"The following story depicts real-life public figures engaged in completely fictional, false and untrue activities. Nothing in it ever happened. Nothing in it ever will happen. This story is a work of fantasy and satire which in no way professes to express the truth about the life, thoughts, feelings, desires, opinions, beliefs, activities or sexual orientation of any person mentioned herein."

Whenever Orlando had complained, as a young teenager, about her period, her mother had retorted 'just be thankful you don't have to shave your chin every day'. Orlando had always thought that out of the two, women probably got the bum deal. Now, as he attempted to get at that little spot just below his lower lip without severing a major artery, he realised his mother had been very, very right.

Time passed so quickly it was almost like vertigo, after a while people stopped commenting on the situation except to make jokes about 'morning Wood' when they passed Elijah on the way to wardrobe.

Orlando remained obsessed with his newly-flat chest, lifting up his shirt at every chance to examine it. Cate was fascinated by it too, asking if it felt different to before if she touched *here* or *here*.

Elijah was more taken with new developments further south. Eventually Billy and Dom smacked his hands away and told him that yes, Elijah was now privy to the mostly-male secret of the fun of a phallus, but they were trying to make a movie or three here.

When it came time to film Frodo's first encounter with a ringwraith, the lure of the ring almost overpowering him, filming take after take, the general unspoken consensus was that Elijah Wood with a penis was a very frightening sexual concept.

****

'...the rumours that Jackson's adaptation of the books does the unthinkable in making the young hobbit heroine, an icon of girl power for fantasy femmes the world over, a male. Jackson's statement in response reads 'Elijah Wood, teen actress best known for 'The Ice Storm' and 'Deep Impact', was cast as Frodo Baggins and remains cast as Frodo Baggins but onset spy reports suggest that a young man has been fitted for emergency costume alterations.'

"They're just tabloid rags. Don't worry about it." Orlando soothed, stroking Elijah's hair as they sat waiting between takes.

 "It's not just the gossip that's worrying me. Look at this one." Elijah handed over a printout he'd had tucked in the back of the magazine, an article from a website.

'To deny Frodo's female identity is to remove one of the major themes of the text, that of expectations of power and the overcoming of these expectations. Frodo, a young hobbit woman, represents the stereotype of femininity - weak, small, powerless. She is injured by piercing with a sword early in the narrative, an obvious rape analogy, yet continues on with the journey after being nursed back to health by her servant and love interest, Samwise Gamgee. She is scarred, but never beaten, and has power over Sam through both social stature and education, yet their relationship is idyllically equal.

'If the rumours are to be believed, and the Frodo of the new film adaptation is a masculine character, the relationship between Samwise and Frodo loses the delicate tension that so charmed readers of the novels, but more worryingly and significantly, reinforces the male hegemony that the work sought to destroy.

'What's next? Are we to see Harriet Potter give up her broom to a boy wizard? Perhaps Robyn Hood and her band of merry men should switch around, destroying any power women have over men in fantasy texts.'

"Yikes." Orlando managed when he finished reading.

"They're right. Frodo has to be a girl. When I first read the books I wanted to be her so badly, because she was so brave and in control."

"Yes. And if Legolas is a boy, the whole Fellowship's male. How is that about unity between all types of people? We'll have to play them as girls."

"Do you think we can?"

"Lij, with the exception of these past few weeks, we've been girls all our lives. I'm sure we can manage to play them on-camera."

So padding was strategically placed, and makeup applied to accentuate the delicacy of Orlando and Elijah's features. Everything, it seemed, was back on track.

"Kiss me."

"What?" Viggo looked up from fixing a tear in his sleeve. Orlando, the long pretty wig he wore to play Legolas in place, was looking very worried.

"You heard me. Kiss me. Like you would when I was a girl. Please? I need to get into character."

"Are you sure you want me -"

"Yes,, it has to be you. Because Dom and Billy don't look particularly manly in their hobbit getups, and the Seans ran away when I asked them."

"You asked the Seans before me?"

"Viggo, you turned me down twice when I was a girl. Now I don't even have that in my favour. But please? For the good of the movie?"

So they kissed.

And kissed.

And Orlando forgot about altered relationships with gravity and nearly fell over again.

And Viggo caught him.

And they kissed a bit more.

And Billy coughed subtly, and then Ian cleared his throat less subtly, and Peter grabbed his megaphone and shouted "Aragorn, you elf fetishist, can we please shoot some of the film now?" into it, which caused a terrible feedback whine that sent everyone deaf so Orlando and Viggo had time to get into character thoroughly.

"Now I feel like Legolas." Orlando smiled. "Elfin and graceful and feminine." He went to get a donut from the catering table.

"You were a woman, then you woke up as a man, and now you're cross-dressed back to being a woman for a role in a film. Aren't you at least a little confused?" Sean Bean asked.

"Nah." Orlando shrugged. "Girl, boy... I'm still me. The most confusing part is the underwear. How do you stand it?"

Elijah turned away, looking down at his unfamiliarly broad palms. He wished he felt like Orlando did, as if there was some part of him that was unchanged whether he was a boy or a girl, but he missed his soft body, his comfortable skirts and dresses. He wanted to be himself again.

"Hey, Yankee Doodle, have you seen Billy?" Dominic called. Elijah glared at the nickname.

"Fuck you, Monaghan."

"What did I say?"

"Just fucking leave it, ok?"

"Whatever. No need to turn into a pre-menstrual bitch on me when I didn't fucking say anything."

Elijah's eyes stung with hot tear prickles at the choice of words, blinked away before anyone could notice. Dominic, noticing the distress he'd caused, stepped in close and touched Elijah's cheek.

"Hey, it's ok. I'm sorry. Come on, let's go sit somewhere less crazy and chill for a minute."

Dom always knew how to coax a laugh out of a person, on this occasion by asking if sex was very different for girls, now that Elijah had tried both.

"It's more the same than most people think, I think." Elijah said after a moment's thought. "More, uh, fluids, maybe. And not as many orgasms. But otherwise, not that different. You've got your hands, your mouths, and your crotches, and those bits can be put together in different combinations. Not really delicate surgery or nuclear physics."

Dominic laughed, leaning in against Elijah's side where they sat together. Billy and Orlando wandered over after a few minutes, cigarettes were passed around, and things were ok again, crisis narrowly avoided.

 Elijah was so used to the other hobbits cracking onto him in a vague, good-natured way from before the switch that at first it didn't even register. Then something clicked and hang on, weren't they supposed to be straight? Because someone's hand was on his broad and manly thigh, and it wasn't his.

"Sblomie? Something you want to share with the class?" Orlando asked, smirking.

"What? Oh." Dominic noticed where his hand had wandered. "No, not really." He smiled at Elijah with one eyebrow raised. "You don't mind, do you?"

Elijah shook his head, smiling, and Orlando jumped to his feet, almost fell over, managed not to, and gave Dominic a loud kiss on the cheek. With a laugh, Orlando dashed away from Dominic's attempt to smack him upside the head. Dominic gave chase, knocking him to the ground.

"You run like a girl."

"That would be because I was... am a girl!"

"If you were a girl, it wouldn't be appropriate for me to do this!" Dominic crowed, catching Orlando in a headlock and noogying him until the ambiguously gendered elf had no choice but to cry uncle.

Nobody blinked anymore when they spotted Viggo leaving Orlando's room in the mornings or vice-versa and everyone agreed that if Orlando had seduced Viggo, he hadn't had to work very hard because they all remembered the whole 'getting into character' kiss and what had happened there. As Viggo and Orli spent more time together, so did 'Lijah and Sean.

****

Most mornings, Elijah would knock on Orlando's door and the two of them would exchange rueful smiles as they went through the whole mess of shaving and dressing, little routines that meant nothing to people who'd done them forever but everything to, say, two girls who woke up one morning and discovered they weren't girls anymore, and now had to know words like 'nocturnal' and 'emission' and 'aftershave'.

Elijah had a key to Orlando's room but knocked anyway, because it was part of the routine and sometimes he felt he'd lose his mind entirely if he didn't have routine to fall back on. That was half the shock, really, when he knocked one morning and Orlando didn't answer, and he walked down the hall to Liv's room and knocked and said "Hey, have you seen-" before trailing off, face-to-face with a bathrobed Orlando Bloom who smelt like both nocturnal emissions and Liv Tyler.

"What the fuck?" Elijah shouted, not caring they were in a hotel corridor at six in the morning. "What are you doing?"

"Currently I'm trying not to bleed from my ears because you're screaming so loudly! What the hell's up with you?" Orlando yawned widely, shutting the door behind him and facing Elijah with his arms crossed across his chest.

"You slept with Liv."

"No shit, Sherlock."

"And you're wondering why I'm shouting?"

"Is it because she's a costar? Because I know everyone's been doing the blind eye thing but honestly, I know you've noticed that I'm sleeping with Viggo quite regularly, and I have a lot more scenes with him than I do with Liv."

"It's not the same. She's.." Elijah blushed a cherry tomato red. "A girl."

"She'd probably prefer the term woman, but yes. In case you've forgotten, I was quite partial to the practice back when I myself had a vagina."

"But that's different! Now you're having heterosexual sex with a girl, don't you find that the least bit confusing?"

"Why on earth would I?"

"Because we're supposed to be girls ourselves! This might change the situation in ways we can't imagine." Elijah hissed angrily.

"Elijah, hello, wake up! I have a penis!" Orlando opened his bathrobe, oblivious to the fact that two breakfast waiters and a cleaning lady were watching what was apparently a young man being accosted by a flasher. "It, quite like my temporarily non-existent vagina, can be used for performing sexual acts with people I want to go to bed with. I'm not going to turn into a n.. I'm not going to turn into a monk just because you need Ian The Big Gay Mentor to give you another lesson in gender identity!"

"Somebody call me?" Ian stuck his head out from his doorway down the hall. "Orlando, do close your bathrobe. And take your argument somewhere that doesn't have quite so many people desperate for another twenty minutes of sleep."

"There's no argument here. We were just finished." Orlando turned, intending to return to his bed beside Liv and slamming the door in Elijah's face, but the automatic lock stole much of the grace of the exit. Orlando punched the door, swore, and stamped down to his own room.

"Orli-"

"Whatever. Let's just go to breakfast, all right?"

When Elijah didn't turn up for the usual 'Four Hobbits & One Elf' breakfast, Sean went looking and found him lurking in a dark corner of the Moria set. "Hey..'Lij, you ok?"

"No."

Sean settled down next to him and slung an arm around his shoulder, "What's up? Tell Sean all about it."

Elijah burrowed closer and sniffled,"Did you know Orli's sleeping with Liv?"

"I had my suspicions, yeah. And Viggo."

"Yeah, well, it sucks. How come Orli can deal with this whole genderswapping thing perfectly fine and I just want to curl up in a ball and cry?"

"Because you're defined by more than just your gender. Orlando's still Orlando, and you're still you. So you react differently."

"When did you turn into a psychologist?"

"I think spending time with Ian's rubbing off on me." Sean grinned.

"'m still confused. Everything's different now. I still feel like a girl but I'm not and I keep having dreams and god... why I can't I just wake up tomorrow and have everything back to normal?"

His dreams of late seemed to revolve around female Orli and kissing her. Which, seen he was currently physically male, didn't really surprise him.

But in these dreams, he was female again.

"It's ok. Everything's ok." Sean rubbed Elijah's back, planting a soft kiss on his temple. For a moment, it was possibly to believe the words.

There were still a few things lying around Orlando's room that betrayed the all male image, like glittery nail varnish and tampax on the table and Orlando kept the photograph of himself that Viggo had taken, back before the switch, near his bed. It was comforting, in a sad sort of way, to look at the black and white image of his slim girlish form, temporarily misplaced.

Elijah remembered the day the picture had been snapped, a group of them going for a walk over the beautiful New Zealand scenery, trying not to feel homesick for less breathtaking views.

Orlando had been lazing on the grass when Viggo asked him if he could take some photos and Orli had said fine. At the time, Elijah had felt slightly envious of Orlando's body, model-thin and graceful, perfect for playing the elf archer. Now, after seeing Orlando as a man, he couldn't help but think of those gentle curves with a pang of loss.

Orlando had been such a beautiful girl.

"Which do you like better?" Viggo asked Orlando, watching as the younger man turned from side to side in front of the full-length mirror, inspecting his body from every possible angle. "Male or female?"

Orlando met his eyes in the reflection. "It's a bit like New Zealand, isn't it? Beautiful to visit... but it's not where we live. I like this body... but it isn't me."

****

Tension escalated subtly and constantly between Orlando and Elijah as time wore on and they remained male. Everything was a source of irritation, Elijah came to hate the way Orlando stretched his skinny arms high above his head before a scene, working the tension out and cracking his long knuckles. Orlando couldn't stand the way Elijah always left the crusts on his plate when they ordered pizza. Elijah complained to Sean about Orlando's stupid habit of calling his own answering service with stupid reminders. Orlando ranted over dinner with Viggo about Elijah's constant wet-eyed moping and wistful sighing, watching fashion shows on television for hours on end.

At the end of another day on set, Viggo and Sean exchanged a panicked look and threw themselves on the first passing bus, waving at Elijah and Orlando out the window and shouting "Don't wait up!" as they escaped.

"That was. unexpected." Elijah managed eventually.

They went out to dinner and then for a drink, because they were supposed to be friends even if they didn't have three words strung together to say to each other. A pouty dark-haired girl who bore more than a passing resemblance to Liv decided to do a passable impression of a limpet by latching onto Elijah's hip, until Orlando cleared his throat and asked if Elijah had remembered to turn the iron off. The girl glared and walked back to her group of friends, and Elijah gave a glare of his own to Orlando.

"What was that about?"

"You being hit on by women is going to turn into one of those scenes where you cry about your conflicted identity and I have to comfort you and we have a big heart to heart, and frankly I'd rather finish my beer and listen to the band." Orlando shrugged.

"Oh, because I'd much rather have one of those other scenes where people assume we're gay and call you names and you beat them up. Those are so much fun I can barely wait." Elijah muttered, gulping half his glass down and walking away into the crowd. Orlando rolled his eyes and ordered another drink.

They avoided each other for the better part of the night, Elijah pointedly laughing loudly with random people and sneaking glances to make sure that he was having more fun than Orlando was. Orlando was doing exactly the same thing, with the added display of constant flirting with anyone who came within a five metre radius.

The inevitable homophobia brawl occurred before Elijah had the chance to get plastered enough for the equally inevitable identity crisis, so he got the chance to play the high and mighty martyr at Orlando as they caught a taxi back to the hotel.

"You don't actually consider 'poofter' an insult, so I don't know why you get offended." Elijah snapped, no sympathy for Orlando's slightly reddened cheekbone and bruised knuckles.

'They mean it like an insult. Of course I'm going to get offended." The words snapped out, Orlando's gaze fixed firmly on the night-time streets outside.

"Would you grow the hell up? I'm not your fucking babysitter."

"Oh, that's rich, coming from you! I have to extricate you from garbage every time we go anywhere! It's as if you equate being a girl with being helpless, and if you prove yourself incompetent at every turn people are going to have to remember you're female underneath. Well, thanks but no thanks Elijah, for setting back emancipation and feminism by a few hundred years."

"Oh, like you even care. You don't miss being a girl at all."

The comment had meant to wound Orlando, but it backfired and hit Elijah like a blow to the chest when Orlando just shrugged and climbed out of the car, his usual lanky stride carrying him into the hotel lobby and over to the elevator. Elijah followed, suddenly feeling much drunker than he had a few minutes beforehand.

"Grow the fuck up, Lij. You can't be everyone's baby forever."

"This is all so easy for you, isn't it? Mister Bloom, he's so suave and together, nothing ever phases him."

"Better than Mister Wood, the communal kicked puppy with more issues than a magazine collector!"

The elevator doors opened on their floor and they stepped outside, not breaking the flow of the argument.

"You can't even think up witty insults!"

"Better to be unable to think up witty insults than an inability to accept what looks back at me from the mirror every day!"

Furiously angry now, Elijah levelled the worst truth he knew at Orlando.

"You'd be happy if we never turned back, wouldn't you?"

"At least I don't whine and pout like a little girl!"

A moment of silence that was barely a second but felt like forever. Elijah's jaw clenched, his eyes blinking in surprise at the choice of insult.

"But I am a girl."

"Not anymore you're not! So just fucking deal with it, ok?"

And suddenly Orlando was up against him, strong-soft-wet-hot-male mouth against his, blunt fingers with short nails tangled in his hair. There was barely time to register the sensations before they were gone again, and Orlando walked off without another word.

Elijah fell asleep and into restless dreams, full of fine-boned faces that were neither male nor female. Orlando went to Viggo, who touched his skin on the places that had barely changed at all, the curve of a shoulder and the arch of a foot.

When Viggo woke up with a warm, female..yes, definitely female body curled around him and he'd gone to bed with a warm, very male body the night before, he yelped and the female body went "Mmph?" against his shoulder.

When Elijah woke up, there was the usual pressing need to go to the bathroom. As he stumbled sleepily past the bathroom mirror, he noticed that there was a girl in the bathroom. On closer inspection, the girl turned out to be him. There was squealing.

Orlando stared at herself in the mirror and turned from side to side, there was a camera flash and she turned around to face Viggo. "Everything as you remember it?"

"Mmm. Do you think 'Lijah's turned back?"

Viggo cocked his head towards the wall, "Judging by the squealing I can hear, yes."

Once everyone found out they'd changed back, there were many sighs of relief from cast and crew alike and an impromptu room party was planned. Orlando liberated her long missed underwear from Dominic's room with glee and they practically had to pry her out of the bathroom with a crowbar to get her there on time.

They sang Cher lyrics loudly and off key, warbling "This is a man's world, but it wouldn't be nothing, nothing, without a woman or a girl" over and over, toasting in celebration, the guys sneaking as many looks and touches at Elijah and Orlando's reinstated breasts as they could without getting a severe whacking.

Orlando glanced around the room, everyone was here, crammed into the small space. She started when Viggo leant over and touched the back of her free hand, "Glad you changed back?"

Orli gestured with her drink, "Kinda, it's nice to be me again, no more boxers for one thing but.." she trailed off into silence.

"But?"

"'Lijah."

"Ah."

"We fought last night. I kinda kissed him... her. I kissed Elijah and then walked off. Fuck only knows what's gonna happen now."

When Elijah saw Orlando lean over and whisper into Viggo's ear, her first reaction was to reach over to the drinks table and grab the nearest bottle. Screw this low tolerance for alcohol deal, pain numbing was the order of the day.

"I am so glad you guys are back to normal." Billy announced, "For one thing, I don't think I'm ever going to recover from having to teach you how to piss."

Orlando grinned, "Well, should you ever wake up as a girl, I promise to return the favour."

There was a scream from Dom, "It's not going to happen. Ever. There will be no more genderswapping in the fellowship, not while I'm still breathing."

As the night went on, the drinks flowed and both Elijah and Orlando's tolerance for alcohol hit the floor. This was a bad thing, because when the party ended, they both had to stumble down the hall and into the elevator together. Elijah slammed her hand against the floor button and yelped. Before she could move, Orlando's hand had circled her wrist and she was being pulled into a drunken hug from behind, "'S your hand ok?"

Elijah nodded, suddenly unable to form any coherent words as Orlando's thumb rubbed against the bruised flesh, "Uh huh."

"Good."

They stayed there, locked in a hug until the doors slid open at their floor. Elijah tried to untangle herself from Orlando's arms and failed, so the pair of them wobbled out into the hallway, Orlando's thumb still rubbing patterns on Elijah's skin. They stumbled and it was only Elijah's somewhat quick thinking that prevented them landing in a heap on the floor, instead they ended up leaning against the wall by Elijah's door in a tangle of arms, legs and skirts.

"Oof. Your elbow's in my ribs.."

"Orli.."

"Yeah?"

"I missed you."

Orlando paused, "But I didn't go anywhere."

"I meant you. Girl you."

"Oh."

Elijah fumbled for her key, "I should go to bed. I think I drank too much. Alcohol loosens the tongue and god knows I babble enough without ever requiring alcoholic hel-mph".

Orlando's lips covered Elijah's, stopping the babble that was threatening to come spilling out.

"We..uh..we should probably go somewhere.. less hotel corridor-like."

Elijah nodded, "That.. uh, sounds a like a very good idea."

Orlando stood back as Elijah swore quietly at the door, "Argh. Key. work. dammit." Finally the key slid in to place and the door swung open. Elijah stepped inside and reached out to grab Orlando's arm.

"Orli, you coming?"

The next thing 'lijah knew, she was being pressed against the now closed door, Orlando's mouth covering hers and their hands tangling together. Orlando walked them backwards towards the bed and they both tripped on the edge, landing in yet another tangled heap.

Elijah looked up at Orlando's lipstick-smeared mouth and grinned,

"We should really stop meeting like this, you know."

Orlando chuckled and dropped a kiss on Elijah's upturned face, "But it's fun.."

"That's true. Now are you gonna kiss me again or what?"

When the phone rang the following morning Elijah poked Orlando until she rolled over and answered it. "'lo?"

"Orli.."

"Billy? What's wrong?"

"You know that promise you made..."

"Yeah..oh..*oh*. Is Dominic still breathing?"

"Yes. Just."

"Well, that's all right then."

The end. For now.