Empty tears.
9.Hope for the future.
T: One epilogue as promised and the last bit of narrative for this fic. Well it's been a roller coaster ride, but the support of the reviewers has given me hope again in fan fic.net. Yes this is a retraction of my earlier statement and yes I will be continuing to post here. Anyway warnings remain the same with the addition of SAP and a good smidgeon of M/P, which has been sneaking in since the last chapter! LOTR not mine, if it were then it'd most likely be a musical all the way through.
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He stairs a moment at the blank page before him, then at the steady handwriting crossing the right hand page. It feels wrong somehow to be doing this, but it was asked of him by one he thought of as brother and thus he could not refuse the request. Dipping his pen into the ink well before him he thinks a moment before he writes:
21st September 1433 S.R. in the top left-hand corner, then as an after thought he pens: From the pen of Meriadoc Brandybuck, Master of Buckland in the top right hand corner. This done he begins to write properly, pausing every now and again to collect his thoughts.
It has been eleven years since Frodo and Sam left for the Grey Havens and in all that time I have given no real thought to beginning to place my story into these pages. For it feels wrong to me somehow, for the Red Book has ever been a Baggins possession and I feel sometimes that it was ment to remain as such. Yet perhaps that is just sentiment clouding my mind. Whatever the cause of this delay it means that I now have a fair amount to place here within these pages even though my story has barely begun.
The first year after the departure was a time for remembrance and often it was the case that Pip and I would sit in the Green Dragon with the Gaffer and talk of the good times. Yet it was also a time for changes, both large and small. The largest was the decision that Pip and I would not go back to living as we had been, separated by the vast tracks of land between Buckland and Tuckborough, but that we would find a little Smaile somewhere in-between for the both of us to live. Of course our parents had a great deal to say to the decision their greatest argument being that we would never get our future spouses to agree to remain in such an arrangement. Thankfully that shall never be a problem, for the relationship between Pip and I had, by then, moved beyond what it had been and become something far greater. We told our parents that much as well and though they were a little put out to begin with they soon got used to the idea.
Once we had found a place within Willow Bottom we settled quickly into our life together, for always this possibility for the future had been but a small step away. Yet even together there was an emptiness still within our lives and I recall that often I would come home to find Pip staring off towards the Havens. I would never ask what was wrong, but wait patiently until he came back to himself and explained as always that he was, "Wondering how they are." I would catch myself doing the same every now and again, just turning inwards until I could see them together their contentment as a light upon their skin.
When the twenty-fifth of March came, that year, I woke in the night to find Pip gone from my side. Panic caught me and without much thought I grabbed my sword from its place under the bed and went out into the hallway. There was a light in the living room and there I found Pip, wide eyed and coated in a thin film of sweat. Placing the sword to one side I sat down next to him and brought him into my arms,
"What is the matter, my own?"
"It was horrible, Merry."
"Did you have a nightmare?"
"Yes and no. I dreamt that Frodo found a way to get to Mount Doom, but he did not destroy the Ring. Instead he claimed it for his own, but then Gollum bit his finger off and got the Ring and then he stepped back to far and fell into the fire bellow.
"But because he did not destroy it himself Frodo got all sad and turned inwards. Then Sam got married, Merry and though he came to live with Frodo it was not the same. And Frodo left for the Havens on his own which fare broke Sam in half, for he loved Frodo despite his marriage."
"It does not sound so bad."
"It was not, not really. It was just Frodo looked so unlike himself as he said goodbye and Sam looked all but ready to jump onto the boat with him."
"Well that is as maybe, but it was nothing but a dream, my love." I said and Pip had smiled and the moment passed.
But the memory of the dream haunted him for a while afterwards and sometimes he would tell me about how happy Sam was and that he had his sight in this world and so many beautiful children. I listen to those words and see the life they described pictured in my head and somehow it seemed more the life Sam should have had. Peaceful, contented and little marred by the shadow. And I felt sad that he had given that life up, yet things had been better the way they turned out, for Frodo too had found happiness that way.
But I ramble on and I have something yet to tell you of in this transition year before I move into the tale of my life. In the second year after the departure Pip found a letter upon our doorstep written mainly in Frodo's fair hand but with the occasional sentence scrawled in Sam's slightly sharper one. This in itself was as good news to us, for it was clear that to be able to write Sam needed to have gained his sight again. Indeed as we read the letter we found this was indeed the case and the joy with which Sam described all that he saw about him and the love with which he talked of Frodo's progress in Valinor destroyed all thoughts of the life he might have had.
The letter asked us to reply and gave us some unusual instructions on how to send our response once we were done. This we did gladly, giving each of our friend's news that we knew they would have wish to hear. To Sam we described how well his little Mallorn had grown since last he had set his blind fingers to it, and we told him of how well the Shire looked now that his work had had time to grow and blossom. To Frodo we gave the news of our choices and of the growth and blossoming of Gondor since Aragorn had begun his rule. Then we sent it as they had asked and not a week later we received a reply.
This correspondence has filled at last the void within our lives and has given us great joy, for it feels now as if Frodo and Sam are but a heart beat away waiting for a time when perhaps we too might be able to join them.
Whether that time will come I do not know. For neither Pip nor I bore the Ring or did anything of such renown to earn us a place upon a ship. Yet even if we have nothing to look forward to within the future but more of this life, then I have hope, for there can be nothing other than contentment now that I have my Took at my side.
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T: And at last it is over. Not entirely sure how the letters got from Middle Earth to Valinor but if I were to hazard a guess I'd say magic…it's much easier this way. As I have said I am going to post the timeline for this next chapter for those confused, for those not cheers for reading.
R+R.