Author's Note (AO3 2016, updated FFN August 2021)

This story was started way back in 2003. It was my first real project and what made me fall in love with writing. That being said, I was thirteen at the time and it clearly showed. As Light in the Dark has always held a special place in my heart, I've done a thorough overhaul of the plot. It's mostly the same story, just now with more depth and focus – and because of these developments, it's now a bit more serious than it was originally.

Years ago I received emails from concerned readers about my portrayal of the sport of gymnastics – thinking it unfair or inaccurate. But I won't apologize for it. Coaches like the ones in Light in the Dark – no matter the sport – do exist, sadly. It's important to keep in mind that Kate's experiences in this story are unique to her, and are a product of her dysfunctional situation.

If you happen to read this story, please review. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this project, which for many years I've used as a playground to try out new writing concepts and styles. Feedback is always welcome, constructive criticism even more so.

For more detailed author's notes, including videos to gymnastics skills, please refer to corresponding chapters on AO3. Also please note the rating of this story has changed to "Mature." This is due to language, dark/adult themes, and limes.

While the "Falling into Middle Earth" storyline is cliché and overused by now, I hope this take on it is unique enough to be enjoyed. If it's not your cup of tea, move on. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy.

Disclaimers: Let it be known that I do not own anything from Lord of the Rings and never will.

For Kiki.

Here's to all the happiness left to come.

You're My Light in the Dark

Chapter 1: Bad Beginnings

I don't know why, and probably will never know, how I got myself into this. I am in a living hell – my body and mind are completely overwhelmed. Then again, that's what the sport of gymnastics can do to you when you're training elite. The sport is my life and has been since I was a little kid. I enjoyed it when I was little. It used to be fun. Now I just find that it consists of expectations, scary tricks, nasty coaches, and a lot of injuries. There is no fun to be had anymore.

I don't quite remember the transition from fun past-time to grueling hell. Just that it's happened somehow… and that I'm truly stuck in the situation. As if on cue, my feet throbbed painfully, serving as a reminder to the wonderful day I have ahead of me. I bit down on my lip hard as I rode out the ache, tilting my head back against the pillows, willing both the pain – and time – to stop. I've been trying my best to not look at the clock, to not even think about the clock, or about how time is creeping ever steadily toward 5:30 AM. Because that is the time my mother is going to come and 'wake me up'. Too bad I didn't get much sleep last night. The pain kind of prevented it, despite how exhausted I was.

I hurt myself last night during practice – or rather, it's an injury that's been compounded and gotten worse gradually over the past week, and has finally reached its breaking point. It's not the worst injury I've ever sustained – I have had plenty of broken bones, dislocated joints, and bleeding calluses (also known as rips in the gymnastics world) – but it still hurts regardless. At my beam coach's insistence, I have been learning a new mount for my balance beam routine – a front tuck mount. And I'm terrible at it. My coach demands that I learn the front tuck, despite how I already have a round-off back layout mount that treats me just fine. I have always been better at tumbling backwards than forwards, and the two moves are worth the same amount of points. So, quite frankly, I don't understand why my coach is so adamant about it. Especially since it's causing quite a lot of pain. For some reason I cannot get enough height before the flip, causing me to land in a squat on my heels time and time again. And my heels have not taken kindly to the beating – they are now swollen and terribly bruised. It has gotten to the point where I can barely walk.

Not like that matters, though.

My bedroom light flicked on suddenly, and I quickly found myself squinting at the brightness of it. My mother bounded into the room, already fully dressed and with her make-up in place. Sometimes I have to wonder about my mother and her motives for putting me through this. Sometimes I can't help but think that she does it to pad the lining of her numerous "successes"… how after my father had walked out on us she was able to hold the rest of the family together, was able to raise her two daughters on her own, how she's fostered the talent and dedication those two daughters have regarding their respective sports…

I'm the gymnast. My younger sister Lauren is the figure skater. We're both at really high levels now. Hell, I passed the test and officially achieved elite status (the highest level you can go) just a few months ago. But it didn't really feel like a victory. Not really. And that's because I don't really want it. I wanted to quit years ago. I wasn't allowed to. Which sounds ridiculous, I know, but there you have it.

My mother poked me in the side roughly, indicating that I should get up out of bed. Problem was, I found it hard to muster up the energy to move. After a few moments where I tried valiantly to ignore her presence, she poked me again. She then crossed her arms with a huff. "Well?" she questioned, frustration and impatience lacing her voice, "What is it now?"

She knows exactly what my problem is. This happens every time I hurt myself and tell her I should take a day off from practice to help heal an injury. Since my coaches don't listen to me, don't care, and force me to do exercises that only serve to aggravate injuries, time off is really my only option. I glared at her. "The same problem I came home with last night. My heels are killing me. I told you last night that I need a break before I hurt myself worse."

"Tuition costs too much to simply skip practices, Katherine," she shot back at me, tutting. "Not to mention, you can't afford to fall behind at your skill level."

I inwardly seethed. She was right, of course. Except for the fact that I could give a damn about my skill level – I don't want to do this anymore – and while it might be expensive, that was all due to her forcing me to continue with the damn sport. I bit my tongue as my mother said, "Now get ready for practice and get yourself downstairs, little lady. I will not tell you again," before she turned to leave the room. Her tone was stern, and all but promised I would be sorry if I didn't do exactly what I was told.

I think my mother puts me through this because she likes showing off, with all the attention she gets from my success and the bragging rights that go along with it. When we were younger, Lauren didn't understand why I was so bitter toward our mother. But when she got to a high enough level with her figure skating, that's when she finally got a taste of what I dealt with for years: nothing is ever good enough. It's as if she actually expects us to have a shot at the Olympics. (Yeah, right.)

After she left the room I slowly counted to five, let in a deep breath, and tried my best to not let my eyes well up. It didn't work.

"Damn it all to hell," I muttered, and finally mustered up the will power to get out of bed to face the day.

Lauren was in the kitchen eating a bowl of dry Cheerios when I made my way downstairs ten minutes later. Only, it wasn't so much "a bowl of Cheerios" as it was a mere handful of them placed within a bowl. She was still clad in her pjs with her dark blonde hair sticking up every which way. She was also tense, hunched up over the kitchen table, clearly trying to hide the obvious stash of granola bars she had under her sweatshirt. She visibly relaxed when she saw it was only me and not our mother.

"Oh thank God. I thought I was dead for sure," Lauren whispered as she revealed an already opened granola bar and continued munching on it. "The food Nazis has me on a diet again. I don't think I can handle it."

I gave her a pitying look, already sensing what happened. "She forced you on the scale in front of her again, yeah?"

Lauren glowered darkly, muttering to herself about awful witches wanting her to become anorexic. The sad thing is, as much as my sister has a flair for dramatics, it's not far from the truth. The last time our mother had forced us on 'special diets' Lauren passed out on the ice in the middle of a lesson, nearly giving herself a concussion in the process.

Coming to herself, and realizing that our mother could come downstairs at any moment, Lauren dumped the stash of granola bars into her skating bag. She shuffled back over to the table and sat down with a heavy sigh. "I don't think I can do this anymore, Kat."

It's difficult watching my sister, who used to be so upbeat and happy all the time, mope like this. The moping, for us, has been going on for too long now. Her sentiments mirror my own. I sighed as well. "I know," I replied. "But what can we do?"

Lauren had a look of complete defeat in her blue eyes, knowing as well as I did that we don't have any options. She was even more tired than I was. She had tried to outright rebel on our mother. The key word there was 'tried'. The rebelling had only made her situation worse. To this day Lauren refuses to go down into our basement, and refuses to tell me the extent of what happened down there. All I know was that sometime during Lauren's rebellious stage I had traveled with my gymnastics team for a competition down in Florida for a week. When I came back, Lauren hadn't really been the same.

"But we have to do something," she insisted. "Anything. I just don't know what yet."

I gave a half smile as she shoved the remainder of her granola bar into her mouth. I pointed at the wrapper she was balling up in her hands. "Maybe in our own way, we are doing something. We are getting by. We'll think of something that will make that getting by a little easier."

"Do you promise? That we'll try to find some way of making things better?"

I couldn't deny her what little hope she had just rekindled. So I nodded as I gave her a pat on the head and limped around her, making my way out to the driveway where my carpool was waiting for me. Jill's mother honked the horn just as I got to the front door. I could already hear my mother yelling at me from the top of the stairs to hurry it up or I'd make everyone late. Snatching my gym bag from off the bottom step, I bit the inside of my cheek as I went out and slammed the door as hard as I could behind me.

I could see Jill sleeping up against the passenger side door before I even got into the car. Her dark hair was splattered against the window, her head cradled in the crook of her arm. Poor Jill has never been a morning person. Coffee and Mountain Dew were the only solutions for the cranky sixteen year old. If she doesn't have the caffeine in her system before the early morning practices she's absolutely miserable.

Jill's mother, the saint that she was, handed me a Dunkin Donuts bag. A blueberry muffin was stashed inside it. "Thank you," I said, surprised at the gesture.

She gave me a kind smile. "I figured you could use something a little sweet," was all she said as she backed the car up and out of the driveway.

Morning practices aren't typical in my gym during the school year because most teenagers are – you know – in school. But since Jill and I, two of the highest level gymnasts at the gym, happened to be homeschooled our coach pounced on the opportunity for extra mandatory training. Lucky us.

Jill and I have been friends for years, which makes the whole experience a lot less painful than it could be. Especially since we don't like our other teammates much. A good majority of them are spoiled rotten and act bipolar – they act like a friend one minute and a raving, monstrous bitch the next. My life is stressful enough as it is, I don't have much patience to deal with them too.

Like we do every morning, Jill and I barricaded ourselves in the locker room before practice. Practice doesn't start until 8:00 so we are not going to start our torture any earlier than we have to.

Jill dug through her gym bag frantically, biting her lip in worry. "I could've sworn I had heel pads in here," she commented.

I waved a hand at her. "Don't worry about it. I'll manage," I said, sitting down on the wooden bench with a sigh.

She paused in her search long enough to shoot a frown in my direction. "Yeah, well. We can't have you hurting any more than you need to."

I couldn't help but smile gratefully at her. It was nice to know someone cared.

Seeing my smile, she smirked in return, her large brown eyes sparkling. "Yeah, so I give a shit about you. You can stop looking at me like that now."

"Like what?"

She rolled her eyes. "Like I'm your hero." She grinned as she pulled gelled hell pads out of the depths of the bag. "Never mind, I take that back," she said, tossing them to me, "Look at me like that all you want."

"I am ever so grateful for your awesomeness," I replied in a playful tone. Grabbing a roll of sports tape in order to strap the pads to my feet, I continued, "And to show you my appreciation, I will take you to the movies this weekend, my treat."

Jill nodded sagely, the dark mass of curls in her ponytail bouncing. "And the fact that the last Lord of the Rings movie is coming out today has absolutely nothing to do with it," she returned lightly, full of sarcasm.

I could only grin, sheepish, shrugging at her a bit.

After a moment she said, "Ah, fine. As long as I get popcorn out of the deal."

I couldn't help myself, I squeed, completely excited.

"Besides," Jill added as an afterthought, deciding to ignore my fangirl-ish outburst, "That blonde elf is awfully nice to look at."

PINGGGGGGGGGG!

Jill missed her release move on bars... again. She's still learning the trick and can't quite get the timing right. The trick is called a geinger. It requires her to swing upward, toes toward the ceiling, and let go to do a flip with a half turn before catching the bar again. She keeps on letting go of the bar just a smidge too early, which leaves her flipping a little too far away from the bar and unable to catch it again. She's getting closer, but now the bar pings obnoxiously every time the tips of her fingers smash into the bar on her way down.

"God fucking dammit!" Jill screeched from her place in the foam pit. She's fallen so many times in the same spot that a giant chasm has formed. "I fucking hate geingers!" She hit the blocks around her angrily, sending old crumbling foam, dust, and chalk into the air around her.

Our coach, Vali, is a middle-aged Romanian who doesn't speak much English. He has dark hair, big eyebrows, a mustache that almost completely hides his mouth, and a scary face that turns a nasty shade of purple whenever he gets angry – like right now. The two of them have been dancing around their frustrations for the past hour. But after countless failed geinger attempts, patience was wearing thin for them both. He was sitting at the side of the pit, shaking his head in aggravated disbelief. "Well geingers don't like you either," he spat with his thick accent. "Stop bending legs and let go when I say and maybe you catch bar." His tone was nothing less than nasty.

From her place in the pit, Jill scowled up at him darkly, not at all appreciating the attitude or the slight at her abilities. She matched attitude with attitude. "Oh yeah? Well if someone would actually spot me once in a while, maybe I wouldn't be so afraid of hitting my feet on the bar that I might be able to catch the damn thing!"

"Oh, I spot you, right away," Vali said sarcastically. It was clear that he wasn't going to go near Jill with a ten foot pole, especially now that she was being rude and talking back to him.

I made my way over to the edge of the pit, offering Jill a hand out. She took it gladly, chalk flying as our hands made contact. I cringed as Vali then turned his less-than-pleased attention on me. "And you," he started mockingly, "Sidney say you need beam practice." Figures the beam coach would talk to him about this. "Front tuck mounts," he added, as if I needed the clarification, "You land ten before go home."

I glanced at the clock. We only had ten minutes left of practice. I haven't been able to land one yet in my numerous attempts the past few weeks. And by the smirk he's giving me, he clearly knows that. Evil bastard.

Pointing to my taped heels I said pleadingly, "I can't. These mounts have been killing my feet. If I keep practicing them constantly like I have, I will not be able to walk tomorrow."

Problem is, Vali does not like to be disobeyed. His face turned an even darker shade of purple and the vein in his forehead gave a mighty throb. Eerily silent, he pointed toward the beam area, conveying the message: I don't give a shit, get your ass over there.

I was not normally one to argue with my coaches, but I gave a deep breath. "No."

He raised an eyebrow at the challenge. "You no leave till you do mounts."

Jill looked on with pity, mouthing apologies for getting him in this mood. Meanwhile I did not know what to do. On one hand I know very well he will make due on his threats. But this was futile for me. I can't even land one, never mind ten. And he's giving me ten minutes to do it. Glancing over toward the viewing area, I saw Jill's mother – my ride home – watching on. She was too far away though, and I could not make out her expression. I felt sorry for what I was about to do. Unbuckling my grips, I started toward the locker room, which was in the opposite direction of the beams. I heard yelling, foreign curses being yelled at my back. But I continued on. I wasn't expecting to be followed, chased more like. I ran as fast as I dared with my injured feet – and seeing as gymnasts are taught to run on the balls of the feet, leaving the heels off the ground (more spring in the step that way) – I was at least able to do so with minimal pain. But it wasn't enough. I was too injured to full out sprint. I only just reached the locker room door when I felt a hand roughly grab my arm. It was a vice-grip, hard enough to bruise.

"You no leave," was all he said, twisting my arm as he began to drag me back out into the gym.

I cried out in pain as my arm was twisted further in his anger. "Let me go!" Out of the corner of my eye I could see Jill's mother get up in alarm, and come rushing over to intervene. It was surprising, to say the least. Usually the parents stayed clear out of it – it's as if there are boundaries that can not be crossed, as if the parents ceased to be our parents the moment we step out into the gym and they no longer have any authority. For Jill's mother to be getting into this was big. Very big. Especially since I'm not even her child.

All I could see from my perspective was her curly, sliver-streaked hair fly about her as she came zooming toward us. "You let her go!"

Vali glared at her, accusing her with his eyes: she had crossed a line she was not supposed to have crossed – the unspoken rule of not interfering with how the coach disciplined the gymnast had been broken.

She continued to stare him down, standing her ground. "Shame on you, laying a hand on a child! To think you would do this in my presence makes me wonder what you feel like you can do to the children – my child – when no one is watching. Now get your hands off of Kat. We are leaving. Now."

He released me, albeit reluctantly. As I rubbed the feeling back into my arm I could see Jill, who had come up behind us, looking horrified at what happened, yet proud of her mother at the same time. "I talk to your mother about this," he spat in my direction, taking a step back.

Jill's mother glared right back at him. It seems as if she knew all too well how my mother is, how she would take the news of this situation: none too well. "Well, you bet I'm talking to her as well. And if she's knows what's best for her child, she would never bring Kat back here. I know I certainly won't be bringing my daughter back here. Now get your things, girls."

Vali, probably fearing what the head coach, his boss, would say about the prospect of losing two of his top gymnasts (and probably afraid he would make the situation worse by saying anything else) clamped his mouth shut, turned on his heel, and let us be.

I was so shocked I think I forgot to breathe for a moment. Jill's mother put a comforting hand on my shoulder. "It's going to be okay," she assured, giving me a squeeze. I wanted desperately to believe her. I flashed her a grateful look, thanking her for everything she's done. It felt nice to finally have someone – an adult – on my side. But I knew I was going to be in for a world of pain as soon as I got home.

The car ride home was a little uncomfortable. There were a lot of unknowns. Like exactly how bad things were going to be at home once I got there. What will happen to my friendship with Jill now that her mother announced that they were going to join another gymnastics team? Jill and I huddled in the back seat, comforting each other silently as Jill's mother talked on her cell phone with my mother for the better part of the ride. It seems like Vali had gotten a hold of my mother first, however, since things did not seem like they were going too well. It sounded like my mother was giving her an earful, probably along the lines of, "How dare you get involved!" and "You better not have ruined my daughter's prospects at that gym," ignoring the heart of the problem altogether. Jill's mother tapped her fingers on the steering wheel impatiently as we sat at a red light. It was apparent my mother was getting to her. The conversation eventually ended, with Jill's mother snapping her phone shut and throwing it at the passenger's side seat with quite a bit of force.

"I'm sorry," was all she said. "I did what I could."

My mother was on me as soon as I walked in the front door. She was raving. "What have you done?" she screeched.

I set my gym bag down by the door and said calmly, "I'm injured; Vali did not care, and was trying to force me to practice tricks that would only serve to aggravate it. When I decided to put my health first, instead of mindlessly obeying his orders, he blew a gasket."

"It's the best gym in the state! Don't you think your coaches know better than you? Not to mention the fact that I do not pay three hundred and fifty dollars a month for you to disobey your coaches. And how do you repay me for all my generosity? By throwing all that time, effort, and money in my face."

Oh, here come the dramatics and the guilt trips. I'm not in the mood for these games. Something snapped, and finally, finally I lost it. "Oh yes, because I've just been begging you to let me continue gymnastics for all these years now. Since I just love it oh so much."

The expression on my mother's face was one of pure fury. "My daughters just do not appreciate what I do for them!" Grabbing my arm, much like Vali had done just an hour earlier, I found myself being dragged toward the basement. Her nails were digging harshly into my skin. "You are going to think about what you've done while I go clean up the mess you made!" And before I knew it, the basement door was unlocked, flying open, and I was being shoved inside of it. Problem was, the door to our basement was at the top of a staircase. I don't think my mother meant to shove me as hard as she did, but with her emotions running high, she was taking her anger out on me without realizing it. I say this because the next thing I knew, I was frantically clawing at the walls to balance myself.

Too late.

I tumbled down the wooden staircase, wondering with each impact when the pain was going to stop. I think I heard yelling, but I couldn't be sure.

I don't remember hitting the bottom.