Ilene arrived at the astronomy building and set her bag down. She loved astronomy class; for some reason, she connected with stars better than with people.

Her self-assigned assignment was to monitor changes and movements in the stars. She had been trying to do it since her parents first bought her a children's telescope when she was very small. She enjoyed working on it at the college; they had much nicer telescopes and equipment.

Her teacher looked up from his desk, "Ilene, why do you come so late at night? You can watch recordings later in the day like the other students."

Ilene smiled inwardly. Professor Cleary asked this question frequently; they both already knew her answer. "I prefer to see the stars with my own eyes, not some dead recording. Why do you stay here so late?" This game they played had its own little script; neither could deviate from it.

"Somebody has to watch you to make sure you don't go about destroying the equipment," This line was particularly well rehearsed, "and besides, what kind of astronomy teacher would I be if I didn't stay up into ungodly hours to look at pretty lights in the sky?"

"A well-rested one, sir," she replied and went to her usual telescope. Ilene took out her laptop and opened the documents she had been keeping for years now.

Her teacher looker up from his notes again, "I'm expecting your end of year paper to be ten pages longer than those of the other students, okay Ilene?"

Ilene smiled again. She had already started working on her end of year paper, and it was already eleven pages longer than required. Professor Cleary would certainly enjoy reading it. She knew she was enjoying writing it.

Professor Cleary smiled as well. All his life he had strived to make people happy, but he had never seen anyone as happy as Ilene could be when surrounded by her charts and data and looking at the stars. He didn't expect to hear another word from his prodigy for another hour and half after she looked through her telescope, so he was very surprised when he heard her walk over to his desk. He looked up and saw her standing in front of him, holding a piece of folded paper and looking very confused.

"Yes, Ilene?"

"Sir, I found this on my telescope." Ilene handed him the piece of paper.

Professor Cleary looked at the paper, "Seeing as it has your name on it, it must be yours." He said kindly, holding out his arm to offer Ilene the paper.

She just stared at him. "But I didn't put it there."

"It seems you have a secret admirer who knows which telescope you usually use. Take the note and read it."

This time Ilene took the note back and stared at him some more. Eventually she left to go back to her telescope.

Professor Cleary sighed, "Young love," he thought, "I remember when I was her age, I sent out a love letter once a week." He smiled and went back to work, not knowing that the letter was from no secret admirer.

Ilene went back to her station. Frowning, she opened the letter. She couldn't possibly imagine who would be leaving letters on her telescope. If her roommates had something important to tell her, they would just barge in; the astronomy room was hardly a private classroom. Her classmates would just catch her at mealtimes, and if anybody else wanted to speak with her, they would just talk whenever they saw her next. She held the note up to the light and began to read.

Dear Ilene,

I know this note seems unexpected to you, but you're going to have to trust me for now. I need you to meet under the stairs leading to the drama department at seven o'clock sharp this morning. I promise you this is nothing you need be scared about.

-T.

PS- Come alone.

Ilene frowned again; this note had only served to make things more confusing. The underside of the stairs leading to the drama department was famous amongst the students as an occasional drug dealing location. If somebody was planning anything bad or illegal, this is where they would meet. When pilots from the nearby flight school came over, they would hang around these stairs to meet friends or harass the student population. Ilene had never had cause to meet anybody there, and when she first started taking classes, she made a goal to never have to be there.

However, her curiosity was going to get the better of her. She knew this had to be a bad idea, but that made the prospect of going all the more exciting. Seven in the morning happened to be the time she left the dorm after break to go breakfast. She could just swing by the stairs and meet this "T" and then just go about her usual day.

Now that she planned to go to what could very well be a disastrous trap, Ilene could feel excitement buzzing through her body. She had been a bit of a thrill seeker for most of her life, leaning over balconies, diving deeper than she should on beach trips, climbing far higher on trees than was safe, but this had to be the most dangerous of all. She went about work humming slightly, almost looking forward to this meeting later in the day.

There was no way she could pass this up. Ilene loved danger.

Author's Note: Wow, a fast update! Somebody must have abducted the girl who wrote the previous two chapters. I bet you just can't wait for the next chapter. Plot happens. Well guess what. You're probably going to be waiting for a while. I'm about to go on vacation, and then I'll have to go to my awesome (sadly dead) grandmother's memorial. So long wait for next chapter.

Ilene's college is completely fictional, in case you wanted to know. It's a plot device.

Professor Cleary is random professor dude (no connection to Tolkein) because I needed Ilene to have a conversation with a professor. I don't think he'll show up again.

Disclaimer: All belongs to Tolkein (except random college and Prof. Cleary)