Disclaimer: I don't them, so don't sue me, all you'll get is $5 and a Dairy Queen coupon.

Author Note: I don't know why I wrote this. I think Merry deserves to be taken seriously too, so I decided to write something a little sad about him. This is my first fanfic so any reviews are welcome, especially flames. I haven't read the second and third books yet so if anything is wrong……sorry!



So this is what his life had come too. This is how he was going to live the rest of his days. Alone. Sitting in the town pub every night, drinking away his lonliness, his guilt, and his self-pity.

Merry wasn't even old yet, only 60. Sure, it was a far call from the undiluded energy of his tweens, but most hobbits his age were getting married and having children.

Merry was alone.

Over the years since his days in the fellowship, he and his best friend Pippin had drasticlly grown apart. After Frodo repurchused Bag End, he had left his small house in Crickhollow to Merry and Pippin. They both decided that there was no way they could live together for the rest of thir lives, especially when they started families. So from then on a long and drawn-out battle for who would get the house began.

In the end, Merry was victorious. It came down to a riddle contest, just like Bilbo and Gollum had so many years before. His final question had been,"What goes up but does not come down?" He watched as Pippin thought it over, and inwardly jumped for joy as that stumped look fell onto his best friends eyes.

"Alright Merry," Pippin said, trying to act nonchalant but failing miseralbly,"the house is yours."

Looking back on it, Merry hadn't really wanted the house, he didn't even like Crickhollow that much. He should have know better, he should have know that the supposedly friendly compitition was distroying their kinship. But for some reason, he had been overwhelmed with the urge to win, to be the one in power, to take no prisoners. He knew now that it had been the one ring. Being close to it for so long had darkened his mind. It was only a shadow compared to the coruption of Bilbos soul, and not even comparable to Gollums, but it had been enough.

Pippin moved back to Hobbitton not even a week after his loss to Merry, so he could be near Frodo and Sam. He still visited, but they had become less and less over the years.

It took Merry about three months of living alone, away from all of his friends, to relize he was miserable. He even cosidered selling the house and going back, but his pride kicked in. That was something the ring had not needed to give him, a great since of pride. In this situation, it proved his downfall, Pippin had obviously wanted it, and selling it would mean he damaged their brotherly love for nothing.

So this was what his life had come to. Sitting alone in the corner of the pub, draining ale after ale, puffing aimlessly at his pipe. He still felt the endless pangs of guilt in his stomach. Guilt for letting Boromir die so long ago, guilt for letting all of his relasionships decay, and guilt for allowing his life to come to this.



Merry was alone.





Yea…I know, it sucked. I just feel like witting something without a happy ending. PLEASE REVIEW, and maybe I'll write a sequel where things turn out happy!