Ache
All the children were too old to be carried now, even 'baby' Lily, but Rosie still held the ache of over twenty years of child bearing (and child-carrying,and child-playing, and piggy-backing) in her back. It lay dormant, most of the time, except for the occassional twinge if she lifted a basket heaped with washing, or leant over to clean up after some discarded item of Frodo's clothing. In the wet, though, it came out; in twinges that felt like they ought to be burning all up and down her back, and her spine felt like a needle of fire, stitching her apart (if that made any sense) so she couldn't move.
"I wish I knew how to mend you," Frodo said, half-teasing as his hands kneaded balm into her sore muscles gently.
Rosie grunted into the pillow, the gentle pressure half-lulling her to sleep while to persistent tingle of pain kept her awake. "S'too late now," she mumbled. "'Nless you want to take all the babes back."
Frodo laughed quietly, cool fingers stroking soothing lines on either side of her spine. "Don't you start that talk again," he reprimanded, a quiet joy in his voice. "'Half the fight to getting well's inside your head.'"
Rosie freed her face from the pillow to glare up at him half-heartedly. "Frodo Baggins, I do believe you've been waiting for the better part of thirty years to say that."
"I do believe you might be right, Miss Cotton." Frodo grinned.
Rosie snorted and turned her face back into the pillow. "That's Mrs Gamgee, thankyou very much," she said, her voice muffled. They both fell silent again, the warm crackle and herb-scent of the fire lulling them into memories, the slow rhythm of Frodo's hands mesmerising them both.
"Good?" Frodo said at length, leaning down to drop a kiss between her shoulderblades. "Better?"
"Mmph," Rosie said, for the most part feeling as if she were asleep; the pain mostly banished by Frodo's firm caresses. She turned her head again to face him as he rested his head on the pillow beside her's, mimicking her pose with a hand still tenderly stroking up and down her spine.
His hair was almost all grey now, silver some part of Rosie's mind liked to say; and his face mapped with fine lines telling stories of his joys and sorrows; and under it all the same fine, familiar features, unchanging. She shifted her head a little for a kiss and was stopped by a quick stab of pain down her neck; Frodo reached up to ease it with his knuckles as he leant forward to press his mouth to hers.
"I never thought I'd see the day where we'd be in this situation," she said after a while.
"What situation?" Frodo asked, surprised amusement in his voice.
"This one. With you tending me instead of the other way around." She tried to blow a wisp of hair away from where it had fallen across her eye, Frodo brushed it back carefully.
"Our pains aren't that different, Rose," Frodo said at length. "We've both had our burdens to carry."
"I'd hardly call a babe a burden," she retorted.
"I think if you love what you carry, it's a burden," he said softly, and nothing more, and the thought that rose on that brought with it the memory of an old ache, caused by the wet of river-water in Frodo's hair, his soaked clothes; beading on his lashes.
"Well in that case, burdens can be good too," she said firmly. "It might not do my back any good to bear fourteen children, but it does my heart a great deal. It's the joy that comes with the heaviness . . . It's a lot to carry, but I know it'll turn out just fine and beautiful in the end."
Even after some thirty years that same blank expression on Frodo's face drew up a stab of fear from within her; the cold tone of his voice that made her look twice to check he was himself: "What if there is no end, Rose? And you end up carrying fourteen children at once? Heaviness is only a joy if you can bear it."
She reached up, gripping his face between her hands firmly, ignoring the pang of protest from her back. "But you never have to bear it forever. All babies get born at the end of a term, no matter how heavy they are. You remember when Sammie was born, he was only a wee lad but look how much of a struggle he put up!" She slid her hands back a little, worn hands threading into silver curls. Frodo closed his eyes. "And once they've been birthed, others can help you carry them as well."
"I wish all I'd ever had to carry were babes," Frodo whispered.
"Well, heavy nuisance as you are, I can't say that I wish I'd only carried babes," she said matter-of-factly, and Frodo laughed softly.
"What's this?" a warm voice came from the doorway, and the bed sunk a little as Sam clambered over to kneel between where their legs were sprawled. "Having fun without me?"
Frodo laughed, and rolled over on his back to gaze up at Sam. His eyes sparkled in the candlelight and Rosie's breath caught as Sam's work-roughened fingertips trailed up her back to meet Frodo's fingers at the base of her neck.
"Oh, not at all," Frodo said innocently. "We were just. . . Talking."
"I come home to find you in bed with my half-naked wife and you expect me to believe you were talking?!" Sam said in mock-disbelief, and Frodo laughed again as Sam growled and pretended to fall forward onto him. Frodo opened his arms wide with a shout of joy.
"Hoy there, children," Rosie interrupted their play and they emerged again, slightly more flushed. Frodo's hair was sticking on end again; it still amazed her how short a time he would have to spend in bed before it was going every-which-way. Sam leaned over to kiss her softly.
"My poor Rose-lass," Sam murmured. "Is your back troubling you again?"
"Not so much now you're here," she said, and Sam quirked an eyebrow. Frodo smiled.
"Why Rose, I never thought you were such a romantic!" Frodo quipped, and ducked a little out of habit, expecting an affectionate cuff.
"Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age, whereas all you seem to be doing is getting younger -- in everything but looks, I might add," she sniffed.
"Not that you're complaining," Frodo retorted good-naturedly.
"Not that I don't have the inclination to," Rosie scoffed. "But you're such a fragile little thing, especially with regards to your looks . . ."
"Now now," Sam scolded lightly. "Enough of that." Frodo wrapped his arms around Sam's neck and poked his tongue out at Rosie over Sam's shoulder. "And you too, Rose."
Rose chuckled at the indignant expression on Frodo's face, then swallowed as the expression changed into something else; Frodo's eyes drifting half close and his breath quickening as Sam shifted a little, moving his mouth slowly over Frodo's throat.
She still couldn't think of anything she liked better than the two of them together, after all these years; both of them a little rounder and more careworn, but still fitting together perfectly. Frodo's gasps of surprised joy that would still escalate into something more to do with voice; she loved the sounds even more now for their familiarity than she had once loved their newness. And Sam . . . Sam, who would still blindly seek out her mouth with Frodo wrapped around him, mouth tasting rich and fresh like a welcome summer breeze raucous in heavy leaves; skin so hot that it felt it ought to burn against her . . .
"What were you talking about anyway?" Sam mumbled sleepily when it was over, and they were liquid all melted together, warm and comfortable. Frodo was silent, sprawled over Sam's back, concentrating hard on the task of moving Sam's hand soothingly over Rosie's back.
"Just my winter aches," Rosie said into the pillow.
"They all pass eventually," Frodo and Rosie said at the same time, and laughed at the jinx.
"I've been trying to tell you that for thirty-odd years," Sam said matter-of-factly, his voice slurring then drifting off into snores before either of them could reply.
Frodo lifted his head; hair in even more disarray than before, if possible. He blinked at Rose blearily, offering her the same familiar, crooked smile. "Goodnight."
~
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