The bitter cup of tea turned colder in Bilbo's hands the longer he stared at the flames in the hearth. They growled and cackled. The sparks hissed and spat.

Jeering at him, the fire cast frightening shadows on the walls- a silhouette here, the face of an old friend there.

Bilbo thought he saw the shadow of one friend in particular, moving silently against a wall.

The visitor fluttered closer. His shadow peeled away from the pale wall, like a damp autumn leaf plastered across smooth stone, and stepped into the gold firelight.

The dwarf was the color of charcoal and ash. Even his frost blue eyes were tinted a steel gray. He might as well have been a shadow.

Or maybe he was a ghost. Come to haunt Mr. Baggins again. As he had many nights long ago before Frodo came to live with him.

Thorin Oakenshield began to sing, deep and rich and beautiful as Bilbo remembered. It was a song of mountains veiled with fog and dark crevasses in the earth. Of rising to leave for a long journey before dawn shattered the black night sky. Of treasure hoards as far as the eye could see.

Far over the Misty Mountains cold

To dungeons deep and caverns old..

"Thorin." The halfling's voice was silent as a falling feather. It hardly carried sound. Bilbo was afraid if he spoke any louder, the phantom would dissipate like morning mist.

The dead dwarf king stepped toward the retired burglar. His heavy boots rang like mourning bells upon the floor.

...Ere break of day

To seek our long-forgotten gold

Bilbo's heart clenched.

"I'm sorry, Thorin. I should have saved you." He wanted to say. But the words jammed in his throat, thick as honey. Tears veiled his sight.

Are you really here? He wondered.

"Master Burglar." Thorin knelt beside Bilbo. A smile fluttered across his melanised features.

His old friend reached to touch the hobbit's face. Perhaps to cradle his cheek in his hand or run his fingers through Bilbo's hair, as a gesture of comfort.

A log popped loudly and split in two, belching orange embers. It jolted the halfling out of his slumber.

Tea sloshed out of his cup to splatter on the wooden floor.

He was alone in the dark sitting room once more, the crackling hearth his only companion.

There were no ghosts lurking in the shadows. No Thorin.

I must have fallen asleep. He thought wearily.

Bilbo hadn't dreamed of the dwarf king in a long time. He rarely thought of him as it was. Time had faded the ache from his heart. But if he lingered on it too long, it still gave way to pain. Flaring up like the ache of old bones in winter weather.

Feeling ill and lightheaded, he rose from his cushioned chair to investigate the spilled tea.

The puddle of liquid looked crimson in the dull light. He squatted beside it, thinking of how much it looked like blood.

All too quickly, he was reminded of that terrible battle. And all the friends he was unable to save.

A memory of Thorin's final moments and the words they exchanged pierced through his heart.

"I am sorry to have led you to so much peril. It is a bitter end if it must be so. I only wish we could have parted in friendship."

"No, Thorin. I am glad to have shared in your perils. Each and every one of them."

"If more of us valued home above gold, it would be a merrier world. But for a merrier world or not, I must leave it now. Farewell." Thorin's gruff voice, softened by descending death, murmured in his head.

"Shut up!" Bilbo whispered, covering his ears with his hands. A cold sweat beaded his forehead and chilled the back of his neck.

Bilbo released a trembling sigh as tears wet his cheeks.

"Uncle Bilbo?" A quavering voice came from the far end of the room.

Frodo was a blur in the shadows. It was all Bilbo could see through his tears.

"Frodo." His voice cracked when he tried to smile.

The dark-haired child padded closer to him.

"Did you have a bad dream too?" Frodo wondered.

"Well, um... yes. Yes, actually I did," Bilbo wiped at his eyes and sniffled again. "But it's nothing to worry about. I- I just... spilled my tea."

"Is that why you're crying?"

A forced laugh murmured through the air,"No. I'm having a rough time with some very unhappy memories. It'll pass." Bilbo cleared his throat and stood.

They always do.

He stepped over the dark amber liquid and plucked his nephew off the ground, setting him in the chair where Bilbo had recently been dozing.

"Stay here. I'll be right back. I'm going to get a rag from the kitchen to clean this up. Then you can tell me about your dream. I want to hear it."

Upon his return, Bilbo found Frodo sitting straight up, his muscles tense. The child clutched the arms of the chair. His small pale fingers dug into the plush fabric, like a mussel clinging to a rock in the sea.

Frodo's blue eyes were glazed over with the reflections of the fire. He was still as a statue.

For a moment, the way he looked reminded Bilbo of Thorin. It was his eyes. A look that held great sadness. Someone who had lost too much too soon in their life. Someone who knew they were likely to lose much more.

"Frodo." he said.

His nephew moved his head in Bilbo's direction. Fear had etched itself in his stoic features. It flickered in his sapphire eyes, evident as sunlight glancing off the sea.

"Why don't you tell me what's been bothering you?" Bilbo prompted.

He dabbed up spilt tea as he awaited Frodo's response.

"It started out with the spiders. They crawled through my window. They weren't little. They were big. I tried to run away from them, but... but I wasn't fast enough. They tied me up in all their webs. And... and then I was hanging upside down. Over water in a lake. The water kept rising and rising and I saw Mother and Father at the bottom. Their hair was floating and their eyes were white. The minnows were eating their skin. The spiders tried to drown me and then... the orcs..." Frodo was trying not to cry at this point. He rubbed at teary eyes with his sleeve.

Bilbo had stopped mopping up the spilt tea. The saturated rag dribbled garnets on the floor.

"The orcs cut me down and I landed on green grass. They said I could go down to see Gollum or my parents. And I... I said 'Uncle Bilbo will save me..' because you're always there when I have a bad dream or fall out of your oak tree or... Or... And then they carried me to the water and put my head in. I... I saw your face down there with the others. I tried to breathe but I couldn't, Uncle Bilbo. You and Mommy and Daddy's heads all floated up at me. Your skin was pale. It was rotting. And I couldn't move my head out of the water. But you kept coming for me with your open mouth and big eyes. You grabbed me and pulled me under... And I thought you were going to eat me or hurt me... And ... but then I woke up."

His nephew was whimpering and trembling near the end of his tale. Now he sat quiet, quivering like a leaf. Tears rained down his cheeks.

Bilbo's heart reached out to the child, and he took him in his arms. The silly spilt tea and sodden rag lay forgotten on the floor.

"I would never frighten you like that," The elder hobbit saw himself floating at the bottom of a lake as Frodo described, glazed eyes bulging out of his head in sunken black sockets. Lips pulled over pointed teeth and light brown curls floating around his face. A monster snatching at his nephew. "Never. I will always be here, with you. To protect you.

To do what Thorin failed to do with Fili and Kili. He added.

"You know," Bilbo pulled Frodo into his lap. Taking a seat in the armchair, he held the tiny hobbit close to him. Perhaps together they could ward off the phantoms. "I dreamed of a ghost, too."

"Is that why you spilled your tea? The ghost scared you?" Frodo wondered.

"No. No, he was kind." Bilbo replied. He sang to me.

"Mother and Father's ghosts scared me. And they weren't nice. Parents shouldn't be mean. Why did they do that?" The boy was close to crying again. "I thought they loved me."

"They did- do," Bilbo assured. "Believe me, they do. Maybe they... They..."

He struggled to come up with an interpretation of the dream.

If only Gandalf were here, he would know the exact thing to say.

Drogo and Primula's faces flickered across his mind. They'd been good people. Good hobbits, who loved their son with all their hearts.

Bilbo knew he could not replace them. But he would do all he could in their stead.

Did Thorin do all he could, when he was raising Fili and Kili?

"I promised to protect them. I swore to their mother long ago I would try to be the father they lacked," Thorin Oakenshield had once said. "Everything I've done has been for them."

Like everything Drogo and Primula did had been for Frodo.

The hobbit noticed there were tears in his eyes. He blamed the vivid firelight.

"Maybe to remind us," Bilbo found himself say. "They'll be here to watch us carry on. The ones we love never really leave us. They're every good thought you have. Every gust of wind pushing you forward, each star in the sky guiding you home. Their smile is the sun. And their kisses are the raindrops and snowflakes that fall on your face. Your parents will always be with you, Frodo. And so will I. For most of my days. And when we reach the end... After all our adventures together are said and done, we will see them again. Won't that be nice?"

Frodo nodded, eyes already drooping. His muscles had relaxed during Bilbo's little speech. It seemed to have calmed him down.

Gandalf would have done better.

"Would you like me to carry you to bed? You can sleep with me tonight, if you're scared."

"Uncle Bilbo, can we stay here for a little while?"

"In front of the hearth?"

"Yes."

Bilbo nodded,"Well, all right. If that's what you want. Would you like me to sing to you?"

"Until I fall asleep?" Frodo's eyes sparkled.

"No," The elder halfling smiled softly. "Probably not that long."

"Just for a little while?" Frodo snuggled against him.

"Yes. Just for a little while. Until the fire dies down."

Bilbo Baggins rested his chin atop Frodo's head and tightened his arms around the child. He began to sing, ignoring the knot of emotion mounting in his throat.

I sit beside the fire and think

Of all that I have seen,

Of meadow flowers and butterflies

In summers that have been...

They watched the fire together, and Bilbo saw the shadows were simply shadows. He found not a single ghost in the walls of his home or his heart.

But all the while I sit and think

Of times there were before,

I listen for returning feet

And voices at the door.

Carrying his young nephew to bed was soon out of the question. They were asleep before either of them knew it, the sanguine embers cooling on the hearthstone.

In their dreams they heard laughter and merriment like a forgotten echo. But it could just as easily have been the wind moaning in the night.