"Save us all, what are we going to do with you?"

Saradoc's words were barely audible to himself, certainly not anywhere near so to the one he spoke to. And most certainly not to the servant lass that had accompanied him at Marina’s bequest from the kitchens, linens and towels in hand.

He had carried Frodo back to the Hall, the lad limp as a rag in his arms, trailed by Esme who in turn had herded a very subdued Merry and Pippin. Leaving his wife to see to the younger boys in the kitchens, companioned by the care and feeding—especially feeding—of Marina, Saradoc had gone on with Frodo, taking him to their private smials. A small bed was still set up in the tiny alcove that used to be Merry’s nursery; no sheets, but that was easily set to rights. The serving-lass put the linens on the bed quickly and efficiently, managing to keep her curious looks to a minimum. Saradoc didn’t blame her one whit for wondering what was going on. He wondered that himself, and certainly he must be a strange sight, waiting there patiently with a still-damp and unconscious hobbitlad held against his chest.

"Will there be anything else, Master?" the girl asked with a quick curtsey. "Water’s warm in the ewer, and towels are on the stand."

"I think not…" he started to demur, then as he lowered his ward onto the freshly-made bed, said, "Wait. Yes. Go up to master Frodo’s room, get a fresh shirt and breeks for him. I think the press at the bunk's head is his. You’ll know either way… if you’ve the wrong ones they’ll be obviously too small."

"Yes, Master." She bobbed another curtsey, then slipped out the door.

Saradoc took his time ministering to his younger cousin, also taking the time to arrange his scattered thoughts while doing so. He peeled Frodo from his soggy, filthy clothes, retrieved the warm water and cleaned him up then tucked him under the sheets of the narrow bed. Noting that the pale skin was prickled with chill, he grimaced then unfolded and threw several thick quilts on. All the while Frodo lay there senseless as if drugged. Wishing for his own drug of choice—a well-filled pipe and a stiff whiskey—Saradoc turned at a slight sound to see Esmeralda at the door, her arms full of muslin and cords.

"I met young Delia in the hallway, told her I’d take these the rest of the way." She spoke, quietly measured, walking over to the old rocker sitting in the corner. Putting the clothes down on it, Esmeralda then came over and looked down at the prostrate youth. He all but filled the tiny bed, swathed in covers to the neck, head thrown sideways against the pillow.

"You’ve got the entire linen closet on him, Sara."

"He was cold."

"He’s always cold when he sleeps. That's why Merry never minded sleeping with him when they were small…" her voice wavered and her face, when she turned to him, was lined and pale. Saradoc wasn’t sure that he recalled seeing her this undone in a long time.

Neither had he ever seen the boy this undone. He quite frankly hadn’t thought him capable of it, and it spoke to Esmeralda’s own state of mind that she was obviously as unnerved as himself by it. "Where are the little lads?"

"Marina’s got them. A full belly’s the best thing for them right now." She took a sharp breath and walked over to him slowly, wrapping her arms about herself. "I told Marina to make sure they stayed there for a while, and I told Merry that he was not to go anywhere. I told him he needed to look after Peregrin, and that seemed to sway him. However…"

"However." Saradoc grunted. "Well, Marina will keep him tethered better than most. Probably better than you and I at this moment."

"I know. That’s why I left him with her." She walked over, looking down at the slight figure lying in her son’s nursling bed. "But there’s no doubt Merry will be in here the first chance he gets."

Saradoc was silent, digesting the truth of that. Then, "It’s gone too far, Em."

"I know." It was a whisper.

"Our son should be running in a pack like normal little boys do, grubby and knee-skinned, nicking grapes in the vineyards and putting spiders on lasses’ toes. He should not be paired up as if he’s a tween, so close he can't see anything else, and with a lad who is cracked as a pot left in the hearth too long."

Silently she winced.

"Emmie, you and I know more than most what that means. And what it looks like."

Still, she was mute. In the bed Frodo was senseless, sweat dotting his upper lip, hair in damp, lank ringlets, eyes sunken and bruised. Sleep did not, in this place, give him any air of childishness—the shadows deepened and filled him, smoothing his face into an stark, ivory mask.

"For pity's sake, Esme, for once just look at him. Look at him."

"I am looking." Her murmur was all but toneless, numb.

"Then also look to what he does," Saradoc said, softly and vehemently. "What right does he have to do this? What right does he have to disrupt our entire household? Our son is wrapped too tightly about him. Even you twitch if the lad so much as breathes wrongly; you can hardly stand to look at him anymore because the memories are staring you in the face with his eyes. It's Merry, yes. It's you. It’s little Peregrin, whom we could have lost today. It’s Frodo."

The cozy nearness of the little smial was normally comforting, yet now it was entirely too close. It seemed to fill with the faint lamplight, with the troubled silence and shallow breath. The object of their scrutiny remained quiescent; Frodo didn’t acknowledge anything even with a flicker of his eyelids.

"Esme." Still low, insistent.

"I know, Sara. I know."

Silence once again, heavy and thick.

"They were right, all along, the Unlikely Trio," Saradoc continued from beside her, one hand on the bedstead, the deep timbre of his voice muffled so that it carried only to her ears. "They saw it, somehow."

"And we didn't." It was a whisper. She reached out slowly, just as slowly twined one dark curl about her index finger. Frodo didn't stir. "Why didn't we, Sara?"

Silence. Esmeralda looked up, saw a distinct and unpleasant confusion on her husband's face. Her hand pulled back, away from Frodo, fingers instead clutching into the soft fabric of her sleeves.

"Frodo has never so much as reached out his hand, Esme. He never came to us. Even when Lobelia's boy was bullying him. Even when the rumours began to fly about—"

"Thanks to that same vicious tweener's tongue."

"Rumours." His tone was disgusted. "Again. When I thought they might all die away, up they start again. There's no doubt that Lotho had to hear them from somewhere, and you know as well as I that with what happened today it'll just make things worse. It’s more and more, Em, that someone notices Frodo’s strange ways. Rory-dad told me just the other day that someone was talking about seeing Frodo and Merry going through the vineyards. Said every now and then they’d stop, and peer upward, and point. And laugh."

"Oh, save me!" Esmeralda said, louder than she intended. She put a hand over her mouth; Frodo did not stir. Nevertheless, by unspoken assent, they left the tiny nursery and shut the door behind them. The larger room was less snug, but it also enabled them to shrug off the strange presence that had seemed to envelope all of them in the nursery.

Esmeralda continued, "Frodo was probably making pictures in the clouds for Merry, nothing more. He’s done that for years, since before his parents died, even…"

"You and I know that. Da thought it a good joke, to be sure. But reason won't stay gossip. And this morning, enough of the folk saw the lad just… go away." He went over to the small hearth that centered the small kitchen space in their inner smial, picked up a poker and stabbed at it rather absently, added more fuel from the woodbox. His wife followed. "Our son’s to be Hall Master one day, Em. His people can’t be looking to him the way they do Frodo, wondering all the time if he’s in his right mind, or will make the right choices. There’s been enough of that with Da…"

She looked down. "Yes. I know."

Saradoc snorted. "There’s even people that say they’ve seen elves at the Hall boundaries, and their eyes turn to the boy, wondering if they’ve come to collect him or something…"

Esmeralda stiffened and shot him a look. "I’ve not heard that."

"Oh, it’s nonsense. The lad ran into them in the Old Forest; if they’d wanted him they’d have snatched him then and no doubt. This entire elvish thing is nonsense…" he trailed off suddenly, eyes glimmering suddenly with memoried spark. "But… he believes it, doesn’t he? Somehow, he believes it. That’s what he meant when he said: ‘my father, whoever he is’… That’s why he went for Lotho when the lad called him a bastard. He thinks he is."

Esmeralda was silent, looking at the hearth-fire as it licked upward eagerly at new fodder. Saradoc frowned, leaned against the brick mantel, peered closely at his wife. "Emmie…"

She threaded her fingers through the gold chain about her neck—the one he’d paid a pretty price for and had his brother bring from a southern trip to gift her as a childbed present when Merry had been born—and sawed it back and forth. "For the longest time I thought he was unaware of the talk. He's been such a child, really, for so long, and he was ours, Sara. Our foster-son, and Merry's brother in all but blood, and I truly believed that it would make a difference…"

"Emmie, he's not…"

"I know. He's not a child, and he's our child no longer. I've watched him grow into something I don't understand, I've kept making excuses for it, and hoping, and… Sara…" Saradoc closed the small distance between them, put his arms about her and she leaned into him, hard. "All I’ve ever wanted is for him to be is normal. For him to be one of us, no matter what."

"And you’ve been wishing for the moon, love. He’s not normal. I’m not sure that he ever was."

"I know." She swallowed, then said very slowly, "Because, Sara, the rumours are true."

"Rumours. What do you…?" He stiffened against her suddenly. "Em, that’s ridiculous."

"Is it?"

He gripped her shoulders, turned her to face him. "How can you possibly think such a thing? Yes, we’ve all heard the tales, and it's pretty obvious that Frodo got an earful of them as well, but they’re all rot. To suggest that he’s got elvish blood… it’s impossible!"

She gripped back, fingers digging into his forearms. "I’ve seen them, Sara. Only the once, and long ago, but I’ve never forgotten. Believe me, there’s enough elvish about that lad. It’s not impossible."

"How can you possibly know? How can you…" The breath he’d gathered to finish his query whistled impotently through his lips. "She told you this. Didn’t she?"

Silence and an averted head gave him answer.

"Save us… this is… Esme, Primula was mad as a hare in March and you know it! How do you even know she was being truthful about this?"

"Why would she lie to me?"

"Why would she even be aware of what was lie and what was truth?"

"You told me to look at him. You look at him, Sara! He’s nothing like to us!"

"And I suppose he's like to an elf? He's a bit short for that, I should think!"

"You've raised enough stock to know something like that can matter precious little!" she retorted almost angrily. "But tell me truthfully—have you ever seen Baggins or Brandybuck that looked as he does?"

"The Tooks—"

"Certainly my people can be light of frame, but it goes past simple appearance! Or just what Prim told me."

"Even counting the Tookish Sight?" He pushed away from her, stalked over to the end of the hearth and stuck his fists into his pockets. "With your brother's dreams? Belladonna's reputation? The Old Took's longevity?" He shook his head, gaze averted. "Don't you have enough oddness in just the faery wife's legacy to account for Frodo's? That and simple Brandybuck moonlit madness well gotten from his mother!"

"I know the legacy of the Tooks all too well, husband," she said woodenly. "This is… different. It’s behind his eyes, Sara. He’s got a look and a soul to him that I’ve only ever seen in them."

"Esme—"

"Prim was married to Drogo how long?" she said almost desperately. "Years went by and she showed no signs of even a miscarriage, and then she miraculously kindled a babe once she reacquainted herself with Bilbo and the elves…?"

"I’d be more likely to believe Bilbo the father of that lad than some demon-eyed elf prince!" Saradoc still kept his eyes to the hearthstones, refusing to meet her pleading gaze. "Bilbo doesn’t look his age. Prim and Bilbo were always too close, even after she married Drogo. I know Drogo never would hear it said in his presence that his wife was not keeping her favours in his bed, but he did forbid Bilbo to cross his doorstep once they moved back to Buckland—"

"Because Bilbo was her link with those same elves."

"Drogo never believed it," Saradoc persisted. "Never did he even give a second's credence to the talk."

"In public, yes.  Drogo was a gentlehobbit through and through, and he loved Frodo as much as he loved Primula!"

"Da once said that Drogo was afraid they’d interfered with the lad like they interfered with Primula…" he trailed off, finally looking to her.

"Which is why we’re here now," she finished. "Sara… the elves did interfere. Prim invited it. And Bilbo Baggins did not sire Frodo. If he had, things would be all too simple, wouldn’t they? As he said at tea that day." Her voice grew faint. "Perhaps we should have just let him take Frodo then. But I thought it… unwise."

"We both did," he reminded her. The fire clicked and hissed between them for long moments before he finally asked, "And why did you carry this to yourself for so long?"

"Oh, Sara." Her fingers still tangled in her necklace. "What good would it have done to say anything?"

"It might have done you and Frodo some good had I known this."

"And have us both always looking at that lad with doubt in our hearts? I…" she spoke to the hearth almost woodenly. "I thought I could quell it. I did quell it for a long time. I wanted to keep it locked in my heart. After Frodo was born…"

He sobered. Reaching out, he put his hand on her shoulder; she was hard under his touch as dwarvish iron. "You’ve known this since he was born, then."

"Since before. Sara, I know Prim was not… right. I didn’t believe her at first, either. I thought it a jape, or some incomprehensible wish of hers."

Saradoc muttered irritably to himself, then his grip tightened sharply on her. "So for twenty years you keep this to yourself, not even telling your husband." His tone was not pleasant. "One more little secret for Primula, was it?"

Her eyes met his unhappily. "It wasn't just that. I kept silence so as not to give anyone, even you, reason to be uneasy about him. Or to give all those Baggins relations—especially those wretched Sackville-Bagginses—reason to do him from what inheritance Drogo had left to him. I knew if there was any gainful proof on such a scandal they’d try for it. Whatever Prim possessed is undoubtedly Frodo's when he comes of age, but you know the property battles that have ensued in the Shire over even a small claim of bastardy."

"Drogo named Frodo as his in the will, Em."

"And if anyone tries to lay proof that Drogo was deceived?" she retorted. "Sara, I'm the only one left alive who witnessed Frodo's birth. Primula was my tweenhood playmate. Who do you think they'd call for evidence should the need arise? If I gave no acknowledgement to the gossip, then…" she trailed off meaningfully, then said hesitantly, "The only other person who knows what I've just told you is Pal, and I only told him because he Saw it, long ago."

"Pal…" His grip slackened on her. "Your brother had one of those fits of his about it?"

She nodded, looking down. "And had I thought rationally at the time I never would have said anything, because now—"

"Now the Shire's Thain-to-be knows potentially damaging information about a fostered son to Brandy Hall," Saradoc finished, then wearily continued. "And he might be called to bear witness upon any legal matters, just as I, as Hall Master, would also be served to speak upon such a matter."

There was a tense silence.

"But no matter what legal duties the Master might be called upon to perform," Esme said quietly, "I've wronged you, my husband. I should never have kept this from you. I…" she wavered suddenly. "I just never thought it would go this far."

"Emmie…" He shook her gently, she looked up at the ceiling almost angrily, her eyes filling.

"Sara, what are we going to do?"

"We will abide by the decision we made. Fosterage."

"But we can't send him to the river. Not after… all of this."

"All of… this." Saradoc's eyes flickered to the door that separated them from their unquiet fosterling. "Yes. I'm thinking more and more we would do that lad no kindness sending him to my brother. And not only because Merimac would have no idea of how to control him."

Esmeralda peered at him.

"But he has to go, Em, and go quickly. There's no longer the slightest question that he can be allowed to stay here. Not any more."

She kept looking at him, fingers at her throat, lips parted as if to speak yet held mute. Then, finally, "I know."

* * * * * *

Merry had managed to convince Marina he was asleep on the common room couch, keeping his eyes shut and his frame stilled until, sure enough, she’d fallen into a doze in the rocker by the hearth. Pippin was asleep as well, curled in her ample lap, thumb framed by a mouth in turn circled by milk and cookie remnants.

Merry rolled silently off the couch and backed towards the exit, his breath held tight in his chest, his eyes upon the sleeping pair the entire time. Moments later he was exiting the underhill passage of the Hall that opened out just below the roadway, and pelting back to the treehouse.

He hadn't been able to stop thinking of it. For some reason his mind had fastened upon this and he wasn't quite sure why. Only that it had been left behind, forgotten in the aftermath of panic, and that Frodo would even forget it spoke to how horrible this morning had truly been.

Hopefully it hadn’t fallen into the river, or been carried away by an untoward gust. He had to find it. Even now his heart beat in time to the words chanting through his head, a litany: please… let it be there still… please… let it be there…

The wind had picked up. Clouds scudded across the sky, blocking the sun for mere moments before it shone again. The woods were green and verdant—but it smelled like fall. Merry was hyper-aware of all of it, keyed in a fashion he'd never been as he ran for the treehouse.

He arrived, panting, and stopped at the embankment for moments, looking down at their haven. It was still that—it had to be, no matter that its secrets had been told. It seemed so peaceful, belying the violence that had wrung itself about it just that morning; the deep sink beneath the willow was strangely calm despite the wind and the fall running. The old tree swayed and creaked; every gust of breeze tossed the branches, tore leaves from them. Like a girl tossing her skirts flirtatiously, the ever-increasing gaps in the leaves betrayed secrets. The leaves, while mostly still green, were turning, starting to shed, and Merry abruptly realised that the coming of autumn would betray what spring and summer had well protected.

Disturbed by the knowledge, he half-skipped, half-slid down the incline, running toward the willow but passing it by about twenty lengths to the spider-infested oak. At the great, gnarled roots lay his own short coat. He picked it up, shrugged into it, then peered upward at the oak. Frowning as he didn’t see what he was looking for, Merry began to climb.

The wind picked up, tossing his hair about, whipping it stingingly about his cheeks and into his eyes. He kept blinking, looking, beginning to worry. He looked down through the branches, scanned the ground, saw nothing, then raised his gaze once more to the branches above him and saw it.

Frodo's dark coat had blown into a crook of trunk and limb; Merry circumnavigated the grey limbs with relative ease, remembering the first time he’d climbed a tree. He’d not gone any higher than three feet from the ground, but that had been more than enough, even with Frodo crouched right behind and over him, steadying him. And now he looked down several lengths fearlessly, hanging in between two branches to grab his cousin’s woolen coat and—more importantly—what was in that coat’s pocket.

He pulled the fabric to him, patted it down, had a moment of panic when what he sought was not in its normal place, then sighed in relief as a rigid inside breast pocket met his grasping fingers. He pulled the book from its place, turned it over and curiously studied the foreign script on its front. He’d really never looked very closely at it, had grown so used to it being an extension of his cousin that he’d not questioned it much at all. The leather binding was soft, and worn, and dyed a peculiar dark green, the titling was a gilt that had all but worn away. When he thumbed through the pages, he found that they were mostly in common script, and readable to him, ivory pages stained here and there with use and age.

Somehow this was shelter and goad, prop and stay, symbol of an existence Frodo somehow couldn't recall for himself. Merry ran a careful finger along a line of thin calligraphy, no longer wondering why Frodo held so tightly to it. Because Merry knew, with a deep, instinctual awareness, that Frodo had told Saradoc the truth—he couldn't remember.

No memories of laughter, of 'little shadows'. No memories of who had carried him away from the river, of hating and fearing and loving the water. No memories of father that could ever hold true—because father was not known. And memories of mother, wrapped in this.

It must be passing strange to have nothing left of someone you had so loved, nothing save a strange, ephemeral and ultimately fragile thing such as what Merry now held so gently within his hands.

A few wet drops spattered across the parchment. Merry looked up with a trepidation that only a farm-lad could have when crops were ripening, hoping that rain hadn't somehow come in with the wind. The sun seared his eyeballs as a cloud juddered past it, and he realised as warmth tracked down his face that his own tears had stained the book. He quickly closed the book, mouth tightening, then wiped his face and, tucking it away safely into his own pocket, started down.

He needed to get back before he was missed. Before Frodo woke up.

* * * * * *

His father had gone out to the fields to ensure that things were running smoothly. Merry knew this, for not only had he spotted him in the gardens but he’d checked with Marina, who was once again awake and waiting resolutely for him in the kitchen to give him a short lecture and a half-hearted box of his ears for sneaking off. Of course not a moment later she sliced him some ham and goat-cheese when his stomach growled. He also found out from her that his mother had ordered luncheon to be sent to her in her smial, which no doubt meant that Frodo was still there, and that Marina had taken Pippin to Esmeralda’s room, still asleep, and tucked him into bed there to finish his nap.

Merry ran from the kitchens and back to his family’s alcove. The door to his parent’s smial was half-open, for which he breathed a silent prayer. He peered about it, giving the room beyond a quick glance. His mother sat by the hearth, in her favorite chair, her hands deftly tangled in a pile of cloth. But they were settled there unmoving, and he realised by the soft rise and fall of her breast that she slept. Heaving a thankful sigh—there was no telling whether he’d be allowed to visit Frodo or not at this moment in time were she awake—he crept inwards, stealthily moving along the wall, clutching Frodo’s coat to his breast and making sure that his mother didn’t wake.

The smial door was closed—he was grateful that it didn’t stick like his own, but slid soundlessly open and shut in his wake. It was dark, and warm; the hearth was fired up and the flickering gold of one lamp lit at the bedside, casting fitful shadows across the ceiling and the bed’s occupant. All he could see of Frodo was an indistinct form beneath the coverlets and dark hair thrown across soft pillows. He tiptoed over to the nursling's bed that he’d once slept in and peered down.

The pale, unbleached bedclothes had more color than his cousin’s face. Merry held tighter to the coat he'd brought and spoke, tightly soft. "Wake up, Frodo."

No answer.

"Please. Wake up." One hand curled downward and about the precious item still in his coat pocket; he plucked at it, drew it out. "I’ve your book for you. I went to get it for you. I knew you would miss it."

Again, no reply. The finely-drawn face was senseless, and still. Merry swallowed hard, put the book back into his cousin’s coat pocket and hung it on one of the posts at the bed’s foot. "It’s here when you want it, all right?"

Silence, with only the hiss and tick of the stove's metal. The candle flame was eerily still, not even a breath to disturb it.

Merry wanted nothing more than to crawl into the tiny bed beside his cousin and curl up miserably. Instead he sank to his knees beside the bed, put his arms and his chin beside the pillow, and breathed in. Feather ticking, clean-smelling sheets, the green-spice, linen and parchment scent that he had come to know as Frodo, and a tang of sweat. Frodo was too warm. Merry reached forward, peeled back several layers of blankets, pulled the sheets away from his cousin’s neck and laid a careful hand across his breast. The stained and faded leather thong that held the key to Frodo's book cabinet was dark against a too-pale throat, the key a tiny pewter spark that glinted in the soft hollow of damp skin as Merry fingered it.

If only it had the power to unlock greater secrets…

"It wasn't your fault. It wasn't."

The candle flame pointed skyward, steady and unmoving.

"It was my idea. I told them it was, but they still blame you. Because you're the eldest. I don't want you to be the eldest, Frodo. I want you to be my age, or I want to be yours. If we were just the same age, none of this would be happening. Everything would be all right, wouldn't it?"

Breathing, shallow and flat and unaware.

"Why did you never tell me, Frodo? You never said anything about the river. About… your mum and da. About my mum and da. You never tell me anything." He realised tears were running down his cheeks, wiped angrily at them. "Why do you keep pushing me away?"

Still no answer. He might have been speaking to a corpse.

"You shouldn't have lied to me," he whispered. "You shouldn’t have kept it from me." He rubbed gentle fingers against the key, down to Frodo’s collarbone. "What do I have to do, Frodo? What can I do to make you tell me what's wrong? What do I have to be…?"

Frodo's pulse lifted a vein just beneath his jaw, startlingly strong and rhythmic. The candle's flame darted and dipped; Merry's eyes were drawn to it curiously, then a small, thin voice echoed softly into the room.

"Merry?"

He turned with a start. Pippin was there, tousled and tentative, suggesting he too had gained his cousins’ side by sneaking in, silent as a breath against that candle. Merry opened his mouth to protest then, as the green eyes met his pleadingly, the angry comment died within his throat. Instead he turned back to Frodo, laid his chin on his outstretched arm and refused to answer.

Pippin seemed to gather that this denoted approval, even if grudging. There was a moment’s stillness. Then Merry became aware of shallow breathing just behind his nape. He turned; the little hobbit was next to him, had crept up to stand there noiselessly as a fox. Merry peered at him warily; Pippin gravely returned his regard, then with single-minded intensity started to crawl into his lap.

Merry simply watched him do it, unable to gather so much as a protest within his bursting, burning throat. There was in some fashion no room for anger, only bewilderment as Pippin settled down, drew his knees to his chest, stole one arm about Merry's waist and snuggled his cheek into Merry’s shoulder.

"Frodo’s sleeping a lot," Pippin whispered.

"Yes," Merry reached out to stroke the pale breast once again, "he is."

"That’s good, though. Sick people have to sleep a lot so they can be getting well."

For some reason the soft, worried statement felled him where the sight of Frodo, sprawled and senseless, had not. Merry all but choked on it, a huge sob that he tried to swallow and failed, escaping him with a harsh hitch of air. "What if he's too sick to get well?"

Surely he hadn't meant to say that. But Pippin didn't answer; there was no judgment for or against in those great, gold-green eyes, only a silent, anxious regard.

Merry remembered what he'd felt when he'd thought Pippin gone; the great, empty hole that had torn itself into his chest, how he'd wanted to just dive down and embrace the darkness of what he'd never gotten the chance to know. But this he did know, and the abrupt despair of it overwhelmed him, took him down.

Frodo was sick, had been sick, might always be sick. Those lights behind his eyes were not normal, never had been, and Great Aunt Primula had lain with elves and it had driven her mad, so everyone said, and if lying with them would make a hobbit mad, then what was being part elf doing to Frodo? And not only Great Aunt Primula, but also Granda Rory was crazy, and Mum and Da had been right all along about Frodo, but they were afraid of him because of what he was, and…

Again, a strange, painful half-sob nearly choked Merry, and Pippin made a soft noise, curling into Merry's lap quite firmly. One of Merry's hands, as of itself seeking or offering reassurance, moved to tangle in the red-brown curls. All possible need—all of it solidifying into one place, one solitary focus, one source, and this feeling had come before, this intense knowledge of security and rightness and acceptance. He'd watched his parents rend his beloved cousin to fragments… no, in truth watched Frodo rend himself even more, and fall to his knees and melt into the rich, red soil like butter in the sun, and even then, Pippin had been there. Pippin was there, and here, and now, warming as hearthfire…

How was it that he was bereft of anything but this brightling bairn to turn to in hope of comfort?

How was it that Frodo could not give this—this singular acquiescence that Pippin gave so willingly, and which Merry so desperately needed?

How was it that his childhood gods—Mum, Da, even Frodo—had so betrayed themselves as either victim or nemesis?

Merry's hands twined harshly into the sheets of his elder cousin's borrowed bed, into the tousled locks of his younger cousin, seeking purchase as if he were the one now drowning. Incredibly, Pippin didn't quail beneath the suddenly tight grip but leaned into it, shoring up against him like the piers at the ferry dock, steadying him against the river's unpredictable currents. Long moments passed. Silent and fierce and oddly gentle, the silent communion, and light stole its way into Merry's darkened eyes, and warmth crept into cold, wounded innocence.

Then Pippin reached out with his other hand, touched at Frodo’s arm tentatively. The sight of those small, agile fingers trying to also impart comfort to Frodo filled Merry with an intense pang, as if someone had deliberately stroked at a bruise. As if some odd connection of blood-heat and beacon had made itself, linking the three of them into a solid entity.

Save that one link in the chain was strained to breaking. And the other…

"Why?" Merry said, low. "Why did you do it, Pippin?"

The child looked upward, drawing his arm from about Merry. Then he looked downwards once more, thumb creeping up to his mouth. Merry twisted his own mouth sideways, grabbed Pippin’s hand and pulled the thumb away. "Here. You’re too big to be doing that." He gave him a direct look. "Why, Pippin?"

A pause. Then, still not ceasing his stroking of Frodo's arm, still looking down and angling his head against Merry’s shoulder, the child answered with remarkable quietude. "Because you never want to be with me. Either of you. You say I’m too little. And I thought that if I did something that even you and Frodo couldn’t catch me at, then you’d think I was big enough to be with you."

"I meant…"

"Oh, I know what you meant. But I had to tell you that first, Merry, because…" Tears were swimming in the green eyes. "I did it because I thought you deserved it for not caring about me. Because you played such a mean trick on me and I wanted to pay you back. I wanted to see if you really would worry about me."

Merry closed his eyes, then opened them once more. "Pippin…"

"I’m sorry, Merry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t think it would hurt you, or hurt Frodo. I heard Marina talking with one of the kitchen maids. She said that it was bad luck that Frodo caused all this—"

"He didn’t," Merry grated.

"I know that, but Marina said that she hoped Uncle and Auntie would go easy on him, for he’d likely had enough punishment just in having to believe me dead after his parents had died the same way…" Pippin twisted, gripping with both hands to Merry’s shirt, shoved his face into his fists and sobbed.

"I didn’t know, Merry. I mean, I did know that his dada and mumma were dead, but I didn’t… I swear I didn’t know about that."

"Don’t swear," Merry said quietly.

Pippin curled all the tighter, muffled sobs escaping as he writhed against Merry, his words rushing together into even more a collection of clips and slurs than usual. "He jus' kept sinking… sinking into the water, Merry. He was on his knees in the river, and at first I was laughing at him but he didn't hear me, and…" a ragged intake of breath, "he was so strange, and it started to scare me."

Alarm lanced through Merry. His hand returned to Frodo, touched the warm frame as if to reassure himself his cousin was indeed there.

"An' I called his name and at first he didn't hear me so I kept calling…" It was very obvious that the little lad was working himself up into sheer, frenzied misery. For a smattering of seconds Merry had the distinct wish to join him in it, then gained mettle sustained him. A considered frown quirked at his brows and he hesitated, then settled his chin into Pippin’s curls.

"Shhh," he said gently. "You’ll wake Frodo." Which was most likely impossible, considering, but it seemed as good a way to get through to the weeping hobbitchild as any.

It did. Pippin quieted as best he could and hung onto Merry’s shirt, stifled hiccups reverberating through his body. "Merry…"

"What, Pip?"

"I think they’re going to send Frodo away."

Apprehension further iced his spine; a shudder ran through Merry and his fingers clenched against soft-worn sheets, too-pale, freckled skin, and Pippin's cinnabar curls.

* * * * * *

Two days later, his fourteenth birthday party and he is giving out little presents to the attendees. He has a special gift that he saved especially for Merry—a small, hand-carved pony that he bought with his own coin from the lake peddlers. He takes it out of his pocket and hands it to his tiny, ecstatic cousin, and the book he found in his mother’s trunk—the book that she used to read to him at nights to chase away the bad dreams—falls to the floor. One of the bigger boys picks it up, waves it at him, says his thanks for such a keen old mathom…

"Frodo! What is wrong with you?" She is angry and he didn’t mean to kick her, but as she advances on him he panics. She can’t have it. She can’t. The book is his and it’s all he has left and there is love in this book, love and proof of love and a fiery shield to hold against the demons that come in the night…

"No!" Frodo jerked awake with a stifled cry. He was frozen in place for long seconds, breath hitching painfully at his ribs, feeling as if he was pinned, trapped. Panic thrummed through him, still half-caught in the dream he started to jerk against what held him down…

Dream?

He stilled his frame, took a deep, sobbing breath, opened his eyes. Merry was draped half over his right side, and Pippin was curled up like a small puppy at his left. It was only his cousins. He wasn’t trapped. He wasn’t. He wasn’t…

It was all he could do to not just fling them from him; it was too close. His ears were hot as he silently worked out from under them. Pippin was normally a light sleeper; Frodo carefully and quite judiciously disentangled himself first from Pippin, then from Merry. All of it, too close, and the dream… nightmare…

Frodo gained his freedom then his feet with a huge gasp of relief, then swayed there dizzily. His head pounded. He put both palms to it, still swaying. A dream. It had been forever since he’d dreamed like this, at night, in such detail. Merry was right, he dreamed awake more. But now? What had he dreamed? What had he…?

Cold. It was cold. He had no clothes? No, there they were, upon the rocker. Staggering over, he grabbed them up and stood there shivering, angling his posterior next to the small airtight stove beside the rocker. He yanked the fabric gratefully over his frame, buttoned his breeches and his shirt, looked about, found his coat hanging on the end of the bed. He shrugged into it, went back over to the little stove. His hands went into his pockets; one curled about a familiar, leather-bound weight and he sighed with relief…

Then the dream rocketed though him, all gold glitter and angry red spark, and he almost went to his knees. The dream. It was real. It had happened.

He had remembered.

Frodo made the few stumbling steps to the rocker, climbed into it. With a soft, inchoate whimper he curled up in the seat, laid his bursting head upon his knees, and by sheer, obdurate force of will blanked the world away.

* * * * * *

Esmeralda woke with a start. For moments she was unsure of who or what she was, then the familiar smells and sounds of her smial—the faint echo of activity, the sounds of river and road and birdsong outside her window—brought her back.

The mending she had started still lay on her lap, needle thankfully stuck halfway through; she gained her feet, placed the worn trousers upon the chair and rubbed at her eyes. It was grey outside, with rain tapping at the sill—and she wondered why she had left the sill ajar, how it was that she was not out amidst the harvesting prep, that she had so fallen asleep in the middle of the day.

Then she remembered. The river.

Raising suddenly-trembling hands to brush the frizzly locks back from her brow, Esmeralda went to the window. She leaned upon the sill, breathed in the sweet, damp air, felt the cool moisture spatter her hands and face and neck. The clouds were overhead, covering any sign of sun, but she felt that it was late into the afternoon already. She had slept far too long. Angling the shutters together, she turned to the closed door of the nursery and squared her shoulders with resignation and some trepidation.

When she went into the little smial, it was still and warm. Several forms were huddled in the bed; with a somewhat exasperated sigh she went over and looked down. Merry and Pippin were tangled and limp, Merry in particular too long for the bed, and…

Frodo wasn’t there. She felt a small chill of apprehension, then as if something had tapped her on the right shoulder whirled. And saw him.

He was in the rocker, a silent, slender ghost doubled up with arms curled about his shins, chin upon his knees. His eyes were open, startling luminosity boundaried by dark, staring at her from the shadows.

All matters of concern, all the vocal tender of care, all clogged in her throat with an odd, panicky thrill. Then she saw that the hands laced tightly about his legs were white-knuckled, trembling. It enabled her to regain control of her voice; she managed to speak—softly, so as not to wake the little boys.

"Are you all right?"

"Does it matter?"

Her lips tightened at the tone in his voice; but for the first time she heard something beneath it, something grasping and desperate and…

She must have angled forward ever so slightly in response, for he visibly drew back and spoke.

"Don’t." He was suddenly shaking, so hard that she could see the chair quivering. "Please."

"Frodo—"

"Don’t!!"

Pippin took in a quick breath, wriggled on the bed. Frodo looked sideways worriedly, breathed relief when the child merely snuggled more tightly against Merry’s ribcage and murmured, still dreaming. Merry was oblivious.

"Do you…?" she started softly, hesitated as his gaze flickered to hers as if in trepidation, continued on, "Do you want to go back to your room?"

"My head hurts," he said thinly, closing his eyes and angling his forehead to rest on his knees.

"Would you like something for it?" She didn’t question the change of subject.

"Don’t want to sleep," he said against his thighs.

"You need to sleep. But moreso you need to ease your head."

He looked up at her for long moments. Then nodded, which seemed to distress him because he grimaced and laid his brow back against his knees.

Esmeralda walked over to the cabinet next to the little stove—high and quite out of reach of any hobbitbairn, and locked besides. She threaded the keys from her belt and opened it. Perusing the stores there for what she needed, she selected a bottle from a row of carefully-labelled dark glass, stole a glance at the haggard face turned to hers and chose another one to accompany it, then took a small earthenware cup from the shelves below the cabinet. Within that she mixed lukewarm water from the small kettle that was always sitting on the stove, then some honey, then a judicious measure of the two dark bottles. With quick efficiency she returned everything to its place, very aware that he watched her the entire time. With matter-of-fact directness she turned and held the cup out to him.

He hesitated for a matter of seconds; she kept standing there, mutely offering it, and finally Frodo gingerly accepted it. With cautious sips he downed it all, then handed her the cup and laid his head back against his knees. Esmeralda set the cup down on a small table, crossed her arms, watched him. There was a long silence.

"It was here, wasn’t it?"

"What?" She almost didn’t hear his voice, muffled by choice and breech fabric. Behind her the children slept, oblivious once more to any shifting tides about them.

"You had me here before."

She frowned uncertainly. What was he driving at?

"When that bad fever went through the Hall. Merry didn’t get sick, but I did."

"Yes, you did. You were very sick, so I brought you to this room so we could watch you closely."

"I told you a story, about a princess of the Big People who wanted to be a warrior, so she cut off her hair and went to live with the elves…"

Esme peered at him closely. He was very pale, gaze disfocused. "Frodo, I think you need to get back into bed."

"You didn’t really want to hear it," he insisted. "You told me that stories like that weren’t real."

"Frodo," she said, maintaining reason, "you were feverish. Wandering. You had to know that some things were real and some not."

"It was a story from my mother's book." Eyes, he was all eyes. "But you didn't want me to have that, either. Did you?"

Esmeralda's breath rose up and choked her. She knew, suddenly and with no doubt, what he meant. For she also remembered that day, remembered it in the wake of his words with a clarity that had never been there before. That day, that confrontation…

It had been the beginning of the end of sharing anything with her changeling foster-son.

"It was all I had left of her, and you didn't care," he murmured, and his words were strangely passionless, almost contemplative. She would have thought him totally unaffected had it not been for his quivering frame. And his eyes.

"Frodo…"

"It was… it's all I had left of her… and you tried to take it from me…"

"Frodo," she said again, desperately. "I—"

"She wasn't just yours!" It was quiet, but vehement, and grasping at coldness as if anything more ardent was anathema. "She was mine, too. She was my mother!"

It hit like a physical blow, but for once Esmeralda readily saw and understood what pain inspired it. She started toward him; the blue eyes gleamed wary warning and she halted, took a breath, said softly, "I thought you didn’t remember."

Silence. The blue eyes shuttered, went flat. Then, "I want to go back to my room, now."

Esmeralda didn’t know what to say, what to do. Under normal circumstance she should be righteously furious with him, should be taking him to task for what had happened only that morning, should demand that Hall discipline be tendered. He was the eldest, he had tacitly encouraged everything and for one of the longest spans of her life she had thought her brother's only son drowned. However there was nothing normal about any of this, and fury and indignation had since spun itself away, had indeed lost itself beneath his reactions to what had happened. And now?—there was nothing of anger left, only a strange empty loss that had been gouged within her by this stilled, vulnerable, yet utterly unapproachable being.

"Perhaps you’ll sleep better alone," she suggested cautiously. He usually did.

"Old Uncle says hobbits should never sleep alone," was the quiet reply.

"I’ll keep Peregrin here," she told him, uncertain as to what he was getting at. His lips spoke the words, but everything else about him was tense with the invariable, stubborn choice of solitude.

The blue eyes slid to meet hers with a peculiar, focused light. "I thought you might."

Then he rose unsteadily to his feet and left without another sound.

Once the door closed behind him Esme's knees gave and she lowered herself unsteadily into the rocker, letting out a jagged, troubled breath.

* * * * * *

With a strangled shriek, Frodo twisted upright on the couch. It wasn’t wide enough for his injudicious movement; his hands groped at empty air for scattered seconds then he toppled forward and hit the floor with an impact that brought him firmly back to the here and now. Nursing the shoulder he’d slammed into the floorboards, he pulled himself somewhat upright, recognised that his feet were still on the couch and that his head, once again, was splitting. Yanking his feet towards him, he collapsed back onto his side and grimaced at the couch.

Lying there was no solution for the long term. The floor was very hard, and his head still hurt. His shirt was twisted, falling off the back of one shoulder and pulling at the key on its thong about his neck so that it all but throttled him. He shoved himself to his knees, attempted to will his head to stop its pounding, then tottered to his feet and staggered over to the washbasin.

He hadn’t meant to sleep. He’d slunk back to his room and latched the partition behind him, had read until the wee hours, uneasy at the thought of sleep. Now he knew why, as the water winked at him from within the basin, reminding him of his dream…

"But," he whispered muzzily, "I don’t dream."

He used to dream. Didn't he? Memory glimmered, rising from behind old defenses; he submerged his hands in the basin and lashed himself in the face with the chill water. Gasping, he groped for a towel and dried his face. Hanging above the basin, Frodo became slowly aware of the sounds of morning, of cloud-filtered sunlight streaming in through his window, of the sounds of hobbits in the courtyard singing, conversing and calling, of the smell of food.

Breakfast. Breakfast and to the barn, and then to the fields, where he was rather hopeless but he could at least work himself into a tired stupor that would perhaps preclude anything except tranquil, exhausted sleep.

Suddenly and apropos of nothing, he realised that he would be twenty in another twenty-two days.

* * * * * *

Another morning spent in the barns, grateful of the soothing smells, the dark and the quiet. Jim and Dan were subdued as well, seeming to ken his need for silence—either that or they had heard, as the entire Hall seemed to have heard, of the role he’d played at the riverside. At least his shame did not extend to any save a chosen few knowing what had come after…

Another mealtime of grabbing his food, of steeling himself against the shunned denial of his uncle’s and aunt’s pointed glances, of realizing that they were keeping the two smaller boys from him. Merry’s indigo eyes, desperately seeking his. Pippin, slipping him a treat into his pocket with a parchment wrapping that had a clumsily scrawled ‘frodo, i’m sorry’ upon it. And every glance, every sideways or strained look from anyone merely served to slip another knot into the rope that noosed him tighter every hour…

Another afternoon of more work, head down in the vegetable rows, losing himself in sheer manual labour. He saw Aster for the first time in a while; actually spent several moments working right next to her without realizing it, and when she had spoken his name he’d turned to her, and the look on his face must have been somewhat desperate for she drew back with a frown, then cocked her head and said his name again. He’d ducked his head and moved away…

Another evening of cool sundown, of warm soup and fresh bread for supper and sitting in the window wishing for a warm bath but afraid to let himself relax even that much or be in the bathhouse surrounded by more eyes and more voices. Instead he watched the common folk tend to the complicated task of putting the Hall boundaries to rights at the end of a long and busy day of harvest, and flinched every time he heard a voice, for fear that it might be directed at him…

Another night in which the stars were covered by a milky-grey haze of clouds, and mist gave his cheeks a chill kiss. The moon backlit the clouds, the river called to him with a tremolo of song, and he retreated from light and darkness both, ended up huddled on the floor by his mother's trunk, hugging his knees to his chest with his hands over his ears until well after midnight. Finally, drained and numb, he had stripped, crawled into his bunk and fallen into slumber…

Another early morning waking to roseate skies and damp sheets and gasping breaths—but this was no pleasant if somewhat annoying reaction to the cling of coverlets or fantasies. This was from another touch, one that had spun him into the dark and the dreaming. Feral, it was, and waiting for his first misstep, and cold… so cold. The knowledge that something lay in wait for him just within, just without, and the sound of mental locks falling open at the touch of a shadowy hand, and doors swinging wide and himself willingly stepping over the threshold…

No, not willingly. Never willingly.

It wasn't over. It hadn't stopped. It was all… released, somehow. Something else slumbering had wakened, this time.

Groaning, and curling into the sheets, and sudden thoughts of Merimac. Thoughts of holding his cousin against the trunk. Thoughts of those broad hands hard upon him, breaking him gently and oh, so thoroughly lifting him up to ride fire and bliss, to escape. Thoughts of lying, wrapped and joined safe by skin and breath and warmth, his body quivering and sated, his mind lulled, quiescent.

Wanting him here, next to him, and other hands than his own touching his burning skin.

Wanting him to stay away, far away, and never return, never know what had transpired here.

Wanting…

A broken cry smothered by his pillow, and release throbbing into his fingertips, and unbearable tension loosed in his mind and muscles. Kicking the covers back, the breeze from the window drawing tight across his wet belly, and his hot breath exhausting into the silent, solitary room, and the voices…

The voices stilled.

Frodo lay there, spent and dry-eyed and panting, sated with the silence and the dawn.

* * * * * *

The summons should not have surprised him. But it did.

Two days of going out into the Hall’s scrutiny had been enough and more than enough; Frodo had sent excuse of illness to the barn and spent the third day closeted away in his room, either lying on his bed or sitting below his window curled up against his mother's trunk. He read, for he couldn’t write. He tried. He dubiously studied the blank sheets, started more than once to lay ink on parchment, then stopped. Finally he put them aside and read from his mother’s book. Sometimes aloud, sometimes a mere sub-vocalization, sometimes altogether silent, imagining her voice cadencing the words properly, for her voice was the one thing he didn’t mind remembering. Her voice, and the way his father—his father!—had seldom spoken, instead his presence—pipeweed and lanolin—wrapping about him like a thick woolen cloak. Frodo had all but gratefully lost track of time and space, until the knock came at his door.

Frodo was afraid it was Merry—his cousin had not yet tried to sneak up in the past two days but he was wary of that possibility, afraid that Merry would see too much in his eyes, perhaps tease it further outward where they both would have to see it. The voice had not been Merry’s. Frodo had gone to the partition, slid it cautiously aside. The porter’s young son had been standing outside, had ducked his head nervously and repeated his message: the Master requests your presence in his quarters after dinner.

It was the third day after the river. And night was still to come.

* * * * * *

Frodo stood in the doorway to the smial, looked about at the comfortable furnishings, the thick napped rugs, the hearth stoked low. He had dressed himself with much consideration: hair carefully combed, face scrubbed, newest dark blue waistcoat and breeches that at least put a little color into his face and eyes. If he was to be judged, then he would give them no cause to fault his appearance, or no reason by wan or dispirited mien to give clemency. He glanced from Esmeralda, to Saradoc, then back again, then spoke.

"You’ve decided to send me away."

Esmeralda blinked and darted a sideways glance at Saradoc, who also seemed nonplussed. Saradoc took a short breath, leaned back in his chair, steepled his hands, laid his elbows upon the armrests and peered at him.

"I’m no longer a good influence on your son." The continuance was wooden; no hint did Frodo give of what the words made him feel. Not even to himself. "Or your Hall."

They were still mute, obviously rather taken aback. Whatever they had expected, it hadn’t been this. There was a bit of satisfaction in the thought.

Saradoc was frowning at him thoughtfully as he spoke the words, slowly. Esmeralda’s expression was changing, from dutiful to bewildered and now, into the set resignation that he had come to recognize as normal.

Though it hadn’t always been this way between them. Once it had been different; once what he was had not been the vast, cavernous gap that now existed. Once…

Frodo’s brows squinched together; he took a sharp breath and his eyes flickered downwards suddenly. For seconds time scattered beneath him; he shook his head, gritted his teeth, and raised his eyes once more to meet his only method of escape.

If he could just get away. If he could only just leave behind this place, these memories, leave the Brandywine behind him and never see it again…

They were watching him, poised with coiled intent like ferrets at a vole’s burrow. Saradoc suddenly leaned forward in his chair, placing his forearms upon the finely-brushed woolen of his breeches. "I… see."

"Do you?"

Esmeralda's eyes flashed. Saradoc's mouth tightened.

"And what else, then," his uncle stated, "would you expect us to do?"

"Nothing. I’ve left you no choice."

Again, they seemed taken aback by the severity and acceptance of his response. Esmeralda started to speak; closed her mouth as Saradoc ventured, "Before we go any further, I want you to know that this is your home…"

"This is not my home. It has never been my home." It seemed that someone else was speaking through his lips, that he was slumbering beneath a stranger in his own guise. For else surely there would be some passion, some feeling in those words? They were certainly met with feeling—indeed, with anger.

"Do you even comprehend what you're saying, boy?" Saradoc started up in wrath from his chair; Frodo watched in wary awe as it was Esmeralda's hand that stayed him, wondering why she did so. And why he wasn't even slightly intimidated by it.

"Oh, yes," that stranger with his voice and mouth answered. "You have given me shelter, and the clothes on my back, and the right to exist here in your home. But I have never met the conditions of your sufferance, and I feel certain by now that I never will be able to." He met Esmeralda's eyes. "And that makes me… precarious. Doesn't it?"

"Do you actually think this is pleasant for us?" she said, low, and he had no answer for that.

"This is your home," Saradoc repeated as he sat back into his chair with a weary directness. "You’re not of age, yet, and you have thirteen more years before you can hold your own property, or your own rights. We are still your guardians, and we will continue to hold those rights for you without fail and without personal gain. You haven’t been fostered out, and perhaps this was lax of us. Perhaps new surroundings will help you to…"

"Not end up as mad as my mother?"

"Frodo!" Esmeralda burst out.

"Isn’t that what this is really about?" he retorted with more heat that he wanted to betray, then clenched his fists. "Do you really think I need to hear all of this?" Frodo felt his voice waver, steadied it. "Can't we just do what we must and have done with it?"

Esmeralda's eyes chased from his, met her husband's. The two of them exchanged a long, silent message, then turned back to Frodo with a sudden patience. Frodo had thought himself beyond reacting; he was dazed by the sinking sensation that such bland acceptance gave him.

It was, again, the same sort of condescending patience they gave to his Old Uncle Rory. Mad Rory.

Saradoc doggedly returned to his original train of thought. "You will be fostered out. It will not be permanent, where you’re fostered, merely until the spring. Which, I will state now, can be changed if your behavior warrants it." The words grew more and more formal, as if using his office was a much more comfortable way to deal with it, and Frodo found himself grateful for the formality. It gave distance—which at one time would have hurt him, but now merely enabled his thoughts to unsnarl and settle into easier, well-ordered patterns. "The main problem we have now is where exactly to foster you to."

"As you no doubt are aware of, we had agreed to let you go with your cousin to the river for a while." Esmeralda put in. "I never thought it was a particularly good idea, and now I think less of it, considering."

Frodo's cheeks warmed; he kept his eyes turned downward, veiled and hidden from his guardians.

Merimac...

The river. The river.

"Considering?" he whispered, aware that he was trembling and unable to still himself, afraid of… what? His mind groped for some explanation, found a less intrusive one, fastened upon it. For he was indeed afraid that they knew all of what had transpired in his little smial that it also would be taken out, examined and held to scrutiny when it was one of the few things that was his and his alone.

"Considering," Esmeralda quietly said, "that Mac is on the river."

Frodo turned to stare at her, shocked past any pretense of chill reticence. He was expecting any reason but this. Esmeralda met his glance for once without a hint of uneasiness, or fear.

His was the gaze to drop first.

Saradoc continued persistently. "Your cousins Paladin and Eglantine agreed to take you come winter. But they can't take you until then. So unless we do indeed send you to Mac…"

"I want to go to cousin Bilbo’s." It burst from him, high and tense and sharply edged. He hadn't meant to say it. He'd barely been cognizant of having the sudden wish until it had voiced itself.

Silence met his sudden words. He looked up, saw the utter puzzlement in their expressions, and panic welled anew in his breast.

"I know you don’t want me to go there," he said, still rushed. "I know you don’t like him. But you don’t like me, either, and you think me cracked as he is, so—"

"Frodo—"

"I want to go there." His voice tightened further, high as a girl's. "You owe me this."

"We owe…" Saradoc growled, once again rising from his chair. This time Esmeralda did not stay him, and Saradoc strode the small distance over to stand over Frodo. "I think you’ve some misconstrued idea of what is happening here, boy. You are the one being sent from the Hall!"

"You owe me the right to have some say over where I’m going to go!" It burst past careful barriers, passionate and shaking, made him stand firm. "I’m nearly a tweenager. You’re the ones who have kept me here! Here. Where I don’t belong and near the river where it… where everyone watches me—where you watch me…" he choked it off, looked down.

"Can you can blame us for that?" Esmeralda said.

Silence, scarlet-faced and trembling.

"But you’re correct," she furthered slowly. "You do have the right to say where you’re going to go. If," she continued as he turned to her, rather flabbergasted at what he heard, "only because I have no desire to place you somewhere where you’ll just run off."

Frodo raised his head to stare at her.

Saradoc sighed heavily, turned away and trod back to his chair, settling himself back into it before he spoke, somewhat calmer. "Choice or no, I think Bilbo’s is the only place for you at this time. Your aunt and I have spoken at length of all these possibilities. She has never wanted you to go to there, and her reasonings are sound, but circumstances have… changed. I think it’s time. Time the Bagginses took some responsibility for you." He pointed a finger at Frodo as his cheeks flamed again. "Mind carefully, lad. No matter reason, rumour, or belief, you need to remember this: Drogo Baggins claimed you as his."

Frodo refocused on the floor, face twitching, cheeks still hot.

"You need to keep anything else to yourself, because mark my words, if you breathe a word of any other possibility as truth it will have too many ill consequences. Particularly on the Hill. Hobbiton is not at all like Buckland."

Restraining himself from asking if that was supposed to be a bad thing, instead Frodo tucked his chin and still said nothing.

"Are you listening to me, Frodo? Your cousin Bilbo might parley with the elves, but he’s alone in his clan. Others won’t be so accepting. And who knows from day to day how Bilbo's whims flutter? He’s a Baggins, after all, and they can be righteously stubborn and clannish."

Hearing his uncle speak his own fear, however amorphous, gave Frodo a tiny shudder.

"Best to keep your mouth shut about it. Give no cause for any more gossip to take seed."

"Yes, Uncle," he answered woodenly.

Saradoc gave him a piercing look for several moments, then crossed his arms. "Well. Best done, then, and done quickly. The grapes are nearly bloating on the vines and once vintage begins in earnest I’ll have no time to attend to this. If I’m to take you, it had best be by week’s end. Three days. Assuming Bilbo hasn’t changed his mind."

Frodo thought of the letter left him, locked away in his cabinet, and fervently hoped that it was true that Bilbo hadn’t chosen to give up on him.

Escape. Finally, escape…

Mac, I'm sorry, it's better so, he told the interior silence with a sharp pain, and locked it away. Another sweet interlude of peace and comfort gone, another piece of past life to try and remember… if he could.

"I’ll write Bilbo tonight," Esmeralda said. "And send one of the lads on a good pony with it first thing tomorrow morning. If we’re lucky, he can be back with an answer by nightfall."

"What if he doesn’t want me?" Frodo suddenly voiced, all too quietly. "Where will you send me, then?"

"We’ll be crossing that bridge when it’s built," his aunt said, then put her hands on her hips. "Frodo."

He looked curiously at her. Her face was grim.

"You’re no longer to have any charge over Meriadoc or Peregrin. They are not to go anywhere with you. Do you understand me?"

"Oh," Frodo answered with soft, sudden bitterness, "I understand you. And I’ll obey… if you will do one thing."

She tensed, as did Saradoc.

"I want to say goodbye to Merry, at least," he continued. "I want to have some time alone with him, to help him understand. Because," a brief smile of satisfaction as he kenned that he had at least this much over them, "you know that if I don’t make it right with him, he won’t accept it. He’ll never accept you sending me away. He won’t easily forgive you for it—unless I tell him it’s all right."

Esmeralda’s face darkened, and Saradoc frowned mightily. They knew it was true. And they obviously resented the knowledge. Frodo took a fierce breath, as if he was taking in their sudden vulnerability like air; it was a longed-for moment of control which nevertheless scattered the moment he grasped it.

He had no control over anything, not really. He could barely stand here in control of himself. And this… this moment had too-bitter rue underlying it.

Any control gained from this was bought upon cost of Merry's pain. And now Frodo would have to face Merry and try to make him understand why he had to go away.

"All right," Saradoc said resignedly. "Before you leave, we’ll arrange it."

* * * * * *

Bilbo Baggins, Esquire

Bag End, The Hill, Hobbiton

WestfarthingShire

Bilbo let out a blue cloud of pipeweed exhaust from his favorite pipe, perused the carefully folded parchment that he'd been respectfully handed, then eyed the young lad who had done so and who now stood before him holding the rein to a sweated, ivory-maned grey pony. His first thought that the missive was from Tuckborough—the pony was that fine—had proven erroneous as he noted the impression in the crimson wax seal: two 'B's, one large and one small, and a gracefully-fluted bottle.

And it was, he belatedly fathomed, Esmeralda's handwriting upon the outside. Clamping the pipe's stem in his teeth, Bilbo broke the seal and quickly unfolded the missive.

Dear Cousin:

He hmphed about his pipe, wondering how much that particular pleasantry had cost the Mistress of Brandy Hall. Probably nothing. Esme was nothing if not polite, even to those she detested.

Upon your last visit, you expressed a wish to have our Ward, Frodo Baggins, visit Hobbiton. It is our understanding that you did in fact tender an invitation to your cousin, one that he showed interest in accepting.

The pipeweed was suddenly hot and bitter on his tongue. Eyes widening and wondering exactly where this was going—and why it would necessitate quick delivery, he continued.

And so with this in mind, I write to you with some haste to insure that you were indeed serious in your offer of temporary fosterage. Recent circumstances at the Hall have made it necessary for us to find other arrangements for our Ward as quickly and uneventfully as possible.

I will not have it said that I was less than truthful to you upon this matter. With such as my consideration, I feel that it is your right to have some disclosure of the matter which has made us come to this decision—one, which I am sure you understand, that I do not make or take lightly.

"I don't imagine you do, dear cousin," he muttered to himself. "Get on with it, won't you?" Across the gate from him the pony let out a rolling snort through his nostrils and lowered his head, comfortably hip-shot in the sun. His rider shifted, not having his mount's enviable ability to lock his joints and doze standing up.

Our Ward has, of late, become more and more belligerent and odd in his actions, which we did discuss, if not in any wholesome fashion or detail, upon your recent visit here. The most unpleasant addition to his ungovernable behavior has occurred but a few days previous when Frodo, along with Meriadoc who was ostensibly in his care, devised an elaborate jape upon the river at the expense of young Peregrin. This resulted in a confusion during which Peregrin was assumed drowned.

"Oh," Bilbo breathed, his gut clenching at the thought.

Thankfully this was not the case, however I can only assume that the shock of thinking so affected Frodo quite adversely. He was possessed of a fit which rendered him unwell and frightened his little cousins very badly.

Needless to say, in the aftermath of such happenstance, we have come to the conclusion that we cannot harbour him at this time, nor trust him with the well-being of the children. He is becoming, more and more, an unsavoury influence upon Meriadoc and his actions in the episode involving my brother's son could have easily been all too tragic.

We have done all we can, yet still we must admit failure. I shall also admit to being very skeptical of your ability to contain any sort of wild and erratic behavior. Circumstance, however, has left us no choice. Frodo has himself requested to be sent to Bag End, if such has any outcome upon your decision.

The rider shall await your answer, yea or nay.

Sincerely,

Esmeralda Brandybuck

Mistress of Brandy Hall, Buckland

EastfarthingShire

Bilbo lowered his hand—and the parchment clutched in it—to his side and stared at the paving stones of his home, quite overwhelmed by the intensity of his feelings. They warred within him for long moments, and suddenly one overweening emotion rose to the surface. It was completely contrary to any common sense, but it was strong, and pure.

"Oh," he breathed again about his smouldering pipe. "Poor lad."

The messenger shifted at the gate once more, and Bilbo felt a prick of conscience—he'd not even offered a drink! Then he looked up and saw that the lad was peering fixedly past Bilbo and towards the smial. A bit taken aback at such unmannerly interest, Bilbo suddenly heard Daisy Gamgee's low voice behind him, singing to herself. He turned, taking pipe in hand as she came up the walk, a basket heavy with linens upon one hip.

Bilbo smiled. No wonder the Buckland boy was staring. Daisy was certainly a lovely lass—her fine, chaff-coloured hair wafting down past her plump waist, her skirts tucked up on one side to reveal a shapely length of sun-browned, gilt-furred knee and calf, her eyes brown-gold in the morning sun. She hesitated halfway down the walk, gave the messenger a smile and nod, then turned her attention to Bilbo, all business.

"I've done all the comp'ny rooms, mister Bilbo, and the kitchen besides, and I'll see to it May gets this last bit o' washing done in plenty time for the Tithing, don't you fret."

"Daisy, my girl, you are a marvel and I'm not fretting whatsoever," he informed her. "It's not like I don't have plenty of other choices of finery in my closets!"

A bright flash of smile, guaranteed to knock any young lad off his pins and back several paces. Bilbo snuck an amused look at the messenger, who looked somewhat wobbly in the knees. "Young hobbit," he said to the lad, "would you care for a quick draft of ale and perhaps a snack while I prepare my answer to your master and mistress?"

"Aye, sir," the messenger stammered, gawping at Daisy who was still smiling, if not quite so full-bore.

"Mister Bilbo," she told the handsome lad, "has the best ale in his cellars. Brought all the way from Buckland and the river!"

Bilbo chuckled then sobered, eyeing the missive in his hand. "It's just as well that you've done the extra rooms, Daisy," he said quietly. "For I might be receiving company for the Tithing after all."

* * * * * *

His mother watched him almost constantly.

Her concern and trepidation almost palpable, her green-brown eyes fixed on him, Esmeralda seemed confused, as if for the first time she had no idea what he was thinking, or why. It gave Merry a small jot of satisfaction, but it was not comforting. She and his father both; they should know what to do. They were Mum and Da, and should be able to fix this, even if the mend was faulty. Even if they didn’t understand what Frodo was about, they should know how to settle this. They should be able to comprehend why Merry loved his cousin so much, and that to separate him from Frodo right now was perhaps punishment to them, but was not truly punishment because he knew without a doubt that Frodo had to be alone right now.

Merry didn’t like it, he ached to go to Frodo, but he finally understood.

Somehow his parents didn’t, and somehow he knew more than they about this, and it was like the last strands to babyhood had been cut away. It hurt.

Then there was Pippin.

Somehow the little Took was balm and salve to lacerated feelings, not leaving him alone. Even when the other little boys whinged at him, trying to get him to come away and play—he was quite popular amongst the baby set—Pippin stuck to Merry like some peculiar limpet. And when it came to cases Merry was not like Frodo in this. He liked being alone at times, true, but when he was miserable he didn’t seek to lick his wounds in private.

He wanted company, wanted someone to be there even if comfort was silent and wordless, wanted slender, ink-stained fingers in his hair and a soft voice wryly teasing him from misery. He mourned that Frodo couldn’t give him this right now even as he hated bemoaning such a lack—it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t Frodo’s fault!—and found it odd that Pippin, for all his loquaciousness, could also understand the need for silence.

They had been up with the dawn, grabbed early breakfast and lit out for the vineyards. The grapes were ripening, hanging heavy and misted purple on the vines; they were not the only young hobbits to make an early rising this time of year. It had become a tradition for a small gang of youthful thieves to descend on the grapes, one that the workers turned a blind eye to, remembering their own youth, and one that even the Master himself thought a good joke. It was well understood that no one was to be too wasteful or greedy, and that the ‘tradition’ stopped on poor harvest years, but this year the vines were abundant with riches and the children were ecstatic.

It was the first time in Merry’s memory that Frodo had not been with him on these mornings.

Hands full of fruit, Merry was walking through the woods, along the embankment. The morning’s fog was beginning to lift, the day promising sunny and warm. He wandered aimlessly, playing at the grapes within his nimble fingertips, tossing them up in the air and catching them in his mouth. Mostly he was successful. At first Pippin had thought this a great game but he'd soon tired of it, and having quickly scarfed all his own grapes had gone ahead a ways, intrigued by a small, squat thing that had scurried for its hole.

Suddenly there was a squalling, as if one of the barn cats had had its tail stepped on; Merry started, then ran forward to the sound. He rounded a tree and stopped.

Pippin was stock still, but his gold-green eyes betrayed absolutely no fear. They marveled at the creature he’d managed to corner—a large badger that was backed half in and half out of its burrow. The badger hissed and growled, puffed up to nearly twice its original size in bluff and threat. Merry walked up slowly, so as not to cause further alarm.

"Pippin! Come away from there."

"But the size of it, Merry! And the size of us!" Pippin marveled. "It’s very bold, isn’t it?"

"And very angry. Come away, now, before it takes a bite from your kneecaps!" Merry said sternly.

Pippin backed away, with a slow sense of timing that suggested he’d quite a bit of experience dealing with animals both wild and tame. Once he was far enough out of range of the badger’s ire, he turned to Merry and skipped over with a grin.

"Wouldn’t it be nice to think that we could be that brave, Merry? That maybe some huge, nasty dragon or some mad troll would menace the Shire, and that maybe you and I could ride out to stop it, and be brave enough to stand firm even if it’s a lot bigger than we?"

"Perhaps." Merry started walking again.

"I’m not sure I’d be brave enough," Pippin followed; obviously his vocal cords had been reactivated and the companionable silence was done. Merry gave an aggrieved sigh as his cousin continued. "I mean, I think that if I came against something as big to me as I am to that badger, I’d run until I hit the western borders!!"

Merry, who’d drawn breath to say something quelling, instead found himself chuckling at the thought of the little hobbit running from the Brandywine to the West, wide-eyed and hair standing on end. Pippin grinned, reached out and took Merry’s hand. "Wouldn’t you, Merry?"

"Well, now that you mention it," he mused, then frowned. Cocking his head, he halted. "Wait. Do you hear that?"

Pippin frowned. In the sudden stillness Merry heard more: the sound of voices, of creaking timber, of hammer-blows. He started walking faster.

"Merry…"

"Be quiet!" Ears trained ahead, the sounds became nearer, clearer, coming from… coming from…

He stopped at the embankment, looked down towards the cove, saw.

"Oh, Merry!" Pippin breathed at his side.

Merry whirled and took off, back to the Hall.

* * * * * *

Last night they’d told him of the answer to their letter—Bilbo had responded both positively and immediately—and now Frodo was limned in the ever-rising sunlight, kneeling over the trunk beneath his window and methodically folding clothes into it. His map, accompanied by a tiny box filled with the pins that had adorned it, was tightly rolled and lay beside his toes awaiting stowage. His books and parchments were already carefully stacked or rolled in the trunk's bottom; the cabinet that had protected them sat hunched against the wall behind him, shelves naked and the key hung on one open door by its lanyard necklace.

He'd sat through sunrise, unfed and warming his chill flesh in the rays of light upon the windowsill to his room. He hadn’t slept. He couldn’t sleep. For when he slept the dreams would come…

No. He finished packing his extra clothing, stowed the map meticulously then shut the trunk lid and firmly shot the clasps home. I don’t remember. It was ruthless, comforting, a solid buttress of denial that he could set his back to. A barrier of unyielding stone to shut away the nightmares. Yet…

Somehow and by some chance it was not. Not any more. He could all but feel envisioned stone shiver beneath his fingertips, see fingerlings of shadow creep through crumbling mortar, feel tears spring to his eyes and hear a small moan that he belatedly realised was himself.

Frodo clenched fingers into leather and thin iron, toes into wood flooring, kneeling as if in homage against his mother's trunk. He was leaving, but it was not as he’d wanted or imagined. Thousands of possibilities, of ‘what-if’s. He was terrified.

It was real. Realer than the barriers. And he would feel it.

Feel the lights flaring behind his eyes with the power of a thousand tiny suns, yet they were not truly luminous for there was a darkness behind, one deep and vast and unfathomable, and he knew beyond doubt that if he fell into that void he would never, never see the light of day again.

Frodo lurched upward, hands grasping the rough-hewn, damp windowsill, feet gripping purchase on the rounded leathern trunk, and mindlessly dove forward only to rock to a sudden, entrapped halt at the window's edge. Wind teased at his hair, dried his cheeks. The river was mercifully silent. Three stories below, sun-touched handfuls of mist drifted across a courtyard which seemed suddenly welcome, and close.

His eyes closed. He felt dizzy, empty.

He wanted Merry, wanted his cousin to drag him from this, to need him and take his mind from this winding, confusing maze of self… no. Not Merry. It was not fair, he was still a little boy, he was not capable of finding his older cousin cowering from mind-shadows in the corner of his room—and if Merry was to find him, it would not stop there. It was very possible he could drag Merry into the shadows with him, and he knew it. Oh, how he knew it…

He wanted Mac, wanted strong arms to hold him, wanted his playmate there to pleasure and distract him, to shore him up and convince him that there was nothing to life but need, and now… no. If Merimac truly knew all of what was within him, he would turn away as well. Just as everyone else had done.

He was going to Bag End. To Bilbo's where perhaps he could… no. Frodo didn't know Bilbo, not really, he only knew his stories, and what if Saradoc was right? What if Bilbo found out that he was no Baggins by blood, that he had no true right to ask for shelter or succor?

There was no one. No one.

One step, measured and slow, from trunk to windowsill. The stone was chill, scraping against the broad, horny bottom of his foot. The wind riffled through the fur atop his toes, tickled invitingly at his nape, tugged persistently at the loose muslin of his shirt. His fingers whitened as he leaned out into the breeze, studied the cobblestones below.

It would be so easy. It would be… finished.

Sudden pragmatism reared its head, scolded him for a self-indulgent fool. What if the drop didn’t kill him? What if it left him like the old Thain, crippled several years previous in a fall from a pony? And what if it did kill him? Oh, yes, and in which case he’d found a sure way to drag Merry down with him, leaving his beloved cousin with the same legacy he himself had been left.

With a gasp Frodo hunched over, the words lancing within his brain. He twisted, leapt down from the window. Solid flooring met his toes and he stumbled forward, appalled at what hung before him. He had no one he could give this to, no one who would understand. He never had done.

He had to… make it… just… stop.

Amazingly, fear shored him up where self and want and need were failing. Fear of being totally lost, of losing control. Fear of what was beneath those lights, entombed in that darkness.

No. No. I didn’t remember before. I won't remember now.

Even as he had done eight years ago—when the nightmares had hounded him, when the awareness had driven him too close to complete dissolution of almost-unnatural will and endurance—Frodo fought it and won. It was no easier now than it had been then; he was certainly older and stronger, but so also was his Enemy. He stood quivering in the light coming from his window, a lithe shade with motes of sun dancing about him, and without a hint of mercy wrestled it back into the shadows.

The walls might be crumbling, the doors might be splintering, but they had to hold. They had to…

The sound of feet, hurried and heavy, bounding up the stairs. Frodo started, sucked in a breath, comprehended that he was sweating. And also that for the first time in the past days, the partition to his room was standing wide open.

"Frodo!" It was Merry running into the room, breathless and red-faced, skidding to a halt just beside him and grabbing at his shirt. Pippin was with him, panting and white. "Frodo!" Merry just kept saying. "Frodo…!"

"They’re taking down the treehouse!" Pippin finally burst out.

* * * * * *

They made it to the little cove more speedily than they had perhaps ever done, skidding to a halt to see a party of five sturdy hobbits gingerly circumnavigating the branches and dismantling the platform. The tarps, hung with such ingenious care, were already down; one lay half in and out of the river shallows, floating like a corpse. Frodo stared at it for long moments, then closed his eyes and shook his head and followed over to where Merry had raced over to his father, who was parceling out tasks in a stern, rather-short fashion. Pippin trailed Frodo, curiously subdued.

"You can’t do this!" Merry wailed. "You can’t!"

"It’s done!" his father retorted. "And wasting good daylight to see to it as well. It’s dangerous, Meriadoc; it’s already almost been your cousin’s harm!" He flung a hand toward Pippin, who looked up at Frodo with large, guilt-ridden eyes. Reaching out a hand that strangely shook, Frodo ran comforting fingers along the child’s nape, still walking. Pippin reached up, laced cold fingers into Frodo’s and held onto his hand very tightly, slowly walking with him.

"But Da…!"

Frodo came to a halt behind the younger lad, Pippin angling to hide behind him ever so slightly. The slender, childish fingers trembled in Frodo's grip as Saradoc straightened, turning from Merry to peer at them rather severely. Frodo realised that he was in breach of his part of the agreement, standing there with the two younger boys; he started to hold the stare belligerently then his eyes chased away and fell to the ground, suddenly and despondently unwilling to pursue it.

It didn’t matter. Not any more.

"Da, you can’t do this! It isn’t fair!"

Frodo spoke, his eyes almost of their own accord raising to touch his uncle’s once again. "Leave it, Merry."

"But Frodo," Merry turned to him desperately, "we built it! It’s ours!"

"Nothing’s ours," was the quiet reply. "Merry, it’s over."

Merry fell silent, peering at him with great, suddenly-darkened eyes.

* * * * * *

They stood and watched mutely as it was all taken down; every small bit of furniture, every trunk, every scrap of lumber, every beam and cloth. And when they had finished loading it all into hand carts up on the bank the workers, duly dismissed, touched their pates and trundled away.

Saradoc came up to where the three lads were standing. "Peregrin. Come with me, lad."

Pippin clung for a moment to Frodo’s hand, then looked up at his two older cousins, noted their tight faces, and did as directed. His uncle took his hand, turned to Frodo and Merry; the latter tensed, expecting that he would be ordered along as well. His father’s eyes were stern upon him, but what he said was not what Merry had expected to hear.

"I should think on a quiet day you can hear the bell for luncheon even out here, yes?"

Frodo frowned at this; the blue eyes raised to Saradoc and held there in a question, which the older hobbit seemed to answer by firmly continuing, "I expect you both at the Hall for lunch. No longer."

He turned, Pippin’s hand still folded in his, and made his way up the embankment. Pippin kept turning back to look at them as he was led away, longing in every line of his body.

"I don’t understand," Merry murmured, watching his father depart. "He and Mum have spent the past days doing their best to keep you and me apart, and he just lets me stay?"

"I asked him to let me have some time with you, just the two of us." There was an emptiness, a waiting that filled Frodo's blue eyes. "He left it rather late, though. Probably that was planned, as well." He flicked a glance at the willow, bereft and naked of everything they'd had built and been and dreamed of. Merry followed the glance, felt his stomach sink as Frodo's eyes shuttered then returned to him. He suddenly knew what it was Frodo had asked for. Time. Time alone, to tell him…

"You’re leaving, aren’t you?" Merry asked numbly.

Frodo seemed taken aback. Then his face smoothed out once more and he said, very softly, his eyes never leaving his cousin’s. "Yes. I’m leaving on the morrow."

"Tomorrow!?" Merry burst out.

Frodo kept peering at him with that numb, strange patience. Once again, waiting.

"Why so… so…" the younger lad stammered, then, "They’re sending you away! They’re making you leave as soon as possible, aren’t they?"

Still, silence. Merry stepped forward and before he could stop the words, whispered, "You said you’d never leave me."

The moment he said it he was sorry, for Frodo hunched his shoulders and closed his eyes. "I know," he murmured. "I should never have done, Merry. I should have never made a promise that I knew was… was impossible to keep." He ducked his head and Merry thought he could see a glimmer of tears beneath dark, cast-down lashes. "I’m sorry, Merry. I’m so sorry. They’re sending me away quickly, yes. But I have to go, don’t you see? I can’t stay here any more."

"But…" Merry kept protesting, though some interior voice kept bidding him silent, "this is your home! You’re a Brandybuck!"

"I am that, at least," was the muted agreement. "But Merry, this is not my home. The only thing that has ever made it home," Frodo abruptly reached out and traced the side of his hand along Merry’s set face, "is you."

Merry caught the hand, held it to his cheek when Frodo would have drawn it away. Frodo took in a sharp breath, seemed to hesitate. He just stood there, mutely relinquishing his hand to Merry’s grip, holding his gaze for long moments. Merry felt the hand held against his cheek trembling ever so slightly, and reacted in the only way he could. Ducking his head into his cousin’s neck, he latched tightly onto him. Frodo gave a strange, tight shudder and clutched back fiercely, wiry strength almost driving the breath from Merry, who curled against him with a small, almost frantic whimper.

It was obvious how long it had been since they'd so embraced when Merry was surprised anew at how they lined up, equal in length and warmth. Frodo's pulse-point throbbed madly against his cheek, and dusky curls tangled in his eyelashes. Merry closed his eyes with a soft, contented sigh, burying his face into the pale neck, breathing him in.

Frodo quivered again, then with a breath that was almost a sob, he took Merry's head in both hands and pulled back, staring at Merry, whose stomach lurched at the sudden and hectic brilliance in his cousin's expression. There were a thousand utterances tumbling in those startling eyes, and words crowding against Merry's own lips but unable to be uttered; slender fingers tight against his skull and tangled into his curls, warm breath upon his chin and cheeks. Suddenly all he wanted was for Frodo to hold him again, but Frodo restrained him with inexorable hands, keeping them apart when Merry thought to angle back towards him. Merry fisted his hands into Frodo’s shirt, made a protesting sound.

Frodo stilled him, then closed his eyes and rested his forehead upon Merry’s.

"They won’t let me go with you, will they?" Merry said thickly.

Merry’s face still cupped in his hands, Frodo angled Merry’s chin nearly to his chest and laid a kiss upon the high forehead.

"No," he whispered. "They won’t. You know they won’t. And that’s the way it must be."

He released Merry and deliberately stepped back, crossing his arms. Merry wobbled slightly as he did so, swallowing hard, his entire frame clenching about the rebuff. Merry felt emptied, suddenly bereft of something that he wasn’t sure he could name, that he wasn’t sure he’d ever had.

Instead he watched the lockdown happen, tumbler by quivering tumbler, within his cousin's being, and felt as helpless and despairing as when he thought Pippin had drowned before their eyes…

Frodo was not looking at him. "I’ll be back." His voice was steadily light. "At any rate, you’ll be so busy having fun with Pippin that you won’t have time to miss me."

"That’s not true," Merry stated, very low. Frodo angled his head sideways, shot him a look that tried to be teasing but rather failed.

"I know," he answered softly. "I’ll miss you too."

"Frodo…" he stepped toward him—only one step, but enough to make Frodo retreat several. Merry halted, jaw tightening in sudden misery.

Frodo kept speaking, his own sudden discomfort painfully obvious. "You do need to look after Pippin, all right? I know he can be a pest, but he’s got the biggest heart I’ve ever seen. You can teach him how to protect that heart of his, and how not to be such a pest. Maybe he needs you now, just like you needed me when you were his age. Maybe you need to be with him. More, certainly, than you need to be with me…" he trailed off, swallowed. Merry started to protest, fell silent as Frodo looked out across the water. Another shudder, as if there was something out there, something that he didn’t know, or recognize, but desperately and nevertheless needed.

And whatever it was, Merry couldn’t give it to him. Not now. Maybe not ever. He was beginning to understand that it went beyond being too young for tweener sharing—be it mental or physical—that it went beyond family, or home, or friendship. His uncle had been right; there was a missing place, a storm beneath the flat calm, and from where they stood here and now there was absolutely nothing Merry could do to ease it. Frodo would protect him at this point in time, even to his own detriment, because it was all he knew to do. It was instinct.

It was hurting him.

Mac’s words: "You know it’s hurting him… Sometimes we have to do things for people because it’s what’s best for them."

Merry swallowed. "You’re going to the river, aren’t you? With Uncle Mac."

Frodo gave him a peculiar, inscrutable look; as if the lights behind his eyes—lately so dampered, so controlled—had finally gone out. "No, Merry-dear. I’m going to Bag End."

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *