DISCLAIMER: All characters and settings in this vignette were created by J.R.R Tolkien, who is eternally fantastic. I'm just borrowing. Mordor Voice
Sam realised that Frodo was on the very brink— there was only a frail glow of life remaining, just beneath the skin, where Sam could not even reach to coax brightness out of it. And this time, he would not wake. There was a painful absence of sound. Not like silence, exactly, more the loss of noise. Not even the murmur of Frodo's voice. Sam's face contorted as he bent closer over the pale bruised face.
"Come on," he hissed, "This is the last leg, Mister Frodo. Please. Please."
But Frodo was suspended over this precipice, now, in the shadow of the mountain, with the earth quaking and the sky thick with flames. The light, far above them in the mouth of the volcano, was just enough to see by. Sam's face was directly over Frodo's, sharp with pain and beauty all mixed together.
"Master—" His voice cracked. He started again, low and firm this time, with only the edge of fear. "You've got to help me now. If that's alright. You know I'd take It for you but I think we've worked out that that don't work. So there's got to be something else, hasn't there?" Frodo's breathing caught in his throat and the sound was dry and rasping. It was breaking Sam's heart. He pressed on; "You didn't come all this way to fall asleep here. Skies above, you need the sleep, and if it were up to me, I'd never let you move again and I'd cook you up the best meal and run your bath and then I'd go lie in the sun in the garden but it's not up to me. It's not up to me, sir," he said, desperately, "It's you. And you've never been wrong up till now. Not even about Gollum. Look, look, I'll take it back, everything bad I said."
Frodo's skin was so white. The bones showed through all the gaps where his shirt had torn. So thin, so small. Oh, none of this should be. With hot tears in his eyes, Sam bent and wrapped his arms about his friend and pulled him up to hold him close. He felt the dull thud of heartbeat. Frodo was on the very edge now and Sam would be damned if he let him go now, after all that, after all the madness.
"Oh, Frodo," he breathed, "Frodo, not now, please. I couldn't bear it. Of all of them that suffer... oh, come on, come back now, come back to your Sam."
And he saw the burn of the chain on the back of Frodo's neck and felt the ribs beneath his hand where he clutched the other hobbit.
"You're too good to die," Sam said viciously, glaring across the ruined landscape through Frodo's dark hair caught in the wind. "Come on, just for me, this time. Don't care if it's selfish now—" He hoped the Gaffer didn't hear that one— "You're my friend and I say you're best. It's not going to take you now. My word goes, you filthy Thing, and you're not having him."
"Sam," said a voice by his ear and Sam burst into tears as he clutched Frodo to him. He felt his master's hands find purchase on his back and, after a hasty calming of thoughts, he eased Frodo back to give him air. He felt foolish and, looking down at the startled face, all the previous comfort dried up. He could not think what to say. The eyes were open, and they were wonderfully bright.
"Oh, Sam, I'm so sorry, I must have slept beyond your calling," Frodo cried, forcing himself up onto his elbows. His gaze anxiously swept Sam's face. He sighed. His hand reached out to touch Sam's face and he held onto it. "I gave you quite a scare. Forgive me, Sam, I fall so far these days, I just... Well. I'm here. I promise not to go anywhere without your permission, Sam." He smiled wanly. Sam tried to too.
"Well, then, I'd never try and stop you going anywhere, Mister Frodo, but I don't think I approve of that place."
"No," said Frodo firmly. He swallowed hard and set about the difficult task of clambering to his feet. Sam remembered himself and went at once to lend an arm and, before the dark morning was even fully dawned, they were underway once more. The ground tilted like a smirk under their feet into the base of the mountainside. Step, after step, after step, after step. Sam's great relief at preventing Frodo's fall spurred him on, faster than usual, and he felt strong enough to help more, felt more patient at every stumble. Conscious and guilty (although such a thought baffled Sam) at frightening his companion by his own weakness, Frodo was careful not to be lulled so deeply by the Ring's lullaby. He spoke whenever he could. To be fair, there is little conversation to be had when one is bearing a ring of doom to a terrible fire, starving and thirsty, the fate of the world on one's back— at least, none that extended far beyond Mordor's veil. But he did his best. He told a story about Bilbo and the dragon that he was too familiar with to need the images to recall it. The words were like dead sounds in dead air. But that was all they needed to be for him, and it got Sam talking to.
Frodo could see how wasted Sam's outline had become. The hand that clasped him beneath the arm was no longer muscled, and the fingers could not even bend fully. He realised, belatedly, that neither he nor Sam could walk unaided. So they trudged for long, agonising miles, attached, just to stay upright. Frodo talked faster, without realising it, the words clumsy and pushed together as he tried to force out the extraneous voices behind his eyes. He made Sam laugh at one point and Frodo laughed too, glancing sideways at the white of teeth against Sam's dark face and the creases that formed at the corners of his eyes.
Only when noon came, and their strength was stretched out to a point, did he let his throat close up once more and the song of the Ring sweep him down into oblivion. It forced out Sam's laugh before he even had time to defend it and suddenly there was nothing but cacophonies of chanting.
Sam caught Frodo's skeletal frame when it went limp under his arm. Trying to convince himself again that this was just sleep, he guided the body down to the ash-strewn rocks. But he could not quite make the necessary leap of faith to release Frodo's hand. He clutched it tight and held it so to feel the pulse between the delicate fretwork of bones. The empty air, still stained with the rich full sound of Frodo's voice, sucked the breath right out from Sam's lungs again, as if nothing had changed.
And the truth of it was, really, that an awful lot had changed. Save, Sam reckoned, for himself and Mister Frodo. Anything else that Frodo did was the Ring— and now Sam was convinced of this, when, even on the tearing landscape of Mordor, both hobbits could still fall back into old habits; Sam would grow all shy around his master, and his master, in turn, would try to draw him out of the shell. He looked down at Frodo's white hand and smiled faintly.
For the time being, the silence was held at bay by the flicker of Frodo's pulse. Just like Frodo, Sam thought vaguely, to go and make sure his Sam wasn't left alone.