Master Samwise (The Kay Corleone Remix)
It should have been perfect, but it wasn't.
It started the day they returned. There was grief, to be sure, but there was also joy because Sam, her Sam had come back to her, and he was dressed in such finery and rode such a magnificent beast and looked so great and noble that if she hadn't loved him before he left, she certainly did now he had returned. Of course she couldn't say anything straight away, for that would have been unseemly and being unseemly was seen in hobbit society as being only one step removed from being queer, and there was enough of that about Sam already without her adding to it. So she waited and she mourned, like she should and also like she wanted to, and after the proper time Sam had come to her and one thing had led to another and soon her fate was sealed.
There were signs of course; simple, common little things at first. The strange sadness that came with moving into Bag End, the distance of Merry and Pippin, who had once been so full of life and fun but now seemed almost aloof in their dealings with their fellow hobbits. Eventually Sam had broken down and told her; confessed all one teary night about what had happened that fateful day up there on the edge of the volcanic crater. He said it had been an accident and at the time she had believed him, just as she had agreed that it seemed foolish to destroy the ring once the Ringbearer was dead; far more practical to bring it back and try to do some good with it, to atone for that moment of weakness in which everything that had been fought for so hard had been lost.
She had held him long through that difficult night, comforting and rocking him like a child until his tears had stopped and sleep had claimed him, and as he slept her heart had swelled and a certainty had grown in her breast that with his honesty and her strength, all would be made right once again in the Shire.
But this turned out to be a lie.
It was their couplings that did it for her. She had discussed such matters with her female friends when younger, and though there had been much blushing and giggling and spreading of gossip one thing was agreed; such matters should be pleasurable and above all fun. Like all other pleasures, it was there to be enjoyed and most hobbits of good nature surely did almost as much as they enjoyed eating or drinking. But it was never pleasurable with Sam, never fun. It was draining, like the act itself was somehow pulling the life out of her instead of creating it anew. It did not help that Sam somehow changed during the act, his eyes growing hungrier, his hands holding onto her flesh and pushing himself into her in a way that felt more territorial than caring.
And when her belly began to swell she did not feel that bloom of joy a mother should; instead she felt fear, like something terrible had been set in motion and she was both somehow responsible and unable to stop it. But she had scolded herself when she thought such things; after all it was only natural to feel a little trepidation, for Sam was doing great works and the seed that he had planted inside her was merely a continuation of those works, and what's more a life to be guided, using her strength to shape it in the same way Sam was shaping the Shire. So the fear had passed and the certainty returned and she found herself smiling again as the days went past and the birth approached.
It had not an easy labour to be sure. But the daughter she produced was so strong and healthy that it made her weep with joy, for there was to be no pot washing or scrubbing in little Elanor's future; she would be guided towards greater things, and Sam had agreed when Rosie had told him this, and indeed had helped look after the child while she recovered (for the labour had taken a surprising amount out of her). Yet somehow none of these plans had happen, or if they did it was without Rosie's intervention, for Elanor had been a proud and wilful child who did not take kindly to her mother's commands and instructions.
Though she bore the teachings of her father with both patience and interest.
So Rosie had born another, and another, but with each child the result was the same as the first time, and with each child Rosie felt a little more of her strength slip away from her so that by the time the last had been born (second daughter, fifth child of all) it was all she could do to hand it to the wet-nurse, while outside the others had played so quietly they hardly seemed to be there at all. It had seemed strange to her at the time to wander amongst such beings who she knew were her children and yet found no connection with, no common ground. Even the certainty had not helped her here, although she guessed it had pleased her each time she looked at one of them and found her husband's gaze staring back at her.
Eventually, however, Elanor had left, for pastures new and bigger deeds, and it was on that day that Rosie had realised how she had allowed herself to be fooled. As her daughter's retinue had departed she had watched and noticed the height and grace and the most unhobbit-like curve of pride on Elanor's lips, and suddenly everything had fallen into place in a way she hadn't let it on the night Sam confessed. Desperately she had turned and fled into Bag End, summoning the last of her strength to run down the hall, into the living room, and with an accusing finger denounce her husband to all those gathered there; tell them all that he had told her that terrible night and destroy his hopes and dreams as thoroughly as he had destroyed theirs.
Yet the men from Bree didn't even blink, nor did Merry and Pippin, and Sam, her loving, wonderful, warm-hearted liar of a husband, had simply smiled and made a gesture, and she had felt strong hands grab her shoulders and saw the cocky amusement in Merry and Pippin's eyes, and for one horrible, terrible, hopeful moment she had thought they were going to kill her; end her life and prevent her from spreading any more rumours across the Shire.
Instead they had simply pushed her out of the room and shut the heavy oak door firmly behind her.
So now she spent her days wandering Bag End, the rooms and corridors blurring into each other as she wafted through them in a daze. She felt so thin, so stretched these days, but she didn't mind; it seemed a fitting punishment for all her failures and quite frankly she didn't have the energy left to care. What little she had left she saved for her one last hope, her secret dream that somehow Sam would remember and come to her once more, and cry and beg to be forgiven like he had that night oh so long ago, and she would hold him and he would take off the ring and the shadow would lift from the Shire and all would be well again.
But it never was.