Part of my series of (hopefully) unexpected crossovers. I've always found it interesting that despite how very different Armageddon and The Lord of the Rings movies are, Liv Tyler's characters in both are in very similar situations.

-x-

Grace had first dreamed of the woman during those hard days after her mother walked out. She had already been a lonely, moody teenager, and now, she was a motherless one, too. Her father tried, but he couldn't fill the hole that her mother had left, and Grace cried herself to sleep many nights — and then... she would appear.

She was a woman in flowing robes, like a fairy from the stories that Grace used to read when she was younger, and her face exactly matched Grace's own, just older. They had the same wide-set blue eyes and full lips, the same pale complexion and long dark hair. The only difference was the woman's ears, which were long and pointed, though Grace never found that strange. The woman would wrap her arms around Grace and hold her and stroke her hair as she cried, and her robes must have been woven from something magical, for they were always clean, never tear-stained, even when Grace buried her face in them and wept.

When morning came, and the sun climbed high over the oil rig, Grace would try to tell herself that it had been just a dream, but she could never quite shake the feeling that it was real. She could never forget the sight of the woman's face, staring back at her like her own reflection. Though the woman never spoke her name, Grace knew that she was called Arwen. She couldn't explain how she knew it, but she did. Arwen called her Grace of the Valar, and even though she didn't know what that meant, Grace liked it. It sounded better than just plain Grace Stamper. When she cried in her dreams, Arwen would whisper, "You are stronger than you know, Grace of the Valar." And perhaps Arwen's words were magical, just like her robes, for when she whispered that she was strong, Grace believed it. She even came to believe that she would be all right, growing up with only her father and the other workers on a series of oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

Arwen appeared in her dreams again two nights before her father and AJ were scheduled to leave on their mission. Grace didn't need her to hold her while she cried anymore, for she was older and more sure of herself now, but she was still glad to see her again after so long. They greeted each other as old friends, as equals, for they were the same age now, or nearly so, and their faces were more identical than ever.

Their dream-world consisted of a flagstone pavilion with white columns and a canopy overhead the color of the sky at sunset. Arwen was sitting on a cushioned bench and motioned with one hand for Grace to sit beside her.

"I have come to tell you more of our story, Grace of the Valar."

"Our story?" Grace repeated, and Arwen nodded.

"You and I are as one," she explained, "and so our fates are tied."

Grace sat down beside Arwen on the bench, and as she did, she gasped, for from here, she could see out between two of the columns. The pavilion overlooked a deep, wooded valley traced with rivers. Grace had never seen such a sight before, yet she knew that she hadn't dreamed it or imagined it. The view across this valley was as real and familiar to her as the view of the ocean from her father's oil rig. Arwen's words repeated in her head: You and I are as one.

Grace tore her eyes away from the valley to look at Arwen as the other woman began to speak again. Her words had some magic in them, too, for as Arwen told her their story, Grace could see the things that she described in her mind's eye, as vivid as if they were memories from her own life... and perhaps they were.

The next day, AJ spent his last free time before the mission taking Grace on a picnic. They drove out from the Kennedy Space Center until they found a scenic field, and as they lounged on the grass after they'd eaten, Grace decided to tell AJ about what Arwen had said to her.

"I had a dream last night about a woman who looked just like me," Grace began, and she decided not to mention that the only difference was that Arwen had pointed ears like a fairy. As much as Grace loved AJ, the man waxed poetic about animal crackers, so she wasn't sure what he would make of that.

"Oh, yeah?" AJ asked, raising one eyebrow at her. "That sounds pretty hot."

"She was me... sort of," Grace went on slowly. She had never spoken of Arwen to anyone before, and it was more challenging than she'd expected. "I mean, she was in exactly the same boat as me. She was in love with this gorgeous guy that her dad didn't really like, but he had to leave her and go far away on a dangerous mission to save the world."

AJ was sitting propped up on his elbows now, looking at her with full attention. "Did her guy have to fly into space, too?"

Grace shook her head. "No, they lived in a different time. He and the other men rode away on horses."

"And... how did it end for her? Uh, for them, I mean?" Grace heard the hesitation in AJ's voice, and she knew he was afraid that if it had ended sadly for this dream-woman who looked just like Grace, who had faced the same dilemma as her... then perhaps his mission wouldn't end well, either.

"Oh, it ended all right," Grace answered quickly. "She told me the man she loved led this mighty army into battle, and they won."

In her dream last night, as Arwen spoke, Grace had seen glimpses of what she'd described — flashes of a terrible battle in front of two tall iron gates, the clanging of the men's swords, the smell of smoke and blood. She'd seen how over the whole violent scene, an flaming orange eye hovered in the ash-gray sky, watching. Grace thought of what would happen tomorrow — how AJ and her father and Bear and all the other men would board a shuttle that would take them hurtling into the vast, dark reaches of space — and she had to suppress a shudder.

But AJ was grinning that crooked little grin now, apparently satisfied. "And I'll bet after the big war or battle or whatever," he said, distracting Grace from her dark thoughts, "he came back home to her, and they got married and lived happily ever after, right? Just like we're going to." He paused, gazing away across the Cape Canavral landscape, then added, "And, hey, did her dad ever come around to liking him? 'Cause you know, I think your dad will. I think he acts more annoyed than he really is."

But Grace couldn't answer AJ, for her throat had closed up with sorrow. She had actually cried in her dream last night, when Arwen told her how their story ended. "Our choice is as Luthien, both sweet and bitter." She had wept and raged when Arwen explained that yes, she married the man she loved and lived a long with him... but she had lost her father.

Grace felt tears in her eyes again now, and then, AJ was there, wiping them away, cupping her face in his hands. He assumed that she was crying from fear over their mission into space, and he murmured soothingly, "Hey, baby, don't cry, we're gonna be okay, really." Grace took a deep breath, nodded into his eyes, and tried to believe in his words, not Arwen's. She tried to tell herself that her story would end differently after all, and that she would be able to be with him and her father both.