And now I bring you the great climax of Tauriel's character arc and the main step forward of my adorable and weirdly-paired femslash. Hurrah! This is also the farthest I've ever gone on a continuous fic so far (discounting a one-shot set that was fifteen chapters) and so I'm celebrating that too. So here we go! And we get to see where our Faramirs are going next chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything that I'm ripping off here.

The Houses of Healing were absolutely packed. Wounded bodies lay everywhere, just as they had been in the canon. The only exceptions, however, were that Theoden was still alive, being a Johnny Depp character, and Faramir was up and about. Or, at least, one of him was.

It hadn't earlier occurrd to Tauriel that Faramir was supposed to be burning alive, but apparently the idea of two Faramirs occurring in bookverse versus movieverse had been taken quite seriously by The Plot. Movie-Faramir had taken the brunt of his father's insanity and was now recovering from serious burns. Book-Faramir was sitting at his bedside angsting over him.

She had brought in Eowyn's body with help from Gibbs and Imrahil, while Jenny had taken over the drone. The whole idea of the drone seemed rather silly to Tauriel, but she wasn't one to judge the slightly less than sane duo.

It appeared that her closest comrades had not yet been seriously injured or killed, with the exception of Eowyn, beside whom she was currently sitting.

"Do you know her?"

She turned around to find Book Faramir standing over her shoulder.

"She's my friend," Tauriel replied. "What about your friend?" she angled her head to movie Faramir.

"I don't quite know him. Or at least, I've never met him properly or learned his name, but we fought together in Osgiliath."

Uh oh. Tauriel could hear the affection in his voice. Book Faramir was falling for this man he had just barely met. Book Faramir was falling for Movie Faramir.

"Your… acquaintance, then?" She choked out the words, not sure whether to cough awkwardly and trying to hold back laughter. "Please excuse me." She stood up and strode away, catching a familiar eye.

"Lord Plotfiller."

He grinned weakly. "I thought I would check up on The Plot," he said from a where he lay injured. "You know, be another disposable anonymous character. Turns out I'm not destined to die in this fic; only to be severely injured until they find athelas."

"Oh Valar," Tauriel whispered. "Athelas. Where's my rucksack?"
"I believe your sentient flying unicorn had it. He's at the stables."

"I will fetch it for you. But first- tell me about book Faramir and movie Faramir. I sense there's something brewing between them."

"Ah," said Lord Plotfiller with a chuckle. "Them. Book Faramir does not know who movie Faramir is- mind you, the only reason there's two of them is because of the fanbase split. The fangirls who like dark-haired, consistently noble Book Faramir better are divided with those who like David Wenham's Faramir who's a little rough at first but ultimately has a heart of gold." He winked. "Chicks dig hearts of gold."

"I never thought I would hear 'chicks dig' in any rendition of Tolkien's work. I mean, granted this is fanfiction, but that's pushing it. Anyway, does Book Faramir know what he's getting into?"

"Can you please just fetch your athelas?"

She smirked. "A fine idea," and hurried to the stables.

The unicorn whinnied gleefully when it saw her. "Thank you for the loyal welcome, but I'm only here for athelas." She could have sworn the white steed glowered at her as she grabbed her satchel from a peg in the corner of the stable and trotted back to the Houses of Healing.

Just outside the entrance, she could hear Spalko and Haldir bickering like crime drama couples (*cough* Gibbs and Shepherd *cough*), picking up just enough to know that Spalko had pulled some sort of ninja stunt like she had to save him at Helm's Deep and nearly gotten herself killed in the process.

What else was new?

"You had a fan fiction attack in the middle of a battle!"

"I couldn't help it! I couldn't muster enough concentration to fight it off!"

"You could have died!"

"I know that!"

"What if your delusions had been real?"

Spalko tensed. "What?" she hissed, her voice low and dangerous.

"What if the schizophrenic delusions that fanfiction imposed upon your brain were reality?"

"I fail to see how that's relevant."

"Technically speaking it's not entirely out of the question given that-"

"I refuse to answer your question," she snarled, spinning around and stalking down the road, shooting Tauriel a hard glare as if it were the Elf's fault she and Haldir were at odds again.

"Do I want to know?" Tauriel asked herself, then shook her head decidedly, wishing she had never overheard the conversation. She would have to talk to Eowyn later; no doubt Eowyn's experience with fanfiction, and Spalko and Haldir in particular, would help shed some light on the argument.

Then she remembered Eowyn's comatose state, and her heart sank. Head low, she entered the Houses of Healing and held up the athelas for Ioreth, the resident healer, to make use of.

"Treat the man over there when you're finished with the life threatening injuries," she commanded, pointing toward Lord Plotfiller, who grinned impishly at them in response. "Ignore his attitude," she said curtly, searching the room for Eowyn.

She approached the unconscious shieldmaiden to find Aragorn kneeling next to her. "Haven't seen you in a while," she informed him, a hint of accusation in her voice.

"The Plot has been shutting me out in favor of the GCWFHB."

"Well why don't you make yourself useful and take this athelas to heal her. That's what you're supposed to do isn't it? All that 'hand of a king is the hand of a healer' crap had better be more than bunch of fairy tales."

Aragorn cocked his head. "You sound tense."

"My dear acquaintance here is-"

"Girlfriend, you mean."

"Good friend," Tauriel corrected.

"Denial," sang Aragorn in a surprisingly high pitched voice. "And yes, I can heal her. Give me the athelas and I'll see what I can do."

Tauriel took out what was left of the athelas strategically placed in her bag by The Plot and handed it to Aragorn. I would heal her myself but after rumors of a soppy Kiliel healing scene in The Desolation of Smaug I would rather not take the risks."

She turned away toward the door, only to be stopped by a blinding flash of golden light.

The Elf groaned in irritation. "Not another Mary Sue."

"I am no ordinary Mary Sue," a great voice boomed. "I am the Queen of them all, and I have come to eliminate the threats to my regime."

"I'm not a threat," said Tauriel with a another groan.

"You have blatantly refused the contrived romantic sub-plots that all Sues must comply to. You refuse to be shipped with the men of Middle Earth, even going so far as to involving youself in a femslash sub plot. Do you know how little femslash is in fanfiction? It's so much less common than typical slash fics, even less common than Mpreg. It is an outright defiance of the world of Sues. Prepare now to die."

The light faded, and standing before Tauriel was a woman in full "sexy" battle garb. And when she said "sexy" she didn't mean form-fitting. This was full out Princess Leia bikini armor like sci-fi-fantasy computer art done by teenage fanboys with full access to the internet and too much time on their hands. A glittering mask covered her face, and she reached up to remove it in slow motion, as was customary of Mary Sues and dramatic pre-battle sequences. The Plot seemed to have quite a flair for the dramatic.

She tossed the mask behind her, where it flew past her flowing golden cape that fluttered, in spite of a clear lack of wind in the Houses of Healing. Tauriel gasped.

It couldn't be. It simply couldn't be. The Mary Sue Queen raised her sparkly silver sword. After all, sparkles were her franchise trademark.

"Bella Swan," Tauriel hissed under her breath. "I should have known you were the force behind it all."

Bella laughed wickedly, and was as hypnotic as tinkling bells, and she bared her fangs. Her perfectly curled ponytail flounced behind her as she walked, her eyes highlighted with modern makeup that was probably unavailable in Middle Earth but made her look far more dramatic and warriorlike.

She charged in customary slow motion toward the awaiting Elf, who snatched a sword from a burnt scabbard lying next to Eowyn's cot.

Bella slashed at her with a spin and flourish so that her cape would fly and her hair would blow in the nonexistent wind, but it was so fast that it couldn't be considered tactical suicide to any opponent. So this was why Bella was the Mary Sue queen. She flashed her perfect fangs beneath cherry red lips and struck another blow. Tauriel blocked them both with her sword and moved in for a strike of her own, but Bella parried, careful not to chip her perfectly manicured fingernails, and made a short retreat to make sure her makeup was not smeared.

Tauriel took this opportunity to go on the offensive, trying to land a blow to the Sue's head and kill her on the spot, but Bella whipped out a can of hairspray and sprayed it in Tauriel's face, giving her a chance to recover and temporarily incapacitating the Elf.

"Valardammit!" she cursed, rubbing at her eyes with one hand and trying to fend off Bella's attacks with the other. "What is that stuff?"

She could see the evil smirk on Bella's face as the burning in her eyes grew stronger. Her vision went spotty for a moment, and the Sue Queen took the opportunity to knock the blade from her hand, and she went in for the kill.

In the nick of time, Tauriel grabbed a small chair and used it as a shield until she found the burnt armor and held that in front of her to parry off the attacks.

Tauriel looked around to see if anyone could see the attacks, but she realized they were in the plot-halt. No one aside from the two of them could see the battle happen, because this duel was theirs and theirs alone. The plot-halt would follow them everywhere.

Tauriel ran around towards the old doors and grabbed the hilt of another discarded sword, dueling along the floor. Bella leapt over a bench and did a forward somersault, landing nimbly on her custom knee-high leather hunting boots.

Tauriel spotted Spalko and Haldir arguing on the other end of the room out of the corner of her eye, and Gibbs trying to fix his stupid drone, but no one saw them through the plot halt.

"Fool," said Bella with a sneer. "Only your love can see through the plot-halt if they aren't inside it themselves."

"I know that," Tauriel replied with gritted teeth. "But every rule has exceptions. Tolkien knew that; he was a linguist."

"But The Plot isn't Tolkien," Bella gave another snide grin as Tauriel stepped backwards.

Then Bella pulled out the can of hairspray, and the Elf ducked, but as she raised her sword to block the blow, the bikini-clad vampire-Sue Queen spritzed it in her face again, and she dropped the blade from her hands. She ducked over Eowyn's cot, covering her face, cursing under her breath in multiple dialects of Elvish.

Bella raised the sword for the kill.

A single gunshot rang out across the Houses, and Tauriel rubbed the remainder of the hairspray away from her eyes, blinking to make out the scene before her. Bella was collapsed on the ground, a bullet in her chest, and Eowyn was sitting up on the cot, still bleary-eyed and sick-looking, but clutching an old fashioned hand revolver in her shaking fingers.

Behind her, Spalko stared wide-eyed next to Haldir at the dead Sue. The plot-halt had obviously disappeared upon the gunfire, and Spalko took back the gun that Eowyn had taken from her and put two more rounds into the dead Sue Queen.

"Was the really necessary?" asked Haldir dryly, and she nodded in a business-like manner.

"Entirely so."

Tauriel turned to Eowyn. "You saw through the plot-halt."

Eowyn nodded.

Tauriel whispered under her breath the words of Bella Swan and those of Spalko in Helm's Deep. "Only a character's love interest can see through the plot-halt."

She stared at Eowyn, wide-eyed, and the shieldmaiden stared right back as Tauriel sat down at the edge of the cot.

"Only a love interest can see through the plot-halt," she repeated aloud.

Haldir let out a loud huff of annoyance. "Oh, just kiss the damn Elf already!" he demanded.

So Eowyn did.

And the Elf kissed back.

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