They didn't argue, that last day. Rosie was going to, but she woke up cold and sad, Frodo already out of bed and Sam curled in on himself, and she knew there wasn't a point to wasting these hours with fighting. They'd be off too early the next morning for any sort of real goodbye, so this was the time that had to count.
She cooked all the breakfast foods they'd eaten together, a little bit of egg and a few small pancakes and bacon on fresh bread. She kissed them both good morning as they came to the table, then asked them to watch Elanor as she ran out to the tree near the washing line and tried to stop her tears.
Sam tried to do odd jobs to keep his hands busy, but there was nothing that really needed to be done and the sky felt heavy above them, raining for a while every so often.
Eventually Frodo thought he'd be smothered by the density of emotion in the cosy little home, and went out for a walk. It was wet and cold and windy, but it didn't seem fair to the Shire he loved so much to rug up against it, to hide from what it was.
Fastred and Jacky were playing with marbles down near the riverbank, Frodo called out to them not to get too close and they ran up to meet him, asking questions about adventures and places as they always did. They came back to Bag End for afternoon tea and then scampered off to play more games. Rosie and Sam and Frodo spent the rest of the day and the evening playing with Elanor, peek-a-boo and round-and-round-the-garden and all the other games she loved, and when she drifted off they sat up late into the night, later than they should have with such an early start before them, and talked of unimportant things, and then went to bed together.
In the morning they set off, Rosie waving goodbye at the gate after kissing them both.
"You come back to me, you hear?" she said to Sam in her sternest voice, then turned to Frodo. "I'm not going to say it, though I've been thinking and I do see the good in this goodbye. But it's not a goodness I want, or want for you, so I won't say it."
"I love you too, Rosie," Frodo said, and kissed her, and then left.
Sam and Frodo met up with Bilbo and the rest, and somehow Sam had forgotten how lovely Galadriel was, and realised it all over again.
"Well, Master Samwise," she said. "I hear and see that you have used my gift well. The Shire shall now be more than ever blessed and beloved."
He couldn't find the words to answer. Frodo and Bilbo were talking of birthdays, and a journey to come. And suddenly Sam realised that his worst suspicions were true after all. Frodo was leaving, and he couldn't follow.
"No, Sam. Not yet anyway, not further than the Havens. Though you too were a Ring-bearer, if only for a little while. Your time may come." Frodo smiled. "Do not be too sad, Sam. You cannot always be torn in two. You will have to be one and whole, for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be, and to do."
"But I thought you were going to enjoy the Shire, too, for years and years, after all you have done," Sam said in a defeated voice.
"So I thought too, once," Frodo said softly, looking down at his hands, curling and uncurling the remaining fingers. "But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me."
He didn't say any more for hours as they rode on, and neither did Sam, who understood now that Rosie had somehow known what was coming, and had kept the terrible knowledge to herself. It made him love her even more, and wish that he had been able to comfort her hurt.
As night fell and everyone made to stop for the night, rolling out bedrolls in a routine as familiar as breathing, Frodo spoke again in a whisper. The words were not meant for anyone else to hear, and they were pleading. "It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them. But you are my heir: all that I had and might have had I leave to you."
Tears slipped from his eyes, and still Sam didn't move, letting Frodo finish what he was saying. "And also you have Rose, and Elanor; and Frodo-lad will come, and Rosie-lass, and Merry, and Goldilocks, and Pippin; and perhaps more that I cannot see. Your hands and your wits will be needed everywhere, they weren't meant to be just for me as much as they have been. Somehow I know in my heart that you and Rose still have a place in the story I'm following, and I'll wait forever to see you again if it's true."
Sam, unable to bear the sad speech any longer, silenced Frodo with a kiss, undoing the buttons on his shirt in the same way as he had a hundred times before, on nights when Frodo's hands were too sore or tired to do it for themselves. Crying and kissing and touching, and it didn't matter anymore who saw them. It had never mattered.
"You will be Mayor, of course, as long as you want to be, and the most famous gardener in history." Frodo went on as Sam kissed his shoulder where the skin puckered in a jagged line. "And you will read things out of the Red Book, and keep alive the memory of the age that is gone." His voice choked and he clutched at Sam's hair. "So that people will remember the Great Danger, and so love their beloved land all the more."
Frodo slept curled against Sam that night, and it was warm and comfortable, and their dreams were full of love and softness.
"And that will keep you as busy and as happy as anyone can be, as long as your part of the Story goes on. The last pages, and the happily ever after on them, are for you," Frodo said in the pre-dawn light, as Sam lay beside him, apparently asleep. Punctuating his promise with a kiss, Frodo got up, and never saw the tears that slipped from Sam's eyes.
Rosie sat by the window and looked out at the Shire as dawn broke, and hoped against hoping that two ponies would ride up the lane with two small riders, and Frodo would hug her up and say 'I'd never leave you, silly!'. But she knew it wouldn't be so, and that it was, perhaps, better this way. That was the hardest thing to realise, really.
The bed had seemed huge and empty, and it made Rosie's heart hurt to know it would never be properly full again. On October the sixth Sam came to the door and knocked three times, two short and one long, just as he always had. Rosie had cooked chicken and potatoes and peas for dinner, and it was all laid out and hot. Bag End was too big for three, but there would be more voices to fill the silence before too long.
Sam sat down, and bounced Elly on his lap as she smiled to see him.
"Well," Sam said with a deep breath. "I'm back."
They didn't cry. It felt as if it would be wrong to cry. They just held each other through the night, and smiled at the memories their hearts held, and waited for the first morning of their new life.
~
1436
Evening in Bag End was just about the cosiest thing in the whole world, the fires lit and dancing merrily, children running about and complaining that it was too early for bed and never time for baths, exasperated shouts from older siblings who got in the way of stampedes, and the relative quiet of the study, where Sam and Elanor both hid from the tumult.
Elanor had never learned to wait for anything patiently, and now was no exception. She kept making subtle coughs, glancing over at where her father was working at his desk. Eventually she rolled her eyes.
"Don't write any more tonight. Talk to me, Sam-dad. Tell me about Lorien. Does my flower grow there still, Sam-dad?" the firelight made her face look older than it was, or maybe that was just the fact that it was uppermost in Sam's mind that she was growing up. Fifteen years old already, her eyes so wide and fair and knowing. Elanor seemed to feel it too, and had ended almost every phrase and question with 'Sam-dad' or 'Mummy', depending on whom she was talking to, all day. She was in no hurry to grow up yet.
"Well dear, Celeborn still lives there among his trees and his Elves, and there I don't doubt your flower grows still. Though now I have got you to look at, I don't hanker after it so much."
"But I don't want to look at myself, Sam-dad. I want to look at other things." Elanor scowled, because Rose-girl had been at her all day about how pretty she looked, and it had become exceedingly boring. "I want to see the hill of Amroth where the King met Arwen, and the silver trees, and the little white niphredil, and the golden elanor in the grass that is always green," she sighed "And I want to hear Elves singing."
Sam patted her arm, the childhood plumpness already smoothing into adult curves. "Then, maybe, you will one day, Elanor. I said the same when I was your age, and long after it, and there didn't seem to be no hope. And yet I saw them, and I heard them."
"I was afraid they were all sailing away, Sam-dad. Then soon there would be none here; and then everywhere would be just places, and -" she bit back on her words, sighing again and gazing into the fire.
"And what, Elanorelle?"
"And the light would have faded."
"I know," Sam nodded. "The light is fading, Elanorelle. But it won't go out yet. It won't ever go quite out, I think now, since I have had you to talk to." He paused, as he always did when he was trying to find exactly the right words to explain something to her. "For it seems to me now that people can remember it who have never seen it. And yet even that is not the same as really seeing it, like I did."
"Like really being in a story?" Elanor scratched at the side of her nose, screwing up her mouth and chin as she thought about it. "A story is quite different, even when it is about what happened. I wish I could go back to old days!"
"Folk of our sort often wish that," agreed Sam. "You came at the end of a great Age, Elanorelle; but though it is over, as we say, things don't really end sharp like that," he smiled softly. "It's more like a winter sunset." They sat together in the quiet for a while, thinking thoughts they didn't venture to share with each other. Then Sam spoke again.
"The High Elves have nearly all gone now, with Elrond. But not quite all; and those that didn't go will wait now for a while. And the others, the ones that didn't go, will wait now for a while. And the others, the ones that belong here, will last even longer. There are still things for you to see, and maybe you'll see them sooner than you hope."
Elanor rested her chin on her hands, eyes fixed on some distant point beyond the warm little room.
"I did not understand at first, what Celeborn meant when he said goodbye to the King," she said. "But I think I do now. He knew that Lady Arwen would stay, but that Galadriel would leave him... I think it was very sad for him. And for you, dear Sam-dad, and for Mummy, for your treasure went too. I am glad Frodo of the Ring saw me, but I wish I could remember seeing him. I wish I could remember what things were like when the four of us lived here together."
"It was sad, Elanorelle," said Sam, kissing her hair. "It was, but it isn't now. For why? Well, for one thing, Mr. Frodo has gone where the elven-light isn't fading; and he deserved his reward. But I have had mine, and your mother hers, too. I have had lots of treasures. I am a very rich hobbit." Sam stopped for a moment, and dropped his voice low.
"And there is one other reason, which I shall whisper to you, a secret I have never told before to no one, nor put in the Book yet. Before he went, Mr. Frodo said that my time maybe would come, and that there's a place for our Mistress Rose in the story still to be written. I can wait. I think maybe we haven't said farewell for good. But I can wait," Sam said again, and Elanor thought maybe he was reminding himself more than he was telling her. "I have learned that much from the Elves, at any rate. They are not so troubled about time. And so I think Celeborn is still happy among his trees, in an Elvish way. His time hasn't come, and he isn't tired of his land yet. When he is tired he can go."
"And when you're tired, you will go, Sam-dad, and Mum. You will go to the Havens with the Elves. Then I shall go with you. I shall not part with you, like Arwen did with Elrond."
"Maybe, maybe," Sam kissed her hair again, and tickled her as he had when she was smaller. "And maybe not. The choice of Luthien and Arwen comes to many, Elanorelle, or something like it; and it isn't wise to choose before the time. And now, my dearest, I think that it's time even a lass of fifteen spring-times should go to her bed. And I have words to say to Mother Rose."
Elanor stood up, and passed her hand lightly through Sam's grey-flecked hair. "Good night, Sam-dad. But-"
"I don't want good night but," Sam smiled, pushing Elanor gently towards the doorway. "Even birthday girls need sleep."
"But won't you show it to me first? I was going to say."
"Show you what, dear?"
"The King's letter, of course. You have had it now more than a week."
Sam sat up, surprised, then started laughing. "Good gracious, how stories do repeat themselves! And you get paid back in your own coin and all. How we spied on poor Mr. Frodo! And now our own spy on us, meaning no more harm than we did, I hope. But how do you know about it?"
"There was no need for spying," said Elanor, with a cheeky grin that showed how far she still had left to grow up. "If you wanted it kept secret, you were not nearly careful enough."
Sam showed her the letter, proud of the ease and quickness with which she could read. They chatted for a little longer, about queens and kings and adventures, and then Elanor moved to go to bed. He stopped her, reaching into one of the heavy bottom drawers of his desk.
"This was meant for your twentieth, but I reckon I'm not doing anything wrong by giving it early. This here's your book, Elanorelle, written by Frodo of the Ring, as you call him. He wanted you to have it. Happy birthday."
Elanor took the slim volume out of her father's hands, awed and surprised. "Thankyou, Sam-dad. I'll go read it now."
"No, now you'll go to bed. You can read it tomorrow," Sam corrected.
"All right, all right," Elanor agreed, with a breeziness Sam knew meant she'd do nothing of the sort. Shaking his head with a smile, he watched her skip down the hallway, then went to find Rose out by the front door, watching the stars.
Elanor lit a candle, glad to have a bedroom all to herself, and settled down to read her unexpected present. There was a marker tucked near the back, a faded blue ribbon. She opened it to that page, finding handprints on the paper. Two of them, one small and obviously her own from when she was a baby, the other delicately shaped and missing a finger. She placed her own palm over it, wondering at the touch that had left the mark years before.
On the next page was a letter, addressed to her.
My dearest Ellyelle,
Happy birthday! So, twenty years old. How lovely you must be. You're lying in your basket on the table beside me as I write this; you keep pulling on my hair. Doubtless you've broken yourself of this habit by now.
Your parents have probably told you a thousand stories about me, all of them good I hope. Now I have a story for you, a fairy tale. Your mother loved fairy tales, perhaps she still does. I hope you do.
Once upon a time there was a garden. It was a magnificent garden, full of every kind of plant and tree, perfect weather from one year to the next.
In this garden lived a race of people as happy and kind as any in the world. One of these people was named... well, let's be plain and call him Frodo, for although this is a fairy story you are clever enough to know it is based on the truth.
Frodo lived in his garden with his Sam, and loved his Sam dearly. They were as full of joy as any two beings could be without bursting from it. Everything was perfect.
The owner of the garden was a jolly man who loved to sing, and all the people would sit and listen and sing along with the parts they knew.
But one day Frodo sat under an apple tree, and noticed that one of the fruits was not red and plump like the rest but black and small and hard.
A sleek shining snake, scales a beautiful white-gold, slipped down the tree to where Frodo sat, and spoke to him.
"That apple will make the whole garden rot, if you leave it there."
Then the snake took Frodo down to the edge of a nearby river, and told him to look into it. He looked in and saw the whole garden filthy and burning, his beloved Sam weeping and beaten.
"What must I do?" Frodo asked the serpent.
"The apple must be eaten, contained within a person. Then the spread will stop."
"But what will happen to me? Will it turn me as dark as it would have the garden?"
The snake nodded sadly. Frodo cried, because he didn't want to leave Sam. But he knew what he must do, even if he was afraid to do it.
The snake coiled around him, but it was not a comforting embrace.
So Frodo ate the apple, and felt the rot bubble inside him like a black swamp. He would have died then, but Sam wouldn't let him go, nursing him through a night longer than any before it had been.
The garden was safe, and it seemed Frodo was too. Sam sobbed for joy, and wed a girl named Rosie who was pretty as cherry flowers. It worried Frodo when Sam and Rosie kissed him, though, because he knew there was poison in him, and didn't want them tainted.
The apple grew evil grasping vines inside Frodo, wrapped around his heart and squeezed it iron-tight.
Sam and Rosie had a baby, named for a flower that resembled a star, and this baby glittered as bright as the night sky. Frodo held her, and choked on the taste of apple, and knew his sickness was worth the pain, that the garden was more valuable than even he had imagined.
One day the happy laughing owner of the garden came to Frodo, and Frodo knew it was time for him to leave. And he kissed Rosie and Sam and their baby goodbye, and walked out the gate.
The point of this tale, Elanor, is that sometimes people have to give up what they love so other people can keep it. If Frodo hadn't eaten the apple, the garden would have been lost to him anyway, but at least this way I know you and your parents can stay there.
~
1439
Elanor at eighteen was slim by hobbit standards, her skin creamy-pink and her hair showing every single one of the hundred brushes she gave it before bed. When she went out dancing, in her mother's party dress with the ribbon flowers at the hem, there wasn't a hobbit that looked at her who didn't fall in love.
She knew this, and if she ever forgot it her sister Rose would be quick to remind her, but she couldn't bring herself to care very much. People told her she was beautiful, but all saw in the mirror was her own familiar face, her mother's eyes and her father's mouth.
For all her envious complaining, Rose loved to watch as Elly got ready to go out, the way she'd use a pumice stone until her feet looked almost as soft as her hands. They were chatting about nothing much at all when Fastred arrived, joking in the way they sometimes did. They bickered less as the years went by, growing more alike with age.
Once she'd listened to Rose tell Prim and Daisy a bedtime story, the same tale Elanor herself had been told and had passed on to Rose and Goldy in turn. It had changed a little with time, as stories do, and Elly wondered if one day she'd meet it again and not even recognise that it was the same one.
"So the two brothers pushed the wicked queen into the fire. They wanted to leave a trail behind them as they walked him, so that they could come back later and take all the gold and jewels with them. But they'd used up all their stones, if you remember, so all they had left to mark the way were bits of bread. And a little sparrow hopped down and ate the bread up, and the boys never found the treasure."
Elanor was sure that wasn't how it had finished when she'd heard it, but couldn't quite remember how the end was supposed to go.
Often Elanor would get home from dancing after everyone was already asleep, but they always left a lamp burning to help her find her way home. She could never bring herself to put it out, though, because it seemed to be lighting the way for someone else to safely come back through the gate and up the path.
~
1442
Pressing the palm of one hand and the back of the other on the glass, lining up thumbs and forefingers, Elanor created a rough frame, resting her head against her arm as she peered through.
"What are you looking at?"
It was Queen Arwen, her luminous face worn a little by time but still lovely beyond compare. When Elanor had first met her it had been hard to feel comfortable, Arwen was a regal and cool ruler, apart from everything despite her mortality and love.
"My Mum and Dad." Elanor looked out at the garden again, the manicured lawns so different from the controlled riot of the plants at home.
Sam and Rosie were lying on the grass together; he'd tucked one of the big red flowers from the snaking vines behind her ear. She was laughing, swatting Sam's hand away as he tickled at the soft inside of her elbows.
"They act... all squishy. Lovesick, like they must have been when they were my age. I heard Mum giggle the other day... giggle, like a little girl. They're very happy here, she's going to have a baby before long I think."
"Do you like having so many brothers and sisters?" Arwen asked with a small serene smile.
"Yes. We're our own little world. But sometimes I feel like I don't fit in with them completely, because I look so strange. My sister Goldy - her real name's Goldberry but everyone calls her Goldilocks - has light hair too, and so does Daisy, but they still look like hobbits are supposed to. My Dad says that when I wear the long dresses everyone wears here, and my feet are covered, I look more like one of your daughters than one of his."
"Yes, you look like my grandmother, you have the same shaped face, and your hair is almost as fair."
"Milady, you know more about love than anyone else, I should think. I don't know anything about love, but I have a question. Maybe you can answer it?"
"I'll do my best." Arwen sat down on one of the high-backed chairs along the wall.
"Do lovers have happy endings outside stories? I don't know if I believe in them anymore."
"It's got a lot to do with what you consider a happy ending." As always, Arwen's voice was soft and a little sad. "There are no free rewards in the world, Elanor of the Shire. For my own definition, I would say love is anything you are willing to lose everything for. I love Estel, my husband and King, enough that I would trade a thousand thousand years for his company. Your father and Frodo the Ringbearer had a love for your home. To have felt a love like that at all is a gift few come close to having."
Elanor rolled her eyes, but not so Arwen could see. "I beg your pardon, but I'm sure now that I'm a hobbit at heart and not as Elvish as my Dad supposes. Just being able to love isn't a happy ending, and nor's saving what you love unless you get to enjoy it. You love your husband enough that you'd give up your life, but here you are with a life as lovely as any could wish for. And my Dad, he has all he wanted, or nearly so... this gem I wear at my neck, it used to be yours, didn't it?"
"Yes."
"And now it's mine. But for a little while it was Frodo's, Mr Baggins. I don't remember him, though my mother says he adored me as if I was his own. Why didn't he get a happy ending? He deserved one as much as anybody else."
"You seem so sure that the story's done with." Arwen tilted her head to the side slightly, studying Elanor. "My husband has a saying, that we leave more behind than memory. I believe that's true. Perhaps in a way you're his happy ending, as well as your father's."
"But I'm not Dad's happy ending, he's got his own right there." Elanor waved her hand towards the window. "And I can't be Frodo's, either, not when he's not here to see it. And my Mum and Dad miss him, and they're never going to seem him again, and no matter what you consider a happy ending that's not it."
Arwen's smile grew even more beautiful and sad.
"They may yet. We leave behind more than memory, but some things we take with us when we leave this world. Perhaps they'll find each other again beyond these lives."
"Well, I certainly hope so." Elanor put her hands against the glass and made her frame again. "Because this ending's so happy for some, and so empty for others, and it doesn't balance right at all, if you ask me."
"Perhaps fate should consult you next time." Arwen couldn't hide her smile. Elanor considered being offended for a moment, then smiled back.
"I'm going to have adventures, you know." Elanor sat herself down in front of Arwen. "Like my Dad. I want to explore the world, to build houses and start towns. Places that are already settled are like warm pudding, all heavy and sticky in the stomach."
"The Shire doesn't have anywhere left to settle, though, does it?" Arwen asked. Elanor sighed and shook her head.
"No, it's all full up of homes and farms already. But I don't really want to leave it, not forever. I'd miss it too much, I think."
"Perhaps the borders of the Shire could be extended, and you could settle the new area?"
"Now that would be fun." Elanor agreed. "And there'd be nobody to say I wasn't normal, because I'd be the only one there and that would make me completely usual."
"Unusual doesn't mean bad," Arwen reminded her. Elanor shrugged.
"Yes, well, neither does 'clean' but my little brothers never listen to that, either."
~
1443
They got back to Beg End mid-morning on a sunny Treowesdei. Rose and Merry were the first to meet the returning party, running down the hill like children half their age, followed by Goldy and Frodo at a slightly more dignified pace.
Goldy and Rose cooed over baby Tom, with his thatch of rusty brown curls and freckled snub nose. The boys were more interested in the stories their parents had brought back, second-hand adventures. So many welcome-back hugs were exchanged Rosie and Sam felt sure their arms would fall off if anyone else wanted to say hello.
Elanor sat down on her bed with a bounce, sneezing at the cloud of dust that flew up.
"I still can't believe none of you took my room while I was gone," she grinned over her shoulder at her sisters as she clambered over the bed to open the windows wide. "I've got so many stories to tell you. Real Kings and Queens, Goldy, just like in our games. And all the most beautiful women there have dark hair, Rose, they thought me quite wan and plain."
"Did you bring us presents, Elly? Did you bring us silk fans and shiny hair slides?" Ruby jumped up and down with excitement.
"Yes, yes, I've got things for all of you." Elanor's year away was faintly audible in her voice, mostly on the r's and vowels. "I want to hear about what you've been up to, though. Primrose, Daisy, you're both so big! I feel as if I've been away for ten years."
"Adaldrida Boffin and Jacky Fairbairn are married," Goldilocks said with a conspiratorial tone. "And your friend Dora is working at the tavern now, they say she dances pretty as a sunbeam on water."
"What of Fastred? And Goodwill?" Elanor prompted. Goldy's smile slipped a little, but she rallied quickly.
"Now that Jacky's wed, Fastred's the one all the lasses are chasing. He wanted to be seen about with me, to throw them off, but Farry Took said he'd sooner Fastred ate rotten fish."
"You and Faramir, Goldilocks? For all your princess dreaming, I must say I never expected that," Elanor teased, making her sister blush. "What about Goodwill?"
"Elanorelle..."
"What? What's wrong?"
"Goodwill's been dead these past six months."
"Oh."
It was hours before Elanor came out of her room, going to her parent's bed as she had when she was tiny. Sam and Rosie held her as she sobbed, stroking her hair and letting her cry.
"I feel like my heart's ripped in half," she choked out after a long time.
"Yes. It is, for a while," Sam said, rocking her like she was still a baby. "But the pain gets easier, like. You start to see the sweetness in things again."
"You'll laugh harder, because you'll laugh his share too." Rosie's voice was thick with her own tears. "Perhaps one day you'll have a son, and name him for the love you lost."
"I don't even know if I did love him. I'll never know."
"Yes, Elly, you did." Sam kept rocking her, soothing her into a grieving sleep. "It don't hurt like being ripped in two except when you love with your complete self. But some day you'll wake and find yourself whole again, whole and healed, even as you love him still."
~
1448
"Rose? Are you awake?"
"Well, I am now, stupid," Rose snapped at her older brother. "Fro, it's the middle of the night."
"I know, but I wanted your help. I want to bake Mum and Dad a cake."
"Get El to do it. She's a better cook than I am."
Rose hid her head under the pillow and tried to go back to sleep.
"I like your cakes better, you're not all persnickety about getting the icing just right and the slices all the same like she is."
"Really?" she perked up at the compliment. "All right, then. But why now? It isn't a birthday, or their wedding anniversary. It's not even one of their sad days when they sit about and sigh and tell us how much we should appreciate everything, those come in March and October."
Frodo shrugged. "It's a just-because cake. They're the best sort."
"Go out to the coops and see if there are any fresh eggs, they mix up better. I'll go stoke the oven," Rose took charge. The two of them crept down the hall, Frodo opening the door as quietly as he could and sneaking outside. Rose went into the kitchen and checked there was enough milk and cream left in the jug from supper, reaching up on tiptoes to get the sugar bowl down. She was taller than Goldy but still smaller than her mother or Elanor, and sometimes things were put far too high by arms that didn't know what it was to be ordinary-sized.
When Frodo hadn't returned with the eggs after a good quarter hour, Rose went out to see what the trouble was, stubbing her toe on the tin water barrel in the dark. With a yelp and a muttered curse, Rose kicked at the rusty bucket in annoyance.
"Ouch," said Frodo. "That clanging noise hurts my ears."
"Where have you been? It doesn't take this long to look for eggs."
"I got distracted. Look at the stars, Rose, look how lovely they are."
"Yes, they are beautiful, aren't they?" Rose agreed, tilting her head back so she could look up at the whole sky.
"What on earth are you two doing up at this hour?" their mother asked, coming out to stand beside them with a bright blue shawl around her shoulders, some of the lacing gone to moth holes thanks to Merry and Pippin's failed attempts at seasonal clothing storage.
"Looking at the sky, Mum. And baking cakes," Rose answered, dodging when Frodo tried to kick her in the shin for giving the game away.
"Well in that case I shan't scold you." Rosie laughed. "Do you want help?"
"It was supposed to be a surprise present," Frodo admitted regretfully. "For you and Dad."
"Oh, then I'll just go back to bed. I'm sure by morning I'll think all this a dream, and be wonderfully surprised," Rosie promised, turning. "Don't stay out here too long, those cats you lot insist on feeding scraps will get inside and into the cream."
"Yes Mum," they chorused dutifully.
"And ducklings?"
"Yes?"
"I love you. Always know that."
Rose smiled. "We do, Mum. We're your happily ever after, after all."
Rosie shook her head.
"Nobody gets a happily ever after, blossom. But sometimes you make all make me so happy I forget that, and get so close to one the difference can't be told."
~
1454
Little Bilbo, not really little anymore at eighteen, had a habit of sitting on the hill just above the front door, feet hanging down to get in the way of anyone who wasn't paying attention. Sam would tug on his toes and pull him down, at which point Bilbo would grin and run around to climb back up. It annoyed Primrose and Ruby like anything, who were closest to Bilbo in age and hated being lumped together with him as scallywags.
Primrose could usually be found down in the cool dampness underneath the bridge, watching the water rush past, playing with a small shell she'd found and scratching at the sandy ground, listening to the sounds of a distant sea.
Tom, youngest of the Gardner clan, was twelve, but almost as soon as Sam and Rosie stopped having children the grandchildren started turning up, Rose-girl finally doing something before her older sister had a chance and giving birth to a bonny little girl named Lillian, which was cut short to Lil by all and sundry. It had been a hurried wedding, the bride and groom didn't know very much about each other except that there was perhaps a shared tendency to have too much ale at parties, and when he didn't return home from a trip to Bree one day Rose simply shrugged and moved back to Bag End. There were rumours she was romancing Dorian Applegate from Michel Delving, but none knew the truth of that save for Rose and Dorian themselves.
Little Lil was almost as tall as her young uncle Tom, and the two of them got up to more trouble than most could believe.
Frodo-lad, who lived over the hill with his bride Firiel, was expecting a son or daughter before the year turned, as were Elanor and Fastred. They had settled in Westmarch, an area of land gifted to them by the King, far rougher and less tamed than most comfort-loving hobbits would be happy with, but Fastred and Elanor adored it.
Firiel sometimes joked that she'd only married Frodo-lad because her name was too queer for any other family to want her. She was named for a lass in a song, a sad poem about not being able to join an Elven ship as it sailed. Elanor had always had a fondness for the tune but never sang it, because it made her mother cry.
~
1482
They'd said everything that needed saying long ago, in happier times, so they didn't speak as Sam sat on the edge of the bed, holding one of Rosie's hands between his own. Eventually her eyes closed and she let out a long sighing breath, like that of a traveller finally returning to home and hearth. It was another long while again before Elanor came into the room, leaning past Sam to kiss her mother's forehead, long curtain of hair tied back in braids.
Night had fallen, the sweet heavy smells of the garden wafting into the room as Elanor pushed the windows open.
"Look, Dad," she sounded almost surprised. "The stars are still there."
~
1483
It was a mild summer afternoon, Goldilocks' eldest daughter Rowan chasing bees from flower to flower as Goldy and Elanor sat together and missed their parents.
"Farry thinks his Dad's planning to go away with uncle Merry, to Gondor perhaps. They only stayed to see Ro grow up from a babe to a lass, it seems likely, and now that she's eleven and can remember them, they'll be off."
"I used to wish that I could remember Frodo, but lately it's occurred to me that I all but can. He's been in my life are sure as Mum and Dad were, in tales and stories they told us. Maybe he's still alive, out over the sea," Elanor said in her soft voice.
"Well, I hope for Dad's sake he is," Goldy snorted. "Though how Dad was so sure he would be is a puzzle."
"I don't think it matters in the end, if Frodo's still alive or not. I think things are different over there, more different that we can dream, and nobody's really alive or really dead anyway. Just happy. And I think Dad's boat pulled up on the beach, the sand white and hot under his feet, and Frodo and Mum were there to meet him. They smiled at him and said 'Hullo Sam, you haven't hurried, have you?', and now they're all lying under a tree somewhere, daydreaming and telling fairy stories." Elanor smiled. Goldy shook her head.
"It's a pretty dream, El, but we put Mum in the ground. Remember that song that used to make her cry, about the earth-born maid who couldn't sail with the Elves? She's not with them, Elly, not now and never again."
"No." Elanor shook her head, fingers playing with the thin chain at her throat. "I don't know how I know it, Goldy, but the story's all played out in my head. My heart knows it, and it's a happily ever after."
"Nobody gets a happily ever after."
"Well, this is so close the difference can't be told, anyway. And that's enough."