Fic repost: Odd One Out

[sophinisba]

This is the fic I wrote for the September fic exchange at waymeet, "A Moveable Feast". I could tell from the request I got that I was writing for Dana, so I did a fic that I knew she'd recognize as being part of my Pippin series Odd and Even Numbers but that would also work on its own for people who aren't familiar with the other parts. This part takes place during the Conspiracy. Thanks to Claudia for the beta and to Dana for the inspiration.

Titles: "Odd One Out" or "Odd and Even Numbers: Five"
Author: Sophinisba
Starring: Merry/Pippin, Fatty Bolger
Rating: PG
Words: 2900



"Pippin," said Merry, hugging him tight, "I'm so glad to see you."

"Ah, don't hug me now," Pippin said, "unless you want to smell of pony." But he grinned and he didn't pull away.

"Just give me a kiss then," said Esmeralda, who'd come out with her son to greet Pippin at the gate, "and you've just time for a quick bath before supper."

Pippin obeyed, making a show of kissing her carefully on the cheek without otherwise touching, and they both laughed.

"It is so good to have you here again."

"The Hall is my second home," said Pippin. "You know I could never stay away for very long."

"I'm glad to hear it," she said. "And once Frodo comes home to Buckland, I hope you'll come and see us even more often."

Pippin just smiled at her, because he liked his Aunt Esme too much to lie to her or to tell her the truth.

The meal was quite wonderful, of course, as was dessert, and when that was over Saradoc invited them to have a brandy in the parlour. This was the first time a hobbit of an older generation had offered him such a thing (Frodo and Merry, being his friends, did not count as old) and Pippin was fairly sure Merry's parents would have consulted with his own before deciding to invite him to such a grown-up affair, which took away a little from the grown-up feeling he knew it was supposed to give him. Still, and though he was eager to talk to Merry alone, "I certainly couldn't refuse that."

He thought it would be unpleasant, a lot of sitting up straight in uncomfortable chairs and pretending to be interested in financial matters, but talking with Esmeralda and Saradoc was really quite lovely, even with Merry gone quiet, as he would sometimes do. And why shouldn't it be fine? he thought. In years he might not quite be considered an adult, but all his good friends were, and so were the things they got up to these days, and so he might as well be too. He didn't actually like the taste of brandy as much as he liked the company.

So it was not until very late that night that he and Merry were alone together, in Merry's room, and able to talk about their very grown-up plans.

"You want to go to Budgeford tomorrow?" said Pippin, loosening his collar.

"No – that is, I did when I wrote you, but we've made a change of plans. Fatty's come out to start fixing up the house at Crickhollow, and we'll meet him there."

Pippin frowned. "You really think it's a good idea to have him involved with all of this? We wouldn't want him finding out everything."

"Yes," said Merry. "I've thought about it a good deal already. I didn't want to spell everything out in the letter, but –"

"You're not planning to tell him the truth, are you? About Frodo leaving? I can see where you'd want his help, but I don't think that's a good idea."

Merry hesitated, surprised. "Er, I meant to say – Well, tell me why you don't – Oh, Pippin, it's late to have this conversation –"

"I'm not tired."

"No, I mean it's too late to discuss it now. I already told Fatty about it all a month ago."

Pippin was so surprised he didn't know at first what to say. Silly to find the breath gone from his lungs. It wasn't such a horrible thing. "You –"

"I started to say, I worried about putting anything in a letter that might fall into the wrong hands."

So why hadn't he just waited and talked it over with Pippin first? Pippin started to say. But then, even though he'd just said he wasn't tired, Pippin decided he didn't want to talk anymore. He took a deep breath and smiled at his cousin. "I'm sure you're right, and as you said, there's no use in discussing it now."

"I didn't mean it like that," said Merry, touching his shoulder. "I didn't mean to shut you up."

"It's all right," Pippin said. "Let's just go to sleep. We'll have time to talk in the morning."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Merry dear." Pippin kissed him and the two of them quietly undressed and lay down together. Pippin really did feel too tired to talk or do anything else, but they held each other and Pippin listened to Merry's steady heartbeat and slow breath until worries faded away into deep warm dreams.

* * *

They set off after second breakfast, on foot this time since it was only a short walk.

"Well then," said Merry, "we're both well rested and there's no one around to listen through the walls. Tell me why you think I was wrong."

"It's all right, Merry. I told you I'm not upset."

"Nonsense, you're far too cheerful for me to believe that."

"I'm a cheerful hobbit. I should think you'd have realised that about me by now. You've known me long enough."

"Exactly. I know you well enough to tell when you're honestly happy and when really angry and trying to play at being mature."

Well, there it was. Merry knew him well enough to bring out every dark doubt he had about himself with just a few words. As if Pippin didn't know how precarious his place in the whole plan was. Pippin had originally managed to convince Merry he should come along in part by saying that no one else was as good at lifting Frodo's spirits.

Pippin felt even worse than he had last night, because this time he knew Merry'd aimed to hurt him on purpose. "You really do want to quarrel, don't you."

Merry shook his head. "I don't want you to keep this to yourself. One conspiracy's quite enough, you know. If you start trying to keep secrets from me as well you'll go mad before September."

"Well, I wouldn't have agreed to the first conspiracy hadn't been a bit mad already, would I?"

Merry smiled. "Don't change the subject."

Pippin's chest felt tight. Perhaps Merry was right and it would be better to get it all out in the open. "It just bothers me a bit when you're so careful that you won't tell me what's going on in a letter, but then you're willing to let someone else in on the secret without even consulting me." He didn't feel any better yet. Putting his feelings into words was just making him angrier. "Because, it was only supposed to be the three of us, wasn't it! You and me, taking care of Frodo, like we always do."

"And Sam, you agreed to telling Sam."

"Because we needed Sam, all right. But Fatty Bolger?"

"You've always got along fine with –"

"Of course I've got along with him. So has every other hobbit in the Shire. Merry this is supposed to be a secret!

"You know he'll tell Folco."

"He'll do no such thing."

"He will. And Estella."

"Fatty knows how to keep a secret."

"That's not even what bothers me, really," said Pippin. "It's as if you – Well, it used to be just you and Frodo. You were so...close..."

"Not this again." And was Merry rolling his eyes? Could he really be so unkind, after he'd practically begged Pippin to tell how he was feeling?

"Right, I'm sorry, you don't like me bringing that up..."

"I just don't think I should have to keep apologising for being – no, for having been best friends with the hobbit I thought of as my brother before you were even born."

"Perfect, Merry, that makes me feel so much better." Pippin realised after he said it that he might have been rolling his eyes as well. Merry deserved that though. "You don't like me to say it, but you just can't stand keeping it between Frodo and you and me. If it can't just be about you and Frodo, you'll let any number of friends and cousins and gardeners in on the plan."

"They can help us," said Merry.

"That's not the point."

"Isn't it?"

Pippin was too annoyed to answer that. If he did, he really had to admit that helping out Frodo was the point of all of this. Perhaps Merry was right, perhaps he was being foolish and immature to focus on little rivalries and who should be in or out of the circle. But he couldn't stand to admit that just then, so he just walked on ahead. After some minutes of silence he changed the subject (to gossip about Ilberic Brandybuck and young Minto Burrows), and this time Merry let him.

And then, when Fatty greeted them in the lane outside the House, when he took them both in in one of his bear hugs, Pippin remembered how much he really did like this hobbit, and remembered that he was also one of Frodo's dear friends. After that there was so much to see, with the work Merry and Fatty had done on the house, and so much to talk about (or, really, to listen, since Merry and Fatty were the ones who had all the information) that Pippin forgot to be resentful and could only be impressed. Everything really did seem to be coming together. Sure, Pippin could wish that he'd been included more in the decisions, but he lived in another part of the Shire, and it was understandable that Merry and Fatty would have gone ahead with the Buckland business themselves.

While they talked Pippin could feel Merry glancing at him sideways, probably trying to judge whether he'd been won over. If asked directly he would have said he was. Merry would know that some part of Pippin was still sore, but he hoped Fatty didn't realise it.

They were all so excited about the work they'd accomplished already and the work they still wanted to do that Merry and Pippin decided they should stay for the night. Since they hadn't planned this, Merry said they should go back to the Hall to tell his parents, and while there they might as well pick up some food, some tools, and another blanket or two.

"You can carry that, can't you, Merry?" said Fatty. I want to show Pippin the path in back of the house."

And though this was less subtle than it could have been, Merry nodded, and went off by himself. Fatty and Pippin did not go out back at first but sat in the kitchen, and Fatty said, "Did the two of you quarrel before you arrived here?"

"I think I shall never fool anyone with my cheerfulness again," Pippin responded. "Am I really so obvious?"

"No, but Merry is."

Pippin chuckled and said, "Yes, we argued for a few minutes. It wasn't anything terrible." because it seemed foolish to pretend. One conspiracy was quite enough, as Merry had said.

"Was it about me?"

"Not really. More about him and me."

"And Frodo and Sam and me."

"Oh, all right," said Pippin, laughing. "We quarrelled about you too, about him telling you, but I don't hold it against you. And anyway, I don't feel now as I did this morning."

"Fair enough," said Fatty. "I understand. It gets complicated, caring about someone as much as you do. It's hard enough when it's just two people trying to get along, but now that we've got five it's a wonder we can even talk to each other."

"You won't tell Folco, will you?" said Pippin, and Fatty laughed.

"No, Pippin. I won't tell Folco or Estella or our mum and dad. Once I see the rest of you off I'll be the only one in the Shire to know where you've gone, and I expect it'll be better for me if I don't know too much about that either."

"I know those are the things I should be thinking about," Pippin said, his tongue feeling thick and clumsy. "But whenever he decides not to tell me something –"

"I know," said Fatty, "you feel he's shutting you out. You're afraid you'll be left behind."

"Yes," said Pippin, and before he could stop himself added, "He's said it enough times. He thinks I'm too young. He doesn't think I should come."

"Well then, it's a good thing he talked to me, isn't it?"

"You mean –"

"Some member of the Conspiracy needs to stay behind. Once I told Merry I'd be the one to do it..."

"That's when he really decided he'd take me along," Pippin finished.

"I think so."

"Oh." Then his tongue was thick and his throat was tight and his eyes started to burn.

"Don't," said Fatty.

But Pippin was crying already. "I can't help it, can I?"

Fatty reached across and hugged him. "It's all right," he said. "You won't be the one left behind, Pippin. I will."

"I – I'm sorry. I'm so selfish, Fatty, I –"

"There, there." Fatty was patting him on the back, not rubbing it the way Merry or Frodo would do. "Stop worrying and stop apologising, it's perfectly all right."

Pippin nodded, meaning to comply. "I'll stop crying in a minute too, I just –"

"It's what I want to do. For Frodo, for all of you. And I want you and Merry and Sam to go along with him. It'll all work out in the end, you'll see."

"I believe you," said Pippin, who'd mostly managed to stop crying by then. "You make me see how self-centred I've been is all. It's more than a little embarrassing."

"Oh, we all do that," said Fatty. "And I wouldn't feel sorry for me either. I'm the one who gets to keep this house, after all, while the rest of you will be sleeping on the ground."

Pippin smiled through the tears that were still in his eyes. The house was fine and he knew it would be in much better shape by the time they left with Frodo, but for himself, he couldn't imagine choosing to stay back here. With Frodo was better, now matter how hard the ground.

"If I were going to feel bad for anyone being left out it'd be Frodo," Fatty added.

"I suppose," said Pippin. "Having all his best friends lying to him."

"And thinking he has to lie to us, and believing he's about to leave us all behind for good!"

"Then it can't be very comfortable for Sam either," Pippin ventured.

"Lying to Frodo every day, and looking forward to being a servant for three gentlehobbits as spoilt as you lot? I should think not." Fatty laughed again.

"We're not spoilt!"

"No, and I'm sure you'll never complain about bathing in cold water or missing second breakfast."

"Well, not as much as you'd complain if you were coming with us."

"Just so, just so."

Pippin thought for a little while. "So we're all the odd one out, one way or another," he said, and then added, "Except perhaps for Merry."

"Ah, it's different with Merry, isn't it."

Pippin nodded.

"The thing about Merry," Fatty said slowly, "He's in on all our secrets now. He won't rest until everyone's told him everything they know. And all the same, I don't think he'd mind if he had to be the odd one out. So it only makes sense that he wouldn't be."

"What do you mean?"

"Merry's the only one of us who'd like to be able to do this all on his own. He wants to be the one who understands everything, the one who saves Frodo."

"But he can't, not on his own."

"Exactly. So he has to put up with all of us, and he loves us for it, even though it's sometimes hard to tell."

"So that's it then," said Pippin, "we just have to lie and scheme and make each other unhappy..."

"Or make each other uncomfortable, let's put it that way. And then in the end we forgive each other. That's what people who love each other do."

Pippin thought about his sisters and his mother and father, and about his many quarrels with Merry over the years, and decided that Fatty was not only a good friend and good hobbit to have on his side but also very wise. "Thank you," Pippin said. "I think if I can remember that I'll find it all a little bit easier."

"I hope so."

When Merry came back a little later Pippin ate his first ever meal ever at the house at Crickhollow, and that night he and Pippin slept there for the first time. The meal was rather poor, and despite being glad he'd had his talk with Fatty Pippin felt slightly guilty for not having helped Merry carry back more food from the Hall. The room and the bed were not especially comfortable, but having a good honest talk with Merry that night made it a pleasant place to be.

It never occurred to him that night, or any of the other nights he stayed at Crickhollow before the four hobbits set off, that one day he'd come to think of this place as home. But by the time he got back from all his travels, after all his nights on the cold ground, he knew that home was wherever the hobbit he loved slept beside him.