I Save My Love For One

When Twain walked back into the Response Center, Jeanlily was on her back underneath one of the computers, tinkering with the wiring, whilst humming some obscure opera tune or another.

"What are you doing, Agent?" Twain asked, an eyebrow quirked.

"Does it matter?" Jeanlily replied.

"Everything matters. And I would appreciate an answer."

"Pfft. I'm—" Jeanlily grunted softly. "I'm rewiring the computer to play 'Ride of the Valkyries' instead of beeping when we've got a mission."

"Ah," Twain said, striding over to her console. "Though that rather begs the question—why?"

"Because I dislike the beeping. Hand me the electrical tape by your shoe, please."

Twain nudged it to Jeanlily with her toe. "Makes-Things—"

"Oh, that's right… how'd it go?"

Glaring at Jeanlily (or rather, what she could see of Jeanlily), Twain continued, "Makes-Things has given me another Character Analysis Device, but said that as he is not sure what caused the malfunction, we should stay as Elves until further notice."

"Okay. I can handle that. Annnnd . . . I think we've got a winner!"

Jeanlily scooted out from underneath the console and pressed a key on the keyboard. The beginning of Richard Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries drifted out of the speakers next to the screen.

"Score!" Jeanlily said, with a smile. "Houston, we have a go."

"Congratulations, Agent," Twain said absently, looking through her neatly-alphabetized books on her immaculately clean bookshelf.

"Mmm… thanks." Jeanlily pushed the same button to turn off the music, but it wouldn't go off. "Stupid button. C'mon . . . turn off!" She glanced at the computer screen and groaned. "Twain -- we've got another mission. Looks like it might require an exorcism, too."

Twain grabbed the red-leather-bound book she'd been looking for and strode over to her console. "Pack your best copy of The Lord of the Rings, Agent. We’re in luck; this is a short fic."

"Already on it, Twain," Jeanlily said, carefully placing her leather-bound, gold-embossed volume of the three books into a suede bag, then placed that bag into a waterproof bag, then finally placed the whole package into her pack.

Twain watched Jeanlily with a mixture of impatience and approval. "Agent, I commend you on your care of the Canon, but I would appreciate it if you would hurry up!"

Jeanlily slung her pack onto her back, then clipped the belt with her knives around her waist. "Okay, open up the portal, Twain."

The shining portal opened silently. The two agents stepped through and found themselves in Helm's Deep.

"Oh, great. We're perpetuating the idea of Elves at Helm's Deep," Jeanlily groaned, seeing dozens of blond Elves lining the walls. "And Legolas is angsting. I don't even want to know how OOC he is."

"Give me a sock, Agent," Twain said, pulling out the new CAD.

Jeanlily opened one of the many outside pockets of her pack and ripped open the new bag of socks she'd bought immediately upon returning to HQ. She handed one to Twain, who pulled it over the CAD and pointed it at Legolas.

[Legolas. Male. 85.9% OOC]

Jeanlily read over Twain's shoulder. "Well… I supposed it could be worse… point it at 'Eowen' now."

[Eowen. Female. Replaced Eowyn. Original Character.]

"Niiiiice," Jeanlily commented.

"Hmm," Twain said, her face twisted into a concentrated pose to rival Rodin’s Thinker. "We may not have to exorcize after all if this ‘Eowen,’or ‘Eown’ as she is sometimes called, is a completely new and original character. Legolas may even pop back to normal afterwards. We’ll see how it goes. Oh—"

Twain was cut short by Legolas, who began to speak.

"M'lady, why are you unhappy?"

"Because I’m stuck in this fic, fair elf," Jeanlily mocked in reply—but quietly, as Twain glared at her. "Well, aren’t you?"

Twain blinked. Unhappy? She was always unhappy. What was so unusual about that?

"Master Elf," Eowen said, eliciting a snort from Jeanlily.

"Please call me Legolas," Legolas interrupted.

"Interrupting canons rudely, even with mispronounced names – sheesh, what happened to chivalry?"

"That was on Earth," Jeanlily reminded. "Not that it's much different here. Anyway, people probably interrupted each other. Does it matter?"

"Everything matters." Twain scribbled on her notebook – the pages of which Jeanlily noticed were a distinct acid green today.

Legolas wish not to trouble you with my problems, for they are insignificant." He walked over and sat down beside her. "If they are insignificant, then why do you let them trouble you? Come; tell me the source of your unhappiness." he said to her gently. She looked at him for a moment before saying sadly "I'm alone in a world meant for men, a world where women are week." He looked at her for a long moment, her blue eyes seemed to rival his own. He reached out and pushed a strand of hair out of her face."No,"he said to her "You are not alone, you are not week." She smiled grimly at his words.

Jeanlily shivered, looking back and forth from the words to those saying them. Now this would be a good time for Ride of the Valkyries. "Kill the Sue-oo, kill the Sue-oo, kill the Sue-oo!" she hummed quietly to herself. Too bad fics didn’t have music when they needed it – to interrupt the characters if nothing else. She pulled out a small notebook and a pencil to note that 'Eowen is apparently a unit of measurement equaling 7 24-hour periods.'

To one side, she heard Twain mutter, "No, not ONE paragraph! And what’s with this capitalization? Oh dear, oh dear. Run-on paragraphs."

As the characters continued to talk, Jeanlily moved in closer, curious.

"Eowen,"He began "You are the most beautiful women in Middle-Earth, and It pains me to see that the only man that could ever make you happy is Lord Aragorn, why not someone else?" He said in an almost pleading voice."Eowen, I care for you. I always have since the day that I laid my eyes on you."

Jeanlily gagged loudly at this last sentiment, and slapped her hand over her mouth, hoping Twain didn’t notice. Turning her back, she slipped a piece of chocolate to get rid of the nasty taste on her mouth. She could taste the incredible sappiness of the scene. She also made another note in her notebook involving the sudden appearance of several more 'Eowens,' due to the author's use of women instead of woman.

"Oh, no, don’t kiss her. No, no, no. Stupid elf. Stupid author. Stupid everyone. Ohhhh." Jeanlily purposely did not turn back. She really didn’t want to see what Twain was complaining about.

Legolas looked lustily at "Eowen" again after she cut off the kiss. "Eowen," he said slowly, "tonight the enemy will approach, and before I go off to battle I want to know how you feel about me. Tell me do you feel nothing for me at all?"

"Nope, she doesn’t. Okay, the story ends and we all go home. And there was much rejoicing."

"I do love you Legolas, but I...I..."She was lost for words. "You feel as though you are betraying Aragorn?" he suggested. She nodded." I feel as though I owe him a debt for something." she said sadly. He picked her chin up with his hand and looked into her eyes "You owe him nothing. Eowen you deserve better." He said before kissing her again, this time, she did not end the kiss.

"Aw, come on, end it. No, now." Twain began glaring poisonous daggers with little barbs on them at the 'Sue. (Eowen seemed not to notice, strangly enough.)

"Can I exorcize her yet? Or kill her if she’s a ‘Sue?"

"Exorcize, I guess," Twain replied. "I think this Eowen is close enough to the original that this is just a take over – but we can always kill the ‘Sue spirit. Are you ready?"

The sweet taste of chocolate in her mouth, Jeanlily summoned up her memory of Wagner’s powerful music (not that it helped; just for good measure) and nodded. At that moment, Gimli burst in.

"Did I...uh...interrupt something?" he asked grinning at Legolas.It was Eowen who replied"yes,as a matter of fact you did, Now you can got and tell lord Aragorn that Legolas Is busy, with the women that he loves."

"No, he won’t," Twain said stepping forward. "And why in the world are you grinning? Have you any idea that numerous spaces were missed in that last paragraph alone?

Gimli’s grin faded, quickly replaced by an intense look of confusion. Jeanlily giggled slightly, then became completely serious. Gimli was an awesome character, and it was Wrong (yes, with a capital ‘w’) for anyone to mess with him.

"Hey, Eowen, or Eown, or whatever your name is!"

Eowen spun to look at Jeanlily, standing tall with her enormous copy of the trilogy clasped to her chest.

"Why are you interrupting me?" Eowen asked. "I’m with the man I love!"

"Um, because he’s not a man. He’s an elf. Now stand aside."

"Or what?"

"Or . . ." Jeanlily paused. "Or I’ll do what I would anyway, only, see, I don’t want to hit Legolas with my book."

"What . . . ?" the 'Sue argued, confused.

"What ‘what’ is, is that you have messed with Eowyn (whom you are now inhabiting)," Twain snapped, "changed Legolas' character, hurt precious ellipsis (which, even by itself, is a terrible sin), missed spaces, paragraph changes, written a stupid and implausible story, misspelled your name numerous times, and called Legolas a man."

"And messed with Gimli," Jeanlily added defensively. "And did weird things with time and women and . . . stuff."

"Right. For this, we will exorcize you from Eowyn’s body and then kill you. Any last words?"

"You can not harm me! I’m with my true love!"

"Those are your last words? Okay . . . Agent, go ahead."

Jeanlily leapt forward with The Lord of the Rings in her hands. "By the power of Tolkien, I expel you, evil Mary-sue! Get out of poor Eowyn’s body!"

Eowyn fell over on her back, hitting the ground with a heavy thud. Just as Legolas looked like he was about to protest, a thin misty Mary-sue rose from Eowyn’s body. Calmly, Twain stepped forward and sliced its head off.

Jeanlily frowned slightly. "How did you do that?"

"What?"

"How does one chop a shadow's head off?"

Twain shrugged and re-sheathed the truly nasty-looking knife she had pulled out. "Pure malice, I guess. Ready to go back?"

"Wait . . . your malice, or the 'Sue's?"

Twain hesitated a moment, then realized what Jeanlily was asking. "Oh, mine, I think," she said. "The 'Sue was too mindless to understand true malice. Shall we?"

Legolas still stood there, blinking. He suddenly shook his head, glanced around, then at Twain and Jeanlily. The Agents realized that every other elf in the area had disappeared, which was why he was staring at them so oddly.

Eowyn had disappeared, but the Agents weren't worried about that. She was back where she belonged now.

Jeanlily smiled. Well, it was the end of a very short mission. Pulling out the remote activator, she set it to go back home.


[Jeanlily's author's note: Hey! We finally found a fic that we managed to finish PPCing before it got deleted! (I think we tried to PPC two or three stories and they kept getting deleted...) And this one was mercifully short. Anyway, Thanks to Agent Rowyn, our beta. Oh, and yes, I really do listen to opera. Ride of the Valkyries rocketh muchly. :D]

[Twain's Author's Note: Indeed, thank you Agent Rowyn for editing for us. I admit, my mind has been slightly distracted. All those 6th book Harry Potter fics that are several hundred pages long have been somewhat taking control of my mind. Ah, but my poor partner doesn't like HP, so I'll not go there. However, I do think I should make some interesting contribution to something, because I am, after all, writing an increasingly lenthy note. Instead, I'll just tell you that I'm going. Now. Goodbye.]
[Twain's Second Note: Well, not really goodbye. It just seemed dramatic to say so.]