A/N: Well, here it is! More updates! Sorry for not having updated for so long because of exams and all. I still have an audition next week but all my exams are DONE!!!!!!! YAY!!!! I'm officially done College until May. So I'll try to update as much as I can.

For all of you who reviewed, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. (

Disclaimer: Ditto.

Chapter 5



I woke up to a nice sunny morning the next day and rolled around the nice comfortable blankets, pillows and quilt that felt familiar. I paused for a second because it felt too familiar. I was confused. My mind started to wander as I thought about Merry. He was supposed to be well this morning. I was looking forward to see him. Realization then hit me because I was in my own bed and not on a bed in a Laertean infirmary! I jerked up and looked around. Surely it was my room! 'Is this real? Have I come home?' My confused mind took a while to register the information that my eyes took in. I was in my mint green flannel pajamas. But where was my dress? The family portrait placed on top of my drawer looked real and a picture of Sora and me on my left side table looked real, too. I jumped out of bed and began feeling things. My lips crept into a smile and I finally laughed out loud. I was home! A familiar smell greeted me as well. I opened the door and went downstairs into the dining room and surely enough, there was breakfast on the table. Papa, mama and Thomas were at their usual spots and greeted me with big smiles on their faces and mine was ready to be claimed.

"There she is! Mein engel!" Papa called out cheerfully.

"Good morning, Johanna! Come join us darling!" mama's beautiful smile brightened the kitchen.

"Yeah! Hurry up before I gobble your breakfast, Yo-yo!" Tommy called in his too familiar mocking voice.

"Papa! Mama! Tommy!" I ran to hug them tightly.

"UGH! Stop! You're choking me! Mama, help!" Tommy pretended to suffocate and flailed his arms around.

"Oh, is it really you?! Am I really home?"

Mama and papa exchanged confused looks. "Of course you're home, sweetie. Why'd you ask that?"

I halted, having said more than they could understand. "Oh, it's nothing."

Papa eyed me with concern, "Angel, are you alright?"

Angel. That was his nickname for me. My eyes watered. I buried my face in papa's shirt and just cried tears of joy. I was so happy! Mama also embraced me and started stroking my back.

"Hanna, what's the matter? Are you sick?" I cried harder when mama said her nickname for me.

"If she's sick, I don't wanna be near her." Tommy said matter-of-factly without looking up from his potatoes.

"Thomas! Be kind to your sister." Mama hissed.

"Papa! Mama! It's you! It's really you! I'm home! I'm home" I sobbed hard.

"Honey, what are you talking about? Of course you're home. You're here with us." Mama tried to comfort me.

"I love you." My reply confused them even more.

Papa pulled me away from him and looked me in the face, "Er, we love you, too. But why this sudden burst of emotion?"

"Maybe she's trying to be a dramatic opera singer without actually singing. Yo-yo the soprano! HAHA! I can just see that!" He started singing terribly in falsetto. Tommy's bleating laugh made me realize that I am back into reality. I ignored him. I was too happy. I was back home with my family.

"Come now. Let's eat." Mama led me by the hand onto my spot. Tommy continued singing in falsetto.

"Maybe YOU want to be the opera singer, Farinelli." I retorted.

"Don't call me that!" he snapped.

We continued bickering back and forth until mama threatened to send us to school without our lunches and dinners. I didn't care because I was just having a great time! I was home with my family. Something suddenly hit me. This didn't seem right. As good as it all seems to be, something was wrong. I looked at papa then mama then to papa again.

"What day is this? No, no! What year is this?" I didn't know why I had asked that, but I felt that I needed to know.

Tommy rolled his eyed and smacked his forehead dramamtically. "Jeez, Yoyo! Did your mind get stuck in the Jurassic Era when you fell out of the wrong side of the bed?? What do you think?! It's 2002!"

2002? I looked at papa with pain and horror at the realization. If this was 2002, and papa had passed away three years ago, then……..



"Johanna! Wake up!"

I felt someone grab and shaking me. I struggled and hit my arms at random to and unknown attacker.

"Go away!"

My fist finally made impact with something soft and warm. Then I woke up panting and hot. I was back in the infirmary again, my mood was spoiled for the day.

"OW!" I heard someone cry out in pain. "Yoo dunnit a-GED!"

I looked around wildly to see who was it. "Oh my goodness! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to…" Then my face fell. "Oh, it's you, never mind."

"Ah thig mah node id bwogen!!" Legolas looked at me angrily. He was bent in pain and was rubbing his nose with both hands.

(A/N: Sorry. I just can't help but take this bit from Anastasia ()

"Oh, forgive me your highness. But I was having a wonderful dream until you woke me up!" I growled.

He stopped rubbing his nose and glared straight at me. "You were thrashing around and shouting in your bed!" He said angrily but composed.

"What are you doing here anyways?" I snapped.

"I sent him." We both turned to a smiling Gandalf standing by the doorway with his arms crossed. "Having a brawl first thing in the morning?"

"It was HIS fault!"

"Id wuz HER fult!"

We both said in unison and pointed at each other.

"If you hadn't woke me up, then maybe I wouldn't have hit your nose!"

"Why can't you be like other maidens?"

"I can say the same thing about you, Herr Gestapo!"

Before the bickering got out of hand, Gandalf stepped in between us and held up his hands. "Alright, you two! That's enough!"

We stopped bickering and glared at each other.

"Good. We have a long day today and the last things I need are two bickering grown-ups. Now, apologize to each other."

"But…" Legolas and I said at the same time.

"Now!"

I sighed. I guess it was my fault. He was only trying to help me, but I was already in a rotten mood. I swallowed hard. "I'm sorry," I said through gritted teeth.

"My apologies, milady." Legolas said through restrained irritation.

"There. Doesn't that feel better? Breakfast is waiting for us at Duke Kaanteban's estate. I want you both to have the hobbits ready and be there in an hour's time. Is that understood?"

Both of us sighed. "Yes."

Gandalf left us in silence after saying, "Stay out of trouble, you two."

I sat on my bed with my arms crossed, "Well?"

"Well, what?" the elf prince asked irritably.

"If you please, I need to change back into my attire." I said after realizing that I didn't even have my dress yet.

"With pleasure," he muttered, then stalked out of the room and closed the door loudly.

I shuddered. Well, so much for waking up on the wrong side of the bed. I felt bad for treating him the way I did. Can things get more complicated? First, the weird incident of I don't know how I ended up here from Canada, but now I still could not place my thumb on a credible reason on why I disliked the elf so much. But for reasons I still did not understand however hard I sought them, I still disliked him, other than that scene he had cause over a week ago. I still haven't forgotten about it however hard I tried to forget. I slumped back in bed with a loud groan. On my first encounter with the Fellowship, he really did remind me of someone, but who was it? Somehow out of nowhere, a memory hit me.

I was walking home from rehearsal one time in my second year of college. I was pretty young then, about 18 years old. Sora and I made a stop at an ice cream salon on the way. We were a pretty rowdy twosome, not in THAT sense, but like two teenyboppers from high school. She had a fruit bar and I had a cone of rocky road ice cream. The salon had been a place where students from three nearby high school and the college had hung out. Sora would eye the guys in the salon and would point out to me which one was appealing to the eyes. That time, she had nudged me and pointed to a blonde guy among a group of soccer players huddled in a booth on the far right corner.

"Look! Isn't he HOT?!" She squealed.

I strained my eyes, "Which one?"

"That blonde Adonis over there!" She pointed. "Yoo-hoo! Blondie!"

I stared at her horrified, "Sora, what are you doing?! Stop that!"

Before we knew it, the group that had been quite noisy, (and indeed they were a bunch of hooligans, being sport jocks and all), became quiet and looked towards our direction.

"You callin' me?" a guy wit curly red hair called out.

"No, they're calling ME!" another skinny guy with messy dark hair hooted.

The group quarreled for a while and finally Sora started pulling me towards their table.

I tried to pull back, "Sora! What are you crazy!? They look like babies (a term we used for highschoolers. Mind you, we once were). You don't even know them!"

"Well, now's the time to start. Besides, I want to show you the hottie I was talking about." Sora casually replied and continued to drag me despite my protests until we were in front of the group. "What's up boys?" She had said in her sexy tone and started to twirl her then long black hair with her fingers. She really could be unpredictable sometimes.

Sora extended her hand towards the blonde fellow, "I'm Sora. Pleased to meet you."

The blonde fellow seemed surprised at first then stood up to shake Sora's hand. "Hullo, pleased to meet you."

Sora giggled uncontrollably, which had caused all the boys to hoot and howl.

"Oooh, she's hitting on ya pretty fast!"

"Watch out buddy!"

"How come he gets all the gals?"

"I'm sure your friend has a name, doesn't she?" I suddenly snapped out of it. All the while I have stood behind Sora and had remained quiet and quite embarrassed, offering the occasional wave now and then.

Sora turned to me, "This, boys, is Johanna Scheidler."

At that moment, Jude's eyes clapped with mine. We seemed to gaze at each other for a moment while my heart was racing. His eyes were deep captivating shade of ocean blue. I had caught something in those eyes and that had sent shivers down my spine. There was a glint of wildness and amusement, yet at the same time there was certain coldness in them. Those eyes seem to bore through mine as if trying to search my soul and my thoughts.

"Earth to Johanna. Hello!"

Sora's voice woke me up and I shook my head to get out of the daze. 'Snap out of it, Johanna.'

"Er, yeah! Hello. Sorry." I hastily shook his hand.

"Nice meeting you, Johanna." He gave a sideway smirk and eyed me suspiciously. He didn't let go of my hand immediately and I felt the urge to pull my hand away. There was something about him that wasn't right. However, he let go of my hand the moment I thought that. I looked at the group and smiled. They were trying to suppress their laughter as they eyed me amusingly. I felt dumb.

"Ah, it's really swell meeting you all, but we HAVE to go now. Talk to you later." With a quick wave, I grabbed Sora and pulled her towards the door.

"Aw, Johanna, you're no fun!" Sora was whining.

"Let's get out of here." I ordered.

Before we were out of the door, someone yelled, "Wait!" And we heard footsteps running towards us. I sighed heavily. We turned around to face Jude and despite the fact that Sora's eyes had been all over him, his had been clearly on me, much to her disappointment.

"Could I have your number?"

I chuckled nervously inside. I really shouldn't have given out my number because I had been raised conservatively, especially at my age. "I really can't. I'm sor-"

"What she means is sure!" Sora said at the same time and glared at me.

I sighed and gave it to him, despite the heavy warnings of my heart. What could I do?

He then took my hand against my silent will and scribbled down his number. As he had done that, I caught something black on his arms. More than half of it were covered the sleeves of his T-shirt, but I managed to make out two small crooks…