by Sally Gardens
Epilogue: Pippin
We are very much alike, Frodo and I, when you scratch beneath the surface.
On the surface, we couldn't be more unlike. Frodo is bookish, thoughtful, fond of quiet gatherings with a few chosen friends over a pitcher or two of ale. I, as everyone in the Four Farthings knows, am a Fool of a Took; not the only Fool of a Took, mind you, but a sterling example of one cast in that mold. I am the first to admit that I am outgoing, outspoken, still more impulsive than I ought to be, and as fond of large parties and the attention of a crowd as Frodo is averse to them.
He sits with me in my study, the sunlight making a halo of his unruly hair—which still has an awful lot of brown, considering. I found a few strands of gray upon my own head, not too long ago, and Frodo had laughed and said that he had given them to me, since he had plenty to spare.
I shall never tire of seeing him with gray hair.
He smokes his pipe, contented as can be. I envy him; I can hardly sit still, wish I might get up, get out, take a good brisk walk in the country, but I do not want to leave. Not really. I only wish I had Frodo's calm.
He catches my eye, and the corners of his eyes crinkle. "Easy, Pippin," he says. "Sit back and have a smoke."
I don't want to have a smoke. And I want to say it exactly so, like a petulant child. Instead, I answer, "I'm fine, thank you, cousin."
See how I have grown.
"Mm-hm." He gives me a knowing look, but settles back in his chair, shifting his attention to the smoke drifting from his pipe and dancing in the sunbeams streaming through the window.
I will gladly spend the rest of my life the wreck that I am at this moment, if only he will be granted to hold that peace for the rest of his days.
It is a wonder that he is here at all. Never will I, can I allow myself to forget this. He left me, once, left us all with the anguish of parting and naught but the thin hope of his healing to console us. He left, forever, to seek healing in a place from which return is said to be neither permitted nor possible.
And yet it was permitted and made possible for him to return.
Why? Why, if he was meant to be in the Shire, did they direct him to the Sea? Why trouble to break the rules, not once, but twice—once in the permitting of passage, once again in the permitting of return? Would it not have been simpler to keep him in the Shire all along?
But I know the answer to that.
Had Frodo stayed, he most certainly would not be here today.
It has nothing to do with the healing virtues of the Blessed Realm, such as they may be. He came back much as he had been when he departed: healed in body, save for the aches that memory awakens at times in ancient scars, but haunted in mind. Haunted not only by the evil without that had assaulted him without mercy while he bore the Ring, but especially by the frailty he had uncovered within, the shadow that came not from the Ring but from within himself.
What the Wise gave him, in granting him passage to the Blessed Realm, was no more and no less than he needed to get on with the life that had been saved: time. Time and a place in which to be kept safe until at last he was ready to find his own healing and make peace with his wounds. And, when the time was right, he was sent back home.
We are very much alike, Frodo and I.
I tore into him mercilessly at our first meeting upon his return, lashing at him with an anger I had not known I owned. That anger saved me, slapped me awake, pulled me up from the unfeeling pit into which I had slid. It was months after that before I brought myself to make peace with Frodo, but I mark that night as the night of my return to the living.
Had Frodo not returned, I most certainly would not be here today.
I hear a squall, high-pitched, almost squeaking. I have never heard anything more absurd, nor more beautiful. The sunlight warms Frodo's eyes as he turns toward me, his face glowing with that smile worn gentle by the years.
If we had not lived—
"Pippin!" calls Rose, and I jump in my seat. "Come say hullo to your new son!"
Like a flash, I am out of my chair and down the hall and standing in the doorway of the bedroom. Diamond is lying there, exhausted amidst a tangle of sheets, and propped up on enough pillows to have kept a whole flock of geese feathered. By the radiance of her eyes as she meets mine, I gather that I will not be held to her mid-labor oaths—shouted loudly enough to be heard all the way to Long Cleeve and back—of never letting me near her again.
And in her arms...
Oh.
"Hullo, son," I say, softly, and my face is surely about to be torn in two by the wide grin I cannot hold back. I feel Frodo's hand firmly upon my back, holding me up, and suddenly I am overwhelmed with giddy wonderful tears. This, this...if this is anything, anything at all what he felt like when his own daughter was born three months ago...
Oh, I am very glad that there is mercy in the world.