A/N: This part rated PG. Chapter summary: Sam starts to settle in to life on Tol Eressea and responds to Frodo's overtures from the previous night.

Frodo was in the kitchen, sipping a cup of tea and scribbling in what looked like a ledger book when Sam found him the next morning. "Good morning, Sam," Frodo greeted him, eyeing him speculatively over the rim of his teacup. "How's your head?"

"Aching some," Sam admitted, pouring himself a cup of the tea and sitting down across the table from Frodo. "But it'll mend in a bit."

"Would you mind if I asked you a question?"

"Not at all."

"What year is it? I tried to keep track, but I'm fairly certain I'm off by a fair amount."

"It's 1482. I sailed on your birthday."

"Gandalf told me the journey takes three weeks, so yesterday was October 13th. Interesting," Frodo mumbled as he jotted things in the book. "I was definitely wrong! Somewhere along the line I lost fourteen years and a few months," he said wryly, grinning at his mistake. "I don't feel 114. And Bilbo sure doesn't look 192! Given enough time here, our lifespans could rival an elf's, I suppose."

"Do you think Mr. Bilbo will pass on soon?" Sam asked curiously.

"No, not yet," Frodo said meditatively. "He still feels like he has things to do before he goes."

"Where is he now?"

Frodo shrugged dismissively. "Probably still at the feast. That type of party can go on for days, and Bilbo loves being in the thick of it."

"But you don't like to stay as long."

"I don't enjoy the Elvish poetry the way Bilbo does, though I can appreciate it. In smaller doses. Preferably with good amounts of wine. Speaking of which, I'm sorry I didn't think to warn you last night that the wine here is rather strong."

"It's all right, Mr. Frodo. I won't suffer any lasting damage."

"Good, but that's another thing. If you don't mind, I'd rather you call me Frodo. That is, unless you want me to go calling you 'Mr. Mayor,'" Frodo teased.

"But I never was 'Mr. Mayor' when you were around," Sam protested without addressing the other part of Frodo's statement.

"You were mayor longer than you were my gardener, so the comparison is fair," Frodo pointed out. "I realize it's habit, but it feels out of place here."

"I'm sorry, M . . . ah . . . Frodo," Sam said.

"No harm done. Would you like some breakfast? I'm getting hungry."

"Breakfast sounds good. What can I do?"

"Get plates down and find the bread," Frodo directed. "That should give you some opportunity to learn where things are here." He grinned, and started frying eggs and bacon.

Sam peeked inside several cabinets. "Seems to me most everything is where you'd keep it at Bag End."

"You're probably right," Frodo admitted. "Bilbo and I both were set in our ways when we came. But if you can't find something, just ask."

Breakfast was ready fairly quickly; as they ate, Frodo asked Sam about Merry and Pippin. Sam told him about Pippin marrying Diamond and naming his son Faramir, though Faramir was the only child Diamond had been able to successfully birth, while Merry married Estella and had four children, two lads and two lasses. Frodo then asked about Aragorn, so Sam described the King's visit to the North and his own return to Minas Tirith with Rosie and Elanor several years later. Frodo was fascinated with the tale of the visit to the South and asked many questions about Aragorn and Arwen, their children, and the city itself, especially how it looked compared to when they had been there.

The conversation lasted well into the morning without either hobbit noticing the passage of so much time. When Frodo finally heard enough (of that story, at least!), he rose and stretched and was startled at the angle of the sun outside. "My, we've spent half the morning at the table! What would you like to do today?"

Sam shrugged. "I don't even know where to begin."

"I didn't show you all of the hole yesterday, did I?"

Sam shook his head.

"Let's start there, then," Frodo said. "Follow me." He led Sam to the front door, and proceeded toward the back of the smial. "On the left is the sitting room, and on the right is the library."

Sam was suitably impressed at the number of books in the small library, considering they must have had to collect virtually all of them after arriving here at Tol Eressea.

"Next is the kitchen on the left and Bilbo's room on the right. His room is the only place that I let him keep his messes when I'm around, or the entire hole would look like Bag End used to, with papers and books piled everywhere. So his room is the biggest, and has its own door to the bathing room. Obviously, this room on the right is the bathing room. My room is across from it, next to yours. Next to the bathing room is just a storage room. You'd be surprised how many mathoms a hobbit can collect without being amongst other hobbits!"

"Your room is so small," Sam said in wonderment.

"It's the same size as yours," Frodo said practically. "Truth be told, I don't spend nearly as much time here as Bilbo does. We have another hole outside the city, at the edge of a wooded area and still fairly close to the sea. I live there much of the time. I'll take you there in a while, perhaps a few weeks, when you're less overwhelmed."

"Another hole? Why?"

Frodo shrugged. "I decided I didn't always want to be in the city. You probably can't tell, but Elrond's house is practically in the middle of the city, and there are times when I'd prefer not to trip over elves at every turn."

Sam chuckled. "Going to the land of the elves may not have been the best choice, then."

Frodo laughed. "There have been enough positives to outweigh the rare days that I tire of elves entirely."

"Your wounds no longer bother you? If you were able to lose track of the months and years . . ."

"I no longer suffer from the anniversary illnesses, no," Frodo confirmed.

"I'm so glad," Sam said with a wide grin. "I did worry about that, after you left."

"And I wondered about you," Frodo said fondly. "I'm happy that life in the Shire was good to you."

"There was one thing missing from the Shire," Sam said, looking at him intently. "I seem to remember something from last night that I wanted to talk about."

Frodo blushed and avoided Sam's gaze. "It was imprudent of me."

"But it was the truth, and you should never regret telling the truth."

"I never said I regretted it," Frodo protested, meeting Sam's eyes.

"And I won't regret this," Sam said, leaning forward and kissing Frodo in return, lingering long enough that his intent would be clear but not long enough to seem overbearing.

Frodo looked dazed and surprised when Sam met his eyes again. "I . . . um . . . why did you do that?" he asked haltingly.

"Because I wanted to," Sam said simply. "That's what I have to say about last night."

"Oh. Well . . . I . . . uh . . ." Frodo stuttered.

Sam couldn't help but smile a bit at Frodo's discomfiture. "What did you think I'd say? That I was horrified at you? How could I, when I often thought of you that way?"

"I don't know," Frodo said, hugging his arms to himself. "But you married Rosie . . . I didn't think you were . . ."

"Didn't think I was what?"

"I don't know," Frodo said helplessly. "That you couldn't feel the same way about me as I felt about you? I know you loved Rosie very much."

"Yes, Rosie is a dear lass. Was," he corrected himself self-consciously. "But that doesn't mean I can't care for you, too."

"I suppose," Frodo said reluctantly. "I hoped all that time that you might care for me like that, but I wasn't sure it was possible, since you cared for Rosie so much."

"I do care for you, Frodo," Sam said earnestly. "Finding out the way you feel for me was a mite of a shock, but I couldn't be happier about it. But you seem upset. Why?" He reached out to Frodo and held his shoulders gently.

"I'm not upset, I'm . . . well, I guess I'm surprised like you were last night," Frodo answered slowly, biting his lower lip and looking up at Sam shyly. "Are you sure . . . ? You're not just humoring me?"

"Have you ever known me to say something just to humor you?" Sam asked sternly and tightened his hands on Frodo's shoulders. Frodo meekly shook his head no. "Then why don't you believe me about this?"

"I need time to get used to the idea," he said defensively. "I've been hoping for so long . . . I didn't expect you to just . . . agree, just like that. It's wonderful . . . almost too wonderful to believe. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I think I do," Sam said thoughtfully, remembering waking up in Ithilien after thinking he and Frodo would die on the Mountain.

"Good." Frodo sounded relieved. "Would you mind if we . . . proceeded . . . with this slowly? I don't want anything to go wrong and then have us stuck here with only ourselves as company for the rest of our lives. So I guess it would be something like courting."

Sam chuckled. "Courting? So which of us is the lass?"

"Neither? Both? I don't know, that just seemed the best comparison. But you know what I mean . . . you don't just tell a lass you like her and then marry her right after."

"Well . . ." Sam tried not to smirk.

"Samwise!" Frodo said with mock horror. "Are you trying to tell me you didn't court Rosie at all?"

"No," Sam said hurriedly. "But when you know a person as well as Rosie and me knew each other beforehand, there isn't as much to say."

"That may be, but I'd still feel more comfortable if we didn't . . . rush into things and just take our time."

"I have the feeling we have nothing but time here, so I am willing to take it at whatever pace you'd like. But I doubt there is anything to go wrong since we have both spent so long wanting one another," Sam said practically.

Frodo blushed a little. "Perhaps, but this old hobbit needs time to wrap his mind around things."

"Bilbo is an old hobbit, not you," Sam teased. "Maybe when you're pushing 200 I'll let you call yourself old."

"Who's being called old?" a voice from the front doorway asked.

"No one, Bilbo," Frodo said hurriedly, turning around as Sam let go of his shoulders. "I was showing Sam around the hole," he explained when Bilbo had appeared and closed the door. "Did you have a good time at the feast?"

"Of course I did! I would've been back sooner if I didn't," Bilbo said briskly, going into the kitchen for tea and a snack.

Frodo followed Bilbo and Sam followed Frodo. "Are you going to sleep a while?" Frodo asked.

"Yes, I think I'll have a bit of a nap," Bilbo said around a bite of cranberry muffin. Then he said to Sam, "Sometimes I forget that elves do not require as much sleep as hobbits and exhaust myself trying to keep up. Frodo, lad, how long did I go without sleep that one time?"

"Almost five days, and you would've stayed up longer if you hadn't collapsed in a heap in Elrond's hall," Frodo said with some reproach.

"That was a splendid time, but I learned my lesson. I was laid up for the better part of two weeks."

"He's learned his lesson, all right. Now he'll only stay out for up to three days," Frodo said as an aside to Sam, who bit back a chuckle.

Bilbo finished his muffin and tea and placed the mug in the sink to clean up later. "I'm off to bed. If you could keep the noise down, I'd be grateful. Good day!"

With that, Bilbo disappeared from sight toward his bedroom. Sam's eyes followed him as far as they could. "What does he think we'll be doing that could be noisy enough to wake him?" he asked, bewildered.

Frodo shook his head. "I have no idea." Then a thought occurred to him. "Well, I have one idea, but that would only work if one of our bedrooms shared a wall with his. And it would assume that he thinks we are . . . amorously inclined. Which we aren't. At least right now."

Sam laughed. "I could be amorously inclined if you wanted to be," he said, waggling his eyebrows and winking. "But that would rather ruin the 'taking it slow' idea."

"It would, at that," Frodo agreed. "Which isn't to say I wouldn't be willing, of course. Just that I don't want to right now. I'm not ready for you to see me naked yet, for one thing."

"Because you have so much to be ashamed of," Sam teased, wrapping his arms around Frodo's waist from behind and pulling him close.

"It's not that," Frodo protested, yielding unresisting to Sam's arms. "Don't laugh, but I'm something of a prude when it comes to being undressed in front of others."

"Don't you swim naked?"

"Only when no one else is around. Otherwise I wear my underlinens."

"Even here?" Sam asked with some surprise.

"Yes. Well, I rarely ever swim with anyone around, so it's not an issue. Bilbo was never fond of swimming."

"And if someone comes to find you while you're swimming, what would you do?" Sam rested his chin on Frodo's shoulder, curious about the answer.

"Stay in the water until they leave," Frodo said promptly. "If they don't leave, I'd ask them to turn around and close their eyes at least until I can get my trousers on."

"But why? Are you embarrassed about how you look?"

"Not really, no. I'm just . . . not comfortable displaying myself for anyone else to see," Frodo said, uncomfortable with this topic of conversation and grateful that he didn't have to look at Sam while admitting this, even though it meant Sam was behind him, holding him, his warmth and presence sending shivers down Frodo's spine. His heart was racing and he was finding it difficult to breathe properly.

"Have you always been so reluctant about others seeing you?" Sam asked gently.

"Yes, I think so," Frodo replied thoughtfully. "At least, I don't remember feeling any differently about it."

"Good," Sam said softly. "I was afraid . . ." he didn't continue, but hugged Frodo's waist instead.

"Afraid?" Frodo was intrigued.

"That it might have to do with our journey. The Tower. I found you naked, remember? You never told me all of what they did to you, I don't think."

"Yes, I remember," Frodo said with some reluctance. "I haven't thought about that in a long time. I don't think I could recall the details anymore -it's like a bad nightmare, only half remembered."

"And I don't mean to make you try to remember, nohow," Sam asserted. "It's better left forgotten."

"Yes, I would rather leave it be and never think about it again," Frodo agreed, then said lightly, "Now that we've talked about one of my insecurities, it's your turn to admit something embarrassing that I don't know about you."

"You have other insecurities?" Sam said with obvious interest.

Frodo pulled away and looked at him askance. "Maybe," he said evasively. "But it's your turn, remember?"

"Yes . . ." Sam said slowly. "But I don't know what to say. I can't just think of something like that on a moment's notice."

Frodo regarded him seriously, then nodded. "I understand. I'll give you a pass for now, but you can be sure I'll pull something from you eventually," he said mischievously.

"And I'll welcome that," Sam said with a grin, then changed the subject. "Is it time for lunch yet? I'm starving."

Frodo laughed. "Yes, it's about time for lunch. And listen to you, you sound like Pippin! Does Pippin still have that tremendous appetite?"

"Of course he does. And I think he passed it on to that son of his. You should hear the pair of them at mealtimes! It's a good thing they have cooks, or poor Diamond would never get out of the kitchen."

Despite the uncomfortable topics broached during the morning, Frodo -and Sam also- was able to converse easily over lunch, with Frodo asking more questions about his cousins and their families. Sam answered as best as he could, but he was fairly sure he was missing things, since it's difficult to recall sixty-odd years without some prompting. At least the veil's magic had improved his memory along with his body, or he'd still be the absent-minded old gaffer his family had been tolerating for some time.

That afternoon, Frodo began showing Sam around the city Avallone, the port of arrival for all elves coming from Middle-Earth. Some of them settled there, but many went further into the island or continued onward to Valinor itself. Being mortal, the hobbits were not permitted in Valinor, and while Frodo was curious about it, he considered Tol Eressea a more than adequate place to spend the rest of his days.

The next several days involved gradually acclimating Sam to life on the island, helping him learn the city's layout, and lots and lots of talking, between just the two of them, with Bilbo, with Gandalf, and another brief interaction with Elrond and Celebrian over tea. Whenever he and Sam were with other people, Frodo tended to stay out of the conversation, content to listen and watch Sam as he answered questions about what had passed in Middle-Earth since Frodo's ship had sailed.

When they were alone, Frodo found that Sam would let him do the talking all the time if Frodo let him. So he made sure to ask Sam questions sometimes to evenly distribute the burden of the conversation, though Sam would occasionally answer with extremely short responses and not elaborate at all. Frodo glared and scowled at him several times before Sam defended himself. "You don't say much around anyone else!" he argued.

"I don't have anything to tell them that they don't already know," Frodo pointed out. "Once you've caught us up on the past sixty years, you won't have to do all the talking."

Sam saw the logic, but countered, "And I'd like to know what has happened here in those same sixty years, and no one can tell me if I'm always talking! So I ask you."

"Your questions rarely ask about what has happened," Frodo objected. "But if you want to know, nothing happens. Life here is pretty much the same from month to month, year to year. There will be feasts and celebrations when a ship arrives or we have visitors from Valinor, but otherwise it's as uneventful as day-to-day life in the Shire can be."

"I've noticed. What I want to know is what you and Bilbo do with yourselves so you don't perish from boredom."

"Fish, swim, read, write, mingle with the elves on occasion, talk, eat, sleep, take long walks, muck around in the garden," Frodo listed quickly and dismissively.

"You have a garden?" Sam asked with interest. "It's not here, is it? I would've noticed."

"No, it's at the other hole. It's nothing much, really. Likely well nigh overrun with weeds by now, but it's a hobby so it doesn't matter if the vegetables don't produce much."

"I would be happy to help you with your garden," Sam said earnestly.

Frodo smiled. "Good. I hoped you would. You are far better at gardening than me, after all."

"I was, but I can't guarantee how well I'll do now. It's been many years since Frodo-lad let me try to do anything in the garden. He feared I'd fall and hurt myself or be unable to get up again."

Frodo looked at him steadily a moment, then turned away. "I forget, sometimes, that you were so old when you sailed. It's hard to think of you as being unable to do anything," he said meditatively.

"I was rather old," Sam confirmed with amusement. "Old and decrepit, not so good with getting up and down, and more than a little deaf, most like, if I resembled my Gaffer as much as I was told. Going through that veil was . . . well, it was almost like going back in time."

"Bilbo would say the same thing," Frodo said. "It was amazing to see him suddenly looking younger again." He grinned. "But I have to say I'm grateful I didn't have to endure old age before coming here. The way Bilbo tells it, it's a wonder anyone can live with all the aches and pains and inconveniences."

"You had your share of pain before coming here, but yes, old age isn't for cowards," Sam said, chuckling.

"That's almost how Bilbo says it. I'll have to take both of you at your word," Frodo said with a laugh. "Speaking of old, there's an ancient house on the other side of the city that has a number of curious artifacts, much like the Mathom House, if you'd like to see it . . ."