed, getting back to his feet with Gimli's help. He was still a bit wobbly, but he managed to offer something like a reassuring little smile for me, adding: "However obnoxious, she is no immediate danger to us."

"You saw her?" Boromir demanded dazedly.

"And spoke with her. She has no ill will for us. Her only concern is Eleanor's continued survival, just as she said." Aragorn said, looking meaningful at the other man as he did. Boromir looked as if someone had struck him over the head with something heavy. He couldn't seem to stop looking back and forth between me and Aragorn, unable to form anything more than the outline of words.

"So it is really is true then. The lass truly carries a Maia within her," Gimli murmured, his rough voice barely above a whisper.

"Manwë's breath and balls," Boromir swore quietly, and if you've been paying attention at all, dear reader, you'll know the significance of a swear that vulgar coming from a man like Boromir.

I won't lie, the fact that they all seemed more floored by Tink than the fact that I was from a different reality entirely was more than a tad befuddling. Then again, maybe it made sense. I'd never made an effort to hide the fact that I was different, a mismatched puzzle piece lost in the wrong box. Far-fetched as other realities must have sounded to them all, if any of us could have plausible claim to be from another world, it was definitely me.

I'd almost begun to relax, thinking the worst was over, when the warmth of familiar hands suddenly vanished from my shoulders.

"Two souls in one body…" Legolas strained whisper came from behind me, and this time I knew there was something wrong with the sound of his voice. It was as if he were suddenly being carful not to let any emotion leak into it at all. When I turned to look at him properly for the first time since the limifëa had broken, I found him already several feet away.

Backing away from me.

"Legolas?" I murmured, his name a question that he didn't answer. He just stared at me with an unnervingly blank look in his eyes.

Then he turned and walked calmly from the room.

"Legolas!"

I went to stand and go after him, and almost immediately fell back onto the bench as my legs refused to hold me up. I'd been so caught up in coming clean with them all that I'd almost forgotten what had happened with me and that soldier outside in the alleyway. In the face of everything else, one drunk man-child who could't keep it in his trousers seemed almost laughable now, but my body didn't seem to agree. It was still reeling and drained from the shock of too much adrenaline, too much anger, too much fear, and really, just too fucking much of everything.

I damn near fell straight onto my face in my determination to get up off the bench, only managing to catch myself after banging my shins hard on it. With a curse of frustration I shoved myself up onto my wobbling legs before anyone could try and help me, and staggered after him.

Boromir, who was still looking like someone had struck him between the eyes with a mallet, got up to try and go after me, but I saw Gimli push him back down with a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Let them be, lad. You've more important things to worry about right now."

I didn't wait to hear Boromir's reply, dashing out the door as fast as I could manage on my unsteady legs. I had to shove past a few surprised guardsmen and serving girls, but I caught up to him just in time to see him heading for the main doors to the barracks, almost falling over again when my foot caught on a loose floor stone.

"Dammit, would you stop for a minute!" I cried, reaching out to pull him to a halt.

The second my fingers touched his arm, he flinched.

Flinched.

Jerking his arm away as if the touch of my bare fingers on his skin had burned him, turning those familiar blue-grey eyes on me. And they didn't look angry, or hurt, or… anything.

They just looked blank. Cold.

My blood chilled in my veins.

For one long, terrible moment, we just stared at each other. Neither of us moving, neither of us speaking. Not a single flicker of emotion showing anywhere on his face. I wasn't certain what I'd been expecting; anger, fear, contempt. Some combination of all of them. I'd prepared myself for all of it. But not this.

Not a blank icy wall.

"I…" I started, all my clever words totally deserting me. "I was going to tell you—"

"When?"

His toneless voice was like a jab to my solar plexus. I couldn't speak. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't look away.

There was the muffled sounds of movement somewhere in the hall behind me, and for a split second, Legolas' expressionless eyes flickered over my shoulder. The shadow of suppressed fury darkened his fine features to something frightening.

"Leave," he growled at the people behind me, and the sound of retreating boots followed without so much as a peep of protest.

I was only partly thankful when that chilling expression on his face vanished the second he looked at me again. Instead he covered his face with one hand, as if trying to wipe away the riot of emotions from his features.

"I thought…" he began, seeming for a second to have lost his words too. "I thought that perhaps you remembered her name so strongly because you once knew her, or followed her even, before you lost your memories… Not once did I think it was because you were carrying her very essence within yourself all this time."

I could barely stand to meet his gaze without cringing, but I forced myself to look anyway.

"I know…" I didn't know what else to say.

Not in the face of that blank, stony barrier going up between us.

"You lied to us. To me," he told me.

The blood in my veins turned to icicles beneath my skin, my head shaking on its own. "I didn't."

"But you did."

"I never said—"

"No, you didn't," he interrupted without raising his voice or looking away, voice and gaze still sharp as knives. "Each of us trusted you with our lives, and you knew. You knew all this time, and you said nothing."

Anger fuelled by exhaustion and frustration kindled to life inside me. I already felt like a bitch of the first order for everything that had happened, and that was without having my guilt hammered home with a lecture.

"And what else was I supposed to say?" I demanded, flinging my hands out to either side. "A secret that big wasn't exactly the kind of thing I could drop casually in conversation, Legolas."

"And yet you managed to keep us all completely blind to it for near three months," he countered, still maddeningly controlled, keeping his emotions on a tight leash. "We were with you every day and night, through Caradhras, Moria, Lothlórien, and Amon Hen. And yet in all that time, still you didn't trust a single one of us to know the truth of you."

"You know, you weren't exactly honest with me about who you were when we first met, either," I spat without thought, my temper still flaring. A flicker of anger slipped through a crack in his mask, and he took a long, slow breath before responding.

"Withholding a meaningless title until we were on better terms is not the same as hiding the fact that you carry the spirit of a long-lost semi-divine being inside you, Eleanor," he said at last, and is voice came out strained and harsh. I stared hard at him, at that crack in his emotionless mask, and realised something.

He wasn't just frustrated, confused, angry with me. He was sad.

Almost grieved.

"What's happened to you?" I breathed, and it was enough to crack his mask right down the middle, showing for a split second every inch of the rawness beneath.

"What happened to me? I just discovered the woman I—!" he quickly cut himself off with a sharp intake of breath, covering his face with his hand again, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Manwë's breath, twenty-four years!"

"So this is about my age, is it?" I demanded, fuming, and his stare turned so cold, it actually sent goosebumps rippling over my skin.

"No, Eleanor, it isn't."

I had a good feeling that was a heap of steaming troll shite. I'd seen the crippling shock on his face, the realisation that in elven years that made me barely older than a babe.

"Then what is it?" I asked as calmly and reasonably as I could manage. When he didn't answer and just continued to look down at me in stony silence, I threw up both my hands. "For God sake, I can't read your mind, Legolas! Would you please just spit it out! Tell me exactly what it is about all this crap that's suddenly made you shut me out."

Legolas shifted minutely, and I couldn't tell if it was towards or away from me. I didn't let myself think about it.

"She… the spirit sharing your body, does she control you at all?" he said at last, tonelessly. I shook my head.

"No, she can't. She says it would damage us both if she did." I touched a hand to my chest. "This is all me, I swear."

"But she influences your emotions?"

I swallowed. "Yes. But only the strongest ones, and only recently, like I told you. Fear, anger…"

"And that anger brought you to beat a man into near senselessness when he tried to force himself on you." It wasn't a question, but I could practically feel the sudden rage coming off him like heat off a bonfire.

Not at me this time, but at what had almost been done to me. And at the one who had tried to do it.

"Yes," I admitted, my voice coming stronger this time. "She tried to stop me from hurting him, but I did that. And I'm not sorry for it."

"You almost killed him," he said softly.

No anger, no disapproval. Just a plain statement of the truth. It still felt like a punch to the gut. My fists clenched until my torn nails dug into my palms, the pain beating back the memories of Mark that tried to crawl back out of the shallow graves I'd buried them in.

"I wanted to."

"You could have easily killed Boromir in that state," he told me, his voice gone quiet and oddly flat again.

Another statement of fact, not a judgement, but I didn't have an answer to it. Nothing but a cold chill that slithered down my spine to rest in the pit of my stomach like frozen metal. I could have killed my friend to defend myself, but I didn't because deep down I knew he was a friend who wasn't in his right mind. Unhinged as he'd been, ruled by the fear I now knew must have been plaguing him all this time, I still cared for him. I'd wanted to see him healed of whatever had been tearing at his heart and mind, and it had almost cost me my life.

But for better or worse, that was between me and him. Not Legolas.

I straightened and forced myself to look him straight in the face without flinching, all my lingering anger and unapologetic wrath clear on my face.

"I will never apologise for defending myself. Not ever."

Legolas' gaze softened ever so slightly, and I saw his fingers twitch slightly as if about to reach for me.

But he didn't.

"And I would never ask you to. I am not upset that you protected yourself, Eleanor. Only that you didn't trust m—" he stopped and pointedly corrected himself through a clenched jaw. "Us, to help you when you needed it. Again."

Just like you did outside Moria, when you were so badly wounded, his unspoken meaning hung thick in the air.

I made myself breathe slowly, trying to keep myself calm and barely managing. I had so many emotions clamouring for rule inside me that I couldn't tell if I was livid, guilty, frustrated or one step shy of angry tears anymore…

But my eyes were beginning to sting again.

"So to summarise," I said through gritted teeth, still holding his gaze as if my life depended on it. "You aren't angry that I defended myself, and you aren't angry that I almost murdered a man doing it. But the fact that I have the spirit and power of a hyper-protective Maia stuck in my head and I didn't tell you is more of an issue than the fact I'm apparently from a different bloody world entirely?"

I'm not sure what it was that set it off, but at that, the final pieces of that mask he'd been wearing over his emotions shattered and fell away. His face twisted into something that mixed fury and pain, blue-grey eyes icy, every line and hard angle sudden a razor's edge.

"I never cared where you were from!" he snapped at me, his voice almost a snarl.

I flinched.

I couldn't help it. My own eyes went wide and I nearly took a step back, but the shock of the storm I saw in his face froze me to the floor. And this time, he didn't even try to smooth it away, voice harsh and cold as his words sliced into me.

"I have never cared. I still don't. Just as you did not care when you discovered who I truly was. All that matters is that you said nothing. Not a single word. Again and again, you would rather come within an inch of letting yourself be killed rather than—" Again he forced himself to stop, visibly biting his tongue to keep from striking with it again.

Then he closed his eyes, breathed deep just as I had earlier to calm himself, and said the words that finally broke me:

"I cannot know whether what comes out of your mouth is the truth, a lie, or something in between anymore."

I'm not sure how much time passed while I just stood there, my feet frozen to the floor. Seconds? Minutes? Days? It felt like infinitely longer. There was suddenly such silence inside me, I could hear my own heartbeat stutter. It was as if every burning emotion had been pulled out of me in the space of a breath, leaving nothing but a cold, hollow shell behind. I think I must have forgotten to breathe too, because when I finally did hear my own voice again, it was so quiet and choked it was barely there at all.

"I never lied to you. Not to any of you. Not once."

Legolas' torrent of emotions had faded back, but his eyes were still sparking with the embers of it, jaw tight with strain. It only made the softness of his voice even more painful.

"But you were never entirely honest either. Not about yourself, your plight, your… passenger," he said, stumbling over the word like it tasted foul in his mouth. "And not about what you truly wish for at the end of this journey.

"To leave… and never return again."

I was looking straight at him as he said those last words, and it was only because I was that I saw the look in his eyes, the sudden flash of agony that told me everything.

'To leave and never return.'

Oh…

Oh God.

The icicles beneath my skin grew thorns as finally, finally I realised what he meant. What the rage meant. What all those masked flickers of sadness had meant. What his sudden departure just now had meant…

I hadn't just deceived him — I'd been leading him on.

I might not have been doing it intentionally, or even consciously, but that hardly mattered when all was said and done. Elves bonded far more deeply when they chose to fall in love than any other race; the kind of bond that lasted for millennia. And it only ever happened once. I'd known that. I might not have even considered until earlier that day whether I was even ready for the idea of becoming romantically involved with anyone, let alone with him, but… I had also never once stopped to think what it would do to him if we became so entangled, only for me to eventually leave Arda, never to return again.

Everything we'd exchanged over the past few months flashed through my mind in terrible, agonising clarity. All our close talks and joking together in Lothlórien, sharing secrets and stories, all our awkward, tender moments when I'd been recovering, all our near-misses when we couldn't seem to find ourselves alone long enough. All of our gradual, tentative journey past the point of mere friendship into something more…

And none of it mattered.

Because when all this was done, when we were finally at the end of the road and I had my answers, I would go. I'd depart this world and maybe never return…

And I'd leave him behind.

It's a much harder thing than you'd imagine, suddenly waking up and realising you're actually a lot more selfish than you thought you were.

"I…"

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't speak. I couldn't think past anything but that he was right. He was right.

God damn him.

It felt like my chest was collapsing in on itself at the sight of him now — the sight of him combined with the knowledge of what every one of those emotions meant. All the broken pieces of the trust he'd had in me, lying at our feet. The meagre few inches of space between us seeming to grow to miles.

My hand made its way to clutch at my chest on its own, as if trying to hold together something that was cracking apart inside. My eyes burned now, and I squeezed them shut tight.

It hurt. It all hurt so fucking much.

Every cell in my body howled with regret at the look of hurt and pain I could still feel in him, even if I couldn't see it, and the knowledge that there was nothing I could do to take it back.

But even then, I couldn't regret finally telling him the truth.

"I…" The words that came as a choked whisper didn't seem anything close to adequate, but they were the only ones I had. "I'm sorry."

I meant them. I meant them so much it hurt.

My eyes were still clenched shut, but I heard the soft rustle of his tunic as he moved, felt the warmth of familiar fingertips not quite touching the skin of my cheek.

"Eleanor, I—"

The door at the end of the hall creaked, and I opened my eyes to find Legolas' expression had dissolved into something broken with what looked painfully like grief. He'd reached a hand out across the gap between us, perhaps to cup my cheek, but he'd frozen mid-movement the second the entrance to the barracks had opened and Eowyn stepped inside in a swish of practical travelling skirts and long, gold hair.

"Ah, there you are, Lady Eleanor. One of the healers informed me that there was an altercation with one of the soldiers. Is everything al…" she trailed off, eyes flickering between the pair of us. "Apologies, am I interrupting?"

That space between us seemed to yawn even wider, that one final moment of tenderness breaking around us like glass.

Legolas still extended hand drew back away from me as it closed, fingers curling into a fist as he let the arm drop back to his side. He closed his eyes for a long moment, and when he opened them again, all trace of the vulnerability he'd shown me was gone.

"No," he answered softly before I could even open my mouth. His newly hardened gaze flickered back to me for one painful second, brushing over the circle of fresh contusions I could feel burning on my neck, and then to the bruised and bloody tips of my fingers where I'd torn my nails clawing at my attacker's face…

He didn't meet my gaze again as his jaw tightened, and his eyes went flat with silent, terrible fury.

"Please, excuse me."

Then he turned, and walked out of the hall without a backward glance.

I didn't follow him, but I didn't dare go back into the barracks with Eowyn either. She'd heard about what happened and wanted to inform me and them that the soldier who'd accosted me was being dealt with. I accepted the news and numbly left her there to find the others on her own.

I didn't want to talk to her.

Or Aragorn. Or Gimli. Or Boromir. Or anyone.

Instead I found the stables — better late than never — almost as soon as I got outside again. A twinge of gratefulness made its home in my gut upon finding it was completely empty of all traces of men and horses, except for a few saddlebags piled up at the back. All the preparations for the journey to Helms Deep must have already been completed, and now everyone was gathering down near the gates, ready to leave together.

Everyone…

The thought sent a stab of pain through me, and I found myself clutching my chest again as I stepped inside and half-heartedly kicked the stable door shut behind me.

'Eleanor?' Tink's worried voice drifted up from the depths of my mind. 'Are you… are you ok?'

I just stared into the dimly lit stable, the only light coming in through the few un-shuttered windows and the crack in the door behind me.

'Please Tink, just… I just need to be alone for bit.'

A pause as long as an age, and an ocean worth of understanding in it.

'Ok,' she said quietly. 'I'm… I'm really sorry, boss.'

There was the brush of what felt almost like a hug against my thoughts, and then she was gone.

I drifted numbly over to one of the walls and slid down it onto my backside on the dirt floor. I just sat there staring at the empty paddocks, my stinging eye beginning to mist over completely.

It's funny, in all that time, I couldn't really remember the last time I'd truly cried. Not the kind of physical pain, like I'd done when Haldir took the arrow head out of me, or the hysterical tears of fear for a friend's life I'd shed as Borormir lay dying. I mean the rawest kind of tears, that come only when there is something ripping you apart inside, and there's nothing you can do to mend it but let the feelings out.

I'd promised myself back in Rivendell years ago that I wouldn't cry anymore. That if I had time to cry, I had time to get up and do something about it. But there was nothing I could do to fix this, nothing I could do to mend what I feared was now permanently broken.

So I cried.

I cried and cried, covering my face with both my hands, curling into myself as the sobs I'd been holding in for so long wracked through me.

I must have wept there on the stable floor for a long while, because by the time my sobs finally began to quiet, my eyes were bone dry and my voice had all but gone. And even after the tears and hiccuping little gasps had stopped completely I stayed there. I knew I'd need to move eventually, drag myself up off that damned floor and start moving with the others out of the city, but right then even the idea made my throat tighten enough to strangle me.

I didn't even react when the door to the stable creaked open and someone stepped inside, halting the moment they saw me there.

"My lady?" a confused voice I knew from another life pierced the silence I'd wrapped myself in.

Katie.

I uncoiled myself just enough to look up and find the heavily pregnant woman I'd seen upon entering Edoras — the one who bore such a startling resemblance to my best friend — staring down at me. She'd tied her wavy red hair back in a loose braid, draped a travelling cloak over her shoulders, and was carrying a small basket of linen on one shapely hip. She was also gazing down at me with bright brown eyes so familiar, it made my heart leap in my already aching chest.

But it wasn't her.

She wasn't Katie. Not my Katie. Not the same girl I'd known for years. Not the one whom that name on my knife belonged to, no matter how much I wished in that moment that it was her…

The thought brought a fresh wave of pain up to the surface, but I didn't have any tears left to shed.

"Sorry, am I in your way?" I heard myself croak, scarcely able to believe the broken sound was really my own voice. Katie's doppelgänger bit her lip, eyeing me.

"Not at all…" she said gently in that painfully familiar voice, taking a step inside so she could close the stable door behind her. "Are you alright?"

I almost laughed, but it came out as a strangled choking sound instead, and I had to cover my mouth until I could control myself again. The woman who looked so much like my best friend look alarmed, immediately setting down her basket and crouching down before me. It was no easy task; from the look of it she was well into her final month of pregnancy, and the prominent swell of her belly was nothing to sneeze at.

"My lady, please. Are you unwell?" she pleaded, face breaking with compassion that only made it harder to control my sobs.

I'd really thought I'd spent all my tears. Shows what I know, I guess.

"N-no. I'm alright, r-really," I hiccuped once I'd finally got myself under control again, gesturing to her swollen belly without thinking. "Besides, you r-really shouldn't be here, fussing over me. Your husband is probably already worrying himself sick."

The woman's face didn't lose any of its compassion, but it fell slightly.

"I doubt that greatly, since I have no husband," she stated simply, pulling one of the clean linen rags from her basket and using it to gently dry my face. I looked at her through sore eyes, not quite understanding.

"But… you're…" I mumbled stupidly, eyes falling to her belly. She placed a hand tenderly on the bump, looking down with a sad little smile.

"He walks the same path as Lord Theodred does, now."

Wow, Eleanor, pull your head out of your ass, why don't you.

I felt like kicking myself, and it showed in my voice as I sputtered a garbled, "Jesus, I'm so sorry."

The sad little smile didn't fall from her face as she turned her gaze back up to mine.

"You've nothing to apologise for," she insisted, pressing the linen rag into my hand. "Though if you remain sprawled on the floor like that, you'll soon find yourself apologising for tripping someone up."

I hiccuped again, but nodded, pulling myself away from the wall and back onto my feet. The young soon-to-be-mother had a harder time of it than I did with her little passenger weighing her down, so I did my best to help her up without insulting her pride. Something about her demeanour made me think that she wasn't kind of girl who reacted well to being pitied or coddled.

"My thanks," she smiled once she was vertical — half a head taller than me, just like Kaite was, I noticed — and took up her basket again. "I'm Sarra, by the way. Do you have a name, my lady?"

I hesitated, my creaky voice not obeying immediately, but I cleared my throat until it worked again.

"Eleanor. Just Eleanor. No 'lady' required. I'm the healer of my travelling party."

Sarra nodded, moving down the rows of paddocks to the pile of empty bags and stalls at the end of the row, with me following just behind.

"So I've heard. Ilda said you did a masterful job patching up that boy who fell off his horse."

A stiff smile broke over my face at the memory of Eothain and Freda, treating their hurts and telling them a story over food. Had it really only been that morning?

"Yeah, that was me," I confirmed as she started packing the folded cloth into a single canvas satchel. "You know Ilda?"

She nodded, her hands stilling for a beat.

"I'm… I was one of my Lady Eowyn's shield-maidens, before my—"

She gave a sudden wince of pain, a hand going to her belly, and I had to restrain myself from leaping to her aid, just in case she fell. She really was just about ready to pop.

"Are you alright?" I asked seriously, finding my voice stronger than before. She cringed and nodded, waving me away.

"It's nothing, just the cost of a long pregnancy." A warm, wide smile broke over her features as she stroked a hand over the bump, turning her already lovely face to raw beauty. "More than worth it, though."

To my shock, I found a genuine smile creeping onto my face too, but it vanished the moment I thought about the long trek across the grasslands ahead of us.

"Maybe we should ask one of the healers for something to help—"

"They will not help," she interrupted me flatly before I could finish, folding more of the clothes into the bag. I blinked at her.

"What do you mean, they won't help?"

She didn't answer immediately, instead focusing on getting the last of the linens and clothes into the satchel and tying it closed.

"They believe my child is not worthy of their treatment, as other newborns would be," she said with simple finality that did little to mask the bitterness underneath.

I just stared at her.

"They refuse to help you because the father of your child died?" I asked, appalled. Sarra chuckled and shook her head at me.

"No, they refuse to help because the father of my child was not my husband," she explained, with all the delicacy of an anvil being dropped onto a house. I realised what she meant after only a second of spinning my wheels.

"Oh…"

Honestly, it didn't seem like all that big a deal to me, but I wasn't completely naive either. I'd been alive in Arda long enough to know that having children out of wedlock here wasn't looked on with anything like the kind of acceptance it did back on Earth. Still, as a healer, I had always been taught by Lord Elrond that it was my duty to help any and all whom I could with my skills if they were in need. The idea that Sarra and her unborn baby were being denied that basic right when they so obviously needed it was enough to turn the lingering pain in my chest into cold, distilled anger.

Good. Pain and sadness were treacherous. But anger I could work with.

That quiet outrage must have shown on my face more than I'd intended because Sarra gave me a politely curious look, and I scrambled for something else to ask, before the sound of my teeth grinding got too loud.

"How did he… I mean, was he…?"

Sarra knew what I was fumbling to ask, but I wished I'd picked something else when the sadness on her face grew deeper.

"He was one of the Rohirrim riders, one of Lord Eomer's lieutenants. We… I conceived before we could officially wed. Before my family could publicly approve the match and arrange a wedding, he was killed in a raid."

Her hands had automatically drifted to cradle her belly again, long, elegant fingers stroking over the bump like a mother might stroke her baby's hair.

"I don't know if he truly loved me, but he loved this child. I saw it in his face the moment I told him. He wished to be a father, and he would have been a good one. He did not deserve the fate he was dealt, and neither does our son or daughter. My deeds are my own, my choices are my own, how ever anyone else sees fit to judge them. But my baby has done nothing, not to anyone. They have not even taken their first breath yet, and yet these people who claim to know best would presume to tell me…" The sorrow in her face had morphed to cold fury through the story, and she did her best to quell it with a few deep breaths, turning to me with an apologetic little smile. "Forgive me, it was not my intention to throw the weight of my problems on you. Especially when you appear to have plenty of your own."

It might have been a bit presumptuous, but I smiled and reached over and took her hand, giving it a gentle squeeze.

"There's nothing to forgive, Sarra. If anything, I should be thanking you," I told her honestly, testing the sound of the name on my tongue and finding strangely that it fit. She looked surprised, but not at all displeased. I took my hand back and looked towards the door as I heard the distant sound of Háma calling for the city to start emptying. "I know it's sudden, but would you maybe mind if I walked with you? I hear it's a long way to Helms Deep."

Whatever reaction I'd been expecting from her, it paled in the face of the beaming grin she gave in answer.

"Indeed it is," she chuckled with a warmth that made her face glow. "And I would welcome your company, Eleanor."

I picked up the bag she'd been packing before she could protest and slung it over my shoulder. I seemed only fair. Sarra was already carrying another person around in her, and I already had everything I owned either strapped to me, packed in my the medical satchel at my hip, or hidden up my sleeves and in my boots. One extra bag of clothes was a tiny price to pay for someone kind to walk beside.

A lance of pain spiked through me again at the thought of not travelling with Aragorn, Gimli, Boromir, and…

And…

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

I couldn't face them. Not just yet. But I also couldn't just sit here and wallow in tears and silence forever, not when there were far more important things that needed focusing on than drowning in my own self pity. I couldn't take back what I'd done. I might not be able to fix what was broken.

But if Sarra could stand up and keep moving forward after everything she had been through, then I bloody well could, too.

We stepped out of the gloomy stables into the brilliant sunshine I hadn't noticed before I'd gone in. It hurt my sore eyes a bit, but I stopped for a second to tilt my face up to the sun and let it warm the skin of my cheeks and eyelids. It had been winter when we'd all left Rivendell several months ago, but now it seemed spring was truly on the way.

A thought struck me just as my new companion stepped out of stables beside me, and I turned to her.

"What's the date today?" I asked, and Sarra eyed me curiously.

"The second day of Súlimë by the Steward's Reckoning," she answered, baffled. "Why?"

The second of March by Earth's calendar.

A hollow laugh found its way out of me, as I turned my face up to the sky again, an impossibly wide expanse of pure, cloudless azure stretching out over the grasslands in every direction.

"So I did lie after all," I whispered.

I'd told them all I was twenty-four, but…

"Eleanor?" Sarra asked, and I shrugged, tugging the bag a little higher up on my shoulder as we walked down the hill.

"It's my birthday today."

To Be Continued In Part II

A/N: And thus we reach the end of Part I (finally!)

First of all, I'm so, so sorry! I genuinely feel bad for doing this all to you (though paradoxically kinda proud at the same time.) I poured a lot of my own feelings into this chapter and I hope it hasn't let the left you too traumatised.

Secondly, I'm planning on continuing to update more regularly now that I got over my block. But as this of you who follow me on tumblr will now, I'm starting a new job tomorrow, and it's making me pretty nervous. I've already started working on the next chapter (about 1/4 done) but the next couple of weeks are going to be pretty busy settling in and finding my feet with my new colleagues. I'll keep you guys posted in the mean time, but I hope you'll understand if I let myself worry about one thing at a time. Less stress and anxiety for Rella that way. :) xx

So much love to you all, especially those who left me such wonderful notes of encouragement last night when I was feeling so low. You are the people that make my world brighter every time you put thoughts to keys.

Much love, and until next time,

Rella x