"Mr. Frodo, sir?" I hear his voice calling, sweet and innocent as it ever was. Yet his face is unclear. Reaching out for it in my darkness as his young face is replaced by snarling faces holding whips over my vulnerable, naked body. The last image of my nightmarish Hell is a great Red Eye, lidless and cruel, extending into the void of darkness that only I am made to see. Just as I am consumed into the slit of a pupil surrounded by fire, his hand takes my own and kisses my brow. His plain and simple words fall from his mouth as if they were the sweetest words of the Elvish tongue.

"Hold on, Mr. Frodo."

He leans his lips into mine. I can barely catch the soft smell of rain and of the gardens in Bag End before his image died and I woke, alone in an Elven Paradise. Frustrated, I slam my fist into the softness of my pillow.

Time goes without measure here. It feels like I have been here forever, but the events of my former life are bright as they ever were. A dull ache pains my shoulder, and I rub it absentmindedly, my old gardeners face haunting my memory still. Indeed coming to Valinor was supposed to rid me of my aches, but without Sam, where is my will to live? Barely a smile comes to my face when I think of little Elanor, and the many other children that must be there by now.

But it is not to be. Sam must not be torn in two. Surely I, after enduring my suffering, would not be a fit lover for him. Sick all the time and Rosie was a sweet lass. Was? Is? I can no longer tell the passage of time perhaps it has indeed been thousands of years and Sam has already - no.

He would have refused. The simple trust and love in his eyes was no more than that of a loyal servant to his master in the beginning, followed by the close, ever-watchfulness of an older brother as I descended into my madness. Closer than friends we were, he and I, yet only I burned with desire for him, consumed not only by the madness of the Ring but of his constant closeness, which kept me more sane. Ah, the insanity I live through even today.

The insanity of love. I thought he knew, that day when we parted. I was crying in my heart. I did not weep openly until pressed to do so by the expert healers of this land. A heavy weight lays on my heart, but instead of the dull ache of loneliness, I feel constantly the jabs of a new, fresh wound. My Sam. My Sam. My own

My Precious.

The healers do not know of him, but they imagine that there is one for whom my heart reaches. Gandalf does not speak of him, and I do not trust Bilbo to understand. My last memory of him is a chaste kiss across the lips. Oh, how I long for more. To show him for once and not have to hold my hand back from caressing his cheek, stroking his hair.

I look out to sea. Bilbo is studying with the Elves in the city nearby. Earlier, when I was younger, I would have enjoyed such pastimes. But now, my thoughts are consumed. I am uncured, for I have a need the Elves cannot fill. He lies on the other side.

I see something in the distance. A ship. They do not come often now, but in my first days on Valinor, they came almost every day, or what felt like a day. Most Elves have left now, but Círdan still awaits the last. A small figure is aboard, and I run to the dock, unheeding of the small laughs the wise Elves give to see my short body run.

He is aged, but my Sam has once again come. My eyes meet his, and immediately I am swept back into the paradise and torture I have created for myself.