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?