Chapter 10 - Darkness no more

The air of the night hung coolly, but the night was far from cold. Hundreds of thousands of leagues into the sky, stars sparkled with white flickerings of flame. The moon was full, and cast an almost enchanted pale glow onto all its light touched. In a sheltered but clearly important encampment, banners bearing seven stars and one white tree fluttered delicately in the night breeze. And in a small, damaged area of greenery, where only a diminutive cluster of green canvas tents stood, two figures, tiny though they were in stature, embraced tightly, as old friends who had not thought they would be reunited do.

Because that's what they were.

"Oh Merry..." Pippin breathed in the strange familiarity of his cousin's cloak; a cloak woven with threads of tales that would bind them together for all of time. "I thought you'd never arrive."

"Frodo? Frodo, where is he? Does he yet live? And Sam.... I have had no word..." Merry's eyes glinted in the white light; his expression was wild.

"Merry.... I have not been waiting for you for this long to have you not even inquire after your favourite cousin's wellbeing!" His tone was indignant. After everything he'd been through, everything he'd fought, everything he'd done... for Merry. And now he didn't care.

"Oh, Pippin," he pulled gently back from the younger hobbit and put his hands on his shoulders, looking him in the eye. "I have spent the last weeks thinking about nothing other than your wellbeing, silly hobbit! But Frodo.... truth be told, our hope for him was growing ever smaller as the days went by, although it never vanished. And to find he and Sam did what they set out to do is amazing, but I cannot help but wonder after his health." Merry smiled sadly, "He has survived, hasn't he?"

"Yes, dear cousin, and Samwise too. But they are under strict orders not to be disturbed. Not by anyone." He did not add that he had not seen them yet. To be honest, he was not entirely sure that he wanted to see them yet. Not after some of the rumours he had heard. If Frodo and Sam were not yet certain of survival then he did not wish to see their damaged, disfigured bodies. He wanted to remember them for their bravery and.... the way they were before. Also, Pippin had been concerned with his own welfare and concentrating on becoming well enough to see his beloved Merry. Now Merry was here perhaps he could find one last resource of courage to approach the guardians and visit his dear friends.

"Then I will not anger Aragorn and Gandalf by demanding entry." Silence passed between them, but Pippin did not need words to see that Merry was frightened of visiting the harsh white tent too, scared of what he would find.

Pippin broke the silence with a yawn, and it was only then that the tiredness he had managed to withhold flooded his body. He swayed unsteadily on his feet, and Merry drew him closer.

"Forgive me, Pippin. I should have known you'd be tired. Only as stubborn a hobbit as you would wait outside for so long."

"If I am a stubborn..." he failed to stifle the yawn that assailed him, "... hobbit, then you most certainly are too, dear Cousin."

Merry smiled and gently picked his cousin up, much as he had when they were younger and Pippin had stayed out too late, watching the stars. "My, Pippin," he said as he struggled to walk with the prone form in his arms, "You're so heavy, anyone would think you've grown."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Pippin!" Merry shook his cousin almost out of the cot he slept on, "Pippin, get up!"

"Mmmmm?" Pippin's eyes opened reluctantly. Why would Merry wake him; it was barely daylight? But Merry.... he would wake at daybreak all the time just to see his cousin now. Just to be reminded that they were together again and safe.

"I saw Strider," Merry spoke, a sense of panic showing in his voice. "He said we must go to Frodo and Sam-"

"Have they woken?"

"He did not say.... just that we must go now." He paused, "Oh, Pip.... what if..." Merry's question faded in to a whisper, and Pippin felt his own voice wavering. But he must be strong now.

"Then we must go."

~~::~~

The two small figures cautiously approached the pristine white tent that had so alarmed Pippin before. Yet there was no fear in the place now, just an air of immense sadness. It wasn't supposed to be this way, he thought. They were supposed to wake up, and reveal no further hurt than sore feet and unquenchable hunger. Frodo was supposed to smile and tell Pippin how tall he had become, and Sam would laugh and smile and then blush when Pippin said how brave he thought he was. Instead, they would enter the tent to see friends who's kin had only been called so they did not die alone.

Merry took a deep breath and unlaced the tent flap. Pippin following behind.

Frodo lay still, under the pristine linen sheets, his dark hair contrasting sharply with the pale cotton of the pillow. His hair was a little longer than it had been, and the curves of his cheekbones a little more pronounced, but other than that he looked... well, like Frodo. Frodo as Pippin remembered him being. Pippin stared silently as his cousin, noting the transparency of the flesh, and the beads of sweat that quivered on his forehead as he struggled with some inner foe. So the rumours had not been true: Frodo retained the same light and beauty he had always done. A tear threatened to escape from green eyes, and Pippin hastily wiped it away, disturbing the otherwise motionless figures in the tent. That the light would soon be gone and the Ringbearer would no longer lay there was inconceivable. A second tear snaked gracefully down Pippin's cheek and he made no effort to constrain it. He could cry for Frodo; there was nothing else he could do now.

Unnoticed by Pippin, the quirked brows smoothed themselves, and the lines of care vanished from Frodo's face. It was over.

Cerulean blue orbs of light surveyed the room.

"Pippin, Merry," A soft voice, Aragorn, who Pippin had not seen next to the bed, spoke. It was no wonder really, as the ranger, shrouded in layers of cotton, blended in almost perfectly with the white hue of the tent, and Pippin had been too transfixed by his cousin to observe little else. "Frodo wakes."

Pippin looked up at the blurred form on the bed, and wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands. Sure enough, his too thin cousin had opened his eyes, and was staring at him and Merry in bewilderment.

"S...Sam?" he choked out, his voice dry.

Aragorn gently lifted a mug of water to his lips and let Frodo drink. "Not yet, Frodo. Soon."

Frodo swallowed painfully and looked at his cousins, the dullness gone from his eyes. "You've got so tall!"

Tears of joy came to Pippin's eyes and, were there any need, his smile could have lifted the shadow from all of Middle-earth. Everything would be all right now.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Merry?" said Pippin as they returned to their quarters for the night. Sam had awakened briefly that evening, and the happiness in Frodo's face had been plain to see. They still had a lot of healing to do, even Pippin could see that, but the care of Aragorn, time and the presence of the Fellowship would see to that.

"What is it Pip?"

"You said to me once...." Pippin's eyes started to close, and he stumbled onto Merry's soft mattress, curling up next to his cousin. "A long time ago.... or at least it seems like that....."

"What?"

"You told me we would see the Shire again..." Pippin slumped further onto the feather pillow, and Merry gently stroked his wayward curls.

"I did, Pippin.... now go to sleep, I know when you're tired." Merry smiled; his Pippin, his young, innocent cousin had been returned to him. Nothing could make him happier.

"You were right, Merry," a small voice mumbled from the expanse of a pillow clearly not made for those as small as hobbits. "You're always right Merry.... and that's why I love you."

The smile on Merry's face grew, and he leant over his cousin, pulling the blanket up to cover him. Perhaps there was just one thing.

Pippin smiled sleepily as he nestled into the blanket. They had been reunited. They were going to make it home.

The night had ended.

FIN