A/N: So, I'm back again. Finally. Thanks so much to everyone who has reviewed so far! You guys are awesome!!

Disclaimer: I don't own Pippin, Sam's children, or any of Pippin's story.

The children took some cakes, grudgingly, from Uncle Pippin and then sat back down angrily. Pippin himself took his time getting his own cake. He sat down leisurely in the chair and lazily chewed. It was enough to make the children explode with anticipation.

"Uncle Pippin!" Merry finally shouted, looking rather cross. "Stop eating and tell a story!" Pippin's eyebrows raised but he finished eating all four of his cakes much quicker.

"No need to shout," he grumbled.

"Just read the story," Elanor demanded, exasperated and tired of her Uncle's antics. Pippin just threw his hands up in the air but continued on with the story.

"So, while all this happened Merry (your Uncle Merry) and I noticed something was odd about Frodo. Samwise (your father) noticed it too. Frodo was very withdrawn and very quiet. He seemed to always be tired and took to carrying that ring around on his neck all the time."

"Wasn't he supposed to hide it?" Rose squeaked, eyes widening. "He broke the rules!" Pippin nodded in agreement.

"He broke the big rule. That he did. Very good Rose!" Rose just beamed, glad that she had proven something to an adult. "So, what we did was we wrote a song for him that we were going to perform at a pub when we were all out together. Because cousins and a gardener always go out together."

"What was the song?" Frodo wondered. Pippin smiled and got to his feet.

"Maybe you've heard it," Pippin hinted and cleared his throat. And then he began to sing merrily in his high and clear voice, dancing around the chair with high spirit.

"Oh you can search far and wide,

You can drink the whole town dry!

You'll never find a beer so brown-

But you'll never find a beer so brown-

As the one we're drinking in our town!

You can kick your fancy ales!

You can drink 'em by the flagon!

But the only brew for the brave and true…

Comes from the Green Dragon!"

The children laughed and giggled and demanded that Pippin sing it again. So, he did though with a little less spring in his step. He wasn't as young as he used to be you know. But the children helped him by laughing and dancing and singing along (at least, they sang along with the words that they knew). Before Pippin knew it, they were having a full out dance party!

But little bodies have little energy.

"That's a good song!" Merry declared, flopping onto his backside after he had danced himself into an oblivion. "Did you really write it for Frodo?" Pippin flopped down next to the little hobbit while the other children followed their lead.

"You bet," Pippin said, nodding his head for emphasis. "Poor old Frodo was so down in the dumps, we figured he could use a laugh." Pippin grinned. "And, there was a bit of a competition going on between us younger hobbits. The ones who wrote the best drinking song got two free rounds of ale."

"What's ale?" Rose wondered innocently. Pippin frowned.

"Something that you don't need right now," he lectured, wagging a finger. "Don't be so eager."

"So what happened next?" Frodo prodded, encouraged by Elanor.

"Well, Merry and I began to dance on the table and sing our song. And sure enough, Frodo lit right up and laughed with us. But apparently, something drastic happened that night when he returned to Bag End. I could never tell you what exactly happened but I can tell you that Gandalf had sent him and Sam on a dangerous, mysterious quest." Pippin was suddenly indignant. "And they were going to leave us behind!"

"Well…" Elanor began but then stopped short. Pippin, however, was curious.

"Well, what?" he asked. "What was it you were going to say?"

Elanor bit her lip before finishing her sentence. "What could you have done?"

Pippin was very tempted to ruin the end of the story for the children just to prove that he was useful. Luckily, the cakes had appeased his temper and he was full on patience.

"Well, without us, who would have gotten Frodo and Sam good mushrooms?" Pippin replied, unable to hide the snap in his voice.

"So, when we heard the Old Took talking about how he saw two hobbits leaving the borders of Hobbiton the next morning we were naturally very, very surprised and concerned. Which is why we went straight to Bag End to see if Frodo or Sam was there. They weren't."

"What did you do?" Merry asked.

"We decided to try and cut through country to catch up with them. The Old Took said that it looked like they were headed toward the fields so that's where we tried to go." Pippin grinned. "Luckily, Samwise was so slow that it didn't take long."

"Daddy said something about how you had food with you," Frodo said suspiciously. "Did you bring that from home?" Pippin paused, unsure of how to answer.

"W-well," he stuttered. "We found it. All of it."

"You stole it?" Rose asked shrilly, her eyes bulging again.

"No, no… we found it," Pippin insisted stubbornly. "On an abandoned farm."

"Were they happy to see you?" Elanor asked.

"Of course!" Pippin paused. "Well, you know, Frodo seemed a little annoyed and was hiding something from us and Sam kept muttering about how we ruined the trip. But otherwise, they seemed in a jolly good mood."

"Daddy said that you two made him and Mr. Frodo fall off a cliff," Frodo added stubbornly.

"Actually, that was your Daddy's fault. You see, we all would have made it if he had been paying attention when he was running and hadn't run into us," Pippin replied good-naturedly. "But who's keeping score?"

"Well, after we had ourselves all gathered and we had stuffed our pockets full of mushrooms that were growing innocently on the side of the road, we were all set to go. But Frodo was acting strange, staring down the road with a distant expression. Like this." Pippin then opened his eyes very, very wide and stared off at a wall with his head tilted to one side, mouth slack and his face expressionless.

"That's scary," Merry finally squeaked and Pippin snapped out of it.

"I know. It is. But that's exactly how my cousin Frodo looked just then, staring down the road. Next thing we knew, he was yelling at us to get out of the road and it was if the air got very cold. We all obeyed, even though there were more mushrooms left to be gathered, and hid underneath a tree," Pippin continued.

"You left perfectly good mushrooms on the side of the road?" Rose squealed, looking ready to scold the hobbits in the story for wasting mushrooms.

"I know," Pippin agreed mournfully. "But it was a necessary sacrifice for what we were about to face. I wouldn't have wanted to be on the road for that, I tell you."

"What was it?" Elanor screeched, thoroughly frightened but curious at the same time. Pippin studied the terrified faces before him before shaking his head.

"Nah, you don't want to hear this," he decided, shaking his head again. "It's too scary for you." The children fiercely shook their heads but their Uncle was persistent.

"Please, Uncle Pippin!" Rose pleaded, nearly on her knees and going insane with the curiosity.

"We won't get scared!" Frodo promised, his pinkie sticking out for a pinkie promise.

"We'll be brave," Merry agreed, his lower lip jutting out in determination.

Well… how could Pippin say no to such a lot?

"Alright, I'll tell you," Pippin relented, leaning forward again. "But if you get too scared, just tell me." The children nodded their consent. "Coming down the road was what sounded like a horseman," Pippin began, "But he was going at a very slow walk. A dead walk, actually. And the whole world seemed to freeze over and for the first time I was scared. I didn't know what it was but the horse's hooves came into view." The children held their breath in dreadful anticipation. "The hooves were bloodied and the skin above them cut, nails digging into the poor creature's feet. It blew its breath out as if it were a dragon and the metal on its headset clanked hollowly."

"Was there a rider?" Frodo asked, blue eyes wide in terror. Pippin ignored him, too wrapped up in the memory to even hear the child's question.

"And then there was the sniffing," he whispered, shivering in terror. "The rider was concealed from us but we could hear it sniffing. It was like it was a big, fierce dog sniffing out rabbits in a rabbit hole. And we were just as helpless as those rabbits. We were all frozen in fear."

"How did you survive?" Rose asked in a trembling, low voice. Pippin seemed to notice the children were there again and he sighed, breaking the trance.

"Merry thought quick and threw our bag of mushrooms far away from the tree we were hiding in," Pippin recalled, nodding. "Good old Merry was always quick on his feet. But I had nightmares of that freakish sniffing for weeks after the fact. It was the thing that stuck with me, even today."

The children sat in solemn silence. Then,

"Is this a happy story, Uncle Pippin?" Elanor asked softly, her large eyes questioning and fearful. Pippin stopped staring at the wall to look at her, smiling kindly.

"Of course it is, in the end. They are always sad in the middle," Pippin explained. "But it will all work out. I promise." The children believed him.

"So after the Rider left, we all made a run for it. And boy, did we have to run. Merry also had the idea of running for the river to Buckleberry Ferry so that we could ride all the way to a friend's house. He thought we would be safe there." Pippin paused and shook his head. "They followed us. I don't recall how many there were but the hoof beats of their thundering, huge horses were deafening." Pippin took another pause, remembering. "We nearly lost Frodo, too. We didn't know why then, but they were after him."

"But he made it," Frodo said cautiously, hoping he was right.

"Of course," Pippin replied. "He managed to break away and reached the ferry just in time! We were afraid we would have to swim back and get him. And you know that hobbits can't swim worth anything. But after a few breathless moments Frodo was coming towards us and he was safe again. The horses didn't dare go in the water after him. I still don't know why to this very day."

"Where did you go?" Rose asked, now feeling less afraid because the Riders were out of the story for now.

"To Fatty Bolger's house," Pippin replied with a laugh, now glad that he was moving to a happier time. "Poor Fatty, no one ever remembers him. But he was a good friend and took us without questions."

"What did Merry do?" the little Merry asked, wanting to know more about the hobbit he was named after. In his opinion, Merry was the best character so far besides his Daddy and Uncle Pippin.

"He figured out the secret," Pippin replied with an impish grin. "He remembered something odd from when Bilbo was still in Hobbiton. He remembered how not long before the party Bilbo had been walking down the street when some frantic looking hobbits were flocking towards him. Merry saw him pull out a ring from his pocket and slip it on, vanishing from sight." The children gasped, not seeing this plot point coming. "When the other hobbits were gone Bilbo was back, never aware that Merry was on the same road."

"I bet Frodo was surprised," Rose laughed.

"You bet he was," Pippin confirmed. "He was so surprised he gave away most of his mission. He was to take the One Ring of Power to Rivendell, the home of the…"

"Elves," Frodo finished promptly. "Daddy loves to talk about that place." Pippin could see the same gleam of fascination in Frodo's eyes that he had seen in Sam's when he learned that they were to go see the elves.

"Very good!" Pippin praised. "Your Dad would know all about the elves.

"Now, we very much enjoyed staying at Fatty's home but unfortunately it couldn't last. We stayed far too long." Pippin knew that he had them hooked. He had them reeled in like a nice, fat fish but he could tell that the story had them too excited. He had to created a quick diversion. "Fancy some tea? I'm quite thirsty after all that talking and eating cake and all. I always have to wash it down with a nice cup of steaming tea."

"Uncle Pippin," Elanor protested, looking quite cross indeed.

"I'm an old hobbit!" he declared, "Tea is good for my health!"

"You're not that old," Elanor argued. "And tea has never been proven to be good for anyone's health!" Pippin shrugged.

"I'm making tea. End of discussion," he decided and pranced off to the kitchen. "There's a draft in this hole. Samwise would cheerfully murder me if he knew that I let you all stay cold in here and get sick."

"It's not-" Elanor began but her brother, Frodo, hushed her.

"Stop arguing," he complained. Elanor rolled her eyes but stayed quiet.

"This story better be worth it," she grumbled, crossing her arms and glaring at Pippin's back.

A/N: So… good? Bad? Okay? Let me know!