Bag End, Solmath 1420 SR
I wonder if Merry sometimes feels like this, trapped in the dark past that had cunningly, jeeringly, stolen into the present. If he does, though, he is doing a good job at concealing it. There are never any clouds of gloom in Crickhollow; Merry, with my earnest help, sees to that. The parties we have there would put yours and Bilbo's to shame. And there is the work all around Buckland and Tuckborough, undoing the hideous fingerprints of Sharkey and his men. Merry is always at the front line, strong and in charge; and the people adore him. But there are times when the glint in his eyes--cold and dangerous--makes me shiver. I often wonder what lies beneath his easy laugh and flowing talks.
We were young when we walked with you into nameless perils, Frodo. It had seemed like ages, but we have returned to the Shire in little more than a year. We are all not much older than the day we set out. But everything has changed, our lives and the lives of the people we left behind. Nothing is the way I remember it. There will be no more innocent mirth, ignorant bliss and careless curiosity. We have left them along the journey, and carried back the memories of fear, of despair and of pain.
I'm not blaming you at all for what happened, Frodo. It was our choice to go with you, it was your choice to leave and do what was assigned to you. Although none of us were prepared for the horrors each of us must battle, I don't regret it in the least, the decision to follow you.
Only I wish that once the quest had finally been fulfilled, there would be peace at last. Sleep that comes easily without shadows of grunting uruks and battles without hope. Laughter that gushes readily without visions of brave knights of Gondor lying in pools of their own blood, orc spears and arrows piercing their mauled armors.
But maybe, Frodo, just maybe, someday we will be able to look back on these nightmares and laugh about them. Even the most bitter days, they say, end when the sun sets. There is always tomorrow, and by then, the darkness is powerless, and the pain nothing but a dream. Would that night doesn't linger so.