Fireblade K'Chona- Fixed. Thanks.

Thanks to Pasha ToH and Amber Stag.

Notes: I'm trying to build the setting now, so bear with me if this doesn't really resemble much of the original plotline for a bit. The whole Jews-are-going-to-hell at a Jewish funeral thing actually did happen to a relative of mine. I wasn't there to see it, (most unfortunately) but I was told about it in length afterwards. Mike must have been spinning in his coffin. (I'm surprised it didn't fall off the table.)

Serious Notes: Okay. Here we go. ((launches into speech)) One of the best pieces of advice for writers that I've ever heard is to write what you know. If you are writing a story about romance, place it in a setting that you are familiar with. I have not taken this advice to heart. I do not plan to, except in a few non-related non-fan-fiction stories. The reason for this is Dean Koontz. I love his books to death, but if you've ever read them, you'll soon realize that they're all set in the same place. Laguna Beach, California. I understand that he's basing off of what he knows, but reading about people based in Laguna Beach, time after time after time... And since his books have the same basic plotline except for a few, it all gets really old really fast. So I'm a bit leery about basing The Fellowship in South Florida or Northern New York (and I've not been in the latter for a long, long time,)- the only places that I've been in for long enough amounts of time to write about convincingly. So now I'm going to attempt to amaze the world about writing about places that I really can't remember or have never been to. Plus South Florida is not a good place for Shires and Elven strongholds. Plus we have no Forest Rangers down here. We have the Everglades. Although that might be amusing as the Dead Marshes... And where the hell are you gonna find a miner in South Florida? But enough of that. If there's someone that would like to advise me on the matter of how things go in rural-ish New York, please, please volunteer yourself. And I'd like if it was a beta-reader.


The Fellowship, Chapter Three: Home Is Behind, The World Ahead.

Gandalf levered himself into the chair across from Frodo and regarded the teenager thoughtfully.

"Your parents left you the house, and a tidy sum of money, aside from the life insurance," he began. "What do you intend to do with it?"

"College," Frodo said firmly. "I'm going to invest the money from the insurance policies, and I'll use whatever is left for the rest of my high school year. Since I'm already eighteen, I can use the money for whatever I want, and it's going into mutual funds. They may not save up very fast, but they're pretty secure, and-" he paused and took a deep breath. "I'd like to sell the house."

Gandalf's eyes widened. "Why?"

"Too many memories," Frodo said shortly. "Mostly good, but every time I look at the kitchen, I see Mom cooking something, or cleaning, and I see Dad in front of the T.V., watching football. It's just too much," he continued quietly, after a pause. "I want to sell the house, and maybe get an apartment."

The old man nodded. "I think I know a place, and it's within walking range of Samwise, Meriadoc, and Peregrin's homes."

Frodo looked up at him, interested.

"It also happens to be the home of your uncle Bilbo," Gandalf continued. "Your parents kept it because they failed to make any real estate agent see the worth of the home, and thus take it off their hands. Even the 'We Buy Ugly Houses,' people didn't want to buy it. So your parents kept it. It's rather dusty at the moment, I'm afraid, but a little work will make it perfectly fine, and I do think that you will find it quite hospitable, if a little oddly placed."

The teenager looked at him. "Oddly placed?" He asked quizzically.

"Er- I think you had best see it for yourself," Gandalf said quickly.

x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x

"A hill," Frodo said in disbelief. "You want me to live in a hill."

"It's a home that was built into a hill, Frodo. It is not the hill itself."

"Same thing!" Frodo exclaimed. "You want me to live in a house that my insane uncle designed?"

The house in question was on the other side of a deteriorating white picket fence. It was actually on the outskirts of town; not near any of his friends' houses, but it was closer than Frodo had been living before. As Frodo had said, the house was built into a hill. The area around this part of the city tended to be uneven if you didn't bulldoze it, and Bilbo had apparently elected to build with the landscape; most of the one-acre property was a very large hill. There was a round green door cut into the front, and all of the windows were round, too. Frodo shuddered to think what the inside was like.

Gandalf stared at him. "Your uncle was not insane, Frodo. In reality, he was a very intelligent man; not insane."

"That's actually kind of funny, seeing that I saw him when I was working at the Renaissance Festival a week ago," Frodo snapped.

"What?" Gandalf looked troubled. "Where?"

"I was heading back to my car at the end of the day and he dragged me into some bushes and started screaming about Sauron, Elves, and Mount Doom." Frodo rolled his eyes. "I'm not even sure if that was Bilbo. Hey-" he said, suddenly remembering. "He did ramble on for a while about a ring. And the weird part is that when I got home after I got away, I found a gold ring in one of my jacket pockets."

Gandalf's eyes glinted. "Do you still have this ring?" he asked, voice suddenly gone quiet.

"Yeah- it's back in my room in the house. Why?"

"Did it have anything written on it?" Gandalf insisted, ignoring Frodo's question. Intensity shone in his eyes, and it was unnerving Frodo a little; Gandalf had never seemed this... focused on something.

"Uh- no. It was just a plain gold band, kind of like a wedding ring. It didn't have any markings, though. Why? Was it yours?" he asked, even though he knew it was a stupid question; Gandalf was undisputedly a bachelor.

"No," Gandalf remarked absently. "That ring... Bilbo found it many years ago... when he vanished, I was sure he'd taken it with him and was using it to hide..."

He started muttering again, and Frodo decided to dismiss his ramblings as those of an old man. He pushed the gate to the pathway open; it promptly fell off the hinges and landed in the overgrown grass. "A little work?" he muttered sardonically.

The mailbox at the edge of the path said 'Bag End,' and he wondered what it meant.

He walked carefully over the broken paving-stones of the path leading to the front door, passing delicately-wrought spiderwebs and once stepping over the paper-thin bones of a small bird. When he tried the door, it was locked. At least he knew vandals hadn't broken into the 'house.' He pulled the intricately wrought key out of his pocket and unlocked the door, pushing it open slowly; it was surprisingly heavy. The hallway inside the doorway was dim, both with dust and lack of light. He pushed the door open further and stared at the front hall.

"No way," he muttered. The hallway was shaped like a tube. The floor was tiled, which was nice, but the hallway was shaped like a tube. The walls were paneled with wood, and he could see branching passageways off of the hall, and at least one entryway into a room just off to the left. The main hallway continued for quite a few feet before sloping down and to the right.

"What the hell kind of person was my uncle? And who did he get to build this place?" He asked in wonder; even if the house was really weird, it was kind of awe-inspiring in a way.

"He had friends," Gandalf said from behind him, spooking him so that he jumped. "Wonderful friends who were masters at their craft, and they helped him build this place. Not too shabby, eh?"

"I'll say," Frodo said. He walked down the long hallway to see where, exactly it led. Gandalf followed on cat-quiet feet, occasionally startling Frodo again as he peered into rooms only to bump into Gandalf when he pulled his head out. They followed the curve of the hall until Frodo was fairly sure that they were underground, even below the normal level of ground and under the neighbor's yards, (one reason being the sudden cease of windows,) and there were still more rooms to see. The rooms' contents varied; bedrooms with drape-covered beds, recreational rooms with drop-cloths covering the gaming tables and televisions, living rooms with couches covered with pieces of cloth, what were obviously drinking rooms, bathrooms, pantries, closets... they had probably passed at least twenty on each side by now. Finally they came to the end of the tunnel, and Frodo breather a sigh of relief. Before them was a large, dark wooden door. When he tried the handle, he found that it wouldn't open; locked, then.

"How do I open it?" He asked Gandalf.

"Look at your key," the old man said.

Frodo examined the key he was still holding in his right hand, puzzled. Then he saw it; the end of the key for the front door was actually the key for the lock here- the old-fashioned key's end that he'd taken for decoration was a key in itself. The twisting metal had thrown him off, but he realized that it would fit perfectly into the lock of this final door. Cautiously, he pushed the key into the lock, fearing of breaking it, and turned. The door unlocked smoothly, much to his surprise; he'd expected trouble from the old lock. When he pushed the door open, he gaped in surprise. This was obviously the Master Suite of the house, and it was better than the VIP suites of many hotels that he'd seen on T.V. The front room had several expensive-looking couches pushed against the walls and was twice the size of his bedroom at home. What made Frodo's jaw drop when he saw it, though, was the huge flatscreen television placed on one wall. There was no way that Bilbo had left that all those years ago. Gandalf cleared his throat.

"Ah- seeing that I missed your eighteenth birthday, I bought you a present," he said, gesturing to the television.

"Awesome!" Frodo exclaimed. "Thank you so much!" He stopped short of hugging the old man, but beamed at him all the same as they continued into the bedroom. The bed was huge, even bigger than a king-size, and draped with a dust-covered blue and green coverlet that was obviously very expensive. Another open door led to the bathroom, and Frodo could see a tub and a huge shower inside, and there was a 30x30 regular T.V. in the corner, a small refrigerator under a wet bar near the door, and two walk-in closets. He felt like he was in heaven. Screw the shape of the house and what it looked like; he was going to live here. Why hadn't his parents wanted to live here?

He asked Gandalf that question, and the old man shook his head. "Your mother was very close with her father's brother; and when Bilbo disappeared, she couldn't stand to come to the place where she knew her uncle had disappeared from. She kept your father from fixing up the place so they couldn't sell it. She always thought that as long as the house was empty, and he had somewhere to come home to, he would eventually come back. He never did."

"Oh." Frodo felt saddened at Gandalf's words. His mother had apparently loved Bilbo very much, and he felt a quiet anger that Bilbo had never come to see her before the accident.

"But now the house is still empty, and there is no need for it to remain so any longer. The house is yours, Frodo, to do with as you please. Although I do think that you'll have a hard time selling it," he continued with a small smile.

"Done," Frodo said instantly. "I'll move into here. I'll need some help with the furniture and stuff from the old house, and someone to help me sort through everything to decide what I want to keep, but I'd like to move in as soon as possible, since there's a four-day weekend coming up."

"Four days?" Gandalf asked. "How convenient."

"Well- Friday is an employee planning day, I obviously have Saturday and Sunday off, and then Monday is (find a holiday, preferably in August or September). So if you can help me..." he left the rest of the sentence unsaid.

"Of course," Gandalf answered. "Would you like your friends' help?"

"Hell yeah," Frodo said. "There's no way I can get through all of that stuff in two days. It was never a big house, but Mom and Dad always were packrats. Plus I don't think your back is up to handling furniture."

Gandalf's eyes gleamed with amusement. "You would be surprised, young Frodo. You would be surprised."

x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x.X.x

"I always knew your uncle was crazy," Pippin remarked as he helped Frodo pull a drape-sheet off of one of the couches in the living room of the master suite. He stared at the Vidal Grau couch that was upholstered in a pale rose, and then through the open bedroom door to the Cappelletti bed that was glowing in the soft light provided by an original Tiffany lamp with a green and white lotus-patterned green umbrella shade made of hundreds of tiny pieces of glass.

"He must have been, to leave all of this," Pippin continued. "I just don't get it, Mister Frodo. Something bad happens to you, then something great comes along, like this house."

"I'd give it all up for my parents back," Frodo said quietly.

Pippin looked sad for a moment, and then clapped Frodo on the back. "Ah, well. Your uncle was crazy. Let's take advantage of that, shall we? You've got a lot of room here... can I move in with you?"

Frodo let out a chuckle. "No, Pippin. But we are going to have a party soon. Food, drinks-" "Beer!" Pippin interrupted enthusiastically.

"No beer!" Frodo said, grinning at the memory. "Remember what happened last time?"

"Gargoyles and fireworks!" Pippin and Merry had been so drunk that they'd decided to play 'gargoyle' on Frodo's roof, hissing and throwing roof tiles at unlucky passerby, and they'd been very determined to stay up there, despite Frodo's attempts to dislodge them with a broom and shoes.

Then, bored with that pastime, they found and set off a huge rocket that Gandalf had brought. The old pyrotechnics expert had built it himself, and it was to have been saved for the end, if not for Merry and Pippin. It had set quite a number of the guests to panicking; four fighter jets screaming over the house and firing small flaming projectiles into the air did not mix well with drunk teenagers.

"But I do have two movies that I think the guests will enjoy," Frodo said as Pippin folded the sheet and placed it on the growing pile in the corner.

Merry popped his head through the door. "And what would those be?"

"Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and Team America: World Police," Frodo said with a smile.

"But Team America's not slated to come out for another two months!" Merry protested, and Pippin looked intrigued.

"I told you, Gandalf was a pyrotechnics expert. It was his job for more than forty years, and he knows people. As long as he knows I'm not going to make copies and sell them early, he's letting me use his copy."

"Dude, that guy is so cool," Pippin said to Merry, grinning from ear to ear.

"Totally," Merry agreed as they pushed the couch into a forty-five degree angle in the corner of the room opposite the doorway to the rest of the house.

Frodo stood back and surveyed it, hands on his hips. "I like it," he said thoughtfully. "If I get some throws and maybe a few pillows, it'll look good." He surveyed the other two couches that were already uncovered; one was a loveseat- that was pushed against the wall nearest the bedroom door, and the other was a full-sized couch that was in another corner facing the T.V.

There was a low antique Travertine table in front of the larger couch, surmounted by a wrought-iron candlestand and a Kuharic lamp. An Oriental rug graced another corner, illuminated by the glow of a tall lamp that looked like a tree with glowing red fruit.

"On to the kitchen, troops!" he ordered the two troublemakers with what he hoped was a serious face.

"Yes sir!" Both boys saluted him and marched off with mock-stern faces, Frodo following alone behind. They found Samwise in the kitchen, cleaning a liberal amount of dust off of the surfaces of the various appliances.

"Frodo!" the young man said, nearly tripping over his words. "I'm almost done here. After I finish, you wanted me to go out and trim the hedges, right?" Sam was a gardener; Hamfast Gamgee was in the lawn service business, and Sam usually worked with him on weekends. It was a running joke between the boys that Sam would wind up running between a day job of lawn care and a night job at a 7-11 or a gas station, trying to earn enough money to eat whatever and whenever he pleased; Sam loved to eat, and his semi-plump body showed it.

"Then it's off to the 7-11, right? Frodo said, sending Merry and Pippin into fits of the giggles.

"I thought I was upgraded to Target worker last week!" Sam said, showing mock-indignation.

"Yeah, but then you offed and failed Preece's test, so we decided to demote you," Pippin choked out.

Sam rolled his eyes at Frodo, and Frodo rolled his back. The two boys currently laughing their heads off found humor in anything; even a funeral where the presiding minister went on at length about how people who didn't accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior were going to go to Hell; at a Jewish funeral. Needless to say, after Merry and Pippin had broken the shocked silence with their laughter, the minister had been thrown out of the funeral home and a Rabbi brought in. Sam polished the last pot and placed it on the rack with its gleaming brethren, slapped the towel down into the sink, and walked out the back door, whistling a folk tune as he went. Frodo caught the words and began singing along softly, Merry and Pippin soon catching on and turning it into a trio.

"Home is behind, the world ahead

And there are many paths to tread

Through shadow, to the edge of night

Until the stars are all alight

Mist and shadow, cloud and shade

All shall fade, all shall fade."

Then Pippin changed the tune to "What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor," and the house was filled with laughter again.