Title: Northfarthing Rain
Author: LeftOfWest
Chapter Summary: The hobbits try to make sense of their situation.
Feedback: Yes, have some.
a/n: Dear Reviewers, I thank you so very much for the inspiration to go on with this story. You are saving it from becoming just another piece of incomplete fan fiction.
Chapter 7: Add It Up
In a steam-filled room with four tubs sat four naked hobbits, soaking in the warmth that had evaded them for so long. They were still silent. It was easy to tell that they were all thinking about the same thing-the strange occurrences in Bindbale Wood.
"Alright. Nobody else is gonna say this, but I will. What in The Shire has been happening around us?" Sam asked.
There was another shorter silence before two hobbits spoke up. "I have no idea," both Pippin and Merry said at the same time. They looked at each other and scowled. Even after a rainy night's sleep and a rainy day's trudge, they were still at odds.
Frodo sighed. "I'll admit, there have been some very strange things happening recently. And it can't be just one big coincidence."
"Don't tell me you're on a faerie trip too," Merry said.
Pippin frowned. "Well, if you've got a better explanation, I'd like to hear it."
Frodo held up his dripping hand to silence them. "Listen, I don't know about you two, but I've had one too many strange things happen to me to argue amongst ourselves." He looked at Pippin. "We have to be rational and reasonable." Casting his eyes upon Merry, he added, "But we can't rule out the fantastic either."
"You're all bonkers if you're willing to entertain the thought," Merry told them.
Frodo splashed his hand down in his bathwater angrily. "Merry, I was in The Water and I felt something's HANDS or whatever they were GRAB my ankle and start pulling me under. Nothing was there. Nothing." He closed his eyes to help calm himself. "Whatever that thing was, I couldn't see it."
Pippin looked surprised.
"You were under water. It was pretty cloudy yesterday," Merry rationalized. "I refuse to believe that some invisible creature dragged you under water."
"That's because it wasn't you. And you weren't there neither," Sam finally spoke up. "Mr. Frodo was terrified and he's the best swimmer I know, so I know it wasn't just nothing."
The Brandybuck played at the sides of his tub. "Point taken." He looked up at Frodo. "What were you doing in The Water anyway, Frodo? Weren't you waiting for us to come back with a log?"
"Well, you two were gone for so long that I thought something had happened to you. So I tried to persuade Sam that the water was safe. I guess I was wrong," Frodo explained.
Pippin frowned. "Wait. If something was pulling you under, how did you escape?"
Frodo looked at Sam.
Sam swirled his bathwater with his index finger. "I went in after him."
Merry rolled his eyes. "You saved him? You SWAM to him and then SWAM both of you back to safety?"
The gardener nodded.
"So you sent us off to possibly die when you could have just swum across?" Merry asked.
Sam lowered his head.
The Baggins sighed. "Merry, will you let us finish?" He cleared his throat and went on. "Now, after that Sam went looking for our backpacks." He looked at Sam once again.
"There was no sign of them anywhere. I went down both ends of the shore. Nothing," Sam said. "I think somebody or something ran off with them."
Merry submerged in his tub to rinse his hair, then came back up. "Did you ever stop to think that you weren't on that side of The Water anymore?"
Sam and Frodo looked at each other.
"Ah," Merry said. "You could have easily been swept to the opposite shore in all the confusion." He gave a smug look.
"Fine. That may or may not be the case, but that doesn't explain the thing that grabbed me," Frodo retorted.
"And then that weird light," Sam added.
Pippin perked up. "Yes. Tell us more about the light."
"We already told you. That's really all we remember about it. It was like it was suddenly a clear summer day. It was warm and you could smell flowers," Sam told the youngest of them.
"There was a sense of comfort," Frodo put in. "And then we were in the woods." He raised his eyebrows. "What exactly is your obsession with this light, Pippin?"
Pippin looked at Merry. "Because we saw a light too. Just like what you described, except it was in the middle of the woods."
Merry shook his head.
"And the smells and the air and everything there made you feel happy and safe," Pippin went on. He thought back to the kiss once again and turned deep red. When he glanced at Merry, he could tell he was thinking about it as well. "Um..., then we looked up and saw the strangest thing..."
"What? What did you see?" Frodo asked in a whisper. Both he and Sam seemed to be sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for the rest of the story.
Pippin nodded to Merry. "Tell them."
Merry ran his fingers through his wet curls. "There was no light source," he muttered.
"Pardon me?" Frodo said.
"There was no light source, alright?" Merry repeated. "But that doesn't mean anything."
"No, that means a lot," Frodo corrected.
"The same clouds were there and we couldn't tell where the light was coming from," Pippin said.
Before he could say anything else, Sam interrupted. "Mr. Pippin, why were all those animals chasing you?"
The Took shrugged. "I don't know. We tried to scare them away, but it didn't work. So we ran and that's when we found you."
Frodo frowned. "Maybe the woods are just...weird."
"Nah, that's just The Old Forest on the border of Buckland," Merry said.
"Oh, you believe in a haunted, shifting, bending forest, but you don't believe that faeries have cursed us?" Pippin asked.
"I believe what I SEE," Merry informed.
Frodo sighed. "Let's hear Pippin out for a minute, Merry." This was all very tiring to him. He would be glad when he could jump into a bed after sleeping on the cold wet ground last night. "Pippin, why would faeries curse us? What did we ever do to them?"
"We destroyed their faerie ring," Pippin said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"The mushrooms we ate back in Bywater?" Sam asked.
Pippin gave a nod. "They say that if you disturb a faerie circle-"
"-the faeries will put a spell on you," Frodo finished for him. "Or at least that's the way the stories go."
Sam was finally enlightened. "But that was days ago. We only started having problems since we entered the woods."
"No...," Pippin began. He closed his eyes and thought for a moment. "There were other things. After Merry and I picked those mushrooms, there was fog suddenly out of nowhere. And Merry and I were nearly trampled by a runaway pony..."
"You were drunk. You don't know if that really happened. It MAY have been a dream," Merry pointed out. But then he remembered the images that came to mind when he and Pippin were kissing in the illuminated clearing in the forest. He actually recalled abandoning the road to get away from the wild pony. He knew that much had happened.
Pippin sighed and nonchalantly splashed around in his tub a little. "I'm telling you what I know so we can try to get to the bottom of this."
"That's all we're doing right now," Frodo said. "All we're doing now is bringing up what has been happening. And you're not helping, Merry."
Merry frowned. "Well, you said that we have to be reasonable and none of you are being reasonable... Okay, I'll help..." He tried to think of a way to talk around the fact that he and Pippin had kissed in the woods. "You know when Pippin and I went over to that strange light? That feeling of being happy and safe? Well, we were just enjoying that feeling and it made us pretty tired for some reason, but we didn't go to sleep..." He looked at the surface of his bathwater.
Pippin blushed because he had a pretty good idea that Merry would talk about the kiss next. Oh, he hoped he wouldn't bring that up. What would Frodo think? And Sam? What would they say about something like that?
"Um...," Merry said.
Sam and Frodo were waiting patiently for what Merry had to tell them.
"Uh... Pippin saw something," Merry finally managed to say.
The young Took's mind had been on the kiss the whole time, so he wasn't really sure what Merry was talking about. But before he could get his mind in gear, there was a knock on the bathing room door.
"Young sirs! Supper is served," came the sweet voice of Wisteria.
Pippin's mind went straight to food. "Mm! We're on our way!"
Wisteria giggled. "In naught but your skin? That would make for interesting conversation. No, Duroger has some things in his personal wardrobe that should fit you nicely."
As soon as she said that, the door opened and Duroger came in with an arm full of clothes. He laid the night shirts on the stools beside each of their tubs. "There you are. Dry bed clothes. And by the time you wake, your own clothes should be dry."
"This is almost too good to be true," Sam exclaimed.
All of the hobbits expressed their gratitude.
-soon...
Dinner was excellent. Wisteria did indeed prove to be a fantastic cook. Even Sam had to admit that much. He and Wisteria chatted about recipes while Frodo and Duroger spoke of books they'd read. This left Merry and Pippin out of a lot of the conversation because they refused to talk to each other.
And of course as Wisteria was talking to Sam, she had her eyes on Merry. This was quickly getting under Pippin's skin, but he was still upset that Merry openly degraded him for his beliefs. He'd basically called him a senseless child... Okay, so he hadn't said that in so many words, but basically that was what he was getting at.
Merry hated to see Pippin so quiet. He would have to do something to break this silence and get them back on track again despite this whole faerie nonsense. A peace offering would be good. He looked at his plate, then at Pippin's nearly empty one. With a sigh, he leaned closer to his little cousin. "Want my mushrooms?" he whispered.
The young Took looked at Merry for a moment and then smiled. And just like that, all was forgiven.
It never took much to gain Pippin's favor again. At least it never took Merry much.
-later...
After the group of hobbits had their supper, they found that two guest rooms had been prepared for them. Wisteria showed Merry and Pippin to their guest room.
"This is where you'll be staying tonight," the lass told them, though she only seemed to be talking to Pippin. She set up a lamp for them. "Your friends won't be too far away and if you need anything during the night, Duroger will be more than happy to help you."
She WAS just talking to Pippin. It caused the young Took to furrow his brow a bit.
"Thank you, good Lady," Merry said with a smile. "And good night to you."
"Actually, Meriadoc," Wisteria added quickly. "I was hoping to show you around a bit, if you're not too tired, that is. I could show you my private chamber." The last part she said quietly.
Merry's eyes went wide.
"Actually," Pippin put in, "we're all pretty tired. We've been traveling all day. So please excuse us and do have a good night." He didn't wait for her reply; he simply closed the door ever so politely in her face.
Merry was still somewhat astounded by the invitation. "Talk about hospitality," he muttered.
Pippin sat on his bed and pretty much sulked, listening to the pattering of huge rain drops on the roof.
The Brandybuck grinned and hopped onto Pippin's bed on all fours. "She probably would have done anything we wanted. And she wasn't bad looking either. She was no angel like your lass in Long Cleeve, I'm sure, but she was pretty enough," he teased.
"'We'? She was talking about taking YOU to her bedroom," Pippin snorted, ignoring his cousin's statement about 'his lass'.
Merry crawled over and sat beside Pippin. "You're not jealous, are you?"
Pippin blushed deeply and turned away so Merry couldn't see his face. He couldn't be jealous, could he?
"I mean, you're already on your way to see a lass. You can't have all the lasses on this adventure, you know," Merry said.
Pippin looked at Merry, surprised. "I wasn't... I mean..."
"Admit it. You want all the lasses for yourself," Merry grinned. He began tickling the Took in the side and Pippin fell backwards, laughing, trying to keep Merry's hands away from him.
"I-I don't want-I don't...," Pippin said between giggles, still trying to fight against Merry. "Pl-please stop, Merry." He wiggled in an attempt to get away.
Merry laughed and straddled his little cousin to prevent his escape, then went on tickling him.
"Merry, st-stop," Pippin giggled wildly. "Stop or I might wet myself."
Merry giggled and stopped tickling Pippin.
Pippin could feel Merry trying to catch his breath just as he was. He looked up at his elder cousin's face and saw that it was slightly flushed from laughing. And there was something inside him telling him that Merry had been on top of him before on many different occasions, but something had recently changed about it. Like he was supposed to remember something that he didn't quite remember...
The young Took suddenly saw himself in the dark surrounded by fog and being rolled onto his back by his older cousin. Merry gently brushed his lips across Pippin's eyelids and he'd told Merry that it felt good for him to do that.
"What about like this?" Merry had asked, drunkenly sliding his hands up and down Pippin's chest and stomach.
Pippin had nodded. "That feels good too."
"How about this then?" Merry had questioned, lying on top of him and planting kisses on the side of his neck.
"Mm hm."
"And this?" The elder hobbit's hand had slipped lower and began playing at the laces on Pippin's trousers...
The Took gasped and then looked up at his cousin, who was looking down at him strangely.
"What's wrong, Pip?" Merry asked.
Pippin struggled from underneath Merry. "Nothing's wrong. I just...remembered something."
-in the meantime...
Duroger lit the lamp in the guest room Frodo and Sam would share and then turned to them. "I do hope you'll enjoy your stay here tonight. The storm outside is so frightful, I would have hated to see you lads go off in it again."
"It is a frightful storm," Sam agreed.
"Thank you so much for letting us stay here. You and your sister have been more than generous," Frodo said. He started fumbling around in his pockets for his money pouch. "How much do we owe?"
"I beg your pardon, sir, but I don't normally handle such transactions in this room. I take care of that at the front desk," Duroger told him.
Frodo nodded shyly. "Of course." Turning to Sam, he said, "I'll be back shortly, Sam. I must see to paying our gracious host and hostess."
Sam blinked and gave a nod. Watching Frodo and Duroger leave, he went about turning back his and then Frodo's bed covers to settle in for some much needed rest.
Duroger lead Frodo down the hall, looking sideways at him.
"Really, we thank you for having us here. It seems we would have been lost without such wonderful and willing hosts," Frodo said.
"Well, it's as they say, Mr. Baggins, 'Keep all good company'," Duroger replied. He stopped beside a door on their way to the front of the bath house. "I know you're tired, but won't you have a glass of wine with me?"
Frodo looked confused. "Well, I suppose it couldn't hurt."
-elsewhere...
"Do you remember anything about our night in Bywater?" Pippin asked Merry.
Merry knew to what Pippin was referring. He had been trying to remember what exactly had happened during that drunken night. Of course, they had something much more recent to discuss, but he would play along with his cousin until he figured out where he was going with this.
"I remember having the finest ale I've ever had," Merry sighed.
"No, after that."
"If this is about me calling you a lovesick fool, you can forget it. I'm not taking it back."
"No, after THAT."
"Drinking that horrid stuff that Sam made for our hangovers?"
"No, BEFORE that."
"Then no."
"You've got to remember something."
"Why? What? Do you remember something?"
Pippin looked away. "Not all of it."
"All of what?"
The Took shook his head. "Nothing. It was probably just a dream or something. We got pretty drunk." He blushed at the thought that he would even have a dream like that, but it would be worse if it had been real.
"WHAT was probably just a dream?" Merry asked.
Pippin shook his head. "Nothing."
"Don't say nothing. With the way you're badgering me about it, you'd think someone died," Merry said. He turned and sat cross-legged so he could face his younger cousin. "So what did you dream?"
"Well," Pippin began. "I guess you could say it was kind of like yesterday. You know..."
Merry laughed a little. "I don't think ANY day was like yesterday, Pip."
Pippin began getting frustrated. "You know what I'm talking about. When we kissed..."
Well, when he came straight out and said it like that, Merry couldn't deny it. "What about it?"
Pippin frowned. He wanted to remember everything that had happened between them on that drunken night. He wanted to tell Merry how much he enjoyed their kiss in the woods. He actually wanted to do it again right now, but what he really wanted even more than that was to know what it meant for them.
There came a knock on their door just in time to save Pippin from answering that particular question at that particular moment. "I'll get it." Unfortunately, when he opened the door, Wisteria was standing there. Before he had a chance to set his face in a frown, he noticed that she was carrying a few cakes and some tea on a tray.
"Hullo again. I saw that your lamp was still lit, so I thought you'd like a little snack. There's nothing better for getting rest than a full stomach," Wisteria told them.
Pippin smiled. Maybe he'd misjudged this sweet woman. "Thank you."
The lass walked into the room and once Pippin took his seat on the bed, she began serving them their snacks. "For you, Master Peregrin. And for you, Master Meriadoc."
Merry smiled, accepting his share of the food, and Pippin silently did the same.
"I'll just leave you two to it, then. Enjoy," Wisteria said. She showed herself out of the room and pulled the door closed behind her.
"Ah! Nothing better than going to sleep on a full stomach," Pippin said. He took a big bite of his cake.
Merry just held his cake and tea in hand and looked at Pippin.
"Wot?" Pippin asked with a mouth full of food.
-meanwhile...
There was a knock on Sam and Frodo's guest room door.
"You don't have to knock, Mr. Frodo. This is your room too, you know," Sam said (to himself really). "Come in."
The door opened back slowly and Wisteria stepped in holding a plate with a couple of cakes and a cup of tea. "Hullo, Master Samwise."
Sam stood from his seat on the bed, startled. "Uh, hullo, Ms. Lightfoot." He looked at the plate she held and smiled. "Is that for me?"
"Aye, it is. There's nothing better for getting rest than a full stomach," Wisteria said. She handed over the plate and curtsied a little, then made her way out of the room.
Sam held the plate and took in the aroma. Something about the smell seemed very familiar. Maybe there was some secret ingredient in it that he knew about. But he didn't feel like thinking about what it was right now. What he felt like doing was gobbling up this wonderful smelling dessert. And gobble he did.
-another room...
Frodo sipped his glass of wine. It was strong, but smooth and it made him think of lazy summer afternoons and sunny showers and Sam weeding the garden on those late evenings when he'd have to force the lad to go home. He loved those days because before Sam would leave he would always offer his gardener a drink and maybe a piece of fruit to wane his appetite before a Gamgee supper. Or sometimes he would offer for Samwise to stay for supper and for once he was allowed to do something for his best friend.
And then he thought of Rosie. She was beautiful and womanly. Sam was definitely in love with her. Who wouldn't be? Eventually Sam would marry his Rose and have a family with her. Then he wouldn't have time to stay for supper with the master of Bag End. As Frodo thought that, his heart began to ache.
As if to get Frodo's mind off of his friend, Duroger cleared his throat. "Baggins, is it?"
Frodo blinked and looked at his host. "Yes. Frodo Baggins."
"So you're from Hobbiton, then. What brings you and your friends all this way?" Duroger asked, sipping his wine. He swirled the beverage around in his glass and looked at Frodo for a long while.
And for a long while Frodo didn't answer. No answer would come to his mind. He seemed lost in the almost clear eyes of his kind host. "We are on our way to Long Cleeve. We have faced some strange happenings along the way, but it's nothing that will stop us from heading there."
Duroger nodded. "And what business do you have in Long Cleeve? That's a far journey for any hobbit on foot."
Frodo nodded. "You're right. Perhaps I should look into renting a carriage..." He thought about why they were going to Long Cleeve and smiled. "My little cousin has a crush on a lass in Long Cleeve so we're going to see what's become of her."
"Really? I never would have guessed that young Peregrin fancied a lass. Well, considering the way he has been acting with Meriadoc lately."
Frodo looked confused. "What do you mean?"
End Chapter 7
a/n: Please review! :D
