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“Ms. Noldor, please take a seat,” the detective gestured to the lone chair butted up to the table. “My name is Isildur Nimruzîr, and I’ll be conducting this interview.” She recognized his name; his father had been the police Captain for over fifteen years now.
“Perhaps you can be a gentleman, and pull it out for me?” Galadriel asked tartly, pointedly shifting her gurgling baby from one hip to the other.
The young detective cleared his throat and obliged, blush staining his cheeks. Galadriel didn’t recognize him though she had walked by dozens of other familiar faces. Part of her wondered if he had known her brother at all, or if had been promoted after his death. As the chief prosecutor in the area, Finrod had known all the detectives very well.
“Now, Ms. Noldor, I’m sure this must be a difficult subject for you to discuss, but I’d like to talk about what happened the night of the fire at Amherst Hospital on April 14th, 1947.”
“There was one. May I go now?” Celebrían fussed in her arms, little fingers digging into her mother’s curls.
“Not quite, Ms. Noldor. We’ve spoken to the other, uh, survivors but there are some inconsistencies that we can’t really reconcile.”
“My, how shocking,” Galadriel drawled, a sarcastic bite slipping between her teeth. “It was an asylum, you know? Most of the patients there weren’t in their right minds on a good day, let alone that day— fire and storm both.”
“It’s not just the patients, Ms. Noldor. One of the nurses — Bronwyn Tiriharad, had some very interesting things to say about you and Dr. Aulësson in particular,”
Galadriel scoffed and looked down at the baby squirming in her lap. She pressed a gentle kiss to her daughter’s hair. “Yes, well, I don’t think there’s as much mystery there as you think. And Bronwyn was aware of many abuses happening inside that hospital — under her nose, and with her protection. I have no doubt there are many interesting tales she could tell.”
His pen stopped scratching against the notepad. “Ms. Noldor,” he cleared his throat and frowned, looking deeply troubled. “Are you insinuating that the relationship between yourself and Dr. Aulësson wasn’t consensual? And that Ms. Tiriharad knew about it?”
“No one gets choices in an asylum, Detective. The food you eat, the socks you wear, what time you wake up and go to sleep, the medication you take — all of it is decided by someone else. It is you, alone, versus the staff who is supposed to be there to help you, though they often did the opposite.”
“Ms. Noldor, that wasn’t what I asked.”
Galadriel closed her eyes, breathing deeply through her nose, before replying. “The relationship between myself and Dr. Aulësson was consensual — as much as it could be, given the circumstances. I don’t think Nurse Tiriharad truly knew the depth of the abuse that was occurring, but I will not leave her blameless. She didn’t want to know.”
“You’re referring to…” he flipped through the file on the desk, eventually pulling out a copy of the prescription Halbrand had written her. “The over-dosing of your medication? And Dr. Aulësson’s long con to entrap you?”
“If you’re going to ridicule me then I’ll leave and you can speak to my lawyer,” she hissed, drawing herself up to do just that.
“Please, Ms. Noldor, I’m trying to help. There are a lot of eyes on this case, a lot of people digging for answers. I just want to get to the truth of it before someone else finds something no one wants brought into the light.”
Something about the earnestness in his eyes reminded her of Finrod. He had been equally devoted to the pursuit of the truth.
Slowly, she sat back down, and settled herself into the creaking wooden chair, soothing Celebrían by rubbing gentle circles in her back.
“You can’t understand what happened if you start in the middle, Detective. There’s too much.”
“Then start from the beginning, Ms. Noldor, please. Help me understand.”
“It started with a knock on my door. I’d been waiting for it.”
***
April, 1946
Galadriel had just finished the dusting when the knock came at her door. It took her a long moment to answer it even though she’d been waiting for it for months. She wiped her trembling hands on her apron, and opened the door.
A soldier in a freshly laundered and pressed uniform stood on her stoop, hat in his hands. “Hello, are you Galadriel Noldor by any chance?”
“Galadriel Doriath, actually. I was married last fall. But that’s me,” she confirmed, feeling her heart begin to pound.
“My name is Dr. Halbrand Aulësson. I served with your husband, Celeborn, in France. Miss, I’m sorry to say I’ve come with bad news… May I come in?”
Galadriel stepped aside to let him pass, and felt her knees begin to give way.
His arm slid around her waist to hold her upright, stepping close enough that she could smell his aftershave. “I’ve got you, Miss. You just hold on to me, alright?”
***
“That’s how Dr. Aulësson and you met?”
“That’s how we met. He introduced himself as being a member of Celeborn’s unit, and had come to personally deliver the news of my husband’s passing,” Galadriel said, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I hadn’t received anything official yet, but… Celeborn hadn’t returned any of my letters in months, and with all the soldiers coming home… I knew it was only a matter of time.”
“I see.” Isildur was drafting a timeline on his notepad, and making no attempt to hide it. She appreciated it, for what it was worth. Allowing her to see it meant that she could see he hadn’t added any of his own suppositions. Just the facts, as she was explaining them.
“And he became your doctor?”
“Yes. He was… well-versed in trauma from war and, I admit, his personal connection to Celeborn was… comforting, at first. I was melancholy, after confirmation of my husband’s passing. Halbrand prescribed me something that was meant to help my anxiety and depression. It didn’t help as it was supposed to have.”
“Is that why you set the fire?”
Galadriel looked sharply at the detective, who met her gaze with no judgment in his eyes but genuine curiosity.
She could hear Finrod’s warning, the last words he’d ever spoken to her, even now.
“Galadriel, I need you to listen to me very carefully. What happened… it wasn’t your fault, and you’re never to say otherwise out loud. Do you hear me? It was an accident.”
“It was an accident, detective. As all the reports from both the detectives who investigated it — and the fire department — all confirmed. Truthfully, I don’t even remember much of anything from that day.”
“Your brother was there though, wasn’t he?” The man’s tone changed. He was not scornful, but there was some criticism there that she couldn’t place.
“Yes, he came to check on me after the accident, and personally escorted me to the hospital, where I could recover.”
“And Halbrand was there too, right? He’s listed here,” the detective tapped his pencil against the file, “as someone who was also present.”
Galadriel licked her lips. “He often stopped by to check on me. He was my doctor, but he was also becoming my friend. Now that I know the whole story…”
“Right… right. So, tell me about how you came to be at the hospital then. This fire that you didn’t start, it almost killed you. In the hospital, while you were being treated for your burns, you suffered some… mental break that prompted them to transfer you to the asylum. You were formally admitted on… July 7th, 1946. Your brother, Finrod, drove you there himself. Tell me about that.”
***
July 7th, 1946
Galadriel could hear Finrod’s voice from the driver’s seat, muttering to himself in angry, hushed whispers. The drugs hadn’t quite worn off yet, however, and she couldn’t summon the strength to speak.
“Gal, sweetheart, I need you to wake up now. We’re almost there, but I want to talk to you first,” he gently shook her shoulder, fingers skimming over the bandaged area.
She felt the car come to a stop, tires grinding against the gravel on the side of the road.
Her eyes, heavy from sleep, opened slowly as she forced them to remain wide, even against the blinding brightness of the sunlight streaming through the car window.
“Fin?” She could just barely make out his silhouette, his golden hair crowned in sunlight. She smiled at the sight. Finrod had always been her white knight, her most steadfast protector.
She was glad that it was him to deliver her to hell, loathe as she was to go. She still didn’t even remember how it happened.
“Gal, I need you to sharpen up. Come on,” he forced her to sit upright, and placed a bottle of water against her lips. “Take a drink and clear your head — fuck, have a smoke if it’ll help.”
Galadriel obediently took a long drink and sighed in relief. She hadn’t realized how dry her mouth had been. She took another sip, her senses returning to her along with a splitting headache, and waved away the offered cigarette.
“What happened?” She asked, struggling to remember the details. Her house was on fire. She’d been sitting at the kitchen table on the 4th of July, preparing a small feast for the little gathering she had planned for the evening. One minute she’d been waiting for the meatloaf to be done, and the next she was waiting for the flames to claim her too, paralyzed by fear. She should be dead but fate had intervened in the form of Finrod; he always seemed to know when she was in trouble. Halbrand, too, though he had arrived later.
Finrod shook his head, declining to answer. “That’s not what’s important right now.”
Galadriel looked at the bandages on her arms. She could feel the tight, stinging sensation of fresh scabs sticking to the gauze. Her fingers passed over the bandage, hovering for a long moment as she wrestled with her desire to see the damage. Her hand returned to lay across her lap.
“Galadriel, I need you to listen to me very carefully. What happened… it wasn’t your fault, and you’re never to say otherwise out loud. Do you hear me? It was an accident. And especially, especially, do not talk to that fucking Doctor anymore. Where I’m taking you… it’s not a place you want to stay, sis. It’s the finest facility of its kind, but you don’t belong there.”
Galadriel struggled to absorb his advice, mind still hazy and pain beginning to cloud her thoughts. “Doctor Aulësson is there?”
Finrod’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel until the leather began to creak. “Unfortunately. His experience as your psychiatrist for the last few months, and a convenient opening at the hospital, allowed him to weasel his way in here.”
Galadriel shook her head, confused, and drained the cup of it’s last drop of water. “Doctor Aulësson has been helping me, Finrod. I’m sure his presence here will help accelerate my release, not hinder it.”
Finrod started the car once more and pulled it back onto the road, and said nothing else but an echo of his first command: “It was an accident. You weren’t trying to hurt yourself, or anyone else. Repeat it, Gal, as often as you need to, until it becomes as much of a fact as your own fucking name. And stay away from fucking Halbrand .”
The car turned a corner and halted before a large, ornate gate that barred their path. A large stone plaque half-covered in moss and crawling ivy rested, half-propped against the fence, and read: Amherst Private Hospital Welcomes You. Your Healing Begins Now.
Galadriel inhaled sharply and held out a shaking hand. “I’ll have that cigarette now.”
A silhouette appeared from the fog, jogging to unlock the gate and drag it across the drive to open it for them, the hinges screeching from the damp and rust.
“Don’t get comfortable, sis,” Finrod said, not even complaining when Galadriel didn’t roll down the window, filling the front of the car with smoke. “You won’t be here long. I’m going to get you out before you even get your bags unpacked.”
***
She wished she’d known it was the last time she’d ever see him alive.
“I slept the whole way there. Fin woke me when we arrived. The hospital was… in serious disrepair considering the amount of money getting funneled through it. Director Melkor didn’t even bother to keep up appearances.”
“The notes from your first few weeks indicate that you had some trouble adjusting, but that you made some friends. Is that correct?”
“Friends? No, I wouldn’t say that. Have you ever been to one of these facilities, detective? Ever been a patient in one?”
“No, Ms. Noldor, I haven’t.”
“It’s terribly lonely, and the presence of other people doesn’t make it better. Everyone is there for different reasons. But you never feel like you can really trust any of them — trust doesn’t come easy in a place like that. Not for other patients, or for staff.”
“But you trusted Dr. Aulësson,” the detective said, commenting rather than asking. “When did your relationship change?”
“December. Just before Christmas.”
***
December 19th, 1946
Galadriel rested her head against the window, breath fogging the glass, and glumly watched the drive. She’d had no word from Finrod since he dropped her off — not so much as a letter, let alone a phone call or visit.
***
“Your brother didn’t contact you at all?” he asked, sounding disbelieving.
“You wanted this story from the beginning, I thought?” Galadriel asked, irritated by the interruption. “We’re not there yet.”
“Apologies. Please continue.”
***
His silence did not prevent her from waiting for him. Every day during free time she would come to this room, and, with only a poorly-tuned piano for company, would watch for her brother’s car from the only window in the asylum that faced the driveway properly.
The drive from Boston to Amherst was only a few hours, sometimes less with the way Finrod liked to drive. And he had promised to get her out.
He promised.
“I thought I might find you here,” Halbrand’s voice took her by surprise as he slipped through the door.
“I thought I’d locked it,” she replied, annoyed. This was her time to have a reprieve from the other patients, many of whom were far less stable than she and twice as loud.
It helped that she had stolen the skeleton key from his key ring.
“There’s more than one key,” he explained, flashing another key at her before slipping it back into his pocket. “And you shouldn’t have one at all.”
His attempt at chastisement was ruined by the grudging admiration in his tone. Galadriel said nothing in reply but continued to look out the window, waiting for her brother.
“Still looking for him?” Halbrand asked, sitting at the piano bench and idly stroking the ivory keys. Only the faintest sound of Moonlight Sonata reached her ears, barely heard above the blaring Christmas music from the radio in the public room down the hall. Where she should be.
“He said he would come for me.” Galadriel was tired of having this conversation.
“Gal—”
“Doctor Aulësson,” she interrupted, looking at him coolly, “I believe we’ve already had our session for the day. If you’re here as my Doctor, you can leave now.”
He hummed and stood from the bench, walking to her with silent footsteps. His hands slid to her hips and rested there, warm amber eyes drifting to her lips.
“I’m not here as your Doctor.”
Galadriel smiled, and drew him closer to her, bracketing his thighs with her hips. He kissed her slowly, savoring even the barest brush of their lips. He was always slow with her. It was not that he treated her as fragile, but rather that he was determined to make the most of his time with her. Their friendship only altered a month ago, when she felt ready — after many hours of intensive therapy — to admit that she was developing feelings for the man. Since then, he had let her direct the pace entirely, never pushing her for more than she was willing to give or voicing any dissatisfaction.
And every press of his lips against her own felt like benediction.
Finrod had been wrong about him. Every month she had spent here, under his care, she had improved. Her depression, her psychosis, her insomnia… all of it was gradually fading away. Even her grieving heart, broken the day Celeborn’s dog-tags had been placed in her hand and a folded flag laid in her arms, was beginning to mend.
He was her only source of joy in this terrible place. For a private hospital, with patients that primarily came from wealthy families, it was in a state of woeful disrepair. Each room seemed to be in a semi-constant state of damp or dark, the heating always on the fritz and the light bulbs constantly burning out. The fact that it abutted the local city graveyard didn’t help matters either. Gloom clung to this place and everyone in it. Even the cheery tunes playing from the radio sounded macabre, blaring through the white noise of a half-broken radio.
Galadriel cast one more glance out the window. There seemed little point in placing so much faith in an absentee savior when there was one standing right in front of her.
She turned her attention back to Halbrand and drew him down for a firmer kiss, holding him to her. The cold draft from the window was nothing compared to the heat she felt radiating from the man in front of her. Her heart raced, emotions swelling and sticking in her throat. Some guilt remained for Celeborn, and more than once he had appeared behind her eyes when Halbrand kissed her.
Well. She did not pretend she was entirely cured.
Halbrand looked at her questioningly, head cocked to the side. A glimmer of excitement, of hope, reflected back at her.
Gathering her courage, Galadriel nodded.
He dropped to his knees in front of her. His fingers skittered across her thighs and drew her underwear down her legs, letting them dangle from the loose heel of her hospital issued loafer.
His head disappeared beneath her skirt.
Galadriel tipped her head back, crown resting against the cold glass, and tried to push down the guilt. If she thought she might have seen a figure who looked like Celeborn in the reflection of the window, she did not let it bother her.
Celeborn had never bothered to pleasure her with his mouth anyway.
***
“So, you and Aulësson began your romantic relationship in December.”
“Yes. I hadn’t heard from Finrod since he dropped me off, and Halbrand was… kind.”
“Can you tell me about any remarkable incident, or any odd behavior, from Dr. Aulësson on or around February 17th?”
Galadriel cocked her head. “Halbrand was gone for some sort of conference, I think, during that time. He was gone for about a week. I wasn’t privy to his schedule outside of the hospital.”
“But you remember him being gone?”
Galadriel shrugged. “He missed Valentine’s Day, detective. He was very apologetic when he came back.”
“How apologetic?”
***
February 18th, 1947
“Galadriel,” Halbrand groaned her name in her ear, the syllables strangled in his throat. He snapped his hips again, bottoming out inside her as he pressed himself against her back.
She gasped, the hard edge of the desk biting into her thighs. Her palms flat against the wood, she pushed back against him. His lips trailed kisses across her shoulders, seeming content enough for her to hold his cock inside her while he lavished attention on her in other ways. She whined at the feeling, her cunt stretched around him.
“Please, Hal,” she begged, trembling from the tenderness. His hand dragged through her hair, gathering it and winding it around his fist. He stood, pulling her with him by her hair and keeping her hips pinned against the desk. Her back arched and she felt his cock slide deeper as her hips shifted to accommodate her position. He rocked back on his heels for a moment, his cock almost slipping out of her entirely, and drove back into her, slamming her hips against the desk.
She bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood, smothering her cry as his cockhead struck the center of her pleasure. The tight feeling of her scalp pulled taut, the bite of the wood against her skin, all of made her mind go pleasantly numb. All she could feel was the drive of his cock within her, the heat from his skin. Abruptly, he released her hair and pushed her back down to lay across the desk, holding her in place as he pounded into her. The desk rattled and shook, the few remaining accessories not on the floor threatening to fall.
Hot pleasure began to coil in her gut. The press of his fingers digging into the dimple of her hips, pulling her back for him to drive into her with abandon. It hurt, but with the pain came exquisite pleasure. She came around his cock, her cunt pulsing around him and her scream muffled by the scarf between her teeth. He followed minutes later, buried inside her and coating her insides with cum.
He laid across her back and pressed words of love and praise into her skin, waiting until his cock was completely soft before withdrawing from her. She lay across his desk for a moment longer than that, relaxed and unwilling to move for a long moment.
A light slap across her ass startled her; she turned on her side to look at him in shock.
He offered her a wicked grin. “If you don’t get up right now, I’m not going to let you get up.”
Her toes curled at the threat. The warm feeling in her belly wasn’t unhappy with the prospect, either. She looked at the clock on the wall. Sighing, she shook her head and stood, walking around the office to retrieve her haphazardly discarded clothes and put them back on.
“You have another appointment in fifteen minutes,” she explained, seeing the brief flash of hurt in his eyes.
He glared at the clock and redressed as well, lighting a cigarette and offering her a drag. She accepted, blowing smoke into the ceiling fan.
“One day soon, we won’t be bound by appointments, or have to sneak around,” he promised, pressing a kiss to her hair.
Galadriel hummed, hope kindling in her heart. She was halfway done with her ‘treatment’. Only six more months, and she would be free.
A knock at the door startled them both. Galadriel hastily picked up the assorted papers they had knocked to the floor from the desk and shoved them into a neat pile. She finger-combed her hair and shoved the curls into a high pony on her head.
“Doctor?”
Halbrand unlocked and opened the door, a stern look on his face. “Bronwyn. I’m with a patient.”
“Yes, Doctor, I know,” Bronwyn said, biting her lip. “And I know which patient you’re with — Hello, Galadriel!”
Galadriel gave the nurse a friendly wave. The nurse knew about the relationship between she and Halbrand, had learned of it by mistake — Halbrand’s, specifically, and his insistence that no one ever actually went to the library study rooms. It had taken much convincing to prevent her from reporting them, but convince her they had.
Bronwyn lowered her voice and passed a newspaper into Halbrand’s hands with a hushed whisper.
“Cancel the rest of my appointments, would you?”
The nurse nodded and left, shooting Galadriel a nervous, sad look over her shoulder.
“What is it?” She asked, taking another drag from the cigarette.
Halbrand locked the door once more and approached Galadriel slowly, face drawn. Plucking the cigarette from where it dangled between her lips, he stamped it out in the ashtray on his desk.
He held up the newspaper for her to see the front page.
UP-AND-COMING DISTRICT PROSECUTOR FINROD NOLDOR FOUND DEAD, MAULED BY ANIMAL ON POPULAR HIKING TRAIL. SEE DETAILS PAGE 5.
Galadriel felt her knees give way, vision blurred by the tears already brewing in the corners of her eyes. Halbrand’s arm slid behind her, preventing her head from hitting the desk, as she sunk to the floor. He sat on the ground next to her and pulled her in his arms, whispering words of comfort into her ear.
She heard none of them.
Numbness crept into her mind once more. The healing wound she had borne from Celeborn’s death cleaving open and filling her heart with grief. Her Finrod, her last brother, her stalwart defender was gone. However angry she had been these last few months, she had not truly believed he had abandoned her. She had hoped, even until today, that his silence served a purpose and that he was still coming for her.
“I have no one left,” she whispered, feeling the words bite into her soul. All of her family was gone.
“You have me,” Halbrand breathed into her ear, pressing a tender kiss to her temple. “I’ll be your everything, Galadriel. And I’ll never leave you.”
She closed her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks, feeling the devotion of his words even despite the breaking of her heart.
She didn’t even feel him place the ring on her finger.
***
“He proposed,” Galadriel shrugged, fingers straying to the chain around her neck.
“And you accepted?” Isildur was frowning now, staring intently at his notes. Galadriel could just make out a copy of Finrod’s death certificate dangling on the paperclip.
“It was an overwhelming time… I was alone, truly alone with Finrod’s death, and… I thought he loved me. Looking back on it now…” she trailed off, taking a deep breath.
“You were taken advantage of — horribly. That no good son of a —”
Surprised, Galadriel hastily covered Celebrían’s ears and looked at Isildur, ready to scold him, before realizing that she had read him wrong. He was angry, and scornful, but none of it was for her; his eyes were boring holes into the file in front of him.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, seeming to rein his temper in. “Sorry, Ms. Noldor.”
“No apologies necessary, detective. Shall we… carry on?”
He cleared his throat. “Right. Now, can you tell me about your, uh, trip to Boston in… March? From what I understand, that’s where things start to go south.”
“You could say that.”
***
March 2nd, 1947
She had received special permission to attend her brother’s funeral, provided that she was accompanied by her Doctor.
As if she would have gone without him.
Her short trip to Boston had proved somewhat fruitful, if only to find closure. She had hoped to be able to get more information on how Finrod died, to find some higher reason to it all. Unfortunately, by the time his body was found, it had been ravaged by animals and they weren’t able to determine the cause of death.
Galadriel knew her brother was a sportsman, a good one, and had no fear of the outdoors or wildlife. It did not truly surprise her that whatever he had been hunting might’ve turned back to hunt him instead.
Halbrand had been a great comfort to her through everything, and was determined to lift her spirits while she was outside asylum walls. The special permission only lasted the weekend, but after Finrod’s funeral, he had planned some distraction or another. He’d booked the finest room at the Ritz for them, checking them in as Dr and Mrs. Aulësson.
She did not correct them.
It would be true soon enough.
She looked at the ring on her finger. It was a plain gold band, the mate to the one he wore on his own finger, but for the delicate, devoted inscription on the inside. He promised her a nicer one once it was official, but Galadriel found that she had grown to love her ring. It was precious to her, despite its simplicity.
It offered no false promises of a glimmering life with no hardships as diamonds often did. Nor did she feel the need for the security of something of worth to sell — Halbrand would never leave her.
The only pall cast on their weekend came on Sunday evening, the night before they were supposed to drive back.
Her stomach had not held the contents of any food she had eaten that day, and she had spent the better part of the day on the floor of the hotel bathroom.
“Honey, are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?” Halbrand asked, tone tense. Though he phrased it as a question, Galadriel knew that he was strongly implying she would be going regardless — this was simply her last chance to do it of her own volition.
“Halbrand, truly, I think I’m fine. The funeral, having to go back to the asylum… I truly believe it’s stress.”
***
“I take it wasn’t stress,” the detective said, offering a half-smile to the giggling infant.
“No, it was Celebrían,” Galadriel said, smiling, and bounced the little girl in her lap. “He insisted I go to the hospital before we returned to the asylum, and they confirmed my condition.”
“He was happy?”
“He was overjoyed .”
Galadriel’s own smile slipped.
“But that didn’t last?”
“No. No it didn’t.”
***
March 22nd, 1947
They had decided to keep her condition a secret for as long as they could while Halbrand worked on the paperwork to get her out. She trusted none of the other staff who already looked at her with too much judgment in their eyes. Word of her and Halbrand’s… additional time spent bonding was now widely known. Secrets seldom remain secret, especially in cloistered spaces. Surprisingly, it was a fellow patient that noticed first.
Mr. Olorin — or, “Gandalf the White” as he preferred to be called by his ‘wizard’ name— was highly observant and had immediately offered to bless the unborn baby with his magic. This involved little more than waving his walking stick over her in a wide-circle, and muttering something in a language — welsh, perhaps? — that Galadriel did not understand. Harmless, and well-intended.
Her fiancé did not receive the gift as well as she had.
***
“…Ms. Noldor?”
Galadriel stiffened, freezing at the sound of her name, before daring to meet the detective’s gaze. Compassion was reflected back at her.
“Would you like to take a break?”
“No,” she swallowed, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. “No, I’d rather keep going, if it’s all the same to you.”
***
Galadriel couldn’t even muster a scream. In one moment, the elderly man was in front of her, and the next he was on the floor, his own walking stick jammed into his back.
“Security!” Halbrand shouted for help as Olorin struggled against him. The old man’s head was bleeding from where it had slammed into the hard wood floor. The old man struggled harder, prompting Halbrand to slam him into the floor once more.
“Halbrand! Stop!” Galadriel tried to pull the doctor away from the old man. “He didn’t mean anything by it! You’re hurting him!”
The guards arrived moments later, and only then did Halbrand release the old man, rising to his feet and seeking out Galadriel then. His eyes were wild and burning with a fury that frightened her enough to flee from him, running down the hall to her room.
***
“So, it wasn’t an accident?” he asked, tapping the folder in front of him with his eraser pencil in a maddening rhythm. “All the reports say—”
“I know what the reports say,” Galadriel said, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I told you the staff couldn’t be trusted. Neither could the hospital director, as it turned out.”
The tapping stopped.
“You reported it to the director? Mr. Melkor isn’t even mentioned in these reports — even the accounts from other patients.”
“No patient called him by his name. We called him Morgoth — I’ve no doubt you’ve seen that name in other testimonies.”
“Ah, yes, Ms. Noldor. That I have seen. What happened when you reported in the incident to him?”
Galadriel shuddered.
***
“Mr. Melkor, Ms. Noldor is requesting to speak with you, sir.”
“Send her in,” the low, pleasant voice ordered. Galadriel was surprised to find the director to be a handsome, well-aged man in his early 50’s. The way the other patients had spoken of him made him out to be a monster.
“Galadriel Noldor. You seem to be in better spirits than when we first met, and you look much improved too. No doubt thanks to the… tender care of our Doctor Aulësson,” a sneer twisted the lips on his otherwise handsome face.
Galadriel felt her courage waver ever so slightly.
“I’m here to speak about what happened with Mr. Olorin, and Dr. Aulësson,” she said, refusing to let the shame of her relationship prevent her from speaking the truth. Olorin had not been seen in days.
“I didn’t ask you to speak about it, did I? The reports were very clear. You need not fear any… retribution for our good doctor,” the director said, reclining back in his chair to appraise her. In the dim light of the office with burnt out bulbs, his eyes appeared reptilian.
“That’s not why I’m here.”
“Oh,” he breathed, a low chuckle escaping him. “Oh I see. Dr. Aulësson doesn’t quite have you trained properly, apparently. I’m disappointed in him. He assured me you were well in hand — it’s why I let him keep you. Janet—” he called to his secretary, and drew a cigar from the box on his desk. The secretary came a moment later, eyes downcast, her hands folded in front of her.
“Bring me Halbrand.”
Galadriel felt herself growing angry. “Where is Mr. Olorin? No one was hurt during his incident — including me, the person he supposedly attacked. He should’ve been released from his solitary confinement well before now.”
The director took a long drag from his cigar, blowing a ring of smoke directly in Galadriel’s face.
She didn’t flinch or cough, but held his gaze, refusing to back down.
He chuckled after a moment, breaking the stalemate, and took another drag from his cigar. “I see why Halbrand likes you.”
“Where is Mr. Olorin?” Galadriel repeated the question, lip curling in fury. She would not quiver and shake before this man. She would not be cowed. A pit was growing in her stomach — a gift of her bloodline, as her father had often joked. Any injustice done gave a Noldor an upset stomach.
“Mr. Olorin is learning a lesson in gratitude, Ms. Noldor, and respect. It is dangerous to be waving his stick about in such a fashion, and disrespects the communal space for everyone.”
“Gratitude? Gratitude for what, Mr. Melkor? For the threadbare, recycled clothes this hospital so charitably provides? For the food that we eat —bland, burnt oatmeal or maybe some fresh corn if the farmer down the road donates what he won’t feed his pigs? How about for the lukewarm water we bathe with, when we are allowed the dignity of bathing at all? The care provided by this hospital is deplorable. Why, I’ve got half a mind to tell—”
“Tell who, Ms. Noldor?” Melkor blew another cloud of smoke in her face, not even bothering to raise his voice. “Your fine brother, the prosecutor? I heard about his unfortunate accident. Such a tragedy. And the rest of your family… well you’re all alone, now, aren’t you? Who could you tell that would believe you? Besides, you’ve got someone else to be worrying about now… I’d just put your energy into focusing on that, hm?”
A knock at the door startled Galadriel from the rage she could feel brewing inside her. She wanted to claw the man’s beady black eyes from his skull.
“You asked to see me, sir?” Halbrand half-stuttered, eyes flicking to where Galadriel sat.
“Ms. Noldor is very opinionated, Dr. Halbrand. She’s very worried about Mr. Olorin.”
“I see,” Halbrand said, a hint of nervousness in his tone. “Well, I’ll lay her concerns to rest. Nothing to worry about, Mr. Melkor.”
The director hummed. “See that you do. If you find that Ms. Noldor isn’t responding to your treatment any longer, I’ll take her as my own patient — a special case. My schedule is a little tight but I’d be glad to squeeze her in.”
Halbrand moved closer, laying a heavy hand on Galadriel’s shoulder. “I appreciate the offer, Director, but I’m sure it’s unnecessary. Ms. Noldor’s just been a little emotional lately. Come on, Noldor. I’ll escort you back to your room.”
Galadriel rose as Halbrand bid, his arm slung around her shoulders. She dug her heels in, turning to speak to the director one last time.
Jutting out her chin, she offered him a cold smile. “I am not like your other patients here, Director Melkor. You think that my name carries less weight because a man isn’t wielding it. You’re mistaken. As for friends… well, despite what my… tenure in this place might suggest, I have those too. I expect to see Mr. Olorin returned to the commons by tomorrow, Mr. Melkor,” Galadriel said, bottling her rage to prevent it from spilling out, and hesitated only to offer him a firm nod before leaving, Halbrand practically dragging her out the door.
***
“I see… and was Mr. Olorin returned to the commons after that?” Isildur asked, jotting down his notes.
“He was. Bruised, and half-starved, but alive,” Galadriel said, thinking fondly of the old man.
“And how did Dr. Aulësson react to all this?”
“He was… angry, and frightened. Very frightened. He tried to impress upon me how important it was that I not rock the boat, how little time I had left in that horrible place. Above all, he begged me to stay away from the Director.”
“He was trying to protect you. Which means he knew about the nature of Melkor’s… practices, then. ”
“He facilitated them,” Galadriel whispered, closing her eyes and willing the memories away. “After that, I really started to pay attention to what was happening. It was… very orderly. Very organized. Very… Halbrand. The patients were sent to the director for special treatment on a rotating basis. After they were seen, they’d disappear for a few days and come back more… broken. Frightened, bruised. Sometimes… sometimes they didn’t come back at all. We never knew why.”
“And that’s when you reached out to Senator Peredhel?”
“Elrond was an old friend from college. I hadn’t spoken to him in years… not since I married Celeborn. My husband didn’t like me having male friends. But I knew — I knew — that he would take me seriously.”
“And Halbrand knew about this, about your whistleblowing?”
Galadriel shook her head, pressing a light kiss to her daughter’s forehead. “No. He would’ve stopped it, I’m sure. He wasn’t ready for me to leave yet. I had to slip my letters to El in with his outgoing mail on his desk.”
“And it was during this that you discovered what Dr. Aulësson was really up to?”
“Yes.” Galadriel remembered that day all too well.
“Tell me about it.”
***
April 14th, 1947
Galadriel rummaged through the top drawer of his desk, flummoxed at the missing book of stamps she knew resided there. She had snuck in during the evacuation to the basement. The nor’easter, likely the last of the season, had almost reached them. The tornado sirens hadn’t even gone off yet but out of an abundance of caution, the patients had been moved downstairs.
She had told Bronwyn she needed to pee again and the woman, knowing she was pregnant, hadn’t argued with her; she’d only ordered Galadriel to be quick about it.
The truth was, Galadriel was tired of being the damsel in distress. She had been off of her medications for weeks now and felt more like herself than ever. She had never been weak-willed as a child, and had gotten in trouble for it on more than once occasion. It was high time she remembered that.
Her family might be dead but her friends were not. Elrond, now a junior Senator in the state senate, would not ignore her pleas for an investigation. All of her letters to him detailing the numerous abuses she witnessed and the descriptions of the deplorable conditions of the hospital, ended in the same way: Do not reply. I am being watched. Please come. She had sent six so far, and this was to be the seventh — the last, if she could only find a stamp.
Growing frustrated, she moved to the lower drawer, squinting in the lamp light. The power had gone out an hour ago and a little kerosene lamp was better than nothing. A stack of neat papers lay within alternating layers with the correspondence they had arrived in. Chewing her lip, she considered her options. If she could peel an old stamp up from an envelope, she might be able to reuse it. Careful not to disturb them too much, she flicked through the stack to find the oldest — surely, he wouldn’t notice on an old envelope. Reaching the bottom of the pile, she found the last envelope and pulled it free, triumphant until she saw the addressee.
Celeborn’s name and his base location were written in her own hand on the front of the envelope.
The return address with her own name on it screamed at her from the top left corner.
With shaking hands, she set the envelope aside and filed through the papers to the back, pulling the corresponding letter free. It was one of the first letters she had ever sent to her husband after he shipped out. A cold feeling swept through her, gooseflesh prickling her skin. She rifled through the rest of the papers and found the rest — all of the letters she had written to her husband that he had never answered.
Something clanked in the back of the drawer as she lifted the papers free. A little prescription bottle rattled against the metal drawer, only partly coming free. Part of the label was stuck to the drawer. Gently pulling it free, Galadriel inspected the label. It was the same bottle that Halbrand had given her with her medication before the accident. Her name was even still on the label. She had never gone to pick it up herself; Halbrand had always done it for her and dropped it off on his way home for the evening.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she dared to peel back the label from the bottle. She had never noticed before how thick the label had seemed. The label beneath still had her name on it, her prescription number and all, but the dosage was almost four times what it said on the second label.
Nausea surged within her as her mind reeled. He had been drugging her, intentionally overdosing her. Her breakdown hadn’t been because of her grief at all — it was a side effect of the medication’s high dosage. He had brought her here, trapped her. Made her fall in love with him and feel grateful for his attention.
Heavily, she sat down in his chair and carefully laid out all of her letters on his desk, and set the pill bottle right in the center.
Furious, she began to rifle through the rest of his drawers, dumping their contents on the floor and filing through every scrap, every leaf, every receipt. The next file of documents, labeled as patient notes for a patient she had never heard of, she didn’t hesitate to open. Her brother’s picture stared back at her, along with a copy of his obituary, and a check receipt in the amount of ten thousand dollars. Court documents for a petition for guardianship and remission, signed by Finrod and approved by the court, lay at the bottom of the stack.
Her brother hadn’t given up on her after all.
Reading through the documents, she noted Finrod’s many complaints about the hospital.
Request for visitation: Denied. Reason: Patient is too unwell to receive visitors.
Request for visitation: Denied. Reason: Patient is too unwell to receive visitors.
Request for visitation: Denied. Reason: Patient is too unwell to receive visitors.
And next to all of them, Halbrand’s own signature. Pages, and pages, and pages of denied requests for visitation or contact. Finrod had tried to visit her at least four times a week for months.
Request for mail correspondence: Denied. Reason: Patient is subject to emotional outbursts and cannot emotionally handle any contact without jeopardizing her care.
Finrod had even appealed to the Director, eventually, after trying and failing to sneak into the facility.
He was permanently trespassed from the property.
For at least six months Finrod had filed multiple appeals to the state to regain guardianship of her, to get her out. Halbrand had blocked every attempt.
Tears flooded her cheeks in new, steady streams. Guilt welled up inside her for ever having doubted him.
The doorknob rattled as the key turned in the lock, and Halbrand entered, smiling until he saw her sitting in his chair. He hesitated in the doorway for a moment, removing the hat from his head and eventually entering the room. He closed the door behind him.
“Gal—”
“Don’t,” she ordered him, the word coming out in a choked gasp. “There is nothing — nothing — you can say now.”
“Don’t say that,” he pleaded, approaching her slowly, as if afraid she might bolt. “Please, Galadriel, you have to let me explain.”
“Explain? Explain what, Halbrand? That you— you knew me before you ever brought me Celeborn’s dog-tags? Why do you have the letters I wrote to him?”
“I kept some of his personal effects when he—”
“Lies!” Galadriel hissed and stood, hands clenched into fists. “Stop lying and tell me the truth goddamnit!”
“He didn’t deserve you!” Halbrand snarled, voice thundering in fury. A crack of lightning lit up the sky through the office window. “ He didn’t care about you, Galadriel. The first time I saw one of your letters was an accident. It got delivered to me by mistake and I— I didn’t even see that it wasn’t my name on the front of it. I realized my mistake immediately but… God, you wrote so beautifully about the hopes you had for the life you would have when he returned… I tried to return the letter to him.”
“What do you mean you tried to return the letter?”
“He’d gone out with some other soldiers to a local bar, a gentleman’s club. One last hurrah before we went into active combat. When he finally came back, drunk and covered in some other skirt’s lipstick, I knew he didn’t deserve you. We got our orders the next day for the company to advance and by the end of the next week, he was dead. But your letters… they just kept coming. I fell in love with you from those letters. I didn’t want them to stop.”
“How did you get his tags?” Galadriel breathed, feeling the absence of them around her neck. She had only stopped wearing them when they had confirmed her pregnancy.
“What? Gal—”
“How… did… you… get… his… tags?” Galadriel hissed through clenched teeth, the puzzle pieces sliding into place to form a horrifying picture. “The letter I received from the Military only confirmed that he was missing in action, presumed dead. They never recovered his body. How did you get his tags, Halbrand?” Her voice cracked as she raised a trembling hand to her mouth.
“Look, Galadriel, this stress isn’t good for the —”
“Shut up!” She screamed, throwing his heavyweight stapler at his head. He ducked, narrowly dodging the projectile as it slammed into the wall behind him. “Tell me! Halbrand, tell me the truth. You owe me the truth! Tell me!”
“Gal—”
“Tell me!” She screamed, reaching for his paperweight. “Tell me where my husband is!”
“He’s dead!” Halbrand roared back, tenuous control slipping. “You want the truth, doll? I waited until we were in the thick of the conflict, and I put my standard, government issued Colt against his head and put a bullet through his head. And then I swapped his uniform. You want to know where your husband is? Probably laying in an unmarked grave somewhere, assuming they didn’t cremate him with the rest of the unknown soldiers.”
Galadriel’s stomach roiled and she felt all the breakfast she’d eaten come rushing back up. She lunged out of the chair for the wastebasket under the desk, unable to stop it. She wasn’t aware he had approached until she felt him gathering her hair in his hand, holding it away from the wastebasket.
She attempted to push him away but couldn’t quite manage, needing both hands to keep the basket steady.
“Get the fuck away from me,” she ordered after her stomach was entirely empty, throat raw and aching.
“Sweetheart,” he crooned, sighing, and tried to pull her to her feet.
She shoved him away and stumbled back into the chair, holding her head in her hands. “Don’t call me that. I’ll start throwing up again.”
“Everything I did, I did for us. He didn’t deserve you. But when I came back and you were… you were so sad, I knew I had to do something. When our regular talk therapy proved to be ineffective, I knew I had to try something else. Medicine.”
“Medicine you overdosed me on, you mean,” Galadriel said bitterly, waving her hand at the pill bottle with the peeling label. “You drugged me. And the side effects caused my breakdown.” Her fingers slid around the decorative letter opener, clenching it in her fist.
He shifted from side to side, perching tentatively on the corner of his desk. “I didn’t know you’d have that strong of a reaction. It was an acci—”
Galadriel drove the letter opener through his hand, pinning it to the desk. She had never been prone to violence, had no concept of just how easy it was to hurt another person like that. She couldn’t say she was displeased.
He muffled his scream, eyes trained on the door, and pulled the implement from his hand, tossing it on the other side of the room. Breathing heavily through his nose, he looked at Galadriel, somewhat wild-eyed, before dragging the scarf from her neck and using it to wrap the wound around his hand.
“I deserved that,” he said after a moment, a bead of sweat dripping down the side of his face, panting slightly. “Now maybe we can just move past it— past all of it. We’ve got a baby coming, after all.”
Galadriel stared at him in disbelief. An incredulous laugh escaped her.
“You can’t be serious,” she breathed, heart pounding.
The wind whipped branches and debris outside, rattling the shutters and windows.
“You murdered my husband, Halbrand. You abused your power over me as my doctor, as my friend. You made me think I was crazy! ”
“I knew that we just… we needed time, Galadriel. Uninterrupted time together, with nothing else to distract us from… from building our relationship. No old pictures on the wall to keep you sad, or Celeborn’s things still in the dresser drawers. No more reminders of him.”
Her mouth opened and closed several times before she spoke, half a dozen false starts and one successful sentence. “You started the fire.” Her vision swam, tinges of darkness creeping in from the corners of her eyes. Lightning flashed again, illuminating the dimly lit room once more.
Finrod stood in the corner, only visible from the very edge of her vision, a small, proud smile tucked in the corner of his mouth.
Galadriel turned her head to meet Halbrand’s gaze once more, unsure if she had the strength left in her for even one more revelation.
She licked her lips, steeling herself. “And Finrod, Halbrand? What about him?”
The pitying look he gave her told her all she needed to know.
“Hey, Gal, it’s going to be alright… Listen, I know it’s a lot right now but—”
“You can’t be serious, Halbrand,” Galadriel stood abruptly, shoving the chair between them. “You can’t honestly think after knowing that — all that — that you and I have any kind of future!”
“I most certainly do,” Halbrand purred, voice dangerously low, amber eyes shining like flames in the lamplight. “You have nothing left, Galadriel. Nothing, and no-one. Your husband is dead, your home is gone, and your last family member is dead. You’re pregnant out of wedlock, and now you have an established history at this mental hospital — who would hire you? But I’m still here, Galadriel. I want you, I want our child. We can be a family, Galadriel, the way we were always meant to be. I love you, and I know you love me.”
His tone swung between threatening and pleading, arms opened wide as if to welcome her to them. He stepped closer to her.
Galadriel grabbed the kerosene lamp from the desk, holding it aloft, as she made for the door. Finrod nodded to her from the corner of her eye.
“Galadriel, wait—”
She did not wait. Galadriel used all her strength to throw the lamp at his feet, shattering the glass and breaking open the container of oil and flame. The fire roared to life at his feet, clinging to the ancient carpet and his kerosene spattered pants. He screamed, trying to unsuccessfully stamp and pat out the rapidly growing flames. Ushering quickly through the door, she locked it with the key she kept around her neck, and grabbed a chair from the waiting area to prop it under the knob.
The storm raged, wind roaring outside the doors. She could barely hear the tornado sirens blaring in the distance. Galadriel waited for his screams to diminish, for his pleas for forgiveness to fade to whimpers, before she pulled the fire alarm.
The halls were abandoned. No doubt, between the storms and the tornado warnings, the staff and residents had taken shelter in the basement. She did not wait for them to emerge from the stairwell but fled through the front doors, snatching a workman’s coat from the rack on her way out.
The wind nearly swept her off her feet as she ran down the stairs, blowing her skirt around her legs. She hastened down the drive, offering a quiet apology to her unborn child for the jostling as she ran. The storm raged around her, wind burning her cheeks and ice cold rain drops biting into her flesh. A miracle in and of itself, the large iron gates had blown wide open from the storm. She followed the path to the road and began to walk, refusing to look back at the hospital to determine its fate.
She had her freedom. She would not waste it looking back.
***
“So,” Isildur cleared his throat. “You escaped after your fight with Dr. Aulësson, and you don’t know how the fire started?”
“No,” Galadriel lied, shaking her head. “The power went out from the storm, and several windows were broken from the flying debris and winds. The hospital was in egregious disrepair — as I’ve stated multiple times. It wouldn’t surprise me if the wiring for the electricity wasn’t up to code. Halbrand wanted me to take shelter in the basement with the rest of the patients while he checked the rest of the floor but… I left instead.”
“I see… you were found walking, several hours later, by a couple on their way to Boston. They took you there at your request and… in the days after, Senator Peredhel filed an emergency order for custody — which was granted to him by a friendly judge — and…”
“And that’s the whole story,” Galadriel said, shrugging, and pressed a kiss to her daughter’s forehead.
“The hospital burned to the ground the night of the storm, and everyone lived — except Halbrand Aulësson, who went missing and was never found.”
Isildur looked at her carefully, genuine sympathy in his eyes.
Galadriel shrugged. “I don’t know what happened to him. If he survived, he’s never reached out to me. I know too much about what he did, though all my proof burned up in that hospital.”
“Well, Ms. Noldor, I think this should do it. You won’t need to offer any further testimonies, except for Mr. Melkor’s trial — which I assume you’ll be attending?”
Galadriel smiled. “Oh, I wouldn’t miss it.”
Isildur held the door open for her as she exited, offering Celebrian a sucker on their way out. Galadriel said goodbye to the faces she knew, men that her brother had worked with to put bad men behind bars. Captain Elendil, almost ready to retire and hand the title down to his son Anarion, waved to her from his office. It was only looking between them, and watching Isildur walk to their sides, that she fully saw the family resemblance. She smiled, feeling genuinely hopeful.
Elrond was waiting for her in his car outside the station, cigarette dangling from his fingers out the window.
“Well?” He asked, putting the cigarette out and blowing his smoke out the window before running a hand through Celebrian’s curls, brushing them away from her face.
“They were fishing for information about the fire at the hospital, and Halbrand. His whereabouts, if he was still alive,” Galadriel shrugged.
“And what did you tell them?” Elrond asked, starting the car.
“The truth. The last time I saw him, he was alive. I’m just glad it’s finally over.” Galadriel smiled. “Now, how about lunch?”
“Sure, Noldor. Anywhere you want— so long as they have ice-cream, for my favorite niece,” Elrond amended, tapping Celebrian’s nose with his finger.
“You’re not—”
“Close enough,” he said, shrugging. “Finrod was my mentor in law school, remember? He’d want me to take care of you both, I think.”
Galadriel glanced in the rearview mirror, catching a glimpse of her brother’s approving smile from the ghost sitting in the backseat.
“Yeah, I’m sure he would.”