Three: Bryce

"Can I get you anything, Mr. Maxwell?"

Bryce looked up from his laptop. "No thanks, Kate, I had dinner a couple of hours ago."

"Nothing?" The young girl smiled at him from the doorway of his room in the little bed and breakfast. "How about a cup of tea?"

"No thanks," Bryce replied. Kate shrugged, turning to walk down the hall. "Actually," he called after her, "a cup of tea would be lovely. Earl Grey"

"Anything else?"

"No. Well, perhaps a couple of biscuits for dipping. And some bread. Yes, some bread would be nice, with some cheese. Some vegetables, too. Yeah, some carrots, lettuce, cabbage. Potatoes too. And mushrooms, nice sautéed mushrooms. Hmm, some chicken might be nice. Or some fish. No, chicken. Roast chicken."

"Had dinner, did you?" Kate remarked with a grin, making Bryce blush.

"Yes," he admitted, smiling cheekily. "But that doesn't matter. That was dinner, and this is… supper. Two different things, you see." This, of course, was nonsense, both to him and to Kate, but she played along and went down to the kitchens. Bryce turned back to his computer, resting his fingers comfortably on the keys as he fought his case of writer's block. He had come to Buckland, Cambridgeshire, trying to put together a history of the area, only to find out it had no purpose; everyone he had interviewed, indeed, most people in town, were part of families that had lived in Buckland for generations, and thus knew the history quite well. There was no need for a book of history, because it would only have been useful to people who lived there, most of whom could tell the story of the town back to medieval times. He had then turned to fiction, but nothing was coming to him. After two weeks of sitting in front of his laptop with the intention of making up a story of his own, he had less than a page of writing.

About an hour later, Kate came back with a tray heaping with food, and Bryce hadn't hit a key. She set the tray on the desk next to the laptop, and Bryce pushed the computer aside, eager for the distraction from his own lack of progress. He ate hungrily, though a part of his mind wondered at this; he really had eaten only a few hours before.

"I'm glad to see you've got a healthy appetite again," Kate said, making Bryce jump in surprise; in his haste to eat, he had forgotten she was still standing there. "You haven't eaten much of anything since you arrived here."

"I've never been much of an eater," Bryce replied, noting the irony of saying this as he shoveled another forkful of chicken and mushrooms into his mouth.

"You never did explain why you came here," Kate said, dragging a chair from the opposite corner of the room and sitting down next to the desk.

"Yes I did," Bryce corrected, not looking away from the plate of mashed potatoes he was eating. "I came to write a book on the history of the area."

"Point taken," Kate assented, "but you never explained why you stayed. You can type nonsense on that laptop at home, but still you stay in Buckland."

Bryce sighed. "How old are you, Kate?" He asked after a pause. "Fourteen? Fifteen?"

"I turn eighteen next month, Mr. Maxwell."

"Really?" He said. "You'll be going off to a university soon, then?"

"Yes, actually. I was accepted to Exeter."

"Wow, that's quite an accomplishment."

"Thank you, Mr. Maxwell."

"What are you doing serving room service in a bed and breakfast, then?"

"I've worked here every summer since I was thirteen. My uncle owns it."

"Oh. Well, that makes sense."

"With all due respect, don't change the subject, Mr. Maxwell."

"Oh, right. There was a point to this when I started." He set down his fork (however reluctantly), and turned to meet eyes with the young woman. "You're about to leave home for school. This will be your first time living on your own, right?"

"Yes, it will be."

"It was mine too. I'm a sophomore at Columbia University in New York."

"Sir—"

"Anyone going to Exeter with you? Friends, boyfriend?"

"No."

"It was different for me," Bryce said. "I grew up in Colorado, and my girlfriend Anya and I were accepted to the same college. We had some problems, little things, but I always worked hard to make things work. Things were little rocky, but I thought they were getting better. Then, about six weeks ago, she told me she had been with someone else behind my back, and that we were over. She said I had a 'fear of abandonment', and that I was smothering her." He bit down on his lip, trying to quell the bitterness in his voice. "Sorry," he said finally. "I didn't mean to unload on you."

"Oh, it's no problem," Kate assured him, patting his arm awkwardly. "I asked. Besides, you haven't said anything about it, so it's natural for it to come out in a flood." Bryce smiled gratefully, picking up his fork again.

"It might do you some good to take a trip," she said, standing up. "You've been holed up in this little town for a month now. Go to Cambridge, catch a train. Maybe go over to France."

France, he thought. "Yeah," he murmured around a mouthful of bread and cheese. "That might be a good thing to do."


"Mademoiselle de Maupin," Bryce read off the spine of a book on the shelf before him. He had been in France for nearly a week, with little change to his disposition or his writer's block. He had taken to skulking around the most cramped, dusty bookstores he could find in each town he visited, using his broken memories of high school French class to get by. Now he was in Cherbourg, picking through the Classics section and considering going back to England. While a change of scenery had been nice for the first day or so, it hadn't helped much of anything. He was ready to go back to his little room in Buckland, sit at his desk, and stare at the screen of his laptop in peace.

Suddenly he jerked, waking up from where he had dozed off, still holding onto the novel. He hadn't been sleeping well, mostly because of a bizarre recurring dream. It had occurred back in England as well, but ever since his crossing of the Channel, it had intensified to the point that he was having it multiple times a night. He could never remember much, nothing but old men and fire, ringstones and smoke.

"Ai!" Bryce heard a shout from close by him, a split second before he found himself flat on his back. Looking up from his prone position, he saw that he had been bowled over by a book cart, over which a teenage boy was peering. "Merde," the boy swore under his breath before putting on an apologetic face. "Pardonnez-moi, monsieur," he said, pulling the cart back to help Bryce to his feet. "Je suis désolé. Je ne vous ai pas vu—"

"Pas de quoi," Bryce said awkwardly. In fact, it had hurt a lot, but it was easier to say it was no problem being run over by a cart than to try and express that to the boy.

"You're from the States," the boy said without any trace of a French accent.

Bryce blushed. "Is it that obvious?"

"No offense," the boy replied, flashing a crooked grin, "but your accent is abysmal."

"That bad?" Bryce asked, wincing. "I mean, I didn't ace French or anything, but I thought I was halfway decent at it."

The boy laughed. "From here on, the only French you should worry about is 'parlez-vous anglais'," he replied. "You'll just make a fool of yourself otherwise."

"Maybe so," Bryce sighed. "After all, you don't seem to have a problem speaking English."

"Not that English is an uncommon language or anything, but I lived in Seattle until I was twelve."

"Oh." Bryce held out a hand to be shaken, the same hand the boy had used to pull him to his feet. "I'm Bryce. Bryce Maxwell."

"Je m'appelle Eric," the boy said, shaking Bryce's hand. "Eric St. Pierre."

The young men's hands lingered, as if both parties were reluctant to let go. Eric was still smiling crookedly; Bryce was doing his best to avoid the boy's eyes. He couldn't figure out why, but he felt oddly drawn to him in a way he had never felt before. It was an attraction, but not a romantic one, like his attraction to Anya, or indeed any girl. It was more of the distinct feeling that he had to learn more about Eric.

"Listen," Eric said suddenly, breaking through Bryce's train of thought. "You want to go get something to eat?"

Bryce looked at his watch. It was a little before ten in the morning. "I've already had breakfast," he said slowly.

"You've had one, yes," Eric grinned. "What about second breakfast?"

Bryce decided that, if asked, he would deny the fact that he had been considering going for 'second breakfast' only minutes before the cart collided with him. "Why not?"

Eric smiled, ducking his head out of the aisle to call out to the middle-aged woman behind the desk. "Benny, je vais sortir pour le deuxième petit déjeuner!" The woman nodded, smiling benignly as Bryce followed the boy out the door.

"Benny?" Bryce asked as the two ducked into a little café next door.

"Non," Eric said. "Pas 'Benny'. C'est 'Béné', un sobriquet pour 'Bénédicte'." The boy bit his lip. "Sorry, I tend to mix languages in conversation. It's an old habit."

"'Sokay," Bryce said. "I think I understood most of it."

"So, where'd you grow up?" Eric asked.

"Colorado," Bryce replied.

"With both your parents, or were they separated?"

"Just my mom," Bryce said. "My dad died in a car accident when I was six."

"Oh, wow," Eric's voice softened. "That must have been hard. I'm sorry."

"It's no big deal," Bryce shrugged. "He was the business type, wasn't around much anyway."

"Still, it must have affected you somehow."

"Not really. Mum, Nicole, and I got along fine."

"Sorry, Nicole?"

"My little sister."

"Oh, are you two close?"

"Close enough, I gue— you're holding my hand," Bryce said suddenly, looking pointedly down at the table, where Eric had taken one of Bryce's hands in his own, rubbing it slightly with his thumb.

"Yes, I am."

"Why?"

Eric stared blankly at him, before recognition dawned. "You're not… we're not… oh no." He let go of Bryce's hand and stood up abruptly. "I'm so sorry, I thought… never mind," he said, putting some money down on the table. "Get whatever you want, I just need to—"

"You asked me out on a date," Bryce said slowly, understanding Eric's rather quick reaction.

"Guilty," Eric winced, blushing a violent shade of red.

"You're… gay."

"And you're not," the boy said, smacking himself in the forehead. "I don't know what I was thinking, I'm really sorry. You stay here; I'm just going to go curl up in a corner and die of embarrassment."

"Wait," Bryce said, grabbing hold of Eric's hand. "I said yes, didn't I? Granted I'm straight, but that doesn't mean I don't want to talk." Eric stared at him skeptically for a moment; then a look appeared in his eyes, a sort of "what if" look that Bryce had trouble understanding.

"Okay," Eric said. "We'll talk."

"So," Bryce began. "You're… gay."

"Technically bisexual," Eric replied, "but if it's all the same, I'd rather not talk about that. I'm trying to forget what a fool I just made of myself."

"Sure, Eric."

"Actually," the boy said, "do you think you could call me 'Pip'?"

"What?" Bryce froze, looking up at the boy.

Eric, or rather, Pip, made no notice of Bryce's surprise. "I only use 'Eric' with people I think are cu— never mind. I'd like to think it makes me seem more mature somehow. Plus the French pronounce it 'Peep', which makes me sound like something you get in an Easter basket."

Bryce laughed hollowly, still a bit shaken, though he didn't know why.

"You okay?" Pip asked, but Bryce didn't respond. Thoughts were flying through his mind; images, sounds, smells, feelings he had never experienced were coming to him like old memories, except that he was sure they weren't that. He was swept up in a sea of confusion suddenly, as if a dam had broken. It was like having more than one person in his head; he barely heard Pip ask if he were okay again before he felt the last thread of consciousness break as he drowned in the chaos.


"Come back…"

The voice was vaguely familiar, but something seemed wrong. He couldn't put his finger on the problem, but something simply didn't feel right. He kept his eyes shut, the faint green sparkle of unconsciousness still dancing behind them.

"Come on, come back to me. You can do it. Come on, Merry, open your eyes."

"What?" He finally responded, opening his eyes a crack. He was lying on the floor, his body feeling suddenly heavy, cumbersome, and much too big. He couldn't see much around him; all he could focus on was the pair of concerned hazel eyes above him. The face wasn't especially recognizable, but the eyes, the eyes were so familiar, like seeing an old friend after years of separation. "Pip…" he said softly.

The face with the eyes broke into a smile. "I knew it," it said, breathing a sigh of relief. "I knew it couldn't be serious. They can't keep us apart for long, can they?"

"What are you talking about?" He said slowly.

"Merry, you know exactly what I'm talking about," the face said. "I know you do. I saw it back in the bookstore. You felt the same thing I did; why else would you have agreed to go for food with me? Of course, at that point I thought the weird feeling I had meant I thought you were cute, but once the, ahem, incident occurred, everything clicked!" The eyes seemed a bit moist suddenly. "After all this time, we're back together."

His mind was working very slowly. "…Merry?" He said, still groggy; the sudden awkward sensation throughout his body muddled his speech.

"Hm?" The face said.

He struggled to sit up, but as soon as he tried, the sparkles that had just begun to leave his vision returned with a vengeance. He felt himself fall back toward the floor, but a pair of strong, slender arms caught him and gently placed his head in a more comfortable position.

"Here now," he could hear the face say, and he felt the cool kiss of water being dripped into his mouth. He was aware of a numb throbbing in his ears that made it hard for him to hear anything but the voice of the face with the eyes. "No, it's nothing serious. No, he'll be fine."

It was a moment or two before he felt strong enough to open his eyes again. The first thing he saw were those eyes, set in the unfamiliar face that was still above him; he appeared to have his head in the person's lap. The eyes shone with a mildly anxious look as they stared down at him.

"There," the face said. "I knew you'd pull through. You were always the strong one."

"What?" He said.

"I said you'd always been stronger than me, Merry."

"No," he murmured, working hard to move his lips. "'Merry'… Why do you keep calling me that?"

The face laughed softly. "Because that's your name, bien sûr."

"No, my name's…" he fought to remember, but indeed, after all the commotion, 'Merry' was the only name that came to mind. He bit his lip, refusing to admit the worries this brought forth.

"Fine, 'Bryce'," The face said (Bryce did his best to convince himself that he had known that all along). "Whatever fries your fish."

Fish, he thought. Some fish would be quite good right now, actually— no, wait! "I don't understand," he said. "What… why… how…?"

"That's no matter right now," the face (Pip, he finally remembered) said comfortingly, helping him into a sitting position. "We'll talk about that later, when you're feeling a bit better. Let's just sit back at the table, and order some nice fried fish." Bryce felt his face curve into a wide smile to match Pip's.


"You're sure they're here?"

"Absolutely. I can feel it in my gut."

"Speaking of gut, I'm getting a bit peckish. Think we could stop for tea?"

"We'll stop for tea when we find them."

"How are you so sure we'll find them?"

"I just am."

"Exactly how do you plan to?"

"We'll recognize them, like we did each other, and if that doesn't work, we can just yell names until someone responds."

Merry sighed. It had been two weeks since he had passed out in the café in Cherbourg, during which he and Pip had rarely been separated. The longer they were together, the more bizarre moments they seemed to have. It hadn't taken long for the easygoing college student to accept what was going on, though he still found it strange how easily Pip had taken on this new set of memories. After all, he had blacked out, while Pip had maintained enough composure to catch him when he fell out of his chair. Even now, Merry only had a shaky understanding of what had happened, while Pip seemed to not only have absorbed everything with an unusual amount of calm, but also seemed to be able to sense where the… others were.

The others. That concept was still sinking in. He knew that there were others, and that they would somehow recognize them, but exactly how and why they would was still a mystery.

Now they were in Paris; the closer they had gotten, the more finely-tuned Pip's sense of their companions' location seemed to be. Now they were in the Latin Quarter, leaning against a kiosk selling pashminas in an open-air market, regrouping. He watched Pippin closely; the younger boy was standing with his eyes shut, doing his best to be aware of those whom they were seeking. Merry did his best to focus on Pip; the young man seemed to believe in the power of good vibes, though Merry had trouble keeping his thoughts in line.

Come on, now, he told himself, focus. Focus for Pip. You can do it, Mer— no, Bryce. Bryce.

It was still happening. Ever since he had collapsed, he found that he was referring to himself, not as Bryce, but as Merry. It was unsettling, but the young man had learned to accept it, though did his best to correct himself when he noticed it.

Mind's wandering again. Damn.

From next to him, Pip sighed exasperatedly, falling back against the side of the kiosk. Merry knew his companion's body language enough now; the young man was upset that he had lost the trail. It was a common set of mannerisms; when it came to finding their comrades, Pip was easily annoyed.

In the last two weeks, Bryce-as-Merry had learned more about Pip than Bryce-as-Bryce had known about Anya after nearly three years. He was seventeen years old; his mother had been born in France, and moved to the States when she was twenty-one, where she had met his father. They divorced before he was born, and hadn't seen each other since. His father was apparently a successful businessman in Seattle, but Pip had never met him. He and his mother had stayed in Washington until they got news of his grandmother's failing health. Now they lived with the elderly woman; Pip went to school in Cherbourg, and worked part-time at the bookshop where they had met.

"SAM!" Pip shouted suddenly, jerking Merry out of his thoughts. "SAMWISE GAMGEE!" The comparatively petite boy was shouting with a surprising amount of power; his voice echoed around the narrow street, making everyone look at him, clearly startled.

"Yes?" A voice from behind them said calmly. Merry spun around to see a young man, not much older than himself, looking at them with earnest green eyes peeking out from beneath thick, curly blond bangs. He had an expectant look, as if he had been standing there waiting for them. Next to him was a younger-looking man, shorter, with shaggy hair that looked like it had been dyed black, but was fading back to brown. They wore matching tweed blazers and caps; the blond had tweed trousers, and a linen shirt and green waistcoat, while the dark-haired one opted for jeans and a black Beatles shirt.

"Is this them?" Merry muttered out of the side of his mouth, giving Pip a questioning look, but the younger man had stepped forward toward the other two. The blond man went forth as well, the two meeting in the middle while Merry and the dark-haired one hung back.

The two men stood roughly a foot from each other, each gazing into the other's eyes, as if sizing him up. Then, without warning, they grabbed one another into a tight hug.

Merry looked at the pair, then back at the dark-haired young man, and shoved his hands back into his striped linen trousers.

"Are we supposed to hug?" The other man said, adjusting his cap and staring down at his worn leather Birkenstocks. Merry shrugged.

The two men broke out of the hug, both smiling giddily. The blond man looked from his companion to Merry and back again, chuckling. "Sorry," he said to Merry through a thick Scottish brogue. "That was a bit rude of me. I'm Sam, and that there's Mister Frodo."

"Jimmy," the other one said.

Pip smiled knowingly. "I'm Pippin," he grinned, "and he's Merry."

"Or… Bryce," Merry said slowly. "Not that it matters either way to me." Sam's smile seemed to widen, while Frodo/Jimmy was staring as if he couldn't believe that wouldn't matter.

"How'd you know we'd be here?" Merry asked.

"Didn't, actually," Sam replied. "We were just stopping at the market for a nippa summat to eat before we catch the train east." He pointed to a crêpe kiosk down the way. "We were on our way there when you shouted. How'd you know is a better question."

"I'm psychic," Pip said quite matter-of-factly.

"Really, now?"

"Oui," he answered, nodding. "And the funniest thing is, I never knew about it until a couple of days ago. I just suddenly knew: Paris, then Latin Quarter once we got here."

"Well, en't that interesting?" Sam remarked with a knowing glint in his eye that made Merry suspect he knew more than he was saying.

"You said you were heading east?" Merry said, changing the subject. Sam nodded.

"Prague," he and Pip said in unison. All three other men looked to Pip, surprised. The teen smirked. "Psychic," he said.

"Indeed," Sam sighed.


Author's Note: Thanks to the friends (and enemies ;) ) whose names I'm using in the story. More on that in my Fanfiction Livejournal. As usual, I highly suggest you check it out; when I remember to update it, I give little insights and previews to my stories.

Reviews are always loved and cherished (I got more on my last update than I ever have at one time!) Thanks to Laseri, avocado75, Leap, Burzog Gurthiel, and Elessar-Lover for reviewing the last two chapters.

Next time: We see a decidedly angstier look at the last ten thousand years through the eyes of perhaps the most changed of the Fellowship. I love writing angst; this should be fun.

Namaste!