By: Dana
Summary: He would rather they stay behind.
Characters: Frodo (Merry, Pippin, Sam)
Pairings: None
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: For dreamflower, for my birthday.
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.

Frodo toyed quite idly with the clasp of his cloak, looking out into the dim gloom of the fog that swims thick as rolling sea beyond the house's opened door. There was a damp chill upon the air, and Frodo breathes it in, smelling earth and something else, something deeper, and what could possibly be deeper than earth?

Next he fidgeted with the leather fastening of his pack, and then again at the cool hard shape of his cloak's metal clasp. His hands feel idle, restless, and what good comes of idle hands? Not a bit, that's for certain, as Bilbo's said at least once.

Ah. But Bilbo's gone.

"Well, soon enough, and we'll be off," he says, and Pippin returns, quite matter-of-fact, "Well, of course. What else have we been planning? This isn't just any old walking trip, you know." He could go on about grand adventures, and Bilbo would at times, but he does. Frodo thinks he's glad for that.

And no, it's not just any old walking trip, and Frodo'd not want them to come, not if he could change their minds – and he knows Merry and Pippin far too well, and when they've set themselves to something, it would take more than just him to make them stray from what they've made their chosen course. They might be his cousins, and young ones at that, but they're not so young as he might be making him think – Merry is near Sam's age, after all, and Sam is the youngest-oldest hobbit that Frodo's ever known.

And he knows – he does know, and he's tried to talk them out of this nonsense, this – this foolishness, but they know better than he does, or so he thinks they'd have him believe. Trying never gets him where he wants it. And, try his heart as it does, he knows this time is no different than any other before.

Merry is not quite grinning at him, but there's a knowing look in his eyes as if, yes, dearest cousin Frodo, you are friend as well as kin, and I think I know you just as well as you think you know me. Though Frodo knows it's more than though, when he's knowing Merry, and reckons Merry must wonder more often than he.

Well, out they go, quiet as shadow, or fog, and, to the yard where the ponies are waiting, already, and quite ready to go, as ready as could be. Frodo's hand steals, without conscious thought, into his trouser pocket, to caress cool gold.