Several nights after Frodo and Sam had woken from their long sleep, Sam cried out in his sleep for his master, who lay curled next to him and woke to see Sam’s arms blindly searching for him. The Ring-bearer ducked under them so his beloved guardian could find him. The younger hobbit’s arms reached around him tightly. Frodo placed his head where he had other nights during their long journey, where he could hear his Sam’s heartbeat, and encircled his arms around him. He thought perhap his brother-in-heart had settled back to sleep, but then felt his curls being stroked.

“What did you dream about, Sam?” Frodo asked quietly, then held his breath, fearful of the answer.

Sam didn’t say anything for a long time, just continued slowly stroking. The elder hobbit closed his eyes and just let himself feel that loving touch.

“I dreamt I lost you, that you had gone where I couldn’t follow,” Sam said finally and Frodo heard tears in his voice. “Just like Weathertop and those terrible nights in Rivendell when we didn’t know whether you’d live or not and...”

“The spider’s lair and the Tower,” Frodo continued for him when he trailed off, either unable to speak anymore or fearful of saying too much. “And the Fire.”

The Ring-bearer held his beloved guardian even tighter as he realized anew how much Sam had endured for him all these months and how badly shaken he must have been, though he hadn’t shown it. He only kept on loving. Frodo kissed his forehead softly.

“Oh, Sam, oh my beautiful, loyal, loving Sam. I’m so sorry, I’m so very sorry.”

“Naught for you to be sorry for, me dear,” Sam said, continuing to stroke. “’Twasn’t your fault you disappeared those times, not even that last time.”

Frodo lay still for a while longer, feeling his Sam’s gentle strokes, then he looked up at him, into those eyes that had always been a bottomless ocean of love for him. As much as he felt that he had fallen into another bottomless pit during the Quest, Sam was still there with him. Frodo wiped at his brother’s tears and found a new strength and determination well up inside him. “Oh, my Sam, I promise you, I will never go where you can’t follow me.”

Sam looked at Frodo and smiled. The elder hobbit returned it, then Sam kissed his master’s head and they settled back down, still wrapped in each other’s arms, but not so tight now. Frodo fell asleep, listening to that heart that had so sustained him all the past months and years and he knew always would.

Frodo woke later in the night and just looked at Sam and thought of all the sacrifices he had made to keep him safe, to always be there at his side, to always let him know how much he loved me. The elder hobbit frowned because even in sleep he saw the strain on Sam’s features that he hadn’t before, the cost of all those efforts. I promise you, my Sam, that I won’t do anything to cause more fret or fear. Frodo was already afraid he would not be able to keep that promise, though he was determined to keep the one he had made earlier. He kissed his beloved guardian’s head. “I love you, my Sam,” he said softly. “Thank you.” Then he settled back against Sam’s heart.

* * *

Oh, my Sam, I promise you, I will never go where you can’t follow me.

Sam had never known his master to break a promise before. But watching him now leave, without him, sailing further and further away and feeling his own heart break more and more, he felt more bereft than he ever had. His heart had broken along with his beloved master’s when even returning home could not cure him of the melancholy that had taken hold. He watched now as first Frodo’s face had disappeared, then the light of the Lady’s starglass. He stared long into the night after that, wishing he could store that last kiss forever away safely where it would be forever fresh, for it was the last thing he had, save the sad, loving look Frodo had given all three of his brothers-in-heart. Over the sound of the Sea that Sam knew he would always hear now and alternately hate and love, he heard his master’s voice, Your time may come, and he clung to those words desperately for it was the only way he could think that his master’s promise could still be true.

There were so many, many things that reminded Sam of his master’s absence in the beginning. He would not make his Frodo a mushroom omelette each morning or spread his strawberry jam or add just the right amount of honey to his tea and be rewarded with a dazzling smile or at least a thankful one which in the latter days was all Frodo could muster. There were no be more looking up during a hot day in the garden to see him approach with a tall cold glass of lemon water and a bright smile and loving eyes as he had for decades of such afternoons. There would be no more hearing his lyrical voice reading tales as Sam worked. There would be no more walks hand-in-hand in the meadows, no more picnics and naps against Frodo’s favorite tree. There would be no dinner just the two of them or then the three of them with Rose became Sam’s wife. How many times Sam had started to set out his master’s plate and tea mug. How many times he had to put them back. The first night he had automatically made a mug of chamomile tea and then realized he didn’t have to. There were more tears than water in the mug then and he had drunk it himself.

It was during the night that he felt closest to his absent treasure, when he stood out in the garden and looked at the stars and wondered which ones Frodo was looking up at. It was during the night that the pain was sometimes the worst. The days were occupied with children and gardening and being Mayor, giving him enough distraction that he wasn’t always looking for his master to come out to him with that water. Rose did that now and Sam had no regrets about that. It was not Frodo that read to him while he planted the new roses, marigolds, daisies and elanor, but Frodo-lad and Sam did not regret that for a moment neither. It was not outside of his master’s bedroom window that the morning glories now were put, but outside of the same one now shared by Merry-lad and Pippin-lad. But still Sam wished his heart’s brother had been able to see all that himself and been a proper uncle to all the lads and lasses that all his sacrifices had made possible.

For a long time, Sam had still looked in on his master’s bedroom after he had left, but the bed remained empty for long years, the beloved presence gone. Until his sons took up residence there, only books and papers, and a walking stick in the corner were signs it had been occupied. The clothes had been given away to needy hobbits as Frodo had wished in his will. But Sam, though he berated himself for being selfish, could not give up the Elven cloak that the Lady herself had woven for his master, replacing the one that he had lost in Mordor. There were too many memories wrapped up in that cloak - good and bad. At first it caused him to cry as his fingers rubbed the fabric and he remembered all the nights he had watched his treasure wrapped up in that cloak and seen the soft light shine from him. Then the same memories caused him to smile. Rose never said anything but smiled herself when at times she would catch her husband absently stroking the cloak, lost to the world around him, but at peace.

For some weeks after Frodo had left, Sam still woke in the night, thinking - or hoping - he had heard something. Each night since he and Rosie had moved in, he and Frodo had wished each other good night with an embrace, kiss to the brow or cheek and a soft ‘I love you.’ Frodo always had a smile for his Sam, sometimes only a very tired, sad one, but still one full of love and Sam’s loving return smile would ease his pain for a moment. After Sam left and closed the door most of the way, but never all of the way, in case Frodo needed him during the night, the Ring-bearer would lay in bed and weep silently for all the memories and joys he knew Sam would have that he would never share in until Sam came to him in the West. If those tears hadn’t dried by the time Sam got up to check on his master, they would be gently wiped away and a soft kiss placed on his brow. Frodo usually did not wake again. Sam would watch him, bathed in moonlight, tucked into those cream-colored sheets and his features so soft and beautiful, and let that soak into him. The times Frodo did wake, they never spoke, just looked each other, and Frodo let his Sam know in many silent ways how grateful he was of such love and care.

It was long before Sam stopped himself from making his nocturnal visits to Frodo’s room even after his master left. Sometimes Rose found him at times curled up in that bed, a pillow clutched to his chest since he could no longer hold his treasure. It comforted him greatly when Merry and Pippin-lad had moved into those rooms and Sam could rise and look upon an occupied room again.

After a while though, he stopped counting the absences and started counting the many, many ways Frodo was still present to him. Each time he saw the bright faces and smiles of his children and his Rose. Each time he heard their laughter or their wonder at sunsets or fireflies or waterbugs or rainbows. Each time they frolicked in the meadows or acted out scenes from the Red Book and arguing who was going to play him. There were always arguments also who was going to play Uncle Frodo, but Frodo-lad always won those, because hadn’t he been named after him? Sam had a smile each time he heard that and a soft ‘thank you’ said to the wind or just in his heart. There his Frodo still was, tucked inside as he always had been and always would be. When the pain got a little less, Sam was himself able to read from the Red Book and hear his beloved master’s voice was more and it was not always painful anymore.

* * *

Oh, my Sam, I promise you, I will never go where you can’t follow me.

Sam looked back at Elanor as she waved her last farewell to her father. Fastred stood on the stoop with her, his arm around her shoulders. Tears were in all their eyes for this would be the last time they would see each other. But all her life, Elanor had known this day would come, she knew how her father had longed for it and how she herself had longed for it in her own way for him. She had no memory of her own of her ‘Uncle Frodo’ who had named her and held her and loved her, but she had the many that her father had shared so Frodo Baggins had been as much a part of her life as her brother Frodo Gardener was. It was the former now that her father was going to see and part of her wished she was going along, but she knew that was not her place to do so. Her father and her uncle had done many great deeds and now Sam was receiving his last reward for that. Elanor grieved and celebrated, wept and smiled for that. Sam waved once more, blew a last kiss to them both, then turned down the path.

It was down the Road that he traveled now, the one he had often seen in his dreams, the one in which he stood at one part of it and could see far ahead of him the back of the another figure who he had so long loved and so long ago been parted from. They were walking down the same Road and Sam had long the consolation of knowing that, of knowing that his beloved master had not broken his promise, that Sam would always be able to follow wherever he went.

* * *

Oh, my Sam, I promise you, I will never go where you can’t follow me.

The dawn was the most glorious one Frodo had ever seen in the West, and there had many, many other ones he had seen in the bright land he had called home for over sixty years. And now it would truly be that in a way it had never been before. His Sam was coming today and the world was ever brighter because of that. Now this land really would be home.

The ship appeared first to be just a gleam on the horizon of Frodo’s sight, still keen even after more than a century of life, and in his heart, he saw a small, beloved form peering over the rail, held, no doubt, as he had been held, by one of the Elves so he could see everything. His heart seized with joy and anticipation and he murmured, “Oh, my Sam, my Sam, my Sam, my beautiful, loyal, loving Sam.”

Memories poured through Frodo of his first sight of the bright land and wondered what Sam was feeling. He hoped it would be happier ‘homecoming’ than his had been, when tears and torment had still been so much a part of his life that he wondered if he would ever be healed; when he was missing his brothers so much, he thought he would die from the agony of not only the loss of his self, but those who shared his heart and soul and kept those shattered pieces within his body. He was whole again and new and he anxiously hopped from foot to foot awaiting his first opportunity to show his Sam that he was healed. He knew also that Sam would be bringing his own pain with him, the heartbreak of the loss of Rose, which Frodo had felt even in the West and wished, if it was at all possible, to soothe with his own arms, love, words and kisses as Sam had so often provided him comfort.

It seemed an eternity before his physical eyes could see what the eyes of his heart had been feasting on for hours...and dreamed of for days, weeks, months, years. How many times he had dreamed of this and now it was coming true!

Sam squinted into the bright light, trying to see ahead of him. His eyes weren’t as strong anymore, being as he was 102, but he was not blind. He thought though even if he was, he would still be able to see the brightest light standing on the shore in front of him. His heart leapt in his breast and he thought it would burst wide open from the overwhelming love that was in it. “Oh, my Frodo, my beautiful, beautiful Frodo,” he murmured in awe and wonder and joy. He squirmed in the arms of Lord Celeborn who held him so he could see over the railing.

“Patience, Panthael,” the Elf said. “Enjoy the view.”

“Yes, Lord Celeborn, that I am,” Sam assured and the Elf smiled, for he knew with absolute certainty that there was only a very, very small part of the view that his hobbit friend was focused on, just as he was aware that Frodo did not see the ship but only the small being perched in front.

Then the ship come into the dock and Sam squirmed even more and Celeborn let him down. The hobbit bowed quickly but deeply in thanks, then ran as fast as his feet could carry him, leaping off the ramp before it had even fully extended to the dock.

And then as he fell into arms and heard laughter in his ears and his name joyfully and softly spoken over and over and his face touched with many kisses and his eyes filled with such beauty as he had not felt or heard or seen with his physical senses for over sixty years, he knew that his master had kept his promise.

It was with a very full heart that he held his master tightly again as they slept that first night of many nights. And he knew his Rose was happy for him.

* * *

Oh, my Sam, I promise you, I will never go where you can’t follow me.

The last day that Frodo and Sam spent in the West was a peaceful one and with the same joy, that was at the same time quiet but also ready to burst out, that had accompanied all their days. Frodo held Sam’s hand as they walked along the water’s edge and a soft smile was on his face for the years they had spent together in this wondrous land. Neither had ever tired of the feel of the other’s hand in theirs; or the smile of welcome they gave one another at the dawn of each new day after a night spent sheltered in each other’s arms, wrapped in love and light and joy; of the love that poured from words, looks, touches, kisses and smiles as it had for years before and they realized had never stopped even in the time they had been physically apart.

Their last night was spent as their first night had been, out on the beach, the closet to Middle-earth and the Shire. They settled down on the warm sand and Frodo set his head against Sam’s heart as he had for so many nights before and together, with their friends surrounding them like a circle of bright candles, they awaited to accept the Gift.

“I love you, my Sam,” Frodo said. “Forever have I been yours.”

“I love you, my Frodo,” Sam said with a kiss to his beloved treasure’s head. “Forever have I been yours.”

Gandalf smiled softly. After speaking fluent Quenya for so long, it seemed appropriate for his beloved hobbits to speak in their native tongue for their last words. How he was going to miss them!

As Frodo’s last breath escaped as a sigh, Sam felt his own heart hitch and his eyes peacefully closed. He knew anew what he had always known. There was nowhere that his Frodo would go that he couldn’t or wouldn’t follow.

Those who remained behind watched as two lights, brighter than the stars, rose up in the night sky as two hobbits accepted the Gift given to them and the One Who had made them accepted the gift they gave Him.