AN: Oh, how many apologies should I ask of you, my dear readers and reviewers! I wish it will never happen again.
FrodoBaggins87: On the other hand, you're good in dialogs while I'm not! :) Thanks for all the reviews!
Kenobi: Wow, thank you! I adore your story very much! I can't wait for the continuation, too.
aelfgifu: I wish I could speak Russian more than you do! But I can only understand the 'loobloo'. LOL. I hope you aren't disturbed with the so many fics I ask you to read! And I hope you can have your stories with italics now.
Aratlithiel: Thank you so much for your support and encouragement. I can see that although we all have differences, we can still enjoy something together.
HazardousRaptor: Thank you! Please keep on reading and reviewing.
Krista: Yes, I have a kind of rough plan on this story. And thanks a lot for Aratlithiel for her great beta!
Dead Mage Chel: Mmm… The Ring is not really undestroyed, but you'll see!
endymion: Oh, someone recognized the name! Actually I just take any hobbit name provided in the book. LOL.
purplefluffychainsaw: Thanks for reading it, honey! Amazing? Well, my beta is amazing!
AN: Forgivess us for shamelessly using Prof. Tolkien's genius lines!
Chapter 3 – Nassty Little Baggins
It was hard enough for Frodo to keep his paces straight while stooping to match Gollum's height. Once he stumbled and as he tried to ascend, Frodo looked over his shoulder and whispered.
"Sam."
Frodo's heart leapt as he saw from a distance his gardener shifted, slowly awakened from his unconsciousness. In a moment Sam would fully come to and realize that his master had gone. Frodo had to hamper Gollum's attempt to drag him away.
If ever, the former Ring-bearer had not intended to leave this cursed place, not when the Ring had yet to be destroyed. Bitter bile rose in Frodo's throat recalling his failure to do that in the first chance. His own failure…
Frodo tugged at his gripped hand weakly and Gollum turned around, halting at once.
"What iss it, preciouss?" The creature's spirit was still high as reminiscence of his old home was flickering in his mind.
"Aa… you mustn't really want to go back to your cave, must you?" Frodo altered his previously planned reply. Why, the creature should not find out his real objection to their leaving, of course.
Gollum creased his brow, wondering, but widened his eyes as he thought he understood what Frodo meant to say.
"We knows, preciouss! Masterss is wearied. Carry him, yess, yess, we will!"
Frodo's droopy eyes rounded in amazement at the conclusion Gollum had jumped to. But of course, the creature could only guess from Frodo's outer bearing, for which the hobbit was thankful.
"A quick-witted Smeagol I am beginning to understand! Yes. Your master needs rest. The long journey had taken so much from him." Frodo plopped down to show how worn out he was at the thought of having to undertake another walk. The Misty Mountains could be hundreds of leagues from Mordor. "But Smeagol needs not carry him. Smeagol is not…" Oh! Frodo was too close to mentioning the most detested name for the creature. But he could not help it, knowing from the last time he glanced at his beloved gardener and saw how Sam had been up and would surely spring up to help him.
Yet, inknown to Frodo, Gollum had caught his reflexive gaze toward Sam and the creature followed it and so suddenly everything was revealed to him.
"Nassty little Baggins!" he snapped in rage and disappointment. "It wants to trickss us like the other one, doess it not?" Gollum gave a sharp yank to Frodo, who was too astonished to query about the other one as he was wrenched, surprisingly, to Sam's direction.
Frodo dreaded the inevitable – that Gollum was finally so maddened that he would slay Sam once and for all. Frodo could not imagine what was actually in the twisted being's mind. Jealousy? Frodo never thought Gollum would think of him as his, as a possession. Why? What would he want to do with Frodo?
"Ick!" hitched Gollum, stopping just a few steps from Sam's erect form. Both pairs of eyes, Gollum's and Sam's, looked challengingly at each other. No confusion or apprehension shone in Sam's brown eyes despite the condition he had been previously. If anything, it was only madness as he saw Frodo caught in the despised creature's hands. But no more!
Frodo stole the chance to flee as he realized Gollum was too engrossed in his own anger. Frodo ripped his bloody hand from the former hobbit's claw, and slammed himself backward as he tugged away too mightily against the strong grip. Frodo fell hard on the small of his back and his breath was knocked out of him, leaving him gasping for air in the next moment. Stars were floating around and to the corner of his gaze, followed by something else.
Gollum!
The creature was quickly closing the distance between him and Frodo, hissing in fury and in an instant he was looming over Frodo, reaching out his clawing hands to the hobbit's neck with the speed of a winged Nazgul.
"Aaacck…" Frodo fought desperately as he felt the flow of air to his lungs cut mercilessly. Flailing his hands wildly and kicking his with his limbs, aiming at nothing in particular, Frodo felt his body weakening fast and not one of his body parts followed what his brain bid them to do. Deep in his mind, though, Frodo cursed at Sam's tardiness to come for help.
"S… s… s…" Frodo's face contorted as he tried to articulate the one name of his loyal manservant, his front teeth frustratingly attempting to grit and his face turning absurdly from ashen-white to red and then into blue. The furrows across Frodo's brow gradually smoothed, as he was no longer able to act or react to whatever was coming upon him. Gollum squeezed more and Frodo's head started to loll backward, his body slacking completely. Frodo barely knew his surroundings anymore and Sam's springing up into action was lost on him. It was a disguised fortune that Frodo had been semi-conscious, so he hardly felt the pain as Gollum swung his body, turning him into a shield – protecting the creature from the infuriated gardener.
Sam was stunned for half a second before he resumed his attack, spitting out curses into the burning air of Orodruin.
"You let go of my master's neck, you filthy beast!" Blood still flowed from the gash at his temple and was seeping down now from his torn heart as he witnessed how Frodo's very soul was slowly sucked out of his flesh.
"Let Frodo go. Now!" Sam bellowed. "Aren't you enough with the Ring?!"
Gollum stiffened at the mention of the Ring, eyes staring through Sam to the void behind him. A voice played in Gollum's mind, bouncing to and fro the hard shells inside the creature's head.
"C-c-can't do it, Smeagol. That's mine."
Smeagol gifted his dear friend with a relentless sneer, his still-meaty hands kneading Deagol's throat and neck, slowly and more tightly, as if they were a lump of bread dough.
"You're wrong there, my love," Smeagol purred suggestively. "It's my birthday now and I deserve more than the scrolls of poems you gave me this morn."
"No!" Deagol protested weakly. "I found the band. The founder is the keeper." Yet, he wondered silently, where was It? Deagol could hardly seem to find the Ring that was supposed to be within his fisted palm. Had he unintentionally dropped It?
Gollum jerked at a small movement in his clasp. He looked down, aghast, and was a bit stunned at the figure lying prone and almost lifeless. To his surprise, Gollum saw no Deagol. This was not Deagol. The creature was not a beloved friend he used to spend lazy days along the river with, fishing and tunneling. This was not his sharper-eyed Deagol. This sickly, bluish face, instead, belonged to the nasty Baggins that reminded Gollum much of the other, nastier, Baggins from his past, the one having partially caused his misery. And for a moment, forgotten were all the feelings of care and veneration toward the younger Baggins.
"Praps we sit here and chats with it a bitsy, my preciousss. It likes riddles, praps it does, does it?"
Cursess! That was the beginning of Gollum's desolution. Talking to a Baggins he later knew to dwell in the Shire, who had mischievously nabbed his most precious belonging. But did he really?
"What have I got in my pocket?
Gollum remembered those musing eyes and the dreamy voice of Bilbo Baggins. But what startled him most was the simplicity of the question. They were supposed to give riddles, were they not, though the brilliance of that short riddle almost sent Gollum leering. And the wretched creature had then voiced its dissatisfaction.
"Not fair! Not fair! It isn't fair, my precious, is it, to ask us what it's got in its nassty little pocketses?"
Only then when Gollum, as desperate and woeful as he was in trying to find the answer, knew what the puzzle really meant, as he decided to pick up his precious Ring and discovered that It was gone.
Wailing and screeches would not help, they only succeeded in scaring Bilbo who later had discovered the secret of the Ring and slipped It on around his finger and made himself invisible – which only proved Gollum's earlier suspicion.
"Curse it! Curse it! Curse it!" hissed Gollum. "Curse the Baggins! It's gone! What has it got in its pocketses? Oh we guess, we guess, my precious. He's found it, yes he must have. My birthday-present."
Gollum's face was unbelievably horrifying with his two huge, pale eyes straining out, red and threatening. Drat all the Bagginses! One had left him helpless and lost, living in the dark tunnels of the Misty Mountains, without his precious. And the other one, Gollum glanced over at Frodo's pathetic, slumped, unconscious form, head now thrown back, revealing dark auburn circles on his throat from Gollum's long and bony fingers.
Doubtfully, Sam advanced slowly. Gollum might have already loosened his strangle-hold, but the menacing figure looming over his hapless master made the soft hair on Sam's neck stir and stand. Gollum could just as well end Frodo's life anytime. And Sam heard those gurgles followed by a soft whisper.
"Gollum, gollum! Thief, thief, thief! Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever!"
TBC
AN: My best regard for the greatest beta ever, Aratlithiel!