"Da! Where have you been?"
Sam had reentered Bag End only to be swept in by his two youngest children. Four hands reached out, taking him about the shoulders and bringing him inside to the parlor. He put his hands up in mock surrender as they brought him to his chair and bade him sit.
Tolman collapsed into the chair facing him and put his face in his hands. After a moment he looked up again, looking his father in the eye. Sam had never realized it before...but his son had Rosie's eyes.
"It would have been nice for you to tell me where you were going, at the least, Da," he said softly.
"I know, Tom, but I just needed to get away for a while, to do a bit of thinking," Sam countered, rubbing at one of his swollen eyes.
Tom bit his lip, watching his father staring thoughtfully into the hearth. He stood up hurriedly and brushed away the tears that had started in his tired eyes, and went to help his sister with the tea.
Sam got up, using the mantelpiece to steady himself, and made his way towards the study farther to the back of the hobbit-hole. It was the place where Sam could usually be found, if he wasn't in the garden or cooking. He had kept it in generally the same arrangement for the sixty years it had been his. Frodo's burgundy dress coat was still draped over the back of the writing-chair. It had not moved nor been disturbed since the day that Frodo had departed beyond the Grey Havens. Sam had sat in that chair many a year, drawing small comfort from that piece of his friend sitting behind him.
He settled into the chair, and picked up the quill. The last page of the Red Book had yet to be written on. He frowned slightly, thinking hard, and the end of the quill brushed back and forth against his chin. He inked the point and began to write.
Bilbo once told me that his part in this tale would end, and that each of us must come and go in the telling. His story has long been over. There had been no more journeys for him after his adventure with the dragon and the dwarves and the elves, save one. He sailed to Valinor as one of the Ring-bearers. And I suppose that Frodo was more alike to him than I ever thought, because he took the same road. I suppose my story is now over as well. What is left for me here? The Shire will always be here, and I have enjoyed it for longer than I ever expected to. My children are all grown, and my last joy in this world departed only yesterday. I sat by Rosie's bedside, and she held my hand tightly and we talked for hours. We poured our hearts out to each other, and we kissed as she slipped away
He paused and drew his cloak closer about his shoulders. The flourish below the "y" dragged across the page. He found he could write no more. He finished the sentence, moved his hand to the bottom edge of the page, and wrote:
I'm coming, Mr. Frodo. I'm coming.
Sam stared at the words for a few long moments. He dipped the quill in the well, and wrote his initials. He flipped to the front of the book, to the title page. He read the rushed scrawling of Bilbo, titling the book There and Back Again. And What Happened After. Adventures of Five Hobbits. The Tale of the Great Ring...he looked farther down at Frodo's graceful hand spelling out The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King.
He folded his arms and sat back. No matter how hard he thought, he could not come up with any title that could possibly serve to describe all he had written since Frodo's writing had stopped. Finally he settled on one, and penned The Fourth Age of the Shire: As Accounted by Mr. Samwise Gamgee.
It wasn't all that original, but it satisfied him.
He blew on the ink to make it dry quickly, closed the leather cover, and tied the red ribbon that held it shut. He stood up (a bit too quickly for comfort; a night's worth of sitting on the hard ground had caught up with him). He sifted a few papers apart, and discovered a map case with the Baggins family crest upon it. He walked around the room, picking up every scrap of paper he could find, folding them neatly and placing them in the case. When all was said and done, the leather clasp could hardly close, the case was so chock-full of Bilbo's maps and writings, and the occasional note of Frodo.
He gathered the quills, ink, and the Red Book into his own bag, and made for the door. But he paused...then, by impulse, took Frodo's coat off the chair and draped it over his arm. He rubbed the velvet between his thumb and index finger for a moment, and left the study.
I never realized how hard it is to write long chapters, when FanFiction formats them like this. Ah well. Short but sweet. Updates soon!
Thanks for the reviews and encouragement!