Archive of Our Own ^beta

i.
When the baby is born he’s almost three months early and far too still for a newborn, he doesn’t even scream. The midwives cluck their tongues and she can see the doubt on their faces as plain as day, they think her boy isn’t going to live for long—he’s too quiet, too small, and too weak.

Their biggest concern is that his print-marks are faded, not the vibrant flourish of color like all Hobbits have even their young. Even her dear Bungo has his doubts looking shaken and worried as he runs a gentle hand over the baby’s blond fluff of hair.

Instead of celebrating the birth of their new kin, their families prepare for mourning. They give her sad looks, like she deserve their pity, like he’s already dead and gone.

Belladonna doesn’t give a damn what they think. Maybe if it was anyone else’s son then she’d give their concerns some weight but not hers. Her boy is part Took after all and those darn fools of a Took just never give up, don’t they?

She spends the next two weeks in the babe’s room, barely sleeping, barely eating. She sings him sweet songs and lullabies even though everyone knows that a cat in heat has a better voice than the otherwise lovely Belladonna Took. She tells him all of her adventures and says don’t worry, don’t be jealous my darling I know you’ll have your own too.

Two weeks after he’s born and Belladonna has to bite down on her tongue from telling everyone that she was right, she’s always right. Her boy is still quiet but his eyes are curious and bright. He’s still small but he’s slowly gaining weight. Even his print-marks are brighter, strange as they are. No one’s seen them but her and the midwives and she’d bribed them to keep their gossipy mouths shut. Her boy is still so little and it wouldn’t do to have people saying things about him when he couldn’t even defend himself.

Their families stop mourning and everyone starts cooing about what a darling he is, he’ll be such a looker won’t he. “You think he’ll be more like a Took or a Baggins?” Her brother Hildibrand says, on her boy’s naming day.

Belladonna adjusts the half-asleep babe in her arms with confidence as she does everything else. “Oh, I know he’ll be more like a Took.”

“Really?” Donnamira says laughing as she watches their father ‘try’ to converse with some of the more proper Baggins relatives. The Old Took never gave a damn if you liked him or not, he’d talk with whoever he pleased and he’d talk until he was done and that was the way things worked. “Sorry to say sister, but he looks more like Bungo then you already.”

She gave her sister a sweet smile in reply but said nothing else. If no one else could see the mischievous spark in her son’s eyes then who was she to spoil the surprise.

Belladonna’s point is proven only half an hour later when the babe threw up on great-aunt Emeralda Baggins.

To appease her relatives she names the boy Bilbo and laughs quietly when no one is watching.

ii.

At four Bilbo’s still just as quiet as the day he was born but she laughs, cackles like a witch Bungo says with that damn wry smile on his face, at anyone who says he’s ever shy.

Clearly they’ve never had to deal with the parents of other little shirelings coming over and saying Bilbo pulled a prank on them (only they can never prove it but they swear up and down Bilbo’s doing it), obviously they’ve never dealt with Bilbo coming home with a handful of stolen apples tucked in his shirt or the way the boy is always covered in grass stains and dirt, hair wild and tangled.

So when one cool summer evening as she and Bungo argue about something he read in a book (and really she’s only arguing because she thinks one of the greatest things in life is how incensed her usually solemn and serious Bungo gets about his books) she’s more than surprised when Bilbo tugs on her sleeve to get her attention instead of his usual too loud shriek of ‘ma!’ His parents pause and Bilbo looks down at his feet before climbing onto her lap, practically trying to burrow into her dress.

Bungo raises an eyebrow and she shakes her head. It takes twenty minutes of prodding before Bilbo says a word and then shyly—shyly!—asks her for a story. Belladonna starts to spin a tale about elves, they’re his favorite after all but Bilbo frowns and shakes his little head. Bungo tries next but the results are the same.

An idea comes to her mind and she tilts Bilbo’s head back slightly so he’s looking at her. “Darling do you want to hear a story about print-marks?” Bilbo’s usually sensitive about his own for all he’s stubborn about everything else.

Bungo stills and Bilbo looks considerate for a moment and then nods.

So she does.

She talks of how all of the races in the realm have ways to find their print mates except for those of the races of men who have nothing and must trust only in their hearts and hope for it to not be broken. Only it’s different for every kind she says knowledgably. Elves could tell their mate just by looking in their eyes. She wasn’t sure of dwarves, always a secretive bunch they were but she thought it had to do with singing.

Hobbits have print-marks! Bilbo chimes in softly, chubby hand coming up to rub his shoulder.

Belladonna smiles, that’s absolutely right she says and then continues on in her story. She talks of how all hobbits have print-marks but they can look as different as night and day from one hobbit to the next.

Her own print-mark is a sunny yellow with soft lines and loops—Bungo’s name curled up safely in the shell of her ear. Between the two of them Bungo was always calmer, more likely to listen then act rashly. Her name is violent and sharp wrapped around Bungo’s ankle in harsh, sprawled letters and to be contrary, it’s on both of his ankles. She could never figure out if it was the print-marks way of reminding him that no matter how many adventures she went on, how many places she’d see and people her would meet that she would always come back.

Bilbo’s eyes are wide and she almost laughs because the lad’s seen both of his parents print-marks, has probably seen more than a few of his friends and cousins.

She doesn’t and instead her smile turns sweeter and she runs a hand through his curly hair, Bungo a comforting quiet presence at her side.

“Darling, would you like to hear about the day I knew your father was my print-mate?” Bilbo’s eyes grow a bit wider but he nods eagerly, this is a new story after all.

I heard there was a wizard passing through the Shire and he’d already gone through Tuckborough by the time I got the news, she says and there’s mirth in her eyes. Bungo always gets sentimental about this story.

What’s this have to do with your print-marks, Bilbo says with all the patience of a four year old.

Plenty, now hush she says teasingly. Bungo rolls his eyes at both of them but there’s fondness on his face.

“I snuck out and made my way to Hobbiton and I saw him, your da sitting by the river with all his cousins and I was so stunned I stopped moving and accidentally ran into someone. I knew instantly of course as most Tooks do but I saw my name on his foot and the print-marks confirmed it.”

“So what’d you do?” Bilbo asks curiously.

Belladonna’s grin is wicked. “I left on an adventure the next day.”

“What?” Bilbo’s voice squawked out. He’d never heard of anyone leaving their print-mate before. Wasn’t that what a print-mate was? Someone who wasn’t supposed to leave you alone.

She’d seen him standing there, and he looked so shy and quiet, his cousins much more loud and noisy and she’d been stunned and she’d ran into someone. Coincidentally who she’d run into had been the very wizard she was seeking out. I want to go on an adventure she’d exclaimed to him sometime later after she’d apologized for running into him.

Gandalf had smiled at her and said he’d be delighted and she convinced herself that she wasn’t running away because of him, of Bungo Baggins’ whose name had been imprinted on her body since the day she was born but had never met.

So she’d gone on adventures because there were still things she wanted to do and even her print-mate wouldn’t change that and when she came back one fine day the first thing she’d done was go to Hobbiton and find his house. Hello, she’d said with a smile even as she was covered in dirt and soot, with bruises and scrapes, I’m Belladonna.

Bungo was smiling after she’d finished this last story, the sentimental fool but Bilbo was more quiet than usual. “Do you think I’ll get that?” He says at last and she is painfully aware of his hand on his shoulder, of the print-marks that lie underneath.

“Of course.” She lies and reminds herself of the promise she’d given when he was born—a tiny little pale thing with strange print-marks on his body. She’d never seen any like them before. They were a vibrant blue and a fierce gold, intricate and unique as every Hobbits’ were, starting with a curl wrapped around his neck to ending down by his shoulder blades.

The midwives couldn’t read them, she couldn’t read them and neither could Bungo later on. Whatever language that was on her son’s back certainly wasn’t Hobbitish or even Sindarin. She’d looked down at them and thought with a heavy heart but a practical mind how likely it was that a dwarf or even a man whose language wasn’t the common tongue would travel to the Shire.

She’d sworn to herself as she traced over the markings that Bilbo would be happy despite this. He would be happier than any other shireling and she’d move mountains to make it so.

Bilbo couldn’t read yet but he’d be learning soon and she thinks it’ll kill her to see the light go out of his eyes, the resignation of having low odds of finding his print-mate even as his cousins and friends do.

iii.

The year he comes of age Bilbo accepts that he’ll never meet his print-mate. His parents are both dead, Bungo first and Belladonna following a few short years after.

He’s not sure how it works for the other races but hobbits don’t last long with their print-mates dead, he’d asked his mother once what it felt like and she’d been quiet for what seemed like hours before responding and after hearing her answer he wished he’d never asked at all.
“There’s an ache in your stomach and your chest and instead of healing up and getting smaller it grows larger and larger and you feel paper thin, you feel like air as if the Green Lady herself has abandoned you.”

She hesitates. “I wouldn’t wish this on anyone and I pray my darling you never have to.”

Bilbo feels an ache in his chest, a numbness that beats out of the cold of the infamous Fell Winter and thinks it might be the same.

Nearly every single Hobbit he knows has found their print-mate and all the stragglers will find their mates within the next few years.

Except for him.

At first he’d been hopeful, interested in every passerby that came through the Shire. His parents allowed him to go farther places then most of his kin and sometimes he even wandered to Bree, looking for his match.

But the years marched on and his hopes grew dimmer and dimmer as nothing came of it. He used to have a piece of paper with a copy of his print-mark on it (or at least something close enough, he was no artist)—the old gossips in the Shire had talked about it for months—and he’d shown it to travelers. No one ever responded, no one ever knew until one day a kindly dwarf had taken pity on the young hobbit who looked more defeated than anyone he’d ever seen and told him it was written in Khudzul but he could not say more.

Bilbo says thank you and wonders why none of the other dwarves he’s shown it to has said what it was.

In the weeks following that he devours every single book he can about dwarves and he learns a few things. Namely that they’re more secretive than even hobbits and that in all of the books he reads he doesn’t find a single mention of a dwarf having a match with someone who wasn’t a dwarf themselves.

So that’s how it is Bilbo thinks and then he forces himself to get rid of all the books on dwarves and he never says a word when anyone asks him about his print-marks (not that most do, after the first few years people just looked at him with pity in their eyes and whispered about him when they thought he couldn’t hear) and eventually even his stubborn mother stops mentioning anything to do with his elusive print-mate. Everyone whispers that he’ll just be like Isengrim Took, alone for all his life.

At first it’s hard to ignore the print-marks. His spine and his shoulder itches and once it got so bad that he rubbed the skin clean off the top part of his shoulder but the damn marks had stayed. Worse than the itching which eventually fades to a dull throbbing that only spikes up occasionally is the pull. Something inside of him wants to leave the Shire, needs to leave the Shire, at the worst of it he’d wandered to the edges of the Shire, feet trying to pull him forward and it had taken all the willpower he had to go back home.

He’d locked himself in his room for two days after that until the pull had lessened.

It doesn’t matter if he wants to leave or if his skin itches. His print-mate is a dwarf and what has he to offer? Hobbits rarely leave the Shire and even then what would happen if he did? He’d be too young or too old and no matter how many times he thinks about it (and he does, he spends hours thinking about it probably just as many hours as he does touching his print-marks, tracing the way the gold and blue twist together) he can never see a way it works.

So he buries himself in his books and his maps and when one day he realizes he’s all alone, he’ll probably always be all alone, well by that time he’s built up enough walls where it doesn’t hurt as bad even if the ache where his heart would be says otherwise.

Bilbo is not entirely sure why he goes on the quest with the company. It’s clear to see that all of them think so little of him, they’re all so dismissive even kind, polite Ori and the smiling, laughing Kili and Fili.

He’s weak and soft to them, useless really. Especially to Thorin who Bilbo is almost completely positive hates him. Sometimes he swears at him just because Bilbo so much as breathes or sneezes.

But he does and he thinks it’s because of the pull. He’d spent so long ignoring it that it had bottled itself up and then burst in one catastrophic, foolish moment and he’d done what he’d always dreaded; left the Shire like some youngling.

His mother would be laughing at him now if she were alive.

iv.

It takes him awhile to adjust but when he does Bilbo thinks he’s gotten the swing of things. Bofur is an immense help, the cheerful dwarf never taking offense when he says something wrong or doesn’t understand.

That reason is why he feels Bofur will be the least likely to judge him with his latest confusion. “Can I ask you a question?” He says smoking some Old Toby. They’re the first two on watch tonight and the rest of the company had fallen asleep rather quickly, everyone trying to catch as much rest as possible.

Bofur looks up from his latest carving. “Of course, lad.”

Bilbo hesitates, eyes darting over to where the others sleep, lingering on two specific people. Thankfully Bofur’s gaze follows his and understanding quickly fills them. “Is this about Kili and Fili?”

He swears he can feel heat rising up his skin and hopes Bofur can’t tell. “Yes—I saw them. I saw them—ugh, how do I explain this?”

Bofur’s smile is encouraging. “Go on, I swear I won’t say anything to anyone else.”

He sighs, this shouldn’t be so hard to say. “I thought I saw them kissing. Isn’t that what you said touching foreheads means?” There he’s said it, if he’s wrong at least it’s only Bofur to witness his embarrassment.

They had been having a rough day with it not only raining but Thorin being more impatient and short-tempered than usual. He thinks it has something to do with Gandalf—he’s seen them fight—but he doesn’t know. It had been dry thankfully by the time they made camp and he’d been helping Bombur serve dinner like he usually did. Bombur had given him the lads’ share and he’d gone off to find them. Only he hadn’t expected to find them so intertwined.

No, he was making it worse than it sounded. It was almost innocent really and they’d been dressed, barely touching save for their heads. Somehow though it had felt incredibly intimate and Bilbo had wandered back to camp without saying a word flushed to his ears, only telling Bombur that he couldn’t find them.

“Oh, yeah.” Bofur says and Bilbo frowns, catching the casualness of his tone. That’s it? If something like this happened in the Shire then he thinks they’d probably be publically shunned. Not that he thinks they should be, he just can’t help but compare it to the way things work back home and how different dwarves are from Hobbits.

“I take it, it’s accepted in your culture.” Bilbo stumbles over his words once or twice and wants to curse himself for it.

Bofur raises an eyebrow. “Aye, it’s not banned or anything but most don’t fully approve of it. I doubt Fili and Kili’d flaunt it so if they weren’t well…what they are.”

“What they are?”

Bofur looks around as if checking to make sure the others are asleep before he says in a low voice, “They’re each other’s Ones.”

“Oh.” Bilbo says and his stunned thoughts take an edge of comprehension. Whether it was a One or a Print-mate no one would ever willingly let your other half go. Well that certainly explains how close they are, closer than any other siblings he’s ever met, even closer than most print-mates act.

“You don’t care do ye?” Bofur isn’t looking at him anymore but at the little figurine he’s carving out and his back is tense. Bilbo understands this, he’s seen how protective the company is of its younger members.

“What? No, no. I was only shocked.” Bilbo assures and Bofur grins at him in relief.

“Yer a good sort, Bilbo Baggins.”

Dori and Nori relieve them an hour and a half later and Bilbo’s mind is still stuck on it, the image of the two of them together.

It takes him hours to go to sleep that night, instead of itching his back burns with it and he shifts restlessly, strangely aware of Fili and Kili sleeping only a few bedrolls away.

The awareness continues on and he can’t help it but his eyes flicker to the two more often than not and he notices everything they do without meaning to; he notices the comforting way Kili touches his brother’s arm when he looks tense, the way Fili is always quick to make a joke when Kili frowns, the way they’re constantly touching, at least even a little bit even if it’s only having their arms brush or nudging each other’s ankles.

It’s frustrating because he’s not sure why, he’s always been proud that he’s not so close-minded as most hobbits are of others and it’s irritating to have it be proven wrong now of all times.

He likes Fili and Kili. They’re good lads and they’ve been nothing but....not so much as kind but accepting of him, teasing and joking with him as easily as they do with the others.

It gets bad enough that one day Fili pulls him aside, Bilbo hadn’t been as subtle in his staring as he thought he was. “Bofur told us he informed you.” He says bluntly, face impassive at the way Bilbo’s eyes widen. He doesn’t need to elaborate further than that.

“Oh?” Bilbo says and he is resolutely not looking at the dwarf, staring instead at the nice berry bush over there.

Fili frowns, “Is this going to be a problem for you, burglar?”

Bilbo takes a breath and then shakes his head. “It’s not! I swear it’s not.”

“Then why are you watching us?” A grin threatens to break out on Fili’s face at the way Bilbo jumps at the sound of Kili’s voice. His brother wraps his arms around him, resting his chin on Fili’s shoulder, eyes impossibly curious.

Bilbo flushes slightly. “I don’t know.” He admits quietly. “I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable.”

Fili tilts his head back slightly sharing a look with his brother and then turns back to the hobbit. “No offense but it’d take more than a Halfling to make us feel uncomfortable.”

Bilbo frowns, embarrassment fading away. “What?”

“You’re just so small and soft looking.” Kili adds laughing and really he’d be offended but the sound of Kili’s laughter makes his stomach prickle with warmth.

The hobbit scowls pretending to be offended or at least he thinks he is and all the tension that had been in Fili’s chest the entire day lessens. They’d been concerned about what the staring had meant, if hobbits care more than dwarves about such things. They didn’t know ‘Mister Boggins’ long but Kili was already fond of him and even Fili was comfortable around him.

It’d be a shame for a friendship to be wasted so early but they had sworn a long time ago that they wouldn’t change themselves for anything. If their union was met with Aule’s blessing as all other Ones were then who could dare say a word otherwise?

Now they’re laughing and smiling again and Fili can’t help but reach out and ruffle the hobbit’s hair. He’s still wary for the rest of the day, too many years of feeling ashamed to ever be as trusting as he should be but Bilbo only smiles at them and later that day he pointedly sits next to them.

vi.

The subject comes up a week or so later.

Ori’s found out that he’s been asking about dwarf culture and the scribe felt it’s only fair that they learn more about their burglar’s. They’d been chatting about a few things and Bilbo hadn’t felt uncomfortable or nervous at all until Kili cut in with, “Do you have Ones?”

Fili and he had been discussing the issue ever since Bilbo found out but they hadn’t found any evidence of it or against it. They’d even asked Ori but the bookish dwarf hadn’t known.

Dori coughs, frowning at him and Kili looks abashed clearly taking in the way Bilbo looks so still, his hands wrapped into tight fists. “You don’t have to say anything Mister Boggins, I was only curious.” Kili rushes to say but Bilbo shakes his head.

“Its fine, I was just…surprised that’s all.” Bilbo says and even though the others know it’s a lie he’s grateful they don’t call him on it. “We don’t call them Ones but print-mates.”

“Print-mates?” Fili tries out and there’s a strange flutter in Bilbo’s stomach at hearing him say the words but he ignores it. Probably hungry he thinks wryly, longing for all his food back home.

“Mmhmm.” He says in confirmation.

“Do you find them by singing?” Ori asks much more politely than Kili and Bilbo smiles gently at him return. Ori had confirmed his mother’s suspicions that dwarves found their mates by singing of all things! That one he’d never understand, for he’d heard some truly horrible voices in his time and he wondered how anyone, even a mate could find that appealing.

“We find out by print-marks.” Bilbo explained briskly, trying not to linger on the subject. He was glad to talk of Hobbit customs and of his home, it helped alleviate part of the homesickness but he was fearful of the subject to turn to his own, dreaded if they asked to see.

He’d given up on the subject of print-mates and marks long ago and really it was better for him if he didn’t know anything at all. What would he feel like if he found out someone from the company knew his mate? He wasn’t sure he’d be able to resist asking them things and if he couldn’t then who knew where that would lead to?

“Print-marks? What’s that?” Bofur looks interested as do a few of the others and belatedly Bilbo realizes that most of the company has been listening to their discussion.

Bilbo’s mind blanks, for the first time in his life he has to explain what a print-mark is. “I suppose it’s like a tattoo?” The description sounds wrong, inadequate in some way and his nose scrunches up instinctively. “But more permanent, we have them from the day we’re born and they fade away the day we die.”

“What do they look like?” Bilbo glances over at Fili and feels almost wary at how interested he and his brother look. He has a feeling that’s going to lead to knowing but trouble.

“Well like anything, I suppose. There’s shapes and patterns, actual images or just names but they always have our print-marks name somewhere in them.” By default of his print-mark being runes and not Hobbitish his was a pattern. Most Hobbits had patterns and shapes though some had images. His uncle Isengrim had a bird with an elf’s name written in the wing.

“Can we see yours?” Kili asks unable to help himself and Bilbo shakes his head sharply, feeling guilty at the way the dwarf wilts in response. He can’t imagine showing them not even to Kili’s beaming smile.

Bilbo stands, feeling restless, and gives them a weak apologetic smile. He walks around in the woods careful to stick close enough to the camp where he could hear them but far enough away where it just sounded like chattering and not actual words.

He felt mortified by his strong reaction; Kili had meant no harm. He couldn’t know that Bilbo didn’t like talking about his print-marks, couldn’t understand that Bilbo didn’t have a print-mate of his own just runes on his shoulder and an empty home.

“Gandalf explained, he said hobbits were private about their print-marks and they don’t show them except to their kin.” Fili whispers later that night. Bilbo had been surprised when they’d set up their bedrolls next to him but he’d only smiled at them in reassurance when they had looked worried.

Kili bites on his lip, “You’re not still angry at me are you?” His eyes are earnest and wide and for a second Bilbo is almost fooled into calling them childlike but Kili is no child and neither is Fili. They’re warriors, strong and fierce and it feels almost wrong with how concerned they are that they’ve upset him. He’s just a hobbit after all.

“I was never angry.” Bilbo says in reply, his voice just as quiet. “It’s just hard to talk about, that’s all.” He supposed it would be hard to talk about anything when you’d spent years ignoring it so soundly.

“Truly?”

“I swear it.” Bilbo says and his heart beats too fast at the joyful looks on their faces. It must be the heat he thinks, though the air is dim and they aren’t too close to the fire.

Bilbo wakes up in the morning too warm and he turns slightly or tries to but an arm wrapped loosely around his waist stops it. For a moment he can’t breathe when he realizes it belongs to Kili, his brother curled up behind him.

Face flushed pink, Bilbo carefully extracts himself out of the hold, ignoring the dwarf’s sleepy muttering. Most of the company is still asleep save for a few and Bilbo makes his way towards Gandalf, ignoring Bofur’s ridiculous grin.

Bilbo sits down next to him and for lack of anything else to do starts to smoke his pipe. The wizard looks interested and Bilbo offers him some Old Toby. “Thank you for what you said last night.” He says softly.

Gandalf’s smile is understanding but Bilbo sees no pity in it. He doesn’t know if Gandalf knows of his print-marks, he isn’t even sure how the wizard would know of them save for his mother but Gandalf had lied for him and Bilbo was truly thankful.

“Of course, my dear Bilbo.”

vi.

Fili and Kili continue to sleep by him and at first he’s not uncomfortable but so much as confused to the reason why. Regardless it’s not hurting anyone or terribly awkward so he doesn’t question it and the trend continues on. Most days he wakes up too close to them, one time he was even pressed so close to Fili’s chest that he could barely breathe, lost in his heady smell. His face is always hot and red after he wakes—he’s never sure if he’s the one who moves closer or they do but he never brings it up. On the rare occasions one of them wakes before him they don’t look embarrassed, just greeting him with a smile or ruffling his already messy hair.

Aside from sleeping arrangements they’ve grown closer, they talk more and laugh more and they spend most nights telling each other stories though theirs are always more interesting than his. They even try to teach him how to use their weapons though he thinks that’s more for their amusement than his own self-defense.

“This is impossible.” Bilbo exclaims sourly eyeing Fili’s sword with distaste. He’d faired better with Kili’s bow, always a quick shot with decent enough eyes.

Fili laughs and gently corrects his stance before knocking him to the ground not two minutes later. By the end of the day their laughs turn into smug, proud smiles when Bilbo lasts just that much longer.

It makes warmth bubble up in his stomach when he sees them smiling and laughing his way, and he always smiles brighter in return these days. He’s never had many friends and they most definitely haven’t been anything close to Fili and Kili.

So it shouldn’t be entirely surprising when Kili charges in by himself to save Bilbo from the trolls. It shouldn’t but it is and hours later Bilbo still doesn’t understand why. Kili had risked his life for him, one dwarf against three trolls were bad odds and he’d just charged in there like a bloody maniac.

Bilbo doesn’t have time to mention it until Rivendell, not with the warg pack chasing after them. He waits until nighttime and he can’t help but feel nervous as he sits down next to him. Fili and Kili were talking quietly to each other, a few feet away from the others who have mostly passed out by now. They’ve spent most of the day as they usually do after something troubling happens—touching each other, as if reassuring each other that they’re alright.

He thinks it’s a sweet habit and he’d feel terribly bad about interrupting but neither of them looks particularly upset when he sits down so he just tries to smile. “I wanted to say thank you for saving my life today.” He says quietly, fiddling with his hands.

“It was nothing.” Kili says flashing him a quick grin.

Bilbo almost protests but then thinks about how stubborn the dwarves are, how prideful they are and then just nods.

“You’re part of the company now, any one of us would have saved you.” Fili says, correctly guessing the Hobbit’s reasoning. “Though I’m sure most would have done it with more finesse and subtly than my younger brother.”

Kili scowls playfully, eyes alight with mirth. “I saved him didn’t he?”

Bilbo can’t help but laugh as they get into an argument, their returns more wild and exaggerated than the last. The sons of Dis share satisfied glances when Bilbo who’s laughing too hard isn’t looking, they had seen how shaken he looked and had taken it upon themselves to cheer up the Halfling.

Perhaps that’s why it’s such a painful contrast when he’s brought back to reality days later by Thorin’s harsh words. He doesn’t belong after all and no matter how nicely Fili and Kili and all the others treat him it’ll never be true.

He doesn’t imagine they’ll be hurt to find him gone in the morning, confused maybe but in a few days they’ll cheer up fine and be back to teasing Ori. Something painful stings inside of him at the very thought but Bilbo shakes it off the way he ignores how his shoulder feels inflamed and his feet seem reluctant to leave.

Of course this is when the floors fall in.

Somehow he survives it all on his own and he makes his way out and he’s relieved to see all the company alive and mostly unharmed when he’s stopped by Thorin’s words. Nothing’s changed then.

“Uncle.” Fili chides, something strange in his normally composed voice.

Bilbo can’t take it, can’t help imaging their wounded faces and he steps forward pocketing his strange new ring as he does. “I’m right here actually.” He says and almost staggers over as Kili slams into him, wrapping his lanky arms round him in a tight embrace. Fili joins him a second later laughing as various members of the company congratulate him for surviving.

Thorin presses him why he came back, something odd and strange swirling in those dark eyes and Bilbo can’t tell him the truth, he can’t even admit it to himself so he offers up his second reason for coming back and they are just as truthful as the real reasons they’re just not why he came back.

vii.

“Are ye okay?” To his surprise it’s not Fili or Kili who’ve been almost what he’d call overprotective of him since the run in with Azog but Bofur. He thinks it’s because he saved Thorin’s life, he’d probably act the same if someone saved his kin’s life.

Bofur looks at him with concern in his eyes and Bilbo shrugs, watching the rest of the company laugh and play. They’ve been at Beorn’s Hall for days and he still feels off, still feels different and it’s worse to not know why. The itching in his shoulders have increased to almost a pain and only years of practice at ignoring it has made it tolerable.

“I’m just tired.” He says and Bofur is a good friend, he accepts this easily even if he knows it’s a lie. Bilbo’s easily the worst liar among them all.

“Well then you’ve got no excuse.” Bofur says after a moment and then without warning pulls his friend to his feet. Bilbo stumbles almost falling but manages to catch himself. “Excuse for what?”

“We’re celebrating.” Bofur explains as he leads the Halfling over to the others. “And you’re joining in.”

The rest of the company greets him cheerfully and Bilbo laughs, “What are we celebrating exactly?”

“Surviving, of course.” Gloin says heartedly, handing him a mug full of ale. Bilbo glances down at it and wonders if it’s from Beorn’s stash or his own. He understands the need for it though, lately it’s been one problem to the next and for now they’re safe, now they can relax and not fear for their lives.

Bilbo’s grin turns thoughtful. “I guess that is something to celebrate.” He says and then to his friends’ cheers downs his mug. Some of them tease him, telling him to be careful or he’ll be stumbling around in only a short while. Bilbo smirks and says they’ve obviously never been to a Hobbit party—every hobbit appreciates a good drink as much as they do a good garden or a warm meal.

Nori looks sly and somehow the dwarf starts a betting pool on when Bilbo will pass out. Most of the company bets against him which is understandable enough for how he looks and how they look but he’s pleasantly surprised when Bofur, Ori, Fili, and Kili side with him.

“You’ve never had Hamfast Gamgee’s moonshine then.” Bilbo retorts but he’s smiling, eyes bright and happy and feeling better than he has in days.

Music starts up only a short while later and Bilbo can’t control his laughter as the songs rang from beautiful and sobering to flat out ridiculous and dirty. It almost feels like a Hobbit party Bilbo thinks and then he has to conclude that for all the differences their kinds have this isn’t one of them.

The one thing they don’t do is dance.

Bilbo’s feet tap along instinctively to the music and he can’t help but wonder why. All it takes is another look at those heavy boots they all where before he puts those thoughts away. Dwarves dancing, ha! He’s sure even the clumsiest of shirelings would far better.

“What’s got you smiling so?” Kili says nudging his shoulder playfully. Bilbo’s smile widens at the warmth radiating through his body and at this point he might be more than a bit drunk but at least he’s doing better than poor Gloin and Bofur who’ve already passed out.

“Dwarves…dancing.” He giggles, shaking his head. “Do you dance?”

Kili’s eyes widen for a second and he barks out a laugh startled. “Not really. We’re more of a singing lot as you might be able to tell.” He half-heartedly waves a hand at the company, most of whom are still singing—even fierce and sullen Thorin is stopping his brooding to sit by them and he looks like he’s almost smiling but that might just be the buzz in Bilbo’s head showing him things that aren’t there.

“I noticed.” Bilbo says and it’s silent for a moment with Kili still leaning on his shoulder and the weight of it is warm and comfortable and he wants to lean back into it but he can’t. He doesn’t quite remember why he can’t but he knows he shouldn’t.

Very bad idea that is.

“—bbits sing?”

Bilbo blinks. “What?”

Kili laughs again and finally pulls away only to sling an arm loosely around his shoulder. It seems like since the run in with Azog Kili’s trying to touch him just as much as he touches Fili. Bilbo feels bad, wondering if his sneaking away had really worried the young dwarf that much. “I said do Hobbits sing?”

They do as a matter of fact though singing is far less important than dancing—they dance at weddings, they dance at parties, they even dance at the mourning parties though those are traditionally more somber until the latter half of the day when everyone starts to tell stories about the deceased. Bilbo can’t remember the last time he sung something. Probably when watching a Took babe and trying to get the imp to sleep. It doesn’t matter which one it was, if it’s a Took babe then they’re all imps. “Not really, no.”

“Oh.” Kili looks almost disappointed though Bilbo can’t possibly imagine why.

“You should sing for us, Burglar.” Dwalin says laughing at the disgruntled look the hobbit gives him.

“Sing us a drinking song.” Fili adds. “Or any kind of song.”

Bilbo shakes his head. “No, I don’t think so. While other Hobbits may occasionally sing I never sing at all.” May the Green Lady bless his mother but the woman hadn’t been able to carry a tune and she’d gifted that trait to her son.

The others try to prod him into singing but Bilbo’s unmoving as stone and eventually they leave him alone save for those pesky Durin heirs. “Don’t think this is the end.” Kili says cheekily, face flushed from the ale and Bilbo would be willing to bet more than a few coins that he’ll be the next to fall asleep.

“You’ll sing us a song one day.” Fili says and when did he end up sitting next to Bilbo? How had he not noticed that?

He stares at them, studies both of them and there is something unreadable in their suddenly serious eyes, something that if he’d been a bit more clear-headed might have scared him just by the intensity of it. Instead he looks at them and smiles again, “One day.” He promises and the serious look fades from their eyes leaving only familiar brightness.

Bilbo is one of the last to pass out that night, in fact the only ones who beats him are Dori and Balin, even Thorin is fast asleep by the time night takes him. He doesn’t feel too bad by his loss, they’re admirable opponents after all.

He’s not even surprised to wake up this time with two snoring, drooling dwarves lying half-way on top of him like bloody cats.

viii.

Unseen to all Bilbo makes his way through the dungeons of Mirkwood like a ghost, or perhaps more like the burglar he’s been claimed to be. He’s found nearly all of the company save for those of the line of Durin. He knows Thorin is off somewhere farther—he’s heard more than one guard complain about the unruly dwarf but he can’t find Fili and Kili.

The thought terrifies him, clutches at his heart with a cold iron grasp. He’s spent days looking for everyone and he still can’t find them. He barely sleeps because his dreams are grey-washed and odd, almost like nightmares but he can never remember them, he only wakes with a sense of dread.

He finds Fili first three days after he’s found everyone else and the dwarf rears back in surprise at seeing him but then surges forward, eyes furiously scanning him over, hand half raised. “Bilbo! You’re alright? You’ve not been harmed?”

“I’m fine.” Bilbo reassures and then can’t help but look at Fili himself. The dwarf looks terrible, skin too pale and fine braids a mess. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days.

“Have you seen Kili? How is he?” Fili breathes out in one frantic rush and he can see the desperation in those suddenly pale blue eyes.

Oh.

Of course.

He’s probably torn to pieces about Kili.

“I haven’t but I swear as soon as I do that I’ll come back and bring you news.” He has to leave then, the sound of light footsteps too close for comfort and the last thing he sees it the desperate, heartbroken look in Fili’s eyes.

Kili must be close. They would not put him so far away, Thorin perhaps but not Kili so Bilbo follows all the ways nearby and he gets hopelessly lost—finding dead ends and routes that only go back to other paths he knows.

His shoulder itches and aches from the strain of fighting the spiders and sleeping in uncomfortable positions and absently he rubs at it. Bilbo slides down to the ground, back pressed against cool stone and misery trapped in him.

If he cannot even find Kili then what hopes does he have of rescuing his friends?

The burn in his shoulder increases as if some remember to not give up and Bilbo gasps quietly, the heat of it too much. He stands and though he is not sure why he starts to walk, backtracking from a different route until he comes upon one he has overlooked.

Kili is in the cell at the end of the hallway and Bilbo’s steps are not careful as he breaks into a run but yet they are still light. “Kili!” Bilbo whispers, and the lad is either asleep or lost in thought because he doesn’t look up, arms wrapped tightly around his knees.

“Kili!” Bilbo says more harshly and his head snaps up, earth eyes staring at him. Kili jerks to his feet, at the bars in an instant. His hand curls out to touch him and Bilbo leans closer so he can.

“Fili—” He begins and there is too much fear in his voice for Bilbo to let continue so he cuts him off with a smile even as something twists tight in his stomach.

“He’s fine. Everyone’s fine.” Bilbo says and he is reassuring again. His mother’s words from years before of loss and aches ring through his head as he considers the way they never leave each other’s side. This is no doubt the first time in years.

They talk and some light returns to his dark-circled eyes but they aren’t happy, there is still an air of maniac and longing in them for a match trapped hallways away. “Bilbo—” Kili says and then stops himself.

Bilbo doesn’t say a word, a questioning look in his face.

Kili bites his lip and steps closer and something compels Bilbo to do the same.

They’re nearly touching, would be if not for the bars between them and Kili reaches a hand up and it catches around the back of his neck, fingers calloused and strong as they rub at his neck gently, reassuringly.

He can’t move, can’t think.

Can’t.

Kili reads something in his eyes and there is a twist to his lips, regret—or acceptance or maybe something else that Bilbo can’t see. The archer’s hand squeezes his neck comfortingly and then lets go and there’s a mountain’s worth of distance between them.

“Stay safe.” He finishes awkwardly.

Bilbo nods and when he leaves this time it’s not because of the sound of elven footsteps but the too fast beat of his heart.

ix.

Bilbo pushes them away.

At Laketown he shares a room with Bofur and pretends he doesn’t see the hurt and confusion in their eyes. At night he pretends that he isn’t cold for arms that belong to someone else. He talks to them only when he has too and it’s not the same as before, too polite, too formal.

There is fire in his veins and he’s afraid it’ll spread to them if they stand too close. They’re too bright and beautiful and they’re not his and they’ll never be. He has no right to ruin them with his unruly thoughts and feelings.

How could he dare? When there are still print-marks on his shoulder and they’re wrapped together so close they might as well be one soul split and shared between two.

Aside from the inferno raging in his shoulder Bilbo feels cold for days.

He wants to explain, he owes them that much at least no matter how embarrassing and horrible it’ll be. They’re his friends after all and that should come first no matter his hopeless feelings.

Bilbo plans to talk to them but he never gets the time.

Smaug happens next and he’s forced to worry about a very different kind of fire.

They grin at him, victorious as the dragon lies dead and Bilbo is far too thankful that they all still live to worry about such an awkward subject. Their hands linger as they check him for burns and injuries and he’s too happy, too full of adrenaline and stunned-awe to notice.

Later he promises. He’ll bring it up later.

He sleeps in this empty mountain and Kili and Fili force him to sleep in their room. It’s so chilly that he can’t even be bothered to complain and for the first time in close to a month he feels warm again, waking up with their strong arms around him.

Then war breaks out and Bilbo cannot think at all, he can only act and he steals the Arkenstone away right out of the line of Durin’s hands. They are all so tired from the journey here and they’ve just reclaimed their homes.

Fili and Kili are so young, so new to Erebor. It seems cruel for them to die in a home they barely know.

He means to save them even if they’d die for it.

He’ll never understand that.

What stone is worth a man’s life? What stone especially, is worth theirs?

Bilbo reads the shock in their eyes as they find out his betrayal, he thinks he sees something else—hurt maybe but when he looks back there is nothing, faces blank as smoothed stone. He wants to explain, don’t they understand? But he can’t.

Thorin’s rage is even more powerful than the desire to make them understand and before he knows it he’s being branded a traitor, a betrayer. There’s a hand clasped tightly around his throat and he can’t breathe—can’t.

He’s being lifted and oh Valar, Thorin is going to throw him over.

A voice cries out, demanding for him to stop and Bilbo drops to his feet, clutching at his bruised throat.

He doesn’t look up.

He’s taken away by Gandalf and Bilbo is frozen and cold and it does not matter now.

At least they still live.

At least he saved them.

Until it does matter.

Until an impossible army of monsters looms at their door and there is no more talk of damnable stones and fairness but the sounds of battle.

Bilbo tries to watch out for them but he loses sight of them early on—standing tall and proud behind their King looking like the warriors they truly are instead of the silly laughing boys they so often act—and then he can only look out for himself, dodging blows that would take his head off if he hadn’t. He fights harder than he has in his life, desperation pulling at him to find them.

He just needs to make sure they’re alright.

“Bilbo—” He hears someone call but when he turns to look he cannot see a friend in sight, he turns back and—

“—I found him!” Something, someone shakes him awake and he gasps for air, choking on dust and dirt. Bilbo blinks and opens his eyes, his hands clutching at his throat. Ori stands above him, a bandage wrapped around his head, a bruise on his cheek and concern in his eyes. Nori stands slightly off to the side looking little better than his brother.

“Ori?” He says confused. He was fighting wasn’t he? What had happened? Bilbo looks around and the battlefield is still, no longer a time of fighting but of mourning as everyone scavenges for the wound and places the dead away.

Ori smiles at him. “I think you were knocked out, you have a bump on your head.”

Bilbo’s hand reaches up to touch it and he pulls away from the sharp pain with a hiss. “What happened? Did everyone survive?”

Did they survive?

Ori faltered and he looked back at his brother and the older dwarf stepped forward. “Come on, Halfling we should get that head of yours checked out.” Nori says gruffly before pulling him to his feet, supporting the hobbit as he swayed dangerously.

“Did they survive?” Bilbo repeats more forcefully and Nori nods, “Aye they all live.” There’s something off about his words but Bilbo is too relieved—too much of a fool to heed them.

“Everyone? Even—” He cuts himself off, clamping his traitor mouth shut.

Ori’s smile is strained. “Everyone lives, including Fili and Kili and Thorin.”

Bilbo’s mind is fast and he catches this at least. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“They live but we do not know for how long.” Nori murmurs quietly, sympathetically and Bilbo is being forced into a healer’s tent because his feet no longer respond to him. Ori is silent but stays by his side as Nori leaves.

“I need you to take me to them.” Bilbo says after the healer has left. “Please.” He cannot believe their words until he sees them. It’s a mistake that’s all it is. Or maybe it’s just a prank they’re playing. This one seems crueler than most but he doesn’t care as long as they still live. If they still live then he’ll spend the rest of his days gladly being called betrayer.

Ori looks hesitant but his friend is nothing if not kind and he nods, disappearing outside and Bilbo doesn’t wait, stumbling after him.

“They’re in here.” Ori says and he stands outside the tent, guarding it as Bilbo makes his way inside.

They lay deathly still on two cots, for a second he thinks they are only sleeping until he sees the bandages, some bloody and some not, which cover nearly all their bodies. Bilbo is afraid to move closer, he doesn’t want to but he does anyway and before he processes what he’s doing he’s standing between their cots.

Fili stirs first, blue eyes hazy and pained as he blinks up at him and Bilbo tries to smile but it slips off. He shouldn’t be here. They’re dying—they should be with Thorin (How does he fare?) or someone else from the company at the very least. Not him, never him.

He turns to leave and is stopped by a hand grasping weakly at his. “Stay.” Kili rasps out, voice as rough as sandpaper and Bilbo can’t refuse.

“You came back.” Fili’s voice is worse, broken and torn sounding and Bilbo would guess it’s because of the wound hiding beneath the tightly wrapped bandage around his throat.

“I never left, I looked for you in the battle.” Bilbo says and Kili smiles up at him, still holding onto his hand like a lifeline.

“Why’d you leave us in the first place?” There’s something desperate in Kili’s eyes, something that burns with the need for an answer. This is a specific us, this has nothing to do with Thorin and the Arkenstone but everything to do with the growing distance between them since Laketown.

This is the culmination of weeks of avoiding them, of turning away from their embraces of ignoring every smile and laugh as best as he could. Of seeing the hurt and confusion in their eyes and doing it anyway because he couldn’t bear to be hurt himself.

Of his cowardice.

“We missed you.” Fili winces with pain at every word he says and Bilbo wants to say he shouldn’t waste them on him. He should say that but he’s selfish and he can’t bring himself to.

Bilbo shakes his head and there is dread in his lungs, cold in his veins and it wraps around his heart threatening to shatter it into too many pieces for him to find. “That? That doesn’t matter anymore. It was stupid and it was all my fault, you didn’t do anything wrong, I swear it.”

“Truly?” Kili croaks out and the foolish dwarf is smiling slightly. At him of all people.

He nods his head and it takes all his effort not to cry out, to beg them not to leave him.

He has no right to ask such a thing.

Kili looks at him and says very softly as serious as Bilbo has ever heard him, “Will you sing for us, Bilbo? We’d ask at a better time but this seems like the last of it for us.” Next to him Fili nods slowly, breathe rattling painfully in his chest.

“If it meant you two lived I’d sing you a blasted song every day.” Bilbo says quietly and then sighs, struggling to think of a proper song. He was true in his words when he said that hobbits did not sing and therefor had few songs. What could he give these two almost kings? A drinking song?

Nothing was fit for them and yet eventually something came to him, a song he’d thought up on his own though he wouldn’t tell them so.

“Roads go ever on, under cloud and under star.” He sang and his voice was shaky and painfully quiet but he knew if he thought about it too much he’d stop so he didn’t. “Yet feet that wandering have gone, turn at last to home afar.”

Fili gasped quietly when he first started and Kili clutched at his hand tighter but they were asleep by the time he finished and Bilbo made his way to his feet and looked at them one last time, laying so still and bloodied that he walked out only a few minutes later unable to bear the sight for much longer. He wanted to remember them full of life, not this pale imitation, this painful mockery.

Bilbo wasn’t surprised to see Ori still outside nor to see Dori and Dwalin joining him. “They’re asleep.” He says wearily and Dori and Dwalin barely spare him a glance before rushing in.

“Are you alright?” Ori says, worry clear in his eyes. “I know how much you care for them.”

Bilbo’s head jerks up, startled and then he relaxes. Of course, Ori knew. By Yavanna, everyone probably could see his feelings on his face. He hadn’t tried to hide them much except from the boys themselves.

“My feelings cannot belong to me.” Bilbo offers quietly. “But it still hurts me so to see them suffer this way.”

Not just suffer, but die.

He sighs again and starts limping away, certain he’d seen the wizard in that direction when he’d been rushed in earlier.

“Bilbo?”

“I am going to see Gandalf. With them dying there is nothing here for me anymore. Nothing that I want.” Bilbo says shortly but there’s kindness in his eyes just as much as there is sadness and Ori stares at him stunned, until the hobbit disappears from sight.

x.

Gandalf makes him get checked out by healers one last time but at the most he has are a few bad scrapes, a bump on the head, and there is little they can do for it when others lay dying. He manages to get Bilbo passage with some of the elves who are heading to Mirkwood and then after that it is up to him to make his own way home.

“I cannot leave just yet.” Gandalf says regretfully and he looks so tired, so old as if he’s aged a hundred years over night. “But when I can, I hope there will be a home in the Shire I can make my way to and a good friend to visit.”

“I’d like that.” Bilbo says trying to smile at him. It fails, but at least he tried.

The journey home is smoother, without a single issue or complication in sight but it’s quiet and loneliness eats at him nightly without the company of friends. Every night he lies awake wondering how long Kili and Fili lay dead, if it was painful. By the time he takes his first steps into the Shire it’s been at least a month since he’s said a word to another person.

It’s late and the sky is dark and his bones ache so the first thing Bilbo should do is put his pack away and climb into his bed for the first time in months.

That’s not what he does.

Bilbo puts down his pack and takes off his ruined waistcoat—the new one he received in Lake Town that’s been stained by battle and then later on travel. Then he looks over his home, taking comfort in the things he finds familiar and the things that seem strange to him now. Quickly he notes a problem but that issue will be best solved in morning light.

Next he went into his washroom and stood in front of the mirror set above the basin. He looked terrible—dark shadows around his eyes, skin too pale despite constant sunlight, but he didn’t focus on that. He slowly stripped off his shirt and stopped.

At last he couldn’t take the not knowing and he closed his eyes tightly and slipped it off. Very carefully he opened his eyes and turned slightly but he didn’t have to go far to find what he wanted and he stopped again this time out of—disappointment, relief?—instead of fear.

“I am unsure if I am fortunate or not.” Bilbo says aloud to his empty little room in his empty little house and the print-marks on his shoulder burn brighter than ever, the blue and the red more colorful as if to mock him. Look here, you’ve been in so much grief and for people who were never yours!

How could he feel so deeply and have them not belong to him? To have himself not be pledged to them?

Why did he hurt so badly if it meant nothing at all?

Bilbo crawled into bed soon after, unable or unwilling to look at the damning marks any longer. It seemed he had barely pressed his head against his pillow before he was awoken by a loud bang.

“Where are you? You cowards, who’s in Mister Baggins house this time?”

He blinked coming awake to himself slowly, Bilbo pushed himself to his feet and stumbled his way to the front door entirely surprised to see a fiercely scowling Hamfast Gamgee who stopped short at seeing him, eyes almost humorously wide.

“Mister Baggins?”

“Hello Hamfast.” Bilbo greets, rubbing at his eyes. “I take you might know why some of my things are missing.”

Hamfast quickly explained what happened—two and a half months after leaving the Shire Lobelia Sackville-Baggins had tried to file a petition with the Thain to have him declared dead and have his will processed and things auctioned off.

“The assumption some folks had was that she meant for her and her husband to take Bag End.” Hamfast explained gruffly.

Even for a Hobbit, the standard period of mourning was a year and Bilbo was no lord, there should have been no need for a declaration of his death so soon after he’d left.

Of course some folks had been suitably outraged like Hamfast and his wife Bell along with more than a few of Bilbo’s kin, the most incensed being a cousin of his Primula Baggins who’d declared quite loudly to Lobelia’s face that she’d barricade Bag End herself before the Sackville-Baggins ever got it. After all there were many more hobbits who had a claim of familial relations to him then the Sackville-Baggins, Primula being one of them.

“Sounds like Prim.” Bilbo says smiling. She’d been born a Brandybuck and married a Baggins but her mother had been sister with his and a Took-ish spark had always existed in the lass. “Though it seems like Lobelia got at least part of her way.”

Hamfast frowned, “Aye. I went to see my Da one day, he’s getting on in years and can’t travel up here most times, well my Bell came home from the market to find them having an auction right on your doorstep. Bell chewed them out she did and most of them were ashamed and gave everything back easily enough though I reckon Lobelia has a few things even though she swore she gave it all back.”

“Of course she did.” Bilbo muttered rubbing at his temples, an ache suddenly starting. Damn those Sackville-Baggins!

“Bell and I’d be glad to help you get it all back.” Hamfast offered and Bilbo knew it came from more than how worn down he looked, Hamfast had been a good friend in a place where Bilbo had few.

“I’d like that but I think it’d work best if I did it myself.” Bilbo says mournfully, almost shuddering. To actively talk to a Sackville-Baggins, ugh. “I need to get used to the Shire again.”

Hamfast nodded and though Bilbo could see the questions in his eyes, he didn’t linger, merely clasped the gentlehobbit on the shoulder and said it was good to see him home.

He was immensely grateful for it.

There was no way he could see to explain what had happened on his journey there and back. How could anyone understand everything that happened if they hadn’t witnessed it? How could he describe the battle that had taken place at Erebor if he had not been a part of it himself? Was there a way to describe the grief he felt at the line of Durin dead? Was there any comparison for no longer seeing Fili’s smiles or hearing Kili’s laughter?

Gandalf had said to him at the beginning of this mad adventure that he would be changed if he came back at all. He hadn’t understood at the time, too concerned with the dwarves tearing up his home and the meddling wizard to reflect on such dire words but he did now.

He was changed for it and even now he couldn’t say if it had been for the better when it came with such a large price.

To his credit it takes only three days of arguing before he manages to retrieve all of his ‘auctioned’ things, Lobelia is the most stubborn creature ever and could certainly give his dwarves a run for their gold but eventually she caves in scowling as she does.

Every single piece of gossip in the Shire is about him, if they are not damning him for running off on an adventure of all things then they are terribly curious about what’s happened to him and what treasures he’s gotten.

Bilbo puts up with none of it. He’s resolved to not care what anyone thinks and they can gossip all they want but they’ll hear nothing from his mouth. Primula laughs for what seems like an hour when he tells her.

“That’s smart of you, cousin.” She says cheerfully when she’s collected herself, waving without care at the frowning Bracegirdles when they pass by. “You always were clever though.”

This is the pattern that Bilbo’s life takes within the next year:

He does whatever he pleases, not much different than before if he’s being truthful. He reads most days or he’ll spend it out in the sun, fishing or in his garden. At some point in the afternoon Primula or some other Took cousin will stop by and they will keep him company from elevensies until however long they please. After they leave Bilbo will do more meaningless things and at night he will try to get some sleep and try not to have nightmares though he always fails in that regard.

Today is a fine summer afternoon and Prim’s just shown up with her little lad, Frodo. He’d been surprised the first time she came over and even more surprised when she came back two days later.

“Anyone with working eyes can see clear as the Brandywine River, Cousin of mine that you are grieving terribly.” She’d said on that second visit, her boy playing with one of Hamfast’s sons. “And what kind of kin would we be if we did not try to make you smile again?”

Long ago Belladonna Took after her only son was born with print-marks that no one could read she’d turned to her family for help. Nearly all of them had traveled to somewhere and she’d hoped that at least one could read the strange marks. None of them could but it became something of a Took family secret that Bilbo was different. More than a few of them, dear Prim included, came to the idea that Bilbo had lost something terrible on his journey. Primula and a few younger cousins thought it was his print-mate.

The younger ones came to this idea all because of their romantic hearts but Prim was wise and she saw the grief in his eyes and knew there was few things that could cause such a thing in a Hobbit so young as her cousin.

The day after that first visit she’d rounded up all of the family she liked best and told them that Bilbo would need some looking after, if only for a while. She’d smiled at them sharply and with her eyes dared any of them to say otherwise. More than a few thought she looked like her deceased Aunt and Prim would have taken the comparison with pride.

Bilbo knew none of this of course. They all knew how stubborn he could be and there wasn’t a doubt in anyone’s minds that he’d refuse them all if he did.

Now Primula sat comfortably on her favorite cousin’s bench and watched as her little shireling played with little Samwise Gamgee. She had to leave soon to run her errands and she’d delighted in the look on Bilbo’s face when she’d told him not worry, she’d leave Frodo with him.

“I have no idea why you are so inclined to torture me. I thought you liked me.” He complained but she could see the smile he was holding back.

Frodo was at age where stories and adventures were his absolute favorite thing and he’d been ecstatic when she first started bringing him along. Drogo had laughed himself silly when she told him how Frodo followed after Bilbo like a little duck. He always had a question or a demand for his uncle Bilbo.

“He knows I’m not actually his uncle doesn’t he?” Bilbo had said that first day and she’d merely raised her eyebrows at him.

“Tell me cousin of mine, would you rather be called second-cousin Bilbo? That’s certainly a mouthful for such a small lad.”

“You are a horrible wily fiend masquerading as a kind hobbit woman.” Bilbo had retorted and since nothing else had been said on the matter she considered it didn’t bother him too much.

“Do you ever think about going back?” She asks quietly, keeping her eyes on Frodo as Bilbo stills next to her, one of his beloved books at hand.

He’s silent for a long time and she fears he never will but eventually he does. “No.” He says carefully, stilted as most of his words are now. “I lost all things worth staying for.”

Prim nudged his shoulder gently before standing. “Never give up hope, cousin. It strikes when you least expect it.”

Bilbo waved as Primula left on her errands a little while later. He took one last glance at the shirelings making a mess of his yard before going back to his book.

“Uncle?” Frodo says politely some time later and Bilbo sets his book down giving his ‘nephew’ a curious stare. Samwise smiles shyly from behind him.

“Yes, lad?”

“Can Sam and I go down and play by the creek?” Sam nudges him slightly and with a wide beaming smile Frodo adds, “Please?”

Bilbo considers it for a moment. The creek’s not too far away and close enough near his home and the center of town where they can get help if an accident happens, besides he’s sure Prim has let Frodo go down to the creek on his own. “Alright but be back for elevensies or your mother will have my head!”

Frodo jumped up and down, crowing in delight and pulled Samwise along after him barely giving a “Thanks uncle!” before he rounded the corner and disappeared out of sight.

Bilbo stared for a moment and then burst into laughter.

At least things would never be boring with Frodo around.

He smiles politely at people who pass by, greeting their curious stares with a bland look. When they pass from sight he ends up rolling his eyes and barely refraining from scowling. Near a year has passed by and you’d think that some of the scandal would fade.

For all they don’t hold onto grudges, hobbits cling to gossip like dwarves do gold.

Today it seems as if it’s even worse, as if every hobbit in the Shire has wandered down Bagshot row. After what he swears is Lily Brown’s third time passing down the street, Bilbo lets out a growl and storms inside, almost forgetting his book in his haste to make it inside. The sturdy green door to Bag End slams shut and if he didn’t remember the boys were coming back for elevensies soon then he’d lock it too.

Bilbo paces, unsure why he’s so anxious and then walks into his kitchen, mind set on baking up a batch of blackberry scones for the boys and Primula. It’s repetitive and mostly instinctive by now but the small individual tasks calm him and the strange vise of cold in his chest has relaxed and he’s almost back to his previously content mood when his door slams open.

He takes a breath to calm himself and sets down his dough. “Whoever has stormed into my house uninvited and at elevensies no less! Had better have perfectly sensible reasons for it or I’ll sick batty Primula Baggins and all her Brandybuck kin on you.” He says sternly unable to contain a scowl.

“Would you really sick mama on some poor person?” a sweet, familiar voice says curiously and he sighs, walking into the doorway to see dear Frodo and a guilty looking Sam.

“After how my day has been going, I wouldn’t be above it.” Bilbo mutters dragging a hand over his face before he turns back to his charges for the day. “What’s caused you to rush so? And I assume you have a reason.” He adds sternly and is slightly pleased at the abashed look that comes over Frodo’s face.

It fades quickly, of course and Frodo is all barely contained excitement. “There are dwarves in the Shire!” He exclaims loudly, looking pleased for a second before he frowns, realizing his uncle doesn’t look half as happy as he expected him to.

Bilbo raises an eyebrow. “Contrary to popular gossip, not every dwarf is of interest to me.” Not anymore. His dwarves—no not his, never his—are buried in the tombs of their people already.

“But Olive Proudfoot’s mother swears its some of the same from before, your dwarves.” Frodo adds as if it’s necessary.

“Vanessa Proudfoot needs to lay off of the Bree ale then.” He says and he swore he said it low enough but both Frodo and Sam giggle in response.

Bilbo frowns at them for a second before it breaks into a smile. “Why do you think I care so much about some dwarves? Why do you care so much, nephew?”

Frodo fidgets and then with a surprising amount of confidence, lifts his head and stares him straight in the eyes, daring him to look away. “I was hoping they were your dwarves because I want you to be happy again.”

Damn it to the valar and back. This is what he gets for having Primula bring along her son. There are something’s that should be kept away from children Frodo’s age and the loneliness of a heartbroken old man is one of them.

Bilbo tries to widen his smile but finds that it’s only become more flimsy in his shock. And to think the morning had started out so well. “Oh my dear Frodo, I am happy.”

Frodo shakes his head and it’s surprising to all that Sam, shy little Samwise, is the one who speaks up. “Pardon me sayin’ this Mister Bilbo, but everyone can see that you’re not. My da says you haven’t been the same since you came back and all we want is for you to be happy like you were.”

He blinks.

It’s probably the most he’s ever heard the little Gamgee boy say in all his years of knowing the lad and being neighbors.

Bilbo crouches down until he can look them both in the eyes. He opens his arms and they tumble into them clinging to him. “I know you boys just want the best for me and I think it’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever wanted for me but it can’t happen. I lost something very important on my journey and it makes me terribly lonely sometimes.”

“Important?” Sam says and he rubs at his wrist where Bilbo’s seen the name ‘Rosie’ imprinted on it. He doesn’t know Frodo’s print-mate’s name but even Frodo looks uncomfortable.

“Yes.” He says simply and this time his smile is more real, the shadows gone from it. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not happy. How could I be unhappy when I have you two and your parents and everyone else who mean so much to me?”

Frodo pulls away slightly, sniffling. Blue eyes stare up at him searchingly. “Do you swear it?” He says with all the conviction and trust of a child.

“I swear it.”

“Good.” Sam says approvingly and a bark of laughter startles out of him. The boys look at him like he’s suddenly strange but it’s been a strange day so Bilbo excuses it.

He stands, his knees protesting slightly. “Why don’t we go and eat elevensies before it gets cold?”

“Did you make blackberry scones?” Frodo is back to being excited again, darting away from him with Sam hot on his trail.

Bilbo can only shake his head and follow after them. It seems he’ll be having an uncomfortable conversation with Prim tonight.

xi.

The dwarves turn out, of course, to not be any from Thorin’s company and Bilbo is relieved and disappointed all at once. Relieved because he’s not sure what he’d say to them and unsure if any of them would have a kind word for him, he’s still ‘betrayer’ as far as he knows. Disappointed because he thought they were friends and surely they could see that he’d done what he did not as an act of betrayal but out of friendship? Of concern for their safety?

Bilbo snorts.

Of course they didn’t. Hadn’t that been the issue in the first place? They were too stubborn, too set in their ways to ever see it in any perspective than their own.

Still he’s tense for the next week or so afterwards, sure that an army of dwarves is going to storm into the Shire and throw him into Erebor prison or something ridiculous like that. He confides it to Prim and Eglantine, another cousin of his and their reactions had been less than reassuring.

“You’re being silly.” Prim said teasingly, fondness in her voice as she took a swig of ale.

“He’s being a moron is what he is.” Eglantine said rolling her eyes but there was mischief in her tone. “If anyone was going to arrest you then they would have done so long ago, don’t you suppose?”

Bilbo flushed. “I’m not entirely sure why I associate with either of you. You’re both far too rude.”

Primula smirked.

“We make things interesting for you.” Eglantine said loftily.

He rolled his eyes but his silence was more than enough proof and they wouldn’t stop trading smug looks for the rest of the night.

His fears about the dwarves died down, mostly because the Shire rarely saw dwarves, rarely saw anybody really that wasn’t a) a Hobbit b) the occasional Ranger c) a certain meddling wizard who may or may not have only been allowed to continue coming to the Shire because they all liked his fireworks, even the Bracegirdles.

So when two months after the group of dwarf traders passed through the Shire he’s more than a little confused that Frodo and Sam are once again slamming his door open and running into his house, yelling about dwarves.

“I swore we had this conversation.” Bilbo mutters as they struggled to catch their breaths. “In fact I know we did because I had to have a similar one with your mother that same day.”

“But Mister Bilbo they’re your dwarves!” Sam says still wheezing slightly.

He frowns, did they really run all the way here from Lily Peach’s house? “Boys—”

“No Uncle, we promise they are. They had a royal symbol and everything! We even overheard Lobelia Sackville-Baggins askin’ who they thought they were comin’ in the Shire like that and they said they were from Erebor!”

Bilbo’s blood froze and he could feel himself paling. Royal symbols? Erebor of all places? No, it couldn’t be. They would have come sooner like Eglantine said, wouldn’t they?.....Unless they were busy; making Erebor livable again would take time especially with the death of their King and his heirs. He supposed it’d take months for them to care about a traitor. “Go get your mother would you?” Bilbo croaks out, voice suddenly dry as paper.

Frodo frowns. “Uncle?” the boy stepped forward, alarmed at his uncle’s appearance but Bilbo just shook his head.

“Go Frodo and Samwise Gamgee you go with him.” Bilbo instructs, trying to keep his voice steady and Samwise nodded, looking concerned as he practically dragged Frodo back outside.

As soon as they were gone Bilbo felt his legs give out and he fell to the floor, his mind stuck on terrible images and thoughts. What did they even do to traitors? Surely whatever it was couldn’t have been as bad as what he was picturing.

Bilbo shook his head, “Always hope, right?” Prim’s words from that evening so long ago did little to comfort him and he realized he was still on the floor and that the door to Bag End was wide open. With some effort he stood, but even willpower was unable to control the way his entire body shook and Bilbo steeled himself and then closed the door.

If they were coming to take him away or punish him then he’d face it down like a proper and respectable Baggins should. He’d made his choice back in Erebor and he wouldn’t throw it away now just because he was back in Hobbiton.

Bilbo sat down in his most comfortable armchair and waited patiently, gazing at all his things with fixated attention, forcing his mind not to wander.

The knock on the door came some time later and he knew it must have been the dwarves from Erebor, by now Primula and all the rest of them had grown use to just coming and going as they pleased. Bilbo cleared his throat, once, twice and then stood, his heart beating rapidly in his chest as he made his way to the door.

Hope, he reminded himself and pulled the door open with a grave finality that was almost humorous.

His heart burst at the sight that greeted him and his mind snapped, from the stress obviously because there was no possible way he was seeing what he was seeing in front of him and still sane.

“Hello mister Boggins.” Kili greeted with a soft smile, next to him Fili’s smile was near identical. The warmth in their eyes clear and bright, especially in contrast to the three stern-looking guards behind them.

Fili and Kili looked much the same as they had the last time he saw them. The real last time before the battle. A thick jagged scar twisted itself around Fili’s neck and there was a long thin one on Kili’s face by his cheek but it was like looking into the past.

Oh, he really was Mad Baggins now, wasn’t he? Prim and Eglantine and all the rest of those wild Tooks would be so disappointed that he’d gone round the bend without them there to see it.

“You’re dead.” Bilbo says numbly. “You’re dead and I’m crazy, aren’t I?”

Fili and Kili traded looks and oh he had missed that, the way they could communicate so effortlessly as if it was just them. He thought it’d be unique, special that they were so close and even more special that they tried to include him.

“Bilbo?” Fili says, reaching an arm out carefully and Bilbo jerks back, eyes wide and unfocused.

Bilbo shook his head. “Crazy. Prim will be disappointed.”

“Prim? Who’s Prim?” Kili says frowning, never looking away from Bilbo.

“I am. Primula Baggins at your service.” A cool voice cut in and then there was Prim striding through the three dwarf guards with Frodo clutching at her skirts and Samwise following him, worried expressions on their tiny faces. She scowled, her eyes narrowed. “Who are you to be upsetting my favorite cousin?” She says with the ferocity of an orc and not a hobbit. Though considering some of the ‘kindly’ hobbit-women Bilbo’s known throughout the years his beloved mother included perhaps she’s acting just right.

“We didn’t mean to upset him!” Kili protested looking fairly distraught himself.

Primula’s scowl deepened and then turned into a worried frown as she gazed at her too pale cousin. Still staring at the two dwarves not dressed in guards’ clothes. “Bilbo?” she says gentler. “Are they bothering you? I’ll run them out if they are.”

Bilbo finally looked at her and there was something desperate in his eyes, animal-like even. “Prim, dear. You can see them can’t you?” He says it very slowly, almost carefully as if it takes a great deal of effort to say and she can only blink.

“What?”

“Do you see them or not?” He says again, irritation bleeding into his voice.

Primula frowns and looks back at the dwarves. “Of course I can. They’re a bit hard to miss.”

“Oh.” Bilbo says quietly and then shakes his head once before stepping back. “Umm, come in please. I think we have some things to talk about.”

She doesn’t hesitate, pushing her way past the three dwarf guards and the two stunned other ones. Frodo and Sam look back at them with wide eyes and then follow her.

xii.

“So I take it there’s been a bit misunderstanding.” Bilbo says sipping some of his tea even though it tastes flat and dry in his mouth, his hands shaking no matter how much he tries to stop it. Faintly he can hear the sounds of talking—Prim had taken one look at him before shepherding the guards into the living room before suggesting that the boys could ask them all about dwarves and Erebor.

“A bit?” Fili says in a strangled sort of voice. Kili has his face in his hands and of the few times that he’s looked up there’s always been a twist of confusion to it as if he can’t believe it before he goes back to hiding his face, muttering slightly. Fili looks about the same and if he’s being honest than that’s exactly how Bilbo feels.

“You were all but dead when I left.” Bilbo defends. “It’s a perfectly reasonable thought process.”

“Why did you leave us?” Kili says suddenly, voice slightly muffled and oh Valar is there hurt in his voice? He never meant for this to hurt them, once again he’d just wanted to spare himself some small bit of pain.

Fili looks at him expectantly, something vulnerable in his eyes.

“Why do you think?” He says frowning when they only look at him in confusion.

He sighs, resisting the urge to hide. This is too much. Today was supposed to be an ordinary day, not a day where dead dwarves came back into his life. No matter how much he’d missed them every day he thought they were dead or the fact that apparently they had never actually been dead.

“I couldn’t bear to see you both dead so I had to leave before that. Surely you can understand the reasoning in that.” Bilbo says softly eyes fixed on the pans hanging above Fili’s head.

“Why?” Kili demands taking his hands away from his face. There’s something wild in his eyes, desperate even.

Bilbo frowns again. “Why does it matter?”

“Bilbo.” Fili says—pleads.

By the Green Lady it seems there is nothing he can keep from them, not when he’s just gotten them back, not when they beg like that and look so anxious. Not even his feelings it seems.

Bilbo looks back at the pans, focuses on the sounds of the Shire that he can faintly here, Frodo’s excited voice talking a mile a minute and Sam’s shyer more polite one, the sound of Primula laughing. “Does anyone ever want to witness the death of someone they love?”

They’re both silent, too silent and Bilbo almost squirms from it. He’d never thought of their reactions because he’d never had any intentions of admitting his feelings. What was the point in thinking on something that would never happen? Now the silence is killing him and he wants them to say something, anything even if it’s hateful.

“You love us? Both of us?” Fili says and Bilbo can’t read the emotion in his voice. He doesn’t know him as well as Kili to be able to.

Bilbo doesn’t look away from those bloody pans. His hands tighten into fists, crescent marks digging into his skin and his heart is beating too loud, too painfully in his chest and something inside him is crumpling, dying from this. “Yes, yes I do.”

“Bilbo.” A hand, more gentle than he expected, touches his face, tips his chin. “Look at us please.” Kili begs but he can feel the tightly restrained energy rolling off of both of them. Bilbo looks because he can deny them nothing.

They’re smiling, beaming wide beautiful smiles and he doesn’t understand why. “What?” He says confused and that’s it, they’re lunging forward wrapping him in their arms and suddenly he’s surrounded by them, the smell that he’s missed this entire awful year.

“What?” He says voice muffled because he’s halfway buried in Kili’s chest and Fili’s resting his head on top of Bilbo’s and they’re both talking, too fast, too desperate quiet little things for him to understand.

It takes him for what feels like forever to realize that both of them are saying ‘We love you’ over and over again, into his hair, into his skin.

Bilbo pulls back as far as he can with both of them clinging to him. “You love me?” he says suspicion clear and they reluctantly move farther back so he can look them in the eyes.

“We swear we do.” Kili says looking for all the world like he’d like to swallow Bilbo back up in his arms.

He shakes his head. “You can’t. You two are each other’s Ones!”

Fili laughs and the sound is so heart wrenchingly familiar despite the fact that he hasn’t heard it in a year that it warms up Bilbo to the bone. “Do you remember how we find our Ones?”

“What? Yes—“

“And do you remember that night? You finally sang for us.” Kili says smiling so widely it looks like it should hurt. Next to him Fili is beaming, joy in his eyes.

“So?”

“Bilbo.” They say together and he still doesn’t understand, not at first until it all faces into places.

“Oh. Oh! I sang for you!” He pauses. “Really?” He’s not sure he entirely believes it. This must be a dream or a joke or a trick. Can it really have happened?

“It all clicked together for us.” Fili confirms and Bilbo is being pulled back into their embrace, letting himself be pulled back.

“We were drawn to you before that, there was always something about you.” Kili adds running a hand through Bilbo’s curls, playing with the ends of it. He looks as if he’s contemplating something, his tongue sticking out slightly.

“But it’s like a puzzle, you sang and everything came together.” Fili says and Bilbo realizes he’s smiling, realizes he can’t stop smiling. He’s still smiling and still in that tight embrace when Prim peeks her head into the kitchen some time later. She looks at them and then walks back into the living room declaring to the guards that it seems as if they’ll be staying.

Bilbo doesn’t care, he can’t quite make himself not when he has Fili and Kili. Not when he’s allowed to keep them.

Everything came together.

xiii.

Bag End is less silent than usual that night. In the guest rooms are the quiet sounds of Frodo and Sam sleeping, when it had grown late they had begged Primula to stay and she had laughed and agreed. Farther down are the much louder snores of Fili and Kili’s travel guard—all perfectly nice dwarves he’s been assured.

Even in Bilbo’s own room it’s louder, the sound of three bodies instead of one. When they’d been finding rooms for everybody he’d immediately been given pleading looks by the boys and Bilbo had laughed, before saying that of course they could stay with him (Even though there was a perfectly fine guestroom down the hall. It’s not entirely respectable and certainly not proper but he doesn’t give a damn at all.)

Fili and Kili had immediately claimed a side of the bed forcing him into the middle and within minutes he was being cuddled by them. Bilbo supposed he’d have to contend with waking up too warm for the rest of his days but if it meant he got them then it wasn’t a bad trade off at all.

“Bilbo?” Kili says sleepily, head tucked in between the crease where Bilbo’s shoulder met his neck. They’d been talking for what seemed like hours about possibly everything but slowly their conversations had trailed off into a comfortable silence.

“Yes Kili?”

“You said before that hobbits have marks right? So does that mean you have our names?”

Behind him Fili stills and the hand that had been playing his hand, making loose braids stops as well.

Bilbo blinks, trying to push the sleep away from his eyes. “Yes?”

“Can we see it?” Fili asks his low voice right next to Bilbo’s ear. “Please?”

“Yes, please?”

He rolls his eyes and gently pushes them away, they look entirely too eager to see a few pieces of marked skin. Bilbo unbuttons the first few buttons of his shirt and pushes it down enough so that it falls from his shoulders.

Though he couldn’t see it their reactions to his print-marks were instantaneous. They sucked in their breaths, he could practically feel the awe dripping off of them, and then suddenly hands were tracing the marks on his back. Bilbo tried to crane his head around but it proved impossible with them touching him. “Is this a thing for you?” he demanded to know feeling oddly pleased.

“Oh Mahal, Bilbo you have our names.” Kili says awe clear in his voice and then they’re pulling him back down.

Bilbo laughs loudly. “So this is a thing with you.”

Fili grins at him. “Why burglar, our burglar you have our names on you, of course it’s a ‘thing.’”

“You’re ours.” Kili says proudly, resting his head on Bilbo’s chest still smiling like a lunatic.

Bilbo’s own smile lightens into something softer as they stare at him. “I suppose I can live with that.” He says mischievously, shrieking as they start tackling him, prodding his ribs with their fingers until he’s shaking with uncontrollable laughter.

He’d never hoped for this. He’d never dreamed that he’d be allowed to keep them and they him. What he had neglected to realize was the depths of Fili and Kili’s hearts, how even though it had always felt right with them together it had never been entirely right until he was there too.

There were still conversations and questions to be had, answers that they all needed and nothing was perfect but lying there at Bag End with his print-mates next to him, laughing and smiling it felt perfect and Bilbo supposed that the rest of it could wait until the morning.