A/N Can you tell it's the weekend and I've already had some of this written? Enjoyyyy.
Aragorn's eyes were dark as Gandalf arrived somberly in the front sitting room of the king's house where he waited with Legolas. In the span of a few hours he had lost his wife, and found that his friends had kept that future from him for his entire life. So when the wizard stepped into the room Aragorn couldn't muster even a sliver of kindness.
"In all our years I have trusted you and yet you would keep this from me."
Gandalf bowed his head in guilt and nodded. "Not for malice, Aragorn. I beg you find the strength to see that."
"You have lied to me, and worse than that you let her believe she was safe here. That she would not be taken!" He yelled across the room, furious even more for her than he was for himself. "She trusted you without question!"
"I could not speak of it." He explained.
Legolas wouldn't explain either, beyond telling him he had met her in Mirkwood nearly eighty years before. A time that called into question things he himself had known. "Why not?!"
"She would not allow it, Aragorn. My silence came at her request and hers alone, lest this knowledge come to her while she journeyed with the Fellowship."
Aragorn bit his lip and turned away. Of course she would have sworn them to silence. He could not fault them for their loyalty to her wishes. But surely there could have been a warning, some kind of preparation for her departure. "Will she return?" He said finally, dreading the answer that would follow.
Gandalf's voice was low and uncertain. "I…do not know her fate once her task was complete. Once it was over, she was never found."
"So she may yet return?" Aragorn pressed further. "If the Valar have the skills to bend time, why can they not simply return her to when they took her?"
"I do not pretend to understand the meaning behind their actions or the limits of their power. But I will say this. The day of her disappearance here was by my reckoning, the same day I met her seventy-nine years ago."
"How long was it until her task was complete?"
"She arrived April the twenty-sixth, and disappeared November the twenty-third."
Aragorn's chest clenched. Six months without her, six months of her journeying into dangers. And there was nothing he could do but wait.
Josephine stood outside the Green Dragon, loading packs onto the ponies and watching bets get placed over whether Bilbo would show as eleven o'clock drew closer. The dwarves mounted their ponies and Gandalf gave her a hand up to sit behind him on his horse. Thorin took one last look towards the hill where Bag-End sat and set off.
She'd give him an hour or two before she intervened. He'd been extra late in the movies so she wasn't going to worry about it. Not to mention the deal breaking event she was there to handle was not likely to happen at the beginning of the story and be as simple as Bilbo sleeping in an extra ten minutes.
So it was no surprise when, a half hour into their journey his voice called out from behind them.
"Wait! Wait!" They stopped and Bilbo handed Balin the contract. "I signed it."
Balin looked it over, folded it up, and tucked it away. "Everything appears to be in order. Welcome, master Baggins, to the company of Thorin Oakenshield."
"Give him a pony." Thorin ordered.
"No, no, no, no. That…that won't be necessary. Thank you. I'm sure I can keep up on foot. Yeah, I…I've done my fair share of walking holidays, you know? Even got as far as Frog Morton once." Two hands gripped him by the jacket and plopped him down on the back of Myrtle.
Gandalf dropped them back from the head of the column to ride with Bilbo and she smirked as coins started shifting hands.
"Come on, Nori! Pay up!" Oin called.
"What's that about?" Bilbo asked as a bag flew past their heads.
Gandalf smirked. "Oh, they took wagers on whether or not you'd turn up. Most of them bet that you wouldn't."
"And what did you think?"
"Well…" He snatched a bag out of the air and pocketed it. "My dear fellow, I never doubted you for a second."
Josephine peered around Gandalf. "Would've bet on you myself but they would've called it cheating."
From ahead of them Bofur laughed. "That's cause it would be, lass. Can't let a Seer from the future go round making bets she knows the outcome to, now can we?"
"You'd think differently if you profited from it." She quipped back, receiving a relenting shrug in response.
Bilbo sneezed next to them, and then a second time. He patted around in his pockets like he was missing something and when he looked up again, Josephine was holding a white handkerchief out. "Kept one for myself, I hope you don't mind." She said, passing him one of the three she'd pilfered from his linen closet before they left.
He took it and looked at his monogram in surprise. "No…I uh…not at all. Thank you."
They stopped for the night and the thirteen set about making camp as if they'd been doing it together all their lives. Nothing else to do, she started unloading the bags off of Bilbo's pony and unbuckling her saddle.
Her hands were curling under it to lift it away when a body shoved in beside her.
"I'll get that for you, no need to worry." Kili said, walking off with the saddle
So she went to the next pony. Bags unloaded and saddle unbuckled, she was reaching for it when someone else came, this time it was Fili.
"Don't worry yourself, Lady Seer. Allow me."
On to the next pony. Bags down, saddle ready, and this time so was she. Kili was coming up out of the corner of her eye and she was getting frustrated. There wasn't much she could do to hurt a dwarf, especially through all the traveling clothes and armor. But there was nothing protecting the man's ears. Her hand shot out and she pinched the cartilage between her fingers, pulling hard and using the moment he created trying to escape it to put some distance between them. With a few seconds of advantage while he rubbed his ear she hefted the saddle off and gave him a stern look as she walked it over to the rest of the tack.
"Ah!" Kili said, hand plastered to the side of his head. "I thought women from the race of men were all…"
"Don't finish that sentence." She said warningly.
Kili caught on and put up a big smile. "Horrible! Terribly mean and cruel! But not you, my lady…you are…"
Dwalin interrupted. "That hole ye'r diggin is getting pretty deep lad. Might want to stop now. Go on, help Oin get the fire goin'."
Kili sulked off and Josephine looked at Dwalin, waiting for him to make the next move. He hadn't just popped up to send Kili on his way.
"So I hear ye've seen battle?"
"Skirmishes and sieges. The front of a charge once." She explained vaguely.
"And ye survived. Very promising. Where did ye learn?"
She wouldn't be able to hide the dwarven bits of her training, she'd already told Thorin and it had quickly become known amongst the dwarves. There was only so much lying she was going to be able to keep up, it seemed a good enough compromise. "A Gondorian soldier and a dwarf but I won't name names for obvious reasons."
Dwalin huffed. "Gondorians, sturdy people in their own way. But I'll train ye up proper. And then maybe the lads will stop their hoverin'."
Josephine wasn't one to refuse extra training, but Dwalin's lack of faith in Boromir and potentially himself for all he knew, amused her.
A few days passed and they settled into a better routine. Dwalin tested her every night as dinner was being made and during that night's lesson, far enough away not to be heard by the others that were watching them from the fire, he paused and narrowed his eyes at her.
"Gloin taught ye well, lass."
She froze, too surprised by his accusation to cover it up right away.
"I know how he fights, very distinct and not always for the best, I can see bits of it in you. But this," He copied one of the moves Gloin had been particularly fond of. "Reckless. If ye ever use it again I'll kill ye myself."
Later while they were eating, Dwalin was walking past Gloin and smacked him on the back of the head.
"What was that for?!" He bellowed.
"Somethin' you'll do later." Dwalin grumbled.