Chapter Text
“Do you remember Frodo?”
Elanor looked at him in the light of the fireplace, sipping her wine. How odd it was to be able to see her as a tiny baby, and a tween, and now a respectable adult and mother to her own children, all at the same time. Her eyes were still bright as ever; the only one of his children with blue eyes, although since the last time Sam had seen her she’d taken to wearing glasses.
“Only a little,” she said. “And most of it is mixed up with your stories of him.”
“Do you still have that blanket he made you?” Sam asked.
“It’s around here somewhere,” she said. “Firíel discovered it when he was little and carried it everywhere.” She cocked her head. “Are you finally going to live with us, Dad? I hate thinking of you in that big hole all by yourself, now that Ma…”
She trailed off, and looked into the fire. She hadn’t been able to make it back in time for the funeral, but that was what happened when you lived far from home. Sam had brought her a few things of Rosie’s to keep.
“No, I don’t plan to go back there,” Sam said. He stretched, his knees creaking. They always ached in the cold, and though he’d left Bag End in September it had taken him several weeks to get to the Tower Hills where Elanor lived, and October had come in blustery and chilly.
Still, a body did not forget. The old rhythm of traveling had returned to him, and his feet itched for the road.
“Well, we can make up the guest room for you,” Elanor said. “Or look for a place in town, if you’d like your own space - ”
“Thank you, my dear,” Sam said. “But I will be continuing.”
“Oh,” she said. “What do you mean?”
“I have an old promise to keep,” Sam said. “Well, not exactly a promise. But the ending to a very long story that has already been written.”
She frowned at him. “Are you well, Dad?”
“Very well,” Sam said, and took out of his bag a package wrapped in paper. “This will explain it better than I can.”
She unwrapped it, hands gentle and reverent when the leather cover was revealed. “The red book. You never let us read it as kids.”
“You know all the important tales,” Sam said. “But there’s one that never got told, except in that book. So I’d like you to keep it safe, and even read it if you like.” He stood up. “And I’m off.”
“But where are you going ?” Elanor asked, fetching his walking stick. “Can’t you stay a little longer?”
“I’ve waited quite a long time already,” Sam said, and took her hand in his. “I’m going home.”
“But you said you weren’t - ”
“Not to Bag End,” he said, and kissed her cheek, and went out her door and into the night.
He didn’t make it to the Havens until the end of November. The sky was a steely grey, spitting rain, and it was misty so he didn’t see the Sea until it was almost under his feet. Gull cries echoed off the elven towers built into the cliff side, and this time they made him happy.
It took a bit of searching to find the Shipwright where he was holed up in one of the towers. He was an elf, but with a long grey beard, and he seemed surprised to see another living person.
“Are you lost, grandfather?” he asked when Sam appeared in his doorway. “The land of the halflings is many miles to the East.”
“Not lost,” Sam said, shaking rain off his cloak and sticking out his hand. “Samwise Gamgee. The last of the Ringbearers.”
The elf cocked his head and looked at Sam with a faint, confused smile. “The Ringbearers all passed on, nearly sixty years ago now. And I see no Ring on your finger.”
“Well, yes, seeing as we destroyed it,” Sam said, feeling stubborn. He was a century old but elves always made him feel like an insolent tween. “It was a whole to-do. Perhaps you’ve heard the stories.”
“Perhaps I have,” the Shipwright said. “But Valinor is closed to mortals unless they have earned the passage. Do you have some way to prove yourself?”
The rain pattered against the windows and Sam wanted to laugh, because this was supposed to be the easy part of the story but then again, when had anything ever gone according to plan? No matter.
“I have this,” he said, and unbuttoned his pocket and took out the token Legolas had given him. A carved leaf, shiny from being carried around all those years; he’d always wondered if he’d have a chance to use it.
“A token of the Woodland Realm,” the Shipwright said, holding it up in slender fingers. “Long has it been since I’ve seen something like this.” He looked up sharply. “How would a prince of elves come to owe a life debt to a halfling?”
“Is that what it means,” Sam said with a grin. Gimli and Legolas had visited more than once, and if it had stung a bit to see them happy together, well, it came in handy here. “Bit dramatic, but that was always his way. Well? I will swim if I have to, Master Shipwright, but if there’s a choice I would prefer a boat.”
The elf looked at him in surprise, and then laughed. “I’ve heard tales of your people’s stubbornness. And of Samwise Gamgee, bravest of all halflings.”
“I don’t know about bravest,” Sam said. “But stubborn is about right, at least where this is concerned.”
He did not like boats. But this one was alright, since it seemed to know where it was going and didn’t need him to do anything. Sam sat patiently aboard as it sailed ever westward, through the mists gathered around the shore and into clear water that reflected the stars like a perfect mirror when night fell. The old elf-writing on his arm shone, blurred but still bright.
At last there was a smell , a bit like kingsfoil and a bit like damp earth and growing things after a spring rain. A smell that made Sam feel almost young again. And the sun rose, drawing back the curtain of night, and Sam saw white shores and a far green country.
“Glory and trumpets,” he murmured to himself, as gulls flocked overhead and the ship bore him steadily to a port that looked not so different from the Havens, except that it was bright and colorful in the early morning sun and sky-blue flags flapped from the towers.
The elves there seemed to know who he was, and in fact treated him with much more deference than the Shipwright had. Apparently word had got around. Sam blushed at the attention and asked only to be shown to Frodo.
He’d settled outside the port, in a land where dark pine trees clustered together and white rocks stood scattered across the hills like they’d been dropped by giants. It was almost like the Shire, but the plants were all different and Sam could smell the Sea.
A little road of white chalk and crushed sea-shells led past elf dwellings to a hobbit-hole set into the side of a hill. There was a garden, and though it had been winter in Middle-Earth, here it was blooming with flowers Sam did not know the names of. Except for the elanor blossoms lining the path; small and golden, with their white centers and leaves like lace. He hadn’t seen them since Lothlorien.
Sam sucked in a breath, suddenly nervous. But this was where the road had led him, this was what he had held onto hope for. Estel , strong after all this time.
He knocked on the door, and it opened, and he got to see a smile that he had not seen for sixty years, and the nervousness washed away.
“Oh, Sam,” Frodo said. His hair silver, face lined, but eyes as clear as they had been before the Ring. “I really hoped you’d come.”
“Of course I came,” Sam said, and took his hand and went inside, where the hole was bright and hung with weavings.
