Title: The Ringbearer and the Rose

Author: rabidsamfan

Epilogue: April 6, 1420

There hadn't been a birthday party to match it since the Troubles had begun, and every child in Bywater or Hobbiton who could sneak through a hedge had turned up, whether their parents had been invited or no. Some of the parents had turned up too, but as they'd come with bread or covered dishes to eke out the luncheon, no one had been turned away. Bits of ribbon had been the prizes for the races and the games, and the cake would have to be cut into rather small pieces, yet still folk were laughing, and half the instruments in Hobbiton had been hauled up to the party field by musicians who would get no more pay than a chance to watch the dancing.

Frodo sat on the stump of the party tree, guarding the basket of birthday presents. He missed the old tree, but the stump made a good place to watch over the field. A few feet away stood the mallorn tree, now nearly twelve feet high. The buds had opened up just this morning, unfolding into golden flowers which shed a pleasant perfume and glimmered like firefly lanterns even in broad daylight.

A few of the more daring hobbits came to pass the time of day with him, Farmer Cotton for one, and it was hard for them to keep their eyes from those blossoms. Frodo in his turn had a hard time keeping his amusement to himself. Even the most staid of hobbits were having trouble denying the existence of Elven magic, in light of the past twelve days. And the mallorn tree had proven them wrong beyond a doubt.

But only a few souls ventured near, and for the most part Frodo could sit and be content to watch. Merry and Pippin were holding court at the barrel of beer that they'd brought along with the furniture from Crickhollow. There were several pretty hobbitlasses crowding around to listen to their tales, and some not so pretty as well. Gaffer Gamgee had collected a number of his friends, and was holding forth on the virtues of well-rotted manure for flowerbeds.

Sam had officiated at the races and games, and ended up perched on an upturned bucket, surrounded by children who stared wide-eyed as he described the snow and storms of Caradhras. Rosie sat at his knee, as absorbed in the story as any of the little ones. Frodo was certain that the announcement of their wedding was going to come as no surprise, so often had Sam's hand sought hers this day.

He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering how bashful Sam had been about admitting his intentions, and the relief that had lit up his face when Frodo had invited him to bring his bride to Bag End. "Torn in two," he said he was. But no longer shattered, thank goodness. The fair haired lass of Frodo's dreams would be joined by a small brother, if everything went well. It would go well. Sam just needed someone else to take care of… His hand went of its own accord to the gem that Arwen Undomiel had gifted him.

"Ho, Frodo," Pippin's cheerful voice drew him out of his thoughts. His cousin put a tankard into Frodo's hand and scrambled up to sit beside him on the stump. "What's in the basket?"

"Presents."

"Yes, but what kind of presents?" Pippin snatched out one of the twists of paper and looked pleased with himself, deflating only when he realized that Frodo hadn't tried to prevent the pilferage. He looked at his prize. "It's not heavy enough to be a coin," he said. "And it's not big enough to be much of anything else." He shook the small packet. "Salt?"

"Seeds," Frodo told him, since he'd find out soon enough. "Flowers from Ithilien. The color of the ribbon tells you whether to plant in sun or shade." Frodo wasn't sure that Sam owed anyone in the Shire a birthday present this year, but Sam had insisted on portioning out the stock of seeds once he'd agreed to the party, saying it would save him the work of planting them all himself.

Pippin at least seemed pleased with the prospect of something to unwrap, and he put the packet back into the basket and surveyed the field like the king on his throne, letting his legs swing. "It's a great party, isn't it? Why aren't you out there deputy mayoring?"

Frodo laughed and took a draught of the cool beer, warmed by Pippin's easy banter. "It's Sam's party," he answered in kind. "I thought I'd let him do all the work."

"He's done enough work," Pippin said, softly. Then he glanced at Frodo and put the smile back onto his face, raising his drink. "Still, he looks better than he did. What did you do, hit him over the head with a brick so he'd get some sleep? Or just lock him in a room with Rosie Cotton?" Frodo wasn't sure how to answer that, and it was just as well, because Pippin emerged from his mug with a particularly mischievous grin. "No, it must have been the brick," Pippin answered himself. "He wouldn't have got any sleep with Rosie, would he?"

"Peregrin Took!" Frodo pretended to be appalled, and it wasn't as hard as it might have been. How could he have been so blind, if even Pippin had noticed that Sam was tired. But it was impossible to dwell long on his own shortcomings with Pippin sniggering like that. He gave up and laughed too.

"What are you going to do?" Pippin asked, once they'd recovered. "Build another smial in the New Row for them?"

Frodo shook his head. "No. I've invited them to move into Bag End with me."

Pippin raised an eyebrow. "That's not going to be easy, is it?" In the Great Smials or Brandybuck Hall, where dozens of hobbits lived together, it was normal for the servants to have quarters in the same hole, but in Hobbiton it was more unusual; except for a few elderly gentlehobbits who needed constant care he couldn't think of a single instance.

Frodo shrugged. "Easier on Sam than having to run back and forth all the time. And close enough for him to keep an eye on the Gaffer, without having to put up with the old hobbit's tongue," he added quietly.

Pippin nodded; his own parents didn't understand why he didn't fit at home anymore, and they weren't nearly as deaf and stubborn as Gaffer Gamgee. "I thought Sam wanted a hole of his own, and a bit of garden," he said. "That's what the Lady offered him, isn't it?"

"Yes," Frodo said. "But it's not what he wants now, and until he does, he can stay at Bag End."

"What about the bride? What does she think of the arrangement?"

"Rose Cotton and I understand each other. We should, after I've stayed with her family for the past five months. She wants to see Sam happy as much as I do."

"Well, yes, but what are you going to do if it goes on for years? I mean, they're bound to have children."

Frodo laughed, "Bag End was built for children, Pippin. Why do you think it has so many rooms? Just because old Bungo and Belladonna didn't have any children besides Bilbo doesn't mean they didn't want them." He remembered Bilbo telling him of that long ago sorrow shortly after he'd come to live at Bag End, on a stormy night when the hole had seemed empty and haunted after all those years at the Hall. They'd eaten seedycakes with clotted cream and jam for comfort, and he'd fallen asleep in the parlor chair. Bilbo had covered him with a coat that smelled of pipeweed and peppermint, and itched where the rough twill touched his face. He could still remember the touch of his uncle's hand on his head like a benediction as he drifted into dreaming. "They tried, more than once. But he's the only one who lived long enough to be named."

"You miss him, don't you," Pippin said, not asking.

"Every day." Frodo sighed and then smiled and reached up to ruffle Pippin's hair. "Anyway Bilbo has always liked children. I still remember helping him wrap all those toys he'd got for his eleventyfirst birthday party. He'd chosen something special for every child in Hobbiton and Bywater, even the ones who were afraid of him. And all the twelve-mile cousins. He was forever telling stories and distributing biscuits in the garden on sunny afternoons. You ought to remember that."

"Just a little," Pippin admitted. "I was only ten when Bilbo went away. That's what I remember," he said, nodding at the storyteller before them, who was demonstrating the way that Legolas had drawn his bow against the wargs. "Sam telling stories—all about Bilbo and Elves and Trolls and Dwarves and dragons." He turned his head sideways, and wrinkled his nose. "He didn't give me biscuits, though. Just the thinned out carrots and things. And he made me work for them, too!"

"Did he?" Frodo was delighted. He'd never known that Sam had been able to resist Pippin's blandishments. Not many had, when Pippin was small.

"Well why did you think I got so grubby every time we visited?"

"I thought you just liked dirt," Frodo laughed.

"Well, I did," Pippin winked. "And I loved how Pearl would get angry and then have to try to hide it from her latest beau." The memory of old mischief sparkled in his eye. "But mostly I liked helping. Sam was the only one who ever thought I was big enough."

"Is that why you always wanted to come when your sisters visited?" Frodo had wondered about that for years. He'd been glad enough to let Eglantine Took and her daughters use Bag End as a base for husband hunting when they visited Hobbiton, once Pearl had decided that he wasn't among the hunted, at any rate.

Pippin shrugged. "I just wanted to come," he said as if he'd never considered it before. "I think I kept hoping that something magic would happen, like it did at the party. Like Gandalf's fireworks. I've still got that wind-up pony Bilbo gave me." He finished off his beer in one long swig. "Besides, there was always a chance you'd forget to lock the pantries. They never forgot at home."

"And there I thought you came for my sparkling company," Frodo protested, laughing.

"I was afraid of you! At least until I got a little older and I realized that you were only scowling because Primmie kept matchmaking. But I was never afraid of Sam. I used to take him all my scraped knees." He shrugged at his own serious tone. "Listen to me. I sound like I'm a hundred years old and Sam's at death's door. Just because he's found a girlfriend."

"Nothing wrong with that," Frodo said.

"Then why don't you go find one?" Pippin asked a little too sharply and then flushed under Frodo's gaze. "I'm sorry. Merry sent me up here to make sure that you would join the dancing."

"Pippin, I'm fifty two years old and I'm starting to look it. What makes you think any hobbit lass would want to dance with me?"

"You're rich. And famous. And you don't look old, not really. Well, older than you did, but that's all right. And Merry's going to dance, and he's looking for a wife I bet and pretty soon everyone thing is all going to be different and I wish…" he caught his lower lip between his teeth and stared hard at the ground.

Frodo touched his arm. "You wish it wasn't changing."

Pippin nodded. "It's not the girlfriend part I mind. It's the marrying. Sam's only a little older than Merry after all. It doesn't usually matter, being younger, but it does now, because I can see how much Sam wants to be with Rosie and I can't understand it. I wish we were at Caras Galadhon," he said. "You and me, and Sam and Merry looking after us. The mallorn tree only makes it worse, reminding me. At least you can have Sam with you – Merry's going to have to stay in Buckland once he's found a wife, and I'll have to go home all alone."

"And who says you won't find a wife?" Frodo asked.

"You never did," Pippin studied him, waiting for a reply.

"I had the Ring," Frodo said, surprising himself by being able to speak of it. "I don't think it tolerated rivals."

"Don't blame it on the Ring," Pippin said. "You just wanted to be like Bilbo as much as possible. He didn't have the Ring until he was nearly your age, and he never married. Just never noticed girls."

"Oh, he noticed all right," Frodo laughed. "He just didn't want to get tied down to only one!"

"Bilbo?!" Pippin exclaimed, "really?"

"You ask your Aunt Petunia and see if she blushes," Frodo challenged him. He smiled. "We had some very interesting discussions Bilbo and I when I got to the age where I was noticing girls."

"But if Bilbo was such skirt chaser, why did he ever have you come to live with him? I mean, it must have made things difficult."

Frodo looked away, down toward the road that led up to Bag End. "I asked him that once, and he said that even though he hadn't got older on the outside much, he'd got older inside. After a while the lasses he'd known for years were old themselves and the lasses who weren't all looked like children to him. Besides, he was ninety nine when he took me in. He needed his sleep."

Pippin propped his chin in his hands and his elbows on his knees, watching as Sam's audience oohed and aahed over his description of Gandalf's fireworks and the defeat of the wargs. "Maybe when I'm older," he conceded softly. "Maybe. If I ever find a girl who makes me feel the way Sam looks today."

Frodo looked too, wondering if Pippin could see the glimmers of elflight that danced in Sam's hair. Twelve days had not been enough to ease the marks that the past winter had left on Sam – the lines of sorrow had been drawn too deeply, and his wrists and ankles still showed thin– but there was a strength to his stance and movements now that spoke of the renewed Earth. The Lady's gift had seeped in through his pores and was mending him as it mended the trees. As if he could feel his master's eyes Sam looked up the hill, meeting that gaze with a momentary concern that turned into a shining smile when he saw that Frodo was all right. But his hand reached out and Rosie was there to take it, and Frodo smiled at both of them.

"Find a girl who looks at you the way Rosie looks at Sam," he told Pippin, as Sam began to work his way up the hill towards the basket of presents, stopping now and then to speak to his guests, or crouch to receive the carefully rehearsed birthday greetings of smallhobbits. "Find a girl who sees you, and you'll be all right."

"Do you think that's possible, Frodo?"

Frodo gazed out over the world before him, seeing the trees that lined the Road pushing out new leaves, and the flush of green that was cheerfully obliterating the scars of the year gone by. A burst of carefree laughter from below caught his ear and he smiled to see Merry bowing with exaggerated gallantry to a bevy of bright eyed lasses as they cheerfully jostled each other for the privilege of being escorted up the hill. There was no malice in them, no despair in the well-earned fussing of the elderly hobbits over the manners of the young, no fear on any face he saw before him. The Shire was healing, and its folk were healing too. Frodo took a deep breath of the perfumed air, turning up his head to look at the miracle of the mallorn flowers one more time. He'd not felt this safe and whole since he'd woken in Ithilien. "I think it must be, Pippin," he said, and then smiled at his young cousin, "Some days I think anything is possible."