Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter One: The Poet's New Novel

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"Now, if anyone here can remember all the way back to 2008," the pink-lipped host jokes, "Bookstores all across the UK were flooded with readers anxious to get their hands on the latest craze: 'The Ostler's Cat', a wonderfully intriguing tale about what happens when the spirit of the moon gives an ordinary man the ability to hear the thoughts of everything around him, starting with his cat, his cow, and finally his own silverware. He must choose between a normal life and a life of adventure, danger, and heroic duty when an ancient evil begins to befall the world, and his delusions start to feel more and more real. 'The Ostler's Cat' has since become an international sensation… But c'mon," says the host, leaning in and hissing in a sugary mock-whisper, "Everyone who was hooked on 'The Ostler's Cat' was well disappointed with the next publication from the now-renowned author William Briggs. Here we were, expecting more thrilling fantasy, and he regressed back to his poetry! I mean, what a let-down!"

Backstage, a little man named Bill in a newly-tailored suit rolls his eyes and breathes out through his nose.

The host uncrosses her legs, sits back on the expensive plush sofa, holds up one well-manicured finger to the front-facing camera and grins."But! Wouldn't you know it, years after his first hit, he's back with what fans online are anticipating to be… a groundbreaking new work. Blending the high-tech and the old-school, and breaking down the barriers between fantasy and reality, William Briggs has just released the first chapter of his free-to-read alternate reality novel, 'The Red Blog of Westmarch'. I've read it myself, and let me tell you, it's got me hooked already."

The man named Bill backstage snorts, pausing in his uncomfortable fidgeting. He has no doubt that the host, whose name is plastered all over the back of the studio, has never even looked at the website. Rolling his shoulders, Bill waits for his cue.

"Now, the premise is more than a little wild. However did Briggs come up with the idea, and why has it been published online instead of in print? No one's had a chance to ask - until now, that is. Here's an exciting thing, ladies and gentlemen - guess who we have here with us tonight?!" An excited murmur spreads through the crowd as the host chirps, "That's right! Come on out, Mr. William Briggs!"

Ah, the cue. Bill gives his tie one final adjustment before stepping out from behind the partition and into the studio lights' harsh glare, smiling easily to the camera and giving the small studio audience a little wave. When his eyes adjust to the glare he sees that the host has risen from her throne to give him a one-armed hug. Bill briefly wraps his arm around her shoulder and manages to land one airy kiss to the curls behind her ear before he sits in his own plush sofa. It nearly swallows him whole.

"Now, Mr. Briggs-"

"Please, it's just Bill."

"All right then, Bill," says the host easily. She flashes him a row of bright white teeth. "So! What about that website, eh?!"

The audience laughs, and a group of people (sounds like young people, perhaps even teenagers) give a holler from the dimness near the back of the studio. Actual fans! Bill shoots them a sincere grin.

"I don't think anyone expected it. I mean, it's all very well with moon spirits and cows' souls," continues the interviewer with a faux conspiratorial smile, leaning forward, "-but elves and goblins and wizards? Didn't you say in your 2008 interview with Entertainment Weekly that you considered yourself more a poet than a fantasy author?"

"Well, 'The Ostler's Cat' wasn't really my first foray into hard fiction" replies Bill lightly. "Even before I'd finished Ever-Walked Road, I'd done my two short stories for Märchen Magazine; I'm still quite proud of them. June and August, 2004. It's true that I think of myself first and foremost as a poet, but seeing as Ostler's Cat was just one big rambling poem anyway, why not dig further down the rabbit hole?"

"One big rambling poem!" repeats the interviewer with a tinkling laugh. "What a description for what critics are calling 'the finest single work of fantasy in the twenty-first century!'"

Bill laughs along with her, but his ears go red as the audience gives a cat-call. "Well, it's fitting. I rather like it. It makes an awful lot of sense, you see - I constantly had the balance of wordplay at the back of my mind when doing 'Ostler's'. It's quite the same with this new project, actually. It's a poem in the guise of an alternate-reality fantasy novel. What I want to do with 'The Red Blog of Westmarch' - well, it's more or less just my, uh, my indulgence in what I like to think of as my favorite thing about life. It's the fact that we, as people," Bill says, gesturing with his hands to emphasize this point, "- are allowed to choose for ourselves what we find profound."

"Profound?"

"Yes. I know the premise is what everyone's interested in, but I'm assuming that everyone's read the first chapter online?"

A cheer erupts from the back of the crowd again.

Bill grins, emboldened. "In the first chapter, all that really happens is true."

"Based on reality? Your everyday life?"

"Yes, sort of." says Bill, cocking his head. "It's formatted like blog posts, you see. Everything that will ever happen in 'Westmarch' should be taken as absolutely true. A month ago, I really did watch an enormously fat ginger man struggle to fit into the Tube and getting caught in the doorway… which isn't really all that surprising, especially nowadays," says Bill with a laugh. "And it stuck with me. So the post - the first blog post - deals with why I, my narrator, thought it was so interesting. Within the story, I start to remember a past life, you see. In the story I start thinking that I'm actually a member of a race of short little people called Hobbits, and the fat man reminds me – him - of a Dwarf that he knows. A friend. So he starts to, well, remember, and all these memories start to flood back into him, so he starts to write down his adventures. And that's where we'll pick up in the second post!"

"Wait, you've lost me!" whines the host with a laugh. "So in the novel you - the real you - are writing about a fake you that's remembering a fantasy past life as a different you?"

"Precisely!" says Bill, clapping his hands and pointing. "Just think of it as a far-fetched context for what would otherwise be a very boring novel about a three-foot-tall man - and a Dragon and a Wizard and a King, of course. In 'Westmarch', my life - me, Bill Briggs, the author - and Bill Briggs - the narrator - and Bilbo Baggins - the Hobbit - are one and the same."

The host presses on, "One would say that it's all a very, very convoluted self-insert. Aren't you afraid of looking, well - crazy?"

Bill raises his eyebrows but keeps the grin on his face, "Ha. Well. Good fiction delves deep, doesn't it? I'm considering 'Westmarch' as a creative challenge - to myself and to all of my readers."

"A creative challenge, for sure! How clever!" says the host, crinkling her powdered nose at the audience. "Isn't that right? Isn't it all so clever?"

And with that, a niggling little something in the back of Bill's mind seeps through every sensible thought in his brain. He's clever, all right- and that cleverness (and all the foolish pride that comes with cleverness) is overriding his natural inclination towards propriety and respectability.

The host is patronizing him, and he won't have any of that nonsense.

When the long-lashed host turns back towards him to pat him on the arm and perhaps wrinkle her nose at him in a deliberately cute way, he shrugs and gives his best baby-faced smile. "I certainly hope it's not too clever! I try to write on a young adult's level of comprehension as to not alienate readers… though if you were confused by the first chapter, perhaps I didn't try hard enough?"

There is scattered gasping from the back, mingled with random laughter that reverberates around the studio.

Admirably, the clawed woman in front of him doesn't stutter or glare, though her eyes widen imperceptibly before she returns his smile with a beatific grin. Through her teeth, she says, "Tried hard, did you?"

"I care very much for the project. I find it simple… and relaxing, especially after a collection of such personal poems as the ones included in Ever-Walked Road. It's just my way of expressing what I find profound in life," says Bill quietly. "What I find to be the true meaning of happiness. I'm thirty-four, you see. I'm allowed to be clever on occasion."

"And we're all waiting anxiously for the next installment of The Westmarch Series," says the host to the camera. She flips her hair and switches to Automatic Mode - she's forgotten all about Bill, and he wouldn't have it any other way. He doesn't hear her recite, "And that was William Briggs with his latest project, The Red Blog of Westmarch!" The audience claps politely, and Bill can see a few of the fans from the back filing out to quickly line up backstage for his autograph. He sighs and gets up off the sofa, pointedly ignoring the host and stretching a bit. 'That,' he thinks tiredly, 'isn't something I'll be doing again in a hurry.'

Bill is politely escorted out of the studio and to his hotel by a bevy of men and women in mirrored sunglasses.  Once there, He slowly packs his belongings in his hotel room, grabs a mint at the desk, and walks away feeling rather like he's returning home, victorious from battle.

On the way from the hotel to the tube, Bill has a vision.

It's an unusually strong one, a sudden jolt that stops him in his tracks in the middle of the crowded street. His eyes go wide, and his fingers start to loosen where they grasp his rucksack. The world continues to move around him, but Bill Briggs stands rooted in place, struggling to stay standing, as his senses are flooded with noise, bright, keen smells, and blinding light, like so many times before.

The pedestrians fade away, their chattering dimming into a pleasant buzz and then finally dissolving into the twittering of birds, and a gently churning brook. The silvery London sky above his head is warping over him, and the damp pavement beneath his feet turns into a lovely, soft patch of earth, and the towering buildings around him melt and fold away into beautiful rolling hills, grassy and green with life, with window-holes and lovely circular doors set into them, and great gnarly trees, rippling off into a wide, clear town.

He- not Bill- is leaning on the fence in front of a very familiar cottage, resting casually on one large, bare, hairy foot and addressing someone knee-deep in the bush on the other side.

"Can you believe it, Ham? Of all hobbits, it's Rudigar! Rudigar Bolger!"

From the bush, a gruff voice offers up, "Well, it was a long time comin'. He and your aunt Belba deserve each other tremendously."

"The wedding ought to be good fun, yes," he hears himself saying, in a voice that is his own and yet not, "- but the company it'll attract! I'd rather not think of it."

The person in the bushes straightens up and brushes the loose soil from his knees. Bill knows him to be Hamfast Gamgee - a good friend. Hamfast is taller than he, by a hair's breadth, but quite a bit rounder in the middle. His ears, browned at the tips by the sun, are pointed and wide, and his bare, hairy feet dig into the dark soil in Bill's garden. "Are you having a row with Mr. Falco about Ms. Poppyseed again, or is this about Ms. Ruby Bolger and that nattering daughter of hers?"

"I like Dora," he huffs. "And she doesn't natter so much as… er, speak her mind. Frequently. And with all the tact of a brace of rabbits, but that's not the point. And Falco can chase after whomever he cares to. No, it's about the-"

"-Sackville-Bagginses," finishes Hamfast, nodding wisely. "If I'd not known it were slugs going at these here potatoes, I'd swear it was those two sneaking in here at nights and ruining them."

"Ah! So it is slugs, then."

"Not as bad as I'd thought at first. I'll wet some old boards and lay them around after I churn things up a bit-"

Bill can still see Hamfast's lips move, but the sounds are being distorted, pulled, compressed and stretched around – buzzing – laughter - the bright sun in his eyes - concrete, and rolling hills.

"'’Scuse me, sir, you dropped your -"

"- and I'll be sure to check after the hydrangeas-"

"- your bag. Sir!"

The birds cease to sing, abruptly and jarringly, leaving no sound at all if not for the static and buzz of the cars, and the clipped footsteps over the pavement. With a rush of blood to the very edges of his brain, Bill's vision comes crashing back into reality, slamming his mind and senses smack-dab into place, and he is standing awkwardly in the middle of a busy street in London.

The girl in front of him cocks her hips and taps her bundle of flyers impatiently on her leg, pursing her lips. She looks close to waving her hands in front of his eyes. "Sir!"

"Oh, sorry. Thanks," he manages, shaking his head and bending down shakily to pick up his rucksack from the pavement. The girl rolls her eyes and hands him a flyer before moving on. Bill is left to collect himself in the middle of the crowded street, the last tails of visions of bright green meadows and the sparkling waters of a nonexistent river still swimming behind his eyelids.

Camden ignores him and carries on like a good posh neighborhood should, uncaring if Bill nearly drops his rucksack at the door when he returns to his little flat. Throwing his keys uncaringly in the general direction of the hideous bowl on the counter (a present from a friend who'd gotten it as an unwanted wedding gift) and shucking off his new jacket in a not entirely patient manner, Bill quickly heads upstairs to grab his laptop as he dials a familiar number with one hand.

With a type document opened and ready he sits, poised with fingers over the keyboard, and holds his phone against his ear with a shoulder. After a few rings a voice he knows very well answers, "Bill?"

"Hamish! So glad you could answer!" says Bill excitedly, fingers itching. "I, er, I just finished an interview with what's-her-name, that somewhat famous presenter I was talking about the last time I was in Sevenoaks - you know her."

"Aye!" says old Hamish Gearry, who is huffing a little. It sounds as if he's walking uphill. "How did that go?"

Bill grimaces. "About as well as I'd dare hope. I didn't make a fool of myself, at any rate. It'll be on air tomorrow, so don't take the piss too much when you see it. But- er, that's not what I was calling about."

"What is it, then?"

After a brief pause, Bill grits his teeth and says, "Look, Ham, I know it's a bit of a stretch, but… have you been at my garden at all this week?"

"Yeah. 'Bout two days ago, matter of fact. Your potatoes are in a sorry state, I'm afraid."

"Is it slugs, by any chance?"

"Loads of the little buggers everywhere. Why, did you need anythin'? Comin' back? … Wait, how'd yeh-"

"No, no," says Bill hurriedly, already typing away furiously. "I was just wondering. May have heard about slugs from a neighbor or something. Thanks. How's… er, life? Sammy doing any better?"

"The boy misses you," says Hamish with a laugh. "But maybe not the grammar lessons so much. Next time you're back in Sevenoaks, I'll have 'im fetch you and we'll 'ave a pint at the Dragon, hear? Until then, I'd better get goin', lad. These boxes aren't movin' themselves."

"Thanks, you old Gaffer. Sorry for the random question."

Hamish merely grunts good-naturedly and Bill hangs up, skimming over his notes.

His text document has become quite lengthy, spanning several pages of nothing but little random notes and scribblings cobbled together from his visions. It isn't too organized yet, but Bill's fingers tap across his keyboard rapidly to record his latest vision. Breathing hard through his nose, Bill furiously tries to recall everything from his brief snap out of reality back on the kerb.

Eventually he types out, 'Rudigar Bolger and Belba marry before Falco and Dora - watched Hamfast/Hamish look over the potatoes - time of vision coincides with slug attack on garden.'

Bill snorts as he scrolls through the last few pages of the document. The time seems ripe for another focused night of organizing visions into his loose chronology.

Pulling up yet another document, Bill sets himself to some dedicated copying and pasting back and forth across the program, juggling elements to try and make some sense of the passage of time between his visions and his (supposed) reality. Mostly, the timeline he has built up over the past year is made up of snippets of memories from a relatively happy and comfortable child in that beautiful little house in Bag End, but for the past few months the document has lengthened in size but not in content.

Bill almost doesn't believe the new memories. Whatever could he be doing outside Hobbiton, on the road? As a guest of Elves or Men that turn into bears? In a dark, damp forest, or, if memory serves, running from Wargs?

With Dwarves, of all sorts of people?

Bill hasn't had too many visions of the journey to Erebor. He can recall rather lengthy and yet totally random snippets of conversation, but without context he's got no real sense of the passage of time. Sometimes he nearly blacks out from terribly strong memories of loneliness, or fear (especially when it comes to giant spiders) or even an astonishing thrill, but they're rather spotty, and, he suspects, somewhat out of order. He likes the visions of his friends much better. Even if there's very little chance that he isn't just clinically insane, Bill likes to think that even though Bofur and Ori and Balin and everyone don't exist, they truly were Bilbo's friends.

He can't remember the end of the journey. He doesn't like to think about that too much.

As the night outside his flat in Camden sinks into a deep, dark dimness, Bill dutifully tries to re-arrange and refigure his timeline, with little success. He fully intends to distract himself with the task until he's too tired to worry about the interview. By drawing up a new spreadsheet and organizing his separate visions into re-arrangeable blocks of text, he creates a document specifically for organizing and trying to make sense of his stint as an actual Burglar in Mirkwood. The work is demanding and draining, but even as his eyelids begin to droop, Bill's stomach gives a low growl.

Convincing oneself of one's sanity is not a tireless business, but Bill is nothing if not a lover of food; as tired as he is, he will not stand for skipping a meal. Removing his nice tie, he rolls up his sleeves, retrieves his apron from where it hangs neatly on its own little peg, and rummages through his refrigerator for something to put together. After dragging himself around his tiny kitchen in a tired haze and letting his muscle memory do the heavy lifting, he ends up with a decently serviceable piece of pie, which he valiantly attempts to eat with dignity and grace.

As a credit to him, he finishes the last bite before he collapses with his face on the table.

Sometime at around three or four in the morning Bill wakes up and drags himself groggily to the bathroom to take a long piss, brush his teeth, and rub at the four red impressions left on his cheek by his stupidly falling asleep on fork tines. He then makes the perilous journey to his room, where he folds his nice new clothes away in a sort of half-slumber and then tosses and turns before drifting off into a fitful snooze again. When he wakes up, at an obscenely late hour, he scrubs at his face with a hand and mentally berates himself for the cheek he showed during his interview. 'The interview would have been aired by now,' he thinks with a groan. He sincerely hopes that his fans aren't unhappy with him. He ought to have kept his tongue in check. (A sneaky, hidden part of him thinks that it was a rather Tookish thing to do.)

After a quick, cursory 'morning' tooth brushing and halfhearted piss, Bill takes his laptop to the kitchen and loads up his filtered e-mail and fan site as his toast browns.

The results that pop up brighten his mood considerably. Someone has already uploaded a video of the interview to Youtube and embedded the link into a very popular thread. The general consensus from the fans is one of delight at his cheek, and the comments section of the actual video is overwhelmingly positive. The view count on the first blog entry has nearly quadrupled since the interview aired.

Bill's good mood can't even be dampened by a sprinkling of rather nasty blog posts that have popped up in the last few hours. He clicks the most popular links dutifully, skims the meat of the articles, scoffs at the myriad accusations of his apparent narcissistic psychotic break (a lá that actor from Gladiator, the one that isn't Russell Crowe, or that tiger-blooded fellow on the news a year or two ago) and just shrugs.

Bill reckons that if he can convince at least the majority of his readers that he isn't insane but rather brilliantly inspired, maybe he'll start to believe it himself.

His e-mail is nearly exploding with congratulations from his publisher for both The Ostler's Cat and Ever-Walked Road. He cheerfully sends off a reply confirming that they ought to get together for coffee and a chat sometime. He writes off similar replies to his friends from Sevenoaks, taking special care to type out a very sincere and heartfelt letter of thanks to his little nephew (who must have tried very, very hard to spell everything correctly at such a young age) and he's about to close his e-mail to take a nice shower when he spots a rogue mail in his inbox. It's from an unlisted address. Bill wonders briefly whether that's actually allowed or not, thinks on it for a bit, shrugs, and opens up the e-mail.

He has to read it twice. It's even more ridiculous the second time around.

The e-mail is from someone who claims to be in the military. He's abrasive in a comically exaggerated way, though almost poetically terse - the entire body of type wouldn't even constitute a proper paragraph. The general tone is vaguely threatening, and from what Bill can make out through some nearly unintelligible typos, the sender is telling him to 'stop snooping into business that is not his' under pain of his head getting bashed in with a hammer.

A hammer, of all things!

It's signed only with the monogram DF and a poorly scanned image of what Bill slowly realizes is a punched imprint of a fist. Unimpressed, he deletes the e-mail without giving it another thought and leaves his laptop to charge while he's in the shower.

Bill leaves his flat before it gets too late and walks with his laptop to the neat little café on Gower Street. He likes the atmosphere - it's dimly lit in the evenings, and he finds that although his general preference is for peace and quiet, the clinking and clacking and meld of voices unique to Speedy's is rather helpful in imagining actual Dwarves. He enters the café with a little cursory nod to the usual Saturday servers, takes up his second-favorite spot (his first-favorite being already taken by a man in a questionable leather jacket) and opens up his laptop to begin cracking down on the second chapter of The Red Blog.

Bill pulls up the (rather detailed) spreadsheet he has made from Bilbo's early tweens, detailing his childhood fascination with the Wizard Gandalf's fireworks. He means to end the second chapter with some beautifully colorful imagery of the festivals of Hobbiton, and as he begins typing in earnest, fingers flying over the keyboard at a pace rather comparable to someone a decade younger, the café's noises blend and blur. Bill, dead-set on finishing by the end of the week, barely hears the voice that calls him.

"Excuse me."

"Yes?" says Bill, not looking up from his laptop.

- was customary for young lasses to wind fresh flowers and colorful scraps of fabric and thread into their hair for dances, and the-

"It's been a long time, Burglar," says the rumbling voice quietly.

Bill's blood freezes ice-cold in his veins.

His fingers still over his keyboard.

Burglar?

That voice.

Snapping his head up, Bill's brown eyes meet steel-grey ones.   A long-nosed, regal face peers down at him from under a mop of black hair streaked with silver.

The man towering over him is broad-shouldered and wide-chested beneath a (questionable) leather jacket, and the hand that reaches down to rest over the edge of his laptop monitor is thick and heavy. He looks like - like a king, certainly. A very sad king. He looks like -

No.

It can't-

What in actual bloody hell.

"Thorin?"

The man half-smiles at him, cold eyes going soft as they peer down at him. Bill can't tear his eyes off of that face- the beard may be neat and black and just as he remembers it, but the hair that curls around the man's ears is shorter, and he's smiling- did Thorin ever smile at him?

Is this Thorin Oakenshield?

As Bill gives a violent start, the man in front of him holds up his hands and murmurs, "If it really is you, Bilbo Baggins, please, I beg of you, listen to me."

Bill giggles despite himself, desperately gripping the edge of his seat and feeling his skin pinch. "I - You know, you - you never seemed the kind to ask politely for - for anything - Thorin? This is- Je-e-e-sus Christ, this is - mad."

The man gestures with his outstretched hand. More on reflex than anything else, Bill reaches out for it.

As his hands grip that thick wrist Bill feels the floor beneath his feet sink, and he barely has the time to groan to himself and mutter a succinct and rude word before he falls, the blood beneath his eyelids burning searing-hot as he slips deep into himself, lost in a loose memory.

It's brief, and fleeting - the soft, warm glow of the café fades away into the familiar low candle light of his home in Bag End. The smell of coffee is replaced by soap, and old wooden tables, and the remnants of a feast of crusty bread and roasted meats. Bill feels himself rub at the rich cloth of his trousers, and as Bilbo's heart begins to beat faster he hears a deep, rumbling voice sing softly.

'This is the night,' Bill thinks to himself vaguely. 'This is the night that those blasted Dwarves came through my doorstep - and - and-" Ruined his life, perhaps? But the thought quickly fades as Bilbo looks upon the huddle of dwarves in his living room.

The King Under the Mountain is leaning on his mantel, staring into the flickering flames, face half -illuminated. 'He looks sad', thinks Bilbo distractedly, 'he looks lost' - and he finds himself scrutinizing the face in front of him in through dark, heady haze of the vision. The proud brow and nose, the severe eyes, and the short, neat beard (trimmed, no doubt, in mourning) all speak to him of lost magnificence, of the last remnant of the Kings and heroes in his stories. Here, in his cozy little living room in Hobbiton, is someone grand.

But as the other voices join in, vibrating through his very bones, Bill feels a jolt and a yank from somewhere between his shoulder blades, and the song stops altogether.

Bill crashes back into his body without warning, violently thrust forward by the sudden impromptu vision.

The first thing he notices is that he's gripping a wrist much too tightly to be comfortable. He loosens the grip to be polite.

The second thing he notices is that Thorin Oakenshield, or a man in a leather jacket who looks eerily like the King Under the Mountain, is sitting opposite him at a table in Speedy's Café with a quiet look on his face. He's staring at his wrist - his wrist that Bill has been clenching like a lifeline. Startled, Bill yanks his hand away. His fingers have left a red impression on the man's pale skin.

"Vision?"

There isn't much point to denying it. "Yes, but-"

"You were writing?"

"I… Yes. As it happens, I was writing about one very pesky Wizard."

The man in front of him gives him an unreadable look. "Really? That sounds intriguing. I'll look forward to the second chapter of The Red Blog, then."

Bill almost blows a gasket. "Don't talk to me like you're some random fan, Thorin Oakenshield."

The man nods imperceptibly. "I apologize." He them visibly softens around the edges, the corners of his mouth curling into a gentle smile. "I'm glad to have found you. Dwalin helped me, of course, but I've been navigating this unfamiliar part of London on my own for the past week looking for you. It's good to see you've been well. Believe me, I wouldn't encroach on your life, or our tumulus friendship in another life, to trouble you without real reason. Listen, Hobbit. How much-"

"No, you listen, you dodgy Dwarf King," hisses Bill fiercely, trying not to shake. "I - I can't believe this. You're real. You remember. This is mad. How did you find me? Is this some kind of cruel joke, or-"

"How much of the Quest to Erebor do your remember?"

The intensity of the question quells whatever bubbling, furry-footed rage he has in his body. Suspiciously, Bill answers, "Not… not a lot."

Leaning forward, the man urges, "Do you not remember the mountain? The dragon? The battle, at the very least?"

"What?! Battle?! No! I don't remember any sort of battle at all! Is there really a battle?!"

The man visibly deflates. His Kingly shoulders heave with a silent sigh and he answers in a faintly disappointed voice, "I see."

"Thorin!"

Bill feels about ready to thump the table with his hand, damn all of the other patrons in the café, but the disappointed man in front of his goes quiet, staring into the Formica table with the saddest, most empty eyes that Bill has ever seen, and he finds that his anger slowly dissipates into a dull, throbbing panic.

"… Thorin?"

The man in front of him seems to snap out of whatever reverie he's lost in, and looks up from underneath a proud brow to give Bill an apologetic half-smile. "It seems that I'm a bit off-schedule. I apologize again. I'll admit I had hoped for more."

"What? No - Thorin, I'm sorry, but what… What…"

"… No, Bilbo. I'm sorry. For what I'm about to do next."

And with that, the man leans forward and whispers, staring at the table with a blank expression, "William Briggs, if you follow me out of this café I'll be forced to knock you into the concrete kerb with my bare hands."

Bill is lost for words.

"Please don't make me raise a hand against you. I know that you don't remember, but I respect you deeply. I admire your courage and I value our friendship more highly than I can say. I have wronged you many times before, and it pains me to wrong you again, but right now my freedom is my only asset. I cannot be found, not now. If you run into anyone, especially that Wizard, please don't tell them what I've asked you tonight. And don't look to see where I have gone."

The moment seems to drag on for centuries. Bill's throat is constricted- he feels about ready to fry in his skull like a full breakfast. So many things are happening all at once, and his minds swims with revelation after revelation. His words feel stuck in his throat, and he draws up blank - blank! And he calls himself a poet!

When he tries to say something appropriately accusing and Tookish, the man just looks at him and says quietly, "Please."

The Baggins in Bill wins. "… Alright."

Without another word the man gathers himself up, straightens his creased leather jacket, and walks through the door without another word. He doesn't even look back. All Bill can see is that he makes a sharp left turn before vanishing into the Camden streets, like he was never there in the first place. Bill is glued to his chair. He can't budge.

He's just met the human equivalent of Thorin Oakenshield, the King Under the Mountain. He is alive, and very, very real. Bill has heard his voice, and grabbed his wrist, and he is certain, more than ever, that he is either well and truly mad or an actual reincarnated Hobbit.

In the way of all writers, it gives him a brilliant idea.

Bill moves quickly, first by deleting the rough draft has worked up for the final paragraph of the second chapter of The Red Blog and starting afresh. His fingers tangle into each other as he begins typing once more, feverishly working the words into strings of sentences, poetic and aggressive and humorous and forlorn all at once, but pleading most of all.

If Thorin remembers, then there is always a chance that someone else does, too. There must be others. Besides the King and the Wizard, someone else must have the answers.

It's crazy, it's mad, but Bill types away frantically at the very last sentence, and with one last cursory check over the lot he quickly uploads the entire thing to the Red Blog and hits PUBLISH with shaking fingers.

Once it's up online, Bill just stays in his spot, watching the battery on his laptop trickle down to near-zero as the view counts steadily rise. He's gone proper bonkers, he thinks to himself, but with every little increment a deep, dark hope flutters anew in his belly. With every view, every comment, every time someone reads his blog… there is bound to be someone out there who reads it. A Hobbit, or a Dwarf, or maybe even an Elf… or a Wizard. Anyone who might be having visions - anyone who remembers, as he does.

There must be others out there, and if they find his disguised plea, they will find him.

Somewhere deep inside William Briggs, a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins begins to stir back to life.

-

Chapter Text

Chapter Two: Running Out of Coins

-

Bill's first thought as he jolts awake is that he deeply, deeply regrets not having figured out how to change the ringtone on his cell phone. The default tone is possibly the result of some scientific experimentation to calculate the world's most jarring combination of chirps, beeps and buzzes, and it interrupts Bill's comfortably deep and restful Sunday morning snooze.

Acting purely on muscle memory, his arm shoots out from beneath his well-worn duvet to grasp and the phone sitting on his nightstand. He fumbles with it for a bit and then brings it closer to his face to squint at the screen in the dimness of his bedroom. It's his editor.

His second thought is that he regrets not having set the alarm to a respectable hour, because he's sure his voice sounds shot through the roof.

Giving a halfhearted yawn and rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his free hand he answers the call. "Catherine, I like you and all, but this is a rather ungodly hour."

"Er… Bill? Billy, my man. My… er, mate. It is rather early, isn't it?"

Immediately Bill props himself up on an arm and frowns at his headboard. "What is it? Chinese knockoff again? Did Adrian catch whiff of another porno parody? What is it now, 'The Hustler's Cat'? Or worse, 'Ever-Fucked Ho'. Tell me it isn't a porno-"

"No, no. No porno. Geez, I can't believe your mind instinctively wanders to a porno at nine in the morning."

"Is it nine? Bloody hell." Bill reaches down beneath the covers to scratch absentmindedly at an ankle. "Sorry. I'm still not really awake."

"Awake enough for clever porno titles."

"I admit that those were thought of beforehand."

"Rather… er, what's that word you use? 'Tuckish'?"

"'Tookish'. And yes, it was. And I promise I really do like you, Catherine, but you swore you wouldn't call me on weekends," says Bill mildly.

"Oh!" exclaims his editor, and again her voice takes on an uncharacteristic sheepishness. "Well… Look. Bill. Before I say anything, I tried not to infringe on your privacy, and I think I did a damn good job-"

"What? Privacy?"

Even over the phone, Bill can clearly imagine his editor worrying with her necklace with one hand. "Well. To get right to the point, I just got about sixteen calls from an unlisted number asking for you. Said it was some old friends from primary school. But they couldn't tell me the name of any primary school in Sevenoaks!"

Bill's frown deepens as the soft, muzzy layers of sleep fall away from the edges of his mind. "And you… did what, exactly?"

"Well, I popped off on them, that's what! Told them they were righteous liars, and that they didn't even sound like Southerners, besides. They kept badgering me for your number and contact information but to my credit I ripped them a new one when they started pleading."

"What were they asking to call me about?"

"Your new blog entry. Good one, by the way. The end nearly had me in tears-"

But Bill isn't listening. His mind is working on overdrive.

"-but you're really throwing yourself into the story, aren't you? It reads so sincerely, like you really believe it all. I was so moved, which is also why I got so angry at the callers because they didn't stop talking about it like you hadn't really written it or something-"

"Someone called me about the second chapter?"

"-and how they went on about it- it was quite accusatory, and of course I told them that they could take their Irish arses and get off the line because-"

"Cath, did they leave a name? A number? Anything at all?"

The line goes tellingly silent.

"Cath!"

Eventually the editor groans and says guiltily, "Here's the thing. They hung up right after I… oh, Bill, I'm so sorry. I'm supposed to protect your privacy and do whatever I can to help you, but I accidentally gave them your original street address. You know, in Sevenoaks? I was listing off the things they were doing wrong and it just slipped."

Bill collapses back into the bed, breathing out hard through his nose.

"Oh, Bill, what if they go and break into your lovely cottage and steal your things? Or worse, talk to your neighbors and spread lies? Do you have any incriminating evidence stashed away in there? Or worse, embarrassing college photos-"

"Calm down, calm down! Jesus," says Bill, suppressing a little hiss of delight. In his best mothering voice he says, "I don't have weird things stashed in my family cottage. I'll put word out to watch for suspicious characters floating around. I've got a friend there who gardens everyday, so it'll be fine. You did awfully well, though, sticking it to them like that. Well done, you."

"Are you sure?"

"Damn sure," Bill lies through his teeth. Slowly he lifts himself up out of his sinfully warm bed and throws back the covers to swing his (embarrassingly short) legs off the side. He toes at the cold floor and says, "Leave it to a real lady knight to protect my privacy."

Over the line, his editor lets out a giggle. "Shut up, you old cad."

"Thanks, by the way."

"No problem at all." At this point the editor sounds rather proud of herself. "And I meant what I said about the second chapter, by the way. Really good stuff. The bit about Dwarves is a bit of a stretch, though. Are you going to continue on in that vein?"

After thinking a moment, Bill answers, "I think so, yeah."

"Oh. Well, good luck, I guess. Are you sure you don't want any deals, Bill? I'm looking at your view count as we speak. It's exploding."

"I'm sure." Bill stands up and stretches, groaning a bit at the tug of straining muscles in his forearms, and then he pads silently over to the window to peer out between the curtains towards the street. Bloomsbury is awake.

"When are we getting coffee?"

"After the Red Blog is finished, I suppose," says Bill quietly, leaning on the wall.

"And when will that be?"

"I don't know."

"Okay. Take care of yourself in the meantime, Billy," says Catherine.

"You too," says Bill.

"Don't get too hung up over Elves and Dwarves and Dragons, now."

"No guarantees."

Catherine laughs and hangs up, and immediately Bill's fingers are flying over the phone again.

No one picks up the first time, but on the second try Hamish's gruff voice answers "What now?"

Bill shrugs off the terse answer as always. "Hey, Ham, I need to ask a favor."

"Potatoes? I've got them taken care of-"

"No, no, not the potatoes. This is kind of important. Maybe even more important than potatoes. See, I've got a few friends coming 'round the cottage sometime soon. Today or tomorrow, maybe. Listen, there was a sort of miscommunication and they don't have my London address or my phone number. If they come 'round, could you tell them to call me?"

"'Kay", says the Gaffer easily, grunting a bit. "What do these friends look like? Corporate types?"

"Not exactly. Um, they're… Irish."

"Irish. Got it. What else?"

"Er... Short? Probably?"

"… Names?"

At this point, Bill grits his teeth and admits defeat. "Fine. I don't know their names, either. You'll know it's them if they come 'round the cottage to ask for my number. Or if they barge into your house and clean out your fridge and sing songs about destroying your kitchenware. Um, that last part was a joke. Or not. I dunno."

Bill feels rather than sees Hamish's eyes roll back into his head. "You know, you're an odd one, William Briggs."

"You too," says Bill rather defensively.

"Sammy says 'ullo."

"Tell him I said hello back."

With a characteristic grumble, the Gaffer hangs up, leaving Bill to drop his hand to his side and sigh into his great empty room. He would have stayed there a bit longer, pondering, if it weren't for a bright and frankly embarrassing peal of grumbling from his stomach. It takes Bill all of a second to start the march towards his kitchen, where he fixes himself a rather large fry-up as a reward for the previous night's work. He busies himself with the tomatoes and eggs, fussing over slicing himself a reasonable portion of black pudding to take the jitters from his fingertips.

Eventually, after the washing-up is done, clock-watching becomes unbearably dull, and Bill boots up his laptop again.

Bill whistles low as he skims the front page of his fan forum. His editor was right- the view count has massively multiplied since he released the second chapter only a few scant hours before. Various threads have sprung up around the update, headed by his most loyal fans who apparently haven't slept at all during the night in favor of chatting about the unexpected final few paragraphs. Most are quite enamored by his 'dedication to the alternate reality game' - already, several people are beginning to speculate on the  fictional world of Arda and its various inhabitants, with more speculative artwork and snippets of writing uploaded by the minute. Some are playing the 'game' with almost enviable gusto, and Bill smiles when he sees a popular thread titled, 'Would you rather be a Hobbit, Elf or Dwarf?' make the top of the fan page.

Disappointingly, there haven't been any thread titles that claim that they believe the story, or that the same thing had happened to them. Bill tuts at himself for hoping, but even as he skims for interesting questions he admits to himself glumly that he had imagined it would be easy. In his wildest dreams, Gandalf the Grey would materialize in the middle of his living room with a poof and a sprinkle of sparkly dust, spurred on by his (very moving) public declaration, and explain everything over a beautiful cream tea.

Bill leaves comment replies on choice questions about the Shire, sits back and watches as the original commenter goes mental on the thread with a smile on his face.

The rest of the evening is quite perfunctory. There are no more poorly-composed threats to his person, although there is one very sketchy spam e-mail from a security company that Bill does not recognize marked 'IMPORTANT' at the top of his inbox. Clicking it expecting to be informed that he's won half a million pounds from some sweepstakes competition he's never entered, Bill is almost pleasantly surprised to find a much more refreshing scam attempt waiting for him.

'Mr. Briggs-

Please clear your schedule from 6:00 PM to 12:00 PM on Sunday, November the fifteenth, as you should expect a visit from Noah Tyre of Top Tyre Security at your place of residence to make sure that you are not infringing on his rights. If you do not wish to comply, please reply with your phone number included in the body of text.

-Noah Tyre'

Bill has a little chuckle to himself as he deletes the e-mail. The ruse is quite obvious; the sender (who apparently feels the need to address himself in the third person on his business correspondence) slowly coaxes more and more information out of him by claiming to require these little annoyances, and slowly but surely he'll be swindled of all of his personal data. 'At least the setup is inventive,' thinks Bill as he stretches his neck. 'No one needs six hours for a quick legality check. The crazy length is just a subtle way to deter the target from ignoring the e-mail. And at any rate, the sender didn't even mention how they'd find out my address!'

Bill puts his laptop on his writing desk (in his study) to charge as he heads downstairs to check the mail, wondering idly if his team is plagued with similarly annoying spam e-mails. His editor Catherine and publicist Adrian would think them rather funny, he supposes, but the has a private laugh to himself at the thought of his frighteningly stern agent Lorelei getting her slim fingers wrapped tightly around the neck of the poor sod who'd dare to waste her time.

The rest of the afternoon is spent doing what Bill likes best - relaxing. With his feet propped up and wrapped up in a lovely, warm cardigan and robe, he curls up into an indulgent little ball in the armchair in his study and reads an old favorite collectible hardback for hours on end, feeling a little too lazy to do the shopping and not feeling at all guilty for it. Some neighbors come calling at eleven to congratulate him on the new chapter before heading out, a giggly young couple, and he sends them off with biscuits like a middle-aged fusspot, but otherwise he is widely undisturbed. The potted plants do nothing but sit around peaceably, and the flat is still. The poet has a hearty, Hobbitish lunch and even sets out a nice piece of smoked ham to defrost in time for supper.  Altogether he has a blessedly calm day, free of any undue horrors or rogue visions. He quite forgets his anxiety with a few favorite tomes stacked up by his feet, and he begins to find the evening a rather pleasant one indeed.

So of course, the ruse is shattered when his phone, which he's left in his bedroom like a clot, begins to ring.

Warily, Bill closes the book in his hands and pads down the hall and into his bedroom, grabbing at the phone and yanking out the charger cord. A glance at the screen tells him the call is from an unknown number. Unbidden, something sharp and cold and sticky grows at the back of his throat.

Bill takes a very deep breath through his nose and takes the call, swiping the pad of one finger across the screen and holding the device to his ear in a smooth, well-practiced motion.

"Hello?"

An Irish lilt hesitantly says, "… Bilbo?"

All of the wind is knocked out from him. Bill's mouth opens and closes, but nothing comes out but a very undignified squeak like a rusty hinge.

He knows that voice.

Though tinny and distorted over the phone, there's no mistaking the nearly melodic rasp that half-whispers, "I know this is a long shot, and we know it sounds crazy, but… You are Bilbo Baggins, aren't you? It's us, it's Bofur and Bombur from the Company of Thirteen."

Another voice on the other end pipes up quietly, "It is you, isn't it?"

"Please tell us it's you," pleads the first voice.

After a brief moment of shocked silence, Bill half-laughs, half-sobs, "This is insane." He sinks onto the edge of his bed bonelessly, hands sweating where they grip his phone tightly against his ear.

"Oh, mother-of-god. You're really here too."

"Yeah."

"We're in Sevenoaks, Kent right now."

"I know. You know what, I think I might faint," says Bill honestly, weakly lifting up an arm to mop at his watering eyes.

The voice starts to panic. "Don't hang up! Listen, we've been trying to contact you for about the whole day now, and between the both of us we don't have a cell phone. We're in what's probably the last working phone box in Kent right now, with two Tube tickets to Euston Square. There's one leaving in about five minutes. And we're running out of coins. Just…" There's the unmistakable sound of someone gulping. "Just tell us if we're welcome and we'll be there in an hour."

Bill lets out a largely involuntary choking noise. "Here. In London?"

"Your neighbor-friend-person gave us your address," the voice says hurriedly. "Just tell us. Four minutes. We can make it if we run-"

"Then run!" screams Bill into the phone, all Hobbitish propriety forgotten. "I'll be here. Just come."

"… Alright," breathes the voice, and the line goes dead.

Although he feels quite numb, half-reclining on the edge of his bed with his robe hanging off one shoulder, there is no fooling even the half-remembered memories of life as a Baggins, because even as he lies clutching his phone to his breast with sweaty hands Bill thinks to himself, "Well, my door looks just the same as anyone else's. I'd better make a sign or something."

Lightheadedly, the poet rolls off his bed and fumbles around in his bedside drawer for a biro. As he heads out of his room in a daze he unceremoniously drops his robe on the floor of his bedroom and toes his way down the narrow stairs.

Bill almost feels foolish (what would his neighbors think?) as he steps outside into the biting November night, biro in hand. Before he can regret his decision he hastily scratches a rune on his door, about as close to what he remembers from his one brief glance, and then steps back inside. Bill stares at the biro in his hand, leaning back on the door as it closes with a snap, and then he gives a great sigh and chucks it across the room. It lands somewhere out of sight, perhaps rolling into the kitchen, and Bill regrets it instantly. He feels childish.

Bill steps off of the door, but he doesn't even make it to the end of the hallway before he finds himself curled into the junction of wall and floor, staring at his door. He stays there for a long time, just staring.

The sounds of the city outside are dull and dim; Bloomsbury sleeps, but Bill finds that the longer the night goes on, the more he feels jittery, restless and impatient. It's as if he's wound too tightly, coiled up and ready to spring - at nothing, apparently, because his apartment remains empty of all but a pathetically short man who believes that he is a hobbit.

Bill swallows and scratches at his feet, hating himself for wishing they were furry.

The minutes trickle past, and though he grows colder Bill stays hovering by his door, unable to step into his bedroom to grab his robe to drape over his shoulders. Losing sight of the door could drive him mad, and Bill doesn't think he could handle finding out that his delusions run deeper than the odd waking dream and one instance of an imagined Dwarf King. For the first time in over a year Bill thinks about smoking one little guilty cigarette, just to shake the nerves. He doesn't feel at all courageous; he just feels insane.

No, Bill thinks wildly, rubbing at the bridge of his nose and leaning back on his floral wallpaper, he isn't crazy. He isn't. He doesn't need a smoke.

He just has to wait, and wait he does. Bill waits until he feels he can't take it any longer - until the night outside the door to his flat has darkened nearly to black, until he starts to feel incredibly foolish - and then he hears steps, blessed, scruffy steps, approaching his door cautiously.

The approaching steps activate the motion sensor light on his doorstep, and the bright yellow beams seeping through the cracks create a thin rectangular outline that burns brighter than flames into the darkness of the hallway.

Bill holds his breath, blood pounding in his ears.

"Is this-"

"That's the rune, bloody hell."

"… What do we do?"

"We knock, that's what we do. Just- hold up-"

Even though he expects it, Bill can't help but jump as someone raps his knuckles once, twice on his door, and with shaking knees he draws himself upright to fumble with the latch and yank the door open, hard enough to nearly rip it from the hinges. Before his eyes adjust to the pale fluorescent light that floods into his flat, Bill feels the cold night air hit his bare feet and face, and he is greeted by two silhouettes - one thin and one immensely fat - that slowly, slowly focus into men.

Bill's words stick in his throat; he can't breathe, he can only gape at who can only be Bofur and Bombur.

Bombur - he is unmistakably Bombur - is still enormous, but taller and with a crown of thinning red hair atop a wide-eyed face.  He looks as if he’s attempting to hide behind his companion, and failing miserably. Bill looks up and sees a face - a dimpled face, surrounded by a mop of scraggly, unkempt hair and a ridiculous woolen trapper hat- and as he locks eyes with the man he knows to be Bofur he finds that he has no more strength in his legs.

He almost feels like he's falling, though something in the back of his mind screams at him to keep upright, to show decorum, to politely invite his guests in, and Bill stretches out a hand to steady himself; to anchor himself.

Bofur grabs it and smiles crookedly. "Not gonna faint again, are ye, Mr. Baggins?"

Shockingly, Bill finds himself laughing, hysteria fading. "No. No, I'm not." And he finds himself engulfed in four thick arms, encased in an impromptu embrace- he doesn't know if he stepped forward or merely fell into the hug- and the three men just stay there, on the doorstep, for a good long while.

Sometime during the hug, something clicks in Bill's mind. It tips him over the edge. Bill is certain he is ready to believe anything, now.

-