Title: Stay or Go
Fandom: LOTR
Rating: G
Author: Endaewen
Summary: Sam's thoughts on Frodo's departure at the Havens.
Disclaimer: Not mine. All characters and settings belong to the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien.
For Sam, there were reasons to go with Frodo, but more reasons to stay. The biggest reason to go was that Frodo was going. That's what he'd done since he became, first Frodo's gardener, then manservant, and finally, his friend. That friendship had spanned most of the quest, and only deepened over the short time that had passed since the end.
Once he'd seen Bilbo on this last journey, he knew it was the final one for Frodo. He hadn't wanted to know, but he knew all the same. Elrond, Galadriel and the others were going to the Havens. Sam had hoped, though he knew it was a futile one, that Frodo was only going along to say farewell to his beloved uncle.
After he'd understood what Frodo meant to do, the former manservant had wanted to go along. However, Sam had known that the other hobbit was right. There were too many reasons for him to stay. But he'd followed along after his master, helping him for so long that he wasn't sure he'd know what to do with himself, without that job any longer. He'd still done that after they'd returned, despite the fact that he was now married, and held the post of Mayor of the Shire.
Sam had never talked about it, but with the forthcoming departure of Frodo, he was loosing the only one who understood what carrying the Ring was like. It had only been a short time, perhaps two days at most, but it had changed him forever.
The reasons to stay were many, and together they added up to more than the reasons to go: his wife, Rosie, his daughter, Elanor, the as yet unborn children that Frodo had said he'd have, his work re-building the Shire after Saruman's destruction and making sure the rest of the hobbits never forgot the sacrifices made on their behalf.
None of the hobbits, other than the four standing there on the docks knew what war was truly like, and as far as they were concerned, that was the way things should be. The battles to oust Saruman and his ruffians were not truly war. The fear, the pain, the colours: red and black. All the other colours vanished in war and its aftermath, leaving only shades of red and black. Red for fresh blood, and black for when it dried. All of this added up to pure ugliness, which no-one should have to experience. The three hobbits staying behind had chosen to make preventing such an experience from involving the Shire their life's work.
Frodo had promised, without outright saying it, that there would be a place for him to rejoin the other hobbit and take what he still felt was his rightful place, serving his master. Standing there beside his master on the docks for the last time, Sam knew that there would one day be a day when the reasons to go outweighed the reasons to stay. On that day, if he so chose, he too could take ship, and rejoin them. Until then, he would stay.