Prologue and Historical Notes:

Frodo Gardner’s grandson, Harding, was surprised to find two small boxes deep inside a hole in the cellar during a renovation of Bag End in Afterlithe, 1535. The hole appeared to be one of those caused by the damage done when lads from even before his grandfather’s time had dug around looking for the dragon’s gold that Bilbo Baggins had been rumored to have obtained during his adventure almost two centuries earlier. Harding well knew the tales of Mad Baggins and even more the story from the Red Book that his great-aunt Elanor had kept and had now passed into her son, Elfstan’s custody. Being a hobbit of more than usual curiosity, Harding reached inside and drew out two quite old stationery boxes. After he brushed off some of the years of dust and dirt, he saw engraved upon one of them, the initials FB. That one was locked. The other was unmarked and able to be opened. Inside that one were many pieces of loose parchment covered with writing from a hand Harding vaguely recognized. He leaved through the pages, reading here and there and was rather surprised to realize that he had somehow stumbled upon a history of the War of the Ring that had been fought shortly before his grandfather had been born.

Excited and intrigued, Harding ran up the steps and went hurriedly to the library where was kept a treasured copy of the War’s history that had been written out from memory by his grandfather, who had wanted his own copy of the adventures. The hobbit pushed hurriedly to the last page and with quickening breath, compared the last lines with the writing in the box. That page was marked with several ribbons and seals and it read, "This is certified to be an authentic copy of The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King as written by Frodo Baggins of Bag End, Hobbiton. Attested by one who was servant and friend to the Ring-bearer and who participated in the some of the events described therein. [Signed] Samwise Gamgee, Mayor, 22 Halimath, 1450 S.R." Harding looked at the papers in the box and sucked in his breath. The writing was the same.

And that other box... Harding’s sense of propriety that he would be invading someone else’s privacy if he opened it held back his curiosity for only a moment. His fingers shook slightly as he jimmied the lock. The lid popped open and the hobbit stared in awe at all the papers stuffed inside. He had to catch the top ones from spilling onto the floor so full was the box. They were written in a different hand than the other box, but as Harding hurriedly look through them, breath now coming very fast and his body trembling, he realized he had yet another history in his hands. He stared at the initials on the box lid - FB. Frodo Baggins. Who his grandfather had been named after. It had to be. Harding sat down hard, feeling faint.

When he was revived by a bit of tea, he rushed out that very afternoon with barely a word to anyone, his treasures tucked securely under his arm, to his cousin’s Elfstan’s home in Westmarch. His great-aunt and uncle had passed some years before, but Elfstan still lived and had custody of the Red Book Frodo Baggins had written. In record time, Harding reached there and with barely a how-do-you-do, asked Elfstan for a copy of the book. The elder hobbit raised a curious eyebrow at the breathless request, but handed it to his cousin without question. Harding quickly compared the writing of the three manuscripts and confirmed that the writing was indeed the same in the book and the boxes.

He sat down rather dazed and absently thanked Elfstan for the cold glass of lemon water that was offered as the older hobbit was afraid his pale cousin was about to faint. Harding downed it on one gulp, held out the glass for another which he drank a little more sedately, then sat quietly in the chair. When he looked a little less like he was going to have a brainstorm that very moment, Elfstan asked his cousin what in the Four Farthings was the matter.

Harding took a deep breath and explained the whole thing. The stories were read right then and there by both hobbits with no regard for sleeping and little for eating which was most unusual in hobbits, but then the descendants of Samwise Gamgee were thought to be as cracked at times as had been the previous owners of Bag End, Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. Definitely by the time they were done, their hearts at least were cracked open and many times they had to set the manuscript aside for a moment for their tears to run out.

So it was discovered that two more histories of the War of the Ring existed and were confirmed to be authentic. The ones Harding had, by good fortune, found were in some ways much more detailed than that of the Red Book as far as the Ring-bearers’ were concerned, but curiously lacking in any details outside them. Both were written as loving tributes to the other, though it is not known whether Mayor Gamgee was ever aware of the one his friend and master had written and it is certain that the Ring-bearer was not aware the Mayor wrote, unless he spoke of it when and if he was reunited with his beloved master, since his was written after Frodo had left. Copies were made of both. One was kept with the Gardner’s, one Harding kept, one was sent to Great Smials and one to Brandy Hall. One was sent along with a Ranger with the request that it be sent to Gondor and given to the King as Harding and Elfstan both insisted that it would be of great interest to him. The Ranger smiled at the little ones so intently serious and just as solemnly assured them the manuscripts would indeed reach the king.

The documents were thus conveyed and there were more sleepless nights and tears shed in the Minas Tirith in the king and queen’s private chambers. King Elessar directed that many copies be made and distributed throughout his kingdom. A copy was also sent to King Elfwine of Rohan, son of Eomer, and to the son of Faramir and Eowyn in Ithilien. Elessar kept his copy in his chambers until his death and re-read it often, praying that his beloved friends had found peace and healing.

When he accepted the Gift, Queen Arwen directed the manuscripts be placed in the library at Minas Tirith in a special case against fading and the decay of time. Due to her foresight and love of the Pheriannath, they can be viewed to this very day, these great tales of pain and triumph of two small beings who were so great in heart and soul.

It is our great good fortune that so many copies were made and that a few survive even now to be read and studied and draw inspiration from. It is from one of the many scribes throughout the long centuries who laboriously copied and read in awe of the torment, sacrifice and endurance of the Pheriannath that we have the title of the work. Neither the Ring-bearer nor Mayor Samwise had titled theirs, but a later historian combined the two narratives so they now read as one and called it Via Dolorosa or The Way of Sorrows. Chapters and breaks to indicate the change in voice were also added in later, probably by the same scribe.

It is guessed that the arrival of that particular title must have come about due to the curiosity of a poem or song that was transcribed at a later date than the original manuscript and placed in later copies above where the Ring-bearer’s tale started. It is in written in red ink, instead of the black that both the Ring-bearer and his faithful servant used and the ink is dated to a time much closer to our own, though still centuries old. It is signed Galadriel and the debate over who this admirer was has raged for those centuries in the circles of those who study such things, but even now we know little more. It is, of course, not the Galadriel that left Middle-earth with two of the three Ring-bearer’s, but beyond that the woman’s identity is not any clearer than when it was first discovered.

It is my honor and privilege to bring you this ancient, timeless love story, told in the original writers’ own words - truly one of the tales "that stayed with you" as Samwise once said.

It all starts with that mysterious poem:

Your smile was bright, your heart was glad, your laughter ready, clear and strong; your feet were light and apt to dance, and fair and merry were your songs.

A true child of the Shire you were, a lover of peace, yet peace you had not; for all your joy was stolen away. The way of sorrows was your lot.

You left your home of rolling hills, of fertile fields and trickling streams, to take the lonely road that led to a land surpassing darkest dreams.

Bereft of hope and strength and light, parted from all friends but one, you walked in shadow, towards your doom, weary, sustained by Love alone.

Your faithful Sam walked at your side, ever near to help and bear, to be your hope when hope was gone, to do his best to still your fear.

The way of sorrows was your lot, and from it there seems no return; for even now your deed is done, for that which you hated you yet yearn.

Go then, dear, to Eressea, far across the Sundering Seas. There you may let go your grief and at the last find lasting peace.

Your faithful Sam will join you there, and after a time of joy and rest, you'll go together into the Presence, and there you'll be for ever blest.

And now the tale as the Ring-bearer and Samwise wrote it, in that order:

Prologue:

My beloved Sam, I so wanted to write this as a tribute to you, to your love for me and my love for you, and also to try to explain why it is that I had to leave you, dearest of all friends, my brother. How I love you, how very much I love you. You are my own and I belong to you. 

I knew it would embarrass greatly to read such a tale, but I was willing to risk that. However, I have discovered that this is too much a tale of myself, of my suffering, and that would only cause you more pain and that I am not willing to risk. I have done far too much of that already.

So forgive me, dearest Sam, for not including all of this in the tale I promised I would write for Bilbo and that I plan to leave with you. There is too much pain here for me to burden you with, too much darkness that I am still wandering lost in, too much torment that I can see no end to. I will instead be writing it all out here and putting it in my stationery box Bilbo gave me so long ago and hope it will do what it has always done and relieve me of this pain that is consuming me.I will have to figure out another way of telling you why I must leave.

Remember all those tales of adventure that always thrilled us and Merry and Pippin and how we wiled away many a Shire’s summer afternoon battling dragons and trolls and anything else we could from the tales Bilbo told or adventures he had? All those dangers we so bravely faced with our stout hearts and the wooden swords Bilbo had cut out for us were very real to us, but imaginary at the same time. How little we knew about what real danger was. Even knowing Bilbo had faced it himself was unreal to us, just another story.

We fought our battles under bright sunshine and the worst wounds we received was a scraped knee or bruised knuckles that could always be bandaged and the pain kissed away. We could always come home at the end of the day, to a filling meal and a goodnight’s sleep in a feather-filled bed with lots of pillows.

Nothing could have prepared us for what we faced outside our sheltered world. It was real, dark and terrifying. We did not play in the sun. We suffered wounds too deep to be kissed away, no matter how much we wanted them to be or how deep the furrow our lips made to make it so. We did not have always have enough sleep to refresh us each night or a bed in which to lay our head. We walked in darkness, afraid, hungry, thirsty, exhausted. Often, we slept on hard ground when we could sleep at all and we had little, so little, to eat and drink.

The only thing that was the same of our days of blissful ignorance in the Shire was that we had each other and that made all the difference. So I will write of that part of the tale I promised Bilbo, and in there, my most beloved Sam, you will shine brightest in a celebration of the best hobbits of the Shire facing and triumphing over impossible difficulties. But of my own tale, I will spare you much of it. We took so many of the same steps together and you know so much, or think you do, of what it was like, but still you did not have the same journey and for that, I will be forever grateful. I find I have no heart or will to tell you, so I write this as a tribute you will never see and perhaps that would be better, for while you were ever my light, I fear there is too much darkness in here for you. Bilbo will have his tale, just not this one. No one will.

* * *

I don’t expect any to read this, especially you, my dearest master, friend and brother, but I have to get it out. Maybe when it’s all on paper and just ink on parchment, it won’t hurt so much and I can look back without crying and just remember how much I have always loved you and always will to my dying breath, one I hope, if the Powers allow it, I will be taking with you beside me once more. You are my own and I belong to you.

I actually wish someone would read this so they will know more of what you did, but I won’t add any of it myself to the tale you wrote. What you left out, you left out for a reason and I will not gainsay any of that with you. Besides, I don’t think anyone would be interested in what I have to say anyway. You were always the scholar, my dear, the scribe, the historian. This story is about you and for you, my bright shining star, even if I’m the only one who will ever see it.

Chapter One: Farewell

"I’m going, my boy," Uncle Bilbo told me. "Right after our party tomorrow. I’m not getting younger and you are now old enough to be on your own. It’s time for another adventure."

I thought I would be prepared when he told me he was going to leave, but I wasn’t. He’s talked about for so long, but nothing happened that I comforted myself with the thought he would never leave, or that he would take me with him and we’d go on many adventures together. When he first adopted me, I remember all the times I had dreams about him leaving me all alone and how I’d wake crying out and he’d come running to me, in that long nightshirt and cap of his, holding a wavering candle in his hand, so frightened for me. Those dreams were like the ones I had had after my parents were drowned and I was so fearful of again being alone. I remember how he’d hold me and rock me and comfort me and tell me that he wasn’t leaving, not yet, and that he would always tell me when he was, that he’d never just leave and not tell me. As the years passed and he didn’t leave, the dreams ceased and the fears retreated to a deep, dark part of my mind, but that night they re-appeared with tremendous force

My heart was wide open and it bled when his words pierced it. I know he didn’t do it to cause me pain. I could see tears form in his eyes, I could feel them fall into my curls as we held each other so tight, so long. I wept long and hard into his chest, begging to be taken along, but knowing he was going to leave me behind. I tried so hard to concentrate on his voice comforting me, telling me how much he loved me, how proud he was of me and how much he would miss me and how he hoped I would indeed follow him one day. I sought to remember how it felt for him to hold me and stroke my curls and kiss my head. I wanted to remember everything.

He let me go when he felt I was strong enough to be released and he smiled at me through his own tears and wiped the last of mine. He offered me his handkerchief and I blew into it and tried to smile back. He and I looked at each other for a long time, memorizing everything, then he hugged me once more and kissed my brow. I didn’t want to let him go, but I did.

He and I prepared dinner together. We had done it so many times before, we didn’t need to talk to know what the other needed. It was seamless, elegant, almost a dance in the way we moved around the kitchen and each other and then brought the plates, bowls and cups to the dining room table. Uncle was humming and softly singing as he usually did, something Elvish that I was able to understand most but not all of. Usually I would sing along with him, but I couldn’t that night, not even to hear his praise at how much my Sindarin was improving. I found him often looking at me with such love and pride, it looked like his heart would burst from it and my heart felt the same way in the many glances I gave to him. How could he leave? How could this be our last dinner together, just the two of us? I don’t remember tasting anything.

He came to my bedroom to tuck me in, something he hadn’t done in years and now never would again. How many more things was I going to miss now? Waking in the morning to the smell of a mushroom omelette or pancakes with jam? Who would teach me more Sindarin? We had hardly even begun my Quenya lessons. No more walks in the moonlight, just he and me, telling me tales and introducing me to his Elvish friends. No more quiet evenings in the study by the fire, reading and simply enjoying each other’s company.

He looked at me, tears bright once more in both our eyes. "Would you like to sleep with me tonight, Frodo lad?"

"Yes, Uncle," I said. I got out of bed and padded to his bedroom.

I curled up against him, my head on his chest where I could hear his heart, my hand touching his shoulder. Through my nightshirt, I felt the Ring between us, held in a pocket. I felt Uncle’s arms around me, his kiss goodnight and heard him tell me that he loved me more than anything in the world. I murmured the same thing and held him tight. I didn’t want to sleep. I wanted to stay up and just listen to his heart, feel his arms around me, listen to the lullaby he softly sang to me. But that soothing beat and voice did its job all too well. I was asleep almost before I knew it. The following nights I wasn’t so sure I could sleep so well. Oh, Sam, why couldn’t everything had stayed the way it always was? But it couldn’t, I know. We barely left the Shire in time as we did, but still I wish...

When I woke to the smell of mushroom omelettes and strawberry jam and saw the huge breakfast Bilbo had made for the two of us, with all my favorites, I felt happy, overwhelmed and sad all at the same time. Uncle was smiling widely at me, held out the chair for me and put the feast in front of me. I tried hard to enjoy it, holding his hand in one of mine and eating with the other. You were there right in the beginning and that helped too. Bilbo rubbed his thumb along my hand and I knew he was concentrating more on looking at me than he was on eating. It was as though he was memorizing everything, to take with him. I knew I would be doing the same at the party. I’ve been doing the same with you and Merry and Pippin each time I see you.

"Can’t I come with you, Uncle?" I asked.

Bilbo’s hand curled a little tighter around mine and mine around his. "I would love to have you, my lad, but it also comforts me that you will be here, living your life. The Shire is too wonderful a place to leave it lightly. You will have your own adventures, I’m sure. And it’s proper that there should always be a Baggins here at Bag End. I’m sure you’ll find a lovely lass - there’s certainly no shortage of them who love to dance with you at the Free Fair - and then you’ll settle down with many children. And I hope you’ll name one of them after me and tell me about each and every one of them."

"I’ll name my first one after you, Uncle," I promised.

"Providing he’s a lad. I don’t think a lass would like to have Bilbo as their name."

I laughed and that was exactly the response he wanted out of me. Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad birthday after all. I had eagerly looked forward to this particular one as any lad or lass does and you know how busily Merry and I had been planning it. But last night I had begun to dread it.

We exchanged gifts before we left for the party. I gave him a book of Shire songs I had translated into Sindarin and he gave me a pipe. He looked down at that slim volume, originally done as a writing exercise, and far before I had known he would be leaving. When he looked up at me, there were tears in his eyes and I knew then that even if I couldn’t come with him, at least he’d be taking part of me with him. We held each other for a long time that evening before the party really began. He told me again he loved me and I told him that I loved him and then he kissed my head, told me I would be all right and we went out together to greet our guests. His voice was a bit wistful and I wonder if he was considering truly letting me go with him. I almost asked again, but held back.

* * *

I let myself into the smial as I did every morning before setting out for the garden. I went to your bedroom, but you weren’t there. The bedclothes were disturbed, but they didn’t look slept in. After a discreet knock at the privy received no answer, I started to look for you. You were still sleeping, curled up around Mr. Bilbo. He had woken and was just looking fondly down at you. He seemed almost to glow there with so much love coming out of him. I felt like I was intruding so I turned to leave, hoping I wasn’t noticed.

"I’m leaving tonight, Sam," Mr. Bilbo said quietly and I turned back.

"Leaving, Mr. Bilbo?"

"Yes, tonight, after the party." He looked back down at you. "You’ll look after Frodo, won’t you? He’ll need someone to help him around the place. I have extra pay set aside already for you, if you think you’ll have the time."

"You don’t have to pay me extra, Mr. Bilbo. I’d be happy to help out, but why are you leaving?"

"I have to, Sam. I’m getting too old. I know I don’t look it, but I feel it and Frodo needs to be his own master. I know he’ll feel very lonely for a while, but then he’ll begin to enjoy himself or I hope he will. One day, maybe he’ll leave too and I can see him again."

"Well, he won’t be leaving without me to look after him."

"I’m glad, Sam. He needs someone to love him as much as I do and I don’t think anyone but you could do that. Merry and Pippin adore him nearly as much and they’ll help keep him distracted too, I’m sure. He’ll be all right."

Mr. Bilbo spoke in a distant voice as though he had forgotten I was there and was only speaking to reassure himself. His eyes hadn’t left your face the entire time.

"Yes, sir, he will," I said, but my own heart broke a little to know that my dear first master was leaving.

You woke a little later, after Mr. Bilbo and I had moved into the kitchen. He had ever so gently let you go, making sure not to wake you. You seemed a little lost in such a big bed, tangled in those cream sheets you both favored. You looked sad, but beautiful. You always did, except when the Ring took you. Mr. Bilbo went about busily making all your favorites, humming a tune I couldn’t quite place. It sounded like a mix of the Shire and Elvish, just like you are. When you came into the breakfast room, your curls were still sleep-matted and one cheek was red where you had slept on it. You looked at Mr. Bilbo and then at me. And suddenly I just wanted to hold you because you looked so sad and lost. I would have too, but I held back. My Gaffer had drilled into me fine how I should regard you now that you were going to be master. You smiled at me a bit wearily and I smiled back and your smile grew a little. I didn’t think it was my place to stay and the garden awaited. But how I wanted just to hold you...

Chapter Two: The Party

You helped me so much, dear Sam, that night, determined that I enjoy myself and Merry and Pippin were even more determined, though ignorant of what trouble lay upon my heart. And actually I did enjoy myself or at least was distracted enough to not let the entire evening be ruined. Pippin was, of course, more than an handful. Merry stood by, just watching us with a satisfied smile on his face when he wasn’t eating and drinking all he could himself. And you were looking just as content.

I looked over at Bilbo often and sometimes saw him looking back at me. Was he wondering how he could leave me, as I have wondered many a time how I can possibly leave you or my cousins, so very dear to me? I tried to look happy for him, so he would not worry about me. I’ve tried to look happy for you three, so you wouldn’t worry about me either. I don’t think I have succeeded too well, but I must have done all right the night of the party because Bilbo still left. And I knew I had to let him go just as you three will have to let me go. Oh, I did selfishly wish he would be worried enough to want to stay, but I knew he wouldn’t be happy. He wanted to leave and I realize now, that was another thing that was, as Gandalf would say, meant to happen. I fear very much what would have happened to us and the Shire and the Ring had Bilbo not left.

But he did leave. He made his announcement and then just vanished. I should have left right then myself. In all the confusion, I wouldn’t have been missed or they would have assumed we had both left at the same time. I didn’t make it make home in time to see him off. Gandalf told me Uncle preferred it that way for another goodbye would have been a wrench to both of us, but still I wished I could have been there. Instead I mouthed my farewell to someone no longer there.

I’m leaving too, dearest Sam. I have to. That choice was made a long time ago. I just had to have the time to accept it. I won’t just disappear, but it will be just as suddenly and with as little warning as Bilbo gave me. I can’t bear to tell you any earlier and watch you suffer. I’d rather see you happy, and you have so much to be happy for, dear Elanor and Rose and all those lads and lasses I know will come to you. I know either way I will hurt you grievously, but know that the sword I will thrust into your heart is the same one I have already thrust into my own. There will be no loud crack or a ring that will make me invisible. I am already invisible, to myself at least. I am no longer who I was and I desperately desire to be so again. Desperate enough even to break your heart once again, dearest Sam. That is evidence alone that I am not myself. But in the breaking of both our hearts, it will also, I hope, prove the healing for both of us. So I will tell you and have you by my side until the very last moment. I could not bear to it any other way. I have to fight against my selfish desire to ask you to come with me. You would be allowed as you were a Ring-bearer yourself. But I will not ask. I will leave you to live your life here, where you belong, to have the life I always wanted, a wife and children. I hope though that you will come when you know it is time. I will be waiting for you. I hope my parting with you will be silent, with no words or tears, though I will be wailing inside. All the tears I wish to shed and have already shed would fill the Sea itself. Best that I don’t add anymore. But I hope you will speak to me so I can carry your voice with me.

* * *

How I always looked forward to that joint birthday party that was the highlight of the year in Hobbiton.  I looked forward to this year more than any other because it was your coming-of-age, but I worried about you too. You had excitedly told me for years all that you and Mr. Merry planned for it, but your cousin could see just as plain as plain that something was bothering you that night. I’m sure he was the one who deliberately made Mr. Pippin even more than his unusual bundle of non-stop energy just to give you something else to think about. I saw him hand that whirlwind more than one cup of lightly spiced juice all the children were getting, a special gift from Mr. Bilbo. All that sugar into one little lad! I don’t think I’ve seen anyone with such an appetite and so much energy! He had you running ragged, chattering without pausing to breathe, pushing food into your face when he wasn’t inhaling it himself, pulling at your hand and drawing you into dances and all such. I think the only time he was still was when he sat in your lap to watch the fireworks. The lasses were quite put out with all the dances you were doing with him instead of them! But you had time enough for them too when Mr. Merry finally dragged him away from you, having accomplished his purpose - to have you laughing and that is the most beautiful sound I have ever heard, especially when it’s not expected. Mr. Merry was looking that pleased with himself to hear it as well. And Mr. Bilbo too. We were all watching out for you. Mr. Bilbo especially was keeping a close eye on who you were dancing with, hoping that perhaps you would take a special fancy to one and start courting her. You are such a lovely dancer. Your light was shining especially bright. I think you forgot your sadness for a while. Oh, my dear, I hope you laugh long, loud and often where you are going. I will hear it one day again, I will. And not just in my memories.

Chapter Three: Master of Bag End

How can you prepare yourself when a piece of heart just leaves your life and you don’t know if you’ll ever see it again? I discovered you can’t after Bilbo left. But I comforted myself that it wasn't as though he had died. He had merely gone away and I continued to celebrate our birthday because he was still having them, even if we weren't together anymore.

I find myself wondering anew how one can go on with so much of their heart missing, more and more all the time draws near to when I must leave. I will be with Bilbo, but there will be other huge parts of my heart I will be leaving behind. But I hope it comforts you and Merry and Pippin as well that I won't be dying either, not yet. It will be almost just like when Bilbo left, but it won't be to Rivendell, but far across the Sea. I know it will feel like a death to you, dearest Sam, but please don't think of it that way. It is not death, but a new life. And you will have a new life too, many new lives with all the lads and lasses who will come to you. Oh, how I wish I could stay and be uncle to them all!

I have always been proud of the fact that Bilbo and I have so much in common, but there are things I wish we didn’t, like the Ring. It always comes back to that, to leaving. I wish I could stop writing about it! But that is all that’s left of me, nothing but the pain of loss I have endured since the Fire and losses yet to come that are already being suffered. I must keep writing though in the hopes it will help.

I don’t know when Merry and Pippin recruited you, my dear brother, into that little conspiracy of theirs to keep a watch on me all those years after Bilbo left, but I have always been so grateful, so very grateful, to be surrounded by such love. I found that after the initial shock wore off I did enjoy being Master of Bag End. The only drawback was that I had to deal with Lobelia, but even she changed in the end. And I am glad I can leave, having forgiven her. But then I was ready to cry tears of frustration as she, Lotho and Otho began spying on me the moment Bilbo left, waiting for me to leave too and saying all sorts of things about Bilbo being cracked and all that. I was that ready to scream back at them, but that would have only reinforced what they are already saying about me. You have no idea, dear Sam, how I wished I could use the Ring, but Gandalf warned me against that so I was stuck. If it weren’t for you and my brother-cousins, I think I would have gone mad.

I kept the Ring on its chain in my pocket all those years and it was silent, except for the nightmares I had sometimes of a giant eye searching for me. I had no idea what I really held, no one did, not even Gandalf, until he came back all those years later. How I wish I had never heard of it. But it all meant to be, Gandalf said.

* * *

I watched you all those years after Mr. Bilbo left. The Shadow hadn’t fallen yet, but there were times you were melancholy, especially in the autumn, when you grew more restless than usual. And you had nightmares sometimes. I wish I could have helped you more. Even if Mr. Merry hadn’t asked me to keep an eye on you, I would have anyway. You were often off with your cousins and off on your own. You were searching for news of the outside. Always a dreamer you were, my dear, always seeking adventure. We were all blissfully ignorant of what really lay aside our land, what dangers were growing and that the greatest danger lay in the pocket of your own breeches.

Oh, the many times I have wished that terrible thing had always remained lost or that Mr. Bilbo had never found it! But then someone would have and the world could still have been lost, the Shire and everyone and everything in it. No, it is better that is gone now forever so no one else can ever be endangered, but why did it have to be you to be so hurt by it, why do you have to be gone too? It was as though you took all the pain it would have caused the world into yourself and it ate you away. And you would have had it no other way. Better you suffer than someone else was your thinking. How we wish we could done the same, suffered so you didn’t have to. But it was all meant to be, Mr. Gandalf said, so I have to believe that. And I will always believe what you told me, that my time may come to go over the Sea. Wait for me, dearest, just please wait for me.

Chapter Four: Leavetaking

Gandalf finally returned and with the most evil tidings. He told me all about the Ring and that the entire Shire was in peril if it remained. So I learned I had to leave everything and everyone, but you, dear Sam. I had to flee from my home into danger and peril that I didn’t believe I would even survive. I offered the Ring to Gandalf, but he refused to take it. He was actually frightened by it, frightened by what he could do with it, what it could do to him. And that terrified me. If the power of the Ring was too much for even a wizard to withstand, how could I, a small hobbit, possibly do it? It had to be destroyed and I already knew even before leaving that I couldn’t bear to part with it. I tried and it just ended up in my pocket again, but Gandalf trusted me and so I trusted in his trust. And I trusted you, dearest Sam. I was glad not to be alone and I was so afraid. What dangers were out there already hunting for me? It was as though I saw a hand reaching out for me even at Bag End, reaching out for the Ring. I think if I knew then what was hunting us, I would have hid and never left and that would have been disastrous because there is no hiding from the Ring. The Eye was bent toward me even then and I knew it was seeking me. I had dreamed it. There would have been no escape. There is no escape even now for me. Gandalf told me that if used the Ring a lot, I would fade forever and walk in a twilight world under the Dark Power, that sooner or later the Ring would devour me, no matter what I did, if it wasn’t destroyed. I fear that has come true. The Ring is gone, but there is nothing left to me now but the emptiness of where it used to be.

My heart quailed within me as Gandalf told me all and I knew what I had to do. I had to protect the Shire. I had to protect you, because for worse, or better, I didn’t know which, you were caught spying, hauled in by the ear and received your punishment by coming with me. You, of course, saw it as a reward and I love you for it, but I was not so sure. I didn’t want you to be going into such deadly danger as I was about to enter. But you have faithfully served me all these many years and I could not ask for a more loyal, trustworthy companion. You were thrilled by the idea of seeing Elves. Were your tears over that anticipated joy or had all you heard scared you as much as it scared me? I hope it was the former.

I hated the idea that Lobelia and Lotho would finally sink their claws into Bag End. I sensed their predatory anticipation and glee the moment I signed the papers. How it galled me to do and see that! I couldn’t bear the thought of them being in the same place that Bilbo and I loved so dearly. Even if I did return, I wouldn’t have this home to return to. It made the leaving even more bitter, but it was necessary. I had to leave in secret. It was hard to walk around Bag End that last time, the day after Our Birthday. I looked into every room, now so empty and forlorn looking. I waved and said goodbye to it that night, believing I would never see again. I must soon do that again and know that this time I truly will never see it again, but I leave it in the best hands possible this time. Lobelia blessed me so greatly when she gave it back to me. I have already walked around many times at night, when I know you are asleep, so I don’t have to tell you what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. The rooms are full again of many beloved objects that I look at in the moonlight or give a caress to.

I hated all the fuss Merry, Pippin, Fatty and Folco made to pack everything up and then Merry and Fatty leaving to make sure Crickhollow would be welcoming to me. I dreaded to tell them that I couldn’t stay. That I was fleeing from terrible danger into terrible danger. At least I had the comfort that they would be safe here at home. Or so I thought. This time there will be no packing. I am not taking anything with me. It will all be yours, my Sam, and it should be.

I was worried about Gandalf not showing up that first time I left. He said he would come back no later than Our Birthday, but we celebrated that without him and finally couldn’t bear waiting around anymore. Had the hand I felt reaching out for me already ensnared him? I didn’t know. And there was that odd inquiry that your Gaffer got just as we were leaving. All of it was making me very nervous and I just had to get away, Gandalf or no Gandalf. We set out upon the Road.The path has been very dark at times, it still is, but you were and are beside me for so much of it, lighting my way. Know, my brother, that I will light yours when you are ready to come over the Sea.

 * * *

I never thought when Mr. Merry asked me to keep my eyes and ears open for him regarding you that summer that I would hear such things as I did that night from Mr. Gandalf. The most terrible things I had ever heard, but the worst was that you would be leaving. That was the most frightening thing of all, that you were going into danger and that you would be going without me! I couldn’t help myself and I’m glad that I was caught, though being hauled in by Mr. Gandalf did get me that scared he would turn me into something.

I should have been punished for spying on you, but I received the best reward I could get - I would be going with you. I could not have borne it otherwise. And I was going to see the Elves! I couldn’t have been more thrilled. None of us knew the road ahead of us, but we were going on it together. I have loved you, my dear, from the first moment I saw you and that has only grown through all these years and how it grew during the time we were on the Quest. The path has been very dark at times, but you were beside me for so much of it, lighting my way.
 

Chapter Five: Dark and Light

The night before we first saw the Black Riders and met the Elves, I waved goodbye to the last farm, thinking never to see them again. I have returned, but I have not been able to see hello again. I am still saying goodbye. I sang about the Road going on and on and pursuing it with weary feet. I am still on that Road. It has twisted and turned so much that many times I have my lost my way or feared I have, but as long as I have followed the light, it has guided me true. But I am weary, my Sam, so very weary.

When we heard a horse behind us and it turned out to be the Black Rider, I felt for the first time, the Ring calling out for it, wanting to be found. It gave me the thought that if I put it on, then I’d be safe, but it was just the first of its many lies that I believed at first. It would have betrayed me. All would have been lost, but still it made me think the desire came within myself and it seemed perfectly reasonable to put it on and Gandalf’s words of warning seemed like nonsense. That is the path to madness. I have realized that slowly. I don’t know why the Rider rode away that first time when it was so close to what it sought, so very close. I have nightmares about it even now. I can’t hide that I have them from you, much as I would love to, but I can, I hope, hide what they are about. Why do you need to be burdened with all that’s been burned into my mind and the remains of my heart and soul? No, better you be kept whole.

That second time we were only saved by meeting Elves, a chance meeting I thought, but Gildor was not so sure. I don’t think I could have overcome the compulsion to put on the Ring that time and one of the best days of your life would have been the worst, if I had betrayed us all. Instead you got your dream come true and met your Elves. I was so happy for you. I will never forget the joy and wonder on your face. That is one memory among many others that I will treasure as I leave, as memories will be all I will bringing with me. I will hold it dear as I do so many others and bring it to mind often whenever I need to see you happy. I even forgot my fears for a little while, enjoying the unexpected and blessed company.

I tried asking Gildor about the Black Riders, but he gave me no news, afraid of frightening me off my path. And he spoke truly. I was already afraid, but I think if I knew the nature of the terror that was hounding me, I would have not have been able to complete what I had to.

But you were always with me to help me to do that, my faithful Sam. You said as we set out that you could carry more. And you did, dearest brother, you carried me. You slept that night at my feet, not wanting to part from me and I can recall the many more times you have slept near me, to comfort me. I know I will never ever be able to thank you for all you’ve done, for all the love you have shone me all these many years. All I can do is break your heart again. What kind of reward is that? But one day, one day, I will see you again and I will reward all your tender care and love by presenting to you your Frodo healed. I promise you.

* * *

I was so thrilled that I was finally able to the Elves that I forgot all about the Black Riders. Nothing could have taken me from your side, but I’m glad we didn’t know then what was hunting us. Instead we were found by Elves. That remains like a dream to me. A joyful dream that I was awake to, eating and drinking and hearing the most marvelous vittels, draughts and songs I had ever heard, but ever since then it seems like I was asleep and it was indeed a dream that disappears upon waking. But I do remember the songs, and them calling you by name, saying that they had seen you often with Bilbo, though you never saw them, and saying you were a jewel among hobbits. Indeed you were and are, my dear. Truer words were never spoken, even if they spoke them in jest.

I fell asleep at your feet that night, a place I wish I could be now, instead of wondering where you are. Are you still on the Sea or have you reached where you are going? I think I’ve dreamed of that place or at least I have imagined it. I have thought of you coming there, setting your foot upon white sands, coming to a new home with a nice round door. I wish I could be there with you, but you wanted me to be happy here and I will be. Then when the time is right, I will go forth myself and then not leave your side ever again. I know you will be there. Somehow I just know you will be.

Chapter Six: A Very Efficient Conspiracy

I have just realized, my Sam, that I never thanked you for saving breakfast for me that day after we met the Elves, one of many things I’m sure I forgot to. When we see each other again, I will make it up to you, whether you let me or not. You have taken care of me for so long and so well, I hope that you will suffer me to take care of you one day.  A finer servant than you does not exist, but you are no longer that, my brother. You have long ceased to be that.

Pippin was also a joy to be with and I am glad, though I first feared to take even you, that he and Merry were with me. Things so seem so different in the light of day, at least to someone as irrepressible as he is. I thank the Powers every day that this war has not changed him or you or Merry anywhere as much as it has changed me. There he was that morning teasing me about not wanting to save me any breakfast, except that you insisted and he seemed so scandalized that I wanted to think and eat at the same time. I can still hear his cheerful voice and I hope I always will. It was the presence of you three that gave me any joy now during our long journey. And any joy that comes to me now is from you three.

I found you watching me that morning as I ate. I told you about my fears, that I wished to not even stay one day in Crickhollow and I asked you whether you still wanted to come with me. You did not hesitate, even when I told you that it was unlikely that either of us was going to return. I still remember what you said that day. "If you don’t come back, then I shan’t, that’s certain." It was nearly so, my dear Sam, it was so very nearly so. But you did come back. I haven’t and I know now I never will. I am being driven onward, ever onward. You told me that you had told the Elves that you would follow me even to the Moon, but it not there that I am going, but over the Sea, where you cannot follow, not yet at least, though I am already anticipating seeing you on those white shores that I have already seen in my dreams and will soon see in reality.

I remember that I questioned you closely whether you still wanted to leave the Shire now that you had seen your beloved Elves. I remember your joy in speaking of them, but even with that wish already fulfilled, you said you still wanted to go and it was because you had something to do. You already knew the road was going to be dark, but you were determined to walk it with me.

You and Merry and Pippin were all determined. I could not ask for better friends and brothers than the best hobbits the Shire has ever produced. I wish there was a way I could repay all that loyalty and companionship you have given me so ceaselessly for so long. That night that the conspiracy of love that you three had formed to protect me and watch over me was revealed remains a source of wonder and joy to me in the midst of all my darkness. Merry and Fatty had made Crickhollow so welcoming, so much like home and there I was happy for just a little bit, having a warm bath, with you and me and Pippin trying to outsing each other in our respective tubs. I had so dreaded telling my cousins that I was not staying, that all their trouble was for nothing. Little did I know my Merry had it all in hand and that you were their chief spy! I smile even now to think of it. I will never forget Pippin’s and Merry’s words that night. "You must go - and therefore we must, too." "You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin - to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours - closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo. We are horribly afraid - but we are coming with you."

Those words keep echoing through my mind. Sometimes they make me smile, sometimes they make me cry. We had no idea what we were getting into, none of us. Yet we all chose to go out of love. I know I could not have gone anywhere so far on my road without the three of you, especially without you, my dearest Sam, fiercest guardian of my body, heart and soul. I would have been nothing but a dried-up corpse far from home or worse a wraith in the service of the dark lord. But sometimes, I do wish you had all been able to stay at home. That I had been able to stay. How many, many times have I wished that. I am so proud of you three, of all you accomplished. I know you are proud of me, but I wonder what for. All I can see is my failure at the end. All I can see is that you three have never abandoned me and I must soon abandon you.

* * *

Seeing the Elves was one of the best things in my life.  It was good to have a dream come true to comfort and warm one during the nightmares to come. The most wondrous creatures they were, but you proved to be more wondrous still for all you accomplished during our journey. I remember you asking me whether I still wanted to come now that I had seen the Elves and of course, I did. There wasn't nowhere I wouldn’t follow you. You were the reason I was leaving the Shire, my dear love, not to see Elves. That was just a tidy little reward. It was you that I wanted to be with. To the moon, I told them, I would go if you went. Even over the Sea, will I go to you.

When we crossed the river the next day, it was as though a new life was beginning for me. I was still in the Shire, but leaving it behind at the same time. There was adventure ahead, not the kind that we had so long dreamed of and spent many an afternoon playacting in the warm sunshine. It was a long, dark road ahead of us and there was little of it that I could see clearly. But that didn’t matter. I could have seen none of it or all of it, and still I would have gone ahead with you. We all would have. Nothing could have held us back, but I’m glad we didn’t know. I was already wishing that you could have kept on living quietly and happily at Bag End.

I have not stopped wishing that even now. It’s not the same here without you, my dear. All the rooms are the same, your books are here, your pipe, your clothes, your quills and papers and ink. The book you and Mr. Bilbo wrote remains in the study. I have read a little of it each day, running my finger along the words you had scribed, just to be a little closer to you, to draw you nearer than the wide gulf of the Sea that now separates us. Sometimes when the tears and the grief are too much for me and all I can see is your sad eyes, I close my own eyes and remember your joy and astonishment that night Mr. Merry revealed our conspiracy to you. You were glowing that night.

Chapter Seven: Dreams

I had a dream about the Sea right before Merry woke me. I have often dreamed of it, though it is only now that I understand why, soon that I will actually see it with my waking eyes. It is a longing I have had much of my life, perhaps that half of me that is Brandybuck and always liked the water, even though it had taken my parents from me. Why do we sometimes like that which gave us the deepest hurts? For the same reason, why do I still long for the Ring? I can’t explain it to myself and those wiser than I, I dare not ask and expose my shame to them.

When we entered the Old Forest and were guided along by the ill will of the trees toward the Withywindle and to Old Man Willow, I wonder if the Ring was at work there also, drawing evil to itself as it had the entire journey. Merry and Pippin could have been killed and it would have been my fault. They were in danger because I was with them and I have grieved that it was not the first time or the last time. How I wished then and wish now that none of this had ever happened, but I try to encourage myself with Gandalf’s and Arwen’s words that it was all meant to happen as it happened and there is going to be relief for me where I am going.

But my fears followed me into my dreams into even such a merry place at Tom Bomdadil’s. I heard Black Riders and just about convinced myself that I, we had been found. Then I fell back asleep, still safe and wondering how I would ever find the courage to leave, to take the next steps that I knew I had to. I did not choose this Road, but it seemed to have chosen me and so I have had to place my feet upon it and follow wherever it led. And almost always you were there with me, my most dear guardian. It is only when you weren’t that I lost my way and that is no fault of yours.

* * *

I was that glad to get out of the Old Forest. To think you could have drowned in your sleep or that Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin could have eaten by Old Man Willow! I still shiver and that was not by far the worst of the dangers we got into. Many more terrible things happened, mostly directly to you, but you just kept going. Nothing stopped you. I can only stand in awe at your endurance and courage and love that it took to complete the task you took upon yourself, to wear that terrible thing around your neck all those months, to accept that to do so would bring you into great danger, to fight against all it was trying to do to you, inside and out. I only held it that short time, but even then, I could feel how horrible it was. And you strove against it much longer than I did.

It was good you had times to rest, like when we were rescued by Master Tom. A more peculiar man, if man he was, I never met, but he and his house and his fair Goldberry were full of cheer and that we needed for our journey, almost as much as we needed food and water, and that he had plenty of too! It was good to see you happy then.

I hold onto every memory of you, the ones that make my heart break even more, the ones that I know will make it sing when it is again strong enough to do so. I see you the tears in your eyes that you desperately wanted to shed but were afraid to show me. I also see you smiling at me with all your love in your eyes, shining with that the Elf-light that Goldberry saw. I see that smile in my dreams and one day, my dearest of dears, I will see it again with my waking eyes.

Chapter Eight: A Respite

I was not at all upset that we had to stay an extra day in Tom’s house. I wanted to stay forever if it could have protected us from the dangers outside. I actually checked outside the window for hoof-prints from the Black Riders I had heard in my dream, but there were none. Had it then just been a dream that they had been so near and I would have the courage to leave?

Fear did not prevent you or Merry or Pippin from accompanying me. I stand in humble awe at the strength of your love and loyalty. I wish I could show you the same. It is a thorn in my heart that I must leave you all. You three accompanied me into greatest darkness, especially you, my Sam, most beloved brother, but now I must follow my own way out. I must travel this bit without you, into the light where you already are, but by a different path.

What lies at the end of that path was first shown to me in a dream that second night at Tom’s house and I have walked toward it until I am weary and falling, but each time I have risen again, because you have been there to help me. It has been a very long Road and I wonder why it has led me all the places it has, but there is a reason for it, I’m sure. I continue to be driven on, away from everything bright and beautiful and safe, from the Shire, from Tom’s house, from Rivendell, from Lorien. I didn’t want to leave any of those places, but I did. I don’t want to leave you, but I will. There is another place for me and during this entire journey, I have thought of that dream I had, even though the Ring mocked it and told me it was nothing but a dream, a falsity, a place and peace I would never have. I despaired and believed its lies at times, but I have still held that dream against me, tattered and torn as it sometimes has become, both a torture and my only hope.

I wish I could be as strong as Tom so the Ring had no hold over me. I wish I could have just made it disappear as he did, instead of trudging across endless miles as it devoured me from the inside. I wish I could still believe in walking under the dark when it was fearless. It was and I was until I left the Shire and never returned. But Gandalf said Tom couldn’t be trusted with the Ring. It was me everyone trusted and hoped in. It was you, my Sam, I trusted and hoped in. They praise us both for achieving what even they believed to be virtually impossible to do, but they should be just praising you.

* * *

The weather was all bad the morning we woke up in Master Tom’s home and that was just as well. I could see how that gladdened your heart! And we had a day of tales, nothing finer to be had than that. It reminds me of some days in the Shire when the weather outside was only fit for growing flowers and we would curl up with Mr. Bilbo and listen to tale after tale and get lost in daydreams. Some of Master Tom’s stories I could have easily done without about how wicked the trees had become, I had lived enough of those already myself, but I did enjoy many of his others and I know you did too.

What a shock to us all when after all that talking and listening, we watched him put him on the Ring and he didn’t disappear, but it did as he tossed it into the air. How very much I wish it could have been the end of it right then! He had not spoken truer words when he said your hand was fairer without it. If he could have done away with it, then your hand wouldn’t be missing a finger and I wouldn’t be missing half of my heart. I know there’s no use in asking, but oh, dear, why couldn’t it have been that way?

Chapter Nine: Foggy Night

We all had heavy hearts when we left Tom’s house the next morning, but he promised his aid if we needed. He taught us that song, made sure we knew it, and then he sent us on our way and Goldberry gave her own farewells. We were fine until we overslept and woke in that terrible fog and the barrow-wight trapped us. I kept calling and thinking I heard one of you afar off, I tried to get to you, but I couldn’t. I was so terribly frightened and cold and miserable and I wanted just to find you all safe. You were all in danger because of me and I felt danger around me too, pressing so hard. It was horrible to be there all alone. I couldn’t find any of you and I was getting more and more frantic by the cries for help that I heard but could not do anything to aid.

I can only think it was again the Ring attracting evil to itself. You were all coming with me to protect me, but what had I done so far, but get you into terrible danger after terrible danger? Why did I ever let anyone of us go with me? There were so many times you could have been killed. I was growing angry in my panic and realized as I ran searching for you that I had come upon a barrow.

"I am waiting for you!" came a terrible voice and I fell to the ground, helpless to stop myself or aid any of you.

* * *

It was a horrible thing that night we were trapped by the barrow-wight. One moment we were right behind you, then it came and we couldn’t even warn you. I was terrified for myself and even more afraid for you. We heard you calling and tried to respond but then we were pulled under the ground and knew no more.

Chapter 10: Betrayal and Redemption

It was when I woke that I made the worst betrayal of all the love and loyalty you three had already shown me. I saw you all asleep as though death had already come to you and that sword across your throats and that terrible song and that hand that crept toward you. All of it was enough to freeze my blood and then the Ring spoke to me, told me to flee, to live myself, to abandon you. I almost listened. I told myself it was the only thing that could be done. In that moment, I quailed at all that was happening around me instead of the courage in the face of fear that you three had already shown. The Quest would have been doomed because of my weakness.

When I did not answer the call of the Ring, but sang out to Tom instead, I had joy when you all woke. We ran in the fields as free as could be, with life and light returned to us, as though all our cares were lifted from us. But though I remember that joy, I shall always also carry with me that betrayal I nearly made and consider it made even if I only thought it. It is another of my nightmares that I wake from, to feel your arms already around me, your soothing voice in my ear, the look in your eyes gently pleading with me to tell you what it was about. But I never tell you know that one or any of them. I just hold onto you as I always do, let the listening of your steady heart calm my racing one and let myself fall asleep again, safe in your rocking arms, as though I still deserve to have all the love you continue to lavish on me.

* * *

You were the first thing I saw after I woke from that terrible cold sleep and nightmare the barrow-wight had woven us in. I can still so easily see the joy in your eyes and whole being, how you shone when you saw that we were all right. Master Tom was the next person we saw and in that company and in yours, we all lost fear and the horror of what had happened slipped away as though it had never been.  I wish though Master Tom had stayed with us the entire time, one couldn’t be melancholy or fearful in his company, but he continued on his Road and we continued on ours. 

You had saved us. We ran on the grass, completely free and joyful. You were free even of the Ring. I think of all the times we had when you were so completely happy and I recall them at times when I remember other times I held you and you were hurting that bad and your light glowed but dimly.

But it was ever there. It never went out. And I know it’s going to be shining brighter all the time where you are going. You told me once how you saw Lord Glorfindel glowing and I imagine you are going to be like that too when I see you next. So beautiful, so very beautiful. I’ve dreamed of you and where you are going, trying to be with you. I am firmly rooted here in the Shire with Rose and Elanor and you told me there would be others, but part of me travels on with you or wants to at the least. Do you feel me near you, my dear?

Chapter Eleven: Doors That Shut Out the Night but Not the Dark

Every moment you three remained with me, I was drawing you into greater and greater danger. None of us knew who our pursuers were, not really, but we soon learned. My dear Merry was nearly killed because of them. Our journey had barely begun and already I had endangered you three to the point of death so many times, I was beginning to lose count. Just traveling to Buckland, the Old Forest, the Barrow-downs, Bree. Every place the Ring attracted its own. Even in The Pony, there were those who wished me ill and the Ring recognized that. It called to that. It tried to get me to put it on while I sang that song, but I resisted. It was determined though. It changed weight on me as Bilbo said it did sometimes and I lost my balance and it slipped on my finger in the fall. That was how the Riders knew to come. In trying to prevent one disaster, I called down upon us a worse one. I remain amazed it was not the death of us all that night.

I am so grateful we meet Strider there. He saved us from my foolishness in so many ways. And now I have four brothers I must part from. By life or death, if I can save you, I will, he told me. As loyal to me as you three, he has been a blessing unlooked for and a solace to my heart, that when we had to part from my cousins, at least I knew they would be looked after. What have I done to repay him for all he did for me and us? Nothing.

* * *

I didn’t like entering Bree at all, the suspicious gatekeeper, the tall houses, the windows that I imagined the Riders to be hiding behind. It was almost too much for me, but I would have followed you anywhere, my dear, and I did. Nothing could have stopped me. It would have killed me if I hadn’t followed. Mr. Merry being attacked and the raid on the Inn by the Riders still give me nightmares at times and sometimes there are twists to it, like he didn’t escape or it was you instead that was captured.

But those are fading. I remember your courage in facing all the dangers the Ring threw at you and how you kept going through it all. I remember that the Inn was not a bad place once you got to eating and drinking and it was there we met Strider and Mr. Butterbur was that nice of a host to us. I smile when I think of how Mr. Gandalf described you to him. Fairer than most, indeed. So much fairer. I always thought so and you were that night, standing on that table, singing that song. You were enjoying yourself a bit before your accident and that was good to see. I treasure each memory like that because they became fewer and fewer and all the more to be treasured because of that and especially now when you are gone and I am left with memories. But I have hope too. Hope I will see you again and see you smiling and shining brighter than ever, my own beautiful Elven hobbit.

Chapter Twelve: On the Road

Oh, how I wish the first night out from Bree could have been what it almost seemed, just you, me, Merry and Pippin on a hobbit walking party, enjoying ourselves as we had on many a trip. Pippin would have still complained about short cuts and long cuts, but that would have been part of the fun. Of course, Strider wouldn’t have been there, but it was not his presence that ruined the illusion that a happy jaunt through the Shire was all this was. We couldn’t forget the previous night.

But you three didn’t complain much, perhaps like me, too distracted scratching as we sloughed through those terrible marshes and were nearly driven into a panic by those Neekerbreekers. I marvel and love you three so much for all you endured for love of me. I have never thanked Aragorn either for all he bore to keep us safe.

It was because I couldn’t sleep that I saw the lightning flash in the distance our fourth night out. Gandalf fighting with the Nazgul on Weathertop. Another person I loved, endangered because of me, because of what I carried, because he cared about me and wanted to help me. I’ve been surrounded by so much love, by so many people willingly endangering their own lives to keep me safe, you three who have long held my heart in your joint keeping, strangers who have become friends so dear. You have all been so faithful, enduring so much privation, especially you, my Sam, my dearest brother and guardian, because you would not leave my side.

Soon, though, I must show myself to be faithless, to say ‘I tried but I can’t bear it anymore.’ I’ve stayed overlong in the houses of lamentation and my soul cries for relief. I left more and more pieces of myself behind as the Eye sought to devour me and now I must find those missing parts. I had hoped it would be in the Shire, but it is along another Road and this one I must travel alone, but for Ring-bearers’ before me. It is such a comfort to know that Bilbo will be walking alongside me and Gandalf, and to have the hope that you will be one day beside me once more. That is giving me the strength to leave. Nothing else could. I would beg you to forgive me for breaking your heart once more, but I know you already have even now. I hope one day to be fully worthy of that tremendous love and to show you the fruits of it, your brother healed and happy again. I would like to see you happy as well, instead of worried about me. That day will come or I hope it will, but it will not come here.  Even as that hope has proved vain,   there are others I cling to as I often clung to your hope during our journey. I cannot abandon that hope completely even as it appears to abandon me, not as long as there are those who still believe, like you.  While you do, I will also. Your hope is like the lightening in the sky that brightens the night. My light in dark places. So you have ever been to me. 

* * *

The first day out from Bree was actually almost enjoyable if one didn’t think too hard of what had happened the night before. But how we suffered through the Marshes! Mr. Pippin spoke very truly when he said there were more midges than water! I still do wonder what they eat when they can’t have hobbit. They feasted on us all right. I couldn’t believe how miserable we all were. And those Neekerbreekers! We thought we would all go mad from their incessant racket, unable to sleep from that noise and the swarm of midges that crawled on us everywhere.

But Strider wouldn’t have dragged us and himself through them if it wasn’t necessary and I would do it again if I had to. We all would, just to keep you safe, to let you know how important you were to us. We love you so much, my dear. Just get well and happy and whole again. That’s all we want. And to know that you have healed. Somehow I think we will and you will know that we have too. And I will see that and show you someday with my own eyes, not just with my heart. Your light will guide me there, love, over the Sea.

Chapter Thirteen: Thinning

I remember that fourth night out from Bree looking at sunset and remembering how it looked through the windows of Bag End. Every step I took was taking me away from there, but closer to Bilbo. That was a comfort to help me in my journey, knowing I was doing what I could to keep our beloved land safe and hoping to meet the one who had left it so long before.

I think of what I replied to Pippin the next morning when he remarked that I was looking twice the hobbit I used to be and I told him how odd that was because of how thin I was getting and that I hoped I wouldn’t get so thin, I would turn into a wraith.

My jest has become truth though I fear. I haven’t truly come home all this time. I am like a wraith here, existing but not truly living. There is too little of me left. I see how worried you and Rose are that my body hasn’t filled out more with all the delicious meals you two have lovingly prepared for me and coaxed me into eating what I could. I’m sorry that I haven’t always showed you how much I appreciate all you two have done for me. I fear that you can see how empty I am inside as well, though I have tried to hide that. I wouldn’t look into your eyes at all to spare you that, but that would be more than I could bear. I need to see all that love and care there. It reminds me that I am here and still loved and therefore I must still be alive, though I feel more a wraith each day. I know better than to ask you this, but never stop loving me, my Sam. I would truly die if you did.

* * *

I remember how soon we got used to traveling on shorter commons than any of us were used to. It’s amazing, isn’t it, what we can do without when we need to? Before, roughing it meant a night or two out in a comfortable sleeping bag with a warm fire if need be and plenty of food and water and cheer, not a hint of fear upon us. We knew we would soon return to our own beds. How long it would be us to have that type of safety and feasting again except for those brief respites in Elven lands and the kindness of Captain Faramir.

Mr. Pippin was right, dear, when he said you were looking twice the hobbit you used to be. I think we were all changing, all proving hardier than we thought we could be, but going on despite this little bit of deprivation was nothing compared to what you accomplished later, so worn down by hunger and thirst, nearly dying from it and still you went on. I wonder what Mr. Pippin would have said then if he could have seen you?

It was good we didn’t know what lay ahead. It was better just to live through it, not knowing what was before us until we encountered it, then enduring it and pushing through because we knew we had to.

Chapter Fourteen: Light in Darkness

I rue the day Bilbo ever found the Ring. How many, many times I have wished he hadn’t, that I hadn’t been chosen, that I was too weak to pass the Test. But there was nothing for it, as you would say, dearest Sam. Gandalf, the Lady, Lord Elrond, Faramir, they all feared to take the Ring because they knew they would fail. If those stronger and wiser than I feared it, how could they trust me? Why did they trust me? I looked back along the Road and I hated it. I hated that it was leading back home and I was being led in the opposite direction. Not even the thought of seeing Bilbo comforted me. I wanted to be home, safe and had never heard of the Ring. But wishes are meaningless things. I had to go away. I had to leave. You had to come. And I wouldn’t have wished this terrible blackness on anyone else. It had to be me. I had been chosen. But why, why?

There was horrible fear that night but there was some comfort. Strider’s words provided both. He said the Ring was drawing the Riders to me, to us. I was terrified, but mostly for you three. I had told Gandalf before I even left that I would guard the Ring, no matter what it did to me, and that alone filled with dread, but I feared so much more for what it could do to all of you, my most beloved of friends. Why did you all love me so much that you couldn’t bear being parted from me, that you were willing to brave any danger just to keep me safe or try to at the least? I love you all so much, so very, very much and I would do the same for you that you did for me, but still it was an agony for me to think of what terrible perils I was drawing toward you, simply because of my presence, because of what I had to carry.

But there was some comfort and hope also. There were the runes that Strider believed to be made from Gandalf. I so much wanted to believe he was on the Road with us somewhere. And there were the songs and tales that Strider told us long into the night that kept our fear at bay. I am so glad you heard more about your beloved Elves, that there was some light in the darkness.

Then darkness deeper than the night fell around us. The call of the Riders to me to put on the Ring grew and grew and though I knew it to be folly and I tried so hard to resist, I simply couldn’t at the end. I could see from the corner of my eye that you knew I was in trouble, but I couldn’t turn to you. All I could think about was wanting to put it on. All the warnings not to didn’t make sense anymore; the terrible effect of putting it on at Bree didn’t matter. I was filled with nothing but longing to surrender to it. I long for it even now and it is long gone.

Then I was gone. I saw them then as they were really were. I entered their pale, nightmare world. I saw light in their terrible darkness, but it was not the light that saved. I saw their crowns and helms and swords, mounted on skulls and held by skeletal arms and hands. They were nothing and everything. The tallest pierced me and it was like ice. They wanted me for their own. I don’t know that they didn’t have me in the end.

* * *

I will always remember the 6^th as the day you were stabbed. I cannot forget and neither can you, but how I wish we both could! I know this is why you fought the darkness so hard, why you preserved through the worst hardships, crawling at the end, just so no one else would have to endure what you did, so Middle-earth could be free of the dark lord. I know why I had to follow you into the deepest darkness. But I haven’t been able to be with you every step. You have traveled into worse perils even when I was right beside you. Like that night.

It was marvelous to hear all the tales of old, of Beren and Luthien. I’d much rather remember that and pretend it was another of our camping trips and we were safe in the Shire and I was listening to you or we were both hearkening to a tale as only Mr. Bilbo could tell it. I promise you, my dear, that I will tell my children those tales, just like we used to hear them. You made it safe to do that again and I will honor your sacrifices every day and in every way I can. That I can tell tales by the fireside or under the stars to my lads and lasses and watch their eager faces light up like ours did will be one of those ways. I will tell them your tale too. They will know all you did for them, those you love that you don’t even know.

After Strider’s tales were done, they came and the fear rushed back that he had been able to held at bay under the spell of his voice. I was so terrified, but even they couldn’t make me leave your side. I couldn’t help you though and I rue that sorely. I could tell you were in some terrible trouble, but there was nothing I could do but watch you struggle alone and then you disappeared and that scared me more than anything. I heard you calling from afar off, calling out to Elbereth, then you were felled and reappeared. I feared you were dead. We all did. What joy we had to hear you crying out , even if your words didn’t make any sense, asking after a pale king. What had you seen that we didn’t? I know it haunted your nightmares for long after, though you never spoke of it, behind what words you spoke in those dreams that you probably weren’t even aware I heard.

You left everything behind when you left. I have that includes those terrible dreams. I hope you can sleep in peace now and those who look upon you as you rest can see what I saw many a morning before any of this happened, your light shining, your face so beautiful, a soft smile upon your lips as though you were dreaming only of the fairest things. I long for the day that I can see that again myself. Hold on, my dear. I miss you and love you so much.

Chapter Fifteen: Wounds

I was so weak after I was wounded. But not only physically. I was weak to begin with in heart and spirit that could not resist the call of the Ring. It tricked me so many times into thinking it was my own will that wanted to put it on and so I did many a time or was sorely tempted to at the least, and each time I did, it ended in disaster and only later did I realize how I had been fooled. The memory of its previous attempts did not remind me that it was filled with nothing but deceit and would bring me to a place where I could not escape, not even through death. What terrible cold stole through me, the pain that I can feel even now. Nothing could keep it away for long, though the athelas tried and you, my Sam, have tried so very hard to keep the dark from consuming me. It is not your fault that you couldn’t. I have begged the Powers with many tears that you do not blame yourself, that you don’t think that if only you had loved me or helped me more then I wouldn’t have to leave. I wish I could tell you that no one could love me more, that you have helped me in so many ways, that I could never have lasted this long if you hadn’t been there. But I cannot tell you. You would know then that I am leaving and I wish to leave that, the worst blow I have given you among so many, to the very end. I am a coward, Sam. I can’t tell you, my dearest friend, brother, my own heart and soul, what I am planning, what I must do. Instead, I grieve within myself as I did the day after I was stabbed and for so very many, many days afterwards, for all the trouble I had caused, for what the Ring was doing to me inside, revealing that I was the weak person I always knew myself to be. Would I be maimed for life? The answer came slowly. Yes. But most of all, I grieved and still do, that you three were more burdened than ever since I now had to ride Bill and you four now had to carry most of what he had and I was and am incapable of being anything but a worry for you all.

* * *

I thank the Powers every day for Strider being there when we most needed him, that he was able to drive away the Riders, that he was able to help you with the athelas and that he was there to guide us along our way. He did not hide anything from us about how gravely you were wounded, but he wouldn’t let us give up hope either, though I was near in tears over fear of what would happen to you. We hardly slept at all that night, trying to keep you warm and your wound clean. We didn’t understand all that Strider did when he returned the next morning, why or what he sang over that terrible blade or what he saying to you, but when he bathed your shoulder with the water he had put the athelas in, we all felt better, even you.

We would have died without him and you would have been worse than dead. There were so many times I dreamed of that, then I would wake and you would either be sleeping beside me or when we got home, I would stand at the threshold of your bedroom and watch your sleep. You were there, real and alive and even with the pain that still strained your features, you were beautiful. I could go back to sleep then, knowing that you were there, that you would always be there. I have stood some nights at your room even now and though you will never occupy it again, I see you sometimes in my heart’s eye and you are still resting, still so beautiful. I don’t quite understand it. It’s your bed and it’s not that I see. Perhaps it’s the one you have now. But there you are, plain as plain, as fragile and luminous as the moonlight that streams in your window.

I was so afraid how empty this place would be without you, how different, but you are still here, my dear love, and you are also where you need to be. That gives me a peace I didn’t think I could feel so soon, but I do feel it when I see you this way, and I can rest again myself, knowing that you are.

Chapter Sixteen: Traveling

For days we traveled from Weathertop, closer to Rivendell, but still so far away. The pain continued to grow, but I would not speak of it. It was already bad enough that we were traveling slower than we would simply because of my wound. I wouldn’t risk traveling even slower if my pain was known. I had the easiest part actually, riding upon Bill, and so I had no right to complain when I could see how burdened you all were and how your legs ached so to be walking so long and far. The danger seemed far from us as we had not seen or heard anything in those days since I had been stabbed, but we knew it was not. I carried it inside me, I carried it against my chest. Night was the worst when we kept expecting an ambush at any moment, but none ever came. We all knew why. It was only a matter of time before I would come under the dominion of the dark power. I wondered why that would be like and held my fist in my mouth to keep from crying out in the fear of it. I didn’t have to wonder long. I had seen them. I would be like that one day. I feel like one even now as I write this, safe in the Shire, but apart from it at the same time. The dark power has been vanquished, but I still stand under its shadow. The sun, the warmth does not reach here. I am so cold and alone and I long to stand under the light again.

I steeled my will against what was happening to me inside as we traveled along. I thought to ask Strider to end it before I could hurt any of you, but I bit my tongue until it bled to keep that terrible request from passing my lips. I redoubled my will instead. You were all in danger because of me. I would go on, I wouldn’t succumb and betray all you were doing for me, to keep me safe and alive. I am still fighting and I am weary of it, so very weary. I need rest.

* * *

You didn’t say a thing about how much your wound hurt, but we could see how much you were suffering, how pale you were, how pinched your face was with pain, how you shivered, how white your knuckles were as you clutched onto Bill with your good hand. It broke our hearts, it did. But you remained strong and silent, erect on that pony and we made what progress we could. Strider would look up at you and we all saw that he was amazed at your strength and resilience. We were all so proud of you. Our love for you grew so much while we were on the Quest. I am still amazed at the ground we were able to cover even at that slower pace and how brave you were. The ground wasn’t always even and sometimes a gasp of pain would escape your lips and we would look at you and see the regret that you had let it be known that you were pain and how tightly pursed your lips became to not let it show again. Oh, dear, we are all that way, but hiding it is no good, especially when it’s us who you can’t anything from anyway. But we all pretended we didn’t notice because that was the way you wanted it. But how we wanted to comfort you!

I think night was the worst time and the best time for you, for all of us. You sighed in relief to be at rest and accepted what care we longed to give you, wrapping you in blankets to stop your shivering and warming you with the fire. We watched you sleep, so beloved, so beautiful, shining softly in the moonlight, and we knew all our tired, sore muscles and lack of proper food, water and rest was all worth it if it kept you safe. We slept beside you to comfort you and ourselves. There was not one night your hand was not held. You whimpered sometimes in your sleep and we wondered if it was the pain or nightmares. We stroked your cheek, told you it was all right, that we were with you and we wouldn’t let anything happen to you, but we knew it was far from all right, though our words would calm you and you would sleep again. Then we wept for you when we knew you couldn’t see or hear. We looked to Strider to try to conquer our worst fears for you. We well remembered those terrible words of his, that we may be left alone simply because they believed you would be in their power and they wouldn’t have to do anything but wait. He knew the questions that we couldn’t bring ourselves to utter, but that he saw in our eyes. He gripped our shoulders and told us not to abandon hope and we would repeat that to ourselves over and over again and what my Gaffer always said, where there’s life, there’s hope. We said that to you and ourselves so many times in Rivendell as we wanted for you to wake it’s a wonder we could still speak at the end. But that was days ahead and we knew we weren’t safe yet, though we hadn’t seen or heard anything for days since that fell cry and answer that chilled our blood and bones.

We worried about that without end, but we shouldn’t have. You were so strong through all this, so very strong, unbreakable, until the very end when the burden claimed you at last. You have been weak since then and I grieve everyday that I cannot make you strong again. There was something inside of you that hardened to get you to the mountain, then left you empty. I can see it in your eyes. I have always been able to see everything in your eyes. You wanted to hide it, but you couldn’t. Not from me. I think you were dying inside for a long time, long before the Fire, ever since that you held that terrible thing. I can only hope that you will learn to live again now for no one deserves peace and healing, strength and joy than you, my hero, who fought so hard to ensure we would all have it. You should have it too. Especially you.

Chapter Seventeen: The Bridge

We were all afraid of what we would find at the Bridge. I imagined the Riders to be there, just waiting to claim me and I wondered if I would have the strength to resist or whether they would call and I would follow. It was relief to find hope there instead with the beryl Strider found. It was as though we were being watched over and I so wanted to get to Rivendell before it was too late.

I had the leisure to look around the land, cheerless as it was, and I thought were coming near to where Bilbo had met those trolls. That made me feel a little better that I could have been traveling over the same ground he had. It made me feel closer to him and a little of the cold retreated from around my heart. I had spent so much time wanting to be off with him on some Adventure, but this one I didn’t want to be on. It felt better that I was on his instead of warring against losing myself before I could ever see him again. I wanted to make it to Rivendell so I could be healed, so I could see your face, dear Sam, light up to be among so many of your beloved Elves, so you could all be happy again.

* * *

We all dreaded coming to the Last Bridge for we feared to see the Riders there waiting for us. But there was no one which surprised and gratified us all. Strider had found that elf-stone on the Bridge and we were all cheered by that and when we got more under cover. One more hurdle was passed on our way to get you to safety. But the land was as cheerless as we returned to being. The way was so long. You were being so brave, but we all knew you were hurting. And we had days to go still. I couldn’t even get too excited about hearing that Strider had lived in Rivendell. Imagine that, living with the Elves! But still, I know the Shire is the place for me. As I thought it would always be for you, but now you’ve gone to live with the Elves and I know that’s the place you need to be. You were always like them, my dearest, that fair and that special.

I wonder what it will be like to live with them when it’s my turn to go?

Chapter Eighteen: A Restless Night

The weather turned wet and that aggravated the pain and cold of my wound, but I tried not to let any of you know of it. It was hard trying to keep all that away, nearly as draining as it now, but I wished always to spare you all, my beloved brothers, especially you, my Sam, most dear to me, who saw so much that I could not hide as my will and strength failed. I am so sorry you had to see all that, see how weak I became. It is a sore grief to know how much I worried you and continue to worry you.

I laid on the ground that second night of rain and couldn’t sleep for the ache and cold that continued to spread through me. It has continued to spread even now and I long so for warmth that not even the summer sun can provide. I have seen how fretful you are that I must have a blanket around my shoulders at all times. I wish I could spare you that, but it is either wear that or shiver and that would worry you even more I think. You don’t say anything, except with your eyes which have always spoke of what your heart holds, but just silently take care of me as you have these many years I have been in your keeping. I am so grateful, my most fierce guardian, that your have not let up your guard even now, that you have tea to warm my cold hands, a fire always going, many blankets on my bed and any other loving gift you think to give me.

I thank you, but mere words are not enough. They are completely inadequate for all you do for me, each and every day. I promise you that your reward will be to see all your efforts were not in vain. You will see me healed one day. This terrible punishment that I am to inflict upon us both, and on my Merry-lad and my ’squeak, will have wonderful fruit. My dreams will not always be that they were that night, of fears of the black smothering me, of walking in the garden that you just as lovingly tend as you tend me and having the agony of feeling that walk among the grass to be a dimmer reality than what I was facing and still face, walking amidst the ashes. Or so is my last hope. I know it is your hope also that I heal so it is really that I am holding onto instead of any of my own. I learned to do that during our terrible journey even when mine was so faint or failed all together. Your hope has always been true. I believe it is this time too or so I repeat to myself over and over in my bed when I know you have already gone to sleep and you won’t hear me and I won’t have to explain what I am saying or that I have so very little hope of my own left. It softens my tears so I can be asleep when you check on me later as I know you do. What have I done, my dearest Sam, what have I done to deserve such incredible love and care?

* * *

Oh, how it tore at our hearts to see you so miserable, dear. We all were after two days of rain, but it was so much worse for you. I know that well from the time you sprained your ankle that one spring jumping off that haycart. Those rains we had caused it to ache something fierce. Mr. Bilbo and I were almost besides ourselves with wanting to ease your pain, but you were being so brave and even cheerful, saying what an opportunity it was to get more reading done since we refused to let you leave your bed. I read a lot to you then and you read to me and Mr. Bilbo read to us both and we actually did have a good time, though we knew you were in a lot more pain than you thought you were showing. How I wish I could distract you as easily that night we watched you toss and turn so restlessly. You were moving about so much, trying in vain to find some comfortable position, that we couldn’t even hold your hand for long before it would slip out of our grasp as you squirmed about once more.

I hope there is someone holding your hand now, dear, where you have gone. I know there is, plenty too probably, but at least Mr. Bilbo and Mr. Gandalf. I have held out my hand to you at times during the night when I wake sometimes and almost get up to check on you when something wakes me and I know you are hurting and needing to be held. I don’t get up, but I do hold out my hand and I hope you can feel it. If I can feel your pain, I hope it works both ways and you can feel all the love I want to send you.

Chapter Nineteen: Learning

The way was so hard. We had to climb and it was so cold. I am still trying to climb out of a deep, dark pit with smooth sides and hardly any foot or handholds and my left arm is still useless. I look up and I think sometimes I can the stars or the dim sunlight far above me, but I am trapped near the bottom and it seems so far to the top. The mist that grew around my eyes those days made everything seem to be dim. I actually welcomed the night because then the shadows were not so pronounced and I could almost believe I could see naturally again, but I knew I was beginning to see as a wraith did. I was becoming separated from the world of the living and entering the world of shadows. I wonder sometimes whether that mist ever truly went away. I still feel so apart from the living, a shell, existing but not truly alive, dead but still breathing, a corpse with a beating heart. Sometimes it is not as bad as that, Bilbo would probably say I was being over-dramatic, but I do feel apart. The only time I feel warm and alive is when you look at me and smile and I see so much love there that I could drown in it. The dreams of darkness and winged pursuers plagued what little sleep I was able to get and those dreams at times pursue me still.

There was a little light, though, in my darkness, and as usual, you, my dearest Sam, brought it to me and so Merry and Pippin as you three continue to do even now. I remember the next day after that terrible climb we found Bilbo’s trolls. It helped some to see that, to know that we were on the same Road that Bilbo had traveled before. How I had spent my childhood wanting to follow him on an adventure of my own and here we were. You sang your song about the troll, amazing everyone, including myself. I said I was learning a lot about you and that continued throughout the entire time we were together. You did become a warrior, guarding me so fiercely as you still do against all the shadows that assail me. I wish you could guard me against the ones that rise within me where you cannot reach.

I learned a lot about myself too on our journey and none of it is good. I gave in or wanted to give so many times to the Ring’s call. It’s a wonder the entire Quest didn’t fail any sooner because of my weakness. It was not my strength that caused it to be destroyed. It was yours and it was Smeagol’s lust, so much like my own, that caused him to pursue it and be there to claim it for himself. I long for it still and I know I always will. How I wished back when we saw the stone that marked where the troll’s gold had been that that was the only treasure Bilbo brought back and that he so freely given away. How many times I have wished that I could have parted with the Ring so easily or more that he had never picked it up himself, but I repeat to myself during those times what Gandalf said, that it was meant to be. And though it tears my heart and soul, I tell myself that it is good that is gone now. I can actually believe that when I see you and my brother cousins and Rose and Elanor and know that because you refused to give up on me, there is peace and light for you all. But there are many other times I don’t believe it, that I wish I still had it with me, especially at night when the shadows rise about me and you are not there to keep them back. I lay in bed, finding sleep normally only at dawn. I hear you come in during the night and I so want just to have you hold me so I am not alone among all the terrors that assail me. I know you would do that, that you have done that too many times already, but I don’t move. I pretend I am asleep so I don’t worry you. But I have never been able to fool you. You know what I need and you always give it, no matter what it is. You hold me until I can truly sleep again, then let me go. Sometimes I feel your kiss so soft against my brow and I cry to hear your retreating steps.

* * *

I wish I could have helped you more, dear. It was that hard watching you struggle up that climb with bad arm. We were all done in when we got to the top, but you worst of all, just laying there and shivering. Strider told me not to give up hope and I didn’t, but it was horrible just to watch you suffer and not be able to ease it, beyond taking your hand. What dreams you were having I don’t know, but I could guess and I didn’t like what I was guessing. It was so good to see the morning again, to see the sunlight, to feel the warmth after so cold a night. The way got much easier and Bill was doing a wonderful job in keeping you safe and still on his back. We were all that glad to see your spirits rise with our own.

I was frightened when Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin came running back saying they had seen trolls, but Strider came walking down to them, just as relaxed as can be, and broke his stick over one of them. We couldn’t believe it! Then you laughed and said we had forgotten all about the family history and that these were Mr. Bilbo’s trolls. I could have shouted I was so happy to hear that laugh.

You said you were learning a lot about me, but I was learning a lot about you. Well, truth to tell, it wasn’t anything I didn’t already know, but it was like it something I always knew but never saw so well displayed and there it was coming true in front of me. Oh, that doesn’t makes any sense, does it? You were always so much better at describing things than me. What I’m trying to say is that I always knew you were good and brave and true from the way you had always acted. It just came to you naturally, but it came even clearer and more pronounced under all the trials we had. You remained brave and true and the light shone about you as it always did, like it does around the Elves, only a bit dimmer and instead of growing less through your trials, it grew more. I wish you could see yourself, my dear love. I know from your sad eyes you were suffering something fierce and it didn’t stop when the Ring was gone and that breaks my heart even more than it did when we were on our way, when I thought it would be all over at the Fire and now realize your sufferings had hardly begun. You didn’t talk of it much, but I know that Ring cut your spirit even worse than it into your neck. That is clear from what you put into the Book, that you couldn’t speak, but had to write out. But I’m going to tell you when I see you next that I was and am just that proud of you for doing all that you did, that you pushed through when you had no strength left, that you kept going even when you had no hope, that nothing could stop you because you said you would go to Mordor and that was what you did. That doesn’t even begin to describe all you did and were and are, but it’s the best I can do, though you deserve so much better. I love you that much, my dear love, and that doesn't even begin to describe what filled my heart on our way ever more and still does.

Chapter Twenty: The Ford

It was a blessing to have Glorfindel come when he did. I wish I could have rode his horse all the way to Mordor, drawing the danger away from all of you and getting there faster than the wraiths, faster than the lust for the Ring that continued to grow in me, before my will utterly failed. But I know that wish is folly for my will faltered even then as we flew toward the Ford. I would have been lost and the world lost with me. They twice commanded me to stop and twice I obeyed. Hatred and fear grew in me that they could so easily trap me, but though it was them I hated then, I have turned that now toward myself, hatred for being so weak. I had told Gandalf before we even left that I had little courage inside of me and now it was again being proved true. I was so close to becoming one of the wraiths, so close to joining them. If it wasn’t Glorfindel’s will and words to spur the horse on, I would have. It got me to safety. Its heart did not fail it, though my own quailed within me. I flew past them, not even having the courage enough to watch until I was on the other side of the River. And they could still command me even as I defied them. My will was no match for theirs. I was struck dumb, my sword was broken and fell from my hand. Then the flood came. I was falling, falling into darkness and there was no one to help me.

I am still falling.  

* * *

What a blessing Mr. Glorfindel was to come when he did. It gave us quite a start to hear the sound we had dreaded for days and days, but then we heard bells also and that certainly didn’t sound like a Black Rider. What a wonderful surprise to see an Elf instead! He put you up on his horse and we traveled on until we were sleeping on our feet. The next day we were worn down until we were dizzy, but it was all worth it since it got you closer to Rivendell and healing. Then the sound and sight we had escaped so far came and the Riders were upon us and the horse bore you away. I wish I could have stayed with you for we were all terribly frightened. We didn’t see you again you were across the River. You spoke long in your sleep and we heard from that and from Mr. Gandalf, all you had said and done, what you had shouted to them in your defiance and what they had said to you and how you had held up your sword against them. I can see that just as easily in my mind as if I had seen it with my eyes. He was quite proud of you. We all were.

We were terribly frightened when we were able to cross the River ourselves and found you face-down on the bank, your sword broken and you so pale and cold, we feared you dead or worse. How our hearts cried out then, but you were not dead. I could tell from the way Strider and especially Mr. Glorfindel looked that you were in dire peril, but you were still with us. Other of Mr. Elrond’s house met us there and we made it to Rivendell. You didn’t make a sound as you were lifted you back onto the horse and Mr. Glorfindel sat behind you with his arms securely around you, and that gave us a fresh start, but then Strider looked at us. "No one has ever borne a wound for so long or so bravely. If he can hold on for just another few hours, all should be well."

"Oh, he’ll do that," Mr. Merry said with the utmost confidence. "Frodo can be the most stubborn of hobbits when he wants to be. Used to drive my parents and Bilbo and I daresay Sam here, to the edge of madness at times."

Strider looked at me and smiled as I blushed, but it was true. How often have I thanked the Powers for that.

Chapter Twenty-One: In Elven Lands

I woke thinking at first it was only a terrible dream I was waking from, but it was no dream. The fight had been real and it goes on even now, ever on and on. Gandalf told me I had begun to fade, that I was on the threshold of the wraith-world when I was brought and for four nights, Elrond sought to save me. You and my cousins have many more memories of that time than I do, dearest Sam, and it is memories I am sorry that you have, all that worry that has not ceased even now for me. What did you hear as I talked in my sleep?

I wish I could be well and have you not any more cause to fret over me. But I fear the fading has not stopped, nor the night ended. It continues and the dawn seems far off. I can see it on the horizon, the merest twinkling and I know I will have to cross the Sea before I can see it fully. Oh, Sam, how can I do that, leave you and my other brothers behind, to go to a land I know not but have seen only in my dreams? But I must go for the dream here has become a nightmare that I long to escape. I will be safe there, with the Elves as we were safe in Rivendell where the darkness cannot touch me, or so I hope. And I will look ever for you for one day I will stand on those shores and see you coming toward me. How I long for that day even now!

It was a joy to see that you and Merry and Pippin and Strider had escaped the Riders as well. How you have ever stayed at my side, my dearest guardian, always taken care of me which so much love. It increases my shame that I must abandon you when you have never abandoned me.

It was wonderful to see Bilbo at last as well. But it showed me that the lust for the Ring had not left him, even after all those years and I have little hope to believe it will leave me any sooner. I grieve for all the damage it did to him. He is the only one I could possibly speak of it to, the only one who would understand, but I do not wish to worry him even more than I wish to worry you, so it will sit there restlessly inside of me, tormenting and gnawing and tearing as it has since it woke, until I can defeat it or it utterly defeats me. Gandalf said that he wished I had held out at Weathertop. So do I! How many times have I wished each time it tempted me that I hadn’t given in. But I did many times or wanted to.

He also said if I had become a wraith I would have been tormented by the dark lord, if a greater torment could be devised than to be robbed of the Ring and to see it on his hand. Now that I have lost it, I cannot think of a worse torment than that, to know it is gone forever and I will never look at it or hold it again. Sometimes I think that is even worse than knowing and seeing what would have happened if the Ring had returned to him. The whole world would have fallen to him and I would know that it was my fault, my weakness that had made it so. Seeing even you in torment I don’t think would be as bad as seeing him have my precious. And that feels with me with such shame and loathing, it is a wonder that I can even still live. You do not know what so consumes me, my dearest Sam, how I can barely even stand to have you look at me so lovingly when I know I am so foul and how also I cannot bear to have you not look at me. If only you knew, but you won’t. I won’t ever tell you.

* * *

What a wondrous place Rivendell was. I couldn’t enjoy it much until you woke, but I will always remember it as place of joy after grief, day after night, light after darkness. The first days and nights were terrible, but that faded under all the wonder to behold, the singing, the feasting, the peace, the shelter from the storm. It was there that the Ring was first placed on its chain around your neck, but the evil of it couldn’t touch you there. How I wish that could have remained so, that it wouldn’t have weighed you down so much, wouldn’t have bit into your skin and heart and burned it and caused it to bleed. How I wish we could have both borne it so the damage wouldn’t have been so bad to you and only you.

It was that wonderful to see you awake and happy after all the frightful worry we had over you! You were clearer and brighter than ever and I imagine where you are now that you are growing even more so and when I see you next you will be shining even more and I will see you happy again like you were in Rivendell, surrounded by your own kind almost. I wonder - is that why I love Elves so much, even before meeting them, because I met and loved you first?

Lord Elrond worked on you for days and nights that all seemed to run together and I know he will continue to look after you and so will the Lady and Mr. Gandalf and Mr. Bilbo, but how hard it is that I am not there. I held your hand all those nights we waited for you to wake, trying to warm it, but it was so cold. You talked a lot in your sleep and my heart ached for all the terrors that you had endured all alone, the barrow-wights and the Riders. I was right next to you some of that time and still you had to fight by yourself. I wish I could have protected you better from it all. All this time you have had to fight alone because you went to places that I could not and how I wish I could have followed and fought with you. I tried that hard to hold onto you, first along the Road into darkness and then out into the light, back to the Shire, but I don’t think you ever left the night. You were taken away from me bit by bit by that terrible Ring as we were all so afraid you would be before that splinter was found. All these many months, you have been standing right next to me, but so far away I have not been able to reach you. If I traveled again along the same Road, would I see you instead in all those places where you slowly bled away? You suffered so much, my dear, and should have been rewarded with peace and healing, not with more exile.

I begged to be able to wait on you at the feast to celebrate your victory at the Ford, but I was not allowed. I can’t now either. Rose knows some of the times that I have lain awake, wondering about you. She knows I can’t sleep until I go to your room and check on you like I used to do. I fear she thinks I’m cracked and maybe I am. My heart surely is. But still I go and I see you sleeping there, fragile and pale as moonlight, your features still strained, but so beautiful it can take my breath away. As much as I know you need your sleep, sometimes I wish you would wake and look at me and smile or if you aren’t up to that yet, just look and I could look and smile at you. I wish I could hear your voice and that I could tell you how much I love you and miss you. I want so much to go to you that it hurts, to kiss your brow as I did each night, but I don’t move. I don’t even cross the threshold of your room. I think if I got closer, it would ruin the strange and wonderful sight that I see each night I need to. If I tried to kiss you, I would reach nothing and that would be too much for me. It is enough, or almost, to see, even if you aren’t all right yet, that at least you are sleeping, that you are safe, that you are wrapped in love. I can still feel you in my heart, in all my pain and all of yours. There I can hold you still since I can’t hold you anymore in my arms and I weep for the beauty and grief of that.

Chapter Twenty-Two: A Still, Small Voice

We learned at the Council the history of the Ring, of treachery and weakness and Darkness that threatened to overcome even the fair Elven lands where all was bright and no shadow yet touched. It was out there, waiting, watching, biding its time, growing in strength and I could feel it all in my heart, seeking to devour all the light left in the world as it already sought to devour me, as it is still seeking.

When I was asked to bring the Ring forth, I was filled with shame and fear. I couldn’t bear the touch of it, but it was mine. I held it forth only reluctantly and my hand was shaking when I did it. I wished I was elsewhere, far away. A heavy burden Elrond called the Ring and so it has been, so heavy I have been crushed under it. There are wounds so deep inside no healing touch can reach. I wish that I wasn’t so torn by them. How many, many times have I wished that. I wish for so much I can’t ever have. It is useless I know, but still that longing is there and I don’t think it will leave me anymore than the lingering desire for the Ring.

I already knew of the terrible power of the Ring and felt very small in the ability to fight against it. So many others there, wiser and stronger than I, feared even to hold it for the power it would have over them. I listened to all that was being said and the dread in me grew. I could see very clearly my doom approaching and I wished that it would not be spoken, not be made real. I wanted nothing other than to be allowed to be in peace, to be with Bilbo. But I knew if the doom that caused my heart to quail wasn’t spoken, then all Middle-earth was doomed. I felt within me a prompting to speak that doom, to take it as my own. If I could not spared, then perhaps I could save others and that is why I had left my home to begin with, even when I knew I would not be. I spoke. It was better I than anyone else. No one else could. I was asked inside and I said yes.

And you, my dearest, dearest Sam, spoke right up and said that surely I wasn’t going alone. You had heard of all the terrible dangers, had already been through many already, but nothing could shake your decision in wanting to remain with me. All this time you have held by my side, through all dangers and darknesses you have been with me, my brother of brothers. You would have given your life. You have given your love and your blood and all that is in you. Such devotion and loyalty has not its equal anywhere and against that I compare my upcoming betrayal and all the others that have come before. My brother-cousins have been just as true and wanting to be included, thinking you were getting a reward for eavesdropping. A punishment I called it and so it was. I was the one who got the reward, the companionship of you three, not you.

It is hardly possible to separate us, Elrond said, hardly, but possible. It will not be easy but it will happen. Oh, Sam, how can I bear that? You have taken care of me for 32 years now and hardly one day of that we have spent apart. You have taken care of every runny nose, sore throat, headache and fever, every heartache and heartbreak, every cut and sprain and skinned knee and I have taken care of every one of yours. And now it will be years before I see you again, if I am granted that blessing at all. I will watch you grew ever more distant as the ship moves away. I know I will staring long after you have been lost to sight. Only then I hope will my tears fall. It is a measure of the depth of my loss that I am committed to this course at all.  This is one pain, most beloved guardian, that you cannot cure. It is not your fault that you cannot, but how I wish you could!

* * *

No braver words did you speak, dear, when you said you would take the Ring. And rightly did Lord Elrond said you would have your place among those that we thrilled to hear such tales of. I can just see you beside Hador, Hurin, Turin and Beren. Never thought we would be in such a tale ourselves and the same tale! It was a terrible, long history we heard tell of at the Council, wasn’t it, and many times a day since then I have wished that you could have been spared all it cost you to take upon the burden you did so willingly.

But I’m also so proud of you, love, so very proud of you, it’s a wonder my heart doesn’t just burst right open. Even in my grief, I have that joy. You were hurt terrible by the Ring, but you kept going through it all, saving us. I tried that hard to save you, and it don’t seem fair that you had to go somewhere else for that. I miss you sore, but then I think of all you did because you spoke those few words, all that is now safe because of your sacrifices, all that remains green and growing and at peace. You are not just Elf-friend, but a friend of Hobbits, Men, Dwarves and all who walk in the light because you took the darkness upon yourself so it would not spread.

Lord Elrond said it was hardly possible to separate us and I never thought it would be possible at all, but it has happened and I think it will be a long time before I see you again. But I will, dear, I will. Don’t you ever doubt that. It will happen. I think in some ways we aren’t apart even now. Didn’t you tell me when my mum died that one day I would feel her presence still with me as you sometimes thought you felt your own parents? I think I felt you today, out in the fields, near your favorite tree. I heard laughter in the wind, yours, dearest. It must have been a memory, but it was wonderful and I smiled to hear it. Hardly possible? No, not possible at all. I can’t make you tea or put a blanket around your shoulders or tuck the sheets under your chin, but I can still hold you, I can still sing to you.

___

(A/N:  I've also updated Children of Iluvatar in the Anthology section for this momentous Council meeting so please take a look at that too!)

Chapter Twenty-Three: Rest for the Journey

Gandalf said to forget about the coming worries and I will admit it was easy to do so while in Rivendell. I think if we had not that refuge to restore our spirits and strengthen our hearts and bodies, and later the relief of Lothlorien and Faramir’s hospitality, it would have been so much harder to endure the trials that came. And impossible if you had not been there, my loving protector.  If only I could be healed of my present wounds as easily.

When Elrond asked me if I was resolved in my decision to be Ring-bearer, I did not hesitate to say that I was. The choice had been made. That had been the difficult part I thought. The rest, I had no doubt, would be difficult as well, but it seemed to be easier to face now that the decision to go on had been made. Elrond spoke darkly about none of us knowing the dangers that were come and we would not be able to go on if we did. We were all afraid, but all resolved to go on. It is very good that we did not the trials to come that so severely tested us far beyond what we imagined we could ever endure. I tried and failed, but not to have tried at all and seen the world covered in a deeper darkness than any of my worst fears could have contrived would have been a worse torment. It is better that the pain is just consuming me instead of the whole of Middle-earth, but how I wish it wasn’t devouring even me.

I know it was not, but how easy it is to imagine that star I saw shining deep in the heavens like a red eye was the Eye, the same one that so filled my mind and dreams, burning a hole in me. It is gone and I know it no longer seeks me, but sometimes still in my dreams I see it and the star as one.

I spent some time looking at the maps of the journey that was planned for us. It was so far, so very far. Merry looked rather intently as well and I knew he was figuring in his mind how long it would take and what we would need to bring. He was ever the planner and I was glad and afraid for him at the same time. I was even more anxious for Pippin. I was that close to begging Lord Elrond that they be sent home, but I knew my beloved cousins too well. It would all come to naught and they would just follow me anyway. "You will have to lock me in prison or send me home tied in a sack," Pippin said. I smiled just a little when I heard that. But I don’t think even that would have helped. I remember well how they can be quite a handful. My dear ones would kicking and screaming the whole way back and someway, somehow they would get out or be let out and then they’d be running back to me. No, they had to stay with me, where I could keep an eye on them. So I bit my tongue and hoped I was right because I already feared there was no safe place left and being near me was the least safe of all places. But you and they wouldn’t be budged from there from even before that little conspiracy of love was revealed and every day I have blessed you three for it and cursed that you have all had to experience more evil than anyone should ever have to, all because you would not be parted from me. But even Gandalf thought it wisest for them to be with me and I trusted that was right and that good would come of it. I feared for you all, but at the same time I am glad you all were around to provide some cheer. It was for you and all the Shire that I accepted the burden.

* * *

Oh, dear, what a haven Rivendell was for us when we so needed it. Days and days and weeks spent in cheer and health that grew and grew. Nights spent feasting and listening to songs and tales in the Hall of Fire. I can remember all the times we sat there, wrapped in such joy, Bilbo at your side and I on your other. Sometimes you fell asleep against his side, utterly content. Best of all was to watch that, to see you grow strong again and happy. Your laughter was free and clear and you nearly glowed as bright as the Elves themselves, so right at home you seemed with them. I carried all those memories with me along the Road and they nourished me even after we returned as did each smile you were able to give me, especially those when you felt unable to but still did for me. I saw your love there clearest those times, but it shone all the other times too.

When Lord Elrond asked if you were still committed to being the Ring-bearer, you did not hesitate when you said yes and that I would come. A punishment you had called it to be at your side while we went into such darkness. But a worse punishment would have been not to be there. Mr. Merry was right - as glorious as Rivendell was, it would not have been, if we were there and you were out in the Wild. No, my dear, the best place for us has ever been at your side.

Chapter Twenty-Four: Mighty Gifts

We spent so much together with Bilbo, you and I, listening to tales and songs, just like we used to at Bag End before the Shadow fell and eclipsed my heart and touched yours, when all was bright and we dreamed of adventures of our own. Oh, my Sam, we will never do that again. How that grieves me. I will be with Bilbo soon again and I long for that, but I won’t be with you and when you come - I will not say if, I could not bear it if you did not so I must hope my last hope that you will indeed come - it will be too late to be with Bilbo. We hobbits have to stick together, especially Bagginses, he said the day before we left. You have long been a honorary Baggins, my brother, or is it that I am a honorary Gamgee? But I fear it will be very long before you and I see each other again. We will, though. I have to believe that. I would have no strength to leave if I did not. I would rather suffer here, then to know I wouldn’t. I wish I had the strength to stay, but I do not. I will not heal here, that bitter truth I have finally accepted. And I will have you see me well again, no shadows deep under my eyes from lack of sleep, no shadows deep inside them from darkness that I still battle. I want you to see me smile again. I want to have you hear me laugh again. I want to hear that myself. I want to look in a mirror and not see a stranger with hollowed-out eyes reflecting the emptiness within. I don’t want to fear anymore that you see the same when you look at me. Those are the gifts I want to give you, my stoutest, dearest guardian, as mighty as the ones Bilbo gave me before we left. They protected my body as well as could be and I would be dead without them. You protected my spirit that no sword or mithril mail could and I would be dead without you. I promise to take care of both body and spirit until you can come to do so again. I will not fail in that as I have in everything else. You will see me healthy and happy again. The same white shores that call to me will call to you. You will hear it deep in your heart and one day you will hearken to it as I will soon do myself. I will be there when you do. Perhaps it will be my voice that you will hear in the Sea. I will not promise not to call you before you are ready, for I know that is a promise I cannot keep. My heart will call you day and night, but I will pray you will not hear me until you are ready to leave. You have so much to live for here, my Sam, so very much. I will not take you away from it again. But upon whitest sands, I will await my turn to have you near me once more.

* * *

I think of Mr. Bilbo sometimes and wonder how you two are doing. I am glad he is with you when I can’t be because he’s always taken such wonderful care of you, of us both. I remember how cheery he always was, always with a kind word for my Gaffer and help whenever it was needed. He never hesitated to go out of his way to be kind to me too, from the time I was just a little lad and followed my Gaffer around in the garden, pulling up weeds. He always had a sweet for me and gentle words of encouragement of how well I was doing. He gave me so much. He gave me you. Even before I met you, my dear, I knew you and loved you, because he was always talking about you and how excited he was that you were coming. I knew everything about you even before you came and I have loved you more and more ever since. I know I will even more by the time I see you again. I don’t suppose there is hope I will see Mr. Bilbo, but just knowing that you and he are together and sharing tales and teas and everything else that proper hobbits do eases my heart some. It’s good that you won’t be the only one there, at least for a time. Of all the gifts he gave me, the greatest is what he gave you - Sting and that mithril mail. You would have died without that shirt and the world would be so much darker. Now instead, though you are gone, I can dream of the light I will see in you again. You are with Elves and you will be happy and whole. I can already see how bright you will be shining. That’s what’s lighting the dark places in my own heart where it still hurts so much. The light in you that helped me heal when my mum died is the same light that will heal me now. I wish I could thank Mr. Bilbo for all he did to make that shine out. Perhaps I will speak it to the wind and he will hear somehow.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Into the Shadows

We left at dusk and traveled mostly in the dark, appropriate for the journey that drove us ever onward into deeper and deeper black. I am still on that Road and am as weary now as I was then. I know you are ever beside me, my beloved, but your feet and heart are also in the sun-blessed Shire, warm where I am cold. I wish I could be there with you instead of this gloom. I wish I was something more than a shadow walking through shadows. Instead I am here, even when you hold me at night, rock me and murmur and stroke my curls and I hold onto you so tight and listen to your voice and heart and know that you are still alive and I can live a little myself then through you. Still, it is you entering my world, not me entering yours and I hesitate to have you linger here, though I know you would for love of me. For many months you did that very thing as we traveled forth and that is already far more than anyone should have to.

Elrond told us before we left that we did not know the strength of our hearts. I don’t think he was expecting any to be following all the way to Mordor, but to give aid as long as heart and strength allowed. Only I was expected to succeed or at least make a stronger attempt than anyone. But I was the only one who failed. You followed me all the way to the Fire, proving your great heart and will. The others would have too, I’m sure, but they were meant for other tasks. Merry helped slay the Witch-king, Pippin saved Faramir’s life, you saved mine, Boromir saved my cousins, Aragorn called the Dead to fight, Gandalf defeated the Balrog. They all succeeded far beyond anyone’s hopes. I wish I could say the same. But even as the wind found a way past our clothes and chilled us for days and days, so the Ring found a way past every defense I tried to put up against it. I fought it so long, Sam. I am still fighting it. You have no idea how bitter that struggle was and is, how hard it was to hold on, how it was a fight just to take a breath or another step forward. You do know some of that last and you helped me hold on much longer than I ever thought I could, but you could not stop what it was doing to me inside. It tried to draw me into its madness and it tempted and taunted and jeered and promised and I listened, at times I believed its lies that seemed truths. It was never silent. It never took no for an answer, though I shouted that so many times I thought I would go mad myself. In the end I was reduced to whispering my negation and then at the very end to saying yes. I did go mad then and since then I have been trying to piece back what it did not take from me and I have found that there is too little left, only scraps, not enough to rebuild a life with. I’m sorry, Sam, I’m so sorry. We expected to die on the mountain, but I was already dying bit by bit already along the way.

* * *

Lord Elrond said none of us knew the strength of our hearts and he spoke true at that. I never would have thought we could have done what we did. We dreamed of adventures all the time in the Shire, but we never knew what danger was truly like. We always went home at the end of the day or had a comfortable hot meal by the fire and a warm sleeping bag on soft moss. Nothing ever threatened us and we never went cold or hungry or thirsty. We thought we were being that brave fighting off our imaginary dragons and such, though I will say that you did your best to make it seem real. But it wasn’t. Your face always shone then, there was no strain, no haunting to those beautiful depths, only fun and cheer. Your laughter was free and clear and I had just as much fun as you. Then our Quest came and you changed, we both did. There grew inside you a hard, terrible power that nothing could go against. I know the Ring tried horribly hard to beat you down, but you didn’t let it. It grew more and more heavy around your neck and I could see in your eyes, it was doing awful things inside of you too, but you never gave in. I felt that myself for that short time I bore it and remain in awe that you endured it so much longer and didn’t break asunder. There was times you begged for rest, but you kept going. We were starved and parched and so weak, but there was a strength in you that nothing could stop. You were so determined that despicable thing wouldn’t win that you crawled when you couldn’t walk anymore. You made it to the Fire on willpower that the Ring could not defeat. I was amazed at how strong you were. Your light shone in the darkness more and more. It shone brightest at the Fire just before the Ring tried its last trick to smote it out. It couldn’t. It tried everything and it still couldn’t win. I know it hurt you terrible and I know the hurt didn’t go away when it did, how I wish more than anything that it had, but still you won, dear. It is gone and you aren’t. You are no longer in the Shire, but you are still alive and where you now, I know your light will shine even brighter. I think of your victory every time the pain gets too much. I look at Elanor and my Rose and the garden and think they are all there because of you. I could never thank you right enough, but I’m still going to try.

Gimli said before we set out that darkness would not make him abandon you and vows he had taken would strengthen him against fear. Lord Elrond said it was easy to say that when one hadn’t faced the night. But we did face it and we kept going, ever closer and deeper in terrible darkness. Terrors we couldn’t even have imagined we traveled through and fought against. They all made me cleave even more to you, to get you through, to pass into the dawn, though there were times I wondered if we ever would. You have always been my hero, my Frodo, but never more than those months we toiled so long and hard. I rejoiced to hear what little laughter you had left. It was like rain falling on parched ground, honey after a bitter draught. I can’t wait to hear it again. I love you, my dearest dear. I love you so much, so very much.

Chapter Twenty-Six:  Watchers

We knew we were being watched in Hollin when those black crows kept coming over. But I knew I had been watched even before I left the Shire, ever since Gandalf had told me the history of the Ring. Perhaps it was partly an overactive imagination fostered by too many tales, but it grew on me. Do you have any idea, Sam, how it feels to be totally exposed and vulnerable to your worst enemy, to have your heart and soul bare to its piercing Eye, to have no way to keep any bit of yourself hidden, to lose yourself bit by bit? I felt each step of mine was being traced. I know that not to be true, for many of them I took without his knowledge, but still I knew I could be betrayed at any moment and betrayed by myself and so betray all of you as well. He didn’t have to know my every step. The Ring was with me. That was enough. It called ever to him and I heard it. It made sure I did. How it mocked me constantly, used me, tormented me and filled me with such dark terrors, I could but stumble along, ignore it as best I could, clench my jaw so hard it ached to keep from screaming, from going mad. And the majority of our journey was still ahead. I thought of the maps again and fought off despair. How could I bear my burden so long? But I had been chosen and so I trusted and hoped for strength. It was a blessing to see the sun at times for I was being drawn into darker and darker depths. Each step I took I was coming closer to him. And I was taking those steps willingly. We all were. I feared for the dark paths that Gandalf and Aragorn debated about that they also feared. I feared the dark shape that momentarily snuffed out the stars. I felt the cold sting my heart. There was nothing to do, though, but go on. I still wonder at it all. How different it was from the adventures we had dreamed of. How little did we know about how dark it would be.

* * *

I didn’t like the look of those crows that kept flying over. I agreed with Mr. Pippin that it was a nuisance not to be able to have a hot meal for once. That would have lifted all our spirits as much as the extra rest and some sun did. It was wonderful to see you raise your head to the sun and absorb some of its rays, as though augmenting your own light with it. Mr. Gandalf said it would be getting warmer the further south we went and that was welcome but I didn’t wonder that by the end it would much warmer than anyone of us wanted. Still to the Fire our path was laid. If we knew we were being watched, then I hope you remembered, dear, that you were being watched by all of us too and there wasn’t anything we wouldn’t do to protect you. Your way was the hardest, but we were all there to share in it as best we could.

I wish I could have walked with you until the end. But it didn’t end at the Fire where it should have. Your Road continued and I wonder now what paths your feet tread. I like to imagine it’s like the Shire and Rivendell and the Lady’s Wood, all rolled into one. Nothing but soft grass between your toes, sunshine for your face, warm breezes against your cheek and a joy bubbling up in you that makes you want to sing and dance. I wish I knew whether I was right or not, but that’s the way I see it in my dreams. You are still being watched, but there is nothing but peace and joy and love in you in that knowledge. And I’m not the only one doing it. I can’t rightly explain it all to myself, but I think there is much to that land you are in now that isn’t here and that is why you had to leave. It’s like you are closer to the Sun and there is no darkness, even when it’s night. Oh, that doesn’t make a bit of sense, does it, but that’s the way my heart makes it. When I see you at night now, in your room, lit by moonlight and I say goodnight to you, you look less strained, more beautiful and I smile at that. I hope I can keep watching over you like this every night. I know one day I will see you smiling just like you always did when I’d come to wake you in the morning before any of this happened. I will laugh in joy at that and cry and do a little dance myself.

Chapter Twenty-Seven:  Marching Toward Doom

I couldn’t sleep so I chanced to overhear Gandalf and Aragorn talking about our path to come. It was perilous indeed to take each step forward, closer and closer to doom. But it had to be done. I understood that. How I dreaded it, but still I had many with me, stronger and wiser and stouter of heart and it was this debate of two of those that I listened to anxiously. I know I couldn’t do this alone. I would have been overcome, if not by the Ring, by the elements or his servants, wandering lost in pathless wilds. It was very good I had companions to guide me and friends to cheer me, but still it weighed ever on my heart what I was doing - sending many of those I most loved into deadly danger. I know you and my brother cousins would have it no other way and how very often I have breathed prayers of thanks for that and shed tears that I have been blessed with such love and loyalty and grieved that such dangers had to come to you all. But as Gandalf would said, our journeying together was meant to be. The world is actually safer because of what three hobbits did. I did my best too, but I couldn’t have done it without you, my Sam, my heart and soul, the one bit of good that the Ring never stole from me, though it tried. It tried.

And so many other things tried to stop us. The wind, the snow, the wargs. All these terrible things that you three and the rest of the Company had to endure because of me. All the ways you could have died and it would have been because you had been with me. I cannot keep from crying out from my nightmares that I wake from to find you already holding me, rocking me, shushing me and brushing at my curls. I hold onto you until I can calm and stop trembling. You have learned not to ask out loud what the dreams were about because you know I will not tell you, but you cannot stop the questions from forming in your eyes, so loving and full of concern and sorrow. I wish sometimes I could tell you, because maybe that would banish them, but all I really need is to know that you are alive still, that you are holding me and looking at me and you haven’t died from the cold or the heat, from a warg’s bite or a spider’s or the bite of an orc blade or from hunger or thirst or at my own hand. Those dreams are the worst and the ones that cause me to scream the loudest and shed the most tears, tears you wipe. I can see that you desperately want me to tell you why they were there, but I can’t. It’s enough to know that were only nightmares, that you haven’t been harmed.

I was drawing danger to all of us throughout the Quest, but I had to be drawn away from danger at the same time. The way through the Gap of Rohan that may have been easier Gandalf would not dare take us because of me, because of the Ring. I was glad that Gandalf’s secret plan whatever it was was not heeded that night I heard it spoken of. If even Aragorn feared it, it must have fearsome indeed and I had no heart to wish to face it myself. Still I already felt myself changing. It was not an evil change, not what it became at times, but something I felt harden within me. I knew I could not turn back without shame and greater defeat than I could imagine. I feared greatly going forward, knowing every step was taking me closer to him, but what kept me going was the determination to stop him, to do what I could, to save you and all those I loved. You have guarded me as well, my Sam, even as you guided me at the end to the heart of danger, because there we had to go and by then my strength was so close to failing and at the very end, it failed utterly. Still you were there to guard me, through the end.

But now I must go forward alone, dearest, and let go of your hand that I have held so long as I had to let go of all the other hands I have held on this journey. Still our hearts and souls are bound and there I hope ever to dwell. I would fear for that if I did not already know you will forgive me even this terrible wound as you have forgiven me all the others. Anywhere and everywhere, you have always followed me and so I have hope you will follow me even over the Sea. I shall meet you there, take your hand again and never let it go. I love you, my Sam. Thank you for guarding me.

* * *

I would have loved the snow a lot more if we had been back home and it had all fallen while we slept and we could have risen to a bright sunny day with all the white gleaming, just calling to us to play in it as was so rare for us to do. I remember the snow forts we used to build, the snow hobbits and the figures we would make in snow by laying down and waving our arms and legs back in forth. How you shone during those days. I could see it even then on our journey while the snow fell so deep around us, we could have been buried in it over our heads. There was so little shelter, just a wall to lean against, instead of being inside with a nice mug of spiced cider, wrapped in blankets as you read me a tale or we listened to one of Mr. Bilbo’s. I was growing so sleepy in that cold, that I could have fallen asleep and dreamed that very thing. The only thing the memory and reality would have in common was the fire, but it was not the cheery one at Bag End, but one of desperation and the cider was replaced by an Elven drink that was even better. What heart it put back into us! We were all hopeful that we could return to Rivendell, but it wouldn’t have been right. We had a job to do, all of us and turning back wouldn’t have done it right.

The howls of the wargs nearly took my heart away, but we were safe and sound with Mr. Gandalf and Strider and Legolas. As I believe you are safe and sound now with Mr. Gandalf and Mr. Bilbo and the Elves. It tears at me something fierce to remember your last look at me as you left, but there was also so much love there and there was light and I will see that again. I have seen it all throughout this journey and I will once more. The Ring tried to take it all from you, to take you from me, but it couldn’t. Not even now. You have always been watched over, my dear, and until I can come to do it again myself, I will rest a little easier knowing that you are with others that have already kept you safe.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Choices

The choice had been made to enter the mines. There was no other way, but nearly all of us feared it, even Aragorn and that frightened me. Only Gimli welcomed it and living in holes ourselves, we should have welcomed it, but we didn’t. We traveled for hours and at last came to the Door. I hated the feel of the foul water on my feet. I feared the pool, though I did not know why. And to learn, dear Sam, that you would be parted from your beloved Bill is another stab at my heart, another sacrifice that you had to make for me,. And though you were rewarded for it later, I am still sorry that it had to be made. You’ve made so many sacrifices for me and continue to do so, wrapped in the little and large gifts of love you give to me each day and have since the day I first met you. I know most of them you would not see as sacrifices, indeed you would not see any of them so, but I know some of them are - the nights you’ve stayed up with me, holding me so I can sleep; all the steps you took with me to Mordor; the food and drink and rest you went without so I could have some; the life you were willing to lay down as the price for all your devotion; that you were even willing to risk drowning to be with me. How blessed I am, my brother, by your presence in my life, how very blessed. I anxiously await already that day you will be once more and that I realize will be another sacrifice. I am already dreading the loss of you and wonder how I can bear it. People hail me for being brave for doing all I did. I think the bravest - or the most foolish - is yet to come, when I let go of your hand and venture forth into the unknown without you.

You chose to enter the unknown with me. You traveled far and wide simply because you didn’t want me to be alone. Merry and Pippin did the same as far as they could and now soon I must go forth without them as well, but at least, as much as my heart as always been in the keeping of you three, I will still remain in our beloved Shire, and I will be taking a bit of you all with me into the West. That comforts me while nothing else can. And Bilbo who has held my heart even longer will be with me. I could not do this without having him at least at my side and the hope that you will one day join me.

We had reason to fear the dark as we entered Moria. It was more than physical, at least for me. It was behind me, ahead of me, in me. It was around my neck. It could sense it easier now because of my wound. That thing in the water had not reached for me by sheer accident. It had chosen me. I could see easier in the dark but that did not comfort me. A dread descended on me. The shard that came so near my heart had been removed, but a thing just as deadly had been placed over it. There is no escape from it in this world.

* * *

Mr. Gandalf said I had to choose - between Bill and you. There was no choice, not really. How it tore at my heart to have to let him go, but I had to. It was for you that I was here. It was you I would follow all the way to the Fire. It was you I planned to take home with me. So into the dark we went, while part of my heart remained a while outside, with Bill. Then it drew back wholly to you. It remains still with you, as much as it is here in the Shire with Rose and Elanor. It has always been so. And a bit of you remains here and that comforts me until I can see you again. I know I will. Just be there when I come, please, dearlove. Just be there. I will follow you anywhere. You know that. Even over the Sea.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Eyes and Fire in the Dark

We traveled for hours and hours in dark for days. I am still traveling on those dark roads and there is as little light about me now as there was for all of us then. No staff of Gandalf leading us, no mithril shining far below. What a great gift Bilbo had given me, but how I wished and still wish we were just back home, with him, that none of this happened or was even heard of. That he hadn’t even left. That if we had to be here, that you wouldn’t have been hurt, the only one to have been when the Orcs attacked before that great one speared me. How many other hurts have you taken because of me? Your physical ones have long healed, but I can remember where each scar was. I can see other pain each day, in all the love, in all the concern that I am not getting better.

Still we had to go on in the dark and so must I. I heard or thought I heard footsteps behind us and two eyes glowing in the dark. I can still see one Eye, wreathed in flame. Sometimes I think that is my only company, my only light in this dark world that I now inhabit, but I know that is not true. The footsteps I hear most often are yours and the eyes I see are yours. You hold me as you did then, helping me along after the Orc had speared me. There is a pale light ahead of me and it is not of fire. I have to keep walking toward it, though I know it leads out of the Shire, away from you, away from nearly everyone. Just as we were bereft of the Company bit by bit, first with the horror of Gandalf’s fall, then with Boromir’s betrayal, then with leaving all the others behind so the evil could not work among them, so I must leave you all once more, even you, dearest Sam. But this second time I hope now will be into light and not into darkness. I have lingered here too long.

* * *

It was terribly dark and chill in those halls of the dwarves. Gimli sang that song about how it had once been and I think it would have been wonderful to have seen it in those days. I think we could have almost been at home, but those days were long past. Only evil still lingered. I almost died myself when you fell to that Orc spear. It was as if my own heart had taken it seeing you like that. I don’t even want to think of what would have happened if you hadn’t been wearing Mr. Bilbo’s shirt. The Ring would have passed to someone else, but who but you could have borne it? How I wish it had never come, but it did. We were that amazed when you asked Aragorn to put you down. A body was all we thought he carried, but I should have known you were too stubborn to have died, my dear. We made it down the stairs and you leaned against me and I held you, wishing I could do more to ease your pain. I wished that every moment we were on our Road and for long after we should have been able to leave it, but you could not and so neither could I. I wish for it even now, when I can no longer walk beside you, but only hold you in my memories and heart and thoughts and hope you can still feel me there.

Then came the fire and Mr. Gandalf’s fall and that hurt something fierce. We were both crying before we came out into the day again, but that day was lesser without of him and except for brief respites, the day came less bright the rest of the time. The only light that remained to guide us was in you and how the Ring fought to smote that out. But it didn’t. It couldn’t. Now its gone and you are shining brighter than ever. I know you are.

_____

A/N:  Tomorrow, 11/15, starts what is known in the Byzantine Catholic Church as St. Philip's Fast.  It is a voluntary, dietary fast, which can be observed in whole or in part until Christmas, but since I weigh little enough as it is, I won't be following that, but instead 'fasting' from posting here, though I will be reading on the weekends and perhaps if I do not feel it is cheating too much, posting on the weekends as well, but don't be surprised if you don't see anything until Christmas.  So Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas just in case!  It will be here before we know it!  And hannon le for all your very kind reviews!  I am very grateful for them and all the support you have given me. :)

Our pastor is asking for prayers for the conversion of our Moslem brothers and sisters.  As far as the war on terror goes - "What can be done against such reckless hate?"  - it must be fought, but it will be won through prayer.  I thought I would pass along his request.  God bless us all.

Chapter Thirty: Reflections and Not

Outside of Moria, Gimli showed us the wonder of the Mirrormere, Kheled-zarum. And it was a wonder to behold for it was like Galadriel’s mirror in a way, showing not just a reflection in its water, but something else entirely. Stars were there, though the sun shone above. Of ourselves, we saw nothing. That is the way it is now with me, with any mirror or so I tell myself. A figure does stare back at me, but is it me? Isn’t it a stranger? But the lie does not work. I may not recognize who one I see, or perhaps I know all too well who it is and I do not want to know. I know it is myself, who I am now, hurt beyond help in this world, hollowed out and nothing but a frame left and a broken heart and soul laboring on. I need to leave, to find another self, another mirror. One in which the figure will smile back at me and be filled with something else than this emptiness. I need that person to be me.

We traveled on past the mysterious water, full of grief and weariness and hurt. We were so doggedly following the others, but getting more and more behind, then finally we were rescued and carried to camp. You were treated and told you would heal. You have healed from all the wounds you took, dearest Sam, because you would not leave me, except for the one I see every day in your eyes, the worry that you can’t ease the burden I carry even now. I hope there will come a day when you are healed even of that, when you know that I am well and I know you are. That day I will rejoice.

* * *

It was strange not seeing our reflections in the water Gimli took us to. Lovely it was, to see the stars and the mountains, but it was as though we weren’t even peering in. It’s beyond me to figure out.

But one reflection I saw earlier was that of Mr. Bilbo’s love for you in that mithril shirt. What a surprise that was! A wonder to behold and no mistake. I think I worried about you a tad less because of it. Your body at least would be safe, especially once those nasty bruises healed, but how I wish I could have had some mithril to guard your heart with. That was wide open as it always had been and it took such terrible hurt.

Still it wasn’t defeated. Not even now with you gone because it was still so broke. It continues to beat and I know it’s growing stronger. I just know it is. I have treasured it more than my own and I will hear it again. The hearts of my children beat and will beat because yours never failed. Thank you, dear. Thank you that much. You will have to wait a long while I think before I can say that you personally, but I hope somehow you know that you have saved so many lives and given me joy even now in my hurt and I hope that will help you heal. Oh, how I wish I could be there to see it myself! But I think I do see it. I watched you sleep tonight and there was a small smile on your lovely face. You were hallowed. I watched that smile for hours I did.

Chapter Thirty-One: Being Watched

It was good to feel clean water around our feet again in the Nimrodel. It was refreshing after that terrible water around the gate of Moria. I long so to feel clean again. The Sea will wash away much I hope.

We met Haldir on the other side and Legolas told us about how you breathed so loud. That brings a smile to my face even now. Oh, my dearest, most beloved Sam, how I shall miss everything about you, even your snoring! You fell asleep easily that night but I took a little longer. I had heard footsteps before we came here and now I saw eyes again. Our shadow had re-appeared, being drawn by the Ring. Oh, how I wish I could have drawn him and myself away from its allure, saved him, brought him to where I am going now, so he could heal too. But such was not his fate. I know not where he is. I barely even know where I am or where I am going. I no longer live in the Shire but as a shadow myself and where I am going seems like a dream, but if it is a dream, I hope I do not wake, at least not until I am healed and you are with me.

* * *

I think the only times I didn’t fear for you, dear, was when we were with the Elves. Even sleeping in the trees I knew we were safe - imagine me saying that! You know how I hate heights and even worse was the next day, on that rope bridge over the water, but I was with you and we were with the Elves so I knew we were all right, even with the dangers that surrounded us. That’s how I know you are safe now, my love. I don’t imagine there to be any dangers where you are going and I know the Elves and Mr. Bilbo and Mr. Gandalf will be taking care of you just as we were in Rivendell and the Lady’s Wood. I wish so much that I was with you - and I think that they must know it too, because it has to be Elvish magic that lets me see you sleep - but I want to be here too. You said I won’t always be torn in two, but the only time I wasn’t was when I had both you and Rose to look after. Either I was with you on the Quest and not with her or now I am with her and not with you. I’m not complaining since of course I had to be with you and she is the brightest jewel after yourself among hobbits and that is a rare treat. She make me as happy as I can be right now and I am feeling better because of her.

But it just isn’t right that you aren’t here, too. That’s why I keep looking for you here, in the meadows and fields and streams. I listen for your voice in the wind and by your favorite tree. I stood there for a long time today, just listening to you as you read one of those tales that always thrilled us. I could just about see you too, leaning up against the tree, book in hand, face bright, voice so lively and dramatic. You always made the tales so exciting, using different voices for different people. You were so good making the sounds of dragons and other terrible things that I jumped in fright at times, but I always knew I was safe with you. I hope I will always hear that wonderful voice of yours. And I hope I will always see you - smiling, laughing, so full of light and life and joy. What tales you will have to tell when I see you next, dear!

Chapter Thirty-Two: The Golden Wood

I will never forget the land of Lorien. Out of all the terrible memories of darkness, this light remains, brighter than anything, save you, my Sam. Part of me still dwells there, free from pain and want. We both stood in wonder at the land, the freshness and newness of it and the ancientness of it all the same time. But time still had not touched it as it has all else and the Shadow had not stained it. It was clean. Gandalf tells me that where Bilbo and I are going will be more beautiful still and that the lands beyond it that no mortal can enter cannot even be described. And there are lands even further beyond that are the most wondrous of all and those lands he has told me can be entered. Oh, Sam, what awaits us! Both of us.

It will be long before we can stand together as we did then in the Lady’s Wood, but my greatest hope is that we shall. I have so few hopes left, but that is one and the best. I hope also to heal, that this separation is not in vain, but it will be fruitful and for you too. I gave everything I had for the Quest and there is nothing here that can fill me again, except the thought that I will see you again and you will see me happy and full again of light and not of the darkness that is both a void in me and choking me at the same time.

I wish I could share with you all my hopes and fears of this coming time, hear your confident reassurances that all will be all right. You have given me that so many times, even times I wondered how you could possibly believe it, but you were always right. It was all right, even when the Ring was tearing me apart, because you were with me and you said it was, though I had lost any hope of my own and relied solely on yours. You never gave up hope for our success and I know you would hope the same for me now.

You got me to the Fire and even though you won’t be there physically, I know you will bring me back from it. You will not leave me alone, dearest brother mine. I know you will always be with me and I imagine I will look for you and see you like I saw Aragorn that day in the Golden Wood, wrapped in his own memories of his time there. Past and present seemed to merge and mingle there and if there is something even more wonderful where I am going, then it will be like that but even better and we will never be parted again.

* * *

I hope where you have gone, dear, is like the Lady’s Wood. I imagine it is because I don’t think you could get anything more Elvish and wonderful than that and I had thought Rivendell was a wonder to behold. Everything seemed new and sharp. We weren’t just hearing a song like we had in the water, but we were actually inside it, looking out. What songs do you hear now, I wonder?

I dream I think sometimes of those songs, like a clear voice coming over the water, over a great distance. It’s not so much that I am hearing it with my ears as much as I am with my heart and it wraps all around me like a nice, warm cloak, enveloping in so much love and light and comfort and peace. It’s like looking into your eyes before all this happened when I was sick or taken a spill or been afraid and you would comfort me with all that love and light in you. It’s like being wrapped into your arms as you would hold me then, but even better.

I’m not anxious to leave Rose’s arms and her love and light, but I am, at the same time, that much looking forward to seeing you again, my dear. I think if I couldn’t see you each night I need to, then I would go mad from this wanting to be in two places at once. But I don’t need to see you as much anymore. I still treasure every time I do, but I don’t need to seek it each night anymore. You are getting better and that has done me a world of good to know that. I know you are in my heart as you have ever been and there I seek you now instead, though it is still often enough that I see you, sleeping away and that can still take my breath away and fill my heart with such love and joy it’s a wonder it doesn’t burst and I don’t release the shout that rises up in my throat. If this is how it feels now, I can barely imagine how it will feel when I truly see you next and you can see me and I can look at you looking and smiling at me with all that incredible love. I will shout then, my dear love. I will hold you forever and laugh and cry, but my tears will be happy ones. I love you, my Frodo. I love you that much.

Chapter Thirty-Three: Probing

The grief over Gandalf’s loss came anew when we spoke of it to Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel. At least that one hurt had been completely assuaged. The Lady’s probe when it came to me was a test that I feared I would fail, for she probed gently but deeply and I saw all my fears and hopes and doubts, all my weaknesses that I had been struggling against. She judged me then, a stranger, but I think I passed her test and came away, almost a friend, strengthened, though I wasn’t sure how. She knew how much I wanted to be home or be with Bilbo. She saw how afraid I was. But as she saw my heart which was in such darkness of fear and grief, she also showed it anew to me. It was surrounded by darkness, true, but illuminating it and it alone was a soft light that came from no source that I could see, but it was there and it comforted me. I had a feeling I was understood in a way no one else could, not even you, dearest Sam, because she knew something of the burden of carrying a ring. I held that light to me as much as I could as the Ring sought to destroy it, just as much as I tried to hold yours to me. I think I still see it. It’s much more diffuse now, dimmer, but it’s still there and I have to hope it will grow strong again, for I am weary almost beyond bearing of wandering lost in the dark.

* * *

I didn’t feel right when the Lady looked at me, that’s a fact. She was judging all of us, even Strider, though she knew him well. And she saw my heart true - I did want to be at home with the garden but even more, I wanted to be with you. I know she saw that too. I don’t understand how being simply looked at could tire a body out so much, but then she did do more than look and that part I understand even less. Still, she smiled at the end and there are few wonders greater than that blessing and the hope and strength she gave, letting us rest in the fair land she held safe.

Chapter Thirty-Four: Elf-magic

The sun is out, the air is warm, but I sit in the study, in the darkness of my own pain and loss, not even seeing it how bright the day is. The fire you have so thoughtfully stoked in sorrow and love is burning and crackling and I feel its warmth, but still I shiver in cold. I will be gone long before winter and I am glad for myself and sorrowful for you for this parting will be the worst of all the hurts I have given you, dearest Sam, but still I know, after the grief passes and it will for both of us, you will have the hope that we will see each other again and that hope will not be defeated. You had hope far longer than I did on the Quest and I know if my hope of seeing you again falters or even fails, I can hold onto yours just I did all the way to the Fire. Didn’t Gandalf call you such? Hope Unquenchable. You are, my Sam, you are. You have ever been my support, my guide, my guard, my solace and my encouragement, praising even my poem about Gandalf.

And so I can leave you with that hope to sustain me as we part as I hope it will help you and you can forgive me for what I will do. I will make it up to you if I can, though I quail at ever being able to come close to the depth of love and devotion you have so unstintingly given me all these many years. I know I cannot, but I shall try in my own small way to show you anyway. You will see me healed. That is the least I can do. I think I will have much time to think of what else though I can do for you. I fear that also - how much time will stretch between our parting and reunion, but if the Land I am going to is anything like Rivendell or the Lady’s Wood then time will pass almost unnoticed and for that I will be glad. And you, my beloved, best part of my heart and soul, I hope, will be too busy to notice the passage either. Time drags on so now, each day is a weariness and each night is endless. Dawn brings only the smallest bit of relief. But it will not always be that way or so my remaining hope hangs by a slim thread.

I wish there was some Elf-magic like the Lady’s Mirror that we could peer into and see each other. You were so keen upon seeing such magic, and even now that brings a smile to my face, driving away the pain for a moment, but it was indeed perilous to look through that the first time and I fear that if we could after we part that in the beginning all we would see is the sadness brought on by the Shadow and that I have brought to you, though thankfully not the Shadow itself. It has passed on or so I try to convince myself, though it sits still so heavy on my heart, dragging me down as it did then and all my thoughts are in vain. I don’t think I could bear for you to see me anymore like this or that I would see you sad. But when we have both healed enough, I would very much like to see you, dearest heart, and all the lads and lasses you will have and your time as Mayor and see Merry and Pippin and all that they will have become. So much I will be missing, my Sam, so much. But I know you will tell me everything when you come and I will tell you all the good that has happened to me.

I have never thanked you enough for all you sacrificed for me, my guardian and brother. You saw in the Mirror all we came back home to, but still you stayed with me, though you desperately wanted to go back. You carried your beloved pots and pans nearly all the way to the Fire, but left them in that foul place, the better to carry me, though neither of us knew it at the time. You left blood, sweat and tears. You were willing to give me your life. Oh, my Sam, how could I ever make that up to you?

The Lady spoke of the Enemy seeking her mind and reaching it not. So I wish it could have been for me, but I was laid bare to the lidless Eye. I knew him and he knew me. She passed her test. I did not. I am not staring now into a blank nothingness like I did then, for the pain is all around me and I think at times I see it, a tangled, angry, jagged mess that is stained with my blood. So I must leave. I saw the Sea in the Mirror, Sam, the Sea. I don’t think I would have been given that vision if somehow I couldn’t be helped by it. Or so I grope for any hope in this endless darkness.

You will know I hope when I have found peace, for our hearts have ever been entwined and we have ever felt each other’s pains and joys. I long for the day I can have you feel that and I can feel yours. How I will miss looking into your eyes and see that bottomless love, feeling your arms around me and hearing your loving voice. I will hold all things tight against me and I hope to dream of them often. Know that you will never leave my thoughts. The Mirror we will see each other in will be our memories. I love you, my Sam. I love you so.

* * *

Our time in Lorien was a wondrous time, wasn’t it, dear? We were healed of hurts and weariness of body, though our hearts were still too newly cut by Mr. Gandalf’s death. I meant it when I said that poem you made about him was nearly as good as Mr. Bilbo’s. I loved hearing it, as I always loved hearing you recite the tales of old and sing the songs that were in there. Such a lovely voice you had, so sad at times for most times the songs were that heartbreaking and many a tear I shed as a lad listening to them. I remember each one of those times and how you held me at the end of them, rocked me gently, stroked my curls and just let me cry, sometimes crying with me, until the magic wore off a bit and we came back to the Shire, our backs against your favorite tree, the picnic lunch already finished off and the sun bright and the air warm. How we dreamed off those long-ago tales and our own adventures! I think you had a bit of Elf-magic yourself with the spell you would weave with your voice, transporting us both back to those times. I hope you will have a lot of time where you are now to listen to more tales and songs and compose your own if you take a liking to it.

It’s still a bit of a wonder that we contributed our own bit to the tale as well. I’ve read what you wrote of it over and over already and I cry still at parts and marvel anew at how strong and brave you were. I hated what I saw in the Lady’s Mirror, but if I turned back like I wanted to, then we wouldn’t have been remembered in any tales, because there wouldn’t have been any to tell them, or the telling would be much darker. It’s because of you that it isn’t. The long way home was the best way, the only way, for I couldn’t abandon you and you couldn’t go home anymore than I could without you. To the very end I was determined to follow you and only then go back. My heart could not have borne it any other way, though it took a beating seeing the Lady’s magic and all the terrible things that were happening and it took even more to watch you decline so. But you’ve come now to the end, my dear. You have only one place left to go - and that is back.

I wish I could be there with you and hold your hand and see you look up at me and smile as joy returns to you. I can see you smile at least as you sleep and that is enough or almost for me now. I know I have much to live for here that I don’t want to leave, but I wish we could all be there with you. Still I will come one day, my dear love. I will turn West and follow the Sea and the Stars and I will find you.

Chapter Thirty-Five: Parting Gifts

We debated long into the night that last night we spent in Lorien. Boromir watched me and I watched him. Already the Ring was stirring in him what was to come later. If I had known more of that, I would have tried to leave earlier, but I don’t know whether they would have been things worse or better.

It was hard to leave such a fair land, for you especially because we left by boat. I know that took courage and it’s another thing I have not thanked you for, among all the myriad sacrifices you made for me. The Road lay forward, not backward, into the darkness, away from the light. I imagine sometimes in my own darkness that if I look over my shoulder, I can still see the light distantly behind me that was Lorien. And closer I can see you, surrounding me, my light in dark places, but still that is distant also or so it seems in this dark void where the light is so diffuse and little sound reaches me but the sound of your voice and that of that the Lady’s last song. Nai hiruvalye Valimar. Nai elye hiruva. Maybe thou shalt find Valimar. Maybe even thou shalt find it.

Of all the gifts she gave us, that one remains longest with me, to guide me along the Road that I must still travel. It did not comfort me when I first heard it, but it does now, coming to me when I need it most, a sadness and a hope. I cling to it as much as I cling to your voice, but I have no roots here anymore, Sam. I am floating free and I hope to settle down once more somewhere and never move again. Gandalf has already told me that Valimar itself I am not likely to see, but it is in the West and that I have come to understand is the only place for me. I have lost myself and to find myself once more, I must leave all that once defined me. I have to find my way alone, but once I do, then I will find my way back.

I watch you sleep many nights, just standing at the threshold and sometimes I softly sing to you, quietly enough that I know you won’t wake, but loud enough I hope that it reaches your heart and you can hear it there as often as I do and receive the same comfort I do. Then I brush a kiss so lightly to your brow and leave for my own bed. The time is passing that I will no longer be able to do that and I will have only memories and hopes. I wonder whether that will be enough, for as Gimli told me later about his own parting with the Lady, the heart desires more than memories. So many sacrifices the whole Company made for me in sharing my Road and the greatest still to come. Oh, Sam, my heart quails but it cannot do otherwise. I must leave, but each day, each moment I watch you, I repeat to myself what I sing to you at night. I think sometimes you see me mouthing those words as you raise your head from the garden to look at me or up from looking at Elanor or making me tea or any of the myriad other wonderful things you do for me. You never ask, you only smile and I find myself smiling back. Sometimes you come up and give me a tight hug and kiss to my head, just to let me know how much you love me and that if I want to talk, you will listen. But I cannot. I can only sing to you when you are asleep and let my heart speak to yours in ways it has no strength to otherwise. Nai hiruvalye Valimar, my beloved. Nai elye hiruva.

* * *

We spent some time in the Golden Wood, but we hardly even noticed the passage of time. I wish sometimes that would happen here because each day sometimes feels so long because you are not here and I know many days will stretch out before I see you again, but then you did say I would be busy with more bairns and being Mayor. I don’t know about that last bit, but Rosie and I do wish for a family, especially a son to name after you and then others to fill this place up with cheer and light and love just like you and Mr. Bilbo always did. I hope he is doing all right or whether he is even with you anymore. He was that old, but still I. hope he will be with you a long time because I can’t be.

Even if we didn’t feel the time passing, the time did come to leave the Lady’s Wood and we were given the cloaks the Lady herself and her maids had made and lembas and rope. I was glad to get that as I had been missing it since Rivendell. I wish I could have learned about it from the Elves, but maybe I can when I come to you.

The Lady gave me that box of earth from her garden and you received the star-glass. I don’t even want to think of what would have happened to us if we hadn’t been so gifted and you were able to see the Shire blessed anew before you left from the dirt she gave. She said it wouldn’t keep me on the Road, but I think in some ways it did, or at least I wanted to keep it safe and get it home and I knew the only way home was to stay on the Road, to walk it beside you and to get you home.

I know none of us wanted to leave such a fair land. And I especially did not want to leave by boat, but you were with me and it wasn’t so bad. You know I would do anything or go anywhere with you, dearlove. One day, I’ll go by boat again and cross the Sea and instead of looking back wistfully at the shore as I did then, I’ll be looking forward. I know you will be there, love, waiting for me on that far shore. I can already see you standing there, so bright and beautiful, about to burst from joy and your laughter spilling out like a river and all that love that could outshine the sun. I wouldn’t leave if I didn’t believe that. I already can’t wait. Imagine that, me looking forward to getting into a boat again, but what’s even stranger, is that I would swim the whole way myself since I know you would be there to meet me.

Chapter Thirty-Six: Watchers

Oh, Sam, the days and days we spent on the River and you did not complain of how much it bothered you except when we came to the Argonath. My Brandybuck blood showed as I did not mind the water so much as the cheerless, cold land we were passing, but still I know you were uncomfortable and if you come to see me where I am going now, you will cross not just a River, but the Sea. Will you think that too horrible a place to be too? You who said you just wanted to get out and not even step into a puddle. Except in my darkest moments of despair and fear, I don’t doubt you will if you able. You nearly drowned so much you wanted to be with me before. No, I don’t doubt you will come. The only things that I fear is that you won’t be able to or that I won’t be healed even then. But I am determined I will be and I hope more than anything else that I will see you again. I keep telling myself and I keep writing it and I am not a fool to believe that merely doing that will make it true. I know it is true because you have given me your heart and I have given you mine, and though I know another treasures yours as well, I know, my brother, you will come at the proper time, if there is breath left in you. If you pass before you can come, I know I will know because my heart will stop when yours does, but still I hope that will only come when we are back in each other’s arms.

Were you the one who lifted me out of the boat that first night? I slept so soundly until morning that I can’t believe that I didn’t rouse if unfamiliar hands carried me to where I woke. Or perhaps it was Merry or Pippin or even Aragorn’s who arms have been a gentle shelter at need. I am leaving more than I know behind or perhaps I know all too well all that I will miss and still I must leave. Even if it wasn’t you that carried me, I know it must have been you that wrapped me up. Such love you have always given me, my Sam, such incredible love. I know you don’t want or need thanks for it, but my heart so wants to do so anyway. I will think of a way.

You saw our little follower in the water before I did, but I should have known Smeagol would follow after us. He was being drawn by the Ring, longing for it just as much as Bilbo and I still do. At least he and Bilbo had a hope of seeing it again that I do not. It is gone. Even if I could return to Mordor, and I am glad that even with this evil longing I do not long for that, there would be nothing left to find, no hope. I am drawn elsewhere. The Sea calls as I know it will call to you. You held the Ring only a short time and it had little chance to do you harm, but still it sank a bit into you and you will need to be healed of that, just as its other bearers do. I wish that Smeagol could have been called as well, but his fate was not mine to rule or so Gandalf has tried to reassure me. Sometimes I think I did cause his destruction, but I’ve tried to believe that his death was my saving, though that is not an easy thing to think of, that another had to die so I could live, especially after I had failed in my task. Why was I given mercy and he wasn’t? Why did he have to die and I was spared?

Still I am glad I was for it meant you were also and you had already made enormous sacrifices already to remain with me. I hope I will understand more when I leave and I think I will for I’ve dreamed of times how the holes in my heart will be healed in the land to come. There will be no more dark figures following me, freezing my heart and causing my shoulder to ache with remembered pain. Wraiths with wings Smeagol called them and so I feared that was what came over us the night we were attacked, the thing that Legolas brought down with his bow. Nothing else causes that pain. That is another thing I hope to be free from, even if the wound itself never leaves.

I had another watchers too on me. Boromir who the Ring had captivated and who served to strengthen my own will to leave. And the Eye itself searching for me and almost finding me. I have not told you all of how horrible that felt. Boromir’s betrayal was a terror, but to find the Eye actively seeking me was a torment beyond that. Two powers then strove for mastery over me and it was as though I was being torn apart by both of them equally pulling me in opposite directions. I still don’t know what my first response was to the Eye. I answered both no and yes and still I don’t know which was more true. And that is another shame that I must hide. My final answer then was no and it took all the power in me to do that. My answer at the Fire was yes and that I must forever live with.

But most of all I had you watching over me, practically every step of the way, my most beloved Sam and I do not doubt that you will continue to do so. This is only a physical separation or so I keep telling myself. It is true I think, but I have never had to test that belief until now. You and I have been together for thirty years. How long will we be apart now?

* * *

I did not like being on the boats in the middle of the River for days and days and that’s a fact. I know it saved us a lot of trouble walking and conserved the energy we needed to get to the Mountain and I am glad for that. I think of that sometimes that if we had to walk the whole way, the Ring would have had even more time to work through you and I couldn’t have borne that any easier than you could have. Or we could have been captured. No, the water it had to be. But I wish I hadn’t seen that log with eyes. I would go anywhere with you, dear, but with that Gollum I didn’t wish to be. I had thought the trees could have hid a hundred different enemies and I was glad to see them thin out, but then I missed them when they were gone because I felt so exposed without them. Deeper into darkness we were going. And that Stinker could have easily drawn those Orcs right to us that attacked us in the night. It gave me a scare all right when that arrow hit you and you were pushed forward with a cry. Thank the Powers for Mr. Bilbo’s shirt!

But then that other thing in the sky that Legolas shot down was something else all together. You knew what it was, didn’t you? But you never said. I think you felt you had hid a lot of your fears from us and that only increased your burden. You told me some of them on the way, but I wish I could have helped you more with easing them. I hope where you are now, you have finally let go of that terrible weight. I think you have for your smiles at night are growing larger and you are glowing brighter and I even saw your mouth move in a single word last night. It was my name. How I wish I could respond to you, dear!

I couldn’t let you go alone into Mordor, not into the darkness all by yourself, without me. I don’t know how I let you leave me this time, but I know now as I did then, that I have a job to do. I have others to take care of, though it tears at me that I can’t take care of you too. You have my own for so long. But now there are others that are mine that I love just as dear and I don’t want to be parted from them neither. Oh, why couldn’t you just stay, dear? Do you have any idea how many times I have asked that in my heart, laying in bed at night and knowing you are not in your room for me to check up on or to persuade to come from the study or to make tea for or simply to see you smile or hear your voice or feel your hugs? But I know you couldn’t stay. I know that as much as I knew you had to go to Mordor and that it was wrong to try to stop you then as now, but instead just to be with you and help you as I could. I know you want me to be happy and whole and I will not betray all your sacrifices that made it possible for me to be so. I will live the life you gave me, then I will come.

Chapter Thirty-Seven: Brave Deeds

Oh, my Sam, how very brave you were in the Emyn Muil and during the entire Quest. You went on the River. You gave up bit by bit everything dear to you - your ease, your beloved Bill, your desire to go back home, rest, food, drink, your pots and pans - everything but me. I realize increasingly how futile it is for me to think I could ever make that up to you, but still I stubbornly hold to the slim hope that I will be able to show you somehow. You faced down your fear of water and heights and Black Riders, all to keep me on my Road, our Road. And you made me brave too, far more than I could have been without your help and hope and light beside me as the way grew darker and darker.

How I hated being in those hills! I felt the Eye on me even then and I was loathe to be so exposed to him. We were marching right toward the one place neither of us wanted to be and the terror of that would have been enough to quail the heart of any, but there was nothing for it, we still had to go. That was where our path was laid as you would say. I just wanted it to be over before my will and strength failed. I felt I was in a race and I was so afraid it would be the Ring that would win. I couldn’t let it. I had to hold back all it was doing to me just long enough to get to the Fire. It would be over then. There would be nothing left. All would have been spent.

And all was spent, my Sam. If only you could see me inside, but that I must keep to myself. I try to fill myself with your love, and Merry’s and Pippin’s and Elanor’s and the warm air and the smell of the grass and the flowers and the delicious meals you and Rosie cook to try to entice me to eat better. I walk in the meadows and watch the stars from my bedroom window. I have tried and tried and tried to set my roots back down where they had once been buried so deep, but they have been completely uprooted and will not set down again. I hope they will where I am going. I cannot go on like this, empty. There is such a void that I wonder how it can ever be filled again. I am blind again or near to it in this darkness. But still I can see your light, a lifeline as that bit of Elven rope was, shimmering in the gloom. I see light ahead too, dim but growing, coming from over the Sea. Oh, Sam, to stand in the light again! How I long for that! It has been a terrible grief that no light in Middle-earth, not even yours, is strong enough to hold me here and heal me. The darkness has been too deep.

* * *

Oh, dear, that was some time we had in those terrible hills, wasn’t it? I wish the entire way had been easier for you. I wish the eagles that had taken us out had been able to bring us in, so you wouldn’t have had to suffer what you did. But all the great tales are about suffering and loss and patience and endurance and persevering to the end and we have been in a great one. You have always taught me so much from the day we met and no more than our time together those dreadful months. You gave me quite a turn there when you went over the cliff, trying to find a way down and that storm came up. You were being stubborn in that way that, begging your pardon, used to exasperate me. You just wanted it all and done with but I can’t say now, having wore the Ring a little while myself, that I can blame you. It still amazes me how you could bear it as long as you did. Now it is gone and so are you, but you are not gone too if that makes any sense. You may not be here physically, but you are still very much here. I am realizing that more and more.

I’m glad I could help you a little after I remembered that rope and I was just as glad as you to get out. It was wonderful to hear you laugh, even if it was at my expense and your teasing me about the rope not being tied tight enough. You can believe what you want, but I know it was the Lady helping us. I felt her with us more than once, a counter as could be against the terrible Enemy. Did you ever feel her, my dear, or just him? I hope you did. You needed to more than I did and that’s a fact. And now you do have her and the Moon and the Stars and all those lovely Elvish things that so cheered our hearts when we got a glimpse of them. I’ve looked up at the Stars many times since you’ve left and wonder what ones you are looking at and how the Moon looks. I feel closer to you at night, even though you are so far away. I go walking sometimes through the fields at night, Elanor at times in one arm and I hold out my other hand to you and sometimes I can almost feel your hand in mine. Can you feel mine, dear? One day you will, my love, I promise you, one day you will. I love you so.

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Guides

I know how much you detested being with Smeagol, but how else could we have gotten to the Fire? We were lost and needed a guide. We could not have made it on our own unless another way had been shown to us. I had wonder whether good or evil would and in the end, it was both that did. I wished, I still wish, I had been able to save Smeagol for we shared the same burden and I would have rejoiced to see him relieved of it as well as I. He was relieved I suppose in a way since he no longer continues in this life, but I do not know what his fate was anymore than I know what mine will be. He died happy, or so one would seem to think, but he did not wish to die then and I wish he hadn’t. I wished he could have been cured, the same I hope I have for myself and Bilbo for I cannot continue as he had too for so many, many years.

Too many nights, I have cowered in my bed, curled into the smallest ball possible, and in my head and on my lips are Smeagol’s words, "Don’t look at us! Go away! Go to sleep!" I used to dream as a child sometimes of monsters chasing me, looking at me, waiting in the dark just for the right moment to seize me. I cried out for my parents then, but I put my fist in my mouth now so I don’t cry out to you, though you still do come, answering the cry of my heart that I cannot still that you have always heard since I met you. I am so glad you don’t ask why it cried out, but just hold me and rock me, stroke my curls, wipe my tears, kiss my head and sing to me so softly. I couldn’t tell you why, that sometimes I still think that the Eye is watching me as Smeagol knew it was still watching him. I know it isn’t, but the effects of that violation remain. But you can push the monsters away just as I used to beg my parents to do so when I had had too many of Bilbo’s tales to close to bedtime. You have bigger monsters to push away, but still they flee before you. No orc voice mocks and threatens, no whisper of the Ring tempts, no scream of it demands. There is just your voice.

"He went away long ago," Smeagol said of himself. "They took his Precious and he’s lost now." Oh, my Sam, how many nights I have lain awake thinking the same thing! I am lost, not as long as he was, but I feel that same pain, that terrible knowledge that something has been burned away inside me and I stare only at an empty void when I, Frodo of the Shire, used to dwell. I hold onto you when you come to me at night, unbidden by voice, but begged for by my heart. I wish I could hold you forever for that is only place I feel safe anymore, the only place I feel even vaguely myself, but I know I cannot.

As much I wanted to guide Smeagol out from the darkness and failed, I still hold onto your hand, my brother, and your voice to guide me out of my darkness. I know now that soon I must go on alone to seek the light that is far ahead of me, but I will not let go of your heart anymore than I know you will not let go of mine. You will still be my guide and guard, though you will not be physically beside me. I will miss that sorely, more sometimes than I think I can bear, but I know you will remain with me in other important ways and one day I will, I hope, see your smile again and feel your arms around me.

* * *

I know we couldn’t have done it without that dratted Slinker and Stinker, but I still wish we could have. I couldn’t understand until I had held the Ring myself a bit how you could be so kind and gentle with him. But you could see people in ways I couldn’t all the time. We were lost and we had to get some guidance because just two hobbits in the wilderness weren’t help to anyone. You trusted in him, you hoped, you believed, not blindly but a lot more than I could. You let him go when I would have strangled him. You accepted his promise and he was true as much as he could be. You helped in that I know and I know I didn’t, but I couldn’t abide him the way you did. I was too frightened and worried. I know you were too, you who had so many worries already and that terrible thing pulling you this way and that, dragging you down. I had just a day of it and that was already too much. I don’t know how you did it for so long. But you did.

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Following the Lights

I hated the Marshes as much as you, my dear Sam, but without our guide how could we have made it through or even made it to them? We would have been captured so much earlier and to what evil end, only my nightmares have answers for. Your words were harsh for Smeagol, but your hand was gentler for you tied him only barely tight enough. Thank you for that. I tried to save him, tried to be a light for him as you have always been a light for me, especially in dark places and I think the places he had been were darker than anyone we ever were. All the time I have spent in my own blackness has made me long for the light, though he was frightened of it.

He wasn’t even strong enough for the lembas, though perhaps with much effort he could have made himself so. We were blessed to have it ourselves as the black took me more and more and you traveled beside into it physically, though not so mentally as he and I had and were and I am so grateful for that, my Sam, so very grateful. It has allowed you to return essentially unharmed. You can resume your life. You kept your promises and have received your reward. You kept me going, held my hand, held my hope. You ‘did the job’, my friend of friends, my heart.

But I am more like the Dead Faces in the water, still so lifelike, but far gone. I have tried to come back, Sam, I have tried so hard, but I have been hurt so deeply, so very deeply. Everything inside of me has been burned away in the Fire. You did not know you saved a corpse at the Fire. I did not know it myself at first, but I have not returned to the life I had freely given up and received back with astonished joy and hope, only to see it vanish in front of me, lost in the smoke and ash.

* * *

It was worse and worse the closer we got to the Black Land, but you kept doggedly on, teaching me so much. I couldn’t abide the sight of Stinker and Slinker, didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him and he would have dead even before then had I my way, but that wouldn’t helped matters, would it? You still trusted him. You knew you would get to the Fire somehow and accepted that this was the way it would be. That’s all you wanted to do. Just get there. Get it over with so it wouldn’t keep eating you away. Even the little bit I carried it, I could hear its voice constantly. What a trial it was for you to hear that so often for so much longer. No wonder you were so weary. I was worried about food to get back but you had already accepted that you would not return. It was the getting there that worried you, not the getting back. I wept then for you, for us, as I have wept since then.

But my tears are happier ones now as I watch you at night still, getting whole again, just as I wished you fade. I can’t talk to you but in my heart, but I can see you, I can watch your lips move and say my name and I can say yours just as silently. Your hand is outstretched for mine and nothing more I would like than to hold it again like I did then on the border of the Marshes, but I can’t and I don’t even try for I would touch nothing and that would hurt too much. Still I follow your light each night I need to and I think of you when I look up at the brightest stars. For more stars are falling to earth now too - your Frodo, my Frodo, was born just last week and I saw your brightest smile that very night. Did you know, dear?

Chapter Forty: Through the Marshes

It seemed so long that we tramped through the marshes, going from deadly lights to deadly dark. I felt the Eye on me the whole time and I tried to hide, tried not to be revealed and devoured. But the veils between me and him were growing thinner as we got closer. Already I knew exactly where he was, could feel his black will stretching toward me. The Lady felt the same, but he hadn’t discovered her yet. I feared I would not be so fortunate. That terrible will beat upon me and it was a wonder I could do anything but stagger toward it. I felt so exposed in the Marshes and in the dead land that came after. What a nightmare we were in, but there was no waking from it. We had to travel through it, into greater blackness before we would see the light again, if we saw it. I am still stumbling through it, weary beyond all relief. Sleep offers little escape. There is so little light around me, just you and Elanor, my cousins and the light whose source I do not know. I know the Enemy is gone now, but still in my dreams, he is there, alive and aware and I cower as I did then. Even without the weight of the Ring already dragging me down, I bent earthward, trying to hide, fearing it all to be useless. Oh, my Sam, I am so glad you felt so little of it, of him! I am so sorry that you had to travel through such black, dead, sick lands. How your gardener’s heart must have suffered to see such desolation, you who love such wonderful, living, growing things. But that you loved me more I will never forget, that you remained a beautiful thing for me to look at and keep beside me on that terrible, dark Road. I am glad and sad more than I could ever tell you that you remain with me. I would have you in the green and growing Shire instead of the paths I still trod, yet you remain in both worlds and I cannot bear to ask you to go. If only I could remain here with you, in your arms, listening to you sing to me and I don’t have to hear that other voice. Sometimes I still feel I am being sought and I quiver, alone but seemingly not in my bed. But I do not hear the high, thin cries that froze us in fear as the wraiths flew above that made me wonder if Smeagol was right and we had been found and all our movements marked and tracked. There is but the soft wind, the smell of delicious hot meals, not the stink of the Marshes. There is a light trimmed low near the bed and a glass of water on the stand. All your gifts.

Each time I wake, I let all that sink into me and then I can sleep again. There are few enough times that I wake that don’t bring you to my side. You have always had a sense when I need you, my beloved guardian, though I don’t call but in my heart and if I could stifle that, I think at times I would, for you need your sleep and you shouldn’t always need to be rising to give me comfort, but still you come and hold me and I hold you and the gift of your voice and your boundless love rescue me for a while from the torment that besets me still. I cannot thank you enough. Every time I try, you place a finger against my lips and smile at me, your eyes brimming over with love, then you kiss my head and hold me close again. You don’t need or want any thanks, but, my brother, I need and want to do so, though I continue to realize more and more that I can never equal or even come close to all that you have given me. It is enough for you that you can hold me and I can hold you and you need nothing else but to have me near. You are happy, still sad for me, but happy that we have come home, that I am safe and you can take care of me still and that you have your Rose by your side also. How can I hurt you so much by leaving? I never imagined from the first time I looked into your eyes I would ever live without them, but now much of my thoughts are occupied with just that. You hope with that unshakeable hope that sustained you and through you, me, that I will be well, given enough time and care and love. How can I disappoint that? I am determined not to fail in that at least. I think you are right, my Sam, I hope you are, but the healing won’t come here. Each day brings us closer to parting, but that I must keep secret from you until the last moment. Until then I will continue to treasure being held in your strong, warm arms and loved beyond measure. I will hold you and look at you and remember how that feels until I can hold you again.

I wish I could remember more of that dream I had after we had left the Marshes. What a gift it was. The only good dreams I have now are of the Sea, but even those are scarred with sorrow for it is by Sea that I must leave you, dearest Sam. I wish there was another way. I wish you and Rose and Elanor and Merry and Pippin could all come. How can I bear leaving any of you? But I will, I must. I have seen what is waiting for me or I think I have and I so long for it. It promises peace and rest and healing and my heart strains toward it. I can almost hear something as though a song across the water and its voice is soft and gentle and a balm to my wounds, reaching deep. I dread it too. It will take me away from you and nearly all I love. But with all that I will be missing, I will not, I hope, be missing your love or that of my cousins. You three have followed me everywhere you could and I know in some way, you will be at my side even as I step away, because you are in my heart and there I will hold you ever close, to still guide and guard me.

* * *

There were only a couple times I agreed with Stinker. One of the times was when we all earned that name during the terrible passage through the Marshes and all the times we lost our step and got soaked in the slime there. He said we had to get you away and we did, but then we came to something worse and something worse after that and after that. I think, dear, that you never left that black land until you boarded that ship. It has torn me up something fierce that you could not come back home, that you were still weighted down just as you were then when it was so hard to walk from the burden. I should have carried you sooner. I had nothing but an arm to help you when you stumbled and a few words to try to encourage you. I wish I could have done more for you. I brought you to the Fire. I wish I could have brought you back. How can I ever thank you for all you suffered to keep us safe? I watched day by day and loved you more and more for all you were doing. Each day my heart broke more but you held those pieces together in your hands and melded them back together whenever you smiled at me and called me your own or best, those rare times you laughed. I knew then we would win. Oh, love, I wish I could have healed your heart as easily as you restored mine. It’s torn right now but you continue to heal it. I can still see your smiles. Can you see mine?

Chapter Forty-One: At the Gate

As I write this, my memory reminds me of my terrible failure with Smeagol. I warned him of his danger and pronounced his doom, just weeks before it reached out to take him from me, from any hope of his cure. He died because I had said it would be so, that he would cast himself into the Fire while I wore the Ring. I know I did not command that myself, I know he died because he took the Ring from me and fell with it, united in complete joy with it at last. But still I claimed the Ring also, longing to possess it as he did, yet I was allowed to live and he died, saving me, saving all of us. Gandalf said I would go mad if the Ring was taken from me by force and such happened even at the threat of that, but Smeagol’s lust was greater than even how large mine had grown and it was with my blood that he claimed the Ring for himself. How could such a small thing have such great power to destroy lives? I wish it could have otherwise. I wish I could have saved him. I wish I could have saved myself. Perhaps Smeagol did not always mean so, but he did us great good. He got us through the Marshes, he brought us up the stairs. We couldn’t have made it to the Fire without his guidance. And what reward did I give him for all that? He is dead. And I live, knowing I am alive because he is dead, having destroyed what I could not.

I wish Gandalf had been with us the whole time to guide us, but he was gone and we had to shift for ourselves as well as we might. He wished for Smeagol’s cure as I did. I’m sure he would have been of better help than I was, though perhaps his efforts too would have been in vain. I do not know. All I know is that I failed when I wanted to help. It was so hard to choose what to do on my own at any step in the journey, but so was my doom that the decisions were all mine to make, not just for myself, but for you, Sam. It was to your death that I was taking you. I don’t know how I bore that, but you would not leave me and soon I will be leaving you, a terrible reward for all your care that continues up to this moment. I was frightened and felt very small and unsure. I sought for Gandalf’s wisdom, searching my memory for anything that could help in that unhappy hour of decision of how to go on, but he was gone and I could think of no words of his to help me.

I had to get into Mordor. It was clear from Smeagol’s terror and our own eyes that through the Gates was too perilous, though I would have chosen that way had there been no other and failed perhaps and brought ruin to all, accomplishing the very thing I wished to avoid. Smeagol feared that. You remained silent at first, Sam. You knew me too well. Oh, how I hated that the burden was all on my shoulders. But then you recited your song about the oliphaunts and I laughed and that eased the burden and removed my doubts about the terrible choices between evils. I chose for the secret path.

Soon I will be traveling another secret path. It is alone that I had make that decision also. It was not any easier to make that decision that any one of the others, yet even if had counsel from others, it still would have been my decision. You have always taken such perfect care of me, my guardian dear. I will carry with me, beloved, your song and your smiles and all the said and unsaid words that conveyed your love. I will remember all the times you made me laugh and the journey less terrible. What dark paths we trod that you brightened with your cheer and your hope. I shall never forget all the times you have been my light in dark places, how you continue to shine for me even now. How I hope that when I face the east in day or night, it will seem a little brighter because you are there and one day, oh Sam, one day I hope I will see your light come increasingly near until I am protected within your encircling arms once more. I love you, my brother.

* * *

Slinker did what you asked, I will give him that. He got us to the Gate. But what good did that do us? We had only to look at it for a moment to know it was hopeless, that all the toiling was in vain and what was to be done? I would have gone in there with you. I would have gone anywhere with you and I would have died with you, defending you to the last, but then Slinker proposed another route and that sounded just as dangerous. But we had to get in somehow. Slinker was begging you not to give the Ring to the Enemy and I was in full agreement with him there and I knew you were too, but he wanted it all to himself too, the dratted creature. I hadn’t forgotten what I had overheard or that evil glint in Stinker’s eyes. It seemed all too possible that Stinker was guiding us all along and not Slinker which would have been bad enough. I didn’t say anything. I knew that stubborn look on your face and the set of your weary shoulders and legs. You were going to go on, anyway you could, the safest among no safe choices, until you dropped. And I was not going to leave you nohow, especially not with Stinker and Slinker around. I was afraid you hadn’t seen what he was about, not having heard what he planned to do to us, but that little speech of yours warning him of his danger opened his eyes and no mistake and mine too. You knew, but still you trusted him and I trusted you so we went on. We had to. Even if Stinker weren’t leading us into a trap, we would have been trapped just as well if we had tried the Gate. How I wish we didn’t have to make any of those terrible decisions, I could see day by day how the burden was troubling you more and more, but as the Lady said it might be, our path was laid out already and we had to only to walk upon it.

We had the fear of the Black Riders again but then you laughed at my poem about the oliphaunts, and glory and trumpets, what a marvelous sound that was, any time I heard it! You had always been so full of laughter and cheer, not a day, nay an hour went by when we were lads and your heart didn’t burst forth in cheer. I treasured all those times, but now even more because they were so rare. Oh, my love, I hope you are laughing now again. I can’t wait to hear it more myself!

Chapter Forty-Two: The Light Within

Oh, my sweet Sam, there were few joys on our terrible Road, but most had to do with you, like those coneys you cooked for us and your wondering about the tale we were in. What a blessing it was to be Ithilien, among grasses, fresh air and fragrant flowers, after such a horrible trek through the Marshes and what lay beyond. Though we remained in the lands of the Enemy, one could almost forget it in that still fair land. What a joy it was just to hear you laugh as we breathed deep life again instead of decay. To hear that did my heart greater good than anything. I have led you onto such dark paths, dearest, and you follow me still, there is no other way for you, so it was a reward and a relief to hear you then, to see each of your smiles then and now and know that the Shadow had left no shadow upon you. You have never lost your heart’s cheer that so sustained me and still does. You and Merry and Pippin hold me here, blessing my life, and how I wish the bonds that gently but firmly entwine me with you three were strong enough to hold off the torment that still consumes me. I don’t believe anymore that anything can, except my last flickering hope of leaving and seeking relief elsewhere. I must believe that those bonds will stretch across the Sea. I would die if they did not. I think I see them at times, so strong. You have seen so much of me, Sam, how the Ring tried to destroy me and still you have done nothing but love me and grieve for me and done everything you could to ease me. I have to believe that will continue, no matter what the foul voices whisper and shout at me in the night where there is no light but the light I see from you and behind you, that light from the source I can’t see. How many times I have lain awake or stood at your door, staring at one or another of those lights. Thank you, my Sam.

* * *

What a relief to get back into living land again! We were still not far from the Gate that slowly disappeared behind us, but to soothe our feet by walking on grass, to drink deeply of clear, clean water, to be able to bathe again! You were able to sleep deeply and peacefully and for that I am ever grateful. Too few times were you able to do that and too many times I know you were robbed of it long after we returned home.

I held you each night I found you still awake, long after midnight, laying on your side, staring off into what I didn’t know and hardly dared to think about. But I wanted to be there with you, wherever it was. You never told me, leastways not freely, if you take my meaning. There were times you spoke as though in a dream about the Fire and having no place to rest. I don’t think you even knew you were talking aloud. Most times you didn’t speak at all, just laid your head wearily against my shoulder and held me and sometimes you cried. You tried to hold it all in, but sometimes it was just too much and my heart broke at what your tears told me. I just held you, rocked you, stroked your curls, sang to you, anything I could think of to ease you until you were finally able to sleep, still holding onto me. I held you a while longer, like I’ve held Elanor and now our Frodo, and you seemed like a child too to me, so trustingly resting in my arms. There was a peace there like there was when you rested while I cooked the coneys and even the slightest hint of a smile sometimes. I would have held you forever if all that was because you were holding me, but after a long while, I kissed your head and left you. Other times I came and you were already asleep and I watched you a long while like I did that day and I marveled as I did then about the light that came from you, enough almost to outshine the moon. It has ever grown brighter, making you more beautiful. How brightly you are shining now, my dear! And I think it is but a reflection of how you must really be now.

Thank you for all you did, my love. These terrible bones I saw in Ithilien would have numbered many, many more if you hadn’t done what you did. You may have given up hope of returning from the Mountain, but I couldn’t. I had to get you home. Are you home now, dear? When we were growing up and I followed you everywhere, you always had the air of something else about you. You were very much a hobbit, but something more too. I sometimes saw Mr. Bilbo looking at you with a fond smile and love and I knew he was thinking the same thing. Sometimes he’d see me looking and he’d nod and smile at me, knowing I saw what he saw, and would call you ‘our dear Elvish hobbit’. Ours. I always loved the way he said that. I don’t think you were ever aware of it. The Shire was the land that birthed you, but another made you, some place even fairer than any Elven land. I can’t tell you how I know but my heart knows it's true. Nothing as beautiful as you could have been made just here.

Chapter Forty-Three:  Elvish Airs

Oh, Sam, my ever noble and most valiant guardian! You defied everyone you weren’t sure of, even if they stood twice as tall as you. I think you would have defied the Dark Lord himself and I give thanks everyday and night that you need not to have done that for in that you would have been worsted. He would have had a stronger will than I. Faramir received his share when you thought he had given me too much sauce - feet planted apart, hands on hips, eyes on fire. I smile to think of it. I know that stance well as you would defy me at times when you knew what was best for me and I was too stubborn to give in right away, though you always did get your way. I never could stand it for long because I knew what was behind it and I loved you for it, though my words didn’t always show it when you’d make sure I was tucked in bed when I was sick and wanted no longer to play invalid or when I was writing too late and hadn’t yet made it to bed. A worthy hobbit in my service, I called you. None worthier. Faramir recognized it too. You have shown your quality every day since we met, dearest Sam. How I am going to miss all your care for me! I have been terribly spoiled. But Bilbo will do it for me in your stead, though I doubt he’ll have the strength to bodily remove me from the study chair and carry me to bed or hold me down when I want to rise from bed like you have done. He will kiss my brow like you do and tell me how loves me and I will close my eyes and feel your touch and voice behind his. I have missed him doing that and I look forward to more time with him, though I wish it could here as it was in the beginning, the three of us at Bag End.

Elrond told us we may find help unlooked for on the Quest and Faramir definitely was that, just when we needed him. The Road had grown more dangerous than we knew and I do not like to think of what could have happened had he and his Men not been there to protect us. I have dreamed of it though, another of those I have not told you about. I am weary of keeping secrets from you, but I cannot burden you anymore. What a blessing that Faramir was much more of the noble quality of Aragorn. It was a relief to be able to trust him, to eat fully again and drink and be clean again. I’m glad you learned to trust him. I did naught but to increase his grief, but he sought to comfort me in mine. I will miss him.

* * *

Captain Faramir gave us a turn or two, but he weren’t like his brother. He recognized your Elvish light too and he had an air all his own too that was not far from that. He held the Elves in respect and honor and that was what made me trust him as much as I did. Not enough at first until he showed his quality, but after that. I didn’t sleep a wink until he did that as I could not leave you defenseless and helpless while you slept and that Slinker was still around. I saw him and one of those Rangers did too. But no, Captain Faramir was as noble as Strider and Mr. Gandalf and it was just as Lord Elrond said, that we might find friends in the wilderness unlooked for.

I wish I could have come up with better words to describe the Lady Galadriel to the Captain. But how do you do that? It would be like trying to describe you. But I’m going to keep trying to do both for Elanor and Frodo have to learn about all their uncle. Elanor is just beginning to talk words that are a bit more understandable than her baby talk. She knows you by sight from the picture that hangs in the parlor and points at you and says ‘Fro’ and smiles at you. I don’t know if she remembers you any but perhaps she does, the smiles you always had for her and the way you held her and sang to her. I’m so glad you had that joy, my dear. Even if she doesn’t remember, I always will so she will always know how much you loved her.

We saw a lot of dark things on our Road and I wish you could have been spared it all, but if we hadn’t journeyed, then we would have never seen oliphaunts or Rivendell or the Lady’s Wood or felt the kindness of Strider and the Lady and Captain Faramir. There was enough light to guide us through the dark. Thank you, dearest, for saving the light for Elanor and Rose and our Frodo. They will be as happy as we were growing up because of you.

I know there is even more light now where you are now and I hope you can actually see it and feel it now like the sun of a warm Shire afternoon. I can almost see you rising your head to the Sun, eyes closed, arms outstretched, soaking it all in as you used to do here, but I don’t think you did after we came back. ‘I’m lost in the dark,’ you said once when I came in after you had one of your nasty dreams. ‘Lost in the dark.’ You kept saying it over and over again, softly. I don’t think you were even fully awake. ‘Oh, Sam, find me, please find me,’ you begged and it was such a despairing tone that my heart was just wrung out. I held you tighter and kissed your head and said I was right with you. You thanked me and nodded back to sleep. I hope you are no longer lost, dearlove. I don’t think you are from what I’ve seen, but if you still are, I hope you are lost in the light instead. I will find you in either place and stand with you. I know I will never be in the dark as long as you are with me.

Chapter Forty-Four: The Forbidden Pool

I looked out into the night after Faramir woke me and wondered about Merry, Pippin, Strider, Legolas and Gimli. Were they as safe as we were? Or were they laying long dead and I would never know exactly where they fell and the Shire and all of Middle-earth would be less bright because of their lives lost? I will wonder that while I’m gone too. I know you all will be safe, that is not my worry, but I will still look out at the stars and think of you all and wonder what you are doing and wishing we could all still be together. I know I will wish in the beginning like I did in that cave I could be allowed to sleep longer, to lay aside my grief and forget a while my burden. Already I am wondering what your lives will be like when I’m gone. I imagine you, dearest, presiding over the Free Fair and your growing family running and giggling and crying out in pure joy. I imagine you doing the same thing, watching over them and trying to catch them, laughing yourself. I see Merry as Master of Buckland and Pippin coming of age and then as the Took and Thain. There is so much I see in my heart that I will not see any other way and it causes me to smile and weep at the same time.

I will miss other people too. Smeagol had found his way in the cave and he would have been killed had I not been there. I even thought myself that I could be rid of him and that thought shames me. I promised him safety and I thought of allowing his death. That I dismissed the thought readily enough, for I know Gandalf would not wished it, does not ease my heart. I hate that I even thought it and also what I had to do to save him. It smacked too much of betrayal and so I think Smeagol always took it to be. He had trusted as far as his twisted heart could. He had wanted to believe I was true. And I appeared not to be. I cannot blame him. I would not have believed myself either had our places been reversed. I knew even then I could never explain to him what I had done and he had to  believe a lie. Or was it lie? I had thought of betraying him to death. That I did not follow that with action is no comfort. I wish I could have saved him another way. I wish I had never wished ill of him.

Faramir tried to warn me that Smeagol probably would betray us. I knew that wretched creature was still bound to the darkness and to the Ring, but I still wished to offer him the warmth of the light, even as I moved further away from it on my own dark journey. Haven’t you always offered me friendship, warmth and love even when I betrayed you? I know how wonderful it is to have the regard of someone.

I heard that long-suffering sigh you made, my Sam, when I took Smeagol back under my protection. The same one I heard down the years whenever I did something you deemed not quite right, but you knew I wasn’t going to change my mind on either. How I am going to miss even those, my dearest heart! I would just smile at you and things usually turned out all right. They did this time too. The Quest would have failed without our guide.

Faramir told me that he did not think he would ever see me again but if we did we would share old tales and laugh. I won’t be able to do that with him where I am going, but I will live for the day I will be able to do it with you, my own brother.

* * *

I had a bit of a turn there waking up before the dawn and not seeing you sleeping beside me. But then I did see you and followed you on those wet steps to that pool. I didn’t want to take a dunking so I didn’t get too close, but I’ve found that Elanor and Frodo-lad have no such aversion. They love to splash in puddles, giggling and trying to see who get who the wettest. I smile at their antics for they are free to do so because of you, dearlove. I hope you somehow know of their joy for you made it possible. I am happy watching them and thinking of you and how you would be smiling if you could see them and looking up at me with pride and love.

I know your heart was torn by how that Gollum thought you did him a wrong behaving as you did, but he got much better than he would have if you hadn’t been there. He was already planning on betraying us so he could easily see someone betraying him. I would have shouted "Yes!" to Captain Faramir’s question whether they should have shot him or not. But then I would be guilty of speaking out of turn and using less wits and heart than you. You had it right. I shudder that we had to go such a long way with him, but I shudder even more to think of what would have happened if we hadn’t. I couldn’t save you at the Fire, but he did or something did. I think he was supposed for there for that very purpose, placed there and I would have ruined it. Still I sighed to think of him taken along again, knowing he was just looking for the right moment to turn us over to whoever that she was that he talked to himself about. My gaffer would say there’s no point in wondering about what could have or would have happened. Our Road had enough twists and turns in it as it was. I won’t wander down darker paths, not leastways without you holding my hand. I would go anywhere with you, but the tales we will tell each other next will be brighter ones. I don’t imagine there are any dark roads to walk upon where you are, unless it be under the stars and those will not be dark but beautiful for I will be walking them with you.

Chapter Forty-Five: The Crossroads

Ithilien and Faramir’s friendship were both unlooked for blessings, but such Elrond had said may happen. What a haven it was, a bright light in the growing darkness. In Faramir was a wiser, nobler, gentler Man than any but for Aragorn. He and his Men stood in silence before meals, but they had never traveled to where they reverenced and soon I will be coming closer than they. I will see wonders that I wish I could share with him for he loves well the past and serves the present and future because of it, trying to make the glory real again. With Aragorn, Gondor will shine again. Faramir will be happy and I shall be happy for him.

Leaving that fair place with his blessing and love was like leaving the Shire all over again almost, or leaving Rivendell or Lothlorien. After a respite, the Shadow fell again upon me. I was drawn ever onward and you, brother mine, by my side, doomed as I.

As the dark gathered around our sight and deeper inside me, another blessing came. The sight of the Sun and the king crowned again. I have been conquered though. There is no victory for me here, though I hope it awaits elsewhere. I have come to my own crossroads and my way that first led East, now faces West. Gandalf was the one that gave me the hope that you would come to your own, my Sam, that you would stand where I do now and make your own decision. I do not doubt that you will choose to come West if that choice is left to you, but I grieve for what the cost will be for you to come to that part of the Road. Still I hope to welcome you and share your pain and help you carry that burden as you have so often helped to carry mine and to share your joy once more also once you are healed. Dreaming of that time is the one thing that is sustaining me through this dark night. Long years will pass between us, but nothing will ever separate us. I have to believe that, though the voices that whisper and taunt me try to convince me otherwise.

But then when they are the loudest and I just want to scream to drown them out, when I am alone in my bed, clutching at my blankets and weeping in my fear and despair, curled around myself, there is a small shaft of light in my darkness as you open the door and silently pad over to me and hold me in your arms, blankets and all, rock me, kiss my head, smooth my curls and tears and sing to me.  You don't ask why I am crying but just love me and the voices fall silent. Do you come because you hear them too? They are so loud in my ears at times I feel you must, but I hope you don’t. They are terrible. Or is it my tears that fall without a sound for ears to hear but your heart has always been able to? I could never still that as much as I try to silence my torment otherwise. You have always heard my heart as I have always heard yours and so much I want to comfort you, but I have nothing to give. I just hold onto you and listen to you and cry all the more that soon I will be gone from you.  Oh, my Sam, I wish that would not be so!  

* * *

I’ve thought often of what you said, my dear, when we saw the sunlight lighting up the crown of the king, a bit of brightness in the growing dark just like Captain’s Faramir’s hospitality had been, another little respite to soothe and strengthen our hearts as much as our bodies. "They cannot conquer forever!" you said. And they haven’t. They’ve been defeated because of what you did at the Fire. I know it was Gollum that went into it with the Ring, but it was you who got it there so he could do it. You think you failed, but, my love, even if you were conquered at the last, you still achieved a great victory, winning through with every step you took against the Shadow. The Enemy tried everything to defeat you and I know you left feeling he had succeeded, but I hope you have seen now what I have learned to see, that leaving was not a defeat but a victory. You gave everything to defeat him and then you gave again to make sure he didn’t defeat you. I think you do see that now because I am sleeping easier and I couldn’t be doing that if you weren’t also. My heart has listened for you all the while since I met you and it hasn’t stopped. I know you are mending. At the one and the same time, I am more anxious than ever to see you and I am more at peace now with the wait before me. I know now you will be well long before I can celebrate that with you face-to-face, with you smiling and laughing in my arms again. That will be enough for now for there is not little for me to joyful about here too. Rosie is expecting again. I think you know that. I could almost hear your voice last night in the wind celebrating.

Chapter Forty-Six: The Morgul Vale

What a terrible place was Minas Morgul and how drawn to it I was, like a moth to a flame. And like one I would have been consumed had you not drawn me away. Always, my dearest guardian, you have pulled me back to what little light remains to me, but the darkness I felt then was total. I thought I had gone blind. When that passed, I felt the call of the Ring. I had no wish to answer it, but still it beat upon me and tried to master my will. I could only watch in horror as my hand moved toward it. I had some small strength left to fight it when my hand clasped the Lady’s phial instead of it. I could not challenge of the Morgul-king that rose up before us. I knew I had not the strength. Not then as yet. But still the thought remains to shame me that one day I thought I would. Now he and his master are gone, but the Ring still has a hold on me. It has not finished feeding on me or I on it. I have laid upon the wheel of fire and I am still being consumed. Despair sought to consume me as the army of the undead king marched by and I thought I was too late to accomplish my task and even if I did, there would be no one who would know of it. Then that terrible weakness passed, though the despair did not, it plagues me even now, but I knew I still had to try and it mattered not if no one knew of it.

But the one thing that doesn’t haunt me of all that does from that place, is even there, my Sam, you had cheer to ease my heart. That I try to remember when the darkness presses close enough to suffocate me and I do not yet hear your soft padding in the hall that I listen for, half-dreading that I have once more woken you out of sound sleep and from Rose’s arms, half-dreading that you will not wake and relieve my agony. You always come, always ready to brush back my curls and hold me and just love me until the darkness recedes once more. But until you come, I repeat to myself all you said about being in tales and that are only worthwhile reading and remembering if there are trials in them that must be surmounted. I remember that you made me laugh, calling me the most famousest of hobbits. Ah, my own, I think that title belongs to you or to Merry and Pippin, not to me. I failed in what I wished to do. All along I knew I would. I wished to get to the Fire, but I knew I would not be able to surrender the Ring to the flames. And I could not surrender myself to them either. Another had to die in my place to accomplish the Quest. Perhaps that was his part to play in the tale, but would he have had to if I hadn’t failed? I am burdened still so heavily. The Ring is gone but it is my heart that is bowed under its weight now and not my head. I was weary then, we both were after climbing so high and far, but I am wearier now. Rest awaits, just as you hoped it would, but it does not await here. My journey is not yet over. Your arms that held me then in that terrible valley and have held me so many times since cannot hold me where I must go. I must climb still some more, out of the darkness in which I yet dwell. There were many days we thought we would never see the dawn. You have, my dearest brother and my weary heart rejoices, but I still await it. The Road goes ever on and we must follow, pursuing it with weary or eager feet, even as it forks and we take different paths. I cannot see far upon it, it is still wrapped in shadows, but there is faint light ahead as though coming through thick leaves. I hope one day as our paths wind around they may meet and merge once more and I will be there to meet you and take your hand and we will walk together again where there is no shadow.

* * *

There was something in that terrible tower that drew you and it was that hard to pull you away. I think sometimes I never did. The pain I saw in your eyes pierced my heart. If I wasn’t seeing the Fire, I saw that dead land and I don’t know what was worse. I still loved you no matter what, my dear, naught would ever change that, but it was, like you said, there was a wheel of Fire, and you lay upon it and it burned you away. You fought it and kept enough of yourself from it claiming everything, but there was so little left of you, I wonder if that little was left, not by you, by the Enemy to torment you, to have you realize what he could do. Oh, I can’t believe I just wrote it, let alone thought it, but I have. I’m glad you won’t ever see it and I’ll never tell you. It won’t be true anymore anyway, even if it may have been before, though there weren’t be nothing I’d be more happy to be wrong about, thinking I may have seen it.

But then when the pain gets to be the worse and I am missing you the most, I remember also that you laughed in that vale. Not just a small laugh neither, but heartily twice. I bet no such sound had ever been heard there and no one or nothing welcomed it more than I did. It drives away my tears every time, that and hearing Elanor’s laughter and our Frodo’s and Rosie’s smile. And each time I go to your room and see you sleeping happy. I remember how you slept peacefully in my arms then and many times since and how you smiled at me when I woke you.  I look forward to the day you will again. I love you, my Frodo.

Chapter Forty-Seven: The Spider’s Lair

It was so utterly, utterly dark in the tunnel. Our hands reached out and grasped each other’s. The firmness of the return clasp was one bit of solid reality we could cling to as all our other senses, but for smell, failed. We trailed out our hands to see if we could detect anything and occasionally it would brush against something sticky. I am still trailing my hand along in the dark searching for a way out while my other remains still tightly in yours. Night always had been and always would be, and night was all, I wrote in the Red Book. So it seemed then and so it has seemed for many nights since. That you were with me and are still now is greater comfort than I can ever tell you, my dearest Sam, and though I will soon part from you, I imagine that I will still feel your hand in me. I hope for that more than anything I ever have, for I cannot continue on this journey without you beside me still. You will be, won’t you?

I tried to be brave as horror upon horror came down upon us, but I cannot be anymore. Each night I try to apologize for waking you, you hush me, kiss my head and hold me a little tighter, for as long as I need until I am able to go to sleep or back to sleep. It is before you come, when the dark presses the most, that I fear the fell voices are right after all and I am pierced by agony that I must scream out, but strangle instead until I taste blood on my tongue. Then my door opens, the light from the oil lamp in your hand wavers and bobs and I am mesmerized. I can breathe again, not the foul air of that lair, but of the sweet smell of grass and our garden. I can see again, not hundreds of eyes, but your two. I can hear, not hisses in the dark or voices that call for despair, but the soft murmur of your voice. I can feel again, not her terrible sting, but the gentle touch of your hand as you wipe at my tears. Thank you, my Sam. I could never thank you enough, not if I went hoarse or used all the ink in the world to write it out. You would stop me long before, put your fingers to my lips and take the quill out of my hand, but it would not remove my desire to keep thanking you anyway. Perhaps the only way you will accept is that you see me healed. That I will do for you, my beautiful brother. That I will do. I will not fail.

* * *

We had never been to a place so dark as that horrible spider’s lair and been laid there by Stinker. The only thing that stank worse than him was that place. You showed me and taught me so much about courage and endurance and perseverance and that horrible place was where you did one of your bravest things in facing down those eyes. You’ve always taken care of me, my dear, as much as I have tried to take care of you. And that was no exception.

You’ve kissed away all my hurts, the cuts on my fingers, the skinned knees, bruised and broken heart, just like my mum used to do too, and when she passed, you didn’t stop doing it. You always knew what to say, what to do, even if I just needed someone to cry with and be held for a while and be understood. You shared my dreams and didn’t mock them. My own pocket of sunshine you called me, but you were that to me. You planted as many flowers at my mum’s grave as I did and for the same reason. I wished I could have been with you the time every year you left for Buckland and put some at your own parents. At least I had grown their favorite flowers for you to take in that bit of the garden I had set aside for that. I think you were sad at first to see those there. I watched you stand there for a long time when I first showed you and I don’t even think you knew you were crying. I grew that fearful and nearly in tears myself, thinking I had done something terribly wrong. Then you smiled at me and thanked me and hugged me tight and you spent a lot of time there after that. I noticed that you went there on certain days and a lot right after Mr. Bilbo left. It hurt you some peace somehow. I noticed how often you went to it after we came back, how even in the summer you would sleep out there at times.

You did many other things to show me how much loved me. You tried to slip in something extra to my pay each week, but I would catch you each time. You would not listen to any of my protests, saying I could spend it however I wanted, even on myself. You knew well that I wouldn’t do that so I worked extra in the garden to make up for it or tidied up a bit inside. I always tried to be careful about it so you wouldn’t find out and pay me even more. But you knew very well what I was doing the way you would look and smile at me and ask casually sometimes how some book shelf came to be suddenly more organized than usual or that you noticed that the firewood was better stocked than you remembered it being or the cold room was neater than before or remarked about the new quill and ink bottle that was on the desk. You pretended to let me have my secrets and find another way to thank me. That friendly competition as to who could be more generous to who continued on the Quest as far as it could and as much as I tried to outdo you, I know by far I didn’t. You carried the burden out of love and nothing could be more generous than that. I won’t ever forget all the kindnesses you have done me and all of Middle-earth, my dearest master, friend and brother. You tried to thank me for all I did for you, but I wouldn’t and won’t have none of it. I am merely returning the gifts of love you have unceasingly given me.

Chapter Forty-Eight: Choices

Oh, my dearest Sam, how terrible things were for you after I got poisoned. I’m so sorry, more sorry than I could ever tell you. I shouldn’t have run ahead like that. But perhaps it would have availed nothing. Perhaps we would have both been stung and the Quest lost. Such things go about and about in my head, raising nightmares that only you, my most beloved protector and guardian, can rescue me from. Only then do I realize that they are not true, but while I am trapped, how real they are, how very real. Then you come and hold me and rock and murmur and stroke and I am safe again, shaken and in tears and despair of ever being well and free, but alive and with you. With you because you were so brave in the tunnel. So very brave. If I’m more sorry than I have words for, I am also more proud. I know it was hard for you to tell me what happened after I was stung, all the terror and horror and despair and grief you felt. Reading it amazes me, makes me smile that you were so much braver than I ever could be and more than anything, it makes me cry that you were so hurt, so alone, and I could not comfort you as I have tried to each time there has been a shadow on your heart. It also fills me with shame that you would return to stay by me, even if I were dead, but I will not reward you with the same devotion. You were faced with a terrible choice in the tunnel - leave me and go on alone or stay with me and let the world be doomed. I have faced much the same choice and I have made the same decision. I hope it is the right one and that good will come of it, though great pain for both of us and Merry and Pippin will follow in its wake. The realization and regret of that is a stab to my heart, colder but alas not deadlier than any sting or blade or tooth. I must leave you and my brother-cousins and all my beloved Shire and go on alone but for Bilbo. I cannot stay. The world will not be doomed if I do, but I feel I may be. With all my tears for your pain and mine, it’s a wonder these pages can even be read anymore, but they must be. Others must know of what you did for me. And they will.

You always wanted to be in a story and you are, my Sam, you are, a grand one and I am honored to have shared it with you. I hope there will be a page or two left when you are done writing all you would like, for I do not wish our story to end until I see you again and we will continue on together, just as we always have.

* * *

Oh, dear, I shouldn’t even be writing this. The page is going to be so smeared that nothing up or down will be able to be made of it, but I suppose there’s nothing for that. I don’t expect anyone will be reading this anyway and I know from you that writing things out is sometimes the only way to get the pain out or leastways try to. But I also know from you that some pain is too much for a little bit of ink and paper to take away. I thought maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much by now, that I could just maybe pass this terrible night by and not even have to think about it, but it came back all afresh today and I’m up with the oil burning down in this lamp, far past bedtime, just like you used to do when you had to get it all out before you let me lead you away to bed.

I thought it was written out in the Red Book, all my grief and despair and rage and darkness. What else more was there to write about? But there must be more. If there’s any nightmare that still wakes me crying out, it’s that night in the tunnel when I thought you were dead and my life in ruin. I don’t know what’s worse, reliving that or finding out that you weren’t dead after all and I had left you to be taken by those filthy orcs. I can’t tell Rosie about it, she’s too gentle to know of any of this and I can’t tell you because you’re gone and I wouldn’t want to add any new pain to you anyway, not with you healing that well now. Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin are away and Strider’s in Gondor and Mr. Gandalf’s off. There’s no one but me and now I know full well or leastways a little bit more, what you felt like in those dark nights and I understand a little bit more why I couldn’t comfort you more and why you had to leave. I tried to ask for forgiveness once from you, but you hugged me and kissed my head and said I had done nothing that needed forgiving. I know that’s how you see things, but it sure don’t feel that way sometimes. Then you asked for forgiveness and I said the same thing to you and I know you didn’t believe me anymore than I did you, though we neither of us lied.

I would have thought that the cry my heart made when I couldn’t rouse you would have brought the entire tower down on me. It should have. Nothing should have withstood that. But it did. The only one who heard was me and it’s not even waking any here. I thought of the ways I could silence that cry but none of them seemed right. Not even taking the Ring from you, to save Middle-earth, even if I couldn’t save you. Certainly not taking my own life or even Stinker’s. I just wanted to take care of you, dear, didn’t want to be ever parted from you. But I was and I am. I promised to return, to never leave you again, to sit by you and hold your hand until death took me too. Now I’ve let you leave without me.

I know you wouldn’t want me to be sad now, not with so much joy you made possible for me, but I can’t help it. I wish you were with me like you were the last time I felt this wretched, right after my mum died. I think you were just as heartbroken as me. You stood by me at the burial and I had one of your handkerchiefs crushed in one hand and my other holding onto you so tight it must have hurt but you didn’t say anything, just held onto me tight too. Tears were streaming down my cheeks so hard I couldn’t even see when we both put down flowers from the garden, then you took me aside, knelt down so you were at eye-level with me and wiped my tears and told me that Mr. Bilbo said it would be all right, if it was all right with me, that I could stay the night with you. I didn’t say anything, just hugged you with all my might and you hugged me back. Then you took me by the hand and we went back...back home. I know my gaffer didn’t hold to such things, being so ‘familar with the master’ as he put it, but it was Mr. Bilbo himself who asked him if I could stay and he were all too distracted by grief and he couldn’t say no to his own master anyway. So I stayed that night and curled up with you and you held me while I cried and you cried with me. You sang that lullaby your parents used to sing to you about always being there to defend and protect me and I renewed the promise I had made to myself that I would always do the same for you. I was finally able to fall asleep, listening to your voice and feeling your hand gently stroke my curls. You held my hand the whole night and I can’t tell you how much all your love helped me. Is it any wonder that when that terrible spider or anyone or anything tried to hurt you, that I would fight for you? Even the orcs recognized there was something Elvish about you.

I shouldn’t have said you were gone, dear. I know you are still watching over me. It’s morning now and I stood last night at the edge of your room after I wrote all this out and watched you sleep. And do you know what I saw? Your eyes were closed, you were smiling and your lips were moving. I couldn’t hear the words, but I knew what they were. You were singing me that lullaby.

Chapter Forty-Nine: Alone

Warning: Frodo’s section is PG-13 just to be on the safe side

Oh, my Sam, it was so terrible without you in the tower. I woke and they were standing over me, fingering their knives, leering, grasping, demanding, whipping me when I didn’t speak loud enough or give answers that satisfied them. I could not tell them. Even when I realized how very alone I was, that I had not even the Ring with me, I did not say anything. All was lost. I feared you dead or captured. All the toil had proved vain. I could not protect myself or anyone else. I had tried and I had failed. I stared into the black pit and fell headlong into it.

But there was one small mercy given me before the greatest blessing of your coming. The orcs did not take from me the one gift I thought I would always give to my bride. There won’t be one now. I won’t know the joy you do, my Sam, but still I have known great love, through my parents, Bilbo, Merry, you, Pippin, Gandalf, Aragorn, the Lady, Faramir, Queen Arwen. I have been very blessed. No, that one gift will be forever unopened or at least I hope it has not been. Some of the orcs were very eager to tear into it, standing over me as I cowered on the floor, but Shagrat, on the point of his blade, dissuaded them, saying I was to remain "unspoiled". He sneered when I thanked him quietly.

The orcs were frightened away that time, but one of them said that Shagrat would not always be there to watch over me. I shivered there in cold and terror, not daring to move for then the whip would fall again. The end was near but not near enough. Naked I had come into the world, naked I would leave it. I was exhausted, but I did not wish to close my eyes from the fear they would come to me. At times though my body betrayed me and I fell into dark dreams so vivid I wonder whether I was taken after all.

Oh, Sam, there are some things about that time I will never tell anyone, least of all you and my other brothers. I wonder if you suspect part of it from my nightmares for while I am having them, I do not realize I am at home, in my own bed, and I throw your arms off, then the dream fades as it did in the tower when first I saw an orc, then it became you. I crumple into your arms then, bury my head in your chest and try to forgot what had me so ensnared. The Ring showed me very vividly what it would be like to be taken to him. The worst was that I would see him with the Ring on his finger and I would be deprived of it. I could not bear the thought of that, the thought of anyone having it besides myself. Even now I am filled with longing for it. Sorrowfully well do I understand what Gandalf about Smeagol loving and hating the Ring.

You have long stopped asking me about what my dreams are about and for that I am grateful. It is bad enough that I can see the tears in your eyes matching that ones bright in mine. I can’t tell you all I thought and felt and feared in the eternally long and dark hours I lay there, alone and not alone. How I wish that was true what Shagrat said, for I have been spoiled. No orc took me, but the Enemy did, over and over and over. You saved me from being taken to him, but no one was able to keep me from being taken by him. Keeping inside the pain and knowledge of that violation is destroying me, eating away at what little is left of me that he hasn’t already taken and I can only watch as it happens. I cannot stop it. To do that, I would need to admit to you or to Merry or to Pippin what he did to me and I will not do that. You have all suffered enough and there are some things you should never know. I thought I was beyond all help and hope in the tower.

Then I heard you sing.

* * *

Oh, my Frodo dear, it was so terrible without you in the tower. I woke and you were far away and all I could do was try to get to you before it was too late. I was that terrified, all alone, surrounded by enemies, but what kept me going was knowing you were the same. And I learned a little of what you had to bear so long with the Ring. I don’t know how you did it and now I know why you had to leave. I kept going for the same reason you did, because I had to, because I loved you just like you loved me and all of Middle-earth to do what you did.

Remember so long ago in the Shire when all was bright and there was no shadow covering us and we played Elven warriors? I did it all over again, trying to find you. I wish it could have just been like it was back then, not all that terrible darkness and fear and danger, those horrible Watchers at the door or all those Orcs, though thankfully most of them were dead.

The worst was that scream I heard and I didn’t know whether it was you or not or what they were doing to you or whether you were even still alive or I had just heard your dying cry. I think it was you, leastways it’s that way in my nightmares and I try to get to you and I can’t. You keep screaming for me and I keep calling out to you, that I’m coming, but you don’t seem to hear for you just call and call and your voice gets more desperate all the time. I’m climbing and climbing and climbing and there seems to be no end. While I’m dreaming, it’s the most terrible feeling there is to not be able to find you, to not be able to reach you, but I think sometimes it’s worse to wake and realize you are farther away now than you ever were in the tower and there’s no way I can reach you no matter how hard I try. At least in the dream, I know you are near, I can hear you, even if I can’t see you. There’s so little I’ve told Rose of what happened to us. She’s too gentle a lass to bear what we had to. But I think she’s knows a little of it from what she hears me cry out in my dreams. We hold each other so tight and I cry for you, for me, for her. Oh, dear, you were too gentle to bear all you had to too.

I wonder how I go on sometimes now that you’re gone. I miss you that much, especially after one of those terrible, wonderful dreams. But then I think that you kept going under much worse and that’s how I can keep going myself and there’s so much here that keeps me wanting to go on too. But I long to see you again and hold you just as I did while I was searching for you for so long. I know I will and I will never, ever let you go again. I’ll look into your eyes and see you smile and feel your hand in mine and your arms around me and hear your voice. That will be the happiest day of my life, my dear. I’ve had many happiest days already, some of them with you, some of them since you’ve left, suchlike each time Rose tells me I’m a father again and when I hold each lad or lass for the first time. You and she have blessed me just that richly. But I know that the best is still coming.

I sing to you still sometimes just as I did in the tower. Do you hear me, my love?

Chapter Fifty: Hold Me

Oh, my beloved Sam, how wonderful it was to hear you sing! I feared it was but another dream, but all the other dreams had been so horrible. It is still so hard to figure out at times what truly happened on our Quest and what the Ring presented to me. I tried to respond to you, even though the orcs watched me ceaselessly and threatened to beat me if I didn’t lay still and sometimes even then they would whip me. But I had to try to reach you, if it was you.

Then to see you again, to be rescued by the great Elf-warrior Pantheal as we used to play, to hear your voice and feel your arms around me! If it was a dream then I didn’t want to wake. I was safe, I could sleep at last. I wonder how well I will sleep in the West, knowing you are no longer a heart’s cry away. Oh, my Sam, how can I leave you, how can I possibly go on without you? Will I still be able to feel you hold me, even if you can’t see you? All that terrible time alone, that you guessed but a day, was endless torture, but it will seem to be an instant compared to what is before me now, before us, though you know it not. Fears and despair were constantly gnawing at me then and now All was and is lost. All is gone. Even after you came, and woke me as cheerfully as you ever did back home, the despair wouldn’t leave me. How could it? The Ring was gone and it was only a matter of time before we were both taken to the Eye. That would have been a greater grief than anything I had ever known, for you to have been taken before him. He had already taken me, but he hadn’t yet touched you or so I thought. Then I saw the Ring in your hand and the nightmares came back of anyone having it besides me and I could not bear that.

There is no escape from that terrible hunger anywhere and in my darkest fears, I wonder if even leaving you in my last desperate hope to be free of it will too be in vain and all the sacrifices that I am forcing upon you, Merry, Pippin and myself because I am not strong enough to fight anymore will be for naught. But how can I explain to any of you that I must go? I can’t. The shame is too great. So I keep everything inside. The things I called you, my brother so pure and loving, because of that horrible longing for the Ring, the way I acted, the way I will act, fills me with bitter remorse.

Yet you forgave me and will, I hope, forgive me what I will soon do. You have forgiven me everything. You have seen the worst and you have continued to love. Do you have any idea how times I have wept out of gratitude for that? When I think of how terrible I have been toward you and deserve nothing of your love, you love me even more. You banish the lingering ghosts for a night and they dare not approach while you hold me, but they are always there. I can hear them, see them, feel them. I cannot bear that anymore or this terrible longing. I will lose you and you will lose me. What a bitter birthday present I will be giving you.

But one day I hope I will give you a better one. I have not found my way out from the black pit yet, but sometimes I think I can see it, impossibly far above me as I stand at the bottom. There are only few handholds barely carved into the sides and they and the whole area is slippery with slime and the holds not deep enough to help very much. It is terrible to touch them, but I do. I climb, fall, climb again, fall and climb once more only to fall. But I keep trying. You are at the top, stretched out on your stomach, reaching your hand down as far as you can, balanced perilously far over the edge. I fear so that you will fall and I beg you not to come down as I know you wish to so you can be with me. But you are an obedient servant. You stay above, though your heart demands otherwise. I can see that struggle play out across your face as I watched the pain I caused you in the tower and so many other times and I ache for causing it all. I try and try to reach your hand. One day I will. You have never given up on me. I will not either. I hope we shall meet again and I hope it will be on my birthday so I can finally give you a proper gift. But no matter what day it is, even it’s your birthday, you will be getting a gift, my beloved Sam, one long delayed.

* * *

It was your birthday today, my dear, and we spent it at the Havens, Rose and Elanor and Frodo-lad and Rosie-lass and Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin. We watched and watched a eagle fly far above toward the West, watched long after it was lost to sight, wondering if it would keep going until maybe you would see it. How we longed to be on its wings, soaring toward you!

I still stand, sometimes for hours, at your bedroom door, just watching you sleep. I thought I didn’t need to do that so much anymore, but sometimes I do. If I didn’t have that, I’d rush out the door and run all the way to the Sea and not stop even then until I’ve seen you and held you again. We have all felt that way, me, Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin and I. You’ve always held half of our hearts, just as Rose has always held my other half. I know I won’t be leaving until she passes, and I dread the wrench that will be, but I also know I will be coming toward you and you will gently take the pieces of my heart just as you did when my mum died and mold them back together. I tried so hard to do that for you, my dear love, but I suppose there are some hurts that no one can mend. But if anyone can, it’s the Elves and you always did have an Elvish air about you. Seemingly not fit for darkness, but for beauty and light but in the darkness, you shone the brightest. I know you are shining now in the light just as brightly.

But I miss you, dear, I miss you that much. I miss holding you like I did in that tower where I could have stayed and been perfectly happy to hold you forever. I couldn’t then, but when I come, I will and the joy I had then will seem to be nothing compared to what I will have. I miss singing to you like I did then and have so many other times. I miss looking into your eyes and hearing your voice and all that love streaming out. I miss holding your hand. I miss waking you in the morning and kissing you goodnight. I miss making you meals and teas and going on walks. I miss everything.

We all do. It ought be getting better and it is most days, but some days it’s worse. We all have those days, me, Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin, days when those we love try to comfort us but don’t know exactly how to because we are lost in some memory of terror and helplessness that we don’t want to tell them about. Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin have each other, but I have no one to talk to about it, them being so far away. But we’ve learned to be together on certain days, on the 6^th and the 13^th and the day Mr. Merry was hurt by the Wraith-king and Mr. Pippin nearly killed by that troll and they were both almost killed by that terrible tree and we were all almost done in by those wights. The dreams are worse then and we can’t tell anyone but each other about it, and most times we don’t even need to talk. We just need to be there. So when one of us starts to get all cold or cry out from a nightmare, the others of us are there to hold and comfort. It took me a bit to get used to that, being taken care of and all, but it helps, my dear. We are all a mess on the 6^th and the day of wights, but I am the worst on the 13^th and 14^th when I dream that I am climbing and I can’t find you. I near despaired that I would ever find you until I heard that weak response of yours to my song. I had never heard anything so beautiful as that. But I think hearing your voice when I see you next will be even better.

It’s much better than what I hear in my nightmares. Sometimes you are screaming like I was afraid I had heard you before and you are calling out for me to rescue you and I just can’t find you for nothing. Sometimes I am calling out for you and there is no answer. At first I didn’t know which was worse, but I know now that hearing you panicked is better than hearing you not at all because at least you’re still alive. It tears my heart apart to hear that, just as each silent tear you tried to hide from me and sometimes couldn’t, stabbed it, but better that cry than my other dreams when I find you dead, better than all the days and years now that we’ve spent without your voice. I can’t talk to anyone of those dreams, though I think Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin guess well enough and I bet have had a fair share of their own. They have their own worst days and we do our best for each other, but it hurts that you aren’t there because you used to take such good care of us and you can’t do that anymore and we aren’t there to take care of you. We understand more and more why you had to leave. And I know I will be ready to leave when it comes my turn. I held it for so little a time, but I can feel and hear it at times. I don’t know how you were able to bear it so long. Every year on the 25^th Rethe and at the Green Dragon most times, if Mr. Pippin’s aches aren’t too bad, and even most times if they are, we toast you silently with our ales.

Rose has been so wonderful. She knows well that I’ve loved her as much and as long as I have loved you and she is letting me feel my way out of this black pit that I sometimes still fall headlong into. She is always there beside me, holding my hand and I would be lost without her and the children. She isn’t rushing me, just loving me. They all are. Elanor I think has the closest connection to you because she saw you even if she don’t remember that anymore. Still she knows she did and considers that important.

One night I stood at your door nearly all night, just looking at you and she stood with me part of the time, holding my hand. I don’t know if she can see you, she’s never said so, but she thought it best to be there with me. I wish you could see her, dear, how fair she had become and how our Frodo reminds me of you and yet is his own perfectly beautiful hobbit self as well and Rosie-lass is so much like her mum.

I wonder how many more are to come. I know my heart can hold them all because your heart held all of Middle-earth.

Chapter Fifty-One:  Perfect Little Orc

Oh, Sam, how you have always, always taken care of me, from the first moment I met you. It is my most fervent desire that I will somehow still able to know that you are, even when we are apart. You have been such a part of my heart and soul that I don’t doubt that somehow we will still be together, or at least so I hope. I have cried many a night already, dreading this departure that I wish need not be, but also knowing that is must be if I have any hope of becoming whole again instead of this vast emptiness that you and Merry and Pippin have tried so hard to fill. It is not your fault that it cannot be, not here at least. One day I will dream of you coming back to me, across the Sea. One day it will be more than a dream and I will see you with my waking eyes again, on white shore brighter than anything we have ever seen.

Until then, my dearest brother, my best self, I will remember every bit of the care you have given me. How you lent me your cloak in the tower, how you fed me and gave me water and rest in your arms or holding my hand, just to let me know that you were with me. How you have done that so many, many times over the years. How many times Merry and Pippin have done the same things. How much care I have received from so many. You would wonder how could I remember each moment, but I will spend my days in the West, healing and thinking of you and my brother-cousins and our brother, the King, and I will wrap my arms and my heart around those memories until I can wrap them around you again.

I was so afraid for you when you left to make sure we could leave the tower ‘in Mordor-fashion’ as you called it. I was afraid of being left alone again, afraid for you being captured. To distract myself, I looked into every bit of my prison room in the tower. Soon I will be left without you once more and it will be much longer this time. It may be that I will not see you again. But I refuse to believe that or try to refuse. I am haunted by that fear but even that is not enough to stop me. I have become just as aware of the prison that I am in now and I long to be free. I will be by the time you come to me, my Sam, and I know you will be part of the reason for that. I promise you. All the torment that this separation will cause us will not be for naught. It will have a purpose. It will have a reward. You will see it yourself I hope. Until then, I will work on it so I will be ready when you come.

It is another earnest desire of mine that you will know of it in your heart before you see it with your eyes so you will be able to share it with Merry and Pippin and give some ease to their own pain and wondering. Oh, my most beloved brothers, why must I cause you all this agony just in the hope of relieving my own? Wouldn’t it be better if I just stayed and bore it as I bore the burden so long already? I wish I was strong enough to do that. I wish I could just stare into the eyes of you three and be held by you and hold you and listen to your soft songs and feel the strokes of your hands. But the relief all that offers, though complete for that moment or those hours, does not linger afterwards and I am thrown back down into the pit. I cannot keep doing that. And I cannot even tell you why I am leaving. I do not have the courage to do even that. Please forgive me, my brothers. Please forgive me. You refused to leave me alone on my dangerous Road, but I am leaving you. You cannot follow this time. Oh, how I wish you could! All of you. But that is too much to ask, even if I could.  I am glad that you, my Sam, are being given the chance to come, for it is giving me the strength to leave, though I regret the reason for that allowance.  The Ring stung your heart just as it has ripped mine to shreds. I am forever grateful you took so little hurt from it, but still there has been hurt and you will feel it as the years pass and the longing for a cure will grow.  I am sorry that I will not be there to help you in the beginning, but I so long to be there at the end.

* * *

You seem that far away at times, love, but so near other times. I’ve stared across the Sea, but other times just across the garden. I felt you there the other day. I know I did and no one will ever tell me otherwise. You held my hand and I know it was yours because I know it as well as I know Rose’s or one of the bairns. Elanor was taking care of her own little plot in a corner and our Frodo was helping or leastways trying to. He hasn’t entirely grasped what is a flower and what is a weed yet and sometimes pulls up the wrong thing, but he’s learning. Rosie-lass is just beginning to toddle around and her mum is expecting our fourth. I wish you could see them all, dear. I think at times you are aware of them somehow. For I was missing you something fierce that day and then I felt your hand in mine and my fingers curled around yours and I just closed my eyes and let myself feel how wonderful that was. It became so real to me that I was that tempted to open my eyes and see you standing there, smiling so lovingly at me, shining so bright, but I knew you weren’t really there that I can see with eyes other than the ones in my heart where I’ve always seen you, no matter how far apart we are. I’ve seen you there even before I met you, for Mr. Bilbo’s love for you kindled a love in me that continues to grow even now.

A perfect little orc I called you in the Tower, but far truer you are a perfect little Elven hobbit. I’ve seen you so much at home there in the West, almost as though it was your true home and not the Shire at all, but somehow that don’t seem quite right either. Mr. Bilbo did always say the Road goes ever on and on and I think there is still more of the Road ahead for both of us. I dreamed of that last night. I just saw the backs of you and me, together on that Road, hand-in-hand like we always used to do, walking in a great light and toward a greater one. It was so right, so real. I know it will happen one day.

You will be laughing and smiling and joking. You don’t know how much good that did to my heart to hear you ask me in the tower if I had inquired about inns along the way. We had both suffered so much and you had the strength and heart to joke! I remember that and all your unexpected laughter when the other memories press too hard. If you could do that even then, then I can turn my tears now into smiles, just like I did in the garden today. I opened my eyes when Elanor came up to me and asked me why I was crying. You squeezed my hand and I saw your smile in my heart. The wind brushed at my curls as though you were kissing me goodbye then you left and I was back in the garden and staring down at my little lass. I smiled at her and took her in my arms. We held each other for a long time. I told her not all tears were sad tears. Some were very happy ones. Thank you, dear. I love you that much. I can’t wait to see you again.

Chapter Fifty-Two: Blessings

My dear Sam, you carried hope for me when I had long lost it. You never did, even at the Fire. You were well rewarded for it. You called out for light and water and you received it. I think of all you did for me - giving me your cloak when the mail you found for me proved too heavy for me to bear, the scratches you endured from those thorns we fell into when we jumped off the bridge after escaping from the Tower, the wondering and hope that my hope would return when we saw light as the smoke broke a bit, the offering to drink first the water we found in case it was poisoned, the midges you had to bear for the second time, the hand you held while I slept. As hopeless as I felt many a time, I feel the same way now in thinking how I could ever thank you. At any time, the Quest would have ended without your help. I’m glad we drank the water together, for if it was poisoned, then we would have died together, but it was a blessing instead and we went on together. I wouldn’t have gotten much farther without you. I wouldn’t have even escaped the Tower. I wouldn’t have had a reason to. I wonder sometimes in my darkest hours whether I ever did that black land. The wheel of fire has been branded into my soul and I wonder if such a mark can ever leave. But I know I did leave, at least physically for there are two other marks there too. One of them is yours. I know not who made the other, but they all say 'mine.' Yours I stroke often and it brings as much consolation to me as holding the queen's gem. I can warm my hands and my heart there and it brings me peace. The other does as well but even more so. All are fires, but only the one left by the Enemy burns me, the others sustain me. My memories have returned and I can look up the lands of the Shire and see The Water with my own eyes. I know I am at home, that it was you that brought me here, you that continue to give up your sleep so I can rest more peacefully, you who make sure I am properly fed and have enough to drink, you who makes sure my bedroom window always has a flower from the garden in the vase, you who still hold my hand.

You can say a million things without speaking a word,

A look and a smile say so much only meant to be heard

By the heart.

Sometimes the light of love shines best in the dark of life's storms,

And the bonds that are formed

Are not easily broken apart.

Your smile says you'll share your hope when mine is gone.

Your touch says you'll be with me when I can't go on alone.

The look in your eyes says you'll love me,

No matter what I do.

Oh, I wonder what I have done to deserve

A blessing like you.

* * *

Oh, dear, as much as I was beside you, I don’t think I will ever know how it was for you on our terrible journey, how dark it was, even though you told me of it and I’ve read more of it now. I’ve cried many a tear over it, wondering how I could have missed so much, wondering how I couldn’t have known what it was doing to you inside. But as dark as it was, it was also filled with light. Your light. You had given up hope, but you went on. You were tired, hungry, thirsty and cold, but you went on. I so wanted you to have some hope again, to lighten your load. I did all I could for you, carried you as far as I could. I couldn’t give up hope. I couldn’t. Not even now. I will see you again. I have that hope because you gave it to me. I look up at the stars and wonder which ones you are gazing at and I remember all the gifts we had been given. You didn’t see the star that appeared as the clouds broke as we hid from pursuit, but how like that you are to me. The Dark Lord tried to conquer, but he could not defeat you or the stars in the heavens or the sun in the sky.

Do you remember when I wrote this to you? Right after my mum died when you told me many of these words yourself for you there had already been hard times, even worse. I’ve added to it since and I’ll be showing it to you when I see you again.

I pray that if the hard times come,

I will have strength to be

Everything to you that you have been to me

For so long.

As you have been there for me,

I will be here for you.

You know if love is true,

It makes it easy to be strong.

Just lay your head on my shoulder,

Let go of all your cares.

You can tell me all about it;

You know I'll help you bear

Every burden, every pain, every fear.

That's why I'm here.

I don't always have the words to say,

But look in my eyes, take my hand,

And I hope you understand...

My smile says I'll share my hope when yours is gone.

My touch says I'll be with you; you will never be alone.

Look into my eyes, know I'll love you,

No matter what you do...

Oh, I wonder what I have done to deserve

A blessing like you.

A/N: The poem was translated by the queen.

Chapter Fifty-Three: Holding onto Hope

Oh, my Sam, it was such a blessing to wake with your hand holding mine. My dreams had been evil and waking from them was no different than sleeping. Except for one thing. I saw you. I felt your hand. I had dreamt of being lost in the Fire and still I wander there, alone, afraid, without hope, burning without respite. But through the flames at times I could see you, calling to me, loving me through the pain and I could move a bit further along because of you. You are still doing that and still I seek you. My hope had long disappeared but I kept going because you were with me. I do that even now. Even as I will soon move away from you, I hope in the end, it will be mean moving back to you.

I listened as you told me of Gollum’s attack and Shelob’s and the terrifying hunt among the orcs for me. What terrible horrors have you had to endure because of me! Don’t think I don’t hear you cry out at night at times for I lay in bed and weep for it. I would go to you, but when I do, Rose is there already, comforting you and you sobbing in her arms, unable to hold it in anymore. What a gift she is you, my Sam. What a tremendous gift. Just as you have been to me. I knew already as you were telling me all the deeds you had done that there was nothing I could do or say to make up for your great bravery so I merely squeezed your hand in thanks. There were no words that were adequate then or now so express what filled and still fills my heart, what sorrow that you had to bear so much on your own; what love; even what pride and joy that I had you as my friend, my brother, my own heart and soul as much as part of me as those I share blood with, perhaps even more. But you shouldn’t have been burdened by such a load of horrors as you had. Neither should have Merry or Pippin. I wish I could have borne it all myself so none of you were hurt.

That is why I left - so no one would have to suffer. I told Gandalf I would be guardian of the Ring, no matter what it did to me. So little did I know what it could and would accomplish in me. Yet, I would have taken even more hurt from it, had I been able to protect you three, dearer to me than my own life. And soon I must leave. What did I leave for in the first place - it was to safeguard the Shire and all those in it, to safeguard the whole people of Middle-earth. I was called to do that. But what did I accomplish? It had to be done for me. I awaited capture all along that terrible Road and though we escaped more than once, I know I am still caught and you choose still to follow me along my path. Though you stand in the light and could do so fully, you choose also to remain in my darkness, so you can be with me. How can I bless you the way you’ve blessed me?

It is good I did not know you were denying yourself more water and food so I could have some. I would have never allowed it. I see how happy you are now whenever I can finish what you and Rose serve, how tirelessly and lovingly creative you two are in trying to stimulate my appetite. I want to see you happy, my Sam. It was never my intention to cause pain but here I am soon to cause the worst pain of all. I stumbled until I couldn’t move so determined I was to get to the Mountain. I didn’t even hope I could do that, only to keep moving, to get as close as I could before it all proved vain. I had no hope of returning home. But we did and now I must walk away from the Shire because I have not been able to walk away from the Mountain. The Sea calls me, Sam. How I long to lose myself in those waters and clear away all the filth that remains in me!

* * *

How did you do it, dear? How could you go so long without hope? I couldn’t have borne it myself. I held your hand while we slept and I knew that I was holding hope. You may not have felt it yourself and how I longed to give you it, but I felt it myself because of you. Do you have any idea what it was like to watch you struggle on? I have loved you all my life, more and more all the time and it hasn’t stopped even now and I know it never will, but sometimes I feel it was never stronger than it was while we toiled on the way to the Mountain. I had asked the Lady for light and water and I had gotten my wishes. I had seen my star. And every moment, I saw you. I never told you how many times I asked the Lady to keep watch over you, over us. I know she did. It was more than that phial she gave you to bring us light.

We watched you while you slept on the way to the Havens and we both marveled at how you shone in the moonlight, like a bright Elven child, but also a hobbit. I hated to take my eyes off you and it was no little wonder that the Lady had trouble too doing that. I wonder what she thought sometimes when she looked at you, so fair, yet so hurt. I know there were tears at times for you. I know she saw mine. I saw the Lord Elrond looking at you the same way and Mr. Bilbo. I think you knew how very beloved you were by all of us. You slept each night like you did even in Mordor, content and unafraid. You were with those who loved you and you knew you were being watched over, even as you watched over us. Sometimes I’d wake during that journey and I’d see you watching me or watching the stars. If you noticed me, you’d come over and kiss my head and hold my hand. Never did you speak, but you didn’t need to. You leaned your head on my shoulder and sometimes would fall asleep like that, still holding my hand. How wonderful it was to feel that, just like I did while we were going to the Fire. How many other times had we gone out to see the stars at night before the Shadow entered our lives and you would fall asleep against my shoulder after telling me all the stories of the stars?

I feel you watching over me even now. Do you feel me, my love, watching over you?

Chapter Fifty-Four: Captured

My dearest Sam, I think over and over again how well you have taken care of me, how very well you have loved me. We nearly perished from lack of water on our journey, but at the same time I was drowning in darkness. You were the only thing that kept me going. Even when my will began to fail and my strength fade away, you were there to help me, to encourage me, to comfort me, to save me. I wish I could say as much. I did all I could, but it was not enough to save myself. I have been so hurt, Sam, so deeply hurt. It is an open wound that even your love cannot heal completely, though how hard you have tried, my heartbrother, how very hard you have tried! I can never tell you well enough how that has blessed me.

I know you felt and suffered from the darkness outside us, and I have grieved that I had brought you to that place, but always you were my light. I was in despair much of our journey, but you refused to give in yourself. You have hope even now and it is that I wish not to betray when I see you next. Your hope will be rewarded, though I have been too long captured by the darkness that the Enemy surrounded himself with for it to happen here, but there is a light, there is always a light I can see through the chink of my prison. I start at it for hours and hours and it consoles me that it is there, even if it is right now outside my reach. It is still there and I hope to reach it one day.

Until then, I wish I could stop thinking the way I tried to when we were captured by the orcs, when I only tried to keep one foot in front of the other and not think of what they were going to do to me when they found out about us, when they found the Ring. It was bad enough to once again feel the sting of the whips, their eyes boring into me, worse still to know that you felt that lash too.  It brought back all they did or I fear they did to me in the Tower all over again and that is a nightmare I still live.   

You have tried to comfort me and that has sustained me this long. I wish it could forever. Each night, either at its beginning or during the long black when your heart answers the call of mine, you lay beside me, place my hand on my back or in my own and sometimes that is all you need to do and we can both sleep. Sometimes I hide my face in the crook of your neck and find solace that way. Sometimes you hold me, even on nights when I know it’s too hot for you to do so, but you know that’s what I need and so you do it. I listen to your heart then, hold you and feel you hold me, stroke my curls, and sing softly to me. My shivering calms and a gentle light and peace brings me blessed release for a moment. You do each night whatever is necessary for me to sleep and I bless Rosie every night that she understands that part of your night is spent away from her and at times, the whole night. She knows your heart.

And your heart knows mine so well that I wonder if all my shameful secrets are laid bare. That frightens me but it comforts me at the same time for if you know all that is hidden there and still love me evermore, then I can believe there is nothing, not even the wound I have yet to give us both, that you will not forgive. But I do not know whether you know and I cannot, will not ask for my shame is too deep and there are some griefs that should not be shouldered by another, not matter how strong and broad and loving those shoulders are. They have already borne too much already and though they have not bowed under even all that, I will not add another burden. I will not tell you of my lingering desire for the Ring or the fears of what the orcs would do to me once we reached their camp and they realized how I was, the thing they had tormented and taunted in the Tower.

I had so many terrible dreams on the way to the Fire, increasing in darkness and intensity and they were so vivid I cannot tell at times whether they have been dream or reality. That I lust still for the Ring and fill empty without it is a nightmare I know is true and I can only hope for relief and peace from this terrible hunger once I pass West. That I was taken over and over by the Enemy is I know is true and that violation has left me torn.  And there are the horrible dreams in the tower that I wonder whether they were dreams at all or terrors after I woke about what the orcs did to me. 

I grieved as my memories were stolen from me one at a time when we labored to the Mountain, but I realize now it was a blessing and now that my memories have returned, they are a torment for I cannot tell at times the true from the false. Some of them I must merely endure until time blurs the edges and the memories do not cut my hand and heart each time I brush against them. Others are the only things keeping me from being completely swept away from the dark torrent that wishes to drown me.

Even worse than the tower are other wonderings and I will never know the truth of those either because I am too ashamed to ask. I have a vivid memory of drawing Sting on you, my dearest heart, holding it at your throat with one hand, straddling you as the orcs did me in the Tower when they whipped me, holding you down with my other hand, so you couldn’t escape, could hardly move. I nearly killed you or did I? I look at your throat sometimes, trying to see if I left a mark, trying to see if it was real or not and hoping so much I won’t see anything even if I distinctly remember pressing Sting there.

I tell myself it’s not important because real or not, you have continued to love me more and more. The Enemy tried to take everything from me, including you and that’s another nightmare it gave me or a reality it inspired. I remember ordering you to go and then realizing I feared too late that it was him who wanted you to go, not me. Or were you with me the entire time except for that endless day while you searched for me? I don’t know and I will never ask. He tried to take everything from me, but he did not take you, not for long at least. I will be doing that myself. That is the reality that this nightmare has inspired. That is the one thing I wish wasn’t real.

* * *

Oh me dear, that was a terrible time we had being taken by the orcs. I didn’t know how we would get out of that, but I think the Lady must have been watching over us even then, because just as our strength was about to fail, the orcs defeated themselves again just as they had in the Tower and we were able to escape. I wish I could have thanked her more for all she did for us. I tried to, but she just smiled and said that indeed we had been and still were being looked over, but she did not say it was her doing it. "For I am but a servant myself, Samwise, just as you are," she said. "And you have been more loyal than I have been. I go now to my reward after trial and so will you. I am going back home, forgiven. And you will go home yourself, to your Shire and your garden. And yet another home awaits you as well."

I know it does, though I did rightly understand all the rest she had said about needing forgiveness and such. But I know home is ahead as well as around me because you will there, just as much as Bag End was home when you were here and home now because Rosie and all my lads and lasses are here. We have seven now and we wouldn’t have any if you hadn’t kept going even when your strength was not enough. I think of you every day, every time I see them, everything time they run around the garden, squealing in laughter and delight at a new flower or a sunset or a rainbow and jumping into the autumn leaves. And I think of all you did, all you endured, all you suffered, crawling when you could go no other way, just so we would all be safe. Thank you, dear, thank you, thank you, thank you. I can never say that enough for all the blessings you have given me. I love you that much and I know I will never be able to tell you how much. Perhaps I will just have to hold you and never let go, sometimes so tight you can barely breathe, something loose enough that I can look into your lovely face and see you smile again and your light.

Chapter Fifty-Five: The Wheel of Fire

You tried so hard to keep me alive, my Sam, but I was being reduced to nothing but the fire within. Your light and the fire inside me burned equally bright, one healing and life-giving, one tormenting and life-taking. Every memory of home, of any living thing was being stripped from me. No sign of sun or moon or stars. All I could see was what the Enemy had made of the land, what I was being made into inside - a cauldron, a barren landscape. There was nothing left in my mind but a giant wheel of fire and I was laid upon it, unable to move as it burned away everything left of me. I was torn apart by the Enemy’s hunger and my own. You gave me nothing but unceasing love, my Sam, though more and more I had less and less to give you. When out of that boundless love, you offered to carry the Ring once more, I grew wroth and nearly attacked you as I nearly had in the Tower. Isn’t it terrible that terrible lust that assails me still would give me the strength that was so steadily dwindling when nothing else could? I said I would go mad if you tried to take it from me. You did not try, but I know I am mad all the same for what else could account for such despicable behavior?

I was doomed to go to the Fire and you were doomed to walk beside me to the end because you refused to part with me. I have done nothing to thank you for your devotion. You remained ever at my side as my entire will was condensed more and more to merely putting one foot in front of the other, getting to the Fire outside me before the Fire inside consumed me utterly. He sought ever greater purchase in me and bit by bit I faded away even as the fight inside me waxed and waned with my remaining, dwindling strength. Ever he sought for me, to gaze into my eyes and I shielded myself as best as I could from that terrible power but I knew it was only a matter of a little time before I was consumed utterly. Already I felt laid bare to his Eye, even more than I had felt in the Marshes.

Sometimes still I feel it bent toward me. It is yours that I see in the daylight, pouring love and light into me, but it is his that I see at night, just as powerfully and just as real or so it seems. Where can I hide that he will not find me? I cower in my own bed just as I did on the way to the Mountain and I feel no safety within familiar, beloved walls. Only your arms offer any shelter but I cannot remain there forever, much as I long to do so. I must leave them at some time and it is then that he finds me.

Still you continue to fight him for me as you did every moment of our journey. Did you know you fought a foe far greater than you that you could not possibly defeat? It did not matter to you and in the end he was bested in the encounter as was a spider much larger than yourself. And though it may seem, my Sam, in the coming months and years, that you have lost and he has won, I will not let him have the final victory. That will be yours, dearest heart. That is the only way I can think to thank you for all you have done for me. I felt all the love you wrapped me in as much as you put your cloak around me when I gave away all else and dared in my despair to be taken. I am clothed in your love and Merry’s and Pippin’s and Bilbo’s, Aragorn’s and Gandalf’s. I am dressed finer than any king.

* * *

My Gaffer always said there was no point in wishing, only doing, but there were times, especially toward the end, that I felt all I had were wishes. I wished I could have fed you more and given you more water than just enough to barely wet your cracked lips and parched throat and most of that dirty water that it was a wonder we didn’t sicken from it. You didn’t even have enough strength to hold the skin to your lips or maybe it was because you trusted me and not yourself. I wished I could have helped you more, instead of just offering a steadying hand on your arm when you slipped. I wish I could have stopped your shivering that you suffer from even now. I wish I could have let you rest more because I knew it was your exhaustion and the dizziness that came upon us both from the lack of water, that was causing those falls, nicking your hands and knees and feet until you were bleeding. You barely had the strength to raise your hands to your face and lick the blood there, ignoring all the filth caked on you, so desperate you were for any moisture.

There were other things I wished for too. I wished I had a salve for the burns around your neck that are so inflamed and weeping, and for the other cuts that you have taken, especially where the orcs had whipped you and your poor feet.. I knew how painful that chain must have been cutting into your skin like that, but you did not utter a complaint. You hardy spoke at all the closer we got to the Fire. You had to focus all your waning strength just keeping one foot in front of the other. I wished for a balm for your cracked, bleeding lips that you licked with your swollen tongue for what little moisture was there.

How you kept going under all the terrible weight and thirst and hunger and what that despicable thing was doing to you inside, I don’t know. But you did. I watched how you fought it off, shielding yourself from something I couldn’t see but you could. I watched as your hand crept toward the Ring, then you held it back. I was right beside you but you were somewhere else and all the battles I would have fought for you, you had to fight alone. I listened long into each night how labored your breathing got, how desperately your body needed so much more than I could give it, but as much as it wrenched my heart to hear such ragged breaths, I was glad because it meant you were still alive, still with me.

I held your hand each night and I felt your hand weakly curl around mine when you had enough strength to do that. Other times, it lay limply in mine. I hated to sleep because I feared you would stop breathing and I wouldn’t even know it. But still I had to sleep sometimes when I could no longer keep my lids propped a moment longer and some nights I could not bear to wake you because you got so little sleep as it was already. It was then while you lay shivering in the Elven cloak that I took you into my arms so if you did pass in the night, at least I would have been holding you. Each night I kissed your head, wished you a soft good-night and told you that I loved you and I was proud of you and you would sleepily murmur the same, then lay your head against my heart with a sigh. I said a quick prayer to the Lady to keep us safe when I could no longer guard you. I felt peace come to me then and I knew we would safe. Even when I realized, as you had tried to gently convince me of long before, that the Fire would be the end of us both, I still had peace and hope.

I love you, my dearest dear. I love you. I love you. I love you. When will I be able to tell you that again? I didn’t say it anywhere as many times as I ought. I thought I would have all my life to tell you, greet you each morning as I drew the curtains back and kiss you goodnight each night. Until I can do that again, until I can do more than just spell the words out, smeared at times with tears, I step out each night and speak my love to the wind and the stars. Can you hear me calling to you? Can you feel the kisses I send out upon the air?

Chapter Fifty-Six: One Step More

It was struggle just to get moving, to take one step then another, one breath and another. The ash and fumes burned my throat and the Ring was like a chain of fire around my neck. If I took shallow breaths not too quickly, I could manage a little better, though my lungs burned all the same and if my will was overcome and I gulped in deep breaths, I was reduced to a wretched, curled heap on the ground, coughing, hacking and wheezing, trying to get my breath back from the fit that seized my lungs when I tried to breathe deeper. You were instantly kneeling at my side, rubbing my back, soothing me until the fit passed. I could hear you say something, but I couldn’t understand over his voice. But even hearing your voice was such a comfort. Oh, my poor, dear Sam. It was such a blessing to have you beside me, though I felt for you it was more of a curse, doomed to walk with someone already doomed, but you would not part from me.

Sometimes I was so weakened by the coughing that I could do nothing but lay in your arms. What a solace that was! My throat was almost too parched to form words, but none would have been adequate anyway to express what your devotion meant to me and still means to me. After only a short while though, with your help, I struggled up again. I looked once more to the Mountain. Our doom lay there but the saving of Middle-earth. A stray breeze blew past our cheeks at rare times, rustling our curls and we were strengthened by that gift, a moment of hope instead of the despair that was more and more my companion as dogged as you were, dark as you were light.

I had long forgotten what it felt like to take a clean breath or to walk with grass underfoot instead of that shifting dirt and over rocks sharp enough to cut. How much blood did we both leave back there? You were always there to help me up when I would slip or fall. The little water we had left was almost gone even with your careful rationing. You had to hold up my waterskin up to my mouth because I could hardly even hold my head up anymore with the weight of the Ring pulling me down and the exhaustion that was crushing me almost as much. I was glad you did because if I had had the skin in my own hands, I would have sucked it to the last drop long ago to try to cool the cauldron that burned inside me and I would have died, free of my burden, but dooming you and all of Middle-earth because I had been too mad with thirst to do anything else. When we could still eat, you would push a small bit of lembas bread between my cracked, barely parted lips and then raise my water bottle to my parched mouth, enough to wet my tongue and get the bread down and then a little more out of compassion and pity.

I already knew I was going to die, but I fought to hold that off until we got to the Fire. I had to bear the screams of my mind and body for light, food, water and rest, for release from the agony of his violation of me. All I had left of myself inside was those screams and uncontrollable sobbing. Sometimes those tears made their way out no matter how much I tried to keep them in.When the water ran out and we were too parched to eat what little food was left, you held me as I cried and carefully gathered my tears and fed them back to me, turning that expression of torment into a gift to moisten my lips. You gave me your own as well. Oh, my Sam, what you wouldn’t do for me!

You have no idea how much strength that gave me, my best beloved, enough to go on, to endure for another day, to say no once more to the taunts and empty promises that burrowed into my heart and soul, day and night, unceasingly. I listened more and more to his voice as he took everything else away from me, but he couldn’t take you, my rock, my guardian, my light, my heart. Oh, how he tried though, how very hard he tried. And now he has finally succeeded or I have let him succeed. You stay with me even now, after all I’ve done, but I must reward that steadfast devotion with desertion.

You held me at night, trying to give me rest, but the Ring did not let me sleep easily. Later you would wake me with gentle words and caresses. I looked up at you with only half-open eyes and wearily stared in wonder at the smile I saw there. What reward could I give you for all the love and devotion that I saw then and still see every moment streaming from your beautiful eyes? None at all. I tried to cry but no sound, not even the merest whimper came out. I had not enough moisture or strength left. Your devotion was going to cost you your life. You leaned down and kissed my head. What did you see in my eyes I wonder? What do you see now, but nothing more than the same when it should be long over but it isn’t? Nothing to make you smile, but smile you did and smile you do and I shall always treasure that among all the many other things I hold dear and tight against me.

* * *

This wasn’t the way we always imagined our grand adventures to be in our blissful ignorance of what lay outside the Shire. I was always content to let you be the hero in those tales we made up of our own and I your faithful guard. There were many times you tried to get me to be the hero, but I was happy just to be with you and have you lead. You were the hero in this one, too, dearest dear, so much more than you ever were. Filthy, stinking and so exhausted you could barely move, let alone think, you still went on. I saw such pain in your eyes from your horrible weariness and what that terrible thing was doing to you. You could not hide it. You looked at me at times, in fear and horror for what was happening inside you, wordlessly begging me to stop it, but I couldn’t and that tore my heart to pieces. But then you would draw it back some and there would return the naked will and determination simply to endure and get where we were going. There was nothing of the cheer that used to light your eyes, but still at night, I would see your light and it would comfort me and leave me in wonder at how beautiful you still were.

It was such a struggle just to breathe and a worse one to watch you stumble along, choking on the same fumes, and not just drag you away from it all to some place clean. But there was no place clean for leagues upon leagues. We had to go on, deeper into darkness instead of the light that we both yearned for and the sooner we got there, the sooner we’d be done and I could take you home where it was clean and bright and there would be all the food and drink we could want and the Sun and the Moon and grass and gardens and all else living. How terrible it was to walk through this dead, blighted land. I hated to think of what it was doing to you just being here, you who always loved such bright, living things. But there would be end to it. You were determined about that and I was just as determined to get you home. I would see you smile again and the light return to your eyes and the cheer and I would be able to laugh again because you would be able to.

You waved at things in the air that I could not see, but you could and I wondered what further torment I was unable to protect you from. I wished I could go there with you, wherever you were, lost in some waking nightmare that I was afraid to guess at, but more than anything, wanted to be there with you, to draw you away from it. Your dreams got worse, the closer we got to the Fire. You whimpered or cried out in your sleep and all I could do was hold you tighter and murmur comforts because I did not know where you were or how to find you. I hated seeing that terrible thing laying across your heart. I wish I could have held my hand between the two and protected more than your body. I feared you felt utterly alone, with only it for company the closer we came. But you responded each time, you calmed a bit and held me a little tighter, buried your head a little deeper into my chest. You were still aware I was with you. I promised you each night that I would never leave you, that I would always be with you. You murmured soft thanks. You didn’t respond when I told you I would get you home too. You didn’t believe that was possible anymore, but I couldn’t not believe it. It was what kept me going, kept me alive.

That terrible voice tried to trick me into laying down to die with you and if that was to come, that was to come, but I wouldn’t do it because it told me to. Did you hear the same voice I wonder, trying to get you to give up? Was it that that took your hope away? I hated to think of what it was doing to you inside, what lies it was trying to get you to believe, what promises it was making that were entirely false. Even if it was the same voice, it didn’t work. It took your hope but not your will and determination. I will never forgot one moment of our journey because though there was much darkness, there was also light, light you gave to me, from your love and your courage and your endurance.

I did get you home or at least partway. I don’t quite know how to explain that to myself, but I think you are even more on the way than you were before. It’s true what Mr. Bilbo said about the Road going on and on. And I will still follow where ever it leads because I know at the end of it, I will find you, my love, I will find you. Sometimes I think I see you even now, standing there, all aglow like I’m looking right into the sun but it’s you. It’s you. I think you know somehow or somebody does, that I need to see you and that way and when the pain flares up even now in my heart that is already so full of your gifts, I get another one, usually on your birthday, when the longing is the keenest. Rose says sometimes I talk to you in my sleep and hold my arms out and close them around seemingly nothing, but she knows I am holding you. Every other night I fall asleep listening to her heart, but on that Halimath day, it is in your arms that I sleep. I do not look forward to what will bring me to you - my Rose’s death - but I do look forward to the peace your face, your smile, your love and your arms will bring me. Always when my heart was hurt worst, from my mum’s death to the one that will send me once more into your arms, you have always given me shelter in your heart. I felt you even that night that my Gaffer died. It was not such more words I heard with my ears, but deep inside, you spoke to me of your love and your sorrow. I remember how the wind came and dried my tears and I knew it was you wiping them away. You held me tight then and at the grave, but then let me go to Rose for I needed her too. Thank you, my dear. Or hantanyel, I suppose I should say. I found one of your old Elvish grammar books that Mr. Bilbo had given you. I would have thought you would have taken it with you, but maybe you left for me to find because one day I will need it myself.

Chapter Fifty-Seven: Carried

Oh, Sam, dearest Sam, I woke that last day in your arms and how very good it would have been just to stay there. You had always held my hope, now you had to hold my strength and will too and screw it once more to the sticking point. Even now at times at wake with you holding me and I wish I could stay there, but there is a time coming when I will not wake in them, when there will be the Sea between us and many long years before I can feel your arms about me again. I would quail at the very thought but the pain of loss and longing for the Ring is worse than the agony of losing you and I must be free of it, I must.

You said it was easy to carry me. Is that any wonder, my beloved heart? There was so little of me left. So much has already been burned away and I wonder if it will ever return. I clutch so at Arwen’s gem and how often I wish I was clutching at the Ring instead. Will this terrible lust never leave? I don’t have the hope here that it will. Gollum was still mad with it decades after the Ring left him and Bilbo, dear Bilbo, longs for it still. I hope for his healing too where we are going. I wish that Smeagol could have come as well.

You carried me up the Mountain and you were crawling yourself with me still on your back before your will and strength gave out. How can I ever repay that? I can’t. I will never be able to. I thanked you but mere words are not sufficient. You carry me still at times, when I’ve fallen asleep in the study, back to my bed. You lay me so gently down just as you did near the Fire, and kiss my brow and wish me a peaceful sleep. Other times when the dreams become too much and I half-wake gasping and choking, thinking I am still there amidst the terrible ash and smoke, you carry me out to the air, into the garden and lay me down among the flowers and the soft soil and I can breathe easier then. You stroke my curls and murmur softly to me and I know I am back home, but not as well. Still you are with me, whether at the Fire or in the parlour, if you are there, then that is where I wish to be, with you.

When I saw his Eye and was called to put on the Ring and my will could not stir any longer any resistance to it, you kissed my hands and held them so I could not obey the summons. Oh, my Sam, what love you gave and continue every moment to still give! You had no more water to give, but still I drowned, looking in your eyes. It gave me the strength to go on, every day it is giving me the strength to go on. I think in the end it will give me the strength to leave for you have ever wanted the best for me. I open my mouth sometimes to tell you what it coming, so I can hope I can leave with your blessing and not just the tears I know we will both shed, but still I hold back. You shine with such beautiful light every time you look at me, at Rose, at Elanor. I can’t damage that, not until I absolutely must, until my cowardice is revealed at last and I say that I must leave. Greater love I know I will not find. But healing and release, I beg every night for that, for I have yet to give up the Ring. I lay on my side as the moonlight streams in and sleep is far away and I plead for the terrible night to pass, for it has not even now and it will not I fear until the light from the West dawns.

You carried me again then with all my strength was lost or so I thought. It’s terrible that it was roused again when Smeagol tried to take the Ring away from me. I had already nearly attacked you and I did attack him and that was the only thing that gave me any strength. Why couldn’t I have had it earlier so you wouldn’t have needed to carry me? No, it only came when I was in danger of losing my treasure, the same thing that I was expending, that you were expending, all strength and blood and sweat and tears to lose. That is madness. So much evil you have seen in me, Sam, but still you love. You love and you love and you love and you see no reason to stop or change or think you are wrong to do so. I am far more blessed than I ever deserve to be by that.

* * *

I didn’t know how I was going to carry you and the Ring too, but you were so light, just like you had been as a lad when I used to carry you as a lark and your laughter rang clear in the clean air as you protested and fought to get down, but I wouldn’t let you. You had no strength, no laughter left in the Fire, but still you were you, the same one I had always loved and would carry to the ends of the earth if need be. How terrible I felt for you when you said you had no memories of home left, of nothing, but the Ring. It was memories and hope that kept me on our Road, helped me keep you on it so new memories could be made, so songs could still be sung even if we couldn’t hear them ourselves. How you were able to travel with nothing inside you but it I don’t know.

I took your hands when you told me you could not stop yourself any longer from putting on the Ring and kissed them and tried to pour all my strength and love into you. I tried to do that every day until you left for you were still so sorely in need of care. I think sometimes I still saw the fire burning behind your eyes even after we got home and I wished I could have reached there and with my tears put it out.

I watched you every night until the ship bore you away and I marveled at how your light shone through, just like you belonged among the Elves and not here at all. But I don’t think I ever saw it so bright as I did at the Fire. Sometimes I dream of you like that, but instead of a wheel of fire at your breast, there is just beautiful, pure light. I think you are just as bright now and I long to stand beside that. I think it must be another of the Lady’s gifts that I can dream of you still and yet know it’s not a dream, that I’m really seeing you. Sometimes I’ve seen you look right into my eyes and smile and I nearly cry out in joy at such a sight at the love that streams out of you as it always had. Can you see me looking back at you I wonder? I still feel as though I have lost half of my heart, but your gifts, my Rose, the children, are filling me deep and wide. I know I will be leaving them behind when I came to you, but I know also they will still be with me, just as you left me behind but are still with me. Oh, my dearest dear, I hope the Lady has given you dreams as well so you can see how wonderful all your sacrifices have made things. I hope there is someone there to carry you back to bed when your head nods against a book. How light will you be when I can do that again? I think you will be made of nothing but light by then, but still I think I will feel your warm weight in my arms as well, your head against my shoulder and a smile on your face.

Chapter Fifty-Eight: Claim

Why did I do it, Sam? Ever the Ring grew on me and ever I tried to resist its pull, but ever it pulled harder and harder and ground me into the dust that caked our clothes and dried our mouths until I could bear it no longer. I nearly killed you getting here, to destroy the one thing we had toiled so long in increasing agony for, and I couldn’t do it. And what is worse, I knew before we had even set out, that I couldn’t. I kept from you the idea that grew in my mind that to lose it, I must also lose myself, that you must lose me. I cried inside as much for your death as I did for what the Enemy was doing to me. I needed you to get me to the Fire and I knew it had to be destroyed before it destroyed others beside myself, beside Smeagol, beside Boromir. Before it destroyed you, before I destroyed you.

In fact, the lust of it burned so hot in me, as hot as the Fire that had made it, that I sought it back even after Smeagol had severed me from it. Oh, Sam, he took so much more than a finger from me. I felt as I had when my parents died, as I know I will feel when I must tell you that I am leaving you. I felt like I had lost the greater part of myself and the blood from my hand was nothing compared to what burst like a fountain inside me. Did I truly seek it that badly? Would Smeagol have had to take my entire hand next if I had been able to wrest it back from him? Did you watch us both topple over the side? Did you have to beg me not to let go? Did you have to look into my eyes and see my terrible longing to do just that, to join it instead of you? That is another thing I cannot bear to ask you. The torment of not knowing is not as bad as would be seeing the fear and memory of the hurt I caused you then return to your eyes if I did ask.

I’ve seen you look at my missing finger with sorrow, but if you had not been there I would have lost so much more. I wouldn’t have even made it there. You are the true hero, my Sam. Not me. Without your sacrifices, mine wouldn’t have been possible and I failed to make the most important one. Without you, not only would I have been lost, but all of Middle-earth. Do not mourn, my dearest heart, for a finger. It has healed much faster than my heart has which is still bleeding. But at least there is still a heart left. I could have lost all in the fire. A finger is a small enough sacrifice. The largest still looms ahead, for you and for me. You said I was free after the Ring went in. How I wish that was true. How very, very much I wish that was true.

I have no wish to say goodbye, so I will be leaving quietly, as I had hoped to the first time, but to part from you, without a word, I could not do that. I need you every moment during my last journey through the Shire, to the Havens. And there I must leave you, though my heart cries already unceasingly that I need you and want you always with me. That cannot be. You have a life here to live, that your sacrifices made possible. I will not take that from you no matter how selfish I would to be and beg or even command you to come. You would, I think, and that is not what you should do. No, I must wait my turn and then I hope, oh how I hope, that you will be beside me once more and I can fall asleep again watching your beautiful face and smile and all the love in the world that is poured out just for me.

* * *

Oh, my dear, how wonderful, how very wonderful it was to see you free again after the Ring went in. Even though all was in ruin around us, I had not been happier since the whole journey began than I was then, being able to look into your eyes and see them so beautiful again, so free of the terrible weight. I took your hand and held it against me. You were mine again, just mine, and all of Middle-earth’s, but not his. He had tried, but he had failed.

You gave me quite a turn though disappearing like that and then to be attacked by Stinker us both and you the worst. What a strange sight that made to see him wrestling with an invisible you! How did he know you were there I wonder? Did he just bump into you or did the Ring call to him? I was that sorry that he was that desperate to get his ‘precious’ back that he had to bit off your finger, but it made you visible again. I don’t know what I would have done if you had not come back into my sight again. But your face, your beautiful face, and that scream of agony! Oh, my love, oh my dear love. I hear that howl at times in my dreams and it tears my heart out each time because I can’t solace it anymore than I could the first time. Other times you are there and bleeding that bad and I can’t stop it and you die in my arms. I don’t know what’s worse - that or when I can’t see you, can’t hear no sound at all, and I am left alone at the Fire, calling out for you but receiving no answer. I don’t know where you got to. There’s no sign of you or Stinker or the Ring, no steps made by invisible feet, no labored breathing I can follow, no voice. Nothing. I am that glad when I wake up and know it was just a nightmare, another I can’t tell Rose though I know she’d listen and try to understand. She doesn’t ask anymore, leastways not with words, but her eyes are so full of love and compassion that I near blurt out everything anyways. She hears me at times even now calling out for you, but she can only imagine where I am searching. She holds me then just as I used to hold you and I hold onto so tight just as you held me and it calms me as it did you. I return from the fire, back to Bag End, back home. What would I do without her?

Chapter Fifty-Nine: Harthad Uluithiad

Oh, Sam, how I grieved that I would be the cause of your death. You walked beside me, every mile, suffered with me and never left me except when it seemed that you had been robbed of me. You would not let my strength fail where it would have long before. You were ever my strength, my hope, fighting to protect my soul as much as the Ring sought to devour it. I know the only reason I was able to complete the Quest was because you loved me with your whole heart, will and strength and continue to do so even now. But I knew I would die in Mordor. I sent a silent apology to Bilbo for not returning to tell him the story. I would be robbing him of you too. If Merry and Pippin survived, they could tell their part, but it would not be the whole story. If they survived. The not knowing continued to torment me. The Enemy was taking all those I loved.

The thought that I would be dying myself no longer frightened me. I had time to accept that sacrifice if it meant the Ring would be gone and everyone else would be safe. I knew from the beginning I wouldn’t be able to part with the Ring. I slowly began to understand what that meant. And you did too. You had to watch as he took me. I knew I would not survive the Ring’s destruction and I did not grieve, but I did grieve for you. You should have been back at your garden and your Rose, but you stayed with me, loving me and leading me on, and I did not have the strength any longer to thank you. The Ring robbed me of so many memories on the way, bit by bit, and now it has left me with seeing your sorrow at what it was making me into each time I look into your eyes. But even more there is still also your love, your incredible love. It cannot rob me of that. Even as it still threatens to swallow my soul, you are still there to fight it and him for me, still there to take my hand and comfort me and retain your inexhaustible cheer that not even death by fire was able to destroy. How I wish I could be like you, my Sam.

You are still trying to guide me away from the Fire, from certain death. You loved me back from the brink. You grieved that you could not comfort my bleeding hand. That did not matter to me as it was only a very short amount of time when nothing would matter. But you had hope even then. I had spoken plainly during our long journey about how there was no hope, but still you clung to it. You have been so well named, so very well named, my Sam, my Harthad Uluithiad, my Hope Unquenchable. From the day we met you have blessed me and I know you will continue to do so to the day we die, I hope in your arms. That is what is sustaining me now and that is how I can hope that after the initial pain has passed, it will sustain you until we can see each other once more and meet death as we prepared to meet it at the Fire, together, hand-in-hand. I know it would also be your hope that I would heal and that is another hope that you will find not disappointed in. All your hopes have come true, even those I would have thought impossible. You didn’t give up even as the Mountain collapsed around us and your hope was rewarded. I promise you that your hope for me will be also.

What a tale indeed we have been in, my brother! How much darker would it have been without you. The Road winds ever on and I try to see around the next bend, but I can’t. I shall have to wait until I come to it. I will be turning around many times I know, hoping to see you, and one day, dearest, I will see you in the distance, coming toward me and I will run back toward you and see you running toward me. But before then, you and I will have to watch each other grow further and further apart. I know I will be looking back at the eastern shore long after I have lost sight of it. I know my heart will be screaming for you and for Merry and for Pippin and I know I will hear the cries of you three. Mine will be competing with the cry for release and solace that cannot be found here. Hopefully both will be silenced where I will be going and I will merely feel the love of my brothers that has ever been my joy and comfort these many years.

* * *

I don’t understand all that happened at the Fire, as it took you at last, and then was taken from you. I suppose it’s all as Mr. Gandalf would say, meant to be. But I wish it had not cost you so dear. I thought you were free, but you weren’t, were you? It still had a hold on you and that is why you had to leave. Or so that’s what I was told on our way to the Havens. I didn’t think it was my place to say anything, but the Lady saw what was plain on my face and in my heart. She told me softly about your wounds, the ones I saw in your eyes, and she told me that she had seen similar in her daughter’s and that her daughter had to leave because of them to seek healing elsewhere, just as you had to. I heard the remembered grief in the Lady’s voice, but also the love and joy that her daughter had found the peace she had sought. That helped me to understand why you had to leave and to be able to let you go as she had let her daughter go, but never from her heart just as I have not let you go and never will.

She had the joy that she would soon see her again and after five hundred years! I don’t think I could have borne such a long time myself, it’s that hard already at times, but sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t have been better, if you had left sooner, if you were suffering that much and trying not to let it show. I know you didn’t really want to leave, but you had to. I wouldn’t want to have to until the last possible moment neither. I think it will be easier for me than it was for you, as it was for the Lady, because someone we loved dear was waiting for us. You had no one, just a hope. But you have ever gone on, my love, even when it was difficult and you have shone me how to do the same thing. You had already lost your mum and dad when my mum died so you knew how to comfort me in that. You had left Merry to come to Bag End, so you knew what it would be like to leave someone beloved behind when it came to leave both times. I will be leaving my family too, but you knew you would be seeing Merry again and you did and I know I will be seeing you again. If you had died, I would know because a part of me would have died too. But I am one and whole, my dear, just as you wanted me to be, because you are still in my heart where you have always been. I haven’t given up hope for seeing you anymore than I gave up hope even at the Fire.

I thought I saw an eagle yesterday, flying high above Hobbiton. Merry-lad was the first to see it and pointed it out to me and to his brothers and sisters. We watched for a long time as it circled around. I don’t know whether it was one or not, but the lads and lasses were all very excited and convinced not only it was one, but that it must be one of the same that had rescued you and me. We watched it fly off West and I felt a bit comforted by it. Rose was smiling at me when I finally took my eyes away. I wonder if it had come all the way from you.

Chapter Sixty: Dreams Come True

I had the greatest joy any could know, my Sam, to wake and find you sleeping beside me, alive. I have not seen a more beautiful sight than you laying there and I don’t think anything even in the West will be able to compare, at least not until you come to stand upon those shores. I smiled with all the joy and love that swelled in my heart as I stroked your curls gently, now so soft and clean again, then I snuggled down next to you again, kissing your brow and breathing you in, holding you close and feeling your arms tighten around me. Oh, my Sam, how much time now will pass before we will do that again?

If only it were true what you said about everything sad becoming untrue. Much of it did - we returned home, all four of us, and that was beyond what seemed possible. But my tattered hopes were woven into new cloth and so I hope the rest will come untrue where I will journey next, where the memories won’t be so sharp and cut at me until I am bleeding, but will be dulled by time, darkness dispelled by Light. If only I could have done what Pippin feared, and forgotten half of it, forgotten all of it, but your loving care. But it is so much a part of me too, indelible I fear, but just as permanent is your tender watch over me. That I have no wish to forget ever.

There was joy the days after we woke, when we were sung to and feted and reunited with those so dear to us. It seemed then that indeed everything sad was going to come untrue. If I didn’t look down at my finger, I could almost believe it was just a nightmare. But slowly, slowly the darkness came again to cover me. Then though, I was content enough to be with you, to be away from the terrible burden, to hold your hand and know that I had made it through because of you. How I could have sung your praises for days on end if I didn’t know it would have caused you to blush to no end. I was sorely tempted to do it. When you slept I did, at times I still do. For you deserve it, my beloved guardian, my heart, you deserve every moment of it. None of it belongs to me, for I could not have done anywhere as much without you. Middle-earth is safe because of you, because of Smeagol, not me.

I hear the song Legolas sang of the Sea and the West often in my dreams. I dream of what it must be like there, so very different than anything we have ever felt or seen. I know I am very blessed to have been given the grace to step onto those shores, far beyond anything I deserve and if I wasn’t so desperate for surcease to my torment, I would not even dare to accept it. But I have. Everyone but you and my Merry and my Pippin know. Gandalf and Elrond have given me counsel and blessing and Aragorn as well. I wonder again as I did when I woke in Rivendell why such great lords should look after me with such kind care, but I am grateful for it, for my wounds are deep and there will be no cure for them here.

I dream of what the sea voyage will be like. How long I have dreamt of the Sea. I hope for your sake, it will be a smooth one. Perhaps even you can be put asleep like we were after the Fire and the time will pass without notice and you will only wake when you see my face smiling down on you once more. Perhaps they could do the same for me for I fear how long it will be until that time comes. But I will not ask for that. I would not be able to heal then, I would not be able to work on myself until I am shined and polished and you can see me as you still remember me. Oh, Sam, oh Sam, I can’t wait for that day, the mirror to the one in Ithilien. I hope for me the voyage will be spent in becoming clean again, in trying to be worthy of this great gift. I know the latter is not possible, and it may well be that I will step on those great shores, still covered in filth, and wonder if I will be welcome when they see me as I truly am. Still I long for it more and more. It can’t come soon enough and it will come too soon. I hate sleeping anymore. There is too much to do. I have meadows to walk through, stars and starlight to look up at, you to watch sleep, to listen to, to feel the touch of your caresses, your arms around me. There have been times that I have wished to tell you where I am going, but always I hold back. This is your home. You should desire no other until the time is right. You cannot be torn like I am, longing to stay and longing to leave. All your other dreams have come true. There is just one left and I will make sure that is fulfilled when you see me next.

* * *

Oh, my dear, could anything compare to the joy of seeing you sleeping beside me, alive, washed and clean and at peace? All the time I watched you on the journey and loved you more each moment for all you were doing, all you were giving, the very last drop of yourself. Seeing you then my heart swelled anew to see you wrapped in a clean nightshirt and soft sheet and laying on a soft bed, not gasping for your next breath, not so drawn with exhaustion and cold that you were trembling. Your lips were no longer cracked and bleeding, your cheeks were not so hollow. Your face was not creased with strain and was just that beautiful, even as it had been on the Road, but even more so now. It did seem to be all a dream and that I was merely watching you from your bed at Bag End before I woke you in the morning. If it had not been for your hand, laying atop the coverlet, bandaged and healing, but missing a finger, it could have been true. I wish at times that all it was, just a nightmare, but then I think of how much my love for you has grown and how proud I am of you and all you did. No one else could have done it. You deserve every moment of the songs and praise given and I would have sung to you everyday if I didn’t know it would cause you worse pain. I hope where you are now you have discovered the truth. I just walked beside you.

The best gift of all was your laughter as you teased me about being a sleepyhead! Oh, my love, do you have any idea how much my heart soared to hear that most delightful of sounds? Every time I hear one of my bairns laugh, I think of you, I hear you. It is because of you that they are able to do it at all. What joy, what incredible joy you have given me.

I have not forgotten my promise, dear, that I made to Mr. Gandalf before we even set out and repeated to Mr. Gildor. I was ready to follow you to the end, to the very end, but it did not come. It is still ahead of us. I am still ready. I hope it will end the way we thought it would then, with your hand in mine. But before then I hope I will have the same joy I had when I first woke, with you sleeping beside me, watching your light shine until you seemed to be hardly a body at all, but something so much more. How many, many times have I wished that your words then had remained true - that other than your finger, you were all right. I think now they have finally come true again. I know they have, but I still can’t wait to see it myself, to see you other than by a gift of the Lady, to reach out to touch you and not fear I won’t really touch anything and know then you aren’t truly there, to have you hear what I say to you now only to the wind, to the stars, to that magic vision of you. Sometimes I think I hear you respond or brush my brow with a kiss to return the ones I have given in care of the wind, but perhaps the crack in my heart has spread to my head. I am whole, dear, as you wished me to be, or at least as whole as I can be, without you filling up the corners and so much more. I know you are whole too, so how can that be begrudged? Merry and Pippin think the same thing. How we miss you still though! But how much happier we are, even in our sadness that can still overcome us at times, that you are happy and still near to us. That you are healed has helped heal us. The sadness of losing you can still overcome us at times, especially around your birthday or other times that we wish you were still with us. We stare across the vast expanse of the Sea and realize how very far away you are. Then we look into our hearts and realize how very near you are and that there is not a single thing you have missed of our lives. The children all call you Uncle and talk to you, too, at times. How much there will there be to tell you when I come, but I wonder, if you will just smile and kiss my head and tell me you know it all all ready.

Chapter Sixty-One: Chained

In the beginning, after we woke, I hated to be without you even one moment, because you were my light, my security. If I woke and you weren’t there, I would panic and nothing would calm me but seeing you again. Other times, I wished you weren’t, when I became aware that I still longed for what was gone.

I’m glad you weren’t there when Aragorn and Gandalf came to me with the chain and asked me what I wanted done with it. I stared it for the longest time, crusted with my blood, with your sacrifice and mine and strands of my hair and a few of yours tangled around it. It was then that I realized that it was part of me, just as much as that blood and hair was. That there was really nothing left of me, but that. So without a word, I took it and held it against my heart like it was a treasured family heirloom and then before you or Merry or Pippin could come back and see me, I buried it at the bottom of my pack. It was a comfort to know it was there and a torment. I carried it all the way home, so frightened one of you would find it and I wouldn’t be able to explain. But you never found it.

I wear Queen Arwen’s, a cold, white, beautiful gem against my chest. It reminds me that I am alive. The other chain, the one I dare not wear much as I long to, I keep buried deep in a drawer and even then I live in fear that you will find it one day and I will not be able to tell you why I must keep it with me. I only draw it out when I am sure you are sound asleep and won’t be coming in and then I stroke it as I used to the Ring. It reminds me that I am all but dead. I hate it with all my being, but I can’t part it with it. It’s all I have left of It. I would stroke it all night if you weren’t here. At times though I touch only the strands of your hair tangled within, entwined with mine and it reminds then not of pain and hateful longing, but tremendous love and how we are bound together, heart and soul. I owe you my life, my dearest Sam, and you continue to selflessly give of yourself each day and night to ease my torment. I treasure all of that and that’s another reason, if I needed another, that you will never see this part of the tale. You can’t know there is no remedy for my pain here, no matter how much we would will it to be so. Gandalf told me some wounds never truly heal. So it is with mine. I must still write though and hope to draw out some of the poison that way. Then I must burn all these notes before I leave. I wish I had the strength the burn the chain also.

I hate the idea of keeping it, like a bit of poison in the midst of our fair land that you worked so hard to re-construct, but I can’t part with it. I have tried. There have been times I was tired of keeping it a secret from you, tired of being afraid you would find it, but never could I do anything of the sort. If I couldn’t have the Ring, then I could still have the chain that held it.

I’m taking it with me for I cannot bear the thought that you will find it and wonder why I still had it. I won’t be here to tell you and I don’t think I could in any case. So it will remain with me. Perhaps I will find a way to throw it into the Sea if it would accept such a foul thing, but then it accepted the Ring once. Yes, I will throw it in and the blood will be cleansed from it and perhaps I will be too. I know I do not want it with me when we reach the West. But I will keep the strands of your hair. I do not think I could make them into a treasure like Gimli promised he would do with the Lady’s, but I will treasure them all the same.

* * *

In the beginning, after we woke, I hated to be without you even one moment. If I woke and you weren’t there, I would panic and nothing would calm me but seeing you again. Then it would be your turn to hold me, stroke my curls, kiss my head, sing to me, wipe my tears. It was extra tight I would hold you those nights for fear of losing you again. That’s what all of my nightmares have been about, that you’re gone and I can’t find you, either in the tower or at the Fire. I know you are safe now where you are and happier than ever before the Shadow fell and I know you can’t be lost again, but those times I did lose you still haunt my dreams. So stay now, dear, where I can see you and dream about seeing you again with something other than the Lady’s magic. There were few times I let you out of my sight before and I don’t intend to do so ever again. For even the times you were out of the sight of my eyes of my head to see, you were never out of sight of the eyes of my heart. I know how hard you tried to hide your pain from me, but you never could. I may not have understood all the why’s and wherefore’s but still there’s not much you can hide from your Sam.

I found something in one of your drawers one day that was just as surprising if I had come upon the Ring itself. The chain that had held it was there, still crusted with your blood and hair and I nearly cried out from the shock of seeing it there. I never did say anything about it, but as I wiped your tears away that night, I tried to understand what that terrible thing had done to you. I failed miserably, but leastways I knew it had hurt you far worse than I had imagined and when you had at last fallen asleep and let go my hand, I continued to stroke your curls and let go of my own tears. I wish I had had someone to talk to about it all, mayhap they could have told me how to help you better. But perhap it was only my job to love you enough to get you to the Fire and let others take over from there. That was I thought on the way to the Mountain - that it was my task to get you there, to even die with you. I hadn’t ever thought there would be any other to care for you, but that’s the right of it since you can’t get better than being taken care by Elves, though it’s still that hard sometimes that I’m not doing it. But one day I will be.

When I was going through your clothes after you left, obeying the wishes of your will, that they be given to needy hobbits, I noticed that the chain was missing. I wasn’t sure what to make of that, and my heart did cry a bit more, but now that I’ve seen you so bright and fair, I can’t believe you still have it with you. I don’t even see the Queen’s gem anymore so you must be healed indeed. Glory and trumpets, but that is a beautiful sight! Do you see me I wonder? Or Merry and Pippin and their families and all my lads and lasses? Do you see our Frodo wearing your favorite shirt and breeches - the ones that you were wearing when I first met you? I couldn’t part with those, I just couldn’t. And it’s his favorite outfit too. He’s quite proud of you, my love. Do you see the Shire blooming like never before? The mallorn tree blossoms better every year and you are right that it is the wonder of the neighborhood. I think you must know all this somehow because sometimes I feel you so close, hear a snatch of your laughter or feel your breath on the air. Sometimes I go out by your favorite tree and it seem to anyone else that I am merely hugging myself tight, but I don’t think I am.

Chapter Sixty-Two: The Return of the King

I don’t know why Aragorn wished to have me hand the crown to Gandalf. I know he said it was because we had made all that possible, but still why hadn’t he asked you instead, who was much more worthy of the honor than I? You were the reason I had made it to the Fire. You had not failed in your task. But the honor fell to me and I felt his love and that did warm me, even if I didn’t deserve it. Still he gave and you continue to give everyday. Oh, Sam, how I wish it was enough to stop the bleeding from my heart and soul, how I wish it could fill me instead of this despicable longing that I dare not tell you about. It is almost as crushing as the Ring itself. No wonder Smeagol could not stop seeking it or Bilbo keep from longing for it. And I can’t even seek it or see it ever again. Even if I returned to the Fire, even if there is anything left of that terrible place, it is not there. It is gone forever and I am but a shadow without it. How could Aragorn or Gandalf not know that? Arwen did, even though I was not yet a shadow then. I still had some hope. I had little idea that dark road we had traveled was not over, not for me and so not for you, for even now you travel along with me, as much as you can. You will not abandon me, though I must abandon you because I cannot abandon It. Oh, I am glad you will never see this, my brother, for I cannot think of anything but how much you love me and how I am going to betray that.

* * *

I was that proud of you when you handed the crown to Mr. Gandalf. Imagine that, a hobbit being asked to help crown the king! I could have burst from happiness. All my wildest dreams, all the longings I had on the journey, to return home with you and just be happy and healthy and drowning in sunlight and joy after all our labors, all of that couldn’t compare to what actually happened. How could we have thought, there surrounded by the rivers of fire that ran down, that anything like this could have happened? Songs indeed we shall be remembered in! You most of all, my dear love, as is only proper. If they give me a single line, I would be happy, if the hundreds of others belonged all to you.

I was that glad to see you happy in Minas Tirith, celebrating with the rest of us, seeking out with your cousins all the new places and things they insisted on showing us. If it wasn’t for your finger, which they were always careful about when tugging you along to the next adventure, we could have been on holiday and it was indeed a holiday after all we had been through. Your light was clean and clear and we all rejoiced in it, yourself included. I know all the feteing the Gondorians insisted on giving us embarrassed you as much as it did me, but you insisted on going because it made you happy to see me sung of and fussed over. I could have done without that but it made me happy to see you honored and it made you happy to see me and there were more smiles and laughs from you in those months than there had been in too long. I hoarded them all, but not as much as I should have for I did not know how few and far between they would become and thought I would have them forever, a new one each day and more often than not, more than one. I treasured every night I could hold you, not knowing those times would come to an end as well far sooner than I thought. I think Merry and Pippin would have treasured those times holding you more too if they had known how few they would be. But one day I will be doing that again and I won’t let go. They have already asked me that I hold you tight enough so it feels that all three of us are doing it. I've told them they have no need to fret that I won't be doing that even without them saying.

Chapter Sixty-Three: Gifts

We were happy in Minas Tirith, city of so many wonders, though that time seems but a dream to me that has faded. The Shadow was gone or so we thought. All life seemed new again and there was so much to see and do. The only thing lacking was Bilbo. How wonderful it would have been to have him there with us. How he would have loved to have seen Aragorn’s wedding and yours, the greatest reward for all your labors.

But the Shadow did not depart or it grew again, there in my heart where it had gnawed for so many months and as ripped apart from the Ring as I felt at the Fire, all the roots hadn’t been torn away, there were still some left and they grew again in the soil that was left. I wonder that you can hold so many broken pieces of my heart that you have since the journey began. Piece by piece you gathered them as bit by bit they were torn away and you held each piece close to you, hiding them in your own heart, the safest place for them, even though their jagged edges cut your heart. Still you would have them in no other place and nor would I, though I grieve for the pain they cause you, but as long as they remain there and the other pieces in the custody of my brother-cousins then part of me will always be here, with you, in the Shire we love and labored so long to save. And I will keep the pieces you three gave to me so very long ago and perhaps then I will be able to repair the damage done and become whole again and so will the three of you.

I will also be taking the Queen’s gift to me for I cannot bear to be without it since I must soon be without the greater comfort of your arms and beautiful eyes and voice. She recognized the darkness that still lingered even before I did. What a tremendous boon she gave me, what a help it has been. I finger it for the solace it provides and I try so hard, so very hard not to wish it was the Ring instead that I caress. I cry hard at night because I fail in that and do so wish. How many times I have lain awake at night with nothing but my tears and longing for company after you leave. I stare at the ceiling, watching the shadows pass as clouds flit across the moon and the endless night slowly passes. I wonder sometimes what stars I will see in the West. I hope the nights will be kinder there. There have been times when I wish it had not been Smeagol who fell into the fire, but myself; times when I wished you didn’t love me so much that I wanted instead to live; times when I wished I didn’t love you so much that I knew I couldn’t hurt you by letting go.

Each night, the cry from my heart goes out to you before I can stop it and I wouldn’t even if I could, because I need you with me and that shames me that I am so selfish that I would deprive you of sleep and your Rose. You come and hold me, stroke my curls, wipe my tears and tell me as you rock me that it will be all right. I marvel that you can still believe that and I marvel even more that I can believe it myself but you said so and you would not lie. But most times, I feel I am a terrible burden to you, that you still must come to me nearly every night and more often than not have to listen to my tears. How many times I have apologized to you as I have held you so tight and sobbed as I haven’t since my parents and your mum have died. And I don’t even know this time why I am grieving. Why should I mourn the loss of such a despicable thing? Why do you have to see and hear that torment? But you will not stay away. Your heart cannot. You just hold me tighter and tell me I have nothing to be sorry for and you say instead that you are sorry that I am still in such pain.

Oh, my Sam, you have no idea how much I have to be sorry for! I wish you could hold me forever, against all my terrors and torments. But soon my heart will cry to you and your heart will answer, but you will not be able to pad across the hall and reach me. I will be beyond the reach of your arms, but I don’t believe, or I hope for it not to be true, that I will be beyond the reach of your heart. Only in my darkest despair, do I give the voice any credence that tells me that I will reach out for your hand and not be able to somehow feel it, even though all the Sea is between us. I wonder if you have heard the same voice because you have told me more than once that you will never leave me or have I spoken in my sleep? I wonder what else you have heard. Still there is no condemnation, no judgement, no ‘why, how, can you long for such a thing’ so mayhap you do not know or you love me despite it. You have loved me through so much, so very much, my best heart. You will love me through this parting also or so I tell myself. I would go mad otherwise. What a gift you have been to me, my Sam. What a tremendous gift.

* * *

I’m glad you had the gem Queen Arwen gave you around your neck instead of that confounded Ring. Instead of watching your face contort with strain of will, your features relaxed into peace when you clutched it and I breathed a little easier. I thanked the Queen silently every day that she gifted you with that. I still do. I didn’t understand all that was still happening to you, but as I still have nightmares myself about our times, I certainly understood why you would have yours and I mourned that the pain we thought we had left behind at the Fire was still with us. She saw your hurt even more than I did at first, for it had retreated far from your eyes and your heart and I would have thought it gone for good but she saw it and Mr. Gandalf must have also for he told me to still watch over you, that you would still need me. I told him, of course I would, that he needn’t tell me that. His eyes and his voice were very grave and it took me a while to understand why. I started to on the way home, when you were ill when we were near Weathertop and the Ford and then again the next October. I understood even more on the way to the Havens. I didn’t pay it much mind when you said Rivendell had everything but the Sea, but I remembered it after you left, as the three of us stood there in the gloom and the dark of the world and our hearts.

I watched you sleep so many times, your fingers wrapped around that gem, just like they used to be wrapped around the Ring. I saw your lips moving soundlessly and I wondered what you were saying. I came to you then, brushed your curls and kissed your head and told you how much I loved you and you always calmed then, your grip lessening and your lips falling silent, though at times I heard you murmur that you loved me too. It was that hard in the beginning after you left, not to be able to still do that each night, to wake you each morning with the same caress and kiss, to have others do the caring for you that I have since I was nine and, if I am so blessed, will be doing at 109.

It’s been so long now that you’ve been gone, my dearest dear, but you are still so fresh in my mind, so bright. I still long for the touch of your hand and the sound of your voice like I did when I was searching for you in the tower and no one can gainsay me that I don’t feel and hear you at times. You are glowing ever brighter, my love. In the beginning, I saw the gem around your neck shining with you, but now you shine just on your own and I can’t wait, I just can’t wait until I can hold you and get lost in that light that has guided me through the darkness of first losing my mum and then on the Quest and then having to watch you leave and return home without you. And I know it will be guiding me on the greatest journey of all, on my way to my new home. It’s strange to think of a Hobbit of the Shire being at home in a Elven land, but you will be there, and that will mean home, just as much as this one you have gifted to me. And even dearer is the gift you have given me of yourself, my love, that most tremendous gift of all.

Chapter Sixty-Four: A Glad Reunion

I don’t know when the longing to leave, to have some relief from the pain and evil lust that still holds me bound began. I know it was before Rivendell and the joyous reunion with Bilbo. It was there that I learned that he too had not been released from the longing. I know I felt the call of the Sea, when you said that fair land had everything and I had agreed and said except the Sea. Except the Sea. The gift had been given, far more than I deserved, and it was entirely my choice to take it or not. It would not be forced upon me, it would be my decision. Gandalf and Aragorn both counseled me on this and I know they could see, especially Gandalf, the tears in my heart that I hoped the Shire could heal. I did not want to leave my home again. I begged that no one else be told of what had been given, but Bilbo, who had the same gift and decision before him. I think Gandalf and Aragorn wanted me to go and I know Bilbo did because he had already decided to, and could see me more clearly than anyone, except perhap you, my dearest Sam, but I didn’t want to go, not yet, not then. Bilbo and I talked long into the night about it, but the pain wasn’t bad yet and though I would miss him sorely, I didn’t want to lose any of you either. It was then that I was told that you would be extended the same gift and the same choice and I think that helped my own decision. As time has passed, I knew increasingly that I would need to leave. I knew it from Bilbo who had been without the Ring for twenty years, but still longed for it. I knew it from my own heart. And I knew also that I didn’t want to part with Bilbo, not again. If I had the hope that one day you would follow, then mayhap that would give me the strength to leave, to live, to seek my own healing and to see that Bilbo received his. He would whether I was there or not, but I wanted to see it for myself and I wanted him to see mine. I have sought it in mortal lands and have found it not. It was in Elven lands, untouched or differently touched by time, that we found healing for the wounds of our body and heart. I will make certain that you also will see me healed, my brother, my own, you will see it too.

* * *

It was wonderful to see Mr. Bilbo again. I’m glad we did and you had that time with him. It was a sore thing to have to leave that fair home, but our home was still ahead of us, and my heart tells me that our last home, even further. Strider was right that a tree blooms best in the land of its fathers. I think you must have had two homes, my Elven hobbit. The Shire gave you the roots you needed to leave the first time and now this Elven land is allowing you to put those roots back down into new, even richer soil and you bloom anew, even brighter than before. I am just that glad you are happy again. Even when I miss you still sometimes so fierce my heart seizes, I think of that, of the smiles I see when I watch you sleep and I can be happy again. Not a day goes by that I don’t thank the Lady for her magical gift. The wind brushes my tears away, but I think it’s actually your hand doing so and I hear your loving voice in my heart, joyfully teasing me with some of Mr. Bilbo’s words and your own, "Don’t be too sad, Sam. The fire’s very cozy here and the food’s very good and there are Elves when you want them."

Chapter Sixty-Five: Shouldn’t Have Beens

Merry said I couldn’t save the Shire just by being sad and shocked at all the devastation done to it in our absence. I know I didn’t save it at all. I know something far worse would have happened had we not left, but would it have been so hurt if I hadn’t been so selfish to want to see Bilbo again before we came home? All that happened, all that we left to prevent, it seems that it was our leaving that caused it. How it tore at me, to have toiled so long to prevent evil, then to return to see that it still flourished and in the land we most loved. You saw so much of it in the Lady’s mirror. Is it because we delayed for our pleasure when we should have gone on? Perhaps the Row wouldn’t have been dug out or your Gaffer turned out. Perhaps Lotho wouldn’t have been murdered or the Party Tree hewn down. Perhaps the Lockholes would not have been filled or hobbits killed. Perhaps I wouldn’t have had the poison of Saruman’s words drip into my heart. I warned others against listening to them, but I cannot so easily convince myself that they are not true. Health and long life do seem to be denied me, or at least as long as I linger here.

I grieve for all the damage done, all the deaths, even Lotho’s and Saurman’s and Wormtongue’s for none should have received the deaths they did - so suddenly and violently with no chance to set their lives aright. How well do I know what evil can do to one and it is a pain to my heart that they died in their wickedness. I tried to save Saruman, as did Gandalf and the Lady, he who had been once so great and who had fallen so far. But he rejected all our efforts. I still wished him to be free to have the chance to return to wisdom and light, but it was all lost and so was Wormtongue’s chance. I wonder why I am being given such a blessing myself.

You did much though, my best half, to mend what all the wrongs done, just as you did in nurturing me to the Mountain. It wasn’t for naught that Treebeard praised our efforts. Middle-earth will be less bright when you are gone, but the West will be brighter. Oh, my Sam, how I long for that day when I see you standing on those white shores and can run into your arms, laughing and crying for joy, and feel your arms around me and see you and hear you and smell you and the Shire once more! Sometimes I see that day so clearly as though it is already a happy memory. Sometimes the vision is dark and dim because you are not there and though my heart and voice cries for you, there is no answer and I am torn worse than I ever has been as I stand alone in the black, bereft and so alone, so very alone. I hope that last is an illusion. I still have trouble at times telling dream from reality, but if I knew I would never see you again, then I would never leave, but bear the pain here and treasure every moment I had with you until Saruman’s words fulfilled themselves. Gandalf has given me what assurance he can, though, that it is likely that we shall meet again, under a completely different sky and stars, but still at home, because we will have each other.

* * *

It’s not right that we did all we did outside the Shire and then had to come home and see the heartbreak of what had happened while we were gone. I know we couldn’t have come back any sooner, but, oh, my dear, how I wish that additional cut to your heart hadn’t been made. But now we have a beautiful Shire to live in, thanks to the Lady’s gift, but more thanks to you because without your gift, hers would not have mattered anywhere as much. What a year 1420 was because of all you did to keep us safe. The harvest, the wine, the leaf! All because you chose to take the Ring out of the Shire to preserve our land and all of Middle-earth. I am that glad you were able to see it. Maybe it made it easier to let go, maybe it made it harder, but at least you knew the Shire was healed and all that you had done had not been in vain. I don’t think I rightly understood all it cost you to do that, until I looked into your eyes when you told me that you were going away. It weren’t fair that you struggled so hard and couldn’t take the reward, but I think you have now. I know where you are now is even more beautiful than the home you left and I hope helped the pain too. I see you shining there so bright just like you always used to do here, competing with the sun. That part of my heart that has always been yours is at peace and healed of hurt and often do I go there when I need some healing myself.

You said the Shire was not saved for you, but it was saved, my love, because of you. If you hadn’t gone out, then much worse would have happened than the felling of trees, closing of inns and all those horrible, silly rules. Every day I look out into the sunlit fields and listen to the calls of my children as they scamper about, I don’t see anything but a safe, prosperous land and I know it is because of you. Each night I sit out with my pipe, I always face the West. I know you can’t see or smell the smoke, but it helps my heart to know that leastways it’s going in your direction, that mayhap you know that I am thinking of you and loving you and looking forward to the day I will see you again. How often I have talked to you then, either in my heart or softly aloud, and I know I have you heard talk to me, telling me all the things you had told me before, about love and loss and all that being a part of life and life without it would be no life at all. You told me that first when my mum died. You had learned that yourself already so I always listen when you talk to me. Mayhap I am just remembering that, but I don’t think so. I think you are really talking to me right then and you know when I need you as your voice is as clear as it ever was, full of love and sorrow for my pain. The nights are always when the longing to be with you is the greatest but also when I am most comforted for I see the sky open up and I feel we are under the same roof. I love you, my dearest dear.

Chapter Sixty-Six: Falling Asleep Again

Translator's Note: My beloved queen translated part of Sam’s entry.

Oh, my Sam, all your dreams have come true, save one. You have your Bill back. You married your Rose. You have started your family. You are so happy, so alive and the Shire is alive again as well because of all your hard work. I know you are meant for great things and I am happy myself that I have seen it begin. I wish I could see it all, but I have been given the blessing to know more of it than you do right now, enough to know that joy will fill you ever more and you will get the proper recognition and standing in the Shire that you deserve. I can leave knowing you are in the best of hands, that all will be well after this storm passes and I need but wait until my turn comes and you and I can celebrate all your joys and accomplishments together. That knowledge and the love you give me now is how I can smile in these dark days before the dawn, and know even now, that I am the luckiest hobbit there is because of you and my, your, beloved little flower, little Elanor and there will be more flowers, enough to fill your garden and your heart to overflowing. Oh, my dearest brother, what a life awaits you! I wish I could be a proper uncle to all of your children, but I will be only for a while Elanor’s. I hope you know though that I will love each and every one of them, and I hope you will at times press their brows with a kiss for me and give them a hug because I cannot. I will miss so much of your life, and Merry’s and Pippin’s, but I will be happy knowing that my brothers live in an unmarred land, that you are the reason that there was even a home to come back to and that I have known and been blessed by four of the best hobbits in the Shire. I am glad too that Lobelia and I parted in friendship. All’s well that ends better, as your Gaffer said.

For me, I hope to wake again from this terrible night. I have fallen back asleep and I do not think I shall wake again until I reach the rich air of the West. Still I breathe in the wonderful air here, all that I can, as though I can store some of it in me. I run my hand against the flowers and plants in our garden and curl my fingers around the grasses and feel the tickle of them around my toes. I walk in the meadows and the fields and I breathe deep and take in all the smells and sights that I will never see again but in memory. It is so beautiful here. I wish I could take a bit of it all with me. I wish most of all that I could take you and Merry and Pippin, but Aragorn is right, the tree blooms best in the land of its sire, and you three are going to bloom so very much. I am a tree that has been uprooted, but I hope to bloom where I will be replanted. I wonder sometimes whether that is possible, to grow in foreign soil, but it is my last hope. I will not bloom here again.

I wonder if you know or suspect something already, from the way I look at Elanor or at you, lost in the process of memorizing everything so I can always hold you and her fresh and alive in my heart. I wonder if I’ve given myself away again as I did before when we left the first time when I thought I had been so careful. But I cannot not do what I am doing. The time grows so short. You will know my doom soon enough. I still do not know whether I held a sword at your throat at Osgiliath, but I do know that I will be piercing your heart with one at the Havens, if not before. It is the same one that has been already plunged into my own. I hope Merry and Pippin will forgive me for not saying goodbye. I cannot live without you, my Sam, any moment more than I have to, but I cannot say goodbye to everyone and everything all at once. It’s going to be already too much. I do not want to pierce their hearts anymore than I do yours. That will be horrific enough. Forgive me, my brother, please forgive me.

* * *

I saw you at times looking at me or Elanor or even the grasses in the fields as though you would never see them again. I didn’t know what it all meant, but it did give me a start and a sadness and uneasiness that I couldn’t quite settle. Your light continued to shine, though that was not all that came from you. There was darkness too, but the light shone around it. We used to take walks in those later days and you’d hold my hand firmly, but you weren’t all there. Too much had been taken away from you to re-form yourself here. You were like an tree uprooted by a terrible storm and you couldn’t settle again where you had been. But I know you tried. I know how hard you tried. I saw you lay out in the grass, fingers splayed out so you could feel everything, eyes closed so you could just listen to all the birds and feel the wind and the sun so bright on your face. Other times you would watch the clouds for hours and sometimes I would join you and remind you of all the times we had spent as lads making up stories around the shapes of the clouds and all the fun you had had with Merry and Pippin doing the same. You would smile then sometimes and take my hand, kiss it and hold it and I knew you remembered even if you never spoke. Other times you cried, tears slowing tracking down your cheeks and I knew you were remembering then too.

All this beauty around you and around me, around all of us that the children can play so innocently and joyfully in, without a single care, and the gaffers and gammers can rest and gossip under the shade of trees and in inns, is from you, my dear love and not a day goes by that I don’t think of that. You loved this land so much, so very, very much. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for you to know you would be leaving it and never coming back and trying to keep that torment to yourself. You didn’t, not from me. Do you know I used to watch you sleep? And sometimes I would weep over you. Do you know how many times I heard your softly murmured words, so false, yet true? I waited and listened to hear you scream caught in the hold of those terrible dreams, but I waited in vain. The scream never came, save in the form of a whisper: my name. It took me a long time to understand what you had to do, why you had to leave me. What else was left to you? If you had remained, how long would it have taken for the darkness to claim you utterly? Do you know I saw your silent tears, how often I could hear your agony? Do you know I watched you day and night and saw your losing fight? Day after day I looked into your eyes, and when your hope faded, I saw you struggle on despite its loss as I had watched you so long on the Quest. Then you left and I learned the hard way that the only thing harder than holding on is letting go. I still wake up at times in the dead of the night, crying and wondering if you're all right. I know you are, but still there are times I am just as lost as you were at times, not knowing true from false. I miss you still. But if you look back from where you are, you'll see me standing here under the stars and smiling even with tears in my eyes.

I should have been more watchful and treasured you more, but I thought I had the rest of my life to do that. I should have realized that you were slowly saying goodbye. I know it’s going to be a bit hard for me to leave too, but nowhere near as hard as it was for you. You didn’t have someone waiting for you at the other end, like I do. You had no one to look forward to seeing as I do to ease the loss. But I know my time will come, and that will ease the pain, though I know I’m going to shed a few tears anyhow,. But you will be there waiting for me and I will be running to you and my tears will be more of joy than sorrow then and you will wipe them both away and bless my head with a kiss as you did when we parted. I can’t but look forward to that. How wonderful it be to feel your touch again, so soft and gentle, and look into your eyes, so shining with love and joy and just lose myself in your arms and light. How often I have dreamed of that, my dear, how often. I love you, my own. I love you. I love you. You have given me a tremendous, joy-filled life here.  All my dreams have come true, save one.  One day, though, we won’t be looking up at the stars alone, but standing side by side under the same sky and stars and we’ll be smiling and our tears will be of joy and love.  There will be no more dreams then.

Chapter Sixty-Seven: Where Shall I Find Rest?

Translator’s Note: My dear queen helped me with the translation of this chapter. It also gives some intriguing evidence as to the authorship of ‘The Sea Bell’ as there are definite similarities between that poem which is reproduced here and the latter part of Frodo’s journal entry.

I still reach for the Ring at times. Most times it is a simple reflex action, almost without thought. I know you’ve seen me do it and I am afraid what you think. Afraid you would know I still wished it were there. I’m glad you weren’t there on the 13^th when we were at the Cotton’s and my first Rethe illness struck. I longed for you but I knew you had other places to heal than my heart, then I was glad that you did not see me in such a state. All is indeed dark and empty but I was well or well enough by the time you returned. Still I know little gets past you and if you didn’t know that I had suffered, you at least know that the pain hasn’t left me. Each time you have seen my hand reach up toward where the Ring used to be, your eyes hold sorrow but also the most tender love and compassion as they always have. You gently draw my hand away and kiss it and smile for me. As you guide my hand to clasp the Queen’s gem instead, I somehow find the strength to smile for you. You hold me then, murmur comforts and tell me that you love me and I hold onto you and tell you the same and for a moment, just a moment, the longing leaves me and I am simply a hobbit again.

You continue to reach for someone you believe to be still alive and if it wasn’t for you, I would indeed be what I sometimes feel in my darkest despair, buried under the ash of the Mountain. I have been dying bit by bit since our Quest started. There is so little of me left for you to rescue, to hold onto. You don’t know that and I can’t tell you. In my blackest nights, I want to scream it out to you, that you love a ghost, someone who no longer exists. But I never do. I can’t hurt you that way. I can’t risk losing that love that continues ever to stream from your eyes and I know it has mixed at times with your tears. Seeing that love is the only thing that has kept me from cracking completely, though I wonder sometimes, if I have in truth for thinking of leaving the one person that is keeping sane. Have I gone mad already? I am filled still with horrible violation and longing and I know there will be no lasting relief for me here. I must leave, but still I desperately hold on to your hope and love for me, as tightly as I hold onto you and would forever if I could. You continue to hold onto someone you love so much so I hold onto your hope that person can be once more just as I held onto your hope to get to the Fire. Now I must hold onto your hope that I can return from it. I cannot abandon myself to despair completely since I see such hope and confidence in your eyes. I know I can return. I know I must return. I won’t always be empty of all but this terrible longing I can find no relief for except in your arms. There I can be just for a moment the person you still think I am. I look into your eyes and see your boundless love and your smile and I drown there for as long as I am allowed, losing my new self and finding my old self. But it is only there that I still exist, the person you have loved so long. I hope he is also to be found in the West for I wish to look in a mirror one day and see him myself, see what you see. I know you see all the pain I would hide from you if I could, but I know you see something more that I cannot now, except in dim memory.

I know how many nights you have stood at the threshold of my bedroom, making sure I am sleeping. I have tried to pretend that I am, but I know you are not fooled. How many times have I heard you come in and hold me and gone without sleep yourself, softly singing to me, stroking my curls and wiping my tears, just so I can get a moment’s rest? And for all that ceaseless love and care for months and years, after you kiss my brow and leave me, I later wake once more and think about leaving you and you are not there then to wipe at my tears and too soon and not soon enough, I will not be there to wipe yours. Oh, my Sam, how I have hurt you and continue to and how you have never stopped loving me. You have forgiven my every darkness, every stab at your heart, without a moment’s hesitation, but I have yet to give you your worst wound. Will you still love me then? Of course you will, whether I deserve it or not. That is the only thing keeping me sane. I do not know what is my own worst wound, the one the Ring gave me that continues to bleed and I fear sometimes always will, or the one I will be giving you and so myself, when I tell you I must forsake all your care, admit that it is not enough and that I must seek healing elsewhere.

Oh, my most beloved brother, how can I possibly say that? How can I even think it? Am I making a terrible mistake? In my desperation to leave one agony, I know I will be causing myself another and one to you and to Merry and to Pippin. Will it be worse than the one I am living through? How can I be so selfish to seek solace and relief when I know it will cause you three, dearest to my heart, pain that I could spare you if I stayed? Would it be better just to stay then and bear my own agony as I bore the burden while the Ring still lived? I have long struggled with those wonderings and have come to the bitter conclusion that I must leave. This pain is greater than your love and I never thought anything could be greater than that. The longing to leave, to have more than momentary relief from the pain and evil lust that still holds me bound has been with me so long I don’t even know anymore when it began again. I know I felt it in Rivendell when you said it had everything and I had agreed but said except the Sea. I gained a greater understanding of both on the 6^th and the 13^th when the memories of the darkness and the agony of wounds and loss held me and I cried aloud for release.

But you were not there to hear and darkness filled me all that day. How long have I pleaded in tears and wondered why no one heard me. Why can no one see these invisible tears? Why does no one hear my silent cry? Why does no one understand my loneliness and fears? Why? Why do they all just pass me by? I am lonely and so afraid-- One small being on this darkened sphere. My hope, my confidence, my joy fade. I'm overwhelmed by floods of anxious fear. Why? Oh, why does no one hear? When will I awake from this nightmare-dream? When will someone hear my voiceless plea? When will someone wake at night and finally hear me scream? When will someone come to comfort me? I am weary. It's been so long-- So long I have stayed here on my knees, too many nights since I have felt strong. If you can reach me, come and rescue me. When? Oh, when will someone see? I don't know how to let go. That's the only reason I keep holding on. I can't see the morning, but what else can I do but look for the dawn? Till I'm seen or heard, I won't say a word; I'll pray and wait. But come quickly, before it's too late.

I walked by the sea, and there came to me,
as a star-beam on the wet sand,
a white shell like a sea-bell;
trembling it lay in my wet hand.
In my fingers shaken I heard waken
a ding within, by a harbour bar
a buoy swinging, a call ringing
over endless seas, faint now and far.

Then I saw a boat silently float
On the night-tide, empty and grey.
‘It is later than late! Why do we wait?'
I leapt in and cried: ‘Bear me away!'

It bore me away, wetted with spray,
wrapped in a mist, wound in a sleep,
to a forgotten strand in a strange land.
In the twilight beyond the deep
I heard a sea-bell swing in the swell,
dinging, dinging, and the breakers roar
on the hidden teeth of a perilous reef;
and at last I came to a long shore.
White it glimmered, and the sea simmered
with star-mirrors in a silver net;
cliffs of stone pale as ruel-bone
in the moon-foam were gleaming wet.
Glittering sand slid through my hand,
Dust of pearl and jewel-grist,
Trumpets of opal, roses of coral,
Flutes of green and amethyst.
But under cliff-eaves there were glooming caves,
weed-curtained, dark and grey'
a cold air stirred in my hair,
and the light waned, as I hurried away.

Down from a hill ran a green rill;
its water I drank to my heart's ease.
Up its fountain-stair to a country fair
of ever-eve I came, far from the seas,
dclimbing into meadows of fluttering shadows;
flowers lay there like fallen stars,
and on a blue pool, glassy and cool,
like floating moons the nenuphars.
Alders were sleeping, and willows weeping
by a slow river of rippling weeds;
gladdon-swords guarded the fords,
and green spears, and arrow-reeds.

There was echo of song all the evening long
down in the valley, many a thing
running to and fro: hares white as snow,
voles out of holes; moths on the wing
with lantern-eyes; in quiet surpise
brocks were staring out of dard doors.
I heard dancing there, music in the air,
feet going quick on the green floors.
But wherever I came it was ever the same:
the feet fled, and all was still;
never a greeting, only the fleeting pipes, voices, horns on the hill.

Of river-leaves and the rush-sheaves
I made me a mantle of jewel-green,
a tall wand to hold, and a flag of gold;
my eyes shone like the star-sheen.
With flowers crowned I stood on a mound,
and shrill as a call at cock-crow?
Why do none speak, wherever I go?
Here now I stand, king of this land,
with gladdon-sword and reed-mace.
Answer my call! Come forth all!
Speak to me words! Show me a face!'

Black came a cloud as a night-shroud.
Like a dark mole groping I went,
to the ground falling, on my hands crawling
with eyes blind and my back bent.
I crept to a wood: silent it stood
in its dead leaves; bare were its boughs.
There must I sit, wandering in wit,
while owls snored in their hollow house.
For a year and day there must I stay:
beetles were tapping in the rotten trees,
spiders were weaving, in the mould heaving
puffballs loomed about my knees.

At last there came light in my long night,
and I saw my hair hanging grey.
‘Bent though I be, I must find the sea!
I have lost myself, ,and I know not the way,
but let me be gone!' Then I stumbled on;
like a hunting bat shadow was over me;
in my ears dinned a withering wind,
and with ragged briars I tried to cover me.
My hands were torn and my knees worn,
and years were heavy upon my back,
when the rain in my face took a salt taste,
and I smelled the smell of sea-wrack.

Birds came sailing, mewing, wailing;
I heard voices in cold caves,
seals barking, and rocks snarling,
and in spout-holes the gulping of waves.
Winter came fast; into a mist I passed, to land's end my years I bore;
Snow was in the air, ice in my hair,
darkness was lying on the last shore.

There still afloat waited the boat,
in the tide lifting, its prow tossing.
Wearily I lay, as it bore me away,
the waves climbing, the seas crossing,
passing old hulls clustered with gulls
and great ships laden with light,
coming to haven, dark as a raven,
silent as snow, deep in the night.

Houses were shuttered, wind round them muttered,
roads were empty. I sat by a door,
and where drizzling rain poured down a drain
I cast away all that I bore:
in my clutching hand some grains of sand,
And a sea-shell silent and dead.
Never will my ear that bell hear,
never my feet that shore tread,
never again, as in sad lane,
in blind alley and in long street
ragged I walk. To myself I talk;
For still they speak not, men that meet.

* * *

Oh, my love, how could I have been away from you on the 13^th? I had to read your book to know that you suffered one of your illnesses that day. How could I have missed that? How could I have not known? I wish I hadn’t been away repairing what damage I could, when it was your heart that was the most damaged. The restoration of plants and trees was dear to me, but you were and are far dearer. I should have never left you. Mayhap I couldn’t have stopped it, but I could have been there for you, to help you through it. You shouldn’t have been suffering still. You should have had peace and reward and a long, happy, healthy life. You have had that and I rejoice everyday for that, but still it was not here that you found your rest. Your burden had broken you. You tried to hide your second Rethe illness, but I wasn't so fretful and excited over Elanor's upcoming birth that I didn't notice you weren't right.  You were trying that hard not to have me see how much you were hurting so I pretended that you were being successful, though it broke my heart even more.  It was that hard to watch you struggle with that, trying to hide all you can, though you should have known that you couldn’t, not from me or Merry or Pippin.

I wish we could have all gone with you and all our bairns.  I think that would have been too much to ask of Rose, though the children would have loved it and you could have been a proper uncle to them all, teaching them all the things you taught me and conspiring with them in all sorts of mischief. How much I would have loved to have seen that! I see it often in my heart and I smile a lot more for no apparent reason and Rose smiles back because she knows it because of the children and because of you. How it always warmed and healed my heart a bit to see you smile through your pain while you were still here and how much more wonderful it is to see them now free of all woe. I did anything and everything I could just to see one of your smiles. Do you have any idea how beautiful that made you, even if you were holding back tears just so you could smile for me instead? I love you so, dearest.  I love you so.

Chapter Sixty-Eight: Blessed Night

Translator’s Note: The queen again helped with part of the translation of Sam’s entry.

Forgive me, my Sam, forgive me. I know I have been heard. Your heart has answered my every cry when it could and the Queen answered the one I didn’t even know it had made. She gave me such tremendous gifts - one you see and one I shall reveal soon. The Queen told me that she had accepted the sweet as well as the bitter and so I have for it is through the bitter that I hope to reach the sweet. I tremble still to stretch my hand out to her mightiest gift. It is mine to have. I only need to reach out for it. And so I have. I have made it my own. It is not entirely smooth like her gem is, but a rose among brambles. I still hold it tight against me, against my heart, though the thorns cut my hands and my heart. I can see the blood leaking through my fingers, but I can’t staunch the flow. I reach for the rose within, regardless of how badly I am cut, for it brings me the hope of release. I wish I could stay, but I am not strong enough. You have seen far too many of my tears, already, but you have seen far from all of them. I have not ceased sobbing since even before we returned to the Shire. It has been healed, but I haven’t. I long to hear your voice reach me in the wasteland I still travel in, the sound that was cheerful even in the tower, as though you were merely greeting me as you have every morning since Bilbo left and many times before then. I long to feel your kiss against my brow, warmth and love instead of the dry ash and bitterness that I feel otherwise, a blessing you have given me each night and morning since you have come to live with me. You know why I asked you to, don’t you? I think you answered yes for the same reason. Because we didn’t want to let each other go. But soon, my Sam, soon we must.

Do you know how many nights I have stood at your bedroom door and just watched you sleep? I don’t make a sound, but still you wake and get halfway up before I wave you back down. You look at me and I look at you and I smile and try to pour all my love into that gaze and smile. You smile back and then slowly you lay down again. You want to hold me, to help ease the pain, but those nights it is enough for me just to watch you. You close your eyes again and I continue to look, sometimes all night. Then finally at dawn I find some rest. I know you have stood at my door at times doing the same thing and for the same reason. Because you love me and I love you and I wish to hold everything beautiful, beloved feature of yours forever fresh in my memory where I can pull it out at will. You don’t know that memories are soon all you will have. I don’t open my eyes when you come, but simply treasure the feeling of you watching, letting all that incredible love soak into me and through me as it has for decades. How many long days and nights will pass before we can do that again?

The night has become blessed and beautiful now the closer I come to leaving, just as I said when our Queen first appeared at the gates of Minas Tirith. Its fears are passing away and what remains you dispel. I have stood out in the garden staring up the stars for hours, memorizing them anew and everything else around me. I fill my lungs with the smell of the air and of all the flowers and plants you have blessed our garden with. I feel the cool grass between my toes and the rustle of the wind through my curls. I sit down and touch the bench that you placed for me so long ago to give me a place to sit and read and write and watch you and read to you. I feel perfectly safe there in the garden, surrounded by your love that’s shown in all that blooms and the nurturing that you have extended to me now thirty-two years.

I know you worry that I am up after you’ve tucked me in for the night, but you don’t say anything and I couldn’t tell you anyway. I’ve come close a few times, for I think it will be cruel of me to tell you at the last moment, giving your heart no time to prepare for the sudden, unexpected sword thrust that I will plunge into our shared heart, but I do not. I have been bleeding from that wound long already and I would spare you that agony for as long as I can. I hate that I am going to give you it at all and my other brothers. Instead of telling you, I wrap my hand around yours as you come seeking me and stand with you, and I feel the warmth of your flesh and love. Sometimes you know I need more than that and you hold me in your arms, rock me under the stars and sing to me. I just hold you, bury my head in yours and breathe and listen and feel. Sometimes I cry for all my pain and all your love. When I finally let you go and I smile tremulously for you as you wipe my tears and smile at me, then you tuck me back in and I sleep the rest of the night. Other times you find me curled up asleep amidst your flowers and you either take me up in your arms and carry me back to bed or I wake in the morning in the garden, wrapped in my Elven cloak, a gift from you during the night. I know you wish I were sleeping in my bed each night, but I need to do this for I am so near the time now that I won’t be able to anymore. I will see other sights and stars. I will feel sand under my feet at first, instead of Shire grass. I will hear the soft lap of water.

I know I will be given great care in the West, that I will want for nothing, that the place, the very air will help me heal so Gandalf tells me, but still it won’t compare to the care you have given me. I will want for something. You. Merry. Pippin. The whole Shire. I hope in time night will be even more blessed and beautiful there because though I will look up and see different stars, I will also be with you and my Merry and my Pippin, the closest I can be with the heavens so clear and near. Oh, my Sam, I haven’t even left yet and already I can’t wait for you to come! I hope what Bilbo said about not noticing the passage of time in Elven lands is even more true in that fairest of all realms. I don’t think I could bear it otherwise. You have been my light, my brother, my beacon in all the dark places I travel and continue to, my beacon even in the daylight. So I hope to be for you when you come. I hope you will also reach through the brambles of losing me and your own Rose and come to me so I can present to you another rose, my rose, free of thorns.

* * *

You’re right, my dear, about the night being beautiful and blessed, though I know for too long, it was not and the terrors did not pass away for you. We would sit out on the bench in the garden many afternoons. Do you remember what I said to you then? "Come here and lay your head down on my shoulder. You look like you've forgotten how to smile. You can let out all those tears that you've been holding back, or we'll just sit in silence for a while. There's so much hurt inside; I see it in your eyes: a wound that's been reopened when it never really healed. You're tired of trying, you feel like crying. But before you give up fighting, there's one thing that you've forgotten: Someone still loves you. You can tell me all your hurts and fears and troubles, and I'll listen with my heart, not just my ears. And if you cry, I'll hold you till the storm has passed and do my best to wipe away your tears. But here's the simple truth: I love you more than life, but I'm no stronger than you. I can't soothe away all the hurt, but when you need me, I'll be here with open heart and ears."

You always did put your head on my shoulder whether I spoke or not. Sometimes you would look at me after I gave my little speech and smile, a true smile just for me, with no tears behind them or at least no tears of sadness. My heart would break with joy to see that. I remember the times I touched that smile in my wonder and you would kiss my fingers and smile even wider and your love would pour out. Then you would hold me and lay your head back on my shoulder and tell me how grateful you were and how much you loved me, and I told you the same and held you until you were ready to let go. I don’t know if you were ever truly ready and there were many times I wasn’t either, but you knew you had to and bit by bit you were. Still there were times you would fall asleep there in my arms and I would just hold you.

Other times you would cry and I wish I could say the pain poured out of you, never to return, but oh, my love, you had so much that always some remained or perhap the pool that was full of your agony was emptied, but always got filled again. I saw you at times staring a long while at the little stone basin that sat in the garden for the birds to drink their fill. I wondered if you thought you were like that, but that the water was your tears instead. But I think more and more Mr. Gandalf was right and you were a glass filled with clear water, beautiful and clean. And that to be that, you had to leave where you could be filled with something other than tears.

That last summer before you left, your nightmares ceased, though at times your tears did not. You grew more, well, alive and here, is the only way I could think of saying it. There were times you acted like you did the summer before we left, treasuring every bit of the Shire you could. There were times I saw you looking at me and Merry and Pippin and Elanor as though you would never see me or them again. I don’t know why I didn’t see more of why you did that. Your eyes grew so soft and loving and tender and sad, sometimes even like you were seeing things from far off, then you’d smile and whatever fears I had would vanish with that. I don’t think Merry’s fears vanished as quickly, but for all our care for you, you still left. But I wouldn’t give up that summer for nothing, though I think I would have treasured it even more, had I known it would be my last one, or leastways, last for a long time.

There were times then that long after I had tucked you in and kissed you goodnight, that I would get up to check on you and find you in the garden. You gave me quite a turn the first time you did that and I couldn’t find you and I searched all over, until I found you standing in the garden. I was that near to panic by then and already crying, but there you were, standing in the moonlight, staring up at the stars. You were that beautiful, my love, more than I had ever seen you I think, like you were made of nothing but moon and starlight yourself. It took my breath away, it did, each night I saw you like that and I would cry more just from the sheer joy and beauty of that sight. I could have watched you all night. Times like that, I knew you were even more Elven than hobbit, but still the same one I had loved near all my life. I think it was that combination of the best of both worlds that saved you. You were sad but at peace or leastways accepting and at peace about the accepting. I know that don’t make sense. I didn’t know then what you were accepting, what we would all have to accept. That first time I found you, you turned when you saw me and wiped at my tears and told me you were sorry that you had caused me to fret and then you just held me for a long time and I held you and it seemed you were more all right then you had been for a long while, though sadness still filled you as much as cheer used to.

Sometimes I’d take your hand and guide you back to bed and sometimes you would come with no more pleading from me than a smile. Your hand would wrap around mine, so warm and there, as it had been so many, many times before and I’d tuck you back in and kiss your brow and tell you that I loved you and you would thank me and tell me the same. I watched you until you were back asleep, then a little bit more, then I’d leave again for my own bed. I think I would have stayed longer if I had known it was such a short amount of time I would be doing that. I thought I would be for the rest of my life. Other times, your hand would tighten around mine and you wouldn’t move, just stood there, watching the stars and I’d watch with you. Sometimes you would sing very softly and I would close my eyes and just listen to your lovely voice and feel your hand in mine. When you stopped, I would open my eyes and you would kiss my head in thanks and smile at me, ready then to go in. You were so lovely then, my dear, so very lovely. I treasured all those times. I think you were giving them to me as a parting gift, the only way you could think of without saying so, so I would have memories of peace and love amidst the grief. Merry and Pippin told me you gave similar gifts to them. What a blessing you have been to us, what a tremendous blessing.

Chapter Sixty-Nine: Hope

Translator’s Note: The queen provided the translation for the poem that appears here.

The trees grow tall beneath the sun,

In spring the world is fair.

In valleys green where rivers run,

I find no solace there.

The fields and mountains of this world,

They hold no peace for me.

I long to see the sails unfurled

And sail across the sea.

My time on earth is almost o’er,

My weary soul seeks rest.

I’ll soon depart this hither shore

And sail into the West.

Soon this world will lie behind,

The sea will lie before,

And peace and healing I hope to find

Upon that blissful shore.

You will come, won’t you, Sam? It will be far across the water and I know how you hate that, but I hope the love you have for me and I have for you, will give you the strength to board that ship and come to me. It is that hope that is giving me the strength to leave. I have to leave. If I have any hope of living, it is there in the West. I will build a home by the Sea so I can watch over that wide expanse and be the closest to you and Merry and Pippin and our beloved Shire. It will be a hobbit hole if such can be managed and as close to the shore as it can be made so it will be the first thing you see when you come and I the first person and you will feel right at home straightaway. I know you will be making great sacrifices to come, more than I am because you will be leaving behind so many children, but still I hope you will come. I will tell you that the way is open to you, so you will know you can come, but I will not beg you to do so, at least not with words. If I thought I could still what my heart will speak to you that you’ve always been able to hear, then I would do that too so your choice would be entirely free, but I know I will not be able to silence that voice. The decision will be yours, as it was mine, but if I didn’t have that hope of seeing you again, then I would not leave. It would be more than I could bear if I thought I would never see your cheerful, beautiful face again; your loving eyes; the kiss to my brow that you bless me with each night; the feel of your arms; and the soft sound of your voice and heart lulling me to sleep. I may be very old when we see each other next, but you will still tuck me in, won’t you?

I will treasure all of my memories of our love as we travel to the Havens and hold it all tight against my heart so none of it is ever lost. I hope I will be smiling at times for you so you can see that and it can perhap give your heart some ease, that even though we will soon be apart, you can remember how much joy and love I have for you and that you have given me all these many years. I don’t want you to have just tears and torment to remember. I hope that last night I can spend in your arms, tucked as always around your heart.

***

When we first came back home, Rose wondered why I had left you when things were still bad. I couldn’t answer and so went right back to you. I wish I hadn’t had to leave you as you sailed off either. The only way I could do that was that I knew you were going somewhere you could be happy and healed. I am that glad that the Lady spoke to me those nights on the way and tried to explain to me why you had to leave. You said that you had been too deeply hurt and she helped me understand how. I made sure I held you or your hand each of those nights, just so you’d know your Sam was still with you. I hope you have felt me hold you each night since then too when you have needed it or I have. I still wonder at times how you did it, how you were able to bear leaving. I stayed awake much of the night just so I could watch you, softly glowing in the moonlight, just like the Elves were. You could have been an Elven child among them, all wrapped up in your cloak and your face peeking out, so beautiful, so very, very beautiful. Your hand was warm in mine and our fingers were so entwined that it couldn’t be told which were yours and which were mine. When I couldn’t keep my eyes open a moment longer, I took you into my arms and settled down with you. You sought my heart and returned to your slumber, holding onto me. I kissed your head and slept myself.

I watch you still. It was that terrible in the beginning to jump out of bed when I heard your heart cry out and then realize that I couldn’t reach you. I still went to your bedroom even though I knew you weren’t there. I didn’t want Rose or Elanor to wake to hear my tears and there were many in the beginning and I shed most of them there. Then the Lady gave me her gift and I could see you but also tears that I couldn’t wipe no matter how much I wanted. I almost didn’t want to see you then but I watched and felt my heart break a little more that you were still so hurt. Rose would wipe my tears when I returned to bed and hold me and sing to me as I sang to you, until I could fall back asleep. I have not deserved such a double treasure of you two, but I have been so blessed and I couldn’t be happier. I continued to watch you and bit by bit the tears disappeared and your smile returned. I longed to touch that smile with my fingers and not just my heart. I will do that, my love, I will. I can’t wait.

Chapter Seventy: Home

Translator’s Note: This was the last page Frodo wrote, written on a separate page from the others.

When I started this, I wrote that our sheltered life in the Shire left us unprepared for the dangers outside, but Gandalf gave me a different view of it. He told me that we were prepared by that very innocence that I thought had left us defenseless. That our love for our family and land and the lack of the ambition to power or greed was great enough to overcome the darkness that could have overwhelmed us otherwise and left us uniquely qualified and prepared to face and defeat evil. It could not find easy purchase in any of us and it was the blessings that filled us that made us leave and do what we did. I can see that easily in you three, my dearest brothers and I couldn’t be prouder of you. I can see it little in myself for all I tried to do, I failed at the very end, while you three remained true. There is no taints to your achievements, no blight to your efforts. You deserve all the glory you have been given. So I will not destroy this for perhap others will find it and know how much I love you all.

Frodo Baggins, a Hobbit of the Shire

20 Halimath 1421

Samwise’s last entry:

Oh, dear, it was that hard just to stand there at the water and watch you and Mr. Bilbo and Mr. Gandalf and Lord Elrond and the Lady and so many other fair folk leave forever. I don’t know how I could have borne it if I didn’t have the hope you gave me that I would see you again. I know I would have still let you go because all I wanted for you was for you to heal and be happy again, but how we all wish, like you did, that it could have been done here, in the Shire, with us.

You kissed me and Merry and Pippin goodbye and for them, it would be the last time or so we thought at the time, but I know they’ve felt your love throughout the years and their brows have been blessed like mine has been.

All these years I have held the hope you gave me, tight against me, sheltered in my heart. It has helped me through much grief and many storms and now is coming the time that I can let it go because I won’t need it anymore. It will be fulfilled as now I can at last give into the tugging of the Sea on my heart and stand once more in your arms, see your face and smile, hear your laughter and your voice, feel your kiss and drown in all that love and light that is pouring from you.

I am going to need it all. Rose died yesternoon. I thought the world had darkened when you and so many of the Elves left, but it wasn’t so dark as it feels right now. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to try to understand how can it be so sunny out yet so black inside. You knew all too well how that could be. You spent days and weeks and months like that. I heard your voice last night and your tears and I felt your arms around me just as tight as they had been when my mum died and when my Gaffer passed and Merry and Pippin have told me how you held them when their parents passed. Last night was the first night in 62 years that I spent without my Rose, but I am that glad that I did not sleep alone.

It’s time to go. I have thanked the Lady every day for her wonderful gift, but I need to see you and touch you and not worry that you aren’t really there and I will be touching nothing. I have felt you plain as plain and heard you, and many a time, I’ve closed my eyes and just listened and felt, because then I could really believe you were there and if I opened my eyes I knew you weren’t, not a body I could hold, even if your face and voice were there. You could touch me but I couldn’t touch you. You could talk to me, and I could talk to you, but I don’t know if you ever truly heard me. I need more now.

I am going to spend the summer saying goodbye just like you did, to all things so dear, all the plants and flowers and meadows and stars. And all my children and grandchildren. They’ve known for years and years how much I’ve longed to see you again. You gave me such tremendously great gifts, my dear. They and Rose have kept me happy for all these years as you knew they would. Without them, I would left that day with you. Now at last I will be going to you. It’s not easy to live with half your heart missing. Either I have been without you or without Rose. I can’t live with both halves missing. I don’t think it’s going to be easy to leave all the bairns - oh, listen to me, Elanor is a gammer herself and yet I still call her a bairn! - but it’s been expected all this time and they know how very much I love them and always will. They have also always known how much I have loved you and still do and so much more than I did when you left. I don’t think I will be so much leaving home as you thought you were, but simply moving to a new one. You will be there, my dear love, equal in my heart to my Rose, and that will mean coming home, just as much as you and Rose and all the children made Bag End home for me.

Instead of watching the Lady’s phial grow dimmer and dimmer in your hand as you grew further and further apart for me, I will be seeing light coming closer and closer. I’ve dreamed of that and it’s been so beautiful that it has smote my heart. I’ve heard the gulls. I’ve smelled the air so like and so unlike the Shire. I’ve seen the stars and I cannot wait for the nights we will spend with you telling me the tales of them all and we will sleeping under them, wrapped up in each other’s arms or holding hands like we used as lads. I’ve felt the motion of the boat. I’ve seen and heard the water lapping against the shore. Did you dream of it before you left? There’s light everywhere, brighter than the brightest day here, and there on the shore I’ve seen you, a single small light, shining almost as bright, but still quite distinct from what surrounds it. I don’t think I’ll need the phial again, my dearest dear. I think you are going to be just as bright on your own and your love is going to be pouring out like sunshine and your presence, so real, is going to heal my broken heart as it has always done. And it won’t be the Lady’s magic anymore, but you yourself, plain as plain.

The Road goes ever on and on,

out from the door where it began.

How far ahead the Road has gone

and I must follow if I can.

Now at last with eager feet,

let for me a journey new begin.

Though oft I have passed them by,

the day has come when

I shall take the hidden paths

that run West of the Moon,

East of the Sun.

I’m coming, my dearest. I’m coming.