Chapter Text
Three months to the day after Frodo's return from abroad, Sam Gamgee came up with a plan. It formed in his mind as he lay in bed, just-awake and blearily watching Frodo dress across the room, buttoning his shirt and tucking it into his slacks. It was a rare thing that Frodo was up and out of the door before Sam was; but then, Frodo was always full of surprises, in his way. Probably this could be attributed to the fact that he was a Baggins. Sam, though, found it a personal virtue, and as he was thinking on this, the plan came to him in a flash of inspiration and affection, affection which was only bolstered when Frodo leaned across the bed to give him a harried kiss on the cheek in parting.
Ending up in bed with master of the house at Bag End was not something Sam had planned. It was simply something that had happened to him, the way a person might be struck by lightning or run over by a train. Even after all these weeks, it still felt that way: the front door slammed shut and Sam pushed himself up onto his elbows, stretching his legs out before him. He was grateful, still, that Frodo had chosen to keep the bedroom that had always been his, rather than importing himself and his belongings into the much larger room that had once belonged to his uncle. It felt right, that way. It felt, Sam thought, as if Frodo had never left at all.
He got up, and went to the kitchen for breakfast. Some days, he preferred to work before he ate, but today he had slept in long enough to be ravenous and contented himself with spreading some strawberry jam on a slice of yesterday's bread, and eating it alone at the table. It felt entirely out of place to do so, and Sam caught his eyes straying towards the front door several times, as if Bilbo Baggins might burst in at any moment and demand to know what he was doing, helping himself to the pantry, making himself quite at home. And what could Sam say to that? "Beggin' your pardon, Mr. Bilbo, but as it happens, I've helped myself to more than just bread and jam while you've been away..."
Grimacing, Sam washed the dishes he'd used at the sink, and then put them carefully away in their respective cupboards and drawers. An uneasy silence had settled, broken only by the clinking of ceramic and silverware, the sloshing about of the soapy water in the basin. Three months Frodo had been back, and the house was still vaguely dusty in the corners, still echoey in ways it hadn't been when Bilbo was pottering around each day, writing poems in his study and taking tea with strange guests in the parlour. Bag End had lain empty for a long time after his departure: 'departure' being the term Frodo used, and thus the one that Sam had adopted as well. The rest of the village, however, preferred the term 'disappearance'.
-v-
Bag End, Sam knew, was the most impressive estate for miles around in any direction. The house had been in Frodo's family for generations, and had, over the past few hundred years, acquired a number of odd annexes and expansions, creating the impression of a labyrinthine structure which did, admittedly, require some getting used to. Each room was adorned with a wrought-iron chandelier, fixed with real wax candles - the vast, arched doorways between the rooms dwarfed most men. The study, which Frodo had now adopted as his own, boasted the largest, sturdiest oak desk that Sam had ever seen, and bookshelves which reached the ceiling. Most of the storage cupboards were larger than Sam's own bedroom.
To Sam, however, the most impressive part of Bag End was its garden. Practically an estate in its own right, the garden sprawled for five hundred yards in all directions, mapped out by a mossy cobbled path. It encapsulated a small, chaotically-arranged orchard, as well as a pond large enough to skate on in the winter time. The garden alone had flawlessly survived Bilbo's absence, the only part of the estate untouched by the creeping decay, the emptiness. When Sam walked outside with his old pail full of tools in hand, it greeted him with all the warmth and familiarity of an old friend.
He handled his usual chores first: pruning the brushes, harvesting the peach tree, trimming the grass. It was a fine and sunny day in mid-July, the sort of day that made working outside feel as though it were a luxury, rather than Sam's job. The air was pollen-hazy, and the bees were about, everything in bloom. Sam had been tending this garden for years, and was quite proud of it. He'd designed several of the flowerbeds which now bloomed happily in their wood-lined pens himself, and he had been responsible for planting the honeysuckle which now crept up the brickwork in several spots. In the weeks after Bilbo's leaving, Sam had continued to attend to the house the best he could without access to the inside: he had shovelled snow from the paths, turned the compost and kept the gutters from freezing over, as though nothing at all had changed. Part of him expected that Bilbo would return home eventually, all harried and dishevelled, and disappointed, surely, if it turned out that Sam had shirked his duties and let the place go to rot simply because the master of the house had been away for longer than expected. In the end, Sam was repaid not with Bilbo's gratitude but with a bank cheque at the end of the month, amounting to his usual wages, signed with Bilbo's name but accompanied by no note, no explanation of his absence. Each month afterwards, the cheques came, and were cashed without fuss or question. Frodo's windswept return, however, had coincided with their abrupt end, and it was this more than anything else which convinced Sam that Bilbo was not only alive and well, but somehow aware of the goings-on in the Shire and, to some degree, around Bag End itself.
The thought was mildly terrifying, and he chose not to dwell on it too much. It was a risky game they were playing at, he and Frodo, and much of it relied on the fact that Bag End was now Frodo's own private sanctuary, a maze of high-ceiling drawing rooms and disorganised libraries and wine cellars in which he could do whatever he wished. And what he wished, apparently, was to have an ill-advised and spontaneous affair with his gardener. For the first thing he'd done after returning from his long dalliance in Europe was to seduce Sam - that was the only word, really, for what Frodo had done. Sometimes, Sam thought that it was as though Frodo had been taken more with the joy of being home, or some other phantom exhilaration, and that Sam had simply been the most convenient outlet.
Sam scolded himself for thinking so. It had been passion, not opportunism, he knew: Frodo had never given him reason to doubt that, as he'd spent the last several months showering Sam with the sort of attention he had never known before, all soft touches and adoring gazes and whispered monologues on the topic of Sam, always Sam, his virtues and his looks and all the little things about him that Frodo noticed because that was what he did, notice things and describe them in great and heart-rending detail and leave his audience speechless in the wake of it.
What could compare? Sam had no such way with words, and he knew it. There was nothing he could think to say that would capture the full length and breadth of it all. The stolen kisses out in the garden, the sense of completeness when they made love. The way Frodo looked at him when they were alone together. His disbelief that if had lasted this long, and the fact that he still counted the days as they passed, sure to be grateful for each and every one of them.
Three months it had now been. Sam had remembered. Frodo probably hadn't, because he was scatterbrained in that Baggins way, but that was fine. Sam smiled to himself as he took the basket of peaches through to the kitchen, ready to be washed. The day's work was not yet done.
He set the peaches down on the far countertop, out of the sun. Then, he collected six empty jam-jars from where they were kept stacked on the windowsill, filled them half-way with tap water, and then brought them outside, setting them down on a paving stone while he crouched before his first selection.
It was baby's breath, scattered throughout the flowerbeds, low to the ground. He clipped six generous sprigs of it, placing one in each prepared jar.
Then he moved on. Sam cut elegant white snapdragons, and arranged them carefully amongst the baby's breath in one jar, staining the pads of his fingers with yellow pollen as he did so. This one, he thought, would sit nicely in the study, on the desk, in amongst Frodo's typewriter and the many stacked books he kept nearby to reference while he was working. To the next jar, he added lavender: lavender to soothe, to relax, to display on the dresser in the bedroom, where it would be a welcome sight each evening and morning alike. Sam went on that way for some time, methodically choosing, cutting, and arranging. Marigolds, for the bathroom: to bring some brightness, as it lacked any windows. Elderflower, for the kitchen: just as delightful in tea as it was in a vase. Yellow roses for the dining table: for cheer, love, and perhaps some subtle irony. And for the mantle...
Sam's pride and joy were the hydrangeas, undoubtedly. The bush was nestled into one corner of the garden, which it dominated, its pastel blue and purple flowers drawing the eye away from the more diminutive plants which lay close to it. As Sam approached, he noticed several large, fuzzy bumblebees investigating the blooms. He knelt down on the ground, not minding them. Then he sat back on his heels, scanning for the best of the flowers.
The leaves at the base of the bush rustled, almost as though reacting to his presence. Sam looked down at them, alarmed: and as soon as he did, he heard the sound, one like nothing he had ever heard before. A choking, retching sound-- a death rattle-- Sam had leapt to his feet and backed off several paces before he could even register it.
There was something in there.
And for reasons he could not understand, Sam found himself saying, "Mr Bilbo? Is that you?"
There was no response.
Sam felt foolish as soon as the moment passed, and grateful that nobody had been around to bear witness to it. What had he expected? The voice of Bilbo Baggins to ring out for the first time in over a year: "Yes, lad, I just thought I'd admire the garden from a new angle today, that's all..."
The leaves moved again. Sam held his breath, taking another step away. It was probably some rabid animal, vermin, nothing he wanted to get close to...
Down in the undergrowth, where the soil was damp and dank and black, there appeared two staring, clear-blue eyes. Their dilated pupils fixed on Sam, undoubtedly; they peered out at him and Sam could do nothing but stare right back, too shaken to move from the spot to which he was rooted, transfixed-- those eyes-- of all the manner of creatures Sam had seen in his life...
And as quickly as they had shown themselves, the eyes blinked closed and were gone.
-v-
There was a lot to be done around the house, but by the time Frodo arrived home in the early afternoon, Sam found that he had managed to get around to precisely none of it.
He'd come in from the garden in a hurry, and got as far as dotting the makeshift vases around in all the various spots he'd picked out for them, though he was no longer in a sentimental mood. Afterwards, he'd had the presence of mind to wash his hands and change out of his grass-stained and filthy work clothes, before preparing a scant lunch which. Unable to help himself, he ate while standing over the sink, and staring out of the kitchen window.
"What are you up to, Sam Gamgee?" Frodo asked, teasing, when he found him there. He had returned home with high spirits, apparently.
Sam sighed. "There's something out in the hydrangea bush, and I'm afraid I don't know what."
"Really? What do you think it could be?" Frodo asked, sounding utterly unfazed. He came over to boil the kettle, carefully turning to stove knob to ignite the flame. "Foxes? It's that time of year, isn't it?"
"It wasn't no fox, Mr. Frodo, I'm sure of it." Sam looked out of the window again. "Foxes have dark eyes, you see, like dogs, and what I saw..."
He trailed off, uneasy. What had he seen? Blue eyes, glassy and round. Staring, watchful eyes.
"What are you afraid of, Sam?" Frodo said. He had followed Sam's gaze, and was eyeing the hydrangeas with some amusement. There had been no movement all afternoon, and there was no movement now. "Nothing terrifying could fit in the hydrangea bush, I assure you. It's quite small."
Sam could not argue: though the bush was quite large enough for a rather small person, he thought. A smile caught his lips as he confessed, "You know, for a moment there, I thought it might've been Mr. Bilbo."
"Ha!"
"Back from who-knows-where, just to have a go at me for..." Sam started to say, but the smile slipped when he considered all the things that his former employer might reasonably criticise him for. It pounded along with his heartbeat, the affair, the affair, the affair! "...Well, ah, for something or other, I expect."
"Yes, whatever for?" Frodo said, nudging him quite deliberately as he reached to the dying rack to grab one teacup, and then another. "I can't think of anything we've done lately that might bring about the wrath of my uncle."
"I don't know how you can be so callous about that, Mr. Frodo," Sam said, unable to keep playing along. "Doesn't it keep you up at night?"
"Well." Frodo kept his eyes down, focused on spooning dried dandelions into the teapot, then pouring the hot water in after them. "On the topic, I suppose there was something I wanted to talk with you about."
Frodo gestured towards the table, indicating that Sam should take a seat. He was reluctant to tear his eyes away from the hydrangeas, but he did as he was told.
"The topic of what, exactly?" Sam asked as he sat down, feeling as awkward as ever at the Baggins' table. At least his hands were clean. He clasped them together in front of himself, supposing that he ought to try to look composed, though he didn't feel it.
"The topic of things that keep me up at night, let's say." Frodo was smiling in an entirely knowing way as he set down the pot and both cups on the table, and then sat down himself. He looked up then, and caught Sam's eye. "Come on, Sam. Don't look so glum. It's good news, I promise you."
If it were truly good news, Sam found himself thinking, grimly, as Frodo poured the tea, you'd have broken out the sparkling wine, not this dandelion brew. But the thought nearly made him flush as soon as he had had it, because the last time Frodo had served sparkling wine was the last time Sam had seen him drunk, which was also, not very coincidentally, the first time they'd ever...
"I think," Frodo announced, with his teacup cradled in both hands, "that it's about time to begin renovations on the house."
Sam let out a breath of relief: it was not bad news. Nor, though, was it good news. It was barely news at all. His eyes wandered again towards the kitchen window. The sun was appearing from behind a cloud, streaming in. From this angle, he couldn't see the hydrangea bush at all.
"Where would you start?" Sam asked, politely.
"Well, first, I'd replace those old chandeliers with some decent light fixtures. The floors are due to be varnished, the lavatory ought to be redecorated, and the whole place is in dire need of decluttering." With one hand, Frodo gestured vaguely towards the kitchen-tops, which were busy with jars and mugs, and ornate pots which no longer fit into the over-stuffed cupboards. "And I would need your help, of course, with matters of carpentry and construction, and such--" Frodo was still talking, far more excited than Sam would have ever expected him to be about the matter, and just as Sam opened his mouth to interject that he didn't have the first clue about carpentry, as Frodo well knew, he continued in a rush: "and you'd be paid accordingly, but also... Such long hours might warrant you sleeping over quite a bit more often."
Sam closed his mouth. Then, carefully, he asked, "How often were you thinking I'd stay, Mr. Frodo?"
"Every night." Frodo was smiling broadly now; Sam raised his eyebrows. Every night? But then, that would mean--
"...For how long?"
"Oh, Sam, for as long as you'd like!" Frodo reached across the table and took one of Sam's hands in both of his, squeezing earnestly, too hard. "I'm tired of the charade of it all. You go home each night and return in the morning, but you could stay. Couldn't you? And who would question it?" Frodo looked as though he was hardly breathing; as though asking had taken something out of him. "What do you say?"
"Pardon, Mr. Frodo, but are you asking that I live here?" Sam asked, unsteady -- because he knew what he thought, and that was that it was entirely too good to be true. Someone new moving into Bag End would hardly go unnoticed by the townsfolk, even with the flimsy excuse of paid work. And he knew more than a few people who would question it.
"Yes." Frodo's grip loosened just a little, and he stroked the back of Sam's hand with his thumb. "Imagine it, wont you? Every morning could be like this morning was."
Sam gave him a cautious half-smile. "What, with you rushing off when I'm hardly awake?"
"And then spending all day dreaming of coming home to you."
"Oh..." Sam's voice came choked. It was a heart-wrenching thing, to imagine Frodo thinking of him the way that he, himself, thought of Frodo throughout the day: constantly, wistfully. He pushed his chair back and out, and it scraped along the wooden floor beneath. "C'mere."
Frodo got up, and managed to seat himself mostly in Sam's lap, though not exactly comfortably. They shared an indulgent kiss regardless, the sort that made Sam's toes curl inside of his socks and his fingers scrabble for purchase on Frodo's thighs, which bracketed his so nicely. Their first kiss together had been at this same table, drunken and messy. It also had been after, and not before, Frodo had decided to crawl underneath it, unbutton Sam's trousers, and do things to him he hadn't even known the name for back then. Sam had not minded the taste; of the alcohol, or of himself.
"Guess what it is I'm thinking of?" Sam said. He had drawn back from the kiss, just a little, but their noses still touched.
"I wonder." Frodo grinned, and leaned back, as if hoping to look at Sam more effectively. Then his gaze caught on something, and he went still. "Sam."
"Mm?"
"The hydrangea bush-- it's moving."
At that moment, with his lap occupied and his gaze lidded, Sam could not have cared less what the hydrangea bush was doing: the thing could've sprouted legs and run off into the wilderness for all it would bother him. But then, in a flash, he remembered those cold, unnatural eyes, and the way they'd stared, peering out...
"I'll sort it," he decided, tilting his hips slightly to urge Frodo to get up. "You stay here, now, and finish that tea of yours. I won't be but a minute."
But Frodo was already following him, with a roll of his eyes and a sigh of, "Honestly...", and Sam didn't care to challenge him on the matter. Grabbing a nearby broom, he left the back door open in his wake and headed down the steps, down the path, and over to the hydrangea bush, which was rustling actively now, moving at a constant. Frodo came to a stop at his side, and together they watched it for what felt like several minutes before Sam finally steeled his nerves and stepped closer.
"Right," he said, wielding his broom. "Here we go, then."
"Gently," Frodo warned. "I don't want you to hurt it."
Sam rolled his eyes. "As if I'd hurt it," he said, and then went as carefully as he could. He prodded at the lower branches, sinking the broom-handle into the leaves farther each time he did so, meeting no resistance until suddenly--
Something small and grey streaked out of the bush and between Sam's legs, making a frantic beeline for the back door. Sam turned, but Frodo was already tearing after it, tripping up the stairs but managing to make it into the house before diving for the creature. There was a clatter of something being knocked over. Sam ran to him, and found Frodo was sprawled on the kitchen floor with an animal twisting and hissing in his arms. Up close, it was more pink than grey, skeletal and furious, writhing as though possessed.
"Get the door!" Frodo said, with urgency, and Sam did, fumbling, though he could not look away:
"What is that thing?" he shouted, not meaning to raise his voice but unable to help it--
And as if in response, Frodo struggled to his feet and all but threw the creature onto the dining table. In one fell swoop, it managed to displace everything. The teapot skidded and spilled; the vase of cut roses toppled to the floor and smashed, sending water and glass shards and sad, sodden flowers all over the place. The animal skidded as well, violently, but caught itself with its claws embedded in the tablecloth, and crouched down low.
"It's a cat," Frodo said, between sharp breaths. He was resting his weight now on one of the dining chairs, gripping tightly to the back of it. "It's just a cat."
But this was unlike like any cat Sam had ever seen. It looked, he thought, like a cat that had been dead and buried and dug up again, for it had no hair, and its bare skin was marred with several shallow, untended wounds. It hissed again, vicious, and Sam saw that only six or seven teeth sat within its blackened gums, with gaps or broken stubs where the rest should have been.
"Lord, look at its skin," he said, pointing out a row of unfortunate sores which sat along the curve of the cat's wrinkled neck. Then, concerned, he looked to Frodo. "I don't think you ought to go touching it again, now."
"Oh, the poor thing." Frodo sighed, then ran a dirt-streaked hand through his hair. There was muck all over him now, all down the front of his shirt and even smeared across his nose. He was filthy because the cat was filthy. For some reason, this thought put Sam on edge. "He looks as though he's been out on his own for years."
"That he does," Sam said, and he could see why. Who would want a cat like that, when the sight of it was nearly gruesome? It reminded Sam vaguely of a sickly infant, with all those bones and its folds of pale pink skin. The eyes, though, were different. Wide in their panic, but cold, detached, like it was afraid not of harm or death but something worse, something Sam could not even imagine. Something about its stare Sam feel that this cat had long ago reached the ninth of its lives, and yet somehow it was still clinging on, rotten and hurt and trapped, but breathing.
"It wont do," Frodo said, shaking his head. Sam recognised the determination on his voice: the sound of a Baggins who had made up his mind. "We'd better find him something to eat."
"Ah, but you know how cats are, Mr. Frodo," Sam said, watching as Frodo crossed the kitchen and opened the fridge to scan its contents. Doing so required turning his back on the cat, which only sat there, staring mistrustfully between the two of them. Surely, Sam thought, it knew it was being discussed. "Once you start feedin' 'em, you can't ever be rid of 'em, can you?"
Over his shoulder, Frodo shot Sam a look of barely concealed disgust. "I thought you cared for animals."
"I do!" Sam said, taken aback. "I care for the birds and the squirrels that come to the feeders, and for the frogs that live in the pond. But I think perhaps you ought to take this one to a shelter, Mr. Frodo, or a vet," he added, surprised by how gentle he had managed to keep his tone. The reality was that he didn't care where this cat ended up, so long as it wasn't Bag End. In his mind's eye he could imagine Frodo scratched and bleeding, Frodo breaking out in those same sores, contagious... he stepped forward and placed a hand on Frodo's arm. "They'll know how to help him there."
"Help him?" Frodo turned, and shrugged him off. "Look at him, Sam. You know what they'd do to him! They'd have him put to death before we were even out the door!"
"And would that be such a crime?" Sam blurted out. At the look on Frodo's face, he backtracked. "I only mean-- he would be at peace, then, after all his... his suffering. Look there," Sam said, and despite himself, he moved closer to the cat, hoping to turn it so Frodo could see a particularly long, weeping gash on its belly. He had barely reached out his hand when the cat hissed again, spitting, and lashed at him, claws out. Sam recoiled, snatching his hand away too late. "That cut, on the underside," he said, though gritted teeth. "That's infected, that is, and badly. It wont heal up on its own."
Frodo acknowledged this by pressing his lips into a thin line. He stood there a moment, eyeing the wound, with the fridge door open behind him. Sam glanced down at the cut on his own hand. The beast had caught him, but barely broken the skin. It would need a thorough cleaning, regardless.
"I think he would be at peace here as well," Frodo eventually said. "With me." He went to the cat, then, and, to Sam's horror, reached out to stroke its bald head. The cat did not hiss, did not run, did not do anything but sit there, passive as any sweet little housecat Sam had ever seen. When Frodo touched behind its ears, it began to purr. Frodo cracked a smile at that. Sam shook his head. He tended to favour everything that made Frodo smile, but this...
And then, all at once, what Frodo had said began to sink in. "You mean to keep him?" Sam asked, though he did not want to hear the answer. The cat, quite abruptly, backed away from Frodo's hand and went low on its belly again. It gagged once, a false start, before it began to make the choking sound Sam had heard in the bush. Go-llum, it said: go-llum. Sam had to raise his voice to be heard over it. "Inside?"
Frodo laughed. "Where else?" he said, and the tone of his voice told Sam all he needed to know: the conversation was over. Frodo was the master of the house, and he was happy, and Sam was in no position to take that from him, not over something as fickle and small as an ugly cat from the garden which had harmed no-one at all.
But still, as he looked on, something inside him was twisting up tight. Tight, and tighter still as Frodo gave the cat those constant, loving strokes along its spine as it retched, and retched, and retched.
-v-
There was no real work to do in the garden by afternoon-time, but Sam created some for himself regardless. He set about pruning the fruit trees, and made a right show of weeding the path by hand. That way, he could leave Frodo alone with the cat for a while. Perhaps then he'd come to see all of the reasons he shouldn't want to keep it, Sam thought ruefully. At the same time, he knew it was too late for that. Frodo would not change his mind. It simply wasn't his nature.
And what was it, anyway, about Frodo Baggins and making outlandish decisions? Sam wrenched a stalk out of the earth with more force than it needed. Lofty, wild decisions they were. First, he'd decided to go wandering off half-way across the continent for more than a year without hardly telling anyone where he was going. Though he had never admitted it, Sam's heart had been broken that day. For all those months, he'd wondered where Frodo was, what he was doing, and who he was doing it with... if he was happy, or safe, and worst of all, if he would ever return. He had not written. Sam hadn't yet asked why. Every time he thought about doing so, a lump formed in his throat: a fear, that Frodo had simply been too busy, too smitten with the wider world to even remember that Sam existed.
And yet, he had come home. Dripping wet from a sunshower, he'd arrived on the doorstep and found Sam out in the garden, like always, and they'd hugged and talked and gone through two meals while drinking in between, and ended up... Sam still felt faintly dizzy when he thought about that. Another outlandish decision, though this time Sam was equally to blame. Though blame felt harsh -- how could he have restrained himself? How could anyone? Frodo was easily the best-looking person in the Shire, as well as the most intelligent, and kind, and thoughtful. He was special in most ways Sam could think of. In all of his life, Sam had never felt the way Frodo made him feel. That gravitational pull, like the Earth revolving around the Sun.
"While you were off abroad," Sam had told him one afternoon, while they were all wrapped up in the bedsheets and one another, "I got to thinking about who I might like to marry."
"Did you?" Frodo raised his eyebrows. One of his hands had been carding absently through Sam's curls, but when he spoke it went still, and slid instead down to the nape of his neck.
Sam nodded. "I couldn't imagine it, though. Being married," he said. Though the touch was soothing him, he kept his eyes open. He wanted to see Frodo's reaction. "Leastways, I couldn't imagine liking it. All I could imagine was wanting to run off and join you, wherever you'd gone."
Frodo had leaned close and kissed him then, so slowly and carefully, as if he had understood the significance of it all.
You've spoiled me, Sam didn't say, though he thought it, and felt his eyes burn, and tears trickle from them. You've spoiled me against anyone else.
And Frodo had kissed him like he knew.
Sam sniffed, and wiped at his eyes with a gloved hand. It all felt so wonderful in the moment. That was the problem. He wanted to believe that it was a pleasure and a miracle, to be so in love, and to be loved in return. He wanted to believe, too, that they could stay forever behind the heavy wooden door of Bag End, and have it be just the two of them and nobody any the wiser. Every morning the same. Just as Frodo had said.
It was past dinnertime when Sam finally went back into the house. He found Frodo sitting at the kitchen table, which had been cleaned of both the cat's watery vomit, and all traces of the broken jam jar. He was reading a book, and had made a fresh cup of tea, which sat steaming in front of him.
Sam was unsure what to say. He finally settled on, "Where's the cat got to?"
"He's hiding," Frodo said, without looking up. "As cats tend to do."
"Right." Sam nodded. "Well. I suppose I'll be off home, then."
Frodo nodded, still reading, and Sam frowned. By now, he was used to lingering kisses in the study, and heady conversations about what they'd get up to after the next day's work was done. Once, before Frodo's leaving, they would've gone and spent their evenings together with a crowd of assorted friends in the Dragon, though those times had long passed. Frodo rarely socialised, and in fact hadn't set foot in the old pub since his return. Sam tended to avoid the place as well, now that his showing up meant all conversation would turn to being about Frodo, and where had he been, and why was he so reclusive these days? All Sam could say, when faced with such questions, was that Frodo was awfully busy writing his book, and that he meant no offence. What he could not say was that Frodo seemed to crave nothing more than isolation: not loneliness, as he still frequently allowed himself the company of Samwise and a few of his favourite cousins, but a distance from society as a whole.
Sam wished this wasn't the case. The more Frodo retreated, the more the townsfolk liked to talk about him. The more mysterious he became, the more speculation he inspired. And surely he noticed none of it, because he rarely interacted with anyone in the first place.
As Sam watched, Frodo turned a page, apparently too engrossed in his reading to notice that Sam was still there. Sam could not help feeling lost. He was used to Frodo looking like he'd miss him while he was gone. Now, he was only looking at his book.
But when Sam reached the front door, he heard the scrape of Frodo's chair.
"Wait," he said, and Sam turned around. Frodo was standing, hovering by the table, but looking troubled. "...I'll see you out."
"Alright," Sam said, for a lack of anything else. He waited while Frodo came over, took the key from its hook, and opened the front door. It swung open, and a slight chill came in. Sam stepped out onto the path. Then, feeling as if he should, he turned around.
Frodo looked as through he were waging some kind of internal debate with himself. He was leaning against the doorframe and avoiding Sam's eye, gazing inexplicably at an empty plantpot near the front gate.
"I noticed the flowers," he said, after a moment.
Though he was touched, Sam said nothing, and only bowed his head.
"Were they from the garden?" Frodo asked.
"'Course they were," Sam said, somewhat gruffly. He hesitated, then decided there was really no use in prolonging such a pointless argument. He reached out and touched the back of Frodo's hand and, when he felt no resistance, entwined Frodo's fingers with his own and gave a very gentle squeeze. "Just for you, my love," he said, with sincerity.
Frodo raised his eyes, and smiled, as though things were all at once back to normal. "Will you speak with your family, then? About the renovations?"
"I will, if you're sure about it and all," Sam said. He withdrew his hand, and his gaze wandered up to the creaking, cracked eaves of the roof just above. "If you don't mind my asking, what's got you so set on fixing up the house all of a sudden? You never seemed to mind it much, before."
Frodo sighed. "I don't know what I should do with it," he said, crossing his arms. "In my mind, it's Bilbo's house still. I don't know if I ought to change it, or sell it... or both. Either choice seems wrong, in truth," he admitted. "But then, he left it to me for a reason. I don't imagine my uncle would've wanted me to live in his shadow forever."
"No," Sam agreed. "I don't suppose he would have."