A/N: At last, the angst.

Disclaimer: We, the sisters Elladan and Elrohir, don't own anything not ours.

Chapter 6: Coffee and Confrontations

OR

In Which Pippin Does Not Appear At All

October began gloomily, with a grey dawn and the promise of scattered showers. A sense of melancholy hung in the still, heavy air along with the damp smell of yesterday's rain, and grey clouds obscured all but a few patches of sky. It was the kind of day that would make anyone want to crawl right back into bed and sleep for a week. It was the kind of day that goes by with annoying slowness, even slower when you want it to be over. It was the kind of day that seemed almost expectant.

But at 2:26 on that first day of October, it seemed that it would take more that bad weather to ruin Arwen's good mood. School had just gotten out, she was going to get coffee with Eowyn, and--best of all--her brother had lent her his car. The only thing she could possibly complain about was the fact that the humidity had caused her hair to simultaneously loose most of its wave and become slightly frizzy, because of which she had uncharacteristically braided it into an Eowyn-ish plait. Other than that, her day was almost perfect.

Except, of course, for Legolas.

He stood near one of the picnic tables, with one arm slung haughtily about the shoulders of a very flattered looking girl. She looked dreamily up at him with her heavily eyelinered eyes, but Arwen got the distinct impression that Legolas wasn't at all interested in her. In fact, his eyes had been following Arwen from the moment she and Eowyng had walked out of the school.

Unlike Eowyn, who had been regaling Arwen with a story about some weird guy she met before Science class the previous day, Arwen had not told any of her friends about what Legolas had said. Part of her wished that the whole incident would go away, and that eventually he would go back to being his old petulant, immature self.

Legolas hadn't spoken to her since yesterday's attempt to both destroy her relationship happiness and ask her out, but he seemed to be watching her closely, as though intent on discovering the exact result of his bet. Arwen found this odd, considering that even the most oblivious people could see that she and Aragorn were on perfectly good terms. On the off chance that she caught Legolas watching her, he would flash her an unnervingly brilliant smile, completely unconcerned by the fact that she knew the truth about the bet and was--as far as he knew--furious with him.

Unfortunately, wishing didn't seem to be working. Legolas was still watching her when she and Eowyn got into the car, the same smile playing about his lips. Compared with his usual smirk, it was almost apologetic. Arwen peered through the wind shield at him, but whatever expression she thought she had seen vanished as he turned to mock another student.

Eowyn, who had been rattling off details about Weird Hallway Guy so that Arwen could find him in last year's yearbook ("Dark hair, my height-ish, creepy, hooded eyes, creepy, probably held back for a frillion years, creepy, whiter than sour cream…did I mention creepy?") stopped in the middle of her description.

"Is something wrong with you? You've been staring at Legolas like he's grown and extra head or something. Of course, that might be an improvement, but…" She grinned at Arwen.

"It's kind of a long story…" Arwen stalled, but after Eowyn's prompting look and the realizaton that listening to long stories is what best friends are for, she launched into an awkward explanation. "Well, he kinda, like, in a manner of speaking, sort of, maybe asked me out yesterday."

"Oh my god, why??" she managed breathlessly, with a look of disgust.

"It was because of this bet he made with Aragorn," Arwen began, and then proceeded to explain the bet, Legolas' proposition, parts of her date, and Legolas' weird behavior, as they drove off in search of coffee.

--

Eowyn had never been to the White Tree Café, but Faramir had told her enough about his family's coffee shop that she could honestly say it was exactly as she'd imagined. The room was small and mostly squarish, which wide, deep-set windows and walls painted a dusky, auburn brown. Three round wooden tables sat in the middle of the shop, each surrounded by wobbly wicker chairs sporting mismatched cushions. Against the back wall, a set of incredibly overstuffed chairs and an equally plush couch were arranged to create a sort of reading nook, no doubt a haven for the avid bookworm of the family. A slightly-tilted bookshelf, crammed with well-loved novels, was placed next to the couch. The entire right side of the shops was devoted to a long bar, laden with espresso machines, ceramic mugs, and the usual assortment of coffee shop appliances. The whole room smelled of cinnamon and coffee and old books. It was a comforting smell, warm and inviting.

Behind the counter, a willowy young woman stood with her back turned, washing the mismatched thrift store mugs. She had straight, dark hair, long enough to brush the waistband of her black jeans, though not long enough to make her a hippie or a fire hazard. The sign on the bar declared: Today's barista is Lothiriel.

"Afternoon, Lothi," Eowyn said coldly, but a hint of a smile threatened to overtake her.

Lothiriel turned around. Eowyn saw Arwen's eyes widen as they moved from Lothiriel's black nail polish to her skull necklace and nose piercing.

"Hey, kiddo," Lothiriel said, drying her hands on a dish towel.

"I didn't know you worked here," Eowyn said.

"Yeah, well," Lothiriel sighed, "It pays the bills. Sorta. I had to sell myself into prostitution to pay for the utilities."

"That gig suits you," smirked Eowyn.

"You think so?"

"Yeah, you can just wear that outfit you wore on you last date with my brother."

Both girls were grinning broadly now. "When I go out with your brother, I don't bring my whip."

Arwen made a choked noise. Eowyn and Lothiriel laughed, and said simultaneously, "We're just joking."

Arwen looked relieved.

"This is my brother's girlfriend, Lothiriel," said Eowyn, "Lothi, this is Arwen." Lothiriel reached out a ring-laden hand to shake Arwen's manicured one.

"Anyway," Eowyn said, changing the subject, "Can we get some coffee?"

"Not anymore," Lothiriel said bluntly, pulling on an oversized leather jacket, "You have to wait for the boys. My shift ended five minutes ago." She began to walk toward the door, boots clicking with every step. Without looking back, she called, "Give your brother my love."

"I'll tell him you think of him while you're waiting on the street corner."

"You're a doll," she said, and walked out of the coffee shop, long hair swinging in the light of the grey sky above her.

There was a long, awkward pause, before Arwen said, "She's…unique."

"Isn't she, though?" grinned Eowyn, "I really, really wanted to hate her, seeing as she's part of the reason we moved here, but she was just too cool."

A companionable silence fell over the coffee shop as the two girls waited. Outside, the sky darkened, heavy with clouds.

--

With each step Boromir took down the squeaky stairs, he could hear the voice in the shop grow louder. Girls, two of them, their words muffled by the door at the end of the staircase. He sped up, his apron swinging limply in his hand as he tried not to slip on the worn carpeting. He had lost track of the time. His newest employee spent her shifts watching the clock and was a fierce believer in the evils of overtime: she was sure to have left the minute her shift was over. Faramir, seeing as he was walking home from school, would not be there for another five minutes or so. It was Boromir's fault, then, that the shop had been left unattended once again. Everything seemed to be his fault these days. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, Boromir pushed the door open with his free hand.

For a second, it was as though all the air had been sucked out of the room, although it didn't stop the taller girl from prattling on about the titles shelved on the off-kilter bookshelf. Boromir stopped dead, eyes locked with Arwen. What was she doing here? She stared at him, frozen, as though she had half-expected this to happen, but wasn't fully prepared for the actuality. Turning away sharply, Boromir stormed down the length of the counter, shoving the swinging door open with such excessive force that it smacked the wall, finally alerting the blonde girl that all was not right in the coffee shop. Begrudgingly, he pulled his apron over his head and tied the strings into such a tight knot that it was likely it would never come undone. His eyes, looking anywhere but at his expectant customers, fell on a cracked mug sitting by the sink--the one he always warned Faramir to be careful with because it was likely to break. He grabbed it, plunged it into the sink, and began washing it furiously. She has no right to be here, he thought, not when her father feels it's his life's work to put us out of business… The water in the sink was uncomfortably lukewarm, and the mug was clean, but he kept scrubbing. Behind him, Arwen made a timid sort of coughing noise. He ignored her, staring at the tiled backsplash of the sink without really seeing it. The crack in the mug lengthened.

"Excuse me?" Her voice was cheerful and polite. Boromir slammed the mug down on the counter, the crack creeping a few more centimeters, and revolved slowly to face her. He felt rage rising in him. He did nothave enough self control to deal with her right now, not with her barging in like she owned the place and then acting so cordial, like nothing was wrong. She had an equally fake smile on her face, but when she spoke her anxiety clearly showed.

"I'd like a grande-latte-double-shot-no-foam-half-milk-half-soy-one-sugar-please." She said is all in one breath, and her friend gave her a grin that clearly wondered what was wrong with just "coffee please".

"Excuse me?" Boromir threatened. Arwen's strained smile faded slightly and she looked as though she wished she had just ordered a cup of drip to go.

"Why don't you go across the street to get your pretentious drink? I know they'll give it to you for free."

"Hey!" her friend protested, moving defensively to Arwen's side, "I don't know who you think you are, but--"

Arwen silenced her with a look. "I'd just like my drink, please." She sounded more strained than ever, pleading, but Boromir had stopped listening.

"Get out of my shop," he said, teeth clenched together painfully.

"Boromir, please--" Arwen began desperately. A look of recognition dawned on the blonde's face, but Boromir only had eyes for the dark haired girl. She stood, trembling, as though facing the calm before the storm.

And then the storm broke.

"GET OUT OF MY SHOP!" Boromir roared, slamming his palms down on the counter. Arwen jumped slightly, her breath catching in her throat. She blinked rapidly, and her eyelashes were damp with the tears she refused to cry. In a tiny voice, she said, "I was only trying to help."

"You were trying to help?" he scoffed, his voice riddled with disgust. The idea was maddening. How could she walk in here, being who she was, knowing what she meant to him, representing everything Boromir had ever hated, and claim that she was only trying to help?

Arwen floundered for words. "You know… I su-suppose you need all the business you can get, and…and I was only trying to help."

"So we're a charity case now?"

"No, it's just…" she looked pleadingly across the counter at him, trapped. "I see you guys' shop, and I'd hate for you to go out of business. I'm really sorry…"

"So you pity us." Unconsciously, Boromir began moving around the counter.

"No, that's…"

Boromir pushed through the swinging door. "You think I need your pity?"

"That is not what I said!" she blurted out petulantly, and then bit her lip. She seemed so frail without the counter between them, like a porcelain doll. A petty, aggravating, porcelain doll.

Boromir took a step closer. Suddenly, as if he had crossed an invisible line, the blonde girl moved forward. There was an icy look in her eyes; angry and cold.

"Back. Off."

"Eowyn, no…" Arwen said, putting a placating hand on the taller girl's shoulder. The girl--Eowyn--spun to face her, long braid swinging.

"Don't 'no' me! I won't stand idly by while Big Brother here plays effed-up mind games with you!"

But Boromir could tell that Arwen wasn't listening. She was gazing right past Eowyn, looking straight at him. Carefully, she moved forward, around Eowyn. The look in her eyes made Boromir seethe with anger, rage rising again. Her expression was impossible to read, but there was one thing Boromir could tell for certain; in al the conflicting emotions she showed, hate was nowhere to be found.

Boromir turned away. He had forgotten the color of her eyes; grey, like slate or thunderclouds. Why didn't she hate him? Everyone else did. He had given her every reason to , and yet here she stood, staring at him with that infuriating expression. He wished she would hate him; it would make everything simpler. Hate was black and white. Dammit, why couldn't she hate him? Why did she have to look at him like that, like the high school boy he had once been was still there?

When she spoke, she spoke cautiously. "What happened to you?"

Bitter anger coursed through him. "I grew up."

"You didn't have to become so mean."

Boromir spun around to face her. She was so patronizing, so condescending, so utterly wrong.

"I didn't have to?" he growled, voice rising with each syllable. He had to explain, had to make her understand; had to make her hate him. "Of course I had to. My mother died, Arwen, and my dad was so drunk he couldn't form a coherent thought. Do want to know who had to arrange for the funeral? Who had to tell Faramir that his mother was dead? I was me. I was sixteen. I had to make the decisions that no one wanted to make. I had to get mean. I had to run a family when all I wanted was for one to take care of me.

"But I guess you wouldn't understand, would you? Because you've had everything you've ever wanted. And you'll never have to grow up. You'll spend the rest of your life exactly how you are: a shallow, petty, pampered little bitch."

The air crackled with electricity in the deafening silence. Arwen's soft grey eyes welled with tears. She took one, shuddering breath, and sobbed into her hands

--

With a gentle push, Faramir opened the door to the White Tree Café, eager to escape the looming rain clouds. He began to call a greeting to Boromir, who he knew would be waiting behind the counter, but all thoughts of congeniality left his head the minute the scene in the coffee shop met his eyes. He simply stared with his mouth slightly open, the silence broken only by the tinkling of the bell above the door and the muffled sounds of Arwen trying valiantly to stem the flow of tears that coursed down her cheeks. Faramir, in all his years of being friends with Arwen, had only ever seen her cry once: in 5th grade, when one of their classmates had pulled her pigtail and told her that no guy would ever go out with a girl who could beat him at Scrabble. Even then, it was nothing like this. Boromir stood facing her, his expression incalculable, and Eowyn…

Eowyn stood behind Arwen, one hand on her friend's shoulder, utterly still. Faramir looked at her, and thought he saw a glimmer of something fair and cold, slender and strong as a blade. Her eyes glinted like steel. For a second was struck by an irrational fear that one day, the Eowyn he knew would simply disappear, and only this beautiful and terrible woman would be left.

Then, as one, all three occupants of the café turned to look at him. The door behind him clicked softly shut, but to Faramir, it seemed to echo throughout the shop. No one spoke. Tears were still spilling from Arwen's gray eyes, but Boromir's were filled with emotions that Faramir couldn't place. Anger? Or was that a hint of regret?

He found his voice. "Is everything all right?" he asked softly, and then instantly regretted having spoken at all. Of course nothing was "all right." What a stupid, idiotic question to ask.

"That's a stupid, idiotic question! Of course everything isn't all right," Eowyn fumed, moving over to him, and he was relieved to see that whatever terrible coldness he had imagined had been replaced by her usual fire. "Your--" she muttered a string of impressive curses under her breath, a few in foreign languages, "--brother was being a--" she continued her curses. Faramir suspected she had learned the French ones from Arwen, who was currently studying the language.

Boromir pushed past Arwen, who jumped away from him as if she had been burned. "What did you call me?" he demanded of Eowyn. She didn't flinch.

"You heard me."

"This is none of your business."

"Excuse me? Arwen is the sweetest, kindest, most loving girl I know-- my best friend in the whole damn world--and you just made her cry. So you better believe it's my business." Arwen looked at her, gratitude written across her face.

"She," Boromir accused, pointing a finger at Arwen, "tried to put us out of business."
"Her father tried."

"They're all the same."

"So, they were your competition. Big deal."

"Big deal?"

"Yeah, big deal. It's not personal."

Faramir's eyes flicked back and forth between Eowyn and Boromir, as their voices rose with each word. Inside, he was at war with himself, his loyalties pulling him in opposite directions. He knew Boromir would interpret any attempt to play the peacemaker as siding with Eowyn, and Eowyn would never forgive him for siding against Arwen. Every moment he spent thinking, the voices became louder, angrier; insults and retorts shouted back and forth like a tennis match where the ball was lit on fire. Boromir was dangerously close to Eowyn now, and Faramir knew he couldn't continue to do nothing.

He took a step forward, so he was between his brother and his friend. "She's right, you know," he began quietly, "It was just business."

Boromir was livid. "Just business? We needed every last bit of revenue we could get, and they were trying to take it all away."

"There's know way they could have known," Faramir said, placating.

"She was dying, Faramir."

"It's not Arwen's fault that--"

Boromir cut him off. "Not her fault? Who's side are you on?"

Ignoring his brother, Faramir continued, his voice tinged with sadness. "Even if we had every customer Starbucks had, it wouldn't have made a difference. She still would have--"

Faramir never even saw his brother's fist move. The next second he was lying on the floor, blood streaming from his nose, and Boromir had stormed out of the café, slamming the door behind him.

He didn't remember much after that. The rest of the afternoon was kind of hazy, tinged with pain, regret, despair, and bloodloss. There may have been painkillers at some point. He remembered Arwen standing still, shocked, before rushing to the refrigerator for ice. And he remembered Eowyn pulling him to his feet, hiding her concern by making inopportune jokes. "It's only a fleshwound," she quipped, but her eyes were worried.

Faramir wasn't paying attention to the girls, or the shop, or his broken nose. He simply watched the door where Boromir had disappeared, as the rain finally poured down.

--

NEXT UP: The past is contemplated and the future is chosen.