3. Outside the Shire

When they returned, Merry was waiting. He had been waiting every day for a year, sitting under a tree by the road that led to Bree at the border of the Shire. Merry rose and hailed them with a grin. They smiled in return, but the smiles never reached their eyes and Pippin would not smile at all, or even look at his cousin.

Merry shot a worried glance at Gandalf. The wizard sighed.

This was not how it was supposed to go. Sam, Frodo and Pippin would come back, they would laugh and joke with Merry and tell him wonderful stories of their adventures.

“Gandalf,” he began, but Gandalf beckoned him to watch. Immediately Merry turned his attention to his friends. They had dismounted and now stood together in a clump just a step outside of what passed for the border of the Shire. Pippin had his head resting on Frodo’s shoulder and Frodo had an arm around Pippin’s waist.

Holding him up, Merry thought. That should be me.

It was then that Merry realized that they were barely standing—barely alive, even. Merry recoiled, stricken.

With tears pushing at his throat, he realized that they meant to leave him and that Gandalf would not allow him to interfere.

“But where will they go?” he asked.

“Into the west.”

“Even Pippin?” he asked. There were tears in his eyes that thickened his voice and his chest hurt.

“I’m sorry Merry.” Gandalf fussed with his reins to give Merry enough time to scrub furiously at his face and take a few, shivering gulps of air. By the time he had mastered himself, Frodo, Sam and Pippin had mounted their ponies and disappeared without a word to him. His chest hurt so much he thought he might be dying.

“This was not how it was supposed to end,” he said, his voice shaking. Gandalf nodded curtly and urged his horse into a trot, disappearing quickly from view. Merry turned his feet towards home and arrived soon before dusk.

He stood with his hand on the door handle and looked over the west, where his friends would soon be sailing.

Somewhere there is a Shire with all four of us in it, he thought, and went inside.