Thy Hand         by Tialys

Old scars bring dark nightmares for both ring-bearers, and Frodo thanks Sam for being.

Italicized parts are from The Lord of the Rings books, the line from the end is Psalm 139:9-10.

Samwise Gamgee sat up abruptly. Next to him Rose shifted uneasily but did not wake. It was not unusual for the gardener to wake often during the night. His travels had transformed the formerly placid hobbit and Sam could frequently be found pacing the curved halls of Bag End with a cup of tea and murmuring to himself until Rose located him and brought him back to bed. Routinely, Sam eased himself out of the large bed, wrapping a robe around himself against the chilled night, and stumbled out into the hall.

Assortments of dreams and nightmares, being the usual cause for Sam's midnight wanderings, clouded his mind as he tried to recall which of the abundant selection had been the cause of tonight's awakening, but none seemed vivid enough to bare fault. All Sam could truly recollect was piercing cry. It had not been in his own voice, but painfully familiar all the same. And real.

Sam stopped abruptly, a tiny gasp rushing past his lips. Real, indeed. The walls of Bag End still rang with the slow-fading scream, clinging to the end by its own force as it was finally consumed by the woodwork and the night faded again to false tranquility. Sam carefully set his palm to the wall, the enduring vibrations barely reaching his senses -- then they were gone.

Sharp brown eyes studied the dead wall, then wandered to the work-worn, callused hand resting gently on the painted surface. Thin white lines branched and crossed across the back of his hand, glowing brightly in a shaft of moonlight and marring the tanned skin. As the trembles faded, ghosts of former pains weaved their way over the scars and Sam's hand retreated from the wall as though slapped.

A sudden weight smote him and he crashed forward, tearing the backs of his hands that still clasped his master's.

Sam had been bearing his master on his back when Gollum had attacked them. Unwilling to release his master's hands, sacrificing them to the mercy of Mordor's landscape, the skin covering the back of his hands had been torn against the sharp stones when he fell. Better his own hands than his master's... but it did not matter anymore.

Unconsciously rubbing his smarting hands, Sam continued down the creaking hallway. His nightly ventures habitually led him this direction, though now he tread with purpose as opposed to his usually aimless haunting.

The door to Bag End's master bedroom stood partly ajar, a miniscule shaft of moon falling through the gap and into the hall at Sam's feet. Drawing closer to the doorway, Sam could faintly hear his master's breathing floating through the opening; not Frodo's usual, gentle breaths, but course, labored gasps. Sam winced and stopped at the door. No such sound had ghosted his hearing since the journey. It was the same rattled gasps his master had sounded in Mordor, trying to suck in the black fumes in hopes it would contain enough breath to push his lagging heart to beat just one more time, slowly killing him in the process.

Sam set his trembling palm to the door and slowly, the barrier swung open into the dark room. A harsh creak sounded, and Sam's hand flew to still the hinges' screams. He held the door partly open, straining to hear if he had woke his master, but the scraping breaths still sounded their rhythmic dirge.

Gentle prodding swung the door fully open, the full essence of the moon slipping through and lighting Sam's face. The room was surprisingly dark despite the seemingly bright glow spreading from between the partly drawn curtains. A chill dripped from the doorway, rushing from the blackened chasm to the warmer hallway, where light did not yet die. Sam's eyes flickered to the long-dead erection of once-burning logs resting in the bedroom's fireplace. The wood still stood in a fire-pleasing form, yet all traces of warmth had died against the icy stones lining the floor around them. He quickly surveyed the room's blurred detail, sharp brown eyes sweeping over the cluttered pillars of books and parchments. His gaze came to rest on the giant bed in the center of the room, and the remainder of the world ceased in its meager existence.

Frodo lay at the edge of the bed, curled in tightly upon himself, his position threatening a quick fall if he turned in his sleep. The white, moonlit sheets bore testament of the hobbit's uneasy dreams, wrapping their false glow around Frodo's legs in a tangled net of bonds and reminding Sam of glittering, iron chains more than warm coverings.

Easing himself quietly nearer his master, Sam was struck by how small the slight hobbit appeared in the large bed, an illusion enforced by Frodo's curled position, a habit he had been adopting with growing frequency since returning from his travels. Twin shafts of moon pierced through the window frame and curtain, splaying across the disheveled sheets and resting on the ring-bearer's maimed hand. In a white brilliance to rival that of Sam's own scars, the immortal white mark carved at the end of Frodo's hollow stub of finger shone with an ethereal light, matching the twisted, wrinkled blankets on which the shamed hand lay.

Sam winced involuntarily at the sight of the scar, muttering faintly to himself, " I would have spared him a whole hand of mine rather." Unknowingly echoing his words from Mordor.

Kneeling beside the bed, Sam's hand reached out in feather-light gentleness, carefully resting on the trembling hand of his master's. Barred from the haunted hand, the moon's evil gaze lost sight of the nightmaric scar, losing its grasp, too, of the hobbit's dreams. Unable to produce the dark memories it so delighted in, the moon's light shifted, focusing undauntedly on its newfound target. Though his own crossing scars quickly regained their ghostly lumination, Sam's hand did not retreat as before, wrapping instead around the clammy, shaking fingers of his master, holding them tightly.

Wincing slightly, Sam shifted to a new position on the icy floor, bowed his head to rest on the rumpled sheets near Frodo's hand, and set his own free hand gently on his master's shoulder.

"It's the least I can do, Frodo." Said the whisper.

An exclamation of dismay came from the empty boat. A paddle swirled and the boat put about. Frodo was just in time to grasp Sam by the hair as he came up, bubbling and struggling. Fear was staring in his round brown eyes.

"Up you come, Sam my lad!" said Frodo. "Now take my hand!"

"Save me, Mr. Frodo!" gasped Sam. "I'm drownded. I can't see your hand."

"Here it is. Don't pinch, lad! I won't let you go."

A soft sigh cracked the mute air of the master bedroom, freeing the tense silence and sending it back to the rhythm of night's music, free of gasping breaths and whispers. Sam smiled at the gentle, Elbereth! the normal, sigh from his Frodo, and pressed the older hobbit's hand in his own, watching through tears as the ring-bearer's lips curved into a rare smile.

~

"The last pages are for you."

With painstaking care, Sam gently lifted each page of the Red Book, folding them over and turning to the next. Blank pages glowered at him from their white depths, taunting him with their promises of nothing, but never something. With a last flick of parchment, Sam turned to the last page, ready to close the book for the night -- and stopped.

"The last pages are for you."

In the small, neat script the gardener had grown to know as well as his own was a tiny line of lettering, running across the very bottom of the page. Small circlets patterned the page, marking where the paper had been wet once. More began to appear then. In the neat script along the end of the Red Book read the simple line:

If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

And then, below it:

It's the least I can do, Sam. The last pages are to you.

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May 1, 2004