On September 21, 1482, Shire Reckoning, Master Samwise Gamgee gave a small dinner party for his closest friends and family. While the party was meant as a birthday celebration in memory of the two Mr. Bagginses--even though there were few left in the Shire who remembered either Bilbo or Frodo these days--it was also Sam's farewell. If they'd known, all of Hobbiton would have turned out to see their retired mayor off, but Sam had kept his plans secret. He'd never been much of a hobbit for ceremony, and wanted no fuss. There were no final public appearances, no speeches, only one last quiet evening at Bag End, a few parting presents given to those who would appreciate them most, and a tear or two shed over the dinner table.
The next morning, he rose early, got on his pony, and took the west road out of the Shire, alone.
The Far Downs were more settled than they'd been the first time he'd taken this same road 60 years before; there were now farm-houses, inns, and taverns all along the way, and the journey was not difficult even for an old hobbit who'd grown used to his comforts. Sam went in slow and easy stages, taking the time to have one last look around, and arrived at the home of his eldest daughter Elanor, who lived in the Westmarch beyond the Downs, without incident.
Elanor was waiting as he rode up to the front gate. She had come to take care of him for awhile after her mother's death at Midsummer, and they'd written each other often since she'd gone home. In preparation for his coming, she had packed her own bag and was ready to accompany him. From the Westmarch, it was only a short ride to the Grey Havens.
At the end of the Tower Hills, they stopped at a grove beside a stream for a brief rest before the final stage of the journey.
Sam had brought the Red Book with him and sat down beneath the trees with it open on his lap, trying to read. His eyes could barely make out the tiny letters on the pages anymore, but the long-familiar handwriting brought him to tears.
Soon, he thought, fingers moving gently over the old ink. I'll be seeing him, very soon. It was the only thing that had kept him going since he'd lost Rosie.
While he read and rested, Elanor had gone on ahead to look out toward their destination. When Sam lifted his head, he found her standing on the ridge of the hill above him, one hand up to shield her eyes from the sun, skirts and long golden hair fluttering in the breeze.
He was proud and, as always, amazed that he had produced such a daughter. Poems had been written about the famous beauty of Elanor the Fair. Though she was past 60 now and there were streaks of grey in the gold curls, she was still lovely. The prettiest of his daughters--the most like Rosie, Sam thought. She was as well-traveled a hobbit as he was. In her youth, she'd served as maid-in-waiting to Queen Arwen in the court at Gondor. The sea was no marvel to her; she had even been aboard a ship once, which was something he'd never done yet. Of all of his children, she was closest to him, the one who understood best why he wanted to do this.
He'd left Bag End to his eldest son, young Frodo, but the most important thing he owned would go to Elanor.
"Do you see anything, Nel?" he shouted up.
"No, Dad, nothing!" She came back down the slope to where he sat by their ponies and reported, "We don't have much farther to go. The road curves around the other side of this hill, then goes straight on toward the water. There are buildings, with a long quay, at the shore."
"But no ship?" asked Sam, with a pang of disappointment. He'd thought that one would be there, waiting for him.
"No ship, Dad." Elanor looked apologetic. "Are you certain that they're coming for you?"
"I don't know. Frodo said they might." Although many of his memories had grown vague with time, Sam recalled that. As if he could ever forget Frodo's words that last day!
No, Sam, you can't come, not yet anyway. Though you too were a Ringbearer, if only for a little while. Your time may come.
"But it was so long ago..." Sam continued. While there were a few Elves left in Middle-Earth, most had gone West years ago. Legolas was still here, and Elrond's son at Rivendell, but how many others? Was anyone at the Grey Havens? How would they know that he was ready to be taken away over the sea? "Maybe they've forgotten about me."
But it wasn't long at all for the Elves; in his heart, he knew they would not forget.
"Do you want go on?" Elanor asked him.
"The truth is, Nel, that I've felt very tired since your mother passed away. It's the end of my time, one way or the other. Knowing that I could to the Havens was the only thing that gave me the heart to go on living these last months." He had only waited so long because it seemed most fitting to start out on Frodo's birthday, the same day Frodo himself had left. "If it wasn't for that, I'd only sit at Bag End 'til I died--and that wouldn't be too far off. I might as well go on as go back." Then he asked, "You don't think I've gone dotty, do you, Nel?"
"No, of course not!" She frowned, concerned. "Has anyone said so? Goldy, Prim, or young Rose--have they been giving you trouble over this?"
"Well, some of 'em were worried that I wasn't quite right in the head after I lost poor Rosie anyway," Sam admitted. "When I said I was going to ride to the Grey Havens to see if the Elves would come and take me off over the sea, it looked like it was too true! They don't understand, but why should they? Things aren't the way they used to be when I was a lad." He shook his head. "All the magic's gone out of the world, good as well as bad. When I talk about Elves and wizards and rings of great power, it sounds like a fairy story and not something that really happened. It was before their time." He chuckled. "Sometimes it's almost like a story to me! If I didn't have it written down here--" he patted the page of the book still open before him, "I think I'd've forgotten most of it. Reading helps me remember."
"You must've been reading a sad part." Elanor sat down beside him and reached out to brush gently at a tear that had rolled down his cheek. "I always used to cry too--remember? Whenever we got to the ending, where you wrote about Mr. Baggins going away over the sea. It was so sad, and so beautiful."
Sam rarely read that part without weeping himself. "You'll have to do my reading for me today. I can't manage it. Will you, Nel, just a bit, before we go on?"
"Of course I will." Elanor moved the heavy book from his lap to hers and began to read, starting where he had left off: the 'worst place' of the story. It wasn't the 'worst,' not really, for worse had come afterwards, but it'd seemed like the most grim and hopeless moment to him and Frodo at the time. Sam shut his eyes and listened.
How long ago that was! It seemed like a thousand years since he'd been a young hobbit, following his master halfway across Middle Earth, into the darkest and most dangerous place of all --right into the heart of Mordor to destroy the Dark Lord's Ring. And they'd done it. If the magic had gone, then he'd had a part in getting rid of it. They'd banished a great evil and the world was a better place today, but Sam couldn't help feeling that many wonderful things had been lost as well.
Why should his children believe? He could hardly believe it himself. Had he really done all the brave deeds that were written about him in the Red Book? It seemed like it ought to have been somebody else.
Memories came back to him as Elanor read: the sudden darkness that spread over the sky and blotted out the sun; that long stair that cut into the side of the mountain, and how they'd climbed up and up until they were too tired to take one more step; the crevice in the rocks where they'd sat down to rest before making the last climb up to the passage into Mordor.
He remembered the conversation they'd had there on the stair; he'd been thinking of the heroes in all the old tales who found themselves in a tight spot, worse even than the spot they were in, and he wondered if people would tell stories about them. Well, that had come true all right! Not so much in the Shire anymore, unless it was that ballad about how he'd gone around replanting the trees that had been pulled down during the time of The Chief's Rules, but out in Gondor, Sam was sure, the old songs were still sung.
There was so much he'd forgotten... and yet, in spite of the many long years, he still saw Frodo's face clearly in his mind. Sam could see him now just as he'd been on the stairs, face drawn with dreadful weariness, but smiling as he said, "But you've left out one of the main characters: Samwise the brave. Frodo wouldn't have gotten far without Sam." And then Frodo had kissed him--that part wasn't in the book!
Suddenly, Sam wondered what Frodo looked like now. Had he grown old too, out over the sea, or had he become like the Elves, untouched by time and just the same as he'd been the day he'd sailed away? Had he been healed at last? Sam had to find out.
He opened his eyes and struggled to sit up. "That's enough, Nel. We ought to be getting on."
"Yes, Dad." As Elanor closed the book, marking her place with a bit of ribbon, she said, "I wish I'd known your Mr. Baggins. I don't remember him at all."
"You were no more'n a baby when he went away."
"I know, but I can't help wondering about him. I was born in his house, after all. I've listened to you talk about him all my life. You've read this book to me so many times that I can almost recite it by heart. And now you're going to be with him."
Sam was not expecting this last remark. "What?"
"That's the reason you want to cross over the sea: because he's there," Elanor spoke frankly, and looked up to meet his eyes. "You loved him, didn't you?"
Sam was surprised to find that, at his age, he could still blush and feel as flustered as a shy boy. Elanor understood even more than he'd thought. "Now how do you know about that?"
"It's the way you look when you're thinking about him--you look that way right now. You loved him," she said again, more softly this time, "the way you loved Mother."
"No," he answered, "it was different."
Elanor rose to her feet, then reached down to take his elbow; Sam let her help him up. He put the book into his saddle-bag before they climbed onto their ponies and rode on.
"I'm sorry if I'm prying," Elanor went on after they had taken the path around the foot of the hill. "But I've wondered for so long, and I won't have another chance to ask. Did Mother know?"
"'Course she did." It felt very strange telling his daughter about this--even he and Rosie had not spoken of it for over 50 years--but Elanor had already guessed at the truth and seemed to understand. Besides, this was a part of the story too. "I had to be fair and let her know before we got married, seeing as how Frodo'd asked us to come live with him at Bag End."
Elanor stared at him, astonished. "And she didn't mind? She wasn't jealous?"
"Jealous? Why should she be?"
"Maybe she wouldn't have said anything to you even if Mr. Baggins had stayed on, but a wife usually wants her husband to be hers, and hers alone. She doesn't like to share him, especially not with someone he loves more."
"Not more!" he insisted. "And not less either. It was different."
Could he explain the arrangement they had made between them? The two people he loved best had spared him from making a choice too hard for him. He'd felt as if he were being torn apart, until Frodo had encouraged his marriage to Rosie and invited them to join him at Bag End; and, once Sam had explained it to her, Rosie had agreed.
"Rosie understood," he told Elanor. "I couldn't pick one over the other, so we settled the matter in the best way we could." If Rosie had been jealous of the way he'd loved Frodo, she'd loved him enough to keep her peace. She would never have forced him to decide. "In all the years we were married, I never gave your mother cause to doubt me. I stayed by her right up 'til the end."
"And now you're going to him."
"Rosie would've understood that too."
Frodo had been the one to make the decision. Just as they were beginning their family, he'd left them. The pain of carrying, then losing, the Ring had wounded poor Frodo too deeply for him to endure any longer, but Frodo must also have seen that it was time to leave the two of them on their own. Sam believed so. Hadn't Frodo said as much when they'd taken this same journey to the Grey Havens all those years ago?
You cannot always be torn in two, Frodo had told him. You will have to be one and whole, for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be, and to do.
And Sam had enjoyed, and been, and done more than he'd ever imagined. He owed that to Frodo. Frodo had shown him that those unsuspected strengths and abilities he'd found in himself on their quest would serve him well for the rest of his life. He could be much more than he'd dreamt of in his youth.
He and Rosie had had a wonderful life together. After Elanor, they'd had twelve more children, and there was a score of grand-children now too. He'd become as well-respected and prominent a hobbit as the Shire could claim, even though he still sometimes felt like an upstart and a bit of a fraud. Who did he think he was, Samwise Gamgee, the gardener's boy, putting himself forward as master of Bag End! How did he dare run for mayor? But he had run, and won seven times.
There were so many things he had to tell Frodo when they saw each other again. It wouldn't be long now...
They were in sight of the Havens: a cluster of empty-looking buildings stood at the point where the mouth of the River Lune widened into the broader seaway. They rode toward them, then stopped within a few yards of the gate.
Sam climbed off his pony and handed the reins to his daughter; Elanor squeezed his fingers and gave him a small, reassuring smile. He walked slowly forward, feeling truly uncertain for the first time. Maybe he was a dotty old fool after all. Maybe the Elves had forgotten him...
Then, as he drew near, the gate opened and he saw that someone stood within: An ancient Elf, the same one who had greeted the party of travelers the last time he'd been here. Sam recognized him at once, for his beard was longer, to be sure, but otherwise he looked no different than he had 60 years before. He was the only Elf Sam had ever seen with a beard.
The Elf spoke. "Master Gamgee, welcome. You are expected."
Sam could only gape in happy wonderment. It was turning out just as he'd always hoped!
He turned to find that Elanor had come up the path behind him. "It's all right!" he told her, and looked to the Elf for con-firmation. "It is all right, isn't it?"
The Elf nodded, and stepped back from the gateway to invite Sam inside. At the other end of the courtyard beyond, they could see a flight of stairs that lead directly down to the long quay reaching out into the water.
"Do you want me to go in with you?" asked Elanor.
"I don't know how long it'll be..." Sam looked to the Elf again, but received no answer. "You should be getting home before your husband starts to worry."
"I'll wait with you awhile, and see you off if I can. Fast-red won't mind. He can get his own dinner if I'm late." She gestured back toward the ponies. "You'll want your things. At least, you're taking the Red Book with you?"
"No, Nel, I want you to have it. It's yours now. Folk are already forgetting the way it was before the war. When the last of us who saw the old days has gone, the book'll be the only thing to say it ever happened. Make 'em remember. Read on, the way you've done with me. Pass it on to your children, so that they'll know how it really was." Then he lowered his voice and added, "But what we were talking about before--about Frodo and your mother and me? Let's keep that between us."
"It will be our secret," Elanor agreed. "Thank you for telling me. I can be easy now, knowing that when you're far away over the sea, you'll be happy there." She was smiling, but tears sparkled in her eyes; they were near to the point of their own parting. They hugged each other tightly, then Elanor kissed his cheek, and said, "Remember me to Mr. Baggins, when you see him."
As they drew apart, she looked over his shoulder out at the water. "Look!" she cried. "There's a ship!"
Sam looked out into the bay, where she was pointing. He could just make out the wisps of white fluttering in the afternoon sun, the sails of a ship heading up from the distant sea. They had come for him.
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The Last Ship from the Havens by Kathryn Ramage
Story notes: Disclaimer: The characters and overall storyline are certainly not mine. They belong to J.R.R. Tolkien's estate, and I'm just playing with them to entertain myself and anyone else who likes this kind of thing. A few lines quoted here are taken from the chapter "The Stairs of Cirith Ungol" in The Two Towers and "The Grey Havens," the final chapter of ROTK.
July 2003
