Chapter 1: Strength of the Small

Frodo felt there was something not quite right as he walked toward Bag End as dusk was falling. The anxiety in him had been growing all day. He had finally told Sam he was going for a walk. His faithful guardian had taken one look at him and left his work in the garden half-finished to follow him, but even that company and walking to near exhaustion had not eased the nervousness he could not explain to himself, let alone to Sam. He left Sam to finish in the garden as the sun was near to setting, then entered his home. He was surprised and, he realized, relieved to see Gandalf sitting in the shadows, smoking his pipe and staring directly at him.

“You felt it, haven’t you?” the wizard asked.

A chill of nervousness, almost fear, skittered down Frodo’s spine, replacing his initial pleasure at seeing his dear friend. “Yes,” he said slowly. “What is it?”

“Feel your shoulder. Do you feel any pain, any scar? Look at your finger.”

Frodo pulled his maimed hand from his pocket and was stunned to see the finger which had been bitten off by an enraged Gollum was whole again. He felt under his shirt where the Morgul blade had bit deep into him and felt only smooth skin and none of the dull ache that had never left him even after he had been healed. He looked up at Gandalf.

“It hasn’t happened yet, it may never happen and it’s already happened,” the wizard said. “The board has been re-set. The pieces are back in motion.” Then almost to himself, he added softly, “And above all, the Eye is watching. Waiting.”

Frodo’s eyes widened. “But Sauron was defeated; he was destroyed,” he said, in an echo of the fear he had spoken of before the Quest the first time. “I don’t understand.”

The wizard looked at his dear friend with deep compassion. He desired like he had never desired anything before in the long millennia of his existence that he could give the reassurance Frodo sought. He grieved like nothing else that he could not. He could see in the deep shadows of the room, the light that surrounded and penetrated Frodo, growing stronger even now, leaving him ever more beautiful for eyes and hearts that could see that deeply. The Ring had been a terrible burden, but not all the ways that experience had changed Frodo were evil. The One he had accepted the burden from had seen to that.

“Neither do I,” he said. “Time has somehow double backed on itself. Bilbo has the Ring again. I saw him fingering it only just this morning. He seemed inordinately pleased to have it back again,” he finished in a somewhat irritated tone.

Frodo looked stunned. All the emotions he had felt the day of the coronation passed through him again. Strongest was the terrible, shameful joy and hope that surged in him that the Ring could be his again. And the horrible despair and knowledge that he would have to go back to the fire to destroy it, destroy something that had become part of himself, much as he was loathe to have it so.

Gandalf gave him a grave look, seeing the tortured desire in his friend’s eyes, the mark it had made on his soul. “It must be destroyed, Frodo,” he said.

Frodo looked away, ashamed to know that Gandalf had seen all he held in his soul. “I know,” he said very softly. He sank down into a chair, feeling suddenly overwhelmingly tired, as though the Ring was already on its chain around his neck. There was a long pause, but the wizard waited patiently as he knew his friend had more to say. “I was glad when I felt it again in my mind. Glad.” Gandalf’s heart nearly broke to hear all the shame and self-loathing in that small voice. Frodo looked up at his friend. “Isn’t that horrible? How could you possibly trust me with this task?”

Anyone who cared to look into Frodo’s luminous eyes had always been able to look straight into his soul. The pain the wizard saw there now was almost too much to fathom and his heart broke a little more. But he smiled warmly at his beloved friend. “There’s no one else we trust more, Frodo. You fought an increasing desire for it the first time, too, but that did not hinder you from your determination to destroy it. Once again, the strength and courage of the most unlikely of heroes must be tested and it may well be found again that the littlest of creatures can do the greatest of things.”

Frodo looked away again. “I wish I had your confidence. I failed the first time. It was only Smeagol’s enslavement to the Ring that destroyed it. And only Sam who saved me after I had become a slave as well. I don’t want to betray him again. I don’t want Smeagol thinking I betrayed him. I don’t want to betray myself and all I know to be good and true.”

“If you have trouble believing in yourself, ask Sam. He will be with you again. And I will be as far as I can, to the very Cracks of Doom if I can manage it. We all will.”

Frodo looked up at the wizard. “Will I lose you again?”

Gandalf saw the fear and pain in his dear friend’s eyes and hoped to soften it. We can ask no more of Frodo, he remembered saying to Elrond. But we must, he thought. May he have the grace to withstand a second test. He stood and put his hands on Frodo’s shoulders. “Perhaps you won’t, but if you do, I hope it will be my own choice as it was before and for the same reasons. I can’t tell you. I don’t know. Whether we will do the same things the same way this time, even with our foreknowledge or whether we can use that knowledge to change events, I cannot say. I only know that we must walk this path again.”

“But it was so hard,” Frodo said. “I became so weak. I failed so many times and I failed at the end. What makes you think I can succeed this time when I made so many mistakes last time? I would think anyone would be better than me, but I would not wish it on anyone else.”

Gandalf knelt and placed his hands on his friend’s shoulders. He waited until Frodo looked back at him, then he smiled again, looking at his tormented friend with great compassion and understanding.“My dear Frodo, nothing has grieved me more to have hurt so badly, but don’t think you are unique in that, that you have some terrible weakness or failing that no one has. The Ring corrupts everyone it touches. You actually held out very well against it for a long time, far longer than any of the rest of us could have. I knew the strength and resilience of hobbits better than anyone, but you surprised even me. I’m sure you surprised yourself as well. Don’t consider the fact that you could not endure at the end a personal failure. No one could have withstood the power of the Ring then and any one else would have fallen to its lure long before. You can do this, Frodo, but you must believe that you can. No one can go through life without falling occasionally. The thing you must do is to rise after each fall. You have done that and you can continue to do that.”

Frodo sighed heavily. “I don’t know. So much has changed.”

“And yet, nothing has. Sam saw how much the Ring changed you, against your will, but his feelings for you did not. Instead of feeling betrayed, he’s afraid he failed you.”

Frodo looked up sharply in surprise. “He didn’t fail me. I failed him. He saved me even though I had turned against him time and time again. He was always there for me, but I know I hurt him badly. How can I put him through that again?”

Gandalf smiled. “He’d willingly endure it if it meant you’d be saved. He loves you, Frodo.”

“And I love him, too, far too much to let all this happen to him again. But I can’t do it alone.”

“Then you’re lucky that he loves you far too much to let you. He won’t leave you.”

“I know. He nearly drowned trying to reach me the first time I tried to. I owe him everything, but I have rewarded such loyalty and love with betrayal and abandonment.”

“And yet he kept giving you all he had,” Gandalf reminded gently.

“Yes. I don’t deserve it.”

“It is still his to give just as you have given your love back to him and your trust and love to Smeagol and all those you care about.”

“Smeagol,” Frodo echoed softly. “If I must do this again, I would like to save him this time. I couldn’t last time.”

Gandalf almost smiled. “Perhaps you can. If he’ll let you. He chose not to last time. If he makes the same choice this time, that will be his failure, not yours.” He paused a moment to let Frodo think about that. “But one person that must fail again is Sauron. We can’t let him win this time any more than we could the last. He knows a halfling destroyed the Ring last time. He will not easily suffer it to be lost again. It won’t take him long to guess where it is. And he may not need to torture Smeagol this time to know for sure.”

“I’m glad,” Frodo said quietly.

“It also means you will be in much greater danger this time.”

Frodo sighed. “And I would be leading Sam right into it. Does he know that? Do anyone of them?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen any of them yet besides Bilbo. If the others know, I think they’d be frightened and confused like you, but those would be the least of their feelings. They would know, like you, what must be done and having already gone through the fire and being found worthy, would be all the more determined to succeed again, to protect you and all else that is at stake.”

“But I was tested and found unworthy,” Frodo said.

The wizard looked into Frodo’s eyes, saw the tortured doubts and feelings of failure. He smiled. “My dear hobbit, you must stop defeating yourself like this. Learn to have patience with yourself. Never confuse your mistakes with your value. You are a perfectly valuable, creative, worthwhile person simply because you exist. And no amount of triumph or tribulations can ever change that. The rest of us already recognize that in you, but you must believe it yourself. The future is not determined by the past. The destination is the same, but the choices and decisions do not need to be. You were given strength enough to endure last time. You will be given strength enough this time.”

Frodo was silent for a long time. He looked around at his beloved home that he would now have to leave for the second time with no certainty of returning, only the hope of it, and without any of the blissful ignorance of the trails ahead. Those were burned into his soul, but perhaps, Gandalf thought, the pain of them would be eased in his determination not to fail again.

Frodo sighed heavily and looked up at his friend. “When do we leave?”

Gandalf smiled. He squeezed Frodo’s shoulder. “As soon as possible, but not tonight. Tonight, we have a birthday to celebrate, don’t we? I’ll join you and Bilbo, but first I’ve got to see that those rascals you call cousins are not getting into my fireworks again.”

The jest only provoked the faintest of smiles from Frodo. The door opened and Sam stuck his head in to fetch his master for the party. “Mr. Gandalf!” he said in surprise, then frowned as he wondered what that meant as he saw his master’s face even more grave than it had been on the walk.

“Sam,” the wizard said with a bow and a smile, then left.

The young gardener looked at his master.

“Sam, I have something to tell you,” Frodo said softly. “Have you felt recently that things are not quite right?”

Sam paused a moment in thought. “The marigolds that died last year are blooming again. The same ones. And the pansies that I dug up to plant some of the elanor are back. I don’t quite understand that and I’ve been gardening almost before I could walk. And the sign for Mr. Bilbo’s party tonight is all wrong. It’s not...”

Frodo held Sam’s arms to support him for the next words, or he wondered, if he himself was the one who needed the support. He looked at his best friend. “Yes, it is, Sam. Gandalf has told me what he thinks happened. He says time has somehow reversed itself. The Ring needs to be destroyed again.”

Sam’s eyes widened and Frodo’s grip on his friend’s arms tightened slightly. He was more certain this time it was for his own support. “I don’t know why or how. Not even Gandalf knows. But we are going to have to leave again. And I’m afraid, Sam, I’m so afraid. I’m afraid I’m going to hurt you again. What a terrible present I’ve given you. I’m so sorry.”

The torment in his master’s voice and eyes intensified until it nearly broke Sam’s heart. “I’ve kept dreaming about it, over and over again, like I wonder what I could have done differently to help you better. I’ve hated them, but now I think it’s a good thing.” He looked critically at his master. “I know you haven’t been sleeping all that well either. And don’t tell me you have been.”

Frodo’s face grew tender and he smiled. “My dear Sam, you have been my stoutest defender. Would you protect me even from my dreams?”

Sam reached up to grip his master’s hands. “If I could, I would,” he said solemnly.

“As I would protect you from yours,” Frodo said. “I’m sorry, Sam. You should have said something. We insomniacs could have kept each other company!”

Sam smiled at the attempted jest, but both knew the horrors that had kept them awake were too much to joke about.

Frodo sighed and turned away, looking out at the party field. “I wish that’s all it ever was, Sam, just a bad dream and we’d wake to be in our own beds, glad it was just a tale we heard, not something we were inside of. But there is no remedy to ease our fears.”

Sam turned his master and waited until Frodo looked up at him. “Yes, there is,” he said earnestly. “Of course there is. There is hope and courage and determination and will. There is light and love and all else good that makes life worth living.”

Frodo looked at his friend. “All the things that are wrapped up in you, dear Sam.”

Sam smiled. “And you.  I know you’re afraid and I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t, but maybe it won’t happen the same way,” he said. “It doesn’t matter though if it does. There is one thing that won’t change. My place is at your side, me dear. I will not leave it.”

Frodo was too moved to speak at first, then he smiled. He gripped his friend’s arms a little tighter then let go. “Thank you, Sam. You are the truest friend and protector I have had the honor to know.”

Sam blushed and looked down at his feet for a moment, embarrassed, then back up at his master. “No need to thank me for something I’d just be doing naturally.”

They looked at each other for a long moment, Frodo gathering strength from the love and compassion he saw in his friend’s eyes.

“Now let’s go enjoy some of those fireworks, shall we?” Sam said.

Frodo smiled back, if only weakly. He knew Sam was just as loathe to begin the journey over again, but also just as determined never to waver from his side. Frodo felt his burden lighten just from that thought. He was going to make it back to Mordor, and back to the Shire, and he was going to do it, once again, because of Sam.

But he couldn’t celebrate at the party. He couldn’t bear to think of losing Bilbo again or leaving his home or the myriad other terrors he’d soon be enduring again. He wandered through the joyous partygoers as though he were a ghost, catching himself several times looking for who he had been before, at the same party, happy, carefree, no dark shadows on his soul. He did not find him, though he did make eye contact several times with Merry and Pippin who looked very serious.

So they know, too, Frodo thought. Then he forced himself to think more cheerfully. Or maybe Gandalf threatened to turn them into something unnatural if they touched his fireworks.

A faint smile touched his lips at that. He caught sight of Bilbo and his smile widened. He thought of what Gandalf had said about making use of the time that was given. This time with his uncle was a gift unlooked for. He moved through the crowd and spent the rest of the evening with him. Maybe he could enjoy himself after all.

A/N: Gandalf’s quote about not confusing one’s mistakes with one’s value and that one has value simply by existing is from St. Francis de Sales.