She'd thrown up her breakfasts for almost a week, and felt the lazy, heavy knowing feeling, the same that she'd gotten when Elanor began to grow. But then she'd started to bleed, and fallen over in the garden, and her stomach had hurt like knives and stings and whipping.

She didn't tell Frodo, who was getting worse with time when it should have made him better, and she didn't tell Sam, who had enough on his strong shoulders as it was. She brewed herself pennyroyal tea and lay still until the pain passed, and then washed the marks out of the bedclothes as carefully as a good wife should.

Rosie wondered whose eyes the baby would have had, what smile.

Now she was washing up, the water slicking her already pruned hands, icy against her hot wrists. The residual food on the plates made her stomach lurch, but there was nothing left to bring up. She was hollowed out, empty.

Once the tears started to fall, she couldn't stop them. She hadn't cried so long and hard for years, since she'd had half of one of her back teeth knocked out when she was thrown off a pony. It had taken almost a month to fall out, and during that time the exposed nerves had made her feel as if her whole mouth was dying.

Rosie curled up in a ball on the floor, sobbing and sobbing until she had no energy left to do any more. She didn't even know what she was crying for, really. It wasn't like she wanted another baby just yet, and Frodo would surely get better some day. Sam would have time to notice her troubles, and rub her back like he did for Frodo when Frodo was feeling poorly.

Standing up, Rosie tidied her hair carefully, and washed her face clean, and put her smile back in place, as carefully as a good wife should.

-

Frodo heard a muted thudding sound as he tried to concentrate on the books in front of him. It was hard to think about the world of stories when he could barely stay fixed on the one in rooms around him.

Relieved to have an excuse for leaving his books, Frodo padded down the hallway to the kitchen. Rosie was slumped on the floor by the soap-filled sink, a dark stain on her skirt.

"Rose?" colour drained out of Frodo's face. "Rosie?!" He ran to her side. She was breathing but her eyes were bruise-dark, shadowed with illness and exhaustion. He cradled her on his lap, stroking her hair off her face.

"Sam! Sam!" Frodo's voice cracked with panic as he shouted. Elanor began to scream at the sudden noise. Frodo looked over at her grasping little arms, visible over the sides of her basket atop the table, "Hush, Elanorelle, hush," he said softly before shouting for Sam again.

Breathing heavily from his dash through the garden, Sam rushed into the room.

"My Rosie, Rosie-girl, what's wrong?" he reached at her face and shoulder and stomach lightly, as if afraid of hurting her simply by touch. "What happened?"

"I don't know." Frodo shook his head, trying to stay calm. "I heard a thud, and came in to find she'd fallen. I don't think she was feeling well today, I heard her lying down for a while this morning."

"Sam?" Rosie said muzzily, twisting her head from side to side. "What happened?"

"I'm not sure. You had a spill, my darling heart. Are you feeling all right?" Sam lifted her out of Frodo's arms gently. There were bloodstains on his legs from where she'd been lying.

"I didn't want you to know." Rosie's voice was soft and sad. "I suppose I wasn't strong enough to carry another yet, so soon after Elanor."

Sam carried her in to the bedroom and cleaned her off, lying her on the bed as carefully as if she were a newborn baby herself.

"I'm sorry, Samwise," she was crying again. "You make the gardens grow so beautiful, and I can't even keep the seeds you plant in me."

"Oh, Rosie-girl." Sam kissed her forehead, hugging her so tightly she wasn't sure he'd ever let her go. "It's all right. The worst is past, you'll feel better in the morning."

He stayed with her while she slept, watching her dreams flicker uneasily across her features. Frodo cleaned up the kitchen, and played with Elanor out in the garden for as long as he could stand the glare of the sunlight. Sam came out to join them, sitting down with an expression as tired and sad as any Frodo had ever seen him wear.

"She wanted to be alone for a spell," he explained in a voice devoid of his usual sunniness. He took Elanor into his arms and kissed her feather-light on her temple.

"I'm sorry, Sam," Frodo whispered, knowing the words would never be enough.

"It happens to a lot of lasses after they have their first. It seems as if she's none the worse for it, thank goodness." Sam tried to smile, still clutching at his daughter. They sat in silence, until finally Frodo couldn't bite the words back any longer.

"Do you think it was me? Maybe I'm more changed than we think, and it poisoned her somehow."

"No, Mr Frodo, no." Sam blinked more tears back, shifting so he could hug both Frodo and Elanor at once. "I'm sure it was nothing of the sort. Don't entertain such ideas."

"It's hard not to." Frodo looked off into the air at some sight in his mind's eye. "When I came in, and saw her lying there... I thought we'd lost her. I thought you'd lost your Rose, and my heart broke in two. There was only a little blood, but she was so still..."

"Everyone's all right, don't go thinking of all the things that could've happened. You can care for her as she cared for you, and read her some of those fairy stories she likes so until she's rested. And then we'll all be a family again," Sam promised.

~

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