The Fresca Files:
Return of the Elf
by Dreamstrifer

Chapter One: Movie Marathon

"Aubrey, you have to get up sometime," my good friend Merry said, tossing a towel onto my bed. It landed on my head.

"Go'way," I mumbled, ignoring the towel. "Ish Saturday."

"Yes, and it's 2 o'clock in the afternoon, dear. It's not like you went to a party last night or anything."

"What are you doing in my apartment anyway?" I asked, sitting up and throwing the towel onto the hamper.

"Ellette invited me over. She and Heather are out choosing movies to watch. Movie night!"

"Woohoo," I said without enthusiasm. I dragged myself out of bed and lumbered over to my vanity. I collapsed into my chair and rested my elbows on the table. I dropped my head in my hands, not bothering to look at my reflection in the mirror.

"Aubrey, you ok?" Merry asked, her usual bubbly, hyper self gone for the moment.

"I'm fine, Mer," I said, raising my head to look into the mirror. Dark circles were under my eyes. My hair was sticking out, which was strange, since it was so long, and my skin was much paler than usual. "A little lethargic, but fine."

"You're depressed, Aubrey, it's clear to everyone except yourself!" Merry said, sitting on my bed. "I hate to see you so sad all the time. I mean, you're my friend. You're crazy, fun loving, wild Aubrey. Not mopey, brooding, depressing Aubrey."

"Look, Mer, I really appreciate your concern, but I don't need to hear it."

Merry looked into the eyes of my reflection. "Aubrey, its been almost a year. I mean, here we are, at the tail end of our freshman year of college, and you're still acting as though it was just a week ago."

"I don't want to hear it, Merry," I said forcefully.

"But I think you need to hear it, Aubrey. I mean, I know as well as the rest of them that Legolas means everything to you, but you can't go around everyday acting as if it was the end of the world. You have to move on."

"I can't just move on, Merry! You can't get over the love of your life disappearing so easily!"

Merry shook her head. "Nevermind, its just a waste of breath. What you need is a good old fashioned movie marathon, like the good old days when we'd all sneak into Heather's dorm at Dawnsend."

I shrugged. Merry grabbed my arm and pulled me out of my room, to the small living room of Ellette's and my two room apartment.

She pushed me to the couch, and grabbed two Cokes from the fridge. "Here, you need caffeine too."

I popped the top and took a sip. "Caffeine," I said dreamily. "How I love thee. How I need thee. How I worship thee."

Caffeine is essential in college. In any form you can get it in, but preferably coffee. Finals were just around the corner, and with all nighters that were being pulled, Starbucks was making quite the profit.

"There's some of the old Aubrey we know and love," Merry said with a grin, taking a gulp of her own soda. "Caffiene is the wonder drug, I swear."

The door opened, and Heather and Ellette burst in.

"Woah, you got her out of bed! Good job!" Ellette said, dropping a bag of movies on the coffee table. Heather dropped a bag of junk food next to it.

"The movie line up is," Heather started, pulling tapes out of the bag one by one. "Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, and Army of Darkness, all in honor of our missing member of our Fellowship of the Fanatics, Julie, fellow lover of Bruce Campbell."

"Hey, we all love Bruce," Merry said. "If chins could kill..." she let out a dreamy sigh.

Heather shook her head in amusement, and continued. "Better Off Dead, in honor of Ellette's break up-"

"Don't remind me, pleeeease," Ellette said rolling her eyes. For the past 3 months, Ellette had been dating this really cute guy in her Psych class. Too bad he was a jerk.

"Next, we have The Princess Bride, our traditional movie, and finally, we close off the marathon with Strange Brew, that classic Canadian version of Hamlet, and to quench our fantasy and David Bowie craving, Labyrinth!" Heather proclaimed with a grin.

I shook my head and grinned. "We are all cult classic junkies," I said. "And I don't think any of us truly crave David Bowie. We are going to be up all night watching these!" "Perfect, huh? I thought we could take a break from studying," Heather said, popping the horridly gory and tacky horror movie Evil Dead in.

"The first was rather bad," Ellette said, plopping down on the couch beside me and opening a bag of M&M's. "Evil Dead 2 is the best in my opinion."

"Naw, Army of Darkness still rules for me," Merry said, getting up to turn down the lights.

"Ah, they all have Bruce Campbell," I said, watching the screen. "And Lord only knows how awesome that guy is. I'd loooove to meet him."

"Nuh uh, girl, I got first dibs on him," Merry said, sitting back down beside me. "Even though he's married, he's still first and foremost in my heart." She sighed dreamily. She does that a lot when Bruce Campbell is mentioned.

We settled in, and watched the movie, making comments every now and then, Mystery Science Theather style. it was such a habit for all of us. It also happened to drive non-MST fans crazy.

Needlesss to say, we did it whenever we could to annoy people we didn't like (we even got kicked out of a movie theater when we were at Dawnsend). We are so mean.

Anyhow, after we watched Evil Dead 2, we ordered pizza, and Ellette and Merry took off to buy more soda.

"Finals," Heather muttered, rummaging through her ever-present bookbag. "I am so going insane here...I haven't slept since Sunday."

"Heather dear, It's Friday," I said.

"Wow..." Heather said, looking up from her bag. "Have I really pulled an all nighter every night this week?"

"Heather, you are sleeping tomorrow after our marathon. If you keep staying up, you'll do horribly on the finals, and that just would be bad."

"Well, only half of the nights I've been studying. The other half I've been scrouring the internet for sources for my summer projects. I can't believe the library closes at 8! Honestly, you'd think a college library would be open til at least midnight."

I shook my head. I still couldn't get over the fact that Heather had already declared her major, which was in Organic or Inorganic Chemistry. I couldn't remember. She wasn't taking any gerneral ed classes, she was taking all those impossibly hard chem courses. And she was maintaining a 3.8. One must wonder how she does it.

"Only you, Heather," I said, turning to the TV. Some dumb politician was talking about how bad their competitor was and how we all should vote for him. I always hated those.

"What? I happen to like Chemistry."

"You're the only one who does," I answered, grabbing the lighter from the coffee table (Ellette and I are rather fond of fire. Candles were EVERYWHERE), and playing with the flame settings.

"I'm gonna become a scientist. Gonna get a Doctor tacked to my name or whatever they're called. I will be...Dr. Heather!"

I laughed. "Right. So you're gonna be all modern and not use your last name. Like Dr. Laura and Dr. Phil. So gay."

"Alright, alright, so I'll be Dr. Clayton. So ordinary," Heather said with a sigh.

A knock came on the door.

"That'll be the pizza guy," I said, and jumped up. I grabbed our pool of money, and opened the door to our apartment.

"Hey there," the guy said. "You're in my American Lit. class!"

"Oh, hi," I said, handing him the money.

He didn't give me the pizza right away. "I thought it was you. You know, I thought your insights on Poe were awesome."

"Really," I said, in a bored tone.

"Yeah, I never really thought about how the Raven could be compared to his life, with his wife dead and all. And the whole 'nevermore' being answers to his questions."

"Um, right. Considering I figured that out when I was a freshman in high school."

The guy blinked. "Oh! Really! You must be really good at English then. I mean, you're getting the highest grade in the class. I saw Professor Dalton's gradebook. I still can't believe you were writing that essay as she was collecting them. And you still got a B on it."

"Look, can I have my pizza now?" I asked.

"Oh! Sure!" he said, handing it to me. He tilted his head slightly, studying me. "You know, You're cute."

"Do you have a point, whatever-your-name is?" I said in the most condescending tone I could muster.

He didn't notice. "Eric. And yeah, I do." He gave me a half-grin, not half so attractive as a certain elf...

He handed me a slip of paper. On it was four digits. A dorm number.

"That's my number," he said. I blinked, looked at the paper, then back up at Eric. I blinked again.

"Are you insane?" I asked. "What guy gives a girl his number?"

Eric's grin deepened. "Different, huh?"

I rolled my eyes, set the pizza on the chair by the door, and lifted the piece of paper in front of Eric.

"Jerk," I said, and lit the paper with my lighter. It went right up, and I dropped it as the flames neared my fingers. It fell to the floor, where I stamped out the flame with my shoe. "Get lost, Casanova."

Eric's face fell. "But Aubrey-"

I shut the door (not slammed. My neighbors would complain) in his face.

"Wow," Heather said, grabbing the pizza. "Talk about harsh."

"Guys should learn not to hit on me," I said, sweeping up the ashes best I could, and dropping them into the trashcan. "I mean, honestly, I've turned down about 20 guys since spring break! Can't they see I'm just not interested at all? I never thought I was so attractive anyway."

Heather chuckled and set the pizza on the coffee table. "Eh, its college. I mean, all the guys have outgrown their dorkish high school awkwardness. And the girls are no longer girls. We are 'women,' like in PCU (funny movie, by the way). Its a whole different world."

"And that matters to my situation, how?" I asked, plopping down on the couch once again. I pulled off my shoes.

"Well, it might be a whole different world, but guys are still idiots."

"Very true, my friend, very true."

Ellette and Merry burst through the door.

"Did you know that corner store at the end of your block has Twinkie two packs for less than a dollar?" Merry asked, dropping a bag full of twinkies on the table by the pizza.

"Jones Soda!" Ellette cried, pulling out a bottle of my favorite, FuFu Berry Soda, and tossed it to me.

I let out a squeal of happiness and checked the label. It was of a converse high top shoe. I unscrewed the cap. Underneath it, it said, "Don't forget to groom your radishes!"

I cracked up, and started in on it. "Thank you so much Elle," I said. "The best."

"The best for my best friend," Ellette said, grabbing a slice of pizza.

Merry sniffed. "Is something burning?"

Heather laughed again. "What you smell are the ashen remains of the love Eric the Pizza Boy had for Aubrey Raston."

"Um, what?"

"The pizza guy gave Aubrey his phone number, and she set the paper on fire."

Ellette nearly choked on her pizza. "Aubrey! Getting a little annoyed?"

I sighed. "Why can't they all just leave me alone?"

"Because they can't have you. Guys like a challege. After about the third guy got turned down, they realize that it will take quite a challenge to get you," Heather explained. "So that makes you all the more desirable."

"Dorks," I mumbled. "Let's watch Army of Darkness, k?"

The other three muttered agreement, so I hit play.

"You know," I said as the first few minutes played out. "All three movies have a different Linda."

"Weird, I just noticed that," Merry said. "But Bruce Campbell is forever and always."

"You and your Bruce," Heather said. "I think you're a little too obsessed."

Merry shrugged. "He's a cool actor. Not to mention, he's got a killer chin."

"I'm not big on the whole....big chin thing my self," Ellette said. "But He's still cool."

We finished the pizza, and popped in Better Off Dead, and had a good laugh, as well as a good twenty minute guy bashing session afterwards.

"One of my favorite lines is, 'I've been going to this high school for seven and a half years. I'm no dummy,'" I quoted as Ellette got up to put in the Princess Bride. "Definitely a classic."

"'It's Christmas Eve! I could be at home right now, drinking this monster egg nog my brother makes with lighter fluid...'" Heather quoted back, giggling. "Now, move, Elle. We want to see the Princess bride!"

As usual, we ended up quoting almost every line in the movie.

"Remember when we made Legolas watch this?" Merry asked. "He got so irritated with us saying, 'Hallo. My name is Inigo Montoya,'" -we all joined in- "'You killed my father. Prepare to die.'"

"I miss him," Ellette said. "I mean, it was always funny whenever anyone would talk on the phone. He probably thought we were talking to ourselves, or just to a useless piece of plastic."

"You miss him?" I said, and sniffed in mock superiority. "You be tryin' to steal my man? er, Elf?"

Ellette grinned. "Never, Aubrey. that is just too low."

"Eh, cheating's just as bad," Heather said in a very bitter tone.

"Still not over Kurt, eh?" I asked. "Now I don't feel so bad. But I have more reason to be upset. I mean, Legolas is the love of my life, and he can't ever come back. But Kurt was cheating on you, and, well, he's still here."

Heather rolled her eyes. "I'd like to jam a sissors between his eyes."

"Enough violence on boyfriends whom you broke up with a year ago," Merry said, patting Heather's arm.

"Just put in Strange Brew!" I said. Ellette complied.

Strange Brew has to be one of the strangest movies ever. Wait, no, Brazil has that spot by a long shot (at least, of all the movies I've seen). But Strange Brew is quite strange. Canadians, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, beer, a story line that is more or less Hamlet (only with a brewery, instead of Denmark), more beer, and a loony bin. And a mouse in a beer bottle. And drugged beer. And hockey. And beer. Lots of beer. Yes, definitely a cult classic. A classic cult classic.

Ellette and I were the only ones who had seen it out of all five of us, until we went to Dawnsend and I bought it one day because I was bored. Julie, Heather, and Merry soon became fans. We made Kurt watch it once, and he hated it.

It takes a person with a certain kind of sense of humor to like Strange Brew.

After that was done, Heather stood up, and held up the box of Labyrinth.

"And now, we shall view Labyrinth, by Jim Henson, starring David Bowie's Crotch!"

"Heather!" Ellette exclaimed, and threw a shoe at her. Heather ducked and put in the tape.

"Well, it's true. I mean, did they angle the camera so that every scene with him in it also shows his crotch very clearly or something?" Heather asked.

"You are so...lewd," I said.

Heather grinned. "I know."

We watched the movie, but I couldn't help but feel depressed.

I felt bad for being depressed. Here my friends were, trying to cheer me up.

Almost a year had gone by, and they all felt I should at least have moved on. They knew I probably couldn't 'get over it,' but they didn't think I shoudl still be moping around.

But seriously, wouldn't you be depressed a year after you fall in love with Legolas Greenleaf, and he disappears out of your life, for the second time?

You know, life can really suck.



Chapter Two

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