Here it is, the last part of the Revenge series. *cries*

You know, I never thought this would turn out to become this long series – all I wanted was to write a funny one-shot! (But no, Erestor insisted upon his Revenge, and then Glorfindel did, and then it got way out of hand…) And now it's (in total) a little over 35000 words long! O.O Anyway, enough with the author's insane reminisces.

Glorfindel sat silently in his office, running his fingers over the smooth fur of the purring kitten in his lap. His mind wandering, he stared unseeingly at the wall of his small office. This place was rarely used, though it had been given to Glorfindel on the very day he had received his title as Captain of Imladris. He preferred to be out among his men, gaining their trust and comradeship, working alongside them as they trained, rather than being in here alone. That was one of the main reasons why it took him so long to turn in patrol reports and lists of items that he needed for weapons training.

He felt the solitude keenly as he sat quietly, but the low rumbling of the kitten in his lap eased his discomfort. It arched up into his touch, its pleasure at being given so much attention obvious. Feeling the tiny spine and furry sides as he rubbed the fur, Glorfindel was startled when the kitten suddenly leapt out of his lap and darted under his desk. He bent to look for it, but as he was searching the shadows, a knock sounded at his door.

Pursing his lips, Glorfindel glanced for the kitten once more, but didn't see it. He straightened up with a heavy sigh, still feeling the soreness that came after a long fight. He might have escaped wounds on his patrol, but not weariness. Giving the door a lengthy stare, he wondered briefly who would come to see him here. Most people wouldn't even expect him to be in here.

"Come in!" he finally called, picking up the quill he had never used out of the tray and turning it in his fingers. There was another pause, and then the door clicked open, and a figure Glorfindel had never expected to see here stepped in.

"Erestor?" he said with some surprise. "What are you – oh." He let the quill fall down to the desk and he sat back into his chair. "Did I forget a report? I thought, since I didn't lead this patrol, that I wouldn't need to write one…but if you need me to do it, I can –"

"No, it's not that," Erestor interrupted, looking wearied himself. His wrapped right arm rested in his other hand, painfully reminding Glorfindel of his foolish prank that seemed so long ago now.

Glorfindel waited a few more seconds, but Erestor was staring at something past him and didn't say anymore. "Well?" Glorfindel said finally. "How may I help you?"

"I…" The adviser's brow furrowed and he frowned, then blurted suddenly, "I accept your apology."

Glorfindel stared at him in bewilderment. "Excuse me?"

"That's not – no, wait, that's not what I meant to say." Erestor seemed to be at a loss for words, which surprised Glorfindel more than anything else. The Counselor had never been at a lack of snappy replies and cool rejoinders, but he looked like he was struggling now.

"What I meant to say was, I forgive you for – injuring me. It turns out an assistant was quite helpful after all, anyway." Erestor smiled tightly, still not looking directly at Glorfindel. His dark eyes were fixed on the wall behind Glorfindel.

Glorfindel couldn't find anything to say to that. Out of anything he had thought Erestor would say when he first saw the dark-haired Chief Counselor entering, it hadn't been that. "Excuse me?" he finally managed to say again.

"Well, it is – this argument or whatever it was is quite…" Erestor released the grip on his wrist and waved his unbroken hand vaguely in the air. "It's quite silly. We have to, after all, work together for Lord Elrond, as his two most trusted confidantes, and it would hamper the professionalism of Imladris if we didn't seem to be getting along."

"Ah," Glorfindel managed, and Erestor took that as a reply that his explanation hadn't been sufficient.

"It might lower the morale of others here, seeing that I can't agree with you, or forgive you for a – a silly prank that I had been provoking you to attempt." Erestor appeared to have gotten his elegant tongue back.

"Is this all you have thought about while I was gone?" asked Glorfindel in a low voice. Something hit his foot, and he recognized vaguely that the kitten was patting his boot with one delicate, tiny paw.

"I…well." Erestor, oddly enough, seemed discomfited. Glorfindel had never really seen him like that. "I was rather angry at you until quite recently. But I have…overcome my ridiculous feelings and realized that we shouldn't argue like we have. Lord Elrond has even spoken to me about it, and suggested that I do something about it."

That made sense, but he still didn't understand why Erestor wasn't angry at him any longer. Perhaps Elrond was right, the time away had caused Erestor to change his mind? "So you're saying this because Elrond told you to do it?"

"No, of course not." Erestor caught his bandaged wrist in his other hand again. "No, I decided to talk to you because, as I said, it's rather senseless for us both to be angry when –"

"I was never angry at you," Glorfindel reminded him. He almost jumped when he felt a bristly cat tongue run along his ankle.

"Oh. Yes. That's true." Erestor was tapping his robes, something Glorfindel had identified over the years as anxiety. "Myself, then. I have – will you accept my apology for being rude and…refusing to acknowledge you?"

Glorfindel couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. "I…yes, of course."

Erestor didn't seem to have anticipated that either. He blinked slowly, then straightened. "Ah, well…thank you."

There was a long silence, where Glorfindel stared at him, trying to process what exactly had just happened. After another moment, Erestor's dark gaze danced away and he turned toward the door. "Good day, then, I suppose."

"Wait!" Glorfindel shot to his feet, a frown crossing his face. The kitten by his feet darted away to another corner of the bottom of the desk. "Where are you going?"

"To work on…reports, or check the storehouse." Erestor stopped and glanced back at him. "Or something of that ilk."

"But we've resolved almost nothing!" Glorfindel could feel frustration creeping upon him, something he knew Erestor used to feel every day in conversations with him.

Erestor turned back, brow furrowed. "I…thought we had." It seemed as though there was guilt in his eyes, though Glorfindel couldn't be sure and he wouldn't know why.

"What about – about…" Glorfindel couldn't think of an exact thing to say, but there was a lingering feeling of something that wasn't right, that hadn't been fixed. He remembered the night Erestor hadn't shown up, those two weeks before he had left, and his brows lowered. "Are you going to come to the library tonight?"

"Well...I might, if I have books to get for reference or advice." Erestor's eyes darted away, and Glorfindel knew that the adviser understood what he was really talking about.

"You say you forgive me for injuring you," Glorfindel said quietly. "But do you mean hurt or harm? You remember when we talked about it."

Erestor's face had slid into a mask all too familiar to Glorfindel. "Harm, Glorfindel, is not so easily forgivable. Yes, I remember."

"Harm? The jokes were just that, jokes! I didn't mean them."

Erestor crossed his arms, the folds of his black robe falling over the pristine bandage on his right wrist. "True friends don't speak to other people about each other like that," he said frigidly.

Glorfindel sat back down in his seat, but not in defeat. He was actually a bit frustrated. "I have apologized," he said, "multiple times. I will do so again. Is that what you want to hear again? Fine. I am sorry, Erestor, for hurting and harming you. Is it so unforgivable? This is what will break our friendship?"

"That is not –" Erestor started, but this once, Glorfindel did not want to be interrupted.

"Your pride, your accursed pride is what this is all about, isn't it? Does it make you feel better to know that you've caused the 'great Balrog-slayer' to beg for your forgiveness? No!" he said when Erestor's eyes flashed angrily. "I am truly sorry for causing this, but I think we both know it could have been stopped quite easily if you weren't so stubborn." He sat back, weary of arguing, and passed a hand over his eyes. "It's really up to you how this goes now."

A long minute passed, and Glorfindel truly didn't know whether Erestor would leave in a fury at being spoken to so bluntly, or stay and actually talk now. He felt a soft brush of fur along his leg as the kitten wound around his ankle, and then Erestor finally spoke.

It was the last thing he had thought he would say.

"You are right," the adviser said quietly, and took a deep, shuddering breath, as though he was preparing himself for something hard. Glorfindel just looked at him, though his surprise was evident, and waited.

"You are right, it is my pride," he continued, his arms falling to his side; the fingers of his left hand ran nervously along the decorative beads of his robe. "It is not…something I would readily admit to having. I thought, then, that you were just pretending to be my friend. I suppose it is silly, from your point of view, but truthfully, you're the only…" He paused, looking everywhere but Glorfindel. "Well, I did find out that Lisondrë – my assistant – gave you that letter that was…meant to be burned." His fingers were tapping nervously once more. "So I guess you already know that you've been my only friend, at least one that's not found an excuse to leave."

"I will never –" Glorfindel started, indeed thinking of that letter, now seeming to burn in his pocket, but didn't continue when Erestor raised a hand.

"Please, let me finish. I just…I was thinking when you left, that it would be an ordinary patrol and you would come back cheery as ever. I suppose, if you hadn't been given the letter, I would have gotten over it in time and forgiven you. Then the captain gave me the report for the patrol, and I've realized how…foolish it was, for lack of a better word." The fingers were drumming out a rhythm on his robe again. "If you had been seriously wounded or even…died on that patrol; I think, what you said and did would seem so infinitesimal compared to that. Even now, that you haven't, it still doesn't come to my mind as quite that important."

"Just because I might have been hurt in a skirmish?" Glorfindel asked quietly, as if he was wary of startling the adviser, who for the first time he could remember, indeed seemed to be talking about something personal.

"That, and…you have always been the instigator of our friendship, anything we've done – chess, for one example – and though you are rather annoying at times, you've never been driven away by what some call my 'sharp tongue' and instead seem to be determined to…" He waved ambiguously, "I know not, retain my companionship? Even if I'm typically not in the best of moods."

Glorfindel was listening intently, trying not to seem as if he was recording every word and locking them away where Erestor could never retract them. He didn't know exactly what he had said that had caused Erestor to tell him this, but he wasn't going to stop him. He was startled, therefore, when sharp teeth bit into his leg – apparently the kitten wanted the attention back on her. Restraining himself somehow from yelping, he carefully used his other foot to dislodge her and nudge her off of his leg. After a moment, she curled around his foot and settled down on it.

"But I concur." Erestor brushed back a strand of dark hair that had fallen from its place, breaking his rhythm of tapping his robe. "I suppose, this whole time, I've been…" He hesitated, obviously not really wanting to say the word, but went on after a moment. "I've been afraid to have you as a friend. Instead of being…normal and accepting it, I retaliated too intensely and thought the whole time you had been messing with me, instead of just – I suppose as you said, you were just joking – but I didn't think of it as that. So I…pushed you away and didn't want to let you know how I felt, what I actually thought about it all. It's just, I never believed that I – well, everyone who as ever claimed to be my friend has left or broken our companionship with some excuse, so I think it was my fault those times as well. There was someone who was…a little more than a friend, but – I have not spoken to her for an Age. She left as well."

Glorfindel couldn't think of anything to say. He hadn't thought Erestor would tell him anything, he would just leave angrily…but these matters needed to be resolved. Erestor squinted at Glorfindel's pondering expression and he added one more thing.

"There is…still time, you can leave now. I would not feel too upset." His eyes betrayed the contrary.

Glorfindel shook his head and leaned forward. "No, I won't, Erestor. I don't know who your acquaintances were then, but as you said, they have left. You can dismiss them from your mind – they do not matter anymore." He glanced around the room and sighed at the lack of another chair. They should both be sitting in a discussion like this, one that might take a while. He turned his gaze back to Erestor and spoke firmly. "I am not them. They were fools to leave a friendship such as you can offer, and I will not do so. I never wished to purposely hurt – or harm – you, and if I should ever do so unintentionally, or if you think it was purposeful, you will confront me about it and we can talk about it. Really talk about it."

Erestor was just staring at him. "Aye," was all he said.

Glorfindel felt the silky fur of the kitten slide along his ankle once more, and a brilliant idea flew into his mind. He stood again, making sure not to jostle the kitten that was curled around his ankle. "We can discuss this fully tonight, when it will be more comfortable for both of us. You will come to the library tonight?"

Erestor's gaze skittered to the floor, then he set his jaw and looked up. "Yes. I will be there."

Glorfindel released a relieved breath he hadn't known he was holding. "Good, I will see you there." He smiled, a bit of mischief creeping into his blue eyes. "Have fun with your…inventory of the warehouses, or whatever you said you were doing."

Erestor accepted that the conversation was over, but his mind was already working on the reason Glorfindel was so determined that they meet for chess again tonight. "I will, thank you," he said absent-mindedly, and turned to the door. His robes fluttered about his ankles as he paused just before he closed it.

"Don't forget the wine."

"I never do!" Glorfindel called as the door shut. He laughed in a sort of shock and relief and sat down, quietness overtaking the small office again. He still couldn't quite believe what had just happened. Had this all really happened?"

"Did that really happen?" he queried to the kitten that was now chewing on his shoe laces. She mewed and looked up at him with large blue eyes.

"I suppose it did," he agreed, and picked her up. She settled easily into his lap again, and he began stroking her soft fur once more. Looking down at her, he smiled slightly and added, "I have something in mind for you, little darling."

She purred.

I'm sorry. I started writing and I absolutely could not stop. I'm still writing it, in fact, but it's going to be over 10,000 words. (How could becoming friends again take that long, you two? I'm disappointed). I don't want to make you all read that many words at once, so I'm going to divide it into four separate chapters. It should go a little faster this way – and I'm actually thinking I should have made it just one big huge story. Maybe not, though.

So! What do you think? Will they actually get over themselves? Will Glorfindel find out what Erestor is hinting at? Is Erestor even going to show up?!

And the most important question of all…will Glorfindel forget the wine?