By: Dana
Summary: But it was an end, and a beginning, too.
Characters: Merry, Pippin
Pairings: None
Rating: G
Warnings: Angst
Author's Notes: To say too much would give it away.
Publish Date: Late 2002/early 2003
Any and all characters and situations that have been borrowed are for the author's personal use only, and for the entertainment of others.

Pitch in the fire snapped with a pop, and Merry woke with the feeling that he was being watched. He opened his eyes slowly, listening to the silence of the night, a silence broken only by the low crackle of the fire, as Merry held his breath. It wasn't a very cold night, nor was it very warm. In the low light of the campfire, and the half-light from the moon and stars above, Merry could see that the camp was empty.

It only took him a moment after that, sitting slowly, to realise that he was completely wrong. Where Pippin should lie sleeping, instead his cousin's bedroll was empty. Merry turned to scan the camp quickly, unable to let his worries quickly overcome him; and on the other side of the fire, where he hadn't looked before, Pippin sat with his attention on the flames. Merry sat back with a heavy sigh and Pippin lifted his gaze.

Merry sighed again and Pippin tossed a twig into the fire. "I couldn't sleep," Pippin said by way of explanation and Merry nodded.

"Neither could I," which wasn't a complete lie. "How long have you been awake?" Merry asked, guessing that it had been Pippin's watching that had woken him from his sleep.

Pippin shrugged and reached for another twig, watching Merry for a moment before holding the wood out to the fire, letting it drop and then resting his hand on his knee. Their sleeping problems seemed to come in cycles. There were those nights that Pippin would wake early, or perhaps he wouldn't sleep at all, when old nightmares would come a calling. But just as likely, it would be Merry who would stay awake the whole night through, and see the dawn in come the morn. They were very much alike, Merry and Pippin; and after all they'd seen and done, the long roads that they'd walked, they only seemed to be more alike than they had before.

But at the same time, they were completely different, like opposite sides of a mirror.

Merry sighed and let the matter drop, (what matter had it been?), moving closer to the fire to sit. He doubted that he would be sleeping again that night. He knew that they would make it through to a proper inn come the next day, and it wouldn't be long after that until they'd be home again, in Buckland. The thought of Crickhollow, out of the way, and solitude, after a journey that felt as thought it had taken them once again across the whole of Middle Earth, was almost startling - but what was even more startling, was knowing that he wanted that solitude, he wanted to hide away.

"I've been thinking," said Pippin, and Merry looked towards him but said nothing, instead letting the silence urge Pippin to speak. Merry frowned, though, when Pippin continued to feed the fire instead, and the silence seemed to billow like thick mist.

"Can't wait for a proper bed," Merry murmured, crossing his arms and resting them against his knees. "And a mug of ale, and a good hot meal."

"You've a good head on your shoulders, cousin," Pippin grinned in reply. Merry grinned, too, then turned his head to look to where their ponies were tethered.

Silence settled on their shoulders again, a weight that at some other time in their lives would have been unwelcome, uncomfortable, but now it was a blessing in disguise. Idle chatter had always been a specialty of Pippin's - he was a gifted storyteller, and he'd always known how to bring light to dark moments. And maybe the dark was too deep, now. Pippin's light was hardly that strong. Merry felt that he was too young for it to already be the end - and Pippin was definitely too young to have reached the end of his days.

But it was an end, and a beginning, too.

And the silence was comfortable where it shouldn't have been, and Merry closed his eyes and remembered bright days, childhood, Frodo at Brandy Hall, before he'd been invited to live with Bilbo, to be Bilbo's heir. Merry remembered what Frodo leaving had done to him that time; he'd only been seven, after all.

And it had hurt as much when he was just a lad, as it did now that he was thirty-nine and Frodo hadn't just crossed the Shire, he'd gone across the Sea.