A/N: Here's another chapter for you lovelies! Sorry it's been so long coming..

~ D / L ~

Clara straightened up from her sweeping and leaned against the round door frame leading into Frodo's study. She wiped her forehead and sighed a little, partly from exhaustion, but there was a light in her eyes.

All that she had read about had come to pass. Bilbo made his speech, he really did disappear, and he had left the Ring for Frodo. Gandalf gave a few warning words and went away. Frodo never told him anything... they both knew he couldn't, otherwise it could change history drastically.

Now Clara was the housekeeper at Bag End. Frodo had explained, a little hesitatingly, that it would seem odd to the people if she was just staying at Bag End when she wasn't... well, wasn't his wife. Create scandal and all that. Hobbits never forgot the smallest scandal. Once that necessary awkward speech was over, Clara assured him that she understood. She had been the one to think of the housekeeper position, actually.

She still had a remembrance of all her other selves that had been created when she had stepped into the Doctor's timeline to save him. Several of those Claras had lived in Victorian London, and at least half of them had taken some sort of servile work. Clara was handy enough with a duster and she could do dishes. She hoped that the memory of those other Claras would jog the memory in her limbs, as well.

The kiss that night had dissolved any romantic tension between them... it seemed to have dissolved anything romantic, except for the occasional kiss on cheek or grasp of her hand. Sometimes Frodo would touch her arm while he passed her in the hall, and Clara would sometimes catch Frodo looking at her with a small smile on his face. But never anything past that. Clara didn't mind - she just enjoyed their quiet and warm, steady and dependable friendship.

Frodo insisted she didn't need to do anything besides pretending to dust and so forth when nosy hobbits come prying around, but Clara found her fingers itching when she saw books covered in dust on Bilbo's shelves or Frodo's desk covered in a mess of papers. Once she had done a big bout of cleaning the first day they were alone at Bag End, there wasn't much to do because Frodo didn't make too much of a mess.

She tried her hand at cooking, too. It took her a while to get all the chopping and mixing done, but while it took her forever to make something, it always tasted good. Clara even found that she was finally able to make a souffle! Well, okay... Frodo had saved it from burning, but she had put the ingredients together. Frodo had shown her some dishes of standard hobbit fare - he wasn't a bad cook himself.

When Clara had finished her cleaning and Frodo finished his research (he was trying to scrounge up any information about the outside world - to be precise, the Ring and Sauron), they would go for a walk or, if there was bad weather, play a game of chess. Frodo told Clara all he knew about hobbits, the Shire, and Middle Earth in general. Clara told Frodo how she had met the Doctor and all about their adventures together. She saw that Frodo's hands would sometimes clutch the side of his armchair a little too tight when she mentioned the times that the Doctor put her in harm's way. She knew she was probably defending the Doctor too much, but she had never seen it as his fault - not really.

And so time passed. It had been months since Clara had landed in Hobbiton. Winter had come and gone and the first blossoms of spring were popping up. She had stopped hoping or even expecting that the Doctor would ever show up. But everyone who travelled with the Doctor always got left behind or died or left themselves at some point, right? If he had even shown up, Clara wasn't sure if she would agree to come back with him. She had grown to love the Shire and Frodo too much.

Clara was startled out of her reminiscence by the sound of Frodo's shuffling feet.

"Hey," she said, the dimples forming in her cheeks as she smiled at Frodo, who was standing in the doorway, hands in his trouser pockets.

"Hey." He returned her smile. "I was thinking of going for a walk. The air is getting warm and we get some beautiful flowers right about now that die away pretty quickly. I wanted to show them to you. Coming?"

"I'd love to, yeah."

Clara rested her broom on the wall and dusted off her hands on her skirt. She still had her London clothes packed away in a drawer in her room - Frodo had let her pick out whichever she wanted. Now she wore the approved clothing for hobbit women. She had never realized how much hobbits loved yellow and green. She preferred to stick with something red.

Frodo opened the door and stepped aside to let her walk out first. Once outside, Frodo gave her his arm and they strolled down the path towards a little park that had a forested lane. After walking through the trees in silence, breathing deep in the fresh air and the smell of life, they came across the first patch of flowers.

Clara unlooped her arm and knelt down beside the flowers. They reminded her of lilacs, except that they were red and grew from the ground, not a bush.

"They're beautiful," she exclaimed softly, running light fingers over one the tiny cluster of blossoms.

Frodo knelt down beside and her deftly pulled out one of the clusters, and tucked it into her hair. Then he met her gaze and smiled.

"Now you look like an elven princess," he said in a quiet tone, that soft smile on his lips again.

Clara returned his smile, a little shyly.

"I think I'd rather be a hobbit princess."

Frodo laughed a little.

"It's your choice, but I think the elves have quite a higher standard of excellence for royalty. We don't even have royalty in the Shire - I think the highest you could go up in rank would be the mayor's wife. Of course, there's always the chance that you could become Mayor... though that hasn't happened yet in Hobbiton. I think Merry said there was a female mayor somewhere over Buckland, though."

Clara was silent a moment trying to think a moment of something to say. Then she dimpled and her eyes sparkled mischievously. She stood up and Frodo joined her.

"I'd love to attempt to be Hobbiton's first female mayor... at least just to see the look on old Whitfoot's face." She laughed, and Frodo joined her.

After the last chuckles died away, Clara spoke again, her eyes serious. "But I really don't care all that much. I'd much rather stay being the housekeeper at Bag End forever... if it means that I can be with you."

Frodo's face sobered. "Are you sure? I know I asked you to stay... but to tell the truth, I regret it every day. I don't want to put you in danger."

Clara shook her head a little. "No. I want to stay with you Frodo Baggins. To the end."

She was just going to lean forward and kiss him when she suddenly felt faint. She reached out a hand and grasped Frodo's arm tightly as she swayed.

"Clara? Clara, are you alright?" Frodo asked worriedly.

Clara tried to answer as she tried to blink away the fuzziness around him, but when she opened her eyes, she found to her dismay that she wasn't in the Shire.

She was lying in her bed in the Tardis, and a man dressed in armour was sitting at the foot of her bed.

"Lady Clara?" The man stood up and his face lit up. "Lady Clara, you're awake! My lords Eomer and Doctor have just left to seek for aid for your condition. But it looks like the help of that sorceress Galadriel," his face wrinkled in disgust at the name, "will not be necessary. Let me call them. Lady Clara? Lady Clara, stay with us!"

Just as Clara tried to sit up, in dismay, willing herself to find her back in the Shire, she blinked again and she was still in bed... but in her bed at Bag End. Instead of the soldier dressed in medieval armour, Frodo was standing by her side.

"Clara! Thank Eru, I thought I had lost you."

Frodo's face was a mixture of despair being replaced by hope, and worry being replaced with jubilant joy. He stroked the side of her face with one smooth hand, the other was holding hers.

"Frodo..." Clara found that her energy had been completely drained, and she could barely even whisper the words.

"Do not speak, young Clara. You will soon regain your strength. Rest now."

The words were not in Frodo's voice. As Clara looked up, she saw a familiar figure towering over both herself and Frodo.

Gandalf.