Credit where Credit is due: previously on my LJ
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Tolkien (except for the bits that belong to Peter Jackson and the rest of the people who made the movies.) I'm just playing with the toys.
Author: rabidsamfan
Awake
In his dreams he was flying, spiraling upwards like a spark from the fire. He hadn't known that you could still dream when you were dead. He hadn't known that you could still ache after you'd been burned to ash. At least it was a distant ache; as distant as the voices he was only just beginning to hear. He could stay in the air where it was cool.
"Be careful, Pippin, you'll spill it!"
"I am being careful. You're just jostling my elbow."
"Where are the other towels?"
"You're sitting on them."
"Oh, so I am. Here. Careful… careful…"
"I am being careful!"
"I know. It's just that he's still got such a nasty lump on the back of his head."
He dreamt of water, sunwarmed and sweet, falling on his face and trickling through his hair. He dreamt of gentle hands kneading his curls, and a soft cloth on his skin, smoothing away the sensation of grime and sweat and blood that clung to him like cockleburs.
"Do you think he'll ever wake up?"
"The King said they need to rest. He'll wake up when he's ready to wake up, and so will Frodo."
Frodo?
"I think his eyelids moved. Well, maybe not. He looks better than he did, though. Don't you think so, Merry?"
"Yes, Pippin, he does. He could hardly look worse, could he? And he'll look even better once we get finish getting him clean and make him comfortable."
He wanted the voices to come closer. Or to go away and stop talking about people he would never see again. He wanted to come to land again, instead of drifting helpless. He wanted the water…
"He did move! Did you see it?"
The cough surprised him; he had a body, clearly, if it needed to be washed, but surely if he were dead he wouldn't feel the air exploding painfully past the dry ache in his throat, or the sharp pain of bruised ribs.
"Quick, fetch Strider!"
"He's busy!"
"Fetch someone!"
"Right! Right!"
Another cough like torment waiting for its chance. He swallowed it, trying to force it to stay inside, and failing. Another cough and another, and stars bursting like fireworks inside his eyelids. Arms curved around him, easing him upright, and bracing him against the coughs.
"Here, I will take him."
Larger hands gathered him into a warm lap and he felt a chill curve of metal against his lips.
"Easy, Sam, easy. Try to drink a little."
Liquid, bitter with herbs, but cool in his mouth, easing his throat.
"Is he all right? Why is he coughing? We didn't do anything wrong, did we?"
"He'll be fine, Pippin. Won't he, Legolas?"
"Yes, Merry. He will be all right. He's almost awake now."
His hands came up and found the smoothness of the cup, preventing it from being taken away again. His breath echoed softly in the confines of the vessel, like wind in a bell, and he dared to open his eyes a little, glimpsing reflected light on wavelets inside the bowl before him. He let his eyelids fall again and drank more deeply. If the rest was a dream, the water was real, and for the moment, that was all he cared to know.
"See? It is as I have said."
"The King will soon be here. And Gandalf wishes to know if he should also come."
"No, Gimli. One of us should stay with Frodo."
Frodo.
Gandalf…
Gandalf was dead. He was certain of that. This was a cruel dream, then. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe they were all dead and together somehow. Except that he didn't think Elves went the same place as hobbits. Or Dwarves neither.
"Why doesn't he wake up?"
"Patience, Pippin."
"I'm tired of being patient! Come on, Sam, wake up!"
Small fingers trailed across his ankle, tickling until they hit a half-healed scar. He flinched and the water spilled cold across his face and down his neck as the cup was hastily removed.
"PIPPIN!"
His eyes flew open again in spite of himself, and he stared in confusion at his own bruised knees and strange courtyard walls around blooming gardens. Surely that was Gimli bending down to something or someone just beyond the corner of his eye. And the warm arms he was leaning against belonged to…
"Legolas?" He barely whispered, not wanting the dream to end, but the Elf finished mopping the spilled water with a soft cloth and turned his face up so that their eyes met, his understanding smile like the sun coming over the hills.
"Frodo is safe, and sleeping. Gandalf and the Eagles found you, and brought you both safe from Mordor."
"Gandalf's dead." That certainty hadn't left him, and he clung to it like a patch of still earth on a shaking mountain.
"He was, but he came back to us."
"Sam!"
"Sam, you're awake!"
Merry and Pippin collided with each other trying to hug him, and reeled back, rubbing at bumped heads, giving Legolas a chance to put a warning hand in the way. They advanced more carefully, and he was grateful for the caution, because even Merry's gentle hug woke bruises, and Pippin's enthusiasm was nearly painful. But only nearly. The mountain had changed his notion of pain.
He managed to nod, but couldn't find words, not that his silence deterred their enthusiasm. He wanted to reach through the heavy lassitude of the dream, to meet their happiness, but it was so hard to keep his eyes open, and there was something dizzying about the smell of the flowers.
"Oh, Sam, you won't believe everything that's happened..."
The words flowed over and around him, hobbit-voices intermingled with Gimli's gruffer notes, telling him about a battle and Rohirrim, whatever that was when it was at home, and talking trees that walked and fought and ghosts with oaths to be fulfilled. It made no more sense than Gandalf coming back alive, but he was content to drift on the sound. Underneath the babble, Legolas was humming, and he let his head rest against the silken shirt, hearing the music as if it were being sung by the Elf's own heart.
"Sam, let me see your eyes."
Another voice he knew, and a large, careful hand cupping around the back of his sore head. He peeked, still wary of the dizziness, and then had to look more carefully, for Strider was different somehow from what he had expected. All dressed in red, and with his hair and beard soft with soap. The Man was singing now, and it made the ache in his head ease somehow to hear it.
All of a sudden he realized that he hadn't any clothes on, and he blushed as he rediscovered modesty, shifting his hands to cover what needed covering, and grateful when he found that someone had placed a towel where it would do the most good.
"Is this Rivendell?"
He couldn't think where else he'd seen Strider in such fancy clothes, but his question brought Pippin's face bobbing near the Man's elbow.
"It's Minas Tirith, Sam, in Gondor. Where Boromir came from. Do you remember? Are you sure he's all right, Aragorn? Will Frodo be confused too, when he wakes up?"
"Frodo does not have a lump on his head the size of an egg." Aragorn was smiling, as if the question weren't so desperately important. "On your feet, Sam, and we'll take you to him."
Oh, that was a reason to do as he was told, but the fear that this was all a dream rushed back at him and the memory of the heat and the noise and the smell of the mountain and Frodo holding onto him with the blood still running hot from his poor hand blinded him with tears as Aragorn and Legolas set him upright and maneuvered his arms and head into a long, silken nightshirt. And then he heard the laughter.
Pippin was already running, with Merry close behind, headed for an open door in a corner of the courtyard. Gimli was going too, with the ponderous speed of a Dwarf in armor. Legolas stayed behind, to steady him as he stumbled forward, until Aragorn freed the Elf with a small gesture of eyes and chin.
But Aragorn stayed with him all the way across the courtyard, until they neared the door and he hesitated, unwilling to turn a corner that might lead him back into the barren plain of Gorgoroth. He looked up at the Man, unable to voice his fears, but Aragorn squeezed his shoulder and seemed to understand.
"It will be all right."
And then he was alone, just steps from the gaping doorway, and the clamor of greetings, the laughter of friends was tumbling out of the opening, beckoning him forward like a dream of water in the desert. A few more steps and the dream might shatter.
But he had to know. And then he was in the doorway, and there was Gandalf indeed, all dressed in white, and Gimli and Legolas and Aragorn tall beside him, nearly blocking the view of the human-sized bed where Pippin and Merry were bouncing and chattering to a small thin laughing hobbit clad in a nightshirt that didn't hide the scars on his neck, or the dark rings under his eyes, or the bandaged hand… Frodo And then the dark blue eyes met his, and Frodo's laughter stilled and all the noise and people went away as he looked to find the madness of the Ring, or the terror of the mountain, and found instead the friend who had taken him the one more step beyond all that he had ever known. Frodo smiled, and Sam felt his own smile growing, stretching across the stiffness of his face until all the swelling joy in his heart could shine out clear to the hobbit who had saved all the world – and all of Sam's world too. The nightmare was over.