"Mr. Frodo? Mr. Frodo, wake up!" Sam said, tapping his shoulder impatiently.

"What?" Frodo mumbled incoherently. "Not morning already!"

"I don't know, Mr. Frodo," said Sam, trying to sound brave. "I can't tell what time it is, what with the storm and all." With those words, Frodo came wide awake, narrowly missing hitting his head on the rock overhang above him.

"How long have we been here?" Frodo asked, peering out into the gloomy gray world.

"I don't know. I just woke up. Can I have some food?" Sam asked.

"Here," said Frodo, handing him the last slice of bread. "We'd better hurry up, it's starting to flood."

It was true. The deep hollow was no longer a good shelter, with the walls running in rivers of dark brown mud. Frodo gasped as he felt the cold water rising around his ankles, and shoved Samwise out through the hole near the level of the ground outside. He tried to scramble out behind him, but panicked when he found himself stuck fast. He realized he was still wearing the pack, removed it, shoved it out through the hole, and easily crawled out. He sat on the edge, looking into the hole with wild eyes and panting. "You can't take me," he whispered, a touch of madness on his breath.

"What?" said Sam tremulously.

"Nothing. I'm sorry, Sam. Let's go," he said, shouldering his two burdens once again. He continued in the direction he had been traveling, trying valiantly to ignore the lightning strikes that rent the darkness, sometimes quite close. Once he had to run faster than he'd ever run before to escape a falling tree, its branches alight with white flame. He paused and looked back at it as it illuminated the night behind him and found himself unable to care. He was numb to the danger they had just escaped, and only began to tremble several minutes later when the full scale of it hit him.

"Mr. Frodo? Look!" said Sam, turning his head in the opposite direction.

"What, Sam?" he asked irritably, gazing off in front of him. "Is that-"

"I think it is!" said Sam. "The lights of home," he added with deep satisfaction. Frodo gave a whoop of pure joy, clutched Sam tightly against his chest, and ran all the way to Sam's house, where he set him down lightly on the doorstep and began pounding on the door.

"We're home, we're home!" cried Sam joyfully when Bell flung the door open to embrace him.

"About time," snarled Hamfast. "Your mother was worried sick. What happened to your hand?" He didn't give Sam time to answer before he went on. "You've got a whipping coming, young man, and don't think you don't deserve it."

"Please, no," interjected Frodo, a pained look in his eyes. "It was my fault. I was the one who took him so far in the first place. If anyone should be punished, it should be me."

"Whatever," snapped Hamfast. "It's my son, I can do as I like with 'im." He moved to slam the door in Frodo's face, but Bell put out her arm and held it open. "All right, you wanna watch?" growled Hamfast. "Fine."

Frodo shuddered and glanced at the long black whip that hung on its solitary peg in the kitchen. Hamfast only used it on his boys when they had been doing something exceedingly dangerous, usually life-threatening. Something within Frodo raged against the injustice of Samwise being punished. It was Frodo's fault, and Frodo felt he should take the lashes.

"Stand over here," Hamfast instructed Sam, yanking the whip unceremoniously from the wall. Sam faced the wall and braced himself, not daring to look at his beloved Mr. Frodo. The whip drew back and whistled through the air, but Sam did not feel its bite in his back. He figured Hamfast was just taunting him, but turned curiously to look. He burst into tears as he saw that Frodo had run over in front of Hamfast and was taking his lashes for him.

"Stop!" he cried, his noble heart breaking.

"No, be quiet, Sam," said Frodo through his teeth, between lashes. "It's almost over."

Twenty more blows landed before Hamfast put the whip down. Frodo knew it was far more times than Hamfast would have hit his own son, but he didn't care. Samwise winced with each blow as if he had been hit himself.

"Get out of my house," said Hamfast, his voice deadly calm. Sam rose from his knees, face streaked with dirt and tears, and ran out the door before his father could say anything. Frodo ran after him, stiffly, the blood sluicing off his back in a crimson stream.

"Why did you do it?" Sam sobbed, hardly daring to look at Frodo's wounds.

"Because I love you, Sam. That's all," said Frodo, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.