Giving Up
The journey back was very tiring. They had to go rather out of the way to get back to the woods and there was more backtracking than anyone really wanted.
"I thought you said you didn't know anything." Eric asked Allison in Aragorn's arms. "I do not know the ultimate outcome of everyone's actions nor do I know anything of real importance. I know little happenings here and there."
"But don't those little happenings have an effect on the story in the end?"
"It seems to me that something like Pippin ending up with the Stewed of Gondor is not really important, nor does it have an effect on what happens in the end."
"I think you're wrong." Eric said after thinking for a moment. "Think of what would happen if he did not end up there. Things would be different right?" Allison gave him a curious look,
"I suppose you are right. If he had not gone with Gandalf…"
"Gandalf?!" Aragorn cried out, "But Gandalf fell in the mines of Moria!" Allison whispered in his ear,
"He did not. He comes back, he is not dead!" She said smiling, and Aragorn grinned as a weight in his heart greatly lifted. "But do not tell the other just yet."
"For what reason? What harm could it do?" Eric asked more to get her to answer then to know what her answer was. He was trying to prove a point.
"Well, it's like living on the Dole. When people live of government money they tend to just live for each dollar in welfare rather then going out an get work because they know they will eventually get money doing jack squat. So if we tell the others, they may give up thinking that he will show up and fix everything that has gone wrong."
"Exactly my point." Eric said. Allison gave him a queer look.
"Your point?"
"Yeah, I was trying to prove my point to you. That everything we do has meaning."
"You mean this whole time that I had been pondering the meaning of life and choosing destinies and the future's integration with the past, all while Mulder and I contemplated God and his forms within every state of our being you have already known!" Allison hollered at him. Eric laughed,
"It was an idea. You make it sound like I'm God or something." Allison rolled her eyes.
"So then it matters what I tell them."
"As I figure it." Allison got a look of pension on her face.
"Yet then, does that not also imply that there would be something of importance you must relate to our Fellowship concerning the arduous journey we take or the outcome of it?" Aragorn asked Eric only looked at him nonplus.
"I'm sorry, what did you say?" He had yet to understand a single word that came out of that man's mouth.
"He said then according to your theory we must be here to tell them something"
"Oh, ok. Not necessarily. We may have accidentally ended up here, but that does not mean our being here will not, you know, totally jack things up." Now this was food for thought for Allison, and she spent the rest of the day thinking that statement over and over again.
In the early evening, they took up their camp. Aragorn had sent Eric to go help Legolas and Boromir hunt for some food. Allison was stretching out her legs again while listening to Pippin ramble on about being hungry and making her describe all of her favorite foods.
"You know, Pip, I'm starting to get really hungry when we keep talking about eating and food can't we talk about something else?"
"Oh sure. I suppose…" He said.
"Perhaps you can tell us what the Lady of the Wood gives Frodo to help him." Sam asked intrigued by the elves and all of their magic. Allison began to bend forward to stretch out her calves. She exhaled and touched her toes. She thought for a few moments. And then sat down and pulled on leg in and grabbed her other foot as she wondered out loud.
"How much harm can it do?" She shrugged and then said, "She gives him the light of her favorite star."
"Oh ok…and that helps him out how?" Pippin asked.
"Well, he uses it to defeat the dark, so to speak." Allison was still reluctant to give out too much information and did not say anything more. She switched legs and bent forward to grab her left foot. "God damn, I really wish I could shower." She muttered.
"So then, Frodo…he survives?" Sam asked tentatively
"He survives a whole hell of a lot." Allison said.
"No I mean, does he live in the end?" Allison sighed deeply, wishing she knew the answer to the very same question.
"I don't know. I haven't finished the book yet." Sam looked despondent; "I'm sorry Sam. I really wish I could tell you more, but I just can't. I can't risk destroying the whole story. I mean, if Eric and I accidentally ended up here then everything I say and do could potentially change the entire outcome."
"Perhaps it can change it for the better than too?" Pippin said
"I suppose, but how am I to know what will make things better and what will not. I'm experiencing this journey the same as you." At this Eric, Boromir and Legolas had come back from hunting and came and sat with Pippin, Sam and Allison.
"What's up?" Eric asked and Allison took a quick glance up and said
"The sky."
"Oh that is so lame!" Eric said and Allison shrugged,
"You set yourself up for it."
"So what are we talking about here?" Boromir asked.
"Trying to make Pippin stop talking about food." Allison said and glared at the hobbit, who gave a sheepish grin.
"No more talk about the future?" He asked. Allison looked at him strangely thinking to herself 'God you'd think he's be a bit more coy about it.' Allison shrugged,
"Well that too."
"Even though we shouldn't be." Eric said trying to fight Boromir's insatiable curiosity.
"For whatever reason? A little hope for the future could do no harm." He said smiling slyly.
"Whatever I know, will probably not lighten your hearts any." Allison said and then paused, "What the hell? I'm talking like you people now!" She cried out and Eric chuckled.
"You are then insinuating that nothing that happens to us is of good tidings?"
"What did he just say?" Eric asked Allison who responded,
"Then I'm implying that nothing good happens." she then turned to Boromir and said, "No, I am only saying that what I know is not important enough to help you." Which was a lie, because she did know something that was important to him; he dies. But she did not want to reveal this.
"I do not think this is true, Lady." Boromir said almost evilly, and then bent a little closer to her and said, "I think you are lying." Allison began to cower away from him and closer to Eric and Legolas who then said,
"Boromir! Do you try and intimidate the Lady? She says she knows nothing and I, for one, believe her. I think it would be wise if you did so as well." Boromir could not see that Legolas had been reaching for his bow and Eric for his dagger. Boromir backed off and got up to sit with Aragorn.
"God that guy scares the crap out of me!" Allison said relieved that he had left.
"Indeed. Have you seen the way he eyes Mr. Frodo?" Sam asked and Allison nodded,
"Yeah, I have." She said watching Boromir with Aragorn, no doubt discussing her. She shuddered.
"He gives me the creeps."
"Yeah, and he looks like that guy from Patriot Games." Eric said thoughtfully,
"Harrison Ford?" Allison asked confused,
"No, the bad guy."
"Oh, right. Yeah, I guess he kind of does." They were all silent for a few moments. And Allison looked at Eric thoughtfully and asked, "Do you think that stuff that happens in this place could change our future? Or do you think it will only change the future of this certain time?" He shook his head.
"All I know is that if you were to tell that guy what you know, it could be devastating." Allison nodded, but this did not satisfy her.
"Devastating to who? Us, them, the world as we know it?"
"What happened when you told Mulder and Scully what you knew?"
"Well, after we came back a few weeks later Mulder came back to the series. But it did not seem like he did it because of anything that we told him. Doesn't it seem like if we had properly corrected what was wrong, he should have been on the show like he had never left?" Eric nodded and Legolas interjected
"What is your concern, Lady? Destroying your own world, or ours?"
"I'd like to get out of here without doing either. Though, I'm pretty sure nothing I could do here could destroy my world, but yours is a fragile one and with even a slight slip up, it could come down all around us."
"And what will become of you if you never return to your home?"
"Well, now that's a questions I would like answered as well. I could not travel with you the whole way. I suppose we'd have to go with Boromir back to Gondor." Legolas nodded.
"Do you think it is possible that perhaps nothing we do will ever effect the ultimate outcome? That perhaps everything will come to pass in it's own right?" Eric asked and Allison threw up her hands and said,
"I don't know! I'm so damn sick of not knowing anything!" She fell backwards and lay on the ground staring at the sky. "I give up! I really really give up! I cannot keep assuming and guessing and hypothesizing! Freaking A! We need to do something for God sakes!"
"And what do you propose we do?"
"Well, how about this for example," Allison leaned up on her elbows and looked at Pippin. "You're going to get captured by orcs." Pippin gasped,
"What are you doing!" Eric exclaimed. "That could screw up everything!"
"I need to know! I need to know how my knowledge will effect them!"
"What if it gets us all killed?"
"And what if it doesn't? These are the questions I need to have answered."
"And what if your search for knowledge ends up forcing us to no complete the task we were set out to do?" Legolas asked.
"It won't. I'm trying to help, not to hinder. Oh and by the way, you're going to have to go on the Path of the Dead." Legolas did not looked phased at all.
"So wait, I'm going to get captured by orcs?" Pippin asked.
"Well, you and Merry. They are really looking for Frodo because of what he has, but they don't know that. You live, so don't look so worried." Pippin actually looked more confused then worried.
"I think you are making a mistake." Eric said warily.
"And I think I am doing something called 'experimenting.'" Allison motioned for Eric to move closer and said to him in a whisper "I'm going to try and not get Boromir killed. As far as I figure it, it should not screw things up completely. Aside from that, if we really can't get out of this place, we are going to need him to take us to Gondor." Eric sighed deeply, because he knew that what Allison was doing was essentially messing with the bonds that connected space and time and playing God by choosing the destinies of each of the characters.
"I really don't think you should be doing this…" Eric said, as if this one last statement would total change her mind.
"Well, what if I can't change anything? Maybe Mulder was right and everyone's fates are predetermined by some higher spiritual being."
"God doesn't seem to exist here."
"Oh don't get all pious on me now. If God exists he'll exist everywhere." Allison said and then sat up again.
"Do you feel better now?" Sam asked and Allison shrugged,
"We'll see."
