Author Notes: Okay, this is a companion story to "Never". More major angst, all Sam's POV. 'Him' is Sauron, 'you' is Frodo. Has anyone here ever heard Joaquin Rodrigo's adagio from the concertina for guitar? (I forget what its full name is – something like Arjuanez, or Aranuez). You know what a powerful piece of music that is, right? Well, sort of imagine it in the background. Please, review after you read!

The night is over – how many nights have I spent here in the pass? Does it make any difference? If I were here for a hundred years of nights, I couldn't change what's happened. I would stay until the world came to an end, if I thought I could bring you back. But you're gone. Gone. And I realize that if I stay any longer, we'll be found and the world will come to an end.

I don't care if it does. I don't care if the Dark Lord finds his wretched Ring and destroys everything. I have nothing left to lose. He's already taken you from me, my one, my only. My soulmate. Anything he does to me now will be as nothing to losing you. He's torn my soul in two, and there is no rack, no wheel, no agony of flame that can even begin to compare with this.

I screamed as I held you, hold you, screamed until I had no breath, no voice. Something wet is in my mouth, spilling over my cracked and windburned lips. I taste salt and copper. Blood. I spit, and my mouth fills again. I push you off my lap and I'm on my hands and knees, retching warm, wet blood until my insides are on fire. Pain. Strange that I should cling to it, this terrible sensation. It's the only thing I'm sure of now, my world is in ruins. I'm lost, lost, and pain is the only real thing in this shadow-land my soul has been reduced to. I hold to it for as long as I can, like a light in darkness or a hard edge in a world of mist. But it's fading already, abandoning me to my mist and my shadows.

The pain is gone, and the cold and heavy weight of your body in my arms is the only reality I know. I don't dare let go of you, for fear of losing my mind completely. My mind – there's not much left to lose. A single thought, repeated endlessly as I rock you back and forth. I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand. I rock in rhythm with the words, back and forth, back and forth. I have to get up, move on, but I can't. I can't go. I can hardly even breathe.

I don't understand.

Who could? How could this anguish exist? Surely the Father would not allow it. Surely the gods in their mercy could not let such a thing happen. Any moment now, I'll open my eyes and find you beside me; any moment now, you'll be shaking me awake. A nightmare, you'll say, and kiss me back to sleep. Any moment now, I know it, because this isn't real. If it is, then I have no reason to live. It can't be real. I won't let it be real.

… deliver us from evil.

I pray for deliverance, but the gods are silent; even as you are silent, my love. Does anybody hear me? Is anybody even there? Silence is my answer. The gods are dead, like you. Now the Dark Lord has truly stripped me of everything, even hope. I am naked in the dark, my love, and nothing stands between me and the Reaper's glittering scythe. How easy, to be cut down like wheat. No effort, no resistance – a moment's pain and then sweet merciful death.

Yes, death would be a mercy. I have no reason to live. I have no desire to live. You were my desire and hope was my reason. He has taken both from me. Why not die? Why not end this torture here, now? He's provided so many ways, so many, many ways for me to end myself. There's the precipice – a long, hard fall from darkness into darkness. Or the rope – slow asphyxiation as I use the Lady's gift to such aberrant ends. Sting – to kill myself with your sword! Horrible, and yet strangely fitting. I failed you; to die by your blade is my just reward.

Reward. I spit the word like a poison. Yes, it would be a reward; a reward I am undeserving of. Death would be the easy way out, I realize, the coward's way. Well, I'm no coward and I never have been. Shame, that I should ever have considered – ! You would never forgive me, if I had gone through with it. Assuming there's forgiveness beyond death.

I love you, Samwise Gamgee, and don't you ever forget it.

I won't forget it, Frodo. I could never forget it. You loved me and I love you. And because of that, I can't kill myself. I couldn't betray you like that. So. Death I have rejected. Now there's only life. And if I live, then I must carry on the Quest. The Council appointed Companions to you to aid you on your journey. Oh, my love! You're beyond all aid, now. The most I can do is pick up where you left off.

Go on? Go on?

I can't. It's impossible. I realize that to go on, I must leave you behind, and I can't do that. Surely, there's some other way –

This Ring must be destroyed.

Legolas' voice is sounding in my ears. Destroyed. This Ring must be destroyed. There is no room in that for other ways. This Ring, this golden-bright, all-powerful evil – ah, but I can't leave you! It goes against the whole grain of my nature, the very idea is irreconcilable to me. But if I don't, we'll be found, and then nothing will matter anymore. Oh Father, Father! What do I do? How can I leave you, Frodo? How can I go on?

…must be destroyed.

Must. I go on because I must. Because there is no other way. I force myself to move, and slowly slide the chain off from around your neck. You don't move, and now I know, beyond the faintest shadow of a doubt, that you're gone. I hold up the chain, where the thing whose very appearance is anathema to me is now hanging.

So small a thing…

Boromir was right. Who could believe it? Who could believe that the world is at war for this little circle of gold? Who could believe you died because of this? But you did. It drew Gollum to you and Gollum betrayed us. This wretched thing cost you your life, and for that reason, more than any other, I will destroy it.

You did not die in vain, my love. I will finish this Quest, no matter what it takes. I have one purpose only, and that is to drop this thing into the fires of Doom. I will destroy it as it destroyed you, and I care not what happens after. Let it be known in the towers of Hell that since I have no reason to live, I am not afraid to die. No pain, no hunger, no thirst, no fatigue will hinder me. I will fight him to the bitter last, I promise you. You will not have died for nothing.

Do you understand? I have to go on.

How can you understand, when I don't myself? How could I expect you to? I don't know why I'm doing this, leaving you. For the rest of Middle-earth, I suppose. That's why you started this Quest, and that's why I'm finishing it. I'm just doing what has to be done, you see? I'd never leave you if it weren't this way. But it is this way, and I have no choice but to leave you. Please, wherever you are, know that I'm not abandoning you. I'll come back for you, I swear it. Before all the gods, I swear it. I'll destroy this thing and then I'll come back for you. Those minions of darkness shall not desecrate your body, not while there's life left in mine.

I bend over you and I kiss your cold lips, until some spark of warmth from mine is shared with them. Then, gathering you to myself, I kiss you one last time. You are the only thing in the entire world I truly love. You are the other half of my soul. I'm not fighting for Middle-earth, Frodo. I'm fighting for you.

There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for a friend.

Who said that? One of the Wise, though his name escapes me. Not so wise as all that, I think bitterly. I don't need a sword. Just standing to leave you is killing me. I would willingly lay down my life right here, right now, if I thought it would bring you back. I would die for you a million times over, and then a million more if it would save you. Death is easy.

No, the greatest love of all is not to die for a friend.

It's to pick up the pieces of your soul and go on living.