All That I Had:

Elenya hears the sound of sobbing before she even opens the door, and there’s Frodo crying his eyes out in Sam’s arms. She briefly wonders whether to takes notes, but decides discretion is the better part of valour and there are few things worse in this world than one of Sam’s glares. ‘What’s wrong? What’s happened?’ Sam stops murmuring in Frodo’s ear, although the slow, reassuring sweep of his hand over Frodo’s back doesn’t pause. ‘On the table,’ he says tersely, and Elenya notices a beautifully illuminated scroll. It’s a Golden Mushroom Award! ”Best Crybaby?”’ She smiles in delight, but hastily turns into a look of sympathy. “But what’s wrong with that? Very prestigious award.’ Frodo lifts his face, and Elenya has rarely seen him look so tragic. Whatever the problem, the only solution is to give him a hug. He gulps, and manages to say, ‘I’m not... I’m not a cry baby!’ ‘Course you’re not!’ says Sam stoutly, and glares at Elenya. ‘Anyway it doesn’t say it’s you as is the cry baby. I did a lot of crying, and that’s a fact.’ ‘But it’s my picture!’ cries Frodo, and there’s no answer to that. ‘Erm, look, I’m sorry, OK,’ says Elenya. ‘I didn’t mean to make you cry so much, it’s just that... well, you would keep doing it.’ Frodo starts weeping again, and Elenya gets one of Sam’s glares anyway. She wonders if he’s found out the trick for turning her into a toad. ‘You’re not helping, if I might say so, wench,’ he says. ‘Why don’t you do something useful, like put the kettle on.’

Elenya goes to obey - anything to get out of the way of Sam’s wrath - but she is diverted by a knock on the door. She runs to open it, and finds a messenger standing on the doorstep. He hands her another scroll, and she blocks his view as he tries to peer past her into the smial. She thanks him firmly, and closes the door. With trembling hands she unrolls it.

‘Woot!’ She punches the air.

‘Tell me the worse,’ says Frodo gloomily. ‘Best Chick!Frodo, I presume.’

‘Don’t be silly. We weren’t nominated for that one.’

Nominated for Best Tongue-Twister

‘Oh! Silly! Now I’m silly!’ His voice has become a little shrill. ‘Nor for Best Drama Queen, neither.’ She wipes the tears from his face with her handkerchief. ‘No, this is for “Best Use of Rosie!”’

Her smile is matched by Sam’s. ‘Well, that’s good. That’s uncommon good, Frodo-love. Now isn’t it?’ he says.

Frodo hangs his head and mutters something that sounds like ‘Mverypleasedforyou.’

‘But aren’t you pleased, really, dear one,’ says Sam, beginning to look confused.

Frodo hangs his head and mutters something.

‘What?’

Frodo lifts his head again and glares at Elenya. ‘I said, It’s not very manly.’

‘But you’re not a man,’says Elenya reasonably.

Frodo glares at her. ‘You... know... what... I... mean,’ he says through gritted teeth. ‘Not like The Honorary Sam Award!’

Sam tries the voice of reason. ‘But we weren’t nominated for that one.’

‘Oh, take her side! We allow her unfettered access to our sex lives, and all I have to show for it is Best Crybaby!’

Sam smirks, remembering that his access had been fettered. Very nicely so. Elenya smirks, just remembering.

‘But, dear one, that wasn’t part of the story,’ she says. ‘Bondage just wouldn’t have worked in it. Anyway look what a lovely bondage story Daffodil Bolger wrote for you.’

‘Are you saying I’m bossy and don’t let Sam get his own way?’

‘What! No, I’m not saying that! You seemed to enjoy him getting his own way in that story, anyway.’

Frodo’s expression takes on a misty, far away look, but his toying with Sam’s buttons is interrupted by another knock on the door. He jumps. ‘Don’t tell me - it’ll be my cooking skills being maligned next!’ he mutters.

‘No, it won’t be. We weren’t nominated in that, either. And don’t be so ungrateful. Look what a good cook I made you!’

Frodo has the decency to look abashed. He ticks off the nominations on his fingers, and his face brightens. Sure enough, when Elenya opens the door, another beautiful scroll is handed to her. She gives it to Frodo to open.

He sighs. ‘Self-familiarity at it’s finest! Runner up. Well, I suppose wanker is better than cry baby.’

‘You wank beautifully,’ say Sam and Elenya together. Sam glares at Elenya, but she doesn’t care. She brings out a bottle of sparkling wine and three glasses, and Frodo brightens up even more.

‘I think this calls for a celebration,’ she says. She hasn’t noticed Sam taking a look at the latest scroll, nor that he appears to be trying to hide it behind his back. ‘So who won?’ she asks, and looks up in time to see Sam frowning at her and shaking his head.

‘Yes, who did win?’ asks Frodo.

‘Erm, The Planting Season, by that nice lass, Trilliah,’ says Sam. ‘And I must say, next time I have a good wank in the rain, I’ll poke a stick into all the bushes first to see who might be hiding in there with a note book.’ His tone, however, is conciliatory.

‘Oooh! I like that one,’ says Elenya. ‘Very earthy.’

‘So what you’re saying,’ says Frodo carefully, ‘is that you’re better at wanking than me, Sam.’

‘Don’t be such a... such a wanker!’ says Elenya, losing her patience with him. ‘All the stories nominated are excellent, and it just means Trilliah wrote some very hot masturbation for our Sam, who, by the way, was as frustrated as hell because you hadn’t got the sense to look out the window and go and join him.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And before you start bemoaning Best Tongue Twister, those are all damn fine stories and you get great action in all of them, and I had no end of trouble deciding which one to vote for, because they are all so - ’ Her gaze goes a little glassy and she starts breathing strangely; both Frodo and Sam snap their fingers in front of her face. She jumps and carries on as though she’d never stopped. ‘ - hot!’

Frodo has the decency to look suitably chastened. ‘Well, yes, I suppose if you look at it like that. I get to win in most of them, don’t I?’

‘Aye, and some ain’t even with me!’ says Sam grimly.

‘Oh, you mean with those lovely Took girls of Mariole’s.’ Frodo blushes a fetching shade of pink, and Elenya makes a note to suggest Best Blush as a category in the GMAs.

‘And Merry,’ reminds Sam.

‘Oh. Daffodil Bolger again. Erm, and Achillea Millefolium, but she made you hanker after Merry, so we’re even again.’ Frodo and Sam wrap themselves up together and share a kiss that lasts through Elenya drinking two glasses of the wine slowly. She perches on the table and thinks how good they look together. Frodo seems to have forgotten about being a Crybaby, and hopefully won’t remember he’s a Damsel in Distress.

Elenya coughs, because as much as she loves watching them mould together, hands moving slowly in sweeping strokes and mouths working rhythmically, she knows that soon the tempo will increase, that moans and gasps will be added, and then she will have lost them to their room, with only a trail of clothes to show they were there. They look up, rather unfocused, and she waves her glass at them. ‘Some toasts, first,’ she says. ‘Then you can go have your wicked way with each other.’

So they raise their glasses to Shadow and West of the Moon, to their lovely GMA awards, to the other authors, and to everyone who voted for any fic, but particularly those that voted for All That I Had.

As Frodo and Sam trail slowly from the kitchen, hampered by the fact that they are busy undressing each other, they turn to Elenya, who raises a glass to them. ‘Would you like to join us?’ they ask.

Slowly a glass stops spinning on its side on the table, and three illuminated scrolls quietly roll up, but there is no one there to notice.