The April sunshine felt good on his face, and the Brandywine flowed cool and brown as ale around his ankles. Pippin dabbled his feet in the water contentedly. He wondered where Merry had wandered off to. They would have to be getting back soon. Ah well, perhaps he had already gone back to the Hall by himself, although it was rather strange that he hadn't said anything before he left. He was so forgetful lately that it wouldn't have been much of a surprise; often he didn't reply when Pippin spoke to him, and there had even been a time or two when he had rudely walked away in the middle of the conversation! It was really beginning to worry him. Merry was old, but still far too young to be getting soft in the head. Or perhaps he was only growing deaf. Either way, he should speak to Estella about it, if she hadn't noticed already.

Pippin stood up and brushed the grass from his trousers, wiping his wet feet carefully in the grass. Estella was a holy terror when a hobbit tramped all over her clean floors with muddy feet. He began to amble slowly up the path to the Hall. It was strange, but he couldn't really remember how he had got down to the river with Merry in the first place. He vaguely recalled walking beside him earlier that morning-Merry had seemed dreadfully sad for some reason, lost in his own thoughts. The memory of the trip from Tuckborough escaped Pippin entirely, but perhaps he had fallen asleep. (While astride a pony? Ridiculous!) But he remembered arriving at Brandy Hall, and sitting down at the breakfast table with Merry and Estella, and then....what? Pippin stopped and laughed at himself, a trifle nervously. "Ah my lad, now who's getting soft?"

The double doors of the Hall were propped open to let in the breeze off the river, and golden squares of sunlight fell through the windows onto the tiled entryway. The place was the usual bustle of hobbits going to and fro. There was no sign of Merry anywhere. Pippin spied Estella's dark head with its crown of braids, now threaded with silver. She was on her way down a seldom-used corridor, toward what Pippin remembered as one of the old storage rooms. What on earth could she be after down there? Old silver? Linens? Great-Uncle Hildabras' wooden leg? And at this point, who cared? "Estella!" Pippin called. "I say, Estella! Have you seen Merry? I-"

But Estella went on as if she hadn't heard. Pippin blew out his breath in frustration and followed her down the corridor. Far be it from him to lay hands on a Lady, and he loved Estella like a sister, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and if he didn't get some answers soon he'd crack. Estella reached the door to the storage room and knocked gently. "Merry love, have you quite finished?"

Now pippin was even more confused. Finished with what? Merry's voice came from behind the door, but Pippin couldn't tell what he said.

"April eighth, every year since," Estella sighed to herself, and wiped her eyes. "There, love, there's no rush. Take all the time you need. There'll be a hot meal for you, whenever you're ready." She folded her hands and turned away, drifting down the dim hallway like a ghost. Pippin gave her no more notice, but put his fingers against the door and pushed it open a crack.

Merry was sitting in a low chair, next to an open chest. A small window, grimed with dust, let a little dim gray light into the room, and Pippin saw another low chair across from him. All around him was the debris of several generations of Brandybucks and their relations: Broken bits of furniture shrouded with cloths, dusty old portraits, numerous crates of chipped dishes and odds and ends of cutlery. There was an open bottle of Brandy Hall's finest on the floor next to Merry's chair, and on a three-legged stool before him sat two glasses. The objects in the chest had been taken out and placed lovingly here and there, as if on display: Cloaks of green cloth, a leaf-shaped brooch, a notched sword, a small phial that sparkled like a star in the gloom, a mail coat of silver. Across Merry's knees lay a ragged woolen scarf, much weathered and worn, and a stained black surcoat embroidered with a white tree.

Pippin felt crushing pain suddenly, but dim and far away, like the memory of an old hurt that had no power over him anymore. "Oh," Pippin breathed, drifting forward to sink quietly into the chair. "Oh, I remember...."

"It's April eighth again, Pip," Merry said quietly. "The day they honored me at Cormallen, although I didn't want it. Aragorn insisted. I was the only one of us left, after all, and I suppose the people needed a hero to look at and praise. How you would have loved it all, the singing and the feasting. It was all ashes in my mouth, I'm afraid."

"We left you," Pippin said, and he would have wept, if shades could weep. "All of us, Frodo and Sam, and me last of all. I forgot everything, I forget every year until you do this, and then I remember again, for a little while. I'm so sorry, Merry. I am so sorry. I fought so hard to live. I tried so hard not to leave you. Will you ever forgive me?"

Merry sighed brokenly and wiped savagely at his eyes. "Ah well, it was such a long, long time ago, wasn't it?" He bent down for the bottle, lifted it and filled the two glasses. He looked toward the empty chair and the filled glass, lifting his own glass in tribute to the fallen, the long forgotten, and at least in the Shire, unsung. "To absent friends."

Merry's left hand lay on his knee, and Pippin leaned forward to cover it with his own. His fingers touched lightly and flowed through flesh and bone and cloth like smoke. Merry tossed back the contents of the glass and dropped his head into his hand, and tears fell into the dust of years that lay on the floor.

*******
The End

My thanks to Marigold Cotton, and to the kind reviewers at Marigold's site who said this made them cry-"I will not say do not weep, for not all tears are an evil."

I wrote this for Marigold Cotton's second Story Challenge on her website. The challenge this time was to take a brief 'starter' provided by Marigold, put it in the first paragraph and build a story around it. Mostly thanks to my own procrastination, I ended up writing this in about two hours and submitting it on the very day the stories were to be posted. It's not very subtle, and it's a bit rough around the edges because of my hurry, but it turned out better than I'd hoped. I've given it a bit of polishing and revision before posting it here, but I didn't fiddle with it too much for fear of spoiling what was good. Sometimes it's downright amazing what fear of a deadline can produce!