AN: Hello! Long time, no see! Basically, BotFA ruined my life and I've been wanting to get back into fanfic writing, so I thought I'd take a crack at this! You can interpret it as Bagginshield, but you don't have to (I tried to write it so that it wasn't obviously one way or the other). Any recognizable characters, storylines, or dialogue are the property of J.R.R. Tolkien and/or Peter Jackson. I'm just borrowing them. Enjoy, and please review!
He had wanted to get rid of it.
Bilbo had been tempted, several different times on his return journey to the Shire, to get rid of the tiny acorn. He had battled the crazy urge to rip it from his pocket and throw it over a cliff, or to simply drop it in a river and watch it float away so that he'd never have to lay eyes on it again. But he had won that battle, and now, several months after his return, there it sat, a dead weight in his pocket. Such a tiny thing it was.
His readjustment to life at Bag End had been rocky at best. After he'd retrieved his belongings from his neighbors and rearranged his house, he often found himself wondering how he'd passed time before departing on his adventure. He could never remember the hours dragging on like this, or the heaviness of the silence that permeated his house. Had it truly always been this quiet? He simply couldn't place himself back in time to a part of his life that was so simple, so innocent and uninterrupted.
Nevertheless, the frustrated hobbit tried desperately to fall back into his old routines. He picked up his old favorite books and studied his old maps; he tried to make all his old favorite foods and work to repair his wildly overgrown garden. But no matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn't force anything to be the same again, just like he couldn't let go of the acorn in his pocket.
One overcast and gloomy day, Bilbo fell asleep in his armchair as he tried and failed miserably to lose himself in a book. As he always did when he managed to doze off, he saw them. The images that still haunted his mind invaded his rest mercilessly. He watched Fili be dropped from that tower over and over again, paraded before his family like a sick prize. He saw Kili, blinded by rage and grief, bound up the stone steps to avenge his brother. It was the last time Bilbo ever saw the young dark-haired dwarf. Most of all, he saw Thorin. Thorin, charging into battle with his company at his side. Thorin, collapsing on the ice, victorious over Azog at the cost of his own life. Thorin, battling his fatal wounds and using his last, pained breaths to offer Bilbo forgiveness.
"Go back to your books…and your armchair…plant your trees…watch them grow…"
Bilbo's eyes snapped open as he sat upright, gripping the arms of his chair with white knuckles and gasping for air. As it always did, it took him a moment to remember that he was no longer on Ravenhill with the dwarves, but back in Bag End. His book had fallen to the ground, but his hand first went to his pocket. There was the ring, yes, and…the acorn. It was still there.
He sat back, relinquishing his grip on the chair and staring up at the ceiling. The dreams had assaulted him since his return home. He found himself constantly trapped in an endless cycle of exhaustion, fitful rest, and very unwelcome memories. He simply didn't know what to do anymore. He didn't know how to move on.
As he so often did, Bilbo took the tiny acorn out of his pocket and stared at it as it sat in the palm of his hand. It should have been easy to get rid of it. He should have gladly discarded it on his return journey, but yet here it sat, a painful reminder of what he had lost.
He remembered what he had told Thorin. "I'm going to plant it in my garden. In Bag End. One day it'll grow…and every time I look at it, I'll remember."
And it was then that Bilbo realized that he wanted to remember. He wanted to remember the dwarves and their songs, their jokes, and their unwavering loyalty. He wanted to remember Fili and Kili, and he wanted to remember Thorin. But he also wanted to move on, and he realized then that there was only one way to do that.
He took his old gardening spade from its spot on the kitchen table, where he had left it the other day after a failed attempt to plant new vegetables. As he stepped outside, he felt a heaviness in the air that suggested oncoming rain. Undeterred, he shut the front door behind him and carried on.
The spot he chose was about halfway down the hill in his front yard, in plain view of the house but still overlooking much of the Shire. Not allowing himself to entertain the possibility of second thoughts, he dropped to his knees and drove the sharp little spade into the earth.
As the hole grew deeper and the pile of dirt next to it grew larger, Bilbo's heart began to pound in his chest. It took vast amounts of courage and strength to brave the horrors of the battlefield. He had watched the dwarves prove that over and over again. But it was taking a different kind of courage to allow the memories to depart from his mind's eye. He found that he was terrified of forgetting. He didn't want to forget Fili's dimpled smile, or Kili's infectious laugh. He didn't want to forget Thorin's piercing blue eyes, his nobility, or his incredible bravery in the face of any danger that crossed their path. To forget would be to pretend that it had never happened, and Bilbo did not ever want to be so cowardly. He would remember his friends to the very end of his days, but he would allow them to stop haunting him.
For the last time, the hobbit pulled the acorn out of his pocket, where it had resided ever since he'd first picked it up in Beorn's garden all those months ago. He allowed himself to stare at it for just one more minute, knowing that this had to be done. And as he finally allowed it to fall from his hand into the hole he had dug, he allowed the tears to spill over onto his cheeks as they had not since that awful day on the edge of the glacier when he'd watched the life leave the eyes of the best friend he'd ever had. As he refilled the hole with shaking hands, as he cried for his dear friends one last time and buried the acorn just like he'd buried them, Bilbo Baggins found it in himself to move on.
Once the deed was done, he sat back on his knees and closed his eyes. One day, the tiny acorn he'd carried in his pocket would indeed grow. It would grow into a magnificent oak tree that would shield Bag End long after he was gone and the next hobbit lived there, and the next, and the next. The idea of such permanence gave him a sense of peace that he had not felt in a long time.
After a moment's rest, Bilbo got to his feet and, with a small nod to himself, turned and made his way back into his beloved house. Perhaps he would make stew for supper tonight, or maybe he would finish that book. Or he might just sit in his armchair and learn, once more, to find comfort in silence.
He closed the front door behind him just as the rain started.