Disclaimer: I do not own Lord of the Rings. It belongs to Professor Tolkien and the only things I gain are the reviews.

Summary: Alternate Ending to 'Children and Fellowships'. What if Natasha was pulled back to her own world?


Alternate Ending – Natasha

Natasha's Point of View

I lie here on my bed in the house I grew up in.

I am dying. No matter how many people tell me that I will be fine and it is just a passing stage, I know the truth. My friends and relations say that I was badly affected by the months I spent in a coma. They say that it knocked years off my life.

They are wrong; it is not nearly as easily explained as that. The fact is that I have lost the will to live.

It sounds like something out of a third – rate soap opera, but it is true.

When I was eighteen, a car crashed into the childcare centre I worked at. Myself and three of the children I cared for were knocked into a coma. Two of them awakened not long after, but the third, Bella, and I stayed that way for months.

Crazy as it may sound, that coma threw us into a different world. A world where mystical beings were truth, where I indirectly fought incredible evil. A world where I befriended the niece of a king, where I was adopted by the steward of a great kingdom. A world where I loved a king and would have married him, where I would have stayed had things been different.

Someone had written a book about it, calling it The Lord of the Rings.

Close enough, but he was too distant, to aloof from the people he wrote about. I knew them as they were in life, rather than as characters in a book.

Eowyn: niece of King Theoden, strong and proud, but fettered by the chains of tradition and expectations of how women should act. I nearly laughed when someone complained and tried to make her behave in a 'lady-like' fashion only days after she killed the Witch-King of the Nazgul.

Denethor: Steward of Gondor, driven near to madness by the palantir into which he looked, trying to protect his people. Times were desperate, and he was willing to try anything to protect his people and keep the forces of Mordor at bay.

Aragorn: Trying to fight who he was, who he was destined to become. Gradually accepting the role he was born to bear. He was a paradox in many ways, but he was also a great king.

Boromir: A noble man, who was seduced by the ring as it fed on his desire to protect his people. Who realized what was happening to him and found the strength to fight it in order to protect others.

Faramir: The younger son who tried so hard to win his father's love and approval. Who only gained it when he came too close to death that Denethor finally realized what he stood the chance of losing. The man who loved a shield maiden, who accepted her the way she was.

Frodo: I knew little of him, aside from his great compassion and strength of will. He bore the One Ring for months, nearly dying in the attempt.

Sam: Devoted entirely to his master. He was what we would term 'the ordinary man', and he liked it that way. He gave Frodo the strength to carry on, finding hope when all seemed lost.

Merry and Pippin: One was rarely found without the other close by. Pranksters, they still matured greatly during the quest, somehow managing to maintain their mischievous streak.

Gimli and Legolas: Those two were never far apart, although I laugh to think of how the rest of their people must have reacted. Elves and Dwarves did not get along, period. Sometimes I think it an unwritten law. Their interaction and constant bickering was never anything short of entertaining, however

Eomer: The only man I could ever truly love. My soul mate, for whom I was willing to stay in Middle-Earth, never returning to this world. The one I could not live without, once we realized our feelings. He loved me in return, despite my qualities that would have been considered unusual, indeed because of them. I will love him until the end of time, and can only hope that we will be reunited in death.


Alice's Point of View

I sit by my sister's side, marvelling at the way things have turned out.

I may claim otherwise, but I know that my eldest sister is dying. I also know that while the official reason is that the coma took years off her life, that is not why we will lose her so young.

I have said many things to my sisters throughout our lives, most of them only in an attempt to get on their nerves. It seems strange that the ones that I often meant the least are the ones that turned out true.

I would claim that she was so stuck in the middle ages that she would never get a boyfriend or marry. I would say that she wouldn't live until eighty, if her head did not come out of the clouds.

I was right, after a fashion. Natasha did not date or marry, although not because of her refusal to go with the flow in how people normally acted in our time. She just wasn't interested in romance, as though she was perfectly content to save herself for someone who did not seem to be coming, no matter how long she waited.

Nor will she live to see eighty, as it will not be long now, and she is not far past fifty. Alright, so it isn't that great a margin, but still.

The coma changed her. Before, she was a quiet person, gentle and passive, though she had great inner strength and a flame of life that burned brighter than a bonfire. After, she was still quiet, but would also spend time with a faraway look in her eyes when she thought that no one was watching, as though she could see something that no one else could. While she was more confident, and more willing to stand up for herself, her flame began to slowly dwindle, as though put in a large room with the exits sealed, dying from lack of oxygen. It was not oxygen that Natasha lacked, but something that none of us ever found.

Now I sit on the end of the bed, watching as my sister's light splutters and begins to go out.


Sarah's Point of View

I am going to miss her.

Stuff what the doctors say, and all the empty platitudes. My sister is fading from a broken heart and there is nothing any of us can do about it.

To be frank, I am surprised that she lasted this long. Thirty-two years is quite a drawn-out death, after all.

Perhaps she stayed for our parents and grandparents, not wanting to leave until they did. Perhaps she decided to stick around until she was sure that she could leave Alice and I alone with each other without us tearing each other to pieces.

I know she stayed for her children. We never found out who the father was, but Natasha somehow became pregnant during her coma. Even though she was only twenty when she gave birth, my twin refused to give them up.

Twins share a bond with each other. Don't ask me too explain it, just accept that I know. It was like Natasha knew that something had happened, in the place that only she could see, and that it was time for her to let go.

I can feel as Natasha's last breath leaves her body and her spirit breaks free.

Alice bows her head then jumps up with a shriek. I look to see what is wrong and follow her example.

What seems to be a ghost, or apparition, is standing at the foot of the bed.

He is dressed in armour, though it appears to be more like extra-toughened leather. A sword is at his side and he looks like he has stepped out of a storybook of the middle ages.

His hair is long and dark blonde, while his eyes are an entrancing dark blue. He looks to be in his late twenties or very early thirties, and is defiantly one you could drool over.

He ignores us and walks past to where Natasha's head rests. He speaks in a foreign language, holding out a hand to her. Obviously, he has missed the fact that she is not breathing, and that her face is the white of death.

Alice opens her mouth, probably to point that out, and then snaps it shut again. I do not blame her

Until now, I have had little faith in the gods, and even less in ghost stories and the idea that spirits are visible for the first few moments after they leave their bodies. What happened next changed those ideals. I am so a believer now.

Looking similar to the strange man, a second spirit rises from my sister's body.

It is Natasha as he was just before she was in the coma, though her eyes nowhold a look of completion, as though she now has the missing piece of her heart. She seems almost nineteen, wearing a green dress that would not have looked out of place on a medieval noblewoman. She accepts his outstretched hand, speaking three small words. "Eomer. You came."

He flashes her a smile. "I said that I would see you again. In this life or the next."

She returns the smile, then kisses him gently.

Alice's mouth is open again, this time in shock. Both spirits start to fade, until we are left alone in Natasha's room, sitting with a sister who has now left this life.


A/N – Yes, I know the end was pure fluff and very unlikely. Then again, falling into Middle Earth is hardly likely either. Should I do a second chapter set in Middle Earth where we see Eomer?

Review and tell me what you think.

Nathalia.