Fic: Why
♥
Happy Birthday, Bilbo & Frodo!
Title: Why
Sequel (after 15 years!) to: A Garden for My Love
Genre: Angst + R♥mance
Rating: G
Summary: Sam leaves Bag End for the last time
Why
“DA,” SAYS FRODO, voice and face both tight with distress, “I know you’ve got to do this, but…” he trails off.
Sam smiles to himself. His eldest son is amongst the great and good of the Shire in these later days and yet he has never let go that small, private name. In public he has always referred to Sam most correctly as, ‘Mayor Gamgee,’ or ‘my father, the Mayor,’ or just ‘my father’, as time and company warranted. Between the two of them, though, it has always been Da.
Samwise stands before the hearth, reaching last of all for his best pipe from the rack on the mantel. The lingering aroma of pipe-smoke and the sharp reek of cold ashes in the hearth are themselves a memory he will never lose.
The study at Bag End has changed over the years, of course. These days there is evidence of children everywhere you look. Treasured picture books, brought from Gondor, that show everything from elves and oliphaunts to dragons and even orcs-no sense, Sam knows, in pretending evil doesn't still exist. Wooden framed slates with their ear-piercing pencils securely attached with string, amongst neat piles of parchment, proudly displaying the first penned efforts of a wobbly fist. The children-grandchildren, now, scamps that they are-whose voices Bag End had always needed and lacked for so long…
Tonight, though, the smial is quiet-empty but for the two of them. Frodo’s children have gone with their Mam to sleep over at Aunt Daisy’s. So Da can slip away quietly, Frodo said, but Sam knows that’s not the reason; he knows too well what it’s like to see your father cry.
Sam clears his throat, turns, squares his shoulders and looks at his son. Frodo-lad has Rosie's dark curls, her smile and her light-heartedness. He also has his own serious frown when needed, of course, and a well-honed ability to see through a barn door, given time. He is his own hobbit and a fine one, at that. Sam is proud of him. Proud of his whole family for that matter, from Elanor-whom he will see again soon-right down to Bell, Rob’s latest little’un-but he knows inside that it has always mattered most that Frodo should live up to his given name.
Of all his and Rosie's large brood, only Frodo has inherited both Sam’s love of gardening and his fascination with words to such a degree. Like any dad, Sam has loved, supported and encouraged all his children, praised their achievements, shared their sorrows whilst wishing he could spare them, and celebrated their joys-so many of them to warm his heart even now, despite the grief of Rosie's death.
But with Frodo-lad it has always been different. As a tiny faunt-barely walking but into everything, barely talking but babbling every waking minute-he stilled and listened, wide-eyed as his Da whispered a gentle tale of the beauty of Rivendell or Lorien, or crooned a lullaby heard there.
And as soon as he could toddle, he was out in the garden, squishing the soil between his furry little toes, grabbing at flowers to breathe their scent-and having his own favourites already. Sam grins, remembering the accidental ruination of some of his most fragrant plants in the wake of little Frodo’s eagerness to touch and smell. There had been tears, too, when thorns or prickles retaliated, though Frodo seemed to learn the lesson with never a grudge.
Sam welcomed his son’s affinity for the earth and his love of words, and nurtured both like the most delicate of seedlings, carefully and deliberately feeding and tending all wants. He is sure now that his Frodo-lad could hold his own with any gardener in Middle-earth, if not quite with any scholar. Sam doesn’t feel himself qualified to judge on that score, but the reports from Rivendell on his son’s tuition there were more than encouraging.
Even now he can recall having to curb himself more than once from pushing too hard where Frodo is concerned-a mite harder than he would have done with the other lads, though he has done his best to foster each one’s different talents. Merry and his fascination with rope and knots-keeping it in the family, so to speak; Pip's sharp trader mind, Ham's forestry skills, and Bilbo almost defying his namesake by becoming a Quick Post runner; Rob and his way with healing cattle and sheep, and young Tom-no longer young at all but older than Sam, in fact, when he and Frodo set out on their journey to Mordor-gone for a Shirriff, of all things.
Definitely harder than the lasses-Elanor, Rosie-lass, Goldie, Daisy, Prim and Ruby were always Rose’s province, leaving Sam with little more to do than to love and cherish and occasionally spoil them with little treats-all of them grown and with little ones of their own now, of course. It is the grandchildren he spoils these days, free to let his generous instincts go without having to live with the consequences, barring Frodo's own children-and not even them, after today.
Growing up, young Frodo had taken to the soil and the page with an enthusiasm Sam remembers in himself from long ago, but he is more than merely the sum of Sam’s hopes. If he has Sam's skill with the soil, he has his mother's gentle way with people-her tact to soften his blunt delivery of truth. If his love of words reminds Sam-sometimes painfully-of his namesake, he has a fierce practicality that is all his own.
It mattered much to Sam that this son should be both scholar and gardener.
His seed and Frodo’s name has assuaged a deep need in him that he could voice to no-one but the owner of that name. And now it matters that his son shall understand, in so far as Sam understands for himself.
“Da?”
Sam gives himself a shake. He seems to be drifting off in thought more and more, these days-he must be getting old.
He tucks the silver-banded pipe carefully into his breast pocket, pauses, and then reaches for a second-a relic of times past maybe, and not much used in these prosperous days, but dear to him and might be needed, at that. He has slips and seeds of the leaf stowed away in his pack, at any rate.
“Aye, I do.” He smiles gently. “You always knew, didn’t you?”
“That you would go, as soon as….as soon as you weren’t needed here any longer? Yes. I knew from that night you brought me back from his garden.”
“And you know why.” It isn’t a question.
“Yes, but…”
HOW DO YOU TALK TO YOUR DA about something like this? Should you, when Da has kept it, safe and secret in his breast through so many years?
Frodo is older now than his namesake had been when he departed for the Undying Lands. He has given and received love, more than once. His wife and sons mean the world to him, just as he knows his Da has loved and cherished Mam and every one of their ever-extending family. But somehow, all that seems so…so easy, so comfortable, so ordinary compared with the courage and loyalty that defied the ultimate evil, and a love that has seared across sixty years of want and inner loneliness.
It isn't the loving Frodo finds hard to grasp-it’s the living of a life that has two such separate parts. Outwardly, Da is the most placid and cheerful of hobbits. Sometimes Frodo has almost believed it himself-he’d sorely wanted to. But then one of the anniversaries would come around, and Da would be off again, out into the dusk, up into that garden. To smoke a pipe, check on the day’s work and breathe the night air, for all Mam has ever known-certainly she had always seemed as happy and content as any hobbit-wife in the Shire.
Frodo didn’t have to follow him a second time to know why Da felt such a need to go there.
“I knew, but I didn’t-I still don’t-understand how you can. For so long...”
“No. And I’m not sure I have the words to explain-that’s more your line. Or his,” Sam smiles so tenderly, his eyes unfocussed, that Frodo knows he is already there in his mind-wherever there is. In theory, Frodo knows that the Elves, with Bilbo and Frodo, sailed far over the sea and into the West. Thinking of the Undying Lands as somewhere real, though-somewhere his Da is going to-is a bit beyond his imagining.
Sam comes back to him and to Middle-earth with a sigh. “You’re so much like him, you know, and yet so different,’ he says. ‘And for you, I’ll try, though I’ll likely make a right mullock of it-and it’ll maybe come a mite easier if we sit down to it.’
He takes his usual chair, the one that has lived right there by the hearth for as long as Frodo can remember; but Frodo kneels by his feet looking up at his da, just as he did for story time all those years ago.
“When Frodo left, I made a promise, you see. I promised I would be, and have, and do, all the things he couldn’t. The Shire was saved, but not for him-which for me was the cruellest cut of all. But my Frodo, he didn’t see it like that. What he couldn’t have, he said, I had to. There was no way such a precious gift-” Frodo catches and shares the smile-bitter this time, as Sam realises the word he used for that gift, “no way it could be wasted when it was bought at such a price.”
His eyes shine with tears that do not fall, but Frodo feels like weeping for him. He takes his da’s hand, rough gardener’s callouses squeezing tight against his own.
“Frodo-lad, you must never think I didn’t love your Mam-I did. The life we had together was as good and as full as any hobbit could have wished. Frodo and I both knew that for the gift not to be wasted, what we had before had to be…set aside. There are other ways of loving, and Frodo needed them then more than ever.
“But what he and I had was…’ Sam falters for words, clears his throat and tries again. ‘We loved each other before the quest, and what we went through along the way changed us both. The ties that bound us to one another grew stronger, the farther we went and the worse things got.”
The worse things got… Frodo has read the Book and heard in Rivendell of the many hurts and privations they suffered that are barely mentioned in the written tale. It is hard to believe that his down-to-earth Da-let alone one who was his Master, dearer than friend and bookish to boot-had survived so many perils to achieve what they set out to do.
“We came home together but Frodo was so hurt in so many ways, he didn’t really seem to be here. It was like a mist or summat got between him and everything else-even between us. I should have seen what was happening to him, shut away at the Cottons’ and then back at Bag End, with naught but his hurts to keep him company. There was so much needed doing to heal the Shire and I was out and about so much, I just didn’t see it.”
Frodo hadn’t realised until now how much that failure has weighed on him through the years. He sees guilt etched clearly in the age-lined face and takes Sam’s hands in his. “Da, it wasn’t-”
“I know-and too late anyhow. So, there we were, together but separate. I knew our bond was still there and just as strong, but Frodo couldn’t feel it, couldn’t know it any more. He didn’t want me to lose the world he was losing, though. I had to live it to the full, he said. Be part of it, give everything I had toward its healing, and accept all it offered-all that he might have had, and never would.”
“And for him to heal, he had to leave,” says Frodo. “That is why Queen Arwen gifted him her passage into the West, isn’t it-because there is no healing in Middle-earth for a hurt that deep.”
Sam nods. “Aye, but the farther away he got, the thinner and stronger the tie stretched between us-fine as spider silk, sturdy as hithlain. And now I’m free to ravel it back up again.” Unexpectedly, his cheeks colour in shame.
Not a trace of it before, when you’d have thought he might, Frodo wonders, so why now…?
“I ALSO PROMISED HIM I’d be one and whole for many years to come. I broke that promise right from the start. I expect I shall hear about it.” Sam’s smile is rueful now.
“I managed the years, but not the rest of it. He didn’t want me to be torn in two, but I have been. I’ve been husband and father and gaffer too. I’ve found pride and much joy in family and work and service through many busy years, but nothing has ever truly eased the emptiness inside. Only hope and the hint of a promise could do that.”
“His promise-Frodo’s?”
“Aye, that it was. You too were a Ring-bearer, my Frodo said. Your time may come. Not wanting to bind me too hard, you understand, lest I changed with the years-as if I could! And now it has come indeed. I may have broken my promise to him, but I know he’ll keep his to me. The two of us together, through the very worst of times, we made one whole, and I’ve been missing his half for so long, it seems like forever. I need to be part of that again, and I think he does, too. I’ll know when I see him. And that’s why I have to go.”
One last squeeze to the hands holding so tight to his and Sam rises from the old chair one final time. He takes up the pack that waits by the door and swings it onto his shoulders-less easily now, with the years-but it settles as naturally as if he’d laid it down for a night’s rest and taken it up again come morning.
His other goodbyes have all been said, he has taken his last walk around the garden he lovingly tended through so many years. Even that wasn’t the wrench it might have been, when Frodo has had the greater care of it of late.
There is only this most beloved son to part from now. He holds out his arms and Frodo clings to him as if he were still that child in the dark so long ago.
“OH, DA, I’LL MISS YOU SO MUCH!” Frodo thought he was prepared for this final goodbye. He isn’t, and the sudden tears fall freely.
“Hush, now, lad. I may not see you again, but you can be sure that I’ll be thinking of you, and telling of you-he’ll be fair glad to know how you’ve all turned out. And I’ll be loving you-every last one of you. I’ve had practice, you might say, in loving at a distance.”
A final hug, and Frodo somehow manages to let go; a tactful, helping heave and Sam makes it into Bill the Fifth’s saddle.
Then Frodo stands on the steps of Bag End and watches his beloved Da ride off into forever.
Happy Birthday, Bilbo & Frodo!
Title: Why
Sequel (after 15 years!) to: A Garden for My Love
Genre: Angst + R♥mance
Rating: G
Summary: Sam leaves Bag End for the last time
Why
“DA,” SAYS FRODO, voice and face both tight with distress, “I know you’ve got to do this, but…” he trails off.
Sam smiles to himself. His eldest son is amongst the great and good of the Shire in these later days and yet he has never let go that small, private name. In public he has always referred to Sam most correctly as, ‘Mayor Gamgee,’ or ‘my father, the Mayor,’ or just ‘my father’, as time and company warranted. Between the two of them, though, it has always been Da.
Samwise stands before the hearth, reaching last of all for his best pipe from the rack on the mantel. The lingering aroma of pipe-smoke and the sharp reek of cold ashes in the hearth are themselves a memory he will never lose.
The study at Bag End has changed over the years, of course. These days there is evidence of children everywhere you look. Treasured picture books, brought from Gondor, that show everything from elves and oliphaunts to dragons and even orcs-no sense, Sam knows, in pretending evil doesn't still exist. Wooden framed slates with their ear-piercing pencils securely attached with string, amongst neat piles of parchment, proudly displaying the first penned efforts of a wobbly fist. The children-grandchildren, now, scamps that they are-whose voices Bag End had always needed and lacked for so long…
Tonight, though, the smial is quiet-empty but for the two of them. Frodo’s children have gone with their Mam to sleep over at Aunt Daisy’s. So Da can slip away quietly, Frodo said, but Sam knows that’s not the reason; he knows too well what it’s like to see your father cry.
Sam clears his throat, turns, squares his shoulders and looks at his son. Frodo-lad has Rosie's dark curls, her smile and her light-heartedness. He also has his own serious frown when needed, of course, and a well-honed ability to see through a barn door, given time. He is his own hobbit and a fine one, at that. Sam is proud of him. Proud of his whole family for that matter, from Elanor-whom he will see again soon-right down to Bell, Rob’s latest little’un-but he knows inside that it has always mattered most that Frodo should live up to his given name.
Of all his and Rosie's large brood, only Frodo has inherited both Sam’s love of gardening and his fascination with words to such a degree. Like any dad, Sam has loved, supported and encouraged all his children, praised their achievements, shared their sorrows whilst wishing he could spare them, and celebrated their joys-so many of them to warm his heart even now, despite the grief of Rosie's death.
But with Frodo-lad it has always been different. As a tiny faunt-barely walking but into everything, barely talking but babbling every waking minute-he stilled and listened, wide-eyed as his Da whispered a gentle tale of the beauty of Rivendell or Lorien, or crooned a lullaby heard there.
And as soon as he could toddle, he was out in the garden, squishing the soil between his furry little toes, grabbing at flowers to breathe their scent-and having his own favourites already. Sam grins, remembering the accidental ruination of some of his most fragrant plants in the wake of little Frodo’s eagerness to touch and smell. There had been tears, too, when thorns or prickles retaliated, though Frodo seemed to learn the lesson with never a grudge.
Sam welcomed his son’s affinity for the earth and his love of words, and nurtured both like the most delicate of seedlings, carefully and deliberately feeding and tending all wants. He is sure now that his Frodo-lad could hold his own with any gardener in Middle-earth, if not quite with any scholar. Sam doesn’t feel himself qualified to judge on that score, but the reports from Rivendell on his son’s tuition there were more than encouraging.
Even now he can recall having to curb himself more than once from pushing too hard where Frodo is concerned-a mite harder than he would have done with the other lads, though he has done his best to foster each one’s different talents. Merry and his fascination with rope and knots-keeping it in the family, so to speak; Pip's sharp trader mind, Ham's forestry skills, and Bilbo almost defying his namesake by becoming a Quick Post runner; Rob and his way with healing cattle and sheep, and young Tom-no longer young at all but older than Sam, in fact, when he and Frodo set out on their journey to Mordor-gone for a Shirriff, of all things.
Definitely harder than the lasses-Elanor, Rosie-lass, Goldie, Daisy, Prim and Ruby were always Rose’s province, leaving Sam with little more to do than to love and cherish and occasionally spoil them with little treats-all of them grown and with little ones of their own now, of course. It is the grandchildren he spoils these days, free to let his generous instincts go without having to live with the consequences, barring Frodo's own children-and not even them, after today.
Growing up, young Frodo had taken to the soil and the page with an enthusiasm Sam remembers in himself from long ago, but he is more than merely the sum of Sam’s hopes. If he has Sam's skill with the soil, he has his mother's gentle way with people-her tact to soften his blunt delivery of truth. If his love of words reminds Sam-sometimes painfully-of his namesake, he has a fierce practicality that is all his own.
It mattered much to Sam that this son should be both scholar and gardener.
His seed and Frodo’s name has assuaged a deep need in him that he could voice to no-one but the owner of that name. And now it matters that his son shall understand, in so far as Sam understands for himself.
“Da?”
Sam gives himself a shake. He seems to be drifting off in thought more and more, these days-he must be getting old.
He tucks the silver-banded pipe carefully into his breast pocket, pauses, and then reaches for a second-a relic of times past maybe, and not much used in these prosperous days, but dear to him and might be needed, at that. He has slips and seeds of the leaf stowed away in his pack, at any rate.
“Aye, I do.” He smiles gently. “You always knew, didn’t you?”
“That you would go, as soon as….as soon as you weren’t needed here any longer? Yes. I knew from that night you brought me back from his garden.”
“And you know why.” It isn’t a question.
“Yes, but…”
HOW DO YOU TALK TO YOUR DA about something like this? Should you, when Da has kept it, safe and secret in his breast through so many years?
Frodo is older now than his namesake had been when he departed for the Undying Lands. He has given and received love, more than once. His wife and sons mean the world to him, just as he knows his Da has loved and cherished Mam and every one of their ever-extending family. But somehow, all that seems so…so easy, so comfortable, so ordinary compared with the courage and loyalty that defied the ultimate evil, and a love that has seared across sixty years of want and inner loneliness.
It isn't the loving Frodo finds hard to grasp-it’s the living of a life that has two such separate parts. Outwardly, Da is the most placid and cheerful of hobbits. Sometimes Frodo has almost believed it himself-he’d sorely wanted to. But then one of the anniversaries would come around, and Da would be off again, out into the dusk, up into that garden. To smoke a pipe, check on the day’s work and breathe the night air, for all Mam has ever known-certainly she had always seemed as happy and content as any hobbit-wife in the Shire.
Frodo didn’t have to follow him a second time to know why Da felt such a need to go there.
“I knew, but I didn’t-I still don’t-understand how you can. For so long...”
“No. And I’m not sure I have the words to explain-that’s more your line. Or his,” Sam smiles so tenderly, his eyes unfocussed, that Frodo knows he is already there in his mind-wherever there is. In theory, Frodo knows that the Elves, with Bilbo and Frodo, sailed far over the sea and into the West. Thinking of the Undying Lands as somewhere real, though-somewhere his Da is going to-is a bit beyond his imagining.
Sam comes back to him and to Middle-earth with a sigh. “You’re so much like him, you know, and yet so different,’ he says. ‘And for you, I’ll try, though I’ll likely make a right mullock of it-and it’ll maybe come a mite easier if we sit down to it.’
He takes his usual chair, the one that has lived right there by the hearth for as long as Frodo can remember; but Frodo kneels by his feet looking up at his da, just as he did for story time all those years ago.
“When Frodo left, I made a promise, you see. I promised I would be, and have, and do, all the things he couldn’t. The Shire was saved, but not for him-which for me was the cruellest cut of all. But my Frodo, he didn’t see it like that. What he couldn’t have, he said, I had to. There was no way such a precious gift-” Frodo catches and shares the smile-bitter this time, as Sam realises the word he used for that gift, “no way it could be wasted when it was bought at such a price.”
His eyes shine with tears that do not fall, but Frodo feels like weeping for him. He takes his da’s hand, rough gardener’s callouses squeezing tight against his own.
“Frodo-lad, you must never think I didn’t love your Mam-I did. The life we had together was as good and as full as any hobbit could have wished. Frodo and I both knew that for the gift not to be wasted, what we had before had to be…set aside. There are other ways of loving, and Frodo needed them then more than ever.
“But what he and I had was…’ Sam falters for words, clears his throat and tries again. ‘We loved each other before the quest, and what we went through along the way changed us both. The ties that bound us to one another grew stronger, the farther we went and the worse things got.”
The worse things got… Frodo has read the Book and heard in Rivendell of the many hurts and privations they suffered that are barely mentioned in the written tale. It is hard to believe that his down-to-earth Da-let alone one who was his Master, dearer than friend and bookish to boot-had survived so many perils to achieve what they set out to do.
“We came home together but Frodo was so hurt in so many ways, he didn’t really seem to be here. It was like a mist or summat got between him and everything else-even between us. I should have seen what was happening to him, shut away at the Cottons’ and then back at Bag End, with naught but his hurts to keep him company. There was so much needed doing to heal the Shire and I was out and about so much, I just didn’t see it.”
Frodo hadn’t realised until now how much that failure has weighed on him through the years. He sees guilt etched clearly in the age-lined face and takes Sam’s hands in his. “Da, it wasn’t-”
“I know-and too late anyhow. So, there we were, together but separate. I knew our bond was still there and just as strong, but Frodo couldn’t feel it, couldn’t know it any more. He didn’t want me to lose the world he was losing, though. I had to live it to the full, he said. Be part of it, give everything I had toward its healing, and accept all it offered-all that he might have had, and never would.”
“And for him to heal, he had to leave,” says Frodo. “That is why Queen Arwen gifted him her passage into the West, isn’t it-because there is no healing in Middle-earth for a hurt that deep.”
Sam nods. “Aye, but the farther away he got, the thinner and stronger the tie stretched between us-fine as spider silk, sturdy as hithlain. And now I’m free to ravel it back up again.” Unexpectedly, his cheeks colour in shame.
Not a trace of it before, when you’d have thought he might, Frodo wonders, so why now…?
“I ALSO PROMISED HIM I’d be one and whole for many years to come. I broke that promise right from the start. I expect I shall hear about it.” Sam’s smile is rueful now.
“I managed the years, but not the rest of it. He didn’t want me to be torn in two, but I have been. I’ve been husband and father and gaffer too. I’ve found pride and much joy in family and work and service through many busy years, but nothing has ever truly eased the emptiness inside. Only hope and the hint of a promise could do that.”
“His promise-Frodo’s?”
“Aye, that it was. You too were a Ring-bearer, my Frodo said. Your time may come. Not wanting to bind me too hard, you understand, lest I changed with the years-as if I could! And now it has come indeed. I may have broken my promise to him, but I know he’ll keep his to me. The two of us together, through the very worst of times, we made one whole, and I’ve been missing his half for so long, it seems like forever. I need to be part of that again, and I think he does, too. I’ll know when I see him. And that’s why I have to go.”
One last squeeze to the hands holding so tight to his and Sam rises from the old chair one final time. He takes up the pack that waits by the door and swings it onto his shoulders-less easily now, with the years-but it settles as naturally as if he’d laid it down for a night’s rest and taken it up again come morning.
His other goodbyes have all been said, he has taken his last walk around the garden he lovingly tended through so many years. Even that wasn’t the wrench it might have been, when Frodo has had the greater care of it of late.
There is only this most beloved son to part from now. He holds out his arms and Frodo clings to him as if he were still that child in the dark so long ago.
“OH, DA, I’LL MISS YOU SO MUCH!” Frodo thought he was prepared for this final goodbye. He isn’t, and the sudden tears fall freely.
“Hush, now, lad. I may not see you again, but you can be sure that I’ll be thinking of you, and telling of you-he’ll be fair glad to know how you’ve all turned out. And I’ll be loving you-every last one of you. I’ve had practice, you might say, in loving at a distance.”
A final hug, and Frodo somehow manages to let go; a tactful, helping heave and Sam makes it into Bill the Fifth’s saddle.
Then Frodo stands on the steps of Bag End and watches his beloved Da ride off into forever.