I know I promised longer chapters, but I was a bit short on time writing this. Don't worry, things are just starting to get good. ;)

For the next few days, everything seemed to go a lot smoother. There were no more awkward moments between us, I made sure of that. I always told Bilbo if I ever went anywhere, whether to get firewood, food, go to the bathroom, and even bathe.

Even though several days passed with nothing but trekking to occupy us, it didn't seem to feel like it was a long time. We tried to find ways to keep ourselves from being bored as we traveled. We would play games, usually I Spy or variants of it, talked endlessly about everything there is to talk about (when I mentioned the lewdness of our society, he had possibly the biggest blush I had ever seen and he went silent for a good long time), sang songs, and even raced each other over short distances sometimes.

We were becoming fast friends, and I couldn't have been more happier than I was on that trip. It's typically hard for me to make friends, so this was definitely something that meant a lot to me. I'm naturally a shy and introverted person, so if I do make friends, if any, they don't usually last. I have acquaintances, sure, but I've never really considered them as friends.

The only thing I was worried about was the fact that I might lose Bilbo as a friend when I would eventually return home. I would never see him again, and I would have to go back to my old, boring life of working job to job and barely making ends meet. I'll admit, I definitely thought about the possibility of not returning home. But anytime I did, I would feel a guilty pang from never seeing any of my family again. I had no idea how much time had passed there since coming to Middle-earth. I was curious to know if it was anything like in The Chronicles of Narnia, where you could be in the other world for years, then come back, and only seconds had passed.

If the same amount of time had passed here as it did there, I figured that at least someone might have been looking for me. My mom usually called me almost every few days to check up on me, so I wondered if she had noticed my absence from not answering my phone. The only way to find out was to return home and find out. The only thing was, if anyone was looking for me, I would hate to return when everything is in chaos in the pursuit of finding me. Knowing my mom, she would've gotten the whole F.B.I. on the case. I could almost imagine taking one step back onto Earth and be swarmed by a SWAT team and helicopters shining their spotlights on me, like in one of those cop movies. Obviously I was not looking forward to that at all.

I tried not to let any of my internal thoughts show through while being around Bilbo. I didn't want to worry him, since he is highly apt to it. But anytime I was away from him for anything, or even at night, when we would sleep about five feet away from each other (that's as close as he would get after the incident at the inn), I would debate the pros and cons of returning home. And each time I could never come up with a definitive decision. It caused me to stress out a bit, which is never good for me. I tend to stress easily, so I'd be lying if I said I wasn't used to it.

There was one point while walking with Bilbo that I noticed him mindlessly fiddle with something in his waistcoat pocket. There was no doubt that what he had in it was the One Ring that he had found and taken from Gollum a few years ago. There was a fleeting instant when I wanted to tell him all the dangers of the ring, and persuade him to cast it aside. But then the thought of the unforgettable story that was yet to come stopped me, that and the possibility that it might not happen if I intervened. Since this was a separate, fictional, world, I wasn't sure if all the typical laws of time travel applied; whether or not my doing something could compromise the existence of the events in The Lord of the Rings. There are all kinds of movies and TV shows that involve it, and even though there are all different forms of time travel and rules concerning it, the one that always seemed to be consistent was the one about not altering fixed events in time. Since I wasn't sure if this applied to this particular situation, I was afraid to completely ruin everything just by opening my mouth.

There were also a lot of times when Bilbo would tell me stories about his adventures with the thirteen dwarves to Erebor, and I had to constantly pretend that I'd never heard it before. I was afraid to tell him that I knew all of the events of that adventure because where I came from, it was nothing more than a fictionalized story. To tell someone that their whole existence – their whole world – is completely fake and conjured up from the imagination of a novelist, would completely shatter his whole being. It would break his heart. I wouldn't want to be the one to cause that pain. Not to him. I knew very well that telling him would break my own heart.

One day during our journey, Bilbo pulled out a map of Middle-earth that he carried, and started to inspect it. I stopped walking, wondering if he needed to also stop to look at it, but he seemed to be able to keep walking while looking at the map. I remember reading that Bilbo had a fascination for maps, so it didn't surprise me that he could multitask while looking at them.

I walked next to him as his eyes roved over the map, calculating where we were and how much longer we had left to go. Finally, he put his finger over a forestry-looking spot that was labeled as "Trollshaws".

"Here we are," he said, beaming. "We are just about to enter this forest here, and once we reach the other side, it won't be too much longer to get to Rivendell."

"And how long will it take to get through this forest?" I asked, now seeing the tall trees that surrounded and loomed over us.

"Shouldn't take more than a day or two. Not much longer now!" he said excitedly, and began to roll the map back up.

Even though our journey to Rivendell was close to its conclusion, I wasn't looking forward to the bad weather that was heading for us. I had seen a large gathering of storm clouds hovering over some mountains in the distance, and had noticed that they were gradually drifting to the west, where we were. At least we were now entering a forest to take some shelter under the huge trees.

Just as we entered the outskirts of the forest, the sun had begun to set. We both set about finding us something to cook for dinner, and being in a thick forest, it wasn't hard to catch a rabbit after just a few minutes. Bilbo had taught me a few days back how to skin and prepare a rabbit for cooking, and even though I still found it repulsive, I was getting the hang of it.

We ate our dinner, extinguished the fire, and started to settle in to go to sleep for the night. Just as I had pulled my pajamas out of my bag to change, I felt a few wet drops hit my cheek, and within seconds, a few drops turned into a downpour. Bilbo and I quickly packed our things back up and tried to look for a more suitable spot for shelter to prevent us from being pelted by the heavy rainfall.

After walking aimlessly for several minutes and getting soaked, we still hadn't found anything suitable for sleeping under. Even though the trees had thick branches and leaves, the rain still found a way to hit us pretty hard. I was about to give up, and I shouted to Bilbo over the sounds of the thunder.

"Bilbo! There's nowhere we can sleep without getting soaked!" I tried shouting to him.

"I'm sure there's got to be something around here!" I barely heard him yell back.

"If we keep this up, we'll both get sick with pneumonia or something," I complained to him.

He turned around and looked at me. His hair was plastered to his face, and his bangs were so long from being wet that they were almost in his eyes.

"Samantha, please, just trust me, I've been through here before," he said, placing a hand on my shoulder. "I know there's bound to be some place around here that we can stay!"

I didn't respond, but just shrugged my shoulders as he turned around and kept walking.

Eons must have passed before I spoke up again.

"Bilbo, please! I don't think there's any place to-"

"Look!" he cut me off, pointing.

I looked up to where he was pointing, and I could barely see through the heavy rain drops that there was some form of a house in front of us.

We both increased our pace, and before long I could tell that this house was really a tree house, at least five feet off the ground.

Bilbo was the first to the base of the tree, and there was a built in ladder sticking out from the bark.

"Let me go up there first," he said over his shoulder to me. "I'll make sure if there's anyone there or not."

He climbed the ladder, before disappearing inside a trapdoor on the bottom of the floor. Within just a few seconds, he popped his head over the edge of the door.

"It's clear, Samantha," he shouted, smiling. "Come on up!"

Feeling more relieved than ever, I climbed the ladder. My hands were numb, which made it incredibly hard to grab the steps to the ladder, and at one point I lost my grip and almost fell. Bilbo was lightening quick, and grabbed me before I slipped.

He helped pull me up through the door, and on the last step, I hoisted myself into the tree house, almost toppling poor Bilbo off his feet.

As I got up from the floor, I realized that I was shivering violently. Within seconds, Bilbo had pulled a blanket out his bag and placed it over my shoulders. It was miraculously dry, and felt very warm compared to my cold wet clothes.

There was a fireplace in the tree house, something I have definitely never seen before. Before long Bilbo had it going, and I hastily moved to sit in front of it. Bilbo stood next to me, warming his hands. He didn't seem to be freezing as much as I was. But then, I was always sensitive to colder environments, and I wasn't used to being outside for a long amount of time.

"Samantha, you need to change out of your clothing," I heard him say, and I jerked up. I had dozed off in front of the fireplace without noticing. I turned around and saw that he had already changed into his dry pajamas. His wet clothes were draped over a windowsill.

I got up from in front of the fire and walked over to where my bag was. I prayed that everything in it was as dry as Bilbo's. I groaned when I found some of the garments to be a little damp, but for the most part, everything else was pretty dry. My pajamas were too damp to wear, so I had to put on a different set of clothes. It was one of Bilbo's outfits that he lent me; he had made sure I had at least three sets of them before we had left Bag End. I was extremely grateful he had let me borrow some of his clothing. He didn't seem to find it odd that I wasn't wearing the typical attire worn by the hobbit women. When I had first been brought into this world I was wearing men's clothing, so he was probably just used to seeing me in it by now. I didn't mind wearing dresses, but when going on a trip like this, I much preferred to be wearing trousers than a skirt.

I picked out a simple button up shirt and trousers, and was about to change out of my clothes when I remembered Bilbo. I looked up at him and met his eyes, and after a second, he seemed to finally notice. He muttered a "sorry" and quickly turned around. He almost looked like he had been daydreaming. That was something the two of us had in common.

It was hard to peel the wet clothes off of my body, but I eventually got them off. I grabbed a spare piece of cloth to dry myself off before putting on the dry clothes. I tried to be quick as possible, for the sake of Bilbo. I told him when I was done, and he turned back around with a sheepish grin. I took my wet clothes and placed them right next to Bilbo's on the windowsill to let them dry.

I took a moment to look at the room. It was a small tree house, the typical size for a child. There was only one room, with a few chairs situated near the fireplace. Other than that, there was nothing much in the room. It had a bit of a musty smell, and I had seen dust on the mantle, so it must have been abandoned for a while.

Even though we were sleeping on the wooden floor, it certainly felt a lot better than sleeping on the cold bumpy ground. Bilbo and I both found a spot near each other to lie down. He sat up for a little writing in his journal while I started to doze off.

I woke sometime later, having to go to the bathroom. It was still dark outside, but I could see the beginning rays of the sun starting to peak over the mountains. I carefully climbed down the ladder and found a place to go to the bathroom.

As I was walking back to the tree house, I heard a rushing sound behind me in some bushes. I turned to look but didn't see anything, so I kept walking. I heard the noise again, and when I turned to look, the noise immediately stopped again. Thinking it was just a woodland critter, I pressed on.

Without warning, a hand clasped itself on my mouth, and before I could even scream or yell for help, another arm had gripped me around my torso and hoisted me up. Something was carrying me, and all I could do was muffle through the cold hand that was clasped over my mouth.

I tried in vain to shout for Bilbo to hear me, but I just saw the tree house getting smaller and smaller as I was taken by some unseen kidnapper, and Bilbo's face never appeared in the window.