"How ill do you think Frodo really is?" Pippin asked that night as he and Merry were getting ready for bed.
The two had gone out to the Green Dragon after dinner, as they had the evening before, but Lad was not there. The barmaid informed them that Lad hadn't taken lodgings at the tavern; he had become a regular customer at the Dragon lately, but if he was staying in Bywater or Hobbiton, she didn't know where. Merry and Pippin had a couple of mugs of ale before returning to Bag End to find that Sam had left a lantern lit outside and the front door unlocked for them, but the house was quiet and dark when they went inside. Knowing that Frodo had already gone to bed, they stole quietly to their own room.
"Sam makes an endless fuss and frets over him like an old mother hen, and orders him about. And Frodo lets him. I think he even likes it," Pippin went on as he shed his clothes, tossing coat, then waistcoat, then shirt onto the chair by the door. "You never fuss over me the way Sam does Frodo."
"You've never been sick."
"Is he sick then, Merry? Really?" There was a sudden change in Pippin's tone as he asked this question. Merry looked up from his own undressing and saw that Pippin wasn't playing; he was seriously concerned. "It was what you were talking about this morning, wasn't it?"
Merry nodded. "He isn't well," he told Pippin. "How sick, I don't know."
"What's the matter with him? It isn't just what happened in Buckland. He's never been very strong since we came home."
"Not since he came back from Mordor," said Merry. "It's the Ring. Even now that he's rid of it. It ate at him from the inside for so long, and it'll take a long time for him to heal. He's been touched by an evil thing, Pippin, and there's no getting over that."
Pippin nodded solemnly. They all had been touched by that evil to some degree--Frodo by far the worst, since he had carried the Ring until he had succumbed completely to its power, but Pippin had looked into the palantir and fallen under Sauron's gaze, and Merry had been stricken when he'd stabbed the Lord of the Nazgul. They both knew a small part of the darkness that had engulfed their cousin, enough to be frightened for his sake.
Merry didn't tell the whole truth, which he had realized while talking with Frodo that morning: Frodo would never fully recover from the Ring's influence. The wound had gone too deep to heal. Frodo had been about to ask him not to say anything when they'd been interrupted--and Merry wouldn't, not to Pippin, even though he was beginning to guess, and not to Sam, who must see the truth even if he was trying his hardest not to recognize it. It was surely the reason behind all his fussing. Since their conversation, Merry found it hard not to fuss over Frodo himself.
Pippin, down to his smalls, climbed onto the bed to fish his nightshirt out from under the pillow. "Would you look after me if I was ill, Merry?" he asked as he pulled the shirt on over his head. "I looked after you, didn't I?" He had resumed a playful tone, but a light shone in his eyes as he smiled at his cousin.
"Yes, you did," Merry answered, smiling back with affection. He knew what Pippin was thinking of: after he had stabbed the Lord of the Nazgul, he'd been struck down by a Dark Spell. An icy coldness had lay upon his heart, and darkness dimmed his eyes. Pippin had found him on the battlefield outside Minas Tirith and brought him to the Houses of Healing. "You sat by my bedside all the time I was ill, and when I awoke, you were right there."
"I was never so afraid," Pippin replied. "I thought you were going to die. You were lying so still and cold--like Frodo after that same Black Rider stabbed him. I never knew how much I loved you, 'til I thought I was about to lose you. I don't ever want to lose anyone I love."
Merry climbed on the bed beside him. "I can't say that that won't ever happen," he said gently, "but it won't happen for a long time. Whatever will come, we have each other here and now." He gathered Pippin into his arms, then leaned over to blow out the candle on the nightstand.
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