Sam felt like jumping off the boat. With no swimming lessons and no Frodo to save him it would be foolish. Besides, it would be frightful behavior in front of elves. And Gaffer would have a thing or two to say if he could see. Sam had already created quite the stir in Hobbiton. They all thought it wasn't his place, to be escorted by elves.
Rosie was gone and his children grown. Age had long made Sam give up his mayoral duties though his garden was still the finest in the Shire.
Through the years Sam became increasingly sure that the one thing left to love lay across the sea.
He could see land, shining golden in the distance. He could just imagine Frodo's face, his fair skin preserved by the magic of the elves. It would gleam in the everlasting sun. Sam thought, how do I, how can I greet him after all these years?
They had never needed to speak, words often too lowly; perhaps a silent, understood nod. A firm clasp on the shoulder would do, like the warrior men of their past. Maybe a gleeful hug, the kind Sam always shared with Merry and Pip. Or maybe Sam would race down the pier into the bliss of Frodo's ever-open arms.
Poor Rosie. Sam has loved her, truly, as much as he could. His children, they had been pieces of him, extensions of his very soul.
Frodo had once said that Sam should not tear his heart in two. What Frodo didn't know was that Sam's heart had always been whole. It simply belonged to someone else.
The boat docked. Sam thought it never would have happened. He briefly congratulated himself for not being sick in front of the elves and then had a good look around. And in the world of everlasting light and beauty, where the fairest of the fair lived until eternity, he was lost forever. Golden fields, silver forests, white sands, blue mountains. All the colors in the world could not fill Sam's drained face. The pier was empty.
It had been sixty years. Sixty years for Frodo to loose himself in elven paradise. Time to do nothing but forget the evil times in Middle Earth. Time to forget his Sam.
What could Sam possibly mean to Frodo? Sam stood for everything that Frodo wanted to forget. If there was one thing Sam wanted, it was to be needed. Frodo's need had called him to this place but Sam felt that it was a fabrication, a justification in his own mind. A way to accept the invitation and find his master again.
Frodo was not there to greet him. It would take an elvish lifespan to find Frodo again.
"Sam."
There he was. Sam stumbled forward a step, then stopped, frozen. He didn't know what to do. He had never decided on the boat. He needn't have worried.
Frodo clasped Sam's face in his hands and kissed his forehead as so many years before. And as Frodo held Sam's body to his own Sam felt at peace in white light as the glittering world come to life like he had never seen. And would never go without again.