Journey of the Heart
By Pipspebble
Rating: G
Setting: The Shire, post-Quest
For Marigold's Challenge #5 - Theme: A journey
Big hobbit kisses to Marigold for the super beta!

"So that's it, then? You are leaving, just like that?"

I stare in disbelief at my wife as she carefully folds various items of clothing and methodically tucks each one into her trunk. It has sat out in her room at the Smials for days, though I have tried hard to make light of it. My wife often takes trips back to the Northfarthing and her native Long Cleeve. But something about this time is different. Something about the manner in which she just informed me that she was leaving that sent cold chills up my spine.

"Yes, Peregrin. Just like that." The words sink in, and the realization hits me like a bolt of lightning.

Diamond is leaving me. Fari and I are going to be alone. Perhaps forever.

She turns to look at me and for a moment I think I see in her face a shadow of the old Diamond, the Diamond she used to be. In the infant days of our courtship, I could seemingly do no wrong and she gave every indication of wanting to be with me as much as I wanted to be with her. It was that Diamond I had wed, that Diamond to whom I opened my heart, and my home. I was proud to bring that Diamond home to Tuckborough as my wife.

Yet in the second year of our marriage things began to change. She became cold and remote, unwilling to remain at the Smials for more than a few weeks at a time before retreating to her homeland. Each time she left, she stayed away for longer than she had been at home with me, her husband. How, I wondered, were we ever going to produce an heir for the Thainship if we could not be together long enough to conceive one? I moped around every time she left, coming back to myself only when she reappeared. But each time she left, the depression took a greater hold over me. It was hard to see the light of day.

Then, in the third year of our marriage, she presented me with Faramir, the most beautiful hobbit lad that was ever born. From the moment I set eyes on my child life changed for me. The skies were bluer, the sunshine brighter, the grass greener. I lived for the smiles he gave me when his bright green eyes turned my way, for the feel of his soft little arms around my neck when he hugged me tight. Life, for me, would never be the same.

Diamond, I suppose, sensed that as well. By that time, I had become accustomed to her absences, in fact did not mind all that much now that I had my son. I wince internally as the thought strikes me, appalled at the utter callousness of the notion, and I wonder if it is this attitude that has driven her to leave.

"Why?" I finally croak, unable to stand the uncertainty.

"Because I want to," she tells me coolly, not pausing in her packing. "I am sorry if this hurts you, Peregrin, but I no longer wish to live here. I want to go home."

"Is it me?" I cannot help asking. "Have I done aught to displease you? If I have, then please tell me. Allow me to make amends."

She sighs, a long-suffering sigh that goes straight to my vitals, twisting painfully. "All I want you to allow me to do is to leave in peace. I have had all of the Southfarthing Tooks I can stand for one lifetime."

I have known for some time now that she prefers her Long Cleeve relations to mine, the Southfarthing Tooks being ill-mannered and boorish, as she has informed me on numerous occasions, usually after a grand party when ale flowed freely, hearts were light, and tongues loose. I admit to being guilty on more than one occasion of standing on a table and singing drinking songs, particularly when Merry was by my side. Merry always understood, in fact, encouraged me in the public displays of high spirits. Diamond, however, appeared embarrassed by them.

"How long will you be gone?" I venture to ask, against my better judgment.

"I mean not to return," comes her curt reply. She continues with her packing, moving on to her dressing table and retrieving the items there, bringing them back to the smaller case that sits on the bed.

Her bed. She had moved out of our room months before Faramir was born and never returned to our bed. It is simply my bed now, except for the times when Fari creeps into it to curl up at my side, frightened by some nameless dream, or a thunderstorm, or simply lonely in the night. Fear pierces my heart as a terrible thought occurs to me.

"And what of Faramir?" I blurt, stepping toward her, my fists clenched so that I don't make some wild gesture and frighten her away, for fear she will take my lad with her. She looks up at me, her mouth tightening into a thin line, her eyes glinting blue steel.

"He is yours," she says shortly and returns to her packing. "I have done my duty and produced an heir. Now I am free to go."

I am stunned, speechless. I can only stare back at her, wondering what has happened to the hobbit lass I married, wondering if she was ever there in the first place. How could I have ever loved this cruel creature who could so blithely abandon her child? I see no trace in her
now of the Diamond I thought I had known.

"And what are you going to tell him, then?" I ask, my jaw clenched as I try hard to keep my temper.

"Really, Peregrin," she scoffs, "I doubt he will miss me overmuch. He cares far more for you than he does me. Everyone can see that."

I cannot deny that my son and I are close. Diamond weaned him very early, at barely six weeks of age, seeming even then to distance herself from him. My mother and sisters helped during the day, but I fed him his bottles at night, I rocked and sang him to sleep. I am the one he runs to when he skins his knees and elbows, or stubs his toe or sustains any other injury, all of them minor, so far, thank the Valar. When he wakes in the night frightened by thunder or an occasional bad dream, it is into my bed he creeps to cuddle close and allow me to soothe him.

I hear the patter of his little feet in the corridor and a moment later the door is pushed open and he peers around it, his wide eyes lighting up when he sees me in his mother's room.

"Da!" he cries, launching himself into my arms, and I scoop him up and hold him close, burying my face into the soft curls and inhaling the sweet scent that surrounds him. He pushes back a bit and looks to the trunk his mother is packing.

"Are you going somewhere, Mother?" he asks, his eyes puzzled, his brow just the slightest bit furrowed.

"I am going back home to the Northfarthing, Faramir," Diamond says from behind me, and I turn swiftly to catch her eye in silent warning to say no more. She nods imperceptibly and the child, accustomed to her frequent departures, questions no further. Poor lad, I think, then quickly squelch the thought. Later I will think of how to break the news to him, after I have had the time to consider the best manner in which to do it. For now, 'tis best to keep him so busy that he has no time to wonder about it.

"How would you like to go on our own journey, Fari?" I ask him, bringing his attention back to me. "Just you and your da?" His bright eyes crinkle at the corners as he grins at me.

"Truly, Da? Just the two of us?"

"Aye, my lad, just the two of us," I promise. "Anywhere you want. Where shall we go?"

"To Buckland!" he cries at once. "Oh, Da, please, let us go to Buckland to see Cousin Merry and Cousin 'Stella!"

I can feel Diamond's eyes boring into the back of my head, and there is a sudden heightening of tension in the room. I look into Faramir's face and smile, holding his interest so that he will not notice.

"Buckland it is, then," I agree, my heart lightening at the thought of seeing Merry again. It has been months since I saw him last, and I realize only now just how much I miss him. "Come, Faramir," I say, putting him down, "give your mother a kiss goodbye and let us away to your rooms to pack your things."

He dutifully trots over to Diamond who, to her credit, appears to soften just a bit as she kneels down so that he can peck her on the cheek.

"Goodbye, Mother," he says courteously, as if he is bidding farewell to a stranger. He turns away, calling to her over his shoulder as he scurries back to me. "Have fun in Long Cleeve. I will take good care of Da. And he will take good care of me."

Aye, my lad, you have that right, I think, smiling down at him as he takes my hand and leads me to the door. Just as I reach the threshold I look back over my shoulder at my wife, gazing upon her for what may well be the last time. She remains stone-faced, immovable as one of Bilbo's trolls.

I tighten my grip on Fari's hand and lead him out of the room, leaving behind the wife who no longer wants me, the mother who no longer wants her son.

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"Calm down, Merry. There's no need to make such a fuss."

Such a fuss, indeed. I look at my cousin, torn for the millionth time between exasperation and fervent love. He is suffering so at this moment, and for all our years together, this time I do not know how to help him.

"I am not making a fuss," I say, though I know it is a lie.

Pippin and young Faramir had appeared at the Hall unannounced this morning. Unannounced, but certainly not unwelcome. It had been several months since I had last seen them, occupied as I have been by the never-ending duties that go with the title of Master of Buckland. I was surprised to see how much young Fari had grown, and delighted to note the increasingly strong resemblance to my favorite cousin, my dearest friend. With the exception of his darker hair, there seems to be very little of Diamond in the lad. The child is pure Took, through and through.

His father, however, once the trickster, everybody's favorite, has changed, has grown and matured to a degree even I had not imagined would ever come to pass. The change really began years ago, during the Quest, when Pippin had had to grow up so quickly, experiencing things no hobbit, let alone a tweenaged hobbit, should have had to endure. And during a good deal of the worst of it I had not been there for him. It is a private guilt with which I still struggle.

'Twas such a simple thing I could have done to prevent the worst of what happened to him from happening. Yet I had done nothing. I had sat transfixed while he stole the palantir away from the sleeping Gandalf, had remained paralyzed with fright as he put his hands on it and succumbed to its tantalizing call.

Had I called for help sooner perhaps the Dark One would never have wrapped his evil around my cousin's sweet innocence and it would not have been necessary for Gandalf to spirit him away from me. He would not have had to suffer through the siege of Minas Tirith, nor the attack of the fell beasts, nor the pyre of Denethor. Perhaps he would not have been so scarred from the Quest. As it is, the scars he carries are many, and deep.

I know my cousin achieved much good in the time we were apart, and logically I realize that had he not been where he was and acted so bravely as he did, that the War might have ended much differently, but still my heart wishes that he had been spared.

When Pippin was a little lad I always tried to make sure that I was there to shield him from life's every day ups and downs, or if I could not shield him, at least be there to comfort him. These last years, however, since I married my lovely Estella, I have not been there. Somehow I always thought that Diamond would be there for Pippin. For a short while she had been. Now suddenly he is telling me she will never be again.

"I just want to make sure I understand what you are saying, Pippin," I say, laying a hand on his arm. "Did I hear you aright? Diamond has left the Smials for good?"

"Aye." He turns away so that my hand slips off of his arm. "'Tis all for the best, anyway," he continues, his voice dull and flat, so very un-Pippin it makes my stomach hurt. "'Twas not a whole lot I could do about the situation. She had to go, and so she went."

I duck my head in an attempt to better see into his eyes, but he refuses to meet them, looks instead across the room to my wife and his son. "How are you holding up?" I ask, following his gaze.

"As well as can be expected, I suppose," he sighs, watching Estella as she bounces Fari on her lap. "Fari has always been closer to me than to Diamond, as odd as that sounds. Now he and I are all we have left."

My heart skips a beat at his words, and a small lump forms in my throat as I look at him watching his son, at the wonder that still paints his face whenever he looks at the lad. Faramir, to be sure, is a comely child. He wears his hair longish, like Pippin, peering out at the world from a riot of chestnut curls that continually falls into the sea green eyes he inherited from his father. Just turned four years old, the child is the light of Pippin's life, especially now that Diamond has taken leave of them both.

How in the name of the Valar am I to help him through this heartbreak?

I step close and put my arm across his shoulders, squeezing affectionately. "Not all, my Pippin," I remind him. "You will always have me, you know."

He turns to face me and I see in his eyes the tears he is determined to hold back, tears that will eventually breach the dam of his tightly held emotions. But not here. Not now, for Pippin would never break down before his son. I will have to be patient. He will let me in, eventually, when the time is right. Later, I will help him. It is a promise I make to us both.

For now we must make do with a good pipe and fine ale. And Brandy Hall, surely, can furnish that.

"You know, Pip," I say, steering him toward the door to the hall leading to the Master's study, "I have a special batch of Longbottom Leaf I've been saving especially for you. Come, let us break out our pipes and enjoy it together."

He looks over his shoulder at his son, a little uncertainly, I think. "All right, Fari?" he calls, and the lad smiles cheerily and waves back at his father.

"Now, Pippin, you know perfectly well Fari and I are good friends," Estella admonishes, smiling into the small face of the one she holds on her lap, who nods and throws his little arms around her neck, hugging fiercely. She laughs and squeezes him back, looking up at my cousin over the youngling's back and offering her own reassuring smile. "We shall be fine, dearie, go off and have a good smoke with my husband. He has missed you overmuch, I think."

I feel my heart skip a beat as the truth of her words hits home. I have missed my Pippin, more than I had realized until now, when he is back within arm's length and near enough to pull into a hug at any time. I dare not embrace him now though, no matter how much I want to, not when his emotions are so close to the surface. Better to retreat to the privacy of the study before opening that door.

"I have missed you, Pippin," I tell him as I escort him down the hall toward my private retreat. "Come, cousin, we have much catching up to do."

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Merry draws a mean ale, I will give him that. But then he is an expert at softening me up before coming in for the kill. I know he wants details of my loss of Diamond, and her goodbyes to her husband and child. I am not sure I am ready to tell him. For me, the grief is still too near.

For an instant I am back in Lothlorien, on that terrible night when I was consumed by immeasurable grief, and guilt, and a horrible uncertainty about my future. Again I hear the words of Legolas, and I wonder: who will sing the lament for Peregrin and Diamond?

Merry is by my side again, with his pouch of pipeweed in his hand and the long, curved stem of his pipe in his mouth. Without a word he reaches into my weskit and pulls from it my own pipe, begins filling it as he studies me from under half-opened lids. We both know that it is only a matter of time before he breaks me, and that he will do so with very little effort. Truth be told, I want to talk to Merry. I need to talk to Merry. All my life I have discussed with him all the important things, the things that really matter.

This, Diamond's leaving, certainly qualifies as something that really matters. I must talk to him, must get it out of me before it eats me alive from the inside out. Oh, but how to begin? How much to tell him?

The answer is crystal clear. Everything.

"Are you ready to talk about it, now?" he inquires, tamping down the bowl before handing it back to me. I lean forward as he offers a lit taper, and puff away, closing my eyes, savoring the taste of the finest pipeweed in the Shire.

So I tell him the sad tale of the last few years, of the rift that had grown between Diamond and myself, and my confusion as to its cause until the day I finally forced the truth from her, and at a price far harsher than any I had ever expected to pay. One simply cannot choose to love one over another. Either the love is there, or 'tis not. Though I had convinced myself otherwise, 'twas never there for Diamond and Peregrin, despite the efforts of our families. This union, while sensible and profitable for both elements of the Clan, was not destined to be a happy one.

"Is it me, Merry?" I finally ask, melancholy and self-pity sweeping through me. "Am I so very bad a person?"

He seems genuinely surprised at my question, puts his arm around my shoulders again, hugging me against his side. "Pippin, no!" he assures me. "You are as fine a hobbit as ever lived. The finest in my eyes, for I love you more than any hobbit has ever been loved. You do know that, don't you?"

I look up at him and the sincerity in his brilliant blue eyes makes tears spring to my own. I could never love anyone the way I love my Merry. And perhaps that is part of the problem.

"I know," I say. "And you know that I love you like no other. Diamond knew this, and she hated me for it. Somehow she took the love we have for each other and made it into something shameful in her eyes. I am afraid that she used what I feel for you as part of her excuse to leave. She accused us of … of …" I break off, unable to continue.

Now he does appear distressed, particularly when I feel, to my mortification, tears begin to slip down my face. Immediately he sweeps a handkerchief from the pocket of his weskit and offers it to me. I take it and swipe at my eyes, at my nose, which has begun to run. My head aches already with the emotional storm which I feel is imminent, and suddenly I want to fall into Merry's arms and weep like a baby.

"Pippin," he says softly, reaching up with one hand to trace the tracks of my tears, and I am undone. He opens his arms and I fall into them, and suddenly all the pain and disappointment of the last few years comes welling up and gushing forth in a raging torrent.

It hurts so terribly to cry, but ever so much more not to. I realize now that I have not done so for many years, at least not since before I married Diamond, for she would never tolerate what she perceived as weakness of any kind. I always had to be the strong son-of-the-Thain for her, and then the strong Thain himself. Somewhere between the time I met her and today I lost the part of me that was Pippin.

Here in Merry's arms, perhaps I can find him again. I do not wish to be simply Peregrin any longer. Pippin is the one who is hurting here, and Pippin is the one to whom Merry gives comfort.

He holds me as I weep. And I let him.

"Pippin," I say again, holding him to me with one arm, stroking his hair with my other hand, where he has laid his head on my shoulder, weeping in utter despair. Oh, how it grieves me to see him cry this way, though I know from past experience how necessary it is to find healing.

It does no good to hide from sorrow, or pain, or regret or any of the other dark emotions with which we have all been beset over the years. For a while, a very short while, after Pippin was so badly injured at the battle of the Black Gate, he and I had both struggled in silence against the dark tide of emotions that accompanied that near tragedy.

During the long, slow healing process Pippin had done his best to keep a positive outlook on his recovery, and I had done my best to keep mine own in check, my worries that he would never be the same, for indeed, how could anyone sustain such injuries and survive, and yet not be so affected by them in other ways that their life was never the same?

'Twas only after we had broken down the barrier that kept us from discussing it could we face the reality that he had very nearly died and we would have been parted forever in life. Even now, so many years later, the gut-wrenching fear that possessed me in those days is still all too easy to recall.

"Pippin, dearest, you must talk to me," I try again. "Tell me what happened, and tell me how I can help."

His shoulders shake and not with sobs, as they had a moment before. I hear what sounds suspiciously like suppressed laughter, and I pull back, look down at him and am surprised to find a smile there amidst the tears. "What?" I ask, taken aback.

He looks up at me with wet green eyes and when he speaks his brogue has thickened, as it tends to do with heavy emotion. "Ye sound just like ye did when I was a lad of four and banged my knee."

I brush damp curls back from his brow so I can better see his face. "And now you are a great lad of four and forty and still I want only to make the hurt go away."

Over the years I have held him while he wept, through various and sundry bumps and bruises, hurt feelings and guilt-ridden confessions. I comforted him through illness and injuries, through young love and loss and always, always, somehow I managed to find a way to make him smile again once I had dried his tears.

"This time ye can do nothing, my Merry," he says softly, effortlessly reading my thoughts. "Much as ye may want to." He breaks away from me then and turns his back, walking over to the sideboard to refill his tankard. He stands for a moment gripping the wood with one hand, his tankard with the other, then brings it to his mouth and quaffs it all at once. When he has finished, he turns to face me, carelessly wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt.

"This is a journey that only I can make, Merry," he finally continues. "'Tis a journey of the heart from one place to another, from loving someone to learning not to, or rather to love without needing. Hopefully, eventually, that love will die a natural death from lack of nurturing. The love I felt for Diamond has not been nurtured for quite some time now. 'Tis time to let it go."

I long to help him in some way. He stands there so bravely, facing an uncertain future as a sole parent, all of the hopes and fears of raising a child on his own written plainly in his face.

"Dinna worry overmuch, Merry," he says, scoffing gently. "I am not totally without resources, ye know. My mother and sisters will be there to help me with Fari. And, of course, he will have Cousin Merry and Cousin 'Stella."

I cannot help but smile back. Somehow, Pippin always manages to turn tears into smiles. 'Tis one of the things I love most about him. His unquenchable cheerfulness, his ability to rise after a fall, to always find a way back to the summit after taking a plunge. My Pippin. My rock, though I wonder if he knows that he is.

"Aye, he will, at that," I say, coming up to him and refilling his tankard and my own. "And he will also have the finest father a hobbit lad ever had." I hoist my tankard and he lifts his own to clank soundly against mine in toast.

"To journeys of the heart," I say, "may they be filled with more love than loss, and more joy than sorrow."

We drink, draining the vessels of their brew and slap them empty down on the sideboard. I look up at my cousin to find him looking back at me, and in his eyes I detect a new resolve, and am heartened for it.

"But love most of all," Pippin says quietly.

"Aye, my Pippin," I agree. "Love most of all."

He smiles and I think I see a hint of the old mischief in his eyes. "Just think of all the fun we can have teaching Fari all our old tricks, Merry," he says.

I shake my head. "But we would be the ones who would have to pay the price for his deeds, Pippin," I remind him. "Best we not go there."

He considers this for a moment. "Right," he finally concludes. "Lesson number one: dinna be too hasty when raising a hobbit lad."

I laugh and clap him on the shoulder as I steer him toward the door and his son on the other side of the Hall, where my own dear love awaits, and the child only she and I know she carries within her.

Together we will tell Pippin, when the time is right. For the moment, I am resolved to letting him make his journey in small steps, rather than large leaps, and to simply be there for him in moments of weakness and sorrow and doubt, there to bolster him whenever he thinks himself not up to the task he has had thrust upon him.

His journey may be a solitary one, but it need not be lonely. Together we will get Pippin and Faramir through this difficult time. Together we will make sure the journey is one filled with love and support and above all hope. Hope that Pippin will not always be so lonely. Hope that he will some day know love again.

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Thanks so very much to Marigold and Baylor for being the first-class people they are.