Author's Note: This chapter is a bit uneven since I wrote it on two separate occasions, weeks apart. Hopefully it works anyhow. It jumps forward in time quite a bit, sort of the next phase of the story. Earlier on it was a lot about Merry's standpoint but now it changes to focus mainly on Faramir.

Disclaimer: The usual…

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Faramir passed through the gates together with Dawn and halted his pony. Dawn stopped beside him and gave him a look. She couldn't quite tell what he was thinking; the look on his face was remarkably free of emotion. It was the first time either of them visited Crickhollow since they had moved to Brandy Hall twenty-eight years earlier and it seemed like a lifetime had passed since then. They had both been born here and spent their first years here but that had been a long time ago. Faramir was 30 years old, Dawn 29. Raised as brother and sister even though they in truth were second cousins. Neither of them had given a thought to Crickhollow for many, many years until recently when Dawn had passed by it when she was out riding. She and Faramir had decided they wanted to stop by and see what their old home was like.

Faramir dismounted his pony and led it towards three poles sticking out of the ground and tied the pony to one of them. Dawn remained mounted and watched him sit down on the grass and look at the house. It was odd to think that they had lived here once, neither of them had any memories of it. Dawn was mostly there because she thought it would be fun to see it, but she had a feeling it meant more to Faramir than that. Even though he denied it he had always seemed to put great weight in matters concerning his heritage and first months of life, being back at Crickhollow was surely more emotional to him than to Dawn.

"Come on Dawn" he said and got up on his feet. "We came here to look, didn't we? Let's go look inside!"

He went up to the door but to his surprise found it locked. That was highly unusual and not something he was prepared for at all. He turned and looked at Dawn who fished out a key from her pocket and tried it out.

"How did you know it was going to be locked?" he asked.

"These old houses are all locked" Dawn said. "It keeps Hobbits from coming in and taking things they don't assume anybody's using anymore. Every now and then Crickhollow is lent out to guests and when it is everything needs to be here."

"I didn't know that" Faramir said and followed her inside once she got the door open. "I thought this house hadn't been used since we were little!"

"It was used just last month."

"I guess it won't look anything like it did back when we lived here then" Faramir said with a sigh. "Too bad."

"No I don't think they've changed anything" Dawn said and looked around in the room they were standing. "They usually don't. I'm going to go have a look around, are you coming?"

"You go ahead, I'll catch up" Faramir said.

"Fine…" Dawn said, giving him an odd look, and went down one of the halls to see what she would find.

Faramir sat down on the nearest chair and took a good look around. It felt so strange to be here. He had forgotten all about Crickhollow and that he'd ever lived there, it was so long ago. He couldn't understand how he could have just forgotten about Crickhollow, he was keen on learning more about his childhood and his heritage. He knew he had not been raised by his parents. And he knew his mother was dead and who his father was. But that was about it. He had no knowledge of why he had not been raised among the Tooks or how anything had played out during those critical first weeks of his life. He had never felt that it would make a difference in his life knowing about it, he was content with his childhood and the people who had raised him, but he was a curious nature and it frustrated him that there were parts of his own life that he knew nothing about.

But this had been his home. He had been born here and lived here for two years. And it suddenly occurred to him that his parents had lived here. Of course he had always known in the back of his head but it had never been real to him. Not until now, at least.

Slowly he made his way down one of the halls. One thing he did remember was Merry talking about the living arrangements, which hall was the Took's and which one was the Brandybuck's. He went down the hall that had belonged to Pippin and Diamond Took and opened every door he passed by to peek inside. There were only five rooms, and the first two turned out to be single bedrooms and those he discarded at once. But the third room was a larger bedroom with a bigger bed, most likely where his parents had slept. He stepped inside and closed the door, hoping to be alone for a while. It was odd that he didn't feel anything being in this room, no sense of connection or recall, it was just another room to him. It didn't tell him anything about the people who had lived there and it didn't seem to hold any part of them still.

He sat down on the bed and waited to feel something. Not feeling anything was worse than anything he might have felt, he wanted so badly for his past to mean something to him but somehow it didn't seem like it did.

"Who were these people?" he wondered out loud. "And why can't I seem to care?"

His eyes fell on a tiny book lying on one of the bedside tables. He rose and picked it up, wondering who had left it there. He opened it to see if there was a name somewhere, but found it to be someone's diary. He found the last entry and saw that it was dated a month earlier. Whoever had borrowed this house had forgotten it there. For some reason it bugged him that someone had been using this room, and for a moment he felt it suited them right that they forgot their diary.

He jumped slightly when Dawn entered the room. She had surprised him. She gave him a funny look and then apologised for having startled him.

"I have looked down the halls where Ma and Pa used to live… Do you want to see it or should we get going? We have chores to return to."

"I think I'll pass" Faramir said.

"What's that in your hand?"

"Somebody left their diary behind when they stayed here" Faramir said. "I'll take it back to the Hall and leave it with Merry, he ought to know who lived here last."

Dawn nodded and went outside to fetch the ponies. Faramir put the diary in his pocket and felt a slight sting of disappointment. For a brief moment he had thought that he had found his mother's diary. But logic told him that it would not still be lying around after thirty years. His father had probably brought it with him to the Smials, if there had even been one. But Faramir wished he had gotten a chance to see it.

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"I found this at Crickhollow" Faramir said and handed the diary over to Merry. "Who was it that stayed there last?"

"It was some of Sam's children" Merry said and glanced through the diary to find a name. "This diary appears to belong to Daisy. I had better return it before she misses it."

Faramir wanted to ask what Sam's children had been doing sleeping in one of the old master bedrooms, but bit his tongue. There was a total of eight beds at Crickhollow, naturally the master bedrooms would be used if that many people came to stay. And for some reason Faramir didn't want Merry to know that it bothered him.

"Where did you find it?" Merry asked.

"I think it was the master bedroom… in the Took hall."

"I see."

Faramir hesitated.

"For a moment I… For a moment I almost thought it had belonged to someone else."

"Who?"

Faramir looked away. He knew very well that Merry understood who he had thought it belonged to, and he wanted him to say it out loud. But when nothing was said by Faramir Merry shrugged his shoulders and put the diary aside for now.

"There was a diary, if I recall" Merry said. "At least at one time, but I don't think she wrote constantly. I always assumed Pippin brought it with him when he left for the Smials. He left most of her things behind, but I thought he wouldn't want her private thoughts to lie around for anyone to study."

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The following afternoon Faramir returned to Crickhollow. Merry had given him an idea, whether he meant to or not, and he had to follow up on it. The key to the house was in his pocket, Faramir knew Merry was aware that it had not been returned, which made him even more convinced that he was being pushed in the right direction secretly.

He went down the old Took hall and passed the three bedrooms. The fourth room turned out to be a sitting room, not what Faramir had been looking for. He tried the fifth door but it wouldn't open. Surprised he pulled the handle a bit harder. It must have rusted, there was no reason why the door wouldn't open otherwise. But it was securely closed and would not come open. Faramir tried the key, but it didn't work either. It wouldn't even fit inside the lock!

Faramir knew there was only a very small window to that room to let in some sun, far too small for a grown Hobbit to climb through. If he wanted to get inside he would have to pass through the door, and he desperately wanted to see what was on the other side of it. The fact that it was locked only made him more sure that there was something important there. If he was right in his guesses it was the study. Merry's choice of words the day before had led him to believe that perhaps some things had been left behind here, and he was becoming more and more sure of it by the minute.

Finally he decided to break the door down. He was quite strong, but the door seemed awfully solid. He gave it a hard push, feeling a burning pain in his shoulder, but to no avail. However he couldn't give up now, and he pushed it again, as hard as he could. And then once more. The door was too thick and solid, it would not come open. But suddenly he heard a cracking noise and noticed that the wood was withered after all these years. Perhaps it would come open after all!

He needed something stronger to break down the door, his shoulder was about to come off, or so it felt. He found a solid chest in the sitting room and used it as a ram. After two tries the door gave way and a cloud of dust welcomed Faramir inside the study. Coughing and sputtering he sat down the chest and walked inside.

The room was dark and the air felt thick. It had not been breathed for thirty years. He lit a candle and began to search through the room. It gave him the chills being inside this room where nobody had set foot for three decades. It was indeed a study, but to Faramir's great surprise there was not much in it. The shelves were all emptied and the desk had nothing on it. The only place he could find something was in the desk drawers. He searched through them without finding anything.

He looked up and sighed. This made no sense at all to him. If there wasn't anything special inside the study, why would it have been so carefully locked? The key Faramir had had not even been able to go inside the lock, Faramir assumed whoever had locked the door wanted it kept locked and had broken off the key from the inside. Then it occurred to him that it was impossible. Whoever would have done that would have been trapped in here forever, for there was no way out. He rose and walked over to the door and found that the lock had indeed rusted up.

Faramir felt ready to give up. There was nothing of value in here at all, he had wasted his time. But the door had been locked, he couldn't give up the notion that there must be something in there for him to find. He searched through the drawers again, as carefully as he could, and suddenly noticed that the bottom of one of them could be pulled upward. He pulled the bottom up and found nothing. Obviously one could hide something there if one wanted to, but there was nothing there. Filled with frustration he threw the piece he had removed on the floor and sat down on the chair.

Then he suddenly paused. Hadn't he heard a strange noise when the wooden piece hit the floor? He bent over and picked it up, and found a small key glued to the wooden piece. With a lot of effort he managed to get it loose, and filled with triumph held it up. Then the feeling of victory passed as quickly as it had come. What good would a key do him? A key to what?

He gave up and decided to go back home and ask Merry about it. If he didn't know then nobody would. On his way out he stopped by the broken door and wondered what Merry would say about it. He picked up the chest and carried it back to the sitting room, not noticing until he put it down that it had a lock on it. The size of the lock seemed to fit the key, and with a sudden flash of hope he tried out the key he had found. The chest opened.

Inside there was two dresses which he assumed had belonged to his mother, a tin mug and a box. Faramir lifted the box up and opened it. Inside he found a number of letters and what hopefully was a diary!

He opened the diary and began to read. It didn't occur to him that perhaps he shouldn't, if this was indeed Diamond Took's diary then she had been dead for too long to care, and it was his own mother's diary anyways. He felt he had a right to it. He read the first entry and quickly found that the diary belonged to someone else. But something had caught his interest and he couldn't help but read the entry to the end. He couldn't believe his eyes.

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"Truce put that away and go wash up for dinner!" Estella commanded and parked Lilac in her chair. "We don't want to be waiting for you!"

Dinner time was always chaotic at the Hall, and this day seemed to be worse than normal. Estella counted to six children and one husband, meaning that two children were running late. There was never any telling whether they would be eating at home or someplace else but Estella always felt they needed to wait at least fifteen minutes for everyone to arrive.

"Violet there you are!" she said when her youngest daughter arrived, looking like she hadn't seen a meal in weeks even though she had had more than anyone else to eat at afternoon tea. "Did you wash up? Good, sit down."

Merry glanced at the clock and wondered how long it would be before they would get to eat. He was starving. After fifteen minutes Estella decided they had waited long enough and ordered the food to be brought out. They had barely begun to eat when the eighth child appeared.

"Faramir, we were beginning without you!" Estella said. "You're late dear. Sit down."

"I don't want any dinner" Faramir said.

Merry and Estella shared a look.

"Are you sure?" Estella had to ask.

"I'm not hungry. I want to speak with you!"

"You will have to wait darling, you may not be hungry but I am" Estella said. "You might as well have some food while you wait."

"I need to talk to both of you. Merry in particular."

"You will get to talk to us, but you have to wait" Merry said and ignored the impatient look on Faramir's face.

"I mean I have to speak with you now!"

"And I'm saying you have to wait!" Merry said firmly. "Either sit down and wait here or go wait in my study, but don't take that tone of voice with me! We will have our dinner and then we can talk."

Faramir looked ready to make a rude reply but realised it wasn't going to get him anywhere. He snatched a bread from the table and stormed off to the study. Estella and Merry looked at each other with confusion.

"What was all that about?" Estella asked.

"I have no idea" Merry said.

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Faramir impatiently paced back and forth in the study until Merry and Estella had finally finished their meal and came to talk. Estella closed the door behind them and Merry crossed his arm with a slight frown.

"Now what is so important that you need to barge in late for dinner and demand us to leave our meals to talk?"

"I went to Crickhollow today" Faramir said.

"Crickhollow is locked, you broke in?"

"I took the key from Dawn! I was looking for something that might have belonged to my mother, a diary!"

"The one you asked me about? Like I said, I don't even know for sure that she kept one all her life. And it might be at the Smials, it's more likely that Pippin took it with him."

"I went inside the study and I found a key to a chest. Inside there was a diary, but not my mother's diary! Somebody else's!"

"Both studies are kept locked, we don't want visitors snooping about."

"It's not locked now" Faramir said. "I found your diary Merry, and I read it!"

"Is that so?" Merry said. "What business did you have going through my private diary?"

"I thought it belonged to my mother! But when I found out that it didn't I also found something else out! How could you have kept that from me?"

"Kept what?" Estella asked.

"It couldn't have been my diary" Merry said, changing pace. "What would my diary be doing in Pippin's chest? I never went near that thing! Besides I only kept a diary for a few months and that diary is…"

"You misplaced it" Estella recalled.

"It's in the chest" Faramir said. "Don't ask me why, but it's there. Along with letters that my mother wrote to my father before they were married, and some knickknacks. But you're not answering my question!"

"I don't think you are in any place to be asking questions" Merry said. "You had no right to go through my private things, nor your parents' private things for that matter, and I am not discussing anything with you at the moment! You are still underage and you will do as you are told, right now that is spending the rest of the evening and the three following days in your room! Faramir you know better than to go through someone's private things!"

"Because you taught me better than that?" Faramir asked.

"What are you getting at?" Estella asked.

"I will not let this matter be swept under the carpet over some mistake I made, seeing as how that mistake was the only chance for me to find out the truth! The truth that you have kept from me all these years!"

"What truth, what are you talking about?"

"They didn't want me!" Faramir said. "You said so in the diary! My mother didn't want me, you saw how sad she was! My father refused to even see me, wanting no part at all in my life! And you felt you had no choice but to take me in, though you were far from willing! Nobody wanted me! You spent a lot of time and effort trying to make my father take me back but he refused! You were stuck with me, you both were!"

"Faramir that--"

"You have lied to me my whole life! And my father was not the great Hobbit you always told me he was Merry! He was not a hero, he did not have great adventures, he was not special! He was a coward, completely heartless! Nothing you told me about him was true!"

"Do not judge people when you know nothing of what you speak" Merry said.

"I know exactly of what I speak! It's all there in your diary!"

"Darling listen for a moment…" Estella began, but Faramir shook his head.

"I don't want to hear it" he said, going for the door. "I've heard enough out of you two! Let me be alone!"

Merry and Estella let him leave and then looked at each other yet again with confused eyes.

"I… don't even know what to say" Merry said.

"What did you write in that diary?" Estella wanted to know.

"I wrote… I can't even remember what I wrote! But I think I wrote a lot about how I was trying to get Pippin to come around and see Faramir. And yes, I wrote that I didn't want to take care of him. But not for the reasons Faramir thinks…"

"You had better sort this out" Estella said. "Give him some room to calm down and then talk to him. I am going to talk to him right this minute, whatever you wrote in that diary I can look him in the eye and tell him that he did not read anything about my standpoint! I won't let him dismiss me because he is mad at you and Pippin, he needs to know someone felt differently."

Estella hurried out into the hallway and nearly collided with Summer.

"What is going on?" Summer asked.

"Not now, I have to speak with Faramir."

"Faramir left" Summer said.

"He said he was headed for his room!"

"He said to Dawn that he's leaving. Going out riding probably. He'll be back shortly, don't fret!"

Merry appeared in the doorway and looked troubled. He didn't like Faramir riding off like that, he hoped he wasn't headed to see Pippin. That confrontation was one they would all benefit from letting pass. There were some parts of Faramir which unmistakably came from Pippin, his stubbornness being one of them. If the two of them butted heads things might not go well, especially after all these years.

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"Merry I am worried" Estella said as she came into their bedroom with a candle in her hand. "It's late and Faramir is not yet back!"

"I had Rohy ride over to the Smials a while ago to see if he was there" Merry said. "They haven't seen him. That's good news."

"Good news? How so?"

"That means he hasn't gone to confront his father."

"About time Peregrin had to own up to his actions, if you ask me" Estella said. "But never mind that, I don't think I can go to sleep knowing that he can be anywhere!"

"Anywhere indeed" Merry said. "He has a number of friends that he might have visited and where he might be spending the night. He could be at Crickhollow. He could even have gone as far as Bag End for all we know. Estella he is thirty years old he can take care of himself. When his father was twenty-eight he--"

"I don't want to hear about that!" Estella said. "I want to know where he is before I can rest peacefully!"

"Just go to sleep, love…" Merry said and snuffed out the light on his nightstand. "Faramir is safe. There is nothing we can do to find him right now anyways, and you're not doing anybody any favours by tossing and turning all night. Now go to sleep."

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Faramir was curled up in an armchair, staring at the fireplace without seeing the flames. Sam handed him a cup of hot broth and sat down on the chair next to him.

"Drink this" he said. "You have to come to terms with this sooner or later and there's no time like the present."

"I don't want anything to drink" Faramir said, ignoring Sam's continuation.

"If nothing else you ought to take care of yourself so that you don't fall ill, we have enough Hobbits to look after as it is" Sam said.

Obediently Faramir sipped his broth. Sam looked at him and felt sorry for him. Faramir had told him briefly what had happened and why he needed someplace to stay for a few days. Sam had always suspected that things would fall down over them sooner or later, things concerning this little Hobbit's life had been too complicated all along to be kept a secret.

"I know your father well, and I know Merry" Sam said. "And I won't have you sitting here hating them or wishing bad things upon them, for they are dear friends to me. But I can understand your heartache."

"Sam you don't know what it's like to find out nobody ever wanted you" Faramir said. "That you were just a burden wherever you came. That if those closest to you had gotten to decide you would never have been born!"

"You're just as stupid as your father" Sam sighed.

"Pardon me?"

"And just as prone to self pity! Have you not had a good raising? Have you not been warm and protected? Have you not been cared for?"

"Well yes, but--"

"No but!" Sam said. "You have nothing to cry about in that matter. Can you blame Merry for hesitating to take you in? You were his best friend's baby, he was not even married when you were born! He had no idea what his fiancée would even say about it! Asking someone to raise someone else's baby just after you've asked them to be your wife is not the easiest thing in the world!"

"It's not just that he hesitated to take care of me" Faramir said. "It's that he tried to have me moved back to the Smials!"

"All those years to no good" Sam said.

"Years?" Faramir echoed. "It went on for years?"

"I…" Sam said, not knowing what to respond. He thought Faramir knew.

"Talk to me Sam!"

"I think you were around eight or nine when he stopped trying" Sam admitted. "Sometime before Violet was born. But--"

"Nine years" Faramir said. "Goodness…"

"He only wanted what was best for you" Sam said. "To be with your own kin. You're not a Brandybuck, you don't belong with them and you're not going to live with them all your life. He thought you had more use of your father than of him."

"But nine whole years…"

"Let me ask you something" Sam said. "Do you believe that Merry and Estella don't care for you as much as you used to think? Did you ever get a chance to doubt when you were younger?"

"Not really, no."

"And why do you care about the love of a Hobbit you've hardly ever met? What difference does it make if your father cares about you? Who is he in your life?"

"He was a hero" Faramir said. "Merry always used to tell me stories of how heroic my father was. He painted this picture of someone I could be proud to have descended from. That Hobbit doesn't exist."

"You're right, he doesn't. But he did once."

"And then I came."

"No, then he… He changed. But there is a lot of good in him still."

Faramir looked down in his mug and wished the answer to all his problems floated there. He wasn't sure of what to do. All he knew was that he couldn't face Merry or Estella for a while. He didn't know what hurt more, losing the father and mother he thought he had or losing those who had raised him. He almost wished he had never found the diary.

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Three nights later Merry woke with a start when Faramir gently tapped him on the shoulder. Merry's bolt in the bed woke Estella who squinted in the darkness and lit a candle.

"What is wrong?" she asked.

"I'm sorry Estella I didn't mean to wake you too" Faramir said.

"Faramir?"

Estella and Merry both sat up in bed. Faramir was slumped in a chair by Merry's bedside and looked a bit ashamed of having woken them both up. Estella got out of the bed, pulled her robe around her and gave Faramir a big hug.

"Where have you been, I have worried sick!"

"I stayed with Sam at Bag End" Faramir said. "I didn't mean to wake you Estella, I just…"

"You wanted to speak with me?" Merry guessed and got out of bed as well. "It's the middle of the night, laddie…"

"Actually I… At first I just wanted to see if you were awake and let you know that I was back, then I watched you both sleep and… I was going to go to bed but I decided that I did want to talk."

"Then talk" Merry said and lit another candle. "I need to talk to you as well. Things went wrong when last we saw each other."

"I know" Faramir said. "I've been thinking about it a lot. Really hurting over it. But I knew I had to come home someday and I wanted to sort some matters out. But when I saw the two of you I just couldn't be mad anymore. It occurred to me that… that you have always been there for me. All my life. You let me be a part of your family, and even though you didn't want me to begin with I know that you love me now."

"Sweetheart we've loved you since you were a baby" Estella said, still holding him.

"Indeed we have" Merry said. "Faramir how much do you really think you can tell from just a diary? Do you really believe your own judgement is inferior to something I wrote thirty years ago? But I'll be frank with you, I plainly resisted when Pippin asked me to take care of you. Not because of you but for you. I thought you belonged with Pippin and part of me always has, you're my once best friend's only child and he missed your whole upbringing. I have always loved you like you were my own, but deep down I knew you weren't and that the best thing for you would be to be amongst your own family. Then I realised that perhaps we were your family now."

"And don't you go being mad at me for whatever he wrote!" Estella said. "When he asked me if we could take care of you I said yes, I never said I didn't want you. And I have considered myself your mother since you were an infant, whether anybody likes it or not."

"All I've known these past days is that the truth I thought I knew was wrong. My parents didn't want me and neither did you. The people who ought to love me the most all tried to get rid of me!"

"Don't be so hard on Pippin" Merry said. "He wasn't allowed to raise you, he had no choice but to give you up."

"But he never came to see me. Never asked for me. I have not even seen him for seven years! And I've never spent more time in his presence than maybe an hour, he's never spoken directly to me other than when I've displeased him."

"Faramir was there ever anything you missed growing up?" Estella asked him.

"I don't think so."

"Then wherein lies the problem?"

"I don't know… I guess what I wanted to say to you tonight is that I'm sorry. I was wrong. And I love you both. You didn't have to take me in, after all, but you did. I can never repay you everything you've done for me."

"We don't want you to" Merry said. "We just want you to be happy. And I can tell you one thing right now, had it not been for the fact that you are my cousin's heir I would have adopted you decades ago. I think you ought to know that."

"Laddie you just need to make peace with your past" Estella said. "What went on when you were a baby was something that was out of your hands. It wasn't you who made your father decide to stay out of your life, he never even knew you."

"Do you think I should talk to him?" Faramir asked.

"No" Merry said. "I tried for a decade to get through to him and I had no luck. He's as stubborn as you are. You don't know him and he doesn't know you, I don't think there would be any benefits from the two of you talking."

"I know I don't know him… But I always loved him" Faramir said. "Or I loved the picture you painted for me. When I was little I wanted the two of you to be my parents, but as I grew older and heard more about him I wanted to know my real father. I guess I've just begun to realise that it doesn't matter, there's nothing he can give me that I didn't get from you. I'm sorry I lashed out at you."

"Never mind that" Merry said. "I think you need to get into bed, laddie. It's late. Your sisters have been wondering when you'll be home, you need energy tomorrow to deal with their million questions. Go to bed."

Faramir nodded and gave Estella a hug before retreating to his own bedroom. Estella crawled back into bed and went to sleep right away knowing where all the children were. Merry could not go to sleep quite so easily, he laid away thinking about what had gone on these past days. It had been so long since he had tried to bring father and son back together, Faramir had grown up since then. Merry had allowed himself to forget about the drama that would no doubt occur when Faramir came face to face with his heritage. At least so far it seemed to be going well.