Setting: The Eastern edge of the Shire and Buckland, Late November, 1438. Pippin is 48, Merry is 56, Estella is 53, Faramir Took is 8.

A/N: Pippin and Faramir take a rather out-of-the-way route toward Buckland because I didn’t think they would take the most direct road, considering the circumstances. My map skills are shaky to horrid at best, though, so if there’s any glaring errors, please just turn your eyes away.

Disclaimer: Characters and places do not belong to me

Chapter One: Tooks in Pockets

The inn was quite crowded when Merry Brandybuck arrived, as it was already early evening. The Master of Buckland made his way around tables and serving lasses and lively games of darts nodding often to the greetings he received from the locals until he reached the front desk. There he waited patiently until he caught the eye of Agg Frogmorton, the proprietor.

Agg abandoned the conversation he was having with one of the stable lads and leaned over the hewn wood counter.

"Good evening to you, Master Brandybuck."

"Good evening, Agg. I believe there is a party that’s been awaiting my arrival."

"Aye," Agg nodded solemnly. He was a rare tight-lipped hobbit and known to be able to keep a secret. For this Merry was very grateful. "Down the hall, very last room to your right."

"Thank you, sir." Merry started to move in the direction Agg pointed but hesitated and turned back to the desk. "Have you…" he dipped forward and spoke quietly to the innkeeper, "have you been compensated yet?"

Frogmorton frowned. "Aye, sir. You needn’t worry about that now. I been taken quite good care of."

"Thank you." Merry smiled.

"Thank you, sir."

Merry stepped back from the desk then and, after taking one more glance about the great room, headed down the hall to the lodgings.

~~~~

Pippin woke up abruptly at the hard knocking on the door. He looked quickly toward the hearth to make sure Faramir was still where he had been earlier, before Pippin had dozed off. The stone floor was empty.

"Farry?"

"Yes?"

With relief, Pippin turned to see his son standing upon the table near the window, looking wide-eyed toward the door where the knocking still hadn’t ceased.

"Get down from there," Pippin snapped, hopping off the bed and making his way to the door.

"Who’s knocking, Da? Do you think it’s the innkeeper again?"
"We’ll find out when I answer the door, now won’t we? And I said get down from that table. No one wants to eat where your dirty feet have been."

"They’re not dirty," Faramir grumbled, climbing down carefully, "I’ve just had a bath. And, anyway, I only wanted to look out the window." The lad made to sit in the chair, but then hesitated, watching his father with curiosity. "Do you think it’s someone besides the innkeeper at the door? Do you think they’ve come to take me away?"

"No one’s going to take you away," Pippin murmured. He closed his eyes for half a second to get rid of the thought, then unlatched the door and poked his head out. Relief trickled down his forehead in cold sweat. "Oh, hoi, Merry! Good to see you!"

"Shush, Pip," Merry admonished, pushing his way into the room and shutting the door behind him. Once it was safely latched again, he softened and smiled. "It’s good to see you too."

"Hallo, Uncle Merry!"

"Hallo, Thain Faragrin," Merry laughed and turned to face the little lad who was sitting upon the table, "How are you this evening?"

"I’m well. And clean. I’ve just had a bath."

"Have you now? Well, that’s a good thing."

"Yes. There wasn’t much else to do, though. It’s dreadfully boring being in hiding."

"Are you in hiding?"

"I think we are." Faramir furrowed his brow, "Aren’t we, Da?"

"Faramir." Pippin took the lad up under the arms and set his bottom firmly on the chair. "Can you not just sit where you’re supposed to?"

"Da…"

"Faramir, please!"

Faramir pulled a frown that would make a warg cower in fear and turned away from them, the better to pout and make faces at the window.

Pippin sighed and slumped into his own chair. "Thank you for coming, Merry. I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t."

"You would have thought of something, I’m certain. You always do. Anyway, I don’t know what you’re going to do now that I am here. I’m not even quite sure what you need of me." Merry took a seat in the last chair of the three and reached into his coat pocket. He brought out his pipe, but grimaced at the leather pipeweed pouch, which seemed to have been soaked clear-through by the rain. "You haven’t any spare leaf on you, have you?"

"Have I?" Pippin pushed a sizeable tin across the table, "I’ve bargained myself half-way across the Shire with this."

Merry made no comment as he took a pinch of weed and tucked it into his pipe. He reached into his pocket again for his matches, but Faramir beat him to it, producing a packet from his own small coat.

Merry accepted them and asked calmly, "Have you taken up the pipe, Faragrin?"

"No. Da dropped those earlier when he was sleeping."

"Thank you for giving them back to me." Pippin muttered, taking the matches after Merry was done and tucking them safely in his breast pocket. "Such a fine-mannered son I’ve raised."

Faramir sighed and put his down on the table. "When are we going home?"

Pippin’s face grew tight and unreadable. He pushed himself away from the table, stood, and stretched. "I think I’ll have my bath now. Do you want one as well, Merry? They’ve got two basins heated."

"No. But I’d just as soon smoke in there as out here. There’s some things we need to talk about."

"Aye," Pippin nodded morosely, then looked to his son. His voice softened slightly. "We won’t be long, Farry. Be a good lad, all right?"

Faramir didn’t lift his head from the table. "I will."

Merry cast the little Took a sympathetic look, then followed Pippin into the bath room, closing the door tightly behind them.

~~~~

"Oh, Merry," Pippin sighed, "A bath! A bath is a wonderful thing." He sunk deep into the water and tilted his head back, so that soon he was up to his neck, only his chin sticking out like a small cliff above the seas. "You’ve no idea what I’ve been through this past week."

"I’m not sure I want to know."

"You wouldn’t think it would be so difficult to make one’s way to the East Farthing without being seen."

"No, especially when the talk of the Shire is that you’re holed up in Bag End while all the Tooks are quarantined in the Smials. Including your son, I might add."

"Well, that’s an un-truth right there."

"Is it?"

"Yes. Faramir wasn’t at the Smials when they enacted the quarantine. He was in Whitwell with Pervinca."

"I heard Whitwell was quarantined as well."

"It is. Along with the rest of Tookland." Pippin squeezed his eyes shut and dunked himself under the water. Merry crossed his arms and waited for his cousin to emerge before he spoke again.

"Do you not agree with Sam’s decision? Would you rather have the whole Shire infected with pox?"

"I think the Thain should have been consulted before they decided to go through with that."

"I heard the Thain’s not been acting much in his right head these days."

Pippin rolled his eyes. "Sam was too rash. He’s still being too rash. Not everyone is infected at the Smials. He should have let out the clean ones before he ordered them locked in with the sick."

"That’s not how a quarantine works. You’ve got to keep in everyone who’s been exposed. You’re just angry he won’t let you back into the Smials until the pox has run its course. You can’t blame Sam for that. It’s no use exposing you as well and it’s just your own bad luck you were in Hobbiton when all this came about."

Pippin shook his head. "I should have postponed the trip until Diamond was back from Long Cleeve. The business could have waited. Border debates and legal nonsense—I care nothing for it anyway. A tedious waste. Had I been at the Smials when all this started, it would never have become such a mess."

Merry sighed and exhaled deeply on his pipe. He thought about the stories he’d heard while riding in from Buckland, how the Thain had become incensed when the mayor suggested the idea of quarantine at the public council. Uncharacteristic of the hobbits’ good-natured Thain, Pippin had begun ranting at Sam and the other council members and, when he could not be calmed, had been forcibly removed from the meeting and temporarily stripped of his authority as Thain until, as Mayor Samwise had put it, "he’s in his right proper mind again and can think things through as needs to be done."

Merry smiled wryly at what he had felt all along must have been a cover story put out by Sam that the Thain had apologized and was waiting out the situation quietly in a guest chamber at Bag End. It was so very Sam to concoct a story like that in an attempt to redeem Pippin’s newly tarnished reputation. And, he thought bitterly, it was so very Pippin to care nothing for that effort.

"I know I’m in the wrong, Merry," Pippin said quietly, as if he had been eavesdropping on his cousin’s thoughts, "but I couldn’t leave Faramir there."

"But, Pip…"

"He wasn’t sick."

"Neither were a lot of the Tooks. But they were all exposed just the same. They all have to deal with the quarantine just like the rest of us."

"But he’s my child."

"Everyone is someone’s child."

"No, Merry." Pippin looked at him seriously. "He’s my child."

And then Merry understood.

The Shire pox that popped up in pockets about once a generation or so had never been known to be fatal. For most hobbits, it was just an irritation—debilitating for a time, but with no permanent dire effects. For the young and the very old, though, particularly the weaker ends of that spectrum, it was a more dangerous story. Merry knew of hobbits from his parents’ generation that had made it through the pox but been struck blind or lame from its effects. And Faramir was Pippin’s child, in every physical sense at least. He was small and thin and seemed to take more than his fair share of turns with every cold and childhood virus that made its way through Tookland. If there was one ideal little hobbit for the pox to become nasty with, if he were to catch it, it was Faramir Took.

Merry sighed and set aside his pipe.

"What would you have me do, Pip? If he has got the pox, I can’t bring him into Brandy Hall. I can’t take that risk." It pained Merry to even have to say those words, but Pippin seemed to have expected it.

"Crickhollow?" He asked, running his toe thoughtfully around the edge of the basin. "We’d practically have a private quarantine there. The only near neighbor is old Fatty, and he hasn’t got much to fear—no family and I hardly think he’d be at any risk of the pox. He’s heartier than even you."

Merry ignored that jab and chewed the end of his now-cold pipe. "Is he sick? Has he shown any signs?"

Pippin shook his head. "Nothing. I swear to you, Merry. I’ve not noticed a single thing wrong with him." He smiled, half with pride, half with wonder, "He’s a good lad…just…just a very good lad."

"I know he is. But just the same, I think we should make our way to Stock first thing in the morning. Agg Frogmorton’s sister lives down there. She’s a healer and she’s just as tight-lipped as he is. We can trust her. If she looks Farry over and gives him a clean bill of health, we’ll head on to the Hall then."

"The Hall?"

"Yes. If he’s not carrying the pox then you’re to come home with me. I’ll not have the Thain and his son hiding out in some empty house at Crickhollow while all this trouble is still rumbling about in the Shire. And don’t think I’m not going to send for Sam. You two need to settle this matter once and for good and you, Peregrin, owe him an apology at the very least."

Pippin laughed. "I know I do. Oh, poor Sam."

Merry stood up and patted his belly then. "And poor Merry. I rode straight from Buckland and haven’t had a bite to eat since breakfast."

"I suppose Faramir will be hungry as well," Pippin mused, cocking his head, "we lifted some apples from an orchard on the road this afternoon, but I haven’t thought to look for fare since then."

Merry gave Pippin a look, but forced himself to hold his tongue. He and Estella had often discussed with wonder Pippin and Diamond’s appalling lack of responsibility at times to their role as parents. It was a testament, many said, to the Faramir’s character that he had not turned out either spoiled or strange. Though he was obviously well-loved (more obviously by Pippin than by Diamond, Merry thought bitterly) it was not unusual that a meal time (or several) might pass by unnoticed if one of them was particularly focused on some other task or personal pursuit. Faramir was quite used to it, though, and seldom complained, even at his young age. It was a common sight, in fact, to find the little heir by himself in the kitchen, quietly eating a meal of jam and bread when his supper had been forgotten.

But then, Merry thought, it was easy enough to pass judgement when you had no children of your own. Not yet, anyway, he amended.

"I suppose he will be hungry," he agreed and made to head down to the great room to order a tray of food, but then paused. "Pippin?"

"Yes?"

"How did you make it all the way to Frogmorton without being seen?" Merry knew from his own experience that it was impossible for him to go riding in the Shire and not be instantly recognized from even great distances solely because of his height. But as far as he could tell, Pervinca Took and Agg Frogmorton were still the only hobbits who knew that Pippin was not in fact in Hobbiton and Faramir was not under quarantine in Whitwell. He couldn’t fathom how this could be.

Pippin grinned. "I put my hood up and rode half-bent the entire way with Faramir beneath my cloak. You may hear some tales of a terribly fat hunch-backed hobbit bribing his way across the West Farthing if you join the other inn-goers for an ale."

"I just may have to do that," Merry smiled, then left Pippin to finish his bath.