A/N: Hello Internet! I'm just an average girl (albeit one wearing a TARDIS tuque). If you don't know what a toque is please look it up, then contact your nearest Canadian and apologize profusely. Anywho, this is my first fanfiction (that I'm putting out here anyways). If you wish to see my feelings on that, look up the poem "The Author to her Book" by Anne Bradstreet. Constructive criticism is highly appreciated, and even if you don't like my fic, give lots of love to my wonderful betas, GirlWonder29 ( ) / AngelOfTheLord2 (Archive of our Own) and hollywarren333 because they are just that amazing and deserve every bit of love you can give them. About the story: I will include individual notes on each chapter. The title means "build beginning," in Khuzdul, for those interested (god knows I am) and is subject to change as soon as I figure out what "the" translates to in Khuzdul. I'd love to hear from you guys, so leave me a comment and I'll try to get back to you soon. Also, I am a Canadian, and will probably end up using a fair amount of Canadianisms, or Canuck slang in here with or without knowing it. If you don't know what something means, again, pop a comment and I'll explain. But now, the moment you all have been waiting for (or not), on with the fic! :D

Chapter One

Bilbo Baggins was a bit of an odd Hobbit. If you were interested in him, you could Google him, but that would only tell you so much. Like: he'd served in the RMEA (Royal Middle Earth Army) for a record 14 tours (well Hobbit record, anyhow. He'd outdone a good portion of the men, a few of the dwarves, and even a couple elves). Or, he'd been awarded 6 Arwen Crosses for bravery in the line of duty. Or, he'd singlehandedly taken out a heavy artillery bunker in Mordor. Or, he'd survived being shot over 96 times in his career, his record being 19 at one time, stepped on a mine and survived, got blown into the air by the force of a nearby explosion, survived that too, and at one point got shot so close to his heart, that if it had been one millimeter to the left he would have died (he survived that, too- the immortality rumors didn't come from nowhere). Or, he'd had his legs trapped under the weight of a fallen building when an enemy force stormed the town he was in, yet survived due to him taking pot shots at anyone who got within range of him or his injured comrades, who he'd been trying to save in the first place. Or, he'd reclaimed a town in Gondor from the Orcs with only 12 tanks, and two infantry divisions, and subsequently held it against the entire Orcish Seventh Army for two days (the town being crucial as it was the only one in the region with a road big enough to drive tanks down). Or, he'd gotten captured once, decided the P.O.W. camp was boring, and walked out (they say by then the Orcs were too scared to stop him). Or, he had 821 confirmed kills, and an additional 428 believed (but not confirmed) ones, despite his weapon of choice being an elvish hunting knife, named "Sting," off a mid-battle quip of his. One of his most famous sayings was, in relation to his insane survival ability: "if I'm not in Mordor and this blade is glowing, then my work is not done, and I refuse to die until it is." Or, he'd snuck behind enemy lines on over 400 different missions, prompting invisibility rumors- which may or may not have been grounded in truth.

Yes, Bilbo Baggins was a badass, but that wasn't all of it. Any fourth grader who had to do a project on one of Middle Earth's most influential military figures could have told you that, because if they hadn't done him, someone else in the class did.

There were places other than Google where you could find out a bit more. The RMEA Archives was one place. You could read reports on battles he was in, or some written by Bilbo himself.

But the best source of in depth information was Bilbo's neighbors.


Bilbo lived in Hobbiton, a semi-large city mainly inhabited by Hobbits. If you asked Bilbo's neighbors, it was because so much army work made him tired of the great big world.

It was as close to the truth as anyone could get.

Bilbo's neighbors knew more than anyone else. They could tell people about the late nights or early mornings when he'd scream himself hoarse, caught up in nightmares. Or how he'd panic if he drove over a piece of cardboard in the street, thinking it was a landmine, or if people used poppers at the yearly block party, thinking it was gunfire. How you couldn't throw anything at him, or he'd think it was a grenade. How he slept with Sting in his hand, and 4 other weapons within less than a metre from him, eyes wide open, and lights on, sometimes even sitting up in bed. How he refused to go to a therapist, though no one knew why. How he used odd slang and weird gestures no one else knew. How he had trust issues a mile wide. How if you said certain words or names, he'd freeze up and get a look in his eyes that no one wanted to name.

How he had left a respectable gentlehobbit, and returned a soldier and a Major, turned hard and guarded by the horrors of war.

How he had left a normal hobbit, and come back odd, and out of place.

To the rest of Middle Earth, he was a hero. To them, he was an oddity. Bilbo Baggins was strange, and not in a good way. When he apparently disappeared from the face of Middle Earth, none of them were surprised.

They were wrong, though. Bilbo Baggins didn't disappear from the face of Middle Earth.

He just ended up on a bit different version of it, in a hole in the ground. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: but a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.


End of chapter notes:

Well, that's chapter one done! If any of you were thinking "wow, that sounds pretty crazy," and like World War Two history, and aren't offended by extreme amounts of swearing, I'd recommend reading about Major David Vivian Currie and Mad Jack Churchill at . ?id=898588118753 and . respectively, as Military!Bilbo is essentially a weird-ass lovechild of the two, except, you know, a hobbit. In Modern!Middle Earth. Also, just basically imagine Bilbo doing all these things. I'll probably do all that at one point. i'mhavingwaytoomuchfunwiththissendhelp