A.N: Everyone will get a chapter during the course of this. I know a lot of people don't like constantly shifting pov's, I don't usually either and tend to stick to one or two characters. That lead to there being a lot of eavesdropping, exposition and contrived situations that simply didn't work for the purpose of what I was writing. Every chapter title will tell you who we're hearing from. Obviously some characters will have more chapters than others (most of whom will only be heard from directly once). I'm afraid certain characters aren't going to come across as saints, or even particularly nice in some cases.

T.A. 2890 Bag End

"Mama?" Eleven-year-old Bluebell sits up in bed as her mother's hand pauses by the lamp.

"Yes, sweetling," her mother's tone is one of long-suffering tolerance for the questions of pre-teen faunts.

"Why didn't you marry Irak-Adad?" She asks, indigo eyes wide and innocent but lips pulled into a proud smile at being able to use one of her Uncle's secret words.

"Because I married your Papa," Belladonna comes to sit beside her daughter on the bed. When she is a little bit older Bluebell will look back on this conversation and realise the pain her childlike questions had caused.

"But cousin Otho says you're more than eighty years older than Papa and that you've known Irak-Adad longer than Papa has been alive!" She objects.

"True," Belladonna says slowly, "and Uncle Frerin is my very best friend, just like Lobelia is yours."

"No, Mama," the eleven-year-old says in that way of all children when they believe the adults around them are being deliberately stupid, "not like 'Belia. I'm not in love with Lobelia, but you are with Frerin."

"There are different types of love, sweetling," Belladonna sighs. "And there are a lot of reasons that two people who are in love with one another might not marry. Your Uncle was already engaged when we met. He was very young for a dwarf out in the wide world and his father and grandfather had already chosen a wife for him." Bluebell makes a horrified sound.

"But why did they make him marry her? Did he love her very much? Why doesn't she visit with him?" Belladonna tugs at a curl thoughtfully before placing a finger on her daughter's lips to stem the flow of questions.

"What I tell you, you must promise never to repeat," she says sternly. Bluebell nods, her little face solemn, and draws a cross over her heart the way her mother always does when making a promise. "Uncle Frerin is a prince of his people," Bluebell's eyes go wide, "and princes can't always marry who they love. Sometimes they have to marry for the good of their people. When he wasn't much older than you are now a dragon came and stole his family's kingdom. His grandfather, the king, agreed with several other very rich dwarves that all the people who had lost their homes would have the money they needed to build somewhere to live as long as your Uncle married one of their daughters."

"Was he running away when you travelled together?" Bluebell asks and Belladonna laughs.

"Perhaps a little," she agrees, "but when he left to marry the dwarf his father had chosen for him I came back to the Shire and met your father. I didn't think I would see your Uncle again and I fell in love with Papa." Bluebell opens her mouth to ask another question and Belladonna hushes her gently so that she can continue. "I wanted a home and a husband and a child, sweetling, and even though I don't love your Papa in the same way I do your Uncle, I love him very much. For all of the Green Lady's blessings I've received in my life Papa has given me the greatest of them. He gave me you."

"But what about Irak-Adad's princess?" Bluebell demands when her mother falls silent.

"Orcs came to the town where she lived," Belladonna replies softly. "She went out to fight and defend her home, they killed her before she could marry Uncle Frerin. Go to sleep, sweetling."

Belladonna dowses the lamp, her own indigo eyes gleaming in the dark room as she picks her way past toys and books into the corridor. She closes the door behind her, and Bluebell hears her mother sigh as she does it.

Ten minutes later the child has picked her way into the kitchen where she can see into the parlour. Her father has not yet returned from the summer feast around the old oak on the green and the smial is dark apart from the fire burning in that room even though the heat is unneeded after four weeks with almost no rain. Her mother and Irak-Adad (and once again her heart swells with glee that he would trust her with something so precious as a word that should only be spoken by one of his people and all because Papa objected to her calling him 'Uncle') are stood together in front of it, his arms wrapped around her and their voices almost too low to hear.

"People are talking," her mother says, "they're getting to Bluebell now as well. She's been asking questions about us. Questions that I don't want Bungo hearing, he has a hard enough time with it all as it is. He doesn't need it from his child as well."

"Atamanel," Frerin begins.

"No, Frerin, I can't be that anymore," Belladonna cries and Bluebell shrinks back into the kitchen for fear of being seen or caught. "I am loyal to my husband! I chose him and he deserves that from me. It's the least I can do even though he withers away in front of my eyes every day."

"Would you have me leave?" Frerin demands. "Go and never see you again? We have done this dance before, Kurdel, and it always ends the same way."

"I know," her mother's voice catches. "I know. Perhaps we should just see less of one another," she suggests. "Maybe if you weren't around as much the talk would die down."

"Then I will leave in the morning and retire immediately," he says stiffly, "before your husband returns home." He spits the word with a venom that Bluebell doesn't understand. She knows that Papa and Irak-Adad don't like each other all that much but they are usually civil.

"I didn't mean…"

"I'm not sure you know what you mean," Frerin cuts in and his voice is soft, although Bluebell hears a note of frustration in it that she is familiar with from her father. "But it is best. The longer I remain the harder it is to be parted from you again and the more painful to watch you love another."

Bluebell peers through the door again as her mother lets out a sob. Frerin presses a kiss to her lips, the action so sweet and gentle and one that she has never seen her father do. Guilt coils in her. Her questions have done this. Her questions have driven her Irak-Adad to leave and have made her mother cry. She sneaks back to her room and quietly cries herself to sleep.

T.A. 2941 Bag End

Bluebell Baggins is a very different hobbit from the terrified and grieving tween who had written a desperate appeal for help to a dwarf she had not seen in nearly nine years. Four decades with that same dwarf living under the roof of the home her father built have changed her. Unlike most hobbits she knows one end of a sword from another and how to use it. She is lean where she should be plump, firm where she should be soft and pampered. She can throw a blade with a skill that isn't far from that of her mother before the Fell Winter and she isn't easily intimidated.

Having this many heavily armed dwarves in her home is intimidating, even if she doesn't like to admit it and refuses to let it show. The stunt she pulled with Fili and Kili certainly worked in her favour and made her seem far more fierce than she really is, but it had been bravado. She has no doubt in her mind that had they wanted to break free they could have. The pair of them had been so unexpectedly handsome she had found herself almost speechless at their well-practiced greeting. Until they got through the door, anyway. The pair had flirted with her in one breath and shown their own terrible manners with the next. Her reaction, of grabbing ears and scolding, had been the same automatic one as the one that came from dealing with her plethora of younger cousins.

Their names, however, and Fili's startling resemblance to Frerin, were all she needed to know that these were the nephews her Adad would talk about so fondly. Nephews that he consistently painted as good boys who were possessed of a streak of mischief a mile wide and she knows that he has missed them a great deal. Even though their surprise at the sight of their uncle in her home is clear, it is just as obvious that they have missed him as well. No one has forced Frerin to stay hidden from his family, but it makes her feel guilty that he chose to do so all the same. This is quite the wonderful mess Gandalf has dropped on them all really.

Her opinion of Fili does improve when he comes to apologise to her in the kitchen after she has settled her mother with some tea and a plate of food. He's sincere enough, and his hand rubs at one rounded ear as he speaks. She's gracious about it, accepting the apology and acknowledging that she may have overreacted just a little bit to the unexpected invasion from four dwarves. She's less impressed when Fili tells her just how many more are to come, and she doesn't so much ask him to help as she informs him that he will be. He doesn't complain, which is a point in his favour, just locates his brother and ropes him in as well, and by the time the rest have arrived Bluebell has concluded that she could see herself becoming good friends with the pair of them (and Fili in particular) if they were only to stay a while longer in the Shire.

Her concerns over her mother ease as the evening continues. For all she knows that one who has abused the Lady's Blessing the way her mother did will never fully recover it is wonderful to see Belladonna smile and laugh as much as she does while listening to stories from Balin and Dwalin, with the occasional addition from Frerin. Seeing her mother so much as she once was prompts Bluebell to take over the duties of the hostess, she has no desire for her mother to take on the unnecessary stress. Since the dwarves, for the most part, are quite happy to help themselves and acknowledge very little of any direction she might give them, she mostly leaves them to it. The only times she intervenes are with the help of Fili and Kili and those are mostly to replace her mother's good dishes with the ones they keep stored for parties on the green and putting aside a rather large portion of a pork pie, eggs, sausages and potatoes for the late arrival.

Fili and Kili, after helping her retrieve the good ale from the secret pantry where her mother stores it, seem to have decided that she needs their company and drag her to sit between them at the crowded table. There they pepper her with questions about hobbits and her time with Frerin and tell her stories of their own mischief in exchange. After nearly forty years of caring for her mother and fretting after her at large parties it's nice to be able to relax and bask in the attentions of two lads, even if it is likely because she is the only female present who is unattached and the right sort of age.

"Uncle Frerin has been here the whole time he's been missing," she hears Kili say over her head. Bluebell follows their gaze to her mother and Adad. His arm is around her waist as they talk with his old friends and it is easily the most relaxed they have been together in company. Even Belladonna's eyes, so close to midnight for so long, have shifted back to their natural indigo and they glow faintly under the lamplight, as Bluebell knows that hers must too. Her mother is truly happy, Bluebell realises, and she wonders how she has not realised before now that Belladonna couldn't ever be really happy among her own kind.

"I can't say I blame him," Fili replies with a significant look at the pair, although his lips twist bitterly for just a moment. Then his eyes turn to Bluebell and he tilts one corner of his mouth up in a smile that can only be called flirtatious. "Have to say I'm quite tempted myself," and he leans so close that the funny little braids in his moustache brush against her ear and make a wave of heat flush through her. "If you would be so inclined, Miss Bluebell," he breathes.

The earth pulses beneath her feet in a way that she has never felt before and she pulls away to meet his blue eyes. He winks and smirks at her, well aware of the effect he's having, and she elbows him in the ribs before stealing his ale. He makes a noise of protest and she grins in response, waving her own empty tankard under his nose until he takes the hint and climbs across the table to fetch all three of them a refill. She should be horrified by such appalling manners and the abuse of her furniture but she's having more fun now than she can remember having in years, even with her semi-frequent trips to Bree or to visit her extended family. Still, she thinks ruefully, there are other things to think about and this is as good a time as any to slip away and try to get answers from Gandalf.

"Why my mother, wizard?" She demands of him. He looks down at her silently. "Only, I'm not sure if you've noticed, circumstances have changed somewhat since we saw you last."

"Indeed, I have," he replies. "I am sorry to hear of the loss of your father."

"It's been nearly thirty-nine years, but thank you all the same," she sighs. "My father's death took a greater toll on my mother than you realise, she isn't what she once was."

"She has not faded," the wizard points out. "In fact, she seems to have moved on. Or should I say back?" He arches an eyebrow and Bluebell shrugs. What her mother and Frerin do is their business, not that she's ignorant of how things stand between them (she knows what the glint of gold in her mother's hair that sometimes catches in the lamplight means), and she has long been aware of the truth of her parent's marriage. The rumour mill of Hobbiton being what it is she is only surprised she made it to eleven without hearing of them at all.

"A broken heart isn't the only possible consequence," she replies. "She doesn't have the control or strength that she once did."

"What happened?"

"My father was slaughtered by orcs in front of her," Bluebell says. Time has softened the wound and the guilt that surrounds her father's demise and she has long accepted that there is nothing that she could have done which would have made any difference. "Mama reacted poorly, panicked I think, and used the Blessing in a way it never should have been." She knows Gandalf understands. The wizard has been visiting the Shire for generations and Belladonna is hardly the first hobbit to misuse the gift the Lady granted her. "The rest is her story to tell."

Gandalf looks at her mother in concern. No doubt whatever he has planned will be difficult and dangerous. Perhaps dissuading him now will be for the best, but Bluebell suspects that if Frerin feels obligated to leave her mother will follow anyway.

"Excuse me," a nervous sounding voice says, and she turns from her examination of the wizard to face a young appearing dwarf clutching a plate. "I'm sorry, I didn't want to interrupt your mother and father."

"Oh, Frerin isn't my…" Bluebell begins automatically, accustomed to saying it to other hobbits eager to see if certain rumours are true and who would be just as quick to chase the three of them out should the truth of the matter be known. Besides, when she looks at them, she can see why this young dwarf, Ori she thinks, would assume they are both her parents. "Never mind, what can I do for you?"

"What would you like me to do with my plate?" He asks and she finds herself momentarily at a loss. There will be a lot of cleaning up to do, after all.

"Here, Ori, give it to me," Fili says from behind her and she startles, not having realised he was there. His brother is just down the hall and he turns when Fili calls his name, catching the thrown plate with a graceful ease that makes her wonder if he was expecting it.

It is the start of a barrage of plates and bowls being flung around the smial. Dimly, while she breathes a grateful sigh that she got out the least valuable crockery, she is aware of her mother beginning to fret and Frerin soothing her. The dwarves, however, are all singing and laughing around her, and she can't help but laugh with surprised delight. Fili is grinning and winking at her every time she catches his eye, doing increasingly complicated tricks with her mother's dishes and she realises that he is showing off for her. No one has done that since she came of age and it's disconcerting to realise how much she likes Fili doing it, especially when the same behaviour from Kili causes her to do little more than roll her eyes. The blond grabs her and spins her around, laughing when she lets out a startled little shriek, then dips her and, for a second, she thinks he might kiss her. She even thinks that she might just allow it. Then he catches a plate as it flies past her ear, never taking his eyes from hers, smirks down at her and rights them both as he tosses it to his brother.

She resolutely stamps down the resulting disappointment. She shouldn't be upset that a dwarf she just met isn't kissing her into within an inch of her sanity. In fact, she shouldn't be wanting a dwarf she just met to kiss her at all. Even if it would be nice.

The fun comes to an abrupt end with the sound of three firm knocks on the door.