Frodo awoke suddenly to the sound of a clang and a muffled curse. Surrounded by darkness, he could not guess the time; he knew only that night still blanketed the Shire. Suspicious, he crept to the window, groping for some object that might serve as a weapon should the need arise – more, Frodo hoped, the frighten a villain away than to fight him. His hand fell on an empty pitcher. Clutching the formidable weapon, he eased the hinged window open and peered out. The front yard of Bag End shimmered as light from the waxing moon, now nearly full, illuminated the snow that had fallen during the past two days – an unusually heavy snowfall for this part of the Shire. The sight dazzled Frodo, chasing his original purpose into some far-off corner of his mind. He gazed out at the snow-covered walkway and the hills beyond, which faded from silver-blue to shadow until the earth and sky were indistinguishable. Hobbit doors were hidden behind snow drifts, and rough hedges were softened by the crystal powder. Frodo felt as if the warmth of Bag End, the home he had known and trusted since childhood, was an island surrounded by a harsh, endless, frozen desert whose monotony of round dunes was broken here and there only by bare trees who stretched helplessly to claw at the sky. It was an almost terrifying beauty.

Then Frodo caught sight of the single blemish in the perfect landscape: a small figure hunched over in the snow, its back to its unnoticed observer, seemingly struggling with some large, lumpy object on the ground. A nightmarish vision of the creature Gollum, a familiar character in his uncle Bilbo’s stories, flashed through Frodo’s mind; but it was dispelled at once when the wind took hold of the bent apparition’s garments, and a familiar long, red scarf whipped into view with tassels fluttering.

“Sam!” Frodo called quietly. The bumbling nightwalker jumped, startled. Another metallic jangle issued from the brown sack half buried in the snow as Samwise proceeded to trip over it, then scuttled back to his feet. Frodo grinned as a pair of sheepish hazel eyes appeared from under the messily woven hat and tousled curls. Those eyes could belong to no other hobbit.

Frodo’s voice was tinted with laughter as his friend scrambled to his window through the close-to-waist-high snow. “Sam, what in the name of Gandalf’s beard are you doing?? I mean, of course, besides trying to wake all of Hobbiton and scare me out of my wits. Do you know, you exasperating thing, if I hadn’t seen your scarf, I’d have acquainted this pitcher with your skull in a rather unpleasantly abrupt manner? You’re a lucky hobbit, Samwise!”

“Begging your pardon, Mr. Frodo,” Sam stammered, too flustered to share in Frodo’s amusement. “I didn’t mean to make a spectacle of myself, sir, especially as I know you like to sleep at night…”

“As do you,” Frodo pointed out. “And as do all the other residents of these fine hills. They sleep in the day, too, when they can – unless our fine race has developed a sudden will to delay collective vegetation.”

Sam frowned and fidgeted with his coat buttons. “I’m sorry, Mr. Frodo, I don’t think I quite take your meaning…”

“What are you doing, Sam?”

“Oh!” Sam brightened, now that the conversation had reached a topic of which he was somewhat knowledgeable. “Well, the fact is, I thought I might get a bit of planting done, it being such a wonderful quiet tome of night and all…”

Frodo set the pitcher down on a table just inside the window. He leaned out on the ledge until he was close enough to feel Sam’s breath upon his face. “Samwise.”

“Yes, Mr. Frodo?”

“It’s the middle of the night.”

“Aye, sir…”

“It’s winter.”

“So it is…”

“The ground is covered in a hobbit-child’s height of snow.”

“Perhaps a bit deeper, really…”

“The earth underneath, should you find it, is frozen solid.”

“Well… yes…”

“And you are planting things???”

“I do seem to recall saying something to that effect,” Sam admitted.

Frodo looked very hard at his young friend, a strange blessing who had appeared one day in his life as suddenly and strangely as he had appeared in the snow with a sack full of gardening tools. He laughed then, his face brighter than it had been since the winter began. “Samwise, you are utterly incorrigible!”

Sam grinned. “I won’t deny that, sir.”

Frodo crossed his arms with a sigh. “Very well then, beast,” he teased. “You’ve got me! But I warn you, nobody interrupts my hibernation and escapes my wrath!”

“I can accept that.”

“Wait while I get my coat.” Frodo disappeared into his room once more, leaving Sam to stumble back to collect his sack and drag it to its new resting place not far from where the front door of Bag End would have been had it been visible.

Inside, Frodo quickly pulled his coat on. It didn’t take him long to determine that the easiest way out was to go right back through his bedroom window rather than trying to dig himself out of his front door. This decision reached, Frodo leaped down from the window ledge, landing in the snow with a quiet yet satisfying crunch. “Whoever said youth can’t be reclaimed?” Frodo chuckled to himself as he hopped through Sam’s footprints.

He found Sam on his knees using his mittened hands to clear a spot of earth beside the invisible front door. Frodo watched, occasionally having to dodge bits of snow or ice which he was beginning to think were not flung in his direction entirely accidentally. He knelt by the opposite side of the small patch of brown when Sam pulled two spades, and ice pick, and a hammer from his sack. Sam handed Frodo a spade and the ice pick. The latter object Frodo held up to inspect curiously.

“What’s this for, Sam?”

“Ground’s frozen solid, like you said, Mr. Frodo.” Sam gave the dirt a good whack with his spade to demonstrate. “Got to loosen it before we can dig it.” He picked up the hammer. “Now, sir, you just hold that pick steady and I’ll…”

“Oh no you won’t!” Frodo interrupted. “I’d trust my life to you and something sharp, Samwise, but the whole Shire knows that Gamgees and blunt objects do not work well together!” Frodo smirked, remembering a particular incident involving Sam’s brother Hamson and a disagreement with the hammer about where precisely it wanted to fall, resulting in several broken windows within the space of an hour. Needless to say, none of the Gamgees were particularly coordinated in that respect.

Sam laughed. “Well, I can’t deny the truth, can I?” He gave Frodo the hammer. Frodo reached out to take the handle, and for an almost imperceptible moment, they paused as their hands brushed each other.

Digging the ground was a messy business, but once they got into the rhythm of it, the work went quickly. Sam held and directed the ice pick, insisting the hole be a specific depth and width. Nothing less would do.

“Blast your stubbornness, Samwise!” Frodo exclaimed as he struck the ice pick once more. In response, Sam tilted the pick just enough to cause a chunk of frozen dirt to fly up and hit Frodo right in the nose.

“Oops!” Sam said, grinning.

“You are simply malicious!” Frodo said, rubbing his nose. “Don’t you try that again! I’ve got the hammer, remember, and I can make it hit what I want it to.”

Both hobbits laughed and continued working. Neither spoke again until Sam put aside the ice pick. “That ought to do it!”

Frodo tossed the hammer in the general direction of the sack from whence it came. They finished shoveling the rest of the loose dirt from the hole, then Sam collected their tools and put them back into the sack. He rummaged through the contents, Frodo watching.

Finally, Sam reemerged with some round object in his hands, which he set in the snow while he took off his mittens. Frodo stared at it: the thing appeared to be a deranged turnip.

“What on earth…” Frodo began, but Sam made a motion for him to be quiet. Frodo did so. Sam lifted the strange object from the snow almost reverently. His breath cast it into a cloud of mist as he lifted it. Cradling it in his left hand, he took Frodo’s hand and moved it to help hold the mysterious object. Sam then covered Frodo’s hand with his own. Frodo followed his example, and noticed suddenly that dawn was near. The snowy world was cloaked in blue shadow, sparkling below the few remaining stars. He heard Sam whisper, quiet enough to enhance the spell rather than break it.

“It’s a bulb,” Sam’s explained, his voice hovering in the frozen air. “Come spring, it’ll grow into a flower lovely as any the Shire’s ever seen.”

Together, they set the bulb into the hole and covered it with the frozen dirt. Sam brushed some snow over the brown. Frodo at last could no longer contain his curiosity.

“Sam, why…?”

Sam took one of Frodo’s hands and pressed it down on the spot where the bulb was buried. The cold stung Frodo’s fingers, but he dared not pull away. Instead, he looked up into Sam’s eyes.

“It sleeps now,” Sam murmured. “But someday… when the winter’s over… it’s going to grow and make the earth forget the winter… A bulb planted in the snow, some place it oughtn’t to be… but it’ll maybe give the others hope because it blooms before them…” Sam lowered his eyes suddenly. “I know, Mr. Frodo, that others don’t really understand you, nor Mr. Bilbo either. And I can’t say I do any more than they, but I know one thing certain: you’ve got something no one else has, sir, except Mr. Bilbo… but he was here so long he just fit in, somehow… Anyway, I’m no grand speaker, sir, but I want you to know that ever if nobody else sees anything good in you yet…” Sam paused to take a deep breath. He dared once more to look into Frodo’s eyes, which, though he did not know it, had never left his face. “You are… my tomorrow.”

Frodo studied his friend’s eyes. He thought the red in Sam’s cheeks was from more than just the cold. At that instant, the first ray of sunlight leaped over the hills and caught on a single tear as it escaped Sam’s hazel eyes. Sam made a quick motion to turn away, but as he lifted his hand, Frodo caught it and held fast. A dark handprint remained where his heat had melted the snow Sam brushed over their newly planted bulb.

“No, Samwise,” Frodo said, his voice thick with emotion. “No more running away.” He turned himself to sit with his back against the wall and pulled Sam close to him. There they sat with their arms around each other. Sam leaned his head against Frodo’s chest. The sunrise painted the world in unearthly tones of pink and orange. Frodo could feel Sam shivering in his arms. He looked down at Sam’s face, glowing in the morning light, and saw suddenly how much younger he was. Fifteen years was not long by hobbit standards, but it was not an amount of time that could be easily ignored. When Sam was born, Frodo was already an orphan living with his “uncle” Bilbo. He was accustomed to being considered an outcast of sorts within the boundaries of Hobbiton, though at that point there was still a general feeling of sympathy among the others, many of whom though Frodo merely needed time to adjust to his new surroundings and allow the pain of his parents’ sudden death to dull. But Frodo never adjusted, though the pain **did** dull, as all pains do. Still, he always felt more at home during trips to Buckland, where he would play freely with his more adventurous cousins. When Sam was born, Frodo was already well-versed in Bilbo’s tales of elves, wizards, and magic that existed only in lands farther beyond the edges of the Shire than any other hobbit had ever traveled. When Sam was born, Frodo had already experienced enough of life’s tragedy and triumph to make him wise beyond his years. When Sam was born, Frodo was a frequent visitor at the Gamgees’ residence just below Bag End, even if the shy teenager went mostly only to carry messages and invitations between Bilbo and Hamfast. Frodo had been, in fact, the first hobbit besides Hamfast who Bell Gamgee had allowed to hold the strange, squirming bundle that would one day grow to be Hamfast’s most gifted apprentice gardener, Bilbo’s most attentive student, and Frodo’s devoted shadow.

All this Frodo saw in Sam’s young face when he looked down at him in the morning light. Though Sam was now twice the age Frodo had been when Sam was born, Frodo still saw the young boy who knew nothing of worlds outside the Shire, yet who searched for elves behind the garden shed. They were brothers in all but blood. They always would be. Years had begun the forging of a bond that, in times to come, would grow in strength until it was something that could never be wholly broken.

Frodo’s heart was suddenly filled with love for his boyish companion, still very much a child be hobbit reckoning. He leaned over and kissed Sam’s cheek. Sam looked up, a smile showing faintly on his face through tears that glistened in his eyes – tears he wept because he could not understand nor find any other way to express the feelings of his heart. Frodo smiled back, pulling closer to his friend. Softly, he whispered into Sam’s ear.

“You are my tomorrow.”