Chapter Text
It was not very long after Rosie died that Sam began the long goodbyes.
He spoke to Tolman – Tollers – first. He was the youngest, after all. He looked nothing like his second namesake, Rosie’s brother. He favoured, alone of Sam’s children, the original Tolman Cotton, his grandfather: dark eyes, dark hair, strong hands. Like most of Sam’s children, he had never met his father’s old friend, Frodo Baggins.
“What do you mean, you will go to the Undying Lands?”
Sam caught the kettle before Tollers could drop it.
They were in the kitchen of Tollers’ farmhouse. It was new-built, some way aways from the old Cotton farm, where Rosie’s older brother and his children still lived.
“I need to go, Tollers,” Sam said, as gently as he could. “I – Rosie and I –”
Tollers sat down hard in his chair.
“Is it so hard, with her being gone?” he asked. “Are we –”
Tollers didn’t finish, but Sam could hear the end of the sentence anyway. Are we not enough for you? He blinked back tears, and went forward, grasping his son’s arm.
“You’re more than enough,” Sam said. “You are best thing I’ve done – all of you. And your mum, my Rosie, marrying her was the best thing. But –” he stopped. “My – Mr. – Frodo was – he was also one of the best things, Tollers. I love him too. You will not have me for that many more years yet, I think, if I stay. I’m getting old. If I’m going, I need to go soon. And if I don’t go – I will never see him again. Not in this life.”
“But –” Tollers looked ready to object again. Then he looked at his father more closely. “I know you were great friends, Da,” he said, more softly. He gripped Sam’s hands in return. “I know – I know you miss him. But it is hard to think – have you missed him all this time? It’s so soon.”
Sam hadn’t been Mayor of Michel Delving seven years times seven without learning how to hear the words behind the words. Do you regret staying with us?
“I have missed him, Tollers. I won’t deny it. But it was worth it. I’ve never regretted staying with your mother, with all of you. Mr. Frodo couldn’t live here. There was a choice, back then, and I made it, and it was what was best. Your mother could live here, and she was the best thing – you are all the best thing I’ve ever done. I had to let him go. That was sad, of course. But how could I regret loving my Rosie? Or having all of you? I never did. But she’s gone now, and now – now I need to do a new thing. Live something new. Because how can I go on here, in the old places – our places – with both of them gone?”
Tollers blinked slowly. Sam wondered if he understood.
“Will I never see you again?” he asked.
Tollers was crying. Sam was crying too. He had not realised how hard this would be. He kissed his son on the forehead, clutching him tight.
“You may yet see me again,” he said. “No-one knows what happens, you know, to us little folk. But I think you may yet see me again, beyond the walls of the world.”
“It is so hard –” Tollers choked. “I don’t want you to go.”
“I know, my lad.”
Sam remembered what it had been like. Not when the Gaffer had gone – that had been different. Gaffer had passed gently, in his sleep. It hadn’t been his choosing. He remembered, instead, standing at the Havens, watching the boat with Frodo in it sail, white, into the West.
“I know, my lad,” he said again. And he said what Frodo had said to him, though he knew it wouldn’t help, any more than it had helped him. “You must live, Tollers. You must live. I cannot live here, anymore. But you can.”
Then he let him cry. There were no more words to say.
*
The next youngest were hardly easier. Robin cried. Afterward, he went to see Tollers. They had always been close: the two youngest brothers. Ruby was better. She said she understood. Perhaps she did. But Sam thought she would cry when he left, where he could not see.
Bilbo -- who was, ironically, given Mr. Bilbo’s dislike for working with his hands, the only one of Sam’s children to love gardens as much as he – went out, silently, and began to weed. He pulled each one out violently, like a Took in close argument. But when he was done, he came back. “I love you, Da,” he said, his voice choked. “I wish you wouldn’t go.” Sam could say nothing to that. He had to go. But he had said that part already.
Daisy and Primrose he told together. Neither of them had ever married, and they lived in a nice little hobbit hole, in Hobbiton, fostering their nieces and nephews, and any other hobbit children who needed it. They understood better than the others.
“We will miss you, Da,” Primrose said, tearfully. “We will miss you something terrible. That Mr. Frodo of yours better be something, to be worth it.”
Hamfast, his first surprise child, one of the quiet ones (and how Gaffer would have laughed to see it, in his namesake) bit his lip, and asked what Tollers had asked, but more softly.
“Will we see you again?”
“I do not know, my lad,” Sam said, holding him tight. “I hope you will. I hope I will see all of you again.”
That left the others. Goldilocks, Merry-lad, Pippin-lad, Rose. He told them all. They all cried. He understood. But he was comforted. They would all have each other, their children. And they would have their children, or their nieces and nephews. They would not be alone. And he could not stay. His heart was already turned toward the sea.
He was leaving his eldest son, Bag End. It seemed appropriate. They had called him Frodo, after all, and Elanor was well-provided for, though she was his heir in most other ways: the keeper of the Red Book, and of the stories.
Frodo-lad did not cry. He was angry.
“Do you think I want a house, and not you?” he shouted.
“Mal,” Sam said. He had called his Frodo-lad Mallorn, when he was a babe in arms, and Frodo only just gone West.
His son’s face changed. He had always been like that. He had nothing of his namesake’s strange elf-like serenity. And nothing of his looks. Apart from Elanor, he was the fairest of Sam’s children, born the closest to the restoring of the Shire and the planting of the mallorn tree. His hair was as golden as the Lady Galadriel’s, as bright as the golden leaves of the Golden Wood in summer, or as Sam imagined it in summer – he had never seen the wood then, only the mallorn here. Would there be mallorn trees, in the Undying Lands?
“Mal,” Sam said “Mal, you know I love you.”
Mal came and embraced him.
“I know, Da,” he said. And then: “That Frodo’d better appreciate you.”
Sam did not know whether to laugh or cry. Then Mal’s face changed again.
“You always loved him, too, didn’t you? I mean, everyone knows you were great friends. But you were something more. Weren’t you?”
Sam froze. He did not know what to say.
“It’s all right, Da,” Mal said. “Whatever it was, I know you loved Mum. You stayed when he left. No-one thinks you didn’t keep your promises to her. But did you? Love him too, I mean, back then.”
“I loved him,” Sam admitted. “But I never said. It wasn’t like that, you understand. I was his gardener, and then his Sam, his servant, his esquire – they called me, in Gondor — even his friend. But never — that. Never like me and your mum. He wasn’t capable of anything new, for that tim, after. I know he lived with your mother and I, almost as if – but it wasn’t. And then he left me his house, as if I were his son! His son! I wasn’t so very much younger!”
That made Mal laugh.
“Certainly confusing,” he agreed. “But maybe he just wanted someone he loved to have it. It’s not just children we leave things to, when we go away, you know.”
Sam blushed.
“It wasn’t—“ he began. But then he stopped. It was so difficult to explain!
“Well.” Mal was smiling. For some reason, this exchange seemed to have cheered him up. “You had best give him my love. And tell him that he’ll regret it, if he hurts you. Though maybe no-one can hurt, over there. I hope so.”
*
Finally, it was time to go. He would speak to Elanor on his way. He had been saving her for last on purpose, and not just because of that. He was sure she would find it easiest to understand. She, after all, had met the Queen Arwen, and knew more of the elves than any of his other children.
Some had looked oddly at poor Rosie, when Elanor was born. She looked so unlike her father. There was gossip, then, though it faded when the other golden-haired children began to be born, and everyone remembered the bits of dirt he had planted, and saw the mallorn-tree grow. Then gossip gave way to wonder at what the Lady Galadriel’s gift had wrought. That was when they had started to call him Sam Gardner, because he was the gardener who had gardened the Shire into peace.
It seemed a long time ago now, somehow longer ago than the journey that had preceded it.
Sam packed his bags, much as he had then, at the very beginning. He felt, strangely, as if that young Sam were with him, inside him, still, as he had not for years. It was as if the journey had never ended, only paused for a good long while. He was surprised, when he looked down and saw his wrinkled hands on his walking staff. For a moment he had been back there again. “I want to see the elves, Mr. Frodo,” he had said. And then, later: “I don’t want to see elves any more, or dragons. I want something else now. I don’t rightly know what. I have something I need to do.” Had he done it? He wasn’t sure.
Sam shook himself. Pull yourself together, Samwise Gamgee, he said, firmly. And he went quietly out the door, leaving the key under a flower-pot, where Frodo-lad would know to look for it.
He was glad, at least, that the road to Under-towers and then the Havens was through West Farthing, not East over the Brandywine. Even now, the Eastern road was filled with memories. Leaving, for the first time, with Frodo – of course. Visiting Gondor with Rosie, and Elanor, who had later been made one of the Queen Arwen’s ladies. That had tickled Rosie’s fancy like nothing else. This won’t be like your first journey, Sam-my-lad, he told himself, firmly. You know what your old Gaffer would say. Less worrying, more mending. He hitched his pack higher on his shoulders.
He had to pass through Michel Delving, of course, on his way. He stayed with some friends, drank a toast at the pub, sang a few songs. But he didn’t tell anyone where he was going. They would find out soon enough.
“Stop by again, on your way back from that Undertowers,” Robin told him, cheerfully. “Or better yet, come back and stay! That young Frodo of yours can have your place, and here you’ll be halfway. You can see all your children and grandchildren. That’s the thing to do, as you’re winding down, in my opinion. Nothing better than family.”
Sam smiled.
“I don’t think I’ll be doing that, Robin,” he said, “I have a different plan in mind.”
“Ah well,” the old hobbit shrugged. “Worth a try. Don’t be a stranger, though, Mister Gardner.”
It had stopped being strange years ago, hearing himself called that. Sam didn’t know why it surprised him now. Something about the pack on his shoulders and the journey ahead, maybe. He felt more like Sam Gamgee again than he had in years, less and less like Samwise Gardner, seven times Mayor of Michel Delving.
“You’re a good friend, Robin,” he said, trying to keep his tone light and easy. “I’ll not forget.”
*
At last, he made it to Undertowers, the hobbit town under Tower Hills, where the elves used to dwell.
It was a more Tookish town than Sam might have preferred for his daughter. There were only a few proper hobbit holes, and the those that there were were strange: white-doored, with silver lanterns hanging from the front fences, and silver door-knockers. Hobbits preferred bright colours, generally, but the hobbits who had come to Undertowers were more Took-ish than most. They had wanted to live in sight of Tower Hill, where the White Towers still stood, though near-empty now, and within hearing distance – on a clear night – of the Sea.
Elanor and Fastred lived in one of the holes, the largest and the first-built. It was a grand old place, nearly as large as Bag End, which they had tunnelled out themselves, when Strider — King Elessar, Sam reminded himself, sternly — had first made Fastred lord of the Westmarch. Unlike most hobbit dwellings, its front door was big enough for a man – or an elf – to enter comfortably, and so was its ceiling, and the first few rooms, and more of the guest rooms than Sam would have rightly known what to do with. That made it a light and airy place – for a hobbit – not the cosy sort of hole Sam preferred. But then again, Elanor and Fastred had been expecting – and had had – Big People aplenty to visit, elves from the Havens, Men of the North, and even Men from Gondor itself. Hospitality, at least, was a proper hobbitish virtue.
Nonetheless, Sam eyed the large round door with some suspicion. He knocked, using the low knocker, not the silver bell which hung at an easy height for man or elf.
“Coming!” sang a clear voice from inside.
Then there was a crash.
“Elfstan!” Elanor shouted. Then: “Firiel! The door!”
Sam laughed. Tweenagers, he told himself, smiling. That had not been the easiest lot of years, for any of his children.
“Going, ma!” That was Firiel’s voice.
There was a thump, again, and a stomping of footsteps down the hall. Then the door opened.
“Grandda!” Firiel cried, sullenness disappearing from her face in an instant.
She ran over, and Sam spun her in his arms.
“How is my little lady?” he said.
She scowled.
“I’m not little!”
Sam tugged one of her pigtails.
“No matter how old you get,” he said, firmly, “You’ll always be my little lady.”
Firiel blinked up at him, then hugged him tight again. He hadn’t been expecting that.
“I love you too, Grandda,” she said.
Then she took his hand, and led him into the house, shouting: “Ma! Ma! Grandda’s here. All on his own, and he’s walked and everything.”
There was another thump, and the sound of a door slamming.
“Da!” Elanor called, coming into the hall from one of the smaller doors, a hobbit-sized one.
She and Sam embraced. Then she looked at him, carefully.
“You look well, Da,” she said. But there was something sad in it. “Come, put down that pack of yours. And the stick. You must have walked a long way.”
“From Hobbiton,” Sam agreed, putting the pack down with a sigh, and leaning his stick against the coatrack.
Firiel’s eyes widened.
“That’s more than fifty miles!” she exclaimed.
Sam ruffled her hair; she squirmed away.
“Glad to see you’ve been getting yourself educated, little lady,” he said, laughing. “I didn’t walk all the way without stopping. Why, I’ve had quite a leisurely trip.”
Elanor smiled. “Well,” she said, “I think it’s about time for –”
But which meal it was time for Sam didn’t hear. Elfstan walked into the room, barefoot, and covered in mud from head to ankle. His feet were wet.
“Elfstan!” Elanor said, again. “I said to wash off first.”
“I’m washed!” Sam’s eldest grandchild protested, gesturing at his feet. “And Grandpa’s here!”
“You’re dripping,” Firiel said, with all the superiority a younger sister could bring to bear.
“Out!” Elanor said, firmly. “Washroom first, then you can come have afternoon tea with Grandda. You’ll only get him muddier than he already is.”
Elfstan cast Sam a pleading look.
“Not that I’m not happy to see you, lad,” Sam said, smiling, “But you do as your ma says. She’s right. Mothers usually are, you know.”
Elfstan threw up his hands – as if to say all the world was against him – and went to wash off.
*
“Now,” Elanor said, settling in with a cup of tea, and a plate of little star-shaped sugar biscuits in front of them. “Peace at last.”
Sam snorted. Firiel and Elfstan had both taken a biscuit, and stayed to talk with him a time, but they were gone now. He loved them, but that was a relief to him too. He eased back in his chair.
“How on earth did you put up with us, at that age?” Elanor asked, following his thought.
“With patience!” he said, laughing. “Not my foremost skill. Nor your ma’s – though she was patient enough when it counted. Never would have thought how patient she’d be.”
He went quiet. He could almost see Rosie’s stern look, hear her voice.
*
“They said you were dead. But I’ve been expecting you since the spring,” she’d said, accusingly. “You haven’t hurried, have you?”
Her hands had been on her hips, her eyes fierce.
Sam had had to look at his boots, abashed.
“I’m hurrying now,” he’d offered, weakly. And then: “I need to get back to Mr. Frodo but –” well. That had not been the wisest thing to say, just then.
Rosie’d thrown up her hands.
“Be off with you,” she’d said. “If you’ve been looking after Mr. Frodo all this while, what you want to leave him as soon as things look dangerous?”
That was Rosie to a tee. Seething with impatience, no doubt. And jealousy, probably. And temper. But it was over quickly, as her temper always was.
“Take care of yourself,” she’d added. “And come straight back.”
And so he had.
“I didn’t mean to be so late,” he’d insisted, when he could.
“Well,” she’d said. “Late is better than never.”
How, in years afterward, they had laughed about that.
“Don’t you be late, now,” Rosie would say.
And he never had been. Not even when Frodo had left for the Havens.
Rosie hadn’t asked, not then, not for any kind of promise. He’d given her all his promises already: marriage, and a daughter, and the life they could have together. But he had promised anyway, without her asking.
“I’ll be back in a fortnight,” he’d said, with a kiss. “I won’t be late.”
And he hadn’t been.
*
Elanor grasped his hand. Sam startled.
“You miss her, don’t you.”
“I do,” Sam acknowledged, “Of course I do.”
He was past crying now, every time he thought of her. But it had been hard, waking in Bad End without her beside him. That was one reason he needed to go.
“I know what you’re going to say, you know,” Elanor said, at last.
‘What?” Sam blinked.
“You’re going to tell me you’re leaving. Going West, I mean. Up to the Towers, and then on to the Havens.”
“I – ” Sam did not know what to say.
Elanor laughed. It was a golden laugh, like her golden hair.
“Dad,” she said, “Do you really think Mal can keep a secret from me?”
“You haven’t seen Mal!” Sam protested.
“There is post in the Shire, despite your best efforts all these years as Mayor,” Elanor said. “And we’ve had us a post office in Under-towers these ten years and more.”
Sam laughed.
“I suppose you didn’t even have to get it out of him,” he said.
“No,” Elanor said. “And then there was Tollers. And Mer and Pip. And …”
“Yes, yes.”
Well, if you will raise your children to be on speaking terms, Sam-my-lad, he told himself.
Sam frowned at Elanor. She was smiling. All the others had cried. It wasn’t that she did not look sad. He could see that she was sad. But there was something happy, too.
“Ma would’ve wanted you to go,” she said, at last. “She always told me so.”
Sam smiled.
“She always told me so, as well,” he said. But he added, to be sure: “You do know I never regretted staying. Not for a minute.”
Elanor took his hand.
“I never thought you regretted it,” she said. “But still – you miss him.”
“Yes,” Sam admitted. “And now – well.”
“You don’t like to be alone.”
Sam blinked. He had not been going to say that.
“I’m not alone! I have you – and – and all the others, and – more grandchildren than I rightly know what to do with, and –”
Elanor shook her head.
“You like to have someone to look up to,” she said, in that way she sometimes had, that made people call her an elf-maiden. “You looked up to Mr. Bilbo, and then to him. And then you looked up to Mum. She knew that. She was so proud of it. ‘He looked up to me-’ she always told me. ‘To me. Such a good, loyal man as that.’”
“I was a Mayor for forty-nine years!” Sam protested, weakly. “I don’t need – someone to tell me what to do!”
Elanor shook her head and laughed again.
“Not like that,” she agreed. “Not to tell you what to do. You were a good Mayor. But you looked up to Mum. Like Uncle Merry looked up to King Theoden. Or like Uncle Pippin loved the Lord Boromir, even after everything, and swore allegiance to that Denethor for his sake — and then the Lord Faramir. You looked up that way for King Elessar, no matter how much you loved him otherwise.”
Sam blinked again. This was not how he had expected his evening to go.
“I suppose – I suppose that’s true,” he said, at last. “I never thought of it like that before. You don’t mind?”
“Mind?”
“That I loved – love – him, Mr. – My – Frodo, like that. Not — the way that I loved your mother. But as much.”
Elanor shook her head.
“You loved Ma enough to stay,” she said.
“I did,” Sam agreed.
That had been a hard choice, much harder than he would ever admit to his children. But it had been made the moment he’d asked Rose to marry him. After that, there had been no other choice to make. It was true that he did not regret it. Frodo hadn’t been able to stay. And Sam could not have left with him. Even if he had left with him and it would have done him no good for him, to live his life like that: torn in two, Frodo had said. He had been right.
Frodo had been like a ghost, at the end – or even from the beginning, from the mountain, or earlier. Perhaps even since Weathertop. Sam could still feel how cold his master’s hand had been, those long nights Sam had held it by his bedside, when they finally reached Rivendell. It wouldn’t have been right, for Frodo to stay on at Bag End, with Sam his shadow. It had been his time to go.
But that was also why Sam had to leave now. He had always known it, but it was even clearer now that Elanor had explained it to him. It was time. His children would miss him, but it was their turn to live without him. They had other stars to follow. And so did he.