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Faramir’s first thought upon waking is that everything hurts. His muscles, his skin, even his bones seem to ache.
He blinks open his eyes, and the face of a man he doesn’t recognize swims into view, looking down on him with concern. He tries to speak, but his mouth doesn’t obey him, and all that comes out is a soft groan.
“It’s alright.” The man says. Something about his voice is oddly ethereal, almost supernaturally comforting. “You’re safe. The battle is over.”
Battle?
Faramir’s mind works sluggishly, trying to process his surroundings, to connect past and present.
And then it all comes rushing back.
“Osgiliath…” He manages, trying to sit up. “I— I have to—“
“No.” The man, the healer, that’s what he must be, puts a strong hand on Faramir’s shoulder, holding him in place. “You don’t need to do anything. It’s over.”
“But—“ Arrows flying, men and horses screaming, his soldiers falling around him, all is lost, there’s no escape, he’s going to die— “How…” He breathes, every word feeling like an effort. “How did I survive?”
“It seems your horse carried you back to the city just in time.” The healer explains. His face darkens slightly, and it makes the enormity of the situation come crashing down again.
“But then— Osgiliath, the Pelennor— They’ll attack, we have to prepare—“
“Lie still.” The healer says firmly. “The siege was pushed back three days ago.”
“Pushed—“ Faramir looks at him in astonishment. “Pushed back? How?”
The healer smiles.
“It’s quite the tale, and one I’m sure many will tell far better than I. But for now, all you need to know is that your city is safe.”
Part of Faramir doesn’t want to accept that, wants to demand details, answers, but the healer’s face is open and sincere and trustworthy, and he is so very, very tired.
“Alright.” He says, leaning back against the headboard.
The healer stands from his chair next to the bed, crossing the room and returning with a small bowl from which a wisp of steam curls. It suddenly occurs to Faramir that he is ravenous.
“You’re hungry.” The healer says with a knowing smile as he retakes his seat. “That’s a good sign.”
He scoops some of the clear broth onto a spoon and holds it out, and even in his current state Faramir feels a rush of shame at the idea of being fed like a helpless infant.
“I— I can—“ He tries to raise a hand, but his entire arm trembles violently with the effort it takes to do so.
“It’s alright.” The healer’s voice is full of kindness, understanding. “It will take time for your strength to return. There’s no shame in it.”
His expression is open, earnest, as if he really sees no problem with this display of weakness. Faramir still hesitates for a moment, but his hunger wins out and he nods, submitting to the indignity of being spoon-fed.
Even after the ordeal is over, he finds it difficult to meet the healer’s gaze. That doesn’t trouble him for long, however, as he also finds it difficult to keep his eyes open at all.
“Sleep.” He hears the healer say, and he would swear there is some magic to the man’s voice, because sleep he does.
---
He isn’t sure if it’s hours or days later that he next wakes, but the same healer is at his bedside, as if he’s never left. Maybe he hasn’t.
“How are you feeling?” The man asks gently.
Faramir grimaces as he takes stock of his body, then says just about the only positive thing he can.
“Alive.”
The healer chuckles.
“Well, it’s a start. Do you think you can sit up?”
“I… I think so…” It’s a slow, painful process, and leaves him slightly out of breath, but he manages to push himself into a sitting position on his own strength. As the blanket falls away from his chest and arms, Faramir sees for the first time that they are bandaged.
The healer leans closer and begins to unwind the wrappings.
“The worst of your injuries have been seen to.” He explains as he works, “And now that your fever has broken, your strength should start to return slowly. But it will take time.”
As he removes the bandages, Faramir is startled to see that his skin is mottled with the raw, bright pink of half-healed burns.
“How— How badly was I hurt?”
The healer’s expression turns grim as he begins to spread salve on the burns.
“You took two arrows in the battle for Osgiliath. One of them was apparently poisoned.”
Faramir nods, absorbing this information, starting to fill in the gaps of his missing days.
“And… the fire?”
The healer’s face darkens further, and it makes a hollow feeling open in the pit of Faramir’s stomach.
“You were…” He hesitates, clearly trying to decide how to say something. “I’m told there was an attempt to… give you premature funeral rites. In the style of our ancestors.”
A funeral pyre. Faramir has read about such things, but never seen one.
“Why?”
“It seems that you were mistaken for dead.” The healer explains, but there is something in his face that suggests there is more to it than that.
“But why fire?” He presses. “Why not simply bury me?”
The healer shakes his head.
“The siege of the city was… difficult for many. It is not a pleasant tale. You will hear it, but not now.”
Faramir stares at him, reading in his eyes what he doesn’t say aloud.
You’re not strong enough yet, still frail from healing. The truth would destroy you.
It should make him angry, would make him angry, but he can’t seem to feel anything but exhaustion.
And maybe that is a sign that the healer is right.
---
The healer is certainly right about his strength taking time to return. Faramir can’t deny that he is making progress, as the healer reminds him frequently over the next two days. He is able to stay awake for longer, able to stand on his own power, able to eat without assistance, but the process of recovery still seems agonizingly slow. It makes him feel weak, useless. It’s incredibly frustrating.
“This is ridiculous.” He complains yet again after trying to walk on his own, failing, and, humiliatingly, needing to be helped back to bed. He knows he sounds like a petulant child, but he rather feels like a child too, helpless, dependent. He hates it. “I can hardly do anything at all!”
“Your strength will return in due time.” There is an edge of fond exasperation in the healer’s gentle tone.
“I don’t have ‘due time’! I should be helping the city recover and instead I’m just lying here, when there’s so much to be done— I’m no use to anyone like this!”
The healer raises an eyebrow.
“Must you always be of use? At every given moment?”
Faramir frowns at him in return, finding the question odd.
“I… prefer to be, yes. I don’t enjoy being idle when there is work to be done.”
“Recovery is work.” The healer reminds him. “You were willing to give your life to defend your people, and you very nearly did. That will not be forgotten.”
“Not that it did much good.” Faramir sighs. He knows he should keep his mouth shut, he shouldn’t be heard criticizing his father’s decisions, but he is tired and angry and he can’t bring himself to care. “The attack on Osgiliath was suicide. My men and I would have been put to much better use staying behind the walls and helping prepare for the siege. I knew that, everyone did, but…”
“But you had your orders.” The healer sounds sympathetic, as if he truly understands. And perhaps he does. Faramir doesn’t know the man’s life story. Perhaps he was a soldier for some time, before becoming a healer.
“I had my orders.” Faramir repeats. He knows he should be defending his father, supporting him, but how does he defend sending almost a hundred men to face certain death?
Now that he thinks about the man, Faramir is surprised Denethor hasn’t visited him yet, if only to glare disapprovingly and scold him for this latest failure, missing in action when Gondor needed him most. In fact, up until now, he hasn’t even heard mention of his father’s name since he woke. The realization makes dread start to creep up his spine, and suddenly he has to know.
“Where… Where is the Lord Steward?”
The healer’s face falls.
“I’m sorry.” He says, and Faramir feels his heart stop. It can’t be. “Lord Denethor is… He did not survive the battle.”
No. No. His father isn’t dead. It’s not possible.
“I’m sorry.” The healer says again, placing a hand over Faramir’s on the blanket.
Faramir shakes his head, trying to maintain his composure, but he doesn’t have the strength to master his emotions right now. His eyes fill with tears.
“I… I don’t… How did it happen?”
The healer’s grip on his hand tightens.
“It will not be easy for you to hear.”
“I don’t care.” Faramir says fiercely. “I have to know.”
The healer sighs.
“I was not present. But I will tell you what I know.”
Faramir nods, ignoring the few tears that escape and run down his cheeks.
“I am told,” The healer continues, “That when you were returned to the city, you were believed to be dead. When Lord Denethor was informed of this, he…”
Faramir thinks he is prepared to hear whatever end that sentence could possibly have. Even if it is unspeakably cruel. Even if his father laughed, celebrated, at the news of his second son’s passing. But then the healer says the one thing he is utterly unprepared for, the one thing that hurts worse than his father’s scorn.
“He lost hope. It seems that he… Decided to end things. He ordered a funeral pyre built for the last members of his house, including himself.”
For a moment, Faramir’s mind refuses to comprehend the obvious. The last members of the House of Stewards? Who else would that be, besides his father?
And then he remembers the bandages on his chest and arms, covering tender, blistered skin. Burns.
He shakes his head, as if he can dislodge the sickening knowledge; that Denethor, blinded by grief and despair, unknowingly tried to kill him.
“But— But I survived. Why?”
How could he have survived, when one of the strongest men he’s ever known had not? First Boromir, now his father. Leaders and warriors of unmatched caliber have fallen around him and yet he, the scholar, the Wizard’s Pupil, has endured. Why?
“You were rescued.” The healer explains. “Thanks to the determination and swift action of one Peregrin Took. But Lord Denethor… did not want to be saved.”
“...then I suppose, in a way, he was still himself in the end.” Faramir says hollowly. “Stubborn to the last.”
And then he is crying, tears running down his face, sobs shaking his frame.
The healer’s free hand goes to his shoulder, holding him, comforting him, and no one has touched him like that since Boromir left for Rivendell, and now he is crying harder.
“I— I’m sorry—“ He chokes out through the tears, struggling to regain his composure, and thoroughly failing.
“No.” The healer says; quiet, gentle, but firm. “You have a right to grieve.”
“I—“ He wants to say thank you, to make excuses, but the words won’t come. He hasn’t cried like this since he was a child, at least not in another person’s presence. Even his grief for Boromir was private by necessity. It makes him feel exposed, ashamed, but also, somehow, freed.
He cries until his strength is spent, and the healer doesn’t say a word, passes no judgement, simply waits patiently. Only when his tears are spent and he feels empty, hollow, does the man say gently;
“You need rest. Sleep. It’s alright.”
And once again, it feels as though the healer’s voice has some magic, compelling him to sleep. Or maybe he truly is just that exhausted.
---
The next time he is awake, he asks to see Pippin, relieved to hear that the young hobbit survived the battle. Their conversation helps put some of his fears to rest, and in the wake of the news about his father’s death reminds him that all is not lost just yet.
The healer who was his constant companion for the first few days must now have additional patients, because sometimes he is present and other times another healer tends to him. A few of the others Faramir recognizes from visiting the Houses when one or another of his soldiers were injured, and nearly all of them whisper about a news that he has only heard in rumors up until this point.
Aragorn, Son of Arathorn, the Heir of Isildur, has indeed come to Gondor. He has taken up leadership of the nation’s armies, and if Sauron remains at bay long enough, he may even see coronation. The White Tree in the palace courtyard is flowering. The King has returned.
The news is bittersweet in light of his father’s death, but it also fills him with a hope that he hasn’t had in a long, long time. A hope that Gondor may truly have a future beyond living perpetually at the precipice of being overrun by Sauron’s armies. It is a strange feeling.
He wonders what this Aragorn is like, what kind of king he will be, what shape Gondor will take under his rule. More selfishly, he also wonders what his place will be in this new regime, if he will have one at all. What role could possibly be served by the second-rate son of a dead regent who never wanted a king in the first place?
He doesn’t share these thoughts, however, not even with the healer who was something of a confidant in the early days of his recovery. But soon after his conversation with Pippin, the man arrives carrying a small stack of books. He sets them on the table next to the bed.
“I thought these might make you feel less… idle.” He says with an understanding smile.
“Thank you.” Faramir says earnestly, genuinely touched by the gesture.
The healer just nods, sitting down at his bedside, and beginning the now familiar process of treating Faramir’s remaining injuries.
“Your burns are healing well.” The man says a short while later, smiling as he starts to re-wrap the bandages on Faramir’s chest. “In a few days, you won’t need to bandage them anymore.”
A guard steps into the room, clears his throat, and stands at attention.
“My Lord Aragorn. Mithrandir is asking for you.”
The healer turns.
“Of course.” He answers. “I’ll be there in just a moment.”
Then he turns back and continues wrapping bandages.
“Aragorn?” Faramir sputters, eyes wide. “You, you’re—"
“Indeed.” The Heir of Isildur looks faintly amused.
Faramir’s face goes scarlet. This man who has been dressing his wounds, soothing his fears, helping him eat like an invalid child, this man is—
“My Lord, My— My King, I—“
“There’s no need for that.” The healer— Aragorn’s eyes sparkle with something akin to mischief, but his expression is calm and quite sincere. “I’m not here as anyone’s king. The Houses were in need of as many healers as could be found to treat the wounded, so I volunteered my skills. In a few weeks perhaps, if any of us live that long, you can call me your king. For now, I’m just your nurse.”
Rather than comforted, Faramir only feels more embarrassed.
“But you’re— Surely you have more important things—"
“Than the lives, the well-being, of my people?” Aragorn’s tone is stern, but his expression is kind. “If that were the case, I’d hardly make much of a king.”
“I…” Faramir starts, but finds he has no argument for that. “All the same, if I had known...”
“You would have stood on ceremony, instead of focusing your energy where it belongs, on getting well.” Aragorn says, and how is it possible that he can make Faramir feel like a scolded child, and yet comforted, understood, at the same time?
“I… suppose you’re right.” He admits sheepishly. “Still, I feel as if I’ve made a fool of myself…”
“Not at all. The foolish thing would be to consider yourself above reliance on others, above accepting help.”
“But you… You’re Dunedain.” Faramir points out. “Your people are known more than any other for their self-reliance, their ability to survive on their own, isolated in the wilds, for months on end. Surely, compared to that, I must seem, well, rather pathetic.”
Aragorn frowns.
“Is that what you think?” He shakes his head. “If a Dunedain ranger were to suffer injuries such as yours, alone in the wilds with no help in sight, do you know what he would do?”
Faramir shakes his head.
“He would die.” Aragorn says flatly.
“Oh.” Faramir looks down, feeling a bit ashamed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“My people survive on our skill and knowledge, it’s true, but we are not some supernatural creatures.” Aragorn continues. His voice is firm, but he doesn’t sound angry. “Every man has his limits. To acknowledge them is not shameful. In fact, it is a matter of survival. A ranger who does not know or cannot accept when something is beyond him does not live very long.”
“I— Of course.” Faramir nods. “You’re right. No one can survive their whole life truly alone.”
Aragorn smiles wryly.
“Not even a king.”
Faramir realizes now that he need not have wondered what his new king will be like. In these last few days, Aragorn has shown exactly who he is; a man of wisdom, patience, and compassion. Perhaps that is what Gondor needs now. Not a leader who rules with an iron will and an iron first, who keeps no council apart from his own, but a healer.
“If we live to see the end of this, I would be honored to call you my king.”
“And I would be honored to have you at my side. You know this city, it’s people, better than anyone. And what is more, they know you.”
“You’d want my help?” Faramir asks. “My council? Even after…” He trails off, thinking with embarrassment of the past few days.
“After how hard I’ve seen you fight to stay alive? How much I know you’ve sacrificed for both your people and your ideals? After the praise of you I’ve heard from Pippin, from Gandalf, from the men who serve under your command? I can think of no one better.”
Faramir avoids meeting his gaze.
“Well, I— That’s not exactly— People tend to exaggerate—”
“I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time.” Aragorn continues, undeterred. “Ever since I first heard about you from Boromir.”
Faramir stares.
“Boromir talked about me?”
“Of course.” Aragorn says, raising an eyebrow. “Does that surprise you?”
“I… suppose it shouldn’t.” Faramir admits. “He was always very… open.”
“He was proud of you.” Aragorn says gently, yet with the air of one stating the obvious. “And he clearly missed you. It was always; ‘If my brother were here, he could tell you what these runes mean in an instant’ or ‘This reminds me of when Faramir was a boy, and…’”
Faramir feels tears prick at the corners of his eyes, at the same time that his face heats up with embarrassment again.
“He told you about my childhood?”
“Only good things.” Aragorn assures him, and there it is again, that glint of merry mischief in his gaze. His smile is infectious, and Faramir finds himself chuckling softly, shaking his head.
“If I know Boromir, that cannot possibly be true. If there was one thing my brother loved more than over-praising me, it was embarrassing me. Ideally he’d do both at once, if he could manage it.”
“He told me nothing that made me want to know you any less.” Aragorn clarifies. “In fact, I would be honored to have such an esteemed dragon-slayer counted amongst my friends.”
Faramir groans.
“Did he tell everyone about that?”
“Yes.” Aragorn says seriously. “One night around the campfire.”
“Oh, excellent…”
“But in all seriousness,” Aragorn continues, his smile softening from amused to something like caring, and isn’t that strange, “In all that I have both heard and seen of you, you’ve shown yourself to be a man of honor, strength, and wisdom. I place great value on your support and council. That is no joke.”
“I… thank you.” Faramir says quietly. “I will do my best to prove that I can be—"
“You have nothing to prove to me.” Aragorn interrupts, firm but gentle, completely cutting off Faramir’s train of thought. No one has ever said that to him before. Not even Boromir. He had no idea how to respond.
“Besides…” Aragorn continues, “You’ve already shown yourself to be adept at forging bonds with foreign dignitaries.”
Faramir blinks, feeling lost.
“I… I have?”
“Indeed.” Aragorn nods, the mirth returning to his expression in a way that Faramir suspects does not bode well for him. “Surely you know that young Peregrin is heir to nearly half the Shire?”
“You’re joking. Please tell me you’re joking.”
Aragorn laughs, actually laughs at him.
“I’m afraid I’m quite serious.”