The Comfort Of Good Friends

He opened the door and the memories came flooding out, as fresh as if fifteen months had not passed since he had last set foot upon this very step.  Phantom laughter spilled from the darkened cottage, remembered warmth and light beckoning from within.  Merry ached suddenly for the innocence and naïve courage they had still possessed that night.  A year had changed so much.

He stepped inside, dispelling the illusions of the past, and walked down the empty hall, cool air smelling of dust and shut-in spaces.  Saddlebags over one shoulder and his pack dangling from its strap in the other hand, he pushed past the kitchen door, dislodging an abandoned web that festooned the corner of the arched entrance.  Very little had changed, the household items they had come to return to Bag End still sitting neatly in the places he had chosen for them last Autumn.  Merry dropped his gear beside the door and crouched at the cold hearth to lay a fire over the long dead ashes of the one he had carefully banked on their last night in the Shire.  He knew, with the certainty of long acquaintance, that Freddy would not have swept it clean in the short time he had spent here.

Merry smiled, thinking of the fate that had taken his placid friend to his current state as a hero of the Shire.  Old Fatty had received a nasty surprise in trade for his loyalty, more than enough to make him wish he had followed them into the Old Forest.  Little did he know…  But Freddy had earned his reward, and Merry doubted any of them could have foreseen the paths they all would tread before they found themselves safe at home again.

The fire crackled to life and he found his thoughts drawn back to that night, as they often had of late.  In the short space of time it had taken for Pippin and Sam to relate their eventful trek escorting Frodo across the Shire, what had seemed a serious but manageable journey had become a desperate flight from immediate peril.  Truth be told, Frodo’s silence had done more to drive home the danger of these ominous riders than all of Pippin’s wild conjectures, and the worry the older hobbit had tried so hard to conceal had left Merry sleepless and wary before the dimming fire that night, long after the others had gone to bed.  It had done little good, for in those short hours he had found no way to improve upon their plans, no way to make any of them safer…

 ~~~~

“You’ve that look again, Mister Merry,” Sam said, startling Merry from his thoughts as he moved quietly across the kitchen.  The well-oiled hinges of the door had given no hint of his entrance, and he was, as always, amazingly light on his feet when he so desired.

“And what look is that, Sam?” Merry asked, settling back comfortably in his chair.

“The one you get when you’re trying to keep Master Peregrin out of some mischief of his own making,” he replied, swinging the kettle over the flames.  He stood silently for a moment, gazing at the little drops of waters that hissed into the air from the kettle’s sides, and turned to look down at Merry.  “You’re still worried about him coming along, aren’t you?”

“Now more than ever…  These riders, Sam, what more can you say about them?  The shape I saw on the ferry landing gave me the shivers, and I didn’t even know what it was.”

“I don’t know nothing we haven’t already told you tonight, sir.  But I’d trust the shivers any day over walking on blindly.  We can all tell when the fox’s been around the henhouse, even if he ain’t left tracks to see.”

“I’m not the one that needs convincing.  It’s that headstrong cousin of mine that won’t see reason about this matter.”

Sam nodded, turning to gather the makings of a nighttime tea.

Merry listened to the soft sounds of spoon on china and the pale rattle of the other’s search as he pondered the dilemma this new twist posed him.  There was no doubt that Frodo must have strong and willing companions on this journey.  Rivendell was far, certainly farther than any of them had ever travelled, and with these strange riders in hot pursuit, there was no telling what dire dangers awaited them in the coming weeks.  But Merry was finding it hard to reconcile his two chosen tasks, to aid Frodo on his way and to protect Pippin from, well, everything, including his own mischief.  Keeping the young Took close had always been the easiest way to accomplish the latter, since Merry then had fair warning of anything perilous or foolish that caught his cousin’s curious mind.  Now, however, that strategy would draw Pippin far from what Merry still considered to be the only safe and proper place for any hobbit: the well-ordered confines of the Shire and the watchful gaze of its steadfast folk.

Sam handed Merry a hot cup of some fragrant and steaming infusion and sat down in the chair opposite him.  His eyes, a warm and quiet brown in the glow of the flames, were fixed on his own cup, a thoughtful frown creasing his brow.  Merry was certain he felt rather the same way, if not as deeply, having watched Pippin grow up during his many visits to Bag End.  Merry had always found Sam to be trustworthy, but the last year had proven him to be loyal and resourceful as well.  Unable to find the solution alone, he reached out, hoping for insight from his unassuming companion.

“I need to find a way to get him to safety, Sam,” he said, the apprehension in his own voice surprising even him.  “If he gets so much as a sprained ankle on this trip, I may as well not come back myself,” he added jokingly, trying to sound a little less desperate.

“You oughtn’t say such things, Mister Merry.  You’ll call ill winds to yourself and yours,” Sam replied, a little too fervently.

“And we can’t afford that kind of help right now, can we?” Merry mused, a cheerless smile turning up one corner of his mouth.

They sat wordlessly a while, fighting the uncomfortable sense that ill winds already blew across borders they had once considered as good as stone walls.  The cup resting in his hand grew cold as Merry weighed and measured the risks, known and unknown, against the needs of the moment, feeling the tug of the conflicting calls of duty that bound his life in what had until now been a comforting web.

“First thing in the morning, I will tell Pippin to stay here with Freddy, and this time he will simply have to hear reason,” Merry finally said.

Sam nodded, though he seemed unconvinced.  His doubts did not prove unfounded as the subject of their concerns made a most inconvenient appearance.  Merry wondered how long Pippin had been listening at the door.

“I’m as reasonable as they come, cousin dear, and there is no way you are leaving me behind to await those dreadful riders in Fatty’s quaking company,” Pippin said as he sauntered through the door, making straight for the bread box.  Merry could hear the scowl he hid in the sharpness of his tone.  “In fact, unless you intend on having him sit on me for a day and a night while he tries to scare me with nursling’s tales, you’d best drop that idea altogether.”

“You are impossible!” Merry snapped, glaring at his cousin’s back.

Pippin turned to him with a smirk, holding the last two dinner rolls he had found.  “No, just lucky enough to catch you plotting before you can get into trouble.  You need a real Took, bold and brave, for this sort of thing, and I can’t see anyone else more fitted to the job than I.”

“Yes, and I suppose you’d make an excellent dragon-slayer as well, Peregrin Took, assuming you didn’t forget to mind the beast when something shiny caught your eye!” Merry said, rising angrily from his chair.  “This isn’t like those silly adventure stories you like so much, this is real and dire and deadly!  If you come along, it will have to be for the right reasons, grown-up reasons I hope you can grasp someday.”

Pippin shot him a blistering look, embarrassment blushing fiercely over his cheeks.  He stalked close, until they stood, nose to nose.  “How dare you imply that I’m too stupid to understand what is going on?” he hissed.  “I’m in this for the same reasons you are, because it is important that Frodo and the Ring reach Rivendell safely, for his own sake and everyone else’s.  I watched with you, conspired with you all these many months to make sure he did not slip our guard.  Of all people, I thought you knew me better!”

Merry had rarely seen him so furiously offended and he had to admit that this time he had given him good cause.  It was sometimes hard to remember that his “little” cousin, his constant and sometimes unruly companion, was not so very little any more.  Pippin had long ago stepped out from under Merry’s shadow.

“You’re right, Pippin.  I’m sorry.”  The words hovered between them as if awaiting admittance before barred gates bristling with spears, but slowly the bitterness smoothed from the young Took’s features, though he still did not smile.

“I was wrong to doubt your resolve or your motivations,” Merry continued, putting a hand on Pippin’s narrow shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze.  “But will you not reconsider this?  We haven’t left yet and our plans are changing to meet dangers we knew nothing of yesterday.”

“Then neither of us should go, Merry.  We should all stay right where we are and make a stand on familiar ground.”

“What are you talking about?  Those riders will find this place in no time at all, and Gandalf has said Frodo will find no safe haven in the Shire.  It would be folly for him to stay where they can find him.”

“Exactly.  We are all safer away from here than in our borrowed beds.  Fatty will regret his part in this before we will,” Pippin said, looking down at his feet.

The truth of it sank into Merry’s heart.  He had not fully thought out the consequences of their ploy in light of the strange nature of their pursuers, he had been too busy worrying over Pippin’s safety on the road.  Freddy would face not prying neighbors or curious travellers but fearsome shadowy prowlers that frightened even old Farmer Maggot, a hobbit Merry considered too solid to fall prey to fancies or superstitious nonsense.

“I’ll wake you first thing in the morning.  You’d best get some sleep while you can,” Merry finally said.

The younger hobbit nodded, eyes still downcast, and he left the room to seek his bed without another word.

Merry watched him go, fear souring the taste of tea and brandy on his tongue.  He turned to find Sam gazing at him with sympathetic concern.  He had forgotten all about his quiet companion, tucked unobtrusively on his chair beside the fire.

“The joys of associating with Tooks and Brandybucks, eh, Sam?” he said with a small smile, reclaiming his own abandoned seat.

“’Tisn’t all that bad, Mister Merry.  No more troublesome than minding a Baggins, in fact,” Sam replied, a world of worry all his own hiding behind the jest.

“I guess not…  Will you share a little smoke before you take your rest, Master Gamgee?” Merry said, offering up the pouch he had just taken from his pocket.

“No…  I think I’ll turn in now, if that’s alright.”  Sam rose and slipped his cup into the cold wash water.  “You should sleep a little, too,” he added at the door.  “No use borrowing trouble from the morrow, as my Gaffer always says.  You’ve done all you can tonight.”

~~~~

Merry hadn’t answered him then, as he wouldn’t have been able to answer him now, had the chance been given to him to relive that night again.  Even knowing all that he knew today, he doubted that there was more he could have done to shift their roads to better passes.  He had watched in silence as the fire dwindled, knowing that sleep would not come even if he sought his bed, and he had led the others from this room into the misty dawn.  He had done all he could, more than he had thought he was capable of, on their behalf and that of others he had not known at the time.

The sound of tromping feet and laughter jolted him from his reflections as Pippin sauntered into the kitchen, Sam and Freddy at his heels.

“Oh, good, you’ve got the fire started.  I’m starved!” the tall young hobbit announced, dropping his gear in a careless heap.

“Then you’d best have brought whatever’s left in that basket, because the mice are sure to have been at anything that was left behind,” Merry teased, feeling his forced smile gain some real cheer.

“I thankfully freed his hands to guide the cart, so I’m reasonably certain there is yet some provender to share out among us,” Frodo said as he entered.

They busied themselves about the kitchen for a few moments before gathering once again about the table.  The windows were open wide, the air of an unusually mild February night wafting into the little cottage, and the setting Sun was hazing everything in its last golden light. 

Merry smiled as he looked around at his companions, for if they were changed by the turbulent year that had just passed, they had nonetheless all of them made it back.  It was something he had not dared to hope for, lost in the Old Forest, riding with the King’s cavalry, waiting upon the walls of Minas Tirith…

He let the present wash away the past and for the space of one shining eve, there was no worry or regret, only laughter, ale, and the familiar comfort of good friends.

The End