#anyway while we're adding epilogues i figured i'd add my own LOL

[frodo-with-glasses]

It had been so long since he’d had a new visitor.

Long ago, an old friend had blessed them, wishing that one day they would sit by a wall in the sun, retelling their tales and laughing at old grief. At one point—when the journey had taken its toll, and the grief was still too near for laughter—he'd begun to think it would never come true.

And yet, here they were, sitting on the little bench by the vine-clad wall in the garden: trading memories, telling tales old and new, and laughing, laughing, laughing. It was odd; at times it seemed he was talking to a stranger, someone with a wealth of life and memory that was completely unknown to him.

At other times, it seemed no time had passed at all.

They spoke of the Shire, and of old friends, and of weed and ale and food, and of Hobbiton and Buckland and Tuckborough, and of the distant lands of Elves and Dwarves and Men, and of fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers and aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents and wives and children (so many children! so much joy!), and of new farms and orchards and forests and gardens and beautiful fallow hills.

They spoke of old things, difficult things: dust and ash and blood and dirt and thirst and stone and sickness and hunger, silence and distance and guilt and doubt and pain and fear; and love, aching love, bruised knuckles and dry lips and bloody fingertips sort of love; and the hand that reached over to grasp his was shaking, and just as wrinkled and gnarled as his own, and worn brown and leathery from sun and wind and soil, and so very utterly beautiful.

They spoke of many things, old and new, happy and sad, each one richer than a dragon's hoard of silver or gold; but it was before they'd been speaking too long—indeed, before he even sat down, because he knew once he did that it would take him far too long to get up again—that he asked the most important question of all.

"Care for a cup of tea?"

It was asked with a smile, as he leaned on his walking staff—the selfsame one dear old Bilbo had used, before he went to sleep at last under the tree on the hill—and stood halfway in the doorway of his little house.

And Sam turned, and smiled, and all the wrinkles on his lovely humble old face jumped out at once.

"I could go in for a cuppa, I think."

Tea?

Uncle Saradoc and the search party had been out for over an hour. It was now very late; far past his bedtime. Aunt Esmerelda had wrapped him in a warm blanket and given him a little cup of tea, but it sat untouched on the table at his side, and had gone quite cold.

He couldn’t drink it. He couldn’t sleep. His stomach hurt too badly for either.

When Uncle Saradoc came in about a half an hour later, he was walking very quietly, and wringing his hat in his hands, and he had to take two slow, deep breaths before he could look Frodo in the eye.

Frodo never touched that tea.

- - -

He always had tea with breakfast—both first and second—with two sugar cubes and enough milk to turn the concoction nearly white. Bilbo liked to joke that Frodo liked a bit of tea with his milk, rather than the other way around. Frodo didn’t mind. He liked his way just fine; he’d once taken a sip from Bilbo’s cup by mistake, and nearly spat it out.

Tea was better when it was sweet.

- - -

They’d had a few home-brewed beers with dinner at Farmer Maggot’s house, of course, but tea with supper in the house at Crickhollow. Merry and Fatty, bless them, already had the kettle on by the time the three others had sloshed out of the bath, and supper was served in short order; Frodo thought a quiet home meal, with Mrs. Maggot’s gift of mushrooms, had never tasted so good.

He took his tea with far less embellishment nowadays. Just a pinch of sugar, and a small splash of milk. He was now the sober age of fifty, and sugar-milk with a sparse hint of tea flavoring held far less appeal than it had when he was a tween.

He was staring into a half-emptied cup, trying to work up the courage to tell them all he was leaving the Shire for good, when Merry beat him to the punch.

He’d never been so happy to be played for a fool in his entire life.

- - -

There was tea in Bree, but it was mostly forgotten in favor of ales and lagers in mugs the size of their heads. It was a shame they spent so little time in the Prancing Pony, and had to leave town so soon; Frodo could have gone in for a cuppa to soothe his nerves in all the madness that had happened.

- - -

There was tea in Rivendell, but only because Bilbo had explicitly requested it for his own comfort. They were deep in conversation when Bilbo slid a little teacup Frodo’s way, and the drink in it was nearly white.

Two sugars. A whole pour of milk.

Frodo smiled, but his chest ached, and there was some warm pressure behind his eyes.

- - -

There was no tea in Moria.

There was no tea in Lorien.

There was no tea in the wilderness; the Emyn Muil; the Dead Marshes.

If they walked past some relative of a tea leaf growing wild in the tattered gardens of Ithilien, Sam didn’t stop to get a clipping. They didn’t have a kettle anyway.

- - -

There was no water in Mordor.

- - -

They’d opened every window, scrubbed every floor, thrown out the stained and molding old furniture and replaced it with new. There were curtains on the windows again, and a merry little fire on the hearth, and the comfy clattering of pots and pans and sizzle of cooking food.

He sat in silence, staring into the fire. He didn’t know it, but his thumb was rubbing circles over the scar where his third finger had been.

The fire danced and flickered. He didn’t see it.

His thumb kept rubbing circles.

“Tea?”

It took a long moment, but he slowly realized that the noise was a question. When he lifted his head, he saw that Sam had appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, already holding the kettle with a little woven red pot-holder, as if that was the most normal thing in the world.

Frodo’s eyes stung, and not because of the fire. His breath hitched.

He put his face in his hands and wept.

- - -

(Inspired in part by this post)

WORD ASK GAME!