In November of the year 1421, Merry and Pippin were still living together at Crickhollow. On a cold, blustery day early in the month, the two friends could be found tramping through Buckland, heading back to Crickhollow from a visit with Farmer Maggot. They were enjoying the day, laughing and singing some of their favorite old walking songs. Coming to the end of one song, Merry started right in on another.

Upon the hearth the fire is red,

Beneath the roof there is a bed;

But not yet weary are our feet,

Still round the corner we may meet

A sudden tree or standing stone

That none have seen but we alone.

Tree and flower and leaf and grass,

Let them pass! Let them pass!

Hill and water under sky,

Pass them by! Pass them by!

Still round the corner there may wait

A new road or a secret gate,

And though we pass them by today,

Tomorrow we may come this way

And take the hidden paths that run

Towards the Moon or to the Sun.

Apple, thorn and nut and sloe,

Let them go! Let them go!

Sand and stone and pool and dell,

Fare you well! Fare you well!

Home is behind, the world ahead,

And there are many paths to tread

Through shadows to the edge of night,

Until the stars are all alight.

Then world behind and home ahead,

We’ll wander back to home and bed.

Mist and twilight, cloud and shade,

Away shall fade! Away shall fade!

Fire and lamp, and meat and bread,

And then to bed! And then to bed!

Pippin fell silent at the beginning of the third verse and let Merry finish the song on his own. This was the second or third time Pippin had stopped singing in the middle of a song and thinking back, Merry realized it had been this same song each time. He looked askance at his cousin, but said nothing for the time being

It was not long before they reached Crickhollow and entered their snug little house. Hanging up their cloaks and scarves, Merry built up the fire in the sitting room while Pippin prepared their supper. Pippin was quiet all during the meal and after, as they sat smoking in front of the fire. He glanced at Merry several times but did not speak. After a time, Merry went out to the kitchen and made them both some tea. Pippin continued to brood, opening his mouth to speak several times, but each time choosing to sip his tea instead. Merry was growing concerned when his cousin finally broke his silence.

"May I ask you a question, Merry?" His voice was quiet and serious.

Merry nodded. "Of course, Pip. Anything."

"What is your worst memory? Out of all the quest, which part was worst for you?" Merry was taken aback by this question. It was certainly not anything he might have expected. He and Pippin had talked a good deal about the quest, when they first got home, but lately they had found the future a far more interesting topic of conversation.

Merry fingered the faint scars on his wrists where the orcs had bound him when he and Pippin had been dragged across the plains of Rohan. He didn’t really remember a lot from that time although he knew the experience remained quite vivid for Pippin. He looked at his cousin thoughtfully, wondering if he would have survived that experience if it hadn’t been for his young cousin. It was one of his worst memories and still caused him nightmares. It hadn’t been the most frightening thing he had endured, that surely being his encounter with the Witch King on the Pelennor Fields. He felt though, that it was his most painful moment. He had been in such a fog from the blow to his head that he had been completely useless almost the entire trek, leaving all responsibility for escaping with Pippin.

Merry began speaking quietly about his thoughts but was soon interrupted when Pippin threw a pillow at his head. Looking up, he was a bit surprised to see that Pippin, so serious a moment before, was laughing at him.

"For goodness sake, Merry. If you must feel guilty about something, then at least be reasonable about what you choose to feel guilt about. You were injured. Do you think that I was, even for moment, resentful that you weren’t taking care of me?" Pippin managed to look quite insulted. "As I recall, I handled the matter perfectly well without you, after all."

"What, by losing your elf-brooch?" Merry asked, glad to see that Pippin’s mood had lightened.

"I did not lose my elf-brooch. I dropped it deliberately so that Aragorn would know he was on the right trail," Pippin responded indignantly.

Merry wisely dropped the issue. He continued to rub lightly at the scars, even as his mind continued to probe at the painful memories.

"What was the worst moment of all for you, Pip?" he asked, guessing this was what had been bothering Pippin all evening.

Pippin went still for a moment, resisting the memories that flooded into his mind. Although he had been the one to bring the subject up, he still wasn’t sure he was ready to talk about it. Merry just waited quietly and after a long silence, Pippin took a deep breath and began to speak.

"When we, Gandalf and I, arrived in Minas Tirith, I pledged myself rather impulsively to Lord Denethor, as you know," he began haltingly. "It was a foolish thing to do, I suppose. Gandalf certainly thought so and spared little effort to let me know it. It was done, however, and I would have to follow through, serve the lord and do as he bid me. So, the next day I was summoned to his great hall and stood by while he spoke with Faramir before sending him out to battle." Pippin lowered his head, hiding his eyes from his friend. "It was awful, Merry. Denethor was full of grief and anger about Boromir’s death, and decided to blame everything on Faramir. Somehow, he seemed to think that sending one son off to his death would make the other son’s death easier to bear.

"When Faramir left the throne room, it seemed as though he took all the life and warmth that had been in the room as well. I was left standing in this great, cold, lifeless throne room with a cold and grim lord. I was sure that Faramir was riding off to his death, and there Lord Denethor sat, coldly eating his dinner, as if he had been disciplining an erring servant or a misbehaving beast. Certainly not sending a son, who wanted nothing more than to please his father, off to a near certain death." Pippin’s voice had become very quiet, so that Merry had to strain to hear him.

"As I was standing there, fearing for Faramir and indeed for all of Minas Tirith with a madman leading the city, and wishing with all my heart that I was anywhere else, Lord Denethor asked me if I could sing. The world was falling apart around us and he wanted to know if I could sing! I didn’t know what to do. I certainly did not want to sing for him but he didn’t care to hear my objections. I remembered a walking song that Bilbo taught us long ago, the one you were singing earlier. I altered it a little, but it was Bilbo’s song that I sang. It wasn’t Bilbo that I thought of while I was singing it, though, or Frodo, or any of us. It was Faramir, and Denethor, that I thought of. Denethor sending his son away from home to tread a path through terrible shadow with no hope of light at the end. And all the while I was singing, Lord Denethor sat at his table and ate his meal, carelessly disregarding the juices dripping down his chin and squirting across the table like blood, as he had carelessly disregarded the life of his son. It was too much for me, Merry." Pippin’s voice choked up. "I couldn’t go on. I couldn’t continue to sing for him. I was so overcome with grief, for Faramir, for Minas Tirith, for myself. There were other moments that were, as you said, more frightening, but that is the moment that stands out for me as the worst. My hope faltered in that moment and I was nearly overcome by the despair that Denethor carried about him like a shroud." Pippin fell silent.

Merry was silent a moment as well, not sure what to say in the face of his cousin’s memory. Finally he found his tongue. "But you did go on, Pippin. You saved Faramir’s life and Gandalf’s too, from what he said."

Pippin looked up, meeting Merry’s eyes for the first time since he had begun to speak. "I had to. I realized it wasn’t my job to have hope or not have hope. I just had to keep doing everything I could do to give Frodo his best chance for success. If I had given in to despair, I would have been betraying everyone who was still fighting. Faramir, who had already been betrayed by his father. The men of Minas Tirith who have been selling their lives to protect us for so many years. Frodo and Sam because I knew that they would never give up, no matter what happened to them. And you. I knew that you would be coming and I could not give up when I had that knowledge in my heart." Pippin smiled as he looked at Merry, feeling oddly relieved to have shared this memory with his cousin.

Merry was speechless again. He truly did not know how to respond to Pippin’s story. Searching for a way to ease his own sorrow that Pippin should bear such memories, he reached out and grabbed the pillow that had been tossed at him earlier. Picking it up firmly by one corner, he gave Pippin a resounding whack with it.

"Fool of a Took," he growled in his best ‘angry wizard’ voice. "Come, I think we have time for another cup of tea before you start cleaning up from supper."

Pippin stared at his cousin in shock a moment before responding. "Me?" he declared indignantly, forcing himself to adopt a tone to match his cousin’s. "I do believe it is your turn to do the cleaning up, Merry, as I did it yesterday and the day before."

"Yes, well, if you do it today and again tomorrow, then maybe you’ll be caught up for last week, when I did the washing up for five days straight because of your ‘cold’ which prevented you from doing any work, but not, I might add, from going to three different parties."

The good-natured bickering continued as the two friends finished their tea, did the tidying up together and settled in for an evening of quiet reading by the fire. Merry made a mental note not to sing that particular song again for a long while but was relieved to see that Pippin seemed to have recovered from his melancholy. That terrible memory had been festering at him for some time and their conversation had clearly acted as the lancing of a wound. Determining to keep a close eye on Pippin for a time, but feeling confident that the worst had passed, Merry allowed himself to sink back in his chair and stare lazily into the fire, his thoughts already shifting to the future and a certain hobbit lass who had recently been occupying his thoughts rather more than he would readily admit to anyone, even Pippin.

a/n  The song in italics is from The Fellowship of the Ring, chapter three -- "Three is Company"