Go Home, a lord of the rings fanfic

Go Home

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Lord of the Rings

"Mr. Frodo?"

Frodo turned from the sunlit balcony where he had been looking down at the white streets of Minas Tirith. Sam was standing in the doorway, looking awkward, as if he had something on his mind.

"Yes?" Frodo gestured to Sam to join him.

"I've been wonderin' … " Sam leaned his elbows on the stone railing. "It's about – about Mordor. Only, if you'd rather not speak of it, I won't … "

"Spit it out, Sam," said Frodo, almost smiling at his companion's lack of eloquence even as the memory of Mordor pained him. He placed his whole hand over his injured one on the railing. "Ask me anything. Avoiding the subject won't make it any easier."

Sam cleared his throat and looked up at Frodo. His honest grey eyes were suddenly wide with reproach.

"I just wanted to know – why did you send me away?"

Frodo looked down at his hands.

"On the stair, by Cirith Ungol, when Gollum threw the lembas bread away and then blamed me. You should've known I'd never do that – stuff my face and let you go hungry. You should've known. So why?"

Sam's hurt feelings, suppressed for so long – first to preserve energy for sheer survival in Mordor, then later to spare a recovering Frodo – suddenly burst out as if it had happened only yesterday. Frodo took a small step back as Sam's hand gestures sliced the air.

"Take two people, one you know is a thief and a murderer, and one who's never done you nothin' but good! Whose side were you on, Mr. Frodo? Who'd you believe?"

"Sam!" Frodo held up one hand, the one with the missing finger. The other hobbit fell silent at once.

"I did it for you," said Frodo, his light tenor voice ringing firmly through the air. "I sent you away for your own good."

"My own good?" Sam exclaimed. "Alone, in Mordor, with no provisions?"

"You'd have had a better chance than I did. Don't you see, Sam? It was taking you."

Frodo's whole hand went automatically to the front of his white shirt, making a fist around something that was no longer there.

Sam remembered. He had offered to carry the Ring for Frodo, just for a little bit, until his master could recover his strength … only for a while … that insidious whisper at the back of his mind, which had sounded so much like his own conscience. And then Frodo, screaming at him to stay away.

"I was afraid for you, Sam. I couldn't let It ruin you as well."

Frodo placed an affectionate hand on his friend's shoulder.

"Of course I knew you didn't eat the bread. You're an honorable man, Samwise Gamgee. You don't steal, and you don't blame others for your own misdeeds. Not even … not even Smeagol."

Sam nodded, a burden off his mind. Now that he thought of it, Frodo hadn't truly sounded angry or accusing. His face and tone had been more sad than anything else. I'm sorry, Sam. You can't help me anymore. Go home. Still, blundering haphazardly down the rough stone steps, half blind with tears, Sam learned once and for all how it felt to have your heart broken.

"But Mr. Frodo, if you knew Gollum was the thief … how could you go with him?"

Frodo's blue eyes were clouded as he answered, like a sky about to rain. "I had no choice, Sam. He knew the road."

Sam's remembered pain blazed up into resentment.

"Oh, he knew the road all right … and the little stinker led you straight into that spider's lair. Cor, I wish I'd been there."

"You were there."

The two companions exchanged a look, saying everything they needed to say without words. Sam had been there when it counted, had single-handedly fought off the giant spider, wielding Sting and the bottled light of Earendil.

"Will you forgive me, Sam?" asked Frodo.

Sam had to clear his throat and wipe something out of his eye before he answered. "Of course I will, Mr. Frodo. Of course."