It began the same every night since that day. Peaceful sleep, perhaps dreams of home, so confusingly real I could have sworn I was sleeping in my own bed again, or eating at a table with familiar faces. Family, and friends who drifted by, and I felt as though I could just reach out and touch them. And then one way or another I would end up back away from camp. It didn't matter what I was dreaming of before, I may walk through a door that was supposed to open to a closet, or fall and find myself standing there.

And then it was just Gollum and I, with him facing away from me, and my blade in my hands. Kill him…don't kill him…Everything would be still and quiet, and then my heart would beat faster, the sound of it growing, until it was pounding and constant, and it wouldn't stop until I gritted my teeth and screamed above it.

I would give in, and the blade would sink down into his shoulder blades.

/

I woke with a start. My heart was pounding but the noise wasn't external. Not again…I sighed internally. This was turning into an awful nightly ritual. Every time I fell asleep my actions seemed to haunt me, sometimes interrupting my sleep three times in a night. In some dreams I killed Gollum and that was it, I simply woke up. Other nights I would keep dreaming for another moment and he would suddenly be unharmed again, claiming I had killed Gollum but not Smeagol.

It was beginning to wear on me, this terrible sleep.

"FalI?" Frodo asked, wide awake, and sitting up.

"Aren't you supposed to be asleep?" We had all surrendered our watches for sleep over the last few days.

"I couldn't." He shook his head. "Are you alright?"

"I'll be fine." I said, glancing around. My eyes landed on Gollum who lay curled up and sleeping a few feet away from us. I focused on the even breathing in his chest, and his closed eyes. Was he asleep? Or was he just pretending? "I'll be fine." I repeated, when I assured myself that the creature was truly asleep. "You really should be sleeping Frodo. You haven't had enough rest for quite a while. It's beginning to show on you…Sam and I are beginning to see shadows under your eyes."

"I don't feel so tired." He assured me.

"That's the problem." I said as I readjusted my cloak over my feet. "You're starting to not feel much of anything. You forget that you're hungry, you don't feel the need for sleep even though you need it." I looked at him, seeing the shadows that I had spoken of.

"It's the Ring's doing if you ask me." I said. "I know it is. You would be so much better off if you…" I paused, deciding it was best not to bring up the idea of letting someone else bear it around their neck for a day or two. "…if you just tucked it away at the bottom of one of our bags for a while." I finished.

"It's my responsibility to be the Ring bearer." Frodo stated quickly, and I couldn't help but notice how he clutched at the Ring. "A few nights without much sleep are a small price to pay."

"Well I don't see how it's necessary to wear it around your neck all the time." I said, quietly. "You could just as easily carry it around in a bag. The sooner we get rid of that the Ring the better." I smiled at him. "Then you'll be able to eat and drink and rest…at home." I sighed to myself. "Home…I'm starting to miss the mountain…the noise of the furnaces, my family, the foothills…." I looked up at the sky. "As much as I enjoy seeing the sky all the time I think I've begun to have a craving to see stone ceilings. Odd, isn't it?" I looked over to Frodo. "What do you miss most about home?"

"It won't do us any good to dwell on the things we can't have right now." Frodo said. "I'd hate to lower anyone's morale."

"Bag End then?" I asked. "Lovely little place…if I didn't live under a mountain I'd do fine with a Hobbit-hole. Solid walls…buried in the earth." I yawned. "Somewhere nice and…safe." I yawned again.

"Yes…safe." Frodo repeated me softly.

"What do you miss other than your home?" I asked again. "It's too bad that you didn't live in it very long after it got passed down to you. Things got rather interrupted, didn't they?"

"The usual things."

"What?" I nearly smiled at his vagueness, wondering if my small banter was putting the hobbit to sleep. "Have you forgotten to remember the Shire as well?"

There was no response and it made my stomach drop. "Frodo?" I asked. "You do remember the Shire, don't you?"

"I try to." Frodo said. "It's been a long time since I last saw it."

"It's been even longer still since I saw Erebor, but if the Valar dropped me at the gate right now, I could find my way to the forge, the library, the training grounds and my own bedroom with my eyes closed." I stared at him. "Surely you remember the past." I said. "What I'm talking about didn't even happen that long ago, surely you can remember it, at least something from it."

"Fali, I'm sorry, but the details…they have become a little…faded."

"Faded how?" I asked seriously.

"Fali, please don't ask."

I asked anyway. "You remember the Green Dragon, right? Do you remember what kind of ale you had when I first came to the Shire for your uncle's party? It was your favorite, you always have it."

Frodo was quiet.

"Do you remember the spot where you waited for Gandalf to arrive? What about the party, do you remember who you danced with? At least one of them?" Still no response, just a sad, apologetic look from the hobbit. "How old was Uncle Bilbo turning?" I asked. "Frodo you must know this, you must remember something, this was your life." I though desperately for more questions, simple questions, which he had to know. "Do you remember the sign you put up for your uncle, what did it say? We laughed over it. Do you remember that Sam danced with Rosie? Do you remember what fireworks Gandalf had for us that evening? Do you remember how I burst out from under the fireworks that day?"

"Fali I've told you the details have faded."

"Details?" I asked, spitting out the word in my growing anxiety. "Frodo, asking you to remember who came to the party in what order is a detail…these things…these things were important, we laughed over them , and lived through them. You were proud that Uncle Bilbo had lived to be a hundred and eleven. A hundred and eleven, remember? I don't understand how you could have trouble remembering things that were this important to you." I looked at him seriously. "What do you remember? Do you remember anything after we left the Shire?" I asked. "What about Rivendell? What about the Prancing Pony?"

"I remember all that happening, it's just the smaller things but I cannot remember..." Frodo's eyes lit up as he recalled something, but he fell silent again.

"What?" I asked. "What are you remembering?"

"I remember how Merry and Pippin were talking to those men, and forgot to call me Underhill."

"Not the very nicest thing to recall, but yes, that did happen." I said, forcing a small smile. "Those two, bless them for trying, but they aren't the brightest hobbits. A fine mess they got us into didn't they?" A single breath of laughter escaped my throat. "I suppose we can't be too harsh on them, they dropped everything to follow us on our adventure. Home and comfort…stolen vegetables." Frodo grinned a little at the statement. "At least you have not forgotten how to smile a little." I sighed in relief. "Then we met Aragorn in all that mess, and he took it upon himself to protect our hides. I hope he's still well…"

"I remember falling, being thrown off my balance by some man when I was trying get them out of there." Frodo said, as though he was reliving what had happened in his head. "Everyone had their eyes on me, and the Ring, it just flew up into the air, and I stretched out my hand and it just fell perfectly onto my finger." He paused for a moment. "Everyone sort of let out this collective gasp when I turned invisible, though I almost didn't hear it, I was seeing light and shadows, visions of sorts."

I watched as his hand started to float closer to the Ring. Anger flared up inside me, anger at such a tiny thing. Was this what drove Boromir so mad? I slapped Frodo's hand, none too gently. "Stop that!" I snapped at him, a glare fixed on his face, rather than on the token I knew must be the real culprit. "Of all things to remember…why that?!" I blared. "Do you remember anything beside the Ring?"

"It's a bit difficult to remember anything else when the last few months have been focused on it." Frodo excused.

"I can't believe it." I said. "You can't remember anything besides that awful thing around your neck!"

"It's an effect, nothing else." Frodo argued back. "It will end soon enough."

"Take it off."

"Excuse me? What?" Frodo acted as though I had told a joke he did not entirely understand, which made my temper all the worse.

"Did you forget what I said already?" I argued back. "Take it off your neck for once. Effect or not, you're not eating, or sleeping, and you're having troubling remembering except what that ring wants you to remember, it's starting to become the only thing that's important in your life, and…" I stopped.

"And what?" Frodo challenged.

"And you're beginning to seem more and more like Gollum." I continued, frustration fueling me. "I don't know what Sam and I will do if one day you finally give in and start talking to yourself as though you're two different people."

"Don't be silly about it Fali." Frodo went on. "It won't come to that."

"How can you be sure of that?" I asked him seriously. "You don't know that. Can't you see a few similarities between you and Gollum forming? Your appetite is beginning to fail, and Gollum will only eat raw fish and lizards. You can't sleep most nights and Gollum," I stopped to glance over the pale creature again. "I'm not sure Gollum is sleeping now, or has been most nights to tell you the truth." I shook my head. "I don't trust him."

"Do you not trust me as well?" Frodo asked, and I detected bitterness in his voice.

"Of course I trust you." I retorted.

"Well you don't sound very convincing."

"I trust you, but the Ring is starting to cloud your judgement too much, it's draining you." I looked at him seriously. "I can't help you if you're listening more to Ring than to me and Sam."

A surprisingly cold stare passed between Frodo and I. "You said you would help Gollum once." Frodo said. "I think it's clear you don't intend to keep that promise."

"It was hardly much of a promise to begin with." I huffed. "I understand you've become attached to him, I've accepted that many times…but I don't hold much hope for that creature. I doubt he'll ever be anything more than what he is now." I tried again to make Frodo see my reasoning. "And it was the Ring that did that to him Frodo, does that not make you concerned?"

Frodo, for the first time since he was a child, was silent and have me a cold shoulder. I could have screamed in frustration with how he refused to see the Ring for what it truly was. "Fine." I said, equally as cold. "Don't listen to me."

I buried myself under my cloak with an irritated huff. "But if you think for one moment that I'm going to let you sink so far as to become a second Gollum, you've clearly forgotten I'm your friend. I would hope that fact would still be in your mind."

I stared at Gollum for a long time afterward trying to figure if he was truly asleep again, or if he was plagued with the restlessness that Frodo was. I heard a slight shuffle and my eyes darted over to Sam's slumbering figure. "Sam…" I whispered. Surely the argument between Frodo and I had been loud enough to wake him at some point. There was no reaction from the other hobbit though, which served only to irritate me a little more. "Samwise, if you were listening in and now are trying to pass yourself off as sleeping…" I said warningly.

A snore, decidedly fake, escaped from Sam. I laughed for the first time in days, a real, unforced snicker. "Oh Sam." I sighed, and dismissed his spying. "Good night."

/

"Once upon a time…" And I braced myself at my mother's words for the story that was to unfold. What would it be now? Something from her youth, in the forests of the East? Would it be a tale from the quest to save Erebor? Would it be something that happened to Frerin or Fien or even Gideon before I had even been born?

"Thorin Oakenshield and his company…" Ah yes, the quest for Erebor, just what I had wanted. "…were climbing their way out of a troll cave."

"And Rue had just taken an anklet, and everyone had teased her for it." I quipped.

"Yes, but that's not part of this tale, that happened just before." My mother managed to keep the story on track. "In this tale we had just emerged from the troll cave, when we heard a noise, and we thought it may be danger."

"Orcs and wargs." I filled in the details.

"Yes, those dreadful beasts." Mother nodded. "And they were coming, but-"

"My goodness it sounds like you already know this story." Mother said with a smirk. "Perhaps there is no need to tell it to you now, seeing as you know it by heart. Perhaps you should just fall asleep now…"

"No, no, no." The words came out rushed, my form of an apology. "I'll be quiet, I promise. Please, I love this one." I arranged myself under the blankets, folding my hands overtop the edge of the covers politely. "Go on." I urged her. "Please." I added.

She smiled, affectionate, and it was hard to believe that this woman who had devoted herself so entirely to my siblings and I, and to her fifth child, this kingdom, had once been so freeto have adventures and had wielded a sword every day during the time.

"We were prepared for anything, for orcs, for wargs, for some other monster…but it was not any of these things. Instead a dozen rabbits, the size of dogs bounded out from the thicket and straight to us. I'd never been so surprised…and that is saying something because I'd just seen trolls carrying off ponies the night before." I snickered at the thought.

"Each rabbit was attached to an odd little sleigh that they pulled along together," Mother continued. ", and atop this sleigh was the oddest wizard in all of Middle-Earth. We were all standing, face to face with Radagast, the Brown. He was in a terribly confused state at the time, which made him all the stranger. He had unruly hair, and wild eyes and he said he had something just on the tip of his tongue, which I thought would be some sort of message. But it wasn't. No, far from it. He pulled out a stick insect from his mouth, which seemed to be a bit startled at having to be in there in the first place." Mother smiled. "I thought the Brown wizard was a little crazy, but the wargs finally did come he jumped right back on his sled and he took off with his rabbits, faster than an warg, and far more agile. He was a very brave, kind wizard in the end." I smiled, waiting for my favorite part. "And just before that wizard took off, I wished him well, and he looked down at my face…and this strange, confused, wild wizard saw I was a lady." Mother and I laughed softly over the memory. "Then off he went, fast as the wind."

"Mother could you-?" I began to ask.

"No Fali, it is late, you must sleep." The answer was kind but firm and I received a kiss upon my forehead, and the blanket was pulled up to my chin.

And then it changed. I was no longer a child. I was no longer in bed, or in Erebor. I was back at the same isolated spot where I had led Gollum, and he was facing away from me again, lost in his thoughts. Then my heart began it's endless, loud beating, and the sword in my hands shined. I was torn between killing him and letting him live again. My heart grew louder, deafening. I tried to turn away but my feet were fixed to the place where I stood. I tried to wake myself, but could not focuse on the task with all the noise, making my ears go sore.

Kill him.

Don't kill him.

We need him as a guide still.

Frodo wanted me to help him.

Yet he cannot be helped. He is beyond saving.

I gave in, knowing the only way to end this nightmare was to do as I had done before and strike down. This time Gollum flinched, and looked up at me with wide blue eyes, betrayed.

"You've killed him." I glanced down beside me to find Gollum again.

I nodded, mutely. I had killed Gollum, but Smeagol remained.

"You've killed him!" Gollum or Smeagol (I could not tell) shrieked again, and I glanced down at the pale creature, dead at my feet. It had shriveled itself into a fetal sort of position, a wound in it's back. Gently, I nudged at the creature with the toe of my boot, and it fell to the side, splaying itself on the ground limply.

A chain was around this creature's neck. A chain with the Ring.

Frodo.

I woke up in a cold sweat, still hearing myself scream.

Finally updating, life got busy as it always seems too. It's nice to be back though :)