Hello again!(sorry for the general lack of Elfings in this chapter)

DISCLAIMER: *yawns* I still don't own anything you recognize. :)

Laurel brushed her hair out of her face as it was whipped across her vision in the icy wind, before hugging herself around the waist tightly with both arms as she hurried down the street, head down and eyes squinting from the cold air. She didn't know the exact temperature, but guessed it was somewhere in the 30s, with an awful wind-chill. She shivered, pulling the hat her grandmother had made her in third grade after she had had pneumonia that had started with a cold from the cold winter air. It had been pleasant earlier that day, just a coat was all that was needed, but now, in the evening, the temperature had dropped. Laurel would have jumped for joy at the changing seasons, winter being her favorite of them all-except that she was very prone to colds, and was not looking forward to the chill air(although she had had several colds that summer as well, and in the spring and fall, but that is beside the point). So she kept her head down, hugged her gloved hands around her waist, and hurried on towards Mario's.

She was eager to see that man, the one who worked in the back and who had given her the gift-card in the first place, and have a word with him. Surely he had more to do with all this than he let on.

"What are you planning on for Thanksgiving, Laurie?" Johnny asked, leaning on the corner of his little podium as he waited to seat people, cocking his head and smiling toothily at her.

"Will you ever stop calling me that-wait. Thanksgiving? What?" she stuttered, mind racing.

"Um, yeah, Thanksgiving. Next week. Remember?" he sighed, shaking his head at her before quickly straightening up and assuming a professional air as a young couple entered, smiling and asking them if they wanted a table for two.

"Thanksgiving, darn-it." she muttered, hurrying into the back while putting her hair up in a small pony-tail, soft black ankle-boots making barely audible clicking sounds on the red, green, and white tile of the kitchen.

"Laurel! Gosh, you ok? Working only little bit now, and call in sick before?" Mario himself cried in his heavy Italian accent, enveloping her in a hug that smelled like basil and oregano.

"Yes, I'm fine, papa." she replied, pulling away and smiling. All the staff and costumers that had been around awhile called him 'papa', the very aura about him simply demanded it, and he had requested it of his waiters, saying it added to the ambience of the restaurant.

"Molto bene, molto bene! We won't be seeing much of Laurel now though?" he inquired, putting an arm around her shoulder as she walked over to the sink to wash her hands before going out to wait tables.

"No, papa, not that much. Family stuff. I'm kinda busy now. Um," she added, laughing nervously, "that guy who usually works back here-the older one, is he around?"

"Oh, you mean Michael? He isn't here right now, too bad. What you want to speak with him about?"

"Oh, nothing. Never-mind." Laurel sighed, feeling disappointed as she rolled up the tight black sleeves of her waitress outfit to wash her hands. "Which tables do you want me to wait?"

::::::

Laurel climbed down the steps and off the bus, nodding to the tired-looking driver in thanks before putting her bag with her martial arts uniform in it down on the pavement and stretching her arms up over her head in a stretch under the cold light of a streetlamp before slinging the bag over her shoulder and beginning to walk home.

The bus-stop was only two blocks away from her house, and, being pretty confident about her self-defense skills, she had confidently made this walk alone and at night many times before, and had never had any problems.

So she stopped under a store awning and turned on some music, putting one earbud in her ear before continuing on, a song she had liked when she was fifteen quietly serenading her as she went on her way. The rain that had been pounding her as she ran to the dojo for Taekwando after she had finished her shift and had dinner had let up for the time being-which was lucky, as she was wearing Maura's very not-waterproof coat that night.

Everything seemed fine for the first block: there were some people around, even at night the city was not desolate. But as she crossed the street onto the next block, the world around her became oddly quiet, devoid of life. Aside from a bum sound asleep on a park-bench across the street, there was nothing.

Weird. she thought, looking around her nervously, skin prickling, It's almost like this block's enchanted or something.

Suddenly she froze, heat prickling over her thighs and across her face and neck. She could have sworn she had heard a sound, like a shoe scuffing on the pavement.

Slowly, nonchalantly, she let the earbud fall from her ear, tucking it into a coat pocket.

Then she heard it again.

Rapidly going through all the attack and defense plans and formations she had ever learned in her head as she continued on down the street, she nearly screamed in surprise as she just about walked into an old man, suddenly there where a shadow had been just a minute ago.

"I-I'm so sorry, sir-" she stuttered, glad she had on long pants so he couldn't see her legs shaking, before she stopped, trailing off as she realized who it was.

It was him. Michael. The man in the back. The giver of the fateful gift-card.

"Laurel, it's nice to see you. Pleasant surprise." he smiled, although the twinkle in his eye suggested that, for him at least, is was not a surprise at all.

"Ye-yes, forgive me, you rather surprised me there." she apologized, words coming out strangely from the adrenaline of the scare.

"No no, forgive me, I frightened you. But I'm very glad I was able to see you, Laurel, as I have something I need to give you."

"Actually, I need to talk to you too, sir. You see, that gift-card you gave me-"

She was interrupted by a sudden boom of thunder and flash of lightening in the sky above her, making her jump with the scream of fright she had managed to suppress before, although it was thankfully lost in the loud thunder.

"We must be quick-the rain is coming back, and you have someone waiting up for you at home, my dear."

"What-"

"Here, take these, I forgot to put them in the package." he instructed, handing her a small packet of papers and winking.

"But-"

"Hurry home! Hurry home! You'll catch your death in this rain!"

"But there isn't any rain-" she began, but stopped as a fat drop of water plopped down on the sidewalk before her, followed quickly by more and more, until suddenly she was in the middle of a freezing downpour.

When she looked up from the drop splattered on the sidewalk, he was gone, and she was standing there, alone in the middle of a thunderstorm, with one, animal instinct flashing through her mind.

Run home.

And so she did, sprinting down the sidewalk, across a crosswalk, and down past a row of houses and up to her own, fumbling with the keys before she burst through the door, breathing heavily, shaking, and dripping with rain.

"Laurel!" Maura cried, jumping up off the counter she had been slouched on, looking her friend over with wide eyes. "What happened to you?"

"I...I ran into...him..." she spluttered, sinking down into a chair, dripping hair plastered over her face.

"Who?" Maura prodded, peeling her sorry coat off Laurel before starting on her hat and gloves.

"Michael. The guy who gave me the gift-card for the Middle Earth Plushies. I ran into him on my way home. He gave me an awful scare. Then he gave me these and just left." she sighed, handing Maura the sodden papers.

"Well, if it's any consolation, these are gonna save us a whole lot of future trouble. Look, they're papers for the children! Birth certificates, papers making you their legal guardian, and everything! Just look!"

Laurel took them from Maura, giving them a quick scan before sighing in relief.

"Thank goodness. They even have modern names! Nellas is Nellie, Nelyo is Nuri, Laure is Laurie-isn't that a girl's name?"

"It's like Laurie from Little Women."

"Oh, ok. Finde is Finn, Kano is Keith, and Turko is Trey. Now everything will be so much easier." she sighed, handing the papers back to Maura and raising her eyebrows at the secret smile that was forming on her friend's face. "What?" she demanded, pulling off her soaking shoes and peeling off the socks as she spoke.

"I had forgot-Laure still might be awake, he was trying to wait up for you, cute little guy."

"Oh, ok, then I'll go to bed now. Goodnight, Maura, sorry I ruined your coat."

"No worries-it'll be dry in the morning. Since your home, I'll drive back to my place now-you sure you're alright?"

"Yes, I'm fine. Have a good night!" she called as Maura left, waving as she began to softly close the door behind her.

"Same to you!" her friend returned, before hurrying out to her car through the pouring rain.

"Now for Laure," Laurel muttered to herself, opening the door to the living room and tip-toeing past the sleeping elflings and towards her bedroom.

Glorfindel jumped guiltily as she opened the door, and looked up at her, apologetic and surprised, from where he sat on the floor, a photo album on his lap.

"I am so very, very, very sorry!" he squeaked before a surprised Laurel could even begin to speak. "I had resolved to wait nicely and quietly in my bed for you, but you took ever so long, and I saw the corner of a book peeking out from under your bed, and I get awfully curious-"

"It's alright, Laure." Laurel reassured, interrupting his little rant, fearing that it might last for quite a long time from the way he wouldn't stop to catch his breath. "Here, would you like me to tell you about them?"

"Alright, if you wouldn't mind. But, wait, momma, you are soaking wet! You ought to get dry first."

"Oh, yes, that's probably a good idea." Laurel sighed, remembering her sodden appearance, and, picking up a pair of pajamas, went out into the bathroom to change.

When she reemerged, her wet hair was up in a towel on the top of her head, and the rest of her was in dry pajamas.

She slipped into the pair of magenta bedroom slippers by the door before kneeling down beside Glorfindel on the floor, and looking at the picture he was currently on.

The lighting in the photo was bad, it looked as if it was taken in a parking lot at night, and everyone was squinting from the flash. In it was a big, smiley older latino woman in a purple sweater with her arms wrapped around a slightly younger looking Maura in a bright purple dress, and an even shorter-haired Laurel in an icy blue dress, all smiling happily.

"That's Maura's mom, me, and Maura in the parking lot before we went in to a concert. Her dad took it-he said we all looked so beautiful in our new dresses, he just had to." Laurel smiled fondly, running her finger along the peeling edge of the photo. "He always says silly things like that to making everyone pleased and laugh at the same time."

"Oh, I heard. About her." Glorfindel murmured, gesturing to Maura's mother.

"Yes, I supposed Maura told you. It was hard." Laurel sighed, before flipping back to a different page and laughing softly. It showed three very small children, two little girls and a slightly older boy, bundled up to their ears and all sitting in the midst of an absolutely grand pumpkin-patch.

"I guessed one of them was you, but I couldn't tell between these two." Glorfindel explained, gesturing to the two little girls with white wisps of hair peeking out from under their hats, pale plump little faces just about identical.

"That one's me, on the right." Laurel showed him before flipping to another one, of a brown-haired man and a blonde woman embracing each other lovingly. "Those are my parents."

Glorfindel's eyes widened, and he ran a cautious finger over their image.

"Then...would that mean they're my...grandparents?" he ventured, glancing up at her cautiously.

"Yes, I suppose." Laurel agreed, flipping to another page. That picture was of five figures and a dog all sitting together on one sloping couch, smiling with their arms around each other.

There were her parents from the other picture in the middle, and the two girls from the pumpkin patch on one side, hand in hand, still identical although one wore her hair long while the other her hair short. Then on the other side of their parents sat the older boy, now long and limber, head leaning on the neck of the great grey husky dog in his lap-Muriel.

"That was when we were in high-school." Laurel muttered, before flipping to another page.

The next picture was of a very sassy-looking teenage Laurel with much-too-bright lipstick on sticking her tongue out at the camera.

"That has been since it was taken, and I think always will be my mother's favorite picture of me. Crane took it as a joke one time, when I was really cranky and saucy, and showed it to her, and it gave her such a hoot. She keeps a little laminated version in her wallet, and I have this one here. It is rather absurd, don't you think?"

"Yes," Glorfindel laughed, sticking his tongue out playfully back at the picture, "most absurd."

Laurel flipped the pages again, and this one was a graduation photo, centering on Laurel and Maura, hugging each other in full graduation outfits, Maura's father and cousins and Laurel's parents and brother, Crane(and the husky, Muriel, of course)surrounding them along with several miscellaneous friends.

But Glorfindel did not smile when he beheld their smiling faces. Instead he frowned at it, cocking his head and scrunching up his nose in thought.

"There is...something missing..." he murmured, cocking his head even further as if that would give him a new perspective on the problem.

Laurel made as if to close the book, but Glorfindel held it open, frowning at it in confusion.

"The girl that looked just like you...where did she go? She is supposed to be there." he finally realized, looking up at Laurel's rapidly darkening face in confusion.

"She...had to leave, Laure."

"Will she ever come back, momma? You looked awfully happy when she was with you."

"I was, dear Laure, I was. But she isn't coming back."

"Why, did you say something nasty in a fit of temper or something?"

"No," Laurel sighed, shaking her head, "I wish it were that simple. I wish it was just something like that, that I could make right and bring her back."

Suddenly a light of understanding sparkled in Glorfindel's eyes, and he looked up at her slowly.

"Did she...did she leave like Maura's momma? And Miriel?"

"M-hm." Laurel murmured, glassy eyes gazing unseeingly out of the window and into the silent, beautiful night.

"Why have you not mentioned her ever before?"

"Because I couldn't bear to."

Glorfindel was silent for awhile, focusing intently on an old stain on the rug before venturing, "What happened?"

A singled tear, like a crystal droplet, appeared on the edge of Laurel's eye.

But she couldn't answer, instead saying,

"After it happened I...I felt like Elrond...after loosing Elros...h-how..." she choked on the word, the tear spilling down her cheek, "...how could she leave me? I thought she loved me, how could she do something like that to me? How could she leave me?" she finally managed in a whisper, drawing the edge of her sleeve up across her cheek, wiping away the glistening tear-track.

"Momma," Glorfindel whispered, "who is Elrond? Elros?"

She looked down at him, wet eyes sparkling in the lamplight, a sad smile on her face.

And then came something Laurel had certainly not expected.

Glorfindel jumped up, walking up to her until he stood facing her, she sitting and he standing, almost eye to eye, except that he was a bit taller.

And then he leaned forward, bending down a little, and, eyes closed, his lips brushed her forehead.

Gently.

Tenderly.

She felt as if a fireworks show were going off inside of her at the brief touch.

"I love you, and I will not leave. I promise. Will you wait for me, Laurel?" he whispered, quirking a hopeful smile down at her surprised face.

"I...I...I love you too, Laure. I won't leave either. I'm your mother, and the others' mother too, and I'll take care of you until the end! Why, if Manwe demands my children back, I'll say no-"

"Ahem." Glorfindel harrumphed, clearing his throat pointedly at Laurel, interrupting her. "I said 'Laurel' that time, not 'momma'."

Laurel's eyes widened slightly, before she quirked a smile back.

"Then yes, I'll wait for you, Laurefindil."

Glorfindel smiled almost giddily before hugging her fiercely, childishly nuzzling his face into her hair, the surprising matureness he had presented just a moment ago gone completely.

It's odd to think about, but I must remember, he's probably older than me in years... Laurel thought, running her fingers through his long, loose blond hair, before frowning.

"I am awfully glad that is settled, now I will not have to worry." Glorfindel sighed, pulling back and smiling at her.

"Laure, I just realized Maura let her hair get out of that ponytail. May I braid it?"

"Sure, but why are you always so intent on keeping it up all the time? Despite Amme's fears, I never got it caught in the wheel we spun around to make pots with at home even once." he reassured her as she braided it back, while she shook her head.

"I just have this fear that something will happen. Humor me, will you?"

"Alright. Ooh, I almost forgot! I was supposed to tell you something," he began, assuming a sombre and firm facial expression that Laurel found hard not to laugh at, "you need to pull yourself and Maura too out of the ditch you are in. Submit art or whatever you need to do to get a real job tomorrow morning, first thing! Promise you will, momma?" he finished in a milder, rather unsure tone, looking at her hopefully.

She sighed, looking down at her hands clasped absently in her lap, then over at the tissue box in the corner of the room, then at the dancing lights from cars driving by outside in the rain.

"I...I promise."

Glorfindel brightened up considerably at this, surprising Laurel again as he flung his arms around her neck, clasping her in a loving embrace, laying his cheek on the side of her head.

"Oh good, I was beginning to fear you shouldn't." he sighed, beginning to make as if to pull away, but Laurel stopped him, hugging him close.

"Don't, Laure. Nobody's touched me like that for a long time. I didn't realize how much I'd been wanting it until now." she sobbed, tears coming thick and fast now.

"I think I shall give you a special, secret name, for only me to use. Can it be Elenis?" he asked softly, pulling back just enough to look her in the eye.

"M-mh," she hiccuped, "what does it mean?"

"Glimmering Starlight Woman. The stars dance across your face from outside, and it is most lovely."

Laurel laughed amid her tears, squeezing him tighter,

"Those are the car lights flashing in the rain, Laure."

"Nevertheless, they are beautiful."

"That they are. But now you have to go to bed, dearest, or else you'll be grumpier than Turko tomorrow morning." she sighed, gently leading him over to the blankets piled up on the carpet and tucking him in.

"Goodnight, Elenis." he whispered, reaching up and catching a strand of her damp hair that had escaped the towel in-between his fingers, adding, "That name is my special secret."

"Alright. Goodnight." she gave him a goodnight kiss before unwrapping the towel from about her head and turning off the lamp, curling up in her own bed with the stack of little essays from earlier and a little reading lamp and pen under the covers so that she could grade them without keeping Glorfindel up.

When she had finished, she wrote in her journal:

The Elf who my OC always ends up with just gave me an epesse. O_O

Before chuckling to herself, rolling over, and falling asleep.

Do you guys think this story should at any time move up to T? It will never move up to M, but as it progresses, let me know if you think a T rating would be more suitable.

Ok, sorry about all the angst/mild suspense? in this chappie. : / You'll learn more about Laurel's mysterious sister soon...*cackles evilly*

For those unaware, an epesse is a special nickname 'aftername' given, in the Elvish nomenclature, to a person later in their life, usually by their lover, and it tends to be the most flattering and beautiful of their names ('Galadriel' is actually her epesse, given to her by Celeborn, and is considerably more lovely than her other name, 'Nerwen', 'man-maiden', or even 'Artanis', 'noble maiden')

Review replies-

Peregrin Took the Falcon: Thank you! Ooh, who's the comic by(I don't believe I've seen that one)? Sorry, no Fingon in this chappie either, but he will be there from the beginning next time(I promise). :D So glad you enjoyed!

KiyaJinnSkywalkerKenobi: Thanks so much! I'm so honored that you enjoy my story! :D:D:D I'm glad you found it not too boring... :P

Elf from Downunder: Yes, Fingon is very devoted XD I'm glad you appreciated the backstory, I was worried people wouldn't : / Thanks so much for your awesome review!

Guest: *evil laughter* you'll just have to wait and see... (thanks for your review!)

Antoninsh: Thank you so much! I hope this chapter satisfies your expectations!

Thanks to all my readers, reviewers, favoriters, and followers, hope all you guys liked it!

(sorry for the angstyness)

Have a great day, and please don't forget to review!

~Thurin