"Sam?"

"Hmm?" Sam grunts sleepily, building a facade of alertness with a twitch of his head and a wordless murmur.

"Sam, it's time to get up now."

"Tisn't." It takes Sam ten seconds to accumulate the energy to say the word. Frodo smiles and climbs back up onto the counterpane next to him. Blearily Sam opens his eyes to that impossibly blue gaze, inquiring. Frodo's very cheerful this morning. Sam closes his eyes again.

Dimly he hears Frodo click his tongue in exasperation and the corners of his mouth twitch as Frodo shoves him hard in the shoulder. "What's the matter with you, Sam? You're always up before the sun!"

Sam's smile broadens and he opens one eye, the other screwed tight against the glare of the mid-morning sun on Frodo's white shirt. "Where's Rosie?"

Frodo assumes an air of damaged dignity. "She has gone off to market, like all respectable houswives should when the chance presents itself." He catches Sam's eye and they both laugh. Rosie loathes the ideals of respectability and proriety.

"What's she gone to buy?" Sam asks, when they have recovered.

"A length of taffeta. Now, come on, I want you out of that bed now." He begins to rise, but Sam's hand snakes out and catches his wrist. Frodo makes a show of resisting but in a second he is flat on the bed beside Sam and they are both laughing, laughing for nothing, laughing because it is sunny and the scent of freshly mown hay drifts through the open window and the children are yelling outside the door. Sam pulls Frodo close and kisses him for a moment, and then Frodo laughs and remarks, "You taste like lemon tea, Sam. Have you been up?"

Sam kisses him again before replying. "Before the sun."

"That's my Sam." Frodo laughs and somewhere in the smial the children are laughing too and Sam kisses him again, glad that he tastes like strawberries and sunshine and home. "Do you still want me out of this bed?" he asks, grinning.

Frodo smiles and shakes his head. The sun streams in a wide bar across their bodies and the garden beckons, but Sam has his own sun right here in his arms, and it is worth staying indoors for.

~

Pretty Good Year | email Janette