milliways_bar | (no subject)

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One year ago, on this date, Sara was a crumpled sobbing mess on the lake shore, clutching a red spandex costume to her chest.

This year, she's not doing anything so dramatic.

A candle is lit and she stares out at the continuing destruction, almost entranced.

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Faramir rests his hands on the table, one covering the other, and stares at them.

"I am a Steward and a Prince," he says, a touch hoarsely. "I cannot afford to break."

"Can you honestly afford not to?"

Faramir presses his thumb and fingers into his eyes, then covers his mouth with his hand as he looks out at the stars, and finally looks to her, grey eyes shining silver.

"Not here. Not... out here."

"C'mon." A friend in distress is a great way to sober up. She puts a hand under his elbow and leads him outside, by the lake.

He follows her out into the darkness. Finally he stands by the side of the lake, silent, seeing yet unseeing, and very, very still -- it would be hard to tell he's still breathing if not for the clouds of mist from his parted lips.

"Standing on one foot at a time is how everyone walks, Faramir," she says. Maybe a non-sequitor, but maybe not. "Let go."

Faramir tilts his head back, seeing now the stars and the ice on the lake. The sea in miniature, and the silent stars. A vision of the end of the world, here and there, the great wave, the dying suns... fire. Fire in his skin, lapping at his hair, crackling under his fingers, fire in his blood as the poison made his veins throb. Fire in the cold white snow... the cold white of a woman's half-remembered face, fair, dark hair, red lips, who would have thought that such whiteness could grow even whiter in death? An open casket. He was five years old. The smell of heavy cloth, the sound of empty hallways, and stars, stars, stars on a dark cloak and in the sky, a small child punished for loving too much, a young man loved by all but the man whose love he sought. All the warm eyes in Gondor couldn't melt the ice in his father's stare. Ice and snow and an ocean of winter silence. Three days from now would be the anniversary of his brother's death.

Faramir stoops slowly down to one knee, and with an elbow on his raised knee and his face cradled in his hand, his body trembles with the rhythm of his gasping breath and voiceless sobs...

He's not alone. This time, unlike the other times before, he is not alone.

She cradles his head to her shoulder, and lets him weep.

Faramir shifts to sit on both knees and leans against her, buried in her arms. He feels as if he's been smothered for two long years, and now the very air is choking him, and it's like drowning. His heart is flooded with all he's pushed away and shelved in all this time...

And once the floodgates open, it is a long time before they close.

She doesn't know how long they're out there. All she knows is that when they go back inside, her shirt is wet, she is stiff from the cold, and his eyes are clearer than they have been in quite some time.

At last he leans away from her, and when he looks at her, the very stars are in his bright gaze.

"Thank you," he whispers, his hands on her shoulders.

"It's what friends are for." She covers one of his hands, squeezing. And then grins impudently. "Still didn't drink me under the table."

At that he laughs. Really laughs, his voice rich and full. He pulls her into a bearhug the likes of which only a Captain could give, then rises and pulls her to her feet.

"I reserve the right to a rematch," he tells her, beaming in the moonlight and the light reflected from the snow.

"And I look forward to it, though some other time. I think both of our livers will thank us if we cease the abuse for the night."

"And I think the rest of our bodies will thank us to go inside and dry off. A cup of tea by the fire?"

He holds out his hand to her.

"That works for me." She takes his hand and lets him lead her back in.

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