Posted in honor of Aragorn's Birthday.

;Chapter One: A Mother's Plight;

Bilbo Baggins was extremely annoyed.

He was sitting indoors while outside the sky was rosy, a clear evening soon to fall and stars about to appear. On a night like this, why anything could happen! But here he was, eating dinner in his customary position atop three pillows, with the Sackville Bagginses. His mother, Belladonna Baggins (formerly Took) was doing her best to entertain them, a rather strained smile stretched across her features. The Sackville Bagginses' visit was unexpected and certainly unwelcome, but as the Baggins were gentle - hobbits they really didn't have much choice in the matter. Bilbo growled and clanged his fork against his plate impatiently.

"Quite a nice hobbit-hole you have here," Otho Sackville-Baggins said politely. Bilbo coughed loudly and pointedly into his elbow. He wasn't so naive that he didn't know the Sackville-Bagginses true intentions: Everyone knew that they wanted nothing more than to get their fat hobbit hands on Bag-end, Under-hill.

Belladonna turned to Bilbo and gave him a stern look as Otho and Lobelia helped themselves to more bread and butter. Bilbo pretended not to notice. A feeling of disquiet was coming over him as he watched Otho's dark eyes sweep around the room when he thought Belladonna wasn't looking. They seemed too intelligent, too calculating. No, this was not an ordinary visit between good friends - quite the opposite.

"Bilbo?" Lobelia said sweetly as he made to rise from the table. "Where are you going?" There was a hint of menace behind her words as she gazed at him with her beautiful, dark-brown doe eyes. Bilbo clenched his teeth and sat down again. He wasn't about to get away that easily.

"Bilbo, you silly boy, you took my glass!" his mother said to him as he sat. Bilbo noticed that his mother already a goblet of her own, unnoticed by her elbow, but was too annoyed to comment. Let her drink his water for all he cared.

Oh! if only Hazel were here! he thought. She would know what to do! The right prank to pull on nasty old Otho and his wife Lobelia would occur to her in a twinkling, and with a glimmer in her bright green eyes… he sighed. But no. She wasn't here, and that was that: There was nothing he could do to help it. Meanwhile he had to endure the rest of this dreadful dinner with no chances of escape.

; ;

Hazel's hobbit hole was small and rather cramped even by normal standards; compared to Bag-End it was downright minute. At this moment she was gloomily clearing the table and gazing out the small, dirty windows that framed Bag-End in the distance. This didn't help her mood, which was right down at the tips of her furry toes at the moment. Oh, if only Bilbo would come by! But he had been shut up in Bag-End for over a day now, and there were rumors of the Sackville-Bagginses' presence in Hobbiton. That never boded well. Bilbo's father, Bungo, wasn't exactly chums with them.

Hazel sighed and turned away from the door, making for the pantry with an armful of dishes. If she had to wait one more day without knowing what was going on up there, she swear she'd -

The door burst open with a bang. Hazel screamed and dropped her armful of dishes with an almighty crash that resounded through the hobbit hole, magnified a hundred times. Slowly she turned toward the door, and when she saw who it was she was torn between anger, frustration, and relief.

"Bilbo!" she cried, vainly trying to scoop up the shattered cutlery. "What has hap - ?" She stopped mid sentence and stared at Bilbo.

His brown hair was tousled as if from a strong wind, the color drained from his face. His hands were shaking. His eyes were wider than Hazel had ever seen them, and the longer she stared at him and the longer he stared back she realized that he wasn't blinking. Just staring, but although he was staring at her he wasn't seeing her - he was in another world, his thoughts far away from her.

"Bilbo?" Hazel said tentatively. "Please um...sit down, and I'll get you a cup of tea, and maybe some apple tart?" She gazed around at the sea of broken china helplessly. Bilbo didn't respond. Instead he turned and looked out the window, remaining there for several seconds, silent and still, a solitary monolith with furry feet.

"By the Valar, Hazel, my mother..."

The words were sharp and brittle like broken glass, piercing Hazel's ears and sending an icy chill down her spine. They expanded throughout the room, enveloping it in a thick cold silence. Hazel shivered.

"What about her?" she whispered anxiously.

"Hazel, she's ill. So very ill. And there's nothing I can do." He was silent for a moment, then cried brokenly, "Hazel, she's going to die, I'm afraid she's going to die!"

Hazel's muscles were momentarily frozen; for a moment she couldn't process the words, they were so large and terrible. But then instinct kicked in, and something like fire went through her veins. She said calmly but firmly, "You're wrong. There is something we can do. There always is." She jerked her chin towards the round hobbit-hole door. "C'mon. We're going to get a doctor."

; ;

Later Bilbo wished with all his heart that he had paid more attention, looked more carefully. Otherwise he might have stopped it. Alas, he was too absorbed in his after-dinner chocolate pudding to be aware of anything else.

He was eating the last couple of mouthfuls while the Sackville Bagginses were saying their goodbyes, taking tiny bites so that he might prolong the enjoyment of his treat. The hobbit hole door finally slammed and Bilbo regretfully licked the dregs of the pudding from his spoon and pushed it away. Belladonna passed her hand over her eyes. "They are as strange as news from Bree, that much is clear to me."

And evil, Bilbo thought, though he did not say it aloud. He and his mother cleared the table and washed the dishes in silence, going to bed early (as is the custom with hobbits). As Bilbo lay in his bed and watched the light from the setting sun slip through the curtains, he thought he heard a noise. At first he believed it was only in his dreams, but as he became completely lucid he realized this was not true. Distinctly he could hear groaning and retching in her room a couple doors down the hallway. Breathing quickly, he closed his eyes and tried to will the sound to go away. It would not.

Eventually it became unbearable. Fear gripped him as tightly as Feanor would to his precious Silmaril. Throat dry, hands trembling, he crept down the dim hallway and gently pushed open his mother's door.

The sight was horrific.

She was splayed across the bedcovers, retching up bile and hacking so hard her body shook. Her hair, normally so perfect and pristine in its tight bun, was falling over her shoulders in a wavy mess. Through her hair her eyes shone bloodshot and full of tears; when she saw Bilbo standing there she thrust out a trembling hand.

The hand said plainly, go. Go now. Get away from me.

For a moment Bilbo couldn't move - the next he was sprinting away as fast as his short hobbit legs could carry him.

; ;

"But you know there aren't any doctors in Hobbiton!" Bilbo said, aghast, as Hazel was throwing various paraphilia into a knapsack and muttering under her breath distractedly, A map, a map, we ought to have that. She looked up at Bilbo's outburst and raised her eyebrows. "I know there aren't any doctors in Hobbiton, dumbo," she said, throwing a shawl into the knapsack and doing up the buttons. "That's why we're going someplace else."

"Where?" Bilbo asked.

But Hazel's head was off in the clouds again and she was once again murmuring indistinctly under her breath, "Map. Oh, we really need a map…"

A thought occurred to Bilbo and he was silent for a moment, chewing his lip. He said tentatively, "You know, I have a map…"

"Where?" Hazel said urgently.

"...up at Bag-End, I mean," Bilbo finished. He exchanged an uneasy look with Hazel. Neither was particularly excited about going back there again, despite their hurry to return there as soon as possible. But if they were to set out at all, they knew it had to be done. Bilbo sucked in his breath and pushed open Hazel's hobbit door into the darkening night. Together they walked silently up the twilit lane winding through a brilliant garden of flowers. Even in the blinding darkness the scents from the plants wafted up into the air and calmed Bilbo's nerves. He began to breathe more easily as he and his companion set off up Bagshot Row.

They made it to Bilbo's door as the sallow moon came out from behind the scattered clouds and cast an unearthly glow upon the world. Bilbo's face was cast into shadow as he pushed at the door, and Hazel couldn't see his expression. Suddenly he stilled.

Hazel waited a few beats, growing impatient. Finally she burst out, "Weelll, what are you waiting for? C'mon, we haven't got all night!"

"Hazel, shush."

"Don't you tell me to shush! Your mum's dying in there!"

There was a short, painful silence on Bilbo's end, showing that he knew that very, very well.

Then he said, "Hazel, the door's locked."

; ;

For a heartbreaking second they both stared at the door, and a cloud passed over their hearts. Bilbo sagged against the hobbit-hole's grassy exterior and hid his face. Hazel, however, quickly rallied.

"Quick - key. Under the doormat."

Bilbo opened his mouth in protest.

"Just do it!" Hazel hissed.

Bilbo shut his mouth and obligingly checked, but in vain. No key was to be found. Both hobbits gazed helplessly at that thin wooden plank that separated them from everything that mattered: Getting a map, getting a doctor, saving Bilbo's mum's life. The longer they stood there in indecision the more agitated they became, but Hazel knew a desperate moment when she saw one. "Bilbo, we have to go in through a window."

"A window?" Bilbo's face displayed frank horror. Hazel would have felt sorry for him if she hadn't been so impatient and anxious herself. "We'll look like burglars!"

"Bilbo, everyone knows that this is your hobbit hole! Now, please, its the only way; where's the nearest window?"

Looking confused and terrified Bilbo lead Hazel wordlessly to the nearest window, looking in over a small room with a desk and a pile of papers. At the sight Bilbo's eyes grew even larger. "That's my Papa's study!" he whispered in a high-pitched voice filled with fear. He always said, most stern about it was he, 'Bilbo, whatever evil things you bring upon this household, I beg of you - do not go into my study. Ever'. Hazel, I can't go in there, I just can't!"

"Fine," Hazel said waspishly. "Evidently you're so scared of your Pap you'd let your mum die. What a cruel little child they have."

Tears were running down Bilbo's cheeks but he knew the truth of Hazel's words no matter how much they stung. He gulped and said resolutely, "I-I'll do it. I'll do it, Hazel." Taking up a stone from the ground he thrust it at the window; on impact the glass shattered into a thousand shards. The window was too high for his small tween hobbit-size to reach, so Hazel hefted him by the legs and, with much grunting and muttered curses, managed to tip him into the room. She waited outside, biting her lip to maintain her silence as she heard Bilbo rummage around inside. Suddenly she heard a delighted shout of joy.

"So that was why he didn't want me in here!" Bilbo said, appearing in the smashed window with a completely changed expression - a wide smile was stretched across his features. "He's been smuggling pipe-weed, been doing so for ages, looks like - mum banned it when they got married, she hates smoking of any kind. Well! You learn something every day, I say. Wait till mum get a load of -" Bilbo fell silent, for the plight of his mother had again surfaced in his mind.

"Quit blabbering, Bilbo, and find the map," Hazel hissed, pretending to ignore Bilbo's melancholy expression even though her heart also ached. Belladonna was as kind a hobbit-woman as you could hope to meet, and Hazel loved her and admired her as a hobbit she wanted to grow to be. The image of Belladonna retching in bed was almost too much to bear and the effort of pushing it away was making her worried and irritable.

Bilbo immediately disappeared after hearing Hazel's instructions and reappeared in just over a minute with the map and a fairly large stash of food contained in a picnic-basket. The minute seemed much longer to Hazel, who was beginning to hear queer night-sounds in the bushes and greenery about and feeling a bit frightened (although she would have never admitted that to anyone, even Bilbo).

After some coaxing Hazel managed to persuade Bilbo to jump out of the window to the ground; he fell a bit far and landed in some prickly bushes. Muttering angrily and picking leaves out of his curly hair he ran after Hazel, who had seized the map from his hands and was now walking as fast as her short hobbit-legs could carry her down the road.

"You-go-too-fast," Bilbo panted, holding a stitch in his side. All of a sudden he heard a shrill wail from up Bagshot Row.

"Not fast enough," Hazel said tersely, and they pushed on.