Little Bird Blue

Pippin opened the door to the smial late that night, expecting silence. He received it – no sign of Diamond being awake. He sighed.

The fire was low, the embers quiet; the poker was back in its usual place. Of Diamond herself, he saw no trace in their sitting room, except…her handbasket was in her chair. He blinked owlishly. How odd – she had not knit in two weeks, at the least. Whatever could she have pulled it out for?

He hung his coat on the rod by the door. It was damp, from the snow; too late to dry it out now. It would have to wait til' morning, when he could watch it steam before the fire. Well, the coat protected the turnover the bartender sent him home with; a sympathetic glance and a hug, no words passed between them. He left it in a covered dish (a wedding gift from the Gamgees), a treat for Diamond to be eaten with breakfast.

Healer Peabody promised confidentiality, but Hobbits were Hobbits, he knew. It wasn't long before everyone was in everyone's business. It happened two weeks ago – that was plenty of time for the news to reach the Green Dragon and then some.

He tiptoed through the smial, to their bedroom. "Diamond?" he called, softly. "I have something for you – oh."

Before him lay quite the unexpected reason for the silence.

Candles littered the top of the nightstand and bureau, creating dancing shadows. His wife was asleep on the floor, leaning against the foot of their bed, with a satisfied expression - something beyond the anger and sadness and it moved him. A brush, his brush, he noted with a start, dangled from her fingers across her lap. Around her, earthen bowls from their kitchen with varying liquids inside. He counted five he could see from where he stood. Covering their bedroom – on the walls, even one on their shared nightstand – were tiny, faint, birds. Well, birds if you squinted.

He knelt and examined a bowl more closely. The liquid in the bowls were dyes. She had taken the blueberries from storage and used them for paints. Each bowl looked a slightly different hue, as if she had been experimenting to get the right shade. He whistled; that took some determination. He himself recalled his own attempts at trying to get a paint color exactly so and the resulting frustration when the vision he had across his mind's eye did not match what was expressed by his hands.

He stepped over the bowls and her legs with care, to look at the birds more fully. Across from him, these birds were nesting. Further from him, the birds were perched on a tree, heads and wings close together. But one, the bird on the nightstand – that one was alone, and flying. It was smaller than the rest, quite tiny, away from the two larger ones. His heart twinged painfully, and he wanted to run from the room to weep again.

Yet his wife, whose breath stirred her curls so regularly (he had almost lost her, no don't think of that, Pip)...she had sought refuge among the one thing he used to, even though to his knowledge she had never painted herself. Had sought to express her pain, and it was beautiful...if untraditional. Well, he thought wryly, when had he ever followed tradition?

Suppressing the threatening tears, he reminded himself of the the advice Estella and Merry gave. Stay with her. He did almost lose her to the fever; he did not want to lose her to grief, as well. Yes. He would stay. Thus resolved, he knelt again, pushing aside the bowls. "Diamond?" he tried. "Wife?"

She stirred, bringing up a hand and unintentionally smearing her cheek and nose with blue. "Pippin!"

"What is this?" He gestured to the bowls, the brushes, the walls.

"I wanted to use your brushes. Since you refused." Diamond crossed her arms, fiercely defiant, burning with something he could not describe. And that light, that fire in her he wanted to embrace, because it is the first warmth from her in too long.

So he did. He laughed. While he has set out to figure out how to lift her spirits, she has managed to lift his own.

"…you are not angry with me?" Diamond pulled herself up straighter, eyeing Pippin warily. This is the first response beyond a greeting that she has had from him since…well, a while, and she wants to embrace it. Anything beyond the silence is welcome, and she desperately wanted to set down this burden of pain.

"No, my love," he said, pushing her dark, curly hair back, as he once did. "Perhaps you could have asked me for the brushes…but I think I understand what I see. If I tell you about it, will you assure me if I am right or wrong?"

She nodded.

"Those birds – " he pointed – "they are us. As we were. Courting. And there, as we had been – hoping for our wee one. But…" and here he pressed his hand against her stomach, rumpling her dress just a little – "but our wee one flew on before we expected him to."

Diamond's eyes filled, shimmered in the candlelight. He understood. And the pain began to dissipate, the knot in her stomach lessening.

She placed her small hand over his. The cotton fabric was thinning from wear. "You have it right. Oh, my love!" and she buried her face in him unexpectedly, causing him to fall directly into the bowls on his back. He pulled her with him, and they landed together, in confusion, a tangle of dress and tunic and arm and leg. The bowls tipped over, and the dye spread rapidly on the oaken floor.

Diamond and Pippin glanced at the floor and each other, frozen. This was not a cheap fix – dye, even berry dye, was a hard scrub on wooden flooring. A lot of dye was a lot of scrubbing. It could be weeks or months before the color faded. Tiny birds were one thing, and could be tackled one at a time – but a huge puddle was another.

Pippin laughed again, only this time his laughter was a little wobbly. "My love, we don't have to fix it right away, or at all," he whispered tenderly. "What matters is we do this, together. Can we try?" He absently thought to send a thank-you barrel of the highest quality beer to Merry and Estella.

Diamond looked around. He was right. It was too much to handle all at once. But with him… "yes. I would like to," she whispered back. More tears dripped before she could stop them. "I'd like to, very much, my dearest love. It's been so hard alone."

With that, Pippin sniffled, too. They wept, there, together amidst the drying puddle and the tipped bowls. It was not a cure, Pippin knew, but it was a start, and that changed everything.