Author's note: The second chapter pretty much speaks for itself; I don't have anything to comment about it. Thanks to those of you who reviewed the first chapter, your comments were very kind )

Disclaimer: Well, same as for the last chapter…

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Pippin squinted at the bright sun and thought he should have left his cape at home. It was far too warm to wear a cape, May was giving way to June and summer was already upon them. But wearing a cape felt comforting, it brought a sense of security. Maybe that was why he wore his cape even in the hottest days of July and September.

Merry walked next to him, sporting a grim look and wearing his cape as well. Neither of them had said much, but they usually didn't need to. Four decades of friendship had taught them how to socialise with each other without using words. Pippin was glad just to have the company. The past year had been the loneliest of his life, with Diamond gone and himself moving away from Merry. He was glad Merry had come to visit him at the Great Smials.

"It's going to be a hotter year than the last" Pippin remarked and kicked at some leaves on the ground left over from last fall.

"Perhaps."

"Whoever rakes these paths?" Pippin wondered. "There should be no brown leaves cluttering up the paths. Remember when we were little and we used to jump around in the huge piles of leaves the gardeners raked up? How angry they were with us…"

"I don't feel like small talk" Merry said. "I'm not in the mood for small talk."

"Fine then… What do you want to talk about?"

"Will you come see him?"

Pippin stopped for a second, then continued walking. It was almost one year to the date since his wife had passed away, and Pippin had yet to see his son.

"Merry I don't think that I--"

"It's his first birthday. You should be there for that. His father ought to be there."

"I have plans that day."

"Plans? You have plans? Your only child is celebrating his only first birthday ever and you have plans? What kind of plans, might I ask? Locking yourself in your room and digging an ever deeper pit of pity for you to hide in, I bet."

"Who are you to pass out judgment?" Pippin asked. "No, that's not what I will be doing. But if you're going to be that way about it then I won't tell you."

Merry shook his head. He was more disappointed with his cousin than he could express. Faramir would be one year old and he had never gotten to meet his father. Pippin's refusal was getting ridiculous. Merry understood how much it must hurt him to have lost Diamond, but no Hobbit could mourn forever. At least so Merry had thought. Pippin seemed to have fallen down a hole and had no desire even to get out of it.

"It would mean the world to him, you know" Merry said. "I tell him about you all the time. His father. How he will come for him when the time is right. I promised him you would come see him before he was one year of age."

"Since when did you make promises you can't keep, you're too responsible for that."

"Please don't make me a breaker of promises now."

"It's a whole lot to ask Merry."

"No it's not, you twit!" Merry exclaimed. "It's not a lot to ask that you see your own son for the first time, sooner or later it has to happen and all the other fathers out there see their babies on the day they are born! Don't come talk to me about 'a lot to ask', you asked me to raise the baby! I took the tot in for you, you can come see him for me."

"No I can't" Pippin said. "I gave him to you for a reason."

"Surely you do not mean you won't ever come see him" Merry said. "Why would you have given him to your very best friend whom you see all the time if you never planned on looking at the child! I think you're scared, and I think you're acting pathetic. It stopped being about you the moment he was born, you know that, you can't hide behind being afraid anymore."

"A lone father cannot raise a child so I gave him to you" Pippin reminded his cousin. "Don't say I never did anything for him! I gave him the best home possible, didn't I?"

"No, you didn't. He should be with you."

"He can't bloody be with me, you know this Merry! And it's not that I'm afraid! But five days from today will be one year to the date since I was robbed of my wife. That is not the time to reunite me with that child."

"How would you have felt if your father wouldn't come see you even on your birthday?" Merry asked.

"That is different. His situation was different. He had Mother."

"On his birthday little Faramir can at least have his father."

"Stop pestering me" Pippin said. "I gave him up, and that's just that."

Merry wanted to grab his cousin by the shoulders and shake him hard until whatever parts were loose in Pippin's head fell into place. But what use would it be? Somehow he could not reach Pippin the way he used to be able to. It kept Merry awake at night knowing that whatever Diamond had taken with her when she died it seemed to be something which Pippin needed to get back on his feet. It should not take a Hobbit this long to get back on track no matter what he had lost. Merry wanted so bad to get through to Pippin and make him understand that if he just let Faramir into his life he would bounce back from the loss of Diamond so much sooner. But he couldn't reach his cousin.

Pippin bit his upper lip and looked away. He felt scared to meet his cousin's glare. He wanted his old best friend back, the one who would have sat him down under a tree, held his hands and just talked and talked and talked until Pippin finally opened up and spilled out everything that he didn't even know he needed to put into words. But either Merry had forgotten how to do that or he just didn't have the time anymore. Pippin missed the old gentle, caring Merry so much that he could scream. His cousin was not half as gentle and caring as he once had been, he only came with harsh words that Pippin needed to pull himself together and above all be a father. Did he not think he got to hear that enough as it was? Pippin could feel a distance between himself and his cousin which had never been there before. Perhaps moving out of Crickhollow had been a mistake. But it was the only thing Pippin had known to do at the time.

Part of Pippin wished he could reach out his hand and take Merry's. He wished he could be young and small again and that his cousin could hold him close and soothe him the way he had used to. Merry had promised he would offer a shoulder to cry on whenever it was needed but who wanted to lean against a shoulder which demanded you pull yourself together at once?

Merry gave up trying to get eye contact with Pippin and angrily gave the leaves a kick. He wished his best friend would just grow up and act responsible. Running and hiding had never been Pippin's style, it didn't suit him one little bit. Merry wished there was a magic spell he could say that would make it all okay again. But there was none and right now he felt he could not devote his efforts to helping Pippin get over his loss. That would have been his number one priority in the world, but things were not the way they ought to have been. Waiting for him at home was not only his wife but a little boy whom Merry had been entrusted with. They were dealing with a little lad's whole life and Merry could not set that aside just to hold Pippin's hand. Pippin's complete lack of affection and longing for his baby made Merry more upset than words could say.

"Come" he said. "Come see him on his birthday. I beg of you, please."

Pippin looked at him with sad eyes and shook his head. No, he could not do it. He saw Merry's jaw clench but then the look of anger changed and turned into a look of sadness.

"Do you know what day I dread, more than anything has ever frightened me before my whole life?" he asked Pippin.

"The day Estella gives birth?" Pippin asked. Merry's wife was only weeks away from having a baby.

"No" Merry said, shaking his head. "The day I have to look that boy in the eyes and answer him when he asks me why his own father does not love him."

Pippin felt he could not walk another step. He didn't know if the feeling that came over him was that of guilt, fear, anger or some whole other thing. All he knew was that he felt like he had just fallen through thin ice into icing cold water. Merry strode on, refusing to hear the whimpers that past over Pippin' lips.

"You stay here and kick at your leaves" Merry said angrily. "I have a baby to return to."

"Merry please don't walk away, I need you!"

"So does that child you brought into the world" Merry said without turning to look at his best friend. "And he comes first."

Pippin watched Merry stride away and felt like his heart was breaking all over again. Heavy sobs started running like thrusts through him and he lifted his hand up to cover his mouth, both wanting Merry to hear it and fearing that if he did he still wouldn't turn around. He sunk down on the ground and sobbed without making a sound for several minutes, feeling like he could barely breathe through the pain.

"Oh Diamond…" he whimpered. "There is only pain without you, I want you back alive… Please Diamond, wherever you are, please tell me you can still see me and that you are watching. Please help me keep Merry, hold him still in my life. If he walks out on me too then everything is lost. I know I have let you down so badly but help me keep my best friend or I don't know what to do anymore. Diamond help me and make this pain go away…"

All alone out on the path he sat until the fierce sobs had ceased. He shivered and pulled his cape around him, thankful now that he had it. He stayed on the path for a long time, unable to get up.

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Pippin swallowed nervously and knocked on the door, which was already open. Merry took his eyes off the baby he was holding and motioned with his head that Pippin should come inside. With a smile Pippin came in and sat down opposite Merry.

"I know we haven't talked since that day out on the path…" he said. "But I got the news and I wanted to come congratulate you. A daughter, Father tells me. And both Estella and the child are doing wonderfully."

"Yes, a daughter" Merry said. "Born at dawn on June 27th, so that's her name."

"June 27th? Odd name for a Hobbit, but I guess that can work" Pippin joked.

"Father was a bit disappointed that I didn't have a son" Merry said. "But there is time for that later on."

"Though a son would have been more comforting, wouldn't it?" Pippin said. "Not having to try again, already having an heir… Not that there's anything wrong with having a daughter! She's lovely, Merry!"

"Yes she is" the proud father said and smiled at the baby.

"I had to come when I got the news" Pippin said. "All quarrels aside, I had to be here and see your child, Father Meriadoc."

Merry gave him an odd look.

"What?" Pippin asked. "Is there something wrong?"

"No… Just that you felt you had to be here to see my child, yet you have not laid eyes upon your own baby yet. Really Pippin, not that I don't appreciate you being here to see her, but don't you think it's rather peculiar?"

"Perhaps a tad" Pippin admitted. "But I wasn't going to let whatever issues I have concerning that child to affect my relationship with you or your children."

"You know, perhaps you shouldn't have come."

"You don't mean that."

"I don't see how you can come for my daughter but not for your son. It makes me feel uncomfortable, it's just plain wrong!"

"We will not have this discussion Merry, we really will not" Pippin said. "Why don't you leave my relationship with my child up to me and worry about something that is your business."

"Problem is you have no relationship with your son" Merry said. "And are you kidding me? This very much is my business, you entrusted the child to me! You told me to provide for his well-being, but I am not supposed to care whether or not he gets to know his dad?"

"Get off my case" Pippin snarled. "I didn't entrust him to you to have you chew me out over this every time we meet. Can we for once have a conversation which doesn't end up around the child? I am here to congratulate you on the birth of your own, can we please just leave it at that?"

"Peregrin…" Merry said in a softer tone. "What do you think Faramir will feel when he finds out you saw his second cousin, born more than a year after him, before you saw him? It's going to break his heart, you will hurt him very much if you keep this up. Doesn't that matter to you? I look at this child in my arms and Pippin you would never believe the love! There is no other love like the one you have for your child, as someone who has always loved with all your heart you should be one to appreciate that! I have never known you to turn your back on any kind of love, and this is the most natural love you can feel. Peregrin I cannot for the life of me understand how a parent can avoid feeling love for their child! How they can make sure that they don't! I just don't understand you."

"You don't understand me, that's just wonderful" Pippin sighed. "You've always understood me in the past."

"This time I need you to help me" Merry said.

"I'm unable to explain how I feel" Pippin said. "That is where I need you to step in, when have I ever had to explain how I feel to you? You've always known anyway! I thought you would be the one person to understand this, to understand me."

"Honestly Pip, I think you don't understand it either" Merry said. "If you truly believe that I can understand you no matter what then the only explanation is that you don't comprehend the way you feel yourself. How can I understand what you yourself cannot?"

"You always have, you've always understood me better than I understand myself."

"Go hold your boy" Merry said. "Or just look at him at least. What harm can it do to get to know him? He is a year old now and beginning to turn into a little person. He has a favourite lullaby, 'Like a Flower on a Meadow'. He has a security blanket Estella gave him for her birthday, he carries it around everywhere. He is walking Pip, he's only a year old but he's walking. And you know what else? He loves raisin buns."

"Stop it!" Pippin spat out. "I don't want to hear it, why are you doing this?"

"Because you are my best friend in the whole world. And you're sinking."

"Maybe you can save the world Merry, but there are some things you cannot do. One of them is helping me through this ordeal by passing out judgment."

"I never thought I'd say this but there are more important things than helping you through the loss of your wife. Faramir is more important. Diamond is dead Peregrin, she is never coming back, not ever. Faramir is alive, he has his entire life ahead of him. What's best for him is my biggest concern, you made it so. I can't drop him and go hold your hand, if I can only care for one of you then it has to be him right now."

"You keep telling me that I need to pull myself together and be that child's father, but if you truly believed that you would do everything in your power to help me. I cannot be anything at all to that child until I get over losing her and I cannot do that. How can I get through the darkest time of my life when you, the one person I need, the one who has always understood me and loved me no matter what crazy things I've done, when you won't be there for me? I can't cross a river without a bridge, Meriadoc."

"I am not that bridge. Faramir is."

"He's a baby" Pippin said. "The baby that caused my wife to bleed to death. That is not a bridge, it is a boat with a huge leak in it, which would take me to the bottom of the river!"

"Are you really blaming him?"

"Stop condescending me!"

"What has gotten into you?" Merry asked. "You're not the Peregrin I grew up with. Nor the one I journeyed with and nearly lost my life with."

"That's right, I'm not. That Peregrin died the day she did. The day that child came into the world. He might have been born but Diamond died and so did I."

"No you just like to pity yourself, for whatever reason."

Pippin flew to his feet and looked at his cousin with aversion. Merry shifted his eyes and looked down on his child, taking some strength in the sight of her. He didn't like getting into these fights with Pippin all the time, he wished things could be back the way they always had been.

"If you don't want to be my friend and help me through this, fine" Pippin said with spite. "You've proven your loyalty to me, the child is in your care. Don't feel obliged to do anything else, you can stay here at Crickhollow with your own little worries and know that you needn't feel guilty for not seeing me through this. I do have other friends, perhaps its time I tried to make them understand me."

Merry watched him leave without a word. He hated parting with Pippin on bad terms, especially two times in a row, but there was not much he could do about it right now. The baby had gone to sleep and he didn't want to wake her by yelling after Pippin. He rose and went to the nursery where he gently laid her down in her crib.

In the crib in the other end of the room a one year old lad was taking a nap. Merry walked up to him and wished things could be different. It would be painful to see little Faramir go but it was even more painful to be caught in this situation. He grabbed the sides of the crib and squeezed them tight, wishing he could scream at the top of his lungs.

"Merry?" he heard Estella's voice from behind him. "Darling is there something the matter?"

She walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. Merry looked at her and then at the peacefully sleeping child.

"What is wrong with my cousin?" he asked. "Why won't he love his son? He came to see my daughter and he has yet to see his own son! That is not normal, frankly it makes me sick to my stomach. What has this precious boy done to deserve this treatment from the one person who ought to love him the most? Just one look Estella, and Pip would feel differently!"

"Maybe that's why he won't see him" Estella said gently. "I think Peregrin is frightened that he will love the baby, and have to watch the child he loves grow up in someone else's home. Say whatever you like Merry but we both know Pippin can in fact not raise this child on his own. His mother is old, she might pass on any year now, and two of his sisters have moved out of the Smials to live with their husbands elsewhere. Now the third is getting married and she might move as well. Pippin is not a stupid lad, he knows this. I think he's afraid he might love his son if he sees him and he is afraid of the pain that would come with it."

"Even if that's so…" Merry said. "I don't think it's about what he wants. It's about what's best for the child. And never knowing your father's love when your father is within your reach can never be good."

"I think Pippin really did give him to you for good" Estella said. "To raise at least. I don't think he will ever choose to play an active part in Faramir's upbringing. You just have to accept that and teach Faramir that his father loves him even though he's not with him. Sometimes the gift of love is staying away."

Merry bit his lower lip and released his firm grip of the crib. He couldn't quite agree with Estella, he didn't like that she made excuses for Pippin, but at the time being there was nothing to be done. Merry thanked his lucky star that the little child in the crib didn't yet know any of the circus surrounding him.

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The tune changed into a different dance and Pippin could see Merry reach his hand out for Estella, who took it and danced into her husband's arms. Together the two showed off their excellent dancing skills in a dance which was not slow yet it was seductive. Their love of dancing was how they had first fallen in love, apparently you could not dance these kind of dances underneath the moonlight for too long without love finding its way into the picture.

Pippin enjoyed the scene from his table. He had never been as skilled at dancing as his cousin, but he had always loved watching Merry dance. There was an elegance to it which Pippin had always wished he could master, unfortunately he looked horribly clumsy whenever he gave it a go. His sister Pearl complained he had been born with two left feet and was impossible to teach a dance to.

Another month had passed since the last time Pippin and Merry had spoken. Pippin could feel he was stomping at the same spot over and over, never managing to take a single step forward, but at the time he accepted it. Too much had happened, he thought that if maybe he stayed where he was for a while then eventually he would force himself to move further, and maybe that was the best way to go about it. Forget about relying on Merry and his other friends, get himself out of the rut.

Yet he could not deny that he missed his best friend. He almost felt like a spy watching Merry and Estella dance, but a glimpse of his cousin enjoying life made him feel good. It was good that they took the opportunity to dance, it probably would not be long before Estella had to sit through all the dances again. Their baby daughter was lovely and healthy, had Pippin been in their shoes he would have wanted to be happy with that situation and call it final, but there was a need for an heir to the future Master of Buckland. The whole thought made Pippin sick. All his life his ears had been filled with the importance of having an heir, he had never understood the point of having children for the sole purpose of hoping it would be a son to carry the bloodline on. He rather wouldn't have children at all then have them strictly for that purpose. But he had done what had been expected of him, against his better judgment he had strived to bring that heir into the world, and now look where it had gotten him. He didn't know who he was more angry with, his father for putting the pressure on him or himself for giving into it.

He watched the happy couple dancing and felt a stab of jealousy. He should have been like them, he should have had Diamond by his side, raising a child together with her. Or if not else, just having her right there beside him for the rest of his life. That was the vow they had given one another, to stay by each other's side for as long as their lives endured. This had not been part of the bargain. His father had spoken to him a lot over the past month about getting remarried, Pippin brushed aside the idea without as much as giving it a thought. He had sworn to love only Diamond for the rest of his life and he was not about to break that promise.

He got up from his seat and hurried out into the nearby woods, away from the party. The pain came over him again, sharp and merciless. Some days he felt fine, he could almost forget he was in mourning, then it all came back and he felt worse than before. He hated himself for allowing to forget about her for hours at a time, yet he knew it was what he had to do in order to survive.

He walked around the woods for well over an hour, trying to walk away from the pain, in the end realising it could not be done. He had never felt so lonely in all his life, and he couldn't help but feel resentment towards the fifteen month old child sleeping in a crib at Crickhollow. Not only had Pippin been robbed of his wife but now Merry as well. He wanted Merry to care for the child, but not toss Pippin aside in the process.

"I never thought I would end up losing you" he said to Merry, or the night, or the trees, or whoever was willing to listen. "But I traded you myself, I traded your friendship for having someone raise the child, and now I can't take it back."

He leaned against the trunk of a tree and wallowed in self-pity. He knew he had to get a hold of himself, he could not continue on like this, it was getting pathetic. But he couldn't do it tonight, it would have to wait until the morning. Right now he was too small and too alone to do anything other than lean his forehead against the tree trunk and let the tears wash his cheeks.

He didn't know it, but he had walked in a circle during his stroll through the woods and now he was right by the party. That's where Merry found him a short while later. Merry strode right up to his cousin, pried his grip from the tree and made Pippin cling to him instead. Merry gently stroke his hair and shushed him like he had Pippin's son during the past year.

"I said I could see you're sinking…" he said. "And I am coming for you. Didn't I promise you I always would?"

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Part three will be up within a near future. I would love any comments on the story! Thanks for reading )