By: Dana
Summary: He might have left her, but she knew he would return - he had promised, after all.
Characters: Aster Took, Hilderic Took (both OCs); other canon characters, both minor and major, mentioned and or included
Pairings: Hilderic/Aster, Pimpernel/Aster, Merry/Pippin/Aster
Rating: R/NC-17
Warnings: Het, femslash, a somewhat uninspired but important to the plot of the story threesome that is hardly graphic, and of course, sexual content; and also, angst; het in this chapter, femslash in the second, uninspired threesome in the third
Author's Notes: Once upon a time, I had writer's block and I set out to do something about it... I posted and requested prompts, and ended up getting something from princessofg that sparked enough interest: and then, because of rubynye, I was introduced to Aster Took. I ended up writing a lot more than I expected, and I would like to thank them both for the hands they played in this story coming to be. I would also like to thank both hyel"> and sophinisba"> for the beta. Much appreciated, that. ♥
I have this tagged as Sunless Year-verse, but only tentatively. For the time being, it contradicts the 'verse at large - but it is always likely that I will be able to work that all out.
Series Index: In a Sunless Year.
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.

Astron (SR 1420)

They weren't the first, and they weren't no wouldn't be the last. But they had caught her eye, as soon as they had come into the taproom – the clothing they wore familiar but strange, and as they'd bought the attending hobbits a full round, they'd been both welcomed and cheered. She'd had her ale in quiet and, made bold by that, she had stood and gone to them, where they stood at the long bar. They were drinking, and they were laughing, and then Merry Brandybuck, who she knew if only because she had spent a deal of time in Buckland, in her youth, looked down at her, and smiled, and she wrapped her hand about his, went up on her tip-toes, and kissed him on the cheek.

It seemed like forever had gone by. She had taken to drinking a disgusting amount, these last months. She had taken to doing other things, too.

And Merry startled, but he'd smiled, and Pippin, who was Thain's son and a good deal younger than any hobbit she was used to going after, slung his arm about Merry's shoulder, and looked down at her, and smiled as well.

'Hello there, lass. What brings you to this place?' That was Pippin.

'Oh, the ale's quite fine,' she said at first, and then, 'And also, well, I hadn't planned it but here you are, and I thought that it would only be right to thank you,' and she was smiling still. She thought of Hilderic, her Hilderic, and how it had irritated her, always, for him to call her lass. She didn't feel very irritated now.

Pippin laughed, and then turned and said something against Merry's cheek, and the air between them was open, friendly, and she knew without needing to be told that they were just as close as she had been with her Hilderic. Her Hilderic was gone now, and had it only been since the Blotmath of the year before? Aster's heart still ached but she was determined to keep living. And she had been living, and she wound her hand about Pippin's, and his was more friendly than Merry's had been (though, that wasn't to say that Merry's had not been friendly at all).

'Thank us?' Merry said. 'Oh. For what?'

'You must pardon him, dear lass,' Pippin said. 'He's just a bit on the other side of daft now, after having all that ale.'

She smiled, and she stood up on her tip-toes, once more, and Pippin turned his mouth to hers at just that moment. She thought of her Hilderic, again, and how he'd died a hero's death. Still, a hero's death was still death, and her Hilderic was gone. She kissed Pippin – kissed him, and he kissed her in return. And Miss Nell might not have ever kissed her, but somehow Aster still knew that she liked Pippin's kiss more than she would have liked Miss Nell's.

'You're just as far gone into your cups,' Merry said. 'Maybe even further.'

Aster drew back, sank down onto her feet. Pippin's hand was warm, and his voice was warm as well. 'Aye, perhaps, but at least I've the aid of youth.' Light and drifting, just like a merry song.

She laughed, again, and then she said, again with that brash impetuousness, that that was all well and good, and they could be off now, if they'd like, as their leaving would hardly be noted, given that so many of the attending hobbits had had too much to drink.

They had to be used to such behaviour, and she couldn't think it proper, or at least any less proper than the other times she'd done just such a thing. But she looked to Captains Meriadoc and Peregrin, taller than her Hilderic had been, and taller than she was (and she was taller than most), and she could see that they were fair and bright but that there was something in their eyes, something that made certain that they understood. And she knew Merry somewhat more than others, and she could claim to know Pippin as though he were her kin, if only because she knew that they were in fact very distant cousins – and she did know his sister Pimpernel rather better than just that.

So, bold and brash, she looked from Merry to Pippin, and then back to Merry. More and more than enough of dancing and singing and putting it all from her mind, when her heart ached and felt that it could not mend itself, when she knew that her Hilderic had died a hero, but had still died. She was doing what she could, to go on with her life, and there had been other lads, and lasses, too, to give her heart something else to dwell on, other than its pain. She'd go on though she'd rather not, and perhaps only because she knew it would be what her Hilderic would want. It hadn't been long, not long at all, but this her heart would hold until the very end of her life. She'd nothing of his to hold to, nothing but what she held in her heart. In her heart, where his memories all rested, and in his name, which was hers as well.

And she looked at them and she thought of her dead love, and she said, 'Let's not stay here. What do you think?'

Understanding, or perhaps just too much ale. But Merry said, 'Just give us your name.'

'Oh. Aster. Just Aster, if you'd please.' She almost laughed, and almost blushed.

'Very well,' Pippin said, as if this happened all the time, or almost, at least. 'Let's not stay here.'

So they left that room, went to another one at another place.

The bed was hardly wide enough, but they managed. They were used to such behaviour, she found herself thinking, and they worked quite well as a team. Peregrin – Pippin, she couldn't think of him as aught but Pippin, not when his hands did that, when his mouth did that – was still a good deal younger than what she thought herself used to, but in all that had led her to this new spring, she knew that there had been change and then more change.

She hadn't known what she wanted – if she felt too much, would she forget what she didn't feel at all? Merry's mouth was as strong as his hands had looked, though it was Pippin's hands that were on her now. More specifically, his fingers, and Aster gasped against Merry's mouth and wondered if she'd expected a turn like this. She felt a slow sort of heat spreading out through her, a pleasant sort of lassitude, and her head fell back, and Merry's mouth went with it. Her breath came out and she clutched at the bedcovers, and Pippin did clever things with his long fingers that made her shout.

Would have made her shout, if it hadn't been for Merry's mouth. She sank into that kiss, sank into bliss. No, she hadn't expected this, had expected something else.

'He – ' she let out her breath, laughed a bitter-sounding laugh, and then balled her hands into fists and rubbed at her eyes. 'He's gone now. Dead. Only knew him eight years, would have known him nine. He... he... he knew that he would leave, you see, and we married in a hurry, and I... I...' Shook her head, found it hard to even gather up her breath. And Aster, who always said what needed to be said, suddenly found that she could not say what needed to be said.

The room was dim, the late moonlight faint and clear, and she turned and pushed her face against Merry's shoulder, tried to catch hold of her breath. There were arms about her, loose but steady, and she would have reached out and wound herself about someone, something, if only she had been. She felt the sting of tears in her eyes, the tears she'd not let herself cry for months or years now, no, it hadn't yet been years. Her throat was constricted as she tried to speak, voice faint and the very words tight. 'I let him leave me, and he did go off. He – he was in a band, for a while, but the Men caught them, threw the lot of them into the... into the Lockholes, and... and my Hilderic died, another lad told me, died like a hero would be proud to die though he told me Hilderic's story and it didn't seem like such a proud way to go. And I...'

And her heart had broken, and though her voice had turned bitter, it had not stilled: and she had sung and sung and sung, to pass the time and push the memories all away, to forget the pain of her Hilderic's death, to let herself move on. She had not been needed at Great Smials, not anymore, and she left and she wondered if she had simply been forgotten. She had not forgetten Mistress Eglantine, nor her kindness; and she had not forgotten Miss Nell, for all the guilt she'd felt, when all she'd needed was a lover's steady hands and couldn't have her husband's.

Her heart was beating, low and dull, and she shut her eyes and felt the sting of tears grow to be too much, and then there was moisture on her cheeks, more than the sweat of sated skin. 'He promised me, you know. That he'd come back. I'd not thought my Hilderic one to be so false, but I... I...'

There wasn't more for her to say, and she listened to her breathing, theirs as well, and to the thudding of Merry's heart beat, against her ear. 'Should have held onto him better.'

And she thought it strange, that they had not spoken at all – and it wasn't that they hadn't, only that she was that inconsolable, that she could not hear them through the falling of her own heavy tears. She wanted to be understood, and she wanted to be allowed to grieve, and she wanted the sun to stop, just once, and think that she might not still want it to rise and rise. It was late now, and morning would come soon – the moon would fade away, the stars would all burn up. And the sun would rise, and not all the pain in her heart, or perhaps even all the pain in the world, would cause that to stop.

She woke and it was morning, her head aching and her heart doing the same. She did not want to rise, but she did – the room was empty, though the air was not. The smell of breakfast wafted to her, and the smell of sex as well, warm and faded. For a short moment, she was very still, and very content.

She rose, crossed the room, washed at the basin and then turned, looked at herself in the looking glass. Aster had wanted little, or so she'd thought, and what she'd wanted most had been taken from her. She looked at herself, slid her hands down her body, followed rounded curves – and then she balled her hands into fists, looked at them before shutting her eyes, once more. The tears had come the night before, and now they thought that they would return again. Again and again. That would not be their way.

She sung to the empty room, hardly more than breath, and then she looked at herself once more, and she thought of what her Hilderic would want for her, and knew that she would not want to live in such a way that would have caused him any pain.

It seemed that her guests had not left her, yet, and breakfast was waiting to be had. It was one new day, after another, and she would dress and she would greet them, and the day would go on. Such as life would, she thought to herself: just as life.