Chapter 11

“Come along, Pippin, let’s see what’s left of our stores. We’ll need to leave enough food for luncheon and tea at least,” Frodo said once they finished their morning tea. He pulled Pippin up and walked with him to the tent.

“What about second breakfast?” Pippin asked. “And elevenses? Ever since we left Bag End, we haven’t been eating properly at all. I’ve missed eight meals already.”

“You’re hardly wasting away, Pippin, so stop complaining,” Frodo said and lifted the tent flap to allow Pippin inside.

Pippin entered, grumbling softly under his breath. He most certainly was wasting away and at this rate, he would likely die of starvation, the first hobbit ever in history to do so. He could only hope that Merry and Sam came back quickly. They couldn’t start breakfast without a fire.

Frodo chose that moment to turn back to Merry and Sam, who were preparing to leave to fetch the wood and juniper berries. “I don’t think there’s much wood left nearby,” he called to Merry, “so we won’t expect you back anytime soon.”

Pippin gaped at Frodo indignantly as his older cousin entered the tent. “Not expect them back anytime soon?” he complained.

“Merry’s going to talk to Sam again, so stop your whining, Peregrin Took. There are more important things than your stomach,” Frodo said tersely and began rummaging through the packs. There was a little bit of bread left, a block of cheese, some fruit and berries they had been picking along the way, the onion Merry had picked yesterday. “Maybe we could go look for some more eggs.”

“Maybe,” Pippin grudgingly agreed, then perked up. “Maybe you could go look and I’ll keep an eye on camp.”

“Very well,” Frodo agreed, “but if I notice any food missing upon my return, I will tell Sam.”

Pippin gawked up at him, clearly horrified at the thought. “How did you know? Sam told you? But he promised! You would tell him? But I’m your cousin; we’re practically brothers,” he sputtered, betrayal evident in his voice.

“Of course he didn’t, and yes I would,” Frodo assured smoothly. “I know an advantage when I see one.”

“I’ll behave then,” Pippin mumbled, his shoulders slumped with disappointment, his stomach growling in protest and misery.

So far on this trip, he has been starved, lost, bitten, haunted by a whistling ghost and starved some more. His back was sore from sleeping on the ground, his shoulders were sore from carrying the pack, he was dirty and his clothes were filthy from all the walking, and running into that creek didn’t help matters.

Why hadn’t he just insisted they go to Overhill and visit Folco instead? He would be there with his aunt and uncle this time of year, and doing his best to learn a useful skill other than breaking everything in sight. If Pippin had begged enough and pouted a bit, Merry would have caved. Pippin sighed and started helping Frodo split up the food. “I should have pouted,” he muttered to himself.

Frodo could only smirk at this and he stood up again, hiding his sigh with his upward movement. He really was too soft sometimes.

“Where are you going?” Pippin asked.

“To look for eggs,” Frodo said. “Come on, we’ll look for more food along the way and you can eat whatever you find.”

Pippin jumped up at this and was out the tent before Frodo could even blink. “Hurry up!” Pippin called impatiently by the edge of their campsite and waited until Frodo caught up with him before continuing forward.  

Merry and Sam made their way through the woods. Neither of them spoke.

Sam was simply waiting for the inevitable. It had been obvious to him upon awaking that Mr. Frodo and Mr. Merry had been speaking urgently with each other. When Mr. Frodo suggested they go look for the wood while he and Master Pippin, of all hobbits, sorted out the food, Sam had guessed easily enough what his master and Mr. Merry had been speaking about.

Sam knew his master wanted him and Mr. Merry to reconcile, but nothing had changed. He had been thinking hard since his conversations with Mr. Merry and Mr. Frodo yesterday, and the truth was, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be friends with Mr. Merry again. Even if he did, he just didn’t see any way that it could be possible. As he had told Mr. Frodo, it was one thing for him to be friends with his master. That at least could be accepted if not understood. He spent so much time at Bag End after all, and no one really thought twice if the Bagginses of the Hill decided to once again defy convention.

Plus, they did have something in common. His Gaffer and Mr. Bilbo had seen immediately that encouraging him and Mr. Frodo to spend time together was good for them both. Sam was able to benefit from Frodo’s knowledge of how painful and confusing losing a parent was, especially at such a young age. Frodo likewise benefited from helping Sam when he needed it and simply enjoying his sunny disposition the rest of the time.

Sam tried to find such an exception for Mr. Merry and he simply could not. With no common ground between them, there was no practical reason for them to be friends. Besides which, he knew how Mr. Merry could get with his friends, even with Mr. Frodo at times. While Sam didn’t doubt that Mr. Merry would take all care of Mr. Frodo if need be, he also didn’t doubt his master’s ability to handle his cousin when he got a bit mischievous. Mr. Frodo could hold his own, but Sam could not.

Master Pippin was easy to figure. The lad was completely open and he was forever playful. He told you exactly what was on his mind, and he never had an agenda beyond having fun, playing about and eating. Mr. Merry however has always been a bit of a mystery. There was always something going on behind his calculating eyes and Sam would be considered smart if he could ever guess what it was. Only he could never guess. Mr. Merry was forever surprising him, whether he meant to or not, and Sam did not much like surprises.

So it was with a heavy heart that Sam led the way to the juniper bushes. He kept a discreet eye on Mr. Merry as they walked. Mr. Merry had been unusually quiet and contemplative all morning, and Sam wondered at the change. Whatever his master told Mr. Merry, it seemed to have the Brandybuck stumped.

Merry walked next to Sam, unaware of the gardener’s subtle regard. He was still reflecting deeply on everything Frodo had told him, just as he had been all through tea. He wished he had more time to think, but Frodo clearly felt it was time to act. He only hoped that he didn’t say the wrong thing. He knew now what he needed to say; he was going to have to be painfully honest with himself and he knew the only way to do that was to speak before he could talk himself out of it. That Frodo was expecting him to speak with Sam helped somewhat. He didn’t want to return to camp and tell Frodo he had chickened out.

They reached the juniper bushes shortly and made quick work of picking more of the succulent berries. Or at least, Sam did. Merry’s arms were still sore and the wasp bites were burning worse than the night before. Each movement of his arms pulled the skin painfully. It didn’t help that his was trembling with nervousness or that his hands were sweating profusely. Merry took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down, to little avail.

“Mr. Merry? Are you all right, sir?” Sam asked at last, noticing Merry’s winces and the paleness of his face. Maybe Mr. Merry’s silence had more to do with sickness associated to the wasp bites than to anything else. “Are you feeling ill from those stings, sir? Queasy, dizzy, short of breath?”

Merry shrugged. “I feel fine. I’m just wondering why I had to be stung so many times,” he said, more to fill the silence and give him a bit more time to think. “Not that I wanted anyone else to get stung, but why did they like me so much?”

“Yellow,” Sam answered. He plucked a few last berries and dropped them into the pouch he had brought, then pulled the drawstring closed.

“Yellow?” Merry asked.

“Your breeches,” Sam explained. “See, sir, flowers are the colors they are so as to attract the bees and birds and such to them, and most of the flowers in here are yellow or have yellow in them.”

“Of course,” Merry said. “So the next time I’m being chased by a swarm of wasps or bees or whatever, I should just chuck my breeches.”

“Or just wear a plainer color of breeches,” Sam suggested more practically. He started to head back to camp and Merry knew it was now or never.

“Sam wait,” he said before he could lose his nerve. “We need to talk, if you don’t mind.”

Sam stopped and faced Merry cautiously. So this was it? Sam shuffled his feet awkwardly and crossed his arms in front of him.

“Sam,” Merry said again and wiped his palms dry on his breeches. He cleared his throat uncertainly. “I really don’t know where to start. There’s so much to say.”

“You don’t need to be saying aught, Mr. Merry,” Sam said, not really wishing to have this conversation again. “Let’s just get back to camp, if you don’t mind.”

“But I do need to say this,” Merry insisted solemnly. “I need to say it now or I never will. All I ask of you is that you listen. You don’t need to do anything else; you don’t even need to say anything. Will you listen? Please?”

Sam hesitated but eventually gave in to Merry’s beseeching expression. He sat upon the ground and Merry followed suit.

“Let’s see,” Merry began slowly as he fidgeted nervously with the leaves upon the ground and the small tufts of grass growing here and there. “I could start at the beginning, or I could start at the obvious place, or I could start with the truth. The truth is the hardest, but if there’s one thing my parents have managed to teach me it’s that the hardest path is usually the right one. So I’ll start with the truth.”

He hesitated here. What he was about to say he had never said to anyone before. He had never acknowledged this long-ago feeling, buried so deeply he had all but forgotten it until this morning, when Frodo’s careful words unearthed it so painfully. He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to steady his nerves, then looked Sam straight in the eyes. Sam waited patiently, guarded but curious.

Merry breathed deeply and let the air out slowly, attempting one last time to steady his hammering heart. All he could do now was barrel ahead, so he did. “I was jealous of you,” he forced the words out.

Sam clearly didn’t believe this. His expression instantly turned sour, the doubt evident in his eyes. “Please, Mr. Merry, don’t make fun.”

“I’m not. I wouldn’t,” Merry insisted hurriedly, desperate to make Sam understand once and for all. “I was jealous of you. It was different when Frodo would come back from his visits and tell me everything he had done and everyone he had spent time with, because he was home again when he would tell me. I could hear his voice and see the joy in his eyes. I could curl up in his lap and he would spend the whole afternoon with me alone. Back then, you were just a name and nothing more, just one of the many names he would mention while telling his stories, and you meant nothing to me.

“Then Frodo moved to Bag End. I tried to understand that it was what he needed. I told myself constantly that it was the only way he could be happy, that Buckland held too many painful reminders of his parents. But it felt like he abandoned me. I knew it wasn’t true, but I couldn’t stop the feeling. I kept wondering if I had just done something different, been better or funnier, just been more of whatever it was that he needed, then he would have stayed. I knew it was silly to feel that way. I knew his decision to leave had nothing to do with me, but I couldn’t help it.

“So when I started getting his letters, it was with a bitter heart that I listened to my mother read them. Then I would take the letters back to my room and stare at them, trying to read them for myself. He sounded so happy, even in his writing; you could see it. It leapt off the page with every curve and every line he wrote. I noticed that he mentioned you more than anyone else, next to Bilbo of course. His letters were full of things you had done, things you had said, things you had planted in the garden, things you had learned. You were no longer just a name. You were my replacement.”

Here Merry paused and drew another steadying breath. The silence that hung between them was heavy and suffocating in the sweltering heat, and the birds singing in the trees sounded miles away, muted and hollow.

Sam opened his mouth to raise a protest at this last statement, but Merry shook his head. He would lose his resolve if he was interrupted now. There were so many memories crowding his mind, he found it difficult to remember what he was going to say next. He was grateful for Sam’s silence, for it helped him to concentrate and find his place.

“You were my replacement,” Merry repeated at length, “and he didn’t need me anymore. It was a horrible feeling, to doubt my place in his life, to know that he wouldn’t be coming back. And he didn’t come back. That whole first year, he never left Bag End. I see now that he was afraid to leave. He thought that if he left it for even a day, he would wake up to find it all a dream, and he couldn’t bear that thought. The fear of it stole his breath away, like missing him stole mine. I know now that Bilbo was the reason he left, that being adopted, belonging to someone again, meant more to him than anything. I know now that he latched onto you because he saw himself in you, how he used to be. He couldn’t bear to see another child without a mother and you healed him in a way no one else could because of it.

“I know that now, but during that first year without him, I just felt as though I meant nothing to him. That was the first Harvest without him, the first Yule, the first spring thaw, the first sowing of the fields. He didn’t even come to my birthday. My parents arranged for us to visit him instead, and I know they were baffled at my lack of enthusiasm, but I didn’t want to come all this way just to be ignored, to watch him spend all his time with everyone other than me.

“Of course, that isn’t what happened. He was so eager to see us that he waited down by the bridge to meet the carriage and he hugged me nearly all the way up the Hill. I was so relieved to find that he missed me as much as I missed him. He always said he missed me in his letters but with everything else he would say, I didn’t see how. Yet knowing that he did truly miss me wasn’t quite enough to eradicate the feelings that had been building up over the last several months. So when I met you, all I could see at first was the lad who got to spend all day, every day, with my Frodo, and I hated you for it.

“I’m sure you sensed it. How could you not? But you were kind to me anyway and within just a couple of hours, you had won me over completely. I was still jealous of you when we left, but it was no longer hostile, because try as I might, I found it impossible to hate you. You were just so nice. Even so, you would still get to see him everyday, while I had to contend myself with waiting for his letters, and I envied you for it. His letters were easier to read after that though, and I found I was just as eager for news of you as I was of him because you were now my friend also.

“And then you weren’t.

“The only explanation I can give for the fire is that some tiny little seed of that initial doubt and jealousy still lived inside me somewhere, waiting for a chance to take root. Frodo was too busy to spend much time with me. You were too busy, what with your father quizzing you on the gardens from sun up to sun down. And I was far too stupid. It only took me five minutes to sabotage our friendship, and thirteen years to figure out why. I’ve wasted so much time.”

Merry paused again, and the silence now was expectant and understanding. Sam’s face was blank of any expression, but he was watching Merry closely, listening to him intently. He waited patiently for Merry to continue.

“So why the sudden change? Everyone keeps asking that, and I suppose they have cause to do so. Why do I want to be friends again, all of a sudden?” Merry went on. “It’s true that I never wanted to stop being friends. It’s true also that I didn’t know how to fix what I had done all those years ago. I still don’t know how really. And everything else I’ve told you already is true also. But the real truth is that Frodo disappeared last year.

“When we came to visit him, and he hadn’t returned home from his walking trip to Southfarthing yet, you were so worried. We all were. He had never been late to return home before and it had been raining. We spent that whole week trying to find some clue of what happened to him, and it was as though all those years of distance between us melted away. I had become so accustomed to the distance, I had forgotten how much I missed being your friend. I suddenly realized how silly it was that the three people in all the Shire who love Frodo the most couldn’t speak plainly to each other. We should be able to, don’t you see? For there will come a day when Frodo will try to leave us and how could we hope to prevent it if we’re too afraid to even look at each other?

“I know this all comes too late. I know the damage is irreparable and there is no reason why you should ever trust me again, but I want to apologize one last time for being such a poor friend to you and ask if there is any way you can forgive me. I’ll understand if you say no. I’ll understand if you need time, whether it takes you five minutes or another thirteen years. I will do my best to be patient. But know this: I will be your friend. No matter what you decide, I will respect your wishes, even if it’s that you wish me to leave you alone. You don’t need to answer me now. Take as much time as you need to think on it.”

“I don’t need to think on it, Mr. Merry,” Sam said, his expression still blank, and Merry felt his heart drop. “Just answer me one question, sir, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course,” Merry said weakly, wondering what else Sam might want him to confess. He didn’t think he could handle any more revelations just now, and he honestly couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Sam played with the drawstring on his pouch and peeked up at Merry. “What exactly did you pour on the wood to make it light up so?” he asked, and there was a glint of humor in his eyes and a grin tugged on the corners of his mouth.

Merry saw this and sighed with relief. “Fortified wine,” he answered and could only shrug at Sam’s shocked expression. “I thought it would work the same as the ale. Of course, I’ve since learned that they water down the ale before pouring it on the wood.”

“Ah. Well, seeing as you didn’t know that afore hand, I suppose I can forgive you this one time,” Sam said, unable to give voice to any of the other thoughts crowding his head just then.

He had never thought in all his life that anyone could ever be jealous of him, for any reason, least of all one of the gentry. He didn’t doubt Mr. Merry’s sincerity though, and as long as he had an excuse to give his Gaffer, there would be no protests raised. For Merry had unknowingly answered his most troubling question and why Sam didn’t see it before was beyond him. They did have something in common, and that was their love for Frodo, and their desire to see that he was always safe and content.

Merry felt a tremendous weight lifted from his shoulders and he breathed deeply and easily for the first time since sitting down. “Thank you, Sam,” he said, serious again. “I know it will take time for you trust me again as you once did. There’s no rush, and if it will help at all, I promise you now: no more jokes, no more pranks. On you anyway. I can’t promise I won’t do anything to Frodo if an opportunity should present itself,” he finished with a grin, and while Sam cocked his eyebrow at this, the gardener also smiled playfully.

“You just best leave me out of that,” Sam said, then stood up. “No rush then. Come on now, Mr. Merry. Let’s get back to camp afore Master Pippin forgets himself and eats the rest of the food.”

Merry stood and brushed the dirt off his pants. As much as he had enjoyed the last couple of days, and as glad as he was to have this time to start patching things up with Sam, he couldn’t wait to get back to Bag End. He was dirty, sore, in pain, tired and ready for a good, long, hot bath. And speaking of Pippin and food… “Sam, tell me something.”

“Yes, Mr. Merry?”

Merry nearly asked, but he bit the question back. Pippin was right; Sam didn’t have to tell him how he kept Pippin’s appetite in check, and asking him now would be no way to begin rebuilding their friendship. Only he had to say something now. “How long do you think these wasp stings will continue to, well, sting?”

Sam grinned and stooped down to pick up some branches. “If you’re lucky, sir, only a week.”

“A week? Well, here’s hoping to luck then,” Merry said and picked up a few branches of his own.
 
 
 

To be continued…