Autumn seemed to sneak up overnight, carpeting the roads and gardens with copper orange and brass brown leaves, putting a bite into the morning breezes. Autumn meant raking, taming the copper and brass back before it overran the green entirely. Frodo sat on a log and watched Sam, the afternoon sun complementing the rusty shades of the season. It was an odd log, very old and half eaten away by unseen insects, but dry and clean and solid.
"Are you feeling well?" Sam asked, readjusting his grip on the handle of the rake. "You and Rose were bickering again, that happens when you've taken a turn for the worst, as a rule."
"I'm fine." Frodo sounded distracted, as if there were other things taking the majority of his attention. "We weren't bickering, anyway. It was just a conversation."
"She's worried about you, she don't show it but it's eating at her like anything."
"What about you, are you worried about me?"
"Somewhat." Sam admitted. There was firewood chopping to be finished but the monotony of moving leaves into neat piles was lulling him into a complacent daze.
"Don't be." with a grin, Frodo kicked some of the leaves up into a flurry. "You two spend all your time telling me I should cheer up and stop feeling sorry for myself, but I'm having the time of my life. I'm the luckiest hobbit in the Shire, and I don't need reminding of that to know it."
Sam didn't say anything, but his expression suggested that he would be more likely to believe it if Frodo said the sky was turning red.
"Don't give me that look, Sam. If Rose is right, and this is an argument, then it's one we've had to death."
"There's a reason for that, and it's not the fault of me or Rosie. I'll believe it's true enough that you're happy, but it ain't a happiness that moves and grows as it should. You hold joy so tight it chokes to breathe."
Frodo shook his head. "I don't know what you mean at all."
"Well, when I eat a good cake, I enjoy the eating of it, but I know there's another one on the cards for tomorrow. You seem sure there's no tomorrow-cake, so you nibble the one you have so slow the tea's growing cold. When are you going to see that we're home, it's over, there's naught left expected of us but long lives?" Sam's voice was close to pleading. Frodo blinked, as if seeing Sam clearly for the first time in weeks.
"You've really blossomed, haven't you, Sam? Once upon a time you were timid and meek as a scared little bird. Now you're father and husband and hero. You've found parts of yourself you didn't even know you had."
"I didn't do nothing special, Mr Frodo, only what all folk would have done in that position. You're the one who carried the burden."
"No, don't go shrugging all you've done off on other people. You bore it too."
"Then pardon my asking, but shouldn't we both be blooming or wilting together?"
Frodo just smiled his sad smile in response. They stayed there a while longer, until the light faded and became no use at all, and then set off back home. A set of swinging ropes tied to a sturdy branch stirred listlessly in the wind and the small swing, inexpertly made by little hands out of a plank and two ropes, creaked as it settled after a day of use.
"Fancy a push?" Sam asked Frodo, and the two of them climbed onto the abandoned play equipment and set about working themselves in broader and higher arcs into the air. They fell off, laughing, and Sam noticed how beautiful Frodo looked with his hair out in a dark halo around his face, caught through with metallic-shaded leaves and tangled in unruly curls. Laugh lines traced out in thin spiderwebs from the corners of his eyes, and for a moment Frodo looked as unreal as an Elf or a dream. Then he was just Frodo again, who tried to look dignified and worldly as he brushed leaves off his vest.
"You're getting a bit of grey in your hair, there." Sam teased. "When Elanor's grown I'll tell her she put them in your head, that she was a terror of a baby."
"You'll do nothing of the sort. You're going to spoil her rotten, and we both know it." Frodo retorted, wincing as he rotated his shoulder. It was his bad one, and he'd fallen hard on it. Sam noticed the movement, even as Frodo tried to hide the pain with another smile, and went to rub on the sore spot.
"Poor Rosie will have to play the wicked mother, then. Elanorelle will complain like anything - 'but Mum, Sam-dad and uncle Frodo let me eat berries before supper'."
"But Mum, Sam-dad says I'm old enough to smoke a pipe." Frodo put in.
"But Mum, uncle Frodo gave me a pretty new dress and I want to wear that, so I can't do cleaning." Sam added to the list. "Oh, she really will be a terror if she grows like that."
"She won't. She's going to be as lovely and sensible as her parents." said Frodo. "My heart knows it."
~