Chapter Text
It was a beautiful spring day. Bilba woke up early and took her time getting ready. She chose her favorite dress, a dark red one with a gold design that had once belonged to her mother. She'd always been enamored with it, a bright splash of color that stood out against the more neutral tones that most in the Shire tended to wear.
After her mother's death, it had been the only dress of hers that Bilba had been able to bear seeing. It was the dress she always saw her mother wearing in her memories and having it on made her feel closer to the other woman.
The sound of birds chirping outside her window beckoned so she quickly fixed her hair, made herself a cup of tea and headed outside with one of her favorite books. The action was aborted when she realized how cool it still was, so she returned to grab a shawl before trying again.
Once finally outside, she sat on the bench at the foot of her walkway and settled back to watch the day start. The silence was peaceful, broken only by birdsong, the rustle of leaves and the faint sounds of her fellow hobbits readying themselves for the day.
She took a sip of her tea, hiding a grimace at the taste, then set it down in favor of her book. She kept half her attention on it, and half on her surroundings so she could greet those who passed by.
At one point, her Aunt Linda wandered past and she set her book down to exchange a few pleasantries with the other woman. Aunt Linda invited her to go to the market with her, but Bilba politely turned her down.
Instead, she returned to her book, idly swinging her legs as she read. She should really invest in a swing. How amazing would that be, getting to sink amongst the cushions and gently swing back and forth whilst reading about grand adventures in far off lands?
Oh, yes, she was definitely seeing about getting a swing, just as soon as she was finished with this chapter.
So engrossed was she in her book, and dreams about her swing, that she utterly failed to notice the large shadow that had fallen over her until an amused sound came from right beside her.
She jumped in surprise and looked up, and up, to see an elderly man in a gray robe, holding a walking stick standing beside her bench. For some reason, he looked vaguely familiar though she couldn't imagine where she'd have ever seen him before.
No matter, though, for he was clearly here now, and she was being ever so rude to simply stare at him like he was some sort of oddity.
Bilba smiled up at the old man. The sun was warm, the grass was green and when she spoke it was with all the innocence and cheer that seemed to draw other races to want to protect and watch over the Shire and its inhabitants.
"Good morning!"
***
"Hello, Gandalf."
Instead of answering, Gandalf sank down on the bench beside her, settled his staff between his knees, and gave a long exhale. As he did, he almost seemed to deflate, sagging into the bench seat and back until it was fully supporting his weight.
For several long minutes the two simply sat, staring out over the Shire. It had been nice when she'd actually been this young, Bilba thought. She'd been able to live as if the Shire was all there was. Like there weren't a host of Rangers, and even elves, spending their own sweat and blood to keep the darkness at bay.
She hadn't trusted them, the Rangers. No hobbit did. They were outsiders, always skulking about through the woods, keeping to themselves and rarely entering the Shire itself.
How much of that, Bilba wondered, was because they knew the distrust they would face? And yet, they hadn't stopped watching over the Shire. They'd kept protecting a people who not only never showed gratitude but were almost openly hostile to them.
"I wondered about you," she said finally, breaking the peace. Peace would always be broken, because peace wasn't the norm. It was an aberration, a brief bubble that was far too fragile to last very long. "I first met you as a child, then a young adult and then later, and you know what I finally realized?" He didn't answer, which was fine. She'd learned not to expect answers, and certainly not from him. "You've always looked exactly as you do now. Never younger, never older. Not a single gray hair or wrinkle more or less than the last time I saw you." For the first time, she turned her head to face him, and found him already looking back. "That's not a body," she said simply, "it's a suit, and one you wear poorly."
"And yet it took you more than a single lifetime to notice," Gandalf said, with some amusement, "so perhaps not so poorly after all."
Bilba made a noise of disgust and looked away from him again.
Gandalf gave a second sigh. "I had hoped to perhaps find you different when I arrived."
"So harsh," Bilba said, dryly. She tilted her head to give him a sidelong look. "You wanted her, and yet you came anyway? Why? Breaking me once wasn't enough for you?"
"I wished to meet her one last time," Gandalf answered, a look of sadness crossing his face. He'd always blamed himself for how she'd ended up, not that she'd ever blamed him in return. She'd been pathetic before, unable to even ride a horse correctly, much less defend herself. She'd needed to grow up, and grow up she had, painful as it had been. "And then I would have left her in peace." He seemed like he would continue for a moment, but then simply closed his mouth and stayed silent.
"So harsh," Bilba repeated in a whisper. She could feel the last of her panic washing away as she fell into a familiar pattern with a familiar face. She'd always had a vague idea about Gandalf being more than he liked to pretend he was. He was always so concerned about her failure to age, but completely ignored the fact that he never did either. Eighty years she'd known him, and he had never changed. When she'd woken that morning, she'd had the smallest hope that somehow, someway, he might know what had happened. There was no real logic to it that she could find but, then again, what logic had she been able to find to any of this?
She crossed her arms, and stretched one leg out, glaring in irritation at how thin and undefined said leg was. She doubted she could outrun a squirrel at her current level, let alone an orc or goblin. Or wolf, though she'd never really outrun one of those so much as made it to the nearest tree and waited until the damn thing got bored.
"So now what?" she asked, voice sharp, when it appeared Gandalf wasn't going to speak.
"I don't know," Gandalf said simply.
Bilba's eyes widened, and her heart jolted in her chest. "You don't know?" she asked in surprise. "You don't know?"
"Contrary to popular opinion, it does happen from time to time," the wizard replied, amused. "I've not been given the information and, if that is the case, it simply means I am not meant to know it yet."
Bilba rolled her eyes, "You and your 'it must have been meant' speech." She deepened her voice as she said it, deliberately mocking the grave tone he liked to use when he tried to insist that everything happened for a reason. He, as usual, simply ignored her. "How about you do something different for a change and give it an educated guess? You've been around long enough, you should be able to come up with something."
She was being rude but couldn't particularly bring herself to care. She was about to embark on a journey that could well force her to relive her worst day and she felt the least life could do was tell her why.
"I would assume," Gandalf said dryly, "that there is something we are expected to fix, though what it is, I cannot say." He frowned at her, that irritating look of pity in his eyes that she'd never wanted or needed. "I do not know why this day was chosen. While much was lost on this journey--"
"It was still a success," Bilba cut in shortly. "The dragon was killed, Erebor was restored."
People lost the ones they loved every day, for a variety of reasons. There was nothing so very special about her that would warrant resetting a successful quest simply to give her a second chance to get through it without loss.
History recorded the quest, and the resulting Battle of Five Armies, as a victory. Dain had taken the throne and proven an excellent king, just and wise and ruling in Thorin's stead to the best of his ability. No matter how much Bilba might have resented him being the one to sit on the throne, she'd never questioned his right.
"Regardless," Gandalf continued. "I do believe it has something to do with you."
Bilba pulled her leg up on the chair and wrapped her arms around it. "And why is that?"
"Because there are many in the world who may well be aware of what has happened to one extent or another," Gandalf said simply. "You should not be one of them."
"Lucky me," Bilba muttered.
Her mind went back to the forest, and she suppressed a shudder. There was a mark on her back, in the exact spot where she'd been stabbed. She'd seen it while getting dressed. It was a small oval, lighter than the surrounding skin, and strangely cool to the touch. She might have thought it was a strange birthmark, save for the fact she'd never had one there before.
Getting stabbed had hurt. Was that how it had felt for him? For all three of them? Thorin had been beyond pain by the time she'd reached him, eyes already going glassy, and breathing shallow.
"Go back to your books...and your armchair. Plant your trees...watch them grow. If more people valued home above gold, this world would be a merrier place."
She sucked in a harsh breath, and her vision blurred. A stab of pure pain shot through her and she tightened her fingers into her leg.
Mahal, she hadn't thought of that in years, and that was intentional. She didn't want to think of that, or anything that came before it.
Damn it all, and damn that stupid ring.
She reached up surreptitiously to wipe at her eyes, and then focused on the dirt in front of the bench. "Do you remember that ring I found?" When Gandalf simply looked confused, she added, "The one I found on the quest. You know, in--"
Footsteps shuffled in the dirt as a hobbit she didn't recognize shambled by and she snapped her mouth shut.
That ring.
She didn't know what was so special about it. It had made her invisible a time or two but, aside from that, had simply lain in her pocket most of the time. Gandalf hadn't thought it particularly special, simply cautioning her on using it as "magic of any sort is not something to be used lightly."
It was just a ring.
A ring she'd been hunted down and killed for.
A ring that, even then, should be lying somewhere beneath the Misty Mountains.
But the only person who knew that was her.
And Gandalf.
She frowned. Someone had sent her back, and she doubted it was anyone with a connection to her killers. They'd won. They'd done what they set out to do, and then promptly had it undone...by who? The Valar? Eru?
Just what in the world had those creatures who'd attacked her been?
Just what in the world had that ring been?
She frowned, and cast a sidelong look toward Gandalf. They hadn't always seen eye to eye...usually hadn't, if she were being honest, but that didn't change the fact that she'd always respected him. Always understood that he had a level of power she could never attain, even if he rarely showed it for some reason.
Always understood, as she understood now, that she trusted him.
"I need to talk to you," she said shortly, pushing to her feet. "But not here.”
She headed toward her doorway, and heard Gandalf coming behind her. This was going to take a while, she thought sourly as they reached her doorway.
At least she'd have a use for that entire pot of tea Linda had made.
Gandalf actually liked the stuff.
***
"The ring of what?"
"Sauron," Gandalf said shortly, hands tight around the cup Bilba had given him. They were seated on either side of her kitchen table, an indeterminate amount of time after Bilba had told him exactly what had happened before she woke up in Bag End. She'd made sure the windows and doors were all closed before she started, and the silence hung so heavy it had an almost physical weight to it. "The Nazgul hunt the ring, and if they targeted you then--"
"It means I had the ring." Bilba swore quietly and ran her hands through the remnants of her hair. "So, apparently, I was carrying the one ring of Sauron around for a few decades."
"It would appear so," Gandalf said, gravely. "As it would appear my failure concerning you, and Middle Earth as a whole is even greater than I had thought."
"You always were melodramatic," Bilba said with exasperation. She sighed and shoved back in her seat. "So what? I got sent back because they got the ring? I didn't even know Sauron was still around."
"He has been back for quite some time," Gandalf explained, "or had been. Of late he had been gaining strength, enough to send out the Nine in search of his ring. Had it returned to him, all of Middle Earth would have been blanketed in a second darkness."
"And so time itself was reset." Bilba crossed her arms and resisted the urge to throw something. "In an attempt to prevent that from happening. It still doesn't answer the question of why here, and why now? Why not five minutes earlier, or a day? Why not the last time I saw you, or the last time I was in Erebor and surrounded by an army of dwarves?"
"I don't know." Gandalf looked haggard and, for the first time, Bilba thought he looked old. She knew, objectively, that he was old, but he never really looked or acted like it. There was a vitality and power to him that always belied his age, except for right now.
A thought occurred to her and Bilba's stomach knotted inside her. "Is Sauron around now?" she asked, voice quiet. "Or the Nazgul? Do they know what happened?"
If they did, and thought the ring had returned to her possession...
The mark on her back throbbed and what felt like a wave of ice rushed through her. At the same time, the room itself seemed to darken, as if a shadow had passed over the sun.
"Sauron's power was extremely weak during this time when first I encountered him." Gandalf's voice was strong and, as if a spell had been broken, the darkness lifted at the sound of it. Light returned, and Bilba felt muscles that she hadn't known were tense, relax as warmth returned to her body. "The Nine were released from their bindings, but Sauron did not possess the strength needed to give them physical form." The troubled look returned to his face. "As for what he, or those who serve him may know, it is impossible to say."
"Until they come knocking on my door," Bilba said darkly. It was probably for the best she was leaving then, after all. She made a mental note to make it known she was no longer in the Shire, but not where she was going. If she were being hunted, the last thing she wanted was to draw anything here in her absence.
Aside from that, however, the knowledge, and possibility, didn't particularly bother her. The line of Durin, as it turned out, had a lot of enemies. With the main branch gone, and the rest safely within Erebor, those enemies had turned on whoever they could get to satisfy their grudge. More often than not, it had ended up being her.
She'd returned the favor as often as she could, and usually with extreme prejudice. One of the reasons she'd taken to living in the Wild was it so was much harder to find her there. It should be the same again after she left on the quest. She'd be gone, and anyone sent after her would be left scratching their heads.
She hoped.
"So what do we do?" she asked.
"Go on the quest," Gandalf said simply. "Sauron has little power at the moment. If we are very lucky, the quest will go as before but, this time, we will know what we have when we find it. We shall reclaim Erebor, destroy the ring, and end the threat of Sauron once and for all."
"What if I don't want it to go as before?" Bilba asked quietly. "What if I want things to be different?"
Gandalf gave her a troubled look. "We have no idea what things might change if--"
"You're already planning to change things," Bilba said sharply. "The ring wasn't destroyed in the first timeline. It sat in my pocket for eighty years, until I got stabbed in the back so a bunch of bastards in dark cloaks could take it." She leaned forward, hands gripping the edge of the table. "What does it matter, if the end result is the same? If the dragon still dies, Erebor is still reclaimed, and the ring destroyed? You know damn well Thorin would have been a great king, and his nephews deserved to stand beside him."
Her voice had risen as she spoken, until she was almost shouting the last. Through it all, Gandalf simply stared at her with that same look of pity on his face. Bilba wanted to reach across the table and slap it off him.
"You don't have to --" he started to say, but she cut him off before he could continue.
"Don't give me that," she said shortly. "That girl is gone, and she isn't coming back. I'm glad she's gone. She was weak, and pathetic, and people died because of her ineptitude. Thorin was right. You had no business taking her on that quest.." Her voice wavered, and it occurred to her that was the first time she'd spoken Thorin's name, any of their names, out loud in decades. "But what's done is done. You did take her, and now she's gone and I'm here and I'm damn well going the second time. I deserve to go," she continued. "I'm trained," or she would be soon enough, "and I have the experience. I also know where the ring is, and how to get it." She leveled her gaze on him, the one Dwalin had once called terrifying in its intensity. "I'll get the ring back, and I'll make sure things go right this time. Erebor, the dragon, all of it."
There was silence for a long time, and Bilba could almost see the counter arguments running behind Gandalf's eyes. She could almost hear them in her own ears. She also knew she could counter every last one of the, not that it mattered. They could argue until that first knock on the door and, no matter what had been said up to that point, she'd still end up going. Going, but with one major difference. Last time, she'd done things their way. Followed orders, stood back and watched, let others with more experience and knowledge point the way.
Not this time.
This time, she'd be doing it her way.
She'd already decided, and if he knew her at all then he damn well knew it.
Resignation filled his eyes and a tired smile graced his face. When he spoke, Bilba already knew what he was going to say, and wished she could say she felt a sense of triumph instead of an overwhelming sensation of doom.
"So be it."
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