Aragorn gazed at Boromir for a moment too long. It doesn't have to be like this, he thought. A new idea came to him from out of the shadows. Why not use the Ring...?

"Boromir!" He whispered fiercely. His voice cut across the dark still air, striking Boromir, who blinked from his stupor. What? Boromir wondered in a daze. He had been preparing to sacrifice himself. Squinting in the hazy moonlight, he saw Aragorn crouched by the wall near the Black Gates.

"With me now." Aragorn whispered.

Boromir hesitated, thinking perhaps he'd misheard him.

"With me!" Aragorn hissed.

Boromir started to run.

Suddenly Boromir found himself at Aragorn's side as he was stuffing his head into a helmet. Aragorn handed him some Easterling attire and Boromir quickly dressed. Hunched slightly due to the pain in his broken ankle, Aragorn exhaled a shaky breath into the helmet's insides. Boromir glanced at him, for he could hear the breath's tremble. Silently Aragorn passed Boromir a helmet, and the latter put it on.

"What are we doing?" Boromir asked at last.

Aragorn put one knee to the dirt, lowering his head with a sigh. Slowly Boromir knelt with him. Aragorn leaned forward, until his helmet was resting on Boromir's shoulder.

"Would it not call forth the Enemy if we were to wear it?" Aragorn asked softly. The idea made his whole body feel oily and warm. He knew exactly where the Ring was in his pocket. The weight pulled at his chest, pulled him down to his knees. To his very bones.

Boromir's heart began to race. "Grant me the honor, your grace," he insisted, forcing a calm tone of voice. "I am but a servant of Gondor."

The men fell silent, and Boromir put his hand on Aragorn's shoulder. They both understood what wearing the Ring truly meant. After a few minutes, interrupted at last by the screams of an Orc taking the whip across the wall, the men separated.

"It's here." Aragorn gestured to his chest. "Reach in, in my breast coat... I will push you away the instant you vanish."

"It will happen quickly," Boromir warned. He wiped the moisture from his lips.

"I know." Aragorn grimaced.

Boromir stood and helped Aragorn stand as well.

"The edge of it," Aragorn said uncertainly.

"Yes," Boromir agreed. He stepped closer to him, hand raised. Aragorn braced himself as Boromir's finger trailed along his chest and over the folds of his borrowed outfit. The man's finger wiggled into a flap that didn't open.

"Below that one," Aragorn responded patiently.

"Apologies," Boromir said, withering. His heart beat came from his throat. His fingertip shook as it flipped open the pocket concealing the Ring of Power.

The next moment, an Uruk-hai guard came around the corner, spear in hand.

Aragorn pushed Boromir's shoulder to turn him around. How did he come upon us so swiftly? He wondered.

Boromir took a deep breath, drawing his chest out wide. He strutted forward to face the creature. The Uruk-hai bared his teeth, snarling, furrowed red brow wrinkling the hand-print on his forehead. Boromir was unfazed. He stood staring at the guard, blinking coolly. The guard stared back. His wet gaping mouth glittered in the faint moonlight, clicking with mucus as he breathed. Aragorn put his palm to his chest pocket, comforting the secret Ring.

The Uruk-hai guard gave a yell and thumped his spear against the wall. The trolls working the Gates let out a roar and began to pull them open. Boromir kept his head straight, avoiding the guard's judgmental glare, and walked right by him. Aragorn gave the Uruk-hai a subtle bow as he passed. The Uruk-hai abruptly exhaled, and the once-elf's breath flooded hot and steamy against Aragorn's neck. The smell of it wafted through his helmet; of putrid meat, firewood, blood. But the Uruk-hai remained motionless until the would-be Easterlings went by him, then he joined their rear. Aragorn followed Boromir into the Black Gates as steadily as his pain would allow.

Once the men were inside the walls, the doors closed. Slowly, for the trolls manning it had to maintain control. They groaned back and forth to each other as they worked. A mournful serenade at the entrance of hell.

The Uruk-hai muttered something to an Easterling with a translator some yards away. The Easterling listened, then jerked his head to stare at Boromir and Aragorn, who stood waiting. They watched a Fellbeast circle them from up high in the night sky.

"Why are you both outside? What is this nonsense about you with the ring?" He looked from the two of them back and forth with darting eyes.

Mount Doom smoked in the distance, its tip enveloped in a great black plume. The skies were a black velvet carpet. The lower underbelly of cloud glowed from the flames of Sauron's seed. The lava that ran ever-seeping from the mountain of his abominable act of creation. Thunder from underground rattled the earth, and it seemed to travel from beneath his boots and rush towards Mount Doom itself. Aragorn let his eyes drift past the Easterling and Boromir dressed as one to further survey the scene.

Boromir removed his father's ring from his finger. He offered it and answered, "I have only this ring." Some feet away, the Uruk-hai stared at the ring intently, then snorted and turned his head. Boromir added, "We fell behind scouting apart from the others. It t'was my doing."

As his work seemed to be done, the Uruk-hai guard wandered away to join a nearby firepit where a couple of Orcs were grilling rabbits. He sat down and helped himself to their food. His long nails dug into a still-cooking corpse on a stick, and he fed the hot meat to his waiting dripping jaws. Standing up indignantly, the Orcs chittered angrily to each other for a second before realizing the intruder was higher ranked. They settled back down to ignore the act, simply deciding to eat whatever remains the Uruk-hai might leave for them.

The Great Eye flicked from the happenings on the mountain to the happenings of the world beyond it, contracting and expanding, attempting to view it all at once. To see all, to know all. All in its power on its quest for the One. Like shaking a torch, the Eye of Sauron fluttered and danced as it searched to and fro, flames whooshing in the night air.

Aragorn knew not for what he searched for, but still his eyes scanned the area. He listened well to Boromir and the Easterling's choice of words and it seemed as though they were going to get away. He had a hopeful feeling in his stomach and could have almost managed a smile. Things were finally going to be okay.

Boromir finished speaking with the Easterling and joined Aragorn at his wounded-leg side, lest Aragorn need any support. "They are suspicious of us," Boromir said in a low voice out of the side of his helmet. "But he said we are to return to camp. He is watching. We must follow this path, down by that second tent. When we are out of sight we can make our escape. And find the others."

Aragorn wasn't listening, but he nodded. Suddenly Aragorn locked eyes with an Easterling in the distant throng. He stood out from the others in the orange light in an odd way. A delicate way. Aragorn's stomach turned to ice when recognition punched him in the guts. Staring him right back, unmistakable even from this distance, was Legolas. He knows, Aragorn thought heatedly. He knows you have the Ring. He'll want to take it from us. Aragorn started to lift his hand to cover the Ring where it lie in his pocket, but halted, not wanting to give away its position on his body. But... Where did Legolas go? He was just there... Aragorn seized Boromir by the arm, then quickly released him. "If we are being watched, then we mustn't stand about," he concluded.

And so the men were off, marching together down the path lined with demons. The path that would ultimately lead them to Mount Doom, and, perhaps, a little ringbearer.