"You're taking care of us."
The voice was almost accusing.
Boromir turned and squinted through unending darkness. "Merry?"
A dark figure moved almost unnoticeably through Moria's blackness and came to rest beside him. "I couldn't sleep."
It was Merry's voice alright, although inches away Boromir still couldn't see. He wished Gandalf would leave his staff glowing while they slept, though he knew they had to stay as invisible as possible.
There was a pause, and Boromir cleared his throat quietly. "You don't want me to take care of you?"
Merry's voice was thoughtful. "I'm not sure. You have been since the day we left Rivendell, and it bothered me then in a way it doesn't now."
"Did it?"
"Very much. But you were different then. You watched over us, and started those lessons, but you seemed unhappy about it. I know you see us as a burden on this mission. I would agree with you, too, that we can be of little help. But you should know that at the very least we can make it on our own. If we're to offer no aid in times of need, we can at least not be a distraction to those of you that can help."
Boromir smiled at the words. "You read my mind, though you probably don't know it."
"I suspected."
"At first, that's how I thought you would be. A burden. Understand, my life has been one field of battle, and I am used to thinking of people only in terms of how they affect that battle. And I saw that you two would affect it in no good ways."
Merry was silent beside him. Tense.
Boromir nudged with his arm gently until he found Merry. "I thought wrong. I believe that now. And you must have sensed my resentment before, so you didn't like me watching over you. But it isn't there any longer."
"I know." Merry spoke in a whisper. The deep, black silence of Moria amplified sound, and even whispers sounded too loud. "I'm glad."
"So am I." Boromir looked out at nothing. He spoke again almost freely. "I'm glad to consider you my companions on this journey." He wondered if it was the anonymity of the darkness making it so easy to speak his true thoughts.
Merry shifted a little closer, brushing against him. "I wasn't sure if you would think of us as friends. Aragorn, I know, has grown affectionate towards Frodo, yet I doubt he would call him friend."
"But Aragorn is bowed down by his mission. At least, so spoke a friend of mine once upon a time."
Merry laughed gently. "It's true. They are too lost under their own importance to think of friendship or.or other things."
"Other things?"
Merry hesitated. "I have.I've wondered sometimes what it would feel like to be taken care of by someone."
Boromir understood that. He understood it deeply and more fiercely than Merry probably knew. "You take care of your friends. You came on this journey merely helping Frodo to escape some unknown danger. You help Pippin out all the time. I suppose you grew up helping him."
"Pip.Pip is younger than me. He's always needed looking after."
"And now? He can take care of himself now."
"Maybe. But I don't know how to stop."
Boromir smiled sadly. "We have more in common than I ever would have thought, master hobbit."
"So. It's like I thought. Even though you no longer resent it, you take care of us because you can do nothing else."
"No." Boromir frowned, thoughtful. "That isn't entirely true. If I were operating solely on a sense of duty I would be guarding Frodo like a shadow. I would be even worse than Aragorn towards your friend. But I don't feel that urge. And I wonder that I don't, because I'm the same as you - I can't seem to shut off the need to protect."
"That need has just restricted itself to Pip and I."
"It seems that way."
"I." Merry moved slightly, turning towards Boromir though there was no chance of seeing each other. "I don't quite know how to respond to that. I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with it."
"So that is your answer."
"What?"
"You said you often wondered what it would feel like to be taken care of. Now you know."
"No." Merry sighed quietly. "No, I'm not certain of how I feel about anything right now."
Boromir lowered his voice further, wondering about this hobbit who seemed prone to serious moments and resentful of every minute of it. "Can I ask? What is there between you and Pippin?"
Merry was quiet for a long time. So long that Boromir assumed he wasn't going to answer.
But he did, eventually, though his voice was tighter and less open. "Pip is my cousin. He is my best friend in the entire world. I can't imagine what I would do without him there by my side. But between us? There is nothing between us in the way you mean. We lie together when he has a need, though I understand that symbolizes more to you than it does to us."
"To both of you? Or just to Pip?"
Merry made a slightly strangled noise. "Pip is young. He has years before he needs to think about the kinds of things you want to speak about. If he takes it less seriously than we do, it's well within his right."
Boromir nodded sadly, though he knew Merry couldn't see it. So Merry did take it seriously, and Pip did not.
He remembered Merry's soft comment in the woods at the start of their journey. About how he had been of age for four years.
He put that together in his mind, suddenly, with Pippin's words earlier that one night, the words Merry must have heard. When Pippin told Boromir that there was no earthly reason for him to sleep with Merry after he was of age. That then it was time to get serious and find a mate to start a family. Pip had even laughed at the idea that he would continue their trysts.
Yet here was Merry, four years into the age where he was to be serious. He was four years along that time Pip thought it was ridiculous to still sleep with a male for pleasure. And there he was, sticking beside Pip. Offering himself to the boy who was just satisfying urges.
It was sad to Boromir. Sad to think that Merry would give himself up like that, to a person he obviously loved. And to get nothing in return but the overheard sound of laughter from his love at the thought they would ever be more than they were.
And Pip had no idea. That was the worst of all.
Boromir understood Merry. He understood what it was like to hide feelings in order to protect those around him. He knew in an instant why Merry would choose not to talk to Pip about his feelings.
He didn't understand Pip. How could someone be as close to another as these two seemed to be, and still not see such pain in them? Such love, such real feelings?
How could Pip not see? Even though Merry tried to hide it.Boromir himself could see it, and he was almost a stranger. How could Pip be so blind, and so uncaring?
"He's young." Merry's voice seemed to both answer Boromir's thoughts and continue his own. "He isn't supposed to understand the things we do. I wouldn't want him to. He should have these years. He should have time to be happy, to be a child."
Boromir frowned. Merry sounded wistful. Sad with his own pain, yes, but.wistful. As if he were speaking about things he never had himself.
Like Boromir, when he spoke of how the children of Gondor should have peace. Should have this thing that everyone deserved, but he himself had never known.
He reached out, blind in the dark but finding Merry quickly and touching him with gentle fingers. "You are not all you appear to be, master hobbit." His words were light, but his tone was not. "I think there are times when you are even more grave than Frodo."
Merry tensed against him, then moved abruptly out of his reach. "Believe me, Boromir. We hobbits don't always have to leave the Shire to find out there are bad things in the world. You may think us simple and uncaring, but the same woes fall on us that fall on any race. It's in our nature to not dwell. To not think, and not show those woes. There's no point in holding on to misery when happiness is better. And so I think we won't talk like this anymore tonight."
Boromir spoke quickly, before Merry had a chance to make his escape back to his bed. "So, to sleep and forget all your troubles until the next talk?"
"That's the idea." Merry's voice was suddenly as light as it ever was, laughing and carefree.
Boromir spoke sadly. "If only it really worked that way, eh?"
There was no answer. The world fell into still silence for a long moment, and then the sound of light footsteps took Merry away from his side for the night.
***
The light of the world outside Moria was a deceitful thing. Overpowering, it seemed, after days in the darkness. And yet everything was so much darker suddenly for them, for those left in the company.
They were leaving behind one who would see the light no more.
Boromir had only known Gandalf from this adventure. He hadn't been too fond of the wizard at first. In all honesty, he had never really grown fond of him. He hadn't had much in the way of time. He trusted the old man's judgment, and he willingly followed where Gandalf led, but he couldn't say he felt more than a vague sense of loss at the wizard's death.
They were a company, a fellowship. The loss of one member was a blow to all. But Boromir was far too hardened to death to give himself over to any kind of grief. Not for Gandalf, who would remain in his mind distant and lofty and removed.
But, there were those there who knew Gandalf as more than that. In fact, the whole of the company was taking the loss hard to heart.
Legolas. Boromir assumed the elf was having trouble understanding what had happened. He was an elf, and had not, most likely, experienced death so closely. Boromir knew Legolas had been nothing like a friend to Gandalf, but Legolas had a great deal of respect and affection for a being that had lived as long as Gandalf, and had seen and accomplished so much.
Gimli reacted openly and deeply, not bothering to hide his tears even while they were making their way out of the gates of Moria. But that was his nature. Gimli had yet to hide or disguise one single emotion in the time Boromir knew him. Whether it was the nature of all dwarves to be so open, or just Gimli, Boromir didn't know. It didn't really matter.
Aragorn, Boromir knew, had been friends with Gandalf for many long years. Though he did not display his grief, it was there and it ran deep.
Frodo -- all the hobbits -- had known Gandalf from his frequent trips to the Shire. They had looked up to him. Frodo alone had called him a friend, but they all felt his loss.
And, in fitting with his habits since the start of the journey, it was the Shire folk who Boromir kept his eyes on. Even when Gimli gave in to his tired emotions and Boromir was there to catch him and keep him on his feet, and to keep him from running headlong back into Moria, his eyes were on the hobbits.
Frodo seemed in shock. He kept walking once the others had stopped, on slow, aimless feet that seemed to have no path in mind. Sam for once wasn't watching his master, but was finally giving time to his own feelings. He had sagged to the ground, and was holding his head as he sobbed his grief.
Boromir looked to Merry and Pippin, and knew his thoughts wouldn't leave them again. His heart broke in his chest when he saw them.
Pip. Poor young, foolish Pip was devastated. He had fallen to the ground, weeping and pitiful. Scared, no doubt. Lost. Guilty, and for that Boromir almost wished Gandalf were still alive just so Boromir could tear into him himself.
With Pip, holding on to him as he cried, was Merry. His own face was almost blank. His eyes were wide with leftover fear and shock, but that was all he displayed. He was giving all his attention to Pip, grasping his arm and letting him cry.
Boromir's thoughts went quickly to the last day. To the blunders that led to the attack by the orcs. To the reaction of his own little ones to their first real battle.
He could still see easily enough the spear of the cave troll pinning Frodo to the wall, dealing what they all had mistakenly thought was a death blow.
He could see and hear in his mind, as clear as any other thoughts, as his two little ones were faced with the apparent death of one of their friends.
He had not known before what sort of stuff hobbits were made of. He had thought them a hindrance, a weak, small and insignificant race. But now he could not see how he ever could have believed it.
He watched through his own little battles as Merry and Pippin showed no fear, no hesitation. They had gripped their swords and thrown themselves in a rage onto the huge and overpowering beast that had hurt their friend. They held on when others could not have, they hacked with their small swords. They were thrown, one by one, to the ground, before the cave troll fell.
But they had revealed what they were truly made of, and Boromir understood finally why Gandalf had been so quick to want the small hobbits on this journey.
This was a strong race. Brave and loyal and devoted as any other being Boromir had ever met. His own smiling, joyful Merry and Pip were as courageous as he could have ever wanted in his own men in Gondor, and more so.
There was nothing weak about them. And it cut Boromir to now have to watch them grieve.
"Legolas." Aragorn's sharp voice broke the muffled, thick silence. "Get them up."
Boromir's eyes snapped over to the man, the supposed heir of kings.
Aragorn was serious. He was sheathing his sword and facing the path that they were set to take.
Anger lit inside Boromir. "Give them a moment, for pity's sake."
Aragorn's eyes flickered to him. Despair was in them, but also a certain coldness. "By nightfall these hills will be swarming with orcs. We must reach the woods of Lothlorien. Come, Boromir. Legolas, Gimli. Get them up."
Boromir swallowed his next protest.
Aragorn, he realized, was doing what had to be done. Filling in the empty space Gandalf's death had created. Pushing them now that the wizard wasn't there to do it himself.
While Aragorn left his side to deal with Frodo, Boromir turned back to Merry and Pip. He moved to them, shaking his head silently at Legolas, who had been trying to rouse them.
Legolas met his eyes, brow furrowed, but stepped back and went to join Gimli, leaving Boromir to his hobbits.
"Merry."
Merry's glassy eyes blinked and focused up at him.
Boromir crouched beside them. "We have to keep moving," he said gently.
Merry looked around briefly, then nodded. He tightened his grip on Pippin's arm, bending close to him. "Come on, Pip."
Pippin's eyes shut tightly, and he shook his head. At the same time, though, he pushed himself up until he was sitting, and he let Merry help pull him to his feet.
"Let's go!"
Boromir's jaw tightened, but he simply glanced back at Aragorn and held up a hand. "We will take a moment. We'll catch up."
Aragorn, one hand safely on Frodo's shoulder, frowned at him.
Boromir's eyes went to Frodo, and he was tempted to take back the words and push the hobbits into moving faster. He should have been sticking by Frodo anyway. By the ring. By.
He shook the thought away. "Go!" He didn't wait for Aragorn's response, but turned back to the little ones.
Pippin was swiping at his cheeks with a dirty sleeve. He swayed a little, but stayed on his feet.
Merry met Boromir's eyes. "We'll keep up. We're ready."
Boromir knew that Merry would never have said it if he had any doubt Pippin was too upset to travel. So he took Merry's word and rose to his feet. "Then come along. We have a long way to travel yet today."
"We have a long way to travel every day," Merry retorted without heat as they started moving after the rest of the company. "But we never seem to get anywhere."
"If Aragorn is right about this Elf forest we go to, at the very least we will be able to sleep safely tonight."
Merry smiled, the barest hint of an expression. "Maybe that's getting somewhere after all."
Pippin kept moving, stumbling along on suddenly uncertain feet. He didn't say anything at all.
The voice was almost accusing.
Boromir turned and squinted through unending darkness. "Merry?"
A dark figure moved almost unnoticeably through Moria's blackness and came to rest beside him. "I couldn't sleep."
It was Merry's voice alright, although inches away Boromir still couldn't see. He wished Gandalf would leave his staff glowing while they slept, though he knew they had to stay as invisible as possible.
There was a pause, and Boromir cleared his throat quietly. "You don't want me to take care of you?"
Merry's voice was thoughtful. "I'm not sure. You have been since the day we left Rivendell, and it bothered me then in a way it doesn't now."
"Did it?"
"Very much. But you were different then. You watched over us, and started those lessons, but you seemed unhappy about it. I know you see us as a burden on this mission. I would agree with you, too, that we can be of little help. But you should know that at the very least we can make it on our own. If we're to offer no aid in times of need, we can at least not be a distraction to those of you that can help."
Boromir smiled at the words. "You read my mind, though you probably don't know it."
"I suspected."
"At first, that's how I thought you would be. A burden. Understand, my life has been one field of battle, and I am used to thinking of people only in terms of how they affect that battle. And I saw that you two would affect it in no good ways."
Merry was silent beside him. Tense.
Boromir nudged with his arm gently until he found Merry. "I thought wrong. I believe that now. And you must have sensed my resentment before, so you didn't like me watching over you. But it isn't there any longer."
"I know." Merry spoke in a whisper. The deep, black silence of Moria amplified sound, and even whispers sounded too loud. "I'm glad."
"So am I." Boromir looked out at nothing. He spoke again almost freely. "I'm glad to consider you my companions on this journey." He wondered if it was the anonymity of the darkness making it so easy to speak his true thoughts.
Merry shifted a little closer, brushing against him. "I wasn't sure if you would think of us as friends. Aragorn, I know, has grown affectionate towards Frodo, yet I doubt he would call him friend."
"But Aragorn is bowed down by his mission. At least, so spoke a friend of mine once upon a time."
Merry laughed gently. "It's true. They are too lost under their own importance to think of friendship or.or other things."
"Other things?"
Merry hesitated. "I have.I've wondered sometimes what it would feel like to be taken care of by someone."
Boromir understood that. He understood it deeply and more fiercely than Merry probably knew. "You take care of your friends. You came on this journey merely helping Frodo to escape some unknown danger. You help Pippin out all the time. I suppose you grew up helping him."
"Pip.Pip is younger than me. He's always needed looking after."
"And now? He can take care of himself now."
"Maybe. But I don't know how to stop."
Boromir smiled sadly. "We have more in common than I ever would have thought, master hobbit."
"So. It's like I thought. Even though you no longer resent it, you take care of us because you can do nothing else."
"No." Boromir frowned, thoughtful. "That isn't entirely true. If I were operating solely on a sense of duty I would be guarding Frodo like a shadow. I would be even worse than Aragorn towards your friend. But I don't feel that urge. And I wonder that I don't, because I'm the same as you - I can't seem to shut off the need to protect."
"That need has just restricted itself to Pip and I."
"It seems that way."
"I." Merry moved slightly, turning towards Boromir though there was no chance of seeing each other. "I don't quite know how to respond to that. I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with it."
"So that is your answer."
"What?"
"You said you often wondered what it would feel like to be taken care of. Now you know."
"No." Merry sighed quietly. "No, I'm not certain of how I feel about anything right now."
Boromir lowered his voice further, wondering about this hobbit who seemed prone to serious moments and resentful of every minute of it. "Can I ask? What is there between you and Pippin?"
Merry was quiet for a long time. So long that Boromir assumed he wasn't going to answer.
But he did, eventually, though his voice was tighter and less open. "Pip is my cousin. He is my best friend in the entire world. I can't imagine what I would do without him there by my side. But between us? There is nothing between us in the way you mean. We lie together when he has a need, though I understand that symbolizes more to you than it does to us."
"To both of you? Or just to Pip?"
Merry made a slightly strangled noise. "Pip is young. He has years before he needs to think about the kinds of things you want to speak about. If he takes it less seriously than we do, it's well within his right."
Boromir nodded sadly, though he knew Merry couldn't see it. So Merry did take it seriously, and Pip did not.
He remembered Merry's soft comment in the woods at the start of their journey. About how he had been of age for four years.
He put that together in his mind, suddenly, with Pippin's words earlier that one night, the words Merry must have heard. When Pippin told Boromir that there was no earthly reason for him to sleep with Merry after he was of age. That then it was time to get serious and find a mate to start a family. Pip had even laughed at the idea that he would continue their trysts.
Yet here was Merry, four years into the age where he was to be serious. He was four years along that time Pip thought it was ridiculous to still sleep with a male for pleasure. And there he was, sticking beside Pip. Offering himself to the boy who was just satisfying urges.
It was sad to Boromir. Sad to think that Merry would give himself up like that, to a person he obviously loved. And to get nothing in return but the overheard sound of laughter from his love at the thought they would ever be more than they were.
And Pip had no idea. That was the worst of all.
Boromir understood Merry. He understood what it was like to hide feelings in order to protect those around him. He knew in an instant why Merry would choose not to talk to Pip about his feelings.
He didn't understand Pip. How could someone be as close to another as these two seemed to be, and still not see such pain in them? Such love, such real feelings?
How could Pip not see? Even though Merry tried to hide it.Boromir himself could see it, and he was almost a stranger. How could Pip be so blind, and so uncaring?
"He's young." Merry's voice seemed to both answer Boromir's thoughts and continue his own. "He isn't supposed to understand the things we do. I wouldn't want him to. He should have these years. He should have time to be happy, to be a child."
Boromir frowned. Merry sounded wistful. Sad with his own pain, yes, but.wistful. As if he were speaking about things he never had himself.
Like Boromir, when he spoke of how the children of Gondor should have peace. Should have this thing that everyone deserved, but he himself had never known.
He reached out, blind in the dark but finding Merry quickly and touching him with gentle fingers. "You are not all you appear to be, master hobbit." His words were light, but his tone was not. "I think there are times when you are even more grave than Frodo."
Merry tensed against him, then moved abruptly out of his reach. "Believe me, Boromir. We hobbits don't always have to leave the Shire to find out there are bad things in the world. You may think us simple and uncaring, but the same woes fall on us that fall on any race. It's in our nature to not dwell. To not think, and not show those woes. There's no point in holding on to misery when happiness is better. And so I think we won't talk like this anymore tonight."
Boromir spoke quickly, before Merry had a chance to make his escape back to his bed. "So, to sleep and forget all your troubles until the next talk?"
"That's the idea." Merry's voice was suddenly as light as it ever was, laughing and carefree.
Boromir spoke sadly. "If only it really worked that way, eh?"
There was no answer. The world fell into still silence for a long moment, and then the sound of light footsteps took Merry away from his side for the night.
***
The light of the world outside Moria was a deceitful thing. Overpowering, it seemed, after days in the darkness. And yet everything was so much darker suddenly for them, for those left in the company.
They were leaving behind one who would see the light no more.
Boromir had only known Gandalf from this adventure. He hadn't been too fond of the wizard at first. In all honesty, he had never really grown fond of him. He hadn't had much in the way of time. He trusted the old man's judgment, and he willingly followed where Gandalf led, but he couldn't say he felt more than a vague sense of loss at the wizard's death.
They were a company, a fellowship. The loss of one member was a blow to all. But Boromir was far too hardened to death to give himself over to any kind of grief. Not for Gandalf, who would remain in his mind distant and lofty and removed.
But, there were those there who knew Gandalf as more than that. In fact, the whole of the company was taking the loss hard to heart.
Legolas. Boromir assumed the elf was having trouble understanding what had happened. He was an elf, and had not, most likely, experienced death so closely. Boromir knew Legolas had been nothing like a friend to Gandalf, but Legolas had a great deal of respect and affection for a being that had lived as long as Gandalf, and had seen and accomplished so much.
Gimli reacted openly and deeply, not bothering to hide his tears even while they were making their way out of the gates of Moria. But that was his nature. Gimli had yet to hide or disguise one single emotion in the time Boromir knew him. Whether it was the nature of all dwarves to be so open, or just Gimli, Boromir didn't know. It didn't really matter.
Aragorn, Boromir knew, had been friends with Gandalf for many long years. Though he did not display his grief, it was there and it ran deep.
Frodo -- all the hobbits -- had known Gandalf from his frequent trips to the Shire. They had looked up to him. Frodo alone had called him a friend, but they all felt his loss.
And, in fitting with his habits since the start of the journey, it was the Shire folk who Boromir kept his eyes on. Even when Gimli gave in to his tired emotions and Boromir was there to catch him and keep him on his feet, and to keep him from running headlong back into Moria, his eyes were on the hobbits.
Frodo seemed in shock. He kept walking once the others had stopped, on slow, aimless feet that seemed to have no path in mind. Sam for once wasn't watching his master, but was finally giving time to his own feelings. He had sagged to the ground, and was holding his head as he sobbed his grief.
Boromir looked to Merry and Pippin, and knew his thoughts wouldn't leave them again. His heart broke in his chest when he saw them.
Pip. Poor young, foolish Pip was devastated. He had fallen to the ground, weeping and pitiful. Scared, no doubt. Lost. Guilty, and for that Boromir almost wished Gandalf were still alive just so Boromir could tear into him himself.
With Pip, holding on to him as he cried, was Merry. His own face was almost blank. His eyes were wide with leftover fear and shock, but that was all he displayed. He was giving all his attention to Pip, grasping his arm and letting him cry.
Boromir's thoughts went quickly to the last day. To the blunders that led to the attack by the orcs. To the reaction of his own little ones to their first real battle.
He could still see easily enough the spear of the cave troll pinning Frodo to the wall, dealing what they all had mistakenly thought was a death blow.
He could see and hear in his mind, as clear as any other thoughts, as his two little ones were faced with the apparent death of one of their friends.
He had not known before what sort of stuff hobbits were made of. He had thought them a hindrance, a weak, small and insignificant race. But now he could not see how he ever could have believed it.
He watched through his own little battles as Merry and Pippin showed no fear, no hesitation. They had gripped their swords and thrown themselves in a rage onto the huge and overpowering beast that had hurt their friend. They held on when others could not have, they hacked with their small swords. They were thrown, one by one, to the ground, before the cave troll fell.
But they had revealed what they were truly made of, and Boromir understood finally why Gandalf had been so quick to want the small hobbits on this journey.
This was a strong race. Brave and loyal and devoted as any other being Boromir had ever met. His own smiling, joyful Merry and Pip were as courageous as he could have ever wanted in his own men in Gondor, and more so.
There was nothing weak about them. And it cut Boromir to now have to watch them grieve.
"Legolas." Aragorn's sharp voice broke the muffled, thick silence. "Get them up."
Boromir's eyes snapped over to the man, the supposed heir of kings.
Aragorn was serious. He was sheathing his sword and facing the path that they were set to take.
Anger lit inside Boromir. "Give them a moment, for pity's sake."
Aragorn's eyes flickered to him. Despair was in them, but also a certain coldness. "By nightfall these hills will be swarming with orcs. We must reach the woods of Lothlorien. Come, Boromir. Legolas, Gimli. Get them up."
Boromir swallowed his next protest.
Aragorn, he realized, was doing what had to be done. Filling in the empty space Gandalf's death had created. Pushing them now that the wizard wasn't there to do it himself.
While Aragorn left his side to deal with Frodo, Boromir turned back to Merry and Pip. He moved to them, shaking his head silently at Legolas, who had been trying to rouse them.
Legolas met his eyes, brow furrowed, but stepped back and went to join Gimli, leaving Boromir to his hobbits.
"Merry."
Merry's glassy eyes blinked and focused up at him.
Boromir crouched beside them. "We have to keep moving," he said gently.
Merry looked around briefly, then nodded. He tightened his grip on Pippin's arm, bending close to him. "Come on, Pip."
Pippin's eyes shut tightly, and he shook his head. At the same time, though, he pushed himself up until he was sitting, and he let Merry help pull him to his feet.
"Let's go!"
Boromir's jaw tightened, but he simply glanced back at Aragorn and held up a hand. "We will take a moment. We'll catch up."
Aragorn, one hand safely on Frodo's shoulder, frowned at him.
Boromir's eyes went to Frodo, and he was tempted to take back the words and push the hobbits into moving faster. He should have been sticking by Frodo anyway. By the ring. By.
He shook the thought away. "Go!" He didn't wait for Aragorn's response, but turned back to the little ones.
Pippin was swiping at his cheeks with a dirty sleeve. He swayed a little, but stayed on his feet.
Merry met Boromir's eyes. "We'll keep up. We're ready."
Boromir knew that Merry would never have said it if he had any doubt Pippin was too upset to travel. So he took Merry's word and rose to his feet. "Then come along. We have a long way to travel yet today."
"We have a long way to travel every day," Merry retorted without heat as they started moving after the rest of the company. "But we never seem to get anywhere."
"If Aragorn is right about this Elf forest we go to, at the very least we will be able to sleep safely tonight."
Merry smiled, the barest hint of an expression. "Maybe that's getting somewhere after all."
Pippin kept moving, stumbling along on suddenly uncertain feet. He didn't say anything at all.
