For Pippin the dreams are dark waters, and he sinks without a ripple beneath their surface. Sometimes the Uruk-hai surround him--he sees Merry fall with a cruel blow to the head, and is swept up himself into whirling, stinking chaos; or it might be the endless run across the plain, and the cruel lash of the orc-whips at his heels.

He dreams also of the killings--those slain before him, and those he slew. He can kill, he knows that now, and the knowledge is heavy even in his waking hours. When he sleeps he is presented with each death in wrenching detail, and he sees also the deaths of those who died before his eyes--Boromir, feathered with black arrows, and also the many he saw fall in the battles at Minas Tirith and the Black Gate. The reeking dead and piteous wounded line up for his inspection and he must look at them all, for in dreams he cannot close his eyes and shut them away.

Pippin dreams of the troll which fell upon him at the Morannon--the terrible black weight, the sticky blood which nearly drowned him, the stench--above all, the stench. And then the long-seeming, terrible time afterward, before Merry came to comfort him and help him heal, when he lay fevered between life and death.

The worst of all his dreams show him again to the Enemy, naked and helpless beneath the gaze of that fiery eye, shivering like a trapped animal in the predator's glare. He feels again the foul menace, the knowledge that he is filthy, small, worthless, useless.

He wakes noisily, struggling to emerge, fighting back in the only way he can remember, with arms and legs flailing, high voice ringing out in anguish and anger. He comes to on the floor sometimes, with Merry bent over him. Pippin can hardly see when first he wakes, so he never knows the fear that flickers across his cousin's face before Merry schools himself back to calm. When Pippin can focus his eyes once more, Merry is helping him climb back into bed, and often climbing in with him.

They talk about their nightmares to each other then. Sometimes Pippin cries, but more often he is almost dazed, and will recite the details of the dream in a flat voice: "And then... and then... and then..." The words roll out of him without volition, and Merry holds him tightly and strokes his hair until he feels Pippin shudder and relax at last.

"I wonder if it will ever get better," says Pippin one night, exhausted. His eyes are sunken, his cheeks thin; his sweet mouth is sad and the corners turn down uncharacteristically. Merry holds him close and lays his head on the chestnut curls. The autumn wind rushes softly through the trees outside the darkened room, and he knows a change is coming in the weather.

"I don't know, Pip," he says. "I think it will. I mean, things are better already, aren't they? At least now we're just dreaming about the awful things. We aren't in the middle of them any more." Pippin's lips curve up a little at this. "The dreams are awful, but they're only, only echoes, maybe. The real things, the true things, are all good." Merry lets him go with a pat and sits on the edge of the big bed. "Like today--could today have gotten much better?" He grins.

"It was a good day, wasn't it?" Pippin lies back on his pillow and a slow smile dawns. "Fatty's face when the wagon turned over and dumped him out..."

"And Uncle Sandheaver when the wheel went over his foot and then spilled his beets!"

Pippin tries to look remorseful but succeeds only in looking like he has smuggled sweets from the kitchen, and he gives up and grins again. "Well," he says, "He'll be fine. He does have enormously big feet, even for a Sandheaver."

"I just hope the pony recovers from its fright," says Merry with a snort of laughter. "Why did you run out in front of it, anyway?"

"I was trying to get away from the Cheever sisters," says Pippin indignantly. "Who you set onto me!"

Merry holds up his hands innocently. "I just told them you were cowering behind Widow Fuller's tanning stall."

Pippin sighs. "I had hoped the fumes would keep them away."

"Vain hope. They are after you, my dear Took."

Pippin makes a face. "As if a Took would be caught in a pantry, much less under a wedding canopy, with a Cheever lass." He passes his hand over his eyes and his smile fades. "I don't know, Merry-my-lad," he says.

"What do you not know? Your elder cousin can fill in any gaps in your education..." Merry's tone leaves no doubt that his mind is still on the Cheever sisters, who he, at least, might not scorn to meet in a pantry, if not beneath a canopy.

Pippin shifts fretfully, sitting up in bed. "What lass would have me, really have me, this way, like I am now?" A chilly draught creeps past Merry's dangling feet and he shivers.

"Oh, Pip," he says, sobering. "First off, you've no need worrying over such things for a long while yet--this isn't the North Farthing, no one is trying to marry you off before you've even got out of your tweens. And second," he puts his hand over the lad's mouth for a moment to stop him interrupting, "whatever do you mean? It's true that there's no lass now in the Shire who could really understand what you've been through. But that's true of us all--me, you, Frodo, Sam. And look at Sam, will you now? He's already married, and Rose seems to have no complaint about him."

"Do you think Sam has nightmares?" Pippin asks, startled out of his self-pity.

Merry squints at him in disbelief. "Well, yes, I'd say so. Considering that what he and Frodo went through was many times worse than what you and I did, and I know my own dreams are no summer picnic..."

Pippin touches Merry's arm. "Yes, you're right of course. It is just hard to imagine with Samwise, somehow. He's so, so, so..."

"Stoic?" suggests Merry.

"Yes. But I suppose he must. Poor Sam."

"Well, as I was saying. He does have Rose, luckily, and they seem quite happy together." Merry's lips quirk.

"Yes, maybe so," muses Pippin. "I haven't met any Roses yet."

"You don't need a Rose," says Merry with certainty. "Not sure what she'll be like, your lass, but when she comes along, you'll know her. And your nightmares won't matter to her." He scratches his chin. "Or your uncommonly long nose."

Pippin swats him. "How comforting you are, Meriadoc, really." He is surprised by a yawn of surprising proportions. "I think I must be... oh..." --he yawns once more-- "sleepy again now."

"All right then, Pippin." Merry begins to slide off the bed but his cousin stops him.

"Stay here?" he says, and in his eyes Merry sees an echo of the nightmare lurking.

"Certainly," he says. "Only scoot your underfed self over so a poor hobbit has some room." Pippin wiggles aside and Merry climbs under the quilts with him.

"Thank you," murmurs Pippin a few minutes later.

"You're welcome," yawns Merry, his own lids growing heavy. "Just don't wake me with bruises, that's all I ask…"

"Oh, do hush, Merry. You're safe as long as you don't start dreaming that I'm one of the Cheever sisters..." Pippin's voice trails away and silence falls over Crickhollow.