Daisy had a very shrill voice when she was scared. Not loud, exactly, but piercing. 'Glass-cracker', Elanor had called her more than once. Everyone knew about it, when Daisy was troubled, and it was becoming less uncommon that the girl would wake in the night, crying out in terror.

On this particular occasion Sam was unable to sleep and happened to be watching the drip-drip of water down into the rain barrels through the window when her sharp cry cut the air. Daisy was sitting up in bed, her pale curls a wild halo around her frightened, shadowed face.

"Shh, Daisy, quiet down or you'll wake the trolls on the mountainside with that yelling." Sam sat down on the edge of the bed and hugged her close. "Another nightmare then, pet?"

Daisy nodded, sniffling. Her small shoulders were shuddering. The room smelt of dried flowers, the older girls had been making scent-pouches to store with the winter clothes. The smell was a warm, dusty sort of tickle in the back of the nose.

"Daise?" a soft voice called from the doorway. Sammie padded across the floor, expression slightly muddled from sleep and his nightshirt buttoned crooked. He climbed in next to her and kissed her on the cheek. "You make my arms and legs go all shivery when I hear you screaming."

Daisy put one arm around her little brother's shoulders and kissed him back before returning to the crook of her father's elbow.

"Any of your brothers wake?" Sam asked. Sammie shook his head.

"No, Daddy, don't think so. They all sleep like big logs, and Merry snores."

Daisy giggled, face still buried against Sam's arm.

"Goldy does too. She sounds like a big honky goose."

"Hush, you two," said Sam, trying to sound scolding. "I wish you'd tell us what your dream-terrors are, my little poppet."

"They're just... might-have-beens. Awful ones. Sad things." Daisy shrugged as best she could without letting go of her father. "Different ways for things to be."

"Well, they're only dreams." Sam spoke in his most soothing voice, but yawns kept fracturing the words.

"I had a dream that I was never born at all." Sammie piped up. Daisy pulled away from Sam and hugged her younger brother fiercely, as if daring the world to take him from her. "I was sad, in it, because I like being real and playing King Of The Mountain with Ham and Daise and having sticky cakes for supper."

"Dreams can't hurt you," Sam said firmly. "Don't let them make you think they can. You're real enough to upset the washing water all over the ground, so you're real enough to play and eat, I reckon."

"Can we come stay in with you? Just for this one night? Please?" Daisy begged. "To keep us safe from nightmares."

"Please?" Sammie added, waking up a little at the thought of this rare treat.

"Oh, all right, just this once." Sam smiled, ruffling Sammie's hair. "But you have to be quiet as mice in the hallways, or everyone else will wake, and we can't fit them all."

"There aren't any mice in Bag End, are there?" Sammie looked quizzical. "The cats would gobble them up, crunch crunch!"

"Grind their little bones!" Daisy giggled.

"No wonder you have bad dreams, with all that gore filling up your head," said Sam. "Come on, then."

The three of them crept down the hallway, bare feet silent on the carpets and floorboards. Baby Ruby was in her cot, and Frodo and Rosie were curled up on one side of the bed, a deep dent beside them showing where Sam had been resting.

"We've got some visitors." Sam lifted Daisy and then Sammie up onto the mattress. Frodo rolled over, and smiled to see the children.

"Hello there. Interlopers, are you? Spies?"

"Nope. We're..." Daisy paused. "What are we, Sammie?"

"Tickle monsters!" Sammie jumped at Rosie, giggling as she fought him off.

"Here now, that's not a game for bed-time." Sam tucked them under the covers. Daisy patted at her mother's stomach as Sammie sneaked in a tickle at Frodo's ribs.

"Is there really a baby growing in there?"

"Yes, duck. Just as you did, and all your sisters and brothers," answered Rosie.

"And me?"

"And you, Sammie. You kicked like anything. Maybe you were playing tickle-monsters even then."

"I don't think that would surprise any of us." Frodo chuckled, getting his own back with an attack at Sammie's armpits. The little boy squealed and wriggled away.

"Lamb Boffin says that babies come from the cabbage patch," said Daisy.

"You've spent enough days weeding the one out the back with me to know that's not the truth," Sam retorted.

"Now settle down, and sleep, all right? It's almost morning." Rosie planted a kiss on Daisy's sandy hair, then on Sammie's dark mop. Then, for good measure, she did the same for Sam and Frodo.

They were all silent for a few heartbeats, until Sammie spoke again.

"Mummy, what happens to people who aren't ever born?"

Frodo breathed in sharply at the question, and stilled in his slight shifting around the bed. Rosie considered her answer before speaking.

"I don't rightly know, dear, though I'm sure it's all worked out somehow. Perhaps they wait for us, wherever it is that we all go when we're through here. That makes sense, doesn't it?"

"But won't they be lonely?" Daisy wanted to know.

"I don't know. Perhaps they've got tickle-monsters to talk to, who can say? But to sleep now, my babes, and no more big horrid thoughts like this in your little sweet heads."

Another short time of silence, and then...

"Is it going to be a girl baby?"

"Maybe. I've given up guessing, I was never much good at it. Now hush, Daisy, or I'll name the new one Thistle and tell her that it was your doing."

Satisfied with the answer, Daisy rolled over and squeezed her eyes shut. She could hear her Mummy and her Daddy breathing, and that would keep her safe from nightmares. Parents could do that, it was a special magic. And she could hear Sammie and Frodo too, and that would keep the nightmares from coming at all. Because somehow Daisy knew that the might-have-been dreams couldn't touch them, inside that safe little room.

~

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