Author's note: It's been a while since my last update, sorry. But here it is, the next instalment of this little series. I'm still trying to figure out a better name, so if you have any suggestions please give them to me!

Disclaimer: I own only the characters I've created.

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Merry snuck up under a tree and sat down. He leaned against the trunk and looked through his pack to find what he was looking for. He pulled out a book and opened it somewhere in the middle. After searching for a while he found the page he had last left off on and began to read. With his right hand he held the book and with his left he searched through his pack and pulled out a red apple which he began to chew on while he read. One of the first apples from this year's harvest. It tasted wonderfully; it was perfectly juicy and not mealy as red apples could sometimes be.

It was a warm day and the sun could almost burn anyone who dared stick their nose out in it, but the leaves of the tree provided a nice shade. The mild breeze was warm; it seemed to want to tell them that even though it was mid September summer had not yet given way to autumn. It didn't matter much to the Hobbits though, harvest was almost upon them and soon preparations had to be made for winter. The nice weather would not fool them for long.

Merry enjoyed his time alone underneath the tree. It was the calm before the storm; once harvesting began he would not have a moment to himself. He knew he should be in his study right now working, but it was such a lovely day and he had all winter to bury himself with work should it pile up on him right now. He was happy to have a moment alone without a workload; he did not get many of those anymore.

He finished his apple and tossed the leftovers as far away as the strength of his arm would let him. Gandalf had always frowned upon his habit of tossing his apple leftovers all around him but Merry always defended himself with that he was only planting new apple trees and making sure they were spread around the place. He reached into his pack and found another apple and munched away while he read.

Back at the Hall he knew he had things to do even outside the study. The five children were a handful; Truce had just begun to crawl and was everywhere all at once, Meduselda was jealous of her sister Summer and would cause a huge fuss over nothing as soon as her younger sister was involved, and Faramir was up to mischief most of the time with Dawn only too eager to go along with him. To top it all off Estella was with child again, this one due in March of the next year, and while it was still early she was not feeling well and had little energy. Good thing they had Bead and the second nanny, Thistle, to help her look after the litter.

While he sat there and read his book a pinecone suddenly landed on his shoulder. He gave the cone a puzzled look and glanced up at the tree. He was sitting beneath a birch; last he checked birches did not drop pinecones. He looked around but didn't see anything at first. Then another pinecone landed, this time on his book. He tossed the pinecone aside and shut his book closed. As he was about to get up a third pinecone hit him on the head. He could hear giggles coming from his right and with a frown walked off to the left.

He rounded a tree and once he was sure that the sender of the pinecones could not see him he went in a huge circle without making a sound or being seen, until he could spot the Hobbit with such a love of throwing pinecones. The Hobbit had walked out to the tree where Merry had left his book and his pack, and looked around with an unsure look on his face. Merry bent down and picked up a pinecone from a pile which was gathered beneath a tree.

The first one landed on the Hobbit's right shoulder and scared the target enough for him to let out a gasp. The second landed by his feet. Then an endless number of pinecones came flying, one at a time, each hitting precisely where Merry aimed. The poor target danced around and waved his arms, looking all around to see where the cones were coming from.

"Faaaaraaaaamiiiiiir…" Merry said in a creepy voice.

The lad froze. Merry stifled a giggle and tossed another pinecone.

"Faaaaaaraaamiiiiiiiir…"

Faramir backed up against the tree and gulped. He had heard stories of trees that could move and talk and who didn't appreciate it when you hurt them. Maybe the trees were mad at him for collecting pinecones and using them as harmless weapons! But when his name was called for the third time he recognised the voice. He stared in the direction the pinecones had come from.

"Merry?" he said, hoping the trees were not simply using Merry's voice to fool him.

"Noooooo…" came the answer. "It's the piiiiiinecoooooone aveeeeengeeeeer…"

"No it's not!"

Faramir rushed over to the bushes Merry was hiding in and with a war cry jumped the older Hobbit. They rolled around on the ground, wrestling playfully.

"You scared me!" Faramir cried.

"I cannot believe you were scared by that!" Merry said, roaring with laughter. "I was throwing your pinecones from your hideout! Fool of a Took!"

"It was not funny!" Faramir insisted.

"Oh yes it was" Merry laughed.

They wrestled around, Merry pretending that Faramir was the much stronger one, and they rolled around on the ground until Merry hit his head on the trunk of a tree. Faramir gasped and Merry rubbed his aching head, trying to catch his breath through the laughter.

"Are you alright?" Faramir asked.

"I'm just fine, my wooden head just longed for a companion" Merry chuckled and tousled the curls of the younger Hobbit sitting atop of him.

"I beat you!" Faramir said with a grin.

Merry responded by tickling him. Faramir cried out, he hated being tickled but Merry was in truth a whole lot stronger than he was. He squirmed and tried to get away but he didn't stand a chance against the much older Hobbit.

"You beat me, did you?" Merry said with a grin. "Who is winning now, huh?"

"I give!" Faramir shrieked. "I give, I give, I give!"

Merry stopped tickling him and stroke his cheek with his index finger. Faramir grinned at him, showing off a gap in his smile where the first baby tooth had fallen out. It was quite early, most Hobbit children lost their baby teeth between the ages six and ten, but Faramir's tooth had gotten the help of an inadvertent fist in the jaw by Meduselda two weeks back.

"Did I really manage to fool you?" Merry asked the boy. "Are you sure you didn't know it was me all along?"

"I thought it was the talking trees coming to get me!" Faramir said. "And they would take me to their woods and let me sit outside and freeze all winter long, and when the spring comes I would be covered in moss, and if someone walked by they would think I was a log!"

"Well you needn't worry" Merry said. "I won't let anything like that happen to you. In my arms you are always safe and warm."

"I know" Faramir grinned.

"Good."

"Because you're my Father."

"Laddie…" Merry said and his smile went away. "You know I'm not."

"But who are you if you're not my father?" Faramir asked. "Why does someone else get to be my father?"

Merry sat up and held Faramir by the arms. The child was straddled in his lap and returned the very serious look given to him. Merry had to chuckle.

"Don't you worry about that, young lad" he said. "The important thing is that you're safe and sound. How did you get out here anyway, I thought you were supposed to be inside with Thistle."

"Can I at least pretend that you're my father?" Faramir asked.

"Look, what do you say we forget all about fathers?" Merry asked. "Let's just be Faramir and Merry and know that I will always be there when you need me to be."

"Aye" Faramir said. "That sounds good."

"Good" Merry said and tousled his curls.

XX
XX

October brought an unusual warmth, and the lovely weather prompted both Merry and Pippin to stall their workload. When the sun shone the brightest in the middle of the day neither of them had the energy to do more than lie around in the grass. They began going out for a longer walk every morning, then stopping for a few hours to eat and sleep under the hot sun before they walked back. A few days turned into a week and they began exploring parts of the Shire where they hadn't walked for years.

One day when Pippin was drifting off to sleep after a large meal out in the sun Merry brought back the subject neither of them had discussed for ten months.

"I think Faramir should move to the Great Smials."

Pippin sat up. His sleep was disturbed.

"Come again?"

"I think that it's time now."

"He's five, hardly old enough."

"It's been half a decade now" Merry said. "I want an end to this, once and for all. I can't keep doing this much longer. Estella can't keep doing this, our daughters can't keep doing this."

"Is he a burden?"

"Not at all. That is not wherein the problem lies. He has been asking about you, you know. Asking about his father. I know that he is still only a child but if you are to form a close bond with him and make the transition easier for him then now is the time, when he is still little. The older he gets the harder it will be."

"Nothing has changed" Pippin said and laid back down. He pulled his hat over his eyes to block out the sun. "Everything is still the same as the day I gave him to you."

"You are a powerful Hobbit, Pip lad" Merry said. "You have great authority. You can take him in and raise him even without a mother, use your power to bring your son home."

"They already think me queer, raising a child by myself is not going to help. How can I expect them to listen to me when I won't practice what I preach? I had a child in my study this summer, a two year-old lass whose mother had died. I found a new home for her, and her father said to me that it was comforting to know that I had shared that experience before and that I had shown everyone the right way."

"It is the right way" Merry agreed. "It is the right way when there are no lasses in the home to help raise the child. But you can make one of your sisters move back to the Smials. Or hire a nanny for him, there are several Hobbits living in the Smials who could do the job. Or you can remarry, I happen to know for a fact that Dilcey Boffin has carried a torch for you for some time now."

"Who?" Pippin asked. "Merry I can't marry someone for no good reason."

"Do it for your son. Is there a better reason than that?"

"A son which I don't love. Neither one of us would be happy with the arrangement."

"Pippin what about what's best for Faramir?"

"Listen Merry, I know I have recognised him as my son in front of the gathered Tooks" Pippin said and lifted his hat up to look at Merry. "But you are his guardian, not me. Why are you so persistent with this? Frankly I can't help but wonder why you're so anxious to get rid of him, he can't be good to have around if you're so desperate for me to take him in and move him out of your home."

"You're wrong" Merry said. "I love him Pippin, I love him like he were my own child."

"Yet you are so eager to get rid of him."

"It is not about what I want or what is best for me. What's best for me is to hold him close for the rest of his life and love him with all my might. But I have to think of what is best for him. I am not his father, no matter how much I wish that I were, you are and nobody else. What's best for Faramir is to be raised among the Tooks, and above all to have a real father. You don't know how important that is to him. He longs so much for a father to protect him and look after him and love him and it hurts him that he is with me and I'm not that person in his life. If he could just be with you and have a real father then he would be so much happier. I would not be able to let him go completely, Estella and I would still want to be in his life as much as possible, but he knows that we are not his real parents and he deserves to be with the one parent he has left. It would crush Estella and me if you took him back to the Smials but it would be what's best for Faramir. Putting ourselves first is a luxury which we don't have. And neither do you."

"For the last time no!" Pippin said and sat up. "No, no I won't take him in. Not for his sake, not for your sake, not for anybody's sake. If you ask me the best thing for any child is to let it stay where it feels at home, and from what I hear he feels at home with you. I gave up my access to the child, he is yours until the day I die and he becomes the new Thain. That's the way it's going to be and there will be no going back on that arrangement."

"I only agreed to take him in until you could provide for him" Merry said. "You can do that now, and then some."

"Financially, of course" Pippin said. "But what happens the first night he wakes up with a bad dream and cries out for a mother figure? I send him a nanny?"

"Won't you please just think about it?"

Pippin rose to his feet. Merry did the same and met his cousin's firm eyes.

"I gave him to you once before" Pippin said. "Now I'm doing it again. I'm giving you that child, to be raised by you as if he were your own, until the day comes when he has to step up and become Thain. From this day forward I shall not be that child's caretaker, I give him to you completely and in every aspect of the word, the only catch is that he inherits the Smials and not the Hall."

Merry looked into his cousin's eyes. Pippin did not budge. He reached out his elbow to Merry in an old Hobbit gesture of striking a deal.

"Will you take him?" he asked.

"I love him so much" Merry said. "All I want is to do right by him."

"I am giving him to you" Pippin said. "This time with no promises of it only being for a little while, this time I mean it for good and for real, no room for interpretation. What do you say, Meriadoc?"

With hesitation Merry reached out his elbow and let it touch Pippin's. The deal was sealed, just like it had been five years ago when Faramir had been an infant. Pippin nodded.

"From now on there will be no more urges that I bring him to the Smials. From this day forward you understand that you will raise him unto adulthood. This is the most important thing I have ever asked of anyone Meriadoc, and I could never ask anyone but you. It is the future of the Smials."

"It hurts me that I will never be his father."

"Nor will I."

Merry swallowed hard and rubbed his elbow as if he had burned it. Part of him wanted to be happy; it was comforting to know that he would never have to give the child up. He wanted to keep Faramir at the Hall and if it were only about Merry's feelings then he would have felt like he'd struck gold. But he could shake the horrible feeling that he had let the young Took down.

XX
XX

October gave way to November and finally winter seemed to be on its way. Heavy rain fell each day, most Hobbits chose to stay indoors and those who did go outside often brought home a cold. Merry concealed himself inside Brandy Hall, never sticking his nose outside the door unless he had to. The long warm summer seemed far away, the weather had changed on the very day following the day Pippin had given Faramir to him for the second time. Merry took it as an alarming sign. For now Faramir was more than happy living with his Brandybuck family but Merry knew that the day would come when he would long to be among the Tooks.

While the rain feel outside the children were kept indoors and they became very restless. Merry felt he had no energy left over for unruly children but he had to step in more and more often, taking time off the work he had piled up, for Estella was not feeling well at all. She was having a difficult pregnancy, and with the memory of how Diamond's wearisome pregnancy had ended in the back of his mind Merry wished to ease her load as much as he could.

Bead and Thistle were helpful but it was getting expensive having both of them around. Merry decided on a new system where they worked a day each, which was just an excuse not to have to fire one of them. He found himself unusually cranky, the weather rubbed off on his mood and before long most Hobbits living at the Hall knew to keep their distance from both the Master and the Mistress.

But as November went along everybody seemed to get accustomed to the constant raining. His Hobbit nature prevented Merry from worrying about the future situation with Faramir for long, and he couldn't seem to worry about Estella for very long either. Either things would go well for her or they wouldn't, either way there was nothing to be done about it now. The baby would arrive in March, there was no getting around it, so he accepted the dangers that came along with it.

Once the mood lightened in their tunnels the Brandybuck family began to appreciate these days when they were forced to stay inside. Estella could tell the children stories for hours when she was resting, and when she needed a break Merry would bring out a book and read to them. Young Truce was potty-trained by now but she did not toddle around everywhere like her sisters had done at her age. She was still crawling and didn't seem very fond of doing that either. She was mostly content with sitting on a blanket with a few toys, seeming to listen to the stories at well. The rest of the children were unusually still and things were quiet at Brandy Hall.

One December day when the rain was coming down as usual Merry gathered the children around to hear a story before afternoon tea. Estella was lying on a couch wrapped in a blanket, caressing her six month pregnant belly with one hand and Faramir's head with the other, listening to the story with as much interest as the children. Truce sat still on her blanket and Meduselda was for once not angry with her little sister Summer. Merry sat leaned against a couch opposite Estella's, with one arm around Meduselda, the other around Dawn, and Summer curled up in his knee. He had just finished his story when there was a knock on the door and Pippin entered.

"Why Peregrin!" Estella said. "We haven't seen the likes of you for months! Come on in!"

"Thank you Estella" Pippin said and shook his cape to rid it off some of the water. "No, don't get up on my account."

"Let me just tell Bead we'll be another person for afternoon tea."

"No need to get up to do that!" Pippin assured her. "I ran into her in the hallway and she mumbled something about wolfing Tooks and how she'll make some more tea. I think it's already been taken care of. Am I interrupting something?"

"Of course not" Merry said and turned his head to look at his cousin. "Come on in, have a seat. What brings you by?"

"Don't mind if I do" Pippin said and sat down on the couch behind Merry. "I just came for some company. I've been up to my elbows in work lately, I figured nothing like a visit with the Brandybucks to brighten my rainy day and make me forget about work for a change. Especially since I realised that today is December 25th and that day is special to us both, my dear Merry of the Fellowship."

He lifted Summer up into his arms and she began to squeeze his wet curls, laughing when water ran down her hand and arm.

"You just missed an excellent story" Estella said. "Merry told one from memory for once, usually he reads us one from a book."

"An excellent story, you say?" Pippin said and shook his head so that water went flying everywhere, to Summer's great joy. "I bet he can't match the stories I have to tell! Great stories of dragons and of trolls and even about goblins!"

"No goblins!" Dawn cried. "I'm afraid of goblins!"

"How about a story about Elves then?" Pippin asked. "I happen to know an excellent story of an Elf named Fingol! Do you want to hear it?"

The children cheered and he began to tell them the story. He was fascinated by the child in his arms, he could see in Summer's face how lost she was in the story and how she hung at his every word. He had forgotten how much fun it was to tell a story to a child. He was glad he had come to Brandy Hall on this rainy day, and even gladder he had found all of them together like this. It felt good inside seeing these seven Hobbits together. It was a family that he saw.