A/N-

Er, long time no see, eh? I did warn y'all I'm not the most consistent updater, didn't I?

I did finally get a hit of inspiration to work on this again though so here, after almost a year is the next chapter. It's not overly exciting, more than anything I'm just trying to re-acquaint myself with this story, but I hope you all enjoy it nonetheless.

Gary flopped down in the dirt in exhaustion. After a day of walking he wanted nothing more than to curl up and sleep for a day. Preferably in his own bed, in his own world, in his most manly pair of pajamas.

Instead he was lying in the dirt, in the middle of nowhere, in a now torn and muddy dress.

Gary had always liked to consider himself fairly fit. He'd been running track all through junior high and high school, and had even started running cross country the year past. No amount of running could have prepared him for the hours he had just spent trekking through wood and mountain.

He had spent the rest of the day tripping and stumbling in the wake of the Fellowship. The dress continued to get caught in the underbrush, and whenever the dress was free his hair was snagging on branches or blowing in his face. He had to wonder how girls ever dealt with having such long hair.

What was worse was that he was informed by the dwarf that the woods he had fallen into were really only a small grove. By small he meant only an hours journey through, but that wasn't even the bad part.

After leaving the woods they were to start ascending the foothills of a mountain. A rocky, uneven, steep mountain. A dress may be impractical for trekking through woods, but that had nothing on the impracticality of his current footwear for hiking up mountains.

They were little more than soft green slippers. No arch support. Hardly any sole. Gary was pretty sure they'd waste away to nothing after another day of this. That was if his feet didn't first.

He ached everywhere. From his throbbing feet, to his cut and scraped calves, up to his worn out thighs, and even his neck and shoulders seemed to ache. Adventuring never looked this painful and exhausting in the movies.

"Sit up lad," Gimli grinned down at him. "Time to eat."

At the mention of food Gary's stomach gave a deep rumble. "Food?" He asked hopefully.

The dwarf held a hand out to him. "You won't be so excited once you get a taste of it," he said with a devious glint in his eye.

Gary took the proffered arm and with Gimli's help pulled himself into a seated position. He winced as his knees cracked so loudly it startled one of the hobbits, Pippin he thought.

After taking a bite of the tough jerky he was offered Gary had to agree with the dwarf's sentiments. The slightly stale cracker he was also handed did little to improve his appreciation of their bland rations.

"So," Gary had to pause to swallow a mouthful of the tough-as-leather jerky. "Can I ask where we are, and where exactly we are going?"

Gimli, grunted as he sat beside him. "You'd think you youngin's would ask these questions before joining up," he replied, sending a particularity pointed look at the two younger hobbits. Said hobbits grinned sheepishly before looking away.

"But alas, maybe this trek will have to be what finally knocks some sense into you." Gary looked over the dwarf to see that he was grinning.

"That doesn't answer my question," Gary pointed out, before tearing off another strip of the jerky.

The dwarf guffawed in response. "I like you lad, not as stuck up and prim as some of our other, er, companions." This time Gary thought he saw Gimli's eyes slide toward the elf, before meeting his own once more. This time though, the gleam in his eye was replaced by a serious expression.

"Jokes aside lad, Aragorn was right. Our journey will be perilous," the dwarf replied. "Er, I am not certain, how much I should be telling you, as Aragorn would say we do not know enough about you to truly trust you. But as I said, I like you, so I will tell you this much. We are headed to the abandoned Mines of Moria, the onetime home of my kin, in order to travel southeast on a quest of the gravest importance."

Without thinking, around a mouthful of jerky, Gary said "Ya gotta detroy te ring righ?"

Wrong Gary. Oh so very wrong. You should never had said that. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

That was a small sample of the words that rushed through Gary's mind as he was suddenly surrounded by a flurry of action. Sam pushed Frodo behind him, brandishing a frying pan as if it were a deadly sword. Beside him Gimli clamored to his feet and joined Boromir, Legolas and the younger hobbits in forming a ring around Gary, their hands hovering over their weapons. Aragorn showed even less restraint and before Gary could comprehend what was happening the man's sword was pressed against his neck.

The other words running through his mind weren't acceptable for polite company.

"I suggest you start talking, and start talking quickly," Aragorn's voice was sharper than the edge of his sword which was pricking the skin of Gary's neck just below his chin. "How is it that you know the purpose of our quest?"

You're all made up in my world, and you're the stars of a bestselling book series and three blockbuster films. Everyone knows your quest. Sounded bad enough in his head and Gary reckoned it would sound worse out loud.

"Your time is running short if you cannot convince us you are not an ally of Sauron." The tip of Aragorn's sword pressed harder against Gary's throat, and he could feel a faint trickle of blood pooling around the blade.

"I, uh-" Gary swallowed the jerky still in his mouth with more than a little difficulty, drawing more blood against Aragorn's sword as he did so. "I don't know." Oh, that'll save your guts Gary.

"You don't know?" If anything Aragorn's voice grew even more frigid. "What kind of fools do you take us for?"

"I do-don't think you're fools," Gary stuttered, trying to pull back from the blade at his throat, only to find his back pressing into Boromir's own weapon. Gary was half tempted to try and pinch himself out of this horrible dream again. He'd had enough of being surrounded by weapons. "I just, I uh, I don't, know."

Aragorn's grey eyes narrowed further and Gary was sure his head would have swiftly left his shoulders had Gandalf not chosen that moment to clear this throat. The grey-haired wizard had been the only one not to rush into action after Gary uttered those stupid, stupid words. Instead he had remained where he had been sitting on an a fallen tree trunk, and was now in fact calmly smoking his pipe.

"Aragorn, why don't you take your sword from the poor boy's throat. There's no way he can think clearly with you threatening him like that. You're frightening him to death."

On a less dignified face Gary would have been sure the look Aragorn gave Gandalf clearly said, that's the point.

He did however breath a faint sigh of relief as he felt the pressure on his throat disappear, but the sword only drew back a few inches. Gary reckoned it would take approximately a half a second for it to cross the necessary distance to chop his head off.

After blowing a prefect ring of smoke, the wizard stood up, and joined those circling Gary. "You're a poor confused lad aren't you, Gary?" He asked, peering down at him.

"Gandalf," Aragorn's voice was now more subdued now, but still not settled. "You surely don't believe that he doesn't know how he knows."

"Oh, I know he knows how he knows," Gandalf replied calmly, and Gary had to scratch his head at the convoluted wording. "But if I'm not mistaken the events of the past day have been quite confusing."

"I think we've been over this before," Gary admitted.

"You do know how you know about our quest don't you?" Gandalf asked, and Gary couldn't help warming up to the old wizard's friendly manner. It was almost grandfatherly in nature. It was certainly a lot more welcoming than Aragorn's icy demeanor.

He nodded hesitantly and the wizard continued. "I have a feeling that you think if you did explain, we wouldn't believe you. As if how you know is otherworldy."

Scratch that comfortable feeling, Gary thought to himself. This old wizard is entirely to perceptive.

Still, Gary nodded, "You could say that."

"Hmm, curious," Gandalf settled back on his heels, and took another puff on his pipe. "Most curious indeed. I think I may be piecing together your story. I will have to consult with others before I am certain."

How anyone could piece together anything from the what little Gay had said about himself, and how he knew about the ring, was beyond him.

"Once we pass through the Mines of Moria I shall seek council with the Lady Galadriel," Gandalf went on. "She has more experience with cases similar to our friend Gary here, though I must say that I'm surprised he's a boy."

"Surprised he's a boy? What does that have to do with anything?" Aragorn sputtered. "And a friend? We cannot continue to trust him. He gets more suspicious as the day draws on and yet has no answers for us."

Gandalf sighed, and leveled Aragorn with one of those all-knowing looks. "Aragorn my friend, you have trusted my judgment for years have you not?" Grudgingly Aragorn nodded. "Then I ask you to trust me once more and accept that there are some things which we simply need not know at the moment."

"How can you be sure?" Aragorn protested but to Gary's great relief he sheathed his sword and took a step back. "He could be dangerous."

To Gary's complete surprise, Gandalf met the man's suspicions with a hearty chuckle. "Dangerous? An ally of Mordor? My old friend, do you truly believe the enemy would send a boy in a dress against us? How formidable a foe." Still chuckling to himself, the wizard returned to his gnarled tree trunk and returned to smoking his pipe. As the excitement died down the others slowly returned to whatever they had been up to before the stir up.

Gary realized that during his interrogation by Aragorn he had once again gotten twisted up in the voluminous material of the dress he was wearing. Ruefully he fixed it for what must have been the billionth time that day. To think that this blasted dress may well have just saved his life.

"You're certainly making things around here entertaining." Gary hadn't even realized that Gimli had taken his seat beside him once more. The dwarf was looking at him with a friendly smile.

Gary tried to smile in return, but he was pretty sure the results were weak at best. "Not to disappoint, but I'd prefer if I wasn't such a source of entertainment for you," he replied wryly.

"Don't worry yourself too much. If Gandalf believes we can trust you then I'm sure we can, and even Aragorn will come around eventually," the dwarf assured him, and Gary had to admit that the vote of confidence made him feel a little better.

Gary continued to share small talk with Gimli for the next hour or so. The dwarf's gruff but friendly manner was quickly growing on him, and was one of the few bright spots of what had been a nightmarish day.

When Gary finally found he was having difficulty keeping his eyes open he decided it was time to sleep. Bidding the dwarf goodnight he sought out a soft patch of ground and laid down to sleep.

He shivered slightly as the chill of night was setting in. He curled himself into a tight ball against the cold and did his best to wrap the fabric of the hateful dress around him as tightly as possible.

With any luck he'd awaken tomorrow to find this was all just a horrible dream.

A/N-

What does Gandalf know about Gary? Why is he surprised that Gary's a boy? Isn't Legolas supposed to be falling for poor Gary? All shall be revealed in time, and hopefully it won't take another year ;)

I hope to make the next few chapters a little funnier and really start to parody some Sue-traits a little more. If you guys have any Sue traits you want parodied, either ones that plague Sue's in general or those that are specific to LotR, let me know and I'll try and work them in at some point or another.