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Chapter Text

Bilbo closes his eyes one night after another one of the innumerable days he's spent in The Undying Lands.

It sounds quite grand at first, really, immortal life. But it's only grand as long as things are new. And he's explored all that The Undying Lands have to offer now, and all that's left is something not unlike his life he'd lead before Gandalf came to his door and he'd said "Good morning."

Except now there's a sorrow. A quiet one, but potent. Sam has been here for many long years, as have Legolas and Gimli. But Merry and Pippin had stayed behind, and apparently passed and were buried in Rohan and Gondor as heroes. He'd known those boys since they were infants, and now he's outlived them.

He's outlived a lot of people.

He's a bit tired of it.

Frodo has never recovered. Bilbo himself hasn't either, of course. He still finds himself reaching into his pocket every day with his weathered, skin-and-bone hands, hands that can barely hold a walking stick, let alone Sting or a good solid rock.

It's not really being young that he misses. It's being... studier. Less eaten away.

He thinks Frodo often feels the very same way he does, and it makes his heart sink. He'd give anything to take the burden away from him. Some days he even wants to take it away for Frodo's sake, and not his own. Some days he wishes he'd never given Frodo The Ring and had kept it himself, and some days he wishes he'd taken it to Mordor himself, and some days he wishes he'd left it as is, and some days he doesn't even remember why The Ring was that bad.

That's another thing. The in-and-out nature of his grip on reality. He likes when he's himself, but hates the grief and great regret that comes with it. And he hates when he's but a floaty, half-minded ghost, yet likes the absence of the soul-crushing guilt.

It makes him tired to think about, all of it, and yet it's all he can think about these days, with the adventures run dry and Frodo spending all his time with Sam. A change of pace, change of scenery, change of experience.

A change.

Any change.

Bilbo closes his eyes one night after another one of the innumerable days he's spent in The Undying Lands.

And opens them when he stumbles over a rock and is steadied by a gloved hand.

"Careful, Bilbo," a familiar voice warns, low and tense. "There's injury enough ahead for us."

But Bilbo doesn't move. He stares.

Stares up into the face of Gandalf The Grey as an army of elves marches forwards all around them.

"Bilbo?" Gandalf waves his hand in front of his face. "We need to mo-"

"Gandalf?" Bilbo breathes, and then startles! He puts a hand to his throat. "I- good heavens-"

"What is it?"

"This is- no, it can't be-"

But it is. As Bilbo turns around in a circle, it is.

It's The Battle Of The Five Armies, and Dain hasn't yet come down the hill. Sting is on Bilbo's hip, and a mithril shirt drapes his torso, and that means Thorin and Fili and Kili are inside of that mountain and they're alive.

"WAIT!" Bilbo sprints to the front of the army, startled elves jerking out of the way and Gandalf shouting after him! Bilbo rushes up to the front just as Dain descends, and Bilbo runs right up between the King Of The Iron Hills and The King Of The Woodland Realm.

"WAIT!" He's exhausted in a way he hardly remembers, and it's exhilarating. It is bone-deep and brought on by days of non-stop adventuring and hardships and problems endured, and he's missed the feeling more than he ever realized. "You can't fight each other now, not when we're about to be besieged!"

"What is your halfling talking about?" Thranduil growls to Gandalf.

"I don't-"

"Orcs are coming, Azog's army!" There's a clarity, a wisdom, and he remembers it all like just yesterday but sees it all through over a century of experience now. "If you fight now, you lose warriors we can't afford to spare!"

"Why should I trust ye when I don't even know who ye are?" Dain demands.

"I am Bilbo Baggins of The Shire, and I've lived this once before." It must sound like he's eaten one too many funny mushrooms, but he doesn't care.

"Bilbo!" Gandalf surges forward. "What's gotten into-"

"Sauron's back, yes?" Bilbo hisses, just for Gandalf to hear. "You faced him while we were in Mirkwood, he's responsible for it being Mirkwood. You told me all about it in The Undying Lands, long over sixty years from now."

Gandalf's eyes are wide. "How did you-"

"You're right to be wary of my ring, by the way. But I need to hold onto it for just a bit longer."

"Stop whisperin' to yer wizard so we can get on with this!"

"You'll be getting on with nothing!" Bilbo turns to face Dain, and then looks at Thranduil. "I'm of The Company of Thorin Oakenshield, and I can testify that we've been pursued by Orcs all throughout our journey! And, I know that they passed into Mirkwood, so you, King Thranduil, know I speak the truth!"

Thranduil clenches his jaw, staring daggers at Bilbo. So what? Bilbo met him so often in The Undying Lands that they started having tea together. It took ages, but he eventually dug through the bitter exterior to the actually okay elf beneath. Never did get him to see Thorin's view of things, but they moved past that.

"So stop being a bunch of stubborn clotheads and save your armies for the orcs!"

"CLOTHEAD?" Dain points his warhammer at Bilbo. "Yer speaking to-"

"I speak to all of Durin's line that way! And, frankly, all Elven royalty when they deserve it."

"You whimpering little-"

And then it comes. All eyes turn to the hills.

And The Orcs descend.

Bilbo is already on Ravenhill when Thorin arrives.

"Bilbo!"

"Turn around, right now."

"But-"

"It's a trap, Thorin. Another army will be on their way soon. I won't see this happen again."

"Again, what're you-"

"A blessing of The Valar, a cosmic joke, who knows? But I've lived this, and many years passed it, and you did not." He looks at Fili and Kili. "None of you did. Well, save Dwalin here. But this time, everyone will live, and trust me when I say we'll be preventing many tragedies by making this happen."

"Have you hit your head?" Kili has Bilbo's head in his hands to check it over before Bilbo can respond.

"I'm sounder of mind than I've been in years! Now let go! Here, I'll prove it to you. Kili, your Starlight Lady met me in The Undying Lands and told me about how you entertained her more than that feast could, that night in the prions, just with your stories."

Kili's eyes widen. "How did you-"

"And Thorin, I know that you threatened Dwalin with death before coming out here, and before you came to your senses."

Thorin looks at Dwalin in shock.

"I didn' tell him," Dwalin confirms.

"And Fili, you fought an Orc in Laketown with a table."

"But how-"

"Now get off of this hill! I'll gladly kill Azog myself for all the pain he's caused, I've got over half a century of Durin-less sorrow to take out on him!"

"You can't possibly be thinking of taking Azog on yourself," Fili protests.

"I can, and I am. Because I can do this." And he pops on The Ring.

There's shouts of alarm, and he laughs. "Still here, don't worry! And I won't be doing that often in the future, this needs to go to Mount Doom before Sauron's armies can recover from this battle. Now get off this hill, or at least go get more reinforcements to fight with you! Four warriors, the mistakes of youth."

It ends.

And everyone lives.

Because there had been no death prior to the arrival of The Orcs, the armies were better matched. Because Thorin had gotten to Ravenhill earlier thanks to not being as sorely needed on the battlefield, Bilbo had been able to provide ample warning.

And he had, indeed, killed Azog himself.

He hadn't even made a fuss of it.

Azog had been at the top of the hill, commanding his army, and Bilbo had come right up behind him and stabbed him in the leg, and when he'd gone down Bilbo had given the strongest shove he could muster.

And so ended Azog The Defiler. And so lived on Thorin, Fili, and Kili.

And now Bilbo sits in a private medical tent, all of The Company being treated for thankfully minor and non-lethal wounds around him, as Gandalf paces.

"I don't understand how this is possible."

"Surely at your age you've also learned to stop questioning things like this." Bilbo watches as his arm is bandaged.

"I must question it! This isn't something to be tucked awa-"

"Oh, speaking of." Bilbo pulls out The Ring.

He feels the hold of it's long, long years in his possession from his prior life... yet he doesn't. It's like an echo, resounding off of the short time he's possessed it as far as this body knows. It's such a muddled, confusing feeling, that it's almost easier to think through it.

To know why he feels it. To recall clearly, in a way he hasn't even since first being told the tales, of what it truly is. What it's caused. What it will cause.

"This is The One Ring." He holds it up for all to see. "The One Ring of Sauron. We need to take it to Mount Doom, because otherwise my dear nephew Frodo will in sixty years time or so, and along with him will go three other young Hobbits, as well as Gloin's son Gimli and Prince Legolas, and Aragorn Heir to the Throne of Gondor, and Borimir of Gondor who will die on the journey." He looks at Gandalf. "And you, who'll die as well, but come back as Gandalf The White, because Saruman is not to be trusted and in fact will align himself with Sauron, if he hasn't already."

Silence. Gandalf is dumbstruck, and most of The Company look ill. Gloin has passed out.

"And I do expect you all to come with me," Bilbo informs them, "Because he's barely got any armies now, and I know dwarves are similarly resistant to this Ring's power as us Hobbits are. And I'd rather not rely on Gollum to lead the way into Mordor if I can help it, Gandalf, because he bit off my nephew's finger in the end."

"... Well? Surely we can all handle another adventure after a few weeks recovery. Oh, and, Thorin, I have something specific to tell you as well."

Thorin steps forward, still in shock and unable to speak.

A situation which isn't helped by how Bilbo grabs Thorin by the coat and pulls him into a passionate kiss.

Then the silence ends by the sounds of uproarious shouts and celebrations.

Chapter Text

Bilbo picks over the pile of supplies in front of him. "Extra clothes, good, maps, good, plenty of water jugs- won't be making that mistake twice, not after that holiday when Frodo was a lad-"

Gandalf clears his throat in the doorway, and Bilbo waves him in without looking up. "Come in, come in. Do you suppose I could find a good walking stick somewhere out in the desolation? Nevermind, I expect not. Let's see here- ah! Yes, yes, perfect." Bilbo holds up a small chain, meant for a delicate pendant. "Frodo wore the ring on a chain such as this, to resist it's temptations. I think I shall follow his lead. He was the one to do this quest first, after all."

"Bilbo Baggins," Gandalf says, slowly entering the decrepit supply room of Erebor's less ruined halls. "You owe us all some answers, I think."

"I explained it already, didn't I? I've been sent back from countless years in the future to prevent- well, prevent it all." Bilbo rifles through the pile some more. "The war, the misery, the deaths. I'm making grand plans for the coming years, Gandalf. Frodo told me as many stories as he could in the years before my return, and there's more souls in need of saving than I'm prepared for yet. We'll have to finish up this quest as quickly as we can, if I'm to settle in here and then get back to The Shire before poor Drogo and Primula meet their ends."

"Every word you utter brings more questions than answers," Gandalf huffs. "You told Gloin his son would face Sauron himself, prophesied my death and resurrection, and in the same breath pulled Thorin Oakenshield to your lips and have left him in a daze ever since!"

"I've tried telling him to come help me pack," Bilbo mutters. "Of course he's dazed, Gandalf, I myself didn't realize what exactly I felt until after his death before! It's only been a couple of days, he'll shake it off."

"Bilbo." Gandalf puts his hand on his dear friend's shoulder. "I ask you as not only a friend, but a wizard concerned for the safety of Middle-Earth... and your own mind. What did you see, before facing the kings?"

"I 'saw' nothing, Gandalf, I lived. And it's hard to say, exactly, what I lived. After my hundred and eleventh it all goes a bit... hazy, and grows hazier the longer I'd gone on, frought with only fits of clear mind. But I remember enough." Bilbo pulls a broken spear shaft from the pile, tests it's weight and width in his hand, and then grabs a small whittling knife and begins to attempt to shape it into a good walking stick.

Gandalf sits next to him. "Then help me be prepared, my friend. You seek to lead us all into the heart of Sauron's very fortress. What did your young nephew face on his same journey?"

"Well, we shan't be taking quite the same path, I think." Bilbo pulls a map out of his bag. "He went somewhere along this path, lead on by that foul creature Gollum from about here to here. I shouldn't like to encounter the mother of the Mirkwood spiders like he and Samwise did- but I shouldn't like to go to the Black Gates either, if they yet exist."

Gandalf watches Bilbo with his pipe sitting unpuffed in his lips and palm, his ancient eyes fraught with concern. Bah. Bilbo's seen that look for- well, not even he knows how long. It's hardly a deterrent.

"How often have you used The Ring, Bilbo?"

"I expect you have your suspicions. I used it first in the goblin tunnels, of course, and then again in Mirkwood- terrible, terrible business in Mirkwood. Such a strange thing, Gandalf, to have it guide my hands. I knew it was evil then, but also that I needed it." It's hard to push the words out, though one would never guess by Bilbo's strong and steady tone.

Some part of him still shrieks to keep it secret, safe, unknown to others. But that part is very new, very young, and the older feeling of Obsession mingles with it in a way that diminishes them both- like adding together equal parts vinegar and honey, until it taste like neither and is altogether repulsive to taste.

"And then in Thranduil's halls, of course- did we ever explain that part of the journey to you? Ah, Thanduil mentioned it when I brought the Arkenstone, so I'm sure you don't need me to. Again with Smaug, though it was very little use against him. Then again when I ran to Ravenhill, and again to kill Azog. That's how often I've used it in this life and body, at the very least."

"And in the life before?"

"Too many times to count," Bilbo groans. "I used it to hide from unwanted visitors and relatives! Can you believe it? The thing that could destroy all of Middle-Earth, and I used it to avoid neighbors. Well, I didn't know any better, I suppose, and I'll admit I'm likely to miss the ability when I return home- not to stay, mind you. I left Erebor all those years ago because I couldn't stand living here when Thorin, Fili, and Kili weren't around to fill it. Thorin most of all."

Bilbo shakes his head. "But I'll still need to settle things with Bag End! I hope you're grateful, by the way, Gandalf. In the past before I returned home within thirteen months of running out my door and they'd already auctioned off most of my belongings. I expect I'll get home to a smial full of Sackville-Baggins belongs and a Shire full of my scattered heirlooms. It'll take me ages to round it all up again to leave for Frodo and Sam and Sam's sweet. Perhaps this time I'll get to know those children as they grow- Sam was always telling us about how impressive his children were, heh."

Gandalf finally puffs on his pipe, seemingly relaxing. "You're quite a different fellow in your old age."

"Yes, it does tend to do that," Bilbo mutters. "As do a great many other things. I should like to blame some of my later eccentricities on The Ring, but in truth I think I should have become so odd even without it." Bilbo gives up on the broken spear shaft with a huffs. "Right, I'm going to search outside for something more suitable."

"Perhaps take a companion with you." Gandalf's eyes twinkle. "A certain wide-eyed Dwarf king is in great need of some air, after you stole it from his chest."

"Ha!" Bilbo grins, wide and bright, in a way Gandalf has rarely seen- if ever. It's full of hope and promise. "Good idea, old friend."

Bilbo leads the way as he and Thorin go out to the mountain side. Thorin watches him, wary and wondering all at once, and Bilbo could savor the feeling of it forever.

"Alright now, Thorin, I'm the same Hobbit as before," Bilbo says, bending down to try an ancient branch broken from a burned tree corpse. "No need to get all strange about talking with me."

"But are you?" Thorin watches Bilbo with analyzing and admiring eyes. "You speak differently than you did only days ago."

"Alright, I've gotten wordier in my years," Bilbo admits. "And more sure of the words I wish to say before I say them. But that doesn't mean I'm some strange new hobbit unknown to you."

"Does it not?" Thorin picks up a stick as well, though it's clear he's not focused on it, merely feigning participation in the activity. "The Bilbo I knew wasn't one to..."

"Pull you in for a kiss?" Bilbo guesses. "Believe me, I wanted to, but I only admitted it to myself when it was... too late. That kiss was ages overdue, Thorin."

"How long overdue?" Thorin moves even closer. "How long did you live, beyond my death?"

"It's hard to recall, exactly." Bilbo pauses, hands on his knees, looking out at the snow-dusted mountainside. "I can't seem to track the years after I went to Rivendell again, but I was a hundred and eleven then, and I know a great many years passed after that. I could be thousands of years old now for all I know, though few of those years lived in a stable state of mind, so I don't know if they should count."

"Is a hundred and eleven... old, for a hobbit?"

"Well, my grandfather Old Took lived to be one hundred and thirty, so it's not impossibly old, but I barely aged until I passed The Ring to Frodo. And then it all sort of... caught up to me at once. I'd intended to return here, but deteriorated far too much by the time I made it to Rivendell."

Thorin picks up another stick and offers it to Bilbo for examination. "So you know very little of the quest ahead of us."

"I know enough," Bilbo says pointedly, shooting Thorin a look. "I know that if we wait, Sauron will grow armies larger than even what we faced already, and whole kingdoms will fall to ruin under his heel. I know that Gimli, only a lad as he is now, will venture into Moria with his Fellowship and find the bodies of our very own Balin and Ori before losing Gandalf to Durin's Bane."

Thorin sucks in a breath. "Durin's Bane? It still lives in the depths?"

"Lives and rages, and my terrible Took cousin leads it right to them," Bilbo says, shaking his head. "I'd often thought Fili and Kili had been reborn as hobbits, when Meriadoc and Peregrin began their antics." Bilbo's mouth twitches into a smile, a familiar expression to Thorin and something Bilbo had been told he'd stopped doing on a rare visit from- well, he can't quite remember which dwarf it was who came to visit, actually. Only that they'd said he'd changed quite a bit, but it wasn't bad change- simply unexpected.

'Like you lot,' he remembers saying back, 'Nearly knocking down my door.' He remembers they'd laughed. He still can't place who it was. Perhaps his memory is not as sharp as he'd hoped it'd be, in this new life, new youth.

Now, in the New Present, Bilbo finally finds a suitable walking stick- it just needs a little adjusting and it'll be perfect.

"Now that, is an amusement," Thorin chuckles. "I can't imagine it."

"You won't have to, someday." Bilbo puts his hand on Thorin's arm. "I intend to make trips to Hobbiton every few years, after all- I should like to save dear Frodo's parents, save his heart from that grief, but I won't remove myself from his life for the sake of it. He'll go mad without my stories, as will little Sam. I hope you're prepared to have about... four more nephews."

Thorin's eyebrows raise. "Very presumptuous of you, Master Baggins."

Bilbo rises to his tip-toes and pecks Thorin's lips. "I don't believe it's an unfounded presumption, though. The mithril shirt is a bit of an obvious show, I think."

Thorin blushes.

"Worth more than the entire Shire, apparently. And here I'd tucked it into a chest for sixty years."

"Into a chest?"

"Don't look like that, I was in grief. Besides, I passed it to Frodo, and it apparently served him very well."

"I'm impatient to meet this nephew of yours. He sounds like he'd belong with us as much as you do."

"No, no. He's a brave, kind, worthy soul, but a soul who belongs to the little rivers and rolling hills of The Shire more than he belongs to the world at large. Perhaps it'll be different this time, with no need for a terrible quest, but I have some doubts. Still, I think you'll get along. He has great spirit."

Bilbo, arm-in-arm now with Thorin, leads them both back to the entrance. "Dain will do very well looking after Erebor while we journey, by the way. I'm sure you knew it already, but I thought it might help to know that he was a great ruler in my life passed- according to passing stories, anyway."

"It makes leaving no easier."

"I know." Bilbo rubs Thorin's arm with his thumb. "But we'll be home soon, Thorin. And then we can truly rebuild.”

Chapter Text

They're not even a day out from Erebor when, after a bit of somber silence at the knowledge of the quest ahead of them, Kili speaks up.

"So, Bilbo," he says. "Uncle tells us you knew two Hobbits who reminded you of us."

Bilbo chuckles merrily, puffing a pipe scrounged from the ruins even as he walks- they're not making much haste yet, still recovering from their journey to the mountain itself- they'd all been terribly pained to leave, but it couldn't be helped. Bilbo isn't sure if he can resist The Ring as Frodo did, and Gandalf agrees it's best to travel with a large band in case they are still yet hunted. Even with Azog gone, dangers roam the wildlands.

Even so, Bilbo drinks in this time with his long-ago companions, family, like a sapling tasting of rain for the first time in many long years among a desolate patch of land. "Going around telling all of my business, Thorin?" he teases.

"They'd asked about what you'd shared with me," Thorin says, a small quick of his lips showing he knew Bilbo's comment was in jest.

"Yes, I did know two hobbits quite like you boys," Bilbo says to Kili, and he hears Kili and Fili murmur to each other in excitement. "Steady now! You won't meet them for some time yet. But I have plenty of stories to share, if you like."

"I think we'd all enjoy a merry tale or two," Balin says, grimmer than the young princes. "We're not likely to see much merry ourselves on this journey."

"Exactly my thinking, Balin. Let's see, where to start... well, one of their grandest muck-abouts was at my own birthday, my hundred-eleventh near sixty years after returning home. Gandalf rode in for the party of course- we always kept a close friendship after the journey- and brought with him his magnificent fireworks."

"You make fireworks?" Bofur said in surprise, looking up at Gandalf.

"Indeed I do. They were the only thing Bilbo recalled about me when I came to his door."

"Yes, well, you brought many for my party, of course. I'd invited half the shire, and the other half had turned up anyway!" He let out a laugh. "And Merry and Pippin- nicknames spoken more often their their full names- they of course got themselves into a spot of trouble. They went and rifled through your cart, so I was told, and pulled out a firework in the visage of a dragon! I imagine you'd intended it as the party-ender show, and a treat for the children who adored my stories."

"You told hobbit children about this quest?" Dwalin looks at Bilbo skeptically.

"Oh, put away that look, Dwalin. I told them uh... approximations, of our journey. Close enough to inspire wonder and teach some valuable lessons, but changed a bit to add some fun. I made up a wonderful song for the incident with the spiders- ha! If only I'd thought of it in the moment and not years later." Bilbo smiles fondly as he talks, his pipe resting in the corner of his mouth and occasionally drawn and puffed from.

"You, singin' a song?" Nori snorts. "Can't imagine it."

"Hobbit sing often! I've come up with a good few myself, even along our quest. I just didn't find it entirely appropriate to sing them. But you're getting me off track! Merry and Pippin stole the dragon firework and lit it- inside one of the tents, Frodo told me they'd later discovered. Burnt and flung into the water by the flight. The dragon swooped down upon us all, and I remember- yes, I remember Frodo grabbing me and telling me there was a dragon, and I told him 'Nonsense! There hadn't been a dragon in these parts in a thousand years!' He pushed me to the ground as it flew overhead, and the whole of Hobbiton watched with baited breath as it flew away before bursting into showers of light! Quite a good show, we all thought, and I later saw the dirty faces of Merry and Pippin washing up the dishes as Gandalf smoked and watched."

Gandalf laughs now. "Perhaps this time around you'll get them to be better behaved."

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it," Bilbo ways with a glint in his eye. "I was just as bad by then."

"Got stuck with the sticky fingers, eh?" Nori grins approvingly.

"Not quite, Nori. But at the same party, oh I made it a night to truly remember. The memory is a bit soured now, knowing the nature of The Ring, but even so it's a good one."

"How did The Ring play into a party?" Ori is throughly confused between his two older brothers.

"Oh, I used it to get into all sorts of mischief over the years. In particular, I was prompted to go and give a speech as the party was reaching a natural high- and of course I'd planned to give one anyway. I got up on one of the ale barrels, and I remember exactly what I said, as I'd planned it for many weeks."

Bilbo clears his throat, and tries to adjust his voice to match his older tones more- a strange sensation to be sure.

"My dear Bagginses and Boffins, Tooks and Brandybucks! Grubbs, Chubbs, Hornblowers, Bolgers! Bracegirdles! And Proudfoots!"

He interrupts his own recreation to shakes his head. "Got that name wrong, but it drew a laugh from the crowd when he corrected me so it hardly ruined the event."

"That's a strange lot of names, laddie," Dwalin says.

"I could say the same about yours. All entirely respectable Hobbit families- well, depending upon who you ask. Now what came next... ah, yes."

"Today is my one-hundreth and eleventith birthday! But alas, eleventy-one years is far too short a time to live among such excellent and admirable hobbits. I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

It draws some surprised barks of laughter from the company, including Gandalf, and Bilbo thinks it might bite the end right off of the pipe if he smiles any harder hearing the laughs of his dear friends- Thorin, Fili, and Kili most of all.

"The looks on their faces! They didn't grasp onto it very well, and the ones who did didn't appreciate it! But I knew it'd bring amusement somewhere, in some day."

"I'm going to use that whenever we have to start sitting in on Court Meetings," Kili snickers.

"You will do no such thing," Thorin warns.

"Let the boys have a bit of fun, Thorin," Bilbo chides. "Life is too short to not, even when it's longer than an age. Otherwise you may end up like Thranduil did- took many years of tense teatimes to soften him up, I tell you. Don't give me that look you lot, there's few others to talk with in those lands and by the time I awake back here I'd spoken to just about every elf many lifetimes over. Now, I went to say- I feigned a bit of nervousness here to sell it, and don't allow anyone to tell you otherwise, purely for show did I stumble on my words and I include them now to give the most accurate impression of the event-"

"I uh, I ha-have things to do. And here I reached into my pocket, and pulled out The Ring so that no-one saw it, and put my hands behind my back. And I went on to mutter a bit to myself- nasty habit I picked up on this very quest- and put my attention on Frodo."

"I regret, to announce, this, is the end. I'm going now. I bid you all a very fond farewell. Goodbye."

The company are all leaning in, enraptured- including Gandalf, though there's a worry to his expression not unlike when he'd heard the speech the first time around.

"And in front of the whole of Hobbiton, I vanished! There one moment, completely gone in the next! The crowd went into an uproar, of course, or as much of one as a party of well-drunk and fed hobbits can be. I raced back up to Bag End and didn't take The Ring off until I got back inside and shut my door."

Bilbo near giggles at the memory. "Oh, the looks on their faces! I got quite a scolding from Gandalf afterwards, as you can imagine. Magic rings are not to be taken lightly, and of course in the moment I couldn't imagine why that was. And then, ah..."

"Well, then it turned to a moment more befitting of the evil The Ring holds. But even then, the memory of that final great prank kept me smiling and laughing for many years!"

"... Well... if it wasn't such an evil ring, I'd ask you to borrow it and do something similar," Kili admits, smiling. "Can you imagine, Fili?"

"And you'd rally us all up into a search party," the eldest brother says with a small smile. "Imagine Nori with an ability like that. None of us would be able to find anything ever again."

"Perhaps," Balin interrupts, "We shouldn't speak so lightly of the powers it gives. Temptation is easily felt, and not so easily dismissed."

Fili and Kili share a look, and then nod.

"We didn't mean anything by it," Fili says.

"Purely admiring our own Bilbo Baggins becoming a mischief maker," Kili adds.

"And I've got plenty more mischief left, once this whole nasty business is done," Bilbo says, head held high and smile bright with amusement.

Chapter Text

Mordor is much closer to The Lonely Mountain than Bilbo had ever fully realized– though still a great distance away, he already begins to feel a heft to The Ring around his neck that he recalls Frodo describing to him, with distant eyes and hands tightly clasped together to keep form reaching for the long-destroyed piece of gold. Bilbo says nothing of it, yet, knowing worse is to come the closer it gets to it’s true master.

The leagues between Erebor and Mordor are largely bare, fields and little else, which has Bilbo keeping a watchful eye on the skies above.

It’s about a week into the journey that Kili, having taken the habit of looking up whenever Bilbo does, asks why.

“Frodo encountered many spies and dangers from above, on his journey.” Bilbo looks back down and sighs. “I suppose we needn’t worry as such, Sauron weakened as he is at the moment, but better to be cautious and caught a fool than to be confident and caught unawares.”

“What kind of dangers?” Dwalin looks up now, reaching for the axes on his back.

Bilbo sits as Bombur hands him a bowl of stew. “Fell birds, or maybe bats, for one, spying on them in great gatherings like clouds. And these… beasts, the Black Riders used, swooping above them in the Dead Marshes…”

“The Dead Marshes?” Gandalf is grim behind the smoke of his pipe. “And you say the creature Gollum lead them there?”

“Frodo always insisted his intentions were true at that time– even with the later betrayal. ‘Smegol led us through the marshes, saved me from drowning,’ he would say, ‘It was Gollum that did the rest.’ True or not, the riders hunted them.”

“Will they be hunting us?” Fili asks, as all of The Company suddenly tense and huddle, starting to watch the horizons with more suspicion.

“Well, I don’t think Sauron knows about us yet,” Bilbo says, “And if he does I don’t know that he has those creatures.”

“What were these riders?” Gandalf looks to the south. “Orcs?”

“Nazgûl.”

Gandalf’s pipe falls from his lips. The Company all still.

“The Nine,” Gandalf says. He needs no confirmation, but Bilbo nods nonetheless.

“I know you faced them just before returning to us,” Bilbo says, voice low and soft, eyes distant as he sees not Gandalf The Grey, but Gandalf The White, sitting with him in Valinor telling him the tale on a half-lucid afternoon when Bilbo had screamed at him for abandoning them only to return ‘now when it’s all too late’. “I know Lady Galadriel cast Sauron back into Mordor while we were busy in The Mountain. I know they… they hunted Frodo, through his entire journey, and even almost claimed him as one of their own.”

“Claimed him?” Bofur shudders a little. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve never really been sure how it worked,” Bilbo says, still distant, still lost in memory. “Kili was only dying, after all, not… transformed. But a Morgul Blade pierced my nephew’s shoulder, and if it weren’t for Lady Arwen then Frodo would have become a wraith as well.”

Kili pales, reaching down to rub the scar the poisoned arrow had left even with Tauriel’s interference. How horrifying a thought, that his slow and sick death was the kinder of the outcomes one faced with a Morgul Weapon.

Bilbo is a bit pale as well, and he shakes himself, sniffing and twitching his nose. “But it won’t happen again, thanks to what we do now.”

“How do we fight them?” Dwalin fully pulls out his axe and holds it as though to begin sparring. “Can they be killed?”

“No.” Gandalf uses his staff to push Dwalin’s axe down, making Dwalin scowl and jerk his weapon away. “The Nine are already among the dead, and bound to the existence of their master. Though there is a prophecy foretelling the demise of their leader–”

“Confound it!” Bilbo’s sudden outburst is such a sharp sound in the growing tension that everyone reaches for their weapons. Bilbo rubs his eyes with one hand and pinches the bridge of his nose. “We should’ve asked Tauriel along! Unless Man means the race, but would we ever be so lucky?”

“Why would we need Tauriel?” murmurs almost all of The Company, some louder and more offended than others.

“The prophecy says no man can kill the Witch-King. In my time it was Lady Eowyn of Rohan who killed him, with a bit of help from Merry. His arm always has this terrible twitch to it after…”

Gandalf looks at Bilbo with interest. “What more can you tell us of the Lady Eowyn and Merry?”

“Well, not so much, I’m afraid, for Lady Eowyn. Frodo had been long separated from his Fellowship by the time she got involved, and though Merry gave his accounts and swore to Frodo they were all true they seem a bit… grand.”

Bilbo is fixed with a round of unimpressed looks.

“... Right, well… yes, I suppose I don’t have any room to talk there. Ahem.”

He relays to them as much of the story as he knows, and more importantly is sure he’s remembering reliably, with Gandalf taking in every word as a scholar might and The Company taking them in as warriors trading battle tales. Bilbo finds himself slipping into habits and tones and movements of when he told his stories to faunts around the campfire– he even catches himself almost softening parts of the tale, quite a few more times than he’d like to admit. By the end of the tale a quick camp has been set, a quick meal of dried meats hanging from the lips of the invested dwarves, and the last drops of some rationed ale used to toast Lady Eowyn of the Rohirram and Merry Brandybuck of Buckland.

Fili wipes his mouth first. “Do you think they’ll manage to meet again now, after we’ve changed everything?”

“Course they will.” Nori flips a dagger, grinning every time Dori bristles when it looks like it might land blade-to-palm. “We’ll jus’ invite her to Erebor!”

Ori looks at his older brother with a slightly confused expression. “But… The Shire isn’t on the way from Rohan to The Mountain.”

“Yeah. Who said anythin’ abou’ The Shire? The lads’ll be in The Mountain plen’y, with Bilbo around.” Nori gestures at their Hobbit confidently. “Won’ they?”

“I hadn’t planned on kidnapping any faunts, Nori, no,” Bilbo deadpans.

“Me neither.”

“Then they probably won’t be coming our way anytime soon. For all the foolish, wild nature of the Tooks and the Brandybucks, this is… different. And-and the Bagginses and the Gamgees… they’d never even entertain the thought.” Bilbo leans against Thorin a little, and the king, still always somewhat surprised when Bilbo does these small, casual showings of his affection and trust, puts his arm around his hobbit after only a moment.

Bifur huffs, loudly, and mumbles something to his cousins. Bofur and Bombur both nod.

“It’ll be a bit o’ a hassle, bu’ we’ll do alrigh’.”

Bilbo narrows his eyes at the Urs. “Alright with… what?”

“Ta’in’ trips to Hobbiton an’ back,” Bombur says. “You can’t go alone.”

“Right, an’ the royals will be drownin’ in politics for years, so it’ll be up to the less impor’ant of us.” 

Bilbo makes a noise in his throat like a cut-off whine. 

“We can hardly deprive The Shire of their best hobbit,” Thorin says softly. 

And in the soft light of the setting sun Bilbo cries with hope for a future where he’ll have his whole family, Hobbit and Dwarf alike.