A strange thing, were hands, Bilbo decided as they walked back to Bag End from Mungo's. His own was a perfectly decent Hobbit hand, five-fingered and equally suited to cooking and gardening as it was to reading and crochet. And to holding a sword though that was hardly amongst any list of a Hobbit's preferred talents.

The hand clasped lightly in his own was nothing like a Hobbit's. Strong, thick fingers, well-weathered by sword and axe, callused at the tips and palms. Thorin's hand was large, engulfing his own, his fingers long and broad enough to cover the back of Bilbo's.

Bilbo had held a few hands in his days, with…well, with friends, of course, and hands varied. Large, small, damp; there were warm, faintly sticky ones, like Frodo's were wont to be, and cold, clammy ones that were shaken at parties and you had to struggled not to wrinkle your nose at the feel. There were ones that clenched too tight, as if to prove their strength with a bruise or two and those that flopped in one's grasp like a sodden handkerchief. Hamfast had a good, strong handshake, and Dwalin shook with a vigor that set Bilbo's teeth rattling.

And Thorin's hand was warm and dry in Bilbo's clasp, gentle, his thumb stroking alongside Bilbo's, in the tender place between thumb and forefinger, trailing down along his wrist. The feel made him shiver, made him squeeze just a bit tighter, though Bilbo couldn't say precisely that he wanted him to stop. Instantly, Thorin squeezed back, one brief, firm tightening of his fingers. Then his thumb stirred back into motion, very nearly stroking his hand and Bilbo was forced to squeeze again at his cheekiness.

Again, Thorin squeezed back and if this was some sort of Dwarven sign language, Bilbo did not know it. It felt like some sort of game, a quick warning grip mirrored by Thorin, and for a moment there would be peace. Then Thorin would begin again, his thumb teasing, or once, all of his fingers curling against Bilbo's hand in a ticklish little movement that made him squeak aloud and nearly pull his hand free. Thorin had quit that without a warning at all, his expression innocent when Bilbo stopped right in the road to cast an exasperated look at him.

All for naught, for when Bilbo started walking again, that tricksy thumb slyly returned to its work and Bilbo kept his sigh to himself and let it.

So distracted was he by that tiny little touch, Bilbo did not even notice the three Hobbits sitting on his front bench until they were nearly upon them. Gorbadoc Brandybuck sat with his granddaughter, Esmeralda, and Eglantine Took was at her side. Esmeralda only sat politely, hands folded into her lap while Gorbadoc puffed away at his pipe. Eglantine had her own pipe, tiny and elegant, and she smoked it much the same way, utterly uncaring of what a few of those in the Shire might have to say about a lady smoking out in the day where anyone could see it.

Bilbo nearly jerked his hand away from Thorin's without even thinking and never mind they'd been walking that way through the better part of Hobbiton. Not that he minded visitors; Bag End had always been a place content enough to accept extras for tea, but, family or no, there wasn't much reason he could think of for these three to be waiting for him once they'd realized he wasn't home.

His smile was welcoming enough as he came up to them, stepping past his own gate, "Well, then, visitors already today!" Bilbo said, brightly. "Esmeralda, Eglantine, you're both looking lovely as always. I'd offer you a compliment, Gorbadoc, but I've only just seen you for tea this week, and anyway, you've not been lovely since you gave away your prettiness to your granddaughter."

The ladies laughed politely, Eglantine in a puff of smoke, and Gorbadoc offered him a wry grin, "Smart tongue on you, Bilbo, always." He nodded past Bilbo, eyes rising to take in Thorin who had followed on through the gate. "Going to introduce us to your guest, are you?"

Before Bilbo could say a word, Thorin said, coolly, "As it stands, I can introduce myself." He bowed, though it was more like the barest nod of his head, "Thorin Oakenshield, at your service."

He sounded terribly like he hoped that service would involve some sort of injury, preferable a beheading or perhaps a bit of light maiming, Bilbo thought mournfully. Whatever Gorbadoc had been about to say to that was cut off by a sharp elbow from his granddaughter and he coughed out his words instead, something that sounded very much like, "Aye, I'll bet you are."

"Bilbo, lovely to see you as always," Eglantine said smoothly, "And your guest as well. I'm only in Hobbiton for the day, of course, and we thought we might stop by and see you."

"Certainly," Bilbo nodded, and gestured grandly to his front door. "Do come in for tea, won't you?"

Not a one of them stirred and Esmeralda added, lightly, "We had some family business to discuss. You understand, of course."

"Of course," Thorin said, curtly, and say what you would about Dwarves, he caught on before Bilbo did. "I should check on Dwalin and Frodo." He offered another jerk of the head that was in no way a bow, barely even stirring his hair. "A pleasure to meet you, I'm sure."

His glance at Bilbo held none of his severity, something in it that was softer and faintly desperate in a way that left Bilbo perplexed. His hand twitched as if Thorin was resisting the urge to touch, perhaps give Bilbo's shoulder a comforting squeeze. In the end, he only clenched his hand into a fist and gave Bilbo a silent, deep bow of his own, a properly respectful one, before he turned on heel and walked away.

"You as well," Came in an echoing murmur from the three on the bench, nearly too late for Thorin to have heard, though if he did or not, he acknowledged it not at all.

Bilbo steeled his own smile, gritting his teeth as he said, "Well, then, about that tea. Shall we?" This time his family rose to their feet, pipes tapped out and skirts smoothed as they followed Bilbo up the steps to his front door. His hand still ached faintly from the force of his hasty withdrawal from Thorin's and Bilbo did not even bother to rub the ache away. Just as well to have it, he decided miserably, it would probably be the best part about this impromptu tea party.


Despite the unceasing sense of doom that loomed over the small party in his dining room, Bilbo played the part of host keenly, fetching his best tea set as his second-best had recently met a partial disaster at the force of Dwalin's teeth. Biscuits were laid out, along with a fine selection of cheeses and little cakes that had originally been baked with Frodo and a pair of Dwarves in mind. He'd make it up to them, Bilbo promised mentally, laying out a generous selection of treats for his guests since, unwelcome or not, they were family.

There was little chatter as the tea brewed, Gorbadoc tapping his cane lightly on the floor and the ladies making up plates for all. Bilbo's nerves, already on edge, sharpened to razor-fine by the time he poured out a cup of soothing chamomile for all and offered sugar cubes around.

It was no surprise to him when Gorbadoc was the one to break the increasingly uncomfortable silence with his usual aplomb, "All right, let's have it out then. I've no mind to sit here all day gabbling about the weather." He fixed Bilbo with a rheumy-eyed stare. "There's been some concern around the family, you may as well know, about you taking in Frodo as you have."

"Has there?" Bilbo asked idly, sipping politely at his tea. "I believe I addressed those concerns when I took the lad in." At the expense of his pocketbook, he had, Bilbo thought sourly, and not a few of his relations' worries had been miraculously silenced by a gold coin or two slipped into their pockets.

"Things have changed since then, though, haven't they?" Esmeralda asked, in her soft, gentle way. Her brown eyes were as softly concerned as her manner of speaking, the long curls of her youth bound up now in a tight bun. "It isn't only the family who has been saying things, though some of them have been quite loud enough in the past few days."

"Dwarves," Eglantine added, nibbling at a biscuit. Her own riot of frizzy curls were bound up in a loose ponytail, one wisp stubbornly falling over her forehead. "These guests of yours—"

"Aye, these guests," Gorbadoc broke in as he gnawed on a wedge of soft cheese. "Seems Lobelia's had some things to say about your guests," He pointed a wrinkled, accusing finger at Bilbo, "B'lieve you told me the other day at tea that they weren't yours."

"If I had been aware of whom they were or that they were coming at all, I would have said," Bilbo told him, struggling for mildness. Chamomile hardly seemed soothing enough and he wished briefly for a quick draught of Hamfast's homebrew. "And they are hardly myDwarves. They are friends, yes, they aren't furniture."

"Be that as it may, people are talking, Bilbo, and they are concerned," Esmeralda said serenely. "Now, I know that my Merry has met them and the large fellow has been spending a great deal of time with the children—"

"Yes, he has," Bilbo said shortly. "And as far as I can see, he's been nothing but kind to each of them. Frodo for one adores him and I'd like to know when it became a crime to be kind to a child."

It was a small, sour bit of satisfaction to see Esmeralda taken aback at his fierceness. "Why, Bilbo, I never said it was!"

"Then what are you saying?" Bilbo demanded, shoving aside his own teacup, uncaring as it slopped messily to the table. Esmeralda and Eglantine wore matching expressions of dismay as he stood, bracing his hands on his table. "You've come into my home claiming you want to discuss family business, but the only business I hear you discussing is mine! My guests are my concern alone and unless you are accusing them of somehow harming those children, I don't see why you're worried about it!"

"We aren't," Gorbadoc said mildly, slurping down his own tea and snagging up Bilbo's untouched cup to drink as well. "Never said we were, did we."

That took a bit of the fire from his indignation. Bilbo blinked and felt a hot flush creep up his face as he sank back into his chair, "Oh," he muttered, weakly. "Then what—"

Eglantine let out an indelicate snort. "We came to tell you that people are talking, that's all, Bilbo!" She gave him a cheeky smile, one he well-remembered from his younger days. "If you'd like to take on a troop of Dwarves as guests, I'd not mind one jot or tittle!" She laughed, then, fondly. "Did you see the large fellow asleep on the hill with the children! Pippin howls bloody murder every time I lay him down for a nap at home and there he was, sprawled out in the dirt snoring with the lot of them!"

"Merry has done nothing but chatter about him," Esmeralda added with a soft laugh of her own. "Mister Dwalir, he calls him, isn't it?"

"Dwalin," Bilbo murmured, automatically, and Esmeralda nodded, smiling sweetly.

"Yes, yes, Mister Dwalin! He ran home that very day to tell me he'd beaten up a Dwarf!" Esmeralda hid her giggles behind a napkin while Eglantine coughed crumbs into her hand, laughing loudly.

"Oh, he would, that scamp!" Eglantine shook her head. "Bilbo, they do seem like fine enough fellows." She frowned a bit, "Though that other one seems a bit fierce, doesn't he? The one you were holding hands with, Thorin did he say his name was?"

"Erm, yes," Bilbo mumbled, "We weren't really holding hands, you know…."

"Ach, Dwarves are a possessive bunch," Gorbadoc waved that aside, gumming the last biscuit into submission. "Everyone knows that. Now, we all know why Lobelia's wants to take on the lad, Bilbo. Primula and Drogo weren't the wealthiest of Hobbits but they had a small nest egg set aside. How she bullied her way into taking him to begin with I'll never understand," His watery blue eyes turned serious, regarding Bilbo solemnly. "But you must know there are others who'd happily take the boy on, inheritance or no."

The very thought of it sent his temper soaring and Bilbo drew a calming breath, did not think of how empty Bag End would seem without Frodo's laughter ringing through it.

"I'm sure there are," Bilbo said, through gritted teeth. "But Frodo is happy here, as he has not been since we lost his parents and I cannot imagine why anyone would want to tear him away from that happiness. He has friends, he has family and I take care of him."

"There's others who can take care of him as well, Bilbo," Esmeralda said, gently. "I'd have taken him in myself if I'd not had all the others; he and Merry are quite close in age."

The thin hold he had on his temper snapped; days, no, weeks, months, a few years piled together of gossip and sour looks weighing down on him and Bilbo snarled at the three of them, "No one is taking my child away from me! If I have to leave Hobbiton and the Shire, and take off into the mountains themselves, I would! I've the money and the mind to do it, and if anyone has a problem with that, they can sod off!"

Bilbo bit his lip, hard, stifling other words that were threatening to spill, things that were no one's business but his own. Coming home had been less than he'd hoped when he'd arrived, and that had nothing to do with finding many of his possessions lost or sold. During his travels, he'd dreamed so often of Bag End, of his comfortable chair and his books, and the warmth of a fireplace in the evening. He'd had all that on his return and in the end, it had not been enough.

He could not go back to those days, wandering around the emptiness of Bag End, pretending to be writing at his book, meals blurring together, his evenings spent reading while he tried not to let his eyes linger on a stolen map and the memories that came with it. Perhaps he had helped Frodo, taken him in at the lowest point of his grief, given a miserable child a home and his love, but in the end, Frodo had been his salvation as well and Bilbo was not about to allow either of them to be that lonely again.

His kin, all three of them, seemed unperturbed at his outburst, only sipped at their tea or nibbled at a treat, "Spoken like a true parent," Eglantine said, with unusual gentleness on her part.

"You're happier with him here as well," Gorbadoc said shrewdly and Bilbo nodded jerkily.

"Home is a place, but it is nothing without people in it," Bilbo said, a tad hoarsely, and he poured a fresh cup of tea to drink away the rawness in his throat.

"True enough!" Gorbadoc said cheerily. "Well, then, Lobelia will be getting an earful about her nastiness from those of us at Brandy Hall, you mark my work. The Gamgee's have had a thing or three to say about your guests, too. The entire brood of them seem to think that large one hung the moon, the stars, and possibly the apples from the trees." The wrinkles around his eyes deepened as he added, "Mungo Danderfluff seems quite taken with the other one, I hear, but whether or not that helps your reputation is out of my hands."

"That isn't the only reason we came visiting, Bilbo," Eglantine added, drawing elegant linen envelope from her little drawstring bag. She handed it to him with a warm smile. "I wanted to give you this personally, well, to you and Frodo."

Perhaps Bilbo could be forgiven for the slight tremor of his fingers as he took it from her, opening the flap to withdraw the invitation. It was written neatly in Eglantine's fine script, inviting Bilbo and Frodo Baggins to the coming of age birthday party of one Pearl Took, to-night beneath the Party Tree.

"Of course," Bilbo murmured, lightly touching the neat letters and blinking when they seemed to blur. "Pearl is thirty-three, isn't she."

"She is today," Eglantine said wryly, and did not ask before drawing out her pipe and packing the bowl with pipe weed, though she offered her pouch around for the others to refuse. She lit it with a practiced flick of her match, puffing in the sweet-smelling cloud as though smoking her own salvation. "And we'd both like for you and young Frodo to be there, please and thank you."

"Please and thank you, yourself!" Bilbo laughed, something tight in his chest loosening. "We'll be there for treats and ale alike, though I'll stay with one and Frodo the other!"

"So long as Frodo keeps to the treats," Esmeralda added with a soft laugh and then they all jerked in shock as the front door burst open beneath a wave of childish shouts and small feet.

Before any of them could so much as rise from their chairs, the dining room was filled with what seemed to be a raggedy band of juvenile brigands, though they all seemed terribly familiar. One who strongly resembled Frodo with a makeshift eye patch carried his noble ladle like a sword, the cup of the spoon waved warningly at the adults as he shouted to his brood, "Du Bekâr! Come along now, lads, it's this way!"

Another child, who looked a great deal like Samwise Gamgee with an overturned bucket on his head, waved a small frying pan ferociously, while another that reminded Bilbo of Meriadoc, his tiny head engulfed in a large, fluffy hat that strongly reminded Bilbo of the one Bofur had worn, brandished a wire whisk before scrambled towards Frodo. With a loud grunt of effort Merry boosting the other child up so that he might snatch the large, and quite full, jar of cookies from atop its shelf.

"Back, keep back, I say," snarled Not-Samwise, with all the savagery one might expect from a particularly fierce and slightly plump kitten, his little chin wobbling as he defended his company from the dumbfounded adults, waving his little frying pan as though battling the Goblin hordes of the Misty Mountains themselves.

Behind him, a smaller bandit, who looked quite like Peregrin Took with a ragged blanket draped over his shoulders like a cape and a wooden bowl sat upon his small head, peeked around Samwise. He beamed up at them as he waved a spindly stick topped with a bit of folded paper to make it look like a spear, chirping out, happily, "Mumma!"

"No, no, no," Not-Merry scolded, panting as Frodo wobbled on his shoulders, struggling with the heavy jar. He winced as Frodo stepped clumsily on his head, wheezing out,"Du Bekâr!, remember! We are Dwarves and we are strong, we bow to no one!"

" Be-kar," Quite-Certainly-Pippin repeated doubtfully, tugging on his damp nappy, his wide green eyes darting from his mother to cousin just as Frodo made it back to the floor, hardly even stepping on Merry's feet as he howled in triumph.

"For Erebor!" Frodo shouted, brandishing the treats over his head and the others joined him, a chorus of young voices filling the kitchen in a discordant cry of victory as they claimed Bilbo's cookie jar in the name of the great Dwarven Kingdom of Erebor.

He made to dart away, lugging it along, and then Frodo hesitated, his blue eyes casting back at the stunned adults uncertainly. Quickly, he opened the jar, snagging out four of the cookies and he darted back to the table to set one neatly in front of them all. With a satisfied nod, he ran back to his fellow brigands, snatching up the jar again, and just as quickly as they'd come, they were gone, the door shut behind them but not before a loud Dwarven voice could be heard declaring the raid a success, and they were all of them good lads, weren't they.

Gorbadoc munched happily on his newly begotten cookie, oblivious to the frozen expressions around him. "He does keep them entertained, doesn't he. Does he do parties?"

Eglantine managed to recover almost as quickly, her pipe barely hanging between her clenched teeth. With two fingers, she gingerly picked up the cookie, eyeing it as though the raisins within might yet betray them and attack. "He does entertain them at that. Dwalin, you said his name was, didn't you, Bilbo?"

"I did, yes," Bilbo said, faintly. He rather hoped they brought back the jar when they were finished.

"Do invite them along, won't you? Dwalin and your Dwarf, Thorin, it was. Pearl would be delighted, I do believe," Eglantine said, adding dryly, "I can already see that Pippin will as well."

"Yes, you must," Esmeralda agreed and something of her sweetness melted into a touch of vindictive glee, "If only to see the look on Lobelia's face! Oh, do persuade them into coming, Bilbo, I'd give you a month's worth of Sunday puddings for that!"

"He's not really mine," Bilbo mumbled, weakly, and found himself utterly ignored as both Eglantine and Esmeralda nodded as though everything had been decided, and took up their cookies in solidarity despite the uncertain nature of the raisins.


End Chapter Nine