Work Text:
The River Camp, autumn, Third Age 2981
It happened fast, as things like that tended to. The mud street packed with marketgoers not paying close attention. Elrohir had to edge sideways through the crowd. A sackclothed little urchin tried to pick his pocket and he pretended not to notice, because there was nothing in it to pick except a roll of gauze and a wadded-up exam glove. A quarry wagon rattled by, the driver hollering to clear the way, there was no quick stopping for the weight.
He spotted them from a distance. His knell of recognition followed immediately by a flare of alarm, as the little boy shucked free of his mother’s hand and dove into the slick street, hailing some fellow on the other side.
Elrohir was moving even before the screaming started. Skidded rock scattered, the rain whipping down. The moan of the wainmaster, his hand clutching his wide-open mouth.
The child’s trachea was severed. The left carotid emptying in spurts. Cervical vertebrae hammered to gravel where the steel wheel had rolled over. His dark little head held on by the threads. His mother was trying to keep it grafted to his body as his blood wept down over her hands.
Elrohir took the boy from her and laid him in his lap. The mud was cold. His hands were filthy. The wails of Halbarad’s fierce little wife beat hard upon the Doomsman’s doors.
He sealed his palm over that terrible wound and reached down into his own spirit where the reservoir lay still and deep as always, waiting to be drawn upon. Drawing would not do this time. He took a good breath and then kicked down the dam.
And awoke in his father’s bed nine days later, with a headache that about made him unhouse himself.
Except Laurelandë was asleep across his feet.
“Elrond!”
“I’m here, Laure. Elrohir…”
“…head.”
“A minute, stay still…”
“Yup.”
Eight hours after he first woke, as the morning sun lay gilt through the window upon Laurelandë’s hair, his father entered in Official Capacity, and Officially Suspended him.
His wife excused herself, the deserter, while he pried himself up in bed and kicked down the covers.
“You can’t suspend me.”
“If you recall, I can, in fact. I even filled out the correct paperwork. You’re in pajama pants, Elrohir, in spite of your posturing you are doing very little to dignify your objections. Sit down before you fall down.”
“I need to work.”
“You have been working, working yourself to a frazzle. Now you’ve earned yourself four weeks off.”
“Three more weeks?”
“Starting this day, not the first of your infirmity.”
Elrohir rubbed his face into his hands for a minute. He said without lifting them, “We are too shorthanded.”
“I am aware,” his father answered levelly. “Bren has agreed to fill in for you, and I have already dispatched Vinyáro to begin work in the infirmary full-time until you return, and after if you still have need of him.”
Elrohir said blackly, “That makes me feel much better, thank you.”
“It will be good for him.”
“Yeah, be sure to remind him to double-glove. Frick.”
“You are on leave, Elrohir.”
“I am on leave.”
“And it was extended for a reason, because your brothers wrote and requested it.”
Elrohir swore viciously, which did not so much as lift the Master’s brow.
“You had been out for four tours without so much as a week at base. Eight months, Elrohir. Three times your wife awaited you at the gates and then came home to your bed without you in it. Finally they drag you back by your ear and still she doesn’t see you. Do you know it had been over ninety hours since you had slept more than a snatch? You think you are unobtrusive but you have more watchers than you realize. Ninety hours. No small wonder you nearly killed yourself trying to heal the child.”
His head came up in a snap. “Trying—”
“From the sound of the injury, a nearly impossible feat. His mother has been round twice already asking after you, though I told her the pullets were an unnecessary recompense.”
“Father, the child…”
Elrond’s eyes were keen and steady. “Up and running in two days, as if he had not been nearly decapitated.”
Elrohir’s face went back into his hands for a while.