One year later.
The last dark hours before morning found Frodo staring out the window, sleepless yet again. A book lay closed in his lap. The cold spring frost clung to the windows, and Frodo shivered against the dawn.
The Ring was destroyed a year ago, but against Frodo's chest it seemed to still burn. Cold and living, swallowing each day in despair. Tonight, he'd have to find smiles and laughter for his friends. But from what well, when all seemed dry, he could not say.
Merry and Pippin had insisted on a party, to celebrate- both the Anniversary, and Bag End restored. They were taking one more trip up from Crickhollow with the last of his furniture. Frodo's desk would be moved in today, cruelly taunting him to finish his book. But he couldn't think about his book. All he could do was wonder if his Sam would even come to the party tonight.
Not his Sam. Not his Sam anymore, not for a while now.
Sam was so busy with forestry and restoration work, it had been all too easy for him to avoid Frodo, since that day last autumn when Frodo first insisted that they end their affair.
This morning was awash with fog, that thick spring fog that rises when the air warms up so fast it takes the snow with it. Subliming, the naturalists called it, and sublime it was. Soft sunlight diffused through and it was as though the trees, the grass, even the stones were breathing the fog out, and it swirled everywhere like so much dragon smoke. Frodo watched on, as night became day amidst this snowy magic. Finally, he set aside the book, and stepped outside. The path down the hill was invisible in the fog- Frodo followed it to the pond by memory alone, and sat on a boulder at the edge. He dipped a pale hand into the water where the ice had cracked, and listened to the falling droplets break the hollow silence.
Not my Sam.
Frodo closed his eyes tight against his thoughts, but whenever he closed his eyes, he would see the Tree- always, it was that Tree-
The nightmares were getting worse. Longer, and more vivid, every night, for nearly a year. Now they seemed to bleed the daylight from the morning, beyond hope of returning.
His hand was ice-cold from the water, but he felt it not.
Perhaps the worst part about the nightmares was that they had started on a day of great hopes fulfilled; and it was to Frodo's shame that others' joy was the beginning of his sorrow.
It was the day Gandalf and Aragorn returned to Minas Tirith from a journey into the mountains. Gandalf, who lived with them, had been missing for a few days, and Frodo and Sam and the rest of the Company wondered where he had gone. In those days, after the war, all the Company except the King lived in a great house together- spacious, with many halls and grand rooms. Frodo and Sam shared a room at the top of the house, and if anyone took note of this, or noticed the change between them- the looks they shared, the small touches they dared in front of others- no one spoke of it. Everyone went to and fro as they wished, and joy whirled around every windswept corner.
But then Gandalf and Aragorn returned from the mountain with the tree… it was a sapling with leaves both dark and silver, and shining flowers just barely emerging from tight buds.
When the dying White Tree was reverently uprooted, and the new tree planted… that was when Frodo started having the dreams.
At first they were vague images, slow and faded like grey shadow but strong enough to linger in the memory upon waking. Frodo dreamed of the tree, that beautiful sapling, just beginning to bloom, only to be struck grey by an unknown force. Its white flowers would curl back in on themselves, its branches withering until it was a dark skeleton of its former self. Frodo would awaken with a sick feeling in his stomach.
The first time he dreamed it, it was only a few seconds, and the cloud of fear and nausea it brought upon waking quickly retreated in the light pouring through the windows and the warmth of Sam's arms. Everything foul was easy to forget in the mornings, in those days. Sam was like morning itself, after all- Sam had that deep, boundless energy and hope that only spring mornings promised. And Sam poured forth that feeling from his heart like sunshine, no matter the day nor the hour, nor the hopelessness of the task ahead of them. Frodo could still hear the light tone of Sam's voice rousing him in Cirith Ungol from a fate worse than death- as cheerful as if he were drawing back the curtains at Bag End. From what reservoir of strength Sam had mustered that cheer for Frodo's sake, Frodo would never know.
In that way, in those days, Sam was a bulwark against all darkness, even that which came from dreams unbidden, when all danger should have been escaped.
But the dreams worsened, and quickly. Frodo would wake from them nauseous, feeling like he was drowning. And the story of the Tree seemed to grow. It withered, and fire burst around it. Always, fire-
"You ought to be more gentle on yourself, beggin' your pardon," Sam had said shyly one evening at the start of June, some weeks after the dreams started. Frodo tried to hide his flinch at this- it didn't matter how much Sam protested. He had failed; he was a failure. In the end, he could not do what he had set out to do.
Frodo knew these were evil thoughts, and tried to bat them away like midges in a bog. It was his duty not to entertain those thoughts- for the sake of those who loved him, who knew his failure and who wanted to honor him anyway. Did Sam really know? Could he ever understand the truth of it? Frodo hadn't known how to respond, and instead only rested his head on Sam's shoulder and slipped a hand through his, as they watched the sun set over the mountains to the west from their white stone balcony.
Midsummer came, and it was at Aragorn's wedding that Frodo first began to feel true despair. The wedding, so beautiful, and the bride and groom honored by everyone around them- he and Sam could never have that. They would never be accepted in the Shire, let alone celebrated. Would Sam's Gaffer and his brothers ever support them or acknowledge them? And Frodo had no close kin at all, except Merry and Pippin, and Bilbo in Rivendell. Would that be enough for Sam? Their life would be lonely in the Shire, and they would be ostracized. Frodo wanted Sam to be celebrated, and he knew that Sam had always wanted a family, as well. That having children would be as natural to him as having first-prize flowers in his garden. Frodo could not give Sam all of these things. In fact, he was taking them away, by being with him.
So Frodo started to regret even the best thing that had happened to him.
It was a painful irony, therefore, in the days after the wedding, when Queen Arwen pulled Frodo aside, and offered him a terrible hope that would cost him everything.
If your hurts grieve you still, and the memory of your burden is heavy…
Did she know more than he realized, of what he must be going through? Frodo thought about this in retrospect. For she, too, was sundered, having to make an impossible choice.
For Frodo, that was the beginning of the end. And his dreams were getting worse. The Tree in his dreams seemed to make living and beautiful things push him over a precipice, as cunning as the Great Willow with its rotten heart. And while there weren't many growing things in Minas Tirith, whenever Frodo found himself in one of the gardens, or, worst of all, in the courtyard with the Tree itself, Frodo couldn't help but cower away, wounded as though the Morgul blade were still in him, working its way slowly to his heart.
I'm not worthy of living and beautiful things.
And Sam was the most living and beautiful thing of all.
All the while, his dreams were getting worse.
Around the withered Tree there erupted a ring of fire- but Frodo, knowing nothing could ever be worse than the Wheel of Fire he saw even with his waking eyes, walked through. And the Tree was no longer in the center, but instead, a beautiful conch seashell lay on the ground where the Tree was. When Frodo picked up the shell, the fire would disappear and all would be dark. Then he would walk forward, walk and walk until he was upon those shores. And there would be a boat, waiting to float him across the sea. But then the waters would turn to fire, all around him-
After the wedding at Midsummer, the Company traveled together, taking a winding route but ultimately heading for the Shire. By then, it was no secret among the Fellowship what Frodo and Sam were to each other, though thankfully they were spared from any teasing, and of course their beloved friends did not judge them. But the feeling was one of worry, not celebration or happiness- at least when it came to Frodo. He could not hide what the dreams were doing to him, and shame continually clawed at him for this.
By the time the remaining travelers arrived at Rivendell, Frodo feared he could not continue what he and Sam had, though how to explain it to Sam, he had no idea. On their last night in Rivendell, they talked about how difficult things in the Shire might be, since they had sensed that danger was afoot, since seeing Saruman in Orthanc. They knew it might be a long time before they could be alone together again. They made that night count.
But Frodo hadn't realized how quickly everything he loved would slip from his fingers. For on October 6th they arrived at the Ford of Bruinen and the wound at his shoulder seemed to split him into shards, uncountable shards beyond regathering. The stabbing pain had been as bad as when it really happened- worse, perhaps, because Frodo was now no longer innocent to all that he could lose. Even after he recovered from the physical pain (which he tried as best he could to hide from the others) he was struck into a dumb silence. No words could come to him, as though anything significant that he could ever say had been torn from him without mercy, that fated night on Weathertop, one year prior. And then they passed Weathertop itself, just a handful of days later- and the air of merriment and ease, which Frodo had so carefully crafted in the days between the Ford and the Watchtower, was demolished. He could not even look at the hill, for his shame. All he could do was draw his cloak about him as he rode in its shadow.
And the very leaves of the trees seemed to know his fate, for they whirled around him like wild birds with fell words before falling to the ground in the desolate wind and rainstorms that followed him and the Company, all the way to Bree. But the storms were his protection, for they seemed to shield him from even Sam coming too close. And he needed to be shielded, if he was going to destroy the future they had planned with so much hope.
So it was that Frodo, on their first night in Bree, after talk of all the dark happenings in the Shire was finished, found Sam and finally spoke, ending what they had together.
"That's hard and cruel, Mr. Frodo," Sam had said through thick tears. "Hard and cruel," he said, over and over, and though perhaps Frodo had known worse moments than this in his life, he suddenly couldn't remember them. But they had no time to truly give it the words that it needed. And even if they did, Frodo hadn't the words, anyway. He was tearing his very heart out of his chest, what words could give reason for that? The next day they were off, returning to the Shire to right all the wrongs they had learned of the night before.
Of all the treachery and indignity that the Shire suffered, perhaps the hardest for Frodo to witness was the Party Tree, brought low and left to rot. It was worse than the White Tree in Frodo's dreams withering into grey dust. And maybe that's what the dream was portending.
Frodo hadn't realized how much he had bound the Party Tree in his heart to Bilbo, his parents, his ancestral line, and his future. For when he was barely a tween and first came to live with Bilbo, he would often sit under that tree and think about his parents, and his fortune to come stay with his elder cousin, and, ultimately, his fate. The tree was like a symbol of a change of destiny for him, and its own greatness was like a window to the greatness of the world beyond, just waiting for him to see its wonders. And it was especially so in the fall, when the brilliant red-orange leaves were emblazoned against the sky just like the fiery sunset in the west: calling, beckoning him to a road that went ever on and on.
Frodo looked now, across the misty pond, to the hill where the Party Tree once stood. The young slip that was Sam's Mallorn Tree stood there now, its small blossoms bright even in the thick fog. Another beautiful miracle that Frodo could take no part of. For though he wished with all his heart for every joy that Middle Earth could muster for Sam, the Mallorn Tree was the beginning of Sam's line. The Party Tree was Frodo's, and its fall was a Sign that Frodo's line would end in dust. Not just children- for Frodo had felt deeply hesitant to be a parent himself, ever since he lost his own parents. It was more than that.
When Frodo looked into the future, he saw a Shire that would bloom and prosper for endless seasons to come, blessed with burgeoning crops and golden-haired children, the most beautiful of which would be Sam's- and far off to the south, the Kingdoms of Gondor and Rohan would be forever adorned with banners billowing in the morning breeze, its Kings and great Men clad in shining armor, ever vigilantly protecting all that is fair in this world-
But for Frodo himself, he saw nothing: only darkness, and wind, howling from a deep Unknown.
Frodo looked away from the Mallorn Tree, and back down at the still water below him. He could see his reflection- but the face looking up at him was a stranger to his eyes.
"I'm lost, Sam-" He whispered. But only the fog and the water heard, and they had no answer for him.