There was only one dream Frodo had that wasn't terrible. Only one that didn't put hot acidic tears in the corner of his eyes for Sam to kiss away upon waking, only one that didn't end when Rosie shook his shoulder and begged for him to come back for the dark places he went in sleep. He couldn't say how many times he'd had it, if it ever changed at all.

It wasn't a vivid dream, just hazy half-thoughts mixed with memory. The ground underfoot, hands clinging to branches in childhood climbing games. Keeping silkworms in a wooden box and touching their fat white bodies with berry-stained fingers.

"Frodo!" a young voice called to him, and he hid in the long grass, not ready to share his strange exotic new pets. "Frodo, Dad says you've got to come wash for supper."

His father had died before he could get any siblings, so Frodo knew this dream was more imagination than memory, and this detached knowledge seemed to split the scene in two. Now he was an observer, standing in the evening field on his shaky legs, eyes misty from sleep, watching the small hobbit child hide from his sister.

An older sister, at that, hair pulled back in exasperated plaits, one hand on her hip and one playing with her hair ribbon in a gesture so like Rosie it was impossible not to smile.

"Frodo! I know you're there, you're playing with those stupid caterpillars from the mulberry tree. Rose and Merry will steal all your bread and dripping if you don't come quick, and Pip and Goldy want a story." The girl brought her foot down in a stamp on the front step. "You're so annoying."

"Not so annoying as you!" the boy shot back, jumping to his feet. "You smell like the mess the ponies make, and you look like a squashed toad."

"Oooh, I'll get you for that!" she chased after him, giggling. A tiny child, only a few years old and still wobbly at walking, stood in the doorway wearing a pretty green pinafore and a blue hat three times too big for her, with a paint-smeared feather stuck in the brim.

"Elanorelle, Mummy says you left the onions cooking and now they're all yucky."

"Oh, spit," the older girl sighed, slowing in her pursuit. "Tell her I'll be there soon, Goldy-Goldy-Goldilocks. I have to dunk Frodo's head in the rain barrel first."

"Doing that to me won't fix your face!" The boy had scrambled up a tree by this stage, high enough to avoid people on the ground. "Elanor the fairly revolting, that's what they should call you!"

The dream faded as the real Elanor cried from her crib, making Frodo start awake with surprise. Extricating himself carefully from the tangle of Rosie and Sam, he walked over and picked the baby up carefully. He hadn't held her since the night he'd ruined Rosie's dress, and there was a buzzing swarm of fear in his stomach that next time it happened Elanor wouldn't be at her aunt and uncle's house.

"Was it you I dreamed of, beautiful?" he asked her softly as he bounced her tears away, wandering out of the room and down to one of the front windows. "Are you really going to be so lucky, so happy? I hope you are."

She grabbed at the stone around his neck, her fascination with it never seemed to wane. Frodo moved it out of her reach and wondered about Elves and future-sight.

"Am I there? Do I sit you all down and tell you stories, read you poems like I used to for Sam when he was small? Does Frodo-lad know the one he's named for?" Frodo paused. "Do any of your brothers and sisters have my features?"

He didn't want to risk any harm to Rosie, and even though there was no true way of knowing whose baby she had lost, Frodo felt in his heart that it would have been his. But even with that knowledge it was hard to hold back the hopes for the future.

"It's one thing to save the world, and bring everyone you love great happiness," Frodo informed Elanor. "Even so, I'd love to give you a sister, Elanorelle. I'd love to see you and her grow together in the world I saved."

Elanor just smiled gummily up at him, and tugged at a lock of his hair.

~

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