Tauriel wakes up late on Tuesday morning, her arm draped across Kíli's torso and the blankets of his dormmate's bed tangled around him.
"Fuck." She throws the covers off and gets dressed in a hurry, in the jeans she wore yesterday and a blue shirt that's a bit too long for Kili and a bit too broad for her, and sprints out the door, down the stairs and to her bike. She doesn't crash into anything or anyone on the way there, but only just barely.
She arrives at the history building a minute and a half after class is meant to start, and reminds herself to thank God that Professor Thranduil won't count her late unless he gets there first.
Then she sees him already at the front door.
"Fuck."
She's late. They both know it. Thranduil smiles at her and closed the front for behind him.
"Fuck!"
Wait. No. Unfuck. She can still get there first.
It can't be that much harder than the math building was last week…
Legolas's face when Tauriel knocks on the fourth-floor window is priceless. For a moment she wishes she'd brought a camera.
But he lets her in and doesn't ask questions, just gives her a curious look.
"Stayed with Ki. Overslept." And great, Carrie's gonna hate her when she gets back to their dorm. Tauriel's alarm probably woke him up way too early. He stayed up late last night, studying, probably. He only parties on the weekends.
Thranduil walks in the door at exactly that moment, and Tauriel doesn't even try to hold back the huge smile that finds its way onto her face.
"Tauriel Greene is—" He looks up from his class list to stare directly at her. "Not late, apparently, though I'm not sure how she managed that." The entire class can hear the amusement in his voice.
"No, I'm not," she agrees, the grin gone now and an aren't-I-just-a-sweet-little-angel look in its place. Next to her, Legolas tries not to laugh. Tauriel is anything but a sweet little angel, and all three of them know it.
Thranduil just raises an eyebrow and begins talking about — physics, probably, and engineering, since that's what this course is about, after all. Tauriel isn't listening, not really; she just needed science credits, she's majoring in drama and performing arts, she doesn't care, not about this; this isn't what she's passionate about. Kíli, and acting, and dancing — but not this. Not numbers and laws. Thranduil obviously cares, he's lighting up as he only does when talking about math, but Tauriel does not.
(She'll get the notes later. Probably from her roommate. She's not sure why Carrie always has the notes to Thranduil's lectures, since he doesn't take any of Thranduil's classes, but that's his business.)
(Legolas isn't listening either. But his reasons are completely different.)
She was right. Carrie is annoyed at her.
But not so annoyed that he won't make dinner for them, as long as Tauriel promises to get groceries tomorrow.
Somehow he manages to make an interesting meal out of what they have in their cupboards and fridge. Tauriel never knew ramen could taste this good.
Tauriel copies down his notes from today's lesson over dinner, and the ones for Thursday's as well. She doesn't ask why Carrie has the notes. Maybe he took the class last year, but if he wanted her to know, he'd tell her.
Hopefully tomorrow she won't have to scale any buildings. It's getting old quickly.