Author's Notes: Just a short piece set after Frodo goes off to the Grey Heavens. Sam is the owner of Sting, if indeed, such a blade can be owned by anyone. He's happily married to Rosie, and Meriadoc and Peregrin have come to stay with them for a few weeks whilst enjoying their last years of complete freedom before courtship. Enjoy - feedback is greatly welcomed and appreciated.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I don't own 'The Lord of the Rings', nor do I own the characters. That happy little pleasure belongs to those people at New Line, Wingnut, and Tolkien Estates.

Dedication: For S. Your world is my world.

"I think, therefore I am." -: Rene Descartes

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Absolution

By Flick-chan

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It was a cold Autumn night in the Shire. Throughout the day, soft, golden brown leaves had fluttered to the ground in lazy flight, marking a pile of sheen, slippery hewn colours in the midst of the impeccable garden of Bag-End.

Meriadoc Brandybuck pulled his face away from the window sill, and climbed back into bed, burying both himself, and his thoughts beneath the blankets that sat atop the mattress there. He hesitated to blow out the lamp. Although he knew that Pippin was already asleep, and had been for several hours now, it comforted him to know that there was something else there to keep him from feeling lonely.

He hated the nights - the darkness and the silence. He hated the way they made him feel alone, the way his nightmares would remind him that he could never again be at peace, lest he fall into the subconscious trap laid down for him of greed and disgust and worthlessness. That was why he needed the lantern - or at least the soft glow of the moon and stars to shine down upon the grass outside, and remind him that there was life out there, that this was what he had fought to save.

And yet he knew that Pippin loathed dosing off to the warm, soothing bathe of the candles. He felt it was wasteful, and morbid. Better to sleep in the dark - the light is for the morning, he would always say. And Merry knew he spoke the truth, but he was frightened to let the light go. Frightened to let the darkness invade his dreams.

"Having nightmares again, Merry?"

Merry forced himself to push his head up between the blankets. Pippin was sitting up in bed, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.

Putting his own hand across the top of the lamp, Merry nodded. "Something like that." Although he'd only got in a few seconds before, Merry swung his legs out of the covers, and pushed himself off of the bed, landing on the floor with a loud thump. But he didn't care - after all, this was what he'd been dreaming of.

Pippin watched his cousin with a stitch of worry. Merry had been having nightmares for some time now, but he'd never got out of bed in the middle of the night to follow the sunrise in the clouded sky before. Something was wrong.

Lifting himself from the floor, Merry walked slowly to the other end of the room, unclipping the lock to the cabinet next to the door. Inside, a long silver Elven sword, known as Sting, lay fixed stealthily to the wall, with brackets gleaming so finely that Merry knew Sam must have polished them only that morning. He felt guilty for undoing such hard work, but it was necessary.

"What are you - "

Merry held up a hand to silence Pippin, who had followed his cousin out of bed, and over to the wall cabinet, and handed him the sword, gulping as the metal quivered in his hands. For a moment, he felt a bond with this sword, a bond strong enough to will him to put it back in its rightful place. This was Frodo's, not his own. What right did he have to use it? Truthfully, none, but he knew is cousin would not refuse his final request.

To be killed by the sword of the hobbit who defied the darkness.

"Take it," he said softly to Pippin, who now held the blade by the tips of his fingers, glancing up at Merry with worried eyes. "Take it, and punish me."

The sword rested at the ends of Pippin's fingers, and it tipped perilously back and forth, as Pippin considered exactly what his cousin was asking him to do. After a few moments, he looked blankly back at Merry. "For what?" he asked, gesturing to Sting. "What have you done that's so bad that you deserve this?"

Merry sighed. "Don't you feel it?"

Shaking his head, Pippin began to feel fear quell up inside his chest. Merry was still staring at him, eyes focused firmly on the sheaf of metal in his hands. He seemed to be murmuring to himself, quietly calling to the sword, as if urging it of his own free will to do something. "What?"

Anger rose in Merry's veins, now. Didn't Pippin feel the same way as him? Didn't his cousin understand what was happening? The nightmares, the visions. They all pointed to one thing - his own destruction. And out of anyone left in the Shire, Merry had been sure that Pippin would understand that. "The shame." He paused for a few seconds to give Pippin enough time to digest what he was saying. "The shame of death. Of what we did."

Blood. They had shed it willingly, without thinking. It had spread over the fields and the mountains and the earth, tainting everything that was good and pure in the world. Aragorn perhaps, had cause to kill. Frodo also could justify the lives wasted by his blade. But himself…Pippin…they had no reason to be fighting. The quest had not been directly related to them, nothing bigger than their own lives had been connected to the death of so many innocent people. They had been nothing but cowards.

Sting lightly touching the bare layer of skin on his digits, Pippin swallowed. "I still don't understand," he said, slowly. "Why have you given me Sting, Merry? It belongs to Frodo…I thought we agreed it would never be taken out of the case, until Sam goes to spend the rest of his days in Valinor."

"You need to punish me," repeated Merry. "I've done some awful, awful things. Killed thousands of orcs…Uruk Hai…run defenceless men through blindly with the point of my blade." His voice began to break. "Look at me, and tell me that's not wrong, Peregrin. Tell me that it's right to kill."

Pippin dropped the weapon suddenly, and a harsh, hollow clang echoed out across the bedroom floor. He understood now - understood what his cousin was asking of him. "But Merry," he stepped over Sting to grip his shoulders. "They were evil - the lowest of the low."

The curtains held an empty refuge for Merry, as he turned away from Pippin's touch. "That doesn't mean they deserved to die," he said, harshly. His shadow grew long and foreboding in the semi-darkness, and by candlelight, Pippin thought he looked not unlike the horrific silhouette of destruction that he had witnessed during his short experience with the palantir.

"Yes," he replied gently. "That's true - nothing deserves to die. But they would have killed us." His cousin was descending into a form of ludicrously he never would have thought possible of him, had he not been faced with it right now. "They had no remorse. They're creatures bred for war - they don't fight for anything other than praise, and the occasional bit of food."

He stretched out his arm, placing one quivering finger on Merry's shoulder. "And we're not like that. We fight for our friends, to save our world from falling to madness. We're Captains Meriadoc and Peregrin. Don't you think we did something to be proud of?" His heart began to ache. Merry would not respond to the touch, and the pain that filtered through his body was excruciating. Why was he putting himself through this…why was he destroying himself…"Please," he tried again. "I love you, Merry - don't do this to yourself. Don't do this to me."

"They have souls," whispered Merry, quietly. "Any creature with a soul can love - but we took that chance away from them." He fell back into the waiting embrace. "They'll never have this, Pippin," a single tear dripped down his cheek, glittering wildly against the steady glow of the lamp. "They'll never have what we share. And why? Because we killed."

He felt his body failing as Pippin rocked him gently back and forth. "No. It was them or us," Pippin muttered against his ear. "We couldn't both survive - not in this world. They would have murdered Frodo. Aragorn. Elrond. Everyone we grew to love." Merry felt himself being cradled like a baby, and the soft, soothing sense of love ease him into a state of submission. "We did the right thing."

"We did the right thing," he repeated, feeling himself being drawn further into Pippin's arms. The intoxicating warmth of his shirt on bare skin seemed strangely comforting, almost like seeing Gandalf in the midst of battle. Then, staring into the dark crimson material of the curtains, he paused again. "I know you're right, Pippin. Something deep inside my heart tells me that. But it still doesn't feel right…it's just, by killing them, it's like I've killed a part of myself." His heart grew cold once more. "The innocent part," he carried on. "I feel so tainted. Their blood is on my hands."

Pippin shook his head again, trying to comfort his cousin. "You haven't destroyed your soul," he assured him firmly. "You're still the Merry that I've known since I was born." His arms ached. Holding Merry so tightly was difficult, especially when the elder hobbit seemed to have lost all will, and indeed, capability, to keep himself upright. Pippin was determined not to allow him to slouch down into a crumpled mass on the floor. Merry was better than that.

"Don't say that." Merry's voice had found a hard edge now, one that told Pippin that he meant everything he said. "I have changed. I'll never be that Merry again."

"Maybe not," conceded Pippin. "But you'll be stronger for it all. Please, Merry. Don't give up. I know it's tough for you; but don't let your guilt drag you down. You didn't do anything wrong - just remember that."

"Pippin." Merry turned around, and embraced his cousin fully from the front. As he met Pippin's eyes, Merry could sense the fear that they withheld. The youngsters fear that his best friend would leave him, after everything they'd done. And Merry couldn't help but add to that fear a little further. There was no point in denying it - he didn't know how long he'd be able to survive in the Shire if he kept having these dreams. They were sucking the life out of him by day, turning everything he had once loved and loathed to ashes beneath the burning glow of a poker hot sun, which suddenly seemed closer than it had ever been before. "We've been through a lot together - I know that. But you don't always come out the other side as a stronger person." He gave a mirthless, unsettling laugh. "How can death make you stronger? It just brings tears and sorrow."

Pippin remained silent, and the room seemed to wallow in a fruitless despair until Merry's voice once again broke the silence. "You don't understand, you're just - "

"Too young," Pippin suggested, letting go of Merry's arms, and pivoting to pick up the sword, which had lain untouched for some time on the floor. Already it beheld a sparkling layer of dust, which Pippin now wiped away with the corner of his trouser bottoms. "I know," he said, softly. "I know. You've always thought that, haven't you? I don't blame you, maybe you're right. Maybe I am too weak and childish for this sort of thing." He ran a finger across the metal length, and Merry could only watch in a hushed quiet, as Pippin's eyes reflected mercilessly in the sharpened point of the blade. "But there's one thing I'm certain of, Merry. I'm not going to punish you with this." He brandished Sting above his head. "You don't need to shed any more blood, and nor do I. Whatever you're going through in your head is probably one thousand times more painful than anything I could do with this sword."

He placed Sting back on the floor, and both hobbits continued to stare at it with a paralysed calling. The shiny metal lay on the cold floor, lighting and illuminating the room which had been almost completely void of light only a few moments ago.

Merry took a hitched breath. He'd never known…never even thought about… "Pippin," he mumbled, "Pippin, I - "

But in that short space of time, where the scene seemed to have become suspended in mid air, Pippin had crawled back underneath his bedclothes, which were still warm from all his tossing and turning. "Go to sleep, Merry." He yawned. "Stop thinking about it. It's over - and no-one can ever be perfect after a war. Loss. Sacrifice. They make you grow. And if it's worth anything to you, I'm just here to remind you of it."

And for hours after that, Sting still remained motionless on the floor ,as Merry struggled with the realisation that although younger than him in years, his cousin was far older than him in terms of wisdom.

End.