Chapter Six: The Sixth

They were all woken several hours later when Frodo woke, crying out in a terrified voice. “The king! Where’s the pale king!”

Sam cried softly, holding the memory of his brother’s smiling face even tighter to him. Rose held him for a moment, then kissed his head. They brushed at each other’s tears, then Sam got up to go to Frodo.

Merry and Pippin leapt up when Frodo sat up abruptly and started crying out. With trembling fingers, Merry lit a lamp while Pippin tried to calm his frantic cousin. Frodo stared blindly, wildly searching the room. He clutched his shoulder tightly, his features were wracked with pain. His gaze fixed on Pippin, but the tween wondered if he even really saw him.

“Where is he?” Frodo cried as he grabbed Pippin by the arms and began to shake him. “Where is he?”

Pippin gripped his cousin’s arms and tried to steady him. “He’s not here, dearest,” he said in a small, frightened voice, his eyes bright with tears as he stared into Frodo’s wild ones.

Frodo looked at him blindly for a moment, then continued his panicked search. “Yes, he is! He is! I saw him. I can feel his blade in me! Where is he?!”

“He’s gone, Frodo,” Merry said.

Frodo swung his eyes over to him and squirmed out of Pippin’s grip. “No, he’s not! He’s here! He’s come for me! Where is he?!”

Merry put down the lamp and approached his cousin slowly so as not to frighten him further. Frodo’s legs were tangled in the sheets and he would have fallen if not both cousins reached out to steady him. Merry gently but firmly clasped him in his arms. Frodo was trembling badly. His shoulder and arm and leg where the Morgul blade had bit and spread its poison were ice cold. The tortured hobbit fought his cousin fiercely. “Let me go! He’ll find me! He’ll take me! Let me go!”

Merry held Frodo’s head against his chest, his other arm firmly around his cousin’s back. “Hush, dearest,” he murmured as he began to rock Frodo. “It’s all right. No one is going to take you. The king is not here. Just your Merry and our Pippin. It’s all right. Do you understand, love? It’s all right.”

Frodo shook his head and began to cry, still trying to get loose but Merry held him firmly. “No, it’s not all right,” he protested into his cousin’s chest. “He’ll find me, he’ll take me and I won’t be... I can’t fight...”

“Hush, hush,” Merry said as he continued to rock. “You don’t need to fight. Let your Merry do that for you. Just rest now. Rest.

“Sleep now, brother most dear,” he began to softly sing.

“Close your weary eyes;

Soon night will be o’er,

And the sun shall rise.

Fear not, for I am nigh

To dry all your tears.

“Sleep now, and when you wake,

I will be here.

Rest now, brother mine,

Do not be afraid;

All the dark night through

Beside you I will stay.

Lie still, safe in my arms,

While I my vigil keep;

I’ll be here when you wake.”

Frodo was crying harder now. “I can’t sleep. He’ll find me.” He continued to strain against Merry’s arms, but he could manage nothing more than weak flutterings against such strong, sheltering arms. He looked up at his cousin. “Let me go,” he implored. “Please let me go. I have to get away. I can’t let him find me.”

The tears Merry had tried so hard to hold back started to fall at the pleading in his cousin’s voice, the horrible fear in those once so bright and beautiful eyes. Merry remembered all the times growing up how he could have and would have loved to have fallen into those eyes, into the endless depths of love that had always shone there before. His heart broke to see what was there now - a black hole where all the joy used to be. He did not want to fall in there, but he would have if it had meant he could find his cousin and bring him back. He looked up at Pippin’s already tear-streaked face, then back down at his cousin and began to stroke his curls hoping that would calm him as he continued to rock him and hold him. “He won’t find you, dearest. I promise you he won’t.”

“He already has,” Frodo murmured. “He already has. Please let me go. Please. I have to leave. I have...” His voice trailed off and he was still for a moment.

Sam watched from the threshold, tears streaming down his face. He watched as Frodo calmed in Merry’s arms and he hoped against hope that this would not be as bad a turn this time as usual. But as he thought that, Frodo grew more agitated and squirmed so fiercely this time he won free of Merry’s arms. “He’s here, he’s here!” The Ring-bearer tried to run, but his leg collapsed under him and he fell writhing and screaming to the floor.

Sam rushed forward. Frodo opened his eyes. He held out his arms to Sam as a child would and his voice had changed to that of a child. “Hold me, Sam? He’s hurt me, Sam, so bad.”

Sam took his brother into his arms. The elder hobbit found his favorite place against his guardian’s chest and held on tightly. “Oh, Sam...”

The gardener kissed his dear one’s head. “I’m here, dear. Your Sam’s here. Nothing’s going to hurt you no more. Understand?”

“Yes, Sam,” the troubled elder hobbit murmured. “Thank you.”

“Sorry, Mr. Merry,” Sam said to the rejected younger hobbit who with Pippin was looking frightened at their cousin. “He doesn’t really know where he is or who he’s with when he gets a spell like this.”

Merry looked between the two of them. Frodo had calmed in Sam’s arms. “He’s seems to know who you are.”

“He’s also mistaken me other times for an orc.”

“Who are you talking to, Sam?” Frodo asked in that same child-like voice.

Sam turned his attention back to his brother and gently rocked him and stroked his curls. “Mr. Merry, dear.”

“Merry’s here?”

“And Mr. Pippin.”

“Oh yes, of course. They came with me. You lit that fire to cook things and that’s how he found me. Very silly of you.”

“Yes, very silly,” Sam agreed. “I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you, Sam.” Frodo looked up now. “Where’s the pale king now, Sam? Did you drive him away?”

“He’s gone now, dear,” Sam soothed as he continued to stroke. “You’re safe. He won’t find you. You’re safe at home.”

Frodo hugged his friend closer. “But I saw the fire, Sam. It’s too late. He saw it too. He must have because he came and hurt me.”

“It’s only the one that was burning in the hearth to keep you warm, dear. He wasn’t here. Not really.”

Frodo looked up into his friend’s eyes. “But why does it hurt so much then, Sam? Will you make it go away? Please? I don’t want to hurt anymore. I’m so tired of hurting.”

Sam blinked away tears. Pippin sniffled in the background. Merry pulled him close and murmured what comforts he could as he hid his own tears in his cousin’s curls and Pippin cried into his shoulder.

“It’ll hurt just for tonight like this, dear,” Sam said, keeping his voice as calm and gentle as possible. “I’m sorry. But in the morning it won’t hurt so bad. Do you think you can be brave for your Sam until then?”

“Will you stay with me?” Frodo asked in the same child-like voice as he looked up, his eyes full of trust.

Sam looked into his brother’s eyes. They were pained, but they were also innocent. The dark shadows that were so often there were absent. He smiled through his tears. “Of course I will.”

“Then I can be brave.”

Sam kissed his head. “That’s my Frodo. My brave, beautiful Frodo.”

Frodo beamed, though he was puzzled by the tears that were slowly trailing down his friend’s cheeks. He reached up to wipe at them. “You’re beautiful, too, Sam. Don’t cry. I’ll be brave for you and you can be brave for me. All right?”

Sam smiled. “All right. We’ll be brave together.”

Frodo smiled, satisfied at the arrangement. He placed his head back on Sam’s chest. “You’re my favorite hobbit, Sam, in all the Shire,” he murmured, “my very favorite.”

“You’re my favorite, too, dear,” Sam said. “You and Rosie.”

“Ah, yes, Rosie Cotton. You always did like her, didn’t you, Sam?”

Sam smiled. “Yes, dear, I always did.”

“I love Merry and Pippin too. They’re my best friends, too. I’m lucky, I’m so lucky.”

Frodo felt three separate kisses pressed against his head. “So are we,” came three voices at the same time.

So the night passed. Frodo slept fitfully as the all too real pain in his shoulder and leg woke him often, but he didn’t complain though his features were contorted with the effort to keep from crying out. Sam rocked him and sang to him when he was awake to try to distract him and get him back to sleep.

“Am I being brave, Sam?” he asked one time.

Sam held him tighter. “Yes, love, you are being very brave.”

“Good. I wanted to make you proud.”

Sam kissed his head. “I’m very proud of you.”

Frodo smiled widely at that and Sam’s heart nearly broke at the innocent beauty of that as his beloved brother’s light shone brightly through the dark.

“You’re being brave, too, Sam. I’m proud of you, too. I always have been.”

When Frodo did sleep, Sam cried softly. The other hobbits slept in the same cycle. They allowed exhaustion to claim then only when their cousin slept. Sam barely slept at all.

A/N: The lullaby is, of course, Galadriel’s.