The silver-gray Elven wood was light as moonbeams, but Sam's arms were knotted with weariness as he took hold of the prow of the boat, shuffling backwards through the shallows to pull the little craft high onto the bank. Now more than ever, he was certain that the Brandybucks were entirely mad - hobbits were not and never had been made for water. His muscles ached with paddling, his garments still clung to him in clammy discomfort from his dip into the river, and he shrugged his brow against his shoulder, trying to push aside the hair that still clung stubbornly to his skin. Were the spare clothes in his pack still dry, or had the River's spray dampened them as well?

Glancing over the side of the boat at his pack, he caught a glimpse of Frodo's dark curls peeping over the gunwales. Hearing his Master's heavy, panting breaths mirroring his own exhaustion, Sam couldn't help but think of the devastating ease with which Aragorn and Boromir had practically tossed the boats to shore. Travel would be difficult now without the Fellowship, even deadly, but the River's swift current had taken them beyond the reach of their former companions, and not even the wind-heeled Legolas could hope to overtake them before dawn would come and send them on again.

By leaving the Fellowship, they had taken their lives solely into their own hands, and humble Samwise Gamgee, quiet Shire gardener, had somehow become the sole guardian of the Ring-Bearer. The thought frightened him. Up until now, he had done little more than follow where he was told, but what would happen if Sting began to glow with Orc-warning again? He had not the size to mow them down as Aragorn and Boromir's great sweeping sword-strokes had done, nor the strength of Gimli's powerful ax or the surety of Legolas's keen bowstring. Indeed, beyond his own little blade, he could do scarcely more than throw his own flesh against the Orcs and hope for Frodo's safety.

He would do it, of course. He would do it without question, and he would do it for the same reason he had left his bursting green cabbages and his heavy, rubied apple trees. The same reason that he had stepped into the blackness of the Mines of Moria, and the same reason he had left the comforting strength of the Fellowship to journey now into the very heart of Evil.

He loved Frodo. Sam loved his Master with a devotion he could not quite define, something stronger than brotherhood yet stopping just short of worship. It was a love that saw Frodo's fine, fair beauty, but it was not based on something as simple as lust, despite the wanderings of his dreams. It was pure and base, thoughtful and instinctual, and he could no sooner halt it than he could raise his small hand against the turning of the seasons. It pushed aside his own fear of death, but then magnified that same fear ten fold with a devious twist. No longer was it the possibility of sacrifice he feared, only that of futility.

The boat securely grounded, Sam slumped against the damp keel, closing his eyes for a moment. The brief rest, however, did not come easy. Something was different, and it pricked at his senses. He raised his head. "Mr. Frodo?"

No answer came, and a cold hand seized Sam's heart. Surely it couldn't have happened so fast. Could he have become so lost in his own thoughts that he had allowed some ill to come to his Master this quickly into their journey? His hand on the hilt of his sword, he called again. "Mr. Frodo?"

"Yes?" Frodo's voice shook, and Sam felt the chill drain away into a kind of numbness as he slipped around the prow, fingers tensed on his weapon and ready to...

But Frodo was alone. Alone and crumpled, tucked into the earth in a small damp bundle of traveling clothes and curls. He was trembling violently, his teeth chattering together audibly, and Sam fell to his knees at his Master's side, unclasping his cloak and wrapping the soft, warm Elven cloth around the shivering hobbit. It was no physical chill that wracked him, though, and the tremours continued, even as Sam wrapped his arms around his Master, rubbing his hands against the other hobbit's back to try and warm him.

He almost didn't hear it at first, so distorted were the words by the clattering of Frodo's teeth, but then they came again, and Sam's hands stilled. "I'm frightened."

Sam's head bowed. "The Ring?"

There was no reply, and Frodo's trembling did not ease, but now his fingers twitched toward his chest, as if being pulled there and away at once. Sam saw a slight bulge in the weave of his tunic, and he properly guessed that the Ring was no longer as far away as Frodo's pocket. Frodo's eyes closed, tiny lines forming at their smooth-skinned edges, and Sam took his Master's hands in his own, cupping them gently to try and still the draw of that vicious trinket. The bright blue eyes rose to his, and Sam gasped. There was something changed there, subtle but unmistakable, like a faint morning mist cupped in the hollows of a familiar garden. "Yes."

The agreement was dull, toneless, almost as if Frodo's lips spoke the words against the will of his heart. It frightened him, and he wondered if that was what was frightening Frodo as well. Would the Ring let him see the change in his own eyes? "Boromir. He wanted the Ring. I couldn't let him have it."

"Of course not, Mr. Frodo. You're the Ring-Bearer. Gandalf said so, and the Council." He released one hand from Frodo's, smoothing back a dark curl that had fallen over that fair forehead. "You were right to keep it from Boromir, and if you had to vanish for it...he's a Man, far stronger than a hobbit. He could have killed you."

"No." Frodo shook his head almost violently, jerking his hands from Sam's grasp. "When I put it on...for all my fear of Boromir, it was like the touch of an old friend. I ran, suddenly sure that you all were trying to take it from me. I had to escape all of you. And then the Eye...and I thought I knew the Evil of it. I thought to be noble and take its danger far from you, but I still reasoned to put it on again."

The mention of the Eye confused Sam, but he knew from the chill in the hobbit's voice that it was a dark thing, a terrible thing, and he felt anew the solitude and depth of the forest around them. "Mr. Frodo..."

"When you came after me, Sam, and fell into the River...for a half-moment, I thought to let you drown so that you couldn't get at it."

Frodo's confession, spoken so simply and smoothly, came as a sharp blow to Sam. His breath caught in his chest, and for a moment, he could only stare, struck dumb. At last his breath came again, and he licked his lips, calling up a comforting smile. "But you didn't, Mr. Frodo. You saved me instead. Pulled me right out by my soggy ears, you did. And let me come with you, besides."

"Into danger, my fine friend."

"Which I have done willingly from the first. I'll follow you, that I promise: to the heart of Mordor or anywhere else I must." Boldly, he set his palm against Frodo's breast, feeling the Ring on its chain hard beneath the cloth. He brought his eyes to meet Frodo's. "The touch of a friend, Mr. Frodo."

And now Frodo's hand was over his, and he realized that the trembling had stopped, and that somehow, those comely features were now very near his own, the dark curls brushing his own sandy hair as their foreheads nearly touched. A smile brushed his Master's face. "The touch of a friend, Sam."

Then he closed his eyes, and it was as if in a dream that Sam saw his head tilt just enough to keep their noses from bumping, and then his own eyes were closed and there was only the softness and warmth of Frodo's lips on his, a comfort so welcome in the midst of such despairing circumstance that it was all he could do to keep the tears from spilling to his cheeks. He drew towards it like a flower to the sun, bruising his lips in a desperate need to taste and feel and know that everything was going to be all right after all.

No, better than all right. Better now, because this was not a dream, and yet Frodo's hands were cupping his face, his callused hands suddenly soft. Their lips had teased apart, filling his mouth with sweetness better than any summer berry as Frodo's tongue twisted and gamboled with his own, pushing and caressing, now gentle, now strong, yet always filled with a nearly devotional energy that belied the weariness of only moments before.

Frodo reached for Sam's tunic, ignoring the wooden fastenings and pushing up under the hem to glide his hands over Sam's chest and belly, and the hobbit shivered with pleasure, his own hands questing out in answer. His fingers found the rough-woven cloth of Frodo's tunic, but when he raised the hem, he met not warm hobbit flesh, but cold metal rings wrought tighter and finer than fish mail. Sam let out a cry, breaking the kiss and drawing back as if burned.

How close he had come! How close to forgetting himself, forgetting everything. Frodo was no longer the gentle friend of Bag End. He had become the Ring-Bearer, and between them now stood a corslet of mithril mail that may as well have been the breadth of the Misty Mountains. That simple shirt was worth more than all the gold Bilbo had ever stashed away, more than all the Shire, and the mud-sullied fingers of Samwise Gamgee were unworthy to touch it, much less the Ring-Bearer beneath. Sam felt his cheeks heat with shame, and his hands fumbled in the gravel beneath him as he looked away, unable to meet Frodo's eyes.

Frodo said nothing in response to Sam's sudden withdrawal, but he heard a rustle, and then a sound like a thousand tiny bells tinkling in a gentle wind. Tentative, he raised his head the tiniest bit, only to see the priceless mail shirt lying crumpled in the smooth gravel of the shore. Frodo's chest and shoulders shone bare in the dimness, and Sam shook his head, reaching for the discarded garment and holding it out to his Master. It weighed no more than a thought in his hands. "If we were attacked - you must keep it on, Mr. Frodo."

With a sad, small smile, Frodo edged Sting from its scabbard. The blade was dull, and he sheathed it again. "There are no Orcs about, Sam, and if Gollum pads his slimy feet from the River while we sleep, the shirt would be no protection. I don't need it now." He reached out and took the shirt, dropping it again with the sound of whispering bells, then unbuckled Sting and let it fall as well. Sam's hand still floated strangely in the air without its weightless cargo, and Frodo leaned close, allowing the fingers to touch his chest. "The touch of a friend."

The feel of that living skin was like a thunderbolt, and before Sam entirely understood what had happened, his own tunic lay discarded on the ground, and his hands were exploring Frodo's body with a freedom that he had never imagined possible.

Sam had not seen his Master's flesh exposed since Rivendell, when he had helped care for the wound the Black Riders had inflicted, and it was a changed body that was bared to his eyes and touch now. Months of hard travel and uncertain provender had pared away the softness of the Shire, hollowing cheeks and making his wide eyes and bowed mouth seem almost Elven. Sam's fingers traced hard curves of tough sinew through Frodo's limbs, and though it had not yet ridged into the shallow hills and valleys of muscle that marked the likes of Aragorn and Legolas, Frodo's rounded hobbit's belly had flattened and vanished. He found himself thinking that only the hair of his toes made Frodo still seem a hobbit at all, and his blood froze as he remembered words spoken on a long-ago morning in Bag End.

"Gollum!" Frodo had exclaimed. "Gollum? Do you mean that this is the very Gollum-creature that Bilbo met? How loathsome!"

"I think it is a very sad story," Gandalf had replied, "and it might have happened to others, even to some hobbits that I have known."

Now, even before his eyes, Frodo had begun to change, and the thought that the Ring might eventually turn him into some shriveled and moon-eyed beast horrified Sam. He wanted suddenly nothing more than to take Frodo back to the Shire and pretend that awful Ring had never existed, fatten his dear Master up again on good wholesome hobbit-food grown in his own gardens and never again walk a day's journey that wasn't simply for the joy of walking.

Yet it was impossible. They had gone too far to turn back, and the consequences were too horrible if they did. All Sam could do was bury his face in the remaining softness low on Frodo's stomach and wrap his arms around him tightly, as if the hobbit chubbiness that had remained in his own body could somehow preserve all that was kind and gentle and hobbit-like in Frodo.

His passion took on an air of desperation, and even Frodo's own energetic responses could hardly keep up as Sam's hands kneaded and stroked, his mouth busily kissing and licking every bit of opened flesh until both hobbits gleamed with sweat, their thick breathing casting a lustful pace to the night wind. Sam's body sprawled over his Master's, enveloping and protecting as he kissed the tender throat arched back and open to him, then sought again that mouth that danced so merrily with his.

A soft moan slipped from Frodo's lips, and his hips bucked upwards, but Sam captured the cry in his mouth, and their kiss locked them together as Frodo rolled them over on the smooth gravel. The tiny stones were cool on Sam's back as the heat built in his groin, Frodo's compact body driving fierce against him. He wanted to tear the trousers from both of them, but he would not allow such boldness, not even now with the bonds of propriety so laughingly shattered in gasps of pleasure.

Beneath the veil of his half-closed eyes, he saw a glint in the starlight, and he realized that it was the Ring, swaying on its chain as Frodo pulsed rhythmically against him. The sight of it filled him with a strange and uncomfortable emotion, and he crooked one arm behind Frodo's neck, pulling the other hobbit down to him so that their lips met again and the Ring was captured and held tight between them.

They were moving together faster now, and Frodo seemed to see the plea unspoken in Sam's eyes. He lifted his hips away, freeing one hand to unfasten his trousers and push them down to bag on his ankles and be kicked away. Sam wiggled beneath him to do the same, but soon found loving fingers at his waist, smoothing the cloth away so that they both lay naked on the shore, twined against each other with even the Ring seeming as nothing between them.

Sam was intoxicated with the taste, the smell of Frodo, so much sweeter and richer than even the ethereal meads he had tasted in Galadhon. He caught the other hobbit by the hips, pushing him upward as Sam slid low, capturing Frodo's erection hot in his mouth. There was the taste of Frodo strongest, dark and musky and sharp, and the sounds of Frodo's pleasure were like the finest music to his travel-wearied ears as he took his Master as deeply as he could, circling and caressing softly with his lips and tongue as Frodo slid smoothly in and out. His hands felt the growing tension in Frodo's thighs, a shuddering that had nothing at all to do with fear and everything to do with comfort and love and all the things that the Ring had tried to take from them.

And then there was a cry, more a soft sob of release than any piercing shout of triumph, and a hot saltiness filled his throat as Frodo came into him. The taste of Frodo's pleasure drove Sam himself over the edge, and it was as if that warm burst was the first tumble of a long roll down a perfect green hill in summer, and all was warmth and strength and a pleasure that seared all fear from his mind in a moment of simple being.

They were living things, nothing more, living and breathing and holding each other as the night wind cooled the sweat on their bodies and their hearts slowed again from the breakneck thunder that had hammered their ears. As his senses returned to him, Sam was uncertain how they came to lie there, Frodo's head on his shoulder and their arms around each other. Frodo's breathing was peaceful, his body relaxed, and even the Ring had lost its strange weightiness against his breastbone, becoming, for a moment, nothing more than a pretty bauble.

Stars twinkled above them, but in the East, Sam could see that the blackness of night was beginning to give way to blue. He would let Frodo sleep for now, but soon they would have to rise, bathe, and set out again on this relentless quest that sometimes seemed as if it wouldn't stop until it had devoured everything. But he wouldn't let it. He would find the strength, and he would see them through.

Gently, he stroked his fingers through Frodo's hair, burying the side of his face in the soft curls. "I will protect you, Mr. Frodo. By Elbereth, I will never let anything harm you. And if we ever return to the Shire, I will make you forget all of this Evil. I will make you forget it, and then we will live quite happily with simple things. A good hole, a fine garden, a pipe, and if you wish it, the touch of a friend."