She found Sam sitting against the wall of the study, just below the window, Frodo curled against his chest. Rosie doubted that Sam had gotten any more sleep during the night than she had, but Frodo was dozing lightly.

Catching sight of herself in the round unbroken mirror hanging in the hallway, Rosie stopped and stared. She looked like a mother and wife, in her sensible nightdress with her hair in a haphazard braid, Elanor burrowed in against the crook of her arm. It took her aback for a moment, because inside her head she was still young and free, it had never occurred to her that somewhere along the way she'd grown up.

Sam's expression was a mix of care and sorrow, one hand resting gently against the bare angle of Frodo's pale shoulder, where the collar of his shirt had slipped aside. Rosie came and sat beside him, kissing him lightly and nuzzling at his cheek, coaxing a wan smile out eventually. She'd loved Sam's smile since before she could even remember. He pressed a kiss to her forehead.

Elanor leaned over and tugged on a lock of Frodo's thinning hair, making him shift and grunt in his doze, eyelashes fluttering. Sam stroked his cheek until he settled back into sleep, face so full of love and sadness that Rosie's heart hurt.

There was a bit of mess to the room, papers torn and books knocked to the floor, split-spined in a heap. Sam was crying quietly, Rosie took his hand and squeezed it tight, wishing there was something, anything she could say.

Later, when Sam had carried Frodo in to bed and was doting on Elanor to soothe his nerves, Rosie decided she had to get out of the house or suffocate under the misery of it all. They weren't doing Frodo any good, sitting around and sighing and fixing up the damage after it was done.

She was almost at her parents' house when she met her father coming along the road, leading a dappled pony.

"Hullo Rose, I was just on my way to the smith's. The Rumble pony here's thrown a shoe again. Want to come along?"

Rosie walked alongside her father, glad of the simple solidity of his conversation. At heart, she was like that herself, a personality type she'd heard referred to as Shire-bred, as if most hobbits were bred somewhere else. She liked her dreams and her songs, no mistake about that, but they didn't put food in her daughter and husband, they didn't get Frodo out in the sunshine with his cheeks red from the wind.

Rosie smiled to herself. She really had grown up, after all.

She sat off to the side in the forge, watching the heat and the noise at one remove, distracted by tiredness and worry.

"When you were a lass, Rosie, you liked nothing more than seeing horse shoes made. What's wrong?" her father asked, sitting down beside her. "Who's hurt my little girl's heart?"

"Dad, what can you do for a person who just doesn't get well? Who should be healed and whole a dozen times over by now but isn't?"

"This is Mr Frodo you're speaking of, then?"

"Aye."

Farmer Cotton sighed. "Be careful, something about his manner tells me he's never going to heal. You and your Sam can make him happy and comfortable, but beyond that I don't think there's anything to be done. Sometimes you have to let go."

Her eyes stung with tears, she wiped at them with the edge of her apron and tried to smile.

"Do you love him, Rose? There's talk amongst the womenfolk. They say you dishonour your marriage."

"Never." Rosie shook her head. "I'm not unfaithful to Sam, I never could be. I'd sooner pull out my heart than hurt him. But I do love Frodo, I can't deny it. I've never loved anything in my life as I love him, except for Sam and Elly. I see how he hurts, and I know he just wants to give up and slip away. That might be the only way for him to be free, but I'm selfish and demanding and I just want him with us, and happy, forever. Why can't things be easy, like when I was small?"

"They never are when you're grown." Her father patted her shoulder. "But chin up, lass. I could be wrong about the whole thing. Perhaps, come summer, he'll be right as rain."

Rosie nodded, and leaned against his touch, wishing she were still young enough for that alone to make her feel better.

It was mid-afternoon by the time she walked back up the hill to Bag End. Frodo, Sam and Elanor were all in the front garden, Elly was playing with some of the recently fallen leaves, gathering up fistfuls and shoving them at her dad.

"I was beginning to wonder if you were ever coming back." Frodo called, teasingly. His eyes were hollow and dark, and his hand still bound, but otherwise he seemed himself again.

"I wasn't, but then I remembered that neither of you can give Elanorelle milk as I can, and thought it only fair to her to come back." Rosie retorted. Frodo laughed, and met her by the gate with a warm hug.

Her father was wrong, Rosie knew it in her heart. Frodo would be all right in the end, even if she had to pull him into the light by the tips of his ears.

~

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