ways_infirmary | (no subject)

Ce'Nedra's curled up dozing on her bed. Occasionally she blinks awake and checks on the baby and reaches for Garion.

He takes her hand and entwines their fingers, pulling her a little closer to him on the infirmary bed.

She holds her arms out to him and coughs weakly.

"There's room for you too, dear."

He smiles and nods, accepting her gracious offer with a smile and a kiss to her cheek.

"Of course."

She scoots to make room for him and then giggles when her belly is too round for him to hold her from the front anymore. She turns on her other side and pulls his hand around to feel their son kicking and playing.

And he rubs her belly gently.

"I love you."

It's all he can think to say.

He cheeks turn pink as a grin blossoms on her face.

"Oh, Garion! I love you too. I love you so much!"

She twists back just enough to tug his head down for a sweet kiss.

The baby seems to settle at Garion's touch and Ce'Nedra laces her fingers with his.

He nods into the kiss, but soothes her with one hand, eyes worried.

"Don't strain your lungs, Ce'Nedra. You need to let them get strong again."

A soft hand through her hair.

"I'll love you every single day. You can get excited on the one where you're healed."

She grins again.

"We're just fine, Garion. You got us to a safe place, and are taking good care of us. What could happen?"

But she does snuggle up and settle down.

He gives the softest of chuckles and runs his hands along her side gently.

"So yesterday you were wanting Jason to take your place as mother and today you're just fine, is it?"

She hums with pleasure at the petting and then giggles.

"Well, I thought it over, and Jason's lovely and all, but I look way prettier in the dresses and crown than he would."

He smirks at her.

"Way prettier?"

She'd been spending time with Jason, he can see.

She giggles again and nods.

"Totally."

Just be happy that Jason cleans up his language this much before talking to Ce'Nedra.

In the paraphrased words of several secret diaries...

Garion'd kill him if he tried anything.

As it is, he rolls his eyes and kisses her hair once more, longing for the privacy of their rooms upstairs or in Riva but not trusting either.

She coughs again and curls tighter around her belly.

"....I like it here, Garion."

She doesn't want to go back to Riva.

"Then you'll not be leaving till you're better."

A pause as his hand rubs lightly at her own hands, and the belly beneath.

"I've asked Alanna to look after you while I go back and investigate."

A soothing hand in her hair.

"And...perhaps I can bring you your favorite drawer?"

"I should like to see Alanna again. It's been far too long."

She laughs wryly.

"I've not counted our drawer in weeks. You'd best bring it to me. Heaven knows what shape you've left it in."

"Oh, it's a mess."

And he does it on purpose too. It gives her such delight to count and to care for their little horde of coins. He'd never deny her that.

She gives a little sigh.

"Oh, Garion. I hope you left me some receipts."

And she's very grateful for his indulgence.

"They're scattered all through the drawer."

Treasure hunt.

She gives a mental squeal and clap, but outwardly sighs again.

"At least their in the drawer. It won't be too much trouble, I'm sure."

But she's fighting a grin.

He nods solemnly.

"I should hope not."

...Silk had brought some foreign coins. He awaits with pleasure her rants about their inferiority to Tolnedran coins.

She finally lets herself smile and pulls her husband down for another kiss.

"Oh, Garion, I do love you so!"

And he smiles, warm and happy and just a little smugly before accepting his reward for being something of an attentive husband.

Eowyn lies on her back on a bed in the corner. Her shield-arm is bound in a sling. Her sword-arm is ungarbed, but lies limp.

Her eyes are blank as she stares at the celing. Her lips are parted, but do not move.

She has lain like this for a long time, before she finally asks, "What is this place?"

She knows that she should, perhaps, be more concerned with where she is - but all she can think about is the last thing she saw before she fell.

Theoden. Crushed and dying. And if she is herself dead - as she suspects - then where is he?

"It is a tavern. At the end of the universe. Except it never ends. And I am Faramir, son of Denethor, Steward of Gondor. You ar enot dead, only wounded. You have become parted from your time and world. Fear not, my lady -- you will not be harmed here."

He speaks with soft gentleness, calming. He wants desperately to take her hand, but remembers well it is not his place with her.

Eowyn does not look at Faramir. His name is known to her, though he himself is not.

She should be furious with this man. He has undressed her in a public forum, has taken liberties she would not endure were she in her own court, or even in the court of Gondor.

She cannot summon the energy to care.

"My uncle," she says, urgently. "Is he not here? Is he well?"

....yeah, he wouldn't have done it if he'd thought there was another solution.

"Your uncle is dead, my lady. I am sorry," he says quietly. "Lord Elrond Halfelven of Rivendell has healed your wounds, and taken the darkness from you. You will survive, and you must."

Eowyn blinks, slowly, ponderously, and her breath is deep and heavy, but she does not change her expression, or her voice.

"I fear that must and will are different things, my lord. I am weary past the point of life; a chill is in my limbs."

She pauses a while, and breathes another deep breath

"Meriadoc," she says, with some urgency. "If he lives, he should be made a knight of the Riddermark. He is valiant beyond the legends of his people. I would have my brother know this, if the both of them yet live."

"He will know, Lady. He lives, he is safe, or will be soon, I know that much, His companion Peregrine... has gone out to find him."

That part of the story he was never clear on. He was unconscious at the time, but it had been related to him. He was aware, vaguely, that Pippin had located Merry and brought him to the Houses of Healing.

The conversation distracts her from her pain.

"How is it that you know this?" she asks.

"Would you hear truth," he asks, "or a pretty lie? The truth, I warn, ios beyond the strangeness of our world."

"Spare me no truth," says Eowyn, and some fierceness returns to her voice. "I am not such an invalid that I prefer to hear what is not."

He smiles. Of course she would say that. There is a fondness in his eyes that is difficult to hide.

"Time here is... strange. I arrived in this place a few months ago. In my time in the world, the date was May the Third. A short time after you arrive here. I know nothing that happens... further on, but those months I might tell you, should you wish to hear. For in my time, I knew you."

"In your time, you were fond of me," Eowyn says, audaciously, finally turning to look at Faramir. "I have been looked upon with desire too many years not to see it in another man's face. What lies might I hear that you would have be truths, in your time?"

She is rude, and she knows this. She does not care. She returns her gaze to the ceiling.

"I desire no man's pity, and I will be unswayed by lies. I have heard too many in my court to bear them any longer."

She guesses will. He will neither confirm nor deny that he loved her in his time and loves her now. There is no need to comment on what she knows.

"I would have you hear no lies from my tongue or any other. Then I shall not tell you what is not yet true in your time. At least not now. But please, lady -- trust that I mean you no ill. My time was not far from yours. Barely weeks, though it felt much longer."

"I thank you for it," says Eowyn, and moves her sword-arm so that it drapes across her stomach. "And I ask no word of the future. I do not wish to be bound by fate - whether bound to follow it, or to reject it out of desire not to be fated. If I am destined for anything, I would rather not know.'

He nods.

"You, my lady, have never been, and never will be, bound by anything under any sun. Of that much I am certain."

He smiles at her and rises.

"Do you desire anything? If not, I think perhaps I should leave you to rest."

"I desire nothing." Which is only half a lie. "I am wearied, though. Perhaps to sleep would be best now."

He bows to her.

"Then I shall leave you. Farewell, lady Eowyn."

He turns to the door.

And, curiously, she removes her blank gaze to watch him go.

When he is at the door, she calls to him.

"I - I wish to thank you, my lord. For attending to me thusly."

If her life is saved, it is likely because of his call for help, his assistance, the care she cannot deny, though she does not understand it yet.

"I know my words were hasty in the chosing," she admits, "but doubt not that I am grateful to you."

She is not sure how, but it is true that she is. Even if she does not know to believe him when he says she is living.

Half way through the door, he rests a hand on the wall and turns to her. The smile that lights his face is so vastly different from the way he has smiled until now -- it is genuine, bright in a way his face rarely is. For a moment, it banishes the shadows that are so much a part of him, they are noticable only now by their absense.

He nods to her -- just once, a graceful bow of his head. And then he is gone.

Eowyn settles back, her sword arm still upon her stomach.

It is a while before the tears come. But come they do; and she sleeps as they flow, and her dreams are dark and quiet and endlessly cold.