Epilogue

It had been exactly one year since the Battle of Five Armies had been won and Bilbo Baggins was finally adjusting to life without adventure. He had found Bag End empty and dull when he had first returned to it and it had remained that way throughout the year. No other hobbits ever visited him, mainly because they thought he was odd or because he had changed too much. A respectable hobbit did not go on adventures and did not collaborate with wizards and dwarves. And no hobbit was meant to become rich in mysterious ways.

Because that is one more thing Bilbo had become. Apart from a Burglar, barrel-rider and adventurer he was now very rich. The gold and silver the dwarves had buried after their encounter with Tom, Bill and Bert had still been there when Gandalf and the Halfling were on their journey home. Both treasure chests were now Bilbo's. And even though they still smelt of trolls they made the hobbit quite happy.
Bilbo was sitting in his favourite arm chair – a green one – when the doorbell rang. He sighed. The Sacksville-Bagginses always managed to stop by at the most inconvenient times; preferably around two o'clock, when Bilbo was about to take his nap.
He grunted when he got up and grumbled something inaudible as he scurried to the door, shaking his fists in anger. When he opened the door with a loud sigh, ready to say 'What is it now?' he was taken by a wonderful surprise.

On his doorstep were Balin and Gandalf. The dwarf, dressed in elegant, red robes, bowed his head. 'At your service, Mr Baggins,' he laughed.

'At yours! At yours!' Bilbo squeaked excitedly, 'What a marvelous surprise to see you Mr Balin. And Gandalf, too. Come in, come in, my old friends. I'll make us some chamomile tea.'

Not much later the three friends sat down in Bilbo's living room, carefully sipping their hot tea. Bilbo had put some biscuits on the table as well, but they were gone before you could say 'dragon'.

'You have not aged a day,' Balin noticed, carefully observing the hobbit.

Bilbo shrugged. 'No more than a year has passed since you last saw me. It only makes sense that I have hardly changed.'

'Perhaps. The same cannot be said for myself, however.'

The hobbit studied the dwarf in front of him. He was right; he looked older than he had a year ago. His white hair had gone even paler and more wrinkles had changed his face and made him seem very old.
Gandalf laughed heartily. 'As long as it is obvious that I am the oldest – and wisest – in the room, your remarks are pointless,' he stopped, waiting for Bilbo and Balin to understand his joke. They both laughed eventually, though it was obvious how both forced it. Gandalf shook his head, 'The wiisest I am most definitely,' he muttered and then in a louder voice said, 'To business.'

'Business?' the hobbit stammered, 'So this is not a friendly visit then?'

Balin chuckled, 'When a wizard comes to the Shire it hardly ever is.'

'Then why are you here, if it is not for tea, biscuits and a bowl of soup later?' Bilbo asked concerned.

'We are here to officially mark the end of our journey. This is the end of the Company. I need you to sign this.' Balin folded a piece of paper open on the table. The hobbit leaned forward, peering at the letters. He recognised the ink scribbles from Ori, but had trouble reading them.

'What is this?' he asked the dwarf, pointing at the manuscript.

'It is a contract.'

'What does it say?' he frowned, peering at the parchment intently.

Balin coughed. 'Shall I read it to you?'

'Just give me a short summary,' Bilbo smiled, seeing how long the contract was.

'Very well,' he sipped his tea, shot a quick look at Gandalf and began, 'After you left we buried Thorin and his nephews. But, though it was different for his remaining companions, the sadness did not last long in Erebor. We needed a new king. It soon became obvious this would be Dain himself, as he is Thorin's cousin.'

'Dain?' Bilbo asked, 'But what about you or another from Thorin's Company?' He had not used Thorin's name in so long and speaking it sent shivers down his spine.

Balin shook his head. 'Dain is the next in line. Besides, I doubt any of us would have wanted to claim the throne after Thorin…'

'So, where are you now then? Just another amongst many, living in Erebor?'

Balin tapped the contact in front of them. 'There is more to tell. The Company of Thorin Oakenshield has scattered across the lands. My brother Dwalin, Ori, Nori, Dori and I travelled to the Mines of Moria and now live there. I promised to look after them all, so officially you are now speaking to the Lord of Moria.'

'Really?'

'The one and only,' he laughed and finished his tea. 'You said something about soup earlier?'

'Ah yes, yes,' the hobbit said as he got up from his chair, 'I have a large kettle filled with mushroom soup in the kitchen. Would you like a bowl as well, Gandalf?'

The wizard nodded, 'Please. Although I believe Mr Balin has not finished his story yet.'

'It can wait,' the dwarf said, 'Soup is much more important.'

'That is what I thought.' So little Bilbo hurried off to the kitchen, only to join the others moments later with three big bowls of soup in his hands.

They talked of ages past; of adventures they had survived together and of all the things they had seen. Gandalf even told part of his own journey, when head not been with the rest of the Company.

There was laughter when they remembered the merry evenings, there were tears when they talked about the Battle of Five Armies and there was silence after they spoke of Fili, Kili and Thorin.

'And so we have reached the journey's end once more,' Bilbo muttered. Quite some had passed and the Halfling had lit a small fire in the fireplace near the window. He stared into the flames. 'He promised we would meet again one day,' he muttered, more to himself than to Balin or the wizard. 'But when? I hate the waiting. It never ever ends.'

'I don't think you should want to wait,' Gandalf frowned, 'It will happen and when it does you will be ready. The time is not there yet for you to be reunited, Bilbo Baggins, and you should be very grateful for that.'

'I can't be,' the hobbit sighed, 'Bag End may be the perfect hobbit home but it seems so pointless to live an easy life here once you have seen what is out there. I might have been able to enjoy the Shire more knowing all my friends had lived.'

The others nodded. Both understood exactly what the hobbit meant, as they both knew the feeling well enough.

'I am sorry,' Gandalf whispered, but Bilbo waved his hand, meaning it did not matter. 'Don't be. I am glad to have been part of Thorin's Company, honestly.'

'Ah yes!' Balin exclaimed all of a sudden. 'The contract!'

'What about it?' Bilbo asked skeptically.

'You still need to sign it.'

The dwarf pointed at the hobbit's quill pen and ink pot on his desk in the drawing room. Bilbo immediately went to fetch it and dipped the quill in the ink when he got back.

'Sign it here,' Balin told him, tapping a blank spot on the parchment.

'What happens if I do?'

'Your signature would mark the end of the Company.'

'What happens if I don't?'

'Our Company will remained intact,' the Lord of Moria explained.

'And what would that mean?'

The dwarf thought for a moment, but finally said; 'Nothing.'

'So, what you are asking me, is to break the final bond? The final link connecting me and them?' He did not speak Thorin's name, but all three knew he thought of him and that it was because of him that Bilbo did not want the link broken or the contract signed.

Balin looked at Gandalf and the wizard nodded, confirming that the dwarf should answer truthfully. 'Yes,' he muttered, 'That is what I am saying.'

'That's what I thought,' Bilbo sighed, 'Sorry, Balin, I can't sign this.' He put the ink and quill on the table and leaned back in his chair, shaking his head slightly.

'It is time you moved on,' Gandalf told the Halfling, arching his brows. 'You can't keep living in the past!'

'If only I could.'

'But it is done! There no going back, so you have to move forward.'

Bilbo looked up at him, narrowed his eyes and swallowed the lump is his throat away. 'No man ever said the past would always follow,' he whispered, 'I can't move forward since the past will always haunt me. And no one warned me that it would! No man ever told me so.'

The old wizard sighed and his eyes filled with a great sadness Bilbo had not seen before. 'What do you see, when you look ahead?' he asked the hobbit.

'Nothing. There's nothing to look forward to. Not anymore. I want to see the elves again, Gandalf. I want to go back to Erebor. I would travel over the Mountains a million times more. I want to do it over, but with a proper, nice ending.'

Gandalf smiled weakly. 'You are one of the most wonderful people I have ever met, Bilbo and you deserve all the luck in the world, but I can't turn time back for you.'

'I know,' he felt tears come up again but blinked them away and turned to Balin, 'You just said nothing happens if I don't sign the contract. So why would I?'

'Because it would mean closure. It would mean goodbye.'

Silence fell and Bilbo looked from Balin to Gandalf. 'I don't want to say goodbye. Not to you, not to any of the others. If I sign this, there won't be any reason for you to come visiting!'

The two others looked at each other briefly but Bilbo went on. 'No, I have an idea. You can come by next year and ask me again. I will have soup ready and perhaps something else, too. Perhaps in a year time I will be ready.'

Balin and Gandalf eventually agreed to this and spent the rest of the evening telling more stories. Some old ones, some new. Bilbo learned about the time when Balin was young and had fought alongside Thorin in the Battle of Azanulbizar, the battle of the Mines of Moria and how they had become best friends. Bilbo, in his turn, told the dwarf about the awful Sacksville-Bagginses who had kept bothering him, even after his journey. 'They are worse even than the trolls we encountered!'

It was already very late when Bilbo started yawning and invited his friends to stay and sleep in Bag End. They gladly accepted his offer and Bilbo promised them a terrific breakfast.

When the hobbit woke the next morning, however, there was no one to make breakfast for. Balin and Gandalf had gone. The had left a small note on the table;

'Until next year, when we will meet again.'

Bilbo was very pleased to find that they indeed kept their promise and returned, exactly one year later. But the hobbit would still not sign. They came by a year after that, as well, and a year after that and a year after that.

In the end, Balin did not even bother to bring the contract along.

The Company, it appeared, would last forever. Bilbo would not have it any other way.

The years passed by rapidly and Bilbo, who had always had a passion for writing, found himself behind his desk more often, writing about the things he had seen. This was after his nephew Frodo had come to live with him. He was very fond of the boy – almost as fond as Frodo was of him – and knew how he loved Bilbo's stories. So he wrote a story called 'There and Back Again' for him.

It was about adventures, about trolls, about wizards, spiders and elves. About men and dwarves and dragons and battles. About Balin, Dwalin, Oin, Gloin, Ori, Nori, Dori, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Fili, Kili and Thorin. Oh, Thorin.

So it was that his nephew found him in his drawing room one morning.

Frodo, who knew his uncle better than any hobbit, had learned how hard it could be for Bilbo to write down his adventures and knew how the old hobbit disliked being disturbed, so he approached him carefully and asked quietly; 'How is your book coming along, uncle?'

'It is nearing its end,' Bilbo answered without looking up from his work and scribbling on.

'Uncle?' Frodo asked carefully.

'Not now, boy,' the old hobbit grumbled.

'I'll be out before you know,' his nephew laughed, 'I was just wondering-'

Bilbo put his pen down and looked over his shoulder to see Frodo watching him from across the room. 'Yes?' he asked, gesturing for him to finish the sentence.

Frodo saw tears glisten in his uncle's eyes and heard how his voice trembled slightly.

'Are you alright?' he asked.

'Yes,' Bilbo told him without thinking twice, 'Yes, I'm fine.' Then he turned back and picked his quill up again.

'I am fine.'

The End

So there we are. At the end of all things.

Well, aren't we a little dramatic today?

Wow. This is the end of my first ever fic and I really hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Honestly, it was the best.

I'm currently working on a small writing project with my best friend, so somewhere along the line you'll hear from that, but for now, I'm done writing, apparently. I don't want to be done, so if you have a nice idea, don't hesitate to give me some inspiration. Okay, I have got to wrap this up, don't I?

Very well. This is it. The end. Please leave a review, if you like. I'd appreciate it very, very much.

Lots of love, Luna.