Archive of Our Own

Once upon my time, when my father was a young boy living in Barcelona, there was an old lady who kept visiting his father's sewing shop every other day to complain about her neighbor. She kept saying that her neighbor would type on a typewriter every night, which never let her sleep. She asked if they could reason with the man, and my father's father agreed to help her out. They got to her neighbor's house and spoke to the man, who was no more than a butcher.
They found out that the butcher didn't own a typewriter.
Reasoning with the old woman didn't work (she insisted that there really was a typewriter in the house and that she could hear it every night and that she could never sleep because of the noise it made).
She died before they were able to prove that the butcher didn't actually own a typewritter.
The typewriter, which had only ever existed in her head...

"It is kind of late for visits, Lobelia." Bilbo said, stiffling a yawn and heavily leaning on the door frame. It really was late. The moon was high in the sky, full and half hidden by the clouds. All of Hobbiton was silent, all its inhabitants comfortably and peacefully asleep.
Right.
That was, except Bilbo Baggins and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins, his cousin. She held a lantern, dressed in an elaborate night gown, her dark hair guarded underneath a hair net. An annoyed expression covered her face as she looked at her cousin, who looked exhausted in his bed clothes, barely able to keep himself from yawning any more.

"So it is, but I cannot sleep." she said, adopting an accusing tone in her voice. Bilbo arched an eyebrow. He really didn't have time for this. He should be sleeping!

"And why is that? What does it have to do with me?" he inquired, stiffling another yawn.

"Well, it would be lovely if you would stop making that infernal noise, first of all." Lobelia huffed. Bilbo frowned, confused.

"What? Breathing?"

"No, you fool of a hobbit! The tapping noises! There are hobbits trying to get rest, but what do you always do? Disrupt the peace! Soil our good name! Really, why Bag End was given to you, I cannot say." she added, that being her main argument against Bilbo.

"Probably because it was my parents'?" he said in a flat tone. "And up 'till now, I was sleeping, same as you."

"I was not asleep, you fool; that tapping has kept me awake for hours!"

"Congratulations, Lobelia. You are getting old and delusional." Bilbo said, already growing annoyed at his cousin. "Now, I bid you good night."

"Listen here, you little--"

Bilbo cut her response off, shutting the door in her angry face and hearing the rest of the muffled sentence with arched eyesbrows. She insulted him one last time before he heard her walk away, her indignant muttering fading away and ending with the slam of a door.
Bilbo sighed, walking back to his bedrolm and shaking his head.

"Those Sackville-Baggins!" he exclaimed as he entered his dark bedroom. "All they know is how to complain and annoy the rest of us! Really, we could all do better without them knocking on our doors repeatedly..."

"You really need to stop doing this..." Bilbo groaned, dragging a hand down his face.

"Well then, you shoukd stop disrupting hobbitd' dreams! I told you to stop singing two nights ago!"

Something in the other hobbit snapped at that. "For the last time, I have not been singing!" Bilbo cried out, throwing his hands up with pure exasperation. "I was happily sleeping in bed before you came along! If anything, you should stop disrupting my dreams! And now, for the last time, good night."
He slammed the door shut so hard that he shocked himself as well as his cousin, hopping back as if it had just burned him.
It had been about a week. Well, a little less than that. But Lobelia had arrived at his door every night of that week. At first it had been confusing, a little annoying. But now Bilbo felt enraged every time, waking up in the morning to find that he had lost all patience with her. He didn't bother being polite to her now whenever she tried to insult him about the Baggins' disfortune of having to have him in the family.
The strange thing, however, was that only Lobelia seemed to be able to hear the noises in all of Hobbiton.

Bilbo had found out a couple of days before on a trip to the market to get ingredients for a stew. He had had a long conversation with the stall's keeper about the right onions to use, when Bilbo had the idea of asking about the noises that apparently came from his smial.

"Ah, Master Baggins, I was curious about that myself." the other hobbit said, leaning on his counter with a frown on his kind face. "Your Sackville-Baggins cousin came here only yesterday. She would not stop yabbering about the disturbance coming from Bag End in the form noises.
"I asked other of her neighbors as well whenever they came by."

"And?"

"Nothing. The only out of the ordinary sounds they had heard were you and Lobelia quarreling, lad."

"Lobelia. You need to stop doing this." Bilbo groaned, leaning heavily on the door frame and rubbing his eyes.

"Oh, I would stop if you stpped making those horrible sounds!" his cousin snapped. "I swear that the singing has gotten loider! Look; it was so loud that it left a crack on my mother's ring!" she waved the hand with the ring in front of his face.

"Knowing you, Lobelia," Bilbo said tiredly, "you probably did that yourself."

"How dare yo--"

"Bagginses!" a voice suddenly cried out, interrupting them. They both looked down the path that leaded up to Bag End to see a hobbit walk up to the gate.

"What are you doing here, Gamgee?" Lobelia asked with an annoyed tone.

"I cannot stand the two of you anymore. Your senseless bickering is not allowing a single Hobbit in these parts propper rest!" Hamfast Gamgee said. "I plan on putting an end to it."

"And how do you plan to do so?" Bilbo asked, hoping it would work.

"Simple: Lobelia enters your smial and you prove to her that there is no source to the sounds." the older hobbit replied. If Bilbo had not been so exhausted, maybe then he woukd have protested about allowing his cousin into Bag End. But now it sounded like a wonderful idea to him. He coukd sleep peacefully after that without anyone knocking on his door in the middle of the night!

"Excelent!" he said, moving aside to let the other two hobbits in. "Lobelia, if I catch you trying to steal something..."

He let her inspect his home from top to bottom, his cousin eying every corner with suspicion clear in her eyes. Bilbo and Hamfast tagged along behind her, making sure she wouldn't try steal something.

"I trully hope this works, Master Baggins." Hamfast muttered to Bilbo when she was more or less out off earshot to hear his words.

"So do I."

"Well?" Hamfast said once they found themselves back at the entrance.

"I want to do a second round of looking." Lobelia declared.

"Absolutely not!" Bilbo burst out. "I need to sleep! Not watch you sniff around my smial all night long!"

"You don't have to!"

"Do you really think I would let you--"

"I believe that Bilbo proved himself innocent, Mrs Sackville-Baggins." Hamfast interjected.

"That did not prove a thing!" Lobelia snapped.

"It did!" Bilbo said, pulling the door open, "Now, out you go!"

His cousin gave him a glare before turning and storming out the door. The other two hobbits waited until the door had slammed closed behind her.

Bilbo sighed in relief. "I do not know how to thank you, Hamfast."

"Nl need for that. I believe we both knokw that we did a great favorfor the entire neighborhood. I will now return to my smial. Good night, Master Baggins."

"Same to you."

Neither of them noticed the golden ring lying at the entrance, having slipped off Lobelia's finger. Bilbo shut the door, and out it sailed, landing on a clump of grass. There it remained until the following night when the first dwarf spotted the little flash of gold, bending down and taking it in a grizzled hand.
Its pull and influence, along with a dwarf's love for gold made him slip it into his right boot before getting up once more and knocking on Bag End's green door.

When Lobelia csme back the following morning to inquire where it was, she found Bag End empty. It remained that way for about little more than a year.

The ring took off during that time, this time landing in the Troll's campsite, left to be found by spies...
... and returned to its rightful owner.