Title: Falcon (1/1)
Author: Baylor
E-mail:
Rating: G
Characters: Pippin, Paladin Took
Category(s): General.
Archiving: Anywhere, just let me know
Summary: Pippin had always wanted to make his father proud. Set during ROTK.
Disclaimer: J.R.R. Tolkien owns them. I just borrowed them, and I promise to put them back.
Note: Many thanks to Marigold for the beta, and for the mutual Pippin love.

Falcon

If he is honest with himself, Pippin must admit that he has, in the past, sometimes wished that his father was more attentive, and more fun, and more of a friend to him. If he is truly, deeply honest, he must admit that he has often wished that his father were more like Merry's father, that he could run and tell him anything, at any time, and always be met with open arms and a listening ear.

It is not that Pippin's father is a poor father; he knows that he is not. He has been loved and cherished since birth, and has never wanted for anything. His father has taught him all the things a hobbit should teach his son, and has made certain that his only son has had the best of everything.

It has been a privileged life, and Pippin knows this, and appreciates it. He loves and respects his father. He truly does. It's just that his father is rather, well, old. And he is pressed upon for time and has many responsibilities, and by the time Pippin came along, he had fallen into the habit of delegating the duties of child-rearing to his wife, who had left the daily mendacities of that job to Briony, and thus it is that his nurse is the only person Pippin has ever felt comfortable with waking in the middle of the night, or sobbing his childhood woes, or confessing his most secret wishes. To Pippin, parents are for making proud, most especially one's father, even when one knows that they will love you no matter what.

It was Briony that Pippin wished for most fervently while he was far from home and cold and hungry and frightened. It was her gnarled hands that he longed to have caring for him while he was hurt and confused in Ithilien, and her soothing voice that he remembered while the whip snapped at his ankles across the plains of Rohan. He thought of his parents from time to time, but thinking of them made him feel so overwhelmingly guilty about leaving without a word that he quickly moved on to other thoughts. He remembered a specific time he had thought of his father, when he had put on the new uniform for the first time, the one that had been Faramir's, and peered at himself in a looking glass. Whatever would Father think? he'd wondered, and then answered himself, I believe he would be proud.

He had hoped so. Pippin had always wanted to make his father proud someday.

All was in a grand state of confusion when he had ridden up to the Great Smials that night, for word had already come through the scouts, though how they had arrived faster than he, Pippin did not know, for he had ridden with mad haste. His mother was weeping and could not stop touching him, and the lasses were all weeping too, even Pervinca, who had thrown her arms around Pippin with a cry when she'd seen him, and dear old Briony's hands had shook as she had reached up to cup his face. And then he had to explain, and quickly, and as soon as his father understood the situation, he was Thain and Took, and not just Pippin's father, and that was as it should be. He had hugged Pippin once, fiercely, before Pippin rode back out into the darkness, this time with one hundred Tooks marching behind him, and Pippin had thought that his father looked proud, and that had made his heart soar.

It is several days later before he can be spared by Merry and duty to return to the Smials, and no one greets him at the door, so he is able to slip through the corridors noticed only by a few, and make his way straight to his father's study. At the door, he pauses, for something is caught in his throat, and he thinks suddenly of a meeting between another father and son, of harsh mandates and cold words and wounded hearts. He fingers the hem of his uniform absently, thinking of the little boy who had once worn it, remembering the brother who surely also had an identical little uniform, and recalling too the father they had shared.

He slips inside without knocking and his father looks up from the ancient desk, then is on his feet quicker than Pippin thought those old knees would allow, crossing the room in large strides. Pippin's father has always been tall for a hobbit, but as he gathers his son in strong arms, Pippin suddenly realizes that he is slightly taller now, he who had despaired of ever being a proper, towering Took.

Ah, my wee falcon, Pippin's father says, and his voice is hoarse and shaking, the burr unintelligible to anyone but another Took. My own lad.

Pippin puts his arms around his father and holds him close, and has never been so glad that his father is Paladin Took, and no other.