By all rights you and I should both be drowned.
The tears we have wept this day are enough to double the Brandywine, and it is a miracle that the current of our emotions did not force us under and rob us of our breath entirely.
I have wept before.
I wept in sorrow. The day I parted from you I wept till I was ill, my stomach churning and pitching far worse than the ship that carried me. I was sure I would never see you again; that you would hate me for all the pain I had caused you. And it would have been rightly so if you did. To leave you standing on the dock in such anguish, every feature on your blessed face screaming -- ABANDONED! BETRAYED! -- would have more than justified your hate.
I wept in loss. Oh, how I missed you! I could not see your face or hear your voice. I could not feel you near. Your laughter no longer rang through my halls and bordered the beds of my garden. I wandered through everyday wondering what you were doing. How you were doing. If you were happy.
I wept in worry. What if you never found happiness? What if your days were spent in misery and your nights were tortured dreams, as mine were? Did your wounds still pain you? Could you ever find healing?
I wept in elation. I learned you were making the journey West and I was overcome by the fact that I would finally be reunited with you. My heart (for you have always had it, even if you did not know it) was coming back to me; and with it would come sunlight, and spring, and completion. I would be able to see you, hear you, touch you once again.
I wept in anticipation. Why were you not here yet? I had waited for over sixty years, yet I could not endure one more week without you. My want --my need -- for you literally rippled through my veins.
I wept in fear. You were coming, so surely that meant you did not hate me. But did you forgive me? Doubt and uncertainty gripped me in a vice. How had you changed? How had I changed? What if I disappointed you? I would have done or given anything to return to the way we had been before the quest, but what if that just could not be?
I have wept before, but always in solitude. Today we wept together.
We wept in disbelief. After so many years and so much heart-break, could this now be real? Were we really standing before one another, looking into each other's eyes? Was this only another cruel dream from which we would wake? We could see and hear, but for long, agonizing minutes we could not touch for fear that our hands would pass through mere smoke.
We wept for reality. I gathered all of my courage and reached out to stroke the tears from you face. I felt your skin and you felt my fingertips, and we collapsed in each other's arms. We WERE here! We were together, at last and above all!
We wept declarations: I love you. I missed you. I worried for you. I forgive you. I love you. I love you.
I love.
I. We.
We love.
We love!
We wept in remorse. We grieved for all we had lost and longed for; all that could have been but was not. A lifetime of hurt and fear, and lack of solace save for fledgling hope, left us trembling and clinging for hours.
We wept in passion. You lifted your head from my sodden shoulder, tears still fresh in our eyes, and without warning or preamble kissed me. Not gently, as I would have expected, but hard and hungry, and I immediately caught fire. If the simple touch of fingertips to cheek could solidify reality, then the touch of lips to lips, of heat to heat, could promise eternity. We tumbled to the sand and made love right there at the shore.
And we wept in release.
That we did not perish in the flood of our own making will forever remain a mystery to me, yet somehow we managed to regain our feet and leave the sea shore. We have been home (and it is truly home now that you are here.), and in bed, for hours -- yet still we weep: I in thought, and you in sleep. As I gaze at you, even now, slow tears trickle down your blessed face.
But you are smiling, and for this I must smile as well.
I caress your cheek, wiping your tears away again, then I gather you in my arms and hold you to me. Yes, my love, I know we will weep for a long time yet, but I no longer worry that we will drown in our own tears.
For now we weep in joy.
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Flood by Hobbitcuddles
Story notes: Written for my dear friend Hothobbitgirl
Warning: Angsty Frodo! keep kleenex handy.
