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It was cold his first night back in Bag End. The kind of cold that forced any memories of warmth from his mind. He slept fitfully, thrashing beneath the blankets and pressing his forehead into the floor. If he had the mind he’d sleep beneath the stars–comforted by the grass, and the roaring fire, and the soft snores of a king just feet away. But the king was gone, and he was home, not on a journey. He had a bed, comfort, and a soft fire that did not cover the sounds of his sobs.
The neighbors scoffed at the chimney smoke–a fire in June? But Bilbo was cold, so cold.
In the morning, he began to move his furniture back into place. He threw his travel pack beneath his bed with intention, and he thrust himself back into his life before.
It was winter by the time he unpacked his bag.
He had framed the map and hung it in the foyer as a prize piece–a declaration of his wisdom and adventures. Though most well-wishers that visited unprompted simply glared at it, as if it held the power to force them on their own journey. He moved it to his bedroom after the third hobbit to gaze at it with contempt.
In a way he felt it was his last piece of Thorin, his map to home, the home he never fully got to enjoy.
Bilbo was ignoring the Yuletide celebrations when he carefully crawled beneath his mattress, grabbed his pack and sprawled out on the floor. The leather was dusty, it had sat under his bed for the better part of a year.
The buckle felt like hot iron against his fingertips. He pried it apart, listening to the stretch of the leather as it creaked and waned until his past was in front of him again. He had taken very little with him back home. The gold of course, but that came later, at the behest of Balin. Sting, the map, the contract–those all lingered around Bag End.
Thus, the bag held very little. Just the daily objects he needed along the road–except the handkerchief. The first thing his hand touched was a small dagger. No bigger than his hand itself, he grasped at the handle, which was bejeweled in gems of blue, the hilt shaped like the point of a crown. It had been given to him by Thorin–high on the Eagle’s edge. Bilbo gasped for breath, then set the dagger on the floorboards, shivering at the soft thud like it carried more weight than could be known.
Then came a wooden troll.
Bofur had whittled it for him by the fire. Bilbo had been swallowed by misery and homesickness; the trolls had reignited it within him like a lightning storm. At the moment, he had wanted nothing more than to be in his armchair, though now as he brushed the splinters away, he wished to be by the fire-touched grass. Bofur saw him sitting in his woe, and toymaker as he was, whittled away until the fears of the trolls were naught but a story. Bilbo had laughed at the toy and suddenly the world didn’t feel too big.
The fireside nights were his favorite part of the journey. Bilbo was able to rest his feet and mind, join in the bubbles of laughter and the sweet memories they all had.
He remembered how they lingered by the fire–the stories he told were mostly stolen from books and Gandalf's own tales. All but one, which kept the company in high spirits for the reminder of the night, even well into the next day. Chittering away on their ponies, all at Bilbo's expense.
"When I was a lad," Bilbo had said in response to Fili and Kili's childhood antics.
"I wished for nothing more than to fly." The group filtered into drunken hiccups and guffaws, even Thorin cracked a smile. Bilbo remembered thinking how beautiful he looked in the firelight, skin taut with joy for the first time since the journey had begun. He started up again, eager to see that movement again.
"Well, naturally, as you know, Hobbits do not fly. As most people don't! But stubborn as I was--Gandalf can attest--I emptied to pillows all around the house, every single one was devoid of feathers at the end. And I tied them to my arms with twine, a precarious craft, it took me all night. Then, in the morning, before the sun could crest, I climbed to the grass roof of my hill and jumped." So lost in revelry was he that he didn't notice the group had quieted, looking forth with anticipation. Bilbo made eye contact with Thorin, he held his gaze for a moment before breaking it to stare into the fire.
"I broke both arms." The company roared, when he looked up again, his heart nearly stopped beating at Thorin's bright smile, eyes still stuck on his. He held his gaze firmly. "But for a moment I did fly! I felt the wind beneath me like I had caught the air in my wings."
"And then you hit the ground," said Thorin, a smugness framed his smile.
Bilbo laughed, sheepishly tugging on his nape. "And then I hit the ground."
His fingers touched parchment, and his hand pulled back like he had been shocked. Some memories carry more than just sorrow, some of them carry the pain of the future, the wretched knowledge of what should have been. What could never be.
A far off laugh ripped Bilbo from his dreadful stupor, he had stared at the bag, and the yellowing parchment now peeking out, for what felt like hours. Bilbo whispered a curse and carefully pulled the letter from the leather bag. His hands shook, the letter trembled in the air as if it too was terrified of its contents.
Slowly, he pried the wax seal with his nails feeling it gather beneath like dried blood–he shook that thought from his head. When he opened it, his eyes instantly read the first words–
Dear, Thorin
Bilbo closed the letter, far too forceful for parchment. “Damn you, Balin,” he whispered. His eyes stared out into Bag End, it's cold interior–he had forgotten to decorate this year. Bilbo could see the cracks forming along the walls, the ivory paint older than he. His eyes glazed with forbidden tears, and he watched as his home melted into another memory.
The day had been filled with fear and a certain aspect of camaraderie. But Bilbo was certainly happy to have found solace in Rivendell, even with the Dwarves' quiet complaints. They had refused separate rooms gathering around the fire on an edge of Lord Elrond’s golden halls. Bilbo was too afraid to sleep by himself, surrounded by Elves, so he blamed the need for warmth on his being there.
Bofur once again caught the general down-heartedness of the group and arranged an activity. He shredded pieces of Ori’s notebook–much to his chagrin, though he still took his portion with a giggling excitement–and handed them out to each of the company. Even Gandalf got a piece. Bilbo wondered now what the wizard had written.
“A letter to our future selves?” Thorin had said, as bitter as usual. Bilbo gazed down at his own parchment, if he had to, he’d ask his future self if Lobelia had ransacked his precious Bag End while he was gone.
Bofur had hummed, “aye. Something to open when we retake Erebor! Write it down lads, ask your future self questions!”
The company got to furious scribbling, Bilbo penned down a few questions here and there, he hadn’t taken it too seriously. For the most part he watched Thorin, his grimace was gone as he leaned over his scrap of parchment. The worry seemed to fall from his eyes–he was writing to a king, who lived gloriously in his halls of stone.
A group of high-pitched carolers grew closer to his door–he lowered himself, so he was flat against the ground, letting the cold of the wood seep into his thin tunic. In a way he was hiding from both the carolers and the letter, which laid now beside his head. Just as Thorin once did.
Balin must have slipped it into his bag before he left Erebor, the elder Dwarf was always meddling. Bilbo scooped the parchment up, holding it above his face. The firelight made it seem see-through, as thin as Bilbo felt. Featherlight in his hands.
“Featherlight,” he whispered out loud. His huff of a laugh carried no humor, only serving to surround him in a fog of breath.
Bilbo cleared his throat and blinked the tears out of his vision, they fell against his temples and washed away in his hair. The carolers had arrived at his door, but with no answer or movement inside, he heard them step away–their song leaving with them. With a sniffle, he began to read.
Dear, Thorin
The words, unuttered, tasted bitter in his mouth. Bilbo drew in a breath, mounting his courage to keep going.
You are king now, I assume. Have the halls welcomed you? And of Smaug? Was the pest dead already? How good it must be to be back in the halls of my father. The gold is nothing to the warmth of the forges, to the glory of Erebor and its bustling city. The journey goes well, despite our current pitstop. The burglar seems glad to be in comfort again. I admit I do not have much to ask you. In truth, I find this activity as foolish as any. In the end, I doubt I will read this, or find much use in answering such questions. My final question, however, will be this - did we do our forefathers proud?
In typical Thorin fashion, amongst the letter he had created a checklist, all the squares were empty, a fact that tugged on Bilbo’s heart a little too hard. Only one truly caught his eye– tell him it said, beside his own name.
Bilbo rolled to his side, careening himself into a fetal position. The tears kept coming and he let them fall and splatter onto the parchment. He pressed his forehead into letter, grounding his skull into the hard wood beneath it–desperate for some part of Thorin to appear. His foolish act of forgetting, of forcing himself to ignore the pain that thundering in his chest for the past six months had led to nothing but a complete disintegration of strength. In the end, it was like he was right back on Ravenhill.
He imagined the last months differently had Thorin survived, battered and bruised, but alive. Would he be walking through the door of Bag End now? Visiting for the holiday, no crown weighing upon his head, bearing only his kindness and devotion for the hobbit.
Bilbo smiled faintly, caught up in his fantasy.
Yes, Thorin would walk in right as the sun had gone down–late as always. Bilbo would greet him with an aching kiss and a hot cup of tea, he would act surprised when Thorin produced a gift from his bag, like he didn’t know the Dwarf king was truly in love with him.
Bilbo’s dream for life had been so different before the trip, he reconciled with the desire for a partner, someone to share his life with. And slowly over the months abroad, he realized he would share his life with no one but Thorin–how despairing it was to find Thorin would not be there for that.
Tender bruises began to form on his spine, the floorboards having weathered away at his shuddering bones. Bilbo listened to joy outside his windows, Yuletide songs floated in and played with the hymn of his sorrow, children’s shrieks and laughter pounded against his heart.
He closed his eyes and rested against the letter, dreaming up a life where the joy wasn’t so out of reach.