CHAPTER 1: FRODO’S KIN

It was midday, and sunlight fell through the narrow windows in the Houses of Healing, striping its stone floors with a thin warmth dimmed by soot-laden clouds. Meriadoc Brandybuck sat propped up against pillows on his too-large bed, staying in bed as his healers had ordered, but stubbornly sitting on top of the rumpled bedclothes, fully dressed. His right arm was bent at the elbow and cradled against his waist, wrapped tightly in strips of linen from thumb to bicep. Except for that small reminder of his recent battle with the Witch-king, he seemed hale. And angry, if judging by the set of his jaw.

Pippin was sitting quietly--too quietly--on the side of Merry’s bed, looking down at his dusty, dangling feet. His black and silver guard’s uniform was wrinkled and dust-streaked as well, and shadows creased beneath his eyes.

“Please,” Pippin said. “I’m too tired to argue anymore, Merry.”

“Are you?” Merry leapt on these words as if offered a prize, his eyes narrowed with determination. “And if you’re too tired to talk, how do you expect to have the strength to fight?”

“Leave me out of it. It’s been a long day, is all.” Pippin frowned. It didn’t matter what Merry thought. Strider already said Pippin would be representing the Shire in the last battle for Frodo. But Merry was staying here. Healers’ orders.

Merry saw his cousin’s shoulders slumping with weariness and almost felt guilty pressing his argument. Almost, because he would feel much more guilt if he didn’t go to battle with Pippin. He couldn’t go through it again, the anguish of their separation, his cousin lost somewhere in a city aflame. (Courage, Merry. Courage for our friends.)

“If you go, I go,” Merry said firmly, trying to put all of the weight of his older-cousin authority into his words. “Or we both stay.”

Pippin knew Merry didn’t mean to be unreasonable. But at this point, all Pippin wanted to do was storm about the room, comparing Merry’s logic to that of a troll’s. Or the density of his thick head to stone. Or better yet, he could make the excellent point that Merry’s current reasoning had all the combined logical prowess contained in the walnut-sized brains trapped in the thick skulls of a group of greedy trolls turned into stone.

Now that would do the trick.

But instead he closed his eyes a moment and said, in a voice so quiet that Merry was forced to lean forward to hear him, “I know I can fight when we meet the forces of Mordor in battle. Can you say the same?”

Merry blinked. “I--”

“Can you even grip a sword, Merry?” Pippin persisted, though it hurt to see the look of despair creeping back so soon into his cousin’s eyes. (Are you going to leave me?)

Merry remained quiet, his eyes fixed on his immobilised arm, as Pippin continued, “You’ve been bedridden. Today was the first day the healers allowed you to take a short stroll from this room to the gardens and back, and you were drenched in sweat when you returned. You couldn’t possibly march all the way to the Black Gate, much less fight.”

There was silence for a moment. Pippin was just beginning to think he’d won the argument, when Merry spoke in a low voice, fierce and unexpected.

“Give me your sword,” he said.

“What?” Pippin gasped. The look in Merry’s eyes.

“Give me your sword.”

Pippin’s eyes remained locked on Merry’s as he slowly drew his blade from its scabbard. He presented it to his cousin, pommel first.

Merry held out his left hand, his unbandaged hand, and sighed when he felt the cool weight of the sword’s hilt against his palm. He slid from the bed and walked to the centre of the room, sword held before him.

Merry swung the blade once, crookedly. Then again, with more determination, and the sword’s path was true. He tried a few jabs, a swing low to an invisible orc’s ankles, a thrust high to the creature’s gut.

He turned to Pippin, triumphantly, but his cousin’s brow was wrinkled in worry. Of course. Boromir had taught them to swing with their off-hands, just in case their sword hands were injured in a skirmish. But to go into battle one-handed? If something happened to Merry’s left hand, he would be utterly defenceless.

Merry knew what he must do. He lowered the sword to his side. “Pippin, untie me,” he said, with a meaningful look at the cloth that had been tied as a sling around his neck, holding his injured arm against his chest.

“But the healers--” Pippin began, but Merry quelled him with another fierce look. With an aggrieved sigh, Pippin stood up and pushed Merry around by his shoulders so he could reach behind his cousin’s neck to deftly loosen the sling’s knot.

“If you injure yourself, you better not let Strider blame me when he sees what you’ve done,” Pippin said.

“I won’t,” Merry said, though his breath quickened and his face whitened as the sling fell to his feet. He stretched out his arm, rotating his wrist gingerly, feeling the bandages support and constrict the movement of his muscles. This new movement brought new pain. It was as if all the time his arm was in the sling he’d been holding it in a bucket of snow, numb with cold. But now, as he tried to move his arm freely, he felt a sensation like cold water trickling across his skin, which soon gave way to fiery prickles of heat and pain, concentrating in his joints--his wrist and fingers, his elbow, even his relatively unscathed shoulder.

Pippin could see his cousin’s distress. “Merry, let me tie it back,” he said.

“Give me a moment,” Merry rasped, from between clenched teeth. The fiery sensation was lessening. If he could just stand a few more minutes....

“Merry--”

“A moment, you wretched Took!”

Pippin stepped away, a look of surprised hurt on his face, and sat back down on the bed. Merry closed his eyes against this. His pain was too consuming, he’d make it up to Pippin later. His breath eased up, and colour returned to his cheeks. His arm still ached, but the prickling stabs of pain were subsiding, lessening enough that he might try a swing or two.

Tentatively, he switched hands. The second the sword’s full weight rested upon his bandaged wrist, his face became pinched and white again, but he still spun and dropped into a ready stance, the sword gleaming before his face, its blade upright and unwavering. He spun it in a slow arc as sweat-beads gathered on his forehead, his eyes dark with concentration.

“Meriadoc Brandybuck!”

Pippin yelped in surprise, but Merry’s grip on the sword didn’t falter as he raised his eyes to front of the room. The heavy wooden door had been flung open by Gandalf, who stood in the doorway wearing a frown beneath his bristling eyebrows. He looked first at Merry’s defiant expression, then Pippin’s guilty one.

“Peregrin Took, what mischief is this?”

“Mischief?” Pippin said, tapping into his best survival tactics on instinct, his eyes going wide and innocent, his eyebrows arching in confusion, his mouth open in a guileless Oh! of surprise. A face that Merry knew all too well.

Of course, Gandalf was acquainted with Pippin’s tactics as well. His glower deepened. “Mischief, indeed. Why did you give Meriadoc your sword when you know he’s supposed to be resting in bed?”

“An interesting question. Perhaps Meriadoc would like to answer?” Pippin said, clasping his hands together and giving his cousin a significant look.

Gandalf shifted his glare to Merry, who just couldn’t resist. “I’d rather not. After all, it’s your sword,” he said, a little too cheerfully.

“And it’s your poor health and your neglected bed,” Pippin said, then muttered under his breath, “and it’s not like I didn’t try to stop you, you lousy, traitorous Brandybuck.”

At this, Gandalf turned to cough suspiciously into the sleeve of his robe. When he turned back, his face was still grim, but laughter sparkled in his eyes. “Hobbits,” he said, as if this explained it all.

Merry took this lightening of Gandalf’s mood as an opportunity to press his advantage. “Gandalf, I want to fight--you can see I’m well enough. And....” His voice faltered and Merry quickly turned away.

His back to them, Merry continued in a low voice. “And you can’t leave me behind. Not again.”

“Perhaps. But it’s not my decision to make,” Gandalf said.

“That’s right,” a voice said from behind him, “it’s mine.” Aragorn stepped into the room and Merry whirled back around, still holding Pippin’s sword aloft. “And I’m not likely to listen to the requests of patients who defy their healers’ orders.”

“Please, Strider--Aragorn. You can’t tell me I can’t go. It’s for Frodo. I have as much of a right to be there as any of you--maybe even more.”

Aragorn sighed and stood for a moment, measuring the hobbit before him, sword held up before his face, his eyes ablaze with an emotion stronger than anger or fear. He was in pain, that much was obvious. But the passion in his heart outweighed his pain, buried it beneath the task he was determined to do. He saw in Merry’s eyes the same look he’d seen in Frodo’s eyes countless times as they journeyed together. Perhaps it was just because their features were similar; he was Frodo’s kin. But Aragorn suspected it was more than that. Hobbits were, after all, amazing creatures.

Aragorn nodded once, noncommittally. “Let’s see you swing the sword, then.”

~~~

Aragorn followed Gandalf out of Merry’s room and shut the door behind him with a sigh.

“Well?” Gandalf said.

Aragorn stood silently for a moment, then said, “He’s in pain.”

“Yes, he is.”

“But he’s very determined.”

“Yes,” Gandalf said, as he removed his pipe from his robes and cupped his hand to light it.

“He shouldn’t go, you know this,” Aragorn said, as if Gandalf had been arguing with him.

“Certainly not,” Gandalf said.

They stood there a moment, worry and frustration wrinkling Aragorn’s brow as Gandalf puffed on his pipe.

“And yet, unless I am mistaken, you have already made your decision. You will allow Meriadoc to fight,” Gandalf mused. “What swayed you?”

Aragorn sighed again. “When I looked in his eyes and saw....” Aragorn’s voice trailed off as his gaze slid over the walltop to the fierce black clouds resting over Mordor. “I saw Frodo in him.”

Gandalf nodded. “Yes. As did I.”

“Yet I fear--I fear that as wrong as it is to keep him here, it is equally wrong to send him into battle,” Aragorn said. “He was not pierced by a Morgul blade like Frodo, but he too bears the mark of the Witch-king’s touch. I’m afraid what contact with the other Nazgul will do to him.”

Gandalf’s expression was closed, inscrutable, wreathed in pipe smoke that quickly vanished, swept away by the hot winds that gusted fitfully from the dark mountains on the horizon. “We can know only one thing for certain. As one of the two who slew of the Witch-king, Meriadoc will never again be underestimated by the enemy.”

“And the remaining Nazgul, if they realise who he is....”

“We could be sending him to his doom,” Gandalf muttered, “just like Frodo.”

CHAPTER 2: TO HIS DOOM

“We could be sending him to his doom,” Gandalf muttered, “just like Frodo.”

“No!”

At the sound of a strained cry behind them, Aragorn whirled around to see a small figure hunched in the shadow of a pillar.

“Peregrin Took!” Gandalf said. “First you give your injured cousin a weapon, and now you’re eavesdropping?”

“Take it back.” Pippin’s face was drawn, vulnerable, but there was an accusation in his gaze.

Aragorn shared an uncomfortable glance with Gandalf before turning to the young hobbit. “Pippin, we--”

“You said you’re sending him to his doom. Like Frodo. They’re not doomed. Neither one is doomed.” Pippin’s voice cracked on these last words, and Aragorn noted for the first time the paleness of his face, the dark under his eyes, the way his shoulders were taut with anger and the stiffness of a body pushed past all weariness.

“I--I’m sorry you heard that.” Aragorn closed his eyes. “How much did you overhear?”

“I heard enough,” Pippin said, his tone still defensive. He took a few steps out of the shadows, but he crossed his arms over his chest and didn’t walk all the way over to them. “You don’t know anything about Frodo. Or Merry. You can’t say--”

“Peregrin Took, you misjudge us,” Gandalf said. “But we don’t have time to argue. Much needs to be done. If you don’t wish to hear such things, don’t eavesdrop on private conversations!”

“Mithrandir?”

Gandalf’s head jerked up, almost guiltily. A young guardsman dressed in mail stood hesitantly in the entrance to the courtyard, clearing his throat. “Your presence is requested, sir. Shall I tell them you are otherwise occupied?”

Gandalf hesitated, then tapped out his pipe. “No, no need. I will be there momentarily.” He turned back to Pippin. “Ask Aragorn what you feel you must know. Perhaps he will be able to satisfy your curiosity, though since I have known many Tooks, I doubt it. A good day to you both.” Gandalf nodded at the man and hobbit, then strode purposefully from the courtyard, his white robes only slightly brighter than the pale stone of the corridor.

Once Gandalf left, Aragorn turned his attention to the young hobbit guardsman.

Pippin was dust-streaked, battle-worn, his sable surcoat frayed at the sleeves. But he stood with back straight and chin raised, the stance of a soldier pushed to the very limit of his endurance but due to his good training would not allow himself to falter.

Aragorn felt a pang of regret--earlier, he’d been so focused on Merry that he hadn’t noticed Pippin’s fatigue. Well, instead of giving him more errands to do, his only orders for the night would be rest. And they might as well start now, with a seat on one of the benches that faced away from the wall top toward a small marble fountain in the courtyard, where the clouds and darkness could stay at their backs, out of sight (even if never out of mind).

Once seated, Aragorn tried smiling at the hobbit, but Pippin sat stiffly beside him.

“Well, that was pleasant,” Pippin muttered. “Gandalf needn’t always be so cross with me. Sometimes I wonder whether he likes me at all.”

Aragorn sighed. “Of course he likes you, Pippin. He just has a lot on his mind.”

“So do you,” the hobbit said, “but you still talk politely.”

Aragorn opened his mouth to argue, but he knew he would lose this particular battle. So instead, he got right to the point. “Pippin, there’s something you should know. Merry will be facing certain...dangers if he fights now.”

“His arm,” Pippin said, jaw set.

“Worse than that, I’m afraid.”

“Well, what is it then?” Pippin looked down at his feet, turned his head away from Aragorn. “I’m not a child. You needn’t spare my feelings.”

“No,” Aragorn said, startled. “No, I wouldn’t. It’s the Nazgul, Pippin.”

Pippin shuddered at the word, the battle for Minas Tirith still seared in his brain, sharp as a sword point. Ringwraiths. The black shapes in the sky, diving relentlessly, delivering death. The terrible screeches that ripped at his mind until he felt fear tearing at his senses, tearing so violently that he felt all thoughts abandoning him, his body twisting in anguish, a physical reaction to the voice of evil, to the sound of inescapable death.

“They will want Merry dead for killing one of their own,” Aragorn said. “And we cannot know how his wounds will be affected by their presence.”

Pippin’s head jerked up. “And will you still let him fight--even though--even though you know this?”

Aragorn looked into Pippin’s eyes. “Would you deny him this? The chance to fight for Frodo?”

Pippin bit his lip. It still made him shudder in disbelief when he remembered that Merry had helped to kill such a creature. But Merry had overcome the Witch-king of Angmar. Perhaps he could overcome the other Nazgul, too. And he was determined. So very determined.

“No,” Pippin said. “I would not. But I’m his younger cousin. I’m not over-used to denying him, especially since I could always follow him into the greatest adventures.”

Aragorn nodded. “I will not say there is no danger for Merry if he goes to battle. But there is danger for us all, here at the end of all things. If Frodo and Sam fail--”

“They won’t.”

“--then leaving Merry behind would only delay the inevitable.”

“They won’t fail,” Pippin said, louder, and looked over his shoulder to the horizon, the dark peaks and thick clouds. Somewhere amidst them there were two small figures...and all their hopes, unseen.

Aragorn saw the young hobbit’s dirt-smudged face tighten with a dark thought, and quickly sought to draw him from it. “Pippin, listen. You must stay by Merry at all times when we fight. He will need you. If he is in distress, get him to the edge of the battle. You must keep him safe.”

Pippin came back to himself with a shake of his head. “I made a vow when I found Merry on the field of Pelennor,” he said. “I told Merry I wouldn’t leave him. That I would look after him. I won’t break it now.” He managed a taut grin. “If the Nazgul want him, they’ll have to get through me first.”

Aragorn nodded, his throat too tight to speak. And here was the hobbit who doubted his own courage when they started their journey?

Pippin stood up. “I think I’ll give Merry the news, now. With your leave?”

Aragorn nodded again, but as Pippin passed him he reached out and placed a hand on the hobbit’s shoulder.

Pippin cocked his head at him. “Strider?”

“After you talk with your cousin, you must rest, Peregrin Took. You cannot fight if you are battling exhaustion as well as orcs.” Aragorn caught Pippin’s eyes to make sure he understood.

Pippin returned the gaze, then looked away quickly. Something in Aragorn’s look--the pride, the concern--for a moment, Pippin could have been in the Shire, glancing into his father’s eyes. But that life seemed so far away and long ago. Pippin coughed to cover the turmoil of emotion that sprang up in his chest, then turned abruptly to Merry’s room.

Still seated on the bench, Aragorn watched his smallest guardsman leave, his brow wrinkled with new concerns.

~~~

Merry was sitting on the edge of his bed when Pippin opened the door to the chamber and slipped inside. He sprang to his feet. “Well? What did Aragorn say?”

Pippin looked up at his cousin, and Merry couldn’t read his face, for all the conflicting emotions that seemed contained beneath the surface--relief, worry, wistfulness, fear?

“You will fight,” was all Pippin said.

“Yes!” Merry said, even as Pippin fell onto the bed, flopping over onto his back to stare up at the ceiling.

“Hoy, what’s this about?” Merry said, sitting down next to him. “Shouldn’t you be glad? You won’t have to stay behind with me now.”

Pippin had closed his eyes in weariness, but now he cracked one eye open. “I was never going to stay behind.”

“That’s what you say,” Merry said.

Pippin shook his head. “You shouldn’t go,” he whispered.

“What?” Merry said, stung. “But you said Strider--”

“If you reconsider Strider would understand.”

“I--of course I won’t reconsider. Don’t you want me with you?”

“Yes!” Pippin said, face stricken. Then his shoulders slumped. “I--I mean, no.”

Merry frowned and held his silence. Pippin would tell him what was wrong if he waited long enough--especially when he was in such an anxious, tremulous state. Pippin fidgeted on the bed, kicking his dusty feet against the coverlet.

Finally, in a voice so low Merry could hardly hear it, Pippin said, “I’m afraid something awful will happen to you.”

“Oh Pip,” Merry said, and placed his hands on both sides of his cousin’s face so Pippin was forced to look up at him. “Is that all?”

Pippin hesitated, then pulled away from his cousin. “It’s quite enough, thank you,” he said huffily, refusing to meet Merry’s eyes. “You don’t seem to care a whit for yourself, so someone must worry.”

Merry sighed. He knew Pippin was keeping something from him, but when he got into this sort of mood, there’d be no wrenching it from him.

Pippin peeked at his cousin through the corner of his eye. Merry knew he was keeping something from him; he was wearing that resigned, suffering older cousin look on his face again. It made Pippin want to tell him everything, but he couldn’t. If he mentioned the Ringwraiths, he knew what Merry would remember (You fool. No man can kill me. Die now!), and he couldn’t bear to bring that darkness back into Merry’s eyes. So instead, Pippin laughed.

“You look like the cat kept out of the cream,” he said.

“That’s because you’re hiding something from me,” Merry returned.

Pippin made his eyes go wide and innocent. “Me? Hide anything? From you?” Merry rolled his eyes as Pippin made a great show of checking his pockets.

“Nothing in here, naught but dust--you didn’t want any dust, did you, Merry?” Pippin said, as he held out dust-streaked fingers beneath Merry’s nose.

Merry snorted and pushed Pippin away. Pippin threw up his dusty hands to steady himself, balancing precariously on the edge of the bed for a moment, then tumbled off, landing in a heap on the floor.

“Merry!” Pippin scrambled to his feet. “What’d you do that for?”

“Trying to wipe that self-satisfied smirk off your face,” Merry said as Pippin began to laugh. “It didn’t work, apparently.”

And it won’t make me forget you’re hiding something from me, either, Merry thought, as Pippin bounced back onto the bed, stole Merry’s pillow, and proceeded to fall asleep with astounding speed.

CHAPTER 3: THE NAZGUL’S CRY

Morannon, the Black Gate, was a scar of jagged metal across a plain of white-grey dust and broken rocks, a dam blocking the tide of orcs behind it. As the army of the Men of the West approached it grew impossibly larger, until it seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon. And they knew that unless the Valar had mercy, this would be the last sight they saw in Middle-earth.

Merry rode behind Eomer, one hand on the pommel of his new blade, a long knife from Gondor’s armoury, the other loosely clasped on around the horseman’s waist to steady himself. Near him, Pippin sat before Gandalf on Shadowfax. For all the wizard’s blustering, he had insisted that the young hobbit stay with him as they rode on the Gate. When Pippin, still hurt about his treatment by Gandalf after being caught eavesdropping, asked why he couldn’t sit with Aragorn instead, Gandalf answered, So I can keep you out of further mischief, Peregrin Took! But Merry guessed that the wizard would have allowed no one else to bear Pippin, no matter what the circumstances.

When they finally reached the Black Gate, Aragorn signalled the army to halt, and the Fellowship went forward alone. There was a deep rumbling and grinding of metal against metal and then the Gate split open to reveal an emaciated armoured horse bearing a jagged-toothed creature with a slow, deep voice. The Mouth of Sauron.

What he said about Frodo was horrible. As horrible as the Master he served.

But they would not believe it. They could not. And as Sauron’s army poured from the gate, lit from behind with the red-orange flame that was the Eye, Aragorn stood before them, hope blazing across his face: Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day. This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!

And then like a chorus, a rush of swords unsheathed, answered by the thunder of thousands of orc-boots marching towards them, encircling their small army.

Pippin now stood by Merry, their mounts abandoned. “I’m glad you’re with me,” Pippin whispered. He determinedly did not look at Merry, but stared ahead, at the Gate.

“Me too,” Merry said.

“No matter....” Pippin swallowed. “No matter what happens?”

“There is nowhere I’d rather be, Peregrin Took.”

Pippin nodded, then lifted his sword. “All right, then.”

Merry sucked in a deep breath. “All right.”

Aragorn walked out in front of them, his face upturned to Sauron’s Eye. He slowly turned back to them, and caught Merry’s and Pippin’s gazes. “For Frodo,” he said.

Pippin’s breath hitched, once, and then his and Merry’s voices raised as one, yells that weren’t words at all, but battle cries ripped from their throats, forming an assent deeper than civilised speech: Yes! For Frodo! as they raced after their king.

And behind them, in the breath before the rest of the Fellowship took up the cry, before the rest of the army followed, the Men of the West felt a strange stirring in their hearts to see the charge lead by the two small figures, hardly bigger than children. Only a few knew their fates rested in the hands of two hobbits just like these. But it gave them courage nonetheless to see how desperately these halflings’ hearts were thrown into this last stand, how bravely they ran to their dooms.

Gimli felt his own heart caught up in their cries and released a rumbling yell as he charged behind him, Legolas running silently by his side. And Legolas couldn’t help but wonder at the change that had come over the two hobbits. Surely warriors like this hadn’t been bred in the peaceful Shire, as carefree sons of the Master and Thain?

As the two small figures were passed by the longer strides of the Fellowship and the front lines, as they vanished into the melee of orcs, spears, and swords, perhaps the only one who was not surprised was Gandalf, whose face stirred with a sad, proud smile at the sight. Hobbits.

~~~

The fighting was the fiercest Pippin had known. It wasn’t like the battle for Minas Tirith, when there were alleys to duck into, crumbled walls and debris to hide behind, and always the faintest hope that Rohan would come and save them.

Here, on the flattened plain before the Gate, there was nowhere to hide, no hidden army that would arrive in the nick of time, nothing between them and the Eye of fire. All he and Merry could see were the stinking hides of the orcs before them and the forest of trees on sable surcoats behind.

Merry and Pippin fought side-by-side, their swords flashing in unison, Pippin still yelling his wild, ululating battle cry. The rest of the Fellowship was far ahead and they were beset on all sides by orcs which saw these small warriors as easy prey.

But the two hobbits held their own. And so, when an orc with a terrible scarred face ran at them, swinging his sword at their heads, Merry and Pippin dove away in opposite directions, only to find themselves hemmed in by more of the hulking creatures, lost to each others’ sight.

“Merry?” Pippin cried. “Merry!”

But his cousin didn’t answer, so Pippin bared his teeth and swiped his sword at the orcs nearest him. They stumbled back, growling.

For a moment, Pippin was surprised that they were so easily dissuaded. Then he heard it. A deep, rumbling roar from behind him. Hot breaths against his back.

Pippin whirled, sword held out before him.

It was a hill-troll, grey-hided, bearing a cudgel in one thick hand. He was so large that his shadow swallowed Pippin completely; he felt as if he was staring up a granite cliff-face. Pippin fell back into a defensive stance, his mouth dry. His helmet barely reached the troll’s knees.

Far above him, the troll’s small, nearsighted eyes squinted to make out the small soldier so like a mouse frozen in terror at his feet. He roared again and lumbered closer, each step reverberating in the ground beneath Pippin’s feet.

The troll swung his cudgel and Pippin stumbled to one side, his sword bouncing ineffectually off the troll’s armoured knee. Where was Merry?

But there was no time for his cousin to save him now; the troll was bringing back his fists for another swing. Pippin darted beneath arms the size of tree trunks, feeling the breeze of their passing sweep back his cloak.

He had wondered how death would come, many times, these past days. And now he knew.

This was it--he drew back his arms, aiming his sword high--this was it--he thrust upward with all of his might, felt his sword slip through a seam in the troll’s armour, pierce thick hide--this was it--the beast roared above him and stumbled forward, his bulk blocking out the sky as he loomed over Pippin--this was it--the troll’s cudgel slammed into Pippin’s shoulder as his massive form started falling over him like a crushing tidal wave--this--was--it--!

A hand on his back, fisted in the fabric of his surcoat, pulling--Pippin flew backwards onto the hard-gravelled ground just as the troll fell face-first before him with a thud that shuddered the earth, his craggy face a mere breath away from Pippin’s toes.

“That was close,” Pippin muttered as he lay in the dust, his own breath ragged in his chest. He looked up to thank his rescuer.

“Oh,” Pippin said, as he met Merry’s eyes. “It’s you.”

Merry’s hands were still fisted in his cousin’s surcoat, his face white, his mind trapped in a horrified vision of what might have happened, had he not reached Pippin in time.

“That...that was a near thing,” Merry whispered. “Very near.”

Pippin smiled weakly up at him. “It always is, isn’t it?”

Merry sighed. “Only whenever there’s a Took around.”

He released his hold on Pippin’s surcoat, though as soon as he let go, he wished he’d held on. Anything to keep his hands from trembling so.

“Look sharp, lads!” A gold-bearded soldier of Rohan was suddenly beside them, blocking the thrust of an orc’s curved blade, the weapons meeting with a clash above the hobbits’ heads before the man pushed the orc away and ran in pursuit of his now-fleeing quarry.

“On your feet,” Merry gritted between clenched teeth, placing his hands beneath Pippin’s arms and levering him upwards. “There’s still a battle to be fought.”

Pippin gasped at the sudden shock of pain through his left arm. “My shoulder. The cudgel--”

“You’re lucky that’s all you came away with,” Merry said. “An entire army of orcs of all sizes, and you, smallest of us all, decide to take on a hill-troll?”

It was, perhaps, most telling that Pippin didn’t respond indignantly to this uncomplimentary reference to his size, merely swallowing thickly before he responded: “Wasn’t my fault, I lost you, troll was coming after me--”

“Then you’re also lucky I found you again. Come along, sword up--concentrate, Pippin, you mustn’t--” Merry stopped, as if struck.

Had no time had passed at all? He was suddenly on Pelennor Field, Eowyn falling before him, his ears filled with the screeches of the Witch-king’s dying. The leader of the Nazgul’s screams pierced like a blade’s thrust, burning upwards through Merry’s sword-hilt and into his arm, leaving only dust and charred flesh, sending shockwaves of pain through his shoulder, his lungs, into his skull.

Merry’s sword dropped from his hand and his mouth froze open in a soundless cry of pain as he fought against the black abyss that opened at his feet, the cold that clamped his arm like a vise.

Pippin turned and grasped Merry as his cousin fell. “Merry, what’s wrong?”

Merry’s eyes rolled upward; his left arm clutched at his right. A sheen of sweat beaded on his forehead. “They’re here,” he whispered, and then Pippin heard it. The cry of the Nazgul, cutting high and eerie across the sounds of the battle.

Pippin felt a shock of terror, but he bit his lip against it. The wraiths cried again, and Merry made a strangled sound. “Pip--!”

Pippin leaned forward and took Merry’s right hand in both of his. Even through the thick leather of Merry’s gauntlet, he could feel the cold radiating from his cousin’s arm, held stiff with pain against Merry’s chest.

Pippin’s heart beat against his chest, his sight swam with the throbbing in his shoulder. Just his luck to be injured when Merry needed him most! Black forms wheeled in the sky above them, sweeping into their ranks, spreading death.

“Merry? You have to help me, I cannot lift you, we’ve got to get out of here--”

“No, it’s too late,” Merry said, his voice strained, sounding high and strange through his whitened lips. “He left his mark, you see, his stain spreading up my arm...They can sense it. They’re coming.”

A dark shadow passed overhead, and both Merry and Pippin shuddered. “Right,” Pippin said with sudden decisiveness, and stood up as best he could over his cousin’s crumpled form, even as the Ringwraiths swooped closer, scattering soldiers with their beasts’ talons and their horrible cries.

Merry cried out again as a black shape blotted out the dim light of the cloud-choked sky. A Black Rider approached, the wings of his mount bowling over soldiers of Gondor and Rohan, sweeping howling orcs from their feet as he dove across the field toward them.

The Nazgul’s fell beast skidded into a landing a mere stone’s throw away from Merry and Pippin, rocking the earth beneath their feet, the wind stirred by its wings sweeping their cloaks behind them. It bared its teeth and hissed at the hobbits who huddled together, almost hidden among the much-larger combatants around them.

“Don’t worry, Merry,” Pippin said hoarsely, his sword held high even though a deep, splintering pain raced through his shoulder into his own arm and collarbone. “It will not touch you.”

The fell beast’s talons tore chunks of earth from the field in its haste as it rushed them, leathery wings stretched out, clawed thumbs digging into the ground for balance. Its head moved sinuously on its long neck, sniffing them out.

Then it struck, serpent-swift.

The great blunt weight of the beast’s head bowled into Pippin, sending him tumbling across Merry, his sword spinning away into the dust. For a moment, he lay there, limp, as the fell beast recoiled onto its haunches.

Pippin coughed. He dizzily gained his hands and knees, his ribs and shoulder afire, his chest squeezed by an unseen hand. He crawled forward, trying to block Merry with his body while feeling about for his sword.

He froze when the Nazgul spoke, his words grating against each other, popping and snapping like the breaking of bones. “Halflings.”

Merry’s head was thrown back, his arm clenched in agony as he curled on the ground behind Pippin.

“Too long you have tormented us, running about these lands, slipping through our grasp, refusing to die.” The creature took another step forward, dark scales and claws digging into the dust before them. Its breath was hot and foul, smelling of carrion and waste.

“It is time to die, now.”

Pippin stretched his fingers out, agonizing inches, until he felt his mailed hand grasp his sword hilt. He struggled to feet. “No,” he gasped. “You will not touch him.”

“You first, then,” hissed the Nazgul, and his beast lunged at Pippin again, its mouth gaping open to show pale fangs glinting like swordpoints.

“No!” Merry cried, the Wraith’s words finally breaking through his haze of pain.

He gained his knees and swung his sword, left-handed, at the same time Pippin’s blade flashed toward the beast’s gaping mouth. Their strokes scored deep into the sides of its scale-armoured skull, sending twin sprays of black blood into the air.

Merry doubled over, breathing hard, his blackened sword point dragging in the ground. But his eyes were filled with a cold-burning flame as he looked up at the Nazgul. “He wants me. Get out of here, Pippin.”

Pippin clasped Merry’s shoulder, his jaw held tight against the pain in his chest as the Nazgul’s beast reared back again, shaking his head, sending drops of black blood into the dust. “I will not leave you.”

Merry laughed, bitterly. “Then are we both to die here?”

“There are worse fates. At least we’re together, Merry.”

Merry turned to look into Pippin’s face. His Took cousin smiled sadly. Merry held his gaze, and for a moment, he saw in Pippin’s face the same small hobbit that followed him everywhere in the Shire, but full grown now, and wise.

Pippin looked up, breaking the spell. The Nazgul’s beast was drawing back, wings spread, ready to strike again, just as another shadow passed over them.

Merry winced. More? Wasn’t one Nazgul more than enough to finish off two hobbits, both wounded?

But Pippin’s breath had caught in his throat. This new flying creature had dun feathers, wide wings. He’d never seen them before, but he had heard enough from Bilbo’s tales to know what they were.

“Merry!” Pippin said, eyes wide. “Eagles!”

The fell beast snapped at the hobbits, but the Nazgul jerked roughly back on his reins and lifted his head to search the sky as well. Spotting the Eagles, he screeched in anger.

Pippin held out his sword in greeting and lifted his voice in a shout that swept away pain; it didn’t matter what he was saying, he didn’t pay attention to the words, there was hope now, hope! The Eagles are coming! The Eagles!

Merry took up the shout too, his face split by a wild grin, as a giant Eagle swept down on the Nazgul before them. The fell beast roared and ponderously rose into flight, trying to escape the Eagle’s talons and ferocious curved beak.

As the two winged combatants rose higher into the sky, Merry felt his arm uncramp, ice melting from his bones, the awful pain of that final thrust into the Witch-king dimming once again into memory. The relief was so profound that it was a type of pain in itself, and Merry drew up a shaking hand to wipe away the tears that leaked from the corners of his eyes, unbidden.

Pippin yelped and jerked away, and Merry heard the clash of steel again. He looked up to see Pippin trading blows with a snarling orc, his younger cousin’s face pale but determined as he fought off the attack. Now that the Nazgul had taken to the air, the orcs were regrouping, gathering round them, drawn by the smaller, wounded soldiers.

They were, of course, sorely mistaken if they thought these hobbits were easy prey. Merry almost laughed as he whirled to stand back to back with Pippin, his blade already swinging to block an orc’s broadsword. Long ago were the days when a crew of orcs could sweep him from his feet and carry him to Isengard. He turned the orc’s thrust, then sent his own sword deep into the creature’s gut. As the first orc fell at his feet, Merry glared at the spitting face of the next.

He didn’t notice at first when it started, a low rumbling in the distance. But then the ground rocked beneath his feet, and the orc he’d locked swords with howled and stumbled away. Merry turned his eyes to the Black Gate. There, far across the plains of Mordor, Mt. Doom was erupting, the Eye ablaze, dark with agony.

“Frodo!” Merry cried, his heart leaping into his mouth. “Frodo!”

CHAPTER 4: BENEATH A DARKENING SKY

They were gone, all of them, the orcs and trolls and Nazgul, even the Eye himself. Gone. Swept away by the perilous earth, fallen into an abyss that opened beneath their feet as His tower fell.

The ragged remainder of the last army of the Men of the West picked across the battlefield among the dead and injured, greeting their surviving comrades with equal amounts of laughter and tears. It was as if a shroud had been cast from the sky after years of darkness, and they could feel the warmth of the sun again.

Amidst the wreckage of the heaviest fighting, two hobbits walked slowly through the battlefield, headed for the healers’ tents pitched far at the edge of the field. One leaned heavily on the other, whose stumbling gait spoke of failing strength.

“Merry,” gasped the one who leaned against the other, “Let’s rest a bit...before going on.”

Merry looked over at Pippin and was alarmed at the pallor of his face, the sheen of sweat collecting on his cousin’s forehead and along his upper lip. “No,” he said. “We have to get you to a healer--”

“You should talk,” Pippin said, cocking a practiced eye at his cousin. “You’re on your...last legs, aren’t you?”

Merry sighed, too tired to argue, and sank to the ground, lowering his cousin next to him. “All right, rest. Someone ought to be searching for us, anyway.” He eyed the setting sun, knowing that when it became dark, it would be much harder for any rescuers to find them on the field.

Pippin coughed; an awful, strangled sound.

Merry turned back to his cousin, but Pippin had slumped to one side, eyes shut, and most alarming of all, Merry could see something bright and red gathering at the seam of his lips and a thin line of blood trickling from his nose. Merry only half-remembered the confrontation with the Nazgul. It was like waking from a nightmare; all he could recall clearly was all-consuming terror and pain. But the vague images he could remember were terrifying--the Nazgul’s beast slamming viciously into Pippin, sending him tumbling across the field. Broken bones, surely. Or worse--internal injuries. And Pippin had continued to fight after.

“Pippin,” Merry said, shaking him. “Pippin, wake up!”

But Pippin didn’t wake. His uneven, shallow breaths whistled in his chest.

Merry cursed his weakness. During the heat of battle after the Nazgul departed, he hadn’t paid attention to his arm. Now it lay limp at his side, numb and painful to the touch. And he was so weary.

Merry leaned over Pippin again, drew his cousin’s elven cloak closely about him. Even at death’s doorstep, Pippin needn’t be cold; Merry himself was shivering. Surprising. The day had been rather warm, but perhaps the dying sun was sapping the air of its heat?

He wished he could trust his feet to bear him to the healing tents and back, even in this sudden change of weather. But he was much too weary, and his cousin was suffering for his weakness. There was only one thing left he could do.

“Help!” Merry cried. “Healer. Please....”

Was his voice failing too? It seemed that what he meant as a shout had passed his lips in the faintest of whispers. And anyway, it seemed that there was no one close at hand who was alive or well enough to answer.

The field was soon bathed in the purples of twilight, and Merry’s shivering grew worse. He pulled his own cloak more snugly about his shoulders, making sure his arm was tucked beneath the cloth. If only it wasn’t so abominably cold, maybe he’d be able to better concentrate. If only the numbness in his arm wasn’t spreading, making his thoughts arrive slow and dark....

~~~

As night fell over the ruins of Morannon, the canvas walls of the healing tents began to glow with the flickering light of lanterns. Inside one of these small tents, two hobbits, their bodies battered, lay still before Aragorn on a man-sized pallet, wrapped in bandages and soft blankets in equal measure. After brushing his fingertips against each of their warm foreheads, Aragorn leaned back on his heels and exhaled softly.

Just as he was beginning to regain his feet, a white-robed wizard entered the tent. Gandalf didn’t speak. He just looked at the two hobbits, his expression unreadable.

“It’s all I can do for them now,” Aragorn said. “We must get them back to Minas Tirith--our supplies out here are too limited.”

“The journey back is long,” Gandalf said. “It will not be comfortable for them, nor will it help their injuries heal.”

Aragorn rubbed a hand against his eyes. “I was planning to send them into a healing sleep before the journey to save them from a large measure of their pain. But I had hoped to wait until Merry and Pippin had a chance to greet them. Once I send them into a healing sleep, they will not wake until their bodies are ready. It could be weeks--months--before we speak with the Ringbearers again.”

Gandalf’s head jerked up from his study of Frodo and Sam. “Merry and Pippin haven’t been here yet?”

“No,” Aragorn said, “and I’m surprised. I would have thought they’d be the first here, as soon as they heard....” His voice trailed off, then he turned startled eyes on Gandalf. “You don’t think--?”

“If they had been able to, they would be here already,” Gandalf muttered.

Aragorn shook his head, disbelieving. “The fates wouldn’t be so cruel....”

“Then perhaps they were brought to another of the healing tents?”

“No, the other healers are under orders to send word if any of the pheriannath find their way to the tents, by their own strength, or another’s.”

Gandalf closed his eyes. “Then something has happened to them.”

“Do you think Merry--?”

“We knew the danger, but we sent him to battle anyway.” Gandalf looked away; in the lantern light, the lines on his face seemed to deepen. “If the Black Breath has returned, it will be even more difficult to fight this time. Do you have athelas?”

“Very little. I must replenish my supply, but my stores are in Minas Tirith.”

“Then we will have to make due with what is available. With athelas or without, I have faith in the healing hands of the King.”

“I hope your faith is well-placed,” Aragorn said as he gained his feet. “I will do what I can. But first we must send for Legolas and Gimli. The moon is bright tonight. Perhaps if we look together, our search will not be in vain.”

Aragorn headed for the tent flap and gestured to a guard stationed outside it. Moments later, the guard left quickly to find the elf and dwarf. As they waited for their friends, Gandalf sat down next to Frodo and Sam.

“At least we know where young Peregrin is,” he said to Aragorn. “He promised he would not leave Meriadoc. He will keep his cousin safe until we find him, if he is able.”

~~~

The whistling in Pippin’s chest had turned into a rattle.

Sometime during the hours of waiting, Merry had slumped downward until he was lying on his back on the battlefield, his frozen arm curled against his chest. He looked up at the dark sky above him, the distant stars, the cold, pale face of the moon.

He didn’t even have the strength to turn his head to look at his cousin’s face, to whisper his name aloud. Instead, he thought it, with all of his mind. Pippin. Stay here, Pippin. Don’t you leave me now, Peregrin Took.

CHAPTER 5: ALL NIGHTS FADE INTO DAWN

Gimli’s eyes were used to seeing in dark places, but the battlefield before the ruined Gate was darker than most. It reminded him of the long dark of Moria, the way it stretched endlessly before him, filled with eerie moon-shadows cast by the unmoving forms of the dead. Even though he knew Sauron was fallen and no evil lingered here, the marks of the Dark Lord’s wrath were all around him in the brave fallen men scattered upon the field. His heart quailed at the thought of two hobbits--his friends--still lost amidst this stink of orcs and death and pain.

He bent to close the eyes of a soldier of Gondor whose expression was still frozen in an expression of wide-eyed astonishment and pain. As Gimli crouched over the body, he saw the moonlight catch on something silver and luminescent a stone’s throw away. It was resting atop a small, crumpled bundle (half a body?--he shuddered to think of it). His eyes were drawn to its glittering light, for though small, the object shone with an otherworldly radiance he associated only with mithril or particularly fine elven craftsmanship.

The brooch. It was the leaf brooch given each member of the Fellowship in Lothlorien.

With a cry, Gimli gained his feet and ran to the cloak-covered bundle. (Not dead. Not dead. Please, not dead.) Closer, he could see hobbit feet, and he had never been so glad to see the bare, begrimed soles, their foothair matted with blood and dirt. Not just one pair of hobbit feet to guide him to his fallen comrades, but two, side-by-side on the field.

He fell to his knees by their sides, bending over so the tip of his beard rested on young Peregrin’s chest. Both their faces were pale and still, blood-smeared. Gimli let out a choked exclamation of grief.

But then he heard it. A hollow rattle, the strained sound of Pippin’s breathing. He looked closer, holding his breath--there, movement! Merry’s eyes flickering beneath his lids, as if trapped in a dark dream.

“Legolas,” he roared, “Aragorn! Over here, and quickly!”

He blinked hurriedly to clear his eyes, then reached over to rest a hand on Merry’s forehead, then Pippin’s. “You’ll be fine now, lads. You’re found at last.”

~~~

Merry woke as if from a nightmare, sitting straight up in bed with a jolt and a gasp, cold sweat trickling between his shoulder blades.

“Pippin!” he gasped, before his mind registered his surroundings, the warm blankets and soft mattress, the smell of athelas in the air (the fresh and green of it), the sunlight streaming pale and yellow through an open window by his bed.

Through the window he could see walls of cool, white stone, but his room seemed distinctly hobbity with its mug of wildflowers on a bedside table, even if the scale wasn’t right, the mug much too big for hobbit-hands. There was an empty bed beside his, the covers rumpled as if someone had recently left it. No Pippin in sight.

But this was Minas Tirith. How could that be? He last remembered lying on a battlefield with Pippin, watching the stars darken above him as his cousin’s life slipped away, sliding between Merry’s numb and useless fingers like a fading dream.

Had he dreamed it?

Perhaps he’d never left Minas Tirith. Perhaps he’d been told to stay here while the Fellowship went off to fight without him. Perhaps Pippin, even now, was out on the battlefield, dying.

“Pippin--!” he said again, and this time he struggled against the bedclothes that held him to his bed, trying to move to the edge and gain his feet.

“Peace, Merry.”

In his agitation, Merry had failed to notice Aragorn half-asleep in a chair in a corner of the room, his feet propped up against the unmade bed. But now the Ranger who would be King rose and came over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder, stilling him.

“Pippin is well,” Aragorn said. “He just stepped out for some air, and will be disappointed that he wasn’t here when you woke--he’s been quite a nuisance about it, asking about you every spare moment he has.”

“But I thought...I thought he was dying.”

Aragorn regarded Merry with compassion.

“Maybe it was a dream,” Merry amended. “It’s just that it seemed so real.”

“It was no dream,” Aragorn said. “Gimli barely found you in time. There were hours when we feared we would lose all four of you in one night.”

“All four? Then Frodo and Sam--”

“Are in a healing sleep. They will wake, much like you did--when their bodies are ready.” Aragorn clasped Merry’s right hand and nodded in satisfaction when Merry squeezed it back.

Merry was surprised at how weakly his hand grasped Aragorn’s, but since Aragorn seemed pleased, he tried not to look too alarmed. His whole right arm and side ached faintly, and he stretched in the bed, feeling the muscles extend reluctantly.

Just then, a happy yelp sounded in the doorway, and a bolt of cinnamon curls rushed toward Merry and threw an arm around him, giving a fierce, lopsided hug.

Merry leaned into the embrace and closed his eyes in relief.

But Pippin broke away much too soon and sat himself on Merry’s bed with a bounce, an enthusiastic gesture somewhat marred by the way he cradled his left arm against his body and had to throw out his other arm to steady himself.

“I can’t believe you woke up now,” Pippin said, talking animatedly with the hand he’d used to steady himself, “I was gone for just a few moments Merry, truly, all that time waiting and you wake just when I go--it’s like watching pots! Maybe hobbits can’t be watched if they’re to boil, or wake I mean, and if that’s the case I’ll never look in on Frodo and Sam again, except once or twice, so they’ll wake sooner--”

Merry knew he’d never get a word in this way, so he grabbed his cousin’s waving hand and pulled it to Pippin’s side, motionless.

Pippin stilled. “Yes, Merry?”

Merry smiled and said, softly, “It’s good to see you too.”

“Oh, yes.” They looked at each other solemnly for a moment, and then Pippin laughed, breaking the spell. “Just you wait! So much has changed now--did you notice? Strider isn’t nearly as scruffy now, I think since he knows he’s going to be King soon he’s started bathing, and it’s about time--”

Pippin waved with particular excitement at Aragorn, using the hand Merry wasn’t holding down, but then his words broke off unexpectedly. He stiffened, hunching in upon himself, and turned away from Merry.

“Pippin?” Merry said, anxiously.

Aragorn rose and knelt in front of Pippin. “It’s all right, Merry.”

Pippin made a strained, gasping noise, and Merry started forward, reaching for him.

“N-no, stay there, it’s nothing, Merry,” Pippin said, his voice small. “I just forgot I shouldn’t use this arm, is all.”

“What did I tell you about getting carried away?” Aragorn murmured, running his hands along Pippin’s shoulder and side. “You’ll undo all of our hard work, Peregrin Took.”

Aragorn lifted up Pippin’s shirt and Merry saw white bandages gleam, briefly, across his cousin’s bruised torso, before Aragorn dropped the shirt again, apparently satisfied that the bandages hadn’t come loose in all the fuss.

“Oh Pippin,” Merry said.

“Now sit still and take deep, calm breaths,” Aragorn shot a look at Merry, “the both of you, and I’ll get yousomething for your pain, Pippin. And cloth for another sling. I can’t have you using that arm again, even accidentally.”

With a nod at both of them, Aragorn left the chamber.

“Well, that worked,” Pippin muttered. “I begged Aragorn to take the sling off so we wouldn’t scare you when you woke, and he said only if I was very very careful not to move it and only if I promised not to get carried away, and then I had to go and--”

“Pippin, those bandages,” Merry said, and swallowed hard. “Just how badly were you--?”

Pippin shrugged. “Couple broken ribs. Cracked collar bone. Wrenched shoulder.”

“And Strider let you get up?”

“It’s been a while since the battle, Merry. You slept for days.”

“But aren’t you--?”

“I’m feeling much better now, thank you,” Pippin said, with a cordial nod of his head.

“Pippin....”

A dark expression flickered across Pippin’s face, but he brushed it aside and flashed Merry a vague smile. “I’ve an idea--let’s talk about something else.”

“I can’t. I have to tell you.... I have to apologise.”

Pippin looked up, startled. “About what?”

Merry sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you. I shouldn’t have gone to fight. I drew the Nazgul to us. If I hadn’t been there, you wouldn’t have had to...you wouldn’t be hurt....”

“Don’t be daft, Merry. If you hadn’t gone to battle, I’d probably be squashed under a troll somewhere.” Pippin looked down at his hands. “Anyway, if there’s anyone should be sorry, it’s me.”

“Now who’s being daft? What could you possibly be sorry for?”

“The Nazgul, Merry.”

“Well, that wasn’t exactly your fault, was it?”

“Not...exactly. But Merry, I knew about the danger. Gandalf and Strider told me what might happen...with your arm, and all.”

Merry drew away from Pippin, leaning back against the headboard of his bed. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Pippin said, and he raised his head to look at Merry, anguish in his eyes. “But I did! Maybe you would have stayed here, if you knew. And instead, you were in such pain on the field, I thought you were going to die, or they were going to kill you. And then they left, but I could see the signs--the darkness in your eyes--your arm cold and stiff--I knew the Black Breath was returning. And when I woke in the healing tents, Strider was tending you but you were so still, I thought you’d left me for good. You didn’t move, not once, all the way to Minas Tirith, and then--”

“But I’m fine, Pippin,” Merry said, opening his arms and pulling Pippin to him.

Pippin shook his head and sniffed softly. “You weren’t before.”

“Well, I am now. And you are too, and so are Frodo and Sam.”

Pippin leaned in and sighed against Merry’s chest, the warmth of it making the last of something cold uncurl itself from Merry’s arm and vanish.

“I know,” Pippin whispered. “It’s all done, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“Well, I guess neither one of us have to feel sorry, then, do we?”

Merry shrugged, and smiled sadly. “No, I guess not. But that doesn’t stop me from wishing you were never hurt.”

“Me too.”

Pippin leaned back against the pillows next to Merry and Merry smiled slightly to himself, savouring the quiet sound of his cousin breathing next to him. They were together and untroubled by darkness or orcs or mischief, for once.

Just as Merry thought Pippin was about to drift off to sleep, Pippin sat bolt upright and glared at Merry.

“Are you sure you’re not angry at me for not telling you about the Nazgul? You’re not going to yell at me for that later? Because sometimes you do that, you know. You pretend it’s all right and then--”

Merry rolled his eyes and pushed a pillow into Pippin’s face. “You are daft.”

Pippin pushed it back. “I’m just making sure; you can never be too sure, you know--”

“Pippin,” Merry said firmly, hoping to rein his cousin in before he launched into another rambling monologue.

“Yes?”

“Do you hear that?”

Pippin let the pillow drop to his lap. “Hear what?”

“I think there’s a garden nearby,” Merry said. “You can hear the birds chirping.”

“Oh,” Pippin said, and cocked his head to one side to listen. When he turned back to Merry, Pippin’s eyes were filled with memories of green and distant hills. “So they are."

EPILOGUE: TOGETHER ONCE MORE

Pippin sat bare-chested on the edge of his bed, Merry hovering over his shoulder. Aragorn kneeled in front of the younger hobbit, lightly running his hands across Pippin’s ribs and the faded bruises there.

Aragorn shook his head and sat back on his heels. “Once again, I’m amazed by the healing power of hobbits.”

“Does that mean I can keep those bandages off?” Pippin asked, wrinkling his nose at the constricting strips of cloth piled next to him.

“I don’t see why not,” Aragorn said.

Pippin pulled his shirt over his head and looked triumphantly at Merry. “See? I told you so!”

“I just said to check with Strider first,” Merry said. “Anyway, there’s no harm in being cautious.”

“Except when you’re over-cautious.”

“I’m not--” Merry began, but Aragorn held up his hands.

“Peace, friends. I have good news.”

Immediately, Merry turned to him, hope lighting his eyes. “Frodo and Sam?”

“That’s what I wanted to tell you,” Aragorn said, a smile spreading across his face. “The Ringbearers should be waking up soon.”

“What are we waiting for, then?” Pippin cried, and leapt to his feet. He shrugged on his braces as he dashed for the door.

Merry watched his cousin disappear rapidly through the doorway, then raised an eyebrow at Aragorn. “Did you notice? I don’t think there’s a thing wrong with him now.”

“I think you’re right,” Aragorn said. “And what a terrible misfortune for Minas Tirith it will be, once he realises it.”

He and Merry shared a grin, just as Pippin’s head reappeared in the doorway.

“Merry! Aren’t you coming?”

And so Merry got up and ran for the door, and by the time they were racing down the corridor to Frodo’s room, they could already hear Gandalf laughing inside. Pippin whooped and pushed open the door as Merry crowded behind him, pushing him forward.

Inside, Frodo’s room was lit up in golden hues, the afternoon sun streaming warm and bright through a westward-facing window. Gandalf stood in the middle of the room next to a wood-framed bed piled high with soft, white blankets. And on the bed was a hobbit whose dark curls were bathed in light.

Frodo was sitting up, a look of astonishment on his face. But it melted away to peals of delighted laughter when he saw Merry and Pippin in the doorway.

Merry and Pippin didn’t remember crossing the room to him, so great was their joy. They launched themselves onto the bed and Frodo could hardly understand a word coming out of their mouths, so animatedly were Merry and Pippin talking--correcting each others’ stories, interjecting, interrupting, not really caring what they said because all they were saying was how very, very happy they were to be there, together once more.

THE END