Hey guys, how's it going?

In this chapter, we're going to find out just what the hell is going on with Cheyanne and her "dreams". It's about damn time, Gary.

Cheyanne hurried down the street towards Dreamer's, ignoring the looks she received from people she passed. All she could think about was how Gary had tapped his temple before she'd gone back to Middle-Earth after awakening the first time from her deeper sleep. He knew something, just like Smaug had, and this time, she wasn't going to let the information quite literally fly from her grasp.

She pushed her way into Dreamer's, exhilarated by determination. And yet, when she saw Gary, she stopped dread in her tracks, her eyes opening wide.

Gary was sitting at the counter, like usual, but he didn't look like the Gary he had been a week earlier. His hair was limp and plastered to his forehead, his eyes dull and clouded. He looked weak, weaker than her even, and she was reminded of someone, but she couldn't put her finger on who.

She stood blankly and stared at him until Gary noticed her, and he lifted his head slowly, blinking. "Cheyanne," he coughed, a grin appearing on his lips. "Glad to see you've woken without issue."

"Gary, what's happened to you?" she asked him, stepping closer to the counter in worry.

The old man let out a hoarse chuckle. "Darkness and age are catching up to me, I suppose. The typical death of an old man."

Darkness and age? "You're talking like-" Cheyanne cut off as Gary changed before her eyes into a different old man, one she hadn't seen for almost as long as she hadn't seen the one sitting at the counter. She squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment and then opened them again. Gary was back. "Gandalf."

Gary's grin grew wider, and Cheyanne retreated backwards a step in shock. "You- What?"

"My old friend thought it would be funny to create a character after me," said Gary with a weak shake of his head. "Turns out me and him, we were connected through more than words."

"You knew Tolkien?" Cheyanne questioned in disbelief. "How is that possible?"

"I didn't just know John," Gary answered, attempting to stand and falling short of a straight position. He landed back down on the stool heavily. "He and I were best friends."

Cheyanne wasn't sure how well she was taking this. Her mind had poofed out, the lightbulb flickering weakly within her skull. "Y-You knew Tolkien," she repeated with a shake of her head. "How old are you, G?"

Gary chuckled again. "No older than I appear to be, Cheyanne," he told her, holding out one arm to display how fragile and thin he was. "And it seems it's finally catching up to me."

Cheyanne stared at him. The memory of Gandalf's position in the story came back to her, and she blurted, "Gary! Gandalf is in Dol Guldor right now!" She furrowed her brows and met his eyes. "Are you… Are you feeling the darkness of the Necromancer's castle, just like he is?"

"That is very likely, isn't it?" Gary queried with another laugh. "If I had known how much I'd be dealing with my showing you who you are, I think I would have considered this a bit more."

"Showing me who I am?" Cheyanne gaped at him. "What are you talking about? I want the truth; don't you dare leave anything out."

Gary shook his head, eyes glimmering behind the clouds in them. "You're more brazen than your cousin ever was, that's for sure," he sighed. Cheyanne's breathing hitched at his words, and Gary smiled at her. She never noticed how closely he resembled Gandalf, or rather, how closely Ian McKellen resembled him. "I would have thought you'd figured that out by now, at least. You look too much alike to be anything but relatives."

"But… That's not Bilbo!" Cheyanne exclaimed. "That's Martin Freeman. He also plays John Watson in Sherlock. He isn't just Bilbo Baggins."

"He was fashioned for the role," Gary explained calmly. "Just as Ian McKellen was fashioned to be Gandalf. The characters in the movies are the characters in the books. The makeup artists saw to that."

Cheyanne shook her head. "So… Jon was right all along," she muttered under her breath in annoyance. "Damn it."

"I hadn't wanted to do this to you before, Cheyanne," Gary told her. "You must believe that. You see, your parents left me to watch out for you, since they doubted your mother's sister could do it. She did well enough, of course, but she knew nothing of who you were inside, and what you were meant to do."

"What am I supposed to do?" Cheyanne asked him desperately. "Please. I want to know so I can be done with this."

"Cheyanne, you will never be done with this," Gary said to her gently after a moment. "Middle-Earth is where you belong."

A stone dropped heavily into Cheyanne's stomach. She felt like she was about to vomit. "W-What?"

Gary bowed his head and let out a breath. "I will do my best to tell you the whole story, for your sake as well as mine."

He lifted his head again and gestured to the floor with one hand. "You may want to sit, my girl. This could knock you over in a dead faint if you don't."

Cheyanne obliged, sinking down onto the carpeted floor with her back pressed to one of the bookshelves. Before Gary could begin, the door opened with a tingle of the bell above it, and Jon stepped into the shop. Gary eyed him for a moment and then sighed before waving his hand.

Jon closed the door and flipped the sign around. He then sat down on the floor beside Cheyanne. They both gazed up at Gary, and the old man let out a breath from where he sat above them on his stool behind the counter.

After a moment, he began:

"When John first approached me with the idea for his first book, I called him insane. He was persistent, however, and I begrudgingly agreed to let him at the very least put a character in there fashioned after me. We were very, very close, he and I, although I was older than him. Perhaps he enjoyed my wisdom about the world."

"Wait, John as in… John Tolkien?" Jon asked, his eyes huge. "You aren't serious, G."

"I am, Mister Davenport," Gary responded with a dip of his head. "I know there is no way to prove it, but… Well… You were never the most willing to believe, either."

He turned away from Jon and looked at Cheyanne. "Originally, there was not only one hobbit, but two. A male and a female, both of the same family, one more eager than the other to go on a journey with a company of dwarves and an old wizard."

"Bilbo and Cheyanne Baggins," Cheyanne said quietly.

Gary nodded, showing she was correct. "After much deliberation, however, John decided that only one hobbit would serve, would make for a more interesting tale. He felt that two hobbits, realizing their own things about themselves, would be cliché, like two siblings learning they were destined for greatness. After all, he couldn't give a Ring to both.

"My friend Tolkien confessed to me one day that the she-hobbit he'd written from the book left a lingering sense of doubt in his mind. He felt that there was no possible way for others to come to reconciliation with themselves without her there. One specific character he mentioned comes to mind."

Gary met her gaze steadily, and Cheyanne swallowed, unsure who he was speaking of. There were a number of characters it could be.

Gary waited for her to say something for a moment. When she didn't, he went on: "After a long discussion over what he was to do with these characters, he decided that there was no possibility of changing them further after they had come to terms with themselves. What's a character in a great novel to do when he's reached maximum development?"

"In the greatest books, they die," Jon submitted with a sigh.

"Exactly," answered Gary. "And thus began the tradition of killing a hero whom could no longer be developed."

"Thorin," Cheyanne breathed out, finally realizing. "Tolkien killed off Thorin because he'd gone from insane to a king worth fighting for. His character was developed as far as it would go, and Tolkien wanted an ending." She bowed her head, remembering how hard she'd cried the first time she'd read The Hobbit. "He certainly delivered."

Gary nodded slowly. "John knew that his tales of Middle-Earth were far from over. He needed to connect the last book to the next. The Fellowship visits abandoned Erebor on their own journey to Mordor; why did the mountain kingdom fall back into desolation? Because there was no King Under the Mountain quite like Thorin would have been."

"I just- I don't understand what this has to do with me," Cheyanne managed. "I… How am I supposed to help Thorin develop further as a character when he makes a giant leap on his own?"

Gary studied her with a steady gaze. "What do you think, Cheyanne?"

Cheyanne looked down at the floor, eyebrows knitting together. Tolkien had put her in the story for a reason, and she was supposed to fulfil that purpose in the dreams she guessed Gary had been putting her into. She was supposed to complete the original purpose she had been written for, the purpose given to a female in almost any classic story.

She lifted her head and met Gary's eyes, which were still trained on her. "I'm supposed to give Thorin a reason to live," she murmured. "He submits so easily to Azog's blade just to see the Orc dead, but if I'm there… He has something else to fight for, besides his mountain."

"What?" Jon demanded. "You mean… You're the love interest? You've got to be kidding me!" He threw his hands into the air as he stood, beginning to pace in the same aggravated manner as before. "All this time, it could have been something cool, like you are Bilbo or something, but no! You're just the girl the king has to live for!" He stopped and cupped one hand over his mouth. "You hear that Thoranne shippers? It's a thing! It's actually a thing! John Tolkien was a Thoranne shipper!"

Cheyanne tugged on Jon's elbow from where she was seated, a blush creep into her cheeks. "Stop it," she mumbled under her breath.

"Does Thorin need to live for Cheyanne, or does Cheyanne need to live for the king?" Gary asked quietly, almost to himself. Jon immediately turned in his direction, and Cheyanne slowly stood. Gary glanced at them both with a half-smile. "Did you ever think the reason Thorin didn't live was because there was no one to save him?"

"What?" Cheyanne asked, her voice barely more than a whisper. "I'm not supposed to just be there for him to fight for; I literally have to save him from Azog. The Azog. The giant Orc with a sword for a hand and a boulder on a chain he swings around like a flail? You can't be serious, G."

Gary merely gazed at her. "What do you have that no one else does, Cheyanne?" he asked her. "What do you possess that no one else in Middle-Earth ever could?"

Cheyanne looked down at the floor to think. "She knows what's going to happen before it does," Jon supplied when she didn't say anything.

Cheyanne shook her head. "He won't not fight Azog just because I tell him he's going to die. I already tried to do that, kind of." Jon gave her a look, and she ignored it. She reached into her pocket for her crystal and pulled it out, heart aching when she remembered Thorin's words to her.

As soon as he saw the crystal, Gary's eyes cleared. He held out his hand silently, and Cheyanne passed it to him over the counter top. When his hand came in contact with it, his skin seemed to have some color returned to it. He straightened up with a relieved sigh and closed his eyes. Life flowed back into the old man, his face returning to its normal state and his hair lifting back from his forehead. The crystal seemed to clear him of whatever darkness had shrouded him before.

Cheyanne blinked as she watch this. "It's like…" An image of something else flickered in her mind, and it clicked into place. "Lady Galadriel's ring!" she blurted out, pointing at the crystal. "It's made of the same stuff as her ring!"

"Light found in the darkness of a trolls' hoard," Gary confirmed, cradling the crystal in his hand for one moment longer before he submitted it back over to her. She held it close to her, gazing down at the stone. She didn't want to let it out of her sight, now that she knew what it was.

"Light."

"Oh, let me guess," Jon began sarcastically. "Thorin probably gave that to you, hmm?"

Cheyanne shrugged one shoulder, still looking down at the crystal. "He had Fili give it to me, but yeah."

"Sweet God," Jon groaned, covering his face with his hands. He approached the counter and leaned heavily against it. "Gary, please, tell me this is all some elaborate April Fool's Day joke you've been planning for years and you were too excited to wait till next year to pull it on us. Please tell me that it's just a coincidence, and that I'm not beginning to go crazy."

"No joke, my boy," Gary told him. "I'm afraid this is all too real."

Jon let out a moan and fell against the counter.

"So… I'm going back," Cheyanne concluded, finally returning the crystal to her pocket. "I'm going to do what I have to do." She looked down at the ground. "But…"

Gary nodded, and Jon turned to face her. They gazed at one another for a long moment before Jon asked Gary, "Will she come back?"

Gary didn't answer him.

Jon bowed his head solemnly and approached Cheyanne with a sad look on his face. She grinned up at him in a weak attempt to make him return it, but he didn't. Her smile fell from her face, and she silently reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning up on her toes in order to do so.

Jon returned the hug, squeezing her tightly. "Who knew I was right all along?" he asked, voice breaking.

"I think we both knew, somewhere deep down," she responded quietly. Jon hugged her for a moment longer before he allowed her to sink back down to her normal height with a sigh.

"What's going to happen to her?" he questioned, while still looking at her.

"She'll transfer from reality to Middle-Earth permanently, leaving nothing behind but her memory," Gary answered. "It'll be as though she simply faded away into the shadows."

"Like a hobbit can," Cheyanne joked, throat thick.

Jon allowed her a sad grin. "I'll finish the story for you, if you like," he told her. "I don't know how good I'll be at writing it from your perspective, but I'll figure something out."

Cheyanne remembered the… FanFiction… she had been writing, and she shook her head. "It's a Fiction, Jon. I broke one of my rules."

This made him grin. He leaned down and kissed her forehead gently. "I'll remember you forever, Cheyanne," he said, "even when no one else does."

She swallowed. "And I'll never forget about you, Jon," she replied. "I don't think I could."

He nodded and stepped away from her. "I'll uh- I'll come to the apartment in a few days," he said. "Ju-Just to see…" Cheyanne dipped her head in understanding, and Jon backed away from her further, towards the door. "'bye, Chey."

"Goodbye Jon," she answered, bowing her head. "I love you." The door to the shop opened and closed, and when she lifted her head again, he was gone. She let out a shuddering breath and closed her eyes, aware she was shaking like a leaf.

"Cheyanne," Gary spoke softly from behind the counter, and she opened her eyes to see him holding a letter out to her. She frowned in confusion when she saw how old and yellowed the parchment it was written on was. Gary shook his head. "I didn't understand, either, but John wrote you a letter after he had written you from the book. I thought you'd want to read it yourself, before you went."

Cheyanne approached the counter and took the paper gently between her fingers. "Why do you have it?" she asked him, glancing up from the messy scrawl.

Gary merely smiled and tapped his temple. Cheyanne nodded and retreated to read the letter in her hands:

My Lady Cheyanne Baggins of the Shire,

It troubles me greatly to have stooped so far as to write you a letter, when you are not even a real being, but I feel as though it is necessary, just as it was necessary to explain hobbits in the beginning of my work. Without an explanation, the reader would have been dropped into the middle of the journey without any understanding as to what they had gotten themselves into.

"Huh," Cheyanne mumbled under her breath. "I didn't get an explanation."

"What?" Gary queried.

"Nothing."

That aside, I felt it was necessary to give you an explanation for what I did to you, despite the fact that you will never need to know because you are not real.

I wrote you as a character to be the same and yet the opposite of your cousin. You are the same hobbit, and yet you are different in ways you view the world. Bilbo is much more resigned, while you are comfortable with going on wild expeditions into the wild with no visible fear about what may lay ahead.

That is one reason I felt you weren't needed in the story. You are too strong, and had little to no room to develop as a protagonist, or even as a secondary character. When I realized that, it made me wonder if you were truly necessary to the tale I was writing.

It was when I was nearing the end of the book that I realized you were to be the one to make Thorin fight stronger against Azog, to give the dwarf a reason to live. When I was writing of the encounter between the Orc and the dwarf, you were there, and you saved Thorin. I can quite remember how, now that I think of it again. I wrote it in the middle of the night, you see.

That's when I understood that I had written you for the wrong purpose; you weren't supposed to be the love interest. My book wasn't supposed to need a love interest; it was about a hobbit that came to terms about how brave he was, while finding a magic ring to lead into the next book on the side.

And so… You were unnecessary. The book wasn't about Thorin, it was about Bilbo. And you have nothing to do with Bilbo other than the fact that you are his cousin and you are very close to him.

Believe me when I say that if I had been writing a story strictly for Thorin, I would have left you in. The story was for Bilbo, however, and you are not a part of Bilbo's story.

Perhaps one day I will write a story in which you will make an appearance, or perhaps my friend Gareth will write one for me. He seemed infatuated with you as a character, my lovely Cheyanne.

There is still hope for you to have a story of your own yet.

Sincerely Yours,

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (J. R. R. Tolkien)

Beneath the name was the author's signature.

Cheyanne lowered the letter and glanced at Gary. "Your name is Gareth?" she asked him with a small grin.

Gary grinned himself and dipped his head. "Now you see why I did this," he told her. "John had given me permission to write about you when I was ready. Only, I suppose I didn't write about you. I… Led you to your story."

Cheyanne nodded slowly. "So, I suppose it's time to give this story an ending, then?" she asked him, walking forward and passing the letter back.

Gary took it with a meaningful look. "If you're ready."

Cheyanne let out a breath and studied the shop for a long moment. So many books, and she hadn't read half of them, at least. It seemed like she never would, either.

Maybe Middle-Earth was bountiful in other stories she could fall in love with.

Slowly, she turned and looked at Gary. "I guess so." She titled her head. "When will I be arriving?"

"Oh, we'll see," Gary responded.

Cheyanne grinned. "I'll see you soon?"

"Definitely."

Cheyanne stood in her living room, reflecting over all that she had learned. Gary was Gandalf, or Gandalf was Gary, since Gary had come first. He had known Tolkien, and Cheyanne, by some strange event, was actually a character Tolkien had written out of The Hobbit brought to life.

She was basically an actor, representing Cheyanne Baggins in a way similar to Martin Freeman representing Bilbo or Richard Armitage representing Thorin, only instead of just acting, it was real. That was the part Cheyanne couldn't wrap her head around.

It seemed everything she thought was right was actually wrong.

Very… Cliché, unfortunately. It seemed like the past two weeks had been one giant cliché.

She let out a breath and glanced around the room. She'd never seen this place again once she fell asleep. She hadn't realized just how much the little apartment meant to her. Perhaps she was noticing it now because it was going to disappear. It was her home, and she'd be losing it soon.

Cheyanne shook her head. If Bilbo could leave his home, so could she. The only difference would be that Bilbo was able to return home, and she couldn't. Though, if Gary was right, Middle-Earth was actually her home.

Everything about this whole thing was insane. How was it possible that Gary, the old man who owned a bookstore, was the same person as an old wizard who was fictional and had an actor that played him? How was it possible that Cheyanne was a fictional hobbit that had never been brought to life in the book she had come from?

The short answer was that none of it was true, and that both she and Gary were experiencing the same fever dream. Unfortunately, it seemed the long answer was the truth. Cheyanne didn't like the long answer; it made her head throb.

There was no point in trying to understand it, she decided. She never would, no matter how much she thought it over. All she could do was sleep and go to the place she belonged. If it was even where she belonged at all.

She suddenly felt uneasy. It was like she was putting her life in Gary's hands, which she had, more than once. Gary had been around as long as she could remember. She couldn't even begin to count how many times she'd counted on him to help her. And he'd done a fairly good job.

What was different about it now?

Everything, she thought to herself with a sigh.

Cheyanne settled down on the couch and silently reached over and picked up the remote from off the coffee table. She clicked the power button and the T.V. Cheyanne laughed dryly when she saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was playing on cable.

"Might as well finish it the same way it started," she muttered. "What's one more cliché after all the others?"

She laid down on the couch before touching the pocket that held the crystal. It gave her a strange form of comfort, knowing that she had it with her. It was like all she had gone through was imbedded into that little crystal, proving that it had all actually happened. Everything had been real.

The crystal, and the pain in her leg helped her come to terms with that.

Cheyanne closed her eyes. "I wonder if I'll actually turn into a hobbit," she mused to herself in amusement.

Ahah. Ahahah. That's... Yeah. That might be a thing.

See you next Monday.