--Pippinswolf

Merry was a happy baby, smiling and cooing at anyone who would give him attention. Although he could scream as well as any babe, the moment anyone attended to him, they were rewarded with a smile. When he was only a few months old, Merry was already wrapping his chubby arms around his mum’s neck when she picked him up and held him close.

He was the only one that could make Frodo truly smile, for a long time. Once, when the memories got too sharp, Frodo lay crying, Merry on his chest patting away tears. They fell asleep like that, Frodo holding onto Merry, who had stretched his tiny arms as far as they would go around Frodo’s chest.

*************

Pippin’s birth was a hard one, and there was question if he’d live, at first. But the babe thrived, and when Merry finally met him, only a few months old, he appointed himself Pippin’s caretaker.

He loved to hold his cousin, and cuddle him close, stroking his soft baby-hair with the gentlest touch. He would sing to Pippin, always, and tell him stories, laughing in delight at every gummy smile.

Best of all, Merry thought, was when it was evening-becoming-night, and Pippin would yawn sleepily, and Merry could hug him close and talk quietly. He didn’t have many worries, being only eight, but those had had were whispered to Pippin, where none could hear. He would whisper his hopes, too, that he and Pippin would always be best friends, and promise that he’d always be there for his cousin.

**************

Merry chased his little cousin all over the yard, catching up with Pippin and throwing him over one shoulder. Tiny, furry feet kicked at his chest, and Pippin screamed with laughter, especially when Merry tickled behind his knees with the hand that wasn’t holding Pippin in place. Spotting a soft-looking stand of thick grass, Merry unceremoniously dumped his toddler cousin into it, throwing himself down beside Pippin. They were both panting and laughing when Pippin stood in front of his older cousin, hands on hips and looking very imperious for a three-year-old.

“My Mer!” he crowed, and leaped at Merry, landing heavily in his lap. Merry grunted a little at the impact, but wrapped his arms around his tiny cousin, hugging him tightly. Pippin giggled a little at this, but soon squirmed his way away, only to jump into Merry’s arms again and again, his cousin always catching him.

***************

“Merry, why don’t the trees talk to us?”

“Merry, why do I sometimes see the Moon during the daytime?”

“Merry, why does Grandfather Adalgrim smell so funny?”

“Merry, why…”

Merry patiently answered each of his cousin’s queries, although he was starting to run a bit short of that patience by bedtime. His legs stretched out on Pippin’s bed, a book on his lap and his own little one cuddled up to his side—Merry decided there was nothing better than that, if only because it stemmed the tide of questions briefly.

He had finished reading and was tucking Pippin in when Pip asked, “Merry, why do you always make me feel so safe, and loved?”

Merry swallowed around the lump in his throat, and smiled. “I don’t know, sweetheart. I just want to protect you and keep you happy. Why are you always so happy to see me, and feel safe and loved?”

Pippin turned over onto his side, already mostly asleep. “Because that’s the way it’s supposed to be.” And he then he was snoring lightly.

Merry stayed, and watched him for a while, thinking.

**************

“Thank you. Thank you all.”

Frodo still looked shaken from Merry’s revelations about the Conspiracy, but below that, he looked only desperately, truly grateful. Merry wondered, briefly, how Frodo could ever have thought that he’d be able to escape his dearest friends, and carry such an awful burden by himself.

“Frodo, you are so very welcome.” And Merry’s arms were open, and Frodo was in them, and Frodo for a moment believed there was something magical about Merry; that as long as he was by his side, no harm would ever come, and he’d always feel as safe and loved and whole as he did just then.

***************

Merry let out a breath as Gandalf left, and breathed in fully for the first time in he didn’t know how long. It would be okay now, everything would be okay. Gandalf was here, and Saruman was imprisoned in his tower, and soon they would all be together again. Except for Boromir, he remembered with a pang, but in the joy of the moment the thought passed quickly.

He turned to Pippin, and saw tear-tracks and a suspicious shininess in those familiar green eyes. Pippin was smiling, though, when he turned to Merry.

“He’s alive, Mer. Gandalf has come back.”

And then he was in Merry’s arms, and the world was perfect.

***************

Merry thought he wouldn’t be able to speak, so angry he was, but when Gandalf placed Pippin in his arms, still wrapped in a blanket and shivering, Merry’s heart melted. No matter his anger, this was his Pippin, and he was scared, and Merry would not have that.

He hugged his cousin close, then, and crooned softly, moving between song and endearment to another song. Still, he barely heard Pippin whisper, “I’m sorry.”

“Shhh, dearest one. No one is angry at you, not truly.” And as he said it, his anger melted away. Merry rocked them a little, and kissed Pippin’s curls, laying his cheek on them as he had for as long as he could remember.

“Merry, will everything be okay? In the end?” Pippin’s voice was childlike in his fear, but Merry could not answer as he had when Pip was young.

“I don’t know, sweetheart. I hope so.”

They sat together like that, Pippin held firmly against cold and fear, until Gandalf returned, and spirited the small Took away.

****************

“Poor old Merry!”

Pippin tried to keep his voice light, tried so desperately hard to sound happy and playful again. Tried so hard to not think about Merry slipping in and out of himself, his arm as cold as ice, and so pale. Instead, he sat down on the streets of Gondor, and Merry laid his head in Pippin’s lap, and Pippin tried to soothe him, as best he could.

“Oh, Merry, I don’t know what to do,” he whispered, “How is it that you are so good at this, can make me feel better with just a smile?”

He put his arms around Merry then, held him close, and waited.

**************

Merry forced himself to not pace, there on the fields of Cormallen, to sit patiently by Pippin’s side, holding his good hand in both of Merry’s, and waiting for him to wake up. He’d stirred earlier that morning, and Aragorn warned that it might be several hours before he was truly awake, but Merry was prepared to wait it out.

Impulsively, he leaned over and placed a small kiss on Pippin’s cheek, hoping a little that it would wake his dear one, as it always did in tales.

It was another hour, though, before Pippin’s eyes blinked open, and focused almost immediately on Merry. He smiled, then, and Merry wondered if his heart would explode with joy.

Bucking all medical protocol he’d ever learned, Merry leaned forward and gently gathered his cousin into a hug, and Pippin stopped caring, in those long minutes, about anything outside that circle of love and protection that had rarely been out of arm’s reach since he was born.

*****************

They arrived back at Crickhollow very late at night. Merry and Pippin had parted ways with Sam before reaching Hobbiton, knowing that leaving him to Rosie and Elanor and their love was the best thing they could do. Promises to visit soon accompanied their farewells, and Merry and Pippin rode all night.

Through the singing, and the being strong, and the ache of a farewell that was too great to deal with just then, they both, more than anything, wanted to be home. Crickhollow was the home for both of them, where they could find peace, and understanding in each other. It wasn’t the Havens; it was better.

It was still later that night, when neither of them could sleep but the fire had been built up and they were sitting together in front of it, that they could cry. Pippin, protected and safe in the circle of Merry’s arms, could let go his pain. Just as Merry, with a warm, loved body held next to his, his own Pippin, could let go of his pain. Pippin’s arms crept around his chest, and they were holding each other close and chasing away the deepest of the pains of the last few days.

****************

Pippin was the first to turn back, as they rode away from Buckland. He turned, for one last look, and tears began to fall. Merry reined his horse, and stopped next to Pippin.

“We’re never coming back, are we Merry?” Pippin’s voice, however roughened with age, kept that same plaintive edge that always made his cousin’s heart clench.

“No, sweetheart, we’re not.” And Merry reached over, and Pippin was in his arms, his head buried in Merry’s shoulder. And, for a moment, Merry wondered if he’d become unstuck in time, and he was comforting a young lad who’d just been bee-stung, or an older one who had seen one thought long-dead, or one yet older who had to bid farewell to a beloved cousin. They all ran together, and became the same moment, and it stopped mattering.

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