"Before the Fact"

by Princess of Pain

Oh, Mr. Frodo... will you ever forgive your foolish Sam?

For I am foolish, and no mistake. I am certainly a sight older, but I am just as silly as I was last time we met. I didn't mean to hurt nobody, honest, least of all you... but I guess I'm just not clever enough to figure things out without hurtin' nobody in the end. No, not clever. I'm just as stupid as good old Gandalf always said Pip was. Maybe more so.

You wanted me to move into Bag-End. I knew what you were askin', occourse, I ain't that stupid. It made me kind of wonder, whether or not you heard what I said. But you were asleep!, my mind says, but this here brain o' mine's hardly reliable. Did you hear and know more than I ever guessed? I don't know, Mr. Frodo. I was never a poet like Mr. Bilbo. I can't say what I think; even if it sounds nice in my head, it gets all tangled up afore it ever reaches my fool mouth. I don't know why you left me to finish your book.

But... but I 'member.

Oh, yes. Not even Samwise Gamgee could forget the touch of his Master.

But... oh, I was a simpleton! I liked Rosie, sure 'nuff, yes. Jus' like her name, she was. But she wasn't what I wanted. But I didn't mean to hurt her with no good reason--I'd of had to explain, and I'd of bunged up the job, as usual. An' how could she have understood? Things are different, so different in the Shire than in the Wide World. In the Shire, cousins marry cousins and naught is thought of it. In the World, that's thought to be a disgustin' practice. Yet in the World... other loves take place.

Look at Strider and Legolas. I know, Strider married Arwen. But I married Rosie. I think--not to say that my thoughts're right or important, you understand--that Strider took Arwen for the same reason. An' I think all three of 'em suffer for it.

And dear Merry an' Pip, those two old fools, still living in Buckland together. No one else seems to know. Oh, they wedded--not t' each other, I mean, but to fine hobbit-lasses. But they ride together an' laugh together, an' even I can see that each one of 'em only has eyes for the other.

Are all of us fools, Mr. Frodo?

I think we may be.

I guess I could of left. We could of left, I mean. But there was Rose, and then Elanor, and all my little loves later on... all thirteen, can y' believe that? I couldn't do that to 'em. I had to be father and husband.

But I was never quite whole again, after you left for the Havens.

"You were meant to be solid and whole, and you will be." I 'member you saying that, sure's I 'member my own name. And I guess you thought that if you left--if you took away half of what was tearing me up--that I'd be a whole. But it ain't true, Master, ain't true atall. I've never been so tore up since you went to the Havens. It's more like you took out half of me, an' there's nothing sadder or smaller than half a halfling, no mistake there. I never was too much to start with, not near the hero folks like to think I am, an' without you, I'm even less. "Frodo an' his faithful Sam", not "bumbling, thickheaded Sam all on his lonesome."

I did my best, though. I made my bed right and proper, I did, so I deserved to lay in it. I took care o' Rosie and the children. Elanor married some thirty years afore, and went out in the wide World on 'er own--she's so much braver than her silly dad. An' Goldilocks wedded a son of Pippin--thought that would please you. I took right good care of Bag-End, nothing there has changed, and I did just as good a job, I hope, with the Shire when I was Mayor. The flowers and trees that grow by the grace of Galadriel 're all still there. And once a year, on your birthday, all the little hobbit-boys and hobbit-girls would gather 'round the door, an' I'd get out the Red Book. They always said just what I told you they'd say: "Tell us about Frodo the Nine-Fingered, and of the War of the Ring!"

No one's forgotten in the Shire. I've done at least that much. And everyone's healthy and strong, and the verge and hills are passing fair, especially in the sunrise.

But... now... it's not flowers I'm wanting to see.

Flowers make me think roses, which make me think Rosie. Which make me think about the fact that she's died, just this past month. Elanor's holding up to it beautifully, better'n Tolman, and Robin. When I see her tonight, I'll tell her to take especial care of her brothers 'n' sisters. Shouldn't take much prompting, I'm sure, particularly when this is gonna be one of my last requests.

I'm leaving, you see.

I want travel again. Never thought I'd say it, but I do. I want the Sea--I only got a glimpse, an' I still remember how it was. No words... a living field of water, I guess is the closest I can get. I want the ships, and the Havens. More'n that, I want you again.

I want to say that I still love you.

Crickey, but I'm pathetic! You'd think I was still a lovesick boy of five-and-twenty! Not a chance o' that happening again. I just reached my two-and-hundredth year on Middle-Earth. And two-and-hundred is time enough for me.

Well, here's a chapter that'll never be in the Red Book, that none'll ever see. I hope you do, though, Mr. Frodo. You'd be eleventy-four now, if you're still living, the Valar forbid you should die. I suspect, though, that we've got a drop or two of time left to us. I've a few more years in me as hobbits go, an' you were a right proper Ring-bearer. I've noticed that Ring-bearers don't die too easy.

And maybe there isn't death in the Havens. Maybe you're still as young and beautiful as I remember you bein', when you were only three-and-fifty. When you left. Maybe I can get young again, look at what the Elves did for Strider. Maybe nothing else has to change.

And maybe I'll lay this... this I-don't-know-what on your grave.

But I rather like the idea of you reading this. I can sort of see it in my head: your eyes, like two dwarf-gems, reading an' reacting to everything; me shifting nervously from one foot to another. I can see that the parchment's now stained with salt, an' that the ink's running in places from little splashes of water, an' it's wrinkled and worn from me folding and unfolding and refolding it, over and over, during the journey. The one thing I can't see is what emotion's gonna be in those fantastic eyes o' yours when you're done... but I guess that's not in my control, so's there's no point in dwelling on it, is there?

I always was somethin' of an optimist, you see, Mr. Frodo.

Comes of being a fool.

-end-

AFTER: When I finished "Return of the King" (and got over that warm, fuzzy feeling you get when a book turns out right in the end), I did a dangerous thing... and started to dwell. Being the sick slasher that I am, I didn't agree at all with the idea of Sam simply marrying Rosie and letting Frodo go off by himself. The little lovesick hobbit followed "Mr. Frodo" straight into the pits of Mordor, but was reluctant to follow him to the Grey Havens? (Understandable, of course, since Sam had probably had all adventurousness thrashed out of him by the War of the Ring... but still.) With that in mind, I began to formulate an idea for a li'l fic post-books. Then, flipping through the appendices of "King", I looked at the timeline Tolkien provided... and jumped a little. After the death of Rosie, it says, when Sam is 102 years old, he packs up his things and leaves the Shire forever, leaving Bag-End and The Red Book behind with his daughter Elanor. No one ever sees him again (supposedly), though it is generally believed that he, as the last of Ring-bearers, found a ship and went to the Grey Havens after his master.

I swear to Buddy Christ that Tolkien did this on purpose.