A/N: Thanks to Raven with a Writing Desk, RevanOrdo7567, Artemisdesari, and jilba25 for reviewing! As always I hugely appreciate your feedback. *distributes Hobbit Day cake among you all in honor of September 22*

"That's why we need a burglar."

Ori's words landed on Amaranth like a shock of lightning. Everything made sense now. But if these dwarves wanted a hobbit who would burgle a dragon, they were definitely in the wrong smial.

Bilbo, however, still seemed to be struggling to understand. "Yes, a good one, too—an expert, I'd imagine," he answered Ori with far too much comprehension in his voice for it to be real.

"And are you?"

Bilbo actually looked over his shoulder, then down at Amaranth, as if trying to determine who was being addressed. The poor fellow. "Am I—what."

"He said he's an expert!" That was definitely the dwarf with the ear trumpet.

"Me? No, no no no no, I'm not a burglar. I've never stolen a thing in my life, ask cousin Amaranth here, she can tell you—" He broke off as he caught sight of her frantically shaking her head, but it was too late. Both Gandalf and Thorin leaned to where they could see her, and both raised fearsome eyebrows.

She scrambled to her feet in an instant, hands twisting in her skirt. Confusticate that Bilbo Baggins! But her mouth was already running with quite a different line: "Yes, I mean, I already told Fili and Kili that if they were looking for a burglar, Bag End was the wrong place to go!" So she was dragging them under the wagon with her, might as well, it was really their fault she was here in the first place, them and their silly big boots! "Bilbo's a very respectable hobbit in these parts, he'd never be any good at robbing a dragon, I'm sure of it, it's much too adventurous for him—" Please, someone, stop staring at her and say something so she could shut up and go back to eavesdropping.

"I'm afraid I have to agree with Mistress Brandybuck, he's hardly burglar material." The Lady bless Balin forever and ever.

"Aye, the wild is no place for gentlefolk who can neither fight nor fend for themselves."

Bilbo nodded along with the big dwarf's words, and the others seemed to agree, voices rising in both assent and promises that their fighting abilities would certainly be enough to drive off the dragon. Amaranth was about to take the opportunity to slide back out of sight when Gandalf caught her eye and pinned her in place with a single stare.

She could only watch as the shadows abruptly deepened around him and he straightened to his full height. With a booming voice he cut through the arguing. "Enough! If I say Bilbo Baggins is a burglar, then a burglar he is!"

Silence fell as the shadows withdrew and Amaranth could breathe again. "Hobbits are remarkably light on their feet; in fact, they can pass unseen by most if they choose. And, while the dragon is accustomed to the smell of dwarf, the scent of hobbit is all but unknown to him, which gives us a distinct advantage."

Was no one going to ask Bilbo's permission or consent to this? But then, she had to admit these were valid arguments. Perhaps a hobbit could be key to the success of this quest, where all the swords and axes couldn't. That was certainly rather exciting (though judging by Bilbo's huge eyes and gaping mouth, he did not feel remotely the same).

"You asked me to find the fourteenth member of this company, and I have chosen Mister Baggins." Gandalf seated himself again. "Let anyone say I chose the wrong person or the wrong house, and you can stop at thirteen and have all the bad luck you like, or go back to your mountains. There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself."

Thorin hesitated, and the wizard pressed, "You must trust me on this."

After far too long a pause for Amaranth's liking, Thorin gave in. "Very well, we'll do it your way. Give him the contract."

Over Bilbo's pleading and Bofur's optimistic "Well, then, we're off then," Balin stood and pulled a thick folded parchment from his coat. "It's just the usual—summary of out-of-pocket expenses, time required, remuneration, funeral arrangements, so forth."

Thorin shoved it into Bilbo's reluctant hands, and he staggered back. "F-funeral arrangements?"

Amaranth came to look over his shoulder as he shook open the contract. It reached almost to the floor and was written in a tidy if rather ornate hand—presumably Balin's. It certainly looked official enough. Bilbo scanned the contents, finding and reading out the key parts immediately: terms of payment, and the dwarves' denial of responsibility for all injuries incurred. These both seemed reasonable, except for the part where the contract began to detail every possible injury a burglar might sustain upon facing a fire-breathing dragon should it turn out not to be dead. This clause apparently took up an entire extra side-sheet of parchment.

"Lacerations—evisceration—incineration?"

"Oh, aye, he'll melt the flesh off your bones in the blink of an eye," Bofur cheerily called out.

That . . . was not a pleasant image. Amaranth swallowed hard.

"You all right there, laddie?" Balin asked as Bilbo leaned forward, gasping for breath.

"I-feel a bit faint," he managed to choke out.

"Here, I'll get you something to drink." Amaranth dashed for the kitchen; that was a conversation she preferred not to be part of, and besides, there must be a bit of tea lying around somewhere. But by the time she got back with a teacup half-full of cold chamomile dregs (the best she could find on short notice), Bilbo was prone on the carpet, fainted clean away.

She nearly dropped the cup as she wheeled on the dwarves. "What did you do to him?"

"Your cousin has no stomach for dragons, it would seem," Thorin rumbled.

"Though Bofur may have been needlessly colorful in his descriptions," Gandalf added.

She could only imagine. "Well, don't just stand there staring at him, would someone please help me get him somewhere quiet? He needs a chance to think without you and your—your dragons!"

"I'm—I'm all right," came a faint voice from the floor, and Bilbo struggled to his feet with Amaranth's assistance. He made to pick up the contract from its spot on the carpet, but Amaranth snatched it up and set it over on the stepstool.

"Don't bother your head with that right now. You go and have a seat in the parlor, and I'll fix you a nice cup of tea, how does that sound?"

"That—that sounds quite nice. Thank you." He turned down the passage, and she returned to the kitchen. At least the dwarves had barely touched the tea canisters, aside from making that one pot of chamomile.

It took her only a few moments to stir up the fire and heat some water, and in a few more minutes she was carrying a mug of properly hot tea to Bilbo, now ensconced in his favorite armchair by the fire.

"Here you go. I wasn't sure if you took cream or honey, but I can fetch some if you would like."

Bilbo shook his head and took a careful sip. "This is perfect, thank you, Amaranth."

"It's late, I should probably be going . . . is there anything else I can do for you first? This has certainly been quite the evening."

"No, you can run along. You've come for Prisca's wedding, I presume? You'd better get some sleep then, I'm sure she has you all quite busy." He attempted a smile. "I'll be all right. Let me just sit quietly for a moment."

"You've been sitting quietly for far too long," came the gruff voice of Gandalf from the corner of the room. "Tell me, when did doilies and your mother's dishes become so important to you? I remember a young hobbit who was always running off in search of Elves in the woods, who'd stay out late and come home after dark, trailing mud and twigs and fireflies. A young hobbit who would have liked nothing better than to find out what was beyond the borders of the Shire."

Bilbo leaned forward to look at him around the wing of the chair. "Are you quite sure you're not talking to Amaranth?"

She laughed. "No, he's right, Bilbo! I used to love when Mother would bring Rory and me up to visit her sisters, because you were always good for adventures. Remember playing at Bounders, and you were always our captain when we fought off wolves? Or taking us mushroom-hunting and calling it looking for hidden gold?" She could almost hear their stick-swords swooshing and clacking again, almost feel the moss under her feet and the breeze in her curls.

Bilbo gave her a rueful smile. "I was barely a tween then. I've changed, that's all."

"And not entirely for the better, Bilbo Baggins. The world is not in these books and maps you've so carefully collected; it's out there." Gandalf gestured toward the nearest window and its circle of silver moonlight.

"I can't just go running off into the blue! I am a Baggins, of Bag End."

"You are also a Took."

Amaranth couldn't help a grin—that was her favorite excuse for anything she did that raised her parents' eyebrows too high—but Bilbo collapsed back into his chair in exasperation, eyes lifted toward the ceiling as if wishing it would cave in on him.

"Did you know that your great-great-great-great-uncle Bullroarer Took was so large he could ride a real horse?"

"Yes," Bilbo and Amaranth said at the same time. Every hobbit, not just his relatives, knew about Bullroarer Took.

"Well, he could! In the Battle of the Green Fields he charged the goblin ranks. He swung his club so hard, he knocked the goblin king Golfimbul's head clean off, and it sailed a hundred yards through the air and went down a rabbit-hole."

Wait. That was new.

"And thus the battle was won—and the game of golf invented at the same moment."

"I do believe you made that up." Bilbo was smiling in spite of himself.

"All good stories deserve embellishment." Gandalf moved past Amaranth to settle himself on the chair across from Bilbo's, laying the contract on the footrest between them. "You'll have a tale or two to tell of your own when you come back."

"Can you promise that I will come back?" For the first time that evening, he sounded as if he was seriously considering the proposition.

"No. And if you do, you will not be the same."

She could picture it now, a bolder, braver Bilbo carrying a sword instead of a walking-stick, regaling her and the other cousins with tales of how he'd helped a company of dwarves defeat a mighty dragon. That story would need no embellishment, and she suddenly desperately wanted to hear it. Perhaps even to—

But she caught sight of the decision in Bilbo's eyes even before he shook his head. "That's what I thought. Sorry, Gandalf, I can't sign this." He stood. "You've got the wrong hobbit."

The words felt like he'd whacked her across the stomach with a stick-sword. She wasn't sure why, only knew that with every bone in her body she'd needed him to say yes. Now he was looking at her like she'd missed something. "Sorry?"

"I said, I suppose I'll see you at the wedding."

She gave him a little smile, and he must have seen her wordless encouragement, because one corner of his mouth quirked up sadly. "I can't do it, Amaranth. I'm sorry."

"I know."

She watched as he walked down the passage, getting the attention of a few dwarves and pointing them in the direction of the spare rooms they could use. What had changed him so much from who he used to be? Was it his parents' deaths, perhaps? Those had certainly been sobering times for both Baggins and Took clans, but it would have been especially hard on the only son. Though Aunt Belladonna had died seven whole years ago, and Uncle Bungo eight years before that. Maybe it was just part of growing older. Although, one would think that being older would mean you were even more ready for an adventure, having been through that much more normality. Fifty was practically the prime of life, for the Lady's sake!

A heavy sigh came from behind her, and she turned to see Gandalf staring into the crackling fire. Some funny hollow feeling in her stomach made her say, "I'm sorry about my cousin. Maybe you should have come looking across the Water instead of here in Hobbiton. There's plenty of Tooks—and Brandybucks—out that way who would love an adventure."

Gandalf began cleaning out his pipe. "No, Bilbo needs this as much as they need him. Besides, there is just as much Took blood in him as there is in you, my dear."

"Well, it's clearly been thinned by the Baggins, then, hasn't it." She wasn't sure what was possessing her to argue with a wizard, nor why she was arguing at all, but there was that hollowness in the pit of her stomach again.

"Thinned or not, it will out, in the end. I have faith in your cousin, Amaranth Brandybuck."

"But what if he lets you down? Would you just let these dwarves try sneaking into the mountain themselves? After tonight, I find it a little hard to believe they'd be good at anything involving the need for silence."

Gandalf gave a huff that could pass for amusement.

She kept going, "Surely you had someone in mind to try in the event that Bilbo said no. From what I—couldn't help overhearing, it sounds like a worthy enough cause, one a more adventurous hobbit could easily be convinced to take on. I mean, I'd even volunteer under the right circumstances!"

He turned to look fully at her for the first time in the conversation. "And what might those be?" His eyes glinted strangely in the flickering firelight.

"Well, if I . . . if I didn't have to help Prisca with her wedding, it's in just a few more days, you see, and I've given away half the pies I made just to feed this lot, so I have to replace those, and there's more to make as well, and I help her with her wedding dress, oh, and I have to make sure the flowers for the garlands are collected that morning so they're fresh, and keep Posco from eating all the mushrooms, and—and—"

And what were pies and posies compared with a quest to face down a dragon? These dwarves were doing something that only storybooks had told of, and if the revered Gandalf the Grey thought a peaceful hobbit could contribute to that story-in-the-making . . . well, why shouldn't it be a Brandybuck instead of a Baggins?

Forget about maybe getting to Bree someday. This was much, much better.

Maybe it was the lateness of the hour, maybe it was the Took blood in her veins, or maybe it was the plaintive melody of a subdued dwarvish fiddle choosing that moment to start winding its way through the smial like wind through the hills. Whatever it was, it rushed into the hollow in her stomach and came spilling up out her mouth: "Who should I ask about signing that contract?"