Chapter 3: Samwise Tells a Lie

"What do you think happened to his hands?"

Sam had taken the first watch, and had been certain that Frodo was asleep. He turned his head and in the grey light, he saw that Frodo was still awake, sitting with his eyes half-opened, his back against the rocky ledge. Frodo was looking at Gollum, who lay curled into a tight ball some distance away, a wet whistling sound issuing from his open mouth.

"What's that, Mr. Frodo?"

"Gollum…Smeagol's hands. You've seen what they look like, haven't you?"

"I try to look at him as little as I have to." Sam cast a glance at Gollum's huddled shape and made a face. "Wish I didn't have to look at him at all."

"I think they broke all of his fingers," Frodo murmured, almost to himself.

"Hasn't made him any less grabby."

"Sam," Frodo said with light reproach.

"Sorry, Mr. Frodo," Sam said, but he did not feel particularly sorry. Sam did not care for this Gollum. He was hideous to look at, and he stank. Worse yet, every fawning word out of his mouth seemed like a lie, and Sam could not fathom why Frodo paid heed to him at all. That Stinker will march us straight into Mordor and turn us over to the Orcs, if Mr. Frodo keeps listening to him, Sam thought. Sometimes, I wonder if Mr. Frodo knows what he's doing. Sometimes, I think maybe he's too kind.

"Yes," Frodo said, in that same half-dreaming voice. "I think they broke his fingers, and then they just set like that."

Sam did not answer. He suddenly understood what Frodo meant, and he felt cold and sick. Sam had noticed the swollen, twisted joints of Gollum's fingers, and the way he always licked and rubbed them as if trying to soothe some old hurt. But Sam had dismissed them as just one of Gollum's many grotesque features, and had never related them to his captivity in Barad-dûr. He thought of Gollum's deformed hands in this new light, and Frodo's almost casually spoken remark made him shudder.

"Do you think they will do that to me, Sam? Do you think they will do that to me for this?" He looked at Sam and tapped the front of his shirt with his own slender fingers.

"Now, Mr. Frodo," Sam said hastily. "You shouldn't even be thinking about that."

Frodo looked at Sam for a moment. Then, he said quietly, "But I must think about it, Sam. How will I prepare myself for it, if I don't?"

Sam opened his mouth but could think of no way to respond. His eyes fell upon Frodo's pale hand, resting over the Ring. Even in the harsh weather of Emyn Muil, Frodo's hand looked as white as pearl above the filthy brown cuff of his shirt, with only a faint redness colouring his knuckles. 

A terrible vision came unbidden to Sam's mind, of Frodo lying bound with his hands broken and bleeding, the fine bones shattered. Sam had slammed a door on his hand when he was a child, and he remembered how the pain had been so immense that he had thrown up, and then fainted. Later, he had felt terribly foolish when he found out that he had only broken two tiny bones, one in the forefinger, one in the middle. Only two little bones, and the pain had been immeasurable. What would it be like to have every bone in one's hands deliberately broken, slowly ground into fragments? Could anyone bear such a horror?

Sam shook his head to clear the awful image. He looked from Frodo's white hand to his face. Frodo's eyes had slipped closed, and Sam thought he must have finally fallen asleep, in spite of his dark thoughts.

Now that Frodo slept, Sam crept as far away from him as he dared, and let tears come to his eyes. He put his head on his knees and his hands into his hair and cried as quietly as he could, not wanting to wake Frodo, not wanting him to see how frightened he was.

In fact, Sam was terrified, and bewildered. During these long days when Frodo spoke little, if indeed he spoke at all, Sam's mind had begun to revisit everything that had happened since he and Frodo and Pippin had set out from Bag End in last year's mellow autumn sunshine. And Sam found that no matter how he turned it over in his head, he could not understand how things had gone so wrong.

Almost bitterly, Sam recalled those September days that now seemed to have been left on the other side of years, not mere months. He had understood that they were in danger, that Frodo had taken a great peril upon himself, but their journey had nonetheless seemed to begin as a grand adventure. Even the Black Riders, as dreadful as they had been, had barely shaken Sam's enthusiasm. What were Black Riders in the bright woods of the Shire, when he was traveling by Frodo's side, as he had always longed to do, and meeting Elves― Elves!―and mysterious characters like Strider? What would the Gaffer think of me, keepin' company with such folk? he had thought, and it had almost made him laugh.

Then they had come to Weathertop, to a chill October's night when the dark had suddenly seemed to press around so closely. Sam had strolled away from the fire to stretch his legs, and a dread he could not describe had overwhelmed him. He had felt it before, though, this inexplicable terror, on a long-ago December afternoon, when he had been frightened so badly that he had wanted to hide underneath Bilbo's desk. The feeling at Weathertop had been like that, as if some dreadful thing had crept up behind him, making him wish for a small place to hide until it passed.

By the end of that dark night, Sam had understood what was meant by adventure. It was not sitting by the fire in Bilbo's study with a mug of hot cider between his hands and his eyes wide in wonder as the fascinating old hobbit told tales of dragons and treasures. It was pain, and terror, and the shadow of death. It was Frodo, who had held his hand and taught him to write, who had listened so indulgently to his boyhood chatter, his own gentle, kind and wise Mr. Frodo, spilling out his life's blood on the cold ground, miles away from home or aid. Sam no longer wanted any part of this adventure.

At night, he had held Frodo's icy hand and whispered in his ear. "When we get to Rivendell, Mr. Frodo, you'll give that Thing over to the Elves, and we'll go home. We'll bar the door and there'll be no more adventure for either one of us." Frodo had never answered. He had lain shivering in a dark stupor, his half-lidded eyes staring up at the night sky, and Sam had tended to him with pity and grief, remembering a bright-eyed youth who had wanted to look for dragons. A dark superstition had crept into Sam's mind on those endless days and nights between Weathertop and Rivendell, a belief that they had perhaps brought this doom upon themselves in their innocence. If Sam could have gone back to his childhood, he would never, ever have breathed a word of dragons or adventure to Frodo. And if Frodo had brought it up himself, Sam would have shaken his head, and discouraged him, and told him never to think or speak of such things again.

But when Frodo had stood up at the Council, and taken the burden of the quest on himself, Sam had known that he would go with him. In that moment, he had felt no fear, only great pride, and love. He's like that, Mr. Frodo is, Sam had thought. He couldn't be no other way. Sam entertained no boyish fancies of adventure; he knew only that he could never have returned to the Shire and lain in his own comfortable bed at night, knowing what Frodo bore, wondering where he was, if he was in pain, or dying or dead. Sam would not have enjoyed another day's peace in his life, if he had let Frodo leave Rivendell without him.

But now he and Frodo were alone in the wasteland on the edge of Mordor. Frodo had almost died twice, at Weathertop of course, and then again in Moria, and both times Sam had been powerless to help him. The Fellowship was broken, all those valiant companions scattered to the wind. Gandalf was dead, and how could that be? How could that be? They were at the mercy of some vile creature, whose treacherous mind was no doubt filled with a host of dark designs. And still, their journey was not near its end, and what sort of end that would be Sam hardly dared to think.

Sam could not understand how everything had gone so very wrong. Silently and desperately, he wept over it all.

Gollum stirred in his sleep and smacked his lips together. The sound of it made Sam's stomach turn. He lifted his head and looked at Gollum. The creature had flopped over onto his back, and his twisted hands were splayed out flat at his sides. Sam's eyes passed from Gollum to Frodo, who was sleeping with one fair hand on his breast, the other at his side, palm-up to the grey sky. The Council in Rivendell had been a grander company of folk than Sam had ever seen, or imagined. And his own master, Frodo Baggins of the Shire, was in the midst of them, speaking the words that not one of those fine others would have dared even to think. I will take the Ring, he had said. And on his face had been a look that Sam had never seen, of dread, and terrible sorrow, and almost of disbelief, as if some other will had used his small voice for its own, unknowable purpose. Sam remembered it now and he knew suddenly that Frodo, too, wondered what had happened, how life could go so wrong as to turn the quiet master of Bag End into a hunted wanderer with the fate of the world around his very neck. His heart went out to Frodo, who did not complain, or weep, or question, who merely put one foot in front of the other every day, laboring towards some unspeakable end, in silent compliance with fate.

Sam wiped his hand across his eyes. Frodo's fate was his own, and it had been from the moment that he had laid eyes on the blue-eyed boy in Bilbo's study. It seemed to Sam that it may have been so even before that. Perhaps it had been so forever. If Frodo must bear this burden, Sam must bear it with him and questioning would not serve his master on their road, nor would crying, nor would fear.

Sam crept back to Frodo's side. He gently laid his hand in Frodo's upturned palm and in sleep, Frodo's slender fingers curled loosely around Sam's. Sam looked at their joined hands and considered what Frodo had said before he had fallen asleep. He shivered at the knowledge that Frodo deliberately burdened himself with such ideas, as if it were an exercise, a preparation for the torment that awaited him.

"No one's going to do anything like that to you as long as I can help it, Mr. Frodo," Sam muttered to himself. "You don't have to prepare yourself for anything."

"No, Sam," Frodo said, startling him. He wondered if Frodo had spoken in his sleep.

"Mr. Frodo?" he asked.

Frodo's eyes opened and he turned his head to look at Sam. "I said no, Sam."

"I…I don't know what you mean, sir."

Frodo sat up, and when he spoke, the half-dreaming sound was gone from his voice. "Sam, I know you mean to come with me to the end, but have you thought of what will come before the end?"

Sam looked at Frodo in silence, and for an endless moment his mind filled with shadowy images of torment and suffering and pain beyond imagining.

"I have, Mr. Frodo. I have," he said.

"Then you must know that if something happens, if I am taken…" Here Frodo's words failed him and he seemed to ponder what he would say next. A note of desperate pleading was in his voice when he spoke again. "Sam, what will it serve for you to be taken with me? Shall we both go to Barad-dûr? Shall we both die there? Someone will need to go back, and tell the others that I have failed, so that they can be prepared for what will come. And if I have no other comfort, at least I will know that you are alive, and safe."

"Now, Mr. Frodo…"

"No, Sam, listen to me. Promise me that if anything happens to me, and you have the chance to escape, you will."

"Mr. Frodo, how could you…"

"Sam, please." Frodo reached out and took Sam's hands within his own. "Promise me." He tightened his hold on Sam's hands until it was almost painful. Sam looked into Frodo's eyes, and saw an anguished appeal in them.

Sam was honest to a fault, even by hobbit standards, and had told so few lies in his life that he remembered every one of them. He had certainly never lied to Frodo. Now he looked from Frodo's pleading eyes, to the delicate sculpting of bones and tendons in his hands, and Gollum's gnarled fingers came to his mind.

I'll never let anything like that happen to you, he wanted to say. I'd have to be stone dead before I'd let that happen.

Sam looked into Frodo's eyes and knew that he could not burden him with the truth. He lied to his master, for the first time in his life.

"I promise, Mr. Frodo."

Relief blossomed on Frodo's face and he smiled. "Thank you, Sam."

"Why don't you get some sleep now? It won't do us any good to sit around talking about such gloomy things."

Frodo sighed. "You're right, Sam. But only for a little while. Wake me when it's your turn."

"I will, Mr. Frodo."

Frodo lay down beside Sam and was asleep within moments. When Sam heard Frodo's breathing deepen into slumber, he reached out and took Frodo's hand between his own, and held it as gently as possible, sheltered like a baby bird between his own brown palms.

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Author's Notes: I realize this was an abrupt shift from the previous two chapters, and some people who read this story when it was first posted found it jarring. I actually like that people found it jarring, because I hoped that the reader would feel the same way Sam does in this chapter…bewildered! I didn't mean for this story to be a lengthy Frodo & Sam childhood fic; the first two chapters are an idyllic backdrop for what eventually happens to these two.

I don't usually answer reviews in these Author's Notes, just because I doubt that everyone would find it interesting. But I do want to briefly respond to what Frentlen said about introducing Sam's sexual feelings to Frodo (an entire page of reviews seems to have disappeared from this site, but I did receive that review via e-mail as well.)

I love Frodo/Sam slash fiction and some of the finest and most moving LoTR fanfic that I've ever read has been in that genre. However, I doubt that I will ever write any of my own. First of all, I don't know how I would handle a relationship that's almost sacred in my eyes. Second, there are so many amazingly talented slash writers out there (among them Merripestin, Janis Cortese, the newly-discovered Teasel and the always-brilliant, astonishing Mirabella) that I doubt anything I write in that vein could even compare to what they've done. I love to write about Frodo and Sam, but so far, I've always been deliberately vague about the nature of their relationship. There is a great deal of love between these two, but I have yet to write a story where it erupts into passion! I've had readers ask me "Did they?" or "Are they?" about certain scenes that I've written, and that's fine with me. If you want to interpret the story as slash, OK, if you don't, that's OK too! Maybe someday I'll get a bee in my bonnet and write a true slash story, but for now, this is strictly Tolkienesque and platonic!