fic: Letting G0, 4/18
For those who will want to stop reading before we get to the character death part, you're still safe. :)
Title: Letting Go, 4/18 "Old Troubles"
Rating: PG-13 overall for dark themes, G for this part
Wordcount: for this part
Warnings: this fic will eventually involve character death
Story Summary: Letting go of someone you care deeply about is a very difficult thing.
A/N: A/N: This story is a sequel to " Holding On," which is in turn a follow-up to Skye's "Just Don't Have the Heart to End It" and Aemilia Rose's "Always There Beyond the Touch of Darkness." It's been in the works pretty much since I posted "Holding On" in June 2003, though obviously it took a while for me to get up the nerve to go through with it. ;)
Chapter 1, "Story-telling"
Chapter 2, "A Birthday"
Chapter 3, "Recovery"
Chapter Summary: A bit of the old troubles returns; Frodo and Frodo-lad have a discussion.
Sam awoke abruptly. He lay in the pre-dawn stillness of the slumbering smial, listening intently. What had woken him? No misplaced sounds could be heard, so he decided to get up to find what was bothering him. He crawled carefully out of bed so as not to disturb Rosie, and stiffly reached for his dressing-gown. Shrugging it on as he left the room, he closed the door behind him and stood in the silent corridor.
There. What was that? Quiet whimpers floated to his ears and his feet moved of their own accord down the hall toward his childrens' rooms. Perhaps one of them was having a bad dream. But when he peered into each of the rooms, all were sleeping peacefully.
As he closed the last door, he heard the voice again, this time in a strangled cry of pain. Sam's throat went dry and he felt his heart would stop as he recognized that voice, that cry. Frodo.
It seemed forever until he was standing before the closed door. He yearned to dash inside, but restrained himself and cautiously, quietly, opened the door. They all knew that startling Frodo could have bad results.
The room was dim; he could vaguely see the form curled up in bed with its back to him. "Frodo?" he softly called and was not answered, so he ventured inside. "Frodo?" he repeated, approaching the bed worriedly. Still no answer. Frodo was mumbling something he couldn't understand and seemed to be shivering, though whether in cold or fright Sam didn't know. Thinking it a nightmare, he touched Frodo's shoulder to rouse him, and was caught completely by surprise by what followed.
Frodo shrieked at the touch and scrambled to escape it, falling off the other side of the bed in his haste. As Sam came to the other side, Frodo still tried to widen the distance between them by backing into the corner and huddling there, watching Sam's approach with wide-eyed trepidation. Sam was utterly confused by this behavior, for it wasn't the same reactions as when he was startled. Sam wasn't sure _what_ this was.
Frodo continued to shrink back into the corner whenever Sam tried to get closer, so he stopped and merely stood there, trying to understand what was going on. Frodo was shaking and panting in what could only be interpreted as terror, his right hand clutching the front of his nightshirt, and his unblinking eyes staring in Sam's direction. Sam took a step; Frodo seemed to wilt a bit more, his mumbling becoming audible as "Nononononono...."
"Mr. Frodo? It's your Sam," he tried, but the other remained unmoved.
"Sam? What's wrong?" asked a sleepy voice from the doorway, and both hobbits in the room jumped. Sam kept his eyes on Frodo, watching him grow more agitated as Rosie entered the room. "Sam?" she asked again, concern evident in her voice.
"Don't come any closer," he warned, and immediately the sound of her feet shuffling across the floor ceased. "Something's got him bothered," he added in answer to her question, "but I don' know what 'tis."
"What should we do?"
He watched as Frodo closed his eyes and moved his hand to his shoulder, obviously in pain. A hazy idea began to form in the back of Sam's mind. "What is the date?"
His question was lost in the shuffle as several of his sleepy children came to the door. "What's going on?" asked Frodo-lad, then yawned.
But his father had no time to respond, for as soon as Frodo heard the new voice, he seemed to panic, climbing unsteadily to his feet before dashing toward the fireplace. Sam tried to catch him as he want past but was too slow. Frodo-lad and the other boys ran to their father's aid, but all took a step back when Frodo grabbed the fireplace poker and brandished it threateningly. "Stay away!" he cried, wild-eyed.
"Mr. Frodo, put that down," Sam pleaded. As Frodo turned on him, anger in his eyes, Frodo-lad took advantage of the opportunity and grabbed his namesake's arm. Frodo dropped the poker and began to fight like a mad thing as they tried to restrain him.
"Be careful, I think you're hurtin' him," Sam cautioned as his sons wrestled Frodo to the floor.
"He's stronger than he used to be," Frodo-lad grunted as he fought to keep his hold on the squirming hobbit. By now the commotion had woken the rest of the children, all of whom were crowding in the doorway. As soon as Rosie stopped watching the struggle long enough to realize they were there, she turned and, blocking their view of the room, told them, "Go back to bed, dears. Rose-lass, would you take them and come back?" Her daughter nodded and herded her siblings back to the bedrooms with practiced ease. Tom, however, would not budge.
"Mamma, what's wrong with Uncle Frodo?" he asked, tears running freely down his face. "I thought he was better."
Rosie knelt and held him close, weeping as well. "He will be better," she soothed, desperately wanting to believe it herself. "Sometimes when a body is sick, it comes back like, but then it goes away for good. Now go back to bed so we can help him." Still tearful, the lad nodded and slowly retreated down the hall.
When she again turned around, they had Frodo pinned on the floor, all three older lads practically sitting on him to hold him down, and Sam was kneeling by Frodo's head, speaking soothingly to him. Rosie took charge of the situation. "Lads, can ye get him in bed?"
Frodo-lad shook his head curtly from where he was perched over Frodo's shoulders, pinning down his arms. "Nay. He's still fightin' us."
Upon a closer look she could see the truth in her son's words. Frodo was completely tense and would twitch on occasion to test his captors' hold. His chest heaved as he panted for breath and his pained expression bore traces of tears.
"Shall I fetch the sedative?" asked Rose-lass from the door. Rosie hesitated, not as willing to use it now that Frodo had been doing so well, but at length she nodded. There was no other way they'd be able to get any more rest this night.
As was usual, Frodo resisted being given the draught, still murmuring his seemingly endless litany of "Nonononono..." At length enough of the tonic found its way down his throat that he went limp under the restraining hands. By the time they settled him back in bed, all were yawning in weariness. The lads turned to go, and Rose-lass spoke abruptly. "I'll stay with him."
Her father tried to object, but she would not be swayed. "You need your rest so if he needs you later, you can be here. Right now he'll just sleep." So it was that she sat by the bed in the grey hours of morning, watching her charge as he slept uneasily, often reaching for his shoulder with a moan. At length she decided to see if there was actually anything wrong with the joint, and it was in doing so that she discovered his entire left arm was frigidly cold.
Given the restless nature of his slumber and the possibility of the scanty sedative dose wearing off at any moment, she was loath to leave him long enough to warm some towels, but she also didn't want to leave that pain unsoothed. As the grey fingers of dawn began to creep across the eastern sky, she decided to lie next to him in hopes the warmth of her body would serve until the rest of her family was awake and could assist him.
As her weight made the mattress sink, he turned toward her and for a moment the panicked thought that he was going to attack her made her freeze. But he seemed to settle back into deep sleep, so she scolded herself for being unreasonable and carefully finished getting onto the bed. She gently placed the cold limb between her body and his, lying on her side so she could hold his hand in both of hers. Whether due to the added warmth or just the comforting presence, Frodo's sleep was not as restless and Rose-lass began to grow sleepy herself.
When she awoke, there was a quilt tucked over her, and she turned to see her father sitting in the chair next to the bed. "Mornin', lass," he greeted her, and teased, "Get tired of watching?"
Her sleep-befuddled mind completely missed the joke, so she replied, "His arm was cold, and I didn't want to leave 'im to get warm towels and whatnot."
Sam was instantly serious. "Is it still cold?" he pressed anxiously.
"Not near so bad, but 'tis a far cry from bein' warm."
Sam's suspicions from earlier that morning came again to his mind. "And his shoulder?"
"Like ice," she confirmed.
"Lass, what is the date?"
His daughter's face creased in thought. "The... sixth, I think."
With that bit of information, everything clicked into place and Sam scolded himself for not understanding sooner. "Stay there, lass. I'll be back in a moment," he instructed as he hurried to the door. He found Rosie in the kitchen, and she helped him warm some towels and quilts and prepare some hot water bottles.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully for the most part, the only disturbance being when they tried to spoon-feed Frodo some warm broth. He fought it, crying out against the intrusion, and started becoming violent, so they stopped trying and let him return to his dark dreams. Sam hovered anxiously near the bed all day, and watched late into the night; his vigilance was rewarded when Frodo roused shortly after midnight.
Blinking groggily, he asked hoarsely, "What's going on?"
"You've... been ill."
Frodo sighed in resignation. "How bad was it?"
"Not too bad," Sam replied optimistically.
Frodo licked his lips before speaking again. "Sam, don't lie to me. You had to drug me, so don't tell me it wasn't bad."
"It don' matter," Sam insisted. "'Twas an anniversary, but you'll be better now."
~~~~
Frodo did seem to return to normal once that day passed, so it was without too much guilt that Sam and Rose took the children to market two days later. Despite Frodo's protests that he would be fine, they left Frodo-lad in case anything should happen. Neither was too comfortable with the arrangement and silence reigned as each minded his own business.
For a while Frodo tried to read, but found his attention wavering both under the influence of his turbulent thoughts and as a result of Frodo-lad sulking on the other side of the sitting room. At length he set aside the book and rose.
"Where are you going?" asked a disinterested voice from behind him as he left the room.
"The privy," he said dismissively. He really was going there, but after that... he hadn't decided yet. He needed to think about things... having reverted to his madness -no matter how short the time- threw everything into chaos and made him wonder if it really had gone away for good or if this was just a short respite so the memories of it could torment him in future fits.
When Mr. Frodo -he refused to call him Uncle Frodo as his youngest siblings did- failed to reappear after quite some time had passed, Frodo-lad heaved himself off the couch with a sigh and reluctantly went to find the mad hobbit. His concern mounted when he failed to find the older hobbit in the privy, the study, the bedroom... his heart sank as he realized his da would throttle him good if he lost poor, dear Mr. Frodo! He returned to the front of the smial, carefully checking every room as he worked his way back. As he approached the last few rooms, he was getting desperate for he'd seen no trace of him.
But then he noticed the door to the far back room -Mr. Frodo's former room- was open just a crack. His eyes gradually adjusted to the dark hallway so that when he ventured to poke his head into the room he could see Mr. Frodo's white shirt gleaming in the darkness as he huddled in the far corner on the other side of his old bed. "Why are you in here?" Frodo-lad asked in irritation.
"It seems this is where I belong," replied the brittle voice. "I do not deserve to be amongst the others."
"I certainly won't disagree," he muttered sarcastically, not fully intending for the other to hear, but not caring if he did.
And he did hear. "This would have been over long ago, were it my choice," he mused quietly, choosing his words carefully for the lad's ears. "Many times I have pleaded with your father to let me go, to end it, but he has refused." He sighed wistfully. "So I remain."
"You were out of your head. He didn't believe you meant it," Frodo-laid countered defensively.
"You mean he didn't *want* to believe I meant it," Mr. Frodo corrected. Then he asked, "Do you think I am out of my head?"
"N-now?"
"Yes, right now."
"I... I don't know... You've been out of your head so long it's hard to imagine you otherwise." He didn't fully realize what he was saying until after he'd blurted it, and he clapped his hand over his mouth in distress. "I'm sorry!" he cried. "Oh, I've made a mess of things an' no mistake." To his surprise, he heard a humorless chuckle from the other side of the room.
"I won't hold that against you, lad, and I appreciate the honesty. It is useful to know how others see me." He sighed again, and added, "There is truth in it."
Frodo-lad didn't know what else to say or even what to think, so he remained silent. After a while, Mr. Frodo said, "Tell me, what did you think of the Red Book?"
He didn't want to admit that he'd been enraptured by many parts of that monumental story, so he said, "It seems hard to believe all that actually happened."
"It does defy belief, doesn't it?" Mr. Frodo mused aloud. "Yet you trust it happened, because your father wouldn't tell such tales if they weren't true."
"I don't know that Da agrees with how you wrote it," he said quickly.
"It was your Da's memories that I put to paper, lad. Much of what happened to us I still don't remember clearly. He would even say I didn't include everything, especially near the Mountain."
"Were you mad then, too?" Frodo-lad couldn't help but ask the older hobbit still cowering in the corner.
Mr. Frodo chuckled again. "Yes, I suppose I was, in a manner of speaking. I believe what I experienced then is what made me go mad here."
Frodo-lad was saved from any more of the conversation by the front door opening to admit the rest of his family. With a brief glance back at Mr. Frodo, he went to greet his parents and dutifully help put their purchases away.
But he found his mind straying to that conversation, to the story in that large book, for the rest of the day. If what Mr. Frodo said was true about the memories coming from Frodo's da, not Mr. Frodo, then Frodo-lad *could* accept them as wholly true. But what would that mean? Knowing it to be true meant that Mr. Frodo actually suffered all those dreadful things, and would it really be a surprise that someone could go mad from it? It needed some serious thought.
Continued here.
Title: Letting Go, 4/18 "Old Troubles"
Rating: PG-13 overall for dark themes, G for this part
Wordcount: for this part
Warnings: this fic will eventually involve character death
Story Summary: Letting go of someone you care deeply about is a very difficult thing.
A/N: A/N: This story is a sequel to " Holding On," which is in turn a follow-up to Skye's "Just Don't Have the Heart to End It" and Aemilia Rose's "Always There Beyond the Touch of Darkness." It's been in the works pretty much since I posted "Holding On" in June 2003, though obviously it took a while for me to get up the nerve to go through with it. ;)
Chapter 1, "Story-telling"
Chapter 2, "A Birthday"
Chapter 3, "Recovery"
Chapter Summary: A bit of the old troubles returns; Frodo and Frodo-lad have a discussion.
Sam awoke abruptly. He lay in the pre-dawn stillness of the slumbering smial, listening intently. What had woken him? No misplaced sounds could be heard, so he decided to get up to find what was bothering him. He crawled carefully out of bed so as not to disturb Rosie, and stiffly reached for his dressing-gown. Shrugging it on as he left the room, he closed the door behind him and stood in the silent corridor.
There. What was that? Quiet whimpers floated to his ears and his feet moved of their own accord down the hall toward his childrens' rooms. Perhaps one of them was having a bad dream. But when he peered into each of the rooms, all were sleeping peacefully.
As he closed the last door, he heard the voice again, this time in a strangled cry of pain. Sam's throat went dry and he felt his heart would stop as he recognized that voice, that cry. Frodo.
It seemed forever until he was standing before the closed door. He yearned to dash inside, but restrained himself and cautiously, quietly, opened the door. They all knew that startling Frodo could have bad results.
The room was dim; he could vaguely see the form curled up in bed with its back to him. "Frodo?" he softly called and was not answered, so he ventured inside. "Frodo?" he repeated, approaching the bed worriedly. Still no answer. Frodo was mumbling something he couldn't understand and seemed to be shivering, though whether in cold or fright Sam didn't know. Thinking it a nightmare, he touched Frodo's shoulder to rouse him, and was caught completely by surprise by what followed.
Frodo shrieked at the touch and scrambled to escape it, falling off the other side of the bed in his haste. As Sam came to the other side, Frodo still tried to widen the distance between them by backing into the corner and huddling there, watching Sam's approach with wide-eyed trepidation. Sam was utterly confused by this behavior, for it wasn't the same reactions as when he was startled. Sam wasn't sure _what_ this was.
Frodo continued to shrink back into the corner whenever Sam tried to get closer, so he stopped and merely stood there, trying to understand what was going on. Frodo was shaking and panting in what could only be interpreted as terror, his right hand clutching the front of his nightshirt, and his unblinking eyes staring in Sam's direction. Sam took a step; Frodo seemed to wilt a bit more, his mumbling becoming audible as "Nononononono...."
"Mr. Frodo? It's your Sam," he tried, but the other remained unmoved.
"Sam? What's wrong?" asked a sleepy voice from the doorway, and both hobbits in the room jumped. Sam kept his eyes on Frodo, watching him grow more agitated as Rosie entered the room. "Sam?" she asked again, concern evident in her voice.
"Don't come any closer," he warned, and immediately the sound of her feet shuffling across the floor ceased. "Something's got him bothered," he added in answer to her question, "but I don' know what 'tis."
"What should we do?"
He watched as Frodo closed his eyes and moved his hand to his shoulder, obviously in pain. A hazy idea began to form in the back of Sam's mind. "What is the date?"
His question was lost in the shuffle as several of his sleepy children came to the door. "What's going on?" asked Frodo-lad, then yawned.
But his father had no time to respond, for as soon as Frodo heard the new voice, he seemed to panic, climbing unsteadily to his feet before dashing toward the fireplace. Sam tried to catch him as he want past but was too slow. Frodo-lad and the other boys ran to their father's aid, but all took a step back when Frodo grabbed the fireplace poker and brandished it threateningly. "Stay away!" he cried, wild-eyed.
"Mr. Frodo, put that down," Sam pleaded. As Frodo turned on him, anger in his eyes, Frodo-lad took advantage of the opportunity and grabbed his namesake's arm. Frodo dropped the poker and began to fight like a mad thing as they tried to restrain him.
"Be careful, I think you're hurtin' him," Sam cautioned as his sons wrestled Frodo to the floor.
"He's stronger than he used to be," Frodo-lad grunted as he fought to keep his hold on the squirming hobbit. By now the commotion had woken the rest of the children, all of whom were crowding in the doorway. As soon as Rosie stopped watching the struggle long enough to realize they were there, she turned and, blocking their view of the room, told them, "Go back to bed, dears. Rose-lass, would you take them and come back?" Her daughter nodded and herded her siblings back to the bedrooms with practiced ease. Tom, however, would not budge.
"Mamma, what's wrong with Uncle Frodo?" he asked, tears running freely down his face. "I thought he was better."
Rosie knelt and held him close, weeping as well. "He will be better," she soothed, desperately wanting to believe it herself. "Sometimes when a body is sick, it comes back like, but then it goes away for good. Now go back to bed so we can help him." Still tearful, the lad nodded and slowly retreated down the hall.
When she again turned around, they had Frodo pinned on the floor, all three older lads practically sitting on him to hold him down, and Sam was kneeling by Frodo's head, speaking soothingly to him. Rosie took charge of the situation. "Lads, can ye get him in bed?"
Frodo-lad shook his head curtly from where he was perched over Frodo's shoulders, pinning down his arms. "Nay. He's still fightin' us."
Upon a closer look she could see the truth in her son's words. Frodo was completely tense and would twitch on occasion to test his captors' hold. His chest heaved as he panted for breath and his pained expression bore traces of tears.
"Shall I fetch the sedative?" asked Rose-lass from the door. Rosie hesitated, not as willing to use it now that Frodo had been doing so well, but at length she nodded. There was no other way they'd be able to get any more rest this night.
As was usual, Frodo resisted being given the draught, still murmuring his seemingly endless litany of "Nonononono..." At length enough of the tonic found its way down his throat that he went limp under the restraining hands. By the time they settled him back in bed, all were yawning in weariness. The lads turned to go, and Rose-lass spoke abruptly. "I'll stay with him."
Her father tried to object, but she would not be swayed. "You need your rest so if he needs you later, you can be here. Right now he'll just sleep." So it was that she sat by the bed in the grey hours of morning, watching her charge as he slept uneasily, often reaching for his shoulder with a moan. At length she decided to see if there was actually anything wrong with the joint, and it was in doing so that she discovered his entire left arm was frigidly cold.
Given the restless nature of his slumber and the possibility of the scanty sedative dose wearing off at any moment, she was loath to leave him long enough to warm some towels, but she also didn't want to leave that pain unsoothed. As the grey fingers of dawn began to creep across the eastern sky, she decided to lie next to him in hopes the warmth of her body would serve until the rest of her family was awake and could assist him.
As her weight made the mattress sink, he turned toward her and for a moment the panicked thought that he was going to attack her made her freeze. But he seemed to settle back into deep sleep, so she scolded herself for being unreasonable and carefully finished getting onto the bed. She gently placed the cold limb between her body and his, lying on her side so she could hold his hand in both of hers. Whether due to the added warmth or just the comforting presence, Frodo's sleep was not as restless and Rose-lass began to grow sleepy herself.
When she awoke, there was a quilt tucked over her, and she turned to see her father sitting in the chair next to the bed. "Mornin', lass," he greeted her, and teased, "Get tired of watching?"
Her sleep-befuddled mind completely missed the joke, so she replied, "His arm was cold, and I didn't want to leave 'im to get warm towels and whatnot."
Sam was instantly serious. "Is it still cold?" he pressed anxiously.
"Not near so bad, but 'tis a far cry from bein' warm."
Sam's suspicions from earlier that morning came again to his mind. "And his shoulder?"
"Like ice," she confirmed.
"Lass, what is the date?"
His daughter's face creased in thought. "The... sixth, I think."
With that bit of information, everything clicked into place and Sam scolded himself for not understanding sooner. "Stay there, lass. I'll be back in a moment," he instructed as he hurried to the door. He found Rosie in the kitchen, and she helped him warm some towels and quilts and prepare some hot water bottles.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully for the most part, the only disturbance being when they tried to spoon-feed Frodo some warm broth. He fought it, crying out against the intrusion, and started becoming violent, so they stopped trying and let him return to his dark dreams. Sam hovered anxiously near the bed all day, and watched late into the night; his vigilance was rewarded when Frodo roused shortly after midnight.
Blinking groggily, he asked hoarsely, "What's going on?"
"You've... been ill."
Frodo sighed in resignation. "How bad was it?"
"Not too bad," Sam replied optimistically.
Frodo licked his lips before speaking again. "Sam, don't lie to me. You had to drug me, so don't tell me it wasn't bad."
"It don' matter," Sam insisted. "'Twas an anniversary, but you'll be better now."
~~~~
Frodo did seem to return to normal once that day passed, so it was without too much guilt that Sam and Rose took the children to market two days later. Despite Frodo's protests that he would be fine, they left Frodo-lad in case anything should happen. Neither was too comfortable with the arrangement and silence reigned as each minded his own business.
For a while Frodo tried to read, but found his attention wavering both under the influence of his turbulent thoughts and as a result of Frodo-lad sulking on the other side of the sitting room. At length he set aside the book and rose.
"Where are you going?" asked a disinterested voice from behind him as he left the room.
"The privy," he said dismissively. He really was going there, but after that... he hadn't decided yet. He needed to think about things... having reverted to his madness -no matter how short the time- threw everything into chaos and made him wonder if it really had gone away for good or if this was just a short respite so the memories of it could torment him in future fits.
When Mr. Frodo -he refused to call him Uncle Frodo as his youngest siblings did- failed to reappear after quite some time had passed, Frodo-lad heaved himself off the couch with a sigh and reluctantly went to find the mad hobbit. His concern mounted when he failed to find the older hobbit in the privy, the study, the bedroom... his heart sank as he realized his da would throttle him good if he lost poor, dear Mr. Frodo! He returned to the front of the smial, carefully checking every room as he worked his way back. As he approached the last few rooms, he was getting desperate for he'd seen no trace of him.
But then he noticed the door to the far back room -Mr. Frodo's former room- was open just a crack. His eyes gradually adjusted to the dark hallway so that when he ventured to poke his head into the room he could see Mr. Frodo's white shirt gleaming in the darkness as he huddled in the far corner on the other side of his old bed. "Why are you in here?" Frodo-lad asked in irritation.
"It seems this is where I belong," replied the brittle voice. "I do not deserve to be amongst the others."
"I certainly won't disagree," he muttered sarcastically, not fully intending for the other to hear, but not caring if he did.
And he did hear. "This would have been over long ago, were it my choice," he mused quietly, choosing his words carefully for the lad's ears. "Many times I have pleaded with your father to let me go, to end it, but he has refused." He sighed wistfully. "So I remain."
"You were out of your head. He didn't believe you meant it," Frodo-laid countered defensively.
"You mean he didn't *want* to believe I meant it," Mr. Frodo corrected. Then he asked, "Do you think I am out of my head?"
"N-now?"
"Yes, right now."
"I... I don't know... You've been out of your head so long it's hard to imagine you otherwise." He didn't fully realize what he was saying until after he'd blurted it, and he clapped his hand over his mouth in distress. "I'm sorry!" he cried. "Oh, I've made a mess of things an' no mistake." To his surprise, he heard a humorless chuckle from the other side of the room.
"I won't hold that against you, lad, and I appreciate the honesty. It is useful to know how others see me." He sighed again, and added, "There is truth in it."
Frodo-lad didn't know what else to say or even what to think, so he remained silent. After a while, Mr. Frodo said, "Tell me, what did you think of the Red Book?"
He didn't want to admit that he'd been enraptured by many parts of that monumental story, so he said, "It seems hard to believe all that actually happened."
"It does defy belief, doesn't it?" Mr. Frodo mused aloud. "Yet you trust it happened, because your father wouldn't tell such tales if they weren't true."
"I don't know that Da agrees with how you wrote it," he said quickly.
"It was your Da's memories that I put to paper, lad. Much of what happened to us I still don't remember clearly. He would even say I didn't include everything, especially near the Mountain."
"Were you mad then, too?" Frodo-lad couldn't help but ask the older hobbit still cowering in the corner.
Mr. Frodo chuckled again. "Yes, I suppose I was, in a manner of speaking. I believe what I experienced then is what made me go mad here."
Frodo-lad was saved from any more of the conversation by the front door opening to admit the rest of his family. With a brief glance back at Mr. Frodo, he went to greet his parents and dutifully help put their purchases away.
But he found his mind straying to that conversation, to the story in that large book, for the rest of the day. If what Mr. Frodo said was true about the memories coming from Frodo's da, not Mr. Frodo, then Frodo-lad *could* accept them as wholly true. But what would that mean? Knowing it to be true meant that Mr. Frodo actually suffered all those dreadful things, and would it really be a surprise that someone could go mad from it? It needed some serious thought.
Continued here.