It's been so long since I've worked on it, but I haven't forgotten this story. I just got very overwhelmed with life and haven't been able to find time. Luckily no internet cured me of that for a little while at least. To those who have reviewed thank you so much - I feel a little guilty having not updated sooner, but I could come up with a million excuses, but I hope you still enjoy it.

When I first wake up I know something is wrong. The air felt cold, which fair enough winter is coming, but there is a certain feel to the air…something sterile. Nothing in the whole of Middle Earth felt like this; not even Elrond's Healing Halls with all of their herbs and poultices. After being in the world of Arda for so long, where the natural wear and grime of the world seems normal, this sanitized smell that permeates the air seems so strange.

I open my eyes and for a moment my world is white. I'm blinded by the light. Where am I? Where is Oin or Bofur? Surely they wouldn't let me out of their sight if I managed to survive. I try to call out to someone, but I feel something on my face, preventing me. I feel a slight panic…what had happened? I remember Thorin, he had been holding me when…when…

I turn my head trying to see if there is someone nearby who could fetch Oin and free me from my sickbed. However, what I find only distresses me further. The walls are not stone; they're plaster with bright colorful pictures on the wall depicting the different muscles used in different parts of the body. There is a door with a sign on it reminding you to get vaccinated.

Panic begins to rise within me. This isn't right. This is Earth. I wasn't on Earth; I'm on Middle Earth. Tears begin to form in my eyes and I notice now a beeping noise in my ear. Looking on my other side I can see a large white machine with a screen that measures my heartbeat. I can hear the beeps becoming more frequent as fear begins to envelope me. This can't be right…

My entire body aches as I struggle to move. Then a burning pain comes from my gut where Bolg had run me through. Wait?! I had been dying. That's why Thorin and I…I should be in the Halls of his Fathers. He told me to wait there for him. I can't stay here. I have to be there for him when he arrives! Thorin!

As I finally move my arm a feel a tight pinch as I finally notice there is an IV in my arm. Along with that are sensors laying flat against my skin. I try to move my other arm, but it is tightly wrapped in bandages. Tears well up in my eyes as the realization finally begins to set in; I'm no longer in Middle Earth.

My hands clench the pristine, white bed sheets in fear. Lord Elrond said there was no way for me to go back. This isn't possible…This can't be right. Sobs squeak their way out of my throat, but are muffled by the mask over my face. Then the door opens and a group of people enter in scrubs. All of them are human from what I can tell and it only makes the hot tears on my cheeks roll down faster.

"She's conscious," says one nurse. "Her heart rate is rising rapidly. She might be having a panic attack." The others all move around talking in loud voices as they work to stabilize whatever is wrong with me, but I don't really hear them. I don't feel their hands touching me and I know they are speaking to me now, but I don't hear them. The world around me feels like a blur as I am paralyzed in complete shock.

They can't be gone. I can't be gone. This can't be happening. All I can do is cry and as the moments pass I become more and more drained. I'm not tired, but I can feel my self-awareness slipping away. I slowly give in to the drugs, mostly because the pain of realizing that I had left behind everything again. I had just accepted a new life in Middle Earth with my friends. I thought that the time in Rivendell had been the lowest moment of my entire life, but somehow this hurts just as much. I lost my family and friends once, but now it has happened twice.

Before I succumb to the darkness of unconsciousness once more, I feel my heart breaking again. The crushing loss of an entire world with friends and family is familiar; and exceptionally painful. Despite being back in my world, which is what I had wanted since landing in the Shire, I now want to go back to Middle Earth more than anything right now. Everything is wrong.

I wake up again more slowly and hesitantly than before. If there is a chance that I could sleep and pretend I am still in Middle Earth, I am going to take it. However, my second awakening isn't as personally paced as the first. I can hear people in the room speaking in hushed tones; they are waiting for me to look like I'm more cognitive. I don't want to answer any questions. I just want to sleep, to forget, and to mourn.

"Miss Halder," asks someone after long, painful minutes of waiting. "Can you hear me? Are you awake?"

"Yes," I reply shortly. I finally open my eyes fully and I can see that there are two female nurses, two doctors (one male and one female), and a pair of cops near the door.

I suddenly become wary knowing that law enforcement is in the room. I'm gonna have to come up with something now, an excuse or something. I hadn't thought of it since Rivendell; the thought of having to explain to everyone where I had gone. Now that I'm here I have entirely forgotten what I planned to say in the first place.

The female doctor steps forward first, "Can you state your full name?"

"Jayme Raylan Halder," I say back lifelessly.

"When were you born?"

"October 15th, 1996."

"What is your-"

"Where am I?" I ask. I don't feel like confirming the fact that I am no longer in Middle Earth any more than I had to. Every question is a stinging barb that I'm no longer with my friends who would be overjoyed at my survival; and every answer feels like I'm putting distance between us.

"You're at the St. Luke's Jerome Hospital. What do you last remember, Miss Halder?"

I hold back an expression of confusion. That seems like an odd question to ask someone whose been gone for months. Shouldn't it be more along the lines of: "don't worry you're safe now" or "do you know who took you?" Any way I try to think up an answer; somehow saying my last memory is of dying in the arms of a king after fighting a war with elves, dwarves, and orcs wouldn't go over well.

"I'm not sure," I say. I try to play it off for a minute until I could figure out what has happened here while I was in Middle Earth. "Why am I in the hospital?" Other than the gapping stab wound of course…

The doctors look at each other as if the other might hold the answer, but their silence told more than they realized. They didn't know much; it's written across their faces. I have a slight advantage here. I can't let it pass me by so I wait patiently for their answer.

"Miss Halder, you were in a coma," says the male doctor. My nose scrunches up at the obvious and obnoxious cliché. Of course it had to be a coma; at least this way I don't have to explain my absence.

"For seven months?" I ask. The doctor's eyes widen in surprise and I feel unsure now. Have I lost my advantage?

"Why do you say seven months?" asks the female doctor.

"I'm not sure," I say again. "It just popped into my mind." This time I can tell they look a little suspicious and I know I will have to answer for it later, but I manage to throw them off for a moment. "How long was I in then?"

Another quiet pause engulfs us. "It's the strangest anomaly; we are having a hard time classifying it as a coma ourselves. As far as we can tell you were only under for a several minutes." Minutes…minutes? That can't be right. I was out with the dwarves for weeks and weeks at a time. My brain can't process that I had been gone for only minutes. The fatigue and exhaustion I had felt over time had been real; but here it never happened…how?

"You also suffered from various injuries – the worst being the stab wound in your abdomen…"

My hands unconsciously move there. I can feel the gauze underneath both the bed sheets and my hospital gown. I don't feel any pain or stiffness; more than likely on behalf of the painkillers. Bolg stabbed me, I remember that. I remember talking some with Thorin, especially about where I would go when I die; but most of the details were a blur. I try to think harder, but come up with nothing.

"Miss Halder," says one of the doctors. I look up and make eye contact with them, but they look at me like I was an animal to be handled gently. "Do you remember something? Like who attacked you?"

"No…" I lie. "I don't remember anything." I want to cry. I want to go back. I want to be left alone…

"Anything would help, Miss Halder," adds one of the officers from the door. "What is the last thing you remember?" He stands up from the chair he had been leaning. He's just shy of six foot and his face is relatively plain with the exception of a scar on the underside of his chin. I couldn't determine what could have made the mark, but I had a guess he got it on the job.

I look up at his eyes only to find an annoyed indifference. At least the doctors, who are curious and intrigued to learn what had become of me, remained polite. However, it is obvious that the only thing I am to this man is a waste of time. In a way I agreed with him, but for a different reason. If he treated all of his cases like this…I can feel myself glaring back at him.

"I remember the park and arriving with Fiona. We talked and then she went to get us drinks…" I never saw Fiona in Middle Earth, but maybe when she returned she was pulled into the same vortex as me. "Is Fiona alright?"

The male cop looks like he wants to say something, but the other one, a female, cuts in. "She's fine," she says. "She's the one who found you and lucky too; if she hadn't you would have died from your injuries." I gave a nod of understanding and silence settles over us. At least she was alright.

"You'll forgive me," she continues. "But that's a rather calm reaction for someone who almost died." I refrain myself from an offhand comment about dealing with it before. If it were Middle Earth I could have said it and no one would have batted an eye…but I'm not in Middle Earth anymore. So instead I stare evenly back at her hoping she could read it that way instead. There is more silence.

"My name is Detective Emalei Briggs," she says, "And this is my partner Chris Stratum." I don't say anything to that. "We will be handling your case and would appreciate your cooperation moving forward." I still do not speak – only maintaining eye contact with Briggs. My silence causes her eyes to become icy for a moment, but she has nothing on Thorin. They eventually become void, analyzing me with no inflection whatsoever. "We mean to stop your attacker before they strike again…"

I remain silent. My attacker is dead and I couldn't tell them that because it happened in a land that does not exist; from a creature from a race that still doesn't exist. I feel so isolated now; the only way for my mind to cope is finding a way to protect Thorin and the others from these people. I know what happened and it is real – it was real. The wounds on my abdomen and my arm are the physical remains of our journey. There is no way for these people to reach them so in some ways it's ridiculous. However, I also know what would happen if I were tell them the truth. I would be put through every psychologist's or psychiatrist's office my father could afford or maybe even put in a loony bin if they still have any. I would be told over and over that they were not real and my mind made it up to protect myself from what really happened to me. I would never have peace. I would be reminded over and over that I am not with them; forced to listen to the lie that they were never real. They were…they are real and we…

Before I can stop myself I felt tears forming in my eyes. I rub my eyes to keep them from falling. Luckily my sadness wanes when Detective Stratum opens his gob.

"Unless you don't want to say anything because you are afraid you'll get your friend in trouble," he says with accusation strong in his voice.

At this insult I sit up, "Are you accusing Fiona of doing this?"

He notices the change in my demeanor and in his mind it only a confirmation of what he believes to be true. "She's got a bit of a history; a loudmouth with a need to prove herself after her parents abandoned her. She's never done anything major, but there is always a point where those kinds of people escalate…"

I can feel my hackles rising in defense of my friend and my voice shook a little, "She has nothing to do with this and you will never suggest such a foul notion in my presence again. And if I discover you demanded anything from her or slandered her in anyway, you will regret it."

The room is silent for a moment. It took me a moment to remember that people don't make speeches like that this day and age; luckily the dumbass detective doesn't seem to notice. "Oh," he says as he approaches my bedside and leans down, "And how do you plan on doing that? Gonna get your little friend to hunt me down and do the same thing to me? Well no offense, sweetheart," he says as his hand pats the gun on his hip, "but I don't think she'd make it very far."

His threat and the look of giddiness on his face makes me so mad that I slip back into that place Smaug had once placed me. A hot-blooded hate that made my hand itch for a sword. If there is anything my time in Middle Earth it taught me is that anything precious to you needed to be protected and cherished. Now he is going after the people I care about…

"Stratum, you know her alibi cleared…" his partner tries to make him back down, but he isn't having it and neither am I. My inhibitions are having a hard time restraining themselves s he stares into my eyes like he owns the world. So no one is prepared when I bring my arm back and punch the smug fucker right in the nose. He reels back, blood immediately pouring from a nostril. My arm stings painfully and there is a couple pink patches forming under the bandages there.

"Fuck!" he shouts. One nurse goes to his side along with his partner. The doctors and nurse are holding my arms down to restrain me, but I really don't put up much of a fight. I just watch feeling he rightly deserved it for what he said. He looks back at me with fury in his eyes, "You bitch! You just assaulted an officer do you know what-"

The nurse and the male doctor push him out the door at the request of his partner. I still hear them scuffling a little in the hallway, but silence inevitably falls. The other two are tending to my arm, trying to make sure the stitches hadn't come out. Briggs stays behind, but near the door, looking at me like I have made a mistake.

"I think you should leave, Detective. Her parents gave you permission to speak with her in case she remembered anything to expedite your case, but she doesn't have anything to give you. Her family is anxious to see her and I don't think she needs anymore excitement," says the doctor cautiously. "If she does recall anything we will contact you as quickly as possible."

The officer, acknowledging that it's time to call it quits nods in agreement. However, since she is the most rational I add to her before leaving, "Briggs?" She pauses at the door. "You really shouldn't waste your time with this one."

"Why do you say that, Miss Halder?" she asks with delicate optimism.

I look her directly in the eye when I say, "There is nothing here. No crime; no criminal. No…Nothing…"

I give her a small smile as tears form again. I can feel my pain leaking through those words and she can only be described as shocked at my words. I gave myself away a little bit; that I knew more than I am letting on, but I trust her more than her partner and I trust that I am right. However, her retort isn't what I expected.

"What about Thorin? Think he could tell me something?"

I don't know how she knew his name; maybe I had said while I was under, but before I can stop a shocked laugh escapes me and water flows past my eyelids and down my cheeks. Thorin Oakenshield, King under the Mountain, is an entire world away. She could never touch him and sadly, neither could I. In my bitterness at this fact I lock eyes with her a final time, a small smile on my face.

"I have nothing…"