Author's Note: Short chapter, I know, don't bite my head off about it.

Chapter Sixteen

Advanced Oldness

DINNER TABLE

Mary Ellen stared at Sara and Hiei, who were whispering to each other. "Oooooh…ist das ihr freund?"

Sara smiled. "Ja. He's my boyfriend."

Hiei smiled. "We're married."

"Oooh."

Hiei and Sara went back to talking. Faythe looked at them. "What are two talking about?"

"Nothing," they both said quickly.

"Right. You're going to have to tell me later, Sara."

"Since when are you married?" Jake asked.

Sara hit him. "We've always been married. Haven't we, Hiei?"

Hiei nodded. "Yeah. We've always been married."

Jake looked at them scrutinizingly, but shrugged after he didn't see anything wrong with their expressions. "Whatever." He took a bite of Anja's cooking. "Anja, this is fabulous! What is it?"

"Duesseldorfer."

Seeing as how Jake didn't understand, he let it slide. "You'll have to give me the recipe."

Sara translated and Anja smiled and nodded. "Ja." For dessert, they had Baumkuchen.

AFTER DINNER

Anja and the girls were doing dishes. Anja smiled at them. "Your boyfriend. Er ist adorable."

"Which one?"

"Both." Sara laughed and turned to Faythe.

"She says Hiei and Aragorn are cute. Isn't that sweet of her?"

Faythe nodded. "But A's not my boyfriend anymore. Remember when we got married in France?"

"Of course I remember that!" Sara said. She sighed. "How could anyone forget that day?"

Anja smiled at Faythe. "You married tall man, ja? Good! He's…cute," she said in choppy English. She turned to Sara. "I do good, ja?"

Sara nodded. "Ja." Faythe went back to drying dishes and Sara whispered to Anja, "He's old."

Anja gasped and turned to her. "How old?"

Sara thought for a moment. "He suffers from…Advanced Oldness!"

Anja laughed. "Funny Sara." She turned to Faythe, who was glaring at Sara. "How old Aragog?"

Faythe laughed and stopped glaring. "He's Aragorn, and he's actually 93 year old."

Anja gasped. "93! Why not he dead?"

Faythe thought about the best way to respond. Finally, she said, "It's hard to explain."

So Sara explained for her. She translated Aragorn's lineage into German and explained it as simply as she could so Anja would understand. Anja was bright, though, and she picked up on what Sara was trying to say right away.

"Ja! Ja! So, the Aragorn ist Dunedàin? Live long life!" Anja exclaimed with a look of bliss that only comes from learning something on her face.

Faythe nodded. "Exactly." She felt a pain in her abdomen. The twins were kicking. "I'm going to go lay down, Sara," she said. "I'm not feeling well, and it's been a long day."

Sara smiled at her. "Of course. Go right ahead. We'll finish up here."

When Faythe was gone, Anja turned to Sara and asked, "So how old Faythe?"

Sara thought about it. "I don't know."