~*~
Leah flopped face-down on the couch, sobbing.
"My husband." She said, facing her pudgy cat, Emmy.
"Emmy, he said he was my husband."
"Meooooooow." came the response.
"Typical. God, you're no help, you run me into debt.remind me why I keep you?"
The cat looked at her in a way that clearly said 'because I'm cute, you idiot.' Leah laid her head back down, and the cat walked across her back and sat down right in the center, kneading her shoulders.
"Ahh.." Leah said. "I take back that part about you not being any help. But it still doesn't solve my current crisis. I just can't get used to the idea of life without him."
"Meoooow."
"Ten years and I still can't get used to it."
"Yeah."
"It's so hard."
"I can imagine."
"I wonder how he's faring? I wonder how Nikki and Sam are?"
"They're all fine."
Leah sat up quickly.
"Holy..Frodo?!"
"Yeah."
The cat, who had been thrown off of Leah's back and onto the couch, sat up, ruffled its fur, and walked away, giving Leah dirty looks which she was too preoccupied to acknowledge.
"How in hell are you here?"
"Shh." He said, sitting next to her. "Don't talk just now." Leaning in, he kissed her gently, running his tongue along her bottom lip. The kiss intensified when she leaned in and they both wrapped their arms around each other in near unison. After a slow moment had passed, he broke the kiss, as tenderly as he had started it. She leaned her head against his shoulder, and he smiled and brushed a hand through her hair.
"How did you find me?"
"On your internet profile, it said you were from New York. There are only two Leah Underhills in the New York phone book. Your profile also said you enjoyed the view of the sun setting from Central Park. So, using my very sharp brain, I figured you were the Leah Underhill that lived a block away from Central Park, rather than the one that lived across town."
"Ahh."
"And the door was open, and I heard crying inside, so I just came on in."
She looked up into his eyes. "I love you," she said simply.
"You have no idea how hard it was to watch Nikki and Sam grow up and not have you be there."
"How are they? Where are they?"
"Fine. They're here. In the city. We found out that Andrea and Ivy lived here, and Merry and Pippin insisted that we move."
"Really? I didn't even know they lived here. I lost touch with the two of them about three years ago. Who all's here?"
"Geeze. umm.Aragorn. Sam. The other Sam. Nikki. Merry. Pippin. Legolas. Elrond. And me, of course."
"Nine," Leah said, amused.
"Yep."
"I tell you, it's a conspiracy. So, why are the Middle Earth natives here?"
"Well, it's not a pleasant task. We've discovered that, somehow, Sauron discovered a way to get into this world. And he's planning on a siege of the city."
Leah sat up straight. "When?"
"Within the next four or five days."
"Shit."
"So, it's up to us to stop him."
"How?"
"Erm..well.."
"You don't know?"
"No."
"I'm supposed to come up with a plan."
"You know this world best."
"Okay. I can do that, with the help my planning minions and some seriously large doses of caffeine."
"Good. Now, can we be reacquainted?"
"Sure. But why waste time talking? To the bedroom, I say!" She stood up. Frodo looked at her, laughed, and followed suit.
"Same spunk I remember. Well, onwards."
"And upwards. Upwards is the most important part," She added, grinning and putting a hand low around his waist to steer him towards the bedroom.
~*~
Aragorn looked around the small apartment he had rented out as their headquarters, near the small Tea shop on 96th and Highland. It turned out that Elrond was quite familiar with Leah's world, and had spent a lot of time building a fortune and a profile. With that fortune, he had splurged on several apartments over various parts of New York, the city they had pinpointed for Sauron's attack. In each apartment, he had set up laptop computers with internet access, so that the new "fellowship" could communicate. For several months, they had been racing against the clock, setting up stations and lines of communication, and becoming oriented with the new world. In one corner of the main room of the small apartment that he and Elrond shared, there sat a card table, where a laptop was hooked up to a 'printer', which was rapidly spitting pages into the tray.
In another corner, there was a small machine which, when a small disk was entered, would play music. It was not music that Aragorn was familiar with, however, and he had become quite familiar with several different musicians. His favorite by far was someone named Carlos Santana, and he reacted by joining what Elrond referred to as "the Church of Carlos". However, he still remained puzzled by a CD he picked up for a small sum of money at what was called a 'second-hand CD store'. On the cover, it had five females in outfits that Aragorn hardly considered ethical for anyone to wear, let alone to wear in public. (Of course, given what he saw on some of the females around the city, it seemed quite humane. Arwen would never stoop so low, he reminded himself on numerous occasions.) Next to this, the label read "The Spice Girls". This is part of what perplexed him.why wasn't the title simply their names? Like "Carlos Santana"? And their music sounded nothing like he was accustomed to. Most of the songs that Carlos Santana sang could be likened to the folk songs of Hobbits and Men, and there was an artist named "Enya" who had some music which sounded, with a stretch of the imagination, like elvish music, but the music of these "Spice Girls" sounded like screaming compared to such other music. So, eventually, he became frustrated with these awful musicians and had thrown the disk out the window. Unfortunately, this was when Elrond was about to walk in the door from shopping.
Against one wall was a mattress that Aragorn slept on, and there was another small room that Elrond resided in, with another computer and a mattress on the floor. The entrance to this was directly across from the front door, and the bathroom was next to that. There was also a small alcove in which there was a sink, a stove, and a refrigerator, although Aragorn and Elrond had been near living off of a yellowish, sugary liquid called 'Mountain Dew' and a cheesy pastry type of thing called 'pizza'.
Aragorn sighed, and walked over to the table. He took a swig from the plastic cup of Mountain Dew that sat next to the printer. The liquid was spewed as he read the most recent printout, from a chatroom that he and Elrond were monitoring.
He read:
Saurons_Helper: yes, my lord. They are waiting eagerly within the borders of Thatchwood Forest.
Sauron: call the command on Wednesday at midnight. Approach the city
quietly. Avoid burning, looting, raping, pillaging, and all that good
stuff yet. Gather in Central Park by one AM. The troops from the
southeast will meet you. When I give the command, invade the
surroundings and spread out. With several attacks, they won't be able
to fight back.
~*~
The elder of the two Hobbits flipped through the phonebook. "Strautner..Strautner..Rachel Strautner." [NOTE: I'm NOT good at last names! Please, anytime you see a name that's cheesy or doesn't quite sound good, feel free to make suggestions. Chances are that I don't like the name either! Anyway, both yours and Nikki's Last names are really corny, please help!]
"Any luck?" The younger piped in.
"No, Sam," the elder said. "There are hundreds of Strautners in this phone book, it could take days to find her!"
"Here.. let me see if I can find Nikki, and maybe she'll know where we can find Rachel." The phone book was exchanged, and the younger hobbit flipped to the 'C' section of the book.
"Damnit." he said. "There are even more Christensens than Strautners."
The elder's eyes went wide.
"What?" Asked the younger, puzzled.
"What if they're listed under their married names? Flip to 'Baggins'."
The smaller of the two did so, and found fourteen listings. Only one of those, however, was listed under 'Nikki'. The page of the phone book was torn out and quickly shoved in a pocket, and the book was handed over. The elder Sam flipped to 'Gamgee'. And there, he found only two listings.an 'Anabella' and a 'Rachel'.
~*~
Rachel moved silently across the living room, lost in thought. Putting the rhyming dictionary back on the shelf, she glared at Nikki.
"Just because it's not listed does NOT mean that 'orange' and 'orange' do not rhyme."
"They don't, though."
"They DO!"
"They don't."
"They d-"
She was interrupted when a knock sounded at the door.
"One minute!" Nikki called in the direction of the door. She glared and put her slippers on.
"They don't." she said.
"They do," Rachel whispered, and flopped down on the couch.
"Holy shit," Came Nikki's voice. "Rachel, get your ass over here."
"Huh?" Rachel asked, walking towards the doorway.
"Oh my god! Is that.Sam?"
"It is. Hullo, you two."
"Sam!" Rachel cried, running towards the foremost figure.
"And.Sam!" The smaller one said, stepping out. Hugs were exchanged, kisses were shared and, five minutes later, they were invited inside for tea.
~*~
"But how did you two get here?" Rachel asked, after hearing the situation about Sauron.
"The same way as you did. Only we got here at this time, so that we could overthrow Sauron. Galadriel sent us information giving us the approximate date and place in your world where the attack would be launched. So we came here several months beforehand. We've been acquainting ourselves with your world, setting up communication, and looking for you guys, and Ivy, Andrea, and Leah."
"Oh, Ivy and Andrea live in the city?"
"Yes, all five of you do. Rather odd, I say."
"So.about how you got here." Nikki started. "I'm confused."
~*~
Frodo kissed the gently sleeping Leah on the forehead, and lay himself down beside her, looking at the features of the face he was always afraid he'd forget. He'd wake from a nightmare in the middle of the night and think, 'Leah! What did her face look like?' It was as though, when he could remember those eyes, all his monsters, real or imaginary, faded away.
"Leah," he breathed. "I love you,"
"So do I," she said, her eyes still closed.
"I thought you were asleep."
"I was. But I'm a light sleeper. And how could I sleep at a time like this?"
"You're tired, though." He said as she yawned.
"That very well may be," she said, "But I have no intention of forsaking the refuge of your arms for sleep."
"You don't have to," he said, putting his arms around her waist. "Now, go to sleep. We have a rough few days ahead of us, you'll need it."
"I need you," She said, covering his lips with her own. He kissed her, pouring the seven years of passion he'd spent without her into one kiss.
His hands found their way to just above her hips, roughly pulling her towards him.
"Oh, good," she said thickly through a kiss as their bodies met. "You remembered the 'upwards' this time."
He laughed, and pulled back a little bit, to look at her face. He shook his head.
"Well, I was just commenting. Telling the truth."
"Are you saying I forgot that part before?" he said, in a faux-offended tone.
"No."
" 'This time'?"
"Weeeeeelll.."
"Well what?"
"Just kiss me."
"Just kiss you..So I can lose the upwards?" he asked.
"No! Unless there's no further use for it, of course."
"I think I could dream up a couple of uses."
~*~
Leah flopped face-down on the couch, sobbing.
"My husband." She said, facing her pudgy cat, Emmy.
"Emmy, he said he was my husband."
"Meooooooow." came the response.
"Typical. God, you're no help, you run me into debt.remind me why I keep you?"
The cat looked at her in a way that clearly said 'because I'm cute, you idiot.' Leah laid her head back down, and the cat walked across her back and sat down right in the center, kneading her shoulders.
"Ahh.." Leah said. "I take back that part about you not being any help. But it still doesn't solve my current crisis. I just can't get used to the idea of life without him."
"Meoooow."
"Ten years and I still can't get used to it."
"Yeah."
"It's so hard."
"I can imagine."
"I wonder how he's faring? I wonder how Nikki and Sam are?"
"They're all fine."
Leah sat up quickly.
"Holy..Frodo?!"
"Yeah."
The cat, who had been thrown off of Leah's back and onto the couch, sat up, ruffled its fur, and walked away, giving Leah dirty looks which she was too preoccupied to acknowledge.
"How in hell are you here?"
"Shh." He said, sitting next to her. "Don't talk just now." Leaning in, he kissed her gently, running his tongue along her bottom lip. The kiss intensified when she leaned in and they both wrapped their arms around each other in near unison. After a slow moment had passed, he broke the kiss, as tenderly as he had started it. She leaned her head against his shoulder, and he smiled and brushed a hand through her hair.
"How did you find me?"
"On your internet profile, it said you were from New York. There are only two Leah Underhills in the New York phone book. Your profile also said you enjoyed the view of the sun setting from Central Park. So, using my very sharp brain, I figured you were the Leah Underhill that lived a block away from Central Park, rather than the one that lived across town."
"Ahh."
"And the door was open, and I heard crying inside, so I just came on in."
She looked up into his eyes. "I love you," she said simply.
"You have no idea how hard it was to watch Nikki and Sam grow up and not have you be there."
"How are they? Where are they?"
"Fine. They're here. In the city. We found out that Andrea and Ivy lived here, and Merry and Pippin insisted that we move."
"Really? I didn't even know they lived here. I lost touch with the two of them about three years ago. Who all's here?"
"Geeze. umm.Aragorn. Sam. The other Sam. Nikki. Merry. Pippin. Legolas. Elrond. And me, of course."
"Nine," Leah said, amused.
"Yep."
"I tell you, it's a conspiracy. So, why are the Middle Earth natives here?"
"Well, it's not a pleasant task. We've discovered that, somehow, Sauron discovered a way to get into this world. And he's planning on a siege of the city."
Leah sat up straight. "When?"
"Within the next four or five days."
"Shit."
"So, it's up to us to stop him."
"How?"
"Erm..well.."
"You don't know?"
"No."
"I'm supposed to come up with a plan."
"You know this world best."
"Okay. I can do that, with the help my planning minions and some seriously large doses of caffeine."
"Good. Now, can we be reacquainted?"
"Sure. But why waste time talking? To the bedroom, I say!" She stood up. Frodo looked at her, laughed, and followed suit.
"Same spunk I remember. Well, onwards."
"And upwards. Upwards is the most important part," She added, grinning and putting a hand low around his waist to steer him towards the bedroom.
~*~
Aragorn looked around the small apartment he had rented out as their headquarters, near the small Tea shop on 96th and Highland. It turned out that Elrond was quite familiar with Leah's world, and had spent a lot of time building a fortune and a profile. With that fortune, he had splurged on several apartments over various parts of New York, the city they had pinpointed for Sauron's attack. In each apartment, he had set up laptop computers with internet access, so that the new "fellowship" could communicate. For several months, they had been racing against the clock, setting up stations and lines of communication, and becoming oriented with the new world. In one corner of the main room of the small apartment that he and Elrond shared, there sat a card table, where a laptop was hooked up to a 'printer', which was rapidly spitting pages into the tray.
In another corner, there was a small machine which, when a small disk was entered, would play music. It was not music that Aragorn was familiar with, however, and he had become quite familiar with several different musicians. His favorite by far was someone named Carlos Santana, and he reacted by joining what Elrond referred to as "the Church of Carlos". However, he still remained puzzled by a CD he picked up for a small sum of money at what was called a 'second-hand CD store'. On the cover, it had five females in outfits that Aragorn hardly considered ethical for anyone to wear, let alone to wear in public. (Of course, given what he saw on some of the females around the city, it seemed quite humane. Arwen would never stoop so low, he reminded himself on numerous occasions.) Next to this, the label read "The Spice Girls". This is part of what perplexed him.why wasn't the title simply their names? Like "Carlos Santana"? And their music sounded nothing like he was accustomed to. Most of the songs that Carlos Santana sang could be likened to the folk songs of Hobbits and Men, and there was an artist named "Enya" who had some music which sounded, with a stretch of the imagination, like elvish music, but the music of these "Spice Girls" sounded like screaming compared to such other music. So, eventually, he became frustrated with these awful musicians and had thrown the disk out the window. Unfortunately, this was when Elrond was about to walk in the door from shopping.
Against one wall was a mattress that Aragorn slept on, and there was another small room that Elrond resided in, with another computer and a mattress on the floor. The entrance to this was directly across from the front door, and the bathroom was next to that. There was also a small alcove in which there was a sink, a stove, and a refrigerator, although Aragorn and Elrond had been near living off of a yellowish, sugary liquid called 'Mountain Dew' and a cheesy pastry type of thing called 'pizza'.
Aragorn sighed, and walked over to the table. He took a swig from the plastic cup of Mountain Dew that sat next to the printer. The liquid was spewed as he read the most recent printout, from a chatroom that he and Elrond were monitoring.
He read:
Saurons_Helper: yes, my lord. They are waiting eagerly within the borders of Thatchwood Forest.
Sauron: call the command on Wednesday at midnight. Approach the city
quietly. Avoid burning, looting, raping, pillaging, and all that good
stuff yet. Gather in Central Park by one AM. The troops from the
southeast will meet you. When I give the command, invade the
surroundings and spread out. With several attacks, they won't be able
to fight back.
~*~
The elder of the two Hobbits flipped through the phonebook. "Strautner..Strautner..Rachel Strautner." [NOTE: I'm NOT good at last names! Please, anytime you see a name that's cheesy or doesn't quite sound good, feel free to make suggestions. Chances are that I don't like the name either! Anyway, both yours and Nikki's Last names are really corny, please help!]
"Any luck?" The younger piped in.
"No, Sam," the elder said. "There are hundreds of Strautners in this phone book, it could take days to find her!"
"Here.. let me see if I can find Nikki, and maybe she'll know where we can find Rachel." The phone book was exchanged, and the younger hobbit flipped to the 'C' section of the book.
"Damnit." he said. "There are even more Christensens than Strautners."
The elder's eyes went wide.
"What?" Asked the younger, puzzled.
"What if they're listed under their married names? Flip to 'Baggins'."
The smaller of the two did so, and found fourteen listings. Only one of those, however, was listed under 'Nikki'. The page of the phone book was torn out and quickly shoved in a pocket, and the book was handed over. The elder Sam flipped to 'Gamgee'. And there, he found only two listings.an 'Anabella' and a 'Rachel'.
~*~
Rachel moved silently across the living room, lost in thought. Putting the rhyming dictionary back on the shelf, she glared at Nikki.
"Just because it's not listed does NOT mean that 'orange' and 'orange' do not rhyme."
"They don't, though."
"They DO!"
"They don't."
"They d-"
She was interrupted when a knock sounded at the door.
"One minute!" Nikki called in the direction of the door. She glared and put her slippers on.
"They don't." she said.
"They do," Rachel whispered, and flopped down on the couch.
"Holy shit," Came Nikki's voice. "Rachel, get your ass over here."
"Huh?" Rachel asked, walking towards the doorway.
"Oh my god! Is that.Sam?"
"It is. Hullo, you two."
"Sam!" Rachel cried, running towards the foremost figure.
"And.Sam!" The smaller one said, stepping out. Hugs were exchanged, kisses were shared and, five minutes later, they were invited inside for tea.
~*~
"But how did you two get here?" Rachel asked, after hearing the situation about Sauron.
"The same way as you did. Only we got here at this time, so that we could overthrow Sauron. Galadriel sent us information giving us the approximate date and place in your world where the attack would be launched. So we came here several months beforehand. We've been acquainting ourselves with your world, setting up communication, and looking for you guys, and Ivy, Andrea, and Leah."
"Oh, Ivy and Andrea live in the city?"
"Yes, all five of you do. Rather odd, I say."
"So.about how you got here." Nikki started. "I'm confused."
~*~
Frodo kissed the gently sleeping Leah on the forehead, and lay himself down beside her, looking at the features of the face he was always afraid he'd forget. He'd wake from a nightmare in the middle of the night and think, 'Leah! What did her face look like?' It was as though, when he could remember those eyes, all his monsters, real or imaginary, faded away.
"Leah," he breathed. "I love you,"
"So do I," she said, her eyes still closed.
"I thought you were asleep."
"I was. But I'm a light sleeper. And how could I sleep at a time like this?"
"You're tired, though." He said as she yawned.
"That very well may be," she said, "But I have no intention of forsaking the refuge of your arms for sleep."
"You don't have to," he said, putting his arms around her waist. "Now, go to sleep. We have a rough few days ahead of us, you'll need it."
"I need you," She said, covering his lips with her own. He kissed her, pouring the seven years of passion he'd spent without her into one kiss.
His hands found their way to just above her hips, roughly pulling her towards him.
"Oh, good," she said thickly through a kiss as their bodies met. "You remembered the 'upwards' this time."
He laughed, and pulled back a little bit, to look at her face. He shook his head.
"Well, I was just commenting. Telling the truth."
"Are you saying I forgot that part before?" he said, in a faux-offended tone.
"No."
" 'This time'?"
"Weeeeeelll.."
"Well what?"
"Just kiss me."
"Just kiss you..So I can lose the upwards?" he asked.
"No! Unless there's no further use for it, of course."
"I think I could dream up a couple of uses."
~*~