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Boromir is resurrected quite at random – there is no whisper of magic in the air. An elven boat touches the shore of the Anduin and he wakes up, as if he had simply been asleep. Only when he tries to reach solid ground does he feel the pain of his wounds: grievous and no longer bleeding. He pokes his fingers into the holes of his chest and that is when he realises he was not just asleep but dead. No man could survive such injuries.
But that is not important.
He climbs out onto the bank of the Anduin and makes it to the outskirts of Osgiliath where he meets a group of Rohirrim warriors purely by chance. They are slaying straggling orcs on their road to Minas Tirith and gladly welcome him into their company.
His wounds catch up with him sooner rather than later. By the end of the journey he is sharing the saddle of a valiant veteran whose name he really should remember. They keep saying that Mordor is defeated, that peace is restored to Gondor, but Boromir still has to pinch himself to be sure the blue skies and White Tower are no fever dream. The king has returned, so they say, and Faramir is his Steward. Boromir will not believe it until he has seen his brother.
The small group go to the barracks, then their leader takes him on to the Throne Room where they join the long line of petitioners. Dusk is drawing nigh and they are the last for today, growing shadows drawing everyone into the lantern-lit streets and taverns overflowing with cheer in a way he feels quite apart from. All his life he has fought for his country and his people, now they have achieved peace and he feels a foreigner within it.
By the time they are next to enter, Boromir is swaying on his feet. He does not recognise any of the guards and the worry it causes makes his chest ache in a way that has nought to do with his wounds. He cannot recall their summons, but the other warrior is no longer at his side and has entered the Throne Room. The guards are eyeing him suspiciously, so he follows over the threshold, unsteady.
Every night he has been promised that peace reigns over a land that has never known it in his lifetime. It is harder to walk into the Throne Room than he thought it would be. He sees sunlight glinting on a crown and for a long moment he cannot move.
The spell breaks and he moves forward again, his tread heavy and loud, drawing attention. This is how the son of Gondor returns home. Boromir would laugh at the shock on everyone’s faces but he hasn’t the breath to do so.
Now he can walk he takes a few more steps until he has to stop lest he fall. He stops and looks and is finally, finally able to draw a breath when he lays eyes on his brother. There are some other people in the room as well, but Faramir is the only one who he looks at.
“My lords,” he says. Despite his frailty the rest of the room is as silent as his recent grave and the words ring out high and clear. His voice fails him and he does not try to speak further. There is nothing to say anyway.
Never can he remember this place being so open ; none of the gloom and tension of Denethor’s reign is left in this Fourth Age and the air is fresh with the open windows, the only shadows that remain are in people’s haunted eyes. There is more than one crown in this room and rightfully he ought to kneel, but he doesn’t think he will get back up if he does and if he must bow down to anything it is the grief and pain he can see in his brother. To be able to measure the regard of yourself by how much you have been missed is a humbling thing.
Faramir stands first, moves, though the gap between them is still large. No one else stirs.
“Are you real?” he asks.
Boromir can only shrug. He is not dead, nor is he a ghost, nor is he whole. He is, simply, here.
Another step. Still not close enough. “How are you alive?”
“I know not.” His voice rasps like a sword being unsheathed. “I awakened in a boat.”
Faramir goes white. Before Boromir can move he sprints towards him and collapses in his arms. His breath is hot and his grip tight. “I am here,” he whispers, only for him. “I am here, little brother.” At last he feels something. Relief . He closes his eyes and perhaps sobs. It matters not. He only opens his eyes again when a hand grasps his shoulder.
Faramir pulls away, his head bowed yet he seems already lighter, face less shadowed. He does not move too far, for which Boromir is glad, his legs growing more and more unsteady. Concern is beginning to overshadow joy as everyone also realises this, but he is not going to just suddenly drop dead now that he is home.
“What does it mean, that I was in a boat?” A thousand questions stream through his mind like colourful ribbons. “How did I come to be there? How was I injured?”
They all take a step back. Even Faramir. “You – You remember nothing?”
“The last thing I remember before waking up was Osgiliath.”
“You—” Speaking of this is difficult and painful. Enough so he almost wants to stop him, say he can hear of it all later, from someone else. But he needs to know. A man at least needs to know what killed him. “You travelled to Rivendell. There you joined a company of eight others to undertake a quest.”
“A quest?” Boromir laughs. “Why would I ever do that?” As if he would ever leave Gondor and Faramir to face Mordor alone. Still, it is good that his brother’s sense of humour is not entirely lost.
“To help defeat Mordor.” This time it is the man who speaks, the one who has come close and who Boromir does not recognise. He is of the same tired, hopeful, shadowed look as the rest and the evening sun casts a halo of stars on his dark hair. He wears the crown of Gondor, so Boromir does not laugh at him. “If you say so,” and has to suddenly lean heavier against Faramir as his vision begins to fade.
Muted noises of concern bubble from around the Throne Room. He can scarcely contain his shock when the King touches not just his brow but then the torn fabric of his tunic under his cloak. Faramir’s arm tightens around his waist and he steadies again, breathing shallowly. His vision returns before his hearing; he only realises he lost all his senses when he begins to be able to understand what they are saying.
“…Strength wanes, my king….”
“…Take him to his room, send for me when he is settled and I will tend his wounds.”
Boromir frowns as they hobble over the flagstones and down a hallway he can hardly remember. His head is full of cotton. “Why would the king himself come, instead of a healer? And were those dwarves behind him?”
“No, Hobbits. And the hands of a king are the hands of a healer, or have you forgotten that as well?”
He frowns even deeper. “No, I….” The saying is little more than a nursery rhyme they teach young children, before they are old enough to learn more useful skills like swordplay and riding. Yet the words ring in his head like the tolling of a death bell, over and over. Something is missing – Boromir has been acutely aware of this fact ever since he woke up, but now he feels truly empty. Almost hopeless.
Despair makes his feet heavy and he stumbles. Faramir curses and catches him, steadies him, holding him tighter and urging him on again when he’s recovered, promising he can collapse onto a bed if he can only make it a little further. I am alright he wants to reassure him, except when he tries all that leaves his mouth is high-pitched wheezing.
They stop at a door and Faramir’s grip tightens as he unlocks it. The chink of keys on a metal ring is loud and enough to make the teeth in his aching head rattle. Only when they cross the threshold does he realise “This is my room!”
He smiles wryly, “Would you rather it be mine?” and before Boromir can say anything else is helping him to the bed.
Dust covers much of the furniture, the windows do not let in even a chink of light and a thick blanket of grief lays over their heads and makes it even harder to breath. He takes Faramir’s arm before he can pull away. “Even if I cannot remember it, I know I did not perish just so you could do nought but mourn.”
“How dare you?” Tears drop onto his cheeks. For one moment he fears his brother is a broken man. “You do not know what it was like. To remain fighting all while – I saw you, saw your body in that boat. It was no dream. And when I nearly burnt, I thought I would finally see you again.”
He pulls him as close as his wounds will allow. Their foreheads touch. “I am here now. I’m sorry I left you.”
Faramir turns and whilst he’s pulling back curtains and forcing open windows he dashes his tears away. Boromir sinks to the mattress and nearly groans. His mind cannot recall much, but his body remembers how long it has been since he last slept in a proper bed and he is grateful to meet the soft if musty covers.
Bending down to untie the laces of his boots is not possible. Instead his clumsy fingers start grappling with the cloak, then his tunic. He is even less than useless: his cloak is only just undone in the time before Faramir is back at his side. He cannot stop his own tears when he kneels in front of him and takes off his boots, or when he covers his hands with his own and traces the rips in his clothes.
“I think they must have been arrow wounds,” he offers as he is stripped.
He nods, easing his torn and broken limbs into a fresh night shirt slowly so as to avoid any pain. There is pain all the same. “They were,” he confirms.
He nods in return. Wonders, then, who removed the arrows from his body. How on this apparent quest he earnt the loyalty and companionship of one who clearly cared so deeply. He clenches his hands into fists atop the mattress and strikes his own leg. He does not even notice the pain amidst his other hurts. “I wish I could remember it.”
“We can worry about that later.”
His groan this time is humorous, though his grin must be ghastly. “Must you always be right about everything?”
Laughter. “You have not forgotten that, at least.”
Cool fingers push his hair behind his ears and feel for fever. Before, if he had done that, Boromir would more than likely have tried to pull away and now he lets him do as he pleases, for as long as he pleases. He is tired. He thinks it is the least he can do, after everything. He is tired. “Do I look as bad as I feel?”
“I don’t know.” The levity is forced. “How bad do you feel?”
He tries to laugh. Cannot. Lets himself be moved and prodded and divested of the rest of his travel-worn clothes. A hundred questions clamour in his mind. He squints and considers in the purpling light. He will ask about Father and the War later. Will ask someone else.
“Those halflings I saw, you called them Hobbits?”
Emotions flicker over Faramir’s face one by one and immediately he knows he has made a mistake he cannot understand.
Still, he replies: “Yes. They and two of their kin were also on your quest. They remember you quite fondly.”
He feels as if he has become two people or two halves and he, the lesser part. Still, he smiles. “Of course they would – there is no one I cannot charm.” He winks. He has not glimpsed his reflection since he woke and he must look wretched, but Faramir laughs anyway, poking him with the comb before he places it back down on a nearby table next to the horn of Gondor.
Boromir’s gasp draws his gaze to the two cloven pieces. “The horn was all that we had left of you.” He touches his shoulder but he is far away. “It was broken when you fell.”
A sword burning white hot strikes Boromir between the eyes, then across the back of his skull where the pain begins to bloom like a flower. He gasps and buries his head in his hands but he cannot escape the light. His brother calls his name, alarmed, and the pain makes him nearly retch.
Only when Faramir is half hysterical with terror does it finally die down enough he can look up again, acutely aware of every arrow blow and bruise. Leaning forward such halves the breath in his lungs but the words he needs are few. “I remember,” he pants. “The little ones.”
The fear mixes with relief. A queer expression. Faramir almost sinks to the flagstones. “Lie back and rest and I will fetch them.”
Trying to move proves the limits of his strength. He needs help even settling against the pillows, cannot even draw up the covers on his own. Faramir helps even with this and before he leaves kisses his brow tenderly.
***
The room darkens and the moon rises between one blink and the next. He creaks awake to a shadow lighting the candles and as the maid creeps out of the door he hears footsteps approaching, the patter of bare feet and heavy leather boots. He sits up as best he can.
With a cry of delight to see him awake, Merry and Pippin leap to his side and embrace him tightly. Their touch alights his wounds to a forest fire but he laughs all the same and returns the hug, one arm for each Hobbit, glad that they are alive. However….
“Did you get taller?” Although of course that cannot be possible – fever tricks, the dimness of the room, exhaustion.
Pippin grins, almost preening. “I am taller than both Sam and Merry now.”
After all that has occurred, why can a Hobbit not grow taller?
He laughs some more, and listens to their accounts of all that has happened. A great deal. Much of it perilous. “It grieves me I could not be there to protect you.”
Both just stare at him, astonished. Merry recovers first – with that stubborn and belligerent tenacity he has always had. “Well that is just a ridiculous way to think.”
On his other side, Pipin nods. He cannot see Faramir seated nearby but he knows his brother well enough to know he will be too.
“But—”
“You did protect us,” insists Pippin, putting a hand on his cheek. “Not just from the Orcs – the whole journey. Even if the Uruks did take us in the end, if you hadn’t been there they would have just taken off with us and the others would never have known where we went.”
“The others?” Half of his thoughts are foggy, hidden even from himself, deep in mist.
“Aragorn and Legolas and Gimli.”
“Legolas and Gimli!” He starts, the movement causing agony to sear his torso. “I remember them now. They were – and Gandalf.” He wishes he did not remember.
The tufts of Merry’s hair tickle as he rests his head on his shoulder. “He is alive.”
“How?”
“How are you?”
Pippin hastens to add: “He’s being all mysterious and won't ever give us a straight answer!”
He laughs until the pain stops him. Faramir’s shadow falls over the bedclothes as he stands. “Wait,” Boromir asks him. He does, though rather than sitting back down he leans at the foot of the bed, joy and concern warring on his face. “I remember – I remember near all of it – I have to tell you – you need to know, you must…”
One of them hushes him softly. “I’m sure it can wait.”
“I tried to take the Ring from Frodo.”
It is the worst of his wounds, that he tried to harm another, that he failed, that he betrayed them, that everything near failed because of him.
Pippin does not quite smile. Merry just looks at him. “We know.”
“But – But–”
The little ones pull away. He closes his eyes, unwilling to see the delight gone from their faces now he has spoken his shame aloud – and what of Faramir’s thoughts of all this, how is he going to – except they do not go out of reach, stay grasping hold of his hands, fussing and voicing concerns about how pale he has gone, how laboured his breath even without their weight crushing him. I am fine he cannot convince them. The edges of the room are out of his sight in a way that has nought to do with the late hour. The flames of the candles swim drunkenly, in and out of focus, small as firebugs then threatening to devour the whole wall.
Boromir feels the dip of the mattress as one of them jumps down and the other pulls the sheets back up to his chin, as if he were once more a boy of five again. Faramir has moved closer, one hand gripping Merry’s shoulder. “The king will be here soon,” he says.
Boromir cannot follow the conversation after that. He doesn't think he sleeps, but once more he closes his eyes and too much time passes. It is like dying all over again – no sooner has he thought it do the little ones freeze, though he could have sworn he did not voice the words aloud.
When there comes a knock at the door it is Pippin who runs to open it. The king is there – it takes Boromir a moment to recognise him without his crown, but it is indeed the king of Gondor: a man slightly taller than he, with long dark hair and in a pale stern face a pair of keen and kind eyes.
The others all bow their heads in respectful greeting. When Boromir tries to move, Pippin scolds him.
“I would bow to the king,” he argues. His healing is apparently in this man’s hands, he would do well to show him some respect.
The king smiles and steps to the free side of the bed, laying a pack of rolled leather atop the table next to the comb and the cloven horn. Even when he smiles there is some weight about him, as if he is constantly wearing the crown. “Given the circumstances I shall excuse you from propriety. Just this once, mind.”
He wants to show his gratitude, but from Faramir’s face he thinks the man is actually telling a joke and he cannot puzzle out what sort of response he wants . Why should the king of Gondor jest with an undead Steward’s son?
His lack of answer becomes his answer. It’s the wrong answer. The king’s face falls, briefly, before he catches himself. Boromir wonders if any of the others have noticed or just him by way of being so near.
Even the merest brush of fabric as he loosens the ties of his nightshirt leaves him gasping in agony. He tries to hide it, though the king’s blue eyes darken from summer sky to storm and he knows he has not managed it. Wordlessly the king catches Faramir’s eye and his brother nods and hurries the little ones from the room despite their protests. No sooner has the door closed behind them is Boromir’s strength finally spent. He falls back against the pillows and shakes, unable to draw a full breath and each hard-won wheeze scorching his throat.
The king is kind and allows him his pain. He is generous: pushing onwards with the undressing and the prodding and the examining and gets it over with as quickly as possible, not stopping at every wince or telling him it will soon be over.
It is an eternity before it is over. Even when he turns away to the table it does not stop , each movement and breath making him want to whimper. He closes his eyes and forces himself to regain his control, the way he learnt on the journey here; breathe through the pain, shallow, careful, until long after you are tired.
When he opens his eyes the king is waiting at his side, watching. A small razor-edged knife is in his hands, its glint matching the one in his eyes.
“There are still arrow shards in the wounds.” His tone is apologetic, but steely. “Small wonder they are festering.”
He cannot feel it beneath the way his bones grate together. He sets his jaw against the shivering. “Do what you must.”
A cup is proffered to his lips, the scent fresh and invigorating. Athelas he recognises, another bright white light lancing through his eyes. He drinks. The king holds the cup for him, pulling it away when it is empty. The shivering has eased slightly.
“It will dull the pain, but not completely.” When Boromir doesn't cotton on, he adds, “I can fetch your brother, to keep you still?”
He shakes his head. “It is my shame. I will bear it alone.” At once he knows he has misspoken again, cursing his weak body that he cannot go to his knees and apologise.
“You have nought to feel shameful about,” the king begins, then stops himself saying any more, as if startled by the force of his words.
Boromir shrugs with his uninjured shoulder. Even that hurts. “I doubt Faramir will be asleep, but all the same I would ask you leave him to rest.”
“Someone else, then,” he persists.
“No.” Denethor sustained an arrow wound once. Before Faramir was born. The healers cut it out with great efficiency and skill and forgot about the four year old boy watching in the corner. There is no one Boromir would willingly wish to see such a thing. And not to his body, broken as it is.
“Very well.”
With smooth and steady movements he puts the blade to his flesh and begins to cut. Boromir lets out a long exhale, expectant, then grateful to find the athelas has numbed the worst of it. He swears, once, upon which the king stops, until he swears again and begs him to either get on with it or knock him unconscious.
Cuts and bruises litter his body. Minor wounds, some already healed over into twisted scars. There are three arrow wounds left. The one over his heart and the one near his hip are easy, bleeding freely all over the cloth the king balls tightly against the torn edges as he coats them with yet more athelas, chewed into a paste. It is when he moves to the wound at his shoulder that Boromir finally loses all control and sobs, once. The king does not stop this time – perhaps because the candles are sinking lower and he is a long way from finishing. Boromir bites his lip and it splits like ripe fruit, blood in his mouth.
The king stops of his own accord and leans above him and tenderly cleans his mouth with the corner of a clean cloth. That more than perhaps anything else thus far brings him nearly to tears. Only by some gift of the Valar is he able to stop himself, the breathy swallows of air hitting the walls of the room like a dying fish.
“It is almost over,” he promises. Roses of blood are blooming everywhere, even on his royal clothes and finery.
Delirious, Boromir chokes out an apology. More blood trickles down his chin and the king wipes away that too.
“It is I who must apologise.” His face is shadowed yet his eyes are clear. “Both because I dare not render you unconscious, and for not being more diligent in extracting the arrows from your wounds the first time.”
He moves to retrieve a fresh cloth and this allows him chance to think , growing more and more confused as he does so. “You were there when we fought the Uruks?”
“I was with you when you died,” the king replies. This time he sits at his bedside. Straight backed and regal. Waiting.
He frowns ever deeper. “Forgive my ignorance. My memories are still incomplete. Merry and Pippin did not speak of you.”
“You have no need to apologise, but tell me – what is the last thing you do remember?”
He does not need to think long or hard. His mind has become the many flashing faces of a jewel, holding each thought up to the light. “I had attacked Frodo.” (Here he glances across and receives nought except a nod to please continue.) “The orcs had found the little ones. Then the Uruks. For all I tried to keep fighting there were too many and – and I failed. I fell and watched the Uruks take them.”
Buzzing fills the air and there is a foul taste in his mouth. It is the taste of failure. He has come to know it well.
He forces himself past self-pity and despair and looks at the king, whose expression is unchanged. “The little ones told me much – some of which I remember. I know we were on a quest, I can remember them, Frodo and Sam, Gandalf – or whatever name he is using now. I can remember Legolas and Gimli. But they told me there was another one with us, called Aragorn.”
The king smiles. “I am Aragorn.”
Deference to his tender and open wounds keeps him still but his jaw drops unimpeded. “You…” He fights to make sense of it all; everything that he has learnt since waking up in the boat blurs together in his mind’s eye. “The Rohirrim called the king of Gondor Estel .” An elvish name and yet this man is not – if he is anything, he reminds Boromir most of his brother’s Rangers, even clad in rich clothes and hands bloody as if he’s been skinning rabbits.
“I am older than I look. I have had many names. Aragorn, Estel, Elessar, Strider, the Dúnedain, Thorongil.”
“Most make do with just one,” Boromir says weakly.
The king Aragorn actually laughs – properly, as if he is not a king at all.
“For all that you cannot remember, I am pleased to see you are much the same. Now,” he turns serious. “Are you ready to continue?”
“Not ‘ready’, but I’d have you get on with it,” he tenses as the small knife once more flashes into view.
Aragorn puts a hand on his shoulder in comfort. “Almost done.” His voice is low and barely audible above the cracking of the fire. Boromir winces and nods and he resumes, the blade hot like molten silver.
By the time it is over there are no clean cloths left. Boromir is limp atop the mattress, covered in sweat and with only the strength left to pant. By miracle or misfortune he is still awake, watching with dull eyes as Aragorn rips his own cloak for fabric to dip in water and lay over his forehead.
“The fever should not have come on this quickly,” he frets – Boromir thinks he has half forgotten he can hear him. Then his knuckle touches his cheek. “But it is over. We need only bandage the wounds now.”
“I cannot sit up,” he admits.
“I shall help you. Give me but a moment.”
He wanted to seek out Frodo afterwards, to beg forgiveness or mercy or anger or anything else he has to give. “Do you think it can wait until tomorrow?” he asks anxiously as he swaths his torso in crisp bandages. “After all it is nearly morning.”
“I am sure he and Sam will appreciate it more than being awoken in the dead of night.” His tone is sarcastic, almost clipped as his arms circle Boromir’s waist.
“Do not jest,” he gasps. “I’ve much to atone for.”
Aragorn pauses in tying a knot and looks him dead in the eye. “Heed me, Boromir. If I learn tomorrow you have somehow found the strength to leave this bed, I shall order your swift return to it, and tie you down myself if I have to.”
When he laughs it turns into a fit of coughing that scares him. It seems to scare the king, too, for he helps him lie propped up and grips him tightly, trying to hold him still so the coughing does not move all his carefully-wrapped dressings. He does not let go until his breathing has returned to its normal wheeze again, even and shallow breaths he counts in time with the pulse in his throat and then his wrist, blood under his nails and his skin cool against his.
“Rest now.”
And Boromir obeys the king’s order.
***
When he wakes next it has been almost a full day. Or so Faramir tells him. He feels as if he has hardly slept at all and recognizes the heavy weight of fever upon him. His voice is hoarse and he cannot speak too much without coughing. He does not ask what he shouted whilst asleep. The room is bright with the afternoon sun and his vision is much improved.
“You look like shit,” he tells Faramir and Aragorn as they finish checking his wounds.
The two of them laugh together, perhaps at a joke he is not privy to. Boromir smiles and does not grumble at being plied with tea again. Their mirth is healing enough.
“Do you remember anything more?”
He twitches the bedclothes an inch lower. “I remember I must see Frodo.” Which means I still do not remember you and he regrets the disappointment his words cause.
“You are not well enough to stand,” warns the king.
His brother, just folds his arms and scoffs. “Try and get out of bed.”
Boromir tries. Tries with all his might yet his legs will not move. He slumps back against the mattress, twisted, the last drops of tea seeping into the sheets. Faramir takes the cup from him and while he is easing him to a lying position and untangling the covers Aragorn stands behind him, watching, with an unreadable expression on his face.
Boromir acquiesces to his own weakness and does not try again. He feels like the target of a strategic battle plan: first Faramir and Aragorn, then Pippin in his guardsman regalia before he is due a turn in the Throne Room, then the combined company of Merry, Legolas and Gimli. He is pleased to see all of them and inwardly chafes at the idea he is not trusted to survive on his own for even a mere hour.
Their presence helps, somewhat – he remembers more and more and it exhausts him. He is sure at least one of them remains even when he falls asleep but when he wakes up it is only Gandalf there, looking not at him but perched by the window with his pipe.
“Does the king recognise the medicinal properties of smoking in a sickroom?” he teases.
The old wizard laughs and extinguishes it and comes and sits nearby. He seems prepared for Boromir’s many, many questions, and even better is prepared to give answers: how he still lives, how Denethor met his end, how Gondor fares, how deeply grieved and injured his brother was by all that transpired, swears the Ring and all its evil is gone and cannot come back.
“Why did I not die, do you think?”
Gandalf shakes his head. “I know not. Nor should you try to understand why you have returned and others you also deem worthy have not. The world is not supposed to work that way.”
“If I can be reborn, could Sauron?”
Warm, gnarled fingers touch his face. “There is nothing evil in you, Boromir. The Ring has gone.”
“Each choice was my own,” he speaks the truth aloud at long last. It quivers between them. Such a small thing.
“Tell me, why did you make those choices?”
He does not understand. Gandalf surely knows why .
“For glory? Or for love?”
“I wanted to save Gondor,” he whispers. “Every night I’d wonder if Faramir had been killed fighting.” It cannot be love behind why he did it. A thing so pure as love could not be corrupted by Sauron’s evil.
“The Ring targeted you first because your desperation was easiest to understand.” He forces him to meet his eyes. “You fell to the Ring because of love. You overcame the Ring because of love. And you have arrived here and been greeted by nothing but love, even when your family knows of your failure.” Gandalf’s face softens. “You are very loved, Boromir of Gondor.”
“I know.”
The world seems easier, his mind lighter than it has been since he remembered the forests of Amon Hen and Frodo’s face. He sleeps again, probably due to Gandalf’s interfering magic, and when he wakes up the next day Aragorn is overjoyed to find the fever less.
Boromir insists he is well enough to discuss matters of state so as he sips at weak broth for breakfast the king asks him bluntly: ”Do you wish to become Steward?”
“No.”
His raised eyebrows are a question that he cannot pretend to miss. “I died – by rights it is Faramir’s. I forfeit it, anyway. He is the best Steward you could have and if you do not realise that you are not a good king.”
Aragorn laughs. It pleases him when he is able to do that. It confuses him that he is able to make a king laugh so often.
“I could make a new position for you.”
He shakes his head and pushes the mostly untouched broth away. “Never did I imagine myself as anything except a soldier.”
“All the more reason to do so.”
Again he declines. “I do not think I am built for peace. I ask only your permission to remain in the city. I could not be parted from my brother again.”
“Your brother has already pointed out several times and loudly that this castle has more than enough space to accommodate an extra inhabitant and that we had not repurposed your rooms anyway.”
He likes this king. Likes his good humour, and the boldness he can bring out in his brother. “Then I ask your permission to remain here, and swear when I am recovered to find myself some occupation.” When he was a boy he had often begged and been allowed to help in the kitchens and the stables. Even with one useless arm he could still be a scribe, or perhaps groom horses. Endless possibilities are spread out before him; a bright blue drop of ink on the clean page of the Fourth Age.
The king shifts from one foot to the other. “I would have you on my council, if you were willing. You could teach the young soldiers a thing or two, when you are well.”
He is still too weak to get up and kneel, so he bows his head. “You are kind and generous. I would be happy to serve you.”
A fire alights in Aragorn’s blue eyes, one of shadows and memories and bright things. He claps a hand on his arm and helps him lie back and does not try to force him to drink any more of the broth. He fusses a little more – checks his wounds, his temperature, other necessities of a sick man – Boromir is dizzy, which happens more than he likes, blinks at him as he does whatever he pleases, mind bleary and appetite satisfied. He feels almost at peace. And that is when he sees the bracers.
Aragorn freezes when he touches him, almost in comical fashion – for all his healing, it has never been Boromir who reached out. He is stock still as Boromir twists his arm and studies the sacred White Tree picked out in the leather armour. He scarcely even breathes. Boromir looks up at him but does not let him go.
“Now that you live again, I suppose they make me a thief,” he muses. There is once more that unreadable shadow in his eyes. “After your death I took them. As a reminder. Or as penance, I'm still not quite certain. Know this, however–” Their eyes meet. “Were it not for you, I would not be king.”
He swallows. “What could you possibly need to pay penance for?” Aragorn is not a weak, fallible man like he is. He could never have –
“I failed, “ he says quietly. “Let us leave it at that.” He pats his hand and Boromir releases him. He does not seem wrathful at the memories. He leans down and kisses Boromir on the forehead. He leaves.
***
Lady Éowyn is wonderful . He does not even chafe that everyone seems to believe he will find inventive ways to drown himself in his broth when it is her turn to sit with him.
“My brother is to be wed ?” This time, it is pure astonishment that steals his breath.
“Oh for Eru’s sake,” mutters Faramir when he arrives shortly before supper and sees the two of them conniving and conspiring, greeting him with twin smiles. “What horror stories has he told you?”
“The ones I cannot tell at a wedding.” Boromir winks at Éowyn and she dissolves into helpless giggles. “But fear not, brother – I've saved plenty for my speech! And to entertain us this evening!”
Faramir groans and interrupts all the best bits to insist that’s not what happened! and no, she does not need to hear that part! By the end of the evening all of them ache with laughter, Boromir has almost reopened his wounds with laughing and eats his first full meal since reawakening and Faramir swears he will convince the king to pass a royal decree banning best man speeches.
***
Time is no longer measured in days. He wakes – sometimes multiple times a day, other times not once, and he is never alone. He asks how long and they tell him either how long since he arrived in Minas Tirith or how long since he woke last. For all that time has definitely passed he is still terribly, terribly weak. He begins to remember things which are not real and he has not the energy to snap at people when he is bored, even though both his mind and body are chafing at all the inactivity. He fears being weak too long, fears sleeping too long, in case the world has moved too far ahead whilst he is unconscious and he will be torn in two again. Try as he might, he cannot recall his death. Or Aragorn.
“What is the meaning of it all?” he asks Gandalf. Today is a good day – he has awoken multiple times, can remember all of them. He could eat even though he is not hungry. If he stays still enough, the athelas almost stops his wounds from hurting.
“Such a traumatic experience…. It would be logical that your mind has erased all recollection of it.”
“And the king?”
“Being at your side as he was when you perished, your mind may have had to erase him too. But this is all speculation; even wizards do not understand how the mind works.”
“So you are making it up.”
***
When it is Faramir’s turn, he scolds him for not eating enough and then asks if he would like to try moving out of the bed to the chair by the window. Boromir raises an eyebrow at him suspiciously. “I stink, don’t I?”
He cannot hide a smile. “That, yes, but I also hope the experience might put you in a better mood.”
He begins pushing the bedclothes away. “The king said I should not move.”
“It has been a week, besides the king is not here. Nor has he ever been on the receiving end of your bad temper.” He helps him swing his legs over the side, then pulls him to his feet with brisk efficiency. “Easy,” he murmurs, soft, soothing, as the blood rushes to his head and breathing becomes suddenly harder.
Boromir does not try to move, just stands still, assessing the old hurts and the new. He takes a step, safe within the circle of Faramir’s arms. “Let’s go.”
He takes a rest at the foot of the bed, gasping wildly. Not even seven paces separates the bed from the chair and by the end he is near collapse.
“Easy,” says Faramir again, easing him into the chair and then kneeling in front of him with wide eyes. One hand clutches his left one tightly until the knuckles go white. He has had that same expression when worried since he was five years old and Boromir reaches out and tussles his hair with his free hand.
“See if Lady Éowyn likes you all bedraggled,” he teases and before he can retaliate there is a knock on the door.
He senses who it is before Faramir answers it. The look his brother shoots him is confirmation of – fear? Anticipation? Worry?
Boromir has felt this way before and it is pure, blind terror.
Still, he nods in answer to the unspoken question. As if there is anything else he can possibly do.
His brother leaves. Frodo enters. He shuts the door behind him. Boromir tries not to stare. If this is how Denethor felt gazing into the Palantir, he can understand everything. Each second becomes an eternity, an eternity after eternity of despair.
Frodo makes a face that on another man could be a smile and stops just out of reach. Boromir wants to speak, but there is nothing to say – it was bad enough when Sam first visited. Now it is agony of a kind that might break him.
“I’m glad you are back with us.” Frodo begins first. “Though they tell me you lost your memory.”
“Some.” His voice cracks like an old ship about to break apart in the water. “But I remember plenty enough I wish I could forget.”
He nods. At some point, he has moved closer. “There is much from before the quest I cannot recall at all,” he offers quietly. “Though I try not to let on to Sam or the others. It…” he frowns. “It doesn't seem right to let them know I do not share their joy.”
Boromir nods. “I understand that feeling at least.”
Frodo also nods. Still closer – he marvels at this little Hobbit’s bravery . “I need to ask you something.”
“Anything.” And he means it. Penance is an unlimited payment.
“The Ring… did you forget that?”
“No.”
“When it tempted you, did – did you hear it?”
“ Yes –” He is no longer in the chair, he is on his knees, Frodo is not Frodo, this is Parth Galen and he is despairing on the forest floor with leaves in his hair. “It…” He tries to pull himself together. He has probably already terrified Frodo again. “Could you hear it – did it speak – speak to you in words?”
Another nod. Now his eyes are kind. Boromir’s next breath turns into a sob and he covers his mouth. “I thought it had turned me mad,” he is whispering now, just as he did then, yet this time they are not beyond all hope. “I would hear it speak things in my mind no one else could hear, just like at Lothlorien.”
“Yes. Did–”
He almost reaches forward. Manages to control himself “I meant anything.” He wants to sound reassuring and can hear only weakness.
“Do you remember wanting the Ring?”
“Yes.” He does not allow himself to look away. If Frodo wants shame he has plenty. He does not have enough.
“It is destroyed now.” He swallows. It clicks loudly in the quiet room. Even the noise of the city through the open windows has ceased.
“The others told me that tale.”
Slowly, he shakes his head. He is far away now even though he has not moved an inch. “I lied to them.”
Boromir freezes. “It is not destroyed?” Gandalf had promised – Gandalf had promised – he needs to leave, before it can take hold of him again, before he hurts anyone again.
“It is destroyed,” he says hurriedly. “Only I did not – I could not–” Now it is his turn to cover his face. He does not meet his eyes when he tells him: “I did not cast the Ring away. Gollum had to win it by biting off my finger. I did not want to destroy it.”
Only now does Boromir see his hand is bandaged. He recognises the neat, clean lines of Aragorn’s work. He realises what Frodo has just told him. The enormity of it. The truth of it.
Trying to speak takes more than one attempt. “Frodo.”
He finally looks at him and sees Boromir’s good arm outstretched. His next breath is forced out of him by Frodo colliding into him. He tries to breathe and Frodo begins to sob, tears coating his neck. “Hush little one.” He rests his chin atop his curly hair and feels tears on his own face. They remain there holding on to one another for a long time.
After it is over, Frodo has to help him back into the chair, face stained with salt. Boromir pours them both a large goblet of wine from a bottle leftover from before he left for Rivendell, though neither of them make any move to drink.
Frodo gazes out of the window and eventually sits across from him, unable to quite meet his gaze. “Thank you,” he murmurs when the first streaks of pink begin to appear in the sky.
“I should be thanking you.”
He shakes his head, half fondly, wiping his eyes before reaching for his goblet, only to still not sip it. “I mean it. All everyone else has told me is that everything will be alright.” He finally drinks. “I think I have come to loathe those words. I have never felt less that all is well in the world.”
Boromir puts his hand on top of his. I understand .
It is dark when Sam comes looking for them. Neither of them have any desire for food and have neglected to light the candles - both which facts that Sam fusses over sternly. Yet the air has grown lighter, a tension and weight lifted and the salt completely dried off their cheeks as the night grows long. Merry and Pippin catch up with Sam and cheerfully take care of the remainder of the wine, helped by Legolas who pretends to sneer at Gimli’s ale in order to provide the evening’s entertainment. Soon the entire Fellowship as well as Faramir and Éowyn and Lady Arwen have converged upon Boromir’s room. Their merriment is infectious, spills over to hold everyone in its warm yellow embrace. At one point Frodo laughs and Sam looks at his friend like he has hung the moon. Boromir smiles easily and often. This is almost peace.
***
“You are healing well.” Aragorn is pleased when he changes his dressings the next morning. To compare him to last night is a curious study of dichotomy - here he is brisk, pleasant and cool, there is care there, yet at a distance. The way one views the sea from a high window. Last night he was joyous, on par with Legolas or Faramir, joined by his wife Arwen who is the best queen Gondor could ask for and who Boromir has grown to like a great deal.
“I have had an accomplished healer,” he says, because he knows it will bring a smile to his face. “How long before you allow me to stand on my own two feet again?”
He sighs. A threadbare sound for a familiar argument. “Most likely the same day I feel comfortable letting you out of my sight again.”
His candour is… unexpected. It is important that Boromir repays it with equal honesty. “I loathe to be stuck in bed, useless.” For all his flaws, Denethor had never made him atrophy into an invalid, just as keen to place his sword back in his hand as he was to wield it.
Aragorn turns and pins him to the bed with a steely stare. “Were it Faramir in your state, what would you have him do?”
“That is different.”
“How so?”
Eventually he simply shakes his head. “I am not good with words. “
He turns away, back to his healer’s pack of instruments on the table, though it is not a victory – not for either of them. “Besides you are hardly useless. Or do you consider the joy you have brought this castle worth so little?”
“I do not,” he assures him, thinking of last night, and many other moments before. “Although should you attempt to stop me going to the wedding, I will not be so conciliatory.”
The king’s laughter echoes all the way to the ceiling. “Fear not. I would invoke the wrath of both Lady Éowyn and Lady Arwen. They are most excited to hear your speech.”
Boromir grins. “I have promised them several boyhood tales.”
More laughter. “I have no siblings. Tell me, are all older brothers like this?”
“I wish it was so.” He is only half-joking. “For all he may grumble, I believe Faramir would wish it as well. A little brother may live to be a hundred, but he will always be a little brother.”
With a wry smile Aragorn accepts this wisdom, his head tilting to the side as he ponders whilst tidying away the last of his healer’s pack.
Boromir watches the strong line of his shoulders and feels his mood turn morose. “I wish I could remember you.” His voice is quiet. Half of him hopes that Aragorn does not hear.
He hears. Does not turn around. Says, “Might it be for the best – you could have rivalled Gimli and Pippin for a speech at my wedding.”
“I am sorry I have not regained any other memories yet – I swear that I try, even if it is an intangible task, I swear I try.”
As he speaks he finds his hand unconsciously moving to rest upon the broken horn of Gondor, which is kept now on the small bedside table, his fingertips stroking over the string tying the two pieces together like a common parcel. He did not have the strength to carry his shield with him from the boat when he woke. Faramir had a dream that the boat has now sailed down the Anduin out to sea and drifts beneath the light of a million stars. All the garments he had been wearing between Osgiliath and his arrival home have disappeared, replaced by clothes old and new, none of which fit quite right. All he has left of himself are the bracers the king of Gondor wears on his arms.
“You might never remember.” Is it his imagination or is the king’s voice almost regretful?
“Then you will need to get used to my apologies. It feels an ingratitude, after all you have done for me, not to remember you.”
“There are times–” He sighs. “In some moments, I am glad you cannot remember.”
“But I see how disheartened it makes you.”
“All the same, I am glad. Do you remember – the other day we spoke penance?” He does not even look his way to see if he nods or shakes his head. “I failed you.”
“But… how?” None of the Fellowship have ever spoken of this.
Aragorn runs a finger over the tree etched into the bracers, touching each of the seven stars. “I failed you, after Lothlorien. Had I shown you compassion, or even just listened and took the time to understand you properly, the Fellowship would never have broken. Your death–” his voice wavers. He chokes, a little. “All could have been avoided, had I only offered you a hand in friendship rather than shying away in fear of my own weakness.”
Boromir opens his mouth – stops, unsure what to say. Every fibre of his being wants to whole-heartedly refute his words, to try and heal this wound of the heart with his soldier's hands. Yet his body can also sense the truth of it, remembering what his mind cannot.
“I am sorry.” At last he looks at him, averting his eyes again just as quickly. “I shall leave you to rest.”
“Don’t you dare!” His words are as much a surprise to him as they are Aragorn. Still, he rarely thinks before speaking and he shan’t begin now. “If you leave this room now I shall chase after you – I'll not allow you to sequester yourself away and… brood. Or mope. Or whatever it is called when a king sulks.”
His face is a picture: torn between shock and laughter. “And what is it called when the king is being ordered around?”
“It is an advisor’s job to advise,” Boromir tells him as haughtily as he can. “And my advice is you are being an idiot. Sit down.”
Whatever the word is for it, the king sits down, in the chair beside his bed.
“Good,” Boromir says. The exertion has winded him. He presses a hand to his ribs and fights not to swear, to pass out, to focus only on the task at hand. “Now talk. You want me to feel better, then distract me. Talk about whatever you like. Just do not get caught up and trapped in that mind of yours.”
“Yes, your majesty.”
Boromir laughs and the pain whites out his vision. He thinks he sleeps – or at least, he is not fully conscious at all times. There is one thing and one thing alone tethering him to the waking world and that is the king’s voice. The king who obeys and never stops talking. Boromir is sure he has never heard him talk so much. When he runs out of things to talk about he sings; songs from Gondor, songs from the Shire, songs in an Elvish tongue that make the whole room tremble as if caught in a bubble, the world growing drowsy as the day turns to afternoon. At some point within this unreal space the pain recedes. Not entirely. Enough.
He waits for his mind to fully shake off the drowsiness, his eyes focused on the pieces of the horn of Gondor and the shape of Aragorn just beyond it.
“What was the last one?” he asks, realising as his words slur that he is not as coherent as first thought.
“An elvish tale. One I learnt long ago.”
“Faramir would like it.” He yawns. “He was always the scholar.”
“You sell yourself short – how often on our quest did you listen to Gimli or the Hobbits tell tales for hours?”
“There was little else to do. And you forget how often talk became debates over food.”
“Not forgotten - tuned out, perhaps.”
It is not so much the confession as that wry, sheepish grin that makes him chuckle. Too late he remembers he no longer has that luxury and Aragorn has to help him sit up so that he can breathe better amidst the horrible coughing.
“Damn this weakness!” he snarls when he still has not quite gotten his breath back. “I need a sword in my hand, not tea!” His mouth is wet with what may be blood.
“Foolish of me to think you would come to learn the merits of bed rest.”
“Go commiserate with my brother for my supposed stubbornness if all you can speak is words of how I will eventually recover!”
More damned athelas tea is forced into his hand with a rebuking look that he cannot counter, no matter how much he has come to loathe the taste.
“Must you insist upon acting the fool? Time and again we remind you of how badly you were wounded, yet never do you listen!”
He growls and loses the argument by succumbing to yet more of the dratted coughing.
By the time his eyes find Aragorn’s again the man’s fury has gone and he sits in the chair, spent. Contrite, he drains the rest of the tea and hands him the empty mug as an apology. It earns him an almost smile and when he puts the cup to one side it draws both their attention to the horn of Gondor. It is just as broken as he is.
“If you are willing, may you tell me more of how I died?”
Aragorn freezes before speaking with great care, “It is not pleasant.”
“I do not expect it to be a lullaby.” Any anger he might be able to feel vanishes without energy to feed it. “But I wish to know – I feel somehow as if I need to know.”
“Very well.” His eyes focus on the far wall and at once he is very far away. “I hurried back to the camp when I heard the horn of Gondor ring through the trees. Although not the sounds of full battle, still fighting could be heard as I approached. I could hear Merry and Pippin shouting, though not what they were saying. I cleared the crest of the hill long after the Uruks had departed. You lay at the base of a large tree, fallen. There were arrows coming from your body and blood in your mouth. Your first words to me were to say they had taken the little ones south.”
“Whilst I rushed to reach you and do – anything, we discussed Frodo and Sam. You told me what you had done and asked for forgiveness for being blind to the evil of the Ring.”
He stops. Swallows. He is in shadow where the rest of the room is in light.
Boromir cannot look away. “Go on,” he begs quietly.
“You thought not of yourself. You asked forgiveness again, for failing everyone. You asked me to go forth and rescue your people. I spoke a little more to you, and you smiled.” He stops.
That is the end. His life ended just as easily as a man stops talking. Boromir cannot picture it. Cannot remember anything.
“I died well,” he tries to comfort Aragorn. “A soldier's death. Even if I failed so terribly and did not redeem myself. It is how I was destined to end.” The thought is comforting to him. At least he achieved one good thing. At least he died well, even without honour as it was.
“ What ?” Aragorn looks at him, appalled. “It was a terrible death. I could not help you.”
“It sounds as if there was no one better who could have been at my side.” He pats his hand. Changes the subject. “Was it you, then, who laid me to rest in the boat?”
“Legolas and Gimli arrived. We could not bury you, but none of us would leave you to simply rot.”
He shudders despite the fire in the hearth. He stands. Boromir’s hand falls away. “I have overstayed here. I must let you have your rest. Be at peace, son of Gondor.”
Boromir lets him go – the king also needs rest and his is the sort a man must suffer alone. Still, he hopes Aragorn will go and seek out company. Or someone will seek out him instead. To be alone in shouldering a burden breaks a man easier than snapping a twig in two.
He falls asleep, the king’s parting words echoing in his mind.
***
A mile, maybe, from Parth Galen in a little glade not far from the lake he found Boromir. He was sitting with his back to a great tree, as if he was resting. But Aragorn saw that he was pierced with many black-feathered arrows; his sword was still in his hand, but it was broken near the hilt; his horn cloven in two was at his side. Many Orcs lay slain, piled all about him and at his feet.
Aragorn knelt beside him. Boromir opened his eyes and strove to speak. At last slow words came. “I tried to take the Ring from Frodo,” he said.
At the heart of Minas Tirith the son of Gondor stirs but does not wake. The broken horn of Gondor lies on the table near the bed and the light of the dying fire makes its shadow cover nearly the entirety of the room.
There is wisdom long forgotten even by Elves or Ents. Dream terrors and deep, mournful sighs have their own magic. No mortal being is given a say in who reawakens as if from a long sleep and quite by chance a son of Gondor floats down the Anduin.
Boromir wakes up screaming.
He awakens screaming and does not know where he is. There is no solid ground beneath his head, no hard wooden hull of a boat. There is no Ring on his finger, no sword in his hand. He twists where he lays and it hurts – but of course it hurts, he is filled with arrows. Pippin saw him pluck one from his side before the Uruks overpowered them. There is more shouting and a great crash of thunder.
If he is pained, he cannot be dead. Wherever he is, this is not Death.
He is pained because he is no longer in bed – he has just struck his cheek upon it and fresh pain is blooming and bringing his mind back to awareness. It is his own bed, his own room. He is safe in Minas Tirith, slumped on the floor paralysed with pain and it was not thunder but the opening of the door as Aragorn returns, beckoned by the screaming. His strong arms pinion his own so he cannot hurt himself further. He can feel the heat of fever has returned by the way Aragorn’s hands are cool against his skin and he presses closer, wanting him him to caress all of his wounds to bring even a little relief.
It hurts to look at Aragorn’s eyes but Boromir keeps looking. It is like being met with cool water.
“It was just a dream,” Aragorn recovers the power of speech first. Forces out each word piecemeal, half-meant, intentioned kindly, more trying to calm his charge than place any thought into what he is saying. His strength is such that Boromir cannot move, but when he tries to he is released easily and without a fight. His arms move to hold him upright, to stop him falling the rest of the way to the floor.
This is not the way he had imagined it but he is kneeling now and has at least strength to speak. “I remember,” Boromir tells him. “‘Twas no dream, I remember everything, my brother, my captain, my king.”
Pure joy blooms over the man’s face. His vision fades as Aragorn leans down and cups his face and kisses his forehead. “I am glad. Are you at peace now, Son of Gondor?”
And at last he is.