Disclaimer: I do not own Middle Earth, nor any of the characters or places mentioned in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien in his incredible stories. I am not making any money off of these stories, they are written purely for pleasure, and the intellectual idea of alternate endings. I promise to bring the "boys" home in time for supper, none the worse for wear after our little adventures.
Walking home, it was always such a lovely feeling...to be returning to that which he loved most in all of Middle Earth. Those last few moments, coming up the Hill, going through the well-oiled gate, then up to that same round green door he had been opening for most of his life.
There had been a time when his greatest wish was to leave that place behind, strike out into the wild unknown, adventure and create journeys and stories of his own. But his own tale had taken on a much darker tone than any he could have imagined...and his most treasured dream had become simply to return to a world of green grass, familiar hobbits, and a life more ordinary.
Frodo opened the front door of Bag End, head still mostly in the conversation he and Sam had been discussing just a few moments before, and as such he was not paying terribly much attention to what was going on around him. Standing there in the doorway, the lowering sun creating a sort of halo of light around his form, he was, to be blunt, a perfect target. And, taking advantage of such moments, careening around the corner came two small hobbit lasses, one right after the other
"OOOF!" Frodo cried, a smile pulling at his mouth and coloring his blue eyes with a merry glow as he looked down at his two curly headed attackers.
Two young hobbit lasses, one a young child and the other still a toddler; had run at him full gallop, only to stop when they collided with him, a flurry of four arms and two pairs of legs encircling his waist, knees, and general lower half. Not to mention a sudden babble of child voices and a decidedly insistent tugging of his right arm in the direction of the parlor.
"Come on Da, come and see, see what we've been doing today!"
"We miss Da, see purple picture!"
Looking down at his two daughters, Frodo's fond grin widened, and for a moment he stood still, doing his best to remember them, to remember this part of his day, this portion of his life forever. It would be gone in the barest whisper of a moment...but until then, there was dinner to be had and purple pictures to be exclaimed over.
"All right, all right, I'm coming...don't pull my arm off in the process please...Hello Meli!...Oh my, Prim, do you think your finger will recover? Does it need a kiss? And Miss Dilly, you have been a busy little artist today..."