“I have come. But I do not choose now to do what I came to do. I will not do this deed. the Ring is mine!”

The terrible words came, but Sam could not believe them. His master disappeared from his sight and a new wonder came. He saw Gollum mounted in mid-air, struggling with some foe. An agonized howl filled the air and pierced Sam’s heart as Frodo reappeared and fell to the ground. Blood spilled profusely from his hand where Gollum had bit a finger off to obtain the Ring.

The wretched creature danced with joy as he beheld the Precious his once more, but lost in ecstasy, he did not realize how close to the edge he was. He lost his balance and fell into the Fire, still holding onto his beloved, hated prize. He had kept his promise. He hadn’t let him have it. 

Frodo and Sam walked further down the path. Death would come soon now, and Frodo was ready to welcome it. The Eagles came just as they fell at last.

The struggle to bring the hobbits back was a bitter one for Aragorn, who wandered long on Roads he had traveled far too often in the last days, seeking first for Éowyn, Faramir, Merry, and many others, and now for Frodo and Sam.

“What happened to him?” Merry asked. Tears pricked his eyes at the sight of his cousin’s maimed hand.

“The Ring did all this,” Gandalf said softly.

“Then how can we undo it?” Pippin asked, as he watched tears fall down Frodo’s cheeks even in sleep, twin to his own that he did not even feel.

“The damage is done, Pip,” Merry said before anyone else could answer. His voice was far older and more haunted that any of their race had ever been. “It can’t be undone. All we can do is just love him as we have always done and hope that will heal him and us.”

“Love indeed will be the only remedy for this,” Gandalf agreed.

The hobbits sank back down beside the Ring-bearer, snuggled close and put their arms across his chest and tried to rest. Frodo and Sam remained in their induced sleep for days.

* * *

“It was not your fault,” the wizard said some days later after Frodo learned what he had said and done at the Fire.

“Then whose was it?” came the Ring-bearer's dull voice, devoid of life and light. “It was my voice that said such horrible words, my hand that claimed the Ring.”

“But you did not will it to happen,” Gandalf said. “The Ring did, Sauron did. They are both gone now because all of things you did will, all the steps you took toward Mordor and the pity you and Sam gave to one who suffered as you did. ”

Frodo was silent for a while, then spoke again. “They are both gone,” he echoed softly. He looked up at his friend. “I’ve lost so much, Gandalf, so much. And this last loss is the worst when it should be the best. Instead there’s nothing left inside me but a dark, empty shell. My heart is buried in the fire. It’s my fault. I couldn’t stop from claiming it. Why couldn’t I stop?” The Ring-bearer’s eyes spoke more eloquently and heartbreakingly of his ravaged soul than the words he could hardly bear to say. The torment that now stared out at Gandalf was a thing alive in itself where once life and joy had shown so brightly. It struck the wizard with palpable force as a great enemy he wished he could tear out of his friend, but he could not resort to such violence for that would also destroy the hobbit he loved so dear. This adversary would have to be defeated by Frodo himself, and Gandalf could only gently lend him his aid.

The hidden Maia smiled through unshed tears as he drew his friend into an embrace and began to slowly stroke his curls. “There is also part of you that is immortal that is not buried. You stand, my dear hobbit, as you have all these months, indeed for all your life if you but knew it, in the midst of a battlefield. The Ring sought dominion over that part and sometimes gained it, but there’s another Power Who seeks it as well, Who created it and wishes to draw it to Himself. It is your choices, step by step, day by day that determine the outcome of this war. You have lost a few battles as all do, but you have not lost everything, not yet. The essential thing is that you keep fighting. You cannot lose this war, or you truly will lose everything.”

“Then I must keep going, but I am weary of fighting, so very weary. Each step, each breath seems more of a labor than the last. Would that I could rest.”

Gandalf continued his soft stroking and gentle tone while Frodo snuggled closer. “All soldiers in this war grow so, but though you cannot stop the struggle, you can rest and be refreshed. Those under the dominion of the dark slew themselves, but you are not while you fight against what would destroy you. You were created in the Light, for the Light, to be with the Light.”

“I walk in darkness now.”

“But there still is light around you, dim perhaps to your eyes, but still it’s there, coming from a Source you cannot see. You have seen reflections of it all your life. It shines now brighter than ever. All things work toward the greater glory of the One Who is above all things. The power of evil has no power over Him. He will always draw good out of it, in spite of it.”

After Frodo remained silent, and Gandalf knew it was in disbelief, he continued. “Did you ever stop to think of how many guardians you have watching over you? You have always been surrounded by love and light, even in your darkest moments. Your parents didn’t stop loving you when they died. Love is stronger than death. They are still with you. You cannot see them, but they remain with you as long as you remain striving for the Light. Lost as you feel now, groping alone in the darkness, they remain at your side to help you.”

Frodo's silence broke and spilled from a shattered heart that also broke the wizard's anew. “Do you mean that they know what terrible things I did?” The hobbit's words were muffled but so overflowed with anguish and shame that both felt them as physical lashes. 

“And they love you all the same, just as I do, Sam does, and all those you truly know you and love you. And don’t tell me you don’t believe that, my most beloved and stubborn hobbit.”

Frodo didn’t respond with words, but Gandalf did not chide him further. That the Ring-bearer held him tighter was reply enough.

* * *

On the way back to the Shire, during the night of October 6 while the darkness of what happened a year before oppressed the Ring-bearer, he and Gandalf spoke quietly while the others slept. Arwen’s gift weighed on his mind. “I was thinking of what you said shortly after Sam and I woke, and you wondered if I still believed I was loved despite all the evil I did. I know I am. It is a marvel. I wouldn’t be alive now if I wasn’t. I know I must go on, but it’s so hard, so very hard. There are paths ahead of me that wonder if I dare to tread upon. They frighten me but beckon to me. I would rather walk through the woods of the Shire, under the shadow of known and beloved trees, instead of the other wood that does not have much of an obvious trail through it. I stand at the beginning of it, but it looks so much more difficult. I don’t know if I have the strength for it. None of it seems familiar, and I long for the much traveled paths of home.”

“You will have the strength because it is part of the same path you have walked all your life. You aren’t alone on it. Sam has always been there and your cousins, and they will continue to be and others that love you. I will walk it with you as far as you want me to. I have walked such a Road myself for many years. It does seem lonely and hard sometimes, but such is the path appointed to me and to you. We will all walk with you.”

“I would like that very much, because I so feel that I have lost my way.”

“No, you haven’t. You have found it. You say you stand at the beginning of it, but you have merely come to a fork in the road, and you have to decide which direction to take. Your heart knows the way. Take a few steps and find that strength will build for the rest of the journey. Continue on the narrow way. You will never walk it alone.” 

After Frodo stepped from the ship that had borne him to his new home, he looked up at Gandalf who smiled down at him. The hobbit took his friend’s hand and his uncle's and together they continued down the Road with all the others the wizard said would be with them.