Whoo! Sorry for the extremely long wait, everyone. This time, I assure you, I am back with a vengeance and I will finish this story if it kills me. grins I've hit a snag in the storyline, but don't worry, in my notebook I'm four chapters ahead. Plenty of time to fix it without too much wait. Hope you enjoy the next chapter...it really is NOT that good. The next one is awesome, though. Will edit soon.

Chapter Six: Waiting

Sam returned to consciousness abruptly the next morning. His eyes snapped open and were filled with blinding sunlight. Startled, he sat up, squinting about.

His head was pounding with exhaustion, but through the mist hanging before his eyes he saw dark walls, a flat ceiling. Candles in high stands flanked a great door of paned glass. It was remarkably warm. Tall windows flooded the room with autumn sunlight. He glanced to his left. Two lumpen forms concealed in blankets on beds beside him.

Beside him, his pack lay on the floor. Quickly he changed into his travelling-clothes, laying aside the unfamiliar nightclothes he had slept in. His garments seemed to have been healed of all hurts they had suffered thus far on their journey. Pippin emitted one very loud snore as Sam left the room, buttoning his vest as he went.

He found himself on what seemed to be an outdoor hallway, with open air on his right and the vast house on his left. A handrail, delicately traced with designs of leaves, came up to about Sam's chin, and he stood on tiptoe to look over, only to step back hastily. A steep drop into a glistening waterfall. It was enough to make any hobbit queasy.

With a final jolt out of sleepiness, he remembered.

"Where've they put Mr. Frodo?" he asked himself.

He went quickly along the walkway, turning the corner and finding still no one there. He looked out across the handrail and saw Rivendell's sprawl in its near-entirety. Tall columns, and gracefully sloping stairways and bridges, beautiful halls and rooms with open doors and windows, trees tall and flowers grand. And then there was the great river, in glimmering grandeur, softly murmuring as it lazed about the golden valley.

"Master Perian?"

Sam turned about, startled, and looked up at a she-elf. She wore a loose dress of dark grey-green with a sheer shawl about her shoulders. Her dark hair was pulled back into a headpiece of silver wrought in the likeness of leaves and vines.

Sam wondered what to say, a bit stunned by her sudden appearance. She seemed to sense his hesitation.

"My name is Gildorien. I've been asked to come look for you. Your friend is still asleep. Do you want me to take you to him?"

Nervously Sam nodded in relief. She turned and swept away, and he followed, head slightly down and shoulders tense. She led him up a stairwell and across many rooms, until at last he began to recognize the surroundings. She pushed open the door to the room he had fallen asleep in the night before.

Despair pricked at him as he looked upon the white figure asleep between the dark coverlets. Sam fumbled for Frodo's hand once more. There he stayed as the day waned, interrupted only to eat and when Merry and Pippin walked in to stay with him.

Finally, he could keep his eyes open no longer. Elrond appeared at the door.

"Will you be wanting to go to bed now, Master Perian? I shall be here all night keeping watch."

Sam looked up at him sleepily.

"Please, Master Elrond, may I stay with him?"

Elrond sighed and smiled at the gardener, and a light cot was brought and put outside the room. Sam slept fitfully. And in the night, the master of the house kept vigil.

"Master Perian! Master Perian? Awaken, please!"

Sam shook himself out of sleep blearily, clouded eyes casting about until they focused clearly on Elrond's face bending over him.

"I am sorry to wake you, but you must come with me."

Any annoyance Sam felt for being shaken awake vanished in an instant, and he quickly followed Elrond into the room, pulling his coat on as he went.

Gildorien was holding a damp cloth to Frodo's sweaty brow. His breaths were short and whistling, and his face was tense. The elf glanced up at Sam as he entered. Sam stood rooted to the spot, his hands resting on the coverlet and pain in his face.

"Take his hand, Samwise. He needs you."

Gildorien took the cloth off, and stood up, moving to a table with various glass bottles and herbs and busying herself.

Frodo's head shifted on his pillow slightly. Sam pulled the cover back, and took his hand in his own. The touch of the cold hand gave Sam a chill, and he breathed on it and rubbed it gently.

Elrond sat wearily in a high chair near the foot of the bed. The she-elf leaned close to his ear and spoke something that Sam could not understand. She moved to Frodo's other side and kneeled on the floor.

Sam tightened his hold on Frodo's hand. It seemed to him that his master's breathing grew easier, and the frown that creased his brow softened. Gildorien smiled.

"I knew it was so. He only seems to be peaceful when...when you're here, Master Perian. When your there with his hand in yours, he breathes easier."

Sam glanced up at her, incredulous.

The elf-lord stood from his chair. "Your presence seems to give him something of comfort, something to hold onto until the storm passes."

Suddenly Sam withdrew his hand. Elrond looked at the halfling, surprised.

"Doesn't he..." Sam stammered. "He...he knows that I'm to blame for what happened?"

Sam looked so upset that Elrond stood up and made towards him concernedly.

The hobbit knew, of course, that Elrond knew nothing of the fact that he had given in to temptation...he thought Sam felt guilty for Frodo being wounded in the first place. I wish someone could set me aright, he thought. Nevertheless, he reached out and took Frodo's hand as it seemed he had to, despite the guilt that pervaded his thoughts. He felt unclean, unworthy somehow, to be with his master who had never given in...who had kept his promise, and was so strong of will that he remained true.

Sleep was slowly overtaking him as he sat in the silence of the bedroom. He laid his head on the bed, still kneeling on the floor, and soon he was snoring, slumped against the side of the bed. Elrond moved toward the sleeping pair, and propped Sam's head on a pillow.

With a crash that would have woken the dead, the double doors to the room swung open and beat against the carven wall. Elrond and Gildorien nearly fell over, crying out in utter shock, and Sam woke with a yell.

In through the door stumbled a bedraggled figure in grey, windblown and wet from the rain. A gnarled hand reached up to pull the hood off the shadowed face.

Dried blood bespeckled the weathered face, and a long grey beard matted and tangled fell from a bruised nose and windburned cheeks.

"Gandalf!" Sam breathed in a whisper.

EESH. This has been sitting in my notebook since January, and I spotted a lot of stuff wrong with it...ah well. I'll be editing it soon. Please review! Again, sorry for the delay.