FIC: Appleseed
Title: Appleseed
Author: vissy
Fandom: Lord of the Rings
Characters: Frodo, Merry, Sam
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: These characters remain the intellectual property of J.R.R. Tolkien. No infringement is intended and no profit is made.
Notes: Written for isilya's literary challenge. Question: where do babies come from? Compulsory word: serendipitous. Taboo word: sex.
***
Frodo woke with a fright, convinced there was a spider creeping across his face, but when he raised a hesitant hand to brush it away, he found that it was just his hair, jostled by the wind. His window was open wide to the early morning breeze. He wondered why, then remembered, and was happy.
He was balanced perilously on the edge of his otherwise empty bed. Merry was only eight, but he liked his space, and Frodo's as well. Frodo had had almost a year at Bag End to accustom himself to the way in which Merry made his absence felt, and he still made room for a child long gone. But this was a special morning, and when he shuffled to the middle and rubbed his nose against the sheet, he found it for the first time warm and Merry-scented and familiar.
Frodo had been glad of the chance to move in with dear Bilbo, but the wrenching loss of Merry had been a hard, hard thing to bear. Brandy Hall was more than fifty miles away, and Frodo had not seen his childhood home since his adoption. Nor had Merry had leave to visit Hobbiton; a series of determinedly cheerful yet often tear-stained letters was all that Frodo knew of him. But the birth of the latest Took child had drawn the Brandybucks west to Tuckborough, and it was just a small side-step from the Great Smials to Bag End.
Frodo rose at last with a tremendous stretch, shrugging out of his nightshirt and scrubbing the sleep from his eyes. Judging by the early hour and the warmth of the bed, he didn't think Merry had much of a start on him, but the lad was always on the brink of mischief, and his creeping silently through a window at dawn might bode ill for the stirring town. Frodo pulled on some clothes and tugged a comb through his unruly hair. His aunt Esmeralda had given those long curls a hard look when she arrived last night, but she had refrained from accusing poor Bilbo outright of neglect, kissing them both instead as Uncle Saradoc handed a sleeping Merry into Frodo's arms. She would undoubtedly be coming after him with the scissors before long.
Frodo wandered down the quiet corridor towards the kitchen. He was considering making a start on breakfast when a rattle at the front door drew his attention, and he ran over to open it, thinking to startle Merry. But it was young Sam Gamgee up from Bagshot Row who stood in the doorway, holding a covered basket which he promptly dropped in surprise.
The young hobbit broke into his crooked grin. "Hullo, Mr. Frodo! You're up early."
"I could say the same of you, Sam," said Frodo with a smile, motioning him inside.
"It's nought, sir. Mum thought you'd be needing some extra eggs and sausages, what with your company arriving last night." Sam gasped suddenly. "Lawks, the eggs! And here's me spilling them like a fool." They both knelt down to peer under the napkin, but the eggs seemed unperturbed by their sudden jostling, and the two hobbits sighed with relief. "That might've turned out disastrous, but no harm's done, and Mr. Bilbo'll have a nice breakfast out of this lot.
The sausage is a cunning bird
With feathers long and wavy,
It swims about the frying pan
And makes its nest in gravy!"
"Oh, I like that one, Sam! Make sure you tell Bilbo later, so he can write it down." Frodo took the basket into the kitchen, with a flushed Sam following close at his heels. "Knowing my Uncle Saradoc's appetite, I don't think any of these birds will have a chance to fly away, but let's pop them into the larder for safe-keeping. Bilbo hasn't stirred yet, nor my aunt and uncle, but I daresay it won't be long."
"Couldn't blame them if they slept in a while," said Sam, as he helped Frodo move the food into the cool cupboard. "The Gaffer said they came past fair late. Three ponies, two gentlehobbits and a droopy mess of blankets that might've hidden the young master, that's what Dad said."
"Nothing in this town gets past your father, does it, Sam?"
"Not much, as far as I can tell." Nor did things escape Sam; if there was one thing Frodo had learnt since moving to Hobbiton, it was that Sam's deceptively simple face hid a quick brain and some keen powers of observation. "He'll be up later to ferret out all the news, I don't doubt."
"Leaving you with the job of advance scout?" Frodo grinned at Sam's sheepish expression. "Well, it is true that they arrived far later than expected. I don't know how it came to be, but a short stop for afternoon tea somehow resulted in young Merry getting hopelessly lost in the fields and leading his poor parents on a chase for almost three hours. They arrived very late, very tired, with Merry in tow, fast asleep. It is a good thing my aunt and uncle are so unflappable. After living so long in a warren like Brandy Hall, I don't think anything fazes them anymore."
Sam chuckled. "I didn't think anyone could lose himself between here and Tuckborough! He must've been trying very hard."
"By rights, the Old Forest beyond Buckland should have claimed him years ago. He's got quite an adventurous streak," said Frodo fondly.
Sam humphed out of habit, but the gleam in his eyes said that he was not so disparaging of adventure as he would have Frodo believe. "Sounds like a funny little thing," he said from the vantage of his ten years, before adding, "No disrespect intended, sir!" Sam had not followed Frodo about for the better part of a year without realising a few things, the main being that the young master missed his Merry something fierce.
"Oh, he's a funny one all right, Sam. And he's absconded again already, though it's barely past sunrise! I hope you will help me look about for him." Frodo plucked three plump apples from a bowl and popped them into the now empty basket. "And these might prove a lure."
"'Course I'll help!" said Sam, taking up the basket before Frodo could argue. "He won't have gone far on an empty belly. Tell you what, let's head for the vegetable garden. That's the first place I'd go."
"Excellent idea, Sam," said Frodo, as they turned for the front door. "Merry can't resist stealing vegetables."
Sam shook his head, grimacing. "He'd best resist. The Gaffer'll have something to say about it if his veggies get nicked."
Frodo bit his lip against a smile, for he rather thought it would be Sam who might be livid should the vegetables prove tampered with; the young Gamgee took his role as Bag End's apprentice gardener very seriously indeed. They wandered along the garden path, squinting as the sun peeped over the horizon. The flowerbeds were foaming with the all the blossoms Bilbo so dearly loved, and night's grey was washing into gold as the marigolds, snapdragons and daffadondillies awoke to daylight.
"So all's well at the Smials, sir?" Sam was still itching for news, even as he kept an eye out for Merry.
"I believe so, Sam. Apparently the baby finally arrived after what sounds like a dismally long labour, and looked a sorry little scrap for all the trouble he caused. But my aunt says he's thriving now, and I suppose he will end up as Thain one day whether he likes it or not. In any case, Aunt Esmeralda felt easy about returning home."
"Funny the way some take a while getting out. My mum says we all took longer and longer. She reckons Ham took less than an hour but Marigold was three day's coming. 'Course Mari's been making up for that dawdling ever since, the little rip," Sam said with a laugh. "After her, Mum said no more, and she's stuck to that. I suppose she as is down at the Smials will be the same, now that there's a lad at last. Me, I don't want any, ever. I'd rather be like Mr. Bilbo, a bachelor at my leisure."
Frodo eyed his companion with cheerful misgiving. "Something tells me you'll change your mind, Sam. Or some lass'll change it for you." He didn't mention Rosie Cotton's name, but he could tell from Sam's groan that she wasn't far from his thoughts, just as she was rarely far from his side; Frodo sometimes thought that much of Bag End's charm for Sam was the escape it offered from the little girl who dogged his every footstep.
They came at last to the vegetable garden, where a suspicious rustling could be heard behind the thick cucumber vines. Sam grinned at Frodo, mouthing, "Coney?" Frodo shushed him and tiptoed along the path, when a weed suddenly flew over and hit him on the nose, making him gasp. Suppressing his giggles, Frodo dashed around to confront the missile-wielding trespasser.
And there was Merry, still wearing the travel-rumpled clothes in which he'd slept, his bottom bobbing over the top of the Gaffer's lovingly tended cabbages. Frodo crossed his arms, raised an eyebrow, and said in a booming voice, "Meriadoc Brandybuck, what are you doing in Uncle Bilbo's vegetable garden?"
Merry leapt up with a squawk, for he had thought himself quite alone. At the sight of his favourite cousin, his grubby face lit up. Attempting to mimic Frodo's mock stern pose, he stuck his button nose in the air and replied, "I thought we might have a nice salad for breakfast."
They stared each other down for almost nine seconds before bursting into happy tears and dashing into one another's arms. "Little liar," Frodo murmured into one of the sticky-out ears he'd missed so much, before picking Merry up and clutching him tight.
Merry wrapped a pair of sturdy legs around Frodo's waist and snuffled rather damply against his neck. "Oh, Frodo, I've missed you." He leant back a little, cupping Frodo's face. "I've needed you."
"And I've needed you, Merry-love," Frodo whispered, rubbing his nose against Merry's. Pond water eyes met limpid blue in perfect accord, and they gathered each other close in relief.
Sam shuffled awkwardly in the background, uncertain of his welcome. He crouched to gather up some of the weeds that Merry had been flinging about, noting with grudging approval that nothing precious had been uprooted. He had collected a fair-sized pile before his fidgeting finally caught Merry's notice. "Hullo, there's someone else here! I'm Merry. Who are you?"
"Sam, at your service," was the hesitant reply. He felt rather shy to be witnessing such an excess of feeling from his usually quiet master, and maybe a little jealous too.
Merry wriggled in Frodo's arms. "Here, put me down so I can make a proper bow." Sam's sense of propriety quaked at the very thought, but before he knew it there was a Brandybuck saluting him, and he was bobbing his own head in return. "There! Now we're friends," said Merry with a grin, before turning once more to Frodo with an accusatory glare. "Did you tuck me into bed last night? You could've woken me. I'm not a baby anymore, you know."
"Well I know it," Frodo said, rubbing his arms in a show of pain. "You have grown quite stout."
"Ho! Now who's the liar?" Merry shoved his cousin with an indignant huff, and Frodo flopped down into the dirt, laughing. "You've become a scrawny bag of bones. Don't they feed you around here?" he asked, sending a stern look in Sam's direction while tickling Frodo's ribs.
Sam spluttered at this misguided notion that Mr. Frodo was ill-treated in any way, but the master just howled with laughter. "Don't mind him, Sam," he gasped. "This little toad's been pummeling me since the day he was born. Oh, it was a sad day for me. I was just a poor orphan boy. Little did I know what I was in for. 'Do you want to hold the baby?' they said. 'Why, certainly,' I replied, for orphans do as they're told if they don't wish to be kicked out into the gutter! So they put him in my arms and what did I see but this angry red face scowling up at me. 'Oh, he's lovely,' I said, not meaning a word of it, of course, and I steeled myself to give him a kiss."
"And then what happened, sir?" Sam asked, grinning. He had a fair idea where this story was going; little Mari had been a right tyrant from the start.
"What happened? Why, I kissed him, very much against my will, mind you, and he smacked me in the mouth and made my lip bleed with his sharp little fingernails. Claws they were, and even sharper now," he squeaked, as Merry dug his tickle fingers under Frodo's arms. "And then he spat up on me. His first dinner, too, and he has the gall now to complain about my feeding habits. He's lucky I didn't drop him."
"It's all lies, Sam, lies! I was an angelic child," Merry declared with a beatific smile.
"Angelic, ha. Sam, do you know, they wouldn't take him back? I was stuck with him from that moment on. No-one else would put up with him. I had to hold him and feed him and wash him and change him."
"Lies! If Mama could hear you, she'd twist your ear."
"Oh, your mama was in on the conspiracy right from the beginning. It was a cruel plot to palm this screeching baby off on the helpless orphan..."
"I'll give you a helpless orphan," Merry muttered, jumping atop his prone cousin for a full assault. His eye was suddenly caught by Sam's basket, however, and Frodo's punishment was forgotten. "Oh, you've brought apples! I'm starving."
Sam laughed and tossed one of the apples to Merry, who bit into it with relish. "Do you want yours now, Mr. Frodo?"
"Yes, throw me one, too. With any luck this strange growth I've acquired will let me up so I can eat." Merry rolled his eyes, but couldn't speak through his mouthful, and Frodo managed to wiggle out from beneath him. He took his own apple and rubbed it against his vest, looking down at himself with dismay. "Merry, you monster, you've made me utterly filthy!"
Merry swallowed and said, "Serves you right for saying I screech. And you're far too old to be messing about in the dirt like this."
"Which begs the question: why were you messing about in the dirt at this unholy hour?"
Merry gave a nonchalant shrug. "I'm only eight. Mess is obligatory."
"And why didn't you wake me up this morning?"
The lad's eyes widened innocently. "You looked so comfortable squashed to the side of the bed. I didn't like to disturb you. You're rather old now. You need your rest."
"More likely, you didn't want me knowing what you were up to." Frodo glanced around at the cabbages, which had remained miraculously unharmed. "Although how weeding the vegetable patch fits into your evil scheme, I can't quite imagine."
"Just making myself useful," he replied artlessly. "Being a good guest."
"Rot! Tell me your secret, Merry, or I'll be tickling it out of you."
Merry turned a bit red, and munched meditatively on his apple for a while. "You'll think I'm a bit silly," he said at last.
Frodo ruffled his curls. "It goes without saying. In fact, it's what I like best about you."
"Well, it's like this. Just before we left the Smials, Pimpernel told me the strangest thing. She said her parents dug up the new baby in their pumpkin patch." Frodo threw back his head with laughter, while Sam choked on his own apple. "Now, hold on a moment. I know it sounds like rubbish, but she's very smart for a girl, and I don't think she'd trick me."
"No, because all lasses are so sweet and innocent," said Sam, once he'd stopped coughing.
"Look, you two didn't see this baby. I did. And I tell you, he's ugly. He's shriveled and mottled and - and just an odd shape altogether! And I could well believe he came out of a pumpkin patch!"
Frodo was struck by a sudden realisation. "Merry, you weren't investigating this garden for stray babies, were you?"
"I told you you'd think I was being silly," he grumbled. "We left Tuckborough rather early, so I didn't get much chance to check things out. But I don't think there's anything particularly special about their garden. Don't you think one vegetable patch is as good as another?"
"Sam might beg to differ. Merry, how many vegetables gardens have you raided in your short but altogether notorious career?"
"Um. A lot?"
"And how many babies have you found?"
Merry sighed. "None. But that's not to say it couldn't happen! When it's really needed, I mean. Like at the Smials, where everyone seemed so concerned about getting a boy, what with the Thain still unmarried and poor Uncle Paladin stuck with that pack of girls. And then what should turn up but a baby boy, just like they were hoping for! Frodo, you know that feeling when you stumble over precisely the right thing?"
"Serendipitous?"
Merry blinked in momentary confusion. "I was thinking of lucky, myself."
"Close enough," Frodo assured him, rubbing his shoulder.
Merry nestled a little closer, gnawing absently at his apple core. "Don't you think it would be - serendipitous - if perhaps there was a baby in Uncle Bilbo's cabbages?" A small, sticky hand crept into Frodo's. "And then you could come home to Brandy Hall."
Frodo felt his heart twist as he looked down into that dear, woebegone face. "Oh, Merry-love," he sighed, pulling the lad into his arms. "I know it's hard. But this move has been a good thing, truly. I needed a place I might call my own, and Bilbo needed a companion. And - and it was hard for me at the Hall sometimes. At such loose ends, and with such bad memories."
"But you had me. Wasn't I enough?"
"You're everything," Frodo whispered, as he thought of a time years ago when he believed he would never be healed. He glanced over at Sam, who looked flustered by Merry's sudden dejection, and begged the youngster silently for some distraction.
So Sam sat himself down in the dirt with the other two and rested his chin on his knees. "Well, I can see how you might've found yourself in a muddle with this baby business. And I daresay a cabbage patch baby would look handsomer than a pumpkiny-looking one, if there was such a thing." Seeing that he had Merry's attention, Sam decided he might as well blunder on. "But that's not how people come by them, see? I'll tell you what my dad told me. Baby-making's got nought to do with gardens, though it's sort of akin to gardening, if you get my drift." Merry's baffled expression said that he didn't get any such drift whatsoever, but Mr. Frodo was smiling again at least. "Well, a lady's like a fallow bed, and she wants sowing, see? And it's her husband that provides the seed."
"There's a seed?" Merry asked. He held up the handful of apple pips he'd been carefully spitting out. "Like these?"
"Yes, exactly! Like apple pips. Except you want hobbit pips instead, if you want to make a hobbit. The pips form inside a fellow and then come out when it's planting time. Then he lays his lady down, and ploughs a nice deep furrow to plant his pip."
"Wait. I don't understand. How does this pip get out?"
"Well now, he has to sort of piss it out." Frodo snorted at this, earning a reproachful look from Sam.
Merry pulled a face. "He actually pisses it out?"
"It's not piss, precisely, but the pip has to come out of his prick, sure enough." The two lads looked at the apple pips dubiously before cupping their privates in a moment of shared pain, while Frodo tried very hard not to snicker. "And they don't always take, so a fellow needs to plant more than one."
"It's no wonder I'm an only child. It sounds very painful, having to pass that lot. And I don't think my mama would appreciate being pissed on. She'd probably draw the line at once."
Sam shook his head in exasperation. "I tell you, it's not pissing. I'm just trying to explain what it's like. Now listen, have you seen a girl naked? They're shaped quite differently from us."
Merry nodded. "Yes. The first thing Pervinca did when I got to the Smials was show me under her skirt." At the other hobbits' stares, he shrugged. "There really wasn't much else to do while we waited around for the baby to arrive."
"Right, well. That's where the furrow is where the pip gets planted. A couple has to lie down close together, or it won't work. But once the pip's inside her, snug in her belly, it'll start growing nice and plump. And when it's full grown, the mama squeezes it out, and you get a baby."
Merry considered this with some bewilderment; Peregrin had been a puny little thing, but still... "A baby's a lot bigger than a pip. How does it get out? She can't possibly piss it out, can she?"
"No, I reckon it comes out the other end." The lads winced at each other before rubbing their bottoms in another moment of shared pain.
Frodo couldn't control his laughter. "This has proven to be an educational morning."
"Then my work here is done," Sam said with a cheeky grin. "I'd best be off home now, or I'll catch it. You hold on to those apple pips now, Master Merry, and see if you can't make something of them. You've got an eye for weeds, so there must be some gardening in your blood. An apple tree's a fine thing to have, you know. It'll bring you good luck and perpetual youth." He shrugged and added, "At least that's what my dad says." With that, Sam picked up his basket and ran off with a wave.
The cousins watched him leave, then lay themselves back down on the cool soil, watching the sky. "Sam seems nice," Merry said at last. "I suppose he takes good care of you."
"He certainly tries," Frodo replied, drawing Merry close to his side. "I think you wounded him with that 'bag of bones' remark. There'll be a steady stream of treats coming up from Bagshot Row for the next month now. He'll be doing his level best to fatten me up."
"Well, he can bring as much food as he likes, since I plan to be here to enjoy it. Do you think we can convince my parents to let me stay for a lovely long visit?"
"I don't see how they could resist us. We're very charming, you know. And if that doesn't work, we'll have to try pathetic."
Merry rolled to his side, reaching across Frodo to hold him tight. "And do you think we might head down to the Smials as soon as possible?"
Frodo blinked down at the curly head nestled beneath his chin. "Meriadoc Brandybuck, something tells me you liked that new baby more than you've been letting on."
Merry's voice was low, hardly more than a whisper, but Frodo could hear the wonder. "I don't know how it is. He is a queer looking thing, it's true, and I didn't even get to see him until it was time to go. They asked if I wanted to hold him, and I said yes, just to be polite. He stopped crying when I said hullo, and lay sort of strange and heavy in my arms, watching me. I don't know what colour his eyes are, or if he's got any hair to speak of. But it felt like I'd found a friend. It makes me homesick thinking about him." He raised his head until he was looking down into Frodo's face. "Do you know what I mean?"
And Frodo smiled, watching the sunlight wash though Merry's hair. "I know, Merry-love."
"I thought you might." Merry touched his nose to Frodo's. "Besides, we have to let him know his new name."
Frodo thought for a moment, then said, "Pippin?"
"Pippin," Merry agreed, as he tucked his apple seeds safe into a pocket.
***
(AN: Sam's little rhyme comes from Opie's 'The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren')
Author: vissy
Fandom: Lord of the Rings
Characters: Frodo, Merry, Sam
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: These characters remain the intellectual property of J.R.R. Tolkien. No infringement is intended and no profit is made.
Notes: Written for isilya's literary challenge. Question: where do babies come from? Compulsory word: serendipitous. Taboo word: sex.
***
Frodo woke with a fright, convinced there was a spider creeping across his face, but when he raised a hesitant hand to brush it away, he found that it was just his hair, jostled by the wind. His window was open wide to the early morning breeze. He wondered why, then remembered, and was happy.
He was balanced perilously on the edge of his otherwise empty bed. Merry was only eight, but he liked his space, and Frodo's as well. Frodo had had almost a year at Bag End to accustom himself to the way in which Merry made his absence felt, and he still made room for a child long gone. But this was a special morning, and when he shuffled to the middle and rubbed his nose against the sheet, he found it for the first time warm and Merry-scented and familiar.
Frodo had been glad of the chance to move in with dear Bilbo, but the wrenching loss of Merry had been a hard, hard thing to bear. Brandy Hall was more than fifty miles away, and Frodo had not seen his childhood home since his adoption. Nor had Merry had leave to visit Hobbiton; a series of determinedly cheerful yet often tear-stained letters was all that Frodo knew of him. But the birth of the latest Took child had drawn the Brandybucks west to Tuckborough, and it was just a small side-step from the Great Smials to Bag End.
Frodo rose at last with a tremendous stretch, shrugging out of his nightshirt and scrubbing the sleep from his eyes. Judging by the early hour and the warmth of the bed, he didn't think Merry had much of a start on him, but the lad was always on the brink of mischief, and his creeping silently through a window at dawn might bode ill for the stirring town. Frodo pulled on some clothes and tugged a comb through his unruly hair. His aunt Esmeralda had given those long curls a hard look when she arrived last night, but she had refrained from accusing poor Bilbo outright of neglect, kissing them both instead as Uncle Saradoc handed a sleeping Merry into Frodo's arms. She would undoubtedly be coming after him with the scissors before long.
Frodo wandered down the quiet corridor towards the kitchen. He was considering making a start on breakfast when a rattle at the front door drew his attention, and he ran over to open it, thinking to startle Merry. But it was young Sam Gamgee up from Bagshot Row who stood in the doorway, holding a covered basket which he promptly dropped in surprise.
The young hobbit broke into his crooked grin. "Hullo, Mr. Frodo! You're up early."
"I could say the same of you, Sam," said Frodo with a smile, motioning him inside.
"It's nought, sir. Mum thought you'd be needing some extra eggs and sausages, what with your company arriving last night." Sam gasped suddenly. "Lawks, the eggs! And here's me spilling them like a fool." They both knelt down to peer under the napkin, but the eggs seemed unperturbed by their sudden jostling, and the two hobbits sighed with relief. "That might've turned out disastrous, but no harm's done, and Mr. Bilbo'll have a nice breakfast out of this lot.
The sausage is a cunning bird
With feathers long and wavy,
It swims about the frying pan
And makes its nest in gravy!"
"Oh, I like that one, Sam! Make sure you tell Bilbo later, so he can write it down." Frodo took the basket into the kitchen, with a flushed Sam following close at his heels. "Knowing my Uncle Saradoc's appetite, I don't think any of these birds will have a chance to fly away, but let's pop them into the larder for safe-keeping. Bilbo hasn't stirred yet, nor my aunt and uncle, but I daresay it won't be long."
"Couldn't blame them if they slept in a while," said Sam, as he helped Frodo move the food into the cool cupboard. "The Gaffer said they came past fair late. Three ponies, two gentlehobbits and a droopy mess of blankets that might've hidden the young master, that's what Dad said."
"Nothing in this town gets past your father, does it, Sam?"
"Not much, as far as I can tell." Nor did things escape Sam; if there was one thing Frodo had learnt since moving to Hobbiton, it was that Sam's deceptively simple face hid a quick brain and some keen powers of observation. "He'll be up later to ferret out all the news, I don't doubt."
"Leaving you with the job of advance scout?" Frodo grinned at Sam's sheepish expression. "Well, it is true that they arrived far later than expected. I don't know how it came to be, but a short stop for afternoon tea somehow resulted in young Merry getting hopelessly lost in the fields and leading his poor parents on a chase for almost three hours. They arrived very late, very tired, with Merry in tow, fast asleep. It is a good thing my aunt and uncle are so unflappable. After living so long in a warren like Brandy Hall, I don't think anything fazes them anymore."
Sam chuckled. "I didn't think anyone could lose himself between here and Tuckborough! He must've been trying very hard."
"By rights, the Old Forest beyond Buckland should have claimed him years ago. He's got quite an adventurous streak," said Frodo fondly.
Sam humphed out of habit, but the gleam in his eyes said that he was not so disparaging of adventure as he would have Frodo believe. "Sounds like a funny little thing," he said from the vantage of his ten years, before adding, "No disrespect intended, sir!" Sam had not followed Frodo about for the better part of a year without realising a few things, the main being that the young master missed his Merry something fierce.
"Oh, he's a funny one all right, Sam. And he's absconded again already, though it's barely past sunrise! I hope you will help me look about for him." Frodo plucked three plump apples from a bowl and popped them into the now empty basket. "And these might prove a lure."
"'Course I'll help!" said Sam, taking up the basket before Frodo could argue. "He won't have gone far on an empty belly. Tell you what, let's head for the vegetable garden. That's the first place I'd go."
"Excellent idea, Sam," said Frodo, as they turned for the front door. "Merry can't resist stealing vegetables."
Sam shook his head, grimacing. "He'd best resist. The Gaffer'll have something to say about it if his veggies get nicked."
Frodo bit his lip against a smile, for he rather thought it would be Sam who might be livid should the vegetables prove tampered with; the young Gamgee took his role as Bag End's apprentice gardener very seriously indeed. They wandered along the garden path, squinting as the sun peeped over the horizon. The flowerbeds were foaming with the all the blossoms Bilbo so dearly loved, and night's grey was washing into gold as the marigolds, snapdragons and daffadondillies awoke to daylight.
"So all's well at the Smials, sir?" Sam was still itching for news, even as he kept an eye out for Merry.
"I believe so, Sam. Apparently the baby finally arrived after what sounds like a dismally long labour, and looked a sorry little scrap for all the trouble he caused. But my aunt says he's thriving now, and I suppose he will end up as Thain one day whether he likes it or not. In any case, Aunt Esmeralda felt easy about returning home."
"Funny the way some take a while getting out. My mum says we all took longer and longer. She reckons Ham took less than an hour but Marigold was three day's coming. 'Course Mari's been making up for that dawdling ever since, the little rip," Sam said with a laugh. "After her, Mum said no more, and she's stuck to that. I suppose she as is down at the Smials will be the same, now that there's a lad at last. Me, I don't want any, ever. I'd rather be like Mr. Bilbo, a bachelor at my leisure."
Frodo eyed his companion with cheerful misgiving. "Something tells me you'll change your mind, Sam. Or some lass'll change it for you." He didn't mention Rosie Cotton's name, but he could tell from Sam's groan that she wasn't far from his thoughts, just as she was rarely far from his side; Frodo sometimes thought that much of Bag End's charm for Sam was the escape it offered from the little girl who dogged his every footstep.
They came at last to the vegetable garden, where a suspicious rustling could be heard behind the thick cucumber vines. Sam grinned at Frodo, mouthing, "Coney?" Frodo shushed him and tiptoed along the path, when a weed suddenly flew over and hit him on the nose, making him gasp. Suppressing his giggles, Frodo dashed around to confront the missile-wielding trespasser.
And there was Merry, still wearing the travel-rumpled clothes in which he'd slept, his bottom bobbing over the top of the Gaffer's lovingly tended cabbages. Frodo crossed his arms, raised an eyebrow, and said in a booming voice, "Meriadoc Brandybuck, what are you doing in Uncle Bilbo's vegetable garden?"
Merry leapt up with a squawk, for he had thought himself quite alone. At the sight of his favourite cousin, his grubby face lit up. Attempting to mimic Frodo's mock stern pose, he stuck his button nose in the air and replied, "I thought we might have a nice salad for breakfast."
They stared each other down for almost nine seconds before bursting into happy tears and dashing into one another's arms. "Little liar," Frodo murmured into one of the sticky-out ears he'd missed so much, before picking Merry up and clutching him tight.
Merry wrapped a pair of sturdy legs around Frodo's waist and snuffled rather damply against his neck. "Oh, Frodo, I've missed you." He leant back a little, cupping Frodo's face. "I've needed you."
"And I've needed you, Merry-love," Frodo whispered, rubbing his nose against Merry's. Pond water eyes met limpid blue in perfect accord, and they gathered each other close in relief.
Sam shuffled awkwardly in the background, uncertain of his welcome. He crouched to gather up some of the weeds that Merry had been flinging about, noting with grudging approval that nothing precious had been uprooted. He had collected a fair-sized pile before his fidgeting finally caught Merry's notice. "Hullo, there's someone else here! I'm Merry. Who are you?"
"Sam, at your service," was the hesitant reply. He felt rather shy to be witnessing such an excess of feeling from his usually quiet master, and maybe a little jealous too.
Merry wriggled in Frodo's arms. "Here, put me down so I can make a proper bow." Sam's sense of propriety quaked at the very thought, but before he knew it there was a Brandybuck saluting him, and he was bobbing his own head in return. "There! Now we're friends," said Merry with a grin, before turning once more to Frodo with an accusatory glare. "Did you tuck me into bed last night? You could've woken me. I'm not a baby anymore, you know."
"Well I know it," Frodo said, rubbing his arms in a show of pain. "You have grown quite stout."
"Ho! Now who's the liar?" Merry shoved his cousin with an indignant huff, and Frodo flopped down into the dirt, laughing. "You've become a scrawny bag of bones. Don't they feed you around here?" he asked, sending a stern look in Sam's direction while tickling Frodo's ribs.
Sam spluttered at this misguided notion that Mr. Frodo was ill-treated in any way, but the master just howled with laughter. "Don't mind him, Sam," he gasped. "This little toad's been pummeling me since the day he was born. Oh, it was a sad day for me. I was just a poor orphan boy. Little did I know what I was in for. 'Do you want to hold the baby?' they said. 'Why, certainly,' I replied, for orphans do as they're told if they don't wish to be kicked out into the gutter! So they put him in my arms and what did I see but this angry red face scowling up at me. 'Oh, he's lovely,' I said, not meaning a word of it, of course, and I steeled myself to give him a kiss."
"And then what happened, sir?" Sam asked, grinning. He had a fair idea where this story was going; little Mari had been a right tyrant from the start.
"What happened? Why, I kissed him, very much against my will, mind you, and he smacked me in the mouth and made my lip bleed with his sharp little fingernails. Claws they were, and even sharper now," he squeaked, as Merry dug his tickle fingers under Frodo's arms. "And then he spat up on me. His first dinner, too, and he has the gall now to complain about my feeding habits. He's lucky I didn't drop him."
"It's all lies, Sam, lies! I was an angelic child," Merry declared with a beatific smile.
"Angelic, ha. Sam, do you know, they wouldn't take him back? I was stuck with him from that moment on. No-one else would put up with him. I had to hold him and feed him and wash him and change him."
"Lies! If Mama could hear you, she'd twist your ear."
"Oh, your mama was in on the conspiracy right from the beginning. It was a cruel plot to palm this screeching baby off on the helpless orphan..."
"I'll give you a helpless orphan," Merry muttered, jumping atop his prone cousin for a full assault. His eye was suddenly caught by Sam's basket, however, and Frodo's punishment was forgotten. "Oh, you've brought apples! I'm starving."
Sam laughed and tossed one of the apples to Merry, who bit into it with relish. "Do you want yours now, Mr. Frodo?"
"Yes, throw me one, too. With any luck this strange growth I've acquired will let me up so I can eat." Merry rolled his eyes, but couldn't speak through his mouthful, and Frodo managed to wiggle out from beneath him. He took his own apple and rubbed it against his vest, looking down at himself with dismay. "Merry, you monster, you've made me utterly filthy!"
Merry swallowed and said, "Serves you right for saying I screech. And you're far too old to be messing about in the dirt like this."
"Which begs the question: why were you messing about in the dirt at this unholy hour?"
Merry gave a nonchalant shrug. "I'm only eight. Mess is obligatory."
"And why didn't you wake me up this morning?"
The lad's eyes widened innocently. "You looked so comfortable squashed to the side of the bed. I didn't like to disturb you. You're rather old now. You need your rest."
"More likely, you didn't want me knowing what you were up to." Frodo glanced around at the cabbages, which had remained miraculously unharmed. "Although how weeding the vegetable patch fits into your evil scheme, I can't quite imagine."
"Just making myself useful," he replied artlessly. "Being a good guest."
"Rot! Tell me your secret, Merry, or I'll be tickling it out of you."
Merry turned a bit red, and munched meditatively on his apple for a while. "You'll think I'm a bit silly," he said at last.
Frodo ruffled his curls. "It goes without saying. In fact, it's what I like best about you."
"Well, it's like this. Just before we left the Smials, Pimpernel told me the strangest thing. She said her parents dug up the new baby in their pumpkin patch." Frodo threw back his head with laughter, while Sam choked on his own apple. "Now, hold on a moment. I know it sounds like rubbish, but she's very smart for a girl, and I don't think she'd trick me."
"No, because all lasses are so sweet and innocent," said Sam, once he'd stopped coughing.
"Look, you two didn't see this baby. I did. And I tell you, he's ugly. He's shriveled and mottled and - and just an odd shape altogether! And I could well believe he came out of a pumpkin patch!"
Frodo was struck by a sudden realisation. "Merry, you weren't investigating this garden for stray babies, were you?"
"I told you you'd think I was being silly," he grumbled. "We left Tuckborough rather early, so I didn't get much chance to check things out. But I don't think there's anything particularly special about their garden. Don't you think one vegetable patch is as good as another?"
"Sam might beg to differ. Merry, how many vegetables gardens have you raided in your short but altogether notorious career?"
"Um. A lot?"
"And how many babies have you found?"
Merry sighed. "None. But that's not to say it couldn't happen! When it's really needed, I mean. Like at the Smials, where everyone seemed so concerned about getting a boy, what with the Thain still unmarried and poor Uncle Paladin stuck with that pack of girls. And then what should turn up but a baby boy, just like they were hoping for! Frodo, you know that feeling when you stumble over precisely the right thing?"
"Serendipitous?"
Merry blinked in momentary confusion. "I was thinking of lucky, myself."
"Close enough," Frodo assured him, rubbing his shoulder.
Merry nestled a little closer, gnawing absently at his apple core. "Don't you think it would be - serendipitous - if perhaps there was a baby in Uncle Bilbo's cabbages?" A small, sticky hand crept into Frodo's. "And then you could come home to Brandy Hall."
Frodo felt his heart twist as he looked down into that dear, woebegone face. "Oh, Merry-love," he sighed, pulling the lad into his arms. "I know it's hard. But this move has been a good thing, truly. I needed a place I might call my own, and Bilbo needed a companion. And - and it was hard for me at the Hall sometimes. At such loose ends, and with such bad memories."
"But you had me. Wasn't I enough?"
"You're everything," Frodo whispered, as he thought of a time years ago when he believed he would never be healed. He glanced over at Sam, who looked flustered by Merry's sudden dejection, and begged the youngster silently for some distraction.
So Sam sat himself down in the dirt with the other two and rested his chin on his knees. "Well, I can see how you might've found yourself in a muddle with this baby business. And I daresay a cabbage patch baby would look handsomer than a pumpkiny-looking one, if there was such a thing." Seeing that he had Merry's attention, Sam decided he might as well blunder on. "But that's not how people come by them, see? I'll tell you what my dad told me. Baby-making's got nought to do with gardens, though it's sort of akin to gardening, if you get my drift." Merry's baffled expression said that he didn't get any such drift whatsoever, but Mr. Frodo was smiling again at least. "Well, a lady's like a fallow bed, and she wants sowing, see? And it's her husband that provides the seed."
"There's a seed?" Merry asked. He held up the handful of apple pips he'd been carefully spitting out. "Like these?"
"Yes, exactly! Like apple pips. Except you want hobbit pips instead, if you want to make a hobbit. The pips form inside a fellow and then come out when it's planting time. Then he lays his lady down, and ploughs a nice deep furrow to plant his pip."
"Wait. I don't understand. How does this pip get out?"
"Well now, he has to sort of piss it out." Frodo snorted at this, earning a reproachful look from Sam.
Merry pulled a face. "He actually pisses it out?"
"It's not piss, precisely, but the pip has to come out of his prick, sure enough." The two lads looked at the apple pips dubiously before cupping their privates in a moment of shared pain, while Frodo tried very hard not to snicker. "And they don't always take, so a fellow needs to plant more than one."
"It's no wonder I'm an only child. It sounds very painful, having to pass that lot. And I don't think my mama would appreciate being pissed on. She'd probably draw the line at once."
Sam shook his head in exasperation. "I tell you, it's not pissing. I'm just trying to explain what it's like. Now listen, have you seen a girl naked? They're shaped quite differently from us."
Merry nodded. "Yes. The first thing Pervinca did when I got to the Smials was show me under her skirt." At the other hobbits' stares, he shrugged. "There really wasn't much else to do while we waited around for the baby to arrive."
"Right, well. That's where the furrow is where the pip gets planted. A couple has to lie down close together, or it won't work. But once the pip's inside her, snug in her belly, it'll start growing nice and plump. And when it's full grown, the mama squeezes it out, and you get a baby."
Merry considered this with some bewilderment; Peregrin had been a puny little thing, but still... "A baby's a lot bigger than a pip. How does it get out? She can't possibly piss it out, can she?"
"No, I reckon it comes out the other end." The lads winced at each other before rubbing their bottoms in another moment of shared pain.
Frodo couldn't control his laughter. "This has proven to be an educational morning."
"Then my work here is done," Sam said with a cheeky grin. "I'd best be off home now, or I'll catch it. You hold on to those apple pips now, Master Merry, and see if you can't make something of them. You've got an eye for weeds, so there must be some gardening in your blood. An apple tree's a fine thing to have, you know. It'll bring you good luck and perpetual youth." He shrugged and added, "At least that's what my dad says." With that, Sam picked up his basket and ran off with a wave.
The cousins watched him leave, then lay themselves back down on the cool soil, watching the sky. "Sam seems nice," Merry said at last. "I suppose he takes good care of you."
"He certainly tries," Frodo replied, drawing Merry close to his side. "I think you wounded him with that 'bag of bones' remark. There'll be a steady stream of treats coming up from Bagshot Row for the next month now. He'll be doing his level best to fatten me up."
"Well, he can bring as much food as he likes, since I plan to be here to enjoy it. Do you think we can convince my parents to let me stay for a lovely long visit?"
"I don't see how they could resist us. We're very charming, you know. And if that doesn't work, we'll have to try pathetic."
Merry rolled to his side, reaching across Frodo to hold him tight. "And do you think we might head down to the Smials as soon as possible?"
Frodo blinked down at the curly head nestled beneath his chin. "Meriadoc Brandybuck, something tells me you liked that new baby more than you've been letting on."
Merry's voice was low, hardly more than a whisper, but Frodo could hear the wonder. "I don't know how it is. He is a queer looking thing, it's true, and I didn't even get to see him until it was time to go. They asked if I wanted to hold him, and I said yes, just to be polite. He stopped crying when I said hullo, and lay sort of strange and heavy in my arms, watching me. I don't know what colour his eyes are, or if he's got any hair to speak of. But it felt like I'd found a friend. It makes me homesick thinking about him." He raised his head until he was looking down into Frodo's face. "Do you know what I mean?"
And Frodo smiled, watching the sunlight wash though Merry's hair. "I know, Merry-love."
"I thought you might." Merry touched his nose to Frodo's. "Besides, we have to let him know his new name."
Frodo thought for a moment, then said, "Pippin?"
"Pippin," Merry agreed, as he tucked his apple seeds safe into a pocket.
***
(AN: Sam's little rhyme comes from Opie's 'The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren')