Disclaimer: I do not own ANY of the following material. The places, events, characters, names, titles, etc. belong to their proper owners, and they get full credit. Events are fictional. Names that resemble any other individual, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Any and ALL content pertaining to the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy belongs to J.R.R. Tolkien, Peter Jackson, and any other holders of the rights. All rights reserved to them and them only. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED!
**IMPORTANT**AUTHOR'S NOTE: This fic contains suicide. If this will offend you in any way, then do NOT read it. It's as simple as that.
Hanna Grubb and Frodo Baggins were madly in love, even a blind fool could see that much.
Before Frodo embarked on a dangerous journey, they were totally, completely, and irrevocably happy. No one had ever seen Frodo happier than he was when he was in the Shire with Hanna, always singing, humming and whistling as he frolicked through the fields and the hills. Hanna was also in lighter spirits nowadays, and everyone seemed to be very happy that they had finally gotten together.
Everyone, of course, except for Hanna's mother and Frodo's aunt.
Bella Grubb absolutely hated Frodo Baggins and always had. In fact, she never liked any of the Baggins', and the Grubb & Baggins families had been feuding for years. Frodo was also being urged to take a wife by his aunt, and Frodo knew who he wanted his wife to be; he said as much to his aunt one day.
"You will not marry that little strumpet," his aunt had said bitterly. "I will not allow it."
"I am of age," Frodo had told her smugly. "I shall do what I want, and marry whomever I choose."
"No," his aunt said. "I have a wife arranged for you. Her name is Angelica, and she is lovely. Blonde, blue-eyed, a perfect figure. Just like Hanna, only she isn't Hanna."
"No," Frodo had told her. "I said no. I am to take Hanna as my wife, and that is the end of it."
"No," his aunt said smugly. "You will marry Angelica, and that is the end of it."
Hanna would get into similar arguments with her mother, which would always end with Hanna storming out in tears. She would always go to Frodo, who would hold her as she cried and would tell her that everything was going to be alright. They did everything together: Took walks, picked berries, hunted mushrooms, you name it. When they would return to Bag End, they literally could not keep their hands off of each other. What they had was beautiful, and everyone knew it.
Pippin Took and Merry Brandybuck, who were close to Frodo, admired Hanna. Their parents disliked her and her family, but Pippin and Merry were always extremely fond of her. They would even help Hanna and Frodo sneak around with each other, especially when Hanna was pretty much locked away in her room and not allowed out until the next morning. She and Frodo would sneak off to Bag End and make love all night long.
Hanna's mother also set her up with another hobbit, named Rufus. He wasn't a cruel hobbit; in fact, he was quite sweet. Hanna just couldn't love him, not when she so desperately loved Frodo. She told Rufus that she could never love him like she loved Frodo, and Rufus accepted it, even though he was in love with her.
Hanna met up with Rosie Cotton one day, and broke down in tears immediately. Rosie knew what was happening. She could see the hurt in Hanna's eyes and how much she missed Frodo. Rosie just held her as she sobbed.
"Frodo will return," she whispered to her. "I will tell you what I will do once he does."
Hanna looked up at Rosie and asked, "What is that?"
"I will take you away," Rosie said. "All we have to do is tell everyone you passed away. Then, I will get you and Frodo out of here and on your way to getting married."
"What else?" Hanna asked. "Do you have other plans?"
"We do this," Rosie said. "I shall give a note to my friend to give to Frodo when he returns. The letter will give Frodo the information of what is happening and where to meet us. We will tell everyone you passed away, and when your mother sees your body, she will know that you are dead. We will even put you in a coffin and everything to make it more realistic. I will get Merry, Sam, and Pippin in on it as well, for they really like you. Once Frodo arrives, the four of us will help you escape here forever."
"But how will I seem dead?" Hanna asked. "They will check my vitals to be sure."
"That is where my mother's herbs come in handy," Rosie said with a smile.
Frodo returned from his journey the day of Hanna's "death." Rosie's friend was the deliver the note, but he became sidetracked and never delivered it. Frodo never got a note, and when the news of Hanna Grubb's demise shook Hobbiton, Frodo almost couldn't believe it.
"Did you hear of the Grubb lass?" one man said as Frodo was getting an ale at the Green Dragon.
"I did," another said. "What a shame."
"That poor Baggins lad," the first man said. "I know how he loved her so. Her mother is devastated."
Confused, Frodo walked up to them and said, "Excuse me? What are you speaking of? What about Hanna?"
"You don't know?" the first man asked, his eyes wide.
"I only just returned today," Frodo said. "What is going on?"
"The Grubb lass is dead," the second man said, giving Frodo a sympathetic pat on the arm.
"She's–what?" Frodo asked, his heart and stomach dropping through the floor. He instantly felt sick.
"She died just this morning," the first man said. "Just dropped dead, just like that. No one knows what happened to her. Her mother said she just collapsed after waking up, and she was dead before she hit the floor."
Frodo's head began to spin dangerously and he thought for a brief moment that he would faint. He went running out of the Green Dragon, and ran until he could move no longer. He was outside of Bag End and he just began to scream into the open night air. He screamed like a wounded animal and he cried like a baby, and he didn't care who seen or heard.
"Hanna!" he yelled in pain and agony at the top of his lungs. "My Hanna! My beloved Hanna!"
He knew of the only place in town that would have Hanna, and he wanted to see her one last time. He wanted to say goodbye to her properly, and no matter how much it would hurt for him to see her in that state, he just had to. He gathered his will to get up, screaming and crying some more as he ran to her. People saw and heard, and he didn't care
When Frodo reached the place, he saw that the door was standing ajar. He walked in and saw a man with dark curly hair sitting in front of an open coffin, his shoulders shaking as he sobbed openly into the empty air. He sounded almost as hurt as Frodo had, and Frodo wondered for a brief second who this man was.
"Who are you?" Frodo asked, his voice echoing.
The man spun around and smiled, and it was a warm smile. "Frodo Baggins. We meet at last. I am Rufus. Hanna meant a great deal to me, as to you."
"I see that," Frodo said. "You wouldn't be here otherwise."
Rufus got up and wiped his eyes. He walked over to Frodo and clapped a hand on his shoulder gently. Rufus then said, "I shall give you some privacy with her. I know how much the two of you loved and adored one another."
Frodo nodded. "Thank you, Rufus. It was nice to meet you."
"Same to you," Rufus said, departing.
As soon as he was sure Rufus was gone, Frodo ran over to the coffin and looked down into the dead face of his beloved. He began to sob and scream again. She looked so peaceful in death, and still so beautiful. Her long blonde curls were done in beautiful blue and pink ribbons, and she was in her favorite pale pink gown.
"My beloved," Frodo sobbed. "I am so sorry that I wasn't here. I am so sorry that I wasn't near you. I am so sorry for everything, my beautiful Hanna. I will be with you soon, my beloved. I will join you forever."
He began to look around the room for anything he could use, and when he couldn't find anything, he left the mausoleum. He knew where he could go to get the perfect tool. He ran to Bag End as fast as he could and entered the home, looking around for the poison that Bilbo always kept on hand for the rodents in the garden. He found it behind the drinking glasses in the kitchen cupboard. Before he left, he also grabbed his quill, ink, and some parchment. He took all of the things back to where Hanna was and found everything as he had left it before.
He began to write on the parchment. He wrote:
To Whom It May Concern,
I have been through a grueling journey, and a great but harsh life. This woman, this spectacular lass by the name of Hanna Grubb, was the only thing that brought me true bliss in this world. Without her here with me, I am empty. I am nothing. I cease to exist when she does. She has ceased in existing, and so I must cease to exist as well. I regret to inform anyone who may have loved me, but it is the only way for me to happy again. I hope you will all understand that Hanna made my entire life. Our families didn't want us together, but it didn't matter. I would have married her, I was going to marry her, even if we had to run away to do so. Remember her, mourn her properly. I love her, and I will until the moment I die at her side–and I will keep loving her in the afterlife. Her heart has been removed from me, and so I shall take mine from you.
Sincerely,
Frodo Baggins
With more loud sobs, Frodo went to take the stopper from the poison. That's when he saw it, and his mind changed. Where Rufus had been sitting, there was a knife. Frodo walked over to make sure, and sure enough, there was a nice, sharp knife there. He removed it from its case and turned it over in his hands. He looked from it to the poison, and tried to debate which would be faster. The poison would probably take more time, so Frodo decided that a knife to the heart should be the fastest way to go.
He reached into the coffin and removed Hanna from it. Her body was as cold as ice, and limp, too. Frodo wept and screamed as he laid her on the cold floor. He wanted to hold her in his arms, he wanted to feel her beside of him as he slipped away. He placed the note next to her head, and unbuttoned his shirt, positioning the knife directly over his heart.
"I love you, Hanna Grubb," Frodo whispered to her, more tears slipping down his cheeks. "See you soon, my beloved."
With that, he plunged the knife deeply into his heart. He was alive when it first hit, but it didn't take him long. He looked down at Hanna and laid down next to her, his arms wrapping around her. He felt blood bubbling up in his throat and he began to cough it up. It began oozing madly out of his mouth and he just laid his head on Hanna's shoulder, his chest wound bleeding horrendously as more blood bubbled from his mouth and he coughed and sputtered a little more. Soon, Frodo Baggins closed his eyes, all sounds of his dying stopped, and he moved no more.
Hanna could feel the potion wearing off, and wondered if Rosie, Pippin, Merry, Sam, and Frodo were here yet. Rosie, Merry, Pippin, and Sam didn't stay, because they didn't want to draw suspicion. They told Hanna they would return, and they would help her and Frodo get away from Hobbiton forever. Rosie had given her an herbal recipe that would render her dead-like for twelve hours. Rosie said that would be plenty of time to get everything in proper order.
As Hanna came to more and more, she was suddenly aware that she was no longer in her coffin. She was laying on something hard, something that felt like a floor. She wanted to open her eyes to see where she was, but she couldn't open them yet. She was also aware of something warm and wet all over her back and some of her right side, but she couldn't look to see what it was. That's when she smelled it, and it nearly made her vomit right there.
It was the smell of blood.
Hanna willed her eyes to open, and they finally did. She sat up immediately and realized that she was, in fact, out of her coffin. She looked down at her pink dress and confirmed her suspicions: There was blood all over her. Puzzled as to how she got onto the floor and where the blood came from, she looked behind her and screamed in horror.
It was her Frodo, and he was stone-cold dead from a stab wound to his heart.
"Frodo!" Hanna screamed, kneeling in front of him. "No, Frodo! No!"
His blood pooled all around her still, and she realized, by the way he was laying, that he had been holding onto her. Hanna shook him, holding onto hope that he may still be alive, but it was no use. Frodo had killed himself, and he had done it because he truly believed her to be dead. What about the note with the information that Rosie dropped off? Hanna had been with her the night before when she left it. What had become of it?
"Frodo!" Hanna kept screaming, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Frodo, please no! We were supposed to run away together! Frodo, wake up! Wake up, Frodo! Please wake up!"
Hanna kept shaking him, holding his limp, dead body in her arms as the last of his bleeding slowed. She just cradled him in her arms, screaming and crying in pure pain and agony over her beloved. It was all her fault. He was dead, and it was all her fault. If she wouldn't have agreed to go along with this, if she would've just waited at least to tell Frodo of the plan herself, none of this would have happened.
Hanna heard a loud clang, and she looked down. The knife that Frodo had used fell out of one of his limp hands, and Hanna picked it up, turning it over in her hands. It was covered in blood, of course, and Hanna threw it across the room as hard as she could, screaming at the top of her lungs in pure agony, torment, and grief. She looked down at her dead lover, more tears streaming down her cheeks.
He had been her love since she was a babe. They were best friends who became lovers, and wonderful lovers at that. As she looked at him now, so far gone and away from her, she saw the little boy that she fell in love with. She pushed his curls from his closed eyes and leaned down, placing a kiss in his hair. She turned around to look behind her, and she found a piece of parchment that had been written on. It was laying beside of a bottle of something, a quill, a bottle of ink, and another piece of parchment.
She picked up the parchment and read what Frodo had written. Hanna began to cry and scream once more, feeling awful for what had happened. She wondered what was in the bottle, and so she picked it up to see. She saw the familiar skulls and crossbones on the bottle, and realized that it was poison. Why had Frodo changed his mind to stabbing himself when he already had a method right here?
"It leaves an opportunity for me," Hanna whispered to herself, more tears falling down her cheeks.
She picked up the quill, dipped it in the ink, and began to write her own note. Hers read:
Rosie, Pip, Merry, Sam: I am so sorry for what I have done. Our plan failed, and it failed miserably, as you may now know. I told you all once that if Frodo dies, I die, too. I know you probably thought I only meant that my heart and mind would be dead, not me personally, but I meant physically and literally. I love him so, I have since we were just babes, and a world without him in it isn't a world I want to be in. I will join him in the afterlife, and we shall await you. We will welcome you with open arms when your time comes.
Mum: Despite our differences, I did love you very much. You didn't like Frodo, and for that I detested you. Mother, that lad was the blood that coursed through my veins, he was the air that I took into my lungs, he was the water I bathed in, and, most of all, he was the light of my entire life. He made me so happy, Momma, so incredibly happy. I was never happier than when I was with him. There is also something you must know, something that only Rosie knew. About a month after Frodo left for his quest, I discovered that I was with his child. I knew that you would not like that, and I was going to tell you all about it...until I miscarried. That is why I went away for a little while. I was being looked over by a healer and I was mending. It's time you knew the truth, since I shall never again see you on this earth. I am sorry that I faked my death at first, but it was the only way Frodo and I would have been together in this world.
I shall go now to be with my beloved Frodo, and I bid you all a fond farewell. I shall see you all again someday.
With love,
Hanna Grubb (Baggins)
Hanna smiled through her tears at her added last name, the name that she had wanted so badly to assume someday. She laid her note next to Frodo's and picked up the poison bottle. She yanked the stopper out with a grunt and held the bottle to her lips. It was foul, but Hanna downed it all in two gulps. She then laid down next to her Frodo, and held his cooling body to hers. Hanna wrapped her arms around him, holding on for dear life, waiting for the poison to kick in and take her away from this world forever. She began to feel sick and dizzy, and her chest and lungs felt as if they were on fire.
"I'm coming," Hanna whispered, closing her eyes. "Frodo, I shall be there soon, my love..."
The last of the pain seared through her body, and she couldn't help but scream at just how badly it hurt her. It was the last sound she made before she closed her eyes again, completely slipping away and not even bothering to put up a fight to stop it.
Rosie, Pippin, Merry, and Sam found the dead lovers when they returned an hour later. They read the notes they had left with teary eyes, but they already realized what had happened even before reading the notes.
The whole town of Hobbiton was absolutely torn apart over the deaths of Frodo Baggins and Hanna Grubb. Hanna's mother was beyond devastation, as well as Frodo's aunt. They read the notes as well, and it was the love that they were finally seeing between their children that brought them together. The feud was put behind them immediately, and Bella and Frodo's aunt became good friends.
On the day of Hanna's & Frodo's funeral, everyone in Hobbiton was in attendance, as well as Gandalf, Bilbo, and a few friends that Frodo had made on his journey. Everyone mourned both of them deeply. Frodo and Hanna were buried together. They didn't place them in coffins, but instead laid them in the ground in one another's arms. They would be embracing one another for all of eternity. They were both legendary, because they were the two Hobbits who loved one another so much and so deeply that they couldn't live without one another-and so, they didn't. Frodo's story to destroy the evil ring was passed down for generations by Sam, who passed it down orally.
Hanna and Frodo were finally together in the afterlife. They were allowed to be together with no boundaries, no bans, and they were finally happy and at peace. They would be able to spend an eternity with each other. Hanna even had a chance to tell Frodo of their unborn child.
"I would have loved to have met her," Frodo told her, lacing his fingers in hers. "I just know it was a daughter. It's just this feeling I have."
Hanna smiled and squeezed his hand gently. "Perhaps we'll find her here someday."
"Perhaps," Frodo whispered to her, kissing her. "For now, though, I'm rather enjoying your company."
"Forever, love," Hanna whispered. "We no longer have to worry about being torn apart. We are together forever."
"Together forever," Frodo repeated with a smile, picking Hanna up and carrying her as she giggled.