Often, Sam dreamed of the ocean just before dawn, the way the waves were almost nothing more than shadows in the night, the grey coolness as the stars faded back into the sky. In his dreams he felt as if a part of him was lost forever, leaving him in a world without colour or morning. The last time he'd had such a dream he'd woken to find his face pressed against Frodo's skinny chest, gentle hands in his hair.

"Hush, Sam, you were crying in your sleep." Frodo whispered. "What were you dreaming about?"

"I'd lost something important, and I couldn't even remember what it was. I knew I'd never find it again." Sam admitted, glad to be able to put his arms around Frodo and feel the solidity of the real world through that. But it was hard to hold him, lately, Frodo would pull away as if the lightest touch hurt his brittle bones.

"It was just a dream. Rosie's asleep beside you, and Elanor's in her cradle. Everything's safe and close by." the words were soothing and low. "Now go back to sleep."

"Mm, I feel good and protected with you here." Sam's own hand reached up to find Frodo's curls. "We'll keep each other safe in dreaming."

"Yes."

They stayed awake for hours, each thinking the other was already asleep.

Sleepless nights made for hard waking, so Rosie was already up and about by the time they emerged. She was baking a cake, mixing the pale lemon icing in a bowl twice the size she needed so that there was room to add extra if she felt so inclined. There was no such thing, as far as Rosie could see, as too much lemon icing. Elanor was in her basket on the table beside her mother.

"Here's your Dad and your Frodo, Elanor, awake at last. Just when I was going to go and pour cold water over them, too." Rosie tapped the baby's nose with her finger and grinned at Sam and Frodo. "I'm baking her a four-month birthday cake, even though it was yesterday. We need to start finding more excuses to have celebrations around here."

"Do you want me to make some other food? We can have a feast." Sam offered.

"All right, I'm not saying no to help in this kitchen. Too many nooks and crannies to hide in, if you ask me. Easy to lose the things you need the most with so many cracks and shadows about. If you don't mind me saying so, Mr Frodo, I think you should consider having most of these shelves and cupboards replaced."

"Sounds like a good idea." Frodo agreed with a nod as Sam went to try and find another mixing bowl.

"Want to try some of the icing?" Rosie asked, offering the big wooden spoon. Frodo smiled and shook his head, so Rosie shrugged a dabbed a blob of it onto the end of his nose. Elanor giggled, clapping her hands. Putting the second bowl down on the table, Sam smiled at the scene unfolding and leaned over, swiping his tongue out to catch the icing off Frodo's skin and then pulling back as if he couldn't believe what he'd done.

"Oh, don't look so abashed, Samwise. You two need a little less protecting and comforting and a lot more silliness, if you ask me." Rosie stopped stirring. "Now, how does it taste?"

"Hm, didn't get enough to rightly know." Sam's smile grew wider and a little wicked. "Better let me have the spoon to check, Rose." she handed it over, only to get a long line of lemon confection down her cheek as Sam brandished the spoon like a sword. Frodo laughed, jumping over and licking it off, making her squirm away.

"Ugh, your tongue tickles, don't!" she ran around to the other side of the table in escape, leaving Frodo to end up with blotches of icing on his chin and forehead as Sam waved the impromptu weapon around. Rosie grabbed at the edge of the bowl and put it aside carefully, to protect what remained of the icing, before running back over and tackling Sam to the floor, pulling Frodo down with her.

"Don't do that, you'll ruin your shirt! Look, now you've got icing everywhere!"

"Best if I take my shirt off then."

"Well it doesn't matter now, it's covered anyway."

"So are you saying you don't want me to take it off?"

"Nothing of the sort."

Elanor rolled onto her side in the basket and decided to go to sleep for a while. Grown-ups could be so silly sometimes.

~

Pretty Good Year | email Mary