By: Dana
Summary: Beryl Boffin's first love.
Characters: Beryl Boffin (and some of her family), Bittersweet Twofoot
Pairings: Beryl/Bittersweet (unrequited) (Tomkin/Bittersweet, Sam/Rose)
Rating: PG
Warnings: Femslash, some angst (and implications of unmentioned violence, of which I will say no more)
Author's Notes: Written for a not-meme ficlet, then edited and reposted.
I find myself wanting to write more on Beryl and her siblings.
Series Index: In a Sunless Year.
Disclaimer: The author makes no claim to owning the rights of anything to do with J.R.R. Tolkien or New Line Cinema. Any and all characters and situations that have been borrowed are for the author's personal use only, and for the entertainment of others.

Bittersweet Twofoot was nothing like her name might suggest: she was sweet, with an even temper and a merry disposition, and a much better hand at stitching and the other fineries of embroidery than Beryl should ever hope to be. They would, at times during the summer, when the days had begun their stretching into autumn, sit together in the side garden, talking and laughing and working together: both of them working together at Beryl's stitching, Beryl with her unsteady hands, but Bittersweet's hands level and her voice jolly as she gave Beryl her instructions.

Those were the happiest days of Beryl's life, those years when Bittersweet wasn't quite of age, didn't work as hard as her family would one day need her to, if only because of her age. She was three years older than Beryl was, and Beryl still considered herself quite young.

Still, Bittersweet was a lovely lass, with such a fine smile, and such a fine laugh – though likely she would not have thought so, herself: she had soft brown curls, often worn back with a bit of dark ribbon, or worn in a long plait: and soft brown eyes, sweet and wide. Beryl considered her a constant, and did not think that she would ever live without her.

Bittersweet had a brother, called Robin, who worked the gardens there at Cherryhill. Oh, their gardens were not so fine as what you might find at Overlook, or especially what you might find at Bag End, but Beryl liked them well enough. Robin, though, one day in 1419 (when those summer days seemed a lifetime away, when Beryl and Bittersweet were both older, but neither old enough, yet – when things had all gone wrong, and the first of it had been when Frodo Baggins had sold Bag End to his Sackville-Baggins cousins), went off for a rebel, and Bittersweet came to tell Beryl that she could not stay now, that her Da needed her and her Mam did, too.

Beryl wanted to say, 'But I need you, Bittersweet, I need you to stay: don't I matter?' For all she had considered Bittersweet her friend, Bittersweet only considered Beryl as her employer's daughter.

So, Beryl gripped her hand, and thought to kiss her, but instead told her to keep herself safe. Bittersweet nodded, gave a cheery smile, and promised that she would.

When Beryl saw Bittersweet next, she did not smile as she had before, and Robin spoke for her, as Bittersweet did not want to speak for herself. Beryl wanted to know what had broken her, so, but Bittersweet would not even look her in the eyes. She did get her good-bye, though, and that broke Beryl's heart more than anything else. When Bittersweet left, Robin leading her, Beryl went inside Cherryhill and fell sobbing into her mother's arms: it had been a terrible year, more terrible for some than it had been for others, and she had seen it well-enough, though perhaps those troubles had not come to Cherryhill, for all they were on the Overhill-side of Hobbiton.

Dargo said it had something to do with Father's money, and Brego said it was better not to speak of such things: but Mother held her, now, as she wept, and how she said it was not fair, for her to have waited, and for Bittersweet to be taken from her, again.

Beryl was young still, and did not understand, and would have gone after Bittersweet, if she had not been raised with some sense of propriety. Instead, she took up her unfinished embroidery, which she had not worked on since Bittersweet had first gone away, and decided it would best be finished, and so set to that.

Mother sat her down and gave her tea, and Beryl drank it even though she did not want to. Her brothers came in, and she thought to question Dargo, who had gone off for a rebel, himself, though he had come back, with trouble in his eyes: or she might have questioned Brego, as he had been one of the hobbits who had fought against the Men at the Battle of Bywater, and he seemed as cheery as he ever had.

Beryl found she could not speak to either of them, so when she had finished with her tea, but not with her embroidery, she told Mother she was going to her bedroom, and did just that.

She thought of turning and going to the gardens instead, even though they were withered, and in a sore state: but she sat at her bedroom window, instead, feeling the wind in her hair, the sunlight on her cheeks. It had been a bad turn of things, but now things seemed well and right, or at least better than they had before: only they were not, and she had wept enough already, and would not weep again.

For as bad as it had been, she had not seen the worst of it, and she did not think she could bare it, knowing more.

There was worry that there would be food enough to see them all through Winter, as everyone knew how the stores were low, and not just in Overhill, or the towns closest. Beryl knew they had been pressed till they could give nothing more, and so finding the food that had been stored away, well, that was a blessing, and so they would make it through the winter, and to the spring beyond.

Somehow, Beryl stepped foot by foot into the new year, and took it as the blessing that it was: but she often worried on Bittersweet, and hoped that she was well, and did not weep herself to sleep at night, thinking that she might have done better, might have saved Bittersweet from whatever darkness she had faced.

She did not see Bittersweet again until the next year, in the spring: her hair was long, still, hair soft and dark, and her eyes brown and soft, but not so sweet, somehow changed. But she smiled, though it was not the same smile that Beryl remembered from years before: but at least she did smile. And Bittersweet, she greeted Beryl as if it was only a day between them, and not years, as though Bittersweet's belly was not swollen, as though she had not gone away and come back wed.

Beryl learned that Bittersweet had wed Tomkin Smallburrow in the autumn of 1419, and had removed with him to Tighfield: she stood with a smile, but with shadows in her eyes, changed but still the same, somehow, as beautiful as Beryl had ever thought her. She wondered if Bittersweet would laugh at her, still, and chide her for such: 'Miss Beryl,' she'd say, or might have in a different time, 'I'm not a pretty one, not at all – my hands are brown and cracked, from working, and are not at all suited to doing fine things.'

Beryl still remembers her Bittersweet, though, her hands more deft than any other seamstress or fine embroiderer, and Beryl felt the prickle of hot tears in her eyes, but smiled through the blur, even as she considered her own unfinished embroidery, left all those long years. 'It is very good to have you here, Bittersweet. You ought visit more often, once you are able.'

Bittersweet smiled, and said it was good to be had, but did not promise that she would come again. She had only come for the wedding of Samwise Gamgee and Miss Rose Cotton, who Bittersweet knew well from her childhood (and they were both cousins of hers, of some variety). Frodo Baggins was Beryl's cousin, and would be officiating the ceremony, and Beryl had been invited, or at least made herself a guest, on account of that.

Bittersweet told her she could not stay long, as Tomkin was expecting her, but she stayed for tea and cake, and they spoke of little and of nonsense, too, and Beryl set her hand on Bittersweet's, and wondered if that was where it had always been meant to be.

It seemed too bad, then, that she had only then noticed it: for she had always thought herself bright, and a clever lass. But she was only now seeing what she should have, all along.

She wanted Bittersweet to tell her what it was that put darkness in her eyes, and why she did not smile as she had before, and why she did not laugh, as Beryl remembered her laughing. But she could not force a thing better, not by wanting it, and if Bittersweet needed time, and understanding, then Beryl could give her that.

Bittersweet stood with her Tomkin, at the wedding, and Beryl watched them more than she watched Sam and Rose, though they were a handsome couple, themselves, and Rose was as lovely as her name might suggest: but Beryl found herself more concerned that Bittersweet would be taken care of, that Tomkin would stand with her, and love her, through all the years before them.

If she could not be the one that Bittersweet could speak to, then it would be Tomkin, and he would well take care of her, for it was all that she deserved.

Once the wedding was through, and Beryl another day older, Bittersweet and Tomkin went away, off to Tighfield: Beryl told Bittersweet that she would visit often, and she would write, for she had long ago learned Bittersweet her letters – but Bittersweet did not seem to find that all so pressing. (Before she left, she thanked Beryl for all that she had given her, her love, and her friendship: and she kissed her, once, on the cheek, but then she went away.)

Dianthus, who was younger than Beryl, but more than twice as mature, told her older sister that she grew up, that day: and it would be that one, for all the other terrible things that had gone on: the day that Beryl had bid her first love good-bye, and had wished her all the best, and all love, in all the years to come.