By: Dana
Summary: Merry wonders if Pippin will ever wake up.
Characters: Merry, Pippin, mention of Frodo and Sam
Pairings: None
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: Written for Marigold's challenge #4. I was given a starting line for the story, and that starting line is this: _____ sat up abruptly. Next to him, _____ shifted uneasily but did not wake. I had to change the tense. Beta by Lullenny and Bella.

Honorable Mention in the Hobbit category (The J.R.R. Tolkien Award for Honorable Mention) at the 2005 MEFAs.


Disclaimer: The author makes no claim to owning the rights of anything to do with J.R.R. Tolkien or New Line Cinema. Any and all characters and situations that have been borrowed are for the author's personal use only, and for the entertainment of others.

Merry sits up abruptly. Next to him, Pippin shifts uneasily but doesn't wake. It's hard to breathe (it's been hard to breathe for some time) and the air is thick and still and settles around him like a heavy black cloak. He tries again (inhale, that's all you need to do, just remember how to breathe), but it doesn't help. Merry puts a hand to his forehead, runs his fingers back through his hair. Frantic, distraught, but disturbingly calm. He smells the earthy scent of grass and medicinal herbs, the tell-tale fragrance of athelas lingering like at the back of his nose. Its lightness drifts at the back of his mind.

A moment, and Merry inhales, closes his eyes, exhales, too, and the heavy weight lifts as the sweet fragrance fades away. This is for the best, he tells himself, tries to believe. It had been Aragorn who had suggested that he stay here with Pippin. How many days had it been? Twelve or thirteen. It was blurring in his mind and Merry was unsure. But he is sure of Pippin, and sure of his need to be here at Pippin's side. And Aragorn had promised that he would take good care of Frodo and Sam, and Gandalf would be there, too.

And the night. Merry had tried to sleep (he thought that he had done quite well), and there had been few nightmares stirring in the dark. Now, though, was different. He felt as if he is in a fog. His arms and legs are both faintly sore. Not so much that it is a bother, only a fact, and Merry opens his eyes. He shifts, careful, and the cot creaks. Pippin sleeps on. What is the time? Merry wonders. It is dark out, and the moon is shining, but that is all that he can tell.

And Pippin is sleeping (Merry wonders if his cousin will ever wake).

He soothes his fingers over Pippin's cheek. A dark bruise, a blue-black blotch that has yet to fade to yellow-brown, deep scratches on fair skin. It hadn't been as bad as it could have been (and Pippin was still alive), but it was worse than Merry had expected. Torn his heart right out, that's what it had done, and he'd felt the physical pain, to feel it break.

But Pippin was is still alive, and that is more than Merry had expected. Because he shouldn't have not when his helm had been crushed, when he had been all but crushed, too. And this one, this bruise, was persistent, vivid and new where the other bruises had faded to color of old parchment. Pippin should have died (and Merry can't deny that, he's given up on trying to try), but he hadn't, almost as if only to further prove a stubborn will.

It's hard to put into words, but Merry aches, and it isn't just the lingering resonance of recent pains. It's something that has him torn in two. And maybe it isn't that it's hard to put into words maybe Merry just can't. He feels empty. Less than whole. (He couldn't have seen this coming not like before and that comforts him in ways that he cannot even begin to explain.)

Pippin's lips twitch and he exhales. Pippin's breath is warm against Merry's palm. Merry slumps back.

Tiring that's what this is tiring and Merry doesn't think he can take it anymore. He didn't think he could take it, seeing Sam and seeing Frodo after they'd been brought back from the fire, from the edge of death, and he definitely doesn't think that he can take it right now, with Pippin sleeping almost peacefully at his side.

And that hurts.

Is he dreaming? Merry wonders, and are Pippin's dreams as peaceful as his peaceful-seeming sleep. Pippin twitches and sighs, starting to turn onto his side and stopping instead. He's lying flat on his back and his lips twitch. Merry has had too many dark dreams of his own. New ghosts that are close like an old friend. Not just cold but burning pain, being lost and alone in the dark. What are Pippin's like, Merry wonders. He knows that Pippin has them too.

"I can't say I'm sorry, because it wasn't my decision. It wasn't me that brought us here, Pip, and even if I'd wanted you to stay behind, you wouldn't have had it, you'd have still come along. That's just how you are, though. You don't know what's good for you, and I don't think I do, not now, not anymore."

Merry sighs and shifts closer, leaning down. The air is pressing down, still and quiet, cool and almost sweet, and Merry inhales and then exhales and his arm aches. "I wish I could, Pippin, I wish I could take it all back. You've not seen Sam and Frodo, but they're sleeping, too, and you wouldn't know it if you did. They're not themselves now, Pippin, they're certainly not the hobbits that we followed from the Shire. Just ghost of themselves, Pippin. They were brought back from the edge. The edge of death." He feels tears stinging in his eyes and he wipes at them, hoping that it is not a futile gesture. "But I can't be sorry, Pippin, even knowing that. If I was, then I would it would belittle all that has happened all that we've done, all that we've been through. I couldn't do that to Sam, and I couldn't do it to Frodo." He brushes back Pippin's bangs.

"I couldn't do that to you."

Pippin's eyelids flicker but Merry has closed his eyes. "Can you forgive me for that, Pippin? That's why we're all here. Because I didn't know to tell you not to come and you wouldn't have listened and I had a choice but I didn't know it. Can you forgive me for that, Pippin? If you can't, then I don't why, I don't know what you'll do."

Fingers thread with Merry's but he's not sure of it, not right then, at first, and Merry opens his eyes and Pippin's expression is tired but his eyes are bright (so bright that suddenly that wicked bruise has started to dim) and he squeezes Merry's hand. Tight, as tight as he can.

"You can trust a Brandybuck to know when to say too much," Pippin said, and he smiled, and Merry felt his heart flip and flop, delirious with relief.

"I'd thought that you'd sleep forever, Pip," he says, and he can only manage to whisper, because it feels good to see Pippin, to see Pippin awake, and his heart is pounding his heard in his chest. He's certain that it's attempting to break free.

"You don't know me very well, then."

"Oh, but I do," and Pippin closes his eyes and Merry wraps both his hands around Pippin's, holding on, and he knows it was Pippin who held onto him in the dark, Pippin who was like a steady light shining in the night.

"I do, or else"

"I know, Merry, I know. I'm glad you don't think you blame yourself for it all, but I definitely know you oh I definitely know you better than you think ou know me." And Pippin clutches at Merry's hands.

"I'd like to sit up, please."

Pippin is too tired and he's not finished healing, no matter what Merry sees looking on the outside, and Merry helps him into a sitting position, and Pippin leans against him, sighs and wraps his arms around Merry's waist.

"I don't blame you, Merry. I am an adult well, almost an adult, after all." This doesn't sound like his Pippin too tired, too old and Merry's heart thuds hard and heavy in his chest. He doesn't wrap Pippin up tight, but holds him gently, carefully, soothingly in his arms. Giving support that he can't put into words.

"Frodo won't blame you, either. And don't you think for one moment that Sam would that Sam would, too."

"I know, Pippin, I really do. It might not seem that I do and I really don't blame myself and I don't regret what's happened. I mean, it could have happened some other way, but maybe we'd not be here, right now. And we are, Pippin. We made it through. We're all of us alive."

We're all of us alive they are, and Pippin hadn't known that, couldn't have known that, and Merry was certain that Pippin would have slept forever. But Pippin is awake now, alive, and Merry's not alone.

"We are," Pippin wearily sighs, but there's the sound of some faded hope in his voice. "I'm tired, but we are, and I think that's just right."

Pippin's breath is warm against his neck and Merry sighs, holding him closer, resting his forehead against Pippin's shoulder. "Should I call for Strider? He wanted that I should call for him if well, when you"

"Not right now, Merry. He'll probably want to poke at me and prod and make sure I'm healing right, and I'd rather I'd rather just sit here with you." Pippin goes so far as to grin.

"All right then, Pippin," Merry replies, and Pippin leans back. He searches Merry's face, and then he laughs. That hurts, but it's not a bad pain, more one of longing than anything else.

"It's been too long since I've heard your laugh."

A simple statement, that, and Pippin nods. "I'll make certain that you hear it more often, then. I think it might do you some good."

"You might be right," Merry says, and Pippin's smile spreads wide. And that, Merry knows, is his Pippin, even though they both have changed.

"I don't need you getting too full of yourself, Merry. Losing yourself, forgetting what matters."

What matters Merry knows what matters and he laughs and holds onto Pippin, hugging him almost too tight. Pippin doesn't complain. Merry feels, at last, within the world created in Pippin's arms, that he was a little bit closer to being whole. He felt like he'd come free of the fog.

When they slept again (and they did, and there was still time before the dawn), it seemed as though they had fooled their nightmares into changing into sweeter dreams.