Credit for the idea for this chapter goes to Lucien. Also, if I'm being pedantic, Elladan quotes from 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding'.

Chatnoir1, I have no idea what hannad lle means, but thanks!

Kika1, you see I have no talent for being descriptive and write romantic comedy because that way I can get away with it.

Dragonfly, thanks so much for letting me know about Elanor's Revenge.

And everyone who has reviewed so far, thank you. Couldn't get through the week without you. :-D

'Part 6'

"March Warden!"

Haldir turned back at the sound of Elladan's voice, knowing this couldn't go well. In retrospect, it might have been something of a mistake to admit that he'd kissed Tulienne.

Elladan reached him, an expression on his face that Haldir couldn't read. "Follow me," he said curtly. "We have some unfinished business to attend to."

Haldir followed, resisting the strong temptation to drag his feet. Valar, would this week never end?!

***

Ceilwyn sat on Tulienne's bed, surrounded by open presents, blushing. She opened the last and blushed still more. None of the maidens there had ever seen so many shades of red before.

"Of course," Arwen said, grinning wickedly. "It's a present for Rumil as well."

The company laughed as Ceilwyn hurriedly put the four square inches of satin down, looking like her head was about to burst into flames. As was traditional at bridal parties, every present they had given her had been chosen with the wedding night in mind and their teasing had reached new heights.

"He won't be able to keep his eyes off you," Salia promised.

"Or his hands," Arwen added.

"Or his . . ." Tulienne began, before Arwen threw a pillow at her.

"You've scared her enough, with all your jokes," Arwen chided.

Tulienne threw the pillow back. "Me? I think you're forgetting whose idea this whole thing was."

Arwen shrugged gracefully, feigning innocence. "It is an age old tradition, which I feel I should uphold."

Tulienne and Salia shot her expressions of pure disbelief.

"I am keeping things under control. Imagine what you would be like if . . . what was that?"

Tulienne had already leapt to her feet and was pulling at the balcony doors. She took a look outside, uttered a very unladylike word and shut the doors again.

"Trouble," she said.

"What is it?" Salia asked.

"Elladan and Haldir," Tulienne replied, glancing at Arwen, "regressing to elflings."

Arwen heaved a long-suffering sigh. "I suppose we should stop them," she said. "Otherwise they might kill each other."

"We can only hope," Tulienne replied grimly.

***

"Oommph," Elladan said, as he landed face down on the floor. Haldir had his arm twisted behind his back and one knee on his back with his full weight behind it. Game over. Elladan was strong and fast, but was no match for Haldir's centuries of training.

"Do you yield?" Haldir said sharply, as his jaw started to throb from one of Elladan's punches.

"Mmmmph."

Haldir shifted his weight slightly backwards and pulled up Elladan's head by his long hair. "Do you yield?" he repeated.

Elladan spat grass out. "I yield."

Inwardly, Haldir breathed a sigh of relief. He got to his feet and held out a hand to help Elladan up. He wasn't surprised when it was refused.

"Don't think I don't know you're lying to me, Haldir," Elladan said, wiping blood off his top lip. "I can see it in your eyes. You love her. If you hurt her, I'll kill you and make it look like an accident."

Haldir smirked, too amused to fully register what Elladan had just said. "You would try," he said.

A moment later, someone pinched the top of his ear. Hard.

"What in the name of the Valar are you doing?" Tulienne screeched in his ear. "You are five thousand years old, the March Warden of Lothlorien, and you are behaving like Mandos has just sent you to this world."

Haldir let out a small squeak of pain and embarrassment. He heard a matching one, and noticed out of the corner of his eye that Elladan was getting the same treatment from Arwen.

Before Haldir could react further, he found himself being dragged back into the house. What Elladan's fate was, he couldn't tell.

Tulienne pushed him down onto a chair. At least she let go of his ear.

"I don't know what you were thinking of - brawling like a couple of drunken men," she said, hurrying off to the kitchen.

"He started it," Haldir protested, touching his soon-to-be-black eye.

"He started it," Tulienne repeated scathingly as she came back. "What kind of an excuse is that? What are you - fifty? Now hold still."

Haldir realised with a start that she had a wet cloth and a bowl on the table and was actually proposing to wipe the blood off his face. At first he was too surprised to protest, then he decided he didn't want to.

Then she gave him another surprise when she lightly pressed her hand to his eye. When she took it away, he reached up and touched the skin.

He looked up at her in surprise. "I wasn't aware that you had any healing skills," he said.

"Just cuts and bruises," Tulienne said, giving his jaw the same treatment. "Nothing to get excited about. There now, you look much better. Are you hurt anywhere else?"

Haldir put his hand to his chest. "Here," he said, before it occurred to him why she was asking. "But it's nothing serious," he added hurriedly.

"Take your tunic off, Haldir, and stop being such a baby. It's not like I haven't seen a bare-chested male before. For that matter, it's not like I haven't seen *you* bare-chested before."

Haldir nearly asked when, then remembered. During the kiss he'd been asleep for. He wished he'd been awake.

Against his better judgement, Haldir obeyed. Staying focused with her hands on him proved to be somewhat difficult. They were also provoking certain . . . sensations. Haldir swallowed hard and tried to think about grass.

"Well then, that takes care of most of your aches and pains," Tulienne said, after what simultaneously felt like two seconds and two centuries. Then she paused. "Apart from that well-placed blow to your crotch."

"What?" Haldir squeaked, gripping the chair arms. She didn't mean . . . ? She couldn't mean . . . ?

Tulienne shot him a look that could've frozen lava. "Males!" she said. "Minds like sewers. Did you really think I was going to put my hands down your leggings?"

"Should I leave you two alone?" Arwen's mischievous voice said from the door. To Haldir's great relief, since it stopped him having to answer.

"Not if you want both of us to come out alive," Tulienne replied, giving Haldir another dirty look.

"Hmm . . . difficult," Arwen said. "But I think I do. And I have the other culprit here, ready for judgement."

She pulled Elladan into the room. He was cleaned up, but still looked rather worse for wear. He spotted Haldir's healed face and turned to Tulienne.

"No fair," he said. "Why did you heal him and not me?"

"You deserve to suffer, he doesn't," Tulienne answered. Then she narrowed her eyes at Haldir. "Although I'm reconsidering."

"Make nice and apologise, Elli, before we add some bruises to your collection," Arwen said menacingly.

Elladan shuffled reluctantly into the room, glancing back at Arwen's threatening expression. He cleared his throat. "Sorry," he said awkwardly. "I suppose it's not really your fault if Tuli has bad taste."

"For the final time," Tulienne said, stressing each syllable. "There is nothing going on. And if you two have one more fight on the basis that there is, I will personally remove the heads you both seem to be thinking with."

The males winced as one.

"Haldir, put your tunic on and get out," Tulienne said, suddenly sounding very tired. "Elladan . . . just get out. Arwen and I have a bridal party to get back to."

Haldir watched her trail up the stairs. She didn't look back. Arwen, following her, did. Haldir quickly looked away.

***

"So, do you want to talk about it?" Arwen asked, much much later, as they sat on Tulienne's bedchamber floor together.

Tulienne finished brushing her hair and started to braid it. "No."

"Tuli," Arwen said seriously. "I know that we've teased you a lot - and I've done more than my fair share - but we're alone and I'm serious now. Do you have feelings for Haldir?"

Tulienne abandoned her braid. "I don't know," she said in defeat. "I thought I might, then I thought I didn't, then I wondered . . . I don't know my own mind anymore."

"What about your heart?"

"I don't know about that either."

Tulienne got to her feet and started to pace. She completed four laps and then she stopped. "I have one confession to make," she said.

Arwen studied her closely. She was blushing.

Well, well, so there really was a first time for everything.

"What is it?" she asked.

Tulienne blushed still more and avoided her eyes. "When . . . you came in before," she said. "I actually . . . did kind of want to put my hands down his leggings."

Arwen stared at her for a few seconds, then she began to laugh. Harder and harder, until she was on all fours gasping for breath.

"Oh, Tuli," she said at last, wiping her eyes. "Only you could confess your love for someone like that."

"Call me naïve, but I always imagined there was something more to love than wanting to . . . well, experiment a little. I mean, you're not telling me that that's the first thing you think of when you see Estel?"

"No," Arwen said, smiling. "But it's the second thing."

"But that's my point," Tulienne said, sitting down again with a thump. "You love Estel and you know you want to marry him. The fact that you want to jump on him - and would have by now, whatever you may say, if it hadn't been for Lord Elrond threatening to end the line of heirs if he let you - is an added bonus. With Haldir, the wanting to jump on him part is the only bit I'm sure of."

"You could try jumping on him first and figuring out the rest later."

"Yes, because that couldn't backfire in any way."

Arwen laughed at her expression. "Well, why don't you try getting to know him properly?"

"Bad idea."

"Why?"

"Because every time we're together, we fight. I admit we've been getting on a little better lately - between the insults and me punching him on the jaw - and it was actually kind of endearing when I made him take his tunic off. I never thought he'd be self-conscious about his body when he's such a gorgeous hunk of . . . anyway, it just wouldn't work."

"Have you tried it?"

"No."

"That how do you know it wouldn't work?"

Silence.