Fan Fiction ❯ Return to Ashes ❯ Return to Ashes ( One-Shot )

Title: Return to Ashes, part 1/1

Pairing: Erm, sort of B/A

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Boromir's thoughts in his final moments, movieverse

Disclaimer: Character's, places, languages, etc, all belong to Tolkien, of course. As if I could ever create something so amazing.

The pain is agonizing now, shooting through every limb, running in spiraled shocks along my spine. My lungs are laboring in their effort, and I can barely keep my eyes open to watch him.

Watch him fight the Uruk-hai for me. I hope he is victorious. But I don't need to hope, he will triumph, I know this. Triumph where I have failed.

That triumph will come too late for me; darkness is approaching. My weary lungs pant harder at the thought.

Please, I don't want to die. Die in failure and obscurity, knowing I have brought ruin to us all. I don't want to die knowing I have shown him only weakness. I can never prove myself now. I betrayed them.

I betrayed Frodo, and now Merry and Pippin have been taken.

A shadow darkens my vision and I struggle to focus. Then he is bending over me, dirty and bloodied, his eyes full of concern as he looks at me anxiously. Panic tightens my chest once more.

"They took the little ones!" I gasp, my breath rattling. He must save them now, from the doom I sent them to.

And what of the one who carries the doom of all, that which became my unforgivable weakness? I look around wildly, seeking the Halfling I have wronged.

"Frodo! Where is Frodo?"

Aragorn's hands touch me carefully, as if to calm me, and my eyes find his once more.

"I let Frodo go," he says softly.

Oh, help me, it is agony! He has bettered me once more. The guilt is pressing against my chest, it must be voiced, and the words spill out in a half-sobbed cry of remorse.

"Then you did what I could not. I tried to take the Ring from him…"

What shame it is to admit it. Perhaps in the end it is better that I die here, and rid the Fellowship of the burden of my presence.

Aragorn is speaking again, telling me that the Ring is beyond our reach, and I would be glad of it, if I were not the cause of the little one's departure. What evil I have brought upon us!

"Forgive me," I gasp, "I did not see… I have failed you all."

My hand is on his shoulder, my fingers clenching and unclenching in his hair as if they possess a life of their own. There is sadness in his eyes… and pity. Oh, has it come to this, that he should look at me with pity? The final insult, no more than I deserve.

"No, Boromir," he is saying now, "You fought bravely. You have kept your honor."

My honor? I would laugh if I didn't feel so strangely close to tears. Ruin, everything is destroyed by my own reckless folly, my insufferable pride. Everyone else seemed to know, to understand, even the little Hobbits, and I alone have been corrupted. My honor is in tatters.

I am struggling to breath, my lungs working in short, harsh gasps, and I begin to feel disconnected. The sensation fills me with terror and I fight desperately to remain within myself, keeping my eyes on the face of the man before me. The dark waves of his hair are wild, tangled and dirty about his face, and blood is crusting on the corner of his lips.

He moves then, and it comes to me that he is reaching for one of the arrows buried deeply in my chest. I thrash, my hand falling from his shoulder to grip his wrist, staying him. There is no reason to pretend anymore.

Leave it," I manage, shaking with the effort, reaching out to grip his shirt desperately. "It is over."

Despair is drowning me now, overwhelming the pain, and the burn of tears rises in my eyes. The quest has failed; I did not understand until it was too late. The words escape my lips without my consent, tortured and laced with sobs.

"The race of Men will fail, and all will come to darkness," I rasp between clenched teeth, and my voice breaks with the unendurable agony of this last: "and my city to ruin."

Ah, Minas Tirith, my beloved home! I have failed all that I hold dear, such black despair I have never known. Everything within me is crying out for one last chance, one final moment for redemption, but it is not to be. In my mouth is the taste of ashes, the bitter tang of defeat.

Aragorn's hand has lifted and now covers my own, holding it against his chest, and when I look into his eyes, it seems that pain is tightening his own features. My heart quails before him as I am once again faced with the depths of my own foolishness. My bravado when I spoke to him at the Council seems more dream than reality now; it should be impossible that I had spoken thus. Truly, he is the better man between us, and would that I had more time, for only recently have I had the eyes to see it. Our brief talk in the wooded glades of Lothlorien had broken through my final reserves, and I had faced a tentative wish to know him better. And more than that. More than that…

His depthless, ageless blue eyes are earnest now, and he presses my hand with his fingers as if to regain my attention. Where else would I look with this, my last breath?

"I do not know what strength is in my blood," he whispers, his voice rough. Strength enough, Aragorn… More than enough.

"But I swear to you…"

His words come out of a dream.

"I will not let the White City fall… Nor our people fail."

It is pain to feel such hope. My breath nearly fails me once again with the sheer, desperate rise of it within me. Has he committed himself at last? Has a king truly returned to claim the throne of Gondor?

"Our people?" I gasp out, the tentative tremble of a smile on my cracked lips. He nods intently, and the smile breaks free. "Our people…"

He nods again, and that agonizing, hopeful smile will not leave my lips as I stretch my hand out to the side, toward the sword that fell beyond my reach. I think perhaps I see Legolas beyond us, though when he arrived I do not know. Gimli may be there too, it matters not. The solid weight of the hilt bears down on my hand as Aragorn presses the sword into my grasp and helps me draw it up to rest against my chest.

I look up into his dark, grave face, lined with years, wisdom and too many burdens, and feel a sudden, desperate longing to tell him that I love him. And yet I know I will not. To do so would only be selfish, would only add to the pain he carries. I do not want to continue to be his burden. I do not want to hurt him. The smile is wavering on my lips, but I hold to it determinedly, refusing to let him see. I will say as much as I can.

"I would have followed you, my brother," I say longingly, the ache in my throat nearly stopping my words. I would have given anything for the chance to follow my lord into battle, but I have destroyed all my own hopes.

"My captain…" I want to scream for release from this, from seeing so many things I might have done differently.

"My king…"

I cannot speak anymore, and as I look up at him with my fading vision, I see I have failed anyway, for there are tears in his eyes, and his face is taut with grief. I want to tell him not to cry for me, not to waste it. I want to touch his cheek to comfort him. But my body has gone cold, and now I realize that I can hardly see anymore, only vague shadows all around me. And yet, as I stare at the blur that is my liege-lord, I realize he is light.

Then that, too, has faded, and all has truly come to darkness. I feel barely tethered, and I wish with my whole being to return to him. Return to all of them. What ill fate is this; that I was chosen for this destiny? But I lie to myself. It is a fate of my own making.

Only the thinnest threads of sensation still tie me to the earth, and I hear the distant echo of a voice, as from a long, lonely distance.

"Be at peace, son of Gondor…"

It seems that I feel the briefest flutter of heat, less tangible than a breath, across my forehead and I want to cling to the feeling, to the touch of his lips, but that thin thread of feeling has snapped completely and I am drifting, utterly cold and alone.

Is this only temporary? Am I heading toward a destination? Or is this all there is? That cannot be so. Please, someone, come and take me away from here.

I want to curl up on myself. I want to weep. But I cannot. I cannot. I don't want to be alone here.

Drowning in misery, I endure the silence. Waiting.