A.N: I'll be posting daily where possible, this thing is fifty chapters long and I have no intention of spending nearly a year posting once a week. I'm also mid-house sale and posting this relaxes me.
Frerin and Belladonna's story will be revealed gradually and non-linearly, the past is their story, the present belongs to others. If there's anything you want to ask feel free, I don't bite.
T.A. 2874 The borders of the Shire
"You can't honestly expect me to believe you're in love with that, that, that hobbit!" The dwarf snaps. The hobbit stares at him from the other side of their campfire, her face a blank mask.
"Why not, Frerin?" She asks, her voice as tightly controlled as her expression.
"Because he's so hobbity," Frerin replies in frustration after a moment of searching for a response. "We've known each other for nearly eighty years, Belladonna, I've met many of your kind and you are the least hobbity hobbit of all of them."
"Perhaps I'm finally growing up and fulfilling the expectations of my people," she cries.
"What is that supposed to mean?" He demands even as his heart sinks into his boots. The words are all too familiar.
"You know full bloody well what it means," she snarls. "You were the one who said it."
"That's different," he insists. "It was arranged, it was…"
"Duty," she finishes for him. "Well this is me doing mine. I'm one hundred and eleven, my parents are long dead, my brothers and sisters are nearly all gone to the Lady's Fields too. My nieces and nephews have their own children and here I am, unmarried and looking barely a day over forty with no home of my own. I deserve a family, Frerin."
"I know," he sighs and scrubs a hand through his hair. It's longer now than it was when they met, as is his beard, and his dark eyes are sad, full of the expression of something that neither of them can put words to any more. "Mahal, I know, but why that hobbit?"
Bungo is dull, that's the kindest way to describe him. He's bookish and properly round for a hobbit with his sights fixed on his fields and tenants, on everything inside the Shire. He has no real interest in the outside world, although he enjoys the stories Belladonna tells him. Having known her for as long as he has Frerin can't understand what Belladonna sees in Bungo Baggins, she'll be bored within two years.
"He loves me," she replies, "and he isn't afraid of showing it. He isn't hiding anything," there is a challenge to her voice that makes Frerin wince. "I may not love him the same way, but we can be happy together."
She doesn't need to say anything else. The implication is clear enough. She has chosen Bungo because the hobbit is different from Frerin. The dwarf may believe it to be a mistake, and he wonders if she might not suspect the same thing, but he can't blame her for wanting to be happy.
T.A. 2941 The Green Dragon, The Shire.
Frerin rolls his head across his shoulders, taking a moment to enjoy the ache that comes from a day of hard work in the old forge. He has closed up early, his orders complete for the day, and as much satisfaction as he gets from working on cooking wares and farming tools he finds that he still misses making weapons and armour.
"So, when are you going to ask her?" Old Gamgee says from behind his flagon of ale. "It's been near enough forty years and she's still mighty handsome for her age."
Frerin snorts, Belladonna is twelve years younger than he is. All things considered she's a very attractive hobbit for one at the grand age of one-hundred-and-seventy-eight.
"It isn't done among my people," he rumbles.
"Makes bugger all sense to me, that," Gamgee scoffs. "You lot live near on three hundred years, find it hard to believe you'd ask a widowed woman of a hundred and thirty to stay alone that long."
Frerin shrugs. After nearly four decades in the Shire he finds himself questioning it as well. Dwarves don't fade like hobbits do when their One passes and given his own near miss with matrimony he wonders how many marriages among his kind are really founded on love as they are claimed to be.
"My old pa told me that he knowed she didn't love poor Mr Baggins as deep as he loved her," Gamgee continues. "Was a shame really, how he died and what it did to her and all. She's so much better now, would be a great shame for her to spend her aging years alone."
Frerin just hums, any other response brings him too close to potentially having to utter a falsehood. Old Gamgee likes to talk about Belladonna marrying her dwarf once he's had a few ales. It isn't a new conversation, although the direction of it has changed over the years. The Gamgees have taken care of the gardens at Bag End since Bungo had it built. When Frerin had first arrived to help a newly widowed Bellladonna and her overwhelmed daughter the Gamgees had disliked him intensely. They had repeatedly warned him off and threated violence should anything happen to either hobbit under his care. Old Gamgee had been young, then, now he's pushing ninety and probably only has a handful of years left to him.
The need to consider any other response is prevented by the arrival of another Gamgee, young Hamfast who has taken over his grandfather's role in the gardens.
"Didn't think to be seeing you here, Master Frerin," he exclaims, "what with them young dwarves on their way up to Bag End."
"What?" Frerin sits bolt upright.
"Aye, hardly any beard on 'em. One was near enough the spit of you," Hamfast continues. "Figured it was some sort of family reunion or some such. Is something wrong?"
Frerin shakes his head frantically and excuses himself. Bluebell would have told him if they had been expecting guests. Belladonna is more sociable these days, especially the last few years, but she would never agree to host a party without his presence, much as he wishes she would. He wouldn't be so uneasy if it were a few hobbits, but dwarves are another matter. None of his people know where he is, the whole point was that they didn't. Belladonna had needed him, still needs him, and he had dropped everything to leave with no notion of ever returning to the Blue Mountains unless she sent him away.
How have they found him?
He is nearly home when he runs into Bluebell. She isn't dressed for the evening, it's cool yet, and he can see the faint glow of her indigo eyes in the near darkness as she draws on the earth to aid her sight and keep her warm. She's better at it than Belladonna was and sometimes Frerin thinks that she could draw on stone with almost as much ease and less danger.
"Adad!" She exclaims and falls into his arms, trembling. He finds he can't berate her for her use of the word outside the smial when she's so obviously afraid. "There's dwarves at Bag End, at least two. Mother thinks more are coming and she's certain one of them knows you."
"Have they said why they've come?" He asks as they both stride back the way Bluebell came. Her answer is negative so perhaps they haven't come for him, even if Belladonna does think one of them knows him.
It doesn't take them long to get back, Bluebell was barely down the path which means she hadn't long left. They go in through the back door and Frerin is immediately assaulted by the sound of Belladonna furiously demanding answers. It's a tone she rarely takes, one that he has missed the sound of, and Bluebell hurries to her side.
"Uncle is here now," he hears her say and is grateful that she has guarded her tongue. There is a startled exclamation from the dwarves who have invaded the under-hill home, obviously they had not been expecting the presence of the younger hobbit. "Come, come sit and I'll make you some tea. Let uncle handle this."
"But what if they take him, dearest?" Belladonna asks, not a baseless question and it's one of the reasons he didn't tell anyone where he was going. At least she's angry, it's been a long time since he's seen that fire in her even though he knows she's masking her own fear. "They've taken him from me once and I won't let them take him again."
Frerin hurries around the corner before something else can happen to further escalate the situation. Immediately he understands why Belladonna is so fearful, so concerned, Dwalin has struck terror into many a larger, seasoned, warrior, let alone a hobbit who has suffered as this one has. He recognises the other too, Dwalin's older brother, Balin.
"I begin to question the wizard's reasoning," Balin states. He has to have been the second arrival, had he been first he would have explained things Frerin is certain.
"I question it as well," Frerin says and Belladonna relaxes enough at the sound of his voice to allow Bluebell to lead her away. "But then, Belladonna hasn't seen him since before her husband died. Circumstances aren't as he expects them to be."
"Frerin!" Dwalin exclaims and the younger dwarf finds himself engulfed in a crushing embrace before a skull cracks against his. "We had given you up for dead! What are you doing here?"
"Belladonna needed me," he replies. "I came for her."
"This is your Bella?" Balin asks and Frerin only nods. There is nothing else he needs to say. Balin well knows that Belladonna Took had been the first of many cracks to collapse the marriage arranged for him by his father and grandfather.
"Why are you here?" Frerin demands and hears the doorbell ring. He only hopes that Bluebell can keep her mother calm.
"Best we let Thorin explain that, laddie," Balin replies. "He'll be here soon with the others. We needed a fourteenth and the wizard said he knew just the one for the task." Frerin scowls, ready to berate the pair of them for trusting to a wizard and withholding their reasons from an obviously terrified woman but another voice makes him pause.
"Well, if they've just been sharpened, you great bloody oaf, I suggest you handle them yourself before I stick one through your brother for scraping his filthy boots on Grandmother Took's glory box!" He hears Bluebell shouting. A loud clatter follows, and he exchanges looks with his old friends. "Honestly, no manners in any of you! Turning up unexpected and without the decency to even apologise for it," Bluebell appears dragging two young dwarves with her by their ears. Both have scrunched their faces up and he can see what Hamfast meant when he said that the blond one was the image of Frerin.
Fili and Kili have grown.
"I believe these belong to you," Bluebell says to Dwalin and Balin. The sons of Fundin stare at her. If the mother's demands has put them on edge, then the daughter's reaction has compounded the confusion. Bluebell gives each boy's ear a vicious twist and they yelp as she releases them.
"Mister Dwalin!" Kili says happily, obviously assuming the old soldier will step in for him against this fearsome, tiny, creature.
"Uncle Frerin?" Fili asks and the broken disbelief in his voice all but shatters Frerin's heart. Kili turns dark eyes on him that are filled with such a desperate hope that guilt engulfs him. There is such grief in the pair of them and he hates that he has selfishly added to the burden on their young hearts.
"So, I'm to assume the full share of the family manners went to you, A… Uncle," Bluebell shatters the moment, whether intentionally or not, and Frerin huffs an almost bitter laugh.
"My sister would disagree, nathith," he says to her. "Go to your mother, I will handle this." She smiles at him, eyes flickering to Fili so briefly that Frerin isn't certain she even realised she had done it. He'll have to keep an eye on them for however long Fili is here, hobbits do things differently to dwarves after all.
"Is there something we should know?" Balin asks. He always did see too much even if he doesn't always reach the correct conclusions. "She looks to be about the right age."
"In blood? No. In my heart she's my daughter in every way," Frerin tells him and the white-haired dwarf nods his understanding. "She's sixty-two, Belladonna and I weren't even speaking when she was conceived, let alone anything else." Frerin shrugs, the vague hurt that used to plague him when he had to acknowledge the six years he and Belladonna didn't talk is long gone. It has been replaced by regret and a measure of bitterness that he hadn't refused to marry or taken matters into his own hands before it had come between the two of them. Had he handled it himself Bluebell might have been his child in blood too.
"She looks to be a fine daughter," Dwalin claps him on the shoulder.
"She is," Frerin replies. "How many of you are coming? I suppose it's too late to kick you all out now and I should at least try to prepare Bella."
"Thirteen all told, and the wizard," Balin responds.
"He promised us a feast," Kili adds enthusiastically. Fili, Frerin notes, is nowhere to be seen.
"Aye," he groans, "I'll wager he did. Don't scratch the furniture when you move it and try not to mess up the pantry too much. Belladonna has a system and she's quick with her ladle."
This, he thinks as he heads towards the parlour, is not good. Thorin is probably planning something of truly epic proportions, a bad idea of magnitude if the small number of companions is anything to go by, and with the involvement of the wizard it can only involve Erebor. Frerin doesn't long for Erebor as his brother and Dis do, he enjoys being out in the world and although the peace of the Shire can be stifling on occasion he's more content here than he has been anywhere else. This conclusion is made all the worse by the fact that Gandalf obviously wants a hobbit in the company. Belladonna's gift doesn't work the way that it's supposed to these days, it has become unpredictable and although it gets better as her guilt over the events of the day Bungo died eases Frerin knows that it will never be what it once was. Sadly, that leaves Bluebell and he knows that she is as eager to get out of the Shire as her mother used to be. An opportunity such as this, to go further than Bree, will be too good to pass up. Besides, whether Frerin wants to be or not he knows that he'll get dragged into this. Not just to protect Bluebell, although that would be reason enough, but also because once Thorin realises he is here his brother is likely to drag him kicking and screaming out of the Shire.
If he doesn't kill him first.
"My love?" Belladonna is seating in the parlour, a blanket spread over her lap as she reclines in her favourite chair. An empty plate is at her side and her delicate fingers curl around a cup of camomile tea that steams in the firelight. Bluebell is nowhere to be seen but he can hear the soft murmur of voices in the kitchen which leads him to conclude that she is in there with Fili. By the civil tone she has forgiven him whatever it is he did to upset her upon arrival, but in Frerin's experience Bluebell is often quick to anger and almost as quick to forgive in most situations.
"They're waiting for their leader and Gandalf, then Balin has promised that all will be explained," he assures her. "I fear they will raid the pantry, however, and a dwarf party isn't as polite as a hobbit one."
"I dare say it isn't," Belladonna sighs. "Gandalf came to me this morning and invited me on an adventure. I suspect this is the beginning of it. Bother the old coot, I made my position on it quite clear."
"You don't have to go," he tells her. "The wizard should have heeded you. Unfortunately, I fear that I will have to leave with them. Their leader is my brother and I can't refuse him, not after the way I left things."
"I suppose not," she mutters, eyes downturned, "but perhaps it is time. I can't heal here, I thought I would but reminders of the past surround me and every time I think I've moved forwards and forgiven myself as my daughter has I walk into a room and something of Bungo is there. He built this home for me and he haunts me here."
"You don't have to," he reminds her.
"It's time, dearest. It's gone time," she gazes into the fire. "I worry only for Bluebell."
"If I know Bluebell she'll follow us," he tells her. "You know she feels the draw as you once did. She has for some time now." The doorbell rings again and Bluebell calls that she will answer it.
"How many are coming?"
"Thirteen," Frerin says. "An unlucky number and very poor omen for the beginning of my brother's quest."
There is a crash from the entrance hall and both dwarf and hobbit rush to see what has happened. They find a pile of dwarves in the door and Bluebell with her head in her hands as Fili begins to help the new arrivals to their feet. Gandalf ducks through the door as soon as the way is clear. To her credit Belladonna doesn't instantly start shouting at the wizard, although it's clear to Frerin that she wants to, whose attention is more caught by her daughter.
"Well, young Bluebell," he says, "this is fortuitous. I had thought you married with a smial and family of your own by now."
"I should have known you had something to do with this, Grey One," she replies. "My poor mother was quite beside herself when your bunch of vagabonds started showing up." The new arrivals make some noises of protest which drown out the wizards answering hum. Bluebell shoots them all a glare that can only be called venomous and ignores them in favour of continuing to talk to Gandalf. "And you know full and well that those of us as strongly blessed by the Lady as Mama and I don't marry young. Is this the lot of them?"
Somehow, Frerin notes, she has managed to get Fili collecting weapons and cloaks. He has to wonder what she said to him in the kitchen, his memories may be forty or so years out of date, but he can't remember his eldest sister-son being that eager to help except with his mother.
"Thorin hasn't arrived yet," Frerin answers her before Gandalf can. The grey wizard's eyebrows rise in surprise but there is delight in his ancient eyes. Frerin settles for scowling at him, as impressed with the situation as Bluebell and Belladonna even though it is good to see old friends again. Belladonna moves closer at the sound of his brother's name, he has told her much of Thorin over the years, and presses her hand into his. It's obvious that she is afraid that Thorin will forbid both her and her daughter from joining the quest and that she will lose him into the bargain. He silently promises that it won't happen.