FOUR

”Pip?” Sneeze. Sigh. Shuffle. Wait. “Pippin!” Wait. “PIPPIN!” Cough. Wait. Shuffle. Thump. Shiver. ”Bother! I’ll just do it myself then.”

“Merry! Get back onto that sofa with you at once. I said to call if you needed anything.” Pippin said, poking his head around the corner to the parlour and finding Merry standing halfway between the sofa and an armchair, his hand reaching out for the blanket wrapped over the back of the chair. “I’ll get your mum and Estella if you don’t do as I say and you know they would shoo you off to bed in a twinkling and send the healers to fuss over you, but I promised that I would look after you and they did agree on the one condition that you’d lie on the sofa."

Merry, knowing his mother and wife too well resigned and crawled back onto the sofa and huddled under his blanket. “I did call,” he mumbled, coughing again. Pippin eyed him critically before his eyes and voice softened as he looked at his cousin. “I am sorry I didn’t hear you. I was in the study talking to Uncle. What do you need Merry? Did you want that blanket?” Merry was pale except for two red spots on his cheeks and a red nose. His eyes were watery and his curls stood about wildly as if he had been lying in bed too long. A growing stack of used handkerchiefs were lying on the table beside him, a dwindling stack of fresh ones ready beside it. The fire was burning brightly on the hearth and several candles and lamps were lit. An open book lay on the floor beside the sofa.

“Yes, please, I’m cold.” Merry tried to sit up straight but his head felt like ten times it real weight and he slid down so his head rested against the backrest of the sofa. He sneezed and reached blindly for a fresh handkerchief, keeping his other hand over his nose and mouth.

Pippin reached for the blanket lying on the armchair and waited till Merry had dried his nose before pushing his cousin down into a lying position and wrapping both blankets around him. “I'll be back with tea in a minute, but would you like some pillows too? You'd be more comfortable that way."

Merry nodded and blew his nose noisily. “Dank you, Pip.”

After tea Pippin helped Diamond and Estella take the empty dishes back to the kitchen and Merry lay down to sleep a little. When he woke he was covered in yet another blanket and a smaller version of his own face peered worriedly at him. "Hullo, Da."

“Hullo, sweetie," Merry said and looked at his son and smiled. Perry - or Periadoc as his full name was - had Merry’s golden curls and face but Estella's brown eyes. “Was it you who gave me this blanket?" Merry lifted the corner of a white and yellow quilt that lay on top of the two woollen blankets he already was covered with.

“Yes. You were shivering so I went to get it in the chest in my bedroom,” Perry said, quite proud of the task of carrying the large blanket. He was only three years old and the blanket was heavy.

“Dank you," Merry said and closed his eyes again.

“Poor Da,” Perry said and patted Merry on the cheek. Merry smiled and ruffled his curls before he once again slipped into sleep.

When next he woke Estella was sitting on the sofa beside him. She kissed his forehead and frowned. He was a little too hot but not much. "It's late. We'd better get you to bed."

Merry nodded. It was all right to sleep on the sofa during the day but he preferred his bed at night. Struggling to get up, Merry wrapped all three blankets around himself and stumbled off to bed. Sighing wearily he lay down, still wrapped in his blankets and drew the cover up on top of them.

“Aren’t you feeling too warm?” Estella said, and felt his face again.

“No. I’m quite comfortable," Merry curled up and buried himself in his mound of blankets and started to snore.

Estella looked at her cocooned husband and couldn’t help but smile. Shaking her head she climbed in beside him. She knew that before morning he would throw off most of the blankets but being comfortable is such an essential thing to hobbits that if four blankets was what Merry needed now then she was not going to deny him them.