20.  Coming Home

26 October 1421 – Brandy Hall, The Shire

   With a wild whoop, Pippin pulled Rosie into the whirling reel that had just begun and they joined the other pairs that danced about the cleared space at the center of the feast hall.  Little Elanor watched placidly from the comfort of her father’s arms.  The newlyweds had already left and their friends and families were happily celebrating them with the bounty that had been laid out in their honor.

   Odovacar Bolger was very conscientiously finishing each brandy poured for him and he was therefore getting very pleasantly drunk in the honorable company of the Master of Buckland and the Thain.

   “Dear brother-in-law,” he slurred for the hundredth time, one hand heavy on Saradoc’s shoulder. “Dear brother-in-law, I think we did quite well by those two, and I should like to pro…..   propa…..   toast them again with you!” he finished with a wobbly smile.

   “Joy!” they all cried once more, oblivious to the frowns and giggles they attracted.

   “Now, we’ve only got your son to marry off, Paladin,” Saradoc said with a wink.  “Any likely lasses we should hear about?”

   “Ha!  Getting him to pick just one’s the trouble…  Just look at him!” he growled, though any fool could see the fierce pride in his eye.  “I’m surprised he’s no whelps scattered from the Downs to the River with the way he carries on!”  He paused a moment, the liquor haze lifting slightly to allow a clear moment of insight to tease at him.  “There’s something to that…” he murmured, gazing at the tall young hobbit across the room, who was now guiding his dance partner back to sit beside her husband.  Pippin glanced about, face shining with joy and exertion, when he suddenly noted his father’s eyes upon him.  He nodded once, quirked a grin and dashed back into the crowd of dancers.

   “Your son is happy today, his heart is giddy with the possibilities life has to bring.  But he is no less your son when trouble sharpens his eye.  You’ve gained a strong right hand…  Don’t mistrust it because of the scars it bears.”

   Paladin turned to look at his sister’s husband, this hobbit he’d blamed for so much with so little cause, for jealousy and fear and spite.  He lifted his glass unsteadily.

   “To sons and brothers.  May they forgive us all someday.”

   “I’ll drink to that!” Saradoc replied, downing his drink with a smile.

   Pippin watched his father smile again from behind the long trestle table, heaped with the thousand and one dishes the kitchens had turned out for this happy day.  He leaned back against the wall, sipping his ale in invisible salute to whatever his elders had just toasted with such relish.  Nothing ill could come of this day; of that at least he was sure.  Though trouble had dogged them through the summer, it was now well and truly gone.  With Great Smials and Brandy Hall reconciled, and Tookland restored to its bustling and gregarious self, only the mire of misunderstanding between his father and himself had yet to be resolved.  “All it will take is time,” Pippin murmured to himself as he drained his tankard.  “But that’s a worry for tomorrow,” he added with a smile as his eyes settled on a lively young lass whose winsome face turned once again his way.

   Merry’s gaze lingered a long moment on the joyful smiles that wreathed every face on the other side of the window.  Standing in the bushes in the twilight, he caught sight of Pippin’s tall frame among the dancers, the inebriated cheers coming from the head table, Sam’s animated face as he recounted some tale to captivate the toddling audience at his feet.  Elanor sat regally upon his lap watching his hands gesture above her head as he used them to enhance his storytelling.  For a ‘simple gardener,’ as he insisted on calling himself, his skills in this matter were, in Merry’s opinion, equal to those of a royal bard.  The very simplicity Sam thought made him less, elevated a willing audience to one that truly believed.  The days when he could hide his strengths in the shadows of modesty were numbered, and Merry smiled fondly at the thought.  Frodo had been so certain of so many things for their future, especially Sam’s, and they all knew that his insights, dearly bought, would show true in the end.  Though Frodo’s absence had a cast a small shadow over Merry’s heart that morning, the knowledge that his cousin had surely reached the far shore and had gained peace at last had set its own particular light inside him, and he had felt so strong a sense of that gentle hand upon his shoulder he had no doubts some close kin of Galadriel’s Mirror had been at his cousin’s disposition today.  A strange fancy perhaps, but not so farfetched as he would once have thought it, before the darkness and the light, before the journey’s end, here at home.  Finally home.  He gently pressed the small warm hand entwined in his own against his lips.

   “Let’s go home,” he murmured, and followed his heart into the night.

The End

A/N:  *exhausted happy sigh*  Well, that’s it for Coming Home, but if you are still intrigued, there is more to come for our friends, oh yes, much more, as the lads have been recounting a thousand and one tales in my ears and the plot bunnies are shackled fast to my ankles, nibbling away.

I’d like to thank, first of all, my dear beta Birchtree, who can spot a plot hole a mile away, couldn’t do it without you B!  Huge virtual hug to Ariel, who has been evermore encouraging in oh so many ways!  And lastly, I would like to thank two fanfic authors whose lovely work inspired me to take the ideas in my head and give them form, and share them with all of you nice people:  Lindelea, whose great sagas of the years after the War are quite amazing and absorbing; and Baylor, who has filled many years for our young rascals with a loving and mischievous eye.  I’d never have had the courage without these nice people to lift my eyes.  Go read!