Authoress' Note: Hello and welcome back to yet another Tersa/Sam Fluff fic! Once again, it is a song fic, this time a song For Good from the soundtrack of Wicked which I get to go see on Broadway in the beginning of April! YAY! Anywhoo, this fic picks up where the other one left off, . . . well, sorta. The point is that this happens after the other one did, okay? Anyway, here it is.
It was a rather dreary night. The moon was at her full tonight, but that didn't too much matter because her beauty was overshadowed by the grey clouds that covered the skies as they cried onto the night. A beautiful auburn haired hobbit lass sat beneath a huge willow tree on the edge of the forest that bordered the northern edge of Bywater. Her soaked hair clung to her back and shoulders, but surprisingly, the rest of her was bone dry.
It had been one month to this day since Frodo Baggins, Peregrin Took, Meriadoc Brandybuck, Samwise Gamgee, and Tersa Took had returned from The Quest of the Ring. Each and every day since their return, the five of them had met in the Green Dragon to try to reassemble their old lives and mix with the rest of the Shire Folk, and so, every single day, Tersa had been forced to watch Sam goggle over Rosie Cotton, trying to gather enough courage to ask her out. Each day, Tersa fell more and more in love with Sam and each day, her heart broke more and more. Sam was her entire world. She loved him with all her heart, and even though she knew he would never love her back, she still couldn't bring herself to move on or to give up on him. She clutched at the green cloak that hung from her shoulders, remembering all the time she had spent with the one who had given it to her.
"I love you, Samwise. Please know this," she muttered closing her eyes. After a moment, she opened them and looked up at the circle behind the clouds where the moon would have been were it not covered.
It was late, and Tersa had been gone for hours, much longer than she usually was. The Green Dragon was almost closing and the room was void of Tersa's gorgeous smile and melodious laughter that it usually had. Sam remembered she had said she was going out for a walk some time ago and that she would be back later, but here it was, three and a half hours after she had left and she still had not returned. He sensed something was wrong, for Tersa always kept her word, especially to him, and she had promised to be back. Sam rose from the table near the fireside and quickly bade farewell to Frodo, Pippin, and Merry before heading out in search of her.
An hour later, after he had checked her home, her mother's, her friend, Cavca's, and anywhere else he thought she might have been, he started to feel even more worried and slowly made his way out of Bywater, fearing the worst. As he reached the edge of the forest he had begun to stumble through, he saw a beautiful willow tree and headed toward it, thinking about how lovely it was. After a few steps, however, he noticed a young lady sitting beneath its tendrils. She was staring at the sky, then, without warning nor explanation, she began to sing with such heart and soul that Sam was taken aback.
She had to get it out of her. She was going to go insane if she didn't. She wanted him to love her, but knew it wouldn't happen, so she had to give up her hope and simply love him from afar. The only way to relieve her from her heartache was to sing.
"I'm limited. Just look at me-I'm limited. And just look at you. You could do all I couldn't do. So now it's up to you," Tersa sang. "For both of us," she whispered, then continued singing. "Now it's up to you."
Sam moved from tree to tree until he was barely feet away from the saddened lass. The moment she had breathed her first note, Sam knew that it was Tersa. Only she could have that wonderful a voice. When he neared her, he saw the green cloak that hung from her shoulders, obviously way too big and began to think. He remembered giving her the cloak to keep warm but couldn't think why she would have kept it.
"I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn. And we are led to those who help us most to grow. If we let them and we help them in return. Well, I don't know if I believe that's true, but I know I'm who I am today because I knew you."
Sam leaned against a tree from behind to make sure she couldn't see him. She sounds so sad. Why is she so heartbroken? Who has done this to her? he thought almost angrily defensive of her.
"Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes a sun, like a stream that meets a bolder halfway through the wood. Who can say if I've been changed for the better? But because I knew you, I have been changed for good."
Tersa stopped for a moment, shivering slightly and pulling her cloak more so around her. She looked around, feeling as if eyes were on her but quickly passed it off as paranoia. Who would ever watch over me? she thought to herself sadly. She turned back to look at the rain that fell down around her in an almost perfect circle but never touched her.
"It well may be that we will never meet again in this lifetime, so let me say before we part so much of me is made of what I learned from you. You'll be with me like a handprint on my heart, and now whatever way our stories end I know you have rewritten mine by being my friend. Like a ship blown from it's mooring by a wind off the sea, like a seed dropped by a bird in a distant wood. Who can say if I've been changed for the better? But because I knew you, because I knew you, I have been changed for good."
Sam slowly started to realize something. The jacket, the soulfulness of her singing, and the sad look she always had in her eye when ever she was near him. He was beginning to believe that she may still care for him, but his mind wouldn't much allow it. Why would she love me? I don't deserve her. She's so wonderful and caring and beautiful. I could never love her enough to have her even look at me. I blew it when she did love me. Why would she now? he thought bitterly to himself. He did love Tersa. More than anyone knew. He would instantly chose her over Rosie, given the option. He hadn't told anyone for fear of getting rejected by Tersa. He pretended to still fancy Rosie, but he didn't mean any of it.
He closed his eyes tightly and let his head fall back against the wood. "I love you, Tersa Took. More than anything," he whispered, barely audible.
"And just to clear the air, I ask forgiveness for the things I've done you blame me for. But then, I guess we know there's blame to share, and none of it seems to matter anymore. Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes a sun, like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood. Like a ship blown off its mooring by a wind off the sea, like a seed dropped by a bird in the wood. Who can say if I've been changed for the better? I do believe I have been changed for the better, and because I knew you, because I knew you, because I knew you, I have been changed for good!" Tersa left one last ringing note into the night. A tear left her eye as she thought of all the times she had spent with Sam. She no longer held hope for the two of them, and even though she loved him, she decided not to pursue him anymore. She would let him be happy with Rosie as much as she wanted to kill her for toying with Sam's feelings. She stood silently and looked back at the willow tree, tears now flowing freely down her face. "I love you, Samwise, and I always will." That said, she stole away into the rain, clutching her cloak to her all the more tightly.
Sam stepped out from behind the tree and walked over to the willow his beloved Tersa had been sitting under. For a moment, he thought he had imagined the words he heard Tersa say at the end; imagined his hope had been realized; that Tersa really did love him. He thought he had not seen her at all and that it was all a hallucination, but when he walked over to where she had sat, he saw that she had dropped her necklace, a small silver chain with a heart charm at the end. Engraved on the heart charm was Samwise Gamgee and Tersa Took: Soul mates.
