I should currently be working on a multichapter which actually takes up most of my time, but I had to write this. No prompt this time, but entirely my own madness. Enjoy.

Whatever gets you through today

Bofur watches the back of the hobbit as his pony picks its path down the Lonely Mountain and towards Laketown, following the horse Gandalf is riding.

His feet are twitching, aching to move, and his lips are mumbling the words he wants to say voicelessly. He watches the two so very unalike travellers get smaller and smaller, until they finally disappear, and thinks that he and Bilbo are highly unalike as well. Too unalike.

It is probably the only reason why he manages to stay where he is, as if rooted to the spot, and does not run after the wizard and the hobbit, does not keep them – him – from leaving. He wishes he could stop him, keep him here, in Erebor. At his side. But Bilbo is longing for his Shire and this journey has cost him so much already… Bofur cannot ask this of him. He thinks about the light in those beautiful pale green eyes, a light that he has not seen for weeks now. About the scars which should not be there, should never have been etched into the hobbit's skin, as an eternal reminder of the pain he has suffered. About all those tears Bilbo had cried, at Thorin's deathbed and at the funeral and sitting in front of the graves deep in the mountain, weeping.

And he thinks about the look of utter horror on their burglar's face when he had been dangling over an abyss, held only by the King's angry hands, and his own inability to speak up. To help him.

No, he does not have the right to ask anything of Bilbo, and he will not.

Loving means letting go, right? So this is what he is going to do. Let the one he loves, the one person he has set his heart upon, go. For their sake.

And maybe, he thinks, maybe one day he will travel to the Shire and find his hobbit. Maybe they will meet again, and maybe they will even be friends. Bofur does not even dare to hope for more, he has forfeited this chance, and thoroughly so. Neither does he dare weening that Bilbo will come back to the Lonely Mountain.

No, it will be up to him, and it will take all of his strength to wait.

But Bilbo is leaving on his own accord, he wants to leave, and Bofur cannot act against his wishes, not again.

Thus he will wait.

He will give his hobbit time and then, when all old wounds have healed (but one) he will travel to the Shire and they will meet again. One day.

Someday.

It is maybe thirty years later, Bofur cannot be sure (he can be, he has counted every year, every week, every day since then, but he does not think about the fact that already thirty-three years have passed and his own wounds are still open and bleeding, so how can he be sure that Bilbo's have healed?) when he is interrupted by a knock at the door.

He puts the dwarven warrior he is working on aside and makes for the door, slowly.

Who in Durin's name could this be?

His brother, cousin and the reminders of their company would not knock, and there is no one else who would visit him. He knows this is his own fault. He is the one who has been secluding himself. He is the one who is still making toys, despite the fact that he has enough gold to last him for a dozen lifetimes, and that he could be the head of the miners if he wanted. After all he is one of the heroes of Thorin Oakenshield's company.

But he does not want to.

He does not want to be celebrated and acclaimed and exhibited, and he is not the only one. It is why Bombur has left the public kitchens he had loved so much and is only cooking for his family and the rest of the company now. It is why Balin, Ori and Oin have left for Moria. It is why Dwalin has taken to training young Gimli instead of the city guards.

Shaking his head Bofur opens the door and stares at his visitor.

The young man is almost of the same height as him, and his hair is woven into two braids identical to his own. There is a soft down adorning his cheeks and chin and although he looks young his features are not those of a child. Bofur's quick eyes take in his physique which is too slim for a dwarf, but still sturdy enough. (Too sturdy for a hobbit.) The visitor is wearing a coat of good leather which has obviously seen many a day and night on the road and light boots, as well as a tunic and trousers in different shades of green.

"Berylla," the visitor says and bows, "At your service." and only when he hears the soft, light voice and the name does Bofur realize that it is a woman he is staring at. Now that he knows what to look for he also sees the slight curves of her body, and the softness in her face.

"B-Bofur," he answers, a little confused, and bows as well. "At yours." What is she doing here?

Her smile is crooked, insecure and gone as fast as it had found its way to her lips. "I came to inform you of my father's…" she gulps "of Bilbo's-"

"Wait – ye know Bilbo?" He interrupts her and feels his heart, which had seemed to slow down over the last three decades, beating faster than he can remember it beating before. (Faster than he wants to remember it beating before.)

She looks away, bites her lip. "Knew him," she finally says and there are tears in her eyes.

Bofur's world stops spinning. He wants to break down, to hide in a corner and sob – and he almost does, overwhelmed by the emotions, by the grief, but then he remembers something else she had said and he manages to keep his composure, if only for the time being. "Ye…" his voice is unfamiliarly hoarse, and he clears his throat. "Ye said ye are… were…" his voice breaks "his…-"

"Daughter? Aye. I am Berylla Baggins of Bag End," she says softly and the crooked smile is back. If only for a second.

Although he is not sure whether he wants to know Bofur asks. "… what happened?"

This time the smile stays longer, but it is sad and wistful. "Can I come in? I don't have much time, Frodo is waiting for me, but father told me to meet you once he... and to give you this." She hands him a cloth and Bofur unwraps it, carefully.

When he finds his old earring he almost breaks down again.

Only too well does he remember giving it to Bilbo after they had lain together for the first time, in Beorn's house, and closing the smaller fingers around the tooth of his first kill. It had always meant a lot to him – one of the last reminders of a different time, a happy time, with his parents, brother and baby sister at his side – but he had given it to the hobbit willingly. "So that ye don't forget me," he had whispered, and Bilbo's smile and answer had taken his breath away. "I couldn't, even if I tried."

Seeing it again, now, and knowing that his hobbit is dead – but that he had wanted him to have it back – is too much.

Still he manages to keep himself together, although he could not say how.

"Come in," he finally mutters, fingers clenched around the earring, and steps aside, letting… Berylla, wasn't it?... move into his rooms.

She takes a seat at the table where the half-finished soldier is still lying, her body stiff and rigid.

He forces a smile onto his lips, but judging by her twitching eyebrow it is not exactly convincing.

"What do you want to know?" she asks awkwardly, staring at the unfinished toy.

"How… how did he die?" Bofur mutters, still shocked. He had known that the hobbit would live much shorter than him, but that he would die already ? And he curses himself for not going to the Shire when there still had been time, despite the open wounds.

"He… his health was always fragile," she begins, slowly "after Rivendell."

Rivendell?

She must have seen the question in his eyes, for she laughs tiredly. "It is what we call… called… my birth. You must know that male hobbits are able to carry children, always have been, but that it is rather dangerous and giving birth to a babe that was half-dwarf, so much bigger and stronger than the average hobbit child… it was a close call. For both of us."

Bofur hears the last words only distantly, as he is forgetting to breathe.

She stops, gives him a worried glance. "… are you okay?"

"Ye…" Bofur gasps for air, tries to clear his throat, to make his voice come back, but it does not work. "Ye… are half-dwarf?" he finally manages to ask, staring at her disbelievingly. It would certainly explain the beard, he thinks absentmindedly.

This time the smile is honest, and it stays. "Aye. Why did you think I'd come for you?"

"I… because of the earring? ... I was about to ask for yer mother…"

"You should have asked for my other father," she says softly. "I… we always wanted to come see you to tell you, but father… he was never in the condition to travel. Not that far. And then we got Frodo and he was too young and in the end… he wouldn't even have made it to Rivendell."

Her eyes are sad and Bofur feels slightly sick when he imagines Bilbo, that weak and fragile, but a different question seems to be more pressing. Well, considering the overall situation – he can be forgiven being a little dazed, can't he?

"Who's Frodo?"

"My cousin," she answers and the smile returns. "His parents drowned and we took him in… he was too much of a Baggins for the Brandybucks, and too much of a Brandybuck for the Bagginses. It wasn't easy for father, with his poor health and everything" the way she said everything made Bofur gulp "but he was family, and he was happy with us. He came here with me and he's staying in the library, waiting for me."

"'Tis why ye can't stay long," Bofur understands. "Do ye want to go get him and stay here for the night?"

She smiles, hesitates for only a second. "I'll be quick. If I find my way to the library and back here that is."

The corners of Bofur's lips are twitching. He knows that he could – should – show her the way, but he will need those few minutes to calm down, and sort his thoughts out. Thus he walks her to the door and knocks at the one next to his own, smiles as Bombur's eldest daughter answers it.

"Uncle Bofur!"

"Nara," he returns her smile and it is only a little strained. "This is Berylla. Could you please take her to the Big Library and back here?"

"Of course," she grins and takes the hand of her slightly startled cousin, pulling her away.

"Everything for Uncle Bofur," Bombur's wife, who had been listening, smiles.

"She's a good girl," Bofur answers before he returns to his own rooms.

The second the door has closed he breaks down.

The sobs are loud and heavy, shaking his body and tearing down his heart. It is hard to imagine that Bilbo is dead – dead – but he knows it to be true. The earring tells him everything he needs to know. With shaking fingers he pushes the metal pin through the hole in his earlobe, where it belongs, and then (as is right and proper) takes off the hat (the hat Bilbo had loved) and clutches it to his chest, his tears falling onto the worn leather.

Bilbo.

His Bilbo.

Dead.

He had waited for too long, and now it is too late.

And although there is nothing he wants to do more than mourn his beloved for as long as it takes to pick up the pieces of his heart and to lose himself in guilt and self-reproaches – it is too late too late TOO LATE – he does his best to pull himself together and dry his tears.

Thus he is close enough to representable when there is a knock on the door and Nara returns, the two Shirelings in tow.

The hat stays off, though.

He even manages to smile at Frodo, a young hobbit with curls as unruly as Bilbo's had always been, and wide, curious eyes.

"If I'm Berylla's father I oughta be yer uncle," he says and Frodo returns the smile, if only hesitantly.

"Tell me more," he then pleads, when all three of them are sitting around the table and the tea is steaming hot, clinging to his cup. "Why… what did he die of?"

Berylla smiles sadly. "As I told you, his health was… fragile. He held on long enough to see me come of age, to make sure that I would inherit everything, but after that… he didn't have the strength left to keep fighting. And if it hadn't been for me and Frodo… I believe he wouldn't have made it that long, even without Rivendell."

Bofur's heart is somewhere on the soles of his boots – it must be, for it feels as if it is being stepped on again and again – and he gulps heavily. "… why not?"

Frodo's eyes are dark and dangerous. "Because you let him go. Didn't say anything when he left, didn't try to hold him back. He figured you had never loved him, and he couldn't handle that."

Bofur shakes his head, disbelievingly. "I thought I had lost the right to ask anythin' of him," he explains quietly. They seem to know a lot, and they deserve to know the rest. "After the Arkenstone… I knew how much he had missed his Shire. He said he wanted to go home and I figured… I couldn't hold him here. And I thought… I thought I'd come after him. That maybe we could be friends. But I… I never got over him, and I couldn't meet him like this. So I waited. And now… it's too late." He fights the tears violently.

Dwarves do not cry openly.

"If you had come-" Frodo begins, but receives a kick against the shin from his cousin.

He would not have needed to say the rest, though, for Bofur knows what he had meant to say. What is rolling through his own veins, the guilt hot and burning, and knotting his guts together.

If you had come, he might still be alive. He might have had the will to keep fighting.

"I thought I had lost his love," he whispers. As an explanation, not as a justification.

Berylla smiles, yet there are tears in her eyes. "I believe you," she says quietly. "I… can see that you still love him. You never wanted to hurt him."

Bofur clenches his fists and buries his fingernails in his palms until the knuckles are white. "Never! " he swears.

His daughter's shorter fingers close around his own, trying to soothe him. "You can cry."

He shakes his head, the movement jerky and too fast. "Mournin' is reserved for family." His voice breaks.

Her eyes are understanding. "We know," she says. "Father told us."

Bofur breaks out in tears for the second time this evening, but this time he is not alone.

This time his daughter's – Bilbo's daughter's – arms find their way around his neck and her face is buried in his chest as both of their bodies are shaken by painful sobs. And though Frodo might not join the hug he is crying with them.

He feels his heart break, over and over and over again, still he manages – somehow – to ask.

"Stay with me?"

Now Bofur smiles every day when he wakes up. For although he has lost the person he had wanted to start a family with… he had gotten said family. And maybe he will only see Bilbo again when he leaves this world himself, but until then he has got Berylla and Frodo.

And he knows now that Bilbo had felt the same way.

Whatever gets you through today… right?