Chapter 1: Alone
On the night of Bungo Baggins' funeral, his son, Bilbo Baggins sat in his quiet home and stared at the fire as he thought of his dead father.
Bilbo's grandfather had walked him home after the funeral and all the necessary social obligations pertaining to it had concluded and, once he'd made sure Bilbo was settled by the fire, had made himself busy making tea.
The fire on the hearth was lively and added a warm light to the room. On any other day, the fire would have been quite merry, but Bilbo felt numb all over and couldn't bring himself to enjoy the fire. His whole body felt heavy. So he sat, still in his best suit, and listened to the fire crackle and the soft sounds his grandfather made in the kitchen. He hadn't eaten that day, but the thought of food made his stomach churned uneasily. He glanced down at his hands and found they were shaking.
'Can't let grandfather see me like this.' Bilbo clasped his hands together, squeezing them so tightly together that the trembling was stopped. 'Always be in control of yourself,' Bilbo repeated the words his father had so often berated him with. 'There's nothing quite so unseemly as a person who can't control their emotions.'
Bungo Baggins definitely wouldn't have approved of Bilbo letting grief take hold of him, especially not when anyone was around to see it. So Bilbo had forced himself to be calm at the funeral and when relations had approached to give their condolences. He kept his back straight and his head held high, just as his father would have demanded. Even when he reached his home, he couldn't bring himself to let go of the rigid control he held on himself as his grandfather was in the house and surely wouldn't have approved of any kind of unpleasant emotion anymore than Bungo would have.
Bilbo found the sound of his grandfather's footstep to be a welcome distraction from his thoughts.
"Here you are," Bilbo's grandfather walked back into the parlor. "Just what you need to settle yourself for the night." He handed Bilbo a cup of tea before taking a seat opposite of him.
They sat there for a time, saying nothing. Bilbo kept his hands wrapped around his cup until it cooled and kept watching the fire. Steam rose steadily from the tea.
"You're going to be alright, you know," Bilbo's grandfather said. "I know it's hard, now, but you will be alright. The trick is to keep busy. That won't be difficult; you have responsibilities as head of your household, now."
'Only member of the household, you mean,' Bilbo thought. 'I'm alone, now.'
Aloud, Bilbo said, "I know." Bilbo's voice was nothing but a whisper. "I have to go through father's papers. He never liked me in his study… but it has to be done." He thought, with a sudden sting of panic that broke though the numbness, 'I don't know what I'm doing! Father never taught me. I don't know what to do. He hated me hanging about when he was working.'
With a dismissive wave of his hand, Bilbo's grandfather said, "You'll get the hang of it soon enough. You're smart. You give yourself a few days to rest and you'll be just fine." He gave Bilbo a firm look. "I expect you to be sensible, Bilbo. I know you're upset, but it won't do to start wallowing in self-pity or sulking around the place. It won't do any good. It won't change a thing. You've been thirty-three years old for almost six months; you're an adult and you need to behave like one. Understand?"
Bilbo felt his throat close up, but he took a deep breath. "Yes, grandfather. Of course." He didn't dare speak and say what he really wanted. If he'd had any courage at all to speak his thoughts, it had shriveled up and died at his grandfather's words. But he couldn't stop desperately thinking, 'Stay the night. Just stay tonight. Don't leave me.' But he didn't say anything out loud. His grandfather was right; Bilbo was a grow-up and had been for half-a-year. He needed to be sensible... respectable. It was what everyone expected. It was what his father demanded. Really, it was the only way to be in the Shire. But, still, he thought, 'Please, stay with me. I don't want to be alone.'
Bilbo's grandfather kept on speaking, "I know this is going to be a time of adjustment, but you're a good lad and I'm sure you'll do well. You've got your father's brains and your mother's spirit. You can't fail."
Bilbo was silent as he thought, 'Or I'll stay with you. Invite me to your home for the night. Just one night. Please?'
"You'll have to start your quilt, soon." The announcement was made with all due gravity. "It's tradition." Bilbo's grandfather rose to his feet. "I've stayed long enough, I suppose. It's been a long day for you; try to get some sleep." He gave Bilbo's shoulder a gentle pat. They said good-bye at the door and Bilbo watched as his grandfather walked slowly down the road, away from Bag End.
'I need you. I can't do this alone,' Bilbo wanted to scream. 'Can't you see I need you?' But he said nothing and stood in the round doorway of his home, feeling like he was falling apart. 'Everyone is dead and I'm alone and I don't think anyone cares and I'm tired and I want a hug.' No matter how much he felt like doing it, Bilbo didn't cry. His father wouldn't have approved of crying and he certainly wouldn't have stood for crying in the doorway where anyone might have seen such immature behavior. People would have gossiped about it for weeks. 'I want a hug.'
So Bilbo watched his grandfather go and, when he was out of sight, Bilbo went back into his silent home, closing the door firmly behind him. For a long moment, Bilbo stood with his back against the door and his face lowered. His grandfather was wrong, Bilbo knew. He wasn't going to do well. He didn't even know how he was going to survive the night – he felt like he was drowning. He felt… he didn't know what he felt. He was sort of sick. He did not want to be alone, but he couldn't ask for help. He was an adult - he should be able to take care of himself without any help. He wasn't stupid, after all, so why should he inconvenience anyone by asking for help? Everyone else in his family was also grieving, so it would have surely been selfish to push his worries and fears on them. Besides which, his father would have been so ashamed if Bilbo made a spectacle of himself in front of all and sundry. He certainly would have told Bilbo that it was better to suffer in dignified silence and solitude than to be the cause of gossip.
Bilbo's eyes went to the large quilt hanging on display on the wall in the dining room. His father had made the quilt years before. It was simple and rather plain, blocks of fabric squares all sewn together with neat, tidy little stitches. That quilt had been his father's work and, as all such quilts, had been made to represent and honor his family and important people to him. Bilbo found himself drifting a few feet down the hall to his mother's glory box. He opened the lid and, as he expected, he found his mother's quilt laying on the very top. His father had packed away that quilt the very day Bilbo's mother had died. Belladonna's quilt was nothing like Bungo's. Rather than tidy rows of squares, hers was a mismatch of shapes and a riot of clashing colors. It was almost as if she'd gone out of her way to make the wildest quilt she possible could.
After he closed the lid of the glory box, Bilbo looked back at his father's quilt. He considered both quilts and knew, without a doubt, that it would be a long while before he started his – whether it was expected of him or not. And the quilt was DEFINITELY expected.
Bag End was too quiet.
The last rays of the setting sun cast strange shadows on the walls where they came in through the windows. Bilbo quickly rushed to light a lantern, but it hardly helped. Standing in the hall with the lantern in one hand, Bilbo felt himself start to panic, but he had no idea why. It wasn't as if his father's death had been unexpected; Bungo had been ill for weeks and had kept growing weaker and weaker until the end. Bilbo had known how bad his father's health was first hand as he had been the one to nurse his father during those long weeks. But Bilbo suddenly noticed the lantern light begin to dance and it took him a moment to realize that it was because his hand was shaking, again.
"Stop it," Bilbo told himself, as sternly as he was able to. "Just stop it! There's no point in getting worked up. Must be sensible! Just calm down. Don't even know why I'm upset. I'm a grown-up. I can handle this. I can." He swallowed hard. "I have to."
But the panicky feeling wouldn't leave him. He started to feel jittery and the sudden need to do something washed over him like a hurricane gale. He had to busy himself with something – anything! – so that he wouldn't think about how empty the house was. Bungo had always liked a tidy home.
So Bilbo cleaned.
He certainly couldn't sleep. The idea of going to sleep in the house where his father had breathed his last breath, where he'd learned about his mother's death only a few short years before, was miserable. Of course he would have to sleep eventually, but at that moment, he just couldn't.
Bilbo went to his cleaning closet and pulled out everything he had – broom, mop, dust rags, and buckets for water. He rolled up his sleeves and set to work in the lantern light. Being able to keep everything in order brought a strange calm to Bilbo, as if he was finally in control of something… even if it was only to be in control of how well the curtains hung and that there were no dust bunnies in the hall closet.
It gave him such relief to be busy and active that Bilbo cleaned all night. He cleaned the house twice from top to bottom. He scrubbed the bathrooms and polished the floor. He washed all the windows and folded all the towels. He didn't finish until well after dawn when he finally stumbled to his bed and fell into an exhausted, uneasy sleep.
Even as he drifted away, Bilbo tried not to cry. His father wouldn't have approved of such a pointless waste of energy. Bilbo didn't imagine his mother would have approved, either. He'd never once seen her cry. He tried so hard to do as they would have wished. Bilbo scrunched himself up into a little ball of hobbit under his blankets and tried to force himself to sleep. But the house was still silent and seemed cold, though the fire blazed on the hearth and the sun, just peeking over the horizon, began to send its warm light in though the window. A tear slipped out of one eye and Bilbo immediately felt a sting of shame for it. He knew that even though they were dead, his parents would have been disappointed in him. His father had been too well-controlled and his mother too brave to cry. Bilbo was neither of those things and he didn't see how he could ever hope to be.
With that thought spinning around his mind, and more tears leaking traitorously down his cheeks, Bilbo finally fell asleep.
The next day was much the same. He was lonely and miserable and couldn't see a way to lift himself out of his depression. His only relief came from chores. Just as his grandfather had suggested, Bilbo kept himself busy and learned that the physical work occupied his mind enough to settle it, if only for a few hours.
People called around to pay their regards, and while Bilbo was sure that his neighbors and relatives meant well, he discovered that he couldn't find much comfort in their visits. It was vexing. He didn't want to be alone, but he didn't want visitors, either. Bilbo wasn't entirely comfortable with socializing, he never had been. He'd always done his best to be polite and act as a respectable host should, but he'd always felt rather awkward about having people in his home. It didn't help at all that his callers all gave him such pitying looks and kept talking about how sad it must be for him to be all alone and how dreadful it was about how poor Bungo and Belladonna had both died when Bilbo was just barely an adult. Bilbo had no idea what to say to those comments, so he ended up sitting there, dumbly, staring at his guests or nervously looking away from them. The visits were uncomfortable for everyone and, soon, people stopped calling on him.
Days, then months, then years passed and Bilbo grew quite accustomed to being alone. Being lonely stopped being painful and became normal, so normal that he hardly noticed it. He stopped crying at night and, though much trial and error, learned to manage his estate quite well. No matter how much time passed, Bilbo kept cleaning. His home was always immaculate, spotlessly clean. All-in-all, Bilbo grew to be content... not happy, but content.
Then, Gandalf brought a party of dwarves to Bag End and everything changed.
To be continued…