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“And all your bad days will end.
And all your bad days will end.
You have to sleep late when you can,
And all your bad days will end.”
-The Flaming Lips “Bad Days”
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When Sammie found Uncle Frodo sprawled on top of the roof of Bag End, he was a little more than slightly surprised, to say the least, at the strange site of his uncle dozing in the grass, his arms and legs extended as if to welcome the heat of the mid-day sun.

Frodo had been missed at tea-time and, whilst Mum and Da were busy with the little ones (there were so many!), Sammie had taken it upon himself to search for his beloved uncle. When an investigation of his usual haunts (the parlor, his study, the master bedroom) had proved useless, the 12 year old had gone out for a look about the garden.

Outside the world was awash with the golden greens of late summer. The green fields, just beginning to ripen, were scattered with marigolds and even the blue of the sky took on a hint of green in the buttery warmth of the pale yellow sunshine. Da had been busy pruning back the bushes alongside the road and the ground was littered with the dark green boughs, soon to be picked up by pairs of careful hands. Bag End itself was in the midst of having its seasonal flowers changed for the fall bloomers, and the haphazard, transitional stage of temporary untidiness gave the smial an almost fuzzy look.

Frodo was not to be found in the various hidden nooks and crannies of the gardens, and so it was in defeat that little Samwise Gardner climbed to the roof in hopes of spotting Uncle Fro on the path towards town. Stumbling suddenly upon the subject of his search had caught the little hobbit off guard, and he had barely had the time to register the vision of his uncle napping in the tall grass before he had tripped over his own over-large feet and gone tumbling to the ground.

Frodo slowly stirred and blinked sleepily at the dark-curled mass of hobbit child lying guiltily across his legs. Wide blue eyes, mirrors of his own, gazed fearfully upwards and the anxiety so easily visible in the boy’s face made his voice stammer. “I-I’m sorry, Uncle Frodo…. I didn’t mean to wake you from your nap…”

Frodo gave a final great yawn before settling into the small smile he reserved especially for this little one, his eyes still heavy with sleep. “Not at all, lad. Besides, I am sure I should have awoken fairly soon, as your mother would not dare to allow folk to believe that Master Baggins was a slug-a-bed with no more sense than to sleep on a roof!”

Sammie’s own face split into a hesitant grin at Frodo’s good humor. He stretched out beside his uncle, settling his head into the crook of his left arm. “What are you doing up here on the roof then, Uncle? You missed tea.”

A pale hand came up suddenly and goosed him on the nose. “I *was* having a nap in the sunshine, but someone saw to the end of that!”

Sammie blushed at that and burrowed deeper into the hollow of the shoulder. The arm beneath his head was firm and cool. It had always been faintly cold, but today it felt good along the back of his neck, less sickly and more comforting, providing a pleasant contrast to the warmth of the high grass around him. “I didn’t know you took naps.”

“That’s because, when I am well enough, I generally take them whilst you are out doing some mischief with your sister and the garden is quiet.” Frodo’s tone was mock scolding but looking up Sammie could see the glint of wickedness in his eyes.

“And do you normally nap on the roof?”

Frodo laughed. “Of course not! I find myself here only because a rather largish army of ants has invaded my usual spot and I have not the heart to drown them out today. This is only a one time tryst, though it has proven pleasant enough that I may take more of my little sleeps here.” He stared thoughtfully at the sky for a moment. “Rose may have something to say to that, however, as I am very likely to get burned. See? I am already pink, and I bet to nothing you’re just acquiring more freckles.”

He held up his four fingered right hand in demonstration, and Sammie could see that the back of it had flushed a nice shade of pale crimson. Sammie stretched out his own smaller hand in comparison and pursed his lips at the aforementioned freckles. “Daisy said that someday I shall turn into one giant freckle and be just as tan as the rest of them.”

The cool fingers of Frodo’s left hand wound themselves in Sam-lad’s hair and began to massage his scalp. There was something thick and tender in his voice when Frodo finally replied. “Yes, overly fair skin has always been a curse of the Bagginses.”

Sammie rolled over and met his uncle’s gaze. “Uncle Frodo, if the sun burns you so, why do you sleep out of doors?”

Frodo blinked back, still caught in the sudden stinging of his eyes. The seriousness of the boy’s gaze made him think back wistfully to his own days of childish sincerity, days where the setting sun was not veiled in the threat of a darkness deeper than that of the night.

“Well, let us see… can your bookworm of an uncle think up how to explain this?” He squeezed Sammie playfully and shifted to find a more comfortable position on the ground, buying himself time to think. “Sam-lad, what do you see when you close your eyes at night?”

Sammie wondered at the odd question. “Why, nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Yes.”

“Absolutely nothing?”

What game was his uncle playing at? “Yes. All there is is darkness, because its night and I’ve got my eyes closed.”

Frodo smiled. “Exactly. It is night, time for all little hobbits to be a-bed, because there is nothing else for their eyes to see in the darkness. The blackness is a blank canvass for their minds to paint lovely pictures on, memories of long days of play and mornings still to come. Why should they need any light in that colorful land? Unless, of course, they awaken and get lost on the way to the privy, tumbling headfirst into a wash basin full of wet laundry.”

Sam squirmed at the mention of the misadventure which had resulted in his seven year old self explaining to his mother exactly why he stank of old water and was covered in soap flakes. Uncle Frodo laughed a little at his discomfort and tweaked his nose again, but continued with his description.

“Now, sleeping outside is different than sleeping snug in your bed, just as a nap in daylight differs from a good sleep under the stars. Something makes it more special.”

“How is it different, Uncle? How can hard earth and sunshine be better than a good quilt and a dim lantern?” He snuggled more deeply against the older hobbit, burying his nose in the green velvet of his vest, breathing deeply the dusty, sharp scent of books and strong teas embedded in the cloth, the sun-warmed gold buttons leaving little pinpricks of heat on his cheek.

Frodo’s voice was even lower now than before, but Sam was close enough to make out the words and feel the humming in his chest as he spoke. “It is in the way light dances through skin, a sight which cannot be explained, only seen.” A pause. “Are you comfortable, Sam-lad?”

“Mmm-hmm…” Sammie murmured a little drowsily.

“All right, then. Just lay back and close your eyes, and watch the insides of your eyelids closely, or you shan’t see it.”

Sammie thought this a little strange, but he did what his uncle bid him. He squeezed his eyes shut, but he saw nothing but blackness. Then, just as he was beginning to doubt whether he had done it correctly, the black faded away to be replaced by a warm, red glow. The glow grew and grew until it blotted out all else, its warmth pulsating in dizzying swirls. Little gray and white spots began to appear, almost too tiny to see. They buzzed about excitedly, like tiny midges, their frantic dancing blurring them together and adding to the depth of the red light. They washed together in waves, and Sam perceived them as an ever churning crimson tide, similar to his mental image of the sea.

He shifted his head a little, and blue and purple streaks shot across the field of red, leaving after images of white and yellow. These negative images floated slowly closer and closer, changing from white to yellow to blue and back to purple again, before dissolving into the buzzing red background. He gasped quietly in wonder and only faintly heard Frodo’s voice, as if from a thousand miles away. “Now, turn your face towards the sun.”

Sammie did so readily, and was rewarded for the movement with another set of dancing by the purple lights. Once they had faded the red sea was quiet again, but then it began to grow brighter and brighter as the sun steadily warmed his upturned face. He lost all perception of attachment to his body as he floated in that brightness. The sounds of the outside world: the occasional twittering of a bird, the constant buzzing and chirping of late summer insects, the wind rattling together the nearly dry blades of grass, the gentle murmurs of his uncle, the rising and falling of his breath, all wound together to form a supportive net which cradled him as he rocked in the soaring warmth. The red waves lapped at each other, the dots cresting in a splash of froth, and the white glow became an all consuming light that pulsed in tempo to the roar of the sea.

When he finally opened his eyes, the sun was much lower in the sky. The world looked strange, surreal, too sharp and bright after the unhurried visions of blurred dancing. His stirrings roused Frodo, who smiled at him under half-lidded eyes. “It appears we’re both slug-a-beds now. Did you have a good nap?”

Sammie yawned and blinked stupidly. “Was I asleep? I didn’t know. I got caught up in the dance.”

“Yes, it’s easy to do that, isn’t it?” Frodo stretched his arms above his head, making the fine bones crack, but Sammie stayed curled up against his side, a slight frown marring his young features.

“Uncle Frodo?”

“Yes, Sam-lad?”

“Was that… was that the Sea?”

Uncle Frodo’s sigh was soft and airy, distant enough to be mistaken for the wind. “Yes, child.”

His brow furrowed in thought. “How is it that we can see it all the way from the Shire?”

A golden beetle had crawled its way up Frodo’s shirt, and he shooed it away absently. “It is Eru’s way of showing us all there is to his creation.”

This only confused the little hobbit more. “Who’s Eru?”

Frodo brought up a hand to gnaw at the nail, but, remembering Rosie’s fierce scoldings, plucked a strand of grass to chew instead. “Someone I read about in a book, once. The Elves believe him to be the creator of all things. He created the two lands, Valinor and Middle Earth. The Ainur were his first born, and some, the Valar, later became friends with elves and men and help us in times of need. Like Elbereth.”

Recognition dawned in Sammie’s eyes. “The lady whose name scared off the big spider in your book?”

“None other.”

Sammie swelled with pride at remembering his family history and was further inspired to question his uncle. “But what does Elde… Ebeth…eh… the Lady have to do with dreams of the sea?”

Frodo was quiet for a long time. Sammie was afraid he had fallen asleep again, but when he rolled over his uncle’s eyes were wide open, staring intently at the clouds as they crawled by overhead, their bellies stained pink in the setting sun. The light hit the jewel around his neck just right and the flash of radiance lit ups Frodo’s face in alarming contrast and almost blinded the hobbit child. He blinked back the spots and Uncle Frodo was Uncle Frodo again, looking sad and quiet as he usually did.

“There has been no thought of this among hobbits, and very few books written on it even amongst the elves, who take it for granted, but I have my own ideas and perceptions on the matter.” The strand of grass was reduced to shreds as he rolled it about his mouth, the hard little line along his forehead proof he had puzzled long over this. “I almost always dream of the sea and only the sea when napping in the sun, and maybe it is the Lady sending us gentle reminders of what waits for us. Reassurances that those lands still exist in the world. Perhaps it is foreseeing fate.”

The mystery of this answer and the far off look it gave Frodo worried Sammie, and he suddenly remembered the last chapters of the Red Book, and the one in particular where Rose-Mum and Sam-Dad had almost lost his uncle to the sea with old Bilbo Baggins. His voice caught. “Uncle Frodo… You… you don’t wish you had gone with them, do you? Your Uncle Bilbo and Mr. Gandalf and all?”

Frodo snapped out of his reverie and saw the tears threatening to fall from those wide blue eyes. He caught Sammie up in a tight hug, burying his face in the dark curls. “Oh, no no no… Never never ever… How could I choose that over you and your father and mother and brothers and sisters? No no no… I have never regretted my choice.”

Sammie clung back in a death grip as he was caught in a sudden fear that no amount of sunshine could penetrate. His sniffles threatened sobs and he choked them back against the skinny chest. Frodo began to rock slowly, humming one of the nursery rhymes he had cooed to each child from Elanor on, the sudden realization of what he could have lost sending tears to fill his own eyes.

“But… but Frodo…” his voice cracked and Sammie cleared his throat and tried again. “But… you said that it was fate that you should be across the sea with Mr. Bilbo and Gandalf and the others, and here you are stuck with us…”

The too thin body froze and Sammie feared he had said the wrong thing.

“Samwise Gardner. Look at me.”

Sammie pulled back a little and was surprised to see his uncle’s true smile, the one that reached his eyes. Though those cerulean depths were still puffy and lined with shadow, they twinkled at him with a life that had been absent since the dark period a month before.

“What a fool I have been, to go preaching elvish philosophy to a young hobbit and leave out the most important parts. There are other lands, Sam, beyond Valinor, where mortals and immortals alike will meet together in the song of Eru, when the time comes. The sea goes much farther than the barriers of the world, further than even the stars. That is why I sleep outdoors on my good days. The warmth of the sun reminds me that my worries are nothing when compared to those of the cosmos. The sea shall always be there, along with the peoples she shelters, and the sun shall rise again. Bad days will end. Yes, I miss Bilbo and Gandalf and Legolas and Gimli and the others, but I feel it is my fate to wait with mortals until the day we travel that sea of souls. We will sail the sea one day, Sammie, but we shall do it together. You, me, your father, mother, Elanor, Frodo, Rose, Merry, Pippin, Goldilocks, Hamfast, Daisy, Primrose, Bilbo, Ruby, Robin, and Tolman. We shall all sail together.”

Sammie’s sweet laugh rang out unbidden and he clung even more tightly to his uncle’s neck.

The moment was broken by a low grumbling in his stomach and he looked at it in surprise. Frodo laughed, an honest, unburdened sound, and gave his hand a squeeze.

“Ah! We are being lazy! We’ve missed more than tea, I fear. Come! Give me a hand up and we’ll go see what Rose-Mum and Elanor have managed with the last of the spring harvest.”

Sam wiped at his eyes and supported his uncle as he shifted his weight to his feet, his weak joints protesting loudly. Frodo tripped once on a ground swallow’s nest, but he waved it off with a smile at the indignant squawk of the mother bird.

Rosie was waiting for them at the little green door, tapping a wooden spoon against her palm but unable to hide the quirk at the corner of her mouth. “Now, where have you two been all afternoon, shirking your chores?”

Frodo acknowledged her smirk with a peck at her left dimple. “Not far, I’m afraid. Slept it away on the roof like two cats. I’m afraid we were utterly uncivilized.”

Rose sighed, but the exasperation was a ruse. “Ah… well… Sleep late when ye’ can and bad days will end, so they say. Now hurry in and get washed. You two are covered in grass and supper’s not comin’ any earlier.”

She ruffled both of their dark heads simultaneously and the reassuring squeeze Uncle Frodo gave his small hand was enough to make Sammie smile. Yes. Bad days *would* end, and they would all cross the sea together, fate or no.

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