Author's Note: Hello. Yes, I know, it's been forever. No excuse really for my disappearance, except that I've been trying to focus upon my own writing. Haven't really gotten all that far with it but I'm better off with most of my stuff than I was five years ago. I have now, at least, got plot-lines set out (written and not just running about my head), names for places and people, histories for those places and people and so. It's hard, starting from scratch and which was why I took time off this fanfic to try and focus on my writing. However, I've been inspired to get my act together and finish this monster, mainly due to my impending trip to New Zealand in just under three weeks. Yup, I am going to Middle-Earth. No, seriously I am, that is basically my whole trip. Going around New Zealand to all the places LOTR and Hobbit were filmed... for three weeks! Best... Vacation...EVER!
So, yeah with that coming up and that we've only got 3 and a bit months until BOFA coming out, I thought I had better get my act together and work on finishing this damn thing. Because honestly, if I can't finish this how am I ever going to finish my own stuff.

Chapter Fifty

The Beginning

The second time Bilbo woke, it was in a far more gradual fashion and her mind was able to collect itself before she stirred herself fully awake.

"Good morning." The quite beautiful dwarrowdam sitting by her bedside greeted her from over her book; her dark blue eyes twinkling with a friendly light that Bilbo was fairly certain she could count on one hand how many times she had seen a similar look in the dwarrowdam's brother's eyes.

"Good morning." She replied, still feeling a little groggy as she slowly sat up. She was surprised when she felt cool metal chain weighing lightly upon her collarbone.

She gently touched the chain, surprised to find her magic ring hanging innocently from it. She felt a moment of fury and a twinge of jealousy in her chest at the thought of someone touching it, but forced herself to relax by reminding herself that it was still with her, hanging safely around her throat.

"Your old clothes were a mess – beyond repair, really – so I had them sent away to be destroyed, but I saved your funny little ring before your clothes were taken. I felt that having it around your neck would be the safest place for it." Dis offered as an explanation to Bilbo's unasked question.

"Ah – Thank you." Bilbo replied, feeling immediately ashamed for her unkind thoughts. She smiled sheepishly at the lovely dwarrowdam who smiled in return.

"I would take a guess you are hungry?"

"You guessed correctly." Bilbo replied shyly.

"Do you think you would feel up to seeing your child and family today? Your little lad is quite desperate to see you. One can only keep a child distracted from his mother for so long before he starts taking desperate measures to visit her."

"Oh, yes of course." Bilbo gasped her heart beating madly at thought of seeing her darling boy.

"But only if you're feeling strong enough. Oin has left strict orders for you to not overexert yourself. He's says you are known for doing such things." Bilbo blushed.

"Well, maybe once or twice. In desperate times… when I had no other choice." She paused for a moment before adding, "Blame your brother. He could be very demanding."

"Oh yes," Dis said with a roll of her blue eyes, "I know. Follow him to the ends of the world most of our folk would, only for him to forget that normal living beings require such things a food, water and sleep."

"And then he would get you lost, so…" Dis chuckling interrupted her sentence.

"I think I'm going to like you, Mistress Baggins."

"Likewise, Lady Dis." Dis patted her hand with a wide grin before moving off, summoning up a servant and ordering Bilbo some much needed breakfast.

Bilbo sat in her bed, moving various limbs, gaging which parts of her hurt most. Overall, she actually felt quite well, except for the hunger gnawing away inside her gut.

"Here we are." Dis said as she laid as tray stacked to bursting with all the foods that Bilbo adored, it was hard keep her mouth from watering.

"Bombur?" She guessed as she tucked into the food.

"Aye. But he took suggestions from your family. I believe one of you cousins may have let loose a family secret recipe when it came to the eggs benedict."

"That'll be Paladin." Bilbo said as she dug into said eggs benedict and was immediately reminded of her mother's cooking and the secret ingredients that her grandmother, her mother's mother, added to the hollandaise sauce.

"Grandma Took will be rolling in her grave." Bilbo added with a grin.

"Is it true that the only secrets hobbits keep are their recipes?" Dis asked as she took up her chair once more.

"Ah, yes, pretty much." Bilbo admitted with a blush, "we're quite a simple race. Everybody in the Shire basically knows everybody else's secrets. And generally that's fine by most of us, except when it comes to our prize winning recipes which we guard with our lives and will destroy any who steal them from us."

"Really?" Dis appeared to be quite shocked by this news.

"No," Bilbo snorted, "but we do guard our family recipes fiercely. Pal must have been worried about me. That or he let his tongue run away with him again… wouldn't be the first time." She added to herself, remembering being told by a giggling Eglantine just how Paladin's proposal had gone… or not gone as was the case.

The poor lad had gotten so tongue tied that he ended up rambling for full twenty minutes – and letting loose a few too many family recipes – before Eglantine had taken pity on him – and had gotten over her giggling fit – and finished his proposal herself by kissing him and saying, yes, she would marry him.

Bilbo remembered the girls in her living room swooning over this while she had been trying not to choke on her tea in laughter. Luckily Frodo had woken from his nap just at that moment and she was able to excuse herself before she let out a few very undignified snorts of laughter at her cousin son's expense. She had, however, made a point to tease him when she next saw him, with Saradoc and Drogo happily helping her to do so.

"I believe it was a bit of both." Dis offered.

"Either way, Grandma Adamanta would be after his head. She was quite proud of her eggs benedict."

"Yes, they are very good." Dis replied and Bilbo grinned in amusement.

"Well, if she heard dwarves complimenting her recipe it may just be enough to cool her temper. She had a trace of vanity; my grandmother did, when it came to her cooking."

"I believe that is trait you have inherited, correct?"

Bilbo laughed.

"Yes, I have, actually, from both my grandmother and my father. I didn't… I don't have very much too be vain over, but my cooking is something that I am."

Bilbo watched in interest as Dis gave her dark head an amused shake, her eyes filled with wonder.

"You truly are an odd little thing, aren't you?" Bilbo shrugged.

"I've been told that… often. How am I odd in your eyes, if I may ask?"

"You may." Dis said with a gentle smile, "You are odd in the way that you are entirely not what I expected. At all. The way my boys, Kili in particular, and other members of the company spoke of you, I was expecting this great warrior hobbit, but instead here I am facing a very kind, very grounded lass. And I must say, I prefer this way of seeing you than the lass that was painted for me by others."

"Oh." Because she was at a loss for words as to what else to say otherwise.

"I have embarrassed you now," Dis said sounding still amused. "I apologize."

"It's fine. I'm just not used to people liking me, just as I am." Bilbo replied, ducking her head causing her mattered hair to fall over her face. She wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"Ew…"

Dis chuckled.

"After you've finished your breakfast, you can have a nice hot bath."

"Oh that would be heavenly." Bilbo said, closing her eyes at the very thought of a bath, a nice hot one. A proper one. She ate the rest of her breakfast with renewed gusto while Dis summoned for a maid to help with the filling of the bath.

"The plumbing," Dis explained as the bath was filled with steaming buckets of hot water, "is still not what it used to be. Will drain well enough, but still hasn't quite been fixed to pump hot water around the mountain yet." Dis finished in exasperation.

"Don't you have baths that are continually filled with hot water from underground springs?" Bilbo asked, trying to keep her face neutral even though she could feel her cheeks warming at the thought of a certain bath that did just that.

Dis looked at her curiously before answering. "Not as many as we would like and they are scattered around the mountain, quite annoyingly. How did you know?"

"Um," and her blush was truly present now, "Thorin may have grown fed up with my whinging to be clean and showed me the royal hot spring bath in the royal wing?" she offered, all but giving up on keeping her face neutral.

Dis simply looked amused but, thankfully did not press her for more details as she helped Bilbo out of her bed. Not that Bilbo would ever tell her what had happened, she hadn't told a soul about her time spent in the royal bath, nor that a good chunk of that time had been spent with Thorin. In the bath tub… doing things that would be considered the very opposite of getting oneself clean.

She was fairly certain that Frodo was conceived in Laketown, but in some of her most private of moments she did wonder if there might be a chance that her son may have in fact been created in that hot spring bath…

Yes, right, not thinking about that, not at all.

How, how could she start thinking about that with him at time like this? She had been so good, so very good at keeping herself from thinking about that or him… together and here…

She pressed her hand to her forehead, fighting back a groan.

She stared longingly at the bath and the moment it was full she wincingly, with minimum aid from Dis and the maid, pulled herself free of her nightgown, trying and failing to ignore the brilliant decoration of bruise covering her body and slide into the tub, floundering for a moment before she found her footing. She was delighted to find a small ridge that was meant to be sat on while one bathed.

"I will take a stab and guess you would like to bathe alone?" Dis asked.

"Oh yes, if you wouldn't mind. I hate being a burden." Dis shook her head as she dismissed the maid.

"Not a burden, not in the slightest, but I know how one wishes for their own privacy with their thoughts. I will leave you with them. Call for me once you are ready to get out."

"You may have to wait awhile." Bilbo replied as ran her fingers through her horrid hair.

"If you need any help." Dis added.

"Thank you. I'll see how I'll manage first." Bilbo smiled and Dis left her to her own devices. She immediately snatching up all the soaps and lotions on the side of the bath and started to attack her hair with vigour. It took at least three washes before it felt even remotely clean. She gave up on it for a moment before she went about scrubbing the rest of herself clean.

It took a long time and by the end her scalp throbbed and her skin was bright pink from all her scrubbing but at long last she felt whole and like a proper hobbit again. Never, ever again would she go for so long without a bath. Not ever again.

She rest head back against the rim of the bath and closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of warm water around her.

She would have fallen asleep if weren't for her body registering that the water was turning cold. She sighed heavily as she reached for the towel that Dis had laid out at easy reach for her and as she forced her tired, weak legs to stand in the tub she wrapped the soft towel around her body. She stood there for a moment, trying to ignore just how weak she felt at doing something as simple as standing up before she cautiously got out of the tub.

She stumbled a little as her legs gave out for a moment but she was able to steady herself once more against the bath's stone rim.

Once she had dried herself off, she pulled on a shift that had been laid out for her next to where the towel had been over her head, closing her eyes as the soft fabric moved over her skin. Silk, she was fairly certain that the fabric was silk and it was truly lovely. As she folded her wet towel over a warm stone railing, she plucked up another and started rubbing her locks, her fingers already delighting in the softness of her curls.

Humming her 'Walking' song beneath her breath as she padded out of the bathing chambers feeling far more alive and herself than she had felt in weeks – except for those moments spent with her child upon her arrival in Erebor – and smiled a wide smile at Dis who was once more settled in her chair by Bilbo's bed, reading a thick, blue leather bound book.

Dis returned her smile easily, closing her book and setting it down upon her chair as she came to stand in front of Bilbo.

"Feel more alive now?"

"Oh," Bilbo grinned, "most definitely. Thank you."

"No need to thank me," Dis said with a small wave of her hand, "unlike some barbarian's in this mountain I can appreciate being nice and clean."

Bilbo nodded her head in agreement, grinning as she remembered several instances which involved having to convince several members of the company that having a bath was good idea. The end result did of course end with those members being thrown bodily into whatever body of water that had been deemed worthy to bathe in.

Her stomach still hurt from laughing so hard and she could still remember how her cheeks had burned as she spun on her heels to avoid seeing dwarven body parts that respectable hobbit lasses were not meant to see.

Her good mood however dissipated quite quickly upon seeing the garments that she was expect to wear during the wait for trousers and shirts to be made in her size.

"Oh please," she groaned as she looked over the pretty – and it was, truly it was. It was probably one of the most beautiful gowns she had ever laid eyes upon… except for the few she had seen elven maids wear but Bilbo had enough sense of self-preservation not to mention that in present company no matter how calm and friendly Dis's demeanour had been up to this point – gown of rich emerald green fabric. The gown was made up of different layers, with each layer being a different shade of green. It had high bodice and long sleeves over which bell-sleeves lay. The skirt would have been much too long for her but she could see that it had been hemmed to accommodate her short stature.

"Please," She looked away from the marvellous gown, "this is much too grand for me. Do you not have some old trousers and a shirt that I could wear instead?"

Dis shook her head an amused smile once more playing on her lips.

"Not at the current moment. All that would be of your size, your family is currently possessing. More clothes are being made as we speak but for the moment, this is the best we can do for you." Bilbo fought to keep her pout from showing of her face as she continued to eye the pretty gown unhappily.

"You will not be losing your independence the moment you wear this, Mistress Baggins, and I'm certain no one in the company will think any less of you for wearing a gown."

Bilbo snorted.

"You never heard your son's reaction the first time he saw me in a dress."

"Hmmm, I believe it was something along the lines of 'you look like a girl'. Am I correct?"

Bilbo rolled her eyes.

"Yes, you are. Did Kili tell you or did one of the others. I smacked him over the head with Sting for that remark and pronounced him a half-wit."

Dis chuckled and shook her head.

"That boy of mine. Honestly, there are times I don't know what to do with him."

"He's a good lad," Bilbo relented, "he has a good heart and his head is usually screwed on straight. And when it's not Fili is always there to set him right again." She smiled fondly as she thought of her two favourite Durin boys. So different and yet so similar, she adored them both as if they were one of her very own cousins.

Dis smiled softly at her, clearly pleased and Bilbo suddenly wondered if this was all some kind of bizarre series of tests and if so, had she just passed one of them?

With little fight, though her body did ache a little at having to be dressed in restrictive garments, Bilbo was dressed, with some help from Dis, in the emerald green gown, musing to herself how much the gown actually suited her and brought out her natural colourings.

She did not believe for a second when Dis told her that the gown was actually an everyday dress and no one would think for a moment that she was trying to make herself stand out or look far grander than she was. There was no possible way that this beautiful dress could be worn every day, unless everyday was some kind of special occasion.

"You know us dwarves are very dramatic creatures and as such, we like to wear bright and expressive clothes all the time." Dis explained as she tied up the last of the ties to Bilbo's dress.

"Yes, but this…"

"Is an everyday dress. Honestly my dear when you see what other dwarrowdams' wear… what other dwarves wear you will feel as plain as a simple candle-stick."

"I bet you I won't." Bilbo retorted before sighing in defeat as she ran her hands over the dress once more.

Dis gently caught hold of her chin and tilted her face upwards to look at her.

"You know dwarrowdams are rare to us. One is born to every three dwarves… actually I believe it may now be one to every six, but no matter. What does matter is that every female born to us, even those born of common blood is considered precious and is treated as such. If you were to be dressed as how you wish to be dressed, in plain trousers and shirts, it would be considered to be of the highest of disrespect among my people. That you do not appreciate your own worth and significance… nor does the royal family. It would reflect badly upon everyone in the company for you to be immediately be seen dressed in poor, plain clothes. In time, you will be able to, I should think but in these early days, with so much turmoil stewing around this mountain already, it would be best for you to be dressed in this manner. Do you understand?"

"Not really." Bilbo admitted, "But I will do as you ask, for yours and the company's sake. I don't wish to be any more of a burden than I know I already am. I know that my coming here has/is causing more issues than I can possibly even imagine for all of you." She swallowed nervously as she placed a hand over her thudding heart. She blinked back the tears that were building behind her eyes.

"I never planned on coming back. Not once. And maybe that makes me a coward, to plan as far as sending my child here to meet his family but never planning on accompanying him myself. But I knew, from the moment that he was born that Frodo's life would a difficult path to walk, I only wished to ease one of his steps." She shook her head, brushing away her foolish tears, "all that planning, and for what? I'm here now, I best make the most of it." she growled more to herself than to Dis whom presences she had all but forgotten about.

"The world is made up of cowardly, selfish people Mistress Baggins." Dis said as she took Bilbo's chin in her rough, work-worn hand, "I do not believe that you are one of them. And any act that you have committed that is perceived as cowardly or selfish, your heart was most likely in the right place and set upon the wellbeing of your family, your friends… your child. Do not be so hard on yourself, little one, for the wish of sending your child to meet his father, in a land far from where you were born is an act of great bravery and selflessness."

"Planning." Bilbo grumbled, "It was all still planning."

"Even so, you still took those steps and for that, that makes you far braver than most women in your situation would be."

Bilbo gave the dwarrowdam a small smile before sighing as she ran her fingers through her tangled mass of curls, wincing as her fingers caught in the knots.

"Where's Sting?" She groaned when she finally tugged her fingers free, "I'll cut the damn lot off!"

"Don't you dare." Dis retorted as she caught Bilbo's arm and marched her to her bed, coaxing her sit up on it as she pulled a silver handle brush out of her robes – Bilbo had no idea how the dwarrowdam managed to hide it in them – and before Bilbo could say another word, the dwarrowdam was sitting behind her and was brushing her tangled curls in soothing wipes.

Bilbo closed her eyes and felt her body instantly relax beneath the princess's gentle care of her hair. It had been years since her hair had been brushed in such a manner. Yes, her dwarves had, in moments of sheer frustration at her rough treatment of her hair, attacked it and braid it into styles that didn't have her threatening to hack her hair off when it fell into her face or got caught on her buttons or beneath her back pack or coat. But still, those times had been spent with the dwarves grumbling about her lack of respect and care towards her hair – though really, how they could say that when most were repulsed at the very idea of bathing – while this, this was simply relaxing, reminding her of times long past, of her mother who died far too young. The closest anyone had ever come to reminding her of those quiet times with her mother was oddly enough the brother of the lady who was currently doing so.

She had – and secretly still did – found it both amusing and adorable how attentive Thorin had been when it he played with her hair. And played with it he had… a lot. Any quiet moment that they had managed to share together, his hands were in her hair, braiding it sometimes but most of the time he simply fiddled. Curling one of her curls around one of his large fingers and watching it spring away with a mixed look of awe and, dare she say it, delight.

"There." Dis said finally after several moments of companionable quiet. Bilbo slipped cautiously off the end of the bed and walked over to the floor length mirror that stood in the bathing chamber. She was more than a little taken aback when she saw the creature looking back at her from the mirror. Though still very pale, there was an almost unearthliness about the creature staring back at her, dressed in rich shades of green, with golden brown locks braided and twisted around the crown of her head before falling in soft curls about her shoulders. She wasn't as beautiful as the elves she has seen walking the halls of Imladris nor did she hold a candle to the regal beauty that Dis simply wielded without a care or thought, but if she did say so herself, she would have to agree that despite how she felt on the inside, on the outside she was looking almost pretty. In fact she almost felt confident enough dressed up as she was to face Thorin and the others.

"Are you ready?" Dis asked after she gave Bilbo a moment to examine herself in the mirror. Bilbo shot her a nervous smile.

"As ready as I'm going to be. Do they know I'm awake?"

Dis nodded.

"While you were bathing I sent a message to let the others know that you are ready to see them. They should be here any moment." There was a careful knock on the bedchambers door. Dis smirked, "and here they are."

Bilbo placed a hand over her rampant heart to keep it from bursting from her chest as Dis went over to open the door. Her heart clenched for a moment in terror at the thought of guards marching into the room to seize her and march her to her execution, but the moment she heard the excited squeal of her child, her terror was forgotten and without her knowledge of how, she suddenly had her son in her arms, her face buried into his curls, her nose breathing in his delightful unique scent.

She let out a small startled squeal when she felt arms wrap themselves around both her and Frodo.

"Urgh! Pal, not so hard, you bony lug!" she cried digging her elbows into the bodies currently trapping her and Frodo in a suffocating embrace.

"Ouch!" Pal grumbled pulling back with a mock-hurt expression on his face, "fine greet this is. Insulted and elbowed." He stuck out his bottom lip, "Bony lug?"

"Oh hush," Bilbo groaned, smacking his arm lightly "I'm not at my best for witty insults at the moment. Give me another day or two and I'll back to my usual tongue-lashing self. And you can be the first one to get the taste of it, if you like?"

"Favourite." Saradoc said to Paladin as he took his turn to hug Bilbo, a feat he managed to accomplish without squashing Frodo's head into her gut. She heard a snort from behind her two favourite cousins.

"Lotho!" She chirped with a cheeky smile as she peered over Saradoc shoulder to where her sulking cousin stood hesitating in the doorway of her bedchamber, "How nice to see you! Alive and not left in some ditch somewhere out in the wild." Her cousin gave her withering look, obviously remembering that this was exactly what he said to her upon her return to Bag End, pregnant and in a rather bad temper to find her home being cleared out and her possessions being sold at auction.

"Pity that," she continued tapping her chin thoughtfully, "I was rather hoping to get my spoons…"

"Billanna." Her taunts were forgotten immediately upon the entry of her father into her bedchamber, his movements slow but purposeful as he hobbled into the room with the aid of a beautifully crafted walking stick. Bofur and Bifur's work if she wasn't mistaken.

"Papa." She said softly and he smiled at her.

"Bare- barely in tha-tha room a-a minute and you-your already sniping at him." Her father said as she moved quickly to his side and pulled him into the strongest, gentlest hugs she could manage. She had missed him so much and she had truly feared the worst when she thought upon seeing him again. But he actually looked… healthy, happy even. For an old hobbit who had always been quite set in his ways and felt that adventures were terrible ideas and made you late for your tea, he seemed quite content with his current situation.

He smiled warmly as she hugged him tightly, breathing in deeply his familiar scent.

"I'll leave you to be with your family." Dis said with an amused grin as she moved to the door. Bilbo blinked after her for a moment, before swallowing, gathering her courage.

"I'll – I'm happy to see the company… if they wish to see me that is." Dis rolled her eyes back at her.

"They'll be fighting each other to be the first one threw the door." The dwarrowdam snorted, "but I will inform them that you are ready to see them. In hour or so?"

"Yes," Bilbo replied, butterflies fluttering around her belly, "yes that sounds lovely. Thank you." Dis smiled and left the hobbit family in peace, sharing their tales, though Bilbo made a point to keep her tale brief, turning the conversation continuously back upon her cousins and son while her father simply sat contently in the armchair beside her and Frodo, finding happiness in simply having his family back together, even if his daughter did look disturbing like she had when she returned home to Bag End after her last "great" adventure. He was still content to see her happy.

Author's Note: The reunion between the dwarves and Bilbo will be next... ish.
Thanks for reading.