A/N: My favorite scene in The Two Towers movie is when Frodo draws Sting on Sam, simply because of the awesome power of the moment - the malevolent influence of the Ring coming between two people who share the same heart and soul and that even with a sword at his throat held by one of two people he loves most in the world, Sam just keeps loving and loving and loving without skipping a beat. But what if the sword hadn’t stopped at the throat...

Dedicated to harrowcat who apparently wanted to see more angst after "Dreams and Reality". Also, the queen remarked some time ago, she thought this story would be too angsty even for me and I wanted to prove her wrong! :)

Chapter One: A Terrible Loss

Sam gave a small gasp as Sting pierced his throat. He looked into his master’s and dearest friend’s crazed eyes and wished more than anything that he could reach him, but his heart broke to realize there was nothing to reach. It grieved him even more that if Frodo came to his senses, he would find only a corpse and never know that his Sam had forgiven him and never stopped loving him. The gardener closed his eyes as his lifeblood spilled out onto the stones. His last breath came as a sigh and his body relaxed. A bright light opened before him and he felt enveloped by love. Still he fought as he felt himself moving toward that light. Please, please, don’t make me leave him.

Sanity returned for a moment in Frodo’s eyes a few heartbeats later, then a worse madness as he looked down at the sword in his hand, dripping with Sam’s blood. His guardian’s eyes were closed. The Ring-bearer gave an inarticulate howl of grief, flung Sting away and frantically shook his friend’s body. There was no response.

"My Sam! No! Sam! SAM! NO!!"

His gaze was drawn to the Ring around his neck and viciously his hand grasped it, determined to throw it far from him, but he could not. He howled again, this time in rage, at himself for being so weak, at the Ring. With blood-covered hands, he groped for Sting again, aiming it this time toward his heart.

NO! DON’T! came a voice so loud and commanding that Frodo obeyed without question, without thought. Sting dropped from his nerveless fingers. The voice had sounded like Sam, but he knew that couldn’t be. He had just murdered his Sam.

He stood and looked up to the sky and in the distance, almost too faint to see, was the shrinking figure of the Nazgûl on his fell beast. Frodo screamed out for him to return. He reached for the Ring, to put it on, to expose himself and be relieved of his burden and die beside his brother.

NO!! came the voice again, but even stronger, and this time it sounded like Sam and Gandalf. But both were dead. Because of him.

He fell to his knees, gathered Sam’s body close to him and wailed out his grief. He rocked his friend and sobbed as he hadn’t since his parents had died. "I’m so sorry, Sam, so sorry, come back, oh please, come back," he cried over and over and over, knowing how completely useless those words were to express what poured out of his shattered heart and soul.

Faramir heard in the halfling’s wails an echo of what his own heart had made when his mother had died. He looked now down at the little one’s grief with compassion and pity. Had he not been near this same small size when his mum had died? Had he not held her and begged her not to go, to come back as Frodo was now doing? Had he not laid his head against her and soaked the front of her gown with his tears and known no consolation for having his heart ripped in two as her arms around him fell away and her soft voice could no longer comfort him or sing to him as it had so many times before? Yes, he knew that pain well that now lashed at him from the little one before him and from the little boy inside him. It seemed far too much for such a small being to able to bear without breaking apart utterly.

He listened to the halfling’s agonized sobs as long as he could bear them, then knelt down and gently placed his hand on Frodo’s shoulder. How had he and Sam endeared themselves to him in so short a time?

Frodo paid him no attention. He curled himself tighter around his Sam, rocking, crooning, sobbing, begging for forgiveness and for death. He wished to die more fervently than he had since his parents died. He had so longed to be buried with them in their joint grave.

It was not then your time to die, nor is it your time now, came the second voice and this time it was gentle and sounded only like Gandalf.

But I want to die! Frodo told the voice. Please let me. Please...

If you die now, all Middle-earth will die with you.

I don’t care! I don’t want to live anymore! I can’t. I killed Sam!

The Ring killed him, my dear child, not you.

It was my hand.

But it was not your heart, not your will.

What does that matter?! came the savage retort. He’s still dead! I still killed him! I tried to throw the Ring away and even now I can’t do it. I’m a murderer now because of it and I still can’t bear to part with it!

The voice had no answer for that, or at least, none that Frodo could hear over his wrenching sobs.

Leave me alone, he told it. If you can’t help me die, then leave me alone.

You are not alone, Frodo, you are never alone. Sam is with you still, even now. His spirit is forever enmeshed with yours. That’s why he was created, to love you enough so you could complete what you were created to do. He is at peace now. He rests in the arms of his Creator, as I do.

Can I rest there, too?

The plaintiveness of that plea broke the heart behind the voice. My dear hobbit, you already do. Let yourself feel that. Sam’s arms aren’t the only ones that are holding you. Rest in both arms tonight and then in morning rise and move on. Sam will stay by your side and so will the One Who loves you even more than he.

What love can he still have? came the bitter response. I killed him. I killed that love.

No, you cannot kill his love. That is a thing eternal. As is the love of the One Who made you.

Then I don’t deserve it anymore.

But you are still going to receive it. You cannot carry this burden alone.

I don’t want to carry it at all.

Who else would you appoint then? You were chosen for this, only you. There is no one else. Would you truly want someone else to carry it?

There was a long pause, then a very soft, No.

Faramir waited patiently, his hand still gently on Frodo’s shoulder. The Ring-bearer gradually became more and more aware of it and raised a tear- and blood-streaked face to the man whose own face had tears tracking down it. The captain’s heart broke anew for all he saw in the ageless, elven eyes that stared back at him. They seemed to contain the torment of the ages and the man wondered again how it could possibly be borne by such a small, fragile, mortal being. But even as he thought it, his answer came. He could still perceive faintly the light that emanated from those eyes and that little being as a whole.

"I’m sorry," the Ranger said softly, knowing how completely inadequate those words were, but hoping the sentiment behind them would reach Frodo.

The hobbit nodded numbly. He looked back at Sting, longing just to have it over with, to join his Sam in death. What else could he do? He didn’t want to do anything else.

"I’ll help you get to the Fire," Faramir said, convinced as never before the evil power of the Ring had to be destroyed. If it could destroy his strong brother, if it could tear apart two people as dear to each other as these two halflings were, he didn’t even want to imagine what it would do if unleashed on an entire city.

"I’m already there," Frodo murmured. "Already burning."

"Then I will help you get the Ring there."

"Yes," came the soft, distant reply. "Yes, before I kill anyone else."

Faramir watched as the Ring-bearer held his friend even closer and abandoned himself to exhaustion. He didn’t stir again until morning, though his tears continued to flow even in his sleep.

When the captain of the Rangers came to him in the morning and found him still sleeping and holding onto Sam, the man didn’t want to disturb him, but then Frodo roused on his own. For a moment he looked disoriented and shook Sam gently as to wake him, then he saw the wound and began to sob anew. When he was spent, he looked into Faramir’s sorrowful eyes.

"I must bury him before we go. Do you have any gardens here?"

Faramir shook his head. "Most of them have been destroyed."

Something hardened in Frodo then. "Then we must destroy the one who caused that. They must grow again."

He stood shakily, then stooped and gathered his Sam into his arms. "Where can I bury him then?"

Faramir looked at the little one, amazed at the strength within him. He knew only one place that hadn’t been entirely spoiled. "This way."

Frodo stumbled along with his burden and came to a small patch of dirt where a partially ruined gazebo stood. "This was my mother’s favorite place in better days," the Ranger said. "It was where she used to have her garden."

"Thank you, Captain," the hobbit said and gently laid down his burden.

Faramir watched as Frodo knelt down and began to dig at the ground with his bare hands. The man knelt down beside him and began to do the same. Two other Rangers came back with some tools to make it easier and the four of them worked in silence.

By the time they were done, Frodo was exhausted and the ground wet with his tears. He wiped his muddy, bleeding hands on his cloak and then brought Sam into his arms one last time. He held him very tightly for a long time and told him how sorry he was and how much he loved him, then kissed the cold forehead and brushed at the curls. He then laid his dearest friend and his own heart in the grave. He lingered there for a very long time, on his knees. He was stiff when he at last rose and would have fallen over had not Faramir reached out a hand to steady him. He shivered. He knew he would always be cold now without Sam’s heart to warm him.