By: Dana
Summary: At Entmoot, Merry sits, and watches, and thinks.
Characters: Merry, Pippin, mention of others.
Pairings: None
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: Set during entmoot, movie-fic. Betaed by Lullenny.
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 sat in the shadow of a great old oak; not that you could tell where one shadow ended and the next started again. The night was calm, the moon shining full and bright in the sky. There was the crick and creak of moving wood and the steady rumble of entish voices raised together wearing on Merry's mind like an out of fashion song. There was his own breath, steady and low, the faint rustle of falling leaf, the crunch and crackle of grass. There was Pippin's own breath, tired and low, the soft and nonsensical murmur of his voice as he mumbled in his sleep.

Merry was tired, too; but it was more than just a physical exhaustion. He was tired of sitting and watching and waiting, hoping that this conversation that would not end would come miraculously to its closing. How much time had already been wasted? And how much more would follow in the rumbling song of the ents?

He looked from Pippin's sleeping face up towards the steady sway of the tree-like ents. And if there was something that could make a hobbit feel small and insignificant and out of place, it was that; the need to do something doubled and then tripled again. But Merry could only sit and watch and wait, still, watching them against the starry sky. They were deep in their talk, now, sounding much like the bending and groaning of great trees in a storm. Now Merry could only hope that this would soon come to an end. Having for so long done nothing, anything, no matter what, would be a better fate that that.

He needed something to occupy his time.

Maybe he should sleep; Pippin looked at peace, lying back against one of the trees great roots. Merry knew that he couldn't wake Pippin. If he could sleep, now, after everything, with so much still uncertain and unknown, then Merry could hardly fault him that.

Pippin spoke again and Merry knew Pippin well enough and long enough to know that only when he was deep-down-in-the-bones tired would he ever talk in his sleep a worn line of incoherence that Merry was still unable to make out. Nor could Merry fault him this. It had all been too long; too long since they had enjoyed a proper bed, a proper meal, too long since they had known a proper peace. And here they were, now, and what forward momentum they had gained, had ground to a halt.

He kept looking at Pippin; better to look and to see what had changed than to muse on what was not changing at all. Pippin's coat was unbuttoned all the way down, letting it hang open, and his scarf was settled loose around his neck. He was breathing softly, his lips parted halfway, moving sometimes in a murmur or a mumble; and when he exhaled, he did so with a quiet sigh. One of his hands was on its side, fingers curled in grass and fallen leaf. The other was resting at his hip. Pippin himself was half-curled on his side, and he looked comfortable, even with a bed of grass and leaf and a pillow of thick bark against his cheek.

He looked exhausted, worn, something in sleep that he wouldn't let himself show when he was awake. But that was Pippin, and Merry knew that trait of his well enough; but that did not change the fact that he should not have to be here at this place at all.

Neither of them should.

Merry would have changed it if he could; and they would never have had to leave the Shire, and they would never have had to be torn so close to the edge. And Frodo, poor Frodo, would never have had to be burdened with the weight of the ring.

Frodo.

But that was neither here nor there and Merry kept looking at Pippin.

The knees of his trousers were faded and worn and Merry could see the same wear at his elbows. How long had it been since they had a clean change of clothes? How long had it been since they had lost their packs? A lifetime or at least that was what Merry thought. He closed his eyes and shifted against the rough bark, thinking back. To when the only thing that could have them exhausted after a long day, would be an even longer day of mischief and play. Time enough when they had spent the time between the rising and the setting of the sun trekking through wood and dell, from one extreme of the Shire to the next. And often Frodo would be there at their sides; after all, Frodo still had a trick or two left, after all of the years.

Frodo.

Merry let himself think deeper of his elder cousin and that was what brought him back to the now, sitting in the dingle, listening to the trees and the quiet and the pliable motion of Pippin's voice. He opened his eyes to see Pippin again, shifting, murmuring, exhaling deeply as he settled back on his back. Frodo was the reason that they were here; not because they had no better place to be, but because they had made their choice. And that choice would hold them. It had carried them this far; had carried them half-way across the whole of Middle-earth.

And thinking of Pippin within the reach of his arm, and Frodo, not knowing where he could be, sitting here so far from home, Merry finally knew, without doubt, just how much they could lose. Just how much could still be lost.

Now they were here and Merry was tired of waiting; frustration that gnawed and chewed and bit. Here, in shadow and half-silence, the sound of forest song, older than the earth itself, of steady breath and Pippin's voice. Here, burdened by the need to do something, only there was nothing now that could be done. Here, and Pippin could sleep unburdened, unbothered by those troubles that followed while awake.

Here would only be here for a moment more and then it would be there. And everyone that Merry loved would still be facing danger, alone; and everything that Merry loved best would still face ruin, by flame.

He had waited too long and he couldn't wait longer; he couldn't sit by idly and do nothing, only watching Pippin sleep. Not when he was unable to, himself, when all that mattered sat ready to be consumed. He had seen himself the orc horde that marched to Isengard; he had seen what darkness his friends had yet to face.

So he stood. And paced. Because there was nothing more that he could do.

Merry did not know that Pippin woke, only that when he looked back, there sat Pippin, now wide awake. Pippin looked up at him, and Merry nodded before looking back to the trees. Where there had only been patience in his voice, patience that had yet to wear thin, now irritation and disgust were ringing clear in his voice.

"It's been going for hours."

Pippin rose to his feet. "Surely they must have decided something by now."

As Treebeard turned to answer, his voice groaning in the silence that came, Pippin could only be wrong. And here circled back on both hobbits as Merry's voice rose up in protest: it was taking too long.

And the way of the ents is not to be hasty; it would still be some time before the hope of Merry and Pi?pin would have any fruit to bear.