Anjion: :D I'm glad you still like it, even though it's getting fluffier than it was before.
Rosie stirred on the couch early; Sev sprang from the window to help her up. Everything last-minute had to be packed in, well, last-minute. Rosie helped her mostly.
Frodo didn't awaken. Sam, Pippin, Merry, and Elanor spent the whole morning looking for him, all over Bag End and the surrounding fields. They finally found him under the window. Elanor grabbed his wrist and yanked him up as best she could.
His eyes flickered open, then widened.
"It's morning, Sam," he said urgently.
Pippin dragged him to his feet.
"The cuddling can't wait, Frodo!" Merry exclaimed. They dragged him up to Bag End to get him ready.
Neither Sev nor Frodo remembered the actual ceremony very well . . . save a few things. Sev didn't care for much of it, but Frodo's eyes popped when she emerged from the Gamgee house and made her way down the walk, on the arm of no one. Her skirt threatened to trail on the ground, but Rosie knew the art of sewing well enough to keep it just out of the way. He thought she looked miraculous.
Pippin nudged him. Frodo blinked, then turned back to Sev; she looked different in her dress, more like a woman. She smiled at him, although it was a courtesy smile that deepened into blissful sincerity when he extended his hand to her. She finally got the chance to look at him, not torn away by all the publicity around her. He wore his Gondor cloak, the one she loved so much. She'd never told him how much she liked it, but it was the best thing he owned: wearing it today was a given. She fingered his sleeve—the fabric was so soft, velvet-like.
Sev thought the vows were precious, and very accurate. She made a mental note to follow them all. Frodo was anxious to know that it was done, that everything had gone right this time.
At last he heard that he was allowed to kiss her . . . and that they now belonged to each other. He turned her towards him and slowly leaned down to her. He kissed her very gently, but before Sev even pulled away Frodo realized he hadn't felt that soft channeling in months, and that he needed it. He dragged her back to him, and she inhaled sharply when his lips deliberately trapped hers. Cheering erupted around them; Frodo couldn't have cared less. His fingers and toes and nose were all tingling, on fire. He swept her off the ground, still kissing her, and spun around.
When he set her down, both blushed furiously. He timidly pecked her lips again, as though covering up what he had just done. Sev turned and threw the bouquet rather randomly; Pippin caught it again, but stumbled backwards in the process. He nudged against Diamond again, and she held him up to keep from falling.
Sev cracked her knuckles: there was a pair in the making.
But not now.
Music started up almost immediately. Sev took a turn dancing with the hobbits she knew best; most had turned up for the food, and to congratulate Frodo. She knew the majority would avoid her, and she much preferred it that way.
She watched Frodo dance with some of the women present when she finished taking a turn with Sam, Pippin, and Merry each. She sat down in the shadows, admiring the way his cloak swirled around him, how the velvet tunic stretched and contracted around his arms and torso. He was very good at what he did, dancing so beautifully. His smile struck her again and again, how he laughed and grinned wholeheartedly without resentment or ache. She tasted tears on her lips a moment later—it melted her heart to see him so happy again.
Luckily, Rosie kicked Frodo and Sev out of the field before guests started to leave, for Sev might have stuck around and cleaned everything.
"Go home! Be married, be free!" she called out after them.
Sev laughed. "Are you going to be all right, Rosie?"
"I've got Sam." Rosie squeezed her husband's shoulders (he was completely unaware and talking to Fatty Bolger at the time) and reached down to kiss him. Sam jolted, then relaxed completely, pulling his wife into his lap. Rosie looked back up; her cheeks flushed. "Go on!"
Frodo grabbed Sev's hand and pulled her back up to Bag End. She nearly tripped on his cloak, but made it up the hill in one piece. For once she was glad she had adapted to not wearing shoes.
Sev did not express to Frodo that she didn't want to be stereotypically carried across the threshold, but Rosie had passed along to Sam (and thus to Frodo) that this was her preference. Frodo simply opened the door and gestured for her to enter.
"My lady Baggins," he said.
Sev planted a kiss on the top of his head and stepped inside. "Thank you, sir." She slipped off her cloak and hung it on a coat hook, then held out a hand back to him. He accepted, and she pulled him inside. She felt unusually gratified, and felt like expressing it back to him; that surprised him, just with the way she pulled him straight into Bag End and wrapped her arms around his waist.
She kissed his nose. Flutters rippled through him, and he laid his hands on her shoulders.
"You're mine forever now," she breathed disbelievingly, dotting kisses down the side of his face. She trailed them along his jaw, up to his cheek. Frodo leaned towards her, taken aback by this sudden expression. Warmth scattered over his face and rebounded all the way down to his feet. "And I am yours; we are never to be divided by anything ever again." She could hardly believe that she could say what she did. She braced one hand between his shoulder blades and cupped the back of his head with the other; even as she reached for him, he leaned down to her, and their lips met. She deepened it, and Frodo inhaled sharply. She gathered him close, feeling every little bit of the moment.
Could that kiss have lasted longer, Sev would have let it. But they both needed to breathe, and so she pulled her head and neck away.
Frodo stood still, completely fazed. His eyelids flickered.
"You know," Sev muttered, "there was one book we should have read yesterday that we didn't."
Frodo slowly—but faintly—kissed her forehead, then her nose and jaw. "Hmm?"
She cupped his face in her hands. "Your book. Red Book. The Lord of the Rings."
Frodo nodded, and then his eyes shot open. "Yes, we need to read it." The book sat by one of those huge lounge chairs, next to the fire. Chances were excellent Sev had been reading there, luckily enough. Either they would squeeze together or she would have to sit on his lap.
Somewhat excitedly, he led her over to the chair, but she took off towards his bedroom.
"Where are you going?"
Sev didn't even turn. "One does not simply read in a wedding dress."
Frodo looked her up and down. A wedding dress would do; he wanted to spend as much time as possible. Not that there wouldn't be many years of that in the future, but it was their wedding day, after all.
"One does not simply wait for Sev to get into something else," Frodo pointed out. He reached forward, unsure what he was doing, and caught Sev's shoulders with one arm. Before she could ask what was going on, his other arm caught her knees, and he brought her up off the ground. She squawked and grabbed his neck; so speedy was her movement that their cheeks met. When she settled, Frodo gave her a slightly concerned, slightly amused look.
"Are you all right?"
Sev nodded, then chuckled. "Yes." She pecked his cheek. "Do that whenever you like. You devil." She ruffled his hair as he sat her down perpendicular to him on his lap. She sidled up to him rather carefully, and the book ended up between the two of them.
Frodo had forgotten how much he enjoyed watching her read. But instead of berating the characters she turned to Frodo once in a while.
"Why would you do that?" Usually this pertained either to some act or mischief, or one time that he would kiss her cheek.
Frodo shrugged, his face turning slightly red. "You know me well. Perhaps you could tell me."
Sev furrowed her brow and chewed her lip and pointed to the first scenario: stealing Farmer Maggot's mushrooms. "That I can attribute to your status as a devil, Pippin's influence, and the fact that you have that streak of male mischief in you." She shoved her hand over his face, and he chuckled.
But then she paused.
"I don't know about the other, though. I've never quite been able to figure that out." She regretted bringing it up, for now Frodo would pressure her until she let all of her concerns free. In a way she appreciated that . . . but not when she felt like it might be secretly paining or irritating him.
She tried to move on, but Frodo didn't quite let that go.
"What do you mean?" He wrapped an arm around her waist, then lifted a tender hand to her cheek. He turned her face to look at him. "Do I not make it obvious?"
Sev hesitated. She didn't want to scare or force him away; he meant far too much to her.
"You do," she said. "More obvious than I ever could have imagined possible. I just hope I do enough for you to make it worth it to you."
Frodo gave her a perplexed stare. She looked confused, so he turned to the book.
He began flipping pages over Sev's lap. "Cirith Ungol. Shelob. The Ring. The marshes. Mordor." He pulled her closer with every word. "Sev, you do enough. You do more than enough. I love you for who you are, not just for your servitude." Then he hesitated. "Although what you do is helpful, my care for you does not hang in the balance of whether you live up to your expectations or not." He hoped he was using the right phrases, the ones he'd seen in her journal. "I just love you. And all I want is for you to accept that."
Sev couldn't say anything to that. She never thought she would hear that from anyone . . . and she realized then that all the love she'd felt had to be unconditional, or it didn't last. She sighed, satisfied to the extent that her fears ever would be, and leaned her forehead against his own. He was a little timid after what he had just told her. It sounded unrealistic and a little bit corny to him, but it was the truth—he couldn't have said it any other way.
But her response made him feel a little bit better.
She kissed him slowly, eased him up into her arms, and the book fell forgotten to the floor. He remained a little settled about it, allowed her gentle warmth to shield him from pressure. When she pulled away, the warmth slowed to a halt.
She held his head to her heart, basically lulling him into exhaustion when she told him what she thought of him. He couldn't quite internalize it all, but he remembered thinking it was the most amazing thing he'd ever heard. No one had ever said anything like that about him, not even Bilbo, not even his mother. Somehow he knew Sev truly loved him.
Once they were through with the book, though, Sev was impossibly restless. Frodo hoped she would stay the night, in fact anticipated it . . . although she twitched like she had lightning running through her spine.
But as she walked with him to the bedroom, he remembered what he'd told her that day, five months ago, and his heart sank. "Prowling shouldn't be an issue." He hoped to change her mind, but he was too tired and muddled.
Sev embraced him, then pressed gently on his shoulders until he sat down on the bed. He laid back hesitantly, very exhausted but not ready to let her go.
"Sev . . ."
She kissed his forehead. "I'll be back in the morning. Tonight is a beautiful night, you know." She wrapped her arms around him. "I love you. Sleep well, all right?" She wanted to see the moon casting light across the fields and rivers of the Shire, and she was afraid to stay. She'd never been in a home at night, not with Frodo especially—she simply feared it all.
She caressed his jaw with her fingers, then brushed a kiss against his cheek. It felt like parting, and that awakened him sufficiently. He didn't want to end like this, if anything. He turned, and her lips touched his. She sat down by his side suddenly, locked where she was. She didn't dare jump away; she lifted him into her arms. She broke it off long enough to trail kisses down his forehead and nose, then touched her lips to his again.
She squeezed him lightly. "You devil, you're distracting me. Go to sleep. I'll see you in the morning."
As she left, Frodo watched her.
"Sev," he said.
She turned back, partially anticipating whatever he had to say.
"I love you too," he finished simply.
She grinned and laid her head against the door. "More in the morning." Then she paused. "Assuming everything gets done."
"After all," he said, remembering what she'd told him when they were discussing married life in general, "you are the mistress of Bag End. And would like it better organized."
Sev sighed. "There's nothing wrong with it. It's all right, I swear!" Frodo chuckled, and she blushed a little. "I just have the chance to do things with it."
"Good night, Seville Baggins," he said somewhat dismissively, turning over. He knew she was itching to prowl, even if he would have liked to keep her there until she didn't want to leave. Sev snickered behind him—much to the satisfaction of both. She paused until he began to breathe more deeply, but he wasn't quite asleep. She didn't know that.
Then she let her whisper carry through the darkness. "Good night, love."
His head shifted. She'd never called him that; he wondered at it. Tested it around in his head. He thought he liked it, in a sugary sort of way. It wasn't a very Sev thing to say, but it carried that essence of what she'd told him earlier, that long stream of words he wished he could remember.
As she stepped away, Frodo spoke after her. "You could call me that more often."
She turned a deeper purple the moment he spoke. "I will, then."
Sev slipped out of Bag End, pinching the candles as she left. She sprang out of the door with her white fluffy cloak from Rosie, feeling so free. She realized she was still in her wedding dress . . . and she had left Frodo in his Gondor cloak. But neither of them would care at least until morning. He looked good in that Gondor cloak; she snickered when she considered not telling him until he noticed.
She raced to the hill where he'd proposed to her. The branches were full of autumn leaves, unlike the blossomed fingers she'd seen that spring. She'd remember this tree always. She sidled up to it, imagining she sat beside Frodo. She watched the moon carefully, how it shed beautiful rays of pearl light over the ground. She stretched out her fingers, and the moonshine illuminated her bare skin.
Sev sat back, pondering what she ought to do in the morning. She wanted mornings to be different now that they were married. Kissing him awake; that would do.
She nestled into her fluffy white cloak, still restless. At least, with that factor of excitement in mind, she could track her affections as they moved forward, keep herself in check. She hadn't stayed with Frodo mostly for the bitter sorrow that she could not be a mother, and she was almost ashamed that he knew.
