It wasn't until after midnight that I dared venture deeper into the damp cellar where Holmes had been imprisoned, leaving the lantern behind me. He was calmer, or more exhausted, by then, and had grown accustomed enough to dim light to keep his eyes open for minutes at a time. They glittered at me as I crept closer, inch by careful inch, waiting again and again for the tension to leave his shoulders.

I talked softly the whole time, although I can not vouch for what I said. Lestrade swears I was reduced to nursery rhymes by three in the morning, when at long last Holmes allowed me to settle beside him and gather his cold, half-starved body to my own. For a moment he stiffened, and I held my breath, wondering if he would take another fit, but instead he rested his head against my chest, as if listening for my heart. "Watson," he whispered, and I felt the fear running out of him, felt the sleep he so needed overwhelm his last defenses. I kissed the top of his head, too glad to hear his voice to think twice about the gesture.

"Yes, Holmes," I said. "I'm here."

This droubble never made it as a top entry over at cox_and_co because it was response to a picture posted here and follows in the proud tradition... well... maybe not exactly tradition, of a story which some of you saw in the earlier version called Haunted, also done in response to artwork that ate my brain.

I didn’t have much to say between Crickhollow and Bree, and that’s that. Leastwise, nowt much I felt comfortable sayin’ aloud. Truth was, Mr. Frodo was too old to care about being a gentlehobbit, and Master Pippin was too young, but Mr. Merry, he’d only just come of age a short while back, and I’d not been far ahead of him, and we both were still trying to figure our proper places. It’s fair to say we stepped on each other’s toes some, and that made things awkward-like.

You see, he tried to take charge, like a proper Brandybuck, organizing the packing and poking everyone awake in the morning; pretending that he knew his way through the Old Forest, which he didn’t.

And after that crack about falling over my own feet, well, I minded the ponies and kept back as much as I could, what with that there Willow Tree and the Barrow Wight and Tom Bombadil and his lady and all. But he had a bad scare in Bree from them Riders, and me, I just couldn’t keep shut around Strider, and walking soon had us both too tired to care, so by Rivendell we were friends again.

With the Company in place on knoll, and the fire burning steadily, Gandalf told them to sleep if they could. And they could, much to their own surprise. There were miles to go come morning, and a fire was nearly as welcome here as it had been on Caradhras after so many nights without. Not even the howls of the wargs were enough to stave off sleep. Boromir and Aragorn stretched out with their swords in their hands, and fell asleep in moments, still exhausted from the work they'd done that morning in forcing a track through deep snow. Pippin curled up beside Sam, who meant to stay awake and keep an eye on Bill, but soon succumbed to the siren call of the tween's soft snores. Gimli napped like a cat, rousing frequently to look around before he closed his eyes again. Merry stayed on his feet, determined to take first watch with Legolas and Gandalf.

Frodo stretched out as near the fire as he dared, and studied Sting, wondering if the elven blade would warn of Wargs as well as orcs, but he was too tired to ask. He closed his eyes and dreamt of Farmer Maggot's dogs.

September was always a good time for birthday parties in Hobbiton, being nine months after the longest night of the year and the Yule feasts and all. It was a good time to have a party as well, with all the barns and cellars brim-full and plenty still hanging ready to be gathered and eaten without much to do but wash it clean first. And you could have an outdoor party in September, most years, without too much worry over any passing cloud. Not like a Spring birthday, Sam thought sometimes, where the sun might shine one year and folks might have to come through a late snow the next.

Still, in September you could never give out kites and send the hobbitlings out to play until their cheeks were bright as their eyes from laughter and wind. And all the food of autumn never tasted as special as the first bright berries garnered from vines and bushes to grace a birthday table after months without that sweetness. There might not be as much dancing at a Spring birthday, but it was sure to end by a fireside with singing and with stories, and that was good enough for Sam.

"I'm all right, I can walk. Put me down!" Aragorn doesn't mean to be rough, but he caught me up so quickly that I'm glad to be put down, to go carefully down these stairs without being jarred while he and Gandalf argue over our heads. But it is harder work than it should be. I'm gladder still of a chance to stop.

Sam is more careful; the arms he wraps around me are gentle, inviting me to lean into his sturdiness without haste or force. He's as frightened as a deer – his pulse is racing faster than mine – but he murmurs reassurances, hobbit-nonsense that contrasts oddly with Gandalf's mutterings from up there by the door. It isn't all right, and it won't be better with a cup of tea, and a bite to eat, Sam, unless you mean to find them somewhere beyond this wretched darkness. And yet I am comforted, like the fauntlings with skinned knees who sniffled belatedly on the garden steps while you came up to ask me permission to raid the teacakes. There's a whiff of flour and cinnamon from your clothes under the iron tang of blood. I close my eyes and remember home.

A lass's heart is a funny thing, and I can't say as how I cared twopence when Sam told me he'd be going off to Buckland. I'd Dan Sandheaver coming around after all, and Tim Brockhouse and they were just the most persistent of the lot. If I thought of Sam it was in much the same way as I thought of Jolly or Tom, and how's a lass to get fluttery about a lad who's more like a brother than a beau?

But then he weren't gone a day before I found myself wanting to go up to Bagshot Row and tell him a bit of news, and feeling all lost-like when I remembered that he wouldn't be there. Still, Buckland 'tisn't as far as all that, and I sat down to write him a letter, same as I would Jolly, if he went off to work somewheres.

I've got it still, tucked up in a drawer, though it's too long to send through the post now. I've kept writing in it, you see, in spite of what everyone said. I'm in the habit of speaking my mind to Sam Gamgee now.

Do you think he'll listen, Mr. Frodo?

holiday droubble

duckie_710 wanted one from Marigold's point of view.

( another titleless wonder, I'm afraid... )

fictualities asked for this one...

Not Just Gathering Dust

Worth more than all the Shire, Gandalf said, and seeing as how it saved Mr. Frodo’s life I can’t say as I value it much less. But I’d not trade one hobbit’s life for it, so here it stays unguarded, and unregarded too, most days. But it’s a useful mathom nonetheless: when a youngster joins the Borderers, he wears the dwarves’ coat until he’s toughened up enough to bear proper hobbit gear.

It’s funny how often they come to me, those gawky tweens, to ask for stories about the hobbits as wore that coat before them. Would-be heroes, eager to be like the Master and the Thain, who want to hear of battles with orcs, and wolves. Solemn youths, their eyes still flickering with memories of the year that the Shadow darkened their childhoods, who want to hear of the Council of Elrond, and Parth Galen, and hard choices made to protect the ones they love. And if they spend the long night watches battling ethereal cave trolls, or climbing moon mountains of ice and fire, tis well. The more that know the stories, and believe, the more I’ve done the task you set me.

The Story will go on.

Listening

I dreamt that you were weeping.

The nightmares I remember are tangled, jumbled; I am naked and frightened one moment, and being stripped of my clothes the next, forced to drink and eat of things best forgotten, and aching from blows that have not yet fallen. Twisted throughout are fevered imaginings: Pippin in bright armor, Merry riding among a host, Aragorn and Gimli and Legolas on a ship at sea, Gandalf's ghost on a white horse. False images. False hurts. Even the orcs did not do all that I imagined in my fear or I would bear the scars.

But as we lie here in the thornbrake, waiting for the night, there is time for you to tell your side of what befell. In your hoarse whisper I hear the tears you shed for me; the pain of the choice you made when you thought me dead, and the terror of the choice you made when you knew I lived. And memory comes back to me, of gentle hands that brushed the webs from my face and settled my unlimbered body like an image on an Elven tomb.

I dreamt that you were weeping.

But it was not a dream.

Morning in Minas Tirith

There came a morning that he just didn’t want to get out of bed, didn’t want to be cheerful, didn’t want to smile and nod at the strange tall people who watched whenever they walked through the cobbled streets. The job was done, wasn’t it? Over. He’d earned a rest, hadn’t he? Just a little one?

“Time enough to rest come evening, Sam Gamgee,” he reminded himself, “and feeling sorry for yourself won’t put breakfast on the table.” But for once his Gaffer’s words were not enough to push him out of bed. Tears leaked out through his eyelashes as he twisted his face around into the pillow. “Mr. Frodo will be waking soon, and Gandalf and the others. And there’s that feast tomorrow, and someone’s got to see that Pippin’s tunic has been mended.” But sleep was as close as a heartbeat, and somehow he went from listing the things that needed doing to dreaming that he was doing them.

He roused once, to the sound of voices, and the blanket being tucked higher.

“He’s not sick, is he, Frodo?”

“Just tired,” came the reply, and a soft kiss on the crown of his head. “Sleep, Sam.”

He slept.


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Near the Grey Havens

When he was sure that they both were sleeping, Sam left their tent and went to find Galadriel, too caught up in his thoughts to do more than nod to the Elves who bowed as he passed. Days and nights flowed together when you travelled with Elves, but by the curve of the moon it had been a week, and it couldn’t be much farther to the sea. If he were going to ask, it would have to be tonight.

She was sitting with Elrond, and Gildor Inglorion, and Glorfindel and Erestor stood by them, and they all shone as if they’d been a-swallowing stars, shone like Frodo did too, and Mr. Bilbo sometimes if you squinted, and Sam would have turned around and gone back to bed if it weren’t for the moon and knowing that the time to speak would never come again.

“Beg pardon,” he began politely. “Seeing as how you’ve been there… Is it a nice place, across the sea? Do they have mushrooms there?” But then courage failed him and he had to look down at the ground as his true questions tumbled free. “Will they be lonely? Will you keep them safe for me?”


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Departure

It wasn’t until the bags were sitting on the porch that he realized that he would never see Bag End again -- not the way that it should be – not with the Sackville-Bagginses moving all their truck in tomorrow. He padded softly through rooms, remembering. Chalk and pipeweed and Mr. Bilbo saying the names of the letters. Soap and flour and his mother rattling pans on the stove of a morning. Leather and iron and dwarves leaving marks in the floor with their hobnailed boots. Books and fireworks and Gandalf’s voice rumbling like approaching thunder. Ink and parchment and Mr. Frodo wandering out to listen to tavern-gossip for a while before going back to his books.

He paused in the doorway of the empty study and put a hand on his stomach, wondering if it were possible to be homesick before you’d even gone off. For half a moment all he wanted was to run for Bagshot Row and put his head under the covers.

But there was no turning back. “A drop of beer, that’s what you need, Sam Gamgee,” he told himself, and went to the cellar to find it.

Malt courage was better than none at all.



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to get my birthday gift out to all of you in thanks for making this a very good day. It's not quite right, but at least it's written!

( Mathom )

All That I Have, or Might Have Had

Will Whitfoot had come to him with Frodo’s will when he’d returned from the Grey Havens, all signed and correct, but his tears had made nonsense of the words. It wasn’t until Quarterday that he realized how much had changed. That was when the rents came due.

All morning they came, small farmers, with their silver and copper, waiting patiently as he wrote the amounts in the ledger, and touching their caps to him when he gave them the receipts. Rosie gave them tea and sweet rolls; they touched their caps to her, too.

A messenger from the Southfarthing, with twenty gold as his share of the pipeweed crop; Ted Sandyman, scowling, with a long tale about how the cost of building the new mill prevented him from paying his due.

All the property Lobelia had left to Frodo, and that Lotho had left to her, bought with Saruman’s money. All the income from the properties that Frodo had got from Bilbo, and from his parents long ago. All of that and Bag End too.

And Sam remembered the glorious lies of the Ring, and the one small garden in a free land that he had chosen instead and wept.


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