It's torture for Elijah, if only for a little while, arriving at the awards in a different limousine than Sean. Torture in the most selfish, childish way to see Sean walk through the pre-show and down the red carpet with Christine on his arm. Torture to see them exchange brief, chaste kisses for the sake of the camera. Because only a few select friends could possibly know that Sean's mind is on a certain kitten-haired young man the entire time he goes through his dance.

But Elijah can't see Sean's eyes; can't see that private, intimate gaze of "I promise" or "Just a little longer" and that makes it hard to feel that the display he's seeing is anything less than the normal affection of a happily married couple.

He lets himself feel jealous because he can justify it, at least to himself. Because Christine is beautiful and smooth and radiant and he knows that and he often wonders why Sean is, after nearly three years, still with him.

Wonders because Sean is still offered his life with Christine every day—even if it's simply for the sake of keeping up appearances. He has never had the option of moving out of the house they share, or going off with Elijah for long periods of time because, to the public, they're as solid as they ever were.

And in jealous moments, he recalls the single time they had their first falling apart—because saying that neither Sean nor Elijah has ever faltered is a bit of a fib.

They'd been back from New Zealand for almost a year and the publicity mill preempting the release of the Fellowship of the Ring was just starting.

This, of course, brought with it reunions as well as separations—agents booked schedules sloppily, grouping actors and crew together when and where they could, accommodating travel plans around lives when and where they could. But it didn't make much difference. In the end the whole deal was a whirlwind.

The up and down effect of this seemed to send a shudder down the fault-line of Sean and Elijah's carefully planned and executed relationship.

They had spent many months working out ways to live as a normal couple while at the same time careful about never being seen together in any domestic fashion. But once they were handed their flight plans and schedules, it all had to change; and the change didn't happen smoothly.

They fought spectacularly; the first time Elijah had seen Sean really and truly angry, because Elijah had said something stupid about them being apart, about Sean losing sight of the relationship once life hit full-swing again.

Elijah stormed out and flew off to New York to appear on Leno on a tide of hurt. He let that anger carry him all the way through the terminal at JFK before it collapsed all around him and he found himself scrambling for a payphone.

He nearly climbed back onto the plane in a panic when Sean refused to talk to him in the way only Sean would—by telling him that he just couldn't talk, that things were all wrong, that he had to go.

His schedule kept him on the East Coast until the London premiere a month later. He remembers rushing from the car through the hotel lobby and into the private party room that had been booked for the cast to meet and eat; whipping his sunglasses off to see better in the dim, annoyingly pinkish light of the place, eyes scanning the crowd with maniacally focus.

When he saw Sean and Christine standing together talking to Billy and Dom, he nearly lost it right then. He knew Sean had planned from the start to bring her to all the premieres, no matter what the location, but seeing her that night held a different meaning for Elijah, in light of the way he and Sean parted.

He forced himself to calm down; walked over, exchanged quick hellos with everyone. Resentful that the great feeling of seeing his closest friends was overshadowed by the horrible feeling of seeing Sean and not being able to go right up and touch him. Of having to wait for Christine to stop talking to Ian McKellen, because talking to Sean meant interrupting Christine—because at that moment they gave off the air of a unit.

And he was all set to allow that to get him really worked up when Sean look up from Ian, and the look of worry and nervousness in those hazel eyes unloosed the coils in Elijah's belly.

"Sean, can we—"

"Ah. Ah, yeah. Yeah, we should. Christine."

Elijah's eyes flicked nervously to Christine's, noting the look of discomfort and shyness in them. "I, um...can we...alone?"

"We should all talk."

A knot of embarrassed anxiety fell like a lead ball into the pit of Elijah's stomach, cinching the coils tight again.

The small crowd of cast and crew had already closed in around their pulling away, so it wasn't difficult to find a back hallway near the kitchen to talk in private.

A sick feeling churned in Elijah's stomach; his mind was racing ahead already, prepared for them to tell him that they'd realized they wanted to stay married, after all. That New Zealand had been a vacation. That years of marriage and family, as Elijah had always worried, were much more important than two years of intense, sudden love.

"I didn't want to do this here," Sean said, using the hesitant Daddy tone that Elijah either loved or dreaded depending on its use.

"Please just hear us out," Christine dovetailed, her eyes very clear and very green at Elijah.

He felt the sudden urge to hit them both. Twice. In the head, maybe.

He knew he looked stupid; eyes darting back and forth between them, boyish impatience and anger curled and ready to lash out; prepared to say dumb, idle things.

"Sean, go on," Christine whispered, nudging his arm.

"Elijah, I. God, this is a mess," he sighed, and then with renewed purpose, plunged ahead. "The night we fought. The night you left for New York. I...Christine and I...were together."

Desperate, clawing pain unfolded its sharp digits deep inside Elijah's chest—to this day he can recall the exquisite rush of hot and cold that flushed through his body.

"What?"

Was there anything more he could say to that?

"I was...I was upset, and she was there, and it got all jumbled up with what it used to be and I—Elijah, it was a mistake," Sean went on, drawing closer, a pleading edge running along his tone.

Chest rising and falling erratically, Elijah looked up at him, shaking his head, his face tight with pain.

"It's my fault as much as it is his, Elijah," Christine said, wetness gathering in her eyes, and Elijah felt that if she came any closer, he wouldn't be able to control himself. "It's been hard for the both of us..."

"And it's going to get harder," Sean said.

Go on, say it, Elijah thought. Fucking say it!

"Chris is pregnant."

The claw of pain wrenched shut, streaked with confused surprise, and dragging all the wounded shreds of Elijah's heart with it.

"Oh, God," he let out softly, rubbing his forehead between his hands. He leaned back against the hallway, puffed out a breath, and forced himself to look at them, hands falling. "How could you be so—" And it hit him fully that Sean had actually slept with her; the images left him fuming. "God, Sean, you fucking... Christ!"

He leaned off the wall, paced away a few steps, stopped, and then paced back, gesturing angrily at them.

"So, so—yeah, that's—that's it, then. That's how it fucking—God!"

They stood silent, letting him breathe it all out, though upset and longing for it to be over was in clear their eyes.

Pregnant. Fucking pregnant!

"Chris, could you—"

"Yea—I'll be—"

And she shuffled off, tears on her cheeks, not knowing what else she could do. Silence throbbed so ugly and full that Elijah couldn't stand to bear it.

With Christine gone, he felt the familiar him-and-Sean sensation come up, but instead of bringing a lovely rush the way it usually did, it left him nauseous. And devastated. Tears burned behind his eyes as he looked up at Sean, an incredulous and pained expression on his face.

"How could you? Fuck, we were angry, I knew that, but Christ, Sean!"

Sean closed his eyes, elbows tucked up with arms folded to cup them, a red flush on his face, and a trembling emotion in the way he stood.

"It was...it was a split-second of total weakness that just...led to something that should never have happened. I—I fucked up, what else can I say? I'm sorry and I'll be sorry for God knows how long..."

"But it's not just that!" Elijah insisted, stepping closer, his heart fracturing. "It's...well, what is this, now? Is it all rekindled and here comes baby number two let's renew the vows?"

Sean opened his eyes, tears threatening in the form of moisture at the edge of his eyelids.

"What?"

"You heard me."

"How can you ask me that? God, if that were it, I would've told you the minute it happened! We've spent the last month and a half trying to figure ways around it, trying to come up with what we were going to say to you."

"You're going to have a baby with this woman! How the hell can I compete with that?"

Sean shook his head, stepped closer, and grabbed Elijah's hands before Elijah could react.

"You don't have to. Elijah, you've never competed with it. You've never competed with the years she and I were married. You've never competed with Ali. You won't compete with another baby."

"That's bullshit," Elijah croaked, voice cracking on the second word, fingers twisting in Sean's desperately—to get closer and to get away. "You can't just say that. This is...new, and a different thing, and it's...it changes things!"

"You put so many labels on it! You're such a—"

"Yeah, go ahead! Say it, Sean. I'm a baby. A child. Immature!"

"No! You're a drama queen!" Sean exploded, stepping away. "Do you honestly think that, loving you as goddamn much as do, realizing it's you I want in my life as my partner instead of her, and ready to sacrifice everything that goes with that, that an unexpected pregnancy would make me forget why I need you so much!"

He stopped, breathing hard, a little overwhelmed at the uncharacteristic outburst. Elijah felt similarly overcome and went silent, shoulders dropping.

Seeing the dent he'd made, Sean pressed on, a heated hope in his tone that was so very much the essence of him that Elijah wanted to break down completely.

"This is a huge, huge fuck-up. Yes. I know that. And it's going to be hard. It's going to be hard because when I'm with her, I feel—I feel alone. Alone because you're not there. Alone because I know I can be a father to a child that is mine but not her husband. Alone because...we have no choice. Alone because that night, when I reached out for her, I saw you, and I felt you, and I wanted to die when the sun came up."

Sean closed the small distance between them, bringing his wide palms up and taking Elijah's face in his hands.

"I'm sorry. Even if you can't forgive me, ever. It's been you since that day in the hotel. It's been you every bleeding second since." A line of wet streaked his cheek and he swiped it away self-consciously.

"I don't know if I can handle this," Elijah whispers, voice broken, heart throbbing, flushing with love and forgiveness that maybe he shouldn't have felt so easily or quickly.

"I only want from you what you can spare," Sean whispered back, laying his forehead on Elijah's, kissing away the salty-warm tears off his cheek. "We'll take this step by step and together. Chris is a big girl and I think she cares about you more than you give her credit for."

It was true that Sean and Christine's parting had been nothing short of amicable; Elijah himself having been nothing more than the final step in a series of changes that pushed them in different directions.

Sean kissed his mouth softly, begging with the gesture, pleading for patience; and against all odds Elijah found himself kissing back.

So tonight at the awards, when they sit at different tables—though Elijah made sure to pick the table just behind them—he runs through the months in his head. The long weeks of waiting as the pregnancy happened and finally ended on the 6th of August when Elizabeth Louise Astin was born.

The snags they've hit along the way—arguments, living arrangements, feelings run amok—have been barbed but quick, like Band-Aids being pulled off, and each time the wound heals a little better and a little faster.

So Elijah sits behind Christine and Sean just before the award for best movie is given out. He hears Billy chanting something like a comical mantra two tables behind. And he feels nothing but positive feelings for the two, now, here at the end of the night, because around all the mistakes and heartache the three of them have formed a very odd but wonderful bond.

And later, after the interviews and parties have run themselves into the ground, after so much has happened in such a short space of time that no one is keeping tabs on anyone, after Christine is tucked at home for a weekend at her mother's with the kids, Elijah and Sean find a familiar path at a local park, deserted because half the town is passed out drunk or happily getting there.

It's a place they've sort of claimed—after so many evenings of stolen hours of kissing there it's taken on their personal stamp.

And the brown sugar that is Sean's skin—like that after so much time on location in Mexico and Hawaii—draws Elijah's kisses with freshness as they walk, arms seeking hold.

Upon shifting apart, Elijah grins down at Sean's outfit, eyebrows going up.

"That shirt. It's..."

"Bright," Sean grumbles.

"I was going to say, um. Reflective. But."

Sean raises an eyebrow at him.

"Okay. I was going to say you look like a pimp."

The other eyebrow goes up.

"Okay, I was going to say you look like a very bright, reflective, banana-flavored pimp."

Sean snorts, laughing, and catches Elijah's jaw in one hand, kissing the puckered, offered mouth with a loud smack.

"Two guesses who picked it out for me," he said, eyebrows up again.

Walking again, Elijah trails a hand down Sean's arm, their fingers tangling at the end of the motion.

"Well, I'd say Orli, but I know he isn't in town—"

"I'll give you your own hint: pimp."

"...Billy?"

Sean grins. "Bingo."

"You let Billy, the master of interesting yet slightly off-putting shirts that can be pulled off only by himself and only during a full moon, pick your shirt."

"Temporary insanity," Sean monotones, bringing up Elijah's hand to his mouth and kissing the side of a knuckle.

Chuckling, Elijah shakes his head, eyes on the gravel path as they crunch along, casting long nighttime shadows under the light of the moon.

"I can't stop thinking about it," he says. "Going back. Just five more days and we'll be Hobbits again."

Sean smiles. "For the last time. We'd better make the most of it."

"I think we will," Elijah offers, shrugging. "And remember, we're gonna scope out some property there."

"God, I know, already. Dom only calls me every other hour reminding me."

Grinning, Elijah kicks at the gravel. "But, yeah. Goin' back to Middle Earth."

Leaning over, Sean kisses the soft up-curve of Elijah's neck, bringing him close in a banana-flavored embrace.

"'S'good to be home."

Elijah smiles.