End of the Day
By Sharpeslass
Summary: what might have happened to Grima Wormtongue after “The Scouring of the Shire.”
Rating: PG-13 /R (for prudence sake)
Genre: Angst/Romance/AU (?)/and very bookish
Disclaimer: Don’t own them, and even kind of borrowed the premise. (P.S.: If rhyming bothers you, stick to the movies. In all fairness, Tolkien’s rhyming was about 180% better than mine, even without the “ho, ho derry-oh” type stuff.)



[Saruman Laughed. ‘You do what Sharkey says, always, don’t you, Worm? Well now he says: follow!’ He kicked Wormtongue in the face as he groveled, and turned and made off. But at that something snapped: suddenly Wormtongue rose up, drawing a hidden knife, and then with a snarl like a dog he sprang on Sarumans’s back, jerked his head back, cut his throat, and with a yell ran off down the lane. Before Frodo could recover or speak a word, three Hobbit-bows twanged….]

Grima felt the arrows whiz past him as he ran. One grazed his arm, but he felt little pain. The act he had committed just moments before was still with him. After its first rush of adrenaline he felt strangely calm. It was a feeling, had he but known it, very similar to that experienced by Bilbo Baggins so many years past. Quite near to this place the Hobbit had finally parted with the Ring of Power, leaving it in trust to his nephew before heading off to visit Rivendell for what was to be the last time.

Unlike Bilbo, Grima had no clear destination. The road did (as the Hobbit in question had observed more than once) lead ever, on and on. Now he sought and found a way out of the Shire. Never a leader and with none now to follow, Grima wandered a long way aimless. Though the darkness had lifted from most of Middle Earth, he had lingered long in the fog, and that fog had not thinned with his master’s demise. For an eternity he walked, then tumbled and fell.

There are certain places where even soul shrouds such as Grima’s may be lifted. It was in one such place that Grima opened his eyes. He was sprawled on the thick green grass of spring. Looking up he saw a man (was it a man? Too tall to be a hobbit…) in a brightly coloured jacket of blue, with boots of brightest yellow. He had a long beard but it was dark brown, not white, as Saruman’s had been. And his cheeks were as red and shiny as Shire apples. He was like a burnished woodcarving. The strange man looked down upon Grima where he lay in the grass. His cheerful tone belied the dark meaning behind his words.

“As nasty a fellow as one might meet… but a poor player in what fate unfolded, lies here before my feet.” He reached a calloused palm to Grima. It brought to mind another proffered palm and another place, but the time for spitting at the prospect of peace was past. Grima reached tentatively for the hand that offered help and spun again into a dizzy amnesia.

**

He woke to find both bed and board. Unsettled by kind treatment, he lent his mind to finding plots. By his terms and treatment there were always plots.

He warily eyed his strange host.

“You did not depart with the Elven kind?” he finally asked. Breaking the silence... Tom made a gesture with his head, which seemed both a shake and a nod.

“Had fair Goldberry and I departed, you would find us here the same. As before the world was started, before even the old one’s came. The comings and goings of all free peoples do not touch us.”

A golden woman brought him a bowl containing a thick vegetable stew, and smiled as she set it before him. After eating hungrily for a few long moments Grima eyed Goldberry over his bowl and felt pain in his heart as her lithe form and fair face brought Eowyn to his mind. Her husband returned his gaze to Grima.

“To share our fare this one has chosen strange paths to take.” He addressed his words to his wife, though they seemed to have no need of words between them.
Grima rose quickly, knowing of a sudden that these two could see his soul. He knocked his bowl to the floor and clutched his hand to his breast. “You have many amends to make.” Bombadil expounded.

It was true, but just one was foremost in his heart.

He must seek out Eowyn and cast himself before her. Let him die by her hand if he must. Surely she would not leave that task to her new husband or her brother. The thought of Eomer brought back a brief fear, but it was swiftly replaced by the urgency of his thoughts upon rising. His hosts did not seem alarmed by his sudden movements. Nor did he need to speak to them his mind.

“Ho, Goldberry! So soon our guest is leaving. He has lingered here a week or more but found no solace for his grieving. Go then soul, if go you must, but take one parting gift from us.” Time, ever fluid in the presence of this pair (had Tom truly said ‘a week or more?’ It had been but one afternoon) left Grima standing beside a strange horse. What made it strange Grima could not say. But Tom was yet beside him. “This mount will guide you toward Ithilien.” Tom’s eyes crinkled in some secret jest. “At least to the ‘where’ if not the ‘when.’”

In spite of his time in Edoras, Grima was no master horseman and even in his present circumstance he was loath to mount this mare, which bore neither reins nor saddle.

He rode, ill fit and poorly disguised, to his desired meeting. Grima had long been enthralled by a powerful master. This new sense of purpose seemed almost the same, though the goal altogether different. He rode now not seeking power, but forgiveness.

He was captured, unsurprised, on the borders of Ithilien. and taken to his lady, his Love.

She had ceased, he saw, to be the handmaiden of sorrow. She was bright and pleased and glowing in her happiness.

Still, he thought, she must have loathing left for him. It seemed not. She smiled in his direction and bade her men to leave their captive in her hands.

“You are injured,” she said simply, and he could but nod. She smiled at him again and he felt his heart would burst. Not once before now, in his poor life had she given him such a smile. “I will dress your wounds before I see you on your way.” He could not speak, for the touches she laid upon him were the things of dreams… unrealized dreams. Of all the dark fantasies he’d imagined of her, not one could compare to the innocent cool touch of her hands now bathing his hurts. He realized now also how deeply his lifelong wounds had penetrated. They cut to the soul.

“Milady,” he began weakly. She cut him off, holding a soft finger to his lips, curtailing his many confessions.

”I would not have you remember it,” she said, looking at him with a warmth he never dreamt to see in her eyes. Her hands wandered the length of his body and a playful smile graced her elegant features.
.
He meant to do well, to be just, this time, his last time in Her presence. “Your Husband, Milady,” he whispered, half unconscious with the pleasure she brought with her gentle touch.
“Is gone, Milord,” she said, and the respectful honorific was not lost on Grima. “And you and I are quite alone.” He said nothing. His astonishment complete, as she stroked and tended him with gentle hands. He cried out only once as her increasingly more intimate caresses brought him to complete pleasure. His embarrassment was stifled by her warming smile.

“I always could have loved you, Milord.” She whispered softly at the moment his humiliation might have been the most acute. “We were, in many ways the same.”
“Eowyn,” he whispered weakly. “My own love.” He felt his eyes shutting against his will. He had so much more to say to her, so much more to apologize for… Yet under her hands, her careful ministrations, he found himself falling into a silent and deep sleep.
“I am sorry,” he managed to murmur at the end of consciousness.
“I know,” her soft voice replied. “And all I can give is my forgiveness… you were not the only one misled, or led astray in those dark times.” Grima felt the soft pressure of her lips again on his own.
“All I did,” he whispered. “Was to be with you Milady.” And Grima slept, at peace at last.


[Before Frodo could recover or speak a word, three Hobbit-bows twanged…and Wormtongue fell dead.]


“I had an odd dream, my husband,” Eowyn mumbled, stirring in Faramir’s arms as morning broke over their windowsill.

“Disturbing?” He kissed her brow and felt it wrinkle beneath his lips in response to his question.

“No…” she answered hesitantly. Then continued in more sure tones. “No, I think it was not.”

“A prophecy?” he asked, now teasing, for they had long made a joke between them about his past propensity for nightly visions… in rhyme.

“Not a prophecy,” she said ignoring the humor in his voice. “Perhaps a past.”

“Now who speaks in riddles?” Faramir chided gently.

“I do not mean to,” Eowyn curled into her husband’s arms as she strove to cling to the cobwebs of the night.

The daylight threatened to sweep away those strands remaining of her dream. She reached inward and clung to a fragile memory of feeling before it was turned to dust by the dawn… and found within it a sense of lingering peace, which coloured the rest of her day.

End