It's not that he means to keep it on for very long. But with all these Orcs still about, and Sam needing to know which way to go, he may as well play it safe.

One foot kicks him in the stomach while another steps on his hand, crushing the fingers under a metal boot.

"What did you say then? Came here alone, was it? Just exploring? I don't believe you're telling us the truth."

Frodo has little notion of what he's said. He wills air into his lungs, strength into his muscles. He tries to send the pain away. But the pain stays, makes company with asphyxia and despair.

Speech itself is beyond him. Clever answers? Lies and tricks? Anything he could say to stop the blows, no, he has no idea. They keep coming down. Sometimes there are questions as well, sometimes insults, sometimes only the violence and the pain.

"We're losing him again. I told you not to hit so hard."

Frodo hopes they're right. If he passes out he won't betray anyone or anything. And he can stop feeling like this. Perhaps if he slips out of consciousness again he might slip out of this life altogether, and that would be for the best for all of them, though he's sorry he failed at what he set out to do.

For the best.

The voices are still talking but Frodo does not understand the words, and this gives him some small hope. Either they've gone back to their own language or he's fading away, and soon he'll hear nothing at all.

Please, he thinks, let me hear and say no more. Let me know no more.
___________________________________________________________________________

He knows better than to keep the Ring on his finger once he's out of sight of the Orcs. It might seem to help show him the path, but it'll also show his enemies just where he is and what he's up to. Or so Frodo told him, and Sam's always listened to Frodo.

Once he takes it off he feels lost and helpless again, but he keeps on the same path. He's lost the feeling of being watched and he misses it, just a little.

He walks. Scrambles and crawls and often stumbles and falls, but he picks himself up and goes on.

The sun rises as far as it may, and it seems distant, tired. Not exhausted or heartbroken, as Sam feels, but faded, indifferent, cold.
___________________________________________________________________________

Frodo knows he's alive and awake because he's in pain. Just a little while ago he dreamed he was drowning, and the relief was palpable. He thinks he might have tried swimming, pushing himself deeper into the depths of the river. He awakes on the floor with his head pounding. He keeps his eyes closed, wondering how long he can lie still before they notice he's back.

They're still arguing. Seems like the same fight from the last time he passed out, though there's no way of knowing if it's been days or mere moments.

"Pain's all right, you see. But if you kick him in the head like you did, you could kill him, you could lose him. If he stops breathing again he could die, and you won't get anything else out of him."

"Well, what else are we supposed to get out of him, anyhow?"

"Find out who he's with, you dolt! Find out why they're here!"

Why am I here, after all? Frodo wishes for water but knows better than to draw their attention back to him. Why haven't they gone ahead and killed him, now that they have what they're after?

Unless they don't have

Unless the Ring isn't

Sam must have gone ahead then. Sam must have taken it.

Sam must have

Frodo can

"No, please, stop, I'll talk, I'll..."

"There, look at that! It talks!"

"He talked when he first woke up as well. If you didn't keep knocking his breath out..."

"Spy," Frodo sputters. "You were right, I was a spy."

"What did you come here for then?"

"To..." but he can't, not without "water, please."

It takes more effort than he'd thought, even those few words, and he lies on the floor panting. And when the flask comes to his lips it's the medicine, and he chokes and coughs, but he can't give up again. If they think he came alone then they won't go in search of Sam. And there's still a chance. Not for Frodo, for they'll certainly not let him go. But for Sam, and the rest of them.

"Talk."

A hand on his throat, and his head on the floor, oh, stone, it is starting to swell and his thoughts mean to float away, but Sam --

"Spy," Frodo repeats, with no real idea of why a spy might have been sent. Still, he's said it now, might as well go on. "To find out your movements. Where Sauron is sending his armies. We thought there..."

He coughs again, cannot go on, and they pour the medicine down his throat, and after some time he says, "That there might be another attack through the pass of Cirith Ungol and down into the valley."

"Your people sent you through the Pass? They had to know an army couldn't pass through. Only fools go that way."

"I was only a fool then. Or my masters didn't value my life very much. It could very well be that." It could very well be that.

"Or they were fools, all of them."

It could very well be that, Frodo thinks. Fools, all of us.
___________________________________________________________________________

But Frodo is dead. There was nothing more Sam could do for him then. Not even a proper burial, not in this country. Finish what he set out to do, that's all Sam's trying to do.

Give it to us. It isn't the desperate voice he remembers from when Gollum first pounced on the two of them. It is low and smooth, confident and commanding. More difficult to dismiss, to fight, to send away. Always at the edge of his consciousness, it never leaves him in peace. So at night he ends up speaking as in dark dreams, even as he searches for sleep.

"It doesn't belong to you," he says.

"It's not the same," Sam argues, eyes still closed, not sure whom he's addressing, exactly where the voice is coming from. "I don't mean to keep it for myself. And Mr. Frodo didn't either. That's what you lot can't understand. You'd never even think of giving it up. But that's what Frodo meant to do. And that's what I'm to do for him, don't you see?"

"What else would I do with it, do you think? Claim it for my own? Use it to command an army? Samwise the Dark Lord? No one would want to bow down to a little hobbit like me. Why, they'd only laugh."

"I don't."

"Only the one time, and that was only so I could get away from the Orcs."

Sam doesn't answer. He shifts and turns over on the ground. He's never gotten used to sleeping on rocks, but if he can't sleep now how will he walk in the morning? How will he keep walking? He tries covering his ears, but he knows it won't do him any good.

Give it to us. The voice is as clear as ever. The longer you hold on to it, the harder it will be to give it up in the end.

"It's only been a few days. Mr. Frodo had it for all those years and he..."

"Now wait one minute!" Sam takes his hands off his ears, opens his eyes, sits up straight and looks around, sees nothing. Still he speaks aloud. "I wasn't playing any tricks!"

No answer.

"I never wanted this to happen!" Sam insists to the rocks and ash and empty air. "Stinker, you was the one that led us into the tunnel. I never wanted to take it. I never wanted it, do you hear?"

His own voice returns to him in an echo and he feels terribly foolish and fearful. Here he is trying to sneak through the Dark Land unnoticed, and now he's shouting at nothing.

There's no one else there, and Sam has nothing to prove. He knows for himself he's done the right thing, and he needs to keep going. Sam decides sleep is a lost cause, and so is secrecy, at least in this place, and he gathers up his heavy things and his tired bones in the dark, finds his direction by the lay of the land, and walks on.
___________________________________________________________________________

He thinks his legs are probably broken. Carrying him across Mordor in the back of this wagon, then, is not so much a question of kindness or pity as one of efficiency. They'll want to get him there faster, wherever there is.

He could probably open his eyes if he tried hard enough, for they are only half swollen. But he thinks it would be painful and not worth the bother, as there's nothing here he wants to see.

He opens his mouth, thinking to ask where, but it comes out as "Water." There are a few grunts in answer, then a flask and liquid at his mouth, but once again it's the Orc medicine and it burns his mouth and his throat and his eyes.

Once, as a child, he'd picked up a glass of plum brandy, thinking it was juice. He'd choked and cried and been sick. He's been an adult for decades now and has had his share of ale and wine and moonshine, but he's never tasted anything so strong. He coughs, and is thirstier than before, but he keeps it down, and knows he is better off than if he had not drunk it.

"You like that, don't you then?" someone laughs.

"Where." Frodo gets it right this time. "Where are you taking me?"

"Only so much we can get out of you with whips and clubs," says a gruff voice, different from the ones he came to know so well in the tower. "It's good fun, of course, but the Dark Lord, he does it better. Knows how to get inside your mind, he does. You think you've suffered, little man, but you've no idea what suffering is."

More questioning on the way, then. Or perhaps not so much questioning as plain seeing, searching. Fingers behind his eyes, reaching into his mind and pulling out his deepest secrets. Kissing the wounds to close. He thinks perhaps it won't involve as much pain as he has suffered through the past days and nights. But he is doubtful.

He remembers being questioned by Faramir at Henneth Annûn, how he was accused of being an Orc spy. At the time the interrogation had seemed quite trying, and Frodo had not quite given up his secrets, but he had fainted after hours of questioning.

Why didn't he just stay, he wonders now. Why not give the thing over to Faramir, go with him to Minas Tirith to find refuge and see his friends? For surely the rest of them will have given up by now, as Frodo should have done long ago. Should have told Faramir I was a spy. The thought brings up bitter laughter and he chokes on his blood.
___________________________________________________________________________

Sam falls to the ground behind a rock, and it does him no good, for it is not a simple sight that looks for him. It is not a direct line of vision from the terrifying crown of Barad-Dûr. It is a presence that looms and lingers, that floats over him and brushes the hair at the back of his neck, whispers "Why have you come?" and "What do you carry? and "Who gave you the right?"

But then it moves on. And Sam feels, distinctly, that he has been passed over, that he is not considered important enough to be a real threat. Something else, someone else, must have caught its sight.

Frodo is still alive, he thinks, and once the thought passes through his head he knows without a doubt that it's true.

Frodo is alive and it was wrong of me to leave him alone.

Sam wonders if the same presence is whispering in Frodo's ear. He doubts such a thing is even necessary. Sauron has other agents, more tangible instruments, more painful ones. Frodo is alive, Sam thinks, and the Orcs have him in captivity. I must go back, I must, I must.

But before he can even rise from the ground there's another presence ghosting over his hair, whispering in his ear, "Don't give it back to them. Give it to us"

And Sam jerks violently away, takes his sword and lashes out, though of course Gollum's out of reach by the time he strikes.

"It was you, wasn't it? The other night, you were sneaking around my camp, talking nonsense in my ears. Trying to make me think I'd done wrong..."

"Silly hobbits," keeping his distance, "talking to themselves."

"I wasn't talking to... And I don't need to explain myself to you either!"

He takes a step closer, makes his eyes round as he pleads, "Don't go back."

"I need to," Sam says weakly, remembering Frodo's cold skin under his fingers as he chafed his hands and feet, and he only half registers that Gollum's cold fingers are curled around his wrist now. Sam's hold on the sword is loose. He lets himself be dragged forward.

"Not back to them."

"No," he agrees. Nothing to go back to. The thought of Frodo alive and screaming seemed real, when it came, but it could only have been a trick, Sauron planting the dark thought in his mind. Sam's task is to go forward.
___________________________________________________________________________

Physical torture does not end once they reach Barad-Dûr. Rather, it grows more precise and targeted. The pain is more intense, the questions closer to the mark, the lies harder to sustain.

Frodo gives up trying to maintain any story. He screams, and when he's able to make words he makes only one, over and over: No.

He moves very little. He still hasn't been able to open his eyes in some days, and is rather glad, for the sounds of the place are bad enough by themselves. And the smells. And touch, they never stop touching him.

He passes out several times on the table where they laid him open when first he arrived. Always he is revived with the Orc medicine forced down his throat. Sometimes they've released his hands in order to bring up his head and help him swallow. Other times they keep his arms spread behind his head, and he chokes while they laugh.

He knows they haven't let him spend more than a few minutes unconscious because the pain is always still fresh when he's brought back; the wounds are still bleeding.

He feels Orc paws and Man's hands on his back, his neck, his face, most of them rough enough and brutal, but then there's that other touch that occasionally brings relief. And then there's that voice that comes along with it, though it's still somehow separate. So much smoother than the others, and Frodo finds it harder to say his no to that voice, so he simply cries.

It's the rough ones who untie him from the table, carry him away. And though he wouldn't be able to stand on his own, he's hung from his arms, wrists bound to a pair of stakes, and his ankles tied at the base of them.

Nothing as brutish as a whip or as blunt as a club, but they mark him with sharp knives and sharper threats. Tears and sweat and blood and urine mix on his skin and pool on the ground beneath his feet, and the stench is overwhelming, Frodo thinks he'll never be clean again, and it must be what he deserves, for letting them win.

"I'm sorry," he says after a long time, to a tall Man who has not cut him or whipped him, as far as Frodo can tell, who is touching a deep open wound on Frodo's chest with what he eventually realizes is a gloved hand. It hurts, but Frodo also feels that this hand is holding him together. His arms strain in the sockets and he feels ready to split in two, but maybe this man will make it different. "Please, I'm so sorry."

"That's all right." It is not the voice of the man who is touching him. The voice sounds far off but it fills the room, and it soothes him. This is the one Frodo had hoped would save him. "There, there," he says, as the other touches Frodo's cheek. "You can come down now, you'll be all right," he promises. "Here, wrap your arms around my Lieutenant's neck. You can trust him as you would me. That's it, Frodo." His tone becomes harsh and cold as he commands his servant, "Release his feet." Then soft again, as if he spoke directly in Frodo's ear, "That's it, you can bring your legs up."

Frodo cannot move his legs; they hang limp until the man pulls them up to wrap around his hips. He holds Frodo close and supports him, as Aragorn had done after Moria. Frodo sobs.

"That's it, let it all out."

Tears leak out through the crusted blood at his eyelids as he weeps into this man's chest. Frodo is filthy and the fabric is clean. It feels good.

"There, there." The gloved hand strokes at his back and the voice strokes inside his mind. "So crude, those other servants of mine. They take pleasure in it, you know, but we are not like them. We are creatures of a higher order, Frodo. And I think you understand as well as I do that torture makes a man talk, but it doesn't make him tell the truth. You've been very brave; you've endured much and spoken many pretty lies in between the screams. But the time has come for the truth."

The hand continues to stroke down Frodo's back, smoothing out sweat and blood, even as the voice drops to a harsh rasp and the master speaks to the others. "If he bleeds to death he's no use to us. I've told you that."

Then he's laid on a soft bed, and the Lieutenant touches him with a clean damp cloth, or no, it must be soaked with medicine, for it stings when it touches the wounds, but the pressure is good, makes him think perhaps he won't fall apart after all. The Master doesn't want him to bleed to death. And that is a mercy, a reason for gratitude.

Frodo thinks to thank him, but before he can gather the energy to form words the voice says, "No need, Frodo. Things will go better for you now. I won't hurt you." And Frodo believes it.
___________________________________________________________________________

Gollum appears and disappears again like voices in a dream, and Sam stopped thinking about revenge a long time ago. Sometimes he follows, sometime he leads, most times he walks alone.

Sam disappears and appears a few times himself because he does cross paths with a few more Orcs along his way, and he needs not to be seen. He knows not to keep it on his finger for very long, for he'd not want to be seen by the Orcs' master either, especially now, as he's getting closer to the goal.

Still, he thinks it helps to keep it in his hand. He's taken it from the chain, since he never lets go of it, keeps it tight inside a closed fist as he climbs (for he reached the base of the mountain some hours ago), and takes a little of its strength through that smooth, flawless touch. It helps him forget how dirty and rough he feels, else everything else around him feels dirty and rough to his touch.

His grip on the gold is strong but still he thinks it might slip through his fingers if he's not careful. It's not so strange, really; Sam's always liked nice things. He used to think about bringing his hands through Frodo's curls. They'd slip through his fingers as easily as this, and Sam would have to concentrate hard, not to let him get away. And Frodo's skin, so clean and pale and perfect, smooth and white as bone. A shame he never touched it more when he had a chance. Back in the old days, that is, before the journey covered his skin with dirt they had no time or water to wash away, and then scars that Sam had no skill or medicine to heal.

Lost his chance, and now he'll never see him again, nor touch him either. And Sam's steps slow and falter when he thinks about that, how it felt to leave his Frodo alone. When Frodo was the one who was supposed to make this journey in the first place. Sam only came along so he could help him.

Well, no going back now, and no helping him, of course. Sam did what he could. Frodo did his part, up to then, and now Sam's taking his turn. And Frodo was wise, yes, and Frodo was brave in his way. But the Ring was taking its toll on him already before the breaking of the Fellowship. Sam noticed it back then anyhow, even if nobody else did. Frodo was weighed down by it, and he was bound to take that turn from bad to worse sooner or later, though Sam did his best to keep them on the right path.

And Sam isn't one to pay Gollum any mind, but it's true that Frodo wouldn't have been able to let the thing go.

Frodo was the one who was supposed to take it, and Sam only along to help him. No, no one thought of entrusting the Ring to Sam, but then again, perhaps they should have.

"I'm not doing such a terrible job as all that," he mutters, picking up his pace again. "I got it into Mordor, after all!"

And now he's brought it nearly as far as it needs to go. And he's tired, but he's still moving. If Frodo were here he'd be a wreck, outside of himself, falling on his feet.

Of course they sent Frodo and not him. No one ever did pay Sam any mind. But perhaps they should have. Or, since they didn't, perhaps Sam should have taken it for himself much sooner. How much pain and grief he would have saved Frodo if he had.

Sent Frodo back to Shire, safe and sound.

Frodo's own fault, really, for not trusting Sam. Sam wouldn't ever have hurt him. Sam wasn't the one who led him into the tunnel, no. But really, he got what he deserved.
___________________________________________________________________________

"I think, Frodo, that you've taken much counsel from an old wizard. a... Gandalf, is it, that he is called in your country?"

Not a word, even if his voice would work. Not a word to betray his friends.

"No, that's all right, you don't need to say anything. I only want you to think awhile about this Gandalf and whether he ever had your interests at heart. First of all he encouraged your kinsman -- the other Baggins, what was his name?"

Not a word.

"You can tell me his name, Frodo; it makes no difference. It is already known to us."

Even so.

"Ah, but you are a stubborn one, and proud."

The hand touches Frodo's face, one of the cuts on his cheek, and Frodo breaks his silence with a whimper and does not feel proud.

"No matter, my child. I'm not the one who means your kinsman harm. But Gandalf had him leave his home and his country in order to go on an adventure in which he could easily have died. The fact that he didn't, well, I'm sure it makes for very nice stories told around your Halfling campfires, but sending him off in the first place seems to me quite cruel. This was the same adventure on which old... Bilbo -- you see? You might have trusted me, Frodo. On which old Bilbo, in a desperate move to save his own skin, stole my Ring from the thief who'd stolen it before him. Now, we all know Sméagol didn't deserve to hold on to it any more than any of the rest of you. He paid his penance here in the Dark Tower, just as you pay yours now. No one but its true owner, who was its maker, has the right to possess it. But that is not why you're here Frodo, or why I remind you of old Bilbo's stories. I only mean to make you think about the hand this wizard has had in bringing the thing to your country and to your family, and eventually to your own hand."

Not in my own hand, Frodo thinks. I lost it, somehow.

"No, I know you don't have it now. I'm not trying... I want to know why you think Gandalf was a friend to you. For I know you think that. Yes, Frodo, I know your thoughts. It does you no good to try to hide from me. Think of all that you have suffered on his account. If he hadn't brought the Ring to you, you might have lived out the rest of your days in your lovely little hole in the ground, with your food and your pipe and your garden. You'd have found another Halfling to keep you company and perhaps made a family, and lived a happy, quiet life.

"And now look at you."

Frodo does not look, for he cannot, nor can he speak, but he imagines a body broken and deformed, black and blue and stains of red on a background of clean white sheets. And when he thinks You did this to me, he knows the Dark Lord sees his mind.

"I did not, Frodo."

"I ordered that my servants obtain information from a spy. You entered my domains as a spy because of Mithrandir."

Gandalf. But it doesn't matter. For he's lost. More lost than Frodo, even.

"He cares nothing for you, Frodo, he never did, nor for any of your Halfling friends. You are tools for him, pawns he is willing to sacrifice in his battle to defeat me. But this is not your fight, Frodo. It need not be any longer."

Frodo lies very still then, as if by keeping his body immobile he can keep the thoughts from racing through his mind, rushing into the abyss or otherwise drawing attention to themselves.

"I won't lie to you, Frodo, I won't say I regret this." Long fingers, hard and cold in the leather glove, touch lightly at the back of Frodo's fingers where the nails have been torn out, and Frodo cries out, though he makes no words. "But I think you regret it; I think you'd rather not go back to the table. You have a choice in this, Frodo. Such work is necessary as long as we are at war. But you can end it. Help me get the Ring, little one, and we can cease to be enemies. You need not go back out into that cruel world. No more scrabbling in circles among the rocks and the heaps of ash. No more fighting to stay whole."

That would be nice, Frodo thinks. He had done with fighting.

"I have to fight for it as well, do you know? It's just as well you can't see me, Frodo, and I haven't stopped them from beating you about the eyes. They tell me your eyes are like jewels, and I'd love to see them one day, but I'd rather not have you see me as I am now. I was beautiful once as well, Frodo, I was fairer than any Man or Halfling you've known, though you wouldn't imagine from seeing me now."

Fair, Frodo thinks, and wonders just what that means.

"But once I have the Ring, everything will be different."

Fair. If Frodo keeps his mind fixed in one spot, there'll be nothing dangerous for any other mind to read.

"I'll be myself again, and I won't need these minions to do my work for me," the hand that was gentle on Frodo's shoulder tenses, relaxes again a moment later, "or speak my words when I have to treat with those outside my fortress. I'll be myself, and with my own hands I'll heal all these hurts of yours. And you'll be able to share it with me as well. I'll touch you with my hands, healed and beautiful and smooth as yours were once, adorned with that Ring you love so well. And I'll hold you myself. You can sit on my lap and I'll let you touch it as much as you want. Not to wear it, you understand, but to feel it under your fingers -- under your tongue, if you wish. Won't that be good, Frodo? Won't we both like that?"

The Ring, the Ring, Frodo would give anything to have it back. If only he could remember where it's gone to, he'd do his part to help. He opens his mouth to say he'll help, but find he cannot speak.

"It makes you uneasy, doesn't it? You'd rather not have my mind in yours?"

Strange to call it that, after all the pain he's endured in this place, but yes. Uneasy.

"You'd rather try to speak in your own voice. Have some water first then, see if it helps."

And that is a marvel, for Frodo had stopped begging for it, even hoping for it. That is a kindness unasked for.

"Good, now this."

And it wasn't that it tasted bad or good. On his tongue it was nothing at all, but he swallowed easily and the pain was immediately less. He tried to sit up more, to grab for the cup with his own hand, but already it was withdrawn.

"Greedy, aren't we?"

"Try to say it out loud."

"Please," a croak, a rasp.

"That's it, little one, I knew we'd win you over." And the Mouth of Sauron holds the sedative to Frodo's mouth. Eagerly, he drinks.
___________________________________________________________________________

They underestimated him all along. Thought he couldn't be more than a servant, thought he couldn't do it for himself, but he has.

And maybe they thought no one could take it for himself and keep control of himself, keep on the side of good. But here is Sam at the doorway to doom itself, and the Dark Lord's powers haven't won him over. He's put the Ring on and taken it off a dozen times, and it isn't hurting him, isn't weighing him down or whispering evil plans to him. Here he comes, to the very fire where it was formed, and he only feels stronger, and he could put it on again, he knows, and he'd be all right. He doesn't need to give it up.

And who knows what that power could do, if he were to take it for himself, here, in the center of it all. If the Orcs, if even the Nazgûl came for him here, he'd simply send them away and they'd go, or he'd bid them do his will, and they'd do it. Then Sam could save all his friends from what ever danger they're in. Maybe it would be enough to bring Frodo back.

No, not that. Not even Sauron if he had his own Ring back. Death is death, and Frodo is gone and not coming back, ever. Sam held him in his arms and there was no breath there, no life, no hope.

And yet.

The Ring glows red and grows warm between his fingers, pulses like a living thing against his skin, and it seems to him there is no power that would escape him if he were to take what's in his hand now.

And no way to know but to try it.
___________________________________________________________________________

"Enough," he'd said. "You said you were willing to help, but you have nothing for me. It's time for you to go on another journey."

And Frodo clutched at the sheets, resisted being lifted away. Reached out toward the voice as he was carried by the other, but it was no use. He'd failed yet again; even as a traitor he was no use, it seemed.

He'd dared to hope again that the torture might be over, but then the monstrous horse moved. And Frodo would scream if he had the voice, but something about the way the Lieutenant holds him makes it impossible. Once they ride out of from the Dark Tower he barely has the air to breathe.

It is the other who speaks, and his voice is harsh and ugly, and Frodo misses the master they left behind.

It's frightening out here in the open air, knowing he can't take it for himself, and Frodo senses too many souls around them, wishes he could hide. The man behind him calls himself the Mouth of Sauron and it makes Frodo angry, for Sauron's mouth was never so crude, his words never so coarse.

He says something about elvish glass and thinks of Galadriel's phial, thinks he must have lost it at the same time as everything else. And then the Messenger says a name that had often been on his master's lips as well. And Frodo had told himself it didn't matter, for he was dead. Gandalf did not need Frodo's protection now and Gandalf could not give Frodo protection either. They couldn't save each other. So why do they still speak his name?

"The Halfling you sent me was captured twelve days ago. He is stronger than Sauron had suspected. We understand now why you put your trust in him."

Frodo hears a cry full of anguish and then a shout of anger; he is confused and wishes he could open his eyes.

Pippin, Pippin is here and still alive. And Gandalf, who was dead, Gandalf is here.

Where is Merry? He might be here as well, and Frodo can't know without seeing, for Merry would be staring intently, not speaking. Or perhaps he's been left behind, or perhaps he's escaped into death.

Pippin must be so hurt to see him like this. And Gandalf must be so disappointed, for Frodo has failed. He wasn't able to destroy the Ring, wasn't strong enough, or clever enough, or whatever it was it would have taken. He wonders if they will forgive him, later perhaps, after.

"What say you, Gandalf? Surrender, and I shall return him to you."

No, Frodo would call out if he could, though he isn't quite sure what motivates him. If he's more afraid to see Middle-earth abandoned to darkness, or to be returned to the wizard who brought him into all this. No, Gandalf, please. He tries to move, but the arms hold him fast.

He hears Pippin shout again, and then there must be an argument among them. The Messenger still waits, and Frodo slumps back against him.

"You've done your part, little one. It's almost over now."

More shouting from the men, and then a gruffer shouting from the Orcs behind them, drawing out of their tunnels in the tall dark face of stone.

The Messenger's arm, which is Sauron's arm, holds Frodo tighter to him, and it's choking off the air now.

Dimly he hears voices raised in anger, others raised in fear. Frodo trembles and so does the ground beneath them. And the rumbling behind them is more than an army of Orcs could make with their own voices.

And Pippin's voice, again, rises above all the others, something about eagles, Frodo wishes he could see and understand, but he's slipping away. He lets go.
___________________________________________________________________________

Sam might be able to see clearly then, at last, if not for the tears in his eyes. Stinging with ash and fumes and loss and betrayal. It's done though, and from the look of things he won't have to go back and face the rest of them, and explain why he left his master's body unburied on the top of the mountains, or how he was so desperate for company that he let the other traitor live. How in the end he couldn't let go. How he became a traitor himself, and how the other traitor saved them all.

Frodo was weak, he tells himself, doubled over where he sits on the rock, weeping into his grimy, bloody hands. Frodo was weak and I had to be strong for him. It couldn't have gone any other way.

But at least no one else will need to know. The splashes of liquid fire singed his toes as he ran away, and soon enough it'll rise up to cover his little island of solid rock as well, and Sam will be consumed like Sméagol and the Ring before him. And if all of Mordor falls the same way, then Frodo's cold, abandoned body will be taken along with them.

Sam doubts any others of their Fellowship have survived, but if they do, they can go on believing Frodo is their hero, that he carried that burden all the way to the fires of Mount Doom. No one ever needs to know what Sam did.

He senses movement in the distance and hopes the fire will claim him before the Nazgûl do, for he has no hope of commanding it now. If it comes to that, if it comes to snatch him up in its talons, he'll jump. But he rather wishes he could just slip away.

He lies back. He breathes smoke. He remembers Frodo's cold, still body in his arms.
___________________________________________________________________________

Frodo spends days half-awake, swallowing water and medicine, hearing the voices of healers and friends, before they tell him to open his eyes. He looks through pain and a kind of white haze, and Gandalf's face is difficult to make out. Just as the face of a ghost ought to be, he thinks, and closes his eyes again.

They tell him he was brave, and he was strong, and Gandalf says everything has come out all right in the end, though it seemed for a time to have gone on a wrong path.

Frodo has done his part, they tell him, and so has Sam.

But it's a few more days again before they bring them together.

Frodo thought Sam might look smug, or triumphant, but he is only awkward. Frodo looks at him without much feeling, and Sam won't look Frodo in the eye.

"Gandalf told me you haven't felt like talking yet."

And all he can think to say now is You took it, so he holds it back. It doesn't take much effort.

"They told me to stop saying I'm sorry, but I can't do it."

Sorry for himself, he thinks, and shifts uneasily, though he knows he won't be able to get away.

"I shouldn't have done it."

Reminds himself no one is looking inside his mind anymore. He and Sam only think alike, and it's nothing to squirm away from. Still, he doesn't like it. He looks away.

"I... I suppose I should let you rest then."

Yes.

"That's all right, sir, I understand. Gandalf said you might not want..."

Gandalf. Frodo stops listening. Fine then, Sam's on the wizard's side as well. And it was all worth it, he'll say, and it's turned out for the best for everyone but Frodo, who has to go on living like this.