When Frodo awoke the next morning, he pulled on his dressing-gown and went into the kitchen. Sam woke up alone a few minutes later, dressed, and came out looking for him. He found Frodo crouched on the kitchen hearth, re-lighting the fire. The tea kettle sat on the floor beside him.
"Here, let me do that," Sam offered.
"Don't be silly, Sam. You're my guest. Sit down, and I'll make tea for us."
Sam sat down at the kitchen table, but watched while Frodo filled the kettle with water from the cistern and put it over the fire to boil, then came back to the table to measure out three spoonfuls of tea leaves for the pot, ready to assist if Frodo had difficulty with any of these tasks.
"D'you make your own breakfasts too?" Sam asked. "Are you left alone here?"
"No, there's a maid-servant from Newbury who comes in to sweep up and make meals for me, and Merry visits nearly every day."
Sam shook his head, dismissing Merry and the services of the maid. "You shouldn't be left by yourself, Frodo, not out here in the middle of the woods with no one to look after you, and 'specially not at nights. What if you have a bad turn?"
"I haven't had a bad turn in months," Frodo answered briskly as he set out the tea-mugs. "Even the last one, in October, wasn't so terrible this last time." He closed his hand around the gemstone dangling on its chain. The Lady Arwen's gift had helped him through that dark day; he was sure of it. The feelings of gloom and bleak depression had come over him on the anniversary of his injury at Weathertop, and the old wound in his shoulder ached as it always did on that day, but he had been up and about. He wasn't able to concentrate well enough to work on his writing, and he'd had no appetite, but he'd gone for a walk in the garden and sat reading by the sitting-room fire until bed-time. He'd felt fine the next day, while one of his bad spells normally left him bedridden for a week afterwards. The pain was still there deep within his heart, but it had become more bearable. And more important, peace had descended upon his mind since Arwen had placed the gemstone around his neck. He was no longer beset by half-remembered terrors, nor was he afraid of what was to come.
"The day when the Ring was destroyed is coming up soon," Sam reminded him--as if he needed reminding! The anniversary was little more than two weeks away.
"I know, Sam. I'll make sure that I'm not alone on that day." He didn't know how bad it would be this year, but he had discussed the matter with Merry, who wanted him to stay at Brandy Hall during his worst day. Frodo was reluctant. While there was some comfort in being attended to at home, among his family, he wasn't certain he wanted them to see him in that terrible, terrifying condition. They wouldn't understand his pain the way Sam did.
"You won't be alone," said Sam. "I'll stay 'til then, and look after you. This investigation of yours won't take as long as that, will it?"
"I certainly hope not. I've already had one investigation interrupted by my worst day, and all the days I had to spent in bed afterward. I want this finished before then. Will you stay, even if I'm finished, Sam? Can Rosie spare you so long?"
"Mother Cotton's staying with Rosie now, and she'll look after her 'til I come back. The baby's not due for months yet, and I won't be gone as long as that. I'll write and tell her how it is." Then Sam began to understand what Frodo had just said. "Don't you mean to come home, even after you're done, Frodo? I thought we'd settled that, last night. After all, we- well, you- You were that keen on it! I thought-"
"Yes, Sam, I remember. It was lovely, but it wasn't a promise that I'd come back to Bag End with you."
Sam had evidently thought it was, for his mouth popped open and then shut again abruptly. He stared at Frodo until he came to a decision. "All right, then. If you won't come, I'll stay here 'til you're ready to," he announced stubbornly, and returned to his theme of last night, as Frodo knew he would. "Won't you please come home, Frodo?"
"Sam-"
"I want you with me," Sam persisted. "You don't know what it's like since you've gone." Tears glistened in his eyes, and Frodo's heart went out to him. "I miss you that much. If it wasn't for my Nel, I don't know what I'd do. I put everything into looking after her. Babies make up for a lot, Frodo. When you think you've turned wrong, you can look at 'em and say 'If I'd gone another way, I wouldn't have her'--and I wouldn't trade her for the whole world."
Frodo came closer to stand beside Sam's chair and put a hand on his shoulder. "Is it... wrong, Sam? You're not-" he hesitated to ask the question. "You don't regret marrying Rosie?" He had given up Sam for Sam's own happiness; if Sam were unhappy, it would be too dreadful! It would be his fault.
"No, it isn't that," Sam answered. "I do love Rosie, and I have my Nel. I can't be sorry for anything that gave me her. They oughta be enough for any hobbit."
"Then what is it?"
"It's you." Sam considered his next words carefully. "If it wasn't for you, Frodo, I would've stayed in Hobbiton all my life, married Rose, and never wished for anything else. I wouldn't ever 've thought there could be anything else for me. But there is you." He grabbed Frodo around the waist and pulled him down to sit on his knee. "You get inside me--into my head and under my skin and right to my heart so I can't think of nothing but how I want you." One hand slipped beneath Frodo's robe, stroking the outside of his thigh, then moving into a more intimate caress. "I lie awake nights beside Rose, thinking about when it used to be you sleeping next to me. It was hard enough to bear when you were off in Gondor. It's worse now you're here in the Shire, so near, but not near enough!"
Frodo put his head down on Sam's shoulder and shut his eyes. He tried to compose his thoughts, to explain that he'd made this choice for Sam's sake as much as his own, but the way Sam was touching him under his robe made it impossible for him to think of anything except the way Sam was touching him under his robe. He felt as if Sam were storming his defenses on a basic emotional level, one that he couldn't argue himself out of. But he couldn't surrender to this assault of the senses, much as he wanted to.
His voice was strained as he answered, "I thought it was best if I stay away. You have your own life now, Sam--a wife, baby, and another on the way. That's your family."
"You're my family too," Sam told him, "as much as Rosie 'n' Nel. Bag End's your home. It's where you belong. If it's Rosie you're thinking of, Frodo, don't you worry. She understands how it is with us, better'n she did. She's no fool. Maybe she was glad when you first went off and stayed away, but she sees now it doesn't stop me loving you. She knows I'm not happy without you. When I told her I was coming after you, she said 'Yes, go. Bring Mr. Frodo home.' I'm here now for you. Why won't you come home?"
Frodo was trying to form a rational answer--even though the last thing he felt was rational--when rescue arrived: the garden gate creaked. "That'll be Milli," he said, and scrambled off of Sam's lap, arranging his disheveled robe to cover himself decently before he let her in.
Milli went straight to the hearth to take the steaming kettle off the fire. "G'morning, Mr. Baggins. I didn't expect you'd be up so early." She eyed the visitor with curiosity as she filled the teapot.
"Milli, this is my friend, Chief Sherriff Gamgee, from Hobbiton," Frodo introduced him. "He's come to help me investigate these awful attacks on my family, and he'll be staying here with me for awhile. Sam, this is Milliflora Pibble, who looks after me."
Milli's arrival put an end to their personal conversation. While she made breakfast, Frodo washed and dressed and, when he returned to the kitchen, Sam was chatting with her about her little boy. Frodo knew that Sam was normally jealous of anyone who had the care of him, being firm in the belief that nobody else could do the job as well as he could, but the two seemed to have gotten on amiable terms over the subject of children.
Over breakfast, Frodo brought Sam up to date on his investigation and told him of the discoveries he had made so far. They were finishing up when there was a knock on the front door, and Milli undid the latch to admit Pippin.
Pippin looked delighted to see Sam there. "We were worried, a bit, when you left us," he told Frodo as he helped himself to a couple of rashers of crisp bacon from his cousin's plate, "but when Sam went looking for you and didn't come back, everybody knew he must've found you here and you were all right. Did the two of you have a nice, restful night?"
"Nice, if not restful, thank you," said Frodo. "Merry let you come by yourself, in spite of the danger?"
"It's all right--I'm armed." Pippin lay a hand on the hilt of the dagger tucked into his belt, the same one the Lady Galadriel had given him in Lothlorien. As he took a piece of toast from the rack, he looked around the kitchen. "D'you know, I haven't been here since Merry and I left. You've fixed it up so, Frodo, it hardly looks like the same place."
"That's because it's been cleaned. Milli sweeps up every day and washes the dishes."
Milli was, in fact, waiting for them to finish eating so she could clear the table, get on with her washing, and return home. Frodo's account of his search for the person who had killed one of his cousins and assaulted another had disturbed her very much and she was eager to be away.
"What've you come for?" Sam asked him.
"I was sent to tell Frodo," Pippin announced. "Ilbie's awake. He's got a splitting headache, but otherwise he's all right."
"Did he tell you what happened?" Frodo asked eagerly. "Does he know who struck him?"
Pippin shook his head. "Dodi was sure it was Oleander Woodbury and was all for going after him, but Fatty wouldn't let him. Ilbie says it wasn't. He's not sure who it was, but he wants to talk to you right away."
"Let's go then." Frodo set down his tea-mug and rose from the table. After forking up a few last bites of tomato and egg, Sam joined him. Before they left the cottage, Sam took Sting down from its place on the sitting-room wall. Frodo, while not armed himself, felt well protected as they went down the lane toward Brandy Hall.
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