The song came to an end, and the hallway descended into silence. Although Aragorn couldn't hear anything through the closed classroom doors, he assumed that the professor was giving the choir some last minute instructions. Finally, the sounds of muffled voices and chairs scraping against the floor let Aragorn know that class was officially over, and he waited expectantly for the door to open.
Arwen was one of the first students out of the room. "Aragorn!" she exclaimed, hurrying over to where he was leaning against the stair railing. "What are you doing here?"
Aragorn felt a wave of guilt wash over him -- he had been so intent on catching Legolas before lunch that he hadn't even made the connection that Arwen would be in choir, too. He quickly tried to think of an excuse. "I'm here to say 'hi'," he said, giving her a quick peck on the lips which turned into a much longer kiss.
When they parted, Arwen smiled dreamily up at him. "'Hi' to you, too."
Aragorn looked past the elf girl, straining to see his friend through the exiting crowd. "I'm here to see Legolas, too."
Arwen laughed. "I hope you're not planning to 'say hi' to him, too," she teased. But after a moment she recalled, "But I think Leggy is sick."
"Sick?" Aragorn repeated dumbly, never having considered the words "Legolas" and "sick" together before.
"He must be," Arwen said, "because he wasn't in choir today."
Aragorn nodded. Strange as it seemed, sickness seemed to be the only logical solution. After all, Legolas had never skipped a class a day in his life, and Aragorn couldn't imagine the elf starting now.
Meanwhile Arwen had turned to watch the other choir members pour out of the room. "Pippin!" she called out just as the boisterous hobbit was about to start down the stairs.
Pippin immediately turned, having to fight his way upstream through the river of exiting students in order to get to Arwen. "Yes?" he asked, looking expectantly up at her.
"Do you know if Legolas is sick? I noticed he wasn't in choir today."
The hobbit shook his head. "I don't think so. He was in theory class this morning, and he seemed fine to me."
Arwen nodded an absent dismissal, and Pippin hurried off.
"That's weird," Arwen said aloud, reflecting Aragorn's own inner thoughts. "I wonder what could be wrong."
'Something serious,' Aragorn thought worriedly as he started down the stairs and across the campus towards Legolas's dorm.
***
The initial panic had finally subsided around 11:25 when Legolas came to the realization that he simply wasn't going to make it to choir today. As the panic departed, it left behind in its wake a surplus of useless, free-floating adrenaline that found a convenient outlet in Legolas's self-criticism.
'How could you have been so stupid and irresponsible?!' he repeated over and over as he mentally scolded himself. 'And now look what you've done -- you've missed choir! All because you let your guard down for an instant.'
Of course, most folks wouldn't consider losing their keys such a big deal, but it had reduced Legolas to a 'failure' in his constantly-vigilant mind.
After all, he was the one who was supposed to help OTHERS. He was the one that everyone trusted to make things run smoothly. He was the one that everyone relied on to make sure that disasters like this didn't happen. And now, it seemed, he wasn't even able to take care of himself, let alone anyone else.
But a part of Legolas realized that his constant mental self-flagellation was not helping with the current problem. Once his keys were found, he could beat himself up all he wanted, but obsessing over his stupidity now was just hindering his concentration on the search.
So he threw back the covers on his top bunk for the zillionth time that day, scouring the sheets for a sign of his keys. When they weren't there, AGAIN, he went over to his backpack and dumped its entire contents onto his immaculate desk, trying to mentally retrace his steps once more.
Legolas had been continually replaying the events of that morning over and over again in his mind. Upon returning from music theory, he remembered running into Gimli in the hallway. His roommate had said something about their stoichiometry homework before heading into the stairwell, and then Legolas had let himself into his dorm room.
No, that was problem. It wasn't just HIS dorm room. If it was, it would be immaculate, everything would be neatly put away, and his keys wouldn't have anyplace to hide. But in actuality it was THEIR dorm room. And that meant that Legolas was forced to live with Gimli's mess. Legolas found it barely tolerable on his best days, but this was certainly not one of those. Legolas suddenly hated Gimli so much that he thought he might actually strangle his messy roommate if the dwarf returned any time soon.
The elf jumped at the sound of a knock on the door. 'Gimli wouldn't knock,' Legolas reminded himself as he threw open the door, ready for battle just in case.
"Aragorn," he said, surprised to see his friend standing in the hallway. "Téliel sí?"
The man seemed to breathe a sigh of relief at the site of Legolas. "You're okay."
'No, not really,' Legolas wanted to yell in frustration, but instead he merely said, "Yes. Why?"
Aragorn shrugged. "You never skip class. I figured something had happened."
It took a moment for Legolas's mind to recognize the chain of events -- Arwen must've noticed he wasn't in choir and mentioned it to Aragorn, and he must've jumped to the conclusion that Legolas wasn't okay.
Legolas was touched that his friend has cared enough to investigate what was wrong, but he was also annoyed that the man was now wasting his valuable search time. "I'm fine," the elf said shortly.
Aragorn frowned, clearly not buying it, so Legolas hesitantly explained the reason for his agitated state: "I lost my keys."
The man just stood there, nodding calmly, and Legolas suddenly wanted to kill him. Of course, he knew he was only projecting his anger and frustration onto his friend, but that didn't make him feel any more kindly towards Aragorn right at this moment.
"I can't leave till I find them," Legolas explained, trying not to bite Aragorn's head off. "So either come in and help me look, or go."
Aragorn nodded and stepped inside the dorm room, and the elf closed the door behind him. Legolas was suddenly glad that his friend had stopped by. After all, what good was the heightened vision of the elves when one was looking for keys? And surely four eyes would be better than two, even if two of them were only human.
"Are you sure they're here?" the man asked, glancing serenely around the room.
"Yes."
Legolas began methodically opening his drawers one by one, knowing that his keys shouldn't be there but starting to get desperate and willing to try anyplace.
"You didn't leave them in class?" Aragorn asked.
"No."
After opening the closet and rifling through the hangers, Legolas turned around just in time to watch Aragorn pick up the now empty backpack and look inside.
"I already checked that!" Legolas snapped frustratedly.
Aragorn merely nodded and set it back down as he mindlessly began to hum a tuneless Elvish ballad. The man's unflappable serenity was starting to drive Legolas up the walls.
Legolas began pulling his dirty laundry out of the hamper item by item, shaking each one and listening for the tell-tale jingle of his keys. Unfortunately, all of his clothes remained silent, even to the sensitive ears of the elf.
Aragorn suddenly teased, "The moon must be blue -- you didn't make your bed today."
"But I did!" Legolas insisted, watching his friend lift the pillow and check between the blankets. "Twice!"
As usual, the elf had made his bed immediately upon getting up that morning. But when he'd returned from theory, the covers had been mussed. Since there was no other free space in the small dorm room, with stray motorcycle parts strewn all over the dwarf's desk and half the floor, no doubt Gimli had thrown something up onto the top bunk and then had had to climb up to retrieve it. Legolas hated it when his roommate did that -- didn't he understand the notion of personal space? After all, Legolas didn't go around crawling all over Gimli's bunk, and he wished Gimli would treat him with the same courtesy.
Not wanting to look at a mussy bed for the rest of the day, Legolas had leapt up himself and remade his bed the instant he got home. How was he to know that an hour later he'd be mussing it himself to look for his keys?
Legolas finally heard Aragorn emit a quiet sigh and he knew that his friend had finally reached his limit.
"You can leave," Legolas suggested, not wanting to keep his friend too long.
Aragorn glanced at one of the many clocks that Legolas had in the room. "The cafeteria will be closing soon," the man pointed out serenely.
"Then go." Legolas wanted to add, 'You don't seem to be helping anyway,' but he wisely kept his thoughts to himself.
"Why don't you come, too," Aragorn suggested. "Maybe a fresh start will do you good."
"I can't leave!" Legolas snapped, annoyed that Aragorn just didn't seem to understand the ramifications of his lost keys.
Aragorn merely nodded and started to sort through Gimli's motorcycle parts on the floor. Legolas was somewhat perturbed that his friend wouldn't just leave, but he was also thankful that he didn't have to touch the greasy items himself. However, the metallic clinks Aragorn was making while handling the parts were a major distraction, causing the elf to glance over expectantly upon hearing each one, hoping that his keys had been unearthed.
Finally, all depths of his closet having been exhumed, Legolas maneuvered past his friend to return to his desk, mindlessly sorting through his emptied backpack contents once again. He began to think that Aragorn may be right and that a break followed by a fresh start would do him good.
'As soon as Gimli returns,' Legolas thought, 'maybe Aragorn and I can run over to the cafeteria. That way we can at least get some food before chemistry.'
'Chemistry!'
Legolas suddenly remembered that he hadn't completed all of his chemistry homework yet. He had planned to finish it up after choir and then forgot all about it when he'd misplaced his keys. 'First I missed choir, and now I'm going to be late on my homework -- this day couldn't get any worse.'
There was a sudden thud against the door, followed by the soft rustling of keys in the lock. Legolas and Aragorn looked up from their searching to see Gimli stumble into the room with a huge box of mechanical pieces.
"Oh, Aragorn, it's good to see you, laddie," the dwarf exclaimed as he awkwardly kicked the door shut behind him. "I wanted to discuss the stoichiometry homework with you both before chemistry."
Aragorn nodded, getting out of the dwarf's way. "I wanted to do the same."
As Gimli dropped his heavy load onto the floor, Legolas protested, "No! You can't have any more motorcycles parts in here!"
The dwarf laughed. "Do these look like motorcycle parts to you?" Legolas glowered at Gimli, who continued, bemused, "These are for our latest project for the robotech team."
"Whatever!" Legolas seethed as all of his anger over the unkempt room resurfaced. "You simply can't put those on the floor in here -- it's messy enough as it is!"
Gimli looked somewhat taken aback, and Aragorn said quietly, "He's a bit touchy today."
"Today?!" Gimli grumbled as he picked up the heavy box once more. He carried it over to his desk but then realized that there was simply not enough room on top. As he turned and started towards the bed, he tripped over a large bolt on the floor and fell forward, landing on the lower bunk with a thud.
And a jingle.
Legolas and Aragorn both turned towards each other to see if the other had heard it as well. Then Legolas hurried over to the bed and leaned into the bottom bunk, past the fallen dwarf, to the set of keys that had fallen from the upper mattress.
"Thanks for your concern!" Gimli mumbled, extricating himself from his box as Legolas triumphantly held up the long-sought-for treasure.
Aragorn shook his head in confusion, also ignoring the dwarf. "But I searched the bed."
"So did I," Legolas said. He realized that he must've had the keys in his hand when he'd climbed up to remake his bed, and they must've gotten wedged between the bed and the wall.
Gimli had finally righted himself and now caught on to what was going on. "Oh, did you lose your keys?"
Legolas was reluctant to admit his mistake to the dwarf but slowly nodded in affirmation.
Gimli shrugged. "Oh well. It happens to the best of us. Now, about that chemistry homework...."
Legolas watched as the dwarf and the man dug out their respective pages and began comparing their calculations. He was relieved that his keys were found, but he'd also found surprising relief in Gimli's statement. Clearly the dwarf didn't think any less of him for having lost his keys, and for some reason that meant a lot to the elf. After all, if their inherent rivalry wasn't enough cause for Gimli to taunt him about his lost keys, then maybe losing them hadn't been as big a deal as Legolas had made it in his mind.
And now that the keys were found, he'd have plenty of time to complete his homework before class, with a little help from his lab partners.
Only there wasn't a lot of space in their room to study.
"Why don't we adjourn to my bunk?" Legolas suggested.
The other two turned and stared at him in surprised silence.
The elf was surprised himself that he'd made such an offer, but he merely shrugged it off. "It's already mussed anyway -- I can just make it again when we're done."
'If I feel like it,' Legolas added to himself, suddenly feeling a streak of rebelliousness rise up in him as he gracefully leapt onto his upper bunk.
***
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