Title: A Merry Life: Pippin
Author: Anso the Hobbit
Beta: Marigold

Characters: Merry, Pippin

Timeline: Whitwell, SR 1402, so Merry is 20 and Pippin 12 years old

"Pip?" Your voice felt raw and your throat sore after being awake all night and watching over your young cousin. It hadn´t been the Winter Sickness this time, but a glorious snowball fight that had left all of you wet and with runny noses, but Pippin had become worse during the night, and you blamed yourself for not managing to keep him dry, but you hadn´t the heart not to allow him to play along with the rest of you. Why shouldn´t Pippin have at least some of the fun you and the others had, just because he was of frailer build and got sick more often than you and the others? It was not good for the lad to always be cosseted and treated like fragile crystal, sometimes he had to be allowed to be a lad, and seeing to it was your job, as much as was looking out for him and caring for him when he was ill.

You knew that you yourself were exceedingly healthy and in all of your twenty years of life, you could only remember being ill twice, the time when the Brandywine had flooded and you had ridden to Standelf and back in the cold rain, * and the time you had been visiting in Whitwell and come down with the common pox**.

Why Pippin? You loved your little cousin more than life itself, and sometimes your heart was so full of love for him that you couldn’t understand how you had any room left for the others you also loved, but of course you did. Why did he have to be so sick, so very often? It wasn´t fair. Pippin did all he could to prevent becoming ill, but lads are lads, and snow is a rare treat in the Shire, at least in amounts large enough to make a decent snowball fight.

Pippin coughed again, and once more you wrung out the cloth you had ready in a basin on the nightstand. Tears gathered in your eyes, as you again remembered the times you´d almost lost him. His first two or three years had been so difficult, and many times you had wondered if he´d survive at all. Auntie Tina had been ill to start with too, but had improved just as her lad had. As he had grown older, Pippin had done all he could to keep up with lads his own age, and often failed. It broke your heart to see that he couldn´t run as fast or jump as far or continue as long as the rest of the lads, and you set your mind to finding new and exciting things for Pippin to do that would push him yet not tax him, and that would amuse him quietly while he was recovering from his illnesses. A winter rarely passed without Pippin being cooped up in bed for at least a fortnight here and there, and you could never predict if his sniffling and coughing would end in a bout of the Winter Sickness or not.

*****

You contemplated this as you counted the bruises on Pippin´s body and watched them fade hour by hour as you devotedly sat by his bed, watching and hoping and waiting for a miracle while praying to the Valar that he would be well this time too.

* "Heir to Buckland"

** “Fields of Gold”

A/N – The “Winter Sickness” was invented by Baylor and Marigold, and first used in Baylor’s story, “Handkerchiefs and Mushroom Soup”.