Title: Festival Dancing
Section: 3 of 3
Pairing: Rosie/Sam/Frodo
Rating: R
Categories: slash, canon, het
Author's name: Ruby Nye
Summary: A festival dance entangles Rosie in the truth of Sam and Frodo's relationship.
Rosie stood in the Bag End mudroom, hands on hips, wondering what else she could do. It was the morning of the Fourth of January, barely time for second breakfast, and easily half of the items on Mr. Frodo's list were completely made up, and the other half had gone quickly. She took off her apron, wondering if she dared go into Mr. Frodo's study and look at the wealth of books; then the mudroom door opened and in came Sam and Mr. Frodo. Sam promptly dropped his pack and swept Rosie up in his arms and kissed her, as Mr. Frodo laughed behind him. "That's very unfair, Sam, rushing ahead like that," he said cheerfully, and some small part of Rosie's mind marvelled at how she could still hear him through the roar of her own blood in her veins as she wound her arms around Sam's neck and returned his kiss. Then Sam let her down, and Mr. Frodo took her hand and pulled her in to kiss her as well.
"There's bread and cheese and jam, and chicken soup cooking---" Rosie's attempt to ask what they might like for luncheon was caught in another kiss from Mr. Frodo, as Sam laughed and put his arms around her waist from behind. "We ain't hungry, me dear," Sam murmured into her ear as he nibbled on it. "All we both want is you."
Rosie gasped at that, and Mr. Frodo took the opportunity to slide his tongue up over her lip, and she couldn't help but yield to his kiss, parting her lips further, and felt herself moan as Sam nibbled down her ear to kiss her neck. Some worry buzzed in the back of her head, but she hardly heeded it until Mr. Frodo let go her mouth to claim Sam's, and as she turned her face up to watch them kiss she felt herself sandwiched between two excited hobbit lads, and had a sudden thought of presenting her parents with an inexplicably dark-haired, blue-eyed child. The gasp that wrung from her was not one of passion, and Sam and Mr. Frodo broke off their kiss to regard her with concern. "Rosie?" Mr. Frodo asked as Sam took a step back to give her space. Rosie wriggled free, taking a deep, heaving breath, and couldn't raise her eyes, so she looked at her disheveled feet as she struggled to explain. "I can't, I can't catch a baby," she stammered.
Rosie heard a brief rummaging, and then Sam slipped his hand beneath her chin to turn her face up to his, holding a slightly crushed flower in his other hand. She looked from the warm brown eyes to the drooping green umbel, and tilted her head, and realized she was looking at a bitterroot flower. "You would not believe what grows in the greenhouse at Brandy Hall," said Mr. Frodo, smiling and shrugging out of his weskit as he came up behind Sam, who handed Rosie the flower and caught the discarded weskit. As Rosie looked at the flower, drooping its tiny stems and flowerlets over her hand, Mr. Frodo continued merrily, "however, I am afraid that my cousin Pervinca says the flower tastes even worse than the tea."
"We should've given it to you before," Sam said apologetically. "But, well..." he trailed off, blushing eloquently, and Mr. Frodo patted him on the back, his hand settling to caress Sam's shoulder. Rosie couldn't help but smile. "Then let me just fetch a cup of water---"
"Wait, I have something better." Mr. Frodo rummaged a moment in his pack, and pulled out a small jar of honey with a honeycomb in it. Rosie looked at the jar, and looked at the flower, and looked at Mr. Frodo and looked at Sam, and then decisively ate the flower, as she might have eaten a violet in spring or rose-petals in the summer. It was breathtakingly bitter, worse than the tea, but also faintly florally sweet. Sam dipped out some honey on his finger, and Rosie licked it off, and looked up at Sam as she did, feeling his flesh warm under her tongue, watching his lips part and his eyes darken, feeling the heat in his face catch within her.
She leaned back, just a bit, and looked at them again, Sam breathless, his breeches in serious danger, Mr. Frodo smiling with folded arms, but something deeper flickering in his eyes. Rosie looked at them both, and felt her heart so full it hurt sweetly, and laughed for the sheer odd joy of it all. "Well, then," she said, holding out her hands, "where were we?"
"What are you thinking of?" Mr. Frodo whispered, his breath warm on her ear. Rosie lay in the middle this time, and it was mid-afternoon. Sam, who had valiantly kept trying to get up and do any one of several necessary chores, only to be pulled back by two sets of arms and kissed into an active idleness each time, now lay sound asleep with Rosie pulled into the curve of his body. Mr. Frodo, who seemed not sleepy at all, lay on his back with one hand behind his head and the other arm stretched beneath Rosie's head, his hand gently tangled in Sam's hair. Rosie started to reply, "Naught at all," but Mr. Frodo's whisper, both gentle and firm, cut through the denial. "In all the time I have known you, you've never been one to think nothing. I care to hear your thoughts, Rosie."
Rosie raised her head a little to look at Mr. Frodo, wondering if he really wanted her to drag her bumpy doubts into his soft warm bed. "I was thinking," she said slowly, "about where this all is going." Mr. Frodo nodded encouragingly, and she laid her head back down and went on. "When I stopped us, before Sam gave me the flower, what I had thought of was, was holding a babe in my arms with blue eyes and dark hair, and what everyone would think. If I caught by Sam he'd still have to wed me, and I promised him not to bind him, but if I caught by you....I couldn't do that to Sam, and I couldn't do that to you, have everyone think you were only my friend, only taught me my letters and told me lovely stories, to..." Mr. Frodo's sucked-in breath showed he understood. "And that Sam was such a fool. He ain't. His name is wrong, you know."
"That it is," Mr. Frodo said, with a little smile, and nodded to Rosie to go on. She took a deep breath and tried not to giggle when his eyes skimmed down off her face for a moment, and went on. "One day, though.... Mr. Frodo, bitterroot don't always work, and even if it did....I know you have something ahead of you, I know Sam's needed by your side, but what of me? What am I to do? How long can I live with, with having this but twice a year?"
She hadn't known she'd thought this till she said it; she didn't know she wept till Mr. Frodo pulled his hand from beneath his head to smooth it over her cheek, turning a little to kiss the tears from her eyes. "Rosie. Don't---no, I have no right to tell you not to cry. I sometimes ask myself if I should never have kissed you, that Lithe." Heart clenching, she turned her eyes to his, and he smiled reassuringly at her. "No, I always answer myself that I am glad I did. Sometimes I ask myself if I should never have kissed Sam, either, but no one knows better than you what a wise choice that was." Rosie smiled at that, and raised her hand to lay it over his where it lay on her cheek. "I'm glad you did, Mr. Frodo. I'm glad you kissed him, and I'm glad you kissed me."
"I don't deserve either of you," he said warmly. "I have such fortune. I just wish, I wish I had answers for your questions. I wish I could tell you when I will. Without those answers, do you still want, well, this?" His gesture took in the bed, full of cuddled hobbits, but somehow something more; his face was so troubled Rosie felt she should share some of her joy in their strange friendship, as well as her worries.
"Yes, Mr. Frodo, I do. I can have Sam without binding him, and I can have you. When I was a wee thing, my friend Samwise came to me and told me he'd seen an Elf go into Bag End. I ran with him to gape at a tall lad, dark and fair with eyes like pieces of the sky." Mr. Frodo blushed at that, smiling almost shyly. "Sam once told me you are the finest thing he's ever seen. Now, most lasses would be put out to hear such from their lads---" they both chuckled at that--- "and he blushed that blush of his right after, but I could see why he said it. If I can only hold you twice a year, at least I can hold you at all."
Mr. Frodo smiled at that so that his eyes fairly shone, and kissed her on her mouth. When he started to deepen the kiss Rosie giggled and pulled away to sit up. "Sir, I should be up, luncheon won't make itself, and poor Sam looks done in."
Mr. Frodo regarded her with a mixture of crossness and gratitude. "You know I didn't really ask you here today to work."
"Yes, sir, I do," Rosie replied deliberately. "But I told my parents I was coming to work, and there is work to be done. You can keep Sam company, but don't you wake the poor lad, " she finished teasingly. Mr. Frodo rolled his eyes and flopped on his back, and Rosie giggled again before she carefully climbed over Sam and out of the bed. When she looked back, Mr. Frodo had wrapped himself around Sam, pulling up the blanket a bit more; he smiled at her and shut his eyes again, looking content, and Rosie smiled to see it.
Rosie came to the answers to her questions soon enough, perhaps sooner than she might have liked, if she could have gone back and chosen again. They never had another day like the one in January, and though Rosie understood why and never asked, sometimes she thought another might be nice. Then she reminded herself that bitterroot didn't always work, and held onto her memories in her narrow bed at night. That spring, the wizard Gandalf visited, and after that visit Mr. Frodo started seeming more often distant and dreaming, and he rarely left Bag End, while Sam often looked worried; he would never tell her about what, but when they walked out Rosie would work at smoothing those lines between his brows with her fingers and her kisses, and would usually succeed, but when she next saw Sam those lines had returned.
Then, one fine summer's day, Sam came to her gate with as sad a face as she'd ever seen on him since his mother's death. She left the washing she was hanging, left everything to run out to him. "Sam, what is it?"
Sam took what seemed forever to say the words. "Mr. Frodo is selling Bag End and going to Crickhollow," he finally managed. "And I'm going to go, to do for him." Rosie stared at him, feeling her mouth hanging open, all her words stuck in her throat. Why? and How could you? and Why don't you ask me to go with you? all jammed together so that all she could do for a long moment was gape like a landed fish.
Then she shut her mouth and set her jaw, picked up her skirts, and ran as fast as her feet would take her, up to Bag End.
"Rosie!" Sam ran after her, hard on her heels, and she didn't know if he meant to come with her or stop her, and she didn't care. She ran to the angry beat of her pounding heart, and ran ahead of Sam, that angry beat carrying herself all the way inside the front door before her sense slowed her.
Mr. Frodo emerged from his study, an apple in one hand, and she dropped him a low curtsey. "Good day, Mr. Frodo," Rosie heard herself say in a brittle voice. He blinked, and then he looked angry, and then he looked weary, and then he looked sad, and for the first time since she'd grown into a maiden Rosie was reminded of how much older than her he really was.
"I'm sorry, Rosie." Mr. Frodo set the apple down somewhere and held out his hands. Rosie knuckled away a tear and stood where she was. Sam burst in, and Rosie felt him look at them both and say nothing. She felt her chest heave. She felt the questions whirl in her head. Under Mr. Frodo's blue gaze, she felt the answer lock into place: Mr. Frodo was nearly fifty, and whatever he had felt in his future was coming to him. She opened her mouth to ask, and Mr. Frodo set his lips and gave his head one quick sad shake, and she knew that was all the answer she would get.
Rosie clenched her fists and burst into tears.
Sam stood awkwardly beside her as she pressed her fists into her eyes and wept; the sobbing took her so that she felt her knees begin to buckle, and hardly cared, but then Sam reached for her, his strong arms around her shoulders as she buried her face in his chest and wept and wept and wept. Somewhere beyond the tears Rosie felt herself lifted, heard Mr. Frodo saying soft things, felt Sam sit with her still in his arms and a different hand, surely Mr. Frodo's, on her arm. All these things felt very distant, outside the storm of her tears.
Finally, Rosie's sobs receded, leaving her hollow and light and empty. She felt Sam's brace under her hand and clutched it as if to keep herself from floating away; Mr. Frodo handed her a handkerchief, and she wiped her face and took a deep breath and pushed herself off Sam's lap. They were in the small parlor, where Mr. Frodo had given them that lovely wine on that first Yule. Rosie closed her eyes against the memory, biting her lip.
"You're going, and taking Sam." Her voice sounded flat and bleak in her ears. Mr. Frodo nodded ruefully. "I am, Rosie. I must, but I'm sorry. I don't want to see you grieved."Sam squeezed her hand in mute agreement.
"No, no. It was�.I'm not sorry." She smiled shakily up at Mr. Frodo, who smiled encouragingly, and then at Sam, who returned the smile with his own brown eyes full of tears. "I'm not sorry. This all was strange, and lovely, and so very fine, and I'm glad of it."
"So am I." Mr. Frodo took her other hand and squeezed it, so like how Sam had and so different, and Rosie shook her head and smiled a little more. "You lads," she said ruefully. "If I was a lad I might come too, as I willed. I would come now, Samwise, if you asked me."
Sam's eyes ran over at that, and he squeezed her hand as tightly as he dared. "And I would ask if I could, Rose. I would." It was true, and it hurt him to say it, and it hurt her to hear it; she pressed the damp handkerchief to her face and took a deep breath to steady herself, then looked up again. 'I don't know what I'll do without you," she whispered. "Either of you."
"Don't wither away," Sam said fervently, taking both her hands. "I want to see you happy and blooming, with a sturdy husband and a hole full of children."
"There ain't a hobbit I want for their father more than you," she said, but she nodded nevertheless.
Mr. Frodo sighed. "Sam, you know---"
"Yes, Mr. Frodo, I know," said Sam, low and trembling. "But I know my duty too, sir." Rosie looked at Sam, wanting to slap him and to kiss him, and at Mr. Frodo, wanting to call him a thief and tell him she loved him. "Sam must do his own choosing, Mr. Frodo," she made herself say, and Mr. Frodo nodded sadly and sighed again, laying his hand on Sam's hand over hers, and there wasn't any more to be said.
Rosie went to her bed when she went home that day, and barely ate for the rest of the week. Her family watched her with worry, and when she answered all questions with sad silence her brother Jolly went to gently ask what had happened between Sam and his sister. When Jolly came back with no news, Nibs set off to ask a bit more firmly; Rosie came back from a trip to market to find Nibs nursing a black eye, and slapped him herself and told him it was none of his business and that if he'd hurt Sam he'd have to answer to her.
That Sunday, to Jolly and Tom's frank amazement and Nibs' and Mr. Cotton's glowering displeasure, Sam called at the Cotton smial (with not a scratch on him), and he held a red rose. Feeling all her family's eyes on her back, and not caring a thing, Rosie went out to him, and it was almost like it had been before, but that the knowledge that their time was drawing short lent it bittersweetness. Rosie thought of the honey she'd sucked off Sam's finger, mixing with the herbal bitterness of the bitterroot flower, and held Sam's arm tighter, and blinked back tears.
Then the time drew near for Lithe. Rosie walked out with Sam, and thought of asking him what would happen, and couldn't shape her mouth to the words, and these days she hardly saw Mr. Frodo, and could she have asked him? So she set herself to wait, and then there was all the work to be done, and she could almost put it out of her mind.
That Lithe Rosie danced as if the past three years had never been, laughing and happy and thinking of nothing but the moment, until she found a dark-haired gentlehobbit bowing to her as the hobbits around her cheered the master of Bag End for coming down to the dancing. "Miss Rose Cotton, will you dance with me?" asked Mr. Frodo, blue eyes sparkling in the moonlight, and she swallowed and smiled and gave him her hand; the past three years spiraled around them as they spun in the dance, and all their long years of friendship before that, and Rosie found herself thinking of the past and the future, and a little bit sad, and so very happy.
Mr. Frodo's fingers dipped into his pocket as they came to a stop, and as he gave her his hands to thank her she felt him press a square of paper into her palm. She curtseyed and smiled and carefully unfolded it as she went over to get herself an ale. The note said simply, "Will you dance with us once more? If you won't, I will understand. F."
Rosie stopped short, the crowd swirling all around her, then stuffed the note into the top of a lantern and watched it burn, suddenly angry. How could Mr. Frodo ask? He'd brought the past and the future back to her when she'd danced all night to forget everything but the moment. How could Sam let him ask? If Mr. Frodo didn't understand, couldn't Sam?
"Rosie Cotton?" Freddy Sandheaver stood at her elbow, holding two mugs of ale. "Would you like?"
"Freddy! Thank you!" Rosie took the ale and drank; she glanced up at Freddy over the rim of the mug and saw him watching her drink, and realized she could dance with him, in the circle of dancers and in the wood full of lovers. She took a breath, and watched Freddy's eyes watch her chest heave, and felt drunker with power than with ale.
As quickly as the thought came to her came another. Poor Freddy was a nice sturdy hobbit, but that was all. He didn't have Sam's golden glow and broad shoulders and gentle voice, Mr. Frodo's fey light and blue eyes. She might entangle him beyond his peace, and that wouldn't be fair. Rosie finished the ale as she thought, and smiled at Freddy again. "Miss Rosie, would you like to dance?" he asked hopefully, as she knew he would, and she shook her head and took his mug. "Thank you, Freddy, but I think I'm going to bed." She kissed his cheek with mere friendliness and went to drop off the mugs.
Bagshot Row was deserted, dark and quiet. Rosie stood at her gate, one hand on it, and looked up at Bag End, where there was a golden light in one window. She looked at her home, dark throughout, and over at the Gamgees', similarly dark. She thought of the golden threads in the red ribbon she wore in her hair. Then she turned and let her feet carry her up to Bag End.
Sam opened the door for her, smiling. "Mr. Frodo said you might be by."
"I mightn't, too," Rosie responded, hands on hips, but came in nevertheless. "I nearly went to bed."
Sam looked at her with sober eyes and a smiling mouth. "I hadn't thought you would be by," he admitted. "We've put you through a cruel time, and we both know it."
Rosie couldn't be angry any more at that. "I had to come," she admitted in turn, and gave Sam her hand; he raised his hand to her brow, brushing his hand over her curls, looking at her as if to remember her face, and gently drew her up for a kiss. "Mr. Frodo said he might dance awhile," Sam said, flushing a shy pink. "He said we had Bag End to ourselves if we would like. Rosie, would you like?"
Rosie grinned at that, her heart going from warm to Lithe-hot. "Naught against Mr. Frodo," and Sam returned the knowing smile she wore, "but to have you just to me on a Festival night? Yes, Sam, I would like."
Sam smiled at that, and kissed her again.
When Rosie opened her eyes her first hazy thought was of a figure of shadow holding a golden star; then she blinked and realized Mr. Frodo held a candle as he stood in the bedroom doorway. Sam snored gently beside her, his arms around her waist.
Mr. Frodo came and sat on the side of the bed, not his this time; Sam had led her to his own little room at Bag End. Rosie blinked up at Mr. Frodo, and he smiled at her; he leaned over to kiss the sleeping Sam on his cheek, regarding him tenderly, then took her hand. "It's three hours past midnight," he told her. "I stayed at the party till the end."
"Um, thank you, Mr. Frodo." How was it that she hadn't known all she needed to say to Sam till she said it, with mouth and hands and eyes? It had been almost like the first time they had lain together on a stolen summer afternoon, almost like the wedding night they might well never have, and yet also a farewell. The thought made her eyes prickle, but Sam's arms around her waist and Mr. Frodo's hand in hers kept her heart warm.
"I thought, well, it was only fair that you two have a chance to say goodbye." He looked a little sad at that, a little guilty, and Rosie squeezed his hand to reassure him. "Sam is going to miss you. I am going to miss you."
"And I will miss you, sir." Her eyes prickled harder, growing wet. "I don't know if I can dance at festivals again, not the way I've danced with Sam and with you."
Mr. Frodo shook his head at that. "I wouldn't want to take that from you. I want you to be well, Rosie."
Rosie smiled at that, feeling her eyes run over. "I want you and Sam to be well. Watch over him, Mr. Frodo."
"I will." Mr. Frodo set the candle down and leaned over her to kiss her eyes, one and then the other, and then kiss her mouth, deeply and sweetly, one last time.
Epilogue
Three and a half years later, two days after her birthday, Rosie gasped and fell back against the pillows, listening to the baby cry lustily, and smiled with closed eyes as Sam gently wiped her sweaty brow and kissed it. Sam's sister Daisy crooned to the baby and it hushed, and in the moment of quiet birdsong drifted in through the window.
Rosie supposed she should be eager to find if she had a daughter or a son, but she took another moment just to breathe, and to remember. If she had borne a son they would name him Frodo, and she thought once more of his namesake, gone this last half year. She thought of the year when Sam and Mr. Frodo were gone away, and all the troubles that came to the Shire, and of their triumphant return as they and the lordly Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin threw out the ruffians and brought in a wonderful year. She thought of the shadows and the light in Sam's brown eyes, the scar she'd found amidst his curls, the horrifying stories he told and the worse ones she knew he wasn't telling, the nightmares that still occasionally woke him in the night and her beside him. And she thought of Mr. Frodo, far more scarred and far more shadowed, of the long cold scar on his shoulder and the gentleness in what had been strong and bossy hands. She remembered his four-fingered hand gentle on her belly in her first pregnancy, gentle as he held Elanor, gentle on Rosie's cheek as he told her he had nothing left in him anymore, that he had to go. Rosie remembered Mr. Frodo, and wished he were here to see the new baby, and felt a tear escape her closed eye to run down her cheek; Sam's finger, gentle and strong, brushed it away, and she opened her eyes to look up at him, and he looked down at her, sharing her thought, a tear in his own eye.
Then Daisy came to them, holding a dark-haired bundle. "A fine birthday mathom you've given us, Rosie," said Daisy cheerfully. "A little boy, strong fingers, strong lungs." Rosie reached for him, and looked at him for herself, at his little fingers and toes, his wide closed eyes and his fuzz of hair, much darker than either hers or Sam's. Still, that happened sometimes.
Then the baby kicked up his little feet, and opened bright blue eyes like pieces of the sky, and Rosie's heart caught in her throat. She looked up at Sam, and he was smiling like the Sun, and a tear rolled down his own cheek; he put his arm round her and kissed the top of her head, reaching out the other hand to touch the baby's face. "Well, Frodo-lad," Sam said, "seems you'll be a good dancer like your Mam."
Rosie laughed at that, her heart overflowing, and leaned her head back, and Sam kissed her, sweet and strong.