Frodo adjusted the wick upon the lamps, causing the shadows about the room to grow short and then long, distorting the corners of the room.

He yawned and turned as Merry, from across the bed, demanded, “Well?” He managed to sound as if he had his arms crossed across his chest and his foot tapping demandingly, despite the fact that he was actually in the midst of tying his nightshirt, his light-colored curls sticking oddly out from his head where he’d drawn it over them.

“Well?” Merry demanded again. “You had fun, didn’t you?”

Frodo sighed and fluffed his pillow. “I had fun, Merry,” he said to the pillow before climbing into the bed.

Merry nodded, satisfied, and began arranging what had been the contents of his pockets on top of the chest of drawers. “I knew you would,” he said with satisfaction. “Morning Glory is quite pretty, isn’t she? I shouldn’t be surprised if that’s the sort of hobbitess you’d slip a ring onto the finger of one of these days, hey?”

Merry chattered on, oblivious to Frodo suddenly sitting upright behind him and casting a nervous glance at the pocket of his trousers where they were flung across a chair.

“I mean, the Master of Bag End has to wed someone, doesn’t he?” Mery asked as he turned away from his neat piles to face Frodo with a grin.

“Frodo? What’s wrong?” His smile faded as Merry took a tentative step toward the bed.

Frodo closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh, shaking his head at the thought of Bilbo’s legacy. “Bilbo was Master of Bag End bfore me, and he never married, Merry,” he said. He opened his eyes to fix his cousin with another of his grave looks. “Thank you for trying to help, Merry, but I do still miss him. I still think it may have been too soon for another birthday party,” he said kindly.

“I – I just wanted to help,” Merry said, wrinkling up his nose so he wouldn’t cry.

“I know, Merry,” Frodo said in the same kind tone. “And thank you. But—“ He left the sentence unfinished and shrugged, then patted the pillow next to him. “Why don’t you come to bed?” he asked.

Merry blinked fast and shook his head, reaching to draw on a dressing gown. “I have to say goodnight to Pippin first,” he said.

“Oh. All right,” Frodo said, sliding down to lie beneath the covers. “You can blow the lamp out when you come back.”

“Pippin?” Merry hissed into the door of his cousin’s room. “Are you still awake? Pippin?” He sidled through the doorway into the room, holding his hands out in front of him in case of any unexpected obstacles as he made his way to the bed.

Merry knew better than to assume no answer meant no Pippin. The lad could be playing a trick on him or, even if he were asleep and Merry left without the promised goodnight kiss, he knew he would have to ‘fess up about it to his little cousin the next day, and Pippin would be hurt.

“Pippin!” Merry hissed again, having reached the bed, where he felt about and found it empty. He reached for Pippin’s lamp and turned it up to see that the bedclothes were undisturbed.

Merry kicked one of the storage drawers that made up the base of Pippin’s bed closed and turned the lamp down again. There really was no other place for the lad to be in his own room. Aunt Eglantine and Uncle Paladin must have carried him from the party. Likely Pippin had fallen asleep.

Merry belted his dressing gown tighter and went through the door of Pippin’s room that led to the rest of the family quarters. He knocked timidly on Uncle Pad and Aunt Eg’s door when he heard soft voices behind it. The voices stopped abruptly, and Uncle Pad soon opened the door and stood looking at Merry.

“Yes. What ‘tis it?” he asked his nephew, his brow furrowing with light concern.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Uncle Pad,” Merry whispered. “It’s just that I promised, this visit, that even if I wasn’t sharing a room with Pippin that I’d be sure to tell him goodnight.”

“All right,” Paladin said, and looked at Merry quizzically, waiting for him to continue.

“So,” Merry prompted after a few moments’ silence, “may I come in to say goodnight?”

“Come in to say,” Paladin repeated, his brow furled, and then he said with sudden certainty. “Pippin isna in this room, Merry.”

“He isn’t?” Merry asked, his face furrowing in his own confusion as he began to feel the beginnings of alarm. “But he isn’t in his own room, either,” he pointed out.

“He—“ Paladin’s face became grim, and the door closed for a second before reopening as he emerged pulling on his own dressing gown.

Merry scampered to keep up at his uncle’s heels as Paladin’s tall strides crossed the quarters to place him before his daugthers’ doors.

“Pearl!” he called as he knocked upon the first one, and then pushed the door gently open.

The lass who had just turned 27 sat up in bed, rubbing at her eyes. Her curls still hung in ringlets about her face, loose ends of ribbons escaping from some of them.

“Da?” she asked, blinking her eyes against the light which came into the room through the open door.

“Pearl, is your brother staying with you tonight?” Paladin asked, gripping tightly to the side of the door.

“Nay,” Pearl yawned. “Nay unless he has snuck within. Pippin! Pippin?” she called, waving her hand half-heartedly over the bed and toward the space beneath. “Pippin? Are you in here?”

“Nay,” Paladin muttered, pulling Pearl’s door shut and going on to Pimpernel’s. She did not answer his calls from the doorway, and he pushed open his middle daughter’s door to the sound of her snores. Paladin reached behind him and pushed Merry into the room to look around. Pimpernel slept on, one foot dangling out from beneath the covers, while her hand hung off the corner of the bed diagonally opposite. Merry found no signs of Pippin.

At Pervinca’s doorway – her door stood open – Merry and Paladin both relaxed as they saw two lumps in the bed. “Go ahead, lad,” Paladin said, pushing Merry forward. “Say your goodnight.”

Merry tiptoed to the side of the bed and bent to touch the top of the lump opposite Pervinca’s face.

A funny expression came ovedr his own face, and he whipped the blankets back to reveal a large stuffed sheep, just as Pervinca sat bolt upright and shrieked.

“Pippin? Pippin? Peregrin!”

The cries echoed through the night as dozens of hobbits searched the grounds around the Great Smials, their lanterns bobbing as they bent to look into nooks and crannies among the outbuildings.

Paladin and Eglantine came at last face to face with each other before the Great Door. They stood staring a moment, each noting the other’s arms were empty, before Eg finally reached her hands out to Pad.

“There – there was nothing in the creek,” he informed her as he held her close, her curls tucked under his chin. “And nae among the cattle, or the ponies, either,” he said heavily.

Eg looked up with tears running down her face and said plaintively, “But then, where is he, Pad?”

“I dinna know,” the young hobbit’s father answered and squeezed her close as he looked at the dark horizon above his head. “But he’s got to be found.”

Frodo had heard the comment about the creek as he searched in the shadows of the steps leading to the Great Door, and he suppressed a shudder as he remembered another loss, and another twelve-year-old lad.

He moved toward his Brandybuck cousin, gently putting a hand on Merry’s shoulder to stop his pacing the same bit of ground, his lantern swinging to and fro.

“Merry,” Frodo said gently, “you have to help if you want to help look.”

“I am looking!” Merry exclaimed, spinning round to seethe at Frodo as tears fell from his eyes. “It’s got to be thorough!” he informed Frodo. “We have to look for anything that could help us find him!”

“Merry,” Frodo let his hand fall to his side and looked at the ground. “Whatever happens, it’s not your fault.”

Frodo knew he didn’t sound sincere, but he just hoped Merry could take this wise bit of advice better than he had, himself, when it came from Merry’s father in relation to Bilbo’s disappearance.

Merry glared tearfully at him again. Evidently not.

“Frodo,” Merry said tightly as he swung his lantern toward the ground again, “we none of us even missed him.”

Pippin whimpered at the swaying beneath him. ‘Twas making his head and his tummy hurt, ‘twas. He opened his eyes a slit and then closed them, for ‘twas dark either way. He whimpered again.