Sam Gamgee (master_gamgee) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-05-16 00:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, frodo baggins, samwise gamgee |
WHO: Sam Gamgee and Frodo Baggins
WHAT: Frodo knows Sam. Sam is meeting Frodo for the first time
WHEN: Backdated: Monday, April 29th. Early Afternoon
WHERE: Baggins Home
RATING: Low
STATUS: Complete
Sam knelt in the dirt just outside the round door to Bag End. He still didn’t know what exactly the structure was for, but Mrs. Baggins had employed him to landscape the surrounding area and he’d been intrigued by the entire thing, so he wasn’t going to ask too many questions. After leaving the Baggins’ the week before, when he’d come to see the area, he’d gone by Navi’s nursery with the pictures he’d taken to see what plants she thought would go good in the area and to give her his opinion of what he thought.
So now here he was, first day on the job and he had plants and bags of dirt and fertilizer and various gardening tools around him all ready to get started.
The sort of elf Frodo had married was quite different than the sort from his dreams. Merrill was far more mischievous. Perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised Frodo to discover that she’d made this new hire behind his back, but she was supposed to be on bedrest, after all.
But there he was: Samwise Gamgee, digging up his side yard, just as Frodo had seem him so often before. He watched, almost trembling, through the kitchen window. The water glass he’d been holding lay shattered in the sink.
Getting to his feet, Sam wiped at his brow then placed his hands on his hips as he glanced around at the various items around him, trying to figure out where to start. After talking to Navi, he’d decided on daisies and black eyed susans and ivy that would eventually crawl up the structure. There were also grass seeds and more dirt and other various flowers. The grass seeds would be last of course, so that he wasn’t constantly trampling over them, so now he just had to decide how to place the flowers. This was always the tough part, but once he got started, he just went with it.
In the end, he decided that the best way to start was to place the ivy since it was going to be the plant closest to the actual building. Moving those particular pots closer, he knelt down by the door of Bag End and started digging holes on either side for the plants to go.
Frodo left the glass for now. He’d clean in it later. With rather stumbling footsteps, he walked to the side door and opened it. The sound of the ocean waves crashing rushed to him like the air itself.
Sam looked so young to his eyes that he may very well have been a boy. Had he been so young when he’d accompanied him on his journey? Had he really dragged a child to Mordor? Hobbits looked so different from humans when it came to age.
Hearing the door behind him, Sam glanced over his shoulder and got to his feet upon seeing the man at the door of the house. He assumed that this man had to be Mr. Baggins, who he had yet to meet. He looked a little, okay, a lot shocked to see Sam there, but he figured that he just might not have known that Mrs. Baggins had hired him or that he was starting so soon. “Hi. I’m Sam Gamgee. The new gardener.” He waved, smiling towards the older man.
Frodo's voice seemed to be caught in his throat. He coughed to clear it, and tried to settle his nerves before moving from the doorway. His heart was pounding like he was about to meet a celebrity. "Hello... Merrill must have forgotten to tell me she made the hire."
“Sorry ‘bout that. Didn’t mean to startle you.” Sam said, wiping dirt from his hands as he took a few steps towards where Mr. Baggins was, “Must have given you a pretty big shock to find some stranger in your backyard.” Of course most strangers didn’t normally do random acts of gardening, “This is a pretty cool structure.” He gestured towards Bagend behind him, “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
Frodo walked down the path. His legs were a little wobbly, but they carried him. “Did Merrill tell you that it came to me in a dream?” he asked. Being naturally a little eccentric, Frodo wasn’t sure if that sound nutters or not.
Sam shook his head, “No, she didn’t, but I had wondered how you came up with this idea.” He glanced back at Bag End once more, “It’s the most unique thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen a lot of guest houses and tree houses too and they’ve all been pretty normal.” Of course there were a few eccentric buildings he’d seen, but still nothing like this one.
Frodo chuckled. “Yes, she once describe it as an underground treehouse. I think that paints a pretty clear picture.” He looked from Bag End’s round door back to Samwise. Er, Sam. The young man had only introduced himself as Sam. Frodo wanted to avoid a slip of the tongue that could potentially complicate things. He had to pretend they were only just meeting.
“So, Sam. Where are you from?” It seemed like a good question to ask someone you were just meeting.
“Yeah, she did mention that actually.” Sam said, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched the older man, “Oregon originally.” He had lived there until he was six and only vaguely remembered it, because he’d spent the majority of his life in Orange County, “Moved here when I was six cause my dad wanted to open his own gardening business. Are you originally from here?” He didn’t usually ask clients things like that, but it seemed the most obvious way to continue.
"No, no..." Frodo chuckled. "England. But don't feel bad. My accent's all but gone, or so they tell me. So... Do you still work for your father?" Old Gaffer Gamgee. Though Sam looked very young, he might have been eighteen or somewhere in his twenties.
“Wow! Really?” Sam never would have guessed that Mr. Baggins was from England. England was one of those places that he wanted to visit someday. “Yeah. He owns the place and does the business part and I do most of the grunt work. Not that it’s really work to me. I enjoy doing this stuff.” If asked, Sam would have told him that he was twenty two.
Frodo nodded. He was still fighting the urge to smile and let on he knew things that weren’t ready to be revealed. “And how did you meet my wife?” he asked. She was, after all, technically on bedrest.
“A few weeks ago, I posted about how I’d gotten stung by a bunch of bees when a hive fell out of a tree I was trimming,” Sam said then realized that Frodo might not know about Valarnet and figured he should probably elaborate a little, “It was on this message board slash social media site called Valarnet. She responded and eventually mentioned that you needed some gardening done.” He knew that some people were sketchy about people they met over the internet and Sam hoped that Mr. Baggins wouldn’t think he was some internet weirdo.
Frodo nodded. "Yes, I'm on there, as well." He said it matter-of-factly. He'd been on the message board for some time, now. "I think you and I had a chat on there once, come to think of it. I recall someone who was attack by bees. Are you alright, now, I hope?”
Sam had talked to quite a few people in the short time that he’d been on Valarnet and had been so busy with work that he only recalled a few, but now that he thought of it, Mr. Baggins did look familiar. “Yeah, I’m fine now. I didn’t think that bee stings could hurt so much if you weren’t allergic, but I learned that, that wasn’t true. They gave me some pretty good meds, so all is good now. Just promise me there aren’t any nests around your yard.” He was teasing now, but at the same time, he really hoped there weren’t any nests.
“No, I wouldn’t worry about that,” said Frodo. He slipped his hands into his pockets and shook his head. “We’ve been out here, working on Bag End without incident. No bees, no wasps, no moles. Of course, that could be because we haven’t put in flowers yet.”
Sam nodded, “Good to know. I’m gonna be putting in some marigolds too. Those will help keep bees away anyway,” While bees could be good sometimes, they could also be a big nuisance and he didn’t want them bothering the Baggins’ too much, especially if they were going to use Bag End as a playhouse for their kid. The last thing the kid needed were bees around. “I can’t do much about moles though. Then again, I haven’t really seen many while I’ve been doing this job.”
A playhouse, not just for their children, but for the whole family. Frodo chuckled... and then his face suddenly went a little white. Merrill was only days away from giving birth to their first child, a son they were planning on naming Samwise. How in the world were they going to explain that? It wasn’t possible that it wouldn’t be at least a little awkward, and probably very much so.
Frodo swallowed and tried to pretend there was nothing amiss. “No, I don’t think they’re a real problem by the ocean,” he replied, as the color began to return to his face. Perhaps it was time to excuse himself and let Sam get back to work. He needed to talk to Merrill about this name situation. But in a way, Frodo couldn’t fathom leaving the young man’s side.
Sam frowned slightly as Frodo’s face went pale, but the other man appeared to recover fairly quickly, so he didn’t inquire about it, “Good. Those things can really screw up a garden.” He might not run into them often, but he had seen a few. As if he read Frodo’s mind, Sam gestured back towards Bag End, “I should probably get back to work. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, so I wanted to try and get as much planted today as possible.”
“Oh oh, alright,” Frodo stammered with a nod. “Yes, probably. I’ll let you get to it.” But, smiling a nervous smile, Frodo lingered a moment longer. He owed everything he had to Sam, and yet the young man had no idea. They couldn’t talk freely. Not yet.
He stuck his hand out to shake. It may of sounded odd if Frodo said so aloud, but he wanted to make physical contact with Sam. Simply walking away felt like far too little. “Glad to have you working here.”