Rosie's Mirror by Eykar
Summary: Variations on a theme of Mary Borsellino: Frodo's missing finger symbolizes inability to father children. His connection to the future is through Sam. His connection to Sam is through Rosie. Companion piece to Sam's Courtship.
Categories: FPS, FPS > Frodo/Sam, FPS > Sam/Frodo Characters: Frodo, Rosie, Sam
Type: None
Warning: Angst, Het Content
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 1 Completed: Yes Word count: 2182 Read: 1170 Published: July 31, 2011 Updated: July 31, 2011
Story Notes:
This story exists because I wasn't sure whether the same scene, written from Rosie's point of view, worked. Writing it from Frodo's point of view, and then bringing the two versions into alignment, made it work much better.

1. Chapter 1 by Eykar

Chapter 1 by Eykar
Now it was done: Sam's wedding to Rose was finally settled. It was with mixed, though clouded, feelings that Frodo accepted the success of his year-old decision. Almost a year before, he had woken from death, to find himself in Gondor and Sam still alive beside him, with a depth of love showing clear on his face that Frodo could willingly have drowned in. It could have been so, but Frodo quickly determined that it should not be, for his heart was already growing chill and vacant.

It had been clear even then that he could not last long enough, nor lovely deeply enough, to place any claim on Sam. Accepting the love so freely offered would have been a way to hold onto the world – a way both doomed and cruel. For Sam couldn't keep Frodo from reaching the end of his road, which would, he now knew, run out at the Grey Havens, and become only a trail of moonlight on water; Sam could only turn far from his own path trying.

In the sunlight of Gondor, Frodo had determined not to leave Sam more bereft than need be. Hobbits are not a deceptive race, but given two contradictory feelings a hobbit can choose to act on only one. Frodo had chosen, and stuck to his choice, withdrawing himself from many a comfort for many months. One of the few things that still made him glad was the knowledge that Sam would live for them both, and that knowledge was stronger than any pang over losing him.

Sam didn't see the path laid out for him because he was too busy walking it, his daily life crowded with work and with pleasure. He was a hero in tavern talk; even Frodo knew that, although Sam seemed not to. Frodo himself was talked daily smaller in the tale, his adventures dark and remote from the Shire folk. Nor did he especially wish his deeds told, much less added to. Knowing himself no longer part of the story, he seemed able to read parts not yet told, which gave him a rare, but deep satisfaction.

Frodo now had only to finish writing the history of the wars before waking from the dim dream of Shire life – or falling into a final dreamless sleep. He hardly cared which. The yawning vacancy where his heart should have been swallowed much that he might once have cared for. What reached his senses came from a distance: The freshness and richness of the spring air, the warmth of the sun outside the open window, the twittering of small birds sorting themselves into mated pairs.

He was staring sightless past the window, at a part of the tale not yet to be written, when a knock at the door startled him back into the living world.

There, to his surprise, stood Rose Cotton, golden-haired in the sunlight, which suddenly seemed both closer and brighter. Rose always seemed to awaken the ghost of Frodo's former self. He savored the feeling of surprise, even pleasure, at her presence, at the same time wondering why she had come, and let her in with a casual, "How are you, Miss Rosie?"

"Well, thanks," she said, and smiled, not with a new bride's nervousness, although a tightness pulled at the corners of her eyes. The uneasy thought struck him that she might have come to warn him off, now that Sam was about to be hers. For Rose seemed to know him, although for less than a year, in some ways better than even Sam did.

She was the mother of Sam's future children. That gave her the right to ask what she wished, as a gift to them. Best to get the asking and granting over with. He gestured her in.

Sitting before the open kitchen window, she said brightly, "I haven't properly thanked you for paying for our wedding party."

"It will be my pleasure," he answered her honestly. "What will you have to eat or drink?"

She asked for tea, and added, very gently, "We have a few things to talk about before the wedding." Her voice and face were composed and serious – very different from her usual delicately teasing manner. Faced with her, he suddenly wanted terribly not to lose Sam – cared far more than he ought.

"Do we?" he asked lightly, and took time to master himself, while filling and heating the kettle and fussing with the dried leaves. He put together a tray of tea and cakes and then sat opposite her, keeping his eyes on her face.

"Mr. Frodo," she said, "Sam's told me enough in his hinting way, and I've seen the rest, that I can figure what you've been doing. You've been playing, haven't you, at being more sick than you are, just to make sure that Sam can't have you?"

She saw to the heart of it. He felt as he had before Lady Galadriel, amazed at the swiftness of her attack, yet unsure of her purpose. He waited, neither moving or speaking.

She nibbled absently at a scone, then drank some tea, giving him a waiting, open look. He wondered what might show on his face. "I've seen you sick," she reminded him, "and I've seen you as you usually are. I've also seen how you look at Sam when you think no one's looking and how you put on a whole new face if he looks at you. I've heard him talk about you enough that I pretty well guess what you both are feeling."

Those months in her father's crowded house, she had been always busy, yet, he now realized, watching. After years of minding the Green Dragon, how could her eyes not be everywhere, simply from habit? How could he have guarded himself so poorly, thinking of hiding only from Sam?

She sighed and turned towards the window. He breathed easier. "You may know that I've been widowed," she said to the sunshine. "I also know what it's like to pledge myself and then both betray and be betrayed."

She put down her tea and the ghost of reaching stirred her arms. "I've loved both a lad and a lass, Mr. Frodo, and lost one to the grave and the other to a husband that she chose over me – although to be honest I lost her first to my own foolishness." He saw her let out another sigh, and glimpsed a journey far unlike his own.

She turned to him again, and said softly, "The longing never quite lets you go -- does it? I know you pushed him towards me. But why did you push him away from you?"

He found his tongue but not the words to answer so unexpected, so unmalicious, a question. "Am I so transparent?" he asked, half-joking.

She smiled, retreating. "Oh, not to most folk," she reassured. He could see her maneuvering among four brothers, or easing rowdy drunks out the door. Rosie would always know when to push and when not, at least among hobbit-kind. "They'll see only what they expect. And not to Sam, who trusts you for all that you've deceived him so long. But you still haven't answered my question."

"Oh, Rose," he began, but stopped short. Anything he might utter now could be only a cry of pain. She deserved an answer she could understand, one that made sense in Shire terms.

He willed himself to put shame to one side. "You are half right, Rose. I have pretended more weakness than I felt, yet it was not entirely a lie. I am weakening, not daily but steadily. The illness you saved me from was only a mortal one. To another, it would have passed quickly. But I had no strength to fight it alone." The memory of her good-humored, sensible strength was pleasant; unlike Sam's, Rose's gaze had never been clouded by any history of fear and desperate caring. Could that be why she called out such life as was left in him?

What must come next drove all pleasantness from him. "The quest claimed much of me. It used up a lifetime's worth of strength. And the Ring took even more. Part of me perished with it. I often feel dark and empty within. It is only a matter of time until I fade entirely from this world." He looked down at his empty hands, falling silent.

She finished for him, "And you would not take Sam from the world with you."

He met her eyes, with as much hope as grief. He had to trust her. "Yes."

Her five fingers curled over his four.

"I'll cherish him," she promised, and gently let go his hand. "But what will you do while waiting?" she asked without accusation or anger.

He gave a small shrug, feeling reprieved. "Finish my book, as I promised Bilbo. Wait for a ship to Valinor."

"To where?" she asked, startled.

Of course. Sam wouldn't have needed to mention it yet, one of countless tales brought home from his travels, which he would have years and years to tell. "The home of the Elves. It lies in the far west, past the Sea. The Undying Land, they call it in Elvish. For mortal beings like us –- I cannot say, but I long to know". In her presence, at least, the hope of knowing made him nearly happy.

They sat awhile, the single, distant, sound small birds twittering outside. Whatever Rose knew would be safe with her. She loved Sam and would not torment him by speaking of another love denied him. Perhaps Frodo should assure her of his continued silence. No, surely she understood.

"You've done a fine thing for the one you love." Her voice came soft as spring rain. "But you have what you want, now. Sam's marrying me. Will you think of doing me a kindness?"

Had he been too hasty, imagining all settled? "I'd consider any kindness you asked," he said cautiously.

"Well, then think of my wedding night," she said steadily, with only the faintest flush. He felt an answering, embarrassing warmth, and barely stopped himself from turning away angry. He had said he'd consider. He would. She went on, still gently, "Do you think I want to spend it knowing that however much he wants me, my Sam's still yearning after you – and you the more tempting for being out of his reach? Now that you no longer need to fool him, will you keep on luring him away? Or will you honestly share him with me? Would you steal him from me while giving him to me?"

He stared at her, gaping, neatly trapped in the last corner he had ever expected. He could find no way to deny her. Painful as it might have been, he had been prepared to give up whatever of Sam's time she asked. To be asked instead to love him –- But how could he tear Sam in half that way? –- No, she was right; the desire for one just out of reach was strong enough to touch even Frodo's half-frozen heart. How much more would it grip at Sam's heart, still living and beating?

Frodo's road would end long before Sam's, which stretched many tens of years. Yet he might travel forward a short way, as an escort. His deception had been a kindness. So would its end be.

The birds' singing sounded much closer now. Looking up, meeting green eyes deeply satisfied and deeply merry, he found himself laughing aloud.

"Oh, Rosie," he managed at last, getting control of himself. "You are a wonder and a treasure!" His sense returned with a thud. "I will have to confess to deceiving Sam." That meant facing deserved disappointment.

"Don't take it so hard, Frodo dear," Rosie said so naturally that he only belated realized that she now spoke to him as to a friend – that they had just become friends. "He'll forgive you, you know. He loves you as he loves me." As if he'd been waiting for those words, Frodo felt a sudden core-deep warmth.

Rosie smiled. "Ask him to move into Bag End with you. Let it be your wedding present to us. Either you'll work it out with him yourself, or we'll all work it out together."

We'll all . . . We.

If Frodo became part of the story once more, would that take him away from writing it? Perhaps. But it might well give him more strength and more time for the effort. It might also stop his fleeting visions of things to come. The tale would be changed, whether for better or worse he could not say. But its writing would be completed. It would be left with Sam, Rose and their children. If he lost his glimpses of their future, the present would more than make up for that.

With Rose's leaving the spring day greyed, but she would be back, and Sam with her. Frodo returned to his study, where he found a lingering sweetness in the cloudy air.
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