Previously:
"I hold your oath fulfilled." Aragorn said calmly in reply, dissipating any hostile feelings almost immediately. The Ghost King's face took on a relieved expression and he leaned back. "Go. Be at peace."

In a breath of cold wind, the ghost army blew away.

Annabeth now stood with Percy and Clarisse in the throne room of Gondor. Denethor had thrown himself off the walls of the city after almost burning himself and his son Faramir alive. Boromir was now with his brother. Apparently, even though Boromir actually lived, Denethor actually got it in his head that he had died. Faramir had heard it from Frodo and Sam when they passed through but it was corrected by Pippin when he and Gandalf arrived some time ago.

King Théoden was found next to Éowyn on the battle field. Éowyn is in the infirmary but Théoden died before they could get to him. Annabeth knew that the princess of Rohan would recover but it was still unnerving to see her so broken and lost. Aragorn worked what elf magic he knew on her but she still seemed empty.

The fellowship (except for Merry, who was in the infirmary and Pippin, who was with himwere both in the infirmary) was now meeting with the leader of Rohan, Éomer, and the demigods to discuss what should happen next.

"Frodo has passed beyond my sight." Gandalf was saying. "The darkness is deepening." He paced back and forth, filled with worry.

"If Sauron had the ring, we would know it." Aragorn said, almost scolding.

"It's only a matter of time." Gandalf sighed.

"He does not have the ring," Annabeth assured them. "But he and Sam need all the help they can get. We have defeated his army here, we have shown that we are more than he expected."

"He suffered a defeat, yes," Gandalf admitted. "But behind the walls of Mordor, our enemy is regrouping."

He sounded ominous, weighed down with the heaviness of the events. He seemed too sorrowful for hope.

"Let him stay there," Gimli said carelessly. "Let him rot! Why should we care?"

"I'm with the dwarf," Clarisse said. "He's defeated now, if he comes out, it's at his own risk!"

"Because 10,000 orcs now stand between Frodo and Mount Doom." Gandalf said shortly. He eyed both Gimli and Clarisse, who both made an 'oh' shape with their mouths and said nothing. Gimli put down his pipe and stopped his smoking.

"I have sent him to his death," Gandalf said, sounding more and more like he was the one defeated.

"No," Aragorn and Percy both said almost immediately. "There is still hope for Frodo. He needs time and safe passage across the plains of Gorgoroth. We can give him that."

"How?" Gimli asked doubtfully.

"Draw out Sauron's armies. Empty his lands," Aragorn said, growing more and more confident. "Then we gather our full strength and march on the Black Gate."

Gimli coughed suddenly. Percy grinned. "He's crazy, let's do it."

"It is the only way we can rid ourselves of this plague," Boromir suddenly appeared at the entrance to the room. "Let us ride. If only to avenge the ones we have lost."

"We cannot achieve victory through strength of arms." Éomer spoke up.

"Not for ourselves," Aragorn agreed. "But we can give Frodo his chance if we keep Sauron's eye fixed upon us. Keep him blind to all else that moves."

"A diversion." Legolas realized, proudly.

"Certainty of death," Gimli started cheerfully. "Small chance of success..." he gave a puff on his pipe. "What are we waiting for?"

"Yeah!" Clarisse shouted, hoisting her spear in the air. She bounced on her toes, as if about to run into battle already.

"Sauron will suspect a trap," Gandalf said, turning to Aragorn. "He will not take the bait."

"No, I think he will," Aragorn said with a small smile.

The group dispersed to take well deserved rest until they marched the next day.

"Annabeth, are you sure that Frodo and Sam are alright?" Percy asked as they walked outside.

"Yes, Percy," Annabeth said lowly.

"Don't believe her, Punk?" Clarisse said. "She's the one who wasted her time watching and reading this story."

"I do!" Percy said in protest. "I just wanted to know she wasn't just saying it to keep Gandalf from dying of despair."

"I would never do that." Annabeth denied.

"Oh yeah?" Percy challenged. "What about the time I couldn't find the starfish that I brought in from the beach? You said that he probably inched his way back to the beach—all the way from my cabin! When really he was inching his way back to the beach but got trampled by some campers!"

"...I don't know what you are talking about," Annabeth huffed. She winced internally. She had no idea he knew about that.

"That wasn't your best work, Chase," Clarisse agreed.

"Oh, be quiet, I know what I'm talking about here, alright?" Annabeth said. "Just go train or something!"

___________________________________________

The next day, they were getting ready to march out against Mordor when Annabeth suddenly couldn't find Percy. Again.

"Merry, Pippin, have you seen Percy?" Annabeth asked. "I lost him after breakfast and I thought he might have gone to hang out with you."

Merry and Pippin glanced at each other nervously before looking down at their feet.

Annabeth suddenly got a terrible feeling in her stomach. "If you two hobbits don't tell me where my boyfriend is right now, we are going to have some problems."

They started talking at once.

"Woah! One at a time, please!"

"Percy came up to us sometime after breakfast, looking over his shoulder and we thought—"

"We thought that he might have played a prank on Clarisse and was running away from her because—"

"Because we heard her screaming down the hall that someone was going to pay for what ever they did but turns out—"

"Turns out it was because we filled her helmet with flowers and mushrooms—"

"Not just her helmet, Merry, we also—"

"Boys." Annabeth cut poor Pippin off in the middle of his story. She was starting to get very frustrated. "Get to the point."

"Right, he told us that he had to go to Frodo and Sam because he had a dream—"

"We didn't understand why he needed to go because of a dream but he seemed so serious that we agreed anyway—"

"He wanted us to tell you something about Vapor Travel but he told us that you would be mad and we remembered the last time we saw you mad at Gimli—"

"We're so sorry, Lady Annabeth! We promise—"

"Stop." Annabeth raised her hand to her eyes to rub them. He did not just go and do that. "Did he say what the dream was about?"

"He said something about some orcs not moving with the rest of the army—"

"He said they were deserting but were going to be in the direct path of Frodo and Sam. He said he had a feelin' that they would mess everything up once we got to the Black Gate."

The pit in her stomach increased. That hadn't happened in the movies or the books. But if he Vapor Traveled, that could rise a whole other slew of problems. He needed water to travel that way. How was he going to get back? There was not a drop of water in Mordor other than in the skins the hobbits had with them. Not to mention that Vapor Travel was only experimental right now.

That whole encounter was the reason why she was so worked up as they rode to the gate. They arrived and got into formation, not too far away from the entrance.  She and Aragorn shared a worried glance. She had only shared the information she learned from Pippin and Merry with him. She knew Gandalf would have nothing encouraging to say.

____________________________________________

Percy fell flat on his face in the middle of a pile of gravel. He groaned and turned over. He hoped he landed in the spot he saw in his dreams otherwise there would be no point to this trip and he would get an earful from Annabeth in the next life. Because there is no way that he would survive if he landed in the wrong spot.

He struggled to sit up, breathing hard. All he saw was darkness and rocks. Oh, and the fiery eyeball tower. No hobbits, let alone orcs.

He fell back, hitting his head hard on the shards of rocks behind him. He groaned loudly and brought his hand quickly to the spot. The pain in his head because of that made everything so much worse. He brought his hand back and looked at it only to see blood coating his fingers.

"Did you hear that?"

Percy's heart rate sped up. Was that orc or hobbit?

"No, what?"

"I heard a something too. Do you think that's Commander Uruk, come to bring us back?"

There were three of them. Not to mention the Commander Uruk reference. It was orc.

Score.

Being as noiseless as he could, Percy stood up and crouched behind a boulder.

"Don't be stupid! Of course not! He has no idea we left this morning. We just need to get to the other side of Mount Doom before the end of the day and we'll even be out of sight of the eye!"

"Right, right, of course." The voices were getting steadily closer. "Don't be stupid, that's stupid. How would the Commander know? Unless the eye saw us already and..."

The rambling continued and Percy could tell one of them was getting increasingly frustrated. It was only a matter of time before he had enough.

Percy had to go for the ones not rambling first or the quiet ones would notice. He didn't have the energy to take on three orcs at the same time. He peaked over the edge of the boulder to see the rambling orc trailing some distance away from the two in  front.

Perfect. Just perfect. He'll definitely notice if he takes care of the quiet ones first. Or maybe not. He seems really lost in his rambles, maybe he won't notice.

Ignoring the parched feeling all around his body, he leapt into action, sword at the ready.

Taking care of the one in the middle was no problem, he was far enough ahead of the noisy orc that he didn't even notice when Percy took him out. Unfortunately, that's when the leader finally had enough of the last one's rambling.

"That's it," he turned around and yelled with his eyes closed, "Shut it!"

Upon seeing Percy standing over the dead body of his silent buddy, both orcs fell silent. "Uh, hi guys!" Percy said awkwardly. This didn't go how he planned out in his head. Where was Annabeth when you needed her? "Really? Deserting? Now I know how much honor orcs really have."

"Who are you?" The leader said. "How did you know we were leaving?"

"...I'm the assassin Sauron sends out to people who leave." Percy said, thinking fast. "You're going to end up just like him in just a few minutes because you deserted the cause."

"You're one to talk about honor, then!" The leader said. "Everyone knows assassinating isn't honorable at all!"

"Yeah!" The rambling orc agreed loudly.

Percy put his hand to his forehead. He was starting to have one of those dehydrated headaches. That and his wound on the back of his head probably didn't help. The orc's voice was only making it worse. "Dude, that was just too loud, have some curtesy here."

"Sorry," the orc said, making an effort to be quieter.

"What? No you're not!" The leader said. "He's going to kill you, why are you apologizing?"

"Oh, right," the orc said, still trying to be as quiet as possible. "Not sorry, sorry."

Percy couldn't help but laugh. This entire encounter was too ridiculous, he couldn't wait to tell Annabeth about it. That thought stopped him short. He might not make it back to her if he can't kill these last two orcs.

His sudden, insane sounding laughter then randomly stopping in the middle unnerved the two orcs, who started inching away. Neither of them had any weapon besides the usual orc sword. They were heavy but weren't too well made. Should be easy to disarm or break.

Percy charged the leader, catching him off guard. He only barely got his sword up in time to block Percy's first swing but the demigod was ready for that. In his other hand, he held a dagger he swiped from the armory. He plunged it into the side of the orc, causing him to bend over to try to staunch the blood and the pain. Percy learned how to fight with a dagger from the best. Annabeth told him the most painful place to put a dagger so his enemy would be incapacitated faster. As the orc bent over, Percy swung his sword again, slicing off his head.

The son of Poseidon then turned around to the stunned orc behind him as the head of his leader rolled off to the side.

Without a word, the orc spun and started running in the opposite direction. He didn't get too far though, before he tripped and fell flat on his face. Percy just watched as he struggled to his feet and started running again. Except he must have twisted his ankle because now he was hobbling rather than running.

Percy now walked after him and caught up before he could get to far. Just as the orc was turning around to see if Percy had followed him, he had been stabbed with both sword and dagger. One in the neck, the other in the ribcage.

With now three orc bodies scattering the ground, Percy stumbled over to the boulder he had hid behind and leaned on it, putting his hands on his knees. He was breathless already, that had taken too much out of him than it should have. He resolved to rest here before heading to Mount Doom to catch up with Frodo and Sam.

He must have dozed off for a bit there because the next thing he knew, Sam was in front of him.

"Percy?" Sam said, patting him on his shoulder. "What in all of Middle Earth are you doin' here?"

Percy gestured to the orc bodies around them. "I had a dream about them and they were heading in your direction so I did this thing called Vapor Travel to get to them before they got to you."

"Percy," Frodo said in amazement. "Thank you."

"No problem," Percy said, smiling. "We're almost there, should we go?"

"Are you sure you should be traveling right now? You're wounded." Sam said.

Percy touched the back of his head and looked at his fingers. No fresh blood. "I'll be fine. It's best if we stay together anyways. I'll be fine as long as I don't touch the ring." He said. "I have a feeling it won't tempt me if I do. It will just burn me or something. I don't know, I'm just not touching it."

"No problem," Sam said heavily. "Let's go then."

However, just as they started walking, they felt as if someone was about to look at them. Percy looked towards the tower to see the eye turning towards them.

"Get down!" Sam yelled.

Percy saw Frodo standing as if frozen and lunged. He tackled him to the ground just in time.

Percy didn't know how long they were laying there but it felt like it was for an eternity. When the eye finally moved on, Percy laid there for a few seconds more, just to be sure.

"It's gone," Sam said. "The light's passed on away towards the north. Something's drawn it's gaze."

"That would be Aragorn at the walls of Mordor." Percy said. "He's marched on the Black Gate in hopes of keeping the eye focused on him so he wouldn't see you guys heading to Mount Doom."

"Then we'd best be going." Sam said. "We should use what time he's given us to it's fullest."

The clamored back up and started walking again. Before he knew it, Percy and the hobbits were climbing up the side of the mountain. They made it about halfway up before they all collapsed, almost too exhausted to go on. But Sam crawled over to Frodo and pulled him into his arms.

"Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo?" He said. Percy, laying on his back, looking up at the smoke filled sky suddenly got tears in his eyes. "It'll be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they'll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields...and eating the forest of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?"

Percy suddenly wondered if he remembered that same thing. He hadn't had a strawberry since he was at camp. It's been too long since then.

"No, Sam," Frodo whispered. "I can't recall the taste of food...nor the sound of water...nor the touch of grass. I'm naked in the dark. There's—there's nothing. No veil between me and the wheel of fire. I can see him...with my waking eyes."

Percy's overwhelming feeling of sorrow was overridden by Sam's fierce cry. "Then let us be rid of it once and for all! Come on, Mr Frodo, I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you! Come on!"

Then with a strength Percy was sure that Sam hadn't had before, the hobbit lifted Frodo onto his back and started climbing up the mountain again. "Come on, Percy!"

Percy gained strength from the hobbit's courage and got to his feet, trailing after the now swiftly moving Samwise Gamgee. It was because he was trailing behind that he saw the creature follow Sam onto the path to the doorway in the mountain.

"Clever hobbits, to climb so high!" The creature hissed before leaping in the air at them. It landed on Frodo's back on top of Sam and pulled him off. It started choking poor Frodo before Percy could do anything about it. But Percy still had his sword out. He swung at the creature but because he was so disorientated, he missed, only hitting him with the flat of his blade.

It recovered quickly but not quickly enough to escape being charged by Sam. It bashed Sam's head against a rock and pushed him to the ground. But Sam brought out his own sword and sliced across it's stomach. It gave pause enough for Sam and Percy to realize that Frodo had made a run for the doorway into the mountain.

They ran after him, leaving the weird creature behind.

"Frodo!" Sam called into the steam.

"I'm here, Sam." He was standing on the edge of the ledge in the middle of the volcano.

"Destroy it!" Sam yelled now.

Percy felt a weight begin to lift. It was almost over. All Frodo had to do was yank the chain off and throw it into the lava.

Frodo lifted the chain with the ring on it over the edge.

"Go on! Now!" Sam yelled desperately. "Throw it in the fire!"

Percy suddenly felt the weight back in full force. Frodo was waiting too long.

"What are you waiting for?" Sam asked. He was starting to cry. "Just let it go!"

"Ah!" Percy felt the voice in his head, causing his headache to worsen. The weight grew with a force that pulled him to the ground. Frodo turned around, the ring now safely from the edge.

"The ring is mine." He said. He yanked the chain from off the ring and put it on his finger. He instantly disappeared.

"No," Sam muttered in despair. "No. No!"

Percy was not in a position to do anything but curl up and groan in pain. Which is why he missed the creature coming back and knocking Sam out with a rock. The creature seemed to figure out how to find Frodo though, and immediately jumped on him, fighting for the ring.

Percy watched through the pain, and realized that they were inching closer and closer to the edge.

Sam must have realized that too because he began to crawl towards them even though he was sure to have a concussion.

The creature bit down on something hard and pulled. Frodo yelled in agony as he popped back into view. The creature then hopped off of him and danced in victory before pulling the ring off of Frodo's finger...which was now detached from his body.

As it held the ring up, looking at it in awe, it yelled in it's gravely voice, "Yes! Precious! Precious!"

Frodo moved from his spot but Percy figured what he would do and moved before he did. He ran towards Frodo, pulling him back from the creature and simultaneously kicked it over the edge.

"Come on, Sam," Percy said, reaching down to lift him up on his feet. "We need to go before the volcano explodes on us." He still held Frodo under his arm.

They made it out just in time to see the tower with the eye on top of it collapse.

Lava was seeping out of every opening the volcano had. They had to move fast to a large boulder high enough to keep them from getting burned.

"It's gone," Frodo said, looking torn between being happy and sad. "It's done."

"Yes, Mr. Frodo. It's over now." Sam agreed.

"Great," Percy coughed just as a quake shook them from their feet. "I wish we had a way home."

"I can see the Shire," Frodo said now, flat on his back with his eyes closed. "The Brandywine River. Bag End. Gandalf's Fireworks. The lights in the Party Tree."

"Rosie Cotton dancing." Sam added. "She had ribbons in her hair. If ever I was to marry someone, it would've been her." He sobbed. "It would've been her."

Percy couldn't help the tears falling down his face as he thought of Annabeth. It didn't look like either of them would get the happy ending they dreamed of right now. He and Frodo moved at the same time towards Sam. They both pulled him into a hug.

"I'm glad to be with you, Samwise Gamgee, and Percy Jackson...here at the end of all things." Frodo finished.