Author's Note: This is simply a filler chapter. A fun filler chapter, but a filler chapter nonetheless. The next chapter will be the start of the second arc of this fanfic and things start to get moving. Or at least, I wish they did, I'm stuck on writing bloody chapter twenty-five *cries*. I think I'm going to have to do a full rewrite of chapter 25 and maybe then things will start rolling again. The problem is I know exactly where I want to go and what I want to happen in the chapter, it just getting it written down is an issue for some reason. It's very frustrating.

Chapter Seventeen

More Relative Only This Time of a Curious Nature

Bilbo was right in her prediction that curious relatives would come calling the moment it was a considered a reasonable hour to do so. In fact, she was even counting the minutes to when it was considered a reasonable hour to call upon someone, grinning when she heard a loud knock against her front door the moment the clock on the mantel piece struck nine thirty on this fine Thursday morning.

With an almost skip to her step – she had not felt this free and childlike in years. Even her time with her dwarves hadn't made her feel this way – as she went to answer her door, not at all surprised to see who was standing on her front doorstep.

In fact, there was more than one person on her door step and she was briefly reminded of the night she had found six or so dwarves plus a wizard falling through her front door on to her front mat. Only, of course, the wizard hadn't fallen, he had stood back and watch the whole event occur, laughing quietly with his eyes twinkling.

But anyway, back to the present, Bilbo told herself firmly as she smiled at several young cousins standing on her doormat looking at her with mix expressions of awe and disbelief.

"Hello you lot." Bilbo said brightly, "I guess you would all like to come in and have some breakfast."

"Yes please."

"Dudo, hush now," Dora said as she nudged her younger brother in his ribs, "now is not the time for food."

Dudo scowled up at his elder sister but fell respectfully quiet.

"Even so," Bilbo said grinning at her mix-match of assembled cousins, "I'm guessing you would all like to come in, yes?"

"Yes, please." Dora said and Bilbo stepped back to allow all the youngsters inside her front-hall.

"Hello there Primula. I didn't get a chance to say hello to you yesterday. Or to you too Drogo." She couldn't help but grin at the blushing young adults. Honestly, young love was truly one of the most adorable of things to witness. Not that she had any experience of what young love was like, of course. She had never had a 'young love'.

No, the only love that she ever experienced was a short-lived one. But it had been great and powerful and left her with a heart that was broken beyond repair and whatever was left of it was still so solely his she could never give it away the pieces to anyone else… no matter how much she might want to.

She shook her head, shaking those thoughts away.

Dudo was also watching his elder brother and young Miss Primula closely and let out a little immature giggle.

"Oh," he sang, "I wonder why that was."

"Hush up Dudo." Drogo growled at his little brother, looking quite close to smacking the lad over the back of his head.

"Now, now, behave. Are we expecting anyone else?" Bilbo said grinning despite herself.

"Ah," Drogo said going quite red around his ears, "I do believe Paladin and Saradoc are coming around shortly." He looked to Primula for confirmation who nodded her blonde head looking quite embarrassed indeed.

"Saradoc and Paladin?" Bilbo asked quite surprised. She hadn't been expecting them. "What are those two trouble-makers doing in Hobbiton?"

"Ah, escorting me for Mrs Ruby's tea party." Primula blushed in embarrassed. Bilbo got over her surprise and started to feel amused when she heard Prim's disgruntled grumble under her breath, "escorted by my own nephew! He's only a year older than I!"

"Oh Prim," Bilbo chuckled fondly; she had always had a soft spot for her mother's sister's youngest daughter, "try being almost wedded to your father's younger brother's son's son who also happens to be older than yourself, and then we'll talk." Bilbo teased and Prim giggled.

"Yes, that is rather odd." Prim said with a shy grin.

Bilbo rolled her eyes, thinking that calling the arrangement simply odd was something of an understatement.

"Oh, very much so." She still cringed at the very thought of it. "Well, when will your nephew and his Fool of a Took and my second cousin going to arrive then?"

"Ah…" Prim said her cheeks flushing once more.

"I think that's them now." Dudo said as he peered out of Bilbo's front door and down Bag Shot Row. "Yes, it's them. HELLO!"

"Dudo!"

"Dudo, please, inside voice." Bilbo said gently to the embarrassed tween.

"Sorry Auntie Bilbo."

"That's quite alright but please remember that a very sick old hobbit lives in this house so he does like his quiet."

"Where's my little second cousin?" Prim asked looking around her, clearly hoping that Frodo would pop out from behind the umbrella stand.

"Sleeping." Bilbo replied, "he had a very busy afternoon yesterday, so he's still sleeping it off, I'm afraid."

"Oh," Primula said with a pout.

"I'm sure that he'll be awake before you all leave." Bilbo added and both hobbit lasses beamed.

"Hello? Aunt Bilbo?" Paladin Took was sticking his curly brown head around the Bilbo's front door.

"Hello Paladin. Where's Saradoc?"

"Here." A second head appeared around her door.

Bilbo fought back a wide grin at the sight of the two. Out of all her cousins on her Took and Brandybuck side, these two scamps were by far her favourite. She had spent much of her youth in their company, despite them both being several years her junior.

"Come in you rascals!" she said brightly and the two lads entered her front hall beaming at her with equal cheek.

"Where's Frodo?" Paladin asked as he closed the front door.

"Sleeping." Bilbo explained, "Busy afternoon yesterday."

"And he wasn't the only one who had a busy afternoon I heard, Aunt Bilbo." Saradoc teased his eyes bright with intelligence and cheek.

"How much have you actually heard and how much of what you've heard is actually rumours?" Bilbo asked as she led her troupe of cousins towards the kitchen.

"Ah, well…" Drogo said as he sat himself down beside Prim at Bilbo's kitchen table. He looked over at Dudo who turn slightly red.

"Ah, eavesdropping again were you Dudo?" Bilbo asked her youngest present cousin who went an even brighter shade of red.

"I wasn't actually meaning to, I swear. I just so happened to be outside Papa's study window when you entered it with Mrs Sackville-Baggins." The boy mumbled as he stared intently down at his fingers. There weren't many in the Shire who could make Dudo Baggins feel bad about whatever mischief he had gotten up to, but Bilbo was indeed one of the few who could.

"Is it true that you would have her ostracized?" Dora asked curiously.

"Yes, yes, I would." Bilbo said firmly causing her cousins to look at her in shock and amazement. Paladin and Saradoc looked at her with new found respect.

"But only," She added, "if she pushes my hand."

"I don't know why you haven't threaten to do this to her before Bilbo." Saradoc stated, "After all the horrid things she has been saying about you behind your back for all these years."

"And to her face." Dora added bristling with anger on Bilbo's behalf.

Bilbo sat back in her chair, feeling quite heart-warmed by the angry response from her cousins at the treatment that she had been receiving over the years from stuck-up relatives.

"But," Bilbo said over their voices, hoping to both calm and quietened them all down, "that has all been sorted now. Lobelia will be keeping her nasty opinions to herself from now on."

"Do you believe she will?" Dudo asked curiously.

"Lobelia love of reputation and social standing will be what keeps her mouth shut." Bilbo said with a shrug as she distributed scones, jam and cream around the table for the young adults and tween to eat.

"Maybe so, but it still doesn't make her pay for all the awful things she's spoken about you these past few years." Dora grumbled as she bit deeply into a scone.

Bilbo shrugged.

"Don't you care what she's been saying Auntie Bilbo?" Dudo asked curiously, his dark blonde head tilted to one side.

"No, not really."

"Why?" the boy asked.

"Dudo." Dora and Drogo exclaimed, "Don't be rude!"

"I wasn't, though, I was just asking why?" Dudo cried back in annoyance, "I want to know how she does it, so that maybe," he looked back at Bilbo, "you could teach me?"

"Teach you?"

"To not care what people say about me." The boy replied his eyes becoming sad.

Bilbo smiled fondly at the lad.

"It's mind over matter. I don't mind and they don't matter."

"Does that really work?" Dudo asked, a tad sceptical.

"It does for me." Most of the time, "but then I am much, much older than you Dudo." Bilbo chuckled.

"Only by twenty something years." The lad said pouting before grinning his usual mischievous smile back at her.

"Oh," Bilbo said with a mock groan, "don't say it like that! Now, you've made me feel old."

"Aunt," Dora giggled, "you're not even forty-five yet."

"Shush, keep your voices down." Bilbo grinned as her cousins to giggle.

"But getting back to the matter at hand," Saradoc said once everyone had calmed down again, "are you certain that this will be enough to keep the old bat's, and the rest of her awful family, mouths shut?"

"Yes, I do think so. Though," Bilbo said speaking carefully now for she had to word her next few sentences just right, "I do believe that I will have their tongues wagging again in a couple of years' time."

"Oh, why?"

Bilbo hesitated, not sure if she really should be telling this to her young cousins when she hadn't even mention it to any of their heads of family.

"Well, possibly because of what I have planned for Frodo's future will not be looked well upon by others."

Her cousins frowned at her, heads cocked to one side.

"What do you mean?"

"Bilbo, there are those who already look poorly upon what they believe Frodo's future to be." Paladin said with a cheeky grin.

"Yes, I know that already, thank you very much Paladin. But that is not the future that I am referring to."

"The one where Frodo becomes head of the Baggins family and inherits Bag End?" Dora asked.

"Yes, that one. That is not the future I have planned for him, but rather the future I have planned for you three." She gestured to her three Baggins cousins.

"Who? US?" Dudo squeaked in delight, bouncing up and down in his seat, while his elder brother and sister simply looked back at her gobsmacked.

"Yes, you three. But I swear if I hear this going around the Shire Dudo Baggins, I will use Sting on you, do you understand me?" Bilbo warned her youngest cousin firmly.

"Yes, Auntie Bilbo." The boy replied meekly

"But what about Frodo? I thought you said you didn't listen to all the nasty gossip. Why are you planning on cheating him out of his rightful inheritance?" Drogo asked looking quite annoyed on his little cousin's behalf.

"I'm not cheating him out of anything," Bilbo replied as calmly as she could though she was having second thoughts about telling her plans to her young and still reasonably hot-head cousins. "I simply have different plans for him. If he decides that he does not wish for what I have planned then he will inherit Bag End and become Head of our family. But," and she did hope he would, "if he does chooses to go through with my plans for him, than I need to decide who will inherit Bag End and the family title. And I have chosen you three."

"But… but…" she seemed to have rendered her three Baggins cousins speechless.

"What do you have planned for Frodo, Aunt Bilbo, if you don't mind my asking?" Saradoc asked his dark eyes curious.

Bilbo looked down at her hands, smiling sadly.

"My plan… my hope is that when he comes of age he'll choose to go and meet his father and I pray that his father will accept him and give him a place by his side."

"Frodo's… father?"

"Mmm hmm."

"Where is he?" Prim asked softly.

"Far, far away from here." Bilbo sighed heavily.

"Those dwarves…" Dora started saying slowly and carefully.

"No, he wasn't one of them. He doesn't know about Frodo and probably won't until Frodo goes to him when he's thirty-three."

"So Frodo's father is dwarf!" Dudo said looked thrilled while his elder siblings and cousins blinked dumbly at their aunt as they digested this piece of information that they had heard for years through spiteful rumours but had never quite believed was actually true.

"So…" Drogo started slowly, clearly still trying to wrap his hear around the fact that his favourite cousin was indeed half dwarf. Not the easiest of concepts for even the most laid-back hobbit to get his head around.

"Yes, that bit of Lobelia's nasty rumours was indeed correct. For being such a tactless women she is quite perspective when it comes to anything that can fuel new gossip." Bilbo said with a shrug of her shoulders as she moved over to her boiled kettle.

"I suppose that makes sense." Prim spoke slowly, "he's never been what you would call your average hobbit baby."

"Too quick, too clever for one of such a young age." Drogo agreed.

"Yes, well now you know why." Bilbo sighed as she moved the kettle to the table and started to pour hot water into everyone's tea cups. "And I would ask that would keep this knowledge to yourselves."

"OF COURSE!" Bilbo bit back a grin at the outraged voices of her cousins, who were all giving her looks of shock and annoyance, clearly offended that she would have such a little trust in them.

"Wha's – what's all this racket? Dear heart, those dwarves of yours aren't back, are they? We've barely restocked the pantry from their last visit…"

"Good morning Mr Baggins." The cousins chimed brightly as Bungo walked into the kitchen. He looked them all over once before giving his daughter one of his looks. He let out a great sigh when Bilbo only smiled serenely back at him, muttering under his breath, "I think I'd rather have dwarves."

He gratefully took the steaming cup of tea from Bilbo before informing them all that he was going back to bed.

"Don't know whether to be amused or hurt." Saradoc stated cheekily once they were sure Bungo was safely tuck back away in his room.

"Be amused." Bilbo advised with a small smile.

"Why doesn't he like us?" Dudo asked looking torn between being amused and slightly hurt.

"Oh, it's not you, exactly, he doesn't like." Bilbo reassured the youngster.

"Then what is it that he doesn't like?"

"The loudness and irresponsibility of youth." Bilbo stated simply with a shrug of her shoulders.

"Huh?"

"He's old and we make him feel ever older is basically what Aunt Bilbo is saying." Saradoc said with a grin while Bilbo rolled her eyes.

"There's a bit more to it that that, but that's one way to sum up he's feelings." Bilbo chuckled fondly.

She hears her name being called; the name that means far more to her than the name her mother gave to her at her birth or the one she adopted for herself when she was just a child. This name is one she will happily kill anyone who threaten the crier of it.

"Excuse me." She says with a small smile as she leaves the kitchen and walks for her child's room.

"Mama." Her baby beams at her from where he is leaning heavily over the top of the railings of his crib.

"Hello my dearest heart." Bilbo says as she moves forward and lifts him from the confines of his bed and hugs him close to her chest. "Did you sleep well my darling?"

" 'es." His beam grows even wider as he starts to describe his latest sets of dreams to her in toddler's tongue.

If Bilbo could understand more of the tongue of toddlers she may have found herself being quite disturbed by her son's dreams but as she could not, she smiled and spoke words of encouragement and praise for his dreams with every pause of breath he took before continuing on with his describing his dreams

Dreams of like which no other hobbit – besides maybe his mother and a few great and long forgotten ancestors before him – would ever have in their life time. Dreams that involve the past and some were even of the future though neither son nor mother realised this.

Neither realised that the dreams that Frodo was describing to his mother were in fact of things that were going to occur in their very near future. Of an event that would tip the very balance of Middle-Earth and would affect them both, deeply and ruthlessly, changing their lives forever.

An event that would rip them both away from the home they loved and throw them into a world where an evil power was slowly creeping back into. An event that would start with a pebble and result in avalanche of like has never been seen before in all of Middle-Earth.

But neither mother or son knew or realised any of this and so were both blissfully ignorant to the trials that the future had install for both of them. Blissfully unaware that change, which was such a rare and uncommon occurrence within the Shire, was just around the corner.

If Bilbo had understood more of what her son was babbling about she would most likely have been deeply afraid and would have tried to send word to Gandalf via any means necessary. But as she could not understand her son's unique language she felt no reason to fear what she what he spoke to her. Though maybe there was just a hint of tribulation in the very core of her soul, but she ignored it as she got her little one dressed and with him still babbling happily, his wooden dragon clutched close to his chest. She walked back to kitchen with him sitting on her hip, her cousin immediately getting up from the table to greet the little Dwobbit, his female cousins each wanting a turn of holding him while his male cousins proceeded to pull faces and tickle him as he giggled happily.

Bilbo smiled at the scene before her, having absolutely no idea that this peace and contentment she was currently feeling might soon be destroyed. She had no knowledge that fate was not yet finished with her and that it had an even more elaborate destiny in store for her child.

Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.

Author's Note: So this is the end of Arc One of this fic. YAY! Arc Two starts a few years in the future (Frodo is still a kid, not 33, so don't worry, everyone.).
I know I put Frodo's "actual, real" parents into this chapter, why? Because I wanted to and because I wanted to put some well-known hobbits into this chapter, instead of making-up new hobbits or useing less known hobbits. I put in Merry and Pippín's dads into this chapter too because I could.

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Chapter Eighteen will be up shortly and hopefully I will have chapter 25 sorted out so that I can get on with the rest of the main story, which I want to write so badly!

Next chapter - Chapter Eighteen: A Truly Unlucky Fellow