Title: Top-earth, Bottom-earth, Middle-Earth
Author: FreakyHair
Summary: Arwen and Aragorn broke their troth before he left with the fellowship.Brokenhearted Aragorn gives up the thought of finding love and focuses mainly on his mission to save Middle-Earth from destruction.But a certain blonde demonhunter might come to heal his wounds. Early season 5. Pre- Dracula.
Pairing: Aragorn/Buffy (duh!) and a tiny hint of Buffy/Legolas
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to either Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Lord of the Rings. Don´t sue me, since the only things I have in my wallet is spiderweb.

Chapter 2

Sunnydale

Falling to the ground for the seventh time that night, Buffy started to regret her plan that involved not having a plan and improvise instead.
Willow and Tara were throwing spells all over the place, but it was obvious that it was wearing them out.
Xander did his best to avoid getting killed by the demons and slash with his axe at anything that moved.
Giles was actually doing rather good, but he too was faced with too many demons to be able to win.
Anya were still able to hold her own since she´d had a lot of practice on fighting during her time as a vengance demon, but even to her they were too many.

All in all, things did not look good for the good guys.

Getting up she used Xander´s tactic and started to pound on anything that got too near. She closed up her mind and only focused on the battle, hoping to be able to beat them.

"Oi, slayer, mind me joining the party?", shouted Spike over the masses as he snapped a neck at yet another of the hairy creatures. 'Passions' had ended for the night, so he had decided to check up on what the 'living' was doing right now and had ended up here.
He didn´t know why they were her fighting hordes of hairy buggers, but he didn´t care much about that 'cause -hey- at least he got to kill something. Ever since that bloody chip up his brain he hadn´t been able to do anything but watch TV and annoy the hell out of the humans that were making sure that he didn´t starve to death(which he secretly was thankful for) .

Buffy never answered him, she was too busy with killing and not getting killed. But she sure as hell didn´t mind backup right now, even if it was Spike. Truth was, that with Spike as backup they might have had a chance to settle the score.

Then she suddenly heard a cry, one of pain, and her head whipped around in time to see Xander fall to the ground with a big bloody stain on his shirt.
She lifted her gaze to look at the huge demon standing above her best friend, an evil smile curving it´s lips.
Anger started building up inside of her, taking over all of her common sense and she threw herself at the demon. She punched, she kicked, she wounded it everywhere she could.

Her attack would certainly have killed a smaller and much more weaker demon, but unfortunatly this was no such. He blocked and he parried, hurting her as much, even more, than she hurted him. He was determined not to let her ruin all of his work, now when he was so close to succeding. She would not get her hands on the amulet of Jah-Cyhd.

But even though it had went fairly well in the beginning of the battle, he was sensing that his minions were loosing and getting fewer. But he also sensed that it was time to start the ritual.

Giving Buffy a backhand so hard that it threw her to the ground, he pulled out a knife and slit it across his palm. He then pulled out the amulet and squesed it hard in the wounded hand. As soon as a drop of blood hit the floor, a portal started opening and grew bigger and bigger for every second.

But just as he was going to step through it, something tackled him and he lost his grip on the amulet, that fell into the portal.

And then the portal closed, leaving the upset demons and the merrier Scoobies. With the last power they manged to gather, they finished off the demons, and the leader, overpowered by the humans, ran out from the warehouse.

Deciding to not follow him, Willow fell down on her knees next to Xander.

"Xander, can you hear me?", she asked him, eyes shiny with tears. She didn´t want to loose her best friend, not now, when things were so good in their lives. He meant more to her than to anyone in their small group, because she had known him almost her entire life and had been the only friend for long. Loosing him would be like living in a world of black and white.

Tara looked at her girlfriend with sad eyes. She knew what Willow felt for the man on the ground, and she knew that if she lost him, then the risk was that Willow would never be the same.

Falling down on her knees next to her unmoving girlfriend, she checked Xander´s pulse.
"He´s still alive, but rarely. We have to get him to a hospital fast."
Willow didn´t move.
"Willow, if we don´t get him to a hospital soon, he´s gonna die," Tara told her, this time almost a desperate tone in her voice.

That seemed to wake her up from whatever daze she had, and she quickly used a levitating spell to lift him from the ground. She started walking slowly and steadily with him floating in front of her, before she breaked into a run, leaving the others behind in the warehouse.

At the hospital, the gang were waiting restlessly, all of them worried about Xander.
Anya were franitcally pacing and talking nonsense, whilst Giles only words were "Dear Lord".
Spike was just leaning against a wall with a cigarette in his hand, looking casual and bored.
Tara were sitting next to Willow, who had been awfully quiet and non-responsive.
She seemed to be getting worse every minute that passed, and Tara was getting quite worried about her. It would have been much more easier if she would just scream and yell instead of this dead silence.

Tara still wasn´t really one of the gang, but she had liked Xander a lot. He just seemed to be the relaxed one in the gang, always coming with witty remarks and sarcasm when it was the most needed.
With the stuff they put up with almost every single day, the danger they were in, someone like Xander was really needed.

Like now.

If Xander would have been there, then everyone would be smiling and laughing.
But then again, Xander wasn´t there, since he was the one getting examined and taken cared of by the doctors.

Anya didn´t know why this had happened, or why all of these feelings of grief and worry were taking over her.
Inside those doors was Xander, unconsious and bloody.
She hadn´t seen when he had gotten impaled by the demon, nor did she notice when Buffy, blinded by her anger, had attacked the same demon.
Right then, she had been so concentrated on killing that she didn´t notice anything that had happened to the others. Not until the last demon ran away, and Willow fell down on her knees, not until then, she realised what had happened to her Xander.
She had just been standing there while Willow and Tara looked over Xander, not believing her eyes.
There was the man she loved, lying on the ground half-dead.
Not a word had came out of her mouth then, nor when Willow cast her spell and ran off with him.
But now when she was here, she finally had gotten her voice back and her ramblings never ended.

Spike didn´t know what to feel. He had hated the whelp, that for sure, but he couldn´t help feeling sad as he looked at the others, whom all were dealing in their own way.
All of them looked struck and disheartened, but none of them looked like Red, who seemed to have shut down completely. Glinda glanced at her every once in a while, probably trying to figure her out.
He glanced at a doctor who passed by, wondering why the hell it took so long. What, had someone like fallen asleep in there?

"How is he?"

Giles looked up at the face of Joyce Summers, who had a concerned look over her features. He had called her as soon as they had gotten there, summing up everything in five minutes.
Xander had been one of the first ones to befriend his slayer when she was new in the town, and because of that he had grown used to him, and actually had taken the same fatherly role for him as he had for Buffy.

Now it felt as though his heart would collapse at any time now, if the doctor didn´t come soon.

"We don´t know yet, but it is rather serious."
Joyce nodded understandingly.

She was very concerned about this, Xander was a nice kid, one who she liked very much. He was always polite to her whenever he visited with Buffy. And his joy for food was something that she also liked; Buffy always ate minimum portions of food, and therefore had gotten so thin that she almost looked anorectic.
Of course she liked Willow too, and she loved her daughter, but Xander was something else.
He wasn´t like those guys that Buffy used to hang with back in LA, no, this one was funny and nice, and actually smart, even though it was well hidden.
She didn´t want him to die.

With her was Riley, who looked around around a little, but not wanting to say anything.

She wasn´t there, but that wasn´t his business anymore.
No, he was here for Xander, who had gotten hurt in the battle, fighting bravely. It didn´t matter if she was here or not.

But Joyce seemed to have noticed the same thing as Riley had and looked confused at Giles.
"Where´s Buffy?"
Everyone looked around, but there was no Buffy to be seen.

FLASHBACK

Running at full speed towards the bastard who killed Xander, she hoped to get to him before he got through the portal.
Xander had died because of that thing, and she would not let his sacrifice be in vain.
Just as the demon was going to step through the portal she tackled him with all her might away from it.
To her sucess, he dropped the amulet from the surprise of the impact.

But then suddenly she felt a tugging sensation go through her body.
And everything, the warehouse, the demons, her friends, all of it, was gone.

Middle-Earth

Suddenly a light flashed across the sky.
All three of them turned around.

"What in Arda was that?" Gimli exclaimed bewildered. Lightning during days as cloudless and sunny as these were not a common thing in Middle-Earth.

The others did not answer him as they ran in the direction from where the light had came.

Jumping up on a stone, Legolas spotted something on the ground.
"Aragorn, over there!"
The three cautiosly approached, weapons drawn. As they got close enough to see what it was, they gasped in unison.
"It´s a woman. But how did she get here?" Gimli wondered aloud.
Aragorn sheated his sword and bent down next to the unconsious woman, looking over her.

She was blonde, pretty and rather petite, so short you would almost mistake her for a dwarf. She was wearing some strange attire that consisted of blue, tight-fitting trousers and a black tunic that showed off her bare arms, which were filled with cuts and bruises.

"How did she get all of those injuries?" Legolas asked.
Aragorn shaked his head, tending a cut above her left eyebrow.
"I don´t know but it looks as though from a knife, or claws."

But before he got any chance to examine it further, the girl suddenly punched him in the nose before jumping up to her feet, backing away from them.

"Okay, question. Who the hell are you and where the heck am I?", she asked them, standing in a fighting stance, ready to defend herself.
Even though she was pretty sure that the dark-haired guy had only been taking care of her wounds, she didn´t want to take any risks.

Rubbing his nose where her fist had impacted, Aragorn stared incredelously at the short woman that were standing before him.
She was eyeing them with a suspicious and an almost predatory gleam in her eyes, as if taking their measure. That would actually been quite amusing, since she was a small woman and they were three large men, but the pain in his nosehad put him a little in a bad mood.

He held up his hands to show her his good intentions, because even though they were three adept warriors against her small form, he didn´t wish to recieve her wrath.
"My lady, we mean no harm to you. We were searching for two friends of our when a strange light flashed across the sky and led us to you. You are in the land of Rohan, the home of the horse lords. Now as to who we are, I am Aragorn, son of Arathorn, and this is my companions Legolas Greenleaf and Gimli, son of Glóin. You Now who may you be, and how did you come here?"

Buffy´s head were spinning with thoughts. Rohan? Where the hell was Rohan? She hadn´t been paying that much attention during Geography, but she was pretty sure that Rohan didn´t exist on the map.
She looked at him for a moment before lowering her guard.

"I´m Buffy Summers, and how I got here? Um, I´m not exactly sure about that, but I think it was a portal and- hey, what´s up with your ears?" She looked at Legolas questionly. Was he like one of those weird Spock fans, or something? Yeah, that kinda would make sense; she maybe landed in the middle of one of these goofy roleplays and these guys were still in character.

No, as much as she wished it to be one of those, she knew that it wasn´t.

"I´m an elf," Legolas answered her, feeling confused over her not knowing about the First-Born. Even though the most humans never had met an elf before, they certainly had heard of them and probably knew how to recognise them also.
"Uh,hu." was the only thing she said about that, doubt clearly showing in her face.
Before Legolas could start talking about the elves and all of their history, Aragorn intervened.

"You said there was a portal?"

Her head whipped around to lock her hazel eyes with his gray ones and he was surprised by the intensity of them.
"Yeah, I did," she answered him. "But you guys seems to be in a hurry to fetch your friends. I really don´t wanna slow you down."

Aragorn shaked his head.
"Nay, we were just about to stop for rest anyway."
"Yes, it seems that Gimli doesn´t have the stamina of a ranger or an elf," Legolas told her with a smirk.
At this Gimli spluttered indignantly, growing red with anger.
"Yeah, I know how you feel. Being short sucks," Buffy said as she patted him on the shoulder.
At this Legolas laughed.

Having lit a small fire, the four settled themselves around it.
Aragorn nodded to Buffy.
"Now, my lady, would you tell us how you came here?"
The others nodded eagerly, curious about this woman who had came with the light.
Buffy wet her lips, not exactly knowing how to explain.

"Um, well, to start with, I came here when I accidentally fell through a portal. There was this demons that were planning to change history and make my world to a much worse place than it is. To be able to do that they needed this amulet of Jah-Cyhd, that you could travel in time with."

And between dimensions too, it seems,´ she thought to herself.

"Me and my friends attacked them during this ritual, and then the portal opened. When the leader was going to step through it, I tackled him and fell into the portal," she quickly summed up for them.

She had decided to tell these guys the truth, since they seemed kind trustworthy, that and the fact that she had appeared in a flash of light before them. How else could she explain that?

Thinking about the battle against those hedgehogs, refreshed her memories about Xander, which sent her immediatly into a bad mood.
She had been close enough to be able to save him, and yet she hadn´t.
Nooo, she was so concentrated on saving her own butt that she hadn´t noticed it, before it was too late.

God, what if he was dead because of her?

Sunnydale

"What do you mean she´s gone? She can´t just be gone!"

Joyce was furious and she had all the Scoobies backing away in fear. She usually was so calm and serene, so it was quite a change to see this pissed off woman standing before them.
"I-uhm, well-," Giles stuttered in panic.
"Where´s my daughter?" Joyce screamed.

Giles thought he was going to die of a heart-attack soon if someone didn´t help him.
Seeing his need, Willow swallowed nervously before walking forward.
"She- We don´t know where she is. I mean- She was with us during the fight she couldn´t just have..." Willow trailed off, the horror of what had happened striking them all.

"Oh,Godess," Tara exclaimed silently.
Joyce´ head snapped to her, trying to bore holes in her with her eyes.
"What?"
"She m-must have gotten sucked through th-the portal when she tackled the demon." Tara stuttered a little at the elderly womans penetrating gaze.

Joyce felt her breath getting caught in her throat as tears started to well in her eyes. No, not her baby girl. Not her Buffy. She couldn´t be...

Feeling her legs starting to leave her, she practically fell down on the couch in the waiting room that was empty of people other than the Scoobies.
Why did always these bad stuff happen to her daughter?

"Where is she now?" she asked in a monotone voice, and Giles, who assumed it was safe enough to talk to her now, sat down next to her in the couch.
"We don´t know. To be honest, Joyce, she might as well be trapped in a hell demension or God knows where."
"What are we gonna do, Giles?" Willow asked him.

Her voice had returned the same second that she had acknowledged that Buffy was missing. She was already on the verge of losing Xander, she didn´t want to loose Buffy too.

Giles sighed.
"I don´t know, Willow. I don´t know."

Middle-Earth

"Okay, so we´re looking for two very short rabbits-"
"Hobbits," Aragorn corrected her.
"-that´s gotten captured by forks."
"Orcs."
"Whatever."

Legolas and Gimli snickered at her and earned themselves a slap at the back of each of their heads, starting a loud argument between them.

Aragorn watched fascinated as his companions and and the woman bickered back and forth. The three of them seemed to have gotten rather close in a short amount of time, while Aragorn still felt as a stranger to this Buffy. It felt strange to see them argue over such ridiculous things in such a serious situation.

She did not seem troubled at all by this new dimension.

After telling them where she came from and getting lots of reassurances that they had never heard of any places called Sunnydale, California or America, she seemed to convict herself to the thought of being trapped in another world. She had even taken it upon her to help them in the search of Merry and Pippin, but Aragorn wasn´t so sure if he liked it. But he hadn´t argued anything yet, since they couldn´t just leave her all alone in the wild. And he did not want a grumpy woman as a company; that he was sure of.

But even though she seemed to be comfortable in the prescense of the elf and the dwarf, she clearly had a longing for the realm which she came from.

Aragorn pitied her; she had told them about how the amulet worked only during the full moon which had passed for not a long while ago, making sure that her stay here would be long if she did not find any other way.
"Hey, Arg!" Buffy waved her hand in front of his face, interrupting his thoughts.

He shaked his head before looking at her.
"Yes? What is it, my lady?"
Buffy shrugged.
"Well, you kinda have been doing the brooding thing for a little while now. I actually started to think you were dead or something. And you can skip the lady part, I prefer just being called Buffy. Being called lady makes me feel old."
"You´re maybe not old, but you are definetly wrinkly," Legolas remarked playfully, once again earning himself a slap by Buffy.

She actually liked these chivalrous guys, they were pretty fun to hang with, especially Legolas, who was a major hottie.
He was so darn pretty that she couldn´t help swooning a little for him.
I mean come on, he was hot, smart, and funny. How much better could it get?
He had this long, silky, platinum-blonde hair (no peroxide responsible), and these gorgoues blue eyes that even Spike´s eyes looked dull in comparison. He was like perfect every way, and Buffy couldn´t help glancing his way every now and then.

The others weren´t as interesting to stare at, and although Aragorn was actually quite handsome, all the hair and the dirt kinda made him look like one of those homeless persons that lived on the street. He wasn´t really a talker either, and after various attempts to get to know him better, she had given up and focused on the others.

She didn´t really know if Gimli was good-looking or not, since his beard pretty much covered almost all of his face. But even if he were, she probably wouldn´t wanna hook up with him. She didn´t really feel about him like that , he was more lika a much, much shorter Xander; fun to hang with, but not dating material.

Besides, she wanted her guys tall.

Author: Okay, so that was the second chapter of the story about Buffy in Middle-Earth. I´d like to thank all of my reviewers that´s been kind enough to give me their opinions, and I hope that this chapter will be to their liking. Please review and tell me what you think. Was it bad? Was it good? Should I get banned from writing here ever again?