Ah, here he comes, Drogo--he’s awakening at last.
Son, are you indeed waking up? Yes, sweetling--you’ve had a time of it, haven’t you? But you’re safe now.
He felt the warmth surrounding him, the love there waiting to greet him, once he opened his eyes. For just a moment longer he kept them closed, prolonging the anticipation, enjoying the feel of familiar arms encircling him, smelling the faint odor of Longbottom Leaf that had always surrounded his father, and the slightly tangier scent of Old Toby that had always been a sign that Bilbo was visiting, and his mother’s violet water with which she’d always rinsed her linens....
And at last he opened his eyes, seeing his mother’s smiling down into his, his father just beyond her shoulder.
He’s here at last? That question stopped him, for the familiar voice was not that of a Hobbit at all, and had last been heard at Amon Hen, demanding the Ring--save for the echoes of it calling for forgiveness he’d barely been aware of as he’d fled up to the Seat of Seeing....
He turned to look up into the visage of the Heir of Denethor glowing in joy. Boromir no longer looked as he had then. And the figures that surrounded him were not precisely as they’d been before the boating accident in the Shire, either.
He’s completely out of his reckoning for the moment, commented an amused Belle Gamgee, her eyes shining, garbed as a simple Queen.
So we see, laughed his Aunt Menegilda, now gloriously tall and fair, her arm negligently around the shoulders of a shining prince that must be the True Shape for Uncle Rorimac.
Frodo looked around, saw the golden Guardian that Sam had become, and laughed with delight. Throwing his arms about the glowing figures of former mother and father, he turned to face the Teacher Bilbo had become.
Well, my dear boy, would you like to meet the one who’d first hoped for the honor of being your mother within Arda? Let me introduce the Lady Gilraen....
Gilorhael? Even that voice was familiar as he looked into eyes as filled with love and joy as were those of the one who’d once been Primula Brandybuck Baggins. And his mother easily loosed him to the embrace of the other who could as easily have been his mother....
Funny, this embrace felt no different from that of the one who had served as his mother.
Mummy--and Nana! He laughed with growing pleasure, and found himself smiling up into the eyes of he who had been Fredegar Bolger. Freddy! he laughed. My brothers begin to gather!
That we do, Freddy smiled back, as well balanced and finely garbed as any knight of the realm who'd ever graced Aragorn's court in either Minas Anor or Annúminas.
Filled with a joy that could no longer be contained, Frodo suddenly moved apart to begin dancing, catching Bilbo and Drogo and the unknown other one who stood with them--he felt the aura of great responsibility and authority to him, and knew he danced with Arathorn son of Arador, who danced as lightly and skillfully as the three former Hobbits, and then Sam was joining them as well, having just been released from Gilraen’s and Rosie’s joint embrace. Song surrounded them--sustained them--filled them; and their dance added to the Song as they rejoiced in the renewed Reality about them.
And then Rorimac and Fredegar and Saradoc and Paladin were joining the dance, and those who’d been women of the Shire and the Angle created their own circle outside that of the menfolk.
And when Frodo found that Boromir danced beside him in equal joy to his own he laughed with sheer delight!
He caught the eyes of Primula as she flashed past, hand in hand with Gilraen. It’s such a joy to at last be at Home with you, dearling, he heard in the depths of his being, and knew that Another’s voice had joined hers. He spun in the glory of it all. Indeed, he was Home. Until their other brother and his beloved could join them, who could ask for more?