"Famous for Its Weddings"
Chapter 4: Morning all new
(PG; Slash. )
by Princess of Geekland
Sam felt he had slept only a couple of hours after his talk with Rosie, when he awoke at the regular time. He was shaping up as the only early riser in the household, partly because he liked the dawn, and partly because of longstanding habits. Cows that needed milking didn?t care how late their milker had been up the night before, talking about love or demonstrating it.
He had resumed, after his return to Hobbiton, the chore he had had since he was 14 years old: doing the morning milking for the neighbors that shared two cows. They were kept in a shed down the lane from Bagshot Row, and Frodo was talking about buying a third now that his household had grown. It was a blessed relief to Sam to go back to doing things the way he always had, to have familiar sights and smells around him.
He dressed, peeked in the room across the hall to see Frodo sleeping peacefully, for once, and quietly left his new hole. He felt very foggy from lack of sleep.
The cows greeted him with angry impatience. He might be the hero of the age and rumored as the next Mayor of Michel Delving, but all the cows knew was that he was late and they were miserable. He found his stool and arranged his buckets, leaning his head into the big brindle cow.
As his head slowly cleared, he realized the morning felt different, brighter, because he was different. Finally in touch with something so important about himself, something so new and so familiar all at the same time. His words with Rosie had pulled it into the light where he could see it....He said it to himself again -- might have actually said it out loud to the cow. I love her. I love Frodo. I want them both. Incredible thought. His innate optimism took over and he began to think that maybe it would work out, that he could have them both.
Pondering the mystery of love and desire propelled Sam through the milking in record time. When he had finished, he turned out the cows, their tranquility restored, into the commons. He came up the walk to Bag End, carrying his share of the milk, and heard the two familiar voices through the kitchen window, open to the May morning. He smelled bread and frying bacon.
When he walked into the warm kitchen, his eyes were drawn to Frodo, curious what he would see.
"Good morning, Sam," Frodo said.
"Good morning."
Sam washed his hands, fell in to help with laying the table, found the butter crock and the napkins. He responded to comments about milking and mowing. But all the time his eyes were on Frodo, judging that it was one of his master?s good days, hearing him laugh, noticing -- surely he had always noticed -- how blue Frodo?s eyes were, how deep and clear. How his dark brown hair curled around his ears and fell to the low collar at the back of his shirt. Since their return, Frodo wore his hair longer than he used to, long enough in back to hide the puckered scar where the spider had marked him forever.
Sam watched Frodo?s hands as he poured the steaming tea, brushed his fingers to take his mug. Frodo?s forearms were exposed by the turned up cuffs of the old white shirt. Sam noted how his energy was returning with the warmer weather. How quickly he moved, almost danced, like one of the beautiful colts of Rohan that they had admired after Lady Eowyn?s betrothal feast, highbred and skittish. How tall he was, how slim.
His eyes followed Frodo past Rosie, as Frodo went to fetch a big pitcher for the milk Sam had brought. Rose caught Sam?s eye. She smiled, and stepped around the table to kiss him.
"He is beautiful. Didn?t you know I always saw it, too?" she whispered, sitting down in Sam?s lap. "Beautiful like an elf. Like I imagine them."
Sam shook his head, his mouth dry. Married less than a month...what next? He would never, ever be like other people. He smiled.
Sam became surer and surer over the next few days that he wasn?t crazy. That his heart was in exactly the right place and that he would find a way to make it all work out. He felt a blooming sense of physical contentment, expanding around him like a cloud or like a soft blanket that he could wrap Frodo in, too. And underneath a tingle of suspense.
He found that he was reveling in simple touch. There was just more of it, more touching. If he sat down for lunch and his knee bumped Frodo?s, he left it there instead of reflexively moving away out of politeness. If he before would have grabbed Frodo?s shoulder, or cuffed him as he did Rosie?s brothers, now he hugged him.
These small things, simple and significant as the signs of spring all around them, seemed to affect Frodo below the level of thought. If Frodo noticed anything, it was just to comment to himself that home with the newlyweds was warmer and sweeter than ever. He felt lucky, and more than a little jealous.
Rosie watched her men and waited. Sam would put things right. He always did.
One morning soon after, Sam came running back early from the milking, out of breath. He had left the full buckets just outside the shed and dashed.
He found Rosie in the kitchen, took her by the arm to Frodo?s room. "Come on, you?re not going to believe this. Frodo, are you awake? Come on, I have to show you something."
His eyes shining, he wouldn?t say another word. He impatiently waited for Frodo to stuff his nightshirt into yesterday?s breeches. He grabbed both their hands, hurrying their pace until they came to the turn in the lane.
"Look," he said, pointing.
The mallorn in the party field had bloomed.
At the first touch of the dawn on its crown, it had burst into a riot of golden blossoms. They were brighter than sparkles on water, richer than real gold. The mallorn of Lorien had bloomed, on a cloudless May morning in the Shire.
He stood between Rosie and Frodo, arms around them. They all had tears on their faces.
Word spread quickly from Bagshot Row to the country round. Very little work got done that day. If the hobbits had needed any excuse to celebrate summer early, this was the best one they could think of.
Soon a flute player was sitting under the tree, joined by a singer or two, then a lutist, a drummer, and a girl carrying rolls and butter and strawberries. Then the Twofoot family spread out a blanket for a late breakfast. Then someone arrived with a beer barrel, and a chess set.
And before you could say elevenses, it was a fair and a party and a midsummer revel of the highest sort all rolled into one. There was dancing, and picnics, and maypoles for the second time in a month. Someone dug a pit at the edge of the field and started cooking and roasting. Someone else composed a new song for the occasion and taught it to everyone. Frodo sat in a circle of rapt listeners and told the story of Lothlorien all over again. They insisted that Sam pass around his now-empty box, and tell about Lady Galadriel, so beautiful and wise. They fingered the silver rune on the lid -- someone said it meant "G" for her name, or for Gardener, no one was sure which. And then bonfires and supper, and wine, and dancing, more dancing.
Someone had to drag Sancho Proudfoot down from trying to climb the tree. Everyone knew better than to try that, except him, it seemed. Even the Bucklanders and Tooks who were beginning to trickle in. Several people bedded down, inadvertently or on purpose, right there on the lawn and seemed to have no intention of stirring until morning.
But long before that, weary, delighted, drunk, and full of gratitude, Rose, Sam and Frodo trudged up the path to the front door of Bag End. The last rim of the sun was still to be seen, touching the tree tops.
Turning to watch the sun set, Sam remarked, "It?s too lovely to go in quite yet." He sat down on the bench by the door, the one Bilbo had sat on so many times to blow smoke rings.
"How about a pipe," Rose offered, as she slipped inside.
Frodo, glancing back to make sure he was not taking her spot, sank down beside Sam with a sigh. He leaned his head back against the shingles. Neither spoke. Soon Rose reappeared with a tray. Three plain silver goblets, full of wine as red as the sky, and beside them the pouch and two pipes.
Before Frodo could get up, she had set the tray beside him on the bench. Shaking out the folds from the blanket she had over her arm, she wrapped up, sat on the ground at Sam?s feet and snuggled up to his knees. She pressed close to Frodo in reaching around him for her cup. She leaned her head against his knee and one of Sam?s.
Distant sounds of revelry and music wafted up from the field. The sun sank. The flare of the tinder seemed loud in the fast cooling air as Frodo lit a pipe and handed it to Sam, then filled his own. As he took the pipe with one hand, Sam eased his other arm around Frodo?s waist. Mellowed by gratitude and the wine, Frodo sighed and leaned against his friend.
The three of them silently smoked or sipped their wine, as the stars flowered in the sky. Rose wrapped a corner of the blanket around Frodo?s feet. Still they lingered. The pipes died. Full night fell. The wine was gone.
Frodo had dozed, his head sinking against Sam?s shoulder, Sam?s arm and hand pressed against his ribs, warmer than ever in the still air. With his other hand, Sam stroked Rose?s curls.
At last even Sam felt the chill creeping up his legs. Rosie yawned. They stirred, waking Frodo. They all stood, stretched, and moved to the door, leaving the tray and the blanket.
In the hall, Rosie turned.
"Goodnight, Mr. Frodo," she said softly, and she hugged him tight, pressing up against him, putting her face in the hollow where his neck met his shoulder, arms around his neck, a hand cradling the back of his head.
Frodo inhaled the scent of her hair, felt her breath moving, the warmth of her back under his arms. He felt tears prick his eyelids. Her breasts pressed against his shirt. She was so warm, so real. She pulled away, but only far enough to smile and to press her mouth to his, as gently and as easily as they had kissed at the Yule party in Tookland, for the famous game of Guess Me.
Frodo kissed her, feeling his entire being reduced to the point where their mouths met. Time stopped. By some other sense than hearing or even smell, he felt Sam standing near.
When she finally moved away, his eyes met Sam?s, who was smiling in the genuine Samwise manner, as Pippin might have said. A half smile that pretended it was being suppressed, a vast store of wry humor just underneath.
Now Rosie was gone, their bedroom door creaking open, and Sam said, "Goodnight, Frodo. It was a wonderful day." Then, as if he did it every day instead of never before, Sam gently cupped Frodo?s jaw in both his big hands and kissed him. Not a furtive brush, or a searching seduction, just a solid, warm, lingering kiss. He tasted of the good Southfarthing tobacco smoke, and the wine. As the kiss held, deepened, Frodo put his hands up to cover Sam?s, surprised, but not as surprised as when Rosie had kissed him moments before. Then, still smiling, Sam turned away.
The bedroom door was open behind Sam. Frodo stood there a moment, took a deep breath, and followed them into the big bedroom, the master?s bedroom, of Bag End.
Author?s note: I have taken the liberty of moving the date of the blooming of the mallorn from April, as described in The Return of the King, to May of the same year.
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Pretty Good Year