Sequel to 'Untouchable'- click on my username and read that first! This is Sam's view of his relationship with Frodo from the last struggle up Mount Doom to Rivendell on their way home to the Shire. It differs slightly from the film, 'The Return of the King', towards the end.
For Elijah Wood, who has beautiful eyes.
~Unbreakable~
I carried Frodo up the mountain. And when I could no longer carry him, I crawled with him on my back. Slowly, the black fumes found their way into my chest and I would cough so hard that I thought my body would break apart. My hands began to bleed as I hauled myself through the dirt. The knees of my trousers wore away and my knees began to bleed too.
But it was nothing like the bleeding of my heart.
All through my crawling, Frodo clung to me- to the collar of my garment- and when I could go no further I had to shake him off my back. He wasn't physically heavy but to be so near the ring of power, for so long, was a burden on my soul. By the end I would have cried, but there wasn't a single drop of water left in my body. Certainly, there was no water in my flask and even if there had been I would have given it to Frodo.
How could my suffering ever be compared with his?
Some days Frodo was almost normal. Some days he could walk- or crawl- unaided and his eyes wouldn't be glassy and unfocused. He would look at me and smile sadly, like he wished I wasn't there. He would ask me if it was nearly over. And I would look away from him, avert my eyes, and say that everything would be fine. Actually, I thought death must be near.
How could two people endure so much and not die?
Indeed, I should have welcomed death with open arms, as long as Frodo could be with me. Frodo who, even in the darkest hour, was stunningly beautiful. His hazel hair was matted, and his cheeks hollow, and the blackened smoke that clung around mount doom had coated his fair skin, but I still thought him beautiful. Each night with his head cradled in my lap, I would pray to be released from this world because in some perverse way I was almost happy while I held him to me and shared the warmth of my body with him. That was how I wanted to die.
I no longer cared about the fate of middle earth because my world revolved around Frodo.
The only reason I struggled on was the ring. I hated it with all my strength. I think Frodo hated it too- but not as much as he loved it. It certainly wasn't hatred that made his hands wander to it, that made him stroke it as if it were alive. As if it were myself.
That journey should have broken us- we must surely be unbreakable.
Then there was Gollum of course. Gollum was the first thing I had ever wanted to kill for pleasure. If you kill a rabbit, you do so because you want it for the pot. If you kill an orc you do so because it would kill you without a thought. But with Gollum I just wanted to kilI. I wanted to strangle the creature slowly; to watch it choke on its life. I'm glad I didn't though.
If I'd killed Gollum, the ring would not have been destroyed.
And if Frodo had kept the ring for himself; if he had broken all the armies of the world; if he had set himself on Sauron's throne and enslaved the Shire; I think I would have followed him, rather than kill him. I don't think that for the sake of all that is good in this world, I could have driven a knife into his poor flesh.
It's true what they say- good can imagine the possibility of being evil.
Even when the ring was destroyed, and Gollum killed, I had no hope of returning to the Shire. I rested on an island of rock surrounded by molten lava, with Frodo's head resting on my shoulder and his bloody, maimed hand resting in mine. The world spun round and I waited for the end, closing my eyes tightly.
When I opened them again, the nightmare was over.
I was lying in a white tent on a bed of furs. Frodo was sat by my bedside looking as grin and serious as the night. I watched him for an age before he realised I was awake, and then his face split into a grin. He joked that I'd been lazy to sleep in for so long, and I just smiled at him. Stupid, delirious, happiness filled my body and suddenly I sprang from my bed and engulfed him in my arms. We held each other for a long time, Frodo whispering chidish endearments in my ears and me sobbing into his neck.
Minds soon turned to home.
I remember passing through Rivendell on our way back to the Shire. We stayed there in the same rooms that we had loved in so many months ago. On one night, when the heavens were an array of sparkling lights, Frodo took me onto his balcony. He smiled at me and pointed to the stars. Then he made me look into his eyes, so that I thought I might drown in those pools of crystal blue, and told me that he would love me even when the stars had gone out and the world had perished.
And I tried to say 'I love you too' but he wouldn't let me.
Frodo said it was my destiny to get married and have many hobbit-lads and lasses. I wanted to tell him he was wrong but I knew he wasn't. I knew with the father I had, and with the respectable Gamgee name, that I would be bound to marry a lass and have children.
That was my destiny.
So knowing we were not to be, we kissed one last time, in a passionate meeting of tongues and each with our hands entangled in the other's hair. Then we went back to out separate beds.
~Fini~