Hours later, when night had fallen and the silvery sheen of moonlight through the shutters was all that illuminated the room, Elrond became aware of grey eyes studying him in darkness.  He smiled, knowing his elven sight allowed him to see his son far better than Aragorn could see him; knowing also that viewed through a ranger’s eyes his outline was signpost enough to read the colour of his mood.

‘Feeling better?’ he asked lightly, making no move to close the space between them since the immediate need was gone. He would wait for an invitation now, his right to assume even physical intimacy long in the past.

Aragorn nodded as he pushed himself up on his elbows, his face schooled to betray no sign of the pain he must be feeling. ‘Don’t tell me I never made it out of here.’

‘Would you have me lie to you, Estel? Your brothers and I found you here some hours since.’

‘Valar, Elladan!’ Aragorn rubbed his hand across his forehead. ‘I suppose they are fit to skin me for this? Elrohir made me promise to come to you.’

Elrond’s lips twitched. ‘Their retribution has been forestalled for the moment though I dare not hope it will be so forever. But tell me my son, why did you refuse their aid? They could have spared you a sore neck at least.’

Aragorn’s face closed in an instant. The easy banter, so reminiscent of years past, vanished as though it has never been and the air seemed to grow cold.  ‘I can care for myself, my lord,’ he replied stiffly. ‘I have done so for a long time now.’

‘But that argument falls rather flat, does it not,’ Elrond commented dryly, ‘when you cannot even make it to your own bed? Ah no,’ he added quickly, seeing the anger rise in his son’s face. ‘I do not mean to imply that you cannot look after yourself, only that you did not. And that is what worries me.’

A flash of irritation showed his barb had hit home. ‘I am recovered now,’ Aragorn assured him in a tight voice. ‘You need worry for me no longer.’

‘Need I not? Who else has more right? Did I not raise you as my own son, are you not married to my daughter?’

At the mention of Arwen Aragorn flinched, jerking his head away. ‘And that is the real issue isn’t it, Estel?’ Elrond pressed. ‘Even now you have her, my daughter still comes between us.’

Aragorn sucked in a hissing breath, his whole frame trembling with the effort not to erupt. ‘What would you have me say to you?’ he demanded in a voice flayed raw by grief. ‘That I am sorry I have taken her from you? That now it is done I realise that what I thought was the greatest gift has become the heaviest of burdens? I love her so much, how could I have done this to her?’

‘Estel. . .’ Elrond stopped, bereft of words, watching as his son curled up on himself, arms wrapping tightly round his knees as though the physical pressure could somehow contain the agony in his heart. A father’s desperate need to soothe his distress prompted him to close the distance between them, even as a healer’s eye winced for the stress being laid on newly healing flesh. With infinite tenderness Elrond lifted Aragorn’s face towards him, brushing away the single tear from his cheek. ‘Your apologies are misplaced, my son. They were never owed to me, much less to Arwen who has married the only man who could make her happy. It has been said to you before, and many times I believe, but never by me and for that I apologise. And understand now that my reluctance to speak was never because of anger at you, but a struggle to understand my own daughter and this simple fact: Arwen made her own choice.’

‘That I know,’ Aragorn ground out, tearing his face from his father’s grasp. ‘That it was her choice I cannot gainsay, but neither can I ignore the fact that she could never have made that choice if I had rejected her.’

Elrond gave a choked laugh, shaking his head. ‘Could you have rejected her, knowing as you did so that you condemned not only her to a life without love, but yourself as well? Knowing what that could mean for her, Elven as she is?’

His son turned back to him then, his mouth forming words that never left his lips.  Challenged so baldly he was caught by surprise for he had never looked past the question to find the answer, choosing instead to wallow in the guilt the posing of it brought. He remembered the instant of despair when the Elf-lord had taken him aside and denied him the comfort of any woman until he had succeeded in his quest, and later, more hurtful still, he recalled his return from Lothlorien, and Arwen. That he was not good enough for Elrond’s daughter had been made plain to him and even after so long the words rang clear in his memory, reshaping his relationship with his foster father from that day forth. And just for a moment, in the recollection of the pain that had accompanied them, a light burst through the clouds of his doubts as he realised that rejecting Arwen was never a choice that had been in his power to make. Then the echo of those words returned and the shadows crowded in.

‘Well? Elrond asked, watching the progression of his thoughts. ‘Have you found your answer?’

‘No, I have not,’ Aragorn flung back, hiding his confusion behind anger at his father.  ‘You sent me out into the world to seek my destiny hoping I would forget your daughter and never realised that I took your words as a promise that one day you would give her to me.  And that promise you could not go back on, not once I had turned my thoughts at last to Gondor as you wished. I did not understand what you truly meant, and if I had given her up then Arwen would never have loved me as she does now. I did have the chance to save her and I didn’t take it, but honour prevents you from ever saying so. Who can say I am not guilty?’

‘I can!’ Roused from his shock by the need to deliver a swift answer or lose his son forever to this warped reasoning, Elrond found that truths he had never uttered to any other tumbled from him now in an outpouring of his own guilt. That such thoughtless words, spoken in the heat of anger, had haunted this man for so long was almost more than he could bear. ‘Your understanding was not flawed. It was a promise. But I said so only to encourage you in your destiny that I feared you were rejecting, never to call into question your worthiness for either prize. You were so young, Estel, and may the Valar forgive me, I used the only leverage I had to force you to face that duty.’ Ah, but he had never pleaded so with anyone before this! ‘Never doubt that I love my daughter with all my heart, nor that our parting will bring me the bitterest pain, but even a father must acknowledge that there are other issues of importance in this world. The elves might be leaving Middle Earth, I might be leaving, but this is my home, the land of my birth. And this land needed you to become the man you are. I could not stand aside and let you refuse to answer that call. If anyone has cause to hate me for what I did, it should not be you but Arwen, whose love I dangled before you as a lure.’

‘Ah, my destiny!’ Aragorn spat scornfully. ‘My duty to my people, to my country, so important to this world! Well Sauron was defeated, but not by my hand. It is the hobbits who have brought this troubled age to an end and yet Gondor looks to me as their hero. If Frodo had not succeeded, what difference would it have made that a king had returned to the White City? None. This is all a lie. How can I be what I am not?’

Elrond’s eyes narrowed, measuring the depth of hurt that caused Aragorn to shy away each time his words came too close; realising just how much of that hurt he himself had inflicted. And in attempting to deflect the conversation to less painful topics his son only exposed himself to more pain. For Elrond understood that though Aragorn’s agonies for Arwen were genuine, they were enmeshed in even deeper fears; that he was not good enough for her or his new kingdom, that he deserved neither and would fail both. Arwen, Gondor, in the end it made no difference. The true problem sat before him now, a smouldering bundle of frayed nerves and tight-strung emotions stressed to breaking point. He had demanded so much of this man, too much, everyone had. It was time to give something back.

‘Had Frodo succeeded while you had fallen, then it would all still have been in vain,’ he replied calmly. ‘Even with the great enemy gone Middle Earth would still have been ravaged. These people need a leader who can unite them, as you will do. With the departure of the elves many things will come undone and new, uncertain times lie ahead. Chaos can destroy just as surely as evil.’

‘You have seen this?’

Elrond laughed. ‘I do not need foresight to understand this simple fact, Estel.  You are needed more badly than you know.’ He paused as he gazed into Aragorn’s haunted eyes, searching for a sign he was getting his message across. ‘Accept your success and take your prize, for you have won a great victory and you will be a great king. Some things are difficult for us to face, but face them we must. Your life has changed, and though there was once a time when you had neither a kingdom nor a wife and were free to do as you wished, that time is now past.’ He took a deep breath, preparing to wound in order to heal. ‘For Arwen’s sake you must let go of this coil of poison, Estel. Separate what you feel for me - the guilt and the anger - from what you feel for my daughter, or your heart will be forever closed to this love you have dreamed of. And believe me, my son, if you continue in this way you will have cause to feel guilty. No man who is unhappy in himself can bring love and happiness to another, and if you cannot bring her happiness Arwen will have given up her immortality for nothing.’

Aragorn flinched, his skin paling even further, but the truth of those final words was not lost on him. What was done could not be undone. The choice had been made. He could turn away from Arwen now because it was easier than facing up to the enormity of her sacrifice, and in doing so reject everything that was precious between them, but that would be a devastating betrayal of all the years she had waited for him. Or he could acknowledge the gift for what it was, embrace her choice and rejoice in it as the ultimate expression of love. Many men had sworn they would die for him, and many he would have given his life for if called, so why could he not accept such a pledge from the woman he loved? For that is what she had done when she’d married him, promised to submit to a mortal life, and death, to remain always at his side. Would he not have done the same had their positions been reversed?

‘I know you would have given up everything for Arwen,’ Elrond continued softly, reading the moment with an understanding that was ages old. ‘It is not your place to demand any less of her than you would of yourself.’

For a long moment there was silence. No dams burst, no storm of hot, salty tears marked the moment of understanding. Aragorn was too old now to throw himself into his father’s arms and seek comfort in the warmth of his embrace. But the desire was there all the same and it was plain on his face. ‘I diminish her gift,’ he whispered at last, ‘by seeing only a sacrifice.’

‘Yes you do,’ Elrond replied with a fond smile. ‘But you always did take greater burdens on yourself than it was your right to assume.’

Aragorn’s breath hitched in his throat. He blinked away tears as he looked up. ‘And you always could lighten them with a word.’

Their eyes met, and something unspoken passed between them in that moment, something that could not quite restore what had been lost but breached the cold distance nonetheless. And Elrond forced himself to hold this steady gaze though he felt as though his heart was breaking. It was the barest of acknowledgements of what had been, but it was enough, and he only just stopped himself from reaching out. He thought for an instant that Aragorn would abandon his reserve and come to him as he once had, as he seemed to want to do, but then the moment fled and he knew that time was truly past. For a father it was both a bitter reminder of the changes time wrought, and also the most poignant of moments. He ached to give in and hug the man as he had hugged the boy but recognised that some boundaries were not meant to crossed, contenting himself with the knowledge that some of the lightness he remembered and cherished had returned to his youngest’s eyes. The small smile that hovered on Aragorn’s lips was enough to warm the lonely place in his heart and allow him to hope that there was time to renew the closeness of years past before his ship sailed for the west.