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Waking to find himself in Rivendell, to say that one Bilbo Baggins was confused was to put it rather lightly. The last thing he remembered was the trolls and retrieving Thorin and Gandalf's swords from the cave, wanting...he wasn't sure what, exactly. But he wanted to make sure they had them.
Then nothing.
The sheet under his palm was warm and smooth. He blinked open heavy eyes to see a white ceiling with thick wooden beams above him. There weren't even any spider webs. That was lovely. He hated spiders now.
Sitting up was a production in and of itself. At least he was alone to make a fool of himself. His whole body ached something fierce, just like it did at Lake-town in all the times he'd made it there. Had he caught a cold? But he'd never caught a cold before. He'd been poisoned once, by Óin, while on their way to Rivendell after Bilbo had made quite a hash of trying to get the dwarves to like him. The last thing he remembered from that life – though thankfully the memories were getting a bit dim due to all the other times around – was being on his hands and knees before Óin and vomiting blood.
Then nothing.
Bilbo didn't think Óin poisoned him this time. Perhaps something had been wrong with the mutton? Those trolls had been rather disgusting, thinking back on it. Had the meat spoiled? Had he even eaten any of the meat? Where...where was the rest of the Company? Had he...had he led them to their death this time? Was he being held in Rivendell for a trial? But he didn't think prisoners had such nice rooms. So then...so then what was going on?
“I do believe I owe you yet another apology, Bilbo Baggins,” said one Gandalf the Grey. Bilbo could be excused for his shriek of terror and attempt to dive off the far side of the bed. As benevolent as Gandalf usually was, there had been a few cycles of whatever this was that Gandalf had gone a bit...strange. Stranger. Bilbo had learned the most about Gandalf's origins during those cycles, but they always came at a price.
Usually Bilbo's head. Or appendages. Sometimes both.
This time Gandalf was the one to keep him on the bed with gentle hands. Bilbo patted his chest, feeling his racing heart trying to shiver its way out of his skin. “Terribly sorry,” he managed to stutter out after a moment. “I thought I was alone.”
“You have never been alone since you fell unconscious, my dear,” Gandalf said. His pointed hat was gone and his robe was far cleaner than Bilbo remembered it being while on the trail. He held a pipe in one hand, though it was unlit. “How is your head?”
“Rather strange,” Bilbo said without thinking. Then he winced. “I'm sure I'll be right as rain in a moment.”
“Strange,” Gandalf echoed. He tapped the mouth of his pipe against his lips and then sighed. “Something tells me, Bilbo Baggins, that I have been far blinder than I would ever wish.”
Bilbo glanced at him and then away, taking a quick scan of the rest of the room. He was indeed in one of the guest suites – it even had a bath! – complete with a fine window seat that had a tall tree just outside, the green leaves moving in a gentle wind. His pack was on a seat by the lit fireplace, keeping the room warm despite the sun shining outside. Everything looked to have been cleaned as well, including himself.
“Do tell me that Elrond himself did not give me a bath,” Bilbo muttered as he looked over his hands and arms. He'd been rather filthy himself from killing those trolls. Blood did tend to get this way and that when a throat was slit. He'd learned that the hard way. But he didn't like to think about those cycles so he shoved the memories away.
“No, he did not,” Gandalf said, though Bilbo could have done without the little smirk at the end. “His apprentices did. Your virtue was guarded quite closely by Balin, never fear.”
“Balin?” Bilbo squinted at the wizard. “Whyever would he do something like that?”
Bushy white brows rose. “So there are some things you have not yet foreseen.”
Bilbo reeled back at that, his stomach dropping like a stone in a pond. “I have foreseen nothing ,” he hissed at the wizard, causing Gandalf to rock back in his chair. “I lived –,” then he shut his mouth, turning his head away. He didn't want to say it. Why bother. No one ever believed him.
A warm hand settled on his shoulder. “Bilbo Baggins, look at me.” He refused. He was given a small shake. “Come now, none of this. I know you are made of sterner stuff than this. Look at me, my dear.” Bilbo felt the fight leave him all at once. He wondered if this was going to be when his death happened this time around. And when all was going so well. His Company actually liked him for once!
“I will not be the cause of your death by word or deed, Bilbo Baggins. I swear it.”
Oh. He must have been talking out loud again. Bother.
“You are indeed.”
Bilbo looked up into those dark eyes and blinked away tears from his own. “I don't want to die,” he told the wizard. It was perhaps the first time he had said it to him. “But I always do.”
“In your dreams?”
Bilbo shook his head. “I live and die and live again. And die. And live. Again and again and again and again and again and again and...” He swallowed, seeing a faint frown on the wizard's face. “Don't worry. You probably won't remember this in a minute. You never do.”
“I think,” Gandalf said after a moment. “That I am going to do all that is in my power to make sure I remember.”
“But you don't have the Ring? So then how would you get that power? But you're never this nice when you get the Ring. It's a nasty thing.” Bilbo frowned back at him. He missed the way Gandalf went rigid in shock. “I haven't even found it yet. That's for later. I never find it early. I usually end up eaten by goblins if I try.” Each and every time he split away from the Company to go find the dratted thing he ended up either on a spit with the Goblin King cackling at his fate, or one time with Gollum cutting into his belly before Bilbo had even died, pulling his insides out to feast on even as Bilbo screamed until all he could taste was metal.
“Bilbo,” warm hands were on his face. Bilbo blinked away a strange haze and focused on the wizard. “There you are. You've had a bit of a fit, just now.”
Bilbo sighed, feeling his shoulders slump. “No, I didn't.” He pulled away from Gandalf's hands. “You've just forgotten.”
“That you die and live again? No, Bilbo, I did not forget. I promised you I would try to remember and I have.”
Bilbo froze, not daring to even breathe as he met Gandalf's solemn gaze. “You remember?” The whisper was barely loud enough for the space between them. “You remember?”
“Perhaps not everything, but I am trying, my dear,” Gandalf said. “You said something...” His gaze drifted a moment, some power lighting in his dark eyes that Bilbo could not name. He had never seen it before. “The Ring,” he murmured after a moment. Then he blinked a number of times, sitting up straight. “The Ring?” His gaze sharpened once more, right on Bilbo.
Well. Wasn't this strange. “Yes,” he said. What harm was there in telling Gandalf? In even shouting it from the rooftops – well. No, it was probably not a good idea to do that. Sauron was such a pain the few times Bilbo had been captured by him. Rather batty. Bilbo preferred Gollum to Sauron any day.
“Who is Gollum?”
“The Stoor who found the Ring in Gladden Fields. Rather mad, but since he's outlived even the Old Took by several lifetimes, its to be expected.” Then Bilbo blinked and realized he'd been drifting again. How strange. “Am I drugged?”
“Elrond gave you something for the rather nasty chest infection you had, yes.”
Bilbo patted at his chest. He felt fine. “How odd. That never happens until Lake-town.”
“Bilbo. Focus. You know where the One Ring of Sauron is?”
He looked back up into Gandalf's eyes. “Yes. It's underneath the Misty Mountains at the moment. I'll have to go with the Company and get caught up in a stupid rock giant fight before we take refuge in a cave. Sometimes I try to leave. Once Dwalin gutted me then and there for the dishonor I showed. Or something,” he looked away, frowning. “Dwalin was rather mean that whole time 'round. I'm sure I did something to offend them. Again.” He sighed and gave himself a shake. “The cave will have a false bottom. We fall and I get separated from the Company, falling off a ledge. Well. Sometimes I'm thrown. Glóin kicked me off, once. That was rude. I died when I hit the bottom. Nasty way to die, that.”
“Bilbo.”
“Sorry, Ring. Right. If I survive the fall then I wake up on a path in the dark. While I try to find my way out I find it in the dirt, cast off like a mathom at a wedding break party.” Bilbo wrinkled his nose. “You know the ones, with the cracked vases or the gummy –”
“Bilbo.”
“Sorry.” His gaze drifted about the room. Had his pack moved? Surely it had been on the chair by the fire but it was on the table, now. “Why is my pack moving?”
“Because I moved it,” a voice Bilbo did not expect said on his other side. He turned to see Erestor sitting on the edge of his bed, his dark hair pulled back in a braid that Bilbo had never seen before. He missed how Gandalf went still at his other side.
Bilbo squinted at him. “I know you,” he said slowly. “But we were only friends the once, when I managed to make it there and back again but made a hash of everything else.”
“I remember,” Erestor said with a faint smile. He held out his hand, palm up. There were dark, inked marks swirling over the skin of his inner wrist. Bilbo blinked down at them and then back up at Erestor. “So you do know them. I wondered if I had ever told you of them, before.”
“You're from the East,” Bilbo said. “Sometimes you're not. Sometimes you're from Beleriand. Sometimes you're not very nice at all. But we were only the friends the once, though.”
Erestor let his hand drop, his delicate earrings swaying as he tilted his head to one side. “I see,” he said. Bilbo always liked it when Erestor came from the East. Things tended to be a bit easier in those cycles. Sometimes Erestor even followed them!
“Did I, now.”
Bilbo made a face. “Sorry. I can't seem to keep my thoughts inside where they're supposed to be.”
“That would be because Elrond gave you a rather potent herb from my tribe,” Erestor leaned in and whispered. “It let you sleep well through your illness. I shall not apologize for it.”
That startled a laugh from him. “Then I shall forgive you, even if you do not ask for it,” Bilbo told him. Erestor's smile grew as he sat back, his dark gaze moving from Bilbo to Gandalf. Bilbo turned to see the wizard's eyes glowing a little as a fine tremor shook his frame. “Gandalf? Erestor, go get Elrond, something is wrong with Gandalf!”
“There is nothing wrong with the wizard,” Erestor reached across Bilbo's lap to press his fingertips to Gandalf's chest. The wizard gave a great gasp and the glow to his eyes faded. Gandalf raised a shaking hand to cover his face. “Easy, Olórin. You are fighting more than you think you are.”
“Am I?”
“You are and you know it,” Erestor let his hand drop. Gandalf still had his hand covering his face. “Though it remains to be seen just which powers are yet moving in this world.”
“But you have an idea?” Gandalf lowered his hand, his face far paler than Bilbo had ever seen it before.
“I've seen it,” Erestor said. “In a number of different ways. But that is for later, Olórin. For now,” Erestor's gaze went back to Bilbo. “We have other matters before us.” Both their gazes went back to Bilbo.
“You mean the Ring?” He hunched his shoulders when Erestor nodded. “I have to fall before I can find it,” he told them both. “From the cave or I never see it at all.” The deaths that came after cycles like that were always some of the more gruesome.
“And your dwarves? Do they have to fall with you?”
Bilbo felt his stomach swoop at the thought of them. “No. They often fight their way out of Goblin Town with Gandalf in the lead, though sometimes they die down there and I'm all on my own.” He drew in a shuddering breath. “Can we keep them here, by any chance?”
Erestor shook his head, his gaze never leaving Bilbo's face. “I'm afraid not. I have had to employ the twins to keep them away from the door as it is. Otherwise your two protectors would be here right now.”
“My two what now?”
That was when the door burst open with a dwarven war cry and Thorin and Dwalin fell in through the entry. “Bilbo!” They both shouted. And then pulled up short, staring at Gandalf and then at Erestor. “What is going on?”
“I am drugged,” he told the both of them. “And I'm feeling rather floaty. Is that supposed to happen?” He turned to ask Erestor but then the whole room started to turn with him. “Oh no. I hate the spins.”
“Go get Elrond,” Erestor told his dwarves – hah his dwarves, as if Bilbo would ever be so lucky – just before the world started to spin even faster and Bilbo lost what little contents he had in his stomach all over the floor.
What a bother. Well. At least he wasn't dead again.