It can't be easy getting over the horrors of the War of the Ring. This is something really short, and it's simply my take on something Samwise Gamgee could have gone through after returning to the Shire.
Haunted Dreams
"No! No, Mr. Frodo, no!" Sam sat up in his bed, drenched in cold sweat, crying out to his master.
"What is it, what's the matter?" Rosie got up, sitting next to him, her arm around him.
Sam sighed, calming down. "Nothing, Rosie. I'm sorry I woke you. It was nothing… just a nightmare."
Rosie smiled and kissed his cheek. "Don't worry, Sam. Everything's over now. You're safe, safe in the Shire once more. And I'm right here, right here next to you. And we have Elanor. No matter what happens, we'll face it together, as a family."
Sam nodded. "I know, Rosie. It's all right now, go back to sleep."
Sam lay awake, listening to Rosie's steady breathing. But he could not fall asleep himself. He dared not close his eyes. Every time he closed his eyes, the Eye flashed before him, followed by horrific scenes. Soldiers massacred in Osgiliath, families destroyed in Minas Tirith… he had not even seen all these battles with his own eyes, but they haunted his dreams anyway.
But the worst images were those that he really had seen with his own eyes. The dark, dry, dead lands of Mordor. Mr. Frodo's exhausted, dirty face. The Ring shining on its chain around his master's neck, taunting them, tempting them, growing heavier with every step of the way. The cruel faces of the Orcs, and their raspy voices, full of threats. Mount Doom, looming up ahead of them, a nightmare full of lava. Gollum's huge eyes, glinting in the moonlight. Shelob, the largest spider anyone would ever see. Mr. Frodo's pale, stricken face, so lifeless that Sam had really believed that his master was dead.
One by one these images came to his mind, and try as he might, he could not shake them away. Silent tears streamed down his face as he desperately tried to forget all these horrors.
In the morning, it would be all right. In the daytime, he would be able to speak with Frodo, Merry and Pippin, and they would understand. Only they could understand him. He had spoken to Rosie of his haunted dreams before, and she had been sympathetic, loving, but she did not understand. No one could truly understand his feelings, unless they had seen it all before themselves. His three friends had. They would understand him. In the daytime, it would be all right, and he would be Sam again, simple Sam, a loving husband and father, and the most loyal friend one could ask for.
But night would come again, and once more his mind would be filled with all those pictures, all those scenes. Once again his dreams would be dark and haunted. Once again he would turn into a frightened child, afraid of the monsters in his past.
