J.M.J.

Author's note: It's not much, but it's something for the 20th anniversary of the theatrical release of The Fellowship of the Ring. Enjoy and God bless!

Would You…?

"There you go, lads," Rosie Cotton said as she set a mug of ale in front of each of a group of three hobbits at one of the tables in the Green Dragon. "Will there be anything else?"

"Not for at least a couple of minutes," one of them replied with a wink. "It will take us that long to finish this off."

The others laughed, and Rosie chuckled. It was busy in the inn, as usual, and there wasn't time for chatting with the patrons, so she hurried on to get on with her work. She grabbed several empty mugs off the table as she went.

While she was moving off, a fourth hobbit, one of the Bolgers, joined the group already at the table. He was talking before he ever sat down. "You'll never believe who I saw riding down Bagshot Row this morning," he declared. Without waiting for the others to inquire as to who it was, he went on, "It was that Frodo Baggins and Merry Brandybuck and Pippin Took and that Gamgee boy."

There was a loud crash as the mugs that Rosie had previously been carrying fell to the floor. Everyone nearby looked at her, but Rosie didn't notice that. She didn't even completely realize that she had dropped and destroyed the mugs. Instead, she whirled around to face the hobbit that had just been speaking.

"You saw Mr. Baggins and Mr. Brandybuck and Mr. Took and…and…" Rosie couldn't quite bring herself to finish the sentence. She felt that if she said it, then this hobbit would tell her that she had misheard and it wasn't true at all. She couldn't bear that. Everyone had said they weren't coming back, that they had gone off on some foolish adventure and gotten themselves killed, which was what happened to folks who didn't have the good sense to be content at home. Yet Rosie had always hoped. She had been expecting any day to hear that they had returned for so long that she couldn't quite believe that what she had been hoping for had really, actually, finally happened.

"That I did," the hobbit affirmed, taking a pull from his pipe. "I seen 'em riding up on some ponies. But from the way they were dressed, it looks to me they've been in foreign parts and taken up with foreigners. It never goes well for them as does things like that. Just look at old Mr. Bilbo Baggins, now…"

Whether he went to tell the whole story of Bilbo Baggins' first and second disappearances and draw the moral of the story that everyone ought to mind their own business and keep out of trouble, Rosie never heard. She walked back toward the bar in almost a daze, forgetting the mugs that she had dropped and the pieces of which were decorating the floor. So it was true. They had all come home: Frodo Baggins, Merry Brandybuck, Pippin Took, and…Samwise Gamgee. Rosie slipped outside into the cool air of a Shire evening and looked out over the pond to collect her thoughts.

Over a year ago—thirteen months to the day, to be exact—the four young hobbits had vanished, and the only clue was that several people—including Farmer Maggott, who was a very respectable source of information—had seen a rider in a black cloak, one of the Big People, asking for the Bagginses. The two things had to be related, and the consensus was that Frodo had gotten mixed up in some of the strange adventures that his uncle Bilbo had had. It wasn't any surprise that Merry and Pippin would have gotten mixed up in it, too. The Brandybucks and the Tooks weren't the most steady-going of hobbit families. But everyone who knew him was puzzled by Sam Gamgee's disappearance. He had always had better hobbit sense than to just go wandering off. Then someone had remembered how he had always been fond of Bilbo Baggins' poetry, and that obviously explained everything.

The talk had gone on a long time, and by now, everyone denied ever having been surprised in the least. They had all seen it coming all along. But if there had been hints beforehand that those four would do something like this, Rosie had never seen it, and while she didn't know the others especially well, other than by name, she had paid a lot of attention to Sam over the years.

He had been friends with Rosie's brothers for as long as Rosie could remember. She had always liked him as a child. He had always been nice to her and never tried to scare her with toads and snakes like her brothers did. If they had made a raid on the pantry—a favorite pastime of hobbit children, and an easy thing to do, considering most hobbit homes had multiple pantries to choose from—Sam had always made sure Rosie got a share. As the years passed, though, she had come to realize that liking wasn't quite the right word for how she felt about him. It made her blush just to think the word, but in time, she realized that she loved him.

She always wondered if he felt the same way. He had never said so or done anything that made her think so particularly, but that wasn't so unusual for hobbits. Most hobbit marriages started out with neither party giving much indication that they had any particular interest in the other until one day, they just got married. But thinking about marriage was getting far ahead of things. Neither had said anything about it, and then the Disappearance had happened.

For all those long months, Rosie had clung to the hope that Sam would return. Now that he apparently had, she wasn't quite sure what to do. She wanted to run down to the Gaffer's hobbit hole and see if Sam was there and if he was, tell him exactly how she felt, how she had hoped he'd come back, and how she didn't love anyone else, no matter how many hobbit lads tried to sweet talk her. But her hobbit sense told her maybe she shouldn't. Just because she had never forgotten Sam didn't mean that he hadn't forgotten her. Maybe he had. Or maybe there wasn't anything to forget. Maybe he had never thought of her as anything more than his friends' little sister.

"Here, Rosie!" the innkeeper called out the back door. "What are you doing out there? There's customers what need to be served."

Rosie took in a deep breath and told herself to stay calm. The best thing to do was just to wait and see whether Sam would come and visit her or not. That way, if he had forgotten all about it or if he had never liked her all that well in the first place, she wouldn't make a fool of herself.

So she went back to work. At least, she worked as well as she could. After she had given several customers the wrong drinks and food and gotten distracted multiple times by conversations about the reappearance of Frodo Baggins and the others—it was quickly turning into the main topic of everyone's conversation—the innkeeper asked her to wash dishes instead. That went a little better, considering there were fewer distractions and fewer things she could get wrong.

Then it happened. She saw them walk in: Frodo, Merry, Pippin, and Sam. They all looked a bit older and more than a bit tired. A few hobbits gave them a cheery greeting and quite a few more gave them a cautious greeting, but no one seemed inclined to have a real conversation with them. After all, there was no telling what someone who's been off having adventures might say or do. Then, too—Rosie wondered if she might be imagining it—but there seemed to be something grave about them. Rosie remembered the last time they had been in the Green Dragon. They had been singing, dancing, laughing, and generally making a lot of noise and drawing a lot of attention to themselves. There was none of that now. They found a quiet table and sat down and didn't say much. Frodo got up and went to get them all ale. He almost bumped into Tom Proudfoot with his gigantic pumpkin on his way back and he actually chuckled slightly.

That was when Rosie realized that she had done nothing but stare at them—well, mostly at Sam, but at the others a little—ever since they came in. With almost a panicked sort of air, she started washing the mugs again. Even so, she couldn't help continually glancing over at the table where Sam was sitting even as she smiled and nodded at a hobbit who was saying something to her. It was probably "good night," but she couldn't pay enough attention to know for sure.

She watched as the four hobbits raised their mugs in a sort of silent toast. Then Sam looked directly at her. Rosie smiled a bit uncertainly, wondering whether this was the first time he had noticed her. Somehow, even though it was the first time she had noticed him noticing her, she had the impression that he had been aware of her presence all along and had just been trying to make up his mind what to do. Maybe that was just wishful thinking. After all, if they were, in his mind, nothing more or less than old friends, there would anything to make his mind up about.

Then Sam stood up and came straight toward her with a determined sort of air, as if he had just finally come to a decision that he had been thinking about for a long time. Rosie's hands were shaking too hard to even pretend to wash mugs now.

"Hullo, Sam," Rosie said when he was close enough. She was glad that her voice didn't squeak or anything foolish like that.

"Hullo, Rosie." Sam had his hands clasped together awkwardly. If it had been fashionable for hobbits to wear caps, he would have certainly been twisting one in his hands. "Look here, Rosie, I know I've been gone an awful long time and you've probably forgot all about me, but, well…you see…I've always liked you a whole lot and…"

Rosie could feel her cheeks reddening. "I've always liked you, too, Sam, and I didn't forget you."

Sam continued to look a bit shy, but not as much as he had always used to. Whatever he had been through, he had grown. However, Rosie wasn't prepared for what he did next. Right there, in front of everyone and apparently not caring what anyone thought, he leaned over and kissed her.

"I always thought, if ever I was to marry someone, it would be you," Sam said, a bit hastily. "For awhile there, I thought I'd never…That is…Would you?"

By this time, everyone within earshot was gawking in a bemused fashion, but Rosie didn't care about them any more than Sam did. All she paid attention to was Sam. She smiled and answered, "I would."