PIPEWEED

a/n: Thanks to Shirebound for the bunny.

The smell of pipeweed.

Bilbo stopped on his tracks and blinked.  The onslaught of recollections caught him by surprise and he reeled under the blur of cherished sights and sounds and scents that he had not realized he still vividly remembered.  He leaned, shaking, against the wall, breathless and blinded by tears.   

How long had it been?  Thirteen, fifteen years since the last time he'd smoked, inhaling that familiar pungent sweetness, watching the blue-grey fingers of smoke dance slowly upward, becoming more and more tenuous until at last the wind swallowed them?  How long had it been?  Memories swirled in his mind like snowflakes in winter.

Winter.  It was winter in Bilbo's second year in Rivendell when Gandalf came for a visit.  Bilbo sat side by side with Gandalf in front of the warm fire in his room, while outside feather-soft snow fell to the music of stillness.  Gandalf had been telling him about Frodo when Bilbo suddenly rose from his chair, walked up to the fire and tipped into the flames the contents of the bowl of his beautiful, silver-bound, Elven-crafted pipe. 

"Frodo knows how much you take pleasure in smoking, Bilbo," said Gandalf quietly as Bilbo returned to his seat and sat down pensively, putting the pipe down on the table beside him.  "He will be glad to know that here in Rivendell, you still enjoy your pipe."

"Not when it only whets the sharpness of fond memories, Gandalf," said Bilbo.

"Do you regret leaving the Shire then, Bilbo?  Do you regret coming here?"

"My only regret is not having Frodo here," replied Bilbo with a sigh.  He looked at Gandalf.  "I know my decision was right.  Frodo will be much happier in Hobbiton.  He belongs there, not beside his aging cousin, among people he knows little.  But it doesn't seem to make the longing any easier."

"He misses you too, Bilbo," said Gandalf softly.

Bilbo said nothing, but the tears in his eyes reflected the bright orange and yellow of the merry fire before him.

The late afternoon Sun, tinted a soft reddish hue from the autumn garb of the trees that lined the hillsides around Rivendell, slanted through the windows and into the passageway where he stood.  The smell of scented candles and hickory wood smoke perfumed the air around him, the sound of water falling down age-worn stone faces whispered in his ears, but when he closed his eyes all he saw, all he heard, all he smelled was Bag End, Hobbiton.  The Shire. 

It took Bilbo a few moments to recognize that the noise that had jarred him from sleep was the sound of someone retching.  After a few more seconds he realized that it was the sound of Frodo vomiting.  Soon Bilbo was flying out of his bed, running toward the lad's bedroom, which was only a few doors up the hallway.  He pushed the door open and rushed inside.

He found Frodo sitting on the floor, his back against his bed, his head hanging between his up thrust knees, over the chamber pot that he held desperately in shaking hands.

"Frodo, what happened, lad?" asked Bilbo as he ran anxiously toward his younger cousin.   "Why didn't you wake me?"

The boy, who would soon turn twenty-one, raised a pale, tear-streaked face, his chin glistening with saliva.  "I'm dying, Bilbo," he rasped sorrowfully before bending his face over the chamber pot again, his shoulders heaving convulsively.

Bilbo placed one hand on Frodo's damp brow, the other on his back.  The lad was a bit cold, but perhaps it was from the perspiration that thinly coated his skin.  He was not feverish, Bilbo found to his relief.  He could not imagine what the cousins at Brandy Hall would say about his hospitality, let alone his guardianship, if Frodo should be taken ill while staying over for the Mid-year festivities in Hobbiton.  He was in blooming health when he arrived two days before.

'What could be wrong with him?' Bilbo wondered.  He had been fine at the feast, laughing and talking and eating the way only a tween could. Bilbo went over the list of food that the boy had eaten, and found nothing suspicious, other than Frodo's seemingly insatiable appetites; the lad was rarely seen not munching or nibbling at something.  But it was not unusual for a growing lad to eat so prodigiously, was it? Lotho ate nearly twice as much as Frodo at the feast, and walked away with no apparent ill effect save for his waistcoat, which was bereft of two buttons in the battle to get the two sides neatly overlapped and buttoned-up.  Frodo had nearly choked when he chortled at the sight behind his cup of tea.  Surely that was not a symptom of illness?

Frodo's mournful groan drew Bilbo's attention to the matter at hand.  "I'm sorry, Frodo," he said, cursing himself inwardly for letting his mind wander when Frodo was so clearly distressed.  "Tell me where it hurts.  Does your stomach…"

"I don't… understand," sighed Frodo, looking blearily at his elder cousin, a trickle of saliva running from the corner of his lips to his chin.  "Why do you like to smoke, Bilbo?  Smoking is horrible…  Horrible…"

He moaned and retched again while Bilbo stared at him with dawning comprehension.  He sniffed and thought he detected the scent of pipeweed mingled with the reek of vomit.  Bilbo shook his head in pity and amusement, his eyes glinting when he finally spotted a pipe lying on the side table.

"Have you been smoking, Frodo?" Bilbo said, more a statement than a question.  He was finding it difficult not to laugh out loud now that he knew Frodo was not really suffering from a nasty illness.  But the miserable look on Frodo's face as he nodded caused Bilbo to subdue his mirth.  "Is this your first time?"

Frodo succumbed to another bout of retching but he managed to nod.  "Am I going to die?" he asked piteously when the attack was over.  "My head hurts terribly and I've been sick forever."

Bilbo smiled and patted Frodo on the back.  "No, lad.  I believe you will survive this," he said as he rose and left for the kitchen.

Much later, when Frodo's stomach was more or less settled by the tea Bilbo brewed for him, and after he changed into a fresh nightshirt before climbing back into bed, he looked at Bilbo with guilty eyes.  "I borrowed your old pipe," he mumbled. 

"The one I put on the mantelpiece in the study?" said Bilbo.  "My father's pipe?" 

Frodo nodded glumly  "I'm sorry Bilbo."  

"How did you come by the leaf?" asked Bilbo, still slightly amused at the grieved repentance on Frodo's face. 

"I swiped it off Lotho," said Frodo in an even smaller voice, avoiding Bilbo's eyes. 

Bilbo stared at his cousin, the suppressed smile gone from his eyes and he was frowning.  Frodo, stealing?  And pipe leaf of all things!  Some part of Bilbo warned him that this kind of behavior was alarming.  He well remembered that Frodo had been the terror of Buckland and the Marish for a few years after the death of his parents.  His raids and pranks had added not a few more wrinkles and grey hair to the Master of the Hall.  But then Bilbo had come and talked to the young hobbit, and it seemed that the problem had been summarily solved.

Bilbo still recalled saying "Is this how you remember your parents, Frodo?  Stealing and painting people's sheep red?  Do you want people to speak of your parents as Mother of the Thief and Father of the Troublemaker?"  That and the promise that Frodo could stay in Hobbiton for a week or two every year—had resulted in a dramatic change in the boy's behavior that Bilbo's reputation rose appreciably higher in the eyes of the people on both banks of the Brandywine.  It was painful to see his trust so easily broken now by the trivial lure of the pipeweed.

"Whatever did you do that for, Frodo?" Bilbo quietly said at last.  "You know that you only need to ask if you want something.  I will gladly buy you a pipe and a good supply of leaf if you want to smoke.  Or you can help yourself to some of mine.  You don't have to steal."

Frodo closed his eyes and covered his face with both hands.  "I'm sorry, Bilbo," he whispered. 

"As should you.  I am very disappointed in you," said Bilbo.

Frodo let out a ragged sigh.  "Are you going to tell me to leave in the morning?  Tell Saradoc that I've been misbehaving?"

Bilbo heaved a deep, exasperated breath.  He pulled Frodo's hands aside and gazed at the lad's eyes.  He had expected to see hardened defiance, mischievous guile, but instead he found fear, stark and raw, quickly shuttered.  The lad wrenched his hands away and shifted to the other end of the bed, still trying not to meet Bilbo's eyes. 

"Good night, Bilbo," he said, pulling the covers to his neck.  "I am really sorry for tonight."

"Frodo," Bilbo reached and clasped one his cousin's hands.  With his other hand he gently turned Frodo's face toward him, locking his eyes with Frodo's.  "I am not going to send you back.  You have Saradoc's permission to stay here for a fortnight and stay here you will, if only for me to teach you that pulling a blanket over what you have to say will not make the matters go away.  Now out with it.  Boys your age like to try new things.  But I remember you told me that you would not smoke before you could buy your own pipe and leaf; something about not wanting the Brandybucks to pay for your own bit of luxury, as I recall.  I can understand that and I respect that, and I expect you to hold to your words and so far I am proud of your resolve.   Now what is this sudden obsession with pipeweed, eh?  What is this pilfering you've suddenly resorted into?"

Frodo sighed and let go of Bilbo's hand.  He toyed with a loose thread on his blanket until he had summoned enough courage to finally form an answer.  When it came out, the lad seemed surprised himself.  "Lotho is very witty, isn't he?" he started bitterly.  "You had quite a long talk with him at the feast."  Frodo bit his lip nervously while Bilbo nodded his emphatic yes, go on.

"I listened sometimes," said Frodo, peering at Bilbo's inscrutable eyes.  "And caught bits of discussion on crop rotation, pony breeding and the drop of ale sales to Bree."  The lad winced.  "None of them held my interest and I understood little of them.  But you seemed to enjoy the conversation.  And the two of you just went through a lot of pipeleaf, talking in mumbles through your pipes, waving them around when you were arguing." Frodo sighed.  "He is only four years older than I am and he knows so much."

"Why should that bother you?" said Bilbo. 

Frodo frowned uncertainly.  Suddenly he pushed his blankets off and sat up straight against the headboard; his eyes, intense and yet full of doubt, were fixed on Bilbo's.  "I…I don't think I can tell you…" he stammered.  "You'll not like it."

"Let me be the judge to that, lad.  Now, what is it?" said Bilbo, trying to stay the impatience that he felt creeping into his voice. 

A few minutes passed before Frodo finally started to speak in a rapid torrent of breathless words, "You like me.  I don't know the reason, but you like me.  You have always been more than a cousin to me; you're my teacher, my friend."  He stopped for a moment, looking suddenly very young and frightened.  "I know it is wrong and very foolish.  But when I saw how friendly you were with Lotho, I was afraid.  Afraid that you will favor him more.  Afraid that you will think less of me because he is sharp and clever, like you, and you enjoy talking with him more than you do with me.  And he smokes, like you, while I don't."  Frodo paused, swallowing hard, his jaw set.  His voice shook when next he spoke.  "I was afraid you would leave me, forget me, and I know I'll not be able to bear that.  You are all I have."

Frodo hung his head.  "I'm sorry.  For the pipe.  For stealing.  For disturbing your sleep," he whispered.  "It was stupid of me."

Bilbo nodded, unable to speak for long moments, too overcome by a sudden flood of tenderness.  He cleared his throat awkwardly and with his finger, tilted Frodo's face up so their eyes could meet.  "Apology accepted, my boy," he said in a huskier voice than usual.  "Love makes people do the strangest, stupidest things sometimes."

"Frodo," he went on thoughtfully.  "Do you know why I spoke so long with Lotho?"

Frodo shook his head.

"Not because he can explain in great detail the correlation between last year's drought and the recent increase in the prices of ale," said Bilbo with a grimace.  Frodo smiled.  "But because he happened to carry around a bag of the queen batch of the Southern Star leaf from the year '97, perfectly cured and finely shredded, and quite a rare find these days.  I think the S.-B.'s bought themselves a generous supply of it and hoarded it for themselves, if not sold it outside the Shire for an appalling amount of money."

Frodo raised his eyebrows and burst into laughter.  "Bilbo, you old rascal," he said fondly, "I do believe it is illegal to let people think you were paying attention while all the time you had your eyes and nose on the other hobbit's leaf bag.  I heard it was called bribery by the nicer hobbits and thievery by the more outspoken ones."

"Maybe, lad," Bilbo chuckled sheepishly.  "But at the time I only saw it as a long overdue installment in payment for my silver spoons."

Frodo snorted. "I'm glad I don't smoke then," he said with a smile.  "I will never have to worry whether your attention is genuine when we talk."

"My attention, Frodo," commented Bilbo gravely, "and my affection for you are two things that you should never doubt, pipeweed or no."

Frodo stared long at Bilbo's face, his own eyes glittering with wonder and happiness and love.  He tried futilely to find words to say, but it was a long time before he finally overcame his speechlessness. "I still don't understand how you can enjoy smoking, Bilbo," he began.  "The queen of Southern Star made you swallow your pride and butter up to the heir of the S.-B.'s horridness…  I'm not finished Bilbo!" he said with a laughing gesture to halt Bilbo's interruption, "But to me, it's the ultimate poison, worse even than Aunt Dora's pickled onions."

Bilbo laughed at his cousin's vehemence.  "Ah, you'll learn yet, my lad, you'll learn," he said simply, patting Frodo's arm.  At the very least, Frodo, he said to himself, the Star has allowed us this moment.  You rarely speak of what lies hidden in your heart.

They talked until the candles by Frodo's bed turned into shapeless yellowish-white lumps in their brass holders and the tween began to nod sleepily. 

"Good night, Frodo," said Bilbo after he blew out the candles.

"Good night," mumbled Frodo.  "Bilbo?"

"Yes, lad?"

"When you smell of pipeweed you smell like Father," came the murmured answer.  "You smell like home."

The smell of pipeweed.  The smell of home. 

"Bilbo."

Bilbo started and opened his eyes.  A man stood before him, stooping so that his eyes were nearly Bilbo's height.  "Are you all right, old friend?"

Bilbo cleared his throat, realizing suddenly just how close he was to tears.  "I am, Aragorn.  Thank you for asking."

He took in a few deep, steadying breaths and looked up at the man's grave eyes.  "I did not know you had arrived, my friend.  You were not here last night when…"  Despite himself, Bilbo found himself choking at the thought. 

"We only arrived this morning, Bilbo," said Aragorn.  "Your cousins, Samwise and I."

"My cous…" Bilbo spluttered.  "Where are they?"

"They are in the room adjoining Frodo's.  I believe you are going there yourself," said Aragorn gently. 

"Yes, yes.  How is Frodo?" he asked with a slight quiver in his voice, resuming his walk, Aragorn falling into step beside him.  "The Elves insisted that I rest this morning.  They said they would wake me if anything went badly with Frodo.  But I think they have let me sleep too long.  It's nearly lunchtime already.  They should have wakened me hours ago."

"There has been no change in his condition," said Aragorn thoughtfully.  "Lord Elrond is doing everything in his power to strengthen him, so he could better fight the Morgul blade's poison.  It seems to be the only thing we can do at the moment.  But Frodo is holding on and that is heartening."

They rounded the corner and the scent of pipeweed became stronger.  A sudden longing washed upon Bilbo and he began to run.  It had been a long time since the last time he ran, life in the Last Homely House was such that hurrying was never a necessity.  But now he ran as though his very life depended on it, as though at the end of the corridor lay his only hope, the only answer to his prayer.  He shuffled, nearly stumbling, his walking stick thumping an uneven rhythm that echoed the broken thoughts that raced across his mind.

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