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Just Desserts  by Lindelea

Chapter 28. Resolution

'Steady, lad,' Gwill said. His eyes were sorrowful, filled with worry that he tried to disguise with a smile for Robin's sake, but he laid aside his fork and sighed.

'He's looking better than he was,' Sam put in stoutly, and Merry voiced his agreement.

Privately Hilly thought that Ferdi had hardly looked worse, after his own interrupted hanging. But then, the ruffians occupying the Shire had been on their way to report to their "boss", and hadn't had the leisure to beat their Tookish prisoner, and so the greater part of bruising and swelling had been in the soft tissues of Ferdi's throat and not on his face.

'He does indeed look much better,' Estella said briskly. 'Now, Gwill, you've only another bite or two of these lovely carrots...' and with coaxing, she persuaded the old man to eat a few more bites before he laid down his fork for good, protesting that he could not manage any more.

Diamond began to sing softly, and the other hobbits joined in, a soothing song, a hopeful song, of the sun returning from her winter sojourn to warm the earth once more, the seeds bursting from their sleep to send forth shoots, to bud and bloom. Turambor and Eliniel listened in delight and Seledrith and Robin in wonder, and old Gwill smiled and relaxed against his pillows, losing himself in the music.

A cheerful healer's assistant, Dinithil, crept into the room, then, to shoo away the hobbit visitors, telling them that their own meal was waiting for them. Turambor, Eliniel, and Robin too, were to go with the hobbits and eat, by order of the head healer, and then they might return to watch over the convalescents, at least until it was lamp-lighting time. Dinithil carried a tray for Seledrith, which she deposited on the table beside the bed, within easy reach, and on her way out, following the visitors like an alert sheep-dog, she gathered up the tray from a drowsy Gwill with a pleased exclamation--the old man had managed to eat more than half of the generous portions.

'I'll return for your tray in a little while,' Dinithil said softly to Seledrith, and the latter nodded with a smile of thanks.

'I do not know why I feel so sleepy,' Gwill said with a yawn and apologetic look.

'It might have something to do with the fact that you usually close your eyes for a time after nuncheon,' Seledrith said dryly. It was their pleasant custom to walk arm-in-arm from the kitchen to the small nook at one side of the shop, with its little hearth and comfortable rocking chair and cradle. There she would settle Gwill, tucking him up warmly with lap robe, and in the past week she'd taken to laying baby Robin in the cradle for Gwill to "watch over" while she walked the market. A smile softened her face as she added, 'Dear Father, you do look as if you would like to close your eyes. Don't linger on my account. Sleep, and you'll be all the better for it when Robin returns from his meal.'

Gwill relaxed subtly at this. It was the first time Seledrith had addressed him as "Father" since the arrest. Knowing her opinion of law-breakers, he'd feared... but she smiled at him so sweetly, and began to hum a little tune, and he found he could not keep his eyes open any longer, and soon they closed altogether and his breathing grew quiet and even.

Seledrith took her eyes from Gwill and looked to her husband, and gasped. Gwillam's eyes were open, and he was staring searchingly into her face. 'Gwillam!' she whispered.

His lips formed her name.

'Gwillam!' she said again. 'You... you... Do you know me?' She had overheard the whispers in the corridor, in the wee hours of the night, the concern that Gwillam, too long deprived of sufficient air, might waken witless or not at all.

The ghost of a smile touched his lips, and they moved again, forming her name slowly, though no sound emerged.

'My love...' she whispered with a tender smile, and then sudden anger swept over her, surprising in its intensity. 'Why?' she hissed. 'Why did you never tell me?'

He was grieved, she saw, but courageously he met her furious gaze, and his mouth opened as if he would speak. No words came, and he swallowed, and winced as if it pained him.

'Was it that you never trusted me?' Seledrith continued, leaning forward unconsciously, her grip tightening on the sleeping babe. 'Did you think I'd give up dear Father, and young Robin, that I would send them to their deaths?'

He tried to shake his head, but it pained him, and weakly he lifted his hand from the coverlet, but the effort was too much for him, and it fell back again, powerless.

'You never trusted me...' Seledrith said, lower, her eyes filling with tears, 'or...'

'Afraid...' Gwillam breathed, and this time the word whispered from him, no more than a whisper, and it cost him great effort to force the word past his bruised and swollen throat.

'Afraid!' Seledrith said in a stinging voice, though she kept her voice low so as not to waken either of the sleepers. 'Afraid! Everyone's been telling how courageous you are in the face of danger, how you risked your life with no thought of yourself, to...'

'Afraid...' Gwillam said, his face twisting in frustration, and he rolled half onto his side towards her in his desperation to make himself clear. 'Afraid,' he husked, 'that I would lose...'

'That you would lose your life?' Seledrith said, and sniffed. As if she had not been in terror of that happening, ever since hearing that death was the penalty for what he'd done in his guarded past.

'Lose... you...' Gwillam forced out, and swallowed again with a greater wince than before, as if Orcs, or wolves perhaps, were tearing at his throat. He was breathing hard, rasping breaths, and Seledrith, alarmed, took one hand from the baby to try to ease him back down.

'Gwillam, I...' she began, but he would not be eased.

'Afraid...' he insisted, and forced out the rest of what he needed her to know. '...I'd... lose... you...'

Seledrith was suddenly very still, and Gwillam, looking into her face, stilled as well, though he remained taut as a bent bow, tense, waiting.

'You never told me...' she said, fumbling, thinking over this new thought. She had at first been shocked, then wild with grief, and then angered beyond anything she'd ever known. He'd defrauded her somehow; he'd presented himself as an upright, law-abiding man; he had married her under false pretences.

Seledrith swallowed hard, and tears spilled from her eyes. Yes, when the knowledge that her husband was a law-breaker had suddenly become clear to her, and terribly real, she had closed her heart against him. She had been lost to him, in truth, and what he'd feared had come about.

Slowly she said, '...not because you were afraid I'd betray you to the Kingsmen...'

His eyes pleaded silently, and on impulse she rose from the chair and leaned over him, her lips seeking his, and gently she kissed him, leaning closer until the baby kicked in protest, but Gwillam's arms rose as if they had gained new strength, rose and closed about her, and she turned slightly, that baby Robin might not feel so squeezed, and laid her cheek gently against his bruised one, and whispered, 'You'll never lose me, my love. Never. I shall always love you. Always.'

His arms tightened, and then fell away, and she rose in alarm, but it was only bodily weakness that had taken him, and with time and rest that would be overcome. His eyes were open, drinking her in, and he smiled. Love, his lips formed.

'Love,' she agreed with all her heart, and leaned in for another kiss.





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