Written for the hobbit_ficathon "Pippin's POV" challenge.

Heroes of the Shire

We’ve been sitting here in silence for a long time, Merry and I. This great stone before us looks rather out of place here on the hillside; even more so when one remembers why it’s here. It’s a solid thing with its list of names clearly engraved on it so that no-one will forget the hobbits who fell two years ago. As if we ever could! I have thought of them often. Riding about the countryside so proudly in my bright uniform it sometimes hits me so hard that I have to stop and sit down for a while, and ask myself why I deserve to be so fortunate, and so honoured wherever I go, when these hobbits here did no less than I did. They chose to fight for the Shire too, but it still makes me sad that they had to make that choice, and that we could not protect them in the end.

Yet all the while I sit here and remember them, it is Frodo I am really thinking of, for he is gone forever, and I wonder if he will ever be honoured as he deserves to be.

I thought once that battles were an adventure and heroes always defeated their foes and returned safely, living happily ever after ‘til the end of their days. It certainly was never supposed to be like this. I am far too old to think such things, but I still wish it could have been like in the stories; that Frodo could have lived on at Bag End, as he has for the whole of my life, re-inventing his own tales to make them fit for little lads and lasses’ ears. But if it was like in the stories, we wouldn’t be sitting here now, remembering those brave hobbits, or thinking of our cousin who gave us everything he had so that we may have our Shire. I love it all the more for knowing that, though now I seem to cry as often as I smile for loving it so much.

"Come on then, Pip," Merry says suddenly in a bright voice, using my shoulder to support him as he stands up, shaking the stiffness from his legs. "Sam will make us regret it if we’re late."

His eyes aren’t nearly as bright as his words, but I decide to go along with what he wants, and I even manage a smile. "He’d better not start eating without us again."

There are reasons enough to be cheerful after all. There is the prospect of Rosie’s apple crumble, Elanor’s smile, and surely a Frodo-lad to come before long. There is my Merry of course, and all the others out there in Middle-earth who I miss more dearly now than ever before. Sometimes I wonder if Strider is keeping an eye on us, and I rather hope he is, for it makes me smile to think so, strange as it is. I wonder what else he has seen… if he too watched Frodo leave us.

When we arrive at Bag End, light spills from the windows and we are welcomed with smiles and warm embraces. It isn’t long before we are seated around the table piling food on our plates. Frodo isn’t there of course, but he is part of our stories and laughter later on, and our quiet moments on The Hill even later as we smoke our pipes. I am glad of that, even though we can't pretend that Bag End isn't different, for whilst he is in our thoughts, he doesn't feel nearly so far away. So we shall think of him with every new season, and every babe we are blessed with, and every day in between, because that is what he has given us, and no name on a piece of stone, even if it stood forever as a record of what he did, could remind us of that dear old hobbit so well.