elderberrywine (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
elderberrywine) wrote2004-02-08 12:22 pm
elderberrywine) wrote2004-02-08 12:22 pm
New Fic - Sweet Cider, Part Three
Here is the third part of Sweet Cider, one more part to go.
Title: Sweet Cider, Part Three
Author: Elderberry Wine
Pairing: F/S
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Life used to be so simple.
Sweet Cider
Part 3
The sun was high in the sky, the afternoon quite warm, and there were somnolent clusters of hobbits lying in the shade of the ash trees about the perimeter of the Summer Market field. The contributing cooks had been in fine form this year, and fortunately enough, there would still be a few hours until it would be cool enough to begin the dancing.
Petunia and Iris Burrows, with whom May had been visiting, were encamped under a tree near the food tents, along with the Gamgee lasses and Rosie Cotton. It was a strategic position, with an excellent view of the flow in and out of the tents. The lasses were sitting cross-legged about the trunk of the tree, except for Marigold and Rosie, who were stretched out on a blanket that Marigold had brought with her.
“There he is,” May announced suddenly, discreetly nodding her head towards a rather tall, fair-haired hobbit walking from the tent towards the upper section of the field where the buyers and sellers had congregated.
“Why, who would that be?” Marigold sat up quickly, watching the hobbit with great curiosity. “I’d not be seein’ him before.”
“Anston Bracegirdle,” Iris Burrows turned to inform her. “Lives out East Farthing way.”
“His family owns quite a bit of it,” Petunia added. Turning back to watch him, she gave his back view a decidedly measuring glance. “Rather nice, isn’t he.”
“Yes,” May stated in a decisive way, adding after a moment‘s consideration, “that’d be the one.”
Her sisters and friends turned towards her as one, astonished. “Why, May, has the lad even met you yet?” Daisy couldn’t keep the amusement out of her voice.
“Well, I’ve seen him about,” May declared, rising to her feet and shaking out her skirts. “I’m sure as he’s been seein’ me as well.”
“May!” Marigold gasped, sitting up straight. “Sure an’ you not bein’ serious. Why, you’d not even know him yet.”
“Family owns quite a bit of land, no brothers, parents rather old, and not a bit spoken for,” May listed crisply, carefully adjusting her curls and retying the ribbons.
“But, May,” Rosie sat up next to Marigold and stared at May with a troubled expression. “You don’t even love him.”
“Not yet, mayhap,” May replied, with such a glint in her eye that none of the others dared say more. “But I will.” And she left them, making her way to the upper field.
Sam was under a tree on the far side of the field, lying in the shade, in the company of Jolly and his younger brothers Nick and Nibs, as well as Hob and Will Brown, cousins of the Cottons, who had been visiting from the North Farthing. Sam had been sitting against the tree trunk, but as the afternoon sun rose higher in the brilliantly blue sky, he found himself beginning to slide down the smooth trunk until eventually he was lying in the tall grass and feeling more than comfortable. The buzz of talk about him, the warm air fragrant with the aromas drifting up field from the food tents, and the delayed effect of his early awakening that morning had contributed to his current dozing state. He paid little heed to the subject at hand until the sound of his name caught his attention.
“You’d be helpin’ us then?” Will Brown was looking at him hopefully.
“Aye, you’d be the oldest, now,” declared Hob, Will’s older brother, nodding his head enthusiastically. “You’d be knowin’ all the lasses.”
Sleepy as he was, Sam was beginning to get an idea as to what they were expecting from him, and blinking, he sat up and quickly glanced at Jolly in consternation. Jolly said nothing, but there was an amused look on his face as he waited for Sam’s response.
“Sure, Rosie’s always sayin’ what a wonderful dancer Sam’d be,” Nick piped up helpfully, and the two Brown lads nodded together as five sets of eyes fixed upon Sam. But Jolly had seen the brief pain on Sam’s face at the mention of his sister, and turning towards the others, laughingly said, “Well ye can’t be believin’ Rosie on that one. This lad has trod on the feet of more lovely lasses than you could ever know. Why, they haven’t let him near the dancin’ for years now.”
“Aye, ‘tis true,” Sam shot a grateful look at Jolly and tried his best to appear properly abashed. “It’d be Jolly here, as’d be the one you should be lookin’ at to help you out.” Jolly grinned back at Sam, but his two younger brothers cast dubious glances at each other.
Frodo tried to restrain a weary sigh as he sat on a bench on the upper field. The trading area was thick with dignitaries, but there was no-one here who he really cared to spend much time with. How had Bilbo ever managed to get through all this, he wondered glumly. He understood such matters as grain yield per square foot, really he did, but his interest in the matter was breathtakingly small. Guiltily, he tried to absorb more of the conversation around him, for Bilbo had also taught him that those that farmed Baggins land depended on him to drive home the best bargain for their crops.
Halfway through the tiring afternoon, he spotted Ned Proudfoot returning from a quick pick-me-up in the food tent. Glad of a face that he knew, he made his way through the crowd, and was greeted cheerfully by Ned. “First Summer Market on your own, is it not?” Ned asked, giving him a canny look. “Well, follow me, lad, and tell me how it goes,” he added kindly, leading Frodo to a side bench away from the center of the dealing.
Frodo followed him gratefully. Ned Proudfoot was several years older than he was, yet still fairly young to be the head of a landholding family, his father having died early from the summer fever some years back. The Proudfoot family did not have much land, but they took pride in being one of the few farming families about Hobbiton as did not farm Baggins land. Nevertheless, Frodo had found Ned to be helpful and scrupulously fair in all his dealings.
“What price have ye for wheat, then?” Ned asked, dropping down heavily on the bench, for he was a hobbit who thoroughly enjoyed his meals. Frodo told him, including the last bargain he had made with Old Sandyman the miller, Ted’s father.
“Old Sandyman gave ye that price, now, did he?” grunted Ned, pulling out and filling his pipe. “I’ll be back.“ He rose and went over to the cook fires in the food tent to light it, and slowly ambled back and settled down on the bench again, leaning heavily against the back slat of the bench.
“Yes, he did,” Frodo replied, nervously, rubbing his hands unconsciously over his knees.
“Well then,” Ned gave a short laugh, drawing greedily on the pipe and carefully blowing a ring of smoke towards the others, “you’d be lucky, I’d say. That’d be a fair enough price, and from Old Sandyman, too.”
“It pays to be careful w’that ‘un,” he continued, smiling as Frodo gave a visible sigh of relief, “but he’s always been a hobbit of his word.” Glancing back over at the others in the upper field, he added with a sour tone, “That lad of his, though, he’d be a useless a git as ever there was one.”
Following Ned’s gaze, Frodo saw Ted Sandyman standing with Lotho Sackville-Baggins and another hobbit whom he did not recognize. They were laughing loudly, mugs of beer in hand, and commenting on the lasses who were beginning set out the preparations for tea in front of the food tents. Some of the lasses did not care for the remarks, and turned away with frowns, but not all.
“And that Lotho Sackville-Baggins,” snorted Ned, still watching them. “Beggin’ your pardon, Frodo, seein’ as how he’s your cousin and all, but that ‘un is good for naught but causin’ trouble. There’d be no reason for him to be up there, since all he has to be doin’ is runnin’ errands for his mam, but he’d like to make the lasses think otherwise.”
“Distant cousin,” Frodo replied crisply, “and I would not disagree with you. But who is that with them?”
Ned peered at the newcomer for a moment and then nodded. “Anston Bracegirdle, Lotho’s cousin on his mother’s side, family lives out East Farthing way,” he announced, giving Frodo the necessary information. “The Market that way would na be for a couple weeks more. Probably getting an idea of the prices. But he’d best be finding a better lot to be around than that pair.”
“Well, Frodo,” he rose heavily to his feet then, giving the younger hobbit a congenial pat on the shoulder. “Sounds as if you did a’right for yourself, lad. Let’s be havin’ a look at the strawberry tarts down there. I hear as Widow Muddle did herself fair proud this year.”
The moon, a silver sliver amongst the stars, was already well up when Frodo and Sam set off for home. The roads out of Hobbiton were thick with families on their way to the outlying farms, for the morning chores would be there come dawn, and there would be extra work to pay for this day’s pleasure. Carts and ponies rumbled past them, full of festive hobbits, usually with the most sober of the lot steering the pony through the throng. Most of the inhabitants of Hobbiton, however, were still dancing and eating back on the field, and beer and ale still flowed freely, for they had not as far to go.
Sam and Frodo walked unnoticed, for the most part, down the road towards Bag End. But when they reached the fields on the outskirts of Hobbiton, Frodo stopped by the side of the lane. “Let’s take the old road back to Bag End,” he said quietly to Sam. “It might be longer, but I’d rather not have these ponies breathing down my neck.”
“Aye,” Sam agreed gratefully, “I could surely do with a bit o’quiet.”
There was a old dirt path that left the main road, climbing up the embankment, and into the woods that still lay between Hobbiton and Bag End. It was a road for the most part forgotten, initially created by herders to summer pastures on the far side of the hill. There were greener fields, nearer Hobbiton now, and so the road had little usage. But it had been one of Bilbo’s favorite routes back from town, and Frodo knew the way well. Grasping Sam’s hand, he led him up the embankment, under the spreading oak, and the noise of the main road was soon gone.
With few travelers upon it, the path had become overgrown with soft grasses, and the fragrance of the woods was deep and rich in the warm summer’s night air. Frodo and Sam walked along wordlessly for quite a ways, hands clasped together, until Frodo stopped in front of an old lightning-blasted stump of an ancient cedar tree. It was broad and smoothly weathered over time, with ample room on it for two hobbits to have a seat, and a bit of trunk left for a back rest.
“Ah,” Frodo laughed, “I thought I should find it here, even in this dark. One of Bilbo’s favorite rests. Let’s sit for awhile, Sam, this night is too lovely, at least out here, to hurry back to Bag End.”
Sam gladly agreed, and they were quickly settled on the remains of the cedar, Frodo’s arm wrapped around Sam‘s shoulders, and Sam‘s hand on Frodo‘s knee.
They sat companionably in silence for some time, but then Frodo said softly, “I didn’t see you dancing, Sam.”
“Aye, well,” Sam sighed, “That’d be a problem. I can’t be dancin’ w’Rosie now, but it ‘d hurt her that much to see me dancin’ w’another lass. So, it’d be best if I just leave off dancin’ altogether for a bit.”
“You are such a good dancer, Sam,” Frodo commented quietly.
“Not to worry, there’ll be plenty more dancin’,” Sam smiled in the dark and gave Frodo’s knee a reassuring squeeze. Frodo said no more, but not long after, rose up from the stump, and, with Sam’s hand still in his, pulled him off as well, and Sam followed him back to the path.
The thin sliver of moon was high above, and the stars brilliant about it, when they reached the old abandoned pasture near the top of the hill, encircled with what remained of a rail fence. Leaving the path, Frodo released Sam’s hand and walked slowly out into the tall grass of the old pasture, stopping mid-field with his arms crossed over his chest, and his back to Sam. Sam followed behind, and then settled against a portion of the fence nearby. It was clear to him that Frodo had something to say, and he waited.
“Sometimes it seems to me that I’ve only managed to turn your life all about.” Sam heard Frodo’s words only faintly ahead of him, as Frodo stood with his back to him and his dark head down. “What did you ever find in me anyway, Sam?”
Sam watched him in silence for a few moments, and then walked up behind Frodo and, loosely wrapping his arms around Frodo’s waist, rested his forehead on Frodo’s shoulder. Frodo inhaled, closing his eyes, at Sam’s embrace, and covered Sam’s arms with his own.
“When you first came t’Bag End,” Sam said slowly, with his head still against Frodo’s shoulder, “you’d not be like anyone as I’d ever seen, and when you’d be out in the garden, I’d stop and just stare at you. But the gaffer, he’d gi’ me a cuff, and let me know as you’d be a gentle hobbit, an’ I’d not be pesterin’ you w’me foolish ways. But if that were all, I’d like enough ha’ gotten past that.”
“No,” tightening his grasp slightly, Sam continued softly on. “That really weren’t it. It was you talkin’ to me then, findin’ me in the garden when the gaffer weren’t about, and just talkin’ to me, askin’ me questions as you’d really want to know my answers. And you didn’t care none about my place or yours, nor that I’d just be the gardener’s son, born to dig in the dirt just like his da.”
“An’ what questions they’d be,” Sam smiled at the memories, giving Frodo a light kiss on the back of his neck. “Not as to whether I thought the cabbage’d be comin’ in good this year, oh, no. It was as whether the lily on the hill wou’be the deepest gold as I’d ever seen, an’ why the bullfrog in the pond’d be preferin’ the water reeds o’er the lily pads, an’ if seeds blew in on the west wind, did I think if they’d be a’blowin’ from elven lands? An’ though I’d just be a fauntling, you truly cared what it was I’d be thinkin’. Not even to mention Mr. Bilbo’s lessons, for I know, Frodo, as you’d a hand i’that all along.”
Sam turned an unresisting Frodo gently around in his arms then, and holding his shoulders, looked intently into his eyes. “You changed me, Frodo,” he murmured, “I’m not the same hobbit that I would ha’been if you’d never come to Bag End. But it was never takin’ me to your bed as what changed me. It was everything as you ever did. An’ there was nothing you ever did, that I didna wish for, w’all my heart. None could ever had more luck than I’d be havin’ the first time I ever lay my eyes on you.“
“Not as much luck as I have had, though you’ll never believe me,” Frodo raised a hand to Sam’s cheek.
Sam smiled again, and gently turned his face into Frodo’s hand, kissing his palm lightly. “Mayhap not, me dear,” he murmured, “but it makes my heart glad t’hear you sayin’ so.”
“Then I suppose we both must agree that we’ve been fortunate,” Frodo laughed tenderly, wrapping an arm firmly around Sam’s back, and with the other hand still against Sam’s face, drew Sam’s mouth to his.
“Aye, love, that we are,” Sam breathed, his hands now around Frodo’s waist, holding him closely indeed.
And then there was time for no more words, as they hungrily opened their mouths to each other, as no more words needed to be said. Only the joining of lips, tongues, and breath mattered. All the responsibilities of the day fell away from Frodo, and all that he now knew was the summer night’s pale light, the fragrant grass below, and the hobbit that he loved so very dearly in his arms.
When they had had their fill of kisses, at least for the moment, Frodo held Sam closely and looked up at the stars as Sam lay his head on Frodo’s shoulder. Without even knowing that he did so, Frodo began to softly hum a tune from that evening’s dancing, a slow and achingly beautiful air, and Sam tightened his grasp about Frodo. “There was only one as I wished to dance with,” he said then, raising his head and looking into Frodo’s eyes, dark in the moonlight. “Dance with me now, me love.” And they did, lost in their own melody, until they at last lay down together in the grass. They did not return to Bag End until dawn.
There was a fine drizzle falling as Sam sat at the tea table with Tom and Marigold in their new smial a few weeks after Summer Market. Tom was stirring what was left of his tea with a preoccupied air. “First ‘tis not enough rain, and now’d be that much. Third day now we’d be havin’ this wet,” he grumbled. “Can’t be puttin’ off that hay harvest much longer now. There’d still be the wheat as well. An’ after that freezin’ winter as we last had, everyone needs be restockin’ their hay.”
Sam raised his mug and drained it. “You know as you can be countin’ on me, now,” he reminded Tom. “And your cousins, they’d still be here, wouldn’t they?”
“They leave as of the end of the week, they’d be needed back home.” Tom’s frown grew. “If we had only had a few days of sun this week, it could’ve been done by now.”
He stood up and stretched. “Well, I best be off. Da is waitin’ for me back in the barn.” With a quick smile, he clasped Sam’s shoulder and added, “But ‘tis good to see you, lad. Harvest or no, don’t be a stranger t’us.”
Marigold rose as well, and giving her husband a quick kiss, watched him walk out into the light rain. “Ah,” she sighed, turning back to Sam, “he’s been that worried. He’d been countin’ on a good harvest year to be helpin’ w’all this,” and she motioned around her, to the neat, although sparsely furnished smial.
“We’ll be havin’ some sun yet, don’t you fret, Mari, dear,” Sam smiled fondly at his sister as he got up from the table. “But at least the fruit’d be likin’ their toes all damp.” He turned to a bag that he had left by the door. “Peaches, grapes, and a few of the early plums,” he announced, placing the bag on the table. “An’ any extra bit as you wish to bake w’these, I’d be that glad to take off your hands, for you’ve always been the best Gamgee baker. Just don’t tell our sisters as I said that,” he added in mock warning.
Marigold laughed. “They’d be sayin’ ‘tis you, Sam,” she teased back, giving him a hug.
“Well, I know Tom’d be agreeing w’me,” Sam said with a grin. “I’d best be off myself.”
She walked with him to the door. “Married life’s agreein’ right well with you, Mari, dear,” Sam said with a warm smile as he turned to leave. “I’ve never seen you lookin’ so happy.”
“ ’Tis that wonderful,” Marigold said quietly, with Sam’s hand still in hers. “To know you’d be bound to one as thinks you’d be that special, and be feelin’ the same about him.”
“ ‘Tis wonderful, isn’t it,” Sam responded quietly.
“Samwise!” Marigold tried for a stern look, but couldn’t manage it, and broke out in a merry laugh. “Ah, we’d be a besotted pair o‘Gamgees, now, wouldn’t we. And glad I am of it.”
Besides the difficulties with the harvesting, there was another danger that came with the wet summers. Rumors were soon confirmed. The summer fever was once again bringing strong, healthy hobbits to their beds. Some, usually those who had survived a case of it in their childhood, shook it off easily enough, or were entirely unaffected. For others, it was devastating, and all too often, deadly. And none could be without concern, for sometimes even those who had escaped its effects many times before were suddenly brought low. “As uncertain as the fever” was a common enough expression in the Shire, and all too true.
The first cases were in town, but soon there were reports of illness and an occasional death in the outlying farms as well. Daisy’s skills were once again called upon, and it was a weary healer that came to the Burrows smial in Hobbiton in search of her sister. May had remained in town after the Summer Market, saying only to Daisy that she had reasons to stay, but now Daisy had need of her at home.
But it was May herself who answered the knock, and her face was pale and drawn. “Both lasses and their father,” she sighed, beckoning Daisy into the vacant front room of the rather grand smial. Daisy followed and the two sisters sat on a bench before the cold and empty hearth.
“It’s just Mistress Burrows and myself to care for them,” May threw her head back against the backrest and stretched her legs out before her. “How’d the rest be doing?” she turned her head, giving Daisy a worried look.
“Oh, they’d all be right enough,” Daisy quickly said in a reassuring voice, taking up May’s hand and giving it an affectionate pat. “It’s just that, well, Marigold an’ Sam wou’be gone now, and I’m gone myself most the day, and I’d just not like t’be leavin’ Da alone. But I wouldn‘t want t‘be takin‘ you from those as need you here.”
“So many of us in that tiny bit of a smial,” May mused quietly, staring unseeingly at the fine rugs spread before the empty fireplace. “An’ now it’d be just you and Da.” Then her expression hardened. “I’ll not be comin’ back to it, Daisy. Always crammed together, no room t’yourself. Never enough t’eat, naught as is ever your very own. Naught as isn’t useful, no trinket just for the beauty of it.”
Defiantly, she stared back into Daisy’s saddened face. “I’ll be Mistress Bracegirdle soon enough, Daisy. See if I ain’t. I won’t be goin’ back.”
There had been three days without rain, but Tom Cotton was not thinking of the hay harvest that was so overdue. He was in bed, and Marigold was near frantic, trying to keep the cool cloths on his forehead as he pulled them off in his delirium. Daisy was there as well, brewing one of her special herbal teas to help keep his temperature down. There was no cure for summer fever, but there were some potions that, in some cases, helped. Daisy knew them all, and would methodically try one after another. This was her second attempt to help Tom, and she was trying to hide her concern from Marigold.
Jolly had been restlessly going from one smial to another, for his father was sick as well, in the Cotton smial at the top of the hill. Troubled with his worries, he found himself staring at the hay, but with just himself and his two younger brothers, there was no hope of bringing it in. Marigold had found him outside, staring at the fields, when she went out to pump some more water for the invalid.
“There’d be naught I can do,” Jolly murmured brokenly, as she sympathetically touched his arm. “Hob and Will’d be gone, and Nick and Nibs do what they can, but…”
“There’s Sam,” Marigold replied sturdily. “Don’t you go forgettin’ him, now.”
“No,” Jolly gave a reluctant smile, “I’ve been hearin’ plenty from him about not callin’ him when we were cuttin’ oats. But even so…” he sighed, staring back out at the fields again. “Well ‘tis all I can do, and I must try my best. This harvest is that important to us.”
It was mid-morning when there was a knock on Bag End’s round front door. Frodo had been in the study, engrossed in a particularly difficult translation, and it had been several moments before he realized that the sounds that he was dimly hearing were knocks on the door. Curious, he walked down the hall. It was certainly not Merry or Pippin, for the knocking was polite and hesitant.
Opening the door, he was surprised to find Jolly Cotton standing before him, face rosy, and clearly intimidated to be in this position. “Why, Jolly,” Frodo exclaimed, with a warm smile, “how good it is to see you.” Graciously, he motioned Jolly inside into the cool front doorway.
“I’d be here for Sam, beggin’ your pardon, Mr. Frodo,” Jolly stammered out, his face becoming redder yet. “If I might be havin’ a word w’him, sir…” he trailed off, thoroughly embarrassed about putting the Master of Bag End in the position of a messenger.
“Of course, Jolly,” Frodo said quickly, trying to put the young hobbit at his ease. “I believe he’s in the back garden. Would you like to follow me?”
Jolly gulped, and nodded wordlessly. The quickest route to the garden was through the smial and out the kitchen door, which was the way Frodo took him, but Jolly’s eyes betrayed his nervousness as he followed Frodo. He had never seen the interior of the legendary Bag End before.
Sam looked up in surprise from the tomato beds that he was staking when Frodo walked up to him, a painfully anxious Jolly in tow. “Sam,” Frodo said, formally, the amusement on his face only visible by Sam, “Jolly Cotton would like to have a word with you, if you don’t mind.”
“Thank you, Mr. Frodo, and if it isn’t that good t’be seein’ ye, Jolly,” Sam exclaimed warmly, rising up and brushing the dirt off of his knees. “Would there be summat wrong?” his tone quickly changed to concern as he had an opportunity to get a better look at Jolly. Frodo, who had been heading back to the kitchen door, turned at that, and pausing, gave Jolly a closer look as well.
“Aye,” Jolly gulped, and Sam quickly saw that he was on the edge of crumbling.
“Now then, Jolly, you need to be havin‘ a seat and tell me about it,” he was instantly at Jolly’s side, wrapping a firm arm around him, and leading him to the kitchen door, giving Frodo a worried glance that Jolly did not catch.
Frodo quickly went ahead, opening the door for them, and picked up the kettle as Sam and Jolly settled at the kitchen table, Sam sitting close by Jolly, his arm still embracing him. “Tea?” Frodo asked Sam quietly, and Sam nodded in silent agreement.
Frodo placed the kettle back on the hook, and stirred the remains of the kitchen fire under it until the flames leapt up again. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sam watching Jolly with growing concern, his arm still firmly around the younger hobbit. Jolly was obviously trying the collect himself up enough to speak, too distraught to even be appalled that the Master of Bag End was making tea especially for him.
Finally, with a deep breath, Jolly stammered out, “ ‘Tis da and Tom. The both o’them, w’the fever. Three days now. And the hay, it wants cuttin’. An’ there’d just be me and the two lads. An’ how can I be gettin’ help when ‘tis the same everywhere? The rain, it’ll be back, I know. An’ we’ll be losin’ it to the mildew, sure enough. I just, I just…” and with a gulp, he could say no more, but put his hands to his face and tried to keep the sobs back.
“Ah, now, don’t you be a’worryin’ about what can’t be helped, Jolly dear,” Sam’s arm around Jolly tightened. “Daisy’d be with your da an’ Tom, right? She’d be the best as is, you know that full well.” Sam’s voice was calm and soothing, and he produced his pocket handkerchief, which Jolly gratefully accepted. “And as for that hay, well, you know I’ll be there with you. We’ll just have to do as much as we can, afore the rain returns. The two of us can cut, and the lads stack. We‘ll be managin‘ somehow, don‘t you be frettin‘ so.”
It was then that Sam looked up to see Frodo standing by the table, tea pot in hand, watching them. “The three of us could cut more,” Frodo stated very quietly, setting the pot on the table. Sam automatically started to protest, but then caught the look in Frodo’s eye. Only Sam could have seen it for what it was, a silent plea.
“The three of us might just be enough,” he answered Frodo slowly, his eyes never leaving Frodo’s, and Frodo’s warm smile in return was gift enough.
“Oh, Mr. Frodo, you can’t be doin’ that!” Jolly stared at Frodo in dismay, suddenly realizing what he had offered.
“Nonsense, Jolly,” Frodo was immediately all business. Placing the mugs out and pouring the tea, he continued, “I’m not totally useless, you know.” Taking pity on Jolly’s horrified splutters, he continued with a laugh, “I was taught to make myself useful at Brandy Hall, before I came here. It may have been awhile, but I do know my way around a scythe.”
Slowly and methodically, the three hobbits worked their way down row after row of the thick green grass. Nick and Nibs kept up as best they could, gathering and bundling the fallen hay, but were soon left farther and farther behind. It wasn’t until the three reached the corner of the field at the far fence that Jolly straightened up with an effort, and wiped off the sweat running down his face. Frodo, giving a few last swings, straightened up as well and, letting the scythe drop at his feet, flexed his hands gratefully.
“Well, that wasn’t that bad, now,” Sam joined the other two, and looked back with a grin at the swath left behind them.
“Hoy! Nick, Nibs!” Jolly called out to his brothers, who gladly stopped their bundling and hurried down the field to join them. Jolly turned to pick up a water skin that he had left under a tree nearby earlier. “We could all be usin’ a bit of this,” he gave a wry laugh. “ ‘Tis that warm today, I don’t know why I was worrying about the rain.”
He began to lift it to his mouth, but then recollected himself, and handed it to Frodo first. Frodo took the offered skin, after only a moment’s reluctance to be the first, and lifted it up.
“Now, don’t you be drinkin’ too much,” Sam was watching him with a worried look, “or…”
“Or you’ll be getting the cramps,” Frodo finished Sam’s sentence with a merry laugh, after only swallowing a mouthful. “Really, Sam, I have done this before,” he teased him lightly, handing the skin back to Jolly.
“Aye, well,” Sam muttered, but couldn’t help a smile at Frodo’s expression of fond exasperation.
“So, Jolly,” Frodo gazed out at the rest of the field as the water was passed about. “Any chance of us finishing this lot today?”
Jolly grinned at his two younger brothers as they gave him woeful looks. “The cuttin’, likely enough. I’d not be knowin about the bundlin‘, though.”
“Well, as long as the cuttin’ be done, I can give a hand tomorrow with the bundlin’, if needs be,” Sam smiled at the two younger Cottons. “Or mayhap, there’d be the both of us to help,” he added with a laugh, catching a look from Frodo. “Cheer up lads, ‘tis only one more day of good weather as we’d be needin’.
“Then we need to be starting,” Frodo announced briskly as the water skin finished its rounds, picking up his scythe again and walking towards the beginning of the uncut row of hay. “ ‘Twon’t be cut by wishin’ it so.”
Sam picked up his scythe as well and walked, chuckling, past a startled Jolly.
Frodo leaned forward, his dark curls dripping into the warm bathwater. Sam was seated behind him in the tub, gently messaging Frodo’s shoulders and neck. “Mmm,” Frodo murmured. “Oh, Sam, I can’t tell you how good that feels.”
“Hmmpf,” Sam gave a short grunt in response, “you’ll be feelin’ right sore for a few days, I’ll warrant.” His hands kneaded carefully at the tightened muscles in Frodo’s back. “You were at it all afternoon. ‘Tis the price you’d be payin’, I’m afraid.”
He took a cloth from the stool at the side of the tub and, wetting it in the warm water, carefully draped it around Frodo’s shoulders. Frodo sighed, let himself fall back against Sam, whose arms quickly enfolded him.
“ ‘Tis the why of it as I’d not be understanding,” Sam went on, resting his cheek against Frodo’s wet curls.
“Because I hate to feel useless,” Frodo answered, staring into the flame of the candle on the shelf of the bath room’s wall. “And it’s rare that I get a chance to feel otherwise.”
“Ah, Frodo,” Sam sighed, lovingly stroking his hands up Frodo’s arms, “ ‘Tis like sayin’ that the roses over the garden gate’d be useless, likewise.”
“Then what is their use, Sam?” Frodo asked quietly.
“Why Frodo-love, don’t you know?” Sam bent and gently kissed the side of Frodo’s throat. “They make my heart that glad, every time I’d be seein’ them. I wouldn’t say as that is useless, no, not at all.”
“Oh, Sam,” Frodo responded, leaning back his head into Sam’s shoulder and staring up at him, “I need to be more than that.”
“An’ that you are, me dear,” Sam smiled down at him, his hazel eyes dark gold in the candlelight, “far more. The day’ll come, when you know what ‘tis as you’re meant to do in this world, rest you easy about that. You were meant for a purpose, to be sure.”
“And what do you think you’re meant for, Sam?” Frodo asked quietly, reaching up to cup the side of Sam’s face.
“Me? No more than what I’d be doin’, me dear. ‘Tis my place in this world, and glad I am of it,” Sam murmured lovingly, and bent down to kiss him.
Frodo was coming out of Sandyman’s mill on the outskirts of Hobbiton the next afternoon, with a pack on his back and a sack of flour over his arm, as Lotho and Anston came down the road into the village, Ted in tow, heading for the Green Dragon as usual. To Frodo’s dismay, he had been unable to help with the bundling of the hay that day, due to the blisters he had received from the previous day’s work. So to make amends, he had volunteered to make the trip into Hobbiton to pick up needed provisions for the Cottons, while the others finished up the harvest. Frodo acknowledged his cousin and his companions with a curt nod as he walked past them, but Lotho had a bit more sport in mind.
The other two walked ahead, but Lotho paused. “Why, Cousin Frodo,” he greeted him with a snicker, “Ted tells me that he saw you working in the Cottons’ field yesterday, just like any common harvest hand. Surely, he must have been mistaken. I can’t imagine the Master of Bag End falling to such lowly labor as that.”
Frodo glared at him, but continued past Lotho without a word.
“Oh, but that’s right,” Lotho turned and then strode along with him down the road out of Hobbiton, “there’s that boy you have about these days. Sounds as if you’re getting to be quite as common as he is. He must be good at teaching you a trick or two, isn’t that right, Master Baggins?”
But no sooner had the words been said than Lotho found himself with his face being firmly impressed into a tree at the side of the road, and his arm pinned behind his back in a decidedly uncomfortable manner.
“I have had rather enough of this, dear cousin,” Frodo hissed into his ear, thankful once again for the rough and tumble ways of Brandy Hall. “I would request that you not use your foul mouth on myself, my friends or indeed, on any other respectable hobbit, again. However, I‘m perfectly willing to make an exception for your friends.”
Lotho tried, after the first moment’s amazement, to free himself from Frodo’s iron grip, but that only caused his arm to be raised to a more painful level.
“Are we quite clear about that?” Frodo’s voice was now sounding slightly amused at Lotho’s predicament.
“Quite,” Lotho spat out, and Frodo released him, stepping warily back.
“Still have a few more tricks, don’t you, Mr. Baggins?” Backing away, Lotho rubbed his arm. “Best be watching your back,” he added darkly.
“Yes. Well, if you‘ve nothing further to add,” and slinging the sack over his shoulder again, Frodo deliberately turned his back on Lotho and started back to Bag End.
The rains had returned, and it was a damp night again, as Frodo helped Sam by clearing off the supper dishes. Hands in the hot soapy water, Sam suddenly lifted his head. “Would that be the door, now?” he asked Frodo, cocking his head to hear more clearly.
Frodo listened carefully. “I believe so,” he put the dishes down and started to the door. “Not very loud, but I’ll go have a look,” he said over his shoulder to Sam, leaving the kitchen.
Sam was wiping his hands on the cloth when he heard Frodo calling his name. Worried at the tone he heard in Frodo‘s voice, he immediately hurried down the halls, but was not prepared for what he saw at the door.
His father was standing there in the rain, supporting a drenched and barely-standing Daisy. “Sam,” she gasped, at the sight of him, “I’d be needin’ a bit of help,” but it was then that her eyes slid shut and she started to slip from her father’s grasp.
Immediately, both Sam and Frodo moved forward, Sam quickly catching Daisy as she started to fall, and Frodo gently grasping Hamfast Gamgee’s arm and quietly urging him inside out of the rain. Frodo closed the door at that, and with a fleeting look over at Sam, swiftly said, “The study,” and hurried ahead down the corridor.
Sam lifted up his unconscious sister in his arms, and with a hasty glance over his shoulder to his father, followed Frodo. Hamfast followed behind, still without a word.
Before long, Daisy was lying on the pillowed bench in the study, well wrapped in blankets, and the study fire was blazing, warming the room against the wet evening’s chill. Frodo had fetched a stack of cloths, and a basin of water, and Sam was wiping off Daisy’s fevered brow, as she turned her head from side to side, unawares, under his touch. “How long, Da?” he asked, looking up at his father with apprehension.
The elder Gamgee finally found his voice at that. “Three days,” he muttered gruffly. “She’d not wanted to be botherin’ anybody. But I can’t find the herbs as she needs,” he continued, his voice sinking, and he stared at his daughter, suddenly lost.
“Oh, Da, why were you not telling’ me this?” Sam murmured tightly in anguish, his gentle hand never stopping its soothing motion on Daisy’s brow.
At that, Daisy stirred and slowly opened her eyes, staring at Sam for a few moments in confusion. Then, as if remembering what had brought her here in the rain, she tightly grabbed his hand and, in barely more than a croak, whispered, “Sunsword, Sam. Mugwort, too. Three o’the first to two o’the last. Steep three hours.”
“Aye, Daisy dear,” soothed Sam, who had been listening closely. “Rest you quiet, now.“ Quickly, he looked up to his father and Frodo, who was standing quietly by the fire. “I’m going, then. I’d know where there might be a bit o’mugwort, but the sunsword won’t be a’that easy to find.” With a quick grasp of his father’s shoulder, and an intent glance at Frodo, he was gone.
Frodo and the gaffer were left behind in the quiet room. Daisy had slid into unconsciousness again, and was breathing roughly, her face damp with the fever. “She should not be out of doors again tonight,” Frodo said suddenly, watching Daisy closely. “I’ll go prepare a room for her.”
He turned to leave, but was halted by the gaffer’s sudden murmur of “No, Mr. Frodo, we couldna possibly…” but his voice trailed off in confusion, and he stared at his eldest daughter with no words left in him.
Frodo turned back to the old hobbit and gently grasped his shoulder. Hamfast stared slowly up at him, his face stricken with grief and bewilderment. “It’s no trouble at all, Mr. Gamgee,” said Frodo then, in a kindly tone. “There is plenty of room at Bag End for her to stay until it’s safe for her to be moved again. Sam will be returning as soon as he can. Let me prepare a room for her,” and he was gone.
Not very long after, he returned to the study to find that Hamfast had scarcely moved while he was gone, and Daisy still tossed restlessly in her fever. “I’ve a bed prepared for her,” he said gently, as Hamfast looked up. “Would you like to carry her down the hall, or should I?”
Hamfast looked at him for a moment, and then said grimly, “It’s best as you do that, Mr. Frodo. These auld bones would be droppin’ her, as like as not.”
Frodo nodded wordlessly, and gently picking Daisy up, carried her down the hall to the back bedroom that Sam had occupied when Merry and Pippin had visited. He had considered the main guest room, but had quickly decided that Daisy would feel more at home in the unassuming back room. Hamfast followed, familiar with the layout of Bag End from his many years of service with Bilbo. Frodo carefully laid Daisy on the narrow bed, and moved over then to the newly-lit fire, ensuring with the poker that the just kindled flames had well caught the logs.
Hamfast pulled a stool over to the fire and sat wearily down. Frodo watched him carefully for a moment, and then laid down the poker and walked to the door. “I’ve a mind for some tea,” he mentioned casually, glancing back over his shoulder at Sam’s father, “would you care for a cup as well, Mr. Gamgee?”
“You shouldna be puttin’ yourself to any trouble on my account, Mr. Frodo,” the old hobbit replied, somewhat gruffly, looking up from the fire, “but if you’d be makin’ it anyways…”
Frodo smiled, nodded briefly, and left.
When he returned, with a hot mug in each hand, Hamfast had not moved, nor had Daisy awakened. Frodo handed one of the mugs to Hamfast, who accepted it without further ado, and then stood by the fire He was glad to see some warmth and color returning to the old hobbit’s furrowed cheeks as he sipped the tea. For awhile, there was silence in the room. Only the crackle of the flames, and an occasional low moan from the patient were to be heard.
But then, Hamfast, with a motion of his shoulders so familiar to Frodo, the same one that Sam would use when he was preparing to speak his mind, cleared his throat, and abruptly said, “So would Sam be havin’ one o’these back rooms as well?”
Frodo stared at him, surprised, and trying to understand what was really being asked of him. “No,” he answered gently, “he does not.”
Hamfast grunted, and stared down at the mug in his hand, and Frodo suddenly realized that Hamfast was still not wanting to accept what he knew to be true, that he was still holding fast to the hope that there was some sort of reasonable explanation for Sam’s situation that did not involve any sort of emotional entanglement with the Master of Bag End.
Frodo took a quick breath. If Sam had been brave enough to confront his father, then he could do no less. There was no use in the both of them in this room not speaking of Sam, not acknowledging what he meant to each of them.
“Sam shares my room,” Frodo stated quietly.
The gaffer said nothing to that, not even looking at Frodo, for several moments, but when he did look up, Frodo was dismayed to see that there were tears in his eyes.
“My boy ne’er did anything w’half a heart,” Hamfast whispered. “ ‘Twill be what hurts him in the last, I know it.”
Frodo looked down at him, and felt the old hobbit’s grief for his son tear at his own heart. “Mr. Gamgee,” he said softly, dropping on a knee next to him. “your son means everything to me.” Willing Hamfast to look up at him, he intently continued. “Neither of us ever planned for this to happen, but it did. And there isn’t a thing that I wouldn’t do for him.”
Hamfast did look up at that, and locked his eyes on Frodo‘s. “Then let him go.”
Frodo’s jaw tightened at that. “No,” he answered quietly. “That’s the one thing I could never do. It would break his heart. And mine. Don‘t ask that of us.”
When Sam returned, he found his father and Frodo, silently sipping tea before the fire, as Daisy lay in bed in the back bedroom. He checked on Daisy quickly, finding that her condition had not changed, and then hurried to the kitchen to prepare the herbal concoction for steeping. Despite his concern for Daisy, a corner of his mind found the silence in that bedroom rather alarming.
Returning to the bedroom, with a quick glance at Frodo, he hesitantly asked his father, “Da? Would you be wantin’ a bed as well? The potion won’t be ready for a good while. ‘Twouldn’t be no trouble.”
Hamfast rose at that, giving his son a searching look. “Nay, I‘d be goin‘ then. She’d be best off in your hands, Samwise, but you don’t be needin’ me about as well.” Walking to the door, he turned and added, with a curt nod, “My thanks for your kindness, Mr. Frodo. I’ll find my way out, if you’d not mind,” and left.
Sam gave Frodo a questioning look, but Frodo shook his head. “Later, Sam,” he said quietly, and then walked over to Daisy. “What can I do to help?”
Sam followed him over to the bed and stared at his sister in concern. “She’d be better off out of those wet things as she has on,” he murmured, frowning.
“I’ll look for a nightshirt for her then,” Frodo looked up, giving Sam a wry smile, “and I would suspect that she’d rather have your help with that than mine.”
Sam gave him a small answering smile. “You know I’d never be hearin’ the end of it otherwise,” he admitted.
It was quite late into the night when Frodo and Sam were finally in bed themselves. Daisy had been awakened enough to administer the tea, and was sleeping easier. Holding Sam closely to him in their bed, Frodo told him, only then, of the words he and Hamfast had exchanged.
“Ah, Frodo dear, ‘tis that hard for him to understand, I know,” Sam sighed, as they lay on their sides together. He lovingly caressed Frodo’s cheek and, finding his mouth in the dark, kissed him slowly. “But don’t you be listenin’ to his words, m’dear,” he whispered, breaking away from Frodo for a moment. “Don’t you ever think of givin’ me up.”
“Too late for that, Sam dearest,” Frodo smiled, his head settling to rest in just that place on Sam’s shoulder where it fit so well. “I’d sooner give up breathing. You’re rather stuck with me, I’m afraid.”
And Sam’s response to that was entirely satisfactory.
It was three days before Daisy could leave, but the gaffer did not return to Bag End. Sam went to see him daily, to eat second breakfast with him, and to make sure that the rest of his meals were accounted for. They discussed the rainy summer, and how it would be affecting the gardens, and the doings up at the Cottons’. Tom and his father had recovered from the fever as well, and Marigold visited her father daily as well as Daisy at Bag End. And slowly, the fever left the Shire, and the rains ceased, and life returned to the way it had been, for most folk.
The mornings were beginning to feel crisp, and the tulip trees, always the first to turn, were starting to show brilliantly golden leaves among the green, when once again, there was a knocking on the front door of Bag End. Sam and Frodo were eating second breakfast, and Frodo, pausing halfway through buttering a thick slice of bread, listened with the air of a connoisseur. “Merry and Pippin,” he announced to Sam with a smile, “but they’ve learned from the last time. Not nearly as early. Good lads.”
The smile quickly vanished though when he caught the expression on Sam’s face. “Sam,” he asked quietly, “do you want me to say anything this time?” Rising from the table, and ignoring the renewed assault, he walked over to Sam, who had also stood up, his hands full of dishes. “Whatever you wish, Sam-love,” Frodo touched the side of Sam’s cheek softly.
Words had failed Sam, but he shook his head slowly, and Frodo could see the apprehension, and even a little fear, in his eyes. “That’s all right, never you mind, love,” Frodo whispered, and kissed him tenderly. “We’ll sort it all out somehow, but not until you are ready.”
With a sigh, he left Sam to start the dishes, put the kettle back on, and collect himself.
Soon Merry’s rather deep voice, Pippin’s more excited burr, and the occasional comment from Frodo could be heard coming down the hall. “Hullo, Sam!” Pippin greeted him enthusiastically, bursting into the kitchen first. “And you already have a kettle on for us? You’re the best, Sam, you really are. And ooh! Look, Merry, it’s those cream scones that Sam does so well,” he added enthusiastically, catching sight of the leftover second breakfast on the kitchen table.
“Excellent, very good,” Merry mumbled distractedly, casting a brief glance at Sam as well as the food, and then returned to the primary topic of conversation. “As I was saying, Frodo, seeing as it’s your birthday tomorrow, and seeing as last year’s celebration was rather, well, dramatic, I had a feeling that you were going to let it slip by this year without any festivities whatsoever. Isn’t that right, Sam?” he suddenly called over to Sam, who was busy with the teapot.
Sam looked up quickly, over to Frodo, who was still standing in the doorway, staring at Merry with a odd expression on his face. He raised his eyes at that, meeting Sam’s, and Sam saw a look of amusement there, but also a brief wash of pain. Sam knew the reason. Frodo’s birthday was Bilbo’s as well, but most of all, it was the day that Bilbo had left him. He stood frozen, not knowing how to answer Merry’s question, but Frodo read his confusion, and briskly replied, “Since I couldn’t begin to match Uncle Bilbo’s talent for party-giving, I hadn’t actually planned on one, Merry dear.”
“I thought as not,” Merry gave a satisfied nod, as he plopped upon a chair at the table. “So you are indeed in luck, my dear cousin, for Pippin and I have come for expressly that purpose. After all, you did come of age last year, but there was never really a chance of celebrating it properly. But don’t you worry, my lad, we’ll make up for it this year, even if it‘s just the three of us.”
Frodo caught up with Sam later that evening in the guest bedroom that Merry and Pippin usually used. He had finished airing out the beds and laying on blankets, and had already started a small fire to warm up the room for the night. It was as he was getting ready to leave the room, spare blanket over his arm, that Frodo walked in. “The back bedroom again?” Frodo asked wistfully.
Sam nodded, embarrassed, and feeling cowardly.
“That’s all right,” Frodo said softly, going over to him, and placing his hands on Sam’s shoulders. “I understand, Sam-love. And it won’t be as long this time, Merry has already informed me that he needs to leave the day after tomorrow. An errand for his father, I believe, with a cattleman in North Farthing. And where Merry goes, so does Pippin. Don’t you fret, dear, it won’t always be like this.”
Sam swallowed, closing his eyes and trying to blink back the tears. And then Frodo’s arms were around him, and Sam held tightly to him, hearing Frodo’s voice murmuring in his ear, “One step at a time, Sam-love. One family at a time. We must be patient.”
Sam opened his eyes at that, grateful for Frodo’s understanding. He nodded, still not trusting himself to say anything.
Frodo lifted his chin with a hand and kissed him slowly and thoroughly. “Come into the study tonight, dearest. You don’t have to say anything, I just want them to get to know you a bit.” He stared into Sam’s eyes then, as if willing courage to him. “I know you don’t think so, Sam,” he continued slowly, “but you are so very much more…” His voice trailed off at that, and he kissed Sam again.
Sam nodded then, helpless, as always, to resist Frodo. “I’d be there then,” he whispered, and they left the room.
It wasn’t until after he had thoroughly cleaned the kitchen that evening, that Sam finally found the strength to walk down the hall to the study to join the three, but Frodo’s loving smile, upon seeing him, warmed Sam’s heart and gave him the necessary courage to sit down with them. “Only two nights,” he reassured himself, “only two nights.”
Merry and Pippin had helped Frodo celebrate his birthday, the next day, by taking him to the Green Dragon, where the inhabitants of Hobbiton present were more than glad to join in rounds of the Dragon‘s finest, purchased by Merry, and in drinking to the Master of Bag End’s health and happiness. Sam had spent the afternoon preparing a special meal of all of Frodo’s favorite dishes, and the birthday dinner back at Bag End had been particularly lengthy and festive. Frodo had brought out a couple of the most esteemed year of the Old Winyards’ vintage, and even Sam, upon being persuaded to taste it, had to allow as it beat any beer he had ever tasted, hands down.
Once again, they had retired to the study, and Merry poured glasses all round for the four of them.
“A toast!” he cleared his throat, in a rather self-important way. Raising his glass for a moment, he paused, and then proclaimed, “ To the finest elder cousin I’ve have ever had!” He lowered his glass then and stared wistfully at Frodo. “And Brandy Hall has been much that much emptier without you.”
Frodo raised his glass in response, and quietly added, “Thank you, Merry.”
It was then Pippin’s turn. He raised his glass, only half-filled, at Merry’s insistence and Pippin’s annoyance, and added cheerily, “To my special cousin Frodo, who is ever so much fun, and sweet and dear besides.” And finding that words were insufficient, he rose from the settle, where he had nested with Merry, and gave Frodo a rather sloppy kiss on his cheek.
“Why, Pippin,” laughed Frodo affectionately, giving him a firm hug in return, “that is very kind of you.”
And then it was Sam’s turn. He raised his glass, wanting so much to say something, but fearful of saying too much. “To the best master as I could ever have,” he said hesitantly. And then, greatly daring, he added, “Thank you, melyanna.”
Merry and Pippin both turned to look curiously at him at that, but the look in Frodo’s eyes was worth it.
“That was Elvish, wasn’t it,” asked Merry with a slight frown. “However did you pick that up, Sam?”
“From me, of course,” Frodo answered, his eyes still on Sam, and his smile for Sam alone.
“Hmm,” said Merry, but asked no more. Glancing about the study and stretching luxuriantly, he turned to Frodo then and casually said, “So how does it feel to be master and all of that? It’s been a year now, do you suppose the old boy will ever be back?”
“Well he was gone rather a long while when he went off with Gandalf the last time, right?” Pippin asked, quickly pouring himself another glass before Merry could object. “But then all of that was before any of us were born, even you, Frodo,” he added sagely with a lift of his glass in Frodo’s general direction.
Sam had been listening to this topic of conversation in dismay. Did they really have no idea how Frodo felt about Bilbo’s departure? Casting an uneasy glance at Frodo, he saw that Frodo’s eyes were downcast and his attention was not on any of them.
Merry was now beginning to distinctly slump in the settle and drift down in the general direction of the carpet, Pippin slowly following him as well. “Oh, well, I suppose he’ll pop up when least expected with another trunk of dragon gold or something of the sort.”
“I think not,” Sam heard Frodo say very quietly before he rose to his feet. “That bottle appears about finished, and it wouldn’t do at all to run dry tonight. No, not at all,” he announced, rather unsteadily, to his cousins. “I’ll be back.” With a careful gait, he left the room.
Sam sat quietly for a moment, completely unnoticed by the other two hobbits, who were now beginning to toast Bilbo and his return complete with increasingly unlikely plunder. But his anxiety about Frodo was growing, and finally, without a word to the other two, he left the study as well.
He found Frodo in the wine cellar, as he thought he would, but what he did not expect was to find Frodo curled up, seated on the floor and sobbing loudly. “Ah, Frodo, there now,” he crooned softly as he hurried over to him and, kneeling beside him on the cold stone floor, tried to pick him up in his arms. But Frodo was very reluctant to acknowledge him, very set on being thoroughly miserable, and, Sam quickly realized, very drunk.
Now Sam was alarmed indeed, for he had never seen Frodo in this condition before. “Frodo-love, let me be gettin’ you to bed, then,” he gently laid his hand on Frodo’s back, but Frodo turned from him, still hiding his face in his hands.
“No, Sam,” he heard Frodo gasp between sobs, “I should be alone, all alone.”
Sam stopped for a minute, not understanding what he was hearing. “You’d not be alone,” he then said reassuringly, stroking Frodo’s back lightly, “Your Sam’s here, he’d not be goin’ nowhere.”
“But it can’t last, it never lasts,” Frodo gasped between sobs. “And then you’ll go away too, and … and I won’t have any heart left. It hurts so, it always does, but this time will be the worst.”
It was the insecurity that Frodo usually hid so well, and Sam had never dreamed how strong it still was. “Ah, no, there you’d be wrong, Frodo-love,” he whispered, his arms tightening around Frodo. “Because that won’t be happenin’, no ways.” He felt Frodo’s taunt shoulders begin to relax slightly, and took the opportunity to gently turn Frodo around so he could face him. He pulled his pocket handkerchief out and tenderly wiped the tears from Frodo’s cheeks even as new tears still coursed down them.
“Sam,” Frodo whispered, blinking and slowly raising a hand to Sam’s face.
“Still here, m’dear,” Sam smiled lovingly at him, trying to keep back his own tears. “Not goin’ nowheres.”
“Hold me, then, Sam,” Frodo’s eyes were looking deep into his, in the light of the one candle that lit the storeroom. “Hold me. I never have to think when you hold me.”
Sitting on the stone next to Frodo, Sam needed no further urging. Wrapping one arm around Frodo’s back, he held the back of Frodo’s head with the other, and met Frodo’s open mouth with his. There was the taste of wine, and Frodo moaned as he met Sam’s tongue with his own. Eagerly, Frodo sought those hidden areas of Sam’s mouth, probing and tasting, and Sam gently met Frodo’s every touch with his own. He could feel Frodo’s hands tightly grasping his shoulders and drawing him closer, and he closed his eyes, feeling his own blood unmistakably begin to stir with desire.
“Frodo,” he gasped, breaking away from Frodo’s mouth with a great reluctance, “your cousins…”
“Are not here.” Frodo finished firmly. He pulled slightly back, and even in the dim light, Sam thought that he had never seen him look more beautiful. His face was flushed, his hair a mass of disheveled dark curls, and his eyes glittered with still unshed tears. “Sam,” he lifted a still unsteady hand to Sam’s face, “I need to have you hold me. I need your touch, Sam. I’m never afraid or lonely then.”
Sam had no thought of refusing him. Resolutely, he cast any notion of Frodo’s cousins from his mind, for here was Frodo, and the rest had never really mattered. There was only one last rational impression in his mind that perhaps the cold stone floor of the wine cellar was not the best of places to be at this moment, and he briefly thought of trying to get Frodo back to his bedroom, but that was quickly erased by the sudden sensation of Frodo’s hand having managed to find his skin under his shirt, and the heat of it sliding up his chest.
“Cover me, dearest,” Frodo suddenly breathed, quickly laying back on the floor and tugging Sam over him. “I need to have you on me, Sam, oh, Sam. Hold me down, love, don’t let me go.”
“Never,” Sam groaned at that, his heart twisting with sympathy and desire. He spread himself over Frodo’s body, raising himself up over Frodo with his elbows on the sides of Frodo’s chest.
“Oh, Sam, please, love,” Frodo’s eyes were now closed and both of his hands were on Sam’s chest, stroking and urging Sam ever closer. Sam could feel Frodo start to move rhythmically under him, pushing upward against his hips. He fell into the rhythm as well, the slow sensuous grinding, the thrust of heat against heat, even through the layers of their clothing. Briefly he considered attempting to remove some of their garments, but the last thing he wanted to do at this moment was to pull away from Frodo for any reason.
Bending over Frodo’s face, he began to kiss him lightly but fervently. Frodo’s pace had quickened now, and he was gasping as he drove himself up against Sam. “Harder, Sam, please,” he begged, his head arching back, eyes still tightly closed. “Harder, love, don’t ever let me go.”
And Sam could no longer hold back. He ground down on Frodo with all of his strength, over and over, answering Frodo’s cries of need with his own answering moans mingled with Frodo’s name. It wasn’t until he felt Frodo thrust himself up with a final wild cry and his eyes snap open, that he felt the answering surge himself, and he collapsed onto Frodo, numbly feeling the wetness spreading between them.
Sam rolled to his side as soon as he could, and lay there facing Frodo. He felt Frodo’s hand lift then, and search for his own. Wondering, he felt Frodo grasp it tightly and draw it to his mouth, tenderly kissing it. “Frodo,” he whispered, but Frodo looked back at him silently, his dark blue eyes fathomless in the candlelight.
A/N: melyanna - dear gift
Title: Sweet Cider, Part Three
Author: Elderberry Wine
Pairing: F/S
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Life used to be so simple.
Sweet Cider
Part 3
The sun was high in the sky, the afternoon quite warm, and there were somnolent clusters of hobbits lying in the shade of the ash trees about the perimeter of the Summer Market field. The contributing cooks had been in fine form this year, and fortunately enough, there would still be a few hours until it would be cool enough to begin the dancing.
Petunia and Iris Burrows, with whom May had been visiting, were encamped under a tree near the food tents, along with the Gamgee lasses and Rosie Cotton. It was a strategic position, with an excellent view of the flow in and out of the tents. The lasses were sitting cross-legged about the trunk of the tree, except for Marigold and Rosie, who were stretched out on a blanket that Marigold had brought with her.
“There he is,” May announced suddenly, discreetly nodding her head towards a rather tall, fair-haired hobbit walking from the tent towards the upper section of the field where the buyers and sellers had congregated.
“Why, who would that be?” Marigold sat up quickly, watching the hobbit with great curiosity. “I’d not be seein’ him before.”
“Anston Bracegirdle,” Iris Burrows turned to inform her. “Lives out East Farthing way.”
“His family owns quite a bit of it,” Petunia added. Turning back to watch him, she gave his back view a decidedly measuring glance. “Rather nice, isn’t he.”
“Yes,” May stated in a decisive way, adding after a moment‘s consideration, “that’d be the one.”
Her sisters and friends turned towards her as one, astonished. “Why, May, has the lad even met you yet?” Daisy couldn’t keep the amusement out of her voice.
“Well, I’ve seen him about,” May declared, rising to her feet and shaking out her skirts. “I’m sure as he’s been seein’ me as well.”
“May!” Marigold gasped, sitting up straight. “Sure an’ you not bein’ serious. Why, you’d not even know him yet.”
“Family owns quite a bit of land, no brothers, parents rather old, and not a bit spoken for,” May listed crisply, carefully adjusting her curls and retying the ribbons.
“But, May,” Rosie sat up next to Marigold and stared at May with a troubled expression. “You don’t even love him.”
“Not yet, mayhap,” May replied, with such a glint in her eye that none of the others dared say more. “But I will.” And she left them, making her way to the upper field.
Sam was under a tree on the far side of the field, lying in the shade, in the company of Jolly and his younger brothers Nick and Nibs, as well as Hob and Will Brown, cousins of the Cottons, who had been visiting from the North Farthing. Sam had been sitting against the tree trunk, but as the afternoon sun rose higher in the brilliantly blue sky, he found himself beginning to slide down the smooth trunk until eventually he was lying in the tall grass and feeling more than comfortable. The buzz of talk about him, the warm air fragrant with the aromas drifting up field from the food tents, and the delayed effect of his early awakening that morning had contributed to his current dozing state. He paid little heed to the subject at hand until the sound of his name caught his attention.
“You’d be helpin’ us then?” Will Brown was looking at him hopefully.
“Aye, you’d be the oldest, now,” declared Hob, Will’s older brother, nodding his head enthusiastically. “You’d be knowin’ all the lasses.”
Sleepy as he was, Sam was beginning to get an idea as to what they were expecting from him, and blinking, he sat up and quickly glanced at Jolly in consternation. Jolly said nothing, but there was an amused look on his face as he waited for Sam’s response.
“Sure, Rosie’s always sayin’ what a wonderful dancer Sam’d be,” Nick piped up helpfully, and the two Brown lads nodded together as five sets of eyes fixed upon Sam. But Jolly had seen the brief pain on Sam’s face at the mention of his sister, and turning towards the others, laughingly said, “Well ye can’t be believin’ Rosie on that one. This lad has trod on the feet of more lovely lasses than you could ever know. Why, they haven’t let him near the dancin’ for years now.”
“Aye, ‘tis true,” Sam shot a grateful look at Jolly and tried his best to appear properly abashed. “It’d be Jolly here, as’d be the one you should be lookin’ at to help you out.” Jolly grinned back at Sam, but his two younger brothers cast dubious glances at each other.
Frodo tried to restrain a weary sigh as he sat on a bench on the upper field. The trading area was thick with dignitaries, but there was no-one here who he really cared to spend much time with. How had Bilbo ever managed to get through all this, he wondered glumly. He understood such matters as grain yield per square foot, really he did, but his interest in the matter was breathtakingly small. Guiltily, he tried to absorb more of the conversation around him, for Bilbo had also taught him that those that farmed Baggins land depended on him to drive home the best bargain for their crops.
Halfway through the tiring afternoon, he spotted Ned Proudfoot returning from a quick pick-me-up in the food tent. Glad of a face that he knew, he made his way through the crowd, and was greeted cheerfully by Ned. “First Summer Market on your own, is it not?” Ned asked, giving him a canny look. “Well, follow me, lad, and tell me how it goes,” he added kindly, leading Frodo to a side bench away from the center of the dealing.
Frodo followed him gratefully. Ned Proudfoot was several years older than he was, yet still fairly young to be the head of a landholding family, his father having died early from the summer fever some years back. The Proudfoot family did not have much land, but they took pride in being one of the few farming families about Hobbiton as did not farm Baggins land. Nevertheless, Frodo had found Ned to be helpful and scrupulously fair in all his dealings.
“What price have ye for wheat, then?” Ned asked, dropping down heavily on the bench, for he was a hobbit who thoroughly enjoyed his meals. Frodo told him, including the last bargain he had made with Old Sandyman the miller, Ted’s father.
“Old Sandyman gave ye that price, now, did he?” grunted Ned, pulling out and filling his pipe. “I’ll be back.“ He rose and went over to the cook fires in the food tent to light it, and slowly ambled back and settled down on the bench again, leaning heavily against the back slat of the bench.
“Yes, he did,” Frodo replied, nervously, rubbing his hands unconsciously over his knees.
“Well then,” Ned gave a short laugh, drawing greedily on the pipe and carefully blowing a ring of smoke towards the others, “you’d be lucky, I’d say. That’d be a fair enough price, and from Old Sandyman, too.”
“It pays to be careful w’that ‘un,” he continued, smiling as Frodo gave a visible sigh of relief, “but he’s always been a hobbit of his word.” Glancing back over at the others in the upper field, he added with a sour tone, “That lad of his, though, he’d be a useless a git as ever there was one.”
Following Ned’s gaze, Frodo saw Ted Sandyman standing with Lotho Sackville-Baggins and another hobbit whom he did not recognize. They were laughing loudly, mugs of beer in hand, and commenting on the lasses who were beginning set out the preparations for tea in front of the food tents. Some of the lasses did not care for the remarks, and turned away with frowns, but not all.
“And that Lotho Sackville-Baggins,” snorted Ned, still watching them. “Beggin’ your pardon, Frodo, seein’ as how he’s your cousin and all, but that ‘un is good for naught but causin’ trouble. There’d be no reason for him to be up there, since all he has to be doin’ is runnin’ errands for his mam, but he’d like to make the lasses think otherwise.”
“Distant cousin,” Frodo replied crisply, “and I would not disagree with you. But who is that with them?”
Ned peered at the newcomer for a moment and then nodded. “Anston Bracegirdle, Lotho’s cousin on his mother’s side, family lives out East Farthing way,” he announced, giving Frodo the necessary information. “The Market that way would na be for a couple weeks more. Probably getting an idea of the prices. But he’d best be finding a better lot to be around than that pair.”
“Well, Frodo,” he rose heavily to his feet then, giving the younger hobbit a congenial pat on the shoulder. “Sounds as if you did a’right for yourself, lad. Let’s be havin’ a look at the strawberry tarts down there. I hear as Widow Muddle did herself fair proud this year.”
The moon, a silver sliver amongst the stars, was already well up when Frodo and Sam set off for home. The roads out of Hobbiton were thick with families on their way to the outlying farms, for the morning chores would be there come dawn, and there would be extra work to pay for this day’s pleasure. Carts and ponies rumbled past them, full of festive hobbits, usually with the most sober of the lot steering the pony through the throng. Most of the inhabitants of Hobbiton, however, were still dancing and eating back on the field, and beer and ale still flowed freely, for they had not as far to go.
Sam and Frodo walked unnoticed, for the most part, down the road towards Bag End. But when they reached the fields on the outskirts of Hobbiton, Frodo stopped by the side of the lane. “Let’s take the old road back to Bag End,” he said quietly to Sam. “It might be longer, but I’d rather not have these ponies breathing down my neck.”
“Aye,” Sam agreed gratefully, “I could surely do with a bit o’quiet.”
There was a old dirt path that left the main road, climbing up the embankment, and into the woods that still lay between Hobbiton and Bag End. It was a road for the most part forgotten, initially created by herders to summer pastures on the far side of the hill. There were greener fields, nearer Hobbiton now, and so the road had little usage. But it had been one of Bilbo’s favorite routes back from town, and Frodo knew the way well. Grasping Sam’s hand, he led him up the embankment, under the spreading oak, and the noise of the main road was soon gone.
With few travelers upon it, the path had become overgrown with soft grasses, and the fragrance of the woods was deep and rich in the warm summer’s night air. Frodo and Sam walked along wordlessly for quite a ways, hands clasped together, until Frodo stopped in front of an old lightning-blasted stump of an ancient cedar tree. It was broad and smoothly weathered over time, with ample room on it for two hobbits to have a seat, and a bit of trunk left for a back rest.
“Ah,” Frodo laughed, “I thought I should find it here, even in this dark. One of Bilbo’s favorite rests. Let’s sit for awhile, Sam, this night is too lovely, at least out here, to hurry back to Bag End.”
Sam gladly agreed, and they were quickly settled on the remains of the cedar, Frodo’s arm wrapped around Sam‘s shoulders, and Sam‘s hand on Frodo‘s knee.
They sat companionably in silence for some time, but then Frodo said softly, “I didn’t see you dancing, Sam.”
“Aye, well,” Sam sighed, “That’d be a problem. I can’t be dancin’ w’Rosie now, but it ‘d hurt her that much to see me dancin’ w’another lass. So, it’d be best if I just leave off dancin’ altogether for a bit.”
“You are such a good dancer, Sam,” Frodo commented quietly.
“Not to worry, there’ll be plenty more dancin’,” Sam smiled in the dark and gave Frodo’s knee a reassuring squeeze. Frodo said no more, but not long after, rose up from the stump, and, with Sam’s hand still in his, pulled him off as well, and Sam followed him back to the path.
The thin sliver of moon was high above, and the stars brilliant about it, when they reached the old abandoned pasture near the top of the hill, encircled with what remained of a rail fence. Leaving the path, Frodo released Sam’s hand and walked slowly out into the tall grass of the old pasture, stopping mid-field with his arms crossed over his chest, and his back to Sam. Sam followed behind, and then settled against a portion of the fence nearby. It was clear to him that Frodo had something to say, and he waited.
“Sometimes it seems to me that I’ve only managed to turn your life all about.” Sam heard Frodo’s words only faintly ahead of him, as Frodo stood with his back to him and his dark head down. “What did you ever find in me anyway, Sam?”
Sam watched him in silence for a few moments, and then walked up behind Frodo and, loosely wrapping his arms around Frodo’s waist, rested his forehead on Frodo’s shoulder. Frodo inhaled, closing his eyes, at Sam’s embrace, and covered Sam’s arms with his own.
“When you first came t’Bag End,” Sam said slowly, with his head still against Frodo’s shoulder, “you’d not be like anyone as I’d ever seen, and when you’d be out in the garden, I’d stop and just stare at you. But the gaffer, he’d gi’ me a cuff, and let me know as you’d be a gentle hobbit, an’ I’d not be pesterin’ you w’me foolish ways. But if that were all, I’d like enough ha’ gotten past that.”
“No,” tightening his grasp slightly, Sam continued softly on. “That really weren’t it. It was you talkin’ to me then, findin’ me in the garden when the gaffer weren’t about, and just talkin’ to me, askin’ me questions as you’d really want to know my answers. And you didn’t care none about my place or yours, nor that I’d just be the gardener’s son, born to dig in the dirt just like his da.”
“An’ what questions they’d be,” Sam smiled at the memories, giving Frodo a light kiss on the back of his neck. “Not as to whether I thought the cabbage’d be comin’ in good this year, oh, no. It was as whether the lily on the hill wou’be the deepest gold as I’d ever seen, an’ why the bullfrog in the pond’d be preferin’ the water reeds o’er the lily pads, an’ if seeds blew in on the west wind, did I think if they’d be a’blowin’ from elven lands? An’ though I’d just be a fauntling, you truly cared what it was I’d be thinkin’. Not even to mention Mr. Bilbo’s lessons, for I know, Frodo, as you’d a hand i’that all along.”
Sam turned an unresisting Frodo gently around in his arms then, and holding his shoulders, looked intently into his eyes. “You changed me, Frodo,” he murmured, “I’m not the same hobbit that I would ha’been if you’d never come to Bag End. But it was never takin’ me to your bed as what changed me. It was everything as you ever did. An’ there was nothing you ever did, that I didna wish for, w’all my heart. None could ever had more luck than I’d be havin’ the first time I ever lay my eyes on you.“
“Not as much luck as I have had, though you’ll never believe me,” Frodo raised a hand to Sam’s cheek.
Sam smiled again, and gently turned his face into Frodo’s hand, kissing his palm lightly. “Mayhap not, me dear,” he murmured, “but it makes my heart glad t’hear you sayin’ so.”
“Then I suppose we both must agree that we’ve been fortunate,” Frodo laughed tenderly, wrapping an arm firmly around Sam’s back, and with the other hand still against Sam’s face, drew Sam’s mouth to his.
“Aye, love, that we are,” Sam breathed, his hands now around Frodo’s waist, holding him closely indeed.
And then there was time for no more words, as they hungrily opened their mouths to each other, as no more words needed to be said. Only the joining of lips, tongues, and breath mattered. All the responsibilities of the day fell away from Frodo, and all that he now knew was the summer night’s pale light, the fragrant grass below, and the hobbit that he loved so very dearly in his arms.
When they had had their fill of kisses, at least for the moment, Frodo held Sam closely and looked up at the stars as Sam lay his head on Frodo’s shoulder. Without even knowing that he did so, Frodo began to softly hum a tune from that evening’s dancing, a slow and achingly beautiful air, and Sam tightened his grasp about Frodo. “There was only one as I wished to dance with,” he said then, raising his head and looking into Frodo’s eyes, dark in the moonlight. “Dance with me now, me love.” And they did, lost in their own melody, until they at last lay down together in the grass. They did not return to Bag End until dawn.
There was a fine drizzle falling as Sam sat at the tea table with Tom and Marigold in their new smial a few weeks after Summer Market. Tom was stirring what was left of his tea with a preoccupied air. “First ‘tis not enough rain, and now’d be that much. Third day now we’d be havin’ this wet,” he grumbled. “Can’t be puttin’ off that hay harvest much longer now. There’d still be the wheat as well. An’ after that freezin’ winter as we last had, everyone needs be restockin’ their hay.”
Sam raised his mug and drained it. “You know as you can be countin’ on me, now,” he reminded Tom. “And your cousins, they’d still be here, wouldn’t they?”
“They leave as of the end of the week, they’d be needed back home.” Tom’s frown grew. “If we had only had a few days of sun this week, it could’ve been done by now.”
He stood up and stretched. “Well, I best be off. Da is waitin’ for me back in the barn.” With a quick smile, he clasped Sam’s shoulder and added, “But ‘tis good to see you, lad. Harvest or no, don’t be a stranger t’us.”
Marigold rose as well, and giving her husband a quick kiss, watched him walk out into the light rain. “Ah,” she sighed, turning back to Sam, “he’s been that worried. He’d been countin’ on a good harvest year to be helpin’ w’all this,” and she motioned around her, to the neat, although sparsely furnished smial.
“We’ll be havin’ some sun yet, don’t you fret, Mari, dear,” Sam smiled fondly at his sister as he got up from the table. “But at least the fruit’d be likin’ their toes all damp.” He turned to a bag that he had left by the door. “Peaches, grapes, and a few of the early plums,” he announced, placing the bag on the table. “An’ any extra bit as you wish to bake w’these, I’d be that glad to take off your hands, for you’ve always been the best Gamgee baker. Just don’t tell our sisters as I said that,” he added in mock warning.
Marigold laughed. “They’d be sayin’ ‘tis you, Sam,” she teased back, giving him a hug.
“Well, I know Tom’d be agreeing w’me,” Sam said with a grin. “I’d best be off myself.”
She walked with him to the door. “Married life’s agreein’ right well with you, Mari, dear,” Sam said with a warm smile as he turned to leave. “I’ve never seen you lookin’ so happy.”
“ ’Tis that wonderful,” Marigold said quietly, with Sam’s hand still in hers. “To know you’d be bound to one as thinks you’d be that special, and be feelin’ the same about him.”
“ ‘Tis wonderful, isn’t it,” Sam responded quietly.
“Samwise!” Marigold tried for a stern look, but couldn’t manage it, and broke out in a merry laugh. “Ah, we’d be a besotted pair o‘Gamgees, now, wouldn’t we. And glad I am of it.”
Besides the difficulties with the harvesting, there was another danger that came with the wet summers. Rumors were soon confirmed. The summer fever was once again bringing strong, healthy hobbits to their beds. Some, usually those who had survived a case of it in their childhood, shook it off easily enough, or were entirely unaffected. For others, it was devastating, and all too often, deadly. And none could be without concern, for sometimes even those who had escaped its effects many times before were suddenly brought low. “As uncertain as the fever” was a common enough expression in the Shire, and all too true.
The first cases were in town, but soon there were reports of illness and an occasional death in the outlying farms as well. Daisy’s skills were once again called upon, and it was a weary healer that came to the Burrows smial in Hobbiton in search of her sister. May had remained in town after the Summer Market, saying only to Daisy that she had reasons to stay, but now Daisy had need of her at home.
But it was May herself who answered the knock, and her face was pale and drawn. “Both lasses and their father,” she sighed, beckoning Daisy into the vacant front room of the rather grand smial. Daisy followed and the two sisters sat on a bench before the cold and empty hearth.
“It’s just Mistress Burrows and myself to care for them,” May threw her head back against the backrest and stretched her legs out before her. “How’d the rest be doing?” she turned her head, giving Daisy a worried look.
“Oh, they’d all be right enough,” Daisy quickly said in a reassuring voice, taking up May’s hand and giving it an affectionate pat. “It’s just that, well, Marigold an’ Sam wou’be gone now, and I’m gone myself most the day, and I’d just not like t’be leavin’ Da alone. But I wouldn‘t want t‘be takin‘ you from those as need you here.”
“So many of us in that tiny bit of a smial,” May mused quietly, staring unseeingly at the fine rugs spread before the empty fireplace. “An’ now it’d be just you and Da.” Then her expression hardened. “I’ll not be comin’ back to it, Daisy. Always crammed together, no room t’yourself. Never enough t’eat, naught as is ever your very own. Naught as isn’t useful, no trinket just for the beauty of it.”
Defiantly, she stared back into Daisy’s saddened face. “I’ll be Mistress Bracegirdle soon enough, Daisy. See if I ain’t. I won’t be goin’ back.”
There had been three days without rain, but Tom Cotton was not thinking of the hay harvest that was so overdue. He was in bed, and Marigold was near frantic, trying to keep the cool cloths on his forehead as he pulled them off in his delirium. Daisy was there as well, brewing one of her special herbal teas to help keep his temperature down. There was no cure for summer fever, but there were some potions that, in some cases, helped. Daisy knew them all, and would methodically try one after another. This was her second attempt to help Tom, and she was trying to hide her concern from Marigold.
Jolly had been restlessly going from one smial to another, for his father was sick as well, in the Cotton smial at the top of the hill. Troubled with his worries, he found himself staring at the hay, but with just himself and his two younger brothers, there was no hope of bringing it in. Marigold had found him outside, staring at the fields, when she went out to pump some more water for the invalid.
“There’d be naught I can do,” Jolly murmured brokenly, as she sympathetically touched his arm. “Hob and Will’d be gone, and Nick and Nibs do what they can, but…”
“There’s Sam,” Marigold replied sturdily. “Don’t you go forgettin’ him, now.”
“No,” Jolly gave a reluctant smile, “I’ve been hearin’ plenty from him about not callin’ him when we were cuttin’ oats. But even so…” he sighed, staring back out at the fields again. “Well ‘tis all I can do, and I must try my best. This harvest is that important to us.”
It was mid-morning when there was a knock on Bag End’s round front door. Frodo had been in the study, engrossed in a particularly difficult translation, and it had been several moments before he realized that the sounds that he was dimly hearing were knocks on the door. Curious, he walked down the hall. It was certainly not Merry or Pippin, for the knocking was polite and hesitant.
Opening the door, he was surprised to find Jolly Cotton standing before him, face rosy, and clearly intimidated to be in this position. “Why, Jolly,” Frodo exclaimed, with a warm smile, “how good it is to see you.” Graciously, he motioned Jolly inside into the cool front doorway.
“I’d be here for Sam, beggin’ your pardon, Mr. Frodo,” Jolly stammered out, his face becoming redder yet. “If I might be havin’ a word w’him, sir…” he trailed off, thoroughly embarrassed about putting the Master of Bag End in the position of a messenger.
“Of course, Jolly,” Frodo said quickly, trying to put the young hobbit at his ease. “I believe he’s in the back garden. Would you like to follow me?”
Jolly gulped, and nodded wordlessly. The quickest route to the garden was through the smial and out the kitchen door, which was the way Frodo took him, but Jolly’s eyes betrayed his nervousness as he followed Frodo. He had never seen the interior of the legendary Bag End before.
Sam looked up in surprise from the tomato beds that he was staking when Frodo walked up to him, a painfully anxious Jolly in tow. “Sam,” Frodo said, formally, the amusement on his face only visible by Sam, “Jolly Cotton would like to have a word with you, if you don’t mind.”
“Thank you, Mr. Frodo, and if it isn’t that good t’be seein’ ye, Jolly,” Sam exclaimed warmly, rising up and brushing the dirt off of his knees. “Would there be summat wrong?” his tone quickly changed to concern as he had an opportunity to get a better look at Jolly. Frodo, who had been heading back to the kitchen door, turned at that, and pausing, gave Jolly a closer look as well.
“Aye,” Jolly gulped, and Sam quickly saw that he was on the edge of crumbling.
“Now then, Jolly, you need to be havin‘ a seat and tell me about it,” he was instantly at Jolly’s side, wrapping a firm arm around him, and leading him to the kitchen door, giving Frodo a worried glance that Jolly did not catch.
Frodo quickly went ahead, opening the door for them, and picked up the kettle as Sam and Jolly settled at the kitchen table, Sam sitting close by Jolly, his arm still embracing him. “Tea?” Frodo asked Sam quietly, and Sam nodded in silent agreement.
Frodo placed the kettle back on the hook, and stirred the remains of the kitchen fire under it until the flames leapt up again. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sam watching Jolly with growing concern, his arm still firmly around the younger hobbit. Jolly was obviously trying the collect himself up enough to speak, too distraught to even be appalled that the Master of Bag End was making tea especially for him.
Finally, with a deep breath, Jolly stammered out, “ ‘Tis da and Tom. The both o’them, w’the fever. Three days now. And the hay, it wants cuttin’. An’ there’d just be me and the two lads. An’ how can I be gettin’ help when ‘tis the same everywhere? The rain, it’ll be back, I know. An’ we’ll be losin’ it to the mildew, sure enough. I just, I just…” and with a gulp, he could say no more, but put his hands to his face and tried to keep the sobs back.
“Ah, now, don’t you be a’worryin’ about what can’t be helped, Jolly dear,” Sam’s arm around Jolly tightened. “Daisy’d be with your da an’ Tom, right? She’d be the best as is, you know that full well.” Sam’s voice was calm and soothing, and he produced his pocket handkerchief, which Jolly gratefully accepted. “And as for that hay, well, you know I’ll be there with you. We’ll just have to do as much as we can, afore the rain returns. The two of us can cut, and the lads stack. We‘ll be managin‘ somehow, don‘t you be frettin‘ so.”
It was then that Sam looked up to see Frodo standing by the table, tea pot in hand, watching them. “The three of us could cut more,” Frodo stated very quietly, setting the pot on the table. Sam automatically started to protest, but then caught the look in Frodo’s eye. Only Sam could have seen it for what it was, a silent plea.
“The three of us might just be enough,” he answered Frodo slowly, his eyes never leaving Frodo’s, and Frodo’s warm smile in return was gift enough.
“Oh, Mr. Frodo, you can’t be doin’ that!” Jolly stared at Frodo in dismay, suddenly realizing what he had offered.
“Nonsense, Jolly,” Frodo was immediately all business. Placing the mugs out and pouring the tea, he continued, “I’m not totally useless, you know.” Taking pity on Jolly’s horrified splutters, he continued with a laugh, “I was taught to make myself useful at Brandy Hall, before I came here. It may have been awhile, but I do know my way around a scythe.”
Slowly and methodically, the three hobbits worked their way down row after row of the thick green grass. Nick and Nibs kept up as best they could, gathering and bundling the fallen hay, but were soon left farther and farther behind. It wasn’t until the three reached the corner of the field at the far fence that Jolly straightened up with an effort, and wiped off the sweat running down his face. Frodo, giving a few last swings, straightened up as well and, letting the scythe drop at his feet, flexed his hands gratefully.
“Well, that wasn’t that bad, now,” Sam joined the other two, and looked back with a grin at the swath left behind them.
“Hoy! Nick, Nibs!” Jolly called out to his brothers, who gladly stopped their bundling and hurried down the field to join them. Jolly turned to pick up a water skin that he had left under a tree nearby earlier. “We could all be usin’ a bit of this,” he gave a wry laugh. “ ‘Tis that warm today, I don’t know why I was worrying about the rain.”
He began to lift it to his mouth, but then recollected himself, and handed it to Frodo first. Frodo took the offered skin, after only a moment’s reluctance to be the first, and lifted it up.
“Now, don’t you be drinkin’ too much,” Sam was watching him with a worried look, “or…”
“Or you’ll be getting the cramps,” Frodo finished Sam’s sentence with a merry laugh, after only swallowing a mouthful. “Really, Sam, I have done this before,” he teased him lightly, handing the skin back to Jolly.
“Aye, well,” Sam muttered, but couldn’t help a smile at Frodo’s expression of fond exasperation.
“So, Jolly,” Frodo gazed out at the rest of the field as the water was passed about. “Any chance of us finishing this lot today?”
Jolly grinned at his two younger brothers as they gave him woeful looks. “The cuttin’, likely enough. I’d not be knowin about the bundlin‘, though.”
“Well, as long as the cuttin’ be done, I can give a hand tomorrow with the bundlin’, if needs be,” Sam smiled at the two younger Cottons. “Or mayhap, there’d be the both of us to help,” he added with a laugh, catching a look from Frodo. “Cheer up lads, ‘tis only one more day of good weather as we’d be needin’.
“Then we need to be starting,” Frodo announced briskly as the water skin finished its rounds, picking up his scythe again and walking towards the beginning of the uncut row of hay. “ ‘Twon’t be cut by wishin’ it so.”
Sam picked up his scythe as well and walked, chuckling, past a startled Jolly.
Frodo leaned forward, his dark curls dripping into the warm bathwater. Sam was seated behind him in the tub, gently messaging Frodo’s shoulders and neck. “Mmm,” Frodo murmured. “Oh, Sam, I can’t tell you how good that feels.”
“Hmmpf,” Sam gave a short grunt in response, “you’ll be feelin’ right sore for a few days, I’ll warrant.” His hands kneaded carefully at the tightened muscles in Frodo’s back. “You were at it all afternoon. ‘Tis the price you’d be payin’, I’m afraid.”
He took a cloth from the stool at the side of the tub and, wetting it in the warm water, carefully draped it around Frodo’s shoulders. Frodo sighed, let himself fall back against Sam, whose arms quickly enfolded him.
“ ‘Tis the why of it as I’d not be understanding,” Sam went on, resting his cheek against Frodo’s wet curls.
“Because I hate to feel useless,” Frodo answered, staring into the flame of the candle on the shelf of the bath room’s wall. “And it’s rare that I get a chance to feel otherwise.”
“Ah, Frodo,” Sam sighed, lovingly stroking his hands up Frodo’s arms, “ ‘Tis like sayin’ that the roses over the garden gate’d be useless, likewise.”
“Then what is their use, Sam?” Frodo asked quietly.
“Why Frodo-love, don’t you know?” Sam bent and gently kissed the side of Frodo’s throat. “They make my heart that glad, every time I’d be seein’ them. I wouldn’t say as that is useless, no, not at all.”
“Oh, Sam,” Frodo responded, leaning back his head into Sam’s shoulder and staring up at him, “I need to be more than that.”
“An’ that you are, me dear,” Sam smiled down at him, his hazel eyes dark gold in the candlelight, “far more. The day’ll come, when you know what ‘tis as you’re meant to do in this world, rest you easy about that. You were meant for a purpose, to be sure.”
“And what do you think you’re meant for, Sam?” Frodo asked quietly, reaching up to cup the side of Sam’s face.
“Me? No more than what I’d be doin’, me dear. ‘Tis my place in this world, and glad I am of it,” Sam murmured lovingly, and bent down to kiss him.
Frodo was coming out of Sandyman’s mill on the outskirts of Hobbiton the next afternoon, with a pack on his back and a sack of flour over his arm, as Lotho and Anston came down the road into the village, Ted in tow, heading for the Green Dragon as usual. To Frodo’s dismay, he had been unable to help with the bundling of the hay that day, due to the blisters he had received from the previous day’s work. So to make amends, he had volunteered to make the trip into Hobbiton to pick up needed provisions for the Cottons, while the others finished up the harvest. Frodo acknowledged his cousin and his companions with a curt nod as he walked past them, but Lotho had a bit more sport in mind.
The other two walked ahead, but Lotho paused. “Why, Cousin Frodo,” he greeted him with a snicker, “Ted tells me that he saw you working in the Cottons’ field yesterday, just like any common harvest hand. Surely, he must have been mistaken. I can’t imagine the Master of Bag End falling to such lowly labor as that.”
Frodo glared at him, but continued past Lotho without a word.
“Oh, but that’s right,” Lotho turned and then strode along with him down the road out of Hobbiton, “there’s that boy you have about these days. Sounds as if you’re getting to be quite as common as he is. He must be good at teaching you a trick or two, isn’t that right, Master Baggins?”
But no sooner had the words been said than Lotho found himself with his face being firmly impressed into a tree at the side of the road, and his arm pinned behind his back in a decidedly uncomfortable manner.
“I have had rather enough of this, dear cousin,” Frodo hissed into his ear, thankful once again for the rough and tumble ways of Brandy Hall. “I would request that you not use your foul mouth on myself, my friends or indeed, on any other respectable hobbit, again. However, I‘m perfectly willing to make an exception for your friends.”
Lotho tried, after the first moment’s amazement, to free himself from Frodo’s iron grip, but that only caused his arm to be raised to a more painful level.
“Are we quite clear about that?” Frodo’s voice was now sounding slightly amused at Lotho’s predicament.
“Quite,” Lotho spat out, and Frodo released him, stepping warily back.
“Still have a few more tricks, don’t you, Mr. Baggins?” Backing away, Lotho rubbed his arm. “Best be watching your back,” he added darkly.
“Yes. Well, if you‘ve nothing further to add,” and slinging the sack over his shoulder again, Frodo deliberately turned his back on Lotho and started back to Bag End.
The rains had returned, and it was a damp night again, as Frodo helped Sam by clearing off the supper dishes. Hands in the hot soapy water, Sam suddenly lifted his head. “Would that be the door, now?” he asked Frodo, cocking his head to hear more clearly.
Frodo listened carefully. “I believe so,” he put the dishes down and started to the door. “Not very loud, but I’ll go have a look,” he said over his shoulder to Sam, leaving the kitchen.
Sam was wiping his hands on the cloth when he heard Frodo calling his name. Worried at the tone he heard in Frodo‘s voice, he immediately hurried down the halls, but was not prepared for what he saw at the door.
His father was standing there in the rain, supporting a drenched and barely-standing Daisy. “Sam,” she gasped, at the sight of him, “I’d be needin’ a bit of help,” but it was then that her eyes slid shut and she started to slip from her father’s grasp.
Immediately, both Sam and Frodo moved forward, Sam quickly catching Daisy as she started to fall, and Frodo gently grasping Hamfast Gamgee’s arm and quietly urging him inside out of the rain. Frodo closed the door at that, and with a fleeting look over at Sam, swiftly said, “The study,” and hurried ahead down the corridor.
Sam lifted up his unconscious sister in his arms, and with a hasty glance over his shoulder to his father, followed Frodo. Hamfast followed behind, still without a word.
Before long, Daisy was lying on the pillowed bench in the study, well wrapped in blankets, and the study fire was blazing, warming the room against the wet evening’s chill. Frodo had fetched a stack of cloths, and a basin of water, and Sam was wiping off Daisy’s fevered brow, as she turned her head from side to side, unawares, under his touch. “How long, Da?” he asked, looking up at his father with apprehension.
The elder Gamgee finally found his voice at that. “Three days,” he muttered gruffly. “She’d not wanted to be botherin’ anybody. But I can’t find the herbs as she needs,” he continued, his voice sinking, and he stared at his daughter, suddenly lost.
“Oh, Da, why were you not telling’ me this?” Sam murmured tightly in anguish, his gentle hand never stopping its soothing motion on Daisy’s brow.
At that, Daisy stirred and slowly opened her eyes, staring at Sam for a few moments in confusion. Then, as if remembering what had brought her here in the rain, she tightly grabbed his hand and, in barely more than a croak, whispered, “Sunsword, Sam. Mugwort, too. Three o’the first to two o’the last. Steep three hours.”
“Aye, Daisy dear,” soothed Sam, who had been listening closely. “Rest you quiet, now.“ Quickly, he looked up to his father and Frodo, who was standing quietly by the fire. “I’m going, then. I’d know where there might be a bit o’mugwort, but the sunsword won’t be a’that easy to find.” With a quick grasp of his father’s shoulder, and an intent glance at Frodo, he was gone.
Frodo and the gaffer were left behind in the quiet room. Daisy had slid into unconsciousness again, and was breathing roughly, her face damp with the fever. “She should not be out of doors again tonight,” Frodo said suddenly, watching Daisy closely. “I’ll go prepare a room for her.”
He turned to leave, but was halted by the gaffer’s sudden murmur of “No, Mr. Frodo, we couldna possibly…” but his voice trailed off in confusion, and he stared at his eldest daughter with no words left in him.
Frodo turned back to the old hobbit and gently grasped his shoulder. Hamfast stared slowly up at him, his face stricken with grief and bewilderment. “It’s no trouble at all, Mr. Gamgee,” said Frodo then, in a kindly tone. “There is plenty of room at Bag End for her to stay until it’s safe for her to be moved again. Sam will be returning as soon as he can. Let me prepare a room for her,” and he was gone.
Not very long after, he returned to the study to find that Hamfast had scarcely moved while he was gone, and Daisy still tossed restlessly in her fever. “I’ve a bed prepared for her,” he said gently, as Hamfast looked up. “Would you like to carry her down the hall, or should I?”
Hamfast looked at him for a moment, and then said grimly, “It’s best as you do that, Mr. Frodo. These auld bones would be droppin’ her, as like as not.”
Frodo nodded wordlessly, and gently picking Daisy up, carried her down the hall to the back bedroom that Sam had occupied when Merry and Pippin had visited. He had considered the main guest room, but had quickly decided that Daisy would feel more at home in the unassuming back room. Hamfast followed, familiar with the layout of Bag End from his many years of service with Bilbo. Frodo carefully laid Daisy on the narrow bed, and moved over then to the newly-lit fire, ensuring with the poker that the just kindled flames had well caught the logs.
Hamfast pulled a stool over to the fire and sat wearily down. Frodo watched him carefully for a moment, and then laid down the poker and walked to the door. “I’ve a mind for some tea,” he mentioned casually, glancing back over his shoulder at Sam’s father, “would you care for a cup as well, Mr. Gamgee?”
“You shouldna be puttin’ yourself to any trouble on my account, Mr. Frodo,” the old hobbit replied, somewhat gruffly, looking up from the fire, “but if you’d be makin’ it anyways…”
Frodo smiled, nodded briefly, and left.
When he returned, with a hot mug in each hand, Hamfast had not moved, nor had Daisy awakened. Frodo handed one of the mugs to Hamfast, who accepted it without further ado, and then stood by the fire He was glad to see some warmth and color returning to the old hobbit’s furrowed cheeks as he sipped the tea. For awhile, there was silence in the room. Only the crackle of the flames, and an occasional low moan from the patient were to be heard.
But then, Hamfast, with a motion of his shoulders so familiar to Frodo, the same one that Sam would use when he was preparing to speak his mind, cleared his throat, and abruptly said, “So would Sam be havin’ one o’these back rooms as well?”
Frodo stared at him, surprised, and trying to understand what was really being asked of him. “No,” he answered gently, “he does not.”
Hamfast grunted, and stared down at the mug in his hand, and Frodo suddenly realized that Hamfast was still not wanting to accept what he knew to be true, that he was still holding fast to the hope that there was some sort of reasonable explanation for Sam’s situation that did not involve any sort of emotional entanglement with the Master of Bag End.
Frodo took a quick breath. If Sam had been brave enough to confront his father, then he could do no less. There was no use in the both of them in this room not speaking of Sam, not acknowledging what he meant to each of them.
“Sam shares my room,” Frodo stated quietly.
The gaffer said nothing to that, not even looking at Frodo, for several moments, but when he did look up, Frodo was dismayed to see that there were tears in his eyes.
“My boy ne’er did anything w’half a heart,” Hamfast whispered. “ ‘Twill be what hurts him in the last, I know it.”
Frodo looked down at him, and felt the old hobbit’s grief for his son tear at his own heart. “Mr. Gamgee,” he said softly, dropping on a knee next to him. “your son means everything to me.” Willing Hamfast to look up at him, he intently continued. “Neither of us ever planned for this to happen, but it did. And there isn’t a thing that I wouldn’t do for him.”
Hamfast did look up at that, and locked his eyes on Frodo‘s. “Then let him go.”
Frodo’s jaw tightened at that. “No,” he answered quietly. “That’s the one thing I could never do. It would break his heart. And mine. Don‘t ask that of us.”
When Sam returned, he found his father and Frodo, silently sipping tea before the fire, as Daisy lay in bed in the back bedroom. He checked on Daisy quickly, finding that her condition had not changed, and then hurried to the kitchen to prepare the herbal concoction for steeping. Despite his concern for Daisy, a corner of his mind found the silence in that bedroom rather alarming.
Returning to the bedroom, with a quick glance at Frodo, he hesitantly asked his father, “Da? Would you be wantin’ a bed as well? The potion won’t be ready for a good while. ‘Twouldn’t be no trouble.”
Hamfast rose at that, giving his son a searching look. “Nay, I‘d be goin‘ then. She’d be best off in your hands, Samwise, but you don’t be needin’ me about as well.” Walking to the door, he turned and added, with a curt nod, “My thanks for your kindness, Mr. Frodo. I’ll find my way out, if you’d not mind,” and left.
Sam gave Frodo a questioning look, but Frodo shook his head. “Later, Sam,” he said quietly, and then walked over to Daisy. “What can I do to help?”
Sam followed him over to the bed and stared at his sister in concern. “She’d be better off out of those wet things as she has on,” he murmured, frowning.
“I’ll look for a nightshirt for her then,” Frodo looked up, giving Sam a wry smile, “and I would suspect that she’d rather have your help with that than mine.”
Sam gave him a small answering smile. “You know I’d never be hearin’ the end of it otherwise,” he admitted.
It was quite late into the night when Frodo and Sam were finally in bed themselves. Daisy had been awakened enough to administer the tea, and was sleeping easier. Holding Sam closely to him in their bed, Frodo told him, only then, of the words he and Hamfast had exchanged.
“Ah, Frodo dear, ‘tis that hard for him to understand, I know,” Sam sighed, as they lay on their sides together. He lovingly caressed Frodo’s cheek and, finding his mouth in the dark, kissed him slowly. “But don’t you be listenin’ to his words, m’dear,” he whispered, breaking away from Frodo for a moment. “Don’t you ever think of givin’ me up.”
“Too late for that, Sam dearest,” Frodo smiled, his head settling to rest in just that place on Sam’s shoulder where it fit so well. “I’d sooner give up breathing. You’re rather stuck with me, I’m afraid.”
And Sam’s response to that was entirely satisfactory.
It was three days before Daisy could leave, but the gaffer did not return to Bag End. Sam went to see him daily, to eat second breakfast with him, and to make sure that the rest of his meals were accounted for. They discussed the rainy summer, and how it would be affecting the gardens, and the doings up at the Cottons’. Tom and his father had recovered from the fever as well, and Marigold visited her father daily as well as Daisy at Bag End. And slowly, the fever left the Shire, and the rains ceased, and life returned to the way it had been, for most folk.
The mornings were beginning to feel crisp, and the tulip trees, always the first to turn, were starting to show brilliantly golden leaves among the green, when once again, there was a knocking on the front door of Bag End. Sam and Frodo were eating second breakfast, and Frodo, pausing halfway through buttering a thick slice of bread, listened with the air of a connoisseur. “Merry and Pippin,” he announced to Sam with a smile, “but they’ve learned from the last time. Not nearly as early. Good lads.”
The smile quickly vanished though when he caught the expression on Sam’s face. “Sam,” he asked quietly, “do you want me to say anything this time?” Rising from the table, and ignoring the renewed assault, he walked over to Sam, who had also stood up, his hands full of dishes. “Whatever you wish, Sam-love,” Frodo touched the side of Sam’s cheek softly.
Words had failed Sam, but he shook his head slowly, and Frodo could see the apprehension, and even a little fear, in his eyes. “That’s all right, never you mind, love,” Frodo whispered, and kissed him tenderly. “We’ll sort it all out somehow, but not until you are ready.”
With a sigh, he left Sam to start the dishes, put the kettle back on, and collect himself.
Soon Merry’s rather deep voice, Pippin’s more excited burr, and the occasional comment from Frodo could be heard coming down the hall. “Hullo, Sam!” Pippin greeted him enthusiastically, bursting into the kitchen first. “And you already have a kettle on for us? You’re the best, Sam, you really are. And ooh! Look, Merry, it’s those cream scones that Sam does so well,” he added enthusiastically, catching sight of the leftover second breakfast on the kitchen table.
“Excellent, very good,” Merry mumbled distractedly, casting a brief glance at Sam as well as the food, and then returned to the primary topic of conversation. “As I was saying, Frodo, seeing as it’s your birthday tomorrow, and seeing as last year’s celebration was rather, well, dramatic, I had a feeling that you were going to let it slip by this year without any festivities whatsoever. Isn’t that right, Sam?” he suddenly called over to Sam, who was busy with the teapot.
Sam looked up quickly, over to Frodo, who was still standing in the doorway, staring at Merry with a odd expression on his face. He raised his eyes at that, meeting Sam’s, and Sam saw a look of amusement there, but also a brief wash of pain. Sam knew the reason. Frodo’s birthday was Bilbo’s as well, but most of all, it was the day that Bilbo had left him. He stood frozen, not knowing how to answer Merry’s question, but Frodo read his confusion, and briskly replied, “Since I couldn’t begin to match Uncle Bilbo’s talent for party-giving, I hadn’t actually planned on one, Merry dear.”
“I thought as not,” Merry gave a satisfied nod, as he plopped upon a chair at the table. “So you are indeed in luck, my dear cousin, for Pippin and I have come for expressly that purpose. After all, you did come of age last year, but there was never really a chance of celebrating it properly. But don’t you worry, my lad, we’ll make up for it this year, even if it‘s just the three of us.”
Frodo caught up with Sam later that evening in the guest bedroom that Merry and Pippin usually used. He had finished airing out the beds and laying on blankets, and had already started a small fire to warm up the room for the night. It was as he was getting ready to leave the room, spare blanket over his arm, that Frodo walked in. “The back bedroom again?” Frodo asked wistfully.
Sam nodded, embarrassed, and feeling cowardly.
“That’s all right,” Frodo said softly, going over to him, and placing his hands on Sam’s shoulders. “I understand, Sam-love. And it won’t be as long this time, Merry has already informed me that he needs to leave the day after tomorrow. An errand for his father, I believe, with a cattleman in North Farthing. And where Merry goes, so does Pippin. Don’t you fret, dear, it won’t always be like this.”
Sam swallowed, closing his eyes and trying to blink back the tears. And then Frodo’s arms were around him, and Sam held tightly to him, hearing Frodo’s voice murmuring in his ear, “One step at a time, Sam-love. One family at a time. We must be patient.”
Sam opened his eyes at that, grateful for Frodo’s understanding. He nodded, still not trusting himself to say anything.
Frodo lifted his chin with a hand and kissed him slowly and thoroughly. “Come into the study tonight, dearest. You don’t have to say anything, I just want them to get to know you a bit.” He stared into Sam’s eyes then, as if willing courage to him. “I know you don’t think so, Sam,” he continued slowly, “but you are so very much more…” His voice trailed off at that, and he kissed Sam again.
Sam nodded then, helpless, as always, to resist Frodo. “I’d be there then,” he whispered, and they left the room.
It wasn’t until after he had thoroughly cleaned the kitchen that evening, that Sam finally found the strength to walk down the hall to the study to join the three, but Frodo’s loving smile, upon seeing him, warmed Sam’s heart and gave him the necessary courage to sit down with them. “Only two nights,” he reassured himself, “only two nights.”
Merry and Pippin had helped Frodo celebrate his birthday, the next day, by taking him to the Green Dragon, where the inhabitants of Hobbiton present were more than glad to join in rounds of the Dragon‘s finest, purchased by Merry, and in drinking to the Master of Bag End’s health and happiness. Sam had spent the afternoon preparing a special meal of all of Frodo’s favorite dishes, and the birthday dinner back at Bag End had been particularly lengthy and festive. Frodo had brought out a couple of the most esteemed year of the Old Winyards’ vintage, and even Sam, upon being persuaded to taste it, had to allow as it beat any beer he had ever tasted, hands down.
Once again, they had retired to the study, and Merry poured glasses all round for the four of them.
“A toast!” he cleared his throat, in a rather self-important way. Raising his glass for a moment, he paused, and then proclaimed, “ To the finest elder cousin I’ve have ever had!” He lowered his glass then and stared wistfully at Frodo. “And Brandy Hall has been much that much emptier without you.”
Frodo raised his glass in response, and quietly added, “Thank you, Merry.”
It was then Pippin’s turn. He raised his glass, only half-filled, at Merry’s insistence and Pippin’s annoyance, and added cheerily, “To my special cousin Frodo, who is ever so much fun, and sweet and dear besides.” And finding that words were insufficient, he rose from the settle, where he had nested with Merry, and gave Frodo a rather sloppy kiss on his cheek.
“Why, Pippin,” laughed Frodo affectionately, giving him a firm hug in return, “that is very kind of you.”
And then it was Sam’s turn. He raised his glass, wanting so much to say something, but fearful of saying too much. “To the best master as I could ever have,” he said hesitantly. And then, greatly daring, he added, “Thank you, melyanna.”
Merry and Pippin both turned to look curiously at him at that, but the look in Frodo’s eyes was worth it.
“That was Elvish, wasn’t it,” asked Merry with a slight frown. “However did you pick that up, Sam?”
“From me, of course,” Frodo answered, his eyes still on Sam, and his smile for Sam alone.
“Hmm,” said Merry, but asked no more. Glancing about the study and stretching luxuriantly, he turned to Frodo then and casually said, “So how does it feel to be master and all of that? It’s been a year now, do you suppose the old boy will ever be back?”
“Well he was gone rather a long while when he went off with Gandalf the last time, right?” Pippin asked, quickly pouring himself another glass before Merry could object. “But then all of that was before any of us were born, even you, Frodo,” he added sagely with a lift of his glass in Frodo’s general direction.
Sam had been listening to this topic of conversation in dismay. Did they really have no idea how Frodo felt about Bilbo’s departure? Casting an uneasy glance at Frodo, he saw that Frodo’s eyes were downcast and his attention was not on any of them.
Merry was now beginning to distinctly slump in the settle and drift down in the general direction of the carpet, Pippin slowly following him as well. “Oh, well, I suppose he’ll pop up when least expected with another trunk of dragon gold or something of the sort.”
“I think not,” Sam heard Frodo say very quietly before he rose to his feet. “That bottle appears about finished, and it wouldn’t do at all to run dry tonight. No, not at all,” he announced, rather unsteadily, to his cousins. “I’ll be back.” With a careful gait, he left the room.
Sam sat quietly for a moment, completely unnoticed by the other two hobbits, who were now beginning to toast Bilbo and his return complete with increasingly unlikely plunder. But his anxiety about Frodo was growing, and finally, without a word to the other two, he left the study as well.
He found Frodo in the wine cellar, as he thought he would, but what he did not expect was to find Frodo curled up, seated on the floor and sobbing loudly. “Ah, Frodo, there now,” he crooned softly as he hurried over to him and, kneeling beside him on the cold stone floor, tried to pick him up in his arms. But Frodo was very reluctant to acknowledge him, very set on being thoroughly miserable, and, Sam quickly realized, very drunk.
Now Sam was alarmed indeed, for he had never seen Frodo in this condition before. “Frodo-love, let me be gettin’ you to bed, then,” he gently laid his hand on Frodo’s back, but Frodo turned from him, still hiding his face in his hands.
“No, Sam,” he heard Frodo gasp between sobs, “I should be alone, all alone.”
Sam stopped for a minute, not understanding what he was hearing. “You’d not be alone,” he then said reassuringly, stroking Frodo’s back lightly, “Your Sam’s here, he’d not be goin’ nowhere.”
“But it can’t last, it never lasts,” Frodo gasped between sobs. “And then you’ll go away too, and … and I won’t have any heart left. It hurts so, it always does, but this time will be the worst.”
It was the insecurity that Frodo usually hid so well, and Sam had never dreamed how strong it still was. “Ah, no, there you’d be wrong, Frodo-love,” he whispered, his arms tightening around Frodo. “Because that won’t be happenin’, no ways.” He felt Frodo’s taunt shoulders begin to relax slightly, and took the opportunity to gently turn Frodo around so he could face him. He pulled his pocket handkerchief out and tenderly wiped the tears from Frodo’s cheeks even as new tears still coursed down them.
“Sam,” Frodo whispered, blinking and slowly raising a hand to Sam’s face.
“Still here, m’dear,” Sam smiled lovingly at him, trying to keep back his own tears. “Not goin’ nowheres.”
“Hold me, then, Sam,” Frodo’s eyes were looking deep into his, in the light of the one candle that lit the storeroom. “Hold me. I never have to think when you hold me.”
Sitting on the stone next to Frodo, Sam needed no further urging. Wrapping one arm around Frodo’s back, he held the back of Frodo’s head with the other, and met Frodo’s open mouth with his. There was the taste of wine, and Frodo moaned as he met Sam’s tongue with his own. Eagerly, Frodo sought those hidden areas of Sam’s mouth, probing and tasting, and Sam gently met Frodo’s every touch with his own. He could feel Frodo’s hands tightly grasping his shoulders and drawing him closer, and he closed his eyes, feeling his own blood unmistakably begin to stir with desire.
“Frodo,” he gasped, breaking away from Frodo’s mouth with a great reluctance, “your cousins…”
“Are not here.” Frodo finished firmly. He pulled slightly back, and even in the dim light, Sam thought that he had never seen him look more beautiful. His face was flushed, his hair a mass of disheveled dark curls, and his eyes glittered with still unshed tears. “Sam,” he lifted a still unsteady hand to Sam’s face, “I need to have you hold me. I need your touch, Sam. I’m never afraid or lonely then.”
Sam had no thought of refusing him. Resolutely, he cast any notion of Frodo’s cousins from his mind, for here was Frodo, and the rest had never really mattered. There was only one last rational impression in his mind that perhaps the cold stone floor of the wine cellar was not the best of places to be at this moment, and he briefly thought of trying to get Frodo back to his bedroom, but that was quickly erased by the sudden sensation of Frodo’s hand having managed to find his skin under his shirt, and the heat of it sliding up his chest.
“Cover me, dearest,” Frodo suddenly breathed, quickly laying back on the floor and tugging Sam over him. “I need to have you on me, Sam, oh, Sam. Hold me down, love, don’t let me go.”
“Never,” Sam groaned at that, his heart twisting with sympathy and desire. He spread himself over Frodo’s body, raising himself up over Frodo with his elbows on the sides of Frodo’s chest.
“Oh, Sam, please, love,” Frodo’s eyes were now closed and both of his hands were on Sam’s chest, stroking and urging Sam ever closer. Sam could feel Frodo start to move rhythmically under him, pushing upward against his hips. He fell into the rhythm as well, the slow sensuous grinding, the thrust of heat against heat, even through the layers of their clothing. Briefly he considered attempting to remove some of their garments, but the last thing he wanted to do at this moment was to pull away from Frodo for any reason.
Bending over Frodo’s face, he began to kiss him lightly but fervently. Frodo’s pace had quickened now, and he was gasping as he drove himself up against Sam. “Harder, Sam, please,” he begged, his head arching back, eyes still tightly closed. “Harder, love, don’t ever let me go.”
And Sam could no longer hold back. He ground down on Frodo with all of his strength, over and over, answering Frodo’s cries of need with his own answering moans mingled with Frodo’s name. It wasn’t until he felt Frodo thrust himself up with a final wild cry and his eyes snap open, that he felt the answering surge himself, and he collapsed onto Frodo, numbly feeling the wetness spreading between them.
Sam rolled to his side as soon as he could, and lay there facing Frodo. He felt Frodo’s hand lift then, and search for his own. Wondering, he felt Frodo grasp it tightly and draw it to his mouth, tenderly kissing it. “Frodo,” he whispered, but Frodo looked back at him silently, his dark blue eyes fathomless in the candlelight.
A/N: melyanna - dear gift
This was awesome EW!!!
Loved fieldhand!Frodo, as their was something very hot about him, hmmmm. . .And I especially liked the Gaffer in this, as he seemed so real to me.
And the sex. . .was um. . .sexeh, yeah. . .
Re: This was awesome EW!!!
And thanks about fieldhand!Frodo - I know, mmmm.
More to come of M&P and the gaffer in the last installment.
no subject
Re:
Thank you so much, again!
*off to look at the prettiness*
no subject
Re:
Yes, the poor gaffer would love to be in denial, but no-one's letting him. Heh.
Richly atmospheric
There is a sense of a real community surrounding Frodo and Sam, and that their love is set within a real Shire.
Lovely.
(I'm new to lj -- may I friend you, Elderberry? I so look forward to your new fics!)
Re: Richly atmospheric
The last part is finished, and currently being beta'd, so you won't be in suspense very long...
But I think that the key is that the Shire ultimately sees them as individuals, and not just a relationship.
And yeah for you on LJ now! Of course, please friend and I'll friend you back.
Re: Richly atmospheric
And thank you for 'befriending' -- just added you, and will look forward to updates.