I put it off for so long, but Christmas came, went, drifted into a new year and vanished. It was so fast that I had no idea time was really passing until now, and I realised that people actually want to read this…if you get me. Anyway, check the AN of Chap 12 of 'Two Strangers' to see what I've been up to over the last few weeks, it saves time. *grins*. Also, damn Plot Bunny (Muse #2) bit me REALLY hard and now I'm currently working on a complex project, writing my first ever crossover. Star Trek and LOTR, but it's not based on the Fellowship and all, already got a story like that thankyou very much. Anyway, it's so complex and so long that it's taking up a lot of energy and time so my future update may not be very frequent, but I'll try. (At this rate, I'll end up like Minka, she has TONS of unfinished stories…but she is really good at writing, I'm just mediocre.)

Disclaimer: Can't own 'em, won't own them, can't buy them and can't steal 'em. In other words, they ain't mine.

Summery: I couldn't help it, I had to continue the tiff between those jealous hobbits, it was simply not going to leave me alone and..well, it's funny. *gives cheesy grin*

* * * *

5: Jealousy Reigns

They walked clear over Hobbiton, knocking on doors and asking anyone they came across if they had seen a partially bald Fruity hobbit with a girl in his possession, possibly trying her hardest to get away from a 'pruning session'. There were nothing but dead ends and more than one hobbit slammed the door in their faces, frightened for the four hobbits' sanity.

Finally, at about midnight Merry threw down his walking stick, flopping down on the grass growing on the side of the road next to a field they had been searching in. "This is going nowhere." He groaned, rubbing his sore feet and back. Losing Pippin had been the worst thing that could ever happen to him, and walking for nearly 5 hours non-stop was definitely NOT something he would like to repeat anytime in the future.

"Ok, so we accept that we have officially lost the Fruit and poor Diamond forever?" Sam glowered at Merry and the other hobbit was about to make a sharp retort when the Gaffer piped up.

"I've been wondering about the 'poor Diamond' situation, and I do not think she was entirely upset at leaving with young Pip. She might not have had much choice in the matter but…well, she didn't put up much of a fight neither." He let the words hang and a sudden realization came over the remaining three hobbits, and it wasn't very reassuring.

"Maybe…" Merry started, not continuing until he had everyone's attention. "…the 'Fruit' is contagious and now Dimmy has caught it too."

"Oh that's just stupid, no one with half a mind would say that." Sam snorted with disdain and Merry turned a whole new shade of red, Frodo and the Gaffer took a step backwards in wise foresight for what was to come.

"You saying I have half a mind?" Merry growled.

"You said it, not me." Sam crossed his arms and smiled innocently.

"Take it back."

"Take what back?"

"I'm NOT mindless!"

"Never said you were."

"Did so!"

"Did not!"

"Did so!"

"Did not!"

"So!"

"Not!"

"SO!"

"NOT!"

"SO!"

Merry snapped and leapt at Sam, pulling him to the ground as they rolled around in a full hand to hand fight. Frodo darted forward to try and stop his two close friends from killing one another but was held back by the older hobbit, the Gaffer shaking his head and sitting calmly on the verge while pulling Frodo gently down next to him.

"No need, they will wear out soon enough."

Frodo sighed and nodded in agreement. "But 'soon' may not come quick enough," he winced as Merry's fist made firm contact with Sam's jaw, "they might kill each other in seconds."

"It is quite amusing how jealousy can do this to two usually good friends." The Gaffer smiled and chewed unconsciously on a piece of straw.

"Amusing?" Frodo stared at him in disbelief. "Pippin is gone, Merry and Sam are at each other's throats…I won't have a friend left by the time this night is over."

"You have me."

"Yes, but you're old."

"And you aren't?" the Gaffer quirked an eyebrow and Frodo laughed.

"Ok ok, you win. But we need to find Pippin, and those two are NOT helping." He waved his hand towards the fighting hobbits and became silent, trying to pinpoint exactly who was saying what.

"You're just jealous!"

"Am not! You started it!"

"Did not! OW!"

"You deserved that."

"Oh really?"

"Ow! Stop it!"

"Make me!"

"Ok!"

There was a screech and Merry suddenly rolled away down a hill that the two fighters had conveniently been moving towards, landing at the bottom with a small 'thud'. Sam was on his hands and knees looking after him with quite a dumbstruck look on his face.

"Er, oops?"

"That's your second 'oops' this night alone, Samwise. Will there be many more to come?" The Gaffer had lost his humour and was now frowning heavily upon his son. Sam blushed red and stood up, dusting of his clothes and tenderly touching his bruised face, his left eye swelling up and a split lip finishing the look of someone that had been on the losing end.

"That really hurt!" Merry's voice called out from the bottom of the hill. Frodo looked carefully over the edge and couldn't help but laugh. If Sam looked bad, then Merry was much worse. He crawled over the lip of the hill and sat heavily on the ground, also checking himself for injuries as well as trying to keep his pride intact after the fall. "I'm glad I still have my memory though," he called out finally, "this was the same way Pip lost his."

"On that point," Frodo sighed, "shouldn't we be focussing on the main reason we are out here on a cold night, miles from home and very tired?" He looked disapprovingly at Sam and Merry, but couldn't help quirk a smile when the Gaffer got the two to face each other and shake hands. They were hesitant and eyed each other suspiciously, before they quickly shook and murmured.

"You started it."

"Did not."

"Did…"

"Quit it or I'll box both your ears." The Gaffer growled and Sam winced, obviously knowing his father very well.

"Truce?" Frodo called, still keeping his distance in case another fight ensued.    

"Truce." Merry and Sam agreed, keeping their glare to a minimal glance every now and then as they limped down the road after Frodo and the Gaffer.

"Well," Said Sam after a short while, "we are still no closer to finding that Fruit than we were at the beginning of all this."

"Maybe he cut cross country?" Merry suggested, trying to keep his end of the bargain by not defending his cousin, even if the silly young tween was a serious handful much of the time.

"Oh."  Sam was speechless, for the first time the Brandybuck had actually said something sensible, no one else had thought of this. Frodo looked thoughtful for a minute before he spoke his part.

"If that is the case, I think we should head back to Bag End and stock up before we start looking again. There isn't much more we can do tonight anyhow…"

"What! And abandon my cousin out here in the dark?" The truce was forgotten.

"He's my cousin too, Merry." Frodo pointed out.

"Twice removed, he's more my cousin than anyone else here."

"Then why didn't you look after him better? If you did, we wouldn't be in this mess now would we?"

Sam merely blinked as Merry scowled at him, before turning his back to him, facing Frodo instead. "What about Diamond?"

 "As I said before," the Gaffer grunted, "I do not think she may have been as unwilling as we are all making her out to be."

"You mean, she might have wanted to run off with Pippin?" Merry asked, as if he had never truly heard the gardener in the first place…which he hadn't, being so involved with Sam and all.

"No, meaning she not have been as unwilling as WE may have thought. It may have seemed like a grand, yet reluctant adventure on her part."

"How do you know this?" Sam looked at his father suspiciously.

"You were out in the hall, Diamond stopped really complaining almost as soon as you left. There was quite a conversation happening though, you should have heard it."

"Oh yes," Merry brightened up, remembering what had happened himself, "Pippin started telling little stories about dragons' gold and exciting places to be, just like where Bilbo went. Very interesting to be sure."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?" Sam's face had gone red, no one noticed Frodo edging away again.

"Because you didn't ask." Merry retorted, any resurrection of the truce having gone out the window…or into it, depending on which side you were of window at the time or…moving on.

"I didn't know I had to ask, no one told me to ask!"

"Then someone should have told you that you should have asked that someone tell you about it." Merry put his hands on his hips and glared at the stout hobbit.

"NO one did!"

"The don't blame me!"

"I didn't, someone should have simply told me!"

"No one told Frodo either."

"That's besides the point!"

"Is not."

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Is…"

Sam's and Merry's cry of pain ceased the bickering and they held their ears, Sam his right and Merry his left, whimpering under the Gaffer's glowering look.

"I told you before, and I'll tell you again. I will box your ears if you keep that up!"

Frodo couldn't help laughing; it was then that the rest realized that he had moved quite a considerable distance away and was now leaning against a tree, a full 10 metres from them.

"What are you doing all the way over there?" Merry queried and Frodo laughed, but didn't move from his current position.

"If I am ever stuck with you two for a long amount of time, I would like to get into practice of keeping my distance thank you very much." He grinned at the stunned looks on his two friend's faces, the Gaffer simply smiled knowingly.

"What do you mean, Mister Frodo?"

"Yes, what have we done?"

This sent the hobbit going again and Sam and Merry simply looked at each other worriedly.

"He's as mad as his uncle." Merry whispered.

"If not worse." Sam agreed. And with that they all continued, not really knowing what to do next but checking the trees and bushes anyway, hoping to find some sign of the two travelling hobbits.

The first sign of hope came only about 15 minutes later when Merry gave a shout and held something up.

"What is it, Merry?" the Gaffer came up and laughed, taking the object out of the hobbit's hands and passing it too Frodo. Who then laughed as well, leaving Sam in the total dark as to what the big joke was.

"What's going on?" He squinted his eyes as Frodo handed the thing in question to him, before a big grin came over his face. "Oh, trust that Fruit and Diamond's stomach!" He laughed with the others; Merry was the only one not laughing.

In Sam's hand lay an apple, a full red one with an inscription on the side carved out with either a nail or stick. 'Pippin Fruit (then a little heart) Dimmy'. Merry was more worried about the fact that the apple hadn't been touched in any other way, such as being eaten, if only partially. He knew that Diamond always kept spare apples in her pockets, just in case, and he knew that only she or Pippin could of scratched that message as they were the only others that knew he was 'Fruity'. But an untouched apple could only mean one thing.

"We have to find them soon!" He pulled heavily on Frodo's sleeve, causing the hobbit to stop laughing and look at him with concern.

"Why the urgency, Merry?"

Merry bit his lip and whispered his answer into Frodo's ear. Instead of getting the same worry from him as he held for his young cousin, he got another round of laughter. He glowered at Frodo. "It's not funny."

"Oh but it is, he won't starve you know." Frodo bit his lip to stop laughing too hard, tiredness and too much happening in one day was getting to him and laughter was becoming too easy to do now.

"But you don't know Pippin. He can forget food for a while if he has too much on his mind, which is very rare, but when the hunger hits him later…the consequences can be catastrophic." His worry strained face silenced the laughter and suddenly it hit them all.

"The 'Food Stores'!" They all shouted simultaneously and then started to run, back in the direction of Hobbiton and the hopefully unscathed Food Stores on the East-Side. They also knew that if Pippin was hungry, Diamond would be ravenous, they were too much alike.

"Oh…help." Merry puffed, praying to some higher power to help them out of this mess. The whole of Hobbiton would be upon them if the Stores were touched; such were the ways of these strange hobbits, unlike the sane ones back in Buckland where he felt he should have stayed. Then this would never have happened, and he would be asleep…at home. "Oh help".

TBC

OK!!! Now for official thanks for reviews.

Tesekian: I wasn't meaning to offend, I love being haunted by people who review, gives me a sense of being wanted *muses sigh and wonder about Vana's mind*. Thanks for reviewing and enjoy it all, CHEERS.

Lady Baggins of the Shire: *Vana gives her a sedative and hopes for the best*. Ah, a Merry lover! I will try to send that kiss to him, will try my darn hardest and hopefully you will get a return. THANKS HEAPS FOR REVIEWING!!!

The Pen-Nameless Girl: After this chapter, I don't know if Diamond's ringlets will even exist after a while. Hee hee. Madness is good, it gives way for more madness and opens a total other realm of madness, in other words…it's mad. *laughs* Anyway, thanks for reviewing, it's a charm to be sure.

Sarah: Glad you think it's hilarious, I was hoping for that effect as I'm usually so serious. Thanks so much for reviewing, it really gives me a lift.

Ithildin: Though not really being an official review, it still cheered me to know that you read it. Thanks so much for reviewing, it made my day.

Anyway, this chapter is my longest yet, but I will try to shorten the following ones a bit because if they get too long, I'll never get them down. A sneak peak into the next chap is this: Rose and Estella talk. Won't give you much more than this, because this is where real sweet romance comes into the picture. A little butter for your bread.

Ta ta