Bilbo sat back into the cushion and stared at the white door across the room. Sam sat forward on one end of the long, low couch, one hand on his pipe bowl, his teeth clenched on the stem, his whole body a taut wire that was ready to spring at any moment. Merry took up the other end of the couch, his eyes turned unseeingly at the window, one hand wrapped around his knees, the other closed around the bowl of his pipe. Bilbo felt Pippin's head shift on his lap as the young Took blew a shapeless mass of smoke into the air.
It was quite clear to Bilbo that none of his younger friends were really interested in their pipes. But even so, to say that the smell of pipeweed was overwhelming was putting it mildly. The room reeked of pipeweed the way the store holes in the South Farthing smelled after the year's leaf harvest was hauled in. Bilbo sighed. The elves would have to air the room for three days in a row after this, drag the couch out and burn the cushions if they did not want to wash them far down in the cold water of the Loudwater. Even so, Bilbo was certain that no amount of dried herbs and flowers would take away the stubborn, permeating smell of the best and most potent of Longbottom Leaf, the only pipeweed the young Thain- and Master-to-be cared to smoke.
"How much longer, Bilbo?" asked Merry suddenly, between gritted teeth, and at that question the other two grim faces turned toward the old hobbit. "They have been there for hours."
"I can't hear him moaning anymore," said Sam in a shaking voice. "Does that mean he's better then?"
"What's with all the singing, Bilbo?" demanded Pippin. "How can they cure Frodo by singing alone?"
"I don't know, lads," said Bilbo. "I know little of elvish medicine and much less of the cure for as grave an injury as that from a shard of a morgul blade."
"But they will cure Frodo, won't they, cousin?" said Pippin, twisting his head around to look up at Bilbo. "You said Lord Elrond is a healing lore master."
They must cure him, thought Bilbo grimly, or I… What will I do? What can I do? I was the one who caused him this injury.
I gave the Ring to him.
Bilbo sat at the edge of the large elven bed, holding Frodo's right hand as Elrond gently removed the bandages that were wrapped around Frodo's shoulder and chest. Sam was standing on Elrond's side of the bed, ready to help should the elf lord ask him. Merry and Pippin watched with large, frightened eyes from the foot of the bed. But Bilbo, for all that he was clasping Frodo's hand in his, had eyes only for the golden Ring at the end of the long chain around Frodo's neck.
'Surely touching it, just touching it, would do no harm,' thought Bilbo, staring at the Ring with hungry fascination. 'I would not put It on,' he argued further. 'I just wanted to caress it, the way I stroked Frodo's cheek when he was newly arrived here. The Ring was mine for many years, I had put it on several times and I suffered no harm from it. Surely touching it here—in Rivendell of all places—would create no danger. Just a touch… Just a brief touch…'
He nearly reached out his hand when suddenly Frodo gasped. "Bilbo!"
Bilbo's eyes strayed from the Ring and once again focused on Frodo's face. Frodo's eyes were open yet unseeing. Elrond stopped his examination on Frodo's wound and placed one hand on Frodo's brow.
"Don't… leave me," whispered Frodo. "Take me…with…you."
The longing in that plea tore at Bilbo's heart. The breathless lust for the Ring was stilled and silenced, pushed aside by the memory of tenderness, by a flood of guilt. Bilbo tightened his grip on Frodo's hand. "I'm here, lad. You're safe. I'm here with you."
'What have I done to you, my lad?' thought Bilbo as he drew on his pipe. 'When into your restless dreams Merry entered, or Pippin, or Sam, you would murmur of willow trees that creaked and snapped, of creeping hands and a naked sword, of Riders in black that swayed and sniffed, and you would cry "Leave them alone! Don't hurt them!" But sometimes you lay there rigid and white, and you passed your hand in front of your face, muttering about how Gandalf had warned you not to put on the Ring and begging an unseen tormentor to stop forcing you to put It on.
'But when I was around, when through the mist and shadows you could hear me, you only asked to be with me, you only wanted me to stay. Had I wounded you so deeply, my boy, when I left you seventeen years ago, that it was the only memory you had of me?'
The white door to the sickroom opened and Aragorn stepped out. The hobbits sprang from the couch and anxiously gathered around the Ranger.
"How was the surgery, Strider?" asked Merry.
"Is he all right?" gasped Sam.
"Did they manage to take it out?" demanded Pippin.
"Can we see him, Aragorn?" said Bilbo.
Aragorn looked pale; his eyes were bloodshot and his hands were shaking, but his voice was steady when he replied, "We have taken the shard out of his shoulder. But the surgery was hard on Frodo. Carrying the knife tip for seventeen days has greatly weakened him, and removing it has exhausted all his remaining strength."
Sam choked and swayed back. Merry's hands steadied him before Sam collapsed on the floor. Pippin's face crumpled into a mask of grief. Bilbo looked down at the floor, the hand holding his pipe trembling.
"I will not tell you a lie," Aragorn went on. "Frodo is still alive now, but we don't know how long he will be able to survive. Lord Elrond and his assistants are tidying up. As soon as they let you, you can come in."
"And Bilbo," added Aragorn softly. Bilbo looked up. "Lord Elrond asked you to come in first."
"Thank you, Aragorn," muttered Bilbo absentmindedly.
Aragorn placed a gentle hand on the old hobbit's shoulder. "He needs you to be strong for him, old friend," he said quietly.
Bilbo took a deep breath and nodded, putting one hand around Pippin, who was beginning to sob on his shoulder.
"Why can't we all come in and see him, Strider?" pleaded Sam.
"I know you all love him," said Aragorn. "But Lord Elrond believes that Frodo will need Bilbo most now. Frodo needs to see that life is more than flight and fear. His memory with Bilbo will help him remember that."
"Surely they can all come in, Aragorn," said Bilbo, rubbing Pippin's back slowly. "If they promise to be quiet and stay out of the way. If…" He swallowed hard, blinking back tears. "If these are to be his last hours among us, I know Frodo would want his most cherished friends to be with him."
Sam gasped and Merry shuddered at the words. Pippin buried his face in Bilbo's neck and the old hobbit tightened his arms around his younger cousin. Aragorn stared long at the hobbits with pity and compassion. Finally he nodded and said, "I will consult with Lord Elrond about this." He disappeared into the room.
When he came out, he told the younger hobbits that they could come in with Bilbo. Then he strode to the couch and drew out his own pipe, lighting it with hands that were scarcely steadier than when first he came out of the room.
Bilbo joined him on the couch and quietly resumed his smoking. The three younger hobbits were too restless to sit. Merry stood against the wall, with Sam by his side. Pippin knelt on the couch, looking out the window into the dark starless night.
"I did not know you started smoking again, Bilbo," muttered Aragorn around the stem of his pipe.
"My cousins have been very persuasive," replied Bilbo. "And generous to a fault. I must have depleted their stores of leaf. I seem to have made-up for all the years I did not smoke in the few days they have been here here." He inhaled deeply and let out a billowing mass of bluish gray smoke. "I had forgotten that it could be quite calming."
"Calming," murmured Aragorn. "Yes. You need to be very calm when you come to Frodo's side."
Bilbo glanced in alarm at his friend.
"He has gone so far into the shadow world," Aragorn went on quietly. "He almost could not hear me summoning him. If anyone can call him to return, it will be you, someone who is dearest to his heart."
Bilbo choked and stared in horror at Aragorn. "And if I can't?"
"Then Frodo's fate is beyond our efforts," said Aragorn, turning to Bilbo and touching his arm gently. The Ranger's eyes glimmered with sympathy as he saw Bilbo's pipe shake within the clutch of the hobbit's gnarled fingers.
==
