He hadn't minded the dreams so much when he was a teenager, before it had really sunk in with him that he might as well wish for a beautiful (if very short) elf-princess in his bed as wish for Frodo Baggins. It had taken years and a few hard lessons - none of which had come from Frodo - for him to understand that servants were servants and gentry were gentry, and however amiable their relationships might be, there was a gulf there that couldn't be crossed, no different for the Master of Bag End and his gardener than it was for the Master of Buckland and his scullery maids. He was glad of those lessons, too, because they'd taught him to see Mr. Frodo as the Master first and Frodo second, and that was better than getting ideas above his station and letting himself in for no end of grief and heartache.

Better than thinking that anything might come of dreams in which fair soft skin warmed under his hands like flowers in the sun, and fine, beautiful lips whispered Sam, I love you against his mouth.

No matter how often Sam explained these things to himself, however, no matter how much he believed them, he still had the dreams; and recently, for whatever reason, he had been having them with increasing frequency. Which was why he closed his eyes and stifled a groan when Frodo wandered out into the garden, clutching a cup of tea and shading his eyes against the morning sun, with his shirt half unbuttoned and his hair still touseled, clearly just out of bed and still half asleep.

"Good morning, Sam," Frodo said around a yawn, then smiled. "I'll never understand how you can be so industrious so early. It takes me a good hour and a few cups of tea before I can so much as get my buttons sorted out."

"Good morning, sir," Sam answered, pausing in his pruning to carefully scrutinize the rose bush, and trying not to dwell on the fact that, indeed, Frodo's shirt needed to be unbuttoned and redone right. Then, because he felt he ought to say something else: "Sleep well, did you?"

Frodo frowned a little at that and took a drink of his tea. "Not really, no. I…" He paused for a moment, long enough to clearly change his mind about what he was going to say. "I was up later than I'm used to, that's all."

Well, it wasn't Sam's place to ask, though he knew full well that if Frodo had been up later than usual it must have been well past late and into early before he went to bed; but whatever had kept him from sleeping well, it was a sure bet that he hadn't spent all night dreaming of Sam wearing nothing more than a thin sheet and an inviting smile. "I'm sorry to hear that, Mr. Frodo," Sam answered, trying desperately not to wonder if Frodo's body would feel as warm and sweet against his own in reality as it had in his dream. "Have you tried poppy-seed tea? My gran swore by it."

"No, I'll try that next time I have trouble sleeping. Speaking of tea, would you like some?"

Sam was saved the trouble of answering by a high, whinnying voice calling Frodo's name. Frodo squeezed his eyes closed and muttered something impolite, then fixed a smile on his face and turned to the front gate, where a stout middle-aged matron waved imperiously at him, accompanied by a pretty lass who looked as though she would rather have been somewhere else. "Hello, Aunt Eglantine," Frodo called. "Hello, Pearl. The two of you are about early, aren't -"

"Oi! Frodo!"

Something fast, small, and vaguely blue zipped around the side of the smial and caught Frodo squarely in the midsection, sending him head over heels onto the grass and making Sam duck out of the way of flying tea. There was a brief scuffle before Frodo heaved himself to his feet, Pippin slung over his shoulders like a water yoke. "Pippin, when did you get so heavy?" he gasped.

"When I got into my teens," Pippin said happily, seeming perfectly content in his perch on Frodo's shoulders. "I'll be taller than you soon."

"Peregrin Took -" Eglantine began forbiddingly. Pearl peered out from behind her mother, covering a smile with her hand, dancing eyes catching Sam's in a conspiratorial glance before she turned her attention back to Frodo and her brother. Sam bit his lip and turned back to the roses, trying to keep from laughing.

"Come in and have some tea, Aunt Eglantine," Frodo called, spinning around in a circle while Pippin whooped with laughter. "I just made it." He slung Pippin down, caught the lad by the scruff of the neck to keep him from staggering away, and pulled him into Bag End. At the gate, Eglantine stood for a moment looking very much as if she would like to roll her eyes, then marched through the front door with Pearl in tow.

Sam wiped a stray drop of tea off from his forehead, gazed a bit wistfully after Frodo, then turned his attention back to the pruning.

That was unsettling enough; Pearl wasn't so young that she wouldn't make a good match for Frodo, and it was clear enough that her mother had set her heart on exactly that match. What was worse, though, and nearly made Sam spit out the mouthful of water he'd just taken, was when Pippin crawled into Frodo's lap and began unbuttoning Frodo's shirt.

"Your shirt's not buttoned right, Frodo," Pippin announced cheerfully. "It's been annoying me all day, and I'll bet it's irking Mother and Pearl too." He wriggled into a more secure position, which happened to involve wrapping his legs around Frodo's waist. Eglantine looked as if she might have apoplexy on the spot; Pearl blinked rapidly and watched in a sort of horrified fascination.

Frodo laughed and swatted Pippin's rear. "Off, sprout. I can button my own shirt."

Pippin looked up at Frodo from under his lashes and kept unbuttoning. "No, you can't, or you'd have done it right the first time."

He's never doing what I think he's doing, and him barely out of nappies! Sam thought, appalled.

He was, the little sod. "I think I should stay here for a few days and show you how to put your clothes on properly," Pippin announced, wriggling a bit in Frodo's lap.

"Peregrin!" Eglantine said ominously. "You mind your manners, my lad, or I'll -"

Not if I get to him first, Sam thought, then squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed a hand across them. Oh, no. I am not jealous of a fourteen-year-old lad with a crush on Mr. Frodo. I'm not.

Frodo snapped his hips to the side and dumped Pippin unceremoniously onto the grass. Pippin bounced back up, laughing, and wriggled over to curl contentedly into Frodo's side as Frodo buttoned his shirt back up. Frodo smiled and ruffled Pippin's hair fondly.

Sam gathered up the weeds and went to stuff them into the compost heap.

"Well, that's over," Frodo sighed. "I love Pippin, and Pearl's a dear, but Aunt Eglantine can be… Well."

"Mr. Pippin's getting tall," Sam said, more because he felt some response was expected than because he had any desire to discuss Frodo's relatives with him.

"Tall and awkward," Frodo laughed. "He's going to get himself into trouble one of these days. More trouble than he already does, I mean."

"He will at that," Sam muttered, and must have said it a bit more austerely than he'd meant to, because Frodo looked at him in surprise.

"He doesn't mean anything by it, Sam. He's young, that's all. Old enough to know that he can turn heads when he wants, and too young to know what to do with them once they're turned."

And does he turn your head? Sam wanted to ask, and cursed himself roundly. One of those days, indeed. "Is that a fact, sir?"

The silence beside him stretched out long enough that he glanced over at Frodo, and caught a thoughtful look before Frodo hurriedly dropped his gaze to the grass at their feet. That was a thing odd enough to make him frown a little, Frodo not being willing to meet his eyes, but he put it aside as none of his business and returned to pruning the climbing roses.

"Sam, are you almost done here?" Frodo asked abruptly.

Sam lifted an eyebrow. "Close enough to done, sir. If you're wanting me to clear out, I'll just -"

"No. No, I was… going to ask if you'd join me for supper."

Sam caught his finger on a thorn and clamped down on an annoyed exclamation, sticking the finger into his mouth as much to stall for time as to avoid bleeding on his shirt. He knew full well that Frodo couldn't possibly mean to be extending the same sort of casual social invitation that he would have extended one of his cousins, and still less could he mean any of the things that a dinner invitation might mean under ordinary circumstances; but for the life of him Sam couldn't figure out what he did mean. Hazarding a guess, he asked, "Don't you feel like cooking tonight, sir?"

Frodo looked a little hurt. "I asked if you'd join me, Sam, not if you'd cook for me. I can cook, you know."

"I didn't say as you couldn't, Mr. Frodo. I just didn't know why you'd…" He trailed off, unsure how to proceed.

Color flared into Frodo's pale cheeks, but he held Sam's gaze stubbornly. "Because I enjoy your company, that's why. It's no different from asking you in for a cup of tea or… or coming to talk to you while you're working in the garden. I do those things all the time and you don't seem to mind."

But it was different, even if Sam couldn't put into words exactly how it was. And suddenly he realized that something else was different too, something that hung amorphously in the air between them, something that had nothing and everything to do with this dinner invitation.

Frodo was watching him, color rising a little higher, and Sam didn't have the heart to tell him no. "I'd be glad to, sir. Let me run my tools home and get cleaned up."

Frodo's answering smile was surprisingly shy, and Sam bit his lip on the urge to say Frodo's name, without the Mister, just once.

"Just like that?" he asked dubiously, watching from the doorway as Sam splashed water into the washbasin in his bedroom and began scrubbing at his hands. "You're just going to go and sit across the table from the Master like you were company?"

"No, Dad, o' course not," Sam answered, a little shocked. "But he had kin visit today, that little cousin of his from Tuckborough with his mother and sister, and now they're gone I think he's a bit lonely rattling about that great hole by himself. He don't know anyone else to ask, is all, bless him."

The Gaffer pursed his lips a bit and his look of disapproval deepened, but it wasn't aimed at Sam now. Much as the Gaffer had always thought the sun rose and set on Mr. Bilbo, and thought it still, Sam knew that he hadn't approved of Mr. Bilbo traipsing off and leaving young Mr. Frodo alone with a great sprawling smial and a position in the community that he hadn't been exactly ready to take up. "Well… you mind your place, now, and don't be too free with your words."

"Have you ever known me to be?" Sam asked, a bit nettled.

This seemed to be the day for silences stretching longer than they should. Sam picked up a towel and turned to see the Gaffer frowning thoughtfully. "No… that I have not, Sam. But I know what store you set by Mr. Frodo -"

Ah, no you don't, and a good thing too, Sam thought morosely.

" - and sometimes he don't seem to know how things are quite as well as you do. Mind you keep to your place and keep him to his."

"I will, Dad," Sam answered, and kept his eyes turned away from his bed.

"Have a seat, Sam," Frodo said by way of greeting, smiling over his shoulder as Sam hovered uncertainly in the doorway of the kitchen. "The stew's almost ready."

"What can I help with, sir?" Sam asked, rather horrified at the thought of sitting at the table and watching Frodo do all the work.

Frodo glanced speculatively at him, then resettled his shoulders with what looked like resignation. "You can get the bowls and silverware out, if you'd like."

"Yessir," Sam answered, moving to pull bowls out of the cupboard and arrange them on the counter. He pulled open the drawer where the plain utensils were kept; but Frodo had been moving things around again, and all that gleamed up at him was silver plate. Sam poked dubiously at a fork that all by itself probably cost more than he made in a week. "Um… where have the other spoons gotten to, Mr. Frodo?"

Frodo glanced back in surprise. "What's wrong with the silver? Lobelia likes it well enough, she's tried at least twice to make off with it."

Sam bit his tongue on a rather exasperated response, remembering his Gaffer's words. "Silver's for special occasions," he informed Frodo, who genuinely appeared to be unacquainted with that fact.

"This is the first time you've had dinner with me, Sam," Frodo answered, turning back to the stew. "I rather think that qualifies as a special occasion."

If there was anyone in all the world who could flummox Sam more thoroughly than Mr. Frodo, Sam fervently hoped he never met them. "I - I mean -"

"Can you hand me the bowls, please? Thank you. If you don't want to use the silver, the other spoons are in the drawer right below that one."

Sam sighed with relief and fished out plain tin spoons as Frodo dished up the stew and set it on the table.

The stew was excellent, well-spiced beef, and the wine so smooth that Sam resolutely decided not to even speculate as to what kind it was; the near-miss with the silver had unsettled him quite enough, given the Gaffer's earlier lecture. Frodo asked about the whys and wherefores of keeping the garden blooming, and seemed gratifyingly interested in Sam's answers, and before Sam really noticed the deepening dark, the only light in the kitchen was coming from the fire and the candles on the table.

"I hope my aunt and my cousins made it home before it got too dark," Frodo commented at last, glancing out the window.

"Must have been nice for you, having them to visit," Sam answered.

"Aunt Eglantine wants me to marry Pearl," Frodo told his stew, poking at it with his spoon.

Sam's breath left him in a slow almost-sigh. He'd always known that someday there'd be a Mistress at Bag End, but he had not yet learned to take that prospect in stride. "Is that so, sir?"

Frodo's sudden glance at him was startlingly penetrating, making him feel suddenly, uncomfortably transparent. "I'm not going to, of course. But I haven't quite gotten that across to my aunt. She keeps telling me how wonderful it is to marry and settle down. So long as one marries someone of good family, of course." He sounded a little bitter, and Sam wondered at it.

"Well, no one should wed before they're ready," Sam said philosophically. "It's not as if the Shire'll run out of lasses, and I can't think anyone would say you nay."

"Really?" Frodo asked slowly. "I wonder."

Sam looked at him, puzzled. "Mr. Frodo, I can't think of a lass in Hobbiton doesn't turn giggly when you go past."

"And what if it's not -" Frodo cut himself off and reached for his wine. "What if it's not my wish to ever marry?"

Sam took a deep breath and answered the question he'd almost heard the first time, or thought he had. "Well, then… lads don't giggle, sir, but there's not many of them as haven't watched you on your way a time or two."

Frodo picked up his wine glass and leaned back in his chair. "And what about you, Sam?" he asked quietly.

Sam felt the blood drain out of his face and thought, What is it you want me to say? Aye, I watch you. I dream about you, too, about undressing you and touching you, and not just for a tumble neither.

"When are you planning to marry?" Frodo went on, and Sam felt weak with relief.

Looking down at his bowl to hide the rush of blood back into his face, he muttered, "Don't know, sir. I haven't thought about it much."

"No? Haven't set your eye on anyone yet?"

"No, sir, not yet." It was half a truth, at any rate.

Frodo's eyes were shadowed in the candlelight, and Sam wished that he could see them a little better. "Yes, you won't… won't be of age for a few more years yet, will you? Still time." His voice was very quiet.

Suddenly there were more shadows around them than the ones cast by the candles, and Sam took a deep breath, unpleasantly conscious of treading a very narrow path in the dark. "I'm old enough to plight a troth if I'd a mind to, sir." Old enough and more to take a lover, seemingly. "It's just… I've not found a lass I'm minded to court, and I've enough and more to do without courting anyway. Just keeping Bag End's gardens up is a job in itself, though I'd not give it up for the world."

Frodo rose with a quick, sharp movement and went to stand before the fire, making minute adjustments to the position of the kettle. "I'm sorry, Sam," he said with a laugh that sounded forced to Sam's ears. "And here I am taking up even more of your time. I shouldn't -"

"Mr. Frodo," Sam said quietly.

He'd never interrupted Frodo before. That in itself was enough to still Frodo's hand over the kettle. Sam waited until Frodo's eyes turned back to his before he spoke again.

"Will you tell me a story, sir? One of them ones with elves and such that Mr. Bilbo used to tell. I always did love those, and I ain't heard one for years, it seems."

Frodo looked into the fire for long seconds, making Sam's breath catch on flickering shadows chasing amber-cast light across those delicate features. Lit by the flames, Frodo's eyes glowed softly under unruly tendrils of night-dark hair; with a deeper ache than any he'd ever known, Sam watched as the firelight caressed Frodo's face, down the line of his neck to the smooth curve of his collarbone.

Ah, why me? Sam thought miserably. Why can't he look like Ted Sandyman, and have the same temper to boot? Why does he have to be where I can't -

Touch him. His skin would be warm from the fire, fever-hot under the touch of other hands, and smell a little of wood smoke and pipeweed…

"A story," Frodo said softly, and his smile was genuine, if rueful. "Of course, Sam. Is there one in particular that you'd like to hear?" He picked up the kettle and poured boiling water over the leaves in a small white teapot on the table.

Sam cleared his throat to be sure that his voice was under control. "Any one you'd care to tell, sir."

When old Mr. Bilbo had told stories he had made a right production out of it, voices and gestures and grand turns of phrase, and as a child Sam had loved that. Frodo told them quietly, looking down into his tea as if he were watching the tale unfold before his eyes, speaking of Elves and Men a thousand years dust as if he knew them all to speak to in the street, describing the high spires of ancient cities as if he had walked their hallways himself, and Sam loved that too but it frightened him a little; that Frodo might go, even in his own mind, somewhere Sam could not follow touched Sam with a chill like an early frost. Watching him, Sam felt the sudden urge to reach across the table and take Frodo's hand, to keep him here in this warm, firelit kitchen, to pull him back away from cliffs where the cold spray of the ocean crashed and soared against high carved gates.

"And what happened then, sir?" he asked as Frodo paused and took a sip of his tea.

Frodo spread his hands. "The sea covered it, to the tops of the highest towers. Everything was lost, sunk to the bottom of the ocean."

Sam shivered. "I'm right glad there's no water round Hobbiton could cover more than a good-sized smial."

Frodo laughed. "So am I, Sam. I shouldn't like to see the Shire fall into the sea as well."

"No, nor aught else happen to it," Sam answered, and thought of Frodo sitting all by himself in his study, poring over old tales until he could see them when he closed his eyes.

Frodo lifted his eyes to Sam's, laughter still lurking around the corners of his mouth, and Sam thought: Ask me to stay tonight. I can sleep on the couch in the back parlor. Just let me go to sleep knowing you're not here all on your own.

"I should be getting home, Mr. Frodo," he said instead. "The Gaffer'll be…"

"Worrying?"

"Well, not so much that, sir, as storing up words for me for sitting here with you all evening and not remembering my place, if you take my meaning."

"Your place," Frodo said softly. "I rather hope that one of these days you'll be able to set that aside."

Sam didn't. Knowledge of their positions, their roles, was like armor in this odd new situation. It taught him how to act when he would otherwise have been sadly at sea, and it was the only thing that kept him from reaching out to brush that tumble of fire-warmed hair back behind the delicate point of Frodo's ear, an act that would surely have repercussions that didn't bear thinking about. Even Frodo, who wandered about in a threadbare old jacket and seemed to think of silver as only a shinier variety of tin, would doubtless have some things to say if his gardener saw fit to make quite that free.

Frodo was still watching him, those amazing eyes dark in the light of the tabletop candles, and Sam found that he had to look away.

"It ain't as easy as all that, sir," he muttered, then rose and began gathering up dishes. "I'll just do the washing-up before I -"

"Sam!" Frodo protested in a tone that was a mix of a large number of emotions but seemed to be mostly exasperation. "For heaven's sake, leave the washing-up. I'll do it later."

"Mr. Frodo, I -"

"No, Sam, please. Let it go just this once. You'll make me feel like a terrible host."

Oh, and didn't that pin Sam squarely on the horns of a dilemma. With a sigh of resignation, he put the dishes in the sink and turned back to Frodo. "I'd not want to do that, sir."

"Good," Frodo said with a bit more cheer.

"But I do ought to be going," Sam added, coming to sit down again. "Thank you for inviting me."

"Thank you for coming," Frodo said, and sounded as if he meant it for more than just politeness. He reached out a hand as he spoke, and covered Sam's hand lightly where it rested on the table.

To his eternal mortification, before Sam could put a stop to it his hand had turned under Frodo's, shifting just enough that Frodo's fingertips sat in a light, delicate touch on the palm of his hand. And Sam had no idea when his palm had gotten that sensitive, but the touch of Frodo's hand seared along his skin and started his heart hammering in his throat, and Frodo wasn't quite looking at Sam but he didn't pull away either. So easy, it would be so easy to just close his hand and pull Frodo closer, and see if his whole body would burn like starfire against Sam's…

"You're welcome, sir," he said as steadily as he could manage, pulling away and getting to his feet before his body could betray him any more than it already had. "I'll see you tomorrow, then."

Frodo rose with him. "Tomorrow, yes," he answered in a voice a bit fainter than usual.

Sam told himself that he wouldn't stop and turn back once he'd gotten out the door. He did anyway. "Good night, Mr. Frodo," he said with what he hoped was the usual degree of cheer, hoping desperately that Frodo would reach out and take his hand again, and terrified that Frodo might do exactly that. One more touch like that would be all it took to strip Sam of everything he'd thought he knew, every way he'd been taught to lead his life, every way he had of knowing himself and knowing Frodo, and quite possibly his position; and the mere thought of what the Gaffer would say if he found that Sam had been trying to trip the Master as if Frodo were a buxom, giggling farm girl at haying time made Sam's blood run cold.

But if Frodo's hand touched his again in the state Sam was currently in, no power in the world would have lent Sam enough self-control to keep from catching that hand to his mouth and pressing a gentle kiss into Frodo's palm, and keeping right on going until Frodo either lay naked and sated in his arms or had hauled off and hit Sam so hard his head rattled, one of the two.

In the moonlight, Frodo's smile looked a little wistful. "Good night, Sam," he answered, and closed the door softly as Sam turned away.

He clasped his hands behind his head and wriggled irritably, trying to get comfortable enough to sleep. It was possible, he reflected, that he would have felt better for some tea; but the prospect of waking the Gaffer or the girls and having awkward questions to answer put paid to that idea. Marigold slept lightly, and she always knew when something was bothering Sam. She'd known the morning after the first time he'd dreamed about Mr. Frodo, known something was wrong though she hadn't known what - and for a skittish adolescent boy, already horrified at the goings-on in his own body, to find that to all appearances his sins really were writ large on his face… well, Sam was grown now, but that still wasn't an experience he cared to repeat even in part.

He still had that dream every so often, among others. In it, he and Frodo were in the garden at Bag End, though it was much bigger than usual, and rolled down in a spray of color to the banks of a vast river (and even in his dream Sam cocked a dubious eyebrow at that garden and wondered how in the world he was going to get all of it weeded and ready for winter before that chill in the air came to frost). A light wind blew their hair across their faces, and Frodo reached out to tangle his fingers in a feather-light touch in Sam's curls, guiding them gently away from Sam's ear. And just as Sam began to think that he could lose himself forever in those eyes of Frodo's, they were veiled with long, soft lashes as Frodo leaned forward.

Frodo's voice at his ear, then, low and lovely, whispering in slow Elvish. His breath was warm on Sam's ear, then on his jaw, then his cheek, moving as slowly as the cadence of his words, until Sam could only clench his fists in his pockets and close his eyes, parting his lips to the sweet, wine-rich taste of Frodo's breath as it passed over his mouth; and ah, meleth, that word he knew, sweet as the taste of Frodo's mouth on his tongue. Frodo's lips lingered a breath above Sam's for long heartbeats before moving on, tracing a slow, warm path to Sam's other ear as his fingers slipped through Sam's hair, stroking and caressing.

In all the times he'd had that dream, Frodo had never once touched Sam's skin.

"Good morning, Mr. Pippin," Sam said with resignation. It wasn't that he didn't like Pippin; but to see him standing in the middle of the kitchen wearing one of Frodo's old nightshirts, looking as if there was nothing in the world wrong with him popping up out of nowhere like this…

"Frodo's still asleep," Pippin said around a yawn. "After I've had a cup of tea I'll go and roust him out of bed. We were up late last night."

"Yes, we were, and you should still be asleep," Frodo said from the doorway. Sam glanced over, rather relieved to note that Frodo at least was dressed, and Frodo shot him an oddly apologetic glance. "Pippin got here around midnight. He's run away from home. Again."

"Is that so?" Sam asked noncomittally.

Frodo went to sit down at the table and ruffled Pippin's hair. "It's all right, they won't look to get him back for another couple of weeks yet. They know he's either here or in Buckland."

Pippin plopped down into a chair beside Frodo. "I left a note for Pearl. She's a good sport, she won't show it to Mum. Not unless she decides to run away too."

"Unless who decides to run away, Pearl or your mother?" Frodo asked dryly, echoing Sam's thoughts.

Pippin snorted good-naturedly. "Pearl, of course. She might not, though. She just ran away a few weeks ago, and stayed for two weeks with the Bolgers. She and Mum were having a row about something. Maybe about you."

Frodo blinked in surprise. "About me?"

"Pearl loves you madly, Frodo, in a cousinly way, but she doesn't want to marry you."

Sam let out a slow breath and closed his eyes for a moment, then turned his attention to pouring the tea.

"She doesn't think you have enough in common. And anyway, she likes lasses."

"Well, I like lasses too," Frodo answered, sounding mildly amused. "We have that in common, anyway."

"No, I mean she likes likes them," Pippin said in exasperation. "She likes lasses the way you OW!"

"Sorry, Pippin, was that your foot?" Frodo asked innocently. "Anyway, speaking of the Bolgers, I caught Fatty on his way to Buckland this morning and told him to bring Merry back with him."

Frodo had been up early, Sam thought as he set tea down in front of Frodo and Pippin. Then he looked at the circles under Frodo's eyes and reconsidered; Frodo looked as if he hadn't been to bed at all. Sam frowned and resolved to do something about that. Frodo might stay up until all hours on a regular basis, but he didn't function well on no sleep at all.

"Ooh, that'll be fun," Pippin was saying cheerfully. "The three of us can go fishing."

"Last time we went fishing, Merry pushed both of us into the Brandywine," Frodo reminded him.

Pippin grinned. "I know. Your clothes took forever to dry, didn't they, even laid out on the grass in the hot sun. You'll have to wear something lighter this time."

Sam closed his eyes in pain.

"You know, Pippin, most people go fishing to catch fish," Frodo commented dryly.

"Fish are just the excuse," Pippin said airily. "The goal is to have as much fun as possible. And so much the better if you can get your cousins out of their clothes into the bargain."

Frodo choked on his tea. "Peregrin Took…!"

"Oh, don't 'Peregrin' me as if you were a gaffer, Frodo. You're too young to be stodgy. And you have a very nice OW!"

Sam cleared his throat but his voice still came out hoarse. "Will you be wanting anything else, Mr. Frodo?" he asked as he dumped a pan full of eggs and bacon hastily onto a plate.

"No, Sam, thank you," Frodo said, sounding a bit sheepish. "You didn't have to make us breakfast, you know."

Sam colored a little. "I know it, sir, but there's things to be done inside today and I thought I might as well."

"Thank you, anyway," Frodo said softly, and there was some unaccountable disquiet in his eyes.

Sam beat a hasty retreat before anything else unsettling could happen and set about replenishing the cut flowers scattered in vases all over the smial. Distracted by the question of what flowers ought to go where, he managed to altogether ignore the low murmur of Frodo's and Pippin's voices in the kitchen, and nearly forgot how uneasy he was until he was arranging late roses in Frodo's bedroom.

Frodo tried to keep his room clean, Sam knew; but the books and teacups proliferated while his attention was elsewhere, and he never seemed able to quite fit his clothes into the wardrobe. And since Sam, who had also tried, was thoroughly incapable of walking out of that bedroom without tidying it just a little, it always meant staying longer in Frodo's room than in any of the others and trying hard not to imagine Frodo in that bed with moonlight silvering his skin. Grumbling at himself, Sam made the bed quickly and then, on impulse, turned the covers pointedly down before he began gathering up clothes.

He'd just gotten an armful of them when Frodo's rueful laugh from the door nearly made him drop them again.

"Are you hinting at something, Sam? Do I look that tired?"

Sam took a deep breath and dropped the clothes in his arms into the laundry basket in the corner. It was getting a bit full; best tell the girls to come and see to it. "Begging your pardon, sir, but yes, you do. You look as if you got no sleep last night."

Frodo became very involved in rubbing at a rough patch on the tip of his fingernail. "Well, I didn't, actually. As I said, Pippin came banging at the door around midnight, and by the time I'd gotten him fed and put to bed I was thoroughly awake."

Sam turned to the curtains and pulled them closed, shutting out the sun and dimming the room. "I'll see to it Mr. Pippin gets his meals until you've had enough rest, sir."

"What's that about meals?" Pippin yawned from the doorway, rubbing at his eyes. "Are you going back to bed, Frodo?"

"Sam seems to think so," Frodo answered, and his glance at Sam was warm with humor and something Sam couldn't identify.

"You need your rest, sir," he said stubbornly.

"Yes, Frodo, come back to bed," Pippin said, moving to crawl onto the bed and collapse onto the pillows. "I want to sleep more too. I walked a long way last night."

Frodo laughed as Pippin burrowed under the covers. "Peregrin Took, you're as lazy as a cat in a sunbeam."

" 'Mnot. I'm just tired. Come and tell me a story, Frodo, and we'll both go back to sleep."

As he watched Pippin, some vague unease inside Sam eased. All the flirtatiousness of the day before was gone, and he looked nothing more than a lad happy to be visiting a favorite cousin. Frodo, who either hadn't noticed the flirting or had treated it with cousinly indulgence, shook his head and smiled.

"All right, I'll not deny that a bit of sleep would be welcome. Move over, Pippin."

"I'll be getting on with the rest of the things as need doing, Mr. Frodo," Sam said quietly, and let himself out as Frodo stretched out on top of the blankets beside Pippin.

It wasn't until he'd finished small chores and large and started home that he let himself think: Aye, but he won't be fourteen years old forever, will he?

Just past Bag End the Gaffer paused, patting his pockets. "I've a mind to have a pipe while we walk, Sam-lad, what about you?"

"Good enough," Sam answered, reaching for his own pipe and tobacco pouch. "It'll be warm against the chill, anyway."

He managed to very nearly fill his pipe before he broke down and looked over at the light in the kitchen window. By that light he could just see Frodo, sitting at the kitchen table with nothing against the cold but an open shirt and presumably trousers, gazing broodingly into the flame of a single candle on the table and rubbing his fingertip slowly over his lower lip the way he did when he was deep in thought. "Mr. Frodo's been up all night again," Sam said before he thought.

The Gaffer looked up with a frown, puffing his pipe into life. "Not sickening for something, is he?"

"I -" Sam began, then stopped as Pippin popped into in the kitchen, dumped an entire pot of hopefully cold tea over Frodo's head, and vanished again. Frodo's outraged yowl carried outside loud and clear, and he shot out of the chair and bolted after Pippin.

"Naught wrong with his lungs, anyway," the Gaffer said dryly as a sudden shriek and cries of NonononostopFrodostop interspersed with howls of laughter indicated that Frodo had caught up to his cousin.

"What's Pippin done now?"

Sam turned to see Merry, walking stick in hand, smiling wryly in the direction of Bag End.

"Well, everyone's up early today, it seems," the Gaffer remarked. "Good morning, Mr. Merry."

"Morning, Gaffer, Sam. I suppose I'd better go see what -"

The front door of Bag End burst open and Pippin charged out toward the gate, followed closely by Frodo, moving faster than Sam had known either of them could. Pippin caught sight of Merry and made a beeline for him, leaping the fence and slamming into his cousin hard enough to send both of them flying.

"Pippin - what did you -" Merry managed before Frodo cleared the fence and landed nearly on top of them.

"Come here, you little -" Frodo grabbed Pippin by the scruff of the neck, but Pippin managed to somehow twist enough to knock Frodo's legs out from under him, sending him unceremoniously down onto the pile.

Merry spat out a mouthful of Frodo's hair. "Faugh - is that tea? Both of you get off me!"

Frodo rose with Pippin in an amiable headlock. "Good to see you, Merry. Control this cousin of yours before I throw him in the compost pile."

Pippin, to judge from his unabashedly vocal reaction, did not believe this to be an idle threat.

Merry cuffed him. "Quiet, young Took, here's two Brandybucks to one of you, so behave."

"I'm a Baggins," Frodo reminded Merry.

"Nonsense. Bagginses don't leap fences like that. Now, mind your manners and say good morning to the Gamgees."

Frodo started and let go of Pippin, who darted behind Merry. It seemed clear that he'd missed Sam and the Gaffer in the dark. "Good morning, Gaffer, Sam," he said politely, coming a step or two closer; and it was amazing to Sam that Frodo could manage to be every inch the Master of Bag End at an hour before dawn, with his shirt unbuttoned and his hair still dripping tea.

Sam opened his mouth to answer; but a droplet of tea, dark in the moonlight, slid down the front of Frodo's hair, caught briefly in his lashes, and then trailed down the side of his nose, and it was all Sam could do not to reach out and smooth it away.

"Good morning, Mr. Frodo," the Gaffer answered for both of them. "You're up and about early."

Frodo cast a mock glare back over his shoulder. "Pippin couldn't sleep, it seems."

"I woke up and you were gone," Pippin protested in an injured tone, peering around Merry's shoulder.

Merry looked down at him in exasperation. "You didn't make Frodo share his bed, did you? Pippin, you kick like a foul-tempered pony."

"None of the guest rooms have feather beds," Pippin pointed out as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world.

The Gaffer chuckled at that. Sam looked down and, very carefully and with great attention to detail, lit his pipe.

No, the guest rooms didn't have feather beds, because old Mr. Bilbo may have been wealthy but he hadn't been profligate, nor was Frodo. But that lad playing pranks on his overindulgent cousin was going to be the Thain someday, and the cousin he was hiding behind would be Master of Buckland; and Frodo would be… well, the same thing he was now, like as not - a Baggins of Bag End and the wealthiest hobbit this side of the Brandywine. And the Gamgees would be in service just as they'd always been, and maybe Sam's son would come in time to tend the garden for Frodo's.

And that, Sam informed himself stubbornly, was exactly the way it should be.

"We'll not keep you," the Gaffer was saying. "We've a long walk ahead, and you're no doubt wanting to get inside and change that wet shirt. Good morning, sirs."

There was a chorus of Good mornings in return; and Sam followed the Gaffer out onto the Road, when all he wanted in the world at that moment was to run Frodo a bath, get dry clothes on his outside and hot tea on his inside, make a nice pan full of mushroom omelette for his first breakfast, and then put him to bed.

And thoughts of curling up on that feather bed next to Frodo and cradling him close as he slept might be marginally excusable in dreams, but they had no business in the waking world.

It wasn't that he didn't like it, this huge bustling table filled with laughter and talk. But the talk wasn't enough to hold his interest, and suddenly he found himself longing with an almost physical ache for the cozy warmth of Bag End's kitchen; or any kitchen at all, so long as Frodo was there with his soft voice and his tales and his long, slender hands folded around a cup of strong tea with twice as much sugar in it as Sam would have been able to stomach.

"It's the roof on the north side of the barn we'll be having to mend tomorrow, or sure as sunrise the first heavy rain of the season'll bring the cows down with ague," Nick Cotton was saying.

They called it Elenna, Starwards; and called it Westernesse too, but most often Bilbo called it Numenor. Have I told you this story before, Sam?

No, sir, that you haven't. Keep on telling, then.

"Be best to move the cows into the west field, then, sawdust falling on their heads puts them off their milk for days," his father answered.

The Pillar of Heaven rose like a white spire, the highest thing in the land, and at the top was a temple, roofless pillars carved from bone-white rock. In the summer the ivy wound around the pillars as if it were welcoming a lover too long away, and the temple floor was dappled green with the sunlight filtering through the leaves...

"Aye, and best check the stock on the peg-nails, then, for it'll take at least three of us up there working."

They were mariners, shipwrights, and built ships fairer than even the elves wrought, great vessels with sails like bright jewels made cloth and seabirds carved into the prow, stretching their wings back along the ship in flight...

"How many of them boards we got sanded? Seems to me we had to use some of them for the pigsty last windstorm, we may need to cut more afore that roof's done proper."

Maybe it wasn't in their nature to be... settled, content, to turn their eyes away from the horizon...

"I think there's enough. Could be wrong, though, we'll count ere we start and set one of the lads to cutting and sanding if we look to run short."

By the time the Queen began to climb the Pillar it was too late. The sea had already swept through the streets, the houses, and even in the tallest towers dolphins swam through chambers where silk tapestries still hung on the walls and swayed like seaweed in the waves. The sea claimed her too, in the end. There was nowhere high enough to save her.

"I think I'm going to go for some air," Sam said tightly, and pushed back away from the table, ignoring the startled, curious looks aimed at him.

The chill night air eased his head but not his heart. Driven by the sudden desire to be as far away from the farmhouse as possible, he made his way to the barn and leaned back against the wall, rubbing the bridge of his nose and looking up at the stars.

Your place. I rather hope that one of these days you'll be able to set that aside.

Well, and that was the rub, wasn't it? Sam liked his place. He liked doing the caring-for, instead of needing cared for himself. He liked knowing that whatever lass he might wed would want him for himself, Samwise Gamgee, not for his money or his name, and liked knowing that his friends chose him for the same reason. He liked working in the garden, and liked a long day of good hard labor, and liked a bright snug smial filled with the Gaffer's pipe smoke and the girls' voices and laundry strung across the parlor when washday was too wet or cold to hang it outside. And if there were things he didn't like about his place, well, what couldn't be changed could at least be borne with good grace, as his mother had always said.

But this... Sam was beginning to wonder if this churn of feelings could really be borne with good grace, or borne at all.

If he was one of the Cotton lads I could court him fair and no one to say a word against it.

Well, no one but the Gaffer, who was firmly of the opinion that there was no such thing as too many grandchildren. But he had five other children to help him out with that, and the girls had plenty of suitors already.

As if Sam's thought had summoned him, the Gaffer appeared around the side of the barn, heralded by the scent of pipeweed and the dim light from the bowl of his pipe.

"There you are, lad. Everyone wondered where you'd got to."

"Just out here, Dad. My head hurt, is all, and I thought it'd be the better for some fresh air."

The Gaffer chuckled. "Aye, it's a mite noisy in there. Not so bad as when your sisters get to bickering, but no help to an aching head all the same."

Sam sighed and rested his head back against the barn wall, closing his eyes to shut out the starlight. "Dad, you know that lecture you were always giving me when I was a lad, the one about knowing your place?"

"Aye," the Gaffer answered, tilting his head curiously.

"Tell it to me again, would you?"

With a surprised laugh, the Gaffer clapped him on the shoulder. "Now, lad, if it's the Cotton lass you've set your eye on, she's not above you. The Cottons may have a good bit of land but they're still farmers, and when all's said they earn their living with their hands in the soil just the same as we do."

"No, that ain't -" Sam began, then stopped, frustrated. Let him come out and ask his father to talk him out of trying his luck with Frodo Baggins and like as not he'd earn a clout on the ear, and that was more than he cared to deal with in his current state. "Never mind. I'm tired, that's all."

"Best you come inside, then. Everyone's bedding down for the night, and work starts early in the morning."

Early, and a whole day ahead of him with too much to do to think about Frodo's tales or his bright eyes either one, and no time to brood about how all of a sudden Sam seemed to be neither fish nor fowl, nowhere near Frodo's world but wanting more than his own.

Trying to put the matter out of his mind, he followed the Gaffer back to the farmhouse, got washed up and settled in on a spare cot in Nick's and Jolly's bedroom, and hoped fervently that he hadn't taken to talking in his sleep.

Part 2

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