Page 74 of Resilience

~oOo~

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“How was it?” Athena asked.

“It’s still going on. The wake, anyway. It’s ... sad. I didn’t know him much, but I’ve got all the funerals we’ve been to in my head. Mainly I’ve been thinking of Uncle Beck. I think that was the one that I felt hardest.”

“Me too,” she answered. “That was the worst for me, too. Of our family, at least. It hurt to lose my Grandpa Bill, too. A lot. And my Grandma Maeve.”

She meant her mom’s dad and her dad’s mom. Apollo’s father had died when Athena was too young to remember him, and Jacinda’s mother had been kind of aloof and chilly. But Bill had been a goofy dad-joke kind of grandfather, and Maeve a cookie-baking, cuddly-soft grandma.

The only grandparents Sam had ever known were Grammo and Grampa D. His mom’s parents were both dead well before he’d popped onto the scene, and his dad was thoroughly estranged from his folks. Grammo and Grampa D were plenty, though—and he’d gotten to coast in Athena’s wake with her bonus grandparents.

“I miss you so much, Samwise. This is the longest we’ve ever been apart. I’m going crazy.”

“Me too. It makes what we talked about in the field, what we did, almost feel like it didn’t really happen.” He laughed. “I’m starting to feel like I dreamed it all up.”

Athena grabbed her phone and brought it close to her face, so her exaggerated expression of anger filled the screen entirely. Then she propped the phone again and signed, “Don’t talk like that! You didn’t dream it up. It’s real. We’re real. We just haven’t had a chance to enjoy it fully yet.”

“I really want to enjoy it fully.”

She gave him a dreamy, extremely suggestive smile. “Me too. I think about it all the time.”

“Not me.”

Her sexy smile gave way to another, more real frown. “No?”

He shook his head. “Nope. I told you—I don’t want to imagine it. I want to experience all of it like it’s exactly as it should be when I can really touch you. I don’t want any expectations ahead of time. I just want you.”

“You are a romantic hobbit, Samwise Gamgee.”

“And you’re my Rosie. Might have to change your name.”

“No you don’t. I have been your Frodo since we were five years old.”

“Frosie. That’s who you are now. You’re my Frosie. Best friend and love of my life, all rolled into one. Best of all worlds.”

Smiling pertly, Athena considered that. “I’ll allow it.”

“We need a sign for it.”

She thought for a moment, then combined the signs for rose and for Frodo. “How’s that?”

Sam made the sign himself. “Perfect. Frosie.”

Athena leaned in and kissed her screen.

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