Disclaimer: I claim no ownership over elements in this fan fiction which belong to J.R.R. Tolkien.
He stared into the distance.
The damp evening dew settled on his face, his pallid skin was tamed and cold, and the last trace of warmth that was in him was ghosted away by the cold Spring wind which swept across a small hill that was Bag End.
Bilbo sat on the cold bench outside his hobbit hole. His little garden was full of colours, full of growth, full of life, and yet it was slowly blooming into decay in places where no unopened eyes could see nor untouched hearts could feel.
The sun had set; night was falling.
The pipe stem rested in all its dullness and irritating simplicity between his chapped lips. Never before had Old Toby smelled so beautifully stale, and never before had the lovely evening become so intolerably peaceful.
The frustrating perfection that was Hobbiton was slowly driving him into insanity, and Bilbo had never before felt so out of place in his own home.
For he had seen, and he had felt, and in all his heart: he knew he was no longer a Baggins of Bag End.
It was this very same day, exactly a year ago, when he bade a good morning to an inquisitive wizard in his grey, pointy hat. Gandalf was his name, one amongst many, of course. He made fireworks, and that was all it mattered.
Gandalf's fireworks were beautiful, full of colour, life, and vitality. The shapes that shot out from their tubes were always unexpected; their blooming likened thrilling journeys, and their dying shake spectators to their very cores.
Fireworks were short-lived; always so exhilarating, always at the moment, and yet equally always so ungraspable. When all the glimmers and shimmers died out, they vanished without a trace into the night the same way all dreams did.
Had it all been but a dream, then? For it left no trace, no reckoning, nothing but a dull ache in the heart: a longing that nostalgia could never articulate.
They say that each and every single one of The Wizard's fireworks told a tale from his many journeys. There were the Dwarf candles, the Elf fountains, the Goblin barkers, a red and gold Dragon, and of course, There and Back Again...
There, and back, again.
Bilbo stretched his lips into an unsmiling grin.
The company arrived to pay him a visit last week. Every dwarf was as loud, as cheerful, and as hungry as the time they first stepped through his door. It was only the mid-day of today that he bade them farewell; all ten were returning home, which, to many, was now Erebor.
Ah, Erebor... How distant the name sounded now, even in his mind. And yet, what seemed even further away than the Lonely Mountain itself was their quest to reclaim it.
The journey felt like it never happened; no traces, no signs. Gandalf's firework.
Strange...
Bilbo stuffed the pipe into his pocket and looked down at his hands.
For the dwarves came to visit him only so recently, and yet nothing was the same.
He spoke to them about the gold, and they spoke to him about the diamonds; all of them held conversations about various precious stones and metals that each brought back to their homes, and the prosperity which they brought and bought.
Dead.
The precious ores were nothing but dead stones.
All laid still and told no tales. For none had smelled the freshness of the rain in the forest, or felt the roughness of the pony reins that left one's hands red and raw at the end of the day. No gemstones spared the recognition of Beorn's welcoming house, none had met the courageous Bard of Lake Town, and none had faced the wrath of Dragon Smaug the Terrible.
None knew the songs of Imladris, none had ears for the secrets of the Misty Mountains, and none had fought with the terrible greediness of Kings.
None, except for one: The Arkenstone.
The Arkenstone was the most beautiful of them all. The radiance of the Heart of the Mountain was like a molten pool of all the hues of every gemstone within Erebor. The Arkenstone was the sole diamond that was alive, and yet nobody spoke of it.
Nobody spoke of it, for the Heart was now beating atop the chest of one who was the journey, one whom his nostalgia owed everything to, one who was the heart of the company and yet whose own heart had ceased to beat. One who was the tale.
Him.
Bilbo leaned back into the cold, lifeless bench, and stared up into the night's sky. He had spent most part of the dwarves's visit at this exact spot on this bench. He knew he had been a terrible host, well, not much worse from the first time he greeted them, truth be told. He kept the pantry filled with food, and hoped for the best that his absence had not mattered much to his guests. It was important he stayed here and wait, because one guest had yet to arrive...
He was always late, so Bilbo sat and wait, and he was still waiting, now.
He only wanted to be the first one to greet him.
When he told the dwarves this, they all exchanged looks and politely reminded him that ten was all there was left of the company, but a hobbit chose what he heard.
...A small flame of a single candle flickered in the dark.
He was late, and that was all. That was why he was still not here, and that was why Bilbo had to keep waiting.
It was cold. Firework.
Thorin...
The hobbit reached his hand into a pocket of his jacket absentmindedly, and something smooth and cold caught the tip of his fingers. Bilbo's brows knitted, and he brought it out.
The ring was golden, smooth, and as equally intoxicating as it was the day he picked it up from the floor of Gollum's cave.
Memories flushed in. The firework died, but it had bloomed.
It was not a dream. He had been to Gollum's cave, and everywhere else all the same.
Can you promise that I will come back?
No. And if you do, you will never be the same.
How foolish the question seemed, now.
Bilbo clenched his fist tight around the ring until it hurt, bit his chapped lips until they bled, and yet he still could not stop a single bead of diamond from burning its way down his cheek.
For as much as Bilbo was restless, Thorin Oakenshield would not be coming today, nor any other day.
He was never returning.
There was no coming back, no returning. There was no firework that bloomed and did not die.
There was no There and Back Again.