She didn't see Frodo again until May of the following year. She had returned to the business she had set up for herself prior to the Troubles: a baker. She chose Waymeet as her new base of operations; there was much coming and going on the East-West Road as hobbits gradually moved from temporary quarters into permanent ones, and custom was good.

She was just closing up shop for her midday meal when she noticed yet another group of hobbits gathering down the street, perhaps preparing for a move. She glanced their way, then looked again. Surely that was Frodo Baggins with them, giving them directions.

He had brought a wagon with him, pulled by two ponies. He spoke to what looked like the heads of several households; he was too far off for her to hear his words. Then one of hobbits took the ponies by the bit, and led them towards the place where the displaced hobbit families were encamped. Frodo lagged behind, smiling as the hobbit children skipped about the wagon, shouting with excitement. Then he looked up and saw her.

Embarrassed to be caught staring, Nel nodded a greeting. Frodo lifted his hand in response. Then he started to walk towards her.

Nel secured her shutters and flipped round the sign showing the bakery was closed. She brushed her hands against her apron, but they were clean. At six in the morning, she was flour everywhere. But this was the end of her work day; at least she was tidy.

"Good afternoon," Frodo called, drawing close.

"Good afternoon." Nel stepped off the porch to meet him.

His eyes held a trace of the lingering sadness that had so struck her upon their earlier meeting. His smile, too, was sad, though soft and kind. "It's good to see you looking so well again."

"It's good to see you, too." She could not have returned his compliment. Frodo looked, if anything, thinner than when she had last seen him. The signs of poor health were more pronounced. It was not just age that had altered his features; he had certainly been ill during the recent months. Shadows underlined his eyes, and his color was too pale.

She nodded towards the settlement off the road, where the homeless hobbits gathered round the wagon. "Have you brought supplies?"

Frodo shook his head. "I've come to lead four of these families back to Hobbiton. You've heard of Lobelia's legacy regarding dispossessed hobbits, haven't you? The first of the new homes are now ready."

"I see." Nel looked closer at the group; a couple of hobbits had started to load bundles onto the wagon. "Have you time for luncheon? You must be hungry after your early start."

"I would be happy to share your company. I'm quite at leisure; we won't leave until tomorrow morning, for the return journey will be slow."

Nel pictured a long line of hobbits, bearing bundles and herding little ones—a regular sight these several months. She nodded. "Please come in."

She led him through the store to the kitchen at the back. The bedroom behind was bored into the hill; she had never got used to sleeping anywhere but a burrow.

"I'm surprised you're not at Tuckborough," he said, as she got out a couple of glasses.

"I do more good here. Besides, it's not so extraordinary. Pearl is the only one of us who still lives in the Smials these days."

"True enough."

She had a good beer on hand; she poured herself and Frodo tall mugs. She carried them to the little dining table, where he had seated himself. She handed him his glass, and waited for his reaction. He took a sip, and raised his eyebrows in surprise. She smiled. "I made it myself. I have a feeling that 1420 is going to be a very good year."

"It certainly will. For the Shire, at least."

She pondered how to ask him what he meant by this, when he suddenly said, "You never married."

"No." A confusion of emotions swept through her. Despite that, some courage she didn't know she possessed caused her to meet his eye. "Neither did you."

Frodo held her gaze. He wasn't anything like the hobbit she had known before. His eyes held no anger, no reproach, no laughter—nothing but this pervasive sadness, and a sense of compassion deep as a sunless lake.

He indicated the empty chair across from her, and she sat. All notions of making dinner went out of her head; she felt tension coil within her. This conversation was what she'd been waiting for, without knowing it, for the last twelve years.

But what he said surprised her. "Nel, you must forgive yourself."

She opened her mouth before she found she had no reply. Frodo reached across the table, and closed his hand gently upon her wrist. With a start, she saw his missing finger. Pippin had told her all about it, of course. She hadn't noticed it at the Lockholes. Now she saw the gap against the linen of her sleeve; it seemed to symbolize all the empty days of her life. He was holding the wrist that had been broken.

"I hurt you terribly." Her voice was so tight, she could scarcely speak. "You and Vinca. It broke her heart, Frodo, it absolutely did." The words ran out. She covered her face with her free hand.

She heard his chair push back. Still holding her wrist, he came round the table, and put his arm around her. With a shock, she felt him pushing her aside, so he could share her chair. She moved over to accommodate him, then wrapped her arms about his neck. Her tears fell upon his lapel, soaking into the soft fabric.

He petted her hair. She hugged him fiercely, trembling. So long she had wanted to do this. And now it was all wrong, because she was poison, had always been poison, had hurt the people she loved most in the world. Emptiness was her portion; she deserved no better.

"Nel," he said, when she had quieted a little, "I want you to understand something. What you did those long years ago, turned out to be for the best."

She pulled away, to meet his eye. She wanted him to see her indignation. "How can you say that? Vinca was never the same, nor you. She loved you, Frodo. I'm convinced she loves Willy, too, but in a different way. Something died in her forever when you parted, and I am the one to blame!"

Maddeningly, he did not rise to her anger. His gaze seemed to soak it in from her, letting it dissipate in the depths of his eyes. "I am truly sorry about Vinca. I don't dare visit her even now; opening those old wounds would serve no one."

"Then how can you say it turned out for the best?"

Frodo sighed. He remained with his arm about her, but gazed vacantly into space. "Nel, I came into possession of… a terrible object."

Nel's emotions steadied with the change of subject. "I heard about that. Pippin told me."

"I know he did. You are one of the few hobbits in the Shire who bothered to ask."

Nel was silent. She could well see why no one quizzed Frodo about his journey. If she didn't know him so well, his reserve and unblinking eye would have intimidated her as well.

"I could not have married Vinca until the year I left; she would not have been of age before then. Had I continued courting her, our relationship would have been nearly a dozen years old when I learned the nature of this hideous relic. What was I to do then?"

Nel said softly, "You would have taken Vinca into your confidence."

"That could have sealed her doom. No," Frodo shook his head. "I could never have told her."

"She could have gone with you, like Pippin did."

"I would never have taken her. I would not have taken Pippin or Merry either, had they not tricked their way into joining me."

"Why did your journey have to be so secret?"

"It was the dar—the danger." Nel thought Frodo changed what he was going to say. Perspiration dampened his skin. He swallowed. "You can't… you cannot know the danger. I did not understand it myself, until I was already underway. By the time I did, I was struck down and nearly killed. I have not recovered from that evil wound, not to this very day."

Nel stared at him. Frodo was breathing hard; his gaze seemed far away, seeing distance events. She adjusted her arms about his neck—now she was comforting him. She said gently, "Vinca would have waited for you to come home."

"But I never meant to return." Frodo passed a hand over his eyes. "At the time that I left, I thought I must leave the Shire forever. I intended to. I was carrying an object so dreadful, the mere knowledge of it could have changed the course of the war. My options at the time were limited. Had I still been courting Vinca, I could have taken her into my confidence, as you suggested. That would have left her vulnerable to the evil servants that the dar—that their master had sent to find me. Or, she could have come with me, and run straight into their arms, as I ultimately did. She might have ended up as I did—or infinitely worse."

Nel stared in amazement. Every line Frodo spoke cracked with truth, like lightning upon the hills. This changed Frodo was more intense than he had ever been. "No, I could not have told her, even had Gandalf not advised against telling anyone. What were my choices then? I could have pretended that nothing was wrong, and slipped away without a word, leaving everyone to wonder. Alternatively, I could have broken off our long engagement for no apparent cause. If our breakup so many years before had been painful, what would the repercussions be, were I to abandon her so shortly before we were at last to become husband and wife?"

Nel's heart pounded in sympathy for his anguish. She wanted to protest, but how?

"There was one option more," Frodo said heavily. "I could have married her. I could have refused the task, renounced the Quest, and settled with my dearest love in the comfort of Bag End."

Nel's mouth was dry. She whispered, "Why didn't you?"

Frodo turned within her arms. He rested his forehead against hers, his hands about her waist. "Who else could have taken up the burden? Would they have succeeded? The War was won, dear Nel, largely by good luck, and the dogged persistence of a hobbit named Sam who refused to give up even after his master was wholly broken by his task. We came that close to losing… everything. But for an accident of fate, there would be no restored king, no kingdoms, no victory—nothing but blackness and ruin, even into the Shire itself."

Nel could feel his heart beating against her chest. Petting his hair, she kissed his brow. "You sacrificed yourself to save Vinca."

His voice was hoarse. "Not Vinca. The Shire. I did what I did for the Shire." He murmured next to her ear, "It was you who sacrificed yourself for Vinca, when the dark times came."

Nel's eyes filled. "She's my sister." Her throat was painfully tight. "I love her."

"I know."

His lips brushed hers, closed with her. His kiss was warm, alive, urgent. Nel found herself responding eagerly, lavishing kisses upon his lips and face, pulling him into her, even as tears streamed down her cheeks.

They made it to the bedroom somehow. They left the door open for light. In time Nel lay on her back upon the bed, her hands exploring the body of the hobbit she had loved as no other. He ravaged her mouth with kisses; his hands seized her with a kind of desperation. Through the long afternoon her fingertips discovered his many scars, as yet unexplained by Pippin's account. They caressed his smooth skin, too thinly covering the sweet bones of his frame. She welcomed his weight upon her—exulting in their embrace even as tears ran down their faces. Later that night, she held him as he cried. She comforted him, again taking in his pain as deeply as she could, emotionally and physically. When he finally drifted into sleep, she wept.