Buffy: "This guy could be anybody. He could be weird or crazy or old or...
he could be a circus freak--he's probably a circus freak!"
Xander: "Yeah, I mean we read about it all the time. You know, people meet
on the net, they talk, they get together, have dinner, a show...horrible axe murder."
Buffy: "Willow, axe murdered by a circus freak!
...We are totally overreacting!"
Xander: "But it's fun, isn't it?"
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Dr Livingstone I presume?

Where before there had been a great deal of noise, there was now a deathly silence. Not even birdsong or the rustling of small animals, something one would have expected in the middle of a forest, could be heard.

Alun Davies was used to forests. He lived almost cheek by jowl with one of the most beautiful forest areas in the South of England. It was almost on his doorstep so to speak. It could be gloomy in the depths where the ancient trees grow, with their long trunks and the canopy of leaves and branches high above the forest floor which prevented nothing but mere chinks of sunlight to penetrate the gloom, but it was never silent. Not like this. It was as though the trees and the plants were awaiting some doom that even the wildlife had long since fled from.

He shivered, not from the awful cold that had pervaded him inside and out when he left Thangorodrim in the company of evil, but from a sudden fearful notion that he was standing right in the path of some very unnatural disaster. The very atmosphere of the place he now stood in was wrong. And hot; dear god in heaven it was hot and sticky. There was no breeze at all and the shirt which apparently had been laundered up in that awful place was now sticking to his back with sweat. He had long since abandoned his overcoat which lay on the ground beside him along with the pack of supplies he had been given by the servants of Sauron.

Where before there had been the snuffling and grunting of the orc along with the crashing of their heavy iron-clad feet, there was now nothing. Just the awful silence, heavy with premonition.

He would have even gladly welcomed a wild boar as company rather than this ghastly silence and therefore he contemplated the overgrown path which had been pointed out to him by the Maia. Where there were paths, theoretically there were people, or at least something that would regularly travel along a route enough to make some sort of path. The trouble was, did he really want to meet with whoever or whatever it was that was responsible? And him without any kind of weapon at all?

Nevertheless, a path it was, and so he decided to investigate at least, with caution of course, but not without something to defend himself with.

He looked around him for something likely, perhaps a long heavy branch he could use as a club, but none of the dead wood and branches lying around seemed either long enough or substantial enough. As a child he had been pretty good with home made catapults and he understood the theory behind the ancient slingshot, as used by David against Goliath. He had nothing elastic to make a decent catapult, even if he found a suitable forked stick, so instead he took his shirt off and carefully ripped a strip of material from around the bottom of it and fashioned a very primitive slingshot.

Now for the projectiles. Small stones preferably. The forest floor was covered in a carpet of leaves and other plant debris, thousands perhaps millions' of years worth, but there was the outcropping of rocks he had been sitting on earlier, so he set about trying to dig around the stones in the hopes of finding something small enough for use as ammunition.

He was successful in finding about a dozen smallish stones and began to straighten up. An ache in his lower back told him that he had been bending over in the wrong position, something his wife was forever nagging at him about. A sudden longing for her and his kids and his real life swept over him. Stinging tears pricked at the back of his eyes but he pushed the longing back, blinked the tears away and concentrated on standing up slowly so that he didn't strain anything. It was important that he kept his focus. Many lives depended on it, not least his own.

He winced as he straightened his back and gingerly rubbed against the sore base of his spine with his free hand. It was then that he felt the tip of something very sharp and lethal against his jugular.

"Daro.." The voice was soft and deadly, but even though Davies had no idea what the word meant, the tone of voice and sound of it convinced him that sudden movement was entirely the wrong thing to make at that time. He began to turn around very slowly indeed, opening his hands and dropping the stones to show he was unarmed.

ooOoo

The elves concealed in the trees and bushes watched curiously as the man slowly assessed his surroundings and then proceeded to tear pieces off his clothing before searching around for something on the ground.

Maedhros allowed himself a certain grim admiration as he realised that the Edain was actually fashioning a primitive weapon and looking for something to use as ammunition. The fact that the Maia had left this man without a weapon in an area filled with potential danger told him a great deal about the nature of his connection with them. If he was indeed part of the enemy then one would have assumed that he would have had something to protect himself, even something as small as a knife. Unless of course his escort had remained close enough to hear his cry for assistance, however Golradir had confirmed that the Maia and his party of orc had moved quite some distance away.

He was certainly not a Maia with some hidden talent for death and destruction. There were no dark thoughts or evil intent emanating from him. The weapon he fashioned was similar to something he had once seen while visiting a settlement of men. It had been fashioned by a young Edain shepherd as a form of protection against wild animals before setting out to take his flocks to higher pasture.

Maedhros narrowed his eyes. Of course this also meant that the man was at least familiar with weaponry, primitive or not, and therefore caution was to be exercised around him. With that in mind he silently moved out of cover and crossed the clearing over to where the Edain was hunting for something on the forest floor. As the elf moved he equally silently slid the wicked-looking long curved elven blade out of the scabbard and placed it against the neck of the man who, apparently oblivious to the fact that he was one slice away from death, was standing up rubbing one hand along the base of his spine.

"Daro..." Maedhros noticed that the Edain froze instantly, hand still in place. The man's fear and unease were almost palpable. After a couple of seconds, he slowly and very carefully turned to face his assailant, both hands open to show that he concealed no weapon, but when he beheld the tall beautiful creature with long flame coloured hair and unnaturally bright green eyes in front of him, his face showed both shock and wonderment. An expression that only increased when yet another tall beautiful creature with the same bright eyes but dark hair stepped from his place of concealment.

"Al-un Day-vees I presume?" The beautiful young man grinned widely and held out a slender hand. He spoke in stilted English with a heavy accent.

Alun Davies just looked completely bewildered as he nodded in assent and took the hand offered to him.

ooOoo

Kim was confused. Not an unusual situation it had to be said, she had been permanently confused since she, Gary and the others had been dragged into this mess and the sudden appearance of Alun Davies had only added to the confusion. However this current confusion had more to do with the strange feelings in her belly that she was feeling since Maedhros had pulled her close and spoken soft words against her hair.

If Maedhros had been a modern human male, she would have just assumed he was trying to cop a sly feel, but she had now been in the presence of elves long enough to know that they simply didn't do things like that. Gary had explained, in the aftermath of their lovemaking when they had been quietly talking to each other, that it was against their nature. Unlike mortals who could bounce from one partner to another, Elves mated for life and knew instantly when the other was the right one for them. Lucky old them, she had thought at the time.

Gary's face, with those gorgeous dark blue eyes, hung in front of her vision for a split second and she felt an immediate sharp pang of loss for the fact that she was unlikely to see him any time soon. There was so much she wanted to say to him, so many apologies she wanted to make...to him, to Jim for being such a selfish little idiot. And now maybe she would never get the chance.

Indeed Kim Freeman had learned a lot from the present company she was keeping, about elves, about herself and about life, and now she was terrified that she would never get a chance to put anything right. She had been behaving like a sulky child instead of a mature woman in her mid thirties and the memories of her behaviour made her feel thoroughly ashamed of herself.

However the feeling of light, protection and warmth that had surrounded her, Maedhros and the scout, whose name she now knew was Golradir, had lasted with her long after its glow had permeated around the three of them. True, that glow was now limited to her abdominal region, but for some odd reason it was still filling her with warmth. She felt calmer and safer than she had felt in a long while and she had no idea why she should be feeling that way.

Had Gary or Eonwe been there they could have enlightened her about the child she was carrying and its nature. Unlike Luthien Tinuviel who was the product of a Maia mother and an Elven father and whose mother understood the true nature of their child, this child was the product of a Maia father and a mortal woman. A very powerful Maia father in fact. Kim didn't even know she was pregnant, never mind understood that Gary was neither human or mortal or that the baby she had in her womb was special in any way.

They would have been able to explain that in the case of such pregnancies the child was conceived with a certain power of its own and in the case of her child it an inherent ability to protect its mother to some degree. And, if the right words were spoken, it could extend the protection for a short while to any who were in close contact with the mother. Hence the close, almost intimate, embrace from Maedhros who, as an elf who had seen the light of the Two Trees and been in the company of angels, understood the nature of such things.

However, while Kim didn't for one minute think that the devastatingly handsome elf with red hair and one hand had the hots for her, she still wondered how he had managed to evoke this feeling of safety and well-being. She also realised that since they had returned from their spy mission, the elves had been treating her with a certain respect and deference. Even the twins who up to that point had treated her just like another of their own age. Something had changed to alter their perception of her and the only thing she could think of was the incident with Maedhros and the light.

Her new-found understanding of things and return to the more sensible modern Kim told her that this was not the time to ask such questions. They had more important things to worry about, such as why Alun Davies was travelling with the mortal enemies of the people of Middle Earth.

ooOoo

The elves who ushered him into their temporary camp weren't rough with him. They were cautious and watchful, but Alun could hardly blame them for that. The red-head appeared to be their leader and the young man who had spoken in hesitant English to him seemed to be related to him. So far they had volunteered no names, which was a bit unnerving since they obviously knew who he was. The other unnerving thing was that they had appeared so silently from the trees, almost as though they had been watching. If they had, then it might have seemed to them that he was in cahoots with the Maia and orcs. That would be very unfortunate if Kim was with them when it came to getting her trust. They were hardly likely to allow her to just go off with him without protest or a fight. He knew he wasn't bad in a fight, but not against the consummate warriors this lot seemed to be.

He was taken near to the fire where another impossibly beautiful creature with long black hair and soulful grey eyes sat lightly strumming a small harp. He made no acknowledgement of Alun's presence other than a faint smile. The red-head spoke to the young man who inclined his head respectfully and then disappeared. Red-head then indicated that he was to sit down. There were no convenient rocks for him to sit on so he folded his overcoat up and sat down cross legged on it. His pack was nowhere to be seen, they had taken it away, probably to search it for weapons.

Alun glanced around him. They were obviously in the process of breaking camp since some of the warriors were rolling up their blankets and fixing packs to their horses. A few curious glances were sent his way, but apart from that most behaved as though it was the most natural thing in the world for a strangely dressed man in an overcoat to be dropped in the middle of a forest and then brought to their camp-site. He was not bound, but then he guessed that they assumed that he would hardly be likely to run anywhere with no weapon or form of transport. In any case if he ran they could soon hunt him down.

"Inspector Davies?" The voice was soft and hesitant.

He looked up to find Kim standing in front of him and immediately stood up with his arms outstretched.

"Sergeant Freeman, I can't tell you how delighted I am to find you alive and well."

She smiled and grasped his hands. "I can't tell you how delighted I am to see you...only.." She bent closer and lowered her voice. "They are worried as to why you were with those awful orc creatures."

He nodded. "I was afraid of that." He glanced around him. "But to be honest this is not the time or place to talk about that. Who are these people? And where are Major Matthews, Chief Knowles and my young constable?"

"They're elves." She said. "And I can honestly say I have absolutely no idea where Gary, Chief or Jim are. I stupidly ran away from them into the woods. We got separated and these elves found me. They're taking me to some large military camp or other."

Alun stared at her. She could only be referring to the camp of the Host of the Valar. For the first time in days he felt a shred of real hope. The Maia and orcs who escorted him from Thangorodrim had been very afraid to get too close to the armies of the Host. If they could only reach there, then perhaps the protection of the Valar and the Maia commander Eonwe would keep that creature Sauron at bay. They could perhaps even get him and Kim at least back to the rift in the timelines so that they could get back through to their own time. Now all he had to worry about was finding some way to either warn his wife or the authorities that she and his children might be in danger.

He was also tempted to mention the baby to her but stopped himself in time. Their situation was complicated enough without him adding that to it. If the pregnancy was still in the early stages she wouldn't be aware of it. He would do her no favours by mentioning it at this point.

By this time the young man who had spoken English had reached them. He smiled at Kim and gave her shoulder a quick reassuring squeeze then he held out his hand to Alun "I am Elrond Earendilion."

Alun grinned at him. "Pleased to meet you, Alun Davies, but we did meet earlier."

He watched the young man frown as he tried to assimilate and make sense of what Alun was saying, then his face lit up. He shook his head. "No...not me." He pointed across the camp. "Elros!"

Alun saw another man identical to the one in front of him stand up and wave. "Muindor nin." Elrond said with a huge grin. "My bru-ther."

"They're learning English." Kim said. "They're very good and very quick. Much faster than I am at learning their language."

"You are getting better." Elrond reassured her.

"You're twins." Alun said, feeling a bit silly that he was stating the obvious.

Before Elrond could answer Maedhros approached leading a bay mare. He spoke to Elrond who turned to the policeman. "My uncle wishes to know if you can ride. If not then one of the warriors will take you up with him." Alun noticed that his English was halting but improving with every word spoken.

He took the reins from Maedhros and gently brushed a hand down the mare's silky nose. "Tell him that I've been riding since I was small. You are a beautiful girl aren't you." He murmured. The mare gently nibbled at his hand looking for something nice to eat and snickered in approval.

Maedhros nodded in approval. If the Edain had any evil in him, the mare would have detected it and reacted accordingly. Elven horses would not suffer creatures of evil to ride them. This man merely looked foul, but no matter what reason he had to be travelling with the Maia, he felt fair . He shouted an abrupt order which sent the twins to their horses but left Kim standing with Alun. Before he could ask whether Kim wanted to ride with him, the twin who called himself Elrond rode over and offered his hand to Kim, then he swung her up on the horse behind him.

Alun shrugged and mounted his own horse and moments later they were pounding through the forest. He hoped to hell that these guys knew where they were going because it all looked the same to him.

ooOoo