They had been a fortnight at Rivendell, and though Sam was eager to return to the Shire, and while his things were already packed and laid neatly at the foot of his bed, he felt a pang of regret at leaving the Last Homely House. Sam looked round his small, pretty room. He had long ceased to marvel over the idea of himself keeping company with Elves, yet he still wondered if anyone in the Shire would ever believe that Samwise Gamgee, Hamfast's son, had once had his very own room in the ancient elven city of Rivendell.

Frodo's room was next to his own, and when they had first come to Rivendell, Sam had slept with his door open every night so that he might hear his master if he cried out or called for him. Frodo's sleep had often been uneasy in Minas Tirith, and Sam had grown accustomed to waking in the night to sit with him. Yet the power of the Elves was still strong in Rivendell, and had offered healing to Frodo that even the hands of the King had not been able to grant. Frodo had slept peacefully every night in Rivendell, to Sam's great relief.

Frodo was not in his room, and Sam knew he must be spending this last evening with Bilbo. Sam walked down the lamplit hall and, as always, the great arched passageway made him feel small and uncomfortable. He never walked in the center of the hall, for it was so wide that he felt lost in it. Instead, he stayed close to the wall, and trailed his hand on its richly carved surface, as he would have held onto a banister to reassure himself on a steep set of stairs.

He knocked on the door and Frodo's voice came softly from within. "Come in."

Bilbo's room was little for the Elves, but Sam had always thought it large, and very elegant, with a wide balcony that looked out over valley and the falls. It was a frosty night, so the great doors that led to the balcony were closed, and the firelight's reflection glowed warmly from their glass panes.

Bilbo was asleep in his chair before the fire, and Frodo sat across from him, a collection of papers upon his lap. He glanced up at Sam with an amused look on his face. "I've gone through as many of Bilbo's things as I possibly could," he whispered. "But I should need another month here if I were to straighten it all out. I don't think that even he knows what he has here!"

Sam pulled up a chair next to Frodo's. "Do you think you can make sense of it all, Mr. Frodo?"

Frodo looked helplessly into his lap. "I think so, but it will take a deal of work. And yet, I am quite looking forward to getting back to the Shire, and locking myself up with all of it. I've been thinking, Sam," he said, turning round in his chair. "Do you think Lobelia might sell Bag End back to me? I would dearly love to settle into the old place again."

"I don't know, Mr. Frodo. She was awfully happy to get her hands on it once, if you don't mind me saying so. I don't know as she'd be inclined to give it up."

Frodo laughed a little. "You're right, Sam. I believe if I had left even a day later, she would have turned me out in the cold! Ah, well," he sighed, "I only hope she's kept the place up. I'd hate to find it in disarray."

Sam did not answer. He remembered well the visions he had seen in the Lady Galadriel's mirror, and he was uneasy about what they would find in the Shire. Sam wanted nothing more than to have Frodo return to Bag End, and to go back to work for him, as if nothing had ever happened. Yet Sam doubted if anything would ever again be so simple.

Bilbo muttered in his sleep and Sam glanced at him. When they arrived in Rivendell, Sam had been shocked at how Bilbo had aged. Yet Frodo had not seemed surprised, and later, he had told Sam of what Queen Arwen had said about Bilbo, and the Ring.

"It was the Ring, Sam, that kept him alive, and kept him young for so many years," Frodo had said. "Now everything that was bound to the Ring must pass away."

Sam had thought for a moment, and then said, "But you seem the same as ever, Mr. Frodo. You haven't changed, have you?"

Frodo had looked away, a thoughtful look upon his face. "I did not have the Ring as long as Bilbo," he had said, almost to himself. "And yet, I do feel different. Not on the outside. But I am changed."

"What do you mean, Mr. Frodo?" Sam had asked, but Frodo had changed the subject, and Sam had not brought it up again.

Sam looked at Frodo. In the warm glow of the firelight, he did indeed look the same as always. He was thinner of course, and quieter than he had once been, but to Sam, Frodo hardly seemed different from the bright youth that he had first met on a long-ago June morning. Sam had only ever found his master altered in those last dreadful miles before the mountain, and yet he had always been able to see a tenuous vestige of his own Frodo, even within the madness that had almost consumed him at the end. When the Ring had gone into the fire, Sam had once again seen only dear Frodo, as elven-fair and mild as the soft-featured lad in Bilbo's old portrait.

Sam glanced above the fire. Propped upon the mantel, with a great deal of Bilbo's other oddments, was the very portrait of Frodo that had once hung in the study at Bag End. The Elves had framed it for Bilbo, preserving it under a thin piece of glass and surrounding it with an intricately carved frame, so it had not creased or faded, although it was over thirty years old. It astonished Sam that so much time had passed, and so much had happened since he had first gazed in wonder at those carefully penciled features.

Frodo had noticed Sam's silence, and he followed his eyes to the mantel and laughed. "That picture! I can't believe Bilbo still has it. Do you remember how it used to hang in his study?"

"I remember it very well, Mr. Frodo," Sam said quietly.

Frodo sighed. "Do you know, Sam, sometimes, when I think of those days, they almost seem to have happened to someone else? I remember them, of course, but the way I would remember something I read in a book, while everything that has happened in these last years is very clear. Do you feel the same way?"

"No, sir," Sam replied. "It's all very clear to me. Especially them old days at Bag End."

Frodo was quiet for a moment, then said, "You're lucky, Sam. I wonder if it will be like that for me."

"It will be, Mr. Frodo. Soon as we get home, 'twill all come back to you, and you'll feel as if you never left."

Frodo smiled. "I hope so, Sam. I hope it will be exactly like that."

Sam put his hand on Frodo's shoulder reassuringly. Frodo smiled at him, and in Sam's eyes, he was the same as Sam had always known him.