The squeals of his daughter playing with her friends in the yard made him stand up from the rickety rocking chair and move slowly to the large window that overlooked the glimmering green lawn. He smiled to himself as he watched her giggle and dance around, not a care in the world.
Well, that's what he'd wanted for her from the very beginning. He hadn't wanted her to grow up in a world where she was scared to go outside her door, outside the saftey of her little community.
He wanted her to feel safe and secure, and he didn't want her to carry the weight that he did.
The weight of his heart that he carried with him from day to day, never lightening. It was always there, a constant reminder of his past. He didn't want to forget, nor did he want to remember; he merely wanted to live without pain.
And live he did, though pain was something he could not escape.
He took his pipe from his mouth and gazed out at the hills beyond the valley and the sky above, littered with fluffy white clouds. Birds fluttered here and there, neighbors went about their regular business. He was a watcher on the outskirts, not that he'd intended to become a hermit.
Of course, he hadn't intended for quite a lot of things to have happened.
The loss of his best friend was heavy like a stone being strapped to his back; no matter what he did, it was still there.
Pictures and memories faded in his mind as he grew older, as time wore on; it almost seemed like a nightmare, more than a dream, almost like it hadn't really happened.
The scars he bore were the reminders that it had, indeed, taken place.
Everytime he planted a new flower in his garden, he was reminded. When he saw the jewel around his daughter's neck glitter in the sun, he remembered.
Frodo had been so young, and so burdened. Sam, himself, had been burdened as well, but in a different way. He wasn't the ring barer, hadn't felt the evil of the ring emblaze itself upon every bit of his skin. He'd tried desperately to help share this burden with Frodo, but Frodo had not allowed it.
Frodo had to bare the burden alone, and Sam knew that.
Even when it caused him pain, when his heart ached for his friend and for his past, he knew.
There was never a moment in Sam's life that his mind wasn't stuck on their journey.
There were times when images flashed through his mind; not pleasant images, but ones of darkness growing and corrupting and drowning them.
And sometimes, when he was awake in bed at night, with the shadows on the wall from the shine of the moon, he thought of the happy times. Of the times before all the bad had happened.
Those were the times when Sam was most happy, when he could remember Frodo in a good light, and their life together with a happy tune played against it.
Those were the times when Sam didn't feel as if he'd never make it.
Because he knew he would.
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