Disclaimer: Remind me again why I have to do this? Characters, settings, plots, etc. all J.R.R. Tolkien's and now his estate's, as the institution carries on the ever-important task of protecting the dear professor's revered works from people like us on FF.net.

Author's Note: Book-based, not movie, though I can't help but see Elijah Wood and Viggo Mortensen whenever I envision Frodo and Aragorn in my mind. Well, what exactly did I do here? I extended the silence (in which you can just hear crickets chirping – it shouldn't be funny, but it really is) between when Bilbo says, "let's just go eat, people" and when Frodo volunteers to take the Ring. In the book, it's just a few moments, but I sort of froze time because I'm the fanfic author and I can do that (so there) because I wanted to put in a scene. Not an interlude or rendezvous or anything slashy like that – just a sappy little scene. This is weird and the nicotine jokes are anachronistic (heck, anacosmistic) on purpose. I had an "ER"-esque idea of someone really stressed-out going outside to smoke and someone older and wiser going out to tell him 1) that smoking is bad for him and 2) that he should get a grip and stop sulking. (This has happened twice on "ER" – once when stressed-out person was Carter and older/wiser person was Mark; once when it was Abby and…uh…Kerry?) Except that they don't have cigarettes in Middle-earth, so I had to use a pipe, which doesn't lend itself quite as well to the symbolically decisive motion of grinding the cigarette butt into the ground. C'est la vie; I made the most of what I had. Fun out-of-character Frodo-swearing earns this a PG rating. My beta reader, Meliara, commented that it makes him sound like Henry Higgins from "My Fair Lady."

Though I Do Not Know the Way

The silence was starting to become cancerous. It was heavy with discomfort, guilt, and despair. Especially guilt. Frodo shifted nervously in his seat and shot a cautious glance at Bilbo beside him. Bilbo had expressed the sentiment that the Ring was his responsibility, since he had found it and it was the problem of the Council because of him. He was staring at his feet, lost in his own private musings, like everyone else.

Frodo thought he would go mad if he had to watch people staring in deep concentration at the ground or stare at the ground himself any longer. Guessing that no one would notice or care much if he left, he very quietly got out of his seat, trying to avoid making any scraping or squeaking noises, and walked around the back to exit the raised platform on which the Council was seated. All the subtly-cleared earthen paths of Rivendell led to the gardens, so by just blindly, aimlessly walking – quickly, in a desperate effort to get away – Frodo found himself among quiet trees. Their leaves formed a canopy over his head; their trunks towered around him, standing guard to shield him from the outside suffocating silence and the dark threat of that which occupied the thoughts of the grim Council members sitting in stony contemplation of death, doom, or their feet. The muted, timid chirping of birds seemed more like silence than the pressing, weighted reticence of people who would not or could not speak, but spoke with their silence in a loudness that seemed to shatter Frodo's eardrums and deafen him: "This is your duty and your burden. None of us can take it from you, so claim it."

Frodo slowed his anxious gait when he reached the wooded, flowered gardens. The flora and fauna reminded him painfully of the cheerful, peaceful forests of the Shire, but the intricately crafted pillars that, just at the edges of Frodo's vision, bordered the trees reminded him even more acutely that he was not in the Shire, and it would not be his fate to return home anytime soon. He sighed and leaned against a tree, gazing up at the green ceiling of his temporary sanctuary. He needed some excuse to be out here… He rummaged in the deep pockets of his coat that he never cleaned out just because hobbits seldom do, and found his long-stemmed pipe, a little pouch of pipe-weed, and a small half-used book of matches. That would work.

Frodo rested his back against the rough silvery bark of his tree once more, this time with the pipe clenched in his mouth and lazily supported by the fingers of his right hand. He drew the fragrant smoke of the dried leaf through the pipe's long hollow stem and allowed it to fill his lungs. He had never particularly enjoyed the taste of the Longbottom leaf the way many other hobbits did, but the action of smoking relaxed him, somehow, and gave him something to occupy his mind other than the Ring and dying in the heart of a parched, dead, ashen land where the air you breathe is a poisonous fume. Much like the thick smoke of silence.

"What are you doing out here?" inquired a quiet but oddly harsh-sounding voice, breaking the stillness of the forest. Frodo had not heard Strider's footsteps, for Rangers are accustomed to moving silently and hobbits are not accustomed to listening alertly for every barely audible noise.

"Smoking," Frodo replied coolly, masking his momentary alarm.

Aragorn rolled his eyes ever-so-slightly as if to say, 'Beyond the obvious.' "Why are you out here smoking, then?"

"Because I'm addicted to nicotine," Frodo said very calmly.

The Ranger glared at him, his gaze sternly commanding, 'Stop evading the question.'

"I needed to think. And get some fresh air."

"Through tobacco smoke?"

Frodo exhaled sharply through his nose in a hint of a wry laugh. "Away from the damned silence. It was loud, and it was suffocating me." In the pause that followed, he took another puff from the pipe.

Aragorn scrutinized the hobbit. "What's wrong, Frodo?" he asked, his voice authoritative as he demanded a straightforward answer, but also full of genuine concern.

Frodo didn't speak for a moment, drawing once more on his pipe. The taste of burning leaf pervaded his mouth, and smoke filled his lungs again. He blew the smoke out again sharply, betraying his pent-up frustration. The acrid scent of the pipe-weed smoke and ash made him cough once before he answered, "I should take the Ring."

Aragorn shook his head, smiling kindly as he replied, "You have already done more than anyone could have asked of you."

Frodo turned angrily and kicked the tree, ruing it instantly when his unshod foot was scraped on the bark. "All that bloody talking! I told my story in painstaking detail; Bilbo told his in ridiculous detail; Gandalf quoted verbatim everything of importance that Gollum, Isildur, Saruman, and all their second cousins once removed ever said; Elrond lectured, Boromir was lectured, Gandalf lectured, and so did you, and what has been accomplished? Everyone has acquired an incredible interest in his feet and has gained, no doubt, a lifelong appreciation for every last paving pebble in Elrond's patio. No, we're back to where we started – no one wants to go; the Ring isn't mine and it has to be destroyed, but it is mine, because I inherited it and I brought it here and no one else knows if they can handle it. I've already been ensnared by it and hurt by it, so why not be identified by it, swallowed by it, and killed by it? All that talking, and they're back to being just on the edge of telling me to take on the responsibility like they know I will eventually, when given enough time to muster up my renowned long-suffering stoic nobility. I'll take it, damn it! I'll take it if that's what they want!"

Having spent his hurt and anger, Frodo began coughing violently until he felt like he was going to expectorate his lungs and homesick heart. He leaned over, struggling to breathe, and felt Strider's firm grip on his shoulder, then a strong hand rubbing his back to ease his coughing fit. When, still gasping for breath, Frodo was able to stand upright again, his eyes were watering profusely. He wiped away the rivulets of saltwater streaming down his face, muttering, "Damned smoke." Fiddling with the pipe whose contents were still faintly glowing in the bowl, he added, "Damned Ring." Sticking the pipe back in his mouth and his hands in his pockets, he continued mutinously, "Damn Sauron for making it; damn Gollum for having it; damn Bilbo for finding it; damn Gandalf for putting it on me; damn Pippin, Merry, and especially Sam for looking up to me expectantly; damn Elrond for being so all-fired wise and looking at me expectantly; damn everyone in that Council for expectantly not looking at me." He took the pipe from his mouth with his left hand and began absently fingering something small, round, and cool in his right-hand vest pocket, not really registering that he was playing instinctively with the One Ring.

"Damn Rivendell for being here; damn the Shire for being there, so peaceful and ignorant and unmarred. And damn you for standing there listening to me rant with that pitying expression on your face," Frodo said harshly, turning abruptly to face Aragorn squarely. Then he looked down, ashamed of his outburst, and added quietly, "Damn me most especially for being so naïve like any other hobbit, then taking the wide world like a blow to the face. Damn me for being in the way of a fate that's bigger than I am, and for feeling like I need to take it upon myself. But I do."

"Frodo, it doesn't have to be your responsibility – that's what I'm trying to tell you. You have brought the Ring to the Council, and its bearer will be appointed there from among any of the peoples of Middle-earth. The Ring is the problem of the Council, and all of Middle-earth; it does not have to be your personal burden. You could go home, if that's what you want," Aragorn said gently.

Frodo shook his head dejectedly and sighed. "No, I know I can't. I've seen too much now to just go home and pretend everything's the same. For Sam, Merry, and Pippin, maybe, it would be. But…well, when I woke up and looked at myself in the mirror for the first time since leaving the Shire, I didn't recognize Frodo Baggins, who was cheerful and happy and just like any other hobbit, content to stay home with a quiet life consisting of eating, drinking, reading, and sleeping. I saw a ring-bearer with haunted eyes, a pale and wasted face, and a scar on his left shoulder that will never heal. My fate and my role as Ring-bearer have been sealed already; I cannot go back from where I have come. My mind is made up.

"I know, I know – 'then where's the trouble?' I'm scared, Strider. I'm bloody terrified. I'm as scared as everyone else out there too petrified to volunteer to take the Ring themselves, even though they know someone must do it; perhaps I'm even more frightened because I have seen what there is to fear. I'm afraid of the Ringwraiths, who will always hunt me for what I carry, always hungering for it and drawn to its power; I'm afraid because I know how they can freeze the boldest heart with helpless terror, and how dangerous and painful are the wounds their blades inflict. I'm afraid of the land of Mordor – its barrenness, its darkness, its terrifying proximity to the fiery Eye of Sauron itself. But I'm especially afraid of myself, strange as it sounds."

Frodo suddenly realized with a shock, as he said this, that he was subconsciously toying with the Ring in his vest pocket, as Bilbo often had, a nervous habit and a telltale sign of drug-like addiction to the presence of the Ring. "You see?" he asked plaintively, turning again to Aragorn, his dark eyebrows furrowing in worry. "It already has a hold on me." Frodo took the Ring out of his pocket and let it lie in his palm as he regarded it apprehensively, curling and uncurling his fingers around it. "Even in Bag End, when Gandalf asked me if I could destroy it, and I meant to cast it into the hottest part of my fireplace – silly, of course, because that would have no effect on the Ring – I could not bring myself to cause harm to it. I could not even throw it in the fireplace. What I fear most of all is standing before the pit of fire in Mount Doom – " Frodo held out the Ring before him, his sky-clear eyes clouded and distant – as if envisioning something far away and living it – and his fingers trembling visibly. "Standing there at the Cracks of Doom in a moment of fate when all the world rests on my doing this one thing, and holding the Ring out over the fire – and if I could just let go, I could destroy the evil of the world – but I can't let go; I can't hurt the Ring; my life force will soon be bound to it, like Gollum's, or Isildur's, or Sauron's – I can't drop it in and do what must be done…"

Frodo's hand was shaking violently as he stared in abject horror at the little thing clutched in his fingers, and then he found that he had put it back in his pocket. Just like in Bag End. Clearly he remembered the expression of sad understanding on Gandalf's face when Frodo had turned to the old wizard; he wondered if he imagined a hint of 'just as I thought' and more than a hint of disappointment. He thought he saw the same resigned comprehension and disappointment on Aragorn's face there in the placid trees of Rivendell. Frodo sighed. He lowered his gaze and spotted the pipe still hanging from his left hand, a bit of familiar normalcy amidst frightening talk of dark things and an equally frightening feeling of inadequacy for the task that had been set him. He closed his eyes and siphoned the smoke of the pipe-leaf out of the hollow tube, a bittersweet taste of something from home. Something imperfect, but something he knew.

"So that's my problem in a nutshell," Frodo began again cheerfully. "I know what I must do, but I am afraid to do it, Aragorn: afraid." He inhaled from the pipe again, and blew out the smoke calmly.

Aragorn regarded the Halfling for a moment. He decided that straightforward truth would be the best approach to comfort, or some semblance of it. "You know, Frodo, when I first met you, I thought you were too careless and too naïve for such an important burden, and I wondered what Mithrandir – Gandalf – had been thinking. But there's a lot more to you than I thought, as Gandalf hinted I might find. You had the strength to withstand the poison of the Morgul wound for as long as you did; you have brought the Ring here and endured suffering to do it, and still you are willing to take on the responsibility of bearing it further because it must be done. You have poured out all your fears and frustrations to me; knowing what you go through, I can say that a lesser hobbit – indeed, a lesser Man or Elf – would be daunted and overwhelmed by such doubts. You have earned my respect and admiration, and I assure you, Frodo Baggins, that is no small feat. All those boastful Dwarves, infinitely wise Elves, and self-important Men in the Council who fear to do this should frankly be embarrassed that a middle-aged, four-foot-tall Halfling with no taste for adventure has the courage to do what they cannot; I am. 'It is yours, then, not mine at all' you said to me, and I admit to feeling some guilt – that the peril of bearing the Ring should really be mine, for that it yet exists is my inheritance and the fault and Bane of my ancestor. But if your mind is made up, Frodo, and you truly feel that this task has been appointed to you, as Gandalf seems to feel, then you have my protection for as far as you journey. Be comforted knowing that although the Road is long, dark, and fraught with peril, there will be one among whatever posse Elrond assembles, though all the other members be complete strangers, who respects you not only for your revered position as Ring-bearer, but for you as a person. Until I can pledge it to the service of Gondor rebuilt and renewed, which you shall help to bring about should you succeed in your task, you have my sword at your side, Frodo Baggins, Ring-bearer."

So saying, the Ranger knelt before the hobbit, drawing Narsil from her sheath – except that only the hilt and a short, shorn-off piece of the blade came out of the scabbard, taking a considerably shorter amount of time than the entirety of a sword that Aragorn had subconsciously expected. He stared at the broken end in some dismay before he began laughing, spoiling the mood of nobility. Frodo couldn't help but laugh, too, because of the absurdity in which an inspiring moment ended; he was thankful, though, for the comedy, because if he hadn't started laughing, he was afraid he might begin to cry.

"I suppose this will have to be repaired beforehand, though, for otherwise, the shattered pieces of my sword won't be of much use to you, now will they?" Strider asked with a humorously sheepish quirk of a smile.

"I don't know," Frodo said impishly. "The sheer ridiculousness might give Orcs more than a moment's pause, don't you think?"

Aragorn laughed and sheathed the fragment of the Sword of Elendil. "I ought to go back to the Council now, though I doubt they've accomplished much in the last – " he glanced at the sun's position through the screen formed by the leaves and branches of trees overhead – "fifteen minutes, other than memorizing the positions of a few more scuffs on their boots. Or in Bilbo's case, I suppose, hairs on their feet."

Frodo smiled, bordering on a wry chuckle. Aragorn also smiled, but somewhat sadly, as he strode over to the hobbit and placed his hand on the other's slender shoulder. Frodo stared squarely up at the Ranger. "Come back when you're ready," Strider said gently. "Not before. I'll understand if you're not back for a while. But remember what I said – no matter what happens from here, you have my respect and my loyalty. You have a great deal of courage, if not size or strength. Real courage – the courage to undertake a task even when any hope seems impossibly remote, because it's the right thing to do. I could be prouder to serve no other Ring-bearer."

Aragorn turned to go, and had walked away a few paces, when Frodo called out, "Wait!"

The Ranger turned, puzzled.

"Thank you," Frodo said quietly. "For just standing there and listening to me rant with that pitying expression on your face. It helps me more than I knew."

They exchanged small smiles, and Aragorn strode away, his back retreating through the trees.

Frodo glanced at the contents of his pipe. Not all the weed had burned away. He would go back to the Council when he finished it. He breathed another puff in deeply, gazing up at the pale sky through the leafy canopy above, nervous about going back to that tensely silent circle and sealing his own doom. He blew the smoke out again in a thin, delicate stream.

But oh, what was the use of waiting? He was just building up more of the fear and doubt in his mind that had been temporarily lessened by Aragorn's words of inspiration. Stooping, Frodo picked up a sharp stick from the ground and with it scraped out the still-glowing ashes and dried leaf from the bowl of his pipe, decisively grinding it into the cool earth with his toe to put out the tiny fire.

His stride purposeful, Frodo retraced his path back to the platform on which the reticent Council of Elrond was gathered. He quietly took his seat once more and closed his eyes for a few endless seconds, mustering his nerve.

When he spoke, he did not make eye contact with Bilbo, Gandalf, Elrond, Strider, or anyone. He stared determinedly straight ahead into the distance. "I will take the Ring," Frodo said at last, his own voice sounding incredibly thin, "though I do not know the way."

Author's (gratuitous and unnecessary) Note (written because I need more reviews, dammit): If you read this story because you like Frodo-angst, I can recommend to you just about every Lord of the Rings fic I've written…no, really. "Remember Me," "Drowning Alone," and "Pity" would appeal to Frodo fans. If you like angst lightened with a touch of a humorous tone to save it from being bogged down in syrup, you might prefer "'Samwise Gamgee and the Ring,'" though I warn that it is more heavily on the sappy side.