(Early 1443)
"Shh, quiet now lovies. The sooner you settle down, the sooner the morning will come."
"Mummy, mummy, wait! You haven't heard my new song yet!"
Daisy groaned. "Maybe not, but the rest of us have, non-stop for the past year."
"Hush now, Daisy, one more time won't hurt." Rosie smiled at her softly, her tone gentle. "Go on then, Prim, but straight to sleep after this."
Primula - Primrose to her kin - took a deep breath and began, bobbing her head slightly with the rhythm of her words.
"Mary mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle-shells
And pretty maids all in a row!"
She beamed up at her mother. "It's a gardner song, mum, a gardner song for the Gardner family!"
"It's lovely," Rosie smiled, unable to resist leaning down to plant another kiss on Primrose's forehead. The girl wrapped her arms around her mother's neck and pulled herself up, squeezing tight. "Oof-!" Rosie exclaimed, mock-breathlessly, but closing her eyes and breathing in the familiar scent deeply nonetheless, tightening her own arms about her daughter.
She turned her head and kissed Primrose again, blowing a raspberry on her cheek . "Yuck! Mu-um!" the girl exclaimed, writhing out of her mother's grasp. She stilled again as Rosie once more settled the blankets about her.
"Mummy," Daisy said, holding her arms out.
"Haven't we done this already?" Rosie laughed, settling herself down on the side of Daisy's bed and gathering her daughter up. "And Sam-lad, shouldn't you be in the boys' room?"
The dark-haired lad smiled bashfully, but his eyelids were drooping.
"Uncle Frodo let him sleep in here with me," Daisy said defensively. "Besides, he gets too cold without me in winter."
Rosie laughed quietly - it seemed there would never be enough laughter tonight - and brushed the hair back from Sammie's forehead, kissing it softly.
"I'm glad you're back, Mummy-Rose," he mumbled sleepily.
"So am I," she whispered, and tiptoed to the door.
*****
Frodo was leaning in the doorway opposite, watching her as she stepped out and shut the door carefully behind her. His face and posture was weary, but it wasn't able to mask the glimmer in his eyes, his smile. Soft voices could be heard from the room behind him.
"Elanorelle was asleep on her feet, but no doubt they'll keep her up even longer with all their questions," he said softly, nodding his head back briefly towards the door.
Rosie clucked her tongue good naturedly then stepped forward and placed her palms on either side of Frodo's face. "Now to put the *other* children to bed!" she said mock-sternly, and kissed him with a loud *smack* on the lips.
He chuckled softly and slipped his arm into hers as they made their way towards the main bedroom. "I think Sam's already in there. He stumbled out of the boys' room not long before you and stumbled straight in there."
"Hmm." Rosie smiled. "I think I hear him snoring already."
They could both hear him snoring by the time they were standing before the bed. They glanced at eachother - both with a raised eyebrow, both with an expression of amused affection - and Frodo laughed softly. Rosie hadn't realised how much she'd missed that sound, that kind of laugh until then.
"Here, help me with him, then," she ordered in a whisper, and knelt beside Sam's prone form - fully clothed and laying face down atop the blankets as if he'd fallen there - before rolling him over and starting to unbutton his shirt. Frodo tugged Sam's breeches off - the hobbit in question barely even stirred - before rolling the blankets down under him and folding him in.
"Could you . . . ?"
"Of course."
Frodo halted his own unbuttoning mid-shirt and leaned across to where Rosie was sitting on the other side of the bed. He pressed his lips to the back of her neck softly - she held her mass of curls up and out of the way with both hands - and set to work on the laces at the back of her dress.
"Thankyou, Frodo dear."
They slipped into the bed on either side of Sam, pressing close; their bodies settling together in old, achingly familiar lines. Too tired to talk any more, their hands met over Sam's chest, squeezing with weary smiles. The last thing Rosie saw was the swan-curve of Frodo's neck as he leaned back to blow the candle out.
*****
Rosie woke gradually, a soft voice as familiar as her own threading into her dreams until she blinked them away enough to focus on the words.
". . . and the gardens in Minas Tirith always seemed to be in bloom, too. All the hot-weather plants there, filling the garden like all those bright scraps in Rosie's sewing basket, and the fruit - do you remember the fruit? All sweet and sticky, not just plain apples and oranges. Well there's more now than there was last time, if you can believe it; but then Strider said since we were last there *everything's* bloomed and blossomed, and that their supplies had been down because of the War, last time . . ."
Rosie rolled over. Her eyes were fresh enough from sleep that the frail light of the new moon, spilling delicately through the single, round window, made Sam and Frodo perfectly visible. Perfectly - Sam seemed to glow gold even in the coolness of the light, perfectly complimenting the pale shades of Frodo's skin which seemed to be made of moonlight itself.
They had somehow switched places while Rosie was asleep - which didn't come as much of a surprise to her: Frodo's place was between them, where they could buffer him, protect him with their love and comfort and bodies. A year's worth of waking up in crushing embraces, hundreds of leagues away from him, had proved that they needed that as much as he did.
Frodo lay on his back in the middle of the bed, gazing up at Sam's animated face. Sam was propped up on his elbow, one leg slung over Frodo's, his free hand slowly tracing the planes and lines of Frodo's face, fingertips playing over the skin softly, his words soft but eager.
". . . and Ithilien! You wouldn't believe the change the gardens there have undertaken, I hardly recognised it myself! Captain Faramir - and the Lady Eowyn, of course, the place wouldn't be half as beautiful without all the love she puts into it . . ."
Rosie leaned over and ran her fingers along the line of Frodo's collarbone - stark and fragile in the silvery light - following it to the roundness of his shoulder and down his arm. She left a light kiss in the soft corner of his inner elbow, stroked her lips against the fine skin of his wrist.
Sam's words trailed out into soft humming as he descended to press them directly to Frodo's mouth; then the only sound was the sighing of their breaths and wetness of their mouths as Frodo drew Rosie up to join them.
Oh, how she had missed this taste, of Frodo and of the both of them together . . .
"I missed you," Frodo gasped as Sam slid a hand down, stroking his hip. Rosie laughed softly, for no reason but for the joy in the taste of his skin as her mouth moved to his chin, his jaw, his throat. She drew his hand up to her breast and he caressed the spot over her heart for a moment before carefully circling a nipple. The calluses on his fingers were entirely different from Sam's, yet brought the same burning, flickering warmth deep in her belly. "This bed was too big and cold without you."
Sam grunted softly, speaking into the hollow of Frodo's throat. "As was ours without you."
Frodo rolled over onto his side, and Rosie drew Sam in close behind him with her leg thrown tight over Frodo's hip. He didn't last long, gasping into Rosie's kiss and the muscles at the back of his neck tense then relaxing under Sam's mouth.
"Well that didn't take very long now, did it?" Rosie teased softly after a while, as Frodo's slow caresses drew her and Sam back to sleepy awareness.
"Mmm," Frodo hummed as Sam stretched an arm over both of them to trace the line of Rosie's ear. "Too long without you."
*****
"Are you still writing that story?" Rosie asked, kissing each of Frodo's ink-stained fingers in turn. "With the boy who finds the sword?"
"He draws it out of a stone, doesn't he?" Sam asked, breath warm and damp on Frodo's shoulder, strong arms banding about them both.
"Yes, to both of you," Frodo laughed quietly. "The boy's found the sword now, and has been on his quest - he became king, and married a beautiful princess." He smiled, pressing his hand to Rosie's cheek in a brief caress. "But I haven't written any more for a while now, I'm stuck as to what to write next."
"Does he love her?" Rosie asked, stroking her fingers up the back of his hand and pressing it to her face.
"Oh, very much so. And she loves him, but she also loves another."
"Another lad or another lass?" Sam rumbled from behind him, and Frodo laughed again.
"Another lad, one of the King's knights. His most beloved knight."
Sam softly kissed the spot below Frodo's ear. "Then I don't see what the problem is, if they all love eachother."
"No," Frodo murmured, sliding his arms around Rosie's waist and leaning his head back into Sam. "I suppose you're right." His lashes fluttered, lids closing in sleep as the fresh light of dawn crept into the room. Rosie and Sam joined him.
~