By: Dana
Summary: Waiting for the rain.
Characters: Merry (also, Estella, Pippin)
Pairings: Merry/Estella
Rating: G
Warnings: Het mentioned, Merry's still thinking too much
Author's Notes: Written for Nanni, because she is lovely.
And she wrote a series of rain ficlets and she humoured me and wrote one about Pippin, I decided to write her something in return.
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.

He didn't think he understood his father, but Merry didn't have to understand Saradoc to know that they needed the rain. It had been too long, and the summer was hot and the days were long and dry, and the fields all crackled, thirsty, no, parched. And they weren't on the best standing, but his father was doing the best that he could - not that there was much that Saradoc could do to make it rain. But Merry is young, and his father certainly was capable of all those wonderful things that only grown ups could do. If anyone could figure out how to make the rain come, it would be Saradoc. But the air was hot and dry as dust, and still the rain doesn't come.

But no. That was years ago and Merry hadn't yet come of age, hadn't yet even been considered a tween. His father is gone now, and any hope of understanding him has gone with him - and the summer has been hot and the days long and dry, and Merry is Master now, and he doesn't know what he could possibly do to bring the rain.

He's talked with the hobbits whose livelihoods depend upon growing things. And they all depend on those growing things, just to live. He's all grown up, now, and he's a father, like his own father had been - and there's no magic that he can do, to end this drought. Belts have all been tightened. And the Brandywine is flowing so low.

Still, he goes to sleep hoping, and he wakes thinking that hope shouldn't taste as bitter as this. Like he has more times than he can think, he turns and then kisses Estella's cheek, and then he rises, leaving her sleeping in their bed. He goes to their bedroom window, throwing the shutters open. The sun hasn't yet risen, and the eastern sky is dark night fading to the paler light of coming day.

There is a letter on the sitting room table, and he goes from their bedchamber and picks that letter up - Pippin's neat handwriting (you'd never think a hobbit like Pippin would have such a steady hand) flows across the page, faded and worn given that Merry has read it over as often as he has.

And Pippin will come, and he knows that the drought has struck them hard and that the stores are all low, and the Tookland will help all that it can, and Merry will not be able to tell him no. It's not that he can. There are too many who look up to him, and he wouldn't wish to make their lives hard.

He knows that Pippin will come, and wagons will follow after. And the drought might not loosen its hold, but they will not have to suffer that hard.

Three days. Pippin said, three days. And today is the third.

Merry dresses and then he steals like a shadow from the room, fleeing the close heat of the too-small hall, out into the open air of the courtyard before Brandy Hall's grand front doors. But the air is still close, and warm, and there is darkness gathering in the west - the wind whips at Merry's hair, and he hears the distract crackle of thunder.

The skies are tormenting them, again. The thunder might come, like it has before, but there will be no rain.

He goes to the stables and he saddles his pony, and then he rides out from the courtyard, and into the thinning grey light of the newborn day.

And the air is hot and it's difficult to breathe, but Merry rides westwards to the ferry - and the darkness rushes overhead, and Merry bows his head against it, tightens his hands about the reins, and presses his pony harder. And they ride.

It's Pippin's voice that he hears when he hears the first crack of lightning, a white bolt that illuminates the darkened sky. Merry's head whips back and there Pippin is, on his pony and with his hair in a mess and stuck wet and limp against his head. The day is too early, but the first ferry goes before the sun has risen, and Pippin of late has had an odd habit of being one who was early to rise – he must have been up and out of his bed and out of the inn while it still could have been considered night.

Wait - wet - and it comes in a rush, the water, the realization, and the cool falling rain. Merry throws his head up, overjoyed as it falls - it of course would be Pippin who'd be the one to bring the rain.