Author's Note: This is the last chapter. Thank you all for reading, for reviewing, for enjoying my story and my writing. Thank you for your critiques and your compliments. The next story, which I will eventually start posting, takes place three years after this one. I am SORRY for those of you who are looking forward to the birth of Eldarion that that story is not it; in fact, it includes the ongoing drama of their struggle to have a child. nd yes, I know that Ag & Ar would probably have a lot more people hanging around them all the time and guarding them as one of my reviewers stated, but honestly, I never really wanted to write in ALL those people or create characters that annoyingly hung around JUST for protection or ladies-in-waiting etc. So, yes! I agree! Artistic license, indeed!

I definitely WILL write a story about Eldarion's birth; I'll add it to my list of things I am VERY excited to write. :O) Thank you for following this story as long as you have to the end. Stay tuned for more adventures of the fabulous four! LOL Thanks again, readers!

"It was…a little easier today."

Aragorn stood out on the back porch of the King's House, leaning against the doorframe while he watched her, hands resting on the rail as she looked out into the night sky, the long dress she wore slowly moving around her bare feet in the light breeze. There was a warmth in the air tonight and that was good. Everyone had left them to themselves—Legolas and Enguina to ready for their journey, and Thranduil and Erumar to walk in the garden for a little while.

"It will be difficult for some time," he replied softly, having heard that slight stress in her voice when she said 'little.' "But it will get easier every day."

Aragorn knew what she meant. He had not felt the constant ache today when the two of them had spent the morning with Éowyn and Faramir, and by way of association, Folengel and Annî. If Arwen had been feeling it constantly, she had not shared it with him, so he could only hope that what he felt from her was real. If she was hiding from him…

She turned her chin so that she could see him and the stars and raised an eyebrow. "I expected to see you smoking."

He shrugged and walked slowly towards her, reaching out to rest his hands on her arms. "I only do that when you are not about. I do not like you breathing it in."

She laughed softly. "Yet you smoke it. Your store of pipeweed barely diminishes, Aragorn. I suppose that means I am too often about…or that you are too busy."

"The latter," he replied. "I know you do like the scent, though."

"I do," she admitted, shaking her head. "I do not know why, though I suppose it might be because it was out of place in Rivendell, a different scent entirely than I was used to. As you say, you do not smoke very often." She took in the warmth of him through his hands and took a slight step back into it so that his chest was against her.

"You did seem better today," he said gently in her ear. "More at ease with him, touching him, holding him…looking at him."

"Yes," she agreed softly. "I think it helped yesterday to refocus myself and continue to remember what I have, what we share that I cannot live without." She did lay her head back against his shoulder then and put more pressure on his body; he wrapped his arms around her and held her, crossing them over her chest. Lifting her own hands, she placed them on his arms. Both of them were silent for several long minutes, and he rested his lips against her hair, breathing in the scent of her and closing his eyes. "Estel?" she whispered.

"What is it, beloved?"

She hesitated, and he could feel her body tighten in his arms. There was a very serious question coming, something that was yet weighing deeply on her heart. "I know you love me," she continued very softly. "I know that you would give your heart to protect me. I know that you have always loved me since the day we met, that we were made for each other, and that we were joined by Ilúvatar himself. I…I know that."

"Yes, beloved," he agreed, pressing his lips to her hair with more pressure. "All of that is true."

"Please do not be angry with me," she begged, and he frowned, believing he might know where this was going.

"Arwen—"

"I know what you said that you feel," she said quickly, and her body tensed even more in his arms. "I know that you keep telling me that your love is strong and I know it—I believe your every word. I do. I just…sometimes I wonder if you have…really thought through how you feel."

He was silent, confused. "And what are you worried I have not thought through, beloved?" He felt her jaw move against his chin. "Stop biting your lips; you are going to break open that split you made yesterday."

"Do not poke fun at me."

"I am not, I assure you; you should not change the subject," he pointed out. "What have I not thought through?" He asked again, tightening his arms on her.

"The…" she hesitated once more, and he suddenly knew exactly what she was going to say.

"Do not say one more word," he said firmly, his voice low. "I have thought about every—"

"The consequences of your choice if we are unable to have a child," she said quickly, and though he did not pull his face away from her hair, his arms were almost painfully tight around her now. He could feel in her words how terrified she was of him agreeing with her, even as she was the one asking him to think of it! "Think. Think, Estel," she whispered, a wave of distress behind her voice. "Imagine what will happen to Gondor if the line of Kings ends with you. Who will be here, to follow in your footsteps, to care for these people as you have? Who will bring years of continued peace to the free peoples of Middle-Earth, the Reunited Kingdom? You are too good a man, too good a King, to be the last of your great lineage. Without a child of your blood, the line of Kings will break, and who will men look to for guidance, for strength? Think. How can you choose me when there is so much to lose?" The agony in her voice was plain, but she continued. "Why should you? You have to…you should make the right decisions for Gondor, and I—"

"Look at me," he said, turning her and gripping her arms in his hands, staring down into her face. She could not look away from his intense eyes; she had kindled a fire in them, and she knew whatever he was going to say was a result of his own pain at her words. "What is it that you would have me do, then?" She stared at him, unable to answer. The pain of any choice he would make would bring about the destruction of her heart; they both knew that to be true. "If you feel I need to travel this path with you, then I will dwell there if I must.

"There are few options. Separate myself from your love entirely and choose another wife…I laugh at this possibility as it would bring about my death, so let us move on. Choose another woman to have as my mistress, as the Stewards of old, as the asses of the Council were so willing to help me with…but no, this would also kill me, and therefore is not an option either. Where then can I turn if I cannot rely on another woman to accomplish the feat of bearing me a child of my blood? Shall we then perhaps see a sorcerer, a witch, even an apothecary who might be able to find us some magic remedy for this struggle?"

He forced his hands to release her arms and cupped them about her face, rubbing his thumbs along her cheekbones and wiping away the tears beneath her now closed eyes. "Any of these choices are complete nonsense, all of them would take me away from you, the focus of my love, and change it to be some twisted desire instead. There is no remedy for this trial that has been given us, only to walk by faith in Ilúvatar's strength alone. There is no other way; this is our test, and we must face it with faith. I have made a pledge to you, beloved, a vow that I will never break." He sighed, low and long, leaning forward to rest his brow to hers, letting his hands fall to her shoulders.

"I know…" she whispered brokenly. "But do you not want—?"

"Yes, I do," he answered. "Yes, yes, yes I do. I want to have children with you and see you become a mother as much as I want to be a father; oh yes, Arwen, I do. But even if Ilúvatar withholds the pleasure of children with you from me until I lay myself down and leave this world, I could be content, my beloved." He suddenly shook his head. "No, that is wrong; being content is wrong. I would be happy, overflowed with joy, that I have been able to spend my life loving you. The rest of my life would never be long enough."

"Sometimes," she murmured, feeling his breath caress her face, "I struggle to trust Ilúvatar with this ache in my chest. I continue to give it to him but the pain does not leave me." She bent her head forward and off to the side of his, rubbing her cheek against his gently, feeling the scratchiness of his beard against her skin. "I want it to go. I want to stop burdening you with it."

"Whatever burdens you is my burden. You are my wife, the other half of my heart…the better half."

He felt her lips curve into a smile. "The better half?"

"Unquestionably."

"Enguina wanted me to talk to her about my feelings last night," she added softly. "I could not, and I think it made her angry."

"Not angry," he disagreed. "She is frustrated, for you tend to hide from her whatever troubles you, and she cannot hide anything from you. This disturbs her; you are so good at hiding." She pressed her lips to his jaw, beneath his ear. "I can only hope that you continue not hiding from me."

"I…do not know how," she admitted honestly, lowering her forehead to his shoulder. His arms surrounded her. "I need you too much; I am too selfish to hide from you."

"You, beloved? Selfish? Unthinkable."

"I am selfish—selfish of your comfort, your love; some days I cannot even breathe without it." It was her turn to give a long sigh. "Oh, Estel," she whispered, "where would I be without your love? To think I nearly left Middle-Earth…for what? What life would that have been without you? No matter what this life brings, the trials we must face, there would be nothing, a void, without you."

He leaned her gently back from him and rested his hand on her face beneath her chin as he had the Eve of Midsummer when she had appeared, brought by Legolas and her father to the celebration. "Please," he said to her slowly, softly, "do not ever doubt my love, my devotion, my desperate desire for you. There is nothing in this life that matters more to me than your love, your heart. Ilúvatar has designed me to love you, and there is the truth of it."

She nodded. "I swear," she whispered, making the oath in her heart, "I will never doubt your word or question your love for me. I love you, Aragorn."

"Come and sit with me until the moon rises," he said softly, stroking her face. Then, taking her hand, he drew her to the chair that was near them. When he was seated, he took her down beside him and held her closely against his chest. The two of them stayed there for some time, Arwen's head upon his breast, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, the music of her life.

Enguina watched as Legolas tugged the tunic up over his head and dropped it onto the chair. She giggled as he tossed himself down beside her, bouncing the mattress and dragging the sheet up over the two of them as he pulled her close to him. She laid a hand against his chest and then slipped it around his back, feeling his skin.

"And what brought this on tonight, this removal of your clothes?" she teased him softly, pressing her lips up underneath his chin.

"My desire to feel my skin against yours," he sighed, and he felt her nudge his leg with her toes and then crisscross her ankle between his. "Tonight was fun."

She rolled her eyes. "It was embarrassing."

"You laughed," he pointed out. "Come now, It was the perfect way to spend our last evening in Minas Tirith before we journey. Everyone enjoyed themselves."

"Erumar even told a story of Haldir," she added softly. "I was amazed."

Legolas was silent for just a moment before he said, "I could not believe my father told a story of my mother. He…never would have spoken of her willingly before."

Legolas, neither would you! Enguina stared at his throat, his collarbone, his chest as she thought how she could draw him out. If he could talk to her tonight…perhaps this was an opportunity she should not waste. "Was your mother a warrior, Legolas?"

"No," he replied. "She could defend herself if necessary, but no…she was nothing like you, with a desire to learn and to fight if possible. My father encouraged that initially so that he would be her sole protector. Some years after they were wed, they were attacked, and father nearly died trying to protect her; he has a…scar across his mid-section from being run through." Enguina flinched and her fingers gripped him more tightly. "She learned a little bit after that, too afraid that he was going to kill himself, but…she never became proficient. She could not fire a bow as well as you can, and she never learned to wield a sword. In the end there were too many to fight against; no amount of proficiency would have rescued her."

"Like you and Faramir ambushed in the woods."

"Exactly," he agreed. "Thank Ilúvatar for Aragorn and his gifts as a Healer or that would have meant our deaths as well."

Enguina was silent a moment, thinking about how she could draw him out. He was speaking now; perhaps she could encourage him to continue. "That was what happened to your mother? She was ambushed?"

"By orcs," he said softly. "Taken, tortured. It was…unspeakable…the things they had done to her. My father hunted them, tracked them through the mountains until he found where they had taken her. She should not have been out in the Greenwood that day; father had told her to stay inside the tunnels, but she never listened. In that place, she and Adar never agreed and fought continuously. She would do what she wanted, and he was left scrambling about trying to protect or shield her." He sighed as he felt her presence in his mind like a caress. He had not thought to be telling her this story tonight, not after the laughter they had, but he was drawn to telling her. He might as well as not. "Thank you. Even I spoke to her many times, trying to encourage her to stay near the tunnels, especially as I grew older and more involved with the guard, went out on patrols with Adar…but she was so stubborn. That made father even angrier with her.

"One morning, they had been heatedly arguing; I knew because I had walked in on father standing alone in the throne room, too irritated to speak. I drew him out after several tries, we spoke, and he of course knew he would apologize to her when she came back. It was hours later when she did not return for dinner that he grew worried. When he went outside to search for her, he discovered she was missing. Tracks led out into the words; definitely orcs." He paused, but she did not lift her head to look at him, knowing it might be easier to tell the tale without her eyes on him. "Adar, Fânrim, and I, along with a legion of guards, went after them. It took us weeks to track them; they covered their trails well, and we followed them all the way into Hithaeglir, the Misty Mountains, where we finally caught up with them." He paused again, but this time she knew it was to collect himself to finish the tale. She felt him swallow against her head and she drew him even closer to her.

"The fortress was an orc stronghold. He heard them first, of course he did; he had much keener senses in those days than I did. He ran forward without a word and burst through every door, every turn until he came to the place where she was…kept. I...I can still remember him screaming, the moment he saw her lying there, butchered on the ground. He fought not one orc in that room, from that moment on; he was on his knees beside her as the battle raged all around him. Adar had no eyes for anything—only her body, covered with blood, broken limbs angled every which way, by Elbereth how they had tortured her, mutilated her. Guin…the only creatures worse than orcs were the Uruk-Hai, and thankfully they no longer exist. It was horror; no matter what we assumed we might have found, nothing could have ever prepared us for what we did.

"It haunted my dreams for years," he said softly, "the sight of my father, kneeling beside her, clutching her broken and lifeless body as he wept. All the suffering in my life combined could not equal what I saw in my father that day. I was filled with grief by my mother's death, but my father was broken by it. That is why I stayed as far away from him as I could for…nearly ten years. He could not look into my face, my eyes, and see my mother…knowing and thinking of the last words they had spoken with one another. He is haunted by them, has been for the last thousand years."

Enguina was grieved by his story, the great weight of everything they carried. "Legolas, I am so sorry," she said, smoothing her fingers against his hair. "I know this story brings you pain, but I am glad that you shared it with me. I am so sorry for what happened to your mother."

"When I look back, I only feel regret. I wish…part of me wishes that my father had forced my mother to stay inside instead of letting her do what she wanted, though I suppose, that would not have been very loving. He was angry enough to; why did he not do it?" He shook his head. "If only he had demanded her to stay…"

"You think she would have listened?" she asked, shaking her head. "Legolas, if she was as stubborn as you say, than she would have refused him to his face." She lifted her head from beneath his chin and brushed her lips to it. "Do you blame your father for what happened?"

He sighed. "You asked me that two weeks ago. I…do not think so. No, if there is anyone to blame, it is her. She loved nature, she loved to be part of the world and experience it. She brushed aside the evil, wanting to believe everything was good in its own way; this was so unlike my father who had experienced so much war and pain in his life. That was the reason, I think, they balanced one another so well. For four hundred years after her death, all of father's faults seemed to rise up and consume him, his temper, his anger, his overprotectiveness, his pride. He softened a bit when…well, when he half-adopted Tauriel when her parents were killed by orcs. She was so…young."

"Tauriel?" The name immediately came back to her from the dinner conversation. "The one who helped you teach Gimli to climb trees?"

"The very same."

She looked at him and raised an eyebrow. "Is there history there? With you…and her?"

He raised an eyebrow back at her. "Does it matter if there was?"

"No," she said softly, shaking her head. "You are mine now, and I am yours. Nothing like that matters. I was just…wondering who she was, wondering what a woman who you were in love with might be like."

He smiled at her and kissed her gently. "I will not say I never considered loving Tauriel once. I never loved her like that, what you are talking about. Guin, when I said I have never felt for another living being what I feel for you, I meant it. I did consider Tauriel at one time, but…Father forbid it."

"Why?" she asked, looking horrified.

"She was family, Guin. She was…well, she was like my sister. I was long a man before she was even a child, much less a woman, and Father was right when he said it would have been wrong. Moreover, she was headstrong and stubborn and was easily my best friend aside from Fânrim." He laughed. "Tauriel is a warrior. Being raised by my father alone, she, like him, would give her life to see the Greenwood protected."

"She is your best friend?"

"Well, she is my oldest friend," he admitted. "She knew me best at one time. Now, I am probably closer to Gimli and Aragorn."

"Why did she not come to the wedding? I would have loved to get to know her. I bet we would become very good friends."

"When we travel there some time, as I know you want to see it yourself, you will meet her. Perhaps you can swap silly stories about me—she knows far too many of those!" He grinned at her, kissing her nose and then her lips again. "Someone, the only one my father could really trust, had to stay and protect our home. I…was angry at first, but I should be more understanding with my father. After having lived in Eryn Lasgalen almost his entire existence, my father needs to protect it, shelter it. Perhaps we shall feel that way about Ithilien."

"Oh…perhaps," she said with a bit of a smile, "though I think we might need to come here often and abandon our home alone with two of our very, very good friends living a few days' ride from us."

"Mmm."

He kissed her again, several times in fact and then she broke off to look in his eyes again as she stroked his hair. "Legolas, can I tell you something?"

"Of course."

"I do not want to live with any regrets about the words I say or the things I do, especially with you," she told him. "I love you."

He smiled. "I love you, my Guin." He rubbed her back with a hand, tracing above the nightdress she wore and beneath her hair. Her fingers traced a long, thin scar along his lower back.

"Where did you get this?"

"A whip." He felt her flinch. "It was a very long time ago."

"And this?" she asked, tracing a small scar on his ribcage, directly beneath his breast. "What is this from?"

"An orc arrow, on a journey with Aragorn."

"You have others," she said, letting her hand return to his back.

"Yes," he said, then he smiled, glancing down past her face to the front of the beautiful green dress she wore. "I meant to mention earlier, long before you laid down here, that I think this is one of the loveliest things I have ever seen you wear."

"It was a gift from Éowyn. She told me it would please you and that I would not be wearing it for long because it would make you take me to our bed." She giggled at the words, and Legolas felt the heat from her face. "She is so silly!"

"No, she is right," he chuckled back, tracing the low cut of the back. "But I think perhaps tonight is not the best night to take advantage of this dress; we do have a bit of traveling to do tomorrow."

"What," she began, and he could hear the teasing lilt in her voice, "you have a set time to be out of this house and on the road? No one but us would know that we were leaving a bit later than intended." She began pressing kisses along his chin, her fingers beginning to trail slowly down his spine.

"Enguina," he whispered low. "My dove, are you trying to seduce me?"

"Seduce is such a strong word, dearest," she replied in a similar tone, rubbing her toes along his ankle. "How about entrance you with my charms and then tempt you until you give in?" She took her fingers down along his back until she reached his hip, resting her hand there. "Furthermore, I feel as though I have not touched you since you bathed me, and that was yesterday morning."

"Ah…I heard you telling Arwen about that," he murmured in reply.

"Did you?" she asked and he felt the warmth of her face once again. "I was only telling her because I…enjoyed it so much. And it made me feel as mended on the outside as you have made me feel on the inside."

"You can tell Arwen whatever you want. Only do not be surprised when I spend five minutes telling Aragorn how wonderful it is to make love to you and how good I am at pleasing you."

"Legolas!"

"I only tease!" he chuckled again, reaching down to drag a hand over and beneath her arm to trace her ribs. "I said nothing of the kind; do not be so suspicious!" He pressed his lips to hers as they both laughed softly. She pressed against his hip and pushed his back onto the bed, leaning her upper body against him as they continued to kiss.

"You are such a troll," she murmured and he grinned at her.

"But you love me in spite of all of that."

"Yes," she agreed, rubbing her nose against his and propping herself up on her elbow to let her fingers dance gently across his chest. He sighed at how good it felt.

"I love it when you touch me."

She could not help her smile, but her voice was more serious when she whispered to him. "Legolas, can I…will you let me love you tonight? The way you have loved me these last two nights? I want you to feel what I have felt from your hands, your mouth—"

"Oh, I have, love," he said, desire for her shining in his eyes, "my connection with you, our thoughts entwined, I know what you have felt."

"Please," she said, pressing her lips to his jaw, and moving upward so she could move her lips along his skin to his ear. His eyes closed involuntarily as she found a place she knew very well would arouse him. Mmm…Guin… She felt both of his hands move along her back, one up towards her neck, the other much lower. "Please…"

"Love me as you desire, Guin," he breathed into her ear. "Love me until you have no strength left. Love me until you cannot think. Love me until your heart beats as one with mine. Love me until we fall asleep, your head against my chest, in one another's embrace. I am yours."

And she did.