Chapter 36

"Did I?" Pippin asked quietly, flustered by her radiant appearance. She threw her hood back and stepped further into the room closing the door against the draft in the hall behind her.

"Did you not?" she asked, approaching the fire to thaw her frozen fingers and toes, turning her back to him in the process. The sight of his prostrate form created such a feeling of pity in her she could hardly breathe. Pippin tried to remember when he might have written to her, but soon realized that it had not been him, but another interested party.

"Merry's been able to mimic my handwriting for many years," Pippin explained, as much to himself as to her.

"Then you didn't want me to come?" she asked, looking up from the fire and out of the window into the stormy night. Snow lashed against the glazed pane blotting out the landscape. Pippin paused before he replied. One part of him was being stubborn and wanted to punish her for the pain she had caused him time and again. The other part wanted to leap from his bed and take her in his arms and kiss her for eternity. The fact that he could neither get up nor throw his arms around her seemed immaterial at that moment.

"Pippin, would you like me to stay, or to go?" she asked finally, her back still to him so he could not see the tears glistening in her stormy eyes. He paused again, a battle raging within him. They had gone through so much together and had come to mean so much to each other. He could hardly remember a day when he did not think of her, or a night he did not dream of her. In his darkest hours he had longed for her to comfort him. And in his brightest times he longed for her to share with him. She had come, believing he had called her, carelessly riding through a storm, and risking her life to answer that call.

Diamond stood facing the fire. She wanted to turn and beg his forgiveness for her stubborn pride, and for her fear. But she was still proud and stubborn and fearful and she resisted the temptation to turn. She could scarcely remember her life before Pippin. Her heart had once been an icy stone but his love had thawed it. And yet, they had had so much adversity since then that she wondered whether any love could withstand such devastation.

"I am not sure what I want," he responded in a hushed voice. She nodded her head, the wet ends of her hair dripping onto the rug before the fire, disguising the tears falling also.

"Nor am I," she agreed sadly.

She turned her head to the side and from the corner of her eye she could just make out his frail body on the bed. A feeling of nausea rolled up from the pit of her stomach. What Merimas had done to Pippin, in her name, sickened her. She'd stayed those first days at his bedside, never farther than an arm's length away. Had he died, his death would have been on her head as surely as if she had plunged the knife into him herself. And not only did she have the guilt of Pippin's health over her head, she also felt responsible for Merimas' fall and his banishment from the Shire. She felt that she had misled Merimas from the first. She had allowed him to think they had a future together when she knew they had none. And though she had told him as much, like Anemone, he believed he knew her heart better than she did. And like Anemone, he was mistaken. Still, she should have insisted.

"I suppose I am afraid, Diamond," he said quietly after both had pondered their own thoughts in silence for some time. She turned her eyes back to the fire and rested her hands on the mantle there.

"What are you afraid of?" she whispered back, fearful of the answer.

"I am afraid I will never heal. That I will be in this bed, or some other bed, the rest of my days. I fear that I will never walk again in the meadows, or ride across the countryside on some urgent errand. That I will never sing or dance again at the Green Dragon. That I will not have one joyful day again in this life. I am afraid that the rest of my days will be spent within four walls, too weak to be of any use to anyone," he cried, his face contorted in pain and sorrow. Diamond pressed her fist tightly to her mouth to prevent a sob from escaping.

"I am afraid, too, Pippin. I am afraid I will never be able to bear the burden of your woes, all of which, in one way or another, are my doing," she cried and ran from the room out into the wild of the storm.

* * *

Though the spring rain was light, the earth, still sodden from the melting winter snow, cast the fresh water off to where it filled the streams and rivers to overflowing. Three tall figures on horseback raced up the Andrath Greenway breaking west at the fork to cross at Sarn Ford. The water was high there and threatening to overtake its banks. Necessity drove them onward and, after what they had seen and heard, desperation pulled them, also.

* * *

Merry paced by the window restlessly. He was anxiously awaiting the arrival of the only person he thought could help Pippin.

"Any sign yet?" Eglantine asked hopefully, emerging from the Heathertoes' kitchen. Merry shook his head sadly and pounded his fist against the wooden window frame in frustration. Eglantine sat down beside Thistle and they resumed their knitting, though neither was much concerned with the quality of the product, only the respite it offered them from their worries. They had been in Pippin's room, but he had driven them out asking them to take their 'long faces' with them. Pippin's sisters and their children sat around the hearth in various stages of sadness from little Periwinkle's pale cheeks and red eyes, to Pervinca's constant sobbing. Merry stood a moment longer at the window and then made his way down the short hallway to where Pippin lay.

Pippin's skin was sallow, his breath ragged. He lay flat on his back with only a thin pillow beneath his head. Merry touched Pearl's shoulder and she looked up at him from her bedside seat, tears seeping from her dark eyes. She stood and they held each other's hand for a moment, then she left the two cousins alone together. Merry approached him, trying to hold back his tears and not show his deep anguish. He sat at Pippin's bedside and stroked his beloved cousin's cool brow.

"How are you, Pippin, my lad?" he said, feigning a cheerfulness he in no way felt.

"From the look on your face, I am guessing not well," Pippin whispered in reply. Merry dropped his head. Three days before, the Tooks had sent out letters to all their many relations and other concerned parties, informing them they did not believe the lad would live much longer. If not for the rain, the Heathertoes' hut and yard would have been filled to bursting with mourners. As it was, the Green Dragon was full and the hut had many more bodies in it than it would otherwise have had. Though Pippin did not know it, nearby at Eddy's farm, Diamond waited. She had scarcely spoken since the day the letter arrived at Long Cleeve and had left for Bywater immediately upon receiving it. Peony, Eddy's wife, tried to encourage her, to comfort her, but Diamond could not, would not be comforted. She would take her guilt to her grave, a trip she believed she would be making not long after Pippin. For how could she live when he did not?

* * *

The cloaked riders sped past Tookborough, and rode northwards, their cloaks flapping around them like the wings of a dragon. They rode onwards, never stopping. They rode as if a pack of starving wargs were snapping at their heels, or something even fouler..

* * *

Merry lifted his head some time later, his eyes red-rimmed and moist. Pippin stirred and turned his head to meet Merry's gaze. They stared long and hard into each other's eyes. Merry's strength wavered, his chin quivered and he placed his hand over Pippin's.

"Pippin, I don't think I can go on without you," he whispered, his voice catching in his throat.

"You can, and you will. The Shire needs you, Merry, and without me around to hold her together, she'll need you more than ever," he joked gently. But Merry did not laugh. Instead he groaned and pressed his lips to Pippin's cool hand. It was too cool, Merry thought, as though the warmth, the very life, was draining from it. A silence fell over the room while Merry fought to regain control of his emotions. Then he heard a small voice above him begin to sing.

When the stars have stopped their spinning,

And the sun has failed to rise,

And the silver moon has fallen

Taking with it all the tides.

When the earth has become barren,

And the streams have ceased to flow,

And the trees have withered to their roots,

Way down deep below.

Pippin's sweet tenor voice faltered at that point, fading into nothingness, but another voice picked up the thread and continued on.

When my heart no longer beateth,

And my eyes no longer see,

I will love thee still my dear,

As thou hast loveth me.

The voice, clear and beautiful, stopped. Merry was afraid at first to raise his eyes, but then he felt a gentle hand on his head. He looked behind him and saw Diamond, her eyes as red as his, her heart as broken. She had come in time, drawn to Pippin in his last moments. Pippin smiled at the sound of her voice, and opened his eyes to see her once again. He smiled as she knelt beside him, taking his other hand in hers, and pressing her trembling lips against it. At the door stood his mother and father, their hands clasped together, their faces contorted with pain. Behind them, packed tightly together, were Pippin's loved ones. Each took a turn to tell him what was in their hearts. His sisters each spoke, sending him onward with their words of love ringing in his ears and etched into his soul.

"I have always been proud of you, although I suppose I didn't show it well at times. But you are a good lad," his father said when his turn came, tears blurring his eyes and streaking his ruddy cheeks, "And I know you would have made a fine Thain someday, son."

"I love you Pippin," his mother whispered, her voice cracked and unsteady. It was all she could say before the tears overwhelmed her. Merry spoke next, though he could barely form the words,

"You pulled me back to life when I had fallen under the black spell, you saved me Pippin. I am so ashamed I cannot do the same for you," he sobbed. Then a loud, deep, and, to Merry, utterly familiar voice boomed into the room, "Perhaps I can."

The hobbits in the hall parted to let the tall, soaking figure into the crowded room, chattering behind him as he passed. "If I am not too late and am allowed a little room to work," he finished, throwing back his hood to reveal himself. A sharp intake of breath gasped through the crowd in the hall. Merry cried out in relief and backed away from the bed, dropping Pippin's hand as he went. Diamond kept her hand in Pippin's but moved around to the head of the bed.

"He's come!" Eglantine shouted. "He's come, at last!" Pippin's eyes fluttered open and he croaked,

"What took you so long?"