"There's no reason he should be alive, Samwise Gamgee, and you know it same as I do."
Sam sighed, running thick fingers tensely through tousled sandy curls, looking at her through the same puppy-brown-sad eyes she found alternately endearing and exasperating. "There's lots o'reasons. The Lady - "
"I don't see the Lady here getting him turned in bed or trying to get him to eat. Leave him alone and it would be a matter of time. Some days I think it is anyhow." She stirred the soup with a fierce jerk, causing a drop to splash further up the side. Wincing, Sam leaned against the closed door to the main pantry, watching in silence.
Frodo had taken another of his bad turns. They'd been through it often enough, but this time it seemed to keep getting worse instead of abating, and Rosie was finding herself hard pressed to keep him from fading into a ghost in their own home. He couldn't sit up, even if they propped him on pillows: that made him too dizzy and faint. He couldn't eat half the time, and half of the other half Rosie would be darned if she could figure out what he could get down, because it didn't seem anything she or Sam cooked suited him. The last quarter was the only thing that kept him going, the times when he could actually take spoonfuls of good hot food, cooked proper, and keep that down. And those times were rarer than hen's teeth these days.
The children were with Merry and 'Stell, being thoroughly indulged. . .more than she'd have liked, but there was nothing for it. All save Elly, who already carried an odd sense of the whole business. Though all of thirteen, she could be an odd little lass, but lately she'd taken to trying to help out, and insisted on staying. It was she who was sitting with him just now, talking quietly to her "Fo" in an effort to calm him. She had been the one to reassure the younger children while her mother kissed them good-bye, promising that it was just for a few days.
For a long time Rose had wondered. Years of suspecting. And still she didn't have proof. But she had a feeling about it, the sort of feeling she got when she first felt a babe inside her. . .the sort of feeling you just *know*, whether anyone can prove it on paper or no.
"What that Lady did that was so special is something we can do more than a bit of, and something you've done, and something Elly does. It may not look as grand when we do it, but I'll warrant it's not a bit less strong for that."
Sam gave her a quizzical look, brown eyes befuddled. "What's that?"
Pausing, Rose set the spoon aside and put her hands on her hips, studying him.
They had all grown older. Not that they were *old* yet, by any means, but they had aged. There were touches of silver in Frodo's raven curls already, and Sam carried more of a mayoral look these days. And yet there were things that hadn't changed. . .the same things she'd loved seeing when she and Sam first married. When Elly was born. When Sam became mayor for the first time.
"For all you're so fond of telling me about how you used to think of me, Sam, I'm surprised you can't remember." She found herself unable to hold the scowl, and yielded to smiling a little, shaking her head. "When you used to think of getting back, and of seeing me again, and my brothers and all. . . ."
The sound of Elanor's soft singing drifted from the main bedroom, a not-entirely-hobbitlike melody.
"There's something holds him together. And that's hope. Hope that things will get better. That we'll have more good times. That Elly will finish growing up and have the finest wedding since that one you go on about, King Elessar's or what have you. . . ."
Sam smiled wanly. "Hope ain't everything, Rosie. It can only go so far."
"Far enough." She gestured toward the hall, where Elanor's voice continued in strange melody, some old half-forgotten song her Fo had taught her on some long-ago rainy afternoon. "I think hope's one of the finest things there is."
~
Pretty Good Year | email Frodo