Dress. Lace. I stood there, demure as I was laced and dressed, combed, perfumed with something, Eowyn appearing halfway to have her own hair twisted back under a gold circlet. Nothing fancy, to my relief, and when we were rushed into the hall, I found out why. Everyone was already there. We were late.

I slid down to sit between Legolas and Pippin, accepting a mug of ale, and glanced around. No one drank yet. They were all looking forward to King Theodan and Eowyn.

She was moving forward, head bowed, offering him a goblet. Oh yeah. Kings drank first.

"Tonight we remember those who gave their blood to defend this country. Hail the victorious dead!"

"Hail!" I called, along with the others, standing arm-to-arm beside Legolas, Gimli on his other side. I hesitated, staring into the drink, before I gave up and drank it. One drink wasn't going to harm me much.

The hall was crowded, literally packed with men, women and children, wounded and well, almost all the survivors of Helm's Deep, or the family of those, and outside there were more. When I'd passed the doors to the hall I'd seen other buildings with swarms of people. Tonight, everyone was celebrating. Food was passed around freely, a feast's worth, great barrels of ale and beer opened or stacked ready. To my amusement, Legolas was back in his fine silver tunic, and Gimli appeared to have combed his beard. Or attempted to.

Boromir grinned at me, tension long gone, before he'd slipped off with his mug of ale in one hand and a pretty red head in the other, heading straight for where a group of people had started playing music. More mugs were passed around, drink flowing freely, people dancing, drinking, laughing.

A kid slid under his mother's arm and headed straight for Legolas. "Is it true you live in trees?"

"Come back here!" The mother grasped for him, embarrassed, the boy sidestepping her.

Actually, I liked the question, and Legolas didn't seem insulted. As Gimli moved away, Legolas knelt down until he was at the boy's height. "We live in Hall, much as your kin do, but both underground and in trees."

The boy seemed impressed. His mother didn't. She dragged him away, Legolas standing, turning to me. He grasped my hand, lifting it to kiss it, advancing closer on me.

"Underground?" I asked, as he advanced to me, suddenly painfully aware that he wasn't hiding his affection, that people were looking, and suddenly I felt really embarrassed too. Okay. He was only holding my hand. Only kissed it. I smiled weakly, one of his arms around my waist, trying, "Don't you miss the sky?"

"We do not spend all our time in the Halls." Legolas ignored the stares, ignored everyone, I found him moving with me, dancing, just a slow movement. "Do not be ashamed of us."

"I'm not ashamed." I muttered. I was still painfully aware of the attention though. Aragorn, Gimli, even Boromir, I could handle. Pippin and Merry, I knew they'd laugh, but I liked them. This entire Hall full of people. Hundreds of people. I felt totally self-concious all of a sudden and wanted to go hide in some quiet place. Afraid that they'd be judging me. Making fun of me. Saying stuff like 'She's too fat/human.'

How hard would it be when I was with his own people in Mirkwood?

Legolas bent down, brushing my hair aside, kissing my shoulder, before releasing me. "I do not live in the Hall of my father. I live near it. It is much like Rivendel, in some ways, with the sky open to the great doors of the Hall. You will see."

"On your own?"

He shook his head, hand still clasping mine, as we turned to watch the others. "With my sister. When you come, you will live with us. My brother lives in the hall with my father."

I nodded, finding myself standing closer to him despite my nerves, the growing reality of this relationship starting to really dawn on me. Some part of me was starting to long for a casual thing. Starting to feel the culture shock. I longed to hide in Gondor suddenly. I suspected it'd be easier. "Legolas, you do know that your people might not accept me, right?"

He flinched, something passing across his face, but it was gone too fast before I could catch it. Legolas spoke, quietly, carefully, "I expect some may not. But I feel I do not need to worry for yo-"

"Legolas!" Gimli called, gesturing, cutting him off. Legolas visibly relaxed at the sight of his friend, who was charging through the thronging mess of half-drunk Rohirrims, a mug of ale in his hand.

"Do not worry. The love of an Elf is not something we take lightly." He smiled at me, kissed the back of my hand, and moved forward through the crowd, pulling me along behind.

Gimli led us to where men were crowding, already laughing, several barrels opened and mugs everywhere. "I have wagered with Eomer."

"A wager?" Legolas drank the drink, slow but steady, and placed the mug aside. "On what?"

Gimli slammed down a mug, a wicked grin, Eomer coming to rest against the pillar beside us. "Who lasts longer. Boromir?"

"Gives his regrets, but is busy." Eomer seemed amused, glancing over his shoulder, at Boromir dancing. Not with the red head but with a different woman this time. He met my eyes, half amused now. "Are you joining?"

"I'll stick to one." I answered quickly. I already knew where this was going and I knew it wasn't going to look pretty. "This is between the Elf and the Dwarf."

Eomer nodded and reached out to offer a mug to Legolas. "No pauses. No spills."

"And no regurgitation." Gimli added, resting back.

Attention was on us now, half-drunk men were crowding around to watch, laughing. I didn't feel that threatened though. I felt kind of safe in this place somehow. Eomer moved aside, pushing a chair towards me, and I sat down. Could take a while, yeah.

"So it's a drinking game?" Legolas seemed to get it suddenly.

"Ai!" The men cheered, around us, ale flying as some mugs were crashed together. This was as much about their entertainment as Gimli's challenge, apparently.

"Last one standing wins." Gimli grinned and started to chug ale back, right down his beard and all, while Legolas hesitated. Met my eyes. I shrugged lightly and he started to drink slowly, eyebrows raised, though... he'd known what a drinking game was. He was pretending to be new to this. I wondered if Elves had similar games?

Either way, he was playing innocent, so I decided to stay quiet.

"To victory!" The men cheered around us, drink flying, men going for barrels, laughter and loud conversations starting up again.

I sat there for five minutes, watching Gimli go for alcohol, Legolas continue his 'Polished perfect Elf hiving first drinking game act', until Aragorn came for me. I was relieved he did- by this point, Gimli was loudly declaring that the winner would get a kiss.

"You look lovely." He said, softly, drawing me aside to the side of the room. I blinked, staring down, forgetting that I was wearing a dress. No wonder why Eomer was more relaxed with me right now.

"You look pretty handsome too." I replied, honestly, even if he wasn't as fancy as half the people. Aragorn nodded, a warm smile there, leaning against the wall beside me.

"Legolas has asked me about rites for bonding."

"Oh." I wasn't sure what else to say. Aragorn's smile was still there but he seemed slightly more tense, suddenly, and my eyes involuntarily went to the necklace around his neck. That was right. Arwen. He'd chosen to let Arwen go. "You don't think this is a good idea."

"Do you?" He asked quietly. We watched Legolas and Gimli, on the other side of the room, surrounded by laughing, shouting men. Legolas looked as unearthly as ever in that crowd, in his silver tunic, like he didn't quite belong here.

"I don't know." I admitted with a quiet exhale.

"His kin are different to us. They love us, and they may do so, but their love kills them." The words were painful. Aragorn didn't say them to be cruel. He was honest. Sad, even, his eyes distant now. "As this land does. They all will leave."

"To the undying lands." I knew.

"I do not say this to be cruel, Wendy, but-" He turned to me, slowly, and I noticed he'd refused to use the Elvish word. "-I care for both of you. Legolas would not long survive your death out of love for you. You are mortal. Without you, he would live for thousands of years more."

"I know."

"I-" He reached for the Evenstar, even as he hesitated, pain etched on his face, hidden from the room by his hair. "I understand this decision."

"I know." I repeated, quiet, my mood fading. I knew he was right. I'd started to feel it. "I guess I didn't expect it to go this far." I didn't expect to fall in love with the stupid Elf either.

"Nor did I." Aragorn smiled sadly. "Perhaps we are more brother and sister than we realise."

"He wasn't supposed to spend the next part of his life with me anyway." I admitted, quietly, watching Legolas and Gimli. Gimli was getting drunker by the second, a dozen mugs falling to the ground as he swept his arm and demanded more, Legolas maybe on his sixth or seventh. "He was supposed to be with Gimli."

"Aye, I suspected."

"I don't want to change the things they'll do, even if I don't know what it is." My heart was already breaking. It was crazy. These feelings made no sense to me. I felt like my heart was already breaking. Like I'd already decided.

But I had, hadn't I? I'd only thought on this for five minutes and I'd already realised how this wasn't going to work. Legolas and I. We weren't going to work. I suddenly wanted to cry and drink. Either, and both, whichever. I felt Aragorn's arm come around my shoulder, and I leaned against him, his voice quiet in my ear.

"Sometimes, we must love someone so much, that we release them."

"Like a bird." I breathed out, throat starting to hurt, all my emotions crowding into it at once. "I have to let him go, don't I? For his future?"

He nodded, sighing, and we stood there some time. I didn't really want to stay around though. Celebrating suddenly wasn't that appealing.

"Do not think of it now." Aragorn said softly.

"Too late, really." I muttered, standing. I really wanted a girl. Eowyn. Where was she? She might ...understand? She was with other women, children, laughing, her face flushed with pleasure and alcohol. "I'm going to hang out with the women."

Aragorn nodded.

I sat with them, numb, staring into my food. I wasn't hungry again. The sad thing was that Aragorn was right, even if he hadn't said it outright, that I couldn't stay with Legolas, led alone marry the Elf. At some point he was meant to go off and ...well, who knew, do something with Gimli. For hundreds of years. I had, what, fifty years left? Sixty?

Legolas had thousands of years, if I left him alone, and marrying him was just going to more or less screw him.

"-as the one we drink in our hometown!" The song from the other side of the hall, Pippin and Merry dancing on the table, got my attention. That cheered me up. I stood up to watch, moving closer, passing Aragorn and Gandalf.

I stopped beside them, waiting to be told to leave, but Aragorn nodded to me and spoke softly to Gandalf.

"No news of Frodo?"

"No word. Nothing." Gandalf said quietly, his smile fading.

Aragorn met my eyes. "Have you had a vision?"

"I-" I wasn't sure how to explain it. I hesitated, aware of both Gandalf and Aragorn's attention weighing on me, trying to … what, trigger something? When I'd hit my head at the river, I'd remembered almost everything, but it was confusing. More imagery than anything. Yes, I'd seen the ring destroyed, but I also knew that things clearly could change around here. The only images I could get in my head right now was of Sam and Frodo with a camp-fire, with Gollum, and a river. It somehow didn't feel right, like it wasn't something happening right now, so I shrugged helplessly. "I guess I have got a vision of him but it's confused. I think it was a few days ago."

Gandalf seemed neither disappointed or reassuring, he seemed tired, sad, and stared ahead.

I tried, "Sorry, I really... it's a mess." My own heart sank. Things changed. Frodo was pretty tiny. There was even another of those Black Rider things now. What if, just by being here, I'd screwed him up?

""We have time. Every day, Frodo moves closer to Mordor." Aragorn insisted, his voice strong, meeting my eyes and Gandalf's eye.

" Do we know that?" Gandalf asked quietly.

"What does your heart tell you?" Aragorn met my eyes too.

"That Frodo is alive. Yes." Gandalf relaxed a little as he said the words, his smile returning, shoulders relaxing, gazing forward once more. "Yes, he's alive."

I tried to smile and relax. Okay. "Yeah. Okay. He's still going." I couldn't have changed it that badly. I hoped. I suddenly wondered though. Wondered if Boromir's survival had reached Faramir after all. If I'd maybe screwed something up. Doubt still tugged at the back of my head.

Boromir moved past, pausing to grab my hand, and I was more or less dragged into the throng of dancing laughing people, the smell of beer and alcohol, food, smoke, manoeuvred around as Boromir danced with me.

"Are you not happy?" He called over the noise, face cracked in a smile, every last bit of tension gone, the smell of the alcohol on his breath.

"What?"

"We have survived a battle-" Boromir jumped easily over a man, who'd stumbled and fell, not even pausing. "- no man should have survived!"

"I'm happy. I'm just worn out." I smiled weakly and watched as Legolas crossed the room towards us. He didn't seem anxious now, or suspicious of Boromir. It was amazing how quickly we'd let it go. The 'vision' we'd shared, the horrible version, was almost gone. I could barely remember it. It was like a nightmare, I only vaguely remembered the worst parts, and the rest was gone. "Have you found yourself a wife?"

"A wife! Woman, I am young, I am alive, I am not ready for such a thing!" Boromir laughed, winking at a woman who was passing, only to be hit around the head by a man I suspected was her husband. He more or less literally pushed me at Legolas with a silly bow. I wondered how much he'd drunk already. "My Lord, your betrothed."

Legolas grasped me easily, hands light on my waist, nodding as he smiled. He nodded towards a door, the one to outside, and I had to admit it was a good idea. I followed behind him through the crowd.

It was only outside and around the edge of the Hall that he let his mask drop somewhat, reaching up to rub his ears.

"Loud?"

Legolas nodded. He drew me closer, arm around my waist, and leaned against me in the cold night, eyes gazing out.

"I spoke to Aragorn-" The words slipped out. I didn't want them to. But there they were.

"I know. I heard." Legolas responded softly.

Of course he heard. And, of course, I felt no shock. Had I known he'd overhear it? I stared out across the plains, the full moon casting the silvery cold light over everything, a cold wind whipping around my dress and sending a cold breeze up my bare legs. "I don't know."

"I do not expect you to know." Legolas smiled down at me. "Not in these times. I have decided."

"But... is it true?" I lowered my voice as people passed by, a couple, laughing and swaying in the darkness. "I mean, do you shorten your life because of this?"

When he nodded, my heart sank, and I felt the weight of this start to crush me. It was selfish. Wasn't it? "I can't do that to you."

"It is not your choice." There was a flicker of something, sadness, but he squeezed my waist. "Do not decide yet."

"What about your travels with Gimli?"

"If they are meant to happen, they will." Legolas replied quietly. He tugged me back, the woman storming past, the man rushing after her and pleading. "Some things we cannot change. I know that I must go with Gimli for a time."

I suspected 'a time' translated to hundreds of years somehow. I knew, somehow, that they'd leave here one day. Gimli, the only Dwarf to go to the undying lands. Legolas would leave. "I don't want to change your future."

"You won't. I cannot explain it but I know. You will not change that much." There it was again, the sadness, but he smiled down at me in the darkness. "Some things you have already changed. You may decide to no longer love me, and yet, I have foreseen all that will come, and it will happen. I will walk the land with Gimli. I have not seen you with us. This, I cannot change now."

"You've seen stuff?"

He nodded, going quiet, breathing out slowly.

"Can't share?"

Legolas shook his head.

I somehow wasn't surprised. There were things I couldn't share either. I sighed quietly and gave up trying to avoid physical contact. The second I melted into his side, I felt his relief, and my own, as if I was sensing his emotional state. Probably impossible, I probably picked it up from the way his body relaxed, but it was interesting.

"Stay beside me. As long as you can." Legolas said quietly.

I couldn't say no. Aragorn might have. But I couldn't. I nodded, he grasped my head, and kissed me with this sweet and desperate affection, just briefly, before he stepped back.

"Come." Legolas grasped my hand. "Your room is small but I have asked for it to be warmed."

My room? I followed him back inside the hall, through a door, slipping past the celebrations still going strong. My 'room' was tiny, just really enough room for a bed, a chair, and a little brazier with the remains of a fire burning away, hot coals caught in the narrow metal at the bottom. There was a thin rug under the bed over the stones, a little window, and I noticed Legolas' bow, knives, his cloak and his usual tunic neatly piled up between the bed and the wall.

"Our room?" I asked softly. Nodded at his things.

"I will not sleep much. I do not need to." He nodded to the chair beside the window. "But some time I may sit with you till you sleep."

"I do need to sleep."

"I have accepted it. Do you dream?" He shut the door, locking it, and turned to me. Legolas slowly turned me around.

"I dream about my past. I just never remember it." I didn't back off as he started to unlace my dress, shivering as fingers traced my spine, lips kissing my back.

"Elves do not need sleep and so we envy those who can dream so frequently. Our sleep is rare. Dreams are treasured journeys that we see as sacred." He slipped his hands in the open back of my dress, wrapping his arms around my waist, leaning against me. "I would dream with you."

"How?"

"One day, my love, you will see me and you will know." He slid the dress off my shoulders, carefully folding it to one side, and I felt him tug off the loose under-dress in one quick yank, it pooling around my feet and ankles. I shivered, partly because of the cold, but also because he was tracing my side, fingers tickling me, kissing along my shoulder. "Are you cold?"

When I nodded, he nudged me towards the bed, and I turned to watch Legolas strip off his silver tunic, slowly unbuttoning it, that intense affection back. Love. It was love.

"I don't want to leave you." I admitted, quietly, as he stepped towards me slowly. "Or shorten your life."

"Do not think of it then." He moved towards me, dropping his tunic over his other belongings, pushing me onto my back on the cold bed. "We are alive."

We felt alive, I was sure of it, twisting and biting each other under the covers, Legolas letting go of his mask. It somehow felt different, stronger, his body pressed up against mine, and when he released, it was real... his body actually releasing, like a man, his body shaking with the effort, arms gripping me hard and pressing me against his chest, our hearts just inches from each other.

After, he stood up, face flushed with blood, trying to dress and re-do his hair slowly, and I tried to not laugh as he actually sat down and asked me to re-braid his hair.

"That important?"

"We should always loo-"

A song cut him off. I blinked, Legolas tensed, as an alien song drifted up from my pack beside the bed, wafting up, the sound completely wrong. Not of this world. Not even belonging here.

"-t me up, lift me up
Higher now ama
Lift me up, lift me up
Higher now ama

Plain talking, plain talking,
Making us bold
So strung out and cold
Feeling so old "

My phone! I felt myself grapple for it, sliding across the now warm bedding, my actions ...familiar, and yet strange to me, like I'd done this before, but it was some old habit I'd forgotten. Grasp the phone. Press 'answer' to accept video call from 'Boyfriend. Heart, heart, smiley face'.

"Where the fuck have you been, woman? Are you naked? You better not be cheating on me."

My boyfriend. Staring at me, seeing my naked shoulders and some of my cleavage, his face dark with anger. The phone was working, a video call, and … I suddenly felt like I was loosing my sanity.

Video call. Working. In Middle Earth. In Edoras! Four bars of reception.

It didn't matter that Legolas stood there, half naked, that I could smell him, or smell the cooling coals in the brazier, or feel the sharp cold of the air on my bare arms and shoulders. It didn't matter that I couldn't remember this boyfriend very much.

I felt like I was going crazy. And I didn't remember him. Well, I sort of did, and I sort of felt something. But right now most of it was related to 'What the hell is your problem?' type feelings.

"I-"

"We've been together for three years now. I put up with your 'I'm not ready for sex' bullshit, with oral only, I put up with your health problem, and now you let me think you're dead?" His anger burnt somehow. It hurt. I stared at this man, this gorgous man, and felt my old nature return.

He was beautiful. Sweet. He got angry sometimes, sure, but he loved me and he was with me! Me!

So why did I want to swear my head off at him?

Somehow I suspected this reaction wasn't going to be the one he was expecting. I stared at him, at this man who I apparently loved, caught in two minds. The first was me. Me, now, me who'd smashed blades into big nasty black blooded monsters... and the usual me, someone I barely remembered now, the one who felt insecure. Afraid of being hurt. Grateful to him for loving me when there were so many beautiful women out there, thinner, healthier...

Was I insecure?

The bed sunk, suddenly, and Legolas grabbed the phone. He looked furious.

"You cheating on me with him? After all I've done for you? After I waited for you to be ready for sex? To loose weight? Cheating on me with some kind of fail cospla-" The man's face was red with anger. Not pretty, I realised, not really. It was just fake.

Legolas flung it down, a knife in hand, almost ready to stab it. I grasped his arm in time as the phone hit the rug, battery fell out, Legolas' arm shaking under my grasp. "This thing is not safe."

"It is." I sounded flat, tired, and a trace of depression filtered in. But ...hang on. I lifted it up, pushing Legolas to one side, muttering, "Put your knife away," as I stared at it. Reception. Good. Hundreds of missed calls. Lots of phone messages. Emails? Thousands. Alerts kept popping up. Missed things.

How the hell did it have reception right now? In Rohan? In Edoras? I stared at Legolas, suddenly, grasping him tighter, half afraid he was just some illusion in my head. I felt mad suddenly. Like, this was a delusion, that he wasn't really here.

"You exist, right?"

Legolas b linked at me, tightened his grip on his knife, and tried to peel it out of my hands. "Let me destroy it."

"No, I... It's safe!" I was confused, I got up in a hurry, and the cold of the room made me remember quickly that I was still pretty naked. "But ...Gandalf." The word, the realisation of who I really needed to talk to, it somehow reassured me somewhat. Legolas wasn't doing much good. He was sitting there, white faced, and I was trembling with more than just cold. With what? Hurt? Anger? Confusion? Yep, that one for sure.

"I will help you dress and bring him." Legolas stood, sliding up, his hands sliding over me. In one quick sudden motion, he embraced me, leaning against me, adding softer, "I am real, my love. I am sorry. I did not expect any man to talk to his lover that way."

"He's not ..." The guy, my boyfriend, was something all right. Had been, anyway. Oral? I couldn't remember but... if I'd felt guilty, if I loved him, I probably would have tried. I felt sick again. "I don't know who I am anymore."

"You are a member of the Fellowship." Legolas released me, grasping my arms, before he bent down to gather up clothing. "You are a warrior. My lover."

"Those things, yeah, but what if you're all in my head?" Paranoia rose up again, I stepped into the cold fabric as he offered it, confused. I stared at the phone once more. Yep. Still working. It scared me. It shouldn't, I should have been glad to have a connection to the previous world, I should be ...I didn't know, calling people or something. But it scared me. When it started to ring again, I turned it off, and let Legolas re-lace up the dress.

"Come we will speak to Gandalf." Legolas was buttoning up his tunic once more, ignored his un-braided hair, and leading me outside, thrugh the crowd, to where Gandalf sat laughing and eating. He took one look at us though and stood, quickly, nodding to the quieter side room.

The side room was being prepared for sleepers. Mats were strewen around, blankets piled up in one corner, a fire already burning and warming the empty space. No one was ready for sleep yet apparently. Gandalf shut the door behind us and we were alone.

"My phone, it's working." I held it up, reluctently turning it on, though I really didn't want to.

"Your phone..."

"A connection to ...you know, that place I'm from. Somewhere else."

"Ah." Gandalf took it, slowly, as careful with it as he had been with that other big black ball thing. The man was wise, sure, but it was still obvious he had no clue what it was.

"It's for communiction. It's safe. But … Gandalf, it shouldn't be working." Not unless there was some kind of ...mobile phone tower. On the top of a nearby mountain. Totally impossible.

"It threatens her sanity, Gandalf. She believes we're not real." Legolas muttered. His hand clasped on my shoulder, tighter than usual, standing closer.

"Of course she does. The veil between her world and our own once again grows thin." Gandalf frowned, lines on his face as he observed it, and while he might not have known what it was for, he didn't seem as afraid of it as Legolas had been. "There is more to your appearance than I believed."

"What do you mean?" I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer anymore.

"You were able to cross. Who's to say something could not cross the other way?" Gandalf ran his thumb over the screen, ignoring the movement it created, turning it over. "This is safe?"

"Well, yeah, it's just two people."

"So there cannot be any spies in the conversation?"

He seemed to be taking this well. I was confused until I saw his gaze head for the ...panther? Big black ball thing. It was still bundled up in his grey cloth. I remembered, remembered with a shock, that Middle Earth had already had something like this. Those things had been stones used for commication until one of them had been stolen. Two? Three? I didn't know the exact amount. The second they had though, others were listening in, and the commication was suddenly no longer safe.

"It's like those things, yeah." I mutterd, Gandalf's head jerking up to me, and added, "But I don't know if this can be traced." Except that there were a lot of phones. And who knew? Maybe Sauron could cut into these conversations. Maybe there was some magic-techology thing. I wasn't an expert on magic or ...radiowaves. "I don't know if it can be listened into from here. In our world, it can be, but you need special and illegal techlogy. Breaks all kinds of laws."

"I see." Gandalf frowned. "Then, you must destroy it."

"There's a way to hide it. Flight mode before you turn it off." I hoped, anyway. "People can't communicate with me then. It cuts off the radio waves... "

"Show me."

I took the phone, slowly, and hesitated. Another caller.

'Mum'.

"Wenduin..." Gandalf's voice was soft, even sympathetic. "We cannot risk this."

"I'm just afraid … you're not real." I muttered. I felt my heart break as I rejected the call and put it onto flight mode. I didn't remember mum. I didn't know her name, or her face, but …it still hurt. It turned off and I swallowed down a lump of emotion. Suddenly somehow I wanted to cry. "And if you're real, if this is real, then I've been gone from them for months."

"I understand." Gandalf took the phone once more. He slipped it away somewhere, some hidden pocket, reaching out to touch me. "I will return it when it is safe. You are here. There are more worlds than most know, Wenduin, and few cross between. It is a secret long held by the Elves and Wizards alike. Travel between is forbidden."

"When the ring is destroyed, I can contact them?"

"And return home."

He nodded, and I swallowed, shutting my eyes. Okay.

"This war could spread into Wenduin's world?" Legolas' voice cut in, after a few heavy silent seconds, his hand tightening once more on my shoulder.

I blinked at him, turning, and he didn't seem the least bit surprised to find out I wasn't from Middle Earth at all. "Did you know I wasn't from here?"

"Of course. I found you. Nothing that came with you belongs to this world." Legolas didn't even seem interested in it. Was 'other worlds' something not that unusual to Elves? Where was the undying lands anyway? "Gandalf."

"I believe so." Gandalf responded quietly, leaning against the wall, his white staff held in one tense hand. "We do not fight just for Middle Earth now."

I couldn't picture it. Sauron, in my world, with big elephants and Uruk Hai. But … we had weapons he probably drolled eye juices to get his hands on. "He can't get into my world. Bad news for everyone."

Gandalf nodded. He seemed concerned, if only a little, and seemed to have no answers for once. He only said, "The barriers broken have created problems unforseen..." and was cut off as a drunken Rohirrim was dragged into the room, semi-concious, probably the first of many men who'd need to sleep it off in here tonight.

"You haven't eaten." Gandalf's voice was suddenly lighter. He smiled. "Leave this with me. Take some food, enjoy a good night's sleep, and enjoy good company."

It was something of an order, though he'd said it lightly and with a smile, so I reluctently followed Legolas out. We both got food, whatever we could get our hands on, before we returned to my little room and sat on the bed side by side.

Legolas didn't speak.

I didn't speak.

We just ate.

"That is your lover?" Legolas muttered, suddenly, breaking the silence. Anger flashed over his face, quickly masked by the usual 'calm special Elf' look, but I'd seen it. My 'boyfriend' had really pissed him off.

"Was." I was kind of surprised by my own conviction . "I don't think … I don't really remember him anyway. After that, with or without you, he'd be toast. Dumped. It'd be over."

Legolas nodded, staring ahead, lost for 'common' words. He muttered something in Elvish and I was sure it wasn't 'Seemed like a nice young man'.

"Not impressed?"

"I do not understand why you ..." He dropped his spoon into the soup and resumed eating, hair in his face, reminding me that he'd wanted it braided.

Putting my bowl aside, I slid closer, and slowly started to run my fingers through his hair. Legolas shut his eyes and leaned against me at the contact. "I don't either. I think ...I felt like I didn't deserve him. I didn't understand why he wanted me."

Legolas ran his hand up my side, slowly, as I braided a tiny neat braid down the side of his face. He slid his food to one side and kissed my shoulder. "I do."

"I don't really want to think about it." I muttered. "Okay?"

"O...kay." The word sounded wrong and Legolas laughed. "I will not speak of it."

I smiled weakly, twisting around to re-braid the other side of his hair, trying to relax. Okay. If I couldn't call my mum, whoever she was, at least she knew I was alive now. She might be angry, she might think I was with some guy, but she knew I was alive. That was good. That soon to be ex-boyfriend could ram his threats up his bum. He was a jerk and I really didn't understand why I'd dated him. Or done that to him. Ew.

A hand slid up my back, untying the laces once more, Legolas standing and bending over me so his arms could wrap around me.

"Go to sleep." He murmered against my neck. "And rest."

"I'm not that tired." In some ways I was though. I was exhausted. I felt his lips press against my neck, throat, again and again, as he pulled the dress down, shutting my eyes. When I was lifted and lowered into bed, a hand stroking across my back, I breathed out slowly.

Fingers ran through my hair, I suspected he was braiding it, but it felt amazing. Slowly I fell asleep, encoraged by the feeling of Legolas' slender fingers through my hair, anxiety slipping away.