4. In His Dream

In his dream, Merry sees Pippin standing on the walls of Minas Tirith, and his joy is so great that he does not ask himself how that could be. Pippin turns to look at him and smiles, and Merry runs to him and takes his hand. "Pippin, how wonderful to see you!"

Pippin only smiles again, rather sadly this time, and a shadow passes over his face. He looks down at their clasped hands, and Merry sees that his sword belt is empty. "Merry, dear old Merry. I've thought of you a great deal, since I left you here. Through all the marching and riding, I've wondered what you were doing, and how you were faring, and I missed you. I wished you were with me, but now I'm glad you were not. Mordor is a terrible place, so grey and dreary, and the ground is nothing but sour earth and hard stone. No birdsong, or sunlight, or hint of green." Pippin lifts his head, his gaze weary and old. "That's all I wanted: A bit of sunlight, and the feel of grass under my feet, and to see you again."

Merry realizes that Pippin's fingers are cold, and that in itself is wrong-Pippin's hands were always warm, unless he had been frolicking in the snow without his mitts, or was very ill. His mouth feels parched. "Pippin, don't talk like this."

"Ah, I'm frightening you," Pippin says sadly. He has the repentant look of someone who comes bearing bad news. "And I don't mean to, but there's no help for it. You must promise me that you will be very brave, Merry, in the days to come."

"I don't know what you're trying to say." But Merry is afraid he does know, and an awful, black grief is rising up inside him.

"Dear, dear Merry," Pippin says, low and sad, and his eyes are filled with a terrible, understanding sort of pity that makes Merry shiver. Holding both of Merry's hands, he leans forward and presses his cool lips to Merry's warm brow, and they burn his skin like a brand.

It is a kiss of farewell. Merry knows it in his heart, and he wants to cry out, but he can only whisper, "Don't go, Pippin. Don't go, don't..." And Pippin's hands are becoming lighter and paler, slipping from his grasp like melting snow. "Come back, Pippin!"

Merry was thrashing in his bed, bound up in the blankets. He felt a firm hand press him down, and a kind, womanly voice made soothing sounds. "Merry, Merry, it's all right. It's just a dream."

He gasped and opened his eyes, and Eowyn was bending over him. Her arm was still bound in a sling, and in the light of the lamp she had brought, there were tight lines of weariness and pain around her mouth. She heard his cries and left her own sickbed in the Houses of Healing to come to him. Merry instantly felt ashamed of himself: Crying out in his sleep like a child! "I'm so sorry, my Lady. It, it was just a nightmare. I'm sorry it woke you."

"I was already awake." Eowyn put her hand on his forehead. "You feel warm. You have a little fever, I think."

"It's just a bit close in here," Merry said. "My Lady, please, I'm fine and you're hardly well, please go back to your bed, and don't worry yourself about me." And he was blushing as he tried to disentangle himself from the bedclothes, because after all the days of riding toward death together, after all the quiet words of swords and fate, he was at last seeing Eowyn not as a fellow-soldier but as a young woman. Her hair was unbound over her shoulders like a bright veil, and he could see her bare, white feet peeking out from under the hem of her wrap. A proper gentlehobbit did not appear before a well-bred Lady in nothing but his nightshirt. But Eowyn, without any of the embarrassment a well-bred Lady should show, casually yanked the blanket off and shook it out over him, tucking it around him as if she were his mother.

"Thank you," Merry muttered. "You are very kind."

"And you are very courteous," Eowyn said, with the hint of a smile, and the way she said it sounded so similar to Pippin's usual brand of cheekiness that it gave Merry a start. "Even while in your nightshirt."

Merry couldn't help but grin, though his ears were flaming red. "Thank you again."

"You are very welcome." She turned to go, but her face went pale and she swayed on her feet. "May I sit down for a moment?"

Merry was alarmed. "Gracious! I think you should lie down-go ahead, I don't need much room." It wasn't exactly proper for a well bred Lady to recline on a young hobbit's bed in the middle of the night either, but oh, propriety be hanged for once. Better for her to lie down than to collapse in a heap on the floor. But somewhere in the back of his thoughts he could hear Pippin laughing fit to burst: Hah! Try explaining this to the maids of the House in the morning.

"You keep a civil tongue in your head, Peregrin Took," Merry whispered. Eowyn frowned and looked at him strangely. Merry laughed and fell heavily back onto his pillow. "You know, perhaps I am a bit fevered."

"Do rest yourself," Eowyn said. "It seems neither of us are as well as we might pretend to be."

Merry was glad to do as ordered. The coarse pillow felt delightfully cool against his flushed face. Eowyn seemed relaxed and breathed deeply and evenly beside him. He looked at her profile in the dim lamplight and decided that she was really quite attractive after all for one of the Big Folk, though her eyes were always too sad, and she was, of course, ridiculously tall and not as pleasingly pink and plump as a proper hobbit-lass would be.

She had closed her eyes and gone quiet for so long that Merry supposed she had fallen asleep, but then she spoke. "What did you dream of, Merry?"

"It was nothing," Merry lied quickly. He wasn't sure he wanted to examine the contents of his nightmare too closely, as if drawing it out into the light would be tempting fate. "I scarcely remember it now."

"But I heard you call out the name of your kinsman. Was it very bad?"

Merry could admit to that much. "Yes," he said thickly, embarrassed to feel himself close to tears, grown hobbit and soldier of the Mark that he was. "It was terrible."

"Poor Merry!" Eowyn said. "It is a bitter thing to be always left behind." Her voice dropped to a whisper, and her gaze went sad and far away. "He is always in my thoughts, and I, too, am troubled by unhappy dreams."

Merry knew it wasn't just Eomer she was speaking of. He had seen how she looked at Aragorn. She had yearned toward him, as a prisoner in a dark cell might yearn toward the hidden sun that he cannot see, but that he feels and longs for in his heart. Merry ached with pity, and wished very much that he could tell Eowyn of some wonderful Shire-cure for unrequited affection, but he had no cure to give. Hobbit-hearts were as easily broken as those of Men, but they were not prone to melancholy. Perhaps if she spoke to the Warden of the House he could help her somehow, give her some meaningful work to do. Perhaps busy hands could help heal a wounded heart.

"Eowyn?" Merry said quietly, but now she truly was asleep. He gave her a poke with one finger, (gently! She was a Lady, after all, not a hobbit cousin to be cheerfully mauled into wakefullness.) She murmured and rolled over to face him, tucking her folded hands under her pale cheek, but she did not wake. Merry sighed. "My dear Eowyn, this lying abed is no good for either of us. I'm sure there is some sort of duty I should take up while we wait for-" (Here Merry shivered, feeling again the weight of dream-Pippin's sorrowful gaze, the press of his familiar and beloved hand, so terribly cold.) "-For whatever is coming, even if I must perform my tasks with only one good arm. And you should do the same." He whispered in her ear. "I think you should talk with the Warden in the morning. Don't you think that's a good idea, Eowyn?"

Eowyn's eyes were closed, but she nodded, and a little smile touched the corners of her mouth, as if she heard some other well-loved voice speaking to her out of the past. Merry was glad to see her smile, even if only in her dreams, and he pressed a gentle kiss to her white forehead. Then he sat up, pushed aside the blanket and slid out of bed.

There was a chair against the wall under the window, and Merry climbed up on the seat, kneeling there with his elbows on the deep stone windowsill. Down below the city lay in shadow, dark as a pool of ink, and the night breeze brought to him the scent of cold stone, damp earth, and the bitter reek of smoke. But the wind was still out of the west, and the gloom of Mordor had thinned for a time. If he strained his eyes, Merry fancied that he could just make out a thin slice of new moon, no bigger than a fingernail paring, and the faintest twinkle of half-hidden stars. He wondered how far Pippin's company had got in the time since they had marched away, and hoped with all of his heart that Pippin still slept safely and warmly under those stars, without worry or fear, and that all of his dreams were kindly dreams of green hills, and home, and peace.

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The end

(But more ficlets on the way.)