Title: Hold You Closer
Fandom: Lord of the Rings
Rating: G
Length: 527
Summary: Éomer waits and reflects in the Houses of Healing
Authors Note: My first attempt at writing this particular character. Title comes from 'The Houses of Healing' on the Return of the King soundtrack, written by Howard Shore and sung by Liv Tyler. Huge thanks to thesmallhobbit for the ultra quick beta!

Just as it had been since they had entered the Houses of Healing, Éomer’s gaze remained fixed on Éowyn, utterly terrified that if he took his eyes off her for even the shortest amount of time that he would lose her. He still could lose her. His little sister had killed the Witch King of Angmar defending her king and uncle and now she suffered as a result of her bravery.

There were no words for the sheer terror and devastation that he had felt upon finding Éowyn’s lifeless body among the fallen on the plains outside the walls of Minas Tirith. He had already been much grieved by the losses suffered by the Rohirrim, but the one comfort that he had allowed himself was that Éowyn was safely back in Rohan. That she was nowhere near the cruelty and destruction left by Sauron and his followers. Éomer knew that the Rohirrim could have suffered far worse but, even so, they had been hit hard and suffered great losses, particularly once the Haradrim and their Mûmakil had appeared on the battlefield.

And then he had seen her.

He had been walking the battlefield along with Gamling and Grimbold, all of them searching for those Rohirrim who might still yet be alive when he had seen the familiar form of his sister. An almost inhuman howl had ripped itself from his throat as he raced towards her, flinging his helm away from him as he stumbled to his knees next to her.

The last time Éomer had held her in his arms had been at Helms Deep, where she had flung herself into his arms and all but clung to him, her arms like a vice around his neck. Éomer had had no complaints for he was holding her just as tightly, for once not caring that he was covered head to toe in blood and other filth or that the press of his armour had to be painful. All that he had cared about was that she was alive in his arms.

Not so now.

Now he rocked her in his arms as he had when she was a child, seeking comfort and safety from night terrors in her brother's arms. Only now, Éowyn was limp in his arms. There was no response from her, no hand coming up to fist itself in his hair as it always had in the past.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was never supposed to have ended like this. He had seen Théoden’s body crushed under Snowmane but he had been more focused upon reaching Éowyn than paying attention to his uncle. Dimly, he was aware that, with the death of Théodred, this meant that he and Éowyn were the last of the House of Eorl. This meant that he was the King, something that he had never envisaged happening; he was only ever supposed to be Third Marshall of the Riddermark, not the King.

Still, that could wait. For the meantime, he simply held his sister closer and prayed that, by the end of the day, he wouldn’t be all that remained of the House of Eorl.