A/N – I've searched the entire site and I can't find anything that says you can't respond to reviews in your chapters. It just says that you can't use an entire chapter for anything other than the actual story. So here are my responses from chapters 4 thru 9. Also, for those who previously read this fanfic, I made some changes to the dialogue between Legolas and Ariedel in this chapter that I think works a lot better than before. I've also added some detail about the aliens, Gateway and everything involved, in this chapter to better explain things that will be important in the sequel.

Brownie24 – (ch 4) Thanks. I'm glad you're still reading. (ch 6) Well, you obviously figured out by now that Legolas did all the work. What a great elf, huh? (ch 7) Of course I could have sent other elves with Legolas, but then he never would have gotten caught by the aliens, hehe. (ch 8) I think I might have said it in a response to a review somewhere, but Legolas never really gets hurt in the movies – not sure about the books because I haven't read them yet – So I decided to really, really hurt him.

Cathy – Thanks. I'm glad you reading it again. Some of the changes I made were pretty subtle. As I mentioned in my note above, this chapter has more meaningful dialogue that hits home a lot more than how I had it before. I've got a lot of the sequel already started, but I'm not going to post it until I'm finished with the rewrite of this one. Keep reading. I've got some real surprises coming up in the sequel.

Crissie Dowie – Good, keep reading. I'm spitting out the chapters as quickly as possible because I really want to get the sequel out there.

Linilya Elf – Glad you're re-reading this because I have added a lot of important details, especially in this chapter. And I have some surprises in store for the sequel. Some good, some bad. That's all I'm going to say…hehehe.

Ivana – Thanks. Keep reading and reviewing.

Frodo01228 – (ch 8) Okay, okay. Here's more! (ch 9) You'll get all your answers in this chapter. By the way, Avalon is the planet where she's from. There are Earth colonies all over the galaxy and many settled in Avalon. She was born there. You'll get more detail on that in the sequel.

Okay, now on with it…

Chapter 10 – Gateway's Guests
Gateway Station – Three days later
(Legolas's POV)

I opened my eyes and discovered the strange room that I was in had not been a dream. I was still there. And my pain was still there. I looked around and my eyes fell upon Ariedel sitting beside the bed, her head resting near my left hand, her eyes closed. I raised my hand, noting the hard bandage I had observed previously and reached to touch Ariedel's hair with my exposed fingers.

She stirred briefly before coming fully awake. "Legolas, are you all right? Are you in pain?" The sudden look of pity on her face made my stomach queasy.

My physical pain was severe, but I felt a need to keep my weakness to myself. I did not want to be treated as an invalid. I was an Elf. An Elf does not break. "I am fine," I replied a little too harshly than I had wanted to sound. But the pain in my head impaired my judgment.

Ariedel stood up. "No, you're not fine. I'll ask the nurse to give you something to help you sleep. You need to rest so you can heal."

For some reason she felt it important that I remain unconscious. "Nay, I cannot heal myself if I sleep. I need to remain conscious."

"But you're tired. I can see it in your eyes." She brushed her fingers across my brow.

Now that I was far more coherent than the last time I had awoken in this strange place, I felt a sense of mistrust surrounding Ariedel. She was still holding back information from me. She had yet to explain where I was and how I had gotten here. I drew away from her touch, unable to stand the pity I saw on her face. "I have slept long enough."

She frowned at my action. "You need medicine to block the pain. Your injuries are serious. You won't be able to function with that kind of pain."

"I will deal with the pain." I gave her a stern look, knowing that no amount of herbs in Middle Earth could take away my pain or the ability to control the dreams of the aliens that continued to haunt me. "Do not allow them to give me anything more," I said with all seriousness. But she looked skeptically at me. Not having had the opportunity to observe myself in a mirror, I wondered what I looked like. "How bad do I look? It cannot be that bad."

Her eyes told me what I needed to know without her saying anything at all. Then she walked over to something on the wall and returned carrying a mirror. She held it out to me and I reached for it.

It took me a moment to mentally prepare myself before raising the mirror up to my face. If I did not know better, I would have thought the image of an Orc had been placed on the surface of the mirror. My face was hideous…scarred and bruised. Ariedel was watching my reaction, so I tried to appear unfazed as I quickly lowered the mirror. "I have had worse."

"Who are you trying to kid, Legolas? You have not."

I frowned at her. "You know nothing about me," I snapped unintentionally, but I did not apologize for it.

She seemed unaffected by my outburst. "You seriously don't know how bad it was when I brought you here. They had to replace muscle and skin in your left shoulder and left leg. I know it bothers you so why do you act like it doesn't?"

I ignored her question. "What magic is capable of replacing flesh and muscle to my injuries? Not even I can heal myself so extensively."

"Legolas, there's a lot you wouldn't understand in my world."

"In your world? What do you mean by such a statement? Am I not back in Gondor?"

"No," she replied rather unsurely. "Definitely not in Gondor."

"What is this place then?"

And for the next few minutes Ariedel went on to tell me everything about the aliens and where she came from and that we were no longer in Middle Earth. The more she told me, the more suspicious I became. When she finished, I could not even look at her. "And you say you are not Ariedel Draconir?" I asked skeptically, keeping my eyes focused on my hands resting on my lap.

"No."

"That the real Ariedel is in fact also here in this world of yours because she was brought here when you were sent to Middle Earth…to physically replace her."

"Yes."

"How is it possible that her own father did not recognize that he looked upon you and not his true daughter?"

"It's hard to explain the mechanics of transmutation. I don't really understand it myself. All I know is that a person is sent to a designated location to replace someone already there. The person being replaced is transported to the transmutation platform here on the station. Everyone thinks the new person is the old person, as if the switch never happened. Things like paintings are even altered."

"Paintings?"

"It's a very complicated device. I don't know how else to explain it."

"If you are here, then how can the real Ariedel also be here?"

"Oh, we didn't exactly leave Middle Earth the way I originally came. There's another way called translocation. It's a device used to go places quickly, especially if the places are too far to go by ship. Even in hyperspace, it would take too long."

This tale of hers was becoming more and more outrageous. Even though I truly had no idea what she spoke of, I relayed my questions as they came to me. "Why did you not use this other device instead of taking the real Ariedel's place?"

She sighed heavily. "The way it was supposed to happen was that I was to replace someone in the vicinity of the alien. It wasn't supposed to be Ariedel. It was someone who had knowledge of the area and who had the ability to make choices without interference from anyone else. As Ariedel I couldn't come and go as I pleased. That's why I had to run away from the king of Anfalas around the time you found me."

"So you could have come to replace me, for instance?" I was not sure why the idea had even come to me when I did not believe much of what she explained. For all I knew we were in Minas Tirith, in a room I had never seen before, that contained some items that could be explained as those used by wizards.

"No, I don't think the intended subject was an Elf."

"Perhaps Aragorn or even Gimli then."

"Legolas, I don't know who it was supposed to be."

I finally looked up at her with a frown, wondering why she continued to fabricate this elaborate story. Why could she not tell me the truth? "How do I go back?" I asked, hoping that this would elicit some truth from her lips.

"Well, that's a little difficult."

"Why is it difficult?"

"Because everyone thinks you're dead."

I tried to understand how this woman could have been so deceitful and untruthful when she knew I loved her more than anything. Back in Lothlorien, when I first became aware of the creatures, I had asked her if there was anything else she was keeping from me. She had said there was not. So if there was truth to her story now then it meant she had lied to me again in Lothlorien. And now she told me she was not Ariedel, that she was someone named Crystal Schuyler, someone not from Middle Earth, but from a distant star. And that we were on a floating structure that circled another star. These things sounded strange and impossible. In truth I had seen many strange things in Middle Earth that I did not profess to understand. Many wizards had powerful magic and much of what Ariedel spoke of sounded like magic. But to pretend to be someone else? And from another star? This was unforgivable. What reason could she possibly have to lie this way?

She sighed and had that pitied look on her face again. "None of this was supposed to happen, Legolas. No one was supposed to get hurt. Especially not you."

When she reached to touch my face, I moved away from her again. "So what you are saying is that we were never supposed to meet. That all we have been through together was never supposed to happen."

Ariedel retracted her hand. "That's not what I'm saying."

"I question your love for me. Is that also a fabrication for my benefit?"

"You think I'm faking my love for you?"

"Perhaps you are. Everything else that concerns you seems to be a pretence."

"You stubborn, Elf. I told you there are things you wouldn't understand. If I had told you any of this awhile back, you would have thought I was a lunatic and had me committed."

"I thought that about you prior to knowing any of this!" Had it been any other time, we probably would have laughed at my comment. But I did not say it in jest and she knew it. Perhaps my words had been far too harsh and I could not understand why I continued in the untrusting tone I adapted to. "You must think me a simpleton. I have seen magic and I have seen unexplained wonders. You forget that I am over two thousand years old compared to your measly, what? Twenty-five? All I had asked from you was for the truth, regardless of whether you thought I could take it or not. Yet you continued to withhold it from me until now? Everything about you is a lie! I do not know how I can believe anything you say."

"I told you my reasons for lying to you and I'm sticking to it. You're not being very fair to me. I don't think I need to apologize for keeping the truth from you. My job prevents me from speaking of my missions to anyone, especially to anyone on a planet that has no knowledge of space travel."

"Am I just anyone then?"

She blinked several times and I knew she was trying to think of something insightful to respond with. "No, Legolas. You are more than just anyone."

"What would your plans have been if in fact you managed to complete your mission? Would you have left and allowed the real Ariedel to return to Middle Earth after you had already fallen in love with me? Would you have allowed her to continue where you left off…as my wife?"

She raised her hand to her temple and rubbed it. "I…I didn't exactly think that far ahead. I mean, I thought I was stranded…"

"Stranded? So you truly never had any desire to remain in Middle Earth? Or with me?"

"Legolas, will you please just stop? I don't have all the answers. I was confused and scared and…and all I had was you at the time."

"To be used at your convenience."

"No! I told you I didn't want to fall in love with you! I told you it hurt too much because I knew that there was always a slight chance that someone would come looking for me, that I would eventually have to leave you and the thought made me sick! Well, it's too late now because I love you and nothing is going to change that."

Was it the truth or was it a lie? I did not know what to believe any longer. "You should have just left me to die in that cavern!" The left side of my head began to throb painfully and I closed my eyes to the agony.

"Please let me get the nurse so she can replenish your pain medication."

"Nay, I do not want anything! All I want is to get home!"

"Legolas, you're battered and broken and undoubtedly in a lot of pain. You wouldn't last an hour without the meds they're giving you."

I looked down at the needle in my right arm and the tubing attached to it, feeding potions into my veins. Holding my breath, I pulled the needle out in one swift motion, clenching my teeth to the pain. I glared up at Ariedel in defiance. "Watch me!"

She shook her head sadly at me and turned to walk to the wall. It opened to let her out before closing again.

I stared for a long time at the wall she disappeared through, my brows furrowed together in anger. Perhaps there were things I did not understand, but I planned to find these things out the moment I was healed. I planned to find out plenty, including how much she really loved me. But not until after I had healed enough to move around with less pain. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. My senses became alert and I mentally traced a path through my system, finding my injuries and determining the severity of them before attempting to drift into a deep healing reverie.

Gateway Station
(Ariedel's POV)

I sat in the darkness. The only light source came from the single purple bulb hanging in the ceiling of the chamber on the other side of the thick Plexiglas. This was not a place I normally visited on the space station. But I was in a foul mood and I didn't want to run into anyone I knew on my way to the apartment I maintained when I was at Gateway. I had heard about this chamber and for reasons unknown, my feet dragged me through the hatch several hours ago. It wasn't a restricted zone, nor was it guarded in any way except by video, so I had no trouble getting in. The door simply cycled open when I had approached it.

So I sat there, wiping at the tears that kept sliding down my cheeks after the confrontation with Legolas. I had been unprepared for his suspicious reaction to the truth about me and had been unprepared to answer some of his questions, which he had every right to ask. I had known he would be upset when he found out I had lied about a bunch of things and I responded truthfully, no longer thinking it necessary to keep the truth from him. But for him to think I didn't love him, in spite of everything, it was just too much. I loved him with all my heart, more than I had ever loved anyone else in my life. Yet he doubted it and I had no idea how to rectify the situation.

I also realized that it could be the drugs talking. Warner might have been right about the meds poisoning Legolas's system. Maybe they made him irritable and he was better off without them. But could Elves really heal themselves? Maybe small cuts and bruises, but not the injuries he had sustained. It was a miracle he had still been alive when I found him.

I looked up and stared through the Plexiglas. It was in there somewhere. The queen they had extracted from Legolas. I seriously wondered why Warner decided to keep her. Was he planning to hand her over to Weyland-Yutani or did he have something else in mind? I shook my head. Idiots! After all that happened in the past, they still didn't understand what they were messing with.

This chamber and several others on Gateway Station had been built by Weyland-Yutani, better known as The Company, to house living aliens to be used in their research. I knew there was a need to understand these aliens better, which also led to better methods of destroying them. There was interest in their acid blood and how they produced it and how they were impervious to it. Granted, there were breakthroughs in medicine because of these aliens and cures for so many incurable diseases. But I just couldn't understand the need to keep them alive. Couldn't The Company do their research on dead specimens?

I knew of at least two people that shared my views. One of them was my brother Seth, who was retired from the bug hunting teams hired by Lifesource. The founders of Lifesource owned the transmutation and translocation platforms that had been functioning on Gateway Station for the last ten years. I had also been employed by them for awhile, but only recently joined the teams. Seth had been on the teams since the very beginning. He had even been a part of the construction of the Lifesource platforms. When Seth had gone on missions, he always got the job done and made sure he didn't leave until every last alien was dead.

The other person who shared my views was General James Burbank, President of Lifesource and retired from the United Systems Colonial Marines (USCM). He always said 'a good alien was a dead one'. He was a great mentor and despite his gruff and tough disposition, I grew to love him like a father. When Seth retired from the teams to be with his family, Burbank turned to me. He hyped me up, saying that killing the aliens was a piece of cake with the right weapons and equipment. Burbank even went with me on my first mission and I was scared to death. But killing my first alien had given me such a rush, like no drug could ever have. The thrill of hunting and finding it from a safe distance, the thrill of targeting it with my weapon, the thrill of pulling the trigger. One less alien to threaten the lives of the human race. Despite the rush, no amount of counseling could ever make the nightmares go away.

These creatures were dangerous and far more intelligent than they led anyone to believe. Unexpected accidents occurred throughout the early years, when they had first been discovered. There had been attempts to domesticate the creatures. Some military genius thought he could bend them to his will and use them as some special force. And, of course, he was killed by one of the aliens he had tried to domesticate. Even after that, there were probably others out there still trying.

There had also been rumors of an attempt at cloning an impregnated host. The Company had gone to Fiorina "Fury" 161, an outer-veil mineral ore refinery being used as a correctional facility, where an emergency escape shuttle from a Class A military ship named The Sulaco had crashed. The only survivor of an entire USCM team was Ellen Ripley. She soon discovered that she carried the embryo of an alien queen within her. When she realized that The Company wanted the queen, Ripley jumped into a pit of lava, killing herself and the alien queen in the process. It had all been in vain. The Company was able to retrieve her DNA from the blood sample taken by the resident medic on Fury. But no one survived to tell the tale of whether a clone of an impregnated Ripley had ever been created.

I stood up and slowly walked toward the Plexiglas. As I gazed through the clear plastic wall, I tried to find the form of the juvenile queen. They had been feeding her large pigs since she had been extracted and knowing how quickly the creatures grew, I expected her to be the size of a full grown drone by now.

The walls were covered in the resin material the aliens used to fabricate their hives. The queen had been busy. It already looked like the interior of a cave. But I saw nothing else. Maybe they had moved her to another chamber elsewhere on the station.

I started to turn around and caught a movement from the corner of my eye. As I turned back and focused on the spot, I began to pick out the details. Small skeletal arms that ended in claws, two fingers longer than the others, a sloping back like a t-rex ending in a long tail. Her head was still small, but there was no mistaking the elongated crest distinctive of a queen.

She must have sensed me staring at her and slowly crawled toward the Plexiglas. Her hands came up to touch the barrier between us. I watched as her mouth opened in an agitated hiss. I couldn't hear it through the four inch thick plastic, but I knew the sound well. She had no eyes, as was typical of the species. I often wondered how they were able to see. They obviously had other senses to detect their prey.

When she turned her head to the side, my eyes widened in shock at what I saw. Maybe the shadows were playing tricks on me. I closed my eyes and shook my head. But when I looked again, there was no mistaking it. She had tiny black, pointed ears. A trait passed on by the Elf she had occupied for a short time. Depending on what species the embryo occupied, the resulting alien often had some of the host's qualities. Be it four-legged or bipedal. But never anything so detailed as ears. And if Legolas had unintentionally given her pointed ears, what other special trait had the Elf unknowingly passed on to this alien queenling?

The young queen backed away and then suddenly slammed her head into the Plexiglas, startling me. She slammed into the barrier again, her mouth open in another angry hiss. She wanted out and I had a distinct feeling that she would eventually get her way.

Gateway Station
(Legolas's POV)

My own cry of horror woke me and I found myself still lying in the bed I had found myself in earlier. I instinctly glanced around the room, looking for any signs of an alien threat. There was no one else in the brightly lit room, no shadows for anything to hide in.

I sat up and cringed at the pain in my head. My eyes darted around the room again. I could not shake the feeling that I was not alone. I quickly tossed the covers aside and moved to sit on the edge of the bed. The walls of the room felt as if they were closing in on me, making the space smaller and smaller. I needed to get out.

Remembering the way the nurse had opened compartments in the wall the last time she was in the room, I slid off the bed and walked unsteadily to the wall I knew contained clothing. I laid my hand on a particular place and the wall opened. Inside was a white garment, tunic and leggings in one piece. It was similar to what Ariedel had, only hers had been black.

I pulled off the gown covering me and looked down at myself. Beside the bandage covering my shoulder and arm, there was also a bandage over the center of my chest. I did not recall receiving any injuries on my chest besides the alien blood splatterings, which had not amounted to much damage. When I pulled the bandage off, I found a thin scar running down the center of my chest and wondered what had happened?

And then I felt the presence again. My eyes scanned the room instinctly, but there was nothing. Then came the voice…but it did not speak words. My first thought was of Lady Galadriel. I called out to her, but she did not respond. It was not the Lady of Lothlorien. It was…something else…calling to me.

I proceeded to slip into the strange garment and after a few moments figured out how to close the front of it by drawing a metallic clasp upward. Another glance into the wall compartment revealed a pair of thick-soled boots.

Minutes later, I walked to the wall where everyone came and went through and watched it automatically slide open upon my approach. The corridor beyond the doorway was empty. Something guided me to the left and I proceeded carefully, having to occasionally lean on the wall for support.

When I came to an intersection of corridors, I glanced down each of them. I had no idea where I was going or why I had thought it necessary to leave the sanctity of my room.

The voice called again and I found myself turning to the right.

Up ahead two men were walking in my direction. They were conversing casually with each other. When they saw me, they gave me strange looks, but continued on. What was the matter with them, had they never seen an Elf before?

There was a doorway at the end of the corridor, just beyond another intersection. The need to see what was on the other side overwhelmed me. But my senses screamed danger. While my better judgment told me to turn around and go back, my feet moved me forward as if they had a will of their own.

Is anybody out there? Are you still reading? I'm alittle worried!