Okay, it's official. We have tried and tried and tried, but we just cannot keep a schedule. Therefore, if at all possible, we will post on the days noted in our profile, but we promise nothing, because we are tired of breaking promises and disappointing readers. It makes me, for one, feel like a louse. I know "Meggie," and I know that she was teasing, but it HAS been almost a month, and I'm ashamed, and I'm sorry. I don't know what to do about it because both my schedule and Phe-chan's are jam-packed. At any rate, we will continue to do our best. We hope you enjoy this chapter; it is longer than some of our previous ones, if that counts for anything. -EHAB

Chapter Four: Mind Games

The building was quite normal, if a little old. It had grayish walls and a red sign that read 'The Place To Be: Good food and coffee'. The thing that seemed to catch Orlando's eye was the door. It had once been painted red to match the sign, but had since been decorated by various artists who seemed to have a variety of interests. With a smile, Orlando Turner stepped inside. And out of all reality, it seemed.

"Onh-honh-honh! Vat eez zeece? Eez it a sane one?! I vant to suck your sanity!" cried a voice from the corner as he entered. Orlando backed quickly away from the strange boy as he attempted to pounce.

"AHHH!" the boy screamed, as if in great pain. "Zere eez no sanity! No sanity I zaee!" The strange thing ran back to the shadows.

Orlando, being more than a little disturbed by this confrontation, moved cautiously to a small empty booth. He pulled a menu to himself and began to look over. He had only enough to notice that several of the specials were a bit... odd... before a middle-aged man with reddish hair and piercing green eyes approached his table. Orlando, remembering his encounter at the door, eyed him warily.

"No one sits alone at The Place," the man said in an almost irritable tone. "Come and join us."

He pointed behind himself to the largest table in the room, a round corner booth at the front of the restaurant, up a short flight of steps leading to the second floor.

"No offense," Orlando said haltingly, "but, uh, who are you?"

"Oh, that. I'm Elmo, one of the Regulars. Two of my nieces work here. They're called Sivi and Sarah, but neither of them is working today. Are you coming?"

"Um, alright," Orlando shrugged.

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Sivi made note of the tall, fairly attractive stranger her uncle had brought to join them. Fairly attractive; she was a daughter of the Valar and married to an Elven-king, and mortal Men had long ago ceased to impress her. She only really noticed him at all because there was a familiarity about him. She knew him, she was sure.

Introductions flashed around the table like sun-shafts, and as her name was brought to his attention and his distinctive eyes flickered to linger on her, Sivi was struck was a sudden intuitive foresight - a gift from her uncle Mandos, no doubt. She sat up straighter and instinctively glanced around for Andrea. The tiny redhead was nowhere in sight. For now, that was a good thing. It gave Sivi a moment to consider what she would do, and how much she would tell Andrea, when the time came.

Orlando was making mental notes. 'Sarah: sassy redhead; big brown eyes; perfect skin, but a bit pale; nice figure; tell Craig. 'Christina: pretty but very dangerous; no nonsense, streetwise, droll; straw-colored hair; HUGE blue eyes; tall and thin. 'Jeremie: looks like Will Smith's younger brother; always smiling; very friendly; nice hat. 'Elmo: must have had cruel parents; bears no resemblance to the toy; kind of gruff; auburn hair; greenish eyes; probably about thirty-five to forty; bushy beard; do not cross. 'Megan: LONG blonde hair; blue eyes; smart; practical. 'Erin: gold hair; turquoise (?!) eyes; quiet; reserved and dignified; protective of wife, Sivi -'

Orlando's mental notebook snapped shut with a clap as he looked at the girl Jeremie was calling 'See-vee.' She had long, honey-coloured hair, eyes the colour of a rainy day, and a tall, well-built frame. She stared at him for the longest fraction of a second, a light of profound discovery in those rain-hued eyes, and he felt the curtain swing back for an instant.

"Vardamiriel," he muttered incoherently.

"What?" asked Jeremie pleasantly.

"Nothing," Orlando answered. He didn't even know what the word meant, but he knew it must mean something, for Sivi had obviously heard him say it, and her brows had risen considerably.

Just then, a small redhead with sad brown eyes came up to the table and smiled. At least, Orlando thought, it was meant to be a smile, but it was too melancholy to be really happy.

"Hey, guys," she said. "Your orders are about to come up. Sorry they're so late; Louie got into the eggs again, and we had to bring him round."

"A dog?" Orlando frowned disapprovingly.

"No," the girl said, looking at him as though he had just said something very weird, "no, no dog."

"Louie's the chef," Christina said coolly. "Or the assistant chef, anyway. He's not supposed to have albumin, but he can't get enough of the stuff. Makes him about as SICK as a dog, but he's no dog. Quinn should have been watching him."

"Quinn's off today," the girl said with a heavy sigh.

"I thought she was only off when he was off," Sarah commented.

"Schedules got skewed," the girl explained tiredly.

"What's albumin?" Orlando asked uncomfortably.

"Protein substance found in egg whites, milk, blood, plasma, etc," Megan told him.

"Who's he?" the girl asked. "Have I met him before?"

"My name's Orlando Turner. You've probably seen me - I played in Lord of the Rings."

"I didn't go to see that," the girl said almost coldly.

"Should have," Christina said. "Orlando played Legolas."

This information apparently had some significance, for the girl's expression darkened.

"I try," muttered Christina.

"I'm Andrea," the girl said softly, extending her hand.

"Pleased to meet you," Orlando said fervently, taking her wrist.

Andrea hissed through her teeth in pain. Orlando let go and stared at her arm.

"How did you get those horrible burns?" he asked in shock; the girl's arm was scored by a twisting, radiating pattern of blistered, shimmering flesh.

Andrea turned to Sivi, jerking her long sleeve down over her arm again.

"Did you want something else to drink?"

"Klah, yes, please," Sivi said immediately, though her glass was already full of orange juice.

"Right," Andrea said quickly, and nervously flicked a strand of hair behind her left ear before turning and flitting away.

"She's a little short for an Elf," Orlando commented after a moment's silence.

"That's the running joke," Elmo replied with a wry smile.

"I thought she hadn't seen the films," Orlando added.

"She hasn't," Erin told him.

"Then why the ears?"

There was a long silence.

"She didn't choose them," Erin said very quietly.

"Y'see, Orlando," began Jeremie, "nobody at The Place is normal."

"I'm beginning TO see," Orlando laughed.

"Everybody has something peculiar, something weird about them. The thing is, they can tell the other Regulars, and they always do. Everyone in here knows just about everything about everyone else."

"Okay," Orlando said cautiously. "This is a lead-in," he said. "You guys are trying to tell me what's strange about that Andrea girl."

"Actually," Jeremie, removing his hat and fiddling with it, "we're trying to tell you what's strange about our whole group."

Orlando was confused, but then he saw Jeremie's ears.

"You a fan, too?" he laughed, a little nervously.

"You tell me," Jeremie smiled.

Gingerly, Orlando reached over and tugged Jeremie's right ear. Not only did it not come off, but it was warm and living and definitely not foam. There was no seam, either.

"That's - that's great," Orlando half-laughed, half-gasped. "How do you do that?"

"Do what?" Christina snapped in a sudden burst of temper. "They're ears; they sit there, they grow, they collect wax, they're annoyingly pointed; what's the problem?"

"The annoyingly pointed part," Orlando said firmly.

"Lost a fight with a magic sparkly. Any other questions?" Christina asked hatefully.

"Calm down," Elmo said softly.

"Yes, sir," said Christina in a surprisingly submissive tone of voice.

"I was talking to him, but it would do you good, too," Elmo told her with a smile.

"So," Megan spoke up cheerily, "what's weird about you?"

"Me?" Orlando said, startled.

"Yeah, you," Sarah grinned. "You can't be a Regular here if you aren't weird."

Orlando started to protest that he didn't WANT to be a Regular here and was leaving the country soon, anyway, but stopped.

"Well..." he said slowly. "I do knife my alarm clock every morning."

There was a sudden loud crash behind him, and he jumped. Turning, he was faced with Andrea's wide-eyed stare. On the floor were shards of a shattered clay mug and a puddle of what looked like coffee or hot chocolate. The diminutive waitress was standing very still, quivering. Of a sudden, she bolted toward the back of the restaurant.

"I didn't think it was that..." Orlando trailed off as he saw the looks on the others' faces. "...weird."

Only Sivi and Elmo didn't look surprised. Megan picked up on that.

"You knew, didn't you?" she asked of Sivi.

"Come on. What DON'T Sivi and Elmo know ahead of time?" Christina said pointedly.

"Very little," Sarah agreed. "I'm not concerned so much with seeing; I don't do very much of the prophecy/foresight stuff, but they do, and so did Joseph."

Orlando stared at them all. What were they TALKING about?

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"He's here," Andrea whispered to herself, sounding more like the Squee than she had for the past three years. "It has to be him, I know it." Her slim fingers rubbed at the stone of the wedding ring as her brain tried to process information.

"He looks almost exactly the same, and laughs the same, and got that worried look the same and... and the clocks. He knifes alarm clocks too." Every word she spoke seemed to further her confidence that the stranger was, in fact, Legolas. After all this time, he had finally found his way back to her...

"So WHAT am I hiding here for?!" she practically shouted at herself as she jumped up and ran back to her pretty one.

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Andrea darted back into The Place's main room, around a few tables, past a fellow waitress, up the stairs, and into the corner where her friends all sat. She slipped on the klah she had spilled earlier and landed in the lap of the very confused and bewildered Orlando. That was where she had been aiming to land anyway (the klah was probably the only reason she didn't miss). She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him hard. Sivi buried her face in her knuckles. How like Andrea to put only positive clues together. How like her not to see...

Orlando grabbed the girl's frail shoulders and pushed her roughly back off of himself. It took only a moment under his daunting glare for Andrea to at last put the final piece into the puzzle. Her eyes swam with shocked and bitter tears.

"Andrea, don't!" Sivi commanded sharply.

Heedless, the poor girl flung herself away from Orlando and rushed headlong out of The Place. Sivi and Gil-galad dove after her.