Questions, Answers & Shame

Frodo held Merry tightly with his right arm while, without his even realizing it, his left hand sought out, found and clasped Gandalf’s hand which had come to rest on his left shoulder. The Wizard himself felt a need for a comforting touch. He loved the hobbits deeply, had done since his friendship with the Old Took. Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin had become dear to him even before the Quest. He counted Bilbo and Frodo as his dearest friends. Yet he himself was at a loss to explain why Pippin was the only one he felt parental towards.

Unlike Merry, Frodo’s gaze remained fixed on Pippin. He didn’t understand; the most Parsow and Strider had done was to cushion Pippin’s head with Parsow’s open-sided tunic which the healers wore over their robes. The lad was blue about his lips which also had red tinged frothy saliva on them, and he continued to flop and thrash about. Slowly, the frightful movements slowed. A dark, wet spot bloomed on the front of Pippin’s trousers then his young cousin lay still upon the ground. Strider scooped the lad up and set off at a rapid pace toward the Royal Wing of the Houses.

Frodo gave Merry a squeeze and a bit of a shake. “It’s over Merry. Strider’s picked Pippin up and is taking him to a room here at the Houses, I think. We need to follow.”

Merry numbly did as he was told as they all hurried after the King.

Parsow led the way to a large, fair room. Strider laid Pippin on one side of the large bed then he and Parsow began undressing their patient. Frodo suddenly thought about Sam, Gimli and Legolas. An errand lad had come into the room, standing ready by the door should he be needed. Frodo asked him to find a few of the other lads and for them to go to the markets, the taverns and to search out the quieter corners of the city to find the Elf, Legolas, Gimli the Dwarf, and Lord Samwise. The boy nodded and dashed off to do as he was bid.

Frodo turned back at the sound of fussing coming from the bed.

“Hold him steady, Parsow,” Strider’s tone was urgent.

“No! Don’ hur’ ‘im! Merry!”

Pippin was struggling on the bed. Parsow had hold of Pippin’s right arm and leg, Strider his left. Frodo hurried over to stand beside Parsow, Merry was already beside Strider.

“Le’ me go, ‘ou filt’y Orcs!” Pippin’s speech was unclear, like some one who is talking in their sleep, but he was now screaming. “Le’ me go! Le’ . . . me . . . go!” It obviously wasn’t another fit, but the lad was panicking. His eyes were wide with terror and anger. “Don’ hur’ Merry! Filt’y Orcs!”

The two men were glad they were both there. Although either one of them could have easily held Pippin down, the way he was struggling they still might have hurt him in the process. With both of them there, neither needed to use much force to restrain the terrified hobbit

“Pippin,” Strider said softly, his face quite close to Pippin’s ear. “It is Parsow and Strider who hold you, lad. You need not struggle. We won’t hurt you. Only your friends are here, Pippin.”

“No! Orcs! Don’ hur’ Merry!” Pippin was tiring. He was thrashing about less, but he was still agitated and screaming as loud as he could.

Merry suddenly remembered what he had stuffed into his pocket earlier in the day; what seemed like ages ago now. What Pip had dropped on his bedroom floor and what had led his cousin to the painful discovery of the soiled nightshirt. Merry tugged it out of his pocket then reached over to rub Pippin’s cheek with his scarf.

Strider saw what Merry was doing. “It’s your scarf, Peregrin. Merry is giving you your scarf.” He crooned as a mother would to her frightened child. “You should take your scarf, Pippin, it will help you feel better.”

After a few moments, the confused young hobbit stopped his squirming and Strider and Parsow let go of his arms and legs. He slowly turned his head toward the comforting touch and looked at his cousin.

“Mer? No’ hur’ Mer?” Pippin’s voice was weak and a tear formed at the corner of his left eye to then run across his temple and into the soft grey fabric of the scarf. His left hand grasped and held onto his scarf.

“I’m not hurt, Pip. I’m not hurt. You . . . you can rest now, Pippin.” Merry said through his own tears.

“All righ’, Mer,” Pippin mumbled. He relaxed as Parsow and Aragorn let go of his limbs. Pippin’s weak right hand joined his left hand in holding the scarf as he fell asleep. Frodo gently caressed Pip’s other cheek and sighed. He and Merry looked at each other. They wanted answers and they wanted them now.

Strider and Parsow finished with seeing their patient cleaned, put into a night shirt and tucked in. The Ring Bearer walked over to stand behind the King, arms crossed over his chest.

“We will have an explanation now, Strider.”

The tall man had heard Frodo use that tone with the other hobbits but never with him. It was a tone that made it exquisitely clear that Frodo would brook no refusal. Aragorn slowly turned to face the hobbit. He was amazed at how cold those blue eyes could be. His battles had given a great deal of strength to Frodo Baggins.

“When I found Gandalf in the library, he said something about your first poorly made decision as the new King of Gondor being made in regard to Pippin.” Frodo’s voice matched the look in his eyes. “Am I right in assuming that decision had something to do with what we just witnessed?”

Merry stepped up beside his older cousin. “Do you mean to tell us you knew this would happen?” Where Frodo’s anger was cold and fierce as a blizzard, Merry’s was a dragon’s flame. His grey-blue eyes smouldered.

Strider sighed. “Parsow, there is only one chair in here. Would you see to procuring enough for everyone? And I think Legolas, Sam and Gimli will be here soon as well.” He pulled the single seat away from Pippin’s beside and gestured for Frodo to be seated. Frodo glared at him. “Please, Frodo. this will not be a short conversation.”

Frodo pushed the chair back by the bed, took Merry by the shoulders and sat him down. As dear as Pippin was to him, he knew it was Merry who was needing to be closest to the lad right now. Some of the fire went out of Merry’s eyes. “Thank you, Frodo,” he said quietly . He held Pippin’s hand, but kept his eyes on Strider.

By the time the other chairs were brought in, borne by Parsow and several aids, Legolas, Gimli and Sam had arrived. Gandalf hastily told them what had happened and they each sat down. Parsow took a seat as well. Oddly, against all protocol, King Elessar stood.

“Merry,” he began. “You asked if I knew this would happen to Pippin. I did not know for certain, but I thought it might.” The King began to pace. “I did not tell you . . .” he paused to look at the hobbits who were sitting in a row. “I did not tell any of you because I did not wish to alarm you needlessly.”

“Needlessly?” Merry asked loudly, the pitch of his voice rising.

“Needlessly?” Frodo asked quietly, but his voice held more authority.

“I did not know if he would develop the falling sickness or not. It isn’t really a sickness, one does not catch it as one does a cold.”

Strider paced a bit in silence before suddenly sitting on the floor in front of the three hobbits. He had been so hoping it would not come to this; he hated that they were being dealt a further blow.

“It can be something that simply happens to a person. Some will suffer with it as a child only to have it leave them as they mature. Some will find it befalling them later in life.”

He paused again, staring into Frodo’s eyes.

“In other’s it is brought on by an injury to the head, or by not being able to breathe properly for too long a time. I myself have seen it come upon a man who nearly drowned and another who had a beam of a fallen ceiling pressed against his throat for the time it took rescuers to reach him.”

“Or layin’ under a large heavy troll till a battle is over.” Sam whispered.

“Yes.” Strider confirmed. “Gimli said that when he found and uncovered Pippin he thought the lad was dead.”

“Aye,” the Dwarf sadly put in. “He was pale and a wee bit blueish about the face. I could not have been more surprised when Legolas said the lad was alive.”

Aragorn nodded, then turned back to the hobbits. “At first it was hard to know how Pippin might be affected, he had been given poppy for his pain and that can hide many things. But soon, Parsow began to notice Pippin would go blank for a few moments now and again.”

“It’s been getting worse,” Merry said tersely. He was still frightened and somewhat in shock from witnessing as much as he did of Pippin’s fit. “It would have been nice to know there was a reason for it other than just Pippin being rude or inattentive.”

Merry hung his head and held up the hand that wasn’t holding Pippin’s. When he lifted his head, tears were tracking down his face.

“I’m sorry, Strider. I’m not giving you a chance to finish explaining your decision. We’re . . . I’m just frightened and . . . well . . .” He looked at Frodo and Sam. “It appears as though you have treated us as though we are children, or at least as being too young to handle hard news, and we’ve come to expect otherwise from you.”

Strider’s face flushed, Merry had hit close to the truth. It was his turn to hang his head.

“I did. Not entirely, but yes. I feared how the idea of it would affect you all. But there was more to it than that. I didn’t want you looking for signs of the ailment either. They are such that it is ofttimes easy to see them when they are not really there at all. Pippin, from the stories you have all told and from what I observed while we travelled together, has always been given to being easily distracted. It was easy to see that he often gets lost in his thoughts and daydreams then needs to be “wakened” from them. I could easily envision the three of you suddenly seeing those as early signs of the falling sickness when they might not have been.”

Frodo nodded. “That does sound like a reasonable concern. So, you are saying that these qualities that Pippin already has becoming so much worse is part of the falling sickness.”

Parsow spoke up. “Yes. I’ve been doing a great deal of studying of the ailment since His Majesty told me of his concerns. There are some who never have it progress to the falling sickness and so for a long time the two were not connected amongst healers. But, it happened that enough patients that began with having the blankness and inattentiveness later developed the falling sickness that it came to be believed that they are sometimes connected. The times of blankness can be quite debilitating in and of itself as it can happen with increasing frequency until it is happening hundreds of times in a day. Often the person’s character changes as well. They become more irritable and despondent.”

Parsow suddenly realized he might be speaking out of turn again, after all, the King was in the room. “I beg your pardon, sire,” he said to King Elessar.

The King smiled. “I asked that you be made a full healer for a reason, Parsow. There is no need to apologize, this is an informal setting. You have given a good accounting of the ailment.”

Strider turned back to face the hobbits.

“There is something else as well. Here I hold myself to be even more at fault, needing your forgiveness to a greater degree.” Strider drew a deep breath, breathed it out slowly, then continued. “I greatly underestimated how busy I would be. And the same holds for Parsow with becoming a healer.”

The man’s voice was soft. It was easy to tell this pained him greatly.

“I have worked closely with rulers of both Men and Elves all my adult life. Yet working closely is not being the ruler. I have found my attention is required, or at least requested, on nearly every aspect of the daily workings of the realm. Parsow now has novices under him for whom he is responsible as well as patients that are his own to care for.” He looked at Pippin, lying asleep in the bed. “I had not expected to be busy to the point where I had so little time for Pippin or the rest of you, my dearest friends. I had thought that I would visit each day, if only for a while, and observe the lad myself, or that Parsow would do so.”

He slowly looked each hobbit in the eyes. They could see and feel his deep regret. “Alas, it has not been so. Even when he has been on duty I have not really been able to observe him well. So it has happened that Pippin’s condition has deteriorated unobserved by those of us with the knowledge of what was happening.”

“Nor have I observed the lad as I should have.” It was Gandalf who spoke. “I have been helping the King.” He turned to Frodo. “You know I love to dig into the old books as much as you do, my lad. I was too readily drawn into researching old laws and judgments to aid Aragorn in making his many decisions. I also tender my deepest apologies, my dear Hobbits.”

Merry and Sam looked at Frodo. Frodo grinned sadly. Yes. He could understand having people look to a single person they perceived as being older and wiser for answers and decisions.

“You are all forgiven,” The eldest hobbit said with a gentle smile. “All that you have said is reasonable and understandable.”

The other two hobbits nodded their agreement.

“But, now what is to be done?” The ice in Frodo’s eyes had melted into sorrow while his voice betrayed his worried weariness. “Pippin ran from the house this morning. His blankness, as you are calling it, had caused him to pour hot tea over Merry’s hand. Merry dropped his cup, Pippin dropped the teapot and Merry lost his temper.”

“And yesterday evenin’, the lad wasn’t at all his usual self.” Sam added thoughtfully.

“It caught all of us by surprise that Peregrin behaved as he did last night,” Legolas added, sorrow shading his voice. “He sat in a corner much of the time and quickly became ill tempered and abusive.”

Parsow thought a moment. “Had he perhaps been drinking heavily last evening?”

Gimli haruffed and what little of his face that could be seen turned red. “Aye, he had, though not as heavily as is usual for the lad from what we’ve seen and heard of in the past. ‘Twas my idea to take the hobbits out to a tavern as they had seemed to be in need of some diversion.”

“You wouldn’t have known, Gimli.” Parsow said, nodding. “Drinking can worsen the effects of the fits.”

All who had been to the tavern nodded with new understanding. Parsow’s words explained a great deal of what had happened last evening.

Frodo sighed. This had proved to be a long, hard day. “With what happened in the courtyard, with all that’s been said, I think it is clear that this afternoon’s fit was not his first. I’m sure you both saw the cut above Pippin’s eye, Parsow and Strider. That was fresh this morning. Merry said Pip’s bedding was all pulled loose on his bed and he found the lad’s soiled nightshirt hidden in the chamber pot. Sam had found a mess in the bathing room this morning. I’m thinking he had a fit during the night, falling out of bed in the process, cleaned up as best he could, hid the nightshirt and went back to sleep.”

Strider nodded. “I agree with you Frodo,” He looked sadly at Pippin. His heart ached that he hadn’t observed the lad better. “Those are all significant signs, that point to a heavy fit during the night.”

They all sat in silence, working through all they had heard. This only led back to where they had been a moment ago, and Frodo repeated his question.

“What can be done for Pippin?”

The King’s expression brightened a bit. “There are things that can be done.” He paused. This news was not going to be as much a relief as the hobbit were most likely hoping for. “There are things that can be done but, even among the Elves, there is no cure for the falling sickness.”

The expressions on the hobbit’s faces had eased then returned to worried frowns in the span of those two sentences.

“The number of blank spells and fits can be reduced.” Strider said. “There are herbs that I can try in varying combinations and concentrations. Many patients find a great deal of relief with their use. Though it will take time; time to find those that work best for Pippin and then to also determine how strong they need to be. And it may be that things will be worse before they are better.”

“But not cured?” Merry said faintly. His heart was aching. He had turned toward his young cousin, still holding his hand but now gently stroking Pip’s cheek as well.

Strider’s voice was nearly as pain-filled as Merry’s. “No. Not cured. He will always have times of blankness and he will always have the possibility of having falling fits. Hopefully less often. Hopefully we will be able to have it be so they do not affect his life as drastically as they would otherwise.” The new King of Gondor rose, walked a step or two to be next to Meriadoc, then dropped to one knee beside him. Merry’s attention was on Pippin as Strider gently patted and rubbed his back. “But, though it hurts me to say it, not cured, Merry. Like the injuries to his hand and his leg, this will be with him for the rest of his life.”

No more was said about what the future might hold. Only time would tell what would happen with the rest of Pippin’s life. The companions talked of other things, memories of the Quest and of returning to their homes, while they remained where they were, keeping vigil in Pippin’s room.

Several hours later, a bit past the mid point of the night, Pippin stirred and woke up. He blinked lazily then seemed to become aware that he was in bed. He looked down and around himself first, then noticed there were people in the room. He turned to Merry, who was sitting beside the bed with his hand resting on Pippin’s shoulder.

“Merry?”

“Yes, Pip.” Merry sat up straighter and smiled. “It’s good to see you awake.”

“Yes, well . . . thank you, Merry. Why am I here? This is the Houses of Healing, isn’t it? Have I been ill?” He looked around at his fellow Companions and Parsow before turning back to his cousin. “Why is everyone here?”

Merry looked Pippin in the eye for only a few moments before looking away. He looked at Frodo, Strider, Parsow and Gandalf. “What should I say?” he was desperately wondering. Despite having thought about it for hours, his mind was now blank.

Strider came to Merry’s aid. “Not ill, Pippin,” he said, moving closer to the opposite side of the bed. “Indisposed would suit what has happened better.”

“Indisposed?” Pippin looked at his king. “In what way? I don’t feel all that badly.” But even as he said it, Pippin’s eyes momentarily lost their focus. He was already having another blank spell.

“I’ve been indisposed?” he asked again.

Aragorn and Parsow were watching him carefully. Everyone in the room had noticed the short spell.

“You had a fit, Pippin,” Parsow said softly.

“A-a fit?” Pippin’s eyes began to widen.

Merry didn’t like how this was going. How long would they have the lad wondering what was happening to him? They hadn’t exactly been forthcoming up until now. He decided to take matters into his own hands.

“Like cousin Bandobard Took, Pippin,” he blurted.

Pippin whipped his head around to look at Merry, his eyes as wide opened as Merry had ever seen them. “L-like . . . like . . .”

His older cousin could see the realization of all that meant coming into Pippin’s mind, and it was terrifying the lad. Merry began to panic as well; blurting that out had not been the best thing to do after all. Pippin was frantically looking at everyone, who, of course, were all looking at him. Pippin fumbled about for the ends of his scarf as he started to inch his way back from everyone as best he could before reaching the headboard of the bed. He huddled up against it, still looking wildly around.

“No! N-no. I can’t have. I’ve never . . . No.” He continued to twist about as though trying to look everywhere at once. “Staring . . . You’re all, all staring at me . . . I . . . No. D-don’t l-look at m-me.”

Strider reached for the distraught hobbit. “Peregrin . . .” he started gently, hoping to distract him.

But Pippin curled up against the headboard, hiding his eyes with his scarf. “Go away!” he cried out, though it was muffled by the fabric. “Go! All of you! Everybody. L-leave me alone!”

It tore at all of their hearts to hear him. Aragorn had pulled back but now once more reached to touch Pippin’s shoulder. Frodo stopped him. He had experienced similar panics while on the quest and Sam had given him some time alone, while staying near enough that his master knew he wasn’t truly alone. It had been what Frodo had needed then and he was sure it was what Pippin needed now.

“As you wish, Pip-lad. We will be nearby should you need us. We will leave the door ajar to hear you when you call.” Frodo shook his head at Strider, who had drawn a breath to speak, then motioned to everyone to leave. “You too, Merry,” he whispered to his cousin.

They quietly filed out of the room, pulling the door to, but not shutting it tight, behind them.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: Today it is well established that both the "blankness" and the "fits" are forms of epilepsy. The former being called Absence siezures and the later being called Tonic-clonic seizures.