Chapter Text
As soon as Minto Bramble sees Bungo Baggins on his front porch, he slams the door shut.
Bungo stares at the immaculate blue paint and the burnished brass knob and can’t really blame him. This is, after all, the very architect who once fled his kitchen in a fluster, politely requesting to never hear from him ever again. It appears that request still stands.
Politeness, however, is a powerful thing, as Bungo knows all too well, and it seems to have gotten the better of Bramble. Bungo hardly has a chance to consider turning around and heading home before the door is creaking open again and Minto is peeking out at him, his face a particularly bright shade of embarrassment.
“I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Baggins. That was incredibly rude of me, and there’s absolutely no excuse.”
“That’s quite all right, Minto,” Bungo assures him, not about to get offended over something he was expecting to happen.
“I don’t know what came over me,” Minto continues, holding the door open wider now and stepping to one side. “Please, come in. Shall I take your cloak?”
Bungo steps out of the nippy winter air and into the warm entrance hall, unfastening his wool cloak and handing it to Minto.
“Tea?” Minto offers after he’s hung the garment from a peg.
“Yes, please,” Bungo agrees, rubbing his palms together.
Minto hovers for a moment, caught between the entrance and the adjoining parlor, eyeing Bungo nervously. “I really am sorry for…”
Bungo waves him off. “Don’t bother yourself about it. Perhaps we can call things even.”
This appears to make Minto even more uneasy. The architect flashes a weak smile before striding through the parlor and into the kitchen.
Well, this is shaping up to be awkward.
Minto’s Bywater residence is tidy, with a drawing board in the corner of the parlor and neat sketches papering the walls in a detailed timeline of his work. Bungo examines the colorless ink-and-parchment rendering of his own house and decides it really does it no justice without the green.
“How long has it been since you built Bag End, Mr. Baggins?” Minto calls from the kitchen.
“Eight and a half years,” Bungo replies.
Eight and a half years. Has it really been eight and a half years? Whether it feels longer or shorter he can’t decide, but it certainly doesn’t feel like eight and a half years.
“I hope the place has been to your liking.” Minto reappears to set a tray of tea down beside a pair of leather-upholstered armchairs near the fire.
“Oh yes, we like it very much,” Bungo tells him now, “thanks to your excellent design.”
He watches Minto unbutton his jacket—plush rust-colored velvet—to sit, and joins him, adjusting his own silvery silk waistcoat as if he’s entering into some sort of sartorial duel.
“Spacious, comfortable,” Bungo continues. “Haven’t needed any repairs, save for repainting the door every now and then. The wardrobe door sticks sometimes in the bedroom, but I suppose you’re not to blame for that.”
“Perhaps I wrote it into the plans,” Minto jokes.
They both laugh, forcefully, but when Minto looks away to lift his teacup, Bungo’s eyes narrow. He wouldn’t possibly have… Would he? He does his best to shake off the possibility.
When they’ve both sipped their fill of tea and uncomfortable silence, Minto speaks: “So what brings you here today?”
Bungo sets his cup aside. “I had something I wanted to ask you.”
To say Minto looks nervous would be an understatement.
Bungo keeps talking. “I’m not sure if you know this, but when the dwarves were excavating Bag End, there was quite a bit of dirt left over that they didn’t cart off. It was rather inconvenient at first, but we covered it with grass and planned to build a new row of holes into it.”
“I know about the dirt, but not about the plans,” Minto tells him, and Bungo can see that he’s already made up his mind before the question has even been posed. Whether or not he’s ready to give his answer is another thing.
“Well,” Bungo continues anyway, “we still haven’t followed through with it. We weren’t exactly in the mood for more construction at the time. But for various reasons, we—that is, Belladonna and I—have decided that it’s time to dig in.” Bungo takes a deep breath. “And we’d like you to help us.”
“Mr. Baggins,” Minto says, leaning forward carefully, “I’m flattered by your request, but I’m afraid I’m very busy at the moment, and I’m simply unable to take on another project.”
“I know we didn’t part on the best terms,” Bungo acknowledges, “and that’s why you shut the door on me a few moments ago. I’m sorry if we came across as… unrefined… in our… enthusiasm…” If that’s what you call manic, uninformed scribbling on a carefully drawn floorplan. “We rather embarrassed ourselves, I’ll admit. But you simply caught us at the wrong time, you see. It won’t happen again. I assure you, we’re very respectable.”
Bungo quickly shoves away any and all memories and knowledge that might disprove that statement, using all his strength of mind to force the pile of wizards and fireworks and remarkable sisters-in-law into a locked compartment and throwing away the key.
“Mr. Baggins,” Minto starts again, but Bungo cuts him off.
“We’ll pay you double for it,” he blurts, and Minto quirks a brow. “I can promise you the respectability, but if it’s the money that will convince you to do it, then my wife can offer you that. And so can I,” he adds, to save his pride. “But mostly my wife,” he concedes, to save his honesty.
Minto narrows his eyes. “You’d do that just to hire me? Why?”
“Because you’re nearby, and from what I’ve seen you’re very reliable. And because I love Bag End, which you designed. Very wonderfully, as I already mentioned. I’d like whoever else lives under The Hill to feel as at home as we do.”
Minto considers this, bringing his teacup to his lips thoughtfully. One sip, two sips, three sips. Each one represents a skipped heartbeat for Bungo.
At last the architect sets the cup aside and sighs. “Very well. How many houses were you considering?”
Bungo blinks. “I, uh… I hadn’t really considered it.” To be honest, he wasn’t very confident that Minto would agree to help in the first place. He must admit he’s rather impressed with himself, although it will take more than a few sips of tea to quell the storm that’s currently raging in his stomach over the proceedings. “Do you have a suggestion?”
Half an hour later, the two of them have agreed that three holes is the best number. They’ve decided on a general size for each, as well as the price of construction. (Minto accepts Bungo’s higher price, justifying their agreement as a special arrangement. His existing projects will take priority.) The papers are signed, and Bungo feels encouraged by how well everything seems to be going. However, he knows from experience how quickly things can take a turn for the terrible, so he’s trying not to get his hopes up.
When they’re just about done, Bungo finally thinks to ask how long all of this will take, from start to finish.
“Let’s see.” Minto moves to his drawing board and begins scratching figures on parchment. “Based on the amount of workers available, combined with the number of houses, taking into consideration their general size, and the projects I’m already working on, I’d say it will take approximately… nine months.” He turns his head as if remembering something. “Oh, I never asked. Do you have children, Mr. Baggins?”
“No.” Bungo clears his throat. “Nine months is rather a long time. Is there no way to shorten that?”
“I’m afraid not, unless you minimize the size or number of the holes. Like I said before, I’m very busy at the moment, and I’m afraid this isn’t the most ideal climate for building. Things will be slower.”
“Well,” Bungo sighs, standing. “I’ve waited this long. What’s a few more months?”
If only he knew.
Bungo walks through the door of Bag End to the sound of laughter. It would seem they have visitors. He hopes it’s not family. The Tooks are too excitable and the Bagginses too particular, neither of which is an ideal audience for the news he’d like to share.
So imagine his delight to find a round belly and matching round cheeks stuffed into a chair by the fire and flanked by a golden-haired lady hobbit and two equally golden children.
“Olo, my dear fellow, what a lovely surprise!” Bungo exclaims, motioning for the hobbit to remain seated and hurrying over to place a pat on his shoulder. “And Mrs. Danderfluff, Grigory, Cora,” he adds, nodding to each of them in turn.
“Your missus invited us last week when she was visiting Tuckborough,” Olo explains. “I brought a chicken.”
“You and your chickens are always welcome here,” Bungo responds with a smile.
Bungo and Olo have been on friendly terms since Bag End was built. He’d grown to like the jolly butcher after spending a rather unusual but eye-opening night in his home, and Olo had grown to like Bungo even more than he already did thanks to the slogan he gave him for his prized ham product: If you’re not eating Hamfast, you’re not eating breakfast. Bungo made no pretense of concocting the saying himself. That credit belongs to his gardener Holman, who also gained Olo’s undying admiration, not to mention a lifetime supply of Hamfast.
“And speaking of my missus,” Bungo says now, “where is she? I have something exciting to tell her. And you can hear it too, of course.”
“She’s in the study!” little Grigory proclaims, clearly proud of himself for knowing the answer.
“She said she had something to finish up and to make ourselves at home,” Mrs. Danderfluff adds.
That’s peculiar. He doesn’t remember Belladonna saying she was working on anything, certainly nothing important enough to leave four guests alone in their parlor without a drop of tea or a crumb of food.
Bungo hurries to prepare their guests something to nibble on before setting out to retrieve his wife. The study door is ajar, and he carefully pushes it open to reveal Belladonna hunched over the writing desk, a journal open in front of her. He can’t quite make out what’s written inside, although it looks like it could be a grid, perhaps a calendar. He notes that she has no quill in her hand. No, she’s not writing in this journal; she’s reading it. Poring over it, more like.
When he steps closer, his foot testing a creaky floorboard, Belladonna jumps and slaps the journal shut.
“You startled me,” she says with an unnatural laugh, shifting in her chair to look at him.
“What are you working on?” Bungo asks innocently enough.
“It’s nothing,” Belladonna replies, standing up and slipping the journal, a small leather-bound thing the like of which Bungo is all too familiar with, onto a shelf.
Bungo sighs, deciding that it must be one of her old adventure journals. He won’t be getting any details out of her in that case, although why revisiting it was so urgent that she abandoned their guests he can’t imagine.
What he finds even more unusual is that Belladonna slips past him and into the hall without so much as the slightest touch or kiss or fond glance. For more than nine years of marriage she’s consistently greeted him as if he just returned from war, whether he’s been gone two hours or two days—not that he leaves for two days very often. It was really just that one trip to Bree with Gandalf, which he’d prefer to forget. He wouldn’t, however, like to forget the way she looked at him when he returned.
And besides the lack of affection, she hasn’t even asked how his meeting with Minto went. He knows things have a habit of slipping his wife’s mind, but considering how long they’ve discussed their plans for Bagshot Row, he’d expected her to mention it.
“Don’t you want to know what happened with Minto?” he asks, hurrying after her into the parlor.
“Oh! Yes, of course,” Belladonna answers over her shoulder as they enter the room.
Something is still not right with her, but Bungo does his best not to fret over it for the moment.
Once they’re all seated—Bungo in his armchair, which even rare visitors the Danderfluffs know better than to use—he clears his throat and gives them the news: “We’re going to build more holes into The Hill.” He glances at Belladonna, whose returning smile seems to be rather a delayed reaction.
“Well, that’s the most exciting news I’ve heard in ages!” Olo declares. Bungo wishes his wife could muster up the same enthusiasm.
“What is he talking about, Papa?” Cora asks her father.
“There are going to be even more places to live right here on this very hill,” Olo explains patiently.
“Can we come live here?” Grigory asks Bungo, and his parents are quick to quell his excitement, telling him of course they won’t, and not to ask such things of people.
But Bungo has a different idea. “I would love for you to take one of the houses,” he tells them. “If Belladonna approves, of course,” he adds, looking to her again and hoping maybe this will finally spark her interest. But she merely nods.
“Oh no, we couldn’t possibly,” Olo insists. “You don’t have to offer us something like that just because Grigory couldn’t bite his tongue.”
“No, I’ve actually been considering it,” Bungo says, and he means it. “I was planning to ask once the plans were more established and the work was closer to being finished, but I suppose it can’t hurt to bring it up now. We’d give you a fair price, of course.”
The Danderfluffs are speechless. Well, at least the parents are. The children are extremely vocal in their pleas. Finally Olo turns to his wife, and they whisper a few things back and forth before he looks back at Bungo and announces, “We would be honored.”
“Excellent. I’d say this calls for wine!” Bungo declares, and as he passes Belladonna to fetch a bottle from the cellar, he searches her face. He isn’t sure if he’s searching for a sign that everything is fine or for the very source of the problem, but he finds neither. It’s not sadness or anger, at least he doesn’t think, just distance—intense contemplation of matters he’s unaware of. What could have possibly happened in the time it took him to visit Minto’s office that would cause this?
Belladonna is not herself during dinner either, saying very little aside from complimenting Olo’s chicken and accepting Mrs. Danderfluff’s request to visit the milliner’s with her next week. Even then, she’s sparing with her words. He keeps catching her staring at nothing in particular, her mind clearly somewhere else. Her brow furrows more than once during the evening, which is not an expression Bungo is used to seeing in this house unless it’s in a mirror.
“Is everything all right?” he asks her again later as they climb into bed. He’s caught her up on his agreement with Minto, and she’s approved of everything with smiles and all the expected comments, but once again her responses seem delayed, her gaze wandering.
“Perfectly fine,” she replies, turning away from him and burrowing beneath the thick quilts until only her curls are visible, stark black against the cream-colored pillow.
Bungo doesn’t believe her. He can’t. After all, it’s not often that she acts so withdrawn. But he doesn’t pry further, simply rolls over to blow out the candle and worry in the dark. What could be troubling her? Is it something he’s done? Something he hasn’t done? Something she’s done and doesn’t want him to know about? Is she ill? Did she have a falling out with her family? Is it merely the gloomy weather affecting her?
What is it?
He finds out soon enough.
For a week Belladonna’s mood wavers between the same quiet distraction and an obviously forced cheeriness to assure Bungo that nothing is the matter. Bungo thinks about sneaking into the study to peek into that journal she had been examining, but he did precisely that eight and a half years ago, and it had turned out horribly.
Bungo is standing at the kitchen table sifting through the post when Belladonna appears in the doorway with something to tell him.
“Bungo, I’ve missed something.”
“Hmm?” He spots a letter from Minto Bramble and begins to open it. “Missed something? What do you mean?”
“Bungo. I’ve missed something,” Belladonna repeats, moving closer to him.
Bungo removes Minto’s letter and quickly scans it, seeing that excavation on Bagshot Row is set to begin in two weeks. “What have you missed? Donnamira’s birthday isn’t until next week, I thought.”
“Bungo.” Belladonna takes his hand gently and removes the letter from it, placing it on the table. He makes a noise of protest and looks at her questioningly. He’s surprised by the face he discovers staring back at him—brow knitted, lip taut. Goodness, she actually looks nervous.
“What’s going on?” he asks urgently.
Belladonna looks at him for a moment, considering and clearly uncertain, and then there is a gust of warm breath against his ear as Belladonna whispers what she’s missed. It turns out to be something Bungo would prefer to remain unspoken of, whether in a whisper or a shout. In fact, it’s the exact something he’d briefly considered her not having missed, based on her behavior. His eyes widen at the mention of it.
“Belladonna,” he tells her when she pulls away from him, “I’ve asked you to please keep those matters private. I don’t like to…”
He stops, realization blooming. He thinks. He thinks some more. He hears her words echoing in his head, sees her gazing at him expectantly—an appropriate choice of words—and he understands.
His voice comes out crooked at first. “Oh,” he croaks, and then swallows. “You’ve missed… that.”
Belladonna nods slowly.
“Which means you’re…” He doesn’t know how to say the words, having believed he never would for a very long time now.
Fortunately Belladonna doesn’t make him finish: “I think. Maybe. Yes.”
They stare at each other for what feels like forever, and it gets harder and harder for Bungo to even see his wife clearly through the fog clouding his eyes. Then, without even knowing how he got there, he feels hard tile against his knees and the cool fabric of Belladonna’s dress beneath his fingers. She’s laughing the deep, damp kind of laugh that can only have been filtered through tears. And for the first time in a week, he knows that laugh is genuine.
Bungo rests his palms lightly against his wife’s middle and brings his face close enough to touch his nose to her dress. He presses a kiss to the cloth, and then another one, and then another one, his hands slipping around Belladonna’s waist to pull her gently closer, his insides practically bubbling over with unexpected sentiment.
It’s silly, really, considering they can’t even be certain this has actually happened. It could just be a false alarm, and even if it’s not, Bungo knows things can happen, hopes can be dashed. But Belladonna continues to laugh so brightly, and her warm fingers slide between his curls and against his scalp so tenderly, that he can’t really bring himself to consider the alternatives at the moment. Instead, he simply chooses to believe.
Although he must admit…
“Not the most convenient timing you’ve chosen,” he murmurs to whoever is beginning in there.
But after nearly a decade, he supposes he can’t complain.