"Your feet are prettier than mine." Daisy mused, stretching her legs out in front of her and wiggling the toes. Sammie shrugged, wet hair sending tiny rivers down the hollow between his shoulderblades and along his spine onto the wet wood of the pier.

It was that endless time between afternoon tea and dinner, hot and lazy winds stirring the trees along the riverbank. They were trying to dry off before getting dressed again, their underclothes sticky and sodden on their skin (because Sammie had decided in one of his earnest moments that nine and ten was far too old for naked swimming in mixed company).

"Not really." he answered after a while, turning to press the soles of his own feet against his sister's in comparison. "Your big toes are nicer shapes, see? Mine are all blunt at the ends."

They were both a bit quiet, a bit sad, but they didn't want to talk about it, so instead they just sat and watched the fish dart about in the water below them. Uncle Frodo had tried to make them breakfast, which never meant anything good because he wasn't the best cook the Shire had ever seen, and tended to leave even things like buttered rolls tasting somehow funny. Rose-girl had helped, and cooked up a big lot of yummy hot muffins, but her eyes were red and swollen and she kept going into the big bedroom and coming out again all pale.

Uncle Frodo had hugged and hugged Sammie, and kissed his forehead and hugged him again. Daisy wanted to go see Mummy and Daddy but Rose said no, no, Mummy's resting and Daddy's looking after her. Rose and Merry and Pippin made all the little ones walk down to a field far, far away from home and sit and listen to stupid fairy stories all morning. Sammie just sat and listened like he was told, his face all sad and squinty like uncle Frodo's got when he wasn't wasn't wasn't crying.

Eventually, after a pitiful picnic lunch that barely filled up the corners of a healthy hobbit's tummy, Daisy decided she'd had enough of this moping and being all weepy, so she'd grabbed Sammie's hand and told Rose-girl that they were going swimming, and then ran away before anybody else could ask to come along too.

Swimming was nice, because swimming was always nice, but she couldn't make Sammie giggle even when she duck-dived all the way to the bottom of a really deep bit of the river and found lots of lovely flat stones to put in the garden at home.

"Do you think it would have been a boy or a girl, Daise?" Sam asked in a teeny tiny voice. Daisy scowled.

"Oh, who cares anyway? Mummy and Daddy have lots and lots of both already. Don't be such a sour grump."

"Why do you get so angry whenever I try to talk about it?" Sammie folded his legs under himself and tossed a stone down into the water. It broke the surface with a plopping sound. Daisy flopped down onto her back, hanging her legs over the edge to the knee.

"We both know why, you snotty lemon drop." Daisy flicked water from her hair at Sam's arm, which was lightly pink with burn. He was three shades paler than her all year round, even though they spent the same amount of time out and about. "Because you're sitting here thinking that you should be a hushed whisper between our aunts and a day where Daddy doesn't garden, too, like the babies that don't get born. Well, muck at that." she reached out and wrapped his fingers in her own. "You're here, you're my Sammie, and that's that."

"You've been listening to how Mummy scolds uncle Frodo when he's sad." Sam said with a small grin. Daisy nodded.

"Uh-huh. Should I keep going? I could make you eat sprouts, like she did when he wouldn't come to the fair with us."

Sam giggled. "His face went all green."

"Just like the sprouts were!" Daisy shrieked, laughing. "I thought he was going to be sick all over after that, and Mummy just stood there with her hands on her hips and made him eat it all up. And Daddy just laughed and laughed."

"And then Mummy made Frodo have a spoonful of codliver oil." Sam lay on his back beside Daisy, watching the clouds above them.

"If you're too sick to take the brood to the fair, you need a good dose of this. Fix you right up, it will." Daisy imitated her mother, then chuckled. "She never lets him get away with being a sad sack, and I'm not going to do any less for you."

"Not today, though. He was sad as anything today and she wasn't there to cheer him." Sam pointed out in a quiet voice.

"Yes, because today Daddy and uncle Frodo are going to cheer her up instead. It happens to lots of people, Sammie, you know that. Uncle Tom and aunty Marigold don't have any babies at all because it happened to them over and over, I heard Elly and Goldy talk about it. That's what folk grow Pennyroyal and Bloodroot and Tansy for, to make it quicker. There're no whithertos and whyfors to fret over."

Sam just looked at Daisy without saying a word. She groaned in frustration.

"You really are just like him, you know. You both look like somebody broke all the biscuits in the tin and dropped them in your tea more often than you don't."

"It's usually you, you're a great big biscuit glutton and you hog all the proper ones." Sam muttered. Daisy hooted in outrage.

"Oh ho ho, really, so that's how it is, is it? Well you can just bellyache to the trout then!" she pushed him as if she was going to roll him off into the river. Sam screamed, giggling, and kicked out at her.

"What's all this commotion, then?" a new voice asked them, making them both stop their wrestling game and turn to look. It was Mummy, her eyes all dark and shadowy and her hair pulled off her face in a way that made her look worn out like an old toy. She had a big warm shawl around her shoulders despite the heat of the day, and was leaning against Daddy as if she was very tired. Uncle Frodo was with them, too, carrying the big red book that usually lived in the study and wasn't to be touched by small curious hands.

"Hullo, Mum. I was going to push Daisy into the water and then laugh at her." Sammie answered. Rosie laughed softly. "What're you doing here, anyway?"

"I wanted to come sit by the water and hear a story. That room was sending my reason in spirals and loops."

"Where's everyone else?" Daddy asked. Daisy shrugged.

"Still up listening to Rose's stories, but she doesn't tell them right. She gives everybody happily ever afters, even the ugly sisters and the wicked queens."

"There's nothing wrong with that, lass." Daddy said in a quiet voice. Daisy shrugged again.

"Do you want to stay and listen to this story, then?" uncle Frodo asked. "Almost everybody gets a happy ending in it, but that's not the same as a happily ever after."

"No scary bits." Sammie said with a serious expression. "No bits in the dark with things that slink and stink. I hate those."

"I agree." Mummy nodded, sitting down on the pier and opening her arms. "Come sit with me, my darlings, and let's listen to your Sam-dad and uncle Frodo tell their story."

"Are you better now then, Mummy?" Daisy asked, snuggling in under the shawl.

"Nearly, duckling. Soon and nearly." she kissed their foreheads. "Now hush."

"Do you want to go first, Sam, or shall I?" Frodo asked, smirking.

"Oh, you first I think, Frodo dear. You tell the start of it better."

"All right." Frodo cleared his throat and opened the book. "When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating -"

"It doesn't start with once upon a time." Daisy whispered to Sammie. "Stories are supposed to start with once upon a time."

"And a certain little missus is supposed to mind her parents when they tell her to hush." Daddy replied, catching her in one of his big snugglehugs. "It starts as it started, and it ends as it ends, and the middle all gets us from one to the other."

"How does it end, Mummy?" Sammie whispered, because the story had always worried him a bit and he could never stay listening long enough to know the finish.

"Well enough. Not perfect, mind, but perfect's boring and plain compared to most other things." Mummy assured him. "Don't fear, my baby bird. It ends just as it's supposed to."

~

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