Title:  Awaking at Minas Tirith
Author: Kathryn Ramage
Email:  kramage@erols.com
Pairing: Frodo/Sam 
Rated:  PG13
Summary: A sequel to "Temptation at Cirith Ungol."   Frodo con-
templates following up with Sam after their return from Mordor. 

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 a little bit to entertain myself and anyone 
else who likes this kind of thing.

February 2003 

!~|i|~!

After Sam had gone down the ladder in search of food and clothing 
in the lower levels of the tower, Frodo did not get up right away.  
He sat for awhile with his knees drawn up and the cloak wrapped 
around himself from chin to toes, and considered what had just 
happened.

All of it seemed like a strange dream.  At first, it had been 
pleasant: from hopeless imprisonment, he'd opened his eyes to 
find the orcs gone and Sam there to rescue him.  Then, once the 
Ring had been returned to his possession--or he to its--every-
thing changed.  A haze had descended over his mind, similar to 
the one that overtook him when he felt compelled to put on the 
Ring, as if he no longer had a will of his own.  He'd heard a 
voice, his own but not _him_, speaking seductive words.  He had 
kissed Sam, touched him, whispered more beguilements to draw 
him down and make him forget the danger they were in.  Only the 
pain of a slap had cut through the haze and brought him back 
to himself.  

Now, he was left with certain pieces of disquieting knowledge to 
sort through.

While _he_ had not acted of his own volition, Sam's responses had 
come solely from his heart.  That in itself was no surprise--he'd 
have to be a fool not to guess how Sam felt about him--but he was 
certain that his friend would never dare breathe a word of it to 
him.  After this, however, he couldn't pretend that he didn't see.  
The secret was out in the open; Sam knew that he knew.  

Worse still, whatever force controlled him, it had exploited 
those unspoken feelings to try and trap them here, and it had 
almost succeeded.  

Gingerly, Frodo touched the swollen part of his lip, where Sam 
had struck him.  How could he blame his friend for lashing out?  
It must have humiliated Sam beyond all endurance to be taken in 
by that particular trick.  

And, most troubling of all was not what had happened, but what 
he felt even now that it was over.

Frodo got up and began to pace the room, slowly at first as he 
worked out the cramped muscles in his legs, then more rapidly as 
his thoughts grew more turbulent.

Until now, they had been like children.  Whatever love they felt 
for each other, it had been innocent, with no deeper desire than 
to be together.  Sam seemed happiest just holding his hand.  But 
all that was changed.  Something had awakened inside him--some-
thing frightening, disturbing... and exciting.  He could not be 
innocent any longer. 

Could this be the Ring's influence over him?  He had regained 
control of himself, but he still heard its whispers at the edge 
of his thoughts, felt the weight of it on the chain around his 
neck.  He saw it when he closed his eyes--a circle of flame that 
grew larger every day.  He would not fully be free until it was 
destroyed.  Would these new feelings fade then?  What would he
do if they didn't?

The sound of someone approaching put an end to his speculations.

He went to the trap-door and crouched to peer down into the
darkness below.  He could see a faint, star-like glow moving 
toward him: the phial that the Lady Galadriel had given him,
and he had lent to Sam.

Frodo let the ladder down.  After a moment, a bundle of filthy-
looking clothes was tossed up onto the floor beside the opening, 
and Sam climbed up behind it.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Frodo," he said as he appeared at the top of the 
ladder.  "It's nasty stuff, but it's the best I could do.  I had 
some trouble finding anything small enough to fit the likes of 
us."

But he barely looked at Frodo as he helped him dress.  His eyes 
were cast down and, where he would not have given a thought to 
touching his master before this, he now hesitated.  While hold-
ing out a pair of breeches for Frodo to step into, his hand 
accidentally brushed bare skin; he drew back quickly as if the 
touch had burned, and he stared at Frodo with a wild expression 
for a moment before turning away.
  
Frodo continued dressing himself--the breeches first, then a 
stained and stinking undertunic, before he sat down on the floor 
to put on the boots Sam had brought him.  They had to cover their 
feet to complete the disguise, but he had never worn any kind 
of footwear before in his life.  As he puzzled at the tangle of 
leather-cord lacings and tiny metal hooks, he glanced frequently 
up at Sam, who was sorting through the remaining clothes.   

He had seen that expression before, through a haze.  When he'd 
knelt here and offered himself, Sam had had that same yearning 
look. 

*He put a stop to it only because he saw that it was a trick,*
thought Frodo.  *If it had really been _me_, giving myself 
whole-heartedly without deceit, he would have been happy to 
come to me.*

The thought made his heart pound hard, and his fingers fumbled 
so clumsily that the boot-laces became impossible.  He glanced 
up at Sam again; their eyes met, and both hobbits blushed. 

They couldn't go on like this.

"Sam, this is ridiculous.  We can't let what's happened come 
between us.  I need you too much.  We have a mission we came 
here specially to fulfill, and that's too important to let fail 
because we're afraid to be near each other.  Don't you see?  If 
we do, then that trick might just as well have worked.  It's 
stopped us either way." 

Sam immediately looked abashed.  "You're right," he mumbled. 
"We oughtn't think of ourselves when there's bigger problems to 
concern us."

"When this is finished and we are out of Mordor..." No. Frodo 
couldn't see that far into the future.  He didn't know if his 
quest was going to be successful, nor if he and Sam would 
survive to make their way to some safe place even if they did 
succeed.  Who could say what would happen after that?  

"'Til then, maybe it's better if we don't go on talking about
it," Sam concluded.  "After all, least said, soonest forgotten."

"Yes, I suppose so."  They were almost back to normal; the best 
course to take now was to put them both in their proper places.  
"Will you come and help me with these beastly things?" Frodo 
requested, playing the Master and waving at the boots.

Sam seemed relieved that he had taken charge again.  "I don't 
know how the Big Folk manage `em," he said while he threaded 
Frodo's boot-laces through the hooks.  "Doesn't seem natural-
like, does it?  I doubt they'll be comfortable to walk around 
in, but we can't go leaving our footprints to be tracked all 
over Mordor."  More at ease now, he swiftly helped Frodo to 
finish dressing in an oversized mail-shirt and helm.

"There."  He fastened a long, black cloak around his master's 
neck.  "You look a proper little orc now."  He picked up the 
elven cloak, which Frodo had dropped on the floor, and rolled 
it up to hide in his pack before he put on his own orc gear.  

Once they left the tower, more urgent matters claimed their 
attention.  They did not think of themselves.  During those 
last nightmarish days in Mordor, Frodo saw Sam simply as his 
one support--and if Sam intended anything more than comfort by 
putting both arms around him while he slept, he was not aware 
of it.  

Eventually, there came a time when he ceased to think of Sam at 
all, to think of anything except the Ring.  It filled his mind 
with a circle of fire, consuming all other thoughts.  But with-
out Sam, he would never have found the strength to keep on going 
to the end.  And at the end... well, Sam could not have helped 
him there.

Rescue came just when death seemed certain, and they were borne 
swiftly out of danger on eagles' wings.  They woke in Ithilien,
where they were reunited with their friends and honored as great 
heroes, and then taken to the white city, Minas Tirith, to re-
cover from their ordeal.

!~|ii|~!

They remained at Minas Tirith throughout the spring following the 
coronation of King Aragorn.  The other members of the reunited 
fellowship took a house together in the highest circle of the 
city, just outside the citadel. While most of them were involved 
in the serious business of assisting the king in the repair of 
the city and its restoration to its former glory, Frodo spent 
his days at the house, resting before the long journey home.

The little garden terrace behind the house was his favorite spot.  
On one sunny May day, he climbed up to sit on the balustrade, as 
he'd often done before.  From here, he could look out over the 
winding silver path of the river Anduin, the ruined city Osgili-
ath, and the dark wall of mountains that rose beyond.  

When he heard someone come out onto the terrace, he glanced over 
his shoulder; Sam stood below, frowning up at him with worry.  
Just who he had expected.  Since caring for him was Sam's sole 
responsibility, his friend was always nearby.

"You shouldn't sit there all the time."  

This scolding made Frodo smile.  "Afraid I'll fall off, Sam?" 

"Whenever I have to go looking for you, I find you up on the 
garden wall, staring out at Mordor.  It's not good for you, Mr. 
Frodo.  You mustn't brood."

"I'm not brooding.  I like it up here."  Frodo curled into the 
curve of the pillar at his back and gazed out at the eastward 
view.  "It's quiet, when I want to be by myself and think."

"Seems like you're doing a lot of that lately."  Sam was still 
frowning, as if he did not approve of this activity.  "Call it
brooding or not, that's what it is.  And I'm not the only one 
who's noticed."

True.  His friends could not help observing that he was often 
preoccupied.  Like Sam, they assumed that he was haunted by his 
failure at Mount Doom, and his cousins in particular were per-
sistent in their attempts to divert and cheer him.  But they 
were wrong; that was not what was on his mind.  Gandalf alone 
might have guessed at part of the truth, for he had let it be 
known that he was willing to listen to anything Frodo might wish 
to tell him.  Frodo had declined.  There was only one person he 
could discuss this with, once he was ready to do so.

He thought he was ready now.

"What is it you're thinking about?" Sam asked him.

"What happened to us there."  He waved a hand in the direction
of Cirith Ungol, which was too far away to be picked out from 
among the jagged peaks.

"It's best not to dwell on unpleasant memories."

"But not all of it was unpleasant."  He turned back to his 
companion.  "Was it?"

He could have let the matter drop, dismissed that incident in 
the tower as one of a number of strange and horrible things he 
had done under the Ring's influence, but this was the one thing 
he could not disregard.  The desires that had been awakened in 
him had not faded.  He was free of the Ring, but not of that.  

He had spent hours examining these new feelings and trying to 
decide what to do about them.  He had come to believe that, even 
if they had been born in an evil moment, they were not in them-
selves bad.  The knowledge he had gained that day did not have 
to corrupt him.  He could use it to find his own happiness, and 
Sam's as well.  After all that they had been through, and all 
he had lost in consequence, that seemed most important to him.

"Sam," he asked, "you do remember that day when you rescued me 
from the tower?"

"Of course.  But we were going to forget that, Mr. Frodo.  You 
weren't yourself."

"We agreed not to speak of it while we were in Mordor.  I'd like 
to now, please."  Sam squirmed and ducked his head, but could 
not refuse him.  "When I kissed you, you liked it, didn't you?"

"Yes," the answer came reluctantly.  Sam went red to the tips 
of his ears.

Frodo recalled words that he had spoken, but were not his own. 
"It was something you've wanted."

Sam's head, still down, moved in the barest nod.

"If we had been somewhere else, someplace safe, would you have-?"

He didn't finish the question, for Sam became so flustered that 
Frodo immediately regretted pushing him so hard.  It had been a 
mistake to bring the subject up. 

"I'm sorry," he said.  "I shouldn't have asked.  I won't say
anything more.  It's no good if you're still afraid of me."

Sam looked up at him, eyes wide.  "I'm not afraid of _you_.  I 
never was."

Comprehension dawned.  He thought of the way Sam had drawn back
from touching him, remembered that look of longing in his eyes. 
"You mean you're frightened of what you'll do?"

"What I would've done."  Sam began to pace.  "When you held out 
your hand to me and said 'Stay,' I would've.  Never mind that 
orcs might come up and find us any second--I didn't care.  I 
was ready to toss everything away.  As long as it was you and 
me, the rest of the world could go to pieces."  He turned away, 
and his voice became so faint that Frodo could hardly hear him.  
"It almost did too.  We almost lost it all, because of me."

"But we didn't--_you_ didn't.  You saw through the lies, and 
you stopped it before it went too far."

"I hit you," Sam said miserably.

"With good reason," Frodo answered.  "I understood why you had 
to do it. I can't blame you for a moment of weakness, Sam.  I've 
been... weak myself.  No matter what you've done, your heart has 
always been good."  Sam appeared consoled by this, but something 
still troubled him.  "Is that all?"

"What d'you mean, 'all'?"

"There's nothing else wrong between us?  You're holding yourself 
back--I can see it.  What is it?  Are you still feeling guilty 
about what happened?"  That was likely.  While he had taken time 
to think through his feelings, Sam had hidden his away, and tried 
to forget.  "You aren't ashamed of loving me, are you?" 

"No!" Sam protested, utterly astonished.  "How could you even 
think that?"  He came closer to the wall to grip the edge of 
the stone lip just below where Frodo sat and to look up at him 
earnestly.  "Don't you know?  I'd do anything to be with you.
Even there in the tower, right afterwards, if you'd just said 
one word to me..." 

"Not then."  Frodo shook his head.  "It wasn't the right time.  
But why not now?  There are no more obstacles.  The burden of 
the whole world's fate is not upon us any longer--it is just you 
and I.  Our quest is over.  I am myself now, and I am as well as 
I am ever going to be."  He glanced down at his hand and curled 
his fingers to hide the stub of the missing one.  "I don't want 
to lose any more time.  If all you need is a word from me, then 
I will say it."  

As he extended one foot down to climb off the balustrade, Sam 
reached up to help him.  He was in no danger of falling; the 
marble bench set into the wall was inches beneath his toes, and 
the flagstones of the terrace not far below that.  He could step 
down easily without assistance. 

Instead, he jumped.  Sam caught him about the waist, then re-
coiled, startled, when Frodo placed a quick kiss on his mouth
and said, "If I ask you to come to my room tonight, will you? 
Will you spend the night with me?" 

There was a long silence.  Then, "Yes," whispered.  "Yes, if you 
want me to."  One hand stole shyly back to Frodo's waist, as if 
Sam weren't sure if this familiarity was allowed.  When Frodo 
came back into his arms, he held onto him tightly.  They kissed, 
longer this time.  

Only the sound of voices within the house drew them apart.

"Tonight," said Frodo, and went to greet their friends, who had
just returned from the citadel.  Sam followed him in. 

!~|iii|~!

Early that evening after dinner, Frodo plead weariness and went 
to his room.  Once there, he undressed, got into bed, and settled 
down to wait.  He tried to read, but grew more nervous as the 
minutes passed.  Would Sam be brave enough to come to him after 
all? 

At last, there was a tentative knock at the door, and Sam came 
in.  "I'm here," he said simply.  

Frodo set aside the book he hadn't been reading.  "Will you lock 
the door?"

Sam hastened to turn the key in its lock, and then stood watching
him expectantly, as if waiting for another command.  

Frodo knew he was committing an audacious breech of gentlemanly
conduct by inviting his servant into his bed.  He had seduced 
Sam today--there was no other word for it--and he'd done so in 
defiance of the proprieties.  They were past that now.  

Even before they'd left the Shire, Sam had been more than the 
gardener; Frodo had counted him as one of his closest friends 
since his first days at Bag End as a boy.  Sam had not had to 
accompany him into Mordor, but he'd stayed with him every step 
of the way, risked his own life, even carried him when he was 
too weary to go on.  Sam had proved beyond all question that he 
would be there right to the end.  That dogged devotion went so 
far beyond the duties of an ordinary servant that it was ridi-
culous to think of their relationship on those terms anymore.

He had to make Sam see that as well.  He would not play Master 
again.

He sat up and kicked aside the bedclothes.  "Come on then."

Sam had lied about not being afraid, for he looked plainly terri-
fied as Frodo took off his nightshirt and tossed it to the foot 
of the bed.

"It's all right, Sam."  Frodo held out a hand.  "Come here to 
me."  The last time he'd done this, Sam had slapped him; this 
time, however, there was no trickery behind the offer.  

Sam came to him gladly.

!~|iv|~!

It wasn't the first time he woke with Sam's arm around him and 
the sound of snoring in his ear, but this morning, everything was 
different.

The light from the eastward windows was still faint and gray, pre-
dawn, and the room was chilly.  Frodo pulled on his nightshirt and 
found his quilted robe on the chair he used to climb up to reach 
the washstand.  He lit the fire in the hearth before he returned 
to sit at the foot of the bed and watched Sam sleep.

Once they'd overcome their uncertainty, some clumsiness, and a 
stunning mutual ignorance, they'd learned how to love each other.  
He'd found joy in the night, even laughed out loud as he had not 
in months.  Now, with the new day, a quieter feeling had descended 
upon him, and he was calm and resolved.  He knew what he wanted 
to do.

When he'd first returned from Mordor, he had simply been relieved 
and grateful to find himself alive, but during these weeks of 
recovery, he'd begun to see the truth.  His injuries had healed 
and he was rested; he _was_ as well as he was ever going to be, 
but he was not strong and never would be again.  The infirmity 
was not in his maimed hand, nor in the old wound he'd sustained 
at Weathertop, although both were part of it.  When the Ring had 
been destroyed, it was as if the heart had been cut out of him.  
He would not recover from its loss.

How long did he have?  Two years? Three?  A little more, perhaps, 
but he was not destined for a long life. 

He could not regret the sacrifice--he'd only done what had to be 
done--and he wanted no rewards or great honors in return.  Sam 
liked the idea that there would be songs and stories about them, 
but he did not seek fame either.  The one thing he wanted was 
that which he had gone to protect in the first place: his home 
and the people he cared most about, including the one who still 
lay sleeping before him.  

After Midsummer, they would return to the Shire.  Frodo looked 
forward, almost achingly, to being in that comfortable, familiar 
place again, where things were on his own scale.  He was tired of 
the Big Folk's world.  Once home, he planned to settle down at 
Bag End, and whatever time he had left would be spent in peace 
and quiet there.  

There was movement in the lump of blankets as Sam stirred, finally 
waking.  He opened his eyes to find the bed beside him empty.  
"Frodo-?"  

"Right here, Sam."

Sam lifted his head from the pillow and pushed the tousled curls 
from his face; he looked relieved when he found Frodo sitting 
there.  "I was afraid I'd dreamed it," he admitted with a foolish 
smile.  "But it's all true?"

"All true," Frodo confirmed.

Sam sat up, and noticed then that the sun had just arisen and
there was already a fresh fire in the grate.  "You're up awfully 
early.  Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."  He wouldn't tell Sam yet.  Why upset him?  He meant 
for this to be a happy time for both of them, to leave his friend 
with pleasant memories--and, maybe, something more substantial?  
"I've been thinking about going home.  When we return to Hobbiton, 
will you come and live with me at Bag End?  I want you there, but 
not as a servant."  That was what he could give Sam: he was never 
going to marry nor father a child, but after he had gone, there 
would be a new master of his own choosing at the house under the 
hill. 

To his surprise, Sam seemed disappointed by the invitation.
"What's wrong, Sam?  Don't you want to move in with me?"

"It's not that," Sam assured him.  "But, if I do, I'll still 
be able to look after you, won't I?  You want a lot of looking 
after, you know."

Frodo beamed at him.  "Yes, of course, you can go on looking
after me."  He scrambled up the length of the bed to fling his 
arms around Sam, and send him back into the feather mattress 
with a shout of laughter.  "I wouldn't have anyone else!"

He would make the best use of his remaining days, and have Sam 
with him until the last.  There would be as many mornings like 
this one as he could possibly have.  That was what he wanted 
most.  Surely he deserved that much?   

!~|end|~!