Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize. Tolkien does.

Author's Notes: Unbeta'd for now because of exams and such. Wish Mandi and me luck! Sorry this is late. I'll post the next one early because I'm going to be away from the 17-25! And remember to review! Feedback is sought after avidly.

Chapter 13

Finley looked at the laptop Alexander booted up, saw the number of files he pulled up on it. He disappeared for a moment and came back with two binders full or photocopies and hand written notes. Five books were pulled out, marked with yellow post-its and placed before him.

Finley looked across the coffee table at his lover. "You didn't think it might be an idea to tell me about all this before? You didn't think it might interest me just a little?"

Alexander sighed. "I knew it would. That's why I didn't tell you."

"That makes so much sense," Finley said, shaking his head.

"Look, hear me out about this, okay?" Alexander requested.

Finley grimaced and his lips tightened into a thin white line but he nodded. His grey eyes remained intently on his lover and Alexander met the unnerving gaze without flinching.

"When I started having these dreams, whatever they are, it freaked me out a bit but I figured they had to mean something. They felt like they meant something and I've learned not to doubt what my gut tells me," Alexander told him. "I started looking into dream theories and, for the most part it was a bunch of utter crap. The first book I read...It wasn't worth mentioning to you. I didn't finish it, there wasn't any point."

"I kept looking but there was just so much garbage to wade through. I wasn't sure I was going to find anything. I didn't want to tell you I thought there was a reason why both of us were having these weird dreams if there wasn't and it just meant I was going crazy. Then..." Alexander picked up on of the books, a slimmer one, but wide. "Then I hit on something almost by accident."

"A friend of my father's is an archeologist. He doesn't have the world's best reputation. He tends to try to prove things that are a bit outrageous. Most of the time he manages to convince a few people, sometimes he fails miserably and once in a while he does something brilliant. This one is a working theory right now, this is his first publication on it, but it isn't a miserable failure."

"He always sends a copy of his latest work to me as well as my father. He knows it interests me somewhat," Alexander flipped open the thin book and handed it to Finley. "This...I don't know, it just struck a chord in me."

Finley looked down at the book, eyes focussing on a rough sketch that took up one page. A seven story city lay before him, backed into a mountain. It rose before him, gleaming white in the morning sun, strong, merry laughter floating on the summer breeze with the scent of wild flowers as muscle shifted, began to race beneath him and they urged their mounts into a gallop, wind racing through his hair...

"Fin?"

Finley blinked, focussed on Alexander in front of him. He realized that he had dropped the book and that Alexander had shoved the files aside to sit directly in front of him on the coffee table. He was holding his hand tightly, gripping his shoulder with the other and looking at him in concern.

"Fin? You back with me?" Alexander asked.

Finley jerked, shook his head to clear it. "Think so. Fuck. That was...Fuck!"

"What? Fin, did you see something?" Alexander asked intently.

"I..." Finley felt frozen, trapped and suddenly his heart was racing. "The White City. I...Alex..."

"Shh," Alexander soothed, lifting his hand, beginning to rub Finley's shoulders gently. "Breath, Fin. Nothing to panic about."

Finley tried not to but knew his pulse was still racing too fast. Knew Alexander knew it too, because he dropped a hand to his wrist and bloody well checked, frowning as he peered into Finley's eyes.

Finley forced himself to calm further. "What happened?"

"You looked at the picture and went pale, really pale. Your eyes went glassy. You dropped the book and didn't respond for a few moments. Looked like you were going into shock," Alexander explained. He put a hand to Finley's forehead, ignoring the scowl, relieved to find no temperature. "Okay? Now you want to tell me what happened on your end?"

"Dunno, exactly," Finley tried to concentrate and found he could recall the...flicker, he supposed, with great detail. Not exactly as vividly as that moment, when he felt like it was there, but like a memory, or something.

"I saw that city, I think," Finley began and the name flashed into his mind again. "The White City. I...Minas Tirith. The name of the city is Minas Tirith. It felt like I was there, for a second, riding towards it."

Alexander nodded and picked the book up. He thumbed through the pages absently. "The idea of civilizations existing before we have records of them isn't something new. Even the idea of something like the city of Troy, which keeps going from fact to legend to fact, is debated still. This goes a step further."

"It argues that there may have been civilizations we have almost lost all trace of because they are so old, past Mesopotamia, far past it. It brings up the idea of a sort of dark age, where everything fell into ruin and all the knowledge of what was died out or was turned into myth that is so obscure now it's almost extinct," Alexander paused for a moment.

"Not even that is a new idea but the further step is the suggestion evolution may not be what we think it is. That we didn't evolve from austropithicus or however far back you want to go with that but out lasted that species, as it were. Existed at the same time almost as we are now but in a diminished state," Alexander flipped through the book again, opened to a new page with a picture of what look like bits of hard dirt with faint markings. "It suggests that there were other species around before everything was lost, even, maybe even most advanced than what the ancestors of modern day man would have been. There are certain images they think they've discovered."

"It could be just ancient story books, children's tales, an imaginative artist but the dates they've gotten back on some fragments are frankly impossible given what we assume we know," Alexander continued. "This guy, he doesn't do hoaxes, he just believes in some pretty out there stuff. He's never fabricated anything before. He's gotten it wrong, but not intentionally tried to fool people."

"It's nuts. It's insane. It can't be true but it feels right. Some of the stuff, not the theories, some of that is a bit out there, but the sketches and the fragments they've found...I don't know. It just feels familiar or something," Alexander put the book down, grabbed the binder and opened it. "So I started going through old myths, looking for references or something. Everything I've found, anything I could remotely connect to the idea I pulled up and I've been e-mailing Dr. Jones about it too."

Finley stared at him. Didn't know what the hell to say and then something clicked and he started to laugh. "Dr. Jones?"

Alexander blinked, startled, then chuckled. "Yeah, I know. He hates that, thought about changing his last name before. He's not exactly a good looking man either, says that makes it worse. His first name is Mike."

Finley snorted before gesturing to all the material, a grin still on his face. "How many hours did you put into this?"

"Too many," Alexander replied. "I spent entire nights trying to get to more information that wasn't there half the time."

Finley took one of the books, this one looked to be all about obscure myths. He flipped it over, then looked at Alexander again. "And why didn't you tell me about this? Once you started thinking maybe you had something?"

"I thought I might be going just a little crazy," Alexander admitted. "I didn't want to drag you into it if that was the case and I thought if all this research gets done and it turns out to be nothing then...Well, I knew it would make me feel as if I'd lost my mind completely, I didn't want the same thing to happen to you."

Finley exhaled. "Yeah, I can understand that. Why are you telling me now then?"

"Because I don't think it's crazy anymore," Alexander replied. "Because I'm damn tired of keeping secrets from you and this happens to be a big one. I nearly lost you because of it, and this is what consumed most of my time. I couldn't tell Ben that, I know he'd think I'm nuts but, fuck it, I'd rather be crazy then lose you."

Finley grabbed Alexander's hand, looked him in the eye and told him, "No, you don't."

He let go and Alexander knew enough not to say anything. Finley sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I don't think you're crazy though. It's a better explanation than you gave me for the first out there dream I told you about."

Alexander looked confused for a moment but then smiled faintly. Finley returned it then pressed on. "I need to know more about all this, what you found, what it means, how it fits together and what it has to do with the dreams."

Alexander nodded. "How do you feel about the theory of reincarnation?"

"Will I remember now?" Finley asked.

They were walking together through the white streets of Minas Tirith in the early morning. The city was beginning to come alive around them and Finley kept catching whiffs of baking bread on the air. Bread and cinnamon buns.

"Yes," Faramir replied. "When you wake up again you will remember everything. It might take some time to convince Alexander of all this newfound information though. You will be expanding on what he has discovered quite vastly."

He stopped to greet someone, a soldier, exchanging a few warm words. Finley, it seemed, was invisible to them, but he had already known he would be. This was Faramir's memory, he knew, he was only privy to it.

"Why doesn't Alexander remember?" Finley asked, frowning.

Faramir shrugged. "Aragorn has chosen to do things differently then me, I suppose. He remembers bits and pieces, not like you will. It also may have something to do with our bloodlines. His are more pure from a Numonean perspective but I, technically, possessed more Elven blood, which may have something to do with it. On my father's side I am related to Aragorn and his heritage, though not as purely. On my mother's side there was also Elven blood."

"I didn't think I was actually a descendant," Finley remarked.

"You are not. My bloodline died out years ago. So did the King's. The only bloodline that was considered noble that survived to the present day was of Dol Amroth and you are not part of that either," Faramir told him with a smile. "So do not think about proclaiming Alexander ruler of what was Gondor. He has no claim to it. None do and I am not certain the area that was Dol Amroth still exists."

"Atlantis?" Finley wondered.

"No, the breaking of the continents. Atlantis is a myth as far as I know," Faramir replied. "It does appear that those whose fea was tied to a hroa with more Elven blood remembers more and has an easier time remembering and Numoean blood follows. Those of Rohirrim blood...Well, they were always a stubborn people."

"Does that mean...?" Finley began.

Faramir smiled. "She has never forgotten. She was born with the memories though she had to wait until her mind could process them to understand it all. She is special though, different, and she always will be."

"Wait, she knows?" Finley exclaimed.

"Oh yes." Faramir's smile broadened. "She knows exactly who you are. They both do but only because she has shared her knowledge. As I said, the Rohirrim were always a stubborn lot."

"Why didn't she say anything?" Finley demanded.

"You would have to ask her but I believe she understood, as I did, that you had to be ready for this knowledge and you were not," Faramir told him.

Finley frowned and sighed, knowing better than to argue. "So you'll always be there now."

"I always was there, you simply did not know it or understand it," Faramir corrected. "But, yes, I will be more present from now on."

Finley remained silent for a moment, then looked at him sharply. "Hey...I was ready before, the last dream, I...Why didn't I remember then?"

"That was my doing," Faramir told him, his eyes sparkling with mirth.

Finley stared, "Why?"

"Oh honestly," Faramir sighed. "I have not had to resort to such measures since my children were between youth and adulthood! I am too old to be trying to nudge fools like you two together."

Finley stopped in his tracks, dumbfounded.

Faramir laughed and slung an affectionate arm around Finley's shoulder. "Do not worry; love has stunningly wonderful ways of making fools of us all and, do not forget, have always been something of a romantic."

Finley woke up just before dawn. Hazy light was spilling into the bedroom, Alexander always forgot to close the blinds.

Finley sighed. He really didn't want to move. He was too warm and comfortable.

He closed his eyes and felt the huff of Alexander's breathing on the back of his neck. He smiled. He had missed this, waking up surrounded by the smell and warmth of his lover, Alexander's breath tickling the soft short hairs on the back of his neck. He had missed waking up in his arms, hated the loss all the more when they had slept on opposite sides of the same bed.

He lay there for a while, enjoying the warmth, enjoying how right it felt. He didn't want to think about anything just yet. Later, he knew he would need to process it all, but not just yet.

Eventually, though, nature stopped calling and started screaming and he managed to slip reluctantly out of Alexadner's arms without waking his lover. He wondered what Alexander would say when he told him everything, and he would tell him everything, fill in all the gaping holes that the research he had done hadn't come close to filling.

He decided to shower later but splashed some water on his face in an attempt to clear his head. He could feel the light pulse of a headache thrum behind his eyes and grabbed a couple Advil as well. It wasn't bad, hardly even something to comment on, really, and the over the counter medication chased the dregs of it away.

It was only, he was sure, the consequence of absorbing so much in one night. It was, he thought, not an unfair price.

He didn't feel like going back to bed, as tempting as sinking back into that warmth and into those arms was. He felt almost restless with the need to be outside, to breath. He wondered if that was a side effect too, hoped it wasn't since he lived in the city and liked living in the city as well.

The sun was breaking through the tree branches, rays spilling over the roofs of the neighbours who were, intelligently, still sleeping, when he sat down on one of the dewy wooden deck chairs. He shivered, glad he always wore socks to bed, at least, because the circulation in his feet wasn't so great anymore and they weren't pretty to look at either. He absently thought he should have grabbed a blanket on his way out.

And one fell around his shoulders, accompanied by a pair of warm hands. Finley could almost feel Alexander's concern but smiled as the hands stayed there, still touching him, not falling to the side for fear he would pull away. He wasn't going to pull away.

He looked up, instead, and smiled. "I remember."

LadyBush: Did this clear things up any? No? I'm confused too. Faramir is real at least, according to him he is and he's pretty damn insistant about it. Thank you for reviewing! You were the only one I got last chapter.

Also, there is another flashback chapter coming up soon, just to warn everyone and with that I'll have to update the character lists. ;-)