Title: Alone in the Dark (1/?)
Author: Slipstream
Rating: PG (angst, medical drama)
Archive: Ask, please. ([email protected])
Summary: The journey through Mordor has left Frodo more deeply injured than any could fear, robbing him of the ability to see the first blossoming of hope in the land…
Notes: Great big shout out to Frodo!Healers and FBoBE, who helped me through the nutrition part of this fic. Note that the treatment listed here is the treatment Frodo would have received at the hands of a Medieval/ Victorian era healer, pre-antibiotics or full understanding of the workings of the body. Any herbs and foods listed herein would have had been discovered by trial and error, and considering the nature of Frodo's illness in this particular fic, guesswork was about as good as they could do. (Will expand more in the notes of later chapters, as I do not want to spoil the first one…) Enjoy!
~~~***~~~
When Frodo awoke, it was to the gentle clicking of cutlery and the soft melody of hushed voices that wafted along on the light breeze. He relaxed, knowing that, despite the darkness that surrounded him, he could not be in Mordor. Indeed, even if he had been, he felt too weak to do anything about it. He was weighted down with… something. Bedsheets? Yes, bedsheets, and bandages, from the feel of it, with a cool cloth draped over his eyes.
"The fever has dropped a little, my lord."
"Not enough. Have we no other herbs that would help to draw out the infection?"
"Only the ones we have tried so far, and you have seen their effects. The plant we need does not grow in this region of the world, and I am afraid our meager supplies of it have been depleted by the wave of casualties just before these two arrived."
The voices… It was so good to hear voices again. He could not discern their words, but their undulating rhythm created a background buzz that ebbed and flowed with the stirrings of the wind.
"Damn. Perhaps an athelas flush? That has worked before with this one."
"Perhaps. But we must remember that we are dealing with sensitive tissue, and no amount of bathing can travel into the depths of such a grave infection."
"Still, we shall have to try. We owe the little ones that much at least." A pause, a trip in the cadence. "The swelling has not gone down any either. Continue to keep it covered with the cloth so as to keep it as dim for him as possible."
"Yes, my lord."
There was a slight feeling of pressure on his brow as a pair of fingers traced the curve of his forehead absently, just above his eyes. He tried to open them, but that only brought a warning twinge of pain in his head, so he drifted back into the weary sleep he had briefly awoken from.
Frodo dreamed. He was being sucked into the depths of a fiery pit when, with a great jerk to his shoulders, he felt himself pulled from the smoke. The world shook to and fro, and a loud rushing noise filled his ears and blasted his face with hot air.
Slowly his surroundings changed from the thick fumes of smoke to the light blue of a perfect sky. He gazed in wonder at the clouds, so white and pure, illuminated as they were by the sun barely hidden behind their serene puffs. So beautiful, everything was so beautiful… Then the sun came out from behind the cloud and he was caught in the brilliance of its burning rays. Everything grew brighter as he was lost into the glittering white-hot depths of the burning disk, brighter and brighter until the world burst into a flaring flash of white that brought pain, then faded into absolute blackness.
~~~***~~~
Stillness. Silence.
The breeze was back, a real breeze, not a dream one chocked with smoke. He stirred beneath the bedclothes, wondering what feather-light substance it was that tickled his skin with its cool touch. It was so very hot, much too hot for March or even August. The heat seemed to burn and prickle from the inside out, his bones and skin felt as if they were on fire. This must be what a baking tater felt like, he mused wildly.
"-id he say something?"
"Sounded as such. Something like 'aters'…"
Bits of the conversation were beginning to make sense through the thick cloud wrapped about his brain. His face hurt. Why did his face hurt? It also itched a little, like it was covered with something that felt very much like a very coarse burlap sack. Frodo tried to reach up and remove the cloth, but he found that his hands ached too much to move. Even better, it appeared that the itching on his face had spread to his fingers, the right ring one, specifically. Did he have a rash? He wanted to reach over and scratch it, but the left had felt icy compared the rest of his body's heat and refused to even twitch on command.
"Adelian, why have you not shut the tent flap? Draughts from early morning breezes would do neither of our charges well in their illness."
"My apologies, lord, I shall tend to them immediately. It *has* grown a bit chilly in here."
Chilly? How could anyone deem this oppressive heat chilly? He was sure he was sweating, and where it pooled he felt sticky and dirty. Could someone not come and clean him, perhaps even remove that weighted cloth over his eyes and scratch his right third finger for good measure?
"Lord Aragorn, the other halfling, Master Samwise, seems to have passed the initial fever. I deem that he is ready to be placed into the healing sleep and his body allowed to rest itself. Should we move him to another healing tent so as to decrease the chances that he might catch Master Frodo's illness?"
Sam… Sam was here? He tried to turn his head towards the sound of the second voice, but that set off another twisting stab of pain into his brain. His head lolled back, reeling in surprise and confusion, but his thrashings were soon stilled by a pair of large, cool hands.
"I agree that Sam has passed out of the danger area, but I am still sore to separate the pair. After what they've… what they've been through, I believe these hobbits share a bond stronger than mortal medicine. They may derive comfort from each other."
There was something familiar about that voice, something that made Frodo feel safer than the host of other nameless voices he had caught snatches of as he passed into and out of consciousness. The familiar voice, deep and musical, paused before continuing, all the while massaging the scalp of the ring bearer. "He is awake, I believe, or as close to it as he is possible. We should give him the flush again now, along with some oral treacles I have brewed. Perhaps together they can battle this fever…"
So he had a fever. Yes, that would explain…
Frodo drifted. The darkness was swirling about him, but before he could reenter his dreams, fingers came and took away the cloth over his face. A cup was brought to his lips, and the liquid burned bitter in his mouth. He gagged, too weak to swallow, but the fingers massaged his throat and coaxed a swallowing reflex out of his still form. This was repeated several times until finally the cup was taken away, but even the little effort it took to stay conscious through the ordeal had exhausted him.
The fingers were back, pulling his eyelids apart, but Frodo was so tired that even the flaring pain drew no response. The world was dim and shadowy, with bits of it clouded over and colors that faded in and out. Something was poured over his eyeballs and allowed to run off, but he was neither conscious of the accompanying sting nor of the fact that his final vision of the room had been dazzling, blinding white. Again he was soaring through a world of dreams, chased by an elusive heat and buffeted about by strong winds.
~~~***~~~
"Lord, I fear the fever has not abated. It has grown worse, and I feel that it shall soon consume him."
"Elbereth, why? As if this isn't hard enough!" The sound of wood being slammed, then a sigh. "And how fares Sam?"
"He has shone no sign of waking or of evil dreams. The healing sleep is deep-set."
"Thank you, Adelian. Would you see Mithrandir in?"
The healer bowed then swept from the room, leaving the king to his thoughts. Aragon continued to lean heavily on the table, lost in his own mind as his eyes roved over that assortment of medicines and equipment they had used to treat the halflings. The vast amount of herbs, bandages, pots for boiling water, and stitching thread was a sickening reminder of the hard battle to keep the little ones from passing on to the lands beyond the sea. Yet even with all of their ministrations, Frodo and Sam's future was tentatively uncertain at best.
The flap opened to admit Gandalf, the wizard's white-clad presence an immediate comfort in the sickroom. The grandness that bestowed the Istari was lost, however, in the sadness that set in his eyes as he gazed at the Ringbearers, a slight russet stain still adorning his sash to mark that he, too, had battled to save their lives.
Aragon turned his gaze to the weave of the tent as Gandalf moved from Frodo's bedside to Sam's and back again.
"Adelian is a fool," he spat to himself. "A disgrace of an assistant to the healers. He should not be allowed to practice here. He has no head for common sense, as Bilbo would say."
Gandalf merely muttered a reply, replacing the compress that covered the upper half of Frodo's face, sadly noting the lack of any positive response.
Aragon furrowed his brow. "He cares not for them, as if his very existence hadn't depended upon their actions."
Mithrandir sighed, his voice weighed down with weariness as he caressed a heavily bandaged hand. "I would hate to remind you of a young man who once told me that in the field hospital, soldier and king were treated with the same hands."
Aragon whirled. "But not these two! These who have given so much!" His flare of anger, however, was quick to disperse as he knew the truth of Gandalf's words.
"He is young, Estel. All of Godor's sons are young, babes in the terms of the world, but they still fight even in the face of utter uncertainty." He moved his hands to massage gentle circles around Frodo's temples, muttering incantations in a quiet tongue in an attempt to sooth his pain.
Aragon's pacings brought him to the tent-flap were he stood moodily. "I fear that we have done all that we might, Mithrandir, and still it is for naught. The sickness will not leave him, it only spreads deeper and deeper into areas we cannot touch with magic or medicine. It is too delicate."
Drawing back the canvas, the King of Godor gazed out upon the open fields of wind-swept grass. "The question of what our next course of action is to be weighs heavily on my heart. Should we continue in our attempts to completely heal him? Nay, I know from times past that this is an area best kept clean and that too much interference only makes it worse. Should we abandon him to the fever that burns away at the edges of his mind? I have seen the horrors of old men whose very thoughts were robbed of them by that heat. Should we preserve him as he is now in that healing sleep, such as with Sam? True, it would halt the fever and keep his condition as it at present, but we would not know until his awakening how much of a blessing or a curse that would be." He shook his head. "Would we condemn a cripple, Mithrandir? Is that how we would repay him?"
Gandalf frowned deeply into his beard, and the lines of his face attested to eons of worry and strife. "You are right. Further interference would only inflame the fever, causing more damage, and ignorance is the worst crime against those who have done so much." He bit his lip in thought, hands moving to straighten the linens. "Perhaps in eons to come man will learn to heal the eye that has seen such pain, and such a choice would not be so bitter."
"Eons the hobbits do not have, and we are far from Elven-Home."
"This I know." The wizard's sigh revealed his pain. "This I know." He gazed for a long time at the thin face resting fretfully, the red puffiness and swelling around the eyes barely hidden by the compress. Frodo gasped, a small, weak intake of air that sounded like the cry of a newborn babe. Gandalf touched the fevered brow and the hobbit stilled, if for only a moment, and his next words were hoarse and choked with emotion. "I am sorry, old friend."
He began to chant soft words in an ancient tongue, and soon Frodo's body was as still and quiet as Samwise's, the two resting in places beyond fear or dream.
"I am so very sorry."
~~~***~~~
Fire. Fire and ash.
Frodo struggled against his mind, body thrashing on the edge of the precipice in the dual pain of wounded hand and heart. The Ring was lost… lost…
Gollum's scream echoed all about him. "Precioussssss……..!"
Precious was lost. Lost lost lost….
Two strong arms lifted him from the rocky floor and he suddenly found himself outside again. He blinked at the half-light of Mordor, still too bright for his eyes. His eyes hurt, had been hurting for several days, yet he had no tears to spare to clean them of the grit which blew constantly into them. No tears for pain, no tears for loss, not even tears enough for Sam, who supported him now in the gasping heat.
"C'mon, Mr. Frodo." Through the colored fumes, Frodo could make out the dirty, sweaty face of his gardener. Sam was breathing heavily, the fires of the volcano reflecting crimson off of the thin sheen of sweat. "C'mon. We've done it. Let's leave this retched place."
Frodo felt as if he would never move again, but Sam was stubborn and still possessed some of his adrenaline born strength. He was hauled down the rocky path, torn and bloodied feet dragging along the ground, as they slowly escaped from the liquid fire that boiled and spurned deep within the mountain.
Tragically, they did not get far.
The rest of their journey down was more of a skittering tumble than any resemblance of a walk. They fell, rolling and sliding, bringing down with them a torrent of loose rocks and ash, until they came to a stop along the top of a little mound near the foot. The mountain rumbled.
Frodo lay on his back, all of his energy gone, and it seemed that there was some invisible force holding him down, pressing him into the earth. The dust burned in his eyes and throat more than ever, the heat surely cooking him alive, and then Sam was there, his face old and hovering above his own. His lips moved, but the words did not fit his mouth, they were far too deep with age and weariness to belong to his Sam.
"I'm sorry, old friend," Sam's not-voice said, and his hand came forward and closed the eyes of his Master, bidding him to sleep and leave behind the pain and fear and fire. "I am so very sorry."
Dimly, Frodo heard eagles, then nothing more for a very long time.
~~~***~~~
Sam lay beside his master, waiting for him to awaken. He had come out of his healing sleep two days prior and had wept of out of joy at seeing Master Merry and the young Peregrin again, of sorrow at the news that Aragorn had born of his master's fate. No change, he had said. No change. We must wait, Samwise, and see when he awakens.
Sam was still too weak himself to be out walking the fields of Ithilien, but the sweet smell of the grasses and the swaying of the tree limbs overhead offered some small measure of comport. A healer, an apprentice, really, but forged into full certification by the horrors of war, had come by earlier that morning to rub a cooling ointment into the various cuts and burns of his feet. It had felt good, sinfully good, that and the water, of which there was plenty and he could never seem to get enough of. He had cried with the pain when his body had begun to move fluids again and had had to lean heavily on the now towering frame of Merry while he relieved himself. It would have been the most embarrassing moment of his life had not the dire circumstances of just a few weeks prior robbed him of his humor.
But looking at Frodo drove that physical thirst away with the realization that his master had still to take any water consciously, and he burned with the shame that while he gluttoned himself on the cool, clear liquid Frodo was still trapped in the nightmare of that bone-dry ache.
He slept now, head and hands and feet bound up tightly in bandages, his face occasionally twitching and his hand lifting slightly off of the coverlet in response to his dreaming. These slight movements were a good sign, according to Gandalf, and Frodo might awaken within the day. Still, when the right hand began to wander towards the open collar of his shirt, Sam gently brought it back down, mindful of the missing digit.
It was late morning, and already the heat of the day made the air heavy with a heady sweetness. Sam, newly awoken and still only partially healed, found his eyelids drooping, the bed beneath him growing softer upon his cheek, and allowed himself to sleep, content in his safety and that of his master.
Some hours passed and the sun moved across the sky to shine through the tent flap and directly onto the face of Samwise Garmgee, but it was not the light's radiant intensity which woke him.
"s-s-am…" a voice croaked, and Sam's eyes shot open. Frodo twisted in the bed beside him, hands shaking and body quivering, but there was a new strength in his voice that identified his mutterings from those of hurried dreams. "sam… where?"
Sam smiled, his eyes tearing up, and stilled his master's trembles with his gardener's hands. "I'm here, Mr. Frodo. We're safe now."
"Uhhn…" Frodo groaned and turned his face towards Sam, who swallowed as the two white swatches of cloth where his eyes should be turned their unseeing gaze on him. "…safe, Sam?"
Sam cleared his throat, not wanting to scare Frodo with his voice's trembling. "Aye. Safe. We're back in Ithilien now, you remember that land where we ate that bit of rabbit with Captain Faramir? We're camping with the army, and Merry and Pippin and Aragorn and Gandalf are here."
"Galdalf…?" Frodo turned again, to the other side of the bed, as if he was expecting the old wizard to be there to confirm the statement. "… We… we all made it?"
"All of us, Mr. Frodo. We all made it. We did it. We won."
"We won…" Frodo sighed and sank back into pillows, his body collapsing from his slight efforts. "I'd very much like to see them all again, but it's so very dark, and my eyes hurt… I'm so very tired, Sam…"
Sam's fingers tightened around the frail hands. "You've only just awoken from the healer's sleep. You'll feel that way for a bit more, I'm afraid. Rest a little longer, if it suits you."
"Rest…" The word was a breathy whisper, more exhaled than spoken. "Rest… and then I have to see the rest of the Fellowship again, when its not so dark and my head doesn't ache so… I'll see them when its light again, won't I, Sam?"
Two tears rolled down the sunken hollows of the Gamgee's face, but he had not the heart to contradict his friend and companion, and besides, Frodo had already drifted back into sleep.
TBC...
Author: Slipstream
Rating: PG (angst, medical drama)
Archive: Ask, please. ([email protected])
Summary: The journey through Mordor has left Frodo more deeply injured than any could fear, robbing him of the ability to see the first blossoming of hope in the land…
Notes: Great big shout out to Frodo!Healers and FBoBE, who helped me through the nutrition part of this fic. Note that the treatment listed here is the treatment Frodo would have received at the hands of a Medieval/ Victorian era healer, pre-antibiotics or full understanding of the workings of the body. Any herbs and foods listed herein would have had been discovered by trial and error, and considering the nature of Frodo's illness in this particular fic, guesswork was about as good as they could do. (Will expand more in the notes of later chapters, as I do not want to spoil the first one…) Enjoy!
~~~***~~~
When Frodo awoke, it was to the gentle clicking of cutlery and the soft melody of hushed voices that wafted along on the light breeze. He relaxed, knowing that, despite the darkness that surrounded him, he could not be in Mordor. Indeed, even if he had been, he felt too weak to do anything about it. He was weighted down with… something. Bedsheets? Yes, bedsheets, and bandages, from the feel of it, with a cool cloth draped over his eyes.
"The fever has dropped a little, my lord."
"Not enough. Have we no other herbs that would help to draw out the infection?"
"Only the ones we have tried so far, and you have seen their effects. The plant we need does not grow in this region of the world, and I am afraid our meager supplies of it have been depleted by the wave of casualties just before these two arrived."
The voices… It was so good to hear voices again. He could not discern their words, but their undulating rhythm created a background buzz that ebbed and flowed with the stirrings of the wind.
"Damn. Perhaps an athelas flush? That has worked before with this one."
"Perhaps. But we must remember that we are dealing with sensitive tissue, and no amount of bathing can travel into the depths of such a grave infection."
"Still, we shall have to try. We owe the little ones that much at least." A pause, a trip in the cadence. "The swelling has not gone down any either. Continue to keep it covered with the cloth so as to keep it as dim for him as possible."
"Yes, my lord."
There was a slight feeling of pressure on his brow as a pair of fingers traced the curve of his forehead absently, just above his eyes. He tried to open them, but that only brought a warning twinge of pain in his head, so he drifted back into the weary sleep he had briefly awoken from.
Frodo dreamed. He was being sucked into the depths of a fiery pit when, with a great jerk to his shoulders, he felt himself pulled from the smoke. The world shook to and fro, and a loud rushing noise filled his ears and blasted his face with hot air.
Slowly his surroundings changed from the thick fumes of smoke to the light blue of a perfect sky. He gazed in wonder at the clouds, so white and pure, illuminated as they were by the sun barely hidden behind their serene puffs. So beautiful, everything was so beautiful… Then the sun came out from behind the cloud and he was caught in the brilliance of its burning rays. Everything grew brighter as he was lost into the glittering white-hot depths of the burning disk, brighter and brighter until the world burst into a flaring flash of white that brought pain, then faded into absolute blackness.
~~~***~~~
Stillness. Silence.
The breeze was back, a real breeze, not a dream one chocked with smoke. He stirred beneath the bedclothes, wondering what feather-light substance it was that tickled his skin with its cool touch. It was so very hot, much too hot for March or even August. The heat seemed to burn and prickle from the inside out, his bones and skin felt as if they were on fire. This must be what a baking tater felt like, he mused wildly.
"-id he say something?"
"Sounded as such. Something like 'aters'…"
Bits of the conversation were beginning to make sense through the thick cloud wrapped about his brain. His face hurt. Why did his face hurt? It also itched a little, like it was covered with something that felt very much like a very coarse burlap sack. Frodo tried to reach up and remove the cloth, but he found that his hands ached too much to move. Even better, it appeared that the itching on his face had spread to his fingers, the right ring one, specifically. Did he have a rash? He wanted to reach over and scratch it, but the left had felt icy compared the rest of his body's heat and refused to even twitch on command.
"Adelian, why have you not shut the tent flap? Draughts from early morning breezes would do neither of our charges well in their illness."
"My apologies, lord, I shall tend to them immediately. It *has* grown a bit chilly in here."
Chilly? How could anyone deem this oppressive heat chilly? He was sure he was sweating, and where it pooled he felt sticky and dirty. Could someone not come and clean him, perhaps even remove that weighted cloth over his eyes and scratch his right third finger for good measure?
"Lord Aragorn, the other halfling, Master Samwise, seems to have passed the initial fever. I deem that he is ready to be placed into the healing sleep and his body allowed to rest itself. Should we move him to another healing tent so as to decrease the chances that he might catch Master Frodo's illness?"
Sam… Sam was here? He tried to turn his head towards the sound of the second voice, but that set off another twisting stab of pain into his brain. His head lolled back, reeling in surprise and confusion, but his thrashings were soon stilled by a pair of large, cool hands.
"I agree that Sam has passed out of the danger area, but I am still sore to separate the pair. After what they've… what they've been through, I believe these hobbits share a bond stronger than mortal medicine. They may derive comfort from each other."
There was something familiar about that voice, something that made Frodo feel safer than the host of other nameless voices he had caught snatches of as he passed into and out of consciousness. The familiar voice, deep and musical, paused before continuing, all the while massaging the scalp of the ring bearer. "He is awake, I believe, or as close to it as he is possible. We should give him the flush again now, along with some oral treacles I have brewed. Perhaps together they can battle this fever…"
So he had a fever. Yes, that would explain…
Frodo drifted. The darkness was swirling about him, but before he could reenter his dreams, fingers came and took away the cloth over his face. A cup was brought to his lips, and the liquid burned bitter in his mouth. He gagged, too weak to swallow, but the fingers massaged his throat and coaxed a swallowing reflex out of his still form. This was repeated several times until finally the cup was taken away, but even the little effort it took to stay conscious through the ordeal had exhausted him.
The fingers were back, pulling his eyelids apart, but Frodo was so tired that even the flaring pain drew no response. The world was dim and shadowy, with bits of it clouded over and colors that faded in and out. Something was poured over his eyeballs and allowed to run off, but he was neither conscious of the accompanying sting nor of the fact that his final vision of the room had been dazzling, blinding white. Again he was soaring through a world of dreams, chased by an elusive heat and buffeted about by strong winds.
~~~***~~~
"Lord, I fear the fever has not abated. It has grown worse, and I feel that it shall soon consume him."
"Elbereth, why? As if this isn't hard enough!" The sound of wood being slammed, then a sigh. "And how fares Sam?"
"He has shone no sign of waking or of evil dreams. The healing sleep is deep-set."
"Thank you, Adelian. Would you see Mithrandir in?"
The healer bowed then swept from the room, leaving the king to his thoughts. Aragon continued to lean heavily on the table, lost in his own mind as his eyes roved over that assortment of medicines and equipment they had used to treat the halflings. The vast amount of herbs, bandages, pots for boiling water, and stitching thread was a sickening reminder of the hard battle to keep the little ones from passing on to the lands beyond the sea. Yet even with all of their ministrations, Frodo and Sam's future was tentatively uncertain at best.
The flap opened to admit Gandalf, the wizard's white-clad presence an immediate comfort in the sickroom. The grandness that bestowed the Istari was lost, however, in the sadness that set in his eyes as he gazed at the Ringbearers, a slight russet stain still adorning his sash to mark that he, too, had battled to save their lives.
Aragon turned his gaze to the weave of the tent as Gandalf moved from Frodo's bedside to Sam's and back again.
"Adelian is a fool," he spat to himself. "A disgrace of an assistant to the healers. He should not be allowed to practice here. He has no head for common sense, as Bilbo would say."
Gandalf merely muttered a reply, replacing the compress that covered the upper half of Frodo's face, sadly noting the lack of any positive response.
Aragon furrowed his brow. "He cares not for them, as if his very existence hadn't depended upon their actions."
Mithrandir sighed, his voice weighed down with weariness as he caressed a heavily bandaged hand. "I would hate to remind you of a young man who once told me that in the field hospital, soldier and king were treated with the same hands."
Aragon whirled. "But not these two! These who have given so much!" His flare of anger, however, was quick to disperse as he knew the truth of Gandalf's words.
"He is young, Estel. All of Godor's sons are young, babes in the terms of the world, but they still fight even in the face of utter uncertainty." He moved his hands to massage gentle circles around Frodo's temples, muttering incantations in a quiet tongue in an attempt to sooth his pain.
Aragon's pacings brought him to the tent-flap were he stood moodily. "I fear that we have done all that we might, Mithrandir, and still it is for naught. The sickness will not leave him, it only spreads deeper and deeper into areas we cannot touch with magic or medicine. It is too delicate."
Drawing back the canvas, the King of Godor gazed out upon the open fields of wind-swept grass. "The question of what our next course of action is to be weighs heavily on my heart. Should we continue in our attempts to completely heal him? Nay, I know from times past that this is an area best kept clean and that too much interference only makes it worse. Should we abandon him to the fever that burns away at the edges of his mind? I have seen the horrors of old men whose very thoughts were robbed of them by that heat. Should we preserve him as he is now in that healing sleep, such as with Sam? True, it would halt the fever and keep his condition as it at present, but we would not know until his awakening how much of a blessing or a curse that would be." He shook his head. "Would we condemn a cripple, Mithrandir? Is that how we would repay him?"
Gandalf frowned deeply into his beard, and the lines of his face attested to eons of worry and strife. "You are right. Further interference would only inflame the fever, causing more damage, and ignorance is the worst crime against those who have done so much." He bit his lip in thought, hands moving to straighten the linens. "Perhaps in eons to come man will learn to heal the eye that has seen such pain, and such a choice would not be so bitter."
"Eons the hobbits do not have, and we are far from Elven-Home."
"This I know." The wizard's sigh revealed his pain. "This I know." He gazed for a long time at the thin face resting fretfully, the red puffiness and swelling around the eyes barely hidden by the compress. Frodo gasped, a small, weak intake of air that sounded like the cry of a newborn babe. Gandalf touched the fevered brow and the hobbit stilled, if for only a moment, and his next words were hoarse and choked with emotion. "I am sorry, old friend."
He began to chant soft words in an ancient tongue, and soon Frodo's body was as still and quiet as Samwise's, the two resting in places beyond fear or dream.
"I am so very sorry."
~~~***~~~
Fire. Fire and ash.
Frodo struggled against his mind, body thrashing on the edge of the precipice in the dual pain of wounded hand and heart. The Ring was lost… lost…
Gollum's scream echoed all about him. "Precioussssss……..!"
Precious was lost. Lost lost lost….
Two strong arms lifted him from the rocky floor and he suddenly found himself outside again. He blinked at the half-light of Mordor, still too bright for his eyes. His eyes hurt, had been hurting for several days, yet he had no tears to spare to clean them of the grit which blew constantly into them. No tears for pain, no tears for loss, not even tears enough for Sam, who supported him now in the gasping heat.
"C'mon, Mr. Frodo." Through the colored fumes, Frodo could make out the dirty, sweaty face of his gardener. Sam was breathing heavily, the fires of the volcano reflecting crimson off of the thin sheen of sweat. "C'mon. We've done it. Let's leave this retched place."
Frodo felt as if he would never move again, but Sam was stubborn and still possessed some of his adrenaline born strength. He was hauled down the rocky path, torn and bloodied feet dragging along the ground, as they slowly escaped from the liquid fire that boiled and spurned deep within the mountain.
Tragically, they did not get far.
The rest of their journey down was more of a skittering tumble than any resemblance of a walk. They fell, rolling and sliding, bringing down with them a torrent of loose rocks and ash, until they came to a stop along the top of a little mound near the foot. The mountain rumbled.
Frodo lay on his back, all of his energy gone, and it seemed that there was some invisible force holding him down, pressing him into the earth. The dust burned in his eyes and throat more than ever, the heat surely cooking him alive, and then Sam was there, his face old and hovering above his own. His lips moved, but the words did not fit his mouth, they were far too deep with age and weariness to belong to his Sam.
"I'm sorry, old friend," Sam's not-voice said, and his hand came forward and closed the eyes of his Master, bidding him to sleep and leave behind the pain and fear and fire. "I am so very sorry."
Dimly, Frodo heard eagles, then nothing more for a very long time.
~~~***~~~
Sam lay beside his master, waiting for him to awaken. He had come out of his healing sleep two days prior and had wept of out of joy at seeing Master Merry and the young Peregrin again, of sorrow at the news that Aragorn had born of his master's fate. No change, he had said. No change. We must wait, Samwise, and see when he awakens.
Sam was still too weak himself to be out walking the fields of Ithilien, but the sweet smell of the grasses and the swaying of the tree limbs overhead offered some small measure of comport. A healer, an apprentice, really, but forged into full certification by the horrors of war, had come by earlier that morning to rub a cooling ointment into the various cuts and burns of his feet. It had felt good, sinfully good, that and the water, of which there was plenty and he could never seem to get enough of. He had cried with the pain when his body had begun to move fluids again and had had to lean heavily on the now towering frame of Merry while he relieved himself. It would have been the most embarrassing moment of his life had not the dire circumstances of just a few weeks prior robbed him of his humor.
But looking at Frodo drove that physical thirst away with the realization that his master had still to take any water consciously, and he burned with the shame that while he gluttoned himself on the cool, clear liquid Frodo was still trapped in the nightmare of that bone-dry ache.
He slept now, head and hands and feet bound up tightly in bandages, his face occasionally twitching and his hand lifting slightly off of the coverlet in response to his dreaming. These slight movements were a good sign, according to Gandalf, and Frodo might awaken within the day. Still, when the right hand began to wander towards the open collar of his shirt, Sam gently brought it back down, mindful of the missing digit.
It was late morning, and already the heat of the day made the air heavy with a heady sweetness. Sam, newly awoken and still only partially healed, found his eyelids drooping, the bed beneath him growing softer upon his cheek, and allowed himself to sleep, content in his safety and that of his master.
Some hours passed and the sun moved across the sky to shine through the tent flap and directly onto the face of Samwise Garmgee, but it was not the light's radiant intensity which woke him.
"s-s-am…" a voice croaked, and Sam's eyes shot open. Frodo twisted in the bed beside him, hands shaking and body quivering, but there was a new strength in his voice that identified his mutterings from those of hurried dreams. "sam… where?"
Sam smiled, his eyes tearing up, and stilled his master's trembles with his gardener's hands. "I'm here, Mr. Frodo. We're safe now."
"Uhhn…" Frodo groaned and turned his face towards Sam, who swallowed as the two white swatches of cloth where his eyes should be turned their unseeing gaze on him. "…safe, Sam?"
Sam cleared his throat, not wanting to scare Frodo with his voice's trembling. "Aye. Safe. We're back in Ithilien now, you remember that land where we ate that bit of rabbit with Captain Faramir? We're camping with the army, and Merry and Pippin and Aragorn and Gandalf are here."
"Galdalf…?" Frodo turned again, to the other side of the bed, as if he was expecting the old wizard to be there to confirm the statement. "… We… we all made it?"
"All of us, Mr. Frodo. We all made it. We did it. We won."
"We won…" Frodo sighed and sank back into pillows, his body collapsing from his slight efforts. "I'd very much like to see them all again, but it's so very dark, and my eyes hurt… I'm so very tired, Sam…"
Sam's fingers tightened around the frail hands. "You've only just awoken from the healer's sleep. You'll feel that way for a bit more, I'm afraid. Rest a little longer, if it suits you."
"Rest…" The word was a breathy whisper, more exhaled than spoken. "Rest… and then I have to see the rest of the Fellowship again, when its not so dark and my head doesn't ache so… I'll see them when its light again, won't I, Sam?"
Two tears rolled down the sunken hollows of the Gamgee's face, but he had not the heart to contradict his friend and companion, and besides, Frodo had already drifted back into sleep.
TBC...