Work Text:
This innocence is brilliant
I hope it will stay
This moment is perfect
Please don't go away
I need you now
And I'll hold on to it
Don't let it pass you by
(Innocence, Avril Lavigne)
Perhaps, after seeing what the dark was able to do, you should admit that this can only be a dream. You are still on the battlefield and you are dying, and these images are just a vision that your mind is trying to comfort you with before the end.
But Merry smiles at you, and you want to believe he's really in front of you. You want to believe that this time you will not be separated again.
The agony is gone from his gaze, but it's the exhaustion that's still etched there, the shadow in his smile, that makes you realize that all of this is real. It's almost like looking into a mirror. In his eyes is everything that keeps haunting your mind.
Armors too heavy and swords too long, the rhythmic and too rapid sound of the orcs' footsteps. Scarlet blood streaked with black and the sound too clear of a last breath.
You can't erase those memories. You wish you could at least erase his.
Yet you both know it's impossible. So you smile back and let it all slip away for a moment in the knowledge that you're both still breathing, and that you'll go home - when so many can't… - together.
There will be time later for the nightmares, the scars, and the smell of smoke and blood. When you're back, when the Shire sun comes back to warm you. You can still be together, sitting on the grass, letting the warmth keep the past at bay. At least, when you cry, he'll be beside you, and he'll understand.
For now, you don't want to think about it. You just want to focus on knowing that somehow you are both safe.
And even if nothing will go back to the way it was before, you want to believe that if he's still by your side, you'll be able to see the light again.