Sophinisba Solis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophinisba) wrote2007-07-03 09:59 am
sophinisba) wrote2007-07-03 09:59 am
Entry tags:
Post-quest AU ch. 3
I'm sorry I've taken so long to update this, and that I still don't have a title for this series, and that the title for this chapter is the same as the title of the Faculty fic that I also haven't updated in too long.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Rating: PG for this chapter, R later on.
Main characters: Frodo and Rosie. (This chapter also features Gaffer Gamgee.)
Genre: Angst, post-quest Shire AU. Multiple pairings of male and female hobbits.
Summary: Frodo and Rosie each try to go on with their lives after losing Sam.
Warnings: Severe angst, character death. More detailed summary/warnings/pairings/spoilers here.
Frodo went to see Farmer Cotton, hoping he could help them rouse the Shire-hobbits for the fight.
"Rose," he said when she answered the door, "I need to speak to your father."
"You've come back."
Frodo feared she might faint.
"Yes, but we have more work to do right now," though he could have spared a few minutes to talk with her, if he'd had the words.
"Where's Sam?" she said, and wouldn't hear anything else. Her mother came to the door a few minutes later, called for her husband and led Rose away. He never gave her an answer.
Then after all those months of struggle and sacrifice, the women were left out of the final reckoning, hidden away in smials and cellars lest they be hurt. Rosie's father took her brothers and told Rosie and her mum not to come out until he came back for them himself.
Rosie held her mother in the dark and wondered how many months they'd be shut up, like the others in the Lockholes. Then suddenly it was over, and her dad pulled the trapdoor open, and the light poured down, and the Shire was free, and Frodo Baggins was a hero.
From the description Farmer Cotton had given him, Frodo expected New Homes outside Bywater to look something like the houses of Bree. "Not hobbit-like at all," he'd said, "all built up with straight walls and square doors and no comfort to be found outside or in." Frodo found now that he rather missed the order and care put into the buildings of Bree. The little houses here looked poor and ramshackle, the walls not so much straight as crooked, the roofs ready to fall in.
He stood outside the Gamgees' door for long minutes. There was no bell to ring and he knew he'd need to call out to get anyone's attention, but he felt he had no voice. There was a light on in one of the front windows and Frodo thought that, even if the building had been built with no love or happiness, the Gamgees would manage to make it warm on the inside. Then for a moment there was a young lady's face in the window, and a minute later the Gaffer opened the door, looking out cautiously.
"Ah, Mr. Frodo," he said with a smile of warmth and relief, "we've all been waiting so long for you to come back. Never knew what took you away so sudden like, and there were some folk said you'd gone and disappeared for good, but I always said, not the young Master, no sir. Probably he's got a job to do, and he'll take what time he needs to get it done. I never thought you was irresponsible as some liked to think. And I always taught my Sam to treat you with the respect you deserved. I hope he wasn't too much trouble to you on your journey. Didn't get you into no tight spots with his foolishness, did he, sir?"
Frodo thought he must be shaking, though he wasn't aware enough of his body to know for sure. He put out a hand and touched the wooden doorway, worried he might fall if he relied on his own legs to hold him.
"Steady there, Mr. Frodo." The Gaffer had a hand on Frodo's shoulder. And though he was old and lacked Sam's strength, he had that same quiet, courteous assurance in his touch. It made Frodo wanted to cry out, but still no sound would come. "Forgetting my manners, I was, making you stand out here in the doorway, and the weather as cold as it's been. Come into the kitchen then."
And he led Frodo inside, never letting go, never rushing his slow steps.
There was a light on in the kitchen and Sam's three sisters, Daisy, May, and Marigold, were seated around the table. They had been speaking in low tones but hushed when Frodo and the Gaffer entered the room.
"The Master and I have some talking to do, it seems," he announced.
The two older girls moved immediately to obey their father, and withdrew into a back room with eyes downcast, although they did shoot a few curious glances at Frodo. But Marigold stood in her place and gazed straight at him.
"We're happy to see you safe home again, sir," she said.
Frodo nodded and only then did Marigold leave, first nodding back in acknowledgment but standing straight and proud as she walked away. Frodo and the Gaffer sat down at the table.
"She's a tricky one," the Gaffer muttered. "Prouder'n Sam even, though she never spent so much time with the gentry as he came to do. But these past few months she's found herself a new station, you might say. People got to looking to her to know what to do, noticed how she never got scared, even around them ruffians. I s'pose that's how she's come to give herself such airs." There was disapproval there – in the words, certainly – but Frodo could tell from the old hobbit's voice that there was a grudging respect as well, that he loved her and was proud of her, as with all his children.
"She's lovely," Frodo murmured. He wondered if it might help, to start by speaking of something easy. But he could find nothing else to say even about young Marigold, who was healthy and beautiful as sunshine, even on a dreadful night like this one.
"She'd been away, you know," he continued. "Hiding away on some little farm near Whitwell, she tells us now, but we didn't have any idea. She's just come back this afternoon, not long after we had the news you and the others had come back. She says it was safest that way, her not telling us before she went."
"Was she gone for very long?"
"Near on a month. Not so long as some other hobbits were missing," nowhere near as long as they'd waited for Sam, "but it felt like a lot, with all the rumors going round, things that had happened to other hobbits' daughters and sons. Will you have some tea, sir?"
Frodo shook his head. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stay long. I'm… the Cottons have offered to let me stay with them."
"Till Bag End's repaired, sure, Tom Cotton told me. That's for the best, I think. You know we'd offer to put you up if we still had Number Three, humble as it was, or if we had a little more room in this place. But it wouldn't be no good for your health, you know, all the banging and whatnot that'll need to go on at the old place, or how cramped it would be here."
"Of course," Frodo agreed readily, although it bothered him that the Gaffer should assume so easily that Frodo was some sort of invalid. It felt like he should say something about having just traveled across Middle-earth and then led a successful battle. But then he remembered that he'd nearly collapsed on the doorstep a few minutes ago. "Of course," he repeated.
Frodo waited some more minutes for words to come, and the Gaffer waited patiently with him. Then finally, laying a hand on top of Frodo's on the table, he said quietly, "You've come to tell me why Sam didn't come back with you. Is that right?"
Frodo nodded, feeling useless. He'd come to explain, and he couldn't get out more than two words at a time. And the Gaffer seemed to know everything anyway.
"Your kinsmen," the Gaffer continued, "the ones who traveled with you, made some announcements after the fighting. Can't say I understood too much of it, plenty of foreign names and places, and you know I never took no fancy to those tales like young Samwise did."
"Yes, sir," said Frodo.
"But I took it to mean this wasn't the first battle you young hobbits had seen, as it was for me."
"It was Merry and Pippin who fought the battles, sir. Sam and I... we took a different path."
"Mr. Merry said though, that it was you were held as the greatest hero of all of it, as far as the folk in that country were concerned."
Frodo nodded, surprised. He hadn't known there'd been any such speech. "Sam and I were, yes."
"Was he killed in a battle then? One of them... Orcs, is it? Or one of them black chaps as came by looking for you round the time you left?"
Frodo shook his head, wanting to tell the father of how bravely his son slew the Orc in the tower, of how many times Sam had saved his life, yet unable to put the words to any of it. "No sir," he said finally. "He... he fell."
The Gaffer took a very slow, deep breath, and Frodo tried to copy him, feeling he might panic if he could not get out of this kitchen soon. Suddenly the Gaffer took his hand off Frodo's and stood, and again Frodo followed him, unsure of what was going on, unable to think much beyond his effort not to break down. Then the old hobbit was standing by his side and had his arms around him, as he'd never done in all the years Frodo had lived just up the Hill. And Frodo finally broke, sobbing into his shoulder. "I'm so very sorry," he gasped. "I wish..."
"We've all got our wishes," the Gaffer said. "We've all got the things we don't know how to say. You'll tell me another day. And you'll have time, as we'll be neighbors. I do hope you're planning to move back to Bag End when you can. And the girls and me'll be back at Number Three."
"It can't be like it was," said Frodo.
"No, it can't ever be."
Frodo felt like pulling away. There was something terribly wrong with being held and comforted by a hobbit who'd lost his son. But when Frodo tried to let go he found the Gaffer held him tighter, would not let him go, and Frodo was not the only one who was crying. Perhaps the Gaffer was imagining holding Sam in his arms, or perhaps he simply wanted to be strong and helpful, and it was not Frodo's place to refuse to be held. They stayed that way for a long time, and Frodo said, "Thank you."
Rosie stood outside in the street and the gathering darkness. It was odd to hear how easily sound carried through the thin walls. She thought of the secrets she and Mari had shared in the old kitchen on Bagshot Row. Thought of the kisses and more that she and Sam had shared in most of the rooms in that smial. Her mother had told her that eavesdropping was wrong, and so was gossip, but she'd gained plenty of useful information in recent months by standing and sitting and crouching outside windows.
She thought of the evening Sam had come to her after eavesdropping at Bag End. He'd been in an indescribable mood, at once elated and guilty, secretive and candid. He'd been willing to tell her right away that he'd listened to Frodo and Gandalf talking, that his Mr. Frodo was going away and Sam was to go with him. And Rosie shouldn't say anything about it to anyone just yet, but he trusted her with the news. He said he'd come back and see her often, and at that time she believed him, even though Crickhollow was much farther away than Hobbiton, and even though it was obvious there was something else, something enormous that he wasn't telling her.
She didn't feel guilty for listening now. She'd been sent, after all. And she needed to know, since Frodo wouldn't tell her himself, and no one else had bothered to find out for her.
She listened as long as there were words, and when it was only sobbing (and Rosie did not break down, for she'd done her crying back in March, and a good deal more after that, and right now she had other work to do) she decided she'd had enough. It seemed it was safe to be in the streets at night now, but she'd still rather not let it get any later.
And she didn't like to listen to a grown hobbit – or two of them – sobbing like that.
She walked around to the front of the little house and called out, "Marigold Gamgee," then waited. Waited, shifting on her feet and making enough noise that she wouldn't have to listen to the sounds from inside. It was the Gaffer who opened the door, and she could see he'd dried his face. She looked down, ashamed.
"Rosie-lass."
"Good evening, Gaffer Gamgee, I hope I'm not calling too late."
"I hadn't seen you since..." the night Ted caught her on her way home, for she'd not dared to come back to them, though the rumor would have made its way. "I'm glad to know you're well."
"The same," said Rosie. "I'm glad to see you on your feet again. I was sure you'd feel better as soon as Marigold came home."
"Will you come in? Did you want to see her?"
"Just for a moment, if it's all right. My father sent me to fetch Mr. Frodo, but I can't pass up the chance to see my Mari."
The Gaffer smiled and nodded, and Rosie strode through the kitchen, easily avoiding Frodo's gaze. He seemed to be doing his best not to be looked at as well, and Rosie didn't mind cooperating.
Marigold was dry-eyed as Rosie in the doorway to the bedroom (the only one, shared by the three girls, while their father slept in the sitting room) and Rosie said, "Don't you ever do that to me again," and kissed her cheek.
"I won't, my dear Rosie," said Marigold. "Things will be better now."
"It seems to me they couldn't get much worse."
Rosie heard the bitterness in her own voice, felt the eyes and ears of Marigold's sisters and their father and even Mr. Frodo, and knew she couldn't say what she wanted to. She wanted explanations, and at some point she'd want a good cry, at least one more, but not in front of all these other mourners. "It's late," she said, "and I promised I'd bring Mr. Frodo home. Will you come and see us tomorrow?"
"Of course I will," said Marigold. "Now go home and sleep. It'll do us all more than a little good."
Rosie nodded, squeezed Marigold's hands, looked her in the eye and said, "We'll talk soon."
"Yes."
And she turned around to face Frodo for the first time since she'd stared at him dumbly on her own doorstep the day before. "My father told me to come and bring you back to ours," she said. He thought you'd be tired after... After this day. We haven't got our pony back from the Shirriffs yet, but I can walk with you. It's not far, as you know."
And it was Frodo's turn to stare, it seemed. Rosie knew for herself how difficult it would be for him to speak, even to know what to do, so she reached out for his hand and pulled him to the door and out onto the street. She said farewell to the Gaffer for both of them, and then took his arm and started back through town, walking along the main streets this time.
Rosie looked straight ahead and kept her pace slow so as not to rush him. Even so he stumbled, and she caught him with both hands. "Here," she said quietly, "you can lean on me."
"Thank you, Rose."
She could feel that at first he simply let her hold him around the waist, and he put an arm around her shoulders, but he did his best to carry his own weight. But as they walked it became more difficult for him, and he let her support him more.
"I hate this," he said after a few minutes, as they were passing the abandoned Shirriff's post.
"What is it that you hate, sir?"
"Leaning on you." She tensed, but did not take her support away. "It's a short walk," he continued. "I ought to be able to make it on my own."
"We all take help from each other sometimes," said Rosie, remembering walking home arm in arm with Robin Smallburrow. "Times have been hard. Most folks around here figure the hard times are over now, but I think you and I know they've just begun."
"Yes."
"But I never thought you were so proud as to think you didn't need anyone else."
Frodo shook his head, sighed, kept walking. "You've got enough cares already," he said, "and so do the Gamgees. You shouldn't have to bear my burdens as well."
In her mind she agreed with him. But what was he even doing here, she wondered, if that was how he felt? Why not stay in that far-off country where he'd left Sam, where the people thought he was wonderful? Why come back, if he knew he'd only cause the people here more pain?
"Not much to be done about that now," she said, for herself as much as for him. "I hate this too, all of it. But I don't much see what else we can do but keep on walking, and try to hold each other up. When I told you to lean on me I meant it. I've not been called on to do too much work lately. I'm sad and I'm angry, but I'm not tired."
They were silent for a time then, and they walked, and Rosie noticed that, although it was later than it had been that other night, there was more light in the streets, and more light from the windows of her neighbors' homes, and even smiling faces, loud conversations and laughter drifting out into the street. She remembered the darkness and the silence when she'd needed their help, and suddenly and intensely she hated them all. She kept walking.
"Here's my father's house," she said, when at last it came into view. "You know that he's honored to have you stay here, don't you?"
"It is very kind of you all," Frodo said. "I knew coming home wouldn't be easy, but I hadn't imagined I wouldn't even have a home to go back to."
"You'll have your home again, sir. That's just a question of time."
"I'm not so sure."
And perhaps he was right. Rosie stepped through the door and thought again, my father's house, for somehow, ever since he'd sent her to the cellar, and more so since he'd invited Frodo to stay, it didn't feel like hers anymore.
"Well, at least there's a warm fire and a warm bed," she said. "We can rest awhile here."
The bed was warm and so was the chamomile tea Mrs. Cotton gave him. Frodo fell asleep easily in his exhaustion, but in his dreams he walked alone in the scorching heat, and when he stumbled no one was there to catch him. He was falling into fire and in his thirst he had no voice to cry out. He woke gasping before the end, and since he hadn't called for help he woke alone. He lay awake until the morning, when Merry and Pippin came to fetch him and together they rode out to Michel Delving and the Lockholes.
The morning was cold as November, but the sun was shining, and Marigold with her bright lovely eyes showed up at the door as soon as the Travellers had left. Since Rosie didn't have a room to herself now and it didn't seem proper going into Frodo's, the two of them went out in the field where they'd shared many a secret and a summer's day. It was too cold to sit down on the ground, so they kept walking in circles until Mari had told all she had to tell, and they'd both cried a few angry hot tears.
series tag | fic index
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Rating: PG for this chapter, R later on.
Main characters: Frodo and Rosie. (This chapter also features Gaffer Gamgee.)
Genre: Angst, post-quest Shire AU. Multiple pairings of male and female hobbits.
Summary: Frodo and Rosie each try to go on with their lives after losing Sam.
Warnings: Severe angst, character death. More detailed summary/warnings/pairings/spoilers here.
Frodo went to see Farmer Cotton, hoping he could help them rouse the Shire-hobbits for the fight.
"Rose," he said when she answered the door, "I need to speak to your father."
"You've come back."
Frodo feared she might faint.
"Yes, but we have more work to do right now," though he could have spared a few minutes to talk with her, if he'd had the words.
"Where's Sam?" she said, and wouldn't hear anything else. Her mother came to the door a few minutes later, called for her husband and led Rose away. He never gave her an answer.
Then after all those months of struggle and sacrifice, the women were left out of the final reckoning, hidden away in smials and cellars lest they be hurt. Rosie's father took her brothers and told Rosie and her mum not to come out until he came back for them himself.
Rosie held her mother in the dark and wondered how many months they'd be shut up, like the others in the Lockholes. Then suddenly it was over, and her dad pulled the trapdoor open, and the light poured down, and the Shire was free, and Frodo Baggins was a hero.
From the description Farmer Cotton had given him, Frodo expected New Homes outside Bywater to look something like the houses of Bree. "Not hobbit-like at all," he'd said, "all built up with straight walls and square doors and no comfort to be found outside or in." Frodo found now that he rather missed the order and care put into the buildings of Bree. The little houses here looked poor and ramshackle, the walls not so much straight as crooked, the roofs ready to fall in.
He stood outside the Gamgees' door for long minutes. There was no bell to ring and he knew he'd need to call out to get anyone's attention, but he felt he had no voice. There was a light on in one of the front windows and Frodo thought that, even if the building had been built with no love or happiness, the Gamgees would manage to make it warm on the inside. Then for a moment there was a young lady's face in the window, and a minute later the Gaffer opened the door, looking out cautiously.
"Ah, Mr. Frodo," he said with a smile of warmth and relief, "we've all been waiting so long for you to come back. Never knew what took you away so sudden like, and there were some folk said you'd gone and disappeared for good, but I always said, not the young Master, no sir. Probably he's got a job to do, and he'll take what time he needs to get it done. I never thought you was irresponsible as some liked to think. And I always taught my Sam to treat you with the respect you deserved. I hope he wasn't too much trouble to you on your journey. Didn't get you into no tight spots with his foolishness, did he, sir?"
Frodo thought he must be shaking, though he wasn't aware enough of his body to know for sure. He put out a hand and touched the wooden doorway, worried he might fall if he relied on his own legs to hold him.
"Steady there, Mr. Frodo." The Gaffer had a hand on Frodo's shoulder. And though he was old and lacked Sam's strength, he had that same quiet, courteous assurance in his touch. It made Frodo wanted to cry out, but still no sound would come. "Forgetting my manners, I was, making you stand out here in the doorway, and the weather as cold as it's been. Come into the kitchen then."
And he led Frodo inside, never letting go, never rushing his slow steps.
There was a light on in the kitchen and Sam's three sisters, Daisy, May, and Marigold, were seated around the table. They had been speaking in low tones but hushed when Frodo and the Gaffer entered the room.
"The Master and I have some talking to do, it seems," he announced.
The two older girls moved immediately to obey their father, and withdrew into a back room with eyes downcast, although they did shoot a few curious glances at Frodo. But Marigold stood in her place and gazed straight at him.
"We're happy to see you safe home again, sir," she said.
Frodo nodded and only then did Marigold leave, first nodding back in acknowledgment but standing straight and proud as she walked away. Frodo and the Gaffer sat down at the table.
"She's a tricky one," the Gaffer muttered. "Prouder'n Sam even, though she never spent so much time with the gentry as he came to do. But these past few months she's found herself a new station, you might say. People got to looking to her to know what to do, noticed how she never got scared, even around them ruffians. I s'pose that's how she's come to give herself such airs." There was disapproval there – in the words, certainly – but Frodo could tell from the old hobbit's voice that there was a grudging respect as well, that he loved her and was proud of her, as with all his children.
"She's lovely," Frodo murmured. He wondered if it might help, to start by speaking of something easy. But he could find nothing else to say even about young Marigold, who was healthy and beautiful as sunshine, even on a dreadful night like this one.
"She'd been away, you know," he continued. "Hiding away on some little farm near Whitwell, she tells us now, but we didn't have any idea. She's just come back this afternoon, not long after we had the news you and the others had come back. She says it was safest that way, her not telling us before she went."
"Was she gone for very long?"
"Near on a month. Not so long as some other hobbits were missing," nowhere near as long as they'd waited for Sam, "but it felt like a lot, with all the rumors going round, things that had happened to other hobbits' daughters and sons. Will you have some tea, sir?"
Frodo shook his head. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stay long. I'm… the Cottons have offered to let me stay with them."
"Till Bag End's repaired, sure, Tom Cotton told me. That's for the best, I think. You know we'd offer to put you up if we still had Number Three, humble as it was, or if we had a little more room in this place. But it wouldn't be no good for your health, you know, all the banging and whatnot that'll need to go on at the old place, or how cramped it would be here."
"Of course," Frodo agreed readily, although it bothered him that the Gaffer should assume so easily that Frodo was some sort of invalid. It felt like he should say something about having just traveled across Middle-earth and then led a successful battle. But then he remembered that he'd nearly collapsed on the doorstep a few minutes ago. "Of course," he repeated.
Frodo waited some more minutes for words to come, and the Gaffer waited patiently with him. Then finally, laying a hand on top of Frodo's on the table, he said quietly, "You've come to tell me why Sam didn't come back with you. Is that right?"
Frodo nodded, feeling useless. He'd come to explain, and he couldn't get out more than two words at a time. And the Gaffer seemed to know everything anyway.
"Your kinsmen," the Gaffer continued, "the ones who traveled with you, made some announcements after the fighting. Can't say I understood too much of it, plenty of foreign names and places, and you know I never took no fancy to those tales like young Samwise did."
"Yes, sir," said Frodo.
"But I took it to mean this wasn't the first battle you young hobbits had seen, as it was for me."
"It was Merry and Pippin who fought the battles, sir. Sam and I... we took a different path."
"Mr. Merry said though, that it was you were held as the greatest hero of all of it, as far as the folk in that country were concerned."
Frodo nodded, surprised. He hadn't known there'd been any such speech. "Sam and I were, yes."
"Was he killed in a battle then? One of them... Orcs, is it? Or one of them black chaps as came by looking for you round the time you left?"
Frodo shook his head, wanting to tell the father of how bravely his son slew the Orc in the tower, of how many times Sam had saved his life, yet unable to put the words to any of it. "No sir," he said finally. "He... he fell."
The Gaffer took a very slow, deep breath, and Frodo tried to copy him, feeling he might panic if he could not get out of this kitchen soon. Suddenly the Gaffer took his hand off Frodo's and stood, and again Frodo followed him, unsure of what was going on, unable to think much beyond his effort not to break down. Then the old hobbit was standing by his side and had his arms around him, as he'd never done in all the years Frodo had lived just up the Hill. And Frodo finally broke, sobbing into his shoulder. "I'm so very sorry," he gasped. "I wish..."
"We've all got our wishes," the Gaffer said. "We've all got the things we don't know how to say. You'll tell me another day. And you'll have time, as we'll be neighbors. I do hope you're planning to move back to Bag End when you can. And the girls and me'll be back at Number Three."
"It can't be like it was," said Frodo.
"No, it can't ever be."
Frodo felt like pulling away. There was something terribly wrong with being held and comforted by a hobbit who'd lost his son. But when Frodo tried to let go he found the Gaffer held him tighter, would not let him go, and Frodo was not the only one who was crying. Perhaps the Gaffer was imagining holding Sam in his arms, or perhaps he simply wanted to be strong and helpful, and it was not Frodo's place to refuse to be held. They stayed that way for a long time, and Frodo said, "Thank you."
Rosie stood outside in the street and the gathering darkness. It was odd to hear how easily sound carried through the thin walls. She thought of the secrets she and Mari had shared in the old kitchen on Bagshot Row. Thought of the kisses and more that she and Sam had shared in most of the rooms in that smial. Her mother had told her that eavesdropping was wrong, and so was gossip, but she'd gained plenty of useful information in recent months by standing and sitting and crouching outside windows.
She thought of the evening Sam had come to her after eavesdropping at Bag End. He'd been in an indescribable mood, at once elated and guilty, secretive and candid. He'd been willing to tell her right away that he'd listened to Frodo and Gandalf talking, that his Mr. Frodo was going away and Sam was to go with him. And Rosie shouldn't say anything about it to anyone just yet, but he trusted her with the news. He said he'd come back and see her often, and at that time she believed him, even though Crickhollow was much farther away than Hobbiton, and even though it was obvious there was something else, something enormous that he wasn't telling her.
She didn't feel guilty for listening now. She'd been sent, after all. And she needed to know, since Frodo wouldn't tell her himself, and no one else had bothered to find out for her.
She listened as long as there were words, and when it was only sobbing (and Rosie did not break down, for she'd done her crying back in March, and a good deal more after that, and right now she had other work to do) she decided she'd had enough. It seemed it was safe to be in the streets at night now, but she'd still rather not let it get any later.
And she didn't like to listen to a grown hobbit – or two of them – sobbing like that.
She walked around to the front of the little house and called out, "Marigold Gamgee," then waited. Waited, shifting on her feet and making enough noise that she wouldn't have to listen to the sounds from inside. It was the Gaffer who opened the door, and she could see he'd dried his face. She looked down, ashamed.
"Rosie-lass."
"Good evening, Gaffer Gamgee, I hope I'm not calling too late."
"I hadn't seen you since..." the night Ted caught her on her way home, for she'd not dared to come back to them, though the rumor would have made its way. "I'm glad to know you're well."
"The same," said Rosie. "I'm glad to see you on your feet again. I was sure you'd feel better as soon as Marigold came home."
"Will you come in? Did you want to see her?"
"Just for a moment, if it's all right. My father sent me to fetch Mr. Frodo, but I can't pass up the chance to see my Mari."
The Gaffer smiled and nodded, and Rosie strode through the kitchen, easily avoiding Frodo's gaze. He seemed to be doing his best not to be looked at as well, and Rosie didn't mind cooperating.
Marigold was dry-eyed as Rosie in the doorway to the bedroom (the only one, shared by the three girls, while their father slept in the sitting room) and Rosie said, "Don't you ever do that to me again," and kissed her cheek.
"I won't, my dear Rosie," said Marigold. "Things will be better now."
"It seems to me they couldn't get much worse."
Rosie heard the bitterness in her own voice, felt the eyes and ears of Marigold's sisters and their father and even Mr. Frodo, and knew she couldn't say what she wanted to. She wanted explanations, and at some point she'd want a good cry, at least one more, but not in front of all these other mourners. "It's late," she said, "and I promised I'd bring Mr. Frodo home. Will you come and see us tomorrow?"
"Of course I will," said Marigold. "Now go home and sleep. It'll do us all more than a little good."
Rosie nodded, squeezed Marigold's hands, looked her in the eye and said, "We'll talk soon."
"Yes."
And she turned around to face Frodo for the first time since she'd stared at him dumbly on her own doorstep the day before. "My father told me to come and bring you back to ours," she said. He thought you'd be tired after... After this day. We haven't got our pony back from the Shirriffs yet, but I can walk with you. It's not far, as you know."
And it was Frodo's turn to stare, it seemed. Rosie knew for herself how difficult it would be for him to speak, even to know what to do, so she reached out for his hand and pulled him to the door and out onto the street. She said farewell to the Gaffer for both of them, and then took his arm and started back through town, walking along the main streets this time.
Rosie looked straight ahead and kept her pace slow so as not to rush him. Even so he stumbled, and she caught him with both hands. "Here," she said quietly, "you can lean on me."
"Thank you, Rose."
She could feel that at first he simply let her hold him around the waist, and he put an arm around her shoulders, but he did his best to carry his own weight. But as they walked it became more difficult for him, and he let her support him more.
"I hate this," he said after a few minutes, as they were passing the abandoned Shirriff's post.
"What is it that you hate, sir?"
"Leaning on you." She tensed, but did not take her support away. "It's a short walk," he continued. "I ought to be able to make it on my own."
"We all take help from each other sometimes," said Rosie, remembering walking home arm in arm with Robin Smallburrow. "Times have been hard. Most folks around here figure the hard times are over now, but I think you and I know they've just begun."
"Yes."
"But I never thought you were so proud as to think you didn't need anyone else."
Frodo shook his head, sighed, kept walking. "You've got enough cares already," he said, "and so do the Gamgees. You shouldn't have to bear my burdens as well."
In her mind she agreed with him. But what was he even doing here, she wondered, if that was how he felt? Why not stay in that far-off country where he'd left Sam, where the people thought he was wonderful? Why come back, if he knew he'd only cause the people here more pain?
"Not much to be done about that now," she said, for herself as much as for him. "I hate this too, all of it. But I don't much see what else we can do but keep on walking, and try to hold each other up. When I told you to lean on me I meant it. I've not been called on to do too much work lately. I'm sad and I'm angry, but I'm not tired."
They were silent for a time then, and they walked, and Rosie noticed that, although it was later than it had been that other night, there was more light in the streets, and more light from the windows of her neighbors' homes, and even smiling faces, loud conversations and laughter drifting out into the street. She remembered the darkness and the silence when she'd needed their help, and suddenly and intensely she hated them all. She kept walking.
"Here's my father's house," she said, when at last it came into view. "You know that he's honored to have you stay here, don't you?"
"It is very kind of you all," Frodo said. "I knew coming home wouldn't be easy, but I hadn't imagined I wouldn't even have a home to go back to."
"You'll have your home again, sir. That's just a question of time."
"I'm not so sure."
And perhaps he was right. Rosie stepped through the door and thought again, my father's house, for somehow, ever since he'd sent her to the cellar, and more so since he'd invited Frodo to stay, it didn't feel like hers anymore.
"Well, at least there's a warm fire and a warm bed," she said. "We can rest awhile here."
The bed was warm and so was the chamomile tea Mrs. Cotton gave him. Frodo fell asleep easily in his exhaustion, but in his dreams he walked alone in the scorching heat, and when he stumbled no one was there to catch him. He was falling into fire and in his thirst he had no voice to cry out. He woke gasping before the end, and since he hadn't called for help he woke alone. He lay awake until the morning, when Merry and Pippin came to fetch him and together they rode out to Michel Delving and the Lockholes.
The morning was cold as November, but the sun was shining, and Marigold with her bright lovely eyes showed up at the door as soon as the Travellers had left. Since Rosie didn't have a room to herself now and it didn't seem proper going into Frodo's, the two of them went out in the field where they'd shared many a secret and a summer's day. It was too cold to sit down on the ground, so they kept walking in circles until Mari had told all she had to tell, and they'd both cried a few angry hot tears.
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