Chapter Text
Bilbo drew in the air. It smelled of pancakes, mellow and sweet; he had cooked them this morning for second breakfast. Pancakes were Frodo’s favourite – Bilbo used to make them with his help once every week in Bag End. The boy was tired. He deserved no less a treat.
There were too many what if s. Bilbo felt dizzy about them. They were about things he could never make into are s – they would forever remain possibilities: what if they were alive, what if they were together in the mountain now, what if he had told him he loved him, what if he had kissed him before he died, what if Fili and Kili had grown older, what if the ring had never come to me, what if Frodo had not been burdened with the ring, what if there was never evil in the world, what if no one died, what if everyone lived happily ever after. Bilbo wanted all these things, though he knew he could not have them; he walked with a knowledge and something like acceptance but nothing like it at all, for he always hoped things might be different.
The air under the pancakes was clear, and fresh. He leaned into his new armchair, thinking of the stories he had written and lived. There and Back Again. It made him cry still. Less of the sobbing, more of a resigned hollowness. The book was called something else now, something of The Returned King, and The Ring – oh. Bilbo seemed to have become free of its presence upon arriving at Valinor, for though he had burdened Frodo with it months before, he had still felt a longing for it. It was the greatest material evil of all lands, so he was told, and to think he had been keeping it at Bag End for so long was a perplexing thought...Strange was the power of the things you keep. Terrible. He felt aged. The ring had allowed him to feel young – he had lived longer than any hobbit, and was grateful for the time it gave him to give Frodo. But Frodo told him, the ring was something more sinister than a kind gift. He had felt a sense of disappointment when Frodo told him he destroyed it in Mordor, but now in Valinor he saw that he had been like – he had been like him in his madness, and he felt a terrible terrible guilt. He had been obsessed. He had felt a feeling of familiarity with the realisation, and to his horror and grief he had realised the familiarity was with reason; that indeed many years ago he had been witness to such madness over...Material things holding more emotional attachment than it is good...
He recalled his last days in Arda, in Rivendell. The world had been softly lit. He had walked quietly through the gardens, sketching more and more memories as the vividness of the scene was laid before his eyes. Elrond had welcomed him with a smile and the same chambers he had stayed in all those years ago. The browns and yellows of the smooth walls soothed his eyes again, and he felt a freeness he had felt last when Frodo first arrived at Bag End. His nephew had been beautiful, beaming, and so young. Taking care of him, and easily adjusting to his presence and cooking for two at every meal brightened Bilbo’s heart. Frodo reminded him of Fili and Kili, for he imagined this was how it might have been. What if they had not died? Bilbo cocked his head, and clapped his hands lightly. To think about so many things was to only bring pain to himself.
Although he wanted it to be enough, although he wanted this company to be all he ever wanted and needed, he knew it was otherwise. Bilbo looked to his right. Frodo lay curled on the bed. There was peace on his eyelids. Relief. Frodo’s adventure was certainly different to his. Sadly, Bilbo leaned back into his armchair. He stretched. These lands were meant to heal him – his heart, his soul, his mind, his body – but still he felt an exhaustion full of longing and heartache and an urge to surrender to all that pained him...But he was kept afloat, and kept numb, by Frodo, and the goodness of the world. There was more of the goodness than he had known when he first returned home. He had wanted to die. But now he saw the light was still there, and he could not give up when the light still prevailed.
The War of the Ring was ended, and evil was gone. How he would now like for –
He closed his eyes. His breaths slowed into deep ragged sighs. He pressed his shaking fingers to his forehead.
There was lustre here, but Bilbo longed for the brightness of the fireplace and the scent of a –
He closed his eyes. It was strenuous that even in the Undying Lands he should hurt so much. Even now. The numbness of it all was shattering. Bilbo felt as if he had broken his promise. He had been blessed...To go home. Thorin had – he had asked him to – oh what exactly was it he said? He wrung his hands, and moaned. He had planted the oak tree...And it had protected him, and Frodo. He had protected them.
He felt tired. Lonely, somewhat, and haunted. By love, and presence, and the knowledge he would never one day, as a hobbit – he would never one day see Thorin Oakenshield again. Never. He was gone, far far away from him, and he had no idea where he himself would go; though his fate was uncertain, it was certain he would never ever see he who he so loved ever again. And to think he most likely never knew –
He inhaled a shallow breath.
He rose to his feet. The floor was oaken. It was the dwarves reminding him. He walked to the window. He had chosen this inconsequential hobbit hole – a cottage, the elves called it, but he found it was quite similar inside – upon finding the library rooms filled with books. He loved books still, as he did his armchair, but he missed adventure. And home. With him. To Bilbo he was never – he was never more a king than himself. His whole, beautiful, kind self that he loved. And he loved him now. For ever. Bag End felt different when he returned, and with dizziness he had seen plainly the greedy clutching and grabbing of the hobbits of the Shire. He hadn’t really expected anything, but it was certainly not to return home alone with a heart so distressing he too felt stabbed...
Now he would go out every day and row a white boat with Frodo, along the river, and laugh as he rolled on the hillsides, under the sun, red and brown. The greens of the hills calmed his eyes, and often he lay there under the dimming lights with his nephew, watching the fireflies dance in the air with a quiet hum. Royal blue was the entire world, vast and composed above him, and after the sky darkened and the fireflies became brighter, Frodo would get up to go inside, and Bilbo would always refuse to join him, for he felt content in his dwarf-cloak, and wearing his gift Gandalf revealed the worth of before he sailed away, hugging himself, watching the deep red of their glow blurred against the setting of the sky, and wishing with every ounce of his being that Thorin Oakenshield was here with him. He believed to an extent that he was here, that his memory and love still remained, but his soul was away where Bilbo could never go, and his body was under a mountain east and then east again, and at every sunset he could see faraway across the sea, back there, at the world. The warmness of the light bloomed smiles in a part of his heart, and he smiled, in spite of what woe there was. He would look at the north...Where all the souls of the Durins rested. Alive? He would never know.
There was nothing to be done about it. He stretched his arms again and looked back at Frodo. A small smile had grown on the boy’s face and Bilbo was suddenly reminded of all the things he had grown, and watched grow, and wanted to grow. His heart – oh, his heart feeling benumbed; but not really at all – sank and fluttered. He closed his eyes. Through there and through here...His mind clawed at a cliff. And a hallway of stone. And – and on a hill, and there there was – he bit his lip. Blinked his eyes, shook his head. The oak tree grew in his head ever taller...He stared at the day in front of him and leaned his head on the tree. Not here. No tree. No – a wall. Blue, deep with small emblems of red – he looked again at Frodo, and then went out of the door. He was far, far away from the oak tree now, and Bag End, and home. He was to be at peace here, with his family...
He went down the road, lined with grass and rocks and smelling of guiltlessness, and his heart seemed to lift. He looked north. Child of the kindly east...My – he choked back a whimper. Something was at work here, letting these memories appear from the safes he had kept them in. He would never forget, but he didn’t want to think, but he so wanted to think...He lay down on the grass. It felt purifying. He closed his eyes. The sunlight was comfortable, resting its daydream on his eyelids and entirely without expectancy. He wondered. He saw a land far far away behind his eyelids, and it was full of forges, baths and bedrooms, and feasthalls and kitchens, and halls and halls rolling up and down. What coldness there might have been felt was now a warmth so sincere it all for a moment seemed real. Though he supposed it was real.