Hannah was tempted to call in sick the next day, but in the end she knew that she had to go and apologize to Amondaur.
Mark was waiting for her just inside the doors of the psychiatric hospital.
"Hey," she said, not making eye contact. She tucked her hair behind her ears and stuck her hands in her pockets.
"Hey," he answered, and she glanced up at him. He looked concerned, but gave her a smile. "How are you?"
"Better." She smiled back, then took a deep breath. "I'm not looking forward to this."
"I'm sure he'll be very understanding," Mark assured her as they headed toward Amondaur's room.
"What did you tell him last night?"
"That you had misconstrued something and were very sorry for yelling at him, but that you were upset and I was taking you home. He seemed concerned."
Hannah ducked her head and nodded.
When they reached Amondaur's door, Mark turned to Hannah. "Do you want me to come in with you?"
She shook her head. "No, I should do this myself."
"Alright." He patted her shoulder. "Good luck."
Hannah took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and stepped up to Amondaur's doorway.
He glanced up at her and immediately put down his magazine, in what Hannah should've realized before was a characteristic gesture. His expression was very serious, but Hannah couldn't read it.
She bit her lip and looked at the floor. "Amondaur, I—I am very sorry about yelling at you last night. It was—a misunderstanding. I should never have done it."
She looked up at him. His expression hadn't changed. "What was it you misunderstood?" he asked, Hannah thought, coldly.
"I…" How to explain this? "I saw the booklet you were reading. It was written—to help people pretend to be from your culture. I thought it was your booklet, and that you had used it to lie to me—to us," she corrected herself quickly. "I was not thinking about it. I should have known it could not be your booklet. Mark told me he lent it to you." Hannah felt miserable. "I am sorry I doubted you." She felt tears rise up in her eyes, and bit her lips to keep from crying.
Amondaur looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, then suddenly stood up, walked over to her, and gave her a hug.
Hannah hugged him back and felt tears slip down her cheeks. "I am truly sorry," she managed on a sob.
"It is well. I forgive you," Amondaur said kindly.
"Thank you," Hannah said in a watery voice.
After a minute, Amondaur released her. "Come sit down."
Hannah obeyed, wiping her eyes off with her sleeves. She smiled at Amondaur as he took a seat facing her. "This is the third big scene I have made in three days," she said with a shaky laugh.
Amondaur smiled. "The first was quite dramatic! Tell me, what exactly did you say?"
"Ohh, you do not want to know," Hannah answered, shaking her head. "It was not at all courteous."
Amondaur chuckled. Then he went over to the stack of magazines by his bed and picked one up, handing it to her. "That was what I was looking at," he said. "I could not read it. Mark thought I would like the pictures."
"And did you?" Hannah asked, flipping through it. It seemed to be a combination of magazine and catalog, filled with historical costumes and fantasy weaponry.
"I enjoyed some of it, but some of it was quite foreign to me," he said. "Some of the clothing is very strange. And the weapons!" He pointed to one of the fantasy knives, the blade fantastically shaped. "This knife would not be of any use at all," he said, shaking his head.
Hannah laughed. "As I told you, this was written for people who pretend to be from your culture. They would never actually use this knife. It is only for show."
Amondaur shook his head. "How foolish," he murmured. "It is a waste to buy it, then. And do they not have anything better to do with their time?"
Hannah grinned. "Apparently not."
There was a rap on the doorframe, and they both looked up. "I didn't hear any screaming or furniture breaking, so I figured it was safe to come in," Mark said with a smile. "All patched up?"
"Yep," Hannah answered.
"Good. I'm taking a little time off this evening, and I'd like to take you both to dinner."
Hannah translated to Amondaur, who smiled widely. "I would appreciate that very much," he said happily.
"We both accept," Hannah told Mark.
"Good. I've got to get a good bit of work done before this evening! I'll come by again at five." He left them alone.
Amondaur looked back at Hannah. "Mark said you were very upset last night, and I gather it was for more reasons than my supposed untruthfulness. What upset you?"
Hannah turned and looked out his window. "It looks nice outside. How about we go into the courtyard, and I will tell you."
000
When Hannah had finished telling Amondaur about Grace's death, she added, "I suppose I have never allowed myself to acknowledge her death. I never let myself cry about it; I just packed it all inside and would not talk about it." She paused. "I need to apologize to my parents. I have not treated them fairly in all this. I let them go through their grief without me, then resented them because they had come to terms with what happened, while I had not."
Amondaur was silent for a time. "How did that booklet I was looking at bring all of this up?" he asked gently.
Hannah paused. She wasn't sure if she wanted to explain it all—or even if she could explain it.
"I was… uhm… just upset," she hedged.
Amondaur nodded, but she didn't think he believed her. He didn't press her, however.
000
Dinner was a great treat for Amondaur, and Hannah and Mark enjoyed it, as well. It was Amondaur's first ride in a car (or at least, the first that he had been conscious for). He was a little apprehensive at first, but soon relaxed.
They had a very entertaining conversation, despite the fact that everything had to be translated.
"Your Sindarin is improving," Amondaur said approvingly after Hannah managed to translate one of Mark's jokes. "You are becoming quite fast."
"Thank you. I am very impressed with your English, too." Amondaur had greeted their waitress and thanked her for his food.
"I suppose this has been a learning experience for both of us," Amondaur said lightly, picking up a French fry.
"Yes," Hannah said slowly, "it has."
When she translated for Mark, he agreed. "For all of us." He exchanged a small smile with Hannah. Amondaur glanced between them surreptitiously from under his brows, then smiled a private smile.
000
Mark and Amondaur took Hannah home before going back to the hospital.
"This is where you live? This is your school?" Amondaur asked as the gothic buildings of the college came into view.
"Yes, it is. And that," she added, pointing, "is the building I live in."
"It is quite large."
"And full of silly eighteen-year-olds!" Hannah added with a laugh.
Mark pulled up by the curb, and Hannah got out. "Thanks for the ride. I'll see you tomorrow! Goodbye, Amondaur!"
"Goodbye, Hannah! See you tomorrow!" Amondaur said, and Hannah smiled.
"See ya!"
000
"So do you believe Amondaur is telling the truth?" Mark asked Hannah out of the blue two days later.
She looked at him in surprise. They were chatting in his office again. Whenever Hannah didn't have to run back to her dorm to do homework and Mark didn't have anything pressing to work on, they retired to his office and either talked or worked on Mark's case study. Hannah still wasn't sure what she thought of that project.
She gave him a cynical smile. "Why do you want to know that? You don't believe him," she pointed out.
"No, I don't," Mark agreed. "But I'm very interested. So?"
Hannah pressed her lips together and shook her head. "Even after you told me where his magazine came from… I'm not sure I can still believe him like I did. That incident just brought all my doubts to the surface again—and made me feel really stupid for believing him!" she added. "No. I don't believe he's telling the truth. But still, the question of exactly what his diagnosis is still niggles in the back of my mind." She shrugged. "I really don't know what to think."
Mark nodded and was silent. After a minute, he changed the subject. But Hannah didn't forget the conversation.
TBC
AN: That was a hard chapter to finish, for some reason.
Jaffee Leed: Yeah, I'm not a huge profanity fan, but it does have its dramatic uses! Yes, I want a Mark of my own. :)
lathalian: Thank you! Never having been in a psych hospital, I'm mostly doing guesswork here and hoping I'm close enough. You'll notice I didn't go into detail on her training or give too many descriptions of the hospital itself. :) Yeah, a lot of people write "girl-falls-into-Middle-earth" fics and don't take into account the fact that in Tolkien's mind, Middle-earth was our earth in a pre-messianic era. I thought it'd be interesting to mess with that concept. :)
Please review!