Disclaimer: I don't own, and the world is probably really grateful.
Starring: Frodo-centric
Author's Note: He got the short end of the stick… I don't understand how that happened.
Summary: He's wondering where he lost his heart to; he wants to go home now.
_o0
He's never really belonged to the Shire.
He knows all the nooks and crannies, valleys and slopes. He could tell you, like most tweens his age where to get the best beer, best pipeweed and could argue with them all about how to properly plant squash. He, after a drink or two perhaps, could tell you about the hobbit lass he took to bed in the clover field one summer when he decided to get over his fear of bees – she had lovely curls and freckles that were scattered all over her shoulders and cheekbones. If persuaded, he might even relay the tale of when he and Pippin mistakenly ate the wrong type of mushrooms and streaked down past Old Widow Bolger's place.
But he's never really loved it there.
Frodo has always wanted more. He's a queer hobbit, a dreamer. He knows languages and places that just don't have anything to do with the Shire's side of the Wild. He yearns for the adventures of Mad Baggins, to learn what a sea actually looks like and climb the Lonely Mountain, to hear the elves sing and to smoke with the dwarves. He wants to walk until his hobbit feet complain and sleep on rocky ground in the rain and eat strange food.
But when he's landed his opportunity, he's terrified. This isn't how he wanted it to go, but he must go because he loves the Shire and its soft green and because he wants to see the wide Wild beyond. He wants to prove all those rumors wrong, how silly it was to believe that some distant relatives perpetrated fairy wife madness has claimed his family. He doesn't understand why Bilbo and Gandalf and the others keep apologizing in whispers to him, telling him how sorry they are that they can't do it for him.
He doesn't understand until he forgets the soft green of the Shire.
He realizes that he's never belonged anywhere.
He realizes, as he stumbles into the dark of the Eye, that home is a state of mind.
He realizes that he no longer possesses one.