My first venture into Lord of the Rings fanfics, so please be gentle with me and forgive any mistakes I make. Whilst this may look like a dreaded MarySue, please be assured it is not. Yes, the female character is an OC; no she is not a MarySue (or at least how I understand them to be). There is no pairing as yet with this fanfic; it is a work in progress. The title is also subject to change ;)

Lost by kmf

Rating: PG13 (possibly subject to change in later chapters)

Chapter One

It had been a particularly horrible day for Melissa. Most of her days had been horrible that year, and the year before for that matter, but today had been particularly stressful. She sighed as she entered the bathroom in the cold, lonely house she lived in, and stared at her image in the mirror.

"You knew you shouldn't have got up this morning," she hissed to her self. "But you never listen.."

Tears began to flood her eyes, and she blinked rapidly trying to swallow them back into her before they spilled over onto her cheeks. She frowned at herself trying to think of anything other than what had happened that day two years before.

Two years already.

Seven hundred and thirty numb days.

Seventeen Thousand, five hundred and twenty agonising hours.

She frowned at herself again, looking at the grim lines that seemed to be permanently etched into her forehead and around her mouth.

"Don't think about it," she whispered, running her hands through her short brown hair, making it stand straight on end giving her a wild angry look "Focus on now!"

And she did, and found the tears beginning to well up again.

Today, on the anniversary of the day her heart had been broken, her contract had been terminated due to an overspent budget. Her employer had been sorry, but it had been one of her conditions of employment that either party could suspend the contract without notice. She had just stood and nodded to him, before returning to her desk, quickly calculating hours worked in the last two weeks and raised an invoice. Then saying a quick farewell to her co-workers, who all looked both thankful it wasn't them that had lost their jobs, and worried that it could be tomorrow, she had taken a train back home.

Home. Her home. But for how much longer? Her pay had covered the mortgage and bills, but had left precious else for her to save. She had enough in her bank account for two more mortgage payments and then, if she didn't find another job, she was going to lose her house. And then what?

Melissa sighed and turned away from the mirror, gazing around the crisp white bathroom.

"Who cares?" she asked herself quietly, listening to her voice echo around the room. She hugged her arms around her self and shut her eyes.

Breathing deeply she tried to calm herself. This was nothing. She could survive this. If she had survived the day her heart had died, she could survive this. She just needed to formulate a plan. She had to call people; family, friends, contacts, old work colleagues. Someone might know of an opening somewhere.

"But you don't have family," she whispered to herself. "Not anymore."

Her eyes opened and she once again glared at herself in the mirror.

"Shut up!" she hissed, and stomped out of the room down to the kitchen.

Quickly grabbing a white wineglass, one of the elegant crystal set she and Paul had been given for their wedding, she opened her fridge and took out a half empty bottle of Chardonnay. Filling the glass, she gulped the contents down quickly before filling it again. Frowning at the now empty bottle, she put it into the recycling box, before glaring at her telephone.

As if she invoked it, the phone began to ring. The sudden shrill noise made her jump, white wine sloshing up over her hand. Walking up to the phone, she swapped the glass over to her other hand, absently licking her fingers while she listened to her recorded voice on the answer phone.

"I'm sorry, I'm not here right now. Please leave a message after the tone and I will try to get back to you."

Melissa grimaced at her voice; stilted and emotionless, hating the sound and her accent. After the beep, there was a moment of hesitation before she heard his voice, quiet and measured.

"Melissa? It's me. Paul."

There was another pause and she could imagine Paul frowning on the other end of the connection, wondering if she was going to pick up and talk to him. After another moment, he spoke again.

"Are you ok?" he asked before hesitating again. "Call me, ok?"

Melissa listened to the faint click of him hanging up, then the dial tone before her answer phone disconnected. The red light of message waiting blinked at her.

So he remembered. He probably had it in his electronic diary to prompt his memory of the event, especially after he forgot last year. She was still angry that the moment that had changed her whole world had made so little impact on him that he had forgotten, only to be reminded by her in an outraged rant.

Grabbing her glass, she stalked up the stairs to her bathroom again, and bent down to run a bath. A bath would soothe her, a bath full of deliciously scented bubbles. A conditioning hair treatment, together with a face mask would distract her. It would take her forward another hour. Another bottle of wine would see her through the long dark hours of night. And tomorrow?

Melissa squeezed a generous amount of bubble bath into the steaming water and inhaled the relaxing jasmine fumes. She couldn't think of tomorrow. She wouldn't think of tomorrow. Sipping her wine, she waited for the bath to fill, then turned off the water and quickly stripped off her clothes, tossing them into the wash basket. Sprinkling some water in her hair, she applied a generous amount of conditioning treatment, pulling her hair up into hedgehog spikes to make sure that she covered it all. Glaring at her image in the mirror again, she then applied a face mask, green and full of lumpy rolled oat flakes, avoiding her eyes and her mouth.

"Very pretty" she said sarcastically, poking her tongue out at herself, before slipping her body into the still steaming water, wincing a little from the heat before her limbs became adjusted to the heat.

Sighing, she peered down at her belly, gazing at the silvery lines, scars of her pregnancy, before tearing her eyes away and reaching for her wine glass.

"Don't think about it," she murmured to herself, before easing her body fully into the water and using her toe to turn on the hot tap to increase the level of the water. "Never think about it."

And so she didn't. She instead thought of the taste of the wine in her mouth, the heat of the water, the tightening of the facepack as it dried. She thought of the garden that was sorely neglected, though she probably had time to get out there and try and bring it under control now that she had lost her job.

Don't think about that!

She thought about replacing the hall wallpaper, the need for the ceiling plaster in the dining room to be replaced. She thought how the third bedroom still needed to be redecorated and how it had rolls of wallpaper sitting stacked under the window for the last two years all with little pink, yellow and blue teddy bears printed on them.

Don't think about that!

Stifling a little sob she closed her eyes, bit her lip, and pushed all the pain deep, deep down inside so that she could keep breathing, keep existing. And she wished, how she wished that her life could be different.

And then, suddenly, it was.

Instead of being in a comfortably warm bath, in a brightly-lit bathroom, in an average house, in a small town, in a large country, she was suddenly plunged into icy cold water that made her shriek in surprise and fright. Opening her eyes she found that she was in darkness, in water and she floundered in panic, her hand still grasping her empty wineglass.

A hiss of surprise came from beside her as her hands flayed out to grab something, anything until this hallucination passed her by. Her fingertips grasped hot, hard flesh, and in her extreme panic she latched onto this anchor. She screeched again as she felt herself being pushed away, her head dipping below the icy water, her head aching from the sudden sensation of cold. Struggling again to rise to above the murky depths, she managed to take one deep gulp of air before she felt to strong hands on her shoulders pushing her down, fully immersing her in the icy depths again.

Kicking, struggling, she tried to break free but the cold and the shock were too much, the hands were too strong and her desire to live just wasn't there. Lungs burning, limbs aching, her last thought was of her lost child and that how sometimes it really didn't pay to make wishes.

Long had he travelled, exploring with Gimli the secret and rarely wandered delights of Middle Earth. It had taken many years, but they were finally returning to Rivendell, the place that had caused such a dramatic change to his life all those years ago. He had been old in years and yet so young in mind, when he attended that infamous council as representative of the Mirkwood elves. The War of the Rings and the paths he had had to travel to help win that war had aged Legolas.

So much had changed since the one ring had been destroyed. Many old Elven friends had left Middle Earth sailing for the Undying Lands. Many old mortal friends had died. But so it always was. A mortal's life burnt fast and bright, over it seemed sometimes before it had even began. It amazed him still just how much a mortal could achieve with the short time given to them, and it amazed him even more how much many of them wasted the time allotted to them.

Legolas sighed as he lent against a tree and looked up to the stars smiling faintly at the realisation that the night had almost disappeared. Gimli lay beside a burned out campfire, his snores loud and comfortingly familiar. Gimli had become an unlooked for friend, but a mortal one. There would come a day when his life, though long, would end. He, at least, was living his life to the full.

Stretching, Legolas pushed away from the tree, and moved silently away from the campsite. Although he was on guard, it was a rarity for orcs now to be spotted. With Sauron's demise, orcs were dying out, as were goblins and other such foul creatures. It was unlikely that any would disturb Gimli's rest, and Legolas much desired to bath his skin in the cool clear water of the lake that they were camped next to.

Without hesitation, Legolas took off his weapons, laying them carefully on the ground. He still carried his Lothlorien bow and much treasured it. The Lady Galadriel who had given it to him no longer dwelt on Middle Earth; she had sailed to the Undying Lands soon after the war. The bow was a precious keepsake of her, of her wisdom and her beauty. He was less careful with the rest of his clothes, tossing them down in a hurried heap, eager to feel the icy water against his skin.

Wading out into the depths of the lake silently, he sunk beneath the water allowing his long locks to flow out around him, before surfacing and floating watching the stars twinkling above his head. The cold did not bother him, as elves could tolerate most temperatures. In fact, the cold seemed to clarify his mind and made him feel almost one with the stars.

For a long time he floated, allowing the dust and grime of his journey to float away in the water whilst he meditated on the stars, watching them spin slowly across the sky. At last he smiled and lifted his head from the water, shaking the drops free before turning to swim to shore.

It was then that he saw it suddenly appear. One moment the lake was empty except for him and the fish swimming in its depths, and the next right next to him appeared a misshapen humanoid. There was no flash of magic to hint at its arrival, no indication of it stealthily hunting him. One second it was not there, and the next it was.

Startled, Legolas blinked as the creature splashed water into his face then gave a grimace of disgust as it reached out and grabbed hold of him. Its face was coarse, green skin flaking off, its eyes shut and its mouth open wide in an ear-piercing shriek. Its hair was short and greasy, sticking on end and covered in strange smelling mud that dribbled down its face, leaving a trail of brown against the green.

He shoved it back, cursing the lack of a weapon to smite down the beast, yet oddly invigorated as it seemed an age since he had last fought a foul creature. It disappeared under the water, then bobbed up again, its face appearing to melt and slide, its arms reaching out to latch onto him again. With a look of disgust, Legolas once again pushed the creature back and under the water, this time holding it there. It struggled, causing him to close his eyes against the splashing water, whilst he kicked his legs in an effort to keep his face above water level. The water was discoloured by whatever the creature had in its hair and he had no desire to put his face in that.

Quickly, the creature became limp, bubbles breaking the surface as its struggles ceased, and Legolas grimly let go edging back slightly and peering in the water to confirm that he had killed the creature. His eyes narrowed as it bobbed to the surface, face down. With a sinking heart and a curse he saw that the creature appeared to be human, the skin of its naked form faintly blue from the cold, its arms drifting out to its sides.

Muttering a curse, he took hold of an arm and flipped it over confirming that, despite the shorn hair, it was a woman. He peered into her face seeing that the green skin appeared to be some sort of mud covering her face and that a good deal of it had been removed in the struggle. Her eyes were closed, and she breathed not, though her heart still continued to weakly beat.

Moving as fast as he could, Legolas swam to shore, the woman grasped under one arm, her head lolling in the water. Pulling her up onto the bank, he quickly tilted her head back, held her nose close with her fingers and, ignoring what green mud remained around her mouth, covered it with his and blew gently into her lungs.

He turned to watch her chest descend before repeating the process.

"Come, lady." He murmured to her softly as he watched her expel his breath. "Live!"

A third time he covered her mouth with his and blew life into her lungs.

With a gasp, she suddenly arched her back, before violently coughing up large amounts of lake water. Legolas quickly turned her onto her side, rubbing her back, feeling the coldness of her skin under his warm fingertips. Relief that he hadn't killed her flooded him, and he sat back on his haunches watching her as she continued to cough up the water she had inhaled.

His gaze took in her details before he turned to gather his cloak to wrap around her. She was tall, her hair quite dark and extremely short. The faint scars on her abdomen showed that she had given birth to at least one babe, though her breasts still were firm and showed no signs of the endearing droop that many mortal woman displayed after birthing many children. She had the straightest, neatest scar he had ever seen near her right hip, which might have indicated that she was some sort of warrior. But her hands were soft and showed no sign of being used to holding weapons or for labour. A lady then perhaps? Her ears were strangely punctured with little holes, something that would have caused an elf a great deal of pain, but which would give a human only a short span of discomfort. Had she performed a trial of some sort, proving her strength?

Wrapping his cloak around her, he sat her upright and rubbed his hands up and down her arms encouraging her circulation while he waited for her to get her coughing under control. He used the edge of the cloak to wipe some more of the green mud from her face, and she turned to peer at him, her brown eyes slightly glassy and confused. Seeing him sitting behind her naked made her cough some more before she tried to edge away from him, her breathing becoming panicked.

He restrained her with an hand on her shoulder.

"Sit still, lady," he said quietly, trying to calm her, "I mean you no harm." He almost grimaced at this as he had, of course, caused her harm and he was feeling guilty for it.

She peered at him again, and spoke to him in a low voice, but Legolas did not know the language and it was obvious that she did not understand him so they ended up staring at each other in confusion. She frowned, an expression that seemed to come all too easily to her face and she repeated the words, this time with a hint of desperation to them.

Shaking his head, he stood and ignored the way she suddenly averted her gaze from his nakedness. Picking up his clothes he considered them, then her. She was icy cold and needed warmth, but her hips and chest were too broad to fit into his elf slender clothes. Quickly pulling them on, together with his boots and weapons, he returned to her side to find her huddled and shivering. Her toes and fingers were almost lavender from cold, her breathing unsteady. She was rocking slightly as if in shock.

Frowning, he crouched by her side, and took her shoulders, encouraging her to stand. She came to her feet unsteadily, shivering all the more as the cloak fell open, but she seemed not to notice. Concerned, Legolas wrapped the cloak firmly around her, then lifted her up into his arms. She was tall and she was heavy. Inelegantly, Legolas stumbled up the hill towards the camp, his elven hearing determining that Gimli was still asleep and snoring loudly.

"Bloody dwarves sleep through anything", he muttered.

As mentioned earlier, feedback is appreciated!