Author's note: Hello, all! Thank you soooooo much for giving me such a warm greeting upon my return (however short that return was)...it was most definitely appreciated. I actually would like to apologize for the extra helping of cheese that I seemed to have piled on last chapter. Looking back at it, I believe it is some of the cheesiest stuff I have ever written. I may go back and revise it someday. But no matter; it is a road block averted, however ungracefully, and has allowed me to move on with the rest of the story. The first flashback in this chapter was completely and absolutely the first thing I wrote for this story, which I had almost forgotten about, and was utterly pleased when I stumbled across it in my journal. I hope you enjoy it.

Another Author's note This chapter isn't finished the way I want it to be. It should really be about the length of two chapters done correctly. However, I believe my plot bunny has been hit by a car...or a mac truck...or something. So just keep in mind that this is "Chapter 6: Part 1" and should not end where it does by a long shot. But I've kept you waiting so long, I feel I should at least share with you what I have done. Alas, I have no idea when part two will follow...but when my plot bunny is resurrected, I'll let you all be the first to know.

So without further ado, tally ho!

Hugs, luv, and creme soda,

Lemondrop

The party field was consumed in voracious rumor.

"She said Rose had left! Can't find her anywhere!"

"Are you sure?"

"That's what the little Proudfoot lad said; heard Lily fretting at the window about it when he went to ask her about the cake…"

"Didn't he say she sent Jolly out to look for Rose?"

"Yes, but there's not much hope in finding her before midday, if running is what she plans to do..."

"You know, I saw her talking with another lad in the market just last week..."

"No! Do you really think..."

"Absolutely not!" Pippin objected loudly as he passed. He'd no idea how stories grew so outlandish among the Shirelings, but he certainly was not in the mood to hear them spread about before his ears. He pushed his way through the chattering crowd, trying to figure out what to do next. First Sam, now Rose...what in the world were they up to? Well, Pippin thought to himself, At least no one else knows that Sam's walked off as well.

"Pippin!" A voice called behind him. He turned to see Merry swimming through the crowd himself. "Sam's not back yet!" Merry shouted, unable to contain himself until he came within normal speaking distance of Pip. "Frodo says he went off to think, but I've got a feeling he's gone and got himself a pair of cold feet!"

The hobbits around them went suddenly quiet at the news.

Pippin groaned.

Lily Cotton threw her towel onto the table in nervous frustration. How was she supposed to bake a cake while her daughter was missing? On the morning of her wedding, no less! For the third time since Jolly had left, Mrs. Cotton bustled over to the window and looked out over the yard. How long had he been gone? Ten minutes? She shook her head worriedly. Where were they?

She returned to her cake, measuring here, mixing there, all the while her mind scrambling about for something to occupy it while she waited. Her thoughts had not strayed far from her daughter when she slipped into a memory she had almost completely forgotten...

Lily was on her way into the kitchen with the empty cups from after-supper tea when a soft sob escaped from behind Rose's door. Wondering what it could be about, she set the tray down on the floor and gave a gentle tap.

"Come in," she heard Rose call after a moment. With a turn of the knob and a creak of the hinges, Lily peeked inside her daughter's room.

Rose sat on her bed, dressed in her night gown, with a book propped against her knees and an innocent smile on her face. The untrained eye would see the Hobbit lass as nothing less than radiant, but being a mother of five had not left Lily without instinct; there were telltale signs that her daughter had been crying. She knew better than to confront Rose openly, however, and she simply returned Rose's smile as she stepped into the room.

"You missed tea tonight Rosie," she said casually, moving to tidy the dress Rose had left in a heap at the foot of her bed, "and I'm afraid the boys have gone and eaten all of that wonderful pie you made after supper."

"Oh, that's alright," Rose returned just as nonchalantly, "I'll see if I'll make another for tomorrow."

Lily nodded, shaking the wrinkles from the dress and taking it across the room to the wardrobe. "Where were you off to so quick after supper?"

"Oh," Rose said again, this time sounding slightly trodden on. "Just out and about. I spent some time in the front garden, then Sam and I...Sam--"

Mrs. Cotton turned from the wardrobe and looked at her hobbit lass, who was now just barely holding back her tears. Rose quickly averted her eyes and directed her attention to the book in her lap, though it was clear she was reading nothing that was in front of her. "What about Sam, dear?" Lily asked quietly. For a moment, she thought that Rose had chosen to ignore her. Then Rose pressed a hand to her lips, stifling a hiccup of a sob. Lily went to her daughter's bedside and wrapped her arms around her, and she immediately dissolved into fresh tears.

"What if I never see him again, momma?" she whispered, clinging to her mother's apron. "What if I never see him again?"

Mrs. Cotton clicked her tongue in gentle reprimand. "Dear child, you could not have done anything so terrible as to drive him away forever. Your Samwise loves you more than that."

Rose fought her outburst down to a few solemn tears and pulled away from her mother's embrace. Mrs. Cotton reached out and dried her daughter's cheek with the edge of her apron. "Now what exactly happened today, Rosie?"

Sniffling worriedly, Rose recounted what Samwise had told her about his going away with Frodo Baggins. However, when she put it so plainly, his task sounded to Lily less like a crisis and more like a holiday. She shook her head and smiled, then took Rose's hand in hers. "I know that weeks can seem like years to a young hobbitess in love, but what you have to--"

"No, momma," Rose protested, pushing her mother's hands away. She had known it would come down to this--mother telling her little girl that she should know better, and would be wiser when she grew up. But Rose was grown now. Her mother had not been there to hear the fear and despair in Sam's voice. Hadn't he said he did not know when he would be back? Hadn't he held her hands and spoken to her more seriously than he ever had before? Hadn't he taken her in his arms and kissed her as if it would be his last?

Rose looked at her mother's expectant face and knew that nothing she could say would sway her mother's mind. Her mother was simply too set in her ways, too used to how normal Hobbits went about their business. Rose did her best to smile in admittance. "You're right. I'm probably overreacting. I'm sure Sam will be home soon."

"I'm proud of you, Rosie," Lily said, patting Rose's hand in a motherly fashion and rising stiffly from the bed. "Maybe my little girl is growing up after all." She moved to the door, a mass of skirts and hobbit feet, evidently pleased that she had talked good reason into her little hobbit lass. The door closed behind her, leaving Rose to finish shedding her tears in solitude.

Lily poured the cake batter into one of her round iron pans, telling herself that her sniffly nose and watery eyes were a result of the loose flour in the air, not the memory that had just decided to play through her head. At the time, Rose hadn't made any sense. Why would a lad who was so in love with a lass simply up and leave instead of taking her hand and settling down? It was simply against hobbit nature to travel--so Lily, of course, had dismissed Rose's fears as irrational. Any Hobbitess would have done the same. Wouldn't she?

But you had forgotten how crazy those Bagginses could be at times, Lily reminded herself. And it was because of her forgetfulness that she had shown Rose little to no sympathy. Even when, weeks later, Sam had not returned for Rose. Even when, months later, there was still no word from him or Frodo. Even when, at the end of a year, they were all presumed to be dead, and most of the Shire had forgotten about them. Instead, she had tried to get her daughter to move on, to set her sights again within the borders of the Shire.

Rose had refused.

And Lily had not understood why.

She finished filling the cake pans and scooted them into the oven. Maybe if she had listened to Rose that night in September they wouldn't be having this problem right now. Maybe her less than enthusiastic acceptance of Sam's unorthodox return, in those outlandish clothes and looking like an entirely different lad, had planted some idea in Rose's head.

Maybe Rose had left today because her mother's eternal doubt had finally invaded her mind as well.

Lily wiped the tears of self pity from her face, forcing herself to stop questioning her motherhood. Perhaps it was what she deserved for being so old fashioned. She got some milk to begin on the icing, stopping briefly at the window as she moved toward the table. Jolly had to be coming back soon...

Rose plopped down onto the grass, her skirts puffing out beneath her and floating slowly to the ground. It had not been easy to let Sam go that night, to let him walk off into the woods without a clue as to when he'd be back. Now, Rose sat at the top of the hill where the Cotton Hole had once been, looking out over the same woods where she had watched Sam disappear that life-altering September night. She had stood there in the strengthening dark, her toes and fingers and nose growing numb in the cool night air, staring blankly into the trees as her mind and heart scurried about wildly. Finally, when the last of the stars had winked their greeting, she had forced herself to go inside.

She remembered quite clearly the conversation that had followed with her mother. The tears she had shed. The sleepless night she had spent. The smile she had donned for breakfast, and for lunch, and for hours and days and weeks after.

And the hope she had clung to. That had never wavered.

Until the night they lost the Hole.