“Fine. Go!” The two lads began to clamber up the huge oak, pulling themselves through branches of new green leaves. Spring had just come to the Shire, and Merry’s mum had sent her son and visiting nephew outdoors to run off some energy “somewhere other than my kitchen—now march!” as she had put it. The two had passed the morning throwing rocks into a pond, splashing each other, and then Pippin attempted to dunk Merry in the pond, failing when Merry hauled the young Took over one shoulder and stomped off to drop him in a cluster of dandelions. Having exhausted other venues, they returned to the time-tested game of “race each other up a tree and then go find someone to annoy”. Pippin had picked the tree this time, a giant oak not far from the pond.

Merry was surprised when his nimble cousin caught up with him, and began to pass him. “You’ve been practicing!” he called up, and increased his speed. Still, Pippin slipped up, hardly seeming to touch the branches as he reached as high as the branches would hold his weight.

“I win! Merry, did you see! I went faster than you!” He let go with both hands, starting to sway a little when Merry reached the branch he stood on, and grabbed onto him with one hand. “Pip, you know what I taught you, hold on with two hands and a foot, or two feet and a hand, all the time.” Pippin wrinkled his nose up, making freckles dance, but complied.

“Oh, Merry, look.” He breathed in, big green eyes taking in the meadow that lay before them. Sprays of purple, yellow and blue exploded onto the rich green verge, the new, pale green color that it only turned at the height of spring, waiting for the heavy heat of summer. Merry glanced down, smiling at the entranced lad next to him, before gazing out over Buckland. Yes. Yes, it was good, this land, the land that ran through his and Pippin’s blood, the land that had raised and nurtured generations of Brandybucks and Tooks, and was nurtured by them in turn. Merry nearly became dizzy at the thought of all those generations, and that connection to the land that had spanned hundreds of years. If he truly tried, he thought, he might be able to just reach down through this tree, and become a part of the land here himself, lost in its age and beauty.

He shook his head, returning to himself and smiling. “Fool of a Brandybuck,” he murmured “letting a sweet day get to you like that.” Pippin looked up at him, questioning, but he just shook his head, and smiled, giving Pippin’s shoulder a quick squeeze and beginning to descend. After a moment, his cousin followed, a little more slowly than he’d ascended, as if reluctant to leave the tree.

Merry jumped the last feet to the ground, and looked up just in time to see the branch Pippin had been holding onto crack, and break. He thought his heart truly had stopped as Pippin plummeted the last ten feet to the ground, landing with a high-pitched scream that went straight to Merry’s heart, and threatened to break it. He was around the tree nearly as Pippin landed, and gathered the lad up in his arms. What scared him most was that Pippin wasn’t crying, just curled over making noises like the raccoon one of the dogs had almost-killed last fall. He held Pippin as tightly as he dared, and rocked him, trying to calm himself first, stroking the far too fragile-feeling lad’s hair.

When he could speak, what felt like hours but was less than a minute, Merry gently asked, “What hurts, sweeting? Show me, and I’ll make it better. Just uncurl a little—that’s it, that’s my lad.” Pippin looked up, tears filling sage-colored eyes, and held up his left hand. Even that small movement proved too much, and he broke into tears, from being scared and in pain. Merry swallowed hard at the wrist turned at an angle it shouldn’t be, but smiled as bravely for Pippin as he could. Kissing rumpled curls he whispered, “Hoy, that does look like it hurts. How about I get you back, and my Mum will get the healer, and she’ll make you feel better.” Pippin nodded at this, sniffling, but pressed more tightly to Merry at mention of the healer. Merry stood as carefully as he could with his arms filled with a hurting hobbit-lad, and made off for home. His heart was in his throat when he reached his mother; Pippin’s tears had turned to tiny whimpers and cries of pain.

Esmeralda Brandybuck took one look at her son and the bundle in his arms, and wasn’t sure which she should help first. Merry looked distraught, his features nearly as wan as Pippin’s. Esme Brandybuck had not raised a son these sixteen years, however, without learning a thing or two about him.

“Sweetheart, sit him down here on the sofa, and go fetch the healer. Redbud should be in the herbal room, you can tell her what happened on the way.” She smiled encouragingly at her son who bit his lip and settled Pippin gently down, brushing a kiss on top of his curls before running off through the halls.

He was panting when he reached Redbud, but managed to stammer out the tale by the time they returned to the parlor where he’d left his mother and best friend. The healer was far too calm, he’d decided, when she saw Pippin, who he thought looked completely miserable. She pulled over a low stool and sat in front of the small Took, as Merry took his place beside him, sandwiching Pippin between himself and his mother.

“Well, let’s see what’s wrong with you, lad. Merry says you took a tumble from a tree and hurt your wrist?” She smiled warmly at him, and reached out for the arm Pippin still cradled against his chest. Merry put an arm around the slim shoulders and squeezed a little, encouraging him.

When Redbud had looked the wrist over, asking Pippin to turn it this way and that and, Merry thought, hurt him entirely too much, she looked up and smiled. “Well, my dear, you did break your wrist here, and here,” she pointed “but I think you should be fine in a month or so. I just have to set it, and splint it, then I’ll give you something to make you all nice and sleepy, and not hurt so much.” Pippin nodded, sniffling the last of his tears away, and she grasped his wrist in both hands. “This will probably hurt, sweeting, so I’m sorry.” She wrinkled her nose up, smiling, and Pippin giggled a little, but wrapped his free arm around Merry, burying his face in Merry’s shoulder and squinching his eyes closed tightly.

Merry went lightheaded for a few seconds, hearing the crunch of bones moving into place and Pippin’s muffled scream, and couldn’t move even as he felt his mother rubbing Pippin’s back. When he could breathe again, he moved his hand to comb through Pippin’s curls, whispering “Oh honey, the worst is over now, I promise, you’re so brave, it’ll be okay. You’ll feel better soon, you will, and then we’ll go out and play again and I’ll teach you to skip stones across the water.” Pippin calmed as he listened, and Merry kept distracting him with promises of things they’d do during his stay in Buckland, while the healer splinted and bandaged the arm. At some point Esmeralda slipped away to brew some of the tea Redbud had given her for Pippin, and returned shortly after the healer had finished. She tasted a few drops of the tea and nodded firmly. “Give him more of that if he’s still in pain; he shouldn’t need it for more than a day or so, though. Well, Pippin,” she said as she stood up, and he smiled up at her, “I’ll be checking on you in a few days, but I think things will be just fine. The tea will probably make you a little sleepy, but you’ll feel better when you wake up.”

Pippin nodded, and managed a small smile for her, Merry giving her a wider one. She raked her hands through Merry’s curls, saying “You take care of him for me, hmm? You’re a good lad, Merry, got a good head on you.” She left as Merry ducked his head, blushing a little, and Pippin drank the mug of tea Esmeralda handed him.

“Why don’t you both go to Pippin’s room and rest there for awhile? It’s been a busy morning; I’ll check in at lunch,” Esmeralda gently commanded as she took the mug from Pippin.

“All right Mum. Come on Pip, and I’ll tell you the stories Frodo used to tell me when I wasn’t feeling so good.”

“Okay.” Pippin acquiesced, blinking sleepily as they walked off to his room at Buckland. He curled up on the bed, but tugged Merry down to join him when he sat down. “Lie down with me, Merry? You look sleepy too.”

“I don’t want to accidentally hurt you, Pip,” he said uncertainly as he lay carefully next to his friend. Pippin immediately snuggled up beside him, moving his bandaged arm to lie on Merry’s stomach. “Silly Merry,” he murmured “you won’t hurt me. Don’t you know how much better you make me feel?” Merry sobered at that, lifting the bandaged wrist to be kissed better.

“I’m sorry, Pip. I shouldn’t have let you climb that tree, and you wouldn’t have fallen.” Pippin grunted a little and looked up “Merry, don’t think that. You couldn’t have known that branch would break, it was an accident. Tell me some stories instead—do they have elves in them?”

Merry smiled a little at the bluntness of his cousin. “I’m sorry you got hurt, little one. I love you.”

Pippin smiled and snuggled a little closer. “I love you too. And I’m not little. Story, please.” Merry laughed silently at the request, and began the tales he’d learned from Frodo when he was younger than Pippin was now. He talked until he felt Pippin’s breathing go steady, and slow, and then drifted off to sleep himself, dreams filled with green fields, and great trees stretching up to the sun, and roots that traveled to every part of the world.

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