It was a knock at door which awoke Bilbo Baggins at, he squinted at the red display of his alarm clock, two in the morning. Two in the morning! Who on earth would be bothering him at arse o'clock? It could be the police he mused as he pushed back the sheets and stumbled to his feet, one hand turning on his bedside lamp while the other was helping to shrug on his dressing gown, after all he didn't exactly live in the best of neighbourhoods and since he went into witness protection well …
Anyway it did no good to wallow on those particular thoughts. He found himself turning on every light in the apartment on his way to the front door, even grabbing a fry pan from the kitchenette just in case it wasn't the police. The banging on the door was becoming more and more insistent, and with one last tighten of his dressing gown belt he unlocked the door and wrenched it open. In situations like this he could always use the element of surprise.
On the threshold was not the police, nor was it a pair of hoodie wearing youths carrying crowbars, instead it was a heavily pregnant woman flanked on either side by ridiculously tall men wearing suits. They were also wearing sunglasses, at 2am, like they were the Men in Black or something.
"What?" he asked, glancing between the three of them before settling on the woman. "Who are you then?"
"Mister Baggins," she said, her voice carrying a thick Australian accent. "Can we please come in?"
Hang on … Baggins? He hadn't gone by that name for nearly two years now, and with his suspicions raised he did the same with the fry pan, he wasn't above smashing a pregnant woman over the head if she was there to kill him.
"I'll not ask again," he hissed. "Who are you?"
Before he was even able to brandish the fry pan properly he found a pair of handguns pointed directly at his head by the two stone faced men.
"Oh for …" said the woman, batting angrily at the gun nearest her. "He's not going to hurt me."
"Sorry ma'am but we're under orders," said the man on her left, and Bilbo found himself almost smiling as she rolled her eyes.
"Of course you are," she muttered. "Just put the damn guns down before someone sees you."
"Look I'm going to call the police," said Bilbo, trying to slam the door closed but finding himself thwarted when the woman held out a hand to stop him. God she was strong.
"Bailey Lloyd-Vaughn," she said quickly. "That's my name."
"Oh," he answered. Then … "Not the Vaughns?"
"Yes, those Vaughns," she said. "And that Lloyd-Vaughn in particular."
There was a Queen on his front doorstep, not that it wasn't unheard of but he didn't think Jamie from down the hall would actually like being called a queen despite everything.
"What?" he asked, lowering the fry pan. "What are you doing here … your Majesty?"
He attempted a bow, which only served to bop himself on the forehead with the fry pan and release a string of curses from him.
"Look," she said, clearly losing patience with him. "Can we come in?"
"Oh oh of course," he answered, standing back and waving them inside. "Please make yourself at home."
He closed the door after them, and then looked back in dismay as the two security guards began disassembling his living room probably looking for bombs or something. The queen was following them around, snatching things out of their hands and putting them back where they belonged with an agitated and embarrassed look on her face.
Bilbo had never given much thought to the queen of Wales, having had enough of his own issues to deal with recently and hadn't really been following the gossip of the British press.
"Would you like some tea?" he asked, walking into the living room and levelling a dark look with one of the men who seemed to be looking for something in the bookcase.
"No," answered Bailey, settling herself on his ripped couch. "No thank you."
"So what exactly are you doing here?" He sat in the armchair across from her and folded his hands in his lap, he didn't exactly know what the protocol was for when Royalty came and visited. The last time he had had anything to do with this family they had been grieving and he had been doing his job, somehow this felt very very different.
"Tell me Mister Baggins what do you know of Erebor?" she asked, one hand resting on her hugely swollen stomach.
Erebor. It sounded familiar that was for sure, and then he remembered seeing it on one of his dad's old maps that he had used to keep in his study. It was an archipelago of twenty something islands in the Northern Baltic Sea, a tiny Scandinavian country with as much history as it did resources … which was to say a lot.
"Isn't it a country?" he asked, and she nodded.
"To be honest with you I didn't even know it existed until a few years ago," she answered. "It's a small country just outside of the Finnish border, so they understandably have a very close bond with the Finns."
"But what does any of that have to do with me?" he demanded.
"You cared for my husband at Ailen County when he was shot four years ago," she said, leaning forwards as much as her belly would allow. "He says that you were the only one who didn't treat him any different to any of the other patients, he thought that you were an exceptional nurse and the epitome of professionalism … or something along those lines."
"Ok …" He really wished he'd at least made himself a cup of tea, it would have given his hands something to do at least.
"Thorin the second is the current King of Erebor, and he is also my husband's cousin," she said. "Then again with amount of inbreeding that goes on they all seem to be cousins in some way or another."
"That's …" He searched for the right word. "… disturbing."
"You have no idea," she said with a sigh. "Thorin's sister Dis was in a horrific car accident eighteen months ago, and while it killed her husband Lord Vili she survived but with spinal injuries so severe she is now in a wheelchair."
He could vaguely remember hearing about that, after all the local news had been comparing it to Princess Diana since Princess Dis had been fleeing from the paparazzi at the time due to her husbands supposed affair. However Bilbo hadn't been aware that Vili had died in the car accident, it was all quite sad really.
"Recently Thorin has made it known that they are searching for a private nurse to take care of Dis now that she is out of rehabilitation and at home," said Bailey. "My husband recommended you for the job."
"What!" exclaimed Bilbo jumping to his feet, something which made the security guards reach for their guns again. "No I can't … what?"
"Here is the contract." She laid a manila folder that he hadn't even noticed on the coffee table. "It's got everything in there."
"I can't just pack up and leave," he said. "I have a life here, I can't move half way across the world."
"It's hardly halfway across the world," she answered, causing him to glare at her.
"No, the answer is no," he said, shaking his head.
The whole thing was preposterous, there was just no way he could leave his comfortable little job at the local clinic or his cosy little flat to go traipsing to some Scandinavian country to look after the sister of some obscure Royal. It was ridiculous really.
"Well have a look through the contract anyway," she said, getting to her feet with what looked like a fair degree of difficulty. "My business card is at the back of the folder should you change your mind. Have a good night."
And with that she and her two bodyguards left the flat, and Bilbo didn't even stop staring at the folder until her heard the door shut behind them.
He didn't even bother going to bed again since he had to be at the clinic at 6am that morning; instead he made a pot of coffee and sat sipping it whilst he sat on the wide windowsill as the rest of Manchester slowly woke up. He refused to so much as look at the contract, and completely ignored it as he got ready for work and then headed out of the door so that he could make the short walk to the clinic with plenty of time to spare.
He got into work in record time, nodding to Dr. Grubb who was the doctor on duty that day, before going back to check the crash trolley and do a count of all the vaccines so that the office manager Bell could order whatever they would need for the following week. Once everything was in order he went to curl up on the sofa in the patients lounge and indulge in another cup of coffee before the morning rush started.
"What's wrong with you?" demanded one the other nurses Lobelia, a distant cousin of his, as she walked through the door. "You look like you've been up all night."
He nodded. "Something woke me up at two and I couldn't get back to sleep."
"Well what was his name?" she asked, placing her bag behind the reception desk and wondering into the kitchen for a cup of coffee.
"Not funny Lobelia," he said, taking another sip of the bitter liquid. "It wasn't anything like that."
"Hmmm," said Lobelia, sitting next to him with her mug cradled between her hands. "Well what was it like then."
He considered telling her everything, from the Queen of Wales showing up at his front door to the crazy job offer in some country he knew absolutely nothing about. In the end he didn't, she would probably think he was crazy or something of the sort.
"Just a funny dream I think," he answered, hiding his face with his mug as he took another mouthful.
"Yes well we all have them," she said, but there was suspicion in her eyes.
He didn't really get another chance to talk to her, or indeed anyone else, since flu season was upon them and the clinic was busier than normal with everyone wanting a flu jab. It wasn't really until he was plodding home in the fading light, exhausted and considering not even bothering with tea and simply flopping straight onto his bed, that he even remembered what had happened in the early hours of the morning.
When he got home the manilla folder was exactly where he had left it on the coffee table, and his fingers were literally itching to open it and see precisely what it was that he had been offered. Grabbing a Pepsi out of the fridge, he found himself edging back to the table until, with a great sigh, he sat down on the sofa and pulled the folder towards himself. He had never really been all that good with temptation after all.
The first page was a brief history of Erebor, from its independence from Sweden to the Russian occupation during world war 2, and its current history including the Royal family. King Thorin II had been on the throne for nearly fifteen years, and at fifty-three he was a much loved and revered entity in Erebor. It seemed that he had brought the country back from the social and economic ruin that his grandfather had wrought in the years following the Russian defeat, and he had once again made the world look favourably on his little country. There was a photograph of the King himself at the bottom of the page: a stern looking man, with long black hair streaked with silver which hung down past his shoulders and was held back with an assortment of twists and braids. He had a sort cropped dark beard, also streaked with silver, and piercing blue eyes. Bilbo would be blind to not notice how ridiculously attractive he was, which was another reason not to agree to the job. The last thing he needed was to be pining away after Royalty.
The next five pages was the contract itself which stated everything from living arrangements (he was expected to live in the palace in the quarters beside those of Princess Dis), to wage (which was three times more than he earned at the clinic), to his expected duties. It all seemed pretty self-explanatory and he was pleased to see that there was no small print that he had to worry about.
It was the last page which caught his attention. A summary of the Princess's injuries and their extent, which were far worse than he had originally expected. She was a C6/7 incomplete quadriplegic, with burns to approximately 12% of her body … more than likely her legs given the kind of accident she'd been in. There was also the expected amount of mental trauma, something which when he read through her current treatment didn't seem to have been addressed properly. All in all it seemed like a complete mess, and something which whoever was actually going to take the job would need to get under control as soon as possible.
There was a business card tucked in the back of the folder with the Royal Crest of Vaughn printed on it and beside that in neat print was written Her Majesty Queen Bailey of Wales and a mobile phone number. He turned it around several times, before reaching for his phone. Who was he kidding? Of course he was going to take the job.