Lord of the Rings: Liquor, Leaf and Ladies

Kesselia Banta, January 2004

All Hail J.R.R. Tolkien!

Author's note: In my opinion, Tolkien left no room for fanfiction, and he did a wonderful job doing it. However, I haven't read The Hobbit in a couple of decades, so details on the original work are fuzzy at best. I opted to use only the data from the movies so I could play with the boys a bit - good honest fun.

This is a five part story to include a domestic trauma for each Hobbit and a group finale, but Frodo's so far behind in the dating game that he had to maintain an increasing level of frustration throughout it all -- poor kid. ('Kid'? I would think I've earned a higher title by now. - FB) As soon as the characters took over the story, the language and metaphors got a little. . . adult. . .  in places, dang Brandybuck,  (Hay now! Pippin started it! - MB) but it's nothing your average teenager can't handle. (I did not. - PT) (Yes, you did. Remember the flower plucking comment? Frodo was red a cherry.- MB) Clearly, the boys are having troubles containing themselves. (Funny you should mention cherries. – PT) Now that the story is written, they are sprawled, victoriously intoxicated, in the Character Lounge that exists only in back of my mind. (She's even got a frig in here. Ooh, Subway sammich! - SG) The other four parts of the story will be cleaned up and posted in short order. ((crunch crunch) Oi, who's the wanker on the wall with the Scooby Doo haircut? – PT) That's Luke Skywalker. (Who?)  (Old boyfriend, Pip. Don't go there. – SG) I have to go take my meds now.

Enjoy the story.

Kess

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Part 1 - Frodo

Frodo faces post-Ring pessimism and an unshaking sense of moral duty with a new girl in town. . .  and the public grants him the rights to do as he pleases, as long as the little wench isn't after the money. Enter Lauren: the only type of woman that will never see Frodo as the Ring Bearer is one that has no recollection of the Ring.

Frodo's Wish

An Odd Shaped Guest

Devious Peek of the Goods

What's a Hobbit?

Sam Hogs Girls

An Insulting Honor

Specters in Bed

Chickens that Multiply

Weathertop – Just Your Average Camping Accident

Giggle Juice

Flirting 101

A Critical Review of the Little Wench

The Blush Test

Frodo Winds Up for the Pitch

Mrs. Byanka

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Frodo's Wish

The heat was overpowering. He hyperventilated little gasps to keep the torrid air and burning ash from going too deep in his lungs. The lava was glowing as it slid by the rock on which they took refuge. Sam mumbled longings of a girl with his fading voice. It was a sad thing, but Frodo was envious. He could remember everything else about home now, but he couldn't remember any girls. Perhaps it was best this way – no one would be wailing over his memory. No one would miss him. . . . He felt the lava finally eat away the splintery crag on which they were draped. In tiny jerks, the stone tripped downward to be eaten entirely by the molten flow, Sam and Frodo included.

Half of him was thankful the end had finally come, that the pain would stop and peace would be found, but the other half of him wasn't ready to go. So he screamed in his mind. He could hear almost audible thoughts of his own voice hollering with terror and anger, until the desperation in his own heart shook him awake again.

Frodo punched into the real world with a sudden roll onto one elbow. His temples and hair were dripping with sweat in the desperate attempt to protect his body from the heat of an erupting volcano. His chest heaved for fresh oxygen so rapidly that the snowy chill stung his throat. He blinked hard to accept that it was just a nightmare and dropped backward on the bed with weary expression torn between relief and frustration.

The relief gave way to melancholy. The frustration grew to a dull anger. His dropped a hand on his forehead and stared up at a ceiling he really couldn't see. It had been well over a year already. The dreams still came. The ache in his shoulder still cried out. The days looked the same. It felt like he was still getting accustomed to being back in the Shire again. When would the new life start? When will the happiness return to flood his face with smiles? They'd been home nearly as long as they were gone. How much longer until he could put it all behind him?

For a moment, he caught it before it galloped into reality, the sadness for what he had lost; the tendency to feel sorry for himself. Frodo climbed out of bed with moves as awake as they would be in morning as if hurrying would help him leave the nightmare behind him.

The white bedclothes weren't as white as they used to be, but they still hung down to his wrists and ankles enough to keep him warm. He kicked a wood chest that had been left in the hall and cussed under his breath to limp through the kitchen. He grabbed a bottle of dark wine by its neck. He'd started it yesterday. There was hardly a chalice-full left. Then he moved blindly into the front smial without bothering to light up a candle and yanked out the stubborn cork with a hollow pop. He tossed the cork into the corner, so disgruntled by the dream he didn't care where it fell.

From a small cube shaped drawer, Frodo pulled out a pouch of leaf and an old, resin-scarred pipe. Frodo realized he was becoming habitual about it. Somehow, a quiet pipe helped him think. And since thinking was what Frodo's mind apparently wanted to do, he thought that this might speed it along with a bit of Longbottom so he could go back to sleep.

It wasn't as flavorful as he would have liked it to be, but it burned okay. The wine doused his mouth with a wet, fruity way to numb his senses. He sat sideways on the thick wood storage chest by the wall and gazed out the porthole to the front yard. Snow fluttered silently to the ground and his sleeping garden looked to be dusted lightly in sugar. It was a late, small-flaked snow. It probably would not last a day even if it snowed long enough to get deep, but it hushed the night into a drowsy silence just so Frodo could feel completely alone.

Nothing was the same. Sam called it wisdom, but he always had a way of embellishing things. Pippin admitted that he too was cursed with a foul dream from time to time and blamed both of their ailments on the physical contact with the Ring and that orb. Merry would blame it on the wounds of war that ached when the weather changed. Frodo could accept that all these were true, at least in part, but he felt there was something more. It felt as if the Ring itself was sending evil aftershocks in his direction; looking for revenge about being destroyed.

Frodo felt permanently cursed. . .  or permanently burdened, which is just as much of a curse as anything befitting the wider description. He stared at the tiny, fluttering flakes with a blank stare, puffing mindlessly at the pipe he cradled in his fingers even after it no longer had anything to burn, and hugging the cool bottle to his shoulder even when it was hollow of liquid. Soon enough, he rested the pipe on his knee, his head back on the wall, and pulled in a deep sigh.

"I wish I could have the life I always wanted," he whispered to the snow sprinkled night. "But I don't remember what that was." He nearly smiled with the irony, but the truth of it stung his heart even more. He sighed again, deep and intense so that the breeze in his body would blow-dry the tears before they made it to his eyes. The cold air cleaned out his lungs like he'd washed them with spring water, but it did nothing to his soured soul. The corner of his mouth weakly grinned only to recognize how pathetic he had become.

Frodo scolded himself with no more than a shake of his head, tapped the ash into a tray, and shuffled wearily back into bed. He slept better than he did earlier, but it was without comfort. And, thankfully, the nightmare was tossed from his thoughts by morning.

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An Odd Shaped Guest

Frodo went mechanically to the business of rebuilding the rotting chicken coop. The soft wood of the ancient cage felt like it was turning to powder under his fingers. The four chickens clucked invisibly from within while Frodo nailed together a pine replacement.

As expected, the light sprinkle of snow only lasted as long as the sun wasn't directly on it. Only pockets of the stuff remained in the corners where the yawning shadows of morning protected the wet flakes. But the sun was rising almost directly in front of Bag End. Frodo was working in back of it so the chill still nipped at the points of his ears as he worked.

"Good morning, Mister Frodo" Sam said brightly as he rounded the corner to Bag End's back end. He already had the smile of a cheery day on his face and carried two steamy cups in his hands. "I hope you slept well."

Frodo gave him a damp grin, appreciative but still melancholy, and took the extra mug Sam offered. "Good morning."

Sam nodded at the cup Frodo was already sipping from. "She put in a touch of sugar and a bit of milk for you this time."

Frodo enjoyed the smooth tea on his cold throat and nodded again. "You have a sweet wife, Sam."

Sam smiled at that and started-

Someone screamed.

Both of them halted to listen. It had come from somewhere south of Bag End. It sounded like Grandma Bolgers down by the water. Her unique voice was recognizable even through her yelp. But it wasn't a yelp fear of a danger. She had been startled.

There was a long beat of silence. Sam and Frodo exchanged glances.

Grandma Bolgers cried to an apparent rescuer. "Fetch the doctor!"

Frodo and Sam jumped into action, speed quickly through the house, fumbled not to spill tea as they left their mugs by the front door, and ran out to slam open the front gate. Worry had struck their faces about who it was that was hurt. They sped quickly down the south side of the Hill and leaped through grass and around sheep as shortcuts, adding to the growing collection of startled Hobbits on the bank of the pond.

Many had stopped on top of the stone bridge to look down at the lifeless lump Grandma Bolgers had discovered. Two men had gathered around to pull the body out of the reeds. The face was whitened with cold. Sam skipped to change directions. "I'll get a blanket."

Frodo passed the scene and ran up the bridge, dodging people who hugged the side to see the action, and as soon as he found a spot to do so, he leapt over the railing and splashed butt-first into the pond, rudely snagging everyone's attention. They didn't know who jumped until Frodo's popped up like a cork.

The water was a biting cold and made his skin prickle painfully. He swam clumsily up behind the halfling body to dislodge it from the reeds and push it closer to the wooden platform that Grandma Bolgers had been washing from so the others could grab it.

The doctor was trotting down the bank with his bag. Mister Grubbs and Meriadoc were working in concert to get a grip on the lifeless thing from murky base of the cattails and pull her in. Frodo pushed the weight out of the water and soon, it was rolled onto the platform.

At the arrival of Merry and Mr. Grubbs at the pier, and Frodo now wading to it, Grandma Bolgers excused herself to flap her fingers at her fat neck and describe her horror to the nearest person who asked if she was all right.

Sam's feet pounded on the hollow wood as he rushed over. He draped a blanket over the wet body. The doctor was squinting through round spectacles at the whitened girl's face by the time Sam and Merry each offered a hand to help Frodo climb out of the water.

Sam wrapped the second blanket around Frodo's shoulders instead.

"Is she dead?" Merry asked, wincing tenderly down at the frozen girl's face. The girl was a Hobbit, obvious by her size, but she wasn't one anyone recognized.

The doctor pealed away enough black knots of hair so his wrinkled fingers could fondle her neck for a moment, and then he lowered to his hands and knees to listen to her nose. "She's alive."

The silent crowd of now thirty or more breathed with shock and relief. They already started developing whispered stories of ill-intent and witchcraft to make this miracle possible.

The doctor sat up again and motioned for the closest two people he saw: Merry and Frodo. "Warm her hands up with your hands. See if there's any frostbite." He flicked back to Sam and Mister Grubbs. "And her feet."

All four of them moved down to their knees to follow the order as the doctor continued to fret at the girl's face. Frodo pulled her hand out and pressed her fingers between his palms. He caught something on her face.

"Dear lord, her feet are so tiny," Sam said strangely.

Frodo reached over and pushed the wet strands of hair away. "Her ears are round."

Merry was blowing into his hands to warm one of hers. "Maybe she's  mankin."

Sam nodded at him. "She'd be no older than seven years to be our size." He held firm fingers around tiny, hairless feet.

Frodo's eyes fell upon the seam-splitting, wet bodice on the girl's chest. He brows wrinkled in all strange directions. "I don't think she's a child, Sam."

Merry's eyes landed on the swells under the bark-colored wool. "I'm glad you noticed, Frodo," he grinned, "I was beginning to wonder about you."

Frodo shifted a glare to Merry.

The doctor crawled to his feet. "We must get her inside where it's warm." He pointed at Frodo. "You have a spare bed Bag End."

Frodo looked up at the standing doctor with wariness in his eye. "Why my house?"

Grandma Bolgers leaned out to him with a whine in her cockney wail. "You're the only one that lives alone. . .  the only one with funds to spare."

He did have a spare bed, but he didn't necessarily have funds to spare, not as much as everyone thought. He'd already relieved the shepherd and fallowed the cornfield because he couldn't afford to pay the crew any longer. The only one that still served Bag End was Sam, but Frodo refused to lay him off.

With the exception of the young, redheaded family, Bagshot Row was empty.  The only produce coming out of the ten acres were vegetables -- and then it was more often eaten than sold. Bag End was not the mansion of its fame. There was no fortune hiding in the corners. There were no spoils of war or King's Rewards. . . . And it would take generations before Hobbiton believed that Frodo was going broke.

However, he could not deny the truth of the spare bed. Pippin had stayed over a few days ago, and the pad and sheets still graced a low cupboard in the back room, right next to the door. Frodo straightened out Pippin's effort to tie them in knots while his house with a dozen people. Many were working in concert to manage the body to the back room but by order of the doctor, the body was put on the floor first.

"Take her clothes off," the old man commanded lightly.

The only occupants so far in the room, Frodo, Sam and Merry paused on their feet with questioning glances of propriety and a hint of blushes they were no longer in the habit of sporting.

Sam's eyelids stuttered for him. "Pardon me?"

"Get these wet clothes off of her," the doctor snapped as he dug through his bag.

Merry looked up to the other two and shrugged, "I'll do it."

Grandma Bolgers and Rosie were pushing through from the hall and Frodo looked eagerly back to pass the embarrassing chore off to the ladies. Merry was already lowering to one knee to follow through but Sam grabbed him by the back of his collar and pulled him back to his feet. Rosie was already herding the men out of the room and Grandma Bolgers looked down at the face from her feet to ask the busy doctor, "Who is she?"

The gentlemen stepped around the knotted tree and found a half a dozen people in the entryway. Frodo shooed everyone off, even from his front porch, and promised a full report by evening. As he did this however, Pippin slipped into the house by his shoulder with unasked and unanswered permission.

Frodo shut the door and thumped against it with his back. Merry was already updating Pippin on all the excitement.

Pippin's turned to Frodo with his brows lifted into his forehead. "It's a miracle."

Frodo's brow flickered. "What's a miracle?"

Pippin's scant surprise didn't fade into the grin of a quip until the very end. "There's a naked woman in Frodo's house."

Frodo thumped his head back on the door again to grin. Merry giggled and Sam smiled full beam.

Rosie pushed aside the woolen curtain that was more a heat insulator that it ever was meant to be a door. "Come in now. Put her on the bed for us."

The quartet stepped gingerly into the back room to find the victim naked but covered to her neck with the blanket. They got her into the bed and stepped back so the doctor could give a list of instructions. Rosie tended to the thick wet dress and under things that had been peeled from her skin and disappeared to add them to her own laundry pile. Sam took a short list of things to fetch for the doctor and Merry excused himself as he was expected elsewhere. Frodo and Pippin were left to listen to the doctor say a lot of nothing about the state of their patient.

"Who is she?" Pippin asked, just now recognizing the face as an unknown.

"I don't know, Pippin." Frodo muttered, distracted by the methods in doctor's examination.

The doctor dropped the worried scowl over her face.

"Start a smoldering fire." The doctor ordered as he prepared to leave. "Cover the window. Keep it warm and stuffy in this room until she wakes up."

Frodo listened and nodded to the instructions dutifully.

"I can't find any signs of water in her chest, but check often that she is still breathing. If she stops, push on her chest every long moment, and send someone for my wife. She'll know what to do." The doctor sighed. "I have to go into Whitfurrows for medicines today. I'll come to call as soon as I return this evening."

Frodo nodded.

"What of her identity?" Pippin asked.

The doctor looked at the pale, sleeping face and shook his head in bewilderment. "You ask her when she revives, I suppose."

Frodo was preparing the fireplace and blanketing the single window before the front door closed behind the doctor. Pippin sat near her head to wipe away the knotted hair from white face. Sam returned momentarily with a sack full of stuff: a tuft of rabbit fur,  an ounce of special tea, and lady's sleeping garment that Frodo incidentally had no intentions of dressing on her himself.

The sack was emptied and Sam was off again to tend to his family, but offered aid when called upon.

Pippin paused before leaving. "Is she. . . " he motioned to the body, his eyes turned warily to Frodo, "clad under that?"

Frodo's eyebrows lifted enough to pull a grin out of his mouth and scold the other's tacit request. "Pip."

Peregrin smirked with a adolescent spark in his eye. "Just one peek?"

"I remind you you're spoken for."

Pippin pressed his mouth and moved to leave. "Naw, she's still not talking to me." He stepped backwards to the exit. "I'm about to give up."

Frodo glanced over his shoulder at him. "Give her a few more days. I hear ladies don't take kindly to men in drunken follies, but they do get over it after a while."

"Or so you hear," Pippin pointed out.

Frodo agreed wisely that this was all rumor to him, "Or so I hear."

Pippin stepped over to Frodo, shoulder to shoulder, and looked across the room at the girl. "Your assessment was correct. I am spoken for. But you aren't." He flicked a chin and a grin. "I'm going to leave you in this big house alone with a naked girl who is as unconscious as beached deadwood." He leaned in to whisper evilly. "No one will know."

"I will do nothing of the sort," was Frodo's knee-jerk reaction, but with the exit of Pippin, the room was dark and silent. Frodo looked at the sleeping face from across the back room and wondered what she looked like from the neck down. It was fresh morning, but the room was toasted and closed up to feel like the retreat from a winter's night. She lay there as still as a stagnant pond. No one would know.

Frodo shook the inappropriate thought form his head. He lit a lamp to hang in the nearest corner and felt out the source of a draft so he could stuff the air leak with a chewed wad of paper into the crack. The rest of the fresh air came through the west smial and exited through the chimney of the fire.

The chicken coop could wait. Frodo fetched a mug of fresh water and scooted a chair next to his sleeping visitor. He dabbed the fur tuft in the water and squinted as he fumbled through the best way to paint a drop onto her cold lips. She didn't flicker. Her lips didn't twitch or rub for the drop but somehow Frodo could sense that the young woman's mind was in there, somewhere, trying to escape.

He knew how that felt.

"I can only put the water on your mouth. You're the one that has to wake up drink it."

He set the mug aside and touched her cheek with the back of his fingers. She was still cold; walking hours in the snow kind of cold. So, Frodo fetched an old shirt of his to wrap it around her head and chin, blanketing her forehead and cheeks without suffocating her ability to breathe.

And on it went. He spent much of the day at her bedside and lazily remembered visions of Smeagol and Sam and bogs and orcs. Eventually, he would shake himself out of it and used the time to think up new, but little ideas about how to bring her back to health, or make her more comfortable, or just wake her up. On occasion, he spoke to her as if she were awake to hear it, just in case a voice aimed in her direction would coax her to consciousness. Throughout the day, in lumps at times, townsfolk came to call and ask the same sampling of questions about the incident and offer equally ridiculous possibilities about who she was and where she'd come from. When their need for babble and curiosity had been slaked, they would excuse themselves for the sake of chores, or family, or hunger and be off again.

Long after supper had swept everyone away again, Pippin, Sam and Merry included, the doctor returned with mumbled instructions and flasks of a foul smelling elixir. Then the doctor shuffled sleepily off. Frodo tucked her in for the night and slipped between his own sheets in the big master bedroom on the opposite side of the house. He hoped it wouldn't be long before she recovered and left. It was difficult to concentrate knowing someone was back there.

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Devious Peek of the Goods

The girl was slow to rouse. Over the next several days, with donations of food and supply from several other families, aid from his friends and neighbors, and under the occasionally visiting eye of the doctor, the girl showed scant signs of recovery – barely enough for everyone to note a token of improvement just as her recovery seemed to stagnate.

Within a week, the color had returned to her face, she occasionally licked for the drop of water, and twice had pulled in a deep, sleepy sigh. Rose had washed her straight hair and braided it to lay untangled over her shoulder. The next day, the ladies from the sewing circle gathered to dress the woman in a long nightgown. The girl was looking better and better and Frodo's chores were delayed later and later.

Staying by her side rapidly became a tremendous waste of time. He wasted it by rereading a book he'd already read. Even if he did get to work, the most urgent of tasks was building a new chicken coop.

A chicken coop. Is that what it's come to?

Frodo's life was simple now, too simple, unflavored stale bread kind of simple. And yet he had grown a stomach-grinding aversion to adventure. As soon as he caught himself thinking like that, he'd redirect his attentions to take care of the girl.

He spoke to her as he moved about. Soon it became a habit, and after a few days, he hardly noticed how ridiculous it was to speak to a sleeping creature. "Good morning, miss," he would say as he entered. "Could I interest you in a mug of tea," he'd try, just to see if she'd answer. "My chickens are starting to get jealous of my attention over you," he'd comment aloud. "Wake up, my lady. You're likely to be missed at home."

She was the size of a Hobbit but not the shape. Were she a man-child, she would be hardly a girl, but her face and . . .  other parts were obviously more grownup than that. But if she were a Hobbit, she was looked to be the same age as Frodo. Her hair was thick chestnut like the tail of a shiny horse. Hobbit heads were full of curls. She had small round ears. Hobbits had larger, pointed ears. She had small, smooth feet. Hobbits, at least all the ones around here, did not. She didn't even have the facial features of your average Hobbit. Her face was longer instead of rounded. Her brows arched with pleasantry, her pale, rose-colored lips fell plump against each other to form a petite mouth. She was quiet a pretty thing for a thing that wasn't a Hobbit. However, be she Hobbit or man kin, there certainly was a husband somewhere fretting over her disappearance, and so Frodo made a point to treat her accordingly.

When her cheeks were warm to the touch and pink with renewing life, Frodo felt safe to uncover the window and let some daylight in too. The nightgown was baggy around her neck and her arms had been pulled out of the covers to lay comfortably at her sides. The warming yellow beams fell across her face to beckon her awake again and Frodo sat at her bedside to serve up another droplet of water.

He painted her lips with the moist tuft of rabbit fur and dunked it into the cup for another dose.

Rosy lips curled in to be sucked dry and fell back out again.

Frodo caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. He paused a long moment and lifted a brow. "Would you like some more?"

She lay still.

"You have to ask for it," he coaxed.

Nothing.

He shrugged with only a tilt of his head and prepped the brush again. "Very well, I'll do it anyway." He dabbed another drop on her lips but wasn't retrieved, and so it dribbled down the side of her mouth.

"Now look what you made me do." He scoffed without concern and dabbed a clean napkin on her cheek to clean it up.

"What I wouldn't give to trade places with you." He said aloud. "A quiet mind. . .  A peaceful sleep." He put the mug on the end table and folded the napkin. "Of course, it hasn't been so bad lately." He grinned at her motionless expression as if he were scolding her, but liking it nonetheless, "You're distracting me from my horrors."

Frodo's sapphire eyes widened a touch, and his mouth fell slack with a surprising thought. "You've distracted me." He thought back on the last week to count out the days since his last nightmare, his last midnight smoke, his last daylight frown. . .  and his eyes flicked back to her again. "On second thought . . .  don't wake up."

A smiled blossomed across his mouth at the beautiful revelation. The memories were fading. A presence in this big, Bilbo Baggins house, even just a sleeping stranger, was enough to start shoving the story into the past. And he selfishly wanted her to stay asleep as long as she could just to reap the full benefit from her visit.

He didn't know her story and probably would never hear the whole of it anyway. As soon as she awoke, (whenever that would be) she would be hustling home within a day and out of his life for, probably, ever, but right now Frodo was appreciative of her unintended gift. Full of thankfulness, he leaned over to kiss her on the forehead.

The peck was quick and light, but stopped before he moved away again. His breath snagged in his throat when he looked at her up close. She had plump, moist lips and dark lashes resting gently on her cheeks. Out of some hidden instinct, some unconscious draw to do so, he tucked in his face and kissed her lips as well.

She didn't move.

Gentle and nervous, he hovered there for a long moment, watching her expression remain as still as a stone. His sights dribble down to her naked collarbone and the loose collar of the white cotton nightgown.

Nobody will know.

Frodo sucked in his lower lip and lifted his fingers to pinch the fabric without touching her skin. He checked for movement, carefully lifted it, tucked his face closer to hers so he could catch a good angle. The dangling ends of his dark curls brushed against her cheek, but Frodo didn't know. His eyes were narrowed with new wisdom and pride that he was right all along. "That's what I thought they looked like."

The woman pulled in a deep, sleepy sigh, and scared the wits out of Frodo. Only the third since she'd was recovered from the river over a week earlier. He sat up quickly. His mouth flickered with uncertainty, his eyes danced for ideas on the bookshelf or fireplace until they landed on what he had been reading. His hands snatched the book and his feet tiptoed as fast as they could to leave the room.

She inhaled through her nose and mumbled it back out, speaking unintelligibly until the last three words came clear. "Don't leave me."

He had only gotten to the curtain door when his movement froze.

Frodo turned silently and saw her mouth open. Her eye lids had wrinkled as if weakly fighting the images in a dream. On alert, he stepped back to her to try to talk through the veil of unconsciousness that had momentarily parted. "Hello?. . .  Miss?. . . "

Frodo blinked widened eyes before stepping back to her bedside. He stepped over and put down the book. "Nobody's leaving you." He pressed his mouth with guilt and reached (from a distance) to pull the blanket back over her chest.

She shuffled her whole body for the first time, snuggling deeper into the blanket as if there had been a draft across her neck.

Frodo jumped back again. His hand tucked away as if she had tried to bite it.

She stirred again. Her face soured at a bitter taste.

Frodo sat down on the chair and set his elbows on his knees. He still bent over and tilted his head so he could watch for movements in her face. "Do you have any aches?"

She hummed an incoherent answer.

He started to grin at the solid signs of life. "Would you like some water?"

"Mm," she said and swallowed.

He grabbed the mug and sat on the edge of the bed. He painted a drop of water across her lower lip.

A pink tongue slipped out to lick the liquid from her lips. This time, it was more than a whisper. "Mm-thankyou."

His eyes were sparkling like sapphires that she was finally waking up. "What's your name?"

She licked her lips again and rolled to her back. She mumbled a little before the word came clear. "Lauren."

"Ah. Lauren." He enjoyed the sound of it. "What's your last name, Lauren? Whom shall I call for you?"

Her mouth opened but she didn't answer him right away. Instead, she was snagged with a new question. "Who'ryou?"

Frodo put the mug down and set a palm on his knee. "Lauren? Wake up just enough to tell me your husband's name."

Her eyelids rippled. Her lashes fluttered open with perplexity weakly rippling her brow. Here eyes were deep brown and unfocused. "Husband?"

Frodo smiled wide that she looked directly at him. "Father or mother perhaps. What is your family name?"

A hand rose out of the blankets. She gently lay a palm across her left temple and looked at Frodo like he was deliberately trying to confuse her. She glared at him like she was not awake enough for such serious questioning and offended that he would assume as much.

Frodo flicked a half-grin. "Perhaps I should let you think on it a bit."

Her eyes looked at him with fear and confusion.

Frodo reached for the mug. "Would you like to try a whole sip?"

She didn't answer that. Her consciousness was still groping through the haze for something to grasp on to. Her hand moved from her forehead to reach for his elbow.

Charmed but confused, Frodo touched her fingers so she could accept his presence. "I'm looking after you until your well."

With the innocence of a small girl, big eyes turned up to him again. "You are?"

He nodded and said it rather plainly. "You're safe now. I'll explain things when you're feeling better."

Her mouth touched into a smile for a split second and her eyes drifted closed. She drifted back to sleep as he watched her, but this time it was a real sleep, complete with dreaming eyelids and deep, snoozing breaths.

Frodo's eyes had a new light in them. A hint of a smile touched his mouth. It wasn't her; it was that she was recovering. It was a relief to know he could cradle a life with greater success than he inadvertently caused death while he was trying to save it.

Perhaps there was hope for him after all.

He gave her another kiss of friendship for that, but left it on her forehead where it belonged and closed up the house so he could go to bed too.

~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~

What's a Hobbit?

It felt like morning when Frodo opened his eyes. It was a morning brisk, green, and full of choices. It was the first morning that felt like morning in a long time. The first morning he woke up before the rooster strutted loudly on his prowl. There was no invisible weight on his chest, no subconscious memories of nightmares he could or could not recall, no puffy eyes from a tossed sleep. This morning felt like a new day, and Frodo didn't get many of those.

He didn't realize why at first, and he never really grasped the reason, save for the stranger in his care was going to be all right. He dressed in shin-length trousers and snapped suspenders over his work shirt before finding a new sun through his kitchen window shining onto the big oak tree across the road. He started a cooking fire and put on water to boil, then grabbed the last bit of cheese to nibble as breakfast in the back room.

Before he'd even reached the chair to pull to her bedside, he could see the slits of her eyes open to him. "Good morning, Miss Lauren," he greeted as he sat down. He lowered his elbows to his knees and cocked his head so he could look her look her in the eye. "Could I interest you in a cup of foul smelling but medicinally enhanced tea?"

She grinned sleepily and opened her eyes to him, "What will this medicinal enhancement heal?"

Frodo smiled full at such a conscious response. "I haven't the faintest idea."

Her eyes remained on his as if soaking up his friendly demeanor. "I'd love some."

He lifted from his chair. "The doctor will be please to find you are such an obedient patient." The pot was starting to boil when Frodo saw Sam come through the front gate. He waved him to come in.

"My friend, spring has arrived." Sam smiled. "Our spinach is ready for the pickings. You want me to collect a bundle for Elevensies?"

Frodo smiled at him as he passed. How was it that Sam could find such delight in ripe spinach? "I'll let it ripen some more, but thank you, Sam."

Sam followed him into the back room. "She rolled over," he said with mild delight.

Lauren's eyes slowly opened to Sam.

"What do you know? She's awake!"

Frodo put the mugs down and shot him a smile as if were his victory alone. "Her name is Lauren." He turned to help her sit up for her tea and gentled his voice. "Lauren, this is my friend, Sam." His forearm locked with hers and, as an instant team, they both worked to pull her to sit up. Frodo instantly stuffed two pillows behind her back before she fell back again. It wasn't much, but she was vertical enough to sip her tea.

"Hello Sam," she smiled tiredly at the red head at the foot of her bed while Frodo fussed over her backrest.

Sam was impressed that she was alive and talking. "Hello there. How are you feeling?"

"A bit confused," she confessed. "Would you mind telling me the name of your friend?"

Bushy red brows flickered, "What friend?"

She lifted her hand by the elbow and pointed back to the man that was too busy caring for her to introduce himself.

"Oh," Sam smiled at Frodo, then nodded politely to her. "That would be Mister Frodo Baggins." He whispered to her as if it were a secret, "He's not accustomed to visitors these days."

Frodo only glanced at him as he turned to fetch her mug.

"So I gathered," she teased quietly, but by now, she was looking Frodo in the face even though he was trying to ignore the topic and coax her to sip the tea.

One white hand emerged from the blankets. Thin fingers touched lightly on the back of his hand to help guide the mug to her lips. She sipped gingerly, but winced as soon as she tasted it.

Sam grimaced at the poor thing's response to the nasty tea. It even smelled bad. Frodo glanced over his shoulder at him. "Would you mind informing the doctor of her recovery? Perhaps she doesn't have to drink the tea after all."

"Please?" She begged.

"Straight away," Sam stepped out of the room to comply.

Frodo turned back to her with gentle authority. "In the mean time. . . " he lifted the mug again.

She pushed out a pout, but touched his hand again for another obedient sip of the stuff. Although she tried not to wince this time, it was clear that the taste was awful. Frodo set it aside until he received word from the doctor.

Lauren rested limply against the pillows but her eyes and mouth were animated enough. "Frodo."

It took looking at her in the eye to realize she was just sounding out his name; trying it on for size.

Frodo took a sip from his own tea and glanced from under his brows. "Yes."

It seemed to take her a moment to decide this. "I don't remember you."

Perplexed, Frodo shook his head. "We've never met."

"You rescued me?" Something about him wasn't making sense.

"It was a group effort to remove you from harm's way," he admitted, "but I had the spare bed and ample time to nurse you to back to health." In other words, he tried to say, it was hardly personal.

"You were talking to me." This she was sure of.

He tucked in his lower lip momentarily. "I thought it might coax you awake."

She took this in a long minute, considering all the information she knew so far, but studied Frodo with suspicion the entire time.

He was starting to feel as though his moment of curiosity had been caught.

Instead, she smiled at him. "Thank you."

Frodo smiled out a sigh and gave her a bow with his head, "Your welcome."

She took that in too, looking him in the eyes as if she were trying to read intent and personality out of them, but her attentions soon turned to the thick blanket that covered her for a week. "I'm hot." She winced, trying to push it off of her but didn't have the strength to get very far. "May I—" She never got the question out because Frodo had already stepped to her aid. She muttered another word of appreciation and limply fell back again. The blanket was rolled to fit comfortably between her and the wall beside her. In the end, she smoothed the sleeping garment over her lap and stretched out her legs as if she were waking them up too.

Frodo was already starting to sit down again when he saw her toes sneak out of the long nightgown. Her feet were small and naked, her ears were round, her hair was straight. Laws of science tumbled ass over teakettle in Frodo's brain. "You're not Hobbit, are you?" What an effort in futility! The first time he successfully peeks down a woman's blouse and she wasn't even the same darn species!

She rubbed an eye and smiled strangely at him as if it were a joke of some kind. "What's a Hobbit?"

Frodo's eyes widened, his mouth opened, and both froze there in alarm and bewilderment of how to answer that question.

Sam and the doctor arrived, saving him from the turmoil, only to have the same reminder peep from their mouths as well. At least Frodo wasn't alone to form an answer, nor wonder why it was asked in the first place.

The doctor stepped to the bed and brushed his hand over a small foot to give it a good look over. "Do you have tonsils?"

Lauren's expression flickered at the doctor. The strangeness of these questions only clarified how many she didn't have answers to.

The doctor took her face with a single hand, "Open your mouth." He peered down her throat and Lauren glanced at Frodo with fear growing in her eyes.

"No. No tonsils." The doctor sat down on the bed and leaned over. "I'm going to listen to your chest a moment." The old, wrinkling man sat on her bed and put the side of his head on her breasts.

Lauren gasped and tried to slink away from him.

Sam angled his head to watch the doctor.

The old man curled his nose and squinted with aged curiosity and strain.

Frodo glanced at her face again. Lauren was beginning to feel violated by this and he instinctively moved to the head of the bed to sat by her shoulder and ease her discomfort. "Well?"

The doctor looked at Frodo over the rim of his spectacles. "She's not a whole Hobbit. She's a half Hobbit, but she's more Mangirl than Hobbit." The doctor shrugged it off. "Odd."

Sam's face twisted. "I didn't know there was such a thing as a half Hobbit."

Lauren tilted her head to look up worriedly at Frodo as if she already forgot the answer. "What is a Hobbit?"

Frodo ignored her question for the moment and took her hand to calm her down, but his eyes were drilling into the doctor. "Never mind what she is. Is she all right?"

The doctor took a peak at the medicinal tea and took a whiff as he answered Frodo. "She'll be fine. She needs her strength back is all. Feed her small nibbles at first, increase only as much as she can handle without tossing it up." He turned again; actually speak to the patient for the first time. "You're muscles have watered. Sit up as much as you can, move your feet about." He motioned as if she should have understood this already, "Work your body until the muscles become solid again." He put down the tea and collecting his things. "And don't feed her any of the tea. It's gone bad."

Lauren rolled her eyes and sighed away her discontent of the doctor.

The doctor shuffled out of the room. "She should be well enough to travel in a week or two."

"Is that all you can do?" Sam's hands had lifted from his sides. "The woman was fished from a frozen pond!"

The doctor waved it off as he left. "She'll live through it. Meanwhile I have a poppit with a suspicious fever waiting for me."

Sam turned back to them with a flat mouth and a shrug. "I guess we're on our own."

Frodo sat at the head of the bed, almost behind her, and twisted his mouth with thought at what to do next. Lauren weakly reached back for his hand, the only part she could really see, and crooned backwards to try to look at him. "Frodo?"

Frodo sat up to give her his attention. "Yes, m'lady."

She wiggled his wrist and pleaded weakly. "Tell me what a Hobbit is."

"I'm a Hobbit," he said. "Sam is a Hobbit. The doctor is a Hobbit. Every one here is a Hobbit, but in other places there are Elves and Men and Dwarves and Trolls and so forth." He rubbed his lips, "It's odd that this is news to you."

"How can you tell the difference," she asked. "Between them, I mean."

Frodo motioned with his chin. "You see your feet? How small and clean they are?"

She didn't let go of his hand, but she looked curiously as her stretching toes. "Yes."

Frodo lifted a leg to the bed and flopped his foot at her side.

"Good lord!" She exclaimed, albeit with weak air. She let go of his hand and tried to scoot herself to sit up a little. Now, almost resting against the front of his shoulder, she glanced back again. "You know there are razors and lotions that will help with that sort of thing."

Frodo's eyes brightened despite his stiff glare at her. "There is nothing wrong my feet."

Her mouth rippled into a giggle. "Are you kidding? You could grow potatoes in there."

"Potatoes? No." Frodo tilted his head thoughtfully. "Spinach perhaps, but not potatoes."

Sam's brows were lifted into his forehead. He watched the two characters banter on, but he didn't really hear it. What he heard was the smile in Frodo's voice. What he saw was the mild glitter in Frodo's eyes, and the fact that the lonely Hobbit hadn't moved away from his patient's bedside where he had intended only to reassure her over the doctor's examination.

He was glad to see Frodo in a happy mood, but he didn't want encourage anything until he was sure this woman wasn't some miscreant trying to foil Frodo for his rumored riches. He excused himself for chores in the garden and pondered the issue during his quiet time with the shrubs.

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Sam Hogs Girls

Frodo was delighted to have her awake. After talking to a stone for a week, almost to the point of feeling like he'd gone mad, it was refreshing to have an animated being respond. He kept nibbles of cheese and bread by the bed for her to take as she pleased and sat in the chair at her bedside to engage in as much conversation as she had energy for.

In two days, she was still so weak that she had to ask Frodo to carry her to the outhouse. Frodo hushed the blush in her cheeks by assuring that the requirement was a good sign of her health. He enjoyed the thought of being needed again and the good mood radiated from him as he fulfilled her request.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders to carry as much weight as she could, and Frodo carried her out the back door and down the grassy hillside towards Sam's place. The walk was short enough to slyly avoid talk without discomfort, but too long to avoid a glance at the close quarters.

When she caught his eye, she ducked quickly away. 

Frodo liked it. He probably would have winked at her had she not turned her gaze away. He kept it completely proper though. Pausing only long enough to ensure she had her balance, he closed the door for her, and stepped away. He sat down on the hillside and stared at the tiny blue flowers that polka dotted the tall grass in front of his eyes.

It wasn't long before he had a prettier visitor on the side of the hill, but Frodo had already fallen in love with this one. She came complete with strawberry locks, rosy little chipmunk cheeks, and downy white innocence in her smile. She bumbled up the hill with dimples in her fat little knees and the bushy fringe of a tiny little dress.

She wasn't speaking yet, but recognition sparkled like diamonds in her giant baby eyes. She used hands and feet to climb up the hill to him, and was short enough that she looked like looming blue flowers would swallow her at any moment.

The truth was, she wasn't trying to get to Frodo so much as she was trying to escape the ever-reaching clutches of her mother.

"Elanor?!"

"You're mummy's looking for you." Frodo said to the baby. She responded only by climbing to his side and plopping down in the grass next to him, at which point she couldn't see, or been seen, over the grass anymore.

Rose came out of the back of her tree-shaded yard and found Frodo sitting not too far from the outhouse.

Frodo lifted an arm and pointed down to the head that was next to him.

Elanor tucked behind Frodo's elbow and giggled madly.

It was a comedy how Elanor scrambled to her feet and tried to hide behind Frodo while Rose marched up and tried to act quick enough to catch her. The young mother worked so hard to be angry, but Elanor was cute, and the baby knew it. All the while, Frodo sat on the side of the hill, resting his elbows on his knees and turning his eyes this way and that to watch the show down between Sam's wife and Sam's baby daughter.

Sam was present soon enough and climbing up the hill like a lumbering giant to 'Fe Fi Fo Fum' at Frodo. "There you go! Stealing my women again. One should be enough for you."

"Hush that talk." Frodo said quickly and quietly. "Now that she's awake, rumors will spread like a fever."

At daddy's approach, Rose finally caught the baby by surprise. Skirts large and small ruffled as Elanor tried to get away, belly laughing as she struggled, and Rose tried to keep her on her hip. Sam tucked behind Rosie's shoulder and coaxed Elanor on with sparkly eyes at his daughter.

No sound is as clear and beautiful as a baby's belly laugh.

As he watched them, Frodo grew quiet and sullen again. Sam got what he wanted. Frodo was glad for that, but the victory was bittersweet at best. He looked over the pale blue skies and melting pockets of snow over the green Shire, fighting off echoes and whispers again.

Twenty feet away, Lauren came out of the outhouse and tried to use the wall to aid her balance. Frodo climbed to his feet and left the Gamgees to bond on the hillside. He picked up Lauren in both arms and let the woman get a grip to carry much of her own weight.

Lauren smiled sweetly over his shoulder as he carried her up the hill again. The daddy pretended to be a monster, growling as he chased a giggly little girl and the mommy pretended to protect her as the three moved back down the hill to a fenced yard hiding under a thicket of trees.

"They're so happy," Lauren whispered.

"As it should be," Frodo said as he pushed the door open with his shoulder. He put her down to sit on the side of the bed in the back room. "Sam deserves it."

Frodo returned to his full height and brushed his hands off to return to his duties in another room, but Lauren's curious voice gave him pause. "Don't you?"

Frodo glanced back to address her patiently, "'Don't I' what?"

"Deserve it?"

Frodo thought on the question. The first answer that came to mind was, 'No, not really.' He wasn't even supposed to live through it. This was just borrowed time. On the other hand, after all he went through to find victory at the end, as bittersweet as it was, he felt he deserved it.

Frodo had saved the world after all.

It all sounded so simple when you put it that way.

But it wasn't simple.

It wasn't even explainable.

"It's complicated," he muttered sadly and shuffled out of the room.

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An Insulting Honor

This time last year, Frodo was still holed up with winter's depression and no one gave him any grief about not showing up, but this year it was agreed, without Frodo's input, and largely without Sam's either, that Rose would tend to Lauren so Frodo could go into the fields for the first plow day of the planting season.

Not going was an honor that boys dreamt about. Once a man had served enough duty, carried enough aches on his body and sadness in his eyes, no one expected him out for the days of hard labor. But as boys, they always joked about faking an old rugby injury so they could sit and smoke and yell at everybody else to "Get back to work!"

The truly odd part was that none such honor was given to a Hobbit at such a young age as Frodo. Two whole generations ahead of him were still working 'til their backs were wet with sweat between overcast skies and muddy plains. It was a day none truly looked forward to, but Frodo never had a care to argue Rosie's decision about it.

The day felt slow and fuzzy like a boring dream. At the crack of dawn, there were four plows already rigged up. Shetland ponies neighed with annoyance and ruffled their backs and heads. Puffs of cloud came out of the mouths of Hobbits and the noses of oxen. The overcast sky was still ash dark with dawn and the fallowed field was covered in a bright green fur of winter grass. It was the only thing that looked nice. It was too bad they were going to plow it up.

Sam wrapped his fingers around the bridal of the horse and petted her jaw as he waited for the plow rider to climb to his perch. Merry asked about Lauren,w ith concern she wasn't being tended. The mud was cool on his feet and his cheeks rouged up from the wind blowing across the field. Frodo stepped in behind Sam to flank the plow and crush clumps as they were formed, and this particular team was nearly ready to go when the master of another plow called out above the still waking men.

"Frodo Baggins!" Willows Barthy stood on the handles of his plow and rose to his full height so he could get Frodo's attention from the distance.

Frodo stepped out from behind his own plow to show his face.

Willows Barthy said something to his plow team, clearly realizing that the report was right – Frodo really was out with them today. He called out and waved his whole arm to shoo Frodo off. "Go home, Baggins! You've earned your keep!"

Sam stretched his eyes over the horse's neck to see Willows Barthy, then glanced back to his freind. Frodo soaked up the meaning behind his Sam's shrug. What the Barthy said was true. If not for Frodo and his nightmare with the Ring there would be no free Hobbits left to plow the field, nor a field to plow, for that matter.

But it didn't feel right being given an elderly-like honor from a man twice his age. It didn't feel right to take the day off and leave Sam, Merry and Pippin working. Many of the others stopped too, nodding in agreement and tossing their heads. "It's okay, Frodo! You can go!"

Frodo didn't realize how much of an insult the 'honor' really was. He understood now why those elderly fools that stayed home were far more crabby than the one's that worked hard all day. He felt his face reddening with anger even if it was already reddened by the breeze, but he paused to think before responding so rudely toward an elder.

"It's all right, Frodo!" Willows Barthy called out. "You can be done!"

Frodo black brows tucked in, his shoulders tossed up to yell back with a growl not customarily heard from this particular Hobbit. "MAYBE I DON'T WANT TO BE DONE?!"

Willows Barthy was far away enough that the only thing Frodo could truly make out was his locked knees, proud posture, and full smile. The old man waved him off like he was stupid for not taking the opportunity but silently beaming about Frodo's response. He wasn't the only who would be using the example on his boy later. And as soon as Willows Barthy was done about it, so was everyone else. All the men moved back to their own business.

The corners of Sam's mouth curled up a moment until Frodo flicked a face of boldness and pride about the small victory. Sam let out a short laugh and the plow master whistled the team forward.

Frodo quickly realized why Rosie had ordered him out. He knew every face and he knew every face's name. His elders spoke with the same stiff orders as they always had and Frodo's peers had the same dirty faces and muddy feet. Men climbed to the handlebars of the plows and reminded the oxen who was in charge. Old voices babbled orders to move the horses along the morning seemed to soak up half their commands voices before they could get away. The youngers walked aside every plow, aiming the bridal, breaking up mud clumps and tossing rocks off the field.

It was a bleak day and hard labor, and it felt odd to Frodo being back in the middle of such an old tradition he'd missed for only two years, but it was a good feeling.

There was a constant turnover of teen-aged contender's for the longest rock throw, even though there was never any organized competition to cling to. There was always a song or two they shared that the ladies (hopefully) would never hear. There was the mumbled gossip shared amongst each plow crew as they worked, but mostly it was about the disgusting habits of farm animals and tales of too much ale. It didn't happen this day, but it wasn't uncommon for a couple of young bucks to tumble into a mud-strewn fistfight. And the language got increasingly foul as the sun crawled higher in the sky.

"Y'know Frodo," Pippin appeared out of nowhere already wrapping his arm around Frodo's shoulders. "As your oldest and truest friend, I would be honored to take that post for you so I could sit on my ars all day and just look after everybody else's women."

Frodo sung lightly as he pushed off Pippin by the shoulder. "Put it away."

Merry half-tackled Pippin and knocked him away from Frodo, but then nobody really walked straight when the mud wakes from the plow were constantly toppling onto their feet anyway.

"What do you think, Sam? Aren't I perfect for the job?" Pippin giggled as he pushed Merry the other direction, just to see if he could make the other fall into the mud. "How many d'you think I could satisfy at once?"

Sam couldn't completely turn around because he was still guiding the pony, but the tone in his voice was clear enough. "You stay away from my woman, Pippin, or you're carcass is going to be warming the tile in front of my fireplace."

Nowadays, nobody doubted that Sam would do it, but nobody but Pippin tried to talk to Sam like that either. Pippin was just trying to find stuff to giggle about after all. It was his way of recovering.

Pippin tried to lumber away with long legged march on a column that was already plowed and Merry tackled him from behind until both faces went splat into the mud. Sam's face blossomed laughter and Frodo enjoyed a bit of a chuckle. The plow kept on and the blackened pair was left behind.

Frodo thought about it all as he stomped mindlessly down on mud chunks just as they were being formed. Pippin remained a jokester, but now he often aplified it with liquor. That's how he recovered. Frodo glanced at the bulky Hobbit's back in front of him. Sam fell in love. Rosie healed all of his haunting wounds, and Elanor erased most of the invisible scars. Merry, well, the jury was still out on that one. Frodo glanced back to find him still laughing as he scraped mud out of his eyes. Merry was going to be okay even if hadn't settled in yet. Don't get him in a fight though. One tumbler in Bree last summer showed the Shire's neighbors that angry Hobbits didn't fall down so easily.

Yes. Sam, Pippin and Merry would be all right. Time proved that. But Frodo wanted his turn too.

His eyes went empty again. The smile fell away again. Smeagol's squeaky voice morphed into a growling again. And his shoulder started to hurt. . . .

~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~

Specters in Bed

The bog smelled horrible. There were dead faces in the water. In the distance, Sam barked angrily as Smeagol to shut up. And the voices whispered his name. . . .

"Frodo?" Smeagol warned him, but he spoke with a softer voice. Smeagol grabbed him by the front collar to pull him from rotting water.

Lauren shook him again. "My lord. Wake up." Her whisper was frightened and her grip weak on his nightgown's collar. "Please wake up."

Frodo winced and shuffled, but didn't wake up so quickly. The sick and twisted whispers grabbed him by the chest and pulled him back into the water like quicksand.

"There are specters about." Lauren whispered fearfully and shook him again. "Frodo, m'lord, please wake up."

"Spectors?" Frodo started. The whole thing was supposed to be over. Why was he still hearing dead whispers? Why was she hearing them too? "Spectors?!"

Frodo sat up straight in bed. Lauren had managed herself to his bedside and flopped down on it with weakness from the trek. Though she tried to sit politely at his bedside, she'd drooped wearily until her head was nearly laying on his stomach so she could desperately shake him awake.

As soon as Frodo realized it was her, his attention turned to detect the specters she reported. The full moon beamed through a window and slantways onto the bedroom floor in a perfectly lit cylinder of glowing dust. The crickets were singing quietly. There was a bitter chill in the air. Outside, not too terribly far away, an old dead woman let out a long mournful wail.

Frodo froze to listen, but the single moan was gone and the night was full of crickets again. His widened alert eyes looked down at Lauren's widened terrified ones. He scooted closer to help her sit up again so the position wasn't so improper, but he took her hand and put an arm around her back, letting her limp body rest against the front of his shoulder instead.

It was just enough to keep her quiet and secure so he could pick the clues apart. The wail wasn't like the whispers of the Ring. The bright moon probably played tricks with dark shadows and strange shapes. He sat there full of tension, and prayed that it wasn't some old ghost of evil coming back to take revenge on him.

The wail sounded again. It was the same hollow-sounding moan of a crying woman, yet this time, there were two hollering together now. And it wasn't a woman. It was the sound of baying coyote's, but no, the voice was much deeper than that.

"Hound dogs," Frodo whispered. A grin snuck across his face to look down at her. "That's Mister Grubbs' hound dogs baying at the full moon."

Lauren had barely a tear of fear in her eye. "Are you sure?" She was snuggled into his chest and arm as if Frodo could save her from all the danger in the world.

He watched her as they listened for another low wail. He kept his arm tight around her shoulders, sensing that she needed reassurances at the moment and tried to pull confidence out of her eyes with his own. "I'm certain of it."

At the next low wail, an old man cursed unintelligibly in the distance. An object hit stone and a dog yelped, immediately silencing the specters.

"See?" Frodo smiled at her.

Lauren closed her eyes with a whispered curse at herself and ducked her face into his neck. She breathed away the locked up terror with shuddering sighs and barely managed to keep from falling into tears.

Frodo wrapped the other arm around her and tried to shush her without bursting into laughter about it. "There, there. It's all right."

Her voice was muffled by his neck and the collar of his nightclothes. "No laughing." She gave him a weak slap on his shuddering chest.

Frodo couldn't help it. He chuckled deeply but not wildly, and could tell she was chuckling for a moment herself. It would take a moment to recover from the pure fear though. She stayed in his neck long after the chuckles had faded.

Frodo knew how it felt, so he gave her all the time she needed. He rested his face on the top of her head with patience. They were still sitting up, but the simple feeling of a body in his arms was becoming intoxicating on its own. It radiated from her how safe she felt under his protection.

His eyes sluggishly closed and his mind slowly relaxed. There was a new sense of peace in his soul. He sighed with the same intensity, feeling relief from undead terrors, even though he recovered from entirely different terrors than she did.

The hounds made a few scant noises after that, but their wailing was finished. The crickets and beetles sang outside but the night was silent otherwise. The stillness of it felt like time itself took a rest from incessantly ticking onward. It was so hushed and so tranquil and so motionless, that there was really no way to know how much time had passed.

Frodo opened his eyes to darkness still holding this girl and suddenly wondering how long he'd been doing it. He swallowed hard to wonder why he'd started in the first place. He tucked his chin to whisper for her. "Lauren?"

She drew in a new breath through her nose and stretched her back a little, but didn't make motion to climb away from his arms. "Mm?" She snuggled in again as if his chest and should was the very bed and pillow she sought.

"Oh no, you don't." Frodo's eyes widened and he immediately moved to get out of bed. He pealed himself away from her and hoped that it was a polite way to wake her out of it. "Let's get you back to bed." He was already moving to help her stand on her own feet by the time she opened her eyes again.

"Hound dogs," she scolded herself, wrapping her arm around his shoulder and falling limply against his side as she shuffled along. "What a dolt I am."

"The turn of events have been rough on you lately." Frodo said gently as he guided her down in her own bed. "You've a right for a harmless overreaction or two."

She tucked in sideways on the bed and snuck up a shy grin.

Frodo's winked fondly at her and left the room.

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Chickens that Multiply

He started tea, as always, before going into the backroom to check on her, but now it was common to find her already awake. She had the round window open to peer at the back porch and sat up comfortably in the bed, but she still reached her chin a touch so she could smile at the morning sky outside.

Brown eyes slid playfully to him. "It seems, my lord, you have a few more chickens this morning than you did yesterday."

Frodo had been picking up the cutting board mess from last night's bedside meal. He stopped short. There were tiny chirps squeaking for feed in the yard.

Lauren continued. "Twice as many, I think." She peaked out again, "I can only see a few at a time."

"No." Frodo put the cutting board down and yanked open the back door near the foot of the bed.

He stood dumbstruck. A half a dozen yellow-gray balls of fluff wandered blindly through the small porch, screaming for food while the mothers and aunts of said infants were still trapped in a blackened wood cage. The chicks weren't far from wandered off down the grassy hillside.

Excited, Lauren climbed out of the bed and used furniture for balance as she shuffled herself to the door by his side. Her face lit up. "They're so tiny." She used the edge of the Hobbit hole to lower to her knees and reach for one. Her nightgown was dirty and flat hair needed brushing, but long, careful fingers reached to touch the soft down of a baby chick as it stumbled by.

"Damn," he sighed.

Lauren's tone dropped with concern. "What's the matter?"

Frodo squatted down and rested his elbows on his knees. "I put it off too long." The old chicken coop was so broken and dark it was hard to see the hens, much less eggs they laid. "I must've missed a batch."

"Have you got something against baby chickens?" She scolded playfully.

Frodo realized his reaction and shrugged, "No. It's just that I don't have room for them. I've no place to keep them until I build the new coop. And even then, I'm not sure it'll be big enough for ten. . .  twelve. . .  " he flapped a hand until it landed loudly on his knee.

Lauren sat on her feet and rested her hands in her gown-covered lap. "Why don't you keep them in the house?"

Frodo's blue eyes flared. "I am not keeping them in the house! They'll destroy every rug I own."

"Not the hens. Just the babies. While you build the new coop." She managed to scoop one up and brought it to her face. The frightened little thing writhed and peeped its hungry little screams. "Look. He's harmless."

Frodo looked at her pouty little face behind the wriggling creature. She brushed her cheek up against the fur of the chick's back. Tiny twig legs reached out from between her fingers and wiggle for freedom. And behind it all was Lauren's one smiling brown eye, trying to pout at him and speak in a squeaky little chick voice. "Please Master Frodo, let me come inside and play with Lauren."

Though charmed, he wasn't sure how to respond to this, save for smiling strangely at her and pointing out one obvious fact. "It's a she."

"What?" Lauren's ploy fell apart to pull the chick back and look at it. "How can you tell?"

Frodo shook his head and chuckled at her as he came back to his feet. "Tell you what. . . " He stepped out into the yard and tried to pull an old basket from a corner. "If you're strong enough get your dress on by yourself, I think you can handle supervising the babies on the porch while I build the new coop."

He was moving the extra clutter out of his way but eyes moved to her. Her whole face blossomed and she moved as quickly as her weak body would let her back into the house.

Frodo let out a full sigh. He felt a pang of jealousy that she could find such delight in something as stupid as freshly hatched chickens. He couldn't remember when life was that easy. He rested a broken cart-wheel to stand on its end and reviewed the old wet leaves and similar winter garbage in the resulting corner.

It was kind of fun to watch someone enjoy the simple things like she did, even if he couldn't. He wondered what age it was when life was like that naturally: when chicklets were fun to play with, hound dogs sounded like specters, and Hobbit feet still looked big enough to grow potatoes.

He put an overturned crate down as the last of his make shift chicken wall. Satisfied that the babies wouldn't escape now, he moved carefully not to step on them and get back into the house.

Other than carrying in a fresh bowl and pitcher for her, he left her to rediscover her morning routine alone. He paused more than once though, listening for sounds of having fallen or shy cries for help. Dresses were such a confusing thicket of cloth that he couldn't imagine how ladies wriggled themselves into them when they weren't ailed with weakened muscles. And he knew there was more under there than just the dress a man could see, but the mysterious underthings weren't a part of the neatly folded package that Rose had returned.

 Perhaps that's why she took so long. He refreshed his teacup more than once without consciously deciding to stay close enough to hear a yelp. She seemed well enough to move around the house on her own, albeit slow and tender about it. She was unlikely to fall and hurt herself. But getting tangled in her own clothes was a different story.

An image flashed in his mind. Then he wondered how he would handle untangling her.

Instantly, Frodo decided it best that she figure this one out on her own. After all, this seasoned Hobbit still had yet to endure some of life's common adventures. But the flush never fully came to his cheeks only because he scrambled out of the kitchen and out of earshot as quickly as he could.

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Weathertop – Just Your Average Camping Accident

Lauren emerged several long minutes later. It was a boring brown peasant dress that covered her, yet she tiptoed out on her small bare feet with a high chin as if she were dressed for a ball. The skirt reached to her calves, torn in places, and there was a dingy, limp slip sporting a second layer. Dark wool held her together at the bodice and an unbleached shirt bagged tiredly down to the frilled cuffs at her wrists. Lauren concentrated to move daintily out to the yard and sit proper on the chair Frodo had already moved out for her.

Frodo's palms paused on the end of the broomstick and his grinning mouth rested against his thumbs. "You look like you feel better."

She nodded regally. "I feel whole again."

He put down the broom and brought her a wide garden basket.

"Well, more whole than before anyway," she muttered as she took it. Her tone went cold with fear. "How long have I been here, Frodo?"

"A couple of weeks. . .  Almost three." Frodo was steady and patient to catch the unsuspecting chicks without enjoyment. "Grandma Bolgers found you beached on the marshy side of our pond one morning." One at a time, he caught the chicks and brought them to her. He let each baby pour out of his hands and into the basket.

Her fingers incidentally brushed against the back of his as the chick was guided from one gentle set of hands to the other. As he pulled away, her thumb brushed ever so lightly on the shorter stub of his left index finger.

Frodo paid acute attention to what her fingertips felt like, though he didn't mean to, and tried to pretend not to. He turned away before the shock of the incident showed in his face. "How did you manage to stumble into the pond?"

Her voice was hushed. "I don't know." She scratched a spot above her hairline.

Frodo gathered the last chick before he looked at her again. She had been so frozen it took a week to rouse her, so this wasn't a surprise. "Memory still coming back?"

"I guess so." Her eyes looked scared at the chicks. She scooped them with her arms and petted the ones in reach of her thumb. "I don't remember what a baby rooster looks like."

Frodo squatted in front of her so he could look her in the eyes, trying to pull a little strength out of them. The real goal was not lost in his priorities. "Do you remember your family name?"

She met his eyes with severity, not hiding anything from him, but not having anything to offer either. "I'm not even certain my name is Lauren." She looked sadly at him, imagining how much of a burden she was. A case of amnesia after an accident wasn't unheard of, and it must have been terrifying to those that had it, but Frodo instantly felt a pang of envy.

He could recall when he couldn't remember home while he was in hell. Why couldn't he completely forget hell when he was at home?

For a split second, he wondered the magic required to deliberately cause amnesia and considered calling on an old friend to cast it on him. But forgetting everything that had happened was only the half of it, everyone around him also had to forget what had happened too. Though his face wasn't well known beyond the Shire, his name certainly was. Lauren had the best of both worlds: no memory and no one to remind her either.

But then, she probably had a good and easy life somewhere awaiting her return. The moment those beautiful white swells under that bodice started to grow, Lauren would have been swept up by the nearest bachelor and a litter's worth of children would have been born by now.

Frodo almost wished he hadn't peeked, but the original appreciation hadn't faded either. He put a strong hand on the back of hers and gave her a smile of respect as he stood tall again. "Don't worry, Lauren. I'll help you find it all again."

She curled her hair behind her round ear and blushed a bit. The deliberate use of the name was like giving her permission to have an identity, even if she couldn't recall any details of it. Frodo turned to get to work and Lauren watched him with warmth in her eyes.

Lauren was good company while he worked. She spoke brightly about innocent things, trees, spring, chickens and so forth, but didn't talk too much. She easily handed over tools that were in her reach, and spent long quiet moments comforting the little chicks in the basket on her lap.

A moment of heaving lifting from an odd angle sent a sharp pang in his damaged shoulder. He dropped the hammer and nursed it quickly, and Lauren satup with a start. She became far too concerned about it as though the chicken coop itself had led him to pull a muscle, but Frodo tried to ease her worries without drawing out more questions.

Lauren innocently accepted his excuse: "an old injury from a terrible camping accident," which, of course, she teased him about for the rest of the morning trying to figure out what could have possibly gone that wrong while camping. Her antics brought a quiet smile to his face often during the day and caused him to chuckle outright at least once. And neither of them really noticed how fast the new, fresh pine chicken coop was coming along.

Pippin strolled up the hill for a visit, not surprisingly around afternoon tea, and after a bright and friendly introduction between the two, the friend dug out a handful of plump pink berries. "Look what I found."

Merriadoc shuffled up the back hill. He set his elbows on the new coop and rested his cheek in his hand.

Frodo smiled at Merry and glanced wisely at Pippin. "Where did you find them?"

Pippin stepped over to sprinkle a few into Lauren's hand. "In a bowl on a window sill. It's amazing how far the breeze carries them from the tree."

"Three miles?" Merry asked.

Pippin jumped a bit at Merry's sudden presense.  "How long have you been following me?"

"Three miles," Merry quipped.

"Don't worry." Pippin patted the empty breast pockets of his tan-striped vest, "I seem to have lost a couple of coins when I did it." At least Pippin was starting to pay for the food he stole. Perhaps he was starting grow up after all.

Frodo put his work down and moved quietly back into the house. "Perhaps I'll find some bread to go with them."

Lauren tasted a berry with thanks sparkling in her eye at Pippin. The man sat down on his bum not far from her chair

The coop was tall enough to fit a Hobbit in. Merry checked out Frodo's work. "Just how many chickens is he going to put in there?"

"These younglings hatched by accident this morning," Lauren explained.

"Younglings are no accident." Pippin insisted as he reached into the basket to pet one. "I guarantee that some part of the whole thing was quite intentional."

Lauren giggled.

"Let's see here." Pippin reached his chin over her elbow and studied the chicks in her basket-covered lap. "Just as I suspected." He gave her a leery eye. "This one looks like Joey. That's Mr. Grubbs' rooster." He lowered his voice and nodded arrogantly. "I thought that one looked a little cocky this morning."

"Ha!" Merry tooted.

"Watch your language," Frodo scolded as he came back out.

Lauren covered her mouth but the snicker escaped anyway.

Frodo passed out a roll to each of them, unamused by Pippin's jokes but not truly upset about their inference either.

Merry thanked him quietly for the muffin and chewed happily. "You're going to have an awful lot of eggs in a couple of months."

"No. I'm going to have a couple of full meals the next couple of months."

Lauren sounded a quiet gasp at the thought. "Frodo."

Frodo lifted a brow and took the basket of chicks from her so she could use her arms to eat. "What did you think chickens were for?"

She looked like she swallowed her tongue for a minute.

Pippin grinned with amazement at the girl's reaction. "It's all right. We feed them for a while, then they feed us for a while. It's how the world works."

Sam came around the corner and rested an elbow against the edge of the rock crag that oddly made up the patio's side fence. He had intended to say something, but his octave rose to comment on the unexpected scene. "Would you look at all the little chicks! And an awake woman to tend to them too." He flicked a half-grin. "Havoc has truly fallen upon the House of Frodo."

Pippin grinned in agreement. Merry winked at Lauren so she wouldn't take offense. Frodo shook his head and sighed away the quip without honoring it with a response.

Sam's mind returned to the task he came for and looked directly at Lauren. "Rose wants to know the last time you had a hot meal."

"You're guess is as good as mine," she told him plainly.

Sam shifted his gaze to the man of the house. "Supper's at sundown."

Now sitting on the mosaic stone that was the patio, Frodo nodded and took another difficult bite of the cold bread.

Pippin lifted his brows eagerly. "Can I come?"

Merry pointed at him with an order, "Only if you go apologize to Bailey first."

Pippin's face pained dramatically. "But she won't even answer the door!"

Merry flicked the back of his hand at Pippin. "You dolt! That's what I came looking for you about. She was off visiting her sister in Longbottom for two weeks. She wasn't even home until this morning."

Pippin's mouth dropped open. He flicked his amazement at Lauren to share his surprise.

Sam chuckled about it and turned to shuffle away again. "And all this time you thought she wasn't talking to you."

Pippin quickly brushed the crumbs off his legs and sprang to his feet. "Well, she wasn't talking to me when she left." He trotted out of the patio and told it to Sam's face before running off. "Including not talking to me that she was leaving." He turned around to beg Merry. "Back me up?"

Merry shoved his hands in his front pockets and nodded even as the question came out. "Yes, yes. Of course I will."

Sam's big shoulders still rumbled with wise laughter. He exchanged glances with Frodo, who shook his head with an even quieter smile. Merry smiled at Frodo, nodded to Sam and followed the flighty Pippin back down the hill.

"Mister Gamgee?" Lauren asked with a curious but friendly angle to her chin. The mood seemed light enough to ask such a question. "Would you kindly tell me the tale of Frodo's camping accident?"

Carrot-colored eyebrows ducked with not-so-pleasant confusion. "Camping accident?" His eyes flicked to Frodo with questions.

"The injury on his shoulder," she explained politely. "He leads me on to believe there is an entertaining story and then won't speak a peep of it."

Lauren didn't notice it because Frodo didn't outwardly react, but his eyes answered Sam's unspoken question as easily as if he'd said it aloud. The subject was not to be visited, but it didn't take a foul look or an order to tell him that.

Sam dropped his eyes to the ground and shucked a grin. "Well I suppose it could qualify as a camping accident from a certain point of view." His eyebrows were still oddly bushed at her.

Frodo smiled a little before muttering. "Lauren is having troubles with her memory."

"Ah." Sam lifted his chin, then looked politely at Lauren and bowed a head, humored and polite. "I would be delighted to tell you the tale, Miss Lauren, but I haven't Frodo's permission, and more importantly," a new smile broke out on his face, "I haven't nearly enough time to tell it." His eyes were full of truth. "See you later."

Frodo flashed a bittersweet smile at that last comment and waved Sam off.

The sudden silence fell to peeping chicks and clucking mother hens. The way he sat to eat wasn't exactly facing her, so it took a beat or two of discomfort before he made any big moves. He hoped the topic had fallen away on its own.

Her voice was crisp and smooth like an autumn morning. "Is it a difficult tale to tell?"

Frodo shrugged a shoulder, but the stiffness was obvious. "Why do you think that?"

"If 'terrible camping accident' is its euphemism, I can't imagine the tale behind it." Her voice was gentle, and didn't seem surprised when he didn't answer. "Perhaps its wise Sam doesn't have permission to tell it."

Frodo smiled thankfully at her acquiescence about it and turned his face toward her, but only enough for her to see the side of it. "It's a bit of a relief that you don't know." His voice died a little. "Strange as that may sound."

Lauren's voice smiled from behind him. "Small town gossip, right? Everyone knows your business better than you?"

His mouth cracked open with the comparison. A single eye turned back to her with a nod. "Something like that."

He found Lauren's eyes smiling down at him as a wiser woman than he expected her to be.

"And the finger? I suppose that happened in the camping accident as well?"

Frodo spun around on his bum, draped his elbows around his knees and boldly took in her expression. "It was a fairly long endeavor."

She knew full well that there was a great deal more to it than a camp and accident. In fact, she was likely to believe there was no intention to camp and no real accident in the story at all, but she let it be what he said it was, and gave him the right to his own secrets. She let the tone of the topic drop off like the last few notes of a song. "You seem to have come through all right."

Frodo's eyes shined. His face smiled from ear to pointed ear as he climbed back to his feet. "Yeah, I suppose I did." He handed her the basket and gathered up the chicks for the second shift.

Lauren received the chicks with fingertips brushing as gently against his hands as they did before.

In one magical minute, it had been reduced to a simple camping accident and made the memory easier to digest. It was a gift to visit with a girl that didn't care to talk about the Ring or the adventures around it. The new tidiness of a back patio swept a small burden from his mind. The sunny day soaked into his senses. His eyes sparkled with joy as he fetched the chicks. And a set of warm brown eyes smiled so easily back at him that it became fun to wonder what was on her mind.

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Giggle Juice

Sam's house always felt busy these days. Elanor was becoming more of a bright, noisy wiggle as time moved on. The kitchen was full of yummy smells and the air was warm and cozy. Lauren was settled in a chair without any extra fuss and Rosie talked to her about the ingredients of the beefy stew. Sam bounced Elanor on his knee, ate with his free hand, and spoke to Frodo simultaneously. He intended a trip to Bree in the near future.

Frodo starkly lacked excitement about going to Bree. "What's in Bree that you can't get in the Shire?"

"Cotton," Sam said with a sudden glitter in his eye. He spoke of the fabric as though it were female.

It summonsed refreshed attention from Frodo. "What's wrong with wool?"

"Wool's too heavy and scratchy." Sam said, his smile beaming with pride now. "Rose needs to make a whole new batch of baby clothes."

Frodo's face flashed with delight. "Again?!"

"So I figured we could go into Bree together, pick up supplies for my son," Sam paused to shine victoriously, "and ask around about Lauren's family at the same time." He bit into his roll without a care the Elanor was hanging off his forearm with stretched arms and legs trying to escape his grip. Rosie quietly rescued the tot from his arms, kissed him on the cheek, and sat down next to him to feed Elanor.

"That's wonderful, Sam." Frodo smiled, but the emotion coming from his heart tinted a bit green. "Congratulations."

"Don't drink that!" Lauren spouted. Her hand was out to Rose, and Rose was halted in the middle of a sip from a brass goblet.

The other three silenced in bewilderment. "Why not?"

"Drink is bad for a baby," Lauren said, still holding her hand out until Rose actually lowered the wine from her mouth. "I've seen what can happen."

"Perhaps in moderation," Rose admitted just to shrug the woman off. "Elanor turned out all right."

Lauren was insistent. "Yes, but it hits and misses. A single sip can do it sometimes. It doesn't touch others. It's safer not to have any at all." She seemed so certain about it.

Rose put down the chalice, half-insulted and half-curious. "Where did you hear this?"

Lauren caught her breath a moment before she realized she didn't know, but she admitted her failure. "I'm not sure. I just don't want harm to come to your baby. I meant no offense."

Rosie gazed indecisively at the bottle on the table.

Sam looked over his wife's shoulder. "Couldn't hurt, Rose." He scooped up another spoonful and shoveled it into his mouth. "After all, it's only for a little while."

"But it wouldn't be any fun," Rosie pouted at Sam. "Don't you know how many giggles are trapped in a single bottle of wine?"

"Know?" Sam echoed as he chawed on a chunk from the stew and motioned to her belly as he sniggered. "How do you think I got you like that in the first place?"

Rosie slapped his knee.

The love song entered the room before Pippin did, pulling everyone out of their reaction to watch him pretend a graceful dance across the floor with a tiny bouquet of orange flowers in his fingers.

It was a winter's white kiss

And a fair blushing miss

That kept my heart far and away.

"She accepted your apology," Sam said plainly.

Pippin stopped his feet together at the head of the table, smiled with eyes as light and intoxicated as his song, and gave them all a grand bow. Merry had stepped up easily behind him and simply nodded hello while Pippin kept the stage.

"What does that mean exactly," Rose asked, daring him to change his ways.

Pippin flipped up again with a man's not so innocent smile on his face.

Merry helped himself to a bowl of stew. "It means he can still get drunk when she's not around."

Sam shook his head at Pippin's deplorable ways.

Pippin caught the eye of Elanor and straddled the bench next to Rose so he could flirt with the baby. "Hello, my sweet." She had a single finger hanging out of the side of her mouth, having the intent to suck it, but giggling too much to close her mouth. Pippin gave the fat little cheek a big smooch just to make her giggle more. Then he sat up again to flip out the orange flowers from nowhere and present them to Rose. "These are for you."

The cinnamon girl was charmed. "Thank you, Pippin."

From the other side of Mrs. Gamgee, Sam's eyes emerged as daggers.

Pippin leaned back and flapped hands up to yield. "I was just honoring the lady of the house."

Sam glared at him until Pippin found another place to sit. Lauren chuckled softly at Pippin's attempt to ignore him. Meriadoc slid into the bench beside Lauren with a fresh bowl of stew.

"They're having another one," Frodo told them.

Pippin flipped his attention like a squirrel. "Another what?"

Rose's eyes glittered shyly and Sam's eyes glowed with pride.

"Another poppet?" Pippin sat up loudly. "That was fast."

Merry smiled over the roll in his hand, "We're going to have to build another chicken coop just for all of Sam's kids."

Sam's eyes slid from one bachelor hobbit to the other, trying to defend his turf from their comments and not blast a smile at the jokes at the same time. He couldn't come up with quick comebacks, but he had wizened enough to have a full understanding of the quips they pinged at him.

Frodo laughed at the display. It felt good to laugh even if he was only on the sidelines. He caught Lauren's shiny brown eyes along the way. She was quietly enjoying the display but looked so tired and weak that she looked ready to dribble on the floor like a silk scarf. 

Sam mouthed something to Pippin about a 'carcass' and a 'fireplace'.

Pippin defended. "You know I was joking. Look! Even Frodo's laughing."

Even Frodo is laughing. . .  As if it had turned into some unusual sight.

Frodo was instantly somber. He waited until Lauren had put her spoon down for good and decided it was time to go before the supper event was really over.

As soon as the silent night hit her, Lauren really was dribbling to the ground. Within two steps from Sam's door, Frodo picked her up completely. She tried to hold her weight with her arms, so she wasn't difficult to carry, but her face fell into his neck and she sighed with sleepiness and comfort.

Frodo instantly knew why Pippin said what he did. Look. Even Frodo's laughing.

She had been here long enough to make a permanent impression. Frodo would undoubtedly think about her from time to time after she left. He wondered if Lauren's strange source of wisdom would reach deep enough into his eyes to know that. Frodo certainly wasn't going to tell her himself.

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Flirting 101

Lauren took on the task of collecting the eggs from the new hen house from that day on. The old one was torn apart and its planks fed to the forest for mulch along with all that had been cleaned out that day. The result was a spacious patch of mosaic stone that served as Frodo's patio. The large new cage was clean and gave the baby chicks a fine, sunny place to grow up.

By the end of that week, she was out of bed more than she was in it. It started with the eggs, then she took on the morning tea, and then the after-supper clean up. Frodo took it as either her personal desire to earn her keep or her way of showing her appreciation for his hospitality. Without either of them saying a word about it, she was stepping up to become the maiden for his household.

Frodo would peer at her as she cleaned the tea out of the pot, trying to see through a façade to learn her real intentions behind the unasked chore. He finally decided that there was it was some womanly instinct about women and cleaning houses. The natural drive must have been untamable; like a man's feral need to—

Never mind.

Day to day living was becoming comfortable, her company was delightful, and Frodo found his smile defenseless from time to time. The jokes continued between them, ranging from potatoes in his big feet to the footless pegs she stood on. She was a dash shorter than he and had no feet to speak of (in Hobbit terms anyway). He would tell her it looked like her legs just stopped at the ankles and she would swat him on the elbow the next time she had the chance.

It wasn't long until the spring storms rolled through, and the first one was always a whopper. It had drove him subconsciously into another Ring-related nightmare before a deafening crack woke him with a start. He was better after he shook it from his shoulders, but upon fetching a midnight smoke, he found Lauren tucked into a corner of the front room.

She was a quaking little ball of nerves that twitched every flash and every thunder strike. Her eyes filled with relief when she focused on him. She had tried to come to him for comfort from the storm, but got lost along the way. Frodo sat on the floor next to her and wrapped his arm around her tense shoulders. He smoked his pipe and relaxed as he let her lean on him even though he knew it was a bad idea. He didn't hold her as close as he did the night of the hound dogs. He was afraid she was getting the wrong impression of his kindness.

Despite his intentions, he unfortunately dozed off there in the corner of the room, wearing nothing but nightclothes, with the girl huddled into his arm and shoulder, and her face softly hiding in his neck. He snoozed comfortably and she slept safely until the roosters crowed to greet the wet morning.

Frodo tried to slink out of the situation without a great deal of conversation, but her friendly, appreciative eyes tried to cast spells on him as he stepped away. He didn't get frightened about it until the spells actually started to work.

Next thing he knew, there was a new smell in the house. He came home a few days later to find the candles lit to cozy the house for his arrival, hear sweet and happy humming, and smell rich, stocky food and the sensual scent of jasmine. For a moment, he sank into the moment like it was some vivid dream dancing across his mind – but he realized the reality of it and his smile disappeared. Thoughtfully, Frodo stripped his outerwear down to shirt and vest and wandered down the hall towards the source of the new scents.

He found a soup brewing in the small caldron in the front room fireplace and a fresh scrubbed woman stirring it into a scrumptious supper. She had scrubbed cream-colored skin and soft-brushed chestnut hair. This was Lauren's first try at cooking for him, and worked an innocent smile when he came into the room. "Welcome home."

No smile graced Frodo's mouth this time. In fact, his mouth got smaller. He stepped up beside her and gazed into the pot to find an attempt at Rose's beef stew. He looked at her and sighed through his nose. She smelled of jasmine soap.

Frodo now had a mind what Lauren was probably up to, but he had yet to discover a successful method to convince anybody that Bilbo's notorious riches were non-existent. Lauren was perhaps the only person he'd met in recent years who thought he was that stupid. There's only one place she could have gotten the jasmine or the recipe. It surprised him that Rose would be in on it too. A serious talk with Sam was in order, as was an inventory of the pantry, water keg and vegetable garden. He didn't even want to know where she got the beef.

Frodo turned away from her without a word. She worked hard to pretend that nothing was different and Frodo kept holding his breath in his chest as he set the table, pretending pitifully that he didn't notice what changed. She had almost reeled him in too.

She nibbled her supper silently, stiffened that he looked so displeased, and slid a glance to him from time to time, looking for signs of relief from the mood, but Frodo didn't look at her. His gaze was deep in thought about what to do about it. He would have taken it different had she been a lady he was suiting, but without confirmation of her marital status, the entirety of his natural response was locked tightly in his chest. It felt like a thumb was pressing hard on the spot right under his collarbone. The pressure was so intense that it affected every bit of living innards that hid behind his breastplate. His face soured accordingly, almost to the point of looking nauseous. He stopped eating before his bowl was empty and subconsciously started chewing his nails as he mulled over the predicament.

Other girls had sweetened up to him at the pub since his return, but they were obviously trying to suck money out of Bag End. Lauren seemed to slip into his soul from the hidden back door. She was already the first face he saw everyday and the last he saw at night. It would only take a split second of indiscretion to turn the whole thing into the spiciest topic on the grapevine.

This had been forefront in his mind since she woke up and it hadn't taken a lot of discipline to keep his manners closer to the side of safety. He only needed to remember that she was likely someone else's wife already. And since adultery couldn't have been further from Frodo's style, the discipline was as easy as a simple decision.

 He realized then that he had been waiting for her to reveal her history to him as soon as she remembered it; without being prompted about it. The realization was enough to shield his soul to ask her about it. Frodo boldly raised his face to talk to her.

She met his eyes penitently, already knowing she had gone too far. About what however, she didn't seem certain.

"What's your family name?" His voice was cold.

She was struck by the suddenness of the question, but not surprised by its asking. She lowered her chin humbly and tried to smile through a sudden sadness. "I thought you were going to Bree—"

"I have to have a clue to start with, Lauren," he interrupted. "Give me something to go on."

She stared at the tabletop and found only an empty spot in her mind. Pained eyes turned up to him. Slanted brows distorted her face. Her eyes flicked this way and that, looking for a clue, a hint of familiarity, something solid her mind could grasp and find its balance again. The only thing solid she could mentally grab a hold of was Frodo, and that was only because he had become familiar over the weeks as he nursed her back to health.

Frodo's mouth pulled in until it was small again and eyes of disappointment rolled back to his meal without further comment. The single statement pointed out what he expected of her and no scented soap or soft hair was going to distract him from it.

Lauren excused herself with a mutter and dashed out of the room.

Frodo closed his eyes. He felt the echo of that cold stab again, only it was in the middle of his chest this time, not his shoulder.

~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~

A Critical Review of the Little Wench

She never went so far as to curtsy for him or anything so absurd, but she clearly shifted her manners as his hired help and fell into the roll as if a natural. She even addressed him as 'm'lord' when she was about to ask a question. This practice wasn't common among Hobbits. 'M'lord' was very much a custom of Men and only reminded Frodo not to get too comfortable with her presence.

Even if he had, there were other forces at work. Whispers had started to sneak out about what she was still doing there. The doctor hadn't yet cleared the mysterious woman for travel, but that didn't convince everybody. The sewing circle was adamant about what Frodo should or should not do about Lauren. That gaggle elder ladies had a tendency to make moral decisions about everyone in Hobbiton.

What was unusual was that the suspicions didn't fall onto the man; they fell on the maid. Frodo had somehow been awarded another distasteful honor. They granted him every right to do whatever he wanted with Lauren, including the unspeakable, whether she (or they) were married or not. He rescued her and nursed her back to health after all; he deserved some form of reward. Were she genuine, they were convinced she was left behind. However, "that mangirl better keep her grubby hands off whatever she finds in Bag End. She was likely a planted into his care some how. She's putting on an act so she could to case the place for Bilbo's fortune. . .  little wench."

The guys didn't pass the whispers on, but they didn't all together disagree with them either. It was true that Frodo's dark cloud was lifted from his eyes shortly after she was discovered, the other three men were glad for that, but Lauren was getting better every day. She should have remembered something by now.

Sam, Merry and Pippin were worried about him, and worried what the rumors would do to his demeanor once they reached his ears. It was planned, sort of, to get him out of Bag End, away from the girls, and off where honesty had no fears about galloping beyond reason. The four of them walked a field alone this time. The day was a little brighter and the plowing was already done, but corn had yet to sprout from the dark dirt.

Frodo had already suspected the reports. None of it seemed to be a surprise to him, but the dark cloud that cast shadows of memory over Frodo's expression reappeared quickly.

"Maybe she thinks you've got a ton of loot hidden in your basement." Merry asked, stomping down clods that were missed.

"I don't have any riches," Frodo pointed out pitifully. It wasn't three days ago when he scooped out Sam's wages. Instead of dipping in for a full handful, his fingertips scraped across the splintery bottom of the small, brass-bound wood chest Bilbo had left him. It was the last chest of coin, and it was quite a shocker to see the bottom of it for the first time in his life. Sam always knew there was no extensive fortune, but until Frodo had a plan to turn the financial tide, Frodo wasn't going to reveal to him or anyone how slim the funds were really getting. "I don't even have a basement," he added pitifully.

"Maybe she just doesn't want to go home." Pippin picked up another rock and gave it a baseball throw to the empty end of the field. "Maybe she is married and has a drunkard for a husband. Y'know, one that beats her all the time."

"Then she should say something instead of pretending she lost any memory of it." Frodo walked along beside them looking at how close the Misty Mountains were. The world wasn't as big as it used to be.

Sam muttered quietly to him. "We'll head out for Bree as soon as the sowings over." The comment pointed out that Lauren hadn't even been with them a whole month, yet it felt like she'd been with them twice as long.

Frodo sighed a little. "We're not going to find any answers in Bree, Sam." He stopped and turned to look the man in the eyes. The others naturally stopped to listen to him. "You're right and Merry's right." He nodded to each of them for their ideas. "She's after something. She should have remembered something by now."

"What about me?" Pippin asked childishly.

"You're right too, Pippin," Frodo told him and pouted angrily at the ground. "She's too pretty to still be a maid."

"There's a sure way to tell if she's a maid or not." Pippin offered lightly. The other three glanced over for an explanation to that one. Pippin's face lifted with the topic. "Women can't fake a blush."

Sam curled his lip and glanced back at Frodo, who was looking a little defensive about this. Sam grinned, "Neither can men."

Merry chuckled quietly, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Frodo crossed his arms at his chest and lifted his face boldly, even though he had no intentions of carrying this out. "What would you have me do?"

"Kiss her," Pippin said as if it were obvious. "If she blushes, you can be sure her flower is still waiting to be plucked."

"Or at least she thinks it does," Merry put in.

Pippin nodded at that and continued, "But if she doesn't blush," he hunched over and twisted his hands together like some deformed, treasure lusting cretin, "if she keeps up and says, 'ooh yeah, Frodo, I want some more', then you can be fairly certain she's scheming something."

Merry and Sam found humor in Pippin's display, but the small grin that was in Frodo's eye was gone again. The idea, to him, was absurd. "I'm not going to kiss her just to see if she blushes."

"Shall I do it for you?" Merry offered.

"No," Frodo said quickly. His mouth tightened even more. "Don't touch her."

Merry got the exact response he was expecting. He shrugged a shoulder and glanced off.

Sam looked at Frodo with worry on his brow. "What are you going to do?"

Frodo hated to have to say this, and it was clear that his throat was tight when he said it. "The doctor said she's only half Hobbit, if any at all." A shadow crossed through Frodo's eyes. "If nothing comes up in Bree then I'll take her to the closest land of Men to search out her family on her own."

"No Frodo," Sam insisted. "She's not your responsibility."

Frodo spat at him too quickly, "Then it shouldn't be wrong to pass her off to somebody else."

"True," Merry said without moving anything but his eyes. "But you don't want to."

Frodo yanked up a stone and started stepping back to throw it out of the field. "Until I know for sure, I'm not giving her the chance to rip my heart off my chest and dive into the lava with it!"

Several eyebrows lifted. The accuracy of the metaphor was just as much of a surprise to him as it was his friends.

Frodo cussed vividly. He threw the rock hard away.

"Lauren isn't Gollum." Pippin told him. "And you don't have the Ring to steal."

"She has nothing to gain!" Sam insisted. "Not like you're thinking."

Frodo snarled at him, "You said yourself she should have remembered something by now."

Sam flapped his hands at him. "Yeah, but that's no reason to expect her to betray you like Gollum did. The Ring is gone."

"He's not wrong to worry, Sam." Merry insisted with a weathered voice. "The Ring maybe good and gone, but some parts are still with us."

Pippin glanced over at Merry with a hardened mouth and saddened eyes. His eyes dropped to the ground to relive his own momentary horror.

Merry lowered his voice to a deep, tense tone. "Some parts will always be with us."

Sam pressed his mouth closed and dropped his eyes. "That may be true." He lifted his head just as quickly. "But that has nothing to do with this. She can't be that evil! She can't be that good at the art of deceiving!" Sam looked over at Frodo. "And you can't be suspicious of her just because you like her!"

Pippin still stood with fists in his corduroy pockets and locked joints. "We all like her. That's what makes us suspicious."

Frodo shuffled back toward the group. "Make up your mind, Sam. You know I'm going to listen to you this time! Are you defending or accusing?"

"I'm not doing neither!" Sam yelled in insult. "I'm just saying your acting like there are still greater powers at work here when there aren't! I'll admit she may be some con-woman that's up to something, but we'll figure it out! We're watching for you! Just because there' s a risk gives no reason to run off to Rohan just to pawn her off to the mankin. She's not even their size!"

Pippin expression tripped when he got lost. "When did we start talking about going to Rohan?"

Merry strolled patiently around Sam's stiff shoulders. "What Sam is saying is that not everything that tempts Frodo is so evil that it deserves trip across Middle Earth just to get rid of it again."

Frodo rubbed his eye sockets with the heals of his palms.

"And I think Sam's right." Merry said to Frodo, lowering his voice. "Be cautious, sure. Hold onto your heart until you get the truth about her- Fine. But sail to the other side of the ocean just to throw her overboard? That's ridiculous."

Frodo had listened to all of it and all of it sunk in. He flopped his hands down and slapped his palms against his legs. After a deep sigh, he thanked Pippin and Merry with his eyes, gave Sam a simple pat on the shoulder. Frodo whispered the subject closed before the debate turned sour. "We'll see what we can find in Bree."

~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~

The Blush Test

It was raining, so he stayed home and locked himself up in the study all morning. His brows were knotted as he hunched stiff and serious over the giant book, like the writing of it would somehow make it all go away.

She announced her presence behind him by resting her hand timidly on his shoulder. He glanced up only to see the slim hand move a cup of tea to clatter on its way to the desktop.

She remained behind him as if forcing him to take a break. Her tone was pained and chilly. "Is this the story no one is allowed to tell?"

Frodo lifted his chin and lowered his eyes. "It seems the safest place for such a story to be."

Her tone was the cool smoothness of a razor blade. "This 'camping trip' of yours takes up an awful lot of pages."

 Frodo closed his eyes.

Lauren stepped off as silently as she came in.

Point taken.

He leaned back in his chair and watched the rain turn the air gray outside the window. He wondered if she was faking it all, but he still couldn't imagine what she could have possibly gained out of the charade. Lauren had been keeping house long enough to realize there wasn't any.

A few times, at the pubs or at town parties, girls would flirt with him just because they knew who he was. It didn't matter that he had no real spoils of war. It didn't matter that he never called upon the powerful people he knew. It was as if they were in competition. The type of man a girl managed to lure seemed to be some flavor of status symbol even if he had no real money or power. They flirted with him just because he was famous.

This didn't make much sense to Frodo, but it did explain why he was so delighted to learn Lauren was ignorant about the Ring. Maybe amnesia was the only way he could find a girl who would see him for what he was instead of what he had done before. And that brought him to realize why he didn't yet let anyone to tell her the story. It was the only way she would see Frodo instead of The Ring Bearer.

Frodo closed his eyes again with a curse. The night before she got here, he wished aloud for his turn to come; for the life after to start, and she was found not far from his front door the very next day as if dropped from heaven. Was it really coincidence that he had the right circumstances and she had the right kind of injuries for Frodo to innocently take her into his home and care for her. The amnesia erased all the questions that he was tired of receiving from people. And the way she warmly ducked into his chest, the luscious dinner and the jasmine in her hair. . . . He grew suspicious of her because she had apexed as 'too good to be true.'

Frodo climbed slowly out of his chair and covered the ink so it wouldn't dry out. He put his hands in his front pockets and stepped indecisively out to the hallway to find she'd only traveled four feet from his door before collapsing to sit sadly on a bench. Her back was to him as if trying to turn away from his rejection, trying to figure out what to do because of it.

She lifted a head when she heard his feet and paused a long moment to see if he was going to walk by her or go back in. But Frodo stopped where he was, leaned his back against a curved beam of house frame. He watched her stiff back, but his voice wasn't harsh about it. "If you remembered a difficult life you didn't want to go back to, would you tell me?"

"What do you mean?" She left her chin and eyes aimed at the floor.

"If you had a husband that beat you, perhaps; if you just didn't want to go home. . . would you tell me the truth?"

She rubbed her lips together to think of this one with honesty, "Yes. . .  At least I think I would."

"Even if you knew for certain I was going to return you to which ever family has the rights to you?"

She glanced up at that. "I would simply hope you would have mercy on me."

"I couldn't." He narrowed his eyes at her. "You know I couldn't. Even if you didn't want to go. Even if I didn't want to give you over." He waved a hand, "Even if your marriage was nothing but misery and pain, I would still deliver you to your rightful lord."

Lauren swallowed a lump in her throat. "Why?"

He looked at his feet. "Because it's the right thing to do." He huffed out his nose a bit. His voice went tense. "This isn't the first time I've been in possession of a precious thing that wasn't mine. If this entire episode is an act, then you would already know that about me. And you would already know I'll turn you over to the man who has the rights to you no matter how many flowers you smell like or how many meals you cook."

Her brows hardened. She stood from the chair poised for battle, keeping kept her hands hanging by her skirt as she closed the distance. Lauren stood her ground when faced him directly across the hall. "You have convicted me before you bothered to arrest me, Mister Frodo." She lifted her chin. "At what point in all this did I come under suspect as a con artist?"

Frodo closed his eyes. "That's not what I meant."

"Then perhaps you should reword it," she ordered.

His eyes opened to her again. He stood on his feet and looked at her from a high nose. "If you think you're beholden to me because you stayed on my spare bed for a couple of weeks, don't! It's not worth the effort you're putting into it. If you are trying to thank me with all this because you think I've saved your life, stop! I didn't save your life any more than I saved anyone else's."

"Of course I'm beholden to you but you haven asked me for anything." The skin above the bridge of her nose wrinkled with difficulty at his accusation. "And of course I'm thankful," a strange grin away the ripple in her brow. "But I thanked you already."

Frodo nodded and put his palms out, "And I said 'you're welcome' and it's finished, right?"

Lauren ducked a chin and flushed just a touch. "Right." Her smile came back up for the next one he was going to throw at her, still trying to figure out why he was so upset about it.

Frodo dropped his hands and tried not to look so deeply at her face. "So there's only two other reasons why you would have pulled all the stops to lure me: you're a con artist and think you have something to gain. . . "

Her face brightened into laughter even if he was dead serious about it. "You are far from royalty, Frodo-"

"Or," he interrupted, "you were flirting with the wrong man," his stomach flipped and the power left his voice, "in which case I wish you would stop."

Her humor was reeled in with sudden humbleness. Uncertain eyes tried to read him, and a flush of embarrassment came to her face.

He winced hard and he scrambled to save her feelings. "Lauren! You're probably married already!"

"How do you know?" She spat in defense. "If I can't remember anybody, I don't have anybody to betray! And besides, all I did was make you supper! How does that qualify me as a trollop!?"

Frodo's eyes flashed wide, he was already shaking his head fervently. "I didn't call you a trollop."

The monster came out from behind the pretty face. "Think about what you're a accusing me of, Frodo!"

Frodo raised his palms for mercy. "That's not what I meant. And it wasn't just dinner."

She crossed her arms arrogantly. "Then what else was there?"

He fretted with the words. "Your hair and-" the bridge of his nose wrinkled, "the jasmine. . . "

Surprise crossed her eyes first, and then they warmed wildly at what he was saying.

"And the way you look at me." Frodo's breath escaped and left his shoulders slumped. Good ahead, Frodo. Tell her right where all the chinks in your armor are so she can sting you that much faster.

She smiled wide with sympathy and fondness. Her voice sweetened as much as it softened. "Shall I stop looking at you then?"

"No." It was a ridiculous thought, but he said it because he couldn't pull his eyes away from her. He swallowed hard.

Lauren lifted her chin again and took one step to him. She kept his eyes but only to peer in them accusingly. "When men lose their ability to control themselves, they always seem to put the blame on the women. Now why is that?"

She was six inches closer but it amplified by miles. Frodo looked at all the parts of her face and grinned at her accusation. "Because it's all your fault," he said.

She giggled a little at that. "So what you're really saying," she stepped a tiptoe forward and lifted her chin to play seriousness, "is that I will no longer be in your poor graces as long as you perceive that I'm not flirting with you?"

He was trapped in complete suspense over her next move. One step closer and she'd be nose to nose with him. Perhaps she was simply stepping within his reach as an invitation. He still had a hold of his faculties, thank goodness, but it would be a great deal easier if she would just go away like she offered. If he weren't so intoxicated by her closeness, he would have had a more animated reaction. Instead, he simply twitched a grin, "Yes."

Lauren frowned to consider his proposal, and then looked him in the eyes with a sparkly smile. She wanted a kiss almost as bad as he wanted to kiss her. It was obvious in her eyes. Frodo's face lightened. He took in a slow breath as he started to lower his face to her—

"It's settled then," she said brightly. She turned on her heals and began to march pertly away. Her hair whapped him in the face like a feather bola. It felt like she took a leg out from under his table just as he was finding his balance on it.

Frodo couldn't believe it. His eyes flailed, his teeth clenched, and his frustration bubbled over. It wasn't a conscious decision, he just gave up trying to figure her out and a split second of indiscretion slipped through. All this happened before she'd managed two steps down the hall, and it only took one lunge and a long arm to grab her by the forearm to swing her back around to him. The sheer inertia of his moves brought the front her body to bump up against the front of his. She bounced back with surprise, but she only got so far before his hands cradled her face and pulled her mouth into him.

All the fast moves came to a quick halt the moment his lips touched hers. The scent of sweet, warm flowers filled up his senses and the softness of her lips tickled him all the way to pit of his stomach. Her mouth trembled under him and her trapped breath swelled up her chest- that same chest he could colorfully visualize. He drank in the kiss like an instant addiction. The soft hair in his fingers and the shuddering breasts that hovered an inch from him poisoned his mind even further.

When Frodo's eyes fluttered back open, Lauren's were still closed. Lashes fell against her dusk-colored cheeks. Her red mouth parted with trapped air. 

She looked so deliciously lovable.

Lauren's big eyes opened to him full of shock. Her face was so flushed that she looked like she'd been slapped on both cheeks.

Frodo pulled back with a short breath and widened eyes. He stared fearfully down at her, at what he had done. His fingers took a long trip out of her hair just to get untangled so he could step back. "I shouldn't have done that." Frodo whispered tensely.

She started to nod in agreement at what it probably started, but bit her lower lip and started shaking her head. Her face was shocked and terrified and uncertain, but her eyes offered anything he could ask for, even though she didn't know exactly what that was.

Frodo was absolutely certain of her pureness now. But the end result was that Frodo became the dishonorable scallywag that pricked her innocence with his mal-intent, and it scared him witless that he could hardly convince himself to stop.

Frodo took a step backward and started to smile like he had gone insane, for it felt like he had. "No, I'm fairly certain that was a bad idea." He had the suddenly overwhelming desire to run away as fast as he could, but he had to pass her to get out of the house.

Though pained and confused and now an arms reach away, her whisper still felt like a feather on his skin. "Frodo?"

"Stop." He stopped her before she said something he couldn't say 'no' to. He put his hands on the sides of her shoulders so he could keep her body from bumping into his again, and passionately pressed a kiss on her forehead as he turned them both around in the hall. He pulled away to look her in the eye, as stiff and mean looking as he had to be to do it, and finalized it once and for all. "You still might be married, Lauren."

Her brows slanted, pleading for that not to be true.

Frodo closed his eyes a moment, and that one instant without looking at her, he was able to focus just enough to operate. He let go, stepped back, and turned to trot to the front hall. He grabbed his brown coat on a quick trek out the door, and dashed off in the rain.

He hurried away from the houses even though no one was out, and marched a touch into the woods just to find shelter from a tree. He wiped the raindrops from his face and winced curses at himself. He stared in the air with pain in his eyes. He kicked the tree.

When thundering could be heard in the distance, he found his way to the stables and ducked into the horse-less stall. He found what he expected to find. Merry was relaxing against the wall, one leg out and one bent up, with a pipe in his hand and peace on his face.

Merry opened his eyes and understood Frodo's mood. He watched the other stomp in and slide down against the wall to sit next to him in the hay. Frodo slammed his eyes shut and knocked his head against the wood slat wall with a thump.

Merry took a long sideways glance at Frodo.

Frodo swallowed hard. "She blushed."

Merry nodded thoughtfully, puffed once on his pipe, and offered it over.

~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~

Frodo Winds Up for the Pitch

The thunderstorm never got close enough to see any lighting, and the rain had faded to an occasional drizzle before nightfall. It was cold though. The weather was still trying to decide if it was winter or spring, and his chin was shuddering by the time he made his way home.

Lauren came to her feet the instant the door started to open. She looked like she was afraid that she was in trouble with him, wanting to go to him but knowing that it was a bad idea. She stayed where she was as he let himself in. Her fingers fiddled together nervously, and she let out a breath she seemed to have held since he he'd left.

Frodo took off his dripping wet cape and looked at her quizzically.

Her head tilted as she stuttered. "I was sca- I didn't know where you'd. . .  how long—." She took a deep inhale and recomposed herself, speaking slow and carefully chosen words.

"I was concerned for your safety."

The corner of his mouth curled with appreciation. "I'm fine."

Lauren nodded deeply and forced her mouth to remain smileless. She turned tartly and moved quickly into the front room. "I'll warm up the fire."

He hooked his wet cape by the door and proceeded to strip his shirt. His voice was apathetic. "Thank you."

She stiffly kept him at her back as she poured in the firewood, but when she turned to reach for the matches, she saw a glimpse his bare torso out of the corner of her eye.

Lauren's eyes flashed wide without even looking directly at him, and then slammed shut again to turn her back to him again. She scrambled for any excuse to leave the room. Her voice quivered behind the strength she deliberately put into it. "Perhaps I could fetch you some dry clothes."

Frodo was warmed by her reaction so much that his face cracked a full smile. He hooked his wet shirt with his coat and stepped into the room to her back. "I'll do it myself." He put his hand on her shoulder blade, pushing a little as to keep her back to him as he passed by, just because it bothered her. She breathed easier when he did that, but he stopped before moving further down the hall. It would be easier to say this when he didn't have to look in her eyes. "We're leaving for Bree in the morning."

Her face lifted, she started to turn around but another momentary glimpse of the half-naked body reminded her not to. She stopped trying to turn, realized what was really going on, and lowered her head with rejection again.

He turned to move away. "I've made my decision," he said quietly.

Her head was bowed in sorrow. She nodded.

Frodo moved quickly back to the Master's bedroom. He dried off and got dressed so he could rejoin her for supper, but both of them stuffed away every bit of smile or glance for the rest of the evening and most of the next morning.

Pippin had brought up a cart and Merry brought out two horses. Sam and Rose were talking amongst themselves, and Frodo stepped out of his front yard to put a rolled pack in the otherwise empty cart. When all was ready, Rosie was a few paces down the hill with a blanket wrapped over her arms. Merry held the horse and Pippin leaned an elbow on the back of the cart. Sam glanced at Frodo. He was still at the cart with his back to Lauren as if stunned.

Sam pressed his mouth and turned around. "This is your last chance, Lauren." He was friendly, but dead serious. "Do you have any recollection at all of your family name?" They all looked at her for an answer but everyone was prepared for whatever she said.

Her face winced that they still didn't trust her. She rubbed her forehead, a spot right behind the hairline. Her brows slanted, pleading at them to believe her. "No. I'm sorry."

Sam sighed and glanced back at Frodo.

Merry hung his arm from the horse's bridal. "What about their business? Do you remember water, or mountains, or buildings, or plains? Was the food sweet or salty? Anything would be a clue."

Lauren nodded in understanding and raised her fingers to touch her forehead again as she thought.

"What's wrong with your head?" Pippin snarled.

Lauren dropped her hand. "Nothing."

Merry and Sam exchanged glances. Frodo turned around to look. Pippin pushed away from the cart and stepped quickly up through the front yard to the porch.

She tried to step back and raise her hand to protect herself, but Pippin stepped up taller and pushed her hand unceremoniously away so he could look at the hair on the top of her head. He first checked for fleas or mites, but her hair was clean of any of that. Then he lifted his fingers to move some of her hair out of the way, and his eyes widened.

"What is it?" Sam asked.

Pippin let her go and turned. "She's got a big scar on her right temple, like she was hit with a stone." He held his hand out to Rose for the blanket, but Sam took it from his wife and tossed it over. Pippin grabbed it easily out of the air. "It's quite possible she was left for dead."

"In the river!?" Rosie exclaimed. "Who would go so far out of their way to dump a dead body in a harmless little Hobbit stream?"

Sam sighed so heavily his lip raspberried with the sheer force of it.

Pippin shook out the blanket. "Doesn't matter really." He pulled the blanket around Lauren's shoulders and aimed her hand to clasp it at her collarbone. "Anyone so cruel to dump her like that doesn't deserve her." When she was suitably caped, he dropped his hands and smiled. "Finders keepers."

Lauren's smile flickered back at him, but she was still perplexed what precisely they had in mind. She looked to Frodo with fear, wanting his explanation or comfort, but he simply looked back at her with a small mouth and the weary sigh of duty. Pippin's careless phrase had turned his stomach inside out.

Pippin offered his arm to her, and she took it in with a deeper ripple in her forehead.

Sam shrugged at her, explaining. "You're face is the only clue we've got, Lauren. Our only hope is that someone in Bree will recognize you."

She stepped tenderly out to the road and Pippin hooked his hands together to give her a step up. Sam helped her from the other side, gentlemanly aiding her into the back of the cart, only to climb up right behind her. Merry stepped around and climbed up to the driver's seat. Frodo avoided her eyes and climbed up to sit next o Merry so he could avoid her more.

Lauren tucked the blanket around her shoulders and curled up to sit in the corner behind Merry. She stole a glance up to Frodo's other side, and he almost returned it, but decided not to.

Sam leaned far out of the cart to kiss Rosie on the lips. She giggled at something he whispered and promised to be back within the week. Merry whistled at the horses and flapped the reigns lightly. The cart jerked into motion. Rose blew Sam a kiss, and Pippin straightened his back, stuffing his hands in his pockets to watch them go.

Sam was still on his knees and flicked a serious chin at Pippin. "Look after my girls."

Pippin nodded without a hint of alternate motives in his eye. Pippin would have checked on them from time to time even if Sam hadn't asked. He put out a palm for goodbyes. His eyes were on Lauren. "Good luck to you."

Lauren flashed a smile at his thoughtfulness and snuck her fingers out of the blanket to wave back. Sam settled in to lean against the same frontboard Lauren did. He lifted a knee to set his forearm on it but didn't bother trying to get any more comfortable than that. He and Lauren exchanged glances. Both smiled uncomfortably and settled in for a long silent ride.

It was hours before anyone said anything. Clouds filled the sky in the morning, but the breeze moved them along soon enough. The air was cold, and the sun was so far away it didn't help very much. The road moved through grassy meadows as often and as long as it did friendly woods. Lauren was wide eyed to watch everything until it got repetitive. Merry kept his eyes expressionless on the road in front of him, looking bored. Sam gazed off another direction as if daydreaming, and Frodo stared at and endless stream of difficult memories.

He could still hear it whisper at him as if it was still happening, but he knew it was only his mind playing tricks on him. It was nothing but noiseless flashes and colorless sounds: Sam pleading eyes, Pippin crying out, sharp rock under his blistered feet, Smeagol's missing teeth. . .  He saw the spot in the field where Sam had stopped walking and mentioned how he had never been further away from home.

The world was so hauntingly larger now.

"How old am I?" Lauren suddenly asked. Her head was turned to Sam, but her tone was asking all of them.

Sam was polite, "That's not customarily a question women want an honest answer to."

"I just noticed something odd." She offered, "Something that maybe a clue."

Frodo half-turned to her. "What is it?"

"Let me not say just yet, save for I feel like there's a difference in age."

"You look the same age as us," Sam said.

"And how old is that?"

Frodo turned to look back at her again. "Young enough to still be a maid, but old enough to have become a respectful matron."

"But not a child?" She clarified.

Frodo glanced back and shook his head barely. "No." He yanked his gaze out to the landscape again, "You're definitely not a child."

"What was this clue?" Sam asked.

She settled in and explained it to Sam. "Well, I thought what about what Merry said before, about finding things in my mind that maybe familiar, landscape and all that."

"Yeah."

"And I realized one of the things that made me feel so comfortable in Frodo's house was that I felt like I'd grown up once and for all. No one was treating me like a child anymore."

Sam mouth was already parted with understanding, "You feel taller."

Lauren nodded. "What does that mean?"

"It means you're not a Hobbit."

"It means she didn't live with Hobbits," Merry corrected without turning around. "She's too small to be anything else." Then he remembered. "And too hairless to be a dwarf."

Frodo glanced back at her. "That's why the doctor couldn't find out anything about you in Whitfurrows. It's a Hobbit village."

Sam added, "It also explains why you didn't know what a Hobbit was when you first woke up."

Her face wrinkled sadly, "Does that help?"

Merry shrugged sympathetically. "It just means you're not from around here."

Lauren's hope dwindled from her eyes.

Sam brightened his tone, "It's a start though. What else feels odd to you?"

Lauren kept working her mind to think up anything that might have been helpful and absentmindedly touched her head as she did it. Sam worked with her on the clues, adding words to things she only could describe, or clarifying her explanation with things he already knew in reality. Merry and Frodo peeped in from time to time, but not often. Sam was doing well enough on his own to get her thoughts going in the right directions.

She felt more familiar with plains than mountains, woods, or oceans, but that could have been because of the unplanted fields around the shire. She noted that she had a strange desire to cook in Frodo's house and already had ideas on how to make use of the vegetables in his garden. But she also felt she should know how to sew, but when she borrowed needle and thread from Rosie to mend her dress, she had terrible troubles with it. The most revealing thing she mentioned was that she felt Frodo's house was rather short and empty. She kept feeling like there was a way to go up.

"What would be upstairs?" Sam asked.

Lauren thought on this. "More girls," her face twisted a little.

"Sisters!?" Merry exclaimed brightly and returned Frodo's glance. "Dream come true."

Frodo smiled at Merry's boisterousness about it, and glanced warmly back at Lauren, happy that some things were finally coming to mind for her.

Whitfurrows looked hardly different from Hobbiton. They only stayed long enough to grab a sack of pekagranetes and find a fairly clean outhouse, and then they were on the same road to leave it again.

Frodo had taken the reigns for the afternoon half of the journey and Sam sat up on the bench next to him. Lauren stayed in her same spot but folded the blanket to soften her seat and leaned against the side of the cart so she could easily see Sam and Merry when she spoke to them.

Merry introduced her to the new fruit. It took work to get into it. Because the men up front had to hold on with at least one hand as they went down the road, Merry taught Lauren how to pull the shell off to get to the tiny fruit nibbles inside so they could both pass it in edible forms to the men up front.

"It looks like a purple pomegranate." She said as she worked the first small handful out of the fruit.

"It's the pomegranate's evil twin," Sam explained. "Pekagranates are much sweeter."

Lauren reached up to hand Frodo some meaty seeds and grinned. "What makes it the eviler of the two?"

"It's so sweet," Merry said, turning to look at her, "That you often eat more than you ought."

Frodo tucked his hand back behind him so she could hand more up to him. Gentle fingers brushed against his palm as she poured a few into his hand. It was the first time they'd touched since yesterday in the hall and affected him accordingly.

Merry explained his favorite fruits to her and Lauren talked about some of the other things that could be done with blueberries. She rattled off instructions to bake a pie without realizing the depth of her own knowledge.

A minute later, she reached up another handful and again let her fingertips brush on his palm. He was tempted to glance over his shoulder to see if she had a flirtatious sparkle in her eyes, but he held fast.

He listened to the two of them ramble on about food behind him. His hand tucked backwards for more, and Lauren's fingers did it again. This time, his fingers quickly held hers after he'd grabbed the seeds. His thumb brushed twice against the back of her pinky as if to acknowledge or agree with the message she sent. Her fingers squeezed him back as if for a little hug, and dribbled reluctantly away from his hand when he let her go.

He didn't reach back again, but something about it made him realize, even down to the pit of his stomach, that her actions were genuine. Lauren liked him for the man he was. The kiss was real. Her blush belonged to him. Frodo's throat relaxed and he fell into a daydream about what could have happened if she stayed.

"What put that on your face?" Sam quietly asked his widely grinning friend. The two in the back were so enthralled in their talk of sweet foods they didn't hear the question.

Frodo knew she couldn't see, so he didn't hide his smile. He shook head lightly and blew it off, "Nothin'." He popped the last few seeds into his mouth and started sucking on them, but his happy face didn't fade all that quickly.

It was dusk when they reached Bree. The wind blew a dry, chilling breath across the meadow and rouged up their noses and faces. Although Hobbits were not uncommon to see, the city was uneasily taller. Lauren looked as innocently frightened as a toddler as she took it all in with wide eyes.

It was a noisy; even the side streets that had nothing but houses still had people hanging out and laughing on the walks and porches. The markets were just closing up for the night, and tried to sell to the late patrons on the street. Bars and brothels were just warming up. The nightlife of the city seemed to have an economy of its own.

Frodo drove the cart directly to a boarding house well-known with the Shirefolk as safe, friendly and fair to their kind. It didn't have a kitchen, pity, but it did have cozy rooms with fireplaces to ward off the late-winter's chill. The four of them unpacked in a room, warmed up a little, and left again to find a place to eat.

On a whim, Frodo stopped again at the innkeeper and asked him if Lauren looked familiar.

The innkeeper gave her a good look. "Not sure. Why do you ask?"

Frodo gave the man a boiled down version of the situation, but it was enough to get the man going. "I heard a tale of a halfling girl from somewhere in town had died a few weeks ago. But I couldn't give you any details of it. Perhaps you should visit the Sheriff in the morning."

It was what Frodo had planned already. He nodded, Sam thanked him, and the four moved on to find supper.

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Mrs. Byanka

The larger lodge was loud, sweaty and boisterous. They managed a table in a corner, away from the festivities, and Frodo felt the need to make Lauren sit in the corner as if he intended the three of them to protect her or keep her from escaping.

The serving lady came around to offer them the evening meal, chicken and gravy on mashed potatoes, but told them they'd have to go to the bar for their own ale. Merry hopped up to fetch the beer and Sam turned to lean his back against the wall and rolled his head over at Lauren. "Anything look familiar?"

She looked out over the bar and nodded distantly, "I've been in places like this before. Not this one, but like this one."

Frodo was surprised they'd find a clue this quickly, but the truth tugged at his heart as painfully as her expression remembered it.

"The tall ceilings and rafters. The noise and the smell of beer." She curled her nose. "I hate it, but I know it."

Sam nodded with disappointment in his eyes.

Frodo looked down at his crossed arms. "I think you're probably a kitchen's cook somewhere. Maybe for a lady's boarding house or an orphanage."

Her eyes went scared, "An orphanage?"

"A kitchen's cook good keep for a maid," Frodo pointed out. "Any good cook has a lot of power in the house."

Merry came back with four half-pints of ale and carefully put them down. "I asked the tender. He remembers who lost that Hobbit girl. He's sending someone to the house in question."

"Fantastic." Sam lifted his brows, and looked at Lauren. "This is looking up quickly."

"Save that I don't know anything about where I'm going!"

Sam grinned with a friendly gesture. "It's all right. We're not going to toss you off to just anybody."

Lauren seemed relieved by that, but clearly wished the promise would have come from somebody else at the table. The meal was flavored mostly by the gravy and pepper, but filled their tummies with snug warmth. After the meal was over and the men stayed for a second round of ale, a large woman was seen glancing over to them from her quiet talk to the bartender.

She was normal height for mankin, but had big hips and big breasts. She had dark makeup on her face and her black hair was done up with curls, but the black and white dress she wore was simple and clean. She came over slowly and smiled when she managed Lauren's attention. "Lauren, my child, it's really you!"

Lauren stiffened. "I don't remember you."

The woman stepped to the end of the table, "You don't remember you're Aunty Emma" She seemed disappointed. "Frank mentioned that you'd had troubles with your memory. S'allright, luv. I'm sure it'll all come back to you as soon as we get home." She turned her chin. "Tell me child, what happened to you? You ran off crying and we hadn't seen a sign of you since. We thought you were dead."

Frodo exchanged stiff glances with Sam and both looked to Lauren as she responded.

Lauren sat forward. "Why was I crying?"

"You'd served stale bread to Timothy, my dear, and he got a little tart with you that night. He loves you dearly y'know, wouldn't lay a finger on you, but he works so hard in that carpenter shop he deserves a little better than stale bread with his supper."

Lauren stiffened even further. "Who's Timothy?"

Aunty Emma's face flashed with surprise, "Why, he's your husband, my dear. Do you not remember him?"

Lauren's fearful eyes flicked to Frodo, and Frodo carefully slid guarded eyes back. He pressed his mouth and shrugged an uncomfortable grin at her.

Aunty Emma continued. "The two of you rent a room in my boarding house on the north side of town. Savin' up for your own place, he says. So you can start putting out a bunch of babies."

Lauren looked back at Aunty Emma again. "I don't remember you."

Aunty Emma studied Lauren with a smile and finally nodded. "I'll see if I can find your husband and send him over."

"We're staying at the Hobbit lodge across the street," Frodo told her.

Aunty Emma nodded. "Timothy will be so happy to see you again."

The large woman left, pausing to thank the tender with a kiss on the cheek and waved "toodles" to the other men in the bar before disappearing out the door.

"She seemed nice enough," Sam said optimistically.

"She talks too much," Merry added.

"She's not the one I'm worried about," Frodo muttered.

Lauren sighed loudly like she was about to cry and put her face in her palms. "Babies?!"

Frodo felt it in his stomach. He slid his half-empty mug away. "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up before your husband arrives."

Lauren washed her hands and face but she wasn't really that dirty to begin with, and Frodo bought a strip of yellow ribbon from the last street vendor so she could tie up her hair. Frodo wasn't stiff or melancholy as he sat and watched the floor, he was just quiet. Sam took in Frodo's mood and asked Merry out to find a warm spot in the cold wind so they could share a pipe.

Frodo sat at the head of a bed, using the headboard as a backrest, and let her bounce nervously about the room as much as she liked. He intended to be there for her to lean on one last time, but it wasn't as easy as he intended.

Lauren paced the room and shook her hands in the air as if she had slammed all her fingers in a door. "Don't eat the hen with the auburn feathers on her back." She babbled, "Not until she's on her dying days. She's the mother of the chicks. Her name is Maela."

Frodo smiled at the thought of naming a hen and making it a pet. "Maela," he echoed. "Sure. I'll be good to Maela."

She paced the other direction. "And the nightgown Rosie lent me. It's folded under the covers on the bed. I should have washed it. But I didn't know I was leaving."

Frodo nodded gently. The cleanliness of the nightgown was irrelevant to everyone but her.

"Thank Grandma Bolgers for me, even though she didn't really do anything. She'll appreciate the appreciation."

Frodo climbed off the bed. "Lauren."

She sucked in a sigh and stuffed her tears into her throat. He grabbed her flapping hands out of the air and held them in front of her, just to keep them still. "It's all right."

"I'm scared," tears started welling up.

"I know," he said quietly and pulled her in to his chest. He put his chin against her ear and gave her a warm hug for his sake as much as it was for hers. "It's going to be all right."

She wrapped her arms around his torso and tucked her face into his neck. She sighed to enjoy the momentary relief but her shoulders shuddered.

"It's just hound dogs," he whispered in a sad smile.

Despite her sniffle, she flashed a smile into his shoulder. She held him like a friend she'd have forever. "Kind of like your camping accident?"

Frodo chuckled in her ear, gave her a good long squeeze and pulled away. He looked at her with the same smile of friendship, squeezed her hands, and then let her go. "I'll miss you," he admitted.

"If I'm here, you could always visit from time to time." She offered with a hopeful shrug.

Frodo grinned wisely and shook his head. "That's probably not a good idea, Lauren."

She sucked the truth right out of his eyes and her deep dark eyes glowed like a breeze on smoldering coals.

A quiet knock sounded on the door and Sam poked his head in, "They're here."

She inhaled stiffly but kept Frodo's gaze. "Thank you," she said, "For everything."

"Your welcome," he mouthed deliberately and stepped back to direct her through the door first.

Emma elbowed Timothy to pay attention.

Timothy would have had to duck to get in through the Hobbit door, but he was short for a grown Man. He was decently handsome, short, wavy brown hair and a pointed nose over a slim face. And his hazel eyes were full of relief when they fell on her. "Lauren, my darling!" Timothy stepped out to take her up by the arms, but Lauren stepped behind Frodo, and Sam closed the gap between their shoulders to protect her.

Timothy paused in his step and moved back a little. "Oh yes, you're memory. Emma told me."

Sam lifted his chin, "Would you mind showing us some sort of proof that Lauren is yours."

Timothy flashed a smile and bowed his head obediently, "Of course, darling." He looked back just as Emma brought up a dress and a folded shawl. "Emma noticed your dress was in rags, so we brought a change of clothes for you, Lauren. If they fit you, that's proof enough isn't it?"

Emma leaned over a little, "Wouldn't want to have you running around looking like poor Shirefolk, now would we?"

In a dark spot on the lawn, Merry puffed in the shadows and watched the exchange, but that comment made his face twitch with insult.

Lauren reached over Sam and Frodo's shoulders to take it from them. "I suppose that's proof enough."

Frodo glanced back.

"Excuse me." She muttered and dipped quickly back into the room alone.

As the girl was gone, Timothy and Emma kept talking to each other. Timothy overflowed with relief and happiness that his little woman was discovered. "And who can I thank for such heroism?"

"I'm Samwise Gamgee. He's Frodo Baggins."

Timothy's face went pale for a split second, but his face forced a charming smile again. He bowed deeply. "My deepest thanks to you both."

Lauren stepped out in a simple, dark blue wool dress. It was in decent shape, long to the ankles and wrists, had a ribbon lace up the bodice, and fancy trimmings around the neck. The shawl was black and knitted more for decoration than warmth, but the important part was that the clothes fit her well.

Timothy's smiled warmed again. "Lauren, my sweet. You look darling."

Lauren stepped out, in front of Frodo this time. She exchanged glances with him and stepped bravely to Timothy. Her head topped out no higher than his throat. "If you please, tell me my family name?"

Timothy grinned a beat and blurted, "Byanka. You are Mrs. Timothy Byanka, also known as my bonnie Lauren."

Lauren sighed once and nodded. "All right." She looked back at Sam and Frodo looking much less scared and unsure than she did before.

"Good luck," Sam told her.

Frodo smiled bitter-sweetly. . .  and Lauren stepped off with them, glancing longingly back at him one last time before she disappeared into the street.

They stood there a long minute.

Sam reached to look around at Frodo's expression. "You okay, Frodo?"

Frodo took a moment, but he nodded.

Lauren looked to be in safe hands. Perhaps tomorrow he'd find where she was just to check on her safety, but Timothy Byanka looked all right and glad to have her back. Real life wasn't the horror she feared it to be.

As for Frodo, he had hardly felt the weight of the Ring for a month. She could make him smile, she could make his heart beat like a frightened rabbit, she could make him think about the things grown men are supposed to think about. She reminded him there was just another Hobbit under the layers of traumatized 'hero', and that's exactly what he needed to be reminded of to get on with his life.

Frodo nodded again and turned with a bittersweet smile to his best friend. "I'm all right, Sam." He said sincerely. "Thank you."

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