The hobbits were sleeping so nicely. Curled up like kittenses, they were; the sight made a knot in his throat that no amount of golluming could dislodge, and he had even quite forgotten that he had eaten kittenses before when he found them curled up like that. And he was hungry, too. Very, very hungry. And yet he did not think of how easily he could have snagged at least one hobbit, to fill the aching void under his ribs. Not at all! Or, at least, he didn't think about it for long.

He would have been hungry again in an hour anyhow.

They slept so nicely because they trusted him, yes, finally trusted him, and they trusted him because they did not know that only minutes ago he had bowed before Her, the last daughter of Darkness, the great void! She would laugh whenever she said he was hungry, she would. He had told Her about the nice food he was bringing, and said that there might be enough for poor little Sméagol too, and She had laughed. Laughed in his face!

That had decided him that he was taking at least an arm somewhere along the way. Nasty spider! Then he had wept in fear because She was so large, and he was so small, but- ooh! Who was She to tell him he was not hungry? Every one of his poor ribs stuck out like a ladder! Look at the hobbits, they did not say such things, no! They did not call him the Sneak and tell him he was not hungry. Why, they didn't even call him Gollum anymore, not even rude old Sam did that.

The dust of Her cave clung to his long pale hands, which were still shaped like a Man's hands, or a hobbit's hands, dust that had seemed like innocent stuff of the earth a moment ago but now he saw it for what it was, filth, contamination. Just like the mud, when he had come back to the hobbits after finding some worms to eat and the mud had been on his face and hands, and they had looked so sad, and so horrified; their eyes reminded him that he had once walked on two legs under the eye of the Sun instead of crawling in muck like a worm himself. It hurt to remember such things, why did they remind him? He had such nice hands, he did. They were so careful and quick and strong, and they did look just like Man's hands, only nicer! But now these nice hands were dirty and filthy and there was no water to wash them in, the way he had been able to wash the mud off.

The hobbits remained where they were, sleeping. They did not know about the filth and dirt.

They looks so tired, he thought and then he thought I am tired too, I am so tired; I want to sit with them too. They wouldn't know it, they wouldn't wake, o, the nice Master!

He approached to touch Frodo's knee and then-

Don't.

That did not feel like his thought, even though he had many thoughts and they often sounded different- but they all spoke with his own thin voice down at the root of them, whether that voice hissed or squeaked or read out riddles, and this thought did not use that voice. He paused, and then he reached again-

No. Danger.

He hesitated, and a third time he began to reach-

I WILL NOT SEE YOU LOST THIS WAY AGAIN! WITHDRAW YOUR HAND!

He pulled away, finally. He almost considered reaching back, voice or no voice... but then it occurred to him: his hands were dirty. He ought not to touch the nice Master with dirty hands. It was true that the hobbits were covered in dust and dirt themselves, from their journey, but that was different... that was not evil filth from a nasty spider-hole.

So Gollum sat there huddled and alone while Sam and Frodo were together just a few feet away.

He remained that way for some time, and hardly noticed when Sam and Frodo stirred and began to talk to each other in soft tones, until Frodo noticed him and called his name.

Gollum whimpered.

Master said: "Sméagol, I am not worthy of such veneration, even from you. I am only a hobbit. Please get up."

Gollum heard this and his wretched mind thought: How great must Master really be, if he does not even want me to grovel, to show him his greatness. Not like Her! He must know how great he is, and not need me to tell him, and he is being very polite to Sméagol by telling him he needn't bother. How could I have thought of taking him to Her? She would rip him up like a bit of paper and then he would be gone, yes precious, and She would still be a nasty big spider and I would still be hungry. I will always be hungry, and She will only tell me that She is hungrier, and Master is telling me I needn't bow.

Instead of getting up, then, he started started weeping, face-down on the ground. The hobbits of course knew nothing about what he had been planning to do to them, they just saw a wriggly thing crying in the dirt. If Sam found this disgusting, he held his tongue.

It had attacked Master at the last, like a poison snake striking the hand that caressed it, nasty thing! And therefore good Sméagol had taken the Precious away, good loyal Sméagol, and now it was clutched in his fist. Exultation and despair ripped at his heart at once. And utmost fear. His Eye saw. He would come.

I SWORE HE WOULD NOT HAVE IT! A blinding, maddening cry in his heart. It was his own voice, but tortured almost beyond recognition with the terror of it all, and the longing to keep what he held. How to keep It away from Him? Hide? Run? Where? He saw everything!

"Sméagol!" A thin hobbit voice that he should not have heard over the cries of 'my precious o my precious' that he did not realize he was babbling, but he heard. A desperate voice, one that did not expect to be heeded. "Cast it away, Sméagol! Please!"

Cast it away? The chasm. The Crack of Doom, a bleeding gash in the heart of the mountain, was at hand, and there not even He could get the Ring. Cast it away! I hate it! I don't want it! His fist would not open. I love it! I needs it! I can't do it. It is mine. It is me! 

But then... the answer was so obvious!

He ran towards the chasm, and jumped over the cliff.

A cry came in answer, a cry with remorse in it, though Gollum barely heard. Two small hands fastened on his ankle at the last moment, and he came sharply to the end of his descent.

If the torrent of impulses going through him could be given words it would have been something like: Caught I am caught. Grapple claw strangle. Bite. Fight. Death. And sheer blind instinct made his hands open so that he could scuffle about to face his attacker and that made the Ring fall from his hand.

Gollum screamed, a cry of rage and despair such as the cry a certain Baggins had once heard.

"Come back," a hobbit-voice sobbed, "Master wouldn't want this."

He realized this was Sam, and that realization just barely drew a coherent thought from his head as the death-throes of the Ring began to tremble in his heart, o it hurt, it hurt, worse than any torments orcs could devise...

That nasty old Sam's going to let go of me, isn't he. More fool him! I am dying. Sméagol is dead already. 

He lost consciousness before Sam had finished hauling him up onto the ground, and didn't hear Sam and Frodo talking:

"Well, this is the end, Sam Gamgee."

"Master!" There was a pause here, for emotion that could not be expressed in words. Then: "I've just been fetching Sméagol, in case you still want him, but I'm not sure he's going to be any good to anyone, ever again. The poor wretch!"

"Let him rest. He has done all he could, and I do not think anyone will need him any longer. For the Quest is achieved, and now all is over. I am glad you are with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam."

Of course that wasn't the end.

Awareness was back. No. How? It was gone. Gone. Gone! Forever! Without it he was a husk, a shell, the discarded bits left after prying open an oyster- wet things to clack together and then toss into the mud and leave. All those years, all that suffering, and Déagol, Déagol's sightless eyes, his blue face, all of that- nothing! Nothing!

A succession of memories flickered past. They were his own memories, they were not unfamiliar, but how different they looked to him now! Dragging young orcs into tunnels where no one would hear their shrieks. Crawling into windows in Mirkwood. Déagol. And after all that he had dropped the Ring. Twice! He had dropped it and someone else had carried it off and then he had dropped it again and it was gone! Gone!

And he hurt- everything hurt.

I should have stayed in my cave, he thought furiously.

"I, for one, am glad you did not," a mild voice said, "all things considered." The voice buzzed against his cheek. Gollum was alive, it seemed, and he was pressed against something with a heartbeat sound in it, something warm. It smelled nice. A body.

Food? he thought dimly.

"Absolutely not."

No, no, of course this was not food, it could talk. But that had not stopped him before.

"Mr. Sméagol, it is my suggestion that you begin making some changes, and quickly. At the moment it seems that you cannot move, so it is a perfect time to start planning what you will do when you can." 

Do? There was nothing left for him to do. His personal quest had failed. There was nothing to do, nowhere to go. Nothing to be.

"There is more to you than a ring," that voice said. It was familiar, this voice, but he could not place it.

He was lying in what he had taken for a warm hollow, on top of a body, but then the 'hollow' shifted. He was aware of up-and-down movements, like some giant walking... was he being carried? He had been carried before, but not so gently as this.

This new absurdity was one too many. Something inside him snapped and he felt nothing, about anything. He would just go to sleep.

"That is advisable," said the voice.

Then he was lying on some flat surface and the Sun was in his eyes. He wept and covered his eyes with his hands and tried to turn away but it was so difficult to move, and everything hurt.

"He can't bear sunlight," a voice was saying, a familiar one, yes, but Gollum still could not place it. He could not think too much about it because the inside of his mind was wholly occupied with FIRE SUN FIRE WE ARE BURNING.

"He has fangs, he eats raw meat, he cannot bear the Sun, is the creature a vampire of old?"

"No, he is only a different kind of hobbit."

"A hobbit?!"

"I will take him somewhere dark, and somewhere more quiet."

Someone picked him up. Gollum naturally tried to bite, but his teeth could not make an impression. 

"I suppose I startled you," said the one carrying him, "but biting me is still unacceptable."

Gollum whimpered, and a hand landed on his forehead. 

"Hush," said the person holding him. This was not a comforting statement. It was a command, and Gollum abruptly went to sleep.

And then he was in nice cool dark, in what seemed to him to be a soft burrow- very soft! And Master spoke. His quiet voice was as calm as ever. "He does not look very much different from when I first saw him, for all that he has suffered since. But he's much quieter... and he is thinner, though I thought then that he could not get any thinner and still live. Why, he's stirring. Sméagol, are you awake?"

"Yes, I am." It was painful to speak and even more painful when his throat squeezed and made a gollum sound, something that happened several times a day and normally escaped his notice.

"You can talk!" Frodo exclaimed. "Gandalf told me that your throat was injured and you may never again speak."

That smelled of wishful thinking on Gandalf's part. "It is Master?"

"Yes, it is I. I am very pleased with you," said Frodo.

"Not angry?"

"No, I am not angry. Why would I be angry?"

"Took Precious." How could anyone not be angry for him for taking the Precious? And they had fought over it, and Gollum had probably left bruises on the Master's nice arms, oh, his nice clear skin! He whimpered.

But Master's voice was calm. "You were keeping it from him when I could not. I am not angry. You have kept your promise, and you have done more besides that I did not ask. I thank you. Many have cause to thank you, whether or not they shall ever know it."

"O!" Gollum tried to say more than that and started coughing. And if he could speak, what could he possibly say that would be a worthy answer?

Frodo's hand was laid onto his head, and he gasped at the touch. It felt like nice water, cool water.

"It sounds like you shouldn't talk," said Frodo.

Say something polite, he urged himself. We can bear it, can't we, a few words? But he would have to be efficient, and not repeat himself. "Is the nice Master well?" It must have hurt Master to have the Precious go into the fire, too- it must have hurt him very badly. Gollum felt as if the fire was burning in his own skin, even now. And the emptiness, the loss of it.

"Yes, I am well," said Frodo. If it was a lie, Gollum could not tell.

"That is good, we are not." He coughed again.

"I have heard you are not. I was told that perhaps I should not even see you," said Frodo. "I came anyway because it's possible that I won't have another chance."

"Why not?"

Frodo was quiet a moment, and then only said: "I could not leave you without paying a visit at all. But now we have seen each other and I will let you rest, Sméagol."

Another voice interceded here: "I believe you will have opportunity to see him again, Frodo. Do not worry yourself on that account."

Even so... "Master mustn't leave," Gollum whimpered.

"I must," said Frodo, "I am sorry- you are not well enough for visitors."

"We will gets better, then." So that Master will come back and not go away again at once, and leave us here, all alone, he thought, but did not say because it hurt so much to talk. But he could not resist asking: "Where is Sam?"

"Sam? I am surprised that you are looking for him."

Gollum wanted to say you never goes anywhere without your nasty old Sam or something in that vein, because it seemed so odd that Sam was not there if Sam was alive, but he started coughing instead.

"Sam is well, and he would thank you too, if he had accompanied me, but he chose not to. He no longer distrusts you so much that he feels he must guard me in your presence."

Is that so! That is probably because we are too sick to move, isn't it, Gollum thought.

"Now I bid you goodbye," Frodo said. "And thank you."

Gollum coughed and could not find voice to beg him not to go. He was very sick, he thought, and yet he was better off than it seemed that he ought to be. He ought to be dead, surely.

"No one ought to be dead." That was Gandalf. "Even you. And I have cause to thank you as well, not only for your deeds, but because due to your actions I can handily win many arguments I have been having, and will have in the future."

Gollum recalled being carried about, and even petted on the head- and now he suspected that the person doing such things had been Gandalf. No, no, it couldn't have been. But then who? Had he dreamed all of it? He could not have, because someone had to have taken him here...

This made no sense. Perhaps his time was better spent sleeping than in trying to figure out wizards.

"I think you are right," said Gandalf, "for you will never figure out wizards. Never is not a word to use lightly, but I think here it is appropriate."

Gollum agreed with that, so he went to sleep.

"I fear even I cannot quite tell if it is a fever or no. His body is strange."

Ach! The voice again. Gandalf the wizard, it was. Then Aragorn the ranger spoke. Aragorn!

"A strange body indeed and I know not what to make of it, but it will not surrender the spark of life, and it is healing, in its fashion, and rather quickly, or so it seems to me. I am told he writhes and cries at so much as the scent of any kind of wholesome herb, but accepts food and water readily even when he seems to be otherwise unconscious."

Trying to torture me with plants, he is, Gollum inferred.

"That does not surprise me," said Gandalf. "He will never truly be well, but I suspect he will live a while longer, Aragorn. I rather suspect you could leave him where he is and return in a week and he would be alive, though not very happy."

"Dare I ask why he is still alive?"

"Dear me, it was not my decision.

"Old friend, you have power indeed but I did not think you had so much power as to make such choices. I merely wondered if you might know something I do not."

"I am not privy to all such matters, but I suspect it is a reward for faithful service." Gandalf sounded amused. At least someone was getting something out of this.

"Do you think he even knows what he has done?" Aragorn asked.

Gollum had heard the question of 'do you know what you've done' oh so many many times in his life. And from Aragorn it was especially concerning. Especially since Gollum did not know what he had done- or rather- he knew he had done a lot of nasty things but he did not know which thing that he had done had upset Aragorn or when. And how would Aragorn punish him? He was in no state to be driven on a rope, or deprived of food and water.

He shifted about and realized that what he had taken at first for a 'soft burrow' was a bed, with blankets. Like Men used. They tucks Sméagol into bed like a doll? he thought. He even had a pillow under his head. Perhaps he was dead after all because this was not the world he had lived in for the past nearly six hundred years. They dressed us, he realized, at the sight of his own arm lying on top of the blankets, with a sleeve on it. Why? What for?

"He is stirring," Gandalf said. "Can you hear us, Sméagol?" And when there was no immediate answer: "It is no use pretending you cannot."

"We hears."

"I was told you might never speak again, such damage was done by the smoke and heat, but yet you speak, and so soon," said Aragorn. "Sméagol, I hear things I can hardly credit, but I hear them from honest people. You led Sam and Frodo to Mordor, is that it? If speaking is painful you may nod or shake your head."

Gollum whimpered and plucked at the blankets.

"You are afraid of me," Aragorn said. "We thought very little of each other when first we met. No doubt you believe I treated you ill. I may say that my hand is still scarred from your teeth, but I have forgiven all and I would humbly ask that you do the same."

O that was very nice! A scarred hand, that was not the same thing as being driven through hard lands with a gag in one's mouth, snuffling and choking, and withering from lack of food and water, with a rope chafing one's neck. Gollum had woken with a stiff neck every day for a month after that, he had.

But now Aragorn spoke gently. "Perhaps you will forgive me for Frodo's sake if not for mine, for he and I are good friends."

Frodo, eh?

A thought occurred to him suddenly: It is tiring, to hate and be hated. Nice words are better. Perhaps more importantly he was very weak and could not fend off any kind of attack so perhaps he had better be pleasant.

He said: "We will answer questions, then, if we can, if we can," speaking so softly that Aragorn had to lean in upsettingly close to hear him, close enough to feel his breath on his cheek.

"First," said Aragorn, "I merely want confirmation. You led Sam and Frodo through Cirith Ungol." Gollum shuddered to hear the name of it. "You were briefly separated. I know what horrors Sam and Frodo went through in that time but I do not know what happened to you. But you found them again, and you went on helping them. You went with them to Mount Doom. You did this."

"Yes." What was he getting at?

"And if my ears or my brain have not lost their sense,

Gollum had heard the phrase 'you did this deed' before, and no one who had said it had ever been pleased with him.

He decided to reply with: "Don't hurt us!"

"Hurt you! Sméagol! That I cannot do," said Aragorn. "But how am I to treat you instead? You destroyed the One. Frodo bore it, and Sam bore Frodo, and at the end of their long journey in their moment of greatest peril, you stepped in when their strength was spent, and destroyed the One, and that is no small feat. Frodo and Sam deserve all reward I can give them, and more that I cannot, but you are more difficult; you are the thing that was called Gollum, you are the creeping terror of Mirkwood, you are a kinslayer, and even now I do not know why you did what you did or if you know what it meant. And yet you took it upon yourself to destroy the One. I have decided to count your past transgressions atoned. But ought I also to reward you, after all you have done? How should I reward you?"

"I myself can think of at least one reward you would care to ask in such a situation, Sméagol," said Gandalf, "and that is an item you cast into the fire with your own hand, unbidden. And in any case that reward would have been quite out of the question. Would a nice fish suit you as a substitute?"

"It wants to give us presents," said Gollum slowly. With great effort he sat up, propped on one elbow. "They wantss to gives us presentses, my precious." His confusion had caused him to settle into an old, comfortable, familiar manner of speech. "Now why iss that, why is it?"

"You do not know?" Aragorn asked. "Why do you think we might be considering a reward, Sméagol?"

Gollum rubbed at his forehead, closing his eyes. He had not made any deals with these two, unless fever had taken the memory, but- he could not have done anything they wanted from his sickbed. That could not have been it, that was not why they wanted to reward him. In any case he was certain he would not have agreed to work for them.

Was he certain? Everything was strange, and different. There was a big hole inside him where the Precious was forever gone, and a weary lassitude where the agonizing pull drawing him to it had been, and numbness where there had been malice, and people he had thought hated him and wanted him to suffer and die were now cosseting and comforting him. He could be certain of nothing.

"You truly do not know," said Aragorn.

He had said he was Frodo's friend. And so was Gandalf- at least, Gollum thought he was- because they had traveled with the Master on the River, and they had all sat cozily together at night. "It is because... we helped the Master, who was nice to us, praps. Is it?"

"This matter is larger than Frodo," said Gandalf, "but if you see your deed only as the fulfillment of a promise to someone who treated you kindly, I suppose there is as much hobbit left in you as I have been telling everyone there is."

If Gollum had had more social sensitivity he may have noticed that Gandalf and Aragorn had the air of two people who had been having a debate somewhere else that neither had resolved or really stopped having. But he did not see such things.

Instead he said in a panic: "No hobbit in us at all, gollum, Sméagol did not eat the nice hobbits and he will not do it now, it sounds nassty, and he is sorry he ever thought of it."

"That is well," said Gandalf, with utter calm, "but that is not what I meant. I was speaking of your promise to Frodo and why it was so important. I suppose you will find it out eventually, if we do not tell you; in fact, you had a hand in saving the world, which is why we think of rewarding you. What reward would you seek, Sméagol? You may ask for anything you like, we will simply refuse anything we do not see fit to grant."

"I... what?"

"Saved the world," said Aragorn, "do you perhaps now see our difficulty?"

"Sméagol?" Why, had he not? What had he thought all of that big War was about, all those orcses and things sweeping the land, why had he thought that the Black Hand must not retake the Ring? He had not thought about that part of things, he had only wanted it. It had only ever been his ring, his birthday-present, for so long. And he wanted it still, he missed it, and he wished he could stop thinking about it. It was cruel to be reminded, it was! But he would be thinking of it whether he was reminded or not.

He hissed in confusion.

"So I take it you did not intend to save the world," said Aragorn. "I suspected that you did not, for it seems that somehow, it was contrived that no one who intended to destroy the Ring for the good of the world could destroy it. Why then?"

"Master was going to take it!"

"You did not want to let him have it?"

"No. No. It was mine... but it was not good for him to have it. And he had promissed me he would not keep it for himself, he did, he did, but he tried it; old Sam helped me stop him, didn't he?" Here he dropped his voice and muttered to himself, for his memories were murky. "O yes, he did, precious! I do not think he meant to. He did not like to help Sméagol. I was taking my Precious away from the Master, and Sam saw me, he was not pleased, oh no, and he pulled Sméagol, yes he grabbed me with his big rough hands and that hurt us, it did, but I had the Precious in my handses when he pulled me, and it came away!"

A very strange thought came to him: I hated the Ring and I am glad I dropped it. He gasped again, not in pain but in horror, as if someone had said a fearful obscenity. This was all so very unpleasant, even blasphemous, he would not think of it. He turned desperately to Aragorn instead, trying to puzzle out from his face what the tall Man thought of him.

"Sam tells us you were trying to cast yourself into the fire along with it when he stopped you," said Aragorn.

"O yes, we was, we wanted to cast it away so that He might not have it," Gollum said slowly, "Sméagol promised... I promissed... but I could not let go of it. I could not."

"So you decided that if you could not release it from your hand there was only one way to get it into the fire," Gandalf said.

"Yes, yes. That is it."

"I do not think," said Aragorn, "that Sam considered what would have happened if he had hauled you from the edge and you had not dropped the Ring."

"I doubt he was thinking at all," said Gandalf, "beyond the horror of watching someone try to destroy himself- someone his master had tried so hard to save, at that."

Gollum's voice dropped low again. "We could have bitten our hand off. O no! Sméagol's nice hand.

"Yes," said Gandalf. "Samwise Gamgee saved your life at great risk to himself and with no thought of reward." He sounded amused, he did!

"Why?" Gollum asked.

No answer came. Aragorn and Gandalf watched Gollum silently until he became very uncomfortable. What was going through their minds he could not say, perhaps they were thinking of how loathsome Gollum had become, and how he ate worms and covered his face with mud, and how he ate other things that were too close in shape and mind to himself. Or maybe they did not like his reasons for throwing away his treasure. Or maybe they thought he was only feigning weakness, and might attack.

He wondered if they knew about Her.

He tried huddling submissively under the covers.

"The fact remains," said Gandalf, "no matter what your reasons, you saved Frodo from an evil end, and saved many others from similar ends. Do you desire a reward?"

"A reward! From Gandalf the Grey," said Gollum. "He is offering us a reward! He would have burned Sméagol in fires, he had us dragged to him on a leassh like a dog, and he called us a liar and a thief, now he wants to give us treats and presents." He stared up into Gandalf's face and found it kindly. "I, I don't understand," he whimpered.

"That is not so surprising," said Gandalf. "Consider, Aragorn, how you would feel if you did something that seemed to you to be only a matter between you and an acquaintance, and then you woke up in a fortress of orcs and they were treating you the way we are treating Sméagol. I daresay you would be confused. If you would not be, I would be. Consider also that no one has treated our guest with such care for a long, long time. Here," he said, suddenly proffering his hand, which Gollum flinched away from- "Perhaps you do not remember now, but I carried you here and you generously attempted to grant me the same souvenir you granted Aragorn but your teeth would not break my skin. Will you try it again?"

"O, what does he want?"

"I am merely curious, will you bite? Surely you know it is for your good not to, but such knowledge would not have stopped you before."

"No, no," squeaked Gollum. "Does wizard want us to bite him? We will, if he asks us, but if he does not ask we will do no ssuch thing." He could not imagine why Gandalf would want to be bitten, but- again- everything else that was happening was just as confusing.

"Very well, I do not in fact wish to be bitten." Gandalf withdrew his hand. "But you have not told us what you want." He held Gollum's gaze with his stern, clear eyes.

Gollum heard himself speaking, though he was not aware that he had chosen to say anything. "I want to eat and drink and rest when I wish. And I do not want to wear my poor fingers to stubs with wandering, wandering and searching, wandering and searching, and hiding, and sneaking." Even to his own ears he sounded weary.

"Is that all?"

Perhaps there was more. "We wants to see our Master, we do." And perhaps there was more, he was still fond of gems and trinkets, but at the moment none of that seemed very important.

"You will not be able to see Frodo for some time," said Gandalf, "but I am sure you will see him again. Well. If there is nothing pressing you wish to ask, perhaps we should let you sleep. We have talked long already and you are weary, and to be allowed to rest when you wish is a small enough indulgence."

"O yes, nice Gandalf," he mewed, words he would have once sworn he would never speak. "We are tired, tired."

"No doubt. Good night to you, Sméagol."

And he curled up to sleep, in a bed that smelled of Man-places.

Here are two fragments that appear to possibly go along with chapter 1, or maybe they were just cut at random and plopped at the beginning of my fragment pile, I don't know.

[Gandalf speaking] "Here is the reward I would suggest for you, Sméagol, and I suspect that others beside myself have already thought of it and had it in mind for you, because you have been given the means to achieve it when that ought not to have been possible. Once your body has recovered, if it can be seen that your mind has recovered as well, as far as it can be, and you are no longer a danger, you should be turned loose to go where you will, without the burden of searching and hiding and sneaking. Without such burdens wandering can be rather pleasant, but I suppose you will find a home for yourself eventually, and I suspect it will be by the Anduin, for you still love pools and streams and in your heart you long for the River. If you turn up elsewhere… you will be noticed. Of course you would be welcome to stay here if you wish but I suspect that a city of Men is not your first choice for a home. If it is decided that you cannot be trusted to have liberty, you will be placed somewhere you can be guarded, and you will have comfort, but not freedom. In either case you will not be punished for your past crimes, for you have been punished already. Does that suit you?"

"It will be a different River," Gollum lamented.

Gandalf looked at him from under his bushy brows. "It takes longer to change a river than it does to change a hobbit. It will look more like its old self than you do, and it will still be there when you are finally gone. It has outlived the Ring already."

"It will look more like its old self than you do" yeah I bet it will

I have this too:

"Farewell," said Frodo. A dreamy horror came into his eyes as the big Man left, and Sam went and sat close beside him. "No one will ever be fond of him, Sam," he said. "He must know it. He must know he will never be loved. He will never have anything better than pity."

"He ought to be grateful for pity, I'd say," said Sam. "It's better than he deserves." For a selfish moment he wished he had let Gollum fall into the volcano, but he knew he had done the right thing- how much worse would kind Mr. Frodo feel if the old sneak had destroyed himself? Even if Frodo might also secretly wish to be rid of him, surely he would not wish to be rid of him that way. "Besides, that Big Person was putting himself out an awful lot for Sméagol, I don't think he could rightly tell that he's not fond of him."

"He knows," Frodo murmured.

I don't know where this would have fit in, but I never used Sam's POV in the finished version so it's obvious why it was cut!

Click the arrow to see artwork for this chapter.

Most of the fic's art was drawn as the chapters were posted, for teaser images, but these here were done after the fic was finished- because I was compiling the art and Chapter 1 had nothing.

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