Traveling home to the Shire after the quest.   A late night conversation.

                                     "It Helps To Have A List"

“What do you suppose it might feel like?” Pippin whispered.

“What?” Merry asked, quietly as they lay in the dark not sleeping again.

“Being invisible,” Pippin said in a rather loud whisper, as he rolled over on his side to face Merry’s bedroll. Though he couldn’t actually see Merry, it was a comfort to look in his older cousin’s direction all the same.

“I don’t really know,” Merry said, after a slight pause.  “I shouldn’t think that it would feel much different, though I haven’t given it much thought.”  He was quiet for a few minutes and when Pippin didn’t say anything else, he continued.  “I do know how it feels to see someone vanish before your eyes thanks to Bilbo, but I’ve never given much thought at all as to how it might have felt to Bilbo.”

“I don’t suppose that it could have hurt all that much or Bilbo wouldn’t have done it,” Pippin reflected with a sigh.  “I mean, he planned it out for his birthday that time and let everyone see him do it. Well, they didn’t really see him, did they?  That bit is rather confusing, isn’t it?”  Pippin pondered this for a minute and then went on.  “I mean one shouldn’t say that they saw him vanish, because once he had vanished, we couldn’t really see him at all, could we?”

Merry groaned.  “Must you talk in Pippish in the small hours of the night?  You know perfectly well that my head isn’t up to that sort of Tookish logic until after second breakfast.”

“You know what I mean, Merry,” Pippin hissed in exasperation.  “If he isn’t there then, well, no, that’s wrong too because he was there still, we simply couldn’t see him could we?”

“Pippin,” Merry sighed, tiredly. “What brought this topic of discussion to your mind at this hour of the night?”

“I was thinking about things that I shouldn’t ask Frodo, but that I should very much like to ask him all the same,” Pippin said, sliding over in his bedroll so that he was closer to Merry.  “Tis’ a sort of list that I am making.”

“You have a list?” Merry asked, turning to face Pippin now.  He was fascinated by this notion and a bit afraid to know what sorts of things might be on the list.  With Pippin, it was difficult to tell.

“I thought that would be safer,” Pippin said.  “If I make a list, then I may not be as likely to come out with something improper that might upset him.  I want him to be happy again, Merry and I do realize that I have a way of saying exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time.  It isn’t as if I haven’t been told about this unfortunate tendency before.  Now that I’m older and have traveled to strange places and met Kings and elves and such, I think that I should try to do a wee bit better with this problem if I can at all.”

Merry smiled in the darkness because he knew, even though he couldn’t see him, that Pippin’s face looked very earnest at the moment.  “So, in order to keep from saying something unfortunate, you’ve begun a list,” Merry said, grinning to the point that it almost hurt his cheeks.

“Yes, and that one about what it might feel like to become invisible is at the top of the list,” Pippin said.  “When we reach the Shire again, I want folks to realize that I have grown up a bit on our journey, but more importantly, I don’t want to make Frodo sad.  He’s had enough sadness.”

“Yes, he has,” Merry agreed, quietly.  “I suspect that returning home will lighten his heart.  I do think that he will feel much better once he is back in his beloved Bag End.”

“I think so too,” Pippin said.  “I should remember not to ask him about that either, though.”

“About what?” Merry frowned, moving a bit closer to Pippin now.

“Well, when you are trying hard to feel more like yourself and get on with things, it is rather annoying to have folks asking you how you feel all of the time,” Pippin reflected.  “I remember when I was first up after recovering from my time underneath that dead troll, it used to annoy me a great deal that everyone insisted on asking me how I was feeling.  It made me think more closely about it all and reminded me of exactly what was aching at that moment.”

Merry chuckled softly.  “I shall try to remember not to ask you how you are in the future.”

“I don’t know why you ever did ask me how I was feeling,” Pippin said, lying back down.  “You always know how I am anyway.”

“I suppose I do, don’t I?” Merry agreed, turning over onto his stomach and laying his head on his folded arms.  “Pippin?”

“Yes, Merry?”

“Is it a terribly long list?” Merry asked.  Their heads were close enough together now that he hardly had to utter this out loud.

“You know how I am,” Pippin sighed, the resignation clear in his voice.  “It gets longer every time my mind wonders.”

“Oh,” Merry said.  “Do you think you will still be able to talk to Frodo by the time we get back to the Shire?”

“I hope so,” Pippin said.  “If I am very careful then I might be able to speak to him now and then without doing any harm.”

“Well, you can always talk to me,” Merry said, reaching over and patting Pippin’s shoulder.

“Yes, but more’s the pity that you’ve not ever been invisible because that one is preying on my mind,” Pippin said, seriously.

In the dark, laying several feet away and listening intently with the soft sound of Sam’s muffled snores for background noise, Frodo chuckled quietly to himself and tried to imagine what must be on that list of Pippin’s besides the question of invisibility and drifted into a peaceful slumber while trying to guess.

The End

G.W.           05/05/2005