Lately, Elanor was crying more than she had previously, waking everyone twice or more each night with her screams, refusing to be calmed. Sam was worried but Rosie just told him not to fret, she'd been a crotchety baby herself and it was nothing to get worked up about. They all slept in one room, because if it wasn't the baby yelling it was Frodo choking in his sleep, wailing wordless and unearthly cries softly and fluttering his hands up around his neck in restless patterns, and if it wasn't that it was Rosie's nightmares that Sam had left again without telling her where, and Sam couldn't bear to sleep where he couldn't comfort them all.
The crib was against one wall, the closest to the outdoors that retained the warmth of the day through the night, and in the centre of the room was the soft double bed used by Sam and Rosie. Frodo slept on a smaller matress on the other side of the room, Sam felt that this wasn't right at all but Frodo assured him it was perfectly fine. He never seemed relaxed when he slept, though, and often Sam wondered if there wasn't a more sensible way of doing things.
Elanor began to whimper and Sam sighed into the pillow, finding the energy to get up and see to her. Rosie patted his back gently, stroking her fingers through his hair.
"Go back to sleep, Sam, I'll see to her," she whispered, slipping out of bed and picking the pale bundle out of the cradle, rocking the child. The cries grew louder, and Rosie cast a quick glance over at Frodo as he shifted in his sleep.
"I'm taking her outside until she quiets," Rose explained, slipping out of the room and closing the door against the noise of Elanor's turn. Sam sighed and tried to settle back into his dreams.
"Sam?"
His eyes flicked open at the word. "Oh, Mr Frodo, I'm sorry the baby woke you."
"It's all right. Those dreams are better ended anyway." Frodo sounded very old in the quiet, lonely and still and sad.
"Is that all there is behind your eyes at night?" Sam said into the darkness of the room, trying to make out shapes in the blackness. "Don't you have bright thoughts as well?"
"Do you remember the old water barrel the Bracegirdles used to have? They left it full and it stagnated, went green with scum. And they washed it out for hours, and filled it with clear, new water, but you could still see the marks where the dirty water had been, and the new water went foul almost as soon as they poured it in?"
"Don't you compare yourself to some rusty bucket." Sam's voice was hot with a melancholy sort of anger. Rosie's voice singing to Elanor drifted in. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again.
"I'm sorry Sam. Go back to sleep," Frodo said in the long wordless quiet that followed Rose's song.
"I wish I could follow you in your dreaming, Mr Frodo. I can't keep you safe there, and it leaves me at a loose end." Sam paused. "Come over here, there's room in the bed enough. I'll keep you as safe as I can while you sleep, and maybe your dreams will be better for it."
Frodo laughed softly. "Rosie might have a thing or two to say about me taking up space in your bed."
"Well until you've a wife of your own she'll just have to share me with you," Sam said lightly. Frodo drew in a breath and didn't reply. "Mr Frodo?"
"Sam... I'm not going to marry."
"Don't be so sure about that. I didn't think I was going to either, until Rosie all but ordered me to ask her. She knew I'd never do anything I wanted for myself unless somebody else told me to do it first. Some lass'll catch your eye and you'll feel like a tween all over again."
A long quiet from Frodo's side of the room, then "Sam, that water barrel... when they poured the dirty water out, it was empty. Drained. There wasn't anything left."
"Time will fill you up again. I know it will." Sam had to know that. If it wasn't so, what had it all been for in the end?
"No. The..." Frodo choked a little, as if he was trying not to cry. "The ring sort of made me forget how to want anything but it, how anything but it could ever feel nice or good. I can barely taste food, even when you cook for hours, and my body... I'm all but dead, Sam."
Sam felt his own eyes sting. It wasn't fair. When he lay with Rosie it helped him forget all they'd been through, it was like coming home after a hard day in the field. To think that his dear Frodo would never have that broke his heart.
Swinging his feet over the side of the bed and doing his best to find his way through the dark, Sam stepped over to the side of Frodo's bed, pulling the coverlet back and lifting the smaller hobbit as carefully as he could.
"Sam, what're you-?"
"Hush, Mr Frodo, it's all right. Just thought you'd be more comfortable in the big bed."
He put Frodo down and climbed in beside him, slipping his arm around Frodo's thin chest, pulse thudding through the nightshirt fabric. Frodo sighed, curling in against Sam and inhaling the warm smell of outdoors off his skin. Sam kissed his forehead gently, then trailed his lips lightly down over Frodo's temple and across his cheek. Frodo sighed again, eyelashes fluttering and his lips parting with a puff of breath. Without hesitating Sam shifted so their mouths met.
Frodo made a small startled noise and tried to pull away but Sam wouldn't let him, holding his head in place just as he steadied Elanor when he held her. After a heartbeat Frodo melted against him, tongue slipping out to brush against Sam's. There were tears on his skin but they were hot and Frodo was cool, so cool, so Sam supposed they must be his own.
He unbuttoned Frodo's nightshirt, slipping it off slowly, letting his fingertips trace over the thick, angry scars that marred the soft flesh. Frodo tried to pull away again but again Sam held him still.
"Beautiful. So beautiful," Sam whispered in a voice that was suddenly hoarse, kissing the old wounds lightly. Frodo whimpered in the back of his throat, arching into the touch ever so slightly. It was enough to make Sam move his hand down and stroke the elegant line of Frodo's hip, palm sweaty against the silken skin.
"Sam, oh Sam." Frodo gasped, burying his face in the crook of Sam's shoulder and letting out a fractured half-sob.
"Hush," Sam whispered again, sliding his leg between Frodo's and pressing in for another kiss.
They were almost silent after that, as if they were afraid to even breathe, afraid to break the spell. Frodo shivered and shook, crying quietly against Sam's skin, hands gripping at his back and scrabbling frantically, searching for some tether to keep him from losing this moment. Sam held him, worshipped him, touching every bit of flesh he could with his mouth and hands, with as much care as if he was holding fine china.
Frodo fell back against the pillows, boneless and damp with perspiration, breathing in short gasps.
"Now dream, and I'll protect you," Sam ordered him, one hand resting over Frodo's heart, for fluttering hands to find, should they seek comfort there in sleep.
~
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