DISCLAIMER: All familiar characters, locations, events, ect, are the property of their respective owners. In some places I have used lines from the films. These are also not mine.

The first thing Pippin noticed was the cold, the icy wind that bit at his skin and the numbness that was spreading up his arms and legs from his fingers and toes, which he couldn't feel at all. He shivered, groggily forcing his mind to recall what exactly he had been doing...He felt colder than he had that horrible night on Caradhras, when he had been kept cradled to Boromir's chest, beneath the tall man's great fur cloak, and had still shivered violently, with Merry at his side.

Merry...where was Merry? Surely they had been together...Merry had been rather persistent in his desire to rarely leave Pippin's side ever since they had been reunited after the battle at the gates of Mordor, at the camp in Ithilien. Pippin had been told by Gimli of how Merry had refused to be parted from Pippin as the younger of the two cousins clung on to life by a thread, struggling to survive the injuries dealt to him during that fateful last battle, and the fever that had followed.

Pippin shivered again and heard the wind howl. For a moment it sounded like wolves, and Pippin's eyes flashed open in alarm. Everything was dark, save for the white swirling around him. A snowstorm, Pippin realised in alarm, much like the one on Caradhras...or the ones old Bilbo had used to describe, back in the fell winter, when Bilbo was young.

"Merry?" Pippin called, his voice cracking halfway through the name. He coughed, and tried again, his voice stronger this time, "MERRY?"

The wind whipped Pippin's voice away, but Pippin soon heard a responding call.

"Pippin...PIPPIN...are you there? Stay where you are, and I'll find you," came Merry's reassuring voice from not far away.

"Merry," Pippin called once again, struggling to his feet and brushing snow from his cloak. He frowned as he looked down. The snow was up to his knees, but yet Pippin could still see rocks poking out from the snow. Pippin looked at his hands, and gasped. They were small...smaller than they had been in many years.

"Pippin?" Merry's voice came again, and Pippin looked up, frantically searching for his cousin in the swirling snow. Finally he saw the shadow emerge from the darkness, and he let out a cry of relief.

"Merry...where are we?" Pippin called. Merry hurried towards Pippin, before he stopped. Pippin went still, staring at Merry...or rather, Merry as he had been thirteen years previously, at the grand age of twenty.

"Pip...you look...younger...smaller." Merry stammered.

Pippin nodded, "So do you...you look like you did when you were a tweenager"

"So do you...you look as though you're barely out of childhood."

"What is going on?" Pippin asked, a hint of panic seeping into his voice, "where are we, and what's causing this blizzard...it's cold...and why are we both young again?"

"I don't know, Pip...but I think we should get moving. Strider will be angry with us if we let ourselves get sick...not with what he's had to do for both of us recently."

Pippin nodded, and Merry put his arm around the younger (and now noticeably shorter) hobbit, and they began walking together.

"At least I am taller than you again; I told you I've always been the tall one." Merry jested, and Pippin laughed.

"I'm sure Gandalf will have things fixed up soon, and we will be righted to our normal heights," he replied. The pair continued on, trudging through the snow, neither one daring to ask for a stop, both of them remembering Caradhras and how once they stopped, they had both been unable to keep going. Now, with no big folk around to help them, Merry and Pippin knew that stopping was not an option until they reached a shelter of some sort.

Both hobbits, however, were soon struggling, their younger bodies quickly tiring from the trek through the snow. Pippin was the first to fall, stumbling and falling to his knees.

"Pip...get up," Merry panted, although he was violently shaking, "There is a hill up ahead, let's see if we can get to the top and see what we can see...we might see somebody, and we can get some answers.

"Maybe," Pippin conceded, hauling himself back upright, forcing himself onward, focusing entirely on the thought of Frodo, and how far he and Sam had journeyed...right into Mordor itself, with the ring weighing heavily around his neck.

"What's the last thing you remember?" Pippin asked Merry, speaking loudly over the howling of the wind

"We were in Minas Tirith," Merry said, "and Faramir was showing us around the royal quarters."

"Faramir had to go and see Strider about something," Pippin added, and we kept looking, "I remember opening a door and seeing a glow, before everything went black,"

Pippin stopped abruptly, and Merry bumped into him from behind, sending pippin to the ground again.

"It's my fault we're here...I did this...just like with Gandalf when we were in Moria, and with Saruman's seeing glass." Pippin's breathing hitched dangerously, and Merry knelt beside his cousin, putting his arms around the younger hobbit, his concern rising as he felt how cold the smaller form was.

"Pip...it's not your fault...it could have been either one of us that opened that door... it just worked out that you were the one that did it, I'm sure Gandalf knows what's happening, and everything will be fixed soon."

Pippin nodded, wondering how angry and disappointed the wizard would be after his latest bout of foolish curiosity.

"Fool of a Took," Pippin cursed quietly, before he felt Merry's hand clutch on his shoulder.

"Pip...there's lights...there's a town ahead."

"What?" Pippin asked, looking up. Sure enough, through the snow, they could see distant lights of a small town.

"Hang on;" Merry muttered, rising to his feet, peering through the snow, "does that town look...familiar to you?"

Pippin frowned, cocking his head to the side, the cold slowing down his mind.

"Is that...Hobbiton?" He asked.

Merry hauled Pippin to his feet, "I don't believe it...we're back at home," he whispered, "but it's wrong. For one, it was summer last I checked...and even in the middle of winter it doesn't snow like this."

"It reminds me of Bilbo's stories, of the fell winter." Pippin commented, as the wind howled. Merry and Pippin both looked over their shoulder at the noise, both of them hearing the howls of wolves being carried in the wind.

"Run," Merry ordered, still holding Pippin's sleeve, and the two hobbits began running, their earlier exhaustion nearly forgotten as adrenaline coursed through their system. Merry, with his longer legs, took the lead, still clutching Pippin's hand and pulling the younger hobbit along.

"Where do we go?" Pippin asked breathlessly.

"Bag End...hopefully Lobelia Sackville-Baggins is feeling hospitable. If she doesn't let us in it isn't far from the Gaffer's home," Merry replied, "he wouldn't turn us away."

Pippin nodded. They had approached Hobbiton from the direction that Bag End was closest too, so the hobbit hole wasn't too far. Still, as they ran through the deserted streets, enjoying the way the snow was not as deep as it had been out in the fields, exhaustion caught up with them, and by the time the pair reached the front gate of Bag End they were both struggling to remain upright. Pippin stumbled and fell as they passed through the gate, darkness taking him as he succumbed to exhaustion and the cold, and Merry's vision was darkening as he stumbled up to the familiar green door and tugged on the bell, banging on it a few times, just to make sure Lobelia knew he meant business.

Merry leaned wearily against the door frame when he heard the sound of latches undoing..., before the door swung inward, revealing a young hobbit that Merry had only ever seen pictures of...including a well drawn sketch that Frodo had shown him and Pippin the day of Bilbo's infamous 111th birthday party, while Bilbo had been smoking outside with Gandalf.

"Bilbo?" Merry whispered with a frown, before his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground, his own exhaustion claiming him just like it had his cousin.

Inside the hobbit hole, Bilbo Baggins looked out at the two unconscious tweens on his front doorstep, their faces pale, with dark shadows beneath their eyes. He did not recognize either of the pair, but it was obvious to him that they were victims of the cold that had enveloped The Shire.

"Come on then, lads, let's get you inside." Bilbo muttered, and carefully began pulling the pair inside.