Bag End, Solmath, 1420 SR
The memory of Lobelia's scandalized look when she hurried home with Lotho, who miraculously managed to look dazed, shamefaced and nauseated all at the same time, can still make me laugh afresh. I remember our stolen glances and the way your face turned red as you tried to hold back another gale of laughter. I chuckle again, even though the cold tracks of my tears are still wet on my face.
I turn and look at you. You still sit with your back to the headboard, staring down at me, your eyebrows raised quizzically. "What's so funny?" you ask.
"Oh, nothing," I say, grinning. My eyes veer to the ceiling and once again I chortle uncontrollably. I laugh so loud and so fiercely, until tears fall anew from my eyes. And suddenly I am no longer laughing, but weeping.
Poor Lobelia had died, only months after she was rescued from Sharkey's Lockholes. Wormtongue had murdered Lotho, under order from Saruman. The filthy, greedy fingers of evil had reached as far as the Shire---the home I thought safe and pristine, somewhere to return to. We could not keep it out.
Everyone says I've changed. People say I look more the Thain now than I used to, more grand and lordly, and mature. My sisters even look with fond respect at me, something I never dreamed they would do; but now that they do, I'm not sure I like the way they treat me. I wish they would still look at me with annoyed disdain verging on hopeless contempt, like they used to. I wish they would wave my tales as ale-induced bragging. But I can't very well hide my size now, can I? And when I took off my mail-shirt with its splendid crest of Gondor, so they could measure me for a new set of wardrobe, they saw my scars. They became silent, before Vinny started to weep and the others followed suit. They held me close afterward, and I found that I love them more fiercely than ever because I had come so near to losing them. There are still nights, Frodo, when I walk the entire length of Great Smials, before tiptoeing into my parents' bedroom, only to sit beside them as they sleep, watching my mother's face and listening to my father's snores. I love them now in ways I never before experienced. I never thought, never imagined, that love can hurt that much.
I have indeed changed, in the inside, more than the outside. The tough, battle-hardened crust that people see, the loud and brave words, the incredible tales; they are but a frail façade for a heart rendered even more raw and vulnerable. If I should lose those I love, and those who love me, my world will fall apart.
You have gathered me into your arms, stroking my head and back. I look up at your face and see the silent tears shrouding your eyes.
"I'm sorry, Pip," you whisper.
And here I am, perversely wishing that, having no family, you are spared this painful sensation that is love, this ache that is gratitude, this heavy, penetrating fear of losing.
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