Chapter 6

'Evening,' said Boromir. 'Anything I can get you?'

The man nodded slowly. He was dressed in a black suit and had dark hair swept up off his face and parted severely on the left.. He was wearing sunglasses, so Boromir couldn't see his eyes, but his face had an uneasily familiar appearance to it.

'Tonic and gin.' The man sat down at the bar and took off his sunglasses. He folded them and put them down on the bar in front of him. His eyes were brown, but they looked almost unnatural.

'Coming right up,' Boromir said. He put the drink together while trying to watch the man in the mirrored back panel of the bar. The man sat quite still, but he drummed his fingers against his knee.

'That will be $4.75.'

The man handed him the money and a tip. His fingers were long and calloused. He smiled a little at Boromir.

'Have I seen you somewhere?' he asked.

'I don't know,' Boromir said. 'You seem familiar.' And then he was called off to attend another customer.

The familiar stranger smiled at him again and then turned around to face the door. He sat there, sipping his drink, bothering Boromir. He had one leg crossed over the other and was watching the door.

Boromir tried again to place him, but he had never been particularly good at faces. He reminded him a little of Aragorn or Elrond. He had high cheekbones, and slanted shadows fell down his face. He was watching the door.

Boromir dealt with a couple other customers, opened a tab for a group of what looked like college students joking about the drudgery of their internships. The stranger kept watching the door like he was waiting for someone. His look was intent, and his lips were drawn.

He drank the gin and tonic slowly, as if it were a dull exercise.

'Excuse me,' Boromir said, and he turned.

'Yes?'

'What's your name?' Boromir asked.

'Kel.' He gave a slight smile and set down his empty glass. 'It was a good drink,' he said, rather stiffly and rose. 'Thank you.'

Boromir nodded, unsure of what to say. The familiarness was still eating away at him. 'Do you come here often?' he managed.

'No,' he said. 'I don't live here.'

His English was perfect. Boromir wondered if was a descendent of someone he knew. It was possible. It was probable.

'And your name is?'

'Harry,' Boromir said. It was the first name he could think of.

'It's nice to meet you.' He pulled out a pen from the inside pocket of his suit coat and wrote a number on a napkin. 'My phone number,' he said. 'It might be important.'

Boromir took it. 'Thank you,' he said.

Legolas sat on the sofa. Aragorn and Frodo still hadn't emerged from the bathroom where they had gone to talk in relative privacy. Sam was finishing the dishes. Legolas has managed to sort the laundry, and it was now in its proper bags. He would have to take it down to the laundromat the next day. He sighed and turned to Gimli, who was flipping through the television stations with a disinterested expression. Legolas wondered if he should try to start a conversation. Aragorn had mentioned that he wanted them to get along. Okay, it was more than a mention.

Legolas stared at Gimli. He continued to stare at Gimli until Gimli felt the weight of the stare and looked over, obviously already stubbornly opposed to whatever Legolas had to say. Legolas gave up on the idea, made a face at him, and walked into his room. There he got out his computer and began doing more research, searching everything he could find.

Questions and answers spun before his eyes as he kept researching. There had to be an answer to it all other than they just weren't real.

Legolas was jolted from his studies when he heard the front door of the apartment close loudly. He wandered out of his room to find Boromir standing in the middle of the living room, soaked.

'Don't ask,' he said and stormed into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

'What happened to him?' Legolas asked the hobbits.

'He isn't telling,' said Pippin.

Aragorn walked into the apartment. Legolas wondered when he had gone out; he hadn't heard it during his studying. 'Did Boromir come in?' he asked.

'Yes,' said Merry, 'and he was all wet.'

'And mad,' said Pippin.

Boromir stamped out of his room and slammed himself into the bathroom.

Aragorn knocked on the door. 'Are you all right?' he asked.

Boromir opened the door. 'I need to talk to you,' he said.

Aragorn disappeared into the bathroom.

'Does anyone want to talk to me alone and in private?' asked Pippin, stretching out leisurely on the sofa.

'I doubt it,' said Merry.

'I wonder,' mused Pippin, 'How Boromir could possibly succeed in getting soaked on such a day as this.'

'I bet,' said Merry, 'that one of Eeyore's rain clouds found him.'

'Eeyore?' asked Gimli.

'He's a donkey in a television show called Winnie the Pooh,' Merry informed him.

Gimli cast a critical eye at the television set, which he had apparently given up on. 'You mean to tell me that you actually watch that thing?'

'What else is there to do trapped all day in this wretched tower?' asked Legolas, throwing his hands up in dramatic despair.

Gimli grunted.

'We could be scholarly,' said Pippin, pulling on his best wise-old-scholar face.

Merry threw a pillow at him. It hit him squarely on the stomach and he fell flat on his back.

'Help!' he cried, 'I've been injured!'

Merry tackled Pippin and soon the two cousins were in the midst of a wrestling match.

'Merry, Pippin, must you?' asked Frodo looking quite annoyed. 'You've been fighting all day.'

Gimli pulled them apart. 'That's quite enough from you two,' he decided, sitting them both firmly down and giving them a stern frown.

Aragorn and Boromir walked out of the bathroom; they both seemed very serious.

'All right, everyone, please settle down,' said Aragorn, 'we're going to have a council of sorts and everyone has to pay attention.' He looked around nervously to see if anyone was going to listen to him.

His companions quietly seated themselves and looked at him expectantly.

Aragorn looked relieved. 'We need to discuss our circumstances. As everyone knows, we are here for a reason we do not know.'

The company nodded. Sam drew his legs up and hugged his knees, resting his head on top of them.

'But we do know that we do not know a way to go back.'

Again the company nodded. Aragorn coughed a bit nervously. 'So, now we decide what we should do,' he coaxed.

'What do you mean by that?' asked Boromir. 'You already said that there was nothing we could do. And now you ask what we should do? What answer do you want?'

Aragorn shook his head. 'There are things that we can do. We can try to get along for one.' He looked about at all of them. 'We can try to find a way to make our lives here pleasant, at least as pleasant as they can be. We can try to help each other find the strength and courage to face this strange, new world. We can try to support each other, to care for each other, to love each other. That, Boromir, is what we can do.' He fell silent.

Merry scuffed his knuckles along the carpet and tried to clear his throat.

'We're not going to make rent,' Gimli said.

Aragorn closed his eyes. 'Do we stay together?' he asked.

'Yes,' Pippin said quickly. 'There's no way we can separate.'

'We'd get lost in the world,' Frodo said.

Aragorn nodded. 'Any objections?'

There were none.

Legolas leaned against the back of the sofa and rubbed at his nose where it was itching. 'I should get a job, then,' he said.

'Yes.'

'And what will we do about the Hobbits?'

'We'll be fine,' Frodo said. 'I promise. It's not that hard to stay alive.'

'I hope not.' Boromir touched his still-damp hair and sighed.

'What happened to you anyway?' Aragorn asked.

'Someone was washing windows,' Boromir said. He twisted a wet napkin in his hand.

'What's that?' Frodo asked, nodding at it.

'It is…it was a phone number,' Boromir said. 'There was a man at the bar I thought I knew.'

'What did he look like?' Frodo asked.

'Like…' Boromir shook his head. 'He was dressed like a businessman, but there was a quality about him. He reminded me of Elrond. I think he was waiting for someone.'

'Are you going to call him?'

Boromir held up the napkin. It was wet, and the ink on it had run into one long smudge. 'I was going to.'

Aragorn sighed. 'Well, hopefully you will see him again soon.'

'He doesn't live here,' Boromir muttered.

'Maybe it was nothing,' said Aragorn. 'A chance resemblance.'

'There really aren't a whole lot of answers going on around here, are there?' Pippin said, stretching out on the floor. He looked up at Boromir from where he lay.

'No,' said Boromir. 'There really aren't.'

The next day was also hot. The sun seemed to be attempting to melt the roads.

Sam sat in a t-shirt and shorts flipping through a magazine with complicated recipes and glossy advertisements.

Legolas was on his stomach on the living room floor looking for jobs on the computer. He had taken the laundry out earlier, and the fresh stacks of clean clothes sat in each bedroom now since he had not put them away.

Boromir was sleeping, preparing for his nightshift. He said that he planned to get up at noon. It was 11:30 then, and Merry and Frodo were gathered into one corner of the room whispering with their heads bent.

Pippin was in Legolas and Aragorn's room spending time pretending that the big bed was all his.

Sam kept looking at the magazine, but he couldn't concentrate. Something was bothering him. He wanted to talk. He pushed the magazine across the floor so that it was near Legolas's computer.

'Hi,' he said as soon as the magazine and the computer were touching.

Legolas looked up and smiled a smile so beautiful it made Sam's heart melt a little. Elves tended to do things like that.

'What is it?' Legolas asked.

'I was just thinking,' Sam said.

'About?'

'Maybe living in the country. Getting a garden. Rent's higher in cities.'

Legolas nodded. 'Yes, I think that would be nice.'

Sam nodded, trying to think of something to say. Anything would be better than just making awkward faces and biting his lip.

Legolas smiled again. 'Frodo says you like poetry.'

'Yes.' Sam nodded as he answered.

'I like poetry too.'

Legolas bit his lip and looked down at the computer. 'But I don't think you can get a job around poetry.'

'Probably not,' Sam said.

Legolas nodded.

'What's it like being so old?' Sam asked suddenly. He hadn't meant to say it.

'I don't know,' Legolas said. 'I have a lot of memories. It's hard and easy and warm.'

Sam looked down at his brown fingers. The fingernails were completely clean. He didn't think he could remember that ever happening before. No matter what he did, how much he scrubbed, there had always been traces of dirt.

'That's interesting,' he said because it was, and he could think of nothing better to say.

'Yeah,' Legolas said.

Boromir did not see his familiar stranger at work that night. He did see a strange, shuffling, pale man who watched the world with hooded eyes, but other than that, the people seemed quite normal. He waited on them and watched, but the night offered nothing more than the quiet trickle of time passing and the slight shifting of the hidden stars.