A/N: Yes! Another on time update. So proud of myself. (By the way, the scheduled days for updates are on my profile if you want to check them out.)

Review replies:

Ginny: Wow, longest review yet! And thanks for all the good ideas, I'll be sure to incorporate some. *creepy wink across table* ;)

previouslyjade: Haha, das okay! (And yeah I know you're not up to this yet but you'll see this eventually when you get here, if you continue reading, and yeah :P) That is a very nice word! I will see if I can use that sometime… XD Yes, the profile pic is still up! Damien told me to take it down, for reasons, but I refused. :P

Now chapter! :3

…..

[3rd March, T.A. 3019]

"So what happened after I passed out?" Phillip asked as he plopped himself down on the single bed.

Olivia, who had sat down on the bed opposite, sighed. "Way to leave me to deal with everything, alone. I still don't get what happened that made you faint,"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe I just discovered that I'm stuck in a different world, with no way to get back home, and without the ability to speak the most common language in said world," Phillip scowled.

Olivia raised her eyebrows, "Well, while you were passed out on the floor, I made a deal with Barliman, which is his name, by the way. I sort of mentioned that we weren't from, you know, Middle Earth, and he said that he kind of remembered some other girls—"

"Other girls?" Phillip suddenly sat up a little straighter.

"Yeah," Olivia said, "He said he remembered some other girls that he was fairly certain weren't from Middle Earth, and that they had worked for him, as barmaids? In return for a room, and food. He said that we could do the same, seeing as they had left a while ago. He did take the few New Zealand coins I gave him though, I guess the metal could be worth something."

"Did he tell you their names? How long ago did they leave?" Phillip stared at her, wide-eyed.

"No, he didn't say their names. And I didn't ask how long ago it was; he seemed like someone who had a really bad memory," Olivia told him.

Phillip didn't reply, and seemed to deflate a little. After a long pause, Olivia finally spoke again, "Do you think you might have known them?"

"I… I think I might have known one," Phillip rubbed his eyes, "She's… she's sort of actually the reason I'm here,"

"Yeah?" Olivia frowned.

"Yeah…" the man's brows were furrowed as he traced the dusty burgundy bedspread, "She… well, assuming she was one of the girls that were Barliman's barmaids, her name is Julia. She's my girlfriend. Or… or was,"

Phillip hesitated. The candlelight flickered.

"…what do you mean, was?" Olivia pressed. "I mean, you don't have to go on if you don't want to, just—"

"No, no, it's fine," Phillip cut her off, "I mean… was, but maybe still is? It's all a bit confusing, really. Because… back on Earth, we shared an apartment, and one day I woke up and she was in a coma. She was in hospital for a really long time… but she wouldn't wake up…"

The man shifted uncomfortably on his bed, hesitating as if he did not wish to go on. "And one day, she sort of… disappeared. Like, dematerialised. I know it sounds crazy," he said, upon seeing Olivia's sceptical expression, "The doctors thought I was crazy, too. Everyone thought I was crazy. And maybe I did go slightly crazy, at least for a little bit… but I definitely saw it happen."

"It… it is a bit hard to believe," Olivia admitted.

Phillip shrugged. "I guess. They didn't know what happened to her, they had their theories. I was a prime suspect, but there was no conclusive evidence. But in the end, the point was that Julia Peters was dead. That's what they told me. But I couldn't believe that…" his voice became very quiet.

"Lots of crazy stuff happened," he said, "Runes began piling up on my bed, on Julia's side, the spot she had become comatose in. I eventually figured out they were some form of Tolkien runes, and was able to translate them. I found that they were actually like… dialogue. A bunch of things Julia had said since she had landed in Middle Earth—something I also discovered from the runes…"

There was a long silence. Olivia swallowed. "So… how did you end up here?"

Phillip flinched. "I wanted to find her. I knew she wasn't dead, and I wasn't about to give up on her. I tried lots of weird ways of trying to get myself here, and eventually…"

Phillip's hand lingered at his pants pocket. In the light of the single candle his face was shadowed, eerily skull-like with deep black pools at his eye sockets. Olivia bit her lip.

"Eventually what?" she asked tentatively, still curious.

Phillip clenched the fist next to his pants pocket, not looking at the woman across from him, "Eventually I killed myself," he said quietly.

"…you… you… oh." Olivia said.

The silence that followed burned like ravaging flame and yet was as cold as a dip in a lake in the wintertime. Phillip could not look at Olivia, and he doubted even if he could that she would be able to hold his gaze. How could you stare into the eyes of a man who had taken his own life? It was something that had never been done before, he realized in a sudden rush of comprehension that made his head finally snap up to see Olivia was staring at him in slight awe.

Never before had someone spoken to one who had died.

Mouth dry, Phillip tried to swallow and finally spoke, "So… what's your story?"

"Oh," Olivia said, looking down, "Not as… interesting as yours. I mean, I didn't come here deliberately. I just… remember having a dream. The dream was about a baby,"

Phillip cocked his head to one side, "A baby?"

"Yeah," the woman pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, "It was weird. I remember being in this big white room, and there was this baby. Just, you know, sitting there. It looked so small and helpless, all alone… I sort of moved towards it, maybe to pick it up or something, and I was just getting closer when I glanced behind me, I can't remember why, but when I looked back again the baby was no longer there; in the split second I wasn't looking it had transformed into a man in a grey cloak. And he was holding a gun, pointing it towards me…"

Phillip took a sharp breath. It seemed every mention of wretched object had him on edge. "Oh…"

"Yeah," Olivia said, "It was pretty scary. I just froze, staring at him. I realized that his finger was moving to pull the trigger, but in extreme slow motion. I turned to run away, because I was still moving in real time, and I was running but not actually moving forward? I kept looking behind me and I was so terrified and I could see his finger getting closer and closer to the trigger but I wasn't moving forward and I was screaming. He was saying something, I think, but it was a different language, and I wouldn't have been able to hear it properly anyway, because it was in slow motion too. And then he must have finally pulled it because there was a bang, but it was awful because the noise itself was also in slow motion, and it sounded so… so scary, and I was screaming because there was time to escape, there was time to move, but there was no way I could. And then suddenly the slow mo switched off, and I remember this explosion of pain… and then nothing…"

There was a long silence. Phillip looked down into his lap momentarily, glancing once again up at Olivia. "Whoa," he said, "That's… weird."

"Yeah," Olivia shrugged, "I don't know. But now I'm here and I have no idea why…"

"Well…" Phillip said after a few moments, "I mean… I don't know how I got here, but I know what I want to do here. And that's find my girlfriend. And…" he looked up at Olivia, "I don't know, if you wanted to maybe stick together… you could maybe come with me?"

Olivia gave a half smile and shrugged, "I guess so. It's not like I have anything else to do."

Phillip tried to reciprocate the smile, but found his hands travelling to his pants pocket yet again. It suddenly occurred to him that he should mention the fact he was carrying a gun to Olivia. It seemed like an appropriate thing to reveal that he had a weapon about his person, he decided.

"Oh yeah, and… um…" Phillip reached into his pocket, "I kind of also have a gun on me… I was, you know, holding it when I died, so it came with me. It's only got seven bullets, but that's some protection I guess."

Olivia looked at him nervously, "Um… that's kind of… scary. I mean, it's not that I don't trust you, it's just…"

"…you don't trust me," Phillip finished for her, taking out the weapon. It gleamed bronze in the candlelight. "I get it, I wouldn't trust me either. But to be honest, there were so many opportunities for me to kill you before this point, I mean the chances that I'm going to suddenly shoot you now…"

"Yeah, I guess…" Olivia agreed slowly, not taking her eyes off the pistol that now lay in Phillip's lap. "…but, you don't think… we could put it over there…?"

She gestured towards the other end of the room, where a small chest lay. Phillip stood and made his way over to it, and upon opening it found that the hinges squeaked perfectly. Unloading the gun, he put it and the bullets into the chest and closed the lid.

"There," he said, turning to the woman still on the bed, "If either of us tries to open it during the night, the other should hear the squeaking of the hinges."

Olivia exhaled slowly, nodding. "I… I guess."

"You okay?" Phillip asked cautiously, making his way over to his bed.

"Yeah…" Olivia said, frowning and looking downwards, "Just… overwhelmed. And confused. And I've been completely terrified for the past few hours… it's kinda exhausting."

"Yeah…" Phillip agreed, biting his lip, "We should probably try to get some sleep now…"

"Yeah," Olivia sighed, pulling back her sheets and sliding under them. Once Phillip had done the same, she turned towards him, "Could you get the candle?"

"Oh… yeah," he said, sitting up slightly and leaning across to the little table on which sat the candle.

He blew, and the room was plunged into darkness.

…..

[6th March, T.A. 3019]

Damp grass. Trees. The sudden burst of the blue sky. Aiden groaned quietly as his eyes adjusted to the light, reaching his arm up to simultaneous block out the sun and to stretch. Grimacing, he rubbed his eyes and sat up slightly.

It seemed he was one of the last to wake. As he looked around, taking in his surroundings, he could see Alatar bustling about making his plans heard, Lola and Ginny sitting underneath a tree together and eating breakfast, Belegil examining their packs a little ways off from the main campsite. He sat up further and saw Damien and Tran talking, probably for one of the first times, beside the area that used to harbour a blue fire.

So he was the last to wake. Rubbing his eyes once more, he regretfully removed his blanket. Damien, who had noticed him waking, was making his way towards him.

"Morning," the man said, "Sleep okay?"

Aiden shrugged, taking the piece of Rohirrim waybread that was handed to him. "Yeah," he grunted.

Tran appeared beside Damien. "Hi,"

"Hi," Aiden said, "Where are we going today?"

"This morning we're walking to the Anduin," Tran replied, "I think. I guess we'll cross it or something. Then we'll be out of Rohan."

Aiden raised his eyebrows, taking a bite out of the bread. "Kay,"

"At least there's no rain today," Damien observed, looking skyward.

"Oh god, yesterday was awful," Aiden scowled, "I kept saying for us to stop, but no, let's just keep pushing through the storm! It doesn't matter that we can't even see anything!"

"Well, we did get to the trees," Damien pointed out, "That was the goal."

"Yeah, but still," Aiden took another bite of his bread.

"You should start packing up," Damien said, turning to walk away, "We're leaving soon."

Aiden sighed, pushing the last of the rather tasteless waybread into his mouth. He really wasn't a morning person. But he slowly detached himself from his bed and picked up the blanket, folding it unevenly in half and in half again.

By the time he was stuffing in into his pack, Alatar's voice was coming over the campsite. "Right, travellers! We should be leaving as of the current time! Whose pack is that underneath the tree?"

Aiden stood, strapping his bow to back, buckling his sword sheath around his waist and swinging his pack over his shoulder, as Damien ran to retrieve his from where Alatar had specified.

It was not long before all eight of them were prepared and setting off from the cluster of trees for their third day of walking. Aiden peered into the distance. He could see a sliver of the Anduin river, glimmering pale blue in the morning light. That was, as Tran had said, their target. His eyes trained to his boots.

Despite how pissed off he had been yesterday in the rain, he didn't really mind this journey. Like Damien had been in deciding to come, he was becoming fascinated with the prospect of having a purpose in Middle Earth. And, being the son of a god would be pretty cool, he had to admit.

He and Damien had, during the six years they had spent in Rohan, of course thought about the reason they were here, but they had always come to the conclusion that it probably wasn't anything too important. But now… it seemed they could have been wrong.

Overall, it felt good to be… doing something. They had created a life for themselves in Rohan, a life that was reasonably productive, as far as Rohan went; but the level of productivity depends on what one is working towards.

And for the longest time, Aiden's homesickness had been real; real and painful, the sort of wrenching feeling that had torn him apart. The sort of feeling that had left him completely vulnerable, completely terrified, completely broken, and even as Damien held him at night when he secretly cried, his friend had not the ability to hold him together. Even now, there was an ache in his chest, a pang of everything he had left behind.

So for a while, their life in Rohan had not seemed quite as productive. But as Aiden had slowly begun to accept what had happened to them, the fact they were there and there to stay, there had been a realization that there was no way they were getting back home. And in turn, that because Rohan was their new life, they should forge a purpose there.

He sighed quietly and looked up at where Damien was walking, a little ways ahead of him. He had driven that idea. The man had always been more accommodating, it seemed; more accepting of things at face value.

Aiden would never admit it, but he envied this. It would have saved him many, many tears.

He watched his boots. Now there was a new purpose—perhaps one important enough to warrant losing his home and everything he loved? It was possible. As soon as one ended up falling into Middle Earth, one would tend to believe that most things were possible.

"Ah, dammit."

Aiden's head snapped up to the voice that had drawn him from his thoughts. "Huh?"

They were standing at the bank of the Anduin, and Aiden suddenly registered the whirling water. The swift current.

The flooding from the rain last night.

Aiden opened his mouth, then closed it again. Then finally, he spoke.

"How the hell are we going to cross that?"

[4th March, T.A. 3019]

Phillip's eyes shot open at the sound of a squeak. He sat up quickly in bed, heart pounding with the fear of death, mind working rapidly, processing hundreds of different thoughts at once. Suddenly he began to notice his surroundings; the light, the open curtains, the woman standing at the door.

"Sorry," Olivia grinned awkwardly, "The door hinges creak as well as the chest."

It took Phillip a couple of seconds to process this. Then he collapsed back on his bed, finding hysterical fits of laughter suddenly taking him. Of course. It hadn't been the chest. It hadn't been the gun. It hadn't been his life on the line. It had been the door.

"Um… are you okay there?" Olivia asked, looking down at him with a frown that was one part concern and two parts bemusement. She glanced over her shoulder momentarily.

Phillip nodded, his laughter slowing, "No… no yeah, I'm fine."

"Okay… good," Olivia said slowly, "Anyway, I was just going to go down to the kitchen to meet Barliman. Ah… once you're ready you could come down too."

"Okay," Phillip said with his head lain back on the pillow, and Olivia disappeared, shutting the door behind her.

He allowed himself a few minutes to lay there, his mind still slowing from the sudden rush of adrenaline. Then he rose from his bed.

On the other side of the room, near the chest, was a metal tub—probably for bathing, but there didn't seem to be any water. There was a mirror on the adjacent wall, and Phillip used it to comb his mass of curls with his fingers. Left with nothing else to 'get ready' with, he took his jacket, which was still slightly damp from the rain, and pulled it on.

Then he turned to the chest. He wasn't sure it was entirely safe to leave the gun there, and so made quick work of removing it—leaving, however, the bullets—and shoving it in his pocket. He stood, glancing around for a moment, and finally opened the door.

Upon making his way down the stairs he found himself in what appeared to be the common room—it was reasonably large and filled with an assortment of wooden tables. There was no one there—not this early in the morning.

Phillip glanced around, suddenly spotting an unusually small man with curly hair appear from a door. The man stopped in his tracks, raising a hand as if in greeting, and spoke in the language Phillip now knew as Westron.

Shaking his head, he replied, "I'm sorry, I don't speak your language."

The man, who Phillip suddenly realized must have been a hobbit, looked confused, and said something else, gesturing towards Phillip and them himself. Phillip looked uncomfortable, "I… I'm sorry, I don't—"

"Phillip!"

Phillip spun around at the sound of his name, finding himself looking straight at Olivia, who stood in a door way to his left. She gestured for him to come towards her, "Come on, it's this way to the kitchen."

He followed her lead and soon found himself in what appeared to be a medieval style kitchen. There was a fireplace with a large pot hanging inside of it, and benches with various utensils and other kitchen like objects strew on top of them. The homely aroma of baking bread filled the air.

Phillip turned to ask Olivia if it was indeed bread that was being made, when suddenly there was Barliman, speaking to Olivia quickly in Westron. She nodded, smiling, and replied, looking suddenly confused as the man gestured towards Phillip and spoke. Then she seemed to click, nodding again, though not smiling, and turned to Phillip to translate.

"He says you can't really work as a bartender because you won't be able to communicate with the people," Olivia explained, "But he does have some jobs for you,"

"Okay," Phillip said, "Um… but just one question first… does he remember the names of the three girls who were working for him before?"

"Um…" Olivia turned to Barliman, asking him the question in Westron. He looked upwards for a moment, and then shook his head apologetically, speaking to her. Olivia replied, and turned back to Phillip, "He says he couldn't possibly. He doesn't have a very good memory, so—"

Suddenly, another voice, also speaking Westron, cut her off. They spun around to see the hobbit standing in the doorway, and it was he who had spoken. Olivia regarded him for a moment, before speaking once more. He replied, and Phillip heard for a moment in his foreign speech a word that sounded very akin to 'Julia'.

"What did he say?" Phillip demanded.

"He says he remembers," Olivia told him, "And that their names were Lola, Ginny and Julia."

Phillip's heart leapt in his chest, "Can you ask where they went?"

Olivia phrased this question to the hobbit, and once he replied, turned back to Phillip, "He says he thinks they were going to Rivendell."

Phillip took a deep breath, "Rivendell."

"Rivendell?" Olivia raised her eyebrows.

"Rivendell," Phillip repeated, looking at her, "Rivendell. I suppose that's where we're headed, then."

…..

A/N: Hope y'all liked it! Not entirely happy with this chapter, but idk why. I've discovered the problem with my eight-page chapter benchmark—it's not quite long enough to fit in all the character development I want for all the characters, and yet if I write more it's too much to do consistent updates. -_-

Anyways, hope you liked it anyway, have a lovely day, don't forget to review! ;) *directs a special creepy wink to Ginny who as of Tuesday owns 4% of my sexuality and this doesn't make any sense to most of you so I'm sorry for wasting a few seconds of your time for this inside joke*

P.S. Feel free to continue suggesting characters, I will make sure to take your choices into account. :D