II

Pippin's hand was still in a fist, so tight his knuckles were white and his fingers were starting to hurt. Tears were running down his cheeks. He hadn't looked back. He hadn't slowed his stride. He was almost back to Great Smials when he finally stopped, swaying slightly where he stood. Then he did look back, though he knew he had come too far to see Merry.

He let out the breath he had been holding as he looked down at his still fisted hand. He had punched Merry. As dear to him as anyone in his life, excepting his Mum and Da, and he had punched him. He stared at his fist suddenly feeling sick to his stomach. He turned aside from the path to fall to his knees in the deep grass gaging and retching. He was dizzy as well as feeling so weary again. Too many thoughts were flying through his mind making him even dizzier. Why was Merry so angry with him? Why had he hit Merry? The stomach spasms continued painfully on for what seemed to be many long minutes. Gradually they subsided, allowing Pippin to wearily work his way up to stand. He actually felt a little bit better, though still oddly tired.

He walked over to a nearby oak tree and sat down, leaning his back against the rough bark. Maybe things weren't so bad. If something he had done was troubling Merry, he would just have to figure out what it was. He could do that. Nobody knew Merry as well as he did. Pippin, for the time being, chose not to think about the business of the punch. It was harder to think anything positive about that and anyway, he was trying to solve Merry's problem. His own could wait.

The day seemed to be getting quite warm for the time of year. He took his jacket off. He started to take a deep breath but it made him cough. The cough made his chest hurt so for a few minutes he sat with his hand to his chest to ease the aching. It wasn’t a rattley cough like he usually had when he was sick, yet he didn’t seem to be able to breathe very deeply either. The pain slowly eased. Pippin went back to working out Merry's problem. He leaned back against the tree trying to think about anything he might have done that could make Merry hate him, but he came up empty. He just didn't seem to be getting on well with his thinking, his mind kept wandering. He was getting a headache. Pippin drifted off to sleep.

When Pippin awoke, his vision was blurry, his whole body ached. Where before the day had felt too warm, it now felt too cold. He was shivering but didn't think to put his jacket back on. His only thought was that he had made Merry hate him. Everything was his fault. He had hit his best friend. Pippin stood up only to nearly fall over. He had to lean against the tree for a while. Thoughts slogged through his head. He had to apologize to Merry. He had to make it right. He would make it right then everything would be like it had been before. He coughed hard, doubling over with his hands clutching his chest. His chest hurt still. As he slowly stood straight again, he started to think about writing to Merry. It was something positive he could do which made him feel a bit cheerier. He waited till he caught his breath. Stumbling a little he covered the rest of the way to Great Smials then along the edge of the hill the huge smial was built into to his bedroom window. He used the trick latch that he and Merry had rigged up so the window could be opened from the outside then climbed in onto his desk. He squirmed around to get his feet on the floor then sat in the chair at the desk. He took paper from the top right drawer, pulled over his inkstand and pen. Pippin opened the inkwell, dipped the pen and with a trembling hand brought the pen to the paper.

Merry lay on his side in the dirt of the path to the orchard. With his eyes closed to shut out the spinning scenery, he waited for his breath to quit coming in ragged gasps. In his mind he watched the whole hideous episode replay itself as though he were an onlooker standing a few feet away. He heard the words that seemed to come from somewhere else spoken icily to Pippin. Such coldness. Pippin trying to walk away, the Merry he felt so detached from yanking Pippin back. More ice cold poisonous words from that thing that couldn't be himself. Pippin's arm drawing back . . . the dreadful vision fading.

Merry opened his eyes. This time the world held still. He sat up, hugged his knees towards his chest then rested his forehead on his knees. Why had he said such horrible things to Pippin? Then Merry remembered, Pippin had asked about the party. Merry's party. His coming of age party. A chill ran down Merry's spine. Coming of age. In the last few months he'd grown to hate those words, now they had caused all of this. He sat for a long while thinking of many things. When at last he looked up it was with a stern determination in his dark blue eyes. It was time he spoke to someone about it. He stood up, brushed as much of the dirt as he could from his clothes, then turned to start walking toward Great Smials. After only three steps he stopped. No. Not Pippin. He couldn't face Pippin yet. He wondered if Pippin would ever agree to see him again after all the things he had said. He looked longingly down the path, breathed a heavy sigh, then Meriadoc Brandybuck turned, heading instead towards Hobbiton and Bag End.

Sam was smiling as he looked up from the mums he was planting beside the flagstone walk that ran from the gate to the front door of Bag End. Mr. Merry was coming up the road. Sam's smile faded fast as he noticed that Merry's expression was anything but his usual happily mischievous one. He was too pale and Sam could tell he was clenching his teeth.

"Good afternoon Sam, is Frodo about?"

"He's in his study, Mr. Merry. You can just go on in." Sam didn't joke like he normally would, Merry's look warned him not to. He waited for Merry to go in the round green door, shutting it behind himself. Then Sam casually took his potting tools around to the other side of Bag End. He only hoped the study window was open as usual.

Half an hour later, Merry was drawing to the end of his recounting of the morning's disaster. Frodo had listened attentively while watching Merry carefully. He knew his cousin well. He knew when he was hiding something, holding something back. Frodo could tell there had to be more to all this but he had the patience to let Merry get to it in his own way.

"Then he hit me, Frodo." Merry kept his eyes focused on the mug of tea in his hands, not wanting to see the look on Frodo's face as he heard those words. "He punched me in the stomach knocking the wind right out of me."

"Pippin?" Frodo's voice sounded understandably shocked. "Pippin hit you? Hard enough to hurt you? I find that hard to believe. He just wouldn't do such a thing. He's a well brought up hobbit-lad," Frodo paused. "Not that I'm doubting you Merry. It just doesn't seem possible."

Merry raised his eyes to meet Frodo's. "You didn't see the look in his eyes after he did it. If the punch hadn't winded me, his look certainly would have. It took away what little breath I had left." Merry's eyes looked far away. Far away from the staid study at Bag End to another place and time. "I saw the spirits of the old Tooks in his eyes, Frodo. Bandobras Took who routed that orc invasion into the Shire in, what was the year? Eleven something. Three hundred years ago. Yes, a fierceness that came from very deep inside. I'd no idea what I had aroused in him." Merry's gaze returned to the present. He looked again at Frodo, a self depreciating grin showed about his lips and in his eyes. "Not, mind you, that I really had any idea of what I was doing at all." His eyes went back to staring at his tea. "If any hobbit ever deserved to be hit by another hobbit, I did."

Neither spoke for several long minutes. Frodo looked at Merry's slumped shoulders, his bowed head and his heart ached. If there were two hobbits who were the epitomes of hobbitish cheerful high spirits it was Merry and Pippin. He waited a bit longer but Merry's thoughts had obviously wandered elsewhere. Frodo knew at which point in the tale things had gone sour, he knew what had set Merry off. What Frodo didn't know was why. He leaned forward to get Merry’s attention.

"What exactly is it that Pippin doesn't know about coming of age?"

Merry's head came up so fast that the tea in his mug sloshed over the rim. Fear, surprise, anger and confusion all showed on his face. His body tensed then just as quickly collapsed even lower into the chair than it had been before.

"Oh Frodo, It's . . . I'm . . . " Merry struggled with words that weren't adequate to the feelings inside. The dam burst, the flood rushed out. "I'll be Master of the Hall! I'll have to be head of the family and head of Buckland and my Father will be dead and I won't have time . . ." Merry gulped in some air, "I won't have time for, I won't be . . . I'll have to be grown up and Pippin is still in his tweens and I won't be able to run around with him anymore and I'll have lost them both." Merry appeared to have shrunk into the big overstuffed chair. His body shook with sobs and anger. He hit the arm of the chair with his fist. "I don't want to come of age but I can't avoid it. I don't want any of it. I want to stay the same. It's not right. It's not right to do all that to someone just because they're a year older. One stupid year older and your doom hangs over your head." He was staring unblinkingly into Frodo's eyes.

"You're running way ahead of yourself, Merry." Frodo said. He returned Merry's stare but with a solid calm in the face of Merry's anger. He kept his voice soft and relaxed. "Your Dad is fine."

"But he isn't!"

Frodo blinked as he sat back in his chair. "He isn't?"

"Well," Merry hesitated, then took a deep breath before continuing more quietly than before. "Well I guess he's better now. I don't feel sure though. He's been sick so much this last year, you remember?"

Frodo nodded. He'd not thought about it but Saradoc Brandybuck had been sick a lot the previous year, one time quite seriously. "I'd forgotten Merry but yes your family had a rough time over the last year. He's better now though. I saw him last week and he said he's as well as ever."

"He says it, but is he? I'm just not sure. He came close to . . . to dying five months ago. Only five months. And that's when it hit me, once I turn thirty-three it would all fall to me. I would be Master of Buckland only because of being thirty-three. Not because I would be ready for it. Certainly not because I want it just yet. Just because of a number; a stupid number."

Merry took a deep breath then let it out slowly. He wanted to stay calm, he’d had enough of losing his temper at his cousins. "After that I couldn't let the thought go. It haunted me. I've kept watching my Dad for any signs that he was getting sick again. And then, when I finally felt that I didn't have to watch him so closely I started going off with Pippin once more." Merry smiled. "It was so great. I'd missed him and his cheerfulness, missed the fun we have. But . . ."

Merry breathed deeply again as the smile faded. He was still working hard at keeping his composure. He turned his head a bit to stare out the study window. "But soon I started to think that if, if I had to be Master of Buckland, then I wouldn't have time for Pippin any longer. I couldn't act wild or have fun with him any longer. And like the thoughts of my Dad dying, I couldn’t shake the thoughts of not being with Pippin. I started to fear and hate everything that has to do with coming of age. I felt I couldn't talk to anyone about it either. I didn't want my Dad to think I was turning against my family and who we are, who I am, and I didn't want to frighten Pippin. Ha! I called Pippin a fool." He turned his gaze back to meet Frodo's eyes and Frodo saw a deep, awful emptiness there. "But I'm the fool Frodo. A worse fool than Pip has ever been. I let everything go at him and none of it's his fault. He said an innocent thing, but the wrong thing, and I let my anger and fears stab him in the heart." Merry's voice faded to a barely heard whisper. "I've brought about the thing I dreaded, I've lost my dearest friend."

It was done at last. Merry breathed a heavy sigh. He felt as drained and empty as his eyes looked. Yet the telling had started the healing. After a few moments there was a tiny spark of hope in his heart.

"What do you think Frodo? Do you think he'll forgive me?"

"Of course he will!"

The answer came not from Frodo but from the study window. Frodo and Merry jumped in surprise then both turned to see Sam standing outside.

"You're a fool indeed, Mr. Merry, if you think any different!" Sam said through the window in the voice he used to address little hobbits who asked silly questions. "Will he forgive you? Do you think for one minute that Mr. Pippin cares less for you than you do for him? And you can't really think he know's nothin’ of all of that carryin’ on for one's family stuff. Who's to be The Took and Thain of the Shire some day? Young Master Pippin's not the most deep thinkin’ soul, but he surely knows who he is and what's before him. Thought you were smarter than that I did!"

"Care to come in and join the conversation Sam? It seems you've been listening anyway." Frodo was having trouble hiding the laugh that was rising inside of him. Sam had a habit of eavesdropping.

Sam stood up a little straighter and lifted his chin a bit higher than usual. "No thank you, Mr. Frodo, I've got flowers I'm plantin’," he said then walked off with an indignant air.

Frodo looked at Merry, Merry looked at Frodo. Laughter burst out of them. They laughed until tears came and they were gasping for air.

"He's got me." Merry finally wheezed out the words. "He's got me dead to rights." A few more deep breaths and Merry continued. "What do you suggest cousin Frodo, do I send a message to Great Smials or just show up on the doorstep?"

Frodo thought for a few moments. "A message. Tell him you're greatly sorry and wish to talk with him alone at Brandy Hall when the Tooks come to help with your birthday preparations. It might help if you no longer seem to be dreading your birthday. Pippin will see that you've thought about things, that the apology is sincere. We'll send it Immediate Delivery by the Messenger Service, it should get there by this evening at the latest. That will give him plenty of time to mull things over while he and his family are on their way to Brandy Hall." A sly grin came to Frodo's lips. "And you need be extra sweet to your dear Mother, Master Meriadoc Brandybuck."

"Always, Dear Cousin. Why the reminder?"

"What was her maiden name? Now let me see if I remember." Frodo's grin grew broader, his eyes sparkled. "Ah yes! Took! Pippin's Aunt Esmeralda as I recall. A sister to Pippin's Father isn't she? Those same Tooks you insulted so badly aren't they? "

Merry's mouth dropped open, his eyes grew huge. "Oh dear!" He closed his eyes as a shiver passed through him. "I called my Mum a fool!" Then suddenly he laughed. He looked at Frodo. "I owe myself a letter of apology too! I'm half Took!" Frodo and Merry both laughed long and heartily.

"Where do you keep your pen and paper?" Merry said when at last he'd caught his breath. "I've at least one letter to write."

The paper, pen and ink were produced, the letter written, then taken by Sam to the Postmaster's office with word that it was to be delivered immediately. After a afternoon tea, Merry started on his journey home to Brandy Hall on a pony Frodo loaned him, feeling better than he had felt in months.