A/N: Sorry it took so long, guys...I'm slow...and still accepting cough needing any advice out there! And oh! One more thing --- can anyone tell that I incorporated some of the good old LotR extras into here? Eh? Actually, just one line, but tell me if you notice it. Hehehe...

Listening to: Bend and Not Break by D/C and Anthem of Our Dying Day by Story of the Year...how bout you?

Chapter 3: Travis

Before he knew it, the former Ranger who could have handled practically anything, now stood cowering before a twenty-two-student Algebra class. He was just about to give up and go hide in the shadows of behind the desk when a teacher's head appeared in the doorway.

"Hey! I ---"

She stopped when she saw that the teacher was not who she expected.

"Oh, I'm sorry." She paused. "You must be the substitute." She smiled brightly. "I'm the teacher just across the hall. If you need me, just holler."

She had begun to leave when Aragorn abruptly jumped and hurried to the hallway.

"Actually, I uhh, do need some help." He heaved a sigh. "I'm uhh, er, quite new to this..."

He trailed off, but the teacher smiled understandingly. "Oh, I know. You're new to being a sub, right?" She laughed lightly. "It's all right. We all get nervous our first teaching times."

He laughed appreciatively. "That's exactly it." He sighed. "I'm not fit for the job, that's what I've learned."

She laughed again, something that seemed to fit her personality quite well. "Don't worry. Just follow the teacher's instructions; they should be on the desk. If they give you any trouble, remember," she pointed to her classroom, "I'm just across the hall." She smiled again. "I'm Danae. Danae Walker, by the way."

She offered him her hand for him to shake, but Aragorn was baffled. What was he supposed to do with a hand?

He swallowed before smiling and taking her hand and giving it a gentle kiss.

"It's my pleasure, Danae."

She stood shocked for a moment before chuckling and giving him a laughing look. She turned to go back to her classroom and called over her shoulder, "Good luck."

He swallowed and took a deep breath before turning back to the classroom.

"I'll need it."

(...pretend there's a break here...)

"That's it," Pippin announced as the five former Middle Earth residents stood looking awkward in the empty hall.

"What's it?" Legolas asked, his voice closer to a grumble.

Merry nodded in agreement. "We're outta here."

Before anyone else could reply, the two former mischief-making hobbits darted to a door that led to the outside. There was a loud crack as they ricocheted off the metal door and flew four feet into the air before landing on the amazingly hard stone floor.

"What was that for?"

Pippin glared at the metal door, rubbing his gluteus maximus.

Legolas rolled his eyes. "Limitations. We can't leave, remember?"

"What do we do here, anyway?" Sam asked, frantically searching the barren hallway for any hint of solace.

"I know! I know!"

Pippin began jumping up and down eagerly with his hand raised in the air.

"What?" Legolas asked dryly.

"It's a school, right? So we swim around in a bunch of water!"

They were all silent, staring at Pippin in disbelief until Merry said politely, "Be quiet."

Pippin went to sulk in a corner of the hall and put on some large headphones.

"Now then, where were we?" Legolas asked.

"We were ---"

Frodo was interrupted when Pippin suddenly erupted in a loud, singing, and most definitely tone-deaf voice:

"All by myself, don't wanna be all by ---"

Legolas snarled and threw a sock at him, with perfect aim as usual. It muffled Pippin's voice when it lodged in his mouth.

"Put a sock in it," Legolas said, chortling at his sour pun.

"Umm...okay," Frodo said slowly, inching away from both of them.

Sam meanwhile was leaning closer to Pippin's headphones.

"Aren't you supposed to be singing Greenday anyway? It's what your shirt says." He shrugged when Frodo gave him a weird look. "I like Greenday."

"You're right!" Pippin exclaimed once he had popped the sock out of his moth. With a glare at Legolas, Pippin pulled a CD out of his back pocket and stuck it in the CD player. He had begun to sing when Legolas picked him up angrily and threw him into a room of calculus students.

An hour later, Pippin emerged a new hobbit...

(...pretend there's a break here...)

"Here you go," the old man said happily. "You can have my job. The bathrooms are right over there."

Gimli watched the janitor walk away while he now held a bucket of soapy water and a mop. He sighed and walked over to the bathroom.

His disappearing beard was bad enough, and then the bright orange outfit. Now, it was cleaning the most disgusting place he had ever seen in his life. And he had seen a lot.

He grumbled when he saw himself in the mirror and turned to the stalls. That was when he noticed something strange about one of the toilets. It wasn't a plain, stained white as the others. It was shining gold. And there were strange markings around it that couldn't have been graffiti.

He sighed. Things just got a little bit weirder.

A/N: Thanks to all the reviewers! I promise, I will do shout-outs, but right now, I'm just trying to upload really fast! Thanks again! Review review review! (don't ask about the title...hehe...)