She Believed

Warnings: If you're just here for sex, it'll be a while till you get there. Hope you like dialogue. M/F sex. Bi-sexuality mentioned. Language. Mild angst. A bit of sap at the end.

Timeframe: TTT Filming; Edoras

Notes: I stole a couple references from the DVDs...special features and extended version.

As always, this is fiction. It never happened. The beliefs, preferences, and actions of those mentioned here are all figments of my imagination.

Today they were interviewing for the upcoming TTT "making of" preview. John, Ian, and Viggo were done. Liv's bits had been filmed already from another location. The stunt people wouldn't be started on till tomorrow. All that were left were Orlando and Miranda. Miranda was late. She'd been slotted first of the two. Orlando, they'd wanted more from, being he was who he was. But, time being of the essence, they had to get started anyway.

Six minutes and thirty-seven seconds into Orli's interview, Miranda blew in. The door banged back against the wall, pushed by the strong winds, and for a second, Miranda's long blond hair stood straight up. Everyone in the vast pole-barn-like building jumped at the noise including the cameraman, which ruined the angle of his shot. It would have to be set to rights.

It had been a long day full of interruptions. Since the sun set the temperature had dropped steadily. The propane heaters weren't cutting the chill. It was damn cold. Up since 6am, Orli had drunk a lot of soda to stay awake. All of this added up to Orli squirming around in his seat in obvious need of a piss. Might as well be now, since Miranda's disturbance had thrown off the flow of his interview. He excused himself while the small outside crew worked on their equipment.

Five minutes later, and, he was sure, five pounds lighter, Orli arrived back at the little corner they had roped off to find Miranda's spot in full swing. He ducked back out for a smoke, wondering about getting cut off midway through like that. Oh, well. She was supposed to have gone first anyway. Maybe the camera angle when they bumped it was better for her.

Stubbing his cig out after he'd smoked half, Orlando went back inside. It was just too cold to stand around doing nothing. His fingers were half frozen. Slowly he focused on what Miranda was saying. The journalist had done his homework. The man had brought a couple of keys to unlock his normally quiet and near-reclusive costar's hidden gift of gab.

"...what do you like best about playing Eowyn?" the journalist was asking.

"She's a tough woman," Miranda responded. "She rides horses, fights with swords and knives... she gets to kick butt!"

Even Orli had to laugh at the way she said it. Her enthusiasm was infectious.

"And what about her misplaced love for Aragorn? Did you have any problems living up to that role?"

"Oh, yeah." Miranda's clear blue eyes sparkled. Her voice was all husky. "She wants him."

The book spelled it out plainly. Even the usually laconic Tolkien conveyed the heat between Eowyn and Aragorn most convincingly. You've have to be dead or asexual not to pick it up. Miranda convinced herself she was only speaking as Eowyn, but no one else was laboring under any such delusion. She wanted him, alright.

"Poor Miranda," thought Orlando. "That's never going to happen." Meanwhile, Miranda was at the end of her time allotment, and now she was flustered. She'd essentially clued the world in on some very personal information; with the concept of it going onto worldwide television and eventually millions of peoples' media libraries, a severe case of hoof-in-mouth disease set in.

Orli understood how she felt, and how she got to that point. He was hardly immune to Viggo's feral poise. The man could pull any emotion he wanted out of his arse, portray it, and you believed. After nine months of shooting, Orli thought he had figured it out. Viggo had spent so much time observing people, he carried a full-service human-psychology thesis in his head. His own complicated and intense psyche led him to work it outward in various ways; acting was only one of them. Viggo was a mirror to the human race.

Miranda had been around full-scale shooting for a couple months. She hadn't been exposed to the man long enough to realize one rarely, if ever, met the real Viggo. Because he was so convincingly genuine, most people didn't understand they were talking to a façade. It was nothing Vig did out of spite or malice, simply his method of self-preservation. Orli had watched the subtleties of Viggo's facial expression when he and Miranda shot the scene in which she feeds him slop and inquires about his age. Orli would consider himself talented indeed if he could ever achieve half that, twenty years from now. Miranda's open face said it all, just as Eowyn's did. She believed. Then, a few days later, when Viggo rides off with the Rohirrim to battle wargs, Peter, that sly fox, used what Orli hadn't known for all that long to his advantage. He deliberately captured Aragorn's turn-and-bolt first. Viggo threw all manner of longing looks in the correct direction, giving Pete just the right amount of what he needed, like he always did. Miranda was watching. To compound it, PJ replayed the dailies for her. And she believed. Nor was she acting when it came around to her turn.

Miranda properly thanked and was thanked by the representative shooting the preview show, and then she bolted. Orli went after her. He caught up in the room reserved for make-up. She was beside herself. A track was practically being worn into the floor by her pacing.

"Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck... goddammit all! Fucking stupid bird...

"Who are you talking to?" Orli inquired to her back.

She whirled around, eyes blazing conflicting hot-and-cold. "Who do you think, fuckwit! For being so fucking pretty, you're not very bright, are you?"

Orlando hated it when people called him stupid but kept his cool. "Hey, calm down. Go on. What's eating you?"

"Fuck off, Orli." She was off in some alternate plane of rage and self-hatred. "You saw, before you walked off to go snicker behind your hand. The whole fucking world is going to see that, but do I care? No. All I care about is..."

She cut herself off. And they were calling for him. "... Mr. Bloom? We're ready for you now...."

He spoke in a low voice, and quickly. "Look, maybe I'm not the right man for the job, but wait for me, ok? You really shouldn't be alone right now. Can I try to talk you down?"

To the outside world, he might have asked a weird question; here it was more of a courtesy. The whole crew used the expression 'talk you down' for any matter of upset that one couldn't deal with on his or her own, be it a blown line, a problem with one's character, or getting blown off in real life by last night's conquest. To Orli's thinking, the blond actress had rolled all three into one pretty well.

"We'll see," she said slowly, staring at him wide-eyed. "Now, get out of here. Go! They're waiting."

Orlando's question-and-answer session went on for nearly half an hour. He hadn't caught sight of Miranda once. She must have sneaked out a side door, he decided. Wishing he had brought a heavier jacket, he made ready to head back to his trailer. At least in his small, portable house, the space heaters took care of most of the chill.

Orli found Miranda waiting for him just outside the door, bundled in a puffy light blue coat, dragging heavily on what looked like one of Elijah's cloves. His eyebrows shot up. "You smoke?"

Miranda exhaled a cloud of blue smoke to the sky. It disappeared immediately in the whipping wind. "Today I do. Well then, let's go. 'Talk me down,' will you? Good luck. I'm warning you now. I am so... you could get your head bitten off."

He looked her up and down. She was not a small woman, but he still had a few inches and months worth of crash-course martial arts and weapons training on her. Her temper on the other hand: acid. "Do your worst," Orlando told her. "I'm not scared."

They walked. Now that Miranda had free rein, she couldn't think of anything to say.

"So, have you calmed down at all yet?" Orlando opened, after they'd taken about a hundred steps.

"Superficially, maybe. I'm still shaking, though," Miranda bit out.

"Can you tell me what made you say that?" Orlando decided to cut to the chase. No use dancing around the subject.

"Just fell out of my mouth," she said defensively. "One of those classic wrong moves. I'm not going to be able to look anyone in the face ever again." Anyone, as in, one particular person.

"Christ, Miranda, we're only human. You're overreacting. You wouldn't believe the ridiculous amount of stupid things I say every day of my life. And people just laugh."

Miranda was not impressed. She didn't want to be taught the fine art of making a fool of yourself by this mouthy little git. "Fine for you to say. You can get away with it."

"Oh? care to ask Pete about that? Anyway, we're actors. Of course we're gonna be quirky."

"Did they teach you that at the Royal Academy, rent-boy?"

Orli ignored that particular comment. It had been made all too many times before. "...And romance on the set is nothing new. It's not like you're screwing him..."

Miranda's face went ruddy. "It's not a 'romance.' Fucking one-sided if it is."

"Yeah, I know. Me, too."

Miranda turned her huge blue-grey eyes up into Orli's brown ones. The truth was there. "I never knew," she said. "I'm sorry." This was unexpected. But why should it be? In fact, she should have known. 'Poor thing,' she was thinking. 'Surely not him...?'

"Whatever for?"

"Possession being nine-tenths and all that... your nine beats my two, or something. You've had a 'case' of him longer than I have, I take it."

"Ah, yes. Being in a position to know, let me tell you: No one gets Vig. Not because I say so, but because that's just the way it is. Or if they do, I've not heard one bloody word of it."

They had reached Orlando's door. "Come in for a drink?" he asked politely. Miranda wasn't sure if he really wanted her to, or if he was just being kind. She hesitated.

"I've got some beer. Or some scotch or something. Feel like it?"

"Yeah, sure, what the hell."

With that, the pair stepped up into Orlando's home-away-from-home. Inside was a mess, which Miranda didn't find surprising. Orli rummaged around in his cupboards for cups, poured Miranda a healthy shot and got himself a beer. He remembered to crank up the heat before he sat down. There was one space heater on each end of the trailer. Miranda watched him. What a strange turn of events. In all honesty, she'd always thought he was too self-centered to ever do anyone else a favor. Well, they could commiserate.

"So, then, Viggo?" Orli reminded her.

She choked on her scotch. Coughing, she managed, "Jesus sakes, you're blunt."

"Uh, huh. So spit it out already."

"What's there to say?" She sighed. "It's plain enough to you. I can't believe he'd turn you down, of all people. I'm just a woman and I know how it is around here, but you know, I could love the guy. Isn't that stupid, Orlando? I mean, I don't even know him, not even a little. People run to him night and day for advice on their acting or their fighting skills and even their, erm, love lives. He's like the big brother for the whole cast. And here stupid me looks into his face once and bang! Forget that. I can just see myself going to him: 'Hey, Viggo, can you help me out? There's this guy I'm way into, and he looks at me a certain way all the time on the set, and then off, not at all. Whaddaya make of that Viggo, huh? You think I should say something to him?' Bloody brilliant!"

Orlando looked at her steadily through her outburst. He lit up again and took a long drag before replying, "No, don't do that. You know why? He's expecting it."

"What?!?"

"Yeah. Nothing gets by him. Seriously. Wanna know what else? Maybe this'll make you feel better. I did that myself. Must've been the second, maybe third week he was here. Was pissing drunk when I did it, can't really even remember much. I pushed him up against his car and tried to molest him... He was oh-so-nice about it. But, no, not interested. Probably just catalogued it away into his mental file of fucked-up human behavior. Still embarrasses me a little, that. I'm not the only one, either. It's kind of an inevitability around here. So don't even go there."

A little noise of surprise escaped Miranda. Well, so much for subtlety. And she was only the umpteenth...Christ on a cracker! Down went the rest of whatever poison was in her cup and she poured herself a fresh one, almost to the top. Orlando, seeing she was taking it straight, thought he'd better warn her.

"That swill you're drinking is about 120 proof. Watch yourself. It'll put you on your arse."

"Maybe that's what I'm aiming for," said Miranda, still sulking.

"Well, it's done now."

"State the obvious, why don't you?"

"You're going to have to deal. Tomorrow, you'll have to get back in front of the camera with him and pretend it never happened. Eowyn dressed up in drag and followed him to war, but you don't have that option. You'll just have to face up to it."

"It's really refreshing to see you so philosophical. Never thought you'd be able to string such big words together. Such towering and relevant concepts. Fuck you."

"You and whose army? No one gets the pristine elf, either." Orlando laughed at that and stretched, so absolutely fucked was such a statement. Their little space was getting too smoky and warm.

"You mean, everyone gets the pristine elf," Miranda said in a leading tone. "How many, Orli? I won't ask who, but..." She was unable to stop herself from looking at the bare skin of his stomach, and that little sun tattoo. 'Oh, no, leave now!' she told herself. And didn't.

His eyes glittered. "Oh, you know...I can still count on two hands and two feet."

"Huh? Oh!" Miranda wondered rapidly about who, and when, and where, and why she cared. This was getting weird. She was starting to loose focus.

"Pig! But you didn't get Viggo either." At least there was that to rub his nose in. If he had, Miranda would be feeling considerably less warm and fuzzy toward him right now.

"Nope. Dammit, anyway."

"And you're still saying that to yourself, even now. Doesn't give me much to look forward to, does it?" Orlando lowered his eyes.

At length, he told her, "Just 'cause I'm a total idiot about it doesn't mean you have to be. And don't. Take it from me. All those people...? Substitutes."

Miranda looked over at him and saw the residual pain in dark eyes which turned to her now. One didn't usually scratch his surface enough to be allowed such. Why the fuck had he told her? Throw her a bone. She felt for him, though. In fact, he looked how she felt. Did blue eyes show so much depth, she wondered. A second later she had the answer. Yes. Viggo's did. The thought depressed her all over again.

"Dammit, fucking shit!" she swore. "I wonder if he did that to Liv. She never seemed bothered by him."

Orli snorted.

"Fuck you, Orlando."

"Yeah, yeah, you said that before. 'Fuck you, fuck off'...it's getting repetitious, Eowyn. Go practice your Elvish! Don't be so damn touchy. Besides, I wasn't laughing at you. Viggo was never her problem. Hardly. He helped her, in fact. Other than that, though, I'm sorry but I'm sworn to secrecy."

"Tell me!"

"No way. I don't want to die young. Go make friends and get to know her yourself; maybe she'll let you in on it."

"I don't think I could. She's everything I'm not. And for fuck's sake, she spent half of her screen time macking on him. I don't know if I could look at her without wanting to rip her eyes out."

"There was nothing between them."

"Sho?" The alcohol had just hit Miranda like a train engine. She shook her head. "Sh... Sorry. Guess I'd better quit." Then she threw back her second very large cupful.

"Christ! That's gotta be at least five shots! You better not be a puking drunk."

"Oh, no, I'm a blond, remember? 'Take me drunk; I'm home!'" Miranda couldn't even imagine why she said that, other than because she was almost there and well, Orlando was starting to look better and better. Ah, he was so nice. Especially when one was a bitch to him. Why hadn't she seen that before?

"Do you want to know how many of these fine actors, wanna-be's, and other severely dedicated and insane professionals I've had during my stint here?" she asked.

Orli's brows quirked. "If you want to tell me..."

"None!" She was spitting with frustration, and all of a sudden her rage was a bright flame again. "Goddamit! I'd have been fine if he hadn't taken it upon himself to... what was it he said... 'fine-tune our interaction.' Said he was going to show me what Eowyn was imagining, so I'd have something to go on. Like it was supposed to help with my role!"

Orlando, in the middle of pouring another beer for himself, kept pouring. He stared at her dumbly and would have overflowed his glass if Miranda hadn't reached over unsteadily and tipped the bottle up for him. "What are you telling me? You... and him...?"

"Not like you think. I'm sorry, now that I know about you, but I thought... well, it was like it was all there at my fingertips, and then it was gone. One day, I think the day of your arrival across the Riddermark, he kind of backed me into a shed and... he delivered that line. Before I could even figure out what he meant, I was in over my head. Now that I think about it, it sounds like a bad pickup line. How fucking condescending, 'help me with my character.'" The wind changed direction suddenly, making the windows whistle, almost scream, under the airflow. They both jumped. Four hands scrabbled for the edge of the table. The little structure rocked, buffeted by gusts.

"He doesn't do it like that," Orlando put in. "He means well. And with most people, it works... sometimes I don't think he gets how damaged we 'kids' are. We can't be outside ourselves a long time, like he can."

"You're defending him!?" Miranda shrilled. "'S not gonna help you..."

"No. I'm not. It's just... never mind. Continue."

She stared glassy-eyed down at the table. "Sure, I was attracted to him. You know what I mean. I gave it right back, or at least that's what I thought at the time. We made out with my back to the wall for... I don't know. It seemed like hours. I kept trying to touch him and he wouldn't let me. Drove me fucking insane. I believed, believed in it in some way, like with the other stuff. I could feel him, hard as a rock. My tits were covered in his bite and suck marks but low enough down so they wouldn't be seen and they stung. He had my head cranked around so he could swallow any sounds I made. So there I was, trying not to fall over, dress hiked up, just wanting to get his dick in me and he wouldn't let me have it no matter how much I asked. Then he... how do you say it? If I were a man I guess you'd say he jerked me off. By then he had gotten behind me, holding me up. Oh god, he has talented hands, Orli." She'd gotten carried away, and shifted restlessly in her seat. "Sorry."

Orlando continued to stare at her. He put his hand under the table and Miranda had a suspicion he was making a very necessary adjustment.

"Fuck me," he said softly, running the other hand through his hair.

"Excuse me?" asked Miranda in a prissy tone.

"I mean, 'well, I'll be fucked.' Not you personally, love. The world at large."

"What, I'm not good enough for you now? I thought the door swung both ways for you, Orlando." She'd never have been brave enough, or dumb enough, to say that without so much booze in her. "You don't think a little bit of woman every now and again will ruin you for the boys, now?"

"Oh, you think you're good," Orlando shot back sarcastically. "Well, fuck you too. Yeah, I could give you what you want, but you'll just close your eyes and make me him. That's totally fucked up."