A/N: Written for the yuletide challenge. I hope you enjoy reading it. :)

Disclaimer: I don't own the Hobbit.

What Should Come From a Quest

Whenever Bilbo had looked up at the night sky, he had thought of legends and lands far beyond his own. Now, however, after the long and hard quest to destroy Smaug, and as he lay under the night sky travelling on his way home with Gandalf, he thought of all the living in the world; the elves, the rest of his Hobbit friends, men, dwarves, goblins, trolls (he liked to pretend that there were some out there that were peaceful), but most of all, he thought of all the evil still alive.

Smaug had seemed like the epitome of it all; alive for centuries and as cruel as anything. Bilbo couldn't think of a proper metaphor for that, for all his were consisted of 'as evil and vicious as Smaug' or 'as uncaring as that blasted dragon'. He couldn't think of anything proper to compare Smaug to. Was there anything worse than that dragon? Had he really seen the worst? Stories older than memory had lost their tight grip on his fear. All the evil in them seemed insignificant when compared to the evil he had faced; partly because they were no longer a threat, being long dead and buried in history, but also because he had faced Smaug all by himself and lived the experience personally.

And so, he found himself wondering, as he stared up at the star speckled sky, whether there was something that existed or would exist that could compare (in his mind) to Smaug. Could there be anything? He found himself shaking when he realized that it was a possibility, that perhaps at that moment something was out there, hiding in the night and plotting...

He shuddered and scolded himself. Why was he thinking of this? His journey was over, his quest completed. He should look forward to the journey home, to be able to sit in his Hobbit hole again and have second breakfast...how he missed those. Really, how did the rest of the world get on with only one breakfast?

No, he would never see another adventure. He had had his fill of them. Someone else could go and tromp through strange lands through the rain and the wet and the cold and the dark... But then, Bilbo found himself once again thinking of what else in the world those who came after him could fight against. He looked up at the sky again. Surely, Smaug was not the last, nor was he the first.

Bilbo felt slightly cowardly, just then. Was it selfish to wish that the next great malevolence would come after he had passed on, so that he would not have to hear of such a thing again? He sighed and turned in his blanket, grimacing in his mind at the sharp little rocks that seemed to follow him everywhere.

He supposed evil would come when it comes. Absentmindedly he stroked the golden ring in his pocket. After all, what were the chances that it would come again in his lifetime?

--

"Gandalf," Bilbo said the next morning as he was preparing breakfast and as Gandalf was doing...whatever it was wizards did.

The wizard looked up from the parchments he had been reading. "Yes?" he asked, sensing something large on the Hobbit's mind.

Bilbo poked the bacon on the skillet and watched it sizzle as he asked, "What will you do now? I mean, what do you usually do?"

"Now that the quest is over?" Gandalf mused. Bilbo nodded.

"I suppose that I shall travel the lands and remember to drop in on you once in a while for tea."

Bilbo smiled and chuckled. "As long as you give me fair warning whether you are coming alone or whether twelve dwarves are with you."

Gandalf laughed. "Fair enough."

"But," Bilbo continued, "what will your next quest be? I mean, you do go around helping people, right? So...will it be a while until you have to do...something else?"

Gandalf, during the course of Bilbo's questions, had grown quiet, and to the end even sported a sad look on his face. Bilbo shifted uncomfortably, curious as to Gandalf's change in mood and rather mad at himself for bringing it out on him.

"Yes," Gandalf spoke, looking gravely at the Hobbit, "I do, as you say, `help people'. In fact," he continued in a softer voice, "that is what I shall do soon after we come to the Shire. I will have to leave and fix some problems." Problems, Gandalf mused. Surely an understatement, perhaps a far larger understatement than he currently understood it as. But Bilbo didn't need to worry himself about it. It could be nothing, this worry of the survival of Sauron's ring.

"Oh," Bilbo said. "Well, I suppose of course, the world must be full of problems, but surely not anything truly dangerous!'

"You mean," Gandalf asked, "like Smaug?"

"Yes...I mean..."

"Bilbo, you have just begun to taste the world. Forgive me, but the Shire can be somewhat ignorant and ill-informed of the lands of men, dwarves and Elves. It is a big world, Bilbo, and there will always be problems."

"I thought as much," Bilbo muttered, somewhat darkly.

"Why do you ask about my doings?" Gandalf appraised Bilbo with a questioning eye that seemed to penetrate into his very self. His eyes narrowed slightly in curiousness. "Surely it must be more than curiosity?"

"Well, I suppose it is," Bilbo stuttered. "I had just been thinking that it would be awful for anymore evil to come, like Smaug. It was dreadful, Gandalf! The quest! Exciting, yes, at times, but far too much so! And the danger!"

Gandalf chuckled. "I see your Tookish side is fading."

"Indeed!" Bilbo huffed. "I never thought adventures would be quite like that! I've run out of pipe weed, Gandalf. I haven't had a good smoke for a couple of weeks now!"

"Adventures," Gandalf sighed with a smile, "were never known to have all the comforts of home."

Bilbo nodded and focused his attention on the still cooking breakfast. "All the same, one adventure is enough for one lifetime. For me, anyway."

Gandalf found himself looking at the dirt, and though it was far from the most pleasant thing to be looking at, his eyes did not see it. His mind was too preoccupied.

Something was bothering him about Bilbo, and it had to do with one of the greatest fears he had when first volunteering Bilbo on the quest, though to call it a fear would be an overstatement. It was a concern, not a fear, Gandalf realized. Though Gandalf, from the day he met Bilbo, could see that he longed for adventure, was concerned about what would happen should he live, if the physiological aspect would prove too much. He had been sure Bilbo could handle it. It was, after all, one of the reasons why he had chosen his door to plant the mark on. The adventure, as Gandalf had hoped, would help Bilbo, to change him and give him a fresh perspective on the world and his own life. But as Gandalf looked at Bilbo as he dished out their breakfast into equal portions, he was confused.

Had Bilbo changed? Certainly, but...there was also something else in Bilbo that Gandalf couldn't put his finger on. Had he done more than change? Gandalf frowned pensively as he looked at Bilbo.

Bilbo handed Gandalf a plate, steaming hot and smelling strongly of travel food, though bland and almost tasteless. As Gandalf stretched out his hand to take the plate with a thankful dip of his head, Bilbo jerked his hand back, sending the plate and its contents to fall on the ground close to the fire.

"Oi!" Bilbo exclaimed, turning around as quickly as he had yanked his hand back. Gandalf looked at Bilbo, than to what was behind him that had caused the sudden movements.

Bilbo yelped as he fell backwards, and the pack which he had been almost leaning against suddenly disappeared. As Gandalf looked over Bilbo's head, he came eye to eye with a rather frightened goblin. The sinister features scowled in distaste at the wizard looking at him in stunned silence, then propelled itself back into the woods, pack in tow.

Bilbo twisted his head around and caught his pack disappearing into the thick bushes. "What?"

"Bilbo," Gandalf said as he shot up, already taking long strides into the forest. "Stay behind; I'll deal with the goblin!"

"Goblin?" he heard Bilbo squeak in dismay.

Gandalf thrust his staff before him, parting low hanging branches and leaves as he peered into the woods, following the telltale signs of an escaping thief. But then they stopped, and Gandalf halted. The goblin was now making no more noise than the rustling leaves.

"Bollocks!" Gandalf muttered under his breath. "A lonely thief of a goblin, from the mountains, no doubt." He rested on his staff. "At least there were no more," he said quietly, listening intently, but hearing nothing. If there had been more, they would have attacked together. For that, at least, he could be thankful.

He sighed and turned back to the camp. It was impossible for him to follow a near noiseless goblin through the incredibly thick woods.

"That was my pack, you rat!"

Gandalf stopped immediately. That had been Bilbo's voice, but what would he be do... Gandalf sighed. Well, bollocks again.

Gandalf launched himself in the direction in which he had heard Bilbo's frustrated outcry. He hadn't heard Bilbo leave. But then again, when would he ever hear a Hobbit when he didn't want to be heard?

"Bilbo!" Gandalf yelled, angrily. "I told you," he said as ducked under a branch and heard a dull thunk from up ahead, "to stay back," he weaved around a bush and broke into a small clearing, "at the campsite!" Then he stopped.

Bilbo stood tensely, huffing angrily with a stout branch in one hand and his pack in the other. The bushes ahead rustled as something retreated. For a moment everything was still, and then Bilbo turned to face Gandalf and Gandalf regained his senses enough to yell.

"You didn't even draw your sword!" It was more in disbelief than he was actually angry.

His voice must have carried that notion, for Bilbo glanced down at the branch in his hand, and almost grinned sheepishly. "I...keep forgetting I'm wearing a sword."

Gandalf muttered under his breath.

Bilbo then dove into his pack, rummaging through the carefully organized belongings. "The goblin could have been armed, or more angry than frightened enough to fight back. And the possibility of a trap!" Gandalf cried. "Was your pack really potentially worth your life?"

Bilbo sighed and grinned as he apparently found what he had been looking for. He held up his pipe for Gandalf to see. "I was afraid this might have broken. I suppose it was rather foolish of me to bring it on this adventure in the first place, seeing as it first belonged to me great-grandfather."

`Your pipe?" Gandalf asked in exasperated softness, realizing Bilbo hadn't even heard him.

"Yes. I can't let that grimy goblin have my great-grandfather's pipe!" he exclaimed as though that explained everything, although, to the Hobbit, perhaps it did. "It's also my favourite."

A far different Hobbit than the one who so nervously answered the door to his Hobbit hole so long ago, Bilbo sighed, shook his head and muttered under his breath as he would do to misbehaving Hobbit youngsters, not frantic goblins. Gandalf then smiled fondly, and found the answer to his previous question.

Yes, Gandalf mused as Bilbo set about inspecting his pipe more closely, what he had originally thought was different about Bilbo, was really what had been there all along. There was a better way to come back from a quest than to have changed from the experiences.

To have not entirely changed at all.