The water is cool and clear as Sam rakes deep grooves in it with his fingers, watching the slow surge of it smoothing his tracks almost immediately, only the gentle ripples revealing that he has been there at all. There are green speckles smeared across the back of his hand when he slowly withdraws it, little rivulets of water trickling down his fingers to pool on the pondside stones worn smooth by two generations of children, and a long tendril of pondweed has coiled itself about his index finger. He unhooks it carelessly with the thumb of that same hand, feeling it soft between his fingertips like a lock of hair long shorn and cast aside.

He leans over to drop it back into the pond and his own face stares back at him, reflected blue-black in the September half-light. The discarded weed scatters the image, soft ripples darting outwards in smooth, mobile circles and carving meandering lines across that gentle shadow of himself.

A frog's tapered nose breaks the dark surface at the far side of the pond and Sam chuckles softly to himself as it scrambles up the bank to fold itself beneath a nearby rock, looking altogether like a rather pompous miller who has been rudely awoken from his afternoon nap. He notices immediately that it is a rather elderly frog, its leathery skin dark and mottled by age and sunlight.

Sam has always been fond of frogs and toads and newts, fond of the sort of green, slimy creature that other people seem to want to avoid at all costs. Sam's never understood that. For one thing, frogs are good for the flowers. For another...well, there's some sort of distinguished appeal about them, to Sam's mind, something about the careful grace of their movements and the steady pomposity of their gaze.

Frodo was always fond of the frogs, too. Oh, he'd not hesitate to relocate himself in a hurry if even the most harmless of grass snakes happened to poke its nose into sight, but frogs were different.

Sam remembers sitting curled up here on the grass when he was very small, Frodo's arm braced about his waist lest he should overbalance, a frog no larger than a thimble cupped in his small palms. That had been a September evening too, the day before Frodo's birthday, or perhaps the day before that. He's always remembered that, because Frodo had laughingly offered to entreat the tiny frog into Sam's care in lieu of a birthday present.

"Do you want it, Sam?" he'd asked, cupping Sam's hands in his own larger palm, gently stroking the frog's flat head with the pad of his thumb.

"It's your frog, Mr Frodo," Sam had replied hurriedly, and Frodo had chuckled and said that there were quite enough frogs at Bag End for Sam to have one, if he wished.

"You have him," he'd offered, "And look after him. I'll give him to you for my birthday."

"For your birthday," Sam had breathed, and the little frog had gazed placidly back at him. "What's his name, sir?"

"I don't know, Sam," Frodo had admitted laughingly, passing a damp hand absently through Sam's curls. "You decide."

Sam had gazed at the frog pensively for a moment - but only a moment - before pronouncing it Frodo the Frog. And Frodo it had remained, until the sad summer some years later when Sam had returned mournfully from the pond bearing the unhappy news that his frog seemed to have departed for sunnier shores. Not that, to Sam's mind, there could be a better place for a frog to spend its days than in the small, ramshackle pond at Bag End.

It isn't a common practice for a hobbit to have a pond installed in his garden; Sam doubts whether even the Tooks have one away at Great Smials, but Mr Bilbo was never one for conforming to what was expected. If he wanted a pond, a pond he would have, and Sam for one is glad of it.

Frodo always seemed to be glad of it too; Sam had often been obliged to clamber over him to prune the hedge or some such when he was sprawled by the pond reading one of those great tomes of his. One memorable evening Sam had found him fast asleep on the grass, spectacles askew on his nose and an unfortunate book half-submerged in the water where it had slipped from his nerveless fingers. Sam had rescued the book and manhandled Frodo into something that more closely resembled a sitting position so that he could unhook the twisted spectacles with slightly less difficulty, and Frodo had woken up blearily, laughing at his own carelessness.

There had been deep indentations on the bridge of Frodo's nose, Sam remembered, just where the band of faint summer freckles had emerged, and he'd rubbed at them gently with thumb and forefinger.

"Are you trying to scour the freckles off, or are you just trying to straighten that little bump in my nose?" Frodo had inquired whimsically, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

While Sam was trying to conjure a response to that, Frodo had laughed again and leaned up to dot a light kiss against the corner of his mouth. That had done nothing whatsoever towards helping Sam regain the power of speech; Frodo had already set out the book to dry with stones lodged carefully between its pages before Sam had recovered himself and made to straighten Frodo's spectacles. Frodo had beaten him to that as well, hand darting out to snatch them up out of the grass before Sam could protest. He'd hooked the legs behind his ears and pushed the frame up onto his head as if it were a tiara, locks of his dark hair curling over the wire, daring Sam to comment.

Sam doesn't know quite what solace it was that Frodo found in the water, but often, in later years, he had found his master staring silently down into the depths, apparently enraptured by something more than pondweed and frogs.

Not that anything more than that had ever been needed to sustain the children's attention. Frodo had been quick to introduce Elanor to the newts, lying on his front in the grass with the baby tucked firmly under one arm, her tiny plump hands balling into fists as she shattered the surface of the water. And oh, the sound of their laughter mingling in the deepening stillness had been sweeter than the finest Elven harmony to Sam's ears, Elanor's delighted chortling high-pitched and thick while Frodo breathed soft chuckles into the curling gold of her hair.

Frodo had ensconced himself here on that last, dreadful evening of sorrow-sweet stillness and fragile silence, his knees folded under his chin and his knuckles whitening where he clutched his own legs tenaciously as if to keep himself from collapsing. Sam had found him so, tear-trails silvering on his cheeks, and his mouth had been wet from weeping, a fierce ferric undertone of blood sharp on Sam's tongue beneath the salt.

Sam remembers the desperate intensity of Frodo's mouth, the clumsy clashing of their teeth and the fierceness of Frodo's hand tangled in Sam's hair. His bones had felt brittle by then, like a bird's; Sam had been half-afraid to touch him lest he should crush the unprotected frame to fine powder, but the unexpected strength had still been there in the trembling pressure of Frodo's lips, tears trickling into the kiss even while hollow sobs surged into the back of Sam's throat.

The darkness had fallen thick and complete about them that night before Rosie had ventured outside to find them with the sleeping baby cocooned in her arms. There had been tears on her face too, her eyes deepset in red-rimmed sockets, and then there were four of them, Frodo's hand in her hair and Sam's lips on her cheek and Elanor's baby-soft hair brushing the underside of Rosie's jaw. Sam remembers the soft upsweep of Frodo's eyelashes like black smudges against his cheeks in the darkness, the taut pain in Rosie's face and the constricting pressure of tears in his own jaw. He remembers their reflection in the dark stillness of the water, the four of them tangled together, the blind press of his lips against Elanor's cheek, Frodo's mouth; the soft glow of understanding in Rosie's eyes because it didn't matter any more.

Sam stares absently now into the water; all of a sudden it is black and he wonders how night fell without his noticing. Somebody is approaching; he can hear the rustling of footsteps in the undergrowth, and sure enough here is his Elanorelle, golden hair shining palely in the moonlight.

"Come on, Sam-dad," she urges, "You said you'd read to us from the Book tonight, and the lads aren't half getting impatient."

He laughs a little, deep in his throat, knowing that she's not too old for stories however much she tries to pretend that she is. Sam doesn't think she ever will be. She's too pensive, too dreamlike, too much...like Frodo for that part of her to ever really go away. With an effort he struggles to his feet, the click of his backbone sharp in the night, and she laughs.

"Getting old, Dad?"

"I got old a long time ago, Elanorelle," he tells her quietly, smiling to soften his words as he gently twines his fingers in her long, curling hair.

"It's his birthday, isn't it?" she asks softly, after a moment, her face solemn and thoughtful, and he laughs again, but this time it's a melancholy sort of laugh.

"Yes, lass, it is. And Mr Bilbo's. Goodness knows how old he'd be, now."

"As old as you?" she teases, a smile curving her lips, and this time Sam's laugh is sincere.

"Enough of that," he scolds, lacing his work-worn fingers through her soft, slender ones. "Where's your mother?"

"She's hiding in the kitchen," Elanor says. "She says she isn't crying, but she is. I can see the marks on her face."

All of a sudden Sam remembers the pain etched in Rosie's face that night, her hollow eyes red-rimmed, and he thinks, Sam, you're not the only one as is hurting.

"I'm coming," he assures his daughter. "Better two sad together than two alone."

Elanor smiles, reaching up to brush a tear from the bridge of his nose, and he follows her blindly, the pond lying dark and silent behind them as they walk, long tendrils of Mr Bilbo's blackberry bushes clutching lugubriously at their ankles under shadow of night.