Thank you, Iorhael, for helping! :)

FrodoBaggins87: Yes, it's true. You can believe your eyes! An update! Enjoy.

Nimrodel of Meneltarma: Thank you for your review. Sam will return soon. :o)

March 23, 1420 S.R.

I started working on walking again yesterday. However, when I had to sit again after walking, I could barely bear the pain. The doctor would not give me any medicine, though. He said it would give me no use at all since I had already done the task. Still I suspect he must have already put some drug in my food because after I ate, the pain disappeared and I grew tired. I still have not had dreams. I guess I can trust him. The medicine was used probably because I seemed to be in pain. My ideas must have been wrong. Even before it must have been used only to keep me from waking in pain during the nights, never for some evil intention.

If I can trust Sandy, perhaps I can learn to trust others. Perhaps I am getting better. Life seems full of opportunities again. Possibly, I was wrong about Sam, Merry, and Pippin too. Maybe I can trust them, learn to love again, learn to be happy. Wouldn't that be marvelous? I need to get up and walk to the table for breakfast or I shan't eat the whole day, Sandy says. F.B.

Frodo stood and placed his journal under his pillow. He grimaced, but his growling stomach drove him on. It would be porridge again, no doubt. Even that Sandy could not make well somehow. Frodo entered the kitchen slowly, until finally he was able to ease himself onto a chair. "Good morning!" he greeted cheerfully.

Turning to the hobbit, Sandy noted the cheerfulness in Frodo's voice. Good. His plan was going to work better than he had expected. Sandy had noticed Frodo had been depressed and untrusting when he had arrived, and now, with him trusting and open to new things, he would take the rejection more severely. "Good morning, Frodo." Sandy placed the eggs and biscuits in front of Frodo. "Glad to see you make it to the kitchen."

"Is that your way of saying I was slow? I must admit myself that I was a little slow."

"Only 'a little'?"

"Rather?"

"'Rather'?"

"Very?" Frodo asked, blushing as he was feeling slightly embarrassed.

"Yes, very," Sandy agreed, smiling. "Anyway, eat up."

Frodo took a knife and cut open the biscuit before placing the eggs in it and taking a bite. It tasted better than anything else Sandy had cooked. "This is good."

"Thank you. It's my mother's secret recipe."

"I see," Frodo replied. He continued eating speedily, for his back was hurting and started to become numb. He groaned as he stood and the blood rushed through his body. It felt as though he had a million bugs all over his body.

"Are you alright?" Sandy asked, concerned.

"My back is numb," he stated plainly.

"Then, let me help you to the bed. Your back isn't yet used to bearing weight again." Sandy walked to Frodo's side. Frodo placed his arm around his shoulders, and Sandy placed his arm around Frodo's upper back.

Soon they reached the bed, and Frodo lay down gently, favoring his back. Sandy covered Frodo with a blanket and left the room. Frodo was tired, but he could not sleep as the numbness departed from his back, pain rushing in to take its place. He groaned quietly and kept still. The doctor had left for town – he had told him the evening prior that he would do so after breakfast – and Frodo had no idea where the pain medication was. He would have to tough it out. How long could he be anyway? Frodo asked himself as he lay there awaiting the return of the doctor.

Peregrin Took scowled as he crossed paths with the doctor in town. "Out to ruin Frodo's reputation some more?" Pippin asked, hostility filling his voice and being.

"Why, good day to you, too, Master Took! Actually, I was out to get something to help your cousin," Sandy replied.

"Help him?" Pippin eyed him suspiciously. "How so?"

"If you must know, he is at my home recovering from an injury."

"At your house? Recovering? From an injury you brought upon him, surely."

"Watch who you throw such wild accusations at, Peregrin Took! No, he hurt his back somewhere. Sancho Proudfoot found him and brought him to me. He's working on walking again now, and he's doing quite well, if you ask me."

"Well, I can't trust you," Pippin exclaimed with his arms crossed. "I'll have to see for myself."

"Go ahead. I have nothing to hide. If he's in pain, you may give him some of the medicine I left on the kitchen table, but, mind you, follow the instructions precisely."

"You won't have to worry about me harming my cousin. Good-bye, sir."

"Good-bye, Master Took," Sandy replied, mockingly bowing low. As soon as Peregrin left his sight, he continued to the mercantile to seek out the drug that would help his plan greatly.

Pippin rushed into the doctor's house yelling, "Frodo? Cousin?"

"Yes? Who is it? I'm in the room across from the kitchen," came the small voice of a hurting Frodo in reply.

Pippin appeared in the doorway. "Are you alright?" he asked with concern.

"As close as I can be,' Frodo replied.

"What has happened to you, my dear cousin?"

"First, because of my carelessness, I was dragged by a pony on a plow, and then, I suppose, I fell from a tree."

"And the doctor? Has he been –?"

"Cruel? No. Actually, he's quite nice – quite the contrary of how I would have thought an S.B. would treat a Baggins."

Pippin, seeing the happiness of his cousin (the happiest he had seen him in a long time) even in his present condition, had not the heart to tell him of what Sandy had done. "Really?" was all Pippin said as he sat by his cousin's bedside."

"Yes. He started to have me walk yesterday," told Frodo. "Speaking of which, do you happen to see any medicine?"

Pippin looked around. "No, but I can go check."

"Would you, please?"

Pippin returned a few minutes later with some medicine and a glass of water. "Here you are, Frodo."

"Thank you, Pippin." Frodo drank down the horrid-tasting liquid and quickly downed the water afterward to rid his mouth of the taste. "What are you doing in this part of the Shire?" he asked afterward.

"Oh, I was going to the Cotton's to visit you when I ran into the kind," Pippin cringed inwardly as he used the adjective, "doctor, who told me you were here."

"I see," Frodo replied while stifling a yawn.

"You are tired; I shall go." Pippin rose.

"No, please don't," Frodo requested, his arms outstretched. "'Tis but a result of fighting the pain for so long,"

"If you wish," Pippin replied while taking a seat. Frodo soon fell asleep, but Pippin remained with him until Sandy arrived, at which point the Took made a beeline for the door, requesting that he tell Frodo he had said he was sorry, but he had to leave.

Sandy agreed and checked in on his patient. Frodo looked worn out, still more each day. This would doubly secure the success of Sandy's plan. Frodo's emotions would be overly sensitive. He gave Frodo a small dose of the harmful drug to ensure Frodo would remain asleep before he stepped out of the room to return to his evil plotting.