Trigger Warning/Content Warning: Depression, mental illness, suicide, stalking.

This is meant as a companion piece to Not Forgetting About This. While you wouldn't need to read that one first, per say, you might want to if you want to understand entirely what's going on here. Like Not Forgetting About This, this oneshot is a modern day AU.

I own nothing.

The fire had taken nearly everything among his material possessions. His books and clothing had gone up in smoke; Boromir had it somewhat easier than him, since he was already at college and most of his belongings were at the dorm with him. True, Faramir had some things, things that he kept at Uncle Imrahil's, since he practically spent half his time there anyways, when his father couldn't cope, but they were few. Photos smoldered, records of a world that once was collapsing into ash. The charred skeleton of the house stood for a year or so, unattended, until it finally caved in on itself, but it had been rotten from the core to start with, and Faramir was amazed that it had lasted as long as it had.

He remembered wandering the ruins, some weeks after the fire, once he'd been discharged from the hospital. Boromir had been planning to go by himself, and hadn't wanted Faramir with him—he'd been treating him in those days as though his little brother was made of glass, brittle and easily broken. However, Faramir had persisted until Boromir conceded, on the condition that they would go together and Faramir would only go once. They had pulled up in front of what had once been their home, and Faramir had made not a sound, and not shed a tear. They had wandered through the wreckage, Boromir casting glances at him all the while as though he was afraid that brother would be engulfed in flames as he nearly had been that day before, and Faramir had shed not one tear.

Then, something deep blue caught his eye.

The fire had shaken and shattered everything Faramir thought he knew about his father, but he still clung to the belief, even after that, that Denethor, son of Ecthelion, was not a man who did things on impulse. Everything in its time, everything in its place, all according to propriety. And yet…

Denethor had given his wife a mantle, long before Faramir was born. Well, it was more a shawl than a mantle, and to look at it, Faramir had always suspected that it, though beautiful indeed, dark blue with silver stars stitched around the edges, had probably not been a thing of great expense. Just something a man had bought on a whim to bring home to his wife, because he, without knowing if she would like it, had thought that she might like it.

Faramir had found Finduilas's old shawl half-buried beneath a fallen beam. It was a bit singed around one of its edges, the formerly blue cloth charred black around that burnt edge, but otherwise, it was undamaged, if spotted a bit by dust. It had not even lost its rich color to weeks of exposure. Laying eyes on this old shawl had been as the breaking of a dam within his heart. Numb and dry-eyed he'd been before, since the fire and since the truth of what his father had done came out, but in one moment, Faramir went from dry-eyed and quiet to howling himself hoarse into the soft fabric, blinded by his own tears. Boromir had run to his side and looked at his young brother, with his still-healing burns and his white face, and brought their expedition to an abrupt halt.

Come on, let's go back to the car. He'd grimaced bitterly and berated himself: I knew this would happen. So why…

Is that Mother's shawl? You should keep it. No, really. I think you should. The engine spluttered into ignition, and they drove back to Uncle Imrahil's, Boromir making no mention of the way his teenaged brother clutched their mother's shawl like a small child with a security blanket, the entire way back. They fiddled with the radio, with the air conditioning that always spewed out hot, dusty air smelling bizarrely of mothballs first, and said not a word to each other for the nearly four-hour-long drive.

The fire had taken more than just photographs and clothing. In truth, the fire had taken everything, and given little back. Faramir could trust nothing anymore; he questioned every last one of his memories of himself, his brother, his father, even the faint memories of his mother. He had been wrong about Denethor, had never thought him capable of suicide or of murder, and had been proven wrong in the most earth-shattering way possible. If he was wrong about his father, what else was he wrong about? Could he trust anything he remembered about anyone?

Well, Faramir supposed with something of a smile, perhaps he could trust his own assumptions made of Boromir. With his brother, what you saw was what you got, and had remained that way well into adulthood. He had secrets, perhaps, but could make no secret of the motivations behind his behavior. It was Boromir, with Gandalf's help, who filled in the many blanks in Faramir's memory of their mother. It was Boromir who taught him how to drive a car, helped him adjust to college life, stood staunchly by him all the days after the fire, when others might have taken his silence as signal to leave him be. Boromir, Faramir knew, was still angry with their father, and probably always would be. Boromir had not been a man for grudges until the fire. Perhaps there is more to him than I thought there was, Faramir mused, and decided that mayhap he shouldn't dwell on it too much.

Over the years, the fire became The Incident. That was how the family, his aunts and uncles and all of the cousins referred to it, if they made mention of it at all. They called it The Incident and seemed to assume that if they used such a euphemism in Faramir's hearing, he wouldn't understand what they were talking about; No such luck. For the first couple of years, at holidays and family gatherings, The Incident was the favorite topic of whispered gossip, the gauge by which members of the family determined how up-to-date their out-of-town relatives were on the latest news. Relatives were quick to reassure each other that Denethor was related to them by marriage and not by blood; Boromir's jaw would settle in a scowl and Faramir would busy himself with helping Aunt Almarian (Uncle Imrahil's wife) get the food to the table before the various assorted first-degree and second-degree and even third-degree cousins started to riot, just to keep from having to think about it too hard.

Do… Do you want to talk about it?

Maybe some other time.

The years went down, and that was always Faramir's answer. Maybe when the time cam that he finally sorted out for himself how he felt about what his father had done to them both. Maybe when Faramir could bring himself to say to another that the fire and what it had taken still stayed with him, that he still carried the fire in his heart like a canker in his flesh. Maybe when he could say that he was far more affected than he let on to the world.

"It just occurred to me that our entire relationship can be explained in terms of six degrees of separation."

It was late afternoon, but the light was gentle, soft white and golden. A thin, silvery mist had descended over the city like a pall of sleep, and the rails and roads were still slick with rain, the air cool and moist, but without the chill it might have had earlier in the month. Éowyn's long golden hair fluttered in the slight breeze as she looked down on the busy road beneath them, this uncovered bridge the latest stop in the latest of a long series of walks to nowhere in particular that they took. On occasion, a stray beam of light would catch in tendrils of her hair. Her hair looked like the one who had made her had stolen sunlight to weave into the strands. Faramir always found it fascinating to look at.

The look on Éowyn's face was the chagrined expression of one who had just come to a realization that they felt should have been obvious from the start. But at the same time, a smile hovered on her lips, and Faramir matched it, eyebrow raised. "Oh? How so?"

She ran her fingers over the rail, the tense, slightly nervous mannerisms of one who couldn't stand to find her hands empty. "Well, think about it. We both know Gandalf. You are friends with Pippin and I with Merry, who are first-cousins and close friends to each other—since meeting, we have all four of us become friends. Your brother was friends with my cousin when Théodred still lived, friend to me and Éomer. Boromir did, I think, talk about you a number of times."

"To be honest, I think Théodred mentioned you and Éomer as well."

"Indeed. We had before meeting, I believe, five acquaintances in common—no, six, counting Aragorn. Wait, do you know Arwen as well? Yes? Seven, then. We share seven acquaintances in common. And yet, until three months ago, we were strangers to one another."

He laughed. "You're right; this is six degrees of separation. I'd never thought of it that way before."

People had told him he looked… wan. Pale and stretched, like he wasn't sleeping or he'd been put through a shirt-press. Faramir had been getting that for years, and it wasn't anything new. But he'd been getting it from people more and more often, and to be honest, it was getting progressively harder to get up in the mornings and face the day that waited for him. Why had it suddenly become so difficult again? He had felt like himself again for years, had built a new life where he didn't have to think about the fire that had become The Incident. The only trace of that life and that event were the infrequent visits he paid to his father in the psychiatric hospital, and Faramir had thought that when he left the hospital each time, he left his old life behind with it. Like a dangerous animal that could be locked in a cage.

But maybe that was it. I lived a life where I didn't have to think about the fire, but then, whenever I was bereft of anything with which to occupy myself, it was all I thought of. Distant and yet too near.

People were talking. Imrahil kept pulling him aside to ask him if he was feeling well, if his work was too stressful. Boromir had recently lost his friend Théodred, and perhaps the loss had gifted him with some sort of sensitivity that he had not possessed before, for he too started shooting sideways glances at him—well, more than he used to, at least. Even Faramir's cousins, Elphir to Lothíriel down to the small children, seemed aware of a change in him. Little Emlin kept asking him if he was sick, for he looked so pale and drawn.

Faramir was walking home from work one day when he saw an advertisement on a shop window, for group therapy at a local community center. As a lawyer, he had recommended therapy often enough to his clients, when they had been stricken by a crime sufficiently traumatizing as to need it. The fee charged for this particular sort of therapy was, he saw, not unreasonable. It occurred to Faramir that it could do him no harm, and made a call to the number on the poster.

It had been a gloomy, overcast evening when he had gone to the first group therapy session, and the moment Faramir laid eyes on the set-up, he had the suspicion that this was probably not anything remotely on the scale of the therapists he recommended to his clients from time to time.

They were situated in a room off to the side, with white linoleum floors and children's finger paintings and crayon drawings on the tack boards on the walls, alongside flyers and Lost and Found posters. Have you seen this girl? one asked plaintively, showing a black-and-white photograph of a young girl in a junior high school uniform. Faramir looked at the date on the flyer and realized that it more than five years old. His eyes stung, and he looked away. Rain splattered against the night-dark windows. The air conditioning duct clanged on and off interminably. The room was cold.

There were eight chairs in a circle, including the one the therapist, a middle-aged man with graying hair and thoughtful eyes, was sitting in. Faramir was the third to arrive. We're still waiting for four more. After a few minutes, the four filed in, one after the other. The last was a tall, blonde woman wearing a haphazard ponytail, an exhausted, haggard face and the uniform of an EMT. Since there were no other seats left open, she took the one next to Faramir's, and stared glassily down at the floor, meeting the eyes of none, hands clasped in her lap. There were water beads trapped in her hair.

Alright, we're all here. Let's start by giving our names. My name is Minastir.

Luinil.

Glindir.

Cenhelm.

Siglind.

Gwanon.

Faramir.

…Éowyn. The woman called Éowyn drew a deep breath, audible only to Faramir, who sat to her immediate right, and straightened, sitting stiff-backed in her chair, staring squarely straight ahead as though she was steeling herself for some bitterly drawn-out battle. My name is Éowyn.

Almost as soon as the talking began, Faramir knew that he was not going to enjoy this at all. Perhaps some other form of therapy would have been more to his liking, but he could not tell. All he knew was that this form of therapy required you to be completely open about your past with a circle of strangers. He was to bare all in front of people he had never met before, and would likely never lay eyes on again outside of this cold, linoleum room. Perhaps Faramir was wrong to cling to the cloak of secrecy like a shield as he did. Perhaps this was truly the only way in which healing could be found, in the ability to exorcise your hurts by entrusting them to a stranger. But it seemed like a play written by an incompetent playwright, and the actors recited their lines with either insufficient emotion or too much, and he turned his eyes downwards and would not speak except in the sparest of terms.

It wasn't until after the session was over that Faramir realized that there was one other who had spoken little to nothing at all during this whole sorry affair.

"Do you think it's going to start raining again?"

"No, likely not."

"Good." Her fingers went from the steel rail to his hand, almost of their own accord. They were cold and damp from the chilly metal they'd been clutching, but there was the spark of warmth in her flesh yet, and Faramir could always find it after just a moment of searching. "I'd rather not move."

They had been the last to leave, even including the therapist, bone-weary and uneager to get out of their chairs, even if they had gleaned next to nothing of any value from this experience. She was silent, rifling through her purse for some thing or another, so he looked over at her and said: So I take it that I was not alone in not finding what I sought here?

At this, Éowyn stood, and looked into his face, brow furrowed deeply. Faramir felt as though someone had come and stolen all the air from his lungs. Looking into her face was like looking into a mirror, and then being struck by the keen pain of shattering it and catching the broken glass in his hands, but still not being able to dispel the image. Pale, tired, drained. Eyes shadowed and old, heavy, sickened by the world. Suddenly, Faramir understood how he must have looked to his clients, to his friends, to his family. Struck by that sudden awareness, he understood why little Emlin told him he looked sick. Sick at heart, they both were.

They held each other's gaze for a long moment, sea gray to pale, glass gray. She stood there, pale and thin and stretched and finally spoke, quiet but clear, without the slightest tremor or inflection in her voice. My story is my own to tell, and only to whom I wish. I am here at the urging of one whom I love, one I am afraid I have hurt deeply, and am afraid to hurt any more.

Faramir hadn't known what to say to that, so he said nothing. The silence between them was resounding, unable to be broken even by the clanging of the air conditioning duct. Then, thunder made the windowpanes rattle, and Faramir realized that he had no umbrella. One glance at Éowyn told him that she had none, either.

And now, I fear, we must get very wet. This certainly isn't the sort of atmosphere I'd expected when I signed up for group therapy.

The words had been spoken more for his own benefit—Faramir had only been half-aware that he said them aloud. He had possessed no want, one way or another, for the words to affect her. But then, in response to his murmured words, she smiled, and it was as though the sun had found them in the depths of night, as though summer had come to chase away the bitter chill of winter. Years melted from her face—Faramir hadn't realized how young Éowyn was until her lips curled, up and out; she'd looked before as old as him or older, and for a moment, he felt a pang for what she'd left behind, when she came to the state of needing to be there.

He smiled back, foolishly, it felt like, but for once, Faramir didn't care a whit about being foolish or seen to be foolish. They ran out to their cars in the rain. She was like sunlight, clouded and dimmed, but not yet extinguished, and even tinged with sadness as it had been that night, not quite reaching her eyes, there was contagion in her smile. Faramir hadn't realized until later, at the moment of awareness of how sore his mouth and jaw was, how long it had been since he had last smiled in such a way.

Éowyn sighed and stared out pensively over the city, the shadow of a skyscraper off to their right pooling at her feet. Her fingers were still clasped tightly around his hand, and, heart hammering, Faramir considered kissing her, just to break the silence between them. But if Faramir, son of Denethor, had anything in common with his father, it would have to be that he was not the sort to do things on impulse. Besides, knowing Éowyn as he did, Faramir knew that if his affections were not returned, all he would get for his troubles would be a set of aching ribs and a ruined friendship. With agonizing slowness, his pulse calmed.

Over the first few weeks, neither Faramir nor Éowyn really revealed anything more about themselves while in session; the therapist, Minastir, seemed to wish for more out of them both, but he was a patient man and didn't seem to think that forcing his patients to share their feelings would aid the healing process, so he did not press them. Éowyn stayed mostly silent; the only sure sign she gave that she was even listening was her gaze, focused intensely on each and every speaker. Whenever that gaze fell on Faramir, it was all he could do to keep from looking away, until he realized that there was no ill will in her stare. Faramir himself put what skill he possessed as a mediator into effect. Part of the process of group therapy, Minastir claimed, was learning to help others with their problems as well.

Only once did Éowyn really contribute to the dialogue. Luinil was the only Elf in the group, and anyone who was familiar with Elves knew how much of a blow it must have been for her to come here. Elves of any community were a private people, uneager to share their woes with outsiders, but there were very few Elves in the city where she had come to reside, and there was nowhere else, not really, for her to go. All the same, Luinil was about as talkative as Éowyn, whom she sat next to often, during these sessions.

I feel lost, Luinil admitted reluctantly, staring off at nowhere in particular. I feel adrift. I don't know why I'm still here. I don't know what point there is to living in such a world, when I can find no reason for my own existence.

Éowyn constantly had something in her hands. Be it a pencil, a paperclip, a clothespin, a bottle cap or something else, she seemed unable to stand having her hands empty even for a moment. But she dropped the pen she was balancing in her fingers and grabbed Luinil's hands impulsively, squeezing the Elf's fingers in a strong grip. Don't say that, she said fiercely, eyes burning like coals. Even if you don't know what it is, there is a reason for your being alive. There is always a reason, and there is always value to your life.

Luinil stared at Éowyn as though she'd never seen anything quite like her before. Quite frankly, Faramir was staring at Éowyn like he'd never seen anything like her either. She'd shown no sign of such fire before, but there it was, the companion to the sunlight caught fast in her hair. Their eyes met across the room, and Éowyn smiled again, more faintly this time, but the effect was the same; Faramir smiled back.

One day, when the weather was turning warmer and the days were accordingly growing longer, they were the two of them the first to show up. Éowyn cast a glance his way out of the corner of her eyes, then she asked him, Do you want to just take a walk?

…Excuse me?

This isn't what I hoped it would be, and I think you feel the same way. Do you want to just go somewhere else and take a walk?

Thus Faramir found himself feeling as though he was back in college, skipping class to go out with his friends for a long lunch. Quite frankly, it felt exactly like that, down to the same sense of slightly guilty exhilaration as he and Éowyn sat at a roadside bench, scooping corned beef hash out of Styrofoam cups and scarfing it down as though they expected to have their food taken from them any minute now. Well, I must say that already I find this more rewarding an experience than what we avoided today. He'd gotten a smile for that, and a gentle tug on his wrist, and for the first time a real flicker of joy in her eyes.

They began doing this every week, until they decided that it would be better to be honest, quit using group therapy as a pretense, and thus quit therapy and decided to spend their days off in common walking instead. Faramir could not pretend that he wasn't glad to leave the linoleum room behind, and the way Éowyn's shoulders seemed to straighten the moment she left that place behind, she seemed happy as well.

Never did they go off on their walks with a destination in mind. It was enough to wander, maybe stop for food or take shelter under an awning if it rained. To just walk through the city, through the parks, over the bridges and the river, to not have to do anything at all. To say nothing of importance, to have none of the pressure of responsibility weighing on back and shoulders. Her long, loose hair would slide over her shoulders and gleam so brightly that to look at it was to wish to weep, and not know why. Her long, thin hand, formerly fiddling with her purse strap or jacket zipper or the collar of her shirt, or reaching to brush her hair out of her face, started reaching for his hand instead, and they would walk like that, silent, not even looking at each other, really, but smiling faintly.

The day finally came when they spoke honestly. It had been triggered by running into Boromir in the street; Faramir had been what no one could describe as anything but stunned to realize that Boromir and Éowyn already knew each other. You didn't tell me you knew Boromir. She paused and raised her eyebrows. Well, you didn't tell me that Boromir was your brother. It occurred to Faramir then that Éowyn might well already know something of his story, of the fire and what it had taken. Upon asking her, she admitted as much.

One day when I was little, your brother came to the house where my uncle and my cousin lived while I was there. I don't remember a great deal of what went on—keeping in mind that I was very small at the time—but I remember that he was completely beside himself. Crying, shouting; it took Théodred and Uncle what seemed like forever to calm him down, and I just wondered why he was acting this way. I remember… It was something to do with you, wasn't it?

They had walked in silence for a long time after that, Éowyn staring at some point far off on the horizon, and Faramir wrestling with his own indecision and the realization that as much as the keeping what lied roiling in his heart to himself hurt him, the idea of parting with the solitude of that knowledge hurt just as much, a great, wrenching pain, as though a great claw had seized down into his ribcage and was gnashing against his heart and lungs. Her hand felt cold and leaden within his own, though Faramir suspected that was due more to the chill that had come over him all of a sudden, despite the warmth of the day.

As the sun was starting to sink over the rooftops behind them, Faramir finally stopped and took a seat on a park bench. Given that you were with me in group therapy, I can only suppose you have quite the story to tell as well, he remarked with something that on any other occasion might have been mistaken for archness, but that day could only be taken as intense bitterness. I'm not sure you'll enjoy hearing mine, but I'll tell you, if you really wish to know.

Éowyn had stared at him for a long moment, her face half-obscured by her hair, but what he could see was drawn with apprehension. He knew that look all too well, the face of one who wanted to help, but was unsure if they would be able to stand doing what needed to be done. Someone who'd been in this position before, more than once. After a few excruciatingly long moments, the only sound the distant noise of traffic from beyond the park's borders, she slid down onto the bench beside him, lips pressed tightly together.

So he told her everything, about himself, his brother, his mother, his father, even to his mother's kin; she smiled a bit when he described the chaos that came with any family get-together at Imrahil's house, but that would be the last time either of them smiled that afternoon. Faramir described Denethor's decline, how it had come on slowly at first, and then took a precipitous drop, the changes in him more evident, the growing madness all the more painfully apparent. It was like watching a great stone statue beaten down by the wind and rain. Once it stood strong and tall, its eyes looking out over the world, but now, it's been so thoroughly eroded that you can't tell that the statue ever had so much as a carven face.

He spoke of the fire and what it had taken. He spoke of the day in the courthouse when his father had pled guilty, and he had stood in the back of the courthouse, trying to search out any sign of emotion on Denethor's stony face, but had found none beneath that pale mask. He recounted finding his mother's shawl in the ruins of their house, and suddenly the cold, bleak numbness that had held sway over him since waking up with the hospital broke and he wept for the first time since learning of what his father had done. Then came the long years, in which he tried to put his life back together, and seemed to succeed. But his world kept shrinking; he did not do things on impulse, he didn't try new things unless forced, he didn't take risks anymore. Everything seemed gray and washed-out. Faramir even spoke of how he had woken up one day in the past month to realize that the only physical mark left on him from the fire was a patch of skin on his arm where the hair had never grown back, and how he had, idiotically he knew now, hoped that that meant that his memories might grow hazy and he could finally cast off the weariness that had settled down in on his bones.

…My own father…

Faramir hadn't meant to reveal so much. He'd hoped to give a short, impersonal account of what had led to him coming to a linoleum room months before, but that all came to naught. Once he started talking, he couldn't stop until he had said everything there was to say, until everything he had ever kept close to his breast was out in the open. He felt like a fool, an utter fool, and surely Éowyn would think the same way. However, she only drew in a deep breath, looking again as though steeling herself for battle. If you can be honest… If you can be honest, I see no reason why I should not be. Her eyes flickered upwards, serious, unsmiling. However, I must warn you, that my tale is not pleasant, nor joyous. In places it is even sordid. Faramir felt the same sense of dread that she must have felt when he first sat down on the bench and started to speak of his own life, but he nodded, unwilling to be so churlish as to refuse to listen to her story, after he'd burdened her with his.

Éowyn's parents had died when she was still young, and she and her brother Éomer had gone to live with her uncle Théoden and her already-grown cousin Théodred. The loss of her parents was a sore blow, but she was able to be happy. Her uncle loved his niece and nephew as though they were his own children, and raised them as such. I think, much the same way your uncle raised you and your brother. But when Éowyn first went off to college, things changed. One of her professors became obsessed with her. He attempted to coerce her into a relationship with him, and when she refused, her grades suffered accordingly—she ended up failing the classes (He taught classes that I had to take; there was no way to avoid him) she took with him. Éomer got wind of what was going on, reacted in his typical fashion, which is to say, recklessly, and got expelled for his troubles. Eventually, the higher-ups at the college got wind of what was going on, and the professor was quietly dismissed.

That wasn't the end of it. I don't know how, but he figured out where I lived, had my phone number. My roommates helped me as best they could, but I couldn't bear to tell my family, I couldn't bear to have them worry over me in such a way. This was my weight to carry, and I did not… Éowyn broke off for several moments, drawing in deep, ragged breaths that sounded less like the struggle of a woman not to weep, and more like restraining the impulse to scream in anger. Eventually, after, I don't know, maybe a year and a half, things came to a head, and he… She broke off again, eyes shining with the stew of rage, revulsion and horror. He's in prison now, she said flatly. I don't think of him often.

After that, things settled back into normalcy, or rather, Éowyn tried to settle into normalcy as well she could. After graduating she took work as an EMT, and had been utterly unprepared for the strain that sort of work would have on her. I have seen so many people die; I had no idea how often I would, in the ambulance, in the hospital, on the side of the road, bleeding and alone, and when their friends and families had deserted them, I was the only one for them to tell their last words to. That is such a weight to carry. Faramir could barely restrain a cringe, remembering how he had felt when he first started out as a lawyer, and how he sometimes still felt, to see the worst of everyone, to see crime after horrific crime.

Then, her cousin died, and her uncle followed not long afterwards.

I had good friends, you know. The sort of friends who will put their own safety at risk to help each other out of bad situations. And nearly to a man, I drove them all away. Some will say that your friends treat you far better than you deserve, but in my case, most of them treated me exactly as I deserved to be treated, the way I was then. Do you know why I came to group therapy in the first place? The way her lips twitched was nothing more than the bitter, mocking parody of a smile as she held out her left wrist for him to see. The lines were thin, silver-white and barely visible against her pale flesh, but Faramir could make them out, and understood where they had come from. You can spend your days and nights beating at ghosts, but eventually you'll want blood, and only your own will do. I passed out, thinking that I would die. I didn't. I dreamt instead, dreamt that my brother was slain and all the world was ending. I awoke, not in my home nor in the afterlife, but in a hospital room, with my brother very much alive and weeping over me as though the world was truly ending. It was only then that I realized that my actions caused others pain, and in the months that have passed since then, I have done my best to re-acquaint myself with the pain of others.

At that point, she looked up, unsmiling and sad, even apologetic, but grimly unafraid, awaiting judgment. I fear this has not been an equal exchange, for I spoke at length, far more than you did. And this has been even less pleasant than I expected it to be. But once I began to speak, I found that I could not stop.

Faramir shook his head and took her hands instead of saying anything; no words could have expressed what that simple gesture did. It was the most he had ever heard her say at one time. He did not judge her, could not judge her. She felt the same way, and the effect on them both of this talk was profound. He felt utterly weary, and she looked gray-faced with exhaustion. They both could have drifted off to sleep in this moment, and never woken up again. All their strength was gone, whatever they'd had to start with, but at the same time, Faramir felt as though his shoulders had suddenly been freed from a cruel yoke. Beside him, Éowyn drooped, the stiffness drifting out of her spine.

Perhaps, in future, we should speak of happier things.

And so they did. It amazed Faramir how much easier it was to speak of lighter matters, once the weightiest of matters was said. They spoke of old misadventures at school, with fondness of shared friends. Gandalf's fireworks were remarked upon; Faramir, who had once been invited by Pippin to a celebration in the Shire outside of town, recounted how Gandalf had been chased left and right by tiny Hobbit children until he could be imposed upon to give a light show. Éowyn laughed aloud and told the tale of an old camping trip when she was fourteen. It was originally going to be just Théodred, Boromir and Aragorn, but then they decided to take Éomer with them, and Théoden said that if they took Éomer they had to take Éowyn as well; he himself was going out of town and didn't want her to have to stay at the house by herself. They had spent the entire time, when they weren't being rained on and getting poison ivy, playing tricks on one another, until Éowyn and Aragorn tipped the scales by joining forces. The image she put in Faramir's mind of Boromir being caught in a trip wire net set by the others had him nearly bent double with laughter.

They spoke of neighbors, and of family, of clashes with landlords, of old cars and favorite places to eat, anything they could think of. Faramir got the feeling that he'd passed some sort of secret test when Éowyn told him that she was in the MMA for years and he didn't laugh. Éowyn, who no longer had any family apart from her brother, remarked almost wistfully upon the sort of relationship Faramir had with his large extended family, leading him to ask, uncharacteristically impulsively: Well, do you want to meet them?

I think you are in lo-ove, Lothíriel had remarked, singsong. She and Faramir were alone in the kitchen. Her dark curls bobbed as she shook her head in response to her cousin's blank stare; though they were separated in age by more than fifteen years, Lothíriel had no problem speaking to him as though they were contemporaries. Don't give me such a face. You spent most of the day staring at her with a positively starry-eyed expression; I can't recall the last time you smiled so often, or so widely. It's a good look for you. Much better than the one you used to wear, neither of them said, but could both hear. I like her. Éowyn and Lothíriel had indeed gotten on very well, despite the fact that one was quite taciturn and the other a verified chatterbox. And her brother's very handsome too!

Well, maybe he was in love. And what was wrong about that? Nothing. Faramir decided that he rather liked being in love.

"I used to dream I could fly over this city, and out over the wilderness, to distant lands and far-off places." Éowyn's brow drew up and something in her faded slightly; perhaps it was the influence of the silver mist and the soft golden light, but she seemed to pale, a touch of some shadow falling over her. "I used to dream that I could go somewhere else and leave all my troubles behind like an old coat." She smiled ruefully, to herself. "I used to think it was that easy."

Faramir grimaced, feeling the iron bridge they stood on rattle as an eighteen-wheeler passed beneath them. "If I dream of anything, it's of the great wave of Númenor."

Éowyn stared up at him, almost incredulous. "Do you really?"

He nodded.

It was in the days when Boromir first went off to college (I'm sorry, little brother; I wish you could come with me) that Faramir first began to realize just how ill his father was. When he was still there, Boromir did all he could to shield Faramir from the worst of it, but once he was gone, Faramir was left alone with his father, and there was no one to turn him away from Denethor's ever-changing moods, his grim despair at the world around him. Faramir had better knowledge than most of just how ill Denethor had been, and still was. They had spoken of Númenor, one morning at the kitchen table at breakfast. Well, it was more that Denethor had spoken, and Faramir had occasionally punctuated his talk with questions.

Of Númenor, all anyone ever seems to remember is its former greatness, and that it sank between the waves. No one remembers its infamy, its great heresy. They seek to whitewash its history, and when I hear others speak of it today, I despair. Ignorant fools, all of them! They remember that Númenor sank but choose to forget why! Utter fools!

No one would ever remember Denethor except as he was then, Faramir knew. When he went to visit him in the hospital, Faramir was able to tell how well or unwell his father was on each trip by how sarcastic he was, and how much he complained about small things. If he could find it in him to be sardonic, if he could find it in him to grouse, he was likely feeling well. That was how it had been before the fire as well, except that Denethor had been far less frequently well, and even on that morning, when he was caustic and irritated, he hadn't seemed well. There was some odd gleam in his eyes that had made Faramir eat quickly in order to be away from him. After the fire, Faramir dreamt of the great wave often, but as he would rather dream of that than fire, he was not as disconcerted over this as he could have been.

"Today…" Faramir sighed and squeezed his eyes shut, and only opened them again when he felt Éowyn rub her thumb over his forefinger. "…Today, I do not know how many people believe Númenor to have ever truly existed, and how many believe it to be nothing more than a story. The idea that it will pass into myth grieves me greatly, for I fear that if we forget that Númenor was real, we shall share its fate. Sometimes, I feel as though the darkness that befell Númenor has fallen over us here." Or perhaps just over me, and you, he thought, but did not speak aloud. "Darkness like some great shadow, engulfing the land in night."

Their eyes met. His heart began to hammer again, and he could feel her pulse beginning to race in her fingers. "But night can not last, and neither can shadow. No matter how vast it may be, no darkness can last forever. I believe that. I must believe that."

The world seemed to hold its breath (Or maybe it was just them). They smiled at one another, not one first or last, but in unison, and though the world around them did not change, everything seemed brighter, clearer, to Faramir as though he had been viewing all through a grimy glass and someone had finally come to wipe it clean. Éowyn's smile brightened, widened, dancing in her eyes at last, and he was struck for the first and thousandth time with how beautiful she was.

His sense of timing may or may not have been off, but at that moment, Faramir threw all caution to the winds, drew Éowyn into his arms and kissed her. Wrapped in each other's arms she laughed merrily, he smiled as though his heart would burst, and finally, the path seemed clear to them both.