I am so sorry for not updating the past couple of weeks; volley ball consumed all of my time, and I had two lab reports due that I needed to finish. So my writing time was devoured by school, but since I am on break, it shall be no longer! I thank you all for you patience. Commencing the chapter eleven!

Pippin was wary when he received Legolas's text about having a Christmas meeting about a fundraiser for the café. Legolas had been hinting at something like this ever since Gandalf had sent them all a message telling them that he may not have been able to afford the repairs for the café ever since his insurance had denied his claim for the café. Since the police were no where near finding who had smashed the place up, and it seemed as though Gandalf was getting closer and closer to selling the café, Legolas had decided to take it upon himself to help Gandalf.

It was terrifying, really. Almost like Legolas had no classes to attend anymore. Pippin wasn't even sure if Legolas slept. He wouldn't doubt it. Pippin was swamped with finals due to the fact that the term was almost over, and he had to work on them night and day in order to finish them, going through ten times the nicotine patches than usual. He had no idea how Legolas balanced class, and fundraisers.

Pippin applied a fresh nicotine patch; he was going to need it if he was going to have to deal with Legolas. The environmental student had gotten a very scary glint in his eye lately, and looked as though he was going to murder anybody who opposed his ideas. Perhaps that was why Legolas had been voted student body president at his school.

Though there were Christmas decorations all around him, Pippin felt as though he was lacking the distinct Christmas cheer. The café had usually done Christmas events, including a whole new set of mugs, giving out free truffles that Legolas slaved over for hours, and adding new specials for the holiday season. Not only did they do Christmas celebrations, Gandalf would set out a dreidel and a pot of pennies at each table, with instructions on how to play it. Pippin remembered the curses and cheers of a last year as students gathered round the table, betting pennies and their free truffles, playing dreidel with their coffees.

Now that his life was lacking that sort of holiday celebration, the holidays seemed to be much less of an event in his life. He felt like every other university student; waddling through piles of exams, and just wanting the holidays so he wouldn't have to do school anymore. Not only did he worry about that, he was also extremely worried about the café. If Gandalf sold it, it may remain the same, but Pippin highly doubted it. Only Gandalf would be able to run something so special.

That was precisely why he was going to this meeting. He normally wouldn't have gone; it was freezing rain, and the sidewalks had turned to ice. He had seen some people skating down the sidewalks, actually, and had spent his morning looking over at the streets watching as people fell. Now, he was going to be one of them.

He put on his best winter boots, hoping that they would give him at least some traction. He knew that they wouldn't. Soon, he was going to be tripping and falling just as everybody else on the street was. He was definitely not in the mood for this; he definitely needed more nicotine and caffeine.

But, he was already outside, and there was no helping it. He plastered himself to the side of the building, using it as a support as he worked his way down the street. He was not going to fall. He was not going to show up at the meeting soaked and he was not going to have to tell Merry why he was wet. He was not going to be laughed at.

Unfortunately for Pippin, he wasn't as graceful as he hoped, and he slipped and fell. He leapt up, trying to prevent a large wet spot on his pants, and the sudden motion caused him to fall yet again. He was muttering curses (most of them taught to him by Boromir's constant murmuring) as he clawed his way up the wall. So much for not embarrassing himself.

He walked another ten steps before he fell again, this time, sliding into somebody. He swore loudly, not really caring as he spewed out, "Oh I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hit you."

He steadily got to his feet before he offered up his hand. His jacket slipped up, revealing the nicotine patch on his wrist. He didn't really care, this person was a stranger, they probably wouldn't know what it was. His hair was long enough for him to pass as a girl (though a rather boyish one) so they might have assumed that it was birth control.

The person took his hand, and he helped pull them up. He was then face-to-face with the Diamond AKA the Caffeine Girl. Her eyes widened, before she looked down away from him out the corner of her eyes. Perhaps it was just the cold, but Pippin thought her cheeks turned red.

"Thank you," she muttered, before she brushed past him and continued walking down the street. Pippin watched her go, and all he could think was that she didn't have a coffee in her hand. He didn't think there was a moment in her life where she was not drinking a coffee. Then again, the roads and sidewalks were basically made of ice, and a person could hardly keep themselves upright without anything in their hands. A coffee would only be a terrible distraction.

Pippin had fallen twice more before he realized he hadn't said "You're welcome," and probably came off as the most jerkish gentleman ever.

He arrived at Legolas's dorm room in twenty minutes. Usually it took ten, but he had fallen every other minute, and had been distracted by Diamond. He was pleased to find Boromir standing in the lobby, another broken umbrella in his hands, soaking wet.

"How many times did you fall?" Pippin asked him. The taller man glared at him, shaking his head so droplets of water flew at Pippin.

"About fifteen. I nearly fell into a car… a moving one," Boromir growled, and Pippin had to try not to laugh. Boromir had the worst luck of anybody he had ever met.

"I beat you. I fell eighteen times. You win with the near death experience though," Pippin commented, as they both made their way to the stairwell. Legolas, of course, lived on the third and highest floor of the dorm, much to Gimli's displeasure (Pippin thought it was something like a fear of heights).

Pippin was panting by the time he got up the stairs, and he bent double. This earned him a sceptical brow raise from Boromir.

"Not all of us take steroids and go to a fencing clinic everyday," Pippin retorted, huffing for breath. Boromir gave him a small shove.

"I don't take steroids," he told him.

"You so do," Pippin replied, "Anyways, I have smoker lungs."

"You haven't smoked in two years, your lungs should be recovering, though not completely, but at least somewhat recovered," Boromir explained.

"You should have been a doctor," Pippin straightened up. "You don't tell Merry this."

"Whatever you say," Boromir agreed as Pippin knocked on the door to Legolas's room. It was answered incredibly quickly, Legolas beaming at them as he shooed them in. Pippin kicked off his boots, and hung his coat onto the back door before he turned to the room.

How Legolas managed to get eight people in this room was a mystery. Gimli was propped on his desk, Legolas was standing in the doorway, Frodo, Sam and Merry all occupied one bed, while Aragorn sat on another. Boromir went to go sit next to his fellow politics student, while Pippin got onto the bed with all the other Shire natives.

There was small chatter before Legolas then began to speak, "We are gathered here to day to talk of the threat of Mordor," Legolas told them all in a low voice, "The college students, or at least some of them, are all messing around with our campus. It's been like this years before, but they've never gone this far. First, they attacked our café." Legolas pulled out a poster board that had a picture of the ruined café. Pippin was thoroughly impressed. "Then they went after the library," Legolas tapped on a picture of the library spray painted, a couple of the books nailed onto the sign outside, "And then they poured juice crystals into the pool," Pippin looked at the picture of a large pool that had been turned completely red.

"How many juice crystals do you think that took? Probably like a thousand packets," Pippin whispered to Merry. "Rather impressive prank. Too bad I didn't think of it."

"This is serious Pip," Merry hissed back.

"I know, but seriously, how many packets did you think it took?"

"Shut up, Pip," Merry told him, before he turned to Legolas, "What are we supposed to do about it?"

"Firstly, we need to save our café. Gandalf's in financial trouble, and is thinking of selling it in order for it to be restored. We all know that Gandalf selling the café would be worse than any vandalism, right?" Legolas ranted, putting his hands behind his back and pacing in the small space that he had.

"Right," they all responded. Pippin wondered why Legolas wasn't a drill sergeant. How in the Valar's name did so much fierceness get balled up into one peaceful environmental student? It was quiet terrifying. Pippin would not be surprised if Legolas whipped out a cigarette, war paint, and two machine guns, and then leapt out the window to go 'bust a cap in the college students' ass.'

"The café has a name along the school. What we need to do is bring up the spirits of the University. We feel like crushed bugs. We aren't bugs. We are university students! We need to start regaining our spaces and regain our territory!" Legolas said. Screw the cigarette, Legolas was going to jump out the window with a grenade him his mouth.

"Okay, so how are we going to do that?" Aragorn asked.

Legolas then smiled sweetly, his aura flipping entirely, before he said, "Fundraisers. I can make some cookies, and Gandalf will let us borrow his machines. We can run a make-shift café in the park."

Pippin did not like the prospect of walking through snow to serve customers, but he liked the idea that they could work again. Pippin then had an idea, "We can stop accepting the money from Gandalf. It's appreciated, but since we're not working, he shouldn't pay us. He should put that money to the repairs."

"Right you are, Pip," Legolas said with a nod. "Starting in the New Year, we're going to turn this school around. All in favour?"

The group gave a collected "YAH!" and sat in silence for a couple of seconds with smiles on their faces. Their faces fell, however, when there was a bang on the side of the wall from one of Legolas's neighbours.

"WOULD YOU KEEP IT DOWN IN THERE?"

Merry Chirstmas/Hannukah/whatever you celebrate!

Thanks to tommyginger, BrightWatcher, Wanderingidealism, Shadowhunterpenjuin-97, XxJigoku-no-HanaxX, SilverMoonrise, Daeril Ullothwen, laurawesome, LoTR-HP-PJ, Tiarna no fainne, ElynFlame, NSTFroes, Quiet Hiker, Nyla Evergale, mngirl, and articfoxlover for reviewing! Thanks to SilverMoonrise, Imogen Color, Kate Chase, LazyBob, and Snowthorne for favouriting/subscribing. Thanks for reading, and please review!