Author's Note: Thanks to Rorrah for beta-reading!

***

Merry looked up at the sky anxiously. There was going to be a change in the weather, he had no doubt, and not for the better. He looked once more at the message in his hand, summons from the King of Rohan. Eomer’s health was failing, and he wished to see Master Holdwine once again, before the end.

He ought to send a response to the guard of honour waiting by the North Gate, waiting to escort him to Rohan. They didn’t know it yet, but they’d be taking a message back instead of a Meriadoc. He did not want to send a rider out into the gathering storm, however. The Rohirrim would have to wait.

Behind him Estella stirred restlessly on the bed and called his name. He turned from the window and moved quickly to her side, taking up her hand once more and pressing a kiss into the palm. ‘I’m here, beloved,’ he said softly.

 ‘Is it... finished?’ she said, her words blurred, distorted by the unresponsive muscles on one side of her face. She struggled to focus on his face. ‘The Shadow is... defeated?’

 ‘I am safe for another year, beloved,’ Merry said, smiling reassurance and stroking the silvered hair back from her forehead. ‘I don’t know how I’d fight off the Shadow without your help.’

March the fifteenth had come and gone, the anniversary of the Shadow’s attempt to claim him. Strange how it returned every year, even though the Dark Captain had been destroyed so many years ago now. Merry wondered again if Frodo still felt the effect of the Morgul blade, away there in Elvenhome. He shook himself. Of course he didn’t... no evil thing could reach across the Seas to the Undying Lands.

Every year the Shadow returned, to sink its claws into him, to try to drag him down, and every year his friends and family gathered in the Master’s study to fight off the Shadow with love and laughter and song. This year the battle had nearly gone against them, for in the midst of it Estella had faltered, swayed, crumpled to the floor.

Somehow Merry fought off the Shadow at his son’s panicked, Mother! ...finding his way back to his blanketed body, tucked up in the comfortable chair, reaching out with cold, numbed hands for Estella even as they lifted her. They’d carried her from the brightly lit study, to the cosy bedroom down the corridor.

They’d come back for Merry, taking him from chair to bed, to lie beside his beloved. As life and feeling returned and the Shadow retreated he held her close, listening to her laboured breathing. When his strength returned, he moved to a chair by the bed, but he never let go Estella’s hand, until the message arrived and he moved to the window to read the contents.

The young healer had come to examine Estella, her eyes sad with the knowledge she took away. While she was examining the Mistress of Buckland, the summons had come from the King of Rohan. At any other time, Merry would have dropped everything to go to the side of his lord, with Estella’s blessing. At any other time...

There were murmurings in the corridor, and some time later the old healer came, old Robin, who’d retired some years before, though they still called him in on occasion.  ‘If you please, Master Merry,’ the old healer said now, patting Estella’s hand and rising from the bed, nodding towards the doorway. Merry and Estella’s eldest hovered nearby.

 ‘I’ll watch with her, Father,’ their youngest said, settling down by the side of the bed to take her mother’s hand, the one that still responded somewhat to Estella’s will.

Merry kissed his daughter’s cheek and turned to the doorway. ‘What is it, Robin?’ he said, as soon as they were in the corridor. ‘What’s happened to Estella?’

 ‘It was a brain seizure,’ the old healer said. ‘We see these mostly in older hobbits, with varied effects. Mistress Estella’s fit... has left one side of her body unresponsive, though she still can speak after a fashion. That’s a mercy; sometimes these seizures steal away words and wit as well.’

 ‘How long...’ Merry asked, ‘how long will it take for her to recover? What must we do?’

 ‘Master Merry,’ Robin said, laying a gentle hand on the old Traveller’s shoulder. ‘I’m so very sorry.’

 ‘She’s not...’ Merry said, breathing shallowly. ‘Estella!’

 ‘She’s growing weaker, not stronger,’ the old healer said. It was best to get the truth out quickly. ‘She can scarcely swallow, and she’s having difficulty breathing. She won’t last, I’m afraid. Soon, she’ll sleep.’

 ‘No,’ Merry moaned, burying his face in his hands. A great crash and boom was heard outside the Hall as the storm broke overhead. Merry felt comforting arms close around him; he leaned upon a strong shoulder and sobbed out his impending loss, crying the name of his beloved. His anchor. His stronghold against the Shadow.

Spent at last, he lowered his hands from his face, to look into the understanding eyes of his son. No words were needed. The heir to Buckland nodded, turned away. He’d see to the business of the Hall, and then return to bid his mother farewell.

The old healer lingered, holding out a snowy handkerchief as Merry turned back to the room to take up this final vigil. Merry carefully wiped away all traces of tears before returning to his wife’s side.

 ‘Merry,’ she whispered.

 ‘I’m here, my love,’ he said, taking her hand from their daughter’s. He felt Estella’s fingers flutter in his. ‘I won’t leave you again.’

 ‘Go,’ she whispered, and he blinked in confusion.

 ‘My love?’ he whispered.

 ‘Gondor,’ she forced out. She forced her one responsive eye as wide as she could, staring into his face. ‘When I’m gone,’ she said, a breath between each word. ‘Shadow. Don’t let...’

She was expending precious energy in her effort, and he stroked and soothed her hand, smiling into her face. ‘Your least wish is my greatest desire, my love,’ he said.

 ‘Beloved,’ she whispered, her eyelid drooping wearily. She sighed, and managed to say, ‘Hold me.’

Merry stretched himself upon the bedcovers beside her and tenderly took Estella in his arms. He remained there until at last she slept.

While Merry kept vigil by her side, their children held counsel together, and decided to send for the Thain.

***

Pippin laid down the message, staring out the rain-washed windows. Spring had been generous with her showers this year—not so much as to wash away the newly seeded crops, but steady, gentle rains that nurtured the young plants and gave promise of a fine harvest to come. The growing crops were well established now, able to resist the thunderstorms that had rolled over the Shire the past few days.

 ‘What is it, Father?’ Faramir said, putting down his quill.

 ‘The Mistress of Buckland is dying,’ Pippin said quietly.

Faramir rose abruptly, crossing to the elaborately carven desk, taking up the message. ‘Uncle Merry will need you,’ he said. ‘I know you fear he will fall into despair, and let the Shadow take him, without Aunt Estella’s love to bolster him.’ They’d talked of this so many times, what would happen to Merry if he lost his Estella. Faramir fought down the feeling of loss that threatened to overwhelm him. When Estella died, his father would take Merry to Gondor, to be near the healing hands of the King, to keep the Shadow from claiming him at last. Farry had known he’d lose his father eventually; the knowledge had been brought home to him, hard, with his mother’s death the previous year. But eventually had turned into now, and he was not ready.

His father needed him to be strong in time of trouble, a prop and stay in his waning years, as he was fond of saying. Very well. Faramir straightened his shoulders, looking up from the message. He would be strong. ‘You’ll be wanting to depart for Buckland at once, I take it.’ Faramir comforted himself with the small comfort that his father would return to Tookland at least once more, before departing Southwards. This was not the final farewell.

 ‘I must go,’ the Thain agreed.

 ‘I’ll make all the arrangements,’ Faramir said, laying the message upon the desk. He left the Thain’s study to set the first of many things in motion.

Pippin smiled after him. ‘Good lad,’ he said under his breath. ‘I’ll leave the Shire in good hands.’ He would take Merry to Gondor, just as soon as he could persuade that stubborn Brandybuck to go...

***

Merry would not go, however. ‘What?’ he said. ‘Leave before Remembering Day? Not honour Estella properly? You must be mad!’

Remembering Day was months away, a time when hobbits remembered their dead. It marked the last of the fine weather and the beginning of winter’s storms. Travel would be difficult until Spring returned once more... and if they waited until Spring, it would be too late for Merry. Or so Pippin feared. They must be in Gondor, near the healing hands of the King, before the next anniversary.

 ‘You can remember in Gondor as well as in the Shire,’ Pippin said stubbornly.

But Merry would not hear him. Instead he changed the subject, sometimes an effective tactic to take with Pippin. If he could distract his younger cousin, absorb him in another subject, he might be able to escape Pippin’s insistence on travelling to Gondor. Truth be told, he didn’t want to leave the Shire. If the Shadow took him in the Spring, so be it. At least he would lie in the grave by Estella’s side, and they’d be joined once more beyond the Sundering Seas.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘Take a look at this.’

Pippin took the sheet of parchment from his hand.

Merry bowed his head and closed his eyes as Pippin read the summons. He felt anew the strong pull of his duty to his lord, his obligation... but it was overlaid by the weariness of disastrous loss. He felt he might never stir from the study again, save perhaps to lay flowers upon Estella’s grave.

Grief in his tone, Pippin exclaimed, ‘Not Eomer too!’

 ‘We’re all growing older, I’m afraid,’ Merry said sadly. ‘Legolas and Gimli will outlive us all. Frodo’s gone, and Samwise...’

 ‘Samwise is undoubtedly alive and well in the Undying Lands,’ Pippin said. ‘And still catching Frodo up on all the Shire news he’s missed. It’ll take years!’

Merry chuckled, a ghost of the old laugh. ‘Strider and his Queen will live long beyond us as well,’ he said. ‘You and I, our story’s nearly done.’

 ‘Perhaps,’ Pippin said thoughtfully, ‘and perhaps not. I plan to rival the Old Took, you know, and I’m not even an hundred yet!’ He levelled a severe look at his cousin. ‘You might take a page out of his book, yourself.’

 ‘I’m tired, Pippin,’ Merry said, and sighed.

Pippin laid the parchment down upon the desk and tapped it with his finger. ‘What you need is a Quest,’ he said, ‘and here’s one, ready for you. Go to Rohan, and give comfort to your old friend in his last days or months.’

 ‘I sent the escort on back to Rohan, with my deepest regrets,’ Merry said. ‘I did not know how long Estella would linger...’ His voice broke and he covered his face with his hands. Pippin rose from his chair to embrace his older cousin, and they stayed so for many minutes until Merry took out his handkerchief, to wipe his face, to put away his grief once more.

 ‘But now there is nothing to hold you,’ Pippin said, feeling his way delicately. ‘We haven’t needed an escort to ride South, the last few times. The King’s Guardsmen keep the Roads very well indeed.’

 ‘Soon,’ Merry said vaguely.

Pippin recognised the word from long-ago promises of fishing and other adventures. Merry always kept his promises, but when he was preoccupied he sometimes had needed a fair bit of reminding.

He turned his face away to cough, a cough that shook him alarmingly as he pounded a fist against his chest.

  ‘What’s this?’ Merry said, starting up in alarm.

 ‘Ah, just a little tickle,’ Pippin gasped. ‘Makes it hard to catch my breath sometimes.’

 ‘I thought you’d been freed of the old trouble,’ Merry said, for though Pippin had suffered from weakened lungs for a number of years after the Quest, his lungs had been cured by an ent-draught some time back, and he’d continued in remarkable health afterwards.

 ‘I’ll fetch a healer,’ Merry said.

Pippin shook his head and held up a restraining hand. ‘Already seen the healer,’ he wheezed.

Merry waited while his younger cousin got his breath back, and then demanded, ‘And...?’

 ‘Silly old fellow, says I ought to move to a warmer climate. The South Farthing, or even the Sunlands, he says. For some reason he thinks the Winter damp is going to carry me off. Imagine the cheek of the fellow!’

 ‘Then you’re the one to go to the South!’ Merry said.

Pippin shook his head. ‘And leave you here alone?’ he retorted. ‘Not on your life!’ He put a hand flat on his chest and drew a few more careful breaths before relaxing. ‘That’s got it,’ he said, ‘but mercy, I’m weary! I think I’ll take myself off for a nap.’

 ‘You do that,’ Merry said, ever more alarmed at his cousin’s admission that he wanted a nap. This was Pippin, who slept less than any other hobbit of Merry’s acquaintance.

 ‘Well, then,’ Pippin said, rising from his chair. ‘I’ll see you at dinner.’ He walked rather unsteadily out of the Master’s study and down the corridor to the guest wing, where he found Merry’s children clustered and waiting.

 ‘Well?’ they asked, singularly and together.

 ‘I’ve just about got him convinced to go to Rohan, and it’s just a step beyond to Gondor,’ Pippin said with a wink. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me...’ They parted to let him go, and he entered his room and stretched out on the bed. The coughing fit had not been entirely feigned, and it had taken more out of him than he wanted to admit.

***

Not long after, Thain Peregrin stood to his feet after a festive breakfast, his glance sweeping the convocation of Tooks that he’d called together. His eyes though faded with age were as sharp as ever, and the hobbits’ buzz of speculation quieted, their attention riveted on him.

 ‘I have called you together for a purpose,’ Pippin said. He smiled faintly as his words brought back an echo of the past, and then went on. ‘To hear a story, to begin with...’

The Tooks had heard this story many times, for he’d made sure of it, though they’d never heard the whole story straight through before, long as it was. The sun rose in the sky outside the Great Smials as he spoke of the making of the great Rings, the Nine, the Seven, the Three... and the Ruling Ring, and all that came after.

Servants quietly cleared away breakfast and laid elevenses, and did the same for nooning and tea as the story went on, and yet the old Thain’s voice never faltered nor faded in the telling. Little hobbits slept upon their mothers’ breasts, but their older brothers and sisters listened, wide-eyed, as the Ring came at last to the Shire, to rest for a time, until it changed hands once more.

The Thain stopped speaking and looked about the room again. ‘No one here remembers the Party, I think,’ he said quietly. In the faces before him he saw ghosts of old friends and relatives, here the eyes of Reginard, there Ferdibrand’s nose, next to it Mardibold’s chin, and hair the colour of Pearl’s. ‘We must not forget...’ His voice trailed off, but before the younger hobbits could begin to stir restlessly, he began again.

He spoke of a young hobbit, “taller and fairer than most”, who came of age that day, and into his inheritance—which included a small golden Ring. He spoke of the desperate decision that hobbit made when the truth of the Ring was revealed, and the journey that followed. He did not gloss over his own part in the adventure, but spoke matter-of-factly, not as a hero returned out of fire and death but as one who has done what needed to be done.

 ‘Not many of you were alive during the Troubles,’ the Thain concluded, ‘and scarcely any remain who saw the waters fouled and the trees cut down. The Shire is as green and lovely as she ever was, thanks in great part to Samwise Gamgee and his descendants. It would be easy to forget that any such troubles ever happened.’

He stopped talking a moment to look from one face to another, and somehow each of the Tooks assembled there thought he was directly addressed by the next words of the Thain.

 ‘Heed my words: These great and terrible deeds must never be forgot! So long as you cherish what was won for you, at great cost, Tookland will stand and the Shire will be green and growing, forever, perhaps. But if you forget...’

The assembled Tooks and Tooklanders held their combined breath as the Thain paused, and then continued. ‘If these things be forgot, then Tookland will fall and the Shire will fade to nothing, and hobbits will be little more than memory in the hearts of others who will walk the deserted lands.’

Absolute silence reigned in the great room as the Thain bowed his head in sorrow at painting such a picture. He raised his head once more to say, ‘Mark my words.’ The assembled hobbits stared; some nodded, others shuffled their feet, but all had the determined look of accord.

The Thain smiled then, cleared his throat, took a sip from the glass at his place, and said, ‘But I didn’t just call you together for a story! There are more deeds yet to be done!’ He turned to his eldest son, sitting by his side, and said, ‘Faramir, arise!’

Turning back to the Tooks, he said, ‘I called you together for a purpose, as I said. I am leaving you this day.’ There were gasps, though some nodded wisely; the Talk had said as much, over the last few days. ‘I ask you to confirm the succession: the office of Thain passes now to Faramir Took, my son and heir.’

He spoke the ritual words, received the proper response from the Tooks, administered the oath of office, and slipped the ring, seal and signet of the Thain, from his finger, pushing it onto Faramir’s.

 ‘Looks well,’ he said under his breath, smiling in spite of the tears in his eyes. What a burden to lay upon his son’s shoulders, but Faramir had been trained to the task, nearly from his birth. ‘Be well,’ he said softly.

 ‘And you,’ Faramir said. They embraced, and then Pippin, no longer Thain Peregrin, turned to go. There was a scraping of chairs behind him, and had he looked back he’d have seen the entire room, Tooks at the tables and Tooklanders and servants who stood against the walls, bowing low as he left them.

He’d said his goodbyes to his children and grands the evening before, and given hugs all round ere the breakfast began, insisting on slipping away alone after the convocation after the manner of Frodo and Bilbo before him, but he didn’t leave Tuckborough then and there. No, he went instead to the burial ground, to visit a number of Tooks he’d known and loved, to stand and remember once more.

Before Reginard’s marker, he said, ‘Watch over Tookland for me, cousin. Your son will make Faramir a fine chancellor, and the steward you trained up to take your place was the best choice you ever made in a long life of sound choices.’

Before Ferdibrand and Pimpernel he stopped to say, ‘Old friend, I know I said I’d go the day you did. Forgive me for lingering awhile; it is hard to lay such a burden on one’s son. I go now, on that last journey we spoke of.’

He swallowed, and added, ‘Yes, Nell, I’m “off again”, as you so often jested. I’ll leave you to sleep in Ferdi’s arms, and see you on the Other Side someday. Soon, perhaps.’ He fought off a coughing fit and moved to his parents’ grave.

 ‘Mother,’ he said, ‘I’m going again, but at least this time I won’t break your heart by leaving. And Da...’ He was silent a long time. ‘I tried to be the son you always wanted, to be the Thain you expected me to be, to be a fine father to my own sons. I’ve made my share of mistakes, and I understand you better than I did, all those years ago. Faramir is so much like you! D’y’know, when he wants to get away and think, he goes out to the fields and walks behind a plough? How he loves the land! I wish you’d been able to pry yourself away from that great burden of a desk to do the same. Things might have been different. But all we can do is our best. You did your best, and so did I, and so shall Faramir who follows us.’ He paused, and whispered, ‘I love you, Mum and Da.’

He spoke to each of his other sisters in turn, and their husbands, and stopped at last at the resting place of his beloved Diamond. Tears spilled over, and he stood long in silence with his head bowed, but his heart was full. ‘You understand, my dear,’ he said at last. ‘I have to do this thing for Merry’s sake. I hate to leave you, my love, but then, we talked of this before...’ He swallowed hard and whispered, ‘I’ll be seeing you anon, heart of my heart.’

Blinking, he put his cap back on his head, turned and walked to where his hobbled pony grazed, mounted, and rode away from the Great Smials, never to return.

***

The last two Travellers rode out the Buckland Gate and paused to look across the foggy Brandywine, to the green and mist-shrouded Shire beyond. ‘I understand Frodo a bit better, I think,’ Pippin said. ‘I even found myself saying the other day, Shall I ever look down into that valley again, I wonder?’

Merry laughed, though it was more of a choke. ‘You don’t have to go, like he did,’ he said. ‘You can always change your mind, take back your ring, and settle down in Tuckborough for the rest of your days.’ He was half-reconsidering his urgency to take Pippin to Gondor for the sake of his breathing; his cousin had seemed so well in the past few days.

Pippin gave a mock shudder. ‘The ring has passed on,’ he said. ‘It is beyond me now.’ He couldn’t trust Merry to go on to Gondor after stopping in Rohan. The silly Brandybuck would likely return to the Shire just in time for the Shadow’s attack.

Still, Pippin’s shoulders slumped as he turned from his beloved Shire, and he held his handkerchief to his mouth as another coughing fit wracked him. Merry steadied him until he nodded, raised his head, and set his shoulders.

 ‘Onward,’ Merry said, pointing his pony’s head to the Road.

 ‘Ever onward,’ Pippin agreed, wiping his mouth and putting his handkerchief away. ‘Are you coming, Merry?’

As ever, Merry answered, ‘I’m right behind you, Pippin!’

Ever onward.