A/N:This is a collaborative effort of the Sisters Elladan and Elrohir. Elladan would like to ask that you please excuse the horrid Legolas and Gimli bashing, and that to those fans, we apologize profusely. Really, we do. And that was not supposed to sound sarcastic. Elrohir would like to point out that we love Starbucks and their steamed almond milk and cinnamon cocoa dearly. We really, really, really like reviews. ::hints::

Disclaimer:We, the Sisters Elladan and Elrohir, hereby admit to owning absolutely nothing, except Briar Crest High itself, and then just the building, not the people in it. Starbucks is not ours either. Dur.

And now, without further ado, we give you:

A Year at Briar Crest High

Chapter 1: First Day

OR

In Which Pippin is Concerned about Frodo's Apparel

A crisp September breeze played across Eowyn's face as she pedaled her bike lazily through Briar Crest, on her way to her new school. Her uncle, Théoden, had insisted that Briar Crest High would be a diverse place for her to "learn and develop new skills." Her uncle, however, was completely wrong. Eowyn had been perfectly happy at the all girls' school in Portland, playing forward on the school soccer team. However diverse and wonderful Briar Crest High supposedly was, it did not have a soccer team at all.

Eowyn stopped her bike in front of the school. It was a sprawling, u-shaped, one-story brick building. The courtyard in the middle of the campus was home to a few trees and single small wooden picnic table. A group of boys were madly dancing under the shade of a pine, watched interestedly by a few girls. On the steps was a beautiful dark-haired teenager--probably an upper classman--painting her nails. Around her was a motley assortment of students sprawled across the stairs, laughing, chatting, or frantically trying to finish the summer homework. Eowyn walked over to the dark-haired girl, who looked up.

She was a cookie-cutter Cosmo cover-girl, with long lashes surrounding intelligent gray eyes. Her hair fell in dark waves around her shoulders, framing her flawless porcelain face. She was wearing a white camisole, a blue button-up cardigan, and a green mini-skirt. Eowyn thought she looked liked she belonged at some college prep school, leading the varsity cheer squad, not sitting on the front steps of the poorest high school in the district. Eowyn's own cargo jeans seemed suddenly inadequate.

"Hey, can you show me where the office is?" Eowyn asked, "I still need my class schedule."

"Down the hall, and to the left," the girl replied, pointing one perfectly manicured fingernail toward the front door. "Are you new here?"

Eowyn was hard-pressed not to roll her eyes. Cheerleaders, she thought scornfully, If I wasn't new, I wouldn't have asked where the office was. However, instead of speaking her thoughts aloud, Eowyn merely said "Yeah, I'm new," and walked through the double doors.

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Sam stood in the shade of the lone pine tree with Merry, Pippin and Frodo. Merry and Pippin had finally collapsed after their mad dancing routine, and were lying in the grass with two sodas apiece. Frodo was sitting with his back against the tree, reading a book that Merry had entitled—after skimming the first page—Very Boring and Extremely Stupid. Frodo had not deigned to participate in the First-Day-of-School-Reunion-Mad-Dancing-Party-Thing for the first time since 2nd grade when Pippin named it and Merry had announced it an official tradition.

Sam looked around at his new school. He had visited Frodo here once or twice, but this would be his, as well as Merry and Pippin's, first year actually attending. Though he would never admit it, he was really nervous. He looked back at Merry and Pippin. They had decided that Frodo was definitely not himself, as well as unusually cranky, and they had begun concocting reasons as to why.

"It's this place…." Merry announced theatrically.

"What's wrong with Seattle?" Pippin interrupted.

"It's that thing around your neck…" continued Merry overdramatically, ignoring Pippin.

Frodo snapped his book shut and glared wearily up at his friends, before explaining, "It was a gift from Uncle Bilbo, it's for good luck!"

"My dear Frodo Baggins, you are wearing a tie…"

"And an ugly one at that!"

Frodo sighed, with the air of one who has seen too much to be bothered by the immaturity of his friends, and once more buried his nose in his book. Undeterred, the two boys continued to express their concern at Frodo's fashion choices, deciding that the aforementioned formal wear was only appropriate at funerals and proms, and since they were at neither of these places, Frodo should lose the tie because he looked like their Great Uncle Hildifons.

"Come on, you guys," Sam finally put in. "You shouldn't go teasing Frodo like that."

Merry and Pippin, however, ignored him. Since they were unable to get Frodo to abandon his book or his tie, they opted to join him. Merry pulled a heavy book of his own out of his backpack, and Pippin quickly folded a piece of notebook paper into a tie, clipping it to the front of his t-shirt. A trio of girls nearby laughed. Sam whipped around as was about to tell them off as well, when he saw who was sitting in the middle of the group. She had curling brown hair and her face was covered in a light dusting of freckles. Her green eyes were laughing. It was Rosie, Merry's long-term girlfriend, who had been going out with him since Sam helped Pippin's lame attempts to set them up in the 7th grade. Sam blushed furiously and turned back to the two troublemakers.

"I think Frodo is just feeling a little under the weather today, that's all."

"Yeah, depressed is more like it," said Merry under his breath, and he and Pippin walked off to their first class, muttering and laughing occasionally.

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Arwen sat in homeroom in the same seat she had sat in for the last three years; middle row, the seat by the window. She was the first one to class, like usual, and even though it was fifteen minutes 'til class actually started, she already had her books and pencil out. She didn't expect anyone else to come to class until—at the most—five minutes 'til, and in the case of her fellow senior Angmar, fifteen minutes after class started, so she was surprised when someone else walked into the classroom. It was the same blue-eyed blonde who had asked her where the office was. She had her long hair in a braid reaching halfway down her back, and she looked like school was the last place on Earth she wanted to be. She glanced around at the almost empty classroom, and then went over to Arwen. "Is anyone sitting here?" she asked, pointing to the seat behind Arwen.

"No. If you get to class early, you get to choose your own seat." Arwen gave a friendly smile, but the girl just sat down at her desk and stared glumly out the window. Not one to give up easily, Arwen turned in her seat so she was facing the blond girl again. "Hi, I'm Arwen." She stuck out her hand.

"Eowyn," the girl replied. She looked at Arwen's hand dubiously before stretching out her own to shake Arwen's. An awkward silence fell, finally interrupted by Faramir poking his mousy-haired, bespectacled head into the classroom.

"Hey Arwen."

"Morning Faramir. Good summer?"

Faramir rolled his eyes. "I wish."

"Is your dad still giving you a hard time?"

"Not too much, I think he just resents the fact that I'm going back to school and Boromir isn't." Eowyn looked confused, and Faramir added "Long story."

Arwen gave him a sympathetic smile, then remembered the girl sitting behind her. "Oh, this is Eowyn. She's new."

"And what land do you hail from, lady?" Faramir nodded to Eowyn.

Arwen grinned; Faramir could be such a geek. "He means where are you from."

"I figured," Eowyn said, looking very close to laughter. She turned to Faramir. "Portland. My uncle says we moved here because my brother wanted to go to the University of Washington, but I think there was an out-of-state girlfriend involved."

"Aren't out-of-state girlfriends just away to get away with polyamory?" Arwen asked.

Eowyn stared at Arwen for a minute, and it seemed to Arwen that she was reevaluating her opinion of the girl in front of her. Maybe it was because Arwen had used a word with more than three syllables, or that she had just openly insulted men. Then Eowyn laughed. "I have to say, I agree with you on that one."

Faramir said a hasty goodbye and ran out of the room, so he wouldn't be late to pre-calc, and the two girls continued chatting as the room filled up with people. By the time class had actually started, they were fast friends.

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I swear, I am going to fall asleep if this stupid teacher keeps droning on. Tell me if we get any homework, my eyelids are drooping…

Pippin folded up the note and passed it to Merry, who was sitting in the seat behind him. Merry looked at the note, hastily scribbled a reply, and passed the folder paper back.

Homework? I'd almost forgotten what that was... I'm thinking of taking Rosie to the top of the Space Needle... v. expensive though... whaddya think?

Pippin smothered a laugh. The Space Needle? He's got to be joking. It was beyond cliché. He was about to write a reply to Merry asking him if he had hit his head on something, because no one in their right mind would think of something that… mushy, when he was poked sharply by Merry. Pippin turned around in his chair. "What?" he asked. Merry pointed to a blonde girl sitting in the middle row. Their homeroom teacher had just been talking about the after school program, and the girl had actually raised her hand. Which meant, Pippin realized, that she had actually been paying attention, not dozing off or passing notes like the rest of the class. The teacher looked just as surprised as everyone else.

"Yes, er…" he struggled for her name, "Eowyn?"

"Professor Glorfindel, I know the school doesn't have a soccer team," she said, not trying to hide her disdain, "but is there a team in the neighborhood I could play on?"

"We--"

"There is one team…" A boy in the corner interrupted. Pippin looked over at him. He was dressed all in black leather, from his jacket reading 'Lord of the Nazgul' on the back to the combat boots he was resting on his desk. "...but you couldn't play on it. In fact," he continued, moving his feet of the desk so he could turn to face Eowyn, "you'd probably have to work twice as hard to be half as good as the guys. Of course, that's not saying much, since I've never seen a more hopeless team." He leaned closer and said in a mock-sympathetic stage whisper, "I'm sure the cheerleaders will let you cry along with them when they lose... again."

"Angmar, that's enough." The teacher had recovered his dignity. "What I believe he is trying to say," Glorfindel said, turning to Eowyn, "is that the team we refer our students to, the Briar Crest Bandits, is an all boys team. However, we have a wonderful cheerleading program…"

Pippin had stopped paying attention, as Merry had passed him a note.

Can you believe what he just did? What a bastard. I think he deserves the first prank of the year, and to get put on our permanent hit list.

Pippin stared at the note, and then started writing.

Hello? Earth to Merry? Engage brain before making threats. We'd be so dead, even if the prank did succeed. Senior, probably a gang leader + prank Merry and Pippin dead in a ditch somewhere. Get my point?

If it were a successful prank, he wouldn't even know! We can't let him go unpunished... But we should wait until we know more about him.

Fine. You give me an idea, I'll come up with a plan. But we should wait until we've warmed up by pulling a prank on a teacher or something… Honestly, you are such a lady's man. "He can't go unpunished."

Oh, shut up... what I meant was that every total jerk deserves to be humiliated in front of his peers. And just because you don't have a girlfriend, doesn't mean you can call me a lady's man.

I—

The bell rang, signaling the end of class. Pippin crossed out what he had written, and ran over to his friend.

"Merry?"

"Yeah?"

"Did we get any homework?"

-----------------------

Aragorn was walking through the hallway on his way to lunch. He thought it would have been hard to start at a different school in his senior year, but he had already made two new friends, who were walking with him. Aragorn had met Legolas and Gimli in homeroom, and they welcomed him into their little group immediately, promising to show him who was cool, and who to watch out for.

The cafeteria was packed to the ceiling with people; students chatting, laughing and generally having fun, their lunch trays lying forgotten in front of them. The three boys walked over to the lunch lady, who slopped "food" onto their plates. Aragorn assumed it was some kind of meat, but couldn't really tell.

"Mmm.. Cafeteria goodness," Legolas mocked, and the other boys laughed.

They wandered over to one of the long tables, where Legolas and Gimli set down their trays directly in the middle. Aragorn followed suit, noting curiously that the other students seemed to be avoiding them, the same way they were avoiding the leather-clad gang in the corner, only without the looks of terror. Brushing it off, Aragorn took stock of the rest of the cafeteria. A pretty dark haired girl was chatting with a tomboyish blonde at the table next to them, while a group of freshmen talked across the way. A bespectacled boy with mousy brown hair walked over to where the dark haired girl waved. Gimli and Legolas stood up and proceeded over to the boy. Must be another one of their friends, Aragorn thought, following the other boys, but his theory was immediately proven wrong when Gimli stuck out his foot and tripped him. The boy's tray flew out of his hands and his glasses went spinning across the cafeteria floor. Legolas walked over to him, his handsome face twisted into an ugly sneer.

"What're you doing back at school, Coffee-Boy?" he asked mockingly, "Shouldn't you be dropping out this year? After all," he smiled meanly, "It's a family tradition."

"Wow, did it take you all summer to come up with that one?" the boy murmured exasperatedly, his voice almost inaudible. Aragorn, shocked, stood there stupidly while the boy fumbled for his glasses.

"Oh, yeah, summer," said Legolas nostalgically, "How was yours? Let's see… bring beer to Daddy, bring coffee to customers, bring vodka to Daddy, bring coffee to customers… you're well on your way to becoming a great waitress." He said all this with an air of self-satisfaction, as if he had just come up with a truly brilliant and biting remark. Aragorn wondered if he could tell that the reason for the boys silence was not hurt feelings, but resignation. Legolas was just about to unleash another round of insults, when someone finally spoke up from the table near them.

"Stop it!" It was the dark haired girl at the table. She was obviously angry, but there was a touch of exasperation in her voice, as though this kind of thing happened often. The girl turned to the boy, her voice softening. "They only say bad things about you because they can't say anything good about themselves." She faced Legolas and Gimli. "Do you really have to do this on the first day of school? You're acting like second graders." Legolas snorted and stalked off with Gimli in tow, not even bothering to see if Aragorn had followed. "Don't listen to them," the girl said consolingly, "And don't retaliate, it only adds fuel to the fire…" She leaned down to help the boy being gathering up his fallen lunch. Aragorn, completely unsure of what to do, stared at his feet, ashamed. He couldn't believe he had counted those bullies as friends!

"Hey, you!" It was the blonde girl. "You wanna sit here?" She pointed to the seat across from her. "What's your name?"

"Aragorn." He walked over to her.

"I'm Eowyn." She motioned to the brown haired boy. "This is… Faramir, Faramir, this is Aragorn." She pointed to the other girl. "That's Arwen."

"Hi." Arwen looked up with a smile and Aragorn's jaw dropped. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Her dark hair fell into her clear grey eyes as placed the last of Faramir's spilled food on his tray. Aragorn stared unabashedly, all the cliché pick-up lines he had ever heard that involved 'angels' and 'heaven' running through his head.

"Earth to zombie boy?" It was Eowyn. She waved her hand in front of his eyes. "You gonna sit down or what?"

"Oh, yeah." Aragorn slid into his seat, but kept looking at Arwen.

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"You know, Frodo, you're the only one here wearing an ugly tie."

"Merry, no one else here is wearing a tie."

"Good point, Pip."

Rosie laughed. The two boys were still dead set on getting a reaction out of Frodo, and had not seen fit to change the subject of their teasing. "You know this joke is getting really old."

She was sitting at a table in the cafeteria with the other new freshmen, enjoying her lunch from home, while a few others tried to steal it. They had learned right away that the school food wasn't edible when Pippin found unidentifiable orange bits in the meat, closely followed by Merry discovering that one could, quite easily, mash the green beans into a past that would stick to almost anything.

"Well," said Pippin, drawing Rosie back into the conversation, "jokes are like cheese!" He nabbed the sting cheese from Rosie's lunch to illustrate his point.

"How?" asked Frodo, looking up from his book long enough to poke a hole in Pippin's analogy. "How, exactly, are jokes like cheese?"

Pippin fell silent, struggling with a way to compare two unrelated things. The string cheese in his hand drooped dejectedly. Then, his eyes lighting up, he stated: "Jokes are like cheese, the older, the better!"

"Yeah," said Merry, "And when they get too old, they start to stink." This earned a laugh from the whole table. Rosie grinned slightly at Merry's immature humor, which none the less seemed to amuse everyone. She looked over at Sam, whom she expected would share her exasperation. Instead, she caught him staring at her, but he turned away as soon as she met his gaze and started prodding the gloopy mush on his plate, blushing. He had been giving her The Look again. She sighed.

Rosie assumed The Look had originated sometime after she had started dating Merry. Sam had lived across the street from Rosie for as long as she could remember, and for all that time they'd been best friends. Now whenever she tried to talk to him, he mumbled and looked down at his feet, or blushed and didn't say anything at all. It was like loosing a part of her; gone was the friend with whom she'd shared inside jokes and slices of watermelon, and all that was left was an increasingly insecure teenager who seemed to shy to talk to her. She valued Sam's friendship immensely, and she had never thought it would change. Rosie leaned her head on Merry's shoulder, and he put his arm around her and gently stoked her hair.

Apparently, high school was a lot more complicated than middle school.

-----------------------

Faramir got to art five minutes early, as he had done all last year. The art room was the same as it always had been; the paint splattered floor, the duck-taped easels. Professor Galadriel, with a paintbrush behind her ear, was in a corner sketching a still life. She turned around when he walked in. "You're early," she said. "Free art today, just pick a medium from the cupboards on the left. There's plenty of paper on the easels."

Faramir walked over to the cupboards and picked out a set of charcoal pencils before walking to an easel. The room slowly began filling up with people. The freshmen pulled their easels together into the circle in the corner. The only other sophomore was the blonde girl¾Eowyn¾that he had met in homeroom, who pulled her easel up next to his and began painting. Apparently, Drawing and Painting was as unpopular as it had been last year, but that was fine with Faramir; he liked a small class, and it was the only time he didn't have Legolas and Gimli picking on him.

"Hey." It was Eowyn. She looked nervous. "So... I'm guessing your dad's like, an alcoholic or something."

"Interesting conversation starter, but yes. How'd you know?"

"Well, the way those assholes were going on about it... it was hard not to notice. Is it... you know... hard, living with him?"

"Not really, he's just drunk most of the time. And I don't cater beer to him, if that's what you were thinking," he said bitterly.

"No! I wasn't"

"I'm sorry, I'm being an ass. I just get a little… touchy about the subject." He laughed dryly. "If you wanna know someone who's really bitter, you should meet my brother Boromir. He's always up-in-arms about things... you see, when my mom died and Dad took up drinking, he dropped out of school in sophomore year--my year--to run our little family coffee shop and support us. I think my dad wished that I had dropped out; Boromir was always his favorite. Anyway, before he dropped out, they built a Starbucks across the street and almost put us out of business. Boromir was always getting in fights with Arwen when he was at school."

The off-hand manner in which he said this apparently shocked Eowyn. All she could say was "Arwen?"

"Yeah, Arwen. Her dad's vice-president of Starbucks. I don't hold it against her, but she always seemed to bug the crap out of Bori."

"Bori?" Eowyn asked, "Is that some kind of childhood nickname?"

"Yeah," said Faramir, blushing, "He was Bori, and I was Fari."

"I'm going to call you that."

"No! You can't call me that! No one but my mom and brother have ever called me that."

"Someone has to keep up the tradition... Fari." She grinned wickedly. Faramir shrugged, and went back to sketching, smiling.

-----------------------

Boromir glanced up from the magazine he was reading as his younger brother slid into the seat next to him. One glance at the car's clock told him it was 2:45, twenty minutes after the time that Boromir had agreed to pick Faramir up from school. Faramir saw him look at the clock and he mumbled a hasty "Sorry I'm late."

"You have art 6th period again don't you?"

"Yeah," said Faramir. Boromir smiled, which was something rarely seen from him after he had to drop out of school.

"You just had to finish that sketch, I suppose," he said, turning the key in the ignition. Boromir had been in the neighborhood that day, so he offered to pick Faramir up from school. It didn't bother him at all, really. Boromir liked hearing how Faramir's day had gone, since he couldn't be at school himself.

"Well, actually," Faramir said as they pulled away from the curb with a nasty screech, "I met this girl in art and we ended up chatting. I didn't realize how late it was until Professor Galadriel reminded us that we were going to miss the bus." Boromir raised an eyebrow when Faramir mentioned the girl, but didn't make any comments. "So how was your day?"

"Well, not nearly as interesting as yours," Boromir said, pulling into the driveway of their house-¾a small, two story building, the first floor of which was comprised of their small coffee shop. "I had an employee quit on me because he refused to work for a senior in high school, that damn Starbucks vice-president came by and offered to buy our coffee shop, and Dad found his credit card under the couch cushion where you hid it and bought another bottle of vodka." He smiled bitterly.

"Wait!" said Faramir, following Boromir up the stairs to the back door. "He offered to buy our coffee shop? What did you tell him?"

"I told him to get out of my shop, and would have told him to go to hell while he was at it, but I didn't want to make a bad impression on the customers."

Boromir checked on the status of his father—asleep on the couch at the moment—and followed his brother into the kitchen. "So, Fari," said Boromir, pulling some bread out of the cupboard, "Tell me about this girl you met."

"Well... for one thing, she's the only one besides you and Mom who's ever called me Fari." He grinned sheepishly. "Though that's my fault 'cause I told her about it. Let's see... she's about my height, with long blonde hair and blue eyes and—"

"You like her," said Boromir matter-of-factly.

Faramir blushed and looked at his feet. "Nah, she's just a friend… ish… thing…" he trailed off, mumbled something unintelligible, and took a unnecessarily large bite out of his sandwich.

"I know," said Boromir, feigning seriousness, "I didn't mean to embarrass you…" He stopped talking and started to put the dishes in the sink. Still holding a plate, he turned to face Faramir and added as an afterthought "But when you talk about her, I mean, your eyes get all big and googly and you can practically see the hearts coming out of your head…"

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A/N: Reviews are lovely, dahlings!

NEXT: Eowyn gets in a fight, Merry gets told, and a feeling of Get To Know You Bingo is in the air.