Angel

Chapter 26: Lookit! Frodo's Starting to Turn Paranoid!

Author's Notes: Yes, I know, such a kind chapter name. Eh, picking on Frodo is fun, if I didn't like him I wouldn't do it. pats Frodo on the head and he, suddenly sprouting fangs, snaps at her hand Gah! Heh heh… He hasn't had his medication today. ;;;; Anywho, thank you to my reviewers as always, you people ROCK! Also, I realize I steal some lines from the movies and the books in this fic. Again I state, I do not own them. I'm too broke to buy the rights to the script, sadly.

"What should we do with him?"

"There are lots of cliffs around. We could just pitch him off one."

"Tersa!"

"Calm down Frodo, only joking… hey, where did the frog go anyway?" Tersa looked around. She soon spotted Gollum lying on the ground tugging at his leash and hissing.

"Nassssty hobbitses! They puts horrible elf ropes around us, precious, let us go!" Gollum rubbed his bony hands as if they stung. "It hurts usss…gollum…"

"Will you be quiet? 'Onestly. We can't let you off your rope because you will probably try to kill us again." Sam said, and afterwards Gollum shot him a venomous look.

"I don't think he'll try to kill us Sam." Frodo looked pityingly at Gollum, whom was crying to himself about his restraints again. "We should at least take the rope off of his neck, it seems to be hurting him."

"Oh no, I know that look. Frodo, this is not a cute little baby bird, or a kitten, or even an animal! This is something that tried to KILL us." Tersa exclaimed. "You want to let him out of his restraints so he can strangle you again?! I'm beginning to wonder if it was you I hit with Sam's frying pan instead of him!"

"He may have tried to kill me, but he obviously is not in his right mind. He probably didn't even know what he was doing." Frodo replied.

"He's not even in his LEFT mind let alone his right!" Tersa crossed her arms stubbornly.

"She does have a point Mr. Frodo. If we do let him go, he will probably continue to follow us, if not try to get the ring a second time." Sam said, twisting the end of the elven rope in his hands.

Gollum's ears had perked up at mention of the ring and he was now staring at Frodo, a plot forming in his mind. "If we gets free now… precious is ours later. Yesss! Anything for precious." He muttered. He started to crawl towards Frodo. "We will be nice to the hobbitses if they is nice to us, gollum. We can get you out of here we can, we are nice."

"You can show us the way to Mordor?" Frodo asked.

"Yes! We knows, we knows it all we does." Gollum nodded quickly. "We swears we will take you to Mordor. We will! We will swear on the precious we will!"

"Mr. Frodo you are not going to trust him are you?" Sam asked.

Frodo sighed irritably. "Everyone deserves a second chance. If it will make you two feel better the moment he proves untrustworthy you can tie him up and pitch him into Mt. Doom, all right?!" He turned back to Gollum. "I will hold you to your word." Frodo removed the rope from Gollum's neck. "Lead the way."

Gollum nodded happily and loped off, motioning for the hobbits to follow him.

'For once I agree with Tersa; one of these days that thing will probably throttle us in our sleep.' Sam thought with a sigh, and then started off after Frodo and Gollum, with Tersa close behind him.

"Bleh."

"Yes, I think that about sums it up." Frodo agreed, looking down at the marshes below them. They were sitting atop the last rocky slope before the marshes, under a small overhang where they were sheltered from unwanted eyes.

"Marshes, dark lords, and mountains of fire. I can certainly see why even animals stay away from this place." Sam sighed, sitting with his back against the rock wall. "The last thing I saw was a little mouse a few days back."

"Sss…" Gollum responded, blinking his luminous eyes. "We isss hungry. We will be back." He started down the slope.

"Where on earth are you going? There can't be anything edible for miles." Tersa said, walking over to Sam and sitting down beside him.

"You must know how to find eatables, precious. We knows." Gollum explained, slinking off.

Tersa shook her head as Frodo joined them. "Strange creature. Oh well. At least the stars will be out soon." She looked up at the fading sky. "I wish I could be up there, a part of such a beautiful thing." She sighed and reached into her pack without thinking, pulling out Sam's folded cloak and hugging it. "It always makes me so lonely… Reminds me how small and insignificant we all are."

"No one is really insignificant Tersa. Everyone has something they were meant to do." Sam said, giving Tersa a comforting smile. "After all Ters, here we are."

"If destroying a ring of power is significant, that is." Frodo added.

"I suppose it is, isn't it." Tersa said, smiling weakly.

"Eh. It's significant only if we succeed I suppose. Wake me when we are ready to go through the marshes." Frodo yawned, laying down and wrapping his cloak around himself for warmth.

Tersa and Sam sat in silence for a while, gazing up at the sky, and Sam's cloak still in Tersa's arms. However, Tersa eventually realized what she was holding and blushed a bright red. She quickly tossed Sam his cloak, trying to act casual. "You can have that back, I don't need it anymore."

"You can keep it." Sam said, handing it back to her. "I don't exactly need it either."

Tersa looked up, meeting Sam's eyes. There was no mockery in his gaze, only a bit of amusement and something else she couldn't identify. 'His eyes are such a lovely shade of brown.' She thought with a love struck sigh. She could gaze into them forever…

'Stop hoping…' She thought bitterly, tears welling in her eyes as she forced herself to look away from him. 'Not only is he five years older than you and has his heart set on Rosie Cotton, this isn't the time nor the place for this. You should be more concerned about Frodo and the Ring, not about how much you adore Sam.'

"Tersa? What's wrong?" Sam asked, brushing a tear off Tersa's cheek gently. "You're crying."

"Nothing." Tersa said quickly, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand.

"I've known you long enough to know that you never cry unless you are hurt quite a bit. Even if you won't tell me, can I help at all?"

"You could stop worshiping that wench Rosie and fancy me." Tersa looked up to see Sam giving her an odd look and immediately covered her face with her hands. 'I said that out loud.' "Sam I'm sorry… Please forget what I said, I wouldn't deserve you even if I could-" She picked up Sam's folded cloak and buried her face in it, rambling inaudibly until to her surprise she felt Sam's arms around her.

As Frodo sat back observing this entire scene he couldn't help but smile. 'A spot of light in the darkness once again, it almost makes me glad I can't get to sleep. I would have missed all this. '

'Yes, a fine pair. Especially when they go off together and leave you to die alone.'

A hint of jealousy snaked into Frodo's mind and he shook his head to try to rid himself of it. 'What am I thinking? Sam and Tersa would never do that to me…'

'Only because they would rather not die because I wasn't destroyed. As soon as I'm gone they will leave you. Alone to your misery and torment.'

Frodo glared down at the chain around his neck. 'I knew it. Stop influencing my thoughts you wretched thing.'

'I will, for now…But remember what I said. As long as I'm here your friends will still be with you. Get rid of me and you get rid of them too.'

Frodo looked longingly at Sam and Tersa, blissfully unaware of Frodo's mental battle. 'I don't want to be alone…' Frodo blinked a few times, as clearing the mist from his eyes. 'Frodo you fool, listen to yourself. You know that everything that wretched thing around your neck tells you are a lie to try and keep itself out of Mount Doom. Listen to your heart; the ring doesn't have any influence on it. Sam and Tersa won't leave you.' He smiled again and lay back down before Sam and Tersa noticed he was awake.

Sam turned and looked over his shoulder at Frodo, thinking he heard him get up, but he was still lying on the ground as he had been before Tersa started crying. Sam shook his head and turned his attention back to Tersa, only to find that she had fallen asleep in his arms. 'You are impossible Tersa. I am doing my best to love you as much as I can, even though I don't even know how I love you.' Sam brushed a lock of Tersa's hair out of her face, highlighted with silver by the moonlight. 'Tersa would never believe me if I told her, but Rosie has been the farthest thing from my mind. Every spare moment when I'm not worrying about Frodo and this quest is spent worrying about you, Tersa, and no one else.'

When Frodo awoke the next morning, he found Sam's cloak over him and Tersa asleep beside Sam. Sam still had his arm around Tersa, with Tersa's head on his shoulder. There was a smile on Tersa's face, and a wave of annoyance washed over Frodo, but he ignored it. "Frodo you fool be happy for them, or at least Tersa, the Middle Earth doesn't center around you." He said aloud.

'Even though you're the one dragging a weight around your neck and all Tersa can do is try to take your best friend and turn him against you.' A spiteful voice added.

'If Sam was really didn't care about me anymore and was against me he wouldn't have put his cloak over me would he?' Frodo thought. He laughed, receiving no response. "I have you there don't I?"

"Sssss… Master is awake?" Gollum hissed, a few feet away. "They has been asleep forever precious, lazy hobbitses, gollum…"

"Yes, I suppose we need to get moving." Frodo looked at the sky, it was just a little after dawn. "I'll wake them."

Gollum nodded, hissing at the sun and scurrying down towards the marshes.

Frodo touched Sam's shoulder and shook him gently, resulting in both Tersa and Sam waking up and scooting away from each other as they saw him.

"Erm… food…" Tersa mumbled, running a hand through her hair and began looking through her pack.

Sam blushed, clasping his cloak back over his shoulders as Frodo handed it back to him, carefully avoiding looking at Frodo.

"Aren't you two going to say anything other than fragments of a sentence?" Frodo asked, laughing. "You don't have to be embarrassed."

"There's not much to say…" Tersa blushed, twisting a lock of hair around he finger, getting some lembas out of her pack and breaking off three pieces of lembas and tossing two of the three bits to Sam and Frodo.

"You two are impossible." Frodo grinned, taking a bite out of his lembas fragment. "You'll never have any children if you're not even willing to touch each other." He added a moment later, nearly causing Sam to choke.

"Quit it!" Tersa glared, tossing a pebble at Frodo as he got up, hitting him in the shoulder. "It's nothing like that! He doesn't even like me you ruddy twerp!"

"Maybe he doesn't, but its still entertaining to annoy you." Frodo smirked.

"Shut up."

"Sss, wasting time sleeping precious, slow hobbitses." Gollum said as Frodo, Sam, and Tersa walked towards him. He glared at Sam and Tersa, whom glared right back. "Time to go across the marshes." Gollum crept out onto a nearby patch of land, testing the ground with his hands and feet. "Follow usss, we knows the way."

The three hobbits looked at each other, then started after Gollum, with Frodo in front followed by Sam and Tersa. Over the course of the day only Frodo managed to fall into the marsh water, even though both Tersa and Sam came close at times.

"I have all the terrible luck." Frodo grumbled through chattering teeth, pulling Sam's spare cloak that Tersa reluctantly gave up more tightly around him.

"Whatever you do don't say it could not get any worse. It will if you say that." Tersa said, shuddering as she looked into the water at the dead faces. "I'll never be able to sleep here. Gollum, are you sure these things won't crawl out of the water and attack us?"

"Maybe they will, precious, if little hobbitses doesn't stop complaining." Gollum glared.

"Mutated Frog."

"Hssss!"

"Leave him alone Tersa. He's trying to help us."

"Or kill us."

Frodo sighed and shook his head, but said nothing.

Tersa shrugged. "Well, if he doesn't something else will."

"Ss, not with us precious. We knows safe places to hide. Nothing will hurt us, oh no."

"SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Well, so much for that theory."

Squeeeeeee! Another chapter done. Now, time to respond to reviews!

EJ Kridom: Heehehehe. I've always wanted to bash something with Sam's frying pan, and I finally got to! happy dance

Lindsey: You beg for chapters. O.o Interesting.

Cavca: Continue I have. And cuteness levels are being adjusted so that they will go to the max and still have a plot. ;;;;