The first time Bilbo travels on his own, he goes as far as Rohan. With Beorn's generously provided supplies, his pack is full, and since the shapeshifter dealt with the orcs chasing the Company, there's no immediate danger on the roads. Besides, he isn't helpless, either.

He doesn't say goodbye. He leaves at dawn a day before the Company is set to go to Mirkwood. It's easier than he imagined: no floorboard creaks, no one snaps awake and hurries to stop him.

The way on foot is slower than it would be if Bilbo had a pony, but he is unwilling to risk asking Beorn for one. Soon, Bilbo reaches Anduin and walks along the shore. He isn't fast. He knows if the Company wanted to catch up to him, they would have done so. They don't, and Bilbo squashes budding disappointment and all regrets. It's for the better.

He takes his time, keeping his pace unhurried, but walks from dawn till dusk and moves through the shallow water, stopping only for the nights. The wall of trees stays a constant on the horizon to his left. He fishes in the evenings, gathers frostbitten berries from sparse bushes, and sleeps under a starlit sky. It almost feels like a ramble but for the loneliness and the persistent unease that clings to him like tree sap to needles. Weeks pass without Bilbo meeting another soul. The world has never felt so empty.

The season grows colder, harsher, but Bilbo doesn't dare start a fire in after dark, not with the evil-occupied Dol Guldur so damn close. Instead, Bilbo trudges determinedly ahead under the moonlight when the sky is clear or hides under a bush and hugs his pack when it is not and stays awake despite exhaustion. He dozes at middays when the sun is strongest. As his pack lightens, Bilbo grows thinner; his clothes hang looser on his frame.

He travels south. More and more often, wargs howl in the distant forest, and on those nights, Bilbo rests one hand on the pocket housing the ring and the other on Sting's hilt. And more and more, he hears whispers masquerading as his voice. You were nothing to him. He killed you once. He will do it again and again. And why shouldn't he? What are you? Unlovable. Pitiful. Useless. Worthless. You will never succeed. Bilbo shuts them out.

Eventually, with his dwindling supplies threatening to run out, Bilbo is forced to decide: venture to a settlement or risk foraging in a forest. There should be several of both along the way, as he recalls.

Another week passes without any change in the scenery before Bilbo realises he must have misremembered the map, or perhaps, the one he thought about belonged to another age, not that the reason matters. He walks and walks, but all there are to see are open plains, and even those soon turn barren on his left. The Brown Lands are nothing but a dusty desert.

Still, it worries Bilbo, this emptiness. He crosses Anduin over a shoal in the North Undeep, thoroughly sick of fish and with barely a handful of nuts left in his pack. The grassy plains on this side of the river aren't any different. The winter season started and left nothing to harvest. He'll have to find a village soon, he decides, but Bilbo is in Rohan. These lands are populated scarcely.

He walks and walks and sleeps in fitful bouts in open fields without any shelter. It is too vast and too deserted, and too foreign, and too much. Bilbo's nerves are strung out. He twitches at every noise, be it a rustling of the grass or a vole scurrying into its burrow.

"I am the only person left in Middle-earth, doomed to walk for all eternity and never reach a destination," he says aloud just to hear someone's voice.

One day, a thunderous sound cuts into a jumble of images his mind decided to torment him with. Bilbo wakes up and spots a cloud of dust in the distance. It is fast approaching. His every instinct screams at him to hide, and he looks around, but of course, finds nowhere to go. His heartbeat picks up speed to rival the galloping horses as he panics. The ring slips on his finger like it waited for Bilbo to give in. It did.

He runs, but the horses outpace him. It is a herd without riders, and even were there people, they wouldn't—couldn't—see him. In desperation, Bilbo crouches and throws his arms up to protect his head. It doesn't help him. As hooves stamp on his invisible form, Bilbo cries out in pain. It's over soon enough.

Back in his smial, Bilbo groans into his palms. "That was so stupid. What was I even thinking?" And that's the heart of the matter — he wasn't.

The Quest starts over and repeats. Bilbo departs the Company at Beorn's. His pack is heavier, his rationing tighter. He braves the Brown Lands, following the river for fear of not finding any water. The trek through the hills of Emyn Muil is harsher still — brambles and thorny bushes catch his clothes and scratch his skin, dried creepers prickle his feet. The hills are steep, the climb is hard and slow. But what comes next is worse a hundredfold: the Dead Marshes.

An ever-changing mist unfolds over the endless pools and mires. At nights, candle flames float over the dark water, luring Bilbo like fairy lights. The flames are dancing, their outlines insubstantial and smudged, and Bilbo looks at them too long.

He watches merry dancing flames, and in a trance, he follows. One squelching step, then two, and three, and he is at the edge of boggy ground. His feet are wet and chilled, turning numb.

The candle flame is hovering above an ethereal face, which rises to the surface from the depths. It casts its features in a greenish tint, and mesmerised, Bilbo can't turn away. He studies the softly arching eyebrows, the long, thin nose, and the clouded, opaque eyes that seem to stare back the longer Bilbo watches. They look into his soul. Bilbo leans closer and closer still ... A quiet splash. The water fills his nose, his lungs—

"Not good," he says and sighs. The sound of his own voice is startling. He grew unused to hearing anything but whispers of the ring.

"This isn't working." He needs someone with him to snap him out of the trance, for company, and to keep him sane. He rubs his face. "All right, the dragon first, then deal with the ring, I get it."

The wizard comes, then the dwarves in the evening. And Thorin, who he soundly ignores — as much as he can ever do while still maintaining some semblance of politeness, at any rate. The Quest commences.

At the Trollshaws, Bilbo poisons the trolls. He throws Belladonna roots into their cauldron. Come morning, he leads the Company to the troll hoard. The trolls were turned into stone as they were — lying on the ground, curled around their stomachs. And Bilbo not quite smiles, but satisfaction curls in him like a well-fed cat. The dwarves seem disturbed for some reason.

In Rivendell, he inquiries after acquiring a bow to replace the one he got in Bree and practices archery.

"I'll pay for it, of course," he says, and Forgam, who is again his training partner, procures a bow tailored to Bilbo's size.

"It is a gift, my friend," says the taciturn elf, refusing payment and leaving Bilbo baffled when he realises Forgam has meant that word. Friend. He thinks about it and, with a warmth spreading through his chest, realises that they have, indeed, become friends while Bilbo wasn't looking.

Their friendship formed over silent bouts in the sparring ring only Bilbo can remember and carried over into this life, facilitated by his familiarity. It strengthened while they were fletching arrows in the mornings and loosening them into targets side by side in amiable competitions at middays and often well into the evenings. It's a relationship he plans on keeping.

For a far less explicable reason, Thorin asks him for a walk around the gardens. Bilbo declines.

"So," Bofur says, finding Bilbo the day after in a gazebo overlooking the waterfalls. He lands on Bilbo's bench and continues, "Our king is broodier than normal. Your doing?"

"Whatever do you mean?" Bilbo murmurs, frowning.

Bofur gives him a funny look. "Pardon my saying, but you aren't dense. Quite the opposite of that is my impression."

And Bilbo sighs. "Thorin did invite me for a walk, but to accept it would be unwise." Not now. Maybe never. "I don't want to give him the wrong impression. My last relationship ended... poorly." To put it mildly. "I'm not looking for another. I'm not sure if I ever will."

Bofur just nods. "Understandable. He will get over it, don't worry."

So Bilbo puts the matter out of his mind. Thorin does not outright ignore him, but neither does he seek his attention. Bilbo tells himself that he is glad. He isn't.

Their journey goes on, as usual: the Goblin Town, orcs and wargs, the flight on eagles, and Thorin's gratitude. He does not hug Bilbo, not this time. Bilbo pretends he neither misses nor wants it. Awkward and stoic as Thorin is, the dwarf's words are nonetheless heartfelt, though, in this life, they aren't even friends. It's for the better.

Mirkwood, and he avoids the dwarves. Bilbo gets them out, arranges things with Bard. The meeting with the Master of Lake-town is an inevitable and unpleasant matter. And Erebor. The dragon. It isn't any easier this time — the dragon is enormous, as ever, his voice — a sly and smug cadence. The memory of flames causes Bilbo's hands to tremble long before he comes into the treasury, and when Smaug spits gusts of flames, he almost doesn't move away in time. His arm gets singed. The fire is so hot, it sears clothes to his skin. He doesn't feel the pain until much later.

He finds the Arkenstone and gives the gem to Thorin right away. It doesn't matter, in the end. Gold sickness takes the dwarves' minds in mere hours.

Lake-town burns, but Bard does kill the dragon. He comes to ask for aid, and Thorin threatens him with war.

Not seeing any other recourse, Bilbo offers his share of the treasure in recompense, and Bard, of course, accepts, but Thorin doesn't. It does come to a screaming match with Bilbo doing all the screaming from the other side of the blocked gate. It's for both of their safeties. Bilbo isn't willing to risk getting killed again, and this time he would have fought back. No matter Thorin's actions, Bilbo doesn't want to hurt him.

"I won't allow you, nor anyone else, to steal from Erebor! Her gold belongs to dwarves!"

Bilbo stares through a gap between the stones. Surely, Thorin can't renege on the contract. He says as much and adds at a high volume, "It is my payment, you thick-headed dolt!"

Thorin's eyes harden farther, turning to flint, his face's flush with angry colour. "Take care how you speak to the king, halfling."

"Good thing then you are not my king," Bilbo retorts, with bitterness and echo of heartbreak.

They do not come to any positive arrangement.

As elves and Men marshal their forces, a word goes out of an army on the move. It is, however, not the anticipated dwarves of the Iron Hills. Azog, the pale bastard, comes with a horde of orcs and goblins. The pending war with Erebor is put on hold — all other races unite to stand against the foul creatures.

It starts with elves loosing hails of arrows. Too soon, however, the orcs descend the hills, filling the valley, and force the allied armies to meet them in a melee or risk being pinned to the Erebor's gate.

Later, he will hear how King Dáin led his legions, splitting the enemies' attention between two fronts, but, for now, Bilbo loses himself in the fighting. For all the skirmishes, this is his first real battle. He uses his small size to his advantage, hiding behind and weaving among the tall Men and, at some point, elves. The battle goes on, seemingly forever. The cries of the wounded and dying ring along with the clashes of steel, the twangs of bowstrings, the snarls. It's easy to forget himself and just keep going.

A cheering breaks amid the field and spreads like ripples in a pond. The surviving orcs and goblins turn tail and run, and those, who can, chase after them, but for many, the war is over.

Bilbo finds himself standing among the corpses in a mixed group of dwarves, elves, and Men. He looks around and doesn't recognise their faces, neither living nor dead. Never before has he caused nor seen so much death.

"All right there?" asks the young, fiercely red-haired dwarf, whose back Bilbo has guarded for the last… however long.

He looks concerned, Bilbo thinks with some delay and nods.

"You, master hobbit," the dwarven lad says, "are a damn fine warrior to have at my side. It was an honour." He bows.

"Likewise," murmurs Bilbo. He shifts, glancing around. His stomach rumbles. He is too hot, but his clothes are chilly and unpleasantly damp. They cling to his skin beneath the armour. He shivers. "I should—"

A groan interrupts him. One of the fallen Men is alive. "—help the wounded."

"Aye," the dwarf agrees.

They do just that, and the elves and Men join them. They search for survivors till nightfall, helping those who could be saved to the healers. Thus night rolls in.

Later, Bilbo will remember the moment he receives the news with startling clarity. After a while, most everything starts to blur and fade, and only this moment will stand out: the torches illuminating parts of the hastily constructed tents and throwing the rest into wavering shadows; the icy water in the barrel he used to splash his face with; the dented metal cup in his hands; his thoughts about supper.

"Bilbo!" calls Bofur, and Bilbo turns. "Come, quickly." Bofur limps forward, his usually cheerful countenance exchanged for one befitting a funeral, not a celebration. A heavy bandage covers one of his legs from knee to ankle.

Bilbo's insides freeze. "Who?"

"It's Thorin. He." Bofur twists his hat in his hands. "There isn't much time left."

Bilbo swallows. "Who else?"

"The princes. They—didn't make it."

The cup falls to the ground, splashing water on his toes.

"I thought you all were safe inside the mountain," someone says in Bilbo's voice while he is floating a step away from his body.

Nothing seems quite real. This isn't the first or even the second time when one of the dwarves died. Why does it feel so catastrophically monumental now? He searches for and cannot find the answer. His heart is racing, pulsing in his temples, Bilbo notes with clinical detachment.

And meanwhile, Bofur is saying, "Come. Thorin's asking for you."

On wooden legs, Bilbo stumbles after Bofur. They pass the other members of the Company, who all as one lower their eyes upon seeing Bilbo and murmur apologies, even Bifur, whose words Bilbo doesn't understand but guesses at the meaning. And Bilbo waves them off. It doesn't matter now.

Bofur pulls a tent flap open, holding it for Bilbo, but doesn't follow him inside. Abruptly, Bilbo snaps back into himself, and everything comes into focus.

Thorin is lying on a pallet. His torso is bandaged, but bloodstains bloom on the cloth in several places. His eyes are closed and his face — stark white and waxen. His breaths are harsh and laboured. They rattle in his lungs, come out with a wheeze. Thorin looks already more than half-dead, Bilbo realises with a sinking feeling in his chest. Somehow, he hoped for a miracle.

Balin is here, too. There's a heaviness to his eyes, the set of his shoulders and the angle of his head that scream defeat. He sees Bilbo, sighs, and silently leaves, pausing only long enough to squeeze Bilbo's arm on his way out.

"Thorin," Bilbo says.

His eyes open slowly, clouded with pain. Thorin blinks and squints. The lantern sitting on the ground near his head isn't enough to illuminate the whole tent. Bilbo moves closer.

"You came," Thorin rasps and coughs in the next moment. Weakly, he covers his mouth with a handkerchief, and Bilbo startles, recognising belladonna flowers embroidered at the corners, now stained with blood.

Punctured lungs, Bilbo decides, blinking rapidly.

"I wasn't sure that you would," Thorin says after the fit has passed. "I wronged you. Please, forgive me."

"That's all right, Thorin." Bilbo's lips are numb. The tips of his fingers are tingling. He disregards it. "Don't worry about it. You will get better. Just, please, get better."

"I wanted to see you one last time," Thorin says. "Please, I beg you to forgive my selfishness as well. I couldn't—"

"It's all right, Thorin," Bilbo repeats. His hand finds Thorin's, twines their fingers. "It's not the last time you see me, I promise."

Thorin sighs and closes his eyes. "In the Halls of Mahal, I will meet with my family." He smiles — the slightest curving of his lips — and his expression easies, relaxing as the last of his strength leaves him.

"Nothing lasts," Bilbo whispers. "Rest, now. You will see me soon."

He sits beside the dwarven king. The other dwarves come and go. Some sit with him, some only staying for a moment. Time passes. Bilbo doesn't move until the last of rattling breaths cuts off. He stands and goes outside. The sky has lightened to a greying pallor. His eyes are dry, but there's aching in his chest, and he is calm but tired.

"Bilbo," Gandalf calls, and Bilbo turns to greet the wizard. "I haven't seen you in the battle. I'm glad you are unharmed."

"Yes, I am fine. Why wouldn't I be?" At Gandalf's searching look, he shrugs. "The others aren't. Thorin..." And suddenly, the numbness falls away, like a pall is yanked off, and anger floods him. He wants to scream and to destroy, and maybe fight and kill more orcs and goblins, and— "Why couldn't you heal him? You did so at the Carrock."

The wizard hangs his head, his shoulders rounding. "Thorin wasn't so grievously wounded then. Magic—" Gandalf sighs. "There are wounds that even magic cannot heal. He would have been a strong king. I mourn his passing." Gandalf's large hand gently touches Bilbo's shoulder. "I'm sorry for your loss, my dear fellow. I didn't realise you were such close friends."

"We weren't," Bilbo says, deflating. "Not that it matters." As if he couldn't mourn a stranger.

"Time heals all," the wizard says. "Come, you need food and sleep. It won't do any good for anyone if you forget to care for yourself."

Bilbo nods and follows.

Time passes, failing to heal anything. Bilbo drifts through days, feeling a little like he does while wearing the ring. He doesn't understand himself. This time, the deaths do not feel real. He keeps expecting to see Kíli and Fíli talking, laughing with Ori or whispering between themselves. He sees them in every dwarven lad of similar colouring.

He drifts after the members of the Company, who all have their tasks in the newly established kingdom, but dwarves outside their small group throw him strange glances. He is an outsider, seemingly muscling into the circle of Erebor's heroes. Those who fought alongside him or saw him on the battlefield set the others straight, but they are a minority among the dwarven army. It doesn't bother Bilbo.

He stays only long enough to attend the funerals, and even that is out of consideration for Gandalf. The wizard will go to Beorn with him, and there Bilbo will presumably spend the winter before departing for the Shire. It is, of course, a falsehood. He has another plan: as soon as Gandalf leaves him, he will take the same road he did before and hope for the best. It doesn't feel right to ask any of the dwarves to accompany him.

That's what he does after ensuring that his part of the treasure goes to the people of Lake-town and into rebuilding Dale. He only takes a handful of gold coins to buy provisions if need be.

This time, Bilbo even makes it past Dead Marshes. It does surprise him, but the endless field of mires ends.

The sky is grey; the earth is dark and dry. He struggles to reach the mountains. It's hard to get past orcs — they do patrol the area quite often. Shadows glide over the mountain tops, and farther in the distance, a single spire rises high above the landscape. As Bilbo has expected, Mordor is always shrouded in darkness. The clouds never part, no matter day or night.

Looking at the towering mass of ash and sooty stone, for one deranged moment, Bilbo thinks of trekking straight across the mountain range and knocking on the gate. But madness passes, and shivering, he starts to search for a gentler curve to climb.

He travels in what passes for daylight, and while he spots the Mordor-orcs patrols, they aren't as numerous as during the nighttime. Orcs do, after all, prefer the total darkness over greyish twilight. This far sough, the nights are cold, but days are autumn-mild and almost pleasant.

The aura of evil permeates everything like smog — the rocks, the earth, the scraggly, twisted vegetation, and the air. It's sick and heavy, like in Mirkwood, but hundredfold more awful. The atmosphere gets progressively oppressive, and Bilbo struggles more and more to get up and move.

He sleeps in fits and bouts, the constant fear prevalent on his mind so strongly and for so long, all other feelings dull to nonexistence. He is so very tired but can't rest. With scratched arms and legs, with bandages on bleeding feet, he makes so little progress! There are no maps for hidden paths, no helpful indications of directions. Without sun and moon, and stars — the sky is always full of roiling, angry clouds that never bear fruit with rain — sometimes, it's hard to know in what direction he is going. His food runs out, as does the water. Though he finds a rare stream, Bilbo hesitates to drink, but thirst eventually wins out. The taste is foul, and he gags, but he had worse. He must endure. The lack of food is more concerning. He doesn't know how long it's been — the days became an endless looped ribbon — and Bilbo is unsure how long is left to go.

He can't avoid the orcs forever, either. One night, they come too close to his path. He hides behind a largish rock and prays to be unnoticed, but in the end, he has to fight. He overcomes all three of them and puts on pieces of their armour, filthy as it is, to better blend in and forges on ahead with barely any idea of directions.

His wandering eventually leads him to a set of stairs and his first sight of Barad-dûr. Orodruin is closer. It is a plain away — dark, barren, covered with ash and crawling with orcs and goblins, and covered with their tents and fire pits. And standing in the shadow of the passage, dizzy with hunger, Bilbo doesn't know how he will make the way across. Despair fills his heart. He bites his knuckles.

A sudden pain — a stab into his back. His limbs grow heavy, unresponsive. He cannot move. His mind is fading, also. He slips away as everything is spinning. The last he hears is a loud hissing noise.

And waking up, he feels so glad for it. A sense of overwhelming relief washes over Bilbo. The dwarves are alive! He can start over! So he does.


The hills of Emyn Muil is a vast, seemingly impenetrable maze of rocky crags, and the Dead Marshes is the swampland through which Gollum leads Frodo and Sam in LOTR.
A.N. The chapter was getting too long, so I cut it in half. The second part should be up in 2 to 5 days. My PM folder has been eating new messages since last year, so if I didn't reply to your comments, I apologize. Your words are read and appreciated, thank you!