Disclaimer: I own nothing, and I’ll put them back safely when I’m done.

Author’s Note: Some of the dialogue comes straight from “The Return of the King”. This is my first try at a hurt/comfort fic. I suppose that this is why these things are called Challenges!

Safe in My Arms

By Elendiari

       The Battle of the Pelennor Fields. The wounded had been brought to the Houses of Healing all that interminable day, hoping against hope for comfort and solace. It had been late in the afternoon when Captain Faramir, now the Steward of Gondor, was brought to the Houses, drenched in oil, lost deep in fever dreams.  Pippin had been standing guard outside the door to Faramir’s bedroom with Beregond of the Guard since he had been saved, and it would only take a great calamity to tear Pippin from his post. He would not abandon Faramir now, when he had no one left to care for him.

      He was thinking about the events of the past several hours, Denethor’s suicide and the charge of the Rohirrim, when a shout raised itself in the relative peace and quiet of the houses.

     “Make ready a bed and alert the healers! The Lady Eowyn is in dire need of a healer! Hurry!”

     The speaker was a young Rider of Rohan, wearing the colors of King Theoden’s knights. Pippin remembered seeing him at Isengard, and his heart leaped. Maybe this urgent Rider knew something of Merry.

      Beregond, as if sensing his friend’s thoughts, nodded at Pippin. “Go, see if he has tidings of your friend. I will guard Captain Faramir alone, for a time. Go!”

      “Thank you, Beregond,” Pippin said gratefully, and hurried after the escort of Rohirrim soldiers.

     He found them in a small room one floor above Faramir’s room. The men were all clustered in the hallway, and Pippin could see two of the healers laying the Lady Eowyn out on a bed inside the room before the door was shut for privacy. Taking a deep breath, Pippin went up to the Rider he had recognized and tugged on his cloak. The Rider turned to look at him, and recognition dawned in his eyes. It was quickly followed by fear and chagrin.

      “Were is the Holbytla?” he cried, turning to the others. “Has anyone seen him since we came into the City?”

    The Riders looked at each other and cursed softly, realizing that Merry was not among them.

     “He was with you, then?” Pippin cried urgently, as they did. “Where could he be?”

     “I don’t know, Master Holbytla,” the young Rider replied, frowning. “He wasn’t supposed to be here at all; nor was Lady Eowyn. Theoden King expressly told them to stay at Dunharrow. They rode into the battle in secret, and were grievously wounded slaying the Winged Shadow. We ought to have carried him here in as much honor as we did Theoden King and the lady, but he was walking, and we thought that he was all right.”

   The Rider was so profusely apologetic that Pippin gave him a reassuring smile, although he was shaking with fear. There was so much danger in the City right now, and one poor hobbit could so easily be harmed!

      “You will have to go find him, Pippin.”

      Pippin had not heard the wizard approach, and turned to him worriedly.

      “Yes, of course, I’ll leave right now!” he said.

       “I think you had better,” agreed Gandalf. “Hurry, now! If he has dared touch that evil thing, there is no time to be lost.”

        Pippin nodded and darted down the hallway, and out of the house. He was halfway across the street when a voice called out to him. Turning, he saw the young Rider striding towards him.

      “Mundburg is a large city, Master Holbytla,” he said. “It is my fault that Master Merry is missing. If we split up, we can both search for him, and mayhap he will be found quicker.”

      “Yes, yes, of course,” agreed Pippin, seeing the sense in this at once. “What is your name, please, sir?”

     The Rider smiled. “I am Caelin. Now hurry, we shall meet again here at dusk, if we have not found him before.” Pippin nodded, and they parted ways.

      It seemed that he searched for hours. Minas Tirith was a huge city, and the streets were still in shadows, although rays of sunlight pierced through the thick clouds. Pippin ran on and on, looking around him incessantly for a small soldier in the garb of Rohan. A refrain began to pulse in his mind. Merry Merry Merry. All about him were fallen rocks and dead soldiers. The sound of the battle was outside the city now, but the smell of it was all around him. Pippin gulped in a breath of the putrid air and ran on. The refrain chanted on and on, Merry Merry Merry.

     At last, Pippin saw whom he was seeking ahead of him. Merry was walking forward slowly, weaving as one in a dream. Pippin flew forward, but stopped before he touched Merry, remembering his mother’s warning about frightening sleepwalkers.

    “Well, Merry!” he said instead. “Thank goodness I have found you!”

     Merry started and looked up. Recognition dawned in his eyes, and he looked quickly around the narrow lane, seeming surprised. He rubbed his eyes, frowning and weaving a little.

    “Where is the King?” he said. “And Eowyn?” Then he stumbled and sank down in a doorway, and began to weep.

    Pippin knelt down in front of his cousin and gently put his hands on Merry’s shoulders. He tried to explain as best he could, for Merry was obviously dazed and confused, and was having trouble focusing. There was one thing that he had to know, though, that was absolutely vital.

    “Are you hurt, or wounded?” he asked anxiously.

   Merry shook his head, paused, than nodded. “No. Well, no, I don’t think so. But I can’t use my right arm, Pippin, no since I stabbed him. And my sword burned all away like a piece of wood.”

      Cold fear seized Pippin’s heart. Something was wrong. Had Merry stabbed a Ringwraith? Caelin, he remembered, had said something to that effect. ‘Grievously wounded, slaying the Winged Shadow.’ Those had been his words. Merry had helped Eowyn slay the Witch King.

     Murmuring comforting nonsense, Pippin pulled Merry to his feet and started walking back towards the Citadel, and the Houses. Merry swayed and murmured, lost in some nightmare, and Pippin had a hard time supporting him. He held Merry’s left arm over his shoulders, and had him own arm around Merry’s waist, holding tightly so that the wounded hobbit would not fall down. He was almost glad that Merry did not seem to see the wreckage and death that was around him, but he was so afraid. Merry had always been the responsible one, the one who was invincible, and yet here he was, hurt worse than he had ever been. They were such a long way from the Citadel, and Merry was stumbling more than ever.

    “I’ll never get him there,” Pippin realized. “Is there no one to help me? I can’t leave him here.”

     Two steps, three steps. Four. Then, to his utter amazement, he heard the sound of footsteps, light and urgent, running up behind him. He looked quickly around, and saw Bergil, Beregond’s son, running up the road towards them.

    “Hullo, Bergil!” he called out urgently. “Where are you going? Glad to see you again, and still alive!”

     Bergil slowed and stopped, taking in the sight of the two hobbits with curious eyes. “I am running errands fort he healers,” he said. “I cannot stay.”

     “Don’t!” said Pippin, hope and gratitude warming his heart. “But tell them that I have a sick hobbit, a perian, mind you, come from the battle-field. I don’t think that he can walk so far. If Mithrandir is there, he will be glad of the message.”

      Bergil nodded and ran on. Pippin watched him go for a few moments, before letting Merry sink down onto the pavement in a patch of weak sunlight. It was best that they stay here, if anyone came looking for them. He sat down and put Merry’s head in his lap, running his hands lightly over his friend’s body to feel for any hidden injuries. Merry seemed uninjured, but for his right arm and hand. They were as limp as wet reeds, and Merry’s hand was as cold as ice.

    “Merry,” Pippin said softly, taking the frozen hand between his own and kissing it. Tears started in his eyes, of fear and grief for Merry. “Merry. Can you hear me? Everything is going to be all right now, Merry, you’ll see. Someone will come for us from the Houses of Healing, and they will help you to get better. You can have a bath. Just think of it, Merry! A real bath, like you haven’t had since Rivendell! And you will rest and get better, and when this war is over, we will go home and tell the entire Shire about our adventures, and all of the lasses will love us for it! Just think of that, Merry. Please don’t die!” Pippin whispered. The refrain came back, but it was different now. Don’t die, it whispered. Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.

     It was only a short time before Gandalf himself came searching for them. Pippin heard the click of his staff on the pavement and looked up to see the White Wizard striding down the street towards them, a deeply worried look upon his face.

     “Is he still alive, Peregrin?” Gandalf demanded. “Is he breathing?”

      “Yes, he is,” Pippin replied. “But he acts like he’s walking in a dream, and he said that he can’t feel his arm, since he stabbed something. Someone. I think he killed a Ringwraith.”

   “Yes, yes,” Gandalf murmured, bending over and laying his hand on Merry’s brow. “He helped the Lady Eowyn slay the Witch King of Angmar. That was a grievous blow.  He should have been borne in honor into this city.”

    So saying, he lifted Merry up, and strode back towards the Houses of Healing.

TBC

     The Houses of Healing were the finest houses for the sick south of Rivendell. The leechcraft of Gondor was not what it had been an age ago, but all the hurts suffered by men save old age and what they called the Black Shadow, were tended for with great skill and care. When Gandalf brought Merry in to the house, several ladies swooped down on him and took the injured hobbit into their care.

     “Stay with him until he has a bed, Pippin, my lad,” Gandalf instructed. “I must see to the others. I want you to go back to guarding Faramir with Beregond when Merry is asleep.”

     “Yes, of course, Gandalf,” Pippin said, distractedly, as he watched the women filling a small tub with warm water. “Will he be all right?”

    Gandalf put his gnarled hand on the hobbit’s head and didn’t answer. Pippin watched, a frown on his face, as the wizard left the room, then turned his attention back to Merry.

     The women took Merry’s armor off of the limp hobbit and set it gently in a pile in a corner of the room. Then they eased him into the warm bath and cleaned the grime and filth of battle from him.

     “His arm is so cold,” one of the younger healers murmured.

     “He and the Lady of Rohan slew the Ringwraith, so the Riders of Rohan say. They have the Black Shadow, now here, scrub his hair.”

      Pippin stood near the door, trying not to get into their way, watching as they expertly scrubbed his cousin and dressed him a warm woolen nightshirt. Merry murmured incoherently, lost in some dark dream, and there was nothing that they could do for him. At last, the healer women laid him in a soft bed and covered him with a warm blanket emblazoned with the white tree of Gondor. Pippin went to him and bent over to whisper in his ear.

     “Merry,” he whispered. “I have to go guard Faramir now; Gandalf said so. I’ll come back, Merry, I promise. Please be here when I do!”  

     Merry’s brows drew together, and Pippin took that to mean that he would try. Merry was not the kind to give up easily. Pippin squeezed his hand and left the room.

*****

     “How is your friend?”

     Pippin started and looked up. He had walked all the way back to Faramir’s door without realizing it, so caught up was he in thoughts of Merry’s illness. Beregond and the young Rider who had set out to help him look for Merry, Caelin, stood there, looking at him expectantly.

     Pippin took a shuddering breath. “He is not well, not well at all,” he replied. “I-I’m afraid for him, and I don’t want to leave him, but Gandalf told me to come back here.”

    Beregond reached out and squeezed the young hobbit’s shoulder. “I’m sure that Mithrandir will be able to help him somehow.”

    “Indeed, the White Wizard has proved helpful in all of his advice thus far, Master Holbytla,” Caelin said. “Do not doubt him now.”

   “I won’t,” Pippin replied. “I just wish that he would hurry.”

   “He will come,” replied the Rider. “But now I must return to my own post outside the door of Lady Eowyn. Fare thee well, friends, and may we meet again soon.”

    Beregond and Pippin watched him stride away, back upstairs, then turned back to their own duty, neither talking much. Pippin wondered where Gandalf had gotten to, and if he would be back in time to save Merry. When he posed the question to Beregond, the guard shrugged.

     “He left soon after Ioreth, one of the healers, told him that the sick were in need of a king’s hands. ‘The hands of the king are the hands of a healer’ were her precise words, and Mithrandir strode out several moments later. That was close to an hour ago.”

     Pippin nodded and opened his mouth to reply, but at that moment, the front door to the Houses opened, and a group of men came through the door. Pippin gave a cry of surprise and joy. The man in the lead was Aragorn. The King.

TBC

    Merry was wandering, lost and alone, through a dark valley. He had lost Pippin some time ago, and his heart ached for his best friend’s cheerful voice. He was cold, so very cold. It was as if he had been cast into snows deeper and far icier than those of Caradhras, and was slowly succumbing to them.

     There were voices all around him, too. They were evil things, cold and cruel, and they made Merry shudder and cringe away in fear.

     “We have your cousin,” they taunted. “We took him for what you did to Lord of the Nazgul, and we will make you regret it for the rest of your life.”

    Merry looked around frantically in the darkness. “Pippin? Pippin?!” he screamed. “Where are you?!”

    “We have him,” the cruelest voice murmured. “We will let you see what your stupidity has done to him when the time comes.”

      The shrill sound of Pippin screaming reached Merry’s ears, and he cowered down in the darkness, clutching his head. “No! Leave him alone!” he cried, trying to sound fierce and commanding. His voice came out soft and scared, and the scream was repeated, its agony intensified.

   “Pippin,” Merry sobbed. “Oh, my Pippin, I’m so sorry!”

   Then the screams were gone, and Merry was left curled in the darkness, cold and heartbroken, and ready to despair. He had let them capture Pippin. Now they were going to torture him, and it was all Merry’s fault. Maybe if he gave up and died now, Pippin would forgive him.

     This seemed like the best idea, and Merry cast himself down, ready to give up and die. He lay curled up, arms drawn over his head, shuddering. Everything was deathly still around him, as silent as a grave. Then, softly, almost imperceptibly, he heard it. A living voice.

      “Merry,” it called softly. “Merry.”

      “Pippin?” Merry called into the darkness. “Pippin, is that you? Where are you?”

      “Pippin is with me, Merry, safe and waiting for you to come back,” the voice replied, soft and soothing to Merry’s fear and hysteria. “Follow my voice, Meriadoc. Come back to the light.”

    Merry stood up and listened to the voice. It was strong and familiar, and its very tone spoke to him of bright summer days in the Shire, of peace and comfort with the cousin he loved best.

     “I can’t see you,” he whispered. “I’m tired. And I’m so afraid.”

     “I know you are, but the evil is over, and you are safe.”

      “Is Pippin all right?”

      “Yes, he is here with me now. Will you follow me? Will you come back?”

      Merry hesitated for a long moment. Rest, and safety, that was all he wanted. “Yes, I’ll follow you.”

TBC

     Aragorn had a weary smile on his face when Gandalf and Pippin entered Merry’s room. Pippin ran to Merry’s bedside, heart pounding. Merry’s face was grey, and he looked worse than ever. The fear that Merry would die seized him again, stronger than ever, and he clasped his hand.

    “Poor old Merry!” he cried, at a loss of what else to say.

    “Do not be afraid,” Aragorn said. “I have come in time, and I have called him back. He is weary now, and grieved, and has taken a hurt like the Lady Eowyn, daring to smite that deadly thing. But these evils can be amended.”

     Pippin looked up at him as he crushed two more leaves of athelas and cast them into a pan of hot water. A fresh clean fragrance, so like that of the Shire, stole through the room. Aragorn laid a hand on Merry’s head and stroked his curls, then touched his eyelids gently.

     “Merry,” he said in a calm yet strong voice.

     Merry took a deep breath, and his chest rose and fell under the covers. Then he opened his eyes and looked straight at them.

     “I am hungry. What is the time?”

Pippin was all but dancing for joy as he raided the kitchens in the Houses for food for Merry. He had left his cousin sitting up in bed, filling his pipe with a pensive look on his face, and was anxious to get back to him. It had been all he could do not to throw himself onto Merry in a fierce hug when he had opened his eyes, and it seemed to him that Merry had been the same way.

     Aragorn had told him to stay behind with Merry, and to stay with him until he was sent for. Pippin had no intention of doing anything else, and had told him so, earning him a wry grin from the King and a withering look from Gandalf. Pippin had a sneaking feeling that they were not telling him all that there was to know about Merry’s illness. It made him upset, to think that they would not tell him all about his cousin. He seemed fine physically, but he had had an awful scare. Maybe, Pippin reflected as he added some apples to his tray, it was something that Merry had to tell him, that only he could say.

     Merry was leaning back against his pillows when Pippin re-entered the room. He was smoking his pipe lazily, and had his arms clasped behind his head.

     “Hullo, Pip,” he said, when he saw his cousin. “Come here.”

     “I’ve bought apples, bread, cheese, and some ale,” Pippin replied, setting the tray in Merry’s lap and climbing up onto the bed next to him. “Gandalf was right when he said that you could have anything you wanted.”

      Merry smiled and put an arm around his cousin as he selected an apple. Pippin leaned into him in the familiar old Pippin way, and Merry felt the last of his fear fly away.

     “I was afraid I’d lost you,” he said.

     “What? Why?” Pippin asked curiously. “Why would you have lost me?”

     Merry took a deep breath and handed Pippin his pipe. “When I was…asleep, I heard a voice in my head. It told me that they had taken you prisoner, and were torturing you because of what I helped Eowyn do. I heard you screaming.”

     Merry’s voice broke, and Pippin stared at him, aghast, as he began to cry. “Oh, Merry! No! They never took me, I can’t believe that you dreamed that!”

    “I know, Pip,” choked Merry. “But I think that’s the thing that I’m most afraid of: that I’ll lose you. I couldn’t bear it if that happened, Pippin, I just couldn’t.”

     “I know,” Pippin whispered, and Merry buried his face in his shoulder, weeping. Pippin rubbed his back soothingly. “It’s all right now, Merry, the battle is over for now, and we’re both safe and together. That’s all that matters.”

     “I know it is,” Merry replied, pulling back and looking his cousin in the face. “But I’ve missed you ever since we were separated in Rohan, and I was afraid that I would never see you again. I know that I shouldn’t worry now, but I don’t ever want to go through that again.”

       Pippin smiled and wiped Merry’s face with the corner of the sheet. Merry gave a watery laugh and batted his hand away, taking the sheet and wiping his own face off.

       “Give me that pipe back, Pip, and help me eat this food. Then I think that I’ll sleep for a bit, if you don’t mind. I’m tired.”

   “Of course,” Pippin said cheerfully, helping himself to some of the bread and cheese. “It’s been a long day, for both of us.”

     Merry smiled. “It has been, Pippin. It really has.”

*****

    When Gandalf looked in on the two young hobbits sometime later, he found them both asleep on the bed, the remains of a meal scattered on a large tray on the side table. Pippin held Merry in his arms, his head resting on his cousin’s shoulder. Merry clutched Pippin’s arm like a lifeline, but his face was calm. A light of peace and contentment was in both of their faces. Gandalf smiled to himself. Moving as unobtrusively as a shadow, he pulled the blanket up over the cousins and blew the candles out. Then, leaving them curled in the bed, he left the hobbits to their rest. If anyone was deserving of rest, it was these two. They had proved their mettle that day.

     At the door, the wizard paused and looked back.

     “Sleep well, my hobbits,” he murmured. “Sleep well.”

The End.