INTRODUCTORY AUTHOR'S NOTE: In my story All That I Had , the characters Tom and Barard first appeared as a plot device. Tom is Tolman Gardner, youngest of Sam’s thirteen children, and Barard is Barard Took, youngest of Pippin and Diamond’s seven children. In All That I Had, Pippin has a large family, both illegitimate and legitimate. While writing, I drew up family trees, and as soon as Barard’s name appeared, he and Tom became linked as an item. It was like two magnets coming together.

At the time that Sam was mourning for Rosie and anticipating following Frodo (All That I Had, Chapter 34: Death and Departure), Tom and Barard became a way of focusing Sam’s thoughts on the relationship he’d had with Frodo. From there, it was but a short step to Sam’s worrying over what Frodo might be expecting from him in the future. However, from the moment Sam watched Tom and Barard walk away from Bag End, they leapt from the page as very loveable OCs. I thought so, and I was obviously not alone: they had so much fan mail that they started hanging around, drinking my tea, eating my biscuits, and making themselves at home. They even started asking for their own story. I pointed out, very reasonably, that there had to be a story. They looked at each other, and Barard said, “Oh, but what about that time... ”



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