Author's Note: I apologize for taking so long to update this. The story was completed over a year ago, but I always felt it needed work. I really wanted to take care of this "unfinished business" before RoTK's release, so I've done what I could with it. Thanks to all who reviewed or inquired about this story.

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It was in the darkness of the tower that Sam realized he had made a promise he did not know how to keep.

Not the lie of a promise that he had given to Frodo, to ease his mind, but the one he had made to the Elves, the only one that held sway in Sam's heart, bound there by duty and love. For all his duty and love, Sam thought, he had already broken that promise once and he now saw no way to mend it.

Sam inched forward, overwhelmed by monstrously clear images of what Frodo might be enduring. Sam's imagination had never been so vivid and he cursed it, for it drained him of will and reason.

Panic began to smother Sam, and the entire weight of the tower seemed to press down upon him, innumerable rooms, turrets, dungeons, and every one of them no doubt locked and guarded. A needle in a haystack! he thought hysterically. If I had a thousand years, it would be no use! And I might have only minutes! And what if Frodo was not even in the tower any longer? Had they taken him to Barad-dûr? Had they killed him? Sam breathed in shallow gasps as his mind whirled in fear. He imagined himself in Mordor for an eternity, still unable to find Frodo in all of its great waste, and felt suddenly, madly tempted to rush forward blindly, shrieking "Frodo! Frodo!" at the top of his lungs, even if he roused every devil in Mordor by doing it.

The Ring was heavy around his neck. How had Frodo ever borne this for so long? And more than its weight tormented Sam; it seemed to him like a beacon around his neck, shining forth with a great, venomous light that only evil eyes could see. Surely the Eye of the Enemy knew that he was here, or soon would. He could do nothing. All was lost. Sam sank to his knees, frozen in place, like a mouse that knows it has been spotted by a hawk, and, in terror, has lost all ability to save itself.

He remembered himself as a child, begging Frodo to take him along if he ever went on an adventure. His own childish voice mocked him, I could make myself very useful, I could! If Sam had not been so terrified, he would have laughed bitterly. Very useful he had made himself, indeed. He let Sting fall to the ground and put his arms over his head.

Yet even as he cowered, bewildered with despair, he suddenly heard his child's voice again.

I'm stuck.

And Frodo's voice, which Sam believed he would never hear again, answered, borne across decades of time. All right, what stopped you?

Everything. It's useless.

Don't give up so easily, Sam! You've already begun. If something is worth beginning, it's worth seeing through to the end.

A voice cried in his mind then, End! You have come to the end already! All is lost! But Sam did not know this voice; it was not his own. It was not Frodo's.

Sam felt a sudden clearing in his mind, as a break will sometimes appear in the thickest fog, and he saw Frodo, as he had been on the long summer afternoons when he had helped Sam with his letters, in those times when no shadow had ever touched them. The memory brought joy with it, and love, and a light that banished dark imaginings and left no hiding place for fear or despair.

It is worth seeing through to the end, Sam thought, and knew that he would keep his promise.

He stood up and took Sting in his hand. "I won't leave you, Mr. Frodo," he said to the darkness. "I'm coming."