A/N: The Red Book is briefly quoted from.

Though Boromir remained by Frodo’s side, he was soon aware that the hobbit’s spirit traveled far from him, and he wondered what aid he could provide upon the dark road his little brother now trod. He picked up the stylus and writing board that fell from Frodo’s hand and lap, as the hobbit curled upon himself and lay trembling with cold or fear. He was alarmed when Frodo suddenly vomited and almost ran to get Elrond, but felt it best to stay by his brother’s side instead. Frodo’s hands groped desperately around his neck and at other times he raised his arms as if to shield his head. Then he lay utterly still and stared into what terrible darkness Boromir did not even want to guess. He had seen such before in his own men. Few recovered from such a trial.

“What is happening to you, little brother?” Boromir breathed.

Frodo did not hear. He was alone in the Tower, utterly alone. The Orcs had left but he knew they were not far away. Any movement he made recalled them. His throat burned from vomit and his naked flesh too where their whips had scored him. He lay in his own waste. The brutal interrogation from the Orcs had brought him to the point of madness. Or was that caused by staring too long at the red light that was his only illumination and to his fevered mind, the sign of the Fire that was the doom that was soon consume all Middle-earth? He had told his tormentors nothing. There was nothing to tell. The Ring was gone. He felt a terrible gap in himself where it used to be, a dark abyss into which he longed to fall. He could not have said why. To follow it and reclaim it, to soothe his savage loss and lust, and then to continue the hopeless errand? To hold it against his heart once more in the hope of stanching the bleeding there caused by its loss, even as he was aware the Ring’s presence had been its own festering wound? Or perhap to hold it against the one thing he knew would drive him beyond any sanity, his Ring on the hand of the Enemy? Or was it so he could die before he saw the destruction of his world because he had failed in his Quest and doomed all those he had wished to save? He knew that last was a coward’s wish. He looked inside his shattered heart with all its secrets laid bare. It would have been better if he had not hearkened and yielded to the will that he had allowed to speak through him at Rivendell. It would have been far better if the Council had not trusted him with the fate of all. Didn’t Elrond, Gandalf, and the rest know it was too impossible a burden to place on such slim shoulders, upon a body pierced by a Morgul-blade? And where was Sam? Dead or soon would be, as all would soon be, if given the mercy of a quick passing. But would any die so under the domination of the Eye? Wouldn’t they first toil in torment and die only slowly and in agony? It was all his fault. He had failed. The Council had trusted him and he had violated their trust. He opened his mouth to scream out the devastating despair that overwhelmed him in its demand for release. But he bit down against it until his lips bled. No sound came to alert his attackers, only silent tears. His nausea passed and even the sharp pain of his tormented flesh ceased to trouble him amid the agony caused by reality of what he had done.

Boromir brushed at Frodo’s curls. “No, little brother. It did not fail. You and I both escaped over the Sea. The Shadow troubles Middle-earth no longer. Do you hear me?”

After Boromir received no response that Frodo was truly aware of him, he was not sure what else could reclaim his friend from the darkness. It was a wonder to him to the end of his days that a memory of his mother’s singing floated up to his consciousness then. But the greater marvel was that he began to sing the song himself, softly at first, feeling rather foolish, but as he saw Frodo respond to it, his voice grew stronger.

A pure, white light began to grow before the Ring-bearer’s eyes, as he had seen before in Shelob’s Lair. And out of the light came a voice. He raised his head and opened his mouth to respond, slowly, weakly. He no longer cared if the Orcs came. The coward he had become briefly wished they would and beat him senseless and release him into death. But they would not do that. They had orders not to. Somehow that gave him the choice and the strength to steel himself against his weakness. If he would not find death, then he would have to continue the fight, even as all crashed down into ruin beside him. In his pitiable condition, there was little he could do but raise his voice to join the song. It was a start.

Encouraged, Boromir continued to sing and as he did so, the light grew around Frodo. Awareness came slowly as he swam up from the blackness of nightmare and memory toward it.   The Ring-bearer looked at the man but the warrior could tell that he didn’t see him. “Sam?”

“No, little brother. ’Tis only I, Boromir. I have the Queen’s gem that she gave you. You forgot to put it on today. Perhap it would help you...”

Frodo stared at the outheld chain and gazed in marvel that the Ring was not lost after all, or was it as an orc held it? It was too much. They had stolen everything else, but that was small matter. He did not need clothes or even his mithril coat to get to the Fire, but he must have the Ring. A terrible wave of lust consumed him as eagerly as the flames of Mount Doom would, once he arrived there, to cast himself and his treasure into the pit. There would be no parting from it. He had to have it. He gazed at his enemy with venomous hatred.

“Give it to me! Give it me at once! You can’t have it! It’s mine! Thief! Thief!”