Summer bloomed on, and soon August was on the wane. It was still warm, and Sam wore a thin shirt and breeches as he worked in the garden, while Marigold had not yet exchanged her under-dresses for the ones with long sleeves. Inside Bag End, it was pleasantly cool, and as crop after crop came in of lush peppers, fragrant tomatoes and crisp cucumbers, they continued to eat salads with every meal, and Marigold began to talk of canning.

One warm, late-summer day, Frodo was sitting closer to the windows than usual, and looking out at the greenery past the wine-colored, translucent cloth. Passing by with the laundry, Marigold paused in the doorway and said, "You know, Mr. Frodo, we really ought to get you outside more. It's such a fine day."

And before he knew it, he replied that he would not be averse, though the brightness might rather hurt his eyes.

And to that, Marigold responded by disappearing into one of the clothing rooms and emerging with a wide-brimmed hat that he had quite forgotten he owned – for he himself did not garden often.

And so they stationed Frodo outside on the bench, book in hand, in shirtsleeves and hat and in plain view of Sam, toward later in the afternoon when the sun had tipped over the zenith and had spent some of its heat.

"Just a few minutes at a time – that ought to do a body good," Marigold had said, and disappeared.

She even left a cup of water for him.

Frodo watched Sam hilling the potatoes.

The air was balmy and sweet, and the rich smell of earth and of fresh cut grass filled his lungs. Beyond the hills and the roofs of other hobbit holes, he could, if he squinted, see the glistening Water, and thought of how pleasant it might be to run over the soft, thick grass, stretching his limbs, shaking out the fatigue and plunging straight into the cool river, to the head-shaking and muttering of hobbits walking past. That is, if his body would still obey him, it would have been a fine thing to do.

"May I smoke, Mr. Frodo?"

It had not taken long to get lost in thought, and he had not noticed Sam take a seat beside him.

Sam stretched his legs, putting his arms over the back of the bench, and threw back his head.

Frodo nodded. He liked the flowery, dark smell of pipe weed still, though smoking it now made his heart race.

Sam extracted a pipe from his knapsack, which he had left on the bench before Frodo had gotten there, and struck a match.

The two were silent for a spell.

Whereas Marigold was always fain to comment on things and ask questions, with Sam there was often no need for talking. Having lived and traveled together as much as they had, there were moments when their minds were all but one, forming a cloud that enveloped them away from the world.

"This is what we saved the Shire for, isn't it, Mr. Frodo?" Sam pulled contentedly at his pipe.

Frodo could not disagree. A cart moved slowly down the road, away by the horizon, and a hobbit in a yard nearby hailed his neighbor. The two then came together to speak over a fence. A goldcrest began to warble in a nearby tree. The mild breeze caressed his skin.

He recalled how he and Faramir had sat, not long ago, on a sunlit wall in Gondor in much the same way, with the stern, proud beauty of the White City rising up behind them. Faramir had spoken with such love for his native land that Frodo could not help but long for the Shire, but also to comprehend just how alike the peoples of Middle Earth really were.

"More than the Shire, Sam," he mused. "More than just the Shire."

"True, very true, Mr. Frodo." Sam nodded. He put aside his pipe, and unwrapped something in a piece of paper.

"You know, Mr. Frodo," he said, "The mallorn tree is right beautiful now. It would be a fine thing to see it. Just like the ones in Lothlorien, it is – bark smooth and silver-gray, and the leaves shimmerin' in the breeze, green and silver. I'm sure you would like it. We can go together."

He withdrew a thick, white wafer from the wrapping.

Had it truly been that long? Frodo had first heard of the mallorn flowering in April, and he had told himself many times that he would go see it, and now it was nearly September.

He nodded. "I should like that very much, Sam. Perhaps tomorrow."

Sam extended the wafer to Frodo.

Frodo shook his head.

Sam took a bite, and closed his eyes. Then another, and another. A sweet, elated feeling spread over his face. He ate, more quickly with every bite now, and by the end, he was eating so fast that his teeth could barely chew and his throat could barely swallow fast enough. Still, when he finished the loaf he looked disappointed, and picked off the crumbs from his chin and the paper, consuming them too.

Sam ate like that often these days – it seemed that where Frodo's appetite had diminished, Sam's had correspondingly grown, and he ate each meal like it was his last. Still, Sam's enjoyment of this particular bread had eclipsed even his usual gusto.

"Sam… what is that?"

Frodo's curiosity, despite his stomach's melancholy state, had been aroused.

Sam looked up from folding the paper, and smiled sheepishly.

"Oh, this?" He chuckled. "I've been tryin' to make lembas – and now Rosie and my sisters have joined in. We've made it a game of sorts."

"Lembas?"

Sam picked up one remaining crumb, and licked it off his finger. His elated expression returned.

"Mind you, it's nothing like real lembas. Just the taste and the feel of it that we've been tryin' to make. But this im'tation is passing fair, I'd say. I think it's Marigold's, in fact. I'll bring more next time so you can try it."

"My dear Sam!"

Sam placed the paper back in his knapsack.

"To tell you the truth, Mr. Frodo," he went on, "I couldn't stand the sight of anything that looked, or felt, or even smelled like lembas at first. I thought I'd eaten enough of it for one lifetime. But lately I've been getting a hankering for it, and now it's all I want. Same as I can't stop eatin' whenever I sit down – it's unnat'ral, I tell you, even for a hobbit. I'm sorry I didna leave you any."

Sam looked down at his hands – a habit that he shared with Marigold, Frodo realized. They both did it when they were embarrassed.

"It's alright, Sam," Frodo replied. "I said I didn't want it. And you were hungry. We were both hungry." He looked at Sam significantly. "More hungry than any hobbit had ever been, or likely will be. That's not a thing you soon forget."

He reached out toward Sam, and Sam's hands came to meet his – the rough and brown cradling the smaller and less calloused. But Frodo readjusted his hold, so that their fingers were intertwined.

Sam shifted toward him, and Frodo leaned his head onto his shoulder. And for a while they were those two hobbits once again – huddled together on the side of a dark mountain, a rough, treacherous staircase leading up its side, the wind's cold, hard fingers prying underneath their cloaks. Gollum was lurking nearby. The two hobbits were eating lembas, its sweet, dry texture caking their tongues.

Frodo felt a coldness in his chest, despite the summer day. His throat tensed up, and he felt dizzy and faint. Sam's hands, the picket fence, the sky above – they all felt very far away.

"I'm sorry, Sam." He rallied the last of his strength and got up, unlacing their fingers. "I've got to go. It's getting too hot."

"Sam, do you have any notion of why Mr. Frodo came in from the outside, made straight for his room and hasn't been seen since – and it's been more than an hour?"

Sam looked up. The hilling of the vegetables done, he had been hard at work mending the rabbit-proof fence, which had turned out to be less rabbit-proof than hoped.

"What – what do you mean?" He squinted into the sunlight – balmy and outlining his sister's figure, her hands at her hips.

"I mean just that," Marigold replied. "He does that sometimes. Gets up and disappears with nary a word. Stays in his room for an hour or more, then reappears – at times like nothing's happened, and at times with an odd look in his eye. So that's why I wonder, did somethin' happen just before that made him do it? I don't know him so well as you, so I wonder, was he like that before? When you were doin' for him at Bag End?"

Sam blinked, wiping the sweat from his brow.

"Well, no, not that I remember. Did you try knocking?"

"Of course I did." Marigold clicked her tongue. "But he won't answer."

"Won't answer?"

"Won't open the door, won't say a word. But I can hear him breathing in there, and the floorboards creaking, so he can't be asleep. And he's not crying or moaning, so I s'ppose he's not so badly off, but it's queer. And I wonder if there's anything we ought to be –"

Sam got up with a decisive start.

"And you didn't think to just go in?"

"He's a gentlehobbit, Sam. I can't just go into his room without permission – leastwise not unless I know there's an emergency. That's why I thought –"

But Sam was already walking away, shaking the dirt out of his foot hair.

For it had indeed seemed odd that Frodo left so abruptly, though at first he had tried to pay it no mind. This was Frodo, after all, and Frodo liked to wander off to parts unknown, both in body and mind. But he would always come back, and out of respect, Sam might have done what Marigold did at first, and let him be. But over an hour and no response was another matter entirely. And apparently this was a pattern now, of literally shutting people out?

The Frodo he knew would not do this.

Sam stood outside Frodo's bedroom, and could feel his heart in his chest.

"Mr. Frodo?"

Silence.

Sam knocked.

"Mr. Frodo?"

Silence again.

Sam brought his ear to the door and thought he could hear some shifting around, as well as a drawn breath – and he let out the breath he was holding.

The door stood hulking between them – a ponderous, heavy door, much like the one to the Mines of Moria, though that one had a clever riddle for a key.

Speak Friend and enter.

A friend would know what to say, but for once in his life Sam was at a loss.

In truth, in the months that followed their return, Frodo had developed an increasing reluctance to speak about his troubles. The closest thing was when he offered Sam and Rosie to come live with him, but even that was couched in a comment about "Number 3 not being made of rubber." And Sam wasn't blind – he had seen Frodo and Bag End deteriorate by the day as the deep fatigue and indifference took hold – so had he moved in, caring for Frodo would have been all he wanted to do. But his life was rapidly changing. Not only was there Rosie and their future to think of, but there were many others who suddenly wanted and needed his help, much to his surprise – and he was not adept at refusing. He found himself increasingly being torn in two – or even three or four, so short of actually splitting himself apart, sending Marigold to Bag End was the best thing he could think of. Some even said that, had Marigold been born a lad, she and Sam would have been two peas in a pod.

But there were some things Marigold could not do – at least not yet. So Sam took a breath, and pushed open the door.

"Mr. Frodo, begging your pardon, I'm coming in."

No guessing of riddles was needed.

Frodo was sitting on the floor against the wall, his legs at sharp angles like the vault of a pitched roof. There was a vacant, faraway look in his eyes.

Sam rushed to his side, falling to his knees and grabbing hold of his hands.

"Mr. Frodo. My dear. What's the matter? Say something, please."

Frodo's hands were cold, like his whole left side had been when he was convalescing from the witch-king's wound. He looked paler than usual, too, and his pulse was thin.

He did not reply immediately. In fact, despite Sam's quickness, and despite his hands being in Sam's, he was still very slow to face his friend, and slower yet to meet his eyes.

"I… don't quite know, Sam…"

It was like all signals had been slowed and warped. His own voice came from very far away, and he felt Sam's touch as if through a thick blanket.

"This… sometimes happens… I don't feel… quite here?"

Sam's face looked anxious – but his panic was starting to give way. Speaking took some doing – he could not vouch for his own tongue – but the melting of the fear in Sam's eyes was well worth the effort.

"Oh, Mr. Frodo…" Sam rubbed his master's hands, and brought them to his lips. His face quaked.

"I'll be… Alright… Sam... Don't worry… It'll pass…"

Of course, "not quite here" did not at all do it justice, but Frodo thought it best not to elaborate. Its hold was slowly lessening, but whenever it began, everything would fall into shadow, and a cold pall would settle over his limbs. His heart would be seized by a nameless fear – and at times he would hear whispers, lose his vision or hearing or speech, and feel like really he might cross over into another realm and not come back… The only thing to do in such moments was to hide, lest he actually lose control and frighten those around him.

In fact, he had frightened a few people when he was mayor of Michel Delving. One of his first spells came on during a meeting with the sheriffs, and his tongue had ceased to obey him altogether. He had managed to play it off as a bout of indigestion, but it was also, in part, why he had resigned as quickly as possible.

But just then he felt too tired and weak, even, to pull his hands out of Sam's grasp – in fact he could barely feel own hands, or Sam's. He could not tell Sam to leave him be, either – his tongue felt like tar, and Sam was still plainly worried – so Frodo kept still.

"Well, Mr. Frodo," Sam finally said. "Let's not have you sitting on the floor, at least. Let's get you in bed."

And before Frodo could protest – the bed, in fact, had not been a place of pleasant memories – Sam lifted him up – far more easily than he had done at Mount Doom, and carried him over, thankfully, to the side of the bed where he slept less often.

As Sam put him down, he lingered for a moment, holding Frodo in a gentle embrace, then let him rest against the pillows.

"Goodness, Mr. Frodo." He shook his head. " I know Mari's been tryin', but we really ought to get you eatin' more. You're right skin an' bones, an' so light to carry…"

He sat on the bed and rubbed Frodo's forearms. He looked like he might have kissed Frodo on the forehead – which, Frodo had to admit, would not have been unwelcome. As the cold feeling ebbed, it left an orphan's yearning to be held.

Sam furrowed his brow, and peered into the other hobbit's face.

"Mr. Frodo" – his hands methodically, tenderly traveled up his friend's arms and over his shoulders. "When you say you don't feel quite there, what do you mean? Is it faint or weak? Or is it somethin' else?"

Frodo shook his head.

"No." He squinted – the curtains were not fully drawn, and a sliver of bright light had made its way in. "It's not… just faint and weak. It's – hard to explain…"

His eyes fell on a vase of flowers atop the dresser. Blue hydrangeas, cut and brought in by Marigold – their round, downy heads bent over the sides of a wide-lipped, oval vase.

"I feel like I'm… disappearing, Sam… That's the best way I can explain it. Like I'm fading… And everything's far away."

His lips and tongue were still obeying him only reluctantly, and his usual felicity for words was nowhere to be found. Sam's speech still sounded warped now and again, and it was hard to tell how far away things were – Sam seemed, by turns, both near at hand and a thousand leagues away. He tried to focus on Sam's face; the rest of the bedroom was, for the moment, less distinct.

"Oh, Mr. Frodo… Even still?"

Sam stopped massaging and took up Frodo's hands again.

Frodo nodded.

"I feel like I did back then... It happens… When I remember. But not every time."

In fact, if it did not happen during his and Marigold's lessons, it was only because he had more control – he could paraphrase past some of the more jagged parts, he could inform, smile, and pause, and used each of these tricks in turn like railings to keep himself upright. But with Sam, his imagination had no such protection: what had happened had happened, and they had shared in every painful part of it.

Tears glimmered in the gardener's eyes. He squeezed Frodo's hands tight between his.

"But you are here, Mr. Frodo. You're here. In the Shire. With me. Your Sam." Tears thickened in his voice with every word. "It's – No… The past – that's – that's gone. You're here now. Safe. We're safe."

"I know, Sam." Frodo nodded. "I know."

Sam began to massage again, wiping a tear with his fist.

"You're here," he repeated. "We're here. In Bag End, Mr. Frodo. It's August. The tomatoes and the squash have come in, and the melons. We'll be having some for dessert soon." His voice cracked. "And today, the sun was very warm. I was sweatin' buckets, and they were makin' hay in the fields."

His fingers were rubbing small, yet insistent circles into tired flesh, coaxing blood to Frodo's skin. He made his way up to Frodo's shoulders once again, and then over his torso – avoiding old wounds.

He paused. His look was less tearful now, and he seemed to have an inkling of an idea.

"But tell me, Mr. Frodo, what do you see? Right here, in this room."

Frodo looked uncertainly around him. His skin was feeling warmer, and by dint of Sam's efforts, he felt less like he was wrapped up in a blanket of numbness.

"I see… My bed?.. My dresser?"

Sam nodded, encouragingly.

"Do you remember what the dresser's made of?"

Frodo tried to remember, but his thoughts did not move fast.

"Mahogany, I think?"

"And what's on top of your dresser?"

Come to think of it, what was on top of it?

He squinted. Ah, yes.

"A mirror… Blue flowers in a vase."

"Do you remember where the flowers came from?"

"The garden. We have… a hydrangea bush."

Sam nodded along to each of his answers.

"And I see you, too, Sam. You're wearing a linen shirt… And your hair is lighter from being out in the sun… And your hands… They smell like the garden, still…"

With some effort, Frodo raised his hands and put them on top of Sam's.

"And Marigold... I don't see her, but I know she's around here somewhere…."

Sam felt a catch in his throat. Suddenly, he was not so keen on Frodo thinking about Marigold.

He extracted his hands, gently, from underneath Frodo's, and covered them with his own.

"That's good, Mr. Frodo. Very good. Now tell me some things you feel. Meanin' with your body. How do my hands feel, for instance?"

"Your hands, Sam?"

Frodo paused. He looked down.

"Your hands feel good, Sam… Very good. They feel heavy. Warm."

"And the bed?"

"That feels good too. Soft."

Frodo suddenly wanted to be under the covers, ensconced away from the world, as if in a cocoon.

He closed his eyes, letting himself feel the warmth, the heaviness, the softness.

It would have been pretty to think, if a world could consist of just such things: of heavy, warm hands, of flowers and dressers, of hay being made in fields – a world populated by Sams and Marigolds and other such kind people. What a beautiful world it would be.

And yet, so much depended on such a world.

Sam drew a quilt around him – a small quilt that had been folded at the foot of the bed.

"And how does this feel?"

Frodo opened his eyes, and ran a hand over the piecework surface. Neat, orderly triangles in lavender, blue and green, the threads running like dashes under his fingers. His mother and his Brandybuck aunts had made it, and it was one of his possessions that had followed him to Bag End.

By Elbereth, Sam knew how to keep things green — how to tend to things in danger of falling apart in the world. If not for Bilbo's influence, he might never have been one for elaborate flowers, or bushes of complex and delicate rarities, but the garden he kept at Bag End was always spectacularly, gorgeously alive. He knew the immediate wisdom of small truths, how the tiniest details could keep things tied inexplicably, marvelously, together.

In the garden, it was good, clear water, perfectly timed with the sun. It was peaty, wormy dirt, and it was good, thick shade where it needed to be. On their long walk to Mount Doom, it was elvish rope, simple knots, and an outrageous, almost contrarian hope.

And here, hovering above him, it was this earnest string of questions. Which flowers? Remember? Which month? Remember? How does it feel, this quilt?

Small things. Trivialities, really. But they reached out to him from the world on thin, thin strings, then touched him, stitched themselves into his thoughts and bore him up.

Sam could have grown lily-pads in the snow.

"It feels… like someone worked very hard on this," Frodo replied. "It's so… intricate."

Intricate!

A Frodo-word if there ever was one, and not wrenched from him by necessity like "mahogany" and "hydrangea" had been… The felicity for words was coming back.

"And you know who that someone was, don't you, Mr. Frodo?"

"Of course… I do."

But he did not want to speak of her. A silent remembrance was enough. He wanted, instead, to think only of this day. He wanted Sam's hands, and Marigold's flowers. Intensely, fiercely so, like he had never wanted anything in his life.

He clasped Sam's hand.

"Mr. Frodo," Sam asked, "Do you think you could do this? When you feel poorly, I mean? Name the things you can see, hear, touch, and smell? No need to go anywhere 'cept the place you already are – but methinks, you could feel more here."

Frodo nodded.

"I think I could. If I start early enough."

He closed his eyes again.

Hear. They had not done that one yet.

He listened for Marigold clattering with dishes in the kitchen, and for her footstep on the floorboards in the hall, but the house was quiet.

"I hear the birds warbling outside," he said, "And the wood settling, and you breathing, Sam."

"Oh, Mr. Frodo… My dear…"

Sam suddenly looked as if his strength was spent, and he bent his head low, coming to rest by his beloved master. Frodo wrapped his arms around him.

"My dear Sam."

He kissed Sam on the forehead.

Sam's shoulders shook.

"Sam… I am so grateful to you… For everything. Rest a bit. You work so hard."

He brushed back the soft, sun-blonde hair, and Sam opened his eyes. He looked at Frodo like there was something he wanted and needed – something he could neither understand nor name – but so it went. It was not the first time that Sam had looked at him like that – and in truth, they carried each other. He carried Sam's pain, too, though in many ways, since it was Sam, it was surprisingly easy. He had only to reassure him with a kind word or a press of the hand, and Sam was quickly glad and strong again, and stubbornly ready to carry enough for two.

"Just… no lembas for me for a while, alright?" Frodo added, his knuckle running over a stubborn cowlick. "Just maybe some blackberries instead?"

Sam had told her to stay nearby, and he would call her if he needed. So she lingered close to the bedroom in the hallway, close enough to hear voices but not close enough to know what was being said. Sam had not fully shut the door behind him, and at first, she had tried not to look – in fact had pointedly looked away – but then she heard what could only have been Sam picking Frodo up off the floor and carrying him to the bed. Her curiosity got the better of her, so she inched closer, and witnessed Sam leaning over Frodo, massaging him desperately – tenderly, as the two spoke in hushed tones. Her heart descended, momentarily, to the pit of her stomach – would Sam be angry with her? Should she have sounded the alarm on Frodo's behavior sooner? The Mrs. Bracegirdle who still lived rent-free in her head began to chide her for her carelessness, and she had to screw her knuckles into her eyes and shake her head until the imaginary midwife – who was quite a bit taller in Marigold's racing mind – had gone quiet.

When she looked up, Sam and Frodo were lying down together and Frodo was hugging… Sam? Had one of them been a lad, and the other a lass, Marigold would have thought the scene was not one she should be witnessing – but they were two lads, undoubtedly. Good, inseparable friends. But oddly enough, Sam was the one in pieces now, and it was Frodo's turn to be sincerely concerned, stroking her brother's hair.

Indeed, there had always been a special intimacy between those two – going back to the days when they would tramp around the Shire and Frodo would join Sam pottering around the garden, and Sam would only pretend to work while the Gaffer's back was turned. They seemed to understand each other at half a word, and moved like there was an invisible string between them. They even had a way of communicating not just with the eyes and facial expressions, but without doing or saying anything at all.

And despite her childish love for Mr. Frodo, Marigold had never especially been jealous of it all. It seemed silly to be jealous of something so ineffable. Even if it was her in Sam's place, what Frodo and Sam shared could never be replicated, nor would she want it to be. In fact, in her love for Mr. Frodo, it was part of why she was often content to watch from afar. It was extraordinary to see how Frodo could be with other people. How he could be with Sam.

But now, it would have been a lie to say that she did not wish for it to be her – that she did not wish for her and Sam to trade places. She imagined Frodo close to her breast, the mild weight of his head upon her shoulder. She thought of how it would be to rub his cold, pale limbs to bring the blood back where it belonged, talking to him softly, making her his safe harbor. She touched fingertips to her cheek, then her clavicle – where she might have cradled his head – and felt a prickle over the roof of her mouth and behind her eyes.

Oh, Frodo. Poor Mr. Frodo. What evils have you seen?

She had a feeling that the story she had heard was only the fireside, young ones' version of the truth.