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Waves gently lap against the wooden hull of the boat. Constantly pushing, in and out, taking and giving from the waters.
Sam looks down upon them from his spot on the deck, eyes squinting from old age. A wave rolls back into the sea, sand and creatures and shells moving back in its wake.
How many things had been swept away without a choice? How many things, precious and dear to their owners, had been lost forever in the tide?
He remembers what the sea stole from him. He remembers Frodo coming to him the day his mother passed. He had told him that such losses hurt, that knowing that they were always going to leave him didn’t make it hurt any less. An odd look rested on his face as he said it, one of pain slowly creeping its way out of the deep recesses of his mind.
It wasn’t until he was older that he realized just how terrible it was that Frodo, selfless and young, had that look upon him.
He remembers that warm day in September. Silent tears running down his face as Bilbo boarded the boat. Sobs, sobs that felt as though they would shatter him into pieces until there was nothing left as Frodo stepped away, away from him, going to the one place he knew he couldn’t follow.
The waves, gently pulling the boat away until it disappeared past the horizon. Everything, gone, washed into the depths.
Yet, those same waves had forced him onto warm shores. Frodo pushed him towards his beloved Rosie when he knew he was being pulled away. Voices from those long-gone inspiring him to be a better father, a better husband, a better mayor. To live a good life where he otherwise would have wallowed in his own pity, to be whole for those around him, to enjoy the world he’d worked so hard to save.
And now, when he’d done what had been asked of him, the current was pulling him back to his love. Where he, too, would be whole. Where they could live in peace for the first time since Gandalf told him about the Ring, where they could dance and kiss and just be.
Sam’s face crinkles as he smiles at the sea.