Disclaimer: I don't own anything having to do with Lord of the Rings, except for exactly one copy of each movie and book. If I did own it, I would be flying first-class on a trip to Italy, not sitting in a computer chair writing fanfiction.

A/N: As usual, thanks to my reviewers. I am posting chapters 8 and 9 together because this chapter makes sense only if you keep reading what comes after. Enjoy!

Chapter 8: Awakening

When the wretched falling sensation had terminated, I was lost to the relatively peaceful oblivion of the surrounding blackness, and, though for a brief period I saw and knew nothing, I soon became aware of light. It was not the kind of overwhelming radiance that the Sun emits at midday, nor even that of a white, full moon and a host of stars; rather, it was the kind of light that gave little hint of surroundings. Few indeed would even have ventured to name it as 'light' at all. To me, compared to the blackness that had enveloped me, this new luminescence, slight as it may be, could be called as such.

Gradually, as my eyes adjusted and beheld this new place in which I stood, I began to see where I was, or rather to make suppositions about my location. Each time I looked in this direction or that, I would note something new that altered my perspective on this. The round door and quaint window behind me evoked an image of the Shire, to which I had never been but, having lived in Bree, of which I had heard a lot. A glance to my left allowed me to see a cluster of fair evergreens and what seemed in the pale moonlight to be very tall verdant grass. This image was surely reminiscent of fair Ithilien in Gondor. Surely, then, I must have been in my homeland, Bree, where grass and wood and Hobbit hole were as commonplace as fine rain on a spring day. I supposed as such, until, after a time I came to myself, and realization dawned on me that I could be in one of these places, nor any other in Middle-earth, for I was dead. Somehow, through intuition or memory or a blurred train of thought since forgotten, I knew that much. I was in some distant green country, far beyond the sea in the peaceful land of the deceased, of which Middle-earth was a mere shadow.

It was this realization that allowed me to be at peace with the reality of my death. Who among the wise and most speculative could have foreseen that there could be such comfort in and after death, and its most frightening moments less brief and no more horrid than a nightmare? And where would I rather be now besides here, in this serene land covered in fine mist like silver glass? on the Pelennor fields beside what once was my City, looking upon its heap of ruins with tear-streaked face? or in the Bree-land, place of my youth, where I had found no peace, and from where I traveled so many hundreds of leagues for the sole purpose of quitting the land? No, there was no place in Middle-earth that I would prefer to be.

I stood for along time, reflecting thus, when I heard rustling in the grass behind me. Though I did not expect to hear a sound in the still night, I felt neither startled nor afraid at hint of a newcomer. Slowly, I turned about, and a broad grin forced its way across my lips when I saw the moon cast its pale light on the fair face of Frodo. I cried out to him, and to me, he did likewise. We rushed towards each other in a mutual embrace.

I opened my mouth to question him, but he spoke first. "Long, far, and wide have I searched for you, dear Tallah. Tell me, what brings you to this place while the night is old?"

"I could ask the same of you. But I am almost certain I already know the answer. I am glad to see you here, for my part. But to be here, it must mean that you have passed away. Perhaps I ought to mourn for the sake of you and your loved ones. Perhaps too it signifies a failure of the quest, and such a noble quest it was!"

"How you speak in riddles! And your brow is hot to the touch. I believe you have taken ill with a fever."

"Preposterous! Have you not guessed that we have reached the utopia of the deceased? Or do you think that there is some equivalent of a fever in these realms?"

"All the more do I worry about you. We are not deceased. What leads you to believe as such?"

My blood ran cold then, but from shock, or horror, or a miserable combination of the two, I cannot tell. "No? Then, prey tell, what are we? I believe it is you who speaks strangely, for the last thing I recall is falling from the peak of Mt. Doom."

"Come! You did not fall from the peak. You but tumbled to the ground, and that must not be the last thing you remember. Long months have passed since. That came to pass spring of last year, and summer of this year is now old."

For the second time, I looked about me; for the first time, I felt startled. "Where on Middle-earth are we, then, if we are not dead as I have falsely supposed?"

"Why, we're in the Shire, of course! Right where we have been for these past months, in this serene land untroubled by care and grief, but unfortunately not by fever. I suggest that you seek a bed, and rest."

My brow furrowed, and the corner of my lips turned down, but for only a brief space. Soon as I had figured out what must have happened, I was smiling broadly, and a loud string of laughter burst forth from my mouth. We had returned soundly from the mountain, somehow, and had journeyed back to the Shire, all together; though I had no memory of it due to fever or relapse. I had been wanted along for some reason or another. That reason never revealed itself to me, but I counted it as a matter of little importance compared to the knowledge that I was in this peaceful land with Frodo and Sam, whom I had come to love.

"So it was! You are right, of course. Do not worry over me. My lack of memory must be because of some effect of fever. But I am quite well now, aside from the fear that this is the part in my imagination, transitory as a spring shower, or, say, a passing dream."

"You are not dreaming, Tallah; but, I think you ought to be asleep at the very least. Come on." And putting his arm about my shoulders, he guided me towards the Hobbit hole that I'd seen behind me. I looked back once more over the woods, the grass, the silver mist that covered the ground, and the placid moon. 'No,' I said to myself, 'there is nowhere in Middle-earth that I'd rather be than right here.'

And, just as I continued looking back, hoping that those fair elements were not some device of hyperactive mind or fever-induced hallucination, they began to melt away, converging into one another, coalescing into nebulous clouds of color. And once again, I felt as if I were falling.