"Your Samantha has an interesting sense of humor, Colonel,"Gimli muttered as he pulled on his britches.

"Doesn't she, though," Jack answered, pulling his shirt on.

Boromir snorted. "You act as if this is a normal occurrence for you."

" Where we work we only have one full...bathing hall. Accidents happen."

"Yeah, usually with a camera," Daniel put in, shuddering.

Seven months ago an unofficial war had begun between the male and female on base, starting with one Ferretti and his camcorder. Apparently, he'd "forgotten" to turn the camera off while it was in his locker. The result was a grainy strip-tease given by an unknowing Lt Florez. Instead of reporting the incident, Florez decided to return the favor, and thus the war had begun. Twice, the neutral archeologist had been caught with his pants down... and thankfully with his shorts up. It finally took an enraged Janet and very pissed of General to bring the fighting to a halt : after the general himself became the victim of a mistimed attack and Cassandra had a narrow escape.

"The contraption you were fiddling with in Rivendell?" Legolas asked.

At the elven refuge Daniel had used several rolls of film, trying to create as detailed a picture as possible of the elven home and the surrounding area, not to mention the elves that lived there. "Yeah. Lot of good it does me now. Everything but two rolls are in my pack... in Moria."

The mention of the mines dropped a pall over the group. "Come," Aragorn said, placing a comforting hand on Frodo's shoulder. "Food and rest awaits us. Tonight we sleep easy."

The group filed out, and Daniel found his mind wandering again. The bathing pools, for lack of a better phrase, were separated from the rest of the city. He had the distinct feeling that he wouldn't even have known that it was there if they hadn't walked through it first. He was examining the structures of the stairways again, straining to make out the buildings that spiraled into the trees, taking mental snap shots to examine later, filing them under 'Elven: subclass Silvan' as he had filed the information about Khazad-dum under "dwarvish". More than anything he wanted to climb the staircases and run his hands over the designs, or to examine an artifact of these people, something that would probably be several thousand years old but look as if it had just been created.

"See that? I've been trying to figure out for years how he does that."

Daniel blinked as Jack's voice cut through his concentration. The group had stopped, and he'd stopped with them. What he hadn't known was that everyone was staring at him, Jack with his usual impatience and the others with varying levels of curiosity. "Sorry."

Jack shook his head. "Yeah right. Catalogue every building and tree we've passed there, Danny boy?"

"Not really."

Aragorn walked up to him. "Jack says that you could find your way back to the bathing pools without being shown. Is this true?"

The group watched as Daniel's face went blank. In his head he was plotting a course back through what he'd seen, everything showing itself in vivid color and dimension. "Sure."

Gimli snorted and Aragorn watched him for a moment before nodding and walking over to what appeared to be several pillows. Daniel looked around and realized that they were standing in the middle of a campsite, their campsite, by the look of it. The grass was springy beneath his feet, and he smiled as he saw a table laden with steaming food and drink. Hospitality was something the elves were definitely not short on.
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A Olorin i yaresse
Mentaner i Numeherui...

Boromir looked up when he heard the voice on the air. It seemed to come from all around them, echoing sorrowfully off the trees.

In gwidh ristennin, i fae narchannen
I lach Anor ed ardhon gwannen...

" A lament to Gandalf," Legolas whispered, almost to himself, his eyes searching out the singer.

Merry shifted next to him. "What are they saying?"

The elf lowered his head. "I have not the heart to tell you. For me the grief is still too near."

The human snorted to himself, and was about to rise when he heard Samantha's soft voice translating.

"Olorin who once was, sent by the Lords of the West...The bonds cut, the spirit broken... The flame of Arnor has left this world..."

She kept translating, but he was no longer listening. He let his feet take him where he will, and soon found himself sitting near a small pool, a short distance away from the others. He felt their eyes on him, but he refused to meet them.

For now, he needed to be alone with his thoughts.

You will betray them

The words cut through his soul, words that he felt were inescapable.

Your fear makes you weak. There is hope, if only you will see it.

Boromir shook his head. What hope? His father was slipping slowly into madness, secreting himself away for longer and longer periods of time, ignoring the day to day duties of running the city. His brother was little more than a ranger himself, better suited for the wilds than for running Minas Tirith. He himself was too hot-headed to hope to keep the warring families and guilds in line without creating dangerous enemies, and he himself was little more than a soldier. Give him a thousand men to lead into the breach and he could do so without a problem. But a whole city, thousands of innocents, depending on his decisions? The thought terrified him.

And each day a little more of their lands were consumed by Mordor's evil. Fields failed to yield harvests, farms were destroyed by marauding orcs and goblins. He had ridden through the smoking remains of small villages, the bodies of men, women, and children mutilated and left to rot. His people were dying, slowly and painfully, while the rest of their world sat back and watched, no doubt eager to glean what little would be left after the White City finally fell to ruin.
And he was marching steadily forward to destroy the one hope he might have of saving his people.

He recalled the one time the ring had been in his possession. One small moment, one small trinket. If given a chance he could control it. He had no fear of its power, except in the hands of the Dark Lord. He could use it to drive out the darkness in his lands, destroy Mordor. Never would another one of his people be sacrificed.
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Pippin was awake well into the night, listening to the soft, and not so soft, sounds of his companions while they slept. Even Boromir, who had looked so disturbed hours before, had fallen into an exhausted sleep. For a moment he wondered if it had anything to do with exhaustion and everything to do with the small pouch Aragorn had upended into his cup when the other man wasn't looking. But for Peregrine Took, there was no rest coming. This wasn't to say that he wasn't tired, far from it. At the moment he wanted nothing more than to slip into a deep sleep and never wake up again.

At the moment he didn't think anyone would object if he did.

"Fool of a Took! Throw yourself in next time and rid us of your stupidity!"

Gandalf's last words to him before everything had gone so wrong. He should have known better. He did know better, his curiosity had just gotten the better of him. How was he to know the whole damned thing would decide to tip over and fall down the well. What kind of fool would put a well shaft someplace where there wasn't any water, anyway?

Even he knew better.

With quick hands the small hobbit wiped away the angry tears that threatened to escape from his eyes. In the beginning it had been a fine adventure. He'd never been outside the Shire before, and then he'd been in Bree, and faster than he could remember traveling he was sitting in Rivendell happy as you please talking to elves. Of course when the Riders had been chasing them, and Frodo got hurt so badly it had been frightening, but he'd gotten better, and since then they'd seen neither hide nor hair of the Ringwraiths. He supposed they were better equipped to fight scared hobbits rather than trained warriors. Still.

He never thought any of them would die.

All of them had been watching him and Frodo, making sure they were all right. Watching him with expressions of frustration mixed with pity. Frodo hadn't spoken to him since. Hadn't spoken to anyone really, or looked at them for more than a moment. Their journey had quelled the friendliness and laughter in all of them, especially him.

"It wasn't your fault," Jack's words echoed through his head. "Gandalf made the choice to stay behind." It was all they had to say to him. That he didn't kill Gandalf, that the wizard choose to face the Balroq.

Still, if he hadn't touched anything, the wizard would never have been forced to make that choice. Three days they'd been traveling through the dark, none of the orcs or goblins or balroqs or trolls any the wiser, then he'd had to let them know people were in the mines.

It wasn't just that they were on the road, either. At home he was always getting into some form of trouble or another.

His mother always said he never used the good sense he was given at birth. She once told him that when he died, they'd find a box in the back of his closet, covered with dust and cobwebs and labeled 'Common Sense: Property of Peregrine Took'. The only person who still talked to him as if nothing had happened was Merry, but then, nothing he did seemed to phase his cousin. He remembered when he'd tried to jump off the roof of Brandyhall to see if he could fly. Merry had tried to stop him, and ended up with a broken leg for his troubles.

Pip sighed and rolled over to he was facing the tree they were currently sleeping under. He just hoped he didn't get anyone else killed.
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THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU For reading my crap. Extra special frosted covered thanks goes out to nefernetera, Amy C Harriet, watershadow, Francis Holland, PoOntZ, Shanna, Celeste, carmsfic, Eris, Kits, Krissy, and Jacquline Benito for the great reviews!!!!!!!

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