Liquor Leaf and Ladies - Kesselia Banta
Part 3 – Sam
Something's different and Frodo isn't saying what. The silence only amplifies the whispers that still echo in the back of Sam's mind. His narrow eyes keep on the lookout for his friend's safety and soul, and his concerns are again being brushed off. In truth, the trouble doesn't lie with Frodo's blossoming relationship with his housemaid, and there is only one person in Middle Earth that can say it in words that Sam will hear. Enter Rosie: the woman that was there all along.
Extortion
Message from Gondor
Legolas Visits
A Feast
Bagshot #3
Elfish Exam
Madly
Bilbo's Fortune
Lauren Confesses
Galadriel
The big bed was juuuuust right.
Sam's Midnight Bottle
The Jinhai
Frodo the Dog
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Extortion
The May sun was shining down on the town common, vendors called out the prices of their wares, and the street was moderately crowded with nothing but Hobbits. The mill was busy with the early blooms, and sacks of stone-ground wheat were being loudly bartered over. Red and black butterflies fluttered over yellow wild blossoms. Young girls huddled to whisper and glanced back to a playful collection of young boys. It was a normal day.
Liam Bracegirdle looked like a giant grape with tiny sausages for arms and legs and sat with a similarly graying and roundy man outside the pub, slurping up afternoon ale and making bold statements that justified his every right and opinion. "Well now, my daughter thinks she's marrying a Took. A Took! Of all the trash she could have dragged home with her!"
"Trash?" Otho Sackville-Baggins was stiff and quiet. "Did he not bring family money with him to the table?"
"He did not." Liam lifted his chin at the atrocity. "He wanted to steal her off to the hall in Tookbank!. My little girl will live in no hall I tell you. I'm not giving over my blessing until he's got a respectable place right here in Hobbiton. If he wants her bad enough, he'll do it. But I know he will."
"He's always been a bit of a troublemaker, that one." Otho agreed as he chewed on the tip of his pipe. "Keeps stealing Maggot's cabbages, I hear. For a servant class, I can forgive it. But with all that Took money a day's stroll away -- that boy's hardly starving."
"I'll give Bailey a year or less. She'll give up on him soon enough. He just better keep his grubby hands off her in the mean time." He slurped up a new chug from his tall mug. "When my son gets home, he'll be sure to strong arm Peregrin off, but until then I still have old Chookbitten's sword over my mantle," he sat up and wagged a sausagy finger, "and I'm not afraid to use it."
Otho narrowed his dark eyes into the sun to look across the river and up the road to the Hill. "They been spending a lot of time up at Bag End, you said." He looked back over at Liam, "You don't think he's courting Frodo Baggins for a slab of the land, do you?"
Liam's face paled a bit. He looked out over the same river and up the road toward the same Hill. Liam exchanged serious looks with Otho and then he tried to shrug it off. "It doesn't matter. That there is your land. As soon as you get Bilbo's will overturned, you can claim a wrongful sale and take it back. Peregrin won't be able to support her without Baggins or Took money, and the engagement will fold."
Otho gazed easily over the town square and spoke a little quieter. "The Sheriff won't support my claim. Bilbo left him a great deal of spoils to make sure of that. The Mayor won't get in the middle of it. The next step up would be the head family in the West Farthing, but that is, of course-"
"The Tooks," Liam swore.
"Exactly."
"I must be cursed." Liam grumbled out an indignant groan. "I've got a daughter-in-law and an intended son-in-law that are both going to keep milking my hard-earned goods until I'm dead on a dirt floor!"
Otho's eyes grazed across the town common and snagged on a pair.
Samwise Gamgee leaned his shoulder against the corner of the postal booth. Sam's pants and vest were auburn and burnt orange as if he tried to match his hair today, complete with silky threads embroidered to highlight the paisley print. But the vest was snug around his waist, and his white shirt had deliberately baggy sleeves all the way to his wrists so that no one could tell the extra inch his arms and waist had grown the last two years. Even his eyes had grown up. He used to smile like the sunshine and enjoy as many simple pleasures as children, but now Sam's eyes were melancholy to watch the children play in the fountain.
Frodo Baggins stepped out of the shadowed building with a letter in his hand. He was in a fresh green set of trousers, a finely decorated mustard-colored vest, and a respectable, deep brown coat over his shoulders. The young man dropped his packages between his feet and Sam's to tear the letter hungrily open.
Otho shifted the angle of his head. His eyes tilted back to Liam. "That mangirl, whispers say he's growing fond of her?"
Liam looked over that way and watched as well. He nodded, "Or so Bailey reports."
Otho looked back at the pair of men outside the postal's office. "I think I know how we might lure the Mayor's concerns towards this direction."
Dear Frodo,
'Tis an honor to receive a note of your confidence and respect. Edoras is in full bloom this spring. We are preparing for a grand festival to remember our heroes that fell at Helm's Deep and celebrate their victory. Although you four Hobbits were not with us during that endeavor, Faramir insists that your sacrifices are symbolized as well, as the victory would have been for naught had you not succeeded.
My new husband speaks as often of you as I and asks me to extend grand salutations to you all. I would also like to blow a kiss to Meriadoc's innocent cheek. I pray he his happy and healthy. Please tell him he remains a warm memory.
In honor of your request, I have inquired the local authorities to report any families or stories concerning Menkind the size of, or near to, Hobbit height. Unfortunately, no good news has come forth. There are occasionally stories of smallish men traveling along the West Road, but there is not but guesses as to where they hailed from or where they were going. I have my rangers alerted to inquire the small folk the next time they are encountered, but as it is often years between sightings, I fear any news will come far too late for your intentions. My deepest regrets that I could not produce effective results. I pray the answers will come to you soon.
You may not yet have received your invitation to the happy event occurring in Minas Tirith this spring, but I could not pass up this opportunity to tell you all that I look forward to visiting with you and yours during the festivities.
Forever in your debt,
Queen Eowyn of Rohan
Frodo dropped the paper to his side with frustration and sighed stiffly.
"What did she say?" Sam asked. Frodo handed the letter blindly over.
Sam took the letter and squinted as he read it. His lips moved a little as his eyes scanned along. Soon enough, his mouth flattened with the same disappointment that Frodo was feeling, and then his brows twitched.
He folded the letter back into thirds, "With all due respect to Gondor, what happy event in Minas Tirith is worth you traveling out all that way?"
Frodo didn't have an answer right away. He folded his arms at his chest and tucked his chin down to stare at the ground.
Sam watched him at an angle.
Frodo's head bounced up like an apple in water. "A wedding."
Sam blinked.
"Aragorn and Arwen were waiting until after the ailed country recovered before they wed."
"Ah." Sam dropped his eyes to the letter in his hands, then lifted them again as he offered it back to Frodo. "I didn't think they'd wait this long."
Frodo grinned as he picked up his stuff again. "They've already waited longer."
Sam shrugged a little and picked up a backpack of new food.
Frodo went quiet. He folded the letter over twice more and stuffed it sadly into his coat pocket.
Sam looked soberly over. "You're going to be holding your breath until you receive news, aren't you?"
Frodo joined him shoulder to shoulder and they started strolling automatically. "To a degree," he admitted.
"No news is good news, I suppose." Sam commented quietly. His eyes snagged on something at a vendor's table, but broke loose before his pace slowed. His voice brightened, but there was anger hiding in the tone. "As long as no husband comes to claim her she's all yours, right?"
Frodo's feet stopped, insulted.
Sam had taken a step or two on, but slowed and turned, "I'm sorry, Frodo, but you act like you've taken her already. Or is it her that's taken you?"
Frodo stepped up to him so he could keep his voice down, but wasn't all out angry. "I haven't done anything of the sort. And she hasn't tried to lure me to that end either."
Sam nodded and shrugged a little, not necessarily believing him, but that wasn't the issue. He needed to point it out to Frodo before someone louder did. "Fine."
Frodo lifted a brow at the easy yield.
Sam looked him in the eye, casual but quiet about it. "Just don't let your guard down too far. It's been bad enough having to watch you suffer with a broken soul from the Ring. I don't want to see you start all over again with a broken heart."
It took a heartbeat to fully imagine what Sam was trying to say, and then Frodo smiled big with appreciation in his eyes. He nodded and stepped out to start walking again. "Thank you, Sam. But I'm all right."
Sam adjusted the sack of new bought groceries on his shoulder and walked with him. They were out of step and shuffled slowly, staying close enough to mutter their conversation privately even in the lively market.
"You were right about that necklace," Frodo told him. "It worked very well at first, but it started making the rest of us equate Lauren with the evilness of the Ring. It was a bigger relief to take it off of her that I would have thought." He turned and muttered towards Sam's shoulder. "I stopped treating her like she was already married to someone else. This much is true. But she's still not married to me. It doesn't take a necklace to remind me of that."
Sam grinned over his shoulder, "Yeah but. . . how are you gonna hold out? With her living with you and all?" Sam was already chuckling when Frodo lightly shoved him. "I see how hungry your eyes get."
Frodo's voice was no longer quiet and secretive. "I shouldn't think I would have any need to prove my level of responsibility to you or anyone."
Sam nearly snickered at that.
An innocent onlooker, aged Garisha Bolgers, grinned too and nodded agreement at Frodo as she passed. "You tell him, Frodo." Garisha's seasoned eyes winked at Sam as she turned and walked on.
Frodo crossed his arms and lifted his chin with pride. "See?"
Sam rolled his eyes.
"Samwise Gamgee!" Mrs. Hildiberth called from her open-faced shop. She was waving him over. "Can I interest you in a pretty new skirt for the Misses?"
Sam tried to smile but whined under his breath. "Oi, those things are expensive."
Frodo glanced a smile over at Sam's predicament.
"And you Frodo Baggins?"
Suddenly, Frodo stopped feeling sorry for Sam.
"Lauren's been in that same dress for months," she stated easily.
They pair stepped up slowly, trying to formulate reasonable excuses, but Mrs. Hildiberth knew her business well. If she didn't make her special sale, she'd mention their decline during afternoon tea, and in good time, their answer (edited for effectiveness) would come back around to bite them in the hindquarters. "Do tell, Mister Baggins. What does she wear when she's washing her one and only dress?"
Although it had been cleaned several times, Frodo didn't realize that until this very moment. "I'm never home when that happens," he pointed out and set a foot on the lower step to face her boldly. "I agree she should have a few options, but I should think not to buy her a new dress lest she get the wrong impression of the gift."
Mrs. Hildeberth, with her tidy curls and rosy but aging cheeks, stood tall on her store's front porch and pretended to take this casually. "Perhaps you could consider paying her a tangible wage so she could shop for herself, Mister Baggins." All this, apparently, had been well discussed and decided amongst a bunch of ladies around a lot of tea.
He scrambled quickly without letting it show in his face. "I don't know what size she is," Frodo said.
"She's a twenty-four inch dress length and thirty inches around the bosom."
His mind stumbled upon thirty inches of tape across the landscape of baby-soft skin and those two blushing little things attached to the tips of them. Frodo blinked hard.
Sam finally stepped up and tapped Frodo's arm with the back of his fingers. "I've an idea." He turned to Frodo and discussed this all in front of Mrs. Hildeberth as if a mediator between the man of the house and the grapevine. "Lauren has been our guest for over three months." He gave a point to Mrs. Hildeberth. "She does need a second dress." And looked to Frodo, "And we do need to concern ourselves with wrong impressions. After all, we are still waiting for responses to all those letters of inquiry you sent to every land in Middle Earth."
Frodo nodded at that as if taking all this in, but he knew it all already. Sam was slyly informing the grapevine of Hobbiton exactly what they wanted the rest of the town to know.
Sam continued, "My wife has plenty of dresses, and I'm too shy on funds this season to overflow her wardrobe any further. But as Rose and I are friends to Lauren as much as you are, perhaps we could share the cost of a dress, from all of us, as a token of our new friendship."
Frodo gave Sam a deep nod, impressed with the suggestion. Instead of both of them being in trouble for not buying two dresses, Sam bought the tale of Frodo's honorable intentions, kind hearts, and lack of improper business in Bag End for the price of one.
Frodo looked up at Mrs. Hildeberth. "She's not entirely Hobbit. Would you agree to free tailoring if unknown alterations are required?"
Mrs. Hildeberth nodded regally and showed them in, "Of course."
"Orange." Frodo finally pushed on his foot to lift onto the step. "She'd do well in orange."
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Message from Gondor
Now Frodo had a string wrapped paper bundle slung over his shoulder too. He and Sam walked close enough to mutter improper comments and snicker like troublemaking boys as they lazily climbed up the road to go home.
Lauren was in Frodo's front yard with hair tied back in a simple string at her shoulders and wet dirt smudged on her skirt. She was pulling just enough carrots and potatoes for supper. She saw them coming from almost a quarter mile away and grinned at how easy and slow they strolled so they could enjoy their talk.
Lauren matched this happy sight up with Rosie's words of comfort. Don't worry about the liquor or the smoke or the secrets, Lauren. Don't worry about what you don't know. He'll tell you in good time. See how easy he smiles? See how solid their friendship is? These are all good signs. Cultivated it. Don't dampen it with the mundane things we ladies are infamous for. . . .
She had gathered enough carrots, potatoes, onions and celery to cook more than enough for two people. They were all gathered in a basket beside her in the drying mud when the two men stepped up to the gate.
"Don't pull the last four rows of carrots yet," Sam pointed firmly to her feet. "They're not ready for another month."
"Aye, m'lord," Lauren humbly nodded. "You told me that yesterday."
Frodo was oblivious of the intensity of the exchange. Frodo pealed off from Sam to move into his gate. His eyes slid to Lauren with evil sparkles as though she was some forbidden delicacy that he decided to consume anyway.
Lauren was unsure if that look was what she was supposed to cultivate. She shuffled on her small, mud-covered feet, "Mister Samwise?"
Sam paused and turned.
"Would you and your ladies like to come over for dinner this evening?"
Sam lifted an eyebrow, "Do you have you enough for us?"
"I'm roasting a whole chicken." She motioned at the dirty vegetables in the basket. "And I'm collecting accessories as we speak."
Frodo leaned an elbow on the gate and exclaimed with surprise. "You did in one of the chickens by yourself!?"
Lauren smiled- caught- at his response. She pointed over at Sam timidly. "Actually, it's one of his chickens."
Sam was less than charmed. He stomped a few paces back to Frodo's gate. "What?"
"And Rose did the doing in," Lauren told them quickly. "We traded you see. Rose and me. Two chickens of equal size and age. That way I don't have to eat a chicken I've raised."
Sam rattled his head, "What?"
"It wasn't Maela, was it?" Frodo joked.
Lauren's face blossomed at Frodo's lighthearted response and tried to explain enough to ease Sam's uncertain mouth. "Rose showed me how to bleed and clean a bird for cooking. In return, I'd like to give her a night off from actually cooking it."
Sam exchanged looks with Frodo and sneered over to Lauren, "She knows we've been invited?"
"Well yes, of course she does."
"And she said yes?"
Lauren shrugged. "Wel... yes."
He blatted at Lauren like she was an idiot. "Then why are you asking me?"
Frodo smiled.
A grin flickered to life on Lauren's face, "She loves you enough to pretend like you make those decisions."
Frodo tossed his head back with laughter.
Sam scratched the back of his neck. His eyes narrowed at Lauren, but her comment had lightened his mood a bit. He nodded respectfully at Lauren and promised to be over in a couple of hours.
"Mister Baggins!" yelled a boy in a full run up the hill to them. He was young and dirty, interrupted from playing to rush out and fetch them. "Mister Gamgee!"
Lauren stepped up to the fence with concern. Sam stepped up and Frodo stepped out to meet the boy head on with worry on their brows. "What's the matter?"
"There are riders coming: two knights and two elves." The boy stopped and heaved. "The captain has asked after you. Says he carries a message from Gondor."
Frodo and Sam exchanged glances. "Did the captain mention his name?" Frodo asked.
The boy nodded as he fought to catch his breath. "The front man claims to be Sir Legolas."
The pair smiled at the news and quickly unloaded the shopping from their backs. Lauren was dumbstruck at all the sudden action as Sam shoved his shopping over the fence at her. Frodo did the same thing with a smile. "We're going to have company. Get cleaned up and put this on straight away." She took the package quizzically.
Sam pointed at the boy, "Fetch Peregrin Took and Meriadoc Brandbuck to Bag End. They'll be a reward for your swiftness."
The boy nodded and took off again.
Frodo continued with Lauren. "Prepare a second chicken. Maybe a third. We're feeding a hall's worth tonight."
Sam reached over the fence to point at her. "Enlist Rosie's help. Bailey's too if you can get her here."
Lauren nodded as she shuffled nervously, ready for action.
Frodo reached across the fence to put a hand on her arm. "I know you can serve a feast befitting a king's table." He nodded the compliment to her, "Now is the time to honor me with it."
A smile blossomed across her face with big shiny eyes and a blush on her cheeks as if he'd just kissed her. "I will."
Frodo winked at her before turning away and trotted off with Sam.
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Legolas Visits
They ran back towards town and over the bridge waving at Legolas and his companions. The riders had already drawn the attention of everyone in the town common, and when Legolas bowed his smiling face with regalness at Frodo and Sam, everyone stopped whispering to listen.
"I bring good tidings from King Aragorn of Gondor." Legolas greeted calmly. "The King is taking Lady Arwen as his wife on the April moon this spring. His Excellency expressly requests the company of you and yours to the festivities."
It pulled new, childlike excitement out of Frodo and Sam, and it lit new fires of happy gossip to the grand population of Hobbiton. The rest of the day was frantic with happiness and Bag End was a rush of preparations for visitors.
When the party walked their horses up the hill to Bag End, the Men and Elves towered over Sam and Frodo who rode on the necks of the giant beasts. Merry trotted along, having just met up with them from the fields, and Pippin was waiting in the front yard with Bailey attached to his hand. He stepped out to the road front of Bag End and greeted the visitors with a joke. "Leave it to Legolas to remind us how terribly short we are!"
Bailey stepped back to the porch with Rose and Lauren. Firmly held to a hip, even Elanor watched it all in stupefied silence. Even the most knowledgeable of the ladies had only heard of Legolas, all three of them were sufficiently awestruck at the first sight of the giant horses and tall riders. They fell into an unexpected level of humility.
Four excited Hobbits greeted the four visitors warmly, even if the two Knights and extra Elf had to introduce themselves. One by one, they climbed off their horses, lowered to one knee, and bowed their heads to the hobbits as their names were announced. The knights removed their helmets and showed their smiles to shake hands of honor with them. The elf bowed to the Hobbits with a pleasant and regal smile.
They tied all six horses to the fence for the time being, not caring that they completely blocked the road from letting anyone else pass. And Frodo ushered them to come and rest from their journey. The eight men dribbled through the gate one by one, but it was Legolas who stopped on the front step first.
"Now there is a beautiful sight," Legolas commented quietly at the gaggle of ladies, drawing the attention of the boisterous hobbits and the relaxing travelers. He lowered to one knee only to match her height as he bowed his head at her. "You must be the fair Rosie Cotton." Rosie's rosy face was smiling through her shiny red curls. She had on a dress of rich green and white lace, and an accessory of a cheeky, redheaded baby girl in a white calico dress at her hip. It wasn't so obvious at first glance of her, but the bodice was not entirely tied for the swell on her lower belly. She bowed her head honorably at the elf and men.
"Forgive me for correcting you." Sam stepped up proudly beside Legolas. "But that fine lady is Rosie Cotton Gamgee, that's our daughter Elanor, and that one there is going to be little Samwel."
Legolas glanced back at Sam. "You've been busy."
Sam beamed proudly.
"Tis' a pleasure." Legolas told her and looked to the lady next to her.
Bailey had milk colored skin and pink cheeks against a soft bundle of raven colored curls pulled back from her face. Her pale dress was the color of spring cherry blossoms and had the ruffles to go with it. Her lips were cherry red and her white teeth smiled in delighted surprise at the noble manners of these men.
Sam was there, so he continued. "That there is the lady Bailey Bracegirdle for the time being. She has so thoroughly stolen Pippin's heart that she has already made plans to steal his name too."
"Congratulations," Legolas honored her with a full smile that made the girl blush a little bit more when she thanked him. He looked to the last lady.
Lauren's hair was as straight as Legolas', and though it was brushed down her shoulders, it was clear she had small, round ears. Dark eyes and dusk colored lips matched her honey complexion, but it was the new dress that grabbed Frodo's breath for an instant. As opposed to the green manchild's dress she bought in Bree, this dress was actually designed by a Hobbit. The rich, dark rust skirt was trimmed with silk ribbons. The bushy sleeves accented the thinness of her waist, and the lazy cut of the neckline exaggerated just how much skin wasn't wearing a necklace.
Frodo was behind Legolas, practically forgotten at the moment, and felt his stomach stir into a drunken soup just by the sight of her.
Sam fought for the right words to introduce her, but it wasn't her beauty, it was the lack of standard introduction for a woman in her place. "This is... Lauren." The missing last name was suddenly obvious. "She is uh, in Frodo's care and serves as his housemaid until we find her family."
Legolas nodded back, but his brows knitted with confusion, disbelief, or both. "Tis' an honor."
With a look of uncertainty, Lauren nodded obediently to him.
Rose spouted with smiles and welcomes as the barmaid she once was. "Come on in, gents. We've tea and biscuits ready." Rosie turned into the house and started them all moving again. "Take your armor off in the hall, if you please. You'll scratch the furniture."
The front table had been moved to another room and make floor space and the ladies had already laid out thick blankets and large pillows for the Menkind sit and rest. Rosie apparently had taken command of serving the guests down to the finest detail and Lauren was busy in the kitchen, apparently in command of cooking up the giant dinner. Bailey taught Elanor how to serve the men tea in the front room and the little girl's giggle charmed every handsome face that she gazed upon, large and small.
Frodo didn't think about it that he sat in his fireside chair to talk to Legolas and his companions who were already considered friends. Sam and Pippin took up the other hobbit-sized chairs in the room, all the way down to a stool that had been pulled up for Pippin to straddle as he joked and commented on other tales. Merry rested his folded elbows on the high back of the chair Sam occupied and kicked one foot casually over the other as he leaned.
It took little time to catch up on the news of other lands and old friends. The tea was fresh and the scones were sweetened with apricots. The women soon disappeared back into the kitchen and left the men to their anxious inquiries and laughing tales.
"I see an odd number here," Legolas' suspicious eyes slid to Meriadoc with a hint of a grin.
Merry understood the comment a split second before anyone else. "I'm still shopping."
Legolas nodded. "Shop quickly or you'll have an empty chair by your side at the King's table."
Pippin glanced back to Frodo. The idea was worth some thought. "Are you going to take Lauren?"
Frodo's first response was to shake his head. "Not as my housemaid." He leaned back in his big chair and explained. "She's the one I wrote you about - the girl we found wounded in the pond."
"We've been traveling for two months to deliver invitations." Legolas shook his head softly. "I received no letter."
Sam and Frodo, Merry and Pippin, exchanged fast glances before settling in to tell the tale and query the extensive knowledge of Legolas and his companions.
Tendell was as pale and finely dressed as Legolas. He was first to point out Lauren had Elfish hair, but not Elfish ears, and it was unheard of to find an Elf so small.
Of the two Gondorian Knights: bushy-haired Sir Wallace explained small Menkind were terribly uncommon but hardly unheard of, and easy-smiling Sir Ramsy reported hearing tales that a race of smallish Menkind actually lived in the Southern Continent. Over time, one or two families had ventured up the river into Gondor and even into Rohan to homestead. But he'd no vision of the race being Hobbit-small, so he couldn't verify if Lauren shared a commonality with that belief.
Frodo explained that he was still awaiting responses from Lorien and Gondor. He hoped he would hear word before they needed to leave for the King's wedding so he wouldn't have to take her to Gondor himself. "It wouldn't be appropriate to take my housemaid as my escort."
Legolas' brows tucked just enough to grin. "Housemaid," he echoed the ridiculous notion.
Pippin pointed an accusing finger at Frodo. "The only difference between a housemaid and a wife is where she sleeps."
Frodo draped his elbow patiently on the arm of his chair and took up a sip of tea.
Sam sat forward and sobered his smile, "Actually, Frodo's right, Legolas. Until we have confirmation from her family that she is an unpromised maiden, she should remain no higher than his servant."
Legolas lifted a brow at Sam. "And if, perchance, you never receive any confirmation? What then?"
Merry rubbed his chin seriously. "Hadn't thought of that." Sam glanced at Frodo. Frodo had thought of it and still had no answers. He nodded somberly to Legolas that he had a good point.
Lauren came in at that moment, but clearly ignorant of the conversation that preceded her, and all men slammed their mouths closed.
Lauren stopped at the edge of the room and announced softly. "My lords, there is a bowl of fresh water and towels waiting for you on the back porch. When you are finished washing, supper will be served to you in the back hall."
Legolas, naturally, smiled at her with the most polite of thanks, "You charm us with your hospitality, my lady."
Lauren bowed an honored chin at Legolas, smiled bashfully at him, and flicked her shining eyes to Frodo for a brief second before turning away and moving back into the kitchen.
The silence remained a long moment before Legolas turned to the small Hobbit in the biggest chair who had clearly settled in as a master of his castle.
"In
whatever course your investigation leads you," Legolas said, "I pray the word
is good, for Gondor and Rivendell would rejoice to hear of your comfort and
companionship."
Frodo stood and reluctantly thanked him. Legolas came carefully to his feet and
followed him out toward the back porch. Pippin was the first to pop up and
follow too. "What about me? I'm the one that's getting hitched."
Legolas kept his head low to walk through the house and smiled his teeth at Pippin. "Yes, of course, we'll rejoice for you too, Peregrin Took. But you're success is no surprise. With your charms and love of fun, we all knew it was only a matter of time before you attracted the prettiest of the blushing maids."
As planned, Pippin walked taller at the compliment, and it wasn't twenty-four hours before he boasted about the description to Bailey, earning himself a blush, a kiss, and a peek. . . all at Legolas' expense.
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A Feast
Frodo came back in with clean hands and face with more interest in the discovery than anyone else. The ladies had sent them into the back porch to wash only so they could pull the comfortable seating pads around to the table for their tall guests. They stood to the side as the men came in, dutifully aproned, and proud of their presentation.
A gentle fire and candelabras lit the hall bright and warm. Three tables were pushed end to end, dressed with two vases of spring flowers and three large roasted chickens. Carrots, celery, tomatoes dressed the platters. Potatoes were served in two forms. Apples were sliced and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. Orange slivers were twisted to form flower-petals shapes, and small bouquets of purple grapes dressed dishes as decor. Bread overflowed from straw baskets in hot rolls, crusty loaves, and crunchy flat bread. Three blueberry pies cooled on a shelf and a bottle of wine was already uncorked and ready to be poured.
Sam stopped at the end of the table to comment, "I did not think you're kitchen was this big."
Rosie called out over the table. "It was a multiple kitchen effort, luv."
"So the mess is at our house," Sam muttered.
The men made themselves comfortable around the table. Hobbit's sat in small chairs and stools, Menkind and Elves sat comfortably on their knees. Lauren motioned Frodo over to the head of the table and poured his brass goblet first. "Shall I eat in the kitchen?" She whispered an offer, as she was supposed to be only his housemaid and appearances mattered today.
Frodo glanced up in surprise and shook his head. "No." He motioned Merry to move over a seat, who did so with quick and silent understanding. Frodo touched her shoulder and pointed to the left hand chair with his middle finger. "Sit there."
Soft laughter and smiling tales filled up the hall as they sat and started to serve themselves. To Frodo's right sat Legolas, who was the first to offer compliments to Lauren for phenomenal meal. Lauren quickly shared compliments with Bailey and Rose as it was very much a group effort. On a bench next to Legolas, Elanor sat between her mommy and daddy, grabbing handfuls from both plates in reach. Next to Lauren, Merry and Sir Ramsy talked of politics as they gathered full plates for themselves. Pippin held Bailey's hand under the table as if no one was supposed to see it, and talked across the table with Sir Wallace about mutual friends they didn't realize they had. At the end, Tendell was half turned next to Sir Ramsy, smiling wide to listen and learn of friends and memories.
It felt odd to be at the head. Frodo took in the sight of his large and full table surrounded by smiling friends as if he suddenly realized success. Lauren passed him a basket of bread from which he pulled out a dinner roll with a smile, and passed it on to Legolas. "No, we had to fallow the sheep pasture and let it heal. In fact, we're considering plowing out the back side of the Hill to farm a crop strictly for wages."
Legolas pulled a slice of crunchy flat bread from the basket. He passed the basket on to Sam and he looked curiously at the triangle of bread. "What crop will you plant?"
Sam too took out another slice of the curious flat bread. Sun-kissed eyebrows knitted hard and mean.
Frodo sipped his goblet, oblivious at first. "Spinach. Maybe strawberries We're not sure what kind of seed we'll—"
Sam set an elbow on the table so hard that the thump sounded loud and hollow through the hall. He held up the pie-shaped bread to catch Frodo's attention. "This is Lembas bread."
Other's at the table started to quiet at the discovery of Elfish bread at the table.
Legolas asked with strange grin. "Who can I thank for such a compliment?"
"I made it." Lauren swallowed her bite dryly, as she took in Sam's eyes, feeling suddenly in trouble.
Frodo plucked a third slice of it from the basket still in Sam's hands. He was the first to risk a bite.
Legolas smiled as he looked curiously at it. "What were your ingredients?"
"Flour, shorting, and butter folded over a few dozen times. Seasoned with basil and flavored salt before baking."
Legolas took a nibble with a grin just as Frodo was swallowing. He snuck a strange look over at her.
"Tis a different flavor," Legolas admitted, "but a good one."
Sam looked over. "It's still Lembas bread, isn't it?" Was this a clue to Lauren's roots?
"It isn't Elfish waybread if that's what you're suggesting," said Tendell down the table. "But it carries the same concept, and it's spiced differently." He leaned over to tell Lauren directly. "It's very good."
Merry grinned as he nibbled a sliver of juicy chicken from his fingers. "Perhaps this explains her Elfish hair."
"But not her ears." Legolas pointed out. He studied her with a soft grin as he settled in to continue eating. His finger waved from his own ear to Frodo's, "Pointed ears and pointed ears do not make round ears. You're certainly part Manchild if nothing else."
Frodo turned to her and lowered his voice, concerned of this clue. "But how did you know the recipe for Elfish bread?"
Lauren shrugged painfully. "I don't know. I thought I just made it up."
Legolas pulled over the dish of potatoes to serve himself up a helping. "It's too complex to make it up. . . too different." He passed the dish to Frodo. "You learned it from someone." The girl's brows were starting to slant with this news, so Legolas smiled again. "Do not fret. Every clue helps."
Frodo turned to Legolas to inquire how this recipe could have fallen into a woman the size and shape of Lauren and Legolas offered a few possibilities.
Lauren listened intently as passed the potatoes to Merry, but Merry pulled her attention with a mumbled tucked near her ear. "Don't worry, miss Lauren. Even if we do find your family, you'll not lose us." He passed the potatoes on and took her hand under the table, holding it strong with the promise. "Especially Frodo."
Sam heard Merry's comment and tucked his eyes to his dish. There was a knot in his stomach about all this. It didn't help that Meriadoc was already giving his blessing that she stay with Frodo forever.
Each and every one of them nibbled until the platters were clean and their bellies were full. Rose was relieved before the meal was entirely over so she could to tend to Elanor and then tend to her tired, pregnant self. Bailey and Lauren seemed to delight in getting to know each other as they cleaned up the hall and kitchen.
Since no hobbit house was large enough to offer beds to the towering visitors, Frodo offered the use of his lush yard to pitch tent, and Bag End for any incidental needs. Sam secured a safe post in his yard to tie up the huge horses. Pippin gathered feed and water. Sir Wallace and Ramsy pitched tent. Legolas and Tendell unpacked the horses, scrubbed off the road dust and brushed their coats to a shiny clean.
As dusk fell over the hills, Hobbits from town collected on the road. They hung out at Frodo's fence between Bag End and Bagshot Row with pipes and pigs on leashes to gawk at the visitors. In due time, Merry shooed off the onlookers, reminding them that it wasn't a circus, even though the visitors didn't care if they were stared at or not. Once camp was set and the horses were resting comfortably, the eight men gathered once more to sit under the fading sunlight and enjoy the Hobbit tradition of sharing a smoke.
Sam was the first to go as he noticed the lights being blown out in the window of his kitchen. Pippin left a minute later to take Bailey home before her father worried. Lauren followed Merry to the front gate with the last blueberry pie. She kissed him on the cheek as she gave it over.
Merry pretended to be shy about it and whispered to her to save all her kisses for Frodo. Neither of the pair tried to hide behind a veil of 'housemaid' this time. Lauren just tucked a blush to glance back at Frodo, and Frodo bit his lower lip before beaming casually at Meriadoc. He gave his friend a strong pat on the shoulder to bid him good night.
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Bagshot #3
Brown eyes leered at the trio from inside a porthole window. "Well, she's bought Merry for certain." Sam grumbled as he violently scrubbed a rag in the cold laundry bucket below the window. "Made up the recipe. What nonsense!"
Rose held her large stomach and waddled up behind him. "Sam, that's yesterday's wash water."
He halted indignantly and flapped the rag down into the dirty water. "What's it still doing here?" He shook the water off his hands and stepped to the cupboard. There still weren't any clean ones.
"You didn't pour it out."
"Me?" He spat.
Her hand held the belly as if to protect the baby from his bad mood and her eyes glared with disbelief. "I can't pick it up, Sam!"
He didn't acknowledge her. "There're no rags in here. We can't possibly be out of rags." He walked out the tubroom door and disappeared into the bedroom.
Rose put a palm on her forehead as if the effort would keep a headache from emerging. She was far too exhausted and uncomfortable to deal with another one of Sam's sour moods. She wandered into the front room and looked down at Elanor snoozing fitfully in the bassinette – the very same bassinette that needed to be available within the next two months, but new furniture was turning into an impossible daydream. The Gamgee house was consuming a lot more food, and Frodo's acreage had been producing less and less. Lately, Sam spent most of his monthly allotments during grocery trips into town. He was still too embarrassed to admit to Frodo that he needed a higher wage.
He came back out of the bedroom with an old shirt and wadded it up for use as a giant rag. He stormed over to his writing desk and stuffed the rag into the spilt pool of 'orc blood'. The ink had spread over a few of his numbered notes he was working on this morning. He would simply have to refigure his numbers another day, but it fired Sam into an explosive wrath to be so repetitively interrupted from counting up the bad news.
Rose settled down into a soft seat, sighed, and propped her elbows together on her closed knees. "I could always hire out at the pub again."
Sam's mouth was tight. He was angry with her for even offering. "You will do nothing of the sort."
Rose put her palms on the deep end of the chair and leaned back on locked elbows so her belly could pop out in front of her. "Well why don't you hire out at the pub!"
He turned to her with a wad of wet and permanently blackened shirt in his hand and pointed an oil-black finger. "I work this land for this house. If I stop working the land, we stop living in the house."
Rose's eyes rolled. "I'm sure you and Frodo can make an arrangement."
"Yeah? Well I'm not so sure." Sam turned himself back around and continued to clean up the ink spill he was still angry at himself for spilling. "All the arrangement's he's been making have been between him and other folks." He picked up the rag and wadded up the dripping paper. "They're just leaving me out in the cold."
"What do you mean?"
He gathered the mess in his hands and stuffed it in the burn box. "Like this idea to farm the back slope for a winter crop? Tonight's the first I've heard of it. He never talked to me about it. But Merry and Pippin knew. They were telling everyone about their intended trip to Tookbank to get the seed."
Rose's eyes shifted to take this in.
"And Lauren, she's got him and Merry wrapped around her little finger. She keeps feeding Meriadoc these pies, and Frodo doesn't get jealous. I can't figure out what she's doing to turn them both on so much without a hint of rivalry. She'd have Pippin too if he weren't already chained at the ankle."
"Chained at the ankle," Rose echoed with a new height in her brow.
"She's up to something, I tell you." He shook his head and finally flopped down in his low and deep master's chair. "I can't put my finger on it." He glared into the pathetic fire and lay elbows and arms on the wood-carved armrests of the old-upholstered chair.
Rose sat up again, wrapping her arms around her belly lowering her eyes to the ground. "You should talk to him."
Sam nodded a little, "I tried to today." He winced and scratched his scalp from his bangs to the back of his head, leaving his sweaty hair in a carrot-colored rats nest. "I'll try again I suppose."
Rose closed her eyes just so she could sit there and try to meditate. The gently growing pain in the small of her back throbbed ever on. The skin of her feet was so swelled up that the hair follicles itched painfully. The muscles behind her shoulder blades felt weak and stretched beyond belief. Her breasts felt like two giant, raw bruises. And the baby used all his might to kick at her stomach.
Sam was oblivious to all of this. He stared at the fire thinking of nothing but how to foil Lauren's evil deed. "Maybe you should talk to her." He finally said, looking over.
Rose slowly opened her eyes to him. Her face was pale and her eyes were weak.
Sam suddenly forgot about Lauren. "Are you all right?"
"I'm pregnant," she said.
He wondered if this was one of those moments he was supposed to feel guilty about that. "It's almost over," he offered.
"The easy part is almost over." She corrected humorlessly, pushing herself to her feet and not looking easy about any of it. "The hard part has yet to begin."
Sam brought up a hand to rest his forehead in his fingers, but saw the black ink covering half his hand and fingers. Even thought it looked to have already dried, he didn't want to smear it all over his forehead. Sam winced at his hand. It wavered on the elbow and fell back to the arm of the chair.
Rosie turned to the bedroom and shuffled off without a word.
Sam listened to her settled into bed and then heard his baby girl snoozing softly in the bassinette behind him. Elanor always looked at him with such big eyes and complete trust, but Sam didn't have as many answers as the baby needed. He didn't have the answers that Rose needed, and he could usually talk honestly about this stuff with Rose.
He pushed out of his chair and moved back to the writing table. He reached into a small drawer and glanced over at the dark and silent bedroom as he retrieved the tobacco and soon snuck out the back hobbit hole to keep the smell away from Rose.
Lately the stuff wasn't in its usual state of 'undesirable'. Just a whiff of it could make Rose turn a sick shade of green and sent her violently off to bend over in a dark spot of the yard. And she could smell it on him for hours after he smoked. But this time, Sam knew it was only temporary. She'd be okay with it as soon as the baby was born, but until then, tobacco was downright forbidden.
Sam crossed his legs in the dirt behind his house and slumped his shoulders. He stuffed crispy stale tobacco into the pipe, and lit it up with a frown.
Frodo had taken her already. Sam was sure of it. It was clear in his eyes when he looked at her this afternoon. It was atrocious the way he protected her. She had lured him in to the worst of it and now all it took was a sparkly little glance to throw Frodo's decision making off into the trees. And she must have been a professional at it too. Her first order of business had been to shove a wedge between Frodo and his Sam.
"I'll find you out," Sam swore in a whisper. "You're not taking him so easily."
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Elfish Exam
The travelers decided to stay a full day before moving on so that the horses (and themselves) could get a full and refreshing rest before the traveled a hard road through the Misty Mountains. It was a nice lazy day. A collection of fun-loving Hobbits escorted the Men into town for a few hours; introducing them to certain vendors for travel supplies and showing them to the pub to partake in choice ales. Legolas and Tendell remained at Bag End, hanging out in Lauren's kitchen with the guise of instructing her how to bake up fitting, unspoilable food for their trip.
Of course, Lauren was the one of few that never knew it wasn't a guise. The four hobbits and half their ladies knew that the pre-arranged alone time was so the Elves could question Lauren in an unsuspecting forum in the search for her true intentions. Despite Frodo's insistence that this was no longer necessary, all other hobbits, ladies attached, and the one elf with an opinion, agreed that it was a needed safety precaution to protect Frodo.
Legolas and Tendell tucked themselves to a comfortable sit on the bench behind kitchen table and instructed her easily how to bake almost-elfish waybread as they asked her about food preparations just to get her talking. She performed the steps right in front of them and filled in the gaps of the chore to talk about Frodo's hospitality, the King's wedding, and the change of the seasons. But even in the most casual sense, she never mentioned other people she knew, places she'd been... not even to describe the tools of an old kitchen or adventures in previous cooking.
What she
did want to talk about was the elfish hair. So far that she'd met, everyone had
kinky curls in their hair and no one could remind her what she could do with
her long main. When Lauren turned back from the oven and wiped her hands on her
apron, she smiled bashfully at the elves with their smooth faces and smooth
hair. She motioned to the hair behind her own ear. "How do you tied it up like
that?"
Tendell motioned for her to sit down on a bench near him. Lauren sat down and
let him reach behind her ear. "Hobbits don't braid their hair I suppose."
"They have big clips that pin their hair up in a bun, or tie them in bouncy tails." Lauren explained as Tendell worked. "I tried to copy the buns, but my hair keeps falling out. It's so slippery and pointy. I don't think it looks good."
Legolas reached over and curiously pushed back a lock Tendell wasn't working with. "It's thick and strong. You should be proud of it."
Tendell tucked closer to her skull. "What's this?" He combed back a slip of brown hair with his finger and revealed her temple scar.
Legolas peered over his shoulder to study it.
"It's my amnesia scar." Lauren's explained easily without moving away. "We didn't realize it at first, but it was fresh when I got here. Frodo says that was where all my memories probably were. I likely hit a rock when I fell."
"Off of what?" Legolas asked.
Lauren grinned, "We're still working on that."
Curiously, Legolas untangled himself from the table and bench so he could step around and sit down on the other side. He angled his head and pulled back the hair from her other temple, looking for more scars. "Forgive me," he muttered.
She remained still so the elves could search her hair but felt odd and shy about it. Her eye tucked over to see Tendell again working on the braid on her left, but strangely, she didn't look at Legolas to her right. Maybe she knew.
"Do you have a clip?" Tendell asked the other.
Legolas held up a curious part in her hair at the back of her head and used a single hand to pull a clip out off his pocket. He handed it to Lauren, "Hold this for him."
Lauren's eyes turned down to see what Legolas held towards her lap. She brushed her fingers gently against his and used a thumb to roll the tiny clip into her palm.
Legolas felt the fingertips brush against his palm. He was instantly taken aback by the feminine token of romance.
But it wasn't a feminine token of romance. It was something else.
Legolas lifted eyes to Tendell with concern...
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Madly
The gathering of men and hobbits returned in lollygagging pairs and trios. Legolas was pleased to have news when they came back. He and Tendell were in the front room relaxing with tea at the table when Frodo and Sam returned from town. Legolas was straddling the inside bench, and Tendell was straddling the outside bench. Lauren stood at the end of the table behind Legolas wearing an apron and serving them. Her hair was braided and tied just like them. At a glance, she looked like an elf.
Frodo was eager to read the results from Legolas' eyes even as he pulled off his own coat in the front hall. He feared a serious stare or a scowl on the elf's mouth but he found a comfortable smile. The knights were inquired after and purchases were reported and stored away, and the real question of the hour came forth before too long.
Frodo stood in his front room looking over at the three of them at the table. Lauren groping delicate fingers over a palate of lemon bars as she cut them into squares. "Would you like a treat?" She held up a lemon square with one of those easy smiles on her face. It was the kind of smile she smiled when she played with chickens, or dressed up for herself, or spent girlfreindish time with Rose or Bailey. It was the only smile Frodo couldn't put on her face.
He took it from her fingers and dropped his eyes as he took a bite.
Lauren's eyes turned respectfully to Sam to offer him one as well.
Sam took a single step over and took it out of the air, noting the way she looked him in the eyes. She had no smile on her face for him as though she knew he didn't like her, but she wasn't aggressive or defensive with her eyes. The lemon bar was good and sweet, but Sam was to busy to taste it. He glanced at Frodo, who in turn, looked at Legolas, anxious for answers.
Legolas lifted half of his face into a delightful grin. He reached back to Frodo and handed over elfish charm to him.
Frodo took it quizzically, and lifted it to his sights to look at it. It was a beautiful pendent that glittered white in the light. His eyes turned back up to Legolas with even more questions.
Tendell grinned. "Hand it to Lauren."
Lauren put down the knife and wiped her hands on her apron to show Frodo what they had found.
Frodo's expression wasn't getting any happier. He looked Lauren in the eye and handed it to her. Lauren looked at the pendant as much or as little as anyone else would, but she took it with her whole hand, naturally drawing soft fingers along the skin of his hand before taking the knot of silver from it.
It was how she had been flirting with Frodo from the beginning. She had done it with the foul-tasting medicinal mug of tea and with the baby chicks. She did it with forks and fruits and tools and the pekagranetes….
Instead of looking at her through her eyes, Frodo literally looked at her eyes. The left one focused on him with all the warmth and emotion and knowledge he could always see. The right eye was the same except that it had drifted its focus a hair away from the left one.
She rubbed the right eye with embarrassment. "I knew my right eye was weak, but I didn't know I was nearly blind in it. I was afraid you'd think I'd been dumped for my defects."
All this time, he thought her soft fingers were a silent form of her affection, but Lauren was simply groping for distance when she took something from his hands. Frodo muttered the reality somberly. "You've no depth perception."
Lauren gave the pendant back to Legolas, flicked her sleek brown hair over her shoulder and continued to cut the lemon bars. "It's why I can't thread a needle," she admitted.
Sam's angled his head and stepped curiously around to her other side.
Frodo was a little hurt by the reality and Lauren was oblivious to his mistaken perception. Now he saw it. Her fingers were touching their way across the food and a single index finger followed the side of the blade to keep a firm understanding of what it was about to cut.
He moved over to the bench and sat down in front of Legolas with droopy shoulders. It felt like half of her fondness for him was instantly discarded due to his own imagination.
"She's scarred deeply on her temple and the back of her head." Legolas explained. "The scar on her temple wasn't as damaging, but it's fresh and deep. That's the one that took her memory. Perhaps she fell off a wagon and onto a stone. Her eyesight would have lost her in the wilderness and her lack of memory would have twisted her from knowing which way to go. That is likely how she ended up in Hobbiton Pond without any recollection of the journey."
Lauren paid attention to Frodo and Legolas as she worked, but had nothing to say.
"The one on the back of her head could have likely taken her sight. She's had that one a long time, so it's not surprising she'd already learned how to cope with it."
Sam peered
carefully around her right side to see if she'd turn to him. He exchanged
glances with Frodo and Frodo watched as he asked, "Why did she have more memory
when she first woke up than she has now?"
"What do you mean?" Lauren asked.
"Before you were entirely awake, I asked you your name and you answered, 'Lauren.'"
She put the knife down and thought back. The motion to look up into the air made her turn her head a little. She caught a glimpse of Sam and jumped with a gasp. Her palms slapped her chest.
"Her forehead was still healing then." Tandell offered. "The thought paths rerouted themselves around the damage. You caught a glimpse of the memory just as it was being left behind."
Lauren left her palm on her chest, but as soon as she recovered, locked eyes with Sam and glared. Clearly, she wanted to tell him off, tell him to lighten up, hiss the same silent insult he had been giving her, but Lauren knew her place and said nothing.
Sam kept her eyes with his own glare for a long beat before turning away. The girl knew what she needed to know.
"But she thinks through different parts of her mind now," Legolas continued. "What wasn't damaged grew stronger because it's all she's got left to use."
"I'm drain bamaged," she said to Frodo, trying to make a joke of it even if she was still getting accustomed to the news herself.
Frodo reached for a teacup and flipped it bottom side down on the table. He had a difficult time with this question because it meant more to him than he wanted to admit. He thoughtfully dropped a sugar cube into the cup as he asked. "Will she get her memory back?"
Legolas sighed and looked at the woman with soft sympathy, "Random images perhaps, noises, strong moments of emotion. Things will look familiar to her if she sees them again, like home and close family. But her memory as a whole is gone for good. Her previous life will remain nothing more than a forgotten dream."
"Images?" Frodo's ambivalent eyes shifted to her even if his chin didn't.
Legolas exchanged telling grins with Tendell and looked back to Lauren. "Lauren, could you kindly prepare our bedding? I think we are going to retire early tonight."
Lauren put the knife down. Her eyes smiled insidiously even if her mouth refused to. She knew damned well they were sending her away so they could talk about her behind her back. And it was clear her patience with this need was wearing thin. Still, Lauren hadn't forgotten her place. "Aye, m'lord." She lifted a chin and flicked insulted eyes only to Sam as she left the house.
When Frodo turned back to the others with a weary sigh, Legolas smiled big and easy. "I think I'm wearing out my welcome with your housemaid."
Frodo forced a grin but shook his head. "She's not insulted by you; she's insulted by him." He motioned casually back to Sam.
Sam stood by himself, closer to the fire and crossed his arms at his chest. His glare now aimed at Frodo for being referred to as though he weren't present.
Legolas gave Sam and understanding smile. "Sam is just doing his job, Frodo. And he does it quite well," he reminded.
Frodo glanced over at Legolas, and then glanced back at Sam. He tried to smile again but it faded as quickly as he turned away again.
Sam rolled his eyes. He looked up at the ceiling to borrow patience from someone who was no longer there.
Legolas shifted his boot from stretching out in front of him to reaching behind him.
He told this to Sam as much as he told it to Frodo. "You have to keep in mind that what she doesn't remember isn't nearly as intense as what she does remember."
Both flicked curiously.
Legolas lifted his brows with a smile at Frodo. "You are the first face she ever saw; the first person to care for her; and the only person which she has given over complete trust." Legolas knew there was more to this than the surface statement, even if he had no intention of asking what else was there. "You've been living with a virgin mind, Frodo. Any and all you have done with her was her first experience at it."
Sam looked accusingly at Frodo, and Frodo's eyes were wide open. The ring bearer's eyes closed with a slow curse and his hands came to his face to hide the regret that grew there.
"What have you done with her?" Sam accused.
Frodo shook his head too quickly. "Nothing."
Legolas lifted a brow.
Sam flattened his mouth.
Legolas put a palm on the table, grinning about the drama developing but also glad he didn't have to be involved with it. "I don't think she has alternate motives, gentlemen. I think her claims are genuine, but that speaks nothing of the personality within her that she no longer remembers." He gave a wise eye at Sam, "She may well be a con-woman, but if she is, she doesn't remember it." He looked sympathetically back to Frodo, even if the worried Hobbit wasn't looking back at him. "If you still want to find her family you should let her travel with you to Gondor in the spring. So far, all clues point east."
Sam stood on both feet. "Perhaps you could take her back to Gondor with you?"
Frodo sat up and spun around at Sam's insolence.
Legolas sent a glance to Tendell, who in turn started slipping quietly from the room. When gone, Legolas turned back to Sam to answer him. "I'm not going back to Gondor at this time."
Sam's brows knitted angrily at Frodo and Frodo looked insulted and confused back up at Sam. They locked in an icy stare down neither of them fully understood.
"Pardon me, gentlemen." Pippin stepped up to the open window and leaned in. Bailey was in the darkness behind him, but she said nothing. "Sam? Rosie requires your assistance. She's not feeling well."
Sam didn't look at Pippin. He just nodded, turning slowly and breaking the stare at the last minute. He shuffled stiffly out of the house. Pippin hung a little longer in the window than he meant to, giving Frodo a questioning look. Frodo waved it off as he stood and quietly thanked Legolas for all his efforts.
Legolas waited until Pippin, Bailey and Sam were off on their own evening errands before really letting the truth fall to Frodo's feet, and he was smiling wisely when he said it. "If you plan to fall any harder for her, Frodo, you'd better wait until Sam learns to let go."
Frodo looked up at Legolas with grin that was almost embarrassed. "I'm afraid to ask if her feelings came clear in your investigation too."
Legolas flashed a big one at him. He passed the hobbit and patted him once on the shoulder. The elf was going to answer the real question in Frodo's voice whether Frodo wanted to hear it or not.
"Madly."
Frodo's eyes slowly filled and his mouth slowly grinned.
Boots were quiet on the tile as Legolas helped himself out the front door. "Good night."
"Thank you, Legolas."
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Bilbo's Fortune
The crack of dawn was soft and still. Breakfast was hot and quick. With mutual plans to visit Gondor within the year, goodbyes were easy and quiet. Four hobbits stood in the middle of the road with sober grins on their mouths and respect in the outstretched palms of their hands. The four renewed travelers walked their alert horses leisurely out of Hobbiton less than forty-eight hours after they had arrived.
Legolas looked back before he moved around the bend, grinned at them, and bowed his chin one last time. When the party disappeared, it felt like the door to the world closed in their faces.
Meriadoc lowered his hand. His mouth relaxed and opened. It was weird to see Legolas without some plot to save the world making his head spin the whole time. He had wanted so badly for Legolas to stay long enough so she could meet him. She'd never seen an elf before. Merry would settle for just telling her about it, just as he always did, but it was weird to see Legolas again. He and Pippin owed their lives to him, and Merry just now realized that he never told the elf 'thank you'. He looked over at Pippin.
Pippin looked back at him with an unsmiling slack mouth that pretty much said the same thing. They'd see Legolas again in the spring, and it would be weird to see him then too, so there was no reason to fuss. His brows lifted at Merry as if to ask what was next, but quickly realized Merry was no longer the person that distributed those answers. Pippin's brows flicked back down over his eyes, uncomfortable, and tugged at an itch on his ear. He turned away with a strange wince.
Sam's sad brown eyes had fallen to the road in front of him and stayed there for a long, painful minute. He was glad to see the elf again, but memories he hadn't remembered until now started flooding back to the surface of his mind. He hadn't yet looked back at the landscape of the whole event while focusing on the strength of his friendship with Frodo, and now that he had, Sam felt thoroughly used and tossed out with the garbage. Sam didn't look at anybody. He lifted his head only to look at the garden at the bottom of the hill and shuffled off in that direction as he silently reminded himself to learn how to swim.
Frodo had fallen into his own daze as the party left, but it wasn't as heavy or profound. He blinked out of it soon enough and looked strangely at the odd wandering other three. Pippin had silently turned away to climb up the hill with a stiff sigh of duty. Merry had his pinkynail in his teeth to pick some breakfast out as he stepped into the trees, less than hurried. Sam barely lifted his feet as he shuffled down the hill to his own place.
Frodo frowned in thought and then lifted his voice pleasantly. "Anybody want to see Bilbo's fortune?"
Feet shifted. Brows snagged. All three faces turned back to Frodo with distaste at the joke.
Frodo had to turn to meet all three pairs of eyes and landed grimly on Sam's. "Or what's left of it?"
Sam's mouth parted. He shifted back more to Frodo.
Frodo's eyes stayed on him as a show of friendship until he had their complete and undivided attention. He ushered his friends inside the house and inside the den so he could explain what was really happening to Bag End.
Merry hadn't seen the orc-sword up close in a long time, so he took the blade down from the wall and looked it thoughtfully over. Pippin stuffed his hands in his pockets and rested a shoulder on a bookshelf. His eyes tilted warily over at Merry and watched how the man looked down the blade of the sword, tested its weight, and looked into a score-full of memories.
Merry's eyes flicked to Pippin.
Pippin wasn't smiling.
Meriadoc sniffed awake and turned to put the sword back.
Sam helped by pulling back a corner of the carpet so Frodo could get on his knees and lifted the small wooden door. They both lifted up a chest from both of it's leather handles and put it on the floor. The cubby it was hiding in looked to be the cut out just for this one chest.
Sam curiously closed the trap door and put the carpet back as Frodo reached down and fiddled a key in the bolt lock.
Merry turned back to them and clasped his wrist in front of him. "Why are you showing this to us, Frodo?"
Frodo stood up and pulled back the lid of the chest. He rested his elbows on the upturned lid. "Because I need your help."
Pippin's lip curled at that before moving his feet to look inside. Merry stepped over with mild curiosity. Sam was already in front of it, but his head leaned in deeper, looking to the bottom of it before he believed what he saw.
Stiff brown eyes flicked up to Frodo. "There's nothing in there."
Frodo pressed his mouth and nodded that reality.
Pippin's mouth went slack. His forehead wrinkled. "You're broke?"
Merry set his shoulders back and looked Frodo in the eyes. He was surprised, but not panicked. In fact, Meriadoc thought it was kind of funny. He started to laugh. Pippin stuck his fingers into his hair as if that would smooth out his forehead. He closed his eyes and grinned with disbelief. This wasn't good news, but Pippin wasn't worried. Frodo stood tall and crossed his arms at his chest, facing Meriadoc down, and started chuckling weakly as well.
The three were raised on family money. Pippin could always go back home where the richest clan in the Shire would absorb him like a drop in a bucket. Meriadoc could go back to Buckland where he'd be welcomed warmly, fed well, and clothed suitably to embark as an entrepreneur with the finest of leaf – or something to that effect. Frodo didn't have a hall to fall back on, but he still had his name and he still had his land. This was only a minor set back for Bag End.
Sam was a gardener.
He stepped backward until he found the desk chair and blindly sat down in it. His mouth was open. His eyes were wide and blank. His chest worked occasionally to breathe, but it was irregular at best.
He was the only one among them borne to the servant class. He was the only one who already had a wife and (nearly) two children to support. He was the only one that had nothing to his name and no one to lean back on.
Frodo saw Sam's reaction and calmed his nervous laugh. "I still have a few months tallied off for you, Sam."
Sam looked him in the eye. "A few."
"Three."
Sam closed his eyes and shook his head. That's not a few. That's three. That's a month after the baby's born. That's the month when the real need for cash is going to scream loud and clear. Sam didn't open his eyes, but angled his head with a hard tone. "Where did it all go?"
Frodo dropped his arms. "Lauren didn't take it, if that's what you're thinking. It's been dwindling since Bilbo came home. He just spent it all." The lid closed with a deep thump. Frodo shrugged. "I guess I did too. I didn't want to tell you until I had a plan to do something about it."
"Do you?" Merry asked easily.
Frodo looked him in the eye and nodded. "Work Bag End back up to a functioning farm like it used to be, but I can't do that alone." He looked at Pippin.
Pippin's face twisted wildly trying to figure out what to think about this. "You're talking work and wages, aren't you?"
Frodo grinned a little bit. "Well, work and houses at first. Wages'll come later if we succeed."
Pippin chin lifted with hope.
"Bagshot row's got three empty houses."
"They haven't been lived in for nearly two years." Sam looked like he was about to throw up. "They'll need a lot of work."
Meriadoc still stood stiff as a soldier on the other side of the room, but his voice was bright enough, almost teasing. "And what do you expect to tempt me with?"
Frodo shrugged and looked down at the open chest. He grinned, "Free food?"
Merry nodded. "Deal."
"Let's go plan out the lot." Frodo bent his knee forward to close the lid with a succinct thud.
Once upon a time, Bag End had a sheep pasture, a wheat field, and a giant vegetable garden. It had mushrooms growing in the woods. It had blackberry bushes growing on hilltop roof. It even had a couple of rows of winestalks still knotted around their horizontal posts. But all of this had been paired back due to the lack of need during Bilbo's time as an eccentric bachelor. The land was still fertile, the food was simply missing. The quartet took the whole day to roam the acreage and discuss what to do and how to do it. As the sun rolled over their heads, Pippin was looking more and more exhausted from just the vision of hard labor, and Sam was looking less and less concerned.
By the time the sky started turning orange, all four men had a collective sigh of relief, a refreshed view of their teamwork, and a tentative plan of individual tasks over the next week before they could get started. They gave each other an easy goodnight and split up with lighter footfalls than before.
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Lauren Confesses
Frodo climbed up the back of the Hill to find Lauren dashing out chicken feed onto the porch. They elder hens were barely larger than the younger ones, and they were all happily working up their fat little thighs as they wandered around and pecked at the ground. Maela's feathers matched Lauren's rusty orange dress.
Frodo smiled about the chosen chicken again. He stood in the grass behind her and slipped his hands easily into his pockets. He watched the chickens for a thoughtful minute. She noticed him, she even tried to give him a smile, but didn't say anything. She finished up her task without interruption.
"I'm broke." Frodo finally said, lifting his face to her.
"Okay." Lauren responded, blinked, and shrugged.
Frodo sucked in his lower lip and chewed on it a minute.
Lauren's eyebrows tucked in, thinking that perhaps she should have read between the lines. "Do I have to go make my own way?"
Frodo's eyes flashed open with surprise. "No!" He shook his head. "Oh no. Not at all." He sighed, "I just thought you should know."
Her mouth stretched a little, trying to decide whether to grin or not. "Okay."
Frodo stepped up the rest of the way and stood right where the patio stopped and the lush cool grass began. Almost shoulder to shoulder with her, he looked down at the many chickens and sighed again.
Lauren studied him out of the corner of her left eye. She started to grin, "You know, there's a bunch of people in town who think you've got a ton of jewels hidden somewhere up here."
His brows bounced up that she'd admit to hearing about this.
She grinned, "One man even tried to 'cut me a deal' if searched the place for it."
"Really?" Frodo said softly. "Who was it?"
"Otto or Otho or something like that," she shrugged. "He said he'd give me twenty percent if I helped him out."
"And what did you say?"
Lauren shrugged a shoulder and smiled. "I told him I already found it and intend to keep one hundred percent of the loot." She giggled deviously. "He thought I was serious."
Frodo tried not to grin, but he did anyway.
"I guess it turns out I told the truth." She offered, "I have a hundred percent of You're Broke." She curled over with playful laughter and Frodo laughed with her. While she was distracted by tossing down the basket, Frodo stole her other hand.
She looked back with surprise, but happily let him weave his fingers in with hers and let herself be pulled out to the back slope where the sun was setting over the small field and distant tree line.
"I need to ask you something," he said as he pulled her to sit down beside him.
She kept her left arm entangled with his, curled her knees up and smoothed out her skirt over them. He liked the way she leaned into him a little, almost cuddling his shoulder, and he glanced back from time to time just to soak up her eyes as she did so. She had that Elfish trinket to tie up those tiny braids. Her deep eyes smiled to drink in the soft peace of sunset and the summer green of the field. The fuzzy grass was sprinkled with tiny flowers of violet, white, blue and yellow. The chickens cackled softly in the coop far behind them as if they were discussing something very important, but otherwise the evening was silent.
His large feet pressed into the cool lawn in front of him. He watched the light of sun drift deeper into darkness and send a soft pink glow onto the green field and wildflowers. His tone hardened a little. "Legolas said that you'd pick up some images from time to time." His heart skipped a beat with the fear of this. He looked her in the eye. "Have you remembered things you haven't revealed to me?"
Lauren folded her lips together and turned to look where the sky was hanging on to daylight. She nodded carefully.
"Why?"
"Because they are inappropriate to share with you," she said with confidence in her decision.
His chin turned this time. "That only solidifies how severely I needed to be told."
Dark eyes flicked to him with guilt and worry and yet still quite decided.
"Are you married?"
She sighed patiently. "I don't know, Frodo."
Frodo closed his saddening eyes pulled his mouth small again. "No vision could possibly be as inappropriate as that one. All you have to do is admit 'probably' or 'probably not'."
She tucked a chin arrogantly at him, "And if I said, 'No, Frodo, I specifically remember not getting married,' would you then stop getting angry with me about it?"
Frodo's head dipped to look the other direction.
"I thought we figured this out when you took off that necklace?" She said quietly.
He sighed and nodded. "Yeah, but I wish I just... knew."
"You? What about me?" Her mouth tucked in to rest behind the round part of his shoulder. She inhaled the smell of him, his brown wool coat, and his sweet tobacco. "I have a vision or two that make no sense, but mostly I only remember being scared, and small, and helpless.... And if that had anything to do with a husband, I don't want to go back."
His throat caught with hope. Frodo tucked back to see her.
Her brown eyes looked up at him big and sad. Her voice was quieter, like a single toe testing the water, when she spoke again. "But I don't think I'd want to go back anyway."
Sapphire eyes began to glow. He softly shook his head in agreement and squeezed her hand. He let the words go voicelessly, "I don't want you to go either."
She pressed a thankful, almost teary-eyed smile and tucked her face nearly into the back of his shoulder. Frodo closed his eyes and cuddled back to her. He licked his lips and opened his mouth to say it—
Lauren lifted her face abruptly. "You're right though. I haven't been completely honest with you about my memories," she admitted with a hard swallow. "But I didn't realize it until Legolas mentioned it."
Frodo turned his face away, expecting something painful. "What is it?"
"I've never told you how much I don't remember."
His eyes flicked back, not understanding.
Lauren sat up a little, pealing from him to lean forward to her knees, but kept his hand. Her face turned down, flushing with painful embarrassment. "I can't remember how to read and write."
Frodo's lips parted. He didn't realize a memory loss went that far. Perhaps it was something she never knew in the first place.
"I can't remember where we are." She continued to explain, feeling the frustration and embarrassment all over again as she vocalized just how handicapped she was. "I don't know where the roads go. I can't remember the name of the country. I know foods I used to know how to make, but I can't remember their names, and I haven't seen them here. I see you eating with forks and spoons, but I don't remember ever using them before."
Frodo sat up and shuffled to her a little so he'd have an easier time looking at her. She looked so weary of being scared. "I'm looking after you, Lauren."
"I know." She looked him in the eyes, and forced herself to explain this. "I can remember that I'm not suppose to… y'know… before I'm married, but I can't remember if that's all of it… and I can't remember why. I know that some vows are said when a person gets married, but I can't remember what they are. I can't remember what promises I'm supposed to be keeping." Lauren's eyes started filling up again. "There's so much I just can't bring up… I try so hard. I really do. But I just can't recall… so much stuff I'm supposed to know. I get so frightened."
He grinned weakly at this, nodding out his new understanding. "The answers will turn up sooner or later."
It was a dark whisper into her lap. "That's what I'm afraid of, Frodo."
His lips pealed open. His eyes opened to look at nothing in the air. Frodo hadn't thought of this, but now it made sense, just as she was saying it out loud.
"I'd rather have you than go back to what I had before. I know that deep in my stomach, even if I don't know why. And I keep thinking about what Aunty Emma said, about nobody wanting me after I'm spoiled. And I thought, maybe… if I let you… then even if the answers do turn up…."
Frodo's mouth opened more. He tried to make her look him in the eye. "Don't you do that."
She was still whispering, "Just so that they didn't want me anymore even after we find them… Then I could stay with you-"
"Don't you dare do that to yourself," Frodo insisted. "Don't do that to me." He took her face in his hands again so he could put this thought firm into her mind. "If you make love to me you're going to do it because you love me so much you're prepared to give birth my children, and that is the one and only reason you'll ever do it."
Lauren closed her eyes and swallowed. Her fingers tightened in his.
"That's the vow you might have made." He told her. "That's what marriage is about. Children are impossible to raise alone. Couples make vows to stay together forever before they breed. All else is superfluous. That's the vow I'm afraid you made."
"Rose said I've never had any children." Lauren said as if this might help. "She checked ... a few things that look different afterwards."
Frodo tried not to picture this and nodded. "Good. There's no hungry babe in need of you. That's good. But you still may have made the vows."
Her eyes looked up for explanation, for the loophole. "But can't somebody-?"
"A vow is a vow." He pointed out sympathetically. "It can't be unmade. It can only be released. And I'm not even sure a release works on marriage vows."
Lauren thought on this. She looked over at the lawn to let it sink in. She nodded.
"You're hardly spoiled." He tried to assure her. "We haven't gone nearly that far. I mean, I'm no more experienced that you, but I can promise you that much."
Her eyes glanced back at him with questions.
He lifted his brows and nodded. "Save for stories I remember that you can't, it terrifies my as much as it terrifies you."
The corner of her mouth grinned a little. "You don't look terrified."
Frodo warmed. "That's only because your eyes are always closed when I kiss you."
A shy smile splashed across Lauren's her face. Her brows eyes were loving and happy again. "And how do you know that?"
Frodo was relieved to see her feeling better. His eyes stared at her intently. "How would you think?"
She bit her lower lip and flushed flirtatiously.
He bumped his knee fondly against hers and tucked his chin in deeper to try to look her in the eye. "Promise me? Promise me that you will never let me take it that far unless you have no other motives. Don't let me do anything if you don't purely desire it. Don't kiss me, don't sleep in the same bed with me, nothing, unless you really want to.... No other reasons permitted. Not even a little bit. Promise me that."
She lifted her face and turned her eyes to him. "I promise." She took a deep sigh and nodded it into conviction.
Frodo swallowed and nodded too, finally feeling complete relief from all the tension that had been building slowly between them for a month or more. "Good."
Lauren kept watching him, even if he'd folded his lips in to smile weakly about it all.
He looked at the different parts of her face, soaked in the emotion out of her functioning eye.
As if punching through a membrane of fear, Lauren suddenly leaned in and kissed him. She and stopped just as fast with a soft, uncertain pause. It was the first time she started it, so when she pulled away again, brown eyes were poised for his reaction.
Frodo's mouth remained where it was, but it opened a touch when she left. His eyes pealed open to look at her and he realized that she was simply keeping her promise. His heart blushed. He leaned over a tiny bit, hoping she'd do that again.
Lauren dropped her legs to sit up better and leaned over to kiss him again. She opened her mouth and kissed him as full and as long as he enjoyed kissing her. It was bold but not hungry. It wasn't even terribly fast. Very little in the kiss directly had to do with the forbidden topic they'd just settled. No, this kiss was about forgiveness and hope and friendship. It was a team holler; a secret club; a silent union. It was about the simple reassurance that the other was indeed falling in love, even if neither of them had the guts to say it aloud just yet.
They pulled away at each other's tiny, unintentional cues. They looked into each other freshly happy eyes and shared full wide smiles. Lauren again bit her lower lip as she sat back again, this time with mad sparkles in her eyes.
"Did that fix everything?" Frodo teased.
She nodded. "Yes, of course."
He found this funny. "I'm glad." He gazed out to the sunset again. The sky was entirely orange and pink now, but it was too late. Frodo didn't see any of it.
She leaned against his shoulder again, trying to be sly about cuddling into him.
Frodo's eyes narrowed playfully. He motioned her closer as if to tell her a secret. With a strange grin she obeyed, but kept her eyes on his deceiving expression. Frodo untangled their fingers so he could move his arm out of the way and set his palm on the grass behind her. He leaned over and closed his eyes for a heartbeat to dredge up enough bravery to do this. Then he pulled in a clean breath, tucked his mouth under her ear, and kissed the flesh high on her neck.
Lauren's hair was warm with jasmine again. Her skin was cool and sweet against his lips. She inhaled immediately with a slow gasp of shock. Her body melted to his will. Without being fully conscious of what he was doing, scooted closer and rolled her down into the bed of grass. His mouth traveled from under her ear, down the chord of muscle and found that spot right above the collarbone that made her make those tiny noises in her throat again. He didn't stop this time. He tasted it long and slow to enjoy her music without giving any logic thought to why he liked listening to it so much.
It took a long time before the intensity forced him to come up for air. He took a long, amazed sigh. "What the hell am I doing," he almost laughed.
She sniggered softly.
He lifted his head and looked at her.
"You're making out with your housemaid." She told him with a grin.
He dropped his head and laughed softly but when he opened his eyes, he found his face at her breast bone. He took a moment to breath and looked back up at her, frozen with indecision.
Lauren angled her head and grinned with an invitation. "I haven't broken my promise," she pointed out lightly.
Frodo studied her face and read the thoughts out of her eye. He set his elbow in the grass above her shoulder and slid the opposite palm across her stomach. He kissed her full and warm on the mouth, and had no intentions of stopping there.
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Galadriel's Letter
My Dearest Frodo,
I am most pleased to hear of your newfound happiness and comfort. I received your letter only a day after a visit from Legolas and Tendell. I thought deeply about what clues you've collected regarding your mysterious guest. Legolas is convinced of her innocence, but without visiting the child first hand, I cannot say if she carries ill-intent. I can only hear your worry of it in your letter.
I agree with Legolas on most things. The girl is not of Elfish decent. And though it seems strange that she prepared a style of Lembas bread for your grand supper, it is not beyond imagination that she had simply absorbed this knowledge in her previous life, regardless which country it was spent. I trust your letter to King Aragorn will produce more results.
However, I do not agree with Legolas on one account. Should no news arise before your trip to King Aragorn and Lady Arwen's wedding, I do not think it wise for you to take a housemaid, even if it feels strong that her family may be found in the endeavor. Take her as your lady, or do not take her at all. You're heart is strong, Frodo, but deserves better than to travel down that painful road twice.
Legolas reported of a growing family in your midst: Samwise Gamgee's sunny summer maiden who brings forth two beautiful babes, Peregrin Took's white winter kiss that claims his heart as I write, and your fine autumn mystery whose roots worry you so. I dare wonder if Meriadoc Brandybuck has a spring flower waiting to blossom into view.
Happiness goes customarily unnoticed until it has passed, but love happens like a sudden rainstorm: powerful, inevitable, and richly nourishing. I rejoice in your new happiness and approaching rainstorm. No one in Middle Earth deserves it more.
Galadriel
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The big bed was juuuuust right.
There were two bodies snuggled up in the bed. They were close, but they weren't snuggled together. She was on her side, incidentally facing him as she slept soundly, but he was on his back and starting to stir.
Eyebrows cringed from time to time. He swallowed a dry throat and squeezed his eyes shut. He started to whisper unintelligibly at first and then his voice muttered out real clues about his nightmare. "She's lying. . . ." His body shuffled slightly in the bed as his physically fought in the deep recesses of his mind.
Rosie opened her eyes slowly, and blinked awake enough to realize Sam only was having a nightmare. She reached out a hand to his face and tried ease his mind by petting his cheek with the back of her fingers.
Still sleeping, Sam brought up his own hand to touch hers. He settled again.
Rosie grinned and let him keep her hand. She closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep.
Sam was quiet and still for a long minute.
Suddenly his hand closed in a panic and his other grabbed for a handhold on the bed frame as his mind fell down very long flight of stone stairs.
Rosie's eyes opened immediately this time. She sat up.
"Don't listen to her." He grumbled loudly, already pushing himself to sit up. "She stole the bread!"
Rosie grabbed his hand and scooted to his shoulder. "Wake up, Sam. You're dreaming."
Sam was sitting up straight and already opening his eyes when she said that. He softened his grip on her hand but continued to hold it. He dropped his temple to her forehead and let her hug his side.
"What made her jump into my nightmares, Rose?" He heaved softly, not expecting an answer.
Rosie held him and cuddled her bouncy curls into his big shoulder.
"My subconscious is trying to tell me she's up to something."
"No, it's not." Rosie's chin lifted to rest on his shoulder and whisper into his cheek. "You're afraid she's taking him away from you."
Sam glanced over at the woman's wisdom, hugged the arm that hugged him, and sighed pathetically. His eyes were open to nothing in the night. "Is she?"
"Yes, she is." Rosie had to say.
Sam rubbed his eye with his palm and dropped it again. His eyes stared wide open and sad at the darkness. It felt like the end of an era.
She lifted her voice with a smile, "And damn him that he would go off with a girl and leave you behind in this house all alone, with nothing to do and no one to one to keep you company."
Sam looked at her with a mean pout.
Rose hung on his shoulder and smiled sleepily at him. "Every day, you come home and you take care of me, and you play with Elanor, and we sit together, and we come to bed and try to make more babies," her voice tilted, "even if I am already pregnant..."
Sam dropped his face with a grin of guilt.
Rose softened and continued. "And every night while you're doing all this, what does he do?"
Sam shrugged, "I don't know, Rose." Sam lifted his face a little, staring even more intently into the darkness. "He can't afford a broken heart. He's already got the Ring's shadow in him. He's already started turning into Gollum, he's just... frozen somewhere in the beginning of it – like his soul's got a dead branch he'll never be rid of."
She rested her temple on his shoulder and let him talk.
"If he falls in love with her and she ends up a con-woman, or if she just ends up having a family come back for her, he's lose so much more, and then he'll never be able to recover. He'll never make it back to the way he was before."
Rose angled her head, "Will any of you?"
Sam looked over at her. His eyes turned to think that through. Then his mouth closed and his eyes narrowed as he realized she was right.
"You're becoming obsessed with it, Sam," she told him, still groggy. "You're eyes are so focused on Bag End that you've forgotten what's going on in your own home. And to tell you the truth, it's starting to piss me off."
He winced over apologetically and turned to lay her back down in the bed. He smoothed the nightgown over her belly and kissed her forehead. It was relaxing to have her there.
Rose willingly cuddled into his arms, "You're not worried that she's up to something evil, Sam. You're worried that you're losing Frodo." She angled her head to try to look him in the face, but the slim moonlight prevented most of it. "He's already in love with her. You're too late to save him from that. But think about it. He's falling in love. Why would you save him?"
Sam thought heavily on all this with his eyes opened. He groped to kiss her cheek with silent appreciation.
Rose's voice smiled. "You should be waving him out to you." She smiled and waved. "'Come on in Frodo! The water's fine!'"
Sam winced at the image but had to chuckle anyway.
Rose pet his hair. "You need to go beat the both of you over the head with a strong bottle until you come back to an understanding."
Sam's eyes tilted over to see if she was serious. Rosie smiled softly and kissed his cheek. "'Tis a warm night and there's a bottle of brandy in the kitchen cabinet." She tucked in to whisper gently, "Perhaps you and the lads should ask your questions to his face?"
Sam turned his face completely to her and pressed a long, sweet smooch on the lips. "I love you."
Rosie smiled sleepily. "I love you too, Sam, but I'll still serve you weaveled bread tomorrow if you get home too late in the morning."
"Aye," he smiled obediently and climbed quietly out of bed to get dressed.
Sam was dressed in his coat and stepped boldly but silently through Frodo's front door. He listened for stirs of Lauren in Frodo's old bedroom, and hearing none, stepped down the hall to the master's bedroom instead. He lit a candle he fetched from the hall sconce and ducked quickly into the dark bedroom, trying to keep the light and noise of his footsteps from traveling too far down the hall and wake her up.
When he turned toward the bed however, Frodo wasn't the only one in it.
Sam slapped a palm over his eyes and spun his reddening face away from the scene before he fully realized what he didn't see. Frodo sat up in confusion, still in trousers and blousy shirt, and Lauren blinked awake beside him, still in her rusty dress. Both of them startled with panicked movements at being caught, until Frodo realized who it was that caught them.
Frodo fell back on his bed with weak laughter. "Oh, Sam. You scared me."
Sam insisted with a hard whisper, "It should be no surprise that I was a bit startled meself!"
"No," Frodo said thoughtfully, scratching his ear and glancing down at a wide eyed Lauren, "I suppose not." He gave her a soft, sleepy grin not to worry.
Lauren cuddled back into the pillow behind him, and tucked deep under the blankets again.
"Dare I ask if this is a habit?" Sam said only turned his head half way to whisper back at them without looking. "It's not going to sound so good hearing your names in vain in the town common."
"We're fully dressed, Sam." Frodo defended as he swung his legs over the side to sit up. "We were just sleeping."
Sam snuck back a glance to verify nothing was going on that he shouldn't see. "That's not going to matter to the ladies in the sewing club and you know it."
"Should I go?" Lauren asked in a small voice.
"No." Frodo told her without looking back. He came to his feet and stepped over to face Sam. "It's Sam that should go." He scolded his friend eye to eye. "If he has a problem with whom I have in my bed, he should've addressed me about it some other time and place."
Sam's mouth flattened apologetically. "I didn't know she was going to be here. I came to fetch you for a bottle. . . I was actually trying to avoid her." He glanced over, "No offense."
"S'all right, Sam." She said quietly as she removed herself from Frodo's bed. "I understand." Her voice went a little cold. "Something's I don't get to ask, right?"
Frodo looked back to her. Sam watched her from behind his friend.
"Dress warmer," she told him as she climbed to her feet. "And don't get wet this time or you'll catch your death."
Sam dropped his gaze as the woman passed them to the door.
"Good night, Sam." She whispered succinctly.
Frodo gave Lauren a deep look in the eyes as she stepped silently out of the room. He wanted to kiss her on the forehead or something, but she passed behind Sam, not in front of him and left the two of them in the bedroom alone so Frodo could change into warmer clothes.
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Sam's Midnight Bottle
Merry, as always, was simple to fetch, and Pippin was simple to fetch as well, it was just difficult to find him. He wasn't in the boarding house he'd been renting for years. And three sneaky hobbits treaded lightly with three sneaking whispers to the house of the Bracegirdle family as the next possible option. Pippin wasn't there either.
Merry led the way after that, moving towards the water in a lopsided path so they could check the stables, a favorite grove, and Starwatch hill. It was the latter they finally found Pippin, snoring like a dwarf. He had fallen asleep daydreaming in the grass and watching the diamonds glitter in the sky. Good ol' Pip.
Sam owed him one, so he fell onto Pippin in a straddle across the waist and called out on the top of his lungs. "Last call!"
Pippin jumped awake with a yelp and fell back just as quickly. He pushed Sam off of him, who went rolling with laughter, and climbed to his feet already reaching for the opened bottle. The quartet was tipsy and chuckling by the time they made it to the river.
It was a new moon this time, so the night was extra dark. They had picked up a fat candle from Pippin's room on the way just so they'd have light at the riverbank, and Pippin made it his mission to dig a hole in the leaves and twigs that would keep the candle from falling over on the slope.
Sam and Frodo had changed places since the last endeavor. This time, Frodo was on his side, holding his upper body up with an elbow as he watched Pippin work so hard on his little task. There was no real wind to bother the flame. "It's gotten warm too quickly." Frodo was saying. "I think at least one more rainstorm will roll through before summer grows strong."
Sam sat where Frodo was before. He crossed his legs and drooped his shoulders so much it looked like he was pushing himself up on his elbows instead of resting them on his knees. "Good, then we still have time to plant an autumn crop. Any news of the seed?"
Merry sat on his rear and propped up one knee in front of him. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve and handed the bottle to Sam. "I hear there's a few extra sacks in Rushey. I'll head out in a few days to buy it, but you guys have to get that field started."
Pippin flicked at a flint and studied the flame as he carefully lit the candlewick. "With all due respect, gentleman, weather and crops are not what we came here to talk about." As soon as his face was lit up with the single flame, he looked expectantly at the other three. "Or have we really grown so old and boring already?"
Merry grinned, "What did you have in mind?"
Pippin knew as well as any of them that he hadn't called this one, but he settled in on his stomach across the candle from Frodo and propped his body up on his elbows with a grin, "Well I was more in the mood to talk about sex, but I would be afraid to make you blush, Meriadoc."
Merry grinned and pointed at him. "I do have some good stories on that topic."
Pippin nodded with acceptance and angled his chin, "But my first question would be the name, lad. One of these days, you're going to have to give over this mystery girl's name."
Merry shrugged. "Then I suppose you'll have to wait, Mr. Bracegirdle." He took his tobacco pouch from his pocket.
Frodo chuckled. He somehow expected Merry to have landed someone on the side, though he never really thought consciously about it much less speak the idea out loud. Nobody had until now.
Sam defended. "That's Mr. Peregrin Took Bracegirdle to you."
Merry shrugged and lit up his smoke. "Pip's right, though. Let's get off the crop talk before it puts me to sleep."
Sam took a long swig before giving it over. "We're here on the request of my beloved Rosie this time."
Frodo's eyes lifted. "Rose requested it?"
Merry looked over his shoulder at Sam.
Pippin's mouth fell slack.
Sam looked at his lap for several stiff beats. His eyes lifted under his brows at Frodo down the hill from him. His voice was harsh and cold. "She wants me to ask you, to your face, why I might be having nightmares about Mordor with Lauren there instead of Gollum?"
Pippin abruptly closed his mouth. Merry whistled one quiet, swinging note of shock.
Instantly insulted, Frodo pushed himself up with a palm. "Now hang on—
"Think about it, Frodo." Sam angled his head and leered at him. "We still have no idea where she came from or what she's doing here, and yet I find her in your bed." He snatched the bottle back from Merry, "Housemaid indeed."
Frodo studied the extremeness of Sam's discontent about it and looked into the single little flame to think it all over.
"Would you mind catching us up?" Pippin peeped. "How long has this girl been keeping you warm at night, Frodo?"
"I haven't taken her." Frodo defended almost angrily and looked over at Sam. "When she sleeps with me it's fully clothed. Nothing happens. And we've only done it a few times."
"How many?" Pippin asked.
"Thrice. . . plus tonight." Frodo told Pippin with a small mouth. He glanced over at Sam, hurt by this, and reached over to snatch the bottle from the other's hand, just to make a statement about how much it wounded him.
Merry was the furthest from the light of the flame, so his serious voice and a puff of smoke seemed to come out of the darkness like something out of Alice and Wonderland. "Sleeping in the same bed together doesn't happen by itself."
"I haven't taken her," Frodo insisted again, louder this time.
"Fine," Merry gave him that. "What exactly have you taken?"
Frodo brought up a knee and wrapped an elbow over it just so he could rub his forehead on his is forearm. "Why do I have to give this over?" He grumbled reluctantly.
"Because I don't trust her with you yet!" Sam spat. "I'm worried how much she's taken you."
Frodo turned to him with a shake of the head and a heavy whisper. "You're over the line, Sam."
"What about when Legolas was here?" Pippin pointed out. "He assured us of her innocence."
"Legolas only observed her for a day," Merry reminded Pippin. "It' doesn't take much to put up a good show for only a day."
Frodo was even more insulted that Merry wouldn't defend her. "Meriadoc, you traitor, she trusts you! She speaks of you like a close friend."
"And I her," Merry insisted softly. "But if she's lying, I have nothing but her friendship to lose, Frodo. You've got a lot more chips on the table already."
Frodo pushed to his feet with a hiss and stepped to the waterline. He dropped his shoulder against a tree, just to keep his back to them.
"She truly fancies you, Frodo," Merry added stiffly. "I'm certain of that. But if she was left here as a victim, or deliberately fell here for a con, I cannot guarantee."
Frodo rolled back on his shoulder to glare wounded eyes to Merry. His eyes were squinting as if fighting from tearing up. "Don't do this to me, guys."
Merry dropped his pipe hand to his knee. "Frodo, I would give anything to make her the real thing for you," he explained, "But I won't lie to you about it."
"Same here," Sam muttered without looking up right away. "I like her well enough. But the circumstances are just too odd. And she's elbowing in awfully quick."
"Elbowing in?" Frodo echoed with insult. "Do you really think her that evil? You talk as though she's deliberately prying us apart."
Sam met his eye honestly. "I am dreaming about it that way. There's got to be something there."
Pippin rolled over and sat up to offer the bottle to Frodo.
"Something about her is still poking the subconscious." Sam told him soberly. "We're only asking for the details so we can figure out why."
Merry explained with a distinguished lift of his chin. "There are only two ways a woman can pull one over on a man: sex and cooking." Then he tucked in for another puff. "We already know she can cook."
Frodo took the bottle and grumbled into it. "I haven't laid with her and she hasn't tried to lure me into it either." He took a fat slug from the bottle, "That should be all you need to know."
"Has she lured you along more than any one else has?" Sam asked.
Frodo glanced up, realizing it just now. "Maybe a bit."
Pippin kicked his ankle lightly just because his foot happened to be there. "Don't fret about the telling, man. It's just us for cryin' out loud."
Merry tucked in for another puff, "You're the only one among us that hasn't laid with a woman yet."
Frodo's motioned quickly to Pippin. "What about him?!"
Pippin flashed a big, fat smile of guilt.
"You dog!" Frodo accused with a smile in his throat.
Pippin lay back against his elbows behind him and sighed happily at the sky. "I've discovered that being engaged can be nearly as interesting as being married."
Sam laughed at this. He didn't know about Pippin's expedition either.
Merry chuckled an explanation. "I tried to fetch him for a pub call last Wednesday, and I found him with his eyes mysteriously rolled back into his head."
Pippin lifted his head again. "I am a dog," he admitted with a pout, then ducked his eyebrows evilly and shined a toothy grin at Frodo. "But then I've never had a more satisfying afternoon tea either."
Frodo dramatically dropped his jaw.
Sam laughed louder.
Merry sniggered at Frodo. "Looks like you're the last man standing, laddie."
Frodo snarled at them and tucked up the bottleneck to his chest. "I'm keeping this bottle." He took another swig and flicked his chin indignantly away.
He turned his back to them, and leaned against the trunk of a small tree by the river. He ducked his chin and tried to let his blush burn itself off naturally. He listened to the other three calm their laughter about it until the noises quieted and frogs started croaking down river again.
It didn't matter whose voice it was that softly pierced the silence. All three would have sounded the same. "Give it over, Frodo."
Frodo sighed heavily and took another swig. He turned slowly and kept his eyes down as he muttered. "I kissed her neck." He held out the bottle for a controlled crash to the ground where he folded a foot under him to sit down. "And I. . . " he raised the bottle to his mouth again, "touched her," he said quickly before swallowing hard on another swig.
Pippin's eyes were narrowed onto Frodo. "Touched her where?"
Frodo never answered that question. "I'm not sure if she noticed that part."
"She noticed," Sam grinned quietly, convinced of this.
Frodo's eyes widened. "She's not telling tales to Rosie, is she?"
Sam shook his head and adjusted to sit up and look at him again. "No, Rosie hasn't said anything. She probably wouldn't tell me if she did."
Pippin crooned his head back to look at Sam. "Rosie likes her well enough, yeah?"
Sam shrugged. "Yeah, but not like their becoming best friends or anything. Not yet anyway."
Merry rolled back onto one elbow. "What were you talking about before it happened?"
Sam and Pippin looked over before realizing the question wasn't for them.
"You mean, the first time?" Frodo squinted.
Merry's eyes widened and his voice rose with accusations. "How many times have you done it?"
Frodo closed his eyes. He smiled and shook his head, "I meant-"
Pippin sat up to face Frodo with an eager order. "Answer."
"Several," was all he admitted to.
Merry tilted eyes over to Sam. Sam wasn't impressed. "And what were you talking about before it started?"
Frodo had to think back on this. The first time they were kissing themselves into trouble was the night Pippin got engaged. "You!" Frodo hissed with a finger pointing passed the bottleneck to Merry.
Pippin laid back on an elbow and took the bottle from Frodo so he'd slow down.
Frodo didn't realize it had been taken. "She was talking about the night you rescued her from the brothel."
Pippin took a swig and passed the bottle on. He curled a lip. "How did you get from talking about Merry in a brothel to kissing her neck?"
Sam snickered. "Think about it, Pippin."
Pippin's brow flicked up. "Oh. Yeah."
Merry coughed out a mouthful of brandy with his laughter.
Thinking back on that night, Frodo looked over to Sam with a thought. "I think you equate her with Smeagol because of that necklace I had her wear."
"What was it for, anyway?" asked Pip.
"It was supposed to stand in as a favor from her husband," Frodo explained easily.
"I think it only added wood to the fire," Sam admitted. "That ring token on it probably messed up for me as much as it did for you."
Frodo licked the corner of his mouth as he thought on this. Distracted, he nodded.
Sam watched Frodo's expression as the other fell deep in thought about it. "You haven't been yourself, lately, Frodo. It's eerie."
Frodo turned his head to look up expectantly at Sam. "Did you think I was happier before?"
Sam took this in a moment, then dropped his eyes to his lap.
Frodo knew the answers full well already. "Have I been acting like I have the Ring again?"
The bold question took all three back a moment.
"No," Sam admitted quietly. "It's a different kind of spell."
Frodo's brows lifted with a smile. "So now you think she's a witch or something?"
Sam shook his head and put a palm tiredly on his forehead.
Pippin rolled back on his elbows and explained this one proudly. "He's speaking metaphorically, Frodo."
"Sex and cooking," Merry reminded.
"Oh," Frodo said.
Merry puffed quietly with patience, but closer to the light source, Pip watched Frodo's expression slowly droop with sadness and worry. Pippin tucked a palm under his ear to lean on it, and then looked up at Sam who was bent over so sadly that he was literally pouting. Pippin voiced it out this ridiculous impasse. "You two look like you just broke up."
Frodo glanced up with a curled lip at the term.
Sam lifted his head and shot out more childish accusations. "Well what do you expect!? I come over to find him grinning like I walked in on something but he won't give over what happened. I see them laughing too loud in his back yard, and he declines telling me the joke. I accuse Lauren of anything and he jumps to her defense. And then she's pulls off that Elfish bread at dinner. Made up the recipe!? How can you believe that shite, Frodo!?"
Frodo was alarmed at the passion behind Sam's display. Sam's face had started to turn red at the anger behind it, but he'd caught himself and settled down on his own. Still, he wouldn't look Frodo in the eye anymore.
"I shouldn't have to share all my secrets with you, Sam." Frodo whispered stiffly.
"I don't think this has anything to do with Lauren," Merry muttered.
Sam didn't look at either of them. His mouth was taught and his eyes were narrow. He unfolded his legs to lay flat down the hill from him and leaned over, silently requesting the bottle from Pippin.
Pippin handed it up and lightly addressed Sam, "Have you ever given over marital secrets to Frodo?"
Sam's brow flicked. "No. But Frodo and Lauren aren't married." He took a hard swig. "And even if he was, we've all known Rosie since we were little. She's never fallen under suspicion about anything."
Pippin was patient. "How can you expect him to share all these details with us, or even just you, if we're not going to return the favor?" His eyes widened with a larger point and his arm shot out to Merry. "This ars here won't even give over the girl's name! How can you possibly be upset with Frodo for not describing what her neck tasted like!?"
Frodo's face went red as he ducked over with a trapped mad giggle.
Sam grinned a little about Pippin's point, but glanced warily over at Merry. "She's not married or anything, is she?"
Merry puffed the last bit of his bowl, lifted his brows and bobbed his head back and forth to consider that answer. "There are certain extreme cases where the word 'marriage' has a fuzzier definition than one would expect."
On his elbows and neck crooned to look up the hill at him, Pippin's mouth dropped dramatically. "You dog!"
Merry's eyelids drifted with his smug nod. "I am a dog," he admitted. "But I'm an exceptionally skilled dog."
Frodo's rolled onto his shoulder below Sam's feet as his round mouth gasped out laughter, "Ho ho no." He glanced up at Sam, upside down, to find the other chuckling and shaking his head about Merry.
"Are you a dog, Sam?" Frodo asked with a bit of a grin on his face.
"I am proud to report I am not a dog." Sam pulled up a knee to hug it thoughtfully with an elbow. "I married her too fast to have grown such a strong inclination."
"Would you tell us if you did?"
Sam studied Frodo's upside down eyes and rubbed a spot under his thoughtfully pursed lips. "Probably not. Not at the time anyway," Sam admitted, realizing their point. "I wouldn't have risked to spoiling her reputation." He flicked a chin at Frodo, "Especially with you."
Frodo pressed his mouth and nodded softly, "There are some secrets you just shouldn't tell." He lifted a brow, "But then I never expected you to, Sam."
Sam tried to smile at that, but it was weak and feeling guilty.
"I think it was the Elfish bread that burned you up," Pippin told Sam. "That's what Gollum's final push was."
Sam nodded thoughtfully about it and looked down at his lap.
Frodo rolled onto his stomach and crawled up a bit higher on the slope than Sam's ankles. "She's hardly Smeagol, Sam." Frodo promised. "Besides, it was the Ring talking before."
Sam glanced up at that.
Frodo insisted, "Even if something like that happens again, you know I'm not going to turn you away. If you grow suspicious, I'll listen to you."
"How do I know that?" Sam whispered.
Frodo turned up a hand. "I'm here, aren't I?" And it turned out to be his left hand he'd brought up, so he splayed it in the air to remind them of the fingertip he lost. "I'm not going to forget which one betrayed and which one was true, Sam. I'm reminded every day." With tight teeth, Frodo looked to find who had the bottle and requested it with his open left hand. And the other's watched his hand do it.
Until now, none of them really noticed how different Frodo had to hold the bottle than usual, even if only a quarter inch of his finger was missing. He couldn't hold the fat end without it slipping out of his grip. He had to grab it by the neck, and still he sat up so he could put it in his right hand to drink it.
Sam's brows knitted and his eyes squinted. He shuffled down the hill, kicking dust up a little, until he bumped into Frodo's side with his hip and held his hand out for the next slug.
Pippin and Merry were quiet as if they were quietly daydreaming.
Frodo looked over his shoulder at him and watched Sam drink it until it was handed back, and then he still looked over his shoulder. Sam finally met his eyes with his flattened mouth and squinty eyes still showing the scars in his soul from the whole Smeagol/Gollum episode.
Frodo tried to grin apologetically, but dropped his gaze to the bottle again.
How many times do you have to say you're sorry?
Sam realized he didn't know the answer to that anymore than Frodo did. He sighed quickly, sniffed and scratched his nose with the side of his index finger. He reached around to take the bottle from Frodo again. "So what does her neck taste like?"
Frodo glanced up with hope at Sam's tone and then lifted into a smile of relief at the suggestive flick of Sam's eyebrows. He fell back against Sam's shoulder with reddening cheeks.
Sam left his shoulder available for Frodo to lean against just so he could tuck a prompting grin at him. "You liked it didn't you?"
Frodo finally decided to turn this beating around. He arrogantly sucked the thought in from his lips and straightened his back a little bit. "Hard to describe," he said easily, "but I can tell you her neck isn't nearly as tasty as her nipples."
"Ha!" Merry laughed, even as he dug the tobacco pouch from his pocket. Pippin dropped his head from his shoulders with a new cackle.
"Yeow." Sam chuckled wisely at the reaction. "Yeah, you're a dog in the making."
Frodo covered the telling smile on his mouth with the back of his hand. "I can't believe I just said that."
Sam shoved at his back.
Frodo shoved him back.
Merry leaned over their way and landed on an elbow. He tucked his voice in to nearly a whisper like he was trying to sell him a coat full of stolen watches. "Y'know Frodo, there's this trick you can do with your tongue-"
Frodo lifted his head with a shout. "Time to talk about crop farming!"
All three men curled over and shuddered with trapped laughter.
"You keep your tongue tricks to yourself." Frodo warned him. "I'll earn my own claw marks, thank you."
Pippin coughed out a new cackle and Sam tossed his head back with laughter and lay back down on the ground. Merry motioned calmly to Frodo. "Shoot for the moon," he agreed. "I'm proud of you already."
~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~~
The Jinhai
Dear Frodo,
Glad to hear things are well with you. Arwen sends fond greetings.
I've sent word out among Gondor's captains to keep their ears open. Thus far, they have reported to me on occasional tale of broken families and missing children, but none that specifically match the data you offer, nor lead to any reason why the girl might have traveled all the way to your Shire.
It is true that Gondor is inhabited with an occasional family of the smaller race of men kind. Jainen they are called, from Jinhai in the southern continent. They average a bit taller than Hobbit height but I understand that the ladies easily range as short as you describe Lauren to be. They do have menkind feet and round ears, but all Jainen have black hair, thick and straight like a horse's tail. In the sun, their skin yellows instead of pinkens. When they intermarry, these traits thin and blend with ours, but they are still quite obvious. Perhaps you could look for these clues in your mysterious guest.
The Jainen sailed into Gondor from the south looking to find a better way for their families, only to discover the culture shock as much of a struggle as the abject poverty they face in Jinhai. Many of them hardly traveled beyond the docks they set foot upon. There was a community of them in Osgiliath known as Jainen Town. They are a quiet and honorable people, astutely affixed to family patriarchy, and known for their hard work and pleasant moods. Sailors used to visit Jainen Town often for its dining halls and uniquely comfortable services.
Unfortunately, Osgiliath's recent trials with Sauron's forces caused the Jainen to flee with the rest of the city. Many came into the safety of Minas Tirith of course and since have returned to help put their homes back together again. But there aren't half the Jainen in Osgiliath now as there were before. This may explain why she was traveling when she did. Perhaps they had given up on Middle Earth and were fleeing to the other coast so they could sail home again. Despite the unlikely distance she must have traveled, should you find Lauren to match the description of the Jinhai, I can assure you that Osgiliath is the place you want visit.
By now, you have received our expressed invitation to our wedding in the spring. I keep telling Arwen that I only asked for her hand because it was the best of all possible ideas to coax the four of you back out this way for a visit, but I don't think she believes me. I look forward to seeing all of you and meeting your new families.
If there is any other way I can aide you in your quest, Frodo, do not hesitate to call upon me.
Warm Regards,
Aragorn
Sam dropped the letter into his lap. He was sitting in the comfortable chair in front of Frodo's front room fire.
Frodo puffed quietly on his pipe and waited for a reaction.
"Did you tell her about all this?"
Frodo looked into the fire and nodded easily. "Mm hm."
Sam scowled a little. "And?"
"She's a Jainen. She knew the word the first moment I uttered it." Frodo lowered the pipe and folded his lips together, but his stare didn't turn away from the fire. "The culture sounds familiar, but she doesn't remember any details."
"Does she want to go home to Gondor?"
Frodo nodded. "Of course she does." His eyes turned to Sam, "But not with the risk that I might come back without her. She wants to know her roots, not return to them."
Sam looked down at the letter and swallowed.
Frodo took another puff of his pipe, letting Sam speak what he will on his own time.
"All that searching and waiting for clues about where she came from..." Sam mumbled. "Now that you have it you won't act on it?"
Frodo's eyes were stuck on the fire. He shook his head. "Only if you force me to, Sam."
"Force you?"
Frodo shook his head and shrugged. "I'm not going to dance between the two of you,. If you won't ease up, then I will take her home. But I'll do it alone and I'll do it now. If take her to Gondor with the intent to leave her there, you are not coming with me."
Sam looked like he was just hit in the face with the compliment.
Frodo looked him sadly in the eyes.
Sam looked dumbstruck, "You really love her."
Frodo didn't acknowledge. He didn't even nod. His mouth just pressed a little harder and his eyes looked at Sam a little bit deeper.
Sam shook his head and dropped his gaze. He pulled in a deep sigh and blew it out cold and controlled.
Frodo took another deep draw from his pipe.
Sam looked into the fire.
They sat silently for a long time, individually looking back over the events to figure out how they got here. It was ten minutes of silent memories, but they'd started growing accustomed to even the harshest visions they could see in their mind's eyes. The happy times weren't so funny, the bloody times weren't so shocking, and the painful times weren't so raw.
"You're not leaving this Shire without me," Sam finally said. "If that means she's to come back with you, so be it."
Frodo rested the pipe on his knee and looked over at Sam with appreciation in his eyes. Sam looked back with honor and respect. Then they both started to grin with humor.
They didn't walk away from Mordor empty-handed after all.
"Frodo?" Lauren called lightly from some hidden corner of the house. "Supper."
A smile splashed across Sam's face.
"Go to your woman," Frodo told him.
Sam nodded at Frodo's thought and pushed himself up from the chair. "Go to yours."
Frodo climbed to his feet with a new smile, Sam grinned, and they stepped away from each other to tend to their own families.
Sam swooped up a handful of blossoms from the yard as he walked through it. He arranged them in his hand as he lumbered down the hill and marched into his own house with a smile on his face. Elanor was using his easy chair to standup. She smiled big at him and launched out to walk to daddy. He stopped in his tracks and let her waddle all the way to him without falling down. She was giggling when he picked her up.
Now, with flowers in one hand and the Light of Rosie's Life in the other, Sam stepped into the kitchen and interrupted her cooking. She turned, charmed, and smiled when he snuck in a kiss.
It was a combination between this act of thoughtless love and the wiser, happier smile in his eyes that made Rosie put Elanor to bed a little earlier that night. The sun had hardly set before Sam was defenselessly flat on his back in bed, and his eyes were rolling drunkenly into the back of his head.
~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~--~~
Frodo the Dog
"You want me to fill you up?"
Slap!
Frodo was still wide awake for no apparent reason, and still tumbled upon that moment that happened earlier in the day. His mind lazily bounced from one thought to another, from one topic to another, until his mind's eye danced across Lauren's body several times. She was trying to tie a tiny bouquet of red and yellow wildflowers together.
She was talking about her memory. "I still have a lot of empty spaces."
"You want me to fill you up?" He grinned before thinking about how it may have sounded.
She whacked him a good one. Frodo never saw it coming.
Even now, hours later, he chuckled weakly at his own idiocy. He touched his cheek again. It barely stung when she slapped him, but somehow he could still feel the statement radiate from his skin.
His open eyes saw visions of her lying on the grass and tittering at his jokes. His mouth remembered the petal soft taste of her breasts. His skin tingled with the memory of her warm body in his bed. And he found himself imagining what the rest of her body felt like before he admitted he wasn't going to get to sleep at this rate.
He rolled off his bed and strolled through the dark house as a matter of practice. He emptied the pipe into the cool fireplace and stuffed it mindlessly with a new bowl of tobacco. He was already considering his real options with Lauren as he strolled to the little porthole window.
"Please don't smoke that," she said quietly. "It makes me sneeze."
Frodo turned to find her in the darkness, sitting at the front room table in her own long white nightgown. He set down the pipe and used the match to light a single stick candle instead. "What got you up so late?" The yellow light flickered alive to fill the room only enough so they could see each other. He set it on the table.
"Couldn't sleep," she said easily. "I feel guilty for slapping you even though you deserved it."
Frodo sat down opposite her at the table. He smiled, "As well you should, whether I deserved it or not."
Lauren lifted a brow. "And why is that?"
"Because I'd never slap you," he told her, meaning it.
She had a soft smile on her mouth. "Hm." She propped an elbow on the table and leaned her cheek into her palm. "So why are you up?"
"Can't tell you."
"Why not?"
"Because you'd slap me again."
She chuckled.
Frodo angled his head to feign insult. "I'm serious."
"And if I promise not to?"
"Still can't tell you," he grinned.
"Why not?" She smiled back.
Frodo tucked in his chin to look at the tabletop and leaned in with almost a bashful smile. "Because I'd deserve it."
Lauren's voice was playful and smooth like warm chocolate. "For some reason I feel I should be testing my imagination against the thought of children right now."
"Gosh, I wished that worked for me." Frodo admitted. "I can't have any."
Lauren angled her head. "You can't? Why not?"
His hands were folded in his lap. He leaned his arms and chest against the front of the table. "Something that had to do with the Ring I assume. I don't quite understand it, but Gandalf once told me I wasn't ever going to have any offspring."
"You failed to mention this before," she said with humor in her tone.
Frodo nodded. "I was trusting that your fear of conception would serve some purpose as a safety net."
Lauren folded her forearms on the table and leaned over with a big smile. "Then why are you telling me now?"
Frodo's wildly smiling eyes flicked up to her. "Can't tell you," he whispered.
She shifted more and leaned closer, but unless someone crawled on top of the table, they'd still be out of reach of each other. "Is there anything you can tell me?"
"You mean, anything that wouldn't get me slapped?"
"I already promised I wouldn't."
"I really don't care if you slap me or not."
"So tell me."
He tucked his brows to play confused, "Tell you what?"
She chuckled and lowered her forehead to the table top with defeat. "Pointy-eared freak," she groaned, but with such a smile in her voice, she might as well have said the words outright.
Frodo glowed inside. He lowered his face down to the table until his mouth hovered near her ear with only a waterfall of hair to protect it. He whispered it like the words were a delicacy, "I want you to come to bed."
Her shoulders lifted to take in a deep breath. She pushed her body up by her elbows, but hardly moved away. She looked in his eyes. "So much for wedding vows."
He shrugged a shoulder, "Without children, superfluous."
Lauren's eyes dropped to the table, thinking lightly on this.
"Besides," he grinned, "In your heart, you've already given vows to me, and I know what they are."
A smile came to her face a little bit louder than her blush. "Do you? And what are they?"
His eyes were intent on her, vowing the same thing. "Can't tell you."
Lauren's eyes sparkled at him as if daring him. She pushed away from the table. "That's too bad."
Frodo tightened his teeth and unthreaded his own legs from the table as he watched her get up and go. He grabbed the small candle and strolled three steps behind her. She paused in the pentagon hallway before turning to her own room.
He stopped near his large round door and turned around to steal a peek of her in her nightgown. If there was a light behind her, he could see her supple silhouette through the cotton, but Frodo was left with his vivid imagination at the moment. "May I be permitted a kiss goodnight, at the least?"
Lauren couldn't turn that down, but she blushed at her own imagination when he asked. She turned on her toes and stepped to him patiently. "It's good to know you take rejection like an adult."
Frodo put down the candle. "That's odd," He said thoughtfully and closed the distance to her, already lifting his hands to take her waist. "I never heard a rejection."
Lauren came to him without lifting her arms for him, and gave him a warm kiss on the mouth. Frodo, on the other hand, took up her body with groping palms and pulled her against him. It was deceiving how thin cotton really was. He wrapped his arms snuggly around her waist to keep her torso and all its soft, beautiful curves pressed firmly against him.
She was caught with surprise, but she didn't push him off. Her arms were around his shoulders by the time he pulled his mouth away. And she must have been noticing a few soft bulges herself, for her eyelids fluttered drunkenly open again.
He squeezed his eyes shut to yank his nerves back into grip, and deliberately slid a palm over her hip and up her side. With a breath, her body rose into him and her eyelids fell closed. Her cheeks were the same shade as the last of sundown. He looked for an answer in her expression and grinned arrogantly when he found it.
Frodo started pulling her back into his bedroom. He groped and kissed and held and coaxed until Lauren was moving blindly to his will. When they graced the doorway, he quickly reached out and grabbed the single flame to take into the room with them. But, when he returned to face her, Lauren grabbed him by the face to kiss him even more.
She started pushing him backward instead.
They rolled into his big bed with an hour of the same old kissing feast they were already comfortable with, but that was followed by several more hours of groping and giggling with embarrassment. It wasn't until the cotton barriers started being inched out of the way that things got intense and terrifying. Sliding palms retreated to mere fingertips. Hungry kissing had been so drugged that it became hardly more than quivering breath behind brushing lips. Somewhere in the middle of the silent affection, the candle ran out of wick and the room fell into absolute darkness.
Fingertips only paused the brief moment it took to realize where the light went, and then started up again as if permission from the Gods had been granted. A knee was dragged out of the way. Claws dug gently into a shoulder blade. A momentary freeze of movement was dislodged with a soft, reassuring kiss. A neck was softly bitten and a throat responded with sound. Sanity lost its grip, emotion galloped into a frolicking canter, and pleasure tumbled over them like an avalanche of rosebuds.
