Sophinisba Solis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophinisba) wrote2007-08-24 01:18 pm
sophinisba) wrote2007-08-24 01:18 pm
Entry tags:
Post-quest AU ch. 5, Hero
I had taken this chapter out of the series but I missed Fatty Bolger and the sense of time passing, so here it is again! I should have another ready to post tomorrow!
Previous parts.
Arrrgh still no title.
Rating: PG for this chapter, R later on.
Main characters: Frodo and Rosie. This chapter also features Fredegar Bolger and not enough Tom Cotton.
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.
The winter was long, following a year when enough had been planted and too much had been taken away.
Frodo scraped a bit of butter over his bread one morning and thought of Bilbo at Rivendell, where Frodo had never seen fields or fieldworkers and yet food was always abundant. If he hadn't had responsibilities keeping him in the Shire, he'd like to go back there and find out how they did it. Or even just to spend some time with his cousin and have some rest.
He made plans to go to Michel Delving with his cousin Fredegar instead.
Rosie thought it silly that they'd made Frodo Deputy Mayor, though her own Dad had been one of the ones to call for the appointment. Old Will Whitfoot had agreed, saying he needed time to recover from his ordeal before he went back to work. What work? Rosie wondered. What was there to do, other than make a few speeches? And couldn't anyone else, even after months in the Lockholes, do a better job of that than Frodo, who'd gone so quiet and mournful since he'd been away?
"You can be my Mayor," she told Marigold, and they both laughed.
Budgeford had never been the home of a Mayor, nor had a Bolger ever held the office, though certainly they'd been held in high esteem for many generations, and all the more so since the Troubles, when people had started calling Fatty Bolger a hero, and then afterwards, when they'd had to start calling Freddy Bolger a hero instead. Frodo had the office and the title, but all he'd done with it was to make sure there was less government in the Shire than there had been before. He wondered what it felt like really to be considered a leader among hobbits, and in the cold quiet of the carriage ride from Bywater to Michel Delving, he asked.
"What do you mean? Surely you know they think you a hero as well."
"They think me...something different," said Frodo, and catching Freddy's look, not wanting an argument, "all right, fine, a hero, if of a different sort. But I'm not talking about that. I want to know how it feels for you to be...someone special, I suppose. Someone who knows what to do. Someone who can tell others what to do."
"You think I enjoy ordering other hobbits around?" Freddy asked with a grin, and Frodo too smiled, hung his head.
"No, I." Used to be able to speak with you, he could have said. Easily. Freddy was one of his young cousins and dear friends, but now Frodo felt a distance between them that hadn't been there before. But then again, he felt a distance from everyone else since he'd been back as well. "I'm not explaining myself well. I'm sorry."
A repeat of too many other conversations he'd had with old friends in the last few months. Frodo had been happy to see Freddy's smiling face in the Cottons' kitchen (for Lily had invited him in before even calling for Frodo) and only a little sad to think he'd needed official business, related to his provisional office, as an excuse to invite him there, that he couldn't just call him over as a friend.
He'd thought, good, for all that they had important business to see to, they might have a real talk on their way there. But now it seemed it would be as quiet and awkward an hour as any other in this borrowed, provisional life that fit him as well as an Orc's armor or a human child's nightshirt.
"I don't know that I can tell you how it feels," Freddy said at length. "I'm not much more settled in with this new life than you are. I do know I'm not the same hobbit you knew, but the difference isn't in what I do. I was always good at coming up with a plan, always good at convincing people to go along with it."
"So what's different now?" Frodo asked.
"Now? I'm different because I went into the Lockholes and I came out."
They were silent for the rest of the way to Michel Delving. Frodo knew they couldn't put off talking about the Lockholes forever because that was precisely where they were going. No one had gone inside the tunnels since that cold sunny day in November when Frodo had taken Freddy's hand and helped him stumble outside. There were rumors that some of the food the Shirelings had been forced to "share" was still being kept in the back of those old store holes, and they had need of it now, as provisions were growing scarce and spring was taking its own time to come back.
A round wooden door covered up the holes. Freddy had brought along two lanterns because there were no windows in the place.
"I remember coming here once with Bilbo, when I was quite young," said Frodo, "not long after I'd moved to Hobbiton. He wanted me to know all about the stores, how the Mayor needed to keep track of the food, in case there was a shortage."
"He must have known you'd be Mayor someday."
"Or friends with the Mayor, anyhow. It seemed quite marvelous at the time. Such abundance, and all of it ordered, all for the sake of making sure everyone had enough to eat through the winter."
Together they lifted the door. It was not locked anymore, despite the name, but Freddy told Frodo that the local hobbits had stayed away, despite the rumors that there was food stored inside, because there were also rumors of ghosts.
"But no one died inside," Freddy said. "They tell it that way, but no one's got names. I was there and hobbits were beaten, and some of us near starved in the months they had us there, but not one of them died."
They looked down the steps, both reluctant to start down. "Did they hurt you?" Frodo asked. "Did they beat you when they brought you here?"
"Oh, not... They did when they first got you, as a matter of course, to teach you a lesson. And when they got me they were excited and angry, because we'd held out against them for so long. But they didn't...that is, there was nothing else they needed to find out from me, so it didn't go on for too long, that kind of..." He stopped and steadied himself. "I'm all right now," he declared. "Or I will be, once I get some more food in me. I've spent a lot of time talking about it with Estella, and Merry and Pippin have been a great help as well."
"I'm glad of that."
"I'm so glad to have them back, and not to terribly far from Budgeford either. We rode there together from here, and they've come to visit us often."
"I shall have to invite them to come back to Hobbiton, once I'm able to move back to Bag End."
"Oh, I hope you can see them sooner than that."
Frodo said nothing.
"They told me you were a prisoner as well, for a time."
Frodo looked down. "Only for a very little while," he said quickly. "And I don't remember much of it."
"That's a blessing," said Freddy.
"Perhaps so."
"I'd like to forget a good deal of what I saw in there," he said, pointing with his chin, "and what I felt. Except, as I said, I'm the hobbit I am today because of what happened during those few months. And for that I'm glad I remember it all."
Then he took a deep breath and started down the stairs, holding his lantern high. Frodo followed behind him. The place stank terribly and they covered their faces with their sleeves to make it easier to breathe. To Frodo's surprise, Freddy moved through the tunnels without hesitation, even in the weak light, and he walked straight through the maze of it to where he said he'd seen the jailers go for food.
"They gave us black bread," he said, "and a little bit of soup that was so watery there was nothing much to it at all. But the Men were eating their fill."
It took some shoving to get the door to the last door open but when they did Freddy grinned wide to see the great piles of grain. "Just as I thought," he said. "Keeping it all to themselves, they were."
Some of the fruit and vegetables had rotted and would have to be burned once they brought the good food out of the tunnel.
"I wish we'd come sooner," said Frodo as they brought the first load outside. They sat down to rest and breath the fresh air again.
"That would have been better," Freddy agreed. "I'd expected the locals would have cleaned it out as soon as they brought us out, but it seems they're a superstitious lot."
"I wish... I wish I'd known about a lot of things," said Frodo. Freddy looked at him. "Perhaps if we'd...if Merry and Pippin and I had come sooner, it would have been different for all of you. I am sorry we stayed away for so long."
"Now, now." Freddy patted him on the back. "That's all right. You had other work to do. Don't think anyone here holds it against you."
"I can't help but think that. If I'd been the one stuck here waiting I don't know that I'd ever be able to forgive the ones who stayed away."
"Believe me, Frodo –"
"Oh, I believe you when you say you aren't angry. But I can't believe everyone feels the same way you do."
"I would think if anyone had reason to resent you it would be me, Frodo, and I don't, so perhaps you ought to leave it alone."
"You've got reason, but you also know me better than anyone else who didn't go along, so you've got more reasons than most to forgive me. But what about the Gamgees? What do you think Rose Cotton thinks of me now?"
"She probably thinks her home would be less crowded now if not for you..."
"She's got bigger concerns than that..."
"...Because her father and her brothers could well have died in the Battle of Bywater if you hadn't been there making sure as little blood was shed as was possible."
Frodo was stunned. "I'd not thought of that part of it before."
"And you do an awful lot of thinking, which tells me you must be spending far too much time dwelling on what you did wrong, and not nearly enough on what you did right, or how much worse it could have been. No regrets, Frodo. I wish I hadn't had to go into the Lockholes, but it was better for me than the alternative."
"Sam wanted to come back."
"What's that?"
"He didn't want to leave me, of course, once she made him think of it that way, but he –"
"What are you talking about, Frodo?"
"Oh, it's." He looked in a basin of water and saw the smoke rising over Bywater. It wouldn't do much good to put it that way, would it? "Nothing. He had a feeling there was trouble back here. I should have listened to him."
"Well, no way of knowing how it might have gone." Freddy stood up. "Come on, lets see if we can get some help hauling this stuff out of the hole. You and I might be heroes but we're not the best weightlifters in the Shire."
Azalea Sandheaver, who lived nearby, had been one of the few girls who'd been with Freddy in the hills of Scary but who'd escaped when he'd been captured. She'd also been one of Gandalf's greatest admirers never to leave the Shire, and once she and her sisters and neighbors had brought everything salvageable up above ground, she helped them set up a fuse and a small explosion that they could safely light from outside. For an hour they sat together and watched the smoke billow out of the wide round hole. They'd banked the edge of that room with sand, and they had buckets of water ready in case the fire should get out of hand, but all went according to plan. Freddy and Azalea told stories of the rebel life and Frodo listened quietly. When the smoke had slowed Azalea said, "We'll wait a day or two and I'll go in with Ginny and start cleaning up."
"We can come back," said Frodo.
"It's no trouble. We've had a lot of that kind of work to do. I can't say it's as exciting as fighting the ruffians, but it's not as difficult or dangerous either." She smiled and invited them to dinner with her family, and Freddy accepted on their behalf.
Over the meal they talked of how the food could be fairly distributed to reach the hobbits who most needed it. A share would be left here and Freddy would carry some in his carriage back to Frogmorton and then Budgeford. (Hobbiton and Bywater had much less need, since they'd recovered most of what the Sackville-Bagginses and Sandymans had horded for themselves.) Afterwards they talked to other Delvers about how what was here could be kept safe, how much should be turned over to the leaders who came from other villages.
When they were riding home Frodo said, "How would you feel about taking over for me, come Midsummer?"
"As Mayor?"
"As Mayor, yes. Will Whitfoot says he'll take over again if he must, but he'd rather I stay on. But you're wonderful, the way you talk to all those people, even the father who obviously hasn't forgiven you for putting Azalea in danger.
Freddy laughed. "Azalea's been putting herself in danger from the time she knew how to walk. Bob knows I tried to send her home, but I was completely powerless." He paused. "As for taking over the office, I hadn't thought of it. We all figured you'd keep on."
"The term is seven years."
"Yes, and?"
"Well, I don't know that I –"
"You're not planning to leave us again, are you?"
"No," said Frodo, "not planning."
"Right then, tell me what's on your mind. Why so much introspection today, apart from the place where we've been. Why do you bring it up?"
"It's nothing, only that..."
"Yes?"
"I had a letter from...one of the friends we made on the journey."
"And which friend would that be?"
"The one we met in Bree, the one called Strider who turned out to be –"
"And what did he have to say, the King of Gondor?"
Frodo smiled. He knew none of it sounded real to his friends from home, that it must sound as if he and Merry and Pippin were talking about characters from a storybook. Freddy went along with it all, but it was almost as if he were humoring a child who liked to go on about his imaginary friends in their imaginary kingdom. Freddy made more of an effort than the rest of them to learn the cast of characters, at least.
"He was full of good news," said Frodo. "He hoped we had arrived at home all right and he... And he said that the people there, in that country, remembered me and – " honored him, but that sounded far too grand for him to say it out loud in a pony-pulled carriage on a country road. "That I would be welcome back there, should I decide I'd done what work I needed to do in the Shire."
Freddy laughed for a long time and then went quiet, staring ahead at the road more intently than usual, looking into the distance as if he'd rather avoid Frodo's eyes.
"You're actually thinking about it, aren't you?" Freddy said. "I understood, when you went off the first time. That is, I don't think any of us truly understood it, but I knew there was something driving you out, and something you needed to get done, how it had to be taken outside our borders."
"Yes."
"And for Merry and Pippin and Sam, that was enough to mean they had to go with you. But Frodo, that's all over and done with now."
"It's not –"
"I mean to say, from what the three of you have told us, you did what you set out to do. You and Sam destroyed the Ring, and the others fought the battles, so what's left to... What's driving you out this time?"
"I'm not going," Frodo said, knowing that wasn't the answer Freddy wanted. "Not anytime soon, at least. I haven't finished the work I need to do here, I know that. I haven't come anywhere close."
Freddy said, "Well, we'll talk about it again when the time gets closer, but I'm honored that you think I could do the job."
"You're a natural leader, I think."
He shook his head and laughed again. "But don't you know, Frodo, all this time, I was only trying to think what you would do if you were here."
"Oh, Freddy." Frodo frowned and waved his hand. "You don't need to say such things."
"I'm not trying to flatter you, I'm telling you the truth. I never had your thirst for travel or adventure, you know. I was content to live a peaceful life in Budgeford or Bucklebury or wherever it needed to be, as long as I could be near my family and my friends, and have my ale and my pipe in the evening after a good day's work."
"I did want to travel," Frodo said, "but I never wanted –"
"No, that's just the thing. I know you never wanted to leave us the way you did, or for the reasons you did. And do you know, I had to keep that knowledge and those reasons secret all the time you were gone? And don't think Sharkey's men weren't keen to get it out of me."
Frodo shifted in his seat but said nothing.
"But I didn't mean to talk any more about that," Freddy went on quickly. "What I meant to say is, I never wanted to be the one to fight the ruffians. I didn't want to leave my family and go into the hills. I certainly didn't want to give up regular meals! But then I would think, 'Well, Frodo never asked for what he got either, did he?' But you didn't complain, at least not where I could hear it. You just took that thing and did what you needed to do with it. And the same thing for Sam, of course. He'd rather have stayed here and taken care of your garden and made a good husband for Rosie and a father for her children. But he had other work to do, so he did it. That was all I thought when I took Azalea and the others off to Scary. I wasn't trying to be the hero of the story, just to see to what needed to be done."
After a long time Frodo simply said, "Thank you."
"It's only the truth, but you're welcome."
"I wish I knew what needs to be done now."
"So do I. You said your work here isn't finished, and I think that's true. But then, there's always more work to do, isn't there?"
"Yes," said Frodo, "I fear that is so."
"Where's Mr. Frodo?" said Tom when he came in from the field for second breakfast.
"Went to Michel Delving with Fredegar Bolger."
"Did you see old Fatty then? Is he well?"
Rosie shrugged. "He didn't look it to me, but then I hadn't seen him since before he went off to Scary. Frodo seemed pleased, said he looked much better than when they brought him out of the Lockholes."
"That's not hard to believe. He couldn't have looked much worse."
Rosie nodded, got up and started picking up the plates the others had finished, just to have something to do.
"Are you annoyed I came in late?"
"Of course not," said Rosie. "You just have to eat cold bacon is all. Do you think Mr. Frodo looks better?"
"What, since he came back?"
"Yes."
"Well, it hasn't been very long, but yes. I think he looks...calmer."
"He was always good at looking calmer. He's gentry, they're good at that."
"What is it you want to know, Rosie?"
"Well, he ought to... We've been doing our best, you know. But he never seems to want to talk to any of us, and me least of all. Even since –" Yule, when he'd said he wanted things to be easier, though Tom didn't know about that, would only know about the things she'd said and done to make it harder.
"You weren't friends before he left."
"No."
"And nothing's happened to change that, so why are you worried?"
"Because he's living in our house, Tom! And because he won't be forever, and I think, if he's not eating and getting strong and opening up and talking while he's here with you and me and with Mother's cooking, what's it going to be like when he's on his own?"
Tom smiled. "I've never seen you as mother hen before."
"Oh, Tom, don't tease."
"Frodo's a grown hobbit and used to living on his own. He probably minds all the fussing around him more than anything else."
"There are other things he minds more. I just wish he would tell us what he wants instead of all this...brooding."
"He's not the only one to get in a mood sometimes, you know. Mother and Mari have both asked me what they can do to make you cheer up again."
Rosie shouldn't have been surprised by that. Of course she knew they were unhappy with her unhappiness, but the thought of them discussing her when she wasn't around was a little unsettling.
"Well." Rosie wanted to say something sassy and clever. "Well, I." But for the life of her couldn't think what Tom or Mari or her mother could do to make her happy, so she just went quiet.
"There you are," said Tom, "you've got no reasons, and nobody's business but you're own if you don't care to talk about them. Thank you for breakfast."
"You're welcome."
He sat back and she thought he'd go back outside, but he sat thinking for a while, then said, "You know, I admire them for what they did. I was at the Battle and I don't think we would have risen up against them without Merry. And I don't think it would have gone near as smooth as it did without Frodo. Other hobbits were too excited after all those months of doing nothing, and there would have been a lot more dead on both sides if they didn't have Frodo telling them to calm down. I admire them, but that doesn't mean I admire the hobbits who stayed behind any less."
"You mean like the one you're getting ready to marry?"
Tom smiled. "Yes, or the ones in my family. Mari and I quarreled over it at first, did you know?"
"Oh, I know," said Rosie.
"I said we should go ahead and fight the ruffians any way we could, and of course I meant take what weapons we had and stand up to them. And she said we couldn't win it that way."
"She was right."
"I know. They were bigger and stronger and they had swords against our hoes and ploughshares."
"It would've been madness."
"But then again, once Mr. Frodo and them came back, it wasn't all that difficult."
"It was different then. They were so used to us being meek they had no reason to suspect it could be different."
"Maybe that was all we needed then, someone who hadn't lived through all we had, so they could surprise the ruffians."
"So they were rash and foolish."
"But it worked!" Tom laughed and Rosie felt foolish, like a child who didn't like that someone else could be more popular than she and her friends. But Tom seemed to understand. "Merry and Pippin are like nothing the Shire's ever seen, so of course they'll get a lot of attention. But people haven't forgotten about what Mari did, or about you and me. Why, I think of even Robin Smallburrow. He's had friends and family call him a traitor, but you and me know how much worse it would've been if we'd had worse hobbits among the Shirriffs, or if all the Shirriffs had quit and we'd had the Men coming in directly for whatever little task they wanted done."
"Fine then," said Rosie. "I can't argue with you, Tom, you talk too much sense."
He shrugged. "Marigold talked me out of a lot of the nonsense I used to believe in."
"How's this: I can't promise to be cheerful, but the next time you catch me sulking or snapping just because somebody said a good word about Frodo or Merry or Pippin, you tell me to snap out of it."
"All right," said Tom. "Yes, I can do that."
The Cottons' smial was dark and quiet by the time he got back, but quite warm after the carriage ride. After the others had gone to bed Frodo and Rosie up staring at the fire.
"We ought to have come back sooner," Frodo said. "From the South, I mean. Sam looked in a basin of water and saw smoke rising."
Rosie nodded. "That was a sign?"
"Yes."
"Do you think you could've kept the ruffians away had you turned around then?"
Frodo didn't know. "I think he would have lived."
"Then you're right," she said. "You should have come back."
If Tom were around, Rosie thought, he'd tell her not to speak to Frodo like that, and so soon after she'd promised not to. If her mother heard it she'd insist that Rosie apologize to their guest. Then again, something told her Frodo wouldn't have spoken the words in the first place if anyone else were there to hear. He didn't want false assurances, just to speak the truth as he understood it and have someone believe him.
As for smoke rising from a basin of water, it made no sense, but Rosie decided to leave it alone for now.
Previous parts.
Arrrgh still no title.
Rating: PG for this chapter, R later on.
Main characters: Frodo and Rosie. This chapter also features Fredegar Bolger and not enough Tom Cotton.
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.
The winter was long, following a year when enough had been planted and too much had been taken away.
Frodo scraped a bit of butter over his bread one morning and thought of Bilbo at Rivendell, where Frodo had never seen fields or fieldworkers and yet food was always abundant. If he hadn't had responsibilities keeping him in the Shire, he'd like to go back there and find out how they did it. Or even just to spend some time with his cousin and have some rest.
He made plans to go to Michel Delving with his cousin Fredegar instead.
Rosie thought it silly that they'd made Frodo Deputy Mayor, though her own Dad had been one of the ones to call for the appointment. Old Will Whitfoot had agreed, saying he needed time to recover from his ordeal before he went back to work. What work? Rosie wondered. What was there to do, other than make a few speeches? And couldn't anyone else, even after months in the Lockholes, do a better job of that than Frodo, who'd gone so quiet and mournful since he'd been away?
"You can be my Mayor," she told Marigold, and they both laughed.
Budgeford had never been the home of a Mayor, nor had a Bolger ever held the office, though certainly they'd been held in high esteem for many generations, and all the more so since the Troubles, when people had started calling Fatty Bolger a hero, and then afterwards, when they'd had to start calling Freddy Bolger a hero instead. Frodo had the office and the title, but all he'd done with it was to make sure there was less government in the Shire than there had been before. He wondered what it felt like really to be considered a leader among hobbits, and in the cold quiet of the carriage ride from Bywater to Michel Delving, he asked.
"What do you mean? Surely you know they think you a hero as well."
"They think me...something different," said Frodo, and catching Freddy's look, not wanting an argument, "all right, fine, a hero, if of a different sort. But I'm not talking about that. I want to know how it feels for you to be...someone special, I suppose. Someone who knows what to do. Someone who can tell others what to do."
"You think I enjoy ordering other hobbits around?" Freddy asked with a grin, and Frodo too smiled, hung his head.
"No, I." Used to be able to speak with you, he could have said. Easily. Freddy was one of his young cousins and dear friends, but now Frodo felt a distance between them that hadn't been there before. But then again, he felt a distance from everyone else since he'd been back as well. "I'm not explaining myself well. I'm sorry."
A repeat of too many other conversations he'd had with old friends in the last few months. Frodo had been happy to see Freddy's smiling face in the Cottons' kitchen (for Lily had invited him in before even calling for Frodo) and only a little sad to think he'd needed official business, related to his provisional office, as an excuse to invite him there, that he couldn't just call him over as a friend.
He'd thought, good, for all that they had important business to see to, they might have a real talk on their way there. But now it seemed it would be as quiet and awkward an hour as any other in this borrowed, provisional life that fit him as well as an Orc's armor or a human child's nightshirt.
"I don't know that I can tell you how it feels," Freddy said at length. "I'm not much more settled in with this new life than you are. I do know I'm not the same hobbit you knew, but the difference isn't in what I do. I was always good at coming up with a plan, always good at convincing people to go along with it."
"So what's different now?" Frodo asked.
"Now? I'm different because I went into the Lockholes and I came out."
They were silent for the rest of the way to Michel Delving. Frodo knew they couldn't put off talking about the Lockholes forever because that was precisely where they were going. No one had gone inside the tunnels since that cold sunny day in November when Frodo had taken Freddy's hand and helped him stumble outside. There were rumors that some of the food the Shirelings had been forced to "share" was still being kept in the back of those old store holes, and they had need of it now, as provisions were growing scarce and spring was taking its own time to come back.
A round wooden door covered up the holes. Freddy had brought along two lanterns because there were no windows in the place.
"I remember coming here once with Bilbo, when I was quite young," said Frodo, "not long after I'd moved to Hobbiton. He wanted me to know all about the stores, how the Mayor needed to keep track of the food, in case there was a shortage."
"He must have known you'd be Mayor someday."
"Or friends with the Mayor, anyhow. It seemed quite marvelous at the time. Such abundance, and all of it ordered, all for the sake of making sure everyone had enough to eat through the winter."
Together they lifted the door. It was not locked anymore, despite the name, but Freddy told Frodo that the local hobbits had stayed away, despite the rumors that there was food stored inside, because there were also rumors of ghosts.
"But no one died inside," Freddy said. "They tell it that way, but no one's got names. I was there and hobbits were beaten, and some of us near starved in the months they had us there, but not one of them died."
They looked down the steps, both reluctant to start down. "Did they hurt you?" Frodo asked. "Did they beat you when they brought you here?"
"Oh, not... They did when they first got you, as a matter of course, to teach you a lesson. And when they got me they were excited and angry, because we'd held out against them for so long. But they didn't...that is, there was nothing else they needed to find out from me, so it didn't go on for too long, that kind of..." He stopped and steadied himself. "I'm all right now," he declared. "Or I will be, once I get some more food in me. I've spent a lot of time talking about it with Estella, and Merry and Pippin have been a great help as well."
"I'm glad of that."
"I'm so glad to have them back, and not to terribly far from Budgeford either. We rode there together from here, and they've come to visit us often."
"I shall have to invite them to come back to Hobbiton, once I'm able to move back to Bag End."
"Oh, I hope you can see them sooner than that."
Frodo said nothing.
"They told me you were a prisoner as well, for a time."
Frodo looked down. "Only for a very little while," he said quickly. "And I don't remember much of it."
"That's a blessing," said Freddy.
"Perhaps so."
"I'd like to forget a good deal of what I saw in there," he said, pointing with his chin, "and what I felt. Except, as I said, I'm the hobbit I am today because of what happened during those few months. And for that I'm glad I remember it all."
Then he took a deep breath and started down the stairs, holding his lantern high. Frodo followed behind him. The place stank terribly and they covered their faces with their sleeves to make it easier to breathe. To Frodo's surprise, Freddy moved through the tunnels without hesitation, even in the weak light, and he walked straight through the maze of it to where he said he'd seen the jailers go for food.
"They gave us black bread," he said, "and a little bit of soup that was so watery there was nothing much to it at all. But the Men were eating their fill."
It took some shoving to get the door to the last door open but when they did Freddy grinned wide to see the great piles of grain. "Just as I thought," he said. "Keeping it all to themselves, they were."
Some of the fruit and vegetables had rotted and would have to be burned once they brought the good food out of the tunnel.
"I wish we'd come sooner," said Frodo as they brought the first load outside. They sat down to rest and breath the fresh air again.
"That would have been better," Freddy agreed. "I'd expected the locals would have cleaned it out as soon as they brought us out, but it seems they're a superstitious lot."
"I wish... I wish I'd known about a lot of things," said Frodo. Freddy looked at him. "Perhaps if we'd...if Merry and Pippin and I had come sooner, it would have been different for all of you. I am sorry we stayed away for so long."
"Now, now." Freddy patted him on the back. "That's all right. You had other work to do. Don't think anyone here holds it against you."
"I can't help but think that. If I'd been the one stuck here waiting I don't know that I'd ever be able to forgive the ones who stayed away."
"Believe me, Frodo –"
"Oh, I believe you when you say you aren't angry. But I can't believe everyone feels the same way you do."
"I would think if anyone had reason to resent you it would be me, Frodo, and I don't, so perhaps you ought to leave it alone."
"You've got reason, but you also know me better than anyone else who didn't go along, so you've got more reasons than most to forgive me. But what about the Gamgees? What do you think Rose Cotton thinks of me now?"
"She probably thinks her home would be less crowded now if not for you..."
"She's got bigger concerns than that..."
"...Because her father and her brothers could well have died in the Battle of Bywater if you hadn't been there making sure as little blood was shed as was possible."
Frodo was stunned. "I'd not thought of that part of it before."
"And you do an awful lot of thinking, which tells me you must be spending far too much time dwelling on what you did wrong, and not nearly enough on what you did right, or how much worse it could have been. No regrets, Frodo. I wish I hadn't had to go into the Lockholes, but it was better for me than the alternative."
"Sam wanted to come back."
"What's that?"
"He didn't want to leave me, of course, once she made him think of it that way, but he –"
"What are you talking about, Frodo?"
"Oh, it's." He looked in a basin of water and saw the smoke rising over Bywater. It wouldn't do much good to put it that way, would it? "Nothing. He had a feeling there was trouble back here. I should have listened to him."
"Well, no way of knowing how it might have gone." Freddy stood up. "Come on, lets see if we can get some help hauling this stuff out of the hole. You and I might be heroes but we're not the best weightlifters in the Shire."
Azalea Sandheaver, who lived nearby, had been one of the few girls who'd been with Freddy in the hills of Scary but who'd escaped when he'd been captured. She'd also been one of Gandalf's greatest admirers never to leave the Shire, and once she and her sisters and neighbors had brought everything salvageable up above ground, she helped them set up a fuse and a small explosion that they could safely light from outside. For an hour they sat together and watched the smoke billow out of the wide round hole. They'd banked the edge of that room with sand, and they had buckets of water ready in case the fire should get out of hand, but all went according to plan. Freddy and Azalea told stories of the rebel life and Frodo listened quietly. When the smoke had slowed Azalea said, "We'll wait a day or two and I'll go in with Ginny and start cleaning up."
"We can come back," said Frodo.
"It's no trouble. We've had a lot of that kind of work to do. I can't say it's as exciting as fighting the ruffians, but it's not as difficult or dangerous either." She smiled and invited them to dinner with her family, and Freddy accepted on their behalf.
Over the meal they talked of how the food could be fairly distributed to reach the hobbits who most needed it. A share would be left here and Freddy would carry some in his carriage back to Frogmorton and then Budgeford. (Hobbiton and Bywater had much less need, since they'd recovered most of what the Sackville-Bagginses and Sandymans had horded for themselves.) Afterwards they talked to other Delvers about how what was here could be kept safe, how much should be turned over to the leaders who came from other villages.
When they were riding home Frodo said, "How would you feel about taking over for me, come Midsummer?"
"As Mayor?"
"As Mayor, yes. Will Whitfoot says he'll take over again if he must, but he'd rather I stay on. But you're wonderful, the way you talk to all those people, even the father who obviously hasn't forgiven you for putting Azalea in danger.
Freddy laughed. "Azalea's been putting herself in danger from the time she knew how to walk. Bob knows I tried to send her home, but I was completely powerless." He paused. "As for taking over the office, I hadn't thought of it. We all figured you'd keep on."
"The term is seven years."
"Yes, and?"
"Well, I don't know that I –"
"You're not planning to leave us again, are you?"
"No," said Frodo, "not planning."
"Right then, tell me what's on your mind. Why so much introspection today, apart from the place where we've been. Why do you bring it up?"
"It's nothing, only that..."
"Yes?"
"I had a letter from...one of the friends we made on the journey."
"And which friend would that be?"
"The one we met in Bree, the one called Strider who turned out to be –"
"And what did he have to say, the King of Gondor?"
Frodo smiled. He knew none of it sounded real to his friends from home, that it must sound as if he and Merry and Pippin were talking about characters from a storybook. Freddy went along with it all, but it was almost as if he were humoring a child who liked to go on about his imaginary friends in their imaginary kingdom. Freddy made more of an effort than the rest of them to learn the cast of characters, at least.
"He was full of good news," said Frodo. "He hoped we had arrived at home all right and he... And he said that the people there, in that country, remembered me and – " honored him, but that sounded far too grand for him to say it out loud in a pony-pulled carriage on a country road. "That I would be welcome back there, should I decide I'd done what work I needed to do in the Shire."
Freddy laughed for a long time and then went quiet, staring ahead at the road more intently than usual, looking into the distance as if he'd rather avoid Frodo's eyes.
"You're actually thinking about it, aren't you?" Freddy said. "I understood, when you went off the first time. That is, I don't think any of us truly understood it, but I knew there was something driving you out, and something you needed to get done, how it had to be taken outside our borders."
"Yes."
"And for Merry and Pippin and Sam, that was enough to mean they had to go with you. But Frodo, that's all over and done with now."
"It's not –"
"I mean to say, from what the three of you have told us, you did what you set out to do. You and Sam destroyed the Ring, and the others fought the battles, so what's left to... What's driving you out this time?"
"I'm not going," Frodo said, knowing that wasn't the answer Freddy wanted. "Not anytime soon, at least. I haven't finished the work I need to do here, I know that. I haven't come anywhere close."
Freddy said, "Well, we'll talk about it again when the time gets closer, but I'm honored that you think I could do the job."
"You're a natural leader, I think."
He shook his head and laughed again. "But don't you know, Frodo, all this time, I was only trying to think what you would do if you were here."
"Oh, Freddy." Frodo frowned and waved his hand. "You don't need to say such things."
"I'm not trying to flatter you, I'm telling you the truth. I never had your thirst for travel or adventure, you know. I was content to live a peaceful life in Budgeford or Bucklebury or wherever it needed to be, as long as I could be near my family and my friends, and have my ale and my pipe in the evening after a good day's work."
"I did want to travel," Frodo said, "but I never wanted –"
"No, that's just the thing. I know you never wanted to leave us the way you did, or for the reasons you did. And do you know, I had to keep that knowledge and those reasons secret all the time you were gone? And don't think Sharkey's men weren't keen to get it out of me."
Frodo shifted in his seat but said nothing.
"But I didn't mean to talk any more about that," Freddy went on quickly. "What I meant to say is, I never wanted to be the one to fight the ruffians. I didn't want to leave my family and go into the hills. I certainly didn't want to give up regular meals! But then I would think, 'Well, Frodo never asked for what he got either, did he?' But you didn't complain, at least not where I could hear it. You just took that thing and did what you needed to do with it. And the same thing for Sam, of course. He'd rather have stayed here and taken care of your garden and made a good husband for Rosie and a father for her children. But he had other work to do, so he did it. That was all I thought when I took Azalea and the others off to Scary. I wasn't trying to be the hero of the story, just to see to what needed to be done."
After a long time Frodo simply said, "Thank you."
"It's only the truth, but you're welcome."
"I wish I knew what needs to be done now."
"So do I. You said your work here isn't finished, and I think that's true. But then, there's always more work to do, isn't there?"
"Yes," said Frodo, "I fear that is so."
"Where's Mr. Frodo?" said Tom when he came in from the field for second breakfast.
"Went to Michel Delving with Fredegar Bolger."
"Did you see old Fatty then? Is he well?"
Rosie shrugged. "He didn't look it to me, but then I hadn't seen him since before he went off to Scary. Frodo seemed pleased, said he looked much better than when they brought him out of the Lockholes."
"That's not hard to believe. He couldn't have looked much worse."
Rosie nodded, got up and started picking up the plates the others had finished, just to have something to do.
"Are you annoyed I came in late?"
"Of course not," said Rosie. "You just have to eat cold bacon is all. Do you think Mr. Frodo looks better?"
"What, since he came back?"
"Yes."
"Well, it hasn't been very long, but yes. I think he looks...calmer."
"He was always good at looking calmer. He's gentry, they're good at that."
"What is it you want to know, Rosie?"
"Well, he ought to... We've been doing our best, you know. But he never seems to want to talk to any of us, and me least of all. Even since –" Yule, when he'd said he wanted things to be easier, though Tom didn't know about that, would only know about the things she'd said and done to make it harder.
"You weren't friends before he left."
"No."
"And nothing's happened to change that, so why are you worried?"
"Because he's living in our house, Tom! And because he won't be forever, and I think, if he's not eating and getting strong and opening up and talking while he's here with you and me and with Mother's cooking, what's it going to be like when he's on his own?"
Tom smiled. "I've never seen you as mother hen before."
"Oh, Tom, don't tease."
"Frodo's a grown hobbit and used to living on his own. He probably minds all the fussing around him more than anything else."
"There are other things he minds more. I just wish he would tell us what he wants instead of all this...brooding."
"He's not the only one to get in a mood sometimes, you know. Mother and Mari have both asked me what they can do to make you cheer up again."
Rosie shouldn't have been surprised by that. Of course she knew they were unhappy with her unhappiness, but the thought of them discussing her when she wasn't around was a little unsettling.
"Well." Rosie wanted to say something sassy and clever. "Well, I." But for the life of her couldn't think what Tom or Mari or her mother could do to make her happy, so she just went quiet.
"There you are," said Tom, "you've got no reasons, and nobody's business but you're own if you don't care to talk about them. Thank you for breakfast."
"You're welcome."
He sat back and she thought he'd go back outside, but he sat thinking for a while, then said, "You know, I admire them for what they did. I was at the Battle and I don't think we would have risen up against them without Merry. And I don't think it would have gone near as smooth as it did without Frodo. Other hobbits were too excited after all those months of doing nothing, and there would have been a lot more dead on both sides if they didn't have Frodo telling them to calm down. I admire them, but that doesn't mean I admire the hobbits who stayed behind any less."
"You mean like the one you're getting ready to marry?"
Tom smiled. "Yes, or the ones in my family. Mari and I quarreled over it at first, did you know?"
"Oh, I know," said Rosie.
"I said we should go ahead and fight the ruffians any way we could, and of course I meant take what weapons we had and stand up to them. And she said we couldn't win it that way."
"She was right."
"I know. They were bigger and stronger and they had swords against our hoes and ploughshares."
"It would've been madness."
"But then again, once Mr. Frodo and them came back, it wasn't all that difficult."
"It was different then. They were so used to us being meek they had no reason to suspect it could be different."
"Maybe that was all we needed then, someone who hadn't lived through all we had, so they could surprise the ruffians."
"So they were rash and foolish."
"But it worked!" Tom laughed and Rosie felt foolish, like a child who didn't like that someone else could be more popular than she and her friends. But Tom seemed to understand. "Merry and Pippin are like nothing the Shire's ever seen, so of course they'll get a lot of attention. But people haven't forgotten about what Mari did, or about you and me. Why, I think of even Robin Smallburrow. He's had friends and family call him a traitor, but you and me know how much worse it would've been if we'd had worse hobbits among the Shirriffs, or if all the Shirriffs had quit and we'd had the Men coming in directly for whatever little task they wanted done."
"Fine then," said Rosie. "I can't argue with you, Tom, you talk too much sense."
He shrugged. "Marigold talked me out of a lot of the nonsense I used to believe in."
"How's this: I can't promise to be cheerful, but the next time you catch me sulking or snapping just because somebody said a good word about Frodo or Merry or Pippin, you tell me to snap out of it."
"All right," said Tom. "Yes, I can do that."
The Cottons' smial was dark and quiet by the time he got back, but quite warm after the carriage ride. After the others had gone to bed Frodo and Rosie up staring at the fire.
"We ought to have come back sooner," Frodo said. "From the South, I mean. Sam looked in a basin of water and saw smoke rising."
Rosie nodded. "That was a sign?"
"Yes."
"Do you think you could've kept the ruffians away had you turned around then?"
Frodo didn't know. "I think he would have lived."
"Then you're right," she said. "You should have come back."
If Tom were around, Rosie thought, he'd tell her not to speak to Frodo like that, and so soon after she'd promised not to. If her mother heard it she'd insist that Rosie apologize to their guest. Then again, something told her Frodo wouldn't have spoken the words in the first place if anyone else were there to hear. He didn't want false assurances, just to speak the truth as he understood it and have someone believe him.
As for smoke rising from a basin of water, it made no sense, but Rosie decided to leave it alone for now.