Hope Shall Fail

When the Rohhirim brought back the bodies of Eowyn and Theoden, the sun was setting.

But the sunset was not a mix of purples and pinks, mingled together to create an unknown color that was beautiful to look upon – but the sun set in darkness.

And Minas Tirith became darker.

Aragorn came down the battered marble steps from the Houses of Healing where he had sat near Faramir's bed and told him of the death of his father – though he doubted Faramir would remember in an hour or more.

He only left the fated captain's side to meet the Rohhirim at the gate, and to assist the men and help with things that needed to be dealt with. But when he saw her golden hair draped over the side of her padded coffin – dirty and limp; and the King of Rohan's pale face with his body covered in a cloth of gold, all tasks that he had appointed to himself were put aside.

"They fell?" Aragorn barely whispered to Eomer, who was bearing some of the weight of his sister's open casket.

Eomer's dirty face was streaked with tears – for Aragorn could tell, since the dirt was washed away in a clear streak down his cheek.

"The King is dead," Eomer answered.

"Than Eowyn is not?" Aragorn asked urgently as he helped Eomer bring the casket up the steps and into the Houses.

"They say she is not," Eomer answered, as if he did not believe this. "They say that she is breathing…but slightly."

Aragorn lifted the limp and frail body of Eowyn and put her on a cushioned bed with a pillow under her golden head. Then he put his hand over her colorless lips – and he did feel air on his palm.

"She does live," he said, turning to Eomer. "And I will heal her."

Just then, Pippin came into the room with Gandalf. He was worried – Aragorn could tell. His face was flushed, and his eyes were wide. But he looked only a little relieved to see his friend.

"Strider!" Pippin gasped. "They said you were here…and alive!"

Aragorn took on a smile and touched his companion's shoulder. "I have not seen you since you and Gandalf departed – but I heard you were safe."

"And the others? Legolas and Gimli…I heard of them. But Merry? You were with him, weren't you Strider?"

Aragorn shook his head. "Legolas, Gimli and I took a different path from the Rohhirim. I appointed Eowyn to look after him," he said, brushing Eowyn's hair out of her face. "But you need to not worry. She came to battle – and I'm certain she sent him with the women and children back to safety."

"Aragorn," Gandalf said gruffly. "There is no report from anyone back in the West that Merry was with the women and children…and no report that he returned from the fields with the living."

"He can't have gone," Aragorn said aloud to Gandalf and Eomer as they walked through the charred white city. "I knew Hobbits were stubborn…and that he would have wanted to go. But I never thought he would've left. And if he had, that he wouldn't get away with it."

"Eowyn was told strictly not to follow the men into battle, as was Merry. And nothing stopped her. And nothing would have stopped a Hobbit who wanted to help his friends, either," Gandalf told Aragorn with a puff of his long pipe.

"So he rode with her," Aragorn said, though it was not a question.

"And did not return with the living," Gandalf finished quietly.

The three of them stood in silence for a moment – Gandalf and Aragorn looked deeply troubled by the thought, but Eomer – as he did not know the Hobbit well – could not understand.

"He is one person," Eomer said. "Close to you or not – we have all lost the ones we hold dear here. Not one man, woman, or child in Gondor is not affected by a loss."

"The least I can do is go out to the fields and search for his body," Aragorn said, gazing out over the walls of the city toward the smoking fields. "And when the Fellowship is reunited…"

Gandalf looked up at the mention of this.

"When Frodo…and when Sam return…it is the least I could do for them," Aragorn said, starting down the steps toward to entrance of the city.

Eomer grabbed his arm. "You cannot go, Aragorn! There are people at the Houses of Healing who need you there…Faramir, my sister! You cannot go for the body of one that will be brought back to the city in time!"

Aragorn pulled away. "A body that will be brought back with the spoiled bodies of many others. I cannot let that happen. I cannot wait that long."

"My Lady…" Pippin said quietly, bringing in a bowl of warm water with a rag in it to Eowyn's room. "From the Healers. For your arm."

He looked down at Eowyn's arm – pale with the veins vivid where she had stabbed the Witch King.

Eowyn smiled at him wearily. "Put it down on the table. On the table, Merry."

Pippin paused slightly before carefully putting the bowl down and then gazing at the Lady Eowyn.

"My Lady…I am not Merry, but his cousin."

At the mention of his name – the word escaping from his lips…Pippin's heart sank and a tear streaked down his cheek rapidly, which he wiped away with the back of his hand. With the news of his cousin's state, he had tried to be brave – because Strider was brave when he told him the news. And Gandalf was stern. And it would not be right for him to be the only one with tears. And even with Gandalf and Strider gone, he had choked back his emotions for the first time in all of his young life while he was really screaming inside.

Eowyn blinked tiredly with a puzzled look on her face. Her eyes were emotionless, and she rolled her head slowly on the pillow, as if trying to regain her senses.

"Of course you are not…" she said quietly, now looking at Pippin and taking in his features. "Your cousin…your cousin, Merry. He is brave. If he had not rode with me to battle, a worse fate would have befallen on me. Yes…he is very brave. I should like to see him again soon."

Now Pippin choked back his tears, and he realized there was no possible way to hold himself together now. Merry. His Merry…was dead. And Pippin was done being brave, he was done not crying when tears needed to be shed.

"My Lady," he choked, tears now streaming freely down his paled face. "It will hurt you to know that Merry is dead…for the news of this has harmed me greatly as well."

He felt a sob emerging, but held it back again.

Eowyn now looked more troubled than she had been before. "No. Merry is not dead. I survived the greater threat of the Black Rider than he did…he cannot be dead if I am alive."

Pippin's face lit up at this possibility. He was easy to believe most things, and the thought of Merry being only injured on the battlefield raised his hopes.

"The Hobbit is small," Eomer said, coming into the room. Pippin turned to look at him. "And infection would have spread quicker than did my sister's. Peregrin, Eowyn…there is nothing to hope for."

Pippin's eyes shifted down, as he did not know what to say to someone as intimidating as Eomer. A solo tear dripped off his nose and onto his knee.

"Where are Gandalf and Aragorn?" Pippin finally spoke up.

"Starting out to the fields. At least Aragorn is," Eomer answered, taking a seat next to Eowyn's bed – she had slowly fallen into a deep slumber.

Pippin nodded and left the room, now with tears dripping freely down his face. He walked down the streets of Minas Tirith for some time, until he came to a secluded place where there was no one standing about. There, he leaned against the marbled wall and sunk down against it, sobbing freely – bitter, salty tears dripping off his face and making bright spots in the dirty ground beneath him.

Just then, he heard the voices of Gandalf and Aragorn, coming up and around the area he was at. They turned the bend, and stopped their conversation at the sight of their friend – face flushed, eyes pink. Gandalf furrowed his brow, and Aragorn sighed as he took Pippin's hand gently.

"You should be in a safer place than this," said Aragorn.

"And by that, he means at the Houses!" Gandalf said angrily.

Aragorn pulled Pippin up to his feet. "Why are you out?"

"Seeking you. Eomer said that you were going out to the fields…to look…"

"For him," Aragorn finished gently. "But I doubt you should be out there, Pippin."

"I should be ashamed if I am the only one of my friends that survive!" Pippin finally broke out, jerking away from Aragorn. "And if Merry should be alive and only wounded, shouldn't I be there? And if he is truly dead as well as Frodo and Sam, should I not feel ashamed and dishonorable?"

"Who has made you believe that Merry is only wounded?" Gandalf asked.

"Eowyn…she had seen him during the last moments of battle. And he saved her."

Aragorn looked over at Gandalf. Both had a change of mind.

"Gandalf, would you stay and look after the ones in the Houses?" Aragorn asked.

Gandalf agreed and looked down at Pippin with a smile. "You have been of great service to all, Peregrin Took."

Pippin only smiled a little and glanced at Aragorn.

"Pippin, you will come with me out to the fields and tell me all that the Lady Eowyn has told you."

With the first lights of the early morning coming up over the battlefield, there was no need for a light to guide the Ranger and the Hobbit. They walked through the beaten down ground, coated with a layer of black orc blood and their mangled bodies. Pippin told Aragorn all of what Eowyn had told him, and Aragorn processed it and made sense of it in his mind – for all of it seemed in some ways logical.

They came to the area where the battle with the Witch King had been fought – the King's horse had been burned, and the carcass of the Fell Beast the Nazgul had ridden on was decaying.

Pippin had seen glimpses of the battle from afar, but never had he been up close to something like this. The Mumakil lay dead all around – huge, and their bodies menacing and cold. Never had he ever thought he'd see something like this.

Aragorn looked around the area where the Witch King had been slayed. All marks that could lead to Merry's discovering had been trampled over and soiled during the times after the battle. Aragorn closed his eyes briefly and sighed.

"We'll have to go by our hearts, Pippin. Even with all my skill in tracking, I cannot track our friend on a large battlefield."

Pippin nodded slightly, and the morning grew brighter and shed a light from the heavens on their area. Aragorn and Pippin stayed in the same section of the field, but wandered around by themselves a little to look around and near the dead beasts and fallen Orcs and Easterlings. But there was so sign of their companion.

Finally Aragorn approached the dead Beast of the Nazgul. It's reek filled the air around it, making it almost painful to be near. But this was one of the last places they could look, and it was what Aragorn felt they must do.

So while Pippin was still looking in another part of the field, Aragorn pushed aside one of the great wings to look beneath it, but there was nothing, save a dead Orc. He circled around the Beast toward the tail, and still nothing. Around the other side of the body and the wing, he only found the charred withered armor of the Nazgul, and nothing else. But along the long, spiked neck of the Beast…he did find something.

There was Merry's helmet – he knew it, from the time Eowyn had first clad the Hobbit in his Esquire armor, and the Hobbit had taken his dull blade to the smithy tent where Aragorn had been also to sharpen the blade Galadriel had given him.

"The blade Eowyn has given me is blunt," Merry said to Aragorn with a grin. "She says I won't kill many Orcs with it."

"That is true," Aragorn agreed with a smile. "Though it looks like a sword with quality – a better one than Theoden King would have given just anyone. With it being sharpened, it should serve you well."

"I definitely hope so," Merry said with a frown. "It wouldn't be worth it to go to battle and not fight with a proper sword."

"To battle?" Aragorn said with question. "…Merry. I doubt you will see battle."

Merry looked up at his friend with slight shock, as if no one had told him this before. "Strider, I want to go to battle…Pippin has. Frodo carries the Ring, and Sam is with him to help. I would be ashamed to not help in any way – to be left behind until they come back with their great stories and me to only tell of the dealings of the women and children of Rohan."

Aragorn knelt down in front of Merry, who took off his helmet to see his friend clearer.

"Merry. Not always are there happy endings," Aragorn said, not sure if Merry realized this or not. "Sometimes…there is no return. Even if the battle is won, sometimes friends don't come back."

"But Frodo and Pippin and Sam," Merry said quietly. "I could never imagine doing anything without them, especially Frodo and Pippin – I've known them all my life. Surely I will see them again…"

"I did not say you would not see them, only that sometimes there is no sitting together and sharing of stories as you picture. I, as you, hope that someday soon the Fellowship of the Ring will be reunited."

"Either way, I should hate to be left out of the battles, Strider!"

"I know that, but understand that your friends do not expect you to do anything too great of yourself. Frodo would not have you put in any more danger than he already is, and Pippin would not have himself worry about you."

Aragorn took the helm from Merry's small hands and placed it back on his head.

"Either way, my friend, you are still one of the noblest I have known."

Aragorn took up the helmet and ran his hand over it slightly. He went further down the long neck until he found what he had been hoping to find.

There lied Merry, huddled in his Lorien cloak and his eyes loosely shut. He was weak and chilled – but alive nonetheless. Aragorn scooped up his limp body in his arms and stroked back the damp and bloody curls of his friend.

"Speak to me, Merry," Aragorn said quietly.

Merry's eyelids fluttered open, and his soft eyes immediately recognized Aragorn.

"You said there were sometimes no happy endings, Strider," he murmured. "And I suppose that you are right."

Aragorn had nothing to say in response to this except to tell his friend to keep awake, and that he would soon be taken to a place where he would be taken care of.

By then, Pippin had rushed over – and seeing Merry, he had let out a cry of joy.

"Set me back down, Strider," Merry mumbled to Strider weakly. "Let me speak to Pippin."

"There will be time for that," Aragorn promised. "Now you must get to the Houses."

"There are things that I should have done," Aragorn whispered to the unconscious Hobbit as he smoothed back his blood-crusted curls. He dipped a rag in cold water and cleansed the wound. Merry only shifted slightly from the coldness and winced. Aragorn dressed the wound carefully and the Hobbit settled back into his lifeless state.

"There are things that we all wish we could go back and change," Gandalf said to Aragorn quietly with a puff of his pipe. "There is nothing we can do about the past now – now is the time we find things to do with the time that we have."

"I should have never left him, Gandalf. Nor Frodo. We have surely sent him to his death…" Aragorn stood from where he was sitting and drew back the thin white curtains and let the morning sun seep into the room. A beam hit the resting Hobbit and lit up his pale face.

"If only the wise ones would've known what horror would've befallen on the Hobbits…perhaps we would have rejected their going."

Gandalf only sighed and touched Merry's forehead. "He's burning up."

The Wizard drew out more cold water in the cloth and laid it over Merry's head. At that moment, Pippin came in the room.

"How is he?" he asked, sitting down where Aragorn had been seated. "Will he be all right?"

"Yes," Aragorn answered. "It's only time now until he wakens."

"He cannot go to the Black Gate, then," Gandalf said. "Not in his condition."

Aragorn nodded in agreement. "And there is nothing that is making you go either, Pippin."

Pippin only shook his head in protest. "I'll go, as I am still in good health. But Merry should not go. With that, I do agree."

"But I am fine!"

"Merry," Aragorn said with a slight smile on his face, looking down on the Hobbit who had his bad arm in a cast and was not yet out of bed. "You are in no state to fight."

Merry could not disagree. Strider was right. His arm was hurt and lifeless, and he was not even sure if he could keep his balance on his feet. He looked down, feeling ashamed and not useful.

The Black Gate would be their last battle. Right now, winning a victory or dying with his friends was most important to him. He would not be left in the Houses with the wounded…at least, he wished he would not.

"Merry…a young Hobbit once told me 'I would be ashamed to not help in any way – to be left behind until they come back with their great stories.' And now I think that this Hobbit will have plenty to tell – and that his friends will hear it before the end."