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Merry would not have declared him inconsolable, without a caveat. He seemed to be finding some measure of consolation on his own, yet he sat virtually immobile on the shore, staring at the sun setting over the empty horizon and caring not as the surf lapped at his feet.
“Is he all right, Merry?” Pippin asked in a whisper, after the stars began to come out overhead. “Should we get someone?”
Merry looked at him, and knew Pippin asked not for an answer; only for a candle of hope, when it seemed the sun and moon had been taken away. “Who, Pip?” Merry struggled to keep down a new wave of tears. “Who's left? Everyone's gone away.”
That wasn't all together true, and Merry knew it. The Havens were maintained ever by some group of Elves that resisted the call of the Sea, readying others for their journeys before their own. Some would stay for years yet, until the very last of them would disembark from the Havens, carrying with it Círdan the Shipwright himself.
Perhaps it would even be wise to go get him; surely he had seen this same grief and loss and longing, for eons upon eons. Surely he knew what words to say, to stitch together a broken heart, just for a time, until it could mend alone.
Merry looked back to Sam, who sat still alone, facing the horizon and grieving, and he realized there was no mending from this. There were no words to cure it, as there were splints for broken bones or plasters for scrapes. He knew as he felt his own heart tearing again, that time could not and did not heal wounds carved so deeply.
He held Pippin desperately tight as they wept anew, for their Fellowship had come to its end of days, and it came not with joyous peace, but a departure as if a death. “And what's he going to do there?” Pippin asked through his bitter and sorrowful tears. “Healed, yes, but then what? What can he do, but mourn us as we've got to mourn him? What's left out there?”
“I don't know,” it was true, but the words were acid on Merry's tongue, “but I wish he were still here.”
They both did. There was nothing in the world they wouldn't give for Frodo to still be on this shore at their side; at Sam's side, most of all.
For no matter how much Merry and Pippin mourned for Frodo, and how deeply their hearts were rent with his loss and final fate – to die in pain in the Shire, or pass ever over the Sea, into a land unknown to them all – it was Sam, whose sky and earth had been taken from him, as the ship disappeared over the horizon.
He sat in the surf, clutching the Red Book to his chest and gripping something desperately tight in his fist.
--
In the morning, just before the ship had been made ready, they had walked together a final time on this beach, and Frodo had stooped down to retrieve something from the sand. It was smooth and glossy, a soft blue like his eyes on the outside, and a delicate pink within.
“It's called a Sea-bell; the Elves say you can hear the Sea whenever you hold one to your ear,” he had said.
“I don't never want to hear the Sea again,” Sam had replied, already in tears, for he knew what was coming.
“Dearest Sam, it isn't the greatest of evils. You were a Ring-bearer; perhaps you too will be able to pass over it, in time.”
“How long?”
“Many years, at least, until Elanor-lass and Frodo-lad are grown, and their little brothers and sisters, and you and Rosie have filled Bag End with all the love and life it always deserved.
“Until the Shire is healed down to its roots, and everyone knows what was done to protect it from the Great Evil, so they will treasure it all the more.
“Until you realize it has grown so great and strong beyond your care, you know neither it, nor your family and all of their families, need you any longer.”
“That could be a lifetime!”
He had smiled, and it had been ethereal; omniscient, noble and accepting, but beneath it was an eternity of grief. “I expect it will be.”
Sam had broken down in tears, and Frodo had gathered him in his arms, rocking him, and murmuring something gentle and indistinct.
When Sam's tears for the moment had been exhausted, Frodo tilted up his chin, and offered another grieved smile, before whispering something into his ear, so dear and soft, it was nearly a kiss.
--
The roar of the Sea and the wind whipping off its waves, ever after whispered echoes of it in his ears.
Whenever the wind was in the West, or he could bear it to cradle the Sea-bell again to his ear – even if it was as faint as a kiss held only in memory – he could hear it.
"I will wait for you."