Then he woke up. He knew exactly where he was, though there wasn't even the dimmest ray of light around him. And he knew where he had been, though the memories he had recalled were older than even the biggest fish in the icy waters surrounding him. He rose from where he lay and kneeled roughly. His wrists smacked against the damp stone and his fingers tensed into a clawlike grip.

"Memories, precious. Stinking, slimy memories."

"Memories of what happened before in our life, precious."

"Of what happened, what happened… to us?"

"Yes, precious. Once we had a grandmother. Once we had a Deagol."

"A Deagol?"

"Yes, he was our brother, precious. Remember him? Thick, long brown hair, though yours was golden. Large, pointy ears, though yours were small and round."

Gollum could hear Smeagol's descriptions, but tried to shut them out more and more desperately, his eyes darting to and fro as a beckoning was felt harder and harder inside of him. He could hear the repetition of his own voice: Because today is my birthday, and I wants it.

"No!" He crouched on his haunches as his overgrown hands blocked his minuscule ears. Because today is my birthday, and I wants it. Try as he might to block out the sound, he couldn't.

Because today is my birthday, and I wants it. "Where is it coming from? Smeagol!" And for the first time ever, Gollum sounded desperate to Smeagol, which only terrified him.

"Where is what coming from, precious?"

"That voice! Saying… saying." Because today is my birthday, and I wants it.

"Oh, that, precious. That is coming from inside."

"Inside?"

"Inside of us."

"But it is not our voice, precious."

"No, it isn't."

"It isn't. Then whose is it?"

"It used to be ours."

And Gollum wept and felt tears drop onto his fingertips.

"But how did it used to be ours? Why isn't it ours now?"

"The ring used to be ours, but it isn't now, precious. It is just what happens."

"But it was our voice, precious, our voice."

"It is just a memory now, precious, just a memory."

"No!" Gollum shrieked, bouncing about as he became more agitated. "We don't have memories! There is nothing that we remember."

"Except for grandmother."

He cried and cried. He lost track of the time he cried. When he was able to speak again his voice shook and all but his last gasps of energy remained, and Gollum could do nothing more than be kind to Smeagol.

"Precious?"

"Yes?"

"What is it like to be loved?"

"Loved, precious?

"Yes."

Gollum was silent and all that could be heard was the dripping of water from the walls into the lake. At last he spoke.

"It's nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Yes."

"To be smiled upon. To be held. To be nurtured and cared for. To feel the warmth of someone else's skin. For someone's heartbeat to be felt against your chest. For gentle fingers to flow through your hair. For unending trust and perpetual longing. To be kissed in the darkness of the deepest, deadest hour of your life."

"It's nothing."

Smeagol's attention passed on quickly to thoughts of the ring.

"It could be so kind. Precious. It could be so kind when it wanted to be," said Smeagol.

"And so awful. So awful, gollum."

"But when it wanted. It would hold us in its arms. It would embrace and caress us. And keep us warm even in the coldest snow."

"Then it would hurt us."

"It would hurt us, precious! It would never leave us alone. It would fight and fight and fight until we swore we would throw it away."

"But did we ever throw it away, precious?"

"Never! Never once did we throw it away! Never once! We were loyal, we were faithful, we fed it everything it asked for."

"And what would it give back, precious? What did it give back?"

"Nothing but pain, precious. Nothing but pain."

"It swore it loved us precious, it promised. Promised. It promised it loved us forever precious."

"But it cursed us."

"Murderer it called us."

"It drove us away."

"And we wept, precious. We wept for so long."

"And we forgot-"

"The taste of bread-"

"The sound of trees-"

"The softness of the wind-"

Both Smeagol and Gollum spoke together. "We even forgot our own name."

Yet at last at those words he sprang into action and even sounded optimistic. "We must rise now, precious. Long sleeps we had, yes, yes, very long sleeps. We must find our precious and steal it from that nasty Baggins!"

"Yes, precious! Let's go now! We shall even swim across the black, cold lake!"

"Yes, precious, yes!"

And with clapping of his hands, a few spinning dances and infinite happy crowing, Gollum leapt into the freezing water, and though it usually stole all air from his lungs and made his limbs feel rigid, on this occasion he glided through the water and splashed with all his might. He made his landfall and shook the water from his twisted, spindly body. "We will get our birthday present back, precious, we promise. We promise."