Disclaimer: I don't own Lord of the Rings. If you see any characters or any of that stuff that you don't recognize, it's mine. The rest belongs to Tolkien.

Chapter Twenty

February 12, 2003, by my world's reckoning

The Fellowship has been broken. I wish I could've done something about it, but I know I couldn't have, and anyways, that has been a few days ago. Right now, I'm here with Frodo and Sam, and by the looks of it, we have no idea where we're going. Not as if I wanted to get to Mordor in any hurry, but the sooner we get there and destroy the Ring, the quicker I get to see everybody else in the Fellowship, especially Pippin, and know if they're alright. And the sooner I can get home to my own world. I guess I could go now, but I'm not leaving my friends here to fend for themselves. Just the other day, we managed to climb down a steep side of a mountain, or was it a hill? I don't know. Sam was in a fix because the Lady Galadriel had given him that rope and he had tied it in his famous knots. But what would you know, when he tugged at it, it un-did itself and fell to the ground at our feet. Real Elvish rope as Frodo said. Speaking of the devil, Sam's coming over here to sit with me. I'll write as soon as I can, but I don't know when that will be.

Sincerely, Ali

Ali looked up as Sam came over to sit next to Ali.

"What is it, Sam?" Ali asked.

Sam shook his head. "Nothing of great importance. I just walked over here to see what you were you doing. And I was feeling a little lonely."

"Well, you're more than welcome to sit and chat with me," Ali said.

"Thank you, Ali," Sam said.

Ali just smiled and they fell silent. Ali looked over the mountainous region. There wasn't any plant life whatsoever to break the monotonous sight. Seeing rocks day in and day out was quite tiring.

"You miss him, don't you?" Sam asked suddenly.

Ali roused herself and looked at Sam. "Miss whom?"

"Pippin, that's who. You say so in your entry there. I might not be a smart man, but I CAN read," Sam said.

Ali looked down at her entry and quickly shut her journal, feeling extremely embarrassed that she didn't close the journal and have it open for anybody to happen to glance and read. It wasn't Sam's fault that he was curious, but Ali wished he wouldn't have read it, it WAS Ali's business. Soon Frodo came to join them.

"What's going on?" Frodo asked.

"Nothing, Mr. Frodo," Sam said.

Frodo grunted in acknowledgement. "It's a cold night."

"And not to mention a horrible stink that's been following us the past day or so," Ali agreed.

"He can't follow us without being caught one of these days," Frodo said.

Ali didn't say anything and looked down at her journal. She didn't have anything else to say.

"Ali, you must have songs from where you came from. Do you think you could sing us something?"

Ali nodded and thought what she could sing so that they would be entertained. Ali then remembered the small song that was a part of the Breaking of the Fellowship song on Elena's soundtrack that was called In Dreams or something of that sort. Elena played it so much that Ali knew the words by heart. So Ali started to sing.

"When the cold of winter comes starless night will cover day in the veiling of the sun, we will walk in bitter rain. But in dreams I can hear your name. And in dreams we will meet again. When the seas and mountains fall and we come, to end of days. In the dark I hear a call calling me there. I will go there and back again," Ali sang softly.

"That was beautiful," Sam said when Ali stopped singing.

"Yes, it was beautiful," Frodo agreed. "Sounds like something old Bilbo would sing, isn't it, Sam?"

Sam nodded. "It does. Where did you hear that from, Ali?"

"From one of my friends. She always loved that song," Ali said, suddenly feeling sad at the sudden remembrance of Elena.

"Well, your friend has some good tastes," Frodo commented.

"Did she have any favorites like that?" Sam asked.

Ali nodded. "There was this song called May It Be by a singer called Enya. But it's a long song and I don't think I can remember all the words right now. I'm really tired."

"Yeah, it's getting past the time we should rest and we have a long day of walking ahead tomorrow," Frodo said.

The three of them wrapped their cloaks around them and curled up on the ground. Ali was just about to fall asleep when she heard a low, raspy voice on the rock face above her. Ali looked at Sam and Frodo. They were also looking at her, and from their faces, they could hear the voice, too.

"The thieves! The thieves! The filthy little thieves! Wheeere isssit? Wheeere isssit? They stole it from us. My preciousssss. Curse them! We hates them. It's ours, it is, and we wants it!" the creature said.

"Now!" Frodo mouthed and all three suddenly jumped up and grabbed the creature above them on the rock and pulled the creature down.

The creature was the most horrid thing that Ali had ever seen in her life. It was long and gangly and grayish looking. As Ali stared at it, the creature struggled hard and finally got loose from Frodo and Sam and attacked Ali. Ali cried out and landed on her back, struggling to get free.

"Ali!" Frodo called out, and rushed over, grabbing the creature, struggling, to get the creature off of Ali. The creature turned and lunged at Frodo, and seeing the One Ring, he struggled to get to it.

"You leave him be!" Sam yelled and lifted the creature clean off his hands and feet. The creature twisted around and grabbed Sam by the hair. Sam cried out as the creature pulls Sam's head backwards by the hair and starts biting his neck as Sam fell to the ground.

'This is getting ridiculous,' Ali thought. 'We need to get this creature under control!'

Ali rushed to Sam's aid, but got pulled down and soon the creature was choking both her and Sam. Ali quickly looked around for Frodo, but didn't see him. Suddenly he leaped out and pulled the creature's head back, pointing his sword to the creature's neck.

"This is Sting. You've seen it before, haven't you? Gollum!" Frodo growled.

The creature that Frodo called Gollum stared at Frodo in shock, but didn't release his grip on Ali and Sam.

"Release them, or I'll cut your throat," Frodo threatened.

Ali felt Gollum's grip lessen and she quickly pulled herself away from the creature. Sam got up and quickly pulled his Elven rope out of the bag.

"We can tie him up with this," Sam said.

Frodo nodded and stretched out his arm to take the rope from Sam. Sam gave it to him and Frodo tied the rope around Gollum. Ali looked up at the sky.

"It's getting lighter. We best go now before anything else finds us here," Ali commented.

Frodo nodded. "You're right, Ali."

As they started to walk with Sam dragging Gollum, Gollum started wailing, griping his throat.

"It burns! It burns us! It freezes! Nasty elves twisting it!" Gollum wailed.

Sam gave the rope a yank and Gollum went flying a few feet and Gollum started wailing.

"Quiet you! He's hopeless! Every Orc in Mordor's going to hear this racket!" Sam roared. "We should just tie him up and leave him!"

"No, that will kill us, kill us!" Gollum wailed again.

"It's no more than you deserve!" Sam shouted him.

"Maybe he DOES deserve to die. But now that I see him, I DO pity him," Frodo said.

"I agree with Sam, we don't need this filthy wretch," Ali growled.

Gollum looked up at Frodo and Ali. "We will be nice to you if you will be nice to us. Take these off us. We will do whatever you want, we swears." Gollum stretched his arms out and leaned foreword, making his head touch the ground. Ali thought sarcastically where he learned HIS aerobics.

"There's no promise you can make that I can trust," Frodo said.

"We swears to serve the master of the precioussss. We swears on, on the precioussss! Gollum Gollum" Gollum pleaded.

"I don't believe you!" Sam yelled pulling out his dagger and going towards Gollum. Gollum wails and starts to run away, but Sam yanks Gollum back down. "Get down!"

"Sam!" Frodo said fiercely.

"He's trying to trick us! We let him go, he'll throttle us in our sleep!" Sam said just as fiercely.

Frodo turns to Gollum. "You've been to Mordor."

Gollum nods. "Yes."

"Frodo, what are you doing?" Ali hissed in Frodo's ear.

Frodo ignored Ali. "You've been there before."

Gollum nodded again. "Yes."

Frodo walked over to Gollum and took the rope off him. "You will lead us to the Black Gate."

Ali sighed. She was officially convinced it took forever to get through a man's thick head any sense. No wonder some women got frustrated with them and divorced. But they were still lovable.

"Follow us, hobbiteses, follow me!" Gollum called to Frodo, Sam, and Ali and soon they were following Gollum, to the Black Gate of Mordor, hoping he knew the way.

A/n: There's chapter twenty. I know today's only Wednesday, but I have some time to finish this chapter, which I started earlier this week. But I hoped you all liked it. I've got a question for you all. After Frodo, Sam, and Gollum leave for Mordor, where does Faramir go? Doesn't he go to Gondor or somewhere? I haven't read the trilogy in a while, and my memory's failing me at the moment. Don't all answer at once; laugh out loud. But I'll shut up now.

Sunni07- Thanks for the review! I'm sorry! I can't do what everybody wants. And here's my reason why I didn't do Legolas, Gimili, and Aragorn or Merry and Pippin. One, because the storyline with the new character going with Legolas, Gimili, and Aragorn has been overused on fanfiction.net enough times, not that I don't like them, I love them, but we need to see the character go with off with someone else for a change of pace and I didn't make her go with Merry and Pippin with Treebeard and all that stuff because I would be dreading writing about the Ents and stuff, considering it's not my favorite of favorites in the books. Hope you don't hate me for it. But anyhow, hope you like the story anyways.

A'mawel- Thanks for the review(s)! Glad you like the story and hope you continue reading. Sorry I didn't get this chapter up faster, I have a habit where I do a little bit of a chapter each day until the weekend where I've got more time.

Melissa Ocean- Thanks for the review! Thanks for the corrections..eh-m'bad. Isn't that obvious that I was writing the chapter around 11 p.m. while watching Deep Impact on TV Sunday? I haven't, either, I don't think. One reason I did it, though I'm plowing a new road, though, because I don't have an example to write my chapters on, except for the book and the movie. But innywho, thanks for the review again!

Ashes Kittyhawk- Thanks! I wasn't really expecting it, either, I was going along as I went and made the decision at the last minute. Thanks again!

Kage Miko- Thanks much! Idn't he, though? That TGIF thing was pretty good, I never thought of it before, again, until you said that. So do I considering most stories I've read about it. But there's this one that's extremely good that I like called 'Elves Are Not Perfect' including a sequel to it called 'Until We Meet Again' by Crystal Snowflakes. But as I'm not an advertisement person, I'm not going to say any more and I ain't like her, anyhow. I do the unusual, sorta. But I'm going on too much, thanks again for the review!

Fishnchips- Thanks for the review! Glad you liked it and hope you'll keep on reading. Thanks again!