Minas Tirith, February of 1437

Merry sat in silence for a few moments after Pippin had finished telling him his story. It took a while for it all to sink in and he tried to realise how it affected Pippin. But the truth was that he couldn't understand how that short conversation more than ten years back could have brought on this reaction in Pippin now. It was a bit eerie now for sure, to look back on a conversation like that, but in the end it was merely words that had been exchanged at one point in their life. Words that shouldn't mean anything anymore.

"Pippin…" he said slowly. "What I said to you that day…"

"You promised me you would remember me no matter what. You did not make good on that promise."

"But please Pippin, be reasonable. What I said I am sure I meant, every last bit of it, but in the end what did I know? I was too young to understand, to ever guess or ever know what life would have in store for me. I could not possibly have known what I was speaking of. I don't think I was telling you facts as they were written out, black and white, I think I was telling you the facts of my heart. Like when you're in love and you tell them you will feel that way forever because that's how it feels. But you can't know anything for sure. That doesn't make it untrue; it just means it is a different kind of truth."

"Yes what did you know?" Pippin said in a sharp tone, changing his tone for the first time during the conversation. "You were just feeding me lines to get me off my bum and on the way to the nearest inn. It meant nothing."

"I'm sure that's not true."

"We had a bond that was so beautiful; at least I thought it was, because it was based on a very simple fact. Only speak the truth to one another, lie or trick whoever you wish but never try to fool your best friend. That was true for me and I lived by that, thinking all these years that you had too, but I was wrong."

"Like I said, I think I believed I was telling you the truth. How could I possibly have known, Pippin?"

"But I believed you. I believed you because I never thought you would tell me anything so important unless you knew it with 100 percent certainty, not in your heart but in your mind, your reason, everything. I appear to have been mistaken. And it makes me wonder what else you told me that wasn't true. How many things did you tell me that you had no way of backing up?"

"I don't think I would have--"

"Oh but you did. We shared everything, laughter and pain, but it was only real for me and not for you. It couldn't have been real, not when you could look me in the eye and say things that you didn't know for a fact were true. Not when you practically swore to me that they were true. I think back on every other memory I have of you telling me something the way you told me you would never forget me, and I find myself questioning whether or not you had any idea of what you spoke of. I had never in my whole life doubted you, not for a moment even, and then you looked me in the eye and treated me as a stranger and suddenly all I had were doubts. Yet I couldn't let you go. All I could think of was you and me sharing things like we had in the past, doing the things that we used to do and interacting the way we always had. I have been such a fool for ever believing in you. I know that now but that realisation came at a very high cost."

"I can't stand hearing you say these things" Merry said. "I can't stand the thought of you thinking of me like that. Because the truth is I don't know. I don't know any more than you do whether or not I lied to you in the past or told you nice things that might not have been true, just because I thought you wanted to hear them. But please don't say you were a fool for believing in me, I can't have been all lies and deceit. I don't think I was any part that, to be frank. You would have seen through it."

"I trusted you blindly. From as far back as I could remember. It's hard spotting deceit in something you have trusted and believed in since you got your first tooth. It was never a possibility for me that you would be anything but reliable."

"I don't know what to say to you" Merry said. "I can't make apologies for things I don't remember. I don't even know if I owe you an apologies or not."

"If only I knew you had missed me" Pippin said. "Everything would be so different then. If only there had been some sign in you after those first few days that something that had been missing in your life had come back when you were reunited with me then this situation would not have arisen. All I've ever asked of you was for you to be honest with me and for you to love me. You can't do the latter and I don't think you've ever completely done the former. It's a huge load to bear."

"Don't call me a bad friend as if you've never done anything wrong. Is it not up to you to reach out to me and help me remember you?" Merry had to ask. "Why am I the one who has to do all the work? If our friendship was that great shouldn't we be working together to try and find out way back to it? I can't read your mind and I'm trying to understand but until you meet me half way there's nothing to go back to. Real friends are there for each other when they can't fight for themselves, isn't that true?"

"It doesn't work that way. See I want the real Merry back, back for good. But that Merry never existed. The Merry I depended upon for the first thirty-five years of my life, that Hobbit which I nurtured in my heart and my memories when he was gone from me, he was never really real. No more than a reflection in a pond, an image I wanted to be true and believed was true. As I think back I suppose I kept an image of you which was too hard to live up to. Yet it was so real to me, it was the simplest thing in my life and the backbone of my existence. It was all pulled away, like a rug under my feet when you came back with no idea of who I was, and I'm struggling to find my balance again."

"But I just cannot understand!" Merry said. "It might have been very true that the last thing I would ever forget was you, but if every memory is gone then that means all is lost. Even you."

"Every memory was not lost" Pippin pointed out. "There are some things that you still remember."

"Éowyn" Merry said, beginning to feel like he understood.

Pippin turned to look at him again, and tilted his head with questioning eyes.

"What was your relationship with her? Why can you remember her and not me?"

"If I knew that…" Merry said with a sigh.

"Merry it's not that I want to lose you. And I don't want to hate you."

"Hate?"

"But I can't make peace with the knowledge that you swore to me that you would remember me even if you forgot everything else, that forgetting me was downright impossible. And here you are, having completely forgotten me but remembering a soldier you rode to war with. It means what you told me that day was a lie and that means all other things you told me might have been lies as well. You were so trustworthy but now I don't know if that was for real or not."

"Pippin if you aren't interested in moving forward then where does that leave you? I keep waiting for things to change, for my memory to come back, for life to become more natural for me and for you to come around and at least want to be my friend again. While I cannot remember my past you are too preoccupied with yours. Forget what I said, forget all things I said, form a new friendship with me now or at the very least move on with your life. You cannot keep doing this to yourself, you're tormenting yourself over things you never had any power over and the only one who can give you any answers is a Hobbit who can't even remember where he was seven months ago. Where does that leave you?"

"I suppose you're right. I must move on. I had begun to move on, back home I have a family and I have a life and everything was bright and clear for me again. But when you came back I had to start over again for now there are new things that I have to adjust to my life and the way I look at things. I can't start life over and forget all that was; who I am today is the result of everything that's happened to me in the past. I'm not the same as I would have been with you beside me all these years but even with you here now I can't be anything else that what I am. You on the other hand, you are not the result of your past; I don't know what you are the result of."

"Neither do I" Merry said. "And it pains me every day."

"I know I'm much wiser now than I was before" Pippin said. "I learned a lot from you but I think I learned the most when you went away. You haunted me for many years, but when I let you go I began to grow. I wish I could help you now to become who you want to be or used to be, but the truth is I think we need to let each other go just like I did in the past. I need to free myself of you and you need to stop seeing me as a road block for the truth is it is all in your head. You and you alone control the ability for you to remember, I am just something you have placed in the way as a way to find excuses to why you can't remember anything. Part of me thanks all the mighty powers in the world that we are together now, but you can't open your mouth to speak or that will all go away. When you had just died I used to see you in the corner of my eye and be comforted knowing that you were there. Then I turned my head to talk to you and you vanished. It's the same now, I'm so happy that you are with me but as soon as you speak I know that you are not who I want you to be and the old Merry vanishes leaving only the Hobbit you are now. I treasure every moment we spend together, but only so long as nothing is said and no looks are exchanged. Your mere presence still comforts me as it always has done but everything else is different."

Merry wanted to tell him that he felt that too, being near Pippin made him feel comfortable and secure, even when they were talking about difficult subjects or Pippin was freezing him out. But somehow he couldn't. He was afraid that if he opened up to Pippin he would be discarded with a comment on how he was not who Pippin remembered him to be, and he felt sure that if Pippin discarded him he would not be able to find his way back. Oddly enough it seemed like the only way to hold on to a shred of comfort from Pippin was by letting him believe that he felt nothing at all.

"You'll never know how it feels to be the one who's left behind" Pippin said. "To have always been part of a pair and suddenly the other half is gone. Everyone still looks at you and tries to see the other part, and they expect you to carry the load of both. For years people would stare at me not knowing what to say or do. It was horrid to always be one single Hobbit where they had always known two to be. I was never sufficient on my own; they saw me and missed you standing next to me. It was as if they put blame on me for being the one who survived, for a while there I wondered if they believed I should have died when you did for no other reason than that there can be no Pippin unless there is Merry. It's awful to always be reminded of how you are just one person where everybody knows that there have always been two."

Merry wanted to reach out his hand and touch him, to give him a hug of comfort. Memories or no memories it was hard seeing the pain in Pippin's eyes and hearing it in his voice and he wanted to offer some comfort. He was beginning to understand now what Pippin had gone through and he wished there was some way he could take it all back and make it alright again. But he knew now that even remembering would not fix what had been broken. Pippin's whole belief system seemed to have crumbled to pieces and that damage had been done already.

"I want to be free" Pippin said. "I want to be just Pippin. Not Pippin and Merry, Pippin alone. You and I are the past; the future is us standing on our own. I can't live like this anymore; I will suffocate if I do."

"I'm sorry…" Merry whispered.

"I'm sorry too. I'm sorry I can't be of any help to you. I will try and help you if I can, I swear it, I owe it to all you meant to me. But I have nothing to offer you and perhaps now you understand that."

"Please forgive me…" Merry whispered and rose to his feet. "For having ever said things to you that I couldn't back up. For not being able to be the one you cared so deeply for. I wish you had never had to be put through this but there's nothing I can do."

He walked away and Pippin was left alone. He sat on the grassy knoll staring at the setting sun, with nobody to pull him to his feet and lighten his heart. Those times were gone.