The Shire, July of 1438

"It's been more than a year now, Cousin Merry" Berilac said as the two of them walked through the orchard at Brandy Hall. "I know we talked about postponing but now you have to set a date soon. You had a whole year; we cannot give you much longer."

Merry nodded but didn't know what to say. They were talking about Estella and Merry's engagement, an issue which a lot of Hobbits had been starting to gossip about lately. They had all expected the couple to be married no later than a year after Merry's return, but that date had come and gone and there was not even an announcement yet of when the wedding would be. Something was queer about it all the Hobbits felt, and Berilac could see that they would have to make a decision soon.

Merry knew he was right. He had learned enough about his own people in the year that had passed to know that it was not wise to do unexpected or abnormal things, especially not if you had already come back from the dead – twice. But the idea of marrying Estella was difficult for him. For all her sweetness and her gentility the only thing he felt for her was a desire not to hurt her more than he had to. He could not imagine himself married to her and he couldn't see how anything good might come of it. She loved him but he didn't feel the same. He was still sure that there was somebody else in his heart, whom he had yet to meet again. A marriage to Estella would put a definite end to the hopes of ever finding her again. Yet Estella had waited for so long and he owed her something. He just wasn't sure he owed her his future.

"Merry…" Berilac said. "What's keeping you? Romantic feelings aside it is a good match with Estella Bolger. Not all marriages are for love, some are for practical reasons. And I can assure you that she will do her best to make your life as comfortable as possible. And she will make a great Mistress of Brandy Hall."

"So I marry her for Buckland then?"

"You marry her for her love for you and your devotion to that."

"My devotion…" Merry mumbled. "Berilac I have been waiting for a year to remember her and pick up where she and I left off. I don't wait for that anymore. I don't need my memories now the way I used to, I remember the past years and that satiates my needs. I am ready to start life over from this point and forget about what I might have said or done in the past. It was difficult getting to this point but now I'm here. I've stopped wondering who I am and where I belong. Now I've got other worries than I had a year ago."

"What worries are they?"

"A year ago I worried that I wouldn't remember her. Now I don't really care much, sure I would love it if my memories came back but it's not essential. Now I'm worried… I'm worried that…" He sighed and tried to put his thoughts into words Berilac might be able to understand. "I wed her, and swear my fidelity and love to her. She and I spend the rest of our lives together. The hope would be that I would remember her but if not then everyone, especially she, is convinced that I will fall in love with her again. I did it once I ought to again."

"And you're worried that you might not?"

"If I can't love her…" Merry said. "Then what kind of life will that be? For me and for her? I don't know that I can marry her knowing that I might never feel anything at all for her, I really don't."

"Why do I get the feeling that there's something more to this equation?" Berilac said. "Something you're not telling me."

Merry didn't answer. He didn't want to say anything to Berilac about the love he suspected he felt for someone else. If he was wrong about it then it would just be unnecessary to say anything to him.

"Don't tell me if you don't want to" Berilac sighed. "But Meriadoc… You need to speak with Estella. Call the wedding off entirely if you must, but what you ought to do is set a date for it instead. She's waited for you. She's been devoted and faithful. You owe her better than to let her be cast aside."

"I seem to owe a lot to everyone" Merry remarked. "Much of it I can't repay. Don't worry; I'll try not to break her heart. I'll set a date with her and try to fall in love."

"You don't have to try, I'm sure you'll succumb to her charms as soon as you spend some time alone with her" Berilac said and gave Merry a pat on the shoulder.

Merry was not so sure. His future happiness was riding on whether or not he would love her. He could not just sit back and wait and see.

XX
XX

Estella came to see him the next day. As always her face lit up when she saw him and it almost hurt him to see how much love there was in her eyes. She did not walk up to him as she normally would, she remained by the door and looked at him, smiling and glowing with emotion that Merry could not return. He didn't know what was wrong with him. She was sweet and mild and she was no doubt attractive. Yet he could not feel anything when he looked at her.

"Come and hold my hand" he said and offered her a smile. "Let us sit down for a moment. We need to talk."

She came over and stuck her hands in his, caressing the back of his hands with her thumbs as she always would. They sat down on two ottomans by the round window and Merry looked down at their joined hands. He tried to imagine them standing at the wedding altar, holding hands like this, promising to be true and faithful to one another until death came between them. Only death had already come between them, long before they would ever stand to be married.

"You have been so very patient with me" Merry began.

"Of course" she said mildly.

"No lass could be expected to be even half as patient. You have been amazing, I really mean it."

She smiled wider and took in his praise. He had not said much to praise her since his return; most things he had said had been the kind of things a brother could say to a sister. There was something different about him today and Estella thought it all looked promising.

"Merry mine…" she said. "I waited for so long for you. What's another year? I will continue to wait until you are ready."

"Your waiting days are over" Merry said. "I cannot ask you to wait any longer. I asked you here today to decide with you on what day we should be married."

Estella's face beamed and she leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on the corner of Merry's mouth. The gesture surprised him; he had not expected a move like that from someone as placid as Estella. He had to smile a little. He had not expected her lips to feel so soft and warm.

"Whenever you wish is fine with me, my love" she said. "You just name the date and I will be ready then."

"I feel like I've set the terms for long enough" Merry objected. "After all this time the decision should be yours."

Estella shook her head. If it were up to her they would be married as soon as possible. She was tired of waiting even though she knew he needed time. It was better that he chose a date in whatever month felt appropriate for him.

"You make that decision" she insisted.

"Alright…"

Merry bit his lower lip and thought about it for a moment. He wanted to set the date exactly one year from this day but he couldn't let it show how little he was sure that he wanted the marriage. Then he got an idea and smiled. He reached up his hand and moved a strain of hair from her face to behind her ear.

"On what day did our official courtship begin?" he asked her.

"It was in August" she said. "August 17th. You asked to walk me home from a party and I accepted. The party was at Crickhollow, where you and Peregrin were living at the time, so it was certainly not on your way home to stop by the inn where I was staying with my family over the night! You walked me back and when we reached the inn you stopped and put your arms around my waist and you asked me if perhaps you could walk me home again after the next party we both visited. Then you kissed me, just at the corner of my mouth. And from that day on…"

She blushed and looked down on the hand that was lying in Merry's still. With his other hand Merry reached up and touched the corner of his mouth where she had just kissed him. So that was what that was for.

"August…" he said. "Well that's no good."

"What do you mean?"

"I was going to suggest that we set our wedding date to the anniversary of when we began to court. But August 17th is too near, we won't be able to plan a wedding in time, it's only three weeks!"

Estella nodded but smiled. He didn't know it, but when he had first asked her to marry him he had wanted to set the date to August 17th. She wondered if she should tell him or not but right now it didn't seem important. She was relieved that things were finally getting rolling, she too was aware of how people had begun to talk about her and Merry and she didn't like it. But she had always been to patient to try and rush someone. Now though it seemed at least like Merry was interested in having the wedding within the nearest future.

She looked up at him and suddenly the smile on her face became unsure. There was something about the look in his eyes that made her insecure. He looked dejected and troubled and not so thrilled about their upcoming nuptials. The look on his face did not seem to be connected to the disappointment that the date he had thought of was too close in time; it seemed more connected to the very idea of choosing a date. She began to wonder what was going through his mind.

"You look preoccupied" she said gently.

"Trying to think of another date" he excused himself with a half-hearted chuckle.

"You look preoccupied with something else."

He didn't offer any further explanation. He kept looking into space, just right of her left shoulder, and she wished he would look her in the eyes instead. She tried following his glance to catch his eye and it worked, he shook his head and apologised for being distant.

"Merry dear…" she said and gently put a hand on his knee. "How are you really coping? With your memories and all?"

"I'm fine" Merry assured her. "I don't worry so much about it anymore."

"Then why are you worrying about it now?"

Merry swallowed. Why was it that she seemed to know what he was thinking? He didn't wish to have this conversation with her; he wanted to set a date and get the ball rolling before he drew away and ruined something.

"It's nothing, it's just that…"

"Just that what?" she gently asked.

"I wish I could remember something from our courtship" he blurted out, hoping to buy some time.

Unfortunately that comment led Estella right to what he hadn't wanted to say. He didn't know if it was because he had chosen something that was too close or if she just knew him that well. The smile on her face was gone and she looked sad for the first time when they had been together.

"You wish you could remember me" she said. "Because you don't."

"I can make new memories" Merry quickly said. "We can make new memories."

"Do you want this as much as I do?" she had to ask. "I don't want to live my life without you. Do you feel the same way?"

Merry felt inclined to answer that he didn't want to live his life without the Merry she spoke of either, but realised she might take it as an offensive jest. His face softened and he smiled slightly at her. With his left hand he let go of her right and gently stroke her jaw line.

"Estella…" he said. "This is what I want. I want to honour the things that were. And in case I should remember them again I don't want to throw them away."

"What does that mean?" she asked, still with her soft voice even though he could see she was getting more upset by the minute. "Are you wishing to marry me out of pity?"

"No, no! Absolutely not!"

"Perhaps we ought to wait until you can remember me again."

"Estella I feel so guilty" Merry said and rose from his ottoman to pace back and forth in the room. "Look at you! Look at your devotion to me! Through all these years you have remained true to my memory. And I don't even know what I did to deserve that, why I was so worthy of your love."

"It was never the things you did" Estella said. "Not the places you had seen or the titles you carried. Nor the Battle of Bywater, nor that you would be Master of Buckland someday. None of that mattered to me. I saw you just as Merry, this fun loving Hobbit who knew what he wanted and fought for it. Someone who knew wrong from right and stood up for it no matter what it cost him. Someone who laughed with me and played with me and made me feel safe."

Merry looked at her as she spoke and saw something change in her. Her tranquil voice became just a little bit more emphasised, almost passionate. She didn't raise her voice one bit or speak with more force but he heard every word more clearly and he knew that she really meant what she said.

"You told me stories and sang me songs unlike anything I had ever heard before" she continued. "When you were with me you gave me your full attention and it made me feel like I was the only lass in the world. You made me feel selected and special. You had a way of seeing people. You saw me. You saw Peregrin. You saw when others around you needed something and you tried to help them. And no matter how serious something got you could always turn on your heel and take up a song. I could not believe it when I heard the news that you were gone. And I knew that until I met someone else who looked at me in that way which made me feel special I would not get engaged again."

Merry sighed deeply.

"How can I ever live up to that now?"

"It's easy. It's who you are. All you need to do is embrace those things that once made you into that person and you will not be able to be anything else."

"I just can't help but feel like I'm letting you down" Merry said. "Like I've ruined all your chances of having a loving relationship, or at the very least a husband and a family. All I have to offer you in return for years of waiting is but a shell of who I used to be. Outward I'm the same but I don't think I can ever be all of those things that you described."

Estella looked down on her hands and when she spoke again her voice had lost the faint touch it had had before and gone back to being softer than a summer breeze.

"You will never give your whole heart in this, will you?" she said.

"I want to."

"That's not what I asked."

She looked up at him and he walked over and sat down opposite her again. He looked her deeply in the eyes and put his hands on her shoulders.

"I can only offer you what you see before your eyes" he said. "I don't know what tomorrow will bring. I don't know if I can give you back the lover you lost or if I can ever make all those years up to you."

"You have a different life now" she stated and looked away. "I guess you're not even very happy living in the Shire anymore."

Merry wondered how she had known that.

"I do long for Gondor" he admitted. "But here is where I am going to stay."

"You have a whole new life to build for yourself" she said, and he could hear a faint tremble in her voice when she continued. "I would only be in your way. Wouldn't I?"

"I…" Merry didn't know what to say. "Estella… I do wish that you will be happy and have joy in your life. If I can give that to you then that is what I want to do."

"And if you can't? At least not without remembering me?"

"Only you can be the judge of that."

She looked at him again. He wondered how she could remain so composed, so soft and tranquil even through this conversation. If it was difficult for him it must be ten times worse for her.

"I will always be happy with you" she said. "But will you be happy with me?" She took a deep breath. "Is it time to set you free?"

"Perhaps we need to take a pause" Merry said. "Let's not be hasty."

"Forget about trying to protect my feelings for a minute. What do you feel, Merry? What do you want to do?"

Merry wanted to tell her the truth about his suspicions but he found he couldn't. She may deserve the truth but she would be devastated if she found out he might not have loved her as much as she thought. He couldn't do that to her.

"It's just difficult Estella" he said. "It's difficult to connect to someone when you can't remember them."

"Your memories again…" she said softly. "You ought to have begun to remember by now. Two years is a long time."

Merry nodded but didn't want to go down that particular road right now.

"Yes one would have thought so."

"There must be a reason why" she said, her voice sounding like a caress. "Your memories don't just stay away for no reason. Your mind is trying to protect you from something, something that would be difficult and painful to remember."

"That is the best analysis I have heard" Merry said with a slight smile and caressed her cheek lightly. "I see why I must have loved you so much."

When he said that tears began to fall down Estella's cheeks. He had never thought she would stay so gentle even when her heart had been broken and tears were in her eyes but even her sobs seemed soft.

"Estella" he said. "Don't cry. I didn't mean to upset you."

"I have loved you for so long" she said trembling. "Idolized you since I was barely come of age. Missed you for twelve long years. After all these years you are still the same you, even though you may not think it. Time has not changed the way I feel about you. A hundred years could not."

"You deserve so much better than this."

"There is nothing better for me" she said and sobbed. "Yet if the only way I can prove to you just how much I love you is… to let you go… then I will."

"Please" Merry said and wished he knew what to say to make her stop crying. "I hope you can understand. I need to take this one step at a time. If what you say is true, and my brain is trying to keep me from remembering something horrible or painful then I need to focus all my energy onto finding out what that is, and dealing with it."

"Perhaps it is best that it remains forgotten" Estella said.

"At the cost of all my other memories?"

"Yes."

"I don't want to be hurting you anymore! I want to get back to who I was when you and I loved one another. If I can get to that point again then everything that's wrong around me will fall back into place."

"Do you believe in that?"

Right now he was willing to believe in anything that would make her stop crying. But she knew better than him at this moment what the real truth was. The truth was that he was not sure of how he felt about her and he wasn't sure that just remembering her from the past would make him love her again.

"Go and do what you have to do" she said and took a deep breath, looking back down on her hands again. "I would rather not marry at all than marry someone other than you. But you mustn't do it for me. There are some things your heart still needs to know and with me beside you then--"

She was interrupted by a knock on the door. Merry flew to his feet and mumbled a curse at whoever had come to bother them at this moment. He opened the door to a chink and saw that it was Berilac.

"What is it? I'm in the middle of something important."

"There's been an accident down by the river and two Hobbits nearly drowned" Berilac told him. "They are alive and well now but your presence could really be used to soothe the crowds."

Merry glanced over at Estella who nodded at him to go. He told Berilac he would be there in a minute, then closed the door and walked up to Estella.

"Please don't make any promises that we will be married soon" she said. "Don't promise anything you can't keep."

"I owe you better than to just leave you behind" he responded.

Then he reached down and gave her a kiss. Not bothering to even try and collect herself she let her tears continue to flow down her cheeks as she saw him leave the room and leave her behind.