A/N: Happy birthday, Cairistiona! With great thanks to Inzilbeth and Zopyrus for the beta. 

Aragorn put one foot carefully in front of the other, concentrating all of his effort into making sure he stayed moving. His head throbbed dully, and he could feel the infection beginning to set in the wound near his scalp. He had been fighting off nausea and dizziness for the past two days, and his sprained ankle, while not severe, had made for slow going.

He pressed on, as he always did, but did not know how much longer he could keep going without rest. His cousin Nethril’s farm was not far off, and he knew that she and her husband both would be home, busy with the spring planting. If he could force himself to make it just a few leagues more, he might find rest and a hot meal near their fire.

He allowed himself a wan smile. Halbarad would have a thing or two to say when he heard from his sister how their Chieftain had stumbled alone and injured upon her doorstep, but there was nothing to be done about it. It was to have been a routine journey to meet Gandalf near Hollin, but Aragorn had not counted on the pack of Orcs that had stalked him out of the woods and down the Loudwater. He had picked them off one by one as the days had gone by, but underestimated the strength of the final two and received a nasty gash and blow to the head for his troubles. The immediate danger had passed for now, but he remained on his guard for the rest of his journey home, unwilling to rest out of fear for his head wound. 

As he made his way forward, one step at a time, he saw a house in the distance that he did not recognize, and groaned aloud as a knot of anxiety formed in the pit of his stomach. Had he taken a wrong turn, and come across a stranger’s home instead of Nethril’s? He had no way of knowing what sort of family dwelt there, if they were Dúnedain or not, and whether they would take kindly to a bedraggled Ranger trespassing on their lands…

South. He was coming from the south. A bad sign indeed, Strider, if you cannot remember where you are in the world. His mother’s house lay two leagues south of Nethril’s, he remembered belatedly, and that must be the structure that loomed on the horizon now. 

Aragorn frowned, calculating how far out of his way he would need to go to avoid his mother’s house and still reach Nethril’s by the day’s end. He knew Gilraen worried enough about him even when she saw little evidence of the hard life he led, and though he longed to see her, he had little desire to present her with the harsh realities of his travels in the Wild. Better for her peace of mind that she not see him until after he had taken a day of rest with his cousin… 

He stumbled on a rock and suppressed a cry as he fell forward, a fresh jolt of pain shooting through both his head and ankle. He sighed. Loath as he was to approach his mother in such a state, he was no longer certain he could make it to Nethril’s before he simply collapsed from exhaustion. 

As he made his way towards the house, he could make out a lone figure standing at the gate, bow strung in one hand and an arrow held nocked in the other. Her eyes narrowed as he approached, but Aragorn saw the dawning recognition in Gilraen’s eyes.

“I am no vagrant, lady mother,” he rasped in Sindarin, offering her a weak smile. “Only your son, returned to you with far less dignity than should be allowed.” 

“Estel,” Gilraen breathed, and she dropped the bow and ran forward to meet him. She reached out and took his arm, draping it over her shoulders so that he might lean against her. “What sort of trouble have you gotten yourself into now?”

***

Aragorn gave a small shudder as he sat in the chair beside the hearth, the warmth from the fire providing more of a shock to his senses than he would have anticipated. He had had few chances to visit his mother since she had left Rivendell, and the interior of her cottage remained shamefully foreign to him. It was small but snug, with the hearth burning brightly in the center of the room and a chair by the fire. Save for a tapestry he recognized from her room in Imladris that hung over her bed, he saw no traces of her life from his boyhood. Still, there was an odd sense of familiarity that crept up on him as he watched his mother move about the house, her motions brisk as she placed a kettle over the fireplace and brought a small box of herbs out from underneath her bed. He wondered, dimly, if it was an echo of the childhood he barely remembered, those brief years where his mother had cared for him among their own people, rather than in the distant halls of Rivendell. 

Gilraen knelt before her son, and Aragorn winced as she gingerly removed the strip of cloth from his head that he had cut from his cloak to use as a makeshift bandage. The hair near his scalp was matted with blood, and it stuck to the fabric as she pried it free. She brought forth a bowl of warm water and a clean cloth, and her face was drawn with a mother’s concern as she gently cleaned the blood from his face.

“It is not so bad,” he insisted. “A cut is all…rest is all I need, and little more.”  

She gave him a knowing look. “Allow me to be the judge of that. Infection has set in, and your wits have been muddled from the blow. You look as though you could barely tell me your own name.”  

Aragorn smiled.

“Estel,” he whispered. “Aragorn, son of Arathorn, Thorongil, Strider, Longshanks… ‘Stiff-Necked Dúnadan,’ if you were to ask Halbarad. If I tell you all of my names, Mama, will you believe that I am fine?” 

Gilraen chuckled. “I did not know ‘Longshanks’ had been added to the list as well.”

“From my…less flattering acquaintances in the Breelands,” he said. “It seems I do not have my grandfather’s knack for befriending the men of the Prancing Pony.”

He let out an involuntary hiss as the cloth touched the gash itself, and Gilraen took his hand. 

“You can rest soon, my son,” she said as she inspected the wound. “It looks like it does not need stitching. We can be grateful enough for that.”

She took a fresh cloth and cleaned the wound more thoroughly, and Aragorn set his teeth as she applied a salve. 

“I can only hope that your enemies are in worse shape,” she commented, and Aragorn grimaced. 

“They lie dead near the Loudwater,” he said. “They…”

He trailed off. His thoughts were still coming to him in fits and starts, but as he forced his mind to clear, the gravity of his encounter with the orcs set in with increasing dread. 

“They should not be coming in such great numbers through the mountains, so close to our borders,” he said. “Nor should they have found me so soon after my meeting with Gandalf. We must reorganize the patrols, rid the …”

“Shh,” Gilraen gently pushed his hair back from his face as she bandaged his head. “Do not worry about such matters now. You will deal with them when you are well again.” 

“The harder we fight, the more they push back,” he murmured. Such things he would never say to his kinsmen, but here, in the safety of his mother’s home, it seemed he could not stop his doubts from pouring out. 

“I know, Estel,” she looked up at him. “Oh, my darling, I know. But these are not fears to dwell on in times such as these. Turn to them when you have regained your strength, and not before.” 

Aragorn reached out and touched her cheek, more lined and careworn than should have been for a woman of her years. As a child, Gilraen had always seemed ageless to him, as powerful and wise as any of the Elves they had dwelt with. He had missed her comforting presence and gentle guidance in his years as Chieftain, more than he ever dared to admit to anyone. 

“My mother, ever wise,” he said at last. “I have been in great need of such words lately.”   

She smiled. “That is what mothers are for.” She took his arm once more and helped him to his feet. “Come, let us get you to bed and rest.”

“I am sorry I have not come here before,” he muttered dully as he eased himself into the bed. “When I am well. I am sorry you must only see me…”

“Hush,” she interrupted softly. She pulled the blanket over his long form and sat beside him. “I am glad to see you, no matter the circumstances.”  

She ran a hand over his cheek, and Aragorn closed his eyes as he settled in to the rest so long denied to him.

“Sleep, ion-nín,” she whispered. “Set your troubles aside while you can.”