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.