In which Lorna and Thranduil get bad news for Middle-Earth, she discovers a little more of what might have been her life, and they both attempt to deal with the whole 'pregnancy' nonsense.

This chapter rates a brief gore-warning, I think.

Lorna stood in the middle of a storm that looked ready to tear the world apart.

She was on the lawn of the home that should have been hers, buffeted by a warm wind that crept through her jeans and T-shirt. Even the grass was warm beneath her feet, and soft as velvet.

Though it was only mid-afternoon, the sky was nearly dark as night, clouds black and bruise-purple swirling in a great slow dance, veined with forks of lightning. The light was some sickly parody of dusk, and the moan of the wind in the trees was like the sound of some tortured animal. Her hair, half loose from its braid, tangled around her like a shroud.

Her gaze dropped from the sky to the treeline, and she froze. Facing her, some seven yards away, was a young woman looked frighteningly like her – the same features, the same black hair and green eyes – except that this woman was dead, and horribly so. Blood streaked her bare arms, her ragged, blue-grey dress was soaked with it, her eyes filled with it, leaking at the corners.

Stark terror filled Lorna, and she nearly screamed when a hand descended on her left shoulder. She rounded to punch its owner, and discovered that owner was Thranduil.

For once, she wasn't completely annoyed by the sight of him, because it meant she wasn't stuck facing that creepy zombie-her alone.

"What is she?" Thranduil asked, tensing.

"I have no bloody idea," Lorna muttered. "Another might-have-been."

The zombie woman – Aelis, her name was Aelis, though Lorna could not have said how she knew that – cocked her head to one side, a disturbingly human intelligence in her bloody eyes. "What might have been, but what still might be," she said, nearly frightening the life out of Lorna. In her other dreams, she had been an observer only, unacknowledged by any around her. There had been the one with eyeless Von Ratched, but she was pretty sure that was a garden-variety nightmare.

"What d'you mean?" she asked, shivering in spite of the wind's heat.

"You do not know it, Lorna Donovan, but you were meant to be one of several catalysts who would change the face of the world. You, Von Ratched, your children, and Sharley, who you would not have met for some time. As you are not here, that change will follow, in time. I will follow, and all my kind with me. I wish we could aid you with the problem of Sauron, but it will be seven years until we may arrive.

"I will tell you both this," she said, her bloody gaze wandering to Thranduil. "Sauron may be the worst of the threats you will face, but he will not be the only one. And should you not defeat him before my former husband arrives, he will gain a very powerful ally. Thorvald wishes dominion, but he is no fool – he will not challenge a being of superior power."

"Who the hell is Thorvald?" Lorna asked. "Is he dead like you?"

"Yes," Aelis said, "and no. Come – there is something I must show you."

Lorna really, really didn't want to, but her feet moved forward without her will. For once she was still glad of Thranduil's presence – though a glance up at him told her that he too was deeply disturbed.

"I will not let anything harm you," he said.

"I'm not sure that's a promise you can keep," she said, and there was no rancor in it – it was a simple statement of fact. This might be beyond both of them.

"Where are you taking us?" she asked Aelis.

"To show you." The words were barely audible, nearly completely borne away on the wind. "To show you what was, and what may be, if you do not take great care."

They walked for what seemed hours, though in reality it could not have been more than twenty minutes, during which time Lorna did not dare speak more. The trees sighed all around her, the air whirling with pine needles that floated and danced like diving insects in the gloom. Every few seconds lightning would illuminate the forest floor, strobing in an uneven pattern that made her dizzy. At last they reached the treeline and stopped, facing a low hill, an outcropping of rock crowned only by moss and red fireweed.

"Watch," the woman said, "and do not look away."

There were people on the hill, and at the sight of them all the breath seemed to leave Lorna's lungs. She tried to gasp and failed, her eyes widening as her dizziness increased.

This woman, this strange and terrible woman who was her and yet not, was up there as well, lying so still she might well be dead. But no - even from this distance Lorna could see she was breathing, though barely. No blood was splashed on her arms or face; they were white and unmarred, though her eyes were as red and glazed as those of her counterpart beside Lorna. Other bodies lay around her, and most of them were quite definitely dead - save for one, a small creature who lay beside the dying woman, its eyes fever-bright and bloody. And - and here it felt as though something solid had hit Lorna in the chest - two of those corpses were children, twins who resembled the woman as much as her own resembled her, tossed aside like broken dolls.

Her eyes traveled upward, to a tall dark figure cloaked in black, a blood-smeared knife in its hands. Recognition did not come immediately, but when it did Lorna sank to her knees, her legs unable or unwilling to support her further.

The man was young - little older than the woman - but he was as like Von Ratched as the woman was like Lorna, a resemblance that was uncanny if not exact. His hair was longer, blonde instead of silver-grey, but she would know those horrible pale eyes anywhere.

He lifted the not-Lorna, drawing her away from her small dying companion, and laid her at the very top of the hill. She watched him with a kind of exhausted fear, a fear that was too worn to be to be terror - a fear that turned to pale revulsion as he knelt over her. She tried to turn her face away as he bent to kiss her, but his hand caught her chin with a gentleness wholly at odds with the carnage around them.

And even that revulsion faded as he sat up again, her fever-glazed eyes clearing as she watched unblinking his raising of the knife. Here Lorna tried to avert her own eyes, but her guide knelt and caught her chin even as not-Von Ratched had caught her own on the hill, forcing Lorna to watch as the knife plunged down into her counterpart's chest.

The woman screamed, and Lorna tried to, but no sound would leave her throat. Blood washed over the man's hand - not bright blood, such as stood in the woman's eyes, but the dark blood of a mortal wound to the heart. Here the man looked up, but Lorna didn't see what he looked at - her will broke and she turned away. She fought a horrible urge to be sick. Only Thranduil's hand, now clamped on her shoulder like a vice, kept her from fleeing entirely.

"No more," she whispered, the words hardly more than a breath. "Sure God, have you not shown me enough?"

The woman touched her face again, but she shut her eyes hard. "The circle has almost closed," not-Lorna said. "It happened once, and its seeks now to repeat itself, even in another world. You must take great care to ensure it does not."

Now Lorna did open her eyes. "How?" she asked. "For Christ's sake, how do I stop it?"

"That I cannot tell you," Aelis said. "You must divine it for yourself - you must succeed where I failed. Thorvald sleeps yet, but he will wake in eight years. It should have been by Von Ratched's hand – I do not know how it will be done now, but done it will be. If you do not destroy Sauron before then, you may not get the chance."

Lorna, numb with horror, could not speak, but Thranduil asked, "Are we to gain any allies, aside from you?"

Aelis smiled, revealing teeth that were as bloody as the rest of her. "All of my kind will join you, when the time is right," she said, "and Sharley, though she may not be able to linger long. She fears the damage her presence may do to you world."

Because that wasn't ominous or anything. "How many'v you are there?" Lorna asked, and Aelis's answer made her choke on her own spit.

"Some two million. You will need us against Thorvald, even if you do destroy Sauron before he arrives."

"Two million?" Thranduil demanded. Lorna had never heard him sound truly incredulous before, but he certainly did now, and she didn't blame him. The thought of two million zombies, even helpful ones, was almost incomprehensible. "That is more than the entire population of Gondor!"

"I did tell you there were eight billion people in my world," Lorna said, looking up at him. She could take no satisfaction in his shock, because he looked rather ill, his already pale face even whiter.

"Yes, but you did not tell me that two million of them were wights," he said.

"I am not a wight," Aelis said, visibly offended. "We are revenants, who have slept these last thousand years, waiting for vengeance against the one who killed us. Wight." She shook her head, an action that made her seem jarringly human. "I can show you no more for now. Your wizard must fetch the hobbit, as soon as he is able. Lorna, do not lose those children."

"Not sure I have much choice in that," she said, trying to process all she'd just been told. And here she'd thought Von Ratched would be her biggest problem. Just what sort of hell would her life have been, in that other universe? She'd had a home and family, but it sounded like it would have been a nightmare trying to protect both.

"You have more than you might think," Aelis said. "And you," she added, pointing at Thranduil, "you have greatly upset history, but as this is all happening in your world, that may be for the best. Take care of her, and Lorna – let him. The strength of your body is not equal to that of your spirit, and that is quite apart from the children you carry."

Lorna's natural instinct was to say 'hell no', but she was stubborn, not stupid. The fact that she hated needing help didn't change the fact that she did need it, so she'd best suck it up and deal with it. However much she really didn't want to. "Okay," she said grudgingly.

"You sound so thrilled," Thranduil said dryly, though his voice was also not quite steady – he was still clearly disturbed by what they'd just witnessed. At least Lorna wasn't alone in that.

"Not gonna lie," she said. "I still sort'v want to hit you for getting me into this mess to begin with."

"Not until Galadriel gives you leave to exert yourself," he said. "Then you may hit at will."

"Good to know."

Aelis shook her head. It was difficult to read her expression under all that blood, but she seemed a little exasperated. "This may yet work," she said. "I hope so, anyway. Wake now, for a while. Lorna, you need to eat, whether you like it or not."

Lorna didn't like it, but she knew it was necessary anyway. "I'll try," she said, "though I can't promise I'll keep it down."

"Again, Galadriel," Thranduil said. "Come, Dilthen Ettelëa. I have seen too much already, and I am certain you have as well."

"That's for bloody sure," Lorna muttered, and woke.

Lorna's eyes were still closed when Thranduil came back to himself, but she was not asleep. She reached up to rub her forehead, eyebrows drawn together as she frowned. Her face was still far too pale, but she no longer looked as though she waited at Mandos's door.

Thranduil had seen and endured many terrible things in his life, some far worse than the violent death of Aelis, but it nevertheless shook him. Somehow, seeing Lorna's world through his own eyes, however briefly, was quite different than seeing it through hers.

"Fuck my life," she muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose, still not opening her eyes. "Were you really there for all of that?"

"Unfortunately," he said. "Your alternative timeline does not look like a comfortable place to live."

She snorted. "That would be putting it mildly." Only now did she open her eyes, and her gaze was weary in a sense beyond physical. "Gandalf has got to go get Bilbo. How far off is spring in the south?"

"Another month," Thranduil said grimly. "If that woman spoke true, we need not worry her former husband will turn up on our doorstep tomorrow."

"Aelis," Lorna said. "Her name is Aelis – don't ask me how I know it, but I do. And her ex looks creepily like Von Ratched."

Thranduil sighed. "Of course he does. I wish she had told us more of him."

"Kinda glad she didn't," Lorna said, rubbing her right hand over her face. "I don't need any more nightmares. I feel shitty enough as it is."

"You certainly do not look well," he said, and smirked a little when she glared. "I will have Galasríniel send for some broth. Anything more substantial might not, as you put it, stay down."

"Probably not," she said morosely. "I wish I could sleep without seeing any more of what could have happened. That was nasty, but there've been good things, too, that I'll not have here. I had my own home, the nicest place I'd've ever lived in on Earth, on a mountain with my children and family and a load've friends I'll never be so close to, here. Middle-Earth is beautiful and I'm glad I came here, but you've seen how different it is from Earth – I'm homesick for a home I've never had, and how screwed-up is that?"

Thranduil did not really know what to say to that. What could he say? She was right – this world was not hers, though he had hope that it would become so, in time. He could no longer deny how fond of her he was, but he was not Ratiri, nor any Edain. He did not know that he could give her what she needed, even were she willing to take it from him.

"It is not, as you put it, screwed-up," he said at last. "The course of your life has been altered, and what you would have had has been taken from you. Anyone would mourn for that."

Lorna looked at him. "You know, you're all right, when you're not deliberately being a bag'v dicks," she said. "Guess my kids could do worse for a da."

It was as close to a compliment as she was probably capable of. "Yes, they could have," he said. "Much worse, in your alternate life. Much has been taken from you, but some things you have been spared."

She shivered. "True. Do half-Elf children live forever, or do they die like humans?"

"They are given a choice," he said, rising. "They can choose to live the eternal life o an Eldar, or to die and leave the world as Edain do." He went to the door, and ordered a passing healer to bring a bowl of broth. "When they are of age – though I do not know what that age is; I would have to ask Elrond – they will be given the choice."

"Blimey, that's a hell'v a decision," Lorna said, picking at a tangle in her hair, which really was atrocious. It was no wonder she always kept it braided.

"Stay here," he ordered, and went to fetch a comb from the closet that always seemed to be filled with such things. When he returned, Lorna arched an eyebrow.

"That bad, huh? Give it here."

"No," Thranduil said. "Roll and face away from me, and give me your hair, before it becomes unsalvageable."

"You're weird," she said, but did as asked. Disentangling her hair from around her took some awkward angling, but once they'd managed it, he set to work with the comb, starting at the very ends.

"Mam used to brush my hair," she said, as he teased at a particularly stubborn snarl.

"I know," he said. "My mother brushed mine. Legolas's mother died when he was very young, so I combed his."

"I know."

It was easy for Thranduil to forget that Lorna had many of his memories, as he had hers. It was rather disconcerting, because he was unsure that two people were meant to know one another so well. He hoped that she had not acquired knowledge of the significance of this act – she hadn't known that going to bed with an Elf meant marriage, so it was possible.

The question was, why had he not thought of it? Was he really simply so set on getting his own way? He already knew the answer, and he didn't like it.

He couldn't really blame Lorna for refusing the fact that they were wed. It was not the way of her people, and she had not known what she was getting herself into beforehand, but he suspected it was more even than that.

She had loved her husband with a fierceness he would have not thought an Edain capable of. Though her marriage had been inconceivably brief to him, she held it sacrosanct – to her, to replace it with something not only loveless but accidental, would be akin to sacrilege.

If he was not such a selfish bastard, he would have allowed things to take their course with Ratiri, but even the thought made that unwanted jealousy twist his gut. It was entirely unfair – he did not love Lorna, though he was far more fond of her than he wanted to admit, even to himself. She deserved an actual husband, but he did not want to be parted from her. Yes, he was selfish, but it was far too late to do anything about it now.

He worked at another knot, her hair slipping like water through his fingers. Never had he met an Edain with truly silver hair before, but the strands mixed in with the black shone in the firelight. Would their children have her hair, or his? Green eyes or blue, pale skin or dark? He strongly doubted they would be as small as her, for even few Edain were as little as Lorna. That might make birth difficult for her.

They would be Legolas's siblings, too – Legolas, who would have to be told of this eventually. That was not a conversation Thranduil looked forward to.

By the time he'd finished combing her hair, the broth arrived, but she was fast asleep again. He set it beside the fire to keep warm, then sat with his hand on her back, so that he could reassure himself that her heart still beat.

So, this is total headcanon, but I think that Elf-spouses would brush each other's hair. Thranduil might not be any more thrilled about the idea of accidental marriage than Lorna, but at least he's willing to man up and deal with the responsibility he's inadvertently taken on. Lorna's going to be a tad harder to convince, and not just because she is shortly going to feel utterly awful and want to strangle him.

As ever, reviews are the stuff of dreams.

Title means "What should have been" in Irish.