Frodo’s joy had been genuine and full, Merry and Pippin knew, as great as theirs had been, when they had discovered that, against all hope, they had all survived the war. Their cousin had been flooded with light and it was easy to ignore even the maimed hand that had so horrified the young hobbits when they had first seen it. During that ecstatic reunion, they could believe he had escaped virtually unscathed from their long separation and was the same dear one they had loved all their lives, instead of the desperately fearful one who had left then a little more than a month before. Had it only been that long? It felt like years, but all that fear for his and their own survival had fallen away once they had held each other again. But as the days passed, the two hobbits discovered deep shadows in their beloved cousin’s eyes.

Merry and Pippin went out of their way to make him laugh, staying with him as constantly as their duties allowed (and Aragorn and Eomer made sure that those duties included “guarding the Ring-bearer and his companion”). At first Frodo’s laughs had been full, and they had all rejoiced, especially Sam, who never strayed from his beloved master’s side, but soon that mirth became paler and paler echoes of the original joy and the smiles that had at first sparkled in his eyes rarely reached there. The Ring-bearer showered his cousins with as much love as ever and teased them about being so tall, but there was a sadness also ever there, a wistful longing for a life that they all began to fear had become nothing but a fond memory, lost in the unreachable, untouchable past. It was as though something essential had been burned away or bled away from that gap where one of Frodo’s fingers was now missing, a gap they were all desperate to fill, but were unable to figure out exactly how to.

The two younger hobbits took Frodo and Sam on tours of the city, away from the damaged sections, to try to distract their cousin, but the Ring-bearer’s initial interest faded as he and Sam were sought out by myriad strangers who wanted to thank them for what they had done and both hobbits were increasingly uncomfortable with all that praise, neither feeling they deserved it. Frodo would have stayed inside all day and merely stared longingly out the windows had not Sam insisted they get out for some fresh air every day. So for his dearest guardian’s sake who had sacrificed so much to keep him alive and safe, the Ring-bearer exercised his healing limbs each morning in the garden near where they had been given quarters, away from where most anyone who could watch them, but under Sam’s watchful, loving eye. He had a genuine smile for his beloved guardian at each roundabout as Sam called it, and also ate as well as he could to please the three brothers of his heart. If anyone else saw them, Frodo fought against the need to go immediately inside again. His manners were too well formed and he bowed and spoke politely to each one until he pled fatigue and retired back indoors to rest each day in the afternoon. The other three hobbits mourned for this, their cousin and friend who had once had so much energy.

“What can we do to help him?” the three pleaded to Aragorn and Gandalf any moment they could when they knew Frodo was resting and couldn’t hear them. “He should be getting better and he isn’t.”

The king and wizard looked into their tear-bright, concerned eyes. “My dear hobbits, you are already doing it,” Gandalf assured them each time. “Keep loving him just as you are. He treasures the time he has with you, even if he doesn’t always tell you how much he does. It reminds him of why he fought so hard to succeed in the Quest. Your love and your light gives him hope he can heal.”

“Then why isn’t he?” Pippin asked plaintively for what seemed to be the hundredth time. “He isn’t eating properly for a hobbit and he isn’t sleeping much at all. He cries out almost every night from terrors that only Sam can rescue him from. His wounds are healing, but he’s not.”

“It’s not his physical wounds that are hurting him, Pip,” Merry said softly. “It’s like when Eowyn and I were hurt by the Witch-king.” He looked up at Gandalf. “Frodo is drowning in even worse darkness, isn’t he?”

Pippin looked fearfully at his cousin, remembering that dreadful time when his Merry had lain so still and pale and cold and so un-Merry. He gripped his cousin’s hand fiercely to drive away those memories. Merry held on just as tightly.

“Yes,” Gandalf replied gently, “it is much the same darkness, but you are all calling him back.”

“You forget also, Pippin,” Aragorn said in the same tone, “that Frodo and Sam were traveling on very light rations for some weeks. It’ll take his stomach some time to re-adjust, just as it will take his heart sometime to adjust to the memories of what he endured. This is normal for anyone who faced lesser horrors than Frodo did and he had to face the worst of any, far more than anyone should have had to.”

“But someone had to do it,” Sam said quietly, “and he wouldn’t have had it any other way. I wish it were me, I wish it had been me.”

Aragorn was moved to kneel and hold out his arms for the little hobbit. Sam hesitated only a moment before he threw himself into those strong arms and wept long and bitterly for his beloved master’s pain. Merry and Pippin sought Gandalf’s arms and sobbed out their own agony. The king and wizard looked at each other over their friends’ heads and saw some of the same pain mirrored there. They were concerned also for the faded hobbit they saw before them. Had they asked too much of Frodo? The answer came back swiftly. Of course, they had, but Frodo never looked at them with any accusation. He had accepted the burden willingly and had succeeded beyond their wildest hopes. None knew how hard the road would be, but Gandalf knew it would be far more harrowing than Frodo could have imagined. Still he knew now Frodo would have gone on, even if he had known. Truly, hobbits were the most amazing creatures.

The three hobbits broke away from their respective embraces, gathered around each other and wiped at one another’s tears. They all had a smile for each other and for Frodo when he awoke and teasing words and an outpouring of love so deep that Frodo could only drown in it, happy for a moment at least. Gandalf and Aragorn smiled. Yes, amazing creatures.

Frodo’s eyes remained shadowed, though, and hollowed with much pain they wished to ease, but he was still able to smile for them and for Gandalf and Aragorn and greet them all with a warm embrace. Gandalf remembered, though, the many other hugs he had been given and those had been from a being full of light and free of cares. Though his light shined through even more refined now, and the wizard knew at least Sam was aware of that by the way the younger hobbit looked at his beloved master, Frodo himself seemed to be aware of nothing but his cares that now filled him as much as joy once had.

The Ring-bearer tried to believe, as his wizard friend and king assured him, that each day dawned brightly because of what he and Sam had endured, that sun kissed the city instead of the darkness of Mordor that the two of them had walked in. He believed that for Sam, believed it even for Smeagol, but he could not believe it for himself. He had expended himself totally and willingly, but for all his efforts, he had failed in the end. It was only an accident that had caused the victory that he had nothing to do with and which had cost Smeagol his life. Frodo could not see past that double failure to save himself or their wretched guide. It consumed his soul and he realized the Ring had burned away a hole there that he doubted anything could ever heal.

“It’s early yet,” Aragorn and Gandalf had said, both to him and to the other three hobbits when they continued to go to the king and wizard, both of whom had seen enough trauma caused to the spirit by war against Morgoth and his servant, but they worried too. Lives were being rebuilt and fashioned anew by those who had lost husbands or sons or fathers or limbs. But Aragorn and Gandalf both grieved for the wounds they could not treat, deep inside the souls of those most touched by the blight that had been Sauron. All of them were innocent and undeserving of such pain. Still, they all struggled to go on. And most were gradually succeeding.

But none had been as tormented by the darkness as had Frodo. He felt himself shattering inside as he had during the months he had actively borne the Ring. The burns around his neck healed well enough and the tenderness of the soles of his feet went away as new skin formed and hardened, but he felt himself constantly fighting an interior battle to keep from swallowed by the hole at the center of his soul. He had been violated beyond endurance and he constantly fought against the rising panic that was nothing left of himself that the Ring hadn’t soiled beyond redemption. It exhausted him to try to keep all his agony inside of him, to choke down the tears and screams that crawled up his throat and demanded release. His jaws ached with the need to keep his torment away from those he loved most and wished to burden the least.

He knew he didn’t always succeed. Sometimes he would wake and Sam or one of his cousins would be holding him, rocking him, murmuring comforts and wiping tears, and he would knew he had failed to keep his pain from them. It only caused him to redouble his efforts, to strangle new tears that ached for release, to clamp his jaw down on screams that echoed so loudly in his heart it was a wonder that the entire city did not hear them. He knew from the look in his fellow hobbits’ eyes that they heard them and he was ashamed that he had failed in his attempt to shelter them as he had failed so many other times to protect them from the evils Sauron had wrought.

“You are poisoning your efforts at recovering if you try to keep this all inside, mellon nin,” Aragorn told him gently as had Gandalf. “Any wound that is not lanced can become infected and the entire limb lost.”

Frodo raised eyes full of his torment, bright with tears he dared not release when around the others he held so dear. Aragorn felt his own eyes fill to see such pain.

“I think I am already lost,” the Ring-bearer said very softly for he discovered the desire even now for the Ring would not leave him, leaving instead such aching loss, he could nothing but choke on his tears and rage and hurt.

Aragorn knelt down and opened his arms. Frodo came into them and sobbed out his agony. In that tight embrace, the king sent a fervent prayer to the Valar and Iluvatar Himself that as his tears touched the hobbit’s curls they would also bless and cleanse the little one’s tormented soul. Let your servant king heal your smallest servant.

Frodo did not, however, take either of his friends advice about opening up. “I’m glad Sam was with me,” was all he would say when prodded gently and sometimes not so gently about what he had endured. Sam was no more forthcoming when approached privately. “It’s Mr. Frodo’s tale, and if he ain’t telling it, then neither am I.”

“If you don’t tell us what happened, cousin,” Pippin once threatened, “then I will make sure you never have mushrooms to eat again!”

Frodo looked at his beloved cousin, still getting used to the fact that he now had to look up instead of down to reach those dear eyes. He smiled sadly, kissed those dear curls and said, “Then I suppose I shall have to go without. You are so full of cheer and light, my Pipsqueak. I cannot bear to fill you with darkness. I’m sorry, dearest. I know you want to help, but there’s nothing...”

The tween placed a finger on his lips. “Shhh, don’t say there’s nothing I can do. There’s got to be something, something we can all do for you. Don’t think we can’t see what’s happening to you inside. It’s tearing you and us up, and knowing how stubborn you are, you silly Baggins, you are going to try to hide it all the more, but you can’t. Can’t you see that?”

Frodo looked up with a faint smile at his beloved cousin. His lips trembled with the tears and torment he so longed to release, but feared to as he looked into his cousin’s loving, concerned eyes. He drowned in those soft depths and at last, surrendered his control to that love, placed his head against that beloved chest and wept long and hard.

Pippin gathered his brother-cousin close as Frodo’s agony poured out of him and over them both. He held him as tenderly and protectively as he remembered his mum holding him when he had had a nightmare or bad fall. He rocked his dear one as he and his sisters had been rocked and murmured the same comforts he and they had heard, kissed his head, encouraged the tears that broke his heart to hear. Frodo’s agony was like a thing alive between them and Pippin nearly quailed at the strength of it, awed and grieved that so much was held inside, but as it was between them, the younger hobbit was able to crush it as best he might under all the love he could muster.

It still remained when Frodo at last raised his head and the tween wiped his tears away, but it was less and both hobbits could only rejoice in that. Pippin was rewarded with a loving, grateful smile. He knew he would do anything and everything he could to make sure those smiles continued. He would fight the agony he could still clearly see until it disappeared totally as he would any blight that threatened those he treasured most. He adjusted his hold on his cousin and carried him to bed.

Frodo tried to squirm out of those strong arms, amazed anew that his youngest heartbrother could even carry him. “Pippin! Put me down! I can walk.”

The tween only tightened his grip. “Sam carried you to the fire, dearest, and we are all going to carry you out of it. Don’t think I can’t see it still burning in your eyes.”

Frodo looked as though he was going to withdraw within himself again, but Pippin’s next words stopped him. “Don’t go all stubborn on me again, Frodo Baggins,” he was admonished sternly. “Don’t you know that I’ve always known and loved your heart? It’s no good trying to hide.”

Frodo couldn’t decide whether to pout or cry again, he was so moved. He settled for something in between and swatted his cousin’s arm. “Don’t you have any respect for your betters?”

Pippin looked down at his heartbrother who was softly smiling up at him. He could have happily stared into the love that streamed from those beloved eyes, temporarily overwhelming the pain. He smiled back and kissed that dear brow, then laid his treasure down on the bed, helped him into his nightshirt and tucked the sheets up to his chin. Frodo’s smile only increased and was again returned. The tween also made sure there was a glass of water on the nightstand for Frodo often woke thirsty, and more often than not, still half-dreaming and in a panic if he didn’t have water nearby. Pippin took his hand and began to sing softly.

“Sleep now,

And fear not the darkness.

There’s nothing can harm you,

Let go all your fear.

Sleep now,

Rest safe till the morning,

And when you awaken, I’ll be here.

“Sleep now,

And know I’ll be with you

To hold and protect you

Whatever befall.

Sleep now,

For I’ll e’er be nigh you

To hear you and answer when you call.

“Sleep now,

May no shadow touch you.

O close now your eyes, dear,

Lay down all your care.

Sleep now,

And know I’ll be by you,

Your every joy and woe to share.

“Sleep now,

For I will not leave you.

All through the long night

Beside you I’ll stay.

Sleep now,

And know that I’ll love you,

Keep and defend you all my days.

“Sleep now,

My joy, my beloved,

And know that I’ll never

From you depart.

Sleep now,

And know that whatever

This life may hold, you’ll be in my heart.”

Frodo brought up Pippin’s hand, kissed it and then placed it so it rested palm up against his cheek. “Thank you, my ’squeak, I love you,” he breathed and fell into peaceful sleep.

The tween looked at his beloved cousin, glowing softly within, a gentle smile still on his face. The younger hobbit knew he would ever tire at looking at such pure beauty. He leaned down to kiss Frodo’s brow. “Goodnight, dearest. Sleep well. I love you, too.”

A/N; The song is by Queen Galadriel.