Co-authored by Raksha

It is some time since we have posted, so here is a recap on what has gone before:

Home to Heal

        This is the third and last in a Fourth Age trilogy that began in COME TO HARM and continued in MADE TO SUFFER (both available on ff.net).  It’s AU (Alternate Universe) because Saruman and Wormtongue, everyone’s favourite Evil Odd Couple, did not die in the Shire.  They lived on to cause Faramir and Aragorn much pain.  This story, HOME TO HEAL, began in April of year 16 of the Fourth Age, six months after MADE TO SUFFER ended with the fall of Saruman after the wizard had enthralled Eldarion, 13-year-old son of King Elessar, and placed the boy in a mysterious sleep. 

Faramir had a dream that exhorted him to find the green stone that Saruman had previously used on him and Eldarion.  Faramir travelled to the wizard’s tower in Mordor with his impulsive second son Cirion and found the bauble while fending off an Easterling assassin.   Aragorn, who is increasingly depressed over his inability to heal Eldarion, was unimpressed.  The King is tired and, losing hope, he comes occasionally to sit alone in Denethor’s old chamber, as Faramir learns when he finds Aragorn there one night.  Eowyn, six months pregnant, nearly has a miscarriage which Aragorn is unable to heal; but the healers stop the process and prescribe bed rest until the child is born. 

Faramir researches green elfstones and finds that Aragorn’s Elessar stone had a ‘little brother’, also made by Celebrimbor, called the Stone of Silence, and made to calm troubled minds, a sort of Elven version of Prozac!  Faramir believes that the green stone used by Saruman is in fact the long-lost Stone of Silence.  A mysterious man in blue turns up and reveals himself as Pallando the Blue, one of the two Blue Wizards sent to the East.  Pallando tells Faramir the sad history of himself and his friend Alatar, the other Blue Wizard, and how Saruman ordered them to corrupt and weaken the Easterling tribes for centuries.  Both Blues got tired of it; but carried out their orders.  Saruman came East after the War of the Ring and persuaded the moody Alatar to avenge the Easterlings’ sufferings by helping Saruman overthrow King Elessar.  Alatar helped Saruman entrench himself in Mordor, and later removed Saruman’s body after Faramir enabled Legolas to kill the White Wizard.  Pallando wants to stop the Easterling assault that Alatar is now preparing on Gondor.

As if all this was not enough cause for concern, Ingold, a lord embittered by the loss of his sons, accuses Faramir of treachery in Council.  Faramir throws down the gauntlet of ‘put up or shut up’, stalling his critics, when Aragorn gets word from a messenger that the Rangers’ outpost in Mordor has been attacked by Easterlings.  Later, Aragorn and Faramir debrief Pallando about the Easterling threat and his knowledge of the Stone of Silence.  Pallando offers a way to revive the sleeping Eldarion, by having Faramir and Aragorn use the two Elfstones together to heal him.  Aragorn angrily rejects the idea, fearing to expose Faramir and Eldarion to further influence of the stone Saruman used to harm them.  Arwen, who was present, became angry at Aragorn. She spends more time with Eldarion and knows he is very weak and cannot last much longer.  Faramir is worried, knowing that Eldarion’s time is running out...

Chapter 11

Hope

Faramir, Steward of Gondor and Prince of Ithilien, again lay uneasy in his wide bed, his mind wandering in troubled dreams once more.

He saw his King sitting beside the bed of his sleep-enthralled son.  The King’s head was down, his shoulders slumped and his eyes dull.

“My beloved son is dying,” Aragorn said.  "My line will end in ash and smoke.” The King's face was, it occurred to the dreamer, more deathlike than his son‘s.

Faramir tried to reach out to comfort the distraught man. While he stretched out his hand, the scene before him blurred, as when a hand stirs a pool of still water and displaces what is there reflected.  The figures changed and he saw his own father sitting in Aragorn’s place.  The figure on the bed was no longer that of the King's young son. Instead, Faramir saw his own face, wan and nearly lifeless.  Outside the chamber, fires licked at the walls, and at the pale branches of the White Tree.

“No!” Faramir shouted pulling himself from the dreamed past back to the present.  He was sitting up in his bed, his shuddering body soaked in sweat.

“Faramir...” Eowyn’s sleepy voice came to him.  “What is wrong?”

He shook his head, trying to rid it of his last terrifying vision.  Then he turned to his wife.  “I must leave,” he said with a reassuring smile.

Eowyn's eyes werevery heavy. She had to fight to keep them open and focused on her husband.  “But it’s the middle of the night” she yawned.  “Where do you go?”

“Just outside.  I will not leave the Citadel.  Rest, dearest girl," he said, and kissed her cheek.  "I will return soon.”  Eowyn needed to sleep; he would not burden her with such a strange presentiment.  Thankfully, she was too tired to protest.

Eowyn had already drifted back to sleep by the time Faramir pulled on his boots and left their bedchamber.

As he walked the deserted Citadel in the warm night air, he nodded to the guards.  Faramir’s thoughts returned to the meeting with Pallando the day before.  The wizard had offered them a way forward that Faramir had been prepared to take.  But Aragorn had dismissed the offer, worried that it was fraught with too high a risk.

And now he'd had another cursed dream, similar to the one leading him to find the stone that had brought them all to this pass. 

Faramir had always possessed an introspective nature.  He often played out previous events in his mind, to see how they would differ if the principals or the circumstances changed.  Any good commander or chess player did the same.  He had thought through many of his own old battles to try to see if he could have conducted them with more skill, so that more of his men could have lived.  He had often pondered what would have happened differently if he had gone to Imladris in Boromir's stead.  But the central battle of his life had been the conflict of love and pain waged with his father.  A faint, distorted memory of his father's face, wreathed in flame, still lingered at the back of Faramir's mind.  Sometimes he feared the memory would haunt him forever, and shadow his sons and their children's children.  He could not banish it, and he had tried.

Imrahil and later Eowyn had praised him for forgiving Denethor and moving on with his life after learning the full extent of his father's madness.  Truth be told, Faramir had merely avoided the matter altogether.  He had done his best to forget that his father had abandoned his duty, then tried to burn him alive and, after also threatening Faramir with a knife, had set himself afire.  There had been so much else to think on, to do, the preparation of the City and the realm for the King's rule.  His love for Eowyn swiftly became the ruling passion in his mind, not his sad memories of the father who had nearly killed him. . . Faramir had never spoken of his father to his own children.  And the time was coming when he would have to do so.  Bron and Ciri were old enough to understand.  They already heard rumours of the twenty-sixth Steward's terrible death.  But what would he tell them?  How could he make the boys understand why their grandfather had fallen so far, when he did not fully understand it himself?

Telling his oldest children of his father would have to wait.  The dream, and the one he had had several nights before, carried a fell warning.  In the first dream, Denethor and Faramir, who was dying on the day of the battle of the Pelennor, had transformed into Aragorn and Eldarion.  This night the dream had reversed, changing the sorrowful Aragorn and his dying son into the twenty-sixth Steward and Faramir himself, also dying.  And the White Tree burned.

A father's loss of a son, the loss of hope. . . It had happened before.  And the fire.  Faramir shivered in the soft air of the spring night as his heart began to race.  It could not happen again!  Not to his King, his lord.  Not to Aragorn.  And the boy, still so young, most of his life ahead of him.  Yet there were already signs that Aragorn was losing his strength and purpose as his son's life waned: the King's fatigue, the quarrel with his beloved Arwen, his inability to heal Eowyn earlier.  And Aragorn’s apparent habit of closeting himself in the room that had once been Denethor's chamber.  Aragorn could never fall into madness, his mind was far too strong.  But Faramir was not going to let Aragorn fall anywhere, not if he could help it by word or act.  He knew all too well how despair could eat away at the hearts of Men...

Faramir was not sure where he was going but one thought rang continually around his head:  I will not let it happen again!  

He found himself at the wall that rimmed the Citadel.  And he saw that he was not alone.  Arwen stood there, cloaked in grey, looking up at the stars.

Faramir moved to join her, and looked at the stars himself.  They shone brightly in the cloudless vault of the heavens.  He waited a few moments, then spoke:  "My lady. . . Arwen, how came you here?  Where are your maids, or at least a guard?"

She pulled her gaze from the sky and looked at him, rather coolly, but with a certain amusement.  "Faramir Denethorion, I am still Elf enough to go my own way unseen by prying eyes when I wish.  They think me shuttered in our chamber, crying myself to sleep." 

"There is no shame in tears; and you certainly have cause to shed them.  I know that I would weep were a child of mine so ill.  Should you not be. . . resting?  And where is the King?" 

"I know not where Estel is.  Nor do I care.  And what good would resting, or crying do?  I have cried a thousand tears, and Eldarion still sleeps.  My tears and my slumber help him not at all.  It is Eowyn who needs rest for her own sake and that of the child she carries.  Estel. . . I need have no worries of that sort."  She shook her head in a slight, graceful motion and her eyes softened.  "Eowyn is still well, is she not?  I saw her this afternoon, and she seemed in good humour." 

"Most of the time she holds good spirits," Faramir replied.  "She begins to be frustrated by having to stay abed.  I fear she may start throwing the crockery at the servants if they cosset her much more." 

He wondered at Arwen's reference to her husband's name at the same time that she implied there was no chance for her to have another child.  If her words signified what he thought they did, then the already sorely burdened King had yet another care to shoulder.  But he could delve no further into that matter; it was not his place. 

"I am glad.  Eowyn is a wonderful mother, and I know you will both take great joy in the birth of this child," Arwen answered with a small smile.  Then she looked again on the stars.  Faramir followed the direction of her gaze.

"It still amazes me, even after eighteen years have passed, to see the stars undimmed by our Enemy's darkness."  Faramir said.  "For so long, we would look to the heavens in vain for the light of the stars, for the sky would be darkened, or burn with the fires of Mount Doom."

Arwen smiled wistfully.  "When I was a child, my father would show me the stars, and tell me their tales.  And at the end of it, he would point to Eärendil , and say:  Look, my little one, Eärendil the Mariner, my father and your grandfather!  He will always watch over you.  I thought of Eärendil as my special star; my father's father who would always guide me.  I come out here and look to him when my heart is troubled.  He is set now, but he will return in the morning.”

Faramir could not help grin as he spoke:  “My grandfather Adrahil taught Boromir and I the lore of the stars.  He would have been delighted to have the Mariner’s own grand-daughter come to be the Queen of Gondor.  And meeting your father, Master Elrond, would have pleased him greatly, as it did me.”

The Evenstar’s brilliant eyes dimmed. “I miss my father more than I can say,”  she said softly.  “I would do anything to have his counsel now, but that is impossible.  He is with his parents now in the Blessed Realm, and my mother too.  I will never, ever see him again.  Our parting will last beyond the circles of the world.  This is the only path I can find to him. I watch my grandfather‘s course across the sky and ask him to greet my father for me when he sets.”

Faramir put his hand on Arwen’s slender shoulder.  In the past, he never would have dared such a touch.  But he had seen that though vastly his elder in years, the Queen was as much flesh and blood as he was, or Eowyn, or any mortal.  Tonight she was sad and lonely and needed a friend, not a King‘s Servant.  “When this present crisis passes, you and Aragorn should take some time away from the cares of state.  You are always welcome at Emyn Arnen.  Or  perhaps go to Imladris and see your other grandfather, the Lord Celeborn.”

“Shall this crisis pass?”  Arwen asked.  “I know not, not anymore.  Pallando‘s solution does carry risk; but it could work.  I do not think there is any other way to save Eldarion.  Yet Estel is set against the idea.  I fear he is losing the courage to try, to dare, the boldness that once was his.  Strange that someone once named for hope should now lose it.  I fear for us all.”

Hope, fear, the courage to dare. . . The seeds of memory began to quicken in Faramir’s mind.  “Fear not.”

Arwen looked back at him, puzzled.  

“The King is Gondor‘s pride, its centre.”  Faramir explained, his voice rising with excitement.  “If he loses hope, then so do we all.  We have to make him see.  We have to show him that he can dare do this thing.  Aragorn must believe that he and the Elfstone he bears are stronger than any trick of Saruman.”  

“But how can we make him see it, Faramir?” 

 “We shall show him by example,” Faramir continued, the idea taking hold of him.  “We have to show him that a lesser man dare face his fear and conquer it.  Then so may he who is first in Gondor rekindle his strength.”

“But how, Faramir?” She asked again, more urgently, catching Faramir’s excitement.  “And who?”

He smiled, warmed by the sudden fire of hope.  “Trust me.  It will take perhaps a few hours.  I must find the King.” 

“He said something about trying once more to heal Eldarion,” Arwen said.  “Faramir, he was angry and desperate.  I pray that you succeed in persuading him, for we cannot go on in this way.  And we cannot lose our son.”

Faramir took Arwen‘s cool hands in his own and pressed them warmly. Her hands were delicate but quite strong.  “Believe me, my lady; I will do all I can to assure that you do not lose him.  I shall go to Aragorn now.  Will you return to the King’s House with me?” 

“No.  I am safe out here.”  Arwen guessed his concern and gestured towards the distant guards who circled the White Tree.  ‘I find it quite comfortable.  I will await Eärendil's return.  Then I must see to my son.”

Faramir bowed his head.  As he turned to leave, he saw Arwen lift her head once more to the stars, her eyes bright and shining under the moon’s silver gleam. 

Faramir entered the King’s House, the ancient home of Gondor's true lords.  He tried to quiet the turmoil of his thoughts, and managed to slow the frantic pace of his heart.  He was, however, unprepared for the sight that met his eyes in Eldarion’s chamber.  It came so close to the scene in his dream.  He fought down an involuntary shudder at the sight of Eldarion's thin, weakened form under a light blanket, and looked instead upon his King.

Aragorn sat beside his son, his face as pale as Eldarion’s.  He barely lifted his head as Faramir entered.

“My King,” Faramir whispered.  “How fares your son?”

Aragorn sighed, a deep heart-wrenching sound that seemed to rise from the bottom of his soul.  “He falters, Faramir,” he said in a dull voice.  “As we all do.  I tried once more to heal him.  And once more, I cannot reach him.  He is nearly spent.”

“My King, I have thought long on Eldarion‘s affliction," Faramir said earnestly.  “I understand your sorrow and your anger.  Were one of my children so endangered, I would be beset with woe.  So I cannot understand why you will not even consider the Blue Wizard’s proposal.”

Aragorn shook his head.  “I will not discuss this now, not here.”

“Then when, my lord?”  Faramir asked gently.  “Your son has little time left, and we will soon be busied in preparations for war.” 

He moved to sit down at the other side of the bed.  “Aragorn,” he tried again, searching for the right words.  “You are the Heir of Elendil and Isildur.  More than that, you have been friend and. . . brother to me since you gave me back my life.  You drove back the darkness and rekindled light for us all.  You are our hope, our King, the living heart of our realm.  I cannot imagine what will happen to Gondor if you continue to ‘falter‘.”  Faramir prayed that Aragorn would understand what he could not say.  He gave the King the fealty of a vassal and Steward.  He also gave Aragorn the devotion he had once given to Boromir and their father.   But he would not speak of foolish, impossible wishes concerning fathers and sons.  Some things were private and would so remain.  Besides, Aragorn was already over-burdened with obligations and sorrows. 

Aragorn stood up.  “Faramir, I cannot risk using that stone, there is too much to lose.”

“There is your son to lose!” Faramir pressed.  “We cannot let him slip away from this entranced sleep to true death.”

“I know that!” Aragorn snapped.

“Today, after Council, I was resolved to ride to Mordor, although it was neither my place nor my battle.  I listened to you not only because you are my King but because I respect your wisdom,” Faramir paused. 

Aragorn shook his head.  “I have always harkened to your words, Faramir, for they are usually well worth heeding.  But on this occasion I will not hazard Eldarion’s life.”

“But in doing nothing you gamble his survival. The lad cannot live much longer in this sorry state. I believe with all my heart that we must try Pallando‘s method, for the sake of both your son and your Kingdom.  I am willing to risk everything, all I am, by bearing the very stone that Saruman used to bend me to his will, for the chance of reviving Eldarion.  What can I do to convince you?” 

“There is nothing you can do,” the King grasped the headboard and shook it, sending a tremor through the bed and the boy who slept upon it.  “I have tried everything I know, what is there left for me now?  How can I come here, see my son lying here so helpless and not be able to aid him.  My healing hands are worthless. If there is hope, I do not see it.”

“I do not believe you, my lord,” Faramir’s voice was intentionally harsh.  He had tried all he could to change Aragorn’s mind, now he knew he had only one path left and he had to use it.  Reason had failed, desperation loomed, an act of faith was all he had left to give. And a challenge.

Aragorn’s head snapped up as he noted the other’s change in tone.  “What do you mean?” he said.

Faramir held his questioning stare.  “I mean that the King that I follow, the man that I respect above all others, will never give up hope.  His very name means hope.”

“That was Estel, a young and sheltered boy.  King Elessar has learned that hope is a fickle acquaintance.”

Faramir rose.  “I will prove that it still remains nigh, my King.  I will confront my fear. You will see that if I can do so, you can face yours and bring back hope to us all.”

“Confront your fear?”  The King’s eyes burned in the lamplight.  “What do you mean, Faramir?”

"You never had a brother close to you in age, my lord."  Faramir said quietly.  "When Boromir and I were children, he took special care of me after our mother perished.  Denethor buried himself in his work and did not have much time for us, but Boromir was always there for me.  He taught me to swim, to ride."  Faramir smiled, remembering those long-gone days before the Shadowdominated their lives.

"I had something of a nervous nature in the year following our mother‘s death," Faramir recalled.  "Boromir devised a game to hearten me, when I feared to get back up on the first horse that threw me, or sleep in my own bed the night after having a bad dream.  He said that reason could not always solve a problem.  And then he would grin and say 'I double-dare you.'  Boromir challenged me; by doing something risky or something he had feared, in return for my promise to get back on the horse.  I remember Boromir deliberately requesting that Father hear him recite his lessons.  And his running past the guards to do a handstand on the King’s throne.  So I remounted the horse. I rode that big, ill-tempered beast and made him mine, and never feared him or any other horse again. I might have done so on my own, but it would have taken many more weeks for me to find the courage, and earned more of our father's scorn."

Faramir gulped.  “A long time ago, just after you made me Steward, you gave me leave to do something I could not bear to do.  I have always refused the chance when you offered it to me over the years.  I refused because I fear this thing more than almost any other task that you could name. The very thought of it freezes the blood in my veins. Indeed I swore to myself that I would never do this thing.”

As he spoke he moved closer to his King until they stood within inches of each other in the middle of the room.  Their eyes locked together. 

“Faramir, you need not,” Aragorn said softly, his eyes sad and knowing.

“But do it I shall, if you promise me, should I succeed and face what I fear and reach beyond it, you will join me in healing Eldarion with the two stones. The stakes are now far higher than a child's fear of a horse; but we are running out of time and more reasoned ways of persuasion.  I believe that Pallando offers the only hope for your son."   Faramir smiled in a reckless way that reminded Aragorn of Boromir, but his Steward's gaze was sombre.  "I double-dare you, my lord."

Aragorn shook his head and made to move away but Faramir’s hand shot out to hold him back.

“Promise me!” he pressed.

“I cannot ask this of you,” Aragorn said.  “It is too much.”

“You do not ask it of me, my King; I offer it willingly.  My word is my bond, as you well know; and I have said I will do whatever it takes.”

Aragorn looked away from his Steward’s uncompromising stare.  He felt suddenly humbled bythe faith he saw inthose blue eyes. 

“Very well,” he said, so quietly that Faramir had to strain to hear the words.  Then the King clutched his Steward to him in a sincere embrace.  “Prove to me there is still hope, Faramir.”

The younger man nodded.  “Take me to it now, my King,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion.

“Now?” the King said incredulously.

Faramir nodded.  “While I yet have the courage.”  He smiled grimly, “I have long dreaded this day and must face the thing now.  Take me to the palantir that drove my father mad!”  

TBC

AUTHORS’ NOTES:  We have used poetic license with the sighting of Eärendil, the Evening and Morning Star of Middle-Earth.  Tolkien based the star on Venus, which disappears a few hours after sunset and rises a certain time before sunrise, subject to the Earth’s rotation and the viewer’s geographic location. 

The notion that Prince Adrahil of Dol Amroth, father of Imrahil and Finduilas and grandfather to Faramir, first taught Faramir the lore of the stars, is not ours - we took it from Altariel’s wonderful story THE EAGLE AND THE SWAN at http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1353023/1/.  Altariel was in turn inspired by Starlight’s tale  EARENDIL at http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1605391/1/, which was, as far as we know, the first to have Adrahil teach his young grandson about the stars.  Neither Altariel or Starlight should be held accountable for our mistakes!

The resemblance of lines in Faramir’s dream sequence to Denethor’s words in RETURN OF THE KING (The Siege of Gondor and The Pyre of Denethor) is entirely non-coincidental.  Aragorn's description of his son - "he is nearly spent" - comes from the same words he said of Faramir in The Houses of Healing, also in RETURN OF THE KING.  It’s a good thing that this story is written for the pleasure of its authors and readers; no one derives any profit from it, and most of the characters belong to the Tolkien Estate.. . honest!

Next Chapter:  Faramir takes on the palantir.  Kids, don't try this at home!  Especially not on a full stomach...