Rating: T for now

Pairings: Bilbo/Thorin, Dwalin/Ori and Nori/Bofur are the main pairings but there will be other side pairings such as Gloin and his canonical wife.

Characters: Everyone you've heard of and some you haven't.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, the characters, or any related works. I'm doing this for fun not profit.

Midsummer & Midwinter

Bilbo Baggins is a young faunt at his grandfather's feet the first time he sees a dwarf.

It's a warm evening near midsummer, too early for fireworks as of yet, but with the wizard puttering around his cart the promise of great bursting flowers and whirling wizzpops hangs heavy in the air. Too heavy, in fact, for young Bilbo to sit still. He's abandoned the puppet show and even the tables piled high with birthday fair to run in the tall grass. Swinging his wooden sword in great arks, he beheads any dandelion within his short reach.

Up a small rise he runs, chasing nameless shadows in his mind, a great cape fitting enough for any hero (dark, slick leather like his mother's) trailing in his wake, his sword raised high. It flashes in the dying light, gleams as he brings it down on his enemy, crowing in triumph as -

"Steady on there, my lad!"

Bilbo squeaks and trips over his own feet as he turns, landing amongst the daisies. His grandfather smiles down at him over the curve of his pipe, eyes twinkling through the haze of sweet smoke.

"It seems Master Boffin's plays are not exciting enough to keep your attention, eh?" The Old Took chuckles, pulling Bilbo up by his suspenders. "Just like your mother, you are, hardly a Baggins at all!"

Bilbo grins up at the old hobbit, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "I want to see fireworks, Grandpapa!"

"Certainly, my lad," His grandfather replies, "Just as soon as the last of the light has gone." He takes a long puff on his pipe and, with great care, blows a smoke ring as large as Bilbo's head and sends it gliding out towards the setting sun.

Bilbo turns to race off after it when he sees them – dark shapes along the East Road heading west toward Waymoot. There are more than a dozen of them, taller than any hobbit Bilbo has ever seen and here and there along their line comes the occasional glint of metal.

"Dwarves, huh!" He hears his grandfather mutter darkly behind him. Bilbo trembles in delight. Dwarves! Dressed in shiny armor with great beards and dark cloaks, just like in his mother's stories. He stands on tiptoe in the hopes of getting a better look and thinks he can see, just maybe, the hint of an ax slung across a broad back.

"Where are they going, Grandpapa?"

"The Blue Mountains most likely," the Old Took answers, his eyes narrow as he watches the dwarves walk on, tapping his pipe stem against his teeth, "Probably camp outside the fields... head north through Nobottle. Leave the Farthing day after next, hrmmm..."

"Why are they going there?" Bilbo asks, calling his grandfather's attention back where it should be, on himself.

"They've got a mining settlement there, haven't they?" the Old Took says, scratching at his chin as he thinks. "Ought to send young Isengar to get word from the Bounders... yes, indeed. Can't have Outsiders lollygagging in our Shire, no."

Bilbo stares after the dwarves as they continue their march westward. He greatly wants to see them up close, nearly as much as he wants to see the elves to the east, wants to see if they really have such thick hair on their faces as his mother says. He turns to his grandfather and sets his feet.

"We should invite them to your birthday party, Grandpapa!"

"Not likely, my lad!" Old Took scoffs, but his expression softens at Bilbo's pout. "Besides, I haven't got any gifts for them. You wouldn't want to make the Thain of the whole Shire look like a bad host, would you?" He chuckles as Bilbo shakes his head vigorously. "Good, now go off and bother our wizard about those firecrackers. Good lad."

Bilbo skips and leaps down the hill towards the towering figure in his pointed hat and leaves his grandfather to watch after the diminishing figures of the dwarves.

Bloody nuisance, the Thain thinks as the group turns a corner and disappears into the treeline. He ought to send some stonemasons up past the North Farthing, help get the old Arnor roadways up to snuff. It would be worth the expense, he reasons, if only to keep so many dwarves from crossing the Shire on their way back and forth.

The Old Took nods to himself and puffs on his pipe as the first of the fireworks light up the sky.

.

A decade on and the ancient thoroughfares of Arnor have greatly improved. The dwarven caravans of iron and copper and coal travel north of the Shire now and the dwarves have all but disappeared from its gentle hills. The Thain is satisfied with this, even when the Bounders bring word that their neighbors have dug up all their hard work to relay the cobbles themselves. Bloody dwarves.

The winter hits hard and fast.

Frost paints every window, turns every herb and flower in their gardens hard and brittle. The Water freezes over and the snow falls and falls. The sheriffs organize teams to dig families out of their smials and the Old Took sends word to all the great hobbit clans to portion out their larders and not to stint. Four meals a day is a necessary hardship. There's no telling how long the biting cold will last.

When the Horn-call of Buckland sounds the air is so crisp and clear that the echoes reach as far as Tuckborough.

The Thain takes up a rusty old sword, with an edge so dull that his grandchildren have played with it without fear of injury, sends his younger sons to board up the windows and doors, sends his daughters to chop up furniture for firewood. His dear wife cries quiet tears as she herds the fauntlings down to the root cellar. Belladona and her sweet little Bilbo are still in Hobbiton and she has no way of knowing if they are safe.

They cut back to three meals a day.

"Perhaps the dwarves will come," his wife murmurs in the dark that night as he runs his fingers through her silver curls. "They're a fighting folk."

"What, and leave me with nothing to do?" he huffs, puffing up his chest and putting on airs, "I'm the Thain you know, master of the Hobbitry-at-arms! See, I've even got the sword."

"That sword," Adamanta begins, speaking sternly as though admonishing a faunt caught with a fist full of sweets before supper, "hasn't been sharped, much less used, since the battle of Greenfields – long before either of us was born."

"Yes, well, blunt force you see. I've always been better with clubs anyway..." He trails off as he feels her smile against his shoulder and lets out his breath. He is so very tired, but for her sake he will stay up and talk, if only to keep her smiling.

"We don't know what's out there." Adamanta whispers as their family sleeps around them.

"I suspect we will by morning." He replies and holds her tight.

"Perhaps they will come."

"Perhaps."

They do not come. Even as the days turn to weeks and the white wolves begin to dig down, down through the snow and sod above the ceiling – they do not come.

.