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By: Dana
He lifted Pippin gently and carried him back to his bed. Merry followed, and sat down beside him. 'Lie there and rest, if you can, Pippin!' said Gandalf. 'Trust me. If you feel an itch in your palms again, tell me of it! Such things can be cured. But anyway, my dear hobbit, don't put a lump of rock under my elbow again! Now, I will leave you two together for awhile.' --The Two Towers, Book III, Chapter XI, The Palantir
Looking back, Merry knows he should have seen it coming. Not because Pippin was Pippin, and it was a thing that Pippin would do; but he should have seen it in his cousin's eyes, should have known that Pippin's curiosity would get the better of him in the end. The same Pippin who had thought he could swim across the Brandywine in one go; who would filch apples when he wasn't even hungry (which admittedly wasn't very often); who could even be persuaded to go so far as to take a shortcut through Farmer Maggot's fields, though shortcuts were a thing that he held in disdain. And Merry should have seen it coming. Right now, it is that same Pippin who lies curled on his side, his head cushioned under a proper thick pillow, copper-tinted curls like a crown splayed out against sharp white cloth. Pippin, asleep (and he hadn't wanted to sleep), his breath now soft and even. As Merry watches, Pippin mumbles odd bits of dream speak in his sleep. Merry hadn't been able to look at Pippin, not at first when Pippin had been frantic, pale, distraught. He'd been terrified, and he had stammered, stumbled over his words in his lack of a hurry to relay what it was he had seen. It was odd, when they had been through such darkness, that it was only then that Merry had realized that he could lose Pippin, that Pippin might even die. And Pippin had gone into that danger all on his own. "You should have listened to me, Pippin," Merry says, sitting there at the edge of Pippin's bed, watching the rise and fall of Pippin's chest. "What a foolish thing to do. You're lucky Gandalf didn't think it best if you were turned into a toad. How could I explain that to your mum and your da? Though I suppose Pervinca wouldn't have minded the change." A sigh, then, and a pause. "You should have waited till morning." Gandalf's voice, Aragorn's, too, rise and fall steadily at Merry's back. Pippin would wonder what they were saying, later; as Merry knows all too well. But even knowing that, he cannot bother himself to listen. Merry should have seen it coming.
He saw a dark sky, and tall battlements. Tiny stars like sharp diamonds splayed across the sky. This couldn't be now it certainly couldn't be now. How Pippin knew this, he couldn't tell. But he felt age pressing down on him, as if it were some other place, and some other time. How could he even breathe? The air was brittle and cool. And then the stars were moving, in and out, nearer than Pippin could have thought possible. There was something, blacker than the blackest black, blotting out chunks of the light. What could they be? but he couldn't tell. Huge bats, perhaps that was what they looked like, almost. The first pulse of fear came then, and Pippin wondered in a vague way where had it been before? But that first fear was like a shriek that could crack stone, and they were coming at him, faster, faster, coming in close. Nine of them? He thought that number right. Nine of them, yes, and they were coming in close. There was nothing else but that the black stretched and there were those nine terrors, wheeling, and a great Tower far off but quickly closer. Nothing else but that, and all logic fled that stab of panic was a physical pain. Pippin felt that he was choking. Pippin knew who it was, felt that presence prick like gooseflesh upon his arms; and there was nothing he could say, though he tried, but he could force no sound to come from his mouth. It was Him. He had come.
Pippin gives a twitch, drawing in a deep breath. Merry reaches out, frowning, soothing a hand wordlessly through his cousin's hair. He should have seen it coming, yes, but he hadn't. And Pippin after had been pale-faced, wide-eyed, and Merry was not sure at the time hearing Pippin's cry, seeing his face, knowing what he'd done, fearing what he might have revealed if he would ever be able to forget it and now he knows that surely he never will. The memory is burned into his thoughts as surely as the Dark Lord into his cousin's. No, he would never forget it that pain in Pippin's voice, raw and unintelligible and clawing under his skin - something that was like a fist to the gut, and had left Merry reeling, unable to face Pippin, when he could not face what Pippin had seen. What Pippin had said. Had Merry been angry? Maybe only at himself. What good would it do to punish Pippin for his foolishness, when there were no words that would fit his crime? But he should have waited Merry would have been happy to look, when the morning had come.
These were not words as Pippin was used to no, only sound instead, and a burning look. How it grated on him, how little he felt; even if Pippin had wanted to speak, he would not have been able to. And Pippin understood. 'So have you come back?' The voice boomed, grated on Pippin like an open wound. He flinched, tensed, his back rigid and his eyes open wide. 'Why have you neglected to report for so long?' He could not answer could not, not now, when his words were burning like bile in his throat. He could not let himself be known, here, to Him and he would lose himself, as well. 'Who are you?' A constant assault. Pippin felt this presence bearing down on him, smothering, and it burned and it hurt and he felt it like something lash or blade or something more ripping through him. A gasp, and Pippin's head jerked back. He was looking right into him, or through him, it was too much; but he wasn't, he couldn't, and Pippin wanted to close his eyes. Instead, he opened his mouth. 'A hobbit.' It was almost that Pippin heard His laughter, then, and it felt as if a great weight had been lifted, a veil had been thrown aside, and Pippin could be seen. Seen, and he could be torn into, ripped apart, and he was being stabbed, he had to be, it hurt that much. He wouldn't cry, couldn?t cry, no matter what. It was a struggle, then, against the hold of His gaze, and Pippin was not sure that he would prevail. 'Wait a moment! We shall meet again soon.' and Pippin's blood ran cold, and then hot, and the world was tied up in eyes that burned. 'Tell Saruman that this dainty is not for him. I will send for it at once. Do you understand? Say just that!' And He was looming, tall and dark, and Pippin felt that he was pressed down into the ground, where his legs couldn't work, wouldn't work, and he was being ripped and pulled and pushed and torn and there was laughter looming in his ears. It was a great shadow, and he was smothered under it, His great Shadow, overwhelming and overpowering and Pippin was nothing underneath. A great many things fought to rush through his mind all at once, and Pippin had to bite back, keep it down, knowing that these thoughts were not for Him not caring if he could feel the breath crushed from his chest, not knowing; and a half-hundred emotions, all warring for dominion terror mixed with something, with too many somethings to name, and Pippin held on, tenacious beyond all reason. Something would be saved. Something important. Something that he must not think about... and so he did not, determined to hold or die trying. And then, in a flash, there was light.
Are his dreams peaceful? Merry wonders. And he can only hope that they were. But why would they be anything but, with Pippin lying at such ease; the curl of his fingers and the curve of his neck and the even tempo of his breath. No, he muses. He cannot be angry at Pippin, even if he wanted to; and he does, because that would at least be something. Merry wonders if Pippin had been suitably chastised - to risk a Wizard's ire, and to stand before - no. Merry cannot even think it. It couldn't be. Pippin gives a muffled sigh, a mumbled name, and Merry rakes his fingers slowly through his cousin's curls. A moment, and Pippin turns the voices rise and fall at his back, but Merry hears them not and Pippin's cheek is suddenly cool and smooth underneath the touch of his hand. Those parted lips, that forehead that remains unlined, unmarred, in sleep. "It was a foolish thing, Pippin," he says to that slumbering face, "but I will forgive you, if only because there is no good done if I hold your curiosity against you." Pippin sighs and turned his head against Merry's hand; and Merry curls his knuckles against Pippin's cheek. "Rest for now," he says, bowing his head. A flicker, and a moment, as if a shadow passes overhead. Merry's head snaps up, there is a distant shrieking, even as Pippin jerks awake, bolts up, his face twisted in a grimace of pain; and Merry looks at Pippin, and Pippin back at Merry, both wide-eyed and breathless, still. "Merry - " Pippin gasps. Merry knows he cannot be awake - he can tell it - even if his eyes are open wide, and Merry's name still hanging on his lips. He cannot be, no matter how much Merry should want it, right now, and his heart hammering unrelenting in his chest. But then a breath passes, and Pippin slumps back onto the bed, and all is as it was. Pippin, his breathing even now, and shallow, his eyes closed not tight, but peaceful, hair like a disorderly crown. And Merry could hardly breathe (and he should have seen it coming), and by the time that he could, again, Pippin and Gandalf were both long gone.
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