Pippin Lays Down his Sweet and Weary Head as Night Falls, Dreaming of the Distant Shores

After bidding goodbye to Sam and Rosie (Sam who quietly handed me Frodo's Red Book to hold for awhile), I plodded off to Bag End alone, where now the only ones who awaited my return were Merry and Pippin.

Merry was sitting on the threshold, his face in his hands. I tied my pony to the fence and ran to him, my heart nearly collapsing, it felt so empty, and I felt terribly sick from crying so. When I reached him, he threw his arms around me, laying his head on my chest, weak from exhaustion and sobbing.

"What is it, Merry?" I asked softly, fighting a new wave of tears. "Why do you weep?"

"Everything…" Merry cried. "Frodo, Sam…now Pippin…"

"Pippin?" I looked up immediately from the Red Book. "Where is he?"

Merry looked into my eyes and shook his head, taking my hands and leading into the house, where Pippin was laying in his bed, tossing restlessly. He coughed and shivered, and I watched as though in a trance. He fitfully choked and coughed, crying as though something was ailing him from the inside, his face had a jaundiced pallor and sweat shone in beads on his face and neck. Red sores were covering his arms and he shook in his sleep, tossing his head like he was frightened, while he held his chest and painfully gasped for breath.

Suddenly, as a pale moon rose over the Shire, I ran to him. Merry stood off; crying, watching his cousin suffer, and I took Pippin's hands, calming him.

"Call Rosie!" I screamed as Pippin loudly cried out.

"You're burning me! Get away!" He howled, pushing my hands away desperately, awaking in a fit of frenzy.

"Pippin, Pippin," I pleaded, looking him in the eye. I was horrified to see they, too, had taken on a yellow hue. "It's me. Mandy. I'm here. We're going to help you."

Pippin, with an utterly frightened look on his face, let me hold his hands and I sat on the bed beside him, pulling blankets over him as he shivered with chills. He stared at me, since it seemed to calm his body, and his eyes softened after a few moments, sinking back into the pillows with relief. "Sleep leaves me in horror," he said, tears falling down his cheeks. "The nightmares…the pain..."

I bent close and embraced him when he cried in pain, and his arms clutched me, fear surrounding him like a fence. "Don't leave me," he whispered. "You promised…in Minas Tirith…you wouldn't leave me…"

"I will keep that promise," I whispered back, brushing some sweaty hair from his brow and kissing him there. His head was giving off heat like the mountain of Doom itself. Pippin looked up at me, scared, like he was already seeing death. "I will kill this thing that ails you," I vowed.

"Help me," he said, as Rosie entered the room, and he slipped back into his terrifying fit of sleep.

I sat in an armchair, slouching, as Rosie held her stomach and prepared mixtures of herbs for Pippin's fever.

"I don't understand," I said. "How he got to be so sick, so quickly."

"I want to know what he has and if it's dangerous to any of us," Rosie said as she placed bowls on Frodo's table and put a kettle of water over his fire. Nothing was going to be 'ours' anymore, it was all Frodo's. Everything he left behind. Merry's voice jerked me out of my thoughts.

"Fever," Merry said in monotone, looking up sorrowfully at Rosie, and Sam, who had just entered with Elanor. "It killed his mother. We did not know how."

Sam sank into a chair, holding Elanor close, and looking with worry at Merry, and Rosie, who was carrying a bowl to Pippin's room.

The song, the anthem of my memoirs that Pippin had sung to me…the words he had taught me years ago, they came to me now, as I followed Rosie, taking Pippin's hand. I picked up my journal and saw the words, the only knowledge of his mother he had spoken…

…Pippin's voice suddenly grew quieter as he ended the soft melodies. "My mother sang this when I was a young lad. It was my lullaby," he whispered. "But she has gone..."

"I'm so sorry," I said quietly, lowering my head.

"You remind me so much of her," Pippin said with efforts to smile. "Like you were meant to come, just for me…"

I was touched by his sudden loss of innocence and his short steps into another, more perilous world, as he continued the song…

I knew then exactly what to do, as Rosie forced various medicines down his throat. He struggled and cried with agony, but allowed her to feed him. And Rosie, seeing me for the first time, clutching the Green and Red books, shouted with alarm.

"Out! Get out!" She screeched. "You'll get sick, too! Go!"

I stepped outside and shut the door, holding both books, my journal and Frodo's, to my chest as Rosie changed Pippin's clothes and bedclothes and took the contaminated ones to wash. I allowed her to leave and sank against the door, crying, but determined to help. I pushed my way into the room and quietly stepped inside; sitting beside Pippin on his bed as he coughed and coughed, and his eyes fluttered open, his lips dry and cracked as he peered at me with a slightly aghast expression. I'd promised that I would be there for him, and I would.

"You stayed," he tried to smile but grimaced instead as he felt waves of nausea take over his body. He screwed up his face and held his stomach, turning to the side and fighting the pain. I did my best, wrenching my arms under him and lifting him. His head lolled like a child's and his arms hung limply. He shivered against me, protesting. His struggles didn't do anything for his weight, and I stumbled toward the bath-room. I didn't care that Rosie would screech and put up a fight, I needed to get Pippin into a bath. His body wracked with chills and I could imagine the crusted feeling as the sickness pored over him. I tore his shirt off him, staring at every familiar scratch as I filled the bath with boiling water and washed his body with the steamy heat, wrapping him in warm towels. His trembling calmed. I didn't have the courage yet to give him a full bath, and apologized to him softly. Another wave of pain struck him as I laid him back in his blankets. His head tossed, but he fought hard.

When it had passed, he once again turned to me, taking my hand in his. "Are you going to read to me?" He asked hoarsely, his eyes on Bilbo and Frodo's book. He tugged at my hand so passionately.

"Yes," I said, smiling through my tears, annoyed at myself for spilling tears, and opening the book to the first page, and began reading the first chapter aloud before he fell asleep.

6 November 0001, of the Fourth Age

15 Blotmath 1421, Shire-Reckoning Time...

Each night, though Rosie denied it, I swear I saw improvement in Pippin, or at least, when he was with me. When I wasn't reading to him, or comforting him, I was singing, holding his hand and watching his constant struggle as life threatened to leave him.

After a week, Pippin could sit up and speak without flinching. His fever had not been burning through him as constantly, and the red sores had faded. His skin, still ashy, yellow and pale, did not change, while he himself filled with life again. I could see Merry smile again, Sam stayed home with Elanor, and Rosie visited for less frequent checkups on Pippin. He smiled broadly at me one evening, as I read the chapter to him about Moria, and he asked many questions. It was the night I stubbornly protested against all forms of modesty and had to struggle to keep from becoming embarrassed as I undressed Pippin and helped him into a bath. I averted my eyes even though we had spent the past four years together and knew every inch of skin on each other's bodies, every scar and callus and scratch. I scrubbed his back with a washcloth in one hand and my journal in the other. I stumbled over the words. His body was unfamiliar to me all of a sudden.

"I remember," he sighed, sinking deep into the water, and taking my hand, stroked it, intertwining our fingers. His face took on a sort of stubborn expression as he looked into my eyes and I saw the light leave them. He looked down again and sighed sadly. "Goodnight…love…I mean, Mandy," he murmured, drifting into sleep. "Goodnight."

13 November 0001, of the Fourth Age

22 Blotmath 1421, Shire-Reckoning Time...

The fever returned, worse than before, and this time no one could go near Pippin since he cried and screamed in his sleep and any touch caused him immense pain.

"Please, don't touch me," he would cry, dazed. "I'm scared…"

Tears filled my eyes as I watched him, unable to do anything but just watch, but he constantly called for me, asked me if I was still with him. No herbs could help him, and no words could comfort him. He could not eat, anything he downed he instantly regurgitated, and his breath came in weak, raspy breaths. Coughs rattled his body and left him weak, and his fever burned with the fuel of a thousand of Mordor's fires.

Each day, I hoped and prayed for him, though I felt that it was coming to the end; that the disease was finally taking over. And every night I slept in bed beside him, unable to sleep as I heard him moaning in pain and crying quietly, murmuring pieces of his nightmares. His hot body pressed against mine was enough to chill me out of sleep.

Listlessly, I sat in my chair, slept in my bed, holding his cold and clammy hands constantly and singing to myself, unsure of what would happen.

17 November 0001, of the Fourth Age

26 Blotmath 1421, Shire-Reckoning Time...

I left the room one evening, for a cup of tea, and as I was taking a mug from the cabinet, Merry gave a curtling cry.

"Mandy! Please come! Hurry!" His voice was desperate.

I rushed into the room, dropping my mug on the floor in the kitchen. What I saw stopped me immediately. Pippin was lying, lifeless, in his bed, deathly pale and Merry was sitting beside him in the chair, holding his arm, and shaking from shock. "I found him like this," he said weakly.

I ran to the bedside, feeling for a pulse, waiting for Pippin to cry out and say we were hurting him, but he did not respond. I took his hand and his face, calling his name, while Merry backed the chair away, holding the back of his hand to his mouth as he choked with sobs.

"Pippin?" I cried, and knelt next to him. "Pippin…wake up! Please, Pippin, wake up! Wake up!" He did not move.

"Answer me!" I screamed. "Pippin! PIPPIN!" Looking down on my friend, his eyes closed, I bowed my head to the side of the bed and wept, Merry holding me and I holding my dearest friend. "Pippin…"

I held his head and cradled him, crying as his head fell limply on my shoulder. Bowing my head I lifted his chin and kissed his cheek, laying him back on his pillows. Merry fell to his knees beside the bed, his hand covering mine as I took Pippin's.

Then…like a breeze from a shore far away, a small finger twitched, encased in my hand. I felt Pippin's palm squeeze mine gently, and I looked at it, like I was dreaming again. Then suddenly Pippin was overtaken with life as he gasped for air, and raised his head, coughing and crying. He looked at me and Merry with a frightened gaze and then his eyes fell back to me, his head sinking back into the pillows as he breathed in life.

"Pippin," I choked simply, clutching his hand to be sure it was real.

He coughed once more and shook, shutting his eyes for a moment, before speaking, very slowly. "The gray mists…" he whispered, looking into space, and back to me. "…they were clearing my head of the world, just like Gandalf said they would…I looked across to the white shores, I saw Boromir… Boromir, standing there, was smiling at me, holding out his hand!"

Merry laughed as tears streamed down his face, and he put a trembling hand on Pippin's shoulder. Pippin took a calm breath and continued. "But before I could take it, he faded and spoke…and he said to me, 'Listen…listen to that girl calling you…She wants you home, Pippin…She wants to finish telling her story…Go home to her.'"

I smiled, Pippin's image becoming blurred with tears as Merry felt his forehead. "His fever's breaking," he said with relief.

Pippin choked on his tears, as he weakly slung his thin arms around me and kissed my cheek. "I felt you there, you must know," he said which got me sobbing again, as I held him and rocked him.

"Hearts beating hard, rushing to rob

You're lost here and I have waited so...

Without you here, I crawl and sob

I retch and scream, without you near..."

Pippin's eyes brimmed with tears as I sang to him, tucking him into bed, and leaning to kiss his brow. He jerked his chin up, and our noses touched, our lips brushed. The words, that we knew so well, now found themselves on my tongue as I sang him his mother's lullaby.