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Chapter Text

The Shire was, after a multitude of days and a mort of work, the Shire again. The dead of the hobbits were buried with honor, and the dead of the wicked Men were burned, stinking fires that sputtered and popped, attended by grim-faced halflings until nothing remained but ash and bone. The hobbits went home and washed the smoke smell from hair and cloth; the bones were ground and mixed with the ash, and both together were plowed into the fields. It seemed fitting that those Men should make the fields green again that they had wasted.

Samwise Gamgee married Rose Cotton after a minimum of fuss. Meriadoc Brandybuck dove back into the life of his enormous and rambling family, the prodigal son returned, covered in glory with many tales to tell and a family (well, some family members) that actually wanted to hear them. Peregrin Took went back to his rooms at Great Smials, and Frodo Baggins settled into a somewhat-solitary, scholarly life at Bag End.

Sam, Merry, and Peregrin could all see the emptiness rise up and over him sometimes; still, none of them spoke of it, either to Frodo or to one another. They thought, mostly, that it would pass off him, after a while. Pippin wasn't sure.

Pippin wasn't sure about much, on many days. He couldn't seem to settle. The Tooks were as noisy, as wild, as thieving and gay and unpredictable (by hobbit standards) as ever they had been. They wanted to welcome Peregrin back noisily and wildly. For a few weeks he stood it - sometimes he even enjoyed it. But he couldn't stay still. He twitched and fidgeted, and disappeared for days - usually trekking over the hills to Buckland. One day in early summer, soon after Sam's wedding to Rose, Pippin's father called him into the study, a comfortable wood-paneled room.

"Peregrin," said the elderly hobbit.

Pippin schooled his face to attention. "Yes, sir."

"You are not happy here," said Paladin Took. Pippin began to protest, and the Took stopped him with a raised hand. "It is as clear as the nose on... Gandalf's face," and his eyes twinkled just a tad. "You need space. You've been too far, and seen too much. You're solitary and wild by turn; you spend your days in the woods and fields, and your nights at the tavern." He paused. Pippin regarded him steadily, without shame; there was no censure in the lined face of his father. "I've received a letter from your uncle Saradoc. Apparently Merry is restless at Brandy Hall as well, and Saradoc and Esmeralda have a proposal. They'd like to know if you and Merry would care to take the house at Crickhollow. Frodo gives his consent - I'd not be surprised if it was his idea from the start." Pippin had glanced up at the word 'Crickhollow', and now smiled a little. Paladin went on: "No one is more deserving, and well we know it." Pippin shook his head and looked away now, still silent, the mobile face shuttered, lips pressed closed. "Ah, well," said his father. "True enough it is. What say you?"

Pippin drew a deep breath. "Can you spare me?" he asked, acutely aware that his father was old, and that the title of Thain would come to him someday - not, he thought ruefully, that he had been a particularly apt student for the job.

The Thain snorted, echoing his only son's thoughts. His face softened, though, as he spoke. "Certainly I can spare you - you're not ready to pay attention to what I have to teach yet, any gate. Do keep it in mind, that you cannot leave the Smials forever, but right now what you need is time, time alone or time with someone who has traveled the road with you."

"I thank you," said Pippin. "I will go and stay with Merry, and gladly - though sadly, too," he added.

His father watched the young face - wiser, quieter, drawn with unforgotten pain. "Come back for supper when you wish," said Paladin finally. "You'll be missed. I'm not banishing you, child. Just giving you what I can." Pippin looked up again, and saw understanding, and smiled and nodded a little.

So he came to his own home. Crickhollow was a snug little house, with plenty of round windows looking out over shade-dappled lawns and woods, curved walls and ceilings, spacious rooms. He and Merry chose their rooms and had new beds put in - one of the things that had itched Pippin, at least, about his return to Tuckborough was the discovery that he was now too long-limbed for his bed.

His new home in the East Farthing earned him no shortage of wry looks from his thoroughly West Farthing kin, which he gracefully ignored. He and Merry painted the door deep blue, attached a brass knocker in the shape of a great tree, and moved in. There they dwelt alone, although the nearest neighbor's son, for a small consideration, came to tend the gardens each workday, and when Pippin went roaming and Merry was at Brandy Hall the lad exercised their ponies, as well - they'd built a small stable with room for four animals atop the bank behind Crickhollow.

The furnishings were good but sparse - enough chairs to seat four or five friends, a plain, large table. The kitchen was well furnished of course - they being hobbits after all - but most of the hole echoed a bit: bare walls and shining bare floors. Sam and Frodo came to see it: Frodo smiled vaguely at it all and Sam, true to his nature, brought seedlings for the window boxes. Fredegar Bolger (Fatty once more) came along and poked Merry in the ribs at the sight of the large, soft beds.

Meriadoc and Peregrin settled into some sort of routine. Merry was often gone during the days, working with his father. Pippin saw him anew when he rode home at night: tall and lordly he seemed, smiling broadly, bright with wisdom. Merry was as quick as ever with a jest, but no longer brash and untested. He worked alongside his father in the running of the Buckland, learning his duties of husbandry and leadership aptly. Pippin learned much from him when he came home, bursting with this idea or that story - perhaps as much as he would have learned from the Thain, Pippin thought privately.

Pippin was not ready to settle to work yet - "Have you ever been?" asked Merry pointedly, but he hugged Pippin with tacit approval: permission for his wandering ways. And so during the days Pippin roamed the Shire. Through Bucklebury sometimes, placing orders for food to be delivered to Crickhollow, but mostly he tramped through the woods and the fields. He carried a small pack with food, drink, a book, and his pipe and pipeweed, with a rolled up blanket tied over it. On his waist he wore his Westernesse sword, because he felt uneasy without it. He walked silently, or he spoke to himself as he went; or he sang. When he tired of walking, he would lie on the blanket and read, and smoke, and doze. And think, and try to decide what in the world he wanted to do with himself.

There was a life planned out and waiting for him, and it was a pleasant one. He could go back to the Smials and learn (more) from the Took how to lead others. Marry a plump hobbit girl and have a dozen or so plump younglings. Lead the Guard - as he already did, jointly with Merry, but it didn't take much of their time now the routines were established - and in time become Took himself.

It was a good life, and he wanted it, sometimes almost desperately. But there was something wrong, some wall between Peregrin Took and that life, and he was waiting for a door to appear, or some foothold that would let him scramble over, and into that life.

In the evenings he found himself at The Green Dragon or The Golden Perch, sometimes with his cousin, sometimes without. There he was Pippin again - slightly dotty, cheerful, merry. He drank ale and danced and sang, or sat and talked and listened. In a way it was restful. That Pippin was still real, but it wasn't all there was anymore. And so when the tavern closed he went home, or he went back out into the woods and tried to sleep under the stars.

His dreams were vivid. Not always bad - although often they were, and oh, he wished his memory didn't have so much bad to sort through and choose from - but always startling, and crystal clear. When he woke, it was often as though he'd worked all night - he was exhausted, his muscles trembled and ached, and, when he bothered to sleep at home, the bedclothes were tangled and twisted, or pushed to the floor in a heap.

Sometimes he woke to find Merry sitting beside him, or curled around him in the big bed - thank heavens it was wide as well as long - comforting him with words or without: with his simple, unquestioned and unquestioning presence. Only Merry would be allowed to comfort him thus - Pippin loathed the idea of anyone else hearing his nighttime demons.

Sometimes he woke to hear Merry thrashing around, trapped in his own too-real memories, and then it was Pippin who came to Merry, soothing him into safer dreams or waking him if there seemed no help for it.

They didn't speak of these nighttime terrors to one another - Pippin because he didn't want to revisit them; and he suspected Merry kept silent to protect him, as he always had. Pippin was content with that, at least for a while.

When he returned to the Buckland after three days or four of sleeping out in the fields, he saw Merry's eyes follow him with concern, but never did his cousin reproach him. Merry knew, better than any other, that Pippin needed this: needed to stare into the sky, dream his terrible dreams, escape, escape, escape.

As the months passed, Pippin wondered when his mind would heal as his body had; he was grateful, oh so grateful, to be here and alive and surrounded by those he loved, but the poison was not purged, and so Pippin endured, waiting.

Merry came into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes. He squinted against the bright firelight, then ducked and threw up his hands to catch: a biscuit, thrown to him. Pippin lounged in a comfortable chair by the fire, a steaming mug of tea by one hand, a stack of cinnamony biscuits close by the other.

"What are you doing?" said Merry. "It must be -" the clock over the mantel gave its silvery chime - "three in the morning."

"My hand hurt," said Pippin. Merry noticed that his right hand, which had been crushed almost beyond repair at the battle before the Black Gate, was cradled protectively about the tea cup.

"Let me see," said Merry. He sat down across from his young cousin and took his hand. There was little sign now of the impossibly painful injuries: only a thin scar across the fleshy part of his palm, where a wound had been stitched closed. Merry began to rub Pippin's palm, slow circles to relax the stiffness that often came with a cold turn of the weather.

The wind whistled outside and both hobbits jumped at the loud bang when a shutter came loose. "I'll get it," said Pippin, and he disappeared for a minute. When he came back he poured Merry a cup of tea and handed him another biscuit, the first having disappeared in the interval. "Let's see your hand," he said, and Merry reluctantly laid his own sword-hand on the table. Pippin picked it up and examined it closely. "Can you pick this up?" he asked, placing a cookie crumb on the table.

Merry could, but it took more effort than usual to control his stiff fingers, and he swore under his breath. Pippin pursed his lips primly. "Do you remember those exercises you had to do?"

"Somewhat," muttered Merry. "It just gets numbish in the cold, you know that." It had been numbish in cold weather and warm, ever since the day Merry had thrust his sword into the flesh of the chief of the Nazgûl. The blade had burned away and Merry had nearly burned away, too, a cold fever that the healing hands of the King had only just saved him from. He had recovered most of the strength of the hand since, but just as Pippin's reset bones ached in the chill, so did Merry's hand never forget the awful shock of that sword-thrust.

"I shall remember them for you," said Pippin. "Mine gets numbish, too. We can do the exercises together."

"As always," said Merry.

"Too right."

The seasons passed: winter to spring (and Sam and Rose were delivered of a golden-haired lass) to high summer to late summer. There came a day in early October when Pippin and Merry went on a journey. Their steeds trotted and galloped, by turn, to the sea, and they came almost too late to say goodbye, but not quite - they rode up in time to embrace and be embraced, in time to watch the white ship sailing away from the Gray Havens into the brilliant yellow light of sunset on the waters, bearing away their dear friends: Frodo and Bilbo, and Gandalf the White Rider, and the Elves, Elrond and Galadriel.

The three left behind stood silent on the quay and let the murmur of the sea sink deep into their hearts as the light sank toward darkness; and when the stars pricked the sky they turned without speaking and mounted their ponies. They rode home in silence, until they came to the Shire, when they spoke again. They talked, and sang together, taking turns. Pippin began, with words they all knew, which Samwise and Meriadoc joined; but then Sam went on:

Pippin, looking across his pony's head at his friend in the starlight, saw a Sam that perhaps only Frodo of all the hobbits had seen clear - fair, and lit with inner light, and wise despite the outward appearance of simplicity. Although the friends traveled back, indeed, to the land they called home, Pippin wondered whether, like Legolas of the Elves, the seagulls' cries hadn't got to Sam; and How long will it be, Pip thought, until Sam follows Frodo as he always does, and takes ship from the Gray Havens?

After the song ended each went his way - Sam past Bywater toward Bag End and Rosie, and his daughter Elanor; Merry and Pippin went on over the hills on the road to Buckland. The two chose no inn by unspoken accord, and lay down beneath the sky, their horses champing nearby and the crisp night wind stirring the leaves overhead.

Pippin had no nightmares that night. He dreamed instead that he saw a far green country, and he heard the crying of gulls, and smelt the fresh sweet smell of the land, borne to him on the wind.

The winter passed, and the spring; for a while Pippin's dreams were easier, but then they worsened again. He woke often in the dead hours before dawn and lay staring at the ceiling, or (when weather permitted) at the sky. Out in the tame wilds of the Shire, when he first started from sleep with his heart pounding and his breathing quick, he worried that perhaps he had cried out in his dreams. He always thought then that, even if he had, there was no-one there to hear his cries. He did not know whether he was gladdened or made sad by that thought. At home there might be Merry or there might not; Merry spent more and more time at Brandy Hall (as he should, Pippin knew), working with his father and learning his duties as heir to the Master of Buckland.

Pippin spent more time at Great Smials as well, but he didn't sleep easily there, nor anywhere. His only respite came with Guard duty, when he could work himself hard and take the longest watches of the night, exhausting himself past dreaming. Even then the visions might visit. But when he rose from his cot the young hobbits of the Guard said naught, and though they might look at him sidelong, it could have been due to his reputation only, as an adventurer and a Lord. So he told himself, in the event.

At midsummer he exited The Green Dragon into a warm and starry night and began walking. It was silent in the Shire. The watchmen knew him of course, and didn't speak to him, beyond a civil "Goodnight, sir," as he passed the boundaries of the village.

He walked and he walked and then he walked some more. Past Bag End, where one candle burned, and he thought for a moment it must be Frodo, up late writing; but then he remembered: Frodo was gone beyond recall, as surely as if he had died. Pippin wondered briefly who was up so late in that peaceful home, and walked on. Past hillsides and holes; the mill, creaking around in a steady, almost silent imitation of eternity; past fields of rapeseed, finished with their golden prime and well into green, grey in the star-filled, moonless night; past corn and wheat and barley, greens and golds muted by darkness; into deep woods where the only sounds were night sounds of rabbit and owl and stoat; and out of the woods into more fields.

He didn't wander straight, he crossed no border, he didn't stray outside the Shire. But he walked.

He walked until he stumbled with weariness. He stopped where he was, between two high rows of corn, and threw off his pack to lie down on the warm earth. He looked up between the rustling, whispering leaves of corn, into a sky so starry he could almost have read his book. He did not read. Instead he rolled over, unable to bear their bright, spangled beauty in the deep, black sky.

Now, hobbits weep easily, and without shame. But Peregrin Took's tears came hard that midsummer night, and he did not know why, nor why he should weep at all. Something was broken inside him, and it had not yet healed. Perhaps those tears began to heal him, a little, for he fell asleep there on the ground, beside his pack. His wet face pressed into the soft earth and he slept dreamlessly, for the first time in a long while.