Pansy had gone to the Gamgees home just as she had promised. She had in fact fallen asleep there. The last few days had been very hard for her.
Meanwhile, back at Brandyhall, hours later, Aragorn had begged Pippin to go bed. Pippin shook his head. "I don't want to leave his side. But I will rest, on one condition… I only ask that you let me sleep here, where I can be near him. I don't mind sleeping on the floor. You and I have slept in worse places." He gave the King a weary smile. "Please, I just want to stay near him, even if it's just for a little while. He needs me at his side."
Aragorn shook his head. "Pippin, please," Aragorn begged, "Merry would not want you sleeping on the floor. I will come get you in a few hours time." The king sighed as Pippin did not listen to him.
Merry felt as if he were floating far above everything. He felt no pain or suffering. He then felt as if he were being pulled back or perhaps it was falling. Soon there were pain and watery sounds.
Merry rocked back and forth, he cradled Pippins hand in his own. "Don't leave...don't leave," he sobbed. His eyes were closed tightly and tears spilled out of them.
Pippin felt something warm and comfortable holding his hand. In his delirium, he realized that they were hands, familiar and gentle. "Mer, Merry…" he mumbled, his forehead covered in a cold sweat. Moving slowly and painfully, the younger hobbit moved his other hand over to Merry's hands, and grasped them. His grip was surprisingly firm for one so ill. He turned his head and opened his eyes slightly, looking up at his dear cousin. "Don't be afraid. I won't… leave you, not… not yet." Peregrin smiled weakly and closed his eyes.
The elder hobbit smiled weakly at his young and very ill cousin. "Hullo Pippin dear," he whispered softly. With one hand he stroked a wet curl away from Pippin's fevered forehead. "Shh…you rest," Merry said. "I-I can' help being scared, my Pip. You are so...so sick." Merry closed his eyes and kept a firm grasp on his cousin's hand.
Merry cried out pitifully and coughed weakly.
Pippin came back with a small blanket and a pillow. He nearly dropped it when he heard his cousin's cry, but recovered and set up his bed in front of the couch, where he could look up and see Merry's face. At least he could be there for his cousin, just as his cousin had been there for him. He thought about Pansy's reluctant exit and wondered if she was as worried as he was.
Pippin opened his eyes again. Something Merry-shaped was still there, but with different colored clothing; or at least, the blobs he did see reminded him of clothes. "Mer-merry," came the whisper from his cracked, dry lips. His very words seemed to rattle, death overhanging every syllable he uttered. He lifted his hands towards the familiar face, and as he did so, Pippin felt that Merry was on the other side of the room, even though he could see him right in front of him.
"Shush now...you need to not waste any of your strength," Merry said, brushing hair away from his cousins' hot forehead. With the other he got a glass of water and held it to his cousins' dry and parched lips. "Little sips...Don't try swallowing it Pippin dear, just let it slide down," Merry instructed with a kind voice. Pippin's voice scared him. It did not sound like his - there was no lilt or familiar Took brogue. Merry sighed and when Pippin had drunk some water, he placed the cup on the table.
Painfully, he finally reached his cousin's face. "Merry?" he asked once he had regained some of his voice, fear filling him as the room began to swirl to black. Shadows loomed, darker than even the blackness closing in, and they waited at the edges of the growing shadow. He grasped Merry's hand in his, tears beginning to mingle with the sweat, eyes opening wider, pupils dilating. "Merry… Am, am I… Am I goin' to die?" he breathed feebly, his chest hurting him greatly.
"Yes," he said in reply. Gently Merry touched Pippin's little hand. It was so hot. Merry vaguely wondered if an egg could be fried on that hand. "Don't cry dear. It will just make you cough and then the healers will come in and you will have to have more of the nasty concoctions they are giving you." The hobbit wiped the tears away. "If I can help it you won't be," Merry said, but he left out the fact that no matter what Pippin's fever would not lower and that the medicines were barely helping with keeping his young lungs from filling up.
He pulled at Merry's arm with his hand, his grip as weak as a newborn child. "Don't let them hurt me Merry! I don't want to leave! I want to stay here!" Pippin made one last effort to hold on to his cousin as the creatures that had been waiting pulled at him in the growing darkness of unconsciousness. His hand fell limp.
"Who?" Merry asked bewildered, "Pippin? Pippin!" Merry voice rose and tears began to fall. Merry continued crying. He held Pippin's lifeless hand in his own and pressed it tightly to his cheek as if that would keep his beloved cousin there. "Please…" he begged him and got no response. "Pippin, don't leave me in this world. I need you. Stay with me dearest. It is not your time. This is not how we shall part." Merry continued to rock. He held the hand of his near dead cousin. He fell asleep sitting up.
"Pippin," Aragorn said in a slight sharp tone, "I am ordering you to go to a guest room and sleep." Aragorn stood from his seat and steered Pippin out the door. "Do not come back here until I come to you," Aragorn said quietly, shutting the door.
Pippin protested and tried to push against the mighty King's hands as they held him back, but gave up, knowing he would never make him change his mind. Perhaps it was for the best that he left Merry to sleep, and maybe Aragorn was right, they didn't need any more sick hobbits. He sighed and went to the guest room, his heart pounding in his ears.
The hobbit looked at Pansy and smiled. "Don't worry, Pans...I will be home soon," he said, ruffling her hair playfully.
"The sooner the better, Mer… I'm goin' to miss ye." A tear trickled down Pansy's face as she took Merry's hand and held it for a moment. The breeze blew, and a chill seemed to fill the air. She and Merry had been best friends, a relationship second only to his cousin Pippin. Something seemed to clutch at her chest; a tight, uncomfortable feeling. What was it? She didn't know. All she knew was that Merry would be back in a few days.
A week passed, and then two, then a month. Rumors spread all over Hobbiton about four hobbits disappearing; one of them being Frodo Baggins, Merry's cousin. Pansy knew that Merry was among them. Fears of his fate filled her mind, fears that he had left her behind, or worse… She didn't want to think of what was worse. She continued to work at the Green Dragon, consoling Rosie. She had also seemed worried about the missing hobbits and one in particular. One day, they had even sat down and cried after they cleaned up at the end of the day.
A year later, everything had changed. An old man, one of the Big Folk, had come to the Shire with a band of brigands and wayward hobbits. Life was miserable then, all these new rules and taxes and people going to jail over the pettiest things… Pansy hated it. She had nearly lost her livelihood, her life, and her sanity numerous times when news of the return of two hobbits, and two creatures that looked like hobbits but much taller, came to her. Merry, she had thought.
She didn't know how right she had been at the time. He and his cousins and Samwise reclaimed the Shire, and rebuilt it. He and Pippin seemed to tower over the other hobbits, even "Big" John Proudfoot. The old Party Tree had been replaced and later, Sam and Rosie married beneath the sapling's lithe boughs. Pippin married Diamond there, too. Pansy was happy to see them all so happy, but one hobbit had caught her eye. Frodo seemed different somehow, and he was forever wearing a clear crystal on a chain. That was when she started becoming enamored with him. He was handsome, kind, and above all mysterious, and that was what intrigued Pansy the most. But something also didn't seem right with another hobbit, and she often felt his presence at the back of her mind.
Back at Bagend, Pansy sat bolt upright. She had been woken by a sound that was like a forest being felled. Rosie was snoring. I didn't know she snored, thought Pansy, giggling to herself a bit as she checked on Rosie again, who slept peacefully. Taking a second pillow, she propped the hobbit's head up to lessen the noise. It was something she did when her mother fell asleep and it always seemed to work.
She decided all was well, that she should probably get back to Elessar, and report to him how Rosie was faring. She trudged through the snow, barely noticing the prickly sensation in her feet as a new thought rose in her mind. She had been sleeping for a few hours, she judged by the light of mid-morning. And another person lay sick, a hobbit who had been overlooked for far too long: Merry. She picked up the pace, hoping that he would be all right.