Sam and Rosie talked about Frodo on occasion, compared worries and thoughts. He wasn't all they talked about when they were alone, of course, but they loved him like they loved their hearts, and knew it was up to them to fix him.

When Sam told his wife that Frodo has requested knitting lessons, she chewed on the corner of her lip until it was ragged and pink, a half-forgotten worry twisting in her belly. She told Sam about the book Frodo was keeping for Elanor, full of fond advice and random anecdotes.

They didn't discuss Frodo's dreams, because they didn't know about them. The nightmares were plain as sunrise, the way he'd thrash to and fro, crying out wordlessly from inside his own dark universe. But the other dreams, childhood afternoons playing house in the old chicken coop and making bark boats to float on the river, those were still his secret.

He wrote about them to Elanor, addressing the still-distant future as he would a letter.

Dear Elanorelle;
Today is the last day of July. Don't fight with Sam's Gaffer so, you mustn't be so hard on him, he doesn't know how to react to a child like you. Learn all you can from him, from the age he knew, and forgive him the things you can't understand. I know he infuriates you, but try to see through his eyes.
Set a good example, Goldy looks up to you as her hero. You're the only hobbit she knows with hair and eyes as light as her own. My uncle Bilbo used to say that babies with blue eyes would see the sun in any weather.

If he tried to write for too long, though, Frodo's head would ache, and his hands would spasm painfully. Sam kissed the callouses and bitten nails with soft lips, rubbed the tremors away in sure strokes. Rosie would run her palms over his curls, which weren't as thick or lustrous as once upon a time. Rosie still considered Frodo's hair as pretty as Sam's windblown locks and Elanor's baby down, fair and crinkly on her tiny brow.

It was evening, the lights of Hobbiton dotted across the dark hills visible from Bag End, candles flickering in the mild breeze. The air smelt like pipe weed and wet soil.

"It's such a lovely night. You two should dance," Frodo decided.

"Either my hearing's gone, or your brain has," Sam replied, laughing. "There's no music to dance to."

"Oh, there's always music, if you listen. Go on, Rose, make Sam dance with you."

"Only if you dance as well. I'm not behaving like a lunatic for an audience. Come on." She pulled Sam and Frodo to their feet and spun them in a ring-a-rosy, faster and faster until it seemed certain they'd fall to the ground. They didn't, instead collapsing against each other in a waltz for three, to a tune only they could hear.

~

Pretty Good Year | email Mary