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GamgeeFest's Keepsakes by GamgeeFest	10 Review(s)
Althea	Reviewed Chapter: 26 on 8/14/2007
I just feel like crying for Sam. I want to cry for Frodo too, but in this story my heart breaks for Sam. Author Reply: It couldn't have been easy for Sam to stand back and watch his friend suffer and wither away. He would want to keep on helping him in any way he could, and when he realized that he simply couldn't, it truly must have broken his heart.

Larner	Reviewed Chapter: 26 on 8/7/2007
Of course neither is a failure; but it's hard to believe differently as one watches one so well-beloved fail in spite of himself and all done for his comfort. I'd written another, more eloquent response, but Hughes ate it as it's been doing again. I am coming to detest my ISP more and more by the day. Author Reply: Neither is a failure, and both will, with time, come to understand and accept that. Not knowing what else to do, and believing that ignoring the problem was the best way to forget it, Sam just did what he has always done - and for once that wasn't enough. I hate it when the computer eats my posts. I'm in the habit now to copy and save anything I don't want to retype - just in case.

cookiefleck	Reviewed Chapter: 26 on 8/6/2007
Really enjoyed this. Heartbreaking to read Sam's thoughts as you envisioned them. Author Reply: Sam loves his master dearly and he can't stand to see him suffer, yet he's lost as to what to do to help. It was bound to wear on him, stout-hearted though he was. Thanks for reading!

Queen Galadriel	Reviewed Chapter: 26 on 8/6/2007
cries Oh, my word, that is the most touching Frodo-Sam ficlet I've read in a long time, GF. Oh, man, it's heartbreaking! I know why he keeps them a secret, these days that are so bleak for him. You see, I’m the one who helped him across Mordor, even carried him up the volcano some. I kept him alive in that black land when everything around us would see him dead, including himself. Somehow we survived and escaped, and if I thought my job done, I was wrong. I see that now. I brought him home to the Shire, expecting him to be safe as a kitten at his mother’s teat, but that isn’t what happened. Standing here on this peaceful spring night, looking down at the too-slim form of my master, it’s plain for all to see that’s he suffering here, drowning on dry land and there’s naught I can do to stop it. I kept him alive only to fail him in the end. And that’s the awful truth. It’s not anything either of us want to talk about. So when he finally shakes himself from his stupor and says everything’s all right, I agree with him and get him his tea and build up the fire while he pulls out the inkwell, dips a quill and starts dabbling nonsense on that blank page. It’s a sort of dance we’ve developed over the months since I moved here with Rose and every day we get a little better at performing it. Maybe if we get good enough, the memories won’t haunt him quite so much and he’ll start getting better. Maybe then, I won’t be such a failure. It’s a fool’s hope, but it’s the only one I have. I don't have the words; I can't seem to make my fingers do what I want them to anyway after I read something like this. Poor dear Sam! And as usual your portrayal is among the best. God bless, Galadriel Author Reply: Thank you Queeny! I'm so touched that you were moved so much by this! It's an idea that's been slowly forming in my head for quite a while now. When I sat down, with an entirely different story in mind, this came out instead. I simply couldn't understand, when I first read LOTR, how Sam could seem so blind to his master's suffering. I was even quite angry with him. I see now that we, the readers, have the benefit of hindsight and the knowledge of psychology. We know what anniversary illnesses and PTSD are, but there's simply no way the hobbits could have. Also, this part of the story is still largely being told from Frodo's POV, and Frodo didn't want to believe that Sam noticed his suffering. It was easier for Frodo to bear it alone and think his friend unaffected by it - or so he believed. Once I realized that, it was much easier to figure out a story-internal explanation for Sam's seeming forgetfulness.

Periantari	Reviewed Chapter: 26 on 8/5/2007
Thanks for remembering dear! I am still in China but SoA works here FORTUNATELY and i love this heart-wrenching ficlet. I love it a lot... it's so sad that Sam couldn't be the one to really ease Frodo of his suffering and to see him like that day by day is quite sad.. this was so delicately written i enjoyed reading it a lot. So poignant. :( :( Thanks so much for this ficlet dear! (now i gotta make my mathom better fro you ;) ♥ :hugsyou: Author Reply:* You're welcome, dear! hugs you I'm glad your neck of the woods isn't completely without internet. I wanted to write something cute and fluffy, and I even had the perfect little story in mind when I sat down at the computer, but this came out instead. It's been on the back burner for quite some time now, I guess it finally decided it was done. :D There would have been good days and bad days, just as any other terminal illness. The bad days would have been difficult for both of them, for many reasons, but I do think guilt would have factored into it a great deal. Sam has always been able 'to do' for his master and had even performed with 'perfect satisfaction' during the darkest days of the Quest. Now they're home, where everything should be fine and normal again, and he can't seem to do anything to ease his master at all. Confusion, frustration, anger and yes, guilt, would have niggled at Sam a great deal during such days, but after some years pass and he's able to get some perspective on it all, he'll realize that there was very little more he could have done. Thanks for reading, dear! I'm glad you enjoyed your mathom! :D

RenaissanceGrrl	Reviewed Chapter: 26 on 8/5/2007
Deliciously angsty. Author Reply: :D Thanks!

Antane	Reviewed Chapter: 26 on 8/5/2007
Oh, Sam, dear Sam. It was St. Teresa of Lisieux, the Little Flower, who said there is no greater suffering on earth than to watch a loved one suffer and be helpless to stop it. And I know you knew that suffering well. It was instead a foolish hope that your treasured brother thought he could hide anything from you. Thank you for being there for him. I love you for that, for being you. You did so much, just doing that. You are not a failure anymore than he thought he was. hugs you both Namarie, God bless, Antane :) Author Reply: Sam did indeed help to keep Frodo longer in the Shire than he otherwise would have been able to stay. His efforts weren't all in vain, and he will with time realize that there was little more he could have done. Just as Frodo will with time learn that he was not a failure. Thanks for reading!

Larner	Reviewed Chapter: 26 on 8/5/2007
Oh, such a true description of the two different sides to dealing with PTSD! Poor Frodo, and poor Sam, both trying their best to see all put right, while Frodo cannot do so within Middle Earth. Author Reply: Sam has always been the one to serve, to help, to anticipate his master's needs and meet them before he's asked, the giver of himself and his life to those around him. Now, it's no longer enough and this had to have stung. He would realize and accept the truth in time, but for now, they're both two rather miserable hobbits.

Grey Wonderer	Reviewed Chapter: 26 on 8/5/2007
That was such an interesting look into Sam's mind. I do think he would have felt that he'd failed though nothing could have been further from the truth. I enjoyed this very much. Author Reply: I've been mulling this over for a while - how Sam could possibly forget during Frodo's illnesses. It's taken me a while to piece it all out, but it's clear to me now: Sam just didn't know about anniversary illnesses. None of the hobbits would have been expecting any such thing, it would be completely unprecidented. Yet Sam would have noticed Frodo acting more drawn in and quiet than usual and would naturally have been concerned. But having learned from months of watching his master struggle to regain a foothold in the Shire, he wouldn't have spoken, knowing it would do little good. So he just does what he always does - offer tea, get food, fuss over him, bank the fire - and hope that it was enough. When he could see that it wasn't enough, he was at a loss of what to do and guilt wouldn't have been too far behind. He had protected his master during the Quest, got him through Mordor, only to watch him sink into despair upon returning home. Deep down, he knew it wasn't his fault but he just couldn't convince his heart of that. Thanks for reading! :)

Dreamflower	Reviewed Chapter: 26 on 8/5/2007
He thinks I don’t see it, but I do. You don’t save a soul one day and forget how it suffered the next. So Sam goes along with Frodo's saying there's nothing wrong, because he hopes that it will thereby become true over time... And that, of course, is the story-internal explanation of why Sam, so devoted to Frodo throughout all the darkness of the Quest, seemingly forgets about it on his friend's dark days when they return: He has not truly forgotten, he is only going along with Frodo's own pretense of forgetfulness, for he doesn't know what else to do to help. We are getting Frodo's memories in the Red Book, and they are filtered through his denial. And story-externally, I think JRRT simply could not bear to deal with it himself--it struck too close to home, and his own memories of the foxholes of WWI. Author Reply: I don't see how Sam could have missed Frodo's 'dark days', living in the same smial as him, but he would not have equated these with the anniversaries of Frodo's stabbing on Weathertop and stinging by Shelob. Anniversary illnesses would have been a rather foreign concept to them, completely unheard of, so it's not something Sam would have been looking for. But he would certainly have noticed Frodo being more quiet than usual, more drawn in on himself than was typical. Sam would have thought of it as more of the same that he's seen before, just more intense on that particular day(s) for whatever reason, and been just as much at a loss of how to handle it as he was on any other day that Frodo was 'under the weather'. And Frodo, dear Frodo, fooled himself into believing that Sam didn't notice, to both avoid having to have the conversation of him leaving until the last moment, and to avoid having to verbalize his own sense of guilt. It's a shame really - a good bit of venting on both sides would have done them a world of good.

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