Sophinisba Solis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophinisba) wrote2007-08-20 01:11 pm
sophinisba) wrote2007-08-20 01:11 pm
Entry tags:
Post-quest AU ch. 4, Yule
Wow, I promised to finish this fic by the end of the summer, and here I am with one more week of vacation and I haven't posted an update in six weeks. I'm sorry, that is really lame. I will have more very soon. I need a title for this, I am serious.
Previous parts.
Rating: PG-13 for this chapter, R later on.
Main characters: Frodo and Rosie.
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.
Merry told Frodo to come back with them to the house at Crickhollow. Frodo kindly thanked him and said he preferred to be closer to Bag End.
Really he meant that Merry and Pippin needed each other, and Frodo needed not to witness their happiness day in and day out. He needed solitude. And the Cottons, for all that they were a large and affectionate family in a modest home, knew how to give Frodo his space, knew not to press too hard when he withdrew. Only Rosie seemed dissatisfied, and Frodo had no words for her.
Winter set in.
The trees that had been cut down were not replanted.
After the Scouring people cheered, celebrated, made proclamations, then expected everything to go back to normal. December came and it was normal for everything to look so bleak. But Rosie didn't believe there could be Spring again after this. Once the sun came back the land would only go from frozen white to muddy brown and dead.
They tore apart shirriff-houses and dug up tunnels. Rosie helped clean and make repairs at Bag End. The smial itself might be rebuilt, but the garden was a ruin and always would be.
Rosie at the Yule Ball was loud and unguarded. She had never been timid, but she was usually polite and slightly deferent with Frodo; even these past months when Frodo had shared a crowded smial with Rosie and her family, she hadn't dropped the title from his name or the respect from her gaze. But she was leering at him now, even as she spoke to Sam's sister Marigold, and Marigold looked nervous and spoke quietly but urgently back at Rosie, who looked at once angry and amused.
Frodo hadn't wanted to come at all, but Farmer Cotton said the Shire-hobbits needed a good party, as they'd not even been allowed to gather together in far too long, nor had they had anything to celebrate.
Some celebration or other at Yule was older than anyone knew, though Tom and Lily could remember their childhoods when the hobbits of Bywater, Hobbiton and surroundings had started holding their ball at the Old Mill, which was now the Oldest Mill, since what had been the New Mill until this year was no longer such. The dance at the Old Mill was a tradition going back some eighty years, and if you'd been here two months ago, no one thought they would be dancing at the end of the year. They needed to know things were back to normal now, Tom said.
And it would mean ever so much to all of them, Lily Cotton added, if Frodo would at least make an appearance, if he would join in a dance or two, and perhaps make a toast.
Frodo thought that, after everything else he'd done for the hobbits of the Shire, it would be rather absurd to say that going to a party was too much of a sacrifice.
Frodo did not dance, but neither did many of the older hobbits in attendance, and for that reason he did not feel terribly out of place. His old neighbors and the new ones were as friendly and respectful as always. He heard conversations in low voices that dropped to nothing when he approached, saw eyes and smiles too bright, but he couldn't blame them for wanting their gossip.
It had been a hard year.
The Sandymans were not in attendance, but they had sent along an impressive array of cakes and breads. Some of the hobbits made faces and muttered things under their breath, but no one declined, and their faces tended to sweeten once they were eating.
After several hours of eating, dancing, drinking, eating, more dancing, and the like, as midnight and the New Year approached, the musicians went quiet and the hobbits filled up their glasses with apple brandy.
To his relief Frodo was not called upon to make a speech. Lobo Proudfoot said how happy he was to have his Lucho home from the Lockholes, and he honored all the hobbits who'd suffered at the ruffians' hands. Tom Cotton, the younger, said something about the strong women of the Shire who helped all of them survive their troubles, and his eyes were on his sweetheart Marigold, and her eyes were full of love and pride. His father made a toast to the Captains of the Battle of Bywater and to Frodo, who had made it a battle and not a massacre. He looked at Frodo, and Frodo held his gaze, feeling it would be disrespectful to hang his head with the shame he felt. Marigold was the one to speak up for her brother, who had not returned from his fateful journey but who would want hobbits to celebrate, on a night like tonight. A better year to come, something to make up for the suffering and loss of what they'd all lived through. She spared Frodo her gaze, and Frodo let his own go blank and distant, tried to make his mind do the same, as he held his glass aloft and said, "Hear, hear," with the chorus of reverent voices, then downed his bitter drink.
The band took to playing again, and Frodo thought he might slip away quietly now and get a good breath of cold fresh air as he walked back to the Cottons'.
But Rosie had swallowed her glass and more, like a tween allowed to taste ale for the first time. She said the brandy was all she needed to forget a bad year, and she wouldn't let anyone tell her that was enough.
"Will you drink another toast to him, Mr. Frodo?" she called, pulling away from Marigold's hold and striding across the room toward him.
"I've had all I want to drink tonight," Frodo said quietly.
"What's that, it wouldn't be proper for a great hobbit like Frodo Baggins to have more than his share of whisky? Come, now, sir, it's just a gesture! Surely you can stand to have another glass in Sam's memory?"
"Stop it, Rose."
"That's all we've got, you know," her voice was lower now, at least, for she was close to him, her mouth near his ear, "his memory. No cold body to lay in the ground, and no warm body for me to lay with in my bed, Mr. Frodo," and the name and title came out with a sarcasm he'd never heard in her voice before, "because that's what I was supposed to do once you brought him back. Did you know that part? He was supposed to be mine."
She was clutching at Frodo now, had her arms around him and bit the lobe of his ear sharply, and said, "If I can't have him and you can't have him, I guess we'd best make do with what's available." And then she was kissing him, her lips wide and her tongue probing at Frodo's firmly closed mouth. He recovered from the shock enough to grip her shoulders and pushed her away.
She pulled back forcefully to free herself from his hands, but then immediately dropped to her knees in front of him and grabbed at him again, this time reaching around his waist with one arm while the other hand fiddled with the buttons of his breeches, and Frodo froze, could only stare as she pressed and pulled, and whispered, so quiet this time that only he would hear her, "Is this what he used to do for you, Mr. Frodo? Did you like your servant's hands on your cock? Did you like to feel his mouth there? I could do that for you too, you know. One peasant's as good as another for folk like you, I expect. We're expendable, we're replaceable."
He caught her right hand then, stopped its activity on his front, where her drunken clumsiness had kept her from accomplishing very much. But without leverage Frodo could do no more than shift her hand slightly away, and still she grabbed at his hip, and tried to press at the fabric of his trousers with her tongue.
"Rosie, you're drunk," Frodo growled low, still hoping they might not become the focus of attention of the entire party. "Stop this, you don't know what you're doing."
"Don't know what I'm doing, is that it?" Rosie laughed, raising her head to gaze up at him openly, licking her lips. "You think I never sucked a hobbit off? Hmm?" She stood up but didn't move away, pressed even closer into him than before. She brought a hand back to his crotch and squeezed, at the same time leaning in and biting lightly at his right ear. She whispered, "Think I never had had your gardener in my mouth before? Think you were the only one he liked to touch?"
And Frodo was still in shock, and for all that he tried to push her away, or even to twist out of her grasp, she held on tight and close until stronger hands gripped her from behind. It was her twin brother Jolly, solid and strong as any hobbit Frodo had known, gripping her around the waist and shoulders while Marigold pried her hands off of Frodo's body.
"It's over, Rosie," Marigold said firmly. "This ends now. Jolly's going to take you home to bed, see? And I'll come by and check on you and your headache in the morning. But that's enough for tonight."
Rosie had been removed from Frodo by now and stopped resisting physically, draped around Jolly as if she wouldn't be able to stand on her own. "It's not enough," she wailed, "I didn't get enough of him."
And then Frodo was left standing there, against the wall, alone, as a few hobbits stared and more of them looked away, at the ground, at nothing. Not at each other, for just as Frodo could meet no one's gaze, it seemed that none of the others could look at each other either. The band had stopped playing again, and someone coughed.
"Perhaps we've had enough of dancing then," said Rosie's brother Tom. And though some of the younger hobbits (including Nick and Nibs) looked very disappointed, and a few of them (including Myrtle Burrows, who had been flirting with Nibs and having some success) looked almost outraged, most of the hobbits, including Sam's older sisters, were nodding quietly and moving toward the door.
"You don't need to call off the celebration on my account," Frodo said suddenly, realizing he was making his speech after all and that he didn't mind it. "Marigold was right, I think. Her brother would have wanted us to be joyful tonight, and that is what I want as well."
"That's all well and good," said May Gamgee, "but Sam's not here and I'm not joyful. And my father's tired and not well. It's time we went home to sleep."
"It's barely past midnight!" said Myrtle, but her mother hushed her.
"Tomorrow will be a better day," said Daisy.
"And a better year for all of us," said Lucho.
"Hear, hear," said a few other hobbits, and the bandleader called for one more tune as the partygoers gathered up their things and quietly left the hall.
Rosie's headache, intense and throbbing, was not the worst pain she'd ever experienced.
Rosie's humiliation, though, once she recovered the events of the night before, that was something severe. She couldn't think of any moment in her life when she'd felt so ashamed of herself. She couldn't think how it could be worse, until Frodo pushed open the door and came to stand by her bed.
"I've brought you this for the nausea," he said, holding out a glass of something brown.
"Is it the remedy my mother made? Because I won't drink that."
"I can't say if it's anything like the Cotton family remedies," Frodo answered with a chuckle. "I'm an old bachelor who spent his tweens in the care of a much older bachelor. I've had my share of hangovers and I don't believe there's a miracle cure, but this one's helped me."
She drank obediently, and it tasted burnt and heavy but it wasn't quite as horrible as the drink her mother sometimes brought her and her brothers with a quiet disapproval on bad mornings.
To Rosie's distress, Frodo had brought a chair to the side of the bed and sat down. "There's water here too," he said. "I think Tom must have set it by your bedside after he put you to bed."
"Thank you, Mr. Frodo."
He nodded. "Have you slept all right?"
"As far as I can remember, yes. Which is not to say I'll be ready to get out of bed anytime soon."
He smiled, did not move away. It took a little while for politeness to make its way to the front of her mind. "Did you sleep well, sir?"
"I can't say I did. I was up a long time thinking about... things you and I haven't said to each other."
He actually meant to discuss it then, and with her in such a state. Very well then. She took a breath. "Mr. Frodo, I can't tell you how sorry I am for the way I acted last night. It was horrible. And I don't...I don't want you to think that's how I really feel or that's the kind of girl I am. I..." Frodo was smiling that sad smile he wore so often since he'd come back, shaking his head, and she went quiet, not knowing what she'd intended to say after that anyway.
"Apology accepted," he said. "And I don't want you to worry about it anymore. Things happen, in a moment, in celebration. We drink too much and say and do things our normal selves would never do. Don't think I would hold it against you. It's a new day, and a new year...starting off with a long night when I thought about a lot of things. I'd like for things to be easier between us. More open. And to get things started off right, I don't want you to call me 'Mr. Frodo' anymore. It's absurd for me to be living in your house and treated like a member of your family, and have you call me 'sir,' and I won't stand for it anymore. Is that all right?"
Rosie took a sip of water, and for all that it had been sitting out all night it felt cool and clean and good. "It's fine, Frodo," she said in order to give it a try, and liked the feel of it, and smiled for the first time today. Frodo, for his part, looked slightly taken aback. "Well, did you mean it or not?" she teased.
"I did, of course, thank you, Rose," he answered quickly. "It's just…I told Sam that so many times, and he never listened to me. He always did stick to the title. Right up to the end, you know."
Rosie hadn't known. Her smile was lost and she marveled that it had ever been there in the first place.
"He didn't drop it, and he didn't…I mean to say, Sam and I never…"
Rosie's cheeks burned. How could she have dared to speak of such things? "Frodo, please. I told you I was sorry about last night. I'd no call bringing up such matters or…doing what I did."
"No, I don't hold it against you. I meant that. But I do want you to know so it doesn't hang over us as it has since I've come back. Sam and I kissed once, and that was all."
And Rosie looked down. She had thought she wanted to know, but the pain of knowing just this was sharper than all the other acts she'd imagined. She breathed a few moments, then spoke softly, "You didn't want to take it further than that, then?"
She shot a glance at Frodo and felt some sympathy mixed with satisfaction to see he now was clearly as embarrassed as she. She wished herself far away, and at the same time she longed to know everything he had to tell her. Did he love Sam the same way she did? Did he miss him as much? What, by all that was good in the world, what had happened to the two of them, to leave Frodo as broken as she saw him now, in glimpses?
"I wanted…" He swallowed, and Rosie looked away again. "Of course I wanted more. Surely you've realized that I loved him."
Realized it long before you did, she thought, swallowing on ache and nausea. And understood it even when he was still here with me and telling me he loved me, I knew even back then that he loved you more. Out loud, she said, "But you didn't realize it until after you left."
If Frodo was surprised by this insight he didn't show it. "You're right, it was on the quest that I came to understand how much I cared for him. And I trusted him with my life, yes, but I also finally realized how strong he was, and how beautiful." Frodo's voice caught on this last. "And once we were separated from the others, he was all I had. Do you understand that? He was the Shire, and he was my old life, and he was friendship and beauty and love all bound up together."
Rosie knew Frodo was fighting back tears now and her mother's voice in her head told her she should offer him a handkerchief, but she didn't move. She felt it necessary for her own composure that she stay absolutely still. After Frodo left the room she would cry, and she might scream, and then she would have time to think these revelations over. But for now all she could do was listen, and force out a few words in a low, controlled tone.
"And he loved you back," she said.
"I believe he did, then."
"And you kissed him, or he kissed you, and then you left each other alone?"
"We… It happened at a moment when we both felt safe, I think, but we knew that if we went any further on our journey it would be quite dangerous again. We knew we couldn't turn back, but we were afraid we should be killed, and without having carried out the task, without making it to the end. And just after that happened, Rose, it came very close to that."
"But that wasn't the end, not then."
"No."
Rosie felt somewhat lightheaded, drifting in the silences between his words.
"But things changed after that," Frodo said. "The journey became…more difficult, more desperate, and I was…"
When it seemed nothing would make him finish this thought, Rosie murmured, "You could have comforted each other along the journey."
Frodo did startle at that, and moved for the first time in minutes, brought his hand to his face to wipe away tears, and still Rosie didn't move to offer him a kerchief.
"But I was different after that, Rose, I wasn't myself. And I couldn't have taken comfort in anything, or given any either." He paused again. "It's difficult to explain, but…I said before that Sam was the Shire and friendship and beauty." And Rosie understood that at this point he could not repeat and love without breaking down completely. She nodded slowly. "But after this I didn't have that – I couldn't see or feel or imagine any of it. I knew Sam was with me, somehow, but there was no room in my mind for anything besides…besides what I'd set out to do."
This made no sense to Rosie, but she didn't feel it would be right or helpful for her to say so. Instead she said simply, "I'm sorry, Frodo."
She wanted to get up then and leave, let each of them be alone with their tears. But it was her room, after all, the one she shared with Jolly when he was home and had to herself when he was with Red in Waymeet. She was the one who was sick, at least for today, and she had a right to her own bed. Very slowly, she reached out and took his hand, and he held it lightly, not speaking or moving any closer.
He's the same as me, she thought. He's broken and he knows he'll never get better. But this too seemed a thought best kept to herself. Enough had been said for today. Rosie tried to feel compassion for Frodo, but her head was still aching and now so was her heart, and she couldn't resist feeling sorry for herself. She feared if she opened her mouth again she would say the same thing she had screamed last night: You took him away from me. So she kept quiet and took her hand back, settled down in her pillows and closed her eyes. She waited a long time for him to dry his tears and leave.
Frodo spent the rest of the day in his own room, writing. They did not have a proper desk, but he managed with a wooden chair and the bedside table. Certainly he'd known worse.
He'd meant, as always, to work on his book, to get the story down. But he found himself writing a long letter addressed to Crickhollow, asking his dear cousins if they'd ever known a hobbit as selfish, as oblivious to the cares of others, as Frodo Baggins of Bag End.
When he was finished he knelt by the fireplace and let the letter burn to cinders.
"For heaven's sake, lass, you can come to supper, at least."
"Just leave me alone, mother. I'm not hungry."
"He won't be at table either, if that's what you're worried about."
Then Rosie stood, walked to the door of her room. "I don't know that I can take much more of this."
"It's not a question of what you can take. It's a question of what you need to give. I thought you'd learned that much this year."
"I don't think I know very much at all."
She joined her family for their meal while Frodo stayed in his room.
Previous parts.
Rating: PG-13 for this chapter, R later on.
Main characters: Frodo and Rosie.
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.
Merry told Frodo to come back with them to the house at Crickhollow. Frodo kindly thanked him and said he preferred to be closer to Bag End.
Really he meant that Merry and Pippin needed each other, and Frodo needed not to witness their happiness day in and day out. He needed solitude. And the Cottons, for all that they were a large and affectionate family in a modest home, knew how to give Frodo his space, knew not to press too hard when he withdrew. Only Rosie seemed dissatisfied, and Frodo had no words for her.
Winter set in.
The trees that had been cut down were not replanted.
After the Scouring people cheered, celebrated, made proclamations, then expected everything to go back to normal. December came and it was normal for everything to look so bleak. But Rosie didn't believe there could be Spring again after this. Once the sun came back the land would only go from frozen white to muddy brown and dead.
They tore apart shirriff-houses and dug up tunnels. Rosie helped clean and make repairs at Bag End. The smial itself might be rebuilt, but the garden was a ruin and always would be.
Rosie at the Yule Ball was loud and unguarded. She had never been timid, but she was usually polite and slightly deferent with Frodo; even these past months when Frodo had shared a crowded smial with Rosie and her family, she hadn't dropped the title from his name or the respect from her gaze. But she was leering at him now, even as she spoke to Sam's sister Marigold, and Marigold looked nervous and spoke quietly but urgently back at Rosie, who looked at once angry and amused.
Frodo hadn't wanted to come at all, but Farmer Cotton said the Shire-hobbits needed a good party, as they'd not even been allowed to gather together in far too long, nor had they had anything to celebrate.
Some celebration or other at Yule was older than anyone knew, though Tom and Lily could remember their childhoods when the hobbits of Bywater, Hobbiton and surroundings had started holding their ball at the Old Mill, which was now the Oldest Mill, since what had been the New Mill until this year was no longer such. The dance at the Old Mill was a tradition going back some eighty years, and if you'd been here two months ago, no one thought they would be dancing at the end of the year. They needed to know things were back to normal now, Tom said.
And it would mean ever so much to all of them, Lily Cotton added, if Frodo would at least make an appearance, if he would join in a dance or two, and perhaps make a toast.
Frodo thought that, after everything else he'd done for the hobbits of the Shire, it would be rather absurd to say that going to a party was too much of a sacrifice.
Frodo did not dance, but neither did many of the older hobbits in attendance, and for that reason he did not feel terribly out of place. His old neighbors and the new ones were as friendly and respectful as always. He heard conversations in low voices that dropped to nothing when he approached, saw eyes and smiles too bright, but he couldn't blame them for wanting their gossip.
It had been a hard year.
The Sandymans were not in attendance, but they had sent along an impressive array of cakes and breads. Some of the hobbits made faces and muttered things under their breath, but no one declined, and their faces tended to sweeten once they were eating.
After several hours of eating, dancing, drinking, eating, more dancing, and the like, as midnight and the New Year approached, the musicians went quiet and the hobbits filled up their glasses with apple brandy.
To his relief Frodo was not called upon to make a speech. Lobo Proudfoot said how happy he was to have his Lucho home from the Lockholes, and he honored all the hobbits who'd suffered at the ruffians' hands. Tom Cotton, the younger, said something about the strong women of the Shire who helped all of them survive their troubles, and his eyes were on his sweetheart Marigold, and her eyes were full of love and pride. His father made a toast to the Captains of the Battle of Bywater and to Frodo, who had made it a battle and not a massacre. He looked at Frodo, and Frodo held his gaze, feeling it would be disrespectful to hang his head with the shame he felt. Marigold was the one to speak up for her brother, who had not returned from his fateful journey but who would want hobbits to celebrate, on a night like tonight. A better year to come, something to make up for the suffering and loss of what they'd all lived through. She spared Frodo her gaze, and Frodo let his own go blank and distant, tried to make his mind do the same, as he held his glass aloft and said, "Hear, hear," with the chorus of reverent voices, then downed his bitter drink.
The band took to playing again, and Frodo thought he might slip away quietly now and get a good breath of cold fresh air as he walked back to the Cottons'.
But Rosie had swallowed her glass and more, like a tween allowed to taste ale for the first time. She said the brandy was all she needed to forget a bad year, and she wouldn't let anyone tell her that was enough.
"Will you drink another toast to him, Mr. Frodo?" she called, pulling away from Marigold's hold and striding across the room toward him.
"I've had all I want to drink tonight," Frodo said quietly.
"What's that, it wouldn't be proper for a great hobbit like Frodo Baggins to have more than his share of whisky? Come, now, sir, it's just a gesture! Surely you can stand to have another glass in Sam's memory?"
"Stop it, Rose."
"That's all we've got, you know," her voice was lower now, at least, for she was close to him, her mouth near his ear, "his memory. No cold body to lay in the ground, and no warm body for me to lay with in my bed, Mr. Frodo," and the name and title came out with a sarcasm he'd never heard in her voice before, "because that's what I was supposed to do once you brought him back. Did you know that part? He was supposed to be mine."
She was clutching at Frodo now, had her arms around him and bit the lobe of his ear sharply, and said, "If I can't have him and you can't have him, I guess we'd best make do with what's available." And then she was kissing him, her lips wide and her tongue probing at Frodo's firmly closed mouth. He recovered from the shock enough to grip her shoulders and pushed her away.
She pulled back forcefully to free herself from his hands, but then immediately dropped to her knees in front of him and grabbed at him again, this time reaching around his waist with one arm while the other hand fiddled with the buttons of his breeches, and Frodo froze, could only stare as she pressed and pulled, and whispered, so quiet this time that only he would hear her, "Is this what he used to do for you, Mr. Frodo? Did you like your servant's hands on your cock? Did you like to feel his mouth there? I could do that for you too, you know. One peasant's as good as another for folk like you, I expect. We're expendable, we're replaceable."
He caught her right hand then, stopped its activity on his front, where her drunken clumsiness had kept her from accomplishing very much. But without leverage Frodo could do no more than shift her hand slightly away, and still she grabbed at his hip, and tried to press at the fabric of his trousers with her tongue.
"Rosie, you're drunk," Frodo growled low, still hoping they might not become the focus of attention of the entire party. "Stop this, you don't know what you're doing."
"Don't know what I'm doing, is that it?" Rosie laughed, raising her head to gaze up at him openly, licking her lips. "You think I never sucked a hobbit off? Hmm?" She stood up but didn't move away, pressed even closer into him than before. She brought a hand back to his crotch and squeezed, at the same time leaning in and biting lightly at his right ear. She whispered, "Think I never had had your gardener in my mouth before? Think you were the only one he liked to touch?"
And Frodo was still in shock, and for all that he tried to push her away, or even to twist out of her grasp, she held on tight and close until stronger hands gripped her from behind. It was her twin brother Jolly, solid and strong as any hobbit Frodo had known, gripping her around the waist and shoulders while Marigold pried her hands off of Frodo's body.
"It's over, Rosie," Marigold said firmly. "This ends now. Jolly's going to take you home to bed, see? And I'll come by and check on you and your headache in the morning. But that's enough for tonight."
Rosie had been removed from Frodo by now and stopped resisting physically, draped around Jolly as if she wouldn't be able to stand on her own. "It's not enough," she wailed, "I didn't get enough of him."
And then Frodo was left standing there, against the wall, alone, as a few hobbits stared and more of them looked away, at the ground, at nothing. Not at each other, for just as Frodo could meet no one's gaze, it seemed that none of the others could look at each other either. The band had stopped playing again, and someone coughed.
"Perhaps we've had enough of dancing then," said Rosie's brother Tom. And though some of the younger hobbits (including Nick and Nibs) looked very disappointed, and a few of them (including Myrtle Burrows, who had been flirting with Nibs and having some success) looked almost outraged, most of the hobbits, including Sam's older sisters, were nodding quietly and moving toward the door.
"You don't need to call off the celebration on my account," Frodo said suddenly, realizing he was making his speech after all and that he didn't mind it. "Marigold was right, I think. Her brother would have wanted us to be joyful tonight, and that is what I want as well."
"That's all well and good," said May Gamgee, "but Sam's not here and I'm not joyful. And my father's tired and not well. It's time we went home to sleep."
"It's barely past midnight!" said Myrtle, but her mother hushed her.
"Tomorrow will be a better day," said Daisy.
"And a better year for all of us," said Lucho.
"Hear, hear," said a few other hobbits, and the bandleader called for one more tune as the partygoers gathered up their things and quietly left the hall.
Rosie's headache, intense and throbbing, was not the worst pain she'd ever experienced.
Rosie's humiliation, though, once she recovered the events of the night before, that was something severe. She couldn't think of any moment in her life when she'd felt so ashamed of herself. She couldn't think how it could be worse, until Frodo pushed open the door and came to stand by her bed.
"I've brought you this for the nausea," he said, holding out a glass of something brown.
"Is it the remedy my mother made? Because I won't drink that."
"I can't say if it's anything like the Cotton family remedies," Frodo answered with a chuckle. "I'm an old bachelor who spent his tweens in the care of a much older bachelor. I've had my share of hangovers and I don't believe there's a miracle cure, but this one's helped me."
She drank obediently, and it tasted burnt and heavy but it wasn't quite as horrible as the drink her mother sometimes brought her and her brothers with a quiet disapproval on bad mornings.
To Rosie's distress, Frodo had brought a chair to the side of the bed and sat down. "There's water here too," he said. "I think Tom must have set it by your bedside after he put you to bed."
"Thank you, Mr. Frodo."
He nodded. "Have you slept all right?"
"As far as I can remember, yes. Which is not to say I'll be ready to get out of bed anytime soon."
He smiled, did not move away. It took a little while for politeness to make its way to the front of her mind. "Did you sleep well, sir?"
"I can't say I did. I was up a long time thinking about... things you and I haven't said to each other."
He actually meant to discuss it then, and with her in such a state. Very well then. She took a breath. "Mr. Frodo, I can't tell you how sorry I am for the way I acted last night. It was horrible. And I don't...I don't want you to think that's how I really feel or that's the kind of girl I am. I..." Frodo was smiling that sad smile he wore so often since he'd come back, shaking his head, and she went quiet, not knowing what she'd intended to say after that anyway.
"Apology accepted," he said. "And I don't want you to worry about it anymore. Things happen, in a moment, in celebration. We drink too much and say and do things our normal selves would never do. Don't think I would hold it against you. It's a new day, and a new year...starting off with a long night when I thought about a lot of things. I'd like for things to be easier between us. More open. And to get things started off right, I don't want you to call me 'Mr. Frodo' anymore. It's absurd for me to be living in your house and treated like a member of your family, and have you call me 'sir,' and I won't stand for it anymore. Is that all right?"
Rosie took a sip of water, and for all that it had been sitting out all night it felt cool and clean and good. "It's fine, Frodo," she said in order to give it a try, and liked the feel of it, and smiled for the first time today. Frodo, for his part, looked slightly taken aback. "Well, did you mean it or not?" she teased.
"I did, of course, thank you, Rose," he answered quickly. "It's just…I told Sam that so many times, and he never listened to me. He always did stick to the title. Right up to the end, you know."
Rosie hadn't known. Her smile was lost and she marveled that it had ever been there in the first place.
"He didn't drop it, and he didn't…I mean to say, Sam and I never…"
Rosie's cheeks burned. How could she have dared to speak of such things? "Frodo, please. I told you I was sorry about last night. I'd no call bringing up such matters or…doing what I did."
"No, I don't hold it against you. I meant that. But I do want you to know so it doesn't hang over us as it has since I've come back. Sam and I kissed once, and that was all."
And Rosie looked down. She had thought she wanted to know, but the pain of knowing just this was sharper than all the other acts she'd imagined. She breathed a few moments, then spoke softly, "You didn't want to take it further than that, then?"
She shot a glance at Frodo and felt some sympathy mixed with satisfaction to see he now was clearly as embarrassed as she. She wished herself far away, and at the same time she longed to know everything he had to tell her. Did he love Sam the same way she did? Did he miss him as much? What, by all that was good in the world, what had happened to the two of them, to leave Frodo as broken as she saw him now, in glimpses?
"I wanted…" He swallowed, and Rosie looked away again. "Of course I wanted more. Surely you've realized that I loved him."
Realized it long before you did, she thought, swallowing on ache and nausea. And understood it even when he was still here with me and telling me he loved me, I knew even back then that he loved you more. Out loud, she said, "But you didn't realize it until after you left."
If Frodo was surprised by this insight he didn't show it. "You're right, it was on the quest that I came to understand how much I cared for him. And I trusted him with my life, yes, but I also finally realized how strong he was, and how beautiful." Frodo's voice caught on this last. "And once we were separated from the others, he was all I had. Do you understand that? He was the Shire, and he was my old life, and he was friendship and beauty and love all bound up together."
Rosie knew Frodo was fighting back tears now and her mother's voice in her head told her she should offer him a handkerchief, but she didn't move. She felt it necessary for her own composure that she stay absolutely still. After Frodo left the room she would cry, and she might scream, and then she would have time to think these revelations over. But for now all she could do was listen, and force out a few words in a low, controlled tone.
"And he loved you back," she said.
"I believe he did, then."
"And you kissed him, or he kissed you, and then you left each other alone?"
"We… It happened at a moment when we both felt safe, I think, but we knew that if we went any further on our journey it would be quite dangerous again. We knew we couldn't turn back, but we were afraid we should be killed, and without having carried out the task, without making it to the end. And just after that happened, Rose, it came very close to that."
"But that wasn't the end, not then."
"No."
Rosie felt somewhat lightheaded, drifting in the silences between his words.
"But things changed after that," Frodo said. "The journey became…more difficult, more desperate, and I was…"
When it seemed nothing would make him finish this thought, Rosie murmured, "You could have comforted each other along the journey."
Frodo did startle at that, and moved for the first time in minutes, brought his hand to his face to wipe away tears, and still Rosie didn't move to offer him a kerchief.
"But I was different after that, Rose, I wasn't myself. And I couldn't have taken comfort in anything, or given any either." He paused again. "It's difficult to explain, but…I said before that Sam was the Shire and friendship and beauty." And Rosie understood that at this point he could not repeat and love without breaking down completely. She nodded slowly. "But after this I didn't have that – I couldn't see or feel or imagine any of it. I knew Sam was with me, somehow, but there was no room in my mind for anything besides…besides what I'd set out to do."
This made no sense to Rosie, but she didn't feel it would be right or helpful for her to say so. Instead she said simply, "I'm sorry, Frodo."
She wanted to get up then and leave, let each of them be alone with their tears. But it was her room, after all, the one she shared with Jolly when he was home and had to herself when he was with Red in Waymeet. She was the one who was sick, at least for today, and she had a right to her own bed. Very slowly, she reached out and took his hand, and he held it lightly, not speaking or moving any closer.
He's the same as me, she thought. He's broken and he knows he'll never get better. But this too seemed a thought best kept to herself. Enough had been said for today. Rosie tried to feel compassion for Frodo, but her head was still aching and now so was her heart, and she couldn't resist feeling sorry for herself. She feared if she opened her mouth again she would say the same thing she had screamed last night: You took him away from me. So she kept quiet and took her hand back, settled down in her pillows and closed her eyes. She waited a long time for him to dry his tears and leave.
Frodo spent the rest of the day in his own room, writing. They did not have a proper desk, but he managed with a wooden chair and the bedside table. Certainly he'd known worse.
He'd meant, as always, to work on his book, to get the story down. But he found himself writing a long letter addressed to Crickhollow, asking his dear cousins if they'd ever known a hobbit as selfish, as oblivious to the cares of others, as Frodo Baggins of Bag End.
When he was finished he knelt by the fireplace and let the letter burn to cinders.
"For heaven's sake, lass, you can come to supper, at least."
"Just leave me alone, mother. I'm not hungry."
"He won't be at table either, if that's what you're worried about."
Then Rosie stood, walked to the door of her room. "I don't know that I can take much more of this."
"It's not a question of what you can take. It's a question of what you need to give. I thought you'd learned that much this year."
"I don't think I know very much at all."
She joined her family for their meal while Frodo stayed in his room.
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I hope that once they fight through this part they'll find that they have things that only the two of them can understand and that can sustain them.
Poor Rosie. Poor Frodo.
And now you've got me worried that the Shire will never recover either without Sam to oversee it.
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Thanks so much for your comments. You really make me feel good about how this is working.
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The bits at the beginning and end of each chapter are drabbles, 100 words each. Did you notice?
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I suck at following along with multi-part fics these days but I'm trying to keep up with this one since it's so interesting. I think drunken Rosie was over the top and that's what made it effective. I was seriously creeped out by her behavior and I think maybe she was too the next day, so I think it worked. No idea how you're going to resolve all this for the two of them, which is good too, keeps the tension up.
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Anyway, I'm glad you find it interesting. Thanks. :)