NOTE: 4th Chapter! Gee I wonder how long I will take to write this chapter. Not too long, I hope.

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A week later, it was really very bad. Kathy sat on the couch, totally exhausted. Between trips to the fish mart to buy fish for Sméagol's seemingly bottomless pit of a stomach, mopping up the bathroom after he tried to flush two whole rolls of toilet paper (and therefore jamming the whole thing, which caused a mini-flood), shelving her books all over again (Sméagol had drank a whole 2-litre bottle of Coke, which had very bad consequences) and trying to keep Sméagol away from her computer, she still had to get ready the extra room for Patrick. Ah… Patrick. She had been so excited with the thought of him coming, and now she wished that he would never come. He would just freak if he saw Sméagol. And all hell would just break loose, because Gollum would probably freak to see him.

One whole week she had cooped herself at home. It was all very well that she was out of a job, because she couldn't even imagine leaving Sméagol alone in her house for more than 1 hour. If she did, she would probably just come home to a pile of ashes (Sméagol having had discovered the wonders of a stove the day before). Oh yes this was bad indeed.

And now Patrick was going to be here. In about two hours. Great. Just great. Everything was going to snowball from the moment he set eyes on Sméagol, she just knew it. If she thought that it was chaos now, it would be Armageddon later when Patrick arrived.

Sméagol came scampering down the stairs and crouched in front of Kathy. "Hey, Sméagol, what is it?" she asked, forcing herself to smile. Something that she and Nat had discovered: the nicer they were to Sméagol, the nicer he was to them, and the less chance of having Gollum appear in his twisted little brain. And it was very important that Gollum popped up as rarely as it was possible. Who knew who Gollum could do, thinking that the Ring was somewhere here. Nat told Sméagol everyday that she was searching for the Ring, and sometimes she brought some of her own rings over to ask Sméagol if it was what he had lost, just to show him that there was really some effort put into it. Every time Sméagol volunteered to go and search for it himself, Kathy would launch into a long speech about how people would catch him and hurt him and cut him up. That speech never failed. Not yet, anyway. When Sméagol looked doubtful, Kathy would tactfully add something about Elves wanting to catch him, and that was a sure-win plan, because Sméagol really did hate Elves.

"What are you doing, precious? What are you doing?" he asked, peering up at her curiously.

"I'm resting. Are you hungry again or something?" Kathy asked, suppressing a sigh. She really hoped that he wasn't hungry. From what she read, he seemed to be able to go for days with no food (trekking through Mordor was really a sorry state to be in), but here he ate a lot. And by that she meant a lot. It seemed like he ate enough to compensate for all the torture and starvation he had ever gone through. It seemed to make him happy, though, and that prevent Gollum from paying any unwanted visits, so Kathy would have to just feed him, and endure all his singing. She could already sing along with him, when he sang his song about fishes. It was a cute song, actually… but she would never tell him that. Never encourage him.

Sméagol shook his head. "No, we are not hungry, no precioussss we aren't." He sat down at Kathy's feet, and stared out into space for a little while.

Well, now would be a good time to broach the subject. "You know, Sméagol…" Kathy began, choosing her words carefully. "I have a… friend… coming soon… very soon. His name is Patrick."

"Friend? Is he nice? Isss he… nasssty?" Sméagol looked a little worried and for a moment, Kathy almost wanted to hug him. Not quite, though.

"He's nice, he's very nice. I think… you'll like him." I pray you'll like him, Kathy thought to herself.

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A/N: Okay that wasn't funny in the least, was it? Oh dear. I'll have to step up on the funny gas for the next part of the chapter. It's hard to force yourself to be funny though.

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Patrick sat in the taxi, resting his head against the window. Mmmm… yes, soon he would see Kathy. His nice, beautiful, lovely Kathy. He still didn't know why she wouldn't want to move in with him, but oh well. He loved her anyway. Nice Kathy. Kathy. Nice. Nice. Kathy.

He had spent ages saving up his leave days for this trip, and he was intending to make it a nice, relaxing, fun one. He hadn't seen Kathy for quite a long time, and it was always good to see her again. Knowing her, she'd have some surprise in store for him, something he would never ever expect. (A/N: He has no idea… lol.) Maybe this time she would agree to move in with him.

He closed his eyes, daydreaming about the romantic dates, the funny dinners, and of course meeting Kath's crazy friend Natalie. Yes… it was going to be a good holiday for him.

He began to get really excited as Kathy's house (or rather, the house she inherited from her parents) pulled into view. He paid the driver and got his suitcase out of the trunk. Then he made his way up her front porch and took a deep breath before pressing the doorbell. He expected to hear Kathy yell, "COMING!" and then rush to open the door and give him a huge kiss, but that wasn't what he heard. What he heard was, "OH MY GOD!" and then had to wait for 5 minutes before Kathy opened the door.

She was definitely not the Kathy I had imagined. Her hair was in an urgent need of a combing, and she looked tired and flustered. Nevertheless, she gave me a bright smile and a kiss on the cheek. "It's so good to see you," she said, albeit a little half-heartedly. Patrick was baffled. This wasn't the welcome that he was used to! What was wrong? He would definitely have to ask her. Yup. Definitely. And so…

"What's wrong?" he asked. (A/N: D-oh. You can't say, "what's wrong?" can you? It's one of those things that you can only ask. 'Cos it ends with a '?'. There. English lesson over.)

Kathy sighed. "I guess you better come in. It's something you have to see for yourself to believe."

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An hour later, Patrick collapsed on the couch. There was a weird guy in his girlfriend's house. And she jumped whenever he said toad. Well, not that he said toad… it was an expression. Yes. Yes it was. He groaned. He was beginning to think like the weird guy talked. This was great. Just great. His dreams of a lovely relaxing holiday with his girlfriend had just been shattered to pieces. No, pulverised. No, shattered to pieces, and then the pieces were pulverised to little fragments, and then the weird guy would eat all the fragments. Yes, that was more like it. It had been a total waste of his money, then. He was going to have to spend the rest of the holiday helping his girlfriend keep a weirdo happy.

A Lord of the Rings character, she had said. Well, he had never read The Lord of the Rings, and seeing this weird guy, he certainly didn't feel very inspired to. What kind of weird freak wrote about such a strange creature? What was he anyway? He had asked Kathy, and then wished that he hadn't, because she had gone on and on about some hob-thing and then a Ring and then torture and some weird long explanation that he didn't understand a single word of.

He groaned again. It was definitely going to be a bad bad holiday.

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Here's Chapter 4 at long last! So so so sorry about the delay. Patrick is a bit of a &#%!… is he? At least that was kinda what I was aiming for.