A/N: Look at me guys! I'm on a roll. Things are picking up, woot woot. I have nothing more intelligent to say. Enjoy.

Chapter Three

The Luck of the Irish, or Whatever

Marci handed her a hearty helping of painkillers and a tall glass filled with what looked to be baby vomit. Tauriel groaned miserably.

"Not Tomorrow's Tonic, I'd rather die," she said, and turned her face back into her pillow, wishing someone would just smother her to death already. Why was the sun so bright? Why was the air so thick and slimy in her lungs?

Christ help her, why had she drank so much?

One thing was clear, an over-thirty year-old body did not handle alcohol like her twenty-something body once had.

Marci clicked her tongue and rolled Tauriel gently back over. She may as well have flipped her over with a bulldozer.

"Don't make me grab the funnel. Remember New Years, sophomore year?"

Tauriel managed to peel an eyelid open to glare at her and immediately regretted it. The sunlight was like nails being driven cheerfully into her skull one at a time with a sledge hammer. With arms that felt like they were missing a few key components, she managed to sit up in bed, still dressed in yesterday's clothes.

Marci thrust the glass at her and watched her like a mother hen until she'd swallowed every last, awful drop. She felt better, of course, but it hardly seemed worth the taste. Gulping down a glass and a half of water helped, and she rested her head back against the wall trying to reorient the world onto its proper axis.

"What time is it?" she asked.

"Quarter to ten."

"Shit. Where are your kids?

"Terry had the day off, I made him cancel his golf date. I owe him a blow job now, I hope you're happy."

"Jaimie?" she said, ignoring at least half of what her friend had said.

Marci sighed. "In her room, refused to come out, even when I mentioned I brought donuts."

Tauriel pressed a hand to her forehead, the events of the day before dropping on her like a yellow brick house. She certainly felt like a wicked witch.

No point in beating around the bush. "She knows, Marc. She found his letter. Oh, and I was fired," she added as an afterthought. "Yay me"

A pause. "Well, shit," Marci said calmly.

"Yeah."

"What did you say? To Jaimie that is. We'll get back to that whole 'fired' thing."

"Not much."

"And then you drank two bottles of wine by yourself?"

"Pretty much."

She could practically feel Marci's disapproval. "I told you to call me."

"Well, I texted you this morning."

Marci snorted diversely. "Yeah, that you were dying and that I could have your big screen so long as I wiped the memory on your laptop. Completed with a skull emoji."

Tauriel rubbed her sleeve over the back of her mouth. "Hey, that's an important friendship stipulation. I'd do it for you."

Marci rolled her eyes and smiled. "Don't worry, your dirty porn fetishes are safe with me."

"You're the best."

There was a pregnant pause, filled with each of them attempting to ignore the giant, hovering elephant that had taken a shit all over her life.

"Okay, so, the truth is out now. That can be a good thing, right?" Marci offered and went into the bathroom to wet a towel.

Tauriel wanted nothing more than to just roll over and go back to sleep for, oh, the next fifty years or so.

"Well, the cat is definitely out of the bag. The question is, what do I do now? She hates me, I doubt she'll speak to me."

Marci was frowning when she came back and, with telling gentleness, she dabbed at Tauriel's face. Typically she would have rankled at being fussed over like a sickly child, but under present circumstances, she was willing to be cared for.

"First of all, I seriously doubt she hates you. She's a teenager who just found out her handsome, successful, perfect father –"

"Not helping Marc," Tauriel snapped.

"Hey, I'm totally supportive of your split, I get it, but that doesn't make him any less attractive."

"I'm telling Terry," she threatened as she fought back a smile. Marci had a habit of making her laugh even when she felt like the world was ending. That seemed vitally important in a best friend. That and their shared affinity for inappropriately timed sarcasm.

"Please, Terry thinks he's as sexy as I do."

Tauriel halfheartedly hit her friend with a pillow before the conversation turned serious again.

"Soooooo, how long has she known?" Marci asked, as she set the little towel aside. Tauriel was starting to feel vaguely human again.

"A year, I guess, which sort of explains why she's been so weird and distant."

"And you really haven't attempted to contact him at all in the last ten years?"

Tauriel was surprised by how much the memory of that day, the day she had received Kíli's letter filled with cordial rejection, still hurt. "No, no I haven't. He made his wishes and feelings pretty clear."

Marci patted her hand comfortingly as she settled into the chair she'd clearly brought in from the dining room. "That was over ten years ago Tauri, people change, I mean the poor guy was only 18-"

"And I was only twenty," Tauriel snapped before she could stop herself.

She turned her face away, hating the way her entire life suddenly felt completely out of her control. No matter how many years passed she would never forget the cold, sick feeling that had washed over her as she read his detached, calculated words scribbled out on fine paper.

"Hey, hey, I know okay? It was a total shit move on his part," Marci soothed. "All I'm saying is that maybe you should give him another chance, for Jaimie's sake. We both know Legolas is a great father, but it's always going to bother her, not knowing where she comes from. It can be hard for a person to know who they really want to be without first knowing who they are."

Tauriel swallowed thickly, tears pricking. Christ, she was a mess.

"Knowing him isn't going to tell her who she is. He's just some guy I met and had sex with because I wanted to take a chance. You see where that got me." She jabbed a hand around the room filled with half emptied boxes and senseless clutter.

"Yeah," Marci said softly, "It got you a great kid who loves you and needs your help."

That sobered her up real quick. The angry words that had been climbing up her throat settled back down again. It was several long moments before she spoke, looking to her friend with desperation.

"I have no idea what to do, Marc. None whatsoever. I feel like my whole life just decided to implode yesterday," she paused and looked down plaintively at her clenched hands. "I-I looked him up last night, Marc, and he's a fucking billionaire."

Her friend blinked and snorted, then realized Tauriel wasn't kidding. "You're joking right? Wasn't he some bummy pub singer? Is he secretly Ed Sheeran?"

Tauriel rolled her eyes and fumbled for her phone on the nightstand. She typed in his name and thrust the phone at her. "See for yourself."

A few moments later Marci let out a long whistle, eyes wide with shock and disbelief. "Holy shit dude, you definitely have to find him now."

Tauriel bristled. "Why? Because he's loaded?"

"Well that, and he's seriously hot."

"Marc!" Tauriel exclaimed, scandalized. "Please try to remember that this is the man who knocked me up and totally bailed."

Marci blushed. "Right, sorry. But seriously, don't you think he owes Jaimie some of his good fortune. She is his kid after all. And Jesus, she really does look just like him."

Tauriel bristled. "I don't want his money, not now, not after all these years. I'd rather eat your homemade lasagna."

"First of all, fuck you. Second of all, I still think Jaimie deserves the right to speak to him, if he'll talk to her."

Tauriel drew in a shaky breathe. "I just… I don't want to see her get her hopes up and have her heart broken, you know?"

Marci pursed her lips thoughtfully before speaking with care. She had a habit of never taking life very seriously, but when Marci Wright had something solemn to say, people tended to listen. "I don't think there is any worse feeling in the world than not knowing, Tauriel. She'll always, always wonder 'what if'. Better to have her heart broken than to spend the rest of her life questioning what could have happened, what might have been, and probably blaming you for it, I should add."

Tauriel sank back into the bed, wishing it would just swallow her up. "I seriously hate when you turn all writerly on me."

"What can I say," Marci preened. "It's my calling."

"Alright, I'll talk to Legolas. Now can I have a donut?"

"After you shower, you smell like a bar bathroom."

"Bitch."

"Love you, too. And after you smell better you can tell me all about how you finally shoved your boss out a window."

If Tauriel had expected Legolas to be on her side, she was sorely mistaken.

He ran a hand through his hair with a sigh, bracing his elbows on the knees of his carefully pleated slacks. The poor man looked older than his thirty nine years, hints of gray gleaming in the blonde that hadn't been there a few months before.

"We always knew this day would come eventually, Tauriel. And as much as I hate to say it, she does have a right to know. I never pushed you because it was your story to tell, but I think we should have told her long before this."

They were seated on the front porch of the home they'd bought four years ago. It had been perfect, everything they'd ever dreamed of. Tauriel had planned to watch Jaimie grow up here, to grow old within its walls, maybe play with a few grandkids (far, far in the future). Instead she'd become an outsider, a guest.

She rocked back and forth anxiously, unsure what she should say. Jaimie was upstairs, having barely said a word to Legolas when they'd arrived.

Haltingly, Tauriel explained everything she'd discovered about Kíli Callaghan from her further research online. He was, indeed from a long line of miners, who had begun their company sometime in the late 18th century. His Uncle, Thorin Oakenshield, had had no children when he died of terminal cancer earlier that year, and had left his entire, sizable fortune to his two nephews. Nephews who, if the tabloids were to be believed, were more interested in drinking and women than actually managing a billion dollar, international business.

Legolas was silent for a long while after she'd finished speaking.

"That's certainly not what I expected," he said tonelessly.

Tauriel grunted. "Yeah, me either."

"What are you thinking, Taruiel? What is your gut feeling?" he asked with sudden and surprising intensity. "This is your show, this was always your choice."

Tauriel flinched. "She's your daughter as much as mine."

Legolas's face softened. "I appreciate that, Tauriel. I love her more than anything, but I understand how she must feel. I never knew my mother, just a slew of step mothers who never lasted very long, as you know."

Tauriel did know. She'd been there right beside him through every one of Thranduil's hasty marriages and bitter divorces. She'd always been Legolas's pillar and he had been hers. His kind smile told her that, though things were strained between them now, there was a chance for them to reclaim that connection someday in the future. It gave her hope.

"I don't doubt that whatever Jaimie finds in this man, she will love me just the same, and I her. We aren't doing her, or us, any favors by shielding her from the truth."

"I looked at jobs in Ireland last night," she blurted out, though she left out the bit where she'd drank more than she had in the past five years at once.

Legolas's eyes widened and she rushed on. "I'm not sure what I was thinking exactly. I mean, I don't have a job anymore and I don't particularly like most of the other hospitals in Boston, as you know." There had been several years of medical school where she'd been forced to work in many of them and they were all relatively terrible. "I just thought that maybe… I don't know, I could get away for a while and see what I could find out." She shrugged helplessly. It sounded insane, even to her.

Legolas nodded his head vaguely, not really looking at her as the sun began to set orange and yellow. "And what about Jaimie?"

Tauriel bit her lip. "I hadn't thought to take her or anything not yet anyway-"

"Maybe you should," he said quietly, surprising her.

"What? You think I ought to move our daughter to a foreign country while I try to track down her biological father whom I haven't spoken to since before she was born?" she scoffed.

Legolas caught her eye, expression grave. "I think it might be good for her. For both of you."

"You can't be serious," she shook her head. "I mean, you'd hardly get to see her."

His expression darkened and he inhaled sharply. "I know that, and I'm not saying I'm excited about it, but she deserves a chance to see where she comes from, her heritage, and maybe to meet a family that doesn't even know she exists."

"I don't know what to say."

He smiled a little. "I know how hard these past few months have been for you-"

"For both of us," she said and hesitantly reached out to take his hand. His fingers enfolded hers briefly in gratitude before she drew away.

"And I understand why you might feel like you need a new start," he continued. "And why you might feel that there are some parts of your past you haven't been able to resolve." He shook his head ruefully as Tauriel's heart broke for him all over again.

"You sound like Marci," she accused and he chuckled.

"She's a smart woman," he told her, "I really do think you should go and take Jaimie with you. Maybe just for a few months to a year, let her see the world a little bit, help to mend the tension between the two of you. She can come visit on breaks and I'd love to come visit as well, see the sights," he teased, but she could tell it was a struggle for him.

Tauriel listened to the creak of the chair as she dipped backward, the world suddenly a larger, scarier place than it had been just a few days before. "You really mean it don't you?"

"I really do."

Tauriel shook her head again. "You've always been too good to me, Legolas, and I hardly deserve your kindness and understanding now."

His smile was the brightest she'd seen it in weeks when he said, "No one has ever deserved it more. I once promised you that I'd always be there for you and Jaimie no matter what, I meant it then and I mean it now."

"You're still my best and dearest friend," she said with a voice that quavered.

He looked sad again. "We're not quite there yet, I don't think, but we will be. You were right, yesterday, we both need our space to sort ourselves out."

They sat in silence then as the sun set quietly against a purpled sky. Tauriel felt, despite the guilt and fear of the unknown, strangely at peace.

The plane touched down and jolted Tauriel out of a dreamless sleep. Her mouth was dry and her brain fuzzy as she blinked back into consciousness.

"Hey," she muttered hoarsely, nudging Jaimie. "We're here."

The thirteen year old snorted softly as she woke and tugged out her earbuds, flipping back the hood of her sweater and rubbing at her eyes. Outside, rain was pelting softly against the tiny windows of the plane. It was dusk, and the sky had a soft, gentle quality to it.

Typical Irish weather, she supposed.

Tauriel stood and stretched with a groan, pressing her palms hard against her aching back. She'd been a lot more excited about her trip to Ireland at the ripe old age of twenty that was for sure. Currently she was filled with a sudden and predominate sense of dread, and a growing certainty that she'd made a terrible, terrible mistake. Jaimie, however, was practically buzzing with anxiety as she hastily pulled her back-pack out from under her chair.

Together they fished out their carryon bags and fell into line. A little old woman with bright red hair was grinning at them from across the way, a tiny shrunken old man peeking out from behind her.

"Here on holiday dearies?" she asked kindly in a thick English accent.

"For work, I'm afraid," Tauriel answered, not precisely in the mood for conversation. She was trying to have an existential crisis, damnit.

"Mom's a doctor," Jaimie gushed, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

"Oh, is that so? And American, too, how lovely," the woman piqued, clearly impressed. "Come to work here in Dublin, then?"

"No we're going to Droghead," Jaimie said, stumbling a little over the name. Tauriel wasn't precisely sure how it was pronounced, to be honest. She knew exactly two things about the place: one, that it had a hospital willing to hire her and two, it was home to Oakenshield Mining Incorporation's executive office.

The old woman chuckled as though Jaimie were the cutest thing she'd ever seen as the line started to move. "Good luck to ye dearies," she said as they moved forward.

"The luck of the Irish," Tauriel muttered sardonically, and Jaimie elbowed her in reproach.

"Don't be cranky Mom, this is exciting," she insisted and Tauriel winched even as a smile slid across her teeth.

As soon as Tauriel had mentioned looking for work in Ireland, and that maybe it was time for Jaimie to pay a visit to her birth father, her daughter's entire attitude toward her had changed. Tauriel, on the other hand, felt a little as though she were walking toward the executioner's chair, and Jaimie's excitement made her nervous. They'd had several long talks with her about her getting her hopes up. Legolas specifically had warned her that there was a good chance that Kíli Callaghan might want nothing to do with her. But nothing could quell her daughter's enthusiasm.

Before Tauriel knew it, she'd paid the lease breaking fee on her apartment and faxed over the last of her information to the Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, Ireland. The visa and passport applications had been complex, they'd had to rearrange a custody agreement with the courts, but it still had gone by in record time. She was still trying to recover from the emotional whiplash; after spending a large portion of her life trying to play it safe, trying to avoid drastic change, she was dangling from a thread over a chasm of the unknown.

The two of them followed the lighted signs as they led them to baggage claim, jostled about by dozens of people with accents so thick they could have been speaking a foreign language. Tauriel had sent a few boxes of their belongings ahead, but they'd come with very little. The hospital, eager to have such a highly recommended surgeon (she blamed Legolas's influence on Brent for this), had promised her a fully furnished home that would be, to quote the human resources woman, 'perfect for ye and yer wee lass.'

Tauriel was trying to be optimistic.

After finally wresting their bags from the conveyor belt, they descended into the main portion of the airport. A man was waiting for them front and center, dressed in a warm wool coat and thick scarf, holding a sign which read 'Woods' on it in bold letters. Tauriel steeled herself as they approached.

"Mr. Baggins?" she asked and the man smiled kindly, stepping forward to shake her hand.

"Bilbo, please ma'am. I trust you had a good flight?" his accent was vaguely English and his manner calm and warm.

Tauriel felt some of the apprehension ease from her shoulders. "Yes, though rather long," she confessed. "Please call me Tauriel, and this is my daughter, Jaimie."

The man smiled at Jaimie and tipped his imaginary hat to her. "A fine Irish name you have there, young lady, though I'm afraid it's traditionally a nickname for James."

Jaimie grinned. "My Aunt Marci calls me that all the time, I don't mind."

Mr. Baggins took Jaimie's bag with a quick wink at Tauriel. "A girl who knows her own mind, I see."

"People in Ireland sure have interesting names," her daughter whispered behind a gloved hand and Tauriel smothered a laugh, certain their kind chauffeur had heard as the corners of his mouth twitched.

The main doors of the airport slid open and Tauriel found herself pausing before them, trepidation in her heart. To take the last few steps suddenly seemed more real than any other steps she'd taken prior. As if, were she to step foot on the ground outside, she'd be swept away on a path she couldn't see down. The air tasted familiar, waking a wave of long buried feeling and memories. Memories of a night filled with excitement and passion.

Jaimie, in a rare show of affection, slipped her hand into Tauriel's.

"Come on, Mom, we can do this," she said, smiling and reminding Tauriel very much of the man she'd once met in the very city in which they stood.

"Yes," she agreed, swelling with pride at her daughter's bravery. "Yes, we absolutely can."

A/N: Next chapter IRELAND.