Starting A/N: This is the first chapter in a fanfiction series I've decided to write. It's generally about Merry and Pippin as children. I try to keep my information accurate, but I only have a copy of The Fellowship and The Hobbit at hand. I have another one-volume edition with a nice, big, info-packed appendix, but it's at my mom's house for now. If you find any inaccurate information, please tell me, and I'll try to fix it. Please, please read and review!! I live on reviews, but most of the time, I rarely update with or without reviews! You're just more likely to get more chapters if I get more reviews. ^_~

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Pippin looked around him, worried. He couldn't be too far from home. After all, he had only been running for an hour or so, right? That meant he just had to walk for an hour in the direction he had come from. Unfortunately there were two flaws with his plan. First of all, it was getting dark, and night would have arrived long before he got home. Mama and Papa always told him that scary monsters and such came out at night, to capture young Hobbit lads and lasses who weren't tucked safely into bed and take them far away, and the children were never heard from again. Aside from this, he didn't remember which way he had come from, and that formed about sixty percent of his plan.

Pippin tried not to think about the monsters from his parents' stories as he looked around for the path he had taken. Instead, he thought about something that made him feel just as bad. That morning, he and Merry had gotten into a terrible fight. Merry had yelled at him, and he had yelled back, and Merry got really mad and hit Pippin. He hadn't hit him hard, but Pippin had hit him back, just the same. He had probably hurt Merry worse than Merry hurt him, and Pippin couldn't bear the look on his beloved cousin's face, so he had turned and bolted down the road, and not long after, turned off the path. He had eventually stopped running, and sat down in a tiny clearing and cried himself to sleep.

He fought back the tears that threatened to spill from his eyes again when he felt the spot Merry had hit him. There was still a mark, slightly red, and although it made his stomach turn, it would probably be gone in the morning. Pippin gulped, looking at the lengthening shadows around him uncertainly. If he was still there in the morning.

Pippin looked around again, trying to find the path he had created diving through the underbrush. Walking in circles around the clearing, he finally found it, and began walking slowly towards the more well-trodden path he had fled from. He had made several random turns and dashes, in the bright afternoon sun. Now, it was well past dinner-time and getting rapidly darker. It the dim halflight of evening, though, he could make out a footprint here and there, from his careless stomping, if he looked closely at the ground.

After a short while, though, Pippin could see very little at all, let alone light footprints. He tried to make his way by memory, but mostly he had forgotten when he had turned and where he had switched direction entirely. Still, he blundered on in fear, afraid to stop moving, but not much more enthusiastic to go forth. Finally, Pippin was overcome with frustration and fright, and he stopped where he was, wiped his tear-stained face on the back of his sleeve, and tried to think logically for a moment, using his limited knowledge of the small part of the Shire he knew of.

He and Merry had gotten into an argument, and he had run off. That must have been pretty close to banks of the Thistle Brook. He had run away and into the forests on the side of the path, going generally in the direction of the Stockbrook, though with several twists and turns. He had run like that for about an hour, so he was probably somewhere in between the two miniature bodies of water. He just had to head generally east for a while. He looked over at the small reddish glow on the tree-specked horizon where the sun had begun to set. Now, he knew the sun set in either the east or the west, so he just had to figure out that, and start walking.

He was almost positive Papa had always said it set in the east. But, then, Mama had always told him it set in the west. He had to decide! The red spot on the horizon was disappearing fast. Finally, he decided that it set in the east, so he turned towards the warm glow of the sun, and started walking resolutely homeward.

***

"Pippin?! Pippin!" Merry looked around him, straining his ears to hear a response besides the other searchers' calls and the echoes that bounded back at him from the setting sun in the distance.

All he could think about was the fight he and his cousin had gotten into that afternoon. He hadn't meant to do it, but Pip could be so annoying sometimes. He hadn't meant to hit him, either, but he had. And then, Pippin, his eyes full of an angry look that would haunt Merry to his deathbed, had hit him back, putting as much of his weight into it as he could. Although Pippin wasn't a good fighter, and he wasn't very big, that punch had hit Meriadoc Brandybuck harder than the hardest hit any other Hobbit lad could throw at him. He had been hit, also, by the weight of what he had done, and the look in his cousin's eyes.

Then, as Pippin stared up at him, and he stared back down at Pippin, the younger hobbit's eyes became filled with regret as great as Merry's own. Without another word, the little lad had turned and run off down the path. Merry had stood there for a long time, still completely shocked, until he finally stopped thinking about what he had done and started to look for Pippin.

Almost an hour later, Pearl had shown up, her arms full of groceries, and asked him what he was doing. He had explained and she had immediately begun worrying, so the two of them began running back towards the Smials, and when they finally got there, they quickly alerted the household of Pippin's absence, though, through a deal with Pearl, Merry managed to keep their argument at least temporarily secret.

A search-party was immediately set up, and Merry insisted that he be able to help. So now, here he was. Still, there was no sign of the young hobbit. They had begun searching at tea-time, and Merry, noticing the ever-depleting sun, realized that it was almost supper-time. He wanted to sit down and weep like a lass, but he decided valiantly to be strong for Pippin. After all, what if Pip was still angry when they found him? Merry would never live that down.

The poor hobbit couldn't help imagining his cousin alone out there, crying his own eyes out. The little lad still believed his parents' stories about goblins and monsters and such. Merry allowed himself a small grin at this. Pausing to call his cousin's name again, he dove deeper into the overgrown brush on the side of the path.

***

Pippin looked around. The sun had now set completely, and it was very dark, save for the tiny sliver of moonlight and the stars. He was getting very tired, and he thought he should have gotten home by now. He heard a twig crunch behind him, and jumped nearly out of his skin. It was the goblins! They had heard of the little hobbit lad who had run away and got lost and they were coming to get him!

He spun around to face his assaultant, and found only shadows beneath a tall, gnarled tree. Behind him, where he had previously been facing forward, an owl gave a cry, and the lad spun around once more. He found himself directly in front of the owl, and, never having seen such a creature, he gave a strangled cry of terror before backing up hastily. Poor Pippin was surrounded by "goblins" and he turned around several times, jumping horrified at every noise.

It wasn't long before the frightened hobbit had been reduced to a sobbing heap beneath a juniper bush. Pippin lay on the ground, trying to make himself as small as he could and crying, tears now flowing from his eyes as he sobbed and prayed to himself. He had given up trying to alert himself to every noise the goblins made. They were surrounding him now, he was sure, and it was only a matter of minutes until they attacked him and dragged them back to their mines and holes and such and kept him there until he died.

He heard them moving around and around him, whispering to each other about what to do next. Suddenly, though, he heard footsteps. Real, confident, hobbit footsteps! Someone had found him! The goblins had apparently fled at the hobbit's approach. He uncurled, slightly, and looked up, and saw a figure standing between two trees, directly opposite him.

"Pippin?" He recognized Merry's voice immediately, though he could not see his face.

Pippin was once again overcome by tears, but this time not of fear. He was engulfed in a combination of emotion--confusion at the possibility that Merry didn't hate them, even after their fight that afternoon, disbelief that Merry was really even there, gratitude that he had come and scared away the goblins, embarrassment that he was still huddled under a bush like a baby, anger at his cousin for not having arrived sooner, and anger at himself for even having run away to begin with. He sat up, and wiped futilly at his eyes with his sleeve.

"M-Merry?" He called, hardly daring to believe it. "Merry, is that you?"

Merry looked down at him, and found himself overcome with grief at letting his young cousin ever run off like that. "Pippin? Come on. I'm sorry for what happened this afternoon, but no matter how mad you get, you shouldn't run off like that! You had the whole Smials in an uproar."

Pippin's eyes widened slightly in guilt and intensified embarrassment. "Really?"

"Yes, you did." Merry said. "You simply can't disappear and not expect anyone to worry. Now come on, get out of there."

Merry bent and offered his hand to the young lad. Pippin accepted it gratefully and stood up.

"Merry?" Pippin asked uncertainly.

"Yes, Pippin?" Merry answered.

"I'm sorry."

"Me, too, Pip."

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Ending A/N: So? What do you think? Please, I implore you, review and tell me what you think. Chapter Two shouldn't be too long in coming, 'cause I'm still full of inspiration. But when I've finished 4 I'm through.