Chapter Five ~*~ Chance Encounters ~*~

The year in between was full of many packages from both ends of the relationship. Raya’s was always something spritzed with her perfume on it, while Orlando’s were usually photographs of himself with some poetry on the back (Viggo helped).

With Spencer settling down now after long conferences, her father let her go into acting, as she wanted, though with much difficult persuasion, and deliberation. That April, before leaving to L.A. to see Orlando, she found herself as Lady Olivia in The Twelfth Night. Sending her promotional pictures ahead of her to L.A., she found this quite ironic seeing as this was one of Orlando’s plays.

Orlando, staying at a hotel with a certain Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd, picked up his daily mail before spending the day showing their new acquaintance Liberty Crane more of L.A. “She’s done theatre!” He yelled excitedly, throwing Dom the keys to his car. He excitedly tore through the rest of her weekly “care package” which contained her copy of the script, her corset that she wore as Lady Olivia, professional promo pictures, and the now empty bottle of Raya’s favorite perfume. “Amazing…look at her here, she looks beautiful, doesn’t she?” He said, showing the glossy solo photo of her in costume to Billy.

“Who’d she play? What play was she in?” Billy asked. Orlando glared at Billy. “Erm, yes, Orlando, she is very beautiful.”

Orlando looked satisfied. “She was Lady Olivia in the Twelfth Night. I was Sebastian in that play.” He said this almost wistfully as he ran a hand through his now normal length curly locks.

“What an ugly name.” Billy said to himself.

“Note to self, Raya at airport tomorrow.” Orlando said out loud, muttering it over and over and over again.

“Tomorrow?” Dom asked incredulously. “Wasn’t she just here?”

“Idiot! He hasn’t seen her since last year.” Billy said, hitting Dom in the back of the head, quite fortunately at a stop.

“What do you think about that whole Liberty-Elijah love…thingy?” Dom asked, changing the subject to something they could all relate to.

“They’re both young. And I think Liberty and Elijah seem too similar to be romantical.” Orlando replied.

“Romantical is not a word.” Billy said frankly.

“I don’t recall Elijah being in this car.” Orlando said airily.

Sean and Liberty joined them later for some sight seeing and to further play out the EliBerty saga just to see how exactly things worked (or in the case of EliBerty, failed miserably).The day flew by quickly in the company of this easy-to-laugh new girl and though it was all fun and games, Orlando was finally beginning to really long for Raya again.

Having been deprived of sleep for the next day, he had Dom drive back with Liberty to get his own car before leaving for the airport. Before sitting in the driver’s seat, he stuck out his head to Liberty and Dom and shouted “Don’t do anything the fat hobbit would object to!”

Dom laughed uneasily. “He’s like that a lot.”

“Like what? Caring and sensitive?” Liberty suggested.

“No, no,” Dom said, thinking quickly. “More like, annoyingly elven.”

LAX was difficult to navigate, seeing as Orlando had never used the parking ramps before. He regretted casually walking because he found that Raya’s plane landed fifteen minutes before. He stood waiting for her at the gate. He spotted her immediately wearing a baby blue dress with the back cut down to who knows where, hem stopping at her knees. “Raya.” He uttered with a smile. “God, I missed you.”

“Mmmmm.” Raya said, sighing as they embraced. They hugged for what seemed to be far too long for the rest of the waiting crowds, because many men were finding the back view of Raya’s dress very intriguing. They stopped however when Orlando gave her a deep kiss on the lips. “My, Orlando, have you been practicing on your hand again?” Raya muttered jokingly as they made their way to the baggage claim.

“No, love, on the mirror actually.” Orlando grinned, putting an arm around her waist. As they walked he peered behind her to get a good look at the back of the dress. “Stunning in that dress, love. How did the men manage to keep their hands off of you on the flight?”

“Well it’s not as though I put my rear end up the whole time for all to see.” Raya replied, giving him a smile. They arrived at baggage claim, where Raya waited grabbing each of her bags as Orlando went for a cart.

He arrived and looked at the piles of luggage that collected. “Holy shit, Raya, did you buy the entire Samsonite collection?” Orlando asked, as he slowly placed each piece onto the cart.

“First of all, I’m not Dominic. Secondly, this isn’t Samsonite, this is Coach. And thirdly, it’s called the ‘Experienced Traveler’ set.” Raya replied.

“I thought you said they taught you how to pack light at this school?” Orlando asked as they pushed the cart to the parking ramps.

“They did. It was a load of tosh though. No way in hell I’m only packing two pieces of underwear.” Raya replied. “I told them on my last day that they could stuff their sporrans… right. So I don’t like packing light.”

After managing to get most of it in the trunk, and the rest into the backseat, they made their way through Los Angeles traffic. “My God, it’s worse than London.” She said, peering out of her window. “I notice they like to tell you off with the middle finger quite often.”

“Yeah, well if you see one, flick them off right back.” Orlando said, trying to pass a rather slowly moving Geo.

“Where did you learn to drive that fast?” Raya asked, as they sped off into their exit.

“Love, I’m from Kent.” Orlando said, grinning. “It’s what we do.”

“Yes, besides wearing unimaginably tacky track suits.” Raya said with quite the smirk.

“Hey, there will be no discussion of track suits.” Orlando said, mock warning in his voice. They arrived at his hotel and had the staff bring up the luggage as Orlando’s back was going to be overstressed.

After receiving all of her luggage, she began to unpack with Orlando’s help. She had very many dresses, all very simple and…elegant in their own Raya-esque way. Orlando was going through her lingerie bag, taking a little too much time for Raya’s taste. “Orlando, I won’t have any knickers if you keep going through it like that.”

“That’s kinky, then I suppose you’d be fine with no bra then either?” Orlando smirked. Raya snatched the bag from him as he had both his hands in it. He was now holding two rather sheer corsets with garters hanging at the bottom for the aid of keeping hose up. “What on earth will you need these two thingies with the stretchy, gartery bit thingies at the bottom?”

“For when I’m in the bath.” She said flatly.

“Really?” He asked, incredulously.

“No! Now give me those!” She laughed. Orlando sat back on the bed as she unpacked, apparently she found something ever so lovely about unpacking and organizing things herself. “I have an audition for some sort of soap opera East-Enders type thing on that day you want me to meet that girl.”

“Does that mean you’ll make it to Elijah’s for supper? Liberty’s been the only unmarried girl she’s been with Sean’s wife whenever female bonding was called for, though she’ll still remain the only single girl.” Orlando asked, stretching himself over the bed. Raya hadn’t answered as she was still unpacking. “And did I ever tell you how lovely that cut on the dress is?”

“Orlando… anyway, I’ll probably run a little late, but then again, for the next few days, so will you.” She smirked, seeing him outstretched on the bed, taking over once her last audition dress was placed in its proper closet.

“What do you mean by—oh.” Orlando grinned.

The next evening, Orlando left the rather exhausted Raya to catch up on her sleep for her audition. He met up with Billy who was driving them to a small diner. “You look chipper, did you just have tea?”

“Actually, er, Raya and I were, em… running lines, that’s it.” Orlando replied, rather uncomfortably.

“Ah, running lines. That’s rather romantic.” Billy laughed. “I don’t know about you, but I think you two had sex. You’ve got that fresh look to your face that most men do post-coitus.”

“Billy, why am I talking about this with you?” Orlando asked, sitting as far away as he could from him.

“Saved your relationship.” He said in a sing-songy voice. He watched as Orlando sunk into his seat, relaxing. “So how is Raya?”

“Never looked better. She’s somehow tanner, and I think she narrowed her hips down, which bothered me in the slightest because I like her hips.” Orlando said. “And how they’re shaped, and how—“

“Orlando, too much information.” He said as they arrived at the diner. Seeing Dom, they sat over in the booth, Billy taking pleasure in the squeakiness of it all.

“So, when does Raya grace us with her presence?” Dom asked, rather sarcastically.

“She’ll do that tomorrow. She’s catching up on lots of missed sleep and getting ready for an audition.” Orlando said quickly.

“Missed sleep? She’s been here two days.” Dom said. “Jet lag should be fine by now.”

“He’s also not seen her for a year, Dom.” Billy suggested. Dom’s mouth formed an ‘ah’.

“Then at least she’ll be pleased to see us.” Dom said, emphasizing pleased and laughing at his own joke. He looked at Billy as he thought he’d be laughing. He only received a very strange look.

Dinner, which was actually persuasion of Liberty to stay, went quite well, as the boys put their most charming looks on to keep her in Los Angeles. Orlando entered his suite, and peered in the bedroom to see Raya still sleeping. Kissing her forehead when he joined her, he relaxed into a deep sleep.