A/N: This applies to all four stories - some of it is gap filler/missing scenes and some may be a bit AU/stretching canon, but still completely plausible.  No slash, just lots of love and angst (the latter especially in Merry's story).  Have fun! :)

I have done many difficult things in my life. But none, dear cousins, dearest Sam, more difficult than leaving you. It breaks my heart that I am breaking yours.

But my heart is already broken. My soul is battered and bleeding, cut by too many shards. When they were being torn apart by the Ring, you sheltered them within your own hearts and souls and I can never thank you enough for that or tell you how grateful I am for all the love and comfort you have given me. I have never felt closer to anyone than you. I love you so much. We are truly kindred spirits, brothers.

But there are wounds in me that are too deep to heal here, darkness that cannot be dispelled though you three have always been my light and have guided me all your lives as well as could be out of the shadows that bound me more and more, first from my parents’ deaths and then from the Ring. I have been so blessed to have known you. I will carry your light and your love, your smiles and your laughter and a million other memories forever within me as I hope you will always remember the joy that was ours before the Shadow.

I have never wanted to hurt any of you. I beg you to forgive me that this time I have, that I didn’t tell you until now that I was leaving, that I gave you no time to prepare. Perhaps it was unfair and selfish of me not to tell you earlier, but I have loved listening to you laugh and joke these past few days on the way here. You were sad, of course, that Bilbo is leaving, but you thought he was the only one and that loss was easier to take than the ones you didn’t even imagine. I have closed my eyes and remembered what it used to be like to laugh like that. I marvel that you can still do it even after all you went through. I have cried too often in the past to laugh that easily myself anymore or to even laugh at all. I have so enjoyed holding your hands, one of you each day as we have traveled the long way to the Havens, and curling up next to you each night. I have loved kissing you all on the brow goodnight and telling you how much I loved you and hearing your sleepy replies. I have slept little these past few nights just so I could watch you sleep. I have smiled as I have brushed at your curls and just looked at you. And I have cried a little when I knew you wouldn’t see as I realized as each moment passed by how little time I had left with you, that these last days with you would have to last me for the rest of my life, so I hope you understand why I didn’t want them to be spent in tears. I couldn’t bear to have you grieve for a moment, let alone what you will now and I as well, leaving you in tears and barely able to keep from crying myself.

But this is not goodbye forever. It cannot be. I could not endure that the last time I saw you to be when I left you in tears or the last time I heard your voice, Sam, was when it was filled with grief.

Tears and grief I caused.

I remember you telling me, Pippin, what Gandalf said about the land beyond this life. It is there that I hope we meet again, where I can see you all smile and hear your joyous voices, where all pain and hurt have faded away and all is as it once was and I can hold you all forever. Perhaps if I am truly blessed, I will see you, Sam, even sooner. That hope is the only thing giving me the strength to leave at all.

Namarie, my beloved brothers.

Until we meet again...

The hardest thing I’ve ever done was to watch you leave, to let you go on without me. To see all the pain in your eyes and know I can’t soothe it anymore, that no one and nothing here can. But I also saw all your love, the hope you had, your beautiful smile, the light still so bright in you. I don’t think I could have let you go without seeing that.

But I will follow you, my dear. Part of me already does. That part of my heart that you’ve always held. Just like part of you remains here, that piece of your heart that you gave so long ago into my keeping and your cousins. We will hold it close to us until we can hold you again.

And I will do that, my love, I will. Your parting gift to me was to give me that hope. This is not the end. It cannot be. I will not allow it to be. I will come to you and you will be happy and whole and healed. Good will come out of this horrible, tearing loss. I will hold you again and your eyes will be shining. You will be laughing, that most wonderful of sounds, and I will be laughing with you.

Our tears will be of joy, not pain.

That day will come, dearest, never doubt it.

I will follow.

I will follow.

I want to hold onto you forever, but I let you go. You have other goodbyes to say. I can’t believe this is happening though, that I am losing you. That I will come of age and you will not be there to celebrate with me. That....that....that.... How many myriad other things will happen and you will not be there to share them with me as I knew you always would be?

I remember the first time I was afraid I would lose you. I was seven and Merry and I had come to spend a few summer days with you. It had been very hot the day before, but that had not stopped you from running around all day with us, playing all sorts of games. We had the grandest time. You, however, did not feel well that evening and were sick several times during the night and more the next day when you couldn’t even get out of bed. You had a terrible headache on top of your very unsettled stomach and I felt so afraid for you. I was kept out of your room most of the day with a equally-fretting-but-trying-not-to-show-it Merry doing his best to distract me and himself with the trinkets Cousin Bilbo always kept around for our visits. But more than anything we both wanted to be with you. I snuck into the room and Merry stuck his head in the door and we watched as Bilbo and Sam fluttered around you. Our cousin made sure you drank the little tea and water you could keep down and Sam supported your head as he coaxed you to eat a small bit, then made sure your pillows were arranged so you were as comfortable as possible. But you were miserable. I wanted to cry I felt so bad for you. I don’t think you even knew we were there because I doubt you would have spoken what you did.

“Am I going to die?” you asked Cousin Bilbo after he held the chamber pot under your chin as you threw up the small pieces of toast Sam had just finished coaxing down your throat. The two of them looked rather alarmed at your question and I gasped in fear and gave myself away. Sam turned and scowled at me. I know Sam believes that he was put on the earth specifically to take care of you and I discovered then that anything or anyone that upsets that does not sit well with him. Of course Merry and I believed and still believe we were also put here for the same thing, though Merry believes it is his task to look after both of us. From that look Sam gave us, I know he blamed me and Merry for you being sick and I think he was even a little mad at you, but he couldn’t show that so he settled for glaring at us for as long as he dared, which actually wasn’t all that long, but to a seven year old rather frightening. Then he turned back to you and gently wiped the spittle from your mouth.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” you said weakly. “After all you did...”

“Don’t fret about it, Mr. Frodo,” he said as he finished cleaning you up. “We’ll just try again when you feel more up to it.”

Your unanswered question though still hung in the air and we all looked at Bilbo. Merry thought it might be better if I wasn’t in the room when it was answered, but I resisted as he tried to steer me out. I had to stay. I had to know if you were going to die. I couldn’t let you, especially without me there. I had to be able to say goodbye if I could do nothing else. I had only seen one other person die, my nurse, and that had been horribly frightening. I shouldn’t have been there at all, but I had snuck in because I wanted to say goodbye to her. And I couldn’t. They wouldn’t let me near. I didn’t want that to happen again. I continued to resist Merry’s efforts, but in the end, he was too strong for me and we left. I was in tears as Merry tried to reassure me, but his arm around me and his voice were both shaking and I knew he was just as scared as me. He looked at me and we stayed just outside the door and left it open just the barest crack so we could hear the answer.

“No, of course not, my lad,” Bilbo said with more cheer than I thought even possible.

I was so relieved and felt Merry relax, then you spoke again and my fears rushed back. “But Cousin Coral did,” you said. “And she had the same thing.”

“She was also a lot sicker and a lot older,” Bilbo said. “You have merely done too much on too hot a day.”

“You’ll be fine soon, Mr. Frodo,” Sam assured. “Just fine.”

I didn’t hear that last part, not really. All I heard was you had done too much and that was why you were so sick. Sam was right. It was my fault, mine and Merry’s. I began to cry again and pulled away from Merry’s hand on my shoulder. He couldn’t hold me back, no one could. I came right up to your bedside and you greeted me with a faint smile. I was mesmerized by that, by all the love that shone in your eyes even then as it always had. Sam tried to shoo me away and Merry stepped in to fetch me, but I wasn’t going to leave. No one was going to make me.

“I’m so sorry, Cousin Frodo,” I said in tears. “I shouldn’t have played with you so much. Do you hate me for making you so sick?”

You smiled even wider. “No, dearest Pipsqueak, of course I don’t hate you.” You reached out to dry my tears and some of the terrible fear that I was going to lose you left me. “I have loved you from the moment you were born, when you were so small and red, wailing loudly and wriggling all over the place and so beautiful. I’m going to love you forever. Do you know how long forever is?”

I shook my head. “Is it a long time?” I asked hopefully.

You smiled again and took my hand. “Yes, dearest, a very long time.”

“Then you aren’t going to die?”

“I couldn’t leave you, could I? Or Merry? Or Sam? Who would take care of you all?”

I giggled then and before anyone could stop me, I crawled into your bed and lay my head on your chest where I could hear your heartbeat. Sam was just about ready to lift me off when your arm folded about me gently.

“No, let him stay, Sam,” you said and I could hear the smile and love in your voice and I smiled too. “Just a little bit.”

“Yes, Mr. Frodo.”

And so I stayed and we both fell asleep, I reassured that you were going to be okay and that you weren’t going to leave me.

The next time I feared you were going to was when you were about to go on the Quest and you were trying to be so secretive about it and failing so miserably. You didn’t get away from me then either, but you almost did on Weathertop and we all lived with that horrible fear for days as we watched you fade before our eyes. Then there was the agony when you were taken away and I was so afraid that I would never see you alive again, that you’d die without me and I wouldn’t be there to comfort you. That was the first time I began to truly understand what forever meant and it continued when we came to Rivendell and we weren’t allowed to see you much at all, except for Sam who became a force of nature not even Elves could resist when it came to insisting at being at your side. I still marvel at his courage to do that, his awe of the Elves overcome by his love for you.

It was so wonderful when you woke and looked at me and smiled. I curled up next to you and put my head to your heart and felt you stroke my curls slowly. The light shone again in your eyes and soothed away all my fears. It stayed with me until Parth Galen when I watched you shake your head no to joining Merry and me in our hiding place. You looked terrified. I wanted nothing more than to run to you and hold you and protect you, but I didn’t move. I know Merry wanted to do the same thing, but we just watched you leave and as this horrible, tearing loss opened in our hearts, we did what we could to make sure you got away, away from us. It was the hardest thing I had ever done.

Do you have any idea, my beloved cousin, my brother, how much I thought of you when we were apart? And then when Merry and I had to part, I don’t know how I stood it, losing you both, without going mad. I began to understand more and more what forever could mean. I tried so hard not to be afraid for you, for Merry, to be strong for you both, in the hopes that you two could somewhere, somehow sense that so you could go on, knowing how much I loved you both. But I was afraid. I was terrified and I cried a lot when I thought no one could hear me. I remember one night Gandalf coming and holding me as I cried. Still I couldn’t lose my hope for either of you. I just couldn’t. I had to hold onto that because the thought of you or Merry dying without me, out somewhere I’d never know where, would have truly driven me mad.

When I found Merry alive on the battlefield and you and Sam were brought back by the eagles, I was overjoyed. We barely left your side for fear you would die without us. You were so weak. Aragorn himself cleaned you and Sam as tenderly and reverently as I had ever seen him touch anything or anyone and he’s the king! You were so dirty the water ran dark as it streamed off you and Aragorn had to go through several cloths to soap you up and wash you enough that your own skin shone through again.

I remember when I was little and you’d give me a bath after playing outside after a rainstorm and, I had, of course, gravitated to the muddiest parts. I loved to splash around in the bath so much, you got just as wet as I did. I never did outgrow that. Nor having you near me.

“Where’s my cousin?” you’d tease me as you soaped me up good and the water turned quickly black. “I can’t see him under all this mud.”

I’d giggle and kiss you quickly and you’d jerk back in pretended surprise and I’d laugh again, seeing the soap and mud I left on your cheek. “Something just kissed me,” you’d say. “Was that my cousin?”

I’d giggle and kiss you again and say “Yes, cousin, it was me!”

You always expressed doubt, but as you washed behind my ears, under my arms and between my toes, you slowly discovered that it was indeed me. “Oh, there he is!” you’d exclaim. “I knew he was around here somewhere.”

Watching Aragorn wash you, I came to see how thin and frail looking you were and decided I preferred seeing you with all the dirt instead. I wanted to give you all the energy I could just by being near. I couldn’t bear to imagine what had happened to your maimed hand, so that was the one I always held so I wouldn’t have to look at your missing finger. I cried for all the terrors you had endured, that I hadn’t been able to protect you from. I cried because I was so afraid I would still lose you, even though you continued to breathe steadily in and out. I knew from constantly watching you just how many breaths you took each minute and I assured myself that number didn’t change and each day you looked healthier and your cheeks rosier, though they remained frighteningly hollowed out as was your stomach. I didn’t like to look at how thin your arms and legs were so I was glad that you were kept covered most of the time. I wanted to hold you, to listen to your heart, but you were so fragile looking I was afraid. So I just sat at your side, held your hand and tried not to look into the chasm that yawned at my feet that was the idea of spending forever without you.

Then finally you woke and smiled weakly at me. I smiled so widely at you and I began to cry again. You reached up to wipe at my tears. “Don’t cry, ’squeak,” you whispered. “I’m so glad to see you. Aren’t you glad to see me?”

I laughed then, the first time I had in far too long. It felt so good! You had nearly died and the first thing you could say to me was to tease me! I watched the chasm close and I curled up next to you. I was still afraid of hurting you and it was gently that I kissed your brow and gingerly that I laid my head down on your chest. I knew it was all right when your arm slowly closed around me and your lips softly brushed my head.

“I’m very glad to see you, Cousin,” I murmured and we fell asleep like that, with me listening that beloved heartbeat of yours and your arm around me. I knew then that you would be all right, that we would both be all right.

But you weren’t all right. No matter what any of us did, we could not ease for long the torment we saw in your eyes. And it is still there. It is the reason we are standing here on this dock, crying, instead of sharing an ale in The Green Dragon or tramping alongside each other in a green meadow and laughing. We are all crying but you, but I know you have been crying inside for years now. You look very much like you could cry now, but you don’t. Perhaps you will later or perhaps you are afraid if you started you would never stop. You have been hurting so long. Looking into your sad eyes, I begin to understand another meaning of the word forever and I don’t like it, but I can see now why you have to leave. It is the only thing that is allowing me to let you go, otherwise I would have held you until the hurt left you. But I know now it won’t, not here.

But there is more than pain in your eyes. There is also so much love that I could stare into until the world faded away and not get tired of it. I cry more as I realize I truly have only moments to do so. I wish I was not so tall now that I couldn’t listen to your heart one last time before it is lost to me forever. That word again. I am getting far too much an education in the meaning of that.

I let you go and watch you board the ship. You look frightened at first, but then you smile. Such a wonderful, beautiful smile that I can’t help returning it even through my tears. You don’t say it, but I can hear it nonetheless. I’m going to love you forever. It streams from that smile, from the tremendous look in your eyes.

I’m going to love you forever, my own smile is saying.

The title was inspired by that part of the movie with Merry at the Grey Havens after Frodo is on the ship and smiling back at his beloved friends.  Pippin is grinning widely through his tears and Sam has a look of fond love, but poor Merry, he's trying to smile but just can't manage it.  Of course, you may also feel free to sing along with that Barry Manilow song of the same name because that fits too: "I can't smile without you.  I can't laugh and I can't sing.  I'm finding it hard to do anything.  I feel sad when you're sad.  I feel glad when you're glad."  The lullaby that is mentioned in the story is the first one that is my other story "Worth Fighting For" if you haven't read that and am wondering what it is.  Tons of angst in this one, but lots of love as usual and of course, no slash.  It's also a story within a story - as Merry also remembers Frodo leaving for Bag End.

___

I knew for a long time that you’d be leaving, just like I knew you’d be leaving with Cousin Bilbo, like I knew you would be leaving on the Quest. Each time, going on without me. I had no choice the first time; I have no choice this time. The only time I did, I was still without you when I should have most been with you. I’m losing you again, my beloved cousin, the brother of my heart, and suddenly I am seven years old again, but instead of Cousin Bilbo’s carriage come to take you away, it’s an Elven ship. Then I feared, despite all your assurances otherwise, that I would never see you again. Now I know I won’t. You have no assurances to give. It’s not a short travel to Hobbiton from Buckland this time that will be separating us. That trip seemed impossibly long to my young heart, but this distance will be so much greater, truly impossible to reach you. Two questions are pulling my heart apart. ‘How can I let you go?’ is warring with ‘How can I not?’ as I look into your eyes, into the pain, into the hope you have that you can heal where you are going.

I remember asking you why you were leaving the first time. “I want to be happy,” you said.

“Aren’t you happy here, Cousin?” I asked. “Don’t I make you happy?”

You smiled then, squatted down to my height and held me tight. “Of course you do, my Merry-lad, very happy, but it’s so loud here, so crowded. I can barely even hear myself think. I think I would be happier with Uncle Bilbo where it’s much quieter.”

My memory turns then to an afternoon a few months after we had returned from the Quest. You were standing at a window by yourself in Bag End watching the gathering storm clouds. You started a little when you heard the door open, but you didn’t turn when I came up to you. You had been crying.

“What’s wrong, Frodo?” I asked.

“I want to be happy,” you said and my heart broke again to hear the tone of your voice as though you had given up all hope of that ever being possible again. “It’s too quiet here, Merry. I have nothing but my thoughts.”

“What are you thinking of?” I asked and I was surprised to realize I was fearful of the answer.

You were silent for such a long time, just standing looking out the window watching the storm come in. I saw the tension in your shoulders, in your entire body and I knew there was a storm inside you as well, waiting to break. When I thought you wouldn’t answer at all, you said, “The Ring, what else?”

There was such incredible pain and despair in your voice that I couldn’t comprehend it. It seemed too big for you, too big for the room, too big even for the entire Shire to contain, and yet you were trying to keep it all inside. I began to stroke your back as I did whenever you were upset. “What did it do to you, dearest?” I asked and my fear grew of what you would say, but more that you wouldn’t say anything, that you would still try to hold it all in and that would be even worse.

“What didn’t it do?” you responded bitterly - a tone I had never heard from you and my heart broke again and again for you that day. “It consumed me, Merry, bit by bit. Every time I resisted it, it taunted me and every time I gave in, it jeered at me. I became it and it became me. It tore me apart until I went mad. I tried to kill Sam because of it and in the end I claimed it for myself and I was glad, Merry, glad to call it my own.” Your voice lowered and you said very softly, “I still want it.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to think. Questions chased themselves around in my mind that screamed for answers, but I was too afraid to ask them. What do you mean you tried to kill Sam? He had never said anything about that. He still loved you more than anything or anyone, just as much as he loved Rosie. The Ring was a completely evil thing, how could you want it? How can you long for something that doesn’t even exist anymore?

I knew the answer to that last question even as I reeled from the other two. I was only five when I lost the stuffed bear I had been sleeping with since before I could remember. Like you, it had always been a part of me and I was inconsolable when it was lost. I came to you in tears, begging you to help me find it. You held me and let me cry. I held onto you so tight as you tried to comfort me and promised me that you would help me look. When I had stopped crying, you wiped my tears, took my hand and we spent all day looking. In the end, we had nothing to show for it but some dusty clothing and a few crumpled handkerchiefs you had handed me when I started crying again. When we sat down for dinner that night, you encouraged me to eat something, told me how sorry you were that we couldn’t find the bear and if I wanted a “poor substitute” I could stay with you that night. I did and I stayed with you the night of the storm too.

You didn’t seem to notice that I hadn’t responded to your confession. You kept looking out the window, lost in your pain, still not facing me, but needing me there, needing someone to hear you. “I don’t want to want it,” you continued, “but I do. And I can’t have it. It’s gone forever. And it’s not. At least Smeagol and Bilbo had the hope of seeing and holding it again. I don’t. I will forever want it, knowing I can never have it. I hate it and I need it. It violated me in ways I am glad you will never know and I still want it.” You paused and again your voice was so soft, I had to strain to hear it. “Gandalf said Smeagol loved and hated the Ring as he loved and hated himself. I understand that only now, but I do not love myself. How can I?”

I continue to stroke your back, trying to calm you, to release that terrible tension in you. I still could barely think of how to help you, but then I said the only thing that needed to be said. “I love you, my Frodo.”

You looked up at me then, torn between surprise, guilt, shame and a desperate want and need to believe me, to believe that I was still yours and you were still mine, that nothing had changed. But then you looked away. “I’m not your Frodo. He died piece by piece on the way to Mordor. He’s buried there.”

“No, dearest, no. If you weren’t my Frodo, then you wouldn’t be hurting like this. Cry, my Frodo, don’t keep it all inside. Cry with me.”

You looked back at me. The tears were falling down your cheeks now in a parallel path with the rain down the window. Thunder rolled when I took you into my arms and the storm raging inside you broke as the one outside gathered strength. I wondered at the force of both of them as I held you tight and you clung to me like we used to. You cried so hard. I kept telling you over and over again that I loved you until I knew that you had not only heard me but believed me.

“Thank you,” you murmured. There was tremendous relief in your voice and tears enough to make me want to cry also.

I remember how frightened I was the first time I saw and heard you cry. I was four and I asked you why you were so sad. You looked up rather startled and so lost, the same way you do now, like some essential part of you had been torn away and there was this hole in you that you did not know how to fill. You told me your parents had died six years before on that day. I didn’t know what to say to that, but I tried to fill that hole. I hugged you and didn’t let go for the longest time. I cried with you and we just held onto each other like there was no one else in the world and we’d die if we let go. You were able to stop crying then and got through the rest of the day.

As I held you after the storm, I hoped you knew you could still do that, hold onto me and cry out your pain. Everything had changed, but nothing had. I was still your Merry. I may have been just as lost as you in wondering how to fill that hole, but I hoped I could do the same thing I did so many other times and get the same results.

Even after you were spent and the rain outside gentled also, you didn’t let go, just rested your head on my shoulder and held on just as tightly.

“I’ve changed so much, Merry,” you said.

“We all have, dearest,” I told you as I began to stroke your curls. “Don’t condemn yourself for that.”

“But you and Pippin and Sam have all changed for the better. You were already wonderful and then discovered strengths and bravery inside of you that you never even knew existed. I’ve only discovered weaknesses. You’ve confronted and defeated evil on the outside. I’ve encountered it inside of myself and been defeated by it.”

“Shhh, no, Frodo, don’t say that. You are braver and stronger than any of us. You encountered evil in a much worse form than we did. It wasn’t inside of you to start with. It acted on you from the outside. And you fought it as hard as you could. I know you did. I saw you do it.”

“And I lost, Merry. I lost everything. I’ve lost the Ring. It filled me, then emptied me, leaving me with nothing but itself. I am nothing but a shell now.” You paused, but I knew you had more to say and I listened and tried not to cry. “After I was stabbed on Weathertop, I felt like there was a grey veil over my eyes that made it hard to see what was around me. I was glad when night came and hid the veil from me, when things could look almost normal again, when I didn’t feel so cut off from everything. I feel it again now, but instead of it being in front of my eyes, it’s around my heart. I feared even before I went on the Quest that I wouldn’t be returning. I didn’t think that I would come back and then discover I couldn’t return. But that is what has happened, Merry. I don’t belong here anymore.”

“Yes, you do, dearest, more than anyone you do. You’re the reason there is even still a Shire at all.”

“No,” you protested, “that’s Smeagol’s doing. I couldn’t destroy Ring, Merry. It was only an accident that it was lost.”

“And who got it to where it could be destroyed? You.”

“And Sam. I couldn’t have made it without him. I am nothing but a bit player in this. I failed and others had to step in to save everything. I didn’t do anything right myself.”

How many times could a heart break I wondered as mine continued to. How many times had yours?
“Shhhh, dearheart. Don’t think that. Don’t ever think that. You saved us all. None of us could have done what you did and it’s not shameful that you had to have help.”

I put my fingers on your lips when you began to protest again, then I guided you to your bed and laid down next to you and continuing stroking your curls and your back. The tension that had never completely left was already returning.

“I remember when you first did that,” you told me softly. “When you were four and trying to comfort me on the anniversary of my parent’s death.”

“And did you know that I did it at Rivendell and Ithilien while I waited for you to wake?” I asked.

“Yes. I love you, my Merry. Thank you.”

I leaned over and kissed your cheek. “I love you, too, my Frodo.”

I took you into my arms and sang to you your favorite lullaby. You cried again, then the tension left you enough that you were able to sleep. I hoped that at least for that moment, you felt you belonged. Ring-bearer you had been, but you had been mine first and I fully intended to reclaim you simply as my cousin. I kissed you again, wished you sweet dreams, then I closed my own eyes, remembering all the while how you used to do all that when we were at Brandy Hall together and you would comfort me if I had had a bad dream or were frightened by a storm or sometimes I just stayed with you because I wanted to be with you.

I think I slept with you as often as I did with my parents or so it seemed and I felt just as protected, safe, and loved with you as I did with them. Before we’d go to sleep, we’d talk about the grand adventures we’d have, just the two of us, or play a game or read a story. I remember how proud I was when I learned to read to you. I loved your stories more though, especially the ones you made up just for me and acted out in all sorts of voices and wild gestures. I loved all the walks we took when you did much the same thing and let me have some of the parts too. What glorious fun it was to be with you! You were so full of love, light and joy. I would laugh so hard sometimes at your antics that I’d be crying and gasping for breath, then I’d beg you for more and you’d always promise more the next night.

But there won’t be anymore ‘next nights’ now, will there? So many times since we returned, I’ve wanted to beg you to go back to those innocent times again. I wanted to laugh again. I wanted you to laugh again. But I wondered if you or I ever would. We can’t go back, can we?

I did hear you laugh after the simple and profound joy of holding Elanor for the first time and after the many antics Pippin performed just for you. I breathed easier for a little while after Sam and Rosie married and moved in with you. You improved some and enjoyed life a little more, but this last summer I began to worry again and Pippin and Sam with me. Actually, I don’t think Pip or Sam ever stopped worrying and in some ways, neither had I, but I had hoped, as we all had, as I knew you had, but something changed or perhaps more correctly, something hadn’t changed. You weren’t getting better. We could all see that. You didn’t seem to be aware that we knew, but you started acting again like you had before we went on the Quest the first time: secret meetings with Gandalf, long walks with us with you looking around and touching things like you were trying to memorize everything because you knew you were not going to see them again. So we reformed our conspiracy and kept a steady watch on you. It was easy for Sam to be our chief informant again, but Pippin and I also devised all sorts of excuses to spend the summer with you as well. We were all afraid you would try to slip away one day and we would never see you again, never have a chance to say goodbye.

You welcomed our company, I know you did, but the sad, lost look in your eyes never left you, smiles never reached there and increasingly rarely even reached your lips. We were all at a loss how to help you besides being near and letting you know that way and any other way we could think of that we loved you and needed you.

Now, looking up at the ship that will take you away from us, a ship that blurs in front of me because of my tears, my heart cries out again the same plea, it had over thirty years before: why can’t you be happy here? Why do you have to leave? Can’t I come with you? My heart breaks, just as it did when you left for the first time and when I watched you fade after Weathertop. You tried so hard to hang on then, but Pippin and Sam and I could barely sleep, terrified we’d wake in the morning to find you had left us. You never did, but there were those other times when we worried too that you would leave.

I remember so well the last night before you left for Hobbiton. My parents let me stay with you and I held you so tight, getting your nightshirt all wet from all my tears. I knew you were sad too, but you were also excited.

Then the horrible day came that took you away from me. In one hand, I convulsively held the small oliphaunt you had given me on your last birthday that you had carved yourself. In my other, I held your hand so tightly it was a wonder I didn’t break it as we walked out of the Hall and to Cousin Bilbo’s carriage. He stood there all smiles, waiting for you and I felt your excitement. I hated that. I hated everything that beautiful, sunny day. How dare the sun shine when my world was ending? I could barely step out of the Hall, as though if I didn’t I could stop you from leaving, but you continued to walk out, a little faster even as you saw Bilbo, your breath quickening, and I followed. I had no choice. There was no way I was going to leave you until the very, very last instant.

Bilbo smiled at me. “Hullo, Merry, my lad!” he said cheerfully. “My, how you’ve grown!”

I totally forgot my manners and just glared at him. I hated him for taking you from me. I even refused the treat he held out for me. Bilbo frowned, put the sweet back into his pocket and then turned to you, all smiles again. I watched him take your bag filled with your books and journals and clothing, your whole life, and saw it disappear into the carriage, and a little more of my heart broke. I held your hand even tighter.

You watched the bag too and then you turned to me. Your bright smile faltered when you saw my tears. You reached up to wipe at them. “Don’t cry, my Merry. Please don’t.”

“Why can’t you stay, Frodo?” I asked, the same question I’ve been asking for months.

You squatted down to my height and took my arm gently. “Bilbo wants me to live with him now, dearest. And I want to live with him. I want a place of my own. But you can come and visit anytime. You will always be welcome and I shall be very cross with you if you don’t come at least once a month and I shall come to you just as often if I can.”

You smiled at me and I tried so hard to smile back, but I just couldn’t. “I’m not your dearest! If I were, you wouldn’t be leaving! And it’s so far away!” I protested, crying even harder.

“No, my Merry,” you said. “I know it seems so, but truly it isn’t. It’s but two days. We are both so used to walking down the hall and seeing each other, but we’ll get used to this too. It will be an adventure just getting to each other and then we’ll have all sorts of fun together, just like always.”

“Can’t I come with you now?”

“No, love, I’m sorry, but your parents need you here.”

“Don’t you need me?”

“Of course I do, dearheart. You are my best friend and you will always be my own Merry-lad. None of that is going to change.” You could see that none of your words were making a difference and placed your hand over my heart. “I will always be here, dearest. Always. I am not going to leave.”

I finally let go of your hand and placed it over your heart. “And I will always be here,” I said and you smiled and then you hugged me and I held on for the longest time. I didn’t want to let go and I don’t think you really wanted to either, but you did finally and I let you. You wiped at my tears and smiled again and there was so much love there and in your eyes.

“Will you write to me?” I asked.

“Of course I will.”

“Everyday?”

“Everyday,” you promised.

You hugged me once more, then you got into the carriage and waved at me. You were smiling still, but I couldn’t. I waved until I could see you no longer.

As I look into your beautiful eyes now and we face each other for the last time, there is none of the excitement as there was when you left to go to Cousin Bilbo’s. There is at best cautious longing and hope, nearly lost in the pain, similar to the indescribable sense of sadness and loss that you had for a long time after your parents died, that reappeared each time around that anniversary when I would try so hard to make you smile again. I don’t think it ever left you totally until Bilbo came for you. But there is also love, so much love. I see that more than anything.

You raise your hand to my heart and I raise mine to yours. “I will never leave you,” you say. “I will never leave you,” I tell you.

I have wondered for months how I could comfort you and here you are now comforting me. I used to run to you as often I did to my parents for anything I needed: a cuddle after a nightmare, a hug and a kiss on my bandage if I ever hurt myself. You were always there to celebrate my triumphs as well: the day I took my first steps on my own, toddling unsteadily from my mother’s arms into yours, just as later Pippin did from his mother’s into mine; the first tooth I lost; the first time I read a story to you, sounding out each word so carefully and you applauding and hugging me at the end, telling me how proud you were. I knew with absolute certainty you and the love that you always surrounded me with would be with me forever. Then you left and I felt my world was ending. It’s ending again now. But the love didn’t end when you left the first time and I know it won’t end now. I wish I could smile for you now as you were always able to get me to do before, no matter what catastrophe had befallen me and I wish you could smile for me as I was always able to get you to do, but neither of us can and are too sad to even try.

You held me the night before you left for Hobbiton as tightly as you do just now. You stroked my curls as you sang to me your favorite lullaby, the one that your parents always used to sing to you. I loved that song so much. I always knew it was true. I didn’t stop believing it even when I couldn’t see a way it could still be. How could you watch over me and defend me when you were going so far away? But you never lied to me so I knew somehow it was still true. When you were done, you continued to stroke my hair and I murmured that I loved you and I would always defend you too. My eyes were already closed, I was nearly asleep, so I didn’t see your smile, but I knew it was there, that beautiful glow that I always believed you saved especially for me. You thanked me and kissed my brow. My lips brushed your cheek and then we slept in my favorite position, my head against your chest so I could listen to your heart.

I wish now that I haven’t grown so tall that I can’t press my head against your heart one last time. You do not sing the song. You cannot defend me anymore and I cannot defend you. I wasn’t there to stop the terrible things done to you, to stand in the way and keep them from ever reaching you. Sam was there and even he couldn’t stop them and I know he has suffered for that. We have all had to learn that your hurts can’t be cured by a hug or a kiss like all others could be. Not, of course, that we didn’t try to anyway. I think perhaps that is where all our tears are coming from, the ones pouring down my cheeks, the ones pooling in your eyes and threatening to spill down. You are hurt so deep inside in ways we cannot even fathom that you feel you have no other course but to leave and hope for healing elsewhere. I feel I have failed you when you needed me most. I feel I have turned the song into a lie and that is tearing my heart out. I know Pippin and Sam feel the same way and I know you are trying to assure us that it isn’t true, but we still feel that way. They are staring at you, tears streaming unnoticed down their cheeks. I want to comfort our cousin, but what assurances can I give that everything will be all right, like I have always been able to before when he’d wake from nightmares or hurt himself in a fall? Even when he nearly crushed by that troll, I assured him and we both believed it. But I cannot now. Things are not all right.

You start to let me go, but I bury myself more into your embrace and you hold on for a few moments more, listening to me cry, whispering what comforts you can, then you kiss my forehead and let go. I hope with all my heart, dearest cousin, that you will find what you are looking for, the healing and peace you cannot find here, that we would all gladly give our lives to assure you did, but all we can do is give you our tears and our love. I hope your broken heart can mend where you are going. I hope ours can where we are staying.

You board the ship, then turn and smile the most beautiful smile. The kind I always used to see and always returned, the kind I’ve been longing to see all these months. The kind that said I would be all right when I was hurt or afraid. The kind that is now telling us that you will be all right. My heart hurts so much to look at it, from the paradox of the joy of seeing it within the heartbreak of knowing I never will again. I let myself drown in all the love there like I always used to. I remember in that smile and that love what you said and did to comfort me, a frightened and crying little boy who just wanted his cousin, his brother, to stay with him and only him. I can’t stop looking at you, at that smile, at all that love. I want to smile back. I want to tell you that I will be okay also, but I can’t, Frodo. I just can’t. I’ve lost you twice now.