Chapter Text
It was Gimli found him. He and Legolas and every other able-bodied fighter had turned their waning strength to carrying the wounded and dispatching those beyond help; the battleground cleared slowly, slowly, and a moment earlier Legolas had lifted Beregond of the City Guard from the field. Gimli had seen, out of the corner of his eye, the soldier stir in Legolas’s arms and point back, struggling to speak. Legolas stopped and turned, still holding the wounded man.
“Gimli,” called the Elf, and Gimli looked up from his grim work (an orc who had been breathing a moment before had now ceased). “This Man says Pippin was fighting beside him.”
Gimli’s bushy eyebrows rose and he nodded, once, and did not watch as Legolas carried Beregond away. He trotted to where Legolas had been working, a few yards away, and stared in horror at the pile of bodies that lay twisted in a heap. “Poor little fool,” Gimli murmured, his heart clenching in his breast. No hobbit, no matter how valiant, could yet live beneath this mass of fleshy rubble. In the center of the ugliness lay a Troll, dead now, its broad black back like a cracked plinth to the sky.
Body after body he overturned, but there was nothing, no sign of the small creature who had by turn engaged and enraged and piqued and teased the Dwarf through their long journey together from Rivendell to Rauros and beyond.
At last Gimli stood beside the dead Troll. He wondered if Pippin could have been carried away by some foul creature, or run in a different direction after Beregond had seen him; Gimli could no longer hold hope that Pippin would be found alive, but he must be found - he must. So courageous a soul must not be lost - his body, at least, should be honored.
A foot. That was all it was, one long foot, as long as a Man’s almost, thin toes and tough dirty sole and begrimed skin. Incongruous among the boots and armor all round, and there on top, soft curls of hair, matted down with filth now, dusty and gnarled.
A foot, a hobbit foot, and Gimli knew it.
“Aaaaargh!” He roared out his fury and his grief as he scrabbled for some purchase on the Troll’s body and heaved the massive carcass over and away, feeling his tendons knot and sinews strain and not caring, not caring for anything -
“No!” he sobbed, but yes, there it was: Peregrin’s body. Curled up like a child’s, almost unrecognizable for the black blood that had poured out upon it. Pippin's helmet was still on, one hand knotted fiercely upon his sword. He did not move.
Gimli knelt upon the blood-wet earth and tenderly gathered the small form into his arms. “Peregrin Took, it is time to wake up,” he choked, but there would be no waking, there could not be. Even as he cradled the hobbit in his arms, Gimli knew this little one could not live, could not have survived being fallen upon by that Troll, any more than he could have survived being fallen upon by a tree. Gimli stifled his tears and held his breath for a moment, bending low over Pippin’s face in a vain attempt to feel or hear a breath.
It was no good. Gimli sank back onto his heels, rocking the body in his arms, and his tears fell down on the small soldier’s helm.
He looked up at last when he felt Legolas’s hand upon his shoulder. “The Troll,” he said brokenly. “The Troll fell upon him as he slew it, and however shall we tell his kin?”
“Come, my friend,” said Legolas gently, and in his ageless face was written a thousand years of sorrow. “Let us bear him to where his body, at least, can be tended.”
Gimli stood, with Legolas' hand beneath his elbow to steady him. The burden was light, but the Dwarf stumbled as he rose, and Pippin's head jerked back, the pale, clean skin at his throat shocking in contrast to the dirt and gore that begrimed him everywhere else. The sword clattered to the earth, and Legolas bent, reaching for it.
The limp body convulsed suddenly in Gimli's clasp, and he hardly had the sense to clutch at Pippin so the hobbit did not slip from his grip.
"Turn him!" cried Legolas, his voice harsh for the first time since Gimli had known him, and suddenly the Elf's hands were not gentle at all - he wrenched Pippin around just in time, so that his vomit fell upon the dirt and did not choke him. Gimli made a sound of horror, that changed almost instantly to delight.
"He lives!" roared the son of Gloin, but Legolas was already flying, the sword left on the bloody earth.
“Bring him to our tent, and I shall fetch the King! Valiant spirit indeed!” He was gone, hair flying behind, and Gimli sprang after him, short legs almost blurred so quickly did he move.
Legolas found Aragorn in a hastily erected command pavilion. “Come at once, my friend,” he said in Sindarin. “We have found Pippin and he lives, but if ever you have healing hands, here is one who needs them.”
Aragorn sprang to his feet. “My lords, I am needed by the healers. I shall return when I can,” he said to the few who were assembled there, and leaving them to gape, he and Legolas sprinted from the meeting.
Aragorn pushed into the tent first, Legolas behind. They saw Pippin stretched upon a cot, and healers busy at work, cutting his clothes from him. “Stay,” said the King sharply, and they did. He came and took the scissors from the lead healer and began the work himself.
Gimli and Legolas stood against the wall of the tent; after a while Gimli absent-mindedly stripped his vomit-stained overshirt off and tossed it out the tent flap; he did not bother to fetch a new one, but watched in his iron shirt and hose.
Aragorn worked quickly, hands moving all over the battered body, quilts piled on to keep the hobbit warm once the clothing was gone. He removed Pippin's helm last of all, for the noseguard had been twisted by the Troll’s fall, and had to be pried gently away from where it had pressed cruelly into the Pippin's skin. His nose was broken. It was, perhaps, the least of his injuries.
Every scrap of clothing removed showed bruised and beaten flesh. His mail shirt, of hard black rings, seemed to have prevented any sword-thrust from reaching him, but Aragorn counted at least six cracked or broken ribs. The hobbit’s left shoulder was dislocated, and had been out of place long enough that it had swollen and would not be easily slid back into place. One kneecap lay grotesquely to the side; his collarbone was cracked, and there were small broken bones in one foot and his sword hand, as well as a broken wrist. Incredibly, there was only one cut that might need to be sewn, a long, shallow score down his arm, from the point of his shoulder to his forearm, curving around in a way that told any experienced soldier of a blow that had struck and then slid down and around. Aragorn moved Pippin's jaw back and forth delicately before deciding it was not broken - only, perhaps, cracked.
Throughout the long work, Pippin did not stir, and his breathing was so faint as to be undetectable. Aragorn paused often to ascertain that Pippin breathed at all, and listened with his ear at the lad’s mouth, straining and fearing to hear that whistling which would mean a rib had pierced the hobbit’s lungs. He could not hear any such thing, though, and thought perhaps the mail shirt had saved Pippin’s breathing, distributing the Troll’s weight so that no one rib punctured.
“Bring warm water, and many cloths,” he ordered shortly halfway through the undressing, and someone scurried to do his bidding.
When Pippin lay naked beneath the blankets, Aragorn turned to Legolas and Gimli. “I must force his shoulder back into the socket,” he said. “It will take brute strength, and no subtlety, and it has to be done now, before the swelling gets worse and the shoulder becomes unmovable. Better that he be unconscious for this."
He had Gimli clasp the hobbit's legs and waist tightly to keep him still (and restrain him should he awaken), and Legolas supported Pippin's upper body, sitting behind him. Aragorn lifted the hobbit's arm with effort and then, moving slowly, rotated it. Up and up and up it went, and at one point Aragorn could go no further, it seemed - his face was pale with the strain.
Pippin gave a deep shudder suddenly, and his body spasmed in their arms. "Hold him!" commanded the King, and Gimli and Legolas, who had been lulled by the hobbit's complete stillness, gripped him. Pippin's body twisted and Aragorn made one last desperate upward push. The shoulder slid into its socket with an audible grating sound and Pippin wrenched forward to vomit again upon the floor at Aragorn's feet, blood and bile in equal amounts. "This is good, this is good," Strider chanted quietly as Gimli looked away in horror - the stench was powerful in the enclosed space, and the sight of the small figure racked with retching filled his heart with pity. The spasm swiftly passed and Aragorn laid Pippin back in the bed, piling soft blankets over him again. Legolas calmly cleaned up the mess and fetched dirt from outside the tent to sprinkle over the wet ground.
"How was that good?" Gimli demanded at last, when all was quiet again.
Aragorn sat beside Pippin's bed again. "Listen," he said. "He is breathing more easily now. And he probably feels better, also. He must have swallowed a good deal of his own blood from that broken nose, and that is very sickening. He will rest easier now. He cleared his lungs a bit, too, I'd wager."
Gimli listened and now he could hear the hobbit's breath, steady and slow. And his face looked better, too - still white as parchment beneath the blood and bruises, but less drawn somehow.
Aragorn placed one hand on Pippin's head. "Where have you gone, little one?" he asked softly, his eyes closed. "Come back to us. The victory is won, but we need you here to celebrate it fully." He stayed that way for a long time, then sighed and stirred. He opened his eyes. "He has gone far, fleeing from his body's wreck." Lines of worry were graven on the King's face. "I can only hope he will return to us."
"He is stubborn," said Gimli. "He will hold on."
The healers came back with tubs of water, and Aragorn, with the Dwarf and the Elf, began to clean Pippin. Aragorn worked as they went, a stack of bandages and splints by his side dwindling as he bound the wounds and straightened the bent and broken bones. Pippin was shrouded in white when the King finished at last, swathed in bandages from his nose (Aragorn had straightened it by feel and then bound small splints on either side, so it would not move again) to broken toes, with small neat stitches on the arm between and his ribs bound in length after length of linen to keep them still. Aragorn slid the kneecap back into place (a procedure which made Gimli, hardened fighter though he was, turn pale beneath his beard) and secured it with yet more cloth. He also carefully washed Pippin's numerous cuts with hot water. When all was finished they lay Pippin back on clean sheets and covered him to the chin with soft blankets. "I will sit with him," said Aragorn, but Legolas frowned at him.
"You cannot, Estel," he said. "You have other duties."
A commotion at the tent flap drew their eyes, just as Aragorn opened his mouth to answer sharply. It was Gandalf. "Aragorn, you must come -" He stopped speaking as his eye fell upon the still form in the bed. The wizard stood motionless for a long moment, his mouth open in shock, every day of his long years in Middle Earth etched upon his face. "Pippin," he breathed. "He lives?"
"He does," said Aragorn, standing. "For how long, I do not know. But he lives. What news do you bear?"
Gandalf tore his eyes from Pippin. "I have brought Frodo and Samwise back, back from Orodruin, and they, too, are alive." Triumphant joy filled his face now, battling with his fear for the youngest hobbit, who lay so still. "They are hurt, and the Black Breath lies heavy upon them both, but Frodo most I deem, and I need you - they need you. Have you finished your work here?"
"I have, for now," Aragorn replied. He straightened his shoulders with an effort, drawing on deep reserves to meet this new need. "Legolas, Gimli -"
"We will watch," Legolas replied.
"Aye," rumbled the Dwarf. "Send for us at need."
Gandalf came suddenly to the cot and knelt beside it. "Peregrin Took," he whispered into the delicate ear. He brushed his hand across the hobbit's face, touching his nose lightly and running one gnarled finger down the bruised and cut cheek. "When you awake I shall tell you stories of all your grandmothers and grandfathers whom I loved, nearly as much as you. Wake soon, Pippin." He rose in a flurry of soot-smudged white robes and strode out of the tent, Aragorn on his heels. Gimli started when he saw the tears leaking into the wizard's beard, and felt his own heart wrung again. Pippin must recover. This small creature had wriggled his way into every soul of the Fellowship, and many others besides.
"There is a healer on duty just outside," Aragorn called, and was gone.
Gimli and Legolas settled, one on either side of the cot, and gazed at the unconscious figure for some time, neither speaking.
"We should send word to Merry," said Gimli suddenly.
"Of course we should," Legolas agreed. He reached beneath the camp table and found pen and ink. He addressed the letter and then looked at Gimli with stricken eyes. "What shall I write?"