You will find that no Mary Sues are slayed in this chapter, but much ale is consumed and many bad ideas are hatched, which I hope rather makes up for it. I also apologize for my ridiculously long absence. I've been penning an original story that has sapped up all my attention of late.

I found my ragtag band of Sue-slayers, or at least two of them, hunched over pints of beer at a local pub crowding with all walks of life. I felt accomplished and real pleased with myself, brewing with confidence, so much so that in the back of my mind I almost knew I was forgetting something important.

Pride and satisfaction have a bad habit of precluding a terrible mistake.

"Oi!" Filmamir barked, elbowing Tolkienmir and jerking his chin toward me as I walked into the bar. "Look who it is?"

Tolkienmir grinned. "You're back, Max."

"That I am," I said, taking a seat beside them. "Ran into a Mary-Sue on my way. The Sherlock-Sue. I was making my way toward Baker Street when it just appeared in front of me, the most flawless thing I'd ever seen. I took it out, of course, to preserve the integrity of the universe…" I trailed off, realizing that the Sherlock-Sue had absolutely no relevance to our quest whatsoever. She was completely unconnected to Middle Earth. "She's not in Galadriel's book, is she?" I muttered dejectedly.

The Faramirs shook their heads. "Not if she's here," said Tolkienmir.

"So nothing to brag to her about?"

Filmamir shrugged. "Not unless you brought the Sue's hair ribbon back with you like a serial killer taking his trophy."

"Besides, Galadriel probably wouldn't want to hear a peep about Sues right now. She and Ziva disappeared 'bout an hour ago, said they were going for a walk. Haven't come back yet."

Figures. I snorted, completely unsurprised. "At least they live up to Tauriel's expectation, finally taking a needle to that balloon of sexual tension."

"Common when the circumstances seem hopeless to overcome."

"What circumstances?" So we're in another rut? Brilliant. Just brilliant.

The Faramirs shared a look. "Doctor's gone. We've no way out of London, as it is," said Tolkienmir.

Oh. Those circumstances. To be fair, I hadn't really tried to make him stay; I'd just rushed from the TARDIS in blind, lost, panic. Valar, the Doctor had even offered me a free ride and the adventures of a lifetime! Could've just taken him up on that and been dropped off in my own-oh, yeah. I didn't have a canon. There's that-just one more thing I could add to the list of total bullshit I'd been through since getting spat out in Middle Earth.

"We should find the lovebirds," said Filmamir, "then figure out how to get out of this mess."

Which mess? The one where we can't get out of Sherlockian London, or the one where Galadriel let loose a bunch of Mary Sues she expects us to help her round up? Or the one where she roped a former Mossad assassin into the party and is falling in love with her? Huh, Plot? I demand to know where you're going with this.

I looked up at the 'mirs. "Yeah, we should, shouldn't we?" I muttered, swigging from Filmamir's pint. "Don't look at me like that; I'm not underage. I don't even have an age."

The slap on the back of my head was loud and impossible to mistake as anyone other than our own "I-don't-watch-too-much-NCIS" Galadriel. "Max, you're underage," she scolded, taking the pint and stealing a large gulp of it for herself.

"No I'm not! I'm immortal!"

"Well you look underage."

"I'm a brainchild. We always look underage."

The Faramirs, from their clearly inebriated position on the stools, scrutinized Galadriel closely.

"Get enough fresh air?" drawled Filmamir, his eyes sparkling mischievously as they zeroed in on flaming red mark that marred Galadriel's perfect Elven neck.

"Indeed I did," she replied enigmatically, the corners of her lips slipping upwards just the tiniest bit in difficult-to-conceal self-satisfaction. "And wouldn't you guess what Ziva found on the sidewalk, discarded and rusty."

Tolkienmir cocked his head in question. I watched Ziva slide from the crowd, silently approaching the two from behind until she leaned between their shoulders. "A paper clip!" she hissed into their ears with a sharp glare a the scheming couple.

The Faramirs startled, the grins vanishing instantly from their faces as Ziva shot them a complacent smirk and sat down on a stool on their other side. "So," she began as if the Faramirs still weren't trying to find their lungs, "we are trapped in London."

I sighed, reaching out to steal Filmamir's pint again, but he snatched it away. "Isn't there someone we could call? Galadriel," I whined, "you have contacts in the GCWFHB." Mouthful of an acronym. "They fic-jump all the time. There's got to be at least one number you have with you."

"Number…" Faramir murmured. A light-bulb look flashed across his face. "The London train station. Galadriel qualifies as an Elf-witch, right?" He ducked his head and pointedly refused to look Galadriel in the eye. "She could get us into Platform nine and three quarters."

But Galadriel shut down the plan before it even got past the 'bad idea' stage. "Elf magic on its own unfortunately does not qualify as wizardry. We would have to study every similarity between Middle Earth and J.K. Rowling's universe, down to the smallest details, then write a crossover fan fiction popular enough earn its own little canon slot."

Ziva, out of us all, knew the least about fan fiction, and seemed painfully confused. "How can a fan fiction expansion of the original universe become canon? Especially if it is a crossover?"

"Ah, my darling assassin," Galadriel crowed smugly, taking on the tone of a pretentious old lecturer, "Have you never met our dear friends Spalko and Haldir?"

Ziva narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "I am afraid not."

Galadriel chuckled warmly at the resurfacing memories. "Oh, do I have a tale to tell you." The Elven queen was showing signs of slight inebriation, I noted, and a drunken story by Galadriel had to be entertaining.

"A year ago is merely a moment in six thousand years," she began grandly, "and it was a year ago that Tauriel of Mirkwood materialized in Caras Galadhon with a laptop computer and a terrible idea. And you know-a bad idea ought to be duly ignored. But a terrible idea should be followed through to the end."

Ziva smirked and leaned back against the bar counter, clearly enjoying herself. But whether she was enjoying the story or the fact that Galadriel's arm was slung over her shoulders I couldn't discern for myself. Even drunk, though, Galadriel sat with grace and poise.

"If you'll recall, Jenny Shepard was there as well-"

Ziva stiffened. "Impossible. She is dead," she said sharply.

The Faramirs shrunk back into their seats, and I bit my lip. Apparently Galadriel had failed to mention that Jenny Shepard was alive and well, hunting Sues in Middle Earth with Gibbs.

Galadriel, the ale having reached her head at this point and slowly whittling away at her senses of guilt and self-preservation, dissented, completely unabashed. "You would be right to say she is dead in your canon, but you forget that each fan fiction has its own version of events. Think of it as a flow chart, or perhaps a language tree, each branch splitting off as time goes on where the outcomes differ."

Apparently Galadriel was just as intellectual drunk as she was sober; she was just a lot more pompous about it.

"Are you telling me that Jenny is alive; my friend is alive, and you simply forgot to mention that earlier?"

"I guess she let the cat out of the sack," muttered Filmamir.

"Bag," Ziva corrected him on instinct. "Let the cat out of the bag. I learned that one the difficult way."

"Anyway," Galadriel piped up pointedly, annoyed that she had been so rudely interrupted in her storytelling, "Tauriel accompanied the Fellowship of the Ring until the Battle of Helm's Deep, when she allied herself with Colonel-Doctor Irina Spalko, resident commander of the GCWFHB."

"The what?" Ziva demanded.

"The Guild of Characters Who Fan Fiction Has Butchered."

"It is a poor acronym."

"That's what Tauriel said."

Filmamir nudged Galadriel with the hand that wasn't holding the ale. "Get on with the story." Of course, he'd already heard this story, but was most likely just enjoying the idea of drunken Galadriel rambling on about the series of events that led up to her freeing a book full of Sues and eventually getting us stuck in this pub in London on a Tuesday night.

"Eowyn introduced our heroine the AWOL Elf to her OTP: Haldir and Spalko. Now Spalko's canon is a mess of poorly written mush, so she just lives through fic-hopping and doesn't have one. The fanfic effect gives her migraines occasionally. She has back story issues and psychological issues and a shit-load of Plot issues.."

I noticed Galadriel language sounding less and less 'Elf-queen' and more and more 'hard-boiled adventurer' as she sipped her pint of ale. Fitting, since she was still decked out in the full-on Indiana Jones regalia. The world needed more female action heroes, although I doubted this one did. We already had Tauriel and Eowyn, not to mention Spalko and Shepard, all of whom stirred up enough trouble on their own without the help of a bored Galadriel.

"Eowyn was writing up a sappy romance for them, and it became popular enough that it filled her canon slot. They finally got it together in Meduseld, though. In a broom closet, or so I've heard through the grapevine. Their daughter was born three months ago."

Ziva's jaw dropped. "That was your Colonel-Doctor Irina Spalko? I believe I have heard of her. Abby mentioned her to me just before I left. She was with Agents Lasgalen and Riddermark. Tauriel and Eowyn…" she trailed off. "I do not suppose those would be the pair of fic-jumpers you were referring to? Abby mentioned that a woman had stopped by-gone into labor in the bullpen, mind you, before vanishing into thin air with a blonde man who looked like he came from 1930s England. She offered me the job hunting Mary Sues."

Galadriel nodded her confirmation. "That sounds like Spalko, although…" she trailed off thoughtfully for a moment before continuing with a hint of suspicion, "She never told me about going into labor in the NCIS bullpen. I'll have to ask her about that."

"This is proving to be a rather informative conversation. You are much like Jenny in that you speak professionally and talk too much, but you are a lot more crass and informative when you are drunk."

"Flattered," muttered Galadriel, "However I'm fairly sure you didn't stare at Jenny's ass when she walked away."

Ziva was almost amused, fighting to keep a straight face as her lips twitched in betrayal. "No, I did not. But since she has become a topic of conversation, how about you explain to me why you never said she was alive."

Galadriel frowned. "You didn't ask. I assumed you already knew."

"And how would I have already known?"

Galadriel opened her mouth, then shut it awkwardly, trying not to let the guilt show on her face.

"Oops," muttered one of the Faramirs.

"She died in one universe. There were so many more out there in which she was alive that she spent most of her time in limbo between fics," I explained, cutting into the conversation before Ziva and Galadriel could get into a full-blown argument. "Galadriel simply pulled her out of limbo. And Gibbs kind of skipped his canon and turned up here with Spalko and the GCWFHB. There's a plotfiller in there now. A version pulled from a well-written fan fiction that follows the same plot as canon."

"I cannot believe that this information simply skipped Galadriel's mind."

"Sometimes she forgets that other people don't communicate through telepathy," I said matter-of-factly. "Also the term is 'slipped her mind.'"

Suddenly, Galadriel's head shot up from where she'd rested it in her arms on the table. "That's it," she whispered. "I know how we get back to Middle Earth."

"Platform nine and three quarters?" the Faramirs asked hopefully.

Galadriel shook her head. "No. I stand by that we could not reach the platform. I need three things to get us back: a computer, a wi-fi signal, and an orange cat. We're going to get ahold of Jenny Shepard."

Ziva cocked her head. "Why do you need a cat?"

"Because links between universes can only be established by words. I needed some clever wordplay that would be understood by enough people that it has the same effect as a popular fan fiction."

"Again," said Filmamir, "why the cat?"

"Because our favorite Jenny Shepard is a regular Shrodinger's Cat. So a redheaded cat would be greatly appreciated in order to establish the link. Faramirs, I'm tasking the cat to you."

"Anything else?" I inquired.

Galadriel thought about it for a moment, then responded, "Certainly." She waved the bartender over. "Another ale? I need to be more drunk than this if my bad puns are going to be what gets us to Middle Earth."

I suppose this chapter cleared up any misconceptions that Tauriel's Legolas-Aragorn-hula-skirt incident didn't over whether or not Elves can get drunk. In my opinion, they most definitely can, and I hope the result was amusing.