To Sleep Perchance To Dream

“So, Master Samwise,” Frodo teased, throwing a companionable arm about his shoulders, “are you ready for tomorrow?”

The young hobbit sighed nervously, drawing on his pipe and allowing the smoke to trickle slowly from his lips. “I don’t know Mister Frodo. I was so sure of this before, but now…”

“It’s perfectly normal to have cold feet the night before your wedding.”

“Ah, yes, and what would a confirmed old bachelor such as your self know about that?” Sam asked with a grin, glancing at his friend.

“So I’ve heard,” the dark-haired hobbit amended with a laugh. “Come on, let’s take a walk.”

“Are you going to dispense some words of wisdom regarding marriage now?” Sam wondered, eyes glittering. “If so, you needn’t bother. I assure you my Gaffer has given me an earful of the ‘whys’ and ‘wherefores’ already.”

“No. I’ve no advice to give you,” Frodo admitted, “except love one another and I know I don’t *need* to tell you that. I’ve never known a hobbit with a greater ability to love unconditionally than you do Samwise Gamgee. I owe my life to that love.”

The young gardener flushed, turning from his dark-haired master before his eyes betrayed a depth of love he couldn’t deny.

They walked without speaking, the darkness of early evening surrounding them in a comfortable silence. So much had changed in the Shire, and right there on Bag Shot Row, events that mirrored the changes in the both of them.

Sam looked around at wounds to the earth that would be mended but not completely healed – not in his lifetime anyway. He knew those same wounds scarred the hobbit that walked silently at his side. He cherished these quiet times, knowing that with a new wife and hopefully children on the way, they would soon be a thing of the past.

He would miss times like this, with Frodo at his side, like no other part of his former life. Along with his innocence, it was one more thing the Ring had stolen from him. He sighed, sadness clutching at his belly to mix with the nervous butterflies.

“Sam?”

“Hmmm?”

“I have a confession to make.” Frodo’s tone was serious, and it made Sam pause. “Something I want you to know, before you marry Rose tomorrow.”

“What is it Frodo?” Sam asked, eyeing his master’s serious face with some trepidation.

They’d reached the party field, now bereft of its wonderful centerpiece, and Frodo stopped. He turned to face Sam, taking the other’s warm hand into his own cool one.

“You are very dear to me Sam; you always have been,” Frodo started, giving the hand a firm squeeze.

“And you to me, Frodo,” Sam answered, returning the gesture.

“All the while we were in Mordor, it was your light…your spark…that kept me going. Waking or sleeping, the thought of you at my side gave me the strength to keep moving forward even when I could no longer see an end to our road.”

“Yes, and we got through it all,” Sam reminded, “and you don’t need to think of it anymore. We’re home. It’s done.”

“Yes, we are home,” Frodo toned softly, “but there are still things between us that remain unspoken. Things that shouldn’t be.”

“What are you getting at Mister Frodo?” Sam asked, nervous fear rising in his throat. “I don’t understand. What things?”

“Things gentlehobbits, of good character don’t generally speak of,” Frodo offered with a small smile. “Dark secrets, fit perhaps only for dreams in dark places. Feelings that cannot bear up to the light of day.”

Sam shuddered, a tingling anxiety trembling down his spine. He felt a chill at his back although the air was warm.

“How’s that Mister Frodo?” he managed at last. He glanced down at the thick grass below their feet, avoiding his master’s gaze.

There was a long pause, as if Frodo were searching for the right words to speak.

“I remember that one night in Mordor, Sam,” Frodo spoke at last. “I remember all of it…”

Sam’s mouth was dry. “Remember all of what?”

“A comforting presence. A touch in the darkness that for one moment in that evil place brought me warmth and joy and peace.”

Silence surrounded them, fearful silence, broken only by the monotonous drone of crickets in the meadow grasses.

“You lay beside me,” Frodo continued, “and caressed me. You…you helped me…you…”

“Oh Mister Frodo…I’m so sorry,” Sam whispered, ashamed. He pulled his hand from Frodo’s and turned to face him. “I had no right. But you were so exhausted, so much in need. I thought…” Words failed as a single tear trickled down his cheek.

“No…no, Sam, you misunderstand,” Frodo soothed, taking Sam’s shaking hand back into his own. “I’m not accusing you…”

“It was wrong of me,” Sam continued, as if not hearing his master’s words. “I’m so sorry…”

“No, I’m the one who should be sorry,” Frodo offered. “You gave me the most generous gift a hobbit could. And I didn’t have the courage to admit that I knew, that I had dreamt it before but knew the reality of that moment. You shared yourself with me, and received nothing for it but my cold silence.”

“No Frodo…that’s not true.”

“It is! I should have told you what it meant to me, right then and there, not make up some bucolic story of the Shire.” Frodo’s voice was intense and filled with self-anger. “I should have told you what was in my heart. I should have told you *then* while passion still lived in me. Now it’s too late. I have nothing to offer you, no heart to give. I am filled with an emptiness that will never heal.”

He cried now, tears wetting pale cheeks, glistening in the faint moonlight.

“Please don’t.” Sam’s heart ached, hearing words from his master that he’d longed to hear for a lifetime.

“I have to…” Frodo cried, gripping Sam’s hand so tightly it hurt. “I want you to know what that one night meant to me. It saved me Sam. I was drowning in the darkness and your touch pulled me out. It’s a memory I held onto even into the depths of Mount Doom. It’s what kept me from plunging after Gollum into the fires. It saved me. The selflessness of that one act helped to save me when all other thoughts were lost to darkness.”

Sam shivered, fear clutching at him along with an aching pain he couldn’t explain.

They stood there in silence, lost in thought, each hobbit trying to make sense of the exchange.

“Sam?”

“Yes Frodo?”

The elder hobbit glanced at him through dark lashes, his voice trembling. “Why?”

“Why what, Frodo?”

Why did you do it?” Frodo’s voice was strained, cautious. “I mean, did you…was it just because I was your master? Did you think it was your duty to help me?”

“Oh Frodo…no, that’s not it at all.” Sam’s eyes welled with tears and he brushed them away with his sleeve.

“Did you,” Frodo swallowed hard against the fear in his throat, “did you love me?”

The younger hobbit hesitated, torn. “Yes. I loved you. I still love you.”

There, it was said. Sam drew a shuddering breath and glanced at Frodo. His master stared at him, pleasant surprise in his beautiful blue eyes. Did he dare continue? Did he have the courage to ask the question that had haunted him since that day?

“Oh Sam, I didn’t know. I mean, I knew you cared for me but…” Frodo admitted with a sigh. “You should have told me.”

“That day…” Sam muttered, finding courage though fear touched his voice, “you spoke my name, while you were…um… touching yourself. Did you…what did you feel for me?”

“I did love you then, Sam. And I desired you, more than you will ever know,” Frodo admitted with a sad smile that faded as he continued. “But though there is no one in all of Middle Earth as dear to me as you, I do not…cannot…love you now. The Ring has taken that along with everything else from me.”

A sob broke from Sam’s lips though he tried not to let it. He buried his face in his hands and wept uncontrollably. Frodo circled him with caring arms, cradling him as he cried, just as Sam had done for him so many times in the days following Mount Doom.

“Shhhh,” he soothed, caressing sandy curls. “I’m sorry. I’m *so* sorry. I could stand here tonight and pretend to give you what you want. It might make us both happy, but I’m afraid it would only be for a little while. And in doing so I would steal from you what you need, the one thing that will bring you the peace and joy I cannot. You need Rose, more than you do me. And she will bring you a house full of happiness, happiness that I can’t even imagine – much less promise. There will be children to bounce on your knee and the abundance of love that you deserve…”

“Why? Why tell me this now?!” Sam cried, his voice angry and filled with hurt. “Wouldn’t it have been better left unsaid?”

“I don’t know,” Frodo whispered, brushing back wayward curls from Sam’s sad face. “Only you can tell me that. Would you have rather wondered all your life about that one moment in time? I know you, my dear Sam, some days better than you know yourself. You’ve probably worried and fretted and second-guessed yourself a thousand times since that day, not knowing if what you did was right. Can you tell me you have not?”

Sam shook his head ‘no’ his breath hitching in his chest.

“And can you honestly say to me that you have not wondered a thousand times what I felt for you at that moment, with my hands on my body and your name on my lips?”

“No.”

“Then tell me, would you rather not have known?” Frodo’s question was emphatic. He gazed at Sam his blue eyes bright with unshed tears.

With a choking breath, Sam shook his head, eyes downcast. “No.”

“Then find peace in this thought, if you can find peace in no other,” Frodo begged, taking his friend’s shoulders gently. “If I’ve ever known passion’s love for another being, it’s you, Sam. If I still had love to give, it would be to you. You are all that is dear to me now, and I want only the deepest happiness for you.”

The younger hobbit sobbed quietly and compassion filled Frodo’s heart nearly to breaking. He cradled the wounded gardener in his arms again and pressed a soft kiss to his brow, smoothing back curls gone damp in the early summer heat.

“If you ask it of me now, I would take you in my arms tonight and try to love you as you deserve,” Frodo admitted at last, breathing warmth into Sam’s neck and hair. “But I fear for the outcome, and what we could stand to lose in the harsh press of a dream forced into reality. You know as I do that oft times our dreams are so much better than waking. Still, I would gift myself to you sweet Sam, and bear the consequences if you but ask it of me.”

They stood in silence for a long time, Sam resting in the circle of his master’s arms, head lying against his shoulder. They remained unmoving, long after the younger hobbit’s tears had given way to a trembling grief that found no release in weeping, until Frodo thought he’d die for the sorrow he’d brought about.

“Sam?” he whispered, when he could bear the silence no longer. “Please…tell me what to do.”

The younger hobbit started as if to wakefulness, and pulled back from the warmth of the arms that held him. He searched the depth of his master’s blue eyes, seeking the answer to a question Frodo couldn’t even begin to guess. Then, slowly Sam leaned forward and pressed his lips softly to Frodo’s. It was a tender but passionless kiss, the chaste kiss of a brother and friend, and when it ended Frodo found that tears once again wet his cheeks.

“It’s late, Frodo,” Sam whispered at last, linking his arm in Frodo’s, “and we’ve a busy day tomorrow – seeing how I’m getting married and all. I think we’d best be getting back or Rosie will have our hides for sure.”

Smiling, his heart light once more, Frodo leaned into Sam’s shoulder with a companionable air and together they walked back down the Row toward home.

~Fini