Chapter 1

Aragorn sat watching the rain. It poured from the sky, drenching the city and pattering against the window. The city lights quivered under the rain, fading in and out with each new drop. Over the pattering of the rain he heard cars humming. Someone was talking in the next apartment. The television buzzed low from the hobbit's room. He drew in a breath of smoke and let it out slowly. Swirling patterns filled the air.

'Must you smoke?' said Legolas. He was lying on his stomach on the bed, laptop open. He had a web page about combustion engines up. He was always studying now. He would tell Aragorn all the new things he learned every day at night when they went to bed. Aragorn would fall asleep listening to explanations for cars and planes, televisions and toasters.

'It helps me think,' Aragorn said.

Legolas frowned and typed 'dangers of smoking' into the google browser. 'It can also give you lung cancer,' he said. 'And mouth cancer and throat cancer and heart disease and strokes.'

Aragorn frowned. 'What is cancer?'

Legolas typed 'what is cancer' into the browser. 'The disease caused by an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in a part of the body,' he said.

'Okay.' Aragorn inhaled. He heard Legolas mutter 'abnormal cells' as he typed it into the browser. They sat in silence for a few minutes, Legolas googling and Aragorn thinking.

They were so very high in the air, looking out onto a high city. In some ways it reminded him of Lothlórien: the way the lights shivered made him think of the lights shimmering in and out between the trees. He had fallen in love all over again in Lothlórien. He wondered if he would ever see it again.

They had been on their way into Moria when the world had split apart. He remembered clearly the sound, although the picture was blurry. It had been near the mountains. When it happened he thought the mountain had split in two. It sounded like it had. It sounded louder than that. The mountain melted black, and he saw stars clearly in front of him, but each star was a face. The faces went fuzzy and became stars again while the noise drove into his body and curled out of his skin until there was silence.

He had awoken on a city street. Gandalf was missing. They had hidden for a time, learning as much about this new world as they could: the customs, the language. Gandalf had never turned up, so they had learned to live without him. Aragorn sometimes wondered if Gandalf were dead. Sometimes he wondered if they were all dead.

Aragorn leaned back against his chair. It was a spindly green chair that he had picked up for $7.00 at a yard sale. It looked out of place in this white room with its white walls and white carpets and white plastic window frames, but so did he.

'It's very dangerous,' Legolas said.

'What?'

'Cancer.'

'Yes.' Aragorn opened the window. Rain fell down against the window frame. It smelt warm and dirty. 'Better?'

Legolas shrugged. 'Do you have work tomorrow?'

'Yes.' Aragorn wondered why Legolas insisted on keeping up a conversation. He wasn't used to speaking to people for great lengths of time. He wanted to think, and if he had to speak to someone, he would have liked it to be Gandalf. He was sure that Gandalf would have some idea of where they were or even how they had gotten there. And yet, the land was so foreign, so distant; it seemed to have sprung from a half-remembered nightmare. He wasn't certain that even Gandalf could understand it.

'7.6 million people die of cancer each year,' Legolas said.

'You wouldn't have to put up with my smoking if you had just agreed to room with Boromir,' Aragorn said. 'He doesn't smoke.'

Legolas shut his laptop. 'He hates me.'

'That's not my fault.'

'It isn't my fault either.'

'It's either him, or the smoke.'

Legolas picked up the laptop and marched it over to his dresser. He put it on the top of the dresser in the box it had come in and smoothed the 'DO NOT TOUCH' sign he had taped to the box. The sign was intended to keep away careless Boromirs and clumsy Gimlis. Legolas had told him so approximately three hundred times.

'Any new ideas of how we might have gotten here?' Legolas asked, pulling out his nightclothes. 'I've ruled out black holes, but a wormhole is still an option.' He paused. 'You don't have any idea what either of those are, do you?'

Aragorn shook his head.

'You should read more.' Legolas unbuttoned his henley shirt and pulled it off over his head. 'They have to do with space. Obviously we are either in another world or another time, so something must have made us travel through space or time.' He pulled on his nightshirt. 'The question is what.'

'We could trapped in the imaginings of Sauron,' Aragorn said. 'He could have the Ring now. He could be torturing us.'

Legolas unbuttoned his jeans. 'No, if he had the Ring, we would know.'

The front door of the flat opened. Aragorn heard Boromir walk in and stamp his shoes dry on the welcome mat.

'Boromir, you're soaked!' It was Merry's voice, rising high and worried. The hobbits slept in the living room on a white and grey striped pull-out sofa. They liked to stay up late whispering to each other and raiding the refrigerator.

'I'm all right; it's a warm rain,' Boromir said to Merry. 'I've seen a lot worse.'

'Still, you'd better go change into something dry,' said Merry, 'before you catch a cold or something a lot worse!'

'Go to sleep.'

'Yes, just ignore me. That's the way to stay safe.'

'I'll be fine.'

'No, you won't.' That was Frodo. 'You've got to be careful, even with warm rain. Now you go change, young man.'

'You can go to sleep too.'

Pippin giggled.

Aragorn heard Boromir cross the hobbits' room. He stopped outside of Aragorn and Legolas's room and knocked on the door.

'Come in,' said Legolas, folding up his day clothes and placing them on top of the dresser by the box.

Boromir stepped in. His black jeans and black button-up shirt were soaked through. He brushed at his wet face. 'That was a good walk.'

'They're right,' Aragorn said, nodding at his wet clothes. 'You should get out of those.'

Boromir nodded. 'I know. But first I have to tell you what happened to me this evening. It was quite extraordinary.' Water from the hems of his jeans dripped onto the carpet.

'Everything here is extraordinary,' Legolas said. 'I'm sure it was nothing.'

Boromir frowned. 'You just contradicted yourself.'

'No, I didn't.' Legolas fell backwards onto the bed dramatically and lay there counting the strands of his hair.

'Yes, you did,' said Boromir.

'No.'

'Yes, you did. You said everything here was extraordinary, which means that if something happened here it could not have been nothing.'

Legolas wrinkled his nose. 'Comparatively it would have been nothing.'

Aragorn sighed, wondering why Legolas had decided that not only would he hate Gimli he would also antagonize Boromir at every opportunity. Legolas had told him it was because he had heard Boromir agreeing with Gimli that elves were annoying. But even if that were true, which it very well could have been, the fighting was driving him mad. Relationship problems were not one of his strong points.

'It could have been something,' Aragorn said. 'Please go on with your tale.'

'Well,' said Boromir, 'I was walking along, minding my own business—'

'Getting soaked in a dirty city for fun,' Legolas added.

'You like rain,' Boromir said.

'Thirty-five, thirty-six.' Legolas was counting strands of hair again.

'At any rate,' said Boromir, 'I came across a bar-'

'And, being a mortal man, you walked in.'

Boromir glared at Legolas, who widened his eyes at him innocently. 'Which had a help-wanted sign in the window. I went in to inquire about the position, and, well, I don't know exactly how, but I was hired.'

'As what?' asked Aragorn.

'A bartender.'

'With no previous experience?'

'None here at least.' He ran a hand through his black hair. 'I've got a bit of experience back at home, but that was just fun.' He smiled. 'I don't know why they chose me, but it pays three times better than my old job.'

'They probably chose you because you're so handsome,' said Legolas with a shrug.

'Thanks, beautiful.'

Legolas shrugged again and yanked a blanket over himself. His feet were left sticking out from the bottom. He pushed the blanket down and tucked his feet up, becoming a little green bundle on the bed.

Boromir stared at him. 'Huh,' he said.

'Congratulations,' said Aragorn.

'Thank-you. A little bit of appreciation was all I wanted.'

Legolas snorted from under the blanket. 'I'm sure.'

'I've got to change.' Boromir walked out.

'That's a lucky break, if ever I saw one,' said Aragorn.

'Ha,' said Legolas.

'You should be glad he has a job.'

'Ha.'

'You don't have to be this negative.'

'He didn't have to call me stupid, but that didn't stop him.'

'I'm sure he didn't call you stupid.'

'Ha.'

Aragorn tugged off his t-shirt and pulled off his jeans. Legolas was still a green bundle tucked away under the blanket. Aragorn pulled on his pyjamas. 'It's still money,' he said.

The bundle was silent. He lay down next to it. 'Move over.'

Legolas inched away from him. Aragorn stretched out a bit. Part of his shoulder and arm were still hanging over the edge of the bed. He pushed Legolas over. 'You go there.'

Legolas pulled the blanket off his face. His burnt golden hair was falling in a mess over his eyes. 'Is it a good job?'

'Yes, it should be.'

Legolas nodded. 'I hope he doesn't want to stay.'

When Aragorn awoke the next morning, Legolas was already up, typing away on his laptop. Aragorn rolled over and read the clock. 5:43. He got up and stretched.

'Morning,' said Legolas, without looking up.

'Good morning.'

Aragorn walked to the bathroom, checking on the hobbits as he passed by. They were still asleep, curled up together on the pullout sofa. Frodo seemed fine. He had his head on Merry's shoulder. Aragorn could make out the outline of the ring underneath his nightshirt. The chain glinted against his neck.

The door to Boromir and Gimli's room was cracked open. Gimli was still sleeping, but Boromir was awake, punching the palm of one hand with his fist.

'Boromir,' he whispered. 'Are you all right?'

'I'm fine,' said Boromir. 'Just suffering from a severe bout of insomnia. Do you know the time?'

'Almost six.'

'I'm getting up.'

'You'd better wake Gimli up too.'

'Have you ever woken a dwarf before?' Boromir groaned. 'You're lucky, you know, getting the elf and all. The dwarf snores.'

Aragorn nodded and headed to the shower. Showers were wonderful things. He stepped in and let the hot water pour over him. He slathered his hair with shampoo, and rinsed it out wildly. He rubbed the soap against his skin; little bubbles foamed and then glided away with the streaming water. It was convenient. Showers were convenient. The world might be loud and dirty, but it had luxuries like showers and washing machines and food from a box.

He walked back into the kitchen/living room, where the hobbits were still sleeping through Boromir's attempts at making breakfast.

'What are you doing to those eggs?' asked Aragorn, leaning over to look down at a mess of glistening yellow and brown sizzling on the bottom of the bright red frying pan.

'I am trying to scramble them,' said Boromir. 'They, however, do not have the faintest idea as to what that means.'

'Well, you had better give them a stir of they're going to burn,' Aragorn said.

Boromir frowned. 'Too late for that.'

'Good morning,' Frodo said, sitting up. He yawned widely. 'Oh, it can't be time to wake up yet.' He yawned again.

'You can sleep if you want to,' Aragorn said.

Frodo yawned. 'No, I'm awake now.' He crawled off the sofa and hobbled to the bathroom, still groggy and stiff with sleep.

'I think Legolas is in there,' said Boromir. He lifted up a spatula full of eggs and dropped it down in the pan again. 'Uhg.'

Frodo knocked on the door.

'I'll be right out!'

Frodo leaned against the wall and yawned again. 'Did you sleep well?' he asked.

'No,' said Boromir. 'Gimli kept me awake. He was kicking.'

'And snoring?' said Aragorn.

'Yeah.'

'Sorry,' Frodo said. 'Pippin kicks too. But I slept pretty well.' He yawned. 'I don't think I'm advertising that well.' He plopped down on the floor and ruffled his hair. He yawned.

'Really, you can sleep,' said Aragorn, getting out a box of Cheerios from the cupboard.

'I'd much rather stay awake and talk to you though,' Frodo said through another yawn.

'Did something happen?' Aragorn asked quickly.

'No,' said Frodo. 'I'd just like to talk.' He turned and banged on the bathroom door. 'You said you'd be right out!'

'There's a knot in my hair,' came Legolas's reply.

'You don't need the entire bathroom to get a knot out.'

'You can come in.'

Frodo disappeared into the bathroom.

'He's so small,' Boromir said. 'So very small.'

'Yes,' said Aragorn. He poured a bowl of Cheerios and added milk. Frodo never talked about the Ring. Aragorn would ask him questions, and he would brush them aside. He always said it wasn't important and changed the subject. Then he would sit by the window, one hand over the Ring and sigh. He'd say it was nothing if anyone asked. Then he'd say he missed Gandalf.

Boromir was putting his burnt scrambled eggs onto a plate. He put a slice of lightly toasted bread next to the eggs and buttered it. 'I can make toast,' he said.

'Oh good, I'll have some,' Pippin muttered in his sleep.

Aragorn reached for his coat and then headed out for work.