Chapter Text
“Pippin?”
Pippin whines, curling into herself. She had taken a nap after elevensies in her favorite armchair in Bag-End and Merry had promised to distract Frodo until she woke up.
“Ten more minutes.” Pippin muttered.
“Come on, Pip,” Merry said lightly, poking her.
“I brought roasted chicken and those cupcakes you like.” Frodo called from what felt like far away.
“It doesn’t smell like roasted chicken,” Pippin hid her face further in the blanket, keeping her eyes closed, “I think you’re trying to trick me into waking.”
“You still have to get up, my dear.” Merry said. “Everyone is waiting.”
There’s something in her tone that makes Pippin move, she sounds tired, like the kind of tired that can only be solved with a hobbit’s favorite tea and a lie in. “If I must.” She uncurls and shuffles her way into the kitchen where Frodo stands.
Frodo has her back to Pippin, unpacking the food and humming. It shocks her a bit to see her standing there, though why…The reasons for her surprise slips away but Pippin still finds herself crashing into Frodo and wrapping her arms around her, like she hasn't seen her for too many days.
Frodo laughed, “Pippin!” Patting her arms and leaning into the embrace. “Is this your attempt at flattery? Because I promise not even the warmest hug will get me to give you all the legs.”
Pippin tucked her face into Frodo’s neck, taking in her scent, taking in her presence. Something in her had been missing her for too long. “I just missed you. I had the most unsettling dream.”
“That’s what you get for napping on a full stomach, you know what Bilbo always said.” Frodo said, sliding out of Pippin’s grip.
“Full stomachs lead to full dreams?” Sam said, coming from the pantry, holding baskets of more food.
“Sam!” Pippin said, letting go of Frodo to go hug Sam.
“Why Ms. Pippin,” Sam said, a bit stiff in her grip, “this is quite a warm greeting.”
“I missed you!”
“I was just in the garden.”
“No, I think…” Pippin released Sam to look over at Merry who stood in the doorway. She seemed weighed down by something. Her eyes glinted with grief. She was haunted, but by what Pippin didn't...“Merry? What’s wrong?”
“Pippin,” Merry sighed, “you have to wake up.”
“I am awake, we’re in Bag-End perfectly content and happy if you can’t tell. See?” Pippin gestured to Frodo and Sam, now bickering over how to arrange the fruit tray.
Merry shook her head. “My dear, we aren’t.”
“Yes are we, Merry, everything’s fine, Frodo’s here, so is Sam, we’re going to have a perfectly pleasant meal and…”
Frodo is laughing at something Sam said and Sam is smiling in that toothy way she only gets when Frodo is happy. It’s the way things should be, the way they are. Except they aren’t are they?
She glances over at the fire and sees a man burn. She closes her eyes just as quickly, but it doesn’t make the image go away. Instead she feels like she’s the one in the fire, that it’s her flesh melting.
She opens her eyes and Frodo and Sam look at her, clearly concerned, but they make no move to comfort her, they just watch.
“Pippin, you can’t hide here.” Merry said.
“I’m not, I…” she looks away from Frodo and Sam and her open seat and the wonderfully set meal, to the window where heads fall from the sky.
Pippin flinches away, but Frodo and Sam don’t notice, their gazes nowhere near the window or fire, lost in their own perfect world. Merry watches her sadly.
“I don’t want to go out there.” Pippin said, shaking her head. “I want to stay here, where everyone’s happy and nothing bad has happened.”
The orcs grope at her, Sauron burns her alive, the Steward digs his fingers into her face, monsters are stabbing Merry. She is alone, she is going to die.
“Pippin,” Merry came to her, cupping her cheek, “you have to open your eyes. You must.”
“Please don’t make me," she shakes her head, "please. I can’t.”
“It’ll be okay, you just have to…”
Pippin opens her eyes. She finds the familiar grayish white ceiling that makes up so many of buildings of Gondor and she thinks for a minute she’s back in the dorms, pressed down by the weight of her service to the Steward, but she turns her head and finds three full beds; Merry, Sam and Frodo.
She jerks up, wanting to ensure the sight is not another dream. She stumbles out of bed, her still badly burned and now bruised feet protesting at the movement, she ignores it desperate to get to her friends.
She goes to Merry first, and finds her heartbeat steady and eyes closed. She twitches in her sleep, wrinkling her nose and huffing breaths. She remembers the sword in her stomach and she peeks under the covers and finds it wrapped up in white bandages.
“Oh Merry.” She doesn’t dare touch the bandages, so her fingers hover over them.
It only gets worse when she glances over and sees the absolute terrible state of Frodo and Sam. The healers had tried to clean them up, but wiping off the ash and dirt didn’t hide how gaunt their faces were, or how thin their limbs were and how beaten down they looked.
None of them opened their eyes, they laid there while Pippin could only stare.
How unlucky she was to wake up first, to be okay when no one else is. She thought she had been lonely running the streets of the city, standing at the Steward’s side, being carted by orcs, but facing her unconscious kin, she’s never been so lost in her life.
She goes around Merry, standing in between the beds so she can keep one hand on Merry and still see Frodo and Sam closer.
Frodo’s neck is covered in what seems to be burns and one of her hands is wrapped with a bandage so Pippin can’t see the injury. Sam is skinnier than Pippin has ever seen and there’s a furrow in her brow that’s never been there before and looks painful.
“Oh no.” She mutters, moving to them. They’re pressed together, so close you’d think they melded together, Sam’s hand even in sleep is wrapped ironclad around Frodo’s.
Pippin wants to be that close, she wants to be comforted like that. She looks from Sam and Frodo to Merry, holding her breath like that very desire will wake them up.
Once, the trio of them all had a near supernatural ability to respond to Pippin right before she called for help. Every fall, every slip, every loss, Merry would find her before she could inhale to cry. A question, a concern, Frodo had a response before she opened her mouth. A sniffle, a cough, a sigh and Sam would have whatever remedy she needed before it happened.
There’s an urge deep in her to shake them one by one, poke them until they open their eyes and tell her they’re okay, give her the comfort she’s been aching for since they left the Shire, just like they always had done but glancing from Merry to Sam to Frodo, all injured and broken in new ways Pippin has no idea what to do about, she steps away, worried her touch will only hurt them more.
After all, her touch has broken less fragile things; Boromir, the Palantir, Denethor, she can’t risk hurting any of them. She’s barely a hobbit now with her burned feet and bad decisions.
The three of them are the strong ones, capable of great deeds while she’s stumbled blindly along, choosing to follow the wrong people, crash into dangerous situations. She doesn’t deserve their comfort when they’re recovering.
How greedy is she to even think of awakening them, of making them help her when they’re the heroes?
So she resolves to herself then, they had already spent so much on taking care of her, and now after all the things they’ve achieved, the things they’ve done, she’d be the one to care for them. She’d make up for her failures while they recovered.
“Pippin?” Strider asks, appearing out of nowhere and making her jump.
She jumped away from the beds. “Strider! What are you doing here?”
“Checking on my patients, one of which seems to have found her way out of bed.” Strider sets some bowls and bottles on a nearby table. “What are you doing?”
“Are they going to be okay?” Pippin asked, ignoring the question. Now that he pointed it out, her head and feet hurt and her body ached like she fell from the Party Tree. She ignored it.
Strider gave her one of his inscrutable quirks of his lips, it wasn’t a smile or a frown, but something more mysterious. “They have everything they need to heal, now we wait for them to wake up.”
“Does that mean there’s a chance they won’t?”
“Maybe, but I’ve found hobbits to be beyond such things as slim odds. Frodo and Sam survived Mount Doom, compared to that opening their eyes won’t be near the same challenge. We just have to wait until they feel ready to do so.”
“And Merry? I saw her get stabbed.”
“The same for her. What I’m more surprised about is that you’re upright. How’s your head?”
Pippin subconsciously reached out, finding the bump on just on the edge of her hairline. She winced when she poked it.
Strider sighed, reaching out and guiding her hands away. “Pippin.”
“It doesn’t hurt! I didn’t even notice until I touched it.”
He just gave her a knowing smile and set to inspecting it himself.
It’s when she glances out the window and sees a half a dozen guards waiting that she realizes Strider has probably become much too important to be waiting on some hobbits. “Aren’t you supposed to be the king now? What are you doing here?” She asks.
Strider turns away to grab some washcloths and a bowl of some green looking goo. Pippin resists the urge to wrinkle her nose, she’s had more than her share of gross medical remedies.
He faces her again, reaching out slowly and when she doesn’t flinch away, begins to pat some of the goo on the bump on her head. “I am taking care of the hobbits that brought about Sauron’s defeat.”
“Well those three are asleep, so you’re good to go,” Pippin ducked from under his hand, “in fact, being awake and fine and all, I’d be happy to take care of them all for you.”
Strider laughed. “Pippin, the four of you helped save Middle Earth, it is my honor to be here.”
“You’re much too kind to me.” Pippin replied, still unbelieving.
She had saved Faramir, but only after costing the world Gandalf (the coming back doesn’t count), Boromir and who knows what else. She certainly didn’t save the world, that was Frodo and Sam and Merry.
Strider watched her, his expression searching. “After everything you’ve gone through, I think you could use some kindness.”
Pippin pushes past that, uninterested in debating her merits, which she knows are not much. “Are you almost done?”
“I am,” he discarded a washcloth and grabbed another one, moving to Merry. “I take it you will not return to bed and rest?”
“We could pretend I did and then as soon as you're gone, I’ll instead wander off to find something to get into.”
“If I showed you how to take care of them, would you keep the wandering to a minimum?" He gestured to the beds. Pippin perked up, nodding eagerly.
And Strider did just that. He showed her how to check bandages, what signs to look for to see if they need to be changed, how to clean their various injuries and how to make sure they were properly watered and fed. She had giggled a bit at the expression, imagining the three of them as plants in one of Sam’s gardens. Then she reminded herself more seriously, this was important work, her highest duty now. She had to take care of them just like they took care of her.
With a task, the hours tick by turning into the days and then a week and Pippin remains the only awake hobbit, though she watches slowly but surely as all their cuts and bruises and marks heal.
Strider comes by every morning. Gandalf visits a few times, but never stays long. Legolas and Gimli stick their heads in every so often. Éowyn is the most constant visitor with Faramir usually on her heels.
Even the women Pippin had befriended come by to visit her, Beatrice tells her she and Willow have been the made heads of operations, Rowan’s moved to help in the healing halls and Ruby was taking a break from the kitchens to train in the newly formed woman guard detail.
They keep her updated on the stories spreading, but Ruby especially gets all the best gossip.
“Well everyone’s in a bit of uproar right now with all the changes.” Ruby started immediately when she came by her for her daily check in.
"Oh?" Pippin prompted, focused on crushing the leaves Strider dropped off into what is supposed to be a healing paste of some kind.
“The King dismissed all of the Stewards' guards and is working on replacing them right now." Rudy said, taking a seat next to her. "It’s mostly men, but he’s keeping spots open for when us women are a little more trained. That shieldmaiden from Rohan, the one who caught Captain Faramir’s eye if you know her, he’s made her head of all the new forces.”
“Master Éowyn? Oh I bet she’s happy about that.”
“She is, most of the old guard is not.”
“I imagine not.” Pippin snorted, giving the now crushed leaves a few more smashes. “Though we are speaking of Denethor's guards, the ones that were going to burn him and his son alive?” She set the bowl aside and grabbed the swath of fabric meant for bandages.
“They were following the Steward’s orders.”
“And if Strider told you to throw yourself off the side of the city, would you?” Ruby opened her mouth and shut it, but didn’t argue. Pippin nodded, her point proven. She’ll have to thank Merry for the advice when she wakes up.
“Regardless, there’s been no small amount of controversy, though it seems everyone is accepting it for now, but there’s plenty of whispers. It’s all quite unconventional, everything that’s happened; hobbit lasses destroying rings and women warriors killing Witch Kings. It’s upended what everyone thought they knew.”
“I suppose.” Pippin said, unfortunately understanding. She began folding the swath into squares to be cut. "Of course a society so judgemental and hateful of women would be surprised they’re just as capable. “When will you join your guard?’
“Next few weeks, I’ll probably be assigned to the guard here. The king wants to place the first all-women group in charge of protecting the ringbearer and her companion, which I suppose includes you and your cousin," she glances over at Merry admiringly, "not that the hobbit knight needs it.”
That makes Pippin freeze. Why hadn’t she thought of it? All her experience with men and she had forgotten; even after they saved the world, they were still in a city full of them and they were still small lasses. It wouldn’t be hard to turn against them, to blame them for the carnage of the war. They could say they were too small and weak and their victory would have been quicker or better if men did it. They could blame them and lash out as men do.
“Are there concerns for our safety?” Pippin ask, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.
“I don’t think so, it’s more of a ceremonial thing, which is why he wants it to be all women, to really highlight it was lasses that destroyed the ring which means we’re just as capable as serving as guards or that’s how Lady Eowyn explained it in training.”
Pippin feels it is the opposite; men will be more likely to notice and target them because they represent all the changes they’re afraid and resentful of.
She feels familiar fear crawl up in her throat. Even now, in the aftermath of everything, they could still be in danger, the men could still turn against them. She glanced over at her kin’s still, sleeping bodies. She can't just protect their health, she has to keep them safe, she has to protect them from the men.
The dinner bell rings, jolting Ruby up, “I’ve got to go, I’ll come by tomorrow, alright?” She squeezed Pippin’s shoulder as she went by and was gone.
Pippin went to the window and watched her turn into a red dot until she was gone. The stone streets were quickly emptying as everyone headed home for dinner. Pippin watched men hustle by, their presence probably normal, but in her mind now more threatening.
She resolved to herself there, men had hurt her enough, they would not hurt any more hobbits.
A noise draws her attention from the street back to her room. She turns and finds Sam groaning and blinking awake.
“Sam?”