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Till We Have Faces  by Antane

A/N: When I answered this challenge a year ago, I only meant it to be a one-shot thing. But then Agape4Gondor threw down another challenge and that was to continue it and have Boromir survive. First, I thought, well, you can't come back from death, but then I remembered the words of Miracle Max from The Princess Bride about the difference between mostly dead and all dead. I decided that Boromir was only mostly dead. So at very long last and with great thanks for the Agape's incredible patience, the tale now continues. I hope to be posting fairly regularly (at least once a week). This first post is a set up for the rest. Now only Chapter 1 will be the original challenge. Enjoy! (No slash, of course.)

Aragorn and Frodo walked near the Houses of Healing after the king had looked upon the Ring-bearer’s maimed hand and proclaimed that it was healing well. The one finger would always be missing, of course, but there was no sign of infection that could have meant the loss of the entire hand. The man held his friend’s hand as they walked for he knew how much comfort that gave the both of them. They were silent for a while and Aragorn was content to wait until Frodo was ready to talk. “I was grieved when Faramir told me Boromir had died,” the hobbit said.

If the king was surprised at the opening of this conversation, he did not show it. “He died well, Frodo,” he assured.The Ring-bearer quietly absorbed this and then spoke again. “I’m glad for that at least. Pippin and Merry have told me all he did for them. I wish I could thank him and tell him that I forgive him. I know...” Here Frodo’s throat tightened. “I know what the Ring can do to someone.”

Aragorn ached for all the haunted pain in that dear voice. His hand tightened around his friend’s in compassionate support before he told the hobbit what he had revealed to few others. “Boromir told me what he had done and that he was sorry.”There was a stretch of silence before Frodo spoke once more. “It was horrible. The look in his eyes, the terrible lust... I must have looked the same when the Ring took me. I’m so glad that Sam did not see that.” There was another quiet period before the Bearer spoke again. “I want it still, do you know that? It is all I want. I burn upon the wheel of fire and there is no quenching. At least Boromir is at peace now. I am happy for him.”

Aragorn’s heart broke. He could only imagine the depth of how the Ring had ravaged the gentle soul of his beloved friend. Was there nothing that could be done? What could he say? He felt helpless in the face of such torment. Yet, as chief of the Rangers and now king, he had faced grief many times before in a woman’s eyes after he told her that she was now a widow, had wiped at her tears and hugged her children who were now fatherless. He remembered his own mother’s pain. But what he felt now streaming from Frodo’s torn heart stung worse than anything had since his mother’s passing. He did what he had done before. He knelt and took his friend into his arms and held him as Frodo wept in the public square. Crowds moved in reverent silence around them.That night, Aragorn spoke with Arwen. He had barely spoken when he saw in her eyes that she understood.

“I saw the same torment in my mother’s eyes,” she said. “I fear that he may need the same remedy as well.”Aragorn’s heart was pierced anew, first by anguish, then by hope. He looked wide into his beloved wife’s eyes. “How can it be...?” he breathed.

“As I have chosen to cleave to you, there will be an empty place on the boat. I will petition for the boon that it be given to him.” She put her fingers to his lips and spoke not his name but the meaning behind it. “Estel. I have held it long in my heart for you, my love. Let us now hold it for him.”





        

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