When Frodo awakens in the night, there is no one there to tell his dreams to. He forces himself to silence--he does not want to wake Sam, or worse yet, Rose, who is already heavy with the Gamgee's first child. And so he lies in the dark, breathing hard or not breathing at all as the endless moments tick by. His four-fingered hand seeks the hard gem that lies upon his breast, the gift of Arwen Undomiel, and he waits blindly for the fear, the horror, the regret to pass.

Sometimes he dreams of Weathertop, and the Wraith-king, and then he sees that white face and pale hand, glowing with menace and clasping a long knife. Frodo always wakes before the knife pierces his shoulder. When thought returns again, he thinks it is because such pain is too great to to hold in memory fully--his mind cannot encompass what his flesh once endured.

Sometimes he dreams of all the griefs of the journey--he sees Gandalf slip again into the darkness beneath Khazad-dum, and watches Boromir's face change and grow dangerous as he reaches for the Ring. There is Gollum, always and forever betrayed and betraying, an answerless enigma--could he have been saved? Frodo will never know.

Sometimes in dreams he must walk again toward Shelob, holding the light of Earendil aloft, Sting glittering blue in his right hand (oh there are five fingers on his hand in the dream, in every dream but one) and knowing, somehow, that it is in vain, that no matter how he faces down this ancient terror, she is cunning, and his sleeping-self wants to scream to his dream-self, a warning: Run, run away, but not like that, not heedless and foolish and fey. And then to feel again the sting in his neck. And wake.

There are too many bad dreams for Frodo: dreams of his cousins trapped among orcs, dreams of teetering at the edge of the Cracks of Doom, dreams of marching endlessly across the waterless wastes of Gorgoroth.

And then there is the worst dream, the dream that he does not remember upon waking, because the shame of it is to great, the truth of it is too harrowing.

In that dream, he lies, bound, on the floor of the tower room on the border of Mordor. It is where the orcs brought him after Shelob's sting. He comes to himself surrounded by leering orcs; they strip him and paw at him, and mock him when he weeps. They finger their knives and ask him endless questions, slapping his face when he lies, slapping his face when he tells the truth. He is naked, and he is alone, and Sam--Sam must be dead. But if Sam is dead, then he is beyond the Dark Lord's reach, he has escaped this endless nightmare. It is the loss of the Ring that burns in Frodo's heart--he knew as soon as he woke that it was gone.

And the horror, the true horror of the dream, is that he is glad.

It is gone. He is encircled by enemies, and fated to torture and death, and yet in some deep recess of his being, a tight grip has been released. The Quest is over, the Ring is taken, darkness and hatred will shadow all Middle-earth. And all Frodo can feel is relief.

When he wakes from this dream, he finds himself weeping. He cannot remember this dream, only endure an infinity of shame without understanding why.

* * * * *

During the days, Frodo is busy and contented, at least on the surface. Sam is taken up with the re-ordering of his beloved Shire--he assists Will Whitfoot as he assisted Frodo during his short tenure as Mayor, and spends much of his time helping folk get their farms and fields into healthy condition. He also spends a great deal of time in the gardens of Bag End and down on New Row in his Gaffer's garden. (The Gaffer protests noisily at Sam's "interfering ways", but his rheumatism slows him, and Sam ignores him and tends to his small patch with silent devotion.) Whatever Sam touches blooms. Even Frodo can feel it--he can almost see life flowing from Master Gamgee's hands.

Frodo is writing. He has much to write of--he knows he must chronicle everything that took place. He and Sam go often to Crickhollow, where Merry and Pippin have taken up residence, and while he is there, he quizzes them gently about the paths they took, through forest and field, from the depths of Fangorn to Orthanc and then Gondor and the Black Gate. It is hard to get them to tell the darker sides of their stories, but he can often corner Merry, who will tell him of Pippin's travails; and when he gets Pippin away from Merry, the youngest member of the Fellowship will confide that he worries yet about Merry, and tell Frodo what Merry has been through. Frodo offers love and comfort, and gleans from their hints more than they have imagined. Home at Bag End he sets it all down, well taken care of himself as he knows.

Rose is a bustling, capable lass--lady, Frodo supposes he should now say, but he can never look at her apple cheeks and glowing face and think any word but "lass". She is rounded and soft and comfortable, and matches Sam well: Where he is uncertain of his privilege still, she stands like a lion and puts him well to the front. Frodo smiles to himself to see it, and to see Sam's discomfort wane as he slowly becomes accustomed to the deference which people pay to him now.

Beneath the surface, there are the nightmares, and a sense of waiting, of living life within a held breath. Frodo does not know what it is he waits for. But he waits.