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aragorn

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Not many people know it about him, but John had grown up on a farm. His adoptive mother had run one, a small plot of land in comparison to most, after his father had been killed in action and John doesn't always associate it with the happiest times of his young life, not after losing his father, but at the same time there are still good memories.

His mother had been happy, after all, as happy as he imagines she could have been, given their loss. And even as a child, that had meant the world to John, as he had often been focused on the happiness of others. That has never really changed, he's still like that, but with Carter's help over the years, he thinks he's gotten a little bit better at allowing himself some moments of happiness.

Which is why he finds himself at the stables every so often. He tends not to ride, because it's been years, but sometimes even just being in the company of the horses reminds him of his childhood, of a time when he was happier than he is now, and he thinks he's lucky to be able to experience that. After everything that's happened to him, it's certainly unexpected.

He's stroking along the flank of one horse in particular when he sees a man ride in with a beautiful horse and he wanders in their direction, admiring the animal. His mother would have known all the reasons why the horse was superior to others, but that's never been John's area of expertise. All he knows is the horse looks sleek and well fed and he offers a faint smile to the man.

"Beautiful horse," he says as he approaches. "Is he yours or are you just taking him out for a ride?"

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It's both a familiar name and place, but John knows better than to comment on it. He only nods and offers a smile, though not his hand, because it seems like a handshake isn't quite the way to go here. It's not the first time he's met someone whose customs are unlike his own and this extends much further back than his time in Darrow. It isn't difficult for him to follow some simple social cues.

"John Reese," he say. "I'm from somewhere very much like this. Bigger by far, but not much else has changed."

It's safer. It's an odd thing to be able to say even after the Purge, but it's true. There are no acts of terrorism, there's no super intelligent computer trying to kill him or anyone else. Regular, awful every day people are the sort of thing John is trained for and he can deal with what Darrow throws at him, so long as Samaritan stays in his version of New York.

Most places, Aragorn reasoned, were bigger than this. It seemed strange that a single city did not appear to be part of some greater land, but then he had no true way of knowing what lay beyond the borders. Perhaps there was a broader country out there that he could not see due to the city's boundaries.

"This city is large as cities go, but still only a city," Aragorn mused, nodding his head. It was bigger than Edoras, perhaps even larger than Minas Tirith, but he still missed the rolling countryside outside of those cities.

He did wonder what it must be like for this man, who came to such a place similar enough but without any way of getting home. This seemed nearly another world to Aragorn, and as much as he had searched for a way to leave this place, it all still seemed like something out of a dream. He suspected it would be more frustrating still to feel some familiarity yet be unable to return home.

"Nothing beyond its borders, as far as we know. Or no way to get beyond the borders anyway." Which doesn't amount to the same thing and John knows it, but there are plenty of people in Darrow for whom the world outside the city might as well not even exist. He doesn't blame them for it, he can understand there are things they might want to escape, lives they're unwilling to go back to.

There are some ways in which he's very happy to leave the world outside of Darrow exactly where it is.

"Do you want to return home?" John asks, then smiles slightly. "If that's too personal a question, I apologize, feel free to ignore it. I just know there are some people who would rather stay here. Or people who can't go home, even if the opportunity were afforded to them."

Many had informed him so, but Aragorn would not let hope die so easily. Perhaps for now he could find no way out of this place, but he would keep his ears and eyes open, and if any opportunity presented itself, he would know it.

The question did not bother him, and he shook his head slightly to indicate as much. This city was untouched by Shadow and there was some part of it that appealed to him, but it was not his home. Too much lingered in the balance back in Middle-Earth, too much that he needed to return for. Not only for the friends and loved ones that he missed, but for the future of his people.

"I came from a war," he told Reese. He did not know why he trusted this man at a glance, but trust seemed less dangerous in this city than home, and Aragorn was a good judge of character. "I would not wish to abandon my people; there was still much to do."

Even had they won the war, even if Frodo had managed to complete his quest, there were still cities to rebuild, a new world to shape. That was his destiny, and though he had fought it for many years, it was strange to be separated from it now, having finally accepted his path.

In his own way, John had come from a war, too. Maybe it would never be fought in trenches, maybe few people would ever know it had happened at all, but Samaritan was a formidable opponent and he was afraid, before the war was over, more than a few of his people might die. So long as he can prevent Finch from being hurt, though, that's all John cares about. Even if he dies, too.

"I don't know if it helps at all, but some people say... well, that time works differently here," he says slowly, carefully. "I had a friend who came here after I did, months after, but he had seen me only that very morning. I'm here, but somehow I was still back there. Am still back there, I have to assume."

There are people whose word he would never trust so easily, but while Finch might be a private person, he's never lied to John. He would never lie about something as serious as this.

He had heard as much from the people he had spoken to when he arrived. He had assumed as much, too, from the small pieces of information he had gleamed from the Lady Galadriel. She was as vague as ever, giving him as frustratingly little as Elves ever did, but still he found some small comfort in her words. She had spoken of seeing him in Gondor, which meant he lived beyond the Battle of the Morannon.

More importantly, it meant the White City still stood.

"There is one here," he said slowly, unsure of whether Galadriel would appreciate being spoken of. "She came from my world, at a time beyond that which I remember." He wished she had given him more detail, but he would have to make do with what she was willing to provide, however little. He had long grown accustomed to Elves knowing more of his fate than he himself, so it did not irk him so much as it might have.

"It is still difficult not remembering, not knowing myself the way things went." The world had been tilting on the edge of a knife, poised and ready to fall one way or another. Even with the assumption that their Quest had succeeded, that Aragorn had returned to the White City and the crown that awaited him there, his mind was hardly comforted.

"Agreed," John says easily, because no matter what Finch tells him, it still doesn't make it any easier to know he's not there, to accept that he's unable to help them with Samaritan. That's his job, that's what Finch found him to do, it's everything he's been doing for so long and now it's just all gone.

It helps to know there's some version of him still back there, still protecting Finch, but he wishes he could be there, too. And yet, at the same time, he doesn't. Because of Karen.

"I have friends back there and I worry about them," he says. "It's hard to do away with that."

That was a feeling that Aragorn was intimately familiar with. Whatever fate awaited him back in Middle-Earth, he could not help but worry for the friends he had left behind. He worried for those he left at the Morannon, on the threshold of the largest evil any of them had ever faced. He knew Legolas and Gimli were stronger than most, that Gandalf was the wisest man he had ever met, but he still feared for them.

More than anything he feared for Frodo and Sam, those he had sent alone into the fire of the Enemy. He could only pray that their quest was successful, that they had somehow managed to escape the Cracks of Doom without harm.

Perhaps the Lady Galadriel would tell him nothing, but he could still hope. "I, too, worry for my friends. But we must trust in their own strength, so long as we remain here."

Finch is the smartest man John has ever known, smarter than him by far, but his strength exists in computers, in plans, not in execution and that's why John worries. His limp prevents him from doing what needs to be done physically, it prevents him from running when it's necessary, and with Samaritan, it's often necessary.

What he can do is remind himself they're a team. Together he has to believe Finch and Root and Fusco can find their way back to each other and do what needs to be done. He has to will himself to forget how they've lost others. How Carter died. How Shaw was taken.

"I'd like to say it's as easy as that," John says with a smile. "But I think we both know it isn't. When all of you together make up a unit, when each of you is just a piece of what's necessary... well, it's harder than that."

It was admittedly not the response Aragorn anticipated. This man was still near a stranger to him, but he spoke with an honesty and openness that Aragorn could appreciate. Too long he had been suspicious of any newcomer, forced into cautiousness by the spread of the Shadow. It was refreshing in a way, to be in this city and know that people could perhaps simply be trusted at face value.

He didn't respond straight away, mulling the words over. There was a truth to them, he knew. For all that he believed his friends would live on without him if need be, he knew his place in the world, how his piece was necessary.

Nine had been chosen, each with a part to play. He had known that since the first day they set out. Theirs was not a quest that would succeed or fail on the courage of one hobbit, though Aragorn knew Frodo would still have the largest part to play. He nodded in agreement, wishing not for the first time that he knew more of what was to unfold back home. "It is hard," he agreed. "You came from something important," he guessed. It was not a question, and though he did not mean to be presumptuous, he thought he could safely assume as much.

John nods, although not many people had even been aware of the war being fought right under their noses, on their cell phones and their tablets, John and Finch and the others fighting against Samaritan and everything it would take from them. It was better they not know, safer for them by far, there was really no telling what the agents of Samaritan would do to people if they were to find out.

"I did," he says. "And it helps a little, the idea that I'm back there still, but at the same time, I still wish I knew what was going on. It's tough, not knowing how things have played out."

People have died, after all. He wasn't able to stop Carter from being shot, he knows the same could happen to Finch, no matter how hard he tries.

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