Disclaimer: I do not own The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, or any associated characters or concepts. Consider it disclaimed. Quotes in this chapter taken directly from The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien.

Summary: On the way to the Undying Lands, Billa is eaten by a time-traveling sea monster. The elves on board attack the monster in retaliation, and it escapes by swimming into the past: several decades into the past. Billa wakes up in a sweat, gasping and frightened, only to realize that she is back in her thirty-three-year old body. What on earth is she going to do?


Chapter Two

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort." The hobbit in question, who moments ago had been peacefully, placidly sleeping and dreaming of dances, parties, and cakes, bolted upright with a gasp, clutching her heart which pounded painfully in her chest.

"Frodo!" she gasped faintly, "Gandalf! Help!" She flailed about, tangled in her sheets until she tumbled off the bed and landed solidly on the floor. With a start, her eyes cleared and she could see by the moonlight streaming through the window. What she saw was impossible, for all that she recognized her surroundings immediately. Here she was, in the home where she was born, where she had lived for over one hundred years. However, Billa Baggins was quite sure that she had just been eaten by a sea monster and either she was stark raving mad, or she was dead, and this was the afterlife.

She blinked, bemused, for several moments before mustering the presence of mind to decide. Her mind felt sharp, clearer than it had been in decades, but she wasn't yet used to it.

Well, she decided shakily, if this is the afterlife, then there is sure to be a guide. And Mother and Father will be here. I'll just go and check in their rooms. So she did, clumsily untangling herself from the blankets, marveling at the smooth, unwrinkled skin across her hands and the strength in her legs. How easily she could move and balance in this body! The afterlife was not so bad.

She poked her head cautiously out of her room and padded quietly down the hall, her heart joyful and nervous in anticipation. Mother and Father will be here! It's been over one hundred years since I've seen them. And Balin, and Ori, and Oin who died in Moria, and all my old friends who died before me and left me behind. Fili, and Kili, and Thorin. Thorin!

However, when she knocked and opened the door to her parent's room, no one was there. The bed was made and the room was tidied and packed away, empty as it had been for decades.

Eyebrows furrowed in consternation, she went to the kitchen, and then the study. No one was there.

She searched the whole house, crying out, "Mother! Father! I'm here. Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?" The house, however, was empty and silent. Her stomach felt like lead, sinking with disappointed hopes. After an hour of searching and desperately calling, even looking under beds and in closets, tossing things about, she sank down onto the armchair in her living room, put her head into her hands, and cried. They weren't here, and for several dreadful moments, it was as if they had died all over again, and her grief rose up to clench at her throat and steal her breath.

After a few minutes, her tears had dried and the lump in her throat had disappeared. She felt more equal to the mystery in front of her. She had been alive for one hundred and thirty one years! She had faced trolls and dragons and old age with all the grace and courage she possessed, and this would be no different. She set out to explore her hobbit-hole again, this time looking for clues to illuminate her situation.

It was on the desk in the study, where she had spent so many years writing down her story, that she found something of note. Her calendar, in which she habitually crossed off each day, was marked, and the date sent a great shock through her. It was not the day or the month which worried her. It was the year.

Billa Baggins had been born in 2890. The company she loved so much had shown up on her doorstep in 2941 when she was fifty-one years old. She had boarded the ship to the Undying Lands in 3021.

The year on the calendar stood out starkly and she stared in disbelief. S.R. 1323. In normal reckoning, that would be the year 2923. Impossible!

She stared for a few minutes before scrambling to find her journal, which she had kept religiously since her parents gave it to her, shortly before their deaths. She tore through the pages, flicking to the last entry and checking the date. S.R. 1323 again.

She wasn't in the afterlife. Either she was stark raving mad or she was alive again, and thirty-three years old. Almost two decades before her dwarves would come knocking at the door. It would be forty-five years before Frodo was born!

The day had been long and exhausting. She had started out ancient and withered before being eaten and killed before waking up in the afterlife before losing her parents and friends again before being sent back in time. I think we can hardly begrudge our heroine her shock, for after she put all these facts together, she fainted dead away.