Title: Packing Things Up

Characters: Faramir, Aragorn, Arwen, Eowyn

Author: Susana

Series: Desperate Hours (Tales of the Telcontars)

Feedback: rosasusana7 ...

Warning: AU.

Disclaimer: All recognizable elements are Tolkien's

Summary: Every spring, the Prince of Ithilien and his family pack their belongings to travel back to Emyn Arnen. Many years, memories also need to be taken out and aired again, before being carefully packed up once more.

A/N: This story would take place in the early fourth age, sometime after F.A. year 5 but before F.A. year 15 or so.

Title: Packing Things Up

Aragorn was never sure what woke him, these nights when one of his children came into his room seeking aid or comfort. Sometimes seeking to give aid or comfort, but always searching for him or Arwen. A strong need, to wake their parents from slumber. Although neither Aragorn nor Arwen ever minded.

This night Arwen stirred slowly, still exhausted from the week which had just passed. Aragorn was already sitting up as the pool of light spilled by a lantern approached their bedchamber door. Not one of his children, then. They all, even Faramir, saw well enough at night that they had no need of lanterns. The same was true, mostly, for Faramir and Eowyn's children, but not for...Eowyn. And it was she.

Clad in a rose-colored overrobe, undoubtedly a gift from some well-meaning child, as the White Lady did not prefer pink, was the Lady herself.

Aragorn was on his feet, pulling on an overrobe and a cloak and looking for his house shoes, even as he said, "Faramir."

"Yes. He left an hour ago. For the Stewards' crypt, I think." Eowyn confessed.

Aragorn nodded. "I will go to him." He left quickly, knowing that Arwen could take care of Eowyn. He did take the time to grab an extra cloak on his way out of the King's apartments.

Rath Dinen was silent. So was the crypt of the Stewards, where Faramir sat on a marble bench contemplating the bier of Lord Denethor, the man whom he had called father - believed to be his father - for the first thirty-four years of his life.

Aragorn sat down beside his son. Faramir looked up to him, and nodded with a shy almost-smile of greeting.

For some minutes they sat together, content in the quiet. Faramir still had something to say, Aragorn could feel that he did. But he did not mind waiting. Faramir was worth the time.

"He did love me, in his way." Faramir said at last.

Nodding sympathetically, Aragorn agreed, "I know. And I think that it would almost be easier for you - easier even for me - if he had not."

Faramir exhaled, then turned to meet his father's eyes. "It helps that you know, that you seem to understand. He was...there were times when we were close. Never so intimate as he was with Boromir, he was never so affectionate with me as he had been with Boromir. But there were times..." The wistful pain in Faramir's voice cut at Aragorn's heart like a knife, "There were times when he and I shared something that he and Boromir did not have. A...a sense of common strategy, I suppose. Boromir was an excellent captain, a tactician with few equals..."

"But," Aragorn interrupted with soft, wistful nostalgia, "Boromir was not a strategician to write home about. And Denethor, and you, my son, are both strategists of the quality one might see only a handful of times in a generation."

Faramir blushed slightly at the praise, "We had that in common. We worked together, sometimes in harmony, more often in discord. But we did work together, to prepare Gondor for the war we all knew was coming. And also to prepare Boromir for how wide a view he must take of the whole matter, and to care for him. Because we both loved Boromir."

"From what I have heard, and what I saw in the wake of the war," Aragorn said carefully, "I believe that Denethor always respected your abilities as a strategist and a logistician, even when he did not respect you or trust you, due to your scholarly qualities and your loyalty to Mithrandir."

Leaning forward, Faramir snorted. "He trusted me to get things done, because he had no one else."

"But did trust you, in some things." Aragorn said, laying a supportive hand on his son's back. "And he was not a man whose trust was easily won, Faramir. Not in anything."

Faramir took a deep breath, fighting tears. "I wish that he had trusted as much in my sight, in my understanding of the ring, and our other affairs. I wish that he...I wish..." Faramir trailed off pensively, then continued, "I suppose I wish that there had been more of the good times, for us. The times when he saw me, and not my mother's death."

Aragorn moved his hand to squeeze Faramir's right shoulder. "I have always thought of Denethor as another casualty of the war. He was a great man, Faramir. Not for his treatment of you, which was unforgivable. But he gave everything he had to Gondor, and if we had seen some of the fears paining him when he was younger - when we were all younger - there might have been more that we could have done to save him..."

Turning to Aragorn, Faramir shook his head, mirroring his father's gesture with a hand on Aragorn's shoulder. "Nay, Adar, my true father. Do not blame yourself. He - Denethor- made his own choices. If time could be changed, perhaps we could have aided him more, any of us."

"You were not yet born, then." Aragorn pointed out dryly. "He was already devolving from the good man I had known in our shared youth before you were even conceived, my dear son." If Denethor had still been himself, unchanged by the palantir and his fear and duty, then Faramir might in truth be Denethor's son, rather than Aragorn's. Aragorn was surprised by how little he liked that idea, although perhaps it would not have mattered. He would always have loved Faramir, as son or or just as honored friend and protege.

"He was a good man." Faramir repeated, his attention back on the man's bier, in this most haunted of houses. Faramir himself would not be laid to rest here, but rather in the King's vault with all of his Telcontar family. Aragorn had made the decision, but Faramir had not contested it, however much he might be torn by his desire to be laid to rest near Boromir's bier.

"He was a great man." Aragorn distinguished, "But not always a good one. And rarely good, towards the end. His paranoia and preparation helped to save Gondor, I would never deny that. But for mistreating my son so terribly, I am not sure that I can ever forgive him, for all that he was my friend. Might still be, if he had somehow lived and earned our forgiveness."

Faramir nodded minutely. "The War ate him up, in the end. It was just his own fire that killed him, rather than the Enemy's."

"I am just glad that it did not kill you." Aragorn returned. Then he pulled Faramir to his feet, and placed a cloak around his son's shoulders.

Faramir couldn't help but chuckle a little. Aragorn met his gaze fondly. "You never dress warmly enough on your night-time wanderings. Not when you are distressed."

His son's face bore the annoyed, over-patient expression of grown children forced to deal with their too-knowing parents. Aragorn patted his son on the cheek, and then gave Faramir's shoulders a little push to set him on the path back to the door.

"You have mourned enough tonight." Aragorn said firmly. "And if you do not sleep, I will come up with an excuse to need your presence tomorrow. And you will rest, then, even if I must order it."

Faramir laughed in exasperation. "Adar, I do not doubt that you are entirely capable of doing that. But Eowyn has us entirely packed up to travel to Emyn Arnen at morning's first light. And I do think that I can sleep, now, besides."

"Good." Aragorn said briefly, marveling a bit to himself at the logistical skills of his daughter-by-law. Who had known that Aragorn would be the best to help Faramir find peace tonight. And who had sent Aragorn to Faramir, even though she would have preferred to go to Faramir herself.

"You have a most excellent wife." Aragorn told his son.

"I do." Faramir agreed, with the happy, sweet smile that was only for Eowyn and his family. "And I have been lucky in you, my father, as well."

"I do try." Aragorn said with a wry, fond smile. Then he embraced Faramir again, kissed him on the forehead, and sent his son back to his wife's welcoming arms.

Aragorn returned to his own wife.

"You see?" Arwen murmured sleepily, "Children do not outgrow you just because they are grown."

"Yes, dear." The King replied, curling his taller, colder body around her warmth. "You are right, as you so often are. And I am glad to be able to help, but I do wish that they would have more problems they needed my assistance with during the daylight hours."

They both laughed softly, before sweet slumber claimed them.

End note: Comments and encouragement much appreciated!

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