In a matter of minutes Lily was storming into her sister's room, ranting about the meddling ways of their beloved mother. Poppy wasn't the most ideal victim of her wrath, but she'd have to do as her eldest sister left in the house. Her nature itself posed a danger to the ranting girl, but she was less likely than Bella to run off and squeal and more likely than Mari to understand, and thus, it was a risk that Lily, at least in anger, was more than willing to take. 'How? How can she do this to me? What did he ever do to deserve this labeling? Cracked? Cracked? But he's brilliant! Oh, what did he ever do? He was born into the wrong family, that's what. Or, no, I was, surely. His family isn't the one standing in the way.'
'Lily, he doesn't have any family,' Poppy softly reminded her, knowing immediately of whom her sister spoke.
'Well he has Sam,' Lily substituted. She moaned and collapsed in a small heap on the bed. 'What is wrong with me, Poppy? Why can't I just be happy with what I get? Why did I have to go and fall in love?'
'Oh, Lily, I'm sorry. It's my fault, too. I pushed you into it. I goaded you about him. I didn't know about. . . I didn't know, and I'm sorry,' Poppy apologized profusely to her sister, feeling heavily the consequences of her amateur matchmaking.
'It's not your fault Poppy. I was in love with him before you even started. It would've happened with or without your help. I was always interested in him, at least since he returned, I mean. So quiet and aloof without being haughty, per say. Seeming in a far different, far better world half the time. Seeming so far away you could never really touch him. And then--'
'And then what?' Poppy asked innocently.
'And then. . . we started talking more and more and. . . he got somehow more real and more. . . wonderful,' Lily covered. In her mind she said aloud to the world 'And then I did touch him, and it was heaven!' But she knew that she could never say it anywhere but in her mind, and so she stuck with her silly lie. She would stick with it until the end, the end of what, she did not know, but the end. She supposed the end would come very soon, or, at least, the end of what little they had left. And then the thought came to her. She did not want it to end. Yes, she'd known this before, but suddenly it seemed clearer and more poignant to her. She did not want it to end. And it wouldn't. 'Poppy, will you do me a favor?'
And when she'd asked, Poppy hadn't known how she could refuse, so now she sat under the mallorn tree wondering what to do. A distraction was what she needed, Poppy thought meddling once again in her sister's affairs, but this time with permission, something to keep their mother's mind off of Lily. A beau, A beau was what she needed. Mrs. Boffin wanted a beau for Lily. She just couldn't see the merit in the one Lily already had. So she'd make her compare him to someone else. Now, Lily would never court another, she knew, her heart already being set on the dashing Mr. Baggins. And in any case, that would defeat the purpose of the favor, wouldn't it? So, Poppy decided, she would take the beau herself.
He had to be odd; he had to be rough; but he had to be from a good family with which the Boffins had no quarrel so that her mother would have no substantial argument against the match. He had to be a charming, sweet, and proper lad by day and a drunken, mischievous, troublemaking lad by night. Luckily, dual personalities were not hard to find in the Shire, a land that was a little too proper not to enjoy merrymaking a little too much. And then he stepped by on the road, Hal Hornblower, the perfect candidate.
A/N: R&R!