Minas Tirith, December 25th of 1438
The next morning the Fellowship gathered in one of Aragorn's private rooms. It was early, only dawn yet, on December 25th. Aragorn remained standing while the others sat down and observed where they took their seats. Legolas and Gimli sat down together on a sofa. Pippin crawled up in an armchair in a corner. Sam sat down on an ottoman by the fireplace. Merry took a seat on a chair near the door. When they were all seated Aragorn stepped into the middle of the room and slowly turned around while he spoke, so that he could look each of them in the eye.
"My friends" he said. "We have come together here today to reform our bonds and remove all that is hard and hurtful between us. A day may come when all bonds of Fellowship are broken, but I never believed that would happen to us. And it won't. On this day, exactly twenty years ago, we set out from Rivendell together. The Fellowship of the Ring took its first steps and we began to form the bonds that have lasted through war, despair and long miles separating us. My friends, we have sat down here today to secure these bonds to last forever. And we are not leaving this room until we can do so as a unit, as a fellowship. Together."
He sat down in an armchair next to Pippin's and looked at the faces around him. He could see Sam anxiously looking from face to face just as Aragorn was doing, and he hoped that the Hobbit had been right in suggesting this gathering. His eyes went on to Merry, who looked uncomfortable and almost bored. He was the only one who didn't know what they were really there for, and he was in an awkward situation as it had been his disappearance which had brought on the chain reactions that led them to this point. Aragorn looked on to Gimli, who had his stubborn face, but Aragorn knew that he wanted to salvage what could be salvaged just as much as Aragorn and Sam wanted it. What Legolas was thinking was hard to tell. Last of all Aragorn's eyes fell on Pippin and the look on the Hobbit's face surprised him. Pippin looked angry more than anything.
"Are we going to say anything or just sit here?" Merry asked and interrupted Aragorn's thoughts. "I don't know what your protocol is."
"We've never done this before, so neither do we" Aragorn said.
"I say we let Sam speak first" Gimli said. "He is the one who has called us all together. Let him speak his mind."
All eyes fell on Sam.
"I… just think that we all need to talk to each other again" Sam said, not sure what to say all of a sudden. "I think Strider said pretty much everything I had in mind."
"Be more specific, laddie" Gimli said. "Tell us what you are upset about, who you are upset with and let's begin to work in that end. Then we can let the turn pass to the next person and let them talk about what bothers them."
Sam rose from his chair and stepped into the middle of the room. He took a good look at all of his friends and wondered what he wanted to say to them all.
"I'm disappointed" he finally said. "In all of you. Throughout this whole thing I have stood half a step outside of the circle, I have not interacted much with either of you, just watched from the sidelines as things have started to fall apart. The problems are not with me. They are with you. All of you. My friendships with you all are intact, even Merry and I are about as friendly as anyone could expect. But it makes me angry to see how you all treat one another. There is too much bickering, too much whining and complaining and everyone seems to turn his back one everyone else." He turned and glared at Pippin. "I am sick and tired of arguments, stubborn necks and sword fights."
"Sword fights?" Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas cried simultaneously.
"What?" Pippin asked with a shrugged shoulder. "It wasn't a real fight."
"I think you all owe it to the four of us who stand outside of this problem to work it out" Sam said and sat back down.
"Why is it that we have a problem but you are not part of it?" Pippin asked with a grumpy look on his face.
"Because this whole thing started in Ithilien thirteen years ago" Sam said. "Those of you who were involved in Merry's disappearance suffered a hit of some kind and it has haunted you ever since."
"Now wait just a minute!" Merry cried. "This is all my fault?"
"Calm down" Aragorn said. "Nobody is blaming anybody. Sam do you have anything more you would like to say about this?"
"Not at the moment, no."
"Alright then. Who wants to go next?"
Nobody made a move. Merry gave a snort from his chair. He didn't like this one little bit, it was boring and the only thing that seemed to have been said so far was that they all had a friendship they wanted to save and it had been ruined because of Merry.
"Let me save you all a whole lot of time" he said. "What bothers you all is me. I can't remember anything and that creates problems for you. Why do I even need to be here? Why do any of you need to gather for this? What you need to do is to face the facts and stop blaming me for your problems. How can it affect your friendship Legolas and Gimli, if I can't remember you? What difference does that make?"
"You haven't understood any of it, have you?" Gimli said. "It's not about your return or the memories you have lost. This all started when you were thought to be dead."
"So you choose to blame me for all of this? What could I have done? No I don't believe you Gimli. Something else is wrong and you are just pinning it on me because it is easier than trying to find the real problem. From what I hear I was not the first member of the Fellowship to die. I'm not even the first to come back from the dead! Why would it affect everyone so much when it happened to me?"
"When you lose someone at war it is somehow easier to bear" Aragorn said. "You have to cast your grief aside and focus on those who are still alive, and focus on winning the war. The deaths of Gandalf and Boromir were sacrifices for a greater cause; they both died defending their friends and trying to save our quest. You were lost to us at times of peace, when we had not expected anybody to die. It came so unexpected. And we had nothing else to focus on, nothing but lots of time on our hands to feel guilty that we couldn't help you."
"We cared a great deal about you, laddie" Gimli said. "We still do."
"It's not that the loss of you per se wounded us worse than Gandalf or Boromir" Aragorn said. "But after the War we all expected to settle down and live long and happy lives. Suddenly without warning you go missing and all evidence points to that you have been slain by orcs. Orcs. After all you survived during the War. It took us completely by surprise and it was not easy to know how to deal with it."
"But that shouldn't affect your friendships" Merry insisted. "I wasn't that important. I refuse to be made an excuse."
"All it took was for one of us to lose his footing" Legolas said calmly. "It created an uncertainty. I am an Elf and I don't handle grief well, I had to distance myself. The two that were left to care for the third didn't know where to turn."
"It can seem like something so small at first" Sam said. "Just a little element that is different from before. But then it spreads, like ripples on water, and before you know it things have gotten out of control."
"When you are used to grieving through times of war, where you have to keep going and you know that, then it is hard to grief in times of peace when you have enough time on your hands to let the grief consume you" Aragorn said. "During war people die, it happens, but what happened to you made us all feel guilty, like we owned a part in it."
Legolas glanced over at Pippin who had not moved a muscle since they ventured into this topic. A dark look came over the Elf's face.
"Pippin is the only one who hasn't said a word about this yet" he remarked. "He who should have more to say than anyone else."
Pippin didn't acknowledge him with as much as a look. He was angry now, the tables had turned from Merry feeling accused to Pippin having that feeling. The underlining meaning in Legolas' words seemed to have been that when Pippin fell apart the rest of them did as well. But he agreed with Merry on this one. Neither he nor Merry were important enough to have such an effect on the others.
"Do you have anything to say Pippin?" Gimli asked.
Pippin didn't reply or make a move. He felt he had nothing to say to them. They would not understand anyway. Things had gone too far for that now.
"You should have something to say" Sam insisted. "After all, no one was affected more than you when it happened."
"Well Pippin and I don't speak very much" Merry said.
"That makes me so furious" Sam said. "I have said it before and I will say it again. Until the two of you can figure things out then the rest of us can't reform our Fellowship. We can't have such a huge abyss where you once could barely tell that there were two rather than one. You owe it to us all to try and work something out."
"Why is it our job to save your friendships?" Merry snarled. "Leave that to us, it's none of your business."
"But we have always been a unit" Gimli said. "There can be no unit when two people insist on pulling in separate directions. Honestly it has nothing to do with how close you used to be. It wouldn't make any difference if it were Sam and I who didn't get along anymore; the result would be the same. We must all be friends or else none of us can be."
"There is no friendship between Pippin and I" Merry said stubbornly. "Judging by what he's said to me there never really was. Tell them what you said to me Pippin. What you said about me being a liar."
The others glared at Pippin but he ignored them so they turned their attention back to Merry. Although Merry was upset there was something almost triumphant about the look on his face.
"Won't you tell them Pippin?" he asked. "Won't you tell them what you accused me of? You said that you couldn't trust anything I had once said. I promised you once that if I forgot everything else I would never forget you, and since I did you think I have been dishonest with you all our lives. That is the truth, isn't it?"
"Well that explains a lot…" Aragorn mumbled.
Legolas looked over at Pippin.
"Why won't you speak?" he asked. "Perhaps it has not been Merry who has been dishonest lying about remembering you. Perhaps the real truth is that you never really missed Merry when he was gone. That would explain why you have nothing to say to us now."
Pippin turned his head away and tears filled his eyes. The comment had been said to provoke but it had hit home and hit good. Pippin's lower lip trembled and he bit it hard to make it stop. The others watched him, waiting for a response.
"I didn't even get to say goodbye" Pippin said with a shivering voice, tears starting to fall down his cheeks. "I was never going to get see him again… and I didn't even get to say goodbye."
"At least he's talking" Gimli mumbled to Legolas.
"Do not say that I never missed him… I've spent a decade in tears, and allthe crying that I've done is over the loss of him."
"I didn't mean to make you cry" Merry said, not knowing what else to say. "I hate feeling like I did bad things to all of you deliberately."
"Nobody thinks that" Aragorn said.
Gimli shushed them and nodded towards Pippin who had finally gotten to talking. The Dwarf was afraid that if they interrupted him he might go quiet again.
"I am so sorry" Pippin sobbed. "I never meant for my pain to hurt any of you. And I'm sorry that I'm hurting all of you now. Please just don't say that I never cared because I cared so very much. I completely lost my balance, and I struggled for years to find that inner balance which I lost when Merry went away." Then his face hardened and the tears stopped falling. "But I got through it. And I am not going back. I won't give up all those things I had to fight so hard to achieve for a friend who returned but pushed me away."
"When he came back you were more than willing to give it all up and go back to where you had been" Aragorn gently reminded him. "If I live for a thousand years more I shall never forget the look on your face when you came to the Houses of Healing, having heard that Merry was alive."
"Yes but I was taken from my dreams quite quickly" Pippin said. "I thought everything would still be the same. But nothing was."
"So you turned your back on it all" Legolas said.
"Tell me how to win your friendship back Pippin" Merry suddenly said. "I haven't got a clue how to do it, you have to help me."
"No" Pippin said and suddenly jumped to his feet, walking in to the middle of the room. "Enough is enough. How can I make you people understand? I am through being part of Merry and Pippin, I hate it! I want it to end and it has to end now!"
The others stared at him and for a moment wondered if he was serious or not. But the tears that had begun to fall down his cheeks again seemed real enough and so did the fury and the desperation in his eyes.
"I am sick and tired of people only judging me in context with Merry" Pippin cried. "The only worth people have ever given me has been through him! As if I'm not worth a thing without him. Everyone back in the Shire treated me like I had no right to enjoy my life anymore when I was on my own and I had to work long and hard to get back the respect I used to have. Everybody here kept looking at me through eyes that had seen two Hobbits in the past and now didn't accept that there was only one. And as for all of you sitting in here… I could never do right by any of you. You have sat here today accusing me of being the reason why things fell apart, because I was too preoccupied in my grief to mind anyone else. Yet when I try to distance myself from it all you judge me and accuse me of having no sentiment or whatnot. In your eyes I am worth nothing without Merry but that is not true. I am worth so much more than you have ever seen; all you've ever seen is a clumsy, scatterbrained Hobbit who used to follow Merry around wherever he went. But my life is mine and mine alone, Merry and I might have been close at one point but he certainly wasn't the only thing that justified my worth. My life is happening right now, not in the past, and I cannot look back any longer. It is not fair for you to ask that I should cast aside my own life and go back to the past. I am not the same Hobbit who grieved Merry so when he left me. I have spent so much energy building a new life, I have my Diamond and I have my Faramir and I will be damned if I let my old lifestyle be more important to me than they are."
"All we are saying is you have to be able to combine the two" Sam tried to intervene, but Pippin silenced him with a look.
"I have done just fine without him and I shall continue to do so. That is the road I have chosen and I am going to follow it to the end. For once in my life I have created happiness that is all my own, and I have found a self-worth completely independent from Merry. I will not go back, I can't! As my friends you should not ask that of me. What does it matter to Merry, he can't remember me! I agree with him though, you have your own problems and you are letting us be your excuse. That is cowardly and I will not permit it. I want to feel that I am really living, making the most of my days, regardless of him. And I want to know that I was enough on my own, that I wasn't only half good in the eyes of others, even my friends." He looked over at Merry. "You never understood anything during these years you have been back. One of us was left behind that day you rode out without returning. One of us was discarded as superfluous. Do any of you have the slightest idea how horrible it is to realise that other people see you that way? That once you took away your closest friend you ceased to have any real worth? When Merry then came back without remembering me it was as if I had been walking on wet sand my whole life and a wave came in and wiped out the tracks behind me. The only tracks left were the ones that had been there since he disappeared and I am going to hold on to those no matter what."
"Easy Pippin" Gimli said to try and soothe him but Aragorn shook his head and urged Pippin to continue and let it all out.
"When Merry died I still had the will to live the rest of my life. If there is something that you haven't been able to forgive me for then that must be it. It didn't make any sense to you how Pippin could cast his sorrows aside after only two years and start to smile again and be happy again. And you judged me. But I have the right to be happy and I have the right to be the person that I am, the person I have always been, even without my cousin. My life belongs to me and me alone. I don't want to throw away any more years trying to be who you want me to be. I want to feel that I've lived my life and that I lived it for my own sake."
Having nothing more to add Pippin stormed past Merry's chair by the door and left the room. Merry took a deep breath and looked at the people around him. They all seemed affected by what Pippin had said and Merry felt he understood what Pippin had spoken of. Since his return he had been told over and over again that his friends had been so important to him and that he needed to respect that. He had been defined through his former friendships since the first day he woke up at the Houses of Healing. He had dealt with it for nearly three years but Pippin had carried that burden for over ten.
"Well I guess that concludes this" Aragorn said with a deep sigh.
"We tried" Gimli said. "There's nothing more we can do."
Sam began to cry from exhaustion and disappointment. Merry felt numb inside and wished he could be anywhere in the world but here. He had often listened to Pippin's bellyaching about his feelings since Merry returned but this had made sense to him unlike most other things Pippin had said.
XX
XX
Pippin had lost all concept of time. He didn't know for how long he had been with the Fellowship and he had no idea how long he had been out in the gardens. It was cold but he didn't feel it, he was too emotionally exhausted from finally having spoken everything that was on his mind. If the others couldn't understand then he didn't care anymore. He had left a message with one of the guards that he would be leaving in the morning. He was ready to leave them all behind.
"Peregrin."
Pippin turned around and made no secret of how surprised he was that it was Legolas out of all people who had come to find him first. Probably to tell him how foolish he thought he was. It had been a long time since Pippin and Legolas had understood one another.
"I want to apologise" the Elf said.
"For what?" Pippin asked, not really caring anymore.
"Pippin…" Legolas said and walked over to him, kneeling to get in the same level. "You are my brother. Don't you know that? Have you not always known?"
"I used to think so."
"You were wrong earlier" Legolas said. "When you said we never assigned you any worth other than what being friends with Merry gave you. Pippin you are worth the world to us, with or without Merry. You've certainly proven your uses in the past, long before Merry disappeared, when you were in Minas Tirith during the War. There was never any doubt in our minds that you were capable of great and amazing things. What always worried me was that you would forget that when Merry died. Instead you thought we did."
The Elf took a gentle hold of the Hobbit's shoulders and pulled him closer. Pippin wrapped his arms around Legolas and found himself struggling with tears. He thought he had cried enough for one day but now it didn't seem that way.
"I pray that you can forgive me" the Elf continued. "After Merry died I drifted back to my memories of him and you were always present in those memories. So that was how I saw you, so vividly. You were happy in those memories, always so cheerful. But when I saw you before me you were so terribly sad and you reminded me of what grief really is. Us Elves do not cope very well with grief so I fled back to my memories. I was wrong to do so, I was wrong to only remember you with Merry. Though when I see you in my memories now I see the strong Hobbit that came out on the other side of the tragedy."
"You have been so harsh with me" Pippin whispered.
"I'm sorry. I cannot deny that I might have taken Merry more to my heart than I did you… But I always loved you as well. Do you remember when we were still nine in the Fellowship? Do you recall how Aragorn took Frodo and Sam under his wing and gave them extra protection while Boromir did the same for you and Pippin? After Boromir died it fell natural for Gimli and I to continue where the humans had left off. Frodo and Sam were too far from us and Boromir was gone, the most natural thing was for Gimli and me to take on the roles of protectors of you and Merry. Merry was more like me while you were more like Gimli, it was the most natural thing that I ended up keeping an extra eye on Merry and Gimli keeping an extra eye on you. When you keep an extra eye on someone that way you end up feeling closer to them. But Pippin I never thought Merry's life was worth more than yours, or that you were only worth anything for being Merry's dearest friend. You were my brother just the same as he was."
"I've missed you Legolas" Pippin suddenly said.
"Do not carry any more feelings of harm" Legolas said and gently placed a hand on Pippin's back. "None of us want you to give up what you have accomplished during the years he was gone. We have all been so proud of you for coming out so strong. We just don't want you to throw away so many years of your life for no use. Even if Merry can't remember how close you were, and even if he never felt the bond as strongly as you did, remember Peregrin that you loved him dearly and that you held that bond for special. Don't deny the Hobbit you used to be. That is all we ask. Prove to him and to yourself that you haven't forgotten the things that were and make him your friend again. The only alternative to giving up your new life is not to disown your old one. Let him in to your new life and accept the things that are different."
"I think you're right" Pippin said.
"When has an Elf ever been wrong?" Legolas joked.
"I love you Legolas" Pippin said. "I'm sorry if I have forgotten that. The truth is I don't want to leave you all behind."
"I think we left you behind" Legolas said. "We had no idea how to reach you when you were that miserable. The only one who would have always known how to reach you was the one person missing. And we failed you. Friends remain by each other's side until the pain goes away, even if all they have to offer is there mere presence."
"No you didn't fail me" Pippin said. "Not so long as you still cared for me."
"We are brothers to each other" Legolas assured him. "For as long as we live and longer still."
XX
XX
After everything that had happened Merry felt oddly at peace. He stood out on a small balcony overlooking the Houses of Healing and the gardens as the sun slowly began to set. The days were short in December but this one had seemed very long. Hopefully it was ending now, and hopefully the others would take care of their own problems from now on without dragging him into the picture.
"Do you think you came out on top laddie?" Gimli asked him.
Merry turned and looked at the Dwarf. He hadn't heard him coming. Merry wondered what he might want and wished he would go away. But Gimli stepped up to him and looked out over the city together with him.
"Maybe you think it all ends now" he said. "That you won't have to worry about us anymore. But the truth is it never ends and you never get free from your part in it all. Memories or no memories."
"Gimli I need no one to stand by me" Merry said cheekily. "I can be my one companion. Pippin is not the only one who has tired of always being measured against another person. The truth is that every word he said was true for both him and me, I am worth nothing to you without him."
"No the truth is he was wrong" Gimli said. "You came to be the people you were and still to some degree are because of one another. You feel it. I can see it in your eyes when you are near him. You cannot deny that Merry. That bond awoke again and when it did you were powerless to stop it."
"I think you're wrong. I'm in control of myself; I'm free to be who I want to be. There is nothing holding me back except expectations from others. I think once we are finally freed of each others' shadows Pippin and I can begin to achieve some great things."
"Try as you may you will never achieve anything that tops what you did during the War" Gimli said. "Truth be told Peregrin wasn't with you when you wrote your name into the history books. But if you deny the people you loved then all the noble acts of your past become meaningless. You can be the biggest hero there ever was or the greatest person who ever lived but if you have no friends then nothing is worth it."
"Listen it is not my fault that Pippin and I aren't friends!"
"You think that it's just him who needs to do the work" Gimli said matter-of-factly. "You think that you are exactly where you need to be for things to work out, and he just needs to reach out his hand to you. But it takes more than one to make something work and you are failing miserably. Let me tell you one thing… Nothing in this world that is worth having comes easy."
From the balcony they could see Pippin and Legolas leaving the gardens. Pippin was chattering about something and appeared to be in a good mood. Legolas' hand was on the Hobbit's shoulder and he listened to every word with a gentle smile on his face. Merry leaned over the railing to see better.
"I don't understand" he said. "After everything that has been said and done how can the two of them come walking together like they were friends again and nothing bad had ever happened?"
"Do you finally see what we are fighting so hard to save?" Gimli asked.
Merry began to cry. He couldn't quite explain why but the sight of Legolas and Pippin had made him despair. Gimli pulled him closer and let him cry into his beard.
"Don't hold anything back young rascal" he said. "I told Pippin this once and I am telling you now… Strength is not to keep your feelings locked up inside of you. And above all Merry strength is acknowledging that you need others."
"It's too hard" Merry whimpered. "I have tried and tried and tried and tried… I can't be one of you without my memories. I will always be standing with one foot outside the circle. It hurts to know deep inside that you need a group of people when you cannot be a part of that group for real."
"The only thing standing in-between you and being a full member of our group is yourself" Gimli said. "That's what you keep failing to understand. We love you regardless of whether or not you know who we are. We love you no matter where you were all those years and no matter what you did. There's nothing you can say or do that can change that. You are keeping your wall up against us and you are afraid to let us in, but if you just give us a chance--"
"I've tried that!" Merry cried. "I've tried that with Pippin. He of all people should accept me. But he can't."
"Why have you given up? Show him that you don't accept his cold shoulder. Be there for him even if he can't be there for you."
"He has been there for me" Merry had to admit. "Whenever I have really needed someone… But he can't be a part of my everyday life."
"Stay by his side" Gimli insisted. "Prove to him that you want his friendship. Stand by him no matter what and he will not be able to deny you for very long. Talk to him about ordinary things, talk to him about whatever comes to mind. Share troubles that are none of his concern with him. Be his friend. You'll see that before long he will be there beside you. Perhaps the two of you haven't come to realise that your friendship is not something that cripples you it's something that strengthens you. You can need each other and still live complete lives and be worth the world all on your own. Trust me Merry, learning to be alone is not difficult, but learning to need others and accept it is truly hard sometimes. And in the end, if you cannot be good friends, the rest of us will still care for you both."
Merry nodded slowly and felt a little better. Gimli was right. They were his friends. He had tried very hard to drive them away ever since his return but they were still there. And they would be there for as long as he lived.
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The next chapter will probably be a while... that's what happens during summer! There are only a few more chapters to go now, hope you stay with me until the end.